A/N: Thank you so much to all who've been reviewing! You guys are really making my day. This chapter is more of a build-up for the next one, so I hope that's alright. :)

Chapter Nine

Harry was too shocked to reply at first. Then, the more he considered Malfoy's statement, the more other parts of his explanation made sense.

"That means one of us will be Kissed?" Harry asked hollowly.

Malfoy nodded slowly. "Yes. One of us will take the poison, suffer the Dementor's Kiss, and after the Dementor dies, the other will administer the antidote."

"What do you mean, 'suffer the Dementor's Kiss'? We won't actually get our soul taken out, will we?" Harry shuddered, remembering again the score of Dementors that had nearly taken his and Sirius' souls in third year.

"Of course not," Malfoy said. "But the person who's poisoned may lose consciousness, for as long as the Dementor thinks it's sucking out the person's soul. You should know—the poison is lethal to humans. Whoever takes it will only have ten minutes, at most, before he dies. That's why the antidote is so crucial."

After the mind-numbing realization of what Malfoy was planning, Harry began feeling angry. "Why do you keep saying, 'whoever takes it,' or 'whoever gets Kissed'? It will obviously be me! You can't poison yourself!"

"Why not?" Malfoy countered. "I've gone to great lengths to come up with this poison and consider all the details. I will know exactly how it works. Besides, the last thing I want to do is kill the Boy Who Lived."

Harry looked menacing again. "You can't take the poison, Malfoy. Defeating these Dementors is my job! What do I get paid for if not to finish the job myself?"

Malfoy scoffed. "Well, putting aside who will actually get poisoned, does the plan still sound good to you? Are you still willing to do it?"

Harry gave him an incredulous look. "Of course not! You probably planned this antidote thing all along, didn't you? Since Neville mentioned the Mandrake roots. But you didn't tell me yesterday, when you were so eager to get started with the poison."

Malfoy glared at him. "You're right. I lied by omission. I didn't think you were going to agree, so I didn't even bother explaining the logistics of it."

"Were you going to keep me in the dark until the last moment?" Harry shot. "When I'm about to get Kissed, you were going to mention that I'll be taking the poison?"

The fear of third year, before Harry could produce a Patronus, came back with vicious clarity. He was truly afraid of the Dementor's Kiss. He wasn't sure if he was overreacting, but if he was, he felt it justified.

Malfoy sighed heavily. "Potter, even if you disagree, this is the best shot we have at truly killing the Dementors. I can tell you now that Felix Felicis will probably allow you to produce an astounding Patronus, at best. This poison is full-proof."

Harry had stopped listening. He turned toward the door to the storage room and said, "We'll get started with the Felix Felicis tomorrow."

"And the poison?" Malfoy asked, sensing that Harry was about to leave.

"I'm not putting anyone's life on the line for a few bloody Dementors," Harry replied as he opened the door.

As Harry stepped over the threshold, he heard Malfoy ask quietly:

"Then why did you become an Auror, Potter, if not to take such risks?"

* * *

Harry met Malfoy in the storage room the next day, as they had planned. They began the Felix Felicis potion without exchanging many words, other than the technical ones associated with potion-making. Malfoy didn't mention the poison, which surprised Harry; he had expected to be pestered about it. Even as they worked on the Felix Felicis, Harry didn't feel the exhilaration he thought he'd feel at finally starting the six-month potion.

They began by stewing the twenty dragonfly wings in a fourth of a cup of elderflower wine. The instructions read, "Stew the dragonfly wings in the wine for the duration of 20 hours. Every half-hour, stir the potion seven times in a counter-clockwise direction." To say the least, Harry was tired of keeping track of every half-hour. He and Malfoy took turns stirring the potion as necessary. One watched the other carefully to make sure that the stirrer did so exactly seven times and in the correct direction. Harry remembered that Slughorn had advised them to follow the instructions with utmost care, or the consequences could be disastrous.

Toward lunchtime, Harry left the storage room to get them some food. Since every half-hour was so short, they couldn't leave the room for too long.

As they ate, after the sixth hour of stirring, both Harry and Malfoy were becoming restless. Though the tension between them was still palpable, they finally began speaking again, about things outside the Potions vocabulary.

Malfoy was curious about the whereabouts of Harry's other friends. "Whatever happened to Granger? I haven't seen you or Weasley attempt to contact her since you've been here."

"She works at the Wizengamot," Harry said as he downed a goblet of pumpkin juice. They sat on the dusty floor of the storage room, separated by the bubbling cauldron. "She's actually quite busy with paperwork and such. Trying to change a few laws regarding purebloods."

Malfoy snorted as he finished his plate of mashed potatoes. "I'm not the least bit surprised. Did she and Weasley ever…?"

Harry laughed. "Yes, they're still dating."

