A/N: Plot! Well, kind of… The first person to identify where the whole "brilliant lunatic, impossible to predict" deal comes from gets to be my new best friend.

And Dean speaks Russian because it's sexy. Unh-hunh. *nods*

- broken telephone -

Everybody's playing the game,


But nobody's rules are the same.


Nobody's on nobody's side.

Florence, "Nobody's Side," Chess

Harry didn't sleep that night or well into the next morning.

After the Quidditch match he'd run into the change room as quickly as he could and taken a long, hot shower. By the time he emerged, he'd destroyed an entire bar of soap scrubbing his cheek. But it still didn't feel clean.

Harry wasn't sure why it bothered him so much. Well, besides the obvious: he'd been licked. By a boy. By Malfoy. But, out of it all, Harry couldn't pinpoint what bothered him the most. Maybe it was a combination of all three.

Or maybe it was because Harry didn't understand Malfoy's motives. The boy had two legs and two arms, didn't he? And all of them worked fine, didn't they? So why had he chosen to use his tongue to get Harry's attention! All right, Harry allowed, maybe he had been gripping Malfoy's arm too tightly for it to be used, but that still left him three options! Malfoy's reasons remained as enigmatic as ever.

Ron and the others had been very understanding; Hermione had even offered to do his homework for him that night, but nothing had cheered Harry up. "Don't worry, Harry." Ron had said in a last ditch attempt. "It was bound to happen someday. You couldn't go on winning forever. It's just a shame it was Malfoy who beat you."

Yes, it was Malfoy. It was weird because it was Malfoy. Maybe that was the real reason Harry couldn't let it go.

Or maybe it was…

No! It was weird because it was Malfoy. End of story.

Except, why? Why had Malfoy licked him? With all the other choices available?

And so on, and so on. It was this kind of circular thinking that had kept Harry up, sitting on his bed, staring blankly at the wall until the sun began to rise.

It was nuts. It was driving him nuts. And Harry had a feeling that leaving his questions unanswered was a sure path to insomnia.

Unfortunately, the only person with the answers wasn't likely to co-operate.

Still, (yes, Harry was still contradicting himself) he was a Gryffindor, right? Bravery in the face of almost certain humiliation was part of the package.

The question was how to go about it. Grabbing Malfoy after class was out; it was too high profile and bound to raise eyebrows on all sides of the fence. A meeting arranged by mail then, private and secret. And to ensure that Malfoy would come Harry would leave the letter unsigned, peek the little prig's curiosity.

It was perfect as it could get under the circumstances, so Harry stirred from his seat on his bed and rummaged around for a quill and a blank piece of paper. Then he set to writing the note.

--

Harry wasn't the only one up early that morning. In the girl's dorm, Lavender was on the floor, with her eyes closed, doing yoga.

When she was six, her youngest brother had hit her in the nose with a Bludger. For weeks afterward, Lavender had been certain that her nose was broken or that her teeth would fall out or something. But it never happened. What did happen was fear: since that day Lavender had never been able to play any sports involving balls.

So she did yoga instead.

It was relaxing, balancing and sitting in the padma-asana (the infamous lotus position) always freaked out Pavarti. "People just shouldn't be able to bend like that!" she always declared. But right now, Pavarti was asleep and Lavender was doing this for herself.

Unlike Harry she wasn't fretting over things that had happened. She was fretting about things to come. Well, things that would come if she could work up the courage.

Lavender worried when courage didn't come to her easily, because in Gryffindor if you didn't have bravery up to here you were a leftover. Gryffindor was the house of bravery, but it was also the house of leftovers: kids that didn't fit in anywhere. Only certain people are brilliant enough for Ravenclaw, blindly loyal enough for Hufflepuff or cunning bastards as Slytherin required; but anyone can be brave under the right circumstances so those that didn't fit anywhere else were tossed in Gryffindor. The leftovers.

Lavender Brown refused to be a leftover. But she couldn't help but be terrified by what she was about to do. She uncrossed her legs, walked over to her bed and began to write a letter.

A love letter. Oh my.

--

"Seeker –

I found something you might want to see. Meet me in front of Charms class before breakfast.

Snitch."

--

"Snitch –

Right. I'll be there.

Seeker."

--

Pansy Parkinson had brains and style and funds from here to eternity. She had everything she could ever want, except for Draco.

