When Harry awoke, it was still dark. He rose silently, gathered his books and his broom. He felt like a bit of night flying before study.Harry made his way out to the pitch by memory and by feel, dumping his books on a bench before taking to the skies. He rose high above the Quidditch field so that he would avoid the goal posts and the stands, and proceeded to test that claimed, charm-induced speed limit of the Firebolt line.

When dawn broke fifteen minutes later, Harry was right alongside the sun that reddened the sky. He felt light and free and somehow above himself, as though he were a part of the dawn he was witnessing, as elemental and beautiful as it was. It was an odd, shivery feeling Harry only got when he was the first person awake, as though the universe was waiting on him, only for him, and he loved its quiet and its promise.

Ewan was sitting at the stands, gazing up at him, when Harry landed.

“I want to be able to play that game, someday,” the first-year said, looking up at the hoops and smiling. “I saw the tryouts, you know. You weren’t there.”

“I was indisposed,” Harry said, then laughed. “To tell you the truth, I was stuck somewhere so fast it took two Professors, two Gryffindors and a Slytherin to pull me out.”

Ewan eyed him as though attempting to determine whether Harry was joking or not.

“Nice seal,” Harry said, realizing that Ewan’s robes were now emblazoned with Hermione and Yolande’s multi-house badge.

“It took awhile for our prefects to make enough,” Ewan said, pulling his shoulders back proudly.

“What’s that in Latin underneath?” Harry inquired.

“It means: our pride is that we are diverse,” Ewan chanted quietly. “I think that my being clever sort of complements Lilac’s bravery and Rae’s...” Ewan frowned. “I think Rae is wise, in a sort of quiet way, don’t you?” He looked up at Harry inquisitively.

Harry nodded. “Rae is most definitely wise.” He smiled. “All you need is someone incredibly good and loyal and you’ll have a complete set.”

“There are plenty of other worthy attributes,” Ewan said haughtily. “And we’re plenty loyal, thanks. It’s not like you’re one or the other.”

Harry shrugged. “I suppose I’ve gotten used to thinking of it that way.”

“Well – it isn’t that way.”

“I know,” Harry replied. “I think Ron and Hermione and me got put into Gryffindor because bravery is our primary attribute.” Secondary, in two cases, actually, he thought ruefully. “Ron’s also really loyal, and Hermione’s truly clever. And I... well, I can be a bit sneaky, sometimes.”

“Hmm...”

Harry took out his homework and added a couple of finishing touches before heading in to the Great Hall and making his way to Draco. He sat down beside the other boy and began eating before realizing that Draco was staring at him and further realizing that there was no longer any real need for him to sit there.

“Whoops,” Harry said.

Draco rolled his eyes, but said nothing. Harry didn’t bother to move.

Professor McGonagall descended from the dais and strode over to the Slytherin table. “Mister Potter,” she said kindly, “you may go back to the Gryffindor table, now.”

“It’s fine, really, Professor,” Harry said. “I’ve kind of gotten used to it.” His eyes slid over to Draco for the Slytherin’s reaction, but Draco was steadfastly ignoring the conversation in favor of his porridge. Yolande, seated across from them, seemed to perk up slightly, as did Crabbe.

Minerva McGonagall eyed Harry and Draco from behind her severe spectacles. “Harry is a Gryffindor, Mister Malfoy, and therefore belongs at the Gryffindor table.”

Harry stiffened. Professor McGonagall was talking to Draco like Harry wasn’t even there, as though Draco was still responsible for Harry’s actions! His eyes narrowed. “I’ve been thinking of joining the Unsorted House, actually,” Harry said casually, watching Draco twitch. “That’ll mean I can sit where I like, won’t it?”

Professor McGonagall’s eyes widened and her lips pursed. “That would take you off of Gryffindor Quidditch, Mister Potter,” she said.

Harry clenched his fists. “Yeah, suppose it will,” he said conversationally. “But, you know, if enough people join up, I suppose I can put together another team, maybe.”

The Professor stared. “Mister Potter, Mister Malfoy – you are to see the Headmaster first thing this morning – the moment you finish your breakfasts. Hurry along, or you’ll be late for your first class.”

Harry shoveled in his porridge, and stood.

“What in Merlin’s name made you spout all that?” Draco demanded, standing a beat behind him.

