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Parsimony	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 14122 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Five—All These Classes

            “I am Professor Klein. Welcome to Defense Against the Dark Arts, the NEWT class.”

            Harry could think of other professors he’d had, where that announcement would be the cue for an outbreak of general merriment. But when Klein said it, and then folded her hands like that and stared at them, most of the people in the room sat silent and still, staring back at her.

            She was worth staring at, Harry had to admit. Whereas she’d worn stern and sober robes last night at the feast, today she wore brilliant purple robes with a silver fur collar and cuffs that could have rivaled some of Dumbledore’s. Hermione had blinked when she stepped in, and Harry could see her mentally revising some of her conclusions about what kind of professor an award-winning researcher of Defense might be.

            Klein also sat on her desk, legs drawn up beneath her, and frowned at them all in a way that suggested it was the only natural method of sitting. No one had ventured to enlighten her. Even Ron, who had muttered about her last night, sat down quietly and took out his ink and parchment.

            “You may have noticed that you had no book for this class on your owled list,” Klein said. Her voice was quiet enough Harry had to spend a lot of time listening, or he’d miss words. “I prefer to teach by hands-on experience.”

            The opposite of Umbridge, Harry thought. He felt a tiny bit of hope that the class wouldn’t be all stuff he already knew or spells so far advanced he couldn’t hope to catch up, which was what Klein looked as if she’d like to teach.

            Klein’s gaze fell on him, and paused. “Mr. Potter,” she said. “Why are you in the Defense class?”

            Harry started to snap in reply, and then shook his head. He was trying to overcome the defensiveness that made him assume the worst when someone asked him a question like that. “Because I still need it, Professor,” he said. “I’ve fought in a war, but that’s not the same as getting instruction in spells.”

            Klein snorted. “I never doubted you needed it,” she said. “I meant, what do you hope to learn from this? Why do you need it?”

            “I want to be an Auror,” Harry said. This week. He kept thinking about his future, and sometimes he wanted one thing and sometimes another, but it never stayed the same. The visions would slide and change, and he would see himself as an Auror, and then as someone who played the games that he needed to play but kept the secret core of himself sealed away, and then as a Quidditch player. In truth, he didn’t know what he wanted to do right now.

            Klein nodded and let her legs fall so that her feet dangled down towards the floor. “I thought so. And do you think you will learn only things that are useful to you as an Auror?”

            “I hope not,” Harry said.

            “Why not?”

            Hermione was leaning towards him in concern, Harry saw from the corner of his eye, as though she thought he might explode into angry confetti over having to deal with questions like this. Harry gave her a mini-shrug. He was used to professors singling him out, and so far, at least Klein hadn’t made any speeches about celebrity or how he was a liar about Voldemort. “Because I want to do more than that,” he said. “And there might be spells that would be useful to saving my life later even if I don’t become an Auror.”

            Klein raised her eyebrows and pulled her legs up again to tuck them back into their neat cross. “You expect to fight for your life if you don’t become an Auror?”

            “I don’t think the Death Eaters will leave me much choice.” Harry was the one trying to hold her eyes this time, but Klein didn’t seem to consider that as her mind revolved carefully through the various thoughts he had presented her with. Then she nodded.

            And then she switched her focus to Ron. “Why are you in this class, Mr. Weasley?”

            Harry smiled and leaned back in his chair. It seemed that it was part of Klein’s teaching style to pick on everyone the first day and demand they think deeply about things they might consider as simple parts of their lives. That was fine with him. He would get the special treatment sometimes, but it bothered him less if everyone shared it.

*

            “Mr. Potter! There’s my favorite student!”

            Harry didn’t have to see the violent twitch that ran through Malfoy to feel ill at Slughorn’s effusive praise. He would have gone up and had a quiet word with the man if he thought it would do any good, but admitting that he’d cheated two years past wouldn’t be a good idea, either. He settled for smiling and shrugging.

