Snakes and Lions

Rules and Perceptions

When Harry got to Potions, the Slytherins had already arrived, but Draco was still standing, speaking in a low voice to Pansy. When he saw Harry, he sat and motioned to Harry to sit next to him.

"It wasn't too bad," he whispered.

As everyone was settling, Professor Snape entered. He surveyed the class briefly before his gaze came to rest on Harry.

"Mr. Potter. Your Head of House has told me to keep you apart from Mr. Malfoy."

Harry looked back at the Potions master. He tried to sound politely curious. "Do you take orders from Professor McGonagall, sir?"

Snape smiled tightly. "As it happens, Mr. Potter, I do not." His gaze, again, swept the room. "Start fires, everyone. The first components of today's potion will be added dry, and must sear quickly."

At the end of class, Snape told Harry to stay. He did, as did Hermione.

"You may leave, Miss Granger."

"I have to escort him, sir.'

"I will escort Mr. Potter to lunch. You will wait for him there."

Hermione nodded. "Yes, professor. Er ... Thank you."

Once Hermione left, Snape closed the door to the lab. He pointed his wand at it and muttered something.

"What was that, sir?" Harry asked.

"Silencing spell. Sit down, Mr. Potter."

Uneasily, Harry sat down. "What do you want?"

"I want to talk to you, Potter, about trusting Mr. Malfoy. I do not object to you sitting with him -- the two of you do better work together than either of you does separately. I do not object to you enjoying it. However, you must not trust him."

"Draco has had plenty of opportunities to kill me --"

"'Draco' is, first and foremost, a Malfoy," Snape hissed. "He aspires to be a Death Eater. Whatever you tell him, he will tell his father, and his father will tell Lord Voldemort."

"I don't think that's true, but --"

Snape thumped the table with his fist. "Potter, for once in your life, try not to be an arrogant idiot! I know that boy! He comes and talks to me. I know his father. Draco is playing you for a fool. He has some scheme to bring you down in some messy way, and last night was probably the first step."

"He knew where I was going. He could have just told them where to look."

"Maybe they didn't look soon enough."

"I doubt that. I wasn't very efficient."

"Potter, Draco has told me he is going to betray you! Told me, do you understand? He has been in this very room, boasting about it!"

Harry found he was trembling with anger. He had to tell himself that Snape's reaction was entirely reasonable.

"Of course he does."

"Excuse me, Potter? Of course?"

"He knows you're a Death Eater. He assumes anything he says to you, you tell his father. He's told me he's pretending to have some clever plan for me. Occasionally I help him with the details."

"He is lying to you. I know this game, Potter. He is lying to one of us, and I say it is you."

"He could be lying to both of us," Harry pointed out.

This seemed to calm Snape. He nodded. "Possibly. But I do not believe Draco would defy his father."

"In confidence, sir?"

"What?"

"Do you promise to tell no one? Not Lucius Malfoy, not Professor Dumbledore?"

Snape rolled his eyes. "And you would trust my word, Potter?"

Harry considered this. "Not completely," he said, after a moment. "But it would be sufficient."

Snape scowled. "Why thank you, my lord," he said in a voice as brittle as dried beetles.

Harry did not smile. "And?"

"Yes, yes, you have my word. I won't tell your ridiculous secrets."

"Draco has warned me about you."

"About me?" Snape was surprised.

"About trusting you. He has told me several times that you were a friend of his father's, and we must assume anything you saw or heard would be repeated to Lucius. He has also told me that you practice Dark Arts, and overlook such practices in your House."

"And so you trust him," Snape said in oily sarcasm.

"I didn't want to reveal anything about you, professor. I don't trust Draco so much as to risk your safety. I did say, however, that I trusted Dumbledore's judgment. When I would not agree to avoid being alone with you at all costs, he told me you were a Death Eater."

"He what?!" Snape's voice was a whisper harsher than any scream. Harry had to trust that he would calm down before doing anything rash.

"This is what convinced me he is lying more to you than to me. That is a major betrayal, and he did not need to make it for any other reason than to protect me. I had already agreed to everything else he wanted." Snape was still stunned enough to stay silent. "He does not trust you, sir. You cannot believe anything he tells you. It is all planned for you to repeat."

Snape twitched. "He betrayed me to you?" he repeated incredulously.

"Don't get him in trouble for it," Harry said. His voice came out hard with threat, and he lightened it to continue. "If you wish, devise some plan to test his loyalty, for your own satisfaction, but I am trusting you to not betray him to his father."

