Chapter Text
Before I knew which life was mine,
Before I left the child behind me,
I saw myself in summer nights
And stars lit up like candle light.
I make my wish, but mostly I believe
—“Once Upon Another Time,” Sara Bareilles
Saturday #1 | 2 November 1996
“Watch where you’re going, Potter!”
Harry leveled his broom with Malfoy’s, so close their knees bumped. The rain that pelted them earlier in the match had tapered to a heavy mist. The Snitch had yet to appear in the fast-paced game. Angry shouts echoed below the two hovering Seekers. The Quidditch pitch was a field of thick mud and overturned turf.
Harry was grateful for the Impervius charm Ginny had done to his glasses. From just the walk onto the pitch, his uniform and boots were drenched and filthy. Malfoy had somehow completely avoided the mud; his robes were pristine, dry as a bone—probably spelled to resist dirt and rain. The only sign Malfoy had even stepped outside was that his normally perfectly-tended blond hair hung about his ears in thick, wet strands.
Harry leaned toward the Slytherin Seeker, almost leering.
“Make me, Malfoy.”
Malfoy’s lips curled back. Harry grinned inwardly; he could always gain the upper hand with Malfoy, no matter how collected the pale-faced boy appeared. It thrilled him, every time.
“Might I remind you, Scarhead,” Malfoy snarled, wiping his brow, “that you’re a worthless orphan with tainted blood and an ugly mark on your head? You should have let the Dark Lord finish you off.” He tried to shove Harry away with his shoulder.
“Been practicing saying that to me?” asked Harry calmly, not budging. He turned his gaze to the pitch momentarily then looked back at Malfoy, whose eyes were the same color as the sky and equally stormy. “Quite a speech. Maybe you should have finished me off yourself on the train. But you can never fully execute the job, can you?”
“You’re a coward, Potter,” Malfoy said in a low, dangerous voice. “Come to me when you’re ready to play for real. We’ll have a proper duel.”
They weren’t talking about Quidditch now; they weren’t even paying attention to the pitch. The audience roared up at them in frustration; the Snitch had appeared, then winked away, over Madam Hooch’s left shoulder. Snape and McGonagall shook their fists nearly in unison. Ignoring them, Harry raised his eyebrows at Malfoy.
“You think breaking my nose scared me, Malfoy? Think again. And I’m not playing. You should be careful around me.”
“Why should I be, Potter?” Malfoy smirked. “You’re not half the wizard I am.”
“You mean a stuck-up prat who can’t levitate a wine glass?” Harry shot back, catching the sneer about half-bloods. “Who can’t get Slughorn’s attention no matter how hard he tries? Whose tosser of a father is a Death Eater?”
Anger pulsated off Malfoy. Harry felt deep satisfaction in mocking Malfoy, in making him react this way. Malfoy was only on the pitch that morning because the Slytherin Seeker was ill. He had quit the team, but Snape made him play. He shouldn’t have been there at all.
“If I were anything like the wizard you are, Malfoy, I’d have cursed myself into the Janus Thickey Ward. Save the world some trouble.”
“Do you know what people say about your father, Potter?” Malfoy growled. “That he—”
“At least my dad died trying to protect his family.” Now Harry’s blood began to boil, the ferocity of it making him bare his teeth. “What has your father ever done, besides hurt little girls and stand in Voldemort’s shadow? How’s rotting in Azkaban going for him, anyway?”
Malfoy bit his lip hard, enough to draw blood. He glowered at his rival Seeker, his pale cheeks glowing pink with fury. Harry chuckled darkly, then banked away before Malfoy could retort. Whatever he had to say, it didn’t matter. Harry soared over the Quidditch pitch, exhilarated.
The Snitch twinkled at the opposite end of the pitch, close to the Hufflepuff stands.
In an instant Harry and Malfoy were off, diving so sharply toward the ground that anyone else would have their hearts in their throats. Instead, Harry laughed. He and Malfoy raced neck and neck through the players. He knew he would catch the Snitch, knew it as clearly as he knew he was Harry James Potter, but he loved the risk Malfoy posed—the only competition that stood a chance of beating him. It spurred him on toward the Snitch.
