Some notes about this chapter:
-I keep using the wrong sex with pronouns. Gah. I know who's in the body I'm
talking about, but I'm forgetting to refer to the body. And really, referring
to Harry-in-Blaise just screws up everything, especially when referring to Draco-in-Harry.
Ah well, this just doesn't make sense anyway. The pronouns were especially hard
at the end with Snape-in-Pansy (if you hadn't had it figured out, sorries...
you were supposed to know by now but if you didn't it was my fault :S), too...
I wrote an entire section with male pronouns about his previous experiences
in love, and it sounds so gay (imagine, lol) now. Ah well. (And no, I
did not just use gay as a synonym for stupid. It was a rather lacking pun, referring
to Lily and Snape [who is now Pansy]. Ta da.)
-I know I update slowly, errr... just suck it up? (retarded Monk reference,
cough)
-I had something else to say, crap.
-Ah yes. In this story, as much as I really really don't like Lily/Snape, it
references it as something in the past. It won't be gone into in detail, but
it is a factor that will hopefully make the H/S romance more accepting, lol.
Not that it will be easy, of course - that would make it boring. ^^"
The characters we know of are (body - person IN body):
Blaise Zabini - Harry Potter
Crabbe - Padma Patil
Goyle - Dumbledore
Neville - McGonagall
Ron Weasley - Blaise Zabini
Draco - Lavender
Padma - Ron
Harry - Draco
Pansy - Snape
I feel like I'm missing someone; if I am, leave a note in your review if you
even notice ^^"
In the break between last chapter and this one, I thought of the awesomest Ron/Severus plot idea. I want to write it, but I will finish this story first, no worries. If you ever become interested in that pairing once this one's done, you can check it out. :)
Thank you to my wonderful reviewers!....
Moni, XxDarkGoddessxX (okedie :D), ataraxis (me too... then it'll be easier to write, hopefully. But hey, I'm having fun! XD), Baroness Jumping Rain; Sidda, mistik-elf13 (yep!), Lee Lee Potter (yes he is XD), Katie Lupin Black (aww, thanks. :) I think my writing has actually improved with this piece... especially in this chapter), xSnapeLoverx (whoa, I wouldn't call it one of the best stories ever, but thanks for the appreciation in any case :) ), risi (actually, there are a few capable teachers running around... we just haven't seen them in detail yet. I was going to reveal Hermione in this chapter but decided that would tie up my plot way too soon ^^"), Shania Maxwell (thanks!), Enahma (ahhh! Sorry! Gah, I write really irregularly, I know I should write more! I'll keep you in mind when I slack off :) ), Ronda-Silverpaw, BURN THE R.U.M (yep! And I can't reveal Hermione yet, but don't worry. ;) ), penny, Fuzzy-Bumpkins (haha yes I will give you S/H romance when you don't steal my word squee... seriously though, thanks for the review :) ), Marie (well hello! Never thought I'd see you here, lol. Nope, Pansy's not Hermione...)
Ah yes, this is slash, male/male romance... just to enlighten the unenlightened.
.~*~.
Chapter *Six*
Friday came with the dull gloom of a storm. Harry groaned and pushed a pile
of blankets off of himself, waking up considerably more from the coldness of
the dungeons. He knew he'd never get used to it.
Merlin, he noted in his head, bewildered, and closed his eyes. This
feels permanent now.
Malfoy was still asleep in the bed next to his, and when he swivelled his head
to glance at Crabbe, he jumped, seeing eyes looking right back at him.
"Mmm, mornin' Blaise."
"Good morning," he replied, stretching and then pulling his arms
back around Zabini's–no, his–thin body for warmth. He pulled
his socks off as he walked to the showers, tossing them in the general direction
of his bed as he closed the dormitory door. They fell short of their target,
one on Crabbe's head, and one on his shoulder. He ignored them entirely,
continuing to meditate.
After a brief breakfast of pancakes and coffee, Harry trailed behind a group
of Slytherins in a lower year until he reached the Transfiguration hallway.
McGonagall was unlocking the door to her room with on hand, rubbing at her eyes
with the other. Her hair was wrapped in a tight bun, and she wore a robe identical
to the one she always wore. She jumped when he stopped beside her, leaning on
the wall.
"Good morning, Zabini. Please take a seat, but don't get too comfortable,
I will assign seats when the rest of the students arrive."
