Don't Answer Me

Chapter 3

October came bright and clear to the castle, and with it, the beginning of the Quidditch season at Hogwarts.

The Saturday of Gryffindor's first game was a beautiful one, blue sky and no clouds to speak of. Harry woke up early, excited at the prospect of playing in his first real quidditch match since SHE banned him for life. He scowled a bit at the thought of that toad, Umbridge, then shook his head. He was NOT going to think of her today and let it ruin his first game of the season.

He slid out of bed and threw on some clothes, tried to brush his hair down (with no luck, as usual), and hurried down to the Great Hall for breakfast.

Hermione was up already and he joined her at the Gryffindor table. Not many people were at breakfast yet, so they got to have a nice quiet conversation, something they hadn't done for a while.

Midway through their meal, Hermione looked up. "Where's Ron?"

Harry laughed. "You're not just now noticing he's not here?"

"No, of course not. I'm just surprised he didn't join you."

"As far as I know, he's still asleep. I was too excited to sleep."

She smiled. "That's right, it's your first game in almost a year. I bet you're more than excited."

"Yeah. I'm having a hard time sitting down. I just want to change in to my uniform and play already."

"Well, not much longer." She looked up. "Oh, there he is right now."

Harry looked the same direction as Hermione, to see Ron strolling towards them, yawning and rubbing his eyes. He sat down by Hermione and planted a kiss on her cheek, and she giggled.

"Morning, mates." He yawned again. "Did I miss much?"

"Nah, just me telling Hermione how hot I think you are with bed head." Harry grinned.

"Yeah, well, you're just jealous that your hair doesn't stick straight up in the morning like mine," Ron retorted, pointing at Harry's famous unruly locks. He stole a piece of ham from Hermione's plate, and she slapped his hand away.

"Get your own breakfast, Ron Weasley!"

"Snark, snark, Hermione. You just need to get shagged," he said in a completely neutral tone, and Hermione blushed furiously. Harry laughed hard at this exchange.

They sat patiently as Ron finished off two plates of food, then the three of them stood to leave. As they stood, the Slytherins stood at the same time, and in one great voice started singing the new verse to "Weasley is Our King.":

"Weasley is our King! Weasley is our King!

A red head stupid git, it's true.

He'll always lose the game for you.

He stinks at Quidditch, that's why we sing,

Weasley is our King!"

Harry noticed two things at the end of the Slytherin chorus - one, Ron wasn't in the least upset at their taunting, and two... Draco Malfoy was not standing with his housemates. Instead, he was sitting a few feet away from them all, glaring at each one, though none of them noticed.

Then Harry discovered the reason that Ron wasn't upset. All at once, every student at the Gryffindor table got up, followed by those at the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables. There was complete silence in the room, and Harry could see that each Slytherin had narrowed his or her eyes, anticipating what was coming next. Right on cue, Neville stood on a chair and raised his hands to direct them, and as one voice, the other three quarters of the school sang their response:

"Weasley is our King! Weasley is our King!

The Slytherins are all ugly shits

But Weasley plays a brilliant bit.

He's the best damned Keeper we've ever seen.

Weasley is our King!"

On the last line, all the voices crescendoed until the sound echoed off the walls. Ron turned to Neville, and they bowed to each other, then he turned and bowed first to his own housemates, then to Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. Finally, he turned to the group of surprised Slytherins, bowed, and gave them all the finger.

Harry and Hermione had been laughing up to this point, but as soon as Harry saw Ron's middle finger fly up in an endearing salute, he was on the floor, doubled up and tears streaming down his face. His sides hurt, and he couldn't breath, and he was still laughing, 'and this is worth it,' he thought, 'to see THAT look on the face of every Slytherin in the room.'

Ron was quite composed as all the Slytherins left, and the crowd dispersed. He turned to Neville once again. "Neville, that was excellent. My congratulations. You may go down in history for that."

Neville smiled. "Hey, I had to live up to my Gryffindor roots sometime." He got off the chair and looked at Harry panting on the floor. "Is he going to be OK?" he asked Hermione.

