"Have you ever
been in love? Horrible, isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It
opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone
can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these
defences, you build up a whole suit of armour, so that nothing can
hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid
person, wanders into your stupid life... You give them a piece
of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like
kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and
leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase turns into a
glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in
the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real
gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love." --
Presenting…
A Posse Ad Esse
("From Possibility to Actuality")
By Yume Ishimaru and Indigo Poet
Chapter One
Harry sighed lightly as he moved grudgingly to his first hour potions class. He knew the best he could possibly hope for in that class was to not earn a failing mark in the class. Unfortunately, with a teacher that absolutely hated him, this task was proving difficult indeed. It would be easier to wrestle Dudley for a piece of chocolate cake than to get a decent mark from that greasy git, he mused as he walked along.
He had lost track of Hermione and Ron that morning, so he walked alone. With their budding relationship, it was hard on Harry to be around his two closest friends; it was growing increasingly difficult to conceal his more petty feelings of jealousy where the two were concerned.
Harry let out a resigned sigh as he entered the large, pristine potions lab and took a seat on the Gryffindors' side of the lab, refusing to acknowledge any of the Slytherins. He wasn't sure as to whether he could keep his temper if he did talk to them, though his peers were protecting him -- for the most part, at least.
Eventually, Ron and Hermione arrived; they filled the two seats behind Harry, leaving Harry with an open seat beside him. He was fine with this; he just hoped a certain Slytherin prince didn't get any Bright Ideas…
X X X X X
Draco Malfoy was sitting on one of the broad workstations. He had one long leg drawn up onto the scrubbed wooden surface, one arm curled loosely around it. Meanwhile, his right leg had remained as it was, so that the toe of his black dragon-hide boot dangled a scant few inches above the rough-hewn floor. The blonde was a study in coltish, long-limbed elegance, the very picture of apathetic grace. His eyes -- a stormy grey touched with shards of pale blue -- were alert and bright with amusement. Holding court among the gaggle of fifth-year Slytherins already present, he was laughing at something, either snide or witty or inane -- any could produce laughter or derision.
Pansy Parkinson, who had returned from the holidays very tanned and with sun-streaks in her strawberry-blonde curls, leaned against the crude wooden table. The curve of her hip pressed against the outside of Draco knee in an oddly intimate gesture.
Blaise stood several feet away, leaning against the wall. He looked impossible dark and broad; Draco had been startled to come back to school and find that Blaise had, over the summer, hit his growth spurt and filled out. Where the younger boy was gangly and fair, Blaise now had a man's height, muscles, and fierce dark eyes. "To be fair," Blaise began, deep eyes glittering with interest. "It's not like he was, y'know--"
"He was," Pansy and Draco interrupted, voices coming in unison. The accident seemed to amuse her, at least. She winked one brown eye at him. He strongly resisted the urge to cast his own gaze heavenward.
"Seriously?" Blaise leaned forward, clearly interested. "I thought--"
The heavy wooden door slammed open, and Draco turned. It was only Millicent, her brown hair in a state of sad disarray, with one of the dark-haired Indian twins -- either Padma or Parvati. Their year and the year preceding it was the smallest currently at Hogwarts; it was nearly impossible to not know everyone. Birth rates had slackened incredibly during the first War, and only picked up after Voldemort's defeat. (Their class was just under forty students; by contrast, the year just behind theirs had swelled to nearly seventy.)
"Draco!" The dark-haired twin exclaimed. Her high-pitched voice was even shriller than that of Pansy, who talked faster and higher than seemed humanly possible the more excited she grew. "Hi! Wow, do you lot make a pretty picture! So like this package was in the mailroom and I grabbed it for you because I knew I would see you anyway -- "
"Aren't there laws against opening other people's mail?" He interjected.
She never paused, simply barrelled onward -- unpunctuated, unfettered, and unmindful of a reaction. "It doesn't have your name but Millie was there with me because we both went to a meeting for that club we're trying to get started (yeah, I know it's kind of swotty, don't think less of me, please!) and she said that it was your owl so I grabbed your post for anyway like if that's okay." Her words bled and stumbled over one another in her frenzy to get them out.
