Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

The Masks of Real Heroes	By : Aelys_Althea Category: Harry Potter AU/AR > Slash - Male/Male Views: 17641 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: Many thanks to the wonderful J. K. Rowling who offered such a beautiful world for amateurs such as myself to frolick in. This is a not-for-profit fanfiction and all characters and original storylines of Harry Potter belong to her!

Chapter List
- 4
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- 6
'I'm telling you, Albus; he left the wand on the desk as though he’d forgotten it! He didn't even need to have it in his hand to cast the spell, let alone speak an enchantment.'

The headmaster sighed, rubbing his forehead tiredly. He had been conversing with his deputy for over an hour and they had only succeeded in revisiting statements voiced thrice already.

'I heard you, Minerva. It is unexpected-'

'To say the least! And compared to his attempts over the summer; you know when I asked him he finally admitted that he couldn’t conduct a simple transfiguration of sundial into pocket watch because he ‘didn’t understand the complex mechanics of the watch’? As though such understanding is even consequential!’ Minerva’s face was flushed slightly pink as she huffed in frustration. ‘And now this, this complete about face; I can't say I've been more shocked by the performance of a student in my entire teaching career. I’d never even mentioned a solid-to-liquid transfiguration before and even if I had… He has only been casting magic for four months! How is this possible?'

Albus turned his pale gaze towards the woman pacing like a caged tiger before his desk. 'Is that the truth, I wonder?'

The witch strode two more paces, lost in thought, before stopping abruptly. 'What?'

‘Has it really been only four months that he has been casting magic?'

Minerva frowned, her face crinkling in confusion. She stepped up to the desk and braced her hands upon the polished oaken wood. 'You told me he had demonstrated so little magical tendencies that you thought he may be a squib.’ Her voice was low, almost harsh in its intensity. ‘You told me that you thought you and the Ministry may both have misread the single incident that indicated his first and only display of accidental magic. You said yourself it was incredibly rare for a child so young to show their inclinations towards magical adeptness, that it may have been a misleading signal. That only twelve children in known history have produced a spark under the age of two. You said-'

'I am aware of what I said, Minerva.' The elderly wizard sighed, removing his spectacles to rub at his eyes with his right hand. The mangled fingers, a souvenir of his dabbling over the summer, caught the younger witch's eye before she turned away, falling into silence. 'I believe that the trace placed upon young wizards is fool proof. There has been no prior record of any child circumventing the spell cast upon them at birth. It was natural to assume as much.

'However,’ and his eyes became penetrating as he reaffixed his spectacles, ‘if he has somehow managed to dampen his magical signal, while still smothering the trace, than there is no telling for how long he has intentionally practiced magic. Performance can vary exceptionally, differing between countries with difference in cultures. Who is to say he has not constructed his own form of magic through trial and error, one which relies more upon natural ability than the crutch of a wand?'

Minerva’s face had fallen into a mask of stunned speechlessness. Her eyes blinked rapidly behind the square frames of her lenses, lips clamped in a hard line as though to prevent a cry of disbelief from passing her lips. 'Both Lily and James, Lily especially, were talented spell-casters. It would perhaps be… conceivable to consider he may be innately talented... Do you suppose he has been practicing wandless magic before he begun formal education under my tutelage?'

Albus shrugged heavily. Harry Potter was an unexpected enigma. He had resigned himself to letting the boy slip silently into the shadows of the public eye after his refusal to attend Hogwarts five years ago. He had even assisted the transition by pointedly drawing attention away from the child. Harry had suffered enough loss in his life, he hardly needed the press hounding his every move.

Besides, despite his role as one of Voldermort's chosen targets, the Dark Lord seemed to have seen his existence as merely a buzzing fly of annoyance, instead focusing solely on the other recipient of his malevolent attention. For the most part, Neville Longbottom had taken upon the role as the Boy Who Lived splendidly. He was neither exceptionally talented, nor as bright as would be expected from a hero, but his courage and resilience, to say nothing of his magical strength, had more than made up for any lack. Perhaps growing up in a Wizarding household, even with the tragic absence of his mother, had provided adequate foundations for his strong character. Unwittingly, the focus of the limelight had cast the memory of the second survivor under a blanket of disregard. Facts of the validity of Harry Potter's similar survival in the face of the Killing Curse had slipped towards speculation and finally mild disbelief. No one had heard a whisper of the boy in more than fifteen years. Who's to say he even existed in the first place?

