Bet Backlash
"Turn to page three fifty two." Snape bellowed as he entered the class in a flurry of flapping black robes, not bothering to greet the students good morning. As if he ever. The class frightfully took their books out and obediently turned to the appropriate page. Their tomes didn't detail the exact procedure on how to make the potion, but merely told its history.
"I sincerely hope you have begun on your term projects. I have only given you eighteen days to complete it and fourteen of those will be absorbed in the actually brewing of the potion. That gives you four days to hunt down the required ingredients to make the potion in the first place."
There were a few audible gulps making their way around the class. Snape sneered at them.
"Nevertheless, the class will continue. Today, we will be brewing the Euphoros Potion." He announced. Severus Snape remembered what a frenzy the potion had caused amongst him and his fellow contemporaries.
The up-side of the potion was that it wasn't addictive. Hermione was happy to brew another potion like the next genius but she was also wary of its controversial nature. If the name was anything to go by, then it was going to be a pretty popular potion indeed, even though it was supposed to be used to used as an anaesthetic and a reliever of most pains. There were a few indulgent giggles running rampant but were subsequently quelled with one look from the sullen Potions master.
"I warn you that if anyone is caught brewing this potion outside classroom work will be harshly punished and possibly expelled. But certain measures have been put in place in order to prevent that from happening, or mitigating it at the least. Now," The moment to reveal the instructions of making the potion was almost neigh. The kids' eyes were glazed over in anticipation of what would surely be the greatest potion ever to exist. And the most enjoyable too! Snape noted the glint in his pupils' eyes; this was definitely going to become a popular potion. "the instructions are on the board, get on with it. Oh, and we'll be writing a quick test tomorrow on the history of potion, it's properties, uses and abuses, and side-effects." He emphasized the last two words meaningfully before retreating into his quarters after giving the class a potent farewell glare .
Snape wasn't lying; the Euphoros potion did give one what would be termed a 'potion hangover': a really bad headache and as an added extra, constipation and painful urination. But many thought it was worth it, hence the history of an unaffected, wide-spanned use. The students began working immediately after Snape had waved his wand at the board, which accommodated the tall, neat scrawl of his brewing instructions before disappearing through the door of his study.
Harry trod over to Malfoy's table like everyday routine. He couldn't account for not dreading it this time, though. "Malfoy," he greeted. He noticed too late that that was too informal. Draco turned to him with a slightly hurt look. "Potter." He obliged, folding his arms protectively and tossing his hair. Harry looked anywhere but at Draco who was eyeing him relentlessly. "So we're brewing the Euphoros potion," Harry stated out of nervousness.
The other boy's steady gaze didn't waver. "Positively." Draco said, his eyes marbles of cold steel.
Harry didn't know what to do with himself. This guy here was watching his every move like a hawk. Then he remembered. Hallelujah! "I'll go get the remaining ingredients!" he nearly shouted.
"I got them all here," Draco said coolly, tilting his head to a purple box on the floor, not changing his posture one bit. Harry for one stunning moment couldn't believe his luck. The day Draco has the all the ingredients they need for their task was today of all days. Damn that Potions Kit of his.
"Oh." Harry said, his relief deflating.
Draco finally turned around and began chopping some ingredients. Harry, knowing that this was usually his task, felt more worse than before. He cleared his throat purposefully. Draco didn't budge. "So what do I do? You usually give me the orders," He attempted a humorous quality but it fell flat.
Draco shrugged without turning to look at him.
Harry's jaw nearly dropped. What was Malfoy playing at here? "You can stop now, Draco." he said sternly.
Draco turned to him. "I beg your pardon?" he asked, not bothering to bless the green-eyed boy with an instinctive raise of his eyebrow, but with an impassive face.
"What are you trying to do?" Harry asked, stopping abruptly as he was suddenly short for words.
Draco's forehead creased. "I'm not trying to do-"
"Yes you are. Are you trying to put me on a guilt trip? 'Cos it's not gonna work. I have nothing to feel guilty about!"
Harry was met with silence. The rest of the class turned to them and quietened down. Lovers' tiff?
"I am not trying to make anybody feel guilty here." Draco replied coolly. And this coolness ticked Harry off.
"Fine," Harry said hotly. He turned to the rest of the class. "Everybody, I like Draco Malfoy here. I think he's a pretty little thing would like to date him," He turned to Draco. "Happy now?" he asked, glaring with those beautiful emeralds.
The class heard a muffled crash and a subsequent expletive from their professor's study.
Silence.
Draco smirked. Mission accomplished.
"...can't believe this..." Blaize muttered in the silence.
