Oh man. I seriously never intended for it to take nearly a month and a half for this to appear on FFN - but it did. I had a bad case of writers' block, which wasn't exactly good news, especially since I started a new chaptered HPSS story, Side Effects, that I have been paying quite a bit more attention to. That paired with the gloom of the end of summer - although I am much looking forward to starting high school in a week on 8/30 - was apparently enough to do me in.
But here it is!
Rather unsatisfying, I suppose - but hey, it's a chapter, and I promise to definitely NOT take very long with the next chapter. I've outlined it pretty well, and know exactly what'll happen - it's helped me with Side Effects and it will help me with this, too.
I would like to thank pilas (my spiffy new beta :D) for beta-ing for me!
The characters we know of are (body - person IN body):
Blaise Zabini - Harry
Crabbe - Padma Patil
Goyle - Dumbledore
Neville - McGonagall
Ron - Blaise Zabini
Draco - Lavender
Padma Patil - Ron
Harry - Draco
Pansy - Snape
McGonagall - Hermione
Snape - Neville
Trelawney - Remus
Thank you to my wonderful reviewers!....
ataraxis - :)
Katie Lupin Black - That's always good.
Tazthedevilman - The way I have it outlined, the ball should be either
two or three chapters away. Not really sure yet. O.o
Winnie2 - Thanks! :D
Dark-Lady-Devinity
Pilas - :D
S-chan - Sorry I took so long :S
penny
ironic-humour
Marie - :)
Chaows - No confusion? That's a first. O.o A good one though.
silver-sunn101 - Glad you think that portion was in-character, I'm always
feeling iffy about that. :) Sorry I took so long!
Craw/Brad - :D
Ruth - Thanks! :)
insanechildfanfic
Doneril
risi
Mindy
Teldra
Rory - Glad you liked it. :) With the years... I did slip once and say
seventh year, but this takes place in sixth. I hadn't decided when I started
the story and should probably go back and change it but I'm lazy. x.x;
lark277 - Thanks!
StolenDreamer - :D Here's your update.
futago akuma-tenshi02 - I wouldn't like getting switched, myself...
luckily we can torment the Potter characters to our heart's content....
Yuuki Miyahara - ::blinks:: wow, that was... enthusiastic! Here's chapter
eighteen, a day after you reviewed... aren't you lucky? :D
Ah yes, this is slash, male/male romance... both Blaise/Draco and Harry/Severus... just to enlighten the unenlightened. Potter belongs to JK Rowling. I'm not JK Rowling. I'm just a girl who lives in the United States who happens to enjoy terrorizing JKR's creations. :D
Chapter Eighteen
"What're you so happy about?" Crabbe had asked Harry irritably
when he appeared in the dormitory at half-past eleven. As usual these days,
Malfoy was still out somewhere, but Crabbe still got annoyed when anyone turned
on the lights while he tried to sleep.
"She said yes," Harry informed her, a goofy grin spreading across
his face, cheeks slightly flushed. "We were snogging–"
"Whoa, um," Crabbe coughed awkwardly, but he could care less. "I
didn't particularly need to know that." He made a face. "Harry
Potter snogging Snape is an image I think I would've been better off without."
"Oh, bugger off," Harry told him, falling backwards onto the four-poster,
which squeaked in protest. "She's actually–we're going
to the winter ball!" He closed his eyes, smile still quite visible on
his face, even when Crabbe turned the lights out again.
There was a moment of happy silence.
The door snapped open, and Malfoy, as usual these days, stomped to his bed,
turning on every light again on his way there. "Merlin, Lavender, what
is so wrong with your life–"
He disappeared into the showers, and Harry heard a shower door slam quite audibly
through the walls. They looked at one another for a few seconds, then shrugged
and turned off the lights, going to sleep.
Harry Potter's body, with bleached hair that seemed to almost glow in
the dark, rolled over.
"What is this, Lucius?" he whispered, feeling a sudden anger heating
his body with rage. It was uncontrollable, this urge... to punish, to torment,
but not to kill... not yet... not for this....
"This is what your wand gave us, my Lord. We don't really know
how it's at all possible." There were flashes of pictures now,
the odd, twisted, improbable sort one would find in dreams. They played in front
of his eyes like a movie and somehow he knew that they were supposed to be memories.
Lucius Malfoy, but it wasn't Lucius at all... long platinum blonde hair
slowly turned into much shorter, browner hair, while a bushy mustache grew over
a previously clean-shaven lip. Light-colored eyes grew darker as well, and the
skinny form of the Malfoy grew wider, beefy even. The skin lost its creamy tint
and purpled ever so slightly.
