Chapter 34: Sixteen serpents

Draco ran for his life. He was chased by two female red-heads, Weasley with a whip and Southill with a camera. They drove him out onto the Quidditch pitch, but the figures in red and gold uniforms swarming around him were not Peakes, not Coote, not even the other Weasley. They were Dementors, and he heard his mother's cry in their foul breath. 'Expecto Patronum!' he shouted, but instead of a silvery animal out came Myrtle with a wet sponge in her hand. As she hovered in the air in front of him, her figure grew darker and more solid. Next moment, she turned into Gibbon, and the sponge turned into a bludger as it flew into his face. Draco woke up with a jolt.

Potter's oversized T-shirt that he had transfigured into a mattress had lost a bit of its volume but was still a mattress. Yesterday Pomfrey had given him a lecture about where he was and where he wasn't allowed to sleep, but in the end no one dared to say no to Harry Potter. These were his last days of enjoying the privileges and he was going to take full advantage. Ewen's slippers stood where the edge of Draco's pillow slid to the floor. The morning light pushed in under the hem of the curtain around Ewen's bed.

Draco sat up. Ewen lay sprawled on his back, his chest rising and falling in a quiet rhythm.

When Draco came back from the bathroom, Ewen stirred. His eyes were covered with the bandage, but he stretched and felt at the edge of his bed. He was awake.

"Oh that was a weird dream," he said through a yawn.

Draco sat on the edge of Ewen's bed. He was not the only one with weird dreams this morning.

"What was it?"

"Quidditch." Ewen's voice fell in an unflattering way.

"Funny. I dreamt about Quidditch too." Sort of. Draco's hand crawled cautiously towards Ewen's. Their fingers touched.

"Instead of watching out for the snitch, you were annoying the Slytherins."

"Was I?" Draco let Ewen grasp his hand. "The fucking bullying arsehole that I am."

"You tell me." Ewen pulled Draco's hand under his blanket, and, oh god! It hit steel.

"Was it one of those seer dreams?" Draco said, and gave it a stroke.

"Possibly," Ewen purred.

"Hm." A seer's dreams were to be taken seriously. "Why wasn't I watching the snitch?"

"It wouldn't appear." Ewen yawned. "And you seemed like you knew it wouldn't."

"Oh." A faint outline of an idea appeared in Draco's mind. "Maybe I did." He straightened his back. "When would the snitch appear?"

"I don't know. I woke up."

"Couldn't you have another look?"

"Really?! You want me to watch Quidditch for you?!"

"You wake up with a hard-on sticking out above the clouds, and you're telling me you don't like Quidditch?"

"I. Don't. Like. Quidditch," Ewen said. The hardness in Draco's hand gave in a tad. "It's purely physiological, you know that!"

"Okay, okay." Draco tightened his fist, and Ewen hardened again inside it. "I just thought it would be interesting to know."

If it weren't for the bandage, Draco would have thought that Ewen was looking at him.

"Suck me off."

"Hm?" Something was wrong. Something in the fall of Ewen's voice was like it was not a request, not an order even, but a condition.

"I— ehm, gladly, but"—Draco wished he could see Ewen's eyes. "Not because..." How should he put it? This was not a transaction. He was not a whore. He— Did Ewen think that?

Draco pushed the blanket away, a gust of slept-in sheets and Ewen's sweat met him like a warm cloud, and the sight of pushed down pyjama bottoms swam before his eyes.

"Whatever."

Draco bowed, his lips melted around the firm flesh, and his brain melted at the mere guess of Ewen's voiceless groan.

"Faster."

When Ewen's hand let go of his nape and squeezed the crumpled blanket, Draco knew he had it right. A salty drop trickled on his tongue. The clock was ticking and Pomfrey could land them another detention any minute. All the more reason to do it right and be faster. Wouldn't he against all odds? Ewen swallowed a moan. Or was it just a squeak of the bed? Like a deflating balloon, the part of Ewen in Draco's mouth turned to soft mass.

"What's wrong?" Draco looked up. "Did I hurt you?"

Ewen lay still and his breath was soundless.

"No, it's just... About Quidditch, erm..."

Draco's mind halted a second.

"You were thinking about Quidditch? Now?"

"You wanted me to think about Quidditch."

"Not now! Not when I'm— Good god! Not at all! I'm doing this for you, not for—"

A half-smile played on Ewen's lips.