'I believe, Minerva,' Albus murmured quietly into the frozen silence of the room, breaking from his reverie, 'that Harry Potter is a more complicated young man than we gave him credit for. If it is true, and he has practiced magic for some time now, I cannot fathom his refusal to attend school, nor his desire to force his innate ability so far beneath the surface that it disappeared from the Ministry radar entirely. I can only assume that this is what he had managed; I see no other way of avoiding the eye of the Board of Magical Persons Statistics.’ He peered thoughtfully at the woman fidgeting before his desk. ‘Perhaps you could take it upon yourself to...?'

Minerva nodded in agreement, drawing correct conclusions from his suggestive statement. 'I'll see what I can glean from him when he comes to my office tomorrow afternoon. I have discovered that, though Harry is not proactive in speaking of himself, he is neither averse to answering direct questions.'

The headmaster nodded, satisfied. The best approach would be to learn as much of the boy as possible to best gauge his level of competency, his magical capacity, and his general willingness to divulge the secrets of his past. The whole situation niggled irritatingly in the corner of Albus’ mind, pushing him towards a foggy conclusion he could not yet discern the shape of. Something was decidedly odd about the situation. Something had driven the boy into a sheltered corner that masked his magic from curious eyes. Though what it was...

'Thank you, Minerva. I believe that would be the best approach. Please, inform me of further developments when you are afforded the opportunity.'

The head of Gryffindor nodded in understanding before spinning on her heel and departing from the room. Not a final word of farewell broke the silence. Likely she had a night of contemplation as infuriating as the headmaster's own ahead of her.

Leaning back in his chair, Albus pressed his fingers together in a steeple, pondering idly over the events that had unfolded. His research of the previous summer seemed to be interwoven into the issue of Harry Potter in an unexpected yet captivating mixture. He couldn’t quite pinpoint it, but there seemed a discord upon the horizon, an unforseen role for the boy that was yet to be discovered. Surely it was only too convenient that the boy appear back on the surface of magical society. As of yet, the Headmaster could not pinpoint just what role the child had to play; Neville was the Boy-Who-Lived, or at least the one that held the eye of the Dark Lord. Where exactly did Harry sit in the entire mess that had erupted once more?

Sighing, Albus raised himself slowly from his seat. His blackened hand twinged slightly with the pressure of placing it upon the arm of the chair, but he shrugged off the pain. It was a necessary scar; unfortunate, but unavoidable.

Drifting across the room to the pensive propped on its stand beside the wall, the elderly wizard placed his wand to his temple and drew the sliver of memory from his mind. Casting the shimmering, lace-like thread into the glass bowl, Dumbledore felt himself once more slip into silent contemplation. Of the war, of the Dark Lord, of Neville and Harry both. If only he had more time, greater flexibility, to pursue the puzzle of his new and unconventional student. But there was no time, and flexibility was a thing of the past. There was much to consider, and much as he loathed to do so, plans to implement that involved more than a small number of unwitting characters. Yes, it would be a long night indeed.

Harry had never been more content in his life. Not happy, exactly. He doubted he would ever feel comfortable enough in the overwhelming halls and constant crowding of the school for his primary emotion to be joy. He had never been one for socialising; it raised too much hostility and too many unwanted questions from first his aunt and uncle in Little Whinging, and then from his uncle Stephen. It was always easier to avoid the situation entirely.

As such, the forced habitation with so many unfamiliar individuals was trying to say the least. Harry had progressed from speaking often less that once a day to answering a multitude of questions every hour. He pushed himself to compose adequate answers with a semblance of friendliness, but could tell from the faint bewilderment of his fellow students that they found him somehow...odd. Such an impression was not unfamiliar to him; Harry had been raised to see himself as 'odd' his entire life, first from the Dursleys and then the wary stares he received from his primary and high school classmates at his self-imposed isolation. As such, curious glances of the Hogwarts students, absent of malevolence or even caution, barely fazed him. If anything, they were rather interesting themselves. It was no struggle at all to keep his emotions firmly under guard and beneath the telling surface of his face, though slightly more trying to avoid sinking purposefully into the shadows of every room he entered.

