Forever Entwined : Chapter 4 2/2
X x x X x x X
The eighth year students left Transfiguration with pages of notes and even a homework assignment. McGonagall had not been kidding when she said she wanted to prepare them; she'd started a review from sixth year without pause, calling out questions Harry only had vague answers to. He had jotted notes as quickly as he could manage, but he knew he would be joining Ron in seeking Hermione's help later.
They made their way to Muggle Studies, the Slytherins lagging behind. Harry was quick to notice Draco was the one hanging back the most, Pansy clinging to his sleeve trying to get him to walk at her pace.
There seemed to be something very strange with his behaviour; he'd notice he had been quieter, but he thought it sprung from being alone. Now that he was with his housemates, he thought he would regain some of his, well, prattishness, he guessed.
A part of Harry longed for Draco to regain some of that fire. It didn't seem right he resembled a blown out candle, once bright with gloating self-pleasure but now shrouded in darkness. Yet he knew it was not a feasible endeavour. Draco had donned this new personality somewhere between Dumbledore’s murder and Crabbe’s death in the Fiendfyre.
He longed to ask him what he'd spoken of with Dumbledore. His own talks with Albus had often left him feeling either more prepared to face the situations he'd encountered or frustrated with his vague answers, knowing the man knew more than he let on. He couldn't really blame Dumbledore, though, for in the end every move he'd made had only been toward one goal--the Greater Good.
He'd played them like chess pieces, never seeking to sacrifice any of them, but understanding sometimes it was necessary, even taking on the role of martyr in the end. So, no, Harry couldn't blame him. He could question, though. He was tempted to ask the portrait if he realised how cunning he had to have been to execute all those moves behind the scenes, some of the more vital ones even from beyond the grave.
Seeing Malfoy's still subdued behaviour, he was inclined to believe his meeting with the headmaster's portrait did not leave him with the enthusiasm of the former kind of meeting, but the confusion of the latter. Who would Malfoy speak to? Would he confide with anyone what the headmaster had shared?
It didn't seem like Zabini or even Goyle was eager to socialise with him. Pansy so far had been the only person he'd seen attempting to speak to Draco. For now it appeared the conversation would stay between the two men, unless Harry asked himself, which he didn't see happening any time soon.
When their group rounded the corner the professor was already waiting in the doorway, even though Harry knew they were not late. She welcomed them to her classroom, waiting for Malfoy to step in before closing the door.
Professor Miller was older than he'd expected, maybe around forty or fifty in appearance, which meant she could be twenty or even thirty years older, as witches and wizards lived longer lives. Her greying hair still showed an undercoat of brown, and her eyes seemed hazel behind her square spectacles.
"Welcome." Despite her appearance, her voice was strong and rang with confidence, not at all like the low voice he thought would be more fitting.
They separated into two groups, and sat, huddled together, at the small tables on either side of the room.
Harry ended on the edge of one table, Hermione, Neville, and Ron all squeezed up next to him. They were over the capacity of the table, but none of them was about to move.
"Hello. My name is Professor Miller. We have not met before, as I've recently returned to teaching, but do not worry. I am not so out of practice that you won’t be challenged." Her sweet smile reminded Harry of a grandmother, the cuddly kind that baked cookies, though he had a feeling the appearance worked to her advantage.
A thought that was reinforced when Pansy whispered loudly, "I doubt it."
The professor quickly replied, "I know some of you do not want to be here, but I am sure you want to do your best in your studies, and will seek to gain points and not lose them. Will you be having a problem?" Her smile lost its sugar and donned a taste of severity.
Pansy replied by shaking her head and turning to Draco, possibly for support, but he was facing forward with his hands cupped on the desk.
"The purpose of this course is to open a door between the wizarding world and Muggle world, allowing you to see and better understand the Muggle way of life." She walked from one side of the room to the other as she spoke. "There was once a good Muggleborn friend of mine who'd decided to pursue her love of anthropology in the Muggle world, and there was one thing she said to me that has always stayed with me."