Malfoy’s ultimate downfall was his restraint, his anger. He was too aware of Harry and the proximity distracted him. He was brilliant on a broom—more graceful than Harry—but too controlled, too controlling. It showed in the anxious lines around his mouth, in his spelled-dry robes. He lacked Harry’s fearlessness, his commitment, his reckless attitude to flight that gave Harry the edge. The Slytherin boy shouted with frustration as Harry began to pull ahead. The gold ball flashed before them, silver wings sparkling in the mist. A fierce smile contorting his face, Harry reached forward, his fingers about to close around the—
Pain blossomed in the back of his head.
Dimly, he saw a round black shape spinning away from him as he slammed into Malfoy.
Then, as if time had slowed to a creeping pace, he felt himself falling from his broom, out of the sky, towards the trampled earth. There were screams around him. He wondered dimly what all the fuss was. If he could just reach the ground and submit himself to it, the shooting ache promised to disappear...
He woke slowly, roused by concerned voices whispering around him. Harry tried to focus on the words, to determine their owners, but his concentration kept slipping away. The back of his skull pounded, aching as if it had been split in two. He wondered vaguely if it actually had. As he slowly emerged from the fog of sleep and pain, the words began to take shape.
“...break...”
“So scary—”
“...Pomfrey says he’ll be fine.”
What?
“—fell fifty feet before Draco and Thomas caught him,” said someone softly, a girl’s voice.
Who is that? Harry wondered. Hermione? Katie? Ginny? Why would they call Malfoy…?
“So much blood, ’thought he was going to die—”
Who...? Harry wondered.
“But he didn’t, you twit, so shut it,” a voice replied sharply. It sounded familiar, a haughty tone tense and clipped, but Harry struggled to make the connection.
A sigh. “Thank Merlin.”
“It was almost a brilliant catch, but when it hit him—Weasley—”
Oh. The Quidditch match. The Bludger.
Harry’s eyes flew open, and he immediately agreed with the death sentiment. A moan of pain escaped him as he saw stars.
“Harry! You’re awake!”
Harry struggled to sit up, but was hit with a wave of dizziness. He let someone help him fall back against the mattress.
“Wazgoinon?” he slurred, surprised at the coarseness of his voice.
He tried looking around but wasn’t wearing his glasses so he had to squint. The bodies moving around him were a blur. Someone pressed his glasses into his hand.
When he settled them on his nose, six faces came into sharp, alarming focus—the faces of Draco Malfoy, Blaise Zabini, Gregory Goyle, Vincent Crabbe, and two younger Slytherin girls he didn’t know. Zabini, he realized somewhat belatedly, was gripping his wrist tightly but grinning widely at him. The last time Harry had seen Zabini was in Slughorn’s class, when Zabini had shouldered him into a cabinet and laughed.
“WHAT THE—!”
Harry jerked away from them, ripping out of Zabini’s grasp as he tried to scramble out of the hospital bed. He ended up in a tangle of sheets and hit the back of his head hard on the bed frame. Harry struggled to ignore the nausea building up. It proved difficult, given that he would never want Slytherins surrounding him—especially bedridden—and given that the room was tilting at the same time.
“Hold him down!” someone yelled.
“Get Madam Pomfrey! She’s with Dumbledore!” Malfoy snarled to one of the girls, struggling to hold onto Harry’s arms as he flailed them about. Harry got his left arm loose and swung, hitting Zabini squarely in the jaw.
Zabini remained remarkably unfazed. “Merlin’s balls, Potter, get a hold of yourself!” he said.
Together he and Malfoy pinned Harry’s arms down at his sides, Goyle and Crabbe managing to hold down his legs. Somehow the other girl got on top of him, pushing on his chest to keep him down.
Harry stopped struggling abruptly, the pain in his head blooming so much that he saw stars. He gasped for air, gaping at the girl straddling him with wide, shocked eyes.
“Oh, fuck,” Harry groaned, “I’ve stepped into another universe.”
There was an awkward silence as Harry caught his breath. The Slytherins exchanged wary glances until Harry rasped shakily to the girl on top of him, “Can you—can you please get off me?”
The girl bit her lip, looking at him with genuine concern. She nodded finally, and crawled off him. Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and Zabini, however, did not let go.
Harry stared up at the Slytherins, perplexed and groggy. He saw all five wore Quidditch robes caked with mud—even the ever-pristine Malfoy. Harry looked down at himself. He was, to his horror, dressed in identical green and silver robes, streaked with turf, dried blood, and what looked suspiciously like vomit. The sight made his head swim.
“What the hell is going on?” he managed in a strangled voice. “What happened?”
