Title: New Beginnings: The Seventh Year
Chapter 9: Transfiguration and Chess
By lunchtime the next day, almost everyone had heard about the chess game that went on the previous night in the Gryffindor common room. Harry and Draco sat down to lunch with the rest after their free lesson (The rest either had Herbalogy or Arithmancy, and the two of them went up to their room to practice some spells from the library books they borrowed, but spent the last half an hour kissing each other senseless. Harry still looked a little flushed from the experience.), and suddenly two Ravenclaw sixth years appeared in front of them.
"Hi, we heard about the chess game. The two of us like chess too, and was wondering if we could play against you guys." One of them said.
Ginny helped to introduce the two of them since they were from her Arithmancy classes. "This is Jon Breeks and Joseph Malloy." Jon was black-haired and Joseph had sandy-blond hair. Both looked very studious, with their spectacles and seemed to be afraid that Ron or Draco would scold them for being so daring.
Ron looked at Draco and lifted his eyebrow. Draco shrugged his shoulders. Ron turned back to the two boys and nodded. "Okay, when?"
The eyes of both boys went wide as Jon exclaimed, "You would? Really?"
Ron nodded again. "Sure, what about today after dinner? Um… here?" Both boys nodded and went back to the Ravenclaw table grinning stupidly. Ron stared after them and looked back at Draco. "Those two are weird. They reacted like they expected us to refuse."
Draco smirked. "Maybe they did. They didn't expect the great Draco Malfoy to lower himself to play against them."
"But somehow, you seemed nicer these few days." Neville pointed out.
Draco grinned, slinging his arm over Harry. "It is because I've got friends surrounding me for first time in my life. And that includes you, Neville." Everyone smiled at him.
Seamus, Dean and Ron had the rest of the day free as the afternoon was triple Advanced Transfiguration, Arithmancy or History of Magic. Both Neville and Hermione rushed off as soon as they finished lunch. (Neville due to the fact that he said that Professor Binns being a ghost did not require lunch and had the tendency to start his lesson when he felt like it and Hermione was stopping off at the library again.) Both Draco and Harry slowly made their way into a room near the transfiguration classroom, where they had been having lessons for the past one year. It was a smaller room, with the chairs and tables stacked along the wall. As they went in, they saw Professor Dumbledore with Sirius sitting at his feet. Both Harry and Draco recalled that when they left the Great Hall, Professor Dumbledore was still sitting at the teachers' table drinking tea, and wondered how he managed to reach the classroom before the two of them. Harry shut the door to the room and Professor Dumbledore waved his wand, locking the door magically. Sirius then changed back to his human form.
"Good afternoon. Had a good lunch? Draco, I heard that there was wagers on who was going to win the chess game tonight. I had my money on you and young Mr. Weasley." Professor Dumbledore's eyes twinkled as he got up from his seat. A wave of his wand and the chair went flying to the corner of the classroom, stacking nicely on other chairs.
"Okay. Advanced Transfiguration for you two is under me for this year. Professor Dumbledore is just here so that people don't think that you are being taught by a dog. You two should be ready for Animagus transfiguration. I think it will help you when you need to escape from Voldemort. So, you guys okay with it?" Both Draco and Harry nodded. "Okay. First and foremost, because we are not informing the Ministry, not a word about this to anyone. Not Ron, not Hermione, not anyone in your dorm. The less people know, the better. And we are going to let you drink a potion that would allow you to see your animagus form for half a minute. Professor?" Sirius turned to face Dumbledore who was now holding two goblets. Sirius passed them to the boys, who looked into the goblet they were each holding, into a potion which is transparent. They stood facing each other, looked at each other, clinked their goblets and drank it together. Sirius was grinning, being excited about seeing the forms, while Dumbledore merely looked curious.
The next moment, two forms shimmered into existence in front of both Harry and Draco and both of them blinked in surprise when they saw the two forms. Two jet-black panthers stood in front of them. One had gray eyes when it looked back at Draco, smirking; the other had green eyes when it looked back at Harry. The two panthers then looked at each other and Harry's animagus form sat down on the floor. Draco's animagus form then draped itself all over Harry's animagus form and lifted Harry's form's paw and started licking. Both Harry and Draco blushed at this display of intimacy from their animagus forms, as the two forms shimmered again, disappearing.
