Passion

The rivals met again the next day when the Gryffindor stormed into the Hospital Wing, eyes black with fury.

Draco, who had commanded his new chair to take him over to the window, looked up, cold grey eyes narrowed. "What, Potter, back again? You're beginning to act like you care."

The dark-haired boy was silent for a second, looking at the floor. When he looked up, his eyes were still dark, but his face was twisted into a mockery of a grin. "What would you say, Malfoy, if I said I wanted to take our rivalry up a notch?"

"I'd tell you to sit down and tell me what the fuck happened before you go saying any such thing."

"My friends," the word was a hiss, nearly parseltongue, "want nothing more to do with me."

With a muttered command, the Slytherin's chair took him over to his rival. "Sit, Potter. I'm not going to stare up at you like a love-struck girl." When the other boy had complied, he said, "Now, explain. I understand if you have problems being coherent, but if you stick to words of two syllables, you should manage." The fact that the taunt wasn't answered was what first told Draco that, if he had been one of Potter's friends, he should be worrying. The explanation clinched it.

"They knew I fought, you know. Knew I killed. Saw us revel in how much chaos we could cause. They knew both you and I could cast the Killing Curse--without regret. I don't know what they thought, that the war would be won without bloodshed or something, but I'm tainted with others' blood now. They won't come near me. They won't even let me into Gryffindor tower, so Dumbledore had to give me a room in the castle."

"So you, like me, are left with no one. You said you wanted to step up the rivalry. How?"

"Screw the rest of the world. We're the best, and we know it. Anything, everything. The only thing we don't know is which of us is better. So we work together--to beat each other. In everything. Who's top of the class. Who's Quidditch champion. Who wins the duel. Anything is fair play. There's nothing left to force us to train, so let's do it ourselves. And if the world disapproves, let them. I'm not afraid of a little blood. Are you?"

"After this?" He gestured to his chair. "Not at all." He held out his hand. "You're on, Potter."

They shook, grips hard, neither one the stronger, for the moment. "Good." The darkness reflected in both their eyes.

"Now get me out of this wing. There's nothing Pomfrey can do for me. She's already demonstrated the bloody chair's many--functions," he sneered. "I can get around just fine, so there's no need to confine me up here."

Harry smiled grimly. "I'm going to the library. I have a bit of reading to do, if I want to beat you in classes. You're welcome to come."

Many students had stayed over the break, wanting to be safe behind Hogwarts' protective walls. Draco didn't know if they stared because the two rivals were walking together reasonably peacefully or because he himself couldn't walk. He raised his chin and glared at anyone who looked at him crossways.

That night at supper, Dumbledore announced to the school a brief explanation of what had happened to the Slytherin. He would repeat it in more depth when the term started. Still, most eyes in the Hall were focused on Draco for a large part of the meal. He was grateful to get away.

His rival accompanied him back to the Slytherin dungeons. Outside the Common Room, when they were alone, Harry caught the blonde's lips in a kiss just as cruel as the one the day before, but this one lasted longer. When they finally pulled away, the Gryffindor whispered, "Is this, too, part of the rivalry, or is it something more?" He was gone before there was time to answer.

The weeks before school started again passed quickly as the two scrambled to learn everything they could so they could compete with each other. They exercised, practiced Quidditch, and studied, usually with each other, with a frenzy no one had seen from them before except, rarely, on the battlefield when blood was running high. They pestered the teachers who were still at school for extra lessons and most complied, willing to let the boys get over the trauma of the war in any way that worked for them. Nothing further developed from the two stolen kisses, neither willing to bring the subject up or do anything to push their relationship.

The night the rest of the school got back, Harry and Draco sat together at the Gryffindor table, a seventh year Potions book between them, arguing furiously about a substitution. They were only silenced when Dumbledore stood to welcome the students back.

"I am glad to see so many of you have returned. I hope you duly celebrated the Christmas season, and the ending of the war. As you should all know by now, Voldemort was killed early Christmas morning." Cheers echoed through the hall, though few looked at the young man who had brought the victory about. Dumbledore smiled benignly and continued, "That leads me to my most important announcement tonight. Those of you who stayed for the holidays have already heard this, but those of you who have just returned need to know. Two of our students fought for the Order during the war. Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy fought as well as adults twice their age, and it was Mr Potter who brought Voldemort down. However, one of them was gravely injured during the final battle."

Cold grey eyes snapped up to glare at the Headmaster. "I'm fully capable of explaining what happened to me myself," he said bitterly.

The old man blithely ignored the interruption. "Mr Malfoy was paralysed from the waist down. He will be using a chair to get around, and he is keeping his place on the Quidditch team. If you see either him or Mr Potter engaging in duels or such-like, do not interfere and do not worry. They are well-trained and know what they're doing. Thank you." He sat down and the feast began, though many eyes remained focused on the pair at the Gryffindor table, who had resumed their argument, eating between points.

Finally, Harry leapt to his feet, storming toward the Hall entrance.

"What's the matter, Potter?" The clear, drawling voice echoed through the room, and everyone fell silent to listen to the exchange. "Giving up? Running away because you know I'm right?"

"You wish, Malfoy. I'm going down the Potions lab to prove I'm right. You coming?"

The blonde sneered and commanded his chair to follow his rival. "I wouldn't miss this show for the world."

The Hall doors slammed shut behind them, though the Potions Professor followed a moment later. They were going down to his domain, after all; he wouldn't have them messing things up.

