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I'm really excited about this chapter . . .my muse came back and threw
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the list! Thank you, and with no further ado, I give you chapter
twelve. ^_^
Harry
Potter stood in the potions doorway, wanting with all his heart to just
shrivel up and die. He felt
delighted in the forest when he realized he wasn't alone; he felt enchanted
by a stolen midnight kiss; he even felt
overwhelmed by an unexpected interruption, but this was just ridiculous.
The agony that seized his mind when Draco rushed
by him was unbearable. After their desperate confessions, their
passionate looks, their encounter with pain from
approaching footsteps the night before, Draco still managed to give
Harry the coldest of shoulders.
Harry
sighed slowly, not wanting to go back to his seat next to a certain blonde
someone. If Draco keeps up
this mind game, I don't know what will come of us, Harry thought.
His skin crawled suddenly as he noticed Crabbe and Goyle
seated a few seats behind Draco. Crabbe gripped his wand tightly
in his fist and looked positively disgusted. The sneer
he was sending Draco behind his back would make Voldemort's skin crawl.
Goyle sat nervously by his side, inching slowly
away from his maddened friend. Poor Goyle, Harry thought as
he directed his gaze away from the two boys, now isn't the best
time to sit next to Crabbe.
He
started to slowly walk back to his seat, trying not to look at a certain
Slytherin for fear of breaking out
into . . .well, something. Things had been so stiff between them
this morning; the tension in the air was practically
tangible. During breakfast, their table had been unusually silent,
and when Harry timidly tried to start a conversation,
Crabbe only raised an eyebrow and looked the other way. It was
so painful to have one of his few good friends so
angry with him, so disgusted, it nearly drove him to tears.
Crying. The concept was as much
a part of Slytherin as the colors green and silver. Echoes could
always be heard
late at night in the Slytherin dorms--a piercing wail, a muffled sob,
a perpetual sniffle. It came from all over--girls
and boys, first years to seventh. Their parents' persistent attempts
to have them join the dark side were rather scarring,
and if not your parents, it was your friends. Misery loves company,
and miserable they were. They fell, one by one, and
they took each other with them. Only the strong and the smart
ones stayed away from Voldemort. Crabbe and Goyle
had fallen--they got their marks at the end of the fourth year.
Harry, however, still couldn't bring himself to join the forces
that killed his parents, and that was enough to make Draco resist.
This
flashed through Harry's mind as he sat down quickly onto his seat.
His heart sank when Draco didn't say
hello, but his hopes rose when Draco gave him a knowing glance, one
that told him that it was just a front, showing eyes
that longed to watch him, a nose that longed to memorize his scent,
and lips that longed to caress his skin. And with
that, he held on that much longer.
Just
then, an excited looking house-elf burst into the room, running over to
Snape's desk and handing him a
roll of parchment. Snape unrolled it, and his eyes quickly scanned
the paper. He sighed, standing up. "I must leave the
room for a few minutes. It seems there's been a problem in Flitwick's
class, and I have to run
over a shrinking potion." He began walking towards the door,
then paused and turned back. "Behave yourselves," he
snapped, his eyes glaring daggers around the classroom.
A
murmur rustled the room, and the two sides seemed to separate even more
distinctly into Slytherin and
Gryffindor. Harry was turning around to call over Pansy when
he felt something wet hit him right below his ear. He looked
for the source, only to see a sniggering Crabbe, wiping his mouth suspiciously.
"What was that?" Harry demanded loudly of the larger boy, turning completely around. "Was that spit?"
Crabbe
stood up from his chair. "Yes, it was--although now I wonder why
I wasted my own precious saliva on
such a freak like you."
He
said this so loud that all the Slytherins and half the Gryffindors looked
up in puzzlement. "Crabbe,
insulting Potter? Harry Potter?" murmured by everyone in seemingly
every direction. "But I thought they were friends," a
few voices said. Harry joined Crabbe in standing up, each glaring
the other, face-to-face.
"Didn't
know you knew words that big, Crabbe." Harry retorted. "Maybe your
brain is actually starting to show
up."
Crabbe's
face turned red. "Well . . . well . . ." He obviously couldn't
think of a comeback, so he tried the
next best thing: "I challenge you to a duel!"