It was barely halfway through the second week of term before it became apparent that the sixth year cohort had decided, as a whole, to make it their mission to draw every detail of Harry Potter's personal life into the open. In the brief moments of teacher-less preoccupation at the beginning and end of each class, Harry found he could barely think over the endless firing of questions.

'Where are you from?'

'Who did you live with?'

'French? Oh, how romantic. Can you say something in French?'

'What? You got a letter when you were eleven? What on earth made you decide to go to Muggle school instead of Hogwarts?'

'Why did you suddenly decide to come to Hogwarts now?'

'Was it really the first time you've ever held a wand this last summer? Wow, what a late bloomer! How unusual!'

The questions and enthusiasm was never ending. Harry marvelled silently that they managed to keep up a continuous stream of queries without revisiting some of their earlier conversations. Yet like patchwork the students picked at his personal history in an attempt to smooth out a seamless quilt of his life story.

He would be lying if he said it didn't leave him feeling more than a little violated. No one had ever taken any overt interest in his life before. It was an unnerving experience.

However, even with this affable intrusion of privacy, Harry found he had never before experienced the liberties that were now afforded to him at Hogwarts. Never before had he been loosed from the persistent rain of terror of either the Dursleys or uncle Stephen. The absence left a not unwelcome hole in his chest that he prodded carefully at each night when freed from the company of the other students. It trembled like a tender wound, yet in much the same way that time spread a slow, healing tingle through a broken limb, his careful prodding seemed to gradually soothe the edges of the tear into something less...painful.

No, he was not sure if he was 'happy', but he had never been closer to happiness in his life.

By Friday afternoon of the second week, Harry believed he could accurately name everyone in the sixth year. It had taken time to discern the identity of all, especially the quieter individuals given that he adamantly refused to interrogate them for their names himself. Of the entire class, Hermione - Granger's first name - seemed to be the most amicable of the lot. She, unlike the rest of her peers, seemed to have instead made it her personal vendetta to ensure he was not overtly overwhelmed and was provided with any assistance necessary, whether it concerned his studies or the pervasive presence of her fellow classmates. Predictably, the girl was incredibly bright and seemed to fail to comprehend when those around her felt her endless supply of knowledge to be somewhat taxing.

Harry himself felt rather grateful for the assistance, which Hermione likely perceived as she made a concerted effort to ensure that she now sat beside him in every one of his classes. He was lucky she appeared to have undertaken a rather strenuous workload that covered just about every subject available.

It was hence at the close of their Friday evening Potions class that Harry found himself beside Hermione as she tried – and failed – to bat the persistent attention of her fellow Gryffindors from her charge. A brief shrug of Harry's part left her rocking back in her chair, arms folded and seething silently as she presided over the conversation like a mother hawk over her chittering chicks.

Lavender and Parvati, both Gryffindor girls, had simultaneously endeavoured to capture his full attention. With unnerving presumptuousness, they both dropped their elbows on the desk before him and chattered in animated conversation, seemingly unaware that he barely contributed. It was unsurprising; Harry was accustomed to being spoken at rather than to. He found he didn't really mind, even preferred it to having to answer their questions.

What he did find distressing, however, was the unexpected and novel desire of the girls to make it a hands-on experience. When Lavender had first touched his fringe, he had nearly slapped her fingers away in a violent response to her intrusiveness, his hand stayed only by the utter shock that froze him in place. It took all his mental strength to suppress the shivering tingle of disgust, the sickly thought of dirty, from spewing forth as he affixed his eyes away from girl’s retreating fingers.

'Ah, it's so soft! I really love it; you hardly ever see guys grow their hair long.'

'I know, right! I love the little curl in the bottom. I wish my hair did that. Have you always had it long, Harry?'

Harry shrugged stiffly, nervous chills dribbling down his spine as he suppressed the desire to flee the room. 'Ever since I've lived with my uncle Stephen, yeah.'

The girls twittered delightedly.

'Well, don't you ever even think about cutting it.' Lavender ran her hand through the tips of his fringe again, drawing it back behind his ear. Why oh why were they so touchy-feely?! 'Oh, and you have earrings too! Wow, I wouldn't have thought they you were that sort of guy, but it actually looks good on you.'

'Yeah, it really does! What is it, is it a special design?'

