"Your brain is so minute that if a hungry cannibal cracked it open, there wouldn't be enough inside to cover a small water biscuit."
"Yeah? Well maybe if you didn't spend so much time in front of the mirror, you might have friends that care – because I can tell you now, I don't care what you think of me! I have friends that care about me, and I'm not useless to them!"
"Oh please. You are as much use as a hole in the head, an affliction I am sure you are most familiar with, having never had a brain."
This time, it took Dean and Seamus's best efforts to stop Ron from hurling himself at Draco. The redhead was thrashing about in a desperate attempt to get at the Slytherin, who was leaning casually against the wall outside the Transfiguration, an extremely smug look on his face. Hermione pushed past the struggling Ron and marched up to Draco.
"You know, if you glare any harder you'll have steam coming out of your ears," Draco commented mildly. In the split-second that she raised her hand to slap him across the face, a familiar, bandaged hand shot out and grabbed her wrist as she raised her arm.
"No," he said firmly. Hermione gaped at him.
"Don't think I'm going to take orders from you," she gasped out. Harry looked mildly amused.
"Fine then. Slap him. But bear in mind that Snape is coming down the corridor and no doubt this spineless git will stir up such a fuss that you won't see daylight for the next few days," Harry replied pleasantly. Hermione shot him a dubious look, then glanced down the corridor. Sure enough, the Potions Master was billowing his way towards them. Having got him riled enough the previous lesson, Harry doubted it would be a good idea to aggravate him even more. He released Hermione's hand and stepped up to Draco.
"Get you head out of your arse," he growled in the Slytherin's ear, who looked at him innocently.
"But provoking him is so much fun!" he said almost indignantly.
"Then find other ways to entertain yourself," Harry hissed, switching to Parseltongue. Draco had kept the original batch of potion and had it stored up in his room. He took three drops a day and happily conversed with Harry whenever he felt like it. When Snape found out, he had tried to confiscate the hoard, but Dumbledore had thought it was an interesting idea.
Now, two weeks after his incident, Harry was no closer to finding out what was the matter with himself. Neither was Dumbledore, apparently – whenever Harry had gone to see him, he had just said that further investigations were being carried out.
He stalked into the classroom as McGonagall let them in. Ron was still miffed about the prank he and Draco pulled in the Hospital Wing, but at least he was on speaking terms with Harry. Hermione, on the other hand, had frosted over almost completely, and ignored him most of the time. When she wasn't ignoring him, she was biting his head off. He guessed she might have found something out, but had no intention of prodding her with a stick until she told him everything.
"Today we will be having a closer look at Animagi," McGonagall said once they were all sat down, quills, parchment and textbook out. Harry was sat at the back of the room beside Draco, as usual, and had been considering falling asleep when she had woken him with that sentence. "Now, I went over the whole process briefly in your third year, but as with most subjects, the Headmaster has deemed it necessary to teach you more about it.
"I have a list here of a few people. Hermione Granger, Padma Patil, James Antares, Draco Malfoy, Blaise Zabini, Terry Boot – will you six please see me at the end of the lesson. I have a proposition Professor Dumbledore would like me to discuss with you."
They spent the next hour taking detailed notes from both the textbook and McGonagall's lectures. Harry was aware that at one point he definitely fell asleep, because he was suddenly aware that his quill wasn't in his hand. Draco was grinning at him.
"Rise and shine sleeping beauty!" he hissed gently. Harry scowled and buried his face into his arms. He lifted his head and ran his fingers over his forehead. He could feel the faint tracings of a lightning bolt scar beginning to creep into view. He cast Draco a worried glance.
"Can you redo the charm for he?" he hissed. Draco nodded. Dumbledore had shown him the charm he needed to keep up the appearance of James Antares, since they were spending so much time together, so Harry didn't have to go to the Headmaster very time it started wearing off. Draco quickly performed the charm, and grinned at Harry.
"You know, I could easily have just turned your hair bright pink," he said mischievously. Harry frantically grabbed a chunk off hair and yanked a few strands out, inspecting them against his parchment. They were black.
"That wasn't funny," he scowled.
"The look on your face was worth it though," Draco said solemnly.
The bell rang to signal the end of the lesson. Harry stood up unsteadily and packed his belongings back into his bag. He made his way to the front of the class and was about to go through the door when a hand grabbed his shoulder and hauled him back in. It was Hermione.
"McGonagall wants to see us, remember?"
"Oh… yeah, sure," Harry mumbled, walking over to the desks in front of the teacher's desk and collapsing into one. He only raised his head when McGonagall started speaking.
"I have called you behind because the Headmaster thinks it would be a good idea for a select few o the oldest students to become Animagi," she said clearly. Muttering erupted around the six people as she continued. "Should you wish to learn the process, you will need to sacrifice one night each week to attend meetings. This will be like any other after-school club – should you fail to attend, you will find yourself struck off the list. It is not something to be taken lightly, and I shall warn you now, if at any point I deem any one of you unable to complete the course, I will remove you from it," she cast her piercing gaze over the small group, who were silent again. "Is that completely clear?"
