Snakes and Lions Extended Ending

Pushing It

"Did you really need to walk into dinner holding hands?" Ron asked, as if the memory pained him.

Harry shrugged. "It made me feel better."

"You're begging for trouble, you know."

"Sorry. I just-- It's what I wanted." Harry couldn't explain how he had needed that connection to Draco that evening. He didn't even want to try, because Ron would tell him he shouldn't be with someone who made him feel like that, and he wouldn't know how to argue the point. He was too confused himself. "Anyway, he asked if you -- well, mostly Hermione, but you're invited as well -- would join us for a picnic lunch tomorrow."

Ron stared. "You're joking."

"No. He says he misses Hermione." Harry grinned. "And I'm afraid he has too much breeding to invite half of a couple. Think you can be polite again?"

"So, what are you doing for summer, Draco?"

Ron rolled his eyes at Hermione's question. He looked like he still couldn't quite believe he was here. As solace, he took a bite of pork pie.

Draco moved a slice of the salmon to his plate. "Staying here, of course. Mother is pretending to dither -- really, she's biding her time until the trial."

"You'll be at the trial, though, right?"

At Hermione's question, Draco looked up and met Harry's eyes. "Yes, of course."

"We'll be meeting before it starts," Harry said, watching Draco for confirmation.

"A day at least," Draco agreed.

"Won't your mum miss you?" Ron asked. He seemed to realize that was a bad question as soon as he said it. Harry watched him stuff more pie into his mouth and have trouble chewing.

"Of course not," Draco said lightly. "Mother loves to travel."

"Do the other Slytherins mind you living with Snape?" Hermione asked.

Draco shrugged. "So many people mind so many things that it's rather difficult to identify which guides whom." Again, he looked at Harry, and this time Harry reached out a hand and brushed it against his arm.

"No kidding."

"And you, Hermione?" Draco asked politely. "Any summer plans?"

Hermione brightened.

"I'll be working with Quintona Myers, can you believe that? I have a learner position helping with research statistics on fontagraphic influences in runic construction."

Ron's eyes widened in a sort of panic response. Harry was tempted to tell him to smile and nod, but he was cut off by a snort from Draco.

"Better you than me, I say."

"Myers is brilliant!" Hermione protested.

"Of course, but you'll be measuring serifs till you're cross-eyed." Draco winked at Harry. "And you know my opinion of work."

Rolling her eyes, Hermione leaned forward for another canapé. "Yes, I do. You're perfectly fine with it, as long as no one notices."

"No one who doesn't outrank me, in practice," Draco corrected blithely. "I mean Severus should think I'm working terribly hard at all times."

"Severus?" Ron repeated, in incredulous dismay.

"Oops," Draco said calmly. "Well, he is my spellfather. I can call him that in casual conversation, I think."

Hermione looked between Draco and Ron with obvious worry. "So what are you doing for the summer, Harry?"

Harry thought changing the subject was an excellent idea. "I'm at the Dursleys' until a few days before the trial, then I'm in London for that, and then back to the Dursleys' until my birthday, when I'm leaving."

Ron stopped frowning about Snape and sat up. "Is that safe? Do you have somewhere to go?"

Harry shrugged. "I doubt I'll be safe with them, once I'm an adult in Wizarding terms, and if I stay around, I'll probably just get them killed. They're horrible, but not that horrible. I haven't decided where I'm going yet. If Professor Dumbledore has plans, he'll tell me them at the last minute, of course." Privately, Harry had already decided not to wait until his actual birthday to leave the Dursleys, but he wasn't going to tell anyone that. It was safest all around if no one knew, and they just showed up to find him gone.

"Mum would have you, I'm sure."

Harry shrugged.

Uneasily, Ron plucked a stalk of grass and began to split it end to end. He stopped when he got to the small feathering of seeds at the top. "Harry! our Divination assignment."

"Oh! Yeah, I haven't done it either."

"Is now good?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Ron...."

"Won't take two minutes," Ron said cheerfully.

