I find it funny that people suddenly got a lot more interested in the story as soon as the shadow made his dislike for Umbridge known. I love it.
Warnings: It's shounen-ai, yaoi, slash, gay, whatever you want to call it, it's still the same thing. Tom Riddle/Harry Potter and Sirius/Remus
Notes: (X) is pov change and or time jump
Chapter 17: A Partial Introduction
Draco slid his bag to the floor beside the chair he'd sat down in. For just a second, he thought he was home free, that he would be enjoying a normal class by himself. When he heard someone pull out the chair next to him his hopes fell. He didn't bother to look; he knew who it was. The same person who'd be sitting next to him the whole year as were the "rules" that he'd established that morning in the Slytherin common room. Whenever they shared a class, Draco was to be his partner, and no one was to bother him. Unless of course he told Draco otherwise.
"It worked. He doesn't remember my voice," he whispered.
Of course not, you wiped the rest of his memory, Draco thought, rolling his eyes. "How'd you find out?"
"I might have run into him in the Entrance Corridor, literally."
Draco sighed at that. "You couldn't just walk up to him and pretend to ask for directions?" He turned to face the student next to him. Why did he feel the need to make things more difficult than they needed to be?
The Slytherin was smirking. "No, I'm not stupid. I know the layout of this castle better than anyone."
"So, you won't lie if it calls your genius into question," he asked.
"No."
Draco shrugged. Pretending to be a fool wasn't glorious but could be quite helpful in many situations. To each their own, though. He wasn't going to start a war on the first day of school. He would have plenty of other chances throughout the school year to say the wrong thing by accident and risk the other student's vengeance.
"Aderes," Pansy called out. She approached them smiling and was about to sit next to him when Aderes held his hand up to stop her.
"I believe I was clear that only Draco has the privilege to sit with me during classes "
Privilege, right. More like he'd been mad enough not to run and never show his face again after last year. If he had nearly the amount of brains his grades reflected, he'd have never gotten involved with any of this.
"But…." She was giving Aderes the biggest puppy eyes she could manage.
Aderes ignored her pathetic attempt and turned back to Draco. He gave a slight shake of his head and Draco found himself snickering as Pansy stomped off towards the row of seats above them.
The bell rang, Professor McGonagall, walking into the room. "Good morning, everyone," she said. "Welcome to your first O.W.L. level class. I wish each and every one of you good luck."
He hoped she was wishing them good luck in everything because he didn't need any for his grades. He needed luck for his life.
(X)
The bell rang. The shadow's embrace loosened, and he let out a sigh. 'I guess we're out of time.' He sounded disappointed. Harry nodded, and the shadow released him, standing up. 'We'll go over the material later. Take your break and head to Potions.' The shadow vanished and Harry let out a breath, trying to figure out what in the hell had just happened for the duration of his History of Magic class. Not only had time ceased to exist after the shadow had put his arm around him, so had everything else. The extent of what he'd learned and remembered was the names of two things, Mog and Magog. He couldn't even remember if they were goblins or humans.
"Harry?" Hermione was looking at him worriedly. "Are you okay?" Her eyes narrowed an inch. "Did you fall asleep?"
"No, no… I…" He looked down at the pieces of parchment laid out in front of him. A number adorned each corner and contained timelines, notes, summaries, even a few drawings. One seemed to be a battlefield or something with the strategies used on both sides. His mouth fell open as the notes sunk in, and he heard Hermione gasp.
"Oh my… Harry, these are brilliant!" She snatched them up and started looking them over. "And they're right!" She looked genuinely pleased and handed the stack of papers back to him. "I'm glad one of you are putting in a real effort this year." She glared at Ron who, like everyone else in the classroom, was stretched out on top of his desk, asleep. "Thank you."
"For what," Harry asked.
"For this," she said, motioning to the notes. "I don't mind helping, but I really need to study hard this year. It's less stressful if I just have to worry about Ron."
Guess he was right. He stashed the notes into his bag. "I'll do my best, but I can still ask if I have any questions, right?"
"Of course," she said. She finished putting her things away and sighed. "Should we even bother waking him up?"
"Well, Professor Binn's probably won't notice," Harry said. "And it's better if he sleeps in here than in Potions."
