Oooh boy, so it's been a while, eh? When I said 'soonish', obviously I meant a few years. P Terribly sorry about that, I'll make an effort to get the next chapter out a bit faster. I've got notebooks filled with little snippets from chapters to come and I've worked out what's gonna happen, I just need to get to work writing it down!
Anyway, I know there's still no slashy love with Draco/Harry but there IS some chemistry at least. Rome wasn't built in a day so you'll have to be patient but I promise it's coming (and I use that word with full emphasis) soon. ;)
A slight jolt as the train came to a stop was what awakened Harry from the light slumber that had descended over him for the majority of the journey, sending him forwards a little so that his head thunked lightly against the window. He had woken briefly once, blinking sleepily at his chattering friends and noticing that Hermione had come back, before falling back asleep against the compartment window.
The black-haired boy pushed himself away from the window, which was slightly fogged from his breath, and lifted his glasses a little to rub at his tired eyes. It was only as the boy cast a look around the compartment that he noticed they all seemed to have come by a rather large supply of sweets. Ginny caught him eyeing the sugar quill she was clutching and blushed, then Ron looked up from stuffing as much of it all as he could into the many deep pockets of his new robes.
"Hermione said we shouldn't disturb you when the food trolley came along," he explained to his best friend with a rather apologetic grin stretching his lips, giving an exaggerated roll of his eyes in the girl's direction.
The student in question shot Ron an exasperated glance then turned her attention to Harry. "You look tired, you know – are you sure you're getting enough sleep?"
Hermione's voice took on a motherly tone as she surveyed the green-eyed boy, concern evident in her features. He was saved from having to make an attempt at responding as the girl suddenly remembered she had to be somewhere else.
"Oh, Ron, hurry up! We have to help organise the first years!" With a brief smile to Harry and Ginny, she disappeared out through the open door of the compartment. Ron followed at a slower pace after shoving one last chocolate frog into his pocket, leaving grudgingly and muttering, "Bloody girls," as he went.
The two remaining students exchanged glances then grinned at each other, both reflecting momentarily on how much they seemed like an old married couple sometimes. Ginny pocketed the remaining sweets, making sure that they had left nothing behind, then followed Harry as he made his way off the Hogwarts Express.
Trudging into the Great Hall with the other students, Harry sat down at the Gryffindor table and, while waiting for the Sorting Ceremony to begin, gazed up at the enchanted ceiling. The sky was dark and murky, full of black clouds and dotted with stars in the gaps. A flash of lightning illuminated the already bright candle-lit room and Harry turned his focus to the front where McGonagall was leading the first years into the hall.
"Is it just me or do they get smaller each year?" Ron asked, squinting at the crowd of young people as he leaned over to talk to Harry.
"You're just getting taller." The boy replied, grinning at his friend. It was true though; every time he saw him fresh after the summer holidays, the lanky male seemed to have gotten even lankier. Harry himself was growing at a steady rate but was still quite a bit shorter - he supposed it was because Ron always had a large supply of food. Or maybe he was just destined to be average height? That would be typical, seeing as none of the other aspects of his life were exactly average by any description.
"Shh, it's starting!" Hermione hissed at them, waving a hand to get them to be quiet.
Ron sent the girl a mutinous look but did as he was told eventually, folding his arms rather sullenly across his chest then looking towards the front of the hall. Harry watched long enough to see McGonagall place the wrinkled old hat down onto the stool, then zoned out about a second after it started singing. His gaze drifted absently around the Great Hall, studying first his own table and then moving onto the others.
Harry gave a surprised jolt when he looked to the Slytherin table and found Draco already staring at him. After their little encounter on the train, he wasn't really surprised to find that the boy's eyes were angry. He returned the look steadily, eyes narrowed slightly until the blond smirked and looked away, muttering something to the girl next to him. She let out a giggle then, after glancing at Harry, laughed again.
With a frown, the Gryffindor finally turned away, and noticed that the Sorting had begun. He belatedly joined in the cheering as a small boy was placed into the house of the lion. He continued clapping and congratulating the new first years until, after what seemed like an age, Dumbledore finally stepped up to give his messages. The boy didn't really start listening until the old man announced the start of the feast, looking down eagerly to see the platters on the table filling with food.
Next to him, Ron rubbed his hands together readily, then delved in and piled his plate high with as much as he could get his hands on. Hermione settled with a small amount of mashed potatoes and some chicken, while Harry contentedly started spearing up sausages and placing them onto his plate. The noise level in the hall increased as students stared talking about their holidays while they ate, catching up with friends. After devouring three large pork sausages, Harry began on the chicken drumsticks, studiously ignoring Hermione as she tried to get him to have some vegetables. The boy was halfway through ripping meat away with his teeth when he once more felt eyes on him, and looked up to find Draco glaring at him... again.