She was still breathless from laughter herself, but managed to get out, "He'll be fine." Neville shrugged, waved good bye to the threesome and walked away.

Ron offered his hand to Harry. "You need to get up now, people are starting to stare, and not in a good way."

Harry removed his glasses and wiped his eyes. "That was quite possibly the best thing I've ever seen." He turned to watch the last of the Slytherins leave the Great Hall, and saw, to his amazement, that Draco was still sitting calmly at the table, a slight smile on his fair face. At the same moment that Harry looked at him, Draco looked at Harry, nodded, and rose to leave the room.

***

Draco had to leave the hall before anyone saw him lose whatever composure he had left. He walked calmly out of the Great Hall, turned the corner to go towards the main entrance, and seeing that he was alone in the hallway, laughed like he had never laughed before.

He had helped make up that song last year, and he was proud, but never as proud as he was seeing his own song being used against his house. He knew that how he felt would be seen as no less than treason, however melodramatic that might be, but he kept picturing Neville standing up on the chair and directing the rest of the school in their version.

This brought a new wave of laughter, and he doubled over. 'What is wrong with me? I should be angry, not entertained! What is WRONG with me?!' But he kept laughing.

***

Harry soared over the heads of all the other players, keeping an eye out for the snitch. The score was sixty to thirty in favor of Ravenclaw, which was fine. Harry smiled, remembering what Ron had told him before the game:

"Now listen Harry, I want us to win early, but I also want to be able to play some sort of game. Do us a favor and don't catch the snitch in the first five minutes, alright, mate?"

Harry smiled. "You want me to just sit in the crowd and watch until we're down by a hundred points, then join the game?"

Ron gave him the one finger salute and rolled his eyes, while Harry just laughed.

So now, here he was, warm October sunlight on his face and a cool breeze against his back. He couldn't have picked better playing conditions.

The game had been going on for about half an hour when Harry saw the snitch, sailing lazily behind the back of one of the Ravenclaw beaters. Cho hadn't seen it yet, so Harry flew casually over to it, when it suddenly gave a lurch and spun out of his grasp. Cho saw him reach for it, and she started to chase the golden ball.

The race for the snitch was on. He and Cho were flying right beside each other, not paying attention to the other, and Harry could hear the faint chorus of "Go Go Gryffindor" coming from the stands behind him. The snitch broke a hard right, flying past Cho and heading towards the grass, and Harry raised up, looped over Cho so he was upside down, and headed straight for the grass in pursuit of the snitch. It floated in mid air just long enough for Harry to reach out and grab it, then climb a few feet with his hand raised.

Madame Hooch blew her whistle. "Harry Potter has the Snitch. Gryffindor wins!"

A loud cry went up in the stands where Harry's housemates sat, and his team members flew in circles around him, then Ron led them in a victory lap around the pitch. Harry couldn't help but smile. This was a great day.

***

Hermione ran up to Harry and Ron as soon as they landed, and she kissed her boyfriend on the lips roughly, then kissed Harry's cheek.

"Excellent game, both of you. Though, Harry, you could have waited a bit longer to catch the snitch, the game was just getting good!"

Harry took the comment in the spirit it was meant and laughed. "I'll try to remember that next time."

A few of their housemates joined them, and they talked for a while. Harry had started a conversation with one of the seventh years while Ron and Hermione were laughing at a joke that Ginny was telling Neville. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry could see Malfoy walking towards him, but he ignored the blonde and concentrated on his conversation. As Draco got closer, Harry noted that he wore his hair loose today, and it fell in one length to his jawline, waving slightly in the breeze. He looked away quickly. 'It wouldn't do to get caught looking at Draco -MALFOY, HARRY, MALFOY! - like that.'

Draco bumped into Harry and sneered, but Harry felt the blonde stick a small piece of paper in his hand. He sneered back at his DADA partner, and stuck the paper inside his robes.