"You thought I'd make it easy for you." His smile grew. "Go on, will you?"

"Forget what I'd asked before." Now, this was a condition!

"Sorry. What did you ask before?" Ewen's hand found Draco's shoulder and gave it a polite pull.

"Good." Draco got back to business.

It was his own fault. Everything in this world was a transaction. He had said it when Ewen had held his cock in his hand for the first time. Now the words flew back at him. He had had no idea that it hurt. Faster.

The quiet rhythm and concentration slowly but steadily drove away the pain in Draco's chest, and brought back the peace—the kind of peace after a good friend in dire need of a cupboard happily takes away the dusty monster that had cluttered up your doorway for years. When a hot spurt hit the roof of Draco's mouth, thoughts had long vacated his mind, and shameless pride filled the empty space left behind, unhindered. He savoured the thick taste of mint and chicory.

Ewen's subdued groan came like an underground explosion. "Oh my god."

Mhm. That.

Ewen lay still, spent, his chest rising and falling softly. Draco pulled the blanket over his belly. Ewen didn't stir. The sod fell asleep again. Unbelievable.

Draco looked down at what used to be his improvised camp bed. The mattress had grown a couple of sleeves in the meantime. He'd better do away with it before Pomfrey was back to lecture him. But the smell! The smell of a quick release hung in the air. Oh god, how did you vanish a smell?

"Fifty-fourth."

Hm? Was Ewen talking in his sleep?

"On the fifty-fourth minute," Ewen's voice was clear as day, and Draco realised what he was saying.

"The snitch will appear—"

"I said forget it!"

"—on the fifty-fourth minute."

Harry tried to catch Draco after classes, but Draco didn't get off his broomstick until dinner. He marched into the Great Hall without changing out of his Quidditch robes, gobbled down a load of proteins in a matter of minutes, and shuffled out, his eyes falling shut as he walked.

"Tomorrow." That was as much as Harry got out of him tonight.

"Good night," Harry said, and headed for the dungeons.

The Slytherin common room was full. In the middle, Astoria and Sabrin were busy unrolling a bolt of green fabric and spreading it on the floor. Sloper and Rosier were playing Exploding Snap with some girls of their year. The death suckers, the whole lot of them, sat around a coffee table. One, two, three... Their numbers had grown. Harry counted fifteen heads stuck together. Hushed cackles burst now and again out of their midst.

Zabini sat with a journal on his lap, frowning. Harry walked behind the back of the sofa and peeped over his shoulder. The page was full of diagrams and tables.

"Muggle Studies?"

"Broadly speaking," Blaise said without raising his eyes from the page. "Just fun really."

"What's so fun about it?" To Harry, Zabini's fascination with the subject was still a mystery.

"Did you know that when a magical gene is paired with another magical gene the combination inhibits the expression of the magical component in the surrounding magical-non-magical pairs."

"Er, huh?"

"There are around two thousand genes in the human genome that can carry a magical predisposition, as far as we know. For a person to show magical powers, at least two thirds of that amount should contain a magical member in a pair and be active."

"Er..." That was going a bit too fast for Harry.

"Now, assuming that those we call pure-bloods have more magical genes than half-bloods or muggle-borns, if a pure-blood wizard and a pure-blood witch beget a child, that child, you would think, would have more magical-magical gene pairs, right?"

If Blaise said so. Harry nodded.

"If there are too many of those pairs, in the best case scenario, they'll mess up the rest of the DNA so much, the child will not even come into existence. And in the worst case scenario you'll get a Squib with a couple of hereditary disorders."

"Okay." Harry made an effort to sound competent. "And if a pure-blood does it with a half-blood or a muggle-born?"

"Then the probability of a disabled Squib sinks, and the probability of a healthy Squib rises. And you know what the craziest thing is?" Blaise said with attitude. "The highest chance of getting a healthy strong magical child is from a most miserable pure-blood Squib coming from a few generations of inbreeding and a pure hundred percent Muggle. Except inbred pure-blood Squibs don't breed easily, because low income and extreme facial asymmetry do not increase their chances with the opposite sex." Blaise leaned against the back of the sofa. "In other words, I think we should stop procreating."

Harry couldn't quite follow Zabini's reasoning and was startled by the conclusion.

"Isn't it a bit," he looked for the word, "radical?"