Zabini grimaced, as if reliving the incident. He wore the captain’s badge on his left breast. Harry had never seen Zabini on the pitch, much less a uniform.
“Bludger,” he said gruffly, “hit the back of your head and you—”
“I know that!” Harry snapped.
He looked around at them guardedly, still working to control his breathing. He was dressed in Slytherin colors, surrounded by spawn of known Death Eaters who were addressing him as a friend, and he had the terrifying feeling he wasn’t dreaming—because dreams weren’t supposed to hurt. The pain in the back of his head was almost blinding. He was sure to throw up, soon. He pushed on, frustrated and needing to know what was going on. Maybe it was just a prank—
“I mean, what the bloody hell am I doing here?” Harry demanded, trying to shrug off Malfoy. “What are you lot doing here? What am I doing in these robes—argh, let me go, Zabini!”
“Calm down, Harry!” Malfoy hissed.
Harry goggled at Malfoy, stunned by the concern laced in the Slytherin’s voice. The two of them had traded terrible insults in what felt like minutes ago. The blond boy had mud in his hair, dirt streaked across an arrogant, angular cheekbone.
“That weasel nearly halved the back of your skull with that Bludger—he wasn’t even supposed to be holding the bat. Filthy,” Malfoy spat. “The lot of them, but most of all him!”
“Snape better give him the one-two,” Crabbe growled.
“Nasty,” sniffed the girl, whose dark auburn hair was pulled back in a severe ponytail and whose hazel eyes blazed angrily. “Just nasty of him.”
“Nasty?” Zabini demanded, furious. “Against the rules, bloody dangerous, and downright low, the louse!”
“Shut your gob about my brother!” another voice shouted, “or I’ll tell Professor McGonagall!”
The Slytherin team whirled around. Harry followed their glares. Between Zabini and Goyle, halfway across the hospital wing near the doors, he spotted Ginny. She was sitting on a hospital bed, propped up by pillows, her leg in a temporary cast. She bore her scarlet and gold Quidditch uniform; she too was covered in muck, a muddy smear on her forehead. She scowled at the Slytherins. Though relieved to see a familiar face, Harry’s mouth fell open at the hostility in her eyes; he had never seen Ginny so angry.
“Believe me, Weasley,” Zabini snarled, advancing on her, “when I get through with your blood traitor brother for what he did to Potter, I’ll beat the living—HARRY, STOP!”
Harry tried to launch himself off the bed toward her, taking advantage of the Slytherins’ lack of attention on him. He kicked loose, first from Goyle’s grasp then from Crabbe, yelling nonsensically at the top of his lungs.
“Derrin, get back!” Malfoy snapped at the girl.
“Harry, she’s not the weasel you want!” the girl shouted at Harry.
The four boys wrestled Harry back onto the bed—he nearly put both feet on the ground—though Crabbe and Goyle suffered several blows in his efforts. Harry was still shouting after they subdued him, but stopped abruptly when he heard laughter. It was Ginny. She had slumped back against her pillows in hysterics.
“Potter’s gone mad!” she gasped, wiping tears from her eyes.
“You’re a rather brave little rodent,” Zabini sneered in a low voice, “for being confined to a bed.”
Ginny stopped laughing and glowered formidably.
“I’ll hex you if you come near me, Blaise Zabini,” she shot back, her wand suddenly in her hand.
Zabini balled his hands into fists before he launched into a scathing retort. Harry turned his attention back to the other boys holding him down. Malfoy’s dark grey eyes were trained on him. He shifted uncomfortably. The Slytherin’s hands were on him.
“Let me go,” Harry growled at Malfoy, who shook his head.
“No need to be angry,” Goyle said quietly. Goyle looked worried about him, but Harry wasn’t in the mood to care or wonder why.
“Harry, just calm down,” Malfoy muttered, as Zabini and Ginny traded insults. He placed a hand on Harry’s shoulder to urge him back into a reclining position. “You’re injured and Madam Pomfrey says—”
“Don’t touch me, Malfoy,” Harry warned in a dangerous voice, his defensive instincts catching up with him and overcoming his confusion in the situation. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he knew he had to get someone’s attention and Malfoy was preventing him from getting to Ginny.
“Don’t be ridiculous—ouch, Harry!”
Harry had pushed Malfoy away roughly, nearly sending him sprawling.
