DISCLAIMER: Not JK Rowling. Don't work for JK or anyone involved in Harry Potter. I don't even know anyone involved in Ms. Rowling's world. I own Kali. And my plot. And both signal that I could use some more sleep and therapy. j/k
Part Twenty: Not a Hufflepuff
(Or: "Not a Slytherin, Not Yet a Hufflepuff")
It was a week later when Harry and Draco finally decided that it was time to tell everyone. When Draco had awoken the next morning last week, he was more than happy to hear from Harry that he had switched turns with Padma a second time so they could spend the morning together. After a few minutes, Draco realized that Harry remembered very little to none of what they had discussed the night before, but luckily the conversation went smoother the second time around with an alert and not sleepy Harry. Draco took his time to group, which was fine because no one but Blaise noticed the difference between Harry and Draco. They were all too busy getting a great big kick out of Ron and the identity of Kali's father actually being out in the open.
Doing independent study and only just getting off Suicide Warning after everyone found out, Draco hadn't been there when Kali had called Snape 'Daddy' in the middle of Potions class. From what he had heard, however, things had been more than interesting and he wished he could have been there. He'd pay good money to see Pansy's face when she found that one out. He'd have paid even more money to see Weasley's face but he, instead, had to settle for hearing both stories verbatim, both of them from Kali with the commentary of her thoughts as things progressed. It wasn't nearly as good as it would have been being there, but it would have to do.
Off Suicide Warning for a good five days now, though still living in the hospital wing and visited once a day by Padma, Draco got out of bed and began to dress for the day. Despite how he thought he'd feel, Draco wasn't exhilarated to not have someone by his side every second of the day. True, it had been annoying at first, but over the sixteen days, he had gotten rather used to it. Things were a bit lonely now that he had no one to talk to when he felt the need to run his jaws just for the sake of doing so. Instead, the independent projects he had set up were taking up his time.
The light from an early Thursday morning streamed in through the windowpanes littered around the walls of the Hogwarts infirmary. Thankfully, being off Suicide Warning meant that the Pomfrey bitch left him alone more or less while he was there. In fact, she seemed to be getting irritated with his continuing presence, though she tried not to show it. Finishing dressing by fastening the clasp on his cloak, Draco dropped to the ground and began searching for his shoes. Perhaps Madam Pomfrey was so irritated because Draco really had taken to making the place, at least the area around his bed, like home. In a word, it was a mess and not one that he planned on cleaning up any time soon. Extracting his left shoe from beneath a pile of Hogwarts uniforms, Draco tossed the shoe on his bed and began looking for the other. Once found, he returned to his bed and began lacing up his shoes. Jumping off his bed, Draco shoved his clothes underneath it and headed for the door.
Harry was already leaning against the wall when Draco walked into the hallway, his arms crossed and having an animated conversation, if not a fight, with some random portrait hanging on the opposite wall. Managing only to cock an eyebrow before laughing, Harry's attention was drawn to his boyfriend hanging in the doorway and watching him with amusement. Things had been like this ever since Draco's first day of freedom. They met in the hallway before breakfast and went to the Great Hall together. Draco walked back to the infirmary alone since Harry had class and spent most of the day there or in the library doing his schoolwork with the exception of lunch. After dinner, Harry went back to the hospital wing with him and they'd remain there together until Harry had to run back to Gryffindor in order to beat curfew. These practices had originally been instituted because of Draco being so nervous about rejoining the school after going through the Suicide Watch and Warning a second time but they both found they rather enjoyed the time together and so the process stayed.
"What were you doing?" asked Draco, a hint of amusement in his voice.
"Just having a chat with good old Mary, here." Harry waved a hand toward the portrait opposite them where the lady, who Draco assumed was Mary, had disappeared, probably to visit another portrait and complain about Harry Potter and his attitude.
"Do you always fight with the portrait when you're waiting on me?"
"I need something to do while you dig through that mess of yours."
Draco rolled his eyes but grinned as he and Harry began heading for breakfast. "You're starting to sound like that Pomfrey bitch. She keeps telling me to clean up and that the hospital wing needs to be sterilized but I'm messing it up. I give it two weeks before she goes to Dumbledore and tells him to get me out of there."
"She won't have to worry once you get resorted. Going back to a dormitory shouldn't be a problem as long as it isn't the Slytherin one."
Draco shrugged, nodding. "Exactly. Right. I mean, I won't have to go to classes. I can still do my independent study thing, which is good for now. I love it. The real reason I'm staying there isn't because of going back and being with other people. I handled that before and I'm handling it okay now. The problem is that it's the Slytherin dorms I'd be going back to."
"Because that's where it all began." Draco nodded. "Have you thought about when you're going to talk to Dumbledore about it?"
