Purusu

Chapter the Next

Our first year of Lethal Potions was a little better than the regular Potions of years before, since Snape now spent most of his time co-teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts. Supposedly some of the seventh year potions interns were taking care of the newer students, giving Snape more time to help teach his desired class. We, however, in the high and mighty fifth year, were dealing with highly advanced potions, and needed Snape's very important instruction for the first half hour or so of class. And no, I don't really like Snape, either.

Transfiguration, Charms, Herbology, History--most of the classes were the same. Defense Against the Dark Arts was not particularly smashing, but a lot it was blocking curses, and it wasn't like I hadn't had enough of that.

All right, so I haven't had as much practice blocking curses as casting them.....

I would have thought, at least, that seeing Potter suffer through two Snape classes would be worth the rest of it put together, but I was wrong there, too. The gags and sport we usually enjoyed throughout class had boiled down to the same old, same old, we snigger while Snape gets all bossy. The fun was gone.

Or perhaps the Quidditch might have cheered me up. I love Quidditch. Maybe you don't notice it enough, maybe you're too busy watching me plot and be evil. But it really is the only cool thing in my life.

Was. Was the only cool thing.

And so, the whole first half of the year passed with little or no trouble--no complicating monsters, evil masterminds taking over, serial killers in the school or even especially stupid teachers.

Nope, the only especially stupid people were my friends. Of course.

"Hey, Malfoy! Watch this!" I watched halfheartedly as Goyle flung a pea across the lunch table at Crabbe. Lunch was noisy. It was January and freezing outside, and inside too, and I was tired from practicing Quidditch the entire day before and then procrastinating well into the morning, and there was a game today and Potter was going to kick my ass again and there'd be yelling from somebody or other and all I really wanted to do was go to sleep some more. Uh, anyway, the pea. It hit him in the eye, and he got all angry and picked up a glob of potatoes in his hand, leaning over the table. I sighed and slid a few feet away from them both, which put me next to Pansy instead.

"Draco!" Her eyes went wide and she clapped her hands down on mine before I could retract. "Oh, your hands are freezing! Come here." She yanked me closer, pinning my hands between us. I wondered if struggling was an option. Nah. "Poor Drakie, so cold, and with all that pressure for the match today....those Quidditch robes are warm enough, aren't they? Oh, you know I think you look really great in those robes--"

Quidditch. Quidditch I can talk about. Pansy I hate.

I can play Quidditch extremely well. You watch the school's matches, you ooh and aah when Potter snags the snitch every time, you all enjoy a nice chuckle at those cheating Slytherins and their white little seeker--come on, don't deny it. But just you remember that Potter's born under some magical celestial sign of popularity and success and the rest of us actually have to try at everything we do. I try to play Quidditch, I've been playing since I was six or something. I am a damn good seeker.

Uh, anyway. Pansy kept talking about me and how cold I was, and I decided to leave lunch early. My head hurt from the nonstop chatter in the packed hall, my stomach was not dealing with the menu, Pansy made me sick, and my chest was hurting.

It was always hurting. It was the damn moisture. And the cold. I wished the snow would melt.

***

This is hard to talk about, this next part. And no, it's not even about the match, and you can guess who was the star of all that. Anyway, this part started with a fight, and I guess I started it, but that doesn't matter.

It makes sense that it came then, after the fight; I mean, I should have seen it coming, with all the chills and pain, but.....I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm hoping to get past this part as soon as I can. I don't like it. However, I can talk about fights pretty well. So here I go:

It was a pretty intense fight. It happened the next morning during Charms. Even if it had taken place in the first thirty minutes of our Lethal Potions class with Snape selectively ignoring us, I probably wouldn't have gotten away with it. But I mean, its not like I was trying to get into a spat with Potter--it just happened. You know.

So Flitwick left the room and I said something to somebody and laughed, and then it was a heroic "Leave him alone, Malfoy!" and one of those defiant glares and then it was something along the lines of "So it's my fault he's got such a fat head?" and then it was........well, you know how Potter blows his top being the protector of the innocent and all.

I really did have the upper hand in the verbal contest--as usual--but he was already going for his wand and so then I was going for mine. "Going to fight me, eh, Potter?" and then I blinded him, though I'm not exactly an expert yet on blinding, so I was going to do something better but he'd already crashed into Pansy, who shrieked and fell with him. Granger set about trying to fix the curse, and I decided to laugh because it seemed like the right thing to do, then Weasley jumped up, and I was ready to deflect whatever curse he was going to pull, but he surprised me by rushing me head on instead.

Well, Crabbe jumped out in front of me and collided with Weasley, and they rolled out of the way, so I was about to curse Granger now when Potter gets back up and actually manages to disarm me--I hit the other wall hard, orienting myself enough to sit up after a moment. Looking around for my wand, I abandoned the search when Mr. Tall Dark and Handsome started to run at me. I tried to punch him as he came, but he was bent low and smashed into me and then into the wall, leaving us both on the floor.

I took his wand and used it to summon mine, and holding both wands I did what I could to kick his face, but he was pretty squirmy and now Granger was pulling him away from me. I threw Potter's wand across the room and started to curse him again when the room fell silent and professor Flitwick trundled in.

Anyway, that was the end of the fight. I wasn't cold anymore, but worked up and hot. My heart was pounding very loudly in my ears; it was hard to hear whatever was being said, though it's safe to say that Potter and I were excused from Charms class that day.

So, you see, I won that battle. Even if Potter never ended up dead or horribly cursed or missing limbs or anything. Consequences aside, however, I'd certainly lost the next one.

===============================================================

The boy named Harry Potter scratched the back of his calf with one foot, ashamed to look up. Draco Malfoy stood next to him, several feet to his left. The other boy's eyes were to the ground as well, and he looked otherwise sulky--but certainly not as horrible as Harry felt.

Deep down, Harry knew that one fight was not going to outdo his four-years-in-a-row of saving the school or the wizarding world in general from obscure doom, but loosing even a little of Dumbledore's admiration was enough punishment to him. He looked down; he shouldn't have gone for his wand. Malfoy wasn't worth the trouble. But he had.

Dumbledore spoke softly in a low, unusual monotone. "I understand, gentlemen, when two individuals happen to get along poorly, for whatever reason. But the good professors of this institution and myself would be far more satisfied if you both learned to get through your life here without any more incidents such as these."

Harry noticed vaguely that Malfoy was breathing loudly. He didn't look up from the spot on the bottom of Dumbledore's desk, however. The headmaster continued. "It would be quite easy for the two of you, mutual enemies as it may be, to decisively ignore