This week, we have another blue-moon chapter where calendar dates mysteriously appear, lol. This is the last chapter before the Harrys head out! They won't be getting into a dragon-fight immediately once they're set loose, but I think you'll like the last bit of world set-up that'll happen in the next couple of chapters. (Hint: we've got a few Light World kids and a hub-city to establish the existence of.)
Content warning for Draco still being fantasy racist. He'll soon be having experiences that will whack him over the head with how twisted his worldview is, but in this chapter he's still parroting Death Eater talking points.
THURSDAY Dec 8
[DAY 26 in Hyrule]
It was raining ash over Hogwarts. Had been for a whole fortnight, in fact. It came and went, sometimes replaced by acid rain, but never fully stopped. How could it, when the bearers of the Four Sword were being so firmly kept under the thumb of adult supervision?
Yellow sent a surreptitious sideways glance at Professor McGonagall. There was almost always a teacher watching the Harrys to make sure they didn't run off. In some ways, it was worse than being stuck at the Dursleys; at least his relatives would mostly ignore his existence so long as he stayed quietly out of sight and did as he was told. He could have had a naked summer sprint through the woods if he remembered to repaint the fence in the morning and got back in time to make dinner. In contrast, the staff at Hogwarts were paying him and his brothers entirely too much attention.
He hated it. The inescapable feeling of watching eyes made him want to scrub his skin off.
"Let's go back over lines ten through twelve," Hermione called from the front of the classroom. "They sounded a bit rough. Remember, a Hylian 'r' is pronounced at the back of the throat!" She raised her conductor's baton and led their class of twenty—four teachers and sixteen students—through another droning recitation of a short section of chanting.
Yellow's idea of letting people sign up for the class they wanted, including an option for independent study of enchantments, had lessened the load for Green, Blue, and Hermione to a far more manageable level. Dumbledore hadn't been happy, though. He'd given all the Harrys a condescending lecture in his office before asking repeatedly if they were defying him because they wanted to fling themselves back into danger. He'd said it with far more gently-phrased finesse, of course, but Yellow and Blue had seen through the questions. The Headmaster thought Green was lightening his workload so he could more easily make a break for freedom, thus the constant roulette of teachers now standing watch. The only ones they hadn't seen on duty were Flitwick (who was still recovering from interdimensional travel sickness), Hagrid (who was lost to the vast expanse of Hyrule), and Lupin, who had become something of a cryptid according to current castle gossip. The man was never seen outside of his private quarters these days.
The back of Yellow's neck prickled. He wished he could just shut himself into a room and quietly wait there until the teachers lost interest. It was how he'd always dealt with Dudley when his cousin was in a bad mood. While he'd initially disapproved of Red's plan to just break out and explore the world, the quiet pressure of being watched everywhere except for inside his dorm was pushing him to consider extreme measures. Soon, he might even get to the point of not caring whether he was expelled. Why would he want to go to a school whose staff made his skin constantly crawl and whose headmaster was only concerned with his narrow-minded plans for how things should work?
More than that, why would he want to go to a school whose headmaster cared nothing for the world beyond the castle, including the students now trapped outside it? Over thirty Ravenclaws were stuck on Kokiri Isle; leaving the realm of the Deku Tree's purifying influence would mean subjecting thirty-two children to the unfiltered poison pooling at the base of Death Mountain. An adult might survive the slow boat trip through ash-laden waters to a safer area, but what about a first year? And when the Harrys had explained this, Dumbledore hadn't cared. Oh, sure, he'd made a show of concern. He'd claimed that the safety of his students was his first priority. But then he'd used that claim to justify the Harrys remaining at Hogwarts instead of going out to solve the problem! He'd rather the boys stayed safe (and useful, in Green's case) in the castle instead of stopping a major natural disaster! Yellow wanted to scream. Who cared if they were just third-years? They were the only ones who could fix things! Why were all the adults around him content to sit around and watch the situation get worse?
Yellow leaned back in his seat and took a deep breath. He focused on the reassuring pressure of his sword against his spine before exhaling. Even-tempered as he was, Yellow knew he'd probably snap soon. His brothers would lose their patience well before that. Red and Green had started hanging around the gaps in the castle walls on the first floor, daring any monsters to come through. They were always shooed away quickly by whatever teacher was supervising them, but Yellow foresaw a day when his brothers wouldn't let themselves be held back. Blue had been practicing the chant for making a Hylian staff in all the free time he had. He'd managed to make two functional ones so far. The feverish determination with which he muttered all those half-memorized lines of guttural gibberish at all hours of the night was frightening. Yellow, meanwhile, had been studying everything he could get his hands on. Green's conversation notes from talking about adventuring with Tiamus, translations of Hylian Bestiary articles, the verb charts and vocabulary lists Green had been churning out for his class, medical textbooks—anything. In case one of his brothers decided to stage a spontaneous jailbreak, Yellow wanted to be as prepared as possible for their next outing.
