Harry raced through the halls to get to the owlery. Rounding a corner, he collided with a wall, effectively knocking him on his arse. He straightened his glasses and glanced up. Oh. It was Goyle. Bollocks.

"Potter," Goyle growled through clenched teeth.

'Shit,' Harry thought. 'Forgot my wand.'

"You should watch where you're going. Might get hurt." Goyle's lip curled into a sneer.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Thanks for your concern, Goyle, but I'm fine." Harry stood and brushed off his clothes. "Perhaps you should be the one watching where you're going." He really hoped Goyle didn't find out who had petrified him the day before. Bloody hell, he wished he hadn't forgotten his wand.

Goyle glared at him. "I know you petrified me yesterday, Potter."

Fuck. Harry thought fast. He lifted his chin and tried his best glare. "Well, surely you know not to fuck with me then, yes?"

Blinking, Goyle scratched his head. "But . . . it was Malfoy . . . not you."

Harry smiled. Well, that didn't take much. "That's what I said. Don't fuck with Malfoy. I have my own business with him."

"Wha--?"

"You heard me, Goyle. Don't. Fuck. With. Me. Otherwise, petrification will be the least of your worries. Am I clear?"

Goyle's right eye began to twitch. If Harry had known it would be this easy to confuse Goyle, he could've had a lot more fun the past few years. "Umm, err. . . ."

"Quiet!" Harry's face split into a wide grin. "But do me a favor, would you?" Pulling the rolled parchment from his pocket, he thrust it into Goyle's hand. "Give this to Malfoy for me. Thanks!" He started sprinting back in the direction he came.

Staring at the note in his hand, Goyle continued to blink.

"Oh, by the way," Harry called over his shoulder, "don't think about trying to read-- oh, never mind, you wouldn't be able to read it, anyway!" He headed back to Gryffindor Tower, ignoring the curious looks from other students.

~~~~~~

Harry burst into the common room. Ron sat in a corner, engaged in a game of wizard chess with Seamus. Hermione sat on the couch with her nose in another book.

"Guys!" Harry shouted, panting. Ron, Hermione and Seamus all jumped. "You won't believe what I just did!"

Ron and Hermione glanced at each other. "What did you do, Harry? Did you get to the owlery?" Ron asked.

"Owlery?" Hermione looked confused.

"Oh, you weren't here. Harry headed to the owlery to send a note to Mal-- Ah, I mean, oh,

bugger!" Ron turned bright red and looked at Seamus.

Seamus looked from Ron to Harry to Hermione. "What? What's going on?"

Waving his arms frantically, Ron tried to cover. "It's nothing! Nothing!"

"What?" Seamus asked again.

Harry flopped on the couch and covered his face with a throw pillow. "Really, it's nothing," the muffled reply drifted from the pillow.

Seamus' eyes lit. "Oh, yes it is, and it's something good!" Rubbing his hands together, he began to poke Harry in the side. "Come on, you can tell me!"

Harry didn't remove the pillow from his face. "No. Really. Nothing. At all."

Seamus grabbed the pillow from Harry's hands. "Please, Harry? Whatever it is, I promise I won't tell! You can trust me, I swear!"

Shifting his eyes from Ron to Hermione, Harry fidgeted with his glasses. "I don't know. . . ."

"Harry, it's up to you," Hermione said.

"Oh, go on mate, you can tell him," Ron said encouragingly.

Rolling over and burying his face further into the cushions, Harry shook his head. "You tell him, Ron!"

Ron rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. "Honestly, Harry! You can talk to a spider the size of Hogwarts, you can kill a giant snake, face You-Know-Who, but you can't even spill one of your own little secrets! Anyway Seamus, Harry kind of . . . fancies Malfoy."

Seamus' eyes grew to roughly the size of small dinner plates. "Malfoy? Really? Wow, that would be an interesting match!"

Lifting his head, Harry quirked an eyebrow. "You don't care?"

"No, of course not. Who am I to judge? I had a five minute shag in a broom closet with Justin Finch-Fletchley last year!" Everyone shuddered.

"Seamus, I wouldn't admit that out loud!" Hermione laughed.

Ignoring her, Seamus continued. "Actually, I'm not entirely surprised."

"Aren't you?" Harry cocked his head to the side. "Why not?"

"Because, the sexual energy between you two is quite noticeable. It was only a matter of time, really," Seamus said matter-of-factly.

Ron coughed. Hermione giggled. Harry blushed.

"Oh, and the fireworks in the bedroom! Wow!"

Ron coughed harder. Hermione giggled louder. Harry blushed deeper.

Harry cleared his throat. "Ok, well, I didn't make it to the owlery. I ran into Goyle. Quite literally, actually. Anyway, I forgot my wand, and--"

Hermione gasped. "You *forgot* your wand? Harry, that wasn't very--"

"Yes, yes, I know! Just listen! I really didn't need my wand, honestly, I don't think I've ever seen anyone as thick as Goyle. To make a long story short, I confused him out of his wits and gave him my note and asked him to give it to Draco. You should have seen his face!" Silence. "What?" Harry looked from Ron to Seamus to Hermione, who all wore 'are you out of your bloody mind?' expressions.

"But Harry, what if he reads it? I don't think you want the rest of the Slytherins to know about this yet," fretted Ron.

"I've already thought of that, just in case I dropped it or something. It's charmed so that only Draco can read it." Harry smiled triumphantly.

"Well, that certainly was clever of you. But what did the note say?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah, what did it say?" Seamus echoed with an eager expression.

"It just said--" Harry dropped his voice to a whisper, as a few students entered the common room, "it said for him to meet me in the old arithmancy classroom at midnight tonight."

"Tonight?" Ron whispered. "So, then what?"

"Simple. I'm going to tell him. Then if all goes well, I'll throw him against the nearest wall and--"

"Ok, that's enough, mate!" Ron shuddered.

"No, do go on!" Seamus licked his lips.

"Umm, I think you get the point." The 'Ooh, we'd love to see you both covered in whipped cream and chocolate syrup and shagging like bunnies' stares from Seamus and Hermione started to make Harry a little uncomfortable. "Uh, guys? I was joking." Seamus and Hermione both sighed in disappointment.

"So, how are you going to know if he's going to meet you?" Hermione asked.

"Well," Harry picked at a string on his sleeve, "the way I see it, I'll find out from him one way or the other if he's gotten the note."

"Yeah, and?" Ron said.

"*And*," Harry said exasperatedly, "I'm sure he'll let me know what he's going to do. Or maybe he'll just hex me into Dumbledore's candy-colored pajamas." Harry smirked. Everyone shuddered.

