AND WE ARE HERE. This was ready like AGES ago, but I got really annoyed with how short it was (like under half the words of the previous chapter), so I tried to go over it again, but these two gits (Harry & Draco) are bloody too stubborn and just can't get things on a roll. I'll get Sensei to shout at them soon.
But, as a bonus, I give you the iFAQ! with multiple personalities and IBeta, it is guaranteed to answer your existing and non-existent questions, confuse you a little further and just mainly do a poor job of entertaining you with crappy, inside jokes.
7. Synonymes
Where Balance is discussed by means of similarities
"Hermione!"
"What is it, Draco?"
"What is this?!" Draco shoved her a picture of a dark room with bright lights and people apparently dancing.
"Err…a advertisement for a disco? Why?"
"It's some kind of Muggle thing? Bother, I should have guessed."
"It's a Muggle club for dancing. Where did you find that?"
"It was lying around in the kitchen. I'm planning the decoration of the smaller ballroom and I thought this looked nice."
Hermione raised her eyebrows, but did not comment.
Draco was helping her with the last unplaced books in the library. Potter had been called in for some emergency meeting, so Draco had to wait for the saviour to come and finished today's assignment.
"So… what's today's exercise?"
"Opposite of yesterday's," Draco sulked and poked at some books to get them to arrange themselves by date and author.
"Similarities between you and Harry?"
"Exactly. I cannot imagine what she hopes to reach by these assignments."
Hermione walked of down an aisle with her wand leading the way for a battalion of books.
"But you can be sure there is a reason, Draco!" came a shout from behind the shelves.
"But what can it be?"
"Maybe she wants the two of you to get to know each other."
"Why? There is absolutely no reason for me to get to know that insufferable git!"
"You're talking about my best friend, Draco!"
"Sorry. But really, it is not as if anything will change if Potter and I know each others deepest secrets."
"Maybe. But you have to see each other every day for training. Maybe she got bored watching you two fight and contest over which one of you is better. How far did you get before Harry had to go for the meeting?"
"Very well. We are both boys, we are both wizards, we are both training to learn Oriental Magic, we are living under the same roof, we are…"
"At least you didn't say you both have toes. Really, Draco, didn't you learn anything from yesterday?"
"That Potter is a bloody, blunt headed, insensitive git, who does not know when to stop."
"Why, what did he do?"
"Nagged me on about my mother."
"Oh, that."
"Couldn't keep his mouth shut then?"
"Harry has to tell us, Draco. Harry, Ron and I are a team. And you haven't been very informative."
"I just love how Weasley gets to know all my secrets."
"Look, Draco, you can't keep carrying that kind of weight around."
"It's not like you care about my mother enough to have the right to hear about her death."
"I care about you, Draco."
"You are one ignorant fool, Granger."
"You know, you aren't as nasty as you think you are."
"I know you are fogged by your unwise Gryffindor goodwill."
"No real insult there." Draco glared at Hermione trying to keep the threatening, embarrassing tears away. "Draco. Harry is probably one of the best people to understand your loss. He has never got over the loss of his parents, and knowing him, he'll never will."
"But he can't even remember them! The Dark Lord killed them when he was a year old!"
"That's Harry for you. It will be easier once it is out, believe me."
Draco thought about the conversation as he sat opposite Potter.
"We both have a grudge against the Dark Lord."
"Excuse me?" Potter was shocked out of his wits, Draco thought pleased.
"If I have not missed something, neither of us counts the Dark Lord in our closest friends, and actually we are both on his kill list currently. You still have the honour of first place, but I like to think that I'm rather high up myself." Draco looked at Potter who was looking like a fish on dry land. "Pull yourself together, Potter, for Merlin's sake. It's not as if you needed a genius to solve that."
"So… Voldemort killed your mother, because you failed to kill Dumbledore?"
"Congratulations, you made that connection quicker than I thought you would. And he was quite ready to kill Snape and me too; blowing Snape's cover was not part of the orders."
"So you ran?"
"Indeed. I'm sick and tired of being controlled."
"Write down that we both are."
"I'll put it down after the part where it says 'neither of us has parents'."
"But, Malfoy, your father is alive."
"Good as dead in Azkaban, thanks to you."
"He's the one who walked into the Ministry."
"Look, Potter, there is no way I'm going to forgive you. He walked in there because of you. Even if I am not very happy about him, messing things up so spectacularly, he is my father and the fact is that he was there to get you and you ruined it."
"Oh, and what should have I done thrown my hands up in the air and let he kill me and my friends? He is a Death Eater, Voldemort's bloody follower who probably has vowed to kill me!"
"You, you, you, it is always about you, isn't it?"
"Do you actually think that I want that? Do you actually think I'm happy with it?"
"And you don't like how people always know who you are, and how they admire you and how you always get away with everything?"
"No!"
"Well, aren't you the hero?"
"I don't want to be the hero! I just want to be normal!" Draco blinked at Potters fury. He had forgotten Potter could do that; he had been so quiet. "But as long as I have this bloody scar, this bloody mark of Voldemort's, I will never, ever be normal. I will never have peace!"
Draco blinked. "Why do you want to be normal? Everyone wants to be special."