"Well it ought to!"

Harry laughed and summoned more grass from by the rocks, where it was taller. He handed three stalks to Ron and began to strip the seeds from three more. "Don't worry, Hermione. It'll take us some time to write up."

Hermione looked beseechingly at Draco. "They just make things up!"

"Hey, we're throwing the grain, yeah?" Ron objected.

"Besides, Hermione," Harry added. "You'd hate it more if we believed it." Cupping his seeds, he let out a long breath on them, and then tossed them on the blanket. Ron leaned over to examine them.

"Hm. Well, there's a sort of person, here, but the body is squiggly, like a snake.... No, wait -- a lightning bolt. That'd be you, then Harry. And there's some sort of trophy. Sort of looks like you're pissing in it."

"RON!"

Harry laughed.

Draco leaned forward and looked. "Oh, is he that well endowed?" he said casually. "I really do need to get into his pants soon."

Ron went from triumph at shocking Hermione to complete embarrassment. Harry decided it was his turn to take a look at the flung grains.

"Don't think that's piss and a trophy, Ron. Looks more like I'm being attacked by a woodpecker."

Draco coughed with the effort of not laughing. "You are so vulgar, Potter! I shouldn't even be in the same room as you."

"We're not in a room."

"Ah. Well, that's all right, then."

Ron scattered the picture with a small wind, clearing the blanket. "My turn. Ready, Harry?"

"Toss any time," Harry answered, and got slapped from both sides, by Draco and Hermione. "I didn't mean that one!" he protested, and Ron sniggered and threw the seeds.

Harry looked down. It didn't look like anything, really. "Um ... want to do it again?"

"Oh, come on! There must be something."

"You'll get caught in a hailstorm?"

Ron looked down. "Ah. Look, it's got this boxy thing, right? That's a fight in the house."

"You'll have an argument with me?" Hermione suggested, perhaps a little too brightly.

"No, that's boring. Trelawney would tell me to 'try to open myself more' or something. No, I think it better be a feud within Gryffindor. That has a little drama to it." He looked at the picture again. "Ah! And see all these grains here, and all these grains here? Harry can say that there will be two groups of opposed forces, fighting for the rest of the year. She'll eat it up."

After the picnic, they all walked up to the school together. Harry held Draco's hand again. He thought that should feel stupid, but it didn't. Ron blathered on about a seemingly random string of things; Harry thought he was trying not to think about what his best friend was doing a few short feet away.

When Draco said they had a meeting with Professor Horsyr, Hermione offered to return the picnic basket. Draco shrugged.

"You do know that the house elves can pick it up from anywhere, don't you?"

"I don't see any reason to put them to extra work, or to make the school messy."

"As you wish." Draco's mouth quirked as he handed it over. "Thank you."

Horsyr, with two of the quiris, was waiting for them. Harry, as soon as he stepped into the room, let out a slow breath. The quiris looked dangerous, but not hideous, and he wasn't reeling with panic. "There," he said. "Not so bad."

Horsyr, looking pleased, nodded. "A definite improvement." The quiris were regarding Harry with a mirror of his own wariness, but nothing like their former hostility. One of them let out a perfunctory hiss, then backed up a step, but neither showed any inclination to charge him. Harry reached over for Draco's hand, only to find he had lingered back by the door.

"Faster for me than for you?" he suggested.

"It hardly seems fair," Draco complained, his voice high with tension. "But perhaps it's the same, and you're just better with frightening things."

"Come see what she thinks of you, then."

When Draco stepped up beside Harry, the quiri that had hissed before did so again -- but this time she stretched out her long, sharp claws as well. Draco backed up rapidly, and Harry moved back as well, staying in front of Draco. Horsyr nodded briskly.

"It's good progress," she said, "and I'm glad to see it. A week, as planned, or four days?"

With a grim look at Harry, Draco replied for both of them. "Four days," he said stubbornly.

Harry shrugged. "If you like. May we go?"