"Of course, I would not do that." Snape already looked thoughtful. "Yes, I could come up with something." He straightened. "So, Potter, I have heard about your punishment." He sneered. "Almost satisfactory, I believe, and long past due."

Harry tried not to think about it.

"However," Snape continued, "it does not excuse you from work on your special project. We will start, this week, as scheduled. Hermione should come down to meet you at 9:30 on Tuesdays."

"Great!" Harry said. He caught himself. "Er, I mean...."

"You mean," Snape said dryly, "that you would like another two hours a week in the company of your untrustworthy companion. Despite my presence."

Harry decided Snape was amused. "Er... More or less, sir."

Snape laughed coldly. "I'll work on that plan, Potter. Then we'll see how enthusiastic you are."

Harry stood up. Halfway to the door, he turned. "Oh -- Professor Snape?"

"What now?" Snape growled.

"Draco has requested that I be ... biddable, in your presence. Don't worry too much about how easily I take direction. It's part of the plot."

Snape pointed his wand at the door. "Finite Incantantum! Good day, Mr. Pott—" he growled. "I need to walk you to lunch, now, don't I?"

"Afraid so."

"Please don't worsen the waste by talking."

Fortunately, Harry and Ron were on better terms since what Ron referred to as "The Seamus Incident". Monday evening, Harry was unable to bring himself to even look at his homework. He was lying on his bed, contemplating the red canopy above him and softly stroking Susara's smooth scales, when Ron entered the dormitory.

"Hi," Ron said.

"Hi," Harry muttered.

"Doing anything?"

"Does it look like it?"

"You could be planning out an essay or something."

"No."

Ron shifted uneasily and cleared his throat. Before he could speak, Harry interrupted. "Look, let's just pretend we've already had the conversation about how stupid that was, okay? I've been through it with Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snuffles, Seamus, Hermione, and Snape, of the ones I can remember. I won't be able to endure another repeat."

Ron sat down on his bed, and leaned against the headboard. "Okay." He drew his knees up to his chest and locked his arms around them. "Are you all right, though?"

"Of course I'm not! I've been lying here contemplating the possibility of months of not getting a moment alone with Draco. I'll go mad! I'm used to having someone to talk to, now!"

"I'm someone!"

"You're ...." Harry sighed. "I'm sorry, Ron. I didn't mean ..." He looked desperately at Ron. "Listen, I like you, and I think you still basically like me, and yes, I think we can and should be friends again...."

"But?" Ron challenged angrily.

"But you don't understand the sort of things Draco understands."

Ron sat upright and glowered at Harry. "What don't I understand, then? What sort of wine glasses to use when getting pissed?"

At Ron's angry tone, Susara flickered nervously down the neck of Harry's robes and into the cover of his sleeve. Harry sighed, and sat up. "We usually drink cognac, and he does have the perfect crystal snifters, but that's not important."

"What, then?" Ron growled. "Name one thing Malfoy understands that I don't!"

Harry shivered. He remembered Draco lying on Ron's bed, talking about the Cruciatus curse under the cover of darkness. Did you scream?

"Pain," he muttered.

"What?" Ron's eyes narrowed. "Like I've never been hurt?"

"Cruciatus," Harry elaborated. Not wanting to answer any questions about Draco and the Cruciatus curse, he continued. "Watching someone die. How it feels to .... Never mind. Making huge choices -- deciding what your life is worth." Harry frowned. "I suppose that's not fair. You've been there, haven't you?"

"Yes. Not as often as you, perhaps, but yes."

"Draco's different -- he's a Slytherin, so he doesn't go on that the same way I do. He values his life very highly, and I count my own as expendable for almost anything. I don't hold that against him, I suppose. Everybody needs to make that choice themselves."

Ron twisted at his bedspread with his hands. "Do you want to die, then?" he asked.

"Of course not! But I'm always willing to. I've made that choice so often it's become automatic." Harry rolled onto his side to face Ron, but looked instead at the bedspread. He traced along the gold threads with one thumb.

"There are these things about being friends with a Slytherin," he said hesitantly.

"Like never knowing when you'll get stabbed in the back?!"

Harry shrugged. "I don't know that anyway, do I? Actually, on average, the Slytherins may be more predictable. You have to look at it as a game -- no one knows all the rules, because everyone makes up his own and tells only some of them to other people, but there are rules. For example, Draco thinks he knows Snape's rules, but he's wrong about a lot of them, and vice versa. I'm sure I know more of Snape's rules, and Draco's, than they know of each other's. I used to think Dumbledore knew all the rules, but he doesn't, just more than he ought. He's very good at this, for a Gryffindor."

"What are you on about?"

