Black Truth

Chapter Six: In the Name of Denial

Harry wearily allowed Hermione to drag him down to the Potions classroom and tried to think of anything other than working on the blasted project with Malfoy of all people, while Snape would probably be watching for his slightest mistake and blaming him for breathing in the wrong interval or something. Yet, as the time wore on and the seconds clicked closer to the start of class, Snape had not appeared. All the students were in their seats, waiting somewhat nervously, for their professor to arrive in the flutter of robes and slamming doors as he had for the past five years and a few weeks running. Yet, as the clock ticked to the very second that class was supposed to start, their professor has still not graced the classroom with his presence.

In the stunned silence of the room, Blaise's whisper to Draco was deafening, "If he doesn't show up in ten minutes, I'm leaving."

There were a few slight smiles as the students pondered this, but all smiles soon dropped from their faces as a voice answered, "I'm sure that won't be necessary, Mr. Zambini."

The door, which had opened silently, suddenly slammed shut, and most of the students jumped, half twisting in their seats to see the owner of that voice.

Even Draco was slightly surprised as his father walked with practiced ease to the front of the room.

"Well?" A regal eyebrow rose as he surveyed the students. "I believe you had work assigned to you. And while I think it would be great fun to watch your Professor cut all your throats for not handing it in, I doubt you would find it as amusing."

Chairs squeaked as students moved to sit with their partners and start on their projects.

Harry didn't bother speaking to Malfoy as he sat down next to the blond, seeing as Draco had pointedly not made a move to where Harry had been seated.

"We can get started on half of the potion today, but then we'll have to acquire the other half of the ingredients." Draco spoke, looking at his cauldron as if it was the most fascinating thing he had ever seen.

"Fine then."

And with that, Draco started working, occasionally shoving something in Harry's direction with directions to be cut or shredded in a particular way. This suited both of them, as Draco didn't want a partner to help make the potion to begin with, and Harry didn't want to make the potion at all. But, watching as the blond aristocrat added the unicorn's teardrops with subtle procession, Harry had to admit that Draco had some talent in this field of the Wizarding World.

The potion in the cauldron had turned the pale blue color that was an exact duplicate of the color described on the sheet of directions when Draco shoved a list of ingredients at Harry.

"I'll meet you tonight outside the Forbidden Forest to get these."

"What?" Harry's idea of not interacting with Malfoy was shattered.

"Look at the list Potter." Draco spoke, pointedly watching the blue potion stir itself. "Conock blood can only be found inside the fruit of the conock plant when picked at night. Gorgan's Hair is actually the snake-like leaves of the Gorgan tree, so named for it's appearance obviously. And Blackwing Pearls can only found from the Blackwing plant, a short weed which can be seen only after the sun goes down. Hence the 'at night' part and since the fastest way to get these is to take them from the plants themselves, you get the Forest part."

"And I suppose you know that one can find all these in the Forest," Harry hissed, not caring if Draco heard that comment or not.

"Actually, I do know that all of these can be found in the Forest," Draco sniped, "Ten o'clock, outside of the Forest, Potter. And don't be late."

"No, Ron, we aren't kidding."

"But that's bloody mental! Even Dumbledore wouldn't risk having the Ministry find out about him giving a teaching position, no matter how small, to someone who doesn't have Ministry permission to teach! Malfoy can't have those kind of qualifications!"

"You see when we get to Defense, Ron." Was all Hermione replied and Harry nodded, silently wondering if it would matter if the Ministry found out that Lucius Malfoy had taught a class considering that he most likely owned that department, more or less.

Hermione was not disappointed in as they entered the normal Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom to find the same teacher from Potions that morning calmly leaning against Snape's desk. Harry had to admit that the look on Ron's face was priceless, and yet all that Lucius Malfoy did was raise one eyebrow in amusement while he and Hermione were fighting back laughter.

Class started exactly on time, just as Potions had not, and the elder Malfoy wasted no time in waiting for stragglers. The door slammed shut and was locked by an invisible force and every student except two turned to look at the door in amazement. Draco had seen this little stunt many times at the Manor when his father was making it clear to Narcissa that he was not to be disturbed and that the definition of "not" indeed was the same as it had been for the last hundred years and had in actuality not been changed to the definition of "maybe not" or "not, unless Narcissa felt it necessary". Hermione was looking at the elder Malfoy, silently storing away the first sign she had been shown of how a Veriae worked with the magical currents around them. But it was clear that anyone not in there seats was obviously not going to attend class, and much to Ron's chagrin that did not include any Slytherins or Ravenclaws, yet included a few Hufflepuffs and about half of the Gryffindor population of the class.

