Teamwork

Alternative Plans

"At the end of this year," Professor Snape declared. "You will take your N.E.W.T.s."

The entire class was silent. Harry thought they had probably all forgotten how intimidating Snape could be. He certainly had, during July's almost friendly chats and private tutoring sessions. The Snape who had loitered against his bedroom wall was gone now, replaced by a looming, sneering, contemptuous bat that Harry had prematurely categorized as a figment of childhood trauma.

"You are the best and most dedicated of your year--" He paused to sweep them all with a disdainful glare -- "which means far less than you think it does. The Potions N.E.W.T.s are rigorous and demanding examinations, and the prospects of many of you are abysmal. However, I will do my best to provide you with the opportunity to do well. The onus to realize that opportunity is upon each of you. If you do not complete your readings, put thought and effort in your assignments, and concentrate meticulously upon your practical work, your chances remain ... abysmal.

"Today, we begin work on elementary Healing Potions. You should all have read Chapters 1 and 2, and pages 58-65 of Chapter 3...."

One by one, students in the lesson began to breathe again. Draco's quill scratched lightly over a page in his notebook. He shifted his arm back in invitation for Harry to read.

Another intimidating first day speech. I think this is his favorite part of teaching.

Harry nodded, but he didn't write anything back. Draco, as a Slytherin, could get away with that. He was a Gryffindor, and could lose points for his house.

After class, Draco lingered, waiting for Harry to finish his deliberately slow job of packing his equipment. Harry made subtle shooing motions with the hand behind his bag, and Draco frowned.

"I'd wanted to talk," Draco said quietly.

"Meet in the kitchens then."

"Why do you--"

Snape appeared at their side. Everyone else, it seemed, had left. "Are you unable to place your scales in your school bag, Potter?"

"I wanted to talk to you about --"

"If you need special assistance, Potter, come to my office during my scheduled hours, as other students do. I intend to go to lunch -- but not until I have secured my classroom."

"Right, sir. Thank you." Harry jammed the rest of his things in his bag and left the classroom, Draco on his heels.

"I do rather like the idea of the kitchens," Draco said, gracious now that Harry's plans had been foiled. "Shall we take a picnic?"

"I'd like that," Harry said blandly.

Draco shot him a challenging look, but didn't argue. Fifteen minutes later, they were outside the wall of the rose garden, too close to it to be seen from the castle windows, spreading out the loot from an over-laden basket. Harry wasn't surprised at the first word out of Draco's mouth.

"Snape?"

"What about him?"

"Don't pretend to be as stupid as he's claimed you are. What did you want to ask him?"

"I wanted to ask him about the Uncommon Room -- about what Dumbledore had told the staff." It wasn't a lie; that was something he wanted to ask.

"If it was that, I wouldn't have to leave."

"Look," Harry argued. "He tells me more when you're not around."

"That was last year -- when he thought I was working for the D-- Voldemort."

"Still." Harry sighed. "I know it doesn't make sense. Maybe it's -- I don't know -- image in front of a Slytherin student? In front of his spellson? But he does." He shrugged and reached for a sandwich. "What had you wanted to talk about?"

"I don't half-believe you, you know."

Harry stuck out his tongue. "Slytherin. Of course you don't."

"Don't show that off unless you intend to use it."

"Any time, love. You're the one holding out now, remember?"

Draco laughed, and the mood lightened. "It's for our own good."

"Of course it is," Harry answered, rolling his eyes.

"Well it is!" Draco leaned forward, his eyes sparkling. "Here's my idea. Last night, when you came down to Slytherin, I was thinking that we should make proximity detectors, so we can find each other."

"But I--"

Draco waved the objection away. "Yes, I understand that now. And your instincts may have been good -- you are the talk of the house, this morning, and it's not all bad. But it occurred to me that the same tool could be helpful for identifying the rooms below the bathroom."

"How so?"