            Slughorn went on chattering about him as though everyone else in the NEWT class didn’t know perfectly well who Harry was and how well he had done in their sixth year. By the end of the speech, Hermione was grinding her teeth and glaring at him, and Malfoy’s face looked like a mask. Harry tried to mouth an apology to Hermione when Slughorn turned to gesture the new instructions for the Draught of Living Death—“such an easy potion to brew, since we did it last year!”—onto the board, but she kept her head turned away. Harry sighed.

            Well. All good and bad deeds get punished. Reckoned the book would come back to haunt me, but never like this.

            “Partners some other day,” Slughorn announced. “Work alone today. Show me what you can do with those talents!” He shot Harry a gleaming smile, and Harry resisted, manfully, the temptation to use a Blasting Curse on those white, white teeth.

            Harry studied the instructions, and sighed. It was marginally possible that he would work better, now, without Snape looming over him and with room to think about what he was doing. Marginally. He stepped back towards the supply cupboard to fetch what he needed.

            Most of the rest of the class didn’t follow him; it seemed they wanted to study the instructions first. Harry didn’t blame them. The only reason he wasn’t panicking was that he thought he’d probably do badly, and he might as well study the recipe with the ingredients close to hand.

            One person did follow him, but Harry didn’t think anything of it until a hand reached out and caught his elbow, tugging him towards a body. Harry promptly dropped to one knee and bowed his head so that any spell aimed at it would go over, then twitched back and slammed his elbow into the other person’s ribs.

            The person whoofed and staggered. Harry jumped back up and turned around, and Malfoy glared at him.

            “Oh,” Harry said. He looked at the bruise on Malfoy’s elbow where he’d clamped his wrist down, and then at the way he looked as if he wanted to trip over his feet, and shrugged. “Oops?” he offered.

            “You could have killed me.” Malfoy’s voice was injured and fragile.

            “That’s a bit much,” Harry said, and didn’t really care if Malfoy saw him rolling his eyes. “No, I couldn’t have. But the next time you want to speak with me, say my name, instead of grabbing me. Anyone could grab me and try to kill me, but that sweet voice of yours is peculiarly your own.”

            “Keep it down,” Malfoy said, and shot a glance over his shoulder into the classroom. Harry shook his head. He must really be afraid of the Slytherins, to think they would try something here with not only Harry but Slughorn watching. “I can’t be seen talking to you.”

            “So what did you want to talk to me about in the first place, then?” Harry didn’t see the sense of Malfoy following him into the supply cupboard if he only whined about what happened when he did.

            Malfoy lifted his wand and muttered a charm Harry had seen Hermione use to protect a few of their campsites. It would give everyone who came near better things to do than go in the supply cupboard. It would only work for a few minutes, since it had to fool the awareness of so many people at once, and Hermione had given up using it when she found how often she had to renew it. Harry hoped their conversation would be short enough that Malfoy wouldn’t have to renew it. This confrontation had reminded him about the reasons he had for disliking the git.

            Malfoy turned back to him, and his eyes glowed like flames in the relative dimness of the cupboard. “You have to help me.”

            Harry blinked. “Right. With what?”

            “That spell, you idiot.” Malfoy took a step forwards that snapped his leg out like a whip, and then stopped. “I could deal with it when it was only verbal assaults. But someone put scorpions in my bed last night, and didn’t leave a trace of a magical signature doing it. I’m clever and skilled, but I can only do so much. Sooner or later I’ll miss something, and whoever wants me dead is going to have it.”

            Harry nodded. “Fine. Then give me all the details you have about the night the spell was cast. The day and the time and the weather and the season might have something to do with how strong it is. So could the stars that day.”

            Malfoy blinked and stared at him. “That’s smarter than I expected you to be,” he said.

            “Why would you ask help from someone stupid?” Harry demanded. “That would make you stupid. Anyway, details. The exact date?”

            “It was the middle of the trials,” Malfoy said, his forehead wrinkling with what looked like the effort of remembrance. Harry studied his face. There were a lot of lines in it Harry had never seen before the war, and he doubted most of them came from something as simple as concentration. “In June? It had to be.”

            Harry waited, then snapped his fingers. “In the middle of June could mean any time. What date? Before or after Midsummer?”

