Harry Potter and all associated characters and situations are the property of J.K. Rowling. I make no claim to ownership.

CHAPTER 28: The Calm Before

22 April 1992

The next morning found Harry, Theo and Blaise sitting comfortably on a large bench in the foyer in front of the Great Hall. The commotion and buzz of their fellow Snakes, all of whom for some reason were early risers today, had the Slytherin Trio up early as well, but while breakfast had already begun, Harry didn't want to go in just yet. He'd spent the better part of a week avoiding Hermione and Neville while focused on his "Draco problem," but he'd missed his two Gryffindor friends, and so he waited patiently for them to come down. Theo and Blaise sat with him under a privacy charm as they discussed the events from the night before.

"So let's just go over this one more time, if just for my own piece of mind," said Theo. "Draco is now actively bound and obligated not only to refrain from trying to get me in trouble with Father but to also to do anything and everything he reasonably can to protect me from any harm – whether from Father or from any other source – by any means short of endangering his own life."

"Right," Harry said. "You can't make someone take an Unbreakable Vow that will require them to deliberately sacrifice their own life for another or even face a substantial risk of death in doing so, or I wouldn't have even given him that much wiggle room. But he can't actively do anything to endanger you nor can he passively stand by while you're in danger unless he genuinely believes that trying to save you will get him killed."

"Uh-huh. There's probably a loophole in there, but I trust that you're smarter than Draco so he'll never be the one to find it. Anyway, Draco is also bound not to attempt to manipulate you or control you or seek revenge against you by threatening the health or safety any other person."

"Right again. He can still theoretically hurt people, but he can't do it for the express purpose of getting at me somehow. Again, you can't make an open-ended vow not to hurt anyone or to never commit a crime. Otherwise, they'd just make every wizard and witch take such a vow once they turn eleven and we'd be living in a utopia."

Theo nodded thoughtfully at that. His life would be much happier if he lived in such a utopia. "And he can't deliberately insult anyone on the basis of blood purity or blood politics. He can't say 'Mudblood' or 'blood traitor' as an insult to anyone, either to their face or when talking about them in the presence of anyone who he knows finds those terms offensive."

"Yep," said Harry with a smirk. "I did leave him the power to use those terms when he's by himself or surrounded by fellow bigots. I'm not a complete monster." The three boys laughed. "There are a few more minor clauses, but that's most of it. There's only so much that you can put in an Unbreakable Vow before it collapses under the weight of its own magic."

"Right," said Blaise drily. "Is that why you didn't put in any requirements that he refrain from directly threatening the health and safety of you personally?"

"No, that got left out intentionally. It would have made things too easy."

"That," said Theo archly, "is the single most idiotically Gryffindorish thing you've ever said."

Harry snorted. "Take it up with Niddhogg. He insisted, and I'll need his vote to claim the Hydra Throne later so I went along with it. He said if I'm not going to kill my enemy after all the time I spent plotting it, then I shouldn't be allowed to just ... 'neuter' him. Also, he says I need a strong rival within my age cohort, or I'll 'get soft.'"

"I thought Jim was your rival," said Theo.

"He said a strong rival," Harry said drily, causing the other two boys to snicker.

"Hmm," said Blaise speculatively. "You could always 'neuter' Malfoy and then pick a fight with Zachariah Smith, the Dark Prince of Hufflepuff." All three found that idea hilarious. Still laughing, Harry noticed Hermione and Neville walking down the hall in their direction. The three Slytherins stood as Harry dispelled the privacy charm. The two Gryffindors walked up somewhat nervously, but Harry gave them both a smile.

"Hermione, Neville, it's good to see you again! It's been a long week. A long ... complicated, demanding week. I've missed you both."

Hermione ran forward and hugged him, much to his surprise. "I've missed you too, Harry. And I'm so sorry for being so obnoxious to you last week. I was just so concerned about Hagrid and I let it get to me. Can you forgive me?"

"There's nothing to forgive, Hermione," he said reassuringly. "I was stressed out over some House matters myself, and it made me snappish, but they're resolved now."

"Are they things you can talk about now that they're ... resolved? Or is it still ... Slytherin stuff?" asked Neville.

"Still Slytherin stuff. But nothing we need to worry about any more. Now, I can join Hermione in obsessing over exams."

Hermione batted playfully at Harry's arm in response to that. Then, Blaise leaned in and muttered, "Malfoy. Three o'clock." Harry looked at him strangely and then glanced at his watch. Blaise gave him a look of consternation and then jerked his head towards the approaching Draco. Neville and Hermione saw the boy coming as well, and both grimaced.

"Well, that's probably our cue to leave," said Neville.

"Nonsense," said Harry confidently. "He probably just wants to wish us all a good morning." The other four students looked at Harry as though he'd gone mad.

