Chapter 23

Breaking the Ice

Harry stabbed absentmindedly at his omelet; he'd been trying to ignore his best friends' anger all morning, but it was to no avail. He felt he could not share the entire truth about his most recent expeditions with them. Not just yet. Ron knew he had been away all night, and he hadn't hesitated to share this information with Hermione. After all, they might have been angry with each other, but it was even better if they could be both angry with Harry.

"Harry, I never thought we would come to a point when you didn't trust us anymore," Hermione said, letting her spoon fall on the table.

The noise startled Ginny who was keeping a low profile that morning and had not asked Harry any questions at all.

"Yeah, mate, you know you can tell us anything. Have we ever betrayed you?" Ron added.

"Honestly, Harry, why are you doing this? You know you can count on us with anything!" Hermione said, lowering her voice.

Harry sighed and took off his glasses. He rubbed his forehead tiredly. He thought that the least Dumbledore could have done for Harry saving his life was to let him skip morning classes. But the headmaster believed they needed to act normally so as not to raise suspicions. He was tired beyond endurance, beyond what he could possibly describe in words. Interrogation was the last thing he needed right now — right behind double DADA with Snape. Maybe the greasy bastard would be tired as well and leave him alone. Keep dreaming, Harry scolded himself. Better look at the bright side: at least it's not double Potions.

He threw a glance over his shoulder. Malfoy and Karkaroff were not at the Slytherin table. At least Malfoy had an excuse — he was ill — but Karkaroff was blatantly ignoring Dumbledore's orders. So much for keeping up appearances.

He turned back to Hermione. They were asking the impossible. He was not able to answer their questions and satisfy their curiosity and still be able to keep other people's secrets. He shrugged.

"I'm sorry," he said. "But I cannot tell you where I was last night. I am safe now, and everything is OK. I promise to let you know if I have to go again. I'm sorry, but I really cannot say anything — at least for now. The less you guys know, the better it will be for you."

"Don't be dramatic, Harry," Ginny suddenly said, fluttering her lashes at him. "So, did you finally hook up with Karkaroff? Yes or no, spare us the details please…"

Neither Harry nor Ron and Hermione enjoyed the joke.

"As if," Hermione muttered under her breath.

Harry stood, hesitantly taking two apples from the table and stuffing them in his bag. Ron gawked at him.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing. I'm going to class. See you guys in a moment."

With that he left the table. He still had about three quarters of an hour to class.

Somehow he thought it made sense to go and check on Malfoy. He had been of great help the previous night, and Harry felt grateful and a bit of admiration for his courage, as well. Who knew that his childhood rival — a complete jerk — would change in an entirely unforeseeable manner? With a bit of malice, Harry asked himself how long it would take Malfoy to turn back into a jerk now that he knew his family was no longer in danger and his dear Liliana was safe?

Harry crossed the yard to the hospital wing whistling an unknown song. He did not manage to avoid Pomfrey as planned, because she was right in the lobby, giving him a nasty look.

"Where do you think you're going?" she asked when Harry tried to push the doors to the room where he had left Malfoy several hours ago.

"I came to see Malfoy," he replied carefully. "Is he OK?"

"He's a brat, that's what he is," Pomfrey commented. "He's not ready to go yet, but he is better." With that, she pushed past Harry, carrying a basket with supplies on her arm. She went into her office, and Harry opened the doors, which revealed the long row of beds and only one patient: Malfoy was lying on his back on several pillows, playing with a golden Snitch. Harry watched him for a few moments and concluded that Malfoy was definitely skilled. The Snitch never managed to get away: As soon as Malfoy released it, the tiny thing would try to fly away, but Draco was simply too fast for it.

"Go away, woman. I told you a million times I don't need anything," Malfoy suddenly said.

Harry did not answer. He walked in his direction, and Malfoy continued to play with the Snitch, ignoring him, until Harry stopped near his bed. Draco finally raised his gaze and a fleeting expression graced his features for a second. But before Harry could interpret it, it vanished.

"What are you doing here, Potter?" the Slytherin asked casually.

Harry tried a smile. "I thought I'd drop by to see how you are," he said.

Draco rolled his eyes.

"What did I tell you before going there, Potter?"

Harry did not answer, but he could see what was coming.

"You promised this would not change the status quo between us. Why are you doing this?"

Harry still did not answer. He searched in his bag and retrieved the apples, throwing Draco one.

"Why doesn't she let you go now?" he asked, taking a bite of his apple.

"She said she wants to keep me here for observation. I am going out of my mind alone in here, Potter," Malfoy admitted, pouting a little.

