During lunch that day, Hermione had asked him if he knew how many extra jobberknoll feathers he had added to the potion. It had taken Harry a few moments to figure out what potion she was talking about, but when he did he had shrugged and shaken his head.
"Something like one or two? I think?" he offered helplessly.
"Thanks," Hermione had said with a quick smile before turning her attention to a book she had taken out from the library that morning. A few minutes later, she had looked up. "I think I've figured out what that potion would have done, more or less."
"Oh?" Harry was actually interested in what she had figured out, though Ron was rolling his eyes.
Hermione nodded. "Okay, the potion would have shown you something about yourself, since it was a self-discovery potion and that's what they do. But because of the extra jobberknoll feathers, it would have revealed something hidden – or something that you've been trying to keep hidden, since that's what the jobberknoll feathers do. They fight the person who took the potion's resistance against telling the truth. But since it was undirected – you didn't tell it anything specific to look for – either it wouldn't have worked, nothing would have happened because it was never activated, or it would have caught your mind in every memory you don't want to remember, which would have driven you insane in seconds. Assuming we could bring you back. So either I screwed up or there's something you didn't mention."
Feeling somewhat disappointed since Draco had already told him that much, Harry was about to tell her that she must have made some mistake, since he'd told her everything that had happened, but then he remembered Draco mentioning that his presence might have influenced things.
"Well, Draco mentioned that the fact that he was looking over my shoulder might have affected things…"
Hermione nodded thoughtfully and turned back to her books.
That evening in the Gryffindor common room, Hermione had caught him again. She seemed more interested in what the potion had done that in the fact that her best friend was dating the boy who had been his worst enemy. Not that Harry really minded. Mostly he was relieved that she didn't hate him.
"I think I've figured out what happened," Hermione said, once she had his attention. "Now at first it occurred to me that because you would have seen Draco's reflection that would have focused the potion on him, but then I realized that that wouldn't work, since you wouldn't have seen his reflection because the potion wouldn't show his reflection. Then I thought that since he was the only other person there and your thoughts would have been focused on him that might have provided the focus, but I don't think that would have worked – well, not on it's own, anyway, though it could have contributed to things, but that isn't important now–"
"Hermione!" Ron cut her off irritably. "If you have to tell us, could you at least get to the point. We don't need or want to hear every thought that passed through your head on the subject, okay?"
Hermione flushed. "Fine. Malfoy wasn't affected by the spell, was he?"
Harry shook his head and Hermione nodded.
"Good. Because he looked into it after you, it simply used him as a sort of focus instead of effecting him as well. The spell looked at what was foremost in your mind as a focus, which was presumably the potions classroom and Malfoy. So it looked for something that had to do with Malfoy since he was looking too. It would have gone through every memory you have involving Malfoy and shown you the thoughts that with most resistance – namely the ones that had to do with you being attracted to him."
"But all I saw was him looking over my shoulder into the potion," Harry protested. "The I blacked out."
Hermione looked surprised. "How do you get from seeing him looking over your shoulder to being his boyfriend?"
Ron gave him a curious look. "Yeah, that seems like something of a stretch to me."
Harry sighed, blushing. Why couldn't Hermione just accept that they were together? "When I came too, the first thing I did was kiss him."
"Oh." Hermione paused. "Well, it must have gone through your memories while your were unconscious and then since there weren't any specific memories, it just made you feel the most denied feeling."
"Now you're just making things up," Ron commented before turning back to his homework.
"What, do you have a better explanation?" Hermione snapped.
"Nope," Ron replied without looking up from his homework.
Hermione sighed and turned back to Harry. "But that would mean that Malfoy already liked you and knew it. Because the potion didn't did anything to him. I'm sure of that."
Harry shrugged, looking away. "Yeah, he mentioned something about having had a crush on me or something."
Ron scowled. "Wealthy prick."
"Ron!" Hermione looked appalled.
Harry looked from Ron to Hermione, confused. Not that he liked having his boyfriend referred to as a prick, but why would it bother Hermione that much?
"Well it's true!" Ron muttered defensively. "I mean, not only is he a pureblood, but his parents were bloody Death Eaters. His dad probably slept with You-Know-Who! I'll bet that's how he got all his money and stuff."
"Ronald Weasley!" Hermione snapped. "How dare you say that?"
Ron glared at her. "What, just because he's screwing Harry means that his dad didn't sleep with You-Know-Who?"
"First of all, I don't think they've actually screwed each other –" Hermione glanced at a thoroughly confused and very red Harry for confirmation. Harry shook his head, blushing hotly. "And secondly, you have no reason – no reason – to think that Mr. Malfoy was sleeping with You-Know-Who. According to Hogwarts a History,Malfoy's have been a wealthy, pureblood family for centuries."
"Err… is anyone going to explain this to me?" Harry asked hopefully. It really bugged him sometimes that Ron and Hermione always seemed to know millions of things that he didn't – Ron because he had grown up in the wizarding world and Hermione because she read so much.
Hermione gave him an apologetic look. "Sorry Harry. Well, I suppose you don't really know much about the wizarding world's views on homosexuality, do you?"
Harry shook his head.
"Alright. You see, the wealthy, pureblood wizards care more than anything else about continuing their bloodline. So at some point, the wealthy wizards with homosexual children decided that it would be easier to–"
"Oh for God's sake, Hermione, he doesn't need a bloody history lesson," Ron broke in. "The short version is that for a while it was perfectly okay for wizards to be gay, and most of the upper-class ones were–"
"No they weren't! They were just more public about it and that became the stereotype. According to –"
"Alright, it became the stereotype that upper-class wizards were all gay and tons of the rest of 'em were too. Then You-Know-Who came along and he's gay, so–"
"No one actually knows if he's gay, Ron. He just didn't have a girlfriend and appealed to the upper class so everyone thinks he was gay. I read something in –"
"Hermione, shut up. Anyway, people think he's gay and now everyone thinks that gay people support him." He paused, looking at Harry. "Well, most gay people. And especially since Malfoy comes from such a prominent family…" Ron trailed off, giving Harry a hopeful look.
"So, you're saying that since Draco's gay and rich, that means he supports Voldemort?"
Several people in the room, including Ron, winced at the sound of Voldemort's name.
Hermione sighed. "Ron's just being a prick, as usual. He doesn't mean it, does he?" Hermione gave Ron a pointed look and he shook his head.
"Sorry Harry. But he's Malfoy. You can't expect us to just go from hating him to liking him over night."
"His name's Draco, okay? And he's my bloody boyfriend, so if you don't like him, get lost, okay?" And with that Harry stormed off to bed.
A/N: Hey, here's today's update... Stars-n-moons91: I've decided that I'm not going to include Ron in this one... I've got way to many ideas for other places for this to go. And I might include a flashback to the who hippogriff thing at some point... (from draco's POV) She-who-must-not-be-named666: Glad I'm not the only one... Thanks : ) Kashiaga: Thanks... I'll update again soon.