Title: The Fox and the Hound (4/?)
Author: Lisa (Snapdragongrrl@aol.com)
Rating: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: See Chapter One. No one wants to read in every chapter about how I'm poor and own nothing at all.
PAIRINGS: Harry/Draco (Only friendship at first, but it will probably develop into mild SLASH. You've been warned...). This will also have some Ron/Hermione, because it's unavoidable.
SUMMARY: Much like the cartoon the title comes from, this story is about two best friends who didn't know they were supposed to be enemies. Okay, so maybe one of them knew and tricked the other one into being his friend, but it's the same basic idea. Starts at the end of CoS.
SPOILERS: The first four HP books.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm going to try to update weekly. Feel free to email me with a "Where the hell is your update?" if I slack off.
DISTRIBUTION: Want? Tell me. Then comes the taking and the having.
DEDICATION: To my four positive reviewers who made me want to continue this to see where it goes.
Chapter Four: A Fox in the Henhouse
Draco Malfoy pinched himself.
Surely it must be Christmas? Or his birthday?
Harry Potter had lost his memory.
No, not just *one* memory... ALL of them.
Draco's mind drew one important conclusion from the information he had overheard: 'If he has no memories, he doesn't know who his enemies are...'
He knew that, as a Malfoy, it was his duty to play this out to his advantage somehow. But first he had to make sure it was true. Headmaster confirmed or not, Rule #7 of The Malfoy Manual of Meticulous Maliciousness was "Never trust anyone (even another Malfoy)."
He glanced at the Weasel and the old man from his hiding spot around the corner. Weasel was pacing and "why me"-ing, and you could say that Dumbledore was more than a little occupied with trying to calm him down.
Draco snuck into the infirmary unnoticed.
Or so he thought.
Dumbledore looked up from the taming of the Weasley in front of him in time to see pale hair and black robes sweep into the hospital wing. His eyes were back to their sparkly blue diamond state, and he was wearing his best all-knowing look.
Snape was desperate to get away from the Potter boy.
Something was most definitely off with him. He was asking maddening questions about the most mundane things, things even one as dim as Potter should already know.
"I *know* they are 'robes,' but *why* do we wear them? They seem a bit impractical to me. Don't the sleeves ever drip into your mixtur-sorry 'potions?' And are you sure you don't think they look like dresses? Because frankly..."
Snape noticed Malfoy slink into the hospital wing and saw his chance for escape. He needed to find out what was wrong with this boy. It was no fun to sneer at someone so blissfully unaware, no matter how inane the conversation.
"Mr. Malfoy, come here."
Draco jumped, startled at being spotted so soon in his reconnaissance mission. He looked toward the second bed on the right where Professor *Snape,* of all people, was sitting next to Harry. And there was no bloodshed. None that he could see from where he was, anyway.
"Mr. Malfoy, stop gawking like a stargazing centaur and come here this instant." Snape snapped.
As the blond boy headed his way, Harry started to introduce himself. He caught himself just in time, though, remembering what Ron had said. This boy Malfoy probably already knew him. He would try to speak only after he was spoken to, even if he really wanted to know what the boy called his unique eye color. 'I'd call them platinum,' Harry thought.
"You will stay with Mr. Potter until either myself or Professor Dumbledore returns," Snape said.
Before Draco could utter the smallest protest to his head of house, Snape and his billowing "dress-like" robes had swept through the infirmary door.
Draco threw himself down into the chair Snape had vacated and glared at Potter from beneath his pale lashes. He was too close to spy on Potter now.
To his utter astonishment, Potter smiled at him and said hello.
Deciding to see where it would take him, Draco drew his face into a lazy grin and drawled, "Why are you in here? I do hope you aren't ill."
"Oh, no. It's nothing like that. But I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say. Ron told me not to." Harry frowned.
"And since when do you take orders from the Weas-Ron, anyway? I thought we were better friends than that, Pot-Harry," Draco said, sticking out his lower lip.
