Green

Green

By Slytherin Tattoo

Chapter 5

My book was thrown at me at breakfast the next day, as Potter passed by on the way to his own table. I didn't know what to say to make things better. So I said nothing. Neither did he.

We spent the rest of the week pretending we didn't know each other, unless our eyes accidentally met, and then they would turn arrogant, hard, and cold. Every time I looked at him now I felt myself tense, my face go blank, my eyes narrow. I hated him for hating me and making me hate him. I wondered if there was any way we could make up and be friends.

But the rest of my life was going fine. Zabini was actually quite an interesting guy, and I'd always gotten along with Pansy. Flint still gave me approving glances, and Rahab tried to ruffle my hair and give me advice about professors, and Rhiannon would wink at me before going to gossip with Taltos and Higgs.

And I went to Charms, and DADA, and Care of Magical Creatures, and then Friday rolled around, and we had Double Potions with Gryffindor. I woke up that morning, and my blood seemed frozen, as if I had a chill. It was strange, I thought.

I went back to watching. Observing everything around me. I spent most of that day in the shadows, eyes open, mouth closed.

I walked back to class with Crabbe and Goyle. I was used to them; they made me feel better. I sat near the front. I wouldn't let Gryffindors make me dislike this class. I had high expectations of it.

I refused to let the moment when Potter entered the room, with Granger and Weasley, make me flinch. I would be stoic, undaunted. I would not react. Except when Weasley looked over and glared with true hatred, I couldn't resist a superior half-smirk that nearly drove him wild.

He didn't get a chance to react, though, as Snape entered then. We all quieted instantly. Everybody respected Snape. I admired that.

He started out by calling roll, and when he got to Potter's name, he said, "Ah yes. Our new celebrity." And it was quite apparent in just that one word--at least, to me--that he despised--no, loathed--no, he hated Harry Potter. I wondered why.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making," Snape told us. "I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death--if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

The room was silent. My mind was racing.

I understood what he meant exactly. Mother loved Potions. Sometimes when I was young, I would sneak up to the door of her study, which I wasn't allowed into, and open the door just the barest of cracks so I could watch her, stirring the cauldron, adding the powdered fangorn root, the porcupine quills, the hazy fumes rising off the cauldron, the rich, heady, dizzying smell, until I didn't know if it was the potion that was making me dizzy or just being near Her, Mother, the greatest witch who ever lived, creeping through my mind, ensnaring my senses...

I shivered involuntarily, one heaving shudder. Brew glory and stopper death--could I? Would it please her, if I knew? Or was I--one of the dunderheads? Would I fail at this, too?

I would not, please the Lady. I had already devoured my textbook. That and the one for DADA were the only ones I had--like Granger--committed to memory. I was ready.

But then Snape started in on Potter. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?" he demanded of him, and him alone, ignoring Granger, whose hand had shot up.

Potter shifter a little in his seat. "I don't know, sir."

Snape sneered at him. "Fame clearly isn't everything," he pronounced very distinctly. "Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

Granger's hand went up again. Around me, I could see the other Slytherins laughing. Harry looked down. "I don't know, sir."

"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?"

Harry looked back up, meeting Snape's dark eyes. They each tried to stare down the other. No use, Potter, I thought to him. He's a Professor, they always win.

"What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

That girl's going to fall off her chair waving her arm around like that, I thought. And once again I was astounded to hear myself speaking. "They're the same thing, sir. Also known as aconite."

Snape whipped around, looking to scold a Gryffindor, before realizing it was me. His mouth turned up the slightest bit at the corners. "Correct, Mr. Malfoy. Five points to Slytherin. Potter--that's five points from Gryffindor for your ignorance."

He flushed. I smiled brightly at Snape. "For your information, Potter," he said, speaking to the class at large, "asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it's known as the Draught of Living Death. And a bezoar is a stone from the stomach of a goat that will save you from most poisons. Well? Why aren't you copying any of this down?"

We grabbed for our quills then.

After that, the professor set us to concocting a simple potion. He stalked around the classroom, long black cloak flaring behind him, and I couldn't help thinking, I need to get me one of those.

He inspected everyone's work, with many a pointed criticism, but when he came to me, he would mellow. "Good job crushing your snake fangs," he said once. And, "How are your parents?" softly when everyone around us was busy. Towards the end of class, he actually pointed out to everyone how I had stewed my horned slugs. It was hard to contain how proud I felt. A smile almost burst from me, but I kept it back somehow. But it was a great moment... brew glory, indeed!

