Congenital Magnetism

Snape did not look at either Harry or Draco at first. He gazed upwards toward the ceiling, eyes wide open, as he asked, “What could… POSSIBLY… have caused this?”

Harry scraped his shoes against each other, staring at the floor. He lifted his head, looking contrite. “It was my idea, Professor.”

Snape now deigned to lower his eyes and look at Harry. “Why does that not surprise me?”

Harry took his copy of Wizarding Free Press, turned to the article about the South London Witch Co-op, and handed the magazine to Snape, who looked at it with deep mistrust.

“Mr. Potter, this magazine has an unsavory reputation,” Snape said, “and at the very least, any information it contains should be regarded as untrustworthy.” His eyes were fixed on Harry. “The article you were using is the one concerning…” Now Snape glanced down at the article. He lifted his head upwards, held his hand to his forehead and closed his eyes in pain. “… the one concerning a method for reducing the calorie content of dessert recipes?”

“Yes,” Harry said in a small voice.

“Professor Snape,” Draco interjected, putting his arm around Harry’s shoulder, “it wasn’t entirely Potter’s fault. I told him that I thought the idea was worth a try, and we were collaborating every step of the way. Don’t worry, nothing will go wrong this afternoon.”

“After this morning’s results, Mr. Malfoy, the phrase ‘don’t worry’ is inappropriate. Gentlemen, please clean up the various deposits of pudding, replace any missing classroom doors and then have your lunch. Mr. Malfoy, you are required to attend one of your other classes each day for the duration of your Potions project with Mr. Potter. Today, I believe that will be Professor Trelawney’s Divination class after lunch. You may join Mr. Potter after your class.”

Snape wheeled around on Harry. “Mr. Potter, may I suggest that you use the time during which Mr. Malfoy is in Divination class to refresh your knowledge of the standard Potions textbooks with which I have provided you.” Snape held up the magazine. “I will take this ridiculous example of publishing to the Headmaster to see if he has any insights to share. I will meet briefly with the two of you here when Mr. Malfoy gets back from Divination class.”

An instant later, Harry and Draco saw Snape’s robes disappearing through the doorway.

Draco smiled. “I think he secretly likes you.”

“That’s not funny, Malfoy.”

 

* * *

 

On this, his first day back at Hogwarts, Harry didn’t eat with the other students in the Great Hall, but rather up in his private room on the sixth floor. Finishing his lunch, Harry returned to the classroom in the dungeons where he and Draco had been working and whiled away the time leafing through Potions textbooks. Some time after that, he heard someone open the door. He was relieved to see Draco, but they had no time to chat, as Snape entered seconds later, holding not one, but two issues, of Wizarding Free Press.

“The Headmaster keeps track of these… publications.” Snape handed one of the magazines to Harry. “The issue I am holding is the July issue, Mr. Potter,” Snape said, “which is the issue you got your information from. The copy I just gave you is the August issue. You may take a brief look at the article I have selected for you, so that you may gain some idea of how foolish it is to use material from publications of this caliber.”

Harry looked down at the article in the August issue and started reading while Draco read along with him.

 

Another Urban Legend Debunked: Reversing Technique Fails to Decrease Calorie Content of Dessert Recipes

Last month’s issue featured an article about the South London Witch Cooperative and their efforts to use the medieval potion technique of stirring widdershins, or counter-clockwise, in the hopes of reducing the calorie content of dessert recipes.

“Rubbish,” stated a spokesperson from the Ministry of Magic. “Just another urban legend with absolutely no basis in fact. Combining leech juice with other ingredients and then stirring the potion counter-clockwise has no effect on calorie content, and in fact, produces highly unpredictable results, depending on the ingredients involved.”

In a related story, Lord Voldemort is suspected by many to have contacted the Muggle dietary center that the South London Witch Cooperative was collaborating with and secretly substituted his own dessert recipe for the one developed by the witch co-op. The recipe presumed to have originated from Lord Voldemort has horrifically opposite results from those intended. Correspondents for Wizarding Free Press were able to track down a copy of the substituted recipe, which is called “The Dark Lord’s Ultra-Dark Chocolate Shortening Mousse.”