The gathered students nodded uncertainly. Hermione stuck her hand up.
"Do we get to chose what our Animagus forms are?" she asked.
"Neither I nor Professor Dumbledore will force your Animagus. However, it has been found that it is the subconscious mind that chooses the form, rather than the conscious one."
"How long will it take for us to learn?" asked Terry Boot.
"With the proper training, two months."
"Do we have to?" asked Padma Patil.
"Not at all, if you would rather not," McGonagall replied, sounding surprised. "However, I must remind you that the option will not be extended again…"
"I'm sure. I don't want to do it," she said firmly.
"Well then, you may leave. Are there any more who would rather not partake in the course?"
"I don't really want to thanks, if I don't know what I'll end up as." Boot said.
"Any others?"
When the others did not step forward, she dismissed Boot and Padma and turned back to the remaining four, her gaze lingering upon each of them Harry couldn't help but notice that the look she gave Draco was one of reluctance edged with mistrust.
"I will see you all on Wednesday at five o'clock. Good day to you all,"
Ron was lying on his bed when Harry got up to their dormitory later that evening. He had gone back to the dungeons after Transfiguration and had been extremely amused to watch him sort through his room looking for a particular quill that he had been given for his birthday the previous. His birthday, it transpired, was the twelfth of December. It seemed fitting that it would be in winter – cold and collected, just like Malfoy.
"Remembered which house you're in?" Ron said acidly from the bed. Harry stopped, startled.
"I had to go see McGonagall after Transfiguration, you know that…"
"Yeah but so did Hermione, and she got back hours ago," Ron sat up and glared at Harry. "Have you been down in the dungeons again?" he demanded. Harry stared.
"Draco's my friend!" he objected. Ron sighed and his looked slightly less put-out.
"You see, that's the problem. Malfoy doesn't have friends. He has acquaintances. He has henchmen. He has slutty girlfriends. He has enemies. But he doesn't have friends. He uses people that are fool enough to trust him."
"That's not true!" Harry objected stoutly. "He is my friend!"
"Maybe he's your friend. But you're not his. Do you know what?"
"What?" Harry snapped irritably.
"When I was in the first year, Malfoy approached one of my fiends and said something along the lines of 'Ron is trash, his whole family is. On the other hand, my family is stuck-up and evil, so you'd be better off friends with me'. That day was one of the most humiliating I've ever had to brave. Because I'd only known this new friend a few hours, and already I'd been brought down by a smarmy git who was so obviously higher in society, and right in front of this new friend."
"What's your point?"
"That Malfoy is an evil bugger?" Ron said simply.
"But your friend didn't take his offer, did he? He stayed your best friend for five years. So I'll ask you again. What's your point?"
"That Malfoy is below any bar the rest of us would even consider. He's a selfish, pretentious, manipulative git. You can do better than him for a friend. You know you can. I don't want to see any of my friends manipulated by that bastard."
"Why does it bother you so much? He doesn't care that I'm friends with you," Harry pointed out.
"I give in!" Ron said acerbically, and lay back down. "Obviously, I'm not up to your standards. Go on, go play with your aristocratic little Slytherins."
"Would you stop being so immature!" Harry growled. Ron sat up again, glaring.
"How am I being immature?" he snarled in return.
"Well, for starters, you're getting jealous because I have more than two friends," Harry pointed out. "And then you get all mopey when I mention Harry Potter…"
"You have no idea about that!" Ron yelled suddenly. "You weren't his friend for five years!"
"And neither were you, from the way you speak about him sometimes," Harry said coldly.
"Yeah, well, you never had to live in his shadow, did you? You know, every time I did something, he would go and do something better. He was always one up on me. Even when we were level, he got the attention. In the second year, we both received Special Awards for Services to the School, but it was Harry's that got put in the display case next to Tom Riddle's. Mine got stuffed into a case in a dusty corner where the only people seeing it would be people on detention cleaning the damn things without magic." Ron was getting more worked up as he went. "You know, I have five older brothers, so it takes a lot to measure up to them. I always knew that people had expectations of me, and that I often wouldn't be able to live up to them. But nothing pissed me off the way Potter did. People didn't expect the same of me – the assumed I could never compare. I was degraded when I was next to him! Each and every year! Third year, him and Hermione got to run off and save Sirius while I was stuck with a broken leg! Fourth year was unbelievable – he entered himself for the Triwizard tournament, refused to admit it, won it, and got the most publicity in one year than most of the rest of the school put together! Then at the end of the fifth year, he basically told us all we weren't good enough and tried to play hero and go rescue Sirius by himself!"
While talking, Ron had stood up and slowly approached Harry, who had backed away, and was now standing with his back to the wall, a furious, red-faced Ron mere feet from him. He bit his lip.
"I expect it never occurred to you that he cared, when he did that in fifth year? That he didn't want you to come because by that point he had realised that those close to him were always those who got hurt? Or did you mss that fact?"
Ron's face screwed up in suspicion.
