Declaro: Rites of Spring

Chapter Six: The Way of the World

HARRY:

Not a good day. Bathroom full of people hanging about to share gossip, and I spent an age trying to calm a mirror some idiot had cursed to scream every time you looked at it. Dennis was just sure I could make it see sense. I hate wizarding mirrors; they're always poking at the scar and making suggestions about my hair. Vain, too.

Dean's reading yet again from the //Prophet//. "At Hogwarts. . . blah blah blah. . . here! From Robin Pringle (London), Eunice Rookwood (Bath), Lavinia Sprout (Professor, Hogwarts), to Neville Longbottom (Hogwarts). Wow Neville that's nearly as many as Malfoy ever got."

He's clearly over the shock, then, comparing Neville's success to everyone else on the list. Hermione mutters something about Jane Austen novels. Neville's beyond embarrassed.

"Hi Harry," he offers, in the quiet voice he hadn't used for years. I don't think much more than "Hi" will be welcome. I've heard it seven different ways already. Neville's going to be offered a place as assistant to Professor Sprout, and the Rookwood girl (related to the woman Snape mentioned?) was, according to rumour or those who saw the miniature illusion in person - staggeringly beautiful. The upper Gryffindor boys are pretty evenly divided over promising career and gorgeous girl. Neville's always been pretty retiring about girls, though. If he's heard even half the suggestions for the contract I did this morning, he'll be red for a month.

The owls are coming. We all know the sound by now. There's a flutter above and shuffles and whispers below, and the strangest anticipation as they fan out. Even when you try not to look, you want to. Seamus is cheering; for him it's a lottery and a race, Gryffindor against the rest. Hermione says my name and there are white ribbons and wings as the birds beat back against the air, finding the right place. They never just drop and fly on. A head swivels my way and I put out a hand for the box she's carrying. In a rush they're gone, leaving me with a smooth grey box and Hermione with a large white card. Ron's staring blankly at her. Doesn't mean it's Snape.

How do you find the owls anyway? And do you bring the ribbons, or are they somehow provided? My fingers ache from gripping the table edge.

Hermione just says, "Well."

I slip the box into my robe. Ron is still silent.

Eventually she smiles a little and says, "Not from you, I take it?"

And he says - too calmly given everything is about to fall apart - "Must be from your other secret admirer."

"What does it say?" Dean asks from across the table.

She says quietly "Hermione Granger. Open privately."

There might be something else, but Ron is leaving. No he doesn't want to know; no he's fine; I catch his arm but, no, he's fine and just wants some time.

I look for Snape almost automatically. The staff had maintained a policy of pretending breakfast proceeded in the usual way, entirely free of white owls with white ribbons. Today there is more obvious attention, but no Snape. It could be from someone else.

"Hermione?" I ask.

"I'm fine," she lies, sliding the card into her book bag.

I gather up my things to go as well, feeling the way we are looked at.

Dean leans excitedly across the table. "Harry, aren't you going to. . ?"

Hermione interjects "Not right now Dean. Really, just leave it. Please."

A few people congratulate Hermione, but there's no great excitement; we all see the complication. Pansy Parkinson gives her a bright smile, the bitch, and raises an eye at me.

The remaining Slytherins watch us in a too intense way. Draco's leaning at the door, carefully casual. "Mr Potter, Ms Granger," he nods. "You had mail?"

"C'mon Harry," Hermione urges, "we're terribly late."

Draco smiles. "We're all late today. Class delayed till half past for a staff meeting."

"Snape'll be livid," Crabbe offers.

Goyle adds, "I reckon they're sacking Sprout for putting the hard word on Longbottom".

"Eeeeww!" moans one of the interchangeable Slytherin girls who hang with Draco's offsiders in the forlorn hope he'll notice them.

Hermione's moving us past, but I put my other hand into the pocket with the box. Cool, smooth, not dangerous. Remember the Hogwarts' wards.

Malfoy stays in the doorway and, after yesterday, the role is just irritating. "Do you mind, Malfoy?" I snap at him. "Or did you just not get enough attention this morning?"

"Just curious," he replies with a slow smirk.

Hermione gives an exasperated sigh.

He turns in beside me, as if we just accidentally end up walking together. I really need to know now; I can feel his interest. He knows or he doesn't know? I stop and he keeps on walking with no reason to wait. I pull out the box and flip it open.

