Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Wizardspace

"Honestly, Potter!" Draco exclaimed. "How many times are you going to pack and unpack that battered old trunk of yours?"

"Until I can get all my stuff crammed in," Harry complained, shoving harder at his folded jumpers so he'd have room for the rest of his clothes.

"One might almost think you'd been raised Muggle," Draco drawled.

Harry tried to give him a nasty look, but found himself laughing softly instead. Apparently, that was all the prompting Draco needed. "Oh, very well," the Slytherin boy sighed in that theatrical way of his. "Much as I've enjoyed seeing you make a fool of yourself, it's getting a bit tiresome, so watch and learn."

With that, he flicked his wand back and forth, causing Harry's trunk to eject everything piled inside. Books, gifts, clothes, and assorted paraphernalia flew out and landed in scattered heaps throughout the room.

"Hey!" Harry objected. "Some of that's breakable!"

"As if I didn't attach a happy-landings spell," Draco boasted, smirking. Then his know-it-all smile vanished. "Oh, shite. I broke your mirror--"

Harry snatched it up and hugged it to his chest, swallowing past the tightness in his throat. It suddenly struck him what Sirius might have to say about him regarding one Draco Malfoy as a brother . . . but then again, Sirius wouldn't have approved of Snape for Harry's guardian, let alone his dad, would he? In some ways, that was still a disturbing thought, though Harry knew it shouldn't be. "It was broken already," he admitted, a familiar sense of failure washing up to choke him.

Breathe, Harry . . .

Somehow, he did, and then managed to set the mirror down on his bed. He tried not to look at it after that.

Draco gave his behaviour an odd glance before shrugging the topic aside. "All right, now," he mused, leaning forward to examine the trunk carefully. "Let's see just what we have to work with . . . hmmm . . . "

"What are you up to?"

"Patience," Draco softly chided, intent on his task. Latin began to fill the air as his wandwork became ludicrously extravagant.

"Show off," Harry accused, consciously trying for a lighthearted tone.

Draco ignored him to finish the incantations. One final flourish, and he was tapping the open lid of the trunk and pronouncing, "There, all done. Now wasn't that easier than spending all weekend mashing your things together?"

"I don't even know what you did!"

A soft laugh mocked him. "It's a going away present, Harry. A wizardspace trunk. Don't think I haven't noticed you admiring mine. Yours should hold about three times as much as before, now."

"You spelled yours yourself, then?"

"Oh, please. Mine was professionally done. I actually intended to buy you a proper wizard's trunk, but when I mentioned it to Severus he said he thought you had a rather pathetic sentimental attachment to the one you'd used since first year--"

"He did not use the word pathetic about me!"

"No, he didn't," Draco allowed. "Very good. But he did say the rest, so I thought I'd just enhance the trunk you were already so pathetically attached to."

"Prat."

The Slytherin boy smiled. "You're welcome."

"Oh. Right, thanks," Harry thought to add.

Draco, it seemed, wasn't through being superior. "I must admit it was quite a show you put on trying to make things fit. Why in Merlin's name didn't you just shrink them?"

Harry stiffened. "You've seen my spell lexicon. Was that one in there?"

A bit nonplussed, Draco raised an eyebrow. "You mean you can't? That's odd. Hmm, do you suppose some spells require only surface magic, then?"

"Could be," Harry admitted. "Though I shrank things by accident when I lived with the Dursleys, so I suppose that particular spell has to be drawing on dark power. The trouble is, I can't seem to figure out the Parseltongue for it." Harry shrugged. He had his new magic fairly well in hand, but that didn't mean that he could do anything he pleased. Like Draco's insane see through the wall request, or any number of spells that seemed to defy translation. Magic, even Harry's, still had its limits.

"You poor thing, you," Draco drolled with a marked lack of sincerity. "Such a terrible pity. You must just weep in your soup over being so very weak and helpless, barely a wizard at all--"

Harry lightly shoved his brother. "Oh, just shut up about it and teach me the wizardspace spell."

"I only know the simplest variant," the Slytherin admitted, grinning--no doubt at the fact that even so, he knew more than Harry did. "I can't spell a whole wall like Severus can, and I certainly can't help you with the snake language. You do realise that it sounds rather gruesome, don't you? At least it does to me, even after all the hissing you've been doing lately . . . Anyway, though, let's work on wizardspace tomorrow when Severus is home. You know, in case you turn yourself into the twelfth dimension or something."

