Chapter 2 - The Sweet Smell Of Coffee In The Morning
The corridor Pansy and Blaise led him down was darker than most. Wide mullioned windows were replaced by lit torches in brackets along the length of the walls. As the corridor snaked around abruptly, Harry knew they were deeply underground.
The corridor stopped in front of them. Two suits of armour flanked a large tapestry that glowed with the rich silks used to weave it. A coiled serpent with its jaws agape displaying sharp, pointed fangs rose up on a rock. The bright glint of precious stones shone from its eyes. Harry felt a soft shiver run down his spine. The flicker of torch light over the jewels stirred the feeling he always had before speaking in Parseltongue. Could he? He wondered. Could Malfoy speak Parseltongue if Harry could?
There was a long silence, and Harry looked from Pansy to Blaise, both of whom were looking at him expectantly, with a slightly bemused expression.
"Go on, Draco." She said, a tinge of worry in her voice. "Normally, you can't wait."
"What?" Harry asked awkwardly, feeling more confused with every passing minute.
"The password." The dark haired boy stated, lifting an eyebrow. "You know. The thing you refuse to allow us to say. In your exuberance to get inside."
"I've…forgotten it." Harry's answer wasn't that great, but it was the best he could do on the spot. "I think I got hit on the head harder than Madam Pomfrey thought." He tried to put on a sneer. "Stupid woman doesn't know what she's doing." The look of sheer relief Pansy exchanged with Blaise told him that he was doing something vaguely similar to Draco at any rate.
Pretending to be Draco was much harder than he had thought.
"All right." Blaise said, after a short pause. He turned, and addressed the tapestry snake. "Down with Godric!" he said briskly, and as Harry blinked in astonishment the snake's eyes sparkled and its jaw snapped shut with an audible bite. The tapestry shifted and the door behind it swung open.
Cautiously, Harry followed Pansy and Blaise inside. It was warm, unexpectedly. A fire blazed in in a huge brick fireplace that took up most of one wall. Scattered about were the same deep, comfortable armchairs they had upstairs in Gryffindor, but in black a green. Pansy made her way swiftly across the room, and shooed a couple of first years off a sofa, and curled up at one end of it. Blaise gave Harry a warm, conspiratorial look with a roll of his eyes, and followed suit.
Harry folded himself into the opposite corner of the couch, as Blaise quite comfortably; it seemed, seated himself in a high backed armchair. Pansy kicked off her shoes and tucked her feet underneath her. Both of them seemed to be watching him nervously.
"What?" Harry asked, unable to bear it much longer. Pansy chewed on the edge of her thumb, looking at Blaise carefully. Harry, in a state of confusion, looked at him too. Blaise's face twisted into a grimace, but he nodded sharply.
"It's the match. " Pansy began to explain cautiously. "You see, when you fell out of the sky-"Again, her eyes flickered to Blaise. It was almost as if she was…scared. Of Malfoy. Harry shook his head a bit as if to clear it; the room was warm and he felt curiously drowsy.
Blaise took in a deep breath, and continued, breezily. "Same old situation, Draco. You and Potter lunge for the snitch, Potter has a faster broom between his legs, he knocks into you and a Bludger finishes you both off." He gave Harry a sly, slanted look. "Except that Professor Flitwick decided that potter had the claim on the Snitch. Oh, but what does Quidditch matter anyway?" He put in quickly, trying his best to sound bored beyond the pale. Harry was about to let the tumultuous grin spread across his face; he'd won, even when Malfoy had tried to knock him out of the air, he'd won – and then he saw Pansy's face whiten.
"Oh, don't Blaise." She said quietly, her hands clenching on her lap together. "Don't make it worse; he doesn't want to know, doesn't want to – Oh why did you bring it up?" She berated the dark haired boy and Blaise's face drew into a sulky scowl.