Harry stole a look at Draco and found Draco staring right back at him. Both of them seemed unwilling to turn and see how what just happened had affected the two other people in the room. When they finally looked at Sirius and Dumbledore, they found that Sirius' jaw was slack with shock, and even Dumbledore looked a little surprised.
"Well… um… that was…" Harry tried to make the silence in the room more comfortable.
"No, Harry," Dumbledore cut him off, "I now have to do another spell. Allow me." Dumbledore then muttered a spell while pointing his wand at Harry, and all a sudden, a golden thread sprang out and twirled a few rounds around Harry. It then went flying towards Draco and twirled a few rounds as well, before heading back to Dumbledore's wand and the thread disappeared. Dumbledore then sighed.
"Why am I not surprised? Strange things seemed to follow you two around. I should have suspected." He said. All a sudden, four chairs flew towards them, stopping behind each of them. "Please sit down while I explain." Everyone sat down. Harry and Draco were frowning in confusion. "Sirius, want to help explain the situation?" Dumbledore seemed to have regained his good humor and no longer seemed as serious as the previous moment.
"Um… Due to the fact that we didn't have access to the ingredients, when we tried it back then, we didn't use the potion. We just took things as we transformed. It's harder, but the only resources we had then were ourselves. But, even if we took the potion, together, the animagus forms that the potion allows us to see would NOT have interacted with each other." Sirius said.
Both Harry and Draco sat up straight. Their animagus forms clearly interacted with each other, and actually displayed… both boys blushed again. Seeing the blushes on them, Professor Dumbledore chuckled. "The only animagus forms that will interact with each other were of people who were bonded to each other."
This comment took a while to sink into the two boys' minds.
"Bonded? How?" Draco finally asked.
"That was why I had to perform that spell. If a red thread came out to twirl around you two, then the bond was man-made, in that someone actually bonded you together." Dumbledore answered.
Harry frowned. "And a gold thread?"
Dumbledore smiled at the two boys opposite him. "In the last few days, did you feel especially contented just to be with each other?"
Both boys blinked at the sudden change of subject. Both nodded, as they recalled their free periods in which they were actually unwilling to leave the dorm to face the outside people, as they just wanted to be with each other.
Dumbledore finally said, "Like two parts of a whole. The gold thread indicates soul mates."
From Sirius' point of view, it must have been quite comical, seeing both boys' jaws dropping due to the shock of the statement. Dumbledore had the tendency to drop bombs on people's head like that. Sirius sighed. He recalled that night when Draco was going to hyperventilate at the news that he was the heir of Slytherin, and all Harry did was touch and talk to him, and Draco calmed down immediately.
"The reason why the bond had taken so long to surface was probably due to the fact that you two started off on the wrong foot back when you were first years. You were always quarrelling. That kind of outbursts from the two of you must have been very passionate, seeing that you two are supposed to be soul mates. You two had been practically inseparable for the past three days, allowing the bond to strengthen a little bit. As time goes by, you will realize that some other powers might surface." Sirius explained.
"What kind of powers?" Harry asked.
"We don't know. Not many soul mates were recorded in history. The theory was that powers given to soul mates were not fixed. We don't want to tell you much as it is better that your bodies developed your own set of powers. But one thing is for sure. The powers that will surface will greatly depend on the magical powers you both hold. As soul mates, you are actually functioning as a whole unit. That means that when you do magic, you use magic from a pool of magical powers shared between the two of you. And seeing that you are both heirs, you have a greater pool than the normal pairs of soul mates." Dumbledore explained.
"So this is a self-discovery thing?" Draco asked.
"Um… of course, a relationship between the two of you would really strengthen the bond." Dumbledore mumbled. "Well, Sirius, do you have anything else planned for today?" Sirius shook his head. "Early dismissal. Go talk about this, but try not to let the whole world knows." Dumbledore said, seeing Sirius change back before unlocking the door and sweeping out of the door with Sirius. "Come on, Snuffles." He said as the door closed behind them.
Harry and Draco were left sitting staring into space. Then Draco turned to Harry. "Did he just tell us to go have sex?" Draco asked, astonished by what Dumbledore had said in the past ten minutes. He had just recovered from the shock of being the Heir of Slytherin, and now the news of being bonded to Harry fell on his head.
