A/N: Um. Okay. I messed up. The Room of Requirement shouldn't have been discovered yet, it doesn't come in until OoTP. But we're going to pretend it has been found already, okay?
"Potter I will not tolerate your presence if you are going to brood." Snape said finally, slamming his ladle onto the table top.
Harry looked up incredulously "I'm sitting still, being quiet! You're always telling me to, and now that I am you want me to stop?!"
Once again they were sequestered in the potions lab; this time however Draco was not there and Snape was clearly unhappy with being left in Harry's presence overly long. Usually only Draco made a point of dropping in on the professor while he worked on their potion, and Harry would only be convinced to come along occasionally.
However he had felt overcrowded in the Slytherin common room and yet still he didn't want to be alone. Draco was nowhere to be found and Harry didn't want to share his misery with Ron and Hermione. And so here he was.
"You are not sitting still," Snape replied, "you are fidgeting. And you are not being quiet, I can hear your muttering from here. If you would just go and tell Black all that rubbish –"
"Don't." Harry said warningly. Though he would never admit it, he didn't mind Snape so much these days, but he knew that he woudn't be able to stand him starting on Sirius like he always did.
Snape shot Harry a contemptuous look, and continued speaking. "You cannot expect the man to act like a mature-"
"Shut up!" Harry said, leaping to his feet, fists clenched.
Snape's eyes darkened and he too rose up. "Silence. Ten points from Gryffindor. Show some respect-"
"Why should I?" Harry said viciously, his depression only fuelling his anger. "And I'll show respect when you do!"
"You haven't even heard what I was going to say-"
"I don't want to!" Harry said childishly. Why had he thought coming here was a good idea?
"Sit down Mr. Potter." Snape snarled, stalking over to him, robes flapping. "You will listen to me. Obviously no one else has explained this to you."
"Explained what?" Harry said sullenly, sinking down but keeping his eyes fixed angrily on the professor.
"One cannot expect to spend thirteen years in Azkaban prison and return whole."
"I'm not going to sit here and listen to you insult Sirius!" Harry snapped, getting to his feet again.
"Sit Potter! Ten more points from Gryffindor."
"I'm not a dog, don't tell me to sit! And I'm not in Gryffindor!"
"Then don't act like one." Snape replied caustically "On both counts. Now listen to me. I am not insulting Black, I am trying to explain something to you which the Headmaster has clearly not seen fit to."
That got Harry's attention.
"As I was saying – no one comes out of Azkaban without their mind being affected."
"Sirius isn't crazy!"
"I did not say that he was."
"Besides, he avoided the affect of the dementors by keeping in his animagus form." Harry said triumphantly.
"So he did." Snape arched an eyebrow. "And what effect do you think being a dog for thirteen years had on him?"
"Sirius is fine!" he said defensively. Snape ignored him.
"During the animagus transformation, a witch or wizard can keep their human mind. Without this ability, animagi would forget they were really human and would go about their animal lives until their death if not rescued. However, as you say, Black was not affected by the dementors whilst in his dog form."
"So?" Harry said suspiciously
"So what do you make of the fact that dementors attack human minds. Or souls – whatever distinction you make between the two. Animagi are affected by dementors usually."
Harry frowned. "What are you trying to say?" His curiosity was peaked now.
"I'm saying that the only way that what Black did was possible, was by deeply suppressing his human mind. Of course, he could not have done it completely, as he wanted to be able to transform back to his usual charming self when human visitors to the prison passed – which, incidentally, could only have been a few times a year. Visitors to that wing of Azkaban are extremely rare. No one wants to associate themselves with the prisoners locked in there."
"So you're trying to say that Sirius was-"
"Literally, he was a dog for most of those thirteen years." Snape cut in, "and whilst he was a dog, his mind was unable to focus on thing like human grief, or even think about what had happened properly. Tell me, Potter, what would be the effect of a twenty-one year old waking up one day and realising he is now middle aged and feeling the raw grief of his friends' death a decade ago as if it were yesterday? Not only that, but to have the pressure of having to present himself as a father figure to a boy who is mentally only slightly younger than himself. Never mind that you are the most at-risk wizard in Britain."
