A/N: I was reading back through the chapters, you know, to get a feel for the story again, when I noticed I made a pretty important mistake in chapter 9. No one mentioned it to me! But doesn't matter anymore, because I fixed it. So nyeh, nyeh! You guys missed it! Heh. Also, in celebration of last chapter having the most reviews of the 12, I've made this one a bit longer than usual. Anyway~ Story time!
Romeo, Romeo
Fred and George were nothing if not quick. By Wednesday afternoon, they had a plan, and were ready to put it into action just as soon as they could gather the ingredients for the potion. Sadly, they had been delayed. Snape had wised up to his missing supplies and had chosen to change the storage locks at the most inopportune time. It had taken the twins the entire rest of the week to break past the various magical seals.
Surprisingly, Hermione knew about the plan, and did nothing to stop it. Sitting in their usual chairs in the common room, she and Ron were working steadily for the good of the play. Harry stood before the fireplace, dressed in Romeo's half-finished tunic and trying not to yawn as Hermione eyed him critically, making small adjustments here and there to Ron's surprisingly decent work. The boring task allowed his mind to wander and rather than focusing on the self-conscious feelings that should be plaguing him, dressed as he was in front of all of Gryffindor, he concentrated on the mystery that was Malfoy.
After his confrontation with the other boy, Harry had been surprised to find that Malfoy was still ready to uphold his side of the deal. As usual, Harry was late. Even so, the blond was waiting for him and, more importantly, for his chocolate. But their lesson had been cut short. Though Harry had managed to inject emotion into the lines as Malfoy demanded, the Slytherin had interrupted him mid-sentence. "Time's up," he'd informed Harry with a tight smile and picked up his chocolates on his way to the door.
"Hang on," Harry had called, half-rising from his desk in a panic he couldn't quite explain. "We haven't finished the Act yet."
Malfoy had looked back, brow raised. "That's your problem. You were the one who was late. I do have other obligations, Potter," he'd reminded Harry, completely unsympathetic, and left without another glance. And for the whole week, while the rest of Gryffindor put on a good show of support and rallied behind their beleaguered stage crew, Harry was operating in absolute basket-case mode, something he was only able to hide thanks to his lack of energy.
Malfoy had haunted his dreams, night after night. He'd hardly slept since Tuesday, that husky chuckle reverberating through his mind and making him wake in a cold sweat each time he'd finally managed to slip off. The Slytherin's smile, his hair, even the way he savored a simple chocolate bar constantly floated to the front of his brain, disturbing him enough that behaving normally would have been a trial had he not been so utterly exhausted.
Harry had been counting on relaxing during rehearsal, but they'd finished the first reading Thursday and when Monday came back around, Trelawney had separated the actors into smaller groups.
He envied the students with less important roles. For them, rehearsals had been cut to once a week. But for Harry, it was nearly two hours of more individualized torture. The thirty minutes or so that Trelawney had paired him with Seamus hadn't been so bad. It was the rest of the time that he spent practicing his lines with Lisa that really sent the day in a downward spiral to terrible.
Lisa was sweet. She was patient and understanding, and smart, the perfect mix of "girl" and "Ravenclaw", and because she was Juliet to his Romeo, Trelawney and Binns had more than once had to call the other pairs' attention back to their own reciting. But exchanging the lines with Lisa that he'd only a week before studied with Malfoy somehow just felt wrong.
Then, as Harry was bidding Romeo's farewell to the girl, he'd felt that familiar glare on his back. The blood that, much to Lisa's amusement, had been heating his cheeks in a blush for the better part of the rehearsal drained from his face when he took a glance over his shoulder to find Malfoy staring with narrowed eyes in his direction. The Slytherin snapped his own lines at a terrified Hannah Abbot and Terry Boot, both shrinking back slightly.
Harry would have bet all the galleons in his vault that the two were wishing they'd been selected as the Montague parents rather than the Capulet, because at that moment, he was wishing he'd been selected as anyone but Romeo.
The rest of that rehearsal had passed in a blur, with Harry trying to ignore the feeling that he was being watched intensely and Lisa laughing at his discomfort. "It's just a play," she reminded him more than once, and Harry didn't bother to correct her assumption. She didn't need to know that he was always, always aware of Malfoy's presence in the room, of Malfoy's glare on him.
He needed to talk to someone about it, had tried more than once to bring it up to one of his friends. But Hermione kept Ron, Dean, and herself busy with the set, trying to repair the damage the Slytherins had caused and trying to proof it against anything else the buggers might come up with. Harry didn't think such young wizards, even ones with connections like the Slytherins, would be able to get their hands on a dragon, but Hermione had insisted on prepping the set even for that unlikely case. It was time-consuming, and today had been the first time Harry had seen the three outside of class. Even Seamus had been unavailable, alternating between Dean-hunting and vanishing completely.