Harry grimaced a bit as he remembered the schedule his father had laid out. "Tomorrow'll actually be my last free Saturday. After this I get nothing but Potions lessons, unless I can persuade Severus to let me go on the occasional Hogsmeade visit."

"My heart bleeds," Draco dryly put in. "Considering the likelihood I'll get a Hogsmeade Saturday."

"I'll bring you some things," Harry promised.

Draco's eyes were a bit bleak, but he tried to make light of it. "All right. Well, you know me. I like emeralds and diamonds. Oh, and racing brooms--"

"And every-flavour gelato," Harry joked.

"They have that?"

"Just kidding." Harry flashed his brother a slight smile, enjoying the puzzled look he got in return, then set to packing all his things neatly away in the trunk . . . even though this was just Friday, and he wasn't going back to Gryffindor until Sunday night.

------------------------------------------------------

"Well, there's one good thing about your returning to a normal schedule," Draco said later that day as they were finishing the afternoon tea he'd declared he just had to have. "With you eating in the Great Hall and me tending the home fires, we'll be able to compare notes and see how many meals Severus is really skipping."

"Good thinking, except I found out he snacks a lot with the headmaster."

Whatever Draco might have replied to that was cut short by the abrupt appearance of flames in the Floo, followed by a scrolled parchment popping into existence and rolling out onto the hearth.

"Steyne again?" Harry wondered, setting down his biscuit as he went to kneel in front of the letter.

"Relax, I recognise the ribbon. Pansy used the same kind last week when she flooed a letter through."

Harry personally wouldn't have pegged Parkinson for the pink type. "Uh, you didn't mention a letter from her," he hinted.

"I don't mention half my letters," Draco drawled, though he relented enough to add, "She sounded like she might be ready to listen to me, though. Said a contingent of Slytherins were starting to question some things--ha, if I know Pansy, probably the fact that the Dark Lord's a half-blood. But you have to start where people are, I hope you realise . . . what's wrong?"

"How could she Floo you a letter?"

Draco stared at him. "Very easily, I should think. Listen, she couldn't floo through a dagger spelled to stab any of us, or anything overtly harmful. Still, Severus and I check letters over carefully because a really subtle hex or curse might slip by the wards. Though you're in no danger at all, of course. Sacrificial magic really is quite something."

"I'm not stupid. I meant, where could she have flooed it from? I didn't think many fireplaces in the castle were hooked to the network."

"Well, I don't suppose she used the headmaster's connection," Draco gibed. "But there are some others. Umbridge let the Inquisitorial Squad use them." Catching the look on Harry's face, he added, "Look, all that . . . it seemed like a big game to us, like one more round of Gryffindor versus Slytherin--"

"Some game," Harry muttered.

"I thought we were beyond all that."

"It wasn't a game, Draco!"

"I know that! I said it seemed like a game, all right? It was stupid and bloody dangerous and I was fifteen and an idiot just like you said! So can I read my letter?"

Harry breathed in once, twice, three times and got himself under control. "Yeah, all right. But check it out first. Just in case."

Draco did. "Definitely from Pansy," he pronounced after the letter had passed his complete gamut of identity spells.

"And you're sure it's not set up to hex you at all?" Harry asked in a doubtful tone. "I mean, you did put her in St. Mungo's. Don't you think she wants to get even?"

"It's clean as a whistle," the other boy insisted as he grabbed the scroll to unroll it. Considering he'd declined to ever lay hands on his mother's letter, Harry raised a brow. Then again, since Dubby had snapped his fingers to wink Narcissa's letter out of existence the minute he'd had that reply in hand to deliver to Walpurgis Black . . . Harry sighed, remembering the scene that had caused. Clearly put out at having his mother's letter destroyed, Draco had tried to throttle the elf; Harry'd had to hold him back until Dubby was gone.

Severus had taken points from Slytherin.

"Well?" Harry asked now.

The Slytherin boy looked up, his eyes startled, then furrowed his brow as he cast Tempus to check the time.

"What does she say?"