Now, as has already been said, Pansy was a smart girl and even if she wasn't she wouldn't mistake Draco's actions towards her for affection. You'd have to be a special kind of stupid to do that. But Pansy was optimistic; she figured he would come around on his on in time and she would wait forever if need be, because patience was another quality she had in spades.

What Pansy Parkinson was not was easily amused. She wasn't the sort who could be handed a crossword and be expected to sit still and fill it out. Pansy craved danger and excitement. She needed to move, to see, to do something that required thought and skill.

Which is why the idea of being a spy had appealed to her so much.

The idea had first come to her in fourth year when the Slytherins had ganged together to help Rita Skeeter. Pansy had been particularly good at getting information for Miss Skeeter and she could remember the very moment the older woman had smiled at her and said, "You've got talent, girl! You'd make quite the investigative journalist!"

She'd been so proud, but since then she had begun to think. Why wait years to become a journalist who writes stories for the good of mankind when right now in Hogwarts there were millions of stories students would pay to have told? Or not to have told as the case may be.

It was right then and there that she had decided that life as a spy was the life for her. And then, two days ago, Dean Thomas had approached her with a proposition she couldn't ignore. Which brought her to the present, waiting in front of the Charms class instead of heading down to the Great Hall for breakfast.

"Parkinson?"

Pansy turned around and saw Dean coming up a flight of stairs towards her. She nodded. "I was beginning to think you wouldn't come."

Dean snorted. "You said before breakfast. It's still before breakfast isn't it?" He looked at the classroom behind her. "What did you need to show me?"

Pansy smiled mysteriously. "Come." And she took off down the hallway. Dean watched her leave for a moment before shaking his head and jogging to catch up. She glanced at him and pretended to be shocked. "Where's your tag-along?"

Dean kept his eyes forward. "Your note said you wanted to show me something. You didn't say anything about him."

"Mmmm…" Pansy knitted her eyebrows. "I just sort of assumed… Oh, well. This way I get you all to myself." Dean didn't say anything. "Ah!" Pansy stopped and turned to a large painting of a woman with pale skin dressed all in black. One of the woman's hands was stretched out as if she was inviting her audience to step into the painting and join her. "Here we are."

"Yeah? And?"

"Patience, Dean. Patience." Pansy reached up and placed her hand against the woman's, palm to palm. There was an odd, mechanical rumbling noise (although anything that could be described as mechanical in Hogwarts was odd) and the picture swung away revealing a dark corridor. Pansy looked to Dean for a reaction and was pleased to see his mouth open.

"Мой бог!"

Pansy snickered and gestured toward the corridor. "Come on." She stepped into the tunnel with Dean behind her. The picture closed behind them with a whack. Dean jumped.

"Uh, can we get out again?"

"Really Dean. Do you think I'd get myself locked in a dark tunnel?"

Dean shrugged. "I make a habit of not making assumptions about you Slytherin. You never know when one of you might decide to sacrifice yourself to take one of us out."

Pansy pulled out her wand and flicked it. "Lumos. Don't give yourself so much credit, we all draw the line at self-sacrifice."

"I'll keep that in mind." Dean said distractedly, looking around. The tunnel wasn't actually a tunnel; it was a small room, empty except for the cobwebs and dust. Spiders skittered across the floor, shocked to see humans in the room after so many years. "What is this place?"

Pansy brushed a spider web out of her hair. "I have no idea. But come over here, this is what I wanted to show you."

Dean walked over to where Pansy stood, pointing at the wall. There in the wall was a stone that was a different colour from the others. Dean reached out to touch it and then snapped his hand back in shock. There wasn't a stone there at all. He reached for it again and this time he pushed his hand all the way through.

"An illusion? But, why is it here?"

"So you can hear everything that goes on in the other room, I'd guess."

Dean glanced at her. "What's the other room?"

Pansy tilted her head and smiled. "Charms class."

--

Breakfast was served every morning at seven and, like McDonald's, it would continue to be served until eleven; this way students with first period spares could enjoy sleeping in. So Dean, who like every other Gryffindor in his year with the exception of Hermione had that spare, wasn't alone for breakfast when he reached the Great Hall a little past 9:30. He slid into the free seat beside Seamus and began loading up the nearest plate.

