[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Adventures with Harry and Echo, gen, PG-13, 1/2
Title: Adventures with Harry and Echo
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: None, this is gen
Content Notes: AU where Draco is the Boy-Who-Lived, Slytherin Harry, a bit of violence
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: This part 4200
Summary: Living in a world where he’s the Boy-Who-Lived and Harry Potter is his best friend, along with a crystal snake named Echo, Draco is bound to get into troub-interesting adventures.
Author’s Notes: This is the sequel to my earlier fic “Aunt Andromeda Says,” which you should definitely read first, as otherwise this won’t make much sense. Several people asked for the sequel, so here are some of Draco’s adventures during his first year. This is one of my “From Samhain to the Solstice” fics. It has two parts, with another due to be posted tomorrow.
Adventures With Harry and Echo
“Here are your timetables.”
Draco looked up as Professor Snape stood in front of him, and nodded politely at the man. Aunt Andromeda had always been wary when she talked about Snape, saying that he had been a Death Eater even if he’d been acquitted later. But Draco saw no reason to antagonize his Head of House. That was something Aunt Andromeda had taught him, too. “Thank you, sir.”
“Potter.”
Harry looked up, too. He had spent the morning trying to get Echo, Draco’s crystal snake, to talk to him. Draco had explained over and over the fact that he could only talk to Echo because he was a Parselmouth, but it hadn’t stopped Harry yet. “Yes, sir?”
Snape stood there staring at Harry. Harry blinked innocently, but Draco smiled. He’d only been friends with Harry for a day. He still knew when he was looking innocent.
From the way he glared, Snape did, too. But there wasn’t much he could actually do about Harry’s Sorting, not when the Hat had said Harry belonged in Slytherin. “Nothing,” Snape finally snarled, and stalked away.
“That was fun.”
“You mean getting Professor Snape upset?” Draco shook his head, even though he did think it was funny. “My Aunt Andromeda says that you’ll never get to do anything much at Hogwarts if your Head of House hates you.”
“Well, I can’t do anything about my last name or my resemblance to my father, which is why he hates me,” Harry said, shrugging. “And I’m not going to go to the Hat and beg it to put me in Gryffindor or something. Snape will just have to learn to live with it.”
Then Harry started trying to feed Echo bits of bacon, and Draco had to tell him, again, that she was an enchanted crystal snake who couldn’t actually digest anything.
*
“Oh, great.”
Draco glanced at Harry, then up at the magnificent snowy owl that was flapping towards them. “That’s not your Hedwig, is it?” he asked. He’d thought Harry’s Hedwig was a bit less majestic and a little more loving.
“No. That’s my father’s Snow Warrior.” Harry watched it gloomily as the owl settled in front of him and extended a demanding leg. “That letter is going to be full of unhappiness about me getting Sorted into Slytherin.”
“It’s going to be all right. Your parents love you, don’t they?”
“Oh, of course they do. But they’re not going to be happy at realizing they don’t know me.” Harry seemed to realize he couldn’t put it off forever, and took the letter from Snow Warrior’s leg with a little shiver.
It wasn’t a Howler, to Draco’s relief. But it was a long letter, closely written in a flowing hand that Aunt Andromeda would have approved of. Harry still skimmed it fast, and shook his head and crumpled it up at the end. “No reply,” he told Snow Warrior.
The owl hooted in displeasure and didn’t move. Harry shoved at him, not something Draco would have tried, which sent him skidding off the end of the table. “No reply, I said!” Harry yelled. Snow Warrior finally flapped away.
“Mr. Potter, you will cease this disturbance at once.” Professor Snape had materialized from nowhere, stalking up to the table. “Ten points from-”
He stopped, struggling with himself the way Draco had seen his cousin Dora struggle when she wanted to eat the last biscuits but was trying to leave some for Draco. In the meantime, Harry had widened his eyes and was looking at Snape with a faint smile. “Yes, Professor? I’m sorry, I didn’t hear where the points were coming from.”
“Never mind,” Snape said, and all but flounced away.
“What does your godfather say about you being Sorted into Slytherin?” Draco asked, to break the silence that lingered around the table. The other Slytherin first-years were staring at Harry as if they had no idea what he would say or do next. It was rather nice, Draco thought. It took the stares away from him.
“Oh, he expected it,” Harry said, shaking his head. “He’s the main reason that I’m here, after all.”
Draco nodded. After hearing the stories of Harry’s adventures with his godfather, he could believe that. “So you’re not worried about what your parents will say? Because you know, they are wrong if they think that you shouldn’t be in Slytherin, or you shouldn’t be my friend.”
Harry gave him a complicated little smile, and he said, “I’m not worried.” But he spent the rest of breakfast staring at his plate, which said he was. Draco already knew that Harry couldn’t eat when he was nervous.
Draco was composing a letter to his Aunt Andromeda in his head, though. She was Sirius Black’s cousin, and Harry had said Sirius would be fine with his Sorting. That meant Aunt Andromeda ought to be able to do something.
She’d always been able to do something, in Draco’s experience.
*
The first Potions class was-interesting. Draco knew now why Dora always had a little pause in her voice before she talked about Professor Snape.
He paused when he spoke Draco’s name, and his eyes darted over as if he wanted to pierce his forehead. Draco just looked back, at the center of his nose. He knew about Professor Snape’s Legilimency, and he knew how to avoid it.