"I think she might be going sweet on me again, actually." Draco shrugged and didn't meet Harry's eyes. "This is a bit . . . hmm. I don't know that romantic is quite the word to use, but it's definitely not hostile." The smile he'd been trying to hide cracked through his façade. "That last letter of hers was the same."

Well, that explained the dream, Harry supposed. "But what does she say about Slytherin, Draco?"

"Not too much," Draco claimed, but by then his eyes were so shifty that Harry knew something was going on. "Say, you know that potion I've got simmering? It needs fifty stirs clockwise and twenty counter-clockwise, but I'm of a mind to reply to Pansy straight away. Um, can you go tend the potion for me? You won't be brewing unsupervised, you'll just be stirring and it's a really stable mix, nothing will go wrong--"

"Sure," Harry answered in an even, steady voice. He casually strolled off in the direction of the Potions lab, even went in, then stopped and listened as intently as he could. No sound of parchment unrolling, no scratch of quill . . . just the quiet, almost inaudible creak of a trunk being opened.

Edging quietly into his bedroom, Harry took in the scene before him and chided, "Draco!"

The Slytherin boy spun around, Harry's invisibility cloak clutched in his hands.

Harry wasted no time in snatching it from him and bundling it back into his trunk. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Uh, nothing," Draco babbled. "I mean, I was just going to borrow it for a bit. Really. I'm feeling, er, shy, you know, with Pansy getting all hot and bothered in the letter, and I wanted some privacy so I could reply, you know. Oh, come on! Didn't you ever sit on your bed with the curtains closed and think of that Patil girl you went to the ball with?"

Harry narrowed his eyes. "Well, if you want privacy I can certainly oblige. I'll just leave you to write your reply in peace. I'll sit out in the living room until you finish. How's that?"

"Lousy. My potion needs stirring--"

"Then stir it and write your letter later," Harry very reasonably suggested.

Draco's hand clenched around the letter. "Listen, Potter, I'm not in the mood to brew. Just go stir it and let me concentrate!"

"You listen, Malfoy," Harry announced, stomping up to the other boy. "The only thing you want to concentrate on is keeping me busy in the lab so you can sneak out of Severus' quarters! Didn't I tell you I wasn't stupid?"

"I'm not planning to sneak out of--"

"There's only one reason you could want my cloak, and it's to hide, and since I don't imagine you need to hide from me, you've obviously got plans to leave the rooms! So out with it! The truth, this time!"

"Oh, you think you know so much," Draco began to sneer.

"What does the letter say?"

"It's none of your business, Potter--"

Harry looked around for Sals, who thankfully was in her box on his night table, then pointed his hand and yelled, "Get over here, Draco's letter!"

The Slytherin boy swore as the parchment ripped itself from his grip and sailed across the room.

"I think about what you've written all the time," Harry read aloud. "I feel so bad now about that night in Slytherin--"

Draco lunged. "Give me that!"

Jumping up on his bed, Harry held the letter behind his back. "Tell me the truth. The truth, or I'll floo this letter straight to Severus--"

"Oh, fine!" Draco scathed. "She's ready to listen to what it's really like to serve the Dark Lord! She's waiting for me, right now, has some questions, and I have to go talk to her."

"No you don't. She can put her questions in her next letter."

"She's Slytherin, Potter. She's not stupid enough to write her questions down! In the wrong hands it'd be as good as a death sentence." Draco paused. "Get off the bed. You look like an imbecile."

Harry lithely jumped down. "She can't write down her questions but she can write down that she wants to hear what it's really like to serve Voldemort?"

"Of course she can't! I'm reading between the lines, as usual, though of course I realise that concept is a bit of a stretch for a Gryffindor!" Draco retorted.

"I'm Slytherin too, as you take such pains to point out to my Gryffindor friends!"

"Then just read it!" Draco erupted. "Go on. I won't object this time."

Harry gave his brother a suspicious glance, then looked down at the letter. There was no salutation or closing; just a single long paragraph of text filled with writing that reminded Harry of those essays from the lower forms he'd spent so much time correcting.