"Well, the entire corridor isn't aligned. We know that -- if it was just a matter of counting doors, it would be easy. But we can estimate a general area. If we make a proximity detector and reproduce the notebooks, then one of us can stand outside the bathroom door while the other walks around below, and the person next to the bathroom can tell the walker when they are closest."

"Like a game of 'button, button'."

"Pardon?"

"Warmer, warmer, warmer, cooler," Harry tried.

"Ah, yes!" Draco sat back. "We call that 'seeker'."

Harry choked. "Perfect!"

For a few minutes, they caught up on eating. Harry had started off thinking about where they would go to enchant new notebooks, and how they would keep from having them confiscated. Having thought of a place to work, however, he found himself devising other uses for it. "About the Uncommon Room?" he said.

"Yes?"

"If Dumbledore doesn't come through, I want to make an unofficial one."

"Where? The Shrieking Shack is a bit out of the way."

"And too good to lose," Harry agreed. "But there are a couple of blocked secret passages. I've been checking them out, and the one on the fourth floor has a large, dry, flat area before you get to the caved-in part. We could expand that, and just bring people in on it individually."

"A 'by invitation only' Uncommon Room?"

"Well, if we just tell everyone, someone will rat."

"True." Draco looked thoughtfully off into the distance. "I'll need to think about candidates."

"Not just people who agree with us."

"No, of course not. But neutrals will need to be carefully selected."

"Tested, perhaps?" Harry suggested. "We could have invitations to some other place first."

"And see what they do?"

"Right."

Draco nodded. "That will be part of it."

Their next lesson was Transfiguration, during which Harry and Draco sat together, but made it a point to behave exceptionally well. Ron and Hermione, two tables in front of them, talked more. Harry didn't want McGonagall to have any chance to criticize his behavior with Draco. He had even left Susara back in the dormitory, partially to make it easier not to whisper, and partially because he wasn't sure how dangerous Cursebreaking would be. He didn't suppose he and Draco could maintain this level of behavior for long, but a good start might make a difference in the professors' attitudes later.

After Transfiguration, Hermione headed off to Arithmancy, and Harry and Draco started off to Cursebreaking. Ron was taking the class too, Harry knew, and it was strange to know he was behind them. Inside the room, he and Draco settled -- as always -- near the back. Ron paused in the aisle beside them and gave Harry a measuring look.

"Would you like to sit with us?" Draco offered suddenly, making Harry blink in confusion. "We can edge over."

For a moment, Ron looked grateful, but that changed suddenly to a scowl. "No thanks, Malfoy. I'd rather sit with someone sane." With a dirty look at Harry, he walked up to the very front of the room and an empty seat next to Padma.

Harry expected Draco to be furious, but he just leaned close. "You ask, next time. He was offended that it was me."

"Why ask?"

"Because we need him, which means he needs to stop thinking of me as a rival."

Just then, the instructor dashed into the room. His brown hair was mussed, and his robes askew. He tugged them quickly into place and gave the class a quick smile.

"Hullo, everyone! I'm Professor Hecksban, and I'll be teaching this class, as well as Defense Against the Dark Arts. My previous teaching experience is entirely seminars for professional curse-breakers, so let me know if I move too fast or use jargon that you don't know. Oh, and don't expect me to remember names right off." He grinned at Ron. "Except for you. You must be Bill's brother Ron, right?"

"Um, yeah."

"Brilliant. All right, let's go around the room. Tell me your name, whether you have any experience with cursed objects, and how comfortable you are with-- No, on second thought, just name and experience. Let's start with you."

He pointed to a table in the back corner. The first student was a Hufflepuff, Susan Bones, who mentioned a few family curiosities. Justin Finch-Fletchley, next, confessed he had no experience at all. That brought matters to Draco.

"Draco Malfoy," he drawled. "My father made quite a hobby of cursed objects, but I confess that I know next to nothing about breaking curses." A few nervous giggles rose throughout the room, but Hecksban just nodded.

Harry, realizing he was next, shrugged. "Harry Potter," he said. "I've been at the wrong end of a few cursed objects."