"Alright, let's do a run-through of what we've learned so far! Lines one through twenty!" Hermione raised her baton and started waving it in a count of four. Twenty voices, some shrill with youth and others deep and mature, began a carefully monotone song:
"O Deistris, yi vidma mon voka. Por favori leines a sal serva yon omnipoira. Sal serva yi forda besicchal…"
Green had been teaching them the actual words to the chants Zelda had been providing in an effort to drum up interest in Red and improve Blue's and Yellow's understanding. Every spell started with lines that translated to "O Goddesses, I give you my voice. Please lend this servant your great power" before winding off on a yarn about whatever specific things you wanted your magic item to do. Yellow thought it all sounded uncomfortably whiny when put in English. He couldn't imagine asking anyone for all that, let alone a set of goddesses who probably didn't much care for all these cross-dimensional outsiders with weird magic. He still practiced his chants, though. The ability to craft magical items on the fly would definitely come in handy. He imagined being able to sell useful magical artifacts in town, as opposed to gross monster parts that only a few people wanted, would do quite a lot to improve their financial situation once they left on their quest. Being able to enchant clothing would also be immensely helpful; not only might it make their outfits last longer, but it would save them some money on buying new armor if they could just improve what they already had.
When the two-hour class ended, Professor McGonagall left with the students like she'd only been there to learn. Snape slunk out of a side corridor to take her place.
Yellow kept a pleasant look on his face as he imagined applying the crystal globe of his freshly-minted Hylian staff to Snape's infuriating sneer. Out of all their watchers, the Potions professor was by far the most irritating. He was also the one most often assigned to Harry-watching duty. Green had explained that Snape was still sore over being kicked off the language-teaching committee for picking fights with Prince Tiamus. Because of this, the professor had decided to misuse his newly added position of authority over the Harrys to make sure the only places they went were from their classrooms to their dorm. He'd plant himself in front of them and interrogate the boys in nasty tones about what they thought they were doing if they so much as put a toe in the wrong direction. He didn't want any of the Harrys interacting with his Slytherins, nor did he want Green to talk to any of the Zoras. The only people he'd let them speak to without hassling them were their fellow Gryffindors in Gryffindor Tower, and that was it. Even Yellow and Blue, the least outgoing of the Harrys, found it aggravating. Red, though, who enjoyed talking to Malfoy and especially wanted to hang around him after what had happened with Dog, was hit harder by Snape's "no new friends" policy.
Picking Red out of the crowd of departing students, Yellow wove his way to his brother's side. He caught Red's arm just as his brother summoned his whip. "Put it away, please," he said quietly.
"If he badgers me about being a 'bad influence' on Malfoy again, I'm ripping his bloody nose off," Red growled. He dismissed his whip and curled his hand into a fist. "I'm tired of being talked about like we're either cult leaders or criminals, Yellow. We already get enough of that from literally every adult in Little Whinging, thanks to Aunt Petunia."
Yellow patted Red's hand. "I know, it sucks. But he'll only follow us around until we go back to Gryffindor Tower."
"I don't want to go to Gryffindor Tower," Red said with bared teeth. "I want to go out! I want to be able to talk to whoever I want to talk to! I want to be able to do something!"
Snape looked over, his attention drawn by Red's raised voice. His lips curled in a smirk. Dark eyes glittered with smug satisfaction. Ever so slightly, the man motioned with his chin in the direction of Gryffindor Tower, as if wordlessly saying, "You know the drill, Potters."
Red bristled. "That's it!" He conjured his Magic Lamp. "I'm lighting that bastard on fire!"
Yellow struck like a snake. He hooked one arm over Red's throat, the other locking over his own wrist to secure the hold. Then he turned them away from Snape as Red choked and tugged at his arm. "If you attack a professor in front of multiple witnesses, do you think that'll make Dumbledore any less likely to expel us after we run away?" he hissed in Red's ear. "No matter what we think of the teachers watching us, we need to look cooperative. That's how this works."
He released his sleeper hold to minimize the number of people that noticed it, instead snapping his hand onto Red's shoulder. The webbing of his thumb and forefinger rested against the side of his brother's neck, the pad of his middle finger lying over the hollow of Red's throat. Red stood like a statue. His Adam's apple bobbed against Yellow's fingers. "If you want to fly out to find that dragon, then fine, we can have a family discussion about it this afternoon. But you can't hurt people just because they annoy you. Especially when those people can do a lot more to hurt you back," Yellow said softly. "If you want to talk to Malfoy, use your Invisibility Cloak. He goes up to the Astronomy Tower a lot to stare out at the lake."
