Moving Company

6. Awkward Conversations
Although Harry knew he had to go to meetings dealing with Defense, he didn't expect there to be so many. He got there early, poured himself a mug of tea, brushed off a few leaves from an surprisingly comfortable couch made of pine needles, and curled up on it, waiting for the meeting to begin.

"May I sit here?"

Harry looked up, surprised to see Professor McGonagall staring down at him.

"Of course!" He moved his feet off the couch.

"I wanted to apologize for the behavior of the Gryffindors last week. They had no right to treat you that way. Rest assured they won't do that again."

Harry nodded, almost pleased that the rumors had been true. "Thank you," he said softly.

"I honestly don't know what got into them."

"I do." Harry said listlessly. Although he'd deliberately stopped thinking about Ron and Dean and Seamus, talking about Ginny at breakfast, even as little as they had, made him think about it. He hadn't gotten much studying done.

"Did you want to talk about it?" She sipped from her own mug of mint tea.

Harry shook his head. "No, thank you."

She smiled sympathetically. She knew what was going on in her own House, even if it appeared she didn't have the same kind of loyalty towards it that Snape did. "If you want to talk, my office is always open to you."

"Thank you, Professor." He watched as she left to talk to Professor Vector.

It was nice to that there was at least one Gryffindor who hadn't turned against him.

* * *
Harry slipped out of the meeting an hour later. While the meeting technically wasn't over yet, Harry had heard all that he needed to, and everyone agreed that it was more important for him to go handle his detentionees. Harry confirmed with Snape that he was allowed the ingredients to make a healing potion, and then left during a five-minute break that had been called to cool off tempers in a surprisingly heated debate over use of funds for new equipment.

He headed down to the dungeons, to see Draco already there and setting up.

"I want to make a healing potion today. Professor Snape's given me permission to go into his stores for the ingredients."

Draco wasn't used to such a commanding tone from Harry. "It doesn't fit him." Said the voice in his head. He sighed as he watched Harry gather ingredients from the shelves.

"Look. I'm sorry, all right?"

Harry set the ingredients down, startled by this apology. "You know, I could have dealt with people as they came. I didn't want nor need everyone to know that I'm going out with someone that no one knows what his sex really is!"

Draco nodded. "Yeah. I can see how that'd be hard."

"You owe me, Draco."

Draco was surprised, but a little pleased. "All right. One favor, within limits."

"Done."

Just then, five contrite looking students came filing in. Rather, the four Gryffindors looked sheepish, and the rather brash Hufflepuff looked almost sorry, although Harry could tell that was because he wanted to be outside as much as anything else.

Harry had them sit scattered throughout the room: one at each station in the corner, and Justin in the middle.

Draco sat on a stool and watched quietly from behind Snape's desk, curious as to what Harry's plans were.

"I know none of you want to be here, but you made that choice, not me. If you don't want to meet here again next week, all you have to do is behave. Simple enough, eh? I may be young, and you may think I don't know enough to teach you, but believe me, I know a lot more then you think. If you're lucky I'll even share some of that with you." Harry smiled, rather wickedly, almost reminiscent of Draco. "Professor Snape was kind enough to leave me a list of ingredients he needed prepared for the coming week, since I generously volunteered your labor. I'll tell you what he wants done. When you are finished and have cleaned your areas, call me over, and if everything seems good, I'll let you go."

There was a quiet chorus of "Yes, Mr. Potter."

"One last thing, there will be no talking. Mr. Malfoy and I are working on a project and don't want to be disturbed."

The first years nodded, and Harry moved to distribute the various ingredients, most of which had to be either disemboweled, chopped into pieces, or both. He'd deliberately chosen the most disgusting things he could in hopes of discouraging them from ending up in detention again. There was also a good amount of each ingredient there. It would keep them busy for quite a while.

Finally, he was ready to start his own work.

"Nice work, there." Draco said quietly, as he lit the fire under the cauldron.

"You think?"

He nodded. "I don't envy you, but I think you made your point well. Are they paying you well?"