Ron outright laughed at that, the sound familiar, and a few others followed. Hecksban grinned and let the whispers die out before continuing on to a Ravenclaw that Harry didn't know. Beside him was Blaise Zabini, whom he had previously not noticed.

When they had all introduced themselves, Hecksban cleared his throat. "All right. Let's go over a few scenarios. There are no right or wrong answers here -- or, well, there are, but you're not expected to know the difference yet. I just want to get an idea for your styles."

Hecksban opened a package of colored chalk. Doodling a little house on the board, he continued. "Okay, let's say you've been sent out to a cottage that everyone says is cursed." He added jagged green grass in a line under the yellow house. It was a typical child's representation, with a peaked roof, a centered door, and two windows. "You check out the front door, and don't find anything. You open it and check out the door jamb, and something seems odd, but you can't pin it down and aren't entirely sure it's malevolent. What do you do?"

Zabini raised his hand.

"Yes, Blaise?"

"Make the same checks on a window."

"Oh, very good!" Hecksban outlined the door and windows in orange. "Let's say it's the same. Harry?"

"Um, bring a friend to wait outside with his wand out, and walk in, staying alert."

Draco's hand shot up.

"Draco?"

"Pull my idiot boyfriend away from the door, summon the nearest small animal, and toss that through instead."

Some of the sniggering that followed that was rather high-pitched.

"But what if it needs to walk in to be affected?" the Ravenclaw objected.

"Oh!" Ron exclaimed. "Then a friend could float you in."

"How about Apparating?" Susan suggested. Everyone turned and looked at her. "Well, if the curse is on the doorway...."

"Clever," Hecksban acknowledged. "Justin?"

After the lesson, Harry told Draco that he was going to walk up to Gryffindor with Ron. Draco, as he expected, approved of that, since he now saw a use for Ron. Once he was there, however, Harry ditched half of his books, replaced them with a small bag of gold, invited Susara to ride, and started back down to the dungeons and Snape's office.

"Master?" Susara hissed in his ear as they walked. "Must I stay alone tomorrow?"

"Was it too long?" he asked guiltily. He'd been hoping for a few more days to reassure people.

"I miss your warmth."

"Is not your lamp warm enough?"

She coiled uneasily down and up his arm. "The lamp has adequate heat," she said, confusion flowing from her. "You are warm."

The answer was sweeter than she could understand, and he immediately decided he would just have to be circumspect.

"You can come with me," he promised. "We cannot talk during lessons."

"I will be as still as pure gold," she assured him, and he paused to run a finger down the warm gold of her scales.

"I am sure you will."

There were young voices coming from Snape's office, so Harry waited around the corner for the students to leave. When he heard footsteps moving away, he peered around, and then walked to the open door.

"Professor?"

"Ah, Mr. Potter. Shut the door."

With a grin, Harry did that. When it was closed, and muted, he flopped down into a chair, and took the bag of gold out of his school bag. "Here," he said, tossing it Snape. "Thanks for the loan."

Snape caught the bag neatly, and gave it an experimental bounce in the palm of his hand. "You're welcome," he said politely. "Knowing you, I believe I can count it later." The bag was swept into a drawer. "From the way you have made yourself comfortable, I suspect that is not your entire business."

"No, not really." Harry shrugged. "There are a few things."

"Then please start."

"Well, first, I thought we didn't need to be secretive, this year."

"It rather depends about what, doesn't it?" Snape asked. "Voldemort will not call me to account for not killing you. A number of people might still want to know what I have to talk to you about."

That made sense, actually. McGonagall, for example, might take it amiss if Harry were to be seen disappearing into Snape's workroom for long periods. In fact, hadn't Dumbledore warned Harry that seeking Snape's support would cost him others'? "All right. So you may still need to give me detention, now and then."

Snape smiled evilly, showing his uneven teeth. "I rather expect I will have cause, as usual."

"Right, but if I want to talk--"

"You will misbehave? No. Seventh-year potions are not toys."

A tightening of Susara's hold gave Harry an idea. "What about Susara?"