Red laughed nervously. "O-Oh, does he?"
"Yes. Now banish your lamp, please."
Red did as told.
"Let's go up to our room, okay?" he asked brightly, seizing Red's wrist. He towed his brother past Snape, who looked a tad unnerved, and down the halls. If Snape had seen their interaction and gotten creeped out, that was fine with Yellow. The Great Bat already had a million wrong ideas about why the Harrys were supposedly a menace; if he added one right idea to the pile, it wouldn't make a difference. Though Yellow cared a great deal about keeping up appearances and pleasing as many people as he could to smooth over any potential conflicts, he'd run out of patience for this petty man and his baseless gripes in the last few weeks. Snape's fossilized opinion of him wasn't worth an owl fart in the wind. The only thing of importance about the greasy bastard was how much trouble he could get the Harrys in if he decided to tattle to Dumbledore. He wasn't someone to be won over, but an authoritative threat to be managed—like the Dursleys.
Yellow and Red went straight to their dorm, where Green and Blue were holed up and hunched over various study materials.
"What's a 'subjunctive tense'? Does English even have one? And how am I supposed to know whether Hylian does?" Green asked, flipping through a linguistics textbook.
"Ask Tiamus during your meeting today. He knows everything," Blue said. "How do you pronounce 'protect' in Hylian? Zelda said I'm saying it wrong in my staff spell and that's part of why it fails most of the time."
"Uh, hold on." Green closed his eyes with a frown of concentration. "Mamore.Mah-moh-reuh," he said slowly. He opened his eyes. "Er, did that come out in Hylian?"
"It did." Blue added a note to the pages in front of him.
"So, are you two really into this teaching thing?" Red asked.
"I welcome death," Blue said dully.
Green laughed. "God no. I feel like a toddler standing next to Tiamus and Professor Babbling, with all the fancy linguistics words I don't know. Zelda could do my job ten times better. It's just that Dumbledore doesn't really trust her without being able to read her section of the book himself." He continued flipping through the linguistics book. "Aha! The subjunctive is a 'wishing tense'! Why would there be a special tense for that? Hang on…"
"Zelda said she's willing to let her Hufflepuff and Slytherin copies be toted around freely and there are a few students among the population here—Malfoy, Zabini, and Amanda Bulstrode among them—who can access her hidden pages," Blue said as he flipped through his notes for something. "She's also said it's possible for her to multitask and both work as a translator and assist Hermione in correcting people's pronunciation. Although in exchange she requests that if we leave the castle, we take the Gryffindor copy of her book with us. She'd like to see modern Hyrule."
The other Harrys perked up. Green set down his book, his eyes wide and glittering with hope. "Really? So we can go, then?"
"Do you really want to take off right now, with Dumbledore already being miffed at us? We could endure for another few weeks—stave off some of his wrath, maybe."
"If you ask me, this is Dumbledore's wrath." Green gestured toward the spread of papers around him. "I'd rather fist-fight Death Mountain itself at this point. In fact, yesterday I had to sweep ash out of my classroom because someone left the window open overnight! I don't care if Dumbledore said not to worry about it; that volcano is a problem, and it's only going to get worse."
Yellow gave Blue puppy eyes. "Can we leave soon? Please?"
"I'm not learning anything," Red said.
"And I've been having nightmares about conjugation charts," Green whined.
"Since when am I the leader?" Blue muttered, ruffling his hair. "Alright, give me a week to finish another two staffs before we set off," he declared. "Also, I'm going to ask Zelda to load me up with all the magical know-how I can write down so we can practice on the road. As for the rest of you, check whether our brooms still work, pack everything you'll need for at least a fortnight of travelling, and remember to ask around to see if anyone wants to come with us. Hermione's busy, but Ron and Malfoy might want to go."
"Er, would taking Malfoy around a volcano be a good idea? I mean, he's part Zora," Red said uncertainly. "He can't even sit in hot water."
"Yeah, but he's also slowly going mad staring at the lake like a zombie because it's too dangerous to swim in," Green said. "Last time we had a planning session, he told me Snape's caught him in the middle of sleep-walking thrice now and has him practically living in the Hospital Wing. Malfoy keeps wandering toward those gaps in the walls on the first floor."
"Definitely ask him, then. We can't have our best swimmer and resident nobility expert getting eaten by Skullfish or run through by a Lizalfos, now, can we?" Blue said. "Also, ask around to see if anyone needs anything. I know the twins are going to ask for potion ingredients, and Hermione will definitely want us to bring back some objects to enchant and exotic rocks to turn into special staffs. I'd love to get ahold of some Bluestone or another Moon Pearl, myself. Ooh, or a rod of stala."