Just then, Toad-boy's cauldron started smoking green and hissing. The potion melted through the cauldron and dripped to the floor, running downhill, eating into whatever it touched. We all yelped and jumped on our chairs. Toad-boy sprang up in nasty, painful-looking boils and I gloated. Served him right--insulting my father!

"Idiot boy!" Snape scolded him, and I agreed.

"He's a moron," I whispered to Crabbe and Goyle, who grinned and nodded. "What a loser."

"Take him to the hospital wing," Snape ordered his partner. Then he turned his fury on Potter and the Weasel. "Why didn't you tell him not to add quills over the fire? Thought you'd look good if he got it wrong? Another point off Gryffindor!"

I thought Snape's accusation was unlikely. It could actually get annoying if our professor spent half of every class yelling at Potter. I gave Harry a sympathetic look, but he ignored me completely, whispering to Weasley. I scowled and went back to my potion.

I couldn't wait to owl Mother and tell her how much Snape seemed to like me and my work.

________ ________

After class, I took my daring in hand and asked Prof. Snape if there was anything he'd like to tell my parents when I sent an owl home that afternoon.

He sort of smiled at me--I don't think he can smile more than that--and said to tell my mother he was sure I would turn out to be as good at potions as she was and that I was off to a good start. I almost skipped back to my room.

_______ _______

It was a good letter for me. It said all good things, praiseworthy things. About my classes, my new friends, my observations about Potter and Snape and the people in Slytherin, about Potions.

And then, just as I was getting ready to sign it, I broke down and added this: "I do have one problem I could use some advice about. Potter and Weasley accidentally overheard a group of Slytherins I was with insulting Weasley and his family. Potter has become attached to Weasley as a fellow Gryffindor, who unfortunately has a lot more contact with Potter than I do. Therefore, Potter is angry with me for inadvertently insulting his friend. What should I do?"

The reply came promptly and I sent Harry another owl after I read it.

"Dear Potter,

"I know you're mad about what was said regarding Weasley the other night. But can't we still be friends, you and I? So we'll have a few differences in opinion. Friends do. And you'll have two friends who aren't that crazy about each other. That's pretty common, too. I still think we'd be a good team. Let me know."

I didn't get an answer until lunch the next day. Potter stopped me just outside the entrance to the Great Hall. "Malfoy. Can I talk to you a minute? Alone?"

So we abandoned our other friends and went off down the passage a ways to speak unheard. "I got your owl," he began.

My heart was beating fast and hard. "What do you think?"

"Look, it's--it's not that..." he grimaced. "I can't be friends with someone who so deliberately hurts other people's feelings."

My eyes widened. "You heard what he said about my father on the train."

Harry blinked. "Yes."

"So why aren't you giving him this little lecture?"

Harry groaned and rubbed at his eyes. "Maybe... maybe we could just start this all over."

"Huh?" was my eloquent response.

"Forget the past. Start again here. Hi. I'm Harry Potter."

He was perfectly serious. "Um, OK, hi, I'm Draco Malfoy, nice to meet you."

"I hear you like the Montrose Magpies."

I quirked a smile. "They're top-ranked. Although I confess to having another favorite, the Caerphilly Caterpaults. I am a good Welshman, after all."

"Are you? Welsh, I mean."

"Yes. You?"

"Straight Brit, I believe, as English as they come."

An awkward silence fell. "What else do you like to do?" he asked after a long moment of me wondering where all my charm had disappeared to.

"Well... flying. I like flying."

"I haven't tried it yet." He sighed. "I want to! Everybody's talking about it. We have flying lessons starting up next week, you know. But that's forever."

I grinned, a pleased cocky smile. "I could teach you before then. All we need's the brooms."

Potter looked completely startled, then strongly tempted. "We'd get caught."

"Slytherin Quidditch team has practice tonight. The broom shed will be open. I can get two brooms out, easy. We sneak out behind Hagrid's hut. As long as we don't go too high, we'll be fine." I couldn't believe I was even suggesting this; normally I followed authority. But I had to win Potter back. Mother was counting on me.

"OK," he said at last. "What time?"