"Only every time Pomfrey comes in and begins to complain about my mess. It isn't like I'm dirty, I'm just disorganized. She, however, makes me sound very disgusting. It's only a few robes and socks scattered about. I'm not breeding animals in my clutter."
"I know you aren't. You don't fare so well with animals. We miss you in Care of Magical Creatures, by the way. I'm trying to convince Dumbledore to send you a ferret but he just isn't going for it."
Scowling, Draco shot Harry a glare but Harry smirked back at him. "I hate you, Potter."
"No, you don't."
"Yes, I do."
"Liar."
"Fine. I'm a liar. I don't hate you but I do hate ferrets and any mention of that class your oaf of a friend and sorry excuse for a professor, Hagrid, teaches."
"You know, if you had said that last year, I may have been offended. I would have gone for my wand and hexed you until one of the teachers caught me and I got detention. Now, however, I realize that your hatred for Hagrid is all because you're still sore about the incident with Buckbeak."
"He could have done something to keep that animal from hurting me if he was a good enough professor."
"He did try to prevent it. Told you not to insult it and you did anyway. You said it couldn't be that hard if I could do it. Something like that, anyway. All I remember is that you insulted me and then you insulted Buckbeak. You had it coming. Lucky thing it got away before he could be killed."
"I still think you were behind that but I can forgive you now that . . . you know." Draco gave a nervous glance around the hall. "We're friends and all."
Harry failed miserably to suppress a laugh and his attempts only made Draco blush harder than he already was. "Exactly, Malfoy. Now that we're friends. Maybe someday I'll tell you just what did happen to Buckbeak."
"You do know!"
"Do know what?" asked Ron, looking up from his breakfast. Draco and Harry had entered the Great Hall and just sat across from Ron and Kali, both staring at one of the Potions textbooks Snape had sent Kali back to her common room with after she caused a minor incident in class resulting in half the students covered in boils.
"What happened to that hippogriff that attacked me third year."
"Oh." Ron's lips seemed to twitch at this and from the other side of Harry, Hermione knocked her plate off the edge of the table.
"You all know!"
"I don't know," said Kali, looking up from her book and spilling some jam on it in the process. She tried to rub it off but only managed to smear it even more. "A hippogriff attacked you?"
Looking away from them, Draco shifted. "Er - no."
"What did you do to make it attack you?"
"He called it ugly," explained Harry. "At least I think so. I don't know. It was third year and it seems so long ago."
"Don't ask me," said Hermione. "I have a hard enough time distinguishing when anything happened in our third year. You didn't tell him anything, did you?"
"No, but I did say that maybe I would tell him one day. You know, as long as he's good and friendly."
"Malfoy good and friendly," mused Ron, shaking his head. "Nothing just makes sense anymore this year. I'm getting good Potions marks -"
"Thanks to Kali," said Harry, laughing. Ron blushed.
"Oh, don't you listen to him, Ron," said Kali, reaching across the table and swatting Harry's wrist. "You aren't getting grades you don't deserve."
"I know. It's just . . . I never got the marks I deserved."
"So I persuaded him a bit. It doesn't matter. You earned them, anyway. Daddy just needed a rough kick in the arse. You aren't the only one he marked down on just because of who you are. I'm trying to get him to let me help grade, like an assistant or something because I'm really good at the book part of Potions, but he won't budge. Something about letting me do it once I stop exploding things in class."
"It's not really your fault," said Draco. "You had John Wagner at Chivington, right?" She nodded. "That guy is batty. He was the Potions professor here before moving to America and Snape took over. A real mess of a teacher. My parents had him. Half the time he couldn't even make the potions right. All you had to do was show up to pass that class."
"This is why Ron's tutoring me," she answered. Draco nodded.
"Hey," said Harry, abruptly, "I was wondering if we could all meet back at the infirmary at lunch. Draco and I have something we need to talk to you about."
"Sure," said Ron, shrugging.
"It's sad we actually can meet in the infirmary," said Draco. "I mean, honestly, who says they're going to meet in the hospital wing? People who are coming to see me, apparently. Oh - by the way, Harry, Blaise already knows, but I feel like he should be there, too."
"Where is he, anyway?" asked Kali, dropping more jam onto her book, smearing the ink in the process. "He usually sits with us at meals."
"Library," answered Hermione. "Finishing something for History of Magic, I believe. Passed him on the way to breakfast."
"All right," she answered, shrugging. "I'll go tell him about this afternoon before Potions. I mean, what's Daddy going to do if I show up a few minutes late? Give me detention? I'm really very scared."
Students had begun to wander out of the hall and Kali left earlier than the rest as she went to find Blaise before he disappeared from the library. Draco was one of the last to leave, more than aware of the many eyes focusing on his lingering presence at the Gryffindor table even after his friends had gone off to class. Grabbing an apple and taking it with him, Draco headed for the infirmary.