"Ron's going to want a sword, if he isn't coming along with us," Yellow said. He remembered how frustrated his friend had been on their third expedition when he hadn't been able to lay a single hit on that big, hammer-wielding Deku Scrub. "I'm sure he'll be among the first to sign up to defend the castle."
"I could ask Professor Sprout about whatever plants she'd like us to bring back," Green said. "I heard from Hermione that she was pretty excited to hear about that jungle we came across. If anyone's going to get Yellow's farming idea off the ground, it'll be her."
Blue whipped a blank sheet of notebook paper out of the mess in front of him and started a list. "It's planning time!" he announced. Red and Green groaned, while Yellow perked up. "Best part of any adventure, if you ask me."
SATURDAY Dec 10
[DAY 28 in Hyrule]
Yellow leaned over the back of the couch to smile at him. "Hey Ron, do you like camping?"
Ron lowered the stack of Chocolate Frog cards he'd been sorting through in his boredom. Yeah, he had homework he could be doing, but being bored was preferable to writing out sentences in Hylian. "Depends on the kind of camping," he said. "If it's in a magical tent, it's okay. If not, it's terrible." He wasn't someone who took a lack of beds or bathrooms well. On top of that, there were the bugs that could wind up crawling over him in his sleep! He shuddered at the thought of a spider delicately walking across his face with all its horrid legs.
"So you wouldn't want to rough it for a week or so in the wilderness then, huh."
"No…? Wait, what are you asking?" Yellow was the trickiest among the Harrys, Ron had learned. He had a habit of talking around things.
"Well, my brothers and I were thinking of going out," Yellow's eyes darted around for any listeners-in, "and we're asking here and there to see if anyone wants to come along and see the sights."
"You're leaving—?"
"Yes, and we're also talking quietly right now, so shhh!"
"You're leaving the castle when it's raining ash and poison outside?" Ron whispered. "Didn't you see the rashes people were getting?"
Yellow frowned and put a hand to his chin. "Oh. Hmm. We forgot to factor that in. I'm sure we'll find some way to deal with it, though."
"On top of that, don't you have every teacher in the school watching you? Professor McGonagall has been hanging around Gryffindor Tower more often lately," Ron reminded him. "How would you even escape?"
"Out of a window, on our brooms," Yellow said easily. "With Quidditch cancelled, I think everyone kind of forgot we had them. It's not like any of them could catch us, anyway. Magic's broken, and none of the teachers have Hylian staffs yet."
"Wandless magic still works; Professor Dumbledore is one of the best wandless casters in Great Britain."
Yellow's eyebrows went up. "Whoa, really? I didn't know about that."
"He doesn't have all those titles for nothing." Ron had heard from his father and some Ministry-employed friends of the family just how unsurpassed the Headmaster was in terms of both skill and the amount of magic at his beck and call. While wizarding society didn't outright favor the more naturally powerful over others (unless those others happened to be Muggles or Squibs), it was common for people with more raw strength to rise through the ranks quickly. Having more energy to throw around made doing wordless and wandless magic easier, and being able to do wordless or wandless magic tended to impress the "right" sorts of people.
"We'd have to time it carefully, then—when the Stalfoses aren't out, but Dumbledore's still asleep." Yellow rubbed his chin. "I'm sure there's a wandless spell he could use to summon us back to the building if we got caught."
Ron crossed his arms with a huff. Yellow wasn't getting his point. Leaving the castle wasn't just impractical (because why camp in the dirt when there was a perfectly good building?), but inevitably going to invite disaster. "Of course you're going to get caught. Everyone's eyes are on you right now; do you think no one will notice you missing?"
"Ah, but that's the thing." Yellow grinned cheekily. "If we're not around to get in trouble, then we can't get in trouble, can we? Can't lock up what you can't find, after all, and I doubt Dumbledore has cast any tracking charms on our pants."
"You're happy about doing this, Yellow? You?" He would never have expected the most rule-abiding, conflict-avoidant member of the Harrys to endorse such a wild idea.
"I guess you wouldn't think so, huh." The boy breathed a sigh before draping himself over the back of the couch. "To tell you the truth, I'm not having a good time right now. All there is to do here is read and learn and keep Green and Blue from having nervous breakdowns from all the work they're doing. Meanwhile, a volcano we should be fixing is raining ash all over the country. I can see the problem we're neglecting right through the window, and Zelda has been updating us on what the Ravenclaws are going through. Mr. Black has been teaching potions classes during the fallout. They need healing potions for the younger kids because the ash is scratching up their lungs the worst."
