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Returning to Sanity	By : AchillesTheGeek Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 31212 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter books or films, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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51. Looks Like Trouble's Returning
Dinner at the Corner house had been amazing. It had become something of a family tradition for Penelope Corner's brother to come over every Thursday night he was free and join them for dinner; they fed him, while he provided the wine. It suited Penelope, who loved to cook; and it gave her brother, who was practically married to his job, an excuse to leave work at a reasonable hour at least one night a week.
This evening's meal had been outstanding: a beautiful cut of rare roast beef had been accompanied by a delicious vintage bottle of Crozes-Hermitage, apparently one of the proceeds of a dawn raid on a warehouse that the Aurors had believed was the hide-out of a small group of would-be Death Eaters. There were, he told them, some traces that indicated that there had been dark artifacts there; but, to the annoyance of the Aurors, the contraband had evidently been moved in time. Jack Corner couldn't really bring himself to care very much about dark artifacts; he was just glad that they hadn't moved the wine. There were, he thought, definitely some good sides to being married to the sister of the Head Auror.
Right now, said Head Auror was telling them about the visit he had had today from a very irate Paavan Patil, father of the two Patil twins, who had just discovered that morning that his twin daughters had absconded from Beauxbatons. Apparently he had demanded explanations from both Headmistresses by Floo call; Madame Maxime of Beauxbatons had told him point-blank not to be rude, and shut the call off; while Hogwarts' Minerva MacGonagall had been a (very) little more forthcoming: she refused point blank to even confirm that they were there, and had pointed out that his daughters were now of adult age, so even if they were at Hogwarts, she could only suspend or expel them; she could not force them to go anyway, much less return home, if they did not wish to; and neither could he.
Fuming, his face purpling with rage, Patil had then turned up at the Ministry in high dudgeon and had demanded that the Aurors storm Hogwarts and return the girls immediately. It was laboriously pointed out to him that there was no evidence that they were at Hogwarts in the first place, and even if they were, the Aurors had no jurisdiction to remove them; but he refused to accept this and argued for hours, eventually leaving. threatening to sue everybody from Filch all the way up to the Minister.
"And good luck to him," the Auror continued. "I can't imagine the Wizengamot taking the slightest bit of notice."
As he spoke, Corner had rather tuned out and just enjoyed the wine; which is how it came about that he did not hear the faint tapping on the window.
"Isn't that Michael's owl?" Gawain Robarts asked, bringing Jack Corner back to the present.
"What? Oh, yes," he said, opening the window and letting the small barn owl in. The bird gave a soft hoot, deposited a letter, and left straight away, pausing only to steal a piece of roast beef from Corner's plate.
"Damn your eyes!" the man said rather half-heartedly to the departing owl as he opened the letter with his bread knife.
"What's Michael got to say?" Penelope asked.
"Oh, the usual rubbish, I suspect; send more money … " and then he let out a low whistle.
"No, hang on, this is interesting. You were right about the foreign students, Gawain. They've built a new Tower and housed all the Eighth Year students in it. Look, Michael's included a sketch plan. Everybody's in two-bed rooms; Michael's bunking with the chaperone from Durmstrang."
"What?" Penelope asked, worried that her boy might be infected by what she saw as the reactionary and chauvinistic ideals of the Durmstrang Institute. "We didn't send him to Hogwarts to be exposed to that foreign bigotry!"
"Hmm… From what he says, it's more the other way around: the Durmstrang contingent seems to be quite interested in their opinions. Oh, and he's got quite a bit to say about Potter and Malfoy."
Penelope pursed her lips. As the two men at the table knew well, she did not approve of That Sort Of Thing.
"Oh, come on, Pen," Robarts said to her. "Potter saved us from that bastard; you can hardly begrudge him a private relationship."
"With a man?" she demanded. "And a Death Eater. And a Malfoy!"
Gawain decided there was no point in continuing. "Yes, well, we know what you have to say on that subject; what has Michael got to say?"
"I'm afraid he rather agrees with his mother," Jack replied, earning a filthy look from his wife for the way he'd put it. "Well, dear," he continued, anxious to placate her, "we need to accept that there are other points of view. Otherwise we'll just see someone else rise up and play on people's fears and prejudices. What if next time it's about sexuality, instead of blood purity, hmm?"
"Fine," Penelope said. The two men looked at each other; they both knew that this was the word she used to close down an argument when she felt she was right but couldn't stand to hear them argue any longer.