Harry almost laughed. Malfoy surely had an authority problem. His parents had probably always satisfied all his whims. He was such a child at times!

After a few silent moments, Malfoy moved his legs aside, and Harry sat on the edge of the bed.

"What did Snape want last night?" the Slytherin asked, more appeased, taking a bite of his apple.

"Well, Dumbledore got himself into trouble," Harry said, and recounted to Draco the rest of his nightly exploit.

Draco chewed on his apple without showing any sign of surprise.

Liliana was pretty sure that the old man was up to something, he thought, giving Potter a guarded look. She was right after all. You can't trust him. Of course, the Gryffindor didn't need to know that. Potter was utterly naïve, and damn it, Draco Malfoy was the last person on earth who would want to waste his time to make him see the truth.

"So, you got your hands on one of Tom's Horcruxes," he commented, when Harry finally stopped talking and looked expectantly at Draco, waiting for some kind of reaction to his story. "Have you seen Liliana since she destroyed the Horcurx?"

"So, you knew they were dangerous for her," Harry said.

"Yes, she mentioned it when she first destroyed one. She wasn't giving it too much thought, but the repercussions were there," Draco admitted. "So what is Dumbledore's plan now?"

Potter finished his apple, lost in thought.

"Dunno," he replied. "He said he was too tired to tell us anything last night. Said he needed rest. I guess he will call all of us today and share his thoughts. He said we will work as a team from now on."

Draco did not look convinced. I'd like to see that happening, he thought instinctively. He did not trust Dumbledore anymore than Liliana did.

"I need to get out of here, Potter. This is driving me mad," he told Harry, flexing his injured arm. "She has no reason to keep me here anymore, but I have a feeling she enjoys annoying me."

"Maybe Pomfrey enjoys your company Malfoy," Harry said, smiling evilly.

"Don't even get me started, Potter," Malfoy replied. "Just because they are older doesn't mean that they are decent. You'd be surprised," he added with a knowing smile.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked intrigued.

"Wouldn't you like to know, Potter! I know this is a strange concept for someone as ugly as you, but some men have a certain effect on most women."

Harry rolled his eyes and stood.

"Guess what, I don't want to know. Actually, I don't give a shit. I should go to class before Snape strangles me."

"Why can't we switch places?" Draco said to no one in particular, falling back on his pillows in exaggerated dismay.

Harry stopped in his tracks, throwing a look around. He understood Malfoy's situation because he had been stuck in the hospital wing so many times that he'd had lost count. Sighing, he extracted the invisibility cloak from his pocket and threw it to Malfoy.

"Come on, let's get out of here!"

Malfoy seized the cloak and jumped off the bed, folding it around himself.

"Yeah, let's go!" he said, following Harry out of the room. They did not meet anyone on the way out.

"I'll just get the books. We still have five minutes," Draco said to Harry, when they finally made it to the entrance hall. He took off the cloak and gave it back to Harry.

"Malfoy, I am going to class. I am not planning to wait for you," Harry said.

"You'll be late anyway. You can't make it there in five minutes."

"Yes I can!"

"Are you going to fly or what?" the Slytherin mocked, starting for the dungeons. "Come on Potter, you can't be that afraid of Severus, can you?"

Harry looked after Malfoy and then to his watch. He was going to be late.

"What is it with you Slytherins and breaking the rules?" he muttered under his breath.

He waited for a few minutes, ignoring the scared looks of some first years who were escorted to class by their prefect. Draco appeared very soon after, his book bag on his shoulder.

"I can't wait to see Severus' face when he sees me," he said, smirking.

"So it was all about pissing Snape off because he sided with Pomfrey last night. You are so predictable, Malfoy. And so is Snape: He will give us both detention."

"No he won't, Potter. You'll see."

Smiling contently, Draco made his way to DADA class without noticing that Harry was also smiling. The Gryffindor had his motives: He knew that his new association with Draco would make certain people angry.

Liliana covered her head with the pillow, trying in vain to ignore the unbelievable amount of noise teenage wizards could make on their way out for breakfast that morning. She was far too tired to even try a silencing spell, especially without a wand. Resigned, she checked her watch and groaned. She was in no mood for breakfast or class after sleeping for only two hours in the last seventy-two. She decided to ignore Dumbledore and Snape's directives until she felt capable of rising from this suddenly unbelievably comfortable bed. She fell back into unconsciousness a moment later.

When she woke up, Slytherin house was quiet. She rubbed her eyes and sat on the bedside and held in her head in her hands for a few moments. She felt dizzy and sick and remembered Snape's potion; she should have listened to him and not drank all of it. She looked at her watch again. It was almost ten, and Snape was probably through the first hour of his DADA class.