"It must not be very stimulating at the Slytherin table if he has to keep looking over here." Hermione muttered to the green-eyed boy upon also noticing the glare, sending Draco what seemed like a warning look before returning to her mashed potatoes.
"Mhm." Harry agreed absently, glaring back at the Malfoy teenager for a second before taking a large bite out of the drumstick and joining in a conversation Ginny was having with Colin Creevey about Quidditch and the upcoming season at Hogwarts.
On the day of the first lesson of the year, Harry awoke feeling rather glum. He hadn't properly enjoyed a Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson for a long time, and he didn't suppose he would that day either. His first year hadn't been very stimulating, as the most interesting thing had been Quirrell's stutter, and Lockhart had just been embarrassing. Lessons with Lupin had been great but then he'd had to leave because of Snape's big mouth, and the next year with Moody would've been fine if it hadn't been straight after those. Well, and the fact that it wasn't really Alastor Moody but in fact some murderous Death Eater. And Umbridge... well, he didn't even want to think about her.
After getting ready with an equal lack of enthusiasm, the boy joined Ron and Hermione, and the trio made their way towards the DADA classroom.
"Who d'you think we've got this time?" Ron asked as they came to a stop outside the door, turning to his two friends. "They've got to be better than Umbridge, at least."
"Well that isn't exactly going to be hard to accomplish, is it?" Hermione said with a slight grin, shaking her head. She was the first through the door as usual, finding a desk right at the front of the classroom so she would be in prime position to answer any questions and impress the new teacher with her dazzling intellect, and sat down as the other two joined her.
Harry plonked down into his seat with a noisy sigh, pulling his things out of his bag before dumping it on the floor carelessly. He kept his eyes fixed miserably on his desk, staring at the nonsense students had carved into the wood across the years and wishing the lesson could be over with already. When excited whispers broke out from all of the students, he looked up to see what all the fuss was about... Blimey. For a moment he could only stare at the teacher who had entered the classroom and set their briefcase down onto the desk, his mouth hanging open in surprise.
"Harry, look, it's Professor Lupin!" Hermione hissed loudly across the gap between their desks, as though he hadn't already noticed, and elbowed him hard. He rubbed his arm absently, vibrant green eyes still fixed on the man at the front who was smiling cheerfully at the sixth year students as though he had been their teacher for years.
"Some of you may remember me from your third year," Lupin began, pausing to flash a quick smile in Harry's direction. "Professor Dumbledore was having, ah, slight trouble finding anyone who wanted the job, especially after the rather exaggerated account from Professor Umbridge. He asked me to help, seeing as I've taught you lot before and that means I'm a bit more prepared for your mischief than anyone else."
"But aren't you a..." A Slytherin started drawling loudly, the expression on her pasty face a mixture of worry and disdain as she decided to not finish the sentence and let him figure it out himself.
The smile faltered for a second then came back even brighter as Lupin took in her words, and thought about what to say. "The school governors all know what I am," he paused to grimace, and then continued. "If Professor Dumbledore did not have full confidence in me and thought that I might be dangerous to you all, rest assured that I would not be here now. If at any point in my duration here as your teacher he believes that I may pose a threat to any of you for whatever reason, I will be removed post haste."
Harry glared at the girl who had spoken up, angry that she had made the man uncomfortable only five minutes into the lesson. It seemed that the Slytherins were the only ones with a problem concerning having a werewolf for a teacher, especially that worm Malfoy who looked like he'd swallowed something nasty. All of the Gryffindors, with the exception of possibly Lavender and Parvati who both looked a little queasy, were grinning at the chance to have Remus Lupin as their DADA professor once again.
"All right, enough talk. We have wasted enough of the lesson as it is, let's begin." Lupin cleared his throat, placing his hands flat down onto the desk in front of him. "I thought we'd start this year off with some practical work as I've heard you lot prefer to learn like that." His lips twitched slightly, as though he were holding back a smile.
After a pause, Harry realised he was probably referring to the group that had gotten together last year to teach themselves what Umbridge wouldn't. Dumbledore's Army.
"If everyone would please stand up, take their wands out and grab a partner." The professor requested, picking his own wand up from where it had been on the desk. While the students busied themselves with finding a partner for whatever Lupin had planned, he began polishing the slim piece of wood on his sleeve until he could nearly see his own reflection in it.
Ron and Hermione had almost immediately stood next to each other after leaving their seats but upon realising that, they glanced at each other uneasily then at Harry. The green-eyed male looked up after pulling his wand out of the inner-pocket of his robes, and noticed them staring at him as though he had suddenly sprouted a third head.
