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Harry Potter fanfic from 2003!
Since I just posted - as my final argument on ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
poetry, a poem (Snake, by D. H. Lawrence) that always makes me want to write fic, I thought I ought to actually post some of the fic I have written around the poem.
Also,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
siegeofangels just posted about how she likes seeing people post stories that failed, that never quite worked and will never be finished. Well, I think this was the Harry Potter novel I was working on when I first friended her - in, what, 2003? It would have to be, this pre-dates OOTP.
So, yeah. Seven-year-old fic! Yay! What went wrong that I never finished it? Mostly that I was trying to do way too much - the bits of this novel that I have wind together so many characters, so many plot threads, so many things I wanted to say that even if I'd had the stamina to finish it, it would've been a giant unfollowable mess of a story. And I think I sensed that at the time, because I spent a lot of effort trying to figure out how to structure the plot, when I should probably have instead been cutting things out of it, or just writing the damn thing.
Anyway, I have here just pulled out the scenes that string together into a story about Ginny Weasley and Draco Malfoy striking up an unlikely alliance, which were in fact *directly* based on the Lawrence poem (as you'll see particularly in the first scene, which follows it terribly closely.) Pulling out just that thread works surprisingly well, actually - while I wouldn't call it complete by any means (you can clearly see all the dangling ends where other plot threads were meant to weave in, and several of the conversations cut off before the important things happen, and much of the middle of the story is missing) it's actually fairly coherent, and the most of the missing bits don't really interfere with what's going on with Draco and Ginny. So, verdict: if I was still interested in working on this, I think I would be tempted to re-work it as just the Draco & Ginny friendship plot, probably set during either book six or a post-book-seven Hogwarts year; none of the stuff in the D&G plot really got contradicted in the last four books. But I'd have to re-work everything around them.
So, Verdict: suprisingly readable as-is, interesting historical artifact, works best if you have recently read the Snake poem.
ETA: I suppose I should warn that non-explicit consent issues come up in this - they come up in the part that I didn't ever actually *write*, so in this version they exist only as a short bracketed plot summary insert - but I shall warn anyway.
Thread 2: Something to Expiate
The black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous
----David Lawrence, Snake
She didn't go down there very often anymore, but tonight of all nights she felt she couldn't bear to stay in her dormitory room, listening to her idiotic roommates giggle and trade Cheating Charms, and a place that no one else could find sounded like a very attractive way of wallowing in self-pity and the stifling September heat. She slipped a heavy black cloak over her pajamas, which had once been Ron's and had bright orange snitches on them, then pulled the curtains aside from her bed and said, very loudly, "I'm going to work in the Common Room. Don't wait up for me."
The other girls stared at her, and she walked with dignity out the door and down the stairs, pretending very hard that she hadn't heard the worried whispering that began as soon as turned her back. As she'd hoped, the common room was empty at this hour: yes, part of the Gryffindor Code of Honor was not noticing when your housemates were roaming the school after hours, but at the same time all she needed was for it to get around that Ginny Weasley was going on mysterious midnight trips again.
The Fat Lady winked at her, and smirked. Ginny was strongly tempted to borrow a leaf from Sirius Black's book and punch her out, but rather thought it wouldn't be worth the trouble. The only other obstacles she might face were Peeves, Filch, and the occasional insomniac teacher, but she knew how to handle them. Besides, she could walk this route in her sleep. She had walked this route in her sleep, and that was more than she cared to think about right now.
None of the various nocturnal menaces seemed to be active tonight, and she made it down five floors uneventfully before she ran into Mrs. Norris, Filch's cat, in the second-floor corridor. Ginny had accidentally sort of Petrified Mrs. Norris in her first year at school, and out of vague feelings of guilt had gone on to befriend her later. She was a very picky and proud cat, but as long as you treated her as an equal and brought plenty of bribes she was generally willing to make exceptions. Ginny gave her a friendly smile, and offered her one of the goldfish crackers her roommate had brought back from holiday in America. (All the students found the realistic sliminess and flopping to be a bit much going down, but cats adored them.) Mrs. Norris gave her a disdainful sniff, then picked up the treat and trotted delicately away.
Ginny let the tension out of her shoulders and continued down the corridor. The floor, for once, was completely dry, and she went on in to the bathroom. There was a muffled squeaking noise, then silence; Ginny smiled grimly. Moaning Myrtle was deathly afraid of her; and unlike Mrs. Norris, Ginny felt not the slightest remorse, or even curiosity as to what she might have done to Myrtle. She was merely thankful that everything did, after all, have a silver lining, and she didn't have to walk as far as the other girls to use the toilet after Defense Against the Dark Arts. Myrtle was dead annoying anyway.
The sink was still there, with the broken tap, the way Professor Dumbledore, with his infuriating wisdom, had promised it would stay, "in case you should find a better use for it, Miss Weasley." She stared at the crude snake scratched into the copper, and reached a finger out to trace it as she tried to fit her mind into the shape it needed to reach. Even with Tom beside her she hadn't been able to form the hissing sounds of Parseltongue for more than a few syllables, but it was one of the skills she'd retained, and with only a hint of headache she hissed "ash nazg" and the tap began to glow and spin, and the sink slid away, revealing the mouth of a dark, wide pipe.
The entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.
It was marginally less slimy now. She supposed, without really caring, that now that they knew it was here the house elves came through once in a while with Mrs. Skower's. A long, twisting slide held no terrors for a girl with six older brothers, and she had always liked the feeling of being swept along, swift and safe, to wherever the tunnel chose to lead.
It led, as always, to another dark tunnel, dripping in slimy water, although the tiny skeletons and shed basilisk skin were gone now, with the basilisk's corpse, chopped up and sold by Snape as Potions ingredients on the gray market for a truly startling amount of money. A third of the profit had gone into a special Gringotts account for Ginny, though she didn't think anyone but her parents and Dumbledore knew. The rest had been split among the basilisk's victims, since Harry Potter, of course, was too noble to need any.
She stopped suddenly halfway to the snake door, her mind integrating what her eyes had been noticing all the way. Someone else had been through here recently. Very recently-- the wet bootprints she'd been noticing in high places weren't at all dry-- and there were none coming back the other way. Whoever it was was still in there. And there was only one other person in Hogwarts who knew where the Chamber was, and knew enough Parseltongue to get in.
She really, really didn't want to have to make polite conversation with Harry Potter here.
On the other hand, as far as she knew Harry wasn't even aware the Chamber still existed. He'd certainly never come down here before as far as she knew. And she was cursed by curiosity: Curiosity was why she'd started investigating the mysterious diary that had appeared with her school things, after all. And that hadn't killed her. Quite. And she wanted to know what Harry was doing down here.
Besides, while she didn't want to talk to Harry, she seemed to remember that the Chamber had the sort of marvelous acoustics that were worthy of an evil overlord's den. She could try screaming at him instead. None of the subtler methods had worked.
So instead of turning back up the tunnel, she went on, very quietly, and hissed at the two jeweled serpents, who slid silently and sycophantically aside, revealing the dimly green-lit pillared hall and, before the ugly sculpture of Salazar, a figure in black robes hunched kneeling on the floor.