“Ginny!” Harry yelled. The Slytherins’ heads whipped around to him. “Ginny, please!” Harry begged, ignoring them, trying to send a silent message to Ginny with his eyes, just in case the Slytherins were a part of whatever was happening. “Where’s your brother? Where is—”
Ginny’s eyes flashed at him, her lip curling. If possible, she looked even angrier than a few minutes before. Shocked, Harry closed his mouth.
“Don’t you dare talk to me, Potter,” she snapped. “Not after what you did.” She gestured angrily to her leg with her wand hand, white sparks showering the floor below her cot.
Harry felt a horrible sense of foreboding go through him.
“What’s going on?” he said, tentatively. His heart was beating wildly in his chest. “Gin, is this some sort of joke?”
Ginny laughed. “Your precious Seeker has gone mad, hasn’t he?” She pointed at Zabini. “I’ll tell you this, Zabini—Potter threw me off my broom and Professor Snape didn’t call it. Potter almost died? Ha! I fell fifty feet and Potter’s bloody lucky it didn’t kill me, or once and for all he’d—”
Zabini called Ginny a filthy name that made Harry blind with rage, but Malfoy, the girl called Derrin, Crabbe, and Goyle were able to restrain him that time.
“She’s not worth it!” Malfoy hissed, so close his lips grazed the shell of Harry’s ear. Harry jerked away.
“Go on, whinge to McGonagall, Weasley!” Zabini was saying angrily to Ginny. “Your freckle-faced arse of a brother could well be expelled for what he did to Harry! He’d already smashed in Harry’s head when Harry hit you—he was out cold!” Emboldened, Zabini shot her a wicked grin. “And even then you couldn’t catch the Snitch against him, could you?”
Ginny’s face flushed with fury—a red comparable to her fiery hair—but before she could say anything else, the doors of the infirmary burst open. Madam Pomfrey and the other fifth-year Slytherin girl hurried into the wing, followed closely by a group of students chattering loudly.
They all fell silent when they saw the Slytherin team: Malfoy was nearly sitting on Harry now; Crabbe and Goyle had his legs locked in their arms; and Derrin, much stronger than she looked, had pulled his right arm back behind him so he couldn’t hit anyone. Despite this, Harry was struggling with them and still putting up a good fight. He tried to push Malfoy off again with his free hand.
“MR. ZABINI! MR. MALFOY! POTTER!” Madam Pomfrey shouted. “What in the name of Merlin is going on here?”
Zabini seemed to sort himself, giving Ginny a last heated glare before he answered, “Harry keeps trying to get up, Madam Pomfrey, and he won’t listen that he’s hurt—”
“I’m fine!” Harry tried to shout over Zabini.
“He hit Blaise,” said the Slytherin girl who had brought Pomfrey. She looked scared.
“Accidentally, of course,” Derrin added quickly, shooting the girl a meaningful look.
And Crabbe and Goyle, Harry thought with grim satisfaction. And I’m about to slap Malfoy, maybe break that stupid pointy nose of his, he bloody deserves it after—
“—just let me up! Get off of me, Malfoy! Madam Pomfrey!” Harry said, loudly enough to make the mediwitch flinch as she approached. “What’s going on?”
“Potter’s a nutter!” Ginny chimed in cheerfully, causing the group that had followed Madam Pomfrey into the wing to giggle. “Mad as a box of Kneazles!”
“What do you mean, ‘What’s going on,’ Mr. Potter?” Madam Pomfrey said irritably, glancing at the other members of the Slytherin team. She froze.
Goyle and Crabbe were now clutching their bloody faces, as if they hadn’t realized what Harry had done to them until that moment. A large bruise was blooming on Zabini’s cheek, but he didn’t seem to care. Derrin’s sweaty hair was stuck in odd angles across her face. Somehow Harry had managed to rip Malfoy’s Quidditch uniform at the shoulder.
Madam Pomfrey turned back to Harry; the sour look on her face surprised him.
“You hit your head during the Quidditch match. You had a concussion, and you are now in the hospital wing so you may recover. And apparently injure your own teammates.”
Derrin snorted. “He didn’t hit his head, Weasley’s Bludger—”
“Harry’s confused, is all,” Zabini cut in. Harry didn’t miss his attempt to avoid conflict now that there was a staff member in the room. “Disoriented, of course, from the match—”
“I can speak for myself!” Harry said impatiently.
He looked around and stopped at Malfoy, who was straddling his legs and whose hands were holding down his chest. The Slytherin stared back probingly, with a strange look in his eyes. Harry tore his eyes away, disconcerted.