“Our new-celebrity,” Professor Snape murmured, and then he went on calling names. His voice was thick with hatred on Harry’s. Harry bowed his head, though.
“I’m honored to be here in your illustrious classroom, Professor.”
“Five points from-” Snape stopped and actually looked as though he might stomp his foot for a moment. Then he nodded stiffly, and returned to calling out the roster. Draco rolled his eyes at Harry.
Harry didn’t roll his back. He was grinning, and watching Snape with a faux-concerned expression.
As Draco had expected, his brewing went flawlessly. Harry was actually much better at Potions than he had claimed, or at least good about following instructions and listening to Draco when he said an ingredient would make their Boil Cure Potion foam over the top of the cauldron and drench them. He watched a pale, timid Gryffindor boy at the back of the room with a frown, though.
“What is it?” Draco whispered, as Snape swooped by, looked constipated, and then nodded stiffly.
“I think that he put the porcupine quills in-”
BANG! And the disaster that Draco and Harry had managed to avoid happened as that poor boy’s cauldron boiled over and covered him in thick liquid. The boy moaned as boils began to pop into existence on his legs. Professor Snape swooped over and started shouting at the boy next to him, who Draco knew was a Weasley.
“That shouldn’t have happened,” said Harry, his brow wrinkled.
“I know. If he’d been paying attention to the instructions, then it never would have.”
“No, I mean Snape yelling at him like that.” Harry narrowed his eyes. “That’s Neville. I told you Neville is a friend of mine.”
Draco felt as if he might faint. “You can’t punch Professor Snape,” he hissed under his breath, glad that everyone was busy shrieking and laughing and packing up their things and wouldn’t hear him. “Not like you did the boys on the train.”
Harry looked at him with wide eyes, and then he laughed. His laugh made the other Slytherins turn around and stare at them. None of them seemed to know what to make of Draco and Harry yet. They muttered about Draco being the Boy-Who-Lived, and they muttered even harder about a Potter in the House of Snakes. Draco was just grateful that Crabbe, son of Crabbe the Death Eater, had been Sorted into Hufflepuff, which only left him with Gregory Goyle to deal with.
He hadn’t attacked Draco yet, though. Echo and Harry both seemed to confuse him.
“I’m not going to punch him,” Harry said in a low voice as they left the Potions classroom. “Just make sure that he doesn’t torment Neville anymore.”
“How are you going to do that?”
Harry winked. “Just watch. Or-do you want to help?”
Draco hesitated, all of Aunt Andromeda’s good advice about not antagonizing Professor Snape filtering through his mind. Then he nodded. “As long as we don’t get caught.”
“Trust a Marauder’s godson for that,” Harry said, and grinned.
*
“Is that letter from your parents better?” Draco asked Harry politely. He’d written to his aunt about the incident in Potions and received a sternly-worded note about how Aunt Andromeda expected him to behave in Hogwarts. She had pointed out that the Headmaster would be watching him. It was Aunt Andromeda’s theory that the Headmaster didn’t like the son of a Death Eater receiving all the adulation that Draco did.
The note made a worried fluttering take place in Draco’s stomach when he thought about defying Aunt Andromeda’s orders. But he wanted to help Harry get vengeance for his friend. He really did.
“Yeah, it is.” Harry was grinning as he folded this one and tucked it away. “It’s from my mum. She was telling me-” Harry’s eyes caught something over Draco’s shoulder and he suddenly squared his. “Well, it doesn’t matter.”
Draco turned and saw Blaise Zabini staring at them. Draco handed him back a regal nod. Zabini turned away and started eating his breakfast again. Draco shrugged at Harry. “You’ve got to handle them the right way. What’s your plan?”
“It’s a potion. I know how to brew some of them, but you’re a natural. That’s one reason I want you to help me.”
Draco blinked, feeling a little stung. “The only one?”
Harry rolled his eyes at him. “Is one the same as only?”
Draco thought about it, and shook his head. “But I just didn’t want you to only be-to only want me to take part in this prank with you because of my natural talent or something,” he said, lowering his voice. Because I’m the Boy-Who-Lived. It was the reason that people in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw had screwed up the courage to talk to him, alone of all the Slytherins in their year, and why some girls batted their eyelashes at him and people gawked and craned their heads to see his scar.
“I want you to help me because you’re my friend.” Harry sounded surprised. “It’s just good that you’re that good at Potions, because I’m only a little good.”
Draco grinned as he felt reassurance flood him. “Then I can help.”
*
In the end, they had to brew the potion in a boys’ bathroom on the third floor that no one went into because there was some sort of Permanent Chilling Charm cast on the seats. Draco stood back from the cauldron with a gasp when he was done. It had taken them almost all of September and the first three weeks of October. “Are you sure this is going to work?”
“Well, I mean. Not sure. Remember what I said about being only a little good at Potions?” But Harry grinned at him as he poured the rainbow-colored potion into a vial and gave it a shake. The rainbow colors immediately disappeared, and the potion just looked like clear water. “Now all we have to do is splash Snape with it.”
“Splash him with it?” Draco stepped back before he thought about it. Echo tightened around his arm. Draco wore her most of the time, and everyone seemed to assume she was just a Slytherin decoration. Then again, Draco was careful not to talk to her in Parseltongue except in front of Harry. “I thought we were going to put it in his food!”