He watched them for a while from the doorway to his classroom, observing how well they worked together and how adept the Slytherin of the pair managed his chair, how quickly he had adapted to his paralysis. He quickly noticed to bone of contention and chuckled. "You're both right, you know," he told them, startling them. He had lightened his attitude towards them considerably when he became one of the teachers they sought most often for extra lessons. He had seen them fight in the war and had to admit that they were both heroes for what they had done. "Your Potions will have slightly different characteristics, but they'll both do the same thing. Potter, yours will focus on healing the actual bone first, before the things around it. Malfoy, yours will heal the muscle first to hold the bone in place while it heals. Can either of you tell me what you'd put in for a much faster, much, much more expensive Potion that would heal it all at once, painlessly?"

"Phoenix tears," they said in unison without realising it. "We knew that, but he just wouldn't listen. . ." They cut off as they realised they were speaking together.

"Ah. So why, pray tell, are you working out of the seventh year text?"

"We're not, really," Harry said calmly.

"No. It's as boring as the sixth year one. But we were reading this book about substitutions in the library, and it mentioned this Potion."

Snape stared at the two for a moment, and then said quietly, "I'd like the two of you to take a quick test, please. Stay here for a moment."

Grey and green eyes met curiously. What did the Professor want of them? Well, a test was a test. Each was determined to best the other. When the Potions Master returned, each of them had set up a table across the room from the other. The Slytherin had remained at the one at the front of the room, since it was harder for him to manoeuvre his chair through the rows of tables, as a silent courtesy from his rival, who had moved to the back.

Both noticed that the name of their test had been scratched out, but they ignored it, getting right down to work. Every time they got frustrated, all it took was a glance at the other to motivate them again. They worked furiously. Draco finished a scant few minutes before the Gryffindor, and they both placed their tests in front of the Professor.

Snape read over them, his mouth falling open.

"Now will you tell us what we just took?" his pet student demanded, tapping impatient fingers on the arm of his chair. "Classes haven't even started yet."

The Potion Master closed his mouth abruptly. "Please wait here for a few minutes. I need to go get the Headmaster."

As he left the room, he heard Harry mutter to his rival, "Why do I get the idea that there's way more to that little exercise than he was letting on?"

Snape hurried straight to the Great Hall, where the Headmaster still sat. "Albus," he said quickly, "look at these." He handed the man the tests. "They're perfect scores, Albus. No one gets perfect scores on the NEWTs. Particularly not a pair of sixth years."

"So Mr Potter and Mr Malfoy's studying has paid off. The potential was always there, in both of them, if they could find the drive. It was certainly there in their parents."

"Oh, they've found the drive. Each other. At this point, all they care about is beating each other."

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "Surely, Severus, you don't mean that. That may be all they see between themselves, but there's more to it than that. Give them the rest of their NEWTs. See how they do. I doubt they'll mind being up all night; they frequently are. There aren't any classes tomorrow, and we can talk then."

"Should I tell them what they're doing?"

"I think it would be wise, Severus. They're quite smart. They'll get suspicious and probably stubborn if you don't tell them."

The Professor had expected to find two very impatient young men waiting for him in his classroom, but instead he found them quite wrapped up in Potion making. They had, apparently, found the advanced book he'd accidentally left on his desk and decided to try one of the more complicated, though quicker, recipes. They were arguing, again, about nothing, apparently, since they were in perfect accord about the Potion. Again, he stood in his own doorway to watch them. He was curious, and he grew even more so when their conversation turned serious.

The blonde had asked, very quietly, if Harry would get him something from the back of the classroom. After the Gryffindor had complied, he said, "You seem to be resigned to that chair, Malfoy. I would have thought you'd fight it."

"And what point would there be in that? Nothing I do is going to change the fact that I'm paralysed. I do want to rant and rave, to throw a tantrum--particularly when people stare at me, or I have to fight to get myself out of my chair and into bed, or when even getting dressed is an effort. What good would it do, though? It might make people feel sorrier for me than they already do, and I hate it enough now."

"Do you ever wish I'd done what you told me and left you to die?"

"Not seriously." The Slytherin shrugged and stirred the Potion. "I do wish sometimes that my life weren't like this, but nothing's going to change it. No, Potter, I don't hate you for goading me into living and saving my life. I have plenty of other reasons. This is about done," he added, referring to the Potion.

"Good. Why can't we ever do anything like this in class? It's much more interesting."

"Because, Mr Potter," Snape said, choosing to make his presence known, "that is one of the more complicated Potions. Generally only Potions Masters make it. By the way, congratulations to both of you on a perfect Potions NEWT."

The two young men exchanged astonished glances. "You gave us a NEWT?" Draco asked, astonished. "And we passed it?"

"With a perfect score, which is virtually unheard of. The Headmaster would like you to take the rest of the NEWTs tonight, if you're willing."

Grey and green eyes met, both thinking about it quite seriously. Snape had the feeling that each decision depended on the other's, that either both or neither would agree. Finally, in unison, they nodded. "We'll do it," Harry said curtly.

"Good. Dumbledore will have told the appropriate teachers by now, so the first will be coming shortly."

The boys nodded and set about bottling their Potion while they waited for the next professor to arrive. Neither boy looked the slightest bit nervous. Both of them, in fact, looked like they were looking forward to the challenge.