"I think I'd rather enjoy watching him drown in his cauldron," she said, simply and leaned towards Ron's ear. "GET UP!"
"WHA?!" Ron jerked up, looking around the room confused as ever as Hermione stepped away, grinning. The other Gryffindors began stirring at Hermione's shout, muffled groans, and yawns filling the room. Professor Binn's turned away from the chalkboard, the closest thing to a surprised look on his face Harry had ever seen.
"I've done my good deed for the day," she said.
Harry couldn't help snickering.
"The bloody hell," Ron mumbled. "Class over with already?" He stretched his arms out and looked down at his parchment, frowning. The only thing on it was a drool stain. "Gonna need to borrow your notes," he said.
"We'll see about that," Hermione said.
"Wh, what? But you've always helped us," Ron whined. "You'll feel horrible if we both fail!"
"Harry stayed awake and took the best notes I've ever seen him take," she said, striding out of the room with an air of superiority. Ron watched her go, his mouth hanging open. When she was out of the classroom, he turned to Harry. "How did you stay awake?"
"Shadow," Harry muttered, starting for the door. Ron grabbed his bag and followed him leaving behind his drool covered parchment.
"You're kidding me," he said in disbelief.
"No."
"So does that thing just enjoy keeping people awake?"
Only you, Harry thought as they headed down the Transfiguration Corridor and towards the stairs. The shadow often had him in such states of peace he fell asleep immediately when they were alone. And as much as he'd enjoyed himself, he could not afford to let the shadow repeat what he had just done in Potions unless Snape was lecturing today, but he doubted it. I'm going to have to read all the notes over. He mentally groaned. He'd thought it'd been such a brilliant idea too. The shadow explaining whatever it was he'd been explaining in a way even he could understand. It would have been perfect if he hadn't been so caught up in the shadow's embrace. And caught up was putting it mildly.
"Are they that good," Ron asked.
"H, huh," Harry asked, his face burning while his heart tried to break out of his chest and run down the hall screaming.
"The notes," Ron said, giving him a weird look.
"Um, yes," he said quickly. "Great."
"… If she won't let me borrow hers, can I borrow yours?"
"Will you stop accusing me of your mother's death," he asked. He had to force his consciousness to go beyond the shadow and him doing whatever it was they'd been doing. He was pretty sure the shadow had been trying to tutor him and while he'd wanted the same thing, all he'd ended up doing was listening to his heartbeat and marveling at how strong he felt.
"Yeah," Ron said. "I know you didn't do it anyway," he said.
Harry's fantasy broke. He stopped where he was, his feelings of high vanishing. "Then why in the hell have you been accusing me of it this whole time!?"
Ron's face turned dark red. "I thought it was that thing," he said. "But… it. This morning it said it wanted to hurt me, but you wouldn't let it and… There's no way you'd tell it to hurt my mum," he said giving a small shrug.
"Of course, I wouldn't!" He reminded himself not to shout at the last second. He'd wanted Ron back in his life and he'd gotten him. At least their bickering hadn't lasted nearly as long as the year before.
"I'm sorry," he said, refusing to look at Harry. "It's just… this summer was crazy."
"That's an understatement," Harry snorted. He could have dealt with crazy, but everything that had happened over the summer was beyond that. Harry had found himself lying in bed plenty of times wondering what all of them had done to deserve it. Everyone else in number twelve had probably been asking the same question.
"... it probably would have been better if we hadn't been fighting, huh?"
"Probably," Harry agreed. "I don't think it could have been avoided though. I arrived in a bad mood."
"You were attacked by Dementors and Gytrash. How is that anyway?"
Harry shrugged and rolled his sleeve back. The first scratch was gone and the ugly one was no more than a thin white line now. Hopefully, that would heal too, or he'd have yet another scar.
"Adding to your collection Potter," Draco asked. He grabbed Harry's forearm and examined the mark.
"Hey!"
"You got lucky," Draco grunted. "If that hadn't been cleaned properly…."
"No one asked you Malfoy," Ron snapped.
Draco released Harry's arm as another student came up behind him. "You left," he said, not sounding at all happy.
"The rule was to entertain you during class, not during breaks," Draco said.
"I believe there was another rule," he said.