"Pardon?"

"My snake -- the torclinde. If I wear her around my neck in your class, go ahead and overreact to something."

"I never overreact," Snape lied baldly. "But yes -- an excellent signal. Those students who notice will likely assume I am angered by your presumption."

"Okay," Harry said, nodding.

"The next item?"

"Draco."

"Ah. What about Draco?"

"Well, he knows that you took me to the seer, of course. If you're willing to consult with me on divinatory potions, may I let him know?"

"I cannot obtain proscribed ingredients for you."

Harry waved that away. "Sorted."

There was a flash of something in Snape's eyes -- approval? interest? -- but his voice was bland. "I will consult on theory, discreetly."

"Equipment? Space?"

"Let me consider how it might be done."

"Okay." Harry shifted uneasily. "Er, last spring, Draco and I discussed something with the headmaster."

"Something," Snape repeated with amusement. "Might you be more specific?"

"Mixed-house social space."

"A frightening thought."

"He said he'd discussed it with the staff."

Snape's brow tightened into bands. "Discussed, no. It was mentioned and laughed off, as I recall."

"So, he's not really doing it."

Snape waved the matter aside. "This is Albus Dumbledore we are talking about. I would make no assumptions. He often approaches things with levity."

"All right. Will you let me know if it's mentioned again?"

"Certainly. Anything else?"

"Well, in general, I wanted to ask you about Talbot and DE status--"

Snape cut him off. "Adequate treatment of that subject would require a lengthy discussion. Some other day, yes, but not during my office hours. I can only leave the door closed for so long."

"Fine. Should I go?"

"No." Snape's voice was suddenly harsh. "Tell me, rather, what you were thinking when you walked into the SLYTHERIN common room?"

"Uh." Harry wet his lips. "Um, I wanted to see what they'd do."

"What who would do?"

"The Slytherins. The ones who don't know me. If they'd attack or watch. If it would make me more real. If it would make me less of an enemy."

"Ah." Steepling his hands, Snape sat back. "So this was a deliberate risk?"

"Yes."

Harry waited to see how that would be received. Slowly, Snape nodded. "It was not entirely moronic, then. And it may make you less of an enemy to those who formerly had no opinion."

Harry nodded. "I'll do it again, I think, but I'll be careful about when, and who's there."

"I suggest bribes, also," Snape nodded. "Unopened sweets, or other indulgences."

"I may have a few things that will do."

"I am unsurprised," Snape said dryly, coming to his feet. "Go then. And leave the door open."

"Yes, sir."

The Slytherin first-year girl from last night was waiting in the hallway. Harry gave her a smile as he waved her in.

Draco still had the copper mirror from last year, and the magical ink for charging the notebook was not difficult. They started it that evening, in the collapsed tunnel behind the mirror on the fourth floor, and when Harry saw Draco get a package in the Saturday morning owl deliveries, he knew to meet him there without being asked. By mid-afternoon, they had a new Liber Geminus.

"We'll need to be more circumspect this year," Draco confided, as they headed up the stairs. "I suggest we don't use them in Transfiguration at all, and probably not in Potions, either. Charms should be safe, if we're not disruptive."

Harry nodded. "Defense and Cursebreaking, too. I get the feeling Professor Hecksban won't mind that sort of thing."

"Less distracting than passing notes, really." Draco agreed. "Ah. Here we are." He gave Harry a friendly nudge. "Your floor. I'll go up to the bathroom door."

Harry set off down the corridor. At first, it went in the same direction as the one on the floor above, but then it ended in a T. He turned left, and then right, and then entered some sort of storage room. There, he stopped and took out his book.

How's this? he wrote.

You could be closer. Move a few steps in some direction, and I'll tell you what changes.

Harry went to the far corner of the room.

Warmer. Can you go mor

The writing stopped. Draco? Harry queried. There was no response. Someone must have come down the hallway, he decided. Draco had hid the book. He would just wait here.

