Open Season

The ice we skate

Is getting pretty thin

The water's getting warm so you might as well swim

My world's on fire

How 'bout yours?

That's the way I like it and I'll never get bored

Harry was feeling exceptionally pleased with himself. He had just returned from an immensely invigorating flight, managing to incorporate several Wronski Feints just over the surface of the lake and coincidentally nearly giving the giant squid a heart attack. He had handed in his latest Potions essay on time, which would save him from one of Hermione's now-legendary rants for oh, give it two hours. To top it off, he was currently seated in front of a huge plate of steaming chocolate pudding in the Great Hall. Except for the fact that his hair was seriously greasy from all the high-altitude wind, he felt life rarely got better than this.

His face brightened when he spotted Hermione at the door to the Hall, looking anxious about something. It was nothing to be worried about - it was her default expression and one which she blamed on the perpetual chaos that was the world in general and house-elf oppression in particular. He gestured her over, eager to share his good mood with humankind. There wasn't an emotional woe in life that couldn't be solved by chocolate, in his opinion.

She hurried over, her face betraying a sort of sterling, determined bravado that characterised Gryffindors in dark and difficult times, such as when they were woken up too early. In Hermione's case, it usually meant she was about to say something she felt the listener didn't really want to hear. Not that it ever stopped her; if it did, she probably wouldn't be able to speak at all.

'Harry,' she said solemnly, sitting down beside him and placing her hand on his shoulder, for all the world as if she were performing a Royal investiture.

Feeling the atmosphere called for a response, Harry dragged his spoon out of his mouth and used it to point at his plate. 'Pudding?' he offered, somewhat reluctantly. After all, he was nothing if not generous, but pudding was pudding.

Hermione blinked and scowled briefly, before recomposing her features into a look of compassionate empathy. Hoping it meant she wasn't going to take him up on his offer, after all, Harry smiled optimistically.

She leaned in closer. Clearly what she was about to say was of great import. Probably something to do with Voldemort, Harry suppositioned.

'Harry, I know,' she whispered, her eyes brimming with understanding, of which Harry felt he had a significant lack.

'Huh?' he said inelegantly, rather spoiling the momentous effect of her cryptic words. Hermione frowned, and tried again.

'Harry, it's all right,' she said soothingly. 'You don't have to hide it from me any more. After all,' she paused for dramatic effect, stopping just short of winking to prompt Harry to a suitable reaction, 'I know.'

Harry felt somewhat impatient. Hermione was one of his best friends and he loved her dearly, but right now she was distracting him from his rapidly cooling pudding. If one was forced to be philosophical about it, chocolate was always good, but in this case it was better when it was so hot as to be almost impossible to taste. There were simply some pleasures of the flesh that called for immediate consumption.

'Hermione, I'm afraid you're going to have to be a little more circumspect about this,' he said, trying not to eye up the pudding too obviously. This was evidently a failure; Hermione followed his gaze, and her eyes narrowed shrewdly, as if he'd just made a critical chess move.

'There are a hell of a lot of things that you know. It would be considerably easier to make a list of what you don't know...I'm happy that you know,' he blundered on inanely, horrified that Hermione now appeared to feel justified, judging from her smug body language. Harry wrinkled his brow in confusion. 'Just, what is it that you know?'

'Oh, Harry,' Hermione sighed indulgently, reaching over to ruffle his hair. Harry regarded her in consternation.

'Oh, I wouldn't do that...it's all sweaty...'

Hermione made a little squealing sound. 'Oh, that's so sweet! Oh, and dirty, I suppose...I'm just so happy for you Harry. At last!' She sighed rapturously.

Harry, after choosing and discarding several increasingly hysterical options, finally settled for looking at her blankly. He wondered if she was, at best, the unwitting test subject of a newly developed Weasley's Wizard Wheeze, and resolved to ask Ron as soon as he saw him. At worst, Voldemort had somehow infiltrated her mind and was using her as a weapon against him...to distract him with completely unintelligible comments and make his life not worth living by depriving him of pudding by all the wiles evil could possess.

At that moment, most of Gryffindor house trooped in for dinner, and Harry took advantage of the distraction to gulp down several mouthfuls of gooey chocolate, nearly choking himself in the process and by consequence saving Voldemort of a lot of trouble on his behalf.

At the first opportunity - or at least, as soon as all reachable pudding had been devoured - Harry pulled Ron aside for an urgent conference. Hermione had been on the point of confiding something clearly deep and meaningful to him, but Harry stilled her with a well-practised glare. For some reason, this only made her smile mistily at him. In seconds she was deep in converse with Lavender and Parvati. Snatches of their exchange floated over Harry's head as he and Ron went into a whisper-huddle, broken only by Ron's periodical gropings for another chicken leg.

'So you told him? What did he say? How did he react?'

'Ron, have you noticed something odd about Hermione lately?' Harry asked urgently.

'What, like reading far more than is healthy, looking up nasty hexes and being generally bossy and irritating?' Ron asked, rolling his eyes. 'No, not so's I've noticed.'

' - tried to deny it -'

'Well, she was acting extremely weird just earlier,' Harry said firmly. 'It freaked me out.'

'Describe,' Ron urged him, reaching for a leg.

'- looked over at him -'

'She came in, acting like someone had died, and she told me she knew!' Harry said forcefully.

Ron nodded along to his words. When Harry stopped speaking, he paused and pulled his eyebrows together. 'Well? And? She knew what?'

'That's just it!' Harry said in frustration. 'She wouldn't tell me!'

'- happy someone finally realised!'

'Did she give you any hint at all?' Ron asked worriedly, gnawing absently at the clean bone. 'Was it about YouKnowMort?'

'I don't think so,' Harry said, frowning, tightening his hands into fists as he tried to consider Hermione's actions. 'She seemed...happy for me, or something? Unless she'd just found out Voldemort had died...'

'- think they'd just been meeting!''

'Trust me, Harry,' Ron declared, 'if that happened, we'd all know.'

His words fell into a sudden lull of conversation and both boys looked up, startled by the sudden silence. The three girls were eyeing them knowingly, with identical, hawk-like expressions which made Harry long for a convenient mouse-hole. When he caught Hermione's eye, she grinned delightedly, and tapped the side of her nose. Feeling cornered and with no idea why, a blush rose inexorably up Harry's cheeks.

'So, did you just tell Ron then?' she asked, her tone of eagerness belying her innocuous words. Lavender and Parvati leaned forward, like hounds straining after a scent.

'See what I mean?' Harry said frantically out of the side of his mouth.

'Don't worry. I'll get it out of her,' Ron said under his breath. 'You. Go while you still can!'

