Chapter Twenty Three: A Small Practice

Harry was anxious during all the day, almost got three detentions, because hadn't paid attention on the lessons. He was concentrating, concentrating on everything around him, except teacher's voice. He even checked out some of the students during lunch break and found it very interesting: there was so much covered under the people's skins. Of course, he couldn't interpretate everything, but even his amount of knowledge let him differ a hufflepuff from a gryffindor or ravenclaw. He wished for the slytherins to be here, so he could also see their auras. Harry was sure, that they would've been as black as coal.

He was trying as hard as possible to prepare for today's dueling practice. Harry knew that it would be something special or drastic. Still he wanted to show to his teacher that he's worth of so much attention, that he wasn't only a celebrity, but a wizard who knew how to stay his ground.

All his last period Harry was sitting on needles and flew out of the classroom when the bell rang. When he opened the door to the Dueling Room, he suddenly stopped, because there was practically no free place in there, the only room was in the middle. Everything else was covered behind the screens. From behind those strange noises were coming. Harry couldn't identify the source of them. They were definitely not human's, but still were far from animals'. Harry's seeking for an answer to this riddle was interrupted by a sarcastic voice from the above, "Good day, Potter. You had guts to come. Well, we'll see if you have them to stay."

Harry looked up to see Draco standing on a small balcony above the door. It reminded him slightly about his meeting with Malfoy in the bookstore before their second year. "I've been waiting for this visit all day, so I don't think I'll leave any time soon," Harry said firmly, showing that he isn't afraid and will face anything.

"Good," said Draco with a nod. "Today you'll show all practical skills that you've learned so far or the lack there of. Behind those screens are your today's practical subjects, but they are not all your enemies, some of them are good so to say. The most important point of this practical lesson is that you must differ your enemy from your ally, good from evil. Then you must disarm your enemies by liquidating their weapons. The more time it'll take you, the crazier it become. Is everything clear?" Harry nodded and swallowed. "And one more thing, give me your wand."

"What!"

"Give me your wand," Draco ordered.

"But…but," Harry began to stammer.

"I promise that I won't do anything with it. It's useless now anyway."

"But what if something happens?"

"It's your and only your task to prevent it. Ok, give it to me. Don't be a ninny, Potter. It's just a piece of wood; you know that everything is inside you." Draco motioned with his fingers to Harry to give him his wand, reluctantly he did it. "In a few moments I'll pull the screens up, be ready." Draco turned and began to pull the screens up…

'Manually? Couldn't he use his wand or something?' But at that moment Harry couldn't think about such simple things. Only now he realizeed why he felt that he was always in danger in this room: it was circular and now he was completely surrounded. Completely surrounded by… "Plants?"

"Close your eyes and have fun, Potter!" Were the last 'encouraging' words of Draco.

Harry closed his eyes and quickly looked around. He saw five spots of different green tone. 'That must be the characteristic feature of all plants.' One of them was light green with pink dots and it felt like it wanted to embrace Harry. 'This can't be an enemy.' He moved to the next plant. The spot was more orange than green, it was absolutely round. It reminded Harry about sun with it's warm. 'Another friend. I have a lot of them, don't I?' Harry relaxed mood switched to discomfort when he turned to the third spot which was dirty green. Looking at it sent goose bumps down his spine and a prickling sensation on his hands. 'Needles? But how to fight needles!'

Hundreds of memories were rushing through Harry's head, but nothing was suitable, especially the choice became urgent when those needles found him very interesting and showed the way of their affection by piercing his hands.

"Ouch, au, uh," Harry tried to avoid them, that was quite simple, because needles left a red trace behind them. Still he needed to do something about them. Suddenly the memory of aunt Petunia came to him. She was sewing Dudley's pants with a needle which she put into a small pillow after using. 'Of course, a pillow!'

Harry concentrated hard on picturing a pillow in his mind and after a few seconds felt something soft in his hands. With out much effort a pillow stopped soon all the needles.