“Do you think we could?”
Draco thought about it, and winced. “No.”
Harry nodded. “I did try to make friends with a house-elf so that we could, but I can’t find my way to the kitchens yet. And I think Snape would probably have spells that could let him detect anything foreign in his food, anyway.” He patted Draco’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ll be the one to splash him with it.”
“You said you weren’t going to get caught!”
“Oh, I’m not. What I’m going to do is wait for the next Potions class, and splash a bit of my potion on him. Only it’s actually going to be this potion. It won’t reflect badly on you, don’t worry. You know that Snape doesn’t like us to partner up in Potions class, anyway.”
Draco nodded. Professor Snape had sometimes alternated between seeming to notice Draco’s last name and seeming to notice his status as the Boy-Who-Lived, but he did approve of Draco’s manners and his talent in Potions, and that meant he preferred it when Draco wasn’t paired up with his Potter nemesis.
“I might get a detention. But I won’t get caught. There’s a difference.” Harry smiled at him. “You can stop looking so worried any second, now. My godfather taught me all about avoiding getting caught.”
“By Death Eaters?”
“Well. There’s going to be one of those in the Potions classroom, isn’t there?”
*
The splashing really did seem to go perfectly, Draco had to admit. He was standing right next to Harry, and he couldn’t tell when the rainbow potion got splashed onto Professor Snape’s sleeve instead of the real one they were making.
Of course Harry got detention, and of course he came out of the class looking perfectly pleased with it. “He’s going to make me write lines, probably,” he confessed to Draco as they climbed the stairs to the Great Hall. “He doesn’t want me doing anything useful, he thinks that would inflate my head or something. He’ll take the lines and rip them up right in front of me.”
Draco stared at him, appalled, as Echo tightened around his arm in response to his distress. “That’s terrible! I always thought he kept them as an example for other students.”
Harry snorted. “Well, maybe he does that some of the time, but not with mine. Don’t worry about it, Draco. If you ever get detention with him-although I’m not sure he’d dare-then he’ll probably keep yours.” He patted Draco’s shoulder. “Anyway, do you want me to activate the potion tomorrow night? Or not?”
Draco swallowed around a difficult lump in his throat. The next night was Halloween. The night his mother had died and his father had become a traitor and a fugitive. His hand went to the lightning bolt scar on his forehead. It had sometimes ached, but not with any pattern he could figure out.
“I’ll do whatever you want.” Harry’s eyes were soft. “Distract you, or wait so you can grieve in peace.”
Draco took a deep breath and touched Echo’s back. At home, this was a night of mourning for his mother. Aunt Andromeda would spend most of the day telling Draco stories about their childhood, what it was like to grow up as a Black sister. Most of the stories were bracing, like a brisk wind. None of them were really cheerful. But sometimes Aunt Andromeda smiled anyway.
Then, at night, they burned a candle for his mother and told her all the many things that had happened throughout the year that they thought she might like to hear about. Draco had never known for sure if his mother was looking through the candleflame the way Aunt Andromeda said she was, but sometimes it felt that way.
Here…
Here he would have to go to classes all day, but he hadn’t planned on attending the stupid feast that night. He wanted to hole up in his bed by himself-well, with Echo-and read the letters that Aunt Andromeda had sent him a week ago, which she’d told him on the envelope not to open until now.
But if he was going to have to go to classes anyway, then he could put up with going to the feast for five minutes. It wasn’t going to take much longer than that to make him smile, he knew.
“Do it at the feast,” he said. “Right at the very beginning, so that then I can go and spend time by myself with Aunt Andromeda’s letters.”
He flushed a second later, because he thought he’d have to explain that last part, but Harry didn’t demand any explanation. He just let his hand rest on Draco’s shoulder and increased his look of sympathy, and insensibly, Draco did feel better than he had.
“Right at the very beginning,” Harry agreed softly.
*
At the very beginning of the feast the next night, Draco glanced at Harry. Harry grinned at him and held up the vial of potion in his hand. It had turned to rainbow colors again. But he palmed it under the table in a way that made Draco suspect he’d done things like this before.
Dumbledore had just sat down from pronouncing them welcome to the feast, and Harry spilled the potion on the floor. Then he stood up and said in a clear, carrying voice, “I just want to know one thing, Professor Snape. How do you treat students in your classroom that you think are incompetent?”
“I torment them to make sure that they’re too afraid of me to make truly ghastly mistakes,” Snape said at once. “And I make sure that they’ll drop Potions after the OWLS. It’s a pity that it’s a required subject before that. It would make so much more sense to get rid of them in their first year.”
The silence that spread across the Great Hall made Draco feel a strange, squirming sensation inside. On the one hand, Harry was embarrassing their Head of House. Even though Professor Snape wouldn’t be able to prove that his confession was due to a potion that Harry had spilled on him, Harry was going to get into trouble for this. And seeing Slytherin’s Head of House being embarrassed wasn’t great.
But on the other hand, seeing how hard Harry fought for his friends made Draco proud to be one.
“And if they start crying, isn’t that dangerous?” Harry asked, hitting the next question without a beat missed. “Because they could be upset and cause a worse accident than if they were just allowed to go on and do their own thing?”
