Chapter 4 - Dark Arts and Flying Lessons Don't Mix
The first year Slytherins only had one lesson with a Gryffindors each week, and that was Potions, so they did not have to put up with them too much. However, when a notice appears pinned to the notice board in the Slytherin Common Room, all eleven of them groaned. Flying lessons would begin on Thursday - and Slytherin would be learning with the Gryffindors.
There were dark mutterings all around the common room the day that they discovered the notice, but, after the fact that they could - and should - use the Flying lessons as a way to get on each and every Gryffindors' nerve and get ahead in the house points was pointed out by an elder Slytherin, they all perked up an started planning and scheming at the opportunity.
Each of the Slytherin's had decided to take their own way of annoying the Gryffindors. Draco complained loudly to everyone that it was unfair that first years were not allowed on house Quidditch teams, as well as telling long winded, boastful stories in a very loud voice whenever Gryffindors were within hearing distance about his childhood which always seem to end up with him narrowly escaping muggle helicopters (though it had never actually happened, as the blond was always far too careful about getting caught). Ed, after realising that in Slytherin having a serial killer or mass murderer in the family could be a good thing if used to an advantage, started asking random people if it was possible to be decapitated by someone flying at high speed on a broom.
Theo (he hated being called by his full first name, for some odd reason) has taken to staring at Gryffindors for long enough they asked what was wrong with him. He then always replied that he was interested in seeing how easily he could cause them to fall off of a broom and die without making it look suspicious. Blaise, again, had a very different way to get on Gryffindors nerves. Every time a Gryffindor, or possible Hufflepuff would walk past he would look at them, and shake his head gravely, as if he knew something they didn't. And Harry decided that the easiest way for him was to simply state random facts about the deaths that had occurred on or with a broom in the last couple of centuries.
The girls didn't really get too involved with the scheming, except to give an idea or opinion, but even without their help they still managed to get the Gryffs thoroughly nervous before the first flying lesson. It was interesting to see all seven of them squirm.
On Wednesday evening, the day before they were due to learn to fly, the plotting in the common room had finally come to a stop, and Harry waited for Draco and Ed as the two tried valiantly to finish their History of Magic essay quickly so they could get onto something that was more... productive in the ways of a Slytherin: the Dark Arts, Harry having finished the work three days earlier, and had refused to help until they bribed him with something he wanted in return. After all, you couldn't give without receiving in Slytherin, unless you wanted to be taken for a mug.
Harry didn't really know why the two of them were having trouble with it. All it was to give a short explanation of the most recent of the Goblin Rebellion, and the causes that ran up to it. Not too difficult, especially since all of them and the reasons behind them were nearly identical.
"Are you two done yet?" Harry yawned for the fifteenth time that night. "I would like to do spend my time doing something that other than tutoring you in History."
The other two glared, Draco's having slightly more effect, though Ed's wasn't too bad for a beginner. Glaring lessons had been what Draco had offered the two of them at different points. Harry hadn't accepted, knowing that glaring was just mainly a matter of how much hate was behind it, and, knowing the Malfoy heir, there was most likely something much better that Draco would offer - after the first offer had been declined. And he had been right.
Draco next offered was the young boy's rarest chocolate frog cards - which had already fetched a pretty knut when he had sold them off to an older Slytherin. It really was shocking how easy he found it to discover what they Malfoy heir would offer by simply refusing one, though he never offered anything after the second. Obviously that for each thing he offered he only had one back-up. Harry shook his head. Even he knew that you should have at least three.
"Well not all of us are gifted at History, Potter," Draco growled. Harry smirked. The boy was pissed off. He only ever called people he liked by their last name, usually only if he was mad. "So shut your trap!"
Harry gave Draco a look of pure innocence (fake, of course), and went back to reading his book, which was basically the magical equivalent 'Born to be Killers' and it listed all of the magical serial killers, famous and not so much. He wasn't really too shocked to read that a couple he knew from what he had read before he had started Hogwarts, Jack the Ripper, Mary Bell, Elizabeth Bathory and Vladislav Basarab to name but a few.
After about ten minutes longer the two of them had finished, and attracted his attention back to what they had planned to do that night.
Learning the Dark Arts was an important part of most Slytherin's lives at Hogwarts. It was a tradition that had been in place ever since Salazar Slytherin himself had been at the school, though, back then, Slytherin had taught the students themselves in secret, and now the students had to teach themselves, working independently or occasionally in small groups. If they had worked in small groups it would have been quicker for them all, in all likeliness, but very few Slytherins actually trusted one another enough for them not to betray everything they had learnt.
"So how far had we got?" Ed asked, flipping through one of the books the Slytherin's had stored secretly in the common room.
"We are just about at the darker levitation charm, the one that causes pain to the person its cast upon, or destroys the thing its cast upon if it isn't human," Draco answered dully. "You two are taking forever with these spells. At this rate it will take at least three years before we move onto anything explicitly illegal."
"Well you don't seem to be advancing at a much faster pace," Harry snapped, feeling suddenly irritable.
"How dare you?!" Draco snarled, an argument flaring up. Inside Slytherin it was common place for alliances to crumble over the slightest thing, both parties involved usually reaching temporary points of mutual hatred towards one another before getting over it. "I will have you know I grew up around the Dark Arts! Unlike you! Who grew up with pathetic muggle excuses for human beings!"
