WARNINGS for this chapter: Disturbing images involving rats. Mentions of bestiality.
Chapter 19: Swan lake
The Divination class was over. Some students still crowded around the sink, emptying and washing the teacups, Benveniste disappeared in her office, and Ewen stood shoulder to shoulder with Parvati, bent over an essay. The last rays of the setting sun brushed the little dint at the back of his neck, just below the edge of his neatly cut hair. Draco looked around quickly and pulled his wand. If he did it now, no one would notice. Now, before Ewen spilled more beans about the Vanishing Cabinet to Potter.
Without raising it, Draco pointed his wand from under the hem of his sleeve at the back of Ewen's head. High precision was a must. If Ewen suddenly lost all he knew about their pastime in the Room of Hidden Things, Potter would get suspicious after all he had told him. He had to hit the right part. As if it was so easy. Their misdeeds and their guilty pleasures were inseparable.
Draco sorted through the scenes of their past, setting aside the ones that had better never have happened, like he had done before each interrogation at the Ministry in the summer. He took a breath, but his fingers twitched and he dropped his wand. Damn it!
"Harry?" Ewen turned around and his eyebrows arched.
"Bye." Draco stuck the wand hastily back into his sleeve and hurried out of the classroom. That had been his chance. He would never get another one, he noted with relief.
If worse came to worst, he could obliviate Potter instead, Draco lied to himself. But a few days had passed since their conversation, and when they spoke again on Sunday morning, Potter showed no signs of knowledge subject to Obliviation. That was lucky, because now they were hovering on their broomsticks above a set of Quidditch goalposts, and performing memory charms in this position was prone to error. Ginny Weasley and Sabrin Gibbon were chasing the snitch, and Potter went on about the Yule Ball.
"Anyway, I said yes. If you don't want it, I'll blow it off. But if I were you, I wouldn't."
Potter blabbered something about being yourself and about Father, and Draco much preferred that train of thought to anything that had to do with the past. What? The whole school would know that he was gay? Draco exhaled slowly, letting the air pass his strained vocal cords in a controlled way, as to avoid groaning. As long as no one knew about Ewen's involvement—
"God, what is she doing?"
The snitch changed direction and Gibbon made an abrupt twist in front of Ginny making her brake. She dived, but Ginny was on the inner side of the curve now. Gibbon's shadow crawled over Ginny's back, and pressed her down if not physically, then psychologically. Draco hated to be on the receiving end of this tactic. But Ginny responded with a nasty upward ram as soon as the snitch showed the slightest inclination to go skyward, and Gibbon fell behind.
"So, what do you say? Yes or no?"
Draco took a second to unearth the thoughts he'd been so desperately trying to get distracted from. "I'll stop hiding if he stops hiding. Male partner—okay. But invisible partner, that's," Draco lost track of the girls as they dropped from the sky and dived underneath them, "too unconventional!" The girls surged back into the sky. "And he should wear something decent, too," he added. As long as Potter and Ewen stayed focused on dancing and clothes, all was not too bad.
Ginny was giving Gibbon a hard time, and Draco congratulated himself silently on his choice of seeker. If he had had a reasonable replacement for the other Weasley, the team would now be perfect.
"Yes!"
Ginny swept past with the snitch in one hand and slapped Draco a loud high five with the other.
"Excellent dive, Gin."
The woman knew how to ride gravity.
"Use your Firebolt!" Potter shouted at Gibbon. Gibbon chewed on unsaid expletives as Potter lectured her about the neglected potential of her broomstick.
"One more time," Potter demanded with a sour face. A golden sparkle dashed across the pitch and the seekers plunged into a new chase.
The brown of the hills was doused in the pale grey of a much too soft November. Draco spread his shoulders, and his lungs pulled in the damp that should have long been bound by frost.
"We should do this more often. Have our girls fly together."
"Our girls?!" Potter growled, his eyes fixed on Ginny. "Both girls are mine."