Draco turned, and Harry caught a glimpse of the other student, his breath catching. He was taller than Draco by a few inches with a perfectly chiseled face, high cheekbones, slightly narrowed eyes, which included long angular eyebrows, and breathtaking red eyes. His black hair was somehow darker than his own. Harry was positive he'd never seen this student before. If he had, he'd have been projecting this image onto the shadow.
His eyes traveled to the student's house badge. Of course, he was a Slytherin. He was talking with Draco though, so maybe he wasn't that bad?
"There he is," a girl squealed with delight. "We thought we'd lost you!"
"Over here," another girl said.
"Come on," Ron whispered. Harry nodded despite wishing he could stay and enjoy the view. Draco wasn't bad looking either and with the two of them standing together?
He gave one last look before taking a step back, then another. Soon Ron and he managed to slip away, the two Slytherin none the wiser.
"That was weird," Ron said.
"I don't think I've seen the other guy," Harry said. "Does Hogwarts take transfer students?"
"How should I know? That's a Hermione question. If she's in the mood to answer you."
They walked down the steps and joined Hermione, who'd been waiting for them at the bottom. "Oh, yeah." He pulled out another bite-sized piece of chocolate from his bag and handed it to Hermione. "Lupin sent it."
"That was nice of him." She unwrapped the chocolate and placed it into her mouth. "This is good," she said, surprised.
"Yeah, ask Lupin to send more." Hermione whacked Ron's upper arm. "Hey!" He moved so Harry was between him and Hermione.
"Honestly, Ron," she said, glaring at him.
"Hey, does Hogwarts take in transfer students," Harry asked.
"On rare occasions, why?"
"Because Draco was talking to a Slytherin, I've never seen before," Harry said.
"Just because you haven't seen him before today—"
"You'd remember if you saw him before," Harry said.
"He was kind of creepy," Ron said.
Harry glared at the redhead ready to defend the new student when his common sense decided to come back. He didn't even know the new student's name or anything else about him. All he knew for sure was, he was hot, and in Slytherin, and hot, and possibly friends with Draco.
This is stupid. He shouldn't be drooling over some Slytherin he'd never met, or should he? What was unhealthier? Chasing after a magical object's incarnated shadow or a Slytherin he knew nothing about, even if he put Cedric's looks to shame. Both choices would probably get him nowhere. Given the circumstances, he probably had a better shot with the shadow. Alive or not, he'd slept in the same bed as him and they shared an incredibly unique bond. At least, he thought it was unique. He'd have to ask him when they got to Potions.
Neither were normal, and he told himself there was no point in worrying about it. There was no point because neither relationship, any of them if he included Draco, were going to happen, ever. Magical objects weren't capable of authentic emotions. And the Slytherin? He could have anyone he wanted, why would he waste that chance on Harry. Unless he was one of those weirdos who wanted to try to go on a date with Harry, simply because he was Harry Potter. Not that he could claim the moral high ground on this. He wanted to snog the new student just because he was hot. He had the best chance with Draco, but just because the Slytherin was helping him didn't mean they'd ever be anything more then forced acquaintances.
The first warning bell sounded, and they headed for the stairs leading into the dungeon. With any luck, the shadow wouldn't be able to induce any strange feelings or behaviors from Harry during class. Not with all the Gryffindor and Slytherin in class together and everyone awake.
"Do NOT leave me!" All three of them turned as Draco came running towards them. He started down the steps to the dungeons ahead of them and stopped halfway when he noticed they weren't following him. "Come on!"
"Do we... is it a trap," Ron asked nervously.
Harry shrugged and started down the steps. "What's wrong," he asked.
"What's right," he muttered. "Just stand next to me for the rest of the school year or until that thing has made up his mind."
Harry gave a quick look around. Hermione and Ron joined them. "What did he do? Am I going to get called into Dumbledore's office soon?"
Draco shook his head. "No."
"Wait, Draco knows," Hermione asked. "You weren't supposed to tell anyone."
"I didn't tell him, he did."
"Wait, how far can this thing travel," Ron asked in awe. "Malfoy doesn't live anywhere near me. Or any of us."
"Who told you where I lived," Draco demanded.
"No one! I don't!" He glared at Draco before turning away from him.
"Great, so I have two mental gits stalking me." He turned to Harry. "Am I going to find out you know too Potter?"
