Author: Mirai
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, but my birthday is coming up soon…
Warnings: slash, raccoons, may be insulting to people named "Nancy"
Author's Note: I really had no idea where I was going to go with this. I should apologize; it's a little bit odd… But I'm not gonna! Insufferable's the word. Thanks to the awesome reviewers who encouraged me to continue this!



"I hate this more than life itself," Draco Malfoy hissed.
Normally, Potions was Draco Malfoy's favorite class. Then again, normally, Draco wasn't stuck with Harry Potter for a partner. Being put with one's worst enemy did amazing things for one's concentration. Amazingly bad things. Everything seemed to be going wrong. The sickly yellow color of their cauldron didn't look particularly tasty, and Draco was beginning to think that baking powder just might not be the correct substitute for crushed gryffin's tooth.
"Love," Harry said absentmindedly.
Draco dropped his wand. "What?"
Harry looked up at Draco, pushing his glasses back up his nose. "The expression is, 'I love this more than life itself.'"
Malfoy gave him a withering glance and scooped his wand up from the floor. "Well maybe it is for you, Potter." He turned back to the ingredient list in his potion book, looking sidelong at Harry. "Pathetic Gryffindor nancy."
Harry chose to ignore him. He checked his list of ingredients and measured out a reasonable dollop of dragon's bane.
"Potter!" Malfoy yelled, and Harry turned just in time to get a nice whiff of their cauldron, which had begun fuming a thick, yellow gas.
"Nice job Potter," muttered Draco, who was holding the arm of his robe in front of his nose. The pot burst into flames, and they both stepped back.
"Right, and I'm sure the last five ingredients you added were right," Harry hissed, attempting to fan the fumes away from his eyes. "I wasn't aware that this healing potion called for a quill."
Draco sniffed. "Well, you are a little slow sometimes, Potter. It fell in, anyway. And mostly because you bumped my arm."
Harry glared. "Uh huh. And what about the ink?"
Draco shrugged. "It was bound to follow suit. Besides, it's on the ingredient list." He directed his finger to the proper place in their textbook.
"'Ink' isn't the same as 'eye of newt.'"
"Ah, well, I thought it was an acronym."
"That would be… 'e.o.n.'?"
"I was assuming American spelling."
"That doesn't… nobody would… you can't…" Harry gave up. "Look, the point is, what are we going to do about this?"
"You mean, what are you going to do about it. It's your mess, so I believe you should clean it up. That's what you Gryffindor sissies do, isn't it?"
Fortunately, or unfortunately, Professor Snape chose that moment to check on their progress. Judgement was swift and severe. Harry rather thought he could get his own show on FOX.
"Points from you, points for you." Snape pointed at Harry, then Draco. "I've got a headache, don't ask questions."




Harry looked from the picture in the book to their cauldron. It was looking kind of chunky and smelling kind of dead. Malfoy is definitely trying this first. He poured a small amount into a glass cup.
"I was going to volunteer to try it. Very inconsiderate of you not to offer it to me first, Potter."
"Uh huh, well, gee, I'm sorry. Here, why don't you have the first taste after all."
"But it's a healing potion."
"So?"
"I'm not hurt."
"…Neither am I."
"Please. You've got that hideous scar on your thick skull, and you can honestly say that you don't need a healing potion? It's practically painful just to look at."
"So you're saying you're in pain?"
"I'm saying you're a pain."
"Bet you'd feel all better if you drank this."
Harry waggled the potion under Draco's nose. Draco suddenly grinned and snatched the glass from Harry's hands.
"Okay, Potter."
"I don't really think you should drink that - I mean, it might be poisonous…" Harry said doubtfully. Archenemy and all, he didn't think it would be right to let Draco drink it. Draco's grin stretched wider, and Harry wondered idly if he filed his teeth in his spare time. Harry frowned, and reached for the glass.
"Ten points from Gryffindor. Potter, if you're going to try and poison students, try to do it in someone else's class," Snape said irritably. He turned and walked away, muttering to himself. Harry thought he heard "I love my job," but he couldn't quite be sure.
"Sucker," Draco said, smirking.
Harry turned to glare at him. "Oh, shut up."



