Screening part three (repost, due to at least one major error, sorry guys)
"Awwww, lookit Harry in his pyjamas being all lonesome and thoughtful," sighed Malfoy, reclaiming his Gummi Bears from Hermione. "Hey, you horrible woman, you ate all the green ones."
"I'll buy you more," said Hermione, still staring intently at the screen and not paying attention to the looks Malfoy was shooting the other two. The scene changed to presumably the next morning, and Ron and Harry were hurtling down a corridor towards their classes.
"Look, Malfoy, you're in the front row," said Harry. "Swotty little git, aren't you?"
Malfoy favored him with a glare. "At least I was on time, Potter." He regarded the screen. "And at least I didn't insult the teacher to her face on the first day of classes."
"We didn't do that," Ron retorted. "That's sheer Muggle invention, that is. She started off class as her, and did the cat thing after lecturing us about how difficult everything was going to be."
"Eep," said Hermione in a little voice and clung to the chair armrests. The screen now showed a rather dusty-looking classroom hung with the sort of glassware one sees in the better class of head shop and in old-fashioned apothecaries: alembics, retorts, bizarre bulbous flasks full of coloured liquids. Rather cute little cauldrons bubbled over gas burners on the desks. The door at the rear of the classroom burst open and Professor Snape stalked through it, looking decidedly unpleasant. Malfoy watched with interest as he tossed off a comment about frivolous wand-waving over his shoulder and took up his position at the head of the class. Harry nudged Ron.
"Look," he said. Hermione was staring at Snape with her eyes wide and bright, her mouth slightly open, and her fingers going white on the armrests. She was muttering something under her breath. Harry couldn't make it out. "Herm? You all right?"
"Ssshhhhh!" she hissed. "He's talking!"
Puzzled, Harry subsided back into his seat and watched the eleven-year-old Harry Potter on the screen copying down Snape's classic bottle-fame-distill-glory-and-stopper-death speech word for word. Malfoy sniggered.
"Ooh," he said, "trying to make up for our bad impression in Transfiguration, are we? Potty, I'd no idea you took notes during Snape's forays into hyperbole."
"I didn't," he hissed. "I just kind of tried to look inconspicuous. Which wasn't easy, considering you and your lunks were flicking puffer-fish eyes at me the whole time."
"Ah, but you deserved it," said Malfoy lightly. "Imagine not knowing what a bezoar is."
Harry sighed. "Shut up, Malfoy, and hand over those Gummi Bears before Hermione has a seizure."
"She seems very taken with Snape," Malfoy remarked. "Funny. She hates him in real life."
"You seem pretty entranced," muttered Ron. "Look." The screen-Malfoy and the screen-Snape shared a long calculating glance. Eleven-year-old Malfoy smiled suddenly, a smile of such heartbreaking beauty that even Ron shut up for a moment. Then the look of bored upper-class superiority returned. The scene shifted to the Great Hall, and Hermione seemed to relax a bit. "Herm?" Ron asked. "What's up?"
"Nothing," she said brightly. "Just trying to, um, concentrate on the dialogue, to see how accurate they're being."
"Horsefeathers," said Malfoy, as elegantly as anyone can say "horsefeathers." "You just wanted to ogle Snape without interruption."
"Shut up, Malfoy," said Hermione nervously. "They showed you as being pretty smitten by him."
"Ah, but that's because that kid's acting," Malfoy pointed out. "That one isn't, though." He indicated the one playing Ron, who was happily shovelling lunch into his mouth.
"You're just saying that to piss Ron off," said Harry.
"Is it working?"
Something on the screen exploded just then and drowned out the chorus of "Shut up, Malfoy." Owls appeared and delivered the post ("You mean they think we get mail at lunchtime? What are we supposed to read at breakfast, pray?") , Neville got his Remembrall, and Harry read out the article about the Gringotts break-in to Ron ("Oooh, plot development!"), after which the Great Hall disappeared and was replaced by a grassy courtyard on which a number of broomsticks were laid out.
"My, those look uncomfortable," said Malfoy. They did. They were knobbly and thick-handled, and the twigs were cursorily bound to the tail-end in a way that made Harry wonder again about Muggles' ideas of what was and was not possible in magic. Nobody could fly on a broom like that. It wouldn't leave the ground.
"Hold your right hand over your broom and say UP," said Madam Hooch. Her astonishing hawk-yellow eyes had made even Malfoy suck in his breath ("Strewth!") and she had the right sort of authoritative, commanding voice for the flying teacher. Both Harry and Draco managed to make their brooms obey on the first try, but Ron's broom smacked him roundly between the eyes, eliciting howls of laughter from the screen Harry and the real Malfoy.
"Shut up," said Ron furiously. "That never happened, all right? It's all fake."
"Sure it is," gasped Malfoy, wiping his streaming eyes. "...whack...." Harry nudged him ungently with an elbow.