She waved her wand and words appeared in neat script across the surface of the board. She read it out loud to them. "If the male and female of any two groups can procreate then they are the same being.
"Of course, she was referring to the idea of races being nothing more than a social construct." Professor Miller shrugged with an easy smile. "However, it can be applied to all of us. We are the same beings, though it just so happens we were born with magic while Muggles have developed plenty enchantments of their own.
"Please turn to the first page of your textbook, and we'll review a little thing called electricity."
Harry knew all about electricity, as he knew a lot of his friends did having lived with Muggles in their own families. Hermione, unsurprisingly, took notes, but she wasn't the only one. Harry spotted Malfoy carefully writing his own notes as the teacher spoke.
Pansy frowned when she'd noticed, and her expression was ugly when she hissed what had to be a complaint at him. Malfoy simply looked to her and answered in a few words. Whatever it was seemed to take the bluster right out of her, and she just pouted, turning to the front.
At the end of the class, with only ten minutes to go, Professor Miller stopped the lesson for the day and returned to the board.
"I know this is only our first class, but I do have an assignment for you."
There were muffled groans from those assembled, but she continued right on as if she had not heard a thing.
"To build on this quote, you will imagine your lives ten or twenty years from now, but in this future you have no magic. The assignment will be at least two parchments, and is due a month from today."
"That doesn't make any sense! We will always have magic!" Zabini interjected loudly from his seat.
"Indeed you will, but this is my assignment. If you had to live like a Muggle, how would your lives be? What options would you have?"
"What do you mean? What are we supposed to do?" Ron asked, the confusion he felt plain for everyone to see or snicker at, in the case of Zabini.
"Oh, come now, it is not that difficult." She encouraged, looking from Ron to the Slytherins in particular. "It's a simple assignment. What would you do for a living? You can even add the particulars of your personal life to help with the length. Are you married? Do you have children?
“If you have no idea where to start, the library has plenty of new material to offer assistance. There are a plethora of occupations you can explore."
"We can't do this! We have no idea what Muggles do," Pansy complained.
"That's a lot of parchment," Ron groaned, Seamus agreeing from the back.
Harry did not join in with the complaints. He was too busy wondering what job he would have possibly picked had he never received his Hogwarts letter.
The professor crossed her arms and tapped a knuckle to her chin before she smiled and nodded to confirm whatever decision she'd come to.
"I understand that a lot of your hesitancy comes from your fear of the unknown, so I will make this a group assignment.”
She reached for a parchment on her desk that had to be the class roster. She looked at it a moment, moving her finger along before pairing off names slowly as she decided. "Let's have Brown and Finnigan, Goyle and Granger, Parkinson and Patil....”
It seemed she was pairing them up alphabetically, even if Neville should have been with Parvati. Not that Harry was complaining about avoiding the unpleasantness of being Pansy’s partner.
“Longbottom and Thomas, Malfoy and Potter, and Weasley and Zabini will be the last group.”
The groans were immediate and steadily grew until she let out a sharp whistle. "I used to train dogs," she explained. "I really hope you don't give me more reason to silence you thusly."
No one said anything else.
"When you return on Wednesday, you will sit with your partners. Two to a table should be more comfortable than the huddle you have going now." She looked toward the Gryffindors as she spoke.
X x x x X x x X
By comparison to Muggle Studies, Potions with Slughorn was nowhere near as exciting. Harry said goodbye to his friends at the end of the class, wishing Ron a good time in Divination, before he made his way to the fifth floor to join his own art class.
The room was large with ceiling to floor windows. It was bright and warm.
‘Perfect for creating,’ Harry thought, then laughed at his own description, as if he were some artist about to create magic on canvas rather than the stick figures he intended to start with. There were only three other students in the class. He was not familiar with any of them, and they all wore white robes similar to the ones he'd seen painters wear.