'Anyone who is nice to you is probably your friend, Ron had said,' Harry thought.
Harry's smile returned and he motioned for Draco scoot his chair closer to the hospital bed. After looking around and seeing no one paying attention to them, he told Draco about his memory problem.
"I woke up in an underground cave not knowing who or where I was until a red-haired boy told me my name is Harry Potter, I'm a wizard, and that we had to save his sister."
It didn't occur to Harry to wonder about his "friend" Draco's complete lack of surprise about his memory loss.
"Which you did," Draco gestured toward Ginny who was still being fawned over at the far side of the room. "Good job." He wondered if talking to Potter was always this easy, or only when you had the upper hand on him. "Well, since you no longer know me, my name is Draco Malfoy."
Draco stuck out his hand to shake Harry's. Harry laughed as he shook it.
'His hand is so warm.' In his head, Draco was trying to imagine if this is how things could've been on the train to school last year. What would change if Harry *thought* this was how things had happened? Draco wondered...
"You're taking this very well. Ron started to cry when he realized I had no memories."
Draco had a big laugh at that, picturing the tall, thin boy doubled over and sobbing about the "unfairness of it all."
"Well," Draco began. "You can always make new memories, can't you?" He smiled at Harry; it was getting much easier to do, he noted wryly.
Draco started to tell Harry the story of his first day at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
"...And while I was getting fitted for my school robes, I talked to you for the first time," Draco said after telling Harry about the acceptance letter he would've gotten and how wizards enter Diagon Alley. "We weren't properly introduced, but I knew then that we would be good friends."
While he was telling Harry this utter load of crap, Draco pondered his need to have this boy as his friend. Malfoys didn't *need* anyone. It was Rule #2, right behind "Malfoys are always the best." Except for 2nd cousin Marta born in 1896 who was practically a squib, but they don't talk about her - which is Rule #712."
Draco rationalized that his "need" for Potter's friendship was really just anger about Harry disregarding him like he was nothing more than a house elf. No one had ever *not* respected or accepted him. Sure, it was mainly because they feared his family's name and not because they actually liked him, but it wasn't as if he didn't have real friends. Not that he needed them, of course.
He recalled for a moment all the failed, monosyllabic conversations with Crabbe and Goyle. The only time he had ever felt they were really listening to him was after Christmas this year in the Slytherin common room. They were discussing the Chamber of Secrets for the 18th time...
He was snapped out of his reverie by Harry's hand on his shoulder.
"You all right, Draco? You got really quiet all of a sudden."
Draco looked at Harry and was startled to see the boy leaning close to him, half off the hospital bed, with his emerald eyes shining with concern. 'He called me Draco,' he thought, wondering why that made him so sickeningly happy.
"Yes, of course I'm fine. Just lost track of the story. Where was I?"
"You were just telling me how you introduced yourself on the train," Harry said, still a bit worried about what would make Draco stop talking in the middle of a story like that. Unless it was common wizard practice to blank out mid-sentence and stare thoughtfully at the wall with your brow furrowed; Harry wasn't sure.
"Right." Draco made things up that he would've liked to see happen were he a normal boy and not a Malfoy commissioned to befriend Potter and bring him to the Dark Lord's side.
"I entered the compartment you were in with Ron and sat down next to you. He told me to leave, because his family hates my family, and you told him I had every right to be there if I wanted. That's when we introduced ourselves and shook hands."
"What happened after that? I get the feeling Ron and I are pretty good friends, but how can that be if he hates you and you're also my friend?"
Draco sighed. This web of lies was getting too tangled to remember. He knew would be in trouble for this from all sides. From Potter's friends, the teachers, and especially his father, who would see his need to befriend Potter for what it really was: a sign of weakness. 'But it was worth it,' he thought, remembering a pair of wide, worried eyes in a deep jade hue.
"When we got to the school, we were sorted into our dormitories, our 'houses.' We were put into different ones, so we don't see each other very much, but you and Ron are in the same house. So you became much closer friends."