"Well if you grew up around the Dark Arts then why aren't you further ahead than us yet?!" Harry snarled, ignoring the comment about the Dursleys. It was true, but he wasn't going to admit it at that moment. "That's it, I've had enough of you for one night."
Harry stormed off to the dormitories, practically daring anyone to pick a fight with him. What he didn't notice was that Draco was muttering something under his breath that no one could hear.
"There," Draco muttered bitterly a moment later. "That'll show you how advanced with the Dark Arts I am."
The next day at three-thirty in the afternoon all of the Slytherins arrived first at the Flying lessons, though it only took a few more minutes for all of the Gryffindors to arrive (with the absence of Longbottom, who was in the hospital wing because of some accident). It was a clear, breezy day and the grass rippled under their feet.
One the ground lay about twenty brooms in neat rows. Harry had heard many of the upper years complaining about them, saying that some of them started to vibrate if you flew too high, or always flew slightly to the left.
Their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. She had short, grey hair and yellow eyes like a hawk.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" she barked. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up."
Harry glanced down at his broom with a look of distaste on his face. It was old, and some of the twigs stuck out at odd angles. The school could at least invest in some decent brooms. These ones were positive disgraces.
"Stick out your hand over your broom," called Madam Hooch at the front, "and say, 'UP!'"
"UP!" everyone shouted as one.
Harry's broom jumped up into his hand at once, but it was one of the few that did. Granger's had simply rolled over on the ground, whilst Weasley's had flown up so quickly it had hit him hard on the nose. Perhaps brooms were like horses in that they could tell when you were afraid, thought Harry; there was a bossy tone that no one wanted to listen to and hid an underlying tone of fear at the thought of leaving the ground.
Madam Hooch then showed them how to mount their brooms without falling off the end, and walked up and down the rows, correcting their grips. Several Gryffindorks appeared delighted when she told Draco that he'd been doing it wrong for years.
"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard," said Madam Hooch. "Keep you broom steady, rise a few feet and come straight back down to the ground by leaning forwards slightly. On my whistle - three - two - one."
Madam Hooch gave a shrill blast on the whistle and seventeen brooms rose into the air a few feet, and sixteen of them came down in quick succession. The seventeenth, however, just kept rising.
"Come back Potter!" she shouted, but Harry was rising straight up like a cork shot out of a bottle - twelve feet - twenty feet. Harry looked down, the blood all ready drained from his face as he watched the ground getting further and further away, gasped, slipped sideways off the broom and -
WHAM - a nasty thud and Harry heard his wrist snap. 'Broken...' he thought before blackness overcame his sight.
When Harry awoke groggily a couple of days later in a room of overwhelming light he found that he was alone, and his wrist was perfectly fine.
Vaguely he wondered how long he had been out of it when the doors burst open and two people hurried in.
"Harry! You're awake!" said Ed, sitting down on his bed. Draco just stayed standing, leaning against the door-frame uneasily. Ed glared pointedly at Draco. "Are you gonna apologise or what?"
Draco glowered at the muggleborn wizards, and turned to Harry.
"I apologise, but you did deserved it."
"Apology accep- What do you mean I deserved it?!" Harry exclaimed, processing what Draco had said. "What did I supposedly deserve?!"
"Um, well, you see," Draco began, looking decidedly awkward.
"What he's trying to say is that he cursed you last night when you asked why Draco wasn't at a higher level in studying the dar- err, you know. You know how much Draco can want revenge sometimes, don't you?"
Harry eyes widened with shock for half a second, but anger clouded them. The lying, two faced, no good, son of a-
"How dare you," Harry hissed, standing up and glaring at the boy, who wilted under his gaze. "HOW DARE YOU?!"
"Mr Potter! Get back in that bed this instant!" came the screeching voice of Madam Promfrey, the school matron. "Mr Malfoy! Mr Gein! Out! Out! You're aggravating my patient! OUT!"
Draco left almost immediately, whilst Ed cast one quick concerned look over his shoulder at Harry who was too busy glaring at the blond's retreating back, before he left. Harry finally lay back down on the bed, still glaring out into the hall way in the direction his friends had gone in. He was sooo going to get revenge on the blond, no matter what.
A/N: Draco's a nice kid, wouldn't you agree? Oh well, so what, it's because of him the changes truly begin (finally, I mean, it took four whole chapter!), and because of him that I get great story lines! Last thing before I put this up!
Samurai Demon-God Sekikage: Thanks for reviewing! It's no problem for me to write a Slytherin!Harry fanfic that really differs from the actual books as I couldn't imagine the storyline following the books much if Harry became a Slytherin truthfully. In my mind they always follow a very different path from what people actually have them take. So far I'm not too sure if this will be slash - but believe me, I will not be swayed by what reviewers have to say on the subject. You should bear in mine that if I do decide on slash that it won't happen until at least book 4, 5, or 6. Yes, I am thinking of doing the later books as well as first year, however, with the way I've got this playing out in my head at the minue, I'm not too sure that I will be in need of the diary... unless... Okay I'm using the diary in Harry's second year, but I can't say for certain on any pairings such as a dark Harry/Ginny yet.