He crept in feeling a little nervous and out of place, but the sight of long blond hair in the far corner of the room filled him with relief, and he quickly made his way to join Luna. The Ravenclaw was absorbed in what she was painting, a brush wet with paint was perched behind her ear, steadily dripping purple onto the shoulder of her robe. Unlike the other two students, her robe was covered in flowers and suns and all sorts of hand drawn paintings. Harry found he liked the chaotic swirl of colours and images.
"Luna." He said hello in a manner he hoped came out more confident than the relieved squeak he'd heard in his own ears.
"Hello, Harry." He had to step back to avoid the sweep of the brush when she turned to address him. "I didn't know you had art.
"I've taken this class since third year," she informed him, turning back to her creation. Her presence in the class did not surprise him too much, having seen her paintings of her friends’ faces on the ceiling of her room.
"Is that some kind of abstract art?" he asked curiously, moving a bit closer.
"It's a Blibbering Humdinger," she answered matter-of-fact, like it should have been perfectly obvious the dark purple and black shapes on the page were that humdinger creature.
"You can't really see anything."
"They are harder to see when they're in shadow," she agreed easily. Pointing to it, she identified parts Harry could not see for the life of him. "That's the snout...the wings...can you see his horn?"
Harry was about to agree, but it felt too much like placating her, and she'd grown too valuable a friend to act as if she were crazy and needed to be assuaged. "I don't see it, Luna," he admitted with a small sigh.
"It's all right. If I manage to see it again, I can make a representation that's easier for you to see."
"All right," he agreed.
"Do I put my bag there?" He pointed to a table in front of them apart from the easels.
"Yes."
"There's no professor?" Harry asked, unpacking his shrunken canvas, paints, pastels, chalk and even modelling clay from his bag. When the items were restored to their original size, they covered a third of his desk space. Maybe he'd gone a little overboard, but, ironically, he noticed that not one of the items were the robes the students wore to protect their uniforms.
"Just you and your art, Harry," Luna replied, appearing beside him and sorting through his supplies, murmuring approvingly here and there before nodding at him with a pleased smile.
"I'll lend you my extra." Without waiting for an answer, she reached into her bag and pulled another robe very similar to the one she wore, though this one was themed for evening with moons and stars and even some fish on the sleeve.
"Thanks." He pulled the robe on; it fell short on his arms and the hem only reached the height of his ankles, but thankfully it was not fitted, so it was comfortable around his shoulders and chest.
"But who tells us what we’re supposed to do?" Harry asked, not completely understanding this arrangement. How did they get marked? Not that he clamoured for marks.
"Professor Ward leaves the assignment over there each class. He collects them at the end of the week." She pointed to the front of the class where rainbow letters brightly stood out from the blackboard.
SELF-PORTRAIT
"Aren't you supposed to get a mirror to do this?" he whispered to Luna.
"It's not about the physical representation of your appearance, but what you see yourself as."
Harry wasn't sure what to make of that.
"Or it can be a physical representation, if you want it to be," Luna added, reaching into her bag for one of those little plastic things Hermione carried in her bag nowadays. Compacts, he thought they might be called.
She transformed it into a square mirror about the size of a sheet of paper and handed it to him. "You create whatever you want," she told him before moving back to her easel.
"Wait, does that mean you see yourself as the hamdinger?" He pointed to her drawing.
"Humdinger, and no. I'm riding him." She did a sweep with her finger over the top of a curve of one of the shapes.
He smiled, moving toward his blank canvas. Propping the mirror on the left corner, he picked up a piece of charcoal and started on his self portrait. He kept glancing at his reflection and back to his easel as he worked.
"I like it," Luna said softly over his shoulder.
He had only shaded two eyebrows slightly arched over green smudged circles done in pastel and dark brown fringe above his eyes, but there were no distinct parameters of his face or chin, nor was there any sign of a lightning bolt under the fringe.
It was obviously a first attempt, simple and a little boring.
"I like it too," he answered, taking another look at it.
Chapter 5
A/N: Sorry for the two parts, LJ says it was too long.
