Butterfly 40 - LM/HP
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Here is the next chapter. I met James and Oliver Phelps last week, there’s one photo on LiveJournal and the rest on facebook. Thanks for reviewing the last chapter, let me know what you think of this one!
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Words: 2,824
Chapter 40
September 1st 1994. Hogwarts.
Harry wasn’t sure what had started it, because one minute he, Draco and Theo had been making their way across the courtyard on the way to the Slytherin common room and the next Draco and Ron were seconds away from a fist fight. And Draco hated physical fighting; as far as he was concerned it was a wand duel or dishonour, but there he was with his fists raised and a sneer on his face, moments away from lunging at Ron.
“Oi!” Someone shouted. Ron spun around to see who had called them, visibly wilting in place as their new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher came half-running half-hobbling across the courtyard behind them.
Draco, who had prepared himself to dive at Ron, found himself with the momentum to go, but no desire to. At the sight of the professor, he tried to stop himself, and ended up stumbling three steps forward before he managed to balance himself again. But that seemed to be enough for Mad-Eye Moody. Alastor raised his wand, his one good eye narrowed as the magical glass eye spun wildly in the other socket, and he pointed it at Draco.
“Think you’re clever, eh, attacking someone from behind?” With a wave of Moody’s wand, Draco was gone. Harry glanced around wildly, and Theodore dropped to his knees to scoop up the small, white thing that climbed out from between Draco’s discarded robes. “That’ll teach you, boy!”
Theo held the ferret tight against his chest. Ron watched them, his face red but his eyes bright and he couldn’t keep himself from laughing at Malfoy’s expense even if he wanted to. “What the hell?” Harry shouted, pulling his own wand out of his pocket.
“Put that away, Mr Potter,” Professor McGonagall exclaimed, appearing behind them with her own wand drawn. “Alastor, we do not preform full body transfigurations on the students!”
“But…” the older man started to protest, but McGonagall raised her wand again.
“We do not-”
“Practise full body transfigurations on the students, I heard you the first time,” the man sulked, clearly pouting. He tucked his own wand away, folding his arms loosely in front of his stomach and hanging his head.
Minerva looked down at the pile of robes on the floor and then up at the shaking ball of fur in Theo’s arms and sighed. “Well, unless you fancy bearing yourself before the rest of the school, I suggest your friends bring you to the hospital wing, Mr Malfoy. I will be along shortly, now shoo.” She turned away from them, her wand moving sharply to whack Moody on the arm. “And you! It’s time we had a talk about what is and what is not proper behaviour for a Professor of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Come along.”
Moody followed her, his head bowed. The scars on his face shifted and rolled as he made faces at McGonagall’s back, all the while keeping his eyes downcast and his arms folded before him. Harry glanced over his shoulder, watching them walk away. There was something very familiar about that mad. It wasn’t the way he walked, because no one Harry knew had a limp like that, or the way he looked because honestly who could forget someone who looked like that, but the way he carried himself, the way he kept his eyes averted while speaking to McGonagall but not with Draco, to the one in the position of power. It was… familiar. Harry thought that maybe he had been in a situation like that before, obviously not with his transfigurations professor, but with someone else maybe, and himself: one revered above the other? But then they were out of sight, and Harry pushed them out of his mind, ignoring Ron who stood alone in the courtyard as everyone walked away from him.
“Hey Draco.” Harry leaned down to run his fingers softly along the ferret’s neck. “Will your father hear about this?” Theo and Harry snickered softly, and Draco glanced up, his teeth bared and not at all impressed with being laughed at.
XXX
September 14th 1994.
Their classes had been what they always were. They had sat in the usual groups, taken lunch with the usual friends, and even studied at their usual table in the library. One difference with this year so far however was that Hermione had finally discovered the existence of house elves, and Harry had been fortunate enough to sit through a lecture on slavery and abuse and human rights on his fourth day back at Hogwarts.
Another oddity was Alastor Moody. According to the Daily Prophet last week, Moody had called the Aurors out to his home, insisting he was being attacked by Death Eaters. Harry knew it was possible, but no one else believed him, the paper even went as far as to call him a blatant alcoholic, and the fact that he walked around Hogwarts taking swigs of out a never emptying hipflask didn’t help his reputation much. He had obviously survived the attack, if there even was one, since he was at Hogwarts, but his classes were something else that had shook up the school this year.
Moody was teaching the Dark Arts.
