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Water from a Stone	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 14851 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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Chapter Four—Totally Self-Defense

            Harry strode down the middle of the corridor, noticing the way that students, especially Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students, avoided him. It was the morning after he had got out of the hospital wing, he was on his way to class, and most of the school was finally taking his promise to protect Slytherins seriously.

            He hated to admit it, but some tiny part of his soul was gratified by the lowered eyes and quickly gulped breaths and the speed with which they moved away.

            Which made it all the more surprising when someone stepped into his path and refused to move.

            Harry paused to study the intruder. A tall young woman in Ravenclaw robes; he looked automatically for the prefect’s badge on her shoulder but didn’t see it. Harry sighed in relief. It was good to know that McGonagall’s judgment wasn’t so horrible that she chose all the stupid people as prefects. They should be left to fill other niches in the school, too.

            “Move,” Harry said, baring his teeth a little as he met her blue eyes. Deep, clear blue, not that that made a difference. Harry would be just as happy to bounce her on her head no matter what the color of her eyes was.

            The girl folded her arms and gave him a flat look. “No,” she said. “Not when you’ve intruded on our rights.”

            “What rights are those?” Harry looked up at the ceiling. Perhaps the rights were written there. It would be convenient if they were, since he spent so much time rolling his eyes these days. “The right to torture Slytherins?”

            “The right to enact justice on those who managed to escape it because of the Ministry’s mistaken ideas about them being too young.” The girl leaned forwards as if she assumed that that would intimidate him into agreeing with her. Harry watched, counting silently under his breath, and sure enough, he hadn’t reached four before she folded her arms. I really must find out who’s in this club spreading mistaken information about me being scared of that and get them to stop. “The right to avenge what we suffered under the Death Eaters.”

            “Ah,” Harry said. “So you just admitted that you’d been one of the bullies. Thank you. That cuts down on my search. Caligo!”

            The girl still had her mouth open when Harry’s spell struck her. She promptly began to spin in place, faster and faster, as if she was a ballerina that someone had forced to twirl on her toes. Harry saw her hands flailing as she tried to find her wand and stop the spell, but it was useless. She would be far too busy to concentrate on anything but the movement of her body.

            And the increasing dizziness that would be slowly taking over her head and senses. Harry’s intent with the spell, at least this time, wasn’t really to hurt. He had tried pain during the night he got no sleep, and all it really seemed to do was discourage those particular people.

            He wanted to see what humiliation could do.

            The spell ended when Harry judged that it should, which was long before the fascination of anyone watching was exhausted. They had drawn a crowd, which Harry had anticipated and counted on. The punishment wasn’t worth anything if other people didn’t see it and thus decide to stop being stupid.

            The girl staggered out of the spin and spent a few moments clawing at the air with her hands, as though she thought a wall would appear out of thin air to help her. Then she lurched sideways and fell. Harry smiled brightly. Thanks to being the victim of that spell himself when Ron was practicing it this summer, he knew the dizziness was much worse from it than any ordinary spinning around.

            “A bit difficult to stand, isn’t it?” he asked.

            She glared at him and tried to respond, but it was only too obvious that her eyes wouldn’t focus. This time, when she tried to get up, she slumped back and vomited on the floor. There were guilty giggles from every direction.

            “Along with your many other rights is the one to suffer whatever I must do to you in fulfillment of my oath,” Harry said solemnly, and marched past her. He could hear Hermione and Ron struggling to catch up with him; they had lagged behind so they could snog, which Harry normally didn’t mind, and especially not today, since it meant that Hermione hadn’t tried to interfere in what he was doing.

            She did, of course, try to scold him when it was too late. “Harry,” she said reproachfully, gasping for breath. Harry knew her lips would be swollen if he looked back. He didn’t look back. “The Dizziness Charm could really have hurt her.”

            “She was arguing for other people to be hurt,” Harry said. They had reached the door of the Potions classroom and there was no sign of Slughorn yet, so he spun around and pinned Hermione with a sharp gaze before she could escape, forcing himself to ignore her lips. “Can you really support that? Can you really excuse all the shite that the Slytherins are suffering through because you don’t like them?”

            They also had an audience, he saw, a fact which caused Hermione to give him an accusing glare, but Harry didn’t mind. He had started to accept the fact that most of his life would be lived in public. As long as he could have privacy when he absolutely needed it—and a lot of the spells he’d practiced during the summer had been Silencing Charms and wards—then he could put up with the rest.