"Someone had to tell him, Pansy." He retorted. "I know it's not good news, but Draco still has to know. I knew you'd ask, you see." He turned to Harry apologetically. "And Gryffindor will crow for weeks after this. I thought it better, you're prepared."
They both stared at him, faces open and readable. Pansy's showed visible regret and disappointment, and Blaise's, somewhat more carefully hidden but the blasé despondency rubbing off around the edges to show that he too, cared that Malfoy might perhaps be a bit down that he'd lost. Again.
Does Quidditch really matter that much to Malfoy? Harry wondered in utter bemusement. Yes, the losses were a great deal disheartening, but to be this worked up over them, for Malfoy's friends to panic about his loss…
He didn't know what to say, so he shrugged his shoulders bewilderedly, and leant his head back against the soft plush of the furniture. Pansy and Blaise stared again.
"That's the first time we haven't been treated to a long rant." Pansy muttered in a low voice that Harry only just caught. Blaise shook his head.
"You look tired, Draco."
"I am." Harry decided, a wave of sleepiness sweeping across him. His mind ached with the complications of thinking; already he found it bizarre that Malfoy, Malfoy, appeared to have friends. Live ones. Albeit friends who were terrified that he'd find out he'd lost the Quidditch match, but friends all the same.
"It's late." Pansy said, looking at a delicate gold watch on her wrist. "Nearly nine o'clock. Don't worry about the rounds tonight, Draco. I'll do them. You ought to go to bed."
"It's nine?" Harry repeated, eyes widening in shock. Blaise nodded.
"You were in the Hospital Wing a long time. Out for hours. Madam Pomfrey gave you something; to prevent injury, I think she said. I wasn't really listening." He said dismissively. "Come on then. 'Night, Pansy."
The slim boy hauled himself to his feet, and waited a moment. Harry got up and Blaise slung an arm around his shoulder companionably.
"Acting awfully strange this evening." Pansy observed from her place on the sofa, looking up at the both. "But I imagine you'll sleep it off. Mother always said-"
"We don't want to hear about your dratted Mother." Blaise murmured in Harry's ear. "Goodnight Pansy!" He said loudly as he steered Harry skilfully across the common-room. As his hand slipped from Harry's back down to his arse, and squeezed it gently, almost absently. Harry's breath caught in his throat in surprise. He looked across at Blaise in shock, but the youth was humming something softly, and opened the door to the dormitories with a dramatic flourish.
"Milord." He bowed low teasingly, a mocking smirk plastered across his face. Harry slipped in through the entrance-way, and Blaise closed the door behind them.
"God, the draughts in this place are terrible." He moaned, slamming it a little. He brushed past Harry to move quickly down the long corridor, a flight of stairs at the end of it, leading downwards. Blaise turned just before the stairs, and pushed open a door, disappearing inside a room. Slowly, Harry followed, looking all about him.
The room inside was very similar to his own dormitory. Five large four poster beds, their thick hangings a deep green stood about, trunks at the end of each. Blaise flopped down on what was evidently his own bed, and began pawing through his blankets, trying to find something. Harry looked around desperately, trying to work out which bed was Malfoy's. He moved closer to one, hoping to catch a glimpse of the name etched onto the trunk; no, wrong, 'Vincent Crabbe'. Blaise didn't appear to notice, as he caught sight with a relief of 'Property of Draco Malfoy' stamped smartly on the top of a black metal trunk.
"I think you stuffed them under your pillow." Blaise said helpfully from his own bed, waving a pair of pyjamas triumphantly in the air. They caught the light, shimmering a bit, apparently some sort of deep green satin. "Found mine. Goyle tried to make a flag out of them this morning." He groused, scowling. He curled up into a cross-legged comfortable position to wait for Harry.
Fishing gingerly under Malfoy's pillow – urgh, Malfoy's pyjamas – Harry's fingers closed around bunched fabric, and he tugged. Far from the satin monstrosities Blaise had in his lap, much to Harry's relief, Malfoy's pyjamas weren't horrific. In fact, as he shook out a pair of plain, pin-striped cotton trousers and jacket, the only Slytherin-brat thing there was about them was that the needle thin stripes were in green.
