Nothing is mine.

Harry has a chat with Malfoy and then his prior actions come back to... bite him. xD

This chapter has an extra bit on my site (free, don't panic) for those who want to opt into the more adult stuff!

And Putting Love Away

Malfoy sloped down the hallway, throwing shifty glances back over his shoulder as he slunk past the faded tapestries and snoozing portraits; he swiped his blonde hair back off his forehead into a lank, messy thin fringe and released a long sigh, rubbing at the deep, dark bags beneath his eyes.

Harry poked his head out from behind the large statue of two dancing goblins and tiptoed to the gleaming set of armour in front of a faded blue and gold tapestry, chuckling under his breath.

'Potter,' Malfoy drawled, 'if you must absolutely insist on doing that, could you at least do it competently; I have seen you use a perfect Disillusionment Charm.'

'That would be cheating,' Harry declared, stepping out from behind his suit of armour. 'But now you have finally discovered me—'

'Finally? I've known you were here the entire time.'

'Of course you would say that to cover your failures.' Harry dismissed Malfoy's denial with a flap of his hand. 'What happened to Crabbe and Goyle? I thought they weren't capable of independent thought and just sort of shambled after you like a pair of inferi?'

'They're capable of it,' Malfoy replied. 'They just aren't very good at it.' He descended the stairs, running a hand along the bannister. 'Is there a reason I have to put up with your company?'

'Yes.' Harry grinned to himself. 'How is your assassination plot coming?'

Malfoy's foot went straight into the trick step. 'Excuse me?'

'You know, the assassination plot. The assassination for Dumbledore. The assassination plotted especially for Dumbledore. Dumbledore's assassination. That assassination plot.'

'I have no idea what you're talking about.'

'That's exactly what you'd say if you did.' Harry stroked a long and entirely imaginary beard. 'Are you staying in the step or are you coming out?'

Malfoy dug his wand out of his pocket and freed himself. 'Obviously I'm not staying in the step, Potter.'

Anyway, back to your attempt to murder the headmaster.'

'Alleged attempt. I'm not attempting anything.'

'What have you been doing this entire time?' Harry asked. 'I completely forgot to keep an eye on you and you wasted all your time.' He shook his head. 'Disappointing, Draco. Although, to be fair, Voldemort does expect you to fail. He said and I quote… Draco won't succeed, he's incapable of doing anything without his father's help. He's just a decoy.'

'He did not say that.'

'No—' Harry chuckled to himself '—I added the part about your father.'

'He didn't say the rest either.'

'He did. You were on the floor grovelling and then you left, and while I was admiring the daffodils, Voldemort was monologuing about how you'd fail and were just a decoy, but Dumbledore would believe that you were just a throwaway attempt on his life and it would distract him.'

Malfoy's face paled. 'Daffodils?'

'Yes,' Harry said. 'You had little pots of them around all of the statues of Briganti in those alcoves. I quite liked them actually. They were nice.'

'How in the name of Myrddin do you know what the inside of my home looks like?!'

'I saw it.' He flapped his hand. 'But back to the slightly more important murder plot.'

Malfoy stood there, his wand hanging loose in his fingers. 'Father made them himself. Not the statues, the daffodils. He always gives mother daffodils.' A deep frown creased his face. 'But nobody has been in that room but our family—'

'And Voldemort,' Harry chimed in. 'He was definitely in there, being very melodramatic as always. No red crayon time this time, though. I don't think he said aileni yn marvoleth once, actually.'

Malfoy's gaze sharpened. 'Did Greengrass tell you something? And then you made up the rest because of mother's name?'

'No.' Harry rolled his eyes. 'How is your mother's name even relevant? And how is this more important than the murder plot you've apparently not gotten very far with?'

'Did she?' Malfoy demanded.

'I don't think Daph — I mean Greengrass — has ever actually mentioned you to me,' Harry said. 'She's mildly evil and in Slytherin, and has fewer grandparents than any reasonable person would expect after all that cousin marrying you guys all do, and obviously no perfect Gryffindor would associate with her, so I can't imagine why anyone would think she would talk to me about anything.'

