The Thin Line Between Love and Hate

Chapter 3: Potter Ponderings

Unfortunately for Harry, after that first evening things in detention went as he had originally expected. Malfoy was back to scrutinizing his every gesture as he did most of the grunt work for Snape. Harry didn't mind though; it made him easier to ignore.

There was nothing quite as distracting to the flaming Gryffindor as an affable Malfoy. It made his mind overwork itself with questioning the reasons for the sudden lack of animosity. When things were going as they normally did, Harry could tune out the insults and work fairly mindlessly at whatever task he was performing.

"What?" he questioned, as he glanced up from the cauldron he was scrubbing after he realized that his fellow offender had asked him the same question three times now. The other male sighed in exasperation, repeating the question once more as though Harry were a small child.

"I said, are you dense or did you mean to clean that cauldron twice?" A blush crept into Harry's cheeks as anger filled him and he returned to scrubbing a microscopic bit of pink off of the inside of the cauldron. "Pay attention when someone's insulting you, Potter. You may actually learn a thing or two," Malfoy finished as though he hadn't noticed that his enemy had stopped looking at him after his repeated inquiry.

It was all Harry could do to hold back the caustic response that immediately came to his lips. He tasted blood and hoped that Malfoy didn't notice the way he was biting his lower lip in his effort to keep from speaking. He would ignore Malfoy. Despite his determination to disregard anything the other male might pull, the boy who lived couldn't quite help but notice that his own silence had the Slytherin following suit. The awkward hush that fell over the room had the Gryffindor's nerves tingling in expectation of an attack that never came.

When Snape finally relieved them of their cauldron duty, Harry was exhausted. He trudged up the spiraling staircase from the dungeons and nearly ran directly into the Headmaster who was apparently coming down to fetch him if he were to judge by Dumbledore's greeting. "Good evening, Harry. Would you like a cup of tea?"

Harry stuttered slightly as he'd not expected the invitation. "Umm... Er... Sure Professor."

~~~~~

Malfoy watched the golden boy Gryffindor go off with their Muggle-loving headmaster and scoffed as he gathered his things. He didn't understand how Potter could so easily ignore him. He was a Malfoy for Merlin's sake. He wasn't supposed to be ignored. Bloody Potter. He roughly shoved his books into his bag, aggravated with himself for choosing to study and berate his enemy rather than taking the easy way out and spelling the cauldrons clean. Then again, that could have had unpleasant consequences considering that he didn't know how the cleaning spell would react with the questionable potion remnants that stuck in gooey multi-colored gobs to the sides of the cauldrons. That was probably why Snape had made Potter clean them by hand come to think of it.

The Slytherin Seeker stalked through the halls and eventually lightened his dark mood slightly by terrifying a group of first year Ravenclaws. His cheerfulness didn't last for long; however, as shortly after he had caused the Ravenclaws to trip over themselves in their eagerness to get out of his way, Blaise Zabini came to walk with him. Draco sighed in exasperation. He just wasn't going to get off easy today, was he? "What do you want, Zabini? Don't you have some useless Gryffindor to be off banging?"

The other male looked indignant. "Dean is not useless," he protested loudly, before pulling on the mask of Slytherin indifference once more. "Besides, he's not what I wanted to talk to you about anyway."

Draco quirked an eyebrow at this, as he'd heard enough about Potter's housemate recently that he could easily have written a meter long essay on the subject and still been left scratching at the parchment with the intimate details Blaise had decided to impart to him. "What did you wish to speak with me about then? If you hadn't noticed I was busy looming when you interrupted me," the blonde boy drawled in a bored tone.

Zabini ignored the threat in his housemate's tone. "Who is it?" he demanded.

"Who's who?" Draco questioned, confused enough by the other Slytherin's query for it to throw him off for a moment, as it hadn't been at all what he had expected to come out of the boy's mouth.

Blaise sighed in frustration, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world and Malfoy was thick for missing it. "The person you're seeing. You've not at all been yourself recently. You snap at Vince and Greg. You're always either elated or depressed with hardly any middle ground. AND you just terrified Ravenclaws when everyone who's anyone knows that you only go after them when you feel in need of a challenge and can't find the Golden-Boy-Gryffindor and his fan club."

The Slytherin paused in his rant, four fingers held up from where he'd been ticking off his points on them. The expression on his face screamed of eureka syndrome. "No... It couldn't be... Potter?!?" Draco, whose face had remained a blank mask of endurance and annoyance throughout the other male's rant as he wasn't fully paying attention, nearly dropped his things at the accusation.

He fixed Zabini with a glare, and enunciated his words with a biting clarity that oozed of his fury at the allegation. "First off, that you've even SUGGESTED that I would touch Potter in any way other than that of shoving him into the way of the first Unforgivable or dementor that happened to be coming his way proves that you're touched in the head. He's disgusting and vile. I'd have to bathe constantly for weeks on end to rid myself of his stench. Secondly, you've been hanging around Gryffindors too long if you honestly believe that I would even distantly contemplate involving myself with some Muggle-loving, incompetent, moronic, fool of a teacher's pet who can't even bother with brushing his hair, much less die when he's supposed to on a frequent basis. Find your sense of honor and start acting like the Slytherin you are. It doesn't become you to meddle in the lives of others as though you were meant for nothing better than idle gossip."

"Fine. Forgive me for thinking that Slytherin might mean more than the stereotypes that we've been restricted to. I'll be sure to avoid you and keep my concerns over a friend to myself in the future. Enjoy your looming, Sir," Blaise sneered. He finished this with a drawn out insult of a title and a mocking bow before storming down the hall alone, more convinced than ever that Malfoy was interested in Potter. Denial of the strength and sort that he'd just received didn't often come unless the person in question was attempting to hide something. Once he was out of the sight of his housemate the boy calmed down and slowed his furious pace. He'd just have to talk to Dean about it when he met him to sneak off to Hogsmeade that evening. The sorting hat had said "any means to achieve their ends." Blaise continued much more lighthearted than he had been when he'd left Draco's side.