 

I think about what you've written all the time. I feel so bad now about that night in Slytherin. I wish now I'd listened better, because I can think of any number of things I should have asked. It's hard for me to believe it was really that bad, you know, what you saw that night. but you keep saying the problem wasn't that it was bad for him but that it was bad for us . . . you know, that didn't used to make any sense to me, but now some things have got me thinking more about it, more about everything you've spent months trying to get through to us. I've been wondering for a while if I should just talk to you about it, all of it, because the letters just have too many limitations, you know? And besides, I remember when we used to talk. Maybe I just miss it. Even after everything that's happened . . . you know, I must have written this letter a dozen times over the past few days, trying to get it just right . . . I guess what I'm trying to say is I really want to see you. Its just after last class now. I'll send this, then go to that old, unused supply closet where we used to . . . well, you know the one I mean. I'll wait twenty minutes. If you don't come . . . well, you know how you keep writing all of us about what makes for true strength, true power? If you don't come, I'll know that your recent choices have made you weak, not strong. We'll all know.

"Twenty minutes," Draco emphasised, flicking his hand toward the ghostly little clock that was still ticking away. "I have to get going."

"You're not going anywhere," Harry scowled, shoving the letter deep into a trouser pocket. "Write her that if she's so desperate to talk, she can come here to do it."

Draco gnashed his teeth. "She won't, Potter. Nobody will risk being seen hanging about this corridor, not after what Snape did for you at Samhain! Too much Death Eater gossip running rampant through the dungeons. I told Severus ages ago that I had to go to them. And if I don't go when Pansy asks me, she'll think it's because I'm afraid to sneak out! She'll tell people that it's only cowards who leave the Dark Lord's service, and believe me, the ones who are still loyal to him will milk that for all it's worth!"

"It's not a matter of cowardice," Harry carefully said. "Severus told me that you were too smart to leave his rooms without permission."

"Oh, nice try at manipulation," Draco sneered. "Remind me to give you some lessons later in how it's done. Listen, I've been working on Pansy for a while now because she's a lot like me, not about to sign up as a slave once she knows that's what it really is--"

"I thought you were owling the half-bloods and Muggleborns in Slytherin!"

"Well I started with them like Severus said, but they are in the minority, you know! And besides, is it wrong of me to want to save a few purebloods from a fate worse than death? The more potential allies I can steal from the Dark Lord, the better!"

"All right, fine," Harry bit out, because that wasn't the issue. "How do you know this letter isn't some ruse to lure you out there and kill you?"

"I know Pansy, all right? I know her really well!"

"You know her so well that she loosed a snake on you!"

"Yeah, well if I'd had a better grip on my impulse control and hadn't fucked it all up by telling Slytherin too much, too soon, she wouldn't have!"

"You're having an impulse control problem right now!" Harry shouted. "Stop and think, would you? It could be a trap! It could be Lucius standing in that supply closet waiting for you! Or Voldemort himself, for that matter!"

"For fuck's sake, Harry! This is the chance I've been waiting for all along! I keep telling Severus I need to see these people in person to influence them!"

"You're not leaving, and that's final!" Harry grabbed his brother's arm for good measure, determined to keep him there by force if necessary. What he really needed, of course, was for his father to come deal with this. Severus would know what to say --or do-- to a stubborn Slytherin. Snape wasn't Head of Slytherin for nothing.

With that thought in mind, Harry started dragging his brother toward the bedroom door so he could get them both to the fireplace in the living room. He'd hang onto Draco with one hand and toss the Floo powder in with the other--

Good plan, but Draco was a better Muggle fighter than he used to be; he'd obviously been listening to the Potion Master's advice out in Devon about how to free oneself from an assailant. One quick twist of his wrist, one rapid downward jerk, and Draco had shaken Harry off, the whole manoeuvre over so fast it seemed almost effortless. The Slytherin boy started to stalk away.

Harry felt like he was being pulled in two directions at once. Just get to the Floo . . . He could see himself doing it, screaming, "Dad, get down here now!" Snape would floo through at once, the mere tone of Harry's voice enough to signal an emergency. Taking the time to firecall his father, though, would give Draco time to slip out and get disappear into the bowels of Slytherin. Not that Snape couldn't find him, but by the time the search began, Pansy's nasty little scheme, whatever it was, might have already lured Draco up to the Owlery!

Pansy, though, wasn't the only one who could scheme. Harry was a Slytherin too, and if contacting Snape directly would give Draco too much chance to escape, then maybe there was a more roundabout way of getting the Potions Master to return to his chambers.

