The Cracked Cauldron
(Or: Neville, You Just Burned My Bollocks Off)
Warnings: Gender Swapping, Vulgar Language, Dysphoria, Potential Smut, Gore
Author's Note: So I read a fic seven years ago with this premise. It was abandoned. So I took the idea and went with it to (hopefully) see it through to completion, adding my own spin to it of course. I don't recall the original title or author, and if this rings a bell for anyone please let me know.
I do not own Harry Potter or other trademarked names or locations. They are property of Bloomsbury Books, Warner Bros., etc. Please support the original content.
Summary: Neville's lack of skill in potions causes Harry's world to turn upside down. Eighth year. Drarry.
Draco awoke the next day on the same leather loveseat he had lounged on the previous night. His mouth was dry and his head ached fiercely. He blearily raised his head and looked around at the messy common room, where several others had decided to fall asleep on the floor, curled up on pillows and blankets transfigured from various other things. Draco shut his eyes again in an attempt to sleep more in order to quell the hangover storming inside of his head. Just as he began to feel himself drifting off, he felt a small, cool object placed on his chest. He opened his eyes once more to see Harry, makeup smudged and in an overlarge orange sweater that came to his knees. Harry smiled sheepishly and gestured to the object he placed on Draco's chest; it was a vial of light green potion, cold to the touch.
"Hangover potion," Harry explained, his voice raspy. "I figured you'd probably feel about as good as I felt when I woke up, so I made sure to grab you some as well."
Draco eagerly downed the contents of the vial without a word. It tasted like mint, and immediately the headache and nausea disappeared. "Thank you," he breathed, "Where on earth did you get it?"
"Hermione brewed it yesterday. She's useless with a hangover, and she didn't want to have to suffer." Harry replied. "Budge over, I'm exhausted."
Draco sat up and Harry took the newly vacant seat beside him, leaning back and shutting his eyes. "Last night was interesting, wasn't it?" he asked, stretching his arms above his head.
Draco nodded. "It was a great dance. Certainly better than I was expecting."
Harry cracked open one eye and smiled. "I was talking about the party, particularly later on."
Draco immediately recalled his loud drunken lamenting over Harry, while Harry was well within earshot, and it took everything he had not to immediately turn red. "Truth be told, I don't remember much after Slughorn left," he lied, looking at his companion. "Please tell me I did not make a fool of myself."
Harry looked at him for a long moment and chuckled. "Draco, did you know that when you lie, your nostrils flare?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"I noticed it a few years ago. Whenever you lie, your nostrils flare. And now you're turning red."
Draco did indeed feel his face heating up. He looked down at his knees, still clad in his merman costume pants. He felt Harry nudge his arm but he refused to look back up.
"Aw, Draco, don't be embarrassed. So you're an emotional drunk. Big deal! I know most of what you said was definitely the liquor talking, anyway."
"Not all of it; you do, in fact drive me crazy." Draco muttered, glancing back at Harry. The Gryffindor was smiling at him, clearly trying to ease his embarrassment.
"Only because you've been crazy from the start. It's all right though. You drive me crazy too." Harry paused for a moment and Draco saw something he didn't understand flash through Harry's eyes before he quickly changed the subject. "Are you hungry? I'm famished. We should eat something."
"Only five minutes ago, you were exhausted." Draco snorted.
"Well… now I'm hungry. It's nearly noon anyway, we should go eat." Harry stood and looked down at Draco, offering a hand to help the other boy up. Draco was sorely tempted to go with him, but he was suddenly overcome with the need to be alone, to think clearly. Harry, when he was near, seemed to permeate the Slytherin's consciousness, and Draco felt like he was simultaneously flying and drowning whenever he heard the other boy's voice. He needed a moment alone. He also didn't want Harry to grow bored of him, so he stretched back out onto the loveseat.
"I'll eat later," he replied. "I didn't sleep very well last night and I think I need to rest a bit more before dealing with the unwashed masses, if you don't mind."
Something akin to rejection crossed Harry's features, but the brunet continued smiling. "All right then. I'll see you around, I guess."
"Yeah, see you."
Once Harry had left the common room, Draco immediately sat upright and raced to Pansy's dormitory (having learned ages ago to shimmy up the banister once the stairs tried to send him down). Soon, he reached the eighth year girls' housing. It was a modest room with only two beds as, out of all of the girls in Slytherin, only Pansy and Daphne Greengrass had returned to finish their schooling after seventh year. Both girls were sleeping soundly, but that didn't stop Draco from sitting down heavily on Pansy's bed with a pathetic whimper.
"Pansy, I need to talk to you immediately." Draco whined, shaking her. Across the room, Daphne stirred and let out a groan.
"Parkinson, get your overdramatic poofter out of here, I'm trying to sleep." She grumbled, pulling her bedcovers tighter around herself and rolling to face away from her roommate.
Pansy let out a groggy snuffle and looked up at Draco, irritation written clearly on her face. "Can't your panic episodes happen sometime after noon?" she asked, rubbing sleep out of her eyes.