Swallowing down the flood of bile that rose in the back of his throat, Harry closed his eyes briefly before speaking in a voice even more muted than usual. 'It's a knot. I think something Gaelic. My uncle suggested it when I was eleven.' He sent a mental plea to any god that would consider his plight that the plucking fingers would retreat.

'Aw, your uncle said you should get them? You must really love him, huh? I wish my uncle was like that...'

A snort broke through the inane chatter of the two girls, hushing them into silence.

'And does your all-knowing uncle also wake you up, dress you and pack your lunch in the morning, or are you old enough to do that by yourself?'

Silence met the drawling tone, cutting cleanly into the conversation with the purposefulness of a carving knife through flesh. Every face turned to the slouching Slytherin leaning on the edge of his desk beside his gradually rising friends. Bag slung over one shoulder, Draco Malfoy observed the frozen audience like a king gazing upon peasants. Arrogance and condescension radiated from him in constant waves.

Harry similarly turned to the interrupter. He remembered the boy from when he was learning the names of everyone in the class. He also remembered him as the one who had initially laughed into that endless silence in the Great Hall the first night at Hogwarts. And from the train. Unexpectedly, observing his arrogant slouch and aloof smirk, Harry felt himself grounded, the sickly roiling in his gut steadying itself.

Tilting his head towards the teen, he affixed him with a curious gaze. 'He doesn't, but my uncle did tell me that rhetorical questions are the go-to for precocious arses when they feel like they need to contribute. Toutes mes excuses, butwas that a rhetorical question, or is this another one of those language barrier things?'

Gasps met the statement. Silence hung in the room; a feather could have been heard dropping to the ground. Harry didn't particularly care if he had overstepped. It was unlike him to respond to such statements; perhaps the questioning of the past weeks had actually gotten to him. Not that it truly mattered. He didn't care if the class shunned him for his bluntness. The statement was laced with as much light-hearted sarcasm as the question the taller boy had presented, though Harry masked his words beneath innocent curiosity. Somehow, he felt that the boy was more likely to respond simply the comment with a brush of hidden amusement than to blow a fuse.

Draco adopted a sneer, lip curling and eyelids drooping half-lidded in a guise of sleepy boredom. Observing the display, Harry was put in mind of a practiced actor adopting his expression for the next scene. Not anger or disgust but the anticipated amusement was conveyed by his sardonic expression.

Snorting again, with a roll of his eyes the pale, blonde-haired boy turned towards his remaining two onlooking companions – Pansy and… Blaise? - and the three filed out of the room. The echoes of their footsteps had faded into the distance, a ringing click of heavy soles, before the silence snapped like a taught bowstring.

Lavender was the gushing gossip, eyes alight as she turned to Harry excitedly. 'Oh my god, I can't believe you just called Malfoy an arse!'

Harry shook his head slightly, faintly bemused. ‘I didn’t really call him an-‘ 'It was so called for, though. Arrogant prick, I can't stand him.' Parvati gushed excitedly, overwhelming his words, and fell into a fit of giggles with her friend.

Ron Weasley, a tall boy with hair the colour of carrot cake, sidled up to Harry's left, grinning broadly before turning to his friend Neville. 'He's always been like that, though, hasn't he? Bloody git, I only wished I said it first!'

'You have, Ron, so many times. You just wait until Malfoy's out of earshot before saying anything.' Neville bumped shoulders with his best friend as he too crowded at the desk, and the two broke into chuckles. ‘Still, I couldn’t agree more. Did you see his face?’

Harry stared at the babbling Gryffindors, gaze jumping between each figure as Dean and Seamus approached and contributed their own congratulations. ‘Nice use of the language barrier excuse, Harry.’ ‘Wait, you’re originally from England, though, right?’ ‘Merlin you’re slow, of course he understood him. It was a perfect comeback because it seemed so genuine.’ ‘Serves the arse right.’ Harry felt the tightening of an invisible frown on his forehead. No, they were wrong. He hadn't said it to receive appreciative recognition. It was simple banter, no sting intended. Draco had felt as little offence at the digging remark as Harry had, he was sure. The sneer had barely concealed his amusement of the situation. Had their classmates not realised the false question and answer for what they were? If anything, Harry felt only thanks towards the boy for breaking the contact Lavender had forced upon him.