Malfoy sighed. 'The whole school knows you're dating, Potter.'

'No they don't; there would be loads of rumours.'

'They should,' he muttered. 'It's ridiculously obvious.'

'Now you sound like Hermione,' Harry mused. 'I knew I was onto something with that enemies to lovers romance. Draco, we must find you some leather trousers before it's too late and you're destined to die alone and unloved.'

'I do not sound like Granger.' Malfoy stomped down the stairs to the little door to the right of the Entrance Hall. 'Now go away.'

'Are you having a tantrum?'

'No!'

Harry cackled. 'Not the most convincing reply to that, Draco; running to write a letter to your father to tell him I was mean to you?'

'I'm going back to my Common Room.'

'Yeah, to write a letter to your father'

'No, to get rid of you.'

'Well, good luck.' Harry strolled after him as they descended toward the deepest part of the dungeons. 'But seriously, the whole murder plot thing isn't going to work, you know. How were you even planning on doing it? Buying him cursed jewellery? Does he look like he wears jewellery?' He paused. 'Actually, he kind of does. Ignore that, Malfoy, don't get any ideas.'

'Potter… if I was going to try and murder someone, I promise you that it's much more likely to be you.'

Harry laughed. 'Now you really do sound like Hermione.' He shrugged. 'Well, in the interest of fair warning, you should know that all of Voldemort's overly complicated schemes fall apart at the stage where they end up involving me, so you might as well just not bother.'

Malfoy paused before the blank stone wall concealing the entrance to the Slytherin Common Room. 'Well, if you could uninvolve yourself, that would be preferable, Potter.'

'Aha, a confession!'

'I meant just in general from my life.' He turned away. 'Now, I'm going to go in here where you can't get, and you can go back to pretending you don't sneak around sticking your tongue in Greengrass's mouth every day.'

'I could definitely get in.'

'You don't know the password.'

'No, but it's something made by Slytherin, so it will have some extremely stupid password in parseltongue.' Harry squinted at the wall. 'I can't see any snakes, but it was quite hard to spot the tiny one on the tap in Myrtle's Bathroom, so they're probably there somewhere.' He grinned at Malfoy. 'Open,' he hissed.

The wall burst into hundreds of squirming stone snakes that slithered apart to reveal a narrow passage and the green-light beyond.

'Oh for the love of Myrddin,' Malfoy groaned.

Beyond the smooth, snake-scaled walls of the short passage, the ebony furniture and chairs of the Slytherin Common gleamed in the emerald glow, their velvet covers as bright as lush spring grass. Bronze serpents emerged from the wall, coiling up to breathe out rippling green flames on every wall but the one lined with dark, glass windows looking out into the depths of the Black Lake, and the hearth that sat between the two passages leading off to the dorms crackled full of emerald fire between two thick, scaled, pale columns of stone and beneath a third that sat upon it like the top of a dolmen.

'Was it like this the last time I came here? I don't remember.' Harry sauntered in. 'Hello all.' He waved at Crabbe and Goyle. 'I've found your glorious leader, he was sneaking around upstairs plotting to murder Professor Dumbledore again. Or possibly for the first time, apparently he's not been making great use of his free time while I was distracted.'

'I was not.'

'Draco, did you let him in?!' Pansy Parkinson yelled.

'No!' Malfoy groaned. 'He can speak Parseltongue, remember; he just opened the entrance himself.'

'Get out, Potter!' one of the Seventh years called. 'You might not be a complete Blood-traitor any more, but someone will still hex you with something horrible if you come here where you're not wanted.'

'You can't hex me.' Harry grinned. 'I'm hex-proof. Bellatrix said she could kill me by tying my intestines together, but what are you going to do, tie my shoelaces for me?'

'Wait, does that mean he can just come in whenever he wants?' Theodore Nott demanded.