Harry began asking tons of questions about their houses, and Draco was actually leaving his biases out of it for once and telling him about each one's strengths.
Harry laughed as Draco grudgingly admitted that his house didn't contain the nicest people in the school and that most were quite snobby.
"But you seem nice enough and not too big of a snob. Are you sure they put you in the right place?" Harry teased, poking fun at Draco's impeccable appearance and his obviously expensive robes.
They were so wrapped up, that they didn't notice the youngest male Weasley staring in shocked horror at his currently defenseless best friend fraternizing with the enemy. 'He was safer with You-Know-Who in the chamber,' Ron thought.
Ron angrily approached the two boys and his rant was sucked back into his mouth as he saw that they were both laughing. Never having seen Malfoy laugh without spite or smirking, Ron didn't know how to react. He didn't know Malfoys *could* laugh. 'Maybe the prat's face will shatter from the effort.'
He reached the side of the bed that was Malfoy-free and cleared his throat.
"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" Ron said, reigning in his famous temper for memory-free Harry's sake.
"Weasley, not that it's any of *your* business, but my friend Harry and I were just catching up on old times." Draco stared at Ron, daring him to contradict his words in front of the now very impressionable Harry.
Dumbledore appeared in the doorway with Snape and watched the scene with his blue eyes all a twinkle.
"We can still save him, Severus. This may be just the thing to pull young Mr. Malfoy away from the darkness before it is too late."
TBC
A/N: Yay! Reviews! I'm the hap-hap-happiest gal in Happyville right now. Thanks so much for your kind words. I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue after my first two *amazingly* perceptive reviews, but you guys made me feel much better.
Adam: I had to re-write part of this chapter because you pointed out something I hadn't meant to happen: Draco overhearing that last bit with Dumbledore. Oopsie. Thanks though, because I think the story will go in a totally new direction now. ;)
Lanevaly: Who would Draco be if he wasn't deceiving Harry even just a little bit? ;)
Jess S: Glad you think it's interesting! I hope to make it even more so. ;)
Author: Lisa (Snapdragongrrl@aol.com)
Rating: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: See Chapter One. No one wants to read in every chapter about how I'm poor and own nothing at all.
PAIRINGS: Harry/Draco (Only friendship at first, but it will probably develop into mild SLASH. You've been warned...). This will also have some Ron/Hermione, because it's unavoidable.
SUMMARY: Much like the cartoon the title comes from, this story is about two best friends who didn't know they were supposed to be enemies. Okay, so maybe one of them knew and tricked the other one into being his friend, but it's the same basic idea. Starts at the end of CoS.
SPOILERS: The first four HP books.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm going to try to update weekly. Feel free to email me with a "Where the hell is your update?" if I slack off.
DISTRIBUTION: Want? Tell me. Then comes the taking and the having.
DEDICATION: To my four positive reviewers who made me want to continue this to see where it goes.
Chapter Four: A Fox in the Henhouse
Draco Malfoy pinched himself.
Surely it must be Christmas? Or his birthday?
Harry Potter had lost his memory.
No, not just *one* memory... ALL of them.
Draco's mind drew one important conclusion from the information he had overheard: 'If he has no memories, he doesn't know who his enemies are...'
He knew that, as a Malfoy, it was his duty to play this out to his advantage somehow. But first he had to make sure it was true. Headmaster confirmed or not, Rule #7 of The Malfoy Manual of Meticulous Maliciousness was "Never trust anyone (even another Malfoy)."
He glanced at the Weasel and the old man from his hiding spot around the corner. Weasel was pacing and "why me"-ing, and you could say that Dumbledore was more than a little occupied with trying to calm him down.
Draco snuck into the infirmary unnoticed.
Or so he thought.
Dumbledore looked up from the taming of the Weasley in front of him in time to see pale hair and black robes sweep into the hospital wing. His eyes were back to their sparkly blue diamond state, and he was wearing his best all-knowing look.
Snape was desperate to get away from the Potter boy.
