Draco Verdant

Chapter 5- A Prophecy and a Punch

The first class of the year was Potions. Harry thought it an inauspicious way to start anything, but he couldn't do anything about it. He, Ron, and Hermione entered the classroom carefully, making sure they were on time, but not so early that they would have to sit overlong under Snape's glare. Harry had no idea why he hadn't given them detention yesterday, and suspected it was because he planned to torture them in class.

Harry and Ron chose seats inconspicuously toward the back of the room, and Hermione sat at a desk to their left. Harry sat angled leftward to face Ron and Hermione. He didn't notice the woman who had swept up behind him until she tapped his shoulder. He jumped.

"Greetings," she said. "You, I know, are Harry Potter. I am Maria Hamke. I wonder if you would do me a favor?"

"Er, I don't know," Harry answered. It strained his neck to look up at the woman, who was inexplicably tall and pale. "What do you want me to do?"

"I simply want you to deliver a note to your new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher," she replied, handing it to him. "You can read it if you like. You won't understand it- and if you do, you'll wish you hadn't." She walked away before Harry could even agree or disagree. Curious, he opened the note. It was true; he couldn't understand it. It was in another language. But he remembered what had happened in the past few days, and thought of something.

"Hermione," he said, passing the note to her. "What does this say?" She took it, and then rolled her eyes.

"I wish people would stop assuming this is so secret. I'm rather insulted," she commented quietly. It was the same language as the writing on the sword and in the hall to the dungeons. Then she read the note quietly to Harry and Ron. "Sister and ancient enemy, accept. Though times are dark, keep not your mind from light. Forgive me my ancestors. I have no dealings in blood."

"What's it supposed to mean?" Ron asked.

"I don't know," she answered, frowning. "It doesn't look evil, though. I think we should give it to her. I mean, Professor Hamke would know if we didn't, wouldn't she?"

"What do you mean, it doesn't look evil?" retorted Harry. "Lots of things don't look evil and are."

He was interrupted by Snape entering the classroom. Hermione pocketed the note quickly. The professor's eyes swept quickly over the students, making sure all of them were there, as he launched immediately into the lesson.

"The potion we will learn how to make today is one of the class known as ability potions," he began. "These potions do what, Potter?"

"Erm, enhance abilities," Harry conjectured.

"Wrong. Five points from Gryffindor. Rather, they reveal abilities of the drinker, usually previously unknown. This particular potion reveals prophetic talent. Anyone skilled at Divination who drinks this potion will speak a prophecy, but the potion will have no effect on those who lack talent in this area. I have spoken to Professor Trelawney-" he said this with a thoroughly disgusted expression- "and she has informed me that Miss Patil is particularly talented at Divination. She and Longbottom will both test the potion, to show the two possible outcomes. I sincerely doubt we will be hearing any prophecies from Longbottom."

Parvati looked thrilled to have the chance to prophecy. She bounced happily up to the front of the class, the most excited she had ever been in Potions. Neville trudged up with a nervous yet resigned look on his face, glumly preparing to be laughed at.

"Miss Patil, you may begin," said Snape, handing her a vial of potion. She surveyed it with horror- it was sickly green and bubbled- but drank it swiftly. The whole class watched and waited. She was about to speak, and had opened her mouth to say something, but nothing happened. A few Slytherins chuckled, and Ron suppressed a grin. Harry was also amused, but didn't react. Aimee, sitting on the other side of Hermione, had a very small, contemptuous smile on the corners of her lips.

"It's not working," Parvati whispered, looking as if she were about to cry. She walked back to her seat with her fists clenched. In the meantime, Neville had already swallowed the potion. It seemed he might well be ill. His face was turning pale and he clutched his stomach.

"Well, we will have to do without-" Snape began, when suddenly Neville started to speak. The potion had worked, but not as anyone had expected.

"Ice-laced pines and golden flame,

A fire on the sea,

Betrayal leads to victory

Unless he leaves the tree.

For others, driven mad with pain,

An enemy is made

That never now could be undone,

But in times past could fade.

The third hide secrets long well-known

And open to most all,

Yet only one is needed

To make the secret fall."

Most of the class was staring, barely even absorbing the words. Hermione was frantically writing it all down; Snape seemed to have a spell writing it down for him. Madam Hamke had her eyes closed, perhaps committing it to memory.