He was about to hail his robes off and simply roll into bed, when Blaise coughed discreetly.
"Um, Draco?"
Harry looked up warily. Blaise looked half-way between shocked and confused. "What are you doing? There's mud. In your hair. I mean, far be it from me to curb your fastidious habits, I know that if I don't get up before you tomorrow, you'll pinch all the hot water, but you never go to bed without showering. What's come over you?"
"Er, I…forgot." Was Harry's ever so eloquent response, he didn't have enough time to think of a more Draco like response. He looked about him desperately, rather hoping a towel would materialize before him, with 'Property of Draco Malfoy' on it as well.
Blaise gave him another funny look, and eventually got up off the bed. "I don't believe I'm doing this." He declared, and then his lips twitched into a crooked smile. Placing his hands purposefully on Harry's shoulders, he steered him back out of the dormitory and across the hallway.
Through a door, with another exaggerated bow, Blaise stood beside Harry, watching him. It was a bathroom. Much like the Gryffindor bathroom, except the toothbrushes in the cups beside the sink were different, and the showers faced the wrong way. By each, there was a small metal rack, tidily holding an array of flannels, and a shelf that has different assortments of washing materials on them.
Harry slid a nervous look at Blaise, and tentatively made his way over to inspect them, Blaise seemed to wait.
"By all means, fulfil the fantasy I've cherished since I was old enough to have it." Blaise drawled. "Invite me to wash you." He arched an eyebrow in a provocative look that seemed to make Harry just a bit uneasy.
"I can manage, thanks." He said with dignity. Blaise smiled, and gave off a bit of a laugh.
"Of course you can." He replied graciously. "I'll see you back in the dorms." He waltzed out, closing the door behind him.
Harry went back to inspecting the shelf. There were altogether far too many things crammed onto it to be Malfoy's, he decided. It was a matter of working out whose things were on which shelf, and using – Urgh – Draco's. At least, he considered to himself, if he were to use Draco's things on Draco's body, he wouldn't be contaminating his own. He rifled through things. There was a block of rather grimy soap, next to a grubby flannel. A similar, slippery blob of pale green soap that smelt of the sort of liquid soap you would find in public toilets, and a blue flannel with 'Greggory Goyle' sewn on a name-tape into it. What do you know? Goyle washes! Occasionally. There was a grey bottle of something, and a folded black flannel underneath it. Harry skipped over this to come back to it, and found a bright pink bottle of something with things in Italian written all over it. He opened it, and took an experimental sniff. Strawberries. With a highly suspicious look at Malfoy's hands, he took a sniff of the long blonde hair clinging stickily to his neck. Not strawberries. Safe.
With a sigh of relief, he put the pink stuff back on the shelf, and moved on. There was a tall jar, a sort of silvery colour, with a green glass stopper in the top. Beside it was another bottle. And another. All with the same scrolling silver writing on the back. Harry could make out a couple of words, but it was all in French. He picked up the weird looking blob besides the bottles on the shelf. It looked like a hair-net, screwed into a ball, then with a ribbon tied around the middle. Gloomily, he read 'Malfoy' written grandly on the ribbon. Then back at the bottles of things he didn't have a clue what to do with.
"Oh God." He voiced, audibly.
Harry stood with his back against the shower spigot, eyes squeezed shut blissfully against the hot water beating down against his shoulders, soothing places he didn't know were knotted tightly in stress. Running his hands through 'his' hair, Harry winced as his fingers caught in knots he doubted the water would sort out. The comforting warmth of the shower dimmed as he worried his bottom lip between his teeth, trying to work out which bottles did what. Shrugging, he squeezed a dollop of whitish stuff into his palm, and rubbed in vigorously into Malfoy's hair. A rich, expensive smell rose in the hair, tumbling over the clouds of steam, and Harry arched his back closer to the water, enjoying the luxury of not being told to turn off the water by Seamus, or Dean, or Ron, all of whom were normally shouting across the shower stalls at one another.