'Yes.' Malfoy trudged past and flopped into one of the chairs with a sigh. 'So, I guess get used to it. He's probably only come here to see Greengrass anyway.'

'I resent that accusation that nobody else has seen any proof of,' Harry replied, peering around and taking a seat beside Malfoy. 'I actually didn't think of it all. And I can't see Daph — I mean Greengrass — anywhere.'

'Well if you're not here to see her, can you go away?' Malfoy demanded. 'We don't really want you here.'

'Show me your forearms and I'll leave.'

'No.'

'Yeah, that's what I thought.' Harry grinned. 'You don't hide a mark like that, do you? Marks are too important to be hidden. They mean things.'

Pansy Parkinson blinked. 'What do you know about marks, Potter?'

'Not loads. You know, raised by Muggles, basically Muggle-born, and so on and so forth. But I know enough to know you don't hide a mark you take to declare your allegiance if you take it,' he said, staring out into the black depths of the lake. 'Do you ever see extremely terrifying ladies with one eye out there?'

'What?' Malfoy rubbed his eyes. 'No. Are you done now?'

'Mostly.' Harry let his smile fade. 'He's not what you think, you know. Voldemort—'

An angry mutter spread around the room.

Malfoy scowled. 'Don't say—'

'It's not a name gifted from the Veiled World.'

The Slytherin Common Room fell dead silent.

'It's a silly anagram of his real name; it doesn't even sound like Brythonic. He's just not what you want him to be. He wants to be feared and to have power like Pendragon, that's all. It's lies.'

Malfoy leant forward, his grey eyes sharp above their deep bags. 'Well, how was he Reborn in Death then, Potter?'

'I'm not actually sure,' Harry admitted. 'Of all the signs, that one is a bit tricky to disprove. He definitely managed to kill himself on my face, and he's definitely back and causing trouble. But, well, it just seems a bit convenient that the only way to save the magical world is to wait and let the ICW do what they want until someone magically appears to stop them by dying and returning. Like, if you wanted to rule and didn't want to have to face constant uprisings, surely the best way to do it would be to convince everyone you would eventually be overthrown, but the only guy who could do it would have to die and return. Anyone who tries to prove it's them dies. And you get to rule forever.'

A low discontented murmur rang around the room.

'That bit just seems a bit too good to be true from the ICW's perspective' Harry said. 'The rest… well, amazing magical things are amazing and magical, and anyone who doesn't feel that way and has to pull them apart or dismiss them I just kind of feel a bit sorry for.'

Malfoy shook his head. 'I think we like it better our way, Potter. If you're right, then our fate is to dwindle until all wonder has ceased to exist and there is nothing we can do about it. I'd rather believe.

'Yes.' Pansy Parkinson nodded. 'We all would. And we're right; how could everything just be for nothing like that? It can't be.'

'If we give up, nothing's left. All is lost.' Malfoy smiled and for a moment the shadows beneath his eyes lightened a fraction. 'But it doesn't work like that. Things aren't ever lost. One day it will be Spring. One day soon.'

'You know, I do kind of understand that,' Harry said. 'Everyone wants to be saved. Some—' he caught sight of Daphne appearing from the passage to what he assumed were the girls' dorms '—more than others. But when was the last time you saw Voldemort save anyone? Has he ever saved anyone at all? Because from what I've seen, he mostly just roams around murdering people in admittedly fairly creative artistic ways, but not really helping anyone except himself.'

The Slytherin Common Room held its breath.

In the pause, Daphne slipped down to stand beside one of the green lanterns; its light cast all her blonde hair emerald, and gave her fair skin an almost eerie glow but turned the rose in her braids so dark a red it was almost black as her robes and skirt and knee-length socks.

The stare she fixed Harry with was long and cool, but the corner of her mouth crooked up into a faint smile as she slipped a blood pop into her mouth and crunched on it.