Harry pulled his potions text out and started dicing some frog liver, and smiled. "No comment."

"You're getting something good, aren't you?"

"Quite possibly, but you might as well stop asking because I won't tell."

Draco nodded approvingly. "You're learning."

"Well, I certainly can't trust you with things that shouldn't be shared, now can I?"

Draco winced, and quickly changed the subject to the potion they were making. He didn't want to think about it, even if he knew he'd have to deal with his feelings sooner or later.

* * *
Harry bumped into Ron late Monday afternoon, forcing Harry to spill the scrolls he'd be carrying that contained the essays that the Gryffindors had written for him.

"Sorry about that." mumbled Ron.

"It's all right. There aren't that many. So…how're you?"

"I'm good."

"Good. So. Have fun at Hogsmeade?" Harry cautiously asked.

Ron shrugged. "It was fine. Would have been better had I gotten to see you."

"I'm sorry about that Ron, the day was much, much, much longer then I thought it would be. I've never seen someone spend so much time shopping! I couldn't escape."

"I heard you guys came back a little tipsy." Ron said accusingly.

Harry shrugged. "We went to the Hog's Head pub. We chatted. We had fun. It was nice. I actually felt like I belonged. Not once in the whole day did I feel like I was under attack from anyone." He amended that thought. "Well, anyone who actually wanted to hurt me."

He really had enjoyed the day all things considered. Crabbe had gotten the photos developed and made up two beautiful albums, one of which read "Making of a Slytherin" (for the House library), the other reading "Harry Potter's Makeover" (for Harry) in an elegant sparkling silver script on green leather. They'd been making the rounds of the table since Sunday dinner. The House copy had been circulating amongst the staff, much to Snape's amusement and Harry's embarrassment. Dumbledore had pulled Harry aside to compliment him on his new look, and mentioned something about being a summer. That had left him rather perplexed, and lent itself to the mounting evidence that indeed; the headmaster was in fact, insane.

"You're telling me you like them now?"

It took everything in Harry's will power to not throw the scrolls at Ron. "Of course I do. What do you expect, Ron? Since the Sorting, half of Gryffindor hates me, and are intent on making my life a living hell," Harry was sure that Seamus and Dean would come up with something new since the first years were no longer cooperating, "You're jealous because I dropped divination, even though we both know it's a crackpot of a class, and you're upset that I can't find more time to be with you—despite the fact that I have been trying- and that I'm not out right despising Draco. Is it any wonder I turned to my House mates? They actually accept me, all prejudices aside. I like that. I've been a freaking outsider since I came to this school, always the "Boy Who Lived" or the "Boy Who Can Fly." People have turned their backs on me over the smallest issues, and I'm sick of it, and I'm going to be with people who I know won't play those games with me."

Ron took a step back, surprised by Harry's outburst.

"I just. You know. They're Slytherin. We used to hate them, remember?"

Harry nodded. "I did. Then I found out that not all of them were bad, and actually they can be quite nice with some persuasion. Hell, Blaise was nice to me and I didn't even have to hex him!"

"So that's why you're going out him then?"

"Who, Blaise?"

"Yes, of course! What other…male/female/no one knows…person…."

Harry scowled. "Stop that Ron."

"What?"

"Don't insult him."

"So Blaise is a bloke then?"

"I'm not entirely sure," Harry admitted, "but I don't care if he is. He's nice, well, as nice as Slytherins get. He's attractive. It could be fun."

Ron stilled looked dubious.

"What now?"

"What about Ginny? And Hermione? And Parvil?"

"What about them?"

"They like you."

"And I don't care for Ginny like that, Hermione doesn't like me like that, and I think the Yule Ball kind of ended any chances I had with the Patil sisters."

"Well, what about Cho?"

Harry looked Ron in the eyes, decidedly sick of this conversation. "Drop it, Ron. I'm warning you."

"Are you sure you don't want to try and go out with Cho? You know she likes you…"

"Ron. Drop it."

Ron muttered under something under his breath.

"What'd you say?"

"Nothing Harry, I swear."