Jack knew it meant he should shut up; so he moved hastily on.
"Anyway, it seems there's quite some feeling rising up about it. Might be worth having another Auror or two on the ground, just in case?"
Robarts groaned. "We're stretched pretty thin as it is," he replied, thinking out loud. "We've got Robin Banks there teaching DADA, so of course we can keep Toby Proudfoot there as his partner; but too many will look suspicious. I guess I could move a couple of the younger ones currently on duty at Azkaban – but I'd have to replace them. All I've got unrostered at the moment are Godwin and Crockford."
"Well, I'm sure you'll sort something out," his host replied, and then turned to his wife.
"What's for pudding?"

By the time he reached the Ministry the following morning, the plan had fully formed in his head. He spent an hour or so reviewing the roster and making sure it would all work, and then called both Tom Godwin and Dandelus Crockford in to his office.
"Gentlemen," he said once they had sat down with a cup of tea each. "We have a small problem."
He proceeded to outline just what he had heard about the situation at Hogwarts, and the simmering tensions Michael had alluded to.
"So you see we'll need to shuffle personnel about a bit. Now, I could use you both at Hogwarts, and your experience would be invaluable; but you wouldn't really fit in. I think we need some younger people. Who do you suggest?"
It was so easy, he thought to himself half an hour later – a cup of tea and a little flattery, and the two would now be on Azkaban guard duties for the next week, starting on Sunday, freeing up some of the younger Aurors to keep a watchful eye on Hogwarts. With any luck, they could be passed off as part of the new teaching programme, or possibly as mentors. He'd have to firm that all up with Kingsley, he supposed; or perhaps Arthur Weasley. Yes, definitely Arthur. He was less busy, Robarts decided. And more malleable, a little voice in his head said. But he ignored it. No, that wasn't the reason at all, he told himself.
He sat down and wrote out the orders there and then; and, remembering Crockford's history with Barnes, made sure to add a special rider to the instructions:
Please note that Auror Crockford is not

to guard the Death Eaters.
An hour later, all his paperwork finished, he left his office for an early lunch.

Robarts was rather pleased that his office had windows open to the Atrium; it meant that he could fill it with plants, as they got plenty of natural light. Of course, the plants had to be watered, and moved around; and like any office, this duty was given to contractors. And, as is usually the case in business, these contractors were effectively invisible; even though they had access to the offices some of the most senior people in the Wizarding world, they weren't really vetted that carefully, nor were new staff checked up on effectively. And these contractors are not paid particularly well; thus establishing ideal conditions for less-than-scrupulous people to indulge in a little bribery and corruption.
Particularly, Rita Skeeter thought grimly as she hung on beneath the ribbon plant that had been placed in the Head Auror's office the day before, people with a grudge. And with patrons who harboured grudges of their own. Not that she really knew who was financing her; all she knew, all she needed to know, was that she had been paid well in advance for creating disruption, and would be paid more, and allowed to print whatever she wanted, when it was done.
And so the beetle transformed back into the witch, and she leafed idly through the paperwork, spotting the order to move Auror details around. A rather evil grin came on her face as she spotted an opportunity for some serious mischief; a quick vanishing spell achieved her aim, and she retreated back to the plant.
Later that afternoon, the plants were moved around the office; and after a whispered conversation in a very secluded corridor, a ribbon plant found its way into the main office shared by the Aurors. Quite near to the desk used by Dandelus Crockford …

The weekend had been grueling. Everyone had wanted to talk to Harry; the Beauxbatons students all wanted his autograph, and locks of his hair, and probably anything else he was prepared to give them, Draco thought wryly; and his friends weren't much better. Of course, they hadn't seen him for a week, and now he was freely accessible; but Draco could see by mid-morning on Sunday that something needed to be done.
Taking his courage in both hands, he had a quick word with Flitwick; he was delighted, though not entirely surprised, to find that the Charms Professor had indeed noticed what was going on; and, even better, was quite happy to fall in with Draco's plan. So it was with light heart that Draco returned to the Dumbledore Tower Common Room, where there was a set of games of Exploding Snap being played. He waited for a convenient moment, and then leant over his fiancé.
"Harry," he whispered. "Got a moment?"
Harry looked up. "I've been wondering where you were," he said as he got up.
"Getting us a leave pass," Draco said with a smirk, leading Harry over to the nearest fireplace. Quickly, before anyone else noticed, he threw in the powder that Flitwick had given him – for, in a bid to stop students over-using the facility, the fireplace was charmed so that it required special powder that would only be given out on particular request to Flitwick or McGonagall – and murmured his destination, then pulled Harry through.
"Draco! Harry!" an excited voice rang out, and a minute later, to his very great surprise, Harry found himself being hugged by Narcissa Malfoy. And, to her surprise, and his own, he burst into tears.