'Anyway,' he announced. 'I quite like your common room. It's green. It reminds me of my mother's eyes which I never saw because she was horribly murdered and buried somewhere nobody has bothered to actually tell me about yet. Needs more house cups, though. And quidditch trophies.' Harry grinned. 'Seems like it's been a while since you won any…'

'Because Dumbledore blatantly favours you!' one of the older Slytherins yelled. 'It's unfair!'

'He didn't even give me house points for killing a basilisk with a sword, just some silly award for special services to the school,' Harry retorted. 'How is that favouritism?'

'Would you go away already?' Malfoy said. 'You said what you wanted to say. We all heard you. We don't care. We believe.'

'If it wasn't for you annoying me on the train on the way here in first year, the Sorting Hat would have put me in here permanently,' Harry told him. 'Think of how much more mildly evil I would have been. And how much better the Slytherin Quidditch Team would have been with me as the seeker instead of you.'

'Actually.' Pansy Parkinson perked up. 'While you are here, even completely uninvited. Is it true that Romilda Vane dosed you with amortentia last week?'

'Er…' Harry glanced at Daphne. 'Yes. But I would like to strongly suggest that it was all entirely her fault for stealing it and adding it to the chocolates though; I don't feel like choosing to eat them should really make any of it my fault so nobody, particularly not one person who shall remain unnamed, should be mad with me about it.'

'I heard Granger shouted at you because you chose to eat them even though you already knew about the amortentia', Pansy Parkinson said.

'What?' Daphne's question cut through the quiet room, cool and soft as winter frost. 'You did what?!'

'Sorry?' Harry tried. 'I thought it would be funny to mess with her? Wait. No. Why would I be apologising to you, Greengrass? You're much too mildly evil for a brave noble Gryffindor to be associated with, even if you are unbelievably pretty.' He frowned. 'Don't let that last bit detract from the more important implication that we are not associated with each other, everyone. I refuse to marry someone who doesn't have at least four grandparents — not sure how you'd have more than four, to be honest, but I'll leave it open in case anyone manages.'

Daphne pulled blood pops from her pocket, twisting the wrappers off one after the other and cramming them into her mouth, staining her tongue and lips scarlet.

'Exactly.' He scratched the back of his head. 'So, yes. That happened. It's not a big deal. And it was only one chocolate; Hermione took the box away so I couldn't eat any more afterward. I don't think Romilda is going to do it again, though, because I asked her not to, which means I won't be able to see if amortentia tastes like fake sweet banana.'

'I'll make you some!' someone shouted from the far side of the room.

'Please don't, random unnamed Slytherin girl, someone might get very very angry,' Harry said. 'Er… I mean, you know, someone, as everyone says I don't have a girlfriend, secret or otherwise, no names actually spring to mind.'

Malfoy sighed. 'Really, Potter? She's standing right there looking like she can't decide if she wants to curse you or Vane or both.'

'That's a baseless accusation,' he retorted. 'It would obviously be both of us. Wait. No. It would be neither of us because Greengrass isn't at all relevant.'

'Hush, Harry.' Daphne swept across, pulled him up from the chair with one hand and kissed him hard; the sweet, sharp tang of redcurrant blood pops lingered after her crimson-stained lips left his. 'There. So anyone else who thinks amortentia is a good idea knows just who they are picking a fight with.'

Malfoy rolled his eyes. 'Anyone who didn't already know is just incredibly obtuse, Greengrass. You've been staring at him for a year, flirting for months, and he kissed you in the middle of class last week.'

'Malfoy, be quiet.' Daphne turned a very cool stare upon him. 'I am going to have a very long conversation with my… my boyfriend about the dangers of amortentia and I am taking him out of the Common Room so you can all thank me when I get back.'

'Bye?' Harry waved at them all. 'Nice to see you—'

Daphne's grip on his robes tightened and she yanked him toward the exit.