~*~
"Excuse me?" called Draco, halfway to the infirmary when he spotted Dumbledore up ahead. As the headmaster turned around upon hearing Draco's voice, the latter picked up pace to catch up with him.
"Hello, Mister Malfoy. Oddly enough, I was just coming to see you. Funny how the fates act."
"I was at breakfast."
"I see. Would you prefer we move to the hospital wing or to my office? I highly doubt you'd want to stay here in the hallway."
"No, sir. Not really. Your office, actually. The less time I spend with Madam Pomfrey, the better things will be for the both of us."
"Very well," he said, turning and heading for his office, Draco walking by his side. "I take it things are not going well for you there?"
"Actually, sir, that's what I wanted to talk to you about, but that can wait for when we get to your office. For now, things are going well enough. I think we've just seen far too much of each other. I'm irritated with her mere presence and I know she's irritated with mine. I think she feels that I've come into her domain and tried to take over."
"Perhaps we will have to find an alternate solution."
"Perhaps," Draco echoed and they continued in silence until they reached the gargoyle leading to Dumbledore's office.
"Licorice Whips," said Dumbledore and the stone gargoyle moved aside to reveal the spiral staircase leading up to his office. Draco followed closely behind the headmaster as they climbed the staircase and entered the circular office. Dumbledore sat behind his desk and, waving a hand toward the chair opposite him, motioned for Draco to take a seat as well. "Now, Mister Malfoy, my business with you seems to coincide with your business with me. You're off Suicide Warning now and I see you haven't been shy about rejoining your peers."
"You say that now but you didn't see me the first morning I was going back into the Hall for breakfast."
"I take it you were nervous."
"A great deal, but Harry was there to help me cope."
"Mister Potter and yourself have been rather close lately, haven't you?"
"Well - er - he makes a really great friend. He's helping me through a lot of my issues. It's not just him, though," he said quickly upon seeing the headmaster's smile and familiar twinkle. "I mean, he's been a great friend but so have Kailah and Blaise and Hermione and Ron. And Padma, too. She's been great. I'm very grateful that you sent her to help me."
"I'm very pleased it's helping you so much. As for your studies, I presume you want to stay on your independent study."
"Yes. For now, at least. I was thinking that I could continue doing independent study until the second term. We could discuss the matter after the Christmas holidays again. I'd really like to rejoin my classes but not yet. I'm not ready for that."
"That can be arranged. For now you will stay on independent study and I want you to report to me the first day after the Christmas holidays to decide your course of action for second term. In other matters, what was it that you wanted to discuss with me?"
"Living arrangements, in a matter, anyway. I don't exactly know if this can be arranged, but I was wondering about - er - resorting."
Dumbledore arched an eyebrow, looking Draco over. He didn't look surprised in the least.
"Resorting?"
"Yes," he said, carefully. "It's just . . . I don't want to spend the rest of my time here in the hospital wing. In fact, I'm more than ready to get out of there, but I just can't go back to Slytherin. I don't even feel like I really belong there anymore, haven't for a while now, and then I just wouldn't be able to move past what happened there. I feel like I've changed and going back to Slytherin just wouldn't be . . . right. Can it be done?"
"A resorting?"
"Yes."
"It is a rare occurrence, but yes, it can be done."
"I mean, if I belonged in Slytherin, it would just put me back there, wouldn't it?"
"Yes, I believe it would. There have been very few cases where a student has actually switched houses in a resorting. Seven cases of resortings have been attempted in the last thousand years and only two students actually switched houses. One of these cases was only twenty-six years ago. Are you certain you want to pursue this?"
"Very. Like I said, if I'm really a Slytherin, the hat will put me right back there. If I'm not anymore, and I truly think I'm not, then I'll be somewhere where I can move past everything that's happened and rather than run from it, accept it. I need to do this, or at least try."
"Very well. How soon are you prepared to do this?"
"If I'm certain, I should be ready as soon as possible."
"Then tomorrow night we will perform the ceremony in the Great Hall before dinner. I'll alert the professors of your decision and I'd advise you to do the same for your friends."
"I will, sir. Thank you."
"Now if there is no other business, I suggest you get to work on you studies."
"Of course, sir." Draco grinned as he stood to leave. Turning around, he headed out of the office and down the stairs, hurrying back to the infirmary and unable to study, too busy anticipating the things he would have to expose when Harry and the others came back before lunch.
~*~
Knocking his chair over as he stood up, Draco caught sight of his friends coming into the hospital wing. According to the clock, it was time for lunch and he should have been expecting them, but he was in the middle of reading page thirty-two of his advanced Transfiguration text for the fifth time and didn't notice. His mind was too distracted to focus on any one thing being so preoccupied with tomorrow night's resorting and it was making reading very difficult. Apparently, it was not only making words had to understand, but even harder to string together. The process was giving Draco a rather intense headache.