Ron scowled at the mention of Sirius Black. Hermione had been passing along Zelda's news of whatever the escaped convict was doing. Going by the ancient queen's reports, Black had been a model citizen, making masks for the students and working with the Deku Scrub queen to find ways to ash-proof their lodgings. Ron didn't trust it, though. Lockhart had put on a friendly act like that, and look how that had turned out. Any old weasel could make themselves seem like a saint if they were a good enough liar.
"Also, if I have to hear one more 'where do you think you're going, Potters' from Snape, I think I might push him down a stairwell," Yellow went on, a crazed smile freezing on his face. He white-knuckled the edge of the couch. "That's a very bad idea, though! And very not-nice! Don't you think?"
Sitting up straighter, Ron laid a hand over Yellow's. "Are you okay?" he asked seriously.
Yellow bit his lip and turned his head away from Ron's searching look. "I'm trying to be," he said. "I have to be. Red would have swung his Magic Lamp at Snape on a few days ago if I hadn't held him back, and Green won't stop stressing about all the linguistic terms he can't get himself to remember. It's hard for us to read boring things and make the information stick. Even Blue has to be actually interested in a book in order to recall any of it."
"Yeah, Red's complained about that before."
"I think we'll all feel a lot better once we get out of here. Even though it's scary, being on our own where no one can look after us, it's also nice to just…do what we want to do and go where we want to go." A he looked wistfully out one of the tower's high windows. "We've spent a lot of time being locked up. Usually it just happens over the summer, but now it's happening again at Hogwarts. I don't want us to start hating this place, too." He grimaced. "So, back to my original question. D'you want to go Death Mountain with us?"
Ron went quiet. While his first impulse was to say "yes, of course" without hesitation, he'd had some time to think in the weeks since the Harrys had come home. A lot of that time had been spent ruminating on the unpleasant realities of risking expulsion to explore a country that was half-wilderness and entirely full of monsters.
He was, in all honesty, terrified of some of the things he'd witnessed while playing tag-along to his multiplied friend. The temple of corpses had tested him, seeing Blue almost die in the third temple had made him never want to see anyone so terribly hurt again, and the sea caves and the fourth temple…the less said about them, the better. He was still afraid to be alone for too long. His dorm was often too quiet for him to bear, leading him to spend his free time in the common room. Casting a Lumos when it got even slightly too dark had become reflex for him.
Ron didn't think he was entirely tapped out, but he couldn't bring himself to go into another temple. There was no telling what dangers the hidden labyrinths of Hyrule might hold. What if there were more corpses? What if he had to watch his friend get even more grievously injured? What if he, in his relative helplessness against the monsters the Harrys faced, died in the middle of one of those miserable mazes? His family would never even receive his body. It could be months before his parents learned they'd lost their youngest son.
He shuddered. That was the downside to having time to think. When he had only a minute to make a decision, he'd calculate maybe five steps ahead and make a choice from there. He'd had weeks though, and that left him far too much time to imagine everything that could (and would, knowing Harry's luck) go wrong.
Yellow read his pale, stricken expression and gave him an understanding smile. "It's okay if you want to stay here with Hermione," he said gently. "The castle is safe and warm, with food and beds. It doesn't have mad dragons to pick a fight with or volcanoes, either, which for most people is a plus!" He giggled.
Despite his friend's cheer, Ron's guilt only lifted by a few degrees. "I want to go, it's just…Well, those things you said," he said, looking toward the fire. Maybe he was a coward, but in all honesty, he didn't want to die. He didn't want Harry to die, either, but there was absolutely nothing he could do or say to keep his headstrong friend from throwing himself back into adventure. Even before finding the sword, Harry had already been a little like that. Ron was also well aware that he'd probably be useless, anyway. He hadn't been able to do much of anything against Argulla or the corrupted Deku Queen, after all. Those kinds of fights would be hard enough for the Harrys without Ron stumbling around and mucking things up.
"Do you want to take my shield with you?" Ron asked. "I know there's only one of it, but Red could probably get more use out of the thing than me."
Yellow shook his head. "No, you'll still need it. I'm sure there will be expeditions outside at some point. You'll need that shield to defend yourself out in the field. And what if the monsters around the castle decide to go inside? You're one of the most experienced monster-fighters around here!" he exclaimed. "Besides, none of us are strong enough to handle it right." He gestured down at his short, scrawny self. "Is there anything you want us to get for you while we're out, though?" he went on to ask. "We're going around and making a list. There are all sorts of things to find in Hyrule. And buy, too, although it'll be a while before we have enough money to get anything fancy. Do you want a sword to go with your shield? Or maybe some Hylian candy? Our magic bags have a stasis feature that keeps food fresh."
"Ooh, both of those, if you can," Ron said. "Do they really just have swords all about?"