After a few minutes, he began to worry. Nothing too horrible should happen in that corridor -- well, barring odd monsters loose in the school -- but what if Nott had drummed up some support and gone looking for Draco? He decided to head back to the stairs, but he kept the book out, just in case Draco wrote to him again, and shared his attention between the page in front of him and the corridor ahead.

Before he saw writing in the book, he saw Draco. He was leaning against the wall, just around the corner from the stairs, and pulling out his quill.

Curious, Harry looked at the page.

Had to leave. Meet m

Not waiting for the rest, Harry hurried forward. "How about here?" he asked. Draco jumped, splotching the page.

"Harry! What are you doing here?"

"I decided to go looking for you, in case you were in danger."

Draco scowled. "Only of exploding from frustration. This won't work."

"Why not?"

After a quick glance around the corner, Draco pulled his quill back out again.

We shouldn't talk about it here. "Shall we go get some chocolate?" he asked aloud.

Harry had to puzzle that out for a moment -- the passage to Honeydukes. "Good idea," he answered.

When they were safely in the hidden space, Draco cast a privacy spell.

"It was Dumbledore," he said. "I hadn't been at the door a minute before he showed up. He has to be watching the place, somehow."

Harry grimaced. "Damn."

"Yes. Interfering old coot."

"We'll need to use the Shrieking Shack."

"That's far more dangerous."

"Not to mention a nuisance. It takes half an hour to get there."

They looked around at the cramped space around them and both decided it wouldn't do. Harry could see it when he met Draco's eyes.

"Too small."

"We don't need to share the one on the fourth floor--"

Draco shook his head. "The fumes might leak out into the corridor." He frowned. "I wonder if there's a place we could send your snake through."

"I won't send Susara into the walls! What if she gets lost?"

"Well, maybe we could send a phantom through the wall," Draco said. "I expect Myrtle is terrified of-- Oh!"

"What?"

"Ghosts can go through walls. And floors. Moaning Myrtle could tell us what's below her bathroom."

"Brilliant!" Harry exclaimed. "Except...."

"Do you have a problem with that?"

Harry scowled. "Neither of us can cast Control Spirit on her. We've both done it once, remember?"

Draco stared at him in surprise for a moment, and then rolled his eyes. "True," he said, "but there are other methods."

"Oh?" Harry asked, interested. If there was a second spell that would enable them to control ghosts, he could--

"We could ask," Draco snapped.

Harry bit his lip at the obvious reprimand. It wasn't as if he hadn't thought of that, he just didn't think it would work. "After last year, I doubt she'll--"

"She loves attention; you know that. She may not tell us outright, but we should be able to get enough information, given a little time. Now come on!"

"Where are we going?"

"The Prefect's Bathroom. There probably won't be anyone there this early, and with any luck, she'll be taunting the mermaid."

Draco entered the room first, and then, after confirming that no one else was there, opened the door for Harry.

"No Moaning Myrtle," Harry pointed out.

"True, but she likes to watch," Draco said loftily. "Sometimes she notices when you run the water."

He turned on a tap, releasing steamy water and the scent of jasmine. For a few minutes, they just sat on the bench, watching the water fall and the steam rise. Harry wished they could take their clothes off and slide in.

"We should come here some time," he whispered, his hand inching closer to Draco. "Really late at night."

A familiar giggle came from the drain in the floor. Harry jerked back. Moaning Myrtle shot out of the drain in a silver blur.

"Oh!" she exclaimed in dismay. "You have your clothes on!"

"Yes, actually--"

"We were looking for you," Draco interrupted, beaming at the ghost as if she were his best friend.

"Don't make fun!" she answered, stamping her foot even as her eyes brimmed with silver tears.

"We were!" Harry said hastily. "I wanted to apologize, er, for my behavior last year."

"Oh!" she cooed, as if he'd handed her a dozen roses. She swooped closer. "You don't have to worry. I understand."

"You do?" He couldn't see how she could.

Myrtle giggled. "Well...." she said suggestively, and Harry tried not to shudder. "Harry!" she said sweetly. "You know I hear all the school gossip. You should have told me you were safe, and then I wouldn't have been so forward. I'm not mean, you know, not like some people."

