Everybody tries to hide their traces
Everybody wears their masks so well
Everybody needs forbidden places
Everybody has to go through Hell

Everybody knows the war's not over
Everybody hears the bullets fly
Everybody turns the water lower
Everybody says you have to try

Everybody bites the never bitten
Everybody pours their poison out
Everybody wisely remains hidden
Everybody lies without a doubt

~ Everybody lies by Kaiva Koenig


Chapter Three

The Truth Hurts More

"I'm not going to hit you Draco, I only came down here to give you your wand back."

"Fine," Draco said, raising his wand that had calmed down along with its owner. He muttered something softly, flicked his wand, and threw his head back, eyes squeezed shut in pain.

Harry stared as he watched a large ugly bruise bloom on the left side of Draco's jaw. The cut on his other cheek had barely started to heal. He had used a spell to... sock himself in the face. What?

Harry heard footsteps behind him. Turning, he found the large thick-necked boy with the flat nose standing in the door to the boys bathroom. Harry frowned, fingering his own wand inside his sleeve, what did he want?

"We should go get Malfoy's stuff back," the boy said stiffly, looking at the two of them.

Harry blinked, realizing a second too late the guy must think he had smacked Draco! And he hadn't even done anything.

"Weasley's bound to have your things," the boy said, "wouldn't be wise to leave them in his possession for much longer."

And so they followed the boy, who introduced himself as Vincent, back to their bedchambers and dragged Ron Weasley's stuff upstairs, bypassing the Common Room on their way out the Dungeon. Vincent carried one bag all on his own, while Harry and Draco each held onto one loop of the other bag as they trudged up tens of moving staircases. Ron's rat had made itself comfortable on Harry's shoulder by the time they finally reached Gryffindor Tower.

A familiar red haired boy was waiting there, nearby a life sized portrait of a very fat Lady. There were two bags on the floor next to his feet.

"If it isn't That Malfoy Monster," he said, taking in the sight of them, smirking into Draco's bruised face, "they finally let you out of your cage in the Dungeon?"

Draco's face twisted in a scowl. "Not me who's got morons for brothers," he barked, throwing the bag to the floor.

Ron spread his arms dramatically, nearly dropping his wand from his sleeve. "Fred and George thought it would make us 'get along', that whole family feud your parents started is beyond stupid, but I see there's no chance of that happening anytime soon, with you acting this shitty and childlike."

"You're one to talk," Draco bellowed.

"Locomotor trunk," Ron spat, at which Draco's luggage spontaneously levitated at waist-height, "and get your filthy stuff away from me, Malfoy."

Harry stared. They had slaved away lugging those bags from the depths of the Castle up to the very top, when they could have just used one spell? He repeated 'Locomotor trunk' over and over in his head on their way back to the Dungeon, lest he should forget. He had a feeling it would come in handy later on. Draco's heavy footfalls sent angry echoes through torch lit halls, only somewhat softening when they reached the ground floor.

Vincent suggested taking a stroll through Herbal Garden, since they were already outside. In the dark between the foliage, looking out over the Great Lake that glittered in silent moonlight, Draco unclenched his fists.

Once Monday rolled around Greg set their game plan into motion. To everyone's surprise Vincent turned out to have quite a knack for Astronomy: it was useful for finding your way around the wilderness, he said. An avid Astronomer could never get lost. Knowledge of the stars and their position in the night sky had helped Vincent many a time when he'd been out hiking in the wilds with his siblings.

"Whatever you say," Blaise had said, copying his homework.

Out of all of them Draco was the only one who was at least halfway competent at Potions. Their Professor for that class continued to find faults in everything Harry did. And nobody could figure out why. Even students from other Houses picked up on it, and sent sympathetic smiles his way.

Defense Against The Dark Arts was weird... they were invited to enter a dimmed classroom with orange flames burning at the center. A woman in a red dress pulled a black hood over her head and started some incantation, summoning a dense fog as her eyes rolled back. Greg suggested she could be a Dark Witch, but Harry didn't think that was the case.

To no one's surprise, both Pansy and Blaise excelled at Charms.

Transfiguration was trickier; no one from their group seemed to have any talent for it. The best student for that class was a Ravenclaw boy named Michael Corner, and he gladly took Pansy up on her offer to study with him in the Library.

