By: PepperjackCandy
Rating: PG13 (up to "second base" explicit, beyond that implied)
Disclaimer: Not mine. At all.
Warning: This will be a slash story (Harry/Draco) eventually, though romantically-slashy, rather than erotically-slashy. Hence the PG-13 rating.
A/N: I don't speak Latin, so I have to sort of guess based on a Latin/English dictionary. Boy, do I wish JKR went with Spanish for her spells, rather than Latin.
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"What're you smiling about?" Hermione asked at breakfast the next morning.
"Me? Smiling?" Harry asked, truly surprised. He'd been remembering their harassment-planning session the night before, and had apparently found it a little too amusing. "Just thinking how surprised Snape'll be when he sees my Potions essay." He unrolled the one and a half meter long scroll, and reveled in the gasp of surprise from Hermione.
"I guess I'd better work a little harder. You're going to be passing me up soon." She grinned.
They turned back to their breakfasts, Harry biting the inside of his mouth to keep his silly grin to a minimum.
However, all thoughts of smiling went out of his head when an unfamiliar owl landed on the table in front of him. He unrolled the letter and read, Please come down here immediately. P. Pomfrey.
His eyes widened and he turned to Hermione, Ron and Neville. "Something's come up. I've got to go. I'll see you in class."
He dashed immediately down to the hospital wing, where Madame Pomfrey was unsuccessfully trying to get Draco out of bed.
"No." The Slytherin said flatly. "I'm not going to go. I'm not ready to go."
"Mr. Malfoy, you have to. Professors Snape and Dumbledore won't accept any more delay." Madame Pomfrey didn't often pass the buck upwards -- she usually didn't need to. She only did it this time to cut through Draco's objections more quickly.
"Hey." Harry said, sitting on the edge of Draco's bed.
"Not you, too?" Draco whined. " I can't. I can't face *them*." Harry knew that Draco meant Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy.
"But, Draco, all of our plans from last night will be wasted if you don't start back today. Who'll glare at you while you insult Dumbledore and Hagrid if you do it tomorrow? And tomorrow there won't be any cauldron for you to make explode."
Draco gave a watery smile at this. "There's something else." He rolled up the sleeve of his hospital robe. "Look."
Harry looked. And there, faint, yet visible, was the Dark Mark. He looked up at Draco, his commiseration clearly written on his face.
"I thought I could just go on as usual, but I can't. Because of this. I'm . . . broken."
"Broken?" Harry asked.
"Yes, broken. Damaged. The Dark Lord has touched me. I'm the only student here who's been touched by the Dark Lord, and I. Don't. Like it!" He yelled this last, and then gathered himself back together with a visible force of will. "I know, you've been touched by Him before, but that's different. You're The Boy Who Lived."
This time it was Harry's turn to force himself to remain calm. He knew that Draco was going through a very emotional time, and that it *was* fair to say that Harry's situation was different from his own.
"Draco . . ." He began, but was interrupted.
"Harry? May I speak to Malfoy?" Harry recognized the voice.
"Ginny! What the hell are you doing here?" Unconsciously, he used his body to block her view of Draco.
"I recognized the owl as being one of Madame Pomfrey's." Ginny responded simply. "And I wanted to know why she was sending for you, and why it was so urgent you'd leave in the middle of breakfast without your Potions book." She held out the book in question.
Harry, blushing, took the book from her. "Well, now you know. Draco and I have, well, we've come to a truce. But Dumbledore says that we shouldn't let on that we're getting along now." He explained quickly.
"I see that. And I'd like a chance to talk to Malfoy."
Harry suspected he knew what she was going to say. "But . . ."
"It's all right, Harry. If what I went through can help someone, then it'll be worth it, won't it?"
Harry stepped aside and let Ginny get close to Draco. This time it was the girl who perched on the edge of Draco's bed. "You aren't the only one here who's been touched by You-Know-Who."
"Yeah. I remember. But that was different, too. You were kidnapped."
Ginny shook her head sadly. "Not kidnapped. Possessed."
"What?!?"
Ginny closed her eyes, trying to gather her strength. "In my first year, your father slipped a book in among my schoolbooks. The diary of Tom Riddle.
"Tom Marvolo Riddle." She repeated. "Whose name anagrams to I am Lord Voldemort."