"Longbottom!" Snape snapped. Neville had fallen to the floor. Snape pulled him up, whipped a small flash of blue fluid out of his robes, and forced it down the throat of the unconscious boy. He sputtered and awoke. "Maria, take him to Madam Pomfrey," he commanded. "Potter, Mr. Malfoy, I need you to deliver these notes. This one is for the Headmaster, and this is for Professor Trelawney. Quickly!" He scribbled the notes off hurriedly, and handed them to Draco. Harry followed him out of the classroom.

"I'll take the one to Dumbledore," Harry said, stretching out his hand. Draco, however, stepped back. "Give me the note, Malfoy," Harry demanded, but Draco still refused.

"I'm not going to take a note to that vampire bat," he drawled. "She's completely mad."

"I know where Dumbledore's office is, and you don't," Harry pointed out, "and besides, Professor Trelawney's favourite pastime is deciding how I'm going to die this week."

"What, you think she doesn't do that to me?" said Draco, indignant. He put on a falsetto voice. " 'Ah, how tragic,' " he mimicked, sighing melodramatically. " 'Such a beautiful boy.' "

"Well, she's obviously blind as well as batty," retorted Harry. Draco looked shocked.

"That's against the protocol," he protested. "You can't insult me unless I insult you first. There are rules for these things, Potter. Unwritten rules, obviously, but you still have to known them."

"Look," said Harry. "Why don't we both deliver the notes? Maybe if we're both there Professor Trelawney won't predict our deaths as enthusiastically."

"Or maybe she'll predict that we'll kill each other," added Draco. "Now, you owe me some witty repartée." Cheerily, he began to insult everything about Harry from his clothes to his ancestry. The few people who passed them in the halls surely wondered why these two enemies, clearly in a horrible fight, were walking together in such a friendly manner.

***

Harry had been wondering ever since the train ride into Hogwarts what Defense Against the Dark Arts would be like this year, with Cynthia teaching it. His first answer was full of Slytherins. He had almost forgotten how many classes they were sharing with the Slytherins this year, now that every class was doubled up between houses.

The door to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom had been covered in comic strips- everything from Bat/Cat/Spider Man, the Animagus of Multiple Transformations to Sabrina the Teenaged Muggle. Half of the comics seemed to be about a kid named Jason, who did complex magics far above ordinary wizarding level just to annoy his sister, Paige.

The classroom had been left open, although Cynthia was gone. The walls were plastered with posters of Muggle movie stars- Harry didn't recognize them, but assumed they were Muggle because they didn't move. Hermione seemed to recognize them, if breathless squealing was any indication. Draco glared at them furiously and checked his hair in a pocket mirror. Apparently satisfied that he was still more handsome than they, he sat on a desk.

"Looks like we've got a Mudblood for a teacher," he drawled to his cronies. "Hard to believe she was ever a Slytherin." Harry frowned. Cynthia had been a Slytherin? But she was so nice... "Just what we need, really, another bungling teacher who can't tell a wand from a-"

"Malfoy, shut up," Harry interrupted. "You know she knows what she's doing." He paused there, but Hermione continued his speech for him.

"Have you already forgotten that she saved our lives on the train?" she asked. "Honestly, I would think you'd be enough of an adult by now to stop making such lewd jokes."

"I was going to say broomstick," Draco protested. He might have continued, but Cynthia walked into the room at that very moment.

"Hi," she said. "Everybody here? Who's missing, then?" It was Neville. She marked his name down on a piece of paper. "I'm Cynthia and you can call me Cynthia," she continued, flopping into her chair. "If that doesn't make sense, we might have a problem. I'm going to teach you guys how to fight without your wands for the next few weeks. I know you're expecting to learn magic, especially with the O.W.L's coming up, but trust me, this is so much more useful. The wand I have right now is the fifth wand I've had in my life. The others have been broken, eaten, lost into great swamps of purple goo inhabited by mutant jellyfish, and burnt, respectively. If you can cope when that happens, you've got an advantage over most other wizards and witches."

"What did you do, stomp on the mutant jellyfish?" muttered Draco under his breath. Cynthia heard him.

"No, actually, I had to wrestle them until my colleagues could rejoin me and drain the swamp," she answered. "Wrestling with jellyfish is not fun. Do not try this at home. Although, actually, if you've got mutant jellyfish at home, you have problems anyway."

"I think there are man-o'-wars in the moat," Draco offered. She stared at him for a moment, and then continued her lecture, deciding it was easier to ignore him than pursue the matter.

"Fighting people isn't much like fighting minions of darkness, but I don't have any minions of darkness available at the moment, so you're going to fight each other," she said. "Unless somebody wants to fight the giant squid. No? Okay, then. Pair up with somebody who's about your same height, and shove all the desks over there." She waved vaguely towards one side of the room.