“I didn’t like her attitude,” Harry said.

“Cor,” Draco murmured under his breath, but Harry was certain he’d misheard. ‘Cor’ was not a Draco Malfoy word.

“Why d’you suppose the Headmaster wants to see us?” Harry wondered.

“He wants to officially end your punishment, of course,” Draco said airily, buffing his nails on his robes. “Tell you that you no longer need to hang around the nasty Slytherin.”

“I didn’t know you were hard of hearing, Draco. I’m Unsorted now.”

“You didn’t honestly mean that,” Draco replied.

“Yes, I did.”

“You won’t quit Quidditch.”

“Watch me.”

Draco opened his mouth to retort, but he was interrupted by their arrival. “Oh, bloody hell – Fizzing Whizzbie!”

The door to the Headmaster’s office appeared on their very first try. 

It felt oddly like Harry’s attempt at Imperio. He and Draco were sitting side-by-side, while Minerva McGonagall and Severus Snape eyed them balefully. There was a Talk, as Harry had dreaded, about never giving in to such destructive impulses again, from Minerva McGonagall. Professor Snape merely glared, as if that were more than enough – and, really, Harry decided, it more than was. Draco looked incredibly bored by the entire proceedings, except when Dumbledore kindly asked him if Harry had been obeying him as he ought.“Oh, yes,” Draco gushed, his eyes flicking to Harry and back, “he has. Far exceeding my expectations.”

Snape raised his eyebrows at this, and McGonagall looked faintly sympathetic, and, Harry realized, the conversation had wound down.

“Well, I must be off,” Snape said. “At least four sixth-years are downstairs awaiting my entrance with – how shall I say – bated breath.”

“One moment, Severus,” Professor McGonagall said, placing a firm hand on the Potions Professor’s upper arm. “There is one matter which has not been resolved to my satisfaction.”

“Oh?”

“Mister Malfoy’s punishment.”

Harry stiffened and turned to look at Draco, who was staring fixedly at Harry’s Head of House.

“Pardon?” Snape inquired icily.

“Harry, isn’t it true that Mister Malfoy attempted Crucio on you?”

Harry blinked, turning to look at Draco again.

“Harry!” the professor exclaimed, causing him to look over at her. “I asked you a question!”

Harry worried at his lower lip. “Yes, but–”

“But nothing,” McGonagall replied. “Mister Malfoy has not yet been punished for this misdeed. I say that there ought to be a punishment befitting the crime.”

Draco shivered suddenly; Harry caught the motion out of the corner of his eye. “Professor, I really don’t mind, I mean – the curse never hit me. Strictly speaking, Draco didn’t do a Crucio on me at all.”

McGonagall looked like he’d been speaking in tongues, and said something that sounded oddly like ‘Stockholm Syndrome’, although Harry hadn’t the slightest clue what that was. She was nodding to herself, however, a satisfied smile forming on her face. “Yes, yes, that’ll be just the thing, in that case,” she finished aloud, turning to face them. “Mister Malfoy, a reversal of fortune is in order. You will obey Mister Potter for the space of one week.”

Professor Snape swirled a spell in the air so rapid that Harry couldn’t even make it out. Then, he started ranting at Professor McGonagall.

Only Harry had no idea what he was exactly saying, because he could not hear a word. He turned to Draco. “What was that?”

Draco shook his head, staring at the trio.

“You’re lip-reading!” Harry accused.

“Shut up, I’m concentrating!”

Harry’s jaw slid shut with a snap, and he did his best to read Professor Snape’s lips. It didn’t take all that much imagination or concentration to realize that the man was upset by Draco’s punishment, but he was speaking so rapidly that it was hard to discern anything concrete. McGonagall said very little, just weathered the storm, her collected expression never abandoning her for a moment. A couple of times, she shook her head in negation. Dumbledore, for his part, looked as though he were watching a rather engaging game of tennis.

Snape turned to the Headmaster at one point, as if appealing, and then the conversation was over. The Potions Professor flicked his wand swiftly, and the two Professors turned to Harry and Draco once more.

“You will obey Mister Potter, starting first thing tomorrow morning,” McGonagall said to Draco, “or risk losing House points. All of them, Mister Malfoy, so do not begin thinking for even one moment that it will be a good trade. Am I understood?”