"They don't have wands or guns here, so if anyone wants to protect themselves, they've gotta do it the old-fashioned Muggle way." Yellow mimed jabbing something with a spear. "We didn't see anyone with Magic Rods, either, while we were out for those few days. I think almost everyone around here is technically a Muggle, even magical-looking beings like Zoras."
"Muggles with magic-powered cities? How does that work?"
Yellow shrugged. "I dunno. It'd be neat if we could bring some of this stuff home with us, though. I'm sure there are a lot of people without magic that would want to be able to do some anyway."
Ron thought of one of his distant relatives, a Squib who worked as a Muggle accountant since he'd been all but burned out of the family tree. "Yeah…That would be pretty cool."
SUNDAY Dec 11
[DAY 29 in Hyrule]
Draco laid his forehead against the window. The view beyond it was as alluring as it was painful. A clawing need at the back of his mind urged him to go out to that water, the monsters infesting it be damned. His logical human mind screamed just a little louder that doing so would be a death sentence, either from bleeding out or the infection that would later set in.
Why was he like this?! The Zoras downstairs weren't trapped between beastly instinct and human intelligence, straining not to throw themselves into the pit of monsters. They took turns swimming in large tubs that Dumbledore had wandlessly transfigured out of large classroom furniture, and they were fine. Draco was the only one who had to be continually dragged away from openings in the castle walls. A hot flush flooded his cheeks at the memory of Blaise catching him by the collar before he could step out of a gap on the fourth floor. Draco hadn't noticed he'd been put a water-seeking stupor in the middle of the hall until his dorm mate had yanked him away from the edge.
He hissed in aggravation and knocked his forehead against the window. Something strange had been happening to his voice lately. Hisses came much more easily to him than they should have and his words now held a touch of the same reptilian rasp that Ruka's did. Some of his classmates had picked up on it and, from the chatter he'd heard in the back corners of the temporary Slytherin quarters, they thought he'd developed a throat infection in addition to whatever was making him so pale.
Even worse, his godfather was now onto him. How couldn't he be, when he'd seen Draco's pupils during one of his attempts to wander out of the castle? There was no mistaking those blown-out black pools for anything normal—or human, for that matter. His godfather had made him sleep in the Hospital Wing for the last several nights, berating Madam Pomfrey for not being able to find what was wrong with him. Draco could only be grateful that Professor Snape was convinced he was either under an esoteric curse or suffering the effects of an unusual potions accident.
Because in actuality, there wasn't anything wrong with him. That was the thing. Draco was just becoming what he had secretly always been. He was healthy, just not human. A healthy half-breed freak who could only ever look ill, monstrous, or caked in foundation that never matched the rest of him. It was something Draco didn't think he'd ever fully come to terms with, just learn to endure.
Mentally grappling with the fish-man problem was far better than ruminating yet again on the fact that he'd played caretaker for someone who was possibly a mass-murderer, and definitely a grown man. Every time he thought about it, he wanted to scream, break something, and/or beat his head against the wall. Stupid, stupid, stupid! He was so bloody stupid! Full of so much pride he couldn't see the blatantly obvious right in front of his spotty green nose!
"You should get a haircut."
Draco's legs coiled and sprang in a reflex he very much hadn't had before all this Zora nonsense. Had he not been in the Astronomy classroom, with its high ceiling, he would have brained himself on the castle stone.
Red appeared from nothing, whipping off his Invisibility Cloak and draping it over one shoulder. He whistled in amazement. "What was that, one and a half meters? Close to two? If you grew wings like Ruka's I bet you could get some distance."
Draco staggered upon landing—he'd just jumped his entire height!—and stomped up to Red. "What the hell is wrong with you, Potter?! I could have pitched myself through the window!" Potter had such an aggravating knack for sneaking. There was no reason for the Golden Boy to have a quiet, catlike tread, and yet this wasn't the first time he'd made Draco jump.
Red jerked his thumb toward the door. "I knocked, though."
Draco ground his teeth. So it hadn't been Potter's quiet steps, but Draco getting so lost in his thoughts that he'd closed himself off from the world. Again. It was something that had been happening with increasing frequency since he'd started fighting the pull of the lake outside. "Do it louder next time, then," he said cattily. "Why are you up here, anyway? Isn't Professor Snape currently on watch?"
"The others are keeping him busy. Blue and Yellow are shooting Incendios at monsters from a gap on the third floor, and Green's running around on the first floor to find a hole the teachers aren't guarding. Mostly to mess with Snape, but he also wants to fight some Bokoblins for practice."