            “I’d—I’d have to think about it!” Malfoy shoved his hand through his hair and glared at Harry. Harry approved, and thought he should do it more often. It made him look more human, instead of a polished statue who sometimes had a strand or two sticking loose. “Anyway,” Malfoy went on, recovering his breath quickly, “it can’t matter that much.”

            “Yes, it does,” Harry said, rolling his eyes again. “It matters for all the reasons I told you—which you just admitted—and also because I’ll have to check on who was being tried at that moment and what motive someone might have to cast a spell like this on you.”

            Malfoy shut his eyes, and his eyelashes fluttered up and down for a few seconds with the force of his breath. Then he jerked his head to the side, muttered, “I’ll write the list out for you!” and bolted from the supply cupboard.

            He’ll feel stupid when he realizes he didn’t take any ingredients and has to come back for them, Harry thought, shaking his head as he turned to gather up what he would need. He was determined to make the best attempt he could, even if it would probably just turn into goo.

*

            “Well, honestly, Harry! You don’t crush the valerian that way!”

            Harry grimaced through the mask of grey stone-like sludge on his face and let Madam Pomfrey wave her wand over it, murmuring the charms that would peel it back without taking his skin with it. “Now I know that, Hermione. Thanks.”

            “If he’d let us work in pairs, then I could have advised you!”

            Harry reached out and squeezed her arm. Hermione’s face was pale, her eyes wet with suppressed tears, and her hands actually shook. She was far more upset than she should be if it was just Slughorn that was upsetting her. He knew she was probably thinking about her parents. She would make her first foray to Australia this weekend, traveling by International Floo and coming back Monday morning. It was just a scouting mission to start tracking them, but Harry knew her head was filled with visions of what would happen if she never managed to locate her mum or dad. Or, well, his would have been in the same situation, and hers probably was. “It’s fine, Hermione. Next time I’ll remember.”

            Hermione rolled her eyes as Madam Pomfrey clucked her tongue. “I hope there will not be a next time, Mr. Potter,” she said, and then waved her wand again and began removing the solidified potion from his hands.

            Harry glanced ruefully down at them. The only thing he could say that was good about this particular disaster was that it had made Malfoy grin at him as Hermione ushered him out of the classroom and to the hospital wing. He probably felt good about being the acknowledged genius and most talented student in the class again.

            And Harry thought he was going to find the more complex ingredients that Snape would probably give him for that potion he wanted to brew?

            Harry shook his head. He was going to try, that was all. And he thought he would probably foul it up less than actually mixing the potion. Surely Snape would do that himself.

            “You’re free to go, Mr. Potter.” Pomfrey stepped away from him and sighed in his direction. “And next time, listen to what Miss Granger says about the valerian.”

            Harry promised meekly, and he and Hermione left to join Ron for lunch. Ron was laughing when he saw them, and smirked at Harry. Harry rolled his eyes. The story of his disaster in Potions had filtered out to the general population, then.

            “What was that?” Ron demanded when Harry had a mouthful of tomatoes and couldn’t answer him. “An attempt to show you know enough about Potions to use them as weapons in battle?”

            “That would be brilliant,” Harry answered, swallowing instead of talking through the mouthful of food when he saw Hermione’s warning glance. “Can you imagine the expression on some of those Death Eaters’ faces if I went after them with an exploding potion?”

            Ron shook his head. “Don’t try it, mate. I think you’re mad to be in that class, myself. I want to do something fun with my life.”

            “Like not be an Auror, maybe?” Hermione asked, with a pointed little smile that made Harry wince for Ron. Ron looked as if he’d been pierced to the heart. “Because you have to have a NEWT in Potions to become an Auror.”

            “Um,” Ron said. “But I have my own private tutor?” He gave Hermione a sickly smile that was probably meant to be a beam.

            Hermione turned away with a little sniff. Ron started muttering in order to appease her, or maybe to make her more angry—he didn’t seem to know himself what he wanted. Harry turned back to his lunch with a smile.