Briefly, Harry had considered discussing his problem with Lisa, but decided against it. He wasn't entirely sure why he didn't want Malfoy to find the two of them together outside their usual meeting time, but he didn't want to risk it. The fact that he cared at all what Malfoy would think only added to his confusion. Then, when he'd had the chance to ask her, sitting alone with the Ravenclaw in the library that Sunday, he'd let it pass, choosing instead to put more concentration in a Transfigurations essay than he'd ever had. McGonagall would be so proud.
So he suffered alone, wishing for the first time in his life that he was at least as smart as Hermione. Then he'd have been able to figure out the problem on his own and finally gotten some sleep. Harry suppressed another yawn, blushing slightly at Hermione's quick glare, and straightened his back.
"How come you're not trying to stop them, 'Mione?" Ron's question broke into Harry's thoughts, and he looked over at his friend. The red-head was holding up one of the swords and glaring at it as he muttered a charm that rounded the sharp edge. Just looking at the boy, it took Harry a moment to realize that Ron was talking about the plan that Fred and George had developed.
Hermione gave a careless shrug, narrowing her eyes at a loose seam and quickly fixing it. "I've got my eyes too closely on that darn balcony to notice anything else. I can't care about what I can't see, now can I?" she answered oh-so-innocently and turned her attention back to her costume-making. Ron grinned at her proudly until she ordered him back to work. The rapiers the Slytherins had made weren't going to dull themselves and after their last performance, there was no way she'd leave them as they were.
It was the Monday after the flying sword incident and the twins were finally ready to put their plan in action. Even now, the two were downstairs in the kitchen, readying their revenge, and excitement filled the air as the students waited impatiently for dinner to begin.
Disappointment soon took over though. The wide grins on the Weasley boys' faces indicated a job well done, but the students at the Slytherin table seemed completely normal. "This business isn't always about being flashy," Fred explained to Harry and Ron around a mouthful of chicken.
"It's about being sneaky sometimes too. Psychological warfare, mates. It comes to that sometimes," George told them and leaned back on the bench to watch as his current rivals, the entire of Slytherin house, unsuspectingly ate their meal.
Harry kept his head down and said nothing. How would his dorm-mates feel if they knew, even after everything the Slytherin majority of the stage crew had done, even after years of fighting between the two houses, that at that moment, Harry wanted nothing more than to stop the leader of that house from his fair share of payback? Shock, awe, possibly anger....definitely anger. He sighed softly and pushed his chicken across his plate before half-heartedly taking a few bites of potato.
Despite moving his food around more than actually eating it, Harry waited at his table until the Great Hall was mostly emptied, watching as students rose and left in pairs or groups. Malfoy had been one of the first to leave.
It wasn't until Seamus left that Harry finally started to make his way up the stairs to the dorm. But he still couldn't find the opportunity to talk to the Irish boy. Seamus was too concerned with trying to get Dean to pay enough attention to him to carry on a conversation. So far, Dean found sketching the design for the remainder of the props much more absorbing and was putting an awful lot of effort into ignoring his accident- prone friend.
It was a sign of his frustration that when Harry noticed Neville alone in their dorm room, he actually considered discussing his problem with him. He changed into his pajamas slowly, debating the pros and cons. Finally, he decided to go for it and spun on his heel, mouth open and ready to burst out all these curious thoughts rattling through his brain like an out of control train, causing massive confusion and hinting at future disaster.
But he'd taken too long. Neville was curled under his sheets, his quiet snores sounding loud through the room, now that Harry's brain had paused long enough to hear them.
The fates were against him. God was against him. Whoever the heck it was that controlled what happened and when, was against him. It was the only explanation. How else would every single one of his friends find themselves too preoccupied to pay him any mind at exactly the same time? Harry slipped under the covers of his bed and crossed his arms under his head as he stared blankly at the canopy above him, settling in for another night of restlessness.
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The twins' plan went off without a hitch and their insomnia inducing potion became an instant hit with the consumers on their "black market". Weary-eyed Slytherins, complete with dark circles and dulled reactions, were a source of entertainment for every class, every bone-cracking yawn upping the popularity of the potion. Fred and George would be making money hand over foot.
Even Snape grew frustrated with his house, taking points from a few Slytherins for what had to be the first time in years. It certainly lifted a few eyebrows on Harry's side of the room.
Classes were over just as Harry was beginning to enjoy himself. After all, it wasn't every day that students actually fell off their chairs from sleep deprivation. Hermione was clearly satisfied, even going so far as to slap Ron's hand under the table, the closest she'd ever come to a high-five.