Alastor had spent the first class lecturing and the next carrying out a pseudo-test, shouting questions and expecting people to know the answers based on the previous weeks lecture. The Slytherin’s all did well, having the relevant Dark Arts knowledge anyway, and the Ravenclaw’s faired alright considering they had actually taken notes but the Gryffindors minus Hermione, who also took notes, failed that class. Harry had heard that at least three Hufflepuffs had left the class in tears, but that could be anything from fact to fiction so he didn’t put much stock in it. The third Defence class had been spent watching a demonstration of each of the Unforgivables on magically-enlarged spiders. It wasn’t fun, but it had been interesting. This time, the rumour was that Neville Longbottom had fainted before running out of the room in tears (because according to the Hogwarts rumour mill he didn’t need time to wake up in between the actions).
But this class, their fourth, had all of the fourth years squished into the one room together, which made a change from being stuck with Hufflepuff or Slytherin on rotation. It was a bit of a crush, but Harry had managed to snag a whole desk, albeit at the front of the room, where he sat with Hermione to one side of him, and Draco, Theo and Blaise Zabini on the other. Crabbe and Goyle, two sort-of-friends of Draco’s stood beside the bench, and two other Ravenclaws stood silently beside where Hermione sat.
All of Harry’s hard work in saving seats went to waste the moment Moody walked into the room.
“Everybody up. Up, now. Line up against the walls. I’m going to call your names, one by one in no particular order and I’m going to tell you to do something and you’re going to do it.” The magical eye swivelled in its socket, glancing around at the students who watched him warily even as they shuffled to the back of the room. “You don’t need to be a Ravenclaw to figure out how I’m going to make you do what I want, so, first up… Ronald Weasley. Yes, you,” Moody called sounding annoyed as Ron glanced around fearfully and had to be shoved back to the front of the room, “with the red hair and poor robes, come here. Imperio.”
He didn’t speak out loud, so no one knew what Ron was going to do until he’d done it. They didn’t have to wait long. After three seconds Ron pulled down his trousers and his boxers and flashed the entire class.
“Sit down. Finite Incantatem. Next, Michael Corner.” They went through nearly all of the fourth years, with the exception of the Slytherins who seemed to have been shuffled to the end of the list, by the time Harry was called.
Bow to me, Harry. Submit to me… The voice inside of his head hissed, low and seductive but not quite the same as when Voldemort hissed at him.
No, Harry thought back, Not to you.
After a moment, the voice changed, dropping in pitch sounding almost breathy when it spoke this time. Then crawl to me, Harry, sit at my feet. You want to, I know you do, you want to feel my fingers run through your hair. You like that.
Harry had unconsciously found him with his knees bent, as if he were about to fall to them, when his consciousness broke through. His head snapped up and he glanced suspiciously at Alastor Moody, noticing the way the man’s tongue snuck out to wet the corner of his lips before he took a gulp from that hipflask. How did he knew know that? How had he found out about that? Harry had sat at Voldemort’s feet over the summer, spending the night at Riddle Manor as the Dark Lord carded his fingers through Harry’s hair uncontested. Harry had liked it. But no one but Evan and that other Death Eater had been there, unless, this man wasn’t a Legilimens was he?
Bow. To. Me. The voice was angry now, desperate and furious, but Harry refused to yield, not to someone he didn’t trust, not to someone who might hurt him. He had one Lord, one father, and one lover: this man was none of them.
“No.” Harry told him, back straight and eyes narrowed. He had his hands clenched at his sides, shaking lightly but he stared the professor down, not dropping his gaze until Moody did.
A smile tugged at Moody’s scarred lips, and he waved Potter away. “Draco Malfoy. Ah, Lucius’ boy, yes? I remember Lucius, yes I do.” He asked as Draco sauntered his way to the front of the class. He didn’t sound too fond of the man however, that was to be expected, being that Moody was an old Auror and Lucius a Death Eater.
Harry stood beside Hermione, who was glancing him over curiously, wondering how he had managed what no other student in the class had so far. Harry had fought off the Imperious Curse, he hadn’t even made a fool of himself before doing so, or injured himself like the Hufflepuff who was told to stand on his head and nearly broke his neck trying not to. He was the only one so far to resist. He was the only one, because by the end of the class no other had managed it, not even Draco.
“Imperio!” Moody called, his wand pointed at Draco.
The boy’s face went blank for a moment, and then he surged into action. Harry didn’t have a chance to react before Draco was on him, hands on his neck and face, shoving him back against the wall and knocking Eloise Midgen1 to the floor. Draco’s mouth was against his, harsh and demanding and nothing like Lucius’ kisses, and the boy’s actions were stiff and jerky, like a puppet on a string, but there was something in Draco’s eyes as they kissed that screamed at him. Harry tried to push him off, tried to close his mouth off to Draco’s tongue but then those hands squeezed around Harry’s neck again and he went limp, yielding to the kiss and the way Draco pressed their bodies together and ground his erection into Harry’s hip.
