The Unlucky Friend

Harry

Thank goodness Draco had bought a phone and all those games. Because Hermione fell asleep only five minutes into the train ride and without the entertainment, Harry would have been bored out of his mind.

He and Draco attempted a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, but Draco packed it up about two minutes into the actual campaign, saying he wanted to animate the game to explain itself before they played it next. So now, the two of them were learning how to play Exploding Kittens.

Draco had been gifted Rosalie's playlists and had set about creating his own. He had bought earphones and he and Harry were currently sharing the pair as they played.

"You'll need to set up a DA meeting when we get back to Hogwarts," Draco reminded him as he played a card to look into the future, pulled the top three cards, and shuffled them around in a suspicious way.

"That's right. My Galleon is in my trunk. Remind me on the train." Harry drew the next card and found that Draco had been bluffing – again. It was nothing special. "Think Umbridge will ask about the prophecy?"

"I've been thinking about that," Draco admitted. "Because she's Cornelius's assistant, she sits in on a few Wizengamot meetings. I'm not sure she could have sat in on the voting for the release of my prophecy – our prophecy, you know what I mean! Anyway! But she definitely could have looked up the agenda and found out it was released."

"What can she do?" Harry asked. "If she bans prophecies, we'll lose our Divination subject."

"That's coming anyway," Draco said, wearily. "I received a letter from home two days ago. Umbridge has begun to process to have Professor Trelawney sacked."

Harry fumbled his deck but did not reveal any cards. "Really?" he asked. "Trelawney won't take that well."

"No, she won't," Draco agreed. "But who cares? Not much will change for her. I doubt Dumbledore will let her leave."

"Why won't Dumbledore…"

"The prophecy, Potter," Draco deadpanned. Nowadays, the last names only came out when Draco thought he or Hermione were being particularly thick. "The one about Voldemort? Dumbledore would never let her out into the wild because the Death Eaters would go for her."

"Right, right. Her severe prophecy." Harry nodded and played a card to allow him to steal one of Draco's. He ended up with a nope card – very handy. "What do you reckon it's about?"

"Well, if I had to guess, something that would stop Voldemort," Draco said. "Because Dumbledore's kept it very close these years."

"But Dumbledore couldn't know what it was," Harry said. "Unless he's got a copy?"

"In order to have a copy, he'd have to be mentioned or a witness or something," Draco said. "The only way to find out would be to ask."

They arrived in London and stayed in another AirBnB overnight. Hermione's home was too far, and Draco and Harry's homes were too hostile, so they'd found a place to drop their trunks and pass out until it was time to catch their train in the morning. Draco had started with a single trunk and now had two and a Muggle reusable shopping bag that Rosalie had threatened him to within an inch of his life about if he were to throw it out empty. He continued to message her up until the point that they crossed through the barrier at King's Cross and began to board the Hogwarts Express. Then, the phone began to glitch and the signal faded away. Draco shut it off with a frown and tucked it away in the front pocket of his jeans.

They arrived early enough that almost every compartment was empty, so they went to the front of the train to find a preferred spot. Draco paused when Harry and Hermione entered one, though. "I was reflexively following you," he said. "Should I go sit with the other Slytherins? Weasley won't like to see me."

"You can stay," Hermione said. "But your luggage will have to be shrunk down now, please. It won't all fit up here."

"Take out your Dungeons and Dragons stuff," Harry said as the thought occurred to him. We can do magic now, so let's try and animate them!"

They settled in and Hermione and Draco began to teach Harry charms. It was all very advanced stuff and really, only Hermione was any good at it. She succeeded in getting one of the sorcerers to obey her commands and began tying the character to the D20 dice. "The idea should be that a low roll will fail, right?" she asked, taking the dice in her hand. "So my sorcerer will now tap dance!" she rolled an eight and the sorcerer tapped out a few awkward steps, then stopped and hid his face in shame.

Harry began to laugh at the poor figure's misfortune. He nodded at the dice. "May I?" he asked. Hermione handed it over and Harry said, "My sorcerer will cast summon water." He rolled a two. The sorcerer attempted to summon water, but his staff fell out of his hand and he tripped on it. Hermione glanced at the sheet. "Damage incurred," she announced, and showed them. "Just like I planned."

"Alright, alright, you're the best. We got it," Draco said sarcastically. He picked up the dice. "The sorcerer will now summon… a giant cake."

"Can't use a spell slot right now," Hermione replied. "He needs to recharge."

"Fine. My sorcerer will take his dagger and throw it at…" Draco held up the book and pointed to the eye of a character on the cover. "This circle, right here." He rolled and came up eighteen.