"It's rational! Let the half-bloods shag the muggle-borns and provide for some healthy magical population. There will be some efflux of Squibs, but it will be small, predictable, and not our problem. And you know what the best thing about it is?"

"What?"

"If we're not procreating, then we don't have to give a damn about blood and all that nonsense, and we can shag whoever we want!"

Really? Harry hadn't thought Blaise had a problem shagging whoever he wanted. Every month since the beginning of the year another girl would orbit him for a week or two until he fled and let the next girl chase her away.

"Well." Harry shrugged. "Then you don't procreate." Harry's eye fell on Blaise's perfect slender hands. "Shame."

"Why?"

"You're damn fit, come on!" Even if the whole concept was still rather new to Harry, he could not help coming to appreciate male beauty. He could sort of see where all those girls came from. "None of that will be left for the next generations. That's a shame."

"To hell with the next generations! My genes are mine and mine only."

Blaise stared into his diagrams, again. But he stared at the same page for a bit too long.

"I envy you though," he finally said with a sigh. "I wish I could do it with men. That way you can at least be sure that there'll be no procreation. With women you can never be sure." Blaise ran his thumb through the stack of pages on the right hand side. "When I finish this, the next thing on my reading list is the section on sterilisation in that sex scripture Gryffs are going crazy about."

It sounded like Hermione's book got famous across houses. Blaise turned back to his article and fell silent.

The round of Exploding Snap had ended, and the girls left Rosier and Sloper alone, but the room did not become any quieter. Harry didn't get to eavesdrop on as many conversations as he used to in the beginning. People had started to notice his presence. But it was hard not to overhear Rosier, who went from loud talking to downright shouting.

"My father's not a Death Eater! Never been."

"Then who was it? Your uncle?"

"My uncle's dead!"

Sloper said something, and there was the word 'Azkaban' in it.

"It's none of your bloody business!" Rosier charged at Sloper with his fists, but an invisible wave crashed between the two and they flew apart. Sloper tumbled with his bum to the floor, Rosier smacked into the corner of the sofa, Vaisey put away his wand and sat in front of Rosier.

"Don't lower yourself. Physical violence is for the Muggles. Are you a Muggle?"

"No!" Rosier clenched his jaw and pressed himself deeper into the sofa cushion.

"Is your father in Azkaban?"

"No!"

"Or uncle, or grandfather. Look!" Vaisey made himself comfortable in his armchair. "There's no shame in it. No shame at all."

The cushion under Rosier straightened a little.

"My father is in Azkaban. And my mother. And my brother. Or look at Goyle here." Rosier shot a glance sideways and Goyle gave him a friendly wave. "His father is in Azkaban, too. See Parkinson over there? She acts as if she's whiter than white going back five generations, but I'll tell you what: her cousin's husband got life for seven Unforgivable Curses. You know what an Unforgivable Curse is?"

Rosier gave a quick nod. Parkinson continued chatting with Harper and Urquhart, but when a few heads turned in her direction, she too started to shift nervously and look around with a thick furrow.

"Did you know that last year we didn't say 'Unforgivable', we simply called them 'dark curses', and whether they were forgivable or unforgivable, it all depended on the circumstances. Last year, I'm sure, they wouldn't have sent Parkinson's relative to feed the Dementors. They would have investigated properly first. They would have looked who cursed whom and whether the latter was worth keeping around."

Sloper had long stood up and retreated behind Astoria and Gibbon with their banners.

"But that's not the point. Things went wrong, very wrong last year. We're all in a big mess. That's how it is. There's no shame. And if some Sloper is shaming you for it, he's wrong, and he's not worth your attention."

Rosier blinked, his eyes back on Vaisey.

"And I'll tell you more, you're a Rosier, right? You should be damn proud to be one!"

Rosier's back straightened a little, and Harry's stomach gave a churn. The death suckers were fifth years and up so far. Was Vaisey now trying to recruit a first year?

"Your uncle died, that's a shame, but before he died, he blew up half of Moody's dial. You know Moody?"

Rosier shook his head and pushed back into the cushion. The sofa seemed to have grown bigger behind his back.

"The most dangerous member of Dumbledore's order of the burnt chicken. He's dead too, no worries."

The chatter in the room gave way to whisper. The air grew thick with strained looks and hesitant silence.