Harry started laughing as he stared at the floor in front of him. Draco stared at Harry, as he realized that this was not the type of sound he was used to when Harry normally laughed. This sound sounded… hysterical. The next moment, the window pane of the only window in the room broke, just as Draco flinched from a sudden pain in his head. Draco suddenly realized that Harry was losing control. His unleashed powers were affecting the room. He quickly stood up, hurled the currently sobbing Harry into his arms and retreated to one corner of the room, furthest from the window, slumping down to the floor.
"Harry… Harry… come back to me… why… Harry… it's Dray… come back to me… and tell me why you are sobbing… Harry…" Draco mumbled into Harry's neck, as Harry snuggled into his body, seemingly wanting to hide from the whole world out there. Draco didn't know what to do but to hold on to Harry and hope for the best. Harry seemed to come back to himself, realizing that he was sobbing into Draco's robes and tried to stifle his sobbing. "It's okay to cry. Cry all you want. Just tell me why later." So Harry went on sobbing to his heart's content. All Draco did was to hold on to Harry, caressing the back of Harry's neck with one hand.
Harry was muttering to himself in his mind. It's not enough that I'm the fucking boy-who-lived. I got to be that stupid Gryffindor's heir as well. Why the hell did he have to get married? It would have saved us time and effort if he was gay and now Dray's dragged into this stupid war. Even though he's an heir too but no one really knows, so he can be uninvolved, but no, we have to be bonded. How on earth am I going to protect him when that stupid snake-headed bastard come and kill me? Where can I hide him and because of me he will have to face danger and how am I going to live on if something happen to him and I love him so much and that stupid Dumbledore telling us to have sex…
All of a sudden, Draco could feel all sorts of feelings sweep across him. Anger, frustration, fear, love and comfort. When the last two emotions swept across his whole body, he tightened his embrace around Harry because he realized that the emotions were coming from Harry. He wondered why he could suddenly feel Harry's emotions. He then realized that Harry seemed to be calming down, as his sobbing became sniffling.
"Harry? Ready to tell me the reason to this sudden loss of control?" Draco softly asked.
Harry pushed himself back from Draco to look at Draco's eyes, filled with tenderness for him. He sniffed and nodded. "Well… I… everything hit me at one go. I knew about the Heir thing beforehand. But when I realized that you are also an Heir… At first I told myself that no one knew that you are Slytherin's Heir, so even if you don't get involved with the war, it's okay. I got pretty protective of you I guess. Then I find out that you are bonded to me. This kind of soul mate bond means that one cannot live without the other. And I don't want to lose you, Dray."
Draco looked at his raven-haired boyfriend in front of him and used the sleeve of his robe to wipe the tears off Harry's cheeks. What he said did tally with the feelings that he experienced… except for one emotion. "Harry, I need to tell you something." Harry looked up at Draco, frowning. "Just now, when you were crying, I… I felt your emotions. And what you told me tallied with the emotions I felt, except… for this." Draco tried to imitate the love that he felt coming from Harry previously. Harry gasped. "Did I get it right?" Draco looked at Harry, hopefully.
Harry looked at Draco's hopeful eyes and sighed. He didn't want to tell Draco about that till… he didn't know when. But I guess there's no hiding it now. I do love him. "I love you Draco Malfoy." He smiled at Draco.
Draco's eyes went misty, as he smiled at Harry. Harry felt Draco's happiness flood his whole body, as Draco bent down to drop a soft kiss on Harry's lips. "I love you too, Harry Potter." He then kissed Harry again. Harry used his tongue to lick Draco's lips, as he opened them, granting Harry entrance. Harry then touched his tongue to Draco's tongue as contentment washed over the two of them. Harry withdrew his tongue as they parted with their eyes wide.
"How come we can feel each other's emotions now?" Harry panted, because the kiss they had just shared made him want to kiss Draco again.
Draco shook his head, staring at Harry's lips. "I think it was you. I felt a sudden pain in my head just now when the window broke. I think the power you unleashed broke through the emotional barrier between our minds."
Harry sighed and leant back into Draco's arms and relaxed. "I wish we were back in our dorms."
"We could transfigure a bed." Draco's eyes slipped shut, enjoying the feel of his boyfriend in his arms.
Harry shook his head, "Too lazy." Draco just smiled at his answer.
"You do know that I was never going to leave you to face Voldie alone." Draco softly asked.
Harry nodded. "I'll just have to find a hole to dump you in I guess." He teasingly answered.