"Where were you?" Seamus asked, ducking his head and whispering. He was trying to make sure the rest of the table didn't hear him. Not that they were listening.

Lavender was bent over a piece of paper, scribbling frantically and…was that, yes it was, she was blushing. Interesting…

Pavarti had pinned Ron to his seat by sitting on him and was relentlessly grilling him on his newest girl. How had they met? What was she like? Was she really Hermione's long lost twin?

Harry was also writing a letter. Although, he seemed to be having more difficulty than Lavender: he'd write a few sentences, grimace, crunch the paper into a ball, shove it into his backpack and start again. But whom is he writing to?

And down at the very end of the table was Neville, sitting quietly and watching. That kid was one of the few things that gave Dean the creeps.

"Where were you?" Seamus repeated, poking Dean in the arm. Hard.

"Ow. Stop that." Dean glared. "I was nowhere."

Seamus snorted and leaned in close. "Yeah right. You're never up before seven, and the only time your up before eight is when you sneak off to the owlery to pick up that package you get each month that you never want the rest of us to know about. Where were you?"

Ah, Seamus. Dean underestimated him too much at times. "I had a meeting."

"A meeting?" A look of puzzlement crossed Seamus' face followed all too soon by betrayal. "You were meeting with Snitch!"

Dean didn't answer.

"You were, weren't you? How the fuck could you do that? I'm your partner! We- We're doing this together!"

Dean frowned. He hated the implication that he needed to rely on someone almost as much as he hated the way Seamus trusted him completely. It was dangerous. "I work alone."

Seamus bit his lip, looking more hurt than Dean thought he had a right to. "Right man. What-the-fuck-ever." He grabbed his plate and stormed over to sit beside Neville.

Dean didn't have a chance to decide how stupid he'd just been, because at that moment Ron pushed Pavarti off his lap.

"Take that back!" He shouted.

But, Pavarti couldn't because she'd been tipped too far forward and had fallen across the table, tipping Lavender's orange juice over. Lavender yelped and grabbed her letter, scrambling away from the orange flood that was coming towards her and flipping Harry's eggs into his lap. It was then Harry's turn to yell and get to his feet, and he upset the entire orange juice pitcher over Ron, Neville and Seamus.

Dean blinked and then began to laugh.

"Oh shut up Thomas." Seamus snapped, squeezing OJ out of his robe.

Harry was brushing egg bits off his pants. "Good job Ron."

Ron had the decency to blush.

Lavender sighed and put her letter next to Harry's on the bench. "Come on Pavarti, let's go clean ourselves up." She said and they left.

Ron smiled. "That's a good idea, come on guys."

The others followed Ron towards the door, but Harry paused. "Watch our stuff, ok Dean?" Dean nodded and made a dismissing motion with his hand.

Dean continued to eat after they'd left, although every now and then his eyes would wander to the letters on the bench. Finally, unable to contain his curiosity, he wandered over to the dirty end of the table and picked up Harry's letter.

Dean scanned the page and made a 'hmm' noise: it was short but intriguing. Next, he picked up Lavender's letter and read through it, even more intriguing. Dean held both letters up to the light. They seemed finished even though neither was signed or addressed. Both had been written on the same parchment and came with identical, purple envelopes.

Dean shook his head as he switched the letters.

They make it too easy sometimes.

--

No one learns anything in the period before lunch. Regardless of whether the period is ten minutes long or seventy-five, not a single student pays attention to what the teacher is saying.

Ginny Weasley certainly wasn't.

Ginny bit down on the tip of her quill and scowled at her paper. One more syllable and it was done.

Even though her attempts at poetry in first year had been disastrous, Ginny hadn't given up on it. She was quietly bitter, quietly determined, quietly angry: Ginny was a poet at heart, albeit a quiet one.

McGonagall bites.

Transfiguration does to.

I hate this class lots.

She wasn't the kind of poet who wrote depressing sonnets about how the world hated her, mostly because on the average day the world didn't even notice she was there.

Ron's an idiot.

Hermione's name's too long.

Potter is a… a…

Jerk! Ginny smirked and tacked the word on to the end of her haiku. Yes, she really should have been listening to McGonagall's lecture, but she didn't care: it was so boring. Her seat was right next to the door and she'd bet a hundred galleons she could walk right out of class before McGonagall noticed.