She was about to walk over to him when he shifted slightly and she noticed the glint of light on his hair; straight, smooth, golden hair. It wasn't Harry. It was Malfoy.
She froze, and tried to fade back into the shadows. Malfoy? What the crucio was Malfoy doing here? He'd been staying fairly quiet since his father was arrested; the rumor in Gryffindor was that he was starting to take his father's place among the Death Eaters, and thus was kept busy.
"What are you doing here, Weasel?"
She blinked. "Malfoy, do you even know where we are?"
"Well, judging by the truly horrible decorating job, and the fact that you're here, I'd say it's the Chamber of Secrets."
"Yes. Also known as the Basilisk's Lair. And you're trying to insult me by calling me Weasel?"
She could see that this had gone over his head. "Aren't you taking a Care of Magical Creatures NEWT?" she asked. "Oh, wait, no, you flunked out. Basilisk, Malfoy."
He stared at her for a second, then slowly began to recite, "`The basilisk may only be conquered by the weasel; it is put in the den of the basilisk, and the serpent, seeing it, flees; wherupon the weasel pursues and kills it, for there is no evil which does not have each its remedy.'"
"Very good," she said. "Note that it's the weasel, not the ferret. Therefore, how did you get down here?"
He went sulky. "I don't see why I should tell you."
"Because if you don't, I'll report you to the Headmaster."
"Dumbledore knows you come down here?"
She rolled her eyes. "He practically ordered me to, Malfoy. He said it would `help the healing process' or something. Now spill, or I'll tell him you're using Dark Magic given to you by You-Know-Who."
"How do you know I'm not?"
"In that case, I'll go tell him now. Better safe than sorry."
"I've been going through my father's papers," he said eventually. "Since Christmas. Mum said he wanted me to have them. There was a whole file; he'd been trying to get in here since he was at school, and he had a bunch of notes from an old diary; there was a map and a spell to let you say the passwords."
*****
"Oh godogodogod," Ginny was saying . "Yuck, yuck, yuck." She stumbled into the Chamber, her eyes closed, looking highly traumatized.
Draco had been sitting there idly drawing spirals on the floor with his wand. He was amused. "What is it, Weasel? Did you walk in on--"
"No, no, please," Ginny said, "Don't say anything like that, no, bad."
He raised an eyebrow.
"Is it true . . . is it true that in wartime people get together who would never do anything normally?"
Draco was delighted. "You did walk in on Potter and and your brother snogging."
"What? Eww. No." She shook her head, as if trying to empty it. "It was worse. On my way here. It was-- they were in a dark corridor. Alone. And they were . . ."
"Now you have to tell me who it was, Weasel."
She opened her eyes very wide. "I'm only telling you this because I want you to be tormented with nightmares as I will be."
He blinked.
"It was Snape. Snape and McGonagall."
Draco laughed. "Good one, Weasel."
"I'm-- not-- joking."
"You must be. No. But-- but she's old"
"And he's Snape. But I did."
Draco thought about that for a while. "Weasel. I thought we agreed we'd help each other out. Not give each other nightmares."
"I warned. Didn't I warn you? I did. But you asked. You ordered me to tell you."
"And do you always do everything I order you?"
She blinked, then grinned. "Only when it's going to give you nightmares."
Draco was tempted to say something like, You're wasted on Potter, you know, but he knew she knew that already, so he didn't.
"Listen," said Ginny, "I know we agreed to talk today, but I need to go wash my eyes out with soap."
"Please," said Draco, "Don't stay here on my behalf. Any longer looking at you and I'll have to wash my eyes out with soap."
"It's mutual," she said, and left.
****
[Here is the missing middle. What needs to be established here for D&G purposes- other than general relationship building - is a) more about Draco's untenable situation, which is basically similar to what it was in canon!book six, except that he's being rather more strategic about it and trying very hard to build an escape route for himself through which he can stay relatively independent of both sides; Ginny, who is getting equally disillusioned with the whole mess as she gets continually patronized and sidelined by the good guys, thinks this is an excellent plan. And b) the fact that Ginny is in a relationship with Harry that is deeply, deeply fucked up, because she's owed Harry a life-debt ever since Chamber of Secrets which leaves her incapable of freely saying "no"; Harry does not realize this, because it's something purebloods learn about in the cradle and nobody's bothered to tell him, and Ginny refuses to tell him because, well, she thinks she can handle it on her own, and she doesn't want to hurt Harry. Draco knows about the whole thing, knows exactly how screwed up it is, and has a continual urge to beat the stuffing out of Harry for being too self-absorbed to *notice*, but won't break Ginny's trust.
...yes, those were only a few of the several dozen plot threads I was trying to work into this thing.
...and yes, I do kind of still believe that's how the Harry/Ginny relationship worked in the actual books. Um.]
***
Ron, Ginny, and Hermione were playing exploding snap in the Griffindor common room. Ginny had just burnt her fingers muffing a particularly spectacular play, and was sucking on them to dull the pain.
/Not/ the posture she would have chosen when Professor Snape came storming through the common room, looking absolutely furious.
"What did you do to him?" asked Snape with cold anger.
"Do to whom?" asked Ron.
"You know who," Snape said icily.
"Believe it or not," Hermione said, shuffling the deck, "we haven't done anything horrid to Lord Voldemort for oh, at least three weeks."
"/Not/ the Dark Lord," he said, "Draco Malfoy. I have just been told by a panicked Vincent Crabbe that he left the Slytherin common room fifteen minutes ago, muttering something about 'showing Potter at last', and the peril-sensitive glass his father gave them has gone completely black."
Ron and Hermione looked at each other, shocked. Ginny froze. *Oh no. Peril-- I didn't mean--*
"Honestly, Professor," Hermione said, "We haven't done anything to Malfoy. We haven't seen him all day, actually. If he's in danger we'll do what we can to help, but I've no idea what he could be doing."
"Really," sneered Snape. "You're completely innocent. In that case, where is Potter?"
"Ah," said Hermione. "Er," said Ron. "He's--" said Hermione. "That is--" said Ron. "It's--" said Hermione. "We don't actually know," said Ron. "We aren't supposed to tell anyone," said Hermione. They looked at each other.
Snape appeared about to explode.
'Please," said Ginny, "It was me."
All three of them stared at her.
"I didn't-- he wanted to know what Harry kept sneaking out of the castle for, and I told him that if he pressed the knothole on the Whomping Willow he could find out. I didn't, didn't think there'd be any danger--"
"I see," Snape breathed. "And I imagine he'll be delighted to find that werewolf friend of Potter's waiting for him." There was something in Snape's face that frightened Ginny; something dark and exulting. "And they say history never repeats itself."
Hermione had a look of utter horror. Ron was staring at Ginny in disbelief.
"I see that I will have to straighten out this entire mess," spat Snape.
"No!" Hermione had sprung up from her seat. "We'll go, we know the way, we'll--"
"You," said Snape, "Will stay right here. You've done enough already." He pulled out his wand and muttered something under his breath. Hermione fell heavily back into the armchair. "I'll deal with you later," and he swept through the portrait hole, not looking back.