            He might hate it, but he could put up with it, the same way he could put up with people folding their arms at him. In fact, he might try that himself in a moment, since Hermione also seemed to think it was effective.

            “No,” Hermione said. “I don’t think it’s right. But if you try to prevent it, then they might try something worse to get their revenge.”

            “They were tormenting a Slytherin girl the other night who would have been eleven when the Death Eaters were here,” Harry said. “Terry and Michael were trying to make her fall down the stairs. What possible crime could she have committed that would make that right?”

            Hermione put one hand to her mouth and looked briefly as if she would be sick. Ron grimaced, but then put one hand on Hermione’s shoulder and scowled at Harry. He didn’t look as if he knew whose side he should be on, so Harry addressed his next words as much to him as to Hermione.

            “Why is it right to torture people who tortured you, if you think torture is always wrong?” He turned his head, and the students who had been lingering nearby and listening in silence surged away as if he could shoot lightning bolts out of his eyes. Harry made a mental note to practice that curse, which he had never got right, some more. “You acknowledge that they were doing what they did to survive, but you still think it’s wrong. Well, then, what you’re doing is more so, since you don’t have someone standing over you and ordering you to do it.”

            “Slytherins bullied us for years!” called someone who obviously thought he was safely hidden near the back of the little crowd. “And you never did anything about it.”

            “That was a free environment,” Harry said. “Bullying for all!” A few people laughed, and then looked as if they wondered whether they should have. “But the war changes things. And if you think it doesn’t, then you’re stupid and I’ll probably be seeing you next.” He faced his best friends. “What do you say? Will you come with me tonight and make a stand?”

            He had already told them about the Slytherin self-defense group, though they hadn’t yet agreed to be teachers. Now Ron and Hermione traded agonized stares, and Hermione tugged at her hair as if it would come out of her head and give her something else to think about.

            “Well?” Harry made his voice and his gaze both sharper. Yes, he could do this without them, but really, they’d stood on the sidelines long enough. Harry hated the oath, but intervening in the bullying was the right thing to do.

            “I’m in,” Ron said, unexpectedly. Harry had thought Hermione would give in first and join him in persuading Ron around.

            “I—yes, so am I,” Hermione said, with a firm little nod.

            Harry smiled. Hermione often second-guessed her decisions before she actually made them, but was unchanging once she did. “Good.”

            He turned around, only to see someone charging at him with a raised wand and a determined expression. Hermione gasped and Ron cried out, but Harry’s wand was already up and he’d cast without thinking about it.

            The spell grabbed the attacker—someone tall and wearing a Gryffindor tie, was all Harry had time to see—and bounced him quite conclusively off the walls, around at different angles, into the Potions classroom door, and then down the corridor, depositing him in a moaning heap at Slughorn’s feet.

            Slughorn stared at the crumpled student, and then up at Harry. Harry shrugged.

            “Self-defense, sir,” he said. “Completely.”

*

            Harry hesitated and took a deep breath before he rounded the corner towards the Room of Requirement. He had to admit that he was nervous about whether there would be Slytherins there after all, even though Malfoy had promised there would be and he had his best friends behind him. Things would be so much easier if the Slytherins would just cooperate a bit in their own safety instead of leaving it all up to him.

            Ron poked him in the back. “Well, go on,” he whispered.

            Harry smiled at him briefly and then straightened his shoulders and walked around the corner. Behind him came Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Neville. Neville had proven harder to persuade than some of the others—he’d lived with the horrors of last year for a longer time than any of the rest of them had—and he still clutched both his wand and a dark scowl as if he thought that the ghosts of Death Eaters would come out of the wall. But he had agreed to come, and Harry trusted him to use the spells the way they were meant to be used. Neville had grown a lot since sixth year.

            There was a cluster of twenty-five or thirty Slytherins in the corridor, with a ring of older students around the smaller ones, keeping watch. Malfoy was the one closest to Harry, and he gave him a cool nod while showing that he had a grip on his wand.

            “Potter,” he said. “Show us the entrance to this room.”

            “This place is known as the Room of Requirement,” Harry said loudly, partially so that all the Slytherins and not just Malfoy would have the information and partially to show that he didn’t do what Malfoy asked the minute he asked it. “It doesn’t technically exist until you walk back and forth in front of the door three times and think about the place you want to reach.”

