Contrariety

CONTRARIETY

CHAPTER 3

Following practice the next day, Harry decided to take a nap. It was the nap of the weary and the irritated. The over-worked and perpetually harassed. It was the nap of someone trapped in a strange parallel universe in which he is forced to compete against and live with the one person that was put on this earth to crawl under his skin, slowly and methodically driving him insane like an itch just out of reach.

When the battle horn sounded that afternoon he opened his eyes to find that very person down on the floor, leaning over the bed and watching him intently.

"Grublaah!" Harry garbled, pulling the blankets up over his chest.

Draco handed over his glasses and shook his head. "Oh, calm yourself, Potter, you'll develop an ulcer. Get dressed, I want to show up early and get a good seat."

He was wearing crisp, black robes and his hair was perfectly styled. His breath smelled of mint and the rest of him of soap and cologne.

"How long have you been up?" Harry asked thickly, taking care not to exhale too much morning breath in the other boy's direction.

"A while. And you snore. Get up." He held out a pair of trousers, Harry's best shirt, and his newest set of robes, all folded into a perfect square. "These were the only acceptable things I could find in your trunk."

"You went through my trunk?" Harry asked, horrified. He savagely tore his clothing from Draco's outstretched hands and stared in terror at the open box under the table.

There were underclothes in that trunk. And dirty socks. Dirty socks that probably smelled. He should have wrapped them in something or disinfected them somehow. He had been an idiot just leaving there to get putrid.

"Yes," Draco replied, sounding as if he couldn't think of any reason that his behaviour may have been considered a breach of privacy. He stood up and straightened the fabric of his robes to his chest. He swept his hair from his eyes and checked his nails for dirt.

Harry couldn't decide for whom Draco was so dressed up, Lolita or Lombard, and was righteously annoyed at him in either case. He was at a Quidditch Workshop; he had no need to get up early to perfect himself when it was only a matter of time before he was going to become dishevelled and sweaty and windswept. It was all so superfluous and hideously Malfoy of him. He just couldn't bear to go anywhere without looking absolutely gorgeous.

As it was, the idea of changing in front of this narcissistic beacon of flawlessness had become suddenly horrifying. Harry could practically feel those shrewd little eyes boring into his flesh, picking out imperfections to be logged away and laughed about later with his Slytherin cronies.

"Aren't you leaving?" he blurted out, pressing the square of fabric protectively against himself.

"You haven't got anything I haven't seen before, Potter," Draco replied, gaze fixed conveniently upon Harry's own as he crossed his arms impatiently. "I'm not waiting in some draughty corridor while you put yourself together. It could take hours; I may catch a cold. Honestly, have you no sense of propriety?"

Harry shifted with unease. "I would appreciate some privacy, you know. I don't stand around watching while you're undressing!"

"You know what?" Draco sighed. "We haven't got time for this, just throw your robes on over your pyjamas and let's get going."

"Oh! Oh I see. So you can be the one that looks good. I can just shuffle along beside you with hideous bed head and wearing jammies and you can look all the suaver."

Draco peered carefully at him. "I don't think suaver is a word."

"Fine! Fine, I'll play your game!"

Harry stormed from the room and hastily threw the robes over his head, a vague sense of the absurdity of the situation slowly registering for him.

"That's quite the angry face," Draco pointed out as he passed him, strolling ahead down the hall.

Harry took a few calming breaths and noted a soft pounding sensation building up behind his eyes. "Yeah," he agreed meekly, moving to catch up.

"Not a morning person, then?"

"Not really."

He could feel the blush burning the tips of his ears, and Draco was still smiling. His fists were shoved casually into his pockets as he sauntered along, largely ignoring his companion once silence descended upon them, and Harry was reminded that he was, in actual fact, a complete bastard.

It took them several minutes to reach the auditorium. It was situated in the farthest corner of the North Wing and one look inside told them that they were just shy of being late. The large room was packed, the rows of small chairs already close to completely filled, and Harry couldn't see anyone familiar to sit down beside. He didn't want to have to sit alone, and he wanted even less to have to trail his roommate and sit with him as if he had no other friends in the world.

Draco stopped in the doorway, leaning casually against the frame with his arms crossed over his chest like someone meant to be dashing in a bad film noir. "Run along," he said absently, staring off toward the far wall.