"What?" The boy asked, looking from Ron to Hermione, then back again.
"Who's going to go with who?" The Gryffindor girl asked, chewing worriedly on her bottom lip. As Harry analysed the situation before him, he realised their minds were already made up. The two had moved together automatically and that was that, they just wanted to make sure that he didn't mind too much really.
He stared at her for a moment longer then let out a just about inaudible sigh, so as to not worry her. The girl was dead annoying when she got it in her head that he wasn't fine and dandy; she just pestered and pestered and pestered until sometimes the boy felt like just making something up to satisfy her and make her leave him alone for a few minutes. "I don't mind, you two can partner up. It doesn't matter to me."
"Oh, are you sure?" Hermione questioned, looking concerned for a moment after having grinned at Ron. "Who will you be with then?"
Harry opened his mouth to reply, then shut it again as he knew he wasn't sure, and gave a shrug. Suddenly a pair of strong hands clapped down onto his shoulders and he jumped, looking around.
"Harry is going to come with me and give some examples for the class to follow." Lupin declared in a jovial tone, nodding in greeting to Hermione and Ron before steering the boy to the front of the classroom by his shoulders. The green-eyed student didn't exactly get much say in the matter as he didn't really have anyone else to go with anyway (Neville had somehow ended up with a tall Slytherin girl) and the teacher's grip was too firm to argue against. The werewolf was set on using him to demonstrate to the class.
"All right, you all paired up? Good. Now, please stand facing each other with your wands in front of you, like so." The teacher got into the position he had just instructed the students to, then nudged Harry who eventually did the same with a dubious expression. "Watch closely what Harry and I do, as you're going to do it yourselves when we're done. I don't want to have to show you again, so concentrate!"
Even after going to bed feeling good about Defence Against the Dark Arts, as it had probably been the best lesson he'd had in years, Harry was again feeling miserable as he walked with his two friends down to the dungeons. Although Potions had the potential to be an interesting lesson, the combination of Snape as the teacher and having to take the class with Slytherin made it rather less enjoyable, in fact so much so that he tended to dread the lessons.
Sitting down in a seat as far to the back of the room as he could manage, after evading a deliberately stuck out foot of one spotty-faced Slytherin, the green-eyed male resigned himself to yet another tortuous lesson of being picked on by the greasy, slimy, biased Snape. Would that toad never leave him alone, never realise it wasn't his fault his dad had been a prat sometimes, never just withdraw his head from his arse?
Said teacher strode into the room with his black robes whirling out behind him, positively slamming the heavy door behind him before stalking over to his desk. For a moment, the Professor merely stared imperiously around at the students in the classroom, eyes narrowing into a glare when he caught sight of Harry sitting at the back. It was as though the boy's very existence pained him and that just the sight of him made his blood boil. The sixth year glared back, thinking that he felt the exact same way about Snape.
"This year, you will be looking at the more advanced potions on the syllabus, and will focus on the practical work more than the theory. We will begin the year with the concoction you will be brewing today, known simply as the Unctuous Unction."
Snape flicked his wand at the blackboard behind the desk, enchanting a piece of chalk to write the name of the potion onto the black surface. He examined the meticulously neat writing for a moment, then turned abruptly with his cloak swirling out around him. His gazed flicked from student to student, each one sinking down in their seat to avoid incurring his wrath, eventually settling on Harry as his lips twisted into a spiteful smirk. "Potter," he snapped, the smirk widening. "Who created the potion?"
The black-haired boy frowned at the question, racking his brains for anything to give as an answer but he couldn't even think of a random person's name to give in substitution for the right one. The longer he took to reply, the nastier the look on Snape's face became, so he eventually gave a slight shrug and shook his head. "I don't know... sir."
"No? Disappointing, yet not surprising. Weasley, what are the effects of the Unctuous Unction?" The dark-eyed teacher demanded of the redhead, mean expression still set in place. The rest of the students were watching the debacle as though it was some huge source of entertainment, with the Slytherins waiting eagerly for some bloodshed.
Ron froze as attention turned to him, freckles standing out starkly as his face paled quite a few shades to a sickly grey colour. Swallowing nervously, though it was hard as it felt as though a snitch had deposited itself in his throat, his eyes darted sideways to glance at Hermione, before returning to the greasy face of the Potions Master.
"Well, Weasley? Any idea of the right answer in that empty head?"
"No, sir." The boy replied in a quiet voice, trying to keep his dislike for Snape in check as he didn't want to make matters worse. A detention from their first Potions lesson of the year would hardly be his idea of a good start.