"Look, Neville's in trouble," he said, effectively distracting Malfoy from Ron and directing his attention at Longbottom's misfortune instead. All three of them winced as Neville's broom did its best to destroy itself against the wall of the castle and then hooked him neatly by the back of his robes on one of the statues' swords. There was a fraught moment before the robes ripped and he was deposited peremptorily on the ground. "I don't remember any of that," mused Harry. "As far as I recall he just flew up into the air and fell off. He didn't bounce off any walls."
Madam Hooch ushered the weeping Neville off to the hospital wing, and Malfoy sat back to watch his avatar do battle with Harry. The young Malfoy had Neville's Remembrall and was tossing it idly in the air. "If that idiot had remembered to give this a squeeze," he drawled, "he might have remembered to land on his fat arse." The group of students snickered.
"Delivery needs work," said the real Malfoy thoughtfully. "The emotion's there, right enough, but the enunciation and emphasis could use a bit of intensity."
Harry and Ron glared at him. Hermione was still staring absently at the screen, clearly a long way away. Ron poked Harry in the ribs. "Look, here comes your big moment," he whispered.
The young Harry advanced on Malfoy, who was still tossing the Remembrall up in the air. "Give it here, Malfoy," he said. Malfoy turned, the light catching his eyes and making their brilliant clear grey stand out.
"No," he said nastily. "I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find," and he stepped onto his broom's tail and rose smoothly into the air, circling around the group of students with insolent ease. "How about on the roof?"
Harry glared after him and made to mount his own broom, but Hermione caught his sleeve. "Harry, no," she said. Ron and Harry, in the audience, snickered.
"She's good," said Ron. "Got your bossiness down perfectly."
Hermione glared at him, just as the screen-Hermione said coldly, "What an idiot." She grinned at the coincidence. On the screen, Malfoy was hovering easily thirty feet over the group of students, watching as Harry maneuvered his broom shakily through the air.
"Bit out of your reach?" he drawled. Harry gave him the Look of Death.
"Give it here or I'll knock you off your broom," he said. Malfoy gave him a little smile, and executed a horizontal 360-degree spin as Harry lunged at him.
"Have it your way," he said, throwing the words back over his shoulder, and flung the Remembrall into the sky, watching as Harry drove his broom forward after it. The real Malfoy grinned.
"And off you go, Potter. I don't recall you doing any of those fancy acrobatics, actually. I remember you nearly piling the broom into the courtyard and just managing to catch the thing after a forty-foot dive. And I didn't throw the Remembrall at anything, especially not McGonagall's window. That would be foolish."
"This version's more interesting," said Harry. "I don't actually recall you doing that nifty spin thing, either. Can you do that?"
"Of course," Malfoy drawled. "Can't you?"
"Er, yeah," said Harry quickly. "Learnt it ages ago."
The screen showed McGonagall introducing Wood and Harry to one another. Hermione perked up a bit when Wood got his first close-up; he was a rather surprisingly attractive dark-haired boy with a lovely lilting accent that seemed, unlike Hagrid's, to be genuine. Ron and Harry sighed as she stared at the screen-Wood. "Pity the Muggles don't know what he really looks like," muttered Ron. "That guy's going to have millions of obsessed girls running around after him."
The hallway replaced the closeup of Wood. Harry and Ron, amid a clump of other students, hurried along it. "Did you hear?" said Nearly Headless Nick to the Grey Lady, sweeping across the screen, "Harry Potter's the new Gryffindor Seeker. I always knew he'd do well."
"What? You just met him!" Malfoy said, incredulous. "Jeez, Potter, your fan club extends beyond death."
"Yep," said Harry comfortably. "It's my scintillating personality, don't you know."
Malfoy gave him the Look of Death.
"Hey!" Harry ignored Malfoy's Look of Death and pointed at the screen. "McGonagall on the same award as my dad? Who knew?"
"Note the no mention of Charlie Weasley anywhere?" Ron asked offhandedly. "Just wondering. He could've played for England, you know."
"Would you lot shut up about Quidditch already?" snapped Hermione. "I wanna see more Snape!"
"Hah," said Malfoy triumphantly. "She admits it." Hermione went very red and shrank back in her seat. "There's nothing to worry about," he went on, "when we get back to Hogwarts, you can go and confess your undying love for him, and who knows? Maybe he'll even reveal his secret lust for Granger the Brain. Ah, the sweet romance you two would have in the Potions classroom," he expanded on his theme, with gesticulations, "'Oh, Professor Snape, I think you're really handsome, with your evil glare and your hooked nose!' 'Oh, Miss Granger, I must avert my eyes in the presence of such unutterable bushy-haired beauty!'"
This time Harry hit him quite hard, and he shut up for a while, nursing a bruised rib and glaring at them with a look of abused 'who, me?' innocence. Hermione turned a brilliant smile on Harry.
"Well done," she said. "I'd have done it myself, but, you know....you're better at it than me."
"Thanks," said Harry and swelled with pride. Malfoy made a disgusted noise.
"If you two are quite finished being cute, perhaps we could continue watching this movie?"