"Put away what you want," Lucius Malfoy started, watching as students began stuffing books away. "I am going to talk and you are going to listen, and you will have to use your own intelligence as to whether or not you will be tested on what I am going to inform you of by your normal teacher."

Quills and parchment began appearing back on the desks.

"Now I have no idea what in the name of all things magical your Professor has you studying, nor do I want to know, Miss Granger so kindly put your hand down."

Harry and Ron exchanged looks. Snape had obviously been taught something by Lucius Malfoy sometime in his life for their lecturing methods to be so similar.

"For this class period we are going to talk about curses and the effects thereof. I won't spend time on the Unforgivables as I've heard those were dealt with in your Fourth Year, except to say that they are becoming somewhat of a cliché. Now those three curses were singled out by the Ministry out of the hundred and seventeen curses that might have been selected as Unforgivables. Why? Because they were popular. It's easy as snapping your fingers to cast Cruciatus on someone if you hate them, and Imperius gets to be a walk in the park if you use it enough to become familiar with it. But the rest of the hundred and seventeen are much harder to maintain and have somewhat gruesome effects, therefore they were not used as often. However, this makes them more appealing as the years move on, as they are not Unforgivable, and the punishment for using one of them on another creature is merely a tongue lashing by some Ministry official who doesn't know what he's talking about to begin with and no amount of time in Azkaban at all. Now, as all of the Unforgivables have a weak spot -- Cruciatus becomes ineffective as one's mind blocks out the pain in order to save one's sanity, the Imperius counts on the fact that your victim of choice has little to no will power, and as long as someone else gets in the way of the Killing Curse when its thrown at you, you're safe -- so do these other curses have weak spots that can be exploited if you know what is coming towards you."

"Can you believe he got all 117 curses into one class period?" Ron groaned as he nursed his writing hand in the Common Room.

"You think this is bad? Can you imagine if he were to become the permanent Defense Teacher?" Harry groaned.

"That was the most informative class I've ever had," Hermione pointed out. "More than half of those curses aren't archived in our library except in the Restricted Section."

"Bloody amazing," Ron muttered sarcastically.

"Did you notice that Malfoy didn't write anything at all?" Harry wondered out loud.

"Which one?" Ron muttered from where he had been attempting to wallow in pity for the most certain loss of a limb after all those notes.

"Draco."

"I did," Hermione spoke thoughtfully. "But do you know something even more strange? He was mouthing the names of the curses two words before his father said them.

"As if he's heard that particular lecture before?" Ron asked.

"Exactly."

"Well I guess that's something I can ask him when I have to meet him to go find bloody potions ingredients in the Forest," Harry muttered. "Might make for good conversation."

Ron patted his shoulder sympathetically before realizing he was using his "injured" hand to do so and returned to self pity.

"It can't be that bad-" Hermione started to say but the looks from the two boys silenced her.

"You're late Potter," Draco muttered as Harry got close enough to hear him without raising his voice.

"Let's just get this over with," Harry muttered.

"Fine by me," Draco shot back, turning to lead the way into the Forest that he was quite used to by now. Thank you Father, he thought silently as Harry followed close behind him, obviously not having a clue about where he was going.

Gathering two of the ingredients went fairly easily. Draco led, Harry followed wondering slightly why he wasn't disturbed that Draco knew where he was going and then resolved to think about that later. But when they approached the spot where Draco knew there was a Gorgan tree, Harry suddenly stopped short. Draco continued walking for a few steps and then realized that Harry wasn't with him. He turned to see the boy staring ahead at the downward slope of the ground that was covered in a root canopy.

"I've been here before. We don't want to be going in there."

"Yes, Potter, we do want to be going in here as it is the fastest and most direct route to the last ingredient that we need and I for one want to get to bed."

"Draco, you don't understand. There are thousands, millions even, of giant-"

"Spiders? Yes I know."

"They enjoy eating flesh - did you know that?"

"I had assumed so. They don't bother with a Veriae, so I never tested my theory."