"It must have been altered! These are not the Potter boy's memories,
Lucius. The boy didn't know of your existence until his second year of
Hogwarts, and here are memories of you, years ago–"
"No, my lord–" The anxiousness filled him now, he would
be punished, oh yes....
"For this, you know that you must be properly punished–"
"Draco, shut up!" a voice hissed urgently in his ear.
Sitting up, and self-conscious for once, he apologized to the three curious
boys that shared the dorm with Ron and himself, and gave the redhead a meaningful
glance before going back to bed. Only several minutes later did it finally occur
to him that he'd been shouting out Voldemort's words to the entire
dormitory. Shuddering, he promised to tell Potter the next day.
Training of the Death Eaters seemed, to Pansy, to occur at a snail's
pace. They were learning amazingly quickly, now that she taught joint classes
with Crabbe, allowing him to point things out to them, but she could still feel
a Death Eater meeting looming ominously. It was just in her mind, of course,
but one should always take precautions.
She had decided to approach Occlumency with more basis in theory than having
it all be practice; of course Crabbe had decided to make Harry tag along, but
she found that she didn't mind all that much. In fact, seeing how the
boy was drastically improving when compared to the previous year's admittedly
feeble attempt made her rather proud of her teaching ability. In turn, Harry
seemed to actually be practicing, and Crabbe had been teaching Occlumency to
the others as she learned it. They covered control of facial expressions quickly.
Pansy speculated that since the students were no longer in their own bodies,
facial expressions just weren't as automatic.
However, there was another ominous thing looming over the quiet mid-November
days; the winter ball.
Crabbe, having promised to help her with a dress, had yet to even mention it.
She was beginning to feel desperate enough to ask her Hufflepuff roommate about
it, but had decided to hold off on the idea at least a little longer.
Hey, there was almost an entire month still.
It was almost the end of November until Draco got around to telling Harry
about the dream, however.
"What're you doing here?" Harry asked as his own body claimed
the seat next to him at the round table he shared with his friends and Crabbe.
"Yuck, you better make my hair black again before we switch back."
"This is more important than your hair, Potter," Draco sneered,
and glanced across the table at the other three before looking back at him.
"Do you become possessed by the Dark Lord often?"
Harry stopped, a spoonful of soup halfway to his mouth. Carefully setting down
the spoon, he closed his eyes for a few seconds before answering. "What
happened?"
"Remember the spell he cast on me the first time? 'Reminisce'?
Apparently that spell's meant to retrieve memories. But the ones he got
from me were all twisted and wrong, kind of half mine and half yours I suppose."
Harry nodded, frowning in thought. "So he got angry, and I got angry and
started yelling out what he yelled to the common room–"
There was silence. McGonagall winced.
"Alright. We'll need to tell Pansy then."
"Sure." Draco left, and Harry turned back to his lunch, sighing.
"It doesn't make sense," he told the others at the table,
and later that day after Occlumency, Pansy echoed the same words. "Why
hasn't the Dark Lord called them yet?" She nervously swept a hand
through her hair, glancing over at Crabbe, who was cleaning up and pretending
not to listen. "He apparently keeps talking about summoning them
out, and he knows they can sneak out undetected. He has missions for them, tasks
to complete. So why hasn't he called them?"
"Maybe he's caught on."
"I've considered that." She picked up her research, putting it in a bag and swinging it over her shoulder, the action looking entirely unpracticed. "The Dark Lord is a cruel and intelligent man. If he even had a hunch about what happened, he would go about disabling the wards immediately. We're only alive now because he hasn't figured it out." Looking over her shoulder, Pansy shooed Crabbe out of the room. Once he'd left, she sighed. "The connection of our mind and our body is a very strong, unbreakable one. By switching us, whatever curse the Death Eaters used wore down the wards, certainly, but it's also defied every written law of magic. The mind and body cannot separate," she stopped, idly tracing the edge of the desk in thought. "And yet, they have. Peculiar, at the very least." Harry felt rather out-of-place, listening to Pansy sort out her thoughts, unsure of whether he should have gone with Crabbe or not. She half-turned away, facing the door, though he suspected she wasn't really looking at anything in particular. "Through my research, I've found nothing. Nothing at all. We know that unfinished wards certainly curb the results of curses, but to what extent? What was that curse meant to do?"
"Kill us?" Harry suggested, as if it were rather obvious. It was,
wasn't it?