The height rule prevented Harry from working with either Ron, who was significantly taller than him, or Hermione, who was much shorter. Of course, he didn't really want to beat either of them up, so that was all right. Ron had to fight Dean, who was the next tallest person around, and Hermione paired up with Aimee. Harry realised suddenly that he and Draco were exactly the same height and build.

Draco seemed to know it already. He smirked as Harry crossed the room to join him. "My favourite enemy," Harry muttered sarcastically.

"Well, obviously," said Draco. Harry stared at him, bemused. "I mean, it wouldn't be Voldemort or my father or anyone, since they're always trying to kill you, and I'm much wittier and better-looking than Crabbe or Goyle. I haven't met your relatives, but I assume you like me much better, because really, who wouldn't? It is mere coincidence that the way you show your appreciation of me is through hating me."

"Malfoy," Harry replied after a minute, "you are very, very odd." Draco looked put out.

"That wasn't clever at all," he sulked. "You're supposed to use clever insults, Potter, how many times have we gone over this? I'm going to start taking points away from you if you don't get wittier soon."

"I think you have to report to the Heads of House when you do that, and they won't let you take points away because I'm not witty," Harry pointed out. He was trying to end the conversation so he could learn how to fight, and not really paying attention.

"Do you not recognize an idle threat when you hear one?" Draco retorted. Harry glared at him, signaling shut up, and Draco rolled his eyes. He did, however, shut up.

"You're not going to start hitting each other yet," Cynthia informed them. "You have to learn protective stuff first, like falling and curling up into a little ball and all that stuff. It sounds kind of stupid, but if you don't do it you get really, really hurt, so it's important. Watch this." She demonstrated how to fall so you absorbed the shock safely, and how to protect your head from objects that might be flung at you (harpoons and gravy tureens were the examples she used, making Harry wondered what exactly had happened in her various adventures), as well as how to jump out of the way of things (kicks, land mines, and low-flying tropical fruits).

"It's more important to avoid injury than inflict it," she concluded. "Basically it helps to be alive. But of course you never win if you don't attack, so we'll move on to that now. Punching is most of what you'll be doing, but if you get an opportunity, it's really effective to flip somebody. You can flip people if they're overenthusiastic or if they run at you. If your opponent is intelligent, you'll probably have to hit each other. So, yeah, start beating each other up, and I'll shout stuff at you. You can't really learn if I just demonstrate stuff."

Harry glanced at Draco to see if he were ready to fight. Draco, who had already prepared himself, knocked Harry over. "Excellent!" Cynthia shouted. "Catch him off guard!" Harry, finding himself effectively trapped beneath Draco, pulled his hair. Draco howled and leaped up, patting his coiffure down and glaring at Harry. Harry scrambled to his feet. The two boys circled each other, searching for an opening. Draco feinted a punch to Harry's stomach, then reached up and slapped him on the face. "If you'd been watching his chest muscles, you would have seen it coming!" hollered Cynthia. Harry was sure that was an excellent fighting tip, but he really didn't want to watch Draco's chest muscles. That would be disgusting. Draco seemed to guess what he was thinking.

"At least I have chest muscles," he panted, out of breath. Harry lunged at him and sent him flying, then dove after him, sitting on Draco's stomach as he punched the hell out of him. "Ow! I take it back!" shrieked Draco. "You have very nice chest muscles! Not that I would know!"

"Shut up and let me hit you, Malfoy," Harry replied grimly. Draco squirmed out from under him and kicked at his groin. Harry doubled up on the floor, as Draco scrambled around the desk in the nearby corner and began to throw quills at him. "What the hell are you doing?" Harry bellowed. Draco ran out of quills and began shooting Hermione's rubber bands.

"No weapons!" Cynthia yelled, as Hermione left off her fight with Aimee to grab her supplies box back from Draco. She kicked at him viciously. "Stick to your own fight, Hermione!" Cynthia shouted, but it was too late, as Draco was batting Hermione with a roll of parchment. Harry and Ron jumped Draco, as Pansy yanked at Hermione's hair. Hermione whirled and spat into Pansy's face. Aimee barreled into Pansy from behind, knocking her to the ground along with Hermione. Crabbe and Goyle began to pull Harry and Ron away from Draco, but Seamus jumped onto Crabbe's back and hung there like a monkey, beating at Crabbe incessantly, while Dean punched Goyle in the stomach. Hermione and Aimee had picked up Pansy and were about to swing her into the wall, when Cynthia screamed,

"FREEZE!"

