The Best, Worst Punishment Ever

"Who's the other student, if you don't mind my asking?"

Dumbledore's blue eyes twinkled in the way that they always did when something noteworthy was about to happen. In an even tone he answered, "Draco Malfoy."

Harry nodded silently, then turned and made his way out of the Headmaster's office. Usually he would have made some sort of protest at having to spend more time than absolutely necessary with the blonde prefect, but Harry was currently in a rather extreme state of shock.

Had Dumbledore really just said what Harry thought he had said? There was no way that Draco Malfoy, of all people, was a good guy, and what other reason would there be for Draco to be receiving the extra training as well?

Harry acknowledged the fact that there had been a definite change in the pale Slytherin, but he was not yet able to cope with the fact that this change, whatever it was, could have been substantial enough to cause Draco to transform his entire disposition.

As Harry reached the bottom of the stairway of the Headmaster's office, he realized that he had indeed heard correctly, then paused in thought: What could possibly have happened in the last two months to cause Draco to abandon his 'father-idolizing' ways and switch sides? Harry knew that Voldemort was quite possibly the foulest, most vile thing on the planet, but he, Ron, and Hermione had always thought of the Malfoys as very close to the Dark Lord, and Draco to be a Death-Eater in training. He was most likely very well versed in the Dark Arts; what could have possibly scared him into changing sides?

And what had caused Dumbledore to accept him so readily?

**

Harry decided that thinking about these things would have to wait until later. He had a class very soon, and he still hadn't been back to the Gryffindor common room to pick up his books for the day. He made his way back, and when he got back to the dorm only to find it empty he looked at his watch and cursed to himself.

"Damn it," he said quietly. He only had ten minutes to get to his first class, Advanced Transfiguration, and as the classroom was located on the opposite side of the castle, he was going to be pushed for time to get there before class started. Harry felt it was a bit reminiscent of the first day of his first year, when he and Ron had run into class late, just in time to meet McGonagall in her Animagus form. A small smile played at the corners of Harry's mouth as he grabbed his Transfiguration and Potions things. He hurried out of the room and off to class.

Harry had only just sat down in a seat towards the back of the room when McGonagall walked in, and class began. Today, he was told, they would be learning how to turn whistles into watering cans. Harry was unsure of the reason why they needed to know how to do this. He figured that there was most likely a motive, but he decided that didn't particularly care to know what it was. The Boy Who Lived soon found his attention drifting to other, more pressing matters.

The seriousness of his recent conversation with the Headmaster and his Head of House was finally hitting him, and he was rapidly growing more and more anxious. Harry once again realized he needed to push these concerns out of his mind for the time being. Now was not the time to think about the fragility and uncertainty of his life. He would try not to think about things too much until he could talk to Ron and Hermione about them.

Harry turned his attention back to the lesson, and this time he was able to keep it there.

**

While he would have liked to talk to his friends sooner rather than later, Harry had other classes to attend. After lunch Hermione and Harry headed off to their NEWTs Potions class, and Ron, who had not gotten a good enough OWL score in the subject, went to Muggle Studies, which he had opted for this year instead of Divination. When Harry and Hermione got to the classroom in the dungeons they saw that there were far fewer students than there had been in previous years. Apparently, Gryffindors still had Potions with Slytherins, but this year there were, to Harry's absolute chagrin, quite a few more Slytherins than Gryffindors. It wasn't exactly a surprising revelation, but it was still an unwelcome one.

Snape began the first class of the year with an announcement. "As you had your OWLs last year, and will not be having your NEWTs until next year, you will be having no major qualification exams this year. That, however, does not mean that this class will be easy. I am going to assign you all a project today that you will be working on until the winter holiday, and you will have another after Christmas. These projects will be worth one-third of your grade both terms."

'Oh Merlin,' Harry thought. 'I'm going to fail miserably.'

Snape continued, "For the first project each of you will research a potion at length. The finished product will consist of a detailed written paper explaining the uses, effects, origins, antidotes, and any other relevant information about the potion, a twenty-minute oral presentation, and a sample of the potion. Almost all of you have proven yourselves qualified for this class, so this should not be an overly difficult assignment." He shot Harry a rather scathing look while he said the last bit.

Hermione raised her hand.

"Yes, Miss Granger?" Snape asked, as though it pained him to do so.

"Will we be choosing our own potions, Professor, or will you be assigning them?" she asked. Harry thought it was quite a reasonable question, and turned his attention to Snape to hear his answer.

"No, Miss Granger, you will not be choosing your own potions," came Snape's reply. "I have already chosen what potion each of you will be researching, ones that I believe suit the assigned person well, and match their potion-making abilities. Since you seem so eager, Miss Granger, I will assign your potion first."