Ginny closed her eyes and let out a long sigh of relief, but she opened them again when she felt Ron's and Hermione's eyes on her. "What?" she said. "If it's just Sirius Black-- he's not really in any danger, right? You told me Black was innocent."
"Why did you tell Malfoy," Ron spat, "How to find Harry?"
Ginny sat up, eyes blazing. "Because I wanted to know what he's doing too! You've been hiding things from me all semester-- using me to cover up whatever you're doing--"
"Ron," said Hermione tiredly, "it doesn't matter. Ginny, Snape won't find Sirius. He'll find--" she gulped, "a Basilisk."
Ginny stared at them. "A Basilisk," she said flatly. "Where would Harry get a Basilisk?"
"Its name is Snuggles," said Ron, "if that gives you any idea."
Hermione quelled him with a look. "Hagrid found an egg-- he hatched it under Neville's toad. We've been helping Hagrid take care of it, Harry can control it with Parseltongue. Harry's been using the Shrieking Shack all year to work on a spell, with McGonagall's permission, and we've been using the Basilisk as a guard on the tunnel. It's not just that, either." Hermione opened her eyes very wide. "We've been using the tunnel to practice defense spells all year. If Malfoy goes down there, or Snape in his current state, they're toast. The whole tunnel is rigged with traps and leftover bits of hexes. Ginny-- listen-- I'm sorry. The Headmaster said we had to keep it an absolute secret. And, and we didn't think we should tell you about the Basilisk."
"Because poor traumatized Ginny can't handle any reminders of evil Tom?" Ginny glared at them. "Did it never occur to you that I may be the best qualified person at Hogwarts when it comes to caring for Basilisks? Oh god." She sat back.
****
Ginny was simply walking to the library when she saw, over a crowd of first-years leaving Charms, a familiar blond head coming toward her. She was quite sure the pounding in her veins and butterflies in her stomach were due entirely to guilt, especially when he grabbed her by the wrist, a strangely intent look in his silvery eyes, and smiled at her.
"Weasel, we need to talk."
She shot a glance around. "Not here, Draco, people will see--"
"That hardly matters at this point," and he pulled her unresisting into a conveniently empty room behind them. She realized that he had planned this. Also that there was only one chair, and she took it, unrepentantly, but then look up at him with as much sincerity as possible. "Draco, I'm-- I'm really sorry. I didn't know-- but I shouldn't have--"
"Quiet," he laid a hand over her mouth. "It wasn't your fault, Weasel. They shouldn't have been using you like that."
"But I was using you, Draco--"
****
It was the most difficult thing Harry Potter had ever done in his life. More horrible than facing Lord Voldemort in single combat. More tortuous than spending a summer with the Dursleys. More terrifying than being scolded by Ron's Mum.
In short, he had to apologize to Draco Malfoy. It wasn't just that he had been commanded to by Professor McGonagall, in her I-can't-believe-this-Potter voice. It wasn't just that he'd been asked to by Professor Dumbledore in his I'm-extremely-disappointed voice. It wasn't just that he'd been told he had to by Professor Snape in his taking-after-your-father-are-you voice. Harry knew they were right. He did owe Malfoy an apology. Which only made it worse, really.
Ginny had apologized last night, in private. She'd left the common room nearly in tears, and come back some time later with such a radiant look in her eyes that Harry halfway suspected her apology to Malfoy had involved snogging. And he had no idea how he felt about that, except that he didn't like it one bit.
And he most fervently hoped /his/ apology didn't have to end that way. Especially as he was quite certain Malfoy wouldn't let him get away with private contrition.
So, with a heavy heart and a great deal of trepidation, he walked over to the Slytherin table at breakfast in the Great Hall that morning. "Malfoy," he said steadily.
Malfoy looked up from his toast and managed to fake surprise. "Why, if it isn't the Boy Who Tripped Over His Own Feet," he drawled, very loudly. "Deigning to appear before us mere mortals."
The Slytherins laughed.
"Malfoy, I came to thank you," Harry said very quickly. He wanted to get this over with.
"You want to thank me, Potter? But whatever for?"
"For-- for saving my life in the tunnel."
"Oh, that little thing? Don't worry, Potter, it wasn't personal. I would have done as much for anyone. One can't go leaving people behind to die, after all."
It was all Harry could do not to hit him right there. /How dare he mention Sirius!/ Then he caught McGonagall's glare from the high table and forced himself to calm down. /He probably wasn't thinking of Sirius at all/ thought Harry. /It's just normal Malfoy malice./ He took a deep breath and continued. "And, I wanted to apologize. I acted irresponsibly in endangering you and everyone in the school for no good reason. There was no excuse for doing what I did."
"For once, Potter, you're right," Malfoy drawled. "There was no excuse. Just Harry Potter, doing what he does best, endangering everybody else with stupid--useless--heroics, because rules don't apply to him. You're just like your father, Potter. No, you're worse-- he managed to die before he got anyone else killed--"
Harry had his wand out and pointing at Malfoy before he had a chance to think. Malfoy just blinked insolently at him. "Over the breakfast table, Potter?" He stood up and grabbed Harry's wrist, forcing the wand down. "Of course. Make sure the teachers can stop us if you're in any real danger." He leaned over and said, very quietly, "If you want to duel, Potter, do it right. Midnight, below Myrtle's bathroom. You know where. No seconds. If you're not too scared, of course." And he shoved Harry's wrist down and stood up, then swept out of the great hall, his Slytherin compatriots for once falling into formation behind him as they had before his father was arrested.
Harry stared after them in shock. /What just happened?/
****
"Harry, I can't believe you're actually doing this," said Hermione as he lifted out his invisibility cloak.
"I have to," he said.
"No you don't." Ron was worried. "Harry, he only said those things to make you mad. You shouldn't let him get to you that way. It's not worth it."
"Oh you're one to talk," said Hermione fondly.
"You don't understand," said Harry, "I have to."
Ginny looked up from her inspection of her fingernails. "He does, you know." She shrugged. "Harry owes Draco a life debt. He can't refuse to go."
Hermione stared at them, appalled. "Oh no, Harry. I didn't think of that-- this is bad."
Ginny stretched languidly in the armchair and grinned. "It's not end of the world, Hermione. Draco's not going to kill him. Well he's not--don't look at me like that, it's much more useful for him to keep the life debt at this point."
Hermione, somehow, didn't look very reassured.
"What I want to know," Ron said loudly, "is how Malfoy is going to meet him in the Chamber of Secrets. I thought Dumbledore destroyed it."
"Why destroy a perfectly good secret room just because it was once the private lair of the most evil wizard in the world?" asked Ginny. "It's been there all along. Draco found his father's notes. Where do you think I've been meeting with him all year?"
Harry was staring at her, mouth open. Then he shook his head and buckled his swordbelt on. "I don't even want to think about that. Look, I have to go, and you can't go with me-- no, Ron, I have do this alone. It is my fault he almost died. He was right, what he said about me." He looked down at his wand. "I owe it to him. Even if it wasn't the life debt."
"Harry--" said Hermione.
Harry shook his head. "Don't." and stalked out through the portrait hole.