After all the revelations of the last week, Harry kept stumbling over Ewen's feet in a way that he hadn't since their first practice. Not that Ewen said or did anything, no. Harry just couldn't stop being aware of his hand on his waist and the fact that this guy had shared a scented bath with, well, not him.
"You're stiff like McGonagall in a corset. If you miss that beat again, I'll punch you."
That didn't help. Harry lost track of the rhythm completely, and the next thing he felt was Ewen's fist land on his shoulder. Harry swayed backwards but quickly regained balance.
"Hey! What are you doing?!"
"Fight back. Punch me."
Harry didn't feel like fighting at all, but while he was contemplating, another punch landed on his chest.
"What the—!"
With a mischievous smile Ewen continued pushing him, Harry kept retreating until he stumbled over his own bag and flopped down to the floor.
"I just. Don't know. What else. To do to. Make you. Relax," said Ewen, punching Harry back to the floor to the beat of the tango, as he tried to stand up.
"Arling, you—" Harry pulled Ewen down, rolled over him and could finally get up, but Ewen was back on his feet in an instant.
"Punch me or I'll punch you."
"If you insist..." Harry struck Ewen's shoulder, keeping it moderate.
"Come on! Is that all you've got?" Ewen retreated teasingly as Harry approached. "Bring me down!"
Harry pushed him with both hands. Ewen skipped backwards but stayed upright. 'The guy won't leave it until he gets it.' Harry took a swing and struck properly, but Ewen turned, Harry's fist slid across his chest, and his heart skipped a beat, as he flew forward. Ewen's arms caught him in a less than elegant pose.
"And now, with the same fury, to the music." He pulled him back upright and picked up the rhythm that continued spilling from the old gramophone with unperturbed persistence. Harry wanted to free himself from Ewen's grip, but despite himself, his body, Malfoy's body seemed to move exactly to where Ewen wanted it. Ewen was laughing his head off.
"You bugger!" Harry uttered helplessly, giving in to the carousel.
Resistance was pointless. They moved on, laughing together.
They moved on, but where to and how exactly Harry had not figured out yet and was glad when Draco relieved him from the need to ask Ewen to grant them access to the Pensieve they used in Divination classes (without Benveniste's knowledge if possible). Ewen informed Draco about Benveniste's schedule and made sure none of the doors on their way were locked beyond what Alohomora could handle. During the staff meeting on Wednesday evening they sneaked into North Tower to finally have a look at Harry's booty from the Ministry.
The Divination classroom presented a refreshing contrast to how Harry remembered it. The stuffy curtains were gone and high undraped windows gaped in all directions. By day the room would be flooded with light; now it only showed a red stripe in the west and an overabundance of murky clouds. The small tea tables, the armchairs and the pouffes were replaced by rows of desks and plain wooden benches arranged in a semicircular seating gallery. There was a large empty space in the middle, with a pile of yoga mats and a big basket filled with crystal balls of different sizes on one side, and a sink, a table laden with equipment and a bookshelf stuffed with books on the other. From the corner of his eye Harry caught a glimpse of a camera mounted on a metal frame attached to the ceiling. The room looked like a cross between a gym and courtroom number eleven. The only thing that had not changed from Trelawney's times was the multitude of teacups, which were now piled in dangerously tall towers next to the sink.
Draco disappeared behind the bookshelf, reappeared with a tripod and shoved it into Harry's hands. While Harry was trying to set it upright, Draco brought a huge shallow bowl which looked nothing like the stone basin in the Headmaster's office. Dumbledore's Pensieve was vibrant with ancient magic. This Pensieve looked like it was made of stainless steel and only its size betrayed that it did not come from Aunt Petunia's kitchen.
Among the four vials Harry had grabbed at random at the Archive, one carried the label 'Draco Malfoy', two 'Narcissa Malfoy' and one 'Severus Snape'. Harry let the latter slide back into his pocket, he was rather sure what it contained and did not expect it to bring their investigation much further.
