27 October, 8:45 a.m.
The Great Hall
The noise level at the Gryffindor table had been fairly normal when Harry, Ron, and Hermione had arrived in the Great Hall. However, it had risen steadily since then and was now nearly deafening. To anyone else, the incessant talk and laughter, held at altogether unnecessary volume, would have been utterly unbearable. The Gryffindors, however, wouldn't have had it any other way.
"What've we got this morning again?" asked Ron, through a large mouthful of bacon. Hermione gave him a disdainful look, and Harry fished inside his bag for his schedule.
"Potions," he said.
"How could you not know that?" Hermione demanded. Ron gave a great swallow and opened his mouth to retort, but was interrupted as the bell sounded overhead. Harry stood.
"Let's go," he said, gathering up his belongings and leading the way out of the Hall. Ron and Hermione followed him across the entrance hall and down to the dungeons, bickering.
They arrived outside Slughorn's classroom and joined the small cueue already gathering in the corridor, waiting to be let into the classroom. At precisely nine o'clock, the door burst open.
"Come in, come in," boomed Slughorn genially. The class filed past him, but stopped short upon entering the classroom. Rather than the usual groups of four, the desks had been arranged into groups of two. Slughorn bustled past them to the front.
"Oh, yes," he said, noticing their confused expressions. "I've devised a little...Project, of sorts. You'll be working in pairs, and as you see, I've arranged the desks accordingly. I'll read off the pairs, shall I, and then you can sit down." There was a murmur of interest mingled with trepidation as members of different Houses cast shifty glances at one another. Slughorn extracted a bit of parchment from his pocket and began to read.
"Hermione Granger and Ernie McMillian." Hermione and Ernie looked at one another, shrugged, and sat.
"Ronald Weasley and Padma Patil." Harry bit back a laugh, recalling the disasterous Yule Ball two years ago. This project might turn out to be rather amusing, he thought. Slughorn continued to read off his pairs, until there were only four people standing: Harry, Terry Boot, Theo Nott, and Malfoy. Inwardly, Harry groaned. He had a good idea what was going to happen next.
Sure enough, Slughorn paired Terry with Nott.
"And that leaves you two, then," said Slughorn to Harry and Malfoy, who took their seats, careful not to make eye contact.
"Now," said Slughorn. "I'm going to explain what it is I want you to do, and I'd like one person from each pair to copy this down." He paused while students rummaged in their bags for quills and ink. Malfoy turned to Harry.
"Would you like to write, or shall I?" he said stiffly. Harry shrugged.
"You can, I suppose." Malfoy gave a brief nod and extracted quill, ink, and parchment from his bag.
Slughorn began explaining his project, but Harry found his attention wavering. Sighing slightly, he looked around the dungeon and bit back a laugh. Six people were paying rapt attention to Slughorn, and racing to copy down his every word. The other six, meanwhile, had tuned him out entirely.
Nearly a half-hour later, Slughorn finished his speech, and Draco mentally sighed with relief. The Potions master's smooth, deep voice always served to nearly put him to sleep, and it was extremely difficult to pay attention-doubly so with Potter beside him sighing and drumming his fingers on the desk. Besides, his hand was beginning to cramp. Sighing, he turned to face his partner.
"You weren't paying attention, were you?" he asked. Harry's first instinct was to retort snappishly, but something in Malfoy's tone stopped him. The question wasn't hostile; in fact, Malfoy sounded rather like Hermione after a History of Magic lesson. Besides, he hadn't been paying attention.
"Er-no," he admitted. Malfoy sighed, as though this were enormously painful.
"Look, Potter," he began. "I don't know how much you actually care about this, but I'm going to assume you care about your grades at least as much as I do. So I won't be a pain in the ass about this if you won't."
"Er, right," said Harry, taken aback. He'd expected to endure repeated insults, but instead Malfoy was attempting to bargain with him. "That sounds fair to me."
"Good. Now, do you have any clue at all what Slughorn was talking about, or have I got to explain it all to you?" Harry sighed, unable to help his annoyance. He couldn't believe he was being made to feel like an ignorant fool by Draco bloody Malfoy. Worse, the git was actually making him feel a bit guilty for not paying attention.
"Could you explain it?" he asked, momentarily hating himself. Malfoy gave another annoyed sigh.
"Yes, I can. It's fairly simple, actually. Slughorn wants us to pick a potion from this list, and research its history, effects, and other potions similar to it. Then he wants us to actually make it, and keep a journal while we do it, about our progress. And we've got until the end of term."
"Why so long?"
"Because," said Malfoy, with the air of explaining that one and one made two, "most of the potions take at least a month to make." Harry nodded vaguely, glancing at the parchment in Malfoy's pale hand. Realizing what Harry was looking at, Malfoy shoved it under Harry's nose.
"These are the potions we've got to choose from," he said, gesturing toward a list of about twenty potions in the middle of the page. Harry read through them silently, surprised by how neat Malfoy's handwriting was. However, this didn't help much, as he hadn't heard of most of the potions.
"Well, which one do you want?" he asked. Malfoy looked at him for a moment, then looked back at the list.
"These are all too easy," he said dismissively, gesturing toward most of the potions on the list. "And I reckon that one's impossible, it takes about six months to make."
"What about that one?" asked Harry, pointing to "wolfsbane potion." Malfoy waved a dismissive hand.
"Far too easy. Besides, as neither of us are werewolves, we wouldn't be able to test it."
"Oh."
"So, if we eliminate all those, it leaves us with Veritaserum, Amortentia, and Felix Felicis."
"I'm not doing a bloody love potion," said Harry flatly. "What about Veritaserum?"
"It's not very interesting."
"Felix Felicis, then?"
"Yes, I suppose so." Malfoy's last words were partially drowned by the bell.
"Listen," he said quickly. "We're going to need time outside of class to work on this. Can you meet me in the library at seven this evening?" Harry thought a moment. He didn't have Quiddich practice, but he'd intended to make a start on his Herbology essay. Well, he reasoned, he could do that later.
"Yes," he said after a moment. "I suppose so." Malfoy gave him a brief nod and departed the classroom. Amazed and slightly wrong-footed by the civility of this exchange, Harry caught up with Ron and Hermione, who were waiting just outside the classroom.
"Well, that was quite enjoyable, actually," said Hermione serenely.
"Speak for yourself," grumbled Ron. "How was it with Malfoy, Harry?" Harry frowned slightly.
"It wasn't as bad as I expected it to be," he said at length. "I reckon he cares enough about the project not to waste time fighting."
"Well, that's good," said Hermione vaguely, leading the way upstairs to Transfiguration.