****
Draco went to the chamber early. He'd been sitting below the statue of Salazar Slytherin, entertaining himself with stupid wand tricks, for almost half an hour before Potter made his entrance. Somehow, Draco noted, despite the much cleaner state of the tunnels these days, he'd still managed to mess up his hair and get mud all over his cloak. Well, okay, the messy hair was normal.
He saw Draco and pulled himself up straight, pushing back his cloak to reveal a truly awful jumper, a scabbarded sword, and his wand held at the ready. "I came, Malfoy," he said. "Let's get this over with, then."
Draco raised a single eybrow in response. "What, Potter, you aren't going to give me a long boring speech about how it's wasteful to fight among ourselves, and this whole rivalry thing has become silly anyway, and we should be friends and dance around in a circle holding hands and singing? What are heroes coming to these days?"
Potter opened his mouth to reply but Draco cut him off. "Pity. I suppose I'll have to fight you after all, then."
Potter really did resemble a fish, Draco mused. "You mean-- you mean you don't want to fight?"
"I'd hardly have needed to engineer this secret meeting if I just wanted to fry you, Potter. I could have done that anytime."
"Oh is that what you were doing," said Potter, going a bit red. "Here I thought you had insulted my father in front of the whole school, but actually it was just engineering a secret meeting."
"The insulting your father bit was just a bonus, Potter," he said. "We need to talk, without the whole school watching. This was the most entertaining way."
"We need to talk about what?"
"Oh, the fact that you now owe me a magically binding life debt. The horrible way you treat your girlfriend. The making up and becoming friends bit-- I was serious about that, you know."
"You want to make friends. You've only been making my life miserable since the first day of school, and suddenly you want to make friends?"
"I've hardly been making you miserable, Potter. Other people have done quite a good job at that. And it's not sudden, I"ve been thinking about this for a long time. Just-- recent events--" a wave of the hand-- "have made me come to a decision."
"It's because of the life debt, isn't it? You have power over me now and you want to humiliate me by making me follow you around."
Draco stood up, leaning against Slytherin's beard. "Honestly, Potter, you really are paranoid, aren't you? It's not about the life debt. Might be it's partly because I finally beat you at something," he couldn't help grinning, "and I'm feeling magnanimous. Mainly it's because this whole thing really is silly. We're a lot alike; there's no reason for us to be enemies. There never was. It's like something out of Milly Goes to School. 'Oh look,' says Milly, 'there's that nasty girl Pansy who was mean to me. I need an archrival or this book will be really boring, so I'll just hate her for the next seven years.'"
Harry had been following this with growing incredulity, but now he burst out laughing. "You read girls' school stories?"
Draco went pink. "They were my Aunt's. They're the only Muggle books in our library. Don't change the subject, Potter. We both have better things to do than throw hexes at each other. My story is exciting enough already."
"I don't know," said Potter, still grinning. "I think only the heroine is allowed to end the rivalry. And you're not supposed to agree even if I did propose it."
"Are you implying that you're the heroine, Potter?"
"Well, who else would it be?"
"Clearly I am, Potter. I'm the blond with the tragic past and the disgraced family name who must, with the help of only a few loyal friends, work to prove himself in a school prejudiced against him. You're the ugly spoiled rich kid with the fancy broom, no parents but a shady godfather who lets you do whatever you want, and all the teachers wrapped around your little finger as you break school rules left and right and never get punished for it. It's very clear."
"That's an interesting point of view."
"It's the only worthwhile point of view, Potter. It's mine. And you've managed to change the subject. We're discussing making friends, not who would be a prettier heroine."
"You'll pardon me," said Potter, "If I'm a bit skeptical. Besides, you hardly needed to arrange a secret meeting to propose a friendship. It's not as if there'd be any point in keeping it secret."
"Yes, well, it seemed appropriate," said Draco. "Besides, 'all Death Eaters are drama queens,' right?"
Draco was satisfied to see Potter start at that. Then he raised his head, and looked Draco straight in the eyes. "Are you a Death Eater, Malfoy?"
Draco looked away and rolled his eyes. "You're asking the wrong question, Potter. It doesn't matter whether I'm a Death Eater or not, that's just a rather boring ceremony and a silly bit of body art. What you should be asking is whether I want the Dark Lord to take over."
Potter took the cue. It was one of the most endearing things about him, his ability to follow a script. "And do you want Voldemort to win?"
Rather than answering, Draco stared at the ceiling. "Do you remember what I said to you on the train, the summer after the Dark Lord came back?"
"Well, you . . . you warned us that Hermione might be in danger. Were you trying to--"
Draco waved him off. "Trust you to remember the least important part, Potter. What I told you was not to join the losing side. That's the Malfoy family secret: never join the losing side. And as I've seen more and more of the Dark Lord's organization, it's become clear to me that whoever's going to win, it won't be him."
[At this point Draco outlines his grand plan to both establish himself as an independent power, and free Ginny from the life-debt (without Potter ever knowing exactly what happened,) and in exchange for Harry helping, agrees to formally surrender Harry's life-debt to him. There was a point at which I knew how that grand plan lead directly into the last scene, through perfect and inexorable strategic/magical logic, but alas I have forgotten what it was, and never wrote it down.]
*****
Ginny stepped outside the common room with the others, feeling the unaccustomed heaviness of her skirts around her ankles. And she saw him waiting for her just around the corner, and she was sure that the reason her breath was catching in her throat and her stomach had just twisted was nervousness, and not anything else. She had not expected him to appear until they were outside the great hall, but here he was standing nonchalantly in the corridor waiting for her with all her friends watching.
He had done absolutely nothing with his hair: she noticed that first, it was falling loosely and barely combed down past his chin, rubbing against the high collar of his dress robes. They were slightly oriental in cut, fitted around the arms but flaring out into a split skirt that ended at mid-thigh over loose trousers, all in some fine, silky looking black, and twisting down one shoulder and around his chest the design of a snake, like a silvery watermark. She looked him in the face finally, completely at a loss.
He smiled, and it was that old Malfoy smile, brittle and cold, and she had to look away, her eyes drawn again to the design of the snake on his robes. And suddenly she knew just exactly what to say, and took one careful step toward him and said, "Shha hash ess za," and he blinked, and stood up away from the wall, his eyes flicking to both sides as he took in the other Gryffindor girls, who Ginny realized were frozen staring at them. "Care to translate that for me, Weasel?" he asked, his smile still the same, but there was real humor showing in his eyes.
"I only said, 'How Slytherin of you, Malfoy.'" She blinked, putting to use all the practice she'd gotten at pretending to be naive, and clapped her hand to her mouth. "Oh my. Was I speaking Parseltongue? I'm so sorry. It just brings back memories, once more being around a slimy minion of evil."
He looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh. "Oh, I don't mind, Weasel. It's quite sexy. You must do it for me again later tonight." He raised his eyebrows, and held out his arm for her. She smiled, bobbed, and took it, sparing not a glance for the still-shocked faces of the others as they swept down the hall together.
poetry, a poem (Snake, by D. H. Lawrence) that always makes me want to write fic, I thought I ought to actually post some of the fic I have written around the poem. Also,
siegeofangels just posted about how she likes seeing people post stories that failed, that never quite worked and will never be finished. Well, I think this was the Harry Potter novel I was working on when I first friended her - in, what, 2003? It would have to be, this pre-dates OOTP.So, yeah. Seven-year-old fic! Yay! What went wrong that I never finished it? Mostly that I was trying to do way too much - the bits of this novel that I have wind together so many characters, so many plot threads, so many things I wanted to say that even if I'd had the stamina to finish it, it would've been a giant unfollowable mess of a story. And I think I sensed that at the time, because I spent a lot of effort trying to figure out how to structure the plot, when I should probably have instead been cutting things out of it, or just writing the damn thing.
Anyway, I have here just pulled out the scenes that string together into a story about Ginny Weasley and Draco Malfoy striking up an unlikely alliance, which were in fact *directly* based on the Lawrence poem (as you'll see particularly in the first scene, which follows it terribly closely.) Pulling out just that thread works surprisingly well, actually - while I wouldn't call it complete by any means (you can clearly see all the dangling ends where other plot threads were meant to weave in, and several of the conversations cut off before the important things happen, and much of the middle of the story is missing) it's actually fairly coherent, and the most of the missing bits don't really interfere with what's going on with Draco and Ginny. So, verdict: if I was still interested in working on this, I think I would be tempted to re-work it as just the Draco & Ginny friendship plot, probably set during either book six or a post-book-seven Hogwarts year; none of the stuff in the D&G plot really got contradicted in the last four books. But I'd have to re-work everything around them.
So, Verdict: suprisingly readable as-is, interesting historical artifact, works best if you have recently read the Snake poem.
ETA: I suppose I should warn that non-explicit consent issues come up in this - they come up in the part that I didn't ever actually *write*, so in this version they exist only as a short bracketed plot summary insert - but I shall warn anyway.
Thread 2: Something to Expiate
The black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous
----David Lawrence, Snake
She didn't go down there very often anymore, but tonight of all nights she felt she couldn't bear to stay in her dormitory room, listening to her idiotic roommates giggle and trade Cheating Charms, and a place that no one else could find sounded like a very attractive way of wallowing in self-pity and the stifling September heat. She slipped a heavy black cloak over her pajamas, which had once been Ron's and had bright orange snitches on them, then pulled the curtains aside from her bed and said, very loudly, "I'm going to work in the Common Room. Don't wait up for me."
The other girls stared at her, and she walked with dignity out the door and down the stairs, pretending very hard that she hadn't heard the worried whispering that began as soon as turned her back. As she'd hoped, the common room was empty at this hour: yes, part of the Gryffindor Code of Honor was not noticing when your housemates were roaming the school after hours, but at the same time all she needed was for it to get around that Ginny Weasley was going on mysterious midnight trips again.
The Fat Lady winked at her, and smirked. Ginny was strongly tempted to borrow a leaf from Sirius Black's book and punch her out, but rather thought it wouldn't be worth the trouble. The only other obstacles she might face were Peeves, Filch, and the occasional insomniac teacher, but she knew how to handle them. Besides, she could walk this route in her sleep. She had walked this route in her sleep, and that was more than she cared to think about right now.
None of the various nocturnal menaces seemed to be active tonight, and she made it down five floors uneventfully before she ran into Mrs. Norris, Filch's cat, in the second-floor corridor. Ginny had accidentally sort of Petrified Mrs. Norris in her first year at school, and out of vague feelings of guilt had gone on to befriend her later. She was a very picky and proud cat, but as long as you treated her as an equal and brought plenty of bribes she was generally willing to make exceptions. Ginny gave her a friendly smile, and offered her one of the goldfish crackers her roommate had brought back from holiday in America. (All the students found the realistic sliminess and flopping to be a bit much going down, but cats adored them.) Mrs. Norris gave her a disdainful sniff, then picked up the treat and trotted delicately away.
Ginny let the tension out of her shoulders and continued down the corridor. The floor, for once, was completely dry, and she went on in to the bathroom. There was a muffled squeaking noise, then silence; Ginny smiled grimly. Moaning Myrtle was deathly afraid of her; and unlike Mrs. Norris, Ginny felt not the slightest remorse, or even curiosity as to what she might have done to Myrtle. She was merely thankful that everything did, after all, have a silver lining, and she didn't have to walk as far as the other girls to use the toilet after Defense Against the Dark Arts. Myrtle was dead annoying anyway.
The sink was still there, with the broken tap, the way Professor Dumbledore, with his infuriating wisdom, had promised it would stay, "in case you should find a better use for it, Miss Weasley." She stared at the crude snake scratched into the copper, and reached a finger out to trace it as she tried to fit her mind into the shape it needed to reach. Even with Tom beside her she hadn't been able to form the hissing sounds of Parseltongue for more than a few syllables, but it was one of the skills she'd retained, and with only a hint of headache she hissed "ash nazg" and the tap began to glow and spin, and the sink slid away, revealing the mouth of a dark, wide pipe.
The entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.
It was marginally less slimy now. She supposed, without really caring, that now that they knew it was here the house elves came through once in a while with Mrs. Skower's. A long, twisting slide held no terrors for a girl with six older brothers, and she had always liked the feeling of being swept along, swift and safe, to wherever the tunnel chose to lead.
It led, as always, to another dark tunnel, dripping in slimy water, although the tiny skeletons and shed basilisk skin were gone now, with the basilisk's corpse, chopped up and sold by Snape as Potions ingredients on the gray market for a truly startling amount of money. A third of the profit had gone into a special Gringotts account for Ginny, though she didn't think anyone but her parents and Dumbledore knew. The rest had been split among the basilisk's victims, since Harry Potter, of course, was too noble to need any.
She stopped suddenly halfway to the snake door, her mind integrating what her eyes had been noticing all the way. Someone else had been through here recently. Very recently-- the wet bootprints she'd been noticing in high places weren't at all dry-- and there were none coming back the other way. Whoever it was was still in there. And there was only one other person in Hogwarts who knew where the Chamber was, and knew enough Parseltongue to get in.
She really, really didn't want to have to make polite conversation with Harry Potter here.
On the other hand, as far as she knew Harry wasn't even aware the Chamber still existed. He'd certainly never come down here before as far as she knew. And she was cursed by curiosity: Curiosity was why she'd started investigating the mysterious diary that had appeared with her school things, after all. And that hadn't killed her. Quite. And she wanted to know what Harry was doing down here.
Besides, while she didn't want to talk to Harry, she seemed to remember that the Chamber had the sort of marvelous acoustics that were worthy of an evil overlord's den. She could try screaming at him instead. None of the subtler methods had worked.
So instead of turning back up the tunnel, she went on, very quietly, and hissed at the two jeweled serpents, who slid silently and sycophantically aside, revealing the dimly green-lit pillared hall and, before the ugly sculpture of Salazar, a figure in black robes hunched kneeling on the floor.
She was about to walk over to him when he shifted slightly and she noticed the glint of light on his hair; straight, smooth, golden hair. It wasn't Harry. It was Malfoy.
She froze, and tried to fade back into the shadows. Malfoy? What the crucio was Malfoy doing here? He'd been staying fairly quiet since his father was arrested; the rumor in Gryffindor was that he was starting to take his father's place among the Death Eaters, and thus was kept busy.
