Chapter 8

Shades and Shaves

At some point in the last few weeks, attending classes at Hogwarts again had stopped feeling like a weird daydream and started to become a stark, homework-filled reality. Even Professor Sprout wasn't letting up.

Harry spent most of his days failing to write notes fast enough in class, and failing to read the notes he'd written afterwards due to their illegibility. When his fingertips weren't stained blue from the ink, they were filthy from repotting dozens of baby Spitting Sansevieria - otherwise known as a snake plant, which sadly didn't mean they listened to anything he had to say, in Parseltongue or English. But they couldn't half spit.

He was really starting to enjoy his Healing classes, though. No-one else had ended up signing on for them, so it was just him and Padma Patil. She was quiet, still, which (unlike when she'd been Ron's date for the Yule ball) suited him fine since that early in the morning he wasn't exactly up for much conversation. Pomfrey often set them tasks they could do together, like mixing salves and practicing diagnostic spells on one another. Turned out she was mildly iron deficient. He had slightly elevated blood-pressure. Go figure.

On the Saturday after the first two days of class, Ron had arrived in a dreadful mood following his first Animagus class. This was for two reasons. The first - Draco Malfoy was also trying for his Animagus, so that was the whole thing ruined. The second - the first step in the process was to put a mandrake leaf in your mouth for a whole month, from full moon to full moon, and recite an incantation every day. The incantation bit was fine, but...

He'd held the leaf like it was something he had just scraped off the the bottom of his shoe. Supposedly, it was tough enough to withstand the month-long endeavour. It was a bulbous, dark green pustule, about an inch long.

"A whole, entire month, Harry. What am I meant to do when I'm eating? And sleeping? And brushing my teeth? It's impossible!"

Harry did think it sounded like one of those things that seems simple, right up until you try to do it and then it actually turned out to be both difficult and complicated.

He had chanced on a decent reply, though:

"Sirius managed it. So I 'spect you can, too. Besides, what if Malfoy gets his Animagus before you do?"

That'd settled the matter: there was no way that was allowed to happen. So Ron's days weren't so much homework-filled (well, they were but he was ignoring most of it) as filled with a daily, personal battle with... a leaf. This was exacerbated, as ever, by Malfoy, who seemed unperturbed by the whole thing, even though he, too, must have been equally plagued. It helped that he barely spoke a word in anyone's hearing, outside of the cluster of ex-Slytherins who were keeping very much to themselves. Ron, on the other hand, had developed something of a lisp as he worked around the lump in his cheek, which Harry had told him was 'endearing' in mock encouragement.

A week into term, McGonagall had finally announced the plan outlined by Hooch, with smaller Quidditch 'Friendlies' to take place every other week throughout the year. Filch posted the sign-up sheet on the noticeboard. And then posted it again when Peeves nicked it. The only further stipulation to the rules was that no-one on an existing House team could also be on a Friendly team.

This meant the pool of good players to choose from was narrow. Not to mention the fact that the allure of a more relaxed opportunity to play the game had proven popular. It was inevitable that many of the Friendly teams were being set up by Dumbledore House's eighth years denied the right to join the proper matches. So, Harry and Ron were up against Dean Thomas, who was forming a team with Susan Bones and a pair of fifth year Gryffindors, as well as another team made up of Terry Boot, Michael Corner and two Ravenclaw girls that Harry was pretty sure had been recruited because the boys fancied them. There were a couple of other teams each containing at least one eighth year, and several more besides. And apparently Theodore Nott had successfully gathered quite a formidable force by recruiting three younger Slytherins to the cause.

In the end, desperate, they'd approached the only two people they knew well enough to talk to from a younger year that wasn't already on a House team: Dennis Creevey and Luna Lovegood. Dennis had signed up at once. Thankfully, Luna was able to point the pair towards a bombastic fourth year Ravenclaw called Ursula Spence, who was at least more experienced on a broom than Creevey, even if she did talk at a volume normally designated for necromancy. They had agreed to start practicing after classes the next day, which was a Thursday.