'Lovely,' thought Harry. 'Let's see what he thinks of us all.'

Snape began, "Miss Granger: Lackadaisical Serum."

Hermione seemed very put out at this. Harry thought that Snape had a point, though. Not that he would ever admit he agreed with the Potions Master, but he did think that Hermione needed to relax every once in a while.

"Mr. Potter: Humility Potion."

There were a few snickers from the Slytherin side of the classroom.

Now it was Harry's turn to feel offended. He knew Snape thought he had a big head, but assigning him a humility potion? That was just a little over the top, especially for a professor. Not much he could do about it, though.

"Mr. Thomas: Amabilis Potion. Mr. Malfoy: Narcissism Serum."

Harry stopped listening after that. He thought it was very amusing that Snape should give Malfoy a vanity potion. It was quite fitting, he realized. Malfoy really was very egotistical. And he did have that strange obsession with his hair... It was odd, however, that Snape would assign his favorite student a potion that was offensive.

Soon enough, Snape was finished assigning potions. He continued with his explanation of the project. "During the last week before Christmas holiday, all of the time you spend in this class will be devoted to presentations. You will give a brief talk about the potion, and then you will sample it if front of the class, to ensure that the samples you've made do indeed work as they should."

The rest of the class was taken up with notes on the potion they would be beginning in the next class. Needless to say, Harry was quite happy when the first Potions class of the year was over.

**

Ron was reasonably outraged when Harry explained what had gone on at his meeting with the Headmaster that morning; he reacted as Harry had thought he would. Ron focused on the fact that Malfoy was going to be receiving the training along with Harry, and the fact that Malfoy couldn't be trusted, and, oh yes, how he was a huge git that ought to go stuff himself. And so on, and so forth. Hermione was oddly quiet. Once Harry managed to calm Ron down and explain that having lessons with Malfoy wasn't the end of the world (which was no small task), he turned to Hermione, anxious for the opinion of the most levelheaded member of trio.

"Hermione?" When he noticed she had a far-off look on her face, he asked concernedly, "Are you alright, Hermione?"

She looked at him, mouth open a little, and started to say something, but apparently thought better of it. Then she leapt at him, flung her arms around him in a hug, and burst into tears. This was not quite the reaction Harry had expected from her.

"Hermione? Talk Herm, talk. What's wrong?" he asked, starting to get a little nervous, and patting her awkwardly on the back.

"It's j-just," Hermione began in between sobs, "we all knew th-that this would happen ev-eventually, but I never thought it would come s-so soon!" She was beginning to get hysterical, but Ron and Harry decided to let her finish. "What if something ha-happens to you Harry? You could d-die. I don't know what I would do-o if that happened."

'Oh. That,' Harry thought.

"It's OK, Herm, really. I promise I won't let anything happen to me. If something does, I give you full right to beat me," he joked, trying to console her. Harry knew the gravity of the situation, and he felt awful that Hermione was crying because of him. He continued, "It'll be alright. Really it will. Ever since Voldemort came back, I never expected to live this long, so every day that I have with you guys is wonderful for me. Please don't cry."

She seemed to calm down at this. Hermione straightened up, and moved back to where she had been sitting previously. "I hope you know Ron and I will be here for you, no matter what," she said. "Until whatever end, we'll all be together."

Ron nodded, and Harry felt oddly comforted.

**

The next few days passed quickly, and were actually rather dull, in Harry's opinion. On Thursday morning Harry received another note at breakfast. This time it contained information about his first "extracurricular lesson." Harry was to be in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom at 8 o'clock that evening.

Now that Harry had something to look forward to the day passed unbearably slowly. Not that Harry would ever admit to looking forward to this lesson, Malfoy would be there. Harry was inwardly curious about the other boy, but would deny this fact vehemently if asked about it. He was somewhat curious as to who would be giving them the lesson, but he supposed that it would be the new Defense teacher, Professor Silverton. Harry had had one class with Silverton that week, and didn't find him to be a particularly good teacher. He was, of course, miles better than Umbridge had been, but the man was just plain dull.

Harry arrived at the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom at five minutes to eight, and opened the door to find Malfoy talking to none other than Professor Lupin! What good fortune!

"Professor!" Harry exclaimed, and hurried over to give the man a warm hug. "I had no idea that you would be instructing us! This is great."

Lupin laughed and said, "I daresay Headmaster Dumbledore wanted it to be a surprise. How are you then, Harry?"

"I'm alright, I suppose. Best as can be expected, with all the homework that we're getting already this year," Harry replied.

Lupin chuckled and turned away. "That's good," he said, "but we had better be starting. It's a good thing that Professor Silverton is going to let us use his classroom, isn't it? Draco, Harry, please stand at the other side of the room."

