ON TWO LORDS AND A PRINCE
CHAPTER 18: DIFFERENT STYLES OF POTIONS
Harry got back to Gryffindor Tower at eleven o'clock only to find Hermione glaring fiercely at his as he entered the common room. The bushy haired prefect looked over-eager to do her duty, but then Harry had half expected it: his former friend had always been a stickler for the rules.
"And where have you been Harry Potter? Curfew began straight after the feast." she barked sternly, putting on a very good impression of Professor McGonagall.
"Meeting people, discussing things and hearing the news. Nothing for you to be concerned with, but if you insist in sticking your nose in then feel free to ask Professor McGonagall, she was there too." Harry answered blithely, not really caring about what Hermione or her comments. He couldn't care less about the curfew rules or Hermione's ineffectual attempts to enforce them, although he hoped that the prefect would go running to McGonagall so she could put his fellow fifth year in her place by telling her that Harry had been out after curfew on official business, something, which was more than likely to annoy her immensely.
"And apologising to the headmaster as well I hope." Hermione continued, hoping to quash Harry's rebelliousness by sounding even sterner. It didn't work.
"Actually, the headmaster apologised to me," Harry responded smugly, treasuring the look of betrayal on Hermione's face. "He didn't even mention my comments either, but that's because he thinks I'm entitled to my own opinion, unlike someone I could name." He needn't have bothered with the pointed look that backed up his harshly intoned comment; even Crabbe and Goyle would have been able to figure out that the comment was referring to Hermione.
"Well I'm sure it's only a matter of time." Hermione concluded huffily, turning her attention away from interrogating her housemate and back to the book she had been reading, leaving Harry to stroll across the room to where Ron was watching Seamus and Dean play chess.
"Hey Harry," Seamus shouted across the common room, when he spotted his friend approaching them. He couldn't help breaking into a large grin as he remembered the last time he had seen the raven-haired boy, when he had been taunting Draco Malfoy as they left the great hall. "Your performance in the entrance hall was excellent, really put Malfoy in his place."
"Yeah and Malfoy's expression too," Ron gasped. He looked as though he was trying to hold back from laughing at the memory, "It's a pity that damn uncle of yours intervened. No offence mate but he looks as if he's going to turn out to be a right bastard."
"He's certainly putting on a pretty good Snape impression isn't he?" Harry replied with a sly grin, as the thought of Sam's reaction to such a comparison crossed his mind. He wasn't sure why, but his uncle liked the dour potions master just as little as Harry did, "I doubt it will last though as he'd actually quite nice once you get to know him."
He soon got the opportunity to make the comparison as well because he found himself being summoned to his uncle's office the moment he got down for breakfast the next morning. After quickly grabbing a bite to eat and collecting his timetable from Professor McGonagall he made his way down to the dungeons, curious as to why his presence was required.
He'd only just stepped through the doorway when he found himself being slammed against the wall by an unknown assailant, knocking his head painfully against the wall in the process. He then felt his attacker punch him in the face and knee him painfully in the genitals before turning and walking away, leaving Harry to slide down the wall wincing in severe pain. It all happened so quickly that he didn't see the strikingly familiar platinum blond hair until after it had all happened, as his attacker returned with an unknown potion in his hand. Harry could also feel the eyes of his Uncle Sam looking on from the far corner of the room.
"Here," Draco said softly, offering the potion to Harry, "This should ease the pain." The raven-haired boy didn't take it; he was far too streetwise to trust someone who had just attacked him.
"You can trust him. I brewed the potion myself," Sam intervened, experience reminding him to both look and sound reassuring, when he saw that his nephew wasn't going to take the potion. Draco may have spiked it, but it was still a basic all-purpose pain-relief potion. He took the potion. It cleared the pain up instantly.
"What did you do that for?" Harry asked as he picked himself up the ground, trying to look as dignified as possible even if a large bruise was beginning to form on his right cheek. He had expected something like this from Malfoy, but it didn't stop him from feeling annoyed and slightly surprised at being healed afterwards.
"I didn't want to leave you lying in such pain," Draco responded simply.
Harry raised an eyebrow at this. A gesture that didn't go unnoticed by Draco as the two boys looked directly into each other's eyes, trying to fathom the emotions that lay under the cold masks of neutrality that covered their faces. An outsider would only have seen two young wizards looking at each other warily, the expressions and posture of one expressing the aristocratic pride and dignity of a privileged upbringing, whilst the other had the grace and confidence that only the most powerful possessed. Beyond that the outsider would not have been able to discern anything else about these two young wizards, neither their current emotions nor the thoughts that motivated their actions and certainly not how they felt for each other. The same went for the two young men themselves; they could not discern the feelings of the other either.
"You didn't seem to have any problem with that in the past," Harry countered. He had been extremely worried that his Slytherin friend now hated him, but a glimmer of hope now emerged, praying that this was not the case.
It wasn't; his worries were groundless, "Things have changed. I hated you the. You're my friend now," Draco explained, his tone as soft and simple as it had been before. The blond sounded as if he had been stripped of all his confidence and ego, but still refused to show anxiety or any other similar emotions.
It certainly wasn't the reply Harry expected, but even so for some reason he did not feel any surprise. It felt natural, as if it was should have happened and as if his subconscious had expected it. Instead he grinned with delight. He couldn't help it; his friend's words had lifted a huge burden from him.