His head began to pound again—he’d almost forgotten the headache in all the chaos, but now it all came back in one fell swoop—and his vision swam again. He tried to ignore it, closing his eyes against a wave of sick. It would serve Malfoy right if Harry sicked all over him.
“I mean, what’s going on?” he demanded to the darkness of his closed eyelids. “Why am I here? Why am I wearing the Slytherin club robes?”
There was a familiar laugh.
“Did Potter just ask why he’s wearing Slytherin colors?” the person who had laughed asked. “Blimey, I’ve been asking myself the same thing ever since he sold his soul. He should be wearing black and white. Black for his robes and white for his mask—”
“Ron!” Harry’s eyes flew open, heart skipping.
The sniggering crowd, which had stopped at Ginny’s bed, fell silent. Harry realized the group was a knot of Gryffindors, some of whom wore scarlet Quidditch uniforms and were as muddy as the Slytherin team was, if not more so. He saw Ron, and standing beside his best friend was a very familiar, bushy-haired girl.
“RON! HERMIONE!”
The Slytherin team, which had been glowering at Ron in a very unfriendly way, had Harry’s undivided attention again. Several things happened then. Harry once more lunged forward off the hospital cot, or tried to, and found himself suddenly under a pile of bodies trying to hold him down. Madam Pomfrey was shouting for order amidst cursing and randomly thrown hexes as the Slytherins—significantly outnumbered, but more ruthless—began to fight some of the Gryffindors. From an ensuing shriek and flapping of leathery wings, Harry was certain Ginny had let loose a Bat-Bogey Hex.
Harry bellowed and fought against the people holding him down—he wasn’t even sure who they were anymore.
Amidst the ensuing chaos, a potion was forced down his throat. He tried to spit it out, but couldn’t.
An abrupt, irresistible sense of ease came over him, erasing the nausea, the anger, the pain, the confusion. He wondered, with a bit of a smile on his face, why everyone was fighting and shouting. Why couldn't they just stop so he could take a nice nap?
Really, he thought as things became less focused, there was no reason to fuss. He had no idea why he was so worried about his robes or the way Malfoy looked at him. He could only see blurred faces swirling around him—at some point in the melee, his glasses had been knocked off. The faces and the voices were fading, fading, until everything went black.
When Harry woke for the second time that day, the hospital wing was dark and eerily silent. He remained still upon waking this time, the headache in the back of his skull still angry and unrelenting, though much reduced from its earlier intensity. He was nauseated. Madam Pomfrey would make him clean the bed and floor himself, should the contents of his stomach expel themselves. He didn’t relish that idea much. Just in case, he flicked his eyes toward Madam Pomfrey’s office toward the front of the room, but it was too dark to see if she was still in there.
Harry stared at the ceiling, the afternoon slowly coming back to him. He went over it in his head.
After a Bludger to the head, he had woken in this room surrounded by Slytherins. The Gryffindors and Slytherins all acted like Harry were a snake himself. That wasn’t right. The way Ginny and Ron had glared at him, Malfoy’s breath in his ear, the looks on the Slytherins’ faces—Harry shuddered.
Must have been a dream...
“You’re awake, then,” an unfortunately familiar voice beside him said.
“AHH!”
“Harry!” Malfoy clamped his hand over Harry’s mouth and grabbed his wrist with his other hand. “It’s almost one in the morning,” he hissed as Harry stilled, shocked again that Malfoy was touching him. “Madam Pomfrey went to bed, but it’s not as if she and the rest of the castle are a kilometre under the sea wearing earmuffs. She’s livid over this afternoon—do you really want her to have her screech at us for half an hour for being disturbances again?”
Harry stared at Malfoy for a long time, mind whirring, then got his wits about him. Slowly he shook his head. Malfoy nodded, releasing him. Harry groped in the dim for his wand. He found it on the bedside tray, his fingers curling around the shaft. It felt awkward in his hand and he nearly dropped it. He was shaking.
“—you can’t keep screaming your head off,” Malfoy was saying. “People will think you’ve actually gone mad. Honestly, what’s the matter with you?”
Before Harry could respond, Malfoy rolled his eyes and slid off the bed elegantly. He had changed out of his mangled Quidditch robes since that afternoon. He brushed invisible dust off his expensive-looking cloak.
“Ponce,” Harry said without thinking. He clapped a hand over his mouth.