Lord Voldemort’s recipe is based on a popular French recipe for chocolate mousse, but uses vegetable shortening, which is tasteless, in place of butter. Lord Voldemort then doubled the proportion of shortening, and finally, added a potion ingredient that multiplies the calorie content exponentially. The Muggles at the dietary center were finally alerted to Lord Voldemort’s fraudulent activity, but not before a number of them gained considerable weight. Commenting on Lord Voldemort’s scheme, one of the witches from the South London co-op remarked, “Evil never sleeps.”

 

Snape reached out his hand when Harry and Draco had finished reading. “I think I can safely dispose of both of these issues.” Harry handed the August issue back to Snape.

“It seems,” Snape continued, “that these ill-advised techniques react with any ingredient derived from plants or minerals in freakish and unpredictable ways. In the case of your recipe for tapioca pudding, these techniques reacted with the ingredients from the cassava plant, which originated in the Amazon region of South America, and duplicated the massive jungle vegetation of that region.”

“Mr. Potter, I hope you have learned a lesson in common sense from this.” Snape sneered, giving Harry an intimidating glare. “I will leave the two of you to resume your efforts this afternoon, efforts which, I trust, will incorporate no further urban legends.” Snape spun around, and then there was nothing but black robes flying out the door.

“So how was Divination class with Trelawney?” Harry asked turning to Draco, grateful for a chance to change the subject.

“Ludicrous. I’m starting to think it was a mistake to take Divination this year. Maybe I can ask to switch to Arithmancy. Trelawney told us to go back to our dorm rooms and get a small object that had some special significance for us. When we got back, she gave all of us one of these wooden boards for taking notes on.” Draco held up a board just big enough to write on a parchment with. “We had to use a permanent attaching charm to attach our object to the board, and that”—Draco rolled his eyes—“is supposed to provide us with help from the spirit world when we take notes in her class.”

Harry couldn’t help laughing. “The more years that pass, the stranger Trelawney gets.” Harry was looking over at the board now. “Let me see the object you attached. It looks really… old.”

“It’s a miniature relief sculpture of a temple that’s carved on a small stone. My mother gave it to me as a good luck piece, so I always take it with me to Hogwarts.”

“The temple looks Greek. Did your mother get it in Greece?”

“It’s been in the family for a couple hundred years. No, it’s not from Greece. It’s from Baalbek, Lebanon.” Draco pointed to the temple. “That’s the Temple of Bacchus in Baalbek. A local wizarding family gave this to one of my ancestors back in the 18th century. They told him it had magical properties because the stone is from the foundation of the temple itself, but no one in my family has ever been able to find any magical uses for it. People from different generations have tried using the stone with spells and rituals, but it never has any effect on anything. It’s just decorative, I guess.”

“So, did it help you while you were taking notes in Trelawney’s class?” Harry had a wide grin on his face.

“Not hardly. Look at these notes for today’s useless topic. Tea leaves for telling the future? I suggested coffee grounds, but Trelawney didn’t think it was funny.”

Draco was pulling a different parchment out of his backpack. “I did something way better during lunch break: research at the library. Spices, Potter. I think that’s what was in Granger’s recipe for tapioca pudding. I’m betting that there was some spice or another in her recipe that we don’t have in the basic recipe from the house-elves. Here’s a list of some common spices with magical properties.” Draco handed Harry a piece of paper with the notes he’d taken. “The problem this afternoon is getting into the kitchen. It’s off-limits and the house-elves like to guard their turf.”

Harry was already at the door, saying “I’ll be right back. I’ve got something in my room that might be useful.”

Harry returned shortly with his Invisibility Cloak. With a grand gesture, he draped it over himself, becoming invisible, and then yanked it off.

Draco was smiling. “I’ve always suspected that you had one of those.”

“What are we waiting for?” Harry said. “Let’s go shopping for some spices.”

The Invisibility Cloak came in handy, since there was still plenty of activity going on inside the Hogwarts kitchen. There was plenty of room under the Cloak to accommodate the two of them, and Harry and Draco avoided the path of any of the house-elves as they searched for the cupboard where spices were stored. Finally inside the correct cupboard, Draco held the Invisibility Cloak up like a room divider, blocking the view of any passersby, so that Harry could find all the spices on the list and put them into the small bag he was carrying. Finishing up, Harry crouched down on the floor again, and Draco made sure they were both covered by the Cloak.