"Ron wasn't nice enough to share," Harry said. Draco studied him a second before Hermione and he both started laughing. It was strange how well Draco seemed to fit into their group all of a sudden.
This is nice… Harry hadn't thought the four of them could be friends, but Draco had changed a lot more than he'd thought. And if they were friends, Harry should try to keep him safe.
'What did you do to Draco?'
Mild surprise followed by amusement. 'Did he run to you?'
'Yes, so whatever you're doing—'
'I have saved you how many times this summer,' he asked annoyed.
'A lot.'
'Then don't question my methods and don't believe for a second I listen to you unless I feel like it.' The coldness behind those words actually had Harry's eyes brimming with tears. Had they been said verbally, it would have been bad, but through this bond, it felt like each word was slashing at his mind.
"Ngh!" He grabbed the side of his head, his eyes closing.
"Harry, are you okay?"
"What's going on," Hermione asked. "Harry!"
"Potter, "Draco growled. He grabbed Harry's raised wrist. Scowling, Draco removed his wand from his robes and pointed it at Harry's head.
"What are you doing," Ron screamed.
"Were you about to attack another student?" They all turned, Harry included, towards the voice. "That won't do at all. No, I'm afraid you'll need to be punished," Umbridge said with a small laugh.
"He's trying to help him," Hermione said. "Something's wrong with Harry!"
"Is there now," she asked, her voice so sweet it made Harry's teeth want to fall out. The mental attack had stopped, and Harry swore he caught a glimpse of the Entrance Corridor in his mind.
"I, it stopped," he managed. The image faded, but the anger was increasing.
"Did it now? Or were you, perhaps, simply looking for more attention?" She laughed louder this time. "Yes, I believe lying to get attention is worth two detentions!"
"I'm not lying," he screamed.
"Make that three detentions. I'll see you in my office tonight—"
"I'm afraid that conflicts with an already prescheduled detention," Snape's bitter voice said. "That's ten points from Gryffindor for being late to my class. Now, go." He looked at Umbridge as Harry walked past the Potion's Professor and joined Ron and Hermione. Since when did Snape ever save him? He noticed Draco was at the classroom door looking at them worriedly.
Draco, actually….
He could hardly believe it. Draco had asked Snape to help and Snape actually had. The world had gone mad.
"And why are you so late," Snape yelled. "Get into the classroom and I'll deal with you later!"
Harry groaned, the anger rushing through him almost making him fall. Ron caught him before he went down, Draco rushing to grab his other side.
"Stop being such an arse," Draco growled.
The emotions through the bond told him Draco was yelling at the shadow, but he didn't have the energy to turn around. Instead, with the help of his friends, he made it into the classroom. They got him into a chair as the bond snapped shut. The relief from the pain was hardly worth it because now he just felt alone.
Immediately the other students started whispering to each other. Harry wished they'd all just go away. He didn't need their crap on top of everything else he was dealing with.
"Better," Ron asked.
"No," Harry said.
"Why," Draco asked.
"It's hard to explain," he said just loud enough for them to hear. "When he gets mad, it's like my brain is being destroyed. When I can't feel him, it's like I'm in solitary confinement. It hurts, just in a different way."
He closed his eyes and placed his head on the table.
"Is he okay," Harry heard someone ask.
"Just out for attention," someone said. "Merlin, doesn't he ever get enough?"
Shut up! He would love to go one school year without something happening. He didn't want the attention. All he wanted was his friends and his family to be safe. For Mrs. Weasley to come back. For someone to care about him before he died.
The door to the classroom slammed shut, everyone turning. Snape stormed towards the table he was at and just behind the Potion's Professor was the transfer student, his eyes narrowed at Snape. Harry hadn't noticed it earlier, probably because he'd been too busy drooling, but Ron had been right. The transfer student was giving off a dangerous aura. The amount of hate in his eyes directed at Snape was terrifying.
"To think I had to save you," he said, his voice calm, his eyes flashing. "If not for Draco—!"
"She threatened me first," Draco said. Snape turned, a look of shock on his face. "She accused me of attacking Potter."
"But he didn't," Harry said. "So, she started accusing me of seeking attention."
He looked taken aback, no doubt since the two of them were defending each other. "Fine! Do well to remember to avoid drawing attention to yourself, both of you!" He stomped towards the front of the class. "EVERYONE SIT!"