It was for this planned session that Harry was running drills in his head as he walked through the dungeons to the first of his extra-curricular Potions classes with Professor Tang. He'd only ever had a full seven player team to work with, so he was pondering the different moves they would have to employ when he nearly ran straight into Malfoy.

To the horror of the version of Harry that watched the whole thing play out from the back of his own brain, he had to catch his balance by grabbing the front of Malfoy's robes to stop himself from going sprawling. So you know, he could have had a better start to the day.

Quickly, he righted himself. He held his breath.

Instead of the usual insults, hexing and so on, however, Malfoy merely raised an eyebrow, smoothed down his robes - Was that a slight tremor in his hand? - and then glided away. None of which helped with the new thought that had dwarfed any consideration of Quidditch tactics, that being: What is Malfoy doing in the dungeons at ten to eight in the morning?

Except it was nearly five to eight, and he still had to get to Tang's classroom. He forced himself to continue on - at a slight jog - and somehow managed to arrive just before Padma. What followed was a round-table discussion on the theories and applications of dittany, the brown liquid that Hermione had used to close Ron's horrible splinching injury the year before. Thanks to that experience, Harry managed to hold up his end of the conversation quite well, he thought, even with 'half his brain' focused on the task.

The only trouble was, he had the whole rest of the morning in the dungeons before he had time to race back to his room, whisper "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good", and locate Malfoy on the Marauder's Map aaaand he was in the Great Hall. Having lunch. Obviously. His head hit the small desk's surface. Still, sneaking around the dungeons was surely a sign that something was up?

From her vivarium, Harry heard Severina hiss quietly. He muttered a quick "Mischief managed" over the map and went over to the end of his bed. As he had taken to doing, he let her slither around his arm and up to encircle his neck.

"Sssomething bothering you?" she enquired.

He sighed.

"Yeah."

And he explained to her some of the history behind his and Malfoy's animosity: the failed attempt at friendship, the suspicion, the hatred, and the confusion, too. It came back to when he'd recognised him in the Malfoy Manor, but chosen not to say so. That moment he had played over and over, turning it this way and that, trying to find the angle where it made sense. Severina listened, or at the very least didn't interrupt his rambling. He wasn't sure if snakes could make much sense of human relationships.

Still, going over it all like that was revealing in itself. Their lives had been tightly intertwined for years, and yet - did he even really know who Draco Malfoy was? He wasn't as sure now as he'd once been.

He was sure that he was sorry to have missed lunch, not just because his stomach rumbled through the afternoon's classes, but he learned in Care of Magical Creatures that Ron and Hermione had gotten into yet another fight during the break.

Ron refused to tell him what the fight was about this time, so Harry didn't even have an opportunity to try to bridge the gap. He kept trying throughout their uninspiring team practice (a team that Creevey had requested be called 'Colin's Clan', which was an awful name that both he and Ron practically spoke over one another to agree to), but Ron wasn't budging. And Hermione, once again, avoided them both and sat with Luna during dinner, braving the glare from Headmistress McGonagall at the staff table. The witch was most disapproving of the eighth years migrating back to their original House tables to eat, but since this was an ex-Gryffindor at the Ravenclaw table she was clearly torn about putting a stop to it.

Unable to break this deadlock, Harry returned to his previous train of thought: Malfoy. On the right-hand side of the Dumbledore table, the *ex-*Slytherins (he had trouble thinking of them as anything other than 'Slytherins' really, but maybe he should settle for something else... 'the slimy gits'?) were once again huddled in a bubble of silence. The heated arguments, if that was what they were, seemed to have petered out in favour of close, intense discussion, with Nott and Malfoy on one side of the table and Zabini, Parkinson and Greengrass on the other. Zabini, despite not adding much, seemed to be the focal point. Harry noticed they all kept looking at him as the spoke. There was something...

Harry pulled off his glasses and spelled them clean. Smudge-free (how did they always get so dirty?), he peered at the olive-skinned Italian again.