The encounter hadn't been truly traumatic, at least for him, but Draco's eager body was still a comfort. They spent a while snogging in a shadowed alcove behind a suit of armor before walking together up to the library. Draco went in to do some research, and Harry continued up to Gryffindor tower.

He never got there.

A flight up, his wand flew out of his pocket, and he was knocked back into the corridor. A Muffling charm deadened the air as someone dove across him, mostly pinning his legs, and another grabbed his arms.

He struggled wildly, twisting and thrashing in an attempt to throw his attackers off. His knee connected with something, and there was a muffled oath in a familiar voice. Shocked to discover that at least one of the lot was a Gryffindor seventh-year, not (presumably) a Death Eater, Harry momentarily lost his terror and tried to re-evaluate.

He couldn't see his attackers well in the unlit corridor, and their faces were covered, but there were four of them, and he was fairly sure that the one with the dark hands was Dean. "What--"

Someone kicked him in the ribs. Harry tried to twist free, but when his fear for his life had faded, he had also lost his momentum, and he was now well and truly immobilized. Noises that should have been loud -- this blow, that yell, the taunt of 'where's your boyfriend now, poof?' were all barely audible, like a scene on a muted television. He managed to bite someone, and their scream was also quiet, as was the answering blow across his face.

A new, older voice was almost inaudible.

"What are--? Back! Off him, you cravens!"

Deep cold passed through Harry, and he thought there were screams, but he couldn't hold on. He fell into blackness.

He woke in the hospital wing, alone. His torso was bandaged uncomfortably tightly and pretty much everything was sore. He glanced at the bedside table, saw that his wand was safe, and fell back to sleep before he could reach for the water beside it.

The next time he woke, there was pallid light coming in the windows and his bandaged body itched as much as it hurt. Draco was asleep in the chair by his bed, and Hermione and Ron were standing uncertainly by the door. Harry thought he may have woken when they came in.

Seeing his eyes open, Hermione moved forward. In a moment, she was holding one of his hands and looking tearily down at him. "Oh, Harry!"

"What hit you, mate?" Ron asked. "Nearly Headless Nick said it was boys...."

Draco had sat up and was now blinking at them. Harry thought he might feel that he, as the person who had slept there, deserved to be first, so Harry reached out a hand to him, and Draco took it firmly in his own.

"Yes," he drawled, "do tell."

Harry sighed, and the motion made his bandages itch more. "Let's just say that Gryffindor isn't taking you as well as I thought."

"What!" Hermione looked outraged. "This was our house?"

"You're sure it was about Malfoy?" Unlike Hermione, Ron didn't sound as if he disbelieved it, merely as if it ought to be confirmed.

"Not Draco as himself, as far as I know," Harry answered. "But yeah, the use of 'poof' and such made it pretty clear what the problem was."

"That's...." Hermione was briefly at loss for words. "Barbaric!" she exclaimed finally. She let go of Harry's hand and put her schoolbag up by his feet to rummage for a quill. "Tell me everything you remember. They're not going to get away with this!"

"I don't know who they were," Harry lied.

"We'll figure it out. You must remember something!"

"It was dark, and they'd covered most of their faces. I have no idea, and I don't care."

"Harry! You could have died! If we were in a Muggle school, you would have died! How can you not care!"

Ron looked uneasy, but he reached for her arm. "His decision, Hermione."

"What are you talking about?"

"Look -- if one of my brothers does something to me ... well, there are times to go tell Mum, and times not to, understand? And if he thinks he knows which this is, then he chooses."

Draco nodded. "It can be a sound strategy." His expression grew darker. "Not that it will prevent me from getting revenge if I figure it out on my own."

Hermione looked wildly at them. "You're all mad!" she said shrilly. "He can't just let it go!"

Harry shrugged. "Doesn't matter, anyway," he said stubbornly. "I don't know who they were."

He stuck to that when Professor McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore came to talk to him, although he did confess that the attack seemed to be over him being with a boy, and that he thought his attackers were Gryffindors. He did his best to sound sincere. Dumbledore had left with a sigh and a request that he be informed of any memories that suddenly emerged.