"I thought you were going to do that in the Slytherin common room." Draco said calmly in the silence. "You didn't give me much of a choice," Harry replied quickly.
"Er... Harry?" Hermione's voice piped up. Harry turned to her. "Can we talk outside. Now?" she tipped her head to the door. Harry was more than happy to get away from the silence and the incredulous stares. The Hufflepuffs were the epitome of that adjective. Harry followed Hermione outside of the class and shut the door behind him.
"Hhm. One night, that's all it took," Draco observed his work with a satisfied smirk going one Blaize Zabini's way. The receiver scowled. Pansy looked bored, as if she had expected it. She knew when Draco wanted something he usually got it and would go to almost any means to get it. The boy wasn't a Slytherin and a Malfoy for nothing. Malfoys always got what they wanted.
"I'll owl my father at lunch," Blaize said reluctantly in resignation.
"Thank you." came Draco's sweet reply. He turned around to get on with is work, the Euphoros potion. Draco was planning on illegally distributing the drafts he would create of this potion around the school. To his advantage he had the rare unicorn's mane ingredient in his Potion's kit which Snape was to distribute personally in the classroom from the supplies in his study. They were not found anywhere else except there and at only one Apothecary in Hogsmeade but at a very high price; unicorn's weren't killed for their hair deliberately because of a hefty curse (a cursed half life) that would be dealt to the hunter for such a criminal action, but were garnered from already dead ones who died from natural causes or other means that didn't involve man.
Draco wasn't doing it to gain any money because Merlin knew he had plenty of it, but to gain special favours he could employ in the future when he needed them or just wanted to amuse himself. It was an investment. And he would tie his customers to their promise with an appropriate Dark Arts curse, he wasn't taught the Dark Arts since he could eat solid foods for nothing either. His father once told him that when he was a toddler he would pronounce the Cruciatus Curse as "Tusho!" and it would make the victim of the curse turn black in an instant instead of torturing it, consequently the baby's room was always quite a gloomy sight.
"You made a bet to get Harry?" asked one Hufflepuff on the brink of tears.
Draco regarded the person with a smile. "But of course," he answered, sounding pleased with himself.
"You bastard!" Justin Finch-Fletchey, another Hufflepuff cried.
"How could you!" his friend next, Ernie Macmillian, exclaimed from another table.
"You know that Harry never dates!"
"What has this got to with me?" Draco asked the shouting mass coldly.
"How dare you," Came a calm growl from a little back. Ron had came out of his stupor after Harry said something that had shocked him to the core.
"If Hermione didn't tell me anything before I came back to the common room last night, I'd say you had him under a Dark spell. I should've expected it from you."
Draco merely arched his eyebrow.
Ron looked around the room. "Nobody tell Harry anything. I have an idea. Let's make Draco keep to his little bet a little bit longer." He suggested. There was a cautious round of understanding and assenting murmurs.
"I beg your pardon?" Pansy, Blaize and Draco said disbelievingly simultaneously.
"Yeah! You messed with our Harry, you get burnt!" Another hoard of agreeing noises.
The students bunched up together intimidatingly.
"Wait, what are you doing?" Draco stuttered with widened eyes.
"Stay away from my Dracie!" Pansy shrieked.
"Get away!" Blaize cried.
Apparently, Ron was made the leader. "You have a choice, Malfoy. You either lead Harry on and keep him until we find a way to break you up or face twenty curses for the rest of your schooling career here at Hogwarts. And remember nobody is going to believe anything from a Slytherin easily if you should report it. Nobody is stupid enough to believe a Slytherin over a Gryffindor,"
None of the Slytherins dared defend their most prominent figure, they all had prevailing instincts of self-preservation.
"And your plan is to hex me everyday if I don't surrender?" Draco asked in a calm drawl, although he was anything but calm. He was rather impressed at their threat. Hm, who knew Gryffindorks had it in them!?
"Yeah," Ron said, his chest huffing proudly at his ingenious plan and face reddening in a triumphant attempt to match his red hair.
"I don't think-" Sixteen wands were instantaneously trained on one pale throat and one on Blaize Zabini and Pansy Parkinson each. Neville's wand came a little later than the others and was aimed at Pansy, having deeming her the weakest. If only he knew.
Draco looked down at the end of Ron's wand. He cleared his throat.
"And we'll shoot down your little owl if it ever takes flight, Zabini." Parvati Patil hissed down the length of her oak, though no one knew what purpose the owl served.
Draco was now a firm believe in the saying "There's power in numbers."
"Okay, fine. Have it your way. Now get these filthy wands off me," Draco said tightly.
After a few moments of glaring at Malfoy, Ron inclined his head. The wands were slowly withdrawn.