The professor shook his head as though he was disappointed but had expected it, which he probably had seeing as it was doubtful that anyone in the class actually knew the answer with the obvious exception of Miss Know-It-All herself. "I see neither of you have bothered to crack a book all summer, even though I specifically told you to read through the Potions textbook for this year!" Snape's eyes flashed dangerously and he slammed himself down into the chair behind his desk.
"Do any of you actually know anything?" The man demanded of the students, lips pursed tightly. "Does anyone know the answer to my questions? Anyone?" Hermione's hand immediately shot up into the air, waving around as though this was the most important thing in the world but it was to Draco whom the teacher looked. "Malfoy?"
The blond glanced sideways at Hermione as he was called upon to speak, grey eyes intently studying the girl who was stretching as far as she could out of her seat to get the Professor's attention. The corners of his lips curved in a smirk and he nodded curtly. "The Unctuous Unction was created by Gregory the Smarmy, Professor, and it makes the drinker of the potion believe that the person who made it is their best friend."
"Excellently explained. Ten points to Slytherin for your effort."
"How'd he know that!" Ron demanded in a hissed whisper, staring incredulously at the git of a student before looking to Harry and Hermione for an explanation. The other two were looking equally confused, though the latter also looked put out. She would have liked to show the rest of the class that she knew the answer too!
Draco heard the not-so-subtle question, and turned to the lanky boy with his usual smarmy expression. "I wouldn't expect you to know something like that Weasley. Only those who possess a brain better than that of a flobberworm would think to look in the textbook before term started so that automatically rules you out."
Harry narrowed his eyes at the Slytherin, frowning. "That doesn't explain why you know then, Malfoy," he remarked calmly, raising both of his eyebrows at him.
The blond's lips curled in a sneer as Ron guffawed delightedly, and he opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by Snape, who issued the students their instructions and stopped any further argument.
"If you are quite finished, Potter, we will now make the Unctuous Unction. Before we begin, however, I am making a few changes to the current seating arrangement with the hopes that my revisions will stop you all disrupting my lesson with your nonsense." His eyes seemed rather cruel as they flitted to Harry, before the man started gesturing with his wand at various students. A fuming Ron ended up with Crabbe, while Hermione had to relocate to the table housing the delightful Pansy Parkinson.
Snape looked to the two remaining students, smirking. "Potter, you're with Malfoy. You should have all the ingredients you need in your potions kit, however there are some at the side if you failed to use your head and come prepared. The instructions are on the board." He paused, swishing his wand at the blackboard again, and white writing came up detailing the ingredients and procedure for the mixture. "If brewed correctly, the end result should be deep purple, so everyone will know if you got it wrong."
Harry sent a glare in Draco's direction, then stood up so fast that he nearly knocked his chair over, and went to collect the ingredients lacking from his kit from the side. Hermione gave him a sympathetic look before busying herself with Pansy, and the boy went back to the blond's table with an armful of various materials. He then set to work preparing the items closest to him, studiously ignoring the boy next to him at the table with the hopes that if he just thought it really hard, the git would actually disappear.
About twenty minutes later, Snape announced that their time was up, and began checking the finished potions. Well, mostly finished... The cauldron Neville shared with Goyle was bubbling furiously, as they hadn't yet taken it off the fire, and the man's disapproval was clear as he stared down at them. After issuing some snappy orders to the two students, the concoction was ladled into a vial and left to cool. When he had finished looking at each and every pair's work, he positioned himself at the front once more.
"Each of you is to drink some of the Unctuous Unction," he paused, staring around at the students as they let out groans, "And your homework is to write up the effects." The class all exchanged nervous glances and Snape frowned. "Well, what are you waiting for? Go on!"
Harry scooped up some of the liquid with a ladle, dumping it into a stone bowl and staring dubiously down at it. He scrunched up his nose, deciding he really didn't want to try it after all, and then placed the bowl down in front of Draco. The blond blinked for a moment, looking down at the liquid, then sneered as his brows furrowed in a frown.
"Scared?" Harry asked with the beginnings of a smirk, challenge clear in his voice as he quirked one dark eyebrow at Draco. The Slytherin scowled at the challenge to his manhood, pursing his lips in a rather good impression of the greasy teacher at the front of the room, and then took another look down at the potion in the bowl.
"You wish, Potter." To make the statement even more convincing, the boy got a spoonful of the liquid and raised it to his lips, pausing only a moment to glare at Harry before swallowing it all in one gulp. His eyes started to water almost immediately as the mixture slid down his throat like some slimy disgusting gunk (which it was, really) and his face scrunched up as though he had just swallowed some excrement. Draco coughed, covering his mouth with a pale hand and then depositing the spoon back down into the bowl.