Draco bobbed his head once, looking a bit lost. Snape shot Dumbledore a filthy look, then stormed from the room.

Harry stood, Draco a beat behind him, and they followed Snape out of the Headmaster’s office.

“Uhm... Professor, what’s the matter?” Harry hazarded after they’d traveled past several classroom doors.

Snape paused in his tracks, then turned to face the two boys. “This is a... a unique situation,” he said coldly. “I would endeavour to caution you, Mister Potter, to have a care in what you order Mister Malfoy to do. Recall that in one week this shall all be over. Or do you have that much forethought?”

Harry bristled, the newly-Revealed memory of Snape yelling at him and setting his papers afire bringing heat to his cheeks. “Thanks for believing in me, sir, as always.”

“Two points from Gryffindor for being a self-righteous brat,” Snape intoned, almost absently. At least, Harry reflected, he wasn’t yet counting to ten.

“I won’t make Draco do anything that either of us will regret, Professor,” he said. “You have my word as a Gryffindor.”

Snape eyed him, then shifted his gaze to Draco. “Mister Malfoy, will you truly obey him?”

“I have some modicum of self-control,” Draco intoned, sniffing in disdain. “I dare say I’ll do far better than he did.”

Snape coughed in what seemed like surprise, then turned on one heel. “Follow me, then, children. I do not doubt that your fellow classmates are in a froth at the thought of all three of us missing at the same moment.”

Harry knew that he should probably feel utterly elated that Draco Malfoy was under his power for one week. Instead, he felt lost and – even a bit guilty, he realized with surprise. Draco’s curse hadn’t even landed, after all.

When Draco didn’t say a word, not even to ask Harry to hand him ingredients, a tinge of anxiety was added to the guilt and confusion. Surely Draco wasn’t about to blame Harry for this? Snape was uncharacteristically quiet as well, leaving off of berating his other students in favor of watching them both.

After traveling back to the Great Hall, Harry explained the reversal to Ron and Hermione.

Ron blinked, possibly shocked at hearing the sound of Harry’s voice for the first time in two days, but then grinned. “All right!” he exclaimed, claiming the attention of Ginny, and, indeed, half of the other people at the table.

“Hush, Ron, not everyone and his brother needs to be aware of this, you know!” Hermione scolded, and Harry couldn’t keep back a grin. The two of them were so warm and familiar, even when fighting – well, he admitted, especially while fighting, given all they’ve argued over lately.

Ron ducked his head and turned to grin at Harry in return. “So, what’ve you thought up so far? I want to hear all about it!”

Harry flushed self-consciously, and Ron stared.

“Cor, Harry,” he said under his breath – and it sounded far more natural coming from him – “you haven’t thought of anything?”

Hermione’s eyebrows shot up. “You haven’t?” she whispered.

Harry shook his head. “There isn’t anything I want from him, really,” he said, shrugging uncomfortably.

“Make him do a stupid dance in front of everyone, for starters!” Ron encouraged, but Harry shook his head again.

“I don’t want to humiliate him,” Harry said. “Besides all that, it isn’t wise.”

Hermione was now completely ignoring the book in her lap in favor of Harry. “Why not?” she inquired.

Harry frowned. “It’s something Professor Snape said. Antagonizing Draco isn’t such a hot idea. After a week, he’ll be free to hex me any way he likes. Snape said it in his perennially nasty way, of course... ”

“So you’re saying you want to go easy on Malfoy because you know he’ll be pissed at you after the week’s out?” Ron demanded, once they had exited the Great Hall and started on their way back to the Gryffindor Common Room.

Harry sighed. “I don’t know.” He frowned in confusion, then shrugged helplessly. “I don’t want to tell Draco Malfoy what to do.”

Hermione paused, considering. “Well, Harry, there certainly are some things that you could tell him to do that wouldn’t really hurt either of you in the long-term.” Her voice was soft and filled with a gentle approval he’d seldom heard there before.

“Like what?” Harry wondered.

“Well... I don’t know, things that would seem annoying at first, or even foolish, but that would, in general, benefit Draco in the long run.”

Harry turned to look at Hermione and reply, only to note that she was looking anywhere but at him, as if she didn’t quite want to meet his eyes. “O-oh,” he stammered, taken aback by her studied innocence. Just what was Hermione getting at?