At a swing of the door, everybody who had assembled at the three Slytherin figures scattered quickly to their own tables and resumed their potion-making. The other three Slytherins did likewise.
Harry and Hermione came in without suspecting anything. They parted when Harry went to Malfoy and Hermione to Neville.
"Calmed down?" Draco asked his new special friend. He should have felt more disgusted than he was at the moment and that scared him.
Harry scowled at him. "Could say the same for you," He countered.
Draco's eyes fleetingly roamed over the class. Many were eyeing him and they weren't suitably surreptitious like a Slytherin easily was.
He swallowed a lump in his throat. "There there, Harrikins, don't want you rattling the windows or anything." he chastised light-heartedly. He went closer to him, kissed him briefly on the cheek and went to Blaize's table to confer with him, seemingly. Draco always took what he did seriously. Harry blushed deeply, his mouth dropping and his hand shooting up to touch the spot where Draco had kissed, eyes wide as saucers.
Ron spluttered incredulously from where he stood. He hadn't expected Malfoy to do that! And say that! Harry quickly went straight to work, trying to forget the kiss and hide his flushed cheeks. After a few seconds of heavy panting and frantic cutting, Harry couldn't take it. He had to find out from Malfoy if they were actually going to do this.
Harry skittered quickly to the Italian's table, rudely burrowed the pale boy and dragged him out of the class, all the while
Draco's eyebrows creased in confusion. "What is it?" he asked as soon as the door fell shut, sealing them off in the hallway, from the rest of the class. If only.
"Mal-Draco, are we serious about doing this?" he asked the other boy.
Draco straightened his robes and then folded his arms regally. "Why not? Don't you find me particularly attractive?" he said with a proposing smile.
"Yes, yes, you're pretty but-"
"I'm not pretty!" Draco corrected. Potter was now fully conscious and aware of what he was saying so he couldn't pardon him like he had done last night. "I am handsome and gorgeous. Pretty sounds... girly,"
Harry looked at him with a commiserating expression. "I hate to break it to you Malfoy but you're not the most androgynous of guys here, so 'handsome' wouldn't quite be accurate,"
Draco gaped incredulously after his emasculation. Harry continued, "You're as pale as snow and rather... petite. So you look... delicate-like and-" Draco gave him a vehement glare before turning around abruptly and storming into the class.
How dare he? forty feet scattered and flew off in all directions to their respective tables after the door had swung open.
Whilst in his outrage, Draco couldn't help but remember one of his father's fellow Death Eaters who always leered and drooled at him whenever they were guests at the Manor. Draco, by the time he was eight years old, felt disgusted with this man always kept close to his mother whenever he was around. He certainly wouldn't dare calling him 'pretty boy' in front of his parents, as he was often inclined to when he was watching Draco play with Crabbe and Goyle in the back gardens of Malfoy Manor. He hated his soft features and his shortness, as they were what would elicit comments that held indirect disappointment at Draco's manliness from his father.
Draco reached his table and started working efficiently on the potion. Petite! Delicate! Fuckin' halfblood cunt!
Harry stared wide-eyed at the doors that had just been firmly shut in his face. He got out of his stupor, opened the door and went to Malfoy's table. The rest of the class seemed to be talking animately with each as he wound his way to Draco, oblivious to the secret eyes trained on his progress.
"Malfoy we have to-"
"How dare you say those things to me!" Draco hissed lowly through clenched teeth, barely restraining his anger.
Harry met his glare with his own. "I was only telling you what I see! The truth! Or is that too alien a concept?"
"Don't patronize me, Potter." Draco growled. Harry was visibly thrown back by the resumed use of his surname. He reared back inadvertently and gazed on uncertainly. "You practically said I'm a fucking girl!"
"I did not say that! I just wanted to point out that 'handsome' wasn't a word I would use to de- Okay you're handsome. Are you happy?" Harry said, resigning to him.
Draco wasn't fazed. But he didn't reply to anything. He continued to brew his potion, sprinkling a pint of moondust into the cauldron before stirring it six times.
Harry continued, "You're gorgeous and manly and brute and very masculine okay?"
"Oh just mock me Potter, why don't you," Draco finally replied. Harry sighed exasperatedly and ran a hand through his unkempt hair.
"Er, Harry, I need your help," Neville Longbottom appeared out of nowhere at Harry's side.
Draco snorted derisively at his words as Harry turned to the round-faced boy after glaring indignantly at Draco on Neville's behalf since the boy was scared witless of the unscrupulous Slytherin. And he was tempted to glare at Neville as well for his wonderful timing, but resisted.