He pulled his fingers through his hair, going gently so not to tug at it again (remembered grimaces from pain making him a mite more sensitive) and closed his eyes, relishing the over-long shower for once. He'd worked out the scrunchy hair-net thing made a lather with the soap, and he'd scrubbed everywhere, pinkly triumphant that he'd worked out how to use it.
His eyes opened once more with a thoughtful expression, and with a quick glance through the semi-transparency of the shower curtain to check no one was about, glanced down. A bit disappointed that Malfoy wasn't a shrivelled little specimen, he snorted a bit, more to suppress surprise that Malfoy wasn't…well…bigger. The way he goes about boasting, you'd think he'd have trouble buying trousers. Snickering to himself, Harry turned off the water and stepped out, blinking water out of his eyes.
The rack of towels was thankfully, highly visible. Draco's towel, Harry noted, a pool of water forming at his feet, was also obvious. Emerald green, and embroidered with a crest; - a crest! Bit much for something to dry yourself with! – Harry pulled it off the towel rail, and wrapped it around his waist tightly. He made short thrift of brushing his teeth, noting only that Malfoy did NOT have blood-flavoured toothpaste, as was the common myth of choice at the moment with those who deigned think about Malfoy, but peppermint, and pulled on pyjamas.
Peering at himself in the misted glass, Harry looked despondently at Malfoy. A Malfoy whose damp blonde hair was plastered to his head. Whose eyelashes had gone spiky in the wet of the shower. Whose pyjamas were baggy and hung from his thin frame to make him look small, and altogether harmless. Harry pulled a horrific face at Malfoy-in-the-mirror, and blinked when Malfoy-in-the-mirror pulled an equally horrible, but different face back. Shaking his head, Harry padded back across the corridor to the dormitory.
Bundling the clothes he'd shed onto Malfoy's trunk to deal with in the morning, harry clambered into bed, and tugged the thick, downy quilt over himself, with a drowsy sigh. He was asleep, almost before his head touched the pillow.
When he awoke, someone was pushing at his shoulder. Lifting his head, he blinked sleepily at the invader. Blaise's own spiky dark hair rose above the blankets next to him, and a warm foot removed itself from being wedged between Harry's thighs.
"Morning." Blaise yawned good-naturedly, with a dazzling smile. "Better get up." He suggested helpfully, as Harry stared at him, bewilderedly. "The bells gone. If you don't get in the shower now. I'll hex you. You'll use up all the hot water anyway, but I can't stand it if you complain all the way through Herbology about how much you smell." Harry nodded dumbly, tossing back the covers, and sliding out.
"What?" Blaise demanded, sitting up properly now against Malfoy's pillows, and looking exceedingly sulky now, his hair mussed from sleep. "No 'get out of my bed, Zabini." He seemed strangely offended, and climbed out the other side of Malfoy's bed, his back stiff with indignation. Harry watched him, before hurrying off to the bathroom to have a wash and then brush his teeth.
The taste of peppermint pleasantly tingling the roof of his mouth, Harry knotted his tie deftly, and then looked at himself in the glass. Draco Malfoy looked back, with a bland expression. Harry looked around cautiously, scanning the room for anyone who might take notice of him, and then peered into the mirror thoughtfully. Time to get that egotistical Malfoy sneer on. He smirked into the mirror. Hm, a little too friendly, needs more condescending. Harry lifted his head up slightly and raised an eyebrow. Better.
He ran a brush quickly through his hair; didn't Malfoy normally have it glued back with something? And decided that he could simply forgo the exhausting process of working out which other products belonged to the fastidious blonde.