            There was an excited murmuring from some of the younger children, and Harry smiled. It was good to hear them interested in what was going on, rather than frightened. He did notice the girl he had rescued the other night, whose last name was Kane, among those waiting, and gave her an especially big smile. She gulped, but didn’t look away.

            “We need a training room,” Harry said. “And somewhere that only the ones of us here now will be welcome.” He turned away and started concentrating on the wall, though he didn’t know what he should ask for beyond the things he’d just stated, awkwardly phrased as they were.

            “Wait, Potter,” Malfoy said, with a majestic sneer he must have spent the hours on that he didn’t spend practicing glaring. “We have to have more than that. There’s some of our Housemates who didn’t feel like joining us this time, but may in the future, depending on how well this goes. They have to be able to get into the room as well, and they can’t if you lock it.”

            Harry gritted his teeth. “I wouldn’t be locking it, thanks, Malfoy,” he muttered.

            “You’re welcome,” Malfoy said, and Harry knew the expression that would be on his face without glancing at him. “For the observation and the terminology.”

            Harry began to walk up and down in front of the wall again, not trusting himself to respond. A place where all the Slytherins and the Gryffindors who are here can be safe, he thought to the Room of Requirement. A place that only we can find. A place to train.

            He wondered if the request would be too complicated for the room, but a low wooden door with silver handle and bolts formed after three passes back and forth. Harry exhaled in relief and reached out to take the handle. A small spark formed under his fingers, worrying him for a second, but it seemed that that was the Room’s method to recognize him as one of those permitted inside it. It was gone almost as soon as it appeared, and the door clicked open.

            Harry stepped in, and blinked. The room was impressive, in a way he hadn’t really envisioned it being when he made his request. Maybe it needed to be, to ensure that the Slytherins weren’t constantly complaining about being in a place that was inferior to their tastes and needs.

            The floor was an alternating pattern of dark, gleaming wood and soft, cushioned spaces where someone could fall after a spell, or recover. The walls were curving, covered with rich dark green fabric that meant Harry couldn’t see what they were actually made of. They would be useful to bounce away from, at least. The ceiling had bright windows in it that beamed down just enough light to make the room not oppressive. There were alcoves, small free-standing walls, and baskets of what looked like artificial obstacles: stones, chair legs, buckets of sand. Harry nodded. They needed to learn how to work with the landscape and battle on artificial terrain, too.

            The Slytherins hushed as they filed in, and then started gossiping again, more loudly than before. Malfoy cast a sideways glance at Harry and coupled it with a faint smile.

            “I wouldn’t have thought you had this much imagination,” he murmured. “Not after other proofs I’ve received about the inability of your mind to comprehend anything unfamiliar.”

            Harry scowled at him and motioned the Gryffindors to fall back behind him. The Slytherins fell behind Malfoy in the same natural way. They were left facing each other across an open expanse of floor.

            Harry shook his head. That wasn’t how it should work. He had meant to keep a separation between teachers and students, but it worked out as separation between the Houses, which would only enforce what they were trying to get rid of. “All right,” he said. “How many are there of you, exactly?”

            “Thirty,” Malfoy said. He didn’t look around, which meant he had counted them beforehand. Something about his tone—cool and non-confrontational though it was—made Harry want to draw his wand and hit him over the head with it.

            “There’s five of us,” Harry said. “So, six students for each of us.”

            “Amazing,” Malfoy said, touching his chest with one hand as if his heart had fluttered. “You can do maths.”

            “Oh, wait,” Harry said. “I forgot. There’s thirty-one of you, counting Malfoy’s enormous ego. Well, I reckon I can handle seven students. Come here, Malfoy.”

            Smothered snickers broke out from the Slytherins, while Malfoy’s face went pink. He moved slowly towards Harry, trailed by several of the older students. Harry was surprised to see Parkinson among them. He had surmised she would rather work with any of the others than with the Gryffindor who’d saved her life.

            With a shrug, and only one glance to see that the Slytherins were drifting towards his friends, he faced Malfoy again. Behind him were Parkinson, Zabini, two nervous-looking sixth-year girls whom Harry didn’t know but who looked like twins, and a thin, apparently half-starved boy who watched Harry avidly.

            “Right,” Harry said. He told himself being watched this way by Slytherins was really no different than being watched that way by students of other Houses, whom he had managed to teach just fine in Dumbledore’s Army. “I wanted to ask you what you would rather learn first, the Shield Charm or the Patronus Charm. The Shield Charm will help keep you safe from immediate danger, but the Patronus Charm can allow you to summon help.”