There was a knock at the door. "Professor?"

McGonagall looked up. "Yes Madame Hooch?"

Hooch moved into the room. "I was hoping I could borrow two of your students to help me clean out the broom shed."

"Is this in preparation for the delivery?"

Hooch nodded and Colin Creevey's hand sped into the air.

"What delivery Professor?"

McGonagall smiled genuinely. "The school has managed to purchase a new set of Quidditch balls."

An excited buzz filled the room. It was well known that the old set had become too worn out to play with anymore. Especially since the Bludgers had recently stopped chasing people and had begun to simply float along behind them.

An idea occurred to Ginny. "When will the new balls get here?"

McGonagall looked at Ginny, clearly surprised although not as surprised as Hooch. Ginny knew it was an odd question for her of all people to ask.

"A week from tonight, Miss Weasley." Hooch answered.

Ginny nodded. A week was plenty enough time to form a plan. Maybe her dreams of destroying Quidditch weren't as impossible as she had thought.

--

After lunch came Potions.

On regular days, Harry couldn't bear that class at all. He would have liked to pretend that the reason he hated the class so much was because Snape hated him with equal fervour, but that wasn't true. Snape didn't particularly hate Harry; he hated everyone. Just some, like Malfoy, less than others. Although that could have been because Malfoy had a lot of talent in Potions and Harry didn't. None of the Harry's excuses held up.

On regular days, Harry hated potions, but today wasn't regular. He entered the dungeon classroom with a feeling of anticipation and actually looking forward to being paired with Malfoy (it was inevitable). Harry had a letter to deliver, but that took a back seat as Snape entered.

Snape slammed the door as usual and made his way to the front of the class, sweeping the class with a glare that made half of them feel like dying and the other half feel inexplicably guilty.

"Today," Snape began in his brisk, no-nonsense manner, "we will be creating the I assigned you to read about last night. I've decided you will be handing in the final product to be marked." The class groaned; Snape's mouth twitched into a half smile. "If you've done your homework there is nothing to worry about. I'm sure by now you all know the partners I've chosen for you, so get to work."

A grumble rippled through the classroom as friends split up and moved off to work with enemies. Harry walked over to Malfoy's desk and sat down. Goyle gave Harry a menacing glare and rubbed his knuckles together: clearly someone was taking their bodyguard position very seriously today. Malfoy grinned and together they began to work.

"Snape's really stopped putting the effort he used to put into being evil." Malfoy commented as he chopped up a long green plant that looked a lot like celery. The comment was more to himself than to Harry.

"Yeah, he used to love making a big deal out of forcing you on me." There was a dramatic pause and then Harry winced. Stupid accidental innuendo…

If Malfoy had caught the double meaning he didn't show it. "He's really losing his edge." He smirked. "Like some other people I could mention. How does defeat taste, Potter?"

"You just couldn't leave it alone, could you Malfoy?"

"Why would I want to?"

"Human decency?"

Malfoy pretended to be appalled. "Where did you get the idea that I had any of that?"

"I don't know." Harry exhaled. "Silly me." Silly him indeed, what had he honestly expected? Malfoy to be civil? What a joke. Nothing had changed since yesterday, so why did Harry feel like everything had?

The rest of the potion was completed in silence. Malfoy, blissfully, had his mind on other things and Harry wasn't really in the mood for conversation.

When they had finally finished, Harry wiped his hands on his robe and looked at Malfoy. "How about you hand this into Snape." He'd half expected a fight over it, but Malfoy simply shrugged and picked up the vial with the finished liquid and swaggered off to find Snape.

Harry leaned back in his seat and looked around. No one was watching him, Malfoy wasn't around: it was the perfect opportunity, yet he was hesitating.

Less than a minute of class to go, Harry thought, it's now or never.

With a last burst of courage, Harry grabbed his letter and dropped it on top of Malfoy's Potions textbook just as the ball rang. He seized his own books and ran out of the room. Behind him he heard Ron and Hermione shout after him, and Malfoy exclaim, "who put this note here?"

--

No one understood why Hermione continued to take Muggle Studies. Being Muggle born herself, it didn't make any sense.

But, Hermione enjoyed the class because it wasn't only about the Muggle world; it was about also about its relation to the Wizard world. It was fascinating. Take their current project for example. Each student was to write a paper about a Muggle myth that had a good deal of truth to it.