"But knowing the way it took them years to start, they'll get married in their forties," Malfoy remarked.

Harry looked into the cauldron to examine their potion. It was still foamy white. By the twentieth hour, it should be green and look as smooth as glass.

"Potter, what happened to you and the Weasley girl?" Malfoy asked suddenly.

"Oh, Ginny? She's playing for a professional Quidditch team." Harry observed the cauldron as he spoke. "We parted ways for a while. Our careers are pretty demanding, so there was really no point in dating while we were both away constantly."

"I see," Malfoy said. He glanced at a clock on the little desk they had bewitched to ring every half-hour. There was still five minutes until the next stirring.

Harry glanced at Malfoy. "How about you? Pansy or Millicent Bulstrode up to your dating standards?"

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "Give me a break, Potter. Pansy was always a good friend of mine. I wouldn't really think of dating her. And Millicent? Have you seen the girl? She looks like something out of Holidays with Hags."

Harry laughed, because that was exactly what he'd thought when he saw Millicent Bulstrode. "Then, I really don't know any other Slytherin girl you'd be interested in."

Malfoy shrugged. "I've been too preoccupied with other things to consider anyone. I have a full-time job, after all." He paused, and then recalling something, said, "But while on the subject of dating, I've heard some interesting gossip."

Harry looked up, to show that he was attentive.

"I've heard that Justin Finch-Fletchley and Zacharias Smith got together after the War."

Harry balked at this revelation. "What? You're not serious."

"I was surprised myself," Malfoy said off-handedly. "Justin is the perfect replica of the Hufflepuff student—nice, kind, loyal—and while Smith is also from Hufflepuff, he hardly represents his House. He's always rude, critical, and distrusting of everything. I don't know how those two get along."

Harry was unsettled that Malfoy was ignoring the most important part. "Well, forgetting all that—they're two blokes!"

Malfoy raised his eyebrows slightly. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"You don't find it odd that two men are dating each other?" Harry asked slowly, unable to believe Malfoy's lack of concern. With the number of prejudices Malfoy had, Harry was surprised that homosexuality wasn't one of them.

"I don't know how that's offensive," Malfoy said, giving Harry a strange look. "Maybe in your Muggle world it's uncommon, but it happens in the Wizarding world."

"Of course it happens," Harry said impatiently. "I'm just surprised that you don't care. You're bothered by Muggle-borns and half-bloods, but not by homosexuality?"

"Homo-what?" Malfoy asked, probably having never heard the word, but then he thought of the individual parts of the word and said, "Oh, I see. Well, of course the matter of blood is more important than sexual preferences."

Harry couldn't keep the look of surprise off his face. "Is that just a pureblood thing, to not care about sexual preferences?"

"Of course not," Malfoy sounded startled. "People in the Wizarding world, whether pureblooded or not, don't blink an eye at two blokes—or two girls for that matter—being together. I'm surprised you haven't encountered that before. Do Muggles take offense to that?"

Harry snorted. "Do they? A lot of them don't just take offense. They think it's a blow at the whole institution of marriage."

"You're just giving me more reason to hate Muggles," Malfoy muttered.

"Now that I think of it," Harry began, "homophobes in the Muggle world are a lot like the purebloods in the Wizarding world. Both harbor illogical hatred toward an innocent group of people."

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "I think purebloods have a bit more logic to their hatred. I mean, honestly, who cares who shags whom?" Malfoy paused and glanced at Harry. "Are you like one of those Muggles? Who hates two blokes being together?"

Harry took a short while to answer. "Actually, I've never thought much about it. I suppose I wouldn't really care. What you said about Justin and Smith just caught me by surprise, that's all."

A loud chime came from the bewitched clock on the desk, announcing that another half-hour had passed. Harry stirred the potion in a counter-clockwise direction seven times while Malfoy watched intently.

Harry and Malfoy spent the rest of the day in the same manner, stirring the dragonfly wings and elderflower wine and talking about various aspects of their Hogwarts experiences. Harry told Malfoy about some of his confrontations with Voldemort, and Malfoy compared these to his fewer and farther spaced encounters with the Dark Lord. Harry realized how much distress Malfoy had felt in their sixth year. Being set the task of killing a powerful wizard at the age of sixteen, with no one to help him or give him other options was truly troubling.

After twenty long hours passed, the potion did indeed turn glass green. It was four in the morning when they finished the last stirring. Despite the grueling amount of time they'd spent in that little storage room, Harry felt cheerful after his long conversations with Malfoy.

The next day, Harry decided to contact Hermione. After Malfoy had mentioned that Harry hadn't spoken with her in a while, Harry felt guilt-ridden that he hadn't done so yet. So he decided to send her an owl. He spent an hour deciding what to write. After a few formal sentences describing how he and Ron were faring, Harry decided to tell her about the Felix Felicis.