Hermione was the only one who failed to express enthusiasm at the verbal combat. Rolling her eyes, she turned to Harry and offered a knowing smile at his similar lack of enthusiasm, face falling back into its typical affronted façade.

'Well, if everyone has had enough of their joking on Malfoy's behalf, I think it's time we head to dinner.' An appreciative murmur met her suggestion and chairs scraped the floor as everyone rose hastily to fill their bellies. 'Harry, would you...like you join us today?'

Harry paused in the motion of slinging his satchel over his shoulder. Cold dread pooled in his stomach, a shadow of the distress he had felt with Lavender moments before. Swallowing slightly, he dropped his eyes. How to get out of this one? It was not as though he disliked his classmates, but maybe just...

'Not yet?' Hermione shed her matronly smile upon him, that now familiar look of knowing crinkling the corners of her eyes. 'I suppose McGonagall is still taking up most of your evenings, right? You poor thing, more lessons after lessons.' She shuddered in a display that no one, not even Harry, believed for a moment. Hermione would have no doubt revelled in the chance for even more classes.

Gratitude flooded Harry's chest and he released a silent sigh of relief. Hermione truly was too good to him. 'Yeah, I'll...thank you, Hermione. Not yet but maybe soon.'

A smattering of 'aw, no's and 'well, soon then' met his comment, but the Gryffindors parted with smiles and a wave, leaving Harry in their search for dinner. Feeling his shoulders slump in the release of tension, Harry turned in the opposite direction and made his way back to Feathwood's rooms.

The Defence Against the Dark Arts room had taken on a sombre tone with the appointment of its newest teacher. Professor Snape has dressed the room in darkness, covering windows and stripping the walls bare of anything with even a hint of colour. The room had become, for all intents and purposes, a mirror of his dungeon classroom save that it was bereft of cauldrons.

Draco peered through the doorway, watching as the pale, hook-nosed man swept about the room, thrusting desks to the edges of the room with a flick of his wand. The Slytherin had never seen a professor setting up their room before, so this was a new experience for him. He had never in his life shown up early for a class. This year was shaping up to urge firsts for a number of things.

Sinking back behind the door, Draco slumped against the wall to wait for his classmates to arrive. He had come alone to the room. Even now, when he waited in uncharacteristically nervous anticipation, he could not believe his actions of two days prior. That which had effectively wound him in his situation. Mulling over the impossible puzzle of the Vanishing cabinet and drifting into his usual melancholy, Defence Against the Dark Arts on Tuesday morning had seen Draco largely oblivious to the cold, flat stare that Snape was directing at Potter. Oh, he was aware of the shift in mood, but Snape was never actually happy anyway so he barely noticed unless the man's seething wrath was directed towards him personally.

He was drawn from his pondering by a faint hiss from the Gryffindor side of the room. The desks had been shuffled to the walls this lesson as they conducted yet another practical class. Snape appeared to prefer the hand-on approach, differing vastly to Umbridge's teaching style of the previous year. Today, the sixth years were converting their prior knowledge of the defensive spell Protego into its classical and ultimate form, Protego Maxima. If Snape was to be believed, it was a childishly simple conversion that should be achieved upon the second if not the first try if one had mastered the smaller shield charm. As it was, the teacher was moving slowly around the room, directing his students one by one to attempt the spell and meeting only disappointment. Save for Granger, of course; the Mudblood had failed her first attempt but cast an impressive display of shimmering blues and purples in a solid wall that spread beyond the walls of the room on her second. It had only drawn Draco's attention for a moment, however, before he sunk back into the far reaches of his mind.

Given the depths of his mulling, he had missed the events leading to the open hostility displayed by the Gryffindors. Even so, he could have guessed it was because of Potter. The boy had become something of a mascot of the Gryffindors. Draco didn't particularly care - he didn't, truly - but for some reason, whenever the sauntering gold and red-garbed students fawned over the boy he felt a twinge of… annoyance in his chest. Likely the hatred of his overly confident peers was triggering the usual repulsive response. As Potter seemed to express nothing but careless acceptance of their mothering, neither liking nor hating the attention, Draco felt a faint resentment towards the second half of his class in general though oddly enough it didn’t seem particularly directed towards Potter. Still, it was a shame, really. The boy had showed promise of being other than the arrogant, pig-headed stereotype of the Gryffindor. Given the tokenistic role the new boy had adopted, Draco should have revelled in any criticism his Head of House could lather upon a member of the opposing house.