“What do I care about their tears? I want their terror. I want them to stop being dunderheads in my classroom! If I scare them, maybe they’ll study more!”
“But I just think being paralyzed by fear would actually be a detriment. Sir.”
Draco hid his smile in his sleeve. Honestly, Harry’s last-minute effort at respect was probably just going to get him into more trouble later. It was becoming clear that “getting caught” just meant “don’t get caught in the initial prank.” Harry didn’t care what danger came at him when he was defending someone.
“If they do improve, then I reap the benefits of that. If they don’t, then at least I get to see them stare at me in fear and respect instead of laziness and insolence.”
“Severus! Mr. Potter! That is enough!” The Headmaster stood up, casting a long ribbon of light from his wand that flashed in the air and impressed Draco. He hadn’t ever seen a spell that could do that. “I understand why you may have felt the need to bring honesty forwards, Mr. Potter, but I am going to ask that you end the effect of this spell now.”
Harry caught Draco’s eye and nodded. Draco grabbed a few of the pumpkin pasties on the table, all he would probably have the appetite to eat tonight, and slipped out the door.
He wandered through the corridors, nibbling at the pasties and talking to Echo when he thought there wasn’t anyone around to hear. Right after one time he did that, a tremendous roar echoed around the corner. Draco jumped guiltily. Had he pissed off some powerful suit of armor or portrait with his Parseltongue?
But then a thick, overpowering smell stormed towards him, and he gasped. He remembered Aunt Andromeda describing that combination of noise and smell to him once. It was a troll, and he was to run if he ever encountered one.
Draco began moving backwards, one cautious step at a time. Echo lifted her head off his arm, the way she was supposed to do to respond to danger, but Draco wasn’t going to send her after a troll. It would break her, and he doubted that the enchantments and poisons she could use would pierce its thick skin.
He didn’t have a lot of real friends, but he thought Echo was one.
Then he heard impossible sounds coming down the corridor towards him, the same corridor he thought the troll was in. It sounded like Harry’s voice, but it couldn’t be because Harry was still back in the Great Hall.
At least....Draco thought he was.
But then he listened, and he had to admit that the sounds were exactly like Harry’s voice. And he was speaking words that Harry could have said, too.
“Now, you don’t want to be hasty, Professor…”
Draco leaned slowly towards the corner, while at the same time keeping as far away as he possibly could. Harry was backing up in front of Professor Snape, who was stalking towards him with murder in his eyes. Draco wondered for a fleeting second if Professor Snape was so obsessed with hurting Harry that he’d ignored the troll’s smell and the sound of its roar.
Then the troll roared again. Professor Snape spun around with his wand in the air, which at least proved that he cared more about stopping trolls than students. Draco managed to catch Harry’s eye, and Harry started and ran towards him.
“Both of you must go back to your common room at once,” Professor Snape hissed. “You cannot deal with a troll.”
Harry promptly got a stubborn expression on his face, but Draco nodded and said, “Yes, sir.” Then he grabbed Harry’s arm and started pulling him towards the Slytherin common room. Harry came with him, although he kept craning his neck back so that he could see Professor Snape over his shoulder.
Later Draco thought it shouldn’t have happened the way it did. He and Harry were doing everything right. They were doing what their professor said, and heading back to their common room. They weren’t getting in trouble. He hadn’t even thought about taking on the troll, or letting Echo take on the troll.
But the wall beside them on the right suddenly smashed aside, and the troll was looming there, blinking. Draco stared with fear creeping over his skin. It looked almost like the troll had been in a secret passage and had used its club to clear the stone out of its way.
Professor Snape snarled a spell that Draco didn’t hear. It bounced off the corridor wall and hit the troll directly in the chest, but it did nothing except knock it back a step. Aunt Andromeda had been right; troll skin really was spell-resistant.
Although, for once, Draco really, really wished Aunt Andromeda hadn’t been right about something.
The troll swung its club in the air, but it didn’t seem to see Professor Snape or realize that the spell had come from him. It lumbered towards Harry and Draco instead, waving its club and roaring all the way. Harry dipped his hand in his pocket, and Draco grabbed his wrist.
“You can’t use the potion on this thing!” he said.
“I didn’t say I was going to,” Harry said cheerfully, and then he took something that shone almost violently red from his pocket and threw it at the troll. Confused, Draco saw that it was a small pot with the lid flying off. He shook his head. He thought Harry was still trying potions, but-
The little jar, or rather the red mist spreading out from the little jar, hit the troll in the eyes, and it went mad.
Draco cowered from the noises it was making. They were huge and horrible and gloopy, and yellow lumps of something went flying past him to smash into the wall. Harry, laughing wildly, grabbed Draco by the arm that didn’t have Echo on it and pulled him through an open door, while Professor Snape started casting spells at the troll again.
A few seconds later, Draco sighed with relief as he heard the troll crash into the floor. He turned around and shook his head at Harry. “What even was that thing you threw? What potion?”
“It wasn’t a potion.” Harry grinned. “It was crushed red pepper from the Slytherin table.”
Draco stared at him. “And you carry that around just in hopes of making trolls sneeze with it?”
“Oh, no. I picked it up tonight and I was going to throw it in Snape’s eyes if he got close enough to catch me. But it’s pretty lucky I had it when we ran into the troll, wasn’t it?”
Part Two.