"Are you going to actually give it to me? Because-"
"Miss Patil, in your seat." An oily, slick voice interrupted. The heads of the assembled Slytherins -- plus Crabbe and Goyle, who had finally arrived, alongside Daphne and Cassandra -- turned to see Snape striding out of his office.
The professor's black linen robes, stitched with the insignia to mark his rank as both a resident scholar and trimmed with the band that marked him as Head of House, billowed with the action. His movements were sharp and furious, lacking none of his languid grace. Every motion was reined in, tightly controlled.
"He's mad pissed about something," Draco drawled, leaning close to Pansy's ear to murmur the words.
His childhood best friend could only nod in response.
"Really effin' pissed." Draco amended.
The bronze-skinned Patil girl in question could only blink. "This isn't my class. Sir," she added as an afterthought.
Snape's slender dark brows rose in wordless challenge.
"I'm Padma. Not Parvati. It's all right, though! Even my mum and Dad do it all the time. And, um, I'm going now, shall I?"
"Five points from Ravenclaw for interfering with my class."
"But that's --"
"Ten."
"First hour doesn't start for another five minutes!" A pause. "Sir."
"That means you have exactly four to get to your lesson."
With a barely restrained murmur of yes, sir, the Ravenclaw grabbed her bag, waved to her Gryffindor twin, smiled at the Slytherins, and tapped Lavender Brown on the shoulder… before scurrying out of the large, spacious classroom to avoid further tardiness or docked House points.
Snape turned apathetic eyes onto the fifth-years. "The rest of you lot?"
"What?" Draco asked in his most innocent manner -- as if to protest Us? We weren't doing anything! "I'm sitting."
"So are we!" Pansy protested. Because she's a frakking sheep, Draco thought wryly. "If by 'sitting in our seats', you mean 'milling about like homeless chavs on a street corner.'" Normally, this would have earned the honey-blonde girl an expression of amused tolerance -- or at the very least, clemency. Today, it failed.
This was where Draco chimed in. "Which, of course, you don't!" The platinum-blonde youth finished for her, lifting his usual light tenor to something faintly similar to Pansy's soprano.
"Right!" Pansy added, dropping into the seat beside Draco.
The rest of the students shuffled into the available seats -- Gryffindors on one side of the room and Slytherins on the other, as it had been since the very first day of their first year, except for rare occasions.
Draco remained where he was.
"Mister Malfoy," Snape said, his cold voice barely audible.
Draco leaned back on his palms. "God." He huffed with the most melodramatic, overwrought sigh he could conjure. "You people and your demands." He flashed a wry grin to the only teacher who bore his more attention-seeking antics, as if to assure the man who was his godfather as well as his teacher of his guiltlessness, before he complied.
The blonde boy claimed the seat beside Pansy. When Snape had moved on to scold and dock points from the Gryffindors, who were in varying states of readiness, Draco leaned over to whisper in the girl's ear: "Ten galleons says that the reason he's all brassed off is because he lost the Defence job to that fat cow with the Alice bow."
...Perhaps this was too loud.
The next thing Snape did was storm to the front of the room and announce that he was assigning partners for the day's lesson -- "and, yes, Finnigan, there's a lesson," he amended when one of the Gryffindors, Seamus Finnigan, tried to protest.
Harry stiffened at those words as, of all people, it was Neville had gone to sit beside him. Even though Harry considered himself to be a close friend to the boy, Neville was more than a "little" clumsy; over half of all the potions accidents in their shared class were caused solely by Neville. The other half were caused by Slytherins or Gryffindors trying to sabotage the potion of someone from their rival House. Harry personally refrained from doing it, but then he tried to stay out of trouble in this class. Snape already enjoyed picking on him due to who Harry's father and godfather were; there was no need to add fuel to the fire.