* * *

Anyone who knew where to look could have found him, and Harry wasn't altogether surprised this included Malfoy. Eyes on his book he said, "What do you want?"

Draco took a seat on the table. He looked at Harry's fingers thrust a bit irritably up through his hair where he leant on one hand. It was a library, after all, so Draco bent down to speak closely, "You know we've been circling this conversation for days."

Harry looked up and pulled his chair a little further away. "I already asked a question."

"I told you," Draco said, "I want a trade." With a smile he added, "I've been very up front, which you know isn't good for my reputation." Draco doing sarcastic charm, then.

"I don't trust you." Harry offered bluntly. "Not why you want to talk to me, or what you might say."

Draco slid into the chair - "I never said you had to. . . come on" - and then walked off, brushing his thigh against Harry's arm as he passed.

Feeling annoyed and a bit excited at once Harry went after him, just to see.

As Malfoy passed the bookcase concealing the table he heard a whispered "Delitesco" and the other boy faded from view. Harry stopped, but felt a tug on the sleeve of his robe.

"I think this involves some kind of trust," he whispered, following the pull. There was no one much in the library this late. Terry Boot tutoring young Ravenclaws under a silencing spell near the front desk. Madame Pince, sorting books by levitation. In front of a green door, on the quiet side, the contact disappeared; the door clicked open.

Inside, in a room shelved with stacks of folders, Draco appeared as the spell dispersed. Admitting his stupidity Harry went in. He watched the son, heir, and principle student of his second most powerful enemy cast lock and silence spells on the door and the room. He was nervous for all the wrong reasons. He did know the counters to both those spells. And somewhere the castle and Albus were undoubtedly recognising them too.

"Invisibility, Malfoy? I'm impressed. And I've never heard of that version."

"Just a conceal actually," he replies. "Particular to those immediate to the casting and very temporary." Draco lounged into one of the chairs at the long table. "Those of us without invisibility cloaks have to compensate as best we can."

Harry didn't need to hear the story about Snape's instructions on securing the Syltherin dormitories against Gryffindors with invisibility cloaks again. The results had been quite embarrassing enough. "Let's get on with this," he said.

Draco took something from a pocket and asked, "Do you recognise it?"

A disc on a chain. . . which was in last year's Charms exam. "Credo Candoris," Harry said, remembering it was very hard to find, "how'd you get it?"

"Dishonestly. So are we trading?"

* * *

HARRY:

The abridged version of What I Did on My Summer Holidays is that Draco Malfoy has been groomed as a most useful accessory for any dark plan or empire. Amulet or not I get why Draco is offering some kind of alliance against this. For someone focused so intently on self-control, being positioned as a pawn must be unbearable.

The Credo Candoris won't stop him lying, at least not exaggerating or omitting, and I can see what I think is the odd avoidance, but it will indicate deceitful intent. It's tempting to push that a little and see where it goes. Why is he approaching me and not Dumbledore?

Draco shifts and whispers a "lumos certus". It's been dark since the main lights went out in the library, but we hadn't bothered with light while he talked. The light's pale and for some reason blue. It hangs in the air above and between us, ghosting over Draco's skin.

"He probably should have omitted philosophy from the tutorials," Draco continued, "but Lucius believes in being well-rounded. It let me be uncertain." This was clearly an admission. "Why train myself to be traded off to somebody else's most useful person. Or to Voldemort himself." I'd thought of that too, and the common room comedy about Draco and Voldemort's wedding, "That occurred to me," he says, as if hearing my thought, "It bothered me for days."

"You've got plenty of other offers," I suggest. "And the contracts are binding." Which meant, I guess, that I could see some sort of value in it all, maybe. If you needed to escape. "Take a safe one."

Draco smiled thinly. "None of them would defy my father's decision. True the spells won't work without your consent - but consent can be obtained." I'm tracking back through all the names I've heard linked to Draco in the last few weeks, and it seems impossible that. . .

"I think it's almost polite, in death-eater circles," he continues, in a calm voice, "to declare yourself interested in me. There may even be a rule. And then, of course, I am a prize." He says it so bitterly I'm can't help both pity and fear, and I feel the stretch between now and the boy whose hand I wouldn't shake on the first day of school hanging between us.

"On the other hand, you'd have to be pretty sure of yourself to declare an interest in Harry Potter." Which brings me to the box. I place it carefully on the table.

"I don't think so," he smirks at me. "It's a trade, remember. What have you got?" I'm still trying to sort out what I can tell him in return; what my place in the Order means I can't. "How about Granger's dec.?" No way. "Not that I care", he adds, "but secrets are always interesting."