"Sure, Neville, what do you want?" Harry asked him, nearly spitting out the 't' there irritably. Neville seemed to be doing something akin to... thinking... because his face was screwed up like he was releasing something wicked through his er... inferior sphincter. Harry started to breathe through his nose though, he wasn't risking incapacitation whilst in Snape's classroom.
Draco looked alarmed. "Longbottom, don't you dare fart around my potion!" He shouted at the other boy. "Potter, go with him, or something!"
"Relax, Draco, he's only thinking," Harry said, his lips quirking up slightly in amusement at Draco's antics, despite himself. Draco's featured assumed a less panicked expression. "Oh. Well, that explains that,"
Neville didn't dare to say anything amidst them to defend himself, he just looked down in embarrassment and clasped his arms. "Let's go somewhere else, Neville." Harry suggested, softly steering the boy away from Malf- Draco's table, of which the other boy directed the path. Harry furrowed his forehead when they reached Hermione's table.
"I saw things were getting heated and sent Neville there to interfere before things got out of hand," Hermione said bashfully. Harry glared and scowled at her for her efforts but lamented that she was probably right; M-Draco was quite livid. Wait, his boyfriend was quite livid. No, Draco, it sounded way too strange. Harry blushed inextricably at the thought.
"Thank you, Neville. You can start slicing the newt tongues okay?" Hermione told Neville. He nodded and went around the bushy-haired girl to do what he was told, hopefully innocuously and without incident. She turned to her friend. "Why are you having a discussion about Malfoy's 'masculinity' over there?"
Harry's cheeks adopted a nice pink tan. "I, er, he- he's just mad 'cos I called him petite and delicate," Harry finally managed to articulate through his intense flush.
Hermione raised one heavy-looking eyebrow. "And you thought it was alright to call another fellow male 'petite and delicate'?" she asked sceptically.
Harry's blush deepened to a less lenient shade of red. "Well, he isn't jagged and hard like most of the guys I know," he chipped out defiantly.
"Yes but, Harry, calling a guy 'petite and delicate' isn't exactly what one would call prudent."
"I got it okay! Just stop saying those words!" he exclaimed, one note short of a screech.
Hermione sniffed unrepentantly whilst stirring her concoction, which turned a metallic midnight blue.
She studied Malfoy from where she was. "Well, I can't say you're completely wrong, though I on the other hand wouldn't point it out to him so explicitly. Just flatter him, he probably has been called that many times and he just became ticked off over the years by it," she said reasonably. Harry couldn't explain why he wanted to tell Hermione off for staring so indulgently at his boyfriend. He reminded himself that Draco wasn't his boyfriend and that anyone had the right to study anything they found interesting freely. But this didn't stop him from glaring though. After a few seconds of ogling, Hermione's eyes met fleetingly with Harry's incessant emeralds. She turned away quickly to resumed her potion-making, clearing her throat and strategically hiding her face with her wild hair.
After such mortification, she sought revenge. "I never took you as the possessive type," she said innocently.
Harry immediately gaped at her and started spluttering. "I am NOT POSSESSIVE! I don't own him or anything! I can't believe you just said something like that!"
"Serves you right," she muttered vindictively under her breathe. She had never been so embarrassed. Harry continued to eye her accusingly.
"Harry, I do hope you take our chat we had outside there seriously. This is Malfoy we are talking about here," she whispered, eyes darting about to spot unwanted ears.
Harry sobered up. "I know. But... I don't know if we are actually..." Harry's eyes glazed over in contemplation. Hermione respectfully left him to it. "...but he just kissed me..." He almost said the word 'again' after 'me'.
Hermione whipped her head to the green-eyed boy. "He what?" Instantly, her girly side overtook her. She squealed. "Aaah, when!" she asked enthusiastically. Harry eyed her warily, to which she cleared her throat. "I caution you again on this dangerous endeavour, Harry." she said formally, primly inclining her head and daintily cutting up the mistletoe leaves.
"Er, okay," Harry replied uncertainly.
"What's happening?" Ron said as he appeared from out of nowhere.
Harry blanched. He hoped fervently that Ron hadn't heard what they had been discussing. "Nothing, nothing," Harry said quickly. "Soooo, how is the Chudley Cannons doing?" he asked, trying to distract Ron from where their conversation was headed. Ron was predictable, Harry knew he had escaped when he saw his friend's eyes widening and then inhaling deeply to begin to divulge all the latest Quidditch news of the past week, Chudley Cannons being the major subject. But before Ron had finished describing the aforementioned team's seeker's journey to catching the snitch for the first time in that season, Snape emerged boisterously from the door of his study. Ron hadn't even had time to look disappointed at not finishing his speech as he sped off to Millicent Buldstrode's table with an unflattering squeal.