But Harry didn't join in the celebration, only offering a smile when other Gryffindors started talking about it. It being Tuesday afternoon, he had another lesson with Malfoy and he wasn't sure what to expect. Somehow, it just didn't seem right to him that all of Slytherin had been punished just because a few of them had taken action against some of the Gryffindors, and he did know that Malfoy wouldn't appreciate it.
His final class of the day had been cancelled. Professor Sprout obviously had much more sympathy for the Slytherins, who couldn't stay awake long enough to prune regular roses, forget the ones that fought back, than their other teachers had. So Harry sat alone in his dorm, turning over the small box of chocolates, all Almond Joys this time, in his hands and thinking about what to say to Malfoy.
He was on time today, didn't have an excuse not to be, but he still opened the door carefully, not sure if the Slytherin was even going to be there. What he saw made him pause in the doorway, staring in shock. It was several quiet minutes before he shook himself out of his surprise and moved further into the room, closing the door behind him.
Malfoy was there, as usual having beat Harry to the room, but he was sleeping, his head cradled in the curve of one arm and his other hand resting atop his rarely used script, elegant fingers curled in a loose fist. Harry moved closer, trying to stay quiet. He'd never seen the other boy asleep before and the difference was nothing short of amazing.
While awake, Malfoy always seemed to look at Harry with a sneer or anger, his face harsh and his eyes cold. In sleep, his face was completely relaxed, soft blond lashes splayed across pale cheeks and barely open lips that let out deep, even breaths.
Harry stared blankly at the tanned hand that reached out, only inches from touching the hair that had slipped over Malfoy's brow before it struck him that it was his own. He hadn't even realized that he'd moved his hand, but since it was already there, no point in not continuing. Malfoy's hair was a soft as it looked, but the feel of it slipping past his fingertips brought Harry crashing back to earth and he drew away, sliding to sit into a chair several desks from his tutor.
What was wrong with him? Touching another boy's hair, and while the boy was sleeping? Harry knew what it would have looked like if anyone had seen it. He dug his hand into his hair and dropped his chin to the desk. Then, he sat back up immediately, shifting to set the chocolates on the desk next to him before resuming his slumping. Even if the boy slept through the entire lesson, it would be a sin to let an Almond Joy melt in his hands, even more so for a box of them.
Though he resolved not to let it happen, Harry's eyes drifted to and stayed on the unguarded face of his Slytherin rival. Malfoy had been running through his mind for the past week, had been keeping him awake at nights. The concern over what Malfoy thought, the worry over what he'd thought was jealousy, wanting to save the boy from the twins' prank war, and the confusion brought on by it all. He'd been trying for days to figure out why mattered. It took seeing the boy like this, Harry smiled at the soft snore that briefly interrupted his thoughts, for him to realize the answer.
It sounded a lot like the way Seamus acted to Dean sometimes, like how Hermione acted to Ron when she thought no one was looking. It had taken him so long, because the feeling of serene warmth that he felt even now combined with the twisting mass of nervous energy he became when Malfoy was awake, was all so different than anything he'd experienced he was when he thought he'd been in love with Cho Chang.
Harry was beginning to suspect he was getting a small, teensy-weensy, insignificant, never ever to be acted upon, crush on Draco Malfoy.
But right now, with the sense of peace that flooded the room, and the drowsiness that blurred the edges of his vision as it slowly took over, Harry couldn't even force himself to be the slightest panicked at the realization.
For the first time in days, his brain slowed to a halt, the thoughts that had kept him awake faded into the background. He watched Malfoy silently, the sun sinking ever lower in the sky, and couldn't find the energy to be concerned that it wasn't right to feel so comfortable in the presence of the boy who taunted and teased him for years.
Harry smiled as Malfoy let out another gentle snore and let his eyes close, reminding his tired brain with one last thought before fully succumbing to deep sleep: I've got to get a second opinion.
A/N: Okay. Not really sure how I feel about this chapter. I tried to illustrate Harry's "basket case" mode over everything, and I'm not too sure it came out how I wanted it. So let me know what you think, ok? And thanks to those who let me know what they thought about the last chapter: Rikuri, latextoa, jenamy, LyricallyInspired, HiM'e'TSu, ForeverRose123, Draco and Hermione is like PBJ, DarkWiccanPrincess, xHinata Uzumakix, Lady-Umbreon, purplerawr, SunshineAndDaisies, SexySpeedDemon, paintupurple, brionyjae, and Sophia Anna-Mae. See, look it. That's 16! And a lot of them are new! Awesome. Really!