"I think I should see that first myself," said Draco, when Harry was uncorking 'Draco Malfoy'.
"If we take turns, we'll have to stay the night here. Benveniste will be surprised," Harry said, and poured the contents of the vial into the Pensieve. Draco made a face but did not say anything.
As they inhaled the silvery fog, they were transported to... a bathroom.
"Sectumsempra!" Harry saw a copy of himself scream, and red slashes criss-crossed the chest of the second Draco. The spectator Draco pulled them violently out of the memory. They gulped, staring at each other. Draco pushed the memory back into the vial and shoved it out of sight.
Between the two Narcissa vials, one was full to the brim and the other contained hardly three drops, just like Snape's. They decided to start with the former.
As they lowered their faces into the basin, they fell into a tiny candle-lit room stuffed with books from floor to ceiling. They saw Narcissa sitting on an old shabby sofa, Snape in an armchair, and Bellatrix standing behind Narcissa's back. Narcissa was in tears, Bellatrix looked like she would start duelling any moment, and Snape was wearing his usual dispassionate demeanour.
Harry and Draco stood crammed in a corner, their feet stuck awkwardly between piles of books on the floor. At the top of a pile between them, there lay a colourful book of comics. Yes, comics!
"What's up, baby?" said Snape.
"Sod the fucking rat!" replied Narcissa.
Harry gulped. He had no way to know how snooty pure-bloods spoke when left to themselves, but even if they dearly wished to 'sod the fucking rat', by which apparently the eavesdropping Wormtail was meant, he could hardly believe they would phrase it that way.
They had to listen to a lengthy interrogation that Bellatrix subjected Snape to, presented in the same dialect. Narcissa spilled a stream of expletives pleading with Snape to persuade the Dark Lord to withdraw Draco from his plans. Snape's refusal did not contain as many profane expressions, but only because it did not contain that many words at all. The final scene crowned the exchange with its unequalled absurdity.
Narcissa and Snape knelt opposite each other, and grasped each other's right hands in a stylized handshake. Bellatrix hesitantly assisted the ritual.
"Will you watch my boy do his work?" said Narcissa.
"Sure, baby," replied Snape without emotion.
A string of red light poured out of Bellatrix's wand and wound around their hands.
"Will you see that he don't get into any shit?" said Narcissa solemnly.
"Sure thing," said Snape.
And another string from Bellatrix's wand pulled their hands together.
"And if he's a pussy, will you kill Doorbelldumb for him?"
"Fuck you, Narcissa, yes," said Snape after a moment of hesitation.
And a third tongue of red light twisted around their hands, before they broke apart.
Harry and Draco pulled out of the memory, and looked at each other across the Pensieve. Draco's face had acquired a greenish hue.
"My mo— This is disgusting." He rushed to the sink and disgorged a large part of the dinner. "Sorry." He vanished the mess, and opened the window. Chilly winter breeze seeped into the classroom.
"Hey, Malfoy! This is a total fake! I don't know about Bellatrix, but your mother and Snape just don't talk like this! Doorbelldumb! Please!"
"No," Draco breathed out, holding on to the tripod, and Harry almost thought he would rush back to the sink. "But the witness does," Draco said after a deep intake of breath. "This is probably the way she remembers it. Knox reckons she can't even read. Bet she couldn't understand half of the words they were saying. And filled the gaps?"
"If she couldn't understand half of the words they were saying, then how could she know what they were saying? Even if you're right, this testimony is rubbish."
Draco did not reply. He stood staring out of the window for a while, thinking. Harry had only one question. Why hadn't Narcissa let Knox debunk this memory in the hearing? But he had asked Draco that question a few times already. Draco's answer was always the same: "She must have had a reason." After what they had just seen, she'd better have a very good reason.