Just as one of the house-elves was passing by the cupboard, Harry moved the wrong way and a couple of the spice bottles inside the bag clinked against each other. The house-elf stopped right in front of the cupboard, looking inside. Harry and Draco hardly dared to breathe. The house-elf peered into the cupboard, where the sound had come from. With his nose pressed against Draco’s chest, Harry secretly wished that the house-elf would take his time. The house-elf moved on after satisfying himself that everything was in order.

Draco looked down at Harry with a smile. “Are you comfortable?”

Harry hadn’t realized how firmly he was pasting every inch of his face and body against Draco, and he blushed when he realized that he had attached himself to Draco like a coat of paint.

“Oh… sorry,” Harry mumbled as he unglued himself from Draco, allowing some air space between them.

Back in the classroom, Harry was arranging the spices on the table that the cauldron was on.

“So how do we test this,” Harry asked.

“Simple,” Draco said with perfect confidence. “We make a batch of the standard potion for counteracting love spells, but we leave out the reversing agent. Then we’ll add some spices and see if the color of the potion changes to red.”

The potion was soon ready for the addition of spices, and Draco started leafing through a reference volume. “Go ahead, Potter, add spices and record the results.”

Perhaps too impatiently, Harry started throwing several spices in, one after the other, and, they both saw the potion turn ruby red.

“That’s it!” Draco shouted. “Did you write down the order? What was the order of the spices when you added them?”

“Er, no, I didn’t write it down, but I kind of remember.”

Draco ran to the other table and grabbed his wooden board from Divination class, the one with his “decorative” stone carving attached to the top. Draco snatched a sheet of parchment, set it on the board and started writing at the top:

 

What are possible ingredients to use as counteragents against love spells?

 

“Come on, Potter, quick, before you forget. What was the order?”

“Er, ginger, clove, cinnamon, anise and nutmeg.”

Harry watched as Draco scribbled down the ingredients in a vertical column. Two jaws dropped in unison. Never would they have expected what they saw on the parchment. Not in a thousand years. All of the words Draco had written disappeared, as though the ink were absorbed into the parchment. In its place, new words appeared.

 

ESN Reply>> You have contacted the Eastern Shore Network. Because the network covers a large geographical region, we will route your communication to that part of the network best able to answer your inquiry. Just one moment, please. ★

 

Now these words disappeared, and the parchment remained blank for a brief moment. Then the following message appeared:

 

TRANSMISSION COMING TO YOU FROM THE PHOENICIAN NETWORK SUBRGOUP

ESN Reply>> You are inquiring about ingredients which are used in potions that counteract love spells. There is one item on your list, cinnamon, which has been used to counteract the effects of erotic attraction, but that would not be attraction caused by a spell of any kind, but rather by the non-human racial inheritance of the individual in question. In the case of certain magical species, people who come into contact with the magical creature can consume a pinch of cinnamon to counteract the erotic attraction that the magical individual generates, but the effect is very temporary. The cinnamon can be used in food dishes, but it may be required daily, or sometimes even more often. ★

 

Draco waited, and when no further writing appeared, he wrote a new line on the parchment underneath the most recent paragraph of information.

 

Who, exactly, are we communicating with? Is the Eastern Shore Network somewhere on the North Sea coast? Is it near Norfolk or Suffolk? Is this a wizarding group?

 

All of the text disappeared and was replaced by an answer.

 

ESN Reply>> We are not an association of wizards, but an association of spirits, although we were all wizards when we were alive. We lived our earthly lives a few thousand years before the Roman Empire. The words “eastern shore” refer to the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. There are similar spirit networks elsewhere in the world, but the communication device just above your writing area connects you with our network. ★

 

“Malfoy, they mean your small stone with the relief sculpture of the temple.”

Still not satisfied, Draco wrote some more, and his answer was promptly returned.

 

Members of my family have tried to use that object for spells and rituals, but never with any success.

 

ESN Reply>> That is because the ancient stone isn’t meant to be used in spells or rituals, but as an interactive communication device. You’re simply the first in your family who has ever used the device correctly. ★

 

Draco turned toward Harry. “If we can get information from them, why not?” Draco kept writing.

 

Could you tell us why a conventional potion for counteracting love spells has no effect?

 

ESN Reply>> In order to give you an accurate answer, please introduce yourself, inform us as to your age and provide us with a blood sample. ★

 

“How much blood do we have to give them?” asked Harry, but Draco was already writing information on the parchment.