"Plus your modifiers and you're at twenty-one, Draco. Success," Hermione calculated. The sorcerer removed a knife from out of nowhere and threw it. It hit the eye of the character in the middle and stuck there. Hermione watched the character sheet intently. "The knife has vanished from his inventory. He'll have to pick it up."

"Right, you're a genius," Harry said. "Honestly, I'm not even being sarcastic. You're an honest-to-Merlin genius. Will you do the others, please? So we can play together?"

Hermione preened with pride and Harry found himself basking in her good attitude. They were still not "together", but the last three weeks had been pushing them closer and Harry was thinking he'd ask her to be exclusive soon. He liked her. Not in the way he'd liked Cho. That had all been pining and drama and light-headedness. He liked Hermione because her talents and skills were different from his, because she was not afraid to communicate with him, and because the history between them helped him feel more stable. He had noticed her appearance more in Muggle clothes versus witch's robes and was disappointed to think that the colours and comfy materials were going away soon.

He was not the only one. Harry glanced to Draco, who was wearing a shirt with a bright green dragon on the front. "Draco," he asked, "How long will you stay in your Muggle clothes?"

"Bold of you to assume I'm ever wearing robes again," Draco replied. This was a response he had been giving quite often, ever since Rosalie had showed him some Muggle memes.

"Because the Slytherins won't recognise you at this rate," Harry said.

This was entirely too true. Draco's hair was longer and tinged green from some New Year's Eve shenanigans that hadn't washed out yet. It was neither combed, nor slicked back. He had shades like the ones he'd seen in Top Gun and, with the Muggle clothes, you could see what shape his body was.

They had not talked much about the fact that Draco was not a real Slytherin because Draco was not wanting to talk about it, but Harry wondered if he was thinking about that now. It occurred to Harry that what Draco was actually doing was displaying some real Hufflepuff energy, bolding throwing his lot in with something once he'd discovered he liked it. He wanted desperately to mock Draco for all the racist things he'd said about Muggles over the years, and was only keeping a lid on it because Hermione had asked and has also given a very good reason why not to – it might push him away.

"Also, Umbridge will have a cow if she sees you wearing that," Hermione said. "Maybe she'll try and ban Muggle stuff."

"I think that, if she does, it'll just increase the amount of Muggle stuff people are willing to sneak in," Draco said, half-heartedly. "No one respects her. They're going to start doing the opposite of what she asks if they think they won't be caught – just to spite her."

Hermione paused in charming a dwarf and stared at Draco. "Sweet Merlin," she breathed. "Draco, you've just given me a wonderful idea." She looked to Harry. "When's the next Hogsmeade weekend?"

"I dunno," Harry said. "Valentine's probably?"

"And we're spending that day together, right?" Hermione asked.

"Oi!" Harry frowned at her. "What if I had a way that I wanted to ask you to go with me?"

"That's a yes, then," Hermione said. "What if I arranged for Rita Skeeter to be there?"

Draco looked just as confused as Harry felt. "Why?" he asked.

"How?" Draco followed up.

"Oh, I'm blackmailing her," Hermione said casually to Draco. "Here's my plan-"

But Draco burst into a stuttering mess. "You- you're what…" He took a deep breath. "You wot now, mate?"

Harry leaned forward and put a hand to Hermione's arm. "You need to explain more of that to him before you move on," he said.

"Right," Hermione sighed. "Well, Draco, I suspect you already know. She's an illegal animagus."

"Oh, yeah," Draco said, shrinking into himself again.

"You passed false information on us to the Daily Prophet last year." At Hermione's words, Harry recalled seeing Draco speaking into his hand last year, and how he had been interviewed by the prophet.

"I recall." Draco nodded with a grey expression.

"Really made life nasty, for the record."

"Skip to the punchline, Granger."

Hermione smirked. Draco had retreated into his chair. She returned part of her attention to the dwarf she'd been charming and set him free to wander across the seat. "Well, I caught her. Kept her in an unbreakable jar for a few months and then turned her loose with a threat that if she wrote anything unfavourable about Harry or I or Ron, then I'd turn her in and get her life in Azkaban." When she was met with silence, she smiled and whispered, "I may have shaken the jar a few times, to get my point across. It was quite a stressful time for her."

"You shook the jar?" Draco repeated, sounding lightheaded. "That had a person in it. Transformed into a beetle."

"You had her for a few months?" Harry repeated. "Seriously?" He imagined his face matched Malfoy's pretty well – a little grey and ashen.