Draco's eyes widened. "I knew something of what my father had planned that year, but . . . " he never finished the thought, and Harry didn't know if it was Ginny's announcement that had been the surprise, or Draco's realization that she was a human being, and not just 'another Weasley.'
Ginny continued her tale. "I discovered the diary, and then I found that it could . . . answer me. I started writing in it, telling it about my fears, my hopes, my hopeless crush on Harry." She shared a friendly smile with Harry at this. She'd shared that crush with him the night he'd saved her, but he'd also made it clear that he wouldn't ever think of her as anything other than a little sister, and the news hadn't hurt her at all.
"But then, things started happening and I started to be afraid that I was the one doing them."
"And so you shared those fears with the diary." Draco nodded, understanding.
"Yeah." She nodded. "I was You-Know-Who's vessel. Doing his evil. I hurt, and nearly killed, a bunch of people."
"But your family . . ." Draco began, but she interrupted him.
"Are successful, and happy, and *good.* But most of all, they're successful. My father's moving up in the Ministry, and Bill's got a position of trust with Gringott's, and Charlie . . ."
"I know about Charlie." Draco interrupted, reminding Harry of Draco's fear of dragons.
"Well, then there's Percy, who was Head Boy, and has a Ministry job, too, and Fred and George, the youngest mega-Galleonaires ever on the MSE, and Ron's going to end up a successful auror, if he has his way. Half of a fabulously successful auror married couple, too, probably.
"And what am I? The youngest. The only daughter. The vessel of Voldemort."
"But that's not all you are." Draco insisted. "I've seen your paintings. They're wonderful. You're a fabulous artist."
Ginny smiled. "And that," she pointed at the Mark on Draco's arm, "isn't all you are. And it sounds like someone's counting on you."
Draco nodded. He looked slightly embarrassed. "Yeah. I guess I should get ready and go to class. Once you've all left me alone for a few minutes to put my robe on."
After Draco had made himself decent, Harry and Ginny rejoined him. "Ginny, I've got to swear you to secrecy." Draco said. "In order to keep you safe. God, this conspiracy is getting big." He directed this final comment to Harry.
"Conspiracy?" Ginny asked.
Harry filled her in. "It's one of Dumbledore's plans. So far, the only people who know about it, that I know of at least, are Dumbledore, Snape, Madame Pomfrey, Draco, and me. Well, and you now."
Ginny nodded.
"Draco and I'll continue to look like we hate each other in public, but really we've come to a truce. We might even like each other someday." Harry and Draco shared a grin.
"I somehow get the feeling that you two already like each other."
"Well, you ready?" Harry asked.
"Not really, but I doubt that makes any difference at this point."
"Oh! And if you don't mind, after you make my cauldron explode, I thought I'd hit you with, just a little, pedis fervens."
Draco sighed heavily. "Do you think that's necessary?"
"Do *you* think that I'd just take a robe covered in whatever icky stuff Snape's going to have us cooking up *without* responding?"
Draco nodded. "All right. But as long as it's only a little bit."
"It will be. But you have to play it up, all right?"
"Fine." They heard Crabbe and Goyle's voices over the partition that separated Draco's cubicle from the reception area. "Well, I guess it's showtime."
Harry and Ginny ducked behind the curtain separating Draco's cubicle from the one next door, and Harry heard Crabbe say, "Hey, Draco! You ready for class?"
Draco responded, in a voice completely devoid of the warmth that Harry had heard in it the previous two days, "It's about time you got here to rescue me from this hellhole."
Harry felt the blood drain from his face as he heard Draco's voice return to the way it sounded during their six-year rivalry. Please, let him have been honest with me, he prayed silently.
"Yeah, well, at least your first class is with Snape." Goyle contributed. "Could be worse."
Harry heard Draco snort. "Yes. It could be with that fool, Hagrid. Pity I have to go to his class at all today . . ."
Harry stuck his head around the curtain, and saw that Draco, Crabbe and Goyle had left.
"Harry?" Ginny asked.
"Yeah?"
"Are you absolutely certain that Malfoy's changed?"
"I hope so, Ginny. I really, truly hope so."