"I'm a seer, remember?" Harry shouted, catching up to Draco and grabbing hold of his arm again, his grip this time so tight it made his own hand ache. Draco tried his twist-and-yank move again, but braced for it now, Harry managed to hang on as he yelled, "I know things! I know the future! Your future, Draco Malfoy! Whoever's in that closet is going to take you up to the Owlery and throw you off and leave you a bloody mess at the bottom!"

That stopped the other boy cold, if only for a second. "Nobody can get thrown off the Owlery, Potter," Draco sneered. "The place is plastered with anti-gravity charms. You aren't talking to some casewitch who's never heard of rugby, you know. I know a lot about Hogwarts and its defences, so you'd better come up with a better lie than that."

So far, so good . . . Draco hadn't exactly gone for the bait, but Harry thought he could get him there . . . "It's not a lie," he insisted, raising his voice yet again. "I dreamed it, dreamed the whole thing! If you leave here, you're going to die!"

"Sure you dreamed that," the other boy scoffed. "You dreamed my death and never once thought to mention it? If you still hated me, maybe. Ha, probably not even then, you Gryffindor. But now that you don't hate me? You just don't want me leaving! You'll make up anything!"

That's it, his inner Slytherin announced. Harry would make up anything to keep Draco in the rooms, and Draco knew it, which gave him the perfect opening, the one he'd been angling for.

"I'll take Veritaserum, all right?" Just the thought of it made him shudder. While he was under the potion's influence, Draco could ask anything . . . and most likely would. Hopefully, though, Snape would realise what was going on long before Draco managed to find the right bottle and get three drops measured out . . . Harry drew in a breath, thinking this is it, time to spring the trap . . . "Seriously. I will. Go get some, and then you'll know. Well, what's the problem? Oh, come on! I bet you know where Severus keeps his truth potions!"

Draco was regarding him thoughtfully, at least. That had to be worth something. "If you think he keeps it where I could get a hold of it, you're barking mad. Severus knows me better than that." A slight laugh.

Harry pretended to think that one over. "Oh. Right. But remember my Lumos? If I use my wand, I bet I can find a way through the wards--"

Draco gave him a rather disgusted look. "I do remember your Lumos, yes! And I remember what followed! Severus is alerted the instant his wards are attacked, but that's what you're counting on, isn't it? You're trickier than you look!"

Draco was starting to twist his arm again. Anticipating that, Harry let go of Draco's arm just as the other boy began to yank it downwards. Caught off balance, Draco lurched on his feet, just as Harry threw himself into him, propelling the other boy backwards into the wall just beside the doorway. Harry shoved with all his might against the other boy, pinioning him chest to chest even as he glanced over his shoulder at Sals in her little box, and hissed, "Get over here, travel-fire dust!"

An urn of Floo powder yanked itself off the mantle and came sailing straight at the boys as they struggled in the open bedroom doorway.

His Seeker reflexes still honed though it had been ages since he'd played Quidditch, Harry deftly caught the urn in one hand. The idea was that he would hurl it back into the fireplace and yell for Snape, all without ever letting go of Draco, but the Slytherin boy, of course, had other ideas.

He plucked the urn from Harry's hand and flung it himself, straight against the wall behind Harry's night-table.

Harry flinched slightly as a crashing noise filled the bedroom and fine dust billowed upwards. This is spiralling out of control, he abruptly decided. The best thing to do, he realised all at once, was Stupefy his brother first and then somehow get Severus down to deal with the whole mess. Would Dobby hear him if he just yelled without benefit of Floo powder? Ha, if not, he'd just keep Draco under the hex until their father came home for the evening.

Funny, though, how reluctant he was to use magic against Draco, when he'd spent years wanting to do just that, when he'd practiced doing that very thing out in Devon. But this wasn't practice. This was for real.

Harry held his hand out, fingers pointed at Draco's face even as he planted his feet more firmly and leaned against the other boy to hold him still.

Strange though; Draco wasn't resisting nearly as much, now. He didn't even look alarmed that Harry was obviously about to cast a wandless spell straight at him. And no wonder, as Harry found out when his gaze flicked to where Sals had been.

For now, the snake was nowhere to be seen. Worse, her charmed box lay in jagged pieces, a shattered urn mixed in among them. Draco probably frightened her away on purpose so I couldn't use any magic to keep him here, Harry realised. I've been out-Slytherined. Well, no wonder, considering who I'm dealing with. But if he hurt Sals with that little stunt I'll have a thing or two to say later!