Harry stayed in the doorway, not moving to sit, but staring around at the room.
Most everything was left the way it had originally been when the real McGonagall
had taught. This one was erasing yesterday's notes off the board.
"Well?"
"Oh, sorry," he said automatically, unconsciously sitting at the
desk that his friends and himself used to share. He moodily stared at the shiny
surface.
McGonagall greeted each Slytherin as they entered. She took role call, as she
had when they were first years, nodding, then got about to re-assigning seats.
Each Slytherin was to have a partner. Harry's was Millicent Bulstrode.
Millicent Bulstrode, for once, looked pleasant. She still had a rather large
form and square jaw that made her intimidating, but somehow, now she just looked
like she was trying to see the good in the situation. It made her look somewhat
out of place.
As soon as McGonagall had finished explaining what they were to be doing, Harry's
partner made eye contact with him, and offered her hand for a handshake, which
Harry returned rather awkwardly. "Pleased to meet you, Blaise. I'm
Millicent. Well, actually, I'm not, but y'know...."
Harry nodded, giving a quick grin, and glanced at the board. Their professor
had finished writing the directions on the board and was at her desk, staring
down at some papers and chewing her quill. He squinted. The action seemed familiar,
but he couldn't quite place it.
The class passed rather smoothly. At the end, McGonagall gave them a "light
reading" assignment which ended up to be thirty pages in their textbooks,
but after groaning in his head, Harry finished it anyway during Divination.
The first partial week drew to a close as the students returned to their dormitories
after a hearty dinner and gradually disappeared to their rooms. Harry was one
of the first to turn in, rubbing at his eyes. He rolled around in the bed which
never seemed to warm up, shivering and cursing his dumb luck, again, to have
been taken from his cozy Gryffindor tower and reduced to this.
Sleep avoided him, and he gave up tossing his blankets off and digging in his
trunk, to find anything that might be somewhat amusing. He pulled out his map.
The Marauder's Map.
He unlocked it and stared at the few dots still awake, holding his lit wand
tip close to the paper. Each dot he traced with his finger on its path.
A tiny dot, labeled 'Severus Snape', was slowly edging around the
Forbidden Forest.
He stopped tracing to study it more closely. Every now and then, he saw a speech
bubble. The dot was spouting curse words. 'Damnit' seemed to be
his Potions master's favorite one, appearing numerous times as he briefly
disappeared into the forest, only to come out again several seconds.
He slipped through the curtain, shaking his wand to darken it again, and stared
out the window. Yes, there he was–the light he'd seen twice before.
Every now and then it would fade into the forest.
Harry returned to his map, wanting to check for any other people out of bounds,
when Malfoy entered the common room, moodily slamming the door open and flicking
on the overhead light. Crabbe grunted from behind his bedcurtains and Harry
was temporarily blinded.
"What's your problem?" Malfoy spat at him as he passed
him on his way to the showers. Harry was too dazed to retaliate, turning off
the light and falling back into bed.
The sound of the showers filled the room, but Harry wiped the map blank and
replaced it in his trunk, falling asleep rather quickly under his pile of goosefeather
quilts.
Saturday came all too soon. The light from the window he'd forgotten
to close lit up his four-poster, seeping through the curtains. He rolled over.
A half hour later he got up, skipping a shower, to retrieve some toast. As he
passed the window outside the Great Hall, he saw that the day was sunny. Such
could not be determined from the Hall. The ceiling had a crack running through
it, and to Harry it was a rather sad sight. That ceiling had been a part of
Hogwarts he loved.
Grabbing two slices of toast, he stretched and made his way to the grounds,
deeming it a fairly nice day to eat by the lake. No one was out on his section
of the lake, the one with the tree and stone. Once, years ago, his father and
friends had come out here after taking their OWLs. He'd seen so in Snape's
pensieve. It wasn't his fondest memory, and it wasn't Harry's
either.
"Oh. Hey."
Glancing up, Harry swallowed a mouthful of his dry breakfast and nodded awkwardly
to his visitor. He'd eaten out here with Pansy once, he supposed he could
do it again.
"I thought I'd find you here. I just wanted to apologize for the
thing Thursday. Sorry."
Here Pansy waited, and it took a few seconds for Harry to realize he was supposed
to say something. So he said, "oh."