Harry sighed as he started to copy down the instructions and ingredients (which had appeared on the board with a lazy flick of Snape's wand) and went over to one of the supply cabinets that lined the walls, gathering the right amounts of each thing that he required.
He purposely kept his eyes on the task, trying to ignore the lovey-dovey Ron and Hermione. He wished he had someone in his life. Though he had a hopeful thought about Cho, he pushed the thought from his mind as soon as it arrived. He couldn't do that to the girl. Not after how Cedric had died last year.
He moved back to his seat beside Neville to try and get the boy to understand the instructions, hoping that they would get the assignment right -- or, at least, as right as Snape thought a Gryffindor was capable of. Harry paused at some point to glance over at the Slytherin side, but he looked away. He didn't know why the pale blonde continually attracted his attention. He was hoping a bit that it was hate; at least that way, he wouldn't have to deal with confused (from Hermione) and angered (from Ron) reactions if it was a crush.
"This arrangement won't do. Miss Parkinson, you're with Finnigan."
Pansy, Draco noticed, looked startled at this development. What the hell? She mouthed in her fellow prefect's direction, lifting her dark blonde brows.
"Finnigan?" Draco responded, not bothering to make his reply inaudible. He turned around to cast a disparaging glance at the Irish boy. The kid had his head buried in his arms, only stirring when he heard his name coupled with Pansy's. "Congratulations, Pans. You got the future town drunk. This amazing honour is presented to you in accordance with--"
She cut him off with a flick of her nail against his sharp shoulder. "Shut up," she ordered, but she was grinning as she (loudly, Draco noted, because it's friggin' impossible for her to do anything quietly) shoved her pink-dyed quill, pink-covered copybook, and additional detritus into her bag.
"Weasley! Move to sit by Zabini. Patil, you're with Greengrass... Potter and Longbottom?" Snape's words came languidly. "Now, that won't do. Granger, work with Longbottom. I'd hate for a fire on the first day. Potter, you're with Malfoy."
Pansy paused mid-step to discreetly stick her tongue out.
For his part, Draco retaliated by covertly giving her the two-fingered salute. Damn it, he thought, gaze sweeping over Harry bloody Potter, the-boy-who-sodding-lived. And why exactly did a strange feeling --something akin to nerves --just twist his stomach?
He forced the alien feeling away, kicking his boots up onto his desk and leaning back so that the plain, utilitarian wooden chair rested only on its two hind legs. The blonde folded his slim arms over his thin chest and gave Potter a challenging look. He would consent to being partners, but there was no way in hell he was getting up and moving.
Harry felt like slamming his head on the desk several times. Instead, he just glanced at Draco, then rolled his eyes and crossed the room to join him, giving the blonde a you don't scare me look as he started to figure out what they needed to do. For the most part, he ignored Malfoy unless he needed to know something or they needed to work together. Through the entire process, he let the arrogant blonde choose what he wanted to do. Harry didn't care; as long as he got it done, the end product would be fine.
He wished he had gotten to be with Hermione, though. He was passable when it came to potions, but this one was proving to be much more difficult than he had anticipated. He hoped that that Snape would not pick him if they had to test it, but if it was messed up in any way he knew that the greasy git would choose him over the Slytherin prince.
He chewed on his lip, concentrating on trying to get the details right. He could feel that all of his fellow Gryffindors were outraged by the new seating arrangement, but all Harry wanted was a good grade.
"You're doing it wrong," Draco drawled, tipping back deeper in his chair. His blue-grey eyes were guileless -- like the heavens before a sudden storm. Despite his criticisms, he made no effort whatsoever to help, unless it could not be avoided. The same self-satisfied look remained on his pale, Elven features. "It ought to be purple, not... what do you suppose that colour is, Potter?"
"You know what, Malfoy? Maybe if you helped, it wouldn't be that colour. What do you think?" Harry snapped. His hand moved to rub his temples, and, once calmed, he went on. "If you want to help and get it to its right colour, Malfoy, you are more than welcome to."