However, on this day, as Potter bowed his head before the Defence professor, he felt nothing so much as an unexpected sympathy well within him. What had happened? Why was the boy upset? For, though his face maintained the blank nonchalance that never seemed to waver, something about him bespoke sadness.

'And I had heard you were something of a magical protégé.' Snape's lip curled in distaste, sneering down at the bowed head. From across the room, Draco could discern the look of barely suppressed fury on Longbottom's face as he rose from the desk he was leaning upon and eased gently towards the boy. A brief glance saw the compassion and accusation, directed at Potter and Snape respectively, painted upon Granger's. The other Gryffindor's exhibited varying degrees of similar emotions. 'Would you perhaps consider using a wand, rather than flaunt your wandless techniques?'

Potter shook his head fractionally, head still bowed. 'I can't imagine that would make much of a difference, sir.'

The sneer on Snape's face contorted his features in an ugly grimace. Draco had never before felt sorry for another student at the tail end of his teacher's aggression; it was a year for firsts indeed.

'Typical. So like your father, to avoid the situation if you cannot bulldoze through it with ease. Tell me, Potter, are you truly a fool, or does the fear of failure leave you in a state too lazy to even try?'

The boy shrugged, finally raising his chin. This time, Draco was sure he saw a flicker of something that could have been forlornness skitter behind the flat reflectiveness of his glasses. 'I'd say it's probably a bit of both, sir.'

Silence met his words. It was not because the reply was laced with sarcasm, for it wasn't. More surprisingly, not an ounce of offence or anger coloured his words. Rather, Draco was left with the impression that Potter fully believed his own words. Feeling his eyebrows rise in surprise, the Slytherin focused acutely upon the boy. He couldn't fathom such self-degradation himself.

Snape, for all his twisted words, was more prone to criticism to encourage progress. Even he appeared at a loss of how to respond. Draco was briefly startled when he saw the man blink rapidly, the greatest display of surprise he had ever witnessed from his head teacher. Potter seemed to have a knack for eliciting such responses from the professors.

Eventually regaining his composure, Snape reconsidered the sneer he had on his face, letting it drop as he turned slightly from the boy. The unfounded fury directed towards him seemed to have abruptly vanished, at least temporarily.

'Well, Potter, I believe that, regardless of you charms and transfiguration abilities, your defensive spells will need some more serious attention. You are not familiar with even the most basic defensive and offensive spells?'

Harry shook his head slowly in reply. 'It's not so much that I don't know them, sir, but that I can't really produce them. I don't know why.'

Snape nodded, seeming to accept the boy's confusion itself. His angered gaze had dropped into neutral contemplation. A soft mutter slipped unconsciously from his lips, barely audible as he considered. 'Perhaps...pair him with a fellow student just to see...'

'I'll do it, Professor.'

For a moment, Draco was as startled as everyone else in the room. It took him a moment realise, when all eyes swivelled towards him in astonishment, that the suggestion had been voiced by himself.

Oh. Oh, that was not good. Draco had always revelled in being the centre of attention, yet always for the right reasons. Suggesting an offer of assistance... Could he possibly have said anything less fitting for his character, less Slytherin?

Swallowing hastily, he adopted an expression of bored amusement. 'I could do with a live recipient to catch my spells rather than simply hitting a wall of Protego or a dummy. It will give me a chance to practice some of my spell reversal techniques, too.'

A sigh of relief nearly slipped from his lips as the shocked faces of his fellow students slipped into a smattering of outrage, amusement and resigned understanding. Weasley and Longbottom, and most of the Gryffindors for that matter, had adopted expressions of open fury. For his part, Snape retained his neutrality. He wasn't buying the swiftly fabricated lie, that much was apparent. Yet it hardly mattered, as after a moment of contemplation he nodded his head.

'As you wish, Draco. Try not to cause him irreversible damage.'

Draco forced a smirk onto his lips, nodding his own agreement and opened his mouth to reply before Granger interrupted passionately. 'Sir, please, let me partner with him. I'm his friend, I can-'

'Miss Granger, you will be silent.'