"So," Harry began, fighting to keep the relief he felt from echoing in his voice, "You've finally admitted that we're friends then."
"I had no choice. I desperately tried to hate you, to return to the way things were and I couldn't: too much has changed. All I could think of was revenge, of ways to make you feel how I felt as you slandered the one thing I care about more than anything, " Draco expressed, his vocal expressions still eerily calm.
"You know I didn't mean what I said about Slytherin, even if your reaction was hilarious," Harry contested, feeling a little grieved at being accused of slander, especially against a house, which he felt a lot of respect for.
"I know that," Draco exclaimed forcefully. His mask of cold indifference finally broken by his dislike of people stating the obvious, something Harry had just done, "Do you honestly think I can feel anything other than hatred for an enemy of Slytherin? You may be a muggle-loving fool and the dark lord's biggest adversary, but that does not make you any less my friend and cousin, as long as you acknowledge the worthiness of my house."
"Then I'm sure our friendship will be long and fruitful," Harry replied strongly, accompanying his words with an enigmatic smirk, that promised some great things as a result of their friendship. There were a few practical concerns, such as having to keep their friendship secret, but they would be easily resolved; Draco was a Slytherin after all.
"Indeed it will," Draco responded, matching his cousin's facial expression.
Half an hour and a large breakfast later both Harry and Draco made their way, separately, across the corridor from their uncle's office to their first class of the new term - Potions with Professor Evans. As a consequence Harry was the last there, barring their new teacher of course who wasn't going to allow his own nephew to be late for his first class, a fact which caused Hermione to send him a disapproving glare as he made his way to sit in the spare seat next to Ron. Harry naturally ignored the glare. As far as he was concerned the bushy haired girl was an immature irritant, who, according to Draco, would get her comeuppance that same day. Harry had wondered idly, whether that same comeuppance had something to do with the blond's revenge against Harry, which he knew wasn't finished. After all he had made a cryptic remark about all humiliations having a silver lining.
"Where have you been? I didn't see you at breakfast." Ron asked as Harry sat down next to him.
"Talking to Sa- Professor Evans," Harry whispered in reply, omitting to mention that he had actually spent most of his talking to Draco, and had only really spoken to his new Professor briefly, "Bad news though: he's going to be assigning us seats and partnering us with the Slytherins."
"Bloody hell, I hope I'm not working with him," Ron moaned, grimacing at the prospect of having to work with a Slytherin. The redhead indicated towards Malfoy, who was sitting at the front of the class, whispering to his two cronies.
Harry couldn't but grin, not at his friend's discomfort, but at the partner Sam had lined up for the blond. It was actually a fairly logical pairing, they were the two best students in the class, but that didn't stop Harry teasing the blond Slytherin as a consequence. "Don't worry," he said reassuringly, "Sam told me that he'll be working with Hermione."
The redhead didn't get a chance to reply however, as he was interrupted by the loud bang of the door slamming shut, marking the entrance of Professor Samuel Evans.
"Stand Up!" Professor Evans barked, once he had reached the front of the classroom, "I am not going to have you sitting with your friends. You are to work and to brew Potions, not to engage in idle chatter," he looked pointedly at some of the girls. "I will be allocating you a partner and a seat for the reminder of the year. Do not move until I tell you to do so." He began calling out the pairings, whilst indicating where he wished the pairings to sit with his hands. "Patil and Crabbe. Weasley and Davis. Longbottom and Parkinson," he announced, indicating that those three pairings should sit on the front row. "Greengrass and Finnegan. Bulstrode and Thomas. Goyle and Brown," he called, gesturing for those six students to sit in the second row of seats. "Granger and Malfoy. Potter and Zabini," he concluded. The class hurried to their seats, Harry taking his in the back row between Malfoy and Zabini. The fact that Hermione was sitting on the other side of Draco was no more likely to stop Harry talking to both his new potions partner and his other Slytherin friend, than Sam's pronouncement that he had did not tolerate non-potions related conversations in classes.
"This is an extremely important year. You take your OWL exams at the end of the it and if you do not get an O or possible an E then you will not be allowed to continue your studies in this subject into the next two years. It is my job to ensure that you are ready for them," he said harshly, "To pass you must follow be able to follow all but the most complex of Potions Recipe. Most of you can do this, those who cannot achieve this requirement will receive extra tuition," he continued, giving Neville a pointed look, "But I do not want you to pass. I want you to excel, to achieve not an A but an O. I firmly believe that all of you can achieve this, it's not hard, all it requires is understanding. Something which I am afraid Professor Snape neither teaches nor possesses," Harry noticed Zabini tense besides him, obviously disliking the insult against his head of house. Malfoy, surprisingly, did not react. "You all know that Porcupine Quills must not be added while a cauldron is on the fire, but do any of you, with the exception of Malfoy, know why?" Sam smirked knowingly when no reply came and no hands went up, not even Hermione's. "I thought not. You cannot excel at potions through simple memorization. It is like casting a spell without learning the proper wand movement: prone to failure.
Deepest Apologies for taking so long with with this chapter, but I have had little time to write in recent weeks, a situation which will continue for a little while longer.
I make no apologies for the political elements in the last chapter. Whilst I needn't have gone into such detail it adds a bit of background to later events, some of which wil cause a lot of angst. Besides, I am a politics student.
Thank You to all those who reviewed Chapter 16. The reviews were much appreciated. If you want me to e-mail you when I update this fic leave your e-mail address in your review.