Something was most definitely off with him. He was asking maddening questions about the most mundane things, things even one as dim as Potter should already know.
"I *know* they are 'robes,' but *why* do we wear them? They seem a bit impractical to me. Don't the sleeves ever drip into your mixtur-sorry 'potions?' And are you sure you don't think they look like dresses? Because frankly..."
Snape noticed Malfoy slink into the hospital wing and saw his chance for escape. He needed to find out what was wrong with this boy. It was no fun to sneer at someone so blissfully unaware, no matter how inane the conversation.
"Mr. Malfoy, come here."
Draco jumped, startled at being spotted so soon in his reconnaissance mission. He looked toward the second bed on the right where Professor *Snape,* of all people, was sitting next to Harry. And there was no bloodshed. None that he could see from where he was, anyway.
"Mr. Malfoy, stop gawking like a stargazing centaur and come here this instant." Snape snapped.
As the blond boy headed his way, Harry started to introduce himself. He caught himself just in time, though, remembering what Ron had said. This boy Malfoy probably already knew him. He would try to speak only after he was spoken to, even if he really wanted to know what the boy called his unique eye color. 'I'd call them platinum,' Harry thought.
"You will stay with Mr. Potter until either myself or Professor Dumbledore returns," Snape said.
Before Draco could utter the smallest protest to his head of house, Snape and his billowing "dress-like" robes had swept through the infirmary door.
Draco threw himself down into the chair Snape had vacated and glared at Potter from beneath his pale lashes. He was too close to spy on Potter now.
To his utter astonishment, Potter smiled at him and said hello.
Deciding to see where it would take him, Draco drew his face into a lazy grin and drawled, "Why are you in here? I do hope you aren't ill."
"Oh, no. It's nothing like that. But I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say. Ron told me not to." Harry frowned.
"And since when do you take orders from the Weas-Ron, anyway? I thought we were better friends than that, Pot-Harry," Draco said, sticking out his lower lip.
'Anyone who is nice to you is probably your friend, Ron had said,' Harry thought.
Harry's smile returned and he motioned for Draco scoot his chair closer to the hospital bed. After looking around and seeing no one paying attention to them, he told Draco about his memory problem.
"I woke up in an underground cave not knowing who or where I was until a red-haired boy told me my name is Harry Potter, I'm a wizard, and that we had to save his sister."
It didn't occur to Harry to wonder about his "friend" Draco's complete lack of surprise about his memory loss.
"Which you did," Draco gestured toward Ginny who was still being fawned over at the far side of the room. "Good job." He wondered if talking to Potter was always this easy, or only when you had the upper hand on him. "Well, since you no longer know me, my name is Draco Malfoy."
Draco stuck out his hand to shake Harry's. Harry laughed as he shook it.
'His hand is so warm.' In his head, Draco was trying to imagine if this is how things could've been on the train to school last year. What would change if Harry *thought* this was how things had happened? Draco wondered...
"You're taking this very well. Ron started to cry when he realized I had no memories."
Draco had a big laugh at that, picturing the tall, thin boy doubled over and sobbing about the "unfairness of it all."
"Well," Draco began. "You can always make new memories, can't you?" He smiled at Harry; it was getting much easier to do, he noted wryly.
Draco started to tell Harry the story of his first day at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
"...And while I was getting fitted for my school robes, I talked to you for the first time," Draco said after telling Harry about the acceptance letter he would've gotten and how wizards enter Diagon Alley. "We weren't properly introduced, but I knew then that we would be good friends."
While he was telling Harry this utter load of crap, Draco pondered his need to have this boy as his friend. Malfoys didn't *need* anyone. It was Rule #2, right behind "Malfoys are always the best." Except for 2nd cousin Marta born in 1896 who was practically a squib, but they don't talk about her - which is Rule #712."
Draco rationalized that his "need" for Potter's friendship was really just anger about Harry disregarding him like he was nothing more than a house elf. No one had ever *not* respected or accepted him. Sure, it was mainly because they feared his family's name and not because they actually liked him, but it wasn't as if he didn't have real friends. Not that he needed them, of course.