Herbology was a subject none of them really cared about, "too easy," Draco had said, and Blaise agreed.

Greg had the neatest handwriting of them all, so he took their notes for History of Magic, while the rest listened to the lecture with half an ear, and mostly worked on their homework for other classes.

Flying lessons were what made it all worth it, Harry felt, as he zipped through the sky on a school broom, feeling free. Draco somersaulted in the air, laughing, his arms spread out like a bird's wings, while the rest of their class barely made it past the fence. Madam Hooch was impressed. She called them both down, and gave Draco and Harry clearance to fly whenever they wanted, like the Second Years, so they could practice their skill. They had to wear riding gear at all times, but had her permission to fly school brooms whenever they had free time. Greg envied them, but had to admit both Harry and Draco were better with a broom than he was.

As the third week rolled around, Harry grew increasingly frustrated with his own wand: it simply refused to listen to him. He would cast a spell over and over again, enunciate flawlessly, do everything right, and his stubborn wand would just be a useless stick in his hand. He felt stupid, watching Blaise effortlessly perform beautiful magic right next to him. And when his wand did decide to obey, after Harry had said the incantation ten times, the magic it produced looked pathetic in comparison with that of his classmates.

Even Vincent, who was not too bright and often got his spells wrong, could produce more fiery sparks and icier chills with his wand when he commanded it. Harry's skill in casting spells was such an abysmal outlier among his whole Year, and not for want of trying. He knew all the spells, he could recite his textbooks by heart, he just didn't seem able to actually perform any spells properly.

Oddly enough, no one teased him about this. Blaise just looked at him with sympathy in his dark eyes, and Draco covered for him in Potions, where they worked in pairs. None of the First Years from other Houses ever gave Harry any trouble about his pitiful display at magic, not even Ron Weasley, who hated their House with a passion and jumped at every chance to mess with a Slytherin.

But that just made things worse for Harry. He felt like the whole school was walking on eggshells around him, like he was a total failure from day one, so pathetically stunted even the bullies derived no joy from beating him down.

Professor Flitwick, their Charms teacher, assured Harry this was perfectly normal. Blackthorn wands were reportedly difficult to master, but had the potential to become very powerful indeed once properly tamed. Wands made of this wood were best suited for warriors, and some said Blackthorn wands could wield the most powerful magic known to man.

Harry just spent evenings glaring at his wand in anger, willing it to obey.

Yet the wand eluded him like a malevolent trickster hellbent on destroying his life at Hogwarts. Exams were approaching, and all Harry had been able to do was 'Locomotor trunk'.

Hagrid told him not to worry about it, Harry should just relax, and things would sort themselves out. But worry Harry did.

At one of their History of Magic lessons, as the ghost of Professor Binns droned on about the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, something really bothered Harry. He raised his hand.

"Yes?" said Professor Binns.

"Why do we have the Statute of Secrecy?" Harry began. "If Wizards and Witches are so much more powerful than Muggles, why do we fear them?"

Everyone turned to look at him. Professor Binns seemed to swallow, his translucent Adam's apple bobbed, shifting his blue tie.

"Why are we living in hiding?" Harry asked, fixing the Professor with a perplexed frown. "Why aren't we running things?"

Blaise nudged him under the table, grinning approvingly.

"Well, ...ahh, umm... you see," Binns did not have an answer to that. He dismissed class early and floated through the ceiling before Harry could approach him with any questions.

Blaise high-fived him in the halls on the way to their Common Room. "Nice work, I was getting so bored there listening to that man go on and on!" Blaise winked, showing the binder in his hand, "I've completed tomorrow's Charms assignment," he dropped his voice so only Harry would hear, "wanna copy?"

Harry pursed his lip. "I honestly wanted to know."

A scowl disfigured Blaise's handsome face and he looked away. "My Mum says they outnumber us, since Muggles fuck like rabbits," he shrugged, training his eyes at the floor, "but no one at this school will teach us that."

Harry raised an eyebrow as they continued walking. "Why not?"

"Because the most logical conclusion would be to wipe them out completely, as Grindelwald tried to do."