"What are you doing?" Harry asked, slipping in past him. He nodded as Bobby walked by and sat down, patting the seat beside him welcomingly.

"Waiting for Pansy, obviously."

"You're blocking traffic," Harry accused, annoyed again, and cringed mentally. He could not possibly have said anything more pathetic had he actually stopped and put some effort into coming across as completely daft.

Draco squinted at him. "Right, I'll just take my seat then," he said, remaining completely stationary. He continued to regard Harry carefully. "You have pillow creases on your cheek," he told him and then disappeared inside as Pansy and a few other Hogwarts students arrived in the doorway.

"Ouch," Ron whined as he shuffled in ahead of Snape. "Ouch!"

"Get moving," the professor growled, lightly shoving the injured redhead again, and then stormed up to the front to seat himself beside McGonagall.

Ron stopped where he was, mere feet beyond the entrance, his battered face contorted into a squint as waves of other students surged around him and filled the last of the available seats. When he reached out to Hermione as she passed, she sighed and allowed him to use her as a crutch.

"I thought these lectures were only for the players," Harry mentioned in place of a greeting.

The face hidden beneath the cloud of unusually large hair frowned slightly. "Yes, well, the first one is for Durmstrang students, the players and the players' guests. Is that going to be a problem?"

"She's just cranky because Krum hasn't talked to her yet," Ron chuckled, and then grabbed at his ribs with an airy groan. "That and the water's so hard here it's making her hair do that." He motioned to her head and smiled feebly.

"He's very busy, you know," she defended, apparently ignoring the hair comment. "He has to attend meetings and his own workshops. He's a very important figure in Quidditch these days..." she trailed off, looking thoughtful and more than a little bit put out. "He just can't see me from up there to wave."

"Sure, Herm," Ron assured her, hobbling over to the last empty row and collapsing heavily into a seat.

"This is not going to be so much a lecture as a general meeting," a loud, Italian voice boomed unexpectedly through the auditorium. One of the Beater instructors stood at the front of the stage, smiling blithely at the front row and waiting patiently as the remaining students took their seats. "Headmistress Lombard has a few announcements to make, and then you are all free to go to your lessons."

Harry and Hermione scrambled to follow Ron, one somehow tripping the other in unison as they threw themselves down and kicked the seats in front of them in their haste.

Bobby turned around when he felt the bump. "There you are, Harry!" he whispered cheerfully, as if he had been waiting for him. "What do you think the big announcement's going to be?"

Harry shrugged distractedly, eyeing the group seated before him.

Lolita was directly beside Bobby, looking absolutely murderous as an exhausted Pansy chatted quietly to her from beneath one of Draco's arms. He was seated sideways, the girl leaning against his chest, and he appeared to be enraptured with the artwork on the walls and ignoring the girls completely.

"Welcome everyone!" Lombard called, her tiny voice slicing through the growing din of students' voices. "This is going to be a big year at Durmstrang. Many changes..."

Harry wasn't listening.

Pansy had already fallen asleep. Draco rested his cheek on her hair, staring at a portrait directly above the Gryffindors, looking far away and cozy curled around his friend.

Lolita harrumphed and got up to leave, her curls swishing angrily across her shoulder blades as she went.

"You shouldn't do that," Harry hissed at Draco, his voice barely audible over the little Headmistress'.

Draco shook his head, startled out of his reverie, and then frowned at him. "Do what?"

"What you're doing there," he gestured vaguely toward him and pulled his hand back promptly at the strange look he was given.

"Appreciating art?"

"No, with Pansy. It's inappropriate."

Surely he had not just said 'inappropriate'.

Draco's face cracked into a wicked grin and he raised a hand to draw it through the sleeping girl's hair. "Oh, darling, am I making you jealous?"

"No!" Harry answered quickly, praying that Ron and Hermione were somehow deaf to all of this. "But Lolita. I think she fancies you..."

"Well, I'm just thrilled that you're looking out for my love life and all that, I really am, but frankly it has nothing to do with you."

"Well, I mean. I was just-"

"And we are proud to announce that there will be a film festival open to anyone that wishes to participate, as well as mandatory Muggle Music Studies for the first time in Wizarding School history."