This entry was originally posted at https://lomonaaeren.dreamwidth.org/1068727.html. Comment wherever you like.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: None, this is gen
Content Notes: AU where Draco is the Boy-Who-Lived, Slytherin Harry, a bit of violence
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: This part 4200
Summary: Living in a world where he’s the Boy-Who-Lived and Harry Potter is his best friend, along with a crystal snake named Echo, Draco is bound to get into troub-interesting adventures.
Author’s Notes: This is the sequel to my earlier fic “Aunt Andromeda Says,” which you should definitely read first, as otherwise this won’t make much sense. Several people asked for the sequel, so here are some of Draco’s adventures during his first year. This is one of my “From Samhain to the Solstice” fics. It has two parts, with another due to be posted tomorrow.
Adventures With Harry and Echo
“Here are your timetables.”
Draco looked up as Professor Snape stood in front of him, and nodded politely at the man. Aunt Andromeda had always been wary when she talked about Snape, saying that he had been a Death Eater even if he’d been acquitted later. But Draco saw no reason to antagonize his Head of House. That was something Aunt Andromeda had taught him, too. “Thank you, sir.”
“Potter.”
Harry looked up, too. He had spent the morning trying to get Echo, Draco’s crystal snake, to talk to him. Draco had explained over and over the fact that he could only talk to Echo because he was a Parselmouth, but it hadn’t stopped Harry yet. “Yes, sir?”
Snape stood there staring at Harry. Harry blinked innocently, but Draco smiled. He’d only been friends with Harry for a day. He still knew when he was looking innocent.
From the way he glared, Snape did, too. But there wasn’t much he could actually do about Harry’s Sorting, not when the Hat had said Harry belonged in Slytherin. “Nothing,” Snape finally snarled, and stalked away.
“That was fun.”
“You mean getting Professor Snape upset?” Draco shook his head, even though he did think it was funny. “My Aunt Andromeda says that you’ll never get to do anything much at Hogwarts if your Head of House hates you.”
“Well, I can’t do anything about my last name or my resemblance to my father, which is why he hates me,” Harry said, shrugging. “And I’m not going to go to the Hat and beg it to put me in Gryffindor or something. Snape will just have to learn to live with it.”
Then Harry started trying to feed Echo bits of bacon, and Draco had to tell him, again, that she was an enchanted crystal snake who couldn’t actually digest anything.
*
“Oh, great.”
Draco glanced at Harry, then up at the magnificent snowy owl that was flapping towards them. “That’s not your Hedwig, is it?” he asked. He’d thought Harry’s Hedwig was a bit less majestic and a little more loving.
“No. That’s my father’s Snow Warrior.” Harry watched it gloomily as the owl settled in front of him and extended a demanding leg. “That letter is going to be full of unhappiness about me getting Sorted into Slytherin.”
“It’s going to be all right. Your parents love you, don’t they?”
“Oh, of course they do. But they’re not going to be happy at realizing they don’t know me.” Harry seemed to realize he couldn’t put it off forever, and took the letter from Snow Warrior’s leg with a little shiver.
It wasn’t a Howler, to Draco’s relief. But it was a long letter, closely written in a flowing hand that Aunt Andromeda would have approved of. Harry still skimmed it fast, and shook his head and crumpled it up at the end. “No reply,” he told Snow Warrior.
The owl hooted in displeasure and didn’t move. Harry shoved at him, not something Draco would have tried, which sent him skidding off the end of the table. “No reply, I said!” Harry yelled. Snow Warrior finally flapped away.
“Mr. Potter, you will cease this disturbance at once.” Professor Snape had materialized from nowhere, stalking up to the table. “Ten points from-”
He stopped, struggling with himself the way Draco had seen his cousin Dora struggle when she wanted to eat the last biscuits but was trying to leave some for Draco. In the meantime, Harry had widened his eyes and was looking at Snape with a faint smile. “Yes, Professor? I’m sorry, I didn’t hear where the points were coming from.”
“Never mind,” Snape said, and all but flounced away.
“What does your godfather say about you being Sorted into Slytherin?” Draco asked, to break the silence that lingered around the table. The other Slytherin first-years were staring at Harry as if they had no idea what he would say or do next. It was rather nice, Draco thought. It took the stares away from him.
“Oh, he expected it,” Harry said, shaking his head. “He’s the main reason that I’m here, after all.”
Draco nodded. After hearing the stories of Harry’s adventures with his godfather, he could believe that. “So you’re not worried about what your parents will say? Because you know, they are wrong if they think that you shouldn’t be in Slytherin, or you shouldn’t be my friend.”
Harry gave him a complicated little smile, and he said, “I’m not worried.” But he spent the rest of breakfast staring at his plate, which said he was. Draco already knew that Harry couldn’t eat when he was nervous.
Draco was composing a letter to his Aunt Andromeda in his head, though. She was Sirius Black’s cousin, and Harry had said Sirius would be fine with his Sorting. That meant Aunt Andromeda ought to be able to do something.
She’d always been able to do something, in Draco’s experience.
*
The first Potions class was-interesting. Draco knew now why Dora always had a little pause in her voice before she talked about Professor Snape.
He paused when he spoke Draco’s name, and his eyes darted over as if he wanted to pierce his forehead. Draco just looked back, at the center of his nose. He knew about Professor Snape’s Legilimency, and he knew how to avoid it.