"What are you doing here, Weasel?"
She blinked. "Malfoy, do you even know where we are?"
"Well, judging by the truly horrible decorating job, and the fact that you're here, I'd say it's the Chamber of Secrets."
"Yes. Also known as the Basilisk's Lair. And you're trying to insult me by calling me Weasel?"
She could see that this had gone over his head. "Aren't you taking a Care of Magical Creatures NEWT?" she asked. "Oh, wait, no, you flunked out. Basilisk, Malfoy."
He stared at her for a second, then slowly began to recite, "`The basilisk may only be conquered by the weasel; it is put in the den of the basilisk, and the serpent, seeing it, flees; wherupon the weasel pursues and kills it, for there is no evil which does not have each its remedy.'"
"Very good," she said. "Note that it's the weasel, not the ferret. Therefore, how did you get down here?"
He went sulky. "I don't see why I should tell you."
"Because if you don't, I'll report you to the Headmaster."
"Dumbledore knows you come down here?"
She rolled her eyes. "He practically ordered me to, Malfoy. He said it would `help the healing process' or something. Now spill, or I'll tell him you're using Dark Magic given to you by You-Know-Who."
"How do you know I'm not?"
"In that case, I'll go tell him now. Better safe than sorry."
"I've been going through my father's papers," he said eventually. "Since Christmas. Mum said he wanted me to have them. There was a whole file; he'd been trying to get in here since he was at school, and he had a bunch of notes from an old diary; there was a map and a spell to let you say the passwords."
*****
"Oh godogodogod," Ginny was saying . "Yuck, yuck, yuck." She stumbled into the Chamber, her eyes closed, looking highly traumatized.
Draco had been sitting there idly drawing spirals on the floor with his wand. He was amused. "What is it, Weasel? Did you walk in on--"
"No, no, please," Ginny said, "Don't say anything like that, no, bad."
He raised an eyebrow.
"Is it true . . . is it true that in wartime people get together who would never do anything normally?"
Draco was delighted. "You did walk in on Potter and and your brother snogging."
"What? Eww. No." She shook her head, as if trying to empty it. "It was worse. On my way here. It was-- they were in a dark corridor. Alone. And they were . . ."
"Now you have to tell me who it was, Weasel."
She opened her eyes very wide. "I'm only telling you this because I want you to be tormented with nightmares as I will be."
He blinked.
"It was Snape. Snape and McGonagall."
Draco laughed. "Good one, Weasel."
"I'm-- not-- joking."
"You must be. No. But-- but she's old"
"And he's Snape. But I did."
Draco thought about that for a while. "Weasel. I thought we agreed we'd help each other out. Not give each other nightmares."
"I warned. Didn't I warn you? I did. But you asked. You ordered me to tell you."
"And do you always do everything I order you?"
She blinked, then grinned. "Only when it's going to give you nightmares."
Draco was tempted to say something like, You're wasted on Potter, you know, but he knew she knew that already, so he didn't.
"Listen," said Ginny, "I know we agreed to talk today, but I need to go wash my eyes out with soap."
"Please," said Draco, "Don't stay here on my behalf. Any longer looking at you and I'll have to wash my eyes out with soap."
"It's mutual," she said, and left.
****
[Here is the missing middle. What needs to be established here for D&G purposes- other than general relationship building - is a) more about Draco's untenable situation, which is basically similar to what it was in canon!book six, except that he's being rather more strategic about it and trying very hard to build an escape route for himself through which he can stay relatively independent of both sides; Ginny, who is getting equally disillusioned with the whole mess as she gets continually patronized and sidelined by the good guys, thinks this is an excellent plan. And b) the fact that Ginny is in a relationship with Harry that is deeply, deeply fucked up, because she's owed Harry a life-debt ever since Chamber of Secrets which leaves her incapable of freely saying "no"; Harry does not realize this, because it's something purebloods learn about in the cradle and nobody's bothered to tell him, and Ginny refuses to tell him because, well, she thinks she can handle it on her own, and she doesn't want to hurt Harry. Draco knows about the whole thing, knows exactly how screwed up it is, and has a continual urge to beat the stuffing out of Harry for being too self-absorbed to *notice*, but won't break Ginny's trust.
...yes, those were only a few of the several dozen plot threads I was trying to work into this thing.
...and yes, I do kind of still believe that's how the Harry/Ginny relationship worked in the actual books. Um.]
***
Ron, Ginny, and Hermione were playing exploding snap in the Griffindor common room. Ginny had just burnt her fingers muffing a particularly spectacular play, and was sucking on them to dull the pain.
/Not/ the posture she would have chosen when Professor Snape came storming through the common room, looking absolutely furious.
"What did you do to him?" asked Snape with cold anger.
"Do to whom?" asked Ron.
"You know who," Snape said icily.
"Believe it or not," Hermione said, shuffling the deck, "we haven't done anything horrid to Lord Voldemort for oh, at least three weeks."
"/Not/ the Dark Lord," he said, "Draco Malfoy. I have just been told by a panicked Vincent Crabbe that he left the Slytherin common room fifteen minutes ago, muttering something about 'showing Potter at last', and the peril-sensitive glass his father gave them has gone completely black."
Ron and Hermione looked at each other, shocked. Ginny froze. *Oh no. Peril-- I didn't mean--*
"Honestly, Professor," Hermione said, "We haven't done anything to Malfoy. We haven't seen him all day, actually. If he's in danger we'll do what we can to help, but I've no idea what he could be doing."
"Really," sneered Snape. "You're completely innocent. In that case, where is Potter?"
"Ah," said Hermione. "Er," said Ron. "He's--" said Hermione. "That is--" said Ron. "It's--" said Hermione. "We don't actually know," said Ron. "We aren't supposed to tell anyone," said Hermione. They looked at each other.
Snape appeared about to explode.
'Please," said Ginny, "It was me."
All three of them stared at her.
"I didn't-- he wanted to know what Harry kept sneaking out of the castle for, and I told him that if he pressed the knothole on the Whomping Willow he could find out. I didn't, didn't think there'd be any danger--"
"I see," Snape breathed. "And I imagine he'll be delighted to find that werewolf friend of Potter's waiting for him." There was something in Snape's face that frightened Ginny; something dark and exulting. "And they say history never repeats itself."
Hermione had a look of utter horror. Ron was staring at Ginny in disbelief.
"I see that I will have to straighten out this entire mess," spat Snape.
"No!" Hermione had sprung up from her seat. "We'll go, we know the way, we'll--"
"You," said Snape, "Will stay right here. You've done enough already." He pulled out his wand and muttered something under his breath. Hermione fell heavily back into the armchair. "I'll deal with you later," and he swept through the portrait hole, not looking back.
Ginny closed her eyes and let out a long sigh of relief, but she opened them again when she felt Ron's and Hermione's eyes on her. "What?" she said. "If it's just Sirius Black-- he's not really in any danger, right? You told me Black was innocent."
"Why did you tell Malfoy," Ron spat, "How to find Harry?"