Draco's head shot around, slamming the door to their conversation and jostling Pansy awake. "She what?"

*

"I am not putting this thing in my mouth," Draco announced, placing his reed lightly on the stand before him and clicking the keys of his baritone saxophone in displeasure.

They had been assigned their instruments immediately upon entering the classroom and then sorted by section; the general feeling in the room remaining that of mild shock and dismay on the whole.

"You will do whatever that book tells you to," Snape snapped at him, surprising the Slytherins in the room. He didn't appear overly pleased with his appointment as temporary band instructor. "None of us want to be here, I have as much of an idea as to what I'm doing as the lot of you. I know less about Muggle music than I do about Muggle flims. This is classic Lombard behaviour. She hates..." he trailed off and stared vengefully at the back wall, a somewhat amused glint in his dark eyes. "Put it in your mouth and play, Malfoy."

Draco scowled, eyeing the thin slice of wood as if it had done him a personal wrong before sliding it delicately between his teeth. "Raw spaghetti," he muttered around the soggy wood and clicked the keys a bit louder.

Beside him, Harry was somewhat horrified at his own situation. The odd honking sound that his bassoon made being loud and reminiscent of some kind of ill goose when played, he was drawing a great deal of unwanted attention as he stretched his fingers toward the massive keys and tried desperately to properly wrap his mouth around the stiff double-reed.

The clarinets were hardly better off. While Zacharias could hardly make a sound come out and was quickly growing red and sweaty, Hermione continuously made either a deafening screeching sound or a less violent honk that was particularly duck-like.

Lolita's mood seemed to have shifted completely once class had begun and she, Pansy, and Bobby were giggling and making airy squealing sounds while they gasped for air over the heads of their flutes.

Ron sniggered wildly when it registered that his euphonium did, in actual fact, make nothing but rather flatulence-like sounds even when played properly.

At the back of the room Crabbe and Goyle were beating the bass drum and timpani with the rest of the percussionists as if they were signalling the coming of a foreign invader. They soon drowned out the flutes entirely with their incessant banging and enthusiastic guffawing.

After fifteen minutes, Harry had yet to get a sound out. Draco sat beside him, somehow already drawing deep, rich notes out of his sax as if he were an old pro. He seemed lost to the world, tied up in the simple songs he was forcing out, flushed and looking pleased. Apparently he had a love for the arts, something Harry would have never expected of someone as harsh and shallow as he. It was just Harry's luck really, to end up in the bass section next to him, silently annoyed and not jealous at all thank you very much.

"What are you staring at?" Draco suddenly asked, flipping the page of his songbook forward to the more advanced section.

Harry jumped. "Nothing. I just... I just can't get the reed to work."

"It's a double reed, you idiot," he informed him. "And that means nothing to you, does it? My God!" He lifted the shoulder strap off and gently set his saxophone down beside him. "You probably need to wet it more."

"I've been wetting it this whole time!"

"God, you're snappy lately. Calm down. Here," he said, dropping to his knees to inspect Harry's hands, and surprising the hell out of him along the way. "Well, first off, you need to trim your nails, you're not going to be clawing anyone to death in the near future, are you? And your thumb is on the wrong key. There," he moved it carefully to the proper place and nodded up at him. "Try now."

Harry hesitated. "Why are you helping me?"

"Because I can't stand to watch someone assault an instrument like you've been doing. Try it now."

He did, and let loose a shrill screeching sound, sending Draco scrambling backward and away from the bassoon.

"Oh, for the love of God. Maybe it is the reed," he decided, getting to his feet. "Let's see it."

"But it was in my mouth."

"Oh, shut up! I will not sit idly by while you insist on insulting music. If you're going to play, you're going to do it properly. Give me your reed." He held out his hand and waggled it a bit from side to side, raising both eyebrows authoritatively.

Harry hesitated for another moment; staring at the reed and convincing himself that there was no way that Draco could possibly poison him while he was being watched. He sighed heavily and handed it over.

"Ew," Draco complained. "It's definitely wet." He rubbed it on his sleeve and then slid it between his lips.

"Ew, yourself!" Harry shot back. "That was in my mouth!"