***

Harry had beat Ron back to their dorm room, and was changing clothes as he thought of the paper Draco had passed him. It had just two words on it:

Good Game

Harry stared at the note, dumbfounded; he could only shake his head. But he didn't throw the note away. He hid it in his sock drawer.

***

It had started out as typical day at Hogwarts: breakfast, potions, transfiguration, lunch, divination, history of magic, then double charms. Nothing exciting was supposed to happen.

Harry and Ron left Hermione in the charms classroom to talk to Professor Flitwick for a few minutes. They were making their way up to Gryffindor tower, laughing at a joke that Seamus had told them earlier.

"Harry, Ron, wait up!"

They turned around to watch Neville racing to catch up with them. When he joined them, he was slightly out of breath.

Ron laughed. "You Ok, Neville?"

Neville nodded. "Yeah, fine. Just trying to catch up."

The three boys chatted noisily, turning the corner that led back towards the tower. Just as they turned, Harry ran smack into Luna Lovegood, who was staring dreamily at the wall. Luna fell backwards, as did Harry, with a thump and an "oof."

"Oh hi, Harry. Good to see you." She sat crosslegged on the floor, staring up at him with her blue eyes.

Harry stood up and dusted his robe off. "Hi, Luna, good to see you too." He held out a hand to her, and she took it, standing up beside him. "Uh, what were you looking at?"

"Oh, just the wall." Ron and Neville looked at each other and rolled their eyes in unison. "There was a good article in the Quibbler last month about the pictures you could see in the walls of old castles. Fascinating."

"Uh, yeah. Well, we need to get going now. See you later."

"Sure. Bye, Ron. Bye, Neville." She waved to them, turning back to the wall.

Neville raised an eyebrow. "She's as weird as Ginny said she was. Nice, but really odd. I wonder what kind of pictures she was looking for?"

"You never know with -" Ron started to say, but his sentence was broken by a shout. All three boys turned to see Luna surrounded by four Slytherin boys, one of which was holding Luna's wand. This hallway wasn't that busy, and so the students that were there stopped and stared or tried to get out as quickly as possible.

"Those dirty bastards!" Ron cried.

Harry and Ron had moved forward a few paces to take care of the situation when he saw his thin blonde nemesis come around the other corner, talking to a housemate.

As soon as Draco saw what was going on, he drew his wand and aimed for the biggest of his housemates, the one that had Luna's wand.

"Give her back her wand, Zachary."

Zachary sneered at Draco, looking him up and down. While Draco had clearly grown over the past few months, the bigger boy had a good five inches on him and several more pounds.

"And if I don't?"

The other Slytherin boys looked back and forth between Draco and Zachary, sizing each up. Zachary was big and mean, but Draco was all that and smart. Still, they stood with Zachary who was staring menacingly at the blonde sixth year. Draco stayed silent, waiting and watching, his face calm.

"What's wrong, Malfoy, no witty comeback? No actual threat? Or were you just planning on running to Snape with your tail between your legs?"

Draco struck as Zachary raised Luna's own wand against her. "Stupefy!"

Zachary dropped the wand, stunned. The other three boys, understanding that Draco was not threatening but promising, backed away slowly, then turned around and walked away without a glance back at Zachary, Draco, or Luna.

Draco picked up Luna's wand and handed it to her.

She reached out for it, tentatively. "Thank you, Malfoy."

He nodded, then turned to Zachary. "Ennervate." When Zachary was fully aware, he spoke again. "Yes, I am telling the Headmaster about this. I expect better of you."

Zachary turned red. "What's wrong with you this year, Malfoy? Last year, you were everything a Slytherin is supposed to be, and this year you attack your own housemates when we want to have a little fun!"

Draco narrowed his eyes at the older boy and spoke in softly controlled words, so that Harry, Ron, and Neville could barely hear him. "Being a Slytherin means one is cunning and shrewd. It doesn't mean one is necessarily evil. Somewhere along the way, many of us forgot that being a Slytherin means we have honor. I don't intend to forget that any longer." With that, he turned on his heel and walked away.