Taking a deep breath Harry moved further. By the first glance he understood that he was facing an enemy again. Something creepy was in this dark green spot, it was moving back and forth as if didn't have a permanent form. It was moving towards Harry, but he still didn't decided what to do with it. His hesitation played bad trick with him. Within moments Harry felt a tight grip on his leg, but at the same time smell of freshness of rainforests and grass. 'Vines!' Harry guessed. 'But what are vines afraid of?' Harry pictured a jungle in his mind: sand, trees to the sky, sun, mercilessly sending hot beams on the heads of the researchers. (He saw something like this on the Discovery Channel) 'Sun! Vines can't survive without Sun!' This thought came quite in time, because vine was around his whole left leg already. Harry again concentrated and streams of cold water reached the plant, it was frozen to the roots.

Harry began to move to the next one, when another five plants appeared. 'Time! I've absolutely forgotten about it. What a sweet joke of my dear teacher!' Harry thought with sarcasm. He looked at the first spot at random. Harry was met with a golden glow and something feather like on the top of the aura. 'This can't do any harm,' he turned his back to it.

This time he found himself in front of something with an aura of dirty green with black veins. Harry felt suddenly disgusted by it. In a matter of seconds he was wrapped by it from head to toe. Harry felt very very sick, but the same time the grip was strangely familiar, then it dawned to him. 'Deathly Snare! Deathly Snare! Is he crazy? Still that is an easy task. He must be surprised by my fast reaction on this one.' Harry made his hand shine brightly and the grip began to loosen, then he was able to free his hands, Harry sent a big ball of light towards the spot and it disappeared.

Harry was ready to move on, when his back was attacked by some objects thrown at him. He turned on his heels and saw the lovely golden spot was throwing something which looked like snowballs. The first impression about feathers came back to him and a stormy wind went out of his hands to blow off the whole white tip as if to say: "Just shut up!"

It went on and on. The more plants appeared, the fewer friends were among them. Harry began to get tired as if all the energy was drained from his body. All was in a blur. He felt like he was drunk and all spots were dancing around him. "Another one and I'll faint," Harry murmured.

"Enough!" came Draco's loud voice. The screens fell back, hiding the mess of plants all over the floor. Draco jumped down form the balcony and headed towards Harry.

'He jumped from the balcony. Simply jumped. It's only ten feet there, why not just jump?' Harry thought, dizziness overwhelming him.

Draco looked him up and down. "You better sit, Potter." Harry firstly sat down, but then fell on his back, lying with closed eyes on the floor. "Well, what can I say," Draco continued in his teacher's strict tone. "Not bad, not bad, but far, far from good. There is still so much to do. And you need to learn to concentrate! You seem to fly somewhere all the time. You need to see the target, find the way to defuse it and do it," he looked at Harry, who seemed to be asleep. "Are you listening to me!"

Harry stirred. He was sleeping. He turned to the source of the yelling and suddenly sat up right. "Holly Gryffindor!" He cried with horror.

"What the Hell now, Potter?" Draco asked annoyed.

"I just… accidentally…saw your…your aura," Harry answered, stammering.

"Is it that horrible? All black and rotten?" Draco yelled in frustration, but with a slight hope for the opposite.

"Oh, no, no. Far from that," Harry said, shaking his head. "I saw that you were bleeding," he added quietly.

"Bleeding?" Draco asked frowning and looked at himself, finding no traces of blood.

"Yes. There were two big holes in your aura with blood coming out of them," Harry answered with the same quiet voice.

"Two holes," Draco whispered, memories of Christmas Night rushing in front of his eyes. 'Two holes, two parents I lost then.' Draco snapped out of his reminiscences, seeing Harry's researching glance. "We need to return to an analysis of today's lesson," Draco said coldly.

'What do those two holes stand for? What could happen to him to leave such a trace?' Harry thought, looking at the floor with a frown.

"For Founder's sake, Potter! Are you going to listen to me or not!" Draco screamed practically into Harry's ears.

"Oh, sod off!" Harry said, rolling his eyes and lying down back on the floor. "Can't you see I am exhausted, have scratches and bruises all over my body? I don't know if I can think straight right now. And you are standing there almighty and marking out my mistakes! My only mistake was to come out from all that alive to listen to your rambling about my lack of concentration and whatever else you want to punish me for.

Deathly Snare! Are you nuts! It could've killed me in one switch. And I am more than sure that half of the plants was poisonous! What were you thinking! Did you want to kill me with innocent looking plants?"

"You are pretty talkative for such an exhausted man. Still aren't you even a bit satisfied that you did something else in your life, had a success in something?"