Neville took up the plea, face flushed and positively hissing. 'But Professor, you heard what he said, you can't possibly-'

'Enough! I have made my decision.'

Draco's smirk became genuine as his teacher adeptly smothered the protests. The Gryffindors were not to know that any disagreement on their part only strengthened Snape's resolve. For himself, Draco had long since discovered that he could conveniently manipulate this flaw in his godfather’s character to achieve his own ends.

Turning towards the boy he had somehow ended up partnering with, Draco was surprised to observe a slight crack in his nonchalant facade. Not fear, dread or even wariness that he may have expected, but instead a glimmer of curiosity. As he met Draco's eyes, the ghost of a smile unfurled at the corners of Potter's lips. He was...amused? What the hell did he have to be amused about?

The lesson had proceeded rapidly after the interruption. True to the name Distraction that Draco had spontaneously labelled Potter, the Slytherin found himself successfully distracted from the melancholy of his mulling for the rest of the class. If asked, he could not have told anyone what exactly he had been thinking about, only that it was not of the Vanishing Cabinet, his nearing demise, or the Dark Lord. And that more often than not he would find himself turning to glance at a certain dark-haired boy with glasses.

Draco sighed, leaning his head back against the stone wall. Closing his eyes, he pressed his palms into his eyelids until sparks burst in fireworks in the blessed darkness. What had possibly possessed him to offer to help the other boy? He barely had enough time on his hands to attempt the Dark Lord's task as it was. He could hardly afford to take a pitiful, lost kitten under his wing and teach him the ropes of defensive magic.

He sighed again, releasing a groan. Maybe he could ask Snape to-

'Are you alright?'

Smacking his head painfully against the stone, Draco scrambled to keep his feet from sliding from beneath him as he slumped against the wall. Wincing, he turned toward the source of the voice, hands pressed against the cool stone behind him to steady himself in the undignified display.

Standing not three feet away was Potter himself. It appeared that his contemplation of the Distraction had distracted him from the silent approach of said Distraction itself. How ironic.

Adopting a mask of affront bordering on arrogant anger, Draco folded his arms across his chest. 'Potter. You're here awfully early for class.'

The boy simply shrugged slightly, that barely perceptible movement that Draco had seen him pull so many times. Otherwise ignoring him, Potter turned on the spot, squatting to the floor with his pervasive silence. Moments later he rose again, turning with his arms full of the flopping limbs of his black cat. Vibrant green eyes fixed upon Draco. The Slytherin shuddered in unwarranted uneasiness. He hadn't seen the cat approach either.

'I always get to class early. It's not like I have much else to do.'

Draco nodded in acceptance, barely hearing the words. The lilting of the boy’s words, the soft huskiness of his French accent, rung with a gentle melody in his ears, yet despite his appreciation he barely heard it. His eyes were glued onto the creature lying lazily in Potter's arms, purring contentedly and eyes closed to near slits. Draco could swear that the cat was smirking at him.

'Do you bring that thing around with you everywhere you go? I've seen it in the back of class a couple of times.'

Potter shook his head, staring down upon the black hairball as he ran a finger over its ears. 'No, I don't bring her. Lyssy just seems to follow me wherever I go. I used to try locking her in my room, but she’d manage to get out somehow. She's always done that, even back in Paris. Maybe she has her own little bit of magic. That or she's a natural-born Houdini.'

The silence that followed his words was broken only by the heavy purr ringing from the cat’s throat. Draco stared at the boy and cat both, incredulity threatening to tug the composure from his face. That would have been the longest speech he had ever heard from the boy that was not regarding his studies. And the cat was… what kind of a name was Lyssy, anyways?

'She obviously dotes on you, then.'

Potter nodded in agreement, a simple acceptance of the fact rather than smugness, and raised his eyes to meet Draco's. The faint ghost of a smile, the corners of his lips barely tilting, somehow managed to soften his face exponentially.

Clearing his throat awkwardly as he banished the unexpectedly poetic thought from his mind, Draco turned back to the door of the classroom. 'Snape's just setting up. He probably won't be long.'

Potter nodded again, head tilted slightly as he looked at the taller boy. The cat was now staring too, gazing up at him from lamplight reflective eyes that were again disconcertingly more expressive than the boy’s who held him. If he were to put a name to it...fascination would have been written in bold letters across the cat's brow.