~~~~~

Meanwhile, Harry was just sitting down in Dumbledore's office with a cup of tea after having politely refused the various sweets that his headmaster had attempted to tempt him with. The added sugar in his system probably would have done him some good, but, understandably, he wasn't much in the mood for candy or cake. After a few minutes of the roundabout conversation that Dumbledore excelled in creating Harry set down his teacup with a sigh.

"Professor, much as I'd love to stay, I'm a bit behind in my homework thanks to all of these nights in detention. If you don't mind, please, either get to the point or let me go back to my common room. I really don't have the time for idle conversation."

A twinkle in the headmaster's eyes showed that he wasn't the least bit offended by his guest's bluntness. "Actually, that's what I wanted you to come to tea to discuss Harry. Your professors have mentioned that you seemed a bit distant and earlier this evening I was approached by Ronald Weasley with concerns about the amount of time you spend on your studies when you're not serving detention and its effects on your health." The boy who lived highly suspected that the older male was trying very hard not to laugh about this. "He thought that perhaps I should encourage you to talk to Madam Pomfrey, though he expressed doubt that she could heal insanity. Am I to understand that earlier this week you came to the defense of young Mr. Malfoy?"

Harry worked to keep his embarrassment from showing. The incident the headmaster was referring to had been right after his first detention. Ron had been going on about how much of a git-faced ferret Malfoy was and how slimy it was of Snape to have made them come to detention on a Saturday. After putting up with hearing about it for over an hour as he got dressed and attempted to down his breakfast before the team got in a morning practice Harry finally snapped at Ron. He'd rather rudely informed his best friend that he was expected to be in detention at six again that evening and that at least Malfoy was forced to suffer through the detentions with him rather than getting off easy the way that he normally did. Ron wasn't speaking to him at the moment as he'd also told his friend that at least Malfoy knew when to keep his mouth shut.

His time with the git-faced ferret had proven Ron's ranting correct, but Harry would gladly subject himself to more detention before he admitted that to the red-head. Things were complicated enough without subjecting himself to one of Ron's famed "I told you so" tirades. He was still attempting to figure out why he had felt the need to defend Malfoy in the first place. "A mistake that won't be repeated, sir," he replied with a touch of bitterness in his voice.

"Ah," intoned Dumbledore in that voice that told Harry he knew something that he wasn't letting on about. "In that case I'm sure things will be back to normal in no time," the headmaster continued cheerfully as though he didn't notice the cautious look that Harry was giving him as the boy got to his feet. "Oh, Harry," called Dumbledore from his chair as the boy who lived went to leave. "I know you enjoy your midnight walks, but I believe it would be better if you refrained from them from here on out. I'll have to confiscate your cloak if they continue."

