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The Heart of the Matter	By : Jad Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 7323 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Chapter Twenty-Three

Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground, and miss.

- Douglas Adams

: : :

As usual, every Thursday afternoon was double Potions was shared with Gryffindor. Draco wondered if Dumbledore did it on purpose, and whether he was trying to punish Snape, or Harry—or both—but inspecting his timetable further Draco noticed that Slytherin was sharing a lot of classes with Gryffindor, probably to keep the classes balanced. Potions was never that bad, not for Draco—Snape gave him a lot of leeway and tortured the Gryffindors enough that Draco was often left feeling quite satisfied after every lesson.

But Friday afternoon was what they all were waiting for—even Draco, despite the knowledge he had not one, but  two  double-periods to share with Gryffindor—their double period of NEWT-level Defence Against the Dark Arts. Everybody was curious about the new Professor. Bets had already been started on how this one would turn out: an impostor, sacked, deranged, eaten by a troll, carried off by a herd of centaurs...

Their new professor was seated at his desk when Draco and his few, fellow Slytherins piled into the room. The classroom itself had a very Lupin-esque feel about it, or so Draco thought, although he didn't quite remember too many details of his third year. He had always secretly liked Lupin, as a professor anyway—he always gave Draco high marks, and his lessons  had  been the most interesting they'd ever had, aside from Moody's. But Moody had turned out not even to be Moody, so those hardly counted.

Once everyone had taken their seats, their new professor stood and regarded them quietly for a moment, waiting patiently for the chatter in the room to turn into a hushed silence as everyone awaited his first words.

'As you all know, I am Professor Meadows,' he began. Strands of thin, tawny hair fell into his bright, sea-green eyes. They were quite hard to look away from. 'I will be your Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher for the term. I must say, I'm quite pleased to see so many of you have chosen to continue this class at NEWT level.'

'Didn't leave us much of a choice,' Draco muttered, grimly.

'Ah, yes, Mr Malfoy,' Professor Meadows murmured. Apparently he had very keen hearing. 'I do know that Dumbledore has impressed on all of you the importance of taking this class, nevertheless, I'm happy to see so many of you have taken his advice.' He gave them all a pleased look, surveying their expectant faces. 'Now to begin:

'I trust you all familiarised yourselves with the preface of your text,' he continued, and there was a general shuffle as students pulled out their books. 'And in doing so have realised that I plan to take a slightly different approach to instructing you in Defence this term. Yes? Miss Granger, isn't it?'

Granger put down her hand, a curious look upon her face. 'Sir, I've taken the liberty of reading a bit further—' ('She's read it twice through already, she means,' Weasley said, rolling his eyes. Potter smiled, and Draco found himself smirking.) '—and it seemed almost as if,' she faltered, searching for the right words, 'almost as if you planned to instruct us in the Dark Arts.'

Loud muttering broke out upon the classroom, which Professor Meadows stopped by clearing his throat. 'You are correct, Miss Granger, in a way,' he paused and waited for the whispering to fall silent completely before continuing. 'In the years I've spent studying the Dark Arts, I have found the best way to defend one's self against them is to understand them as thoroughly as possible; to know one's enemy, if you will. Do not be alarmed, however—as we work our way through the term you will all come to learn that there is much more to Dark magic than Unforgivable curses.

'I trust that being well on your way into early adulthood, many of you understand to some degree that the world is not a place of black and white. It is, in reality, comprised entirely of shades of grey, and it is in these shades that the mystery of Light and Dark magic is often clouded and severely misunderstood. For example, can anyone of you supply me with a spell—whatever you please—that you consider Light magic?'

Several students raised their hands. The professor indicated Parvati Patil, who said, 'Most Healing spells would be considered Light magic, wouldn't they, professor?'

'Indeed,' Professor Meadows agreed, nodding. 'Ten points to Gryffindor. Your mother works at St Mungo's, if I remember correctly?'

Parvati nodded, blushing, and took her seat.

'All right, and now, likewise, I would like an example of Dark magic—' several hands instantly shot into the air, but the professor waved them aside, finishing, '—that is not one of the three Unforgivable curses, if you please.'

Most of the hands slowly lowered. Granger's hand, however, remained in the air. 'Yes, Miss Granger?'

'A jinx,' Granger said simply. 'Or any minor hex, really—like Bat Bogey hex, or a Jelly-Legs jinx.'

'You're on the right track,' Professor Meadows agreed. 'You will soon find that Dark magic had and even now has  many  practical approaches in magic used every day, and many spells if tracked to their origin, will have begun as incantations classified as nothing other than Dark magic. The same applies vice-versa. Yes, Mr Potter?'

'What about the Patronus charm?'