            “I never heard of that,” Parkinson said, as if her never hearing of something meant the thing shouldn’t exist.

            “And I’d never heard of professors neglecting their duties enough to ignore you being bullied, but that’s the way it is,” Harry snapped back at her. “We learn new things all the time.”

            For some reason, that made Parkinson go still and look at him thoughtfully. Then a faint smile flitted across her lips, and she nodded. That wasn’t the reaction Harry expected either, but since Parkinson failed to answer the question, he shrugged and glanced at the others.

            “The Patronus Charm,” Malfoy said quietly. “We’re stronger in numbers, and some of us already know how to do the Shield Charm.”

            “All right,” Harry said. “It’s difficult, so don’t be worried if you don’t make it work at first. You have to think of your happiest memory and keep focused on that as you cast the spell.” He drew back his wand and shot it forwards as he thought of the moment when he’d come back to life after defeating Voldemort, and realized he was really alive again, and had a chance. “Expecto Patronum!”

            The air blurred, and then the silver stag charged out of his wand and bounded around the room in a frenzy, leaping the little walls and knocking at the alcoves with its antlers. Harry smiled as he watched it. If any of the Slytherins could do something half as good today, he would be surprised, but that wasn’t the point. He just liked seeing his Patronus.

            He turned around and surveyed the Slytherins, only to find that his students were watching him with open mouths and wide eyes, as though they had heard about this but never expected to see a demonstration.

            Except Malfoy—who was the only one, Harry realized belatedly, who would have seen this before, although it was when the stag had charged him down on the Quidditch Pitch while he was dressed up as a Dementor.

            His eyes were half-lidded, his mouth twisted into a sneer, his fingers tight around his wand.

            Harry blinked and then turned around, uncomfortable. Of course Malfoy would be furious that Harry could do something he couldn’t—yet—but there was something more in that look that wasn’t anger or jealousy.

            It tried to make a name for itself in his mind, but Harry put a stop to that quickly. No thoughts of Malfoy were getting out of control in his head, thank you.

            “Anyway,” he said, as the silver stag came to a stop in front of him, pawed the ground, and bowed to him before vanishing, “that’s how you cast it. It’s used mainly to stop Dementors, of course, and you should summon your Patronus if you ever face one. But they can also carry messages. You’ll need to focus on the person you want to send it to and the message itself if you ever need to cast one, and then the Patronus will run to that person and speak in your voice.”

            “Can it come back, carrying another message?” Zabini was the one who asked that, one eyebrow rising as if he were considering a chess problem. Then Harry told himself not to be stupid. Ron looked like that when he was considering a chess problem, but Harry didn’t even know if Zabini played chess.

            “No,” Harry said. “You’re the only one who can cast or affect your Patronus, so it’ll fade after it delivers the information. But the person you sent it to can cast their own Patronus and send it back with a return message, at least if they know how to cast one.”

            Malfoy stood up a little straighter and looked around at the nearest Slytherin students—the ones behind him and the fifth- and fourth-years clustered in front of Ron. They glanced at him instinctively. Harry blinked. He had seen Malfoy exert that level of control in the Slytherin car during the train ride before sixth year, but he hadn’t thought he would still have it after the war.

            “Listen up,” Malfoy said. “I want everyone to learn how to cast the Patronus Charm, as soon as they can.”

            His voice wasn’t loud, and wasn’t harshly inflected. That didn’t matter, Harry thought. Every single one of the students listening would know he meant it, and they would do their best to obey.

            Harry wondered for a moment what it would have been like if he’d had that level of control over Gryffindor House.

            Then he recoiled, even as he snorted at himself. Yes, it would have made some things easier—for example, it might have meant no Gryffindors joined in tormenting the Slytherins this year—but on the other hand, he’d have to have lots more responsibility than he wanted, and he’d have to be in charge of people’s lives. He didn’t want to.

            Malfoy was looking at him curiously. Harry met his eyes and said, “You should know that most of the students third year and younger won’t be able to cast this. I managed it in my third year, but only after lots of practice.”

            “Why?” Malfoy murmured, twisting his head like an owl.

            “None of your business,” Harry said, though he tried not to make it too harsh. “Anyway, it would make things a lot easier if the people who can’t cast it would walk with someone who could. And if you lot would stop going out of your common room at night.”

            Malfoy only raised his eyebrows, which admittedly wasn’t the reaction Harry had expected from him. “We do that because some of your precious Gryffindors, as well as Hufflepuffs, barricade the library during the day,” he said calmly. “Sneaking in after hours is really the only way to get our work done.”

