Title: Getting Schooled
Rating: Explicit
Summary: Draco Malfoy is the new Potions Master at Hogwarts, and The Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor is wondering if they can start again. Spoiler alert: they can, they do, and they do each other.
Author's Note: Happy quarantine. Stay inside and read/write Drarry/get vaxxed if you can! Yes I have a book to write, no I can't stop writing Drarry.
Chapter 1: Start Again
"And with that the first Teacher's Meeting of the year is dismissed," declared Headmistress McGonagall. She stood and everyone around the wooden table did as well.
The tension in Draco Malfoy's heart was too much to bear. Potter had been looking at him the whole meeting but said nothing at all. What game was he trying to play? He didn't seem outwardly malicious, but what if he was hiding it until McGonagall wasn't looking?
Draco Malfoy approached Harry Potter from behind as the crowd dispersed, leaving them alone in the Teacher's Lounge. "So," Draco said, trying to sound casual as he cleared his throat. "You were awfully quiet, Professor Potter."
"I didn't have much to say," Harry admitted with a little grin, slowly turning to face Draco. His robes moved with him, his best pair of them, though Malfoy didn't need to know that. "I'm glad you've brought your talents to Hogwarts."
Draco raised a brow, the tension only mounting. What was he playing at? "And here I was ready to defend myself and my qualifications."
"I'm sure you were," Harry laughed, not combatively like he used to, that fake little laugh he'd give when telling Malfoy off, but a real one. "Welcome back to Hogwarts, Professor Malfoy." It was going to take some getting used to, that name.
"What, you're not upset? Here I am on your turf, after all," Draco questioned, not wanting to let his guard down just because Potter was pretty and laughing.
"My 'turf'? Hogwarts is my home, Draco, but I don't think of it in any possessive way. It's home to a lot of people, and now you too. It's not like you're coming for my job—nobody wants my job. I've been here two years, proven the 'curse' of the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher wrong, but still nobody ever applies to this post every year but me." Harry offered a small smile. "It was a competition for your position, though, I heard from McGonagall. I've heard only good things."
"Then you must not read The Prophet," Draco snarked.
"I don't," Harry said seriously. "More of a Quibbler man myself."
Draco blinked. Was that the Lovegoods' make-believe creature catalog? "There was protest to me being here," Draco admitted for it was likely common knowledge. "But not from you?"
"But not from me," Harry confirmed. He ran a hand through his dark, messy waves of hair just like Draco remembered them.
The years had treated Potter well, though. He was more present, more filled-in. He was still Saint Bloody Potter, but now he wasn't looking down at Draco with disgust but rather up at him with placid green eyes. Had Potter always been this short?
"I think it's a good thing you're here, Professor Malfoy. We have a duty to these kids, a responsibility to model behavior for them," Harry explained. "There are inter-house tensions that need to be relieved."
"So I've been informed," Draco said with a grimace. Was that why McGonagall had chosen him? Was he the only Slytherin applicant? The politics of this school were laid bare to Draco in a previous meeting with the Headmistress and how all houses were at each other's throats as of late over old war battle lines. She had spoken very little of Professor Potter other than that he was popular with the students.
"I want to help the Slytherins," Harry went on, beginning to get fired up like he always did for the kids under his care. "I was almost sorted into Slytherin, did I ever tell you that? I begged the hat not to."
Just being in this old building had brought back so many memories as Draco moved into his tiny Professor's Quarters in the dungeon. "Things would have been very different if that had happened," Draco said, the memory of that day fresh to him now. It was hard not to sound bitter when he knew Potter had only avoided Slytherin because of him and his bratty behavior.
Draco had been working hard to absolve his past, and what better place to do it than the place where it happened?
"Maybe," Harry said in a way that really meant 'doubtfully'. "But I think I'd be friends with Ron and Hermione no matter what house we were all put in. Maybe we could have been friends, though, instead of rivals. Would you still… want that?" Harry swallowed back his nerves. "You apologized to me a long time ago at the Post-War Trials, and I forgave you then, especially after all your mother did for me. I forgive you still, and I think, for the sake of the students—"
"So now you want to be my friend because it makes you look Saintly for talking to a Slytherin?" Draco teased to see if that was still allowed in this tentative agreement.
Harry rolled his eyes. "Trust me, I'm no saint. This job would be way easier if I was one, though. Professors have to stick together, right?"
"From what I recall of our childhood most of the professors actually did despise one another," Draco reminded him, still tucking away a grin. "But I see your point. Yes, Potter, I'll very well be your friend." It was getting hard to hide how amused he was with all of this happening so quickly.
"Shake on it?" Harry offered, hand outstretched.
Draco's sense of déjà vu was mounting. "Shake on it."
And so Harry took Draco's hand for the first time in amity and what he hoped was a mutual respect for the all-important job they had being role models for the students.