Their surprise was only compounded when Draco actually did walk up and say cheerfully "Good morning, Harry, Theo and Blaise. And to you as well Mr. Longbottom and Miss Granger." Harry immediately wished Draco good morning as well, as did the others a few seconds later after the shock wore off.

"Miss Granger?" Draco continued with a slightly nervous smile. "Might I have a moment of your time?" She blinked repeatedly and then looked to an equally surprised Neville. "Oh, it's quite alright if we speak in front of your friends. An apology that must be rendered in secrecy is hardly an apology at all, as my father would say."

"An...apology?" said Hermione in confusion.

"Yes," said Draco with what certainly seemed to be sincerity. "You must understand: I was raised in a very insular Pureblood household with very little knowledge of or experience of Muggles. And I was raised by two parents who were themselves similarly raised in similar insular environments etc. etc. going back several generations. Consequently, I came to Hogwarts with a great many preconceived notions about Muggleborns such as yourself, notions which were grounded in ignorance and, dare I say it, bigotry. Fortunately, recent conversations with Harry here have led me to, well, to reconsider my former views. I see now that it was foolish of me to disregard the potential of you and your fellow Muggleborn students simply because you were raised in a non-wizarding environment. Worse, I see that it was churlish and boorish of me to demean witches and wizards such as yourself for those same reasons and that such prejudice is unworthy of the House of Malfoy. Thus, I tender to you my most sincere and abject apologies for my prior conduct towards you and hope that after this we may start anew with one another."

Harry brutally suppressed the desire to laugh, not at Draco, but at the thunderstruck reactions of his friends. Blaise nudged him and mouthed "minor clauses?" Harry gave a small nod.

Finally, Hermione shook her head to clear it."Your gracious apology is accepted, Mr. Malfoy. I too hope we can ... begin anew and develop some ... sort of ... friendship?" she finished somewhat lamely.

"Please, Miss Granger, call me Draco."

"... Only if you will call me Hermione," she said weakly.

"Certainly. Now there is one other matter I would like to discuss while I'm here. I know that exams are approaching, and you are undoubtedly short for time. But my two good friends, Gregory Goyle and Vincent Crabbe, have been struggling with some of their school work. If you have any free time in your schedule, I wonder if you might be amenable to tutoring them for a few weeks. I would be happy to pay for your time. Say, four galleons an hour for the both of them?"

At that, the Muggleborn's eyes goggled. Depending on how many tutoring sessions they needed, that could be a substantial sum of money. "Oh, Mister, I mean, Draco, I couldn't possibly ..." Then, Harry coughed loudly to cover his "Take it!" She glanced at him for a second in mild frustration and then looked back at Draco. "That is, I couldn't possibly refuse such generosity. Mr. Goyle and Mr. Crabbe are fortunate to have you as a friend."

Draco smiled again, and once again, it looked relatively sincere. "You're very kind. I'll owl you their schedules, and we'll arrange for you to meet with them at your convenience." He put out his hand. She did likewise. Then, he took her hand gently and kissed it on the knuckles. "Until then, Hermione."

After he left, Hermione turned to Harry in shock. "What was that about?!"

"If a Pureblood of higher social standing offers you money for a task and you turn him down and offer to do it for less, it turns it into an offer of charity on your part. Under some circumstances, that can be taken as an insult to the Pureblood."

"No! Not that! I mean ... EVERYTHING!" she exclaimed.

"Yeah," said a flummoxed Neville. "This is ... beyond the universe of possible things."

"As I said, it's been a long and complicated week. Beyond that, I can't say anything except that Draco should be ... mostly decent, at least for the foreseeable future. Enjoy it while we can."

Neville looked like he wanted to ask more questions, but Hermione just chose to accept this new development as one more bit of weirdness. "Well, now that we're back together, what are your plans for this evening after dinner?"

"Miss Granger!" said Harry, who suddenly put his hand over his heart. "How very forward of you! You're not trying to make Mr. Malfoy jealous, are you?"

She punched him in the shoulder and called him a prat. Harry laughed. "Okay, okay. No, I've no plans right now. What's up?"

"I'd like your help on a project. I want to see if there's a way to get our parchments to talk."

"To ... talk? What, to each other?"

"Yes. Well, I mean, I'll send a message to your parchment, only instead of you reading it, you'll actually hear my voice."

This time, it was Harry's turn to be goggle-eyed. "You're making telephones ... out of paper."

"Yes," she smiled. "Isn't magic wonderful?" In retrospect, that dreamy expression on his friend's face should have been the first clue it would all end in tears.