            He’d have to work harder, sure, he thought, thinking about the ingredients he would gather that night, if Snape had the list ready for him, and the extra study he’d have to work on with the spell that might have been cast on Malfoy, once Malfoy had that list of details ready. But he could do it.

            He could do almost anything, after Voldemort.

*

            “We are going to do something new today, students.”

            Harry glanced up with his eyebrows raised. Flitwick was standing on a taller chair than usual, rather than his stack of cushions that he’d used in the past, and he was waving his wand for attention. A colorful tail of ribbons chased his wand across the air. Harry smiled and focused on Flitwick, who beamed at him as though he had done something more praiseworthy than that.

            “We are going to work on casting triad charms,” Flitwick said, and paused impressively. Of course, Hermione’s hand was already aloft and swooping around like a hunting owl. Harry had to swallow back a thickness in his throat as he thought about Hedwig. “Yes, Miss Granger, what are they?” Flitwick added.

            “They’re charms that depend on one wizard feeding his strength to the other two, so they can cast the charm literally in tandem,” Hermione said, blurting out the words with wide eyes as though she was afraid someone would either take them away from her or Flitwick would say she was wrong if she didn’t hurry. “And they’re considered more dangerous than usual for NEWT students, Professor! I thought,” she added, because Flitwick had opened his mouth as though to remind her where they were.

            Flitwick beamed back at her and nodded. “Quite right, my dear! But that need not concern us, not when we are practiced and capable wizards and I will be right here to correct any mistake you might make.” He looked around the room, and then frowned. “However, we don’t have even groups of three in this class. Such a pity.”

            He was right, Harry noticed when he turned his head to survey the classroom. There were seventeen students in the NEWT class. But Harry didn’t see that that was such a big deal. Flitwick could be the third person in the triad for two other people, and meanwhile, he would be with Ron and Hermione.

            Flitwick shook his head decisively, though, which seemed to reject such a simple solution. “I must remain aloof to watch for mistakes,” he murmured. “Participating in a triad myself…not a good idea, oh, not a good idea at all.” He studied them a moment longer, then brightened. “We can still practice the charms with one person acting as the feeder of magic and the other wizard casting the spell, though not with as powerful an effect,” he announced. “And we will switch which group takes that blow from day to day, so no one has to practice with only one person all the time.”

            Harry shoved his chair towards Ron and Hermione. Flitwick immediately looked at him, and said, “Mr. Potter, with Mr. Malfoy, please. You will be our two-person group for today.”

            Harry stared at him, stunned. Then he shrugged, fended off the outraged hand that Ron was raising, and turned and walked towards Malfoy instead.

            Malfoy sat there with his head all stiff and upright, and when Harry sat down in the chair beside him, he hissed, “You needn’t think I’m going to make this easy for you. I know all about triad charms. We learned about them last year. I’ll be the one who’s ahead for once, and you’re going to be behind.”

            “Yeah, Malfoy, whatever you say,” Harry said vaguely, glancing over his shoulder. Flitwick had put Ron and Hermione with Terry Boot. Not a bad choice, Harry reckoned, given that he knew fuck-all about what kind of magical characteristics triad charms required. “Not that you could have learned all that much with the Carrows running the school.”

            When he turned back, Malfoy had flushed a furious pink and was opening his mouth to retort when Harry added, “And this way, it gives us an excuse to talk. No one says that every word we exchange has to be about triad charms.”

            Malfoy froze for a second, then shook himself like a peacock that had had its tail stepped on. “Of course,” he said. “I would have thought of that.”

            Harry shrugged, and turned back to the front to watch as Flitwick waved his be-ribboned wand for attention again.

            “Now,” Flitwick said importantly. “Triad charms take some trust.” Harry and Malfoy rolled their eyes at the exact same time, and Harry had to stifle a grin. So we have that much in common, at least. “There may also be some people in your group better-suited to one role than others. If you find you cannot make the feeder charm that’s meant to bind your magic to someone else’s work, that is a sign you should cast the spells with their magic instead. But only after you make a sincere attempt, mind.”

            Flitwick then led them through the incantation for the feeder charm, which would bind over your power. Harry saw more than one grimace throughout the classroom. He had to admit, he wasn’t all that happy himself at the idea that someone else would be using his magic instead of him.