Harry
nodded and walked to the front of the classroom, with Crabbe behind him.
The room was completely silent
now, and everyone was watching them. Harry turned, put his hand
on his wand, and nodded.
Draco's
eyes fixed on Harry as the boy whipped out his wand. There was a
glare full of malice crossing Harry's
face, a darker side that Draco was sure he had never seen before, as
he looked up at his opponent, and Crabbe returned the
deadly gaze for a moment. Harry raised his wand quickly, but
to everyone's surprise, Crabbe was faster.
"Expelliarmus!"
he grunted gravely, swishing his wand to the side and up. Harry was
knocked off his feet, his
wand flying swiftly to Crabbe's outstretched hand. Harry hit
Snape's desk with a sickening crack, knocked unconscious too
quickly to cry out in pain.
The
room was silent. "You bastard . . ." Draco started, breaking the
silence and trying to run towards
Crabbe. Goyle shot out a chubby arm to hold Draco back.
"No, Draco, don't get yourself into this!"
Draco
shoved Goyle off his arm and drew back angrily. "Don't you get it,
Greg? I'm already into this. I'm
more into this that any other conscious person in the room!"
His
eyes burned into his confused classmates as he looked around the room.
He shook his head as he began to
pace. Letting out a small laugh, he began to speak. "Such
a pansy-ass way to fight a duel, Crabbe." (A forgotten Pansy
Parkinson in the corner turned bright red at the unintentional pun.)
"Expelliarmus on the first blow. Should have known
that you couldn't think of anything else." He walked over to
Harry, almost flauntingly…temptingly. All eyes followed him;
all ears heard only the sound of his hard, black shoes clicking against
the dungeon floors, echoing off the walls.
He
knelt next to Harry, stroking the bump that steadily grew on his forehead.
"Your spitefulness, your
prejudice—just leading up to hurting my…my lo…" He took a deep breath.
"My friend."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Harry's
head was whirling. What happened? Oh yes, the duel with
Crabbe . . . shortest duel I've seen in
ages. Knowing Crabbe, I'm not surprised he couldn't do anything
difficult. Where am I now? He frowned, looking around
him. Damn. No help at all. He tried to move
his arm up to feel his forehead, but he couldn't move. He quickly
realized
that he had no arm to move, which, quite frankly, explained a lot--how
he'd felt neither pain, nor even slight annoyance or
panic. His glasses were gone, yet he couldn't tell if his vision
was clear or not. There was only
whiteness--nothingness. It was somehow disturbing, yet oddly
calming at the same time.
Suddenly,
a familiar scene, something that had haunted his dreams for years, replaced
the whiteness. Draco,
Harry, Pansy, and another Slytherin from their year were cowering underneath
Professor Snape's unusually large coffee table
in his quarters. A stuttering Snape was trying to say something
to an irate Voldemort, who would hear none of it.
"P-p-please, Voldemort--Lord Voldemort--no n-n-need to t-take the bo--"
"--Severus
Snape!" the dark lord hissed. "Do not take me for a fool. I
know damn well that you're close to
that Potter boy. Do you really think I care whom you choose to
invite to your little tea parties?" he spat, rolling his
narrow eyes.
"H-he's more p-p-powerful th-than you'd--"
"Oh,
give it up, you traitor," he snapped, "And stop stuttering like a fool.
We all know what happened to the
last man who stuttered like that."
With
that, he raised his wand and flicked it lightly, muttering a curse under
his breath. Before Snape had
time to react, he clutched his wrist with a blood-curdling scream and
fell to his knees, the hollow laugh of Voldemort
mingling with his agonized shriek.
Harry
tried to close his eyes, but he couldn't move at all. Even with no
body, he felt the screaming
professor's pain; it was how he felt it the first time he saw it, when
he was crouching beneath that table.
He
looked down at his younger self with an urge to protect himself, to shield
himself from the tainting dark
forces that were openly exposed to him.
The
scene seemed to distort slightly, as if someone had pinched the middle
and was trying to twist it in. It
happened slowly at first, the sound beginning to dwindle, and then
faster, until it sank into nothingness, and all was
white again.