Draco glanced nervously at the clock. "Let's get on with this before Benveniste gets back." He collected the memory from the Pensieve, and Harry emptied the second Narcissa vial into it.
What they saw was as revolting as it was short. The first thing Harry could make out in the darkness was the outline of a baby. The baby was naked, it lay on its back, moving its arms and legs peacefully. It rested on a dark fluffy blanket. But then Harry noticed that the blanket was moving, too. He could hear soft rustling and little squeaks. A long hairless tail shot across the baby's belly. It was not a fucking blanket! It was a mass of rats!
Now Harry thought it was his turn to vomit. He breathed in and out a few times, and managed to keep it inside.
"What the hell was that?"
"Who the hell was that?" rejoined Draco. "Was that a boy or a girl? Could you see that?"
They rewatched the memory.
"Girl."
This was too much. This was beyond human. Even Harry's childhood in the cupboard under the stairs seemed like urban normalcy as compared to this.
"Does it make any sense to you?" Harry asked when he was able to speak again.
To Harry's surprise, Draco's face was anything but blank.
"Okay, Potter, this is absolutely insane, and I don't know if it has anything to do with anything, and you promise me to forget all of it the moment I tell you to."
Harry nodded.
"A year ago or so, no, more than a year. Never mind. We had a problem at the Manor. A rat problem. Our basement looked roughly like that memory minus the baby."
"Okay?"
"You should know, Potter, things like that do not happen at the Malfoy Manor! They just don't. It's not some shed in the slums. It's full of enchantments that repel all kinds of vermin, not just M—" Draco pressed his lips and shot a glance at Harry. "So, after a little interrogation it turned out that it was Wormtail's handiwork. Somehow, don't ask me how, he had managed to smuggle in a female rat—"
"No!" Harry felt sick again.
"Yes! When I was told to see if our cellar was suitable to hold a few prisoners that's what I saw. Hundreds of little Pettigrews. Please, put down that vial before you faint, it would be a shame to break it."
Harry was not going to faint, but did put down the vial.
"And then, this girl appeared."
"The baby girl?"
"No. She was thirteen–fourteen maybe. I didn't know it at the time, of course, but she looked just like that witness. When I saw her in the courtroom, I almost thought it was her, except she was much older."
"Okay. And?"
"I had seen the girl before a couple of times, with Him, the Dark— Riddle, I mean, Vo— Fuck!" Draco gave it up. "Anyway. She was one of his underlings, we had all sorts of scum going in and out when He was around."
"And what does it have to do with the little Pettigrews?"
"My mother hired her to deal with them."
"And?"
"She did a great job! The house was rat-free in a week."
"And then?"
"I don't know. She hung around for a while, and she was allowed to live in the old lodge. I didn't see much of her, let alone speak to her."
"So, let's see if I've got it right. Your mother hired that girl to deal with the rat problem, and then something happened and that girl's senior relative got angry at your mother that she decided to spy on her and expose her in court."
"Not quite. She was spying on her long before the rat problem. That thing in Cokeworth," Draco pointed at the first Narcissa vial, "was almost a year earlier."
"So the senior relative was around even before that girl made her appearance."
"Not quite. The senior relative was there before the rat problem, but the girl was—" Draco was struggling to pronounce Voldemort's name again. "She was with Him in Albania. Granger and Weasley saw a picture of them together."
The pieces fell into a picture. It was a bizarre picture, but it raised some straightforward questions.
"What could your mother have done that made that senior relative hold such a grudge against her?"
"I don't know. Told someone to kill her? Under an Unbreakable Vow?" Draco scowled at the open window. "What was that senior relative doing at Snape's place? Looks like too much of a coincidence to me."
"And what about that baby?" Harry asked, without really expecting an answer.
"That, I don't know. That was somewhere else, in any case. No babies in our basement, I swear, I would have noticed."