________ ________

I got the brooms out at 8:00, just as the Slytherin team was going back to the dungeons. They were arguing about who to appoint as their third Chaser. The one from last year had graduated, leaving a spot open.

"I say we ask Montague," Pucey said firmly.

"He's too slow. What about Warrington?" Higgs suggested.

"He's too reckless. We need somebody with brains. How about Selby?"

"He'll foul everybody."

I listened to their voices fade away into the distance and looked at the brooms I'd snagged. Clean Sweeps. Adequate. Nothing like the Nimbus 2000 I'd been eyeing in Diagon Alley, but... these would do. I'd use a stick if it would get me up in the air again. I'd missed it.

I'd spent the afternoon up in my window--I hadn't told anyone about it and I didn't plan to. It was going to be my secret place. All last night, when I'd roamed the Common Room--I don't sleep well, or a lot--and again this afternoon, my thoughts had been on flying. Of course, last night I had been reminiscing on past flights, and this afternoon I was anticipating ones to come.

I hoped I didn't do anything else wrong. I didn't know how to act around Harry Potter, that was the bottom line, dismal truth. I didn't understand him. But I could tell a person who is meant to fly, and he was, so I figured this...

I'm not sure what I was hoping for.

Father says, never get too close to anybody, because in the end, they will always betray you for personal gain. Emotions are a weakness. All feelings must be crushed, for they can be used against you. They can only get in your way. Feel nothing, love no one.

And I've found no way to argue with that.

____________ _____________

I sat in the grass behind the broom shed and waited. I recited potion ingredients in my mind to pass the time, and to distract myself from what I was feeling, which was mainly nausea.

At 8:30, Potter turned up as promised and I grinned before I could stop myself. "Hey."

"Hey." He brushed a hand through his hair, trying to keep the bangs out of his eyes. Didn't work.

I handed him a broom. "Are you ready?"

"Yes!" He nodded emphatically.

"Good." We exchanged smiles, then walked farther back into the fields, back past the gamekeeper's hut, almost to the forest, where (hopefully) we'd be safe from prying eyes.

"OK," I instructed. "Lay the broom on the ground. Right. Now you say up!" The broom flew into my hand.

Harry looked at his broom. He held his hand out. "Up!" he commanded, and it came. He looked thrilled.

"All right. It's hovering now, see?" I let go of the broom and it floated in the air before me. "Push it down to the right height. You want it about there, so you can mount it. Like this."

We both got on our brooms. "Now, basically, you just grip with your hands--uh huh--and your knees--knees are important. And you just push off with your feet. We won't go up very high, OK? Ready?"

Potter was flushed with excitement--partly the flying and partly the secret, after-hours adventure. "Ready!"

"OK, here we go then!" I shoved off, rising into the air, and Potter did the same. We leveled out at about 6 feet. "Potter, you're a natural," I marveled. "Got your balance?"

"Yeah. I'm fine. This is great!" He was smiling so wide, his face was practically beaming. "It's like--I instinctually know to do."

"And here I thought it was my great teaching," I teased.

He laughed. "Higher!"

I took stock of our position relative to the castle. "We can probably risk a little more," I decided.

We went up to 10 feet. "Now we coast," I said, and shot forward, not too fast. He flew parallel beside me. He did seem to know exactly what to do. I had been like that, as well, my first time on a broom, but I knew it wasn't usual. Flying wasn't that easy for most people. For a moment, I wondered if I should be jealous, but I couldn't really see the point.

Then, "Race you to the tree," he said, and took off.

I smirked and pursued. He had a small head start, and I gained some back, but he still beat me there. "Hn. Race you to that tree," I drawled, and we were off again.

There's nothing like flying. Wind in your face, hair blowing back--well, actually, it stuck to my head, pretty well gelled, but at home I leave it loose and then it does, ground racing below you, deep sky above. You could fall into the sky and drown sometimes, it's so blue.

"It's black in places," Potter said, startling me. How much of that had I said out loud?

"Well, yeah, now it is," I responded awkwardly.

"You're right, though, this is awesome. I love flying!"

"Me, too." I watched him for a moment. "Now you just need to learn how to play Quidditch. But I think we'll wait for daylight for that."

"Yeah, can you teach me that, too?" He looked at me eagerly.

I smiled, satisfied. "Of course. We can do it tomorrow."

There you go, Mother.

But I found to my surprise, I was also doing this for me.

_______ _____