Clearing his throat again to fill the silence, Draco found himself shifting in unease. This was not normal; he had never felt uneasy with someone in his life. Angry, plenty, but uneasy? It was a response that he found himself eliciting from others, not experiencing himself. Opening his mouth to speak, he clicked his tongue in consideration.

'So, you suck at defensive spells.'

That faint smile tipped the corners of Potter's lips again. It was oddly captivating, yet at odds with the curious blankness of his eyes. Draco was unsure if the boy truly was emotionless or the reflective surface of his overlarge glasses caused the flatness. 'I guess you could say that.'

'What I don't understand is how you can nail McGonagall's transfiguration in one shot, a sixth year advanced spell at that, but can't manage a simple second year Protego. What's up with that?'

For a moment, Draco wondered if he had sounded a little too aggressive in his query. It was not cruel as far as the Slytherin's comments could be, but the boy before him seemed to emanate fragility and feebleness like a picked flower.

What the hell is this? Why should I even care if he's offended?

But he did, inconceivable as it may seem. And that was that.

Potter didn't seem the slightest bit perturbed by the statement, however. 'I don't know. I discussed it with Professor McGonagall, but she can't really understand it either. That happens a lot with my spell casting. I guess... I feel like if I can understand how it could possibly work, or how it’s possible, or if I can really see how it is useful and that I could benefit from it, then I can do it. If that makes sense.' His hand dropped to the head of the cat again, stroking gently and enticing another round of purring. Draco wondered if it was a nervous response, the stroking, but the boy showed no other symptoms of unease. Just that same blank nonchalance.

'What, and you don't think a Protego could be useful?'

Another faint smile. 'I guess not.'

Draco snorted. Of all the barmy things... 'Well, Potter, it's my job to try and drag the basics out of you. Don't make me look like an idiot.' Or, well, more of an idiot that he already appeared, with his enthusiastic offer to help the hapless case.

'Why does everyone call me that…?'

Draco paused in his internal reprimand. 'What?'

'You, and everyone else just about except for Hermione and her friends. You all call me Potter. Why is that?'

Draco was at a loss. 'It's your name, isn't it?'

The boy shrugged. 'Sure, it's my last name, but I haven't used it in years. Besides, no teenager in the modern English-speaking world refers to each other by their surname only. Not even in school.'

Confused for a moment, Draco resorted back to familiar territory: condescending insults. 'Well, maybe not in Muggle schools, but they are all backwards and whatever which way. No pride in their family name. It's pathetic.'

Potter bowed his head over the black fur ball again. 'Yeah, maybe.'

Raising an eyebrow and turning to stare directly at the boy once more, Draco prodded at the point of his confusion. 'If not Potter, what do you like to be called?'

Where had this generosity come from? Actually asking what the boy would prefer? What was happening to him?

Potter shrugged in reply. 'I've been using my uncle's surname since high school, so Defaux if you'd like. But most civil people refer to each other by their first names, so Harry. Just Harry.'

Draco suppressed a smirk at the deceptively sarcastic words. Was it sarcastic? There was no indication in the tone, but something about the almost chuckling slouch of the cat in Harry's arms seemed to radiate his true intentions. Funny, how the cat seemed to express the emotive responses that should accompany the situation better than Harry did.

Unconsciously, and with startling immediacy, Draco realised he had just been thinking of the boy as Harry. Well, that settled it then,

'Alright. Harry. Or Defaux, whichever I feel inclined to use.' Turning as he heard a faint chattering, he slipped his mask of bored arrogance back onto his face. He couldn't even remember when it had slipped off.

'Sure, Draco.' It was quiet, barely audible, but Draco felt the stirrings of something entirely foregin quiver in his chest at the words. It was the first time Harry had called him by name.

It would only be later that Draco would realise Harry had never actually said he liked to be called Defaux. The realisation of its significance was as slow in coming as his understanding.
A/N: So, a little bit longer, this chapter. I think they should be from now on (not entirely sure, but...). As such, it might be a little longer to get chapters out, but if so not by much. Next week at the latest.

Thank you once more for sticking with me, everyone. I hope you continue to enjoy :)

As always, any comments, questions or suggestions are more than welcome and appreciated.
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The Masks of Real Heroes