Draco surely knows about the Order and my part in it, just as I know his father is a death-eater and he's destined to be one too. I've no idea how this effects that, but I know it matters. Perhaps a lot. "Pass me the amulet."

"I don't actually need you to. . ." he begins, but this is supposed to be a trade. He slides it across the table, and I put my wrist through the chain. The metal disc is warm on my palm where he's been holding it. Makes me shiver. For a moment I expect the charm to reveal that about me.

I tell him what the Revival knows, leaving out Snape entirely. He doesn't look at me, he looks at the table, and I can feel him scanning my voice for what's there and what's not. I tell him how we plan to bring the rite into the school and he nods briefly. It makes me wonder what house Dumbledore was in. "Perhaps you should speak to the Headmaster."

"I'll think about it," he replies shortly. "Your mysterious box . .?"

I tip the object inside on to the table. A glass or crystal disc as thick as my little finger, patterned around the edge, rattles to a stop. On top is my name, etched into the surface. He reaches out and flips it over. "Blaise Zabini." I can't guess what he's thinking. "It's nice, if cryptic. Shows some style and effort."

That's not what I need to know. "Why?"

"Handsome, rich, brave, talented Harry Potter - possibly destined to be the great wizard of our time," none of which sounds like a compliment as he says it, "and you don't know why." I look away. It's cruel, and partly true. I'm the boy-who-fucking-lived.

I pass him the word-of-faith charm, which sits mutely in his palm. Maybe it's a fake. "Blaise is following instructions, but it's not even a vague offer. I doubt he'll actively pursue you because they'd never believe you'll take him." The effort seems extraordinary but, I suppose. . . if they have the aims we suspect. "It might have been my father's decision, or even his father's as there's some power in the contract spell."

He tosses the glass disc neatly back into the box. "There's no way of keeping it out of the public list. The declaration spell is a record that can't be faked. But I can ensure he doesn't bother you. After all, he really should have mentioned this to me."

"Thanks. I guess." Draco's looking at me expectantly now, so I take the amulet from him again. "I don't know anything else worth sharing really," I say, and it glows up hot and gold like a little cold ball of fire. I meet his look. "Just testing." He nods as if that's quite reasonable. "I don't think I can tell you anything else."

"Well you owe me." He walks to the door, casually throwing off spells.

"I don't want to owe you Malfoy."

"I think I'll take it in kind, then."

I walk after him uncertainly.

"I mean," he says, "you can do something else for me."

I fight a hot rising blush, and I can feel every specific inch between his arm and my own as he opens the door. Passing in front of him I say, "I don't think so."

Suddenly he throws an arm around my shoulders and I'd flinch but it thrills me. "Harry, don't worry, it'll be fun. I'm having a party is all, and I want you to come."

"That's all?"

I'm aware of the silent library around us although, as prefects, we can be here if we want.

"Just dress appropriately, and bring your friends."

"My friends?"

"Yes, Weasley, Granger; your friends."

I can't think of what to say, or what scheme this might be, but I can still feel him walking next to me in the almost dark.

"Friday night, 9pm; the 7th year Slytherin common room." The library doors snuffle and grumble at having to reopen out of hours. "And don't forget to dress."

A party. In Slytherin. With Ron. And something else - "What are we supposed to wear?," I ask.

"I don't care about the others. But you," he tugs on his own sleeve, "green robes."

At which I definitely find a voice - "No way. Absolutely not."

"It's a fair trade Harry," he says in a reasonable tone.

He's about to sweep off down the corridor, I know, but I grab his arm and he turns back, looking kind of amused. "Getting my friends there, why ever you want it is a fair trade," I insist, "The robes are extra."

"And what do you want?" he asks, leaning in a little closer. He's slightly taller than me, but I suddenly see the confident tease in it. Breathe. No, breathe and think. His face hovers a few inches from mine, and I won't look to see where or how he's looking.

"A yes or no answer to a question." I say, having no idea what I would want to know that's worth wearing the centre-of-attention costume.

"Really? Ok. Try me." I need a powerful question here - a fuck you Malfoy don't play with me, don't even play with me nicely, question. Draco puts a hand up to my shoulder, tentatively. "What's your question, Harry?" If we weren't so carefully poised it would almost be an embrace. Fuck him.

"Are you interested in Professor Snape?"