As he entered the Great Hall, Harry made as if to go to the Gryffindor table. People seated towards the end of it looked at him strangely, and hurriedly, he headed over to the Slytherin table, underneath the green banner. He sat down next to Blaise, who gave a huffy sniff, and turned away from him. A moment later, Pansy slid in beside him, the bench shifting as she did so. Her hair swung out from behind her ear and brushed his nose, smelling of roses. It was a faintly old-fashioned sort of smell, like Dudley's grandmothers talcum powder. Harry glanced at her, somewhat surprised. He hadn't pictured Pansy as the feminine type. She didn't seem to notice, simply tucking the swinging dark hair behind her ear once more, and shuffling up on the bench to give others more room.
Harry took a slice of toast from the porcelain rack on the table, and spread it butter. He noticed the tea-pot sitting just across the table, and said politely, "Could you pass me the-?"
Before he'd finished his sentence, Pansy hastily handed him a silver pot.
"Don't remind us. I don't suppose I'll get any this morning, unless the house-elves are quick." She said crossly. "Blaise, why didn't you make him hurry this morning."
Blaise looked up deliberately, and then went back to eating his porridge in grand silence. Pansy glanced at Harry, an exasperated look on her face, twisting her rather large mouth into a frustrated pout.
"Let me guess." She muttered under her breath, as if to herself. Taking the pot from Harry's hands once more absently, she poured into his cup a thick, dark brown liquid. Coffee. Harry hated coffee. It was bitter, and nasty, and perhaps he could drink it if he could have milk in it, and lots of sugar and perhaps held his nose – Harry looked almost pleadingly at Pansy.
"What's wrong with you this morning?" Pansy asked, frowning. "Normally I can't take the coffee pot away from your cold, dead hand. You'd bite me if I tried."
No sugar. No milk. Harry took a deep breath in the hope he could swallow it without tasting it. Quickly, he worked out this wasn't the case. He took a large gulp, and swallowed hard. It tasted foul; horrible and bitter, and it left a thick, sticky, furry coating on his tongue. He tried to smile, and turned it quickly into another swallow. How Malfoy could drink this stuff every morning, and – As he bit into his toast, Pansy kindly refilled his cup.
"Good morning, Teddy." Pansy said primly, pouring a cup of tea for a thin, exhausted-looking boy who sat down at the table opposite Harry and Blaise. He had large, deep brown eyes, with overly-long eyelashes, and his curled in a very boyish way, but rather long, falling over the collar of his shirt. Gratefully, Teddy accepted the cup of tea, and with a wrinkle of his nose, added a slice of lemon.
"Up all night again?" Pansy asked sympathetically, and Teddy nodded, looking into his tea.
"Professor Flitwick." His voice was so low it was almost a whisper. "Charms. I can't fail, not when Father is expecting the end of term report- After that essay…" He tailed off and shrugged. Pansy took his toast from him and buttered it expertly, scraping jam over the top of it before passing it back.
"Eat up." She advised, and leant on her elbow on the table, watching him. A pretty blonde girl from further up the table called out something, and Pansy turned her back to Harry to talk. He was left to his own devices. He polished off his toast, and rose, wiping his mouth on his napkin – which rested beside his plate in a silver napkin ring with 'D. L. Malfoy' engraved on it – and made as if to move off from the table. Pansy glanced up and smiled.
"I'll see you in Potions." She said by way of a goodbye, and turned back to her friend to continue talking. Harry shrugged, and walked towards the door of the Great Hall. As he stepped out, a hand fastened itself on the back of his robes, and spun him around. Yanking him into a cupboard, the light flickered on from a dim bulb above them, and Harry looked up into his own face, his hair sleeked back for once.
"We need to talk." Draco Malfoy said through Harry's mouth, grimly.
A/N: Alright~ That's the end of the intro. From now on things are going to get...interesting. I will answer any and all comments to the best of my ability and constructive critisism is welcome. In the next chapter we will be finding out what's going on with Draco and what's up with Blaise.