The memories gave them plenty of food for thought, no way they could swallow it in one evening. Draco left, but Harry lingered at the Pensieve. He got the baby with the rats back into the vial, pulled Snape's memory out of his pocket and could not stand the temptation. He dived into the little silvery puddle and found himself in a pool of noise and blur. It couldn't be lost completely! Something had to be left of it! Harry waited, and waited, until trees emerged out of the impenetrable mist and surrounded him on all sides.
Lily Evans was lying stretched out on the ground, looking to the sky. The boy with greasy black hair sat next to her.
"Severus?"
"Yeah?" Snape said with a tiny warm smile.
"Tell me about the dementors again."
That was all that was left of it. The rest had drowned in oblivion.
The weather had been disgusting for two weeks in a row. Although they were a week into December, it had not frozen yet, but the rain and the wind did not stop. If that was what they called a mild winter...
It would be an overstatement to say that the sky cleared for the Gryffindor–Hufflepuff match on Saturday. Heavy clouds were still hanging low over the Quidditch Pitch, but it was not raining and one could see farther than a hundred yards ahead. It felt like a sunny day in June, by comparison.
The match ended before it started. Ginny caught the snitch in five minutes, the Gryffindors were cheering, the rest of the stands were cheering politely and queueing for the exit with disappointed faces.
But those had been a fascinating five minutes. Ginny was damn good! That Malfoy let her fly seeker—Harry didn't know how to feel about it. If he were himself now, it probably wouldn't have even crossed his mind. But Draco gave up seekership just like that and seemed to take pride in managing talent these days. He had taken on a couple of promising third and fourth-years for chasers. It looked like the Gryffindor team had also got a better captain.
Harry ran into him on the way back to the castle. Draco beamed with satisfaction.
"Hope the weather stays like this. Meet me at the Black Lake tomorrow at eight in the morning. I'd like to try something. And bring the locket!"
"What?"
But Draco was pulled away by the crowd of Gryffindors. Why so early on Sunday? Why miss breakfast? And what the heck was Draco up to? But the easiest way to get answers was ultimately to come to the appointed place at the appointed time.
The next morning Harry left the dormitories when his Slytherin roommates were struggling to open their eyes, and walked down to the lake. The sky in the east started to turn a lighter shade of grey, but it was still dark. Draco's black silhouette stood still against the deep blue backdrop of the still water. He moved when Harry approached with squelching steps, his boots sinking an inch into the mud.
"Did you bring the locket?"
"Yes. What is this all about?" Harry said waddling after Draco, who set forth on the path along the shore. "Where are we going?"
"To the south side. That's where they usually hang around."
"Who?"
"The swans."
"What the heck do we want with the swans?"
"We're going to run a small experiment."
"Are we going to swap them? Poor animals!"
"Well. At least they have an 'eternal bond' to begin with."
The path ran deeper into the wood. Whatever dim light was starting to spread over the landscape, it was warded off by the dense wall of trees.
"The south shore is open to the Muggles. We're not allowed to mess with magic there."
"Since when do you bother what is not allowed, Potter?"
"Since I'm on probation?"
Draco stumbled over a root of a tree.
"They won't send you to Azkaban for that," he said. "Besides, chances are no one will see us. Hogwarts will be at breakfast. And the Muggles... I don't know. Do you care?"
Harry did not really think there would be too much harm, even if some stray Muggle were to see some body-swapping swans. He and Draco had swapped in the middle of busy London on a Friday night, and no Muggle seemed to have noticed. Even if someone had noticed, they had probably found some mundane explanation—two weirdos jumping around, or optical illusion. He was more worried about the swans. Could swans have identity crises?
"What if it's a female swan and she ends up being male for the rest of her life?"
"These two are both male."
"These two?!"
The forest on their right hand side thinned out, succeeded by a long reed bed. The darkness made space for morning twilight. Their feet were cracking a thin crust of ice, and sinking into soft brown grass soaked with water. The sun must have risen somewhere behind the thick blanket of clouds to the point that the eye could discern more colours than just black and blue. The thicket of reeds ended abruptly and they finally saw the water's edge again. From the stony beach where they were now standing they could see the pair floating in the distance.