Harry asked if this Grindelwald fellow was locked up in Azkaban, he recalled reading something about Headmaster Dumbledore defeating him. Blaise stopped moving, forcing Harry to do the same.

"He's dead," said Blaise.

A lump formed in Harry's throat. They didn't talk much till they joined the others in the Common Room. As they all sat together on one green leather sofa, Greg copied Blaise's Charms assignment, making little changes here and there to make it look like he had done the assignment himself. Meanwhile Blaise leafed through Greg's notes on History of Magic and discussed them with Harry, who tried to read his Potions textbook: Snape would have his head on a stick if he failed to make pink smoke rise from their cauldron again.

The Professor had quickly caught on that while Harry helped put together the ingredients, it was always Draco's wand being waved over their potion. He had cornered them and demanded Harry to perform the potion making spell. After coaxing his wand five times, lightning shot from the tip and struck their potion with violent force, sending a horrific crackling ripple over the surface. Snape studied their cauldron with mild interest, and told Harry he had done it wrong, before he swept off to another table.

Sitting on the sofa between Blaise and Greg, Harry perused the chapter containing the Cure for Boils, wondering what he was missing. Pansy sat with a girl Harry didn't know too well, her name was Daphne, she had long honey blonde hair that she wore in two high ponytails, a narrow pointy nose, and large round eyes which were green as a stormy sea, that was all Harry knew about her. The girls had put down their textbooks and were just starting on the Transfiguration assignment when Draco walked into the Common Room with a corked conical flask that contained a shiny potion which looked like liquid silver.

Blaise whistled as Draco passed their sofa. "Oh Mister Hazel Wand Boy," he called, a cruel sneer on his face.

Several chuckles echoed through the Common Room.

Harry looked up from his book. "Blaise," he looked pointedly at the handsome black wizard, "hasn't he suffered enough?"

It had been weeks since the 'incident' on their first night in the Common Room, and Blaise was still seizing every occasion to mock Draco.

Blaise threw his head back against the sofa and laughed. "Suffering! Oh Harry my man, you're hilarious. I'm just poking his feathers a little, come on, put that book down," he placed his hand firmly on top of Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger, and slammed the book in Harry's lap shut, "join the fun. You've studied enough for today."

Greg took the Potions textbook from Harry and placed it on the nearest low table, there was a devilish glint in his eye, and his thin lips were pursed in a small amused smile. Harry scowled at him.

Blaise wiggled his eyebrows, drawing Harry's attention. "I reckon you can make Malfoy here shoot a very different kind of magic," he whispered.

Harry stared at his friend darkly. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Go on then," Blaise poked him in the rib playfully, "say something to Malfoy. I'm just dying to see how his wand will react."

Draco looked at Harry warily from the other end of the Common Room, where he sat secluded in a corner, perched on a plain four legged stool. The conical flask with the silver colored potion had been placed on the low table in front of him, along with some slabs of parchment and a quill. One candle levitated just over his right shoulder, shedding light on his improvised workspace.

Harry shook his head, pulling Magical Drafts and Potions back into his lap. "I'm not playing your silly games Blaise, we got a Potions exam next week. Snape will lynch me if I can't cook up a simple Boil Cure."

"Ey Malfoy!" Blaise cried out.

Harry pulled his nose out of the book to glare at Blaise.

Draco watched them both with a fearful look in his eye.

"Potter here needs your help with Potions." Blaise wagged his finger admonishingly at Draco, "it's all on you if Snape takes points from us next week, since you refused to help your best friend out with your favorite subject."

Harry narrowed his eyes at Blaise. He liked the guy, but sometimes Blaise could be a little too much.

But Blaise callously carried on goading Draco, his favorite pastime these days. "I know you were awfully busy this morning furiously flogging your log over Professor Snape's silky black hair, but you've got to take some time out of your day to help out your friends," Blaise reasoned, "or you can hardly call yourself Potter's friend at all."

Draco turned an alarming shade of pink, eliciting giggles from Daphne and Pansy who sat eavesdropping at a low table with their eyes trained on the Transfiguration assignment. A number of Older Years were also listening in, hiding their smirks behind parchments and textbooks.

"See," Blaise eagerly nodded to Harry, "your friend has a thing for our Potions teacher."

