Ignorance is (un)Bliss

~ Chapter, the first ~

Harry Potter sighed. Ron and Hermione obviously weren't coming back. They had gone to the prefects meeting, promising to be back immediately after. But apparently they had gotten lost along the way. 'Yeah,' thought Harry sarcastically. 'Lost in each other's mouths perhaps. Well, then why am I sitting here all alone?' He got up and walked out of the compartment and into the next one, in search of someone he knew. He passed through several compartments without spotting anyone he really wanted to spend any time with. He narrowly escaped a compartment containing Colin Creevey and several other members of the 'Official Harry Potter Fan Club'. Harry ran blindly through the next few compartments until he reached one that made him stop. What was special about this compartment? It was...quiet? He glanced around. No one had noticed his entrance yet, despite the fact that he'd come running in.

The quiet compartment was filled with... Slytherins. The first face he saw was that of his archrival, Draco Malfoy. It was perhaps the first time he'd seen the Slytherin with his attention not on Harry. It felt... strange, to say the least. Malfoy was reading a book, as calmly as if he were sitting in the sunny parlour that no doubt existed in the Malfoy home. Harry waited for him to look up and make some cutting comment. But there was only silence.

Next to Malfoy were Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini, quietly playing chess. Next to them Crabbe and Goyle were happily munching on sweets. Millicent Bulstrode appeared to be asleep. Morag MacDougal stared out of the window and Theodore Nott glared. Wait a minute. Glared? At... Harry. Theodore nudged Morag who nudged Goyle who nudged Pansy who nudged Malfoy. Malfoy looked up from his book in an irritated sort of way as if saying, this had better be important if you're tearing me away from my book.

'Well, it's me. Important enough for you I'm sure, Malfoy,' thought Harry. But the look he gave Harry signified that he was not, indeed, important enough to stop Malfoy from reading. He did not shut the book, only raised an eyebrow at Harry and asked whether he intended to remain in his stunned deer position all day.

"I'm waiting for you to try and hex me," said Harry stiffly.

Malfoy laughed. Laughed. The bastard.

"Why would I do that?" he asked, in a polite sort of way that made Harry even angrier.

"Why wouldn't you?"

"Umm... because I'm too old for this nonsense?"

Harry stared at him in amazement. "Every year, you come looking for me and my friends and fire your pathetic insults at us," he explained, as if speaking to a four year old. "It's practically tradition!"

"What do you care about tradition anyway, Potter? And I feel like breaking tradition this year."

Harry stared at him, wide eyed. "You can't do that!"

Malfoy's eyebrow, which had just recently gone down, went back up again. "Why not?"

"Because!"

Malfoy's trademark smirk made its way onto his face. "Aww, did you miss me? Came looking for me since I didn't come looking for you?"

"Just making sure you weren't dead," said Harry flippantly.

"Like you care."

"No, I don't actually, but I didn't want to get anyone's hopes up without proof." Harry smirked too; though he had a feeling his own smirk was nowhere near as good as Malfoy's.

Malfoy glared at him and Harry held on to his wand in his robe pocket and prepared to be hexed.

"Do you want a seat?"

"Not if I can help it!" shouted Harry loudly. The Slytherins stared at him. "Wait... you didn't just say 'prepare to be hexed to next Sunday'?"

Malfoy smirked at him. So did the other Slytherins. It was rather disturbing to see the same expression on all those faces. The other Slytherins had obviously adopted some of Malfoy's habits after being around him for so long. "You didn't seem to want to leave, so I offered you a seat," explained Malfoy, smirk firmly in place.

Harry took a step back from Malfoy nervously. "I'll just... go then," he said, moving to the door of the compartment (opposite to the one he'd entered from) and waiting for someone to say, "not so fast, Potter."

No such call came. Harry decided to take advantage of the temporary insanity of the Slytherins and run before they changed their minds. Good dueller though he was, he didn't fancy his chances against a whole bunch of his enemies. He opened the door and hurriedly walked out while trying to appear as though he wasn't hurrying.

He soon came to a compartment of Gryffindors. (Though Ron and Hermione were still nowhere to be seen.) He sat down among Dean, Seamus, Parvati, Lavender, Neville, Ginny and a few others from Ginny's year and recounted his tale. Seamus insisted it was some evil plot of the Slytherins to throw him off-guard before doing something horrible to him while the others nodded. Harry was sure Ron would agree it was an evil plot while Hermione would try not to jump to conclusions. He sighed inwardly. Who needed friends when you knew exactly what they would say? Certainly not him.