"This is madness," the junior clerk said again.
"Probably," the senior replied. "But it's what it says. You have to do what the boss says, my lad, especially if he goes to the trouble of writing it out so pretty. Go on, read it out again."
"Why? You know as well as I do what it says: 'Please note that Auror Crockford is to guard the Death Eaters'. But it makes no sense," the junior grizzled. Getting a stern look from his superior, he raised his hands palms forward in the universal gesture of surrender.
"All right," he said.
And so it was that, contrary to Gawain Robarts' actual order, Dandelus Crockford went down to the section of Azkaban specifically dedicated to the remaining Death Eaters. Not that he was told; the staff at Azkaban never made free with information. It was something of a rite of passage for their new boys to sort things out for themselves. And if it added to their terror, well, that was one of the few perks of the job for the admin staff. So it was that Crockford tentatively made his way through the prison, accompanied by a junior Auror; and, unknowingly, by a small beetle who had stowed away in his robes …

It took Harry nearly an hour to calm down; and at the end he sat, now in Draco's arms, blushing bright red. His fiancé was making low soothing noises, and rubbing circles on his back; it was helping his emotions a lot, but not his embarrassment.
"I'm sorry," he said, over and over again.
"What for?" Draco replied once Harry quietened down to a whimper. "Love, you have nothing to be sorry for. You're still recovering, remember? And everyone at Hogwarts is expecting you to be on top form, but it's obviously too soon. You're allowed to be weak and needy, OK? We're here for you, and we'll always help. How about we spend the rest of the day here, and maybe stay overnight; no-one is going to care if you cry or not, OK?"
"Thanks," Harry whispered.
In the event, they dined at the manor, which was a peaceful affair. Lucius and Narcissa struck just the right balance of showing interest in them and giving them room to recover. Harry was very grateful to have people in his life who supported him so whole-heartedly; he finally decided that, even if the Debt was driving it, this was how things were. And so Lucius was very taken aback when they got up from the dinner table and he was enveloped in a hug from Harry; but the most surprising thing, to all of them, was that he hugged back, and even kissed Harry on the top of his head. And if Harry squeezed him just a little tighter when he softly murmured, 'thank you', no-one said anything about it.

"Crockford," the voice whispered. "Well, well, well."
The Auror halted in his tracks. He hadn't expected ever to hear that voice again; the voice that still haunted his nightmares. And now …
"Et imperium!" he mouthed softly, and Dandelus stiffened perceptibly. Excellent, Barnes thought. Those fools at the Ministry had defused the curse; but had completely missed Muggle auto-suggestion hiding a second one. This is going to be fun …
"Are you alright?" the other Auror asked, only to find a wand aimed at him.
"Stupefy!" Crockford said, seconds before the other man realised he was in danger.
"Very good," Barnes said. "Now, let me out."
A minute later, Barnes was out; it took them a few minutes more to free both his boss and the other convict they trusted. A little while later, the two Aurors, relieved of their wands and robes, had taken their places. Barnes took care to stupefy Crockford and place a memory charm on both of the Aurors, removing any evidence of the compulsion charm he'd used. He would have liked to leave Crockford to face the music; but an agent in the Aurors was a useful asset, after all. Even with the memory altered, they might never be able to use him again; but if the Ministry found out what had been done, 'might never' would be a certainty.
"Where to now?" the female prisoner hissed.
Barnes turned to Crockford. "Where is safe?" he demanded.
The Auror looked at him, glassy-eyed; but he replied readily enough, "Goyle is now completely bedridden; the Auror watch was cancelled a week ago. They're stretched pretty thin; you've probably got a day or two to get there and then find somewhere else."
The three escapees conferred. "It'll do," Barnes said, "at least until we can get to Devil's Crag."
"Shush!" the leader hissed. "The walls have ears!"
"What about me?" a voice demanded from a nearby cell.
"Oh yes," Barnes said, his voice dripping with an icy contempt. "What about you? How shall I repay you for all you've done? I know – Avada Kedavra!"
And Yaxley's lifeless body slumped to the ground, his unseeing eyes still showing the shock of his betrayal.