But that could wait for later.

For now, what he had to do was buy time until he could find a snake image to use. Damn! Draco wasn't wearing his student cloak, and since his own was buried somewhere in his trunk, lost in all that wizardspace, Harry was left scrambling for a solution. No doubt Draco wasn't going to wait around while Harry drew a snake!

He tried looking at his shoelace and imagining it was a snake. "Stupefy!"

Draco shoved him away and made a little show of dusting himself off. "Your need for a snake is a liability we need to address," he commented conversationally, just as though Harry hadn't just flat-out attacked him. Or tried, at any rate. Well, Draco could afford to be magnanimous, couldn't he? He didn't have to worry about Harry's magic at all, now that he'd taken Sals out of the picture. "We'll talk about it when I get back. And I will come back, Harry. I know your dreams upset you sometimes but you need to be a bit less hysterical."

"Two minutes!" Harry begged, trying not to look as though his gaze was sweeping the floor in hopes of spotting Sals.

Draco glanced at his Tempus spell and shrugged. Maybe it was his way of making up for having done that to Sals? Harry wasn't sure, but he wasn't about to waste what might be his last chance --ever-- to make Draco consider the danger that awaited him on the other side of the dungeon door.

"I know the Owlery thing is true because my dreams always come in two parts!" Harry rushed out, feeling like the words were tripping over each other, they way they were flying off his tongue. "The past first, then the future! It was a real seer dream Draco, it was. You have to believe me!"

"And just what did you see in the past?"

Uh-oh. Exactly what Snape had warned that Draco would ask! Harry stared, not knowing what to say.

"Oh, that's simply fascinating," Draco drawled. "Did a niffler get your tongue?"

Not Lucius in France. Anything but that. He won't believe that-- For what seemed like forever, Harry's mind was flooded with thoughts of nothing but Lucius, but then finally another idea came to him. An awful idea, but the words came spilling out his mouth before he could stop them. "I saw Ron and Hermione having sex!" he blurted.

Draco burst out laughing. "And you know this is true because you what, asked them for pointers? Would you be serious?"

"No, they mentioned it in passing--"

"Potter, if there's one thing I'm sure of about Granger--besides the fact she's just as disgustingly intellectual as Severus always claimed--it's that she's got a bit more class than to kiss and tell!"

"Uh, well really it was just Ron who mentioned it--"

"Your two minutes are just about up, and since I don't believe a word you say--"

"All right!" Harry shouted, fed up. Maybe he was supposed to tell the truth. Maybe that was why he'd dreamed of Lucius turning good, not because it was true, but because he was supposed to have something completely shocking to tell Draco, something that would make him want to live long enough to see his father again so he could ask him about France. Maybe that was why he'd dreamed about the Owlery right after, because seer dreams could be changed and his magic was trying its best to let him know how to go about doing it!

"Lucius Malfoy has been going around France warning Muggleborns to get out before Voldemort attacks them," he admitted, his voice hoarse with needing Draco to listen, to understand.

Draco's breath hitched. "Excuse me?"

"That's what I dreamed," Harry gasped out, feeling as though he'd been running a race and could hardly breathe. "Honestly, Draco, it is. He was talking to this man and his wife, saying how Voldemort was planning an attack--"

"Lucius doesn't say Voldemort!"

"The Dark Lord, he said the Dark Lord, all right? I'm just retelling it, is all! Anyway, the man and woman didn't want to leave; your father, er Lucius, had to sort of talk them into it--"

"So you speak French now, do you?"

"It was all in English!"

Draco, apparently, had heard enough. "English! At this point I don't even know what you're trying to accomplish, Harry! The man raised me! And yeah, he wants to kill me and I somehow deal with that, but that doesn't mean I want to be . . . taunted with what it could be like if he'd see things my way!"

"But maybe he has had a change of heart--" Harry tried.

"He'd have to have a heart in the first place! But maybe you don't think I have one either, making up something like that! What's your problem? You want to see if I'm human? You want to see if I bleed?" Draco bared his teeth then, in a feral scowl that probably would have made Neville faint dead away. "Oh, I know what it is, it's payback for that damned elf! You didn't like me taunting him so you thought to give me a taste of my own medicine! Nice, Potter, very nice!"