***

It had been one week since term started. One week. And Harry thought he might go crazy if he wasn't insulted soon.

It wasn't that he liked being insulted, just that he had grown used to having someone tell him he wasn't their hero and perfect and worthy of being worshipped. Wasn't Malfoy worried that he'd get a swelled head? Why didn't he care anymore? It didn't make any sense.

Harry stared as yet another Slytherin passed him by without paying him any attention. What's his name- Blaise Zabini? He had never been much for the popular Slytherin pastime of Gryffindor-torture, but he had always at least given him a sneer. Now he passed him by without so much as a glance. Inexplicable.

Harry held his breath as Malfoy appeared in the distance, surrounded by what was commonly called 'Malfoy's court.' It consisted of Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy and sometimes Millicent Bulstrode. This time all four of them were hovering around him like bees around a flower.

'Come on, do something,' urged Harry mentally. 'Give me a smirk, a sneer, something! Anything.'

But Malfoy passed him by without even noticing he was there. Harry stared after him in bewilderment, feeling somehow hurt. 'Stop it. Anyone would be glad to be free of a menace like Malfoy. Get a hold of yourself.'

***

Two weeks. It had been two weeks, and Harry not been insulted once. What the fuck was going on here? On questioning his friends, as he had expected, Ron had explained, in great detail, how it was a conspiracy to put him of guard and then wham! (Ron had punched his fist into Harry's chest, rather too hard) they would get him. It meant that Harry should practice his defensive spells more than ever.

Well that would be nice, if maybe his best friend was ever available to practice with.

Hermione had said that Malfoy had become much more mature over the summer, and since he was the ringleader of the Slytherins, they had all stopped bugging Harry and his friends.

None of those friends seemed the slightest bit bothered by this though. Though they had agreed it was a plot on the train, after two weeks they were all of the opinion 'why look a gift horse in the mouth.' Except for Ron, who was firmly convinced that none of them should let their guard down, and could be heard trying to convince the other sixth and seventh year Gryffindors to do this. (While not off snogging his girlfriend.)

Harry couldn't take it anymore. He needed answers and he needed them now. He knew that Snape often kept Malfoy back after potions class to discuss one or the other of the dozen potions extra credit projects he was doing. 'I'll linger in the corridor for a bit and force him to tell me what's going on when he comes out and for once isn't surrounded by his court,' he decided. 'Only one problem, how to get rid of Ron and Hermione? I'll... say I need to talk to Snape about Occlumency!' 'Potter, you are a genius,' he thought smugly. 'But what if they volunteer to wait for me?' 'Umm... I'll cross that bridge when I come to it,' he decided. He was, after all, a Gryffindor and plan making is not their forte. Perhaps if he had been sorted into Slytherin, his traits like planning would have been nurtured instead of his trait of jumping headfirst into danger.

He fidgeted all through his next potions class. (He, Ron and Hermione had all taken NEWT level potions. Needless to say, so had Malfoy.) He managed to lose even more points for Gryffindor than he usually did, which was quite an amazing feat. After class he prepared himself to lie to his two best friends only to find it was unnecessary. The two had already left class. Without him. Perhaps if he had been paying attention he would have noticed them making googly eyes at each other throughout the period. He walked out to the corridor and lingered there, trying not to feel upset at the way his friends seemed to have abandoned him.

'Hmm...' he thought. 'Your friends and your enemies have abandoned you and you're trying to get your enemies back. Pretty twisted.' He laughed at himself and received a raised eyebrow from Malfoy, who had just left the room. Great. He hadn't even started 'The Plan' yet and already it was going wrong. "Malfoy!" he shouted.

"Yes, Potter?" Malfoy enquired politely.

"We need to talk." Harry got straight to the point.

"I don't see why, but by all means, talk away!"

Harry glared at him. How dare he be so cheery and friendly! "Not here. In private."

"Lead the way," said Malfoy, gesturing down the corridor.

Harry glared at him some more before pulling him into an empty classroom by his sleeve. What was going on here? It wasn't supposed to be so easy to get him to talk to Harry! Harry had been prepared to stupefy Malfoy and pull him into an empty classroom and force him to talk with Veritaserum if necessary.

Malfoy sat on a desk casually and favoured Harry with a smile that, for some strange reason, made his heart skip a beat. "So what did you want to talk about?" he asked in a friendly way.

"What's going on?" Harry asked suspiciously.