They returned to Hogwarts just as breakfast was starting on Monday morning. Hermione was in the Hall; she hadn't slept much, worried for her best friend, and spotted them as soon as they appeared, making a beeline for them. Draco was sure that she just wanted to express concern for Harry's well-being; but Harry wasn't really up to it, so he settled Harry down and pulled Hermione aside.
"He had a bit of a meltdown yesterday," he explained rather apologetically. "He's done what he always does, bolted straight back into everything the moment our holiday was over, as though nothing was wrong; but he's still healing, he really needs more space than he was getting."
Hermione looked at him askance. She had thought she trusted Malfoy, but somehow being here in Hogwarts had brought all the fights and name-calling of the past to her mind, and she wasn't quite sure she could.
"Hmm," she said, tight-lipped. "I think I'll see for myself."
Draco arched an eyebrow, but made no comment or move to stop her as she walked back to the table. Draco slid in beside Harry, looking too possessive for Hermione's liking, as she sat down opposite them.
"How are you, Harry?" she asked, her voice oozing concern.
"'M fine, 'Mione," Harry replied, his voice soft. "Just needed a bit of peace and quiet."
No doubt he would have said more, but a certain red-head came into view, shouting, "Hermione! Where are you?"
"Over here, Ron," she hissed back. "And do pipe down!"
"Why?" he asked; and then he spotted the two love-birds across from his own, and his eyes went wide. "Harry! What happened?" he said, moderating his voice in response to a glare from Hermione as he sat down next to her. He looked at Draco. "What did you do to him?" he asked, a little too loud and not entirely kindly.
"I took him home so he could have a bit of peace and quiet," Draco replied, his voice the full arrogant Malfoy drawl that they had known for years. "And I think we'd all prefer it if you would give us a bit more."
Ron sat there fuming, but Harry spoke before things could get out of hand.
"He's got a point, Ron. It just got all too much for me and we escaped for the night, all right? He didn't – do – anything to me, unless you count taking me away from a gaggle of screaming Beauxbatons fan girls and letting me do whatever I wanted for the evening with no-one arguing or asking inane questions. Which actually was a very pleasant dinner with Lucius and Narcissa."
Ron's mouth opened and closed silently in a very passable imitation of a goldfish, which made Harry laugh. It was a pleasant, well-meaning laugh, though, and suddenly all of the tension in the room evaporated as Harry leant forward and spoke in a whisper.
"So guys, I'm gonna need your help, alright? Please don't let me get ganged up on; this all-over unity is great but I'm not sure we can trust everyone just yet, OK?"
Ron was amazed. In two sentences, Harry had changed from a rather broken-looking man to the Harry he knew of old: bold, determined, and above all, in charge. He could see that, whatever he had thought before, Draco was helping.
"OK," he said. "Whatever you need, we're still your friends." He turned to Draco. "And I guess, ferret, that goes for you too."
For a second, Harry worried that Draco would take umbrage at the insult; but the blond knew them too well for that. He could here the genuine concern for Harry in Weasley's voice, and that was enough. He grinned.
"OK, weasel," he replied.

The figure in the shadows slunk away, back to the Tower to check on his charges. As Ivan Smetana walked, a sly grin came over his face. The boy was still healing. Well, he had heard that he'd been hidden away for a fortnight; he had naturally assumed it was because the boy was weak, and he despised weakness. But now he knew. That was so much better than assuming.
Yes, now he knew what was going to push Potter's buttons. Malfoy had been obvious; too obvious. But clearly, he still cared about Granger and Weasley just as much as he ever had.
Good.If the plan with Malfoy didn't work, he could use his boys to drive the wedge there, to get Potter to slip away from Malfoy just a little.
Because just a little would be just enough. Then Draco Malfoy would be at his mercy.
And he would at last have his revenge on Lucius Malfoy.