Draco visited at lunchtime, with Hermione and Ron arriving later. That was expected, but his first visitors after lessons were a surprise. Seamus and Parvati came in together, both looking angry.

Seamus flopped down in the chair by the bed. "Sorry I didn't take you more seriously, Harry," he said apologetically. "Never thought he'd do more than huff."

Harry started to shrug, and caught himself. The motion hurt. "S'alright. Didn't think he would either, or I would have been paying more attention." The thought galled him. "Stupid to let my wand get taken, like that, but I didn't expect trouble between the library and Gryffindor."

"I think it's horrible!" Parvati burst out. "I hate how people get about houses, and don't think anyone should care that you're with a boy, either."

"I think it was more the boy," Seamus said. "For that, houses mean more."

Harry shrugged. "Not all of what people think they do, though." He looked at Parvati as she said it, and she nodded emphatically, making her necklaces bounce.

"I hate being called 'the stupid one', or people expecting Padma to be timid."

"Still," Seamus said. "It can't last, really. Not a Gryffindor and a Slytherin."

Harry wanted to argue that it could, but he knew it couldn't -- not because Draco was a Slytherin, but because he was determined to marry.

"That it's a fair boy, though -- not their business, is it? It's not like you're shagging him in our room."

"Not like I'm shagging him at all," Harry protested. "We've scarcely done more than kiss."

"What! After all that, he's putting you off?"

"He is not!"

"So, then?"

"I don't think I'm ready for that."

"Dear God, Harry! Don't start acting like a girl!" Seamus protested. Parvati slapped him, hard, on the arm.

"I think it's sensible," she said haughtily.

"As I said...."

Harry smiled. He didn't mind this sort of teasing -- not from Seamus. "Well, it's more than I've done with anyone else," he said. "Just -- he can be overwhelming, you know?"

"I suggest earplugs," Seamus answered, laughingly ducking another threatened slap from Parvati.

"But that would take away half the fun," Harry protested, grinning. "I like him clever."

Parvati giggled. "Well, that must be why Hermione and Padma approve. Really, Harry, none of the girls are faulting your taste! If any pretend to, it's just sour grapes."

The two stayed until Draco and Hermione arrived (Ron, Hermione told him, was in detention, but would come by in the morning), and they stayed until Madame Pomfrey shooed them out. "Now let's look you over," the mediwitch said cheerily. "If those ribs have healed, you might get out tomorrow." She examined him, tsked, gave him a hideous tasting potion, and left him with orders to lie still. A few minutes later, though, she was back with a small package.

"The headmaster said to give you this, so it should be safe. Use a charm to open it, though -- I don't want you pulling at tape."

With that, she was gone again.

Curiously, Harry examined the package, floating it in front of himself to turn it. There was no indication who it was from, but if it had come from Dumbledore, he could probably trust it. Using his wand as instructed, he unwrapped the box. As the flaps of the top parted, brightly colored glass balls began to float out. Among them were two flying horses, a Granian and an Aethonan, also of glass. The horses swooped among the balls in a seemingly random pattern. When Harry looked inside the package, he also found a letter.

Harry,

This was more trouble than I expected when you said people in Gryffindor were upset. Was it that bad then, or did things get worse quickly? McGonagall's annoyed that you won't give names, but I think I understand. Keep your wand in hand when you're walking alone, and don't let them get you again. Don't worry about getting in any trouble for fighting back, either. Old Dumbledore is furious, though I doubt he'll let you see that.

The horses and balls are an old set of mine. There are some games you can play with it; have someone with a wizarding upbringing show you if you don't know any. (I wouldn't have thought of that, but Moony did -- he sends his good wishes.) When I was laid up recovering from injuries, though, I used to mostly use it in the children's way, as something to look at when I was alone and couldn't sleep any more. You can also direct the motion of the balls, to use them to demonstrate Quidditch maneuvers and such, if you can't move your arms around enough.

Take care,

Snuffles