"Bitch, bitch, bitch," Draco responded. The words were mocking but lacked any kind of real venom. He nonetheless rose to his feet, shrugging out of his over robe, throwing the garment over the back of his chair.
Full dress was required for the first week of classes, but the modified autumn uniform would start the very next week and last through November, giving the Hogwarts students a choice between long or short-sleeved button-down shirts and vests versus sweaters. Until the end of the week, however, there was little choice beyond the proper prescribed uniform. Most of the professors were fairly lenient about it, whereas McGonagall and Snape -- and Filch, who was constantly patrolling the halls -- looked for even the smallest infraction of the rules, especially within the re-entry period.
Draco settled for undoing his shirtsleeves. He actually wore cufflinks with his school uniform. Silver and opal, they were elegant and ostentatious, whispering of wealth without actually being flamboyant or showy. He removed these without heed, setting them carelessly on the side of the table. His shield-shaped Prefect badge and school sweater followed.
"Fine," he said impatiently, flicking his undone cuffs away from his thin, narrow wrists. "Let's do this."
Harry hid a small smile at the other's fastidiousness before he calmly informed Draco of three things: (one) where he was in the instructions, (two) how he wasn't really sure how they could fix it as the potion -- whatever colour that was in the cauldron -- was definitely not purple, and (three) Harry had no clue where he messed up.
He genuinely wished this was more like cooking as he might have an easier job of it if it was. Being a servant to the Dursleys had been good for his cooking skills but did absolutely nothing when it came to magic. He moved to grab something that the book said might help but as he reached over he accidentally knocked something into the potion.
Harry frowned at first as he didn't know what he had knocked over but paled when he saw the potion start to bubble violently and the churning liquid inside continually alternated colours. The liquid began to rise and fall as it kept up the previous reactions as well. Harry knew he did something wrong and soon started to try and fix it, praying that it did not blow.
Draco pulled from his school satchel his ivory-handled pocket knife, opening the blade in a single deft motion. He began cutting the cimicifuga racemosa roots needed for the potion in lengths of about an inch or so. Only six were needed for the potion, so he disposed of the excess by tossing it at Granger, who was directly across from him.
The sepia-coloured weed lodged in her avalanche of frizzy hair, which she had tied up to keep out of her face while she worked. The look Hermione regarded him with said absolutely nothing very loudly. She was completely unimpressed, and, though it often seemed she was fifteen going on forty, the bland look of exasperation and disapproval she gave him was classic. Her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed, but she said nothing, looking for all the world like a particularly stern governess faced with a stroppy kid.
The thought made the cupid bow of Draco's mouth quirk into a smile -- at least, until he felt a small shard of apatite rock strike his shoulder blade. "Real mature, Weasley." He called, making a rude gesture over his shoulder, and laughed when Ron swore at him. "Real lovely friends you've got, Potter," he quipped, leaning past Harry to grab the vitex that needed to be sliced open.
He tackled this task, too, in a slightly reckless fashion. It surprised no one, except perhaps himself, when he managed to part his flesh with his own blade. "Damn," he muttered, resisting the childish urge to cradle the wound. "Well, gotta bleed to make old magic more powerful, I guess -- right, here -- shit, this hurts like a bitch," he added, a hint of a whine creeping into his voice, as he turned to dispose of the berries and the roots into the cauldron. "What did you add to make it boil like that? Should it be doing that?"
Harry would have chuckled if not for the cauldron continuing its violent actions. "No, I highly doubt it." By this point, people started to move away from them and the cauldron. Harry stood up and tried to get the professor's attention; unfortunately, that was the same moment in which the potion decided to erupt, drenching both boys. Harry felt a bit dizzy but shook it off as Snape yelled at him and gathered some of the potion before cleaning up the rest.
Draco was sprawled on the hard, cold stone floor, slightly curled in on himself. His grey eyes were closed, slender eyebrows furrowed as if pain or annoyance, but other than that, his face did not register any kind of expression. His features relaxed to become emotionless as the blonde slipped deeper into unconsciousness.