"Er, safe?" Harry asked. He couldn't imagine when he'd been safe.

"Bent," Draco clarified. "You know -- not about to take advantage of an innocent young woman."

"Oh!" Harry blushed. He had a brief impulse to protest that he was bi, but if thinking he was gay would stop Myrtle from throwing herself at him, he could live with it. "I don't think I've ever heard, um, that one. Maybe Muggles don't use it now."

"Mm." Myrtle still looked alarmingly and ineptly coquettish as she leaned her head to the side. "Is it true that the two of you are boyfriends?"

For a moment, they looked at each other. Then Draco reached over and took Harry's hand. "Yeah," Harry said.

She squealed. "I want to see you kiss. A real kiss, not a peck."

"Well...."

"Hush," Draco ordered. He turned to Myrtle. "If we kiss for you, do you promise to tell us what room is directly below the second floor girls' bathroom, and what is directly below that?"

She nodded. "Uh-huh."

"In a useful manner that we can understand," he warned.

"Well." She pushed up her glasses. "How can I tell what you'll understand?"

"If we find what we want," Harry said, "we'll kiss for you again."

"Ooo!" She giggled. "With your shirts off?"

"We wouldn't want to get caught," Draco said smoothly. "However, I'm willing to add touching."

"Below the waist?"

Draco scowled. "Above the waist."

"Hmph." She pouted. "Are you really homosexual?"

"Yes," Draco answered sharply. "However, I am not an exhibitionist."

Harry grinned. "I think that's the best you'll get out of him," he told her. "Malfoy pride, you know."

"Oh, all right." She sat on the edge of the tub. "So. Kiss."

"Promise first."

"I promise, yes. I'll tell you what rooms are directly below my bathroom."

Hesitantly, Harry leaned forward. He needed to not think about Myrtle, he told himself, as his lips touched Draco's. He needed to think about something else. Sliding into that tub, perhaps, late at night, with the drains blocked to ghosts. Draco's arms came up around him, interrupting the thought, and suddenly he didn't need to imagine anything. Draco's mouth was soft and warm, his lips pressing just as Harry liked, his cheek not yet scratchy, but not quite as smooth as a girl's. Harry played the tip of his tongue along the line of slightly parted lips, and they opened further, inviting. He moaned into the kiss....

Someone squealed. Harry's eyes went from barely closed to squeezed shut. With a warning brush of contact, Draco lifted his head, and Harry opened his eyes.

"Oh," Myrtle said. She fanned her face with one hand. "You look so sexy together! You'll do more next time?"

"A little more," Draco said firmly.

"I want five minutes."

"Agreed. If you give us enough information for us to find what we want, we'll kiss for you for five minutes, next time."

"Okay. Well," she simpered, "there are two rooms under my bathroom, one under most of it, and the other under just the end of the sinks."

Harry nodded. That made sense. The passage would drop down between them.

"I don't know what either is called, but one is full of odds and ends of old furniture. I've only been in there for a moment, because it doesn't have any plumbing, but I appeared in a disconnected bath there once, when I was startled. A terrible bath -- it was lined with seashells, and horribly uncomfortable to even think of sitting in! It's all things that no one wants, I think -- cobra candelabras, and crocheted pink and green antimacassars, and a folding bed carved to look like crocodile jaws."

"Lovely," Draco said dryly. "And the other room?"

"A caretaker's room," she said. "I'd call it a cupboard, but it does have a sink -- a plain, deep one, that always smells of dirty floors."

Harry grinned and got to his feet. "Great. Thanks, Myrtle. You've been a big help."

"Will you come to my bathroom?" she asked. "No one comes there now."

"It's been put off limits," Harry explained. "By Dumbledore."

"We'll meet you here," Draco said, "in a week's time."

"Ooo!" With a little shiver of delight, she looped up into the air and down again. "In a week, then!" In a quivering flash, she was gone down the drain.