They were so quick and stealthy that they very nearly escaped scot-free. The problem was, of course, that they only had two sets of robes between three; so they wasted precious time stupefying another Auror just to steal robes and wand. Precious time that meant that when they reached the little room by the front gates where brooms from incoming Aurors were stored, the alarm sounded, and spells started to fly about randomly.
They panicked, and ran. "Stupid, stupid, stupid," their leader berated them, hissing displeasure. The hissing stopped almost immediately when it became clear that the Aurors could hear it; their accuracy suddenly increased greatly. As they reached the room, a curse hit home, and the largest convict doubled over in pain.
"Get on!" the leader hissed, and the other two were quick to obey as brooms were thrown at them. Seconds later they were aloft, and after sending an Incendio at the remaining brooms to make pursuit difficult, they were away.
The leader cackled as they made landfall. A little down the coast, just where it was supposed to be, the clump of rock stood out. They made their way to it, and found a ledge which went into the rock and around, creating a space hidden from view. Casting Revelio made a small door appear in the apparently smooth granite, and the three of them entered a room hidden inside the rock.
Inside, everything was as expected. The room was small, but obviously enlarged as it was much bigger than would have fitted inside the rock. There were wardrobes of clothes, cupboards of food charmed not to spoil, and most wonderful of all, a fully functional bathroom.
An hour later, scrubbed clean and dressed in fine robes, they sat down to a pleasant, if not particularly luxurious, meal. They burned their 'borrowed' Auror robes and wands in the fireplace; no point in leaving anything that could incriminate them, especially as there was a small rack of spare wands to choose from.
Finally, they made a quick search and found a store of galleons.
"I'm impressed," the leader said. "Your department did very well, Rookwood."
The tall ex-Unspeakable smiled at the praise; though on his stiff features, it was more of a grimace.
"We aim to please, ma'am," he said, with a mock bow. But she excused his levity. After all, Azkaban was supposed to be impossible to escape from; she had just proven that false.

If the weekend had been bad, Monday was a day from Hell.
First up, there was Charms; Flitwick was in charge, of course, and his usual irrepressible twittery self; but his off-sider, that was the first problem of the day. For it turned out that the Beauxbatons chaperone, Madame Dubois, was an expert in Charms; and so they had her tutelage. It didn't take long for Harry to realise what this meant; not only were all the Beauxbatons girls trying to get him to notice them, but they were being blatantly egged on by the new teacher.
To begin with, Harry's friends found this rather funny; but that got old rather quickly when they were broken into groups of four for small-group work, and, surprise, surprise, the other three members of Harry's group were Gabrielle Delacour, Marie Thibault and Eva Thillin. And to top it off, the first charm they learnt was rather well-known to the members of the former Dumbledore's Army: the Protean charm, which links several objects together through a common purpose. Hermione groaned; she was already rather proficient at this charm, having used it on the fake galleons that the DA had used to communicate with one another.
Today's lesson was along the same lines: the groups each charmed pieces of parchment so that lines written on any of them would be replicated to all of them. They each had to send at least ten messages to one another during the next week. Great, Harry groaned. Now three Beauxbatons girls have a 'hotline to Harry' …
Harry's second period was free, while Draco studied Arithmancy. He took himself off to the library, and read through the Potions textbook to get ready for the afternoon's class, double Potions. It should have been delightful; but unfortunately, the three other members of his Charms group had other ideas. Every few minutes, one of them would write something on the parchment; it would glow a little when they did, to announce that there was a message. And of course each time, he picked it up and read it. He had to; Eva had 'helpfully' charmed it with the little glow, but when he tried to ignore the first message he found that it would speak the message out loud if he didn't actually read it straight away. And the messages the three girls write on the parchment were masterpieces of innuendo, and Harry got steadily redder and redder, much to the delight of the other students in the library. But when he was asked whether he loved Quidditch because he enjoyed the feeling of a hard broomstick between his legs, he decided that enough was enough, and simply Incendioed the page. He'd rather fail Charms than put up with this, he decided.
While sitting with his friends at lunch did help his mood a bit, the cow's-eyes that the Beauxbatons girls and their group (for they seemed to have swept up the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaw girls into one big Harry Potter fan club) kept making at him definitely did not. And the other students spent most of the meal looking daggers at him.
About half-way through the meal, it happened. Eva Thillin leant over towards him, and said, with a little girlish titter, "Zo, 'arry, you have not replied to our messages for a leetle while? Why is that?"
Harry fixed her with a glare, to which she returned what she probably thought was a coquettish look. Hell, it probably was, he thought; he just wasn't interested.
"I'm sorry," he said, making no attempt to keep the iciness out of his voice, "but I'm afraid I find your particular brand of conversation does not suit me, so I shan't be continuing."
Madame Dubois gave him an appraising look. "Just what are you trying to say, Mr Potter?" she asked imperiously.
He turned his gaze to her, and there was now no mistaking the coldness in his eyes. "I am saying that your girls have been writing things that I regard as wholly inappropriate, and I have Incendioed the parchment."
With that, he dropped his head and continued eating his lunch as though nothing had happened.
Ivan Smetana found his appetite was suddenly gone. Could this be the same boy he had seen this morning? Perhaps there was more steel in him than he had thought. But then, Mr Potter had always been full of surprises, he thought, remembering the events of the Triwizard Tournament and the stories that he had heard about it…