Ron stared at Draco as he walked away, the three of them unnoticed by their enemy. He turned to Harry, gaping at him, his eyes wide with shock.

Neville was the first to speak. "I don't even know where to begin. It's wrong on so many levels."

"Did we really just see Draco turn on his own housemates to protect Luna Lovegood?" Ron asked.

Harry nodded. "I'm telling you guys, he changed this summer. I don't know what to make of it yet, but I don't think it's an act. I think he really changed."

***

Harry and Ron waited until after dinner to tell Hermione about Draco, and they told her quickly (and still wide-eyed) what had happened. She was as shocked as they were.

"That's so unlike him. I - I just can't believe it!"

"Hermione, I know, I wouldn't believe it either if I didn't see it with my own eyes, but he has to have changed a little to do that! He even said something about Slytherins having honor."

Harry couldn't believe his ears. Ron saying that Malfoy had changed?

Maybe Draco was right - people could change.

***

Monday was Care of Magical Creatures first thing in the morning, and he hadn't stopped thinking of the incident between Luna, the Slytherins, and Draco since it happened Thursday afternoon. He couldn't make out what was going on with Malfoy, and as he was already confused about the other young man, this didn't help.

Harry was used to things being black and white. There is good in the world, there is bad, and rarely do bad things or people become good. He liked his black and white world, but he seemed to have left that behind at Grimmauld Place when they came back to Hogwarts.

Somehow he had managed to not see the blonde the past weekend, even at meal times, which was fine, because for Harry, Draco Malfoy had begun to become a shade of grey that turned his understanding of good and evil all around. And suddenly, that shade of grey was standing right in front of him.

"Potter! Wake up, you loser." Draco was waving a hand in front of Harry's face, his right eyebrow arched as he watched Harry for signs of recognition.

Harry shook his head. "What do you want, Malfoy?" He tried to make is voice sound rough.

Ron and Hermione just stared at the blonde, and Harry watched them out of the corner of his eye. He could tell that the two of them were just as confused as he was about the incident in the hallway. Ron didn't even have a dirty look on his face.

"We need to work on the next part of the project," Draco said.

"Yeah, I know. I have Quidditch practice tonight and Wednesday night though. How about you?"

"Tomorrow and Thursday. But I can meet after practice on any of those nights."

Harry thought for a moment. He was meeting with Dumbledore that night for Occlumency lessons, and on Thursday night as well. "What about Wednesday? That will give me enough time to get something put together."

"Fine. I'll see you then." Draco turned and walked over so he was standing near Crabbe and Goyle, but not right by them. The threesome watched as he stood alone, not talking or joking with anyone. Harry elbowed Ron lightly, and Ron shrugged. He didn't know what to make of that either.

Hagrid appeared in front of the group of sixth years. "All ri', settle down, settle down. Now, I know we've worked on this before, but we're gonna try somethin' again. Follow me."

He led the students behind the house, where ten large hippogriffs were penned in behind his fence.

Pansy Parkinson shrieked, "You can't make us work with those beasts again! One of them almost killed Draco! I'm going to Professor Snape with this." She turned right then to head back to the castle, but she was caught by the elbow by Hagrid.

"Professor Snape knows about this project. Now if you don't want to participate here, then you can serve detention. Yer choice," the giant said casually. Pansy's eyes narrowed, but she stayed.

"Now then," Hagrid said. "Three years ago, yer only job was to get comfortable with these. This year, you'll be takin' care of 'em. We'll be studying them for six weeks, and it will be yer jobs to feed 'em every morning and night and make sure they get plenty of exercise. You'll be working in pairs, and just so this is easy fer ya, you'll be working in the same pairs that ya already have for yer Defense Against the Dark Arts project."

"What?!" Hermione let out a muffled shout, covering her mouth as soon as the sound left her mouth.

Harry just sighed. Great, more time with Malfoy. What more could a person ask for?