“Our new-celebrity,” Professor Snape murmured, and then he went on calling names. His voice was thick with hatred on Harry’s. Harry bowed his head, though.
“I’m honored to be here in your illustrious classroom, Professor.”
“Five points from-” Snape stopped and actually looked as though he might stomp his foot for a moment. Then he nodded stiffly, and returned to calling out the roster. Draco rolled his eyes at Harry.
Harry didn’t roll his back. He was grinning, and watching Snape with a faux-concerned expression.
As Draco had expected, his brewing went flawlessly. Harry was actually much better at Potions than he had claimed, or at least good about following instructions and listening to Draco when he said an ingredient would make their Boil Cure Potion foam over the top of the cauldron and drench them. He watched a pale, timid Gryffindor boy at the back of the room with a frown, though.
“What is it?” Draco whispered, as Snape swooped by, looked constipated, and then nodded stiffly.
“I think that he put the porcupine quills in-”
BANG! And the disaster that Draco and Harry had managed to avoid happened as that poor boy’s cauldron boiled over and covered him in thick liquid. The boy moaned as boils began to pop into existence on his legs. Professor Snape swooped over and started shouting at the boy next to him, who Draco knew was a Weasley.
“That shouldn’t have happened,” said Harry, his brow wrinkled.
“I know. If he’d been paying attention to the instructions, then it never would have.”
“No, I mean Snape yelling at him like that.” Harry narrowed his eyes. “That’s Neville. I told you Neville is a friend of mine.”
Draco felt as if he might faint. “You can’t punch Professor Snape,” he hissed under his breath, glad that everyone was busy shrieking and laughing and packing up their things and wouldn’t hear him. “Not like you did the boys on the train.”
Harry looked at him with wide eyes, and then he laughed. His laugh made the other Slytherins turn around and stare at them. None of them seemed to know what to make of Draco and Harry yet. They muttered about Draco being the Boy-Who-Lived, and they muttered even harder about a Potter in the House of Snakes. Draco was just grateful that Crabbe, son of Crabbe the Death Eater, had been Sorted into Hufflepuff, which only left him with Gregory Goyle to deal with.
He hadn’t attacked Draco yet, though. Echo and Harry both seemed to confuse him.
“I’m not going to punch him,” Harry said in a low voice as they left the Potions classroom. “Just make sure that he doesn’t torment Neville anymore.”
“How are you going to do that?”
Harry winked. “Just watch. Or-do you want to help?”
Draco hesitated, all of Aunt Andromeda’s good advice about not antagonizing Professor Snape filtering through his mind. Then he nodded. “As long as we don’t get caught.”
“Trust a Marauder’s godson for that,” Harry said, and grinned.
*
“Is that letter from your parents better?” Draco asked Harry politely. He’d written to his aunt about the incident in Potions and received a sternly-worded note about how Aunt Andromeda expected him to behave in Hogwarts. She had pointed out that the Headmaster would be watching him. It was Aunt Andromeda’s theory that the Headmaster didn’t like the son of a Death Eater receiving all the adulation that Draco did.
The note made a worried fluttering take place in Draco’s stomach when he thought about defying Aunt Andromeda’s orders. But he wanted to help Harry get vengeance for his friend. He really did.
“Yeah, it is.” Harry was grinning as he folded this one and tucked it away. “It’s from my mum. She was telling me-” Harry’s eyes caught something over Draco’s shoulder and he suddenly squared his. “Well, it doesn’t matter.”
Draco turned and saw Blaise Zabini staring at them. Draco handed him back a regal nod. Zabini turned away and started eating his breakfast again. Draco shrugged at Harry. “You’ve got to handle them the right way. What’s your plan?”
“It’s a potion. I know how to brew some of them, but you’re a natural. That’s one reason I want you to help me.”
Draco blinked, feeling a little stung. “The only one?”
Harry rolled his eyes at him. “Is one the same as only?”
Draco thought about it, and shook his head. “But I just didn’t want you to only be-to only want me to take part in this prank with you because of my natural talent or something,” he said, lowering his voice. Because I’m the Boy-Who-Lived. It was the reason that people in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw had screwed up the courage to talk to him, alone of all the Slytherins in their year, and why some girls batted their eyelashes at him and people gawked and craned their heads to see his scar.
“I want you to help me because you’re my friend.” Harry sounded surprised. “It’s just good that you’re that good at Potions, because I’m only a little good.”
Draco grinned as he felt reassurance flood him. “Then I can help.”
*
In the end, they had to brew the potion in a boys’ bathroom on the third floor that no one went into because there was some sort of Permanent Chilling Charm cast on the seats. Draco stood back from the cauldron with a gasp when he was done. It had taken them almost all of September and the first three weeks of October. “Are you sure this is going to work?”
“Well, I mean. Not sure. Remember what I said about being only a little good at Potions?” But Harry grinned at him as he poured the rainbow-colored potion into a vial and gave it a shake. The rainbow colors immediately disappeared, and the potion just looked like clear water. “Now all we have to do is splash Snape with it.”
“Splash him with it?” Draco stepped back before he thought about it. Echo tightened around his arm. Draco wore her most of the time, and everyone seemed to assume she was just a Slytherin decoration. Then again, Draco was careful not to talk to her in Parseltongue except in front of Harry. “I thought we were going to put it in his food!”