Ginny sat up, eyes blazing. "Because I wanted to know what he's doing too! You've been hiding things from me all semester-- using me to cover up whatever you're doing--"
"Ron," said Hermione tiredly, "it doesn't matter. Ginny, Snape won't find Sirius. He'll find--" she gulped, "a Basilisk."
Ginny stared at them. "A Basilisk," she said flatly. "Where would Harry get a Basilisk?"
"Its name is Snuggles," said Ron, "if that gives you any idea."
Hermione quelled him with a look. "Hagrid found an egg-- he hatched it under Neville's toad. We've been helping Hagrid take care of it, Harry can control it with Parseltongue. Harry's been using the Shrieking Shack all year to work on a spell, with McGonagall's permission, and we've been using the Basilisk as a guard on the tunnel. It's not just that, either." Hermione opened her eyes very wide. "We've been using the tunnel to practice defense spells all year. If Malfoy goes down there, or Snape in his current state, they're toast. The whole tunnel is rigged with traps and leftover bits of hexes. Ginny-- listen-- I'm sorry. The Headmaster said we had to keep it an absolute secret. And, and we didn't think we should tell you about the Basilisk."
"Because poor traumatized Ginny can't handle any reminders of evil Tom?" Ginny glared at them. "Did it never occur to you that I may be the best qualified person at Hogwarts when it comes to caring for Basilisks? Oh god." She sat back.
****
Ginny was simply walking to the library when she saw, over a crowd of first-years leaving Charms, a familiar blond head coming toward her. She was quite sure the pounding in her veins and butterflies in her stomach were due entirely to guilt, especially when he grabbed her by the wrist, a strangely intent look in his silvery eyes, and smiled at her.
"Weasel, we need to talk."
She shot a glance around. "Not here, Draco, people will see--"
"That hardly matters at this point," and he pulled her unresisting into a conveniently empty room behind them. She realized that he had planned this. Also that there was only one chair, and she took it, unrepentantly, but then look up at him with as much sincerity as possible. "Draco, I'm-- I'm really sorry. I didn't know-- but I shouldn't have--"
"Quiet," he laid a hand over her mouth. "It wasn't your fault, Weasel. They shouldn't have been using you like that."
"But I was using you, Draco--"
****
It was the most difficult thing Harry Potter had ever done in his life. More horrible than facing Lord Voldemort in single combat. More tortuous than spending a summer with the Dursleys. More terrifying than being scolded by Ron's Mum.
In short, he had to apologize to Draco Malfoy. It wasn't just that he had been commanded to by Professor McGonagall, in her I-can't-believe-this-Potter voice. It wasn't just that he'd been asked to by Professor Dumbledore in his I'm-extremely-disappointed voice. It wasn't just that he'd been told he had to by Professor Snape in his taking-after-your-father-are-you voice. Harry knew they were right. He did owe Malfoy an apology. Which only made it worse, really.
Ginny had apologized last night, in private. She'd left the common room nearly in tears, and come back some time later with such a radiant look in her eyes that Harry halfway suspected her apology to Malfoy had involved snogging. And he had no idea how he felt about that, except that he didn't like it one bit.
And he most fervently hoped /his/ apology didn't have to end that way. Especially as he was quite certain Malfoy wouldn't let him get away with private contrition.
So, with a heavy heart and a great deal of trepidation, he walked over to the Slytherin table at breakfast in the Great Hall that morning. "Malfoy," he said steadily.
Malfoy looked up from his toast and managed to fake surprise. "Why, if it isn't the Boy Who Tripped Over His Own Feet," he drawled, very loudly. "Deigning to appear before us mere mortals."
The Slytherins laughed.
"Malfoy, I came to thank you," Harry said very quickly. He wanted to get this over with.
"You want to thank me, Potter? But whatever for?"
"For-- for saving my life in the tunnel."
"Oh, that little thing? Don't worry, Potter, it wasn't personal. I would have done as much for anyone. One can't go leaving people behind to die, after all."
It was all Harry could do not to hit him right there. /How dare he mention Sirius!/ Then he caught McGonagall's glare from the high table and forced himself to calm down. /He probably wasn't thinking of Sirius at all/ thought Harry. /It's just normal Malfoy malice./ He took a deep breath and continued. "And, I wanted to apologize. I acted irresponsibly in endangering you and everyone in the school for no good reason. There was no excuse for doing what I did."
"For once, Potter, you're right," Malfoy drawled. "There was no excuse. Just Harry Potter, doing what he does best, endangering everybody else with stupid--useless--heroics, because rules don't apply to him. You're just like your father, Potter. No, you're worse-- he managed to die before he got anyone else killed--"
Harry had his wand out and pointing at Malfoy before he had a chance to think. Malfoy just blinked insolently at him. "Over the breakfast table, Potter?" He stood up and grabbed Harry's wrist, forcing the wand down. "Of course. Make sure the teachers can stop us if you're in any real danger." He leaned over and said, very quietly, "If you want to duel, Potter, do it right. Midnight, below Myrtle's bathroom. You know where. No seconds. If you're not too scared, of course." And he shoved Harry's wrist down and stood up, then swept out of the great hall, his Slytherin compatriots for once falling into formation behind him as they had before his father was arrested.
Harry stared after them in shock. /What just happened?/
****
"Harry, I can't believe you're actually doing this," said Hermione as he lifted out his invisibility cloak.
"I have to," he said.
"No you don't." Ron was worried. "Harry, he only said those things to make you mad. You shouldn't let him get to you that way. It's not worth it."
"Oh you're one to talk," said Hermione fondly.
"You don't understand," said Harry, "I have to."
Ginny looked up from her inspection of her fingernails. "He does, you know." She shrugged. "Harry owes Draco a life debt. He can't refuse to go."
Hermione stared at them, appalled. "Oh no, Harry. I didn't think of that-- this is bad."
Ginny stretched languidly in the armchair and grinned. "It's not end of the world, Hermione. Draco's not going to kill him. Well he's not--don't look at me like that, it's much more useful for him to keep the life debt at this point."
Hermione, somehow, didn't look very reassured.
"What I want to know," Ron said loudly, "is how Malfoy is going to meet him in the Chamber of Secrets. I thought Dumbledore destroyed it."
"Why destroy a perfectly good secret room just because it was once the private lair of the most evil wizard in the world?" asked Ginny. "It's been there all along. Draco found his father's notes. Where do you think I've been meeting with him all year?"
Harry was staring at her, mouth open. Then he shook his head and buckled his swordbelt on. "I don't even want to think about that. Look, I have to go, and you can't go with me-- no, Ron, I have do this alone. It is my fault he almost died. He was right, what he said about me." He looked down at his wand. "I owe it to him. Even if it wasn't the life debt."
"Harry--" said Hermione.
Harry shook his head. "Don't." and stalked out through the portrait hole.
****
Draco went to the chamber early. He'd been sitting below the statue of Salazar Slytherin, entertaining himself with stupid wand tricks, for almost half an hour before Potter made his entrance. Somehow, Draco noted, despite the much cleaner state of the tunnels these days, he'd still managed to mess up his hair and get mud all over his cloak. Well, okay, the messy hair was normal.
He saw Draco and pulled himself up straight, pushing back his cloak to reveal a truly awful jumper, a scabbarded sword, and his wand held at the ready. "I came, Malfoy," he said. "Let's get this over with, then."