"How do you know they're both male?"
"Hagrid's theory. They have no young, for one thing."
They could be both female, Harry thought, but that made no big difference. What if a white swan ended up being black for the rest of her life? Harry looked around again, peering into the forest and scanning the hills for signs of curious Muggles. He spotted a little dot of a jogger on a path that led across the hills, but the jogger was moving away from them. Harry set his eyes on the swans again, with an uneasy feeling in his stomach.
The gorgeous couple swam side by side. The twilight faded into a grey winter morning. The swans pulled closer to the beach to feed.
"Okay." Draco held out his hand for the locket. "I'll locomote it to them, and you hold your wand out for Accio in case I lose it."
Draco let the locket rise into the air and directed it with his wand towards the swans. The birds ignored it until it got within a range of a couple of feet, and then swam quietly away. Very wise indeed.
Draco made the locket chase the swans a little closer to the water's edge, but it was not until he literally pushed it in between them, that they started to pay proper attention to it. First, the white swan pushed it away with his beak. Nothing happened. The black swan lowered his neck and gave a short hiss. But Draco pushed it back between them.
It didn't take much to get the birds angry. After a couple of uncoordinated hits, they finally pounced on it together, and flip! The black swan became white and the white one black. The birds seemed confused for a second, but the locket was coming back for them and they charged at it with full power. There followed a mayhem of necks, beeks and metal, and then a flop. And flip, they swapped again. And flop. Draco, satisfied with the result, let the locket drop into the water but before Harry could summon it, the swans dived for it and swapped again. With vindictive thrusts they pulled their enemy out and swapped a few more times in the process.
"Damn, they'll destroy it!"
The white swan propelled it into the air, and...
"Accio locket!" they both shouted. The locket came zooming and flop, fell between their feet.
Harry had barely stuffed it away, when the birds came out of the water and lunged at them, hissing, rearing up and flapping their wings.
"We're done here," Draco blurted out and took to his heels.
Harry wondered briefly if shield charms were effective against angry swans, but he did so while running. The menacing beat of wings behind their backs did not stop until they left the stony bank and the grass started squelching under their feet again. It was at that moment that they virtually crashed into a figure in jogging attire that stood at the edge of the reed bed, her arms crossed.
"Practising transfiguration, gentlemen?" said Professor Pye.
On their way back to the castle Harry and Draco were driven into jogging. Every now and again they attempted to put more distance between themselves and Professor Pye, who was escorting them wand out, but she kept catching up, and they were forced to whisper.
"Couldn't we have used a pair that attracted less attention?" asked Harry and threw a regretful look at a bunch of white swans drifting along the north shore.
"How would we have seen that they've swapped if they looked exactly the same?"
They could have painted one of them red first, Harry thought, but that would have probably made them even more conspicuous.
"What have we learnt anyway?"
"Well! It works both ways!" Draco said with satisfaction, almost breaking from whisper into normal voice.
"Yes, on swans!"
"The question is: what do these swans have that we don't?"
"Feathers?"
"Or they're a couple."
"No way, Malfoy. We're not going to become a couple."
"I hope not."
Harry threw another wary glance over his shoulder and met Pye's stony look fixed on him. He quickened his pace and pulled Draco along.
"Look. These swans were a couple when they first swapped, and they were still a couple when they swapped again, nothing changed. We didn't have feathers and we were not a couple when we swapped, and we still don't, and we still aren't. Nothing has changed, right? So why aren't we flip-flopping like these beasts non-stop? Shouldn't we be wondering what has changed that we cannot do it any more?"
Draco didn't answer. The spine-chilling idea of the 'eternal bond' flashed through their minds but neither dared to voice it.