Harry jumped from his seat, almost overturning the bench in his haste. The girls seemed poised to follow him, before Ron heroically threw himself forward to block their route to Harry's escape, and as a minor consequence ended up mouth to mouth with Hermione, which proved to be quite the effective diversion.

With nary a glance backwards, Harry fled.

~

Unthinkingly, Harry ran down the first corridor he came to, without pausing to consider where it might lead. Finally, several left turns on, he stopped to wonder at his frightened reaction and to catch his breath. Leaning against a damp stone wall, he drew in several ragged breaths of soothing oxygen, gripping his knees convulsively. Then he started to laugh.

Merlin, but he must be short of kicks, to flee from Hermione as if she was wielding an Unforgivable! This was just another item that came under the heading of 'Strange Things Girls Do'. Evidently, it now included pretending to know secrets that made no sense.

Harry wracked his brain. He drew a blank. There was nothing he was hiding from Hermione, not counting the fact that Harry divined that Ron was mad about her but wouldn't admit it. This wasn't even a secret, or if it was it was the worst-kept one in Hogwarts; nor did it pertain to Harry personally.

Shaking his head, Harry levered himself off the wall, which was starting to dampen his robes. He shuddered, and thanked his stubborn and prejudiced subconscious once again for refusing to let the Sorting Hat put him in Slytherin. Imagine living in these conditions! Millions of years of evolution, and the slimy, sneering and apparently most ambitious portion of the wizard-kind still chose to live in caves.

It was as he was thinking this that Harry got his bearings, and realised with a slight shock that he was standing exactly opposite the entrance to the Slytherin dungeons. It had been made a little more obvious in recent years, with the additions of two huge snake carvings on either side of the slab that functioned as a door. As Harry peered closer, ignoring the snakes' supercilious expressions, he realised they appeared to be wearing armour, and one of them was wielding a morningstar in its coiled tail. The overall effect was inexpressibly tacky, and typically Slytherin.

As he watched the slab slid aside. Poised to flee, Harry paused to appreciate the appearance of one Draco Malfoy, who was looking pink and flustered and not like his calm, glacial self at all. When he saw Harry, he jumped like he'd been stung, and even the sneer he eventually managed to summon up was a pale shadow of its usual vitriol.

'Potter. What a surprise,' he drawled, still sounding somewhat shaken, but taking refuge in habit. 'Mind you, this corridor must be positively palatial compared to sharing space with a Weasley. Admiring our stunning bas-relief, I suppose?'

'I wouldn't call it admiring,' Harry said meditatively. 'What's wrong with you, Malfoy? Did you look in the mirror again? You know it's dangerous, the way they shatter when you do that.'

'Get stuffed, Scarface,' Malfoy said angrily, and stomped off. Harry rubbed his chin, and turned his head to the sound of whispers. The slab was open a crack, and from the sounds of it people were clustered around it, peering out at - what? Harry? Malfoy? Why would they want to look after Malfoy, didn't they get their fill of looking at the pasty git in their common room every single day?

Refusing to waste another moment of his life pondering the behaviour of Slytherins - potential psychopaths who'd lost the plot, if they'd ever had one, to a wizard - Harry departed, taking the opposite route to Malfoy.

He'd barely made it out of the dungeons when he ran into Professor McGonagall. She bore down on him with a very odd look on her face - it appeared to be divided into two halves, each one operating on a different agenda. The right side was grim and stern, while the left looked as triumphant and proud as it did when he won Quidditch matches. Harry blinked rapidly, wondering if it was some brand of magical optical illusion.

'Potter, what are you doing skulking around the dungeons?' she said disapprovingly, with the right side of her face. Then the left side staged a sudden coup and took control, and she added gently, 'Still, I suppose it can't be helped. Dark times, Harry, dark times...we must take comfort where it can be found...' She sniffed, and quickly dabbed a tear from her left eye.

Harry was feeling considerably lost at sea, and fearful of what would happen when the right side of McGonagall's face realised the left had just betrayed emotion. Not to mention he had no idea what the hell she was on about.

'You're probably right there,' Harry said cautiously. He was about to expound his chocolate manifesto, but she cut him off curtly, the left side abruptly gaining the upper hand.

'Come, Potter,' she said briskly. 'I'm to escort you to the Headmaster's office. He wishes to speak to you.'

Oh good, Harry thought thankfully, an alibi...perhaps Snape was dead. That would explain - badly, it was true - the reference to dungeons and the crying and the summons. His legacy would live on...in Malfoy's nasty comments and Harry's own hair, which was growing slimier by the minute.

He trotted obediently after his Professor, and she left him at the door to Dumbledore's office with a sniff and the password ('Candyfloss'). Harry mounted the spiral staircase which deposited him on a priceless Persian carpet, on which Fawkes was perched, idly sharpening his claws and eating something bloody and unspecified. Harry smiled nervously at the bird but forbore to touch it.

Dumbledore was seated at his desk, his fingers steepled and his expression serious. Harry's well-thought out plot was torn to shreds when one of the wing-back chairs by the fire spun around to reveal Snape hunched in one, looking more like an anorexic bat than ever.

'Hello Headmaster...Professor,' Harry said, nodding his head to each, and twisting his fingers together under his robe. Occlumency...wonderful. He just loved having his mind invaded by not one, but two master wizards...just how he wanted to spend his Friday night...

'Harry, I summoned you here because certain circumstances that - require attention - have come to our notice,' Dumbledore said seriously, with a glance in Snape's direction. The Potions Master made a face and spat contemptuously into the fire. Harry's gut lurched. Strange games were afoot here.

'Professor Snape, as you see, is having a little trouble coming to terms with this sudden change,' Dumbledore pointed out. It was the understatement of the century; a blind deaf sloth in South America could have picked up on the fact that Snape was unhappy, which made a change from angry and vengeful, Harry supposed. Snape looked up, treating Harry to a look of unmitigated loathing, and Harry stepped back involuntarily. Just what had he done? Had someone cast a memory charm on him? Had he killed someone? What?

Dumbledore smiled broadly and unexpectedly, throwing Harry off-guard. He gaped at the old man, who was twinkling at him again. It was utterly infuriating.

'I, however, am delighted to see such an easing of relations, if in a slightly unorthodox manner,' he said genially. 'I am sure many others will be of like mind...as for the rest, the dear Professor has suggested starting a little club...'

Snape bared his pointed teeth, in an expression which was to a smile what welly-throwing was to the Olympic Games, and Harry edged closer to Dumbledore.

'Professor Dumbledore,' Harry said hesitantly, because Dumbledore was regarding him with an expression usually reserved for new-born kittens or Chinese first-born sons, and he hated to burst his bubble, 'but what exactly are we discussing here? Is it to do with Voldemort?'

Snape shuddered delicately at the name, and Dumbledore blinked.