Harry spent the rest of potions cleaning out their cauldron and glaring daggers at Snape's toupee. Okay, it probably wasn't really a toupee, but referring to it as one made him feel a little better. His hair does kind of resemble a very dead small animal. He let himself daydream about animal rights activists throwing paint on Snape's head for wearing fur.
"Harry?" Ron's voice interrupted his reverie, just when his daydream was getting to the good part. A pack of raccoons had Snape surrounded. "You're going to get it for what you did to our brother!" the lead raccoon said…
"Harry!" Ron said again, sounding a little irritated.
"Hmm?" Harry said, blinking and turning slowly to look at Ron.
"You've been washing that cauldron for half an hour! Class is over… And why do you have that huge grin plastered to your face? You look like an idiot. Er, no offense."
Harry laughed sheepishly. "Oh. I guess I got distracted. I was daydreaming." He pulled his cauldron out of the sink and found that it was, indeed, sparkly-clean.
"Ohhh," Ron said knowingly. "Daydreaming about a girl?"
"No, Snape, actually." Ron starred, and there was a long pause that probably said something about the speed at which Harry's mind worked. "Not like that!"
Ron snickered. "Riiiight. Sure, Harry. Just keep your sick fantasies to yourself." He paused, and looked around. "Where'd Hermione go?"
Harry shrugged. "Dunno. Planning on asking her to the Valentine's Day dance?" he asked, more curious than teasing.
"Shhhh," Ron said, flushing and looking around suspiciously for anyone listening. "I… well… she… I mean, I might. Speaking of which, who are you going to ask? I mean, if Snape says no?"
"Ha ha. There's… someone," Harry said vaguely.
Ron looked at him, obviously curious, but he merely shrugged. "Okay, as long as it's not Snape or… or anyone like that, you've got my blessing." He frowned. "I'd better not give you any ideas."




Harry spent the rest of that afternoon trying to come up with something to say to his new paramour. Much scribbling, crossing out, and winged doodles left Harry with this:


If you're not going to the Valentine's Day Dance with anyone, would you go with me?

Harry shrugged. It would suffice.
After dinner was over and he had finished his homework, he left Ron and Hermione at a game of Candyland. Ron was loosing terribly, because, he said, he had never played it before, and the Licorice Lady cheated.
Harry snuck downstairs, letter in his pocket. He had considered signing his initials, but decided that it was too risky, in case his letter was 'intercepted.' It was already dark in the main hall, and Harry could only see by the faint light shining in the window. Reaching the bottom of the staircase, he squinted at the faint sheen that he supposed must be coming from the knight's helmet. He dashed quietly from the last stair towards the knight's helmet, until he smacked into something rather solid.
"Ouch," he breathed as he hit the floor. He didn't remember a wall being there.
Harry groped around on the floor for his glasses, but stopped when he heard a male voice mutter, "watch where you're going."
"Oh, ah, sorry. It's dark…" The voice sounded familiar. Harry was suddenly very curious as to what this student was doing prowling around at night, but of course he couldn't ask, because then he'd have to explain himself.
"I can see that," the voice drawled, sounding faintly amused.
"Er, yeah. Could you be careful? I dropped my glasses…" Harry reached around on the floor again, patting the stone with his hand. "Oh, here's something."
"That's my foot, genius," complained the other student, "and your glasses landed on me. Here."
Harry reached out in the dark, and connected with a hand. He grabbed his glasses, and put them back on his face, which was about as pointless as wearing sunglasses at night. "Thanks a lot!"
The other person didn't respond, and Harry said, "er, shouldn't you be getting back to your house? It's late, and after lights out."
The silence stretched out across the hall, and Harry shifted uncomfortably.
"Glasses… rule-abiding goody-goody… Potter." the other voice muttered venomously.
The only student who ever called him Potter was,
"Malfoy?! What are you doing… Never mind. I don't want to know. Anyway, you can't tell on me; you'll get in trouble too."
"That's great. Why don't you just scurry back up to your house and leave me alone?"
Harry considered. If he waited until tomorrow morning, Hermione and Ron would want to know what he was doing, and for all he knew, Draco might lurk about in the main hall all night. "I'll go where I want to, and anyway, I was here first."
There was another brief pause, then Draco muttered, "it's not like I was going to hang around here with you, Potter." Harry heard his footsteps as he walked away.
Harry lifted the knight's visor and dropped the note inside. "That was weird," he told the darkness. The darkness agreed. Harry snuck back upstairs, slipped in bed, and fell asleep almost instantly.




Author's Note #2: Hmm, well. "I wear my sunglasses at night… ba ba ba ba ba ba ba…" So, I finally updated; I'm really bad about that, especially now that I have a job. The thing is, my psychotic daydreaming at work has actually given me a pretty wicked plot. I think. The point among the babble being I will try to update frequently, and "frequently" is relative to whatever I want it to be. No, but really, I'll try to be good. I'm just really bad at being good. Thanks for reading!