I know that there hasn't been a lot of interaction between the guys, but that'a about to change really soon :D
Let me know what you thought
The eighth year students left Transfiguration with pages of notes and even a homework assignment. McGonagall had not been kidding when she said she wanted to prepare them; she'd started a review from sixth year without pause, calling out questions Harry only had vague answers to. He had jotted notes as quickly as he could manage, but he knew he would be joining Ron in seeking Hermione's help later.
They made their way to Muggle Studies, the Slytherins lagging behind. Harry was quick to notice Draco was the one hanging back the most, Pansy clinging to his sleeve trying to get him to walk at her pace.
There seemed to be something very strange with his behaviour; he'd notice he had been quieter, but he thought it sprung from being alone. Now that he was with his housemates, he thought he would regain some of his, well, prattishness, he guessed.
A part of Harry longed for Draco to regain some of that fire. It didn't seem right he resembled a blown out candle, once bright with gloating self-pleasure but now shrouded in darkness. Yet he knew it was not a feasible endeavour. Draco had donned this new personality somewhere between Dumbledore’s murder and Crabbe’s death in the Fiendfyre.
He longed to ask him what he'd spoken of with Dumbledore. His own talks with Albus had often left him feeling either more prepared to face the situations he'd encountered or frustrated with his vague answers, knowing the man knew more than he let on. He couldn't really blame Dumbledore, though, for in the end every move he'd made had only been toward one goal--the Greater Good.
He'd played them like chess pieces, never seeking to sacrifice any of them, but understanding sometimes it was necessary, even taking on the role of martyr in the end. So, no, Harry couldn't blame him. He could question, though. He was tempted to ask the portrait if he realised how cunning he had to have been to execute all those moves behind the scenes, some of the more vital ones even from beyond the grave.
Seeing Malfoy's still subdued behaviour, he was inclined to believe his meeting with the headmaster's portrait did not leave him with the enthusiasm of the former kind of meeting, but the confusion of the latter. Who would Malfoy speak to? Would he confide with anyone what the headmaster had shared?
It didn't seem like Zabini or even Goyle was eager to socialise with him. Pansy so far had been the only person he'd seen attempting to speak to Draco. For now it appeared the conversation would stay between the two men, unless Harry asked himself, which he didn't see happening any time soon.
When their group rounded the corner the professor was already waiting in the doorway, even though Harry knew they were not late. She welcomed them to her classroom, waiting for Malfoy to step in before closing the door.
Professor Miller was older than he'd expected, maybe around forty or fifty in appearance, which meant she could be twenty or even thirty years older, as witches and wizards lived longer lives. Her greying hair still showed an undercoat of brown, and her eyes seemed hazel behind her square spectacles.
"Welcome." Despite her appearance, her voice was strong and rang with confidence, not at all like the low voice he thought would be more fitting.
They separated into two groups, and sat, huddled together, at the small tables on either side of the room.
Harry ended on the edge of one table, Hermione, Neville, and Ron all squeezed up next to him. They were over the capacity of the table, but none of them was about to move.
"Hello. My name is Professor Miller. We have not met before, as I've recently returned to teaching, but do not worry. I am not so out of practice that you won’t be challenged." Her sweet smile reminded Harry of a grandmother, the cuddly kind that baked cookies, though he had a feeling the appearance worked to her advantage.
A thought that was reinforced when Pansy whispered loudly, "I doubt it."
The professor quickly replied, "I know some of you do not want to be here, but I am sure you want to do your best in your studies, and will seek to gain points and not lose them. Will you be having a problem?" Her smile lost its sugar and donned a taste of severity.
Pansy replied by shaking her head and turning to Draco, possibly for support, but he was facing forward with his hands cupped on the desk.
"The purpose of this course is to open a door between the wizarding world and Muggle world, allowing you to see and better understand the Muggle way of life." She walked from one side of the room to the other as she spoke. "There was once a good Muggleborn friend of mine who'd decided to pursue her love of anthropology in the Muggle world, and there was one thing she said to me that has always stayed with me."