~~~~~~

"Pansy, I'm warning you. Leave. Me. ALONE!" Draco shouted for the twentieth time. Pansy had joined him and Blaise in the common room, and he decided to go to the Hall and eat just to get away from her. No such luck. She decided to follow him.

"Come on, Draco," she whined. "Just go to Professor Snape and ask him for a hex detecting potion. I just want to make sure you aren't under some sort of spell."

Draco's patience wore thin. He didn't have much when it came to Pansy to begin with, and he couldn't take much more of her. "What kind of spell, Pansy? A 'nice' spell?"

"Well, yes!"

Draco stopped abruptly and Pansy smacked into his back. Whirling around, he glared down at her and pointed a finger in her face. "For the love of Salazar, if you don't leave me alone, you'll find out exactly how nice I'm not! Now stop this nonsense and go away!"

Pansy's eyes filled with tears. "I-I'm just worried about you, Draco. I still love you, you know." She sniffed for effect.

"Oh, please, we had a five minute shag in a broom closet a year ago! That hardly constitutes as love. And if I'm not mistaken, you didn't speak to me for a month afterward."

Pansy raised her chin. "That's because I'm not into casual sex, Draco. It really hurt me that you didn't want a relationship." She sniffed again.

"It was your idea, you stupid tart!"

"You know what, fine! I hope whatever spell you *are* under gives you split ends!" She turned and stomped away.

Draco had to stop himself from going after her. Split ends? That was below the belt. He decided to let it go, though. At least he had gotten rid of her. He'd get her later.

Turning a corner, he found Goyle curled in a ball on the floor against the wall.

"Goyle? What the hell happened to you?"

Goyle just stared ahead, still twitching. "P-P-Potter. . . ."

"Potter? What about him? I thought I told you to leave him alone." Draco folded his arms over his chest. "What did you do?"

"N-n-nothing, I s-s-swear! H-h-he told m-m-me t-to--"

Draco rolled his eyes. This would take all day if he didn't do something. So he did the only thing he could. Balling up his fist and drawing back, he punched Goyle in the jaw as hard as he could.

Goyle immediately jumped to his feet. "What the fuck was that for?"

"Oh, shut up, it worked didn't it? Now, spit it out, I don't have all day." Draco inspected his nails.

"He told me to leave you alone. Oh, and to give you this." He handed Draco the parchment.

Draco's eyebrows shot up. "What's this?"

Goyle shrugged. "Dunno. It's charmed so that you're the only one who can read it." Goyle started to leave. He stopped. "Oh, yeah, Pansy was looking for you earlier."

Draco shuddered. "I know, she found me."

"So, are you gonna go see Snape?"

"Not you, too! Go play with Bulstrode, will you?" Draco couldn't believe his ears. He watched Goyle's retreating back. What was wrong with everyone?

'No, Draco, what's wrong with *you*?' There was the voice again.

"Go away!!" Draco shouted out loud. A few third year Ravenclaws gave him curious looks while some first year Hufflepuffs scurried away. "What?" he yelled at the Ravenclaws. They just shrugged and ran. Well, at least he could still scare the underclassmen.

He decided the best place to read Potter's note would be his room. 'This better be good, Potter,' he thought, trying not to get excited that Potter actually wrote him a note. His stomach betrayed him, though, as he felt an awful case of the butterflies coming on. He also found his legs were traitors too, as they seemed to be running quite quickly to the dungeons.