"If I could give this scar to you, I wouldn't have to think for one second. Malfoy, would you actually want to be this 'special', would you want to be cursed with this position every bleeding second of your life? Would you like waking up every night to the fact that you are the one who will end this War, and because you can't get it finished soon enough, people are DYING! Oh, and I forgot, before you wake up there are the nightmares, which are a real bonus."
A long silence stretched itself out between them.
"You never thought about that, did you?"
"No, I didn't." Draco was suddenly feeling that his world was toppling around again and again and again and it wouldn't stop, because the world was going the wrong way. The wrong, wrong, wrong way.
"Mind answering me a question?"
"Sure."
"Why don't you have a Mark? I mean, you showed something to Borkins to intimidate him that day in Knockturn Alley?"
"What? Oh, err, it was a Probation Mark, it's something the Dark Lord tried out on me and… Potter, were you there?"
"Err…yes?"
"Blazing hell! Thank Morgana, I didn't know you were that close on my trail."
"I heard Snape talking to you once and then I was there on the roof, too."
"On that night?"
"My Invisibility Cloak."
"Ah. That's why you all know that much."
"And actually, that's why you are here. Dumbledore promised you a safe haven. We had to give you one."
Potter looked at Draco who was staring into midair trying to gain control. As if through a haze Draco noticed Potter fidgeting nervously at a curiously fast pace. He didn't catch the word Potter said, scrambled and jagged. Draco tilted his head and he felt dizzy. The floor flipped over and he fell-
"Malfoy!"
"Potter, don't shout into my ear."
"You're awake!"
"No, I'm dead."
"It's alright, Hermione, Mrs. Weasley. He's awake now."
"Potter, what did you do? Call the whole Order to gawk at me?"
"You fainted, Malfoy, I just asked them to come help."
"I don't need help."
"Lucky we didn't call Madam Pomfrey then, isn't it?"
Draco rose up and stretched. Hermione and Molly were just walking in.
"It's alright, really, I'm just a little tired," he assured them.
"Dinner is in just half an hour. Maybe you could take a break until then?"
"How are we doing with the list?" Draco turned towards Potter, who lifted it from the floor.
"About five inches to go."
"We'll get that in no time. I'm hungry, what do we have for dinner?" Draco asked Molly as he lifted off the floor.
"I'm trying out a noodle recipe I found."
"Sounds good," Draco smiled at her.
Potter stayed behind, rooted to the spot, Draco noticed as he looked back.
"Come on now, Potter. You could do with some food."
Potter shivered as Draco swept his eyes over Potter's wiry frame. Draco felt his face starting to pull into a grin, but he quickly restrained himself and almost fled down the stairs.
iFAQ
NYAHAHHAHA. NYAHHAHAHHAHAHA. Err yes, so now I will be separating my personality in two, though maybe it has always been two, and now there are three and then MY PRECIOUS, we shall….
Rule the world and…
Yeah. You get the point.
I've had comments from three people, and only one question I find interesting enough to answer, so let's get that one done first.
Torigirl asked: if malfoy is so desperate why is he being so rude about not telling the story?
Answ. Would be that he is Malfoy. Malfoy is a little defensive about stuff. Malfoy needs to relax(/shag). And thanks for the sweet, positive comment. Loved that!
And then to the schizophrenic part! Yay!
Q. What is a iFAQ? And hell, why are you/I doing this.
Answ. inFrequently Asked Questions. I was writing this chapter and when I got to the part where Draco checks Harry out I found myself at the end. Couldn't write past it, so I thought I could throw this in as a bonus.
Q. Why on earth did you/I start to write this?
Answ. I went on sick leave from school due to erm… mental problems I guess (mainly just tired of everything, but that's the label you get 3) and then I thought I could do something to improve myself, so I thought, ooh H/D fic! The prologue had been ready for quite some time, can't remember when or why I did that, so I just took it up and started from there.
What I've been suspecting for a while is that my real mental problem is actually writing H/D…
Q. So have you improved your/myself?
Answ. Oh hell yeah. …Like in… eerr. Well at least my dear lovely beta tells me my grammar is getting better (and that by the end of this, I won't need her to check my works, but that won't be happening, as I'm the queen of typ0s) Oh, and I'm rather proud of the literary elements that have been popping up by themselves. And writing is always good practice.
Q. What colour pants did Harry get Draco?
Answ. PINK of course.
Q. Really?
Answ. No. And they weren't silk, if that's the next question you/I want to ask.
Q. What pattern where they?
Answ. Little leopards dancing with giraffes, OR NOT. Move on.
Q. Where is Ginny?
Answ. Good question! Only one who has asked that too! It'll come up sooner or later (Christmas holiday) as she is in school, Hogwarts, and before semester started she was... not interested Draco. What do you mean I'm patching up?
Q. Did Draco read the children's books already?
Answ. Oh yes, many times and with relish.
Q. When will Draco renovate his own room?
Answ. Did already. I just haven't found an excuse to flash it around yet.
Q.
Answ.
Q.
Answ. Ohhh you can't think of anything anymore can you?
Q. Hungry. End of iFAQ
Answ. You think you're smart now, don't you? You've been reading too much One Piece. But, I guess this is it. Send me some questions, if you want answers, and if you don't want answers, don't question. We shall be back, precious!