“Yes, well,” Malfoy sniffed, “we can’t all look dashingly handsome in a thick coating of mud like you can, Potter.” He eyed Harry’s filthy robes with clear disdain. “Pomfrey told me to take you back to the dormitory once you woke up. You’ll need to shower before going back to bed, because I won’t have dirt all over the floors.”
Harry rubbed a hand over his face and pushed himself into a sitting position. His mind was still foggy. His head pounded with an increasingly wicked headache.
“Is it opposite day?” he muttered to himself, but Malfoy heard him and arched an eyebrow. Harry winced. “It’s, er, after midnight?”
“Yes and I am tired, I will have you know,” Malfoy replied impatiently. “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up since Pomfrey gave you that damned sleeping potion. One can only revise Arithmancy so long. You’ve been asleep for going on seven hours, minus the hour you were unconscious after the match. You gave Blaise a rather remarkable bruise. Did he really deserve that? Crabbe, I understand, of course.”
Dumfounded, Harry stared at Malfoy. Was what Malfoy said true—did the events of the afternoon really happen? Was he dreaming all of this?
“You’ve—you’ve been here that long? With me?”
“I showered, changed, had tea, and ate supper,” Malfoy huffed. “You’re obviously not part of my every waking moment.”
“Why?”
“I do it all the time,” Malfoy said archly, as if Harry should have been well aware that Draco Malfoy regularly sat at his hospital bedside.
“You w—” Harry stopped, shook his head, and took a deep breath. “What happened?”
“At the Quidditch match, you mean?” Malfoy looked at him critically, raising his eyebrow again. It was an oddly elegant gesture, and completely pompous.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t remember?”
“Not really,” Harry said hesitantly. “I—I mean, I know I got hit, and I remember waking up, but not how...”
Malfoy waved a hand in front of him, in a pretentious but so Malfoy way that, despite the unnerving situation, Harry had to suppress a laugh.
“Weasley got a hold of a bat without anyone noticing and sent the Bludger toward you when your back was turned. The bastard refuses to acknowledge or apologize, and that git Dumbledore won’t expel him, no matter how many owls my parents and Blaise’s mother have sent already about the incident. He doesn’t care that we’re worried sick about you—”
Harry stared at Malfoy with his mouth hanging open. Malfoy frowned at him.
“What, did you think Dumbledore would actually give a sickle about your well-being? Not after you told him off last year, obviously. Anyway... After the Bludger hit you, you flew into female Weasley before you fell off your broom. She careened into a goal post, broke her leg. She claims you did it on purpose, but everyone knows that’s not true. Dean Thomas and I caught you before you hit the ground. By the way, that’s the last time I save your life, it’s utterly exhausting.”
Harry couldn’t believe that the boy with whom he had traded scathing barbs with him that morning was speaking so amiably to him now. And had he said Harry was handsome? Harry wasn’t sure his ears were working properly.
His mind—not to mention his heart—raced.
Malfoy, Madam Pomfrey, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and a host of other students treated him like Harry was a Slytherin and he was certainly dressed the part. Under the dried mud, the Quidditch robes remained emerald green. Someone had removed his boots and leather pads.
What a bizarre dream, to have Malfoy speaking to him civilly. It must be a nightmare, but were bad dreams so...mundane?
But if this were a dream, why did his head hurt?
“Why am I still dirty?” Harry asked instead.
Malfoy actually laughed. “I suppose someone could have dealt with that.”
“Yeah, they should have done,” Harry groused. He winced as he sat up straighter.
“I have a pass for you should we run into Filch,” Malfoy continued as he tucked a paperback book into his robes. “Pomfrey wants you back here after breakfast for an evaluation. She says you’re fine, but ‘a night’s rest in your own bed will help you relax.’” Rolling his eyes again, Malfoy gestured to the table beside the bed. “She’s left a calming draught for you, which we might as well leave because you’ll just toss it in the rubbish—”
He faltered as Harry uncorked the bottle immediately, downing the contents in a single swallow. Harry coughed, uncomfortable under Malfoy’s scrutiny. Perhaps he should have listened to Malfoy first. He clearly expected certain behavior from him—or rather from the Slytherin version of Harry.
“Er…”
The potion seeped into him, bringing with it more clarity and focus. He didn’t care that it was artificially-induced; he was grateful for the calm washing over him. He seemed less likely to vomit now. His heart rate slowed.