"That's right, Hermione, it will help with both of these classes, and Professor Dumbledore thought it was a good idea. At the end of class today, I'll give you yer schedules for yer days to take care of 'em. Since we only have ten, we'll be rotatin' a bit." Harry heard Seamus muttering something in Gaelic behind him, something he could only imagine would be unrepeatable in English. "Before we get to that, we need to get familiar with the hippogriffs again. Who remembers how to greet a hippogriff?"

Hermione, of course, raised her hand, and Hagrid smiled. "Hermione?"

"You stand in front of them, and bow at the waist, slowly. Then you wait for the hippogriff to bow to you. If it does, then you are OK to pet it."

"Very good. Ten points for Gryffindor."

Behind him, Harry heard Pansy muter in a sarcastic voice, "Very good. Ten points for Gryffindor. Blech." He watched as Ron turned his head to stare at Pansy with his eyes narrowed. When he was sure that the Slytherin girl had gotten the point, the red head turned around and waited for the next part of the lesson.

"Alrigh', I want all of ya to take a turn greeting one o' the hippogriffs. Who would like to go first to demonstrate?"

All the students hesitated, except for Ron, Harry, and Hermione, who were so used to greeting Buckbeak every morning of the summer holiday that it was second nature. They started to walk forward when they heard a voice at the front.

"I'll try, Professor Hagrid."

The three friends looked at each other, wide eyed with surprise. At the front of the crowd of students stood Draco Malfoy, offering to go first to greet one of the beasts that tried to hurt him when he was thirteen. Every eye was on the fair headed young man, and Draco himself wore a carefully neutral expression.

"Well, I can't wait to see another hippogriff try to eat him," Ron whispered, with a hint of happiness in his voice.

Hagrid wore a sceptical expression. Harry wasn't sure if it was because Dra - MALFOY DAMMIT! - had called Hagrid 'professor' or had volunteered to go first. "Are ya sure 'bout that?" Hagrid asked him.

Draco nodded, and Hagrid led him into the pen to a rather large and, Harry thought, mean looking beast. He saw Malfoy take a deep breath, and step up to the hippogriff carefully.

Having helped take care of Buckbeak for three years had taught Harry something very important about hippogriffs. As a breed of magical creatures, they weren't very trusting of humans, and if you had even a trace of deceit on you, they knew it. They might still bow to you, but that would be the extent of it. That was why Buckbeak had attacked Malfoy three years ago, because even though he might have followed the right steps to greet the creature, he was a deceitful boy then and Buckbeak knew he couldn't be trusted.

So this would be the test for Malfoy. Would the hippogriff in front of him react the same way Buckbeak had three years ago?

Malfoy bowed slowly and carefully to the creature facing him, and stayed there for a minute before coming back up to glance briefly at the hippogriff before looking down. Ten seconds hadn't passed before the hippogriff bent at the knees, bowing to the Slytherin.

Hermione gasped, and Ron coughed. They must have been thinking the same thing that Harry had just a minute ago. But the real shock came when Malfoy reached over to stroke the beast's feathered head. The hippogriff bowed its head to Malfoy, closing its eyes and allowing the young man to stroke the top of its head. Then the creature stepped closer to the Slytherin, almost nestling its big head into the palm of Draco Malfoy's hand.

Harry looked around and watched the faces that wore amazed expressions as the students murmured to themselves about what was happening in front of them. Hagrid was speechless, and he wore something between a smile and a worried expression in his face. But no one looked as surprised as Malfoy did at that moment. He clearly expected to be attacked again. He continued to pat the hippogryff in slow strokes over the top and sides of his face, and after a few minutes stroked the top of its beak.

"Alrigh', I want the rest of ya ta take a turn, so get in there and greet them." Harry, Ron and Hermione led a group in to the pen, and when six other people had picked a hippogriff to greet, the rest of the students stayed behind and waited their turns.

Harry, Ron and Hermione's hippogriffs bowed and let them each pet them immediately, unsurprisingly. Harry petted his, watching Malfoy, who was still with his beast.

It was almost imperceptible, but Draco Malfoy wore a small smile that reached to his grey eyes. Harry smiled himself, and turned back to his hippogriff.