"Harry, promise that you won't leave me. I lost too much. I don't want to lose you too."
Harry looked back at Draco, and lifted his hand to caress Draco's cheek. "Not if I can help it. Promise." He smiled.
Draco returned his smile. "You know, you never did answer me."
"What do you mean?"
"Did Dumbledore just tell us to go have sex?" Draco grinned.
Harry grimaced. "I guess. He just wanted to encourage the relationship so that the bond can form and we can have better powers and… his Golden Boy will be more powerful than before."
Draco frowned. "Harry, don't. From what I know about you, you hated the fame. You hate people calling you 'Golden Boy'. I'm sorry I called you that before. One thing I want you to understand. WE started the relationship before we knew about the bond thing. Maybe we were fated to be together. But in no way is my love for you false. Okay? Yes, we may become pawns of the Light due to the bond and heir status, but the powers that will develop are going to help us keep ourselves alive. So don't turn cynical on me. I'm cynical enough for the both of us." Harry nodded.
"So… do you just want to… you know… I don't mind… it's just that… I'm making a mess out of this." Harry sighed.
Draco grinned, as Harry looked very cute and vulnerable when he was fumbling with words. He pulled Harry back into his embrace. "Relax. Harry, I still think it's too fast. Not that I don't want you. I think when we are both ready for the next step, we'll know. Right now, let's just get to know each other, okay?" Harry nodded, melting himself into Draco's body.
Both of them stayed in that room till fifteen minutes before dinner, talking about their childhood. Draco told him about his childhood at the manor, where he had to be very well-disciplined as a child. His father already started teaching him dark curses before he even knew that they were prohibited, and would beat him every time he misbehaved or failed to learn a spell within the allocated time. Draco had learnt since young to harden himself against his father's insults and learnt to think on his own. His childhood was the reason why he actually dared to say 'no' in front of Voldemort. He wanted to stop living in his father's shadows. Harry then told Draco about his childhood living under the stairs and being the maid of his muggle relatives. How they ignored him when they didn't want him there and scolded and insulted his parents and himself when they were angry. Whenever either one started getting upset by what he was saying, the other would send comfort waves through the mind link to soothe him. Finally, before leaving the room, Draco repaired the broken window with his wand.
***
Dinner found the Gryffindor bunch to be rather lively as quite a few students stopped at the group encouraging Ron and Draco to 'slaughter the Ravenclaws'. Draco was quite amused by the fact that the younger students tended to forget that he himself was not from Gryffindor. Many of the Gryffindor boys were patting him on his back in encouragement for the game, as if they had been friends with him for years. The other house tables were just as lively, as students were chattering about the chess game. It was as if it was a chess tournament. Many of the other house students frequently made their way to two particular Gryffindor fifth years, who were Day's friends, as they were in charge of the 'school-wide' secret wager on who was going to win the chess games. The two of them were so surprised when Snuffles appeared in front of them before dinner, with two galleons held in his mouth. Day persuaded them to let the dog enter into the bet, and they wrote 'Ravenclaw' and 'Gryffindor' on a piece of parchment to let Snuffles choose who he wanted to bet on. Snuffles, of course, placed his paws on the word 'Gryffindor' and the two boys entered the dog into the bet, both of them wondering what the dog would do with the money if he won.
"Brother, excited?" Day stopped behind Draco, and embraced him from behind.
"You know, if I didn't know he's gay, I would be jealous." Harry softly said to Day. Everyone else at the table was talking to everyone else and no one heard his soft declaration except for Draco and Day.
Day's eyes went wide, as her smile broaden. She leant down till her head was on Draco's shoulder and asked softly, "Really? You two?" Harry and Draco both nodded, and Day had to use her hand to cover her mouth to prevent herself from giving in to the temptation of going 'awww….'
Draco whispered, "Don't tell people yet, we don't want to confirm anything to the general public." Day quickly nodded, as she straightened her body.
"Ron, did you know that the wager is tilting towards Ravenclaws? They say that they are supposed to have the brains. And that Gryffindors have the tendency to just rush in, hence not good chess players. Obviously not many people remembered about your first year huh? They also forgot that Draco here is not a Gryffindor, but a Slytherin. Flatten them for me." Day grinned. Ron smiled back at Day.
