Title: Advanced Muggle Studies
Author: D.G. Cory
Disclaimer: These are not my characters; they belong to the wonderful J.K. Rowling. This however is my first attempt at a fan fiction, so please bear with me.
Rating: I was going to start off as PG-13 but to be safe I'llgo for M (there issome swearing in the first chapter so I have a feeling more wil continue throughout the story and adult themes might come about too.)
Summary: Summer break for a certain blonde Slytherin just got a lot longer and a bit more painful. What is this new class he's in? How is Harry involved? (This will eventually be a HPDM slash)
Genera: Romance/Humor
Warnings: This is my first attempt at posting something here for others to read. This fic will eventually include slash, as in male x male relations. If you do not like reading about that or find it disgusting, there is a nice back arrow for you to click and take you away from this content. I will however give a warning when things get a little hotter between the two leads. I do not wish to get flamed because someone did not read the warning at the top of the page. This will also contain spoilers from the books, so if you haven't read OotP yet, you might be confused as to some of the plot. This is a work in progress (WIP) and I'll try to stay truthful to the characters, but I make no guarantees.
Pairings: Harry/Draco and Hermione/Ron (so far)
Author's Note: Thanks for taking an interest in this, I would love feedback. And now on with the story!
Chapter 1: It started with some parchment...
"What! No! I absolutely refuse to do this!" Fumed the blond hair boy as he paced back and forth in the large family library. There was a very stern looking woman who was glaring in his general direction. Her pale blue eyes and blond locks gave away the relation between the two.
"It's not for you to decide anymore. This is what's going to happen, so I suggest you go find what you'll need to survive for the time and get ready to leave. The Knight bus will be here in 15 minutes." She let out a slight grin. She had come up with this plan just the previous week and thankfully it wasn't too late to set into motion. Of course her son would be reluctant to follow any of her plans, but surly he must see how this would benefit the family.
"I…I have to take a bus!" The boy was now more outraged about having to take such a common way of transportation than what he was actually going to have to do. With a rather dramatic sigh he realized that his mother wasn't going to budge on that particular point by the icy look in her eyes.
"Fine," He glared at the woman again as he slowly made his way towards the exit of the library. "If there is anything else that you require of me, I'll be in my room until that foul bus arrives." He said sneering.
"Well now that you mentioned it," The woman's grin widened. "Here." She tossed a roll of parchment towards the youth, who caught it with such ease. His eyes widened as a small shock ran through his fingers as he gripped the parchment. Looking up at her with a cold stare in his eyes, he opened the parchment to read its contents. If it was possible for him to loose any more color in his skin, it happened. He paled slightly as his eyes skimmed the words and slowly his eyebrows knitted together. By the end he was glaring at the parchment as if he would like nothing else than to burn it.
"I...I understand." He rolled up the parchment and turned to face his mother. His eyes were as expressionless as he could make them. Bowing rather stiffly from the neck, he left her alone in the library, all the while seething on the inside. He vaguely remembered walking towards his wing of the mansion or climbing the stairs. When his foot solidly hit his school trunk he let out a rather colorful sting of cuss words. Today was going to be one of those days and he almost wished he never got out of bed that morning.
Quite a ways away, there was another boy who was also in a rather heated argument with another stern faced woman. She had a long neck and a bony face. At the current moment it looked as though her eyes would pop out of her head and she was a strange shade of purple, most likely from trying not to scream.
"You!" She cried, pointing a finger very dramatically at a sleepy, disgruntled looking youth with a messy mop of black hair on his head. "Out of my sight, now! Obviously you can't do anything right this morning. When you have finally found respect for what your Uncle and I have done for you, come and apologize! Until then, I don't want to see you in this house!"
The boy was trying his hardest not to glare at the loud woman. He looked down at his feet where the left over breakfast of the morning was now laying amongst the shattered remains of a couple of plates. Harry had been up all night long reading one of his hidden spell books and only got to bed as the sun was rising. When his Aunt had pounded on the door that morning to wake him up, he simply rolled over and went back to sleep. By the time he realized what he did, breakfast was over and he was expected to clean up after his relatives. Still groggy from not enough sleep, he collected all of the plates and almost made it to the kitchen sink before stumbling over his feet from a very powerful yawn.
"Fine, you won't be seeing me for a while then." He spoke around gritted teeth. Promptly turned on his heals and dashed upstairs to his room; grabbed a change of cloths and hurried into the bathroom. Once finished with his morning necessities he peeked out from the bathroom and decided that his Aunt must be in the TV room. Sneaking back downstairs, he grabbed himself and apple and proceeded outside to the fresh morning air.