Draco snorted. "Well, you're certainly keeping him busy." He appreciated the Potters' ability to aggravate his godfather like no one could; the more distracted Professor Snape was by his irrational Potter-hatred, the less close attention he paid to Draco's supposedly failing health. "Did you have something to ask, or is this a more pointless sort of meeting? I've already got one of those scheduled for this afternoon, thanks to Dumbledore and his stubborn belief that I'm some kind of Zora-whisperer."
"I did want to ask you something, actually," Red said, grinning broadly. "My brothers and I are breaking out of the castle in a few days. Wanna come with?"
Had Draco not already been looking at him, he would have done a double-take. "I'm sorry, you're what?" He pointed at the ash-filled, monster-infested lake outside. It was currently pouring rain that would raise rashes on the skin of anyone foolish enough to stay out in it. "You're going out there? Why?!"
Red's face fell. "I guess that answers my question," he said, more subdued.
Draco pressed his lips together, refusing to wince and show weakness. He found Red's carefree passion for ridiculous notions somewhat amusing. It was something Draco and his usual social circle very much lacked, so the contrast was…interesting. He'd never seen anything quite like it before. Seeing that happy spark go out made something small and embarrassingly weak in his chest pang. He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"Did I give you a 'yes' or 'no' answer, Potter? I don't believe so," he said coolly. There, that was less cruel than a flat refusal. "Now tell me why on earth you want to go out into that hellscape."
"Because it shouldn't be a hellscape and we can make it…er, not that?" Red said. "If we beat the monster messing with Death Mountain, all of that will stop." He pointed out the window. "Except the evil fish in the lake. But Hermione's working on that, teaching everyone how to make a Magic Rod. Maybe she doesn't know how to pass on the Sunburst Spell, but normal magic can still work on them if you double or triple-cast every spell. The lake might still need some cleaning up after that, though, from the volcano thing."
"So you're going adventuring again," Draco mused. He'd initially thought the Harrys were sneaking out just to escape the constant supervision, but of course they were just being their usual recklessly altruistic selves. "Why would you want me to come along?"
Red shrugged. "We figured you were getting sick of staring at the lake all day."
That, he certainly was. Draco was trapped like a moth hypnotized by a light, unable to pull himself away from the castle's windows. Resisting for too long meant waking up to somebody dragging him away from an opening in the castle for the umpteenth time.
"Ron and Hermione aren't coming with, since Ron wants to defend the castle and Hermione's busy with her class. We asked Fred and George, but they'd rather give us a shopping list than go foraging themselves, which is fine with us," Red said. "At this point, either it'll be an all-Harrys trip, or we'll take you along for a while and drop you off in a nice town with some money for an inn before we go up to where the lava is. It just seems like it'd be healthy for you to get away from the lake you keep trying to get yourself eaten in, y'know? And maybe you could be around some more people who'll treat you as…well, normal."
Draco jerked in surprise. "Wh-What do you mean by that?"
"There are all kinds of people in Hyrule. Bird-people, fish-people of like three different kinds, ninjas, cool-looking barbarian people who wear monster skulls—you never know what kind of person you'll see next! I don't think anyone would bat an eye at you, with or without your disguise spell thing." Red gestured vaguely at Draco's face. "Around here, you wear your sunglasses and make-up constantly, even around the Zoras, 'cause you're afraid of anyone treating you weird. The Zoras are totally fine with you, but you're barely ever around them because…Er, why is that?"
The answer came automatically. "A Malfoy can't be seen fraternizing freely with magical creatures. It would be indecent. My arrangement with Prince Tiamus was forced, so it counts as an exception, and I only met with Ruka in the lake because he happened to be there and always followed me around."
Red stared at him like he'd spoken in tongues. "They're literally just people, though. Most of them are plain old Muggles."
"Muggles?" Draco's eyes widened in horror. He'd assumed the Zoras all counted as magical creatures because really, what else could they be? They were neither human nor animal nor ghost, so they could only be some overgrown kind of fairy, or so he'd thought. Oh Merlin, was Tiamus a Muggle? Had he been treating a Muggle like someone of almost equal station to him?!
"Do you see any of them waving staffs or enchanting things? Yeah, they're Muggles," Red with a frown. "Ruka's a Muggle, too, although his sister said he'd get his magic soon. Why do you have that look on your face?"
Draco turned around. "What look? I don't have a look!"
Red sighed. "I know your 'I want to be racist but I don't want you to nag me' expression by now, Malfoy. Out with it. What's wrong with you?"
"I'm not being 'racist'! It's pure practicality! Do you know how dangerous Muggles can be?" Draco snapped, stalking up to him. "They're savages! They've hanged us and burned us at the stake for centuries! Their blood dilutes our magic!"
Red crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "I thought they were helpless vermin that would be exterminated by the Dark Lord once his army came to power. How they such a big threat if they're also not?"