Draco raised a single eybrow in response. "What, Potter, you aren't going to give me a long boring speech about how it's wasteful to fight among ourselves, and this whole rivalry thing has become silly anyway, and we should be friends and dance around in a circle holding hands and singing? What are heroes coming to these days?"
Potter opened his mouth to reply but Draco cut him off. "Pity. I suppose I'll have to fight you after all, then."
Potter really did resemble a fish, Draco mused. "You mean-- you mean you don't want to fight?"
"I'd hardly have needed to engineer this secret meeting if I just wanted to fry you, Potter. I could have done that anytime."
"Oh is that what you were doing," said Potter, going a bit red. "Here I thought you had insulted my father in front of the whole school, but actually it was just engineering a secret meeting."
"The insulting your father bit was just a bonus, Potter," he said. "We need to talk, without the whole school watching. This was the most entertaining way."
"We need to talk about what?"
"Oh, the fact that you now owe me a magically binding life debt. The horrible way you treat your girlfriend. The making up and becoming friends bit-- I was serious about that, you know."
"You want to make friends. You've only been making my life miserable since the first day of school, and suddenly you want to make friends?"
"I've hardly been making you miserable, Potter. Other people have done quite a good job at that. And it's not sudden, I"ve been thinking about this for a long time. Just-- recent events--" a wave of the hand-- "have made me come to a decision."
"It's because of the life debt, isn't it? You have power over me now and you want to humiliate me by making me follow you around."
Draco stood up, leaning against Slytherin's beard. "Honestly, Potter, you really are paranoid, aren't you? It's not about the life debt. Might be it's partly because I finally beat you at something," he couldn't help grinning, "and I'm feeling magnanimous. Mainly it's because this whole thing really is silly. We're a lot alike; there's no reason for us to be enemies. There never was. It's like something out of Milly Goes to School. 'Oh look,' says Milly, 'there's that nasty girl Pansy who was mean to me. I need an archrival or this book will be really boring, so I'll just hate her for the next seven years.'"
Harry had been following this with growing incredulity, but now he burst out laughing. "You read girls' school stories?"
Draco went pink. "They were my Aunt's. They're the only Muggle books in our library. Don't change the subject, Potter. We both have better things to do than throw hexes at each other. My story is exciting enough already."
"I don't know," said Potter, still grinning. "I think only the heroine is allowed to end the rivalry. And you're not supposed to agree even if I did propose it."
"Are you implying that you're the heroine, Potter?"
"Well, who else would it be?"
"Clearly I am, Potter. I'm the blond with the tragic past and the disgraced family name who must, with the help of only a few loyal friends, work to prove himself in a school prejudiced against him. You're the ugly spoiled rich kid with the fancy broom, no parents but a shady godfather who lets you do whatever you want, and all the teachers wrapped around your little finger as you break school rules left and right and never get punished for it. It's very clear."
"That's an interesting point of view."
"It's the only worthwhile point of view, Potter. It's mine. And you've managed to change the subject. We're discussing making friends, not who would be a prettier heroine."
"You'll pardon me," said Potter, "If I'm a bit skeptical. Besides, you hardly needed to arrange a secret meeting to propose a friendship. It's not as if there'd be any point in keeping it secret."
"Yes, well, it seemed appropriate," said Draco. "Besides, 'all Death Eaters are drama queens,' right?"
Draco was satisfied to see Potter start at that. Then he raised his head, and looked Draco straight in the eyes. "Are you a Death Eater, Malfoy?"
Draco looked away and rolled his eyes. "You're asking the wrong question, Potter. It doesn't matter whether I'm a Death Eater or not, that's just a rather boring ceremony and a silly bit of body art. What you should be asking is whether I want the Dark Lord to take over."
Potter took the cue. It was one of the most endearing things about him, his ability to follow a script. "And do you want Voldemort to win?"
Rather than answering, Draco stared at the ceiling. "Do you remember what I said to you on the train, the summer after the Dark Lord came back?"
"Well, you . . . you warned us that Hermione might be in danger. Were you trying to--"
Draco waved him off. "Trust you to remember the least important part, Potter. What I told you was not to join the losing side. That's the Malfoy family secret: never join the losing side. And as I've seen more and more of the Dark Lord's organization, it's become clear to me that whoever's going to win, it won't be him."
[At this point Draco outlines his grand plan to both establish himself as an independent power, and free Ginny from the life-debt (without Potter ever knowing exactly what happened,) and in exchange for Harry helping, agrees to formally surrender Harry's life-debt to him. There was a point at which I knew how that grand plan lead directly into the last scene, through perfect and inexorable strategic/magical logic, but alas I have forgotten what it was, and never wrote it down.]
*****
Ginny stepped outside the common room with the others, feeling the unaccustomed heaviness of her skirts around her ankles. And she saw him waiting for her just around the corner, and she was sure that the reason her breath was catching in her throat and her stomach had just twisted was nervousness, and not anything else. She had not expected him to appear until they were outside the great hall, but here he was standing nonchalantly in the corridor waiting for her with all her friends watching.
He had done absolutely nothing with his hair: she noticed that first, it was falling loosely and barely combed down past his chin, rubbing against the high collar of his dress robes. They were slightly oriental in cut, fitted around the arms but flaring out into a split skirt that ended at mid-thigh over loose trousers, all in some fine, silky looking black, and twisting down one shoulder and around his chest the design of a snake, like a silvery watermark. She looked him in the face finally, completely at a loss.
He smiled, and it was that old Malfoy smile, brittle and cold, and she had to look away, her eyes drawn again to the design of the snake on his robes. And suddenly she knew just exactly what to say, and took one careful step toward him and said, "Shha hash ess za," and he blinked, and stood up away from the wall, his eyes flicking to both sides as he took in the other Gryffindor girls, who Ginny realized were frozen staring at them. "Care to translate that for me, Weasel?" he asked, his smile still the same, but there was real humor showing in his eyes.
"I only said, 'How Slytherin of you, Malfoy.'" She blinked, putting to use all the practice she'd gotten at pretending to be naive, and clapped her hand to her mouth. "Oh my. Was I speaking Parseltongue? I'm so sorry. It just brings back memories, once more being around a slimy minion of evil."
He looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh. "Oh, I don't mind, Weasel. It's quite sexy. You must do it for me again later tonight." He raised his eyebrows, and held out his arm for her. She smiled, bobbed, and took it, sparing not a glance for the still-shocked faces of the others as they swept down the hall together.
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Thanks for sharing.
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Which are *such* a *thing* with me about the Harry/Ginny ship - I'm not even anti-H/G, but the power levels in that relationship are so screwed up, and Harry doesn't even seem to realize how screwed up they are - and Ginny does seem to. And the life-debt thing is a conveniently vaguely canon-based way to pull it in and make it literal...
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Yeah, Harry isn't always the most perceptive wizard ever.
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Oh, man, this is NEAT, and I love the snake poem and the parallels and everything. Old-school Harry Potter fic went so many interesting places that JKR never did.
Yay for posting it! And I do agree with the above re. the Harry/Ginny. It's a little off in the books.