The food was cleared from the tables, but the students wanted to watch the game as well. The only professors who did not leave the hall were Professor Lupin and Professor Dumbledore. Jon and Joseph came to Ron and Draco, offering the use of their sets, to which Ron agreed. Thus the sets were laid out on the Gryffindor table. Seeing that so many people wanted to watch the game, Professor Lupin cast a spell in which the spectators looked at the front of the hall which served as a screen. This way, everyone would be watching the screen, and not at the four players, creating unnecessary pressure on them. The students were to be quiet as well.
"Okay Ron, I don't care about the wagers or anything. Main thing is to try to keep calm and treat it like normal common room chess game. I played you last night and you are really good. Okay?" Draco said softly, as they made their way to the chess set. Ron grinned and nodded at him. Draco got a wave of love from Harry through the mind link and sent happiness back to Harry. He looked up just in time to catch Harry smiling at him.
They started the game with the Ravenclaws making the first move. The students of the whole hall were silently staring at the big screen as the pieces on the both chess boards got less and less. Instead of paying attention on the screen or the players, Harry used the chance to look around the hall, observing the spectators. When he sneaked a peek at the wager-book just now, he noticed that the Slytherins had the tendency to bet on Ravenclaws, due to the house rivalry against Gryffindors and Draco Malfoy. Hufflepuffs decided to bet on the Ravenclaws too. The Gryffindors and the Ravenclaws of course each supported their own house. Only one Slytherin betted on Gryffindor to win, and that was Blaise Zabini. The only reasoning was that Blaise must have known about Draco's expertise in chess through experience. And Draco did mention before that Blaise had no inclination to serve the dark lord. Looking around, he also realized that at each house tables, there were a few students who had a piece of parchment in front of them and every time each player made a chess move, they immediately scribbled something.
"Why are some of them taking notes?" Harry whispered to Day who had come to sit down beside him, in Draco's vacated seat.
"Some of them wanted to learn some chess moves. Most of them are going to analyze tonight's games to find out what a player did to win or lose the game." Day whispered back. Harry's eyebrows rose, wondering not for the first time why this game was so important.
Fifteen minutes had passed. Ron looked rather calm to Harry. Draco just looked bored as he waited for his opponent Joseph to make his move. Harry then realized that the two of them were people who actually look forward to attention. Draco grew up thinking that he was superior and deserved attention from people. Ron grew up as the youngest son in a family with seven children and was determined to seek attention. Both of them were actually quite similar.
Although Draco did not look like he was paying attention, he was paying attention to his game. Within the first five minutes of the game he had already known what type of chess player Joseph was. He spent the time waiting for Joseph to make a move to look around the hall and to look up at the screen at how Ron was doing. From what he could see, Ron was doing quite well, as Jon underestimated Ron. Everyone assumed that Ron's fiery temper would be the type of style in which he played his chess, but they didn't know how wrong they were. Chess was very important to Ron, mainly because it was the only thing that his whole family lost out to him. Whatever Ron Weasley cares very much about, he would put his mind to it and not just his emotions. And from what he could see from the screen, he had just a few more moves before winning. Glancing at Ron, he caught Ron's eyes and silently nodded. Ron returned his nod. It's time to end the game.
Within twenty seconds, the whole hall heard Ron and Draco checkmate their opponents and stick their hands out to shake hands with them. Both Jon and Joseph looked at each other and dejectedly shook the hands extended to them. The noise level in the hall went up as many were astonished that the Ravenclaws lost. The Gryffindors only crowded around to congratulate the two winners and to collect their winnings.
Harry went up to the two winners, fighting his way through the crowd of well-wishers and slung his arms around the two of them. "Well, I never knew you two could coordinate yourself in such a beautiful display of teamwork huh, Malfoy and Weasley?" He grinned.
Both of them turned to Harry and grinned, before turning to each other. "Good game, Malfoy." Ron smirked.
"Good game, Weasley." Draco smirked back at him. The whole group of friends laughed as they made their way out of the Great Hall back up to their dorms.
They never saw a black dog run happily up to Professor Lupin, biting a pouch full of galleons in his mouth.
*****
A/N: You noticed that I'm starting to speed the time up. I can't have a chapter on every day of the year… otherwise this fic will have a Chapter 365 as epilogue. Or like Days of our Lives. *yuck* no chess descriptions. I can't even play chess. Oh… can you tell the fact that I love writing about Sirius as a dog??? So cute… review please.