 

My name is Draco Malfoy and next to me is Harry Potter. We’re both sixteen years old. It’s Potter who’s been affecting people sexually—actually, he’s only affecting the male students at our school that way.

 

ESN Reply>> If you don’t mind us asking, what kind of male students does Mr. Potter affect? ★

 

All of them, actually. He’s even affecting those of them who would never normally be affected by that kind of attraction. It’s strange, but there it is, and it’s only started recently. We’re collaborating on a Potions project in order to find a counteragent, so that Potter can go about his usual routine again. How do we give you a blood sample, and how much blood do you need?

 

ESN Reply>> If Mr. Potter is the affected individual, only he needs to provide a blood sample. A single drop is sufficient. Ask Mr. Potter to place one drop of blood on the parchment. ★

 

Harry pricked his thumb with the point of a knife and let a single drop of blood fall onto the parchment. Then Harry and Draco waited… a long time. Finally, Draco lost his patience and began writing again.

 

Are you still there? Do you have an answer for us?

 

ESN Reply>> Our apologies, Mr. Malfoy. We’ve been so busy celebrating Harry’s arrival. We have to break with our usual protocol and call Harry by his given name because the spirits love him so much. He is indeed a magical creature, so much so that those on our end give him the title “Qadesh.” In our language, which the people of your time call Proto-Semitic, we use the word to describe a magical creature who is sacred or holy. Harry is a conduit through which the spirit world can send information. As far as your query about a counteragent for erotic attraction, we’re certain that cinnamon will serve that purpose, although as we said before, the effect is very temporary. A more permanent solution is beyond the scope of today’s discussion, but please keep in touch. We must attend to other duties now. Best regards. ★

 

All text disappeared from the parchment, and Harry and Draco were left staring at each.

“I am not non-human! These people are nutters,” Harry declared.

“They’re spirits, I think.”

“Even if they’re spirits, they’re still out of their minds.”

“It’s only their opinion, Potter. Care to see if a pinch of cinnamon works?” Draco opened up his backpack and retrieved a wrapped item. “I knew I was going to spend half of lunch break in the library, so I took a few pumpkin pasties with me.” Draco took the bottle of cinnamon and sprinkled a small pinch over each of the pumpkin pasties.

Draco headed toward the door. “Let me see if there’s anyone out in the corridor.”

Afternoon Potions class was letting out, and Draco saw Blaise Zabini and Seamus Finnegan in the group coming out of the classroom, offering Draco an easy target.

“Blaise, Finnegan!” Draco waved his arm. “Over here.”

“Draco, why weren’t you in afternoon Potions class?” Blaise asked.

“I’ll show you why,” Draco replied, leading Blaise and Seamus into the classroom where Harry was waiting.

Blaise spotted Harry at once. “Draco, you devil! You’ve been keeping beautiful Harry all to yourself, haven’t you?” Draco had to run to catch up with Blaise, who was already trying wrapping to wrap his arms around Harry.

“Potter and I are doing a research project. You two are willing to help out, right?” Draco asked, pumpkin pasty in hand.

“Anything for Harry,” Seamus said, sidling up to Harry, who was still busy fending off Blaise.

“Here.” Draco offered Blaise and Seamus one pumpkin pasty each. “Harry and I are testing out dessert recipes for the house-elves in the kitchen, and we need people to give us their opinions. Have a bite.”

Blaise was distracted by Draco’s request. “That’s all I have to do? Sure.”

One mouthful and Blaise was himself again. “Tasty,” Blaise said as he polished off the pastry.

Seamus moved away from Harry long enough to eat the pumpkin pasty, and immediately felt much less romantic.

“So, Blaise, Seamus,” Draco ventured, “Harry and I have to finish this project. I’ll see you around, all right?”

“Yeah, no problem,” Seamus said without even glancing at Harry.

“You guys get back to work. I’ll see you later in the common room, Draco,” Blaise said, and Seamus and Blaise were out the door.

“As soon as they ate the pumpkin pasties,” Draco said, “they ignored you completely.”

“It looks like cinnamon was the spice in Hermione’s recipe for tapioca pudding,” Harry said. “That’s why her pudding was effective on the train yesterday.” Harry noticed Draco smiling. “Don’t look at me like that, Malfoy. I still think these spirits that we’re communicating with are nutters.”

“They were right about the cinnamon,” Draco pointed out.