"I don't trust you, Antares. You know things you shouldn't. There's something weird about you, I can feel it. I wasn't born yesterday, you know."
"More's the pity, we could have started your personality from scratch," Harry bit back without thinking. He saw Ron's fist, then saw nothing.
When his eyes flickered open later, the first thing he saw was nothing. For a few panicked seconds, he thought Ron had blinded him, but when he waved his hand in front of his face he could see the faint outline. He was lying on the floor – which was obvious, enough – and various parts of his body hurt like hell. He guessed Ron must have vented his anger for a while after he had been knocked out.
Shifting awkwardly into a sitting position, he dug his hand into his pocket for his wand, and his stomach dropped when he couldn't find it. Damn, the bastard had taken it. Fuming, he stood up slowly and felt around the wall. It seemed to be a small broom cupboard, complete with brooms. It was only about a two metres square, and the door was locked. Growling, he slid down the door and sat down angrily. He peered at his watch. The numbers showed 2:13.
He waited.
He dropped off to sleep, and as woken again by the noises of students milling past him in the corridor on the other side of the door.
"Hey! Help! Someone, help! I'm stuck in the broom cupboard!"
He stopped when he realised nobody was listening, and when he realised that he sounded extremely stupid. Ron must have put a Silencing Charm on the door or something. Glancing at his watch again, the luminous dial showed that it was 8:27. He reached a hand up Draco's T-shirt (he had become rather attached to Draco's clothes) to scratch between his shoulder blades furiously, then got ready to go back to sleep for another hour.
The next time he woke up, it was because someone had opened the door and light was streaming into the cupboard. Harry had given up sleeping against the door and was now curled up on the floor, using his arm as a pillow. He blinked sleepily at the figure in the doorway, eyes unfocused.
"Antares?"
It was Snape. Harry sat up slowly, his body protesting from the bruises, his joints stiff. He scrubbed fiercely at his back then stared back up at Snape. A white-blond head peered over his shoulder.
"Hi Draco," Harry said, his head feeling oddly light. "How are you?"
"Better than you by the looks of things," the Slytherin replied nervously. Harry looked down at himself, but couldn't see anything much wrong. He gazed back up at Snape, then suddenly realised that his left eye hurt. He raised his hand to it and flinched. It was painful to touch and he brought his fingers away slick with blood, but where from he wasn't sure. His hand itself was black and blue and looked swollen, as though it was broken. He focused his right eye on Snape.
"That hurts," he said, confused.
"I expect it does." Snape sneered. "Come on, you're coming to the Hospital Wing."
Harry tried to get to his feet but they ached, whether from pain of fatigue he wasn't sure, and he couldn't stand up. He struggled for a moment, one hand grasping the shelves, trembling with the effort. His feet were unsteady and as he raised himself off the floor his arm gave way and he landed hard on his tailbone, releasing a sharp cry of pain. He was about to try again, face burning with humiliation, when two pale arms appeared from behind him and wrapped themselves around his chest, heaving him upright. He stumbled once standing, but Draco's hold on him held him upright.
"Come on, I haven't got all day," Snape ground out irritably. Harry leaned on Draco and they made their way slowly towards the Hospital Wing.
"I must say, I am confused as to why you didn't try and open the door by yourself, or heal yourself – simple Healing Charms are fourth-year work." Dumbledore said, concerned, as he sat by Harry's bed. The black-haired boy had been cleaned up immediately by Madam Pomfrey, only to have Dumbledore sweep down and start grilling him.
"I told you, I don't have my wand with me," Harry replied for the third time. "Whoever attacked me took it off me," he said tiredly, and lay back against the pillows.
"And you are sure that you don't know who attacked you?"
"Yes, I'm sure."
"In that case, I expect you to be attending lessons again by tomorrow."
"I've got an Animagus meeting with Professor McGonagall tonight," Harry remembered. "Can I still go to that?"
"By all means."
"Thank you sir."
Dumbledore twinkled at him.
"It is a good thing that Mr. Malfoy worked out where you were when he did. We were about to send out a search party to Hogsmeade."
"What?" Harry said, suddenly awake.
"Yes. You were first noticed to be missing when Mr. Longbottom woke up this morning and realised that he hadn't seen you all night. We checked with Mr. Malfoy and he said you had let his company at eight o'clock. We searched the castle during the first lesson, but found nothing. As I said, we were about to send out a search party to go into Hogsmeade when Mr. Malfoy came running up from the dungeons, yelling that he knew where you were. You ought to thank him."
"I will," Harry promised.
"In fact, it was with a curious wording that he told us that he was aware – he said, 'I solemnly swear I know where he is.' Does that mean anything to you?" Dumbledore said knowingly.
Harry grinned.
"Yes sir. I know what he means."
Yeah, I know it's cheesy. I'll get over it.
By the way, me and FireOpal have started a HPDM C2, you can access it from my profile, and if you want to staff let me or FireOpal know and we'll get back to you. Happy C2ing! Even though that's not a word...
Reviews are nice... meh!
smokey