19 May 1992

Naturally, it couldn't possibly be that easy. Over the course of the next several weeks, Hermione, Harry and several of their friends from the study group experimented with various magical techniques for modifying or transmitting sounds, but nothing they tried provided any benefits comparable to Muggle telephones. This particular Sunday evening found Hermione and Harry in an unused classroom on the second floor at a tabled covered in books about sound-based charms, communications charms, switching charms, and general enchantment charms. Neville, Theo and Blaise were there to provide moral support ... mostly by working on improving their Exploding Snap skills. As curfew drew near and Hermione was about ready to admit defeat, Harry, who had discretely brought a few books from the Lair, perked up.

"Hang on a minute, Hermione. Demonstrate that Sound Enhancing Charm for me again."

"Harry, it doesn't work on parchment. I think we've established that."

"No, no. Just ... demonstrate it. On yourself, I suppose."

She shrugged, flicked her wand, and touched it to her throat while saying "SONOROUS!" Then, she said "LIKE THIS!" with the spell greatly amplifying the sound of her voice. Harry nodded, wincing, as she cast the counterspell.

"Okay," he said. "So it's flick, then touch the object or person to be amplified, while saying 'Sonorous' with the accent on the second syllable."

"Exactly."

"Except, in this book," he held up a much older looking book, "there's a different way of doing it. Here, it looks like a reverse triangle followed by a downstroke and you say 'Sonorous' with the accent on the first syllable. Like this." Harry demonstrated the alternate technique. Then, everyone the room covered their ears in pain as a deafening, high pitched shriek erupted from Harry's wand. Harry, who'd been holding his wand right next to his own head, yelled in pain and reflexively pointed the wand away from himself and his friends. Unfortunately, that meant the wand was pointed towards the row of glass windows overlooking the courtyard below. And with a mighty crash, each of the windows shattered and exploded outward. Finally, Harry was able to silence the awful sound with a Quietus Charm before any more damage was inflicted.

Everyone stared, aghast. Finally, Hermione stormed over to Harry and snatched the book away from him. "Harry! What did you do?!" She turned the book over and read the cover. "Harry, this is a Fourth Year DADA book! That was a curse!"

"WHAT?!" he shouted. "I CAN'T HEAR YOU! DID THE SPELL SILENCE EVERYONE OR SOMETHING?"

Neville slapped his hand to his forehead. "Great. And now, Harry's deaf! Can this get any worse?"

Immediately, the door to the classroom was flung open, and Argus Filch, the caretaker, stormed in and glowered in fury at the children. His anger only grew when he noticed that all of the room's windows had been blown out.

Blaise gave Neville a dirty look. "You just had to say that, didn't you."

And that was how Harry and Hermione got their very first Hogwarts detentions. After Harry spent the first night in the infirmary having his eardrums regrown, the two would spend the next five evenings helping Kettleburn and Hagrid brew a foul mixture of cow's blood, sheep's brains, goats' innards, and warm brandy to feed to the newborn dragon. Norbert had hatched weeks before, just days after Harry's final confrontation with Draco in the Lair. A few minutes after the hatching, Norbert's name changed to Norberta after Professor Kettleburn confirmed her gender. For the first few weeks, only the CoMC students and Hagrid had access to her, but eventually, the dragon had grown too big for Kettleburn's classroom, and she was relocated to a pen located near Hagrid's hut which had been warded to keep her from trying to leave or fly away. Since then, nearly every Hogwarts student had been by at least once to see the rapidly growing dragon. According to Kettleburn, she was in perfect health and would be transferred to the Romanian sanctuary via apparation in early July. And having spent the last five nights preparing the dragon's foul-smelling nutrient mixture, Hermione and Harry decided they would be happy to see her gone. As the two walked back to the castle after their last night of detention (both stinking to high heaven), Hermione finally snapped at her friend.

"I just want you to know that I'm going to use up a whole bottle of shampoo when I take a shower before bed tonight... AND I BLAME YOU ENTIRELY!"

"Me?!" exclaimed Harry. "It was your unauthorized experiments in high-level enchantments meant to revolutionize the wizarding world that got us into this."

"And it was your reckless use of a Fourth Year combat spell from a DADA book that had been discontinued for thirty years that blew out all the windows!"

"Says the girl who scavenges Diagon Alley for old books containing lock-picking Charms! Besides, it's not my fault some the idiot decided that the Voice Amplification Charm and the Glass Shattering Curse should have the exact same incantation but with a different vowel emphasized!" he said irritably.

"Why did you even bring a DADA book anyway?" she asked, equally irritated.

"Well, I didn't mean to. I just ... we have a small private library in the Slytherin dorms. I ... got access to it and just used an Accio to summon every book containing sound-related Charms."

"What?! You used a general summoning spell for books in the Slytherin library?! We're lucky you didn't speak some Forbidden Killing Word like 'Muad'Dib' or something!"

"Maude who?"

"Muad'Dib! From Frank Herbert's... oh, never mind!" said the exasperated Hermione as she pulled a bit of goat intestine out of her bushy hair.

"Why are you so mad at me anyway?"