'My dear boy,' he said. 'Don't tell me I am the first one to have confronted you on this issue?'

Harry felt flustered. He'd said 'issue' in the same way Hermione had said 'I know'. Using his meagre powers of deduction he thought they just might be referring to the same - as yet undisclosed - subject.

'Well, Hermione said something,' he admitted reluctantly, because he still wasn't sure what she had said, other than crazy stuff. Dumbledore beamed.

'Well, I'm sure you're glad to have it out in the open at last,' he said briskly. 'Be assured you have my full support in this, Harry. And I promise to keep Professor Snape from killing or otherwise causing you harm, no matter the temptation to him.'

'Thank you,' Harry said at last. He wasn't one to turn his nose up at such an offer; Snape's hatred of him was certainly of homicidal proportions, and someone guarding his back, and perhaps forcing him to pass Harry in Potions, was not to be sniffed at. He decided to simply play along, then go straight to Ron and see if he'd found out what on earth this all had to do with. Snape was rocking to and fro on his chair, mumbling something that sounded like 'my finest student...oh gods...my finest...'

'Very well. You can run along now, Harry. I'm sure you have plenty of things to be doing.' Dumbledore winked suggestively at him, and Harry turned slightly green about the gills, in tandem with Snape. 'I, meanwhile, need to have a little psychiatric session with your traumatised Potions Professor...'

'Thanks,' Harry mumbled again, and made a wild break for the door, nearly tripping over Fawkes' discarded carcass.

'Ah, those boys!' Dumbledore said fondly. Snape growled and made a spirited attempt to slit his wrists with his fingernails. 'Come now, Severus, it's not all bad. Don't you remember being young once?'

'No. I had my memories erased at my request when I became a Death Eater,' Snape said sarcastically. 'If you had any mercy, in three weeks time you'll do the same for me.'

'Oh, Severus, you know I think Memory Charms are unethical,' Dumbledore said, hiding his smile behind his teacup. 'Besides, love is a many-splendoured thing. Surely you don't want to deprive James Potter's son of all that heartbreak and misery?'

Snape looked up, surprised, from his own teacup, in which he had been trying to drown himself. 'You might just have something there...' he murmured.

'Atta boy. I'll even help you make buttons for your club.'

~

The fading light of a summer sunset was lighting the corridors as Harry meandered his way down them, lost in thought. He almost walked on top of Pansy Parkinson, who was crouched down on the plinth of a suit of armour, her face streaked with tears.

Harry halted, torn. On the one hand, she was pug-faced Slytherin. On the other, she was a pug-faced Slytherin. However, reluctantly calling to mind one of Hermione's oftenest- repeated remarks, that the house maketh not the man (or woman); he cleared his throat awkwardly, wanting to give her time to scram if she wished.

Instead she looked up defensively, and when her eyes lit on Harry her face collapsed.

'Oh, great, just the person I wanted to see!' she sobbed tragically.

Harry frowned. 'Really?'

'Of course not, you four-eyed freak!' she shrieked in outrage. 'Of all the people...how could you? Well, I know how I feel, but I thought I was the only one! I thought, maybe...but now it's all come to nothing!' Abruptly, she let out a howl of anguish and buried her head in her arms.

'Um, well,' Harry fumbled, wondering what he'd done to cause such pain to Pansy, of all people. He wasn't sure if she was a Death Eater or not; he hoped for the former, because it would least give her anger a sane basis. 'I'm sure it will be fine,' he added lamely.

'Fine! It'll be perfect! For you! Always you!' Pansy stormed, lifting her head once more. She howled again. 'That's it! It's my turn to bloody you up a little!'

The word was the deed and before Harry knew quite what was happening, a powerful right hook to the eye sent him stumbling backwards. He let loose a yell of pain.

'Hah! Serves you right! Bloody perfect Gryffindors,' Pansy said, sniffling and smirking maliciously at the same time. 'What they see in you I'll never know...'

Harry tried to scowl at her, but was cut short by the throbbing waves that sent through his face. Through one eye he saw her sprint away, crying again. Harry shook his head in bewilderment.

Half an hour later he staggered up to Gryffindor tower, clutching a raw, dripping hunk of steak to his swelling eye. It felt as disgusting as it looked, but Madame Pomfrey had told him briskly that there was nothing to be done until the bruising came up, and until then it would ease him. The cold texture of the meat was indeed very pleasant, as long as Harry didn't think too much about what it was.

Or about her parting words.

'Potter, I am not going to spend the next three weeks patching up your cuts and bruises, so play nicely together now, hmm? You don't have the strain of keeping it a secret any longer, after all.'

Harry was beginning to have an inkling of what was going on.

Everyone thought he and Pansy had been having clandestine assignations.

This would have to be set right immediately.

He entered the common room to find most of his friends and housemates there, engaged in nondescript activities. He whistled loudly and almost dropped his steak. All eyes turned to him and widened in amazement. He cleared his throat and announced firmly, 'Pansy and I are not, I repeat not, having an affair.'

A buzz of chatter broke out. Hermione looked up from her chair near the fire, shaking her head and smiling slightly.

'Thanks for telling us,' Hermione said, and was that a tinge of sarcasm in her voice? No matter. He made his way over and sunk gratefully into the couch beside her.

Ron looked over at them. He was seated at a table, his hands clutching his head convulsively. He brought to mind Harry's last sighting of Snape, and he leaned forward, worried. 'Ron? Are you all right, mate?'

Ron glanced in Harry's direction, his face working rapidly. Behind Harry's back, Hermione made a throat-slitting gesture.

'I - ah - have to go. Homework,' Ron choked out, before jumping to his feet and running for the dormitory.

'He's going to do homework in bed?' Harry asked, confused. 'What's wrong with him, Hermione?'

'He's having a little trouble adjusting to the news,' Hermione said gently. At Harry's raised eyebrow, she continued, 'Well, I told him. It's only fair that he knows too.'

'Knows what?' Harry cried. 'I told you, I'm not going out with Pansy - wherever everyone got that ridiculous idea from!'

'I know you're not, dear,' Hermione said, sighing a little. 'I never thought that you were.' 'Then, please, please, please,' Harry said, hoarsely, 'will you tell me - WHAT IS IT THAT YOU KNOW?

Hermione raised her eyebrows. She stroked her chin. She tugged at a wisp of hair. Then she smiled broadly, her face accepting and content.

'About you and Malfoy, of course.'

~

When Harry eventually came to, it was to the sound of a cacophony of voices, all mouthing something along the lines of: 'Shh! Keep it down! The boy needs quiet time!'

Harry struggled to sit up, hampered by well-meaning hands who were feeling for his temperature. Those that couldn't reach his forehead were using any skin they could find, including his neck, hands, ankles and in one mildly horrifying case, his knee. At last Harry was forced to resort to slapping in between yells of 'I'm awake! Awake, god damn it!'