Harry opened his mouth to tell Blaise to knock it off, but Greg spoke over him before Harry could get a word in.

"Explains why he's so good at it," Greg whispered in a high pitched voice, "notice me Master Snape, Sir, notice me!"

Pansy burrowed her face in her hands, shaking with laughter.

Blaise winked. "I do suppose under a certain light Professor Snape can look quite attractive. He is one of the younger Professors we've got after all, even when you don't count Professor Binns."

They all laughed. Harry had to admit this part was rather funny, he couldn't help the tiny smile that worked its way to his lip.

"I suppose I should persuade my Dear Mother to date him," Blaise playfully bumped shoulders with Harry, "would really help you in the grade department. Eh, it's better than whoring out Malfoy I suppose, even though the bugger would love that."

Their whole group was in tears, Daphne was hysterical with laughter, unable to hold her giggles in. Harry smiled mischievously. He knew he shouldn't say anything, he knew he should clamp his teeth together and keep his mouth shut, but he couldn't resist. Something itched at him to share the funny thought that popped up in his head.

"Who?" Harry asked, putting on a face of faux innocence, "Malfoy... or Snape?"

Blaise and Pansy rolled with laughter, Greg grabbed his knees, doubling over. Daphne was a blushing mess. And Harry couldn't help the grin that spread across his own face, he had done that, he was funny.

It felt good to be finally accepted for once, to have friends, people who liked him and thought he was funny, even though it came at a price: with guilt in the pit of his stomach Harry glanced over at Draco, who avoided his eyes now.

Draco's wand slipped from his sleeve, landing on the low table.

They all looked. Some Older Years smirked and sure enough, after awhile Draco's wand began twitching. The bright pink spark that followed was fast, short, and loud. With a bang the whole Common Room lit up like they were lighting fireworks.

It hit the conical flask, that suddenly changed shape, grew legs, and before Harry knew it there was a large frog on the low table in front of Draco. A small silver crown with exactly three peaks rested on top of the frog's head.

The frog looked up at Draco.

Maybe it wanted to be fed? Harry couldn't tell. The thing was vomit green in color, with bulging yellow eyes, its large mouth lined with muddy brown slime. What happened next shocked the life out of Draco and sent the whole Common Room into a spiral of wild guffaws.

The frog begged Draco to kiss it.

Harry stared, wide eyed as the Common Room erupted in laughter all around him. He had really messed up, hadn't he? And he'd never meant for this to happen. All he had wanted was to be accepted in his House, to say something funny and make his friends laugh, that's it. He'd never intended to hurt Draco, he'd never meant for this to get so out of hand. But the laughter spread like wildfire as the frog followed Draco around the Common Room, imploring him to give it a kiss.

With a sinking feeling it registered that Draco would never live this down, and Harry felt responsible. If he hadn't... he bit his lip, if he hadn't run his mouth about Snape, who knew what would've happened? All of it could have been avoided, or... at least he wouldn't have looked like such a massive hypocrite, and felt like he'd let down a friend.

Harry tried to find Draco's eyes in the crowd, but Draco wouldn't look at anyone: he kept his eyes trained on the floor as he fled from the Common Room, tightly clasping his wand.

In hindsight Harry should have known. The man seemed just the type of sadistic bastard to watch this all play out from the shadows, when he could have intervened long ago, before it all started with Blaise's crude comments. Still Harry jerked around in shock when he heard Professor Snape's voice directly behind him.

Blaise and Greg's excuse for not seeing their Head of House was the way he had approached them from behind on silent footsteps, choosing not to make his presence known till the tips of his shoes bored into the back of their sofa. The whole room dropped several degrees in temperature when Snape spoke.

"I'm sorry Zabini," he said in a cold foreboding tone, "but I will have to decline that ever so gracious offer to dine with your mother."

Harry could feel Blaise tense beside him. Greg's eyes were wide with fear.

"All men who have been sighted with her," Snape said, casting a thoughtful look at the other students in the room, who had all ceased laughing, "seem to disappear under mysterious circumstances."

Snape left after giving them a week's worth of detention. At least he hadn't taken any points off their House, Greg said with a relieved smile, he was the only one of their trio who hadn't gotten detention. Probably because Snape hadn't overheard him. Harry filed that away for later use: if you had to rag on someone, you did it quietly, so the teachers wouldn't hear. No point in drawing attention to yourself when it would only lead you to trouble.