Besides, Lavender, Dean and Seamus were all taking the course. It was nice to have time away from Ron and Harry to get to know her other friends.

Seamus and Lavender walked in, laughing together and headed towards Hermione. Seamus took the seat beside her and Lavender sat behind him.

"Hey Hermione!" Seamus greeted her. "You missed the excitement at breakfast this morning!"

Hermione smiled. "So I've heard. Although I think I'll take Arithmancy over being covered in orange juice any day."

Seamus laughed and Lavender smiled lightly.

Dean rushed through the door just as the bell rang.

"Good timing Thomas!" A Hufflepuff yelled. Dean bowed dramatically and then glanced towards where Hermione and the others sat. He sneered.

Hermione was shocked. Sneered? Dean? She shifted around to interrogate Seamus, only to be doubly shocked at his matching scowl. What is going on?

"Seamus?"

Seamus' eyes remained glued to Dean. "I don't want to talk about it." He held up his middle finger and mouthed "fuck you" at Dean. Dean glowered and flicked his thumb forward from his teeth before taking a seat close to the front.

Hermione looked at Lavender. The other girl shrugged, but Hermione could see concern in her eyes.

Something was wrong. If Seamus and Dean, who usually acted like conjoined twins, weren't speaking to each other, something was very wrong indeed.

--

Dinner was tense. Ron wasn't speaking to Pavarti. Hermione wasn't speaking to Ron. Dean and Seamus were not only speaking to each other they were actively insulting each other. Harry wasn't speaking to anyone; he just sat and ate.

Ate. Harry was lucky; Lavender couldn't even do that. Near the end of the last period she'd slipped her note into Seamus' bag but he hadn't found it yet. It was driving her crazy with anticipation, and the desire to simply steal the letter back was becoming overwhelming. There were too many ifs, too many things that could go wrong.

So it was with a great deal of relief and a whole new breed of worry that she saw Seamus reach into his bag and pull out the letter just as they were leaving the Great Hall to head back to the common room.

--

Prig. Snob. Pretty-boy. Hottie. Bastard. Deatheater. Slytherin's prima donna. It was all reputation and there was nothing Draco valued more than reputation. Who gave a fuck what you were like on the inside: it was what appeared on the outside that made any difference at all. And that wasn't just Lucius Malfoy's upbringing talking, it was Draco's motto in life.

He was a Malfoy and that name brought a reputation by itself, but no one said Draco couldn't have a reputation of his own.

He presented himself as an enigma. A cipher. A brilliant lunatic. You couldn't tell which way he'd jump. Impossible to analyse, dissect or predict. Which, of course, meant he wasn't a lunatic at all.

Enigmatic was the word to describe Draco. And attractive. Being attractive was a very important part of being Draco Malfoy, because beautiful people can get away with more. A beautiful person can act like an ass and still have people fight to be his friend. Sure, you'd lose some potential friends that way, but there would always be someone else waiting to meet you.

The only problem was sometimes you'd be careless and then you might end up screwing up meeting the only person who really matters … Not that Draco felt he'd done that. Because he never had. Never…?

No. No never.

Double negative.

Draco prided himself on more than just his rep though. He also thought himself a pretty good judge of character. He liked to think he knew how to predict what anyone would do in any given situation. This wasn't completely unfounded either; he was very rarely surprised by anything that happened, which is why the letter interested him so much.

"I hope you realize I'm putting myself on the line just to write this letter. So please, before I confess keep in mind how much courage this is taking. Ready? Well here it goes: I love you. I'm not sure how long or when I started, but I know it's true.

Now, because I don't think I could stand you laughing in my face, I'm not going to tell you who I am. If you are curious, though, meet me in the Charms class at 9:15."

Draco traced the nine with a fingernail and nibbled on the inside of his cheek. You didn't see that coming did you Draco? Now the next question is who sent it?

--

Seamus read the letter again. It still wasn't making sense. Seamus couldn't claim to be a good judge of character, but there were certain people he'd always though he knew well enough to guess about. Although after what had happened this morning maybe it was time to re-evaluate everything he thought he knew.

"We need to talk about what happened. Meet me in Charms class at 9:00."

Well, Seamus flopped back on the bed, if Dean wants to talk, we'll talk.

- end part three -