"None of them know all of my rules, either. I don't tell anyone everything. I don't completely trust anyone -- Draco says that's my most Slytherin trait."

"Er...."

"Of course, it's obscured by my most Gryffindor trait -- bravery. People don't notice when I don't trust them, because I make a choice and do something anyway.

"We all do this, I think, but Slytherins do it better. With Slytherins, distrust can be formalized. There are rituals that assume no one trusts anyone, and they are considered polite, not offensive."

"What?"

"Do you know it's actually expected, in Draco's circles, to cast an Identification Charm on any drink for which you did not watch your host unseal the bottle?"

"Charming."

"Convenient, I think. Imagine not having to pretend you believe it's pure."

"Now you are sounding like a Slytherin," Ron said. "And that whole -- I don't understand you at all."

"That's my point, isn't it? Draco would understand all that."

Harry wanted -- not to drive Ron away, he thought, but to know if Ron would leave. He looked up, at last, and met Ron's eyes. "Want to know a secret?" he offered, feeling a trembling of fear in his body, and hoping it did not show. "Something I told Draco, but never told anyone else but Dumbledore?"

Ron looked tense, but he nodded. "If you want to tell me, Harry."

"I nearly did, our second year. I was so frightened by how people reacted to me as a Parselmouth, and people saying I was the heir of Slytherin..." Harry realized he was stalling. "I should have been in Slytherin," he said firmly.

"Don't be ridiculous! The Sorting Hat put you in Gryffindor."

"Because I begged it not to put me in Slytherin. It said Slytherin was the best place for me -- my 'path to greatness.' I'd already met Malfoy, and knew what you and Hagrid said, and I sat there, whispering 'Not Slytherin, not Slytherin, not Slytherin,' until the Hat relented and put me in Gryffindor."

Ron stared. "It... I didn't know that could happen!"

"Maybe it happens a lot. Maybe all the people who it takes time to Sort have some sort of input. Maybe Slytherin has people who should have been in Gryffindor, but who had family expectations to satisfy, or had been told that Gryffindors are dangerous, loud, and foolish.

"My second year, it just frightened me. I felt like I was an impostor, here, that probably I was secretly evil. At the end of that, I talked to Dumbledore -- not just about that, in retrospect, but about a conversation I had with Tom Riddle -- and he said we are defined by our choices, by what we do, not by our abilities. I continued with that, for a while, as if I had somehow redeemed myself by choosing Gryffindor.

"After Cedric died, I felt enveloped in Darkness. My fifth year, I realized that choosing Gryffindor was not a redemption in itself, nor did it need to be. It was a choice of influences. Here I was surrounded by people who expected me to be brave and protective and honorable, people who would praise me for daring, scold me for selfishness and blind rage, and be horrified if I began to dabble in the Dark Arts. That has made a tremendous difference in who I am. Socializing with Draco has made me see how much.

"Had I gone into Slytherin, my influences would have been quite different. I can see the Hat's point -- certainly, I would be more powerful. My tendency to want things to be fair would certainly have been teased and bullied out of me within the first year, and my more ... sneaky ideas lauded. I might be more creative, for that. My desire for power would have been encouraged, and my rages tolerated, as long as they produced results. I would have been trained out of seeking unproductive danger. I would have learned to use my name, as well as my wand. I would have fewer contradictory requirements pulling at me, so my decisions would be faster and more focused."

"In other words, you'd be a right bastard."

"A right dangerous bastard."

Ron let out a shaky breath. "Is that what you want to be?"

"No." Harry smiled wistfully at Ron. He really was still rather innocent. "But I could use a dusting of it. I don't want to be self-centered, but it would probably be a good thing if I thought my life was worth more than ... something. I don't want to be cold-hearted, but at some point, I'm going to need to save someone and let someone else die, and I need to have enough practice appraising people so that I don't dither and let them both die."

"Have you ever wanted to 'dabble in the Dark Arts' as you put it?"

Harry shuddered. "Not dabble."

"Sorry?"

"Ron." Harry looked at Ron with all the sincerity and closeness he could. "You need to know this. At some point, I will cast the Killing Curse." He kept himself from apologizing, or babbling on about why. Let Ron ask, if he cared, or let him leave.

"No." Ron scarcely breathed the denial. "Harry."

Harry didn't say anything. Ron finally swallowed and asked, "Why?"

"I believe it is the only way to destroy him," Harry said flatly. "The Killing Curse. From me."

Ron stared. He didn't leave. Eventually, he looked down and said:

"That sucks."

"Yeah."

For the first time since December, Harry really felt like Ron was his friend.