Harry stared at Snape. "Why are you telling me this?"
Snape's black eyes reflected Harry's in their obsidian depths. "Because it is the truth. Additionally, all who knew Black also knew he was immature for his age- in any case," he continued, "No one would have trusted him with rearing a child, even if they thought his heart was in the right place. He must have known he needed to ignore the urge to act like a teenage to provide a father figure to you. Yet his own emotions would be working against his will to do it."
"So you're saying I'm being too hard on him." Harry said dully, his incredularity of it being Snape who was saying this wiped out by his own guilt.
"Hardly." Snape replied "I only feel a need to point out that you are, quite normally for your situation, dealing with the guilt and shame of a parental figure rejecting you. Whereas you need to realise that you are looking at the situation from the wrong angle."
"What do you mean?" Harry said cautiously
"Black knows he should act like a responsible adult. He knows he should tell you he loves you-" Snape spat the words out like they were poison "-no matter who or what you are. But he received a substantial shock, and is suddenly unable to rid himself of his natural responses towards you."
"Which are?"
"He can't help but look at you as a peer more than a son. His reaction to you is most likely similar to the one Weasley had to you when he found out about your situation. Only Black does have some sense," Snape said sourly as if he barely believed it "and choose instead to remain silent until he can govern his mind."
Harry stared at Snape. "Does it matter, whether or not he rejects me as a friend or a son? He still doesn't want me."
"Stop being melodramatic. It's your decision entirely whether it matters, Potter." Snape replied "But I don't remember you castigating yourself so much over Weasley's opinion of you."
"Sirius is different to Ron." Harry pointed out
"Only because you make it so. Black hardly feels he can ask a child to not have parental expectations of him, especially when it's his duty. It is clear to anyone who cares to look that he fails miserably as a parent. What people do miss, however, is that he's barely out of his teens himself in his own eyes, and is not ready to be a father."
"You're saying he doesn't want me?"
"Are you listening? Do you think your expectations would be such a burden to him if he wasn't so desperate to please you?"
"So what are you saying I should do?" Harry said fustratedly, feeling as if he must be going crazy to take advice about Sirius from Snape of all people.
"Treat him like a peer, not a parent. He feels some parental responsibility, and he wants to fulfil that role even if he cannot do it completely. Allow him to carry out parental acts of his choosing. Allowing him to buy you clothes, for instance, to give you fatherly advice and such." Snape said dryly " I would say allow him to discipline you, but the man has no discipline over himself, and I doubt it would have an effect on you anyway."
Harry watched in silence as the professor lifted his ladle again and proceeded to pour measures of the potion which had been bubbling away in front of them, into four crystal phials.
"Why are you telling me all this?" Harry said finally, eyeing the glowing purple concoction as Snape held them up to the light.
"Merely so that you will at last wrap your mind around the fact that the world does not revolve around you, and hence stop fidgeting and muttering pointlessly while I'm trying to work."
Harry scowled, but his heart wasn't in it. He wanted to believe that Snape really was giving duff advice just to shut him up, but his explanations had a ring of truth to them, and besides that, they eased the weight on Harry's shoulders, despite who the words had come from.
Snape was now clearing equipment and ingredients from the tables they had been arranged on for weeks.
"What are you doing?" Harry asked, then suddenly hopeful, added "Are you finished our potion?"
"What do you think I was doing a moment ago?" Snape said dryly, inclining his head towards the cupboard where the four crystal vials were sitting, the potion inside them now dulling down from the vivid purple it had been. "Crystal vials do not come cheap, I'm hardly making a headache cure."
Heart racing, Harry jumped to his feet and was halfway out the door within seconds. He needed to tell Draco about this!