Draco made a buzzing sound and then removed it again, regarding it carefully and ignoring the distraught bassoonist before him. He ran a nail carefully up each side and then slid it over the middle, holding the small slices of wood inches from his face.

"Well here's the trouble," he said quietly. "It's broken. See? Split right down the middle." He held it out for Harry to examine. "You need a new one already. What were you doing, chewing on it?"

"How do you know about reeds?"

"Everyone-"

"Draco," a whiney, female voice called out. "I'm light-headed." Pansy stood behind him, pale, shaky and leaning with all of her weight against the wall.

He flopped back down into his seat and motioned for the girl to sit on his lap. Really, they couldn't go ten minutes without one being on top of the other. Honestly, they were in class, there were better times for these things.

"Have you taken-"

"No," she interrupted again, harshly this time. She collapsed onto him and buried her face in his neck. "Not yet."

"Well go take it, then, Pansy!"

She pulled back, looking hurt and surprised before Draco's expression softened infinitesimally and she nodded. "Alright."

He brushed her fringe out of her eyes and smiled. "Do you want me to walk you there?"

She stood, rubbing her eyes and yawning. "I'll be fine, Father," she told him, laughing sarcastically.

Draco sat back, heaving a great sigh as he watched her leave. She shuffled her feet and wrapped her arms tightly around her abdomen, weaving a bit as she slowly advanced on the exit. He looked honestly concerned, his eyebrows drawn together, his breathing shallow, his face paler than usual and set in open emotion by his obvious anxiety.

"I can see you staring at me, Potter," he said, patting his lap. "You want a go as well?"

"Malfoy."

He lifted his saxophone and stared idly down at it. "What?"

"Is she all right?"

"Of course she's alright. Piss off."

There was a loud snorting sound to the left of them as Ron lifted the euphonium away from his mouth, a deep red circle moulded into his lips. "Right. She's great. Sure," he said.

"Shut your mouth, Weasel," Draco warned darkly. His eyes were drawn to slits and he leaned forward in his chair. "Do you hear me?"

"It's not like she should be ashamed or anything," Ron continued. "I mean, it's not her fault that her parents are probably related, or something."

"I said shut your mouth."

Ron continued, smiling. "She should take it up with her family, don't you think? Ask for money or something as compensation. Really, they owe her big if it's what I think it is."

Draco drew in a harsh breath and shot up from his seat, knocking the chair over on to its back as he descended upon Ron. He knocked the euphonium out of his lap and pulled him to his feet by the collar, huffing with deepest red blazing in his face. Draco came nearly up to Ron's nose and was just as willowy in build, but the fire in his expression was enough to send Ron's hands flying up to pry desperately at Draco's own.

"Do you want to go?" he asked loudly and with a great deal of uncertainty in his voice as he tugged at the pale arms that were shoving him violently toward the wall.

Draco didn't respond. He twisted his fists in the fabric and shoved harder, Ron's head cracking against the stone of the wall as the rest of him collided along with it. He loosened one hand and pulled it back, tightening it into a ball and tensing up to strike.

"Malfoy!" Harry bellowed, leaping up. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" He grabbed at his elbow and yanked it backward, spinning Draco around and giving him just enough time to pull back once again and clock Harry right in the cheekbone.

Ron, seeing Draco's back turned, leaped onto him and forced him to the ground, kicking and hollering. Snape was dashing up to the stage, Hermione was obviously torn between mirth and embarrassment, and the rest of the boys in the room looked thrilled at the sudden display of brutality.

Somehow, after several hard blows to the face, Draco was able to fold his leg up against himself and kick his assailant off by way of his stomach. There was blood in his white hair and on his pale mouth and he was rigid with fury as he made to dive down onto Ron again. Harry jumped forward and knocked him back to the ground with his own bodyweight, wrapping his hands around that delicate neck just enough to slow him down, just enough to make him wait until Snape stopped him finally.

"Potter!" the professor barked as his shadow fell over them. "You will remove your hands from Mr. Malfoy's throat this instant!" He grabbed Harry by the arm and tore him off, pulling him to his feet and glaring maliciously down into his face. "This will mean a serious detention."

Draco sniggered.

"For the three of you," he continued. "Tonight."