Harry believed that as much as he thought Hagrid didn't want a dragon. He suddenly felt unbearably tired. "Thanks a lot, Ron. If you want to trash my feelings any more, please feel free to not find me."

With that, Harry disappeared into the crowd of students moving across the campus.

* * *
After Harry got back from his date with Blaise, he met Hermione in a semi-private garden that was good to talk in.

He looked around, surprised that Ron was nowhere to be found. Hermione had said that he'd be here, especially with the three of them not getting to spend much time together now that they were separated and Harry so busy.

"Where's Ron?" Harry asked.

Hermione looked up from the library book of the week. "Hello, Harry. I don't know. He just said 'I can't come' to me during lunch, and then left."

Harry frowned slightly. He was still mildly annoyed at Ron for the way he'd reacted when they'd starting talking about Blaise, but at the same time he missed Ron. Truth was, friendly or not, the Slytherins just weren't as fun loving as the Gryffindors, or at least he didn't find their idea of "fun" to be quite as appealing as a spirited game of Exploding Snap.

"I bet I know why."

"Because of your date with Blaise?"

He nodded.

Hermione bit her lip. "Maybe…"

"I thought you said you didn't know?" he asked, perhaps a bit more accusingly then he would have liked.

"I don't know, Harry, I really don't. It's just…" she trailed off, obviously not sure whether or not to say anymore.

Harry sighed, dropping onto a bench. "Please tell me?"

"Well…he's jealous, Harry."

Harry blinked. He thought Ron was a lot of things right now, but jealous decidedly wasn't one of them. "Jealous? But…he hates Slytherin and everything Slytherin so much!"

She had to agree with him on that point. "Well, yeah, but you haven't even spent a month in your new House and already you have friends. Hogsmeade remember? And these are the same people who were probably trying to curse you dead only months ago."

"Well…maybe…"

"He's upset that you've made as many friends as you've had in a house full of people that have been loved making our lives miserable since our first day, while he hasn't made as many."

Harry look genuinely confused. "Why not? I mean, aside from the whole wishing me dead because I took Cedric's glory thing, Hufflepuffs are good people."

Hermione shrugged. "I don't really know either."

"I still want to be friends with him…" Harry played with a leaf he'd picked up. "He's making it so difficult. It's like, every time I do see him, we fight. I want the old Ron back."

"You're going to have to give him time…"

"If it ever works."

She frowned. "It will. It will."

Harry didn't have her optimism, but hoped she was right.

"How was the date?"

"It was good. Blaise took me to the Slytherin 'club.' It's a room within Hogwarts that only Slytherins that are fifth year and up know about, it's a house secret. He found out about it only last week, and managed to get it just for us. The place is amazing. It's like one of those muggle country clubs you see on the telly. So we had lunch, played a few games. We talked, we laughed. It was fun."

Hermione frowned. "I never knew anything like that existed."

"And you still don't. Tell anyone and we're both dead."

She nodded. He knew she could keep a secret, and that's the only reason he'd told her where they'd really been. Once the secret room knowledge was safely tucked away in the back of her mind for future research, she turned the topic back to the date.

"Would you go out with him again?"

Harry shrugged. "Don't see why not. It was fun. I didn't fell stressed or pressured or anything. We'll see where it goes."

She nodded, "So! You had some essays you wanted me to look at?"

Harry smiled. "I do. I need to get them though. Meet me in the library in say, fifteen minutes?"

She nodded.

They parted ways, Harry happy to have avoided further questioning for the time being.

* * *
The next day during the weekly tutoring session Harry couldn't help but notice that Draco was acting odd. He seemed distant, colder then usual, more like he was when Harry'd still been a Gryffindor. At the same time, when Draco thought that Harry couldn't see him, he was decidedly staring at him.

He hadn't asked how the date with Blaise had gone, not even to make snide comments.

As they cleaned up, Harry flashed a smile during one of Draco's attempted furtive glances. Harry flashed a smile. Draco blushed slightly before putting up his mask of cold indifference.

Harry couldn't help but think that cute.