            But, well, if he learned this, then he could be more effective at working with Ron and Hermione in the future. So he lifted his wand towards the ceiling, waited until Flitwick glanced expectantly at him, and said, “Revelo cibum.”

            The air around him lit with a wash of green light that leaped towards the ceiling and spattered back in sparks, dying out just before they reached the level of their hair. Harry tried quickly to hide his flinch. The light had been the color of the Killing Curse, which Flitwick really hadn’t mentioned.

            Malfoy made a small noise. Harry glanced to the side, wondering if he was having a problem with casting the feeder charm, and noticed Malfoy was staring at him with his eyes narrowed.

            Harry lifted his head and glared at him. Well, yeah, arsehole. So I flinch a little at the color of the light. So what? It’s not as though you’re any better than I am.

            Malfoy did cast the feeder charm himself, but he never took his eyes off Harry while he did it, and didn’t seem surprised when the incantation produced only a dull, throbbing glow from in front of him. It didn’t shoot up to the ceiling, and it was a lime-green instead of the bright green. Harry wondered if that was the reason no one else had flinched, because the color was unique to the person casting it.

            “It seems you’ll give your power to me for once, Potter,” Malfoy said, an odd half-smile playing along his mouth.

            “Do you have the list of details about the day the curse was cast yet?” Harry asked, bending his head close so he could be sure no one else heard them.

            Malfoy’s smile vanished, so fast that he looked for a moment as if it hurt. Then he ground his teeth and said, “No. And will you pay attention to what I’m doing, please?” He turned around huffily and cast the second spell Flitwick had told them to, one that should tell them whether the person casting it was a good candidate for earning power from the triad charm.

            Harry sighed as he watched that particular charm produce a dancing blue flame for Malfoy. Of course. He had to act as the git’s servant during this, and he didn’t know if he would ever get the chance to practice with Ron and Hermione.

            Then he relaxed a little. A third person would join their group in the next Charms class, or they would be assigned to different ones. He didn’t have to worry for long.

            “So how does it feel, Potter, to know that I’m more powerful than you?”

            Harry gaped at him this time. Then he snorted, and let the rage out for almost the first time since the end of the war. It hadn’t seemed like he had many things to be angry about when he was trying to survive himself and help everyone else do it, too. Trust Malfoy to prove to him how very wrong he was. “I’m sorry, was the spell supposed to prove that? I thought I was stronger, since my light was a lot brighter than yours was.”

            Malfoy’s face flushed, and his hand crushed the blue flame, smothering it. “You’re still going to be giving your magic to me,” he whispered harshly. “The incantation you used included the word cibum, and do you know what that means? Food.”

            Harry shrugged. “And at least I can accept that, instead of—”

            “I saw your face, Potter. You were revolted.”

            Oh. That’s why he thought I flinched when I saw that green light. Flitwick was telling them what to do next. Harry did have the time to hiss at Malfoy, though, “Think about the color of the spell I cast, and think of other reasons,” and then resolutely faced forwards again.

            He wasn’t sure if he wanted to help Malfoy after all, if Malfoy was going to be such a git about things.

            It has to be hard, to be isolated from all your friends and see them turn against you…

            And since when does understanding why someone does something mean condoning it? You can know why George was hurting himself at Fred’s funeral without thinking he should.

            Malfoy made no attempt to speak to him for the rest of class, and Harry thought it was just as well. He grabbed his bag and book and wand the moment they were done and hurried to catch up with Ron and Hermione. They made room for him without protest, and involved him immediately in a discussion of triad charms.

            Harry joined them with relief. At least I can say I know who my real friends are. That’s not something a lot of people have.

*

            SP777: Well, perhaps this is that kind of story?

            And it might seem more casual because it’s gen at the beginning, slash later.

            js: Thanks! I hope it will be somewhere interesting.

            unneeded: Yeah, it does. I think the setting of Hogwarts and the fact that it’s not years after the war gives me a little more to hang onto to, something closer to canon.
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Parsimony