Once the doors to the Great Hall swung shut, Harry was able to breathe again. Oh, the embarrassment! As if being stared at because of a sodding scar on his forehead wasn't enough already. No, certainly not. Why not send the poor, emotionally distressed boy a supposed love letter and make sure that everyone was aware of it?

Harry crossed his arms under his school robes, quickening his pace. It felt like a blow to his face. At first the mirror telling him that no one loved him, and then this confession. Harry wondered who could be so mean as to play with his feelings like that. He pouted, seriously tempted to suck on his thumb. Then his day went downhill.

"Hey, Potter," a familiar voice cried.

"Sod off, Malfoy," Harry said tetchily, not bothering to slow down, "before I do something I won't regret."

"Why so grumpy all of a sudden?" Malfoy didn't seem to realise that he was being ignored. "After receiving what was so obviously a love letter, I would have thought you were in higher spirits. What is it? Recognized the voice and not happy with it?"

Harry stopped abruptly, whirling around and whipping out his wand at the same time - years of ballet training had made it possible to not lose his balance doing that. Before Malfoy even had the time to blink, Harry cast a Jelly-Legs Curse on him. But Malfoy wasn't a Slytherin for nothing, and Harry would come to regret this. Harry's wand was still in the process of producing the curse, as Malfoy's wand was already trained on the Gryffindor in return. Sly little snake had obviously counted on Harry cursing him, so his wand would be occupied otherwise, leaving him ample time to cast his own spell.

Purple light hit Harry squarely in the chest, even as Malfoy's legs went jelly and he fell to the floor in an undignified heap. But even in that position, the blond managed to sound haughty.

"It's no wonder that Pettigrew had to kill You-Know-Who," he said. "You can't even block the simplest spells when provoked."

"What did you do?" Harry cried panicky, ignoring the snide remark. He was touching his body, searching for missing limbs. "Malfoy!"

"The one and only," Malfoy replied sarcastically, not adding the usual "thanks to you."

"What did you do, dammit?" Harry stalked over to the boy still pooling on the floor. He went to fetch Malfoy's wand, but the Slytherin was slyer - and therefore faster. He cast a quick spell to delete the previously used incantation, smirking in satisfaction as Harry blanched.

"You're going to find out, never you fear," Malfoy promised, proceeding to cast a counter-curse on his jellied legs. He rose to his feet, managing to sneer down on Harry, even though he was half a head smaller. "It's nothing dangerous..." He smiled nastily.

"Oh, and that's supposed to console me, or what?" Harry growled.

"No," Malfoy said simply, his smile morphing smoothly into a smirk.

Harry, being fed up with being played with for the day, grabbed Malfoy's tie, pulled him close and-

"Mr. Potter," another familiar voice sneered. Snape. Lovely. The day was just getting better and better. "If you don't want to lose your House twenty points more than I just took for fighting in the hallways, I would advice you to let go of Mr. Malfoy. Immediately, if you please."

Well, Harry wasn't pleased, but he let go nonetheless. Not much choice, anyway. "Yes, sir," he grit out, biting his tongue when Malfoy's lips quirked. Fate had the terrible habit of playing directly into the blond's hands. Or maybe Snape simply had a watch telling him whenever his godson was provoking Harry.

Another Monday morning, another horrible Potions class. Harry was grateful when it was finally over with and he, Ron, and Hermione were on their way to Charms. He hadn't yet told them about Malfoy's underhand attack, because he felt so stupid to fall for such a simple trick. He had sworn to himself to never let the Slytherin rile him up again, but he hadn't managed. Whatever he did, Malfoy got under Harry's skin. And even if Harry sometimes wished this getting-under-your-skin would be of another kind altogether, he didn't dare to get his hopes up. He was used to being played with, but he didn't want to get destroyed in the process. If dying a virgin was going to be the price of protecting himself, Harry was willing to pay - or maybe he'd just leave the Wizarding World behind.

Harry was going to corner Malfoy and demand to know what kind of spell he had used. Yes, he was going to do exactly that. Harry didn't quite realize that he fell behind a bit, while he was pondering all the nice ways to force the information out of Malfoy. He could push the blond up against a wall; he could grab him by his tie again; he could-

Just as Harry traversed a hallway crossroad, still deeply immersed in his musings, he was rolled over by a gigantic killer tomato. Unnoticed, it had shot from the left side corridor, knocked over Harry, leaving him a flat spot on the floor, and then it sped down the right side corridor, never to be seen again.

Snape and Lupin were suddenly there. The first crouching down next to Harry, scooping up some of the tomato ketchup from his back. Snape tested the substance between his fingers, then shook his head. Lupin broke out in tears.

"Oof," Harry groaned. Slowly, life was coming back to him. His back hurt like hell. He felt like he had been rolled over by a killer tomato. He didn't know how right he was. 'What happened?' he thought fuzzily.

"Harry!" Lupin said, half-relieved that the boy was all right and half-angry at the shock he had given them. "That's not funny!"

"What-"

"Twenty points from Gryffindor!" Snape snapped. There was not much relief in his voice, but all the more anger. "Attention seeking is poor enough, but acting dead in the middle of the hallway to get said attention is definitely over the top, Potter!"

"But I didn't-"

"I am disappointed," Lupin said quietly, and Harry would have hung his head in shame, if he had been able to. This cut more deeply than anything the Potions master could throw at him. Lupin took Snape's hand, tugging him towards the teachers' room.

Harry stayed where he was for the time being. He was floored, literally. What had just happened? Harry ticked it off mentally.

1) Malfoy had cursed him.

2) Harry had been attacked by something, leaving him sticky, flat on the floor and faintly hungry for chips.

3) Snape and Lupin had thought Harry had just acted dead to get more attention.

4) Harry had no idea what had happened.

All he knew was that he needed to speak to Hermione.

Later that day, in the Gryffindor common room, Harry had his two best friends gathered around him, raptly listening to his adventure of the day. Naturally, Ron thought secretly that Harry had merely done it for attention, but changed his mind quickly as Harry told them that Snape had thought so, too. Hermione kept on nodding.

"Do you have any idea what kind of spell Malfoy could have cast?" Harry asked finally when he'd finished his tale. He had high hopes that Hermione could help him.

"Hmm." She leant forwards and brushed her fingers through Harry's hair. When she pulled her hand back, it was sticky and red. Harry hadn't had the time to actually shower yet. She took a sniff. "Smells like camomile..."

"That's my shampoo," Harry supplied.

"Hmm," Hermione said again, smelling again at her hand. Then she stuck out her tongue and tasted it cautiously. "Ketchup. No doubt."

Ron looked at Hermione incredulously. "Harry got attacked by ketchup?" Then he turned his attention back to the other boy. "Did you have a fight with Dobby again?"

"No, not that I can remember," Harry said slowly.

"I don't think there was an actual attacker," Hermione said. "I believe that Malfoy's spell and this ketchup assault are linked."

It was Harry's turn to make a vacuous sound. "But which spell lets you get attacked by ketchup, and so much later than the spell was cast, to boot?"

"That's the question," said Hermione, already packing her things to go to the library. "I'm going to do a bit of research. Don't wait up."

She needn't have told the boys.

Choose Breakfast or Lunch