Everyone was sitting, except for the new student. Harry saw unsurprisingly that their table was the only one with an empty seat.
Why wouldn't the good-looking psychopath sit with us? What did surprise Harry was that the new student was looking at him like he was asking permission to join them.
"Do you see an empty seat anywhere else," he asked, horrified the words had verbally left his mouth.
The new student said nothing as he walked to their table and sat down next to Draco. Hermione's eyes fixed on him and Ron moved closer to Harry. Harry didn't know what Ron thought he could do, but whatever it was, he was mistaken.
"I will not go easy on any of you! This year is the last chance you have to prove to me that you are capable of potion-making. I accept nothing less than an Acceptable mark for your O.W.L which means finally, I won't have to look at most of you in a year's time."
The feeling was mutual.
"He meant you, Potter," Draco whispered.
"I don't want to come back either," he whispered back.
"Today you are brewing your first O.W.L. level potion, the Draught of Peace. Done correctly, it calms anxiety, which all of you will need this year."
"Arrogant git," Ron breathed. Hermione tapped the top of his hand without looking.
"Done wrong, you can place someone into a coma or irreversible sleep. For those of you unable to understand what that means, if you mess up, you could kill someone." He pulled his wand out and tapped the chalkboard, ingredients, and directions covering it from one side to the other. "You have until the end of class. Begin!"
Great. First Potion lesson of the year and the results could kill me. He pulled out his Potion's storage kit and started removing the proper ingredients. Should be everything…
"You don't have your Hellebore," the new student said.
Harry looked at the board and back at his ingredients. No Syrup of Hellebore. "Thanks." The student nodded, his attention back on his potion. With everything set out, he lit the fire beneath his cauldron. He needed to be careful since the shadow wouldn't be helping him after all and really, he wasn't sure he wanted his help anymore. The pain from the words and the emotional attack was proof that in the end, the shadow didn't care for anyone. He dropped the first ingredient in and waited.
Would the bond be weaker if I removed the necklace? And how long did he have to keep it, anyway? Surely, he'd had it long enough to be able to rid himself of it without losing his mind.
"Pay attention," Hermione warned him.
Harry nodded, but when he looked back from the board, he realized she was talking to Ron. The redhead had somehow turned his potion red and muddy.
He dropped the second ingredient in, holding back a sigh. He wanted the shadow's help, okay; he needed it. History of Magic he could easily read the book and catch up. Potions had always been the one class he'd never quite gotten the hang of. A large part of that was probably thanks to Snape. The git never helped anyone besides Draco and usually, Harry spent most of his class trying to avoid Snape's wraith. It wasn't easy to make a good potion when you felt like your every single breath was being judged.
One more year. He could do it. One more year and then he'd never have to look at Snape, again.
The feeling of isolation suddenly vanished. 'What are you doing!?'
Harry's eyes snapped onto his cauldron, his face burning. His potion had started to boil over, covering the rest of his ingredients with hot water.
"Shite." He scrambled for his wand and lowered the fire before using it to clean up the water. The two Slytherin were snickering. At least they weren't being outright hostile. Okay… He looked over his ingredients and looked back up at the board to see what exactly he'd done wrong.
'Your flame was too high, it's a slow boil,' the shadow said.
Harry scowled and refilled his cauldron with the proper amount of water. He knew the shadow was right once he reread the board, but he was still angry with him. He'd thought they'd come to some sort of agreement, that the shadow wouldn't hurt anyone that wasn't hurting Harry. A surge of warmth ran up Harry's arm from where the shadow touched it.
'Stop being stubborn. Do you want Snape to give you a hard time?'
'Of course not! But you're no better. The second my thoughts don't align with yours; you lash out at me!'
He checked to make sure the flame was as low as it would go.
'You're right,' the shadow said. 'I'm sorry. I get jealous, easy—'
'Jealous,' Harry asked. 'Jealous of what? How does wanting you to not harm my friends cause you to get jealous?' And why would the shadow be jealous, period? Was it against sharing Harry with others? Was this magical object an over-possessive creep? It better not be. He had enough problems with all his relationships in general. He didn't need some crazy arse necklace making it harder.