As the door slammed shut behind him Snape winced and decided he should have brewed a headache cure after all.
...ooo000ooo...
"Do you really want to change back?" Harry said suddenly.
Beside him, Draco frowned, putting the golden egg down. They were sitting side by side on the grass next to the lake, hidden from general view by a thicket of bushes. Draco had taken to carrying the egg with him everywhere, so that he could take it out at every opportunity to examine it, as if the casing held some kind of clue to the horrific noise contained within.
So far, the boys had had no luck whatsoever figuring out the noise, although they found themselves compulsively lying to everyone who asked them about it, at first just to keep Hermione at bay, because now that they were all talking – more or less – she had taken up her old habit of making sure everyone around her took their work seriously. For Draco and Harry obviously, figuring out the egg's clue took the place of homework. Although she seemed extremely curious about what exactly it was that they had found out, thankfully she didn't ask them about it directly, though she clearly was dying to.
Now however, with less than a month to go to the tournament, Draco was too full of pride to admit to anyone that he hadn't figured the clue out. Harry admitted to himself that he suspected that Draco had stumbled across something he wasn't talking about, because his face went magically blank whenever Harry quizzed him about it. He should have been upset that he was being lied to, but it had become a sort of game. Draco knew that Harry knew that Draco knew something. And the two of them could drop hints and shoot suspicious glances or superior smirks, but neither said anything directly. Only the apologetic smile and squeeze of his hand Draco gave him after each episode stopped Harry from feeling offended.
"Draco?" Harry prompted. "What do you think? The potions ready. We could take it any day now."
Draco stared out over the lake. "I'm not sure. I think I do. I want to be myself again." He looked back at Harry. "But...I'm already myself, aren't I? We'd just be maintaining the deception."
"Are you comfortable, being me?" Harry was genuinely curious. That, and his own feelings were too confused to even begin to rationalize.
"It's..." Draco began, then sighed. "I don't know. It doesn't feel right, and yet...I don't think I could go back to it all, as if nothing had happened. What about you?"
"I think I feel the same." Harry said slowly. "I – I think I am comfortable. I just want things both ways. I want my friends back, but I like not being stared at constantly. I like having parents. Well," he amended, smiling wryly "I like having a mother at least."
For a moment they merely watched the wind ripple the surface of the lake. It was still winter, and the air was bitingly cold, yet they barely felt it.
"If you think about it," Draco began slowly "we really just are who we are, no matter what skin we're in. I'm not the old me anymore, and you aren't either. If we're choosing a body, it's only to keep other people happy. Or to stop them being confused. Because whatever we do, I know I don't want to have to hide."
A lamp lit in Harry's mind, and things seemed ten times clearer. "Yes." He said "I don't want to pretend I'm you, but I don't want to have to pretend that I'm the same old me either." He snorted suddenly.
"What?"
"I'm just thinking. I've actually grown to like having nice clothes and looking good. I mean, I miss my old hair, but I'd like to keep the fashion sense."
Draco smirked. "Knew I'd get there eventually."
"I might even get new glasses." Harry said
"Or you could get your vision corrected permanently." Draco suggested in a tone that indicated he would very much like this to happen.
"Don't like my glasses, do you?" Harry challenged playfully, shoving at Draco's shoulder.
Draco allowed himself to be pushed over. "I just like your eyes." He said, holding Harry's gaze.
For a moment they stared at each other, and Harry was about to lean over when with a thump, the golden egg rolled towards the lake; Draco had knocked it down the slope as he had rolled over.
With unerring seeker's skill, Harry lunged after it, snatching it up.
"I suppose we should stop wasting time and figure this out." Draco said glumly, sitting up.
"Maybe it's not a magical creature." Harry suggested "Maybe it's a code we have to decipher."
Draco didn't answer.
"Draco?"
The boy looked miserable. "I had a thought, a few weeks ago." He said finally.