Not wanting to be outdone as he stared down at the potion, Harry scooped up another spoonful and promptly gulped down the lot of it. His insides gave a lurch right away, as though they were shifting around, and for a moment it felt like his stomach was full of something heavy... like Mrs Weasley's meatloaf. Eurgh. The boy blinked furiously, trying to clear his vision from the pink and purple dots that had started dancing across it, and gave a wild shake of his head. The aftertaste in his mouth was bitter and salty, and he fancied that he could feel the potion sliding down his throat then making its way through his body.
"What's this meant to do again?" The Gryffindor enquired when he felt relatively normal again, glancing around at the rest of the class for signs of change. None of them looked any different but you could never really tell with potions, especially student-brewed ones.
Draco gave an exasperated sigh, having also recovered from his reaction to the vile potion, then shot the boy a derisive look. "It's supposed to make the person who drinks it think that the person who made it, or who gave it to them, is their best friend. Stupid."
Harry blinked in slight confusion, trying to figure out if he felt any different about the boy next to him. How could you tell? Did your feelings just change and you felt it immediately, or was it gradual, or what? This was definitely not the best potion for their first lesson of the year. After studying the blond for a moment, he decided he hated him just as much as he normally did. The smarmy-faced git was definitely not best friend material.
"I don't think it worked." Draco mused, peering down at the remains of the potion in the cauldron with a thoughtful expression. He seemed unused to the idea of his creations not functioning correctly, which was weird as Harry had never really thought of him as a high achiever. But he supposed he had never really looked beyond the blinding arrogance and painfully obnoxious personality to see that the Slytherin was actually quite intelligent for a vile little cockroach. With a frown, the grey-eyed boy put both hands on his hips in the very image of indignation and annoyance. "What did you do wrong, Scarhead?"
"What! I've done something wrong? We both worked on the stupid Unctitty-whatsit, there's just as much chance you messed it up as I did!" The Boy-Who-Just-Wouldn't-Die replied angrily, dropping the spoon carelessly back into the bowl, making some of the dregs of purple liquid splash onto his school robes.
Draco's eyes narrowed as though he had just been mortally offended, drawing himself up and suddenly looking rather scarily like his father. "I am never wrong, Potter, nor do I ever make mistakes. This was all your doing." He glanced down at the potion, then frowned. "See, it's too dark, you obviously put too much fluxweed in. Idiot."
"You're wrong about a lot of things, Malfoy!" Harry spat, anger flaring up inside of him at the sheer arrogance of the blond twit. "Like this bloody potion, for example!"
"Potter, Malfoy!" A sharp voice rang out across the room, making both boys look around. "Although I'm sure your classmates would love to hear the rest of your conversation, I'm sure they would much prefer to go to lunch. So kindly shut up and pack your things away!"
Harry glared balefully at Draco, deciding at that moment that everything that ever went wrong in the world was his stupid blond fault, then snatched his bag up from under the table and joined the others as they left the classroom. The Slytherin could clear their stuff up alone, hmph! Something, or maybe someone, bashed into the black-haired boy as he vacated the room with Ron and Hermione, nearly knocking him over.
"Sorry Harry!" Neville yelled with an apologetic look as he ran past, appearing rather green around the gills. Before he had disappeared into the distance, he made a loud gagging noise and threw a hand over his mouth, increasing his speed through the dungeons.
Malfoy came sauntering out of the classroom in a confident swagger, Crabbe and Goyle flanking him as usual, and Harry wondered if he had just gotten those two to clean up after him. While he was speculating about that, Draco thumped him with his shoulder as he went past, knocking him out of his thoughts. Before anyone said anything else, Goyle suddenly went very pale and ran off, looking like he was about to throw up.
Hermione frowned after him, shaking her head. "I don't think they did their potion right, you know. I saw Neville put in two handfuls of hedgehog quills instead of one and a half, and Goyle stirred it anti-clockwise instead of clockwise, but Snape was hanging over my shoulder so I couldn't say anything to them."
"Think Neville will be all right?" Ron asked, staring off in the direction the boy had gone, his concern overridden by his amusement at the situation.
"Madam Pomfrey will sort him out, don't worry." Hermione said firmly, as though she had every confidence in the talents of the school's mediwitch. Which she probably did.
There we go. I tried to make it a bit longer to make up for the years of waiting, haha. If you've got anything at all to say about this chapter (whether it's praise, suggestions or marriage proposals) then feel free to review. It makes my ego and my muse feel better, you see, which makes me inclined to update more regularly! See, everyone's a winner.