Harry shook himself then said, “I think I should listen to her. This time. You lot said I was in a right state.”
Malfoy nodded, slowly. Harry met his gaze, trying to keep his face neutral. He dragged himself out of the hospital cot and found his shoes. He smacked them on the floor to knock off mud. Malfoy wrinkled his nose.
After Harry had laced his boots and straightened, he was surprised when Malfoy offered him a cloak of similar quality to his own. He shrugged it on over the Quidditch robes, pocketing his wand when it seemed like Malfoy wasn’t going to attack him. He followed the Slytherin out into the cold, moonlit corridor. He stayed a half-step behind him, in case Malfoy decided to try something.
The hushed shadows of the castle pressed around them, making the trip to the stairs leading to the dungeons seem oddly intimate.
They walked in silence. There was something very strange going on here, Harry reflected, and he was only beginning to get an inkling of the situation. Something in the world had changed. Drastically. Especially since Malfoy kept addressing him like...well, a friend.
“It was awful, you know.”
Harry started at Malfoy’s soft words, drifting through the darkness. “What was?”
Malfoy glanced at him, sighing after an odd pause.
“You seemed confused when you woke up.”
“I took a Bludger to the head,” Harry protested.
“You don’t have to abide this sort of treatment, Harry,” Malfoy growled inexplicably, as if continuing a well-tracked conversation. He ran a pale hand along the grey stone walls. “With enough pressure on the school governors, my father could get at least one of them expelled. The Weasleys are sodding Muggle lovers just like Dumbledore, and Dumbledore will do anything to protect a blood traitor, especially them, but—”
Furious, Harry seethed, “Malfoy—”
Malfoy threw up his hands. “Excuse me, Mr. Potter, I know. No politics around you. My sincerest apologies for feeling strongly about those bloody fools trying to kill you.”
Harry came up short. “Just...shut it, would you?” he muttered.
Malfoy sighed, muttering under his breath.
Harry’s anxiety fought the calming draught with each step, but the potion kept him from trying to throttle Malfoy. They relapsed into silence, Harry ill at ease as they passed the Potions classroom, Snape’s office, and the corridors and doors leading to other parts of the castle’s depths. When they reached their destination, Harry learned the password was “semper sursum.”
The Slytherin common room had not changed much since Harry last visited under his Polyjuice disguise in second year. It was cold here, in the dungeons under the lake. Harry was grateful for the cloak. The tall, thick windows looked out into murky water, but Harry swore he saw something like a tentacle hovering just on the edge of sight. The sounds of the lake overhead and around them made Harry feel sick again. Embers glowed faintly from the central hearth. He stood just past the entrance for a moment, taking in the unfamiliar furnishings, until he realized Malfoy had crossed the empty room to a gloomy passageway. Harry hurried after him.
They walked down a hallway with seven heavy wooden doors on one side and darkened windows on the other, lit only by a few low torches. Malfoy pushed through the last door. The dormitory they entered was a long rectangle-shaped room with five four-posters on the left and wardrobes opposite each bed. Several wood stoves kept the room from being completely frigid, their embers burning low in the grates. The first three beds were occupied, the hangings all closed. There was a door, slightly ajar, between the third and fourth wardrobes; it led into a tiled room, which Harry guessed was a bathroom. The placement of the door set the last two beds farther away from the others.
Malfoy went to the fourth bed in the line and started shucking his robes, which meant Harry had the last four-poster. He approached it cautiously. It was a perfectly ordinary bed, but nothing about it said “Harry” at all. His bed in Gryffindor was often unmade, or had his clothes and schoolwork strewn across it. The covers of this new bed were tightly made, a pair of slippers tucked under the frame the only indication someone occupied the bed. There were no photos or momentos, just a bronze clock on the bedside table.
The absence of personality lifted him momentarily until he saw that his trunk—and it was definitely his—sat at the foot.
Reluctantly he hung up the cloak in the wardrobe and bent to remove his shoes. When he straightened, he felt disoriented. Malfoy was there in an instant, gripping his elbow until he stopped swaying. Once he had his wits about him again, Harry shook off Malfoy’s hand. Malfoy’s face did something complicated.
“Harry—”
“Er. I’m going to shower. Like you said.”