“Finite Incantatem,” Moody whispered softly, wondering if Malfoy would keep kissing if he hadn’t heard the counter-spell being cast.
He didn’t. Draco sprung away as if burned, his face red and his eyes tearing up. He glanced at Harry with wide eyes, his bottom lips trembling before he turned and stalked out of the classroom. He didn’t glance in Moody’s direction as he left, but he caught Ron snickering out of the corner of his eyes. He couldn’t punish a professor, but a Weasley was fair game, he thought, hexing the boy as he left the room, his wand up his sleeve to make sure that no one saw who shouldn’t.
Harry watched him leave. Moody watched Harry.
XXX
September 22nd 1994.
Dumbledore was giving an announcement but honestly Harry wasn’t listening. Draco had avoided him for the past week, and had only recently decided to talk to him again, and Harry was too busy listening to Draco apologize for molesting his father’s lover to listen to Dumbledore natter on.
“I told you, it wasn’t your fault!” Harry smiled softly at him, reaching out to squeeze his arm. They were sitting at the Ravenclaw table, where Harry had been waiting patiently for dinner before Draco strolled over and dropped down beside him in a repeat of earlier that morning.
“Nonetheless my behaviour was deplorable and not at befitting of the House of Malfoy. Father would be greatly displeased if he knew.”
“Well he doesn’t.” Harry didn’t get a chance to say more because suddenly the entire student population was in an uproar. People were whispering over Dumbledore, shouting over each other, and generally ignoring the rest of the Headmaster’s speech. Harry glanced around, frowning slightly. “What did I miss?” Draco shrugged.
Roger Davis, Harry’s Quidditch captain and a sixth year answered him, leaning across the table so Harry could hear. “They’re bringing the Tri-Wizard Tournament back to Hogwarts this year. Mind you, they’re cancelling Quidditch which is outrageous if you ask me, and implementing an age restriction of seventeen.” He shrugged lightly, though he still looked annoyed at the ban on Quidditch.
“But didn’t people die in the last one?” Harry asked. He had read a mention of it in Hogwarts: A History, but he had never bothered to go searching for more information. He only knew that it was a competition between schools which had been banned because of a high level of participant deaths.
“In every other one at least, if they weren’t killed they were maimed or injured. One guy even got tortured first back in 1708, he mis-apparated and ended up in the clutches of the current Dark Lord who thought he was a spy. They got bits of him back, but well, you know. I, for one, am glad for the age line. Imagine the amount of first year Gryffindors that would probably try and enter,” Benjamin added. Chambers was also on the Quidditch team, and they and Adam Bradley were nice enough to Harry in school but the boy didn’t hear from them at all outside of Hogwarts. They weren’t friends. They were Quidditch team mates and that was all. Harry was surprised the sixth years were talking to him now considering this years’ Quidditch was cancelled.
When the Hall quietened down, Dumbledore continued with his announcement. “Students from Durmstrang Institute and the Beauxbatons Academy will be arriving towards the end of October. I expect each and every one of you to welcome them into our school and to show them real Hogwarts hospitality, understood?” There were a chorus of agreements to that statement, and then Dumbledore announced that dinner could begin. Food appeared on the table, and as Harry helped himself, a lone owl swooped into through an open window and glided down to rest beside him.
Harry glanced at the owl, and the letter it carried. It was unusual to receive post this late, unless it was from Evan asking to meet in the Forbidden Forest (which was no longer a regular occurrence) or bad news. Harry wondered which it was, and then he saw the familiar handwriting, simply reading ‘Harry’, and he knew who it was from. It was in the tail of the ‘y’ and the way he had crossed the two lines of the ‘h’ so that it joined up as part of the ‘a’, but it was the same as with the letter he had received with the deluminator. It was Voldemort’s writing, and Harry suddenly couldn’t breathe. What if something had happened to Evan, to Lucius, Voldemort? What if something had gone wrong?
But the letter only contained two words. Harry tried to pass it off as a coincidence, tried to pretend the letter could have arrived at any other time, but Filch chose that moment to drag two more chairs to the Head Table, for the professors of the other schools, and Harry couldn’t deny he knew exactly what Voldemort meant.
Age restriction my arse, Harry thought, glancing back down at the letter.
“What does it say?” Draco asked, not liking the way Harry had gone pale just before he opened it. The blond tugged the letter towards himself, and Harry let him, because Draco wouldn’t know what it meant unless Harry chose to explain. “‘Prepare yourself’?” Draco read off the parchment, before glancing back up at his friend with wide, grey eyes. “For what?”
Harry didn’t answer him.
XXX
1 - also spelt Midgeon.
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Thanks for reading :) It seemed longer in note form. My bad.
Words: 4,516
Chapter 41
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