'That's not…'
He looked over all the ingredients again, double-checking them against the board. There was no way he'd have time to start over again. Add powder moonstone…
'Don't ignore me!'
'I'm trying to concentrate!'
"You look like you're having a stroke, Potter," Draco whispered in warning.
"Probably be better off if I had one."
Draco snickered, and Harry noticed the new student looking at him. Well, that was one way to get the Slytherin's attention. Not that it mattered. Between the rumors and the necklace, he wasn't going to have any friends, let alone a boyfriend.
'Focus,' the shadow snapped. 'It's green, start stirring until it turns blue.'
Scowling, Harry did as instructed. Even if he was mad at the shadow, there was no denying its brilliance where book knowledge was concerned. If he followed the shadow's advice, he would get perfect marks, but was it worth it?
'Even if you help me get a perfect score, I'm still mad. I'd rather fail all of my classes than let any of my friends get hurt.'
'If you haven't noticed, Draco is fine. I was just annoying him.'
'And you thought mentally attacking me was a better option than just telling me that,' Harry asked drily.
'No,' he sighed. 'This mental bond is a lot harder to master than I thought. I've never had to keep my anger in check inside my own mind. Turns out I'm a lot more emotional than I thought,' he muttered.
'So, when it's partially closed, we can talk without our emotions coming through?'
'Yes.'
Harry sighed. 'What do you suggest?'
'More practice,' he said, immediately. 'But first, we need to make sure Snape doesn't throw you out of the classroom.' He moved his hand to Harry's shoulder. 'Just trust me.'
'Fine.' The potion turned blue.
'Add more moonstone, until it turns purple.' Harry did so. The potion turned purple quick enough. 'Since you're behind, raise the flame a tad higher.' Nodding, Harry pointed his wand at his cauldron and increased the flames. 'Now we wait until it turns pink.'
'Okay.'
"Someone's getting help," Draco smirked. Both Slytherin's and Hermione's potion were at the same step. Hermione was helping Ron, looking like she was going to drown him in the slime-like substance in his cauldron the longer she helped.
"Belt it."
"Really Ron? Are you incapable of the most basic of instructions? All you had to do was measure out three ingredients and bring them to a slow boil," she growled.
"This is hard," Ron protested.
"And it's only going to get worse, so deal with it!"
'Put in the syrup of Hellebore. You need it to turn turquoise then let it simmer until it's purple again.'
'Okay.'
"What's with all the talking over here," Snape demanded, walking towards their table. He took in the three perfect cauldrons then looked at Harry's. He seemed disappointed that Harry's potion wasn't the mess it usually was. "Who's helping Potter," he asked coldly.
"No one," Harry lied.
"Do not lie to me, Potter. You are incapable of brewing anything above a P level."
Harry felt his face flush with anger.
"The only one getting help is Weasley," the new student said.
Snape looked at Ron's cauldron and scowled. "Do yourself and everyone else a favor. Don't become a professor, Granger." He walked off, Hermione's face bright pink. She was clearly fighting back tears.
"Arse," Ron whispered. "It's not you Hermione, really. It's me. I'll try harder."
"I know it's you," she snapped, wiping tears away.
Harry turned to Snape, wishing him a painful accident. Even if he'd saved them from Umbridge, he obviously hadn't changed at all.
"You can't fault her for not getting through to someone as dense as him," the new student said loudly, his eyes slightly narrowed. "Not even Merlin would stand a chance at that."
Snape turned as every Slytherin present burst into laughter. Harry swore even Snape was trying hard not to smile.
"H, hey," Ron said. "Mine is better than Neville's!"
Which was true. Neville's looked like the contents inside of his cauldron were hardening. As Harry looked, it turned out most of the students were having slight problems with their potions. Seamus's was randomly throwing out a spark here and there. Crabbe's mixture was completely on fire, but he was too busy laughing to take notice.
"Hmph. Save your feelings, Aderes," Snape said.
Aderes. He liked the name. It sounded familiar, but he was fairly sure he didn't know anyone with that name.
"It's not like I have a crush on her," Aderes said. "I'm merely pointing out the obvious based on the quality of her own potion."
"Five points from Slytherin! Get back to work!"
The room filled with murmurs followed fast by a scream. Harry smirked. Crabbe must have finally looked at his potion.