"Because for five nights in a row, I have had to return to Gryffindor Tower stinking of viscera and offal and ... I WANT TO BLAME SOMEBODY!"

He looked at her and crooked an eyebrow. She looked back at him angrily. Finally, after a few seconds, they both burst into laughter, and the tension drained away.

"Aauugh!" said Hermione. "Sorry. This has just been the worst week of my life. Six years of Muggle primary without so much as a demerit, and I get a week long detention at Hogwarts for 'participating in an act of vandalism.' My parents will be so thrilled."

"Hermione, I'm sorry too. I should have double-checked what kind of book I was reading before I cast the spell. But as awful as it was, we're finally done. Tonight was the last night of detention, and anyway, it was for a good cause, helping Kettleburn and Hagrid with the dragon. Besides, it could always have been worse."

Hermione scoffed. "How could any detention have possibly been worse than that?!"

"I dunno, they could have made us go monster-hunting in the Forbidden Forest or something like that."

"Oh please! The staff here can be cruel with their detentions, but none of them are deranged!"

The two laughed as they entered the castle and made their way to their respective dorms. Neither noticed that behind them, in the distance, Hagrid stood at the edge of that very Forbidden Forest, where he was engaged in an animated conversation with several angry Centaurs.

4 June 1992

Once their detentions were complete, Harry and his friends focused on preparing for their end-of-year exams. By the time exams started, Hermione had also made nearly a hundred Galleons beating knowledge into Crabbe and Goyle's equally thick heads, but she felt confident that they would pass everything if they didn't panic. The DADA exam had come first, and Harry felt confident that he'd aced it, despite the handicap of the class having been taught by a stammering idiot possibly possessed by a dark lord. The Potions exam was the next day, and afterwards, Harry stayed behind to discretely inquire if there had been "any developments." Snape responded that everything is well in hand, but that the Headmaster was expected to be away from school on the following Thursday, so that might be a good night to turn in early. Harry nodded at the hint, relieved that the whole Quirrell mess would soon be over. The final exam was History of Magic on Thursday morning, after which he spent the afternoon hanging out with his friends by the lake shore. Harry also asked Hermione and Neville about whether Jim and Ron were still fixated on the Stone, and they promised to keep an eye on the two that evening and make sure they didn't do anything foolish. After dinner, Harry spent time relaxing with in the Slytherin Common Room. Draco came by to inform the group that Theo would be coming straight from King's Cross to Malfoy Manor for the whole summer, and that he hoped that Harry and Blaise could come and visit at some point. As always, nowadays, he seemed sincere.

Marcus Flint also came by, insistent that Harry get a broom over the summer and try out for Quidditch in the fall, as they would have several positions open. Flint also pulled Harry aside and let him know that the older boy was planning on retaking several of his OWLS that summer in hopes of getting into some additional NEWT classes before graduating. Depending on how it turned out, he might have to stay in school for an extra year. Unfortunately, his parents, who did not place great store on education, were opposed to paying for an eighth year, particularly in light of how poorly Marcus had done in the past. He asked if Harry had any advice about "getting back on track." Harry assured him that he'd do whatever it took to help the other boy pay for extra schooling.

As curfew came, Harry headed up to bed. He was eager for everything to be over – the Quirrell situation, the exam results, even the Gryffindor-Ravenclaw Quidditch match (which would likely determine the winner of the House Cup). He would miss his friends over the summer, at least until he had the chance to visit them, but part of him was looking forward to spending his days back at 4 Privet Drive locked in his room with a big stack of books from the Lair and away from scheming Slytherin rivals, spoiled Gryffindor siblings, and murderous dark lords. Anxiety kept Harry from sleep, and so he immediately jumped when, just after midnight, the stack of enchanted parchments he'd placed under his pillow softly dinged with the particular tone indicating a message from Hermione. He quickly lit a Lumos beneath his closed bed curtains and put on his glasses. He immediately assumed the worst – that Jim and Ron had gotten past Hermione and Neville and were on their way to the Third Floor corridor. Then, he read the message and instantly realized how badly he'd underestimated what "the worst" might be.

"Good evening, Mr. Potter. This is Professor Quirinus Quirrell, writing to you by way of Miss Granger's ingenious little parchment. I think it's time we had a little chat."

And. Here. We. Go! The next chapter will be uploaded on July 10, 2015, sometime between 4 and 6 pm CST. "Final Exam, pt 1," in which the Slytherin Trio runs the gauntlet, Theo shows what he's made of, and Blaise whacks Harry with the get-a-clue stick.

AN: "Yeah," said a flummoxed Neville. "This is ... beyond the universe of possible things." is a slight alteration of a similar line from Chapter 55 of "Family Bonds" by xXDesertRoseXx, in which the Neville of that story is similarly confused by Draco showing an apparent heel-face turn. I've always loved that line and that fic, so consider this an homage.