Harry looked pointedly at Draco, and Draco realized that he had overlooked the slight problem of Harry not being a Veriae. He rolled his eyes, only slightly visible in the darkness of the wood.

"Fine. You stay here. I'll go get the Gorgan's Hair." Draco spoke as if he was very annoyed by the injustice of all this. "But you have to carry everything back."

Harry didn't point out the fact that he already was carrying the other two ingredients, and nodded, watching the aristocrat disappear into the cave-like structure ahead of him.

Harry waited and waited... and finally figured that time was relevant. He was sure that he was counting the seconds when he first heard the sounds, like wheezing only in a very regular breathing pattern. And then he heard the somewhat silent sound of slithering coming towards him. And something that he had forced himself to memorize for Snape's second test clicked in his head.

Wyvern! His mind screamed. Winged, legless dragons that breathed a yellow fog which gave humans a nasty cough that wouldn't go away for years, and made their eyes burn and blur. Damn. And what's more is that their hide repelled magic of all sorts. Double damn.

He half twisted to see three pairs of eyes watching him. Bloody. Hell.

The creatures slowly emerged from the brush, speaking to each other in the language of dragons. It was what Parseltongue had originated from and Harry could catch a few words... words that by themselves formed a very disconcerting picture. Unintentionally, Harry began to back towards the cave which would lead to the spiders' nest.

Draco emerged from the cave to just avoid running into Harry, who had leapt back to avoid the fog of three wyverns. What were they doing here? The wind of the forest rustled through the trees and told him. Draco saw red.

They.

Wanted.

To.

Harm.

His.

Harry.

Draco did not like that. AT. ALL. Something nagged at the back of his mind that told him that he shouldn't care if the wyverns hurt Harry... but that nagging disappeared when he caught a glimpse of the emotion boiling in Harry's eyes.

Helplessness.

Nothing.

Hurt.

His.

Harry.

Something inside of Draco snapped. Wings unfurled, sparkling in the dim light. Harry half turned to see Draco standing there, and began to back away from the Veriae slightly. Draco shoved the last ingredient into his hands and attacked. The first wyvern never saw what hit it as wings seemed to wrap around its body, shredding the skin and spilling critical amounts of blood. It fell to the ground dead within seconds.

The other two wyverns looked at Draco suspiciously, then turned to look at Harry with a strange expression... surprise, if it was possible for a dragon descendant to show surprise. Harry frowned as they spoke to each other.

"Lucky - hiss- too bad - growl- intended -snarl-Veriae."

They left, obviously not wanting to invoke the already angry Veriae, and Harry didn't blame them, but what had they been talking about? Harry suddenly wanted to find a way to learn to speak Dragontongue. It was possible to understand it with a bit of studying, just another dialect of Parseltongue after all.

Draco stood in shock after he had entered his rooms and closed the door. What had he done? Why had he done it? He had protected Harry? He had willingly protected Harry? He had been angry that Harry-bloody-Potter had been attacked by wyverns. Why should he even care?

Because Harry's aura matched his- no he didn't know that. He only thought that, only had the slightest suspicion of thinking that maybe that could have the slightest chance of being the case...

Yeah right. And if Draco Malfoy hadn't resigned himself to the fact that Harry Potter was his intended, Draco the Veriae Malfoy certainly wasn't complaining. In the name of all things magical... why him? Why couldn't it have been someone - anyone - else?

Draco groaned and threw himself down on his bed in a very unMalfoyish bout of depression (because one, Malfoys never become depressed, and two, Malfoys do not throw themselves onto their beds while, three, wearing clothes that they wore into the Forbidden Forest). Was there even a bright side of this problem? Oh yeah, if he ever wanted to commit suicide for some reason he could just go have a little chat with Harry Potter.

Hi Harry. Just so you know I still hate you, but you're my intended life partner, so can you hurry and reject me because I want to die because Voldemort just announced that he's gay and wants to be my bride.

Draco shuddered. Yeah, if he ever wanted to commit suicide, that would definitely be the way to go. Now all he had to do was pray that Harry didn't figure it out, or if Harry did figure it out (more like if Granger ever figured it out) that Harry had enough common sense to avoid him at all costs.

Yes, that was all... and then there was that little fact that he had to start controlling his emotions more now, just to make sure he didn't go mental when someone tried to hurt Harry... like sending a bludger at him in the Saturday Quidditch match this week... oh damn it all!