“Do you think we could?”
Draco thought about it, and winced. “No.”
Harry nodded. “I did try to make friends with a house-elf so that we could, but I can’t find my way to the kitchens yet. And I think Snape would probably have spells that could let him detect anything foreign in his food, anyway.” He patted Draco’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ll be the one to splash him with it.”
“You said you weren’t going to get caught!”
“Oh, I’m not. What I’m going to do is wait for the next Potions class, and splash a bit of my potion on him. Only it’s actually going to be this potion. It won’t reflect badly on you, don’t worry. You know that Snape doesn’t like us to partner up in Potions class, anyway.”
Draco nodded. Professor Snape had sometimes alternated between seeming to notice Draco’s last name and seeming to notice his status as the Boy-Who-Lived, but he did approve of Draco’s manners and his talent in Potions, and that meant he preferred it when Draco wasn’t paired up with his Potter nemesis.
“I might get a detention. But I won’t get caught. There’s a difference.” Harry smiled at him. “You can stop looking so worried any second, now. My godfather taught me all about avoiding getting caught.”
“By Death Eaters?”
“Well. There’s going to be one of those in the Potions classroom, isn’t there?”
*
The splashing really did seem to go perfectly, Draco had to admit. He was standing right next to Harry, and he couldn’t tell when the rainbow potion got splashed onto Professor Snape’s sleeve instead of the real one they were making.
Of course Harry got detention, and of course he came out of the class looking perfectly pleased with it. “He’s going to make me write lines, probably,” he confessed to Draco as they climbed the stairs to the Great Hall. “He doesn’t want me doing anything useful, he thinks that would inflate my head or something. He’ll take the lines and rip them up right in front of me.”
Draco stared at him, appalled, as Echo tightened around his arm in response to his distress. “That’s terrible! I always thought he kept them as an example for other students.”
Harry snorted. “Well, maybe he does that some of the time, but not with mine. Don’t worry about it, Draco. If you ever get detention with him-although I’m not sure he’d dare-then he’ll probably keep yours.” He patted Draco’s shoulder. “Anyway, do you want me to activate the potion tomorrow night? Or not?”
Draco swallowed around a difficult lump in his throat. The next night was Halloween. The night his mother had died and his father had become a traitor and a fugitive. His hand went to the lightning bolt scar on his forehead. It had sometimes ached, but not with any pattern he could figure out.
“I’ll do whatever you want.” Harry’s eyes were soft. “Distract you, or wait so you can grieve in peace.”
Draco took a deep breath and touched Echo’s back. At home, this was a night of mourning for his mother. Aunt Andromeda would spend most of the day telling Draco stories about their childhood, what it was like to grow up as a Black sister. Most of the stories were bracing, like a brisk wind. None of them were really cheerful. But sometimes Aunt Andromeda smiled anyway.
Then, at night, they burned a candle for his mother and told her all the many things that had happened throughout the year that they thought she might like to hear about. Draco had never known for sure if his mother was looking through the candleflame the way Aunt Andromeda said she was, but sometimes it felt that way.
Here…
Here he would have to go to classes all day, but he hadn’t planned on attending the stupid feast that night. He wanted to hole up in his bed by himself-well, with Echo-and read the letters that Aunt Andromeda had sent him a week ago, which she’d told him on the envelope not to open until now.
But if he was going to have to go to classes anyway, then he could put up with going to the feast for five minutes. It wasn’t going to take much longer than that to make him smile, he knew.
“Do it at the feast,” he said. “Right at the very beginning, so that then I can go and spend time by myself with Aunt Andromeda’s letters.”
He flushed a second later, because he thought he’d have to explain that last part, but Harry didn’t demand any explanation. He just let his hand rest on Draco’s shoulder and increased his look of sympathy, and insensibly, Draco did feel better than he had.
“Right at the very beginning,” Harry agreed softly.
*
At the very beginning of the feast the next night, Draco glanced at Harry. Harry grinned at him and held up the vial of potion in his hand. It had turned to rainbow colors again. But he palmed it under the table in a way that made Draco suspect he’d done things like this before.
Dumbledore had just sat down from pronouncing them welcome to the feast, and Harry spilled the potion on the floor. Then he stood up and said in a clear, carrying voice, “I just want to know one thing, Professor Snape. How do you treat students in your classroom that you think are incompetent?”
“I torment them to make sure that they’re too afraid of me to make truly ghastly mistakes,” Snape said at once. “And I make sure that they’ll drop Potions after the OWLS. It’s a pity that it’s a required subject before that. It would make so much more sense to get rid of them in their first year.”
The silence that spread across the Great Hall made Draco feel a strange, squirming sensation inside. On the one hand, Harry was embarrassing their Head of House. Even though Professor Snape wouldn’t be able to prove that his confession was due to a potion that Harry had spilled on him, Harry was going to get into trouble for this. And seeing Slytherin’s Head of House being embarrassed wasn’t great.
But on the other hand, seeing how hard Harry fought for his friends made Draco proud to be one.
“And if they start crying, isn’t that dangerous?” Harry asked, hitting the next question without a beat missed. “Because they could be upset and cause a worse accident than if they were just allowed to go on and do their own thing?”