There was something... different about him. It was impossible to pinpoint an exact thing. His hair had grown? Not something Harry would have normally noticed, but maybe... maybe he'd lost weight? Whatever it was, his cheekbones stood more starkly against his shiny black locks, his face was slimmer, even his shoulders were less defined. Was he sick? If he was, it couldn't have been anything too bad, given he was now grinning at Malfoy and that smile made him practically glow... oh, and he was reaching out, he was holding Malfoy's hand, he was giving him a slightly watery look of gratitude and warmth that was completely foreign on a face that was normally curled into a sneer, and Malfoy was saying something in return and Harry was starting to wonder if they had cast Muffliato after all because his ears were roaring.

"What the actual fuck is happenin' over there?" Ron said, clearly also seeing what Harry was seeing. Not a hallucination, then.

"No idea."

"Whatever it is, I hate to see Malfoy that... happy? It's pro'ly 'cause they've figured out th- some way to burn the school down or murder the new Defence Against the Dark Arts profeth- professor or something equally, uh, ne-far-ious."

The last word he managed only with heroic effort, the mandrake leaf running interference with every syllable.

It was true: now, Malfoy was beaming at Zabini. A wildly disconcerting sight. The hand-holding was interrupted as Greengrass' bored façade cracked. She cheered and pulled Zabini into a crushing hug from the side.

"No matter what's going on with them, it can't be good," Harry had agreed.

Ron and Harry had then spent the next few weeks, in any spare moment they weren't in class, tracking the ex-Slytherins' movements on the Marauder's map. Erratic was one word for it. Zabini was in the hospital wing for at least an hour two evenings a week. Greengrass and Parkinson were spending an awful lot of time in the boy's dorm room, which Harry tried not to think too hard about. Maybe they were studying? He shuddered, the thought of Parkinson's naked body writhing over Malfoy was probably a worse sight than if he'd awoken to a giant spider intent on liquidising him for dinner.

And Malfoy? He was the least predictable of the lot of them. In the dungeons even earlier than Harry half the week - he clearly chose a different route out given Harry hadn't bumped into him since their first encounter down there - and then also the hospital wing, once or twice, with Zabini. And then, where was he not? Ron had commented more than once that either Draco was planning something, or he was practicing for a marathon. The boy seemed to be ping-ponging all over the castle. The corridor near the Astronomy Tower; the fifth floor; the seventh floor; outside the staff room; a disused corridor in the West Wing that Harry was pretty sure was more hole than corridor, still; the place where the hourglasses that counted the House points was (when they checked, there was a new one with a handful of turquoise glass beads in it - Dumbledore House was its own worst enemy, losing itself nearly as many points as it gained); the kitchens; often, outside the Muggles studies classroom on the first floor; and half a dozen other places.

Harry knew not to broach the subject with Pomfrey, however. He wanted to ask her, given Zabini and Malfoy's trips to the hospital wing. But she had previously expounded, at length, on the importance of Healer-patient confidentiality. Harry felt he should respect her words given his ambitions, though his inner goblin was screeching mad about the whole thing.

Between worrying about whatever mysterious thing was going on with Malfoy, Zabini and the others; news of attack after attack in the papers; mounting piles of homework; reading he was behind on, and the ongoing rift between his best friends, which seemed to wax and wane over the weeks but never quite repair, Harry found the frequency and intensity of his nightmares were escalating, so that most every night he was left wide-eyed and sweating. By the time the start of October rolled around, he decided enough was enough. At least he could try to do something about one of his problems.

"Uhh, lemon sherbet?" he tried, feeling stupid. The gargoyle merely stared at him, impassive.

Surely there must be some way to-

"I need to talk to Headmistress McGonagall," he told the gargoyle. "Is there a way to tell her I'm here?"

"Yes."

"Umm. What is it?"

"You've never asked before." Its voice was dispiriting and monotone. "Just press my nose," the gargoyle said.

Harry did so and heard a chime ring up the staircase. Moments later the gargoyle stepped aside and he took the stairs two at a time.

The Headmistress' office was both much the same as it had been, and different. McGonagall had a lot more books around the place. And no Fawkes. Fawkes had flown away month before, and none of them were certain the phoenix would ever return.

