Uniting Houses

"I have an important announcement to make!" Dumbledore's voice rang out throughout the great hall. Harry, along with everyone else in the four columns of benches, turned his full attention to the teachers table.

"As you all know, Lord Voldemort is gaining power every minute and I feel that now would be the best time in uniting all four houses" Dumbledore's eyes twinkled as they scanned the sea of confused faces below him. "And so, the rest of the teachers and I have decided to act upon the idea of mixing both Slytherin and Gryffindor and then Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff!" He beamed around at the students who sat mouths agape and waited for the penny to drop.

Harry sat for a second thinking to himself; hang on so he means-, he glanced across the hall and caught sight of the horror in the entire Slytherin houses face. And that's when it finally sank in.

The entire great hall suddenly exploded into a chaotic screaming fit, all the pupils yelling at the unfairness of being divided, and then half of them shoved in with half of another house.

"SILENCE!" the headmaster's voice echoed above all of the insane shouting of all the students. "This decision is non-negotiable, now lists are going to be read to tell you which houses quarters you shall now be staying in."

Professor McGonagall stood up and cleared her throat, then proceeded to call out names, starting with first years. By the time it got round to the seventh years Harry felt like he was going to fall asleep until he suddenly heard two specific names called out that brought a sudden jolt of horrified energy to his body.

"Harry Potter"

"Draco Malfoy"

Harry turned towards Malfoy, who bore an expression of feeling completely ill - and also a strange expression harry couldn't quite make out - and Harry guessed that right now he was also holding the same expression. Luckily Hermione, Ron, Neville, Lavender and Seamus were also called for the same group as him, though so were Blaise Zabini, Pansy Parkinson, Daphne Greengrass, Vincent Crabbe and Theodore Nott. And with faces that all resembled that of someone being forced to work for an entire day with Blast-Ended-Skrewts, they set off towards their new rooms.

One Week Later.

So far it hadn't been as bad as Harry thought it would be. For a start everyone was still alive, though if looks could kill, there would be no-one left in the room at all.

But despite all the tension, icy glares and constant scathing remarks cast at one another nothing had really happened between any of them and they had now settled into a pattern of both the Gryffindors pretending the Slytherins didn't exist and vice versa. They would walk straight past each other and not say a word, and Harry had nearly forgotten that the Slytherins were even there until Friday, the twelfth day of the new mixed houses rule…..

Harry sat in the Slytherin common room attempting to write an essay that was due in after the weekend, he saw someone walk past him and glanced up to see who it was. Nott, who was heading up to the dormitory, paused at the foot of the stairs.

"Hey Malfoy, come up here I need to talk to you about something" he called across the room.

It was a perfectly ordinary thing to say and wouldn't have caught Harry's attention except that Nott's eyes held a wicked gleam and when Malfoy eventually rose from his seat it was very reluctantly, making it obvious that this little talk was not something he really wanted to participate in. Harry quickly scanned the room and noticed that the only people that had witnessed the looks on both Malfoy and Nott's faces, was himself and Blaise Zabini who directed a vehement glare towards Nott.

"Come on Harry! You should get this done tonight so that you only need to revise this weekend!" Hermione told him, drawing his attention away from Nott and Malfoy as they both disappeared up the stairs, as she indicated at the large pile of homework they were trudging through.

"I'm trying Hermione!" Harry retorted angrily, "but I just don't get this at all, just looking at it makes me feel ill."

He reached for his pot of ink and quill just as crookshanks bounded onto his lap, causing him to knock it off the table and for it to spill over the floor.

Harry sighed in frustration and a few of the Slytherins turned to snicker in his direction. Hermione got out her wand and cleared the mess off the carpet.

"I'll go get a new one out my bag, back in a minute" Harry muttered, then trailed up the stairs to his room.

He pushed the door open to the dormitory and was met with a sight that rooted him to the spot.

Draco Malfoy and Theodore Nott were both in the room and they were doing a LOT more than just talking. Malfoy was topless with his shirt discarded on the floor obviously having been wrenched off with some considerable strength.

Malfoy was shoved roughly up against the wall while Nott bit his way down his chest. When he reached his naval he made his way back up his slightly skinny body until he arrived at his neck where he suddenly bit down hard eliciting a pained whimper from Malfoy.

It was the first time since Harry had been at the Slytherin's quarters that Malfoy had not been completely guarded with a mask that only allowed a sneer or a glare. Now that his mask was gone, Harry could see the pain in the way his eyes were squeezed tightly shut, his eyebrows contracting and the way he clung to Nott's shoulders, almost as though he didn't want him to stop even though he was being put through some serious abuse. His entire body language showed that he was hating every second of it. Nott's hand suddenly shot down and grabbed Malfoy's belt and Harry decided he had seen enough.

He drifted back down the stairs to the common room where everyone else, Gryffindors and Slytherins, sat, oblivious to what was happening on the floor above.

He sat himself down on the green leather sofas that matched every other dark green furnishing in the dungeons and began to think over the scene he had just witnessed.

So Malfoy was gay! Harry thought, still completely shocked by this new piece of information, he had always thought that Malfoy was with Pansy Parkinson, yet now that he thought more thoroughly about it, they had never seemed remotely close, Pansy would launch herself at him and he would push her down somewhere, kiss her and she basically did whatever he wanted, but he was never the one that went for her.

Also, it was not in Malfoy's character, Harry thought, to allow himself to be dominated, especially by another person in Hogwarts who could easily out him to the rest of the school as being gay…. So maybe he wasn't actually into guys at all, and maybe, Harry considered, he should have actually stopped Nott instead of just leaving them, thinking that it was Malfoy had wanted. What's happening up there now? His thought ran on the same line for at least another half an hour, questioning everything he had just seen and was so deep in thought he completely missed two things. One, that Hermione was speaking to him, and second, that Zabini had been watching him with a mixture of curiosity, suspicion and unease ever since he had descended the stairs.

"Harry? Hello is anyone there?" Hermione's voice interrupted his contemplations and she waved her hand in front of his face.

"Oh sorry did you say something?"

"I just asked you twice whether you were okay, you were obviously deep in thought" her tone was exasperated.

"Sorry I'm just really tired" Harry replied, fake-yawning to stop her questioning him more.

Hermione nodded; "You should get some sleep so you can focus properly on your potions essay tomorrow, come to the library tomorrow afternoon and I might possibly be able to help you with it" she smiled at Harry.

Harry grinned back "Thanks that sounds great" then he rose up from the seat and yawned for real this time, "I think I will head to bed, night".

This time when he entered the room it was empty but he could see a light under the en-suite bathroom and water was running.

Who'd be having a shower at this time? Harry thought puzzled, glancing at his watch and saw that the face read 11.00pm. But as he passed closer to the door on the way to retrieve his pyjamas he could hear a strange noise coming from the other side. He checked the door to the dorms and no one seemed to be heading up so he pressed his ear silently to the bathroom door and listened for a minute until the noise finally registered. In the bathroom someone was crying. A soft, heart-wrenching series of whimpers, and considering that Nott had passed him on the way up to the dorms – bearing a broad smirk – the only person that could be in there was Malfoy.

End of Chapter 1

Hi everyone! This is the first fanfiction story i've ever wrote so i hope you like it! It will probably be a short story though i might change that and make it longer if i get some inspiration and it wil probably be updated every week since i have school and everything. Enjoy!