Blaise suggested Professor Snape wanted to keep what had happened with Draco on the down low, if he were to take points from Slytherin he'd have to inform the other teaching staff to justify this point reduction. Harry wondered how many other incidents went unreported, swept under the rug by the teaching staff, and if this number was any lower in the other Houses. Blaise advised him not to think too much about it, they had gotten off lightly, Harry shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.

In the hours that passed he tried to distract himself with reading, hoping that if he could escape to a fictional world, he wouldn't have to face his demons or ponder on his impending doom at the hands of Mr. Filch. The only book in his possession that he hadn't yet read was The Heir of Slytherin, the small leather bound copy that held a moving picture of his parents in its front pages. It appeared to have no author, for the book made no mention by whom it had been written, or the author preferred to remain anonymous.

Harry got sucked in immediately when he noticed the story took place in Hogwarts, on these very Castle grounds. However, the story was very strange... and very sad, it told of a boy who studied at Hogwarts just like Harry, except he was the last in a long line of descendants of their House founder, Salazar Slytherin. Harry had nearly finished reading an enthralling chapter of the book when Blaise tapped his knuckles on the long Slytherin table in the Great Hall. Harry looked up from his book.

"It's time," Blaise said with a sour expression. Behind him, Harry could see Argus Filch rubbing his hands with glee.

Harry sighed, stuffing the book away in his breast pocket. "Well," he said, "here goes nothing."

Blaise and him stood from the table and were escorted down to the dungeons by Mr. Filch. First thing Filch did was separate them, divide et impera. Blaise was sent down a long dark corridor, and Harry was told to wait here under the watchful eye of Mrs. Norris, the underfed pet cat Filch owned. Harry attempted to pet her gently on the head, but drew back when she attacked with a hiss and drawn claws.

Upon his return Filch led Harry to their Potions classroom. Harry was to stock the cabinets and shelves with newly arrived ingredients that he would find in crates on the floor. Filch grinned wickedly as he informed him he would not be allowed to leave until the task was done, regardless of whether it cut into his sleeping time. If he had to detain Harry past his bedtime, he would. Professor Snape had given him express permission. But when Filch opened the door to their Potions classroom, someone was already inside.

A cauldron was set up over a low fire, several glass flasks and beakers surrounding it. The person behind the cauldron looked up; Harry stood eye in eye with Draco.

"Get on with it," Filch grumbled and shoved Harry inside the room, shutting the door behind him with a bang.

His footsteps moved away, echoing through corridors beyond the door as Harry stared at Draco.

Draco stared back, cauldron forgotten on the desk. Finally Draco regained his faculty of speech, "what are you doing here?" he said, sounding baffled.

Harry told him about his detention.

"Oh," said Draco softly with a look of disappointment on his face, casting his eyes at the desk behind which he stood. "I was re-brewing my extra credit Potions assignment, Forgetfulness Potion, the one I ruined when..." he sighed, tracing his fingers over the textbook that lay open on the desk, "...yeah."

"Listen," Harry stepped forward, a sense of urgency pulsing through him, his heart in his throat.

Draco's head snapped up. "Yeah?" he said cautiously, hurt still evident on his face.

"It was wrong of me to say that," Harry started, biting his lip in anguish. "I'm sorry. I truly am, I can't tell what got into me, they were all egging me on and suddenly that felt like an alright thing to say," Harry wrung his hands, awkwardly standing in the center of the room, "but it wasn't," he lowered his head, let his shoulders droop down in regret.

"I understand," a sober voice said somewhere above him, "in your position I would have done the same."

Harry stared up at his friend in shock, while Draco simply looked at him like he hadn't said anything out of the ordinary.

Their silence was broken by a loud ribbit, and Harry turned toward the sound. He blinked. The vomit green frog with the silver crown on its head was crouching inside a half filled washbasin, its bulging yellow eyes almost lovingly looking on Draco.

Harry pointed. "That thing still here?"

Draco nodded, looking miserable.

The frog croaked grotesquely. "Draco Dear," it said, "come give us a kiss."