'Ah,' Professor Meadows said, folding his hands over his chest. 'Yes. There are some exceptions, and that is one of the few. Extremes, of course, do exist at either spectrum of magic, and the Patronus charm is perhaps the purest of any magic known to wizardkind. On the other extreme, of course, we have the infamous Killing Curse—which no amount of reasoning or research can place elsewhere.'

Draco was quite annoyed at the end of class, when the professor assigned them all reading for their assignment, to discover that he, like the rest of the class, had spent the rest of their period on the edge of their seats, hanging onto every word. He was actually interested in what the man had to say on the matter, and was looking forward to reading about it. This was all very new and confusing and Draco decided it was in his best interests not to dwell on the matter.

: : :

Much to everyone's surprise, the adjoined Houses, however unwilling, lasted longer than the first evening. Unhappy but burdened with the knowledge that they had little say in the matter, the Gryffindors and Slytherins had reached a silent, mutual truce due to forced confinement.

Be and let be, Draco thought, happy enough that he had his own room as Head Boy. Blaise had to share dorms with the other seventh-year Gryffindors, but Blaise was six-feet tall and built like a centaur and could certainly handle his own. Potter and his friends seem to have reached the same conclusion, and left their lone Slytherin invader in relative peace. Pansy, similarly, had established that, while tiny in form, she had the temper of a Hungarian Horntail and teeth to match, and the Gryffindor girls gave her adequate space.

Term was quickly approaching the end of its first week before chaos erupted.

Whatever hopes the Headmaster had that Gryffindor and Slytherin would live together in relative peace and harmony were dashed early Saturday morning, the first day of the term that they had no classes to attend and were forced to spend the majority of the day in each other's company. The first years of both Houses had almost gotten friendly with one another before it became apparent that to befriend a Slytherin, the first-year Gryffindors forfeited any right they had to be part of the big red-and-gold family. They had to hate each other on principle, whether they got on all right or not.

Pansy spent most of her free time in Draco's room, but Draco had spent three months crammed in a tiny house and was feeling quite claustrophobic. He swaggered into the common room around ten o'clock, Pansy on his arm, and turned up his nose at the décor as he did every morning.

'It's horrible, isn't it,' Pansy said, sensing his disapproval. She did not bother to lower her voice, and got several dark looks from the scattered Gryffindors occupying seats by the fireplace. 'I don't see why we have to put up with their bad sense of colour coordination just because we have to live with them.'

She made a fair point, Draco thought. Emerald and silver were subtle colours, and complimented each other extremely well. Even Ravenclaw, with navy and bronze, had some sort of appeal. Leave it to Gryffindor and Hufflepuff to sport blazing colours like red and yellow to blind their fellow schoolmates with.

'What do you think, hm?' Pansy hummed as they escaped through the portrait hole, intent on finding some breakfast. 'Obviously, green and red would look terrible, and red and silver I couldn't fathom, but green and gold—well, it'd certainly be an improvement. And that goes for the mascot, too; well it could be worse than a lion, of course, I feel so terrible for the Ravenclaws—honestly, a  badger , of all things—but a lion hardly speaks for the Slytherin population. There is a medium, even, if they want to be  fair  about it,' she sneered the word, as if to imply of course they would, they are Gryffindors, all fairness and justice and a load of hypocrisy.

'I don't think the Headmaster would change the House colours for eleven students,' Draco pointed out. 'Much less the mascots.'

'Who said anything about the Headmaster?' Pansy asked innocently, smirking like the devil.

: : :

The Gryffindors and Slytherins may have had to live together, but they continued to have meals at either end of the Great Hall. Perhaps this is why none of them noticed that a few select students were missing; Draco and Blaise were there, Draco chewing mutely and listening to Blaise bitch endlessly about the nocturnal habits of Gryffindor boys, but Pansy and several of the younger-year girls were no-where to be seen. Draco had a fair idea of where they were and what they were doing, and would have been inclined to join them, but Potter kept such a close eye on him these days that if he were missing, Potter would know he was up to something. Then he would tell all his little annoying friends and they would come investigate, and ruin everything.

So Draco ate his potatoes and listened in some amusement as Blaise brainstormed aloud on how he could jinx his dorm-mates in their sleep before Potter cursed him into oblivion. They ate desert slowly, not wanting to miss the reactions, and trailed after the great mass of Gryffindors heading sulkily back into their invaded tower.

They came to a halt outside the Fat Lady's portrait. After a few minutes of no movement, Draco craned his head to see what the problem was. Granger's mass of hair bobbed into view from the front. 'Malfoy!'

'Your Mudblood is calling,' Blaise informed him unnecessarily.