…I don't know how it's happened, Hermione, but I can't produce a Patronus. I keep remembering things from the War, particularly the more gruesome parts and can't find a happy enough memory. I haven't told Ron or the other Aurors—I know you're probably not pleased with that, but I can't risk being thrown off the team. You'll find this strange I'm sure, but I've been working on a Felix Felicis potion with the help of Malfoy, who's the Potions Master at Hogwarts (believe it or not). I think it'll let me produce the Patronus, but it takes six months to brew…

After staring at the letter for a while, Harry decided to send it. Hermione deserved to know how he was doing. And she might have suggestions as to what he should do.

Whereas the days Harry and Malfoy had been gathering ingredients were particularly interesting and different each time, the days following the start of their potion fell into a predictable pattern. They met in the storage room each day and worked on the potion. Many parts of it required them to add an ingredient bit by bit, every hour or every two hours. So they spent quite a bit of time simply sitting on the stone floor, chopping and adding ingredients, and conversing in the long hours in between.

One day, several weeks after they'd been working on the potion, Harry didn't find Malfoy in the storage room at the usual time they met. Not knowing where else to look, Harry went to the Potions classroom. As he drew near, he heard students' voices from within, and laced among them, Malfoy's as well. Harry entered the room quietly, but the conversation ceased immediately.

Three Slytherin third years turned to look at Harry. Malfoy caught Harry's eye across the room.

"Well, if it isn't Harry bloody Potter, listening in to our private conversation," a red-headed girl said viciously. Harry recalled seeing her in Malfoy's classroom before, the rebellious girl Mafalda Prewett.

"Hello, Mafalda," Harry said politely. "If this is some kind of student-teacher conference, I'll be on my way."

"I think you should stay, Potter," Malfoy said. "What these students are telling me might be of interest to you."

Harry walked forward and examined the other students. The girl standing next to Mafalda was petite and swamped in her robes; she had unusually long brown hair and a curious expression as she watched Harry approach. A boy stood farther apart from the rest of them, as though he didn't quite want to be there. He had jet black hair, a somber expression, and had his arms crossed.

"You've met Mafalda," Malfoy said, then pointed at the petite girl, "That's Tracey Higgs. And the young man is Graham Pritchard."

Harry nodded at them. "Pleased to meet you. I'm sure Mafalda has already pointed out who I am."

The boy gave him a suspicious look, Mafalda scoffed, and the other girl, Tracey, gave him a small smile.

"Carry on, Mafalda," Malfoy indicated.

"Not while this git is here," she replied. "He'll just gloat to the other Gryffindorks about how pleased he is that we're getting punished."

"By Whitby again?" Harry asked, sensing the distress in Mafalda's words, despite her malicious treatment of him.

Malfoy nodded. "Tracey here couldn't transfigure something in class today and Whitby docked the Slytherins fifty points—you should know, the Slytherins haven't won the House Cup in three years now—and after Graham and Mafalda got involved, Whitby took away their Hogsmeade privileges for the rest of the year. Instead, they have detention with him every Saturday."

Harry's eyebrows rose. "That seems a bit harsh."

The young boy, Graham, shrugged. "I've heard that while Umbridge was Headmistress, the punishments were much worse. You were forced to bleed from your fingers."

Harry smiled ruefully. "You don't have to tell me. I've been in her detentions plenty of times." He held up his right hand to show them the faintly legible script that had scarred his flesh.

The three Slytherin students gathered close to read the handwriting. Tracey was closest to Harry as she slowly read out, "I…must not…tell lies." She gasped and the other two looked sick to their stomachs.

Harry glanced at Malfoy, who seemed to have turned green as well. Malfoy had been on the Inquisitorial Squad—how could he have known what Umbridge's punishments were like?

"That's awful," Tracey said quietly.

Malfoy looked disgusted. "That vile woman. I had always heard rumors about what she did during her detentions, but none of the Slytherins ever—"

"—ever got detention. I know," Harry said angrily. He particularly addressed Mafalda. "Do you see now? That I'm not on anybody's side when it comes to punishing people? Whether it's the Slytherins or my own House. I don't believe anyone should suffer an unfair punishment."

Mafalda pursed her lips and said nothing.

"I think we can all agree that Whitby is tiptoeing the line in penalizing the Slytherins," Malfoy finally said. "The question is what can be done about it."

"Nothing," said Mafalda. "If we put a toe out of line, we'll get suspended or expelled."

"Mafalda's right," Harry said, earning a very suspicious look from the redhead. "The last thing the Slytherins want to do is provoke the other Houses. You saw how devastating the flood was to the Dungeons. That was the response to a few harmless pranks. I think that Whitby will turn himself in—he'll do something so astounding and shocking to punish you that the other Houses will notice."

The three students looked at him with less anger and more respect.

Graham nodded.

"It's only a matter of time."

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