"Working hard, are you?" teased Harry as they came in.
"I've been trying but I can't concentrate."
"So what did you want to talk to us about?" asked Kali, getting comfortable on the bed. Blaise sat down beside her giving Draco a knowing grin.
"Well . . . I guess the first thing I have to tell you is that I talked to Dumbledore this morning and I'm getting resorted tomorrow night."
"So soon?" asked Harry, sitting down at the chair Draco had previously been occupying.
"The sooner the better, right?"
"Nervous?"
"Very."
"So where do you think you'll go?" mused Blaise, grinning and picking at his nails. "I mean, now that you're leaving me forever with Crabbe and Goyle."
"Sorry, Blaise," said Draco, smirking.
"No problem. I'm doing fine without you."
"Draco's going to be a Gryffindor," teased Harry, "and he's going to feel bad for all the rotten things he's said about Gryffindors."
Grinning at Harry, Draco sat in the chair opposite him and propped his head up with the heel of his hand. "I have no idea where I'm going to go. Can you honestly see me as a Gryffindor?"
"No. That requires some form of bravery," said Ron.
"Then how did you get in there, Weasley?"
"Hey," said Hermione, "Ron is brave."
"You'd have to be to date Snape's daughter," said Harry, laughing. Ron slightly blushed and kicked the leg of Harry's chair.
"Fine, fine. Fair enough. But I'd be a Gryffindor before I'd be a Hufflepuff."
"I don't know," said Blaise, slowly. "You are an awful hard worker and loyalty is a very big issue in your family. I mean, sure, you prefer the easy way to getting what you want but that's a Slytherin trait and you've changed. In fact, you're doing a lot for yourself these days."
"Are you insinuating that I have the makings of a Hufflepuff?"
"Yeah. I am. I wouldn't be surprised with anything."
"What about Ravenclaw?" asked Hermione. "You've got good marks and a good deal of common sense."
"Enough to know its bad when you try to kill yourself twice," said Draco, bitter. "Gods, I don't belong anywhere. That hat is going to tell me to pack up my bags and go home. Either that or I'll sit on that stool for a year until McGonagall rips the hat off my head and tells me that I'm so screwed up I can't stay at school."
"Or just revert back to Slytherin," suggested Blaise, shrugging.
"We'll be your friends no matter what the outcome," said Kali, grinning.
"Though we won't ever let you forget it if you're a Gryffindor," added Harry.
"I'm sure you wouldn't."
"So what was your original announcement?" asked Ron.
"Er -" said Draco, looking to Harry for help.
"You see -" started Harry, also losing his nerve.
"Oh for Merlin's sakes," said Blaise. "Draco and Harry are dating."
"What?" asked Ron and Hermione at the same time Kali said, "That is precious."
"Thanks, Blaise," muttered Draco.
"Anytime."
"You're dating," stated Hermione, looking between them. "Since when? How? Malfoy's gay?"
"Yes, I'm gay," said Draco, grasping Harry's hand. "It's a bit of a touchy subject that I'm still learning to deal with."
"We used to date," said Blaise, off-hand as he resumed picking the dirt from beneath his nails.
"Well that certainly explains a lot," said Ron. "When did you - er - get together?"
"Halloween Ball," answered Harry. "Sometime after you disappeared to meet up with Snape."
Ron's face fell at the memory. It was beginning to become a bit of a joke between everyone, growing into more of a joke everyday as they all got more and more used to the idea of Snape being Kali's father. Harry, however, seemed the most comfortable with it even though he had been the last to find out and looked for every opportunity to tease Ron about this certain fact.
"That was a very eventful night," stated Kali. "Well good for you. I'm happy for you both. About everything. Now, as punishment for being late to Potions, I have to attend to my father over lunch. I have potions to work on. He's trying very had to get me caught up with the rest of the class. Turns out that the level Mr. Wagner had me on was the same level of your fourth year, but I'm up to fifth year potions already. Daddy says I could be caught up by Christmas if I work really hard."
"Which is why I have to tutor you," said Ron.
"Exactly. Speaking of which, you need to come down with me tonight to work on a potion. Daddy said to bring someone who knew what they were doing and I figure you two have to get used to each other eventually."
"How considerate of you. I'm anticipating it thoroughly, Kali." Draco, Harry, and Blaise laughed at Ron's tone while Kali waved them goodbye and disappeared for the Potions room.
Once again, if you want to be notified at an update, send a note to angeldlsm01@hotmail.com or leave your email in your review.
Don't know when I'm going to update next. Resorting in the next chapter. Not talented enough to write my own Sorting Hat song. Whee!