"I don't know what you managed to do, Potter, but I suggest you and Mister Malfoy go up to the infirmary." Snape said calmly as he glared at Harry. "Oh, and one hundred points from Gryffindor for not only causing a potions explosion but for getting it on a few student, as well as points docked for Mister Weasley's bright idea to throw things at people." Snape rebuked.
Picking up the unconscious boy—damn, but he was light—Harry hastened out of there. When he eventually got to the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey used a spell to quickly remove the excess from their clothing, though the potion had, for the most part, sunk through the layers of starched wool school uniforms and into their skin by that point. She assigned them to separate beds and started running tests on Harry as he was conscious.
"First accident of the new year!" Madame Pomfrey tutted over him. She was running a diagnostic test with her wand, slipping a thermometer into his mouth, and testing his pupils for response to light -- simultaneously. "Thirty minutes into the first hour," she said, disposing of the small glowing crystal she had used. It had flashed pure white when his pupil dilated, but now it was returning to a pale violet amethyst colour. She reached for a blood pressure cuff, strapping it tightly about his arm. "And here I had supposed it would be a Care of Magical Creatures lessons. Count to thirty for me."
Her aide, a shy-looking witch with a clipboard, was standing nearby, watching this brutal efficiency with a slightly dropped jaw. Clearly, this hadn't been what the intern was expecting.
Madame Pomfrey spared the unfortunate young woman only the occasional glance. "You're responding to light; that's very good. You're heartbeat is quicker than normal -- that checks out. Your blood pressure... have you had a stressful summer?"
Harry had done as Madame Pomfrey had asked, feeling a bit sorry for the poor woman as Madame Pomfrey was a bit much for anyone on their first time in the Hospital Wing. He blinked when she asked her question then discreetly averted his gaze. "Yes... a bit... I've been having...nightmares about the tournament," he murmured quietly. What he kept to himself, however, was that he was also plagued by nightmares related to Voldemort, but he didn't think it was anything to worry about, though he knew everyone would tell him differently.
"Am I allowed to leave, or do I have to stay overnight again?" He really just wanted to get back to his dorm, but he knew he had a slim-to-none chance of that happening due to how Madame Pomfrey usually was.
"Well, my dear, it would perhaps be for the best that you stayed here for the night," she clucked, giving him a warm, maternal look. Now she was running her wand over his shoulder, which was glowing with the diagnostic spell. Now that she knew what best to look for, it was easier to find signs of restlessness. She did not voice her concerns about his dreams; she would tell these to Albus later. "It's seems to be some time since you've gotten a decent night's sleep, right? It might as well be in quiet, controlled environment, with a properly administered dose of Dreamless Sleep." Pomfrey lectured. She moved to draw the curtain, separating Harry from the pale figure on the next bed.
"But, first, I'm thinking you should change your clothes," she looked thoughtfully at his school uniform. Even though the excess liquid had been removed, it still bore signs of potion stains. "And have a sandwich and a decent cup of cocoa."
Harry nodded and accepted a freshly laundered uniform to change into, going into the bathroom to swap his clothes. Once dressed, he exhaled softly, running his fingers through his hair. Looking into the mirror showed him that any signs of malnourishment or abuse from the Dursleys had been healed over the summer. While he was at Grimmauld Place, he had been well-fed, so it just looked like he had not been eating enough, instead of occasionally being starved by his aunt and uncle. He returned to the dormitory area, where he ate the sandwich he received, occasionally sipping the steaming cocoa.
"You're welcome to attend your next class, which is --" Here she paused and pulled out a large, leather-bound tome, opening to an empty page. When she brought the tip of her wand to the aged, yellowed page, lines of ink fanned out like winding rivers of shining black ink until it formed his school timetable. "Defence Against the Dark Arts. Just return tonight for observation."
Harry nodded and gathered his personal effects.
Half-way to the door, he turned around to look at the pale form lying in a bed.
After a second, he shook his head and walked on.