Grimacing, Draco shoved a few second-years unceremoniously out of his way and climbed the last few stairs. 'What's the hold up?'

'Someone,' Weasley spat for her, standing in front of the portrait, 'has gone and changed the password.' His tone implied he knew exactly who that Someone was, and was planning to pummel that Someone in the face until they admitted their guilt.

'Yes, Weasley, you got me,' Draco said, and sighed dramatically. 'I changed the password. Now I can sit out here with the rest of you until someone comes along and guesses it for us, because it makes perfect sense that I would lock you all out of a dormitory I have every reason to want to enter. I thought we could have tea, and talk about our problems like respectable adults, and maturely overcome our issues and proceed to kiss and make-up.'

Weasley looked rather deflated at this, then quickly enraged when he realised Draco was being smart with him, turning approximately the same colour as his hair. 'Don't cheek me, Malfoy, or I'll—'

'What, lose twenty points from Gryffindor?' Draco reminded him, smirking. 'Well, if you insist—'

'Quit it, the both of you,' Granger intervened, rolling her eyes. 'This is absolutely ridiculous. Only Heads of House and the Head Boy and Girl have the ability to change the password, and as it obviously wasn't either of us and we weren't informed of the change—'

'Have you tried "Gryffindors are colour-blind"?' Draco suggested, trying and failing not to smirk.

'Actually, yes,' Ginny Weasley snapped, glaring at him from between her brother and Potter. 'And "Muggles smell", "Pureblood", and the old classic "Slythering Pride".'

'Please,' Draco said, horrified, 'give us a little credit, we're not that unimaginative.'

'We should fetch Professor McGonagall,' Granger said smartly. 'Elie, would you—'

'Bugger that,' Weasley snapped. 'I'm not running to a teacher about this. He knows the password, you can tell he does, look at him smirk. Out with it, Malfoy.'

This wasn't true, but Draco  did  know who had changed the password, and was thinking quickly through the possibilities. Obviously, Pansy trusted he'd be able to figure it out, or she would have told him beforehand.

Or maybe she wouldn't have. Could never tell with that girl.

What had she been going on about earlier? He squinted, trying to remember. Ranting about green and red looking like Christmas had vomited into the Tower, and how Lavender Brown actually had red and gold panties, that Ginny Weasley was a bigger tart then she ever could have imagined, something about a mascot, and—

'Well?' Weasley demanded. Draco soon became aware that everyone was staring at him expectantly.

He shrugged. 'Did you try "Chimera"?'

And, as if she hadn't kept the entire House waiting outside in the hall, the Fat Lady bowed as elegantly as her waistline would allow and opened, exposing the hole into the common room.

Weasley was the first one in. He must have been stunned in silence, however, because the first noise was Lavender Brown shrieking as she followed Granger and Potter inside.

'What in holy hell—' Potter began, before words failed him.

Draco didn't know what the fuss was about, he thought it looked rather spectacular.

Every surface in the common room that had once been a bright, candy-apple red had been transformed into a deep, soothing evergreen. The gold, while still gold, was not nearly as yellowish and bright, but toned down and a bit more on the goldenrod side of the colour wheel. The only red left in the entire tower was the fire under the mantle, crackling merrily and casting a warm, inviting glow on the sudden dimness of the room. But what shocked them all the most, however, was the fact that every golden emblem in the shape of a lion had been replaced with a chimera, which was, as Draco had guessed, Pansy's idea of a 'happy medium' between the lion and a serpent.

'What the hell did you do, Malfoy?' Weasley demanded, wheeling on him.

Draco raised an eyebrow. 'I was at dinner, Weasley. And five points for shouting.'

Weasley quickly turned as red as the fire, perhaps trying to bring back the old colour of his common room. But whatever he planned to say next, his sister cut off, stepping in front of Draco with a finger pointed accusingly at his chin. 'We're not stupid, Malfoy. Just because you were at dinner doesn't mean you didn't have something to do with this.'

The tone of her voice suggested she believed he had  everything  to do with it, which Draco decided was just unfair. He didn't do so much as change the arrangement of the pillows on the sofa—just because he knew Pansy was  planning  to do it didn't mean he was guilty of anything.

Technically.

Ginny had already turned away to rejoin the trio, muttering under her breath. 'It  was  Pansy Parkinson, that sneaky little  tart , I swear to Merlin—'

'Ginny!' Granger said, shocked, but Draco said over her, 'And ten, for language, Weasley. And another five for lack of creativity in the manner.'

'He can't do that!'

'Actually, Ron, he  can ,' Granger hissed. 'And you lot just keep giving him reasons to—'

'Why don't you take points for them mucking up the common room, then?'

'Or get his badge revoked,' Ginny supplied.