"Ah, what a way to start off summer break." Harry mused to himself. It was only a week into break and he already missed his friends. He had been hoping to spend some time this summer at the Burrow with the Weasleys, but was still waiting for a reply from Ron. Hedwig had yet to return with a message from his best friend. Now that he was out of that dreaded house, Harry found himself once again lounging under the open window in the front yard hidden by the surrounding shrubbery.
Watching the fluffy white clouds over head pass him by slowly, Harry pulled out the stolen apple and proceeded to nibble on it. Hearing a loud bang, like a car back firing a couple blocks away he wondered what else could possible go wrong that day.
"Shit!" The blonde youth panicked, who was grabbing for the nearest handle inside the bus. He had some bad misconceptions on how this trip was going to proceed, but when the dreadful bus appeared at the road leading up to their mansion, Draco felt his heart sink. It arrived with a loud crack and a sudden halt, almost crashing into an old gargoyle stature that guarded the entrance to their mansion, if said gargoyle hadn't leapt aside. As he was getting on the bus he didn't turn around and wave at the blonde woman who was standing at the front door, nor did he want to know if she was still grinning at his misfortunes.
"Shit! Shit!" He thought to himself as the bus leapt from destination to destination. He was not getting used to sudden frequent stops and starts, and it was doing absolutely nothing for his stomach which decided to learn how to do acrobatics, flip flopping around. He glared at the pimply faced worker who welcomed him to the Knight bus when he first got on. Somehow all of this must be his fault.
Trying to distract himself from the odd sensations of movement the bus made, he tried to concentrate on the other witches and wizards who were his fellow passengers, much to his dislike. Some were actually sleeping on beds while others tried to drink their morning coffee while reading The Daily Prophet. Draco managed to catch a headline title from the newspaper, the Ministry claimed to be capturing some known Death Eaters. This news didn't sit well with Draco as he reflected on his father, one of the newer residents of Azkaban. Why his mother thought this "new plan" would help, he didn't have the faintest idea. Rolling his eyes, Draco tried to figure out how many more stops it would take till they reached his destination. It was as if on cue, Pimple face showed up by his side, slowly chewing on an old toothpick.
"Hey, aren't you that. . . "He started to ask, but seeing the look of pure hatred in the boys face, was suddenly at a loss for words.
"I'm what?" The blonde responded with a slight tilt of his head and a very cold tone to his voice.
"Uh," Pimple face replied, searching for something to say, "that…boy? Whose stop is next? Right 'Ern?" He looked desperately over his shoulder to the driver of the bus looking for some sort of help from having Draco glare at him.
"You mean the stop over in Little Whinging? Number 6 Private Drive was it?" The driver replied as he cranked the wheel far to the left as the bus jumped four lanes of traffic in Muggle London.
"No, it was number 4." The blonde growled, trying to remain calm and dignified as his stomach did another nifty flip.
"Oh yeah, that one's next." The driver called back, now twirling the wheel to the right, and the bus responded by jumping onto a different bridge.
"Great. I can't wait; you can drop me off at the end of the block." Draco hopped that the trip was almost over; his breakfast was just about ready to abandon him.
With another very loud crack and a nerve racking jolt Draco managed to stay sitting on his assigned bed by mere luck. A thought filtered through his mind of how undignified it would've been to be thrown to the floor while this pimple faced git was just standing there staring at him with growing suspicion on his face. Chancing a look up, Draco noticed they had entered a very strange place. All of the houses looked exactly alike, even the yards had certain "sameness" about them.
With a final lurch, the bus stopped in the middle of a small park at the end of a road. Draco assumed it was Private Drive. Getting to his feet, he shot one menacing glance towards Pimple face and started heading towards the exit. Upon getting off the bus, Draco mused to himself that all of the swings had to jump out of the way of the bus. Within a moment, his suitcase was delivered by his side with a grunt from Pimple face himself.
"Number 4 is jus' down that way," The bus boy spoke nervously, pointing a finger down towards number 4. Draco nodded once and grabbed his suitcase and started walking away from that nightmarish bus. He heard the youth get back on the bus and heard his next words to the driver.
"Hey Ern, isn't this where we picked up 'Arry Potter, that one night?" Draco's eye twitched slightly at the name, but realization hit him a second later. The famous Harry Potter got picked up by the Knight bus? And at night none the less. Draco grinned to himself and stored that information away for a later interrogation, eh, question, as the Knight bus gave a final crack and pop and was gone from the quite neighborhood.
With a sigh of determination, Draco grabbed the handle of his suitcase and started off towards Number 4 Private Drive. The wheels of his luggage clicking along the sidewalk as Draco slowed down with a growing disbelief. His hand slid into this outer robe and pulled out that dreaded parchment. Reading the address to himself again, a cold dread settled in his stomach. This was it; this small house in front of him was it. Rolling up the parchment and walking up towards the door, he tried to steel his nerves and plan what he would do. Stopping short of the door, he just stood there for a moment. Not quite sure on proper Muggle etiquette when approaching a situation like this. His heart was hammering in his chest, trying to escape, when he lifted his hand up to the door to knock. That seemed to be a safe idea. Just before he could knock, he heard a rustling sound to his left and a familiar, annoying voice.
