A Lesson in Blackmail

Ron burst into the Gryffindor common room, panting so hard he could barely stand.

"Ron! Are you okay?" gasped Hermione.

Harry leapt to his feet and grabbed Ron by the arm. "Come on, sit down, it's okay," he assured, looking worried nonetheless. "What happened?"

Ron wiped his hand across his eyes and tried to control his breathing. "It was the strangest thing I have ever seen..." He buried his head in his hands.

"Go on, Ron, it's okay," said Hermione, glancing at the door and surreptiously grasping her wand. "Tell us..."

"I was down on the grounds talking to Hagrid when Snape came along and yelled at us like Snape does... you know, for not being productive or whatever. And Hagrid was burning brush at the edge of the Dark Forest..." Here Ron had to stop for another deep breath.

"Hagrid! Is Hagrid okay, Ron!" Harry panicked.

"Let me talk! He was burning brush, and he told me to go get Filch because he needed Filch to get him something... and he said that Filch was out at the Quidditch field, in the Slytherin locker room. Fixing something. And I thought that was a bad idea, but I did it anyway, because Hagrid asked me to. And so I went there, and..." Ron finally got enough air and burst out laughing. "And Malfoy was there! And guess what he was wearing?"

Harry and Hermione looked at each other, surprised and worried and not sure they wanted to know.

"TEDDY BEAR BOXERS! Red ones, with little black bears. Really disgustingly cute ones."

Harry broke into a grin. "This is SO blackmail-worthy."

Hermione shook her head. "I do not want to get into this."

Excited at the prospect of harassing Malfoy, Ron and Harry said at the same time, "I do!"

She raised an eyebrow. "You want to get into Malfoy's boxers? Both of you?"

"Oh, shut up," said Ron. "You know what we mean."

"Fine. Go for it. But if you get caught, remember I had nothing to do with it." Hermione stomped off.

"Wait, what do we want from Malfoy that we could blackmail him for?" said Harry.

"Well, nothing, really. But we could certainly make fun of him for quite a while!"

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Harry next saw Draco after dinner the next night. "Hey, Malfoy," he started.

Draco saw it coming. "Oh, no, the weasel told you too, eh?"

Harry just smirked.

Draco sighed. "Well, in my defense, I only had those because I managed to get my sleeve in something Longbottom mixed up, and it ended up setting fire to all my clothes. So don't get so high-and-mighty Gryffindor on me. I can probably dig up something on you, too, O Impervious Potter." With that, he turned and swaggered off as fast as he could possibly swagger, holding his bag tightly to his side.

Harry watched him go with a small smile on his face. Tucking the last fold of fabric solidly into the bottom of his own bag, he knew he was winning. "What kind of freak carries their teddy boxers around in their bag anyway?" he muttered to himself.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Draco was furious when he discovered them missing. "And I was worried about someone finding them in my room," he muttered. "Now I've gone and dropped them!" He moved to bang his head against the wall, but thought better of it before he got there.

Retracing his steps in search of the wayward underwear, he ran into Harry.

"Lost something, Malfoy?" taunted Harry.

Understanding, Draco scowled at him. "Give them, Potter. Or I'll..."

"Cry for your mommy? Oh no! Can't have poor little Draco acting like the litte kid he is..."

Draco kicked Harry in the shin, and he clutched his leg in pain. "OW! That wasn't fair!"

"Doesn't look like we're playing fair, Potter. Game's on." Draco stormed back to the Slytherin common room to consider this new twist of events and plot his next move.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Harry didn't realise until he stepped out of the shower that all his underwear were missing. He dug frantically through all his clothes, eliciting the concern of his roommates, and all he found was a single feather.

At breakfast, he found more just like it - on Draco's owl. He scowled across the hall for half an hour and Draco just grinned. As he left the Great Hall, Draco dropped a piece of paper on Harry's lap. Harry unfolded it suspiciously. All it said was, "PAYBACK!"

"Game's on, Malfoy," he muttered.

But first he needed some new underwear.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Draco had the same idea, and so it was that they collided unexpectedly in the tunnel to Hogsmeade.

"Ow!" exclaimed Harry, "What is that?"

"What indeed," said Draco. "What are you doing here, Potter?"

"I didn't even know you knew about this path, Malfoy. Out to cause trouble?" He glared.

"Have you so little faith in me? Out to get clothes, more like," said Draco flippantly.

Harry's sarcasm kicked in. "Me too. The one thing we've ever had in common. Wow."

"You're going to trust your clothes around me, Potter?"

"I'd heard clothes weren't safe around you, but I'll take my chances. This time."

"Always the brave one." Draco grabbed Harry's sleeve and threw him off balance, causing him to fall. "Whoops, better watch the clothes!"

Harry narrowed his eyes threateningly, which didn't have much effect on Draco because the tunnel was so dim that they could barely see. "So it's that, eh, Malfoy?" He grabbed Draco by the collar and threw him against the wall.

Draco abandoned the idea of a clothing fight and punched Harry in the stomach. Harry doubled over, but took the chance to drag Draco to the floor. They proceeded to have a catfight such as no catfight has ever been had - until they remembered that they were mortal enemies, and also that neither of them were wearing underwear.

In complete silence, they extricated themselves from the tangles of each other's robes.

"No one will hear about this," hissed Draco.

Harry agreed wholeheartedly. He was about to say something about it when he heard a noise. "What's that?" he whispered.