Pansy was rocking nervously on the balls of her feet. Her blonde curls looked
like they'd actually been paid attention to this morning. Her face was
washed. He even smelled a hint of perfume, but not in a sickeningly sweet fashion
like what Pansy had used to wear, when she was actually Pansy.
All this didn't register as a good thing to Harry though. It was like
she wanted to impress–
"I'll be going then," she said shortly, turning. Harry didn't
do anything to stop her, leaning back heavily against the tree. A branch was
poking him in the head, but he didn't really care at the moment.
He wondered how he couldn't get any desirable attention from girls as
Harry Potter, when he'd unknowingly attracted one as Blaise Zabini. One
of the prettiest in the school, now that she'd grown out of the troll-like
figure she'd had in first year. He groaned.
She wasn't even her. She could be anyone. Anyone.
Padma appeared around the tree, looking at him like he was crazy.
"Harry, you just let her walk away!"
He'd missed something.
"You were over there the whole time?"
"Nah, I was just here before Pansy. I was trying to fly the old broom
Davies sent to that Ravenclaw a year younger than him last year, y'know?
The quality of the broom makes you think it was a last-minute birthday gift
or something. It stinks."
Harry rolled his eyes at the lame excuse of Padma's eavesdropping.
"But bugger, mate, you let the prettiest girl of the school walk away!
Yeah, admittedly, she's Slytherin, but–"
"Ron, she could be anyone."
"True, but she's still got one nice body."
He squeezed his eyes shut. "Ron, I do not want to know what you have to
share about female anatomy."
Padma blinked. "Yeah, whatever. Oh well. I'm going to go get breakfast.
You coming?"
"If it makes you happy," Harry replied somewhat sarcastically, giving
his friend a wry grin before they left.
Harry Potter's body, which housed one Draco Malfoy, was currently grinning
like mad.
Who knew being an enemy could be so... well, the word fun was below him. Amusing,
how about. Whatever it was, it was definitely amusing.
It had taken him a while to get used to the cloak. And being invisible. He'd
never realized that invisibility didn't mean one could go through
things, so he'd run smack into his Potions professor, who had freaked
out and run away. And the cloak was oversized, so he'd tripped three or
four times on his way here. With dignity! Yes. It didn't matter, he was
invisible anyway.
Tile floors were uncomfortable though. And by sitting in the girls' showers,
he was being dripped on an awful lot. Potter would kill if he ruined the cloak,
but that was all the more reason to enjoy this spying session.
"Damnit."
Pansy Parkinson sat alone in the common room, massaging her temple with the
hand her head was not propped on.
You do not want to fall for a teenager. You do not want to fall for a student.
You do not want to fall for a Gryffindor.
She sighed and her head sunk onto the ancient book she'd been scouring
about the castle wards. She understand why she bothered anyway, now that she
was back to something she'd been doing ever since the shock of being a
teenage girl had worn off. Who was she kidding? She couldn't concentrate
anyway. Damn teenage hormones just wouldn't leave her alone.
She almost pitied the students she assigned such long essays to. Potions seemed
so entirely boring now. Almost.
But you are.
Those damn wards. They had to be unfinished. No, of course they couldn't
be complete and in working order. They just had to be unfinished and unpredictable.
They just had to screw up her already screwed life more.
He sat back in the armchair and glared at the wall.
And Albus. No, of course he didn't have to bother working on getting
them out of this situation. To him it was all a game. An effective means of
guarding the golden boy, in fact.
She missed her firewhiskey.
You can't fall for someone else while everyone's like this because
you'd just be setting yourself up for another lost love.
Squeezed her eyes shut.
Albus loved his little golden boy. Why was the damned scarhead worth so many
others' lives?
And, besides, Blaise could be anyone. He could be another male. Or worse,
a female.
Her forehead returned to the book. She was sure he'd rub newsprint onto
his head at some point.
That damned Potter. That damned Evans. They had to give birth to the hero, didn't
they? Evans had dated her for what, six months? Then she'd gotten tired
of her, and instead went for the man who he envied for everything else. Up until
then, she'd at least had one on Potter.
She'd never forgiven Evans, even after her death. The woman who screwed
up her life. Who gave her a grudge against the entirety of females.
Since, she'd pretty much decided her love life was at its end.