"Harry?" she enquired from the desk, as, at the same time, the portrait of Dumbledore burst into life.

"My boy!" Dumbledore wheezed.

Harry grinned. "Dumbledore!" He'd seen him around the castle a few times, visiting other portraits. It was nice, having him around and about.

"I wouldn't plan on stealing Vance's toffee crisps. She's been booby-trapping that tin for days. And cackling. A lot," he warned.

"Hmm. Ah. Blast."

"Can I help you, Harry?" McGonagall said.

Harry walked over. "I- I'm here because of Malfoy, actually. And yeah. I hear how that sounds."

"Indeed."

"And Zabini. There's something odd going on with them. And Malfoy's been-"

"Let me stop you there, Potter. In actual fact, I am aware of exactly what has been going on. What is going on."

"Oh." Another point in the 'Hermione's always right' column.

"And, for once, it's really none of your business."

"But-"

"I know. I know the history. Believe me. I understand the need for caution and I understand why you are here. If anything, I expected you sooner.

"However. And I can't emphasise this enough - I am perfectly aware of the reasons for their behaviour and am also equally bound by confidentiality not to divulge anything further to you, or anyone else. Nothing more than to say" - and here, she softened - "that you really don't need to worry, Harry. I'm sure it will all come out soon enough.

"Concentrate on your studies. Spend time with your friends. Live a little. I can't give you back a childhood you never had, but I can, for one year at least, offer you a place at Hogwarts without a dangerous lunatic plotting to ruin the sanctity of our home. My home. Yours. Enjoy it while you can. Leave me to keep an eye on things. I am paying attention."

"I..." He deflated. "Fine."

"It is fine." Her eyes glittered.

"You need a distraction, Harry. I hear you are a young, single gentleman again. Perhaps it's time to go on a few dates, hmm?"

Later, Harry was watching Ron fly over the Great Lake and wondering if it was wise to obliviate oneself. Surely the risk of permanent memory loss was a marked improvement on being able to recall McGonagall giving him dating advice.

Ron finally landed. It was getting a little colder, the evenings darker. The air was damp from an earlier downpour. Ron was bundled in a damp hat and scarf, a bag on his shoulder and his Cleansweep in one hand. His nose and cheeks were pink, not now from sunburn, but from the chill. Harry noticed his icy blue eyes looked tired, yet he could tell his best friend was in a much better mood than when he'd left the day before.

"How's George?"

"Not bad. Could be worse. The th- same as ever. Merlin I can't wait to spit this thing out tomorrow. He told me to tell you a truly pornographic joke, but didn't specify which one. "

"I think I'm good."

Ron had been escaping the fraught atmosphere of his and Hermione's relationship by apparating the long distance from Hogsmeade to the shop on Diagon Alley after his Animagus classes most Saturdays. He would return on Sunday evening, as he was doing now, so Harry hadn't been able to spend as much time with him as he would've liked lately. Still, he admired how hard Ron was working, even if it wasn't for his school work. And the fact that he was willing to apparate so frequently, even after the terrible splinching he'd suffered in the past. He should probably tell him that. Yeah. Somehow. How do you tell your friend you're proud of them without it sounding... uhh... massively awkward?

As they walked up the stone steps, the braziers lit themselves all around them. He told Ron about what McGonagall had said, instead - well, some of it - and was gratified at Ron's immediate and unprompted outrage, which continued through the corridors and as they entered the warmth of the Den.

"-definitely utter shite. And another thing is-" Ron stopped dead. Hermione was sat on the grey chesterfield sofa by the fire. She caught sight of them both and waved, her eyebrows slanted upward in a concerned expression. Ron turned beet red and stormed up the stairs.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Seriously?" he mouthed at Hermione.

She put down her book and came over.

"Before you go up," she started, looking sorrowful. "Could you... could you maybe tell him I'd like to talk? Not now. He must be exhausted. At some point? Maybe after classes tomorrow or something?"

"Can I ask what's going on?" Harry said, not for the first time.