When he finally managed to get back to the common room Ron and Hermione were sitting up anxiously awaiting his return... or rather Hermione was anxiously awaiting his return. Ron was sitting there in stony silence with a posture that said that he was only doing this in the hopes of getting some and even then it was highly against his will. She pounced him the moment he was through the portrait hole.

"Harry! What happened?!? Where were you?!? Curfew was an hour ago! Did Malfoy do something?!? SPEAK BOY!!!" she questioned so frantically that her words nearly ran together.

Harry tried to keep himself from snickering as he replied to her. "If you'll breathe for a minute then I'll tell you 'Mione." He flopped down into one of the highly prized chairs by the fireplace and sighed deeply, glad that it seemed as though everyone had ponced off early tonight.

"Dumbledore wanted to talk to me after detention," he stated flatly.

"What?!? Why?!?" exclaimed Hermione as Ron shifted and looked decidedly uncomfortable. He made as though to sneak away and his girlfriend put a hand on his shoulder with a glare of warning. He wasn't getting out of this that easily.

"It seems that he was approached by someone about me seeing Madam Pomfrey about my issues with insanity," Harry said as he worked exceedingly hard at not looking at Ron. "That's not the interesting part though. He also told me to stop taking my walks at night."

Finally Harry had said something to startle Ron out of his previously unwavering closemouthed stance on things in his eagerness to avoid his girlfriend finding out that he was the one who had spoken with the headmaster. "What'd he do that for? He's never had a problem with it before. Even in first year he didn't tell you to stop sneaking around, just not to seek out the mirror again." Hermione tsked in her classic "you are such an idiot at times" manner, but Harry answered the other boy before she could list off exactly how many times Dumbledore had told him not to sneak about, complete with dates, times, and color coding for the severity of the warning and punishment after getting caught.

"I think that Voldemort's planning to stage an attack on the school of some sort. Every other time the consequences for being caught out after curfew have been raised it was because something dangerous was going on," Harry whispered confidentially. He automatically lowered his voice in case anyone was listening in even though he knew that with the Weasley twins having gone global after a booming initial success people could be eavesdropping in any number of inventive ways and anything outside of a powerful silencing spell would do nothing to deter a determined snoop. Hermione quickly cast said spell.

"But Harry, surely Dumbledore would evacuate Hogwarts were Voldemort conspiring against the castle." The boy who lived shook his head at this as Ron flinched at the name, which, of course, earned him an "Oh do grow up" look from Hermione. "Not if it weren't certain. If students were sent home on a hunch, parents would riot, or at the very least not allow their children to come back once the perceived danger had passed. Hogwarts is possibly the safest place for them to be and both Dumbledore and Voldemort know it."

When Ron flinched again Harry winced slightly as Hermione turned towards her boyfriend and began lecturing him on the perks of setting aside his fears. After an enormous faked yawn he cleared his throat to break up their squabbling. "It's not worth worrying over tonight 'Mione. We'll have plenty of time to figure out what all's going on later. It's late though, we should get to bed or we'll be late for class tomorrow."

Ron leapt at the chance to get away from his girlfriend's ranting. "Yeah," he agreed and kissed Hermione goodnight in a lingering fashion that had Harry rolling his eyes and looking away. "I'll see you in the morning. G'night."

She smiled and stood on her tip-toes to kiss the end of his nose. "G'night. I love you." Ron returned the sentiment and the boys headed upstairs as Hermione sauntered off looking very satisfied with herself.

"Harry?" Ron questioned once the two of them had changed into their pjs and the boy who lived made a soft questioning grunt of recognition. "Why did you stick up for me back there?" he asked with a slightly defensive note in his voice.

"Hmm?" Harry inquired.

"You didn't say who had talked to Dumbledore about you. Why?"

The black haired boy folded his glasses and put them away before he sighed and glanced over to where the blurry outline of his friend could be made out. "We're friends, Ron. That's something that shouldn't be put aside over such pettiness as a fight, especially when that fight was about something as moronic as Malfoy. Hermione's a good friend, but I didn't really feel like it was necessary to have her chew you out every morning for the next week or so over something you did when you were angry."

Now it was Ron's turn to 'hmm' as he flicked the heavy curtains around his bed closed and rolled over to go to sleep. Harry hadn't technically apologized so the red-head couldn't technically accept it as such, but he did have a point.