'Oh, Harry, you're finally awake!' Ginny said, looking grief-stricken and in tones that were more suited to the phrase 'He has finally passed from this world of pain into the shiny afterlife'.

'Yes, yes,' Harry said impatiently. 'Hermione? Need to talk. Now.'

'Okay, Harry,' Hermione said meekly, emerging from a tidal wave of bodies by crawling in between someone's legs.

'This will take some explaining,' Harry said ominously, backing up in an attempt to find a clear space to sit on. He eventually perched on the coal bucket. The outlying ranks of concerned onlookers had not yet been informed of his recovery, and as a consequence the football-riot game of sardines was on-going.

Hemmed in by a forest of legs, Hermione contented herself with lying on the ground, propping up her chin on her hands in an attempt to look serious and in discussion mode.

'What is it you want explained exactly, Harry?' she asked.

'Where you got this absurd notion that Malfoy and I are - that I'm - urg, I have no words,' Harry said in disgust.

Hermione looked lost in thought.

'Hermione! Focus, please!'

'Sorry, Harry,' she murmured. 'It's just I never knew you used words like 'absurd' before.' She contorted her body further to look Harry dead in the eye, grinning. 'Is this his influence on you?'

'Arg!' Harry said expressively, and crawled away in the direction of the dorms.

There he found Seamus and Ron in situ. Ron took one look at his erstwhile best friend and immediately turned away, lip trembling.

'Ron, I am not getting up to anything with Malfoy!' Harry said loudly.

'Ooh, have you broken up then?' Seamus asked eagerly.

'No!' Harry said in revulsion. Ron looked betrayed and made You-Kick-Puppy? eyes. '- Because there's nothing to break! It's just a silly rumour! Malfoy probably started it to make a fool of me!'

Did he really, though? Harry's subconscious asked. He looked awfully flustered before...signs of a guilty conscience I don't think, because he doesn't possess one...

'So, you're a free agent again, Harry?' Seamus said, licking his lips.

'I don't know about again...oh gods, please don't hit on me. Won't someone think of the child - the Ron?'

'Don't mind me, I'm sure,' Ron said, sounding miffed. 'Go on and have at it like rabbits, see if I care. Didn't tell me he was gay, didn't tell me he's shagging his worst - okay, moderately bad - enemy, don't know why he bothers really, should just call me his best - his best - non-friend...'

'Who exactly should I be shagging then, Ron?' Harry asked, exasperated.

Ron sat up on his bed, on which he had been pathetically reclining, and began to tick off on his fingers. 'Well, not my sister, as she is pure and untouchable - stop snorting Seamus, you are gay - possibly a Patil. That would be okay. I could scan that.' He lay back down. Harry didn't move. Ron flapped his hand negligently, in a vague attempt at a Fire At Will gesture. 'Have at it like a rabbit, then.'

'So it's okay for Seamus to be gay, but not me?' Harry said, insulted, and ignoring the fact that he'd never even considered bisexuality up until when Seamus felt up his arse, exactly five seconds ago.

Ron screwed up his face thoughtfully. 'In a word - yes. Well, actually, I could care less about your preferences but I'm pretending to be an involved friend here. Have you considered going out with Lupin?'

'Gah,' Harry said eloquently, and went to bed.

~

The next day was Saturday, for which Harry was profoundly glad. He got up early, avoiding all his friends and random acquaintances, sought out his entire stock of Chocolate Frogs and headed for the lake. He walked a fair way around it and settled in a grassy knoll, to start munching heavenly soul-balm, common name: chocolate, and making cloud shapes. It felt very Zen.

He spotted Malfoy before Malfoy saw him, and realised he was in enough of a Mood not to even notice Harry through the thick veil of his suffering. A surprising thought hit Harry, however, and it was: talk to Malfoy. Talk to the blondy git who is at the root of the seventeenth weirdest day of your life...

'Oy! Malfoy!' he called uncharitably. Malfoy whipped his head around and fixed him with a gimlet stare, nostrils quivering.

'Chocolate?' Malfoy said hoarsely, and Harry kindly flipped him a Frog.

Malfoy sank straight into a half-Lotus, and Harry, impressed despite himself, was moved to observe, 'Every bastard and his dog thinks we're an item.'

'I know!' Malfoy's voice was a wail of despair.

'I take it you're not behind this, then.'

'God, Potter,' Malfoy said disgustedly, 'I may be in line for inheriting the Mantle of the Darkness That Does Not Sleep, or whatever, but I'm not that sick and twisted.'

'Good to know,' Harry said genially. 'Honestly, they must have been struck with a curse of Blind Stupidity. What on earth would I see in a pasty, pointy git? Besides gifting me with no taste whatsoever, has it completely escaped their notice that you are a Death Eater in training?'

'I know,' Malfoy said in a ghastly voice. 'I mean, Potter, of all people! I totally do not vibe with the bespectacled academia look! You're not even that academic! You're basically your average massively brave but thick-as-two-short-planks hero! With an ANGER MANAGAMENT problem! I could hardly discuss schoolwork with you - you're either in the hospital wing or off fighting evil, school is beneath you. I LIKE GIRLS! Oh, my fur and whiskers, why?'

'What, exactly, is it that is supposed to attract us to each other?' Harry wondered, out of morbid curiosity.

'I know not,' Malfoy said, shuddering. 'Zabini keeps wittering that it is cute. Potter, it scares me.'

'I feel your pain, Malfoy,' Harry, sharing a unique second of empathy with him before wanting to jump headfirst into the lake to shake off the nasty sensation.

'Potter, you know what we have to do,' he said, and Harry wondered if his next words would be 'pull out our fingernails and eat them', from the look on his face. 'We have to tell them. Set the record straight. Face the music. Mano é mano.'

'That last one didn't fit,' Harry objected.

'Ten points to the boy wonder! Come on,' Malfoy said, grabbing him round his wrist.

'So dirty! Never, never clean...' Harry moaned.

~

Ten minutes later Harry was standing in the Slytherin common room, staring around in horrified awe. It was no longer the austere, dank and gloomy room of his fond second-year memories. Apparently, it was not only the entrance which had received a bit of a revamp. The result would have stimulated the upchuck reflexes of all but the most colour-blind Vegas go-go girl.

In short, it looked like an overly-luminous gambling den.

Halogen signs in lurid shades pointed the way to absolutely everything, in a strange language Harry charitably supposed could be called English. He managed to read a few before his watering eyes prevented him.

A bright pink arrow was emblazoned with the words 'Biotches sleep ere'. Another, in blue, marked the way to the 'Pissoir'. A tremendous bill-board sized can-can dancer flexed her flashing green leg over a sign proclaiming to be the entrance to the 'Head Wanker's Room'.