“So cinnamon works. So what? Just because these loony spirits were right about the cinnamon, it doesn’t prove that they’re right about me being some magical creature.”

“Maybe they’re being metaphoric,” Draco remarked. “Whenever you lose that holier-than-thou nonsense, you do have a certain magic.”

Before Harry could protest further, there was a knock at the door, and the Headmaster entered. Turning so that he couldn’t be seen, Harry whispered to Draco, “Not a word to Professor Dumbledore about the crazy spirit association.”

“I’ll leave that up to you, Potter,” Draco whispered back.

Approaching the two with an understanding smile, Dumbledore greeted them.

“Draco, Harry, I’m so glad I could catch you before you left for the day. I’ve received invaluable information from my associates at Beauxbatons Academy in France, information that could help you a great deal with your Potions project. But first, have you been working together effectively?”

Harry smiled shyly and said, “Malfoy’s knowledge of Potions is really something. I’d never have gotten anywhere without him.”

Draco had his arm around Harry’s shoulder. “Potter is far too modest. His logic is brilliant. It’s been a genuine collaboration. And Headmaster, we’ve found an effective counteragent, although the effect is only temporary.”

“I’m delighted to hear it,” the Headmaster declared. “But now I have to ask you, Harry, to visit me in my office after dinner—shall we say about six o’clock—to discuss some of the information that my colleagues at Beauxbatons have provided me with. It’s genealogical research concerning your maternal grandmother. Do you have any information of your own which you can provide concerning Mrs. Evans, that is, your grandmother?”

This was the last thing that Harry wanted to talk about, especially in front of Draco, so he tried to make it short and sweet.

“I have a few paragraphs of research that Sirius wrote years ago, and yeah, he mentions my grandmother. It’s just one page, and my Aunt Petunia had kept it since my mother died. She gave it to me yesterday, before I boarded the Hogwarts Express.”

“Excellent, Harry. Bring that along with you,” Dumbledore said heading out the door. “Oh, and Draco,” he said, almost as an afterthought, “you come along too. I think your insights could be helpful.”

Alone again, it was difficult for Harry and Draco not to acknowledge the progress they had made with their Potions project.

“Potter, this is success, even if it’s only temporary success. And that Invisibility Cloak of yours is brilliant. I was wondering…” Draco’s left eyebrow arched up in that way that Harry was becoming very fond of. “You, Granger and Weasley have probably been able to fit under your Invisibility Cloak at the same time.”

“Oh, yeah, we’ve done it a few times.”

“What I mean, Potter, is that it’s very roomy under there.” Draco smiled softly. Not a smirk, just a gentle smile. “There’s plenty of room for three people.”

Harry looked light a deer caught in the headlights of a Muggle car, and he blushed red remembering how he had unnecessarily plastered himself onto Draco like a second skin while they were under the Invisibility Cloak.

“See you in the Headmaster’s office at six o’clock, Potter,” Draco said, and he was gone.

Harry made his way back to the little room on the sixth floor of the castle that was his temporary home. Snape had been overflowing with criticism all day long. He simply hated the potion Harry created, the one that resulted in giant swamp vegetation. As Harry collapsed on his bed, he realized how lucky he was; at the beginning of term, Dumbledore had asked Snape to develop a custom-made potion for each male faculty member—including Snape himself, thank God. Images of Snape developing romantic intentions were just too disconcerting for Harry to even consider. Yes, things could definitely be worse. Keeping Blaise, Seamus, Dean and Michael at a distance was challenging enough. But at least Harry didn’t have to stave off romantic advances from faculty members.

Harry looked toward the single window of his room, which faced the western sky, as the afternoon sun came flooding in. The sky was perfectly cloudless, just like that June morning three months ago when Kyle Urquhart, the new captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, was coaxing Harry into all manner of compromising sexual positions. Even alone in his room, Harry blushed as he remembered the stunned or amused faces of the Ravenclaw and Slytherin Quidditch players who had inadvertently stumbled upon Harry and Urquhart during their episode of lust.

Earlier that morning, Draco had called Urquhart an uncouth lout and asked Harry what use he could have had for Urquhart. It made Harry wonder. Was there even the slimmest possibility that Draco was jealous of Urquhart? It made Harry almost dizzy with happiness to imagine that Draco might like him enough to be jealous. But why would Draco, one of the brightest students at Hogwarts, ever be jealous of Urquhart, who probably needed tutoring help? Technically, Draco was taller than Harry—but nothing like Urquhart, who was at least half a head taller than Harry. Draco already had an athletic build, but not the massive muscles Urquhart displayed. And only Urquhart had that layer of body hair on his chest and forearms. Harry couldn’t help but smile, thinking about how crude and demanding—and fun—Urquhart had been during that locker room scene.