"I just don't want you tossed head-first off the Owlery!" Harry cried, dashing around Draco to block the door. He glanced behind him into the living room. No sign of Sals there either--

"Enough with the fucking Owlery!" Draco screamed. "I'm meeting Pansy right here in the dungeons, underground, you complete nitwit, so get out of my way!"

"I swear, Draco, I dreamed everything just exactly like I said! Except the Ron and Hermione sex thing; I just didn't want to have to tell you about Lucius, is all. But I did dream that about him, I did! I swear, all right? I swear it on my mother's blood!"

Draco paused, then, panting as he heaved in breath after breath, the anger on his features fading. "If you put it like that, I suppose you must have. But Harry . . . that just proves you still have issues. Maybe it's your saving-people thing. You're such a Gryffindor sometimes . . . even after what Lucius did to you, those awful things he did, some part of you wants to save even him? To see him . . . er, reformed, like me?"

"You're not that reformed," Harry dryly pointed out, thinking of Dubby.

"The point," Draco went right on, "is that your seer dreams obviously aren't reliable. If they were, you'd have warned me before this. And I am not missing my best chance yet to get through to Slytherin because you have an overactive imagination, I'm just not."

"Draco--"

But that was all he got to say, just that one word. Before another one could so much as cross his lips, something hard and solid connected with his left eye, smashing straight into the soft, vulnerable tissue.

Draco's fist, he realised with something approaching astonishment.

Draco had just punched him in the face, and what was worse, the Slytherin boy really knew how to land a blow. In one blinding flash of insight -- a flash originating in his eye, wouldn't you know -- Harry understood what Snape and Draco had been working on in Devon while he'd been in the cottage writing up observations in his spell lexicon. No doubt Snape hadn't intended Draco to use the tactic against Harry, but trust a Slytherin to use any advantage at his disposal.

Even this one.

Even against his own brother.

Harry fell over backwards, thrown off his feet by the force of the sudden attack. He recovered quickly though, all that practice in Muggle fighting kicking in as he scrambled to stand again and charge the other boy, to give as good as he had gotten--because as long as Draco was busy brawling with him, he wasn't leaving the rooms, was he?

Draco, apparently, had thought of that.

"Petrificus totalis," he quietly incanted, his wand out now, and pointed straight at Harry's heart.

Harry's hands snapped to his sides, his legs jamming themselves into a straight position that caused him to topple over sideways.

Draco caught him before his head could smash against stone, and gently lowered him to the floor, laying him on his back.

Harry tried to struggle, but he couldn't move. Not one muscle, though he could still hear and see perfectly well. He couldn't even shout any longer!

"I'll unhex you the second I get back," Draco promised as he left Harry's sight. Harry heard a whispered Evanesco and figured Draco was eliminating the Floo powder that had spilled all over. Did Severus keep a second supply of it somewhere? Not that it would do Harry much good if he did, considering he couldn't say a spell now even if Sals climbed into his range of vision. Harry tried again to move his lips, just enough to crack them open--but it was no use. Draco had mastered Petrificus years and years before. The casting had been flawless; there was no weakness to exploit.

A slight creaking noise caught his attention, a noise he'd heard before. When Draco emerged back at his side, the invisibility cloak that had started the whole argument was draped over one arm. "I'll take really good care of this, I promise," the Slytherin boy said, his voice rasping with something Harry couldn't identify.

Kneeling down at Harry's side, Draco reached into Harry's pocket for the letter, then from the other one slid out Harry's wand. "Just in case," he murmured, leaning over closer, still that strange rasp in his voice. "It'll be okay, it really will. I won't go anywhere near the Owlery, I swear, and I'll be back before you know it. But I'm almost late; I really do need to go, now."

No, Draco, Harry tried to say, but no words emerged. No, don't go! Don't go, don't go---

He was still mentally chanting the words when he heard Abrire from the living room and a moment later, the heavy thud of the dungeon door.

And then, nothing but silence.

Chapter End Notes:
Coming Soon in A Year Like None Other:

Chapter Sixty-Seven: The Owlery

------Warning: The next chapter contains canon character death.

Comments very welcome.

Aspen in the Sunlight

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