"They—" Draco's voice caught. He'd never heard those two points laid out side by side before.
The Muggles were an ever-multiplying plague upon the earth—that was true. Their muggleborn spawn were magically and culturally deficient, spurning tradition and dragging down institutions like Hogwarts with their incompetence…except maybe not, because beyond the exception that was Granger, there were a lot of purebloods who got terrible grades and a fair number of muggleborn know-it-alls in Ravenclaw. There were muggleborns working loyally at the Ministry of Magic, too, the most important institution for protecting the sanctity of magical traditions.
But there was no denying that they had long persecuted anyone thought to have magic! True, they'd mostly burned their own kind in their paranoia, but young witches and wizards hadn't always been able to free themselves, and some methods of murder were beyond most people's ability to trick their way out of. Some of the witch-hunters had known to break people's wands as well, rendering their victims helpless. The Dark Lord was justified in avenging their lost brethren. There was a very real history of hatred between Muggles and magicals that Draco could find a firm footing on.
"And before you say it, the Muggles here aren't the Muggles back home. Not that the Muggles back home are anywhere near the same kind of people that burned witches at the stake, but still," Red said when Draco opened his mouth to make his point. "The Muggle cities here run on magic. As in, they don't use electricity here; they use magic."
Draco's planned argument withered to bitter ash on his tongue. The Muggles…used magic? But they were Muggles? Who had magic? What?
He gave up on maintaining his proper bearing. Red didn't care about aristocratic comportment, anyway. Draco's shoulders slumped, any veneer of confidence peeling away from his face. "I don't understand," he admitted. "Even though I don't think you're lying, it just doesn't make sense."
Red smiled and laid a hand on his shoulder. "If you come with us, we can learn together," he said warmly. "Maybe you can give us some fancy pureblood-speak about how this stuff works once you see it in action."
"Maybe," Draco mumbled. He cast a glance out the window, at the dark shape of Lake Hylia showing through the raining poison. Either he could stay here, tormented by the sight of that cursed water, or he could go out and have his view of the world cracked yet again by revelations he wasn't sure he was ready for.
He dug his stubby claws into his arms, something he couldn't do without an intervening layer of cloth unless he was willing to bleed. It would be nice to walk around and feel normal. The daily ritual of applying make-up was becoming more nerve-wracking the longer it went on and the lower his supplies got. Unlike the Lenses of Truth, which made up for their horrendous ugliness by being incredibly comfortable to look through, his green sunglasses (originally bought for House pride a year ago and then buried in his trunk after one wearing) were a constant visual annoyance. His woolen House scarf also irritated his sensitive gills, leaving him with red rashes on his neck every evening when he took it off. The feeling of being judged every time he walked into a room full of his fellow, mostly pureblooded Slytherins made him want to hide his face in Dog's thick fur.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I'll go with you."
There was a short silence.
Then Red ruffled his hair, making Draco sputter and slap his hand away. "Atta boy, Malfoy! But how about that haircut? It's growing out fast and you've got over half an inch of pink all around. I could fluff it up real nice once it's short. That frosted look would work well on you."
"How am I supposed to get a haircut, Potter? Conjure up a barber?"
"Nah, I just need to fetch my scissors, a brush, and some of Lavender's non-magical hair spray."
"You're a shaggy mess!"
"Yeah, on purpose. The bangs cover my scar. Now wait a minute while I go find those scissors."
Notes:
-Dumbledore isn't being evil here, and under most circumstances would be doing the right thing to keep a group of self-destructive children safe. He's in the wrong because these particular children can, in fact, save the world from a mad demigod, but from his POV he's basically an exhausted parent holding a quartet of toddlers back from sprinting off of a cliff.
-The Harrys can't remember the contents of books they don't care about because ADHD. They can stare at the words for as long as they want, but if their brain doesn't want to cooperate, none of those words are actually going to register. Blue has the easiest time of fixating/hyperfocusing on books he finds interesting, while Red needs to move around and do stuff hands-on if he wants to learn something. Green and Yellow are between the two extremes.
-Ron isn't a coward, nor is it unreasonable that he's afraid of death. His mean opinions of himself (much like Harry's mean opinions of himself) are not objectively correct, nor are they my opinions of the character. I think he's a Good Bro doing his best, and it's valid for him to stick with Hermione and hold the home front back at the castle *pats his head*.
-Yes, Draco is tagging along with the Harrys for a bit. Some people may think of this as unfair favoritism, but consider this: fish kid in an active volcano. Also: pureblood supremacist experiencing the culture-shock of a magic-powered Muggle society with zero divisions between mages and not-mages. So, less like favoritism and more an opportunity to put this kid through his own bespoke hell for learning purposes *evil cackle*