"I thought that at first too. But a simple Killing Curses wouldn't
be affected by the wards. Perhaps the Lord did not use the standard mass Killing
Curse, but it seems unlikely. Why create a new spell when you can already complete
the job with a simpler one?" The hand not tracing the desk went to her
forehead, rubbing small circles in. "He enjoys torturing others. It gives
him unspeakable power, in fear. I think that it is far more likely that he planned
a mass-curse intended to torment us, to make us fear him enough to put us under
his control." Her voice dropped to a whisper that Harry had to lean in
closer to catch. He was expecting a muttered 'bastard', or some
equal murmur; what he got was "Impressive."
And he had to let himself admit, yes, he was–dating?–an ex-Death Eater. A Slytherin. There would be odd moments like this, when Severus would say something so entirely against his morals that he wouldn't know any way to respond. He would just have to take it in one stride, he supposed.
The first week of December created a new buzz of excitement, with Christmas
decorations appearing out of nowhere one night, decorating previously bare hallways.
Patches of students carefully avoided mistletoe, especially a rather large bunch
hanging in the entrance hall; random students, male or female, were to be found
in small groups giggling to one another.
Almost two weeks into December and still no call for the student Death Eaters–it
worried Pansy. While student-calling was not as often as the normal Death Eater
gatherings, at least during the school months, it was still unusual for there
to be no call after a warning. Or after a traitor was discovered. Come to think
of it, it was unusual that the Dark Lord had told him that he knew of her being
a traitor. Before, when traitors had been discovered–or simply suspected,
because she often had to cover her own tracks with others'–the Lord
would wait until they were at a large meeting, then torture them to death. She'd
been spared, amazingly.
Her worry only intensified when Dumbledore announced that there would be a
day of classes cancelled so that all students could visit Hogsmeade to buy their
dress robes and Christmas gifts. While it would be a perfect time to badger
Crabbe for help on her outfit, the entire student body would be unprotected
by the wards while in the wizarding town. Would it not seem abnormal that almost
double the number of usual students would be appearing in the town, the first
time in the school year? Surely by now someone outside had noticed that there
were no Hogsmeade visits....
And, frankly, she had no idea what she was supposed to get Harry for Christmas.
Bugger.
"Wands out," she told the Death Eaters assembled before her, though unnecessarily. Every one of them was holding a wand already. "Today Mr. Crabbe will be reviewing all of the techniques you've learned. Practical lesson. This will probably continue until ten tonight, but as I'm sure you've already completed all of your necessary assignments," she told them, leaving the end hanging, with no pity for the fool who hadn't expected a longer lesson now that they had finished simple Occlumency. "After that, you will assemble outside as though in an actual meeting, and will be practicing your apparation in the forest. Yes, we will finish," she told a seventh year with a skeptical expression. "Even if it takes until midnight."
"Everyone ready?" Crabbe asked, taking over. Two seventh years
in the back were still talking. Stopping in front of them, they fell silent.
"Do pay attention, no one's going to ask if you're ready in
real life," he told them shortly. Then, without turning to look, he shot
a Hurling Hex over his shoulder, smiling at the definitive popping sound of
the curse ending on a shield charm. A few more curses were sent off at random
before Pansy turned to stare down at her work.
December 13th. A Friday. And damn, she was worried. She wasn't superstitious,
but the night seemed to be different. Or maybe she was just apprehensive about
the nearing ball. That was probably it.... Sniffing slightly to clear her mind,
she focused her gaze on the words of the text below her. It was another of the
countless books on wards in Albus' possession; and it also said the same
thing as every other. Nothing of use.
"Pay attention!" Crabbe sounded agitated.
Pansy looked up at exactly the same time the students in the room collectively
gasped in pain, some sinking to their knees, some losing grip of their wands.
Crabbe tripped into the desk, not falling but gripping it for dear life; one
of the seventh years wailed.
Shaken, Pansy stood, handing Crabbe his wand and helping various students up
while conjuring masks and giving them to them. "Keep your eyes covered.
Nott, please, stop your sobbing. Bullstrode, you'll need that–"
"Keep your wits about you!" Crabbe yelled out to the chaotic classroom
as he tried to tie his mask, hands shaking violently. His face was white, matching
the mask. "Remember what you've been taught!"
"Keep your guard up at all times," Pansy was telling them, from
the other side of the room, tying Nott's mask on for her. "Please,
for the life of all of us, don't betray Dumbledore."
"Out to the Forest," Crabbe told them, and they all ran as a group,
down flights of stairs and to the double doors in the back of the school, panting
by the time they'd gone around the lake and reached the line of trees.
"Good luck," Pansy said, gritting her teeth as Nott sniffled. "Look
the same–act the same–listen–"
"GO!" Crabbe yelled above her, the stinging in her arm probably
more than simply sickening by now.
And in several hurried pops, they were all gone, leaving Pansy alone to worry
about their cooperation and their lives.