The signs provided most of the lighting in the room; the rest was supplied by little beaded lamps set in the midst of velvet-swathed tables. Cards, piles of money and what Harry hoped wasn't human bones was a leitmotif on each. The tables were almost empty, except for one at which Blaise Zabini, Crabbe and Goyle were staring at their hands in almost animal intensity. The rest of the Slytherins were draped over green silk couches, idly dabbling in Transfiguring other people's homework into grass snakes, Vanishing each other's underwear and, in Pansy's case, paining a broomstick with eye-searingly orange nail varnish.

'That had better not be my Firebolt,' Draco said dangerously.

'Oh, Draco!' she trilled. 'Look, I made a little surprise for you!' She held up what was, indeed, the only other Firebolt in the school, by it's tail, and both Harry and Draco along with the entire common room could see the words - off centre and dribbling slightly - 'Draco 4 Harry 4 Eva'.

'Arg!' Draco shouted, and not wanting to be left out, 'Holy shit!' quoth Harry.

'Ah, you like!' Pansy said, capping her bottle and smiling schemingly.

'Before we go on, and I kill Pansy,' Harry said, 'I have to know. What happened to this place?'

'How do you mean?' Draco asked uncomprehendingly.

At the table, Blaise suddenly whooped. 'Go fish!' he screeched triumphantly.

'You turned this place into a mini-Vegas to play Go Fish?' Harry said faintly.

'Oh, that,' Draco shrugged dismissively. 'The seventh-years get to choose the décor every year. We put all our ideas into a hat.'

'Oh, and the one you pull out is the one you use?' Harry asked, clinging to a faint ray of normalcy in a World Gone Mad.

Draco made a face. 'Of bloody course not. We gang up on the person whose idea it was and whoever comes out top on the wizard's scrum gets to decorate.'

'I barely dare to ask,' Harry said, feeling sick curiosity, 'who won?'

'Zabini,' Draco said. 'I would have, but I think we were engaged in a fistfight at the time. He said it reminds him of home.'

'Where does he come from?'

'Liverpool.'

'Right, right,' Harry said, nodding his head like a car-toy. He was suddenly aware that everyone in the room had been following the conversation with eyes like syringes.

'Time to spill, methinks,' he added, gulping.

'Yo, dudes. Me and Potter here - we so not getting' jiggy with it. You copy?' Draco said briefly.

'Draco, I'm sure we don't want to know all the lurid details,' said a girl with blue pigtails whom Harry thought might be called Daphne Greengrass. 'Isn't it enough to hear you're going out with the Bonny Prince of Gryffindor?'

'He's not!' Harry objected swiftly.

'I am totally in acquiescence with the loser to my left,' Draco said loftily.

'It's just a river in Eygpt,' the girl-who-might-be-called-Daphne frowned. 'You don't have to pretend anymore. We all know. We've got rid of all the vomit. Don't you dare give me any more to Vanish.'

'Am I the only one who didn't understand any of that?' Harry complained.

'No,' Crabbe grunted, and Harry felt a little mollified. But only a little. Crabbe only ever answered yes/no questions, because his vocabulary didn't extend further than those two words.

'Go fish!' Blaise yelled again. 'Aren't they just adorable?'

'Who, the fish?' Harry asked, perplexed.

'You really think I would want to date this lummox, then,' Draco remarked measuredly.

'Blaise, you're really starting to worry me,' Pansy said, scraping a splodge of nail varnish off her hand and thoughtfully eating it. 'Have you been at Nott's hash-stash again?'

'You keep drugs on the premises?' Harry cried, horrified.

'Of course not,' Draco said blandly. Harry felt relieved. Draco rolled his eyes.

'He actually believed me!' he complained. 'Have you all taken leave of your senses? Potter is the last person in this school - screw that, this planet - that I'd ever want to - oh, god, my inner eye is burning - um -'

'Screw?' Pansy suggested sweetly, retrieving a hookah from between the sofa cushions. 'Hand it over then, Zabini.'

'What's in it for me?' Zabini said, scooping up a handful of cards with a sated-lion expression.

'Well...we could always make them kiss,' Pansy said evilly. All eyes turned to Harry and Draco with distinctly hungry looks. Both boys drew together fearfully.

'When I say the word, run,' Draco hissed.

Harry nodded. 'Wait - what's the word?'

'Now!' Draco said, and they both made a dash for the entrance, stumbling over a cheery draught-excluder in the shape of a basilisk.

'Aww! Cute!' Blaise roared after them, sounding like a wounded rhinoceros. When the slab slammed shut, he turned to his housemates.

'Okay, now the Boy Wonder's precious eyes have departed, who's in for strip poker?'

~

'Gryffindors are more reasonable,' Harry said firmly. 'Also, they listen to me. Also, they are not drug-addicts with a gambling problem and, it seems, totally out of their respective trees.'

'That's what you think,' Draco said sulkily, muttering something under his breath that could have been 'Philosopher's Stone', or perhaps 'Chamber of Secrets', 'escaped murderer,' 'Whomping Willow', 'Department of Mysteries' or even, at a push, ' See Spot Run'. Oh, and *cough*.

'I didn't kick up a stink when you dragged me into your stupid dungeon - or should I say casino,' Harry said reprovingly.

'Well, you have the soul of a Slytherin,' Draco said moodily. 'Why else did you nearly get Sorted there?'

'You know that?' Harry asked, gaping.

'Of course. Everyone does. It's one of the reasons for - this.' Draco gestured with one hand and a wrinkled nose. 'We can connect on a deep, cosmic, snake-infested level.'

Harry paused. 'That is - that is. Ineffably stupid.'

'You're telling me,' Draco said, kicking at a loose pebble with all the vindictiveness he had reserved for Harry's head. 'If I wanted to date someone with Slytherin tendencies, don't you think I could have chosen from oh, the two hundred odd in SLYTHERIN HOUSE?'

'You'd really date an eleven-year-old?' Harry said, raising an eyebrow.

'It was a hypothetical,' Draco said angrily.

'A hypothetical what?'

'Statement!'

'Okay, calm down. Don't have a coronary.'

'I wouldn't give you the satisfaction!'

'Excellent! Keep that up and we'll convince them in no time.'

'I don't know,' Draco said darkly. 'Gryffindors aren't meant to be capable of mind-crushing hate, are they? Slytherins are, and they hate you like that. And look at them now. They practically adopted you!'

'They were going to make me kiss you!' Harry protested.

Draco looked at him askance. 'What they should have done is hamstring you and make you eat your own beating heart. Kissing is small beans. They'd think that was - I cannot believe I'm saying this - cute, or something.'