"Would this be the thought you've been avoiding telling me?" Harry said, raising an eyebrow.
Draco looked at the ground guiltily. "I'm sorry. It's just that...if I'm right – and I'm probably not," he added quickly "If I'm right, it probably involves water."
"Water?"
"The lake, specifically."
"Okaay." Harry said carefully, waiting for him to continue.
"Harry..." Draco looked away. "I don't like water."
Harry considered this. "I understand... you were hoping that by now you would have found a different explanation? You must really not like water."
Draco nodded sheepishly.
"So what's the screeching noise then?" Harry said, moving on quickly. Draco clearly didn't want to discuss his fear anymore than he had.
"I've never heard a real one," Draco said "but it sounds similar to a man I once heard talking Mermish. It was a long time ago though. It was Crabbe's dad actually. He claimed he could speak Mermish, and he tried to prove it at one of Mother's dinner parties, but of course no one else could understand it to verify it."
"Bet Mother wasn't pleased." Harry said, smirking at the thought of a full grown man bursting into shrieks and wails at a dinner party.
"Every time the Crabbes had to be at one of our functions, Mother made sure the house elves always stinted on their portions – particularly the Firewhisky."
They both snickered.
"So you think we'll have to go into the lake?" Harry said finally.
"We?"
"Well, we haven't decided whether we're going to get our old bodies back or not, but no matter what, we could always take the first dose and not the second. You know, try being ourselves for a while and see how it goes."
"You want to do that?" Draco said warily "I won't lie, I don't want to do the task if it is what I think it is, but if we haven't decided within a month after taking the potion-"
"There won't be a second chance to take the second dose and make it permanent, I know." Harry finished
"I could always cast about twenty cheering charms on myself before I go into the water." Draco said bravely
"Your judgement would be impaired." Harry said dismissively "It would be the quickest way to drown yourself."
"We won't do that then." Draco said quickly
"Look, we need to decipher the clue first anyway. Do you know anyone who speaks Mermish?"
"I'll bet Granger has a phrasebook." Draco said "But why don't we try the library first."
Harry agreed hastily. No need to let Hermione know they had lied to her, after all.
...ooo000ooo...
"You – you really just stole from Snape's office?" Ron said, eyeing Draco as if he were a madman.
"Sev wasn't in." Draco shrugged dismissively, and Ron's eyes widened at the nickname and he took a step away. "He briefed us about it anyway." He handed Harry one of the purple-filled vials.
"Besides, we need to take it now if we want to be sure we're changed before the second task." Harry added in a voice that didn't betray his churning stomach as he grasped the cool crystal in his hand.
"Why does it need to be now?" Hermione said urgently. She had made no secret of her severe disapproval of this plan, but last night Draco had found out how to decipher Mermish in the library. He had headed straight for the Room of Requirement with Harry trailing after him, calling 'What do you mean, a swim?'
"You can't just take such a risk with something so important –"
"Oh for goodness sake's Granger!" Draco said, uncorking the vial as Hermione lunged forward.
"You idiot!" she screeched as he tipped it back. Harry, watching him, shrugged and followed suit as Hermione began to rant at them.
"You don't even know how long it takes! What if it takes a week? How are you going to explain why you're halfway through what looks like a messed up Polyjuice attempt?"
Harry stopped drinking abruptly. Why hadn't they thought of that. He was just lowering the vial when Hermione began flapping her hands at him.
"Drink it up!" she ordered "Who knows what the effects are if you take it too slowly!"
Harry obeyed, now feeling a quiver of unease. He turned to Draco who stared back at him sheepishly. Nothing had happened.
What if Hermione was right?
"You're going straight to Professor Snape tomorrow morning, first thing." She told them.
"After breakfast," Draco countered "I refuse to approach him before he's had at least four cups of coffee."
...ooo000ooo...