Once they reached the castle, Pye ushered them straight to the second floor corridor, and as they stood at the Gargoyle and Pye opened her mouth to say the password, the Gargoyle moved aside and Hagrid, wide-eyed, pulled with an effort through the narrow opening. He stopped, blocking the door, and stared at the newly arrived party like he was back from the realm of the dead and they were heading for it.
"Gulpin' gargoyles!" he finally uttered, after taking a deep breath, which removed all the dust within an arm's length radius from the elaborate carvings that decorated the entrance. The Gargoyle gave a disapproving grunt.
"Thought tha's it. Said goodbye to all me pets," he said, addressing Malfoy, but the git just raised an eyebrow and did not even ask what had happened.
Hagrid let his gaze slide from one face to the other.
"Good luck, yeh three," he said, freeing the passage, and stomped away without another look.
The Gargoyle tried to slide back in place, but Pye set her foot through the door opening and gave the Gargoyle a meaningful smile. The Gargoyle grunted again and let them through. As they rose with the moving staircase, they could hear voices through the door that Hagrid must have left open.
"Two centuries worth of unique documents left to rot for a month in the rain. You were informed of the delivery date, Mr Filch. It was your duty to make it possible. Please take this as a formal warning."
"My duties go about the inside of the castle, Ma'am. His job is the outside. If that oaf doesn't—"
"Second warning, Mr Filch."
The next moment Filch left the office, mumbling something plaintively about his job description. When they entered, they saw McGonagall with a murderous expression on her face, standing in the middle of the room next to a big wooden chest. The plain unfinished wood was covered in patches of black mould and stank accordingly. Harry had a vague feeling that he had seen that chest before, though presumably in a better condition.
McGonagall looked at Professor Pye, as if Draco and Harry were not there.
"We provided the Ministry with invaluable evidence from our collection of memories for their Death Eaters investigation. All the vials were dated, named, and alphabetically ordered. And they just drop this mess at the gate!"
Harry ventured a glance into the chest, and had no doubts left. He saw a haphazard heap of vials. Most of the labels with names and mysterious runic codes had peeled off due to the prolonged exposure to the elements and now were scattered randomly in between. The ink had bled and faded, but on some of the detached labels one could still read the names 'Umbridge, Dolores', 'Carrow, Alecto', 'Malfoy, Lucius'... Those were the vials that Harry had not stolen from the Archive.
"You'd better have some better news than this, Clementine."
"I'm sorry, Minerva," Professor Pye sounded a tinge less self-assured than the way she had treated the Gargoyle downstairs. "These two gentlemen were transfiguring swans, the swans, in the unprotected part of the shore."
A silence fell, and Harry could hear the peaceful snoring of no less than five former Headmasters.
"Potter! Malfoy!" Now McGonagall had finally noticed them. "The way you used to bicker all these years was disgusting. But since you've joined forces, your behaviour has become downright criminal!"
Draco stared before him with an absent look, as if this was all not about him.
"Fifty points from Gryffindor, and from Slytherin, apiece." She threw an icy look at Pye. "And Clementine, another fifty points from Gryffindor for not using your own brain to deal with such trivial business!"
Professor Pye's silence spoke volumes. Harry kept covetously eyeing the vials in the box, when the solution shone upon him, clear as day.
"Professor McGonagall," he started as humbly as he could, "since we're in detention, I suppose, shall we sort that box for you?"
McGonagall's face cleared. "Clementine! I take that back."
When they stood outside McGonagall's office, their stomachs growling reproachfully on the account of the missed breakfast, Harry thought Draco would make a scene about their upcoming detention that Harry brought upon them. But...
"You're a genius, Potter."
Harry had not expected that Draco would so quickly come to appreciate his idea with the box.
"They were flip-flopping!"
Huh?
"When the swans swapped the first time, there was a flip. And then later there was a flop. There were two different sounds! Do you understand what that means?" Draco's eyes gave off a wild glint. "There are two different things happening! The first swap is not the same as the second!"