'My definition of cute, and Pansy's, are NOT THE SAME THING,' Harry said fervently. 'First intelligent thing you've said all day, mate. You haven't got another Chocolate Frog about your person, by any chance?'

'Sure,' Harry said, rummaging in his pocket and handing his arch-rival one with a preoccupied air.

'Cheers. Oh, do you want the card? I don't collect them.'

'Yeah. Who is it?'

'You,' Draco said, grinning, and flipped the card at him. Harry caught it, open-mouthed.

'I'm on a Chocolate Frog card?'

'See for yourself.'

Harry looked down at the card. It was true. He could see himself in miniature, leaning against the frame and nervously tugging his hair down over his scar. He turned the card over and read aloud: 'Harry Potter, currently a student of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Known to many as the Boy Who Lived, he is responsible for the first downfall of You-Know-Who and for alerting the wizarding world of his return. He was the youngest Seeker on a House team in a century. His hobbies include Quidditch and spending time with his boyfriend, Draco, son of disgraced Death Eater Lucius Malfoy...'

His voice trailed away, and he looked up. Draco's face was frozen mid-bite, and he looked like someone had just knee-capped him.

'The rot has spread further than I thought,' he said fervently.

'We have to fix this, fast,' Harry said. 'Run!'

~

They arrived at Gryffindor Tower red-faced, panting, and sweating. It was only when Hermione gave them a knowing smile and Seamus tipped them a provocative wink, that Harry belatedly realised that it wasn't the greatest look, considering the misapprehension they were all labouring under.

'Malfoy likes girls,' Harry said hurriedly. 'And I do not like Malfoy. We are not, and never were, going out. Now tell me what we have to do to make you believe this is true?'

Hermione glanced around at her friends, and licked her lips. She was seated in a chair with a huge book in her lap. Ron was sitting beside her, ostensibly reading it with her, but eyeing her more than the text. The rest of the Gryffindor seventh-years were ranged around the room, playing Exploding Snap or crying over the impending NEWTs. Most of the younger years were out in the sunshine, except for the Creeveys, who were sorting their photograph collection. Harry gulped when he noticed the name of their new album: 'Harry & Draco'. The cover was emblazoned with hearts and obese Cupids. Harry felt slightly sick.

Draco looked around with an unmistakable air of condescending interest. He looked like a Russian lord inspecting a serf's hovel. Harry reined in a sharp urge to kick him.

Hermione carefully set her book aside and stood up, after nudging Ron away; he was practically sitting in her lap along with the tome.

'It's very simple, really,' she said. 'You have to kiss him.'

'It's catching,' Draco said feebly.

Harry stared at her, horror-struck. She met his look with one of her own, of stony obstinacy.

'If you really aren't involved, what harm will it do?' she challenged. 'And if you are - well, the matter will be settled once and for all.'

'What harm?' Harry said loudly. 'I'll only have to kiss him!'

'Pretend you're drunk,' Hermione suggested facetiously. 'You kiss everyone when you're drunk.'

'Thanks, Hermione,' Harry said snidely.

'Well, you do.'

Harry turned to face Draco, who sent him a look of unmitigated terror that had Harry checking for sprouting tentacles. Harry felt a wave of relief. Draco was going to chicken out. That would settle things.

Suddenly Draco's features hardened. 'This has gone on long enough,' he announced. 'I will do this, and then I will go out and kiss every girl I see, animal vegetable or mineral, and you will all CEASE THIS NONSENSE.'

'Exactly my point,' Hermione said equably.

'Right,' Harry said, to no one in particular. 'If I die of this, you are all going to be so sorry.'

'Harry, people do not die from kissing,' Hermione said impatiently. 'If they did, the human race would bloody well die out; now get on with it, you pansy!'

Harry was about to object, but Draco had grabbed his face and his attention. Screwing up his face like he was sucking a lemon, and holding his body taut to prevent any bodily contact, Draco kissed him, lip to side-of-mouth. It lasted a split-second before both parties leaped back, scrubbing furiously at their faces.

'Oh, I am really, really, never going to be clean,' Harry muttered. He wondered if even chocolate was up to the task of cleansing this iniquity and freeing him from this sin.

However, a Greek chorus of protest had arisen from the assembled Gryffindors. Seamus was waving his arms about in abject disappointment, and Ron had thrown his eyes up to heaven. Hermione had her arms crossed mulishly, disapproval radiating from every pore.

'If that was a kiss then I am Margaret Thatcher,' Hermione stated angrily.

'Are you sure you're not?' Draco quipped. Hermione quivered with outrage.

'Fine. We'll just have to show you how it's done.'

'What, with, like, a demonstration?' Draco said, closing his eyes for a moment in dismay. 'I have a weak stomach, you know.'

'Seamus!' Hermione barked. 'Get up here!'

'At your service, m'am!' Seamus said, saluting smartly.

Hermione smiled; a sister to the rictus so recently adorning Pansy's features. 'Use your initiative,' she said softly. Draco and Harry gulped in unison.

Without passing up the opportunity to cop a feel, and smirking all the while, Seamus marshalled the two boys, who were still too shaken to think of fleeing. Two minutes later, looking anywhere but at each other, they stood face to face, a hairsbreadth between them, Harry's hands on Draco's shoulders and Draco's hands on Harry's waist. They held themselves stiffly, hands as light as possible without actually releasing contact and bringing down upon them Hermione's wrath-of-the-gods.

'Now then, lads,' Seamus purred, grabbing each of them about the neck and wrenching both their heads in opposite directions. Harry could see his own wince mirrored on Draco's face. 'I trust ye two can take it from here?'

Harry took a deep, fortifying breath, but before he could expel it Draco had squeezed his eyes shut and, with a look of desperation, pressed his lips to Harry's. Harry's surprised whoosh of breath was released onto Draco's mouth.

They stood like that, mouth to mouth, for what seemed like an awfully long time. Harry could hear Hermione's foot tapping fretfully, but he didn't dare open his eyes.

At last, Harry thought it might be safe to move. It felt like he'd been standing there for an hour, and that bloody well had to satisfy them. He'd never realised his own Gryffindors were so tenacious. And evil. Merlin.

It was the movement that did it. Minutely, Harry eased himself away from Draco's body, withdrawing his hands to Draco's forearms with the view of getting them back to his own body. At this, Harry could see through one squinting eye that Draco's eyelashes fluttered against his highly-coloured cheeks. Harry made an edging motion, poised on the brink of fleeing - and inadvertently his lips brushed harder against Draco's, his hands clenched on Draco's arms and Draco shuddered and opened his eyes and mouth as if to retort.