“You two are speaking a foreign language,” Ron said firmly. “Humiliate him, Harry. Rub his face in the dirt.”

Someone bumped into Ron, hard, almost sending him sprawling. Harry turned to face Draco Malfoy, who was smiling with a calculated calm. “Sorry, Weasel, didn’t see you there.”

“’Lo, Draco,” Harry choked out. Hermione smiled gently at the pair of them, then grabbed on Ron’s sleeve and began to slowly tug the redhead away from Harry and Draco.

“Hey!” Harry heard Ron saying as the pair turned down the final corridor to the Defense classroom. “Hey, Hermione, this is the first I’ve spoken to him in days, and–”

“They’re dating,” Draco suddenly drawled, and began walking.

As usual, Harry turned and began to walk with him, startled into motion, into catching up. He felt like nothing had changed since yesterday. “They’re not dating,” Harry corrected. “I only wish they would.”

“Thought anything up?” Draco intoned.

Harry shook his head. “No. This whole punishment thing took me just as much by surprise as it did you. I don’t want anything from you, but if I do, I’ll let you know.”

“As you wish.”

Harry felt his shoulders hunch in at Draco’s quiet subservience, but he was not about to order Draco to be less obedient anytime soon. Come to think of it, maybe Draco was hoping to make him do just that. If he ordered Draco to be less obedient, any subsequent orders would be moot.

Harry had to appreciate the way the blond Slytherin’s mind worked, sometimes.

Later that evening, Harry sat in a corner of the Gryffindor Common Room, refusing to isolate himself – no matter how much he wanted to be alone, he was beginning to think, somehow, that it was not particularly good for him – and examined the book he had stolen from the Chamber of Secrets.The glasses had shattered in his pocket when he fell forward into Professor Lupin’s quarters, but one frame remained intact; and, with Hermione’s help, he had transfigured the remaining slip of glass into a monocle on a long, slender chain. Now he withdrew it from underneath his robes and flipped the slender volume to the very first page, wondering if the words transformed there, too.

“All right, Harry?”

Harry winced, realizing all over again that he wanted privacy and was currently denying himself. “’Lo, Ginny,” he said, looking up at the fifth-year.

Ginny knelt in front of him, tucking the Muggle fashion magazine she’d been reading under one arm. “What have you got there?”

“Something interesting,” Harry replied, and told the redhead about the Chamber and the book of poetry that had held the secret to escape. By the end of the story, Ginny had gone somewhat pale.

“Be careful, Harry,” she said quietly. “I know it doesn’t have a brain like – like the other book – but be careful in any case. It comes from the same place, you know? And it seems like a similar charm. Did it ever occur to you that Tom might’ve actually enchanted it?”

Harry flushed, because that hadn’t occurred to him, not once. “The – the poetry in it is Muggle,” he protested feebly.

“And wasn’t he half-Muggle?” Ginny replied reasonably. “Who else would’ve thought up something like that maze but someone with a lot of power and a certain... sneakiness? The shape of the corridors, the Floo powder hidden so that only someone clever enough could ever escape... that sounds an awful lot like his style. Doesn’t it?” She eyed him, her expression probing.

Harry noted – oddly – that Ginny had taken to wearing dark eyeliner, although not much other makeup. “What, have you gone Goth, then?” he inquired.

“Don’t change the subject, Harry,” she said, swatting him lightly on the arm with the magazine. “I really think you ought to take that straight to Dumbledore. Or another teacher.”

“You’re channeling Hermione,” he told her.

She frowned at him sternly. “Harry James Potter, that won’t work! Nor will teasing me or flirting! You insufferable twat, does everyone just give in to you when you smile and bat your eyes?!”

Harry blinked at her, completely taken aback. She shot him a parting glare before stomping off to the girls’ dorms, slamming the door behind her and gaining the stares of everyone else in the Common Room.

Oh, yes. Now Harry remembered why he liked to be alone... everyone staring at him in the Gryffindor Common Room was familiar, but rather trying after awhile...

Besides all that, honestly. He hadn’t been batting his eyes, or anything like. He’d just been... well... trying to distract Ginny from asking annoying questions...

Glowering down at the book in his hands, Harry swept from the Gryffindor Common Room, and, before he realized quite where he was going, found himself at Severus Snape’s door.