            “What?” Harry snarled. The sound once again made people pause in their training to look over at him. Harry took a deep breath, glad of the outrage that powered it, and repeated, “What?” in a lower tone.

            Malfoy sneered this time. “Doubting the source won’t make it less true, Potter.”

            “I don’t—fuck,” Harry said, and ignored the way Parkinson’s mouth hung open at that. What, she hadn’t thought he could swear? Well, she was here to get an education in all sorts of things, so that might as well be one of them. “I didn’t know this was happening. And the Ravenclaws aren’t joining in because they care too much about learning to block your way?”

            Malfoy clapped like a seal. “Very good, Potter! Now we only need to make you pay attention to ninety-eight percent of the things happening around you, instead of ninety-nine.”

            “Shut up,” Harry mumbled, but he was too busy thinking about what he should do next to put any heat behind it. When he noticed that his students simply stood there staring at him, he waved an irritated hand. “Well? Start practicing. The incantation is Expecto Patronum, and you gesture forwards as if throwing something from you. Remember to think about your happiest memory.”

            They spread out, Zabini and Parkinson facing each other, the twins and the thin boy working together. Harry began to pace back and forth, frowning.

            Maybe there was some substance to Malfoy’s complaints about how he never noticed anything, because it took him two minutes to realize Malfoy was pacing beside him, watching his face.

            “Listen,” Harry said. “I’m trying to think of a way to break that barricade on the library, and in such a way that they’ll never do anything like that again. You can’t help me. Go practice your Patronus.”

            Malfoy gave him a small, smug smile. “I can already do it. Not as well as you can, but I got plenty of practice, last year, with Dementors—around the house.”

            Abruptly his smile faded, and his eyes were haunted. Harry wanted to accuse him of lying, as well as of idiocy because he’d never thought to teach his Housemates the Patronus Charm himself, but that expression stopped him. He hesitated, then laid his hand on Malfoy’s arm.

            “All right,” he said. “Then help me out tomorrow evening. We’re going to break the blockade when they least expect it.”

            Malfoy shook his head. “If you want a large audience to see what happens to them, you shouldn’t wait until the evening. Everyone will be heading to the Great Hall by then.”

            Harry shook his head back. “This time, I don’t want everyone to see. Rumor is going to be our friend, and multiple stories about what happened, each worse than the last.” He smiled at Malfoy, and didn’t really care that it made Malfoy look at him as if he were a crazed maniac. “And even better, it’ll make use of that Potions skill you love to brag about. Still want to help?”

            “Yes,” Malfoy said, so strong and immediate that Harry gave him a normal smile despite himself. “But I doubt I have any of the potions you’ll need on hand. Can we wait until Thursday evening? That’ll give me time to get the brewing done.”

            “If we do that, then we’ll need to arrange a schedule for protecting the younger ones in the meantime,” Harry said. “As well as anyone who can’t do the Patronus.”

            “I trust you,” Malfoy said.

            Those words had no reason to make him warm inside, Harry thought. Stupid words.

            To get his mind off the stupid words, he told Malfoy his plan.

            Among the sights that made the Room of Requirement strange that evening, Harry thought later, must have been the sight of Malfoy laughing at Harry’s words, not in scorn but in approval, while all around them the silvery wisps of Patronus Charms formed and Slytherins and Gryffindors, staring each other warily in the face, worked together.

*

            MewMew2: Harry hasn’t told them about it so far. He doesn’t want people interfering until he has more of them punished good and proper.

            lpnightmare: Thank you!

            polka dot: I don’t think there’s any way to tell. On the other hand, considering the trouble Dumbledore had finding a competent Defense teacher, my guess is that a getting a real expert would demand pay far beyond what most people want to give.

            SP777: Oh, a lot of the humor is quite deliberate, though I can’t be sure that what you’re sensing is.

            And yes, you will get to see Draco’s Patronus in action. Next chapter.

            layne: Thanks for reviewing.

            thrnbrooke: Exactly, though now Harry has extra reasons to be exasperated with Draco.

            -Unknown-: It’s going to be at least eleven or twelve chapters. I don’t know about a sequel.

            Kibou32: It will be longer than just the fourth chapter, but I don’t think that long. There’s not enough plot.

            The portrait of Snape is in a private place, where Slytherins can visit it.
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Water from a Stone