Everybody stopped where they were. Under Cynthia's gaze, most of them quailed fearfully. Draco, not noticing, popped up from beneath Harry and Ron, and said, "That was a bit like an orgy, only without the sex. Can we carry on now?" Harry was pleased to note Cynthia muttering to herself, something that sounded like, "Twenty-five points from Slytherin."

When everything had been cleaned up and class had ended, Harry stayed behind for a minute. "Er...Cynthia?" he asked. She looked up from her desk. "You had to know that would happen, didn't you? But you weren't worried about anyone getting hurt."

"Wards on the classroom," she explained briefly, smiling. "Nobody can get too seriously hurt in here as long as I'm controlling it. Remember that, it might be useful someday." Harry nodded, and left the classroom lost in thought.

***

Later that afternoon, when Draco returned to his room- all my own, he thought cheerfully- he was utterly exhausted but quite pleased with himself. He had managed to start a lovely fight, not lost as many house points as might be expected, and found an excuse to give them all back to himself later. Also, he had done quite well academically so far, and he had managed to get some witty banter out of Potter. All in all, his day was going very well. He stopped short the second he flung open his door. The twig that was growing in the middle of his otherwise organised room had become noticeably bigger, and it had two little buds poking out from the sides. In the middle of all that moss-green carpet, perfectly devoid of any dust or dirt, it stood out like a whole forest instead of a twig. Draco stared at it. It was odd. He was going to have to do something about it, if any of the teachers came in and saw it for some reason he would get in trouble, and then his father would be furious...

The tree sprung out a leaf as he watched it. It unfolded slowly, beautifully, glinting emerald green in the sunlight that streamed in from his window. It was almost hypnotizing. Draco shook his head, laughing at himself. It was just a plant, no-one would care if it were in his room. He sat down at his desk, pulled out a quill, and started on his work.

***

Aimee, sitting by the window in the girls' dormitory, was very annoyed. What could she do about Hermione? Ron was taken care of; she had him eating out of her hand. There was almost nothing he wouldn't do for her now. She smirked sarcastically to herself. Men. Harry was all right, he barely noticed her, and anyway, he was Draco's responsibility. She didn't care much about any of the other Gryffindors, as they would never dare to interfere in her business and most likely wouldn't even notice. But Hermione was a problem.

Hermione noticed everything. She always watched and thought and deduced. Her academic knowledge was enough of a problem, if she wanted to stop a plan, but that was not what bothered Aimee. The problem was that she figured things out. Not many people bothered to keep secrets from Hermione, partly because she was the right sort of person to take your troubles to if you couldn't solve them yourself, and partly because she would find out anyway. Harry she watched especially. One thought was always drumming through her brain, and that thought was take care of Harry, take care of Harry, take care of Harry, over and over again. Aimee had to distract her from Harry somehow, or even better, make her think she had to avoid him. If Hermione were anywhere near Harry, she would find out what Draco was trying to do- not that Aimee knew what that was. She didn't need to know any plans but her own, because knowing too many plans just confused them.

She'd seen Harry and Hermione today in the hall, ducking behind a statue and snogging when they thought nobody was looking. He adored her, and she admired him. That was not Aimee's definition of love, although what it might be she didn't know either, but it was theirs, and love was not one of her favourite emotions. It was so difficult to work with, unlike its sister, lust.

But it was a strong one. That was what mattered. Devotion could turn to jealousy, admiration to resentment, love to its pure opposite, not hate, but pain. The ancient book lay before her on the bed, waiting only for her to ask. She flipped through its dusty pages, thinking, wondering, and she found it. It was there, just as she remembered.

***

Love hurts, love scars,

Love wounds and mars

Any heart not tough

Or strong enough

To take a lot of pain...

***

Harry wanted to sleep. Harry did not want to sleep. It didn't matter, really, as he needed to sleep no matter what, or he would collapse at Quidditch practice tomorrow, but he knew that if he slept he would dream again, the dream of bloody shadows and the ghostly presence that would cling to him and then disappear, filled with anguish. Knowing this, he wasn't sure whether he wanted to dream or not. It would be too confusing.

He liked- he loved- the presence in the dream. But it would be ripped from him again, he knew, and that pain was more than any other pain he had ever known. Perhaps that was not true, maybe he had known more pain when his parents died, but he couldn't remember it. It hurt far more than breaking his arm at Quidditch second year, or even more than the death of Cedric Diggory and the unfair blame he had gotten for that. He made up his mind with that, thinking of the pain that was far too awful even to remember. He would not let himself be hurt so badly again, no matter what. He did not want to sleep.

Deciding that put his mind to rest. He stopped tossing around, twisting his blankets. He turned over and slept.