"Well, she was awful to us," Hermione said. "And she can't do anything back without outing herself. Even if she were to register now, she'd have to stand trial for all she wrote beforehand. People would realise how she got into places she shouldn't have been."

"You're merciless," Draco said.

She only raised an eyebrow. "Aren't most Slytherins? You've been merciless to us as well."

Harry had never seen Draco Malfoy look so terrified. But Hermione turned her attention to Harry. "What if I have her show up and you do an interview with her? A proper interview. And you tell your side of the story with Voldemort." Draco jumped, but not as much as he usually did. Harry couldn't tell if it was because Hermione herself was the more immediate danger, or because he was getting used to them using the Voldemort's name.

"To what end?" Harry asked. "Fudge definitely has hands in the Prophet. Even if it is Skeeter, no one will publish it."

"Luna Lovegood," Hermione replied.

"You're kidding," Draco said. "That rag?"

"It'll publish, won't it?" Hermione said. "And I bet it'd turn a profit for the Quibbler too. Even if every other article is rubbish." Each word got a punctuating emphasis that drilled the idea into Harry's soul.

He looked at Draco. "Do you think it'd work?"

Draco shrugged. "Umbridge would ban the Quibbler immediately – hey!" he straightened up, smiling. "Umbridge would ban the Quibbler immediately!"

"Exactly!" Hermione pointed at Draco, beaming. "And Fudge would do the same thing. And the more it looks like a coverup…" Draco's smile faded suddenly. Hermione lost a bit of the wind in her sails. "The more it looks like a coverup… Will your parents be in danger?"

"I don't know," Draco said. "To be honest, I don't know why the Dark Lord is being so quiet right now. He may be trying to get that prophecy, sure, but why the secrecy?"

Harry realised Draco was now in the uncomfortable position of a Hufflepuff with two loyalties. His family, or his mission and friends. Privately, it seemed to Harry that Draco had made his choice. Voldemort would not be impressed with a Muggle-item lover such as Draco was making himself out to be. But did Draco realise he'd already made that choice? If push came to shove, would he recess and return to his roots?

"Let's talk more about this," Harry said to Hermione with a bit of a pointed look. "And we'll decide later." She seemed to get the hint – it was nice to have that level of communication – and continued charming the little characters.

Outside, the platform began to fill. Draco glanced out at one point and said, "This is the first time I've come here myself," nonchalantly. Neither Harry nor Hermione knew what to say.

As Hermione was working on the last two characters, the cabin door swung open. Ron, Ginny, and Neville were standing there. "There you are!" Ron said. "We've looked up and down the train for you lot. And here you are, dead front!" He spotted Malfoy, who was intently studying the character sheet of the action figure he'd decided to play as. "Who are you?" he asked.

Malfoy looked up, sneering and confused, and Ron jumped back. "Malfoy?" he demanded. "You, uh, look different."

"Really?" Malfoy said. "Do tell. Want to sit down and play this round with us? We're waiting for G-Hermione to finish the last game pieces."

Harry caught the slip and stared at Malfoy. He was playing it cool, but seemed to be very nervous.

"What game?" Ron asked. Now that the shock was wearing off, he was starting to become guarded.

"Sit down, Ron," Harry said, scooting into the window to make room for Ron. Before Ron could assume the middle seat was the offered seat, Hermione slid over so her leg was touching Harry's leg. "I think you'll really like this game. It's called Dungeons and Dragons and Hermione – the genius – has enchanted the pieces to play according to what we tell them."

Ron put his trunk up beside Harry's and Hermione's. Ginny wheeled hers in behind him. She raised an eyebrow at all the stuff beside Draco's trunk. "What's all this?" She asked.

"Mine," Draco said. "I'll shrink it – don't worry."

"Is that a Muggle shopping bag?"

"It's got some games in it. Here-" Draco shrunk his items even more so they'd fit in the normal area a trunk would take up. Ginny and Neville both put their trunks up. Neville did not say a word to Draco, and let Ginny take the middle seat so that there would be space between them.

Harry offered character sheets to Ron, Ginny, and Neville and quickly explained the basics. Each character was pre-equipped with stuff, but they could build their own later. He raced through the dice explanation just in time for Hermione to finish the last characters, which were monsters and didn't need such complex sheets.

"I'm in charge," Hermione declared (very Slytherin of her), "Because I think I understand the schematics the best. And the quest we're going to go on… you five are lost twenty miles from Hogwarts and must navigate the forbidden forest in order to make it home." As she spoke, she cast a charm to mimic the forest floating in midair, as if on a table. "You may each pick a place to begin. Roll for initiative."