She blushed and spoke in hushed tones: "I- It's private, really. Or more like... I think I would make it worse if I told you. Waaay worse. I have told him to talk to you. You're his best friend and you really should be able to- well, discuss these sorts of things. I don't blame him. I would never. It's the last thing..."

She paused, looked away, holding back tears.

"It's truly the last thing I'd want to do. He blames himself though and that's the worst of it. I love him, Harry. I do. I hate this. I hate that I know how he's feeling and I can't help...

"Maybe you should speak to him, if you can? Just... oh, just please be kind about it? Oh of course you would be kind. No, that's not what I mean. I mean if he does choose to tell you, which he might not and that's fine... just... take it seriously, I suppose? You're all he's got, Harry. He probably can't talk to anyone but you. And he certainly won't talk to me."

What. The hell. Is going on? Harry thought.

"What about George? Could he not talk to him?"

She giggled. Sniffed. "Oh my. Least of all him," she said, cryptically.

Harry trudged up the stairs and entered the dorm, feeling nervous. it was still early enough in the evening that the other boys weren't in there, so when he opened the door he found Ron, alone, sat in the purple armchair by the small fire. He had changed out of the magenta robe that clashed magnificently with his Weasley hair and was the uniform for the Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. Now, he was in an old T-shirt and joggers, with bare feet sunk into the wool rug in front of him.

Harry sat on the sofa and ran his hands through his thick black hair.

"Ron..."

"Can you help me with somethin'?" he asked, suddenly.

Harry started.

"What. Um. Yeah?"

"Cool. Sorry, it's a bit weird..."

Oh good. This day couldn't get much weirder.

"Could you shave my head?" Ron asked.

He indicated with a gesture that he meant the sides where his red hair was cropped short, but had grown out a bit over the last few weeks.

"Oh! Ah - will I be able to do that?"

Ron laughed. "If Ginny managed it over the th - fuck! - summer, I reckon you can't do much worse. It's cutting what's already cut, but I can't reach all of it myself and... yeah. It looks a bit daft at the minute. Don't need to do the top though, I'm growing that out."

"Sure, then. I guess. How do we... what do we need to do?"

Ron got up and riffled in his chest of drawers for a small leather pouch. Then, he and Harry went into the washroom. Ron dragged the wooden stool that they used to reach the top of the linen closet over to a sink, sat down and handed Harry the bag. Sitting, he was low enough to the tiled floor that only the top of his forehead could be seen in the mirror facing them. He untied the longer part of his hair from its usual samurai bun and retied it again in a funny little top knot.

"Razor's in there. Careful. It's sharp. And the bar foams up. Softens the hair - makes it easier. You just apply it with the brush thing. Then you either go with the grain or against the grain or whatever that means. I can't remember. It'll make sense when you do it, I imagine. Sorry this is such a strange thing to ask. Err... so. You ok?"

He spoke carefully. After a month with the damn mandrake leaf in his mouth, he had pretty much learned how to talk normally again. Apart from the occasional thlip- slip up.

"Harry?"

'You're all he's got, Harry.'

"Yeah, I- Yeah."

Harry busied himself rinsing the brush. He rubbed the bristles into the bar. Sure enough, it foamed up into a creamy consistency, which he slicked onto Ron's head in slow, sweeping movements. That done, he reached around and set the brush down on the counter. Then, he pulled out the razor and flicked it open. It was a single blade, wicked sharp and gleaming.

"There's a guard. You clip it on," Ron said, quietly.

"Oh."

Harry felt around inside the pouch and found the small piece of metal, which he attached to the blade. It looked less threatening, now.

"Err... ready?"

"Yeah."

Harry wasn't sure where to start, so he went for a spot just above Ron's left ear. He put a towel on one shoulder and his hand on the other to steady himself. Then, drew the blade up and around. It glided effortlessly through the foam, picking it up as he went. He wiped the blade on the towel. Pulled the razor around Ron's head again, this time going for a bigger section, and where the guarded blade had been, Ron's hair was cut to the barest stubble. Not quite completely shaved to the skin, but close. It was kind of... satisfying.