***

Ginny slept. She, too, knew that she would dream. And dream she did. Except she knew that it was not a dream, it was reality. The past, or the future...she was in her grove again, sitting on her special rock with the sun covering it, and it was a summer evening.

"Is this where the bomb shelter is?" the voice of a young man interrupted her daydreaming. She sat up suddenly. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to surprise you," he apologised. He was about twenty, chestnut-haired and handsome, with an Oxford accent. "Is the bomb shelter out here?"

"The bomb shelter?" she asked. He looked at her with surprise. His eyes were deep green, like Harry's, she thought.

"Nobody in the village could tell us where it was," he replied, sitting on her rock. "It was quite a queer village, actually. Barely seemed to have heard of the war. We- Jonathan and I- saw a cottage here and supposed that might be it. I mean, not that I want to disturb our afternoon ramble, but I wouldn't feel safe sleeping somewhere without a bomb shelter."

"I don't think there's one in the cottage here," Ginny said, remembering that the cottage was one of the places that the voice had mentioned she could use safely. "You might be able to use it, though. It might have a basement. I'm not sure, I haven't been here long." He looked at her strangely again. "It is my cottage," she added, since she thought she ought to say something.

"Jonathan!" the young man shouted. Soon enough another Oxford lad of about the same age ambled up the path that led to her glade. "She says we can use her cottage." He turned back to Ginny. "Your parents sent you off from London, I suppose, old grandmother living in the country and all that? You're sure we can stay here, is what I'm trying to get at."

"It's fine," she answered. She was wondering how to cover up that she didn't know where the cottage was, but they had already seen it, and headed off in its direction with her following. It was down a very small path winding off from her glade, not far from where she had appeared into the dream. When they got inside, they waited for her to lead the way. Luckily there was a basement, and it was easy to find. It was also stone and very sturdy, and she guessed that it would stand up to being bombed. "Here," she told them.

"Many thanks, good lady," replied Jonathan, bowing ridiculously. "We will hold you forever in our hearts."

"Stop being silly," the first young man said, poking him. He looked at Ginny again. "My name's Alan Evans, by the way. Jon might be silly, but he's right, we're very grateful to you." His tone changed to a less serious note. "You know, my fiancée's got red hair like yours. I've grown quite fond of the colour, even if Jonathan still calls it carrots." Ginny looked at Alan more closely now, and realised he looked very much like Harry. Then she remembered something Harry had told her once, about his mother. Red hair and emerald green eyes like Harry's, and her last name was- had it been Evans? She thought it had.

"If you have a daughter," she told Alan, "name her Lily." And then as suddenly as she had been there she was gone, back into her own dream and not this time where it must be World War II and she had met Harry's grandfather. She could hear Alan and Jonathan shouting with confusion as she disappeared.

"That was right, wasn't it?" she asked the thing of her dream, the one that had spoken to her before.

"They did not die," the voice answered, giving the mental feeling of a shrug to her mind. "Alan survived and married, and eventually Harry was born. I believe that that is what you are calling "right". Remember, you are not changing history. What you will do has already happened."

"I'm not sure about the grammar of that," she said, slipping out of the deep sleep that was really more like being awake into grayness. "Thank you, though," she added. Her sleep was dreamless for the rest of the night.

***

Harry tossed and turned in his sleep. He was dreaming now of what looked suspiciously like baby food. Why? he thought. Why baby food, of all things? The answer, apparently, was that he was a baby. That would certainly explain why his arms and legs were so short, and his thought so garbled. And when he realised that, he realised also that his parents were alive, that Voldemort had not yet murdered them, and that was when his mother entered the room. His baby-self seemed to think something along the lines of us here now, and his fifteen-year-old self thought that his mother was even more beautiful than when he had seen her in the Mirror of Erised, or her ghost last year. She smiled at Harry as if he were the only thing that mattered in the world. She fussed over her baby, getting him to eat his food, playing "here comes the Quidditch team" to get him to open his mouth. He supposed that that was the wizarding version of "here comes the airplane".

He knew, somehow, that this was the same dream he'd had before, except that it was clearer. And because of that he knew that his mother would be taken from him as she always was, and he could not let that happen. He had to do something that would hold her to him so that she would not leave. He threw out his magic, giving all his power to her to anchor her down. Her eyes widened for a second, surprised, but she seemed not to know what had happened, and she went back to feeding her baby a spoonful of strained carrots. Harry actually thought that the strained carrots were not as bad as they might have been.

This time she did not leave until Harry had to wake for Quidditch practice.