"So, how was your break?" Ron asked Harry and Hermione as Hermione was counting up rolls. As she declared Neville the first mover, Harry leaned around her to speak to Ron.

"It was real nice! The town we stayed in had the funniest accent. It was near impossible to understand anyone."

"What'd you do?"

Harry laughed. "What didn't we do? We visited a Christmas Market and saw a music box of Hogwarts this tall-" He put his hands up for effect. "And we ate Brotwurst and meat pies that were put on sandwich bread, and watched Muggle Movies and saw Christmas lights. We went hiking at this place called Haigh Hall and went to this wild Chinese place- Sorry Hermione, I want to roll for investigation – the food portions were tiny and you ordered a lot, and as fast as you could order they bring it – I rolled a fifteen."

"Modifer, seventeen," Hermione said, and the charm modified itself to add glowing footprints ahead of Harry's action figure. "Footprints appear to your left. Friend or foe, you don't know. What do you want to do?"

"Can I further examine the footprints?"

"No need. You already rolled. They're human, two inches deep, a foot apart, and were made about an hour ago?"

Ron furrowed his brow. "How's Harry supposed to figure all that out?" he asked.

"Harry's character is an elven fighter, with a backstory of being a private investigator for a local king," Hermione explained. "He gets that information because his character is able to discern it. Yours is…" she peered at Ron's sheet. "A centaur monk banished from his herd. So you'd also get that information, because centaurs are good at tracking things, and you may also get some prophetic nonsense that Harry here would make up instead of me." She patted his arm.

"What would I get?" Ginny asked. "I'm still trying to wrap my head around this."

Hermione took a glance. "You're a goblin Cleric," she said. "You worship the great goblin Gods and don't have tracking experience. You'd get footprints, but your character isn't specialised to know that much else. Look at your negative modifier for it."

"I follow the footprints," Harry said. "And draw my sword." The little action figure did as it was told. But Harry ran out of walking paces before anything interesting happened, and so his turn ended and he returned to chatting with Ron while Ginny and Draco played.

"Draco overloaded on Muggle stuff," Harry said. "We met this girl, Rosalie, and she just kept hauling him to all these Muggle places. It was kinda impressive how much she could fit into a day."

"Oh, fun. A Muggle?"

"No, a Pureblood Witch," Draco said, straightening up. "From America. She's just moved over and she's planning on transferring her school records to Hogwarts."

"Oh," Ron said, blandly.

"Did you meet her in the Muggle world?" Ginny asked.

"Yes," Draco said. "She figured out we were Wizards and a Witch. I guess we weren't very covert."

"I think she took a fancy to Draco," Hermione said. "And that's why she wanted to join us." She snapped her fingers at the board. "Draco, roll dexterity saving throw."

"Was she nice, or was she…" Ron trailed off, with a nod towards Draco that was pretty obvious, in Harry's opinion. Good thing Draco was focused on the board. Harry opened his mouth to reply, but Draco beat him to it.

"She was wonderful," he said. "We're dating now." He made his throw and discovered a small pack of goblins surrounding him.

The game lasted hours. All the way to Hogwarts, they played. Because of Hermione's charmwork, when a character levelled up, bright blue celebratory sparks shone above their heads. When someone failed a roll, the action figures made them laugh so hard that they each started getting cramps in their sides. Everyone was delighted with the game. So much so that Hermione and Draco began to discuss how to market and sell it to the Wizarding public. They figured getting Fred and George involved would be the first step.

Eventually, they had to step out to get dressed in their robes. Poor Draco looked miserable as he gathered up his things. Harry had the feeling that the robes wouldn't last once he'd made it back to his common room.

As soon as Draco had left, Ron, Neville, and Ginny all turned to Harry and Hermione. "What's going on?" Ron asked. "Is he, like, your new best friend?"

Harry could sense the imminent jealousy outburst and tried to placate it as best he could. "We're cool with Draco," he said. "But you don't have to be if you don't want to."

"Draco?" Ginny repeated. "Since when are you all on first-name basis?"

"We've been calling him Draco for several months now," Hermione said. "He only started calling us our names after we left for Christmas break."

"He's been a git, and sometimes he still is," Harry said. "But he's also been pretty cool. He's our friend now."

"What does that make us?" Ron asked, ears going red.

"Still our friend," Harry said. "We just… have a bigger circle now."