"It is five past noon right now, darling," He informed her smugly, pointing to her clock. "That means I can panic as much as I like, because this is when sane people are awake to help me. Since I don't know anyone that is sane, I have deigned to come to you. Now help me."
Pansy stared at her clock murderously for a moment before sitting up with a sigh. "Very well, let me throw on something decent and we can talk over coffee."
"No!" Draco nearly shouted. Across the room, Daphne growled and threw a stuffed animal on his direction. "I've told Harry I wouldn't go to breakfast with him because I was sleeping in, so we can't go to the Great Hall."
"You expect me to deal with your issues half asleep and decaffeinated?" she asked incredulously. "Furthermore, you turned down accompanying Potter to a meal together? What's the matter with you?"
"I needed to talk to you! In private!" Draco whined, squirming so the bed would shake.
"For the love of Merlin, Pansy, go talk to him in private." Daphne snapped, not turning to face them.
"Fine. Let's go," Pansy sighed, throwing off the covers and summoning a fluffy lilac robe. "If you ever accuse me of being anything less than a perfect best friend, I will stab your eyes out."
A short while later, after Draco had managed to cajole a second year into getting Pansy a cup of coffee from the Great Hall (which Pansy managed to drink in seconds flat), the two sat in an alcove about twenty paces away from the entrance to the Slytherin common room. There Draco described how disoriented he felt around Harry, the lightheadedness he experienced when Harry looked at him, and he tried his best to accurately depict the sensation that swept through him at the sound of Harry's voice. Pansy listened without comment until he finished.
"So what do you think it is? Why can't I think around him?"
"Draco Malfoy. You woke me up during the worst hangover I've ever had just to tell me you're in love?" Pansy asked, fighting back a smile.
"Surely love must be pleasant, though! Whatever this is, it's disorienting and confusing and slightly painful." Draco replied. "I can't be in love with Harry. I barely know him yet!"
"Love is highly unpleasant, and that is why I've sworn it off. Think about it. Darling, you've been obsessed with him for seven years. You had all these pre-conceived fantasies about him and then when you finally spend quality time with him, it turns out he's just as amazing as you imagined. It's no wonder you fell hard."
"He's even better than I imagined." Draco grumbled, bringing his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them.
"You see? You're in love, you dunderhead."
"Oh Merlin," Draco moaned, hiding his face behind his knees. "What do I do?"
"The way I see it, you have two options. You can either back out of whatever you've started with Potter right now and get over it – which I frankly do not see happening – or you can try to get the idiotic bastard to love you back." Pansy said, patting a consoling hand on his shoulder. "There, there, darling; we'll get through this."
"What if he never loves me back?" Draco asked, his face white.
"If he never loves you back, I'll hex his kneecaps backwards and then you and I can get married and sleep with plenty of men on the side. I'll even give you an heir."
Draco snorted despite himself. "There's no way you'd ever willingly get pregnant." He said, rolling his eyes at her.
Pansy smiled at him evenly. "Just like there's no way Potter won't love you back." With that, she stood and walked back to the common room, leaving Draco in the alcove, his thoughts running wild. He remained there a while longer, mulling over everything in his mind when, to his great surprise, he saw Harry Potter making his way back down the stairs to the dungeons. His face was a mask of thinly veiled excitement, and he had food wrapped in a napkin in his hand.
As he approached the common room, he spotted Draco and scurried over, excitement gone and now appearing confused.
"Hey, I thought you were having a lie-in?" Harry asked, looking down at the blond.
"The younger students were filling the common room with too much noise so I came out here." He lied easily.
"As opposed to going up to your room? Also, your nostrils are flaring."
"Bollocks. Well… I had to talk to Pansy alone, if you must know."
"Oh. Do you mind if I sit with you?"
"It's a public corridor." Harry appeared hurt at the sarcastic tone of Draco's voice, so he quickly amended. "I'm kidding. Feel free to join me."
Harry smiled once more and Draco's heart did a somersault.
"I brought you some food. I figured you were going to be hungry when you woke up again." Harry handed him the napkin-wrapped confection. "It's just a scone. It was all I could manage to sneak away without Ron and Hermione noticing. They think I've gone mad enough as it is."
Draco thanked him but didn't comment further, though he was burning to know what it was that made Granger and Weasley think Harry had gone insane. He chewed thoughtfully on the pastry and wondered if Harry had talked about him at all during the meal, and if so, what he had said. After he swallowed, he turned to look at the Gryffindor. "Don't you want to know what I talked to Pansy about? Why I lied to you?"
Harry looked at him strangely before replying. "Well, I suppose so, but she's your best friend isn't she? It was clearly something that you needed a best friend for, and I'm not your best friend. So it's not really any of my business."
"Since when has my business not been your business? Did you get sick of me in sixth year?" Draco asked, smiling to show he was joking.
"I reckon you're not going to cause too much trouble." Harry replied with a smirk. "And if you do, I'll just start ignoring you. That seems to make you pretty miserable."
"Oh shove off, Potter."