"Success? You call it a success! I don't even feel my fingers. I don't remember feeling such a wreck after a Quiddich practice." Again Harry saw longing in Draco's eyes after mentioning Quiddich.

"Don't be so all over about your body. I have forty eight scratches and bruises after bringing them all here. So I don't feel so fresh and shiny either," Draco said indignantly.

"You brought them here all by yourself?" Harry asked surprised. He even picked up himself from the floor to make an eye contact with Draco, which was now possible, because Draco also sat down on the floor.

"No, they appeared her themselves. Of course, I brought them here, who else would do it?" Draco snorted. "And by the way, there are eight more waiting for you," Draco finished with a sly smile.

Harry groaned. "Hell with them, I can't move a finger," Harry said, looking at the ceiling.

"I'll let you go to your warm bed and dream about your precious girlfriend, if you answer me to one question."

Harry blushed a little at the mentioning of a girlfriend. "I don't have a girlfriend," he said shyly.

Draco looked at him with raised eyebrows, but then shrugged. "Will you answer then?"

"Oh, yeh, everything to go to bed."

"Your so supposed friends are all alive, how did you differ them from others?"

"I don't know. I just felt that they couldn't harm me."

"That's it?" Draco asked disbelievingly.

"Well, no. I don't know how to describe it. Can I see them again?"

"If you want." They stood up, Harry quite reluctantly. Draco pulled the screens up and Harry came closer to his "friends".

"You know, when I saw their auras," Harry began distinctly. "They reminded me about some of my real friends. This one," he gestured to the high cactus with an orange flower on the top, "reminded me of Ron, this bush with berries – of Hermione, always finds use in everything, even in her own being. The orange tree brought the memories of my mother. Others, well, I don't know. I felt that with their warm aura colors they wanted to tell me that they are save to be around."

"So simple… And nothing more?" Draco asked skeptically.

"What's the matter? You are asking me like you don't know yourself!" Harry said with slight indignation.

At this Draco turned away from Harry, so Harry wouldn't see his fallen face and sadness in the eyes. Harry gasped, but didn't dare to say his thoughts out loud. 'He doesn't know… he doesn't know what good people are like,' Harry thought with pity.

"You said you didn't have a girlfriend. There are plenty of them around you now. Who would you choose?" Draco asked suddenly, without knowing himself why he did it.

Harry was taken aback by such a question, looked around. He looked at his "friends" more closely this time. It seemed he found himself in a garden: there were beautiful flowers all around him.

Of different colors, sizes and forms, but they really represented girls or their perfume most likely. Harry remembered the feeling on the entering to the Common room. He always felt the fragrance of this flower or another, there or in the whole castle wasn't a fragrance he would've liked. Surprisingly to him he's found it here.

"I would've chosen this one," Harry said stepping closer to a white lily.

"Why so?"

"It's pure and innocent, but majestic at the same time," Harry answered simply.

"Hm, interesting," Draco said cutting an orange rose from a bush near him. But it wasn't absolutely orange, it had some red fragments also.

"Your choice?" Harry asked.

"Not exactly, but roses are my type," Draco answered, caressing the petals of the rose.

"How trivial," Harry said with a smirk.

"And what's trivial about roses?" Draco asked, first time taking his eyes form the flower.

"Well, you know, all girls like roses and all that crap about rose being the Queen of the Flowers."

"Yes, but it only shows that I choose the best."

"Yeh, but it sounds so…so common," Harry said with a shrug.

Draco glared at him. "There is nothing common about me! I don't like roses for their beauty or other sentimental stuff like this. I like them for their thorns."

"Thorns? Are you a pervert or something?" Harry asked with slight disgust.

"In your dreams, Potter," Draco answered with his famous smirk. "I am just tired of all those sluts hanging on me. Woman must have at least some dignity."

"What is the rose for then?" Sometimes Draco made no sense to him.

"You were quite anxious to go to bed; you are free to go now."

"Can you just answer me this simple question? I am tired of your avoidance all the time."

Draco sighed. He couldn't get through his old habit to hide everything personal within depths of his and only his mind. "It'll," his eye softened, "remind me of someone," Draco answered, admiring the flower between his fingers.

"Huh," Harry wasn't ready for such an answer. "I better go then," Harry said awkwardly.

Draco only nodded, still staring at the rose, but seeing a freckled face smiling at him.