"Malfoy?"
"Shit! Shit! Shit!" He was screaming inside his head, dreading to turn and look at the boy who made his life a rather interesting living hell.
Harry finished his apple quickly enough, but his stomach gave a slight growl at still being hungry. He could hear his Aunt bustling around inside, most likely cleaning up the mess he made. Harry was actually surprised she didn't make him clean it up. It could be that those were a favorite set of dishes, or maybe she wanted to throw the reaming set of those dishes at Harry for his incompetence. He snorted to himself, it's not like he meant to do it. He set a goal this summer for him self, to try to keep the fighting to a minimum between himself and the Dursleys. It wasn't going quite as planned so far.
An odd squeaking noise could be heard down the street. For a moment Harry was reminded of Kings Cross and all the people pulling those silly little suitcases after them. He grinned at this thought as it led him back to thinking about Hogwarts. As it turned out, the odd squeaking noise paused in front of his house, and then proceeded towards the door. Harry wondered briefly if there was a new guy delivering the post, but as he flipped over onto his stomach to spy on the mailman, he discovered that he was indeed as wrong as anyone could be.
None other than the pureblood brat himself stood at Harry's door step. His eyes bulged with disbelief, this wasn't possible. Why would Malfoy be here in Little Whinging? His brain didn't quite wrap around the fact that Malfoy looked as if the door knocker might bite him. Not thinking and just reacting to what he wanted to know, he slowly stood up from the bushes and stared at Malfoy, his mouth hanging open every so slightly.
"Malfoy?" He asked, his voice sounded a little breathy and shocked to say the least. He waited for the boy to turn towards him with some scathing remark and the usual sneer in place on that pointed face of his, but nothing happened.
"What the fuck?" Thought Harry to himself, now not quite too sure what to do since the boy in front of him was looking absolutely petrified. Harry decided to try again, but slightly different.
"Umm…Malfoy, what are you doing here?" He asked with a slight bite to his voice at the end of the question. Something must have clicked, because the other boy finally responded.
"Wouldn't you like to know, Potter?" He turned and spat back, now looking at the other boy fully for the first time since school let out. First thing Draco noticed was that other boy was starting to get a bit of a tan. He was wearing some form of ridiculous oversized muggle clothing and was standing in the middle of a bush. Draco couldn't help himself; he let out a strangled bark of a laugh at the sight. "Looks like Potter finally got planted where he belongs, in the garden with all of the other weeds."
Harry looked down and realized that Malfoy was right for once, he was standing amid his Aunts garden. His cheeks felt warm suddenly and he kept his face down for an extra moment.
"So why are you here? You are aware that you're surrounded by Muggles, right? Or has all of that bleach finally gotten to your brain and you've lost it?" Harry resorted back to trading insults with Malfoy. He also stepped out of the garden and walked towards the front door, which happened to be where the pale boy was standing.
Malfoy's pulse sped up slightly. Out here in the muggle world he couldn't do magic. At the comfort of his own home, with so many barrier spells in place around the mansion he could do as much magic as he wished till he turned blue in the face. But here, it was different. Different rules, different boundaries and expectations. He realized that he was indeed going to have to adapt to this strange new world if he wished to keep any of his dignity in tack. Feeling as though his personal space was being threatened by Potter's advance towards him, Malfoy took a slight step back and bumped into the door. He suddenly felt trapped and did not like it one bit. How dare his mother put him in this situation!
"My hair color just happens to be natural! And, if you want any answers, I suggest you act a little nicer towards me." Draco tried to put his cold mask up again, but a slight sheen could be seen on his forehead. "It's just the sun, that's all it is." He wasn't very successful convincing himself of that. Apparently Potter didn't buy the act either.
"Whatever." Harry grumbled, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest. "I can stand here all day, but it looks like you might just melt with all of those heavy, black robs on under this sun, and it's just going to get hotter. Why don't you tell me what brings you to this neck of the woods and go along on your merry little way?"
"Heh, you're going to love this then." The blonde boy grinned back, recognizing when he needed to play his last card. He slid his hand into his robs and noticed Potter flinched, probably thinking he was going for his wand. Instead he pulled out the role of parchment and held it out for Potter to take.