'Please don't jampire me?' he whispered. 'Also, I think people are going to know we're dating now…'

'Good.' Her winter blue eyes flashed as she stepped through the passage and out into the corridor, brushing through a pair of fourth year girls. 'Maybe that will stop stupid girls trying to love potion you, since you are not smart enough to not eat them.'

'In my defense…' Harry trailed off as he sensed the ice thinning very fast beneath his feet. 'I actually don't really have one; I didn't really think it through.'

'Fís y fygrwen,' she whispered, biting the ball of her thumb and swiping the bead of blood across the wall in a small, undecorated alcove.

'Oh, so there's one here too,' Harry said. 'Handy.'

Daphne dragged him in after her.

The passage closed with a quiet rumble, plunging Harry into the dark.

'Can you see in this?' he asked. 'Because I cannot.'

'Follow me.' Her reply came cold as ice and she took his hand in an iron grip, leading him up a smooth, spiralling slope.

'Unfair jampire vision,' Harry complained. 'I'm bad at just normal seeing already—' he laughed to himself as Daphne hauled him around a sharp corner, up steep steps and out of another exit into bright light '—if only I had actually inherited my mother's eyes.'

A scatter of old, worn, scratched and stained desks filled a dust-veiled, musty abandoned classroom. Ragged parchment posters covered in faded pictures of magical flowers hung from the walls beside old shelves dotted with small cobweb-coated terracotta pots and rusted tools.

Her hand vanished.

'Are we in the old Herbology classrooms that nobody uses anymore?' Harry asked. 'I've never actually been up here before.'

Daphne slammed the classroom door shut and locked it, shoving a whole row of desks back into it with a thud. 'You knew!'

'About the amortentia?' Harry nodded. 'Yes. But that other potion I made didn't affect me at all, so what's a few drops of amortentia going to do? I just felt like messing with her a bit. Oh, and I told her not to do it again after it didn't work, too. That way she'd actually stop, you know, instead of trying harder.'

Daphne stared at him, her eyes full of sharp ice, so much of it that all the butterflies stirring in Harry's stomach threatened immediate and utter rebellion if he didn't promptly fix it. The scarlet rose atop her slim blonde braids and the little crimson crescent moon swaying from her ear shone bright as blood in the light pouring in through the tall windows.

'Sorry?'

'You are never sorry.'

'I can't go back and not do it,' he said. 'And it did work. She's not tried anything else since. Actually, she's started running away from me.'

'What would you have done if it was Brown?'

'Lav?' Harry blinked. 'She doesn't take Potions and, well, Lav really isn't going to be brewing amortentia all by herself.'

'But if she had amortentia?' Daphne folded her arms, pushing the swell of her chest up to strain at the buttons of her white blouse. 'Would you let her dose you?'

'Er… not now I've seen how mad you are about it,' Harry admitted. 'You might jampire me. Or her. Or both of us. Probably both of us.'

'Would you want to?'

'I just said no,' he replied.

'No, you said you would not let her. Would you want to let her, even just a little bit?' Daphne narrowed her eyes at him. 'I have seen you looking at Brown.'

'She has great taste in skirts.' Harry grinned. 'Are you jealous, Daph? Are you going to jelly-legs me? Wait, you can't, can you? Because no wand.'

Something horribly fragile bloomed in her blue eyes. 'Harry,' she whispered. 'Would you want to?'

'No.' He scratched the back of his head. 'No, Daph. I don't know what you're trying to make me say. I can't not do it now it's done, but I won't do it again because now I know you don't like it.'

'And if you knew I would not know?'

'No.' Harry grinned. 'Because then it would have to be a secret and I couldn't have any fun with it.'

'What if Brown wanted to… to—' a touch of pink crept up Daphne's cheeks '—you know.'

'Kiss?'

Daphne shook her head. 'Do things with you that I cannot do because I am cursed,' she whispered.

'Oh.' Harry swallowed the torrent of butterflies that burst through him. 'I get it now.' He held out his hand. 'Come here, Daph.'

She turned her pretty nose up.