They had had no choice but to carry on as if they had not taken the potion. Harry went back to Slytherin and Draco to Gryffindor that night. They might change in their sleep, which would be problematic, but not so much as it would be if they began to undergo the change in class.
As Harry lay in bed, he racked his brains as he went over the Mermish clue in his mind, just as he knew Draco must be doing up in the Gryffindor tower. He didn't really want to think about the consequences of their rashness of taking the potion. He had too much on his plate as it was; there was now mere days until the second task and they had only just uncovered the clue – but they had no plan for the task still.
Come seek us where our voices sound.
We cannot sing above the ground,
So he had to seek the mermaids in the lake itself.
And while you re searching, ponder this:
We've taken what you'll sorely miss,
Harry had no idea what this could be. Would the judges be rifling through his possessions?
An hour long you'll have to look,
And to recover what we took,
But past an hour- the prospect's black,
Too late, it's gone, it won't come back
That was fairly obvious. There was a time limit, and exceeding it would not be a good idea.
Harry spent long hours lying awake that night, thinking through the clue and making plans for a thorough scouring of the library the next day. Obviously he would need a way to spend around an hour under water. It didn't sound so hard – there must be a charm out there, or a potion. Self consciously he was also staying awake because he was awaiting his body to change back. So far there was no sign of it though.
Rolling onto his side, Harry attempted to fall asleep. Flutterings of panic were starting to disturb him now, and he was finding it difficult to relax. Was this how Draco had felt before the First Task?
That night, Harry dreamt about the lake, which he had always taken for granted as just another feature of the grounds. He was sinking slowly into a great, iron-gray mass of chilly water, whose dark and icy depths were as distant as the moon, and as he tried desperately to swim, he only sunk faster into the water, which was as thick as molasses.
...ooo000ooo...
Staring into the mirror, Draco sighed heavily. It looked as if Hermione's prediction might come true after all. Harry's face stared back at him from the mirror.
Grabbing his book bag as he headed out from the dorm, he resigned himself to an early visit to Severus after breakfast. Maybe the professor would help him with the second task. There was probably a good potion for underwater travel...
As he approached the dining hall, his scalp began to itch intolerably. Thanking Merlin for Harry's mop of messy hair, he allowed himself a good scratch because he knew it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference.
I better not have caught nits off Finnigan, he thought idly as he walked into the Great Hall in Harry's usual manner (scuffing his feet slightly and his hands in his pockets). Finnigan was the most likely candidate for the source of such an ailment, he thought to himself. His accent simply screamed 'peasant!'...although then again Weasley was always a good bet for common diseases. His family did live in a 'burrow' after all. Who would call their home that, honesty?
It was interesting how he could think thoughts like this with humour now, instead of real malice. Gryffindor had changed him, and sometimes he forgot quite how much. He wondered how much more would come out when he had to return to his old house, and how much Harry would have changed too.
He only noticed that everyone was staring at him when Neville dropped his pumpkin juice all over the table cloth.
"Easy does it, Nev!" he said cheerfully, sliding onto the bench. Suddenly he realised that the Gryffindor table had fallen silent around him. A feeling of intense foreboding gripped him as he looked up.
"Malfoy." Ron said steadily from across the table, his eyes wide in warning. "Why are you dressed like a Gryffindor?"
Draco took a moment to grab the nearest spoon and squint at his reflection. He didn't bother looking further than the platinum hair reflected back at him. He looked up, staring back at Ron, his mouth opening but devoid of words. He was growing aware of the hostile and shocked faces of everyone around him, as well as the rising buzz of whispers.
The rest of the hall had caught onto the growing silence, and more people were craning their necks to get a good look at what was going on.
Draco turned to stare desperately across the hall. Harry was staring back at him, looking panicked. He still looked like Draco though.
Fuck.
There was nothing for it.
"MALFOY!" Draco roared, flinging himself off the bench and marching across the hall "What the hell have you done to me?!"