"And Sloper... Where's Sloper?" Vaisey craned his neck. "Sloper buggered off, that's fine with me. Mudbloods like him may get lost as far as—"

"Stop it, Vaisey!" Harry couldn't stand it any longer. Vaisey was trying his luck with a minor. "Sloper is not a mudblood! And leave Rosier be!"

"Malfoy!" Vaisey gaped at him for a second. When he managed to close his mouth, a chuckle burst out. "You're still here?" The death suckers giggled along.

Harry waited for them to run out of breath. Gibbon might have reclaimed the slur, but it was up to her, not up to him. "Mudblood's not a word. There's no such thing, mudblood."

"Malfoy!" Vaisey approached slowly with a swag. "No such word?" He stood, his legs wide, his thumbs dug into his pockets. "Who are you to teach us English?"

The other death suckers rose from their armchairs, and a dozen green dots danced on Harry's chest.

Getting into fights was a very bad idea for an apparent Draco Malfoy. But even Harry's nerves had their limits. He felt for his wand.

"What are you doing here anyway? Judging by your limited vocabulary, you must be a Gryffindor. Or what are you these days? A Hufflepoof?"

A round of giggles ran across the room. Gibbon's wand snapped out.

"I'm Slytherin," said Harry.

"Slytherin, are you?" Vaisey dug his fingers into his breast pocket and pulled out a folded paper. It must have been colourful and glossy in its better days, but now it was covered in white stripes of wear and tear. "Then how do you explain this?" Vaisey spread the paper out dramatically and held it up for everyone to see. Behind the cracks in the receding printing loomed the image of a hair gel bottle and the face of Malcolm Drake next to it. Vaisey walked around the circle, the picture high up. "Don't squint, Parkinson, yes, you see it right. It's not moving. Let's see what it says." He turned it around and frowned mockingly at the page. "Stun with care!"

The giggles became louder.

"That's how Muggles stun, just so you know. With a hair gel. Mhm."

Another dozen curious faces pulled into the circle and the laughter rolled around like a billiard ball.

Vaisey threw his chin up, pushed Astoria's banner out of the way, and walked closer, as if digging a hole in the floor with each step. The green dots pulled together in the middle of Harry's chest. He retreated a step. His hand tightened on his wand.

"You're not a Slytherin, Malfoy." Vaisey stood in front of him, unarmed, unless, of course, the magazine page in his hand counted as a weapon. "Or Gryffindor, or Hufflepuff. You're a Muggle!"

The giggling stopped and silence fell in the room.

"This is a wizard school. You get out of here!" Vaisey pointed at the door. "Get out!"

Harry would have loved to leave right now. This never-ending sulking over the glorious days of yore, the silent doubts burning holes in their stomachs, and the green that reflected on everyone's faces with a hue of constant food poisoning—he was so fed up with it. Just leave and never come back again! But the Rosier boy was still pressed into the sofa, petrified, and Sloper had buggered off, and Gibbon looked tiny without her Firebolt. Harry didn't budge.

"Leave it, Vaisey." Parkinson's voice sounded darkly across the thicket of turned backs.

"Parkinson!" Vaisey found her in the crowd. "Now that the prospects of respectable marriage are slim, still fishing for some decent genes? You didn't hear me properly then. He's not a wizard. He's a muggle! And anyone who consorts with him is a filthy blood traitor!"

Now, Vaisey shouldn't have started on genes. Blaise groaned, rolling his eyes. "Fuck blood."

Half of the green dots left Harry's chest and settled on Zabini's.

"Zabini! Language!"

Vaisey summoned the journal from his hands and frowned at the title. "The prevalence of myopia in Muggle and wizarding populations. What nonsense are you reading?" He dropped the journal to the floor. "That giant squib has clouded your mind, hasn't she? What has she done? Imperiused you with a shampoo?"

With less vigour but more venom, the giggles resumed.

"Hey, where are we going, people? Rosier is ashamed of his uncle, Zabini's sucking up to a squib, Malfoy—" Vaisey's swung with the picture of Malcolm Drake. "Malfoy's sold us all..." He walked a few steps along the row of gaping faces. "Where are the Slytherins?! Where's our house?!"

Vaisey's eyes fell on Astoria's unfinished banner on the floor.

"Hey, let's see." He flicked his wand and the banner flew into the air. On its left hand side the picture of Urquhart waved at the audience, replaced the next second by the picture of Gibbon with a furious face on her broomstick, replaced by Baddock, and so on—rotating through the entire Quidditch team. On the right hand side there were traces of a removed slogan, a few removed slogans actually.