“What do I care about their tears? I want their terror. I want them to stop being dunderheads in my classroom! If I scare them, maybe they’ll study more!”
“But I just think being paralyzed by fear would actually be a detriment. Sir.”
Draco hid his smile in his sleeve. Honestly, Harry’s last-minute effort at respect was probably just going to get him into more trouble later. It was becoming clear that “getting caught” just meant “don’t get caught in the initial prank.” Harry didn’t care what danger came at him when he was defending someone.
“If they do improve, then I reap the benefits of that. If they don’t, then at least I get to see them stare at me in fear and respect instead of laziness and insolence.”
“Severus! Mr. Potter! That is enough!” The Headmaster stood up, casting a long ribbon of light from his wand that flashed in the air and impressed Draco. He hadn’t ever seen a spell that could do that. “I understand why you may have felt the need to bring honesty forwards, Mr. Potter, but I am going to ask that you end the effect of this spell now.”
Harry caught Draco’s eye and nodded. Draco grabbed a few of the pumpkin pasties on the table, all he would probably have the appetite to eat tonight, and slipped out the door.
He wandered through the corridors, nibbling at the pasties and talking to Echo when he thought there wasn’t anyone around to hear. Right after one time he did that, a tremendous roar echoed around the corner. Draco jumped guiltily. Had he pissed off some powerful suit of armor or portrait with his Parseltongue?
But then a thick, overpowering smell stormed towards him, and he gasped. He remembered Aunt Andromeda describing that combination of noise and smell to him once. It was a troll, and he was to run if he ever encountered one.
Draco began moving backwards, one cautious step at a time. Echo lifted her head off his arm, the way she was supposed to do to respond to danger, but Draco wasn’t going to send her after a troll. It would break her, and he doubted that the enchantments and poisons she could use would pierce its thick skin.
He didn’t have a lot of real friends, but he thought Echo was one.
Then he heard impossible sounds coming down the corridor towards him, the same corridor he thought the troll was in. It sounded like Harry’s voice, but it couldn’t be because Harry was still back in the Great Hall.
At least....Draco thought he was.
But then he listened, and he had to admit that the sounds were exactly like Harry’s voice. And he was speaking words that Harry could have said, too.
“Now, you don’t want to be hasty, Professor…”
Draco leaned slowly towards the corner, while at the same time keeping as far away as he possibly could. Harry was backing up in front of Professor Snape, who was stalking towards him with murder in his eyes. Draco wondered for a fleeting second if Professor Snape was so obsessed with hurting Harry that he’d ignored the troll’s smell and the sound of its roar.
Then the troll roared again. Professor Snape spun around with his wand in the air, which at least proved that he cared more about stopping trolls than students. Draco managed to catch Harry’s eye, and Harry started and ran towards him.
“Both of you must go back to your common room at once,” Professor Snape hissed. “You cannot deal with a troll.”
Harry promptly got a stubborn expression on his face, but Draco nodded and said, “Yes, sir.” Then he grabbed Harry’s arm and started pulling him towards the Slytherin common room. Harry came with him, although he kept craning his neck back so that he could see Professor Snape over his shoulder.
Later Draco thought it shouldn’t have happened the way it did. He and Harry were doing everything right. They were doing what their professor said, and heading back to their common room. They weren’t getting in trouble. He hadn’t even thought about taking on the troll, or letting Echo take on the troll.
But the wall beside them on the right suddenly smashed aside, and the troll was looming there, blinking. Draco stared with fear creeping over his skin. It looked almost like the troll had been in a secret passage and had used its club to clear the stone out of its way.
Professor Snape snarled a spell that Draco didn’t hear. It bounced off the corridor wall and hit the troll directly in the chest, but it did nothing except knock it back a step. Aunt Andromeda had been right; troll skin really was spell-resistant.
Although, for once, Draco really, really wished Aunt Andromeda hadn’t been right about something.
The troll swung its club in the air, but it didn’t seem to see Professor Snape or realize that the spell had come from him. It lumbered towards Harry and Draco instead, waving its club and roaring all the way. Harry dipped his hand in his pocket, and Draco grabbed his wrist.
“You can’t use the potion on this thing!” he said.
“I didn’t say I was going to,” Harry said cheerfully, and then he took something that shone almost violently red from his pocket and threw it at the troll. Confused, Draco saw that it was a small pot with the lid flying off. He shook his head. He thought Harry was still trying potions, but-
The little jar, or rather the red mist spreading out from the little jar, hit the troll in the eyes, and it went mad.
Draco cowered from the noises it was making. They were huge and horrible and gloopy, and yellow lumps of something went flying past him to smash into the wall. Harry, laughing wildly, grabbed Draco by the arm that didn’t have Echo on it and pulled him through an open door, while Professor Snape started casting spells at the troll again.
A few seconds later, Draco sighed with relief as he heard the troll crash into the floor. He turned around and shook his head at Harry. “What even was that thing you threw? What potion?”
“It wasn’t a potion.” Harry grinned. “It was crushed red pepper from the Slytherin table.”
Draco stared at him. “And you carry that around just in hopes of making trolls sneeze with it?”
“Oh, no. I picked it up tonight and I was going to throw it in Snape’s eyes if he got close enough to catch me. But it’s pretty lucky I had it when we ran into the troll, wasn’t it?”
Part Two.
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