"Mr-" Professor McGonagall began, rising to her feet, but someone – either Snape or Dumbledore – pulled her back down into her seat where she spluttered indignantly.
Harry looked panicked for a moment, though he too shot to his feet. "Nothing you weren't sorely in need of!" he drawled back after only a second's hesitation. "The rest of us were growing tired of staring at your ugly mug!"
"Outside!" Draco hissed at him, as soon as he was close enough to grab Harry by the collar.
"I'll take him on, on my own. Stay here." Harry ordered Crabbe and Goyle as they made to follow them. He made a show of shoving Draco away from him as they left the hall. "You'll be sorry, Potter!" he declared loudly. Draco winced. Potter's acting had improved somewhat, but that had been poor.
Some people at the other tables were making to get out of their seats to watch the fight, the foreign students either looking excited or disgusted, but Dumbledore stood up and demanded silence.
"Everyone, please continue with your meal. Severus?" he turned to the Potions Master, who nodded once and swept after the pair. Unnoticed by the headmaster, Professor McGonagall followed after, intent on making sure that Severus didn't heap all the blame on poor Harry.
...ooo000ooo...
Rather than really go outside, Harry immediately tugged Draco into the nearest doorway once they were in the Entrance Hall. His heart was thundering in his chest as he looked Draco up and down.
He shut the door behind them. They were in a disused classroom, but he barely paid his surroundings any attention. His attention was transfixed on the vision before him.
He hadn't seen Draco like this before. Ever.
When he'd looked up from his porridge in the Great Hall to see what the cause of the disturbance was, he had not expected to see Draco Malfoy looking back at him from Gryffindor, his red and gold tie askew and his hair mussed and slightly curled. It was unheard of.
It had taken his breath away. He had barely even been able to think of a comeback when Draco addressed him.
Even now, as he stared at the boy he had wasted a good deal of time hating, his eyes lingered on the slight tan to cheeks that had always been pale, and the careless slouch to shoulders accustomed to being ramrod straight.
As he stared, Draco shifted uncomfortably.
"How do you think-" Draco began, but Harry talked over him as if he couldn't hear.
"You're keeping this." He said, reaching up to touch Draco's hair.
"You like it?" Draco replied, amused, although if he had been able to see himself he would be horrified. "Missed the old me?" he teased.
He almost stopped breathing at the look Harry gave him, before he crashed his lips into Draco's.
Harry had wanted to kiss Draco properly for some time, but he had held back. The moment had never been right, or he had been struck by the weirdness of waiting to snog his own image. But now Draco was back, the real Draco, and he wondered at how he had been able to glare at this face for the last three years and still believe himself to be heterosexual.
Now however, if the moment was not ripe, Harry didn't know what it was.
Draco melted under his touch, and Harry barrelled them into the desks behind him. Draco's back had barely collided with the table top he had wound a leg around Harry and he forced his way on top. Chairs clattered to the floor around them, but Harry heard nothing other than both of their frantic breathing, and saw nothing other than that face he had missed so badly without realising it. This time, Harry was the one turning to putty in Draco's hands, as his cool fingers ran up his sides underneath his shirt, and when he caught a flash of red and gold, he grabbed a hold of the tie, tugged Draco even closer. Their bodies were moulded together now, Harry's lips felt bruised and sore already, but he did not care; Draco's tongue was in his mouth and he had never been closer to heaven.
Somewhere, as Harry and Draco managed to roll off the desks with a thump, he heard a distant bang. Perhaps he heard voices too.
It wasn't until Draco was very suddenly not in his arms, and his own back was thudding against the wall, that he realised that something was wrong.
Harry stared around in shock. When his eyes landed on Professor Snape, he felt a rush of cold horror.
"Shit."
"Forty points from Gryffindor and Slytherin." Snape said, looking utterly sick to his stomach.
Harry gaped back unseeingly, not understanding. Then Professor McGonagall entered the room, by means of a dead faint.