For the briefest of flashes they were suspended on the brink of forever, lips framing an entrance to welcoming warmth, quiescent tongues stirring - then Harry, terrified, shoved Draco back with all the force he could muster and ran. Behind him Draco rocked back on his heels, rubbing his mouth absent-mindedly in a hopeless attempt at abrading the feel of Harry's from it.

'Well, I think we have our answer,' Hermione said quietly.

~

Harry had planned, in the frantic post-kiss haze that automatically made him start branding consequent events P.K., on running around the Great Lake. It finally dawned on him that this would probably incorporate a sight-seeing tour of half of Scotland, and he desisted somewhere along the borders of the Forbidden-Except-To-Heros-Of-The-Light Forest. Plumping himself down on the green sward, that was charmed to remain as dry as hay as soon as May hit the calendars, he let out a long, put-upon, traumatised sigh.

He stuck a hand in his pockets, only to for them to come up empty.

Well, that just put the tin lid on it.

He was facing into the greatest emotional crisis of his short life - namely, kissing the boy he hated but who the whole entire multiverse, it turned out, thought he was in love with - and there was no chocolate to be had.

He didn't know how long he huddled there, brooding as only a seventeen-year-old boy with relationship problems and hitherto unmentioned acne can, but when he looked up and saw Draco standing before him, the rich red rays of a setting sun outlining his form in a nimbus of dying sunlight, he realised it had been quite a time.

Wordlessly, Draco palmed him a Chocolate Frog, and took a seat off to his left, shifting around to get comfortable. Harry tore the wrapper with all the frenetic energy of a deprived addict and stuffed the Frog whole into his mouth, feeling it wriggle with magically-imbued life and becoming engulfed in a gleeful sense of cannibalism.

'My father sent me this,' Draco said tonelessly. 'As it is entirely your fault, I think you should read it.'

Harry felt not a little insulted at the assertion that he had been responsible for this unholy mess, but he was used to taking the fall. Besides, Draco had brought him chocolate and that made him worthy of devotion, if not sainthood, given Harry's current state of mind.

Taking the thick, embossed parchment from Draco, Harry unrolled it and flattened it in his lap, squinting in the dusk. Draco clucked his tongue in annoyance and performed a quick Lumos.

'Honestly, Potter, sometimes I wonder if you're a wizard at all.'

'Raised by Muggles,' Harry said indistinctly, engrossed in the letter and licking chocolate from his back teeth as he read.

'My dear son,

It has come to my attention that you are walking out with none other than our mortal enemy, Harry Potter. I am truly sorry to hear this, as it leaves me no option but to disown you immediately and completely. Reports detail your true love, affection and devotion to each other; from whence it sprung is not told. The Dark Lord has asked me to express his utter repugnance at such amorous behaviour, and in addition to notify you that your petition to join the Death Eaters, tendered by myself on your behalf, has been turned down without any option of repeal.

I hope this letter finds you well, and that you will enjoy the rest of your penniless life with the Boy Who Lived (for a Time).

Evilly yours,

Lucius Malfoy

PS Your mother urges me to add, that you are not to buy your wedding clothes without prior consultation with her, as you do not know the best outfitters'. She also asks me to remind you of the three-century feud the Malfoys have waged with the proprietors of Hagan's Bloom Emporium, and begs that you will not engage them to do the flowers for the ceremony. Also, please to inform us when exactly you will be giving us a day out.'

'Holy shit,' Harry said, deeply moved, and expressing it in the most heart-felt words he knew.

'I cannot believe this,' Draco said, his voice as still as quiet ponds in woodland glades. 'My father thinks we are, not only going out, but in love. My mother thinks we are getting married. I have been disowned.' He turned to look at Harry, who self-consciously wiped his chocolate-rimmed mouth. 'The only thing that does not surprise me in this whole sorry affair is that you are the root and cause of it all.'

Harry wanted to object to this unfair accusation - it took two to tango, after all, although a school-full of idiot romantics to trip the dancers, strangle the musicians with their own violin strings and spill the punch - but curiosity, ever a gold medallist in these circumstances, overtook him.

'Can we actually do that?' he asked. 'Get married, I mean?'

'Of course,' Draco said, curling a lip. 'Why couldn't we?'

'Well, in case it had slipped your notice, we are both boys,' Harry said, tilting his head back with a superior expression Hermione assured him made him look like he had three chins.

'What difference does that make?' Draco asked, bitterly. 'Two boys, two girls, two house-elves for bloody Merlin's sake, the point it not that you're a boy but that you're you! Of every person Fate and Destiny and Random Cruelty could have chosen to bind me with, it had to be you!'

'Yes,' Harry said, wondering why he wasn't knocked for six at the thought. 'Especially Random Cruelty. After all, we are best enemies.'

'Even Zabini and his lizard fetish would've been preferable!' Draco was bewailing. 'I'm going to have to hang with the Weasel and the Mudblood! They'll be godparents to my children! We'll have dinner parties surrounded by their hideous red-headed spawn!'

'Hey!' Harry said, stung. 'Crabbe and Goyle aren't the most sparkling of conversationalists. Imagine what their dinner party repartee would be like!'

'They can do things to forks you couldn't imagine,' Draco said brightly. 'It's a great party trick.'

'Can we have children, as well?' Harry wondered.

'Duh,' Draco said, rolling his eyes. 'Centuries of beautiful, bloody conflict between House Malfoy and House Weasley wasted! I'll have to watch a new generation of quarter-Muggle offspring teethe! Oh, the heartless, callous -'

'I don't know what you're getting so worked up about,' Harry said crossly. 'You're acting like this is some kind of preordained future. All that happened is that a couple of people got their wires crossed. Give it a while and it'll all die down - a nine-day wonder, nothing more. You'll laugh about it when you're off torturing Muggles with your brand-new Dark Mark and Bentley convertible.'

'Are you so sure about that, Potter?' Draco asked seriously, rolling onto his stomach and regarding Harry with his flinty orbs. 'Look what just happened when we kissed.'

'Yeah, it was like snogging a mannequin, then I got freaked out,' Harry scoffed.

Draco's face twisted as another thought hit him. 'And now I don't get to join the Death Eaters!' he pouted. 'I always wanted a robe with a hood!'

'You can join them! Who's going to stop you, Voldemort?'

'From my father's letter, yes, actually,' Draco commented dryly.

'A temporary aberration!' Harry roared. 'Once he finds out the truth you'll be tattooed before you can say Cruciatus!'

'...I didn't say I wanted to join,' Draco said, rather sulkily. 'I just would've liked the option.'

A silence fell, as Harry once more licked his now-spotless teeth and wished for more chocolate. Draco sat up and clasped his hands around his knees, watching the placid surface of the lake, broken only by ripples as a tentacle spouted out to snatch an unwary low-flying bird.

'Seriously, Draco,' Harry said. 'None of this is as serious as you seem to think. A few days of us acting like we always did and no one will even remember any of this nonsense.'