***

Harry stopped at the entrance to Professor Dumbledore's office, a big grin on his face. "Canary Cream." He laughed, and the door opened, revealing the familiar spiral staircase that led to the Headmaster's office.

As he walked up the staircase, he remembered when Albus Dumbledore had told him the password. Harry doubled over in laughter as the tall, aging wizard had told him of the day that he went into Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes and the twins gave him a complementary canary cream. The twins thought that their former Professor would wait until he got back to Hogwarts to try the magical candy, but instead he'd eaten it right there, and with a loud popping, had turned into a canary. When he'd turned back in to Albus Dumbledore five minutes later, the twins were still laughing, but were blushing apologetically as well.

"Professor, we're very sorry, we thought you'd wait..."

Dumbledore held up his hand to stop Fred's apology. "Nonsense, gentlemen, that was an amazing experience. I'd like to buy five of them for later use."

And so Harry had the new password, and had also watched Dumbledore eat a canary cream at the first lesson, and that had lifted Harry's spirits about resuming occlumency.

When he reached the headmaster's quarters, Dumbledore was waiting for him.

"Good evening, Harry."

"Good evening, Professor." Harry sat down, trying to make himself comfortable. Despite the laughter that was just now dying, he had a niggling thought at the back of his mind that he was trying not to concentrate on.

"Harry, what is it? You're distracted."

"What? Oh, I'm sorry, it's nothing."

Dumbledore looked evenly at Harry. "You know that these lessons don't go well when your mind is occupied with other things. Why don't we talk about what's bothering you, then we'll start our lesson."

Harry sighed and shut his eyes, trying to compose his thoughts. When he opened them again, Dumbledore was looking at him patiently.

"Professor, do you think that people can change? I mean really change?"

Dumbledore thought about it for a minute. "Yes, Harry, I really do think people can change."

Harry thought about this for a moment. "Why?"

"I have to believe that people can change. Otherwise, what hope do we have? You know what a difficult world this is to live in, and you've seen things that people four times your age wouldn't believe. But I have to believe that despite that evil, people can change. People HAVE changed, Harry."

"Even Voldemort?"

The older man sighed. "I think he could change, if he wanted to. But, Harry, what Voldemort craves is power, and he'll have that power by any means necessary. He doesn't want to change...but yes, I still think it's possible, even for him." He paused, looking at Harry briefly. "But who is this really about?"

Harry looked at his hands. "Draco Malfoy."

"Ah." Dumbledore nodded. "I wondered when I'd be speaking to you about him."

Harry looked up into the elder wizard's blue eyes. "What?"

"He is the symbol for what you stand against, but without his father's influence over him, I myself have observed Draco changing. You have been working with him on one project, and you will begin working with him on another project very soon. It was only a matter of time before you changed your mind about him."

"But, Professor," Harry started, "that's just it. I don't WANT to change my mind about him. He and I have been enemies for five years. He's done nothing but cause me and my two best friends grief. Because of him I've been banned from Quidditch, lost points for my house, messed up at potions, and that's just the beginning!"

"Then why are you asking the question?"

Harry sighed and slumped in his chair. "Even though I don't want to change my mind about him, I've been working with him, and he's done some things this year that make me see he has changed. I can't deny it," he lowered his voice to almost a whisper, "but I don't like it."

"So what do you want to do, Harry?"

"Professor, do you really think he's changed?"

Dumbledore nodded. "Yes, Harry, I do. He's changed, and it has cost him more than you'll understand."

"Can you trust him?"

Dumbledore looked at the floor, thinking. Harry had almost given up on getting an answer to his question when the elder wizard looked back up. "I don't know that I can answer that right now, Harry. I feel that given time, I could trust him more. But he is still young, and he is still the product of his upbringing. The more important question is this: Can YOU trust him?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't know. I don't want to have to trust him, but I can see that I may not have a choice in the near future. He's not really my friend, but I don't think he's really my enemy any more." He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "I don't know what to believe about Draco right now."