Harry had hoped that Potions would at least be tolerable. After all, his fiancé was a Potions genius, and he had Snape's notes to help him. What could possibly go wrong?
He had failed to reckon with two things: Potions master Horace Slughorn and Bulgarian student Stefan Ivanov.
The moment he spotted Harry, Slughorn fawned and simpered all over him; it was sickening. Admittedly he did fawn over the guest students as well, but that didn't really help Harry's temper much. Naturally, he wanted to move them all about and put them in different pairs "to promote unity", a catch-phrase Harry was growing heartily sick of; but Harry decided, after the disaster of his Charms group, that he was sitting with Draco come Hell or high water, and so smiled sweetly at his Professor and said that he really did want to sit with his fiancé, and no-one else.
While Harry's voice was sweet, his eyes were not, and Slughorn seemed to get the hint. He even backed off a bit in smarminess, which Harry felt was all to the good.
"Very well, very well. Now, are you all settled?" he asked. "Very good. Today we shall brew a potion that one of you has shown some promise in—" his smile to Harry was sickeningly sweet, and the student groaned at the teacher's exuberance, fearing what would come next. With a swish of his wand, the potion was revealed on the blackboard: they were to brew the Elixir to Induce Euphoria
There was a snort to Draco's right, and they looked over to see one of the two Durmstrang students shaking his head.
"Why do we have to brew such a trivial potion?" he asked, his voice belligerent.
Slughorn pulled himself to his full height – which was more comical than impressive, Harry thought privately, and, judging by the stifled snigger from behind him, it seemed that Ron agreed – and glowered at the boy.
"What is your name?" he demanded.
"Stefan Ivanov," the boy replied in a bored tone of voice.
"Yes," Slughorn replied. "Well, Mr Ivanov, I am, of course, aware of your accomplishments; but I'm sure you understand that I wish to start this class with something not too difficult to assess the students. After all, they have not achieved your level of mastery. I'm sure for one of your abilities, this potion will be a snap; so we all look forward to seeing the perfect potion that you brew. To begin with, perhaps you could talk us through the steps and explain each ingredient and its properties?"
"I rather thought," the boy drawled, "that you were the teacher, not me."
"Very well," Slughorn replied. "I trust that you will remember that. Now …"
And with that, he went on to discuss the ingredients himself, and the method. Harry, who had indeed brewed this potion before, while the older students were being tested for their Apparition license, sat back and tuned out a bit. He knew how to brew it, after all; and he wasn't going to follow Slughorn's instructions, not when the ones in the book were so much better. On the whole, while the tension in the room was riding high after the exchange between Slughorn and Ivanov, he had to admit that Slughorn had come out on top, making the student looking a prize ass. This was nice, in a way; but probably spelt trouble later.
Slughorn came to the end of his exposition. "Now," he finished up, "I'm sure you will all be very careful to avoid accidents, and I know no-one would dream of interfering with any other student's work." With that, and a stern glare, he sat down. Then, as no-one moved, he looked up at them again. "Well," he said, "get moving; the potion isn't going to brew itself!"
Once they started brewing, Harry couldn't help noticing the poisonous glances that were sent towards him and Draco from the two Durmstrang students. He noticed, in particular, that their eyes narrowed when he added the sprig of peppermint that Snape's instructions recommended; he made sure to watch his cauldron carefully, lest they try to interfere. Though it was going to be difficult given that Draco's was between him and them.
"Something up, Potter?" Ivanov hissed at him.
"No," he replied. "Just making sure all is well. We don't want any … accidents, understood?"
Ivanov looked daggers at him, and it was quite clear to Harry that he had got the message. "Anyway," he said, "just what are you doing? You don't seem to be following the instructions. Do you want your potion to explode?"
"No thanks," Harry said. "And I'm not that good at Potions, so I have some notes of my own that help me out a bit."
This admission seemed to mollify the other a tiny bit, and they settled back into a wary watchfulness.