She waved her wand and words appeared in neat script across the surface of the board. She read it out loud to them. "If the male and female of any two groups can procreate then they are the same being.
"Of course, she was referring to the idea of races being nothing more than a social construct." Professor Miller shrugged with an easy smile. "However, it can be applied to all of us. We are the same beings, though it just so happens we were born with magic while Muggles have developed plenty enchantments of their own.
"Please turn to the first page of your textbook, and we'll review a little thing called electricity."
Harry knew all about electricity, as he knew a lot of his friends did having lived with Muggles in their own families. Hermione, unsurprisingly, took notes, but she wasn't the only one. Harry spotted Malfoy carefully writing his own notes as the teacher spoke.
Pansy frowned when she'd noticed, and her expression was ugly when she hissed what had to be a complaint at him. Malfoy simply looked to her and answered in a few words. Whatever it was seemed to take the bluster right out of her, and she just pouted, turning to the front.
At the end of the class, with only ten minutes to go, Professor Miller stopped the lesson for the day and returned to the board.
"I know this is only our first class, but I do have an assignment for you."
There were muffled groans from those assembled, but she continued right on as if she had not heard a thing.
"To build on this quote, you will imagine your lives ten or twenty years from now, but in this future you have no magic. The assignment will be at least two parchments, and is due a month from today."
"That doesn't make any sense! We will always have magic!" Zabini interjected loudly from his seat.
"Indeed you will, but this is my assignment. If you had to live like a Muggle, how would your lives be? What options would you have?"
"What do you mean? What are we supposed to do?" Ron asked, the confusion he felt plain for everyone to see or snicker at, in the case of Zabini.
"Oh, come now, it is not that difficult." She encouraged, looking from Ron to the Slytherins in particular. "It's a simple assignment. What would you do for a living? You can even add the particulars of your personal life to help with the length. Are you married? Do you have children?
“If you have no idea where to start, the library has plenty of new material to offer assistance. There are a plethora of occupations you can explore."
"We can't do this! We have no idea what Muggles do," Pansy complained.
"That's a lot of parchment," Ron groaned, Seamus agreeing from the back.
Harry did not join in with the complaints. He was too busy wondering what job he would have possibly picked had he never received his Hogwarts letter.
The professor crossed her arms and tapped a knuckle to her chin before she smiled and nodded to confirm whatever decision she'd come to.
"I understand that a lot of your hesitancy comes from your fear of the unknown, so I will make this a group assignment.”
She reached for a parchment on her desk that had to be the class roster. She looked at it a moment, moving her finger along before pairing off names slowly as she decided. "Let's have Brown and Finnigan, Goyle and Granger, Parkinson and Patil....”
It seemed she was pairing them up alphabetically, even if Neville should have been with Parvati. Not that Harry was complaining about avoiding the unpleasantness of being Pansy’s partner.
“Longbottom and Thomas, Malfoy and Potter, and Weasley and Zabini will be the last group.”
The groans were immediate and steadily grew until she let out a sharp whistle. "I used to train dogs," she explained. "I really hope you don't give me more reason to silence you thusly."
No one said anything else.
"When you return on Wednesday, you will sit with your partners. Two to a table should be more comfortable than the huddle you have going now." She looked toward the Gryffindors as she spoke.
X x x x X x x X
By comparison to Muggle Studies, Potions with Slughorn was nowhere near as exciting. Harry said goodbye to his friends at the end of the class, wishing Ron a good time in Divination, before he made his way to the fifth floor to join his own art class.
The room was large with ceiling to floor windows. It was bright and warm.
‘Perfect for creating,’ Harry thought, then laughed at his own description, as if he were some artist about to create magic on canvas rather than the stick figures he intended to start with. There were only three other students in the class. He was not familiar with any of them, and they all wore white robes similar to the ones he'd seen painters wear.