But Harry had made no connection with Urquhart other than a physical one. There was no deeper bond—nothing like the relentless, irresistible attraction he felt whenever Draco was present. It had started on the Hogwarts Express, at the beginning of term. The moment Harry first saw Draco on the train, he had felt actual threads wrapping themselves around his body, and the threads stretched out across the passenger compartment and wrapped themselves around Draco. Harry had pulled his arm away from Draco, and sure enough, he saw Draco’s arm being tugged toward him. What kind of person would experience something like that? Or was it the sort of experience that some kind of magical creature goes through?

Could these Eastern Shore spirits possibly be right? A non-human racial inheritance? Harry got off the bed, moved over to the desk and began fishing in one of the drawers. He pulled out the torn piece of paper Aunt Petunia had given him on the day he boarded the Hogwarts Express. Sirius had written this, and Harry closed his eyes as he thought of his godfather, who had died this past summer, murdered by Bellatrix at the Department of Mysteries. Harry opened his eyes and the first paragraph jumped out at him:

 

Lily’s biracial bloodline is attributable to her mother, Mrs. Evans, who was of a different racial inheritance than the rest of us. The fact that Lily was partially of another race explains the magnetism she possesses with regards to so many of the male students at Hogwarts—and even some of the professors—something which began to manifest itself after Lily’s sixteenth birthday.

 

Another race? What race could Sirius have been talking about? Had Harry inherited something he wasn’t yet aware of? Harry kept reading and paused at Sirius’s most unnerving question:

 

What if a male of Mrs. Evans’s race were himself attracted more to his own sex than the opposite sex. How would this alter the dynamics of his powers? There are so many possible scenarios. Would he still attract mainly women, or would he exert his magnetism over a larger proportion of men and a smaller proportion of women? Or is it possible that he would hold powers of attraction over the vast majority of men, and women not at all? I could find no historical data concerning such a circumstance, but it would be fascinating to document such a case.

 

Am I a case? Harry thought.

If only Harry could give the mystery a name, something to call this non-human race. But he hadn’t the slightest clue. He’d never heard of anything like this before, a boy who exerted sexual attraction on all the males around him. And the inexplicable attachment between him and Draco. What was that all about? He was left with nothing but an enigma that was somehow linked to his maternal grandmother, who, according to Petunia, was of French birth and had come to England when she was a teenager.

Harry had never heard of a boy who was associated with unusual events like these, but maybe if he could think of some girl he met at Hogwarts who produced this kind of unstoppable sexual magnetism. There had even been students from other schools and Quidditch teams that had visited Hogwarts—from Ireland, Bulgaria and France. Harry sighed. No answers came to him, and maybe they never would.

Harry put the torn page of Sirius’s research notes back in the desk drawer. There was nothing left to do but prepare for a meeting with Dumbledore after dinner. Just to make things as embarrassing as possible, the Headmaster had asked Draco to show up too. Harry cringed remembering the trip to the Hogwarts kitchen with Draco. The Invisibility Cloak was easily big enough for three people to fit under, with plenty of elbow room. Why had Harry been foolish enough to snuggle right up against Draco like some lovesick puppy?

“Stupid,” Harry muttered. “That was so incredibly stupid.”

Harry flopped back down on his bed and reviewed his predicament. Draco knew. He had to. Harry hadn’t been able to hide his obsessive attraction to Draco, and now he was headed to a meeting with him and Dumbledore. Harry could only hope that something good would come of this meeting. Maybe Dumbledore had some information that would shed new light on Harry’s situation, or even suggest a breakthrough. Harry strained to think of some precedent for the present craziness. Even Ron was affected. Ron of all people! It was hard to think of any boy who was less likely than Ron to get romantic with another boy. In fact, Harry couldn’t think of anyone at all who had ever affected Ron like this.

Harry closed his eyes for a moment, allowing himself a brief catnap.

Ron never behaved like that, Harry thought, drifting between waking and sleeping… except maybe that one time during the Triwizard Tournament… that blonde girl from France…