It was when they added the Wormwood that things got interesting. He could see, out of the corner of his eye, Ivanov stirring; then there was the tiniest flick, and a pinch of some gold powder sailed towards Draco's cauldron. The motion was done so expertly, and the amount was so small, that you would not have seen it if you hadn't been watching. There was no time to get out his wand, and Harry didn't want people to know how good he was at wandless magic; so he grabbed Draco's wrist, and, as he had hoped, the Shield flared briefly around the powder and, to Ivanov's horror, it flew back into his cauldron.
They sat there in silence for a couple of seconds, Draco looking at Harry, wondering just why his wrist had been grabbed; and then it happened. Ivanov's cauldron simply disintegrated, emitting a cloud of blue smoke. Harry had taken advantage of the delay to whip out his wand; so he was able to cast a containment spell to keep the smoke on Ivanov's desk, where it sat, a pulsating mass, looking quite evil in colour.
"It seems, Mr Ivanov," Slughorn said through gritted teeth, as he cast a diagnostic spell, "that you have managed to put some ground Prussian splendid webcap in your potion. We must all thank Mr Potter for his swift action in securing the smoke; it would not have particularly harmed anyone, but the itchiness it would have produced is most unpleasant."
"Why would I thank him? He must have known it was there. He sabotaged my potion!" the Durmstrang student bit out, his voice rising in accusation.
"That's quite a charge, Mr Ivanov," Slughorn replied sternly, "I happen to know for a fact that we don't have any in stock, as I checked the stores yesterday; so I wonder how you would explain that an ingredient found in your native land but not readily available here might have found its way into a cauldron?"
"He is obviously trying to – how do you say – set me up!" the youth yelled in reply. With that, he got out of his seat and stormed out of the room. Or at least, he would have, if the door had not been spelled shut when he got to it.
"SIT DOWN!" Slughorn roared.
The youth, shocked, went back to his seat.
"That's better," the Professor continued. "Now, Mr Ivanov, I will not have people throwing wild accusations without proof. You will apologise to Mr Potter, and we will continue. Perhaps you had used the toadstool on a previous occasion and some spores had stuck to your robe?"
"Well, perhaps," said Ivanov, who clearly knew he was beaten and was being offered a face-saving out. Then, with a complete lack of grace, and without looking at Harry, he continued, "I apologise to Mr Potter."
"Apology accepted," said Harry. His potion was now complete, a beautiful sunshine-yellow colour, and he had an idea for a rather delicious pay-back. As he bottled it, he said. "Perhaps Stefan would try my potion for me?"
Slughorn beamed. This was exactly the unity he was trying to foster. He checked Harry's potion; it was, he was quite sure, perfect. "An excellent idea. Here you are, Mr Ivanov."
Stefan Ivanov looked at the vial he was offered as though it contained poison; but even he could see that there was no way out short of an outright declaration of hatred. He sipped the potion cautiously, and a delicious feeling of happiness spread through his body.
"Mmm.." he said. "It's wonderful!"
Half an hour later, everyone except the Bulgarian had managed to brew something more-or-less acceptable, and they left the room. Stefan was still beaming euphorically and Slughorn could not help but comment about it to Harry.
"Just brilliant, my boy! He only took a small amount, most people's potion would work for perhaps twenty minutes at the most, but yours shows every sign of lasting a while yet. I shouldn't be surprised if he bursts into song during dinner."
Harry nodded, thanking the Potions Professor for his kind words; but in truth fervently hoped that Ivanov would do no such thing. He was quite sure that he was in enough trouble already after the events of the day; the Bulgarian was going to be murder to deal with once the euphoria had worn off.
It looked like it was going to be a hell of a week.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I have set up a thread for replies at http://www2.adult-fanfiction.org/forum/index.php/topic/56042-review-replies-for-returning-to-sanity/ . Please indicate which chapter you are reading, as aff doesn't make that clear. I will generally try to reply to posts before posting a new chapter.
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Returning to Sanity