That
was odd was all Harry could manage to think. Almost like that
"pensieve" Draco keeps telling me about . .
. but it couldn't be. No, it's only an illusion, a haunting
memory flooding into my mind--so realistic, but a flashback
nonetheless.
The
whiteness had a quietness to it that made Harry rather uncomfortable.
He was relieved when the white faded
into Madame Pomfrey's pink, round face.
"Well,
it's about time!" she chuckled, shoving a piece of chocolate into his open
mouth. "You've been out for
nearly half a week! And Professor Snape isn't too happy, mind
you. His model student knocked out by a thug like Crabbe!"
She laughed outwardly now. "Oops! Maybe I shouldn't have
said that." Harry tried not to laugh at how much she reminded
him of the gamekeeper when he talked to their Care of Magical Creatures
class. "Oh, by the way, there's a lad who's been
coming down to see you just about all the time: Draco Malfoy, your
blonde little partner in crime. You might want to talk
to him sometime. He's been gushing on and on about how he's so
'sorry' about something--not too sure what. He's outside
the door right now, I think…."
Harry
finished the chocolate in his mouth as Madame Pomfrey bustled across the
room. She opened the door and
beckoned someone to come in.
A
hopeful-looking Draco peeked his head through the door. He walked
coolly across the room, trying to hide his
excitement, but his eyes looked overjoyed. He sat down on the
edge of Harry's bed, looking so goofily eager to speak to
him that Harry was having a hard time containing his laughter.
"Harry, you're awake!" he exclaimed. "Thank god," he added
softly.
Harry weakly smiled, still feeling slightly dizzy. "Was Crabbe in trouble?"
Draco
grinned, and nodded. "You should have seen Snape's face!" Sobering
up a bit, he added, "He went a bit
easier on you, but you're still not getting an easy way out."
Harry groaned, letting his head plop carelessly back onto the pillow. "Detention?" he asked.
"Two
days," Draco sighed. "That means no time to--" he paused and swiveled
his head around to make sure they
were alone, "--to talk things over between us."
Harry's ears went pink. "Y-you mean between . . . " he slipped into a rather sultry voice, "us?"
Draco
snickered, obviously amused at Harry's attempt to assure their topic.
"Yes, about a few things regarding
that, actually. First of all, about the last morning, you remember--I
really didn't mean to give you the cold shoulder. I
just--" He stopped, and pulled Harry into an upright position by his
shoulders, "I just didn't know how to handle it. I've
been wanting to apologize so much, I--"
"-shhhh!" Harry interrupted. "It's okay. Now, the second thing?"
"Yes,
well--I wanted to know where this--where 'us'--is headed. We can't
just go around snogging all the time
without knowing what we're getting into!" Draco drawled raising an
eyebrow.
Harry
stared back at him blankly for a moment, and there was an awkward pause.
"Alright, maybe we can, but
what good will it do us?" Draco continued, clumsily spitting out his
words in an unnaturally high voice.
Harry
only replied with a grin. He pushed all grogginess aside and pounced
forward, bringing his legs behind
him and pinning Draco to the bed. He leaned forward and kissed
him fiercely, pulling away just as Draco started getting
into it.
Draco
blinked a few times then smiled. "And people thought I was the aggressive
one!" He pulled Harry back
down and initiated a second kiss, this one slower and more passionate.
Harry pushed away again, all too soon, leaving Draco to squeal, "You tease!"
"Shhh!"
Harry warned, climbing back to the head of the bed and tucking his legs
back in the proper direction.
"Someone's coming, I can hear it."
Harry
lowered back down onto the bed and Draco sat up--just in the knick of time.
The door opened, and Madame
Pomfrey rushed in. "Harry, you're looking a little flushed,"
she crooned, stooping down to his face. "Are you doing
alright?"
"Really, I'm doing quite alright. I think I'll be fine to go now," Harry suggested.
After
a brief skeptical look, she waved him off with her hand. "Alright,
alright. But take some chocolate
before you go," she added, taking a large chunk out of her pocket and
placing it in his hand. With that, she pulled him
out of bed and gave him a scoot towards the door.
Draco
and Harry exited, giving each other a knowing look as they walked out the
door.
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~Lauren