Vaisey pointed his wand and a green dot shone in the middle of the empty space where powerful words should have stood.

"What is it, Astoria? You have nothing to say to the Gryffs? Let me help." Vaisey whispered something, dark stains sprayed across the green fabric and pulled together into an image of a skull. A snake slithered out of its open mouth. The Dark Mark.

The room stopped breathing. Astoria froze to the spot. Vaisey opened his mouth to say something, but Gibbon was quicker:

"Dementorssssssuck you!"

A stream of black smoke gushed out of her wand. The dark cloud swelled in front of Vaisey and formed a hooded figure. An expression of shock held for a few seconds in his face, but faded quickly. His face turned blank.

"Shit!" Gibbon whispered.

"Finite! Finite!" sounded from different corners, but the smoke figure stretched its tentacles and leaned in towards Vaisey's open mouth.

Someone tried to conjure a Patronus. Harry raised his wand to do the same, damn his cover!

"Crucio!" Goyle's voice thundered, and Gibbon fell to the floor with an excruciating yell.

"Crucio!" shouted the other death suckers, and Parkinson, Urquhart, and Zabini joined in with Gibbon's wail.

"Stop it! Fuck!" Harry dodged Baddock's Cruciatus, but got in the way of someone else's Confundus, and the room swam before his eyes. He was pushed and shoved around by moving bodies of the panicking crowd, only god knows how he managed to stay upright. On unsteady feet, Harry raised his wand and aimed at Goyle:

"Expelliarmus!" but the room swayed in front of him, and he disarmed Harper instead.

Damn it! This was not going to work. He couldn't aim. He needed something that demanded less precision, but the Confundus only pushed the memory of his dance practice with Ewen to the front of his mind and his body wanted to break into a waltz. His body... Now, Malfoy, do something!

"Serpensortia!"

Harry's wand recoiled heavily, as a snake burst out of its tip. It landed with a thud in the midst of the death suckers' formation, and charged at Goyle with a hiss. Gibbon stopped wailing.

"Serpensortia! Serpensortia! Serpensortia! Serpensortia..." If that was what worked, five, six, seven, eight... There were fifteen death suckers in the room. Snakes zoomed and hissed through the air.

Vaisey's gang was in disarray, Urquhart was back on his feet, and was helping Pansy up.

"Serpensortia!" Harry added one extra for good measure, and a gorgeous boa constrictor slithered gracefully over Astoria's banner.

The Confundus started to wear off. The black smoke figure lost some of its shape, but Vaisey still stood like a statue, not a whiff of sense in his eyes. Some of the death suckers and Harper had been bitten. Goyle was gasping for air. Astoria stood above him with five wands in her hand and a face of helpless shock. Snakes were raging around the room. A long grey body was heading for Urquhart, a black mouth wide open, as were Parkinson's bulging eyes.

"Total freeze!" she shouted.

When Harry came back to his senses, the first thing he knew was a hard harness of paralysing cold enveloping his whole body. There was a hole in his ice packaging. His left eye barely fitted into the opening and water streamed down his forehead, but he could catch a glimpse of Parkinson's erratic twiddling and a forest of frozen shapes around her.

A figure crossed Harry's line of sight. Then another one. The voices sounded like McGonagall and Flitwick. The ice continued melting on Harry's skin. He gave his neck a try, his ice cap cracked, and a layer came down with a soggy crash.

The common room was white. Sixteen frozen snakes piled in the middle. Slughorn was kneeling over Goyle with a fan of vials between his fingers. Harper groaned on a stretcher. Vaisey was no longer there.

The first and second years, except Gibbon, had been unfrozen en masse, and Sprout was giving them a round of drying. McGonagall and Flitwick were making a round of the older students.

"Baddock?"

Baddock blinked a snow cap off his eyebrow. McGonagall glanced at Parkinson. She nodded. Whatever was the silent message passed between them, Baddock obviously did not earn a full unfreeze. Flitwick freed Baddock's hands of the ice, wound his wand out of his clenched fingers, and added it to the bouquet in his hand.

McGonagall, Flitwick and Parkinson proceeded from one ice sculpture to the other, going through the same ritual. They passed Gibbon again, as if she wasn't there. Harry tried to catch her eye. No one hurried to unfreeze him either.