"So... me and Hermione," Ron said. Harry looked up but couldn't see his face in the mirror. He decided to keep going and continued drawing the razor through Ron's hair. Waiting.

"Um. We've been having uhh... trouble. Like the fighting and stuff, it's 'cause... it's not..."

Harry reached the back of Ron's neck and Ron, feeling him there, bent his head forward so his chin was tucked into his chest. He kept talking.

"It's like... we had this big thing happen. And we got together and it's amazing and she's amazing and I love her. Like I really love her. And yeah we fight, but we've always got each others backs, you know? It's like... I can be myself around her and she can be herself and we don't have to act any different than what we want to, except-"

Harry had finished with the first side. He swapped the towel over to the other shoulder and used his other hand to gently tip Ron's head to the side. He carried on, shaving more slowly this time now that he was using the wrong hand.

"Except then we started... you know. Doing stuff."

Harry remembered them at the Burrow. They could barely keep their hands off one another, as he recalled. Snogging in the halls, canoodling the garden, holding hands...

"And like. Wow. That was brilliant, too. I know before, me and Lav- well, yeah. Best not. Um. But yeah, with 'Mione the kissing and th- the touching. It was bloody brilliant. Sorry I should err... stop... or uhh..."

Harry, heroically, said nothing. He hoped Ron couldn't see his face in the mirror, because it was pillarbox red from ear to ear.

"I know she's like a sister to you so, like, don't get mad or um... but yeah, that all worked just fine. And then, well we were fighting about all the stupid shit with the shop and N.E.W.T.s and we never really figured that out but we kinda just... stopped talking about it, I guess? And it was easier. Easier just to not talk and like... try doing other things, right? But... it wasn't. Easier. It was harder. And things didn't work just fine."

Ron tipped his head again as he felt the razor move down. Harry carefully carved out the 'V' of the longer hairs at the back. He held one thumb against Ron's neck to keep the hair in place so he didn't catch anything he shouldn't. Ron was silent, for a bit. Harry prompted him with a light push to raise his head again so he could finish the last few bits near the top.

"Have you ever had sex, Harry?"

Harry jumped. The blade nicked Ron's scalp, and a bead of blood bubbled up and started to trickle towards his ear.

"Sorry!" he said as Ron winced. He pulled his wand from his waistband and muttered a quick healing spell. The blood he wiped away, along with some foam, with the towel. Underneath, there was no sign of injury. He picked up the razor in his left hand again, shaking slightly.

"You're getting good at that," Ron commented. "Can't feel nothing anymore."

"Thanks."

"Is... I don't know that I want to know, but is um. Sex stuff the reason you and Ginny broke up?"

Harry tried not to slice anything he shouldn't this time.

"Um. What do you mean?"

"Like... like not being able to...arg. Fuck. Right. Not being able to perform. Dick not working. Not a damn thing occurring. Downstairs. That."

Harry chewed his lip as he cut the last section of hair on the side of Ron's head. "Umm. No."

"Oh," Ron said, sounding a bit... closed off.

"I'll tell you, but um. Don't punch me or anything," Harry said, quickly. He folded the towel over so the blood was on the inside and wiped the rest of the foam off.

"Ha. If I punch you, you can tell Seamus every word of what I just said, then."

Harry's eyes bulged. "Deal," he said.

"So. So tell me."

"OK. So s-sex was part of it. Sort of. But it wasn't the problem. The problem was like... the opposite, I guess?" Harry considered his next few words.

"The whole relationship felt weird every time we tried to talk, or I guess be romantic and stuff. Like... we were different shaped puzzle pieces. Or something. But then we'd have sex and it felt fantastic and amazing and like, wow. Sorry. It was the only bit that made sense. And I didn't want Ginny to feel like I was using her, for like, just sex. So I broke up with her - well not exactly. She felt the same, in the end, too, but um. Yeah."

Ron craned his neck around to look up at Harry through raised eyebrows.

"You two actually had SEX?"