Harry looked very suspicious at what Malfoy was offering him. It looked like a normal role of parchment, but he didn't trust anything that came from a Malfoy if you couldn't see where it kept its brain. A strange twisted grin graced his face as he wondered if that applied to the boy standing in front of him. Only one way to find out, Harry reached forward and grabbed the parchment and felt a very strange tingling sensation run though his fingers and up his arm. Glaring at the other boy now, he wondered what he just got himself into. But the blonde boy seemed to be paying more attention to his nails than Harry at that moment. He unrolled the parchment and started reading. His heart felt like it had been hit by a semi truck and his gut was directly under all eighteen wheels. A cold sweat broke out over him even though the sun was beating down his back. This wasn't good. No, not good at all. Harry quickly collapsed onto the step and held his head in his hands feeling his world spiraling down out of his control. He distantly noticed the other boy sitting down beside him.
"This, this can't be happening. Why would he do something like this?" Harry murmured to himself, thinking mostly out loud.
"I don't know the reasoning behind that old loon's actions. I can't even explain why my mother would put me through this." Draco replied, knowing for sure who Harry was referring to. "I was forced into this mess, I had no choice. I am a victim!"
"Will you shut up? Do you want my muggle relatives to find you out here in those clothes you are wearing?" Harry snapped, not wanting to have to deal with who was stuck by his side.
"Why would my clothes matter? I think they look nice." Draco muttered, brushing off some invisible dust.
"Aren't you supposed to blend in? Do you even own any muggle clothes for that matter?" Harry asked, skipping over answering Malfoy's question and yet dreading his next answer.
"Yes, of course I have some muggle clothing," Draco replied indignantly," I just didn't want to wear them yet. They feel strange." Grumbling and talking down towards his feet.
"Well, lets get this over with. I see that my Aunt needs to see this too." Harry replied referring to the parchment that was held loosely in his hands, almost forgotten with a sense of dread and defeat curling up in his stomach. He made a move to get up, but stopped suddenly and tuned towards the blonde sitting next to him. "How did you get placed here anyway? I didn't know that you took the first class." There was a faint curious spark peeking through his green eyes as Harry waited for the other boys' response.
"I…uh, I didn't." Draco glanced up quickly and made eye contact. He was deeply surprised at how well the other boy was taking the news, well, at least a lot better than he did back home.
A slight grin broke out onto the dark haired boys face. "You mean to tell me that you got stuck in an advanced class never having taking the introductory class to begin with?" For his response the blonde only turned his head away as a slight flush over took his cheeks and nodded, not trusting his voice. He could hear Potter next to him laughing at his predicament.
"Just remember that you're stuck in this mess too." Draco tried to shoot back, but actually failed to sound very threatening.
"Whatever do you mean by that Malfoy? You're the one who's perfect class marks are at stake here. Beside, even if I wanted to, they wouldn't let me take this class." Harry was still grinning, he enjoyed seeing Malfoy out of his element, and he was very much out of his element at the current moment.
"What! Why wouldn't they let you take this class?" Malfoy replied glaring.
"Hmm…let's think really hard. Why are you here? Maybe it's because I could take this class, sleep through everything and still pass with outstanding marks? Yes, that must be it." Harry was still grinning like a fool.
"Well then, there is no reason why I shouldn't be able to pass this class as well." Malfoy sneered slightly tilting his chin up, watching the other boy roll his eyes.
"Oh man, this is going to be a long summer if I have to put up with that attitude every day." Harry groaned as he stood up. "Come on, let's go find my Aunt and hope she takes this news better than my Uncle. I'm just wondering what to tell them about why you're here." Harry mused.
"Why not just tell them the truth? It's right there in black ink in front of your face." Draco replied with a bitter tone in his voice, also getting up and dusting off his clean black robes again. He heard the other boy laughing at this next to him.
"Sure, I'll waltz in and say 'Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, I would like you to meet Draco Malfoy. He is a pureblood wizard who also attends Hogwarts with me, be we are bitter enemies from day one and fight all of the time and share completely opposite views on life. Do you mind if he stays here for the summer while taking an Advance Muggle Studies class? Which he never took the first class and actually hates all muggles in general? Oh, what is Advance Muggle Studies you ask? That means he is going to tag along after me watching you guys and learning about your behaviors and characteristics and how you survive day to day with out magic. Yes, that is right; he'll be here all summer long. Did I mention that his father tried to kill me a couple of times? Yes, I know you will all be great acquaintances when this is over.' That will go over very smoothly I think." By the end of Harry's little speech he was clutching his side almost doubled over in fits of laughter.
Draco was slowly stepping away from the crazed boy. It couldn't be that bad he thought to himself. Suddenly he felt like something very awful was going to be happening soon and at his expense, that or he would be caught up in the middle of everything. Still eyeing the other boy as if he sprouted another head, Draco wished desperately he never did get out of bed today.
End of chapter 1
A/N: Thank you for reading, I would love some feedback on this, I have an idea of where I want to continue with this story, but would appreciate to know what the readers (you) think about it so far. So you see that little button at the bottom of the screen that says "submit review?" Yes? That's right, click on it and make my day and let me know what you think!