"Well, right now, there are people starving to death in Ethiopia, there are teenagers throwing their lives away on drugs all over the world and there are dark lords plotting to take over the world in more than one place." He smiled brightly. "Oh and, in California, there's a girl and her friends fighting to stop the apocalypse. Did you want to talk about something in particular or just general world affairs?"

Harry blinked at him. "I meant what's going on here at Hogwarts."

"Well I hear McGonagall and Flitwick are having a torrid affair," offered Malfoy.

Harry's eyes widened. "McGonagall and... Flitwick! But he's..."

"A midget? Apparently McGonagall likes them small. Don't ask me why."

"Eww! I did not need to hear that, Malfoy! And I meant what's going on with you! And the other Slytherins!"

Malfoy blinked at him innocently. "You should have been more specific the first time you asked. With me? Not much. With the other Slytherins... well, Pansy still has a crush on me, Millicent is lusting after Blaise... he's staying far, far away from anything female, Vince and Greg are getting it through their heads that they love each other, Morag and Teddy are together still..."

"That's not what I wanted to hear about."

"Oh."

"Wait a minute... Vince and Greg... love? You mean Crabbe and Goyle?! Eww!"

Malfoy glared at him. "Don't be such a homophobe. What they do is their business."

"I'm not a homophobe! I just did not need mental images of Crabbe and Goyle together!"

Malfoy made a face. "Who asked you to imagine my two best friends together? Now you're going to make me sick too! I don't force you to imagine Weasley and Granger together, do I?"

Harry took a deep breath. Obviously the 'what's going on' question wasn't going to get him any answers. Harry shuddered. Correction, it wasn't going to get him any answers he wanted to hear.

"What I meant to say was, and I'm pretty sure you knew it too, (Harry glared at Malfoy) why haven't you insulted me once since the start of term?"

"I would have thought you'd have been pleased." 'Yes. That is what you, and almost every Gryffindor, (except Ron) would think. Only they're wrong.'

"That's not the point. Is this some evil plot to put me off guard so you can do something really bad?"

Malfoy stared at him for a minute before bursting out laughing.

"Oh! My! God! That is just classic! Is that what you thought? If only I'd known that the best way to get under your skin was to leave you alone a few years ago... Tell me, are all Gryffindors paranoid, or just you?"

"Only a few of them are," Harry said defensively. Ron, of course, sometimes joined by Seamus and Colin. "But you still haven't answered the question."

Malfoy smirked at him. "I don't think I will. You can just keep wondering. Besides, whatever I said, you wouldn't believe me."

That was true. Why would he believe the ferret? But from the way he'd reacted, Harry had a sneaking suspicion the Slytherins weren't planning anything.

"I don't think you are planning anything..." Harry said slowly. "But then why are you ignoring me all of a sudden?"

Malfoy shrugged. "Everyone has to grow up sometime."

"Grow up? Are you trying to tell me you're too mature to fight with me anymore?" Harry accused.

Malfoy looked taken aback at Harry's accusing tone. "Well, yes, actually."

"But you... can't be!" protested Harry.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"

"I've gotten used to it by now. You keep me on my toes at least. Aren't you worried I'll get a swelled head?"

Malfoy laughed. "Your head's always been swollen, Potter. I decided to give up on shrinking it is all."

"But, why?!"

"I was wasting my time, Potter. There are other things I have to concentrate on."

"I put your father in Azkaban! You can't just be forgiving me."

Malfoy's face hardened and all of a sudden he looked like he had so many times during Harry's sixth year and the years before that. Very, very angry and hateful. Quite scary actually. Harry suppressed a shiver.

"Don't ever mention my father. And I never said I forgave you, just that I gave up on our childish rivalry. In case you haven't noticed, we are at war, Potter. I have more important things to think about than you."

I have more important things to think about than you.

How strange. He had always been the centre of Malfoy's universe before, hadn't he? How very odd not to be. And why did it feel so... bad?

"I have to get to class," said Malfoy, raising himself from his table gracefully. "Goodbye, Potter." And he walked out of the door. And Harry's life too?

Goodbye, Potter.

No more Malfoy. Taunting him about his friends, non-existent family, clothes, hair and everything else taunt-worthy he could think of. No more glaring at him before Quidditch matches and mouthing threats at him from across the hall. Harry felt a pang of something resembling pain. Malfoy had been obsessed with him since the first time they had met. He couldn't stop now, could he? Could he?

~ End chapter, the first ~