Harry tried to ignore Malfoy changing for bed as he dug through the wardrobe. In the dark he found a t-shirt, a pair of pyjama bottoms, fresh pants, and what felt like a toiletry kit. Without looking at Malfoy, he hurried to the bathroom and closed the door behind him. There were several sinks, shower stalls, urinals, and cubicles. It was a perfectly ordinary dormitory bathroom, white-tiled with details picked out in soft and dark greens. He wasn’t sure why he expected it to be extraordinary in any way.
Harry spent a long time under the hot spray, turning over the situation in his mind. When he woke that morning before the match, he had been a Gryffindor. Now, everyone around him thought he was a Slytherin. It was absurd. But too many things made it clear this wasn’t some feverish fantasy.
The chill in his bones thawing under the heat of his shower, he went over the reasons. The fierce anger that had shot through him when Malfoy insulted his friends, waking up twice to Malfoy’s pale face watching him, the aches shooting through him, the way his stomach kept turning over, Ginny’s taunts—it was all too real. And it had gone on far too long to reasonably be a dream. He pinched himself as hard as he could, rewarded only with a sharp pain radiating from his forearm. The bathroom walls stayed green, his headache remained.
It felt like someone had plucked him up and deposited him into some parallel universe, where the Sorting Hat had ignored his pleas of “Not Slytherin, not Slytherin.”
Thinking about it made his head hurt more. His muscles ached. He took deep breaths, trying to let the calming draught and shower do their work. He decided that he needed to play this out, whatever was going on, at least until he could talk to someone he could trust—namely Dumbledore. But it was too late to wake anyone tonight.
Malfoy was still awake when Harry emerged from the bathroom, toweling his hair. The blond boy sat reading on his bed. He looked up at Harry. Harry had never seen Malfoy in his pyjamas, which were light blue; the sight was bizarre. Malfoy seemed almost surprised by Harry as well.
Uncomfortable, Harry pretended to himself that turning his back on Malfoy was perfectly normal and not greatly disturbing. He kicked his filthy Quidditch robes under the bed and deposited the bathroom kit on the trunk.
He wondered what his acting “normal” looked like to Malfoy and the other Slytherins. He didn’t want to raise any suspicion. Was he supposed to hiss at the other students? That was stupid—why would he think that? It’s not like the Slytherins were actual snakes, he didn’t need to speak Parseltongue to them...
“Potter!” Malfoy snapped.
Harry jumped, realizing Malfoy had been trying to get his attention for some time. Malfoy was standing beside him again, holding out something to him: his wand.
Harry accepted it, blinking rapidly. He left it on the bedside table while he showered. Why had he done that? He was in Slytherin territory! Malfoy had taken his wand! And then—given it back.
“Er,” said Harry. Malfoy narrowed his eyes. Harry stumbled for words. “My head, y’know. And the potion. Still a bit dazed.”
“I don’t know why Pomfrey even let you leave the hospital wing,” Malfoy huffed. “Probably because she didn’t want to see your ugly face too early in the morning. What rubbish.”
Well, that’s rather rude, Harry thought, especially when he remembered that Malfoy had called him handsome in the hospital wing. He felt a keen need to defend himself, but Malfoy got into bed without another word and disappeared behind the curtains.
Reluctantly and not feeling tired at all, Harry climbed into bed, the linens a dark green instead of their usual crimson. He yanked the hangings closed. To his surprise, he heard Malfoy murmur a spell and sensed a gentle crackle of magic as a privacy ward surged over Malfoy’s four-poster. Harry knew how to do these, but the Gryffindor sixth years rarely used them—except when they really needed privacy.
After he was fairly certain Malfoy had fallen asleep, he walked the length of the room quietly, dragging a hand questioningly over the bedposts. Sure enough, each four-poster was warded in some way.
The Slytherins must not trust each other, he thought grimly. Good thing, too, since I don’t trust them either.
Malfoy’s magic was cool to the touch, adamantine beneath his fingertips. The second and third beds bore rough-shod protective spells, weak across the sides, blistering at the corners, and nearly identical; Harry guessed Crabbe and Goyle slept there. Their spells would erode in a few hours. That left the first bed for Zabini, where the wards crackled.
He returned to the last four-poster, thinking hard. He eventually came up with a combination of a silencing spell and a tacking spell that would prevent someone from easily opening the curtains. It wasn’t the strongest spell, and his magic seemed a bit shaky. A remarkably reasonable voice in his head reminded him that he was stressed. Under the circumstances, it was better than nothing.
As the imperfect wards fell into place, he finally noticed. The light from his spells had illuminated the shaft of his wand.
The wand did not belong to him.