"Merlin," Draco exclaimed, stepping away from the sink, closer to Harry. "It won't leave me alone," he pleaded with his eyes, "I can't go anywhere like this. Can't go to the Common Room, can't go to bed, even had to skip dinner in the Great Hall."

Harry put a finger to his chin.

"I've tried everything short of Avada Kedavra-ing it to oblivion, and yet it won't go away. No magic seems to work, nothing can stop it."

Draco sounded frantic. Harry eyed the frog warily, as it called for his friend again.

"You know the story of the Frog Prince? This could be something like that," Harry shrugged, "perhaps all you've got to do is kiss the frog."

"No way!" Draco exclaimed, appalled at his suggestion. "Have you seen the sludge on its lips?"

Harry raised an eyebrow at him. That's what he worried about, a little mud on the lips? Not whether it carried any diseases? Or unpredictable magical consequences like getting turned into a frog?

"Ribbit," the thing burped, sticking out its long pink tongue, "please Draco, just one widdle kissy kiss?"

Draco shuddered.

Harry rolled his eyes, walking around him to the washbasin. "I'll do it."

"Really?" Draco whispered in hushed surprise.

"Yeah," Harry tossed over his shoulder. What was the big deal? It was just a frog, after all. And if Draco saw no reason to fear it carrying some disease or being cursed, then Harry could be brave.

He reached into the washbasin, picked the frog up, and brought it up to his own mouth when the thing twisted out of his grip and hopped onto his shoulder. Harry blinked. Next thing he knew the frog had leapt from his shoulder to the desk with the cauldron. Harry turned around, just in time to see the frog creep onto the open textbook, leaving muddy footprints on the pages.

"Ribbit," said the frog, "ribbit. Silly git, you won't fit. Ribbit. Draco's gotta be it."

Draco took two steps back, walking into the next desk. "No, no," he moaned with held up hands.

Harry sighed. He grabbed one frog leg, at which the animal yelped in surprise, letting out a string of startled ribbits, and wildly flailed in Harry's grip, trying to kick itself free, but Harry was prepared for this. He dug his nails into the frog's skin, refusing to let go, and twisted the tap open, then held the frog's ugly face under a stream of running water till all the slime had been washed off its fat gob.

"There," he said, holding the frog up in front of Draco. "Problem solved."

Draco approached with great reluctance, the frog readily hopped into his open palm when he held out his hand. He brought his hand up to his face, looking at the frog as if it might bite him.

But the frog waited patiently, making no move to reach for Draco. All it did was stare at him lovingly. Draco pursed his lips, cringed with his eyes, and placed one small kiss on the frog's mouth.

Sparks flew, a random wind pushed Draco's hair from his forehead, and the frog changed shape... morphing till it was no longer on his hand but suspended mid-air, then the shape grew. Harry stared in disbelief as the frog transformed to a human form.

A smirking dark haired boy stood in front of Draco, dressed in long green formal robes, a white shirt and green tie, with dark trousers and shoes, a silver ring on his left hand, coiled around his ring finger like a snake, and a plain silver crown was on top of his head, shining in the dimmed classroom. Though the most striking thing about him had to be his likeness to Harry.

It was as if someone had dressed Harry up like a royal, fancy clothes and all. Harry walked up closer to examine his lookalike, when the guy turned translucent, then vanished into thin air, as if he hadn't been there at all.

Draco and Harry were left standing there facing each other, staring at the spot where the Frog Prince had been, with confused frowns on their faces, until Draco blushed and turned away.

He shuffled back to his Potions project and waved his wand over it, sending a soft white spark into the cauldron. "Ehm, we should... finish our assignments," he said stiffly, "it's nearly bedtime."

In silence Harry started stocking shelves. Draco joined him as soon as he was done pouring the silvery liquid into a conical flask. Together they finished Harry's detention task a lot faster. Blaise was not back yet by the time they retreated to their bedchamber, and just as well, Harry thought. He eyed Draco hesitantly, his friend had been teased enough for today.

Greg opened his mouth to taunt Draco, but held his tongue the moment Harry narrowed his eyes.

As Harry lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling in the dark, he couldn't help his thoughts straying to the Frog Prince who had looked just like him, and what that meant. If it had meant anything at all...