Draco returned just as the train was pulling into the station. The six walked out together. No Slytherins seemed to be nearby. As Hermione made to get off, Harry instinctively offered her his hand. She took it, didn't let go, and they walked, hand-in-hand, towards the carriages.

"I wish you wouldn't do that," Draco called.

Harry glanced over his shoulder. "Do what?" he asked.

"Walk like you are. You're making me miss Rosalie."

Though the comment had seemed a little intense at first, Harry got the sense that Draco was simply jibing them and didn't actually mind. But then he caught a glimpse of Ron's face behind Draco's, and realised that his first friend probably did mind.

He could let go of Hermione's hand and try to explain it to Ron later. Or, he could keep a hold and still explain later. Even though he didn't want Ron to be angry at him, it was more important that Hermione didn't think Harry was too embarrassed to hold her hand with their peers around.

Given that there were four to a carriage, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Draco all joined one while Neville and Ginny joined Luna Lovegood and another Ravenclaw. Harry could picture Rosalie among those in the crowd. "It'll be nice when Rosalie is here," he told Draco.

"Yeah, no joke."

Ron crossed his arms and sulked in the corner of the carriage. Then, Hermione did something she hadn't done before. She leaned her head on Harry's shoulder. He leaned his head on her head and together they watched the ground outside move. Harry was vaguely aware of Run sulking harder.

It was an interesting moment when they finally arrived in the Great Hall. Harry and Hermione made for Gryffindor table, then paused to realise Draco would be going the other way. They turned, and stared for a moment.

"It's fine," Draco said. "We'll torment each other again soon." And he took his leave to Slytherin.

"We've been around him for three whole weeks," Hermione muttered to Harry.

"And we didn't strangle him," Harry replied.

"Did you think we would?"

"I considered it a few times."

Ron did not speak to them when they all sat down together and Harry could sense the imminent blow-up. Oh well. It had to come eventually. He kept his fingers laced with Hermione's as they sat beside each other. Strangely, Cho Chang paused as she walked by, gave Harry the dirtiest look, and then walked away.

"What's her deal?" Harry muttered to Hermione. "We weren't even dating and haven't spoken since October!"

"I think she didn't realise you were drifting apart," Hermione said.

"That makes two of us," Ron finally said from the other side of the table.

There was usually not a lot of fanfare with the return to school after Christmas break. Everyone tucked in and ate. Hermione picked at her shepherd's pie, though. "I miss Galloways," she mourned.

"We'll have to go back," Harry said. "Maybe over the summer, we can hang out and go visit. What's there to do in the summer in Manchester?" He glanced at Ron, across the table. "We ought to bring Ron and Ginny and Neville too. Make it a group thing."

But Ron was still not pacified and sulked into his pie.

"So," Harry said as soon as he'd sat down on his bed in the boy's dorm. "Hermione and I aren't dating."

"Oh, bugger off," Ron said. "You were holding hands all the way up to the castle."

"Well, yeah, we were," Harry said. "But I haven't asked her yet. To be my girlfriend. But I could tell you were… upset. So, I wanted to set the matter straight with you."

"You knew I liked her," Ron said. "You knew and-"

"Ron, I had no idea!" Harry said. Which was partly a lie. He'd told Hermione that he wanted to play his cards before Ron did… if Ron ever was going to play. "Listen, mate, I didn't know you liked her. If I had known… I would have told you back on the train. I thought you thought we were going to begin ignoring you, and I was going to tell you-"

"You are ignoring me!" Ron snapped. "You're off being friends with Malfoy now!"

Neville, Seamus, and Dean were doing their best to get ready for bed as quickly and discreetly as possible. And now that Draco had been brought up, Harry realised the conversation needed to end. "We are friends now," Harry said. "And we would have invited you along for Christmas, but you were already going with your family to visit your cousins. And you hate Draco, and we needed him there."

"You needed him…" Ron repeated bitterly. "You didn't need me."

"Because we were waiting on a ministry letter addressed to him," Harry said. "It wasn't an emotional need, Ron."

"No? I suppose you and Hermione just happened to pick today to start holding hands then?"

Harry went silent for a moment. He had been very, very carefully sorting out his feelings on Hermione. Trying not to make the situation bigger or smaller than it was. Trying to make it as true and straightforward as possible. "I mean… we've been hanging out more these last three years. Even before Draco. I wasn't setting off to hurt you. It's just something we're trying out."

Ron snapped his curtains shut, and the conversation was over. With a sigh, Harry leaned over and shut his as well.

The next chapter will be called Rita Skeeter Bites the Bullet. I will post it early if I get five reviews.