"Don't try to trick me, Potter," said Draco. But then he heard it too - Filch was coming down the tunnel!

"Oh bloody hell. Nowhere to hide!" he said, panicking.

Just before Filch came around the bend, Harry extinguished the light coming from his wand and threw his invisibility cloak over both of them. They squashed themselves against the wall, their eyes pinned on Filch. He passed without incident, but they continued down the dark path wearing the invisibility cloak anyway. Their nerves were rather shaken.

It did them no more good to come upon the end of the tunnel. Filch stood by it, painstakingly fastening the barrier to the walls. "No more nasty students sneaking away now, Mrs. Norris." Mrs. Norris meowed maliciously in reply.

Harry and Draco waited until Filch and Mrs. Norris had gone, then sunk to the floor. "But what about our underwear!" yelled Draco frustratedly.

"My butt is cold, damnit," said Harry, and spread the invisibility cloak on the floor.

"This is all your fault, Potter," said Draco.

"Why? It was you who set all your clothes on fire."

"There were so many things wrong with that sentence I can't even start."

"Well, technically, you did."

"Technically, I can do this as well." Draco whipped out his wand and set fire to Harry's clothes.

Harry screamed like a little girl. "You bastard! I'm wearing these!" He hit Draco, spreading the fire. Draco screamed like a little girl as well, and they ran around in circles screaming until they managed to extinguish themselves.

"And now, we are not only underwearless, half our other clothes are gone as well. Good going, Malfoy. We can't go back to the castle like this!"

Malfoy sighed and shook his head. "I didn't intend for both of us to be set aflame. Now there isn't anybody to even go fetch extra clothes. So we have to wait until night to go back."

"I could take the invisibility cloak."

"And run into somebody, and make them panic? It's way too crowded at this time of day. We'd get caught for sure. And I don't believe you'd come back for me."

"You just want to keep me here with you, Malfoy," Harry teased.

"Yeah, to inflict pain and suffering upon myself. I can't help it. Get a grip, Potter."

They passed the time arguing for a couple of hours before they heard another noise. This time McGonagall was upon them before they had a chance to hide behind the cloak.

"I don't know what you two are doing, but it better be some sort of romantic tryst." They looked at each other in confusion and slight revulsion. "Because," McGonagall continued, "if you are fighting again, I might have to arrange to have you two both expelled. All the teachers have had enough of your constant sparring."

They tried to hide the most burnt sides of their clothing. "Um, yeah," said Draco. Harry nodded mutely, not sure what he was agreeing to until Draco grabbed his hand tensely.

McGonagall rolled her eyes. "Neither of you are good liars," she said. "Wait here and I'll get you some unburnt clothes." She walked away down the tunnel, shaking her head.

After she was gone, Harry joked, "I had no idea, Draco," and batted his eyelashes.

"Don't start, Potter. If I get kicked out, my father will kill me. And if you get kicked out, wherever will you go?"

"Hawaii."

"Yeah, right."

"Fine, I'll play along. Just as long as the other students don't know."

"Of course they won't know. Not even McGonagall believes it."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The next morning, Draco found his teddy bear boxers - flying like a flag in front of the school. A laughing crowd surrounded the pole.

"Was there a pole there yesterday?" thought Draco out loud.

"Not as far as I know," grinned Harry, coming up next to him. "I wonder what poor bloke lost his underwear?"

"I've no idea," said Draco, deciding there was no way in hell he was going to sacrifice his pride and reputation for a pair of boxers.

A passing second-year Ravenclaw girl whistled at them.

"Which one of us was that for?" asked Draco.

"I didn't know you'd care," said the girl, surprised.

Confused, they watched her walk away in silence.

"What was that all about?" said Harry.

"You mean you haven't heard the rumours yet?" said Ron behind them.

Draco and Harry turned around in unison. "What rumours?"

"People have been saying that... well, you know, that there's something going on between you two. Apparently somebody heard Snape, or McGonagall, or Dumbledore, or Madam Hooch, or Filch, or who-knows-who, talking about both of you in the same sentence. You know how rumours go, we'll never know the... truth." He looked at them strangely.

"What?" said Harry, before realising that he was wearing the Slytherin robe McGonagall had brought for Draco last night. He hastily covered the logo. "And that is why one should not get dressed in the dark," he said, and ran for Gryffindor Tower.

Draco scowled at Ron and walked away, holding his hand over his own heart.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"So, Harry," said Ron.

"Yes, Ron?" said Harry.

"So, Harry," said Ron.

"You already said that, Ron," said Harry.

"I know," said Ron.

"So WHAT, Ron?

"Why, exactly, do you have Malfoy's clothes?"

Harry told him.

Ron broke into a relieved smile. "A fight. Good."

Harry laughed. "What did you think it was because of, Ron?"

Ron told him.

Harry's mouth dropped open. "My imagination does not extend to that when it comes to Malfoy."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Harry's imagination came up with a lot of very unpleasant things involving Malfoy when he discovered that everything in his bag was covered in glowing Slytherin-green ink. It took him and Hermione an hour and a half to restore his books to a readable state.

"So I've been hearing some interesting things about you and Malfoy," teased Hermione.

"Don't even start," said Harry. "I've heard some of them too."

"I assume they're not true, then."

"Of course not!"

"It's too bad Malfoy's such a rat. You two would be cute together." Hermione laughed.

Harry hit her with a book.

"So, that's a no?"

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*