He recalled for a moment all the failed, monosyllabic conversations with Crabbe and Goyle. The only time he had ever felt they were really listening to him was after Christmas this year in the Slytherin common room. They were discussing the Chamber of Secrets for the 18th time...
He was snapped out of his reverie by Harry's hand on his shoulder.
"You all right, Draco? You got really quiet all of a sudden."
Draco looked at Harry and was startled to see the boy leaning close to him, half off the hospital bed, with his emerald eyes shining with concern. 'He called me Draco,' he thought, wondering why that made him so sickeningly happy.
"Yes, of course I'm fine. Just lost track of the story. Where was I?"
"You were just telling me how you introduced yourself on the train," Harry said, still a bit worried about what would make Draco stop talking in the middle of a story like that. Unless it was common wizard practice to blank out mid-sentence and stare thoughtfully at the wall with your brow furrowed; Harry wasn't sure.
"Right." Draco made things up that he would've liked to see happen were he a normal boy and not a Malfoy commissioned to befriend Potter and bring him to the Dark Lord's side.
"I entered the compartment you were in with Ron and sat down next to you. He told me to leave, because his family hates my family, and you told him I had every right to be there if I wanted. That's when we introduced ourselves and shook hands."
"What happened after that? I get the feeling Ron and I are pretty good friends, but how can that be if he hates you and you're also my friend?"
Draco sighed. This web of lies was getting too tangled to remember. He knew would be in trouble for this from all sides. From Potter's friends, the teachers, and especially his father, who would see his need to befriend Potter for what it really was: a sign of weakness. 'But it was worth it,' he thought, remembering a pair of wide, worried eyes in a deep jade hue.
"When we got to the school, we were sorted into our dormitories, our 'houses.' We were put into different ones, so we don't see each other very much, but you and Ron are in the same house. So you became much closer friends."
Harry began asking tons of questions about their houses, and Draco was actually leaving his biases out of it for once and telling him about each one's strengths.
Harry laughed as Draco grudgingly admitted that his house didn't contain the nicest people in the school and that most were quite snobby.
"But you seem nice enough and not too big of a snob. Are you sure they put you in the right place?" Harry teased, poking fun at Draco's impeccable appearance and his obviously expensive robes.
They were so wrapped up, that they didn't notice the youngest male Weasley staring in shocked horror at his currently defenseless best friend fraternizing with the enemy. 'He was safer with You-Know-Who in the chamber,' Ron thought.
Ron angrily approached the two boys and his rant was sucked back into his mouth as he saw that they were both laughing. Never having seen Malfoy laugh without spite or smirking, Ron didn't know how to react. He didn't know Malfoys *could* laugh. 'Maybe the prat's face will shatter from the effort.'
He reached the side of the bed that was Malfoy-free and cleared his throat.
"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" Ron said, reigning in his famous temper for memory-free Harry's sake.
"Weasley, not that it's any of *your* business, but my friend Harry and I were just catching up on old times." Draco stared at Ron, daring him to contradict his words in front of the now very impressionable Harry.
Dumbledore appeared in the doorway with Snape and watched the scene with his blue eyes all a twinkle.
"We can still save him, Severus. This may be just the thing to pull young Mr. Malfoy away from the darkness before it is too late."
TBC
A/N: Yay! Reviews! I'm the hap-hap-happiest gal in Happyville right now. Thanks so much for your kind words. I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue after my first two *amazingly* perceptive reviews, but you guys made me feel much better.
Adam: I had to re-write part of this chapter because you pointed out something I hadn't meant to happen: Draco overhearing that last bit with Dumbledore. Oopsie. Thanks though, because I think the story will go in a totally new direction now. ;)
Lanevaly: Who would Draco be if he wasn't deceiving Harry even just a little bit? ;)
Jess S: Glad you think it's interesting! I hope to make it even more so. ;)