Harry walked to the dungeon for Potions with a heart full of misgivings. Could Draco be a double-agent or something? What if Dumbledore, Snape and I are wrong? But he nearly killed himself to get rid of the Dark Mark. Would he do that if he was loyal to Voldemort?
These thoughts whirled through his head the whole way down to the Potions classroom. He was the last student there, but Snape hadn't arrived yet, so he slid into the seat next to Ron and took out his essay.
He listened around, trying to hear what Draco was saying. "It was a huge spider! The biggest one I've ever seen. Of course, I didn't see it until *after* it had bitten me."
Harry dared let out a little of the breath he was holding. Draco was talking about what they'd discussed.
"I think it's a disgrace that they let things get to that state around here." Pansy offered, walking right into what Harry hoped would be the next bullet point on the list he and Draco had made up.
"Well, it's that Dumbledore. If we had a *real* headmaster, things like this just wouldn't happen. Especially with a gamemaster like Hagrid. He encourages monsters, like those blast-ended skrewts. He's probably breeding giant spiders, too."
His tone alone was enough to make Harry turn and give him a glare that might very well have been real.
"I'm thinking of owling my father and telling him all about this fiasco." Draco continued.
Soon after this, Snape came in. Without acknowledging Harry in any way, he said, "I trust you are feeling better, Mr. Malfoy?"
"Yes, sir." Draco said, unconsciously touching the Dark Mark on his arm. "Much better."
Harry began to have a sinking feeling that perhaps Draco and Snape were planning something. Perhaps Snape had always been a loyal Death Eater, lulling Dumbledore into a false sense of security. . . .
"Harry?" Ron whispered, nudging him slightly.
"Huh?"
"Your essay?"
"Oh!" He took the scroll and carried it to Snape.
"Thank you, Mr. Potter." Snape said in his usual, oily tone.
Snape then conducted a forty-five minute lecture on the uses of Spanish moss in potions, and then he introduced their laboratory assignment - a Spanish moss and spider web potion for knitting broken bones.
Just as the potion reached its peak, a dark, murky greenish black, Sploosh! A gob of the potion leaped from his cauldron, dousing Harry to the skin. He heard Draco and his cronies laughing.
He turned, and saw Draco just putting his wand back down on the table in front of him. This was the signal. He picked up his own wand. "Pedis fervens!" He yelled, pointing it at Draco.
"Ouch!" Draco hollered, much too loudly for the little bit of magic that Harry had used on him, hopping on his left foot as he cradled his right in his hand. "Potter! I'll get you for that!" He yelled.
"That'll be enough from both of you." Snape interrupted, glaring at Harry. "You know better than that. Malfoy's only just out of hospital. That'll be twenty points from Gryffindor, *and* a detention. I shall see you after supper tonight."
"Harry!" Ron whispered, "Why'd you let Malfoy get to you like that? Now we won't be able to get started planning for the Quidditch season until tomorrow!" Ron was helping Harry devise strategy for the Gryffindor team. With six siblings, Ron had a lot of experience watching his parents organize the activities and movements of a group of seven people.
"I have a free period next. I'll write up my ideas and give them to you at lunch, then we can talk it over at supper."
Ron nodded. "I guess that'll be the best way. I hope Snape doesn't have you doing anything *too* awful."
"Just as long as he doesn't hand me over to Filch." Harry grinned.
Just then, Harry felt a stabbing pain in his shoulder. "Ow!" He yelped as he rubbed the sore spot. He glanced back at Draco, who was, very slowly and deliberately, putting his wand down on the table in front of him, an insolent grin on his face.
"That'll be enough of that Mr. Malfoy." Snape said. "Five points from Slytherin and *you* can see me after supper, as well."
"Only five?!?" Harry demanded reflexively. "That really *hurt*!"
"And are you insinuating that the hotfoot you gave Mr. Malfoy didn't?" Snape asked pointedly.
"No, sir." Harry mumbled.
As they finished the laboratory portion of their class, the students moved on. Harry's face slowly burned as he heard Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy laughing at his reaction to the hex that Draco had put on him.
"Don't worry about it." Ron said. "You know that Malfoy's always like that. At least Snape gave him a detention as well, even if he didn't take as many points from Slytherin."
Ron and Hermione left for their next class, and Harry continued walking to the library, wondering just whose side Draco Malfoy was on.