'I don't think so,' Draco said, nervously pleating the hem of his robes with his fingers. 'I can feel it in the air. A sea-change.'

'What, like you're smelling thunder?'

'Sort of. Only not the type that's made by angry clouds or Santa Claus.' Draco took a deep breath. 'Thunder in the soul.'

'Yes, you are officially wierding me out,' Harry proclaimed. 'Go see Professor Trelawney and tell her she has a new best mate.'

'Harry, drop the outraged scepticism for a bit,' Draco said, frowning. 'Tell me, what went through your head when you kissed me, just before you bolted?'

'Let me think,' Harry said mordantly. 'Okay...'Omigod this is crazy, I'm kissing Malfoy, we hate each other, Hermione is going to die a very messy death'.' He looked at Draco expectantly. 'What do you make of that, Mr Wannabe-Oracle-of-Delphi?'

'Crazy and hate,' Draco said, almost under his breath. 'Thunder and change. Crazy thunder. Hate can change.'

'Have you got any more Frogs?' Harry asked desperately.

'No, you ate my last,' Draco said absently.

'Damn!' Harry said, with more intensity than the word probably deserved, bearing in mind that he was no Clarke Gable. He didn't know what to think. He didn't want to think, not about this, not about Malfoy and change and thunder. The last thing he wanted was for things to change any more than they already had. There was no more chocolate, and he'd eaten Draco's last Frog.

Two days ago it would have been unthinkable for Draco to have given him a sweet that wasn't laced with arsenic. Two days ago, things had been clear - Draco was one of the Baddies, and Harry was the Soul Saviour of Mankind.

Suddenly Draco was disowned, a sarcastic bastard, a mean git still, but no more evil or potentially megalomaniac than your average ethereal blonde, sans fluffy white cat. Suddenly there was only the two of them fighting against a tide of misinformation and propaganda that badly wanted them to be together, for some inexplicable reason.

Things can change in a day.

'What can we do?' Harry asked hopelessly, not really expecting an answer. What was there to say?

'Like you said, pretend it isn't happening,' Draco shrugged. 'I don't think I'll be able to stand it,' he added conversationally, as if remarking on the fine weather for silage. 'Eventually I'm going to start fancying you, if only because people will keep throwing us together and nobody else will touch me because of it.'

'If only we knew why this was happening, or who was behind it!' Harry said forcefully, slamming his fist into his hand. 'Then we could stop - hang on, did you just say something about fancying me?'

'I think I must already, a bit,' Draco said. 'All that envy and bile and tension had to go somewhere, I suppose. Terrible as the prospect appears, I'd imagine I'm in a fair way to be very much in love with you, if this charade continues.'

'What? Why?' Harry asked frantically. Draco lay back, blinking up at the first stars dusting the horizon and smiling somewhat crookedly. Or maybe that was just the angle Harry was facing. Hurriedly, Harry dropped onto his stomach and propped his chin on his hands. There. That was better.

'You make everything mean something. You're like the shadow without which we wouldn't know the light. Without you everything would just be ordinary...hollow...pointless...I wouldn't love Quidditch so much if I didn't have such an effective rival. No wizard alive today would appreciate his life so much if you weren't around to remind everyone how tenuous that hold really is...how quickly it could be taken away...'

Draco's voice trailed off, and Harry realised he had unknowingly edged closer to him, so that his head was just above Draco's. Draco wasn't looking directly at Harry, however; he was staring up at the deep blue sky, almost smiling, a younger poorer brother of his customary smirk.

Harry swallowed imperceptibly, and leaned forward to join his lips to Draco's. He imagined that in the half-light, with his face darkened against the star-speckled sky, it was almost as if the night itself was kissing him.

If you want to kiss the sky, be prepared to kneel.

Harry pulled back, surprised at his own audacity and rather breathless. So this is what seven years of warfare came to...two people, two mouths, one darkening hillside by a moonlit lake and the sky...

As Draco's mouth opened beneath him and his arms came up around Harry's neck, Harry thought he could smell, ever so faintly, thunder on the air.

~

Some weeks later, in a disused classroom deep in the bowels of Hogwarts, a disparate group of people assembled. The majority of them were either Slytherin or Gryffindor, although a fair few representatives of the generally passed-over two lesser houses stood around the walls, looking left-out, left-wing and uncomfortable.

Hermione threw off her anorak hood and spotted yet another badge, sported by the determinedly aggressive Smith.

'Really, is that necessary?' she sighed, and not waiting for an answer muttered something and flicked her wand so that the luminous yellow letters now read 'Love Conquers All' instead of 'I Support the Harry/Draco Squick Club'.

Ignoring Smith's squeaks of protest - and reflecting that had he been Sorted into Slytherin, as he'd wanted to be, they'd probably be howls of outrage - Hermione cupped her hands around her mouth and let out a piercing whistle. As the room turned to face her, all clutching their ears, Hermione smiled.

'I want to thank you all for your participation!' she called, smiling broadly. 'Our ruse worked - I think we can chalk it up as a win for the power of suggestion!'

'I still can't credit the Slytherins going along with this,' Ron said, in a low voice, from behind her.

'We were all getting sick of the situation, Weasley,' Pansy said, haughtily but not as venomously as was her wont. Blaise's wandering hands could perhaps be thanked for this.

'As well as my little bribe!' Hermione laughed, waving her wand again and producing several crates of Firewhiskey.

'Right on, sista! Let's get this party started,' Blaise yelled, making a beeline for the alcohol. 'Go fish! So cute!'

'You know this goes against the grain,' Ron said, slipping a hand around Hermione's waist, 'but for once, I agree with the Slytherin.'

Hermione smiled and playfully swatted his cheek with her hand. Ron caught it and brought it to his lips...

Elsewhere in the castle, one blonde rumpled head peeked out of the 'Head Wanker's Room' door, taking in the deserted common room with a slight frown. 'Coast's clear, Harry!' he called.

'Where is everyone?' A second, darker and even more mussed head joined the first.

'I don't know,' said the blonde, smiling wickedly. 'But when the cats are away...'

In a round tower office, Albus Dumbledore placidly stirred a cup of tea with a liberal dose of Firewhiskey, and handed it to his harried-looking Potions Professor.

'It will be for the best, you'll see,' he said.

'How did you get Lucius in on this?' Snape demanded. 'Please don't tell me you forged that letter from him.'

'Not the one to Draco, no,' Albus said, sipping his tea and twinkling in that obnoxious way he had.

Snape looked at him thoughtfully, wondering. And later, the Sorting Hat confirmed his burgeoning suspicions...

Outside, it rained, as it had non-stop for weeks. It was one persistent thunderstorm.

~FIN~