"You useless fool," Snape roared.
'Stop getting distracted and shake the powdered porcupine quills and slowly add them until it's red. It shouldn't take too much.'
'Thanks.' If not for the shadow, he'd have completely forgotten about his potion until it was too late.
"Thank you," Hermione whispered.
"Any time," Aderes whispered back.
At least someone was going to have a boyfriend this year.
'Stir it until it's orange,' the shadow said, loudly. 'Then add more quills until turquoise.'
'R, right.' He stirred it again waiting until the potion turned orange and then slowly added more powdered porcupine quills. It turned turquoise.
'Now let it simmer for seven minutes.'
'Okay.' He looked back at Aderes, wondering what kind of person he was. Both for his own curiosity and Hermione's sake. He seemed capable in Potions, at least. He'd defended Hermione against his head of house, but he'd sacrificed Ron for it.
The shadow shoved the powdered unicorn horn into Harry's hand. Luckily, no one had noticed. 'Add that until it's pink,' he hissed.
Aderes raised an eyebrow at Harry when he noticed him staring.
"Thanks," he said looking back at his cauldron hoping he didn't see his blush. Thank goodness the bond was shut. He didn't know what the shadow had meant by getting jealous, but if it lashed out at Harry and the people he saw as friends, what would he do to someone Harry thought was hot? Whatever it would be, it wouldn't be fair. Aderes hadn't done anything wrong. Why should he be punished for being good looking and defending Hermione?
He heard Aderes snicker and his face no doubt turned five shades darker.
'It's pink, you need to stir it until it turns red, now,' the shadow said.
Harry jumped at the shadow's words. He didn't need the bond open to hear the anger in the shadow's tone. Everyone else around him began adding their powdered unicorn horn as well. The potion wasn't as bright looking like Hermione's or the two Slytherin, but it still looked better than Ron's.
'Okay, now that it's red, let it simmer until It's purple.'
This is crazy. He knew O.W.L. level classes weren't going to be easy, but this was ridiculous. Without the shadow giving him constant instructions and keeping him on task, he'd have never gotten this far.
'Add more moonstone. It should turn grey.'
'I don't think I'm going to survive Potions this year,' he said. The potion turned grey and he felt his heart leap. So far so good.
'It needs to simmer again until it's orange.'
'Got it.'
'Just two more steps.' The potion turned orange. 'Add in more powdered porcupine quills while stirring. It will turn white. As soon as it does, lower the temperature back down and add seven drops of Hellebore.'
"If you brewed the potion correctly, it should have silver steam rising from it. Take one of your flasks, fill it up, cork it, and leave it on my desk," Snape yelled.
'Not bad,' the shadow said.
'It looks good,' Harry agreed. 'Thank you.'
'You're welcome.'
For once, Harry had a good sample to turn in. Smiling, he left his flask on Snape's desk and went back to his table to clean his cauldron. They all finished cleaning about the same time, Ron grumbling during most of it.
"At least it's lunchtime," Harry offered his friend.
"Yeah," Ron agreed. "And we can joke off in Divination," he grinned. "How do you think you'll die this year?"
"Mm... maybe I'll get run over by the Hogwarts' express. I could use a quick death for once."
"You two," Hermione said, angrily. "Why do you even bother with that class?" She grabbed her bag and slipped it over her shoulder. "Aderes, I really appreciate what you did."
"He wasn't being fair," Aderes said looking up from his bag.
"Well, Snape's never fair to us. If Ron or Harry had spoken up, all three of us would have ended up in detention."
He gave her a full teeth smile, and Harry's heart stopped. "Some people need to be brought down from their pedestals."
"Yes," Hermione agreed, returning the smile.
"It looks like they'll be talking awhile," Harry whispered to Ron. "Let's go get lunch."
Ron nodded, and surprisingly, Draco followed them out of the room.
"How long, you think before they start dating," Ron asked, grumbling.
Draco started laughing, Ron glaring at him. "What?"
"Jealous Weasley?"
"What? No! It'll just be weird, right, Harry!?"
"Yeah," Harry agreed. If Hermione and Aderes got together, Harry would have to do his best not to get too jealous of Hermione and not to get caught staring at her boyfriend. Not exactly the most normal situation to be in.
(TBC)
Because that didn't take forever…