Harry had completely forgotten the blonde's presence in his elation of seeing Professor Lupin again. He now turned to the other boy, and Draco simply raised an elegant eyebrow at him. They moved to the far side of the classroom, Harry studying Draco from behind as they went.

"First we'll go though the basics, just to make sure you're warmed up and ready," Lupin explained. "Then, if everything goes as planned I will begin instructing you on the Munimentum spell, which is advanced defense against certain spells that are harmful to your person. Do either of you have any questions?"

Harry said no, and Draco shook his head.

"Good. First I want both of you to practice your disarming spells on each other. Take turns, and I will check your individual techniques," the professor said in return.

Harry felt the situation was oddly reminiscent of the Dueling Club of Second Year, when he and Draco had dueled and were only supposed to disarm each other. That duel, needless to say, did not go according to plan. Harry hoped that this particular lesson would not have any unexpected surprises. The boys turned to each other, and each stepped back a few paces.

"Care to go first, Malfoy?" Harry asked.

"Oh, I couldn't do that," Draco replied, "Ladies first. You ought to go."

Harry rolled his eyes and was about to make a retort when Professor Lupin cut in.

"Boys," he said, "that's quite enough of that. Harry, you go first."

Harry sighed and raised his wand. "Expelliarmus!" he shouted, and Draco flew back towards the matting that Professor Lupin had conjured up before the boys had arrived. Draco's wand flew over to Harry, who caught it in midair and trotted over to where Draco had landed.

"Alright there, Malfoy?" Harry asked, slightly concernedly, and stuck out his hand to help Draco up.

Draco looked at Harry's hand, then up to his face. The blonde had a look of intense consternation on his face, but finally reached out and took Harry's hand. Harry pulled him up, and handed him back his wand. Draco said, "Thanks, Potter," and moved back into his position.

It was Harry's turn to raise an eyebrow this time; he had never heard Draco thank anyone before, especially not him. Harry moved back to his spot as well.

Professor Lupin, who had watched this whole exchange in silence, made some mental notes, then said, "Alright Harry, you've got good form and you've got the pronunciation down, but you've got to work on how much power you put into the spell," then he added with a slight laugh, "Normally one doesn't use that particular spell to blow their opponent across the room."

"Sorry, Professor," Harry said.

"Quite alright, Harry. It's a good thing that you can put a lot of power into that spell, you just need to work on controlling that power. Let's see you now, Mr. Malfoy," Lupin replied.

Draco cast, and Harry lost his wand and flew back, albeit not quite as forcefully as Draco had moments before. He landed on the mats, sat up, and shook his head to rid himself of the dizziness he was feeling. This time Draco was the one to offer a hand up, and Harry took it gratefully.

Apparently the dizziness hadn't gone away. As soon as Harry was up, he started stumbling, and was about to fall over, but Draco caught him. He had one arm under each of Harry's, and was bearing most of Harry's weight. Harry didn't look up or move for a moment, because he felt strangely calm and safe exactly where he was. When he finally did look up, in what seemed like minutes but was actually only seconds later, he saw that Draco had a slight blush on his fair cheeks. Harry straightened up slowly, but moved away from Draco quickly. He could feel himself blushing as well.

'What was that about?' Harry thought to himself. 'Best to not think about it, I guess.' There had been a lot of things that were best not to think about as of late, this was just one more to add to the list.

"Sorry, Draco," Harry said before he thought about what he was saying. This time both of Draco's eyebrows shot up.

"That's alright I guess. Harry," Draco said in return.

'So much for an uneventful lesson,' Harry thought, and sighed once more.

Once again Professor Lupin observed the exchange, quite positive he knew what was going on better than the two boys in font of him. He would have bet that that was the first time the two boys had used each other's first names. He would have been right.

The rest of the lesson passed without further incident. Lupin taught the boys the Munimentum spell and the Percello hex. After they had proven they could cast both successfully he had them try them out on each other, one on the offense with the Percello and the other on defense with the Munimentum. It was ten-thirty when Lupin said they were free to go. Both were quite tired, and very glad to be done with their lesson for the evening. Harry said his goodbye to Professor Lupin, and exited the classroom, just behind Draco.

"Goodnight, Draco. See you in Potions on Monday," Harry said, deciding on the spur of the moment to be nice to the other boy. They had seemed to be getting along well enough in the tutoring session with Lupin, and Harry thought it would make things much easier if they could keep them that way.

Draco paused briefly, but replied smoothly a moment later: "Goodnight. Harry." Then he was gone.

**

Back in the classroom, Remus Lupin heard the brief exchange, and smiled to himself. "Youth," he said to no one in particular, shaking his head. He picked up his briefcase and quietly exited the classroom.