Draco pulled his hands away when he was done, tucking it under his other arm without thinking about it. "Then that's that. I must retire to bed."
"I'll see you at breakfast, then," Harry nodded, eyes flickering like he held something secret. "Goodnight, Professor Malfoy."
"Goodnight, Professor Potter."
Draco returned to his new Quarters body still thrumming with bubbling energy. He'd been near-shaking the entire way down to the dungeons. Had that really just happened? Had the hatchet truly been buried so easily? Draco's suspicious and untrusting nature told him Potter was still playing a game but he'd seemed so genuine.
Draco took a right at one of the forks in the dungeon instinctively ready to go back to the Slytherin commonroom, having to stop himself and turn around in the direction of his teacher's quarters. The Potionsmaster of Hogwarts was always housed directly next to the Potions classroom, in a quaint room with a window looking out into the Great Lake.
He pressed the tip of his wand to the lock and murmured an incantation only he knew, unlocking the door to reveal his trunks of baggage piled high on the bare king-sized bed. There was a closet and a set of drawers along with a charmed trunk at the foot of the bed prepared to hold all of these things he'd brought, he need only unpack.
Figuring there wasn't anything else left to do, Draco waved his wand and the luggage rose off of the bed and onto the cold dungeon floor. Draco liked it down here, he always had, preferring to run cold than hot.
The first two bags were robes and clothing for the closet and drawers, a lot of it indistinguishable at first because they were mostly black. There had been many Potionsmasters since Severus Snape but Draco would never forget his godfather's tenure here at Hogwarts as the definitive Potionsmaster for years.
There were things about Severus that Draco did not want to emulate, though, for the similarities between them began and ended with their sense of style. Snape had been, to put it kindly, universally hated by the students. He was too hard on them, and too mean, and for this they feared him but would never love him.
Draco was aiming for a balance between respect and love, wanting the children to like him but not to walk all over him. His experiences were in brewing potions, not rearing young ones, so he was admittedly nervous for September 1st of 2008, his first year as a teacher coming fast in the next few days.
He knew what he shouldn't do thanks to Severus' behavior over the years but as for what he should do…
What made Potter so popular? Draco wondered if he might sit in on one of his classes sometime to see the man in action. Maybe it was one of those situations where the students were attracted to him because he was young. They were both twenty-eight now, but for a wizarding school that had seen Headmasters turn 300 that was very young for a professor.
Potter was fit enough to draw crushes, that much was true. Draco sincerely hoped none of the students got a crush on him, because there'd be no way he could handle that gently. Best to nip it in the bud, make sure the kids knew that they were kids and he was the adult here.
Draco wasn't blind to the history of oppression gay teachers had been through, wrongfully accused of 'corrupting' children or trying to 'convert' them. All nonsense. He would have none of them know about his personal life just to steer clear of that possibility.
Albus Dumbledore was gay and Draco remembered the snide remarks his father used to make about his leadership. Some other insufferable parent could make the same complaint of him, in addition to his sordid past. Draco wouldn't allow it.
He waved his wand and the last of his underwear sorted itself in the drawers. All of it designer. He was a man of expensive taste after his rich upbringing after all.
For all the mistakes his parents had made, and there were very, very many, passing on their sense of flair was an inarguable positive.
It was more often than not the negative that Draco dwelled on in his inheritances—membership to the world's worst Death Cult, purist ideals, a generally repressive atmosphere—he did know one thing: His parents loved him, and had made all their mistakes for the sake of protecting him and his future. Draco would write to them soon, let them know he was settled in the castle.
Draco was just about done sorting his shoes when he came upon the trunk containing his quill, parchment, and inkwell. He set them out on the desk that was provided for him along with some various knick-knacks and a copy of his own personal potions book.
Toiletries went in the small attached bathroom and shower, small but better than showering somewhere a student could run into him. If he wanted baths they'd have to be after-hours when the students were supposed to be asleep, but he also knew the mischief Hogwarts students got up to at night having been one himself.
He sincerely hoped hijinks this year were limited to inter-house pranks and raging hormones.
Last in the unpacking came his custom emerald sheets, ones he'd insisted on bringing with the matching pillow and curtain set. He wasn't sleeping on ratty old Hogwarts linens.
That was about everything Draco wanted or needed to bring to Hogwarts, since meals and the bounty of the castle's resources were provided. He was especially looking forward to diving back into the library, the Restricted Section now open to him as a Professor.
He changed into his pyjamas and night robes, more black on black, and put a shrinking charm on the luggage so it fit neatly in the corner of his trunk. Draco looked around the room, looked at the green light coming in from the lake, and felt content with himself for the first time in a long time.
Draco was finally getting to do some good in the world, shape some young minds and make sure they didn't make his mistakes by falling in with the dark side of magic.
He climbed into bed actually looking forward to the coming days of his life, something he hadn't always been able to do. Wrapped up in his expensive sheets Draco slept better than he had in years.