He crept in feeling a little nervous and out of place, but the sight of long blond hair in the far corner of the room filled him with relief, and he quickly made his way to join Luna. The Ravenclaw was absorbed in what she was painting, a brush wet with paint was perched behind her ear, steadily dripping purple onto the shoulder of her robe. Unlike the other two students, her robe was covered in flowers and suns and all sorts of hand drawn paintings. Harry found he liked the chaotic swirl of colours and images.
"Luna." He said hello in a manner he hoped came out more confident than the relieved squeak he'd heard in his own ears.
"Hello, Harry." He had to step back to avoid the sweep of the brush when she turned to address him. "I didn't know you had art.
"I've taken this class since third year," she informed him, turning back to her creation. Her presence in the class did not surprise him too much, having seen her paintings of her friends’ faces on the ceiling of her room.
"Is that some kind of abstract art?" he asked curiously, moving a bit closer.
"It's a Blibbering Humdinger," she answered matter-of-fact, like it should have been perfectly obvious the dark purple and black shapes on the page were that humdinger creature.
"You can't really see anything."
"They are harder to see when they're in shadow," she agreed easily. Pointing to it, she identified parts Harry could not see for the life of him. "That's the snout...the wings...can you see his horn?"
Harry was about to agree, but it felt too much like placating her, and she'd grown too valuable a friend to act as if she were crazy and needed to be assuaged. "I don't see it, Luna," he admitted with a small sigh.
"It's all right. If I manage to see it again, I can make a representation that's easier for you to see."
"All right," he agreed.
"Do I put my bag there?" He pointed to a table in front of them apart from the easels.
"Yes."
"There's no professor?" Harry asked, unpacking his shrunken canvas, paints, pastels, chalk and even modelling clay from his bag. When the items were restored to their original size, they covered a third of his desk space. Maybe he'd gone a little overboard, but, ironically, he noticed that not one of the items were the robes the students wore to protect their uniforms.
"Just you and your art, Harry," Luna replied, appearing beside him and sorting through his supplies, murmuring approvingly here and there before nodding at him with a pleased smile.
"I'll lend you my extra." Without waiting for an answer, she reached into her bag and pulled another robe very similar to the one she wore, though this one was themed for evening with moons and stars and even some fish on the sleeve.
"Thanks." He pulled the robe on; it fell short on his arms and the hem only reached the height of his ankles, but thankfully it was not fitted, so it was comfortable around his shoulders and chest.
"But who tells us what we’re supposed to do?" Harry asked, not completely understanding this arrangement. How did they get marked? Not that he clamoured for marks.
"Professor Ward leaves the assignment over there each class. He collects them at the end of the week." She pointed to the front of the class where rainbow letters brightly stood out from the blackboard.
SELF-PORTRAIT
"Aren't you supposed to get a mirror to do this?" he whispered to Luna.
"It's not about the physical representation of your appearance, but what you see yourself as."
Harry wasn't sure what to make of that.
"Or it can be a physical representation, if you want it to be," Luna added, reaching into her bag for one of those little plastic things Hermione carried in her bag nowadays. Compacts, he thought they might be called.
She transformed it into a square mirror about the size of a sheet of paper and handed it to him. "You create whatever you want," she told him before moving back to her easel.
"Wait, does that mean you see yourself as the hamdinger?" He pointed to her drawing.
"Humdinger, and no. I'm riding him." She did a sweep with her finger over the top of a curve of one of the shapes.
He smiled, moving toward his blank canvas. Propping the mirror on the left corner, he picked up a piece of charcoal and started on his self portrait. He kept glancing at his reflection and back to his easel as he worked.
"I like it," Luna said softly over his shoulder.
He had only shaded two eyebrows slightly arched over green smudged circles done in pastel and dark brown fringe above his eyes, but there were no distinct parameters of his face or chin, nor was there any sign of a lightning bolt under the fringe.
It was obviously a first attempt, simple and a little boring.
"I like it too," he answered, taking another look at it.
Chapter 5
A/N: Sorry for the two parts, LJ says it was too long.
I know that there hasn't been a lot of interaction between the guys, but that'a about to change really soon :D
Let me know what you thought