'Really?' He laughed and wrapped her up in his arms, breathing in the faint spearmint fragrance clinging to her. 'You're being silly. You're amazing. You show me amazing things. If it's not you…'

'I am cursed,' she mumbled, pressing her hand between her hips. 'I cannot have children. It would be a hollow meaningless thing when it should be something beautiful where we create life together. I cannot just do that when—'

'I know.' Harry kissed her on the forehead, brushing the soft, sweet-scented rose petals with the tip of his nose. 'That's fine. I said it's fine.'

'But other girls can,' Daphne murmured. 'Brown could. Vane could. They do not care about the rest.'

'Urgh.' He feigned a shudder. 'No thanks.'

'You are a boy—'

'You noticed.' Harry chuckled to himself. 'Actually, it would have been pretty hard for you not to notice, especially in the sauna. And out in the Forbidden Forest.'

Daphne blushed, turning what Harry felt was quite possibly the most fetching shade of pink he'd ever seen, from her chin to the tips of her ears. 'Hush, Harry. I just want to know you are going to stay. You have to stay.'

'You don't have to worry,' he promised. 'I'm going nowhere.' Harry pointed at the row of desks in front of the door. 'I actually can't get out very easily at all because you got a bit carried away and jampired all the desks.'

'I am sorry,' she whispered. 'I just… I know I am cursed. I know what all the boys want. I can wear short skirts and kiss you and do… other things, but I cannot do the rest. It would not be right to do that when it will always just be hollow.'

'You're not like the other girls.' Harry laughed to himself. 'I don't know what else to say, Daph. I love you. I ate that chocolate knowing that nothing would change that and I could mess with Romilda for fun because of it. I didn't think it would make you angry, because how could I ever stop loving you?'

She stared up at him through the rogue lock of blonde hair fluttering before her pretty face. 'Even though I am cursed?'

'Yes.' Harry resisted the trembling little ball of butterflies swirling about in his stomach for a moment, then gave up. 'I'm going to kiss you now. You look too kissable again and I can't not do it.'

Daphne tilted her lips up to meet his with a small satisfied noise.

'I mean it,' he murmured. 'I'm not going to go anywhere. I'm staying. I don't care that you're cursed; you didn't ever do anything to deserve being cursed. If I ever find a way to get rid of it and that mark, or help Astoria, I will, but if I never do, and I probably won't because it sounds like your family already tried everything, then I'll still stay because you're you. And I love you.'

Fierce hope shone in her blue eyes as they brightened from Winter chill to soaring Spring; it shone wild, as desperate as the red light of that dying scarlet sun. 'You will save us,' she breathed, dragging his mouth back onto hers. 'I know you will.'

'If I can,' Harry promised between her hungry, heated kisses. 'And if I can't; I'll still stay, so don't be silly and worry.'

'I love you,' she whispered. 'I love you so much. Please stay.'

'I can't get out, remember? You jampire-trapped me. The door's locked.'

'It is.' Daphne lips lingered, leaving a faint tang of redcurrant. 'Do you…' Her hands dipped the top button of her blouse. 'Do you want me to?'

'I can't ever imagine me saying no,' Harry confessed. 'You're breathtakingly pretty and you only get prettier when you start taking clothes off.'

A bright pink blush blossomed across her cheeks and she twisted the buttons open one by one, shrugging her white blouse and her dark robes off her slim shoulders.

Harry's gaze dipped.

Daphne's breasts nestled in the scarlet silk of her bra, rising and falling with each breath, her pale skin trembling a little with the beat of her heart.

She reached behind her back with one hand and the crimson silk slipped a fraction. 'When you say things like that and look at me this way, it is the only time I am almost glad I am cursed,' she confessed.

AN: Like I said at the top, there is more elsewhere via the Discord if you want to keep going! (can't find it, do just ask, there's usually someone around to help!) And loads of all my other stories and all that can be found via there as well!

: / / linktr . ee / mjbradley