'Because we can't prove  who  did, and he  was  at dinner so he couldn't have done it himself—'

'We  know  he did it!' the red-heads protested in unison.

'Oh, for crying out loud,' Granger said, sounding very much like Draco's head was feeling. 'Go on then, lose all the points we've gotten already, but it's on  you .'

Draco had come to appreciate over the past week that his co-Head, while infuriatingly correct and proficient in everything, had a good deal of common sense for one that had lived amongst Gryffindors for so long. While she ruined any chance he had to take further points, she also made them stop shouting at him, though they kept shooting him dark looks across the common room.

Potter and Weasley eventually wandered up to their dormitories and Blaise, sighing deeply, followed not long afterwards. Granger was still sitting on the sofa to his right, scribbling furiously at an essay and checking one of her textbooks for notes. She had ink on her bottom lip, and smeared on her wrist, but didn't appear to notice. Or care, he thought dismally.

He had, naturally, taken the warmest armchair for himself, positioned just to the left of the fire, and was reading idly through Enchanting Elixirs: A Review of the Most Complex and Illegal Concoctions when Pansy finally entered the common room through the portrait hole.

'Oh, my,' she said aloud, blinking and looking genuinely surprised. 'I just love what you've done with the place.'

Ginny, who had been trying for the better part of an hour to re-charm the curtains red without success, gave her a long, cold look. Pansy ignored her, and sauntered over to Draco, dropping a kiss on the top of his head. 'I'm going to bathe, darling,' she informed him, smiling. 'Meet you upstairs?'

Draco, nodding mutely, watched her legs sashay away, and wondered what he'd ever done to deserve such a girl. Well, besides the obvious wit, charm, wealth and high marks. Maybe those were enough?

The subdued air in the room did not last long, however—Pansy had barely closed the door to the girls dormitories before there was a shriek like a siren, and Lavender came running back down the stairs, looking terrified.

'What did you do?' she demanded of Ginny, furiously.

Ginny sniffed and continued to prod the curtain with her wand. 'I don't know what you're on about,' she said in a voice that implied she knew exactly what Lavender was on about.

'Yeah, right,' Lavender snapped. 'Look, I know you hate her and all, but  you  do not have to live with her.'

'But what—' Granger had started, but never finished, because an enraged  crash  echoed from upstairs that sounded suspiciously like a wardrobe crushing one of the four-posters. Or perhaps a Norwegian Ridgeback had decided to nest in there. Either way, there was a large, echoing boom, followed by a sickening crunch and the sound of wood straining, twisting, and finally snapping into splintery bits, followed by an eerie silence.

Parvati Patil came running down the stairs in her nightdress, latching onto Lavender's arm with a tight grip. 'She's gone and killed the room,' she hissed. 'Actually  killed it .'

At the noise the boy's dormitories began to empty into the common room. While Granger yelled at the lower years to get back to bed, Potter and the other seventh-year boys, save for Blaise, were poking there heads over the banister of the stairs to see what was causing all the noise.

'Malfoy,' Ginny snapped, grabbing Draco's attention from his book, 'mind controlling your girlfriend? She's making a wreck.'

'And I've not a mind to get in her way,' Draco pointed out, smirking. 'But if you think you can stop her, by all means—'

This was, Draco reflected later, perhaps not the time nor place to goad the youngest of the Weasleys. Trained by a lifetime of fighting with brothers twice her size and age, Ginny was perhaps the  only person with enough gall to pick a fight with Pansy Parkinson.

Twenty minutes later the entirety of Gryffindor Tower was standing in the stone halls outside their dormitories, some of them looking rather singed and others just plain bewildered; many of them had been quite happily asleep when the seventh-year girls' dormitory had exploded and caught on fire, which quickly spread to the common room and consequently the rest of the tower. McGonagall had come running at the noise and immediately dispensed of the flames, and was currently shouting at Pansy and Ginny inside the common room's charred remains.

Dumbledore, eyes twinkling but looking resigned, decided that perhaps some things could not be overcome, no matter what the circumstances. They were to all sleep in the Great Hall tonight, and both Pansy and Ginny were to serve a week's worth of detention and spending their free periods helping restore the tower to its original state—minus the green upholstery and golden chimeras.

Draco knocked into Potter on the way down the staircase, and before any scathing comments could leave his mouth, he noticed Potter was looking as amused as he felt.

'It's a shame, really,' Draco felt compelled to say. Potter blinked; he'd probably been expecting the scathing remark. 'They make us look like amateurs.'

'We never set anything on fire,' Potter agreed, shooting him a sideways glance and smirking. 'Maybe we should step it up a notch.'

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The Heart of the Matter