She got out of bed, pulled the curtains, and shuddered, remembering that Hogwarts was no longer a safe place for her. She had no idea why she had returned here in the first place. What was she going to do now — play student until Riddle decided to give it another try at ending her life?

As volatile as he was, it would not take an impressive amount of time before that would happen. And Liliana knew she had done her best to challenge him.

She wondered vaguely if Dumbledore and Snape would be able to come up with a viable plan. Most unlikely. They hadn't dreamed of such a situation even in their most frightening nightmares. One thing was sure: They had been through so many dreadful situations and lost so many friends and allies that they just could not treat her case as special in any way. The only special thing about her was her origin.

She found her robes on the floor where she had discarded them the evening Tom Riddle had showed up at Hogwarts and inflicted a Cruciatus on her in this very room. The sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach intensified when she threw the robes on the bed and Tom's diary fell on the floor. Had Nagini suddenly Apparated in the room she would not have had such a disproportionate reaction. She literally jumped back, out of breath, her heart pounding. After a few moments of staring at the diary as if at an unseen enemy, she walked carefully around the bed, purposefully ignoring the black notebook on the floor, to the armoire and grabbed a towel and retrieved her new wand.

A moment later she left the room for the showers. If she was now awake, the least she could do was to go to class.

Harry was surprised to see how right he had been about people's reactions to his and Malfoy's appearance to class that morning. He fully savored the Slytherins' reactions — they seemed petrified, except for Crabbe and Goyle who wore their usual dim-witted expressions and did not seem to realize that something was not right.

Harry and Draco pushed through the doorframe at the same time, unwillingly bursting into laughter as they realized what they've done. But their laughter died quickly as they managed to get into the classroom and noticed Snape's glare.

"I understand that you find it amusing when you're late to my class Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Potter. I am afraid I do not share your point of view. Ten points from your respective houses. "

Malfoy shrugged as if this was none of his business and sat in the front row at the only unoccupied desk. Harry threw a glance to the free spot near Hermione, but his moment of hesitation was short. He sat near Malfoy, trying hard to suppress his smile, and grabbed his DADA book from his bag. Snape gave them another threatening look before continuing his explanations.

They sat in silence for the rest of the hour. But during that time, they were aware that their classmate's eyes were fixed on them, as if they were expecting something extraordinary to happen at any moment.

At the end of the first hour, Snape suddenly decided that he had had enough of talking and paired his students for practice. Surprisingly enough, he completely ignored Harry and Draco. So Harry took out his wand and got Draco — who was reading his book unconcerned — to pay attention to him.

"Apparently, she decided not to come to class today," Harry said. "So let's just practice together."

Malfoy raised his eyes from the book and gave Harry a bored look.

"No shit, Potter. I had not noticed that Karkaroff was not here. Any other news you'd like to share with me?"

"Shut up, Malfoy!" Harry snapped, stung.

"What's with you and Karkaroff anyway?" Malfoy continued annoyed. "This little game of yours is getting old. I thought you sorted out your differences last evening. Your little heroic intervention should have helped."

Harry genuinely blushed. Apparently he could not fool Malfoy. "She's not who I thought she was," he whispered.

"Of course she's not," Draco replied, a tad of amusement in his voice. "You think she's just playing hard to get, but you're wrong."

"I do not…That's not what I meant." Harry protested, turning a deeper shade of red. Two girls preparing for practice giggled, looking at them.

"Whatever," Malfoy said. "But just bear in mind that she's the worst kind of Pureblood."

"What do you mean?"

"It means that she's extremely prejudiced, and she will never change. Remember that! Now, let's practice, or he'll have a reason to kill us."

Harry nodded, and they moved toward an unoccupied corner of the room, waiting for Snape to give orders to them.

"Use every spell you know to disarm and immobilize your adversary. The winner of each pair will get twenty points."

"That should raise the odds for you, Malfoy. I think that you and Karkaroff have lost a lot of points for your house lately."

"Don't be ridiculous, Potter. It's not as if you actually stand a chance against me."

"You might be better at potions Malfoy, but you haven't stood a chance against Harry in DADA since second grade," Hermione said. She was standing near them, and she did not have an adversary.

"You'll pair up with me, Miss Granger. And you'd better focus on something else than Mr. Potter's talents while we practice."

"Yes, Sir," Hermione replied, turning to Snape and coloring a little in embarrassment.

"We shall see about that," Malfoy muttered, drawing his wand.

"Don't tell me you've been holding back all these years, Malfoy!" Harry mocked.

"Let's just say that I've acquired some new skills lately," the other boy answered and bowed to his adversary. Snape glared at him while sending a body-binding curse at Hermione. She jumped aside and sent a leg-locker jinx at Snape. "Come on, Miss Granger, I know you can do better than this," Snape said, wordlessly waving away her spell.

Harry bowed to Malfoy and in memory of his last fight against Malfoy he sent an immediate Petrificus totalus at the other boy, who deflected it quite easily by conjuring an invisible protective shield. A moment later Draco fired a Reductor curse that missed Harry's head by an inch and pierced a hole through the classroom's wall.

"I see you're not kidding around Malfoy!" Harry yelled, ducking to avoid another curse and taking cover behind a locker.

"Like I said…" Malfoy replied, but there was no amusement in his voice.

"And I said immobilize, not send the adversary in a pile of ashes to the hospital wing," Snape roared, but Potter and Malfoy were too far gone to listen now.

Enraged, Harry threw an Incarcerous spell at Malfoy, who took refuge behind a desk. They continued to throw curses at each other without success for a while without noticing that the other students had stopped practicing and formed a circle around their battleground, watching them. Snape had joined them and was watching, concerned they might do something stupid.

"You're delusional if you think you can beat me, Potter!" Malfoy yelled from behind his desk.

"This is getting a bit old, don't you think, Malfoy?" Harry replied, sending a Reductor spell that destroyed the desk. Malfoy winced, but recovered quickly, destroying Potter's cover in turn.

"Levicorpus!" he yelled, but Harry had just sent a Patronus charm his way, trying to immobilize the other boy.

Suddenly, Harry was hanging upside down in the air and Malfoy was fighting to get out of the encirclement of the Patronus.

There was general buzz in the classroom for a few minutes, but it started to change at some point into a freezing silence. Over the light shed by Harry's Patronus, Malfoy saw his classmates giving way to Karkaroff who was approaching them, wand in hand. The students halted their chatting and were giving her curious looks, as everyone had noted she had been missing classes for several days, not to mention the Slytherins who had last seen her being dragged out of their quarters by Voldemort himself. They had thought she had been killed, so this apparition was by far weirder than Potter and Malfoy's earlier on.

However, nothing equaled Potter and Malfoy's reactions; they both looked as if they wanted to be anywhere else but there. Potter ended his own spell and whispered Finite incantatem to get out of his embarrassing situation. He landed with a painful thud on the floor and got up quickly up to face her. Malfoy straightened and took a dignified stance.

Karkaroff simply stood motionless, staring at them for a few moments. Her chiseled features seemed carved into stone, pale as she was, and her dark green eyes seemed even deeper than usual due to the lack of sleep. She was wearing the uniform and boots, but her clothes looked untidy. Her face remained expressionless the whole time.

"I am sorry for being late, Professor," she lied effortlessly, "but Madam Pomfrey just let me go now. I told her I was supposed to be here at nine, but she insisted that I have some breakfast first."

She said this without glancing away from Harry and Draco.

"I see," Snape said, smirking. "Since you are here now, you'll pair up with Longbottom and practice. Longbottom will explain the rules. Potter and Malfoy, my office. Now!"

The two students followed him into his private office.

"You'll both serve detention this evening for destroying my classroom. You'll put everything in order here! Understood? Then, you will join us for a short meeting in the headmaster's office."

"Professor, when you say us…" Harry said.

"I mean Dumbledore and myself," Snape replied, signaling them to get out.

"One more thing if I may, Professor," Draco said "who won the practice duel?"

"Isn't it obvious that it was a draw, Mr Malfoy? Now get out, I have work to do."

"A draw…sure," Malfoy muttered under his breath as they exited Snape's office.

"Are you contesting our teacher's judgment, Malfoy? You, the teacher's pet, of all people? Please!"

"Fuck off, Potter!" Malfoy retorted, jabbing Potter in the ribs.

Harry pushed him aside and grinned. "Just like old times, eh?"

"Sort of."

A moment later class ended. They started for the door, when suddenly Harry felt a firm grip on his arm. Malfoy had already left the room. He whirled around, expecting to see Ron; instead he found himself looking at Karkaroff.

"What do you think you're doing, Potter?" she asked, without hiding her anger.

He raised an eyebrow at her, feigning innocence.

She frowned and let go of his arm.

"Stop this game immediately, and leave Draco alone."

Harry gave her an arrogant smile.

"It's called breaking the ice, Karkaroff. Watch and learn."

With that, he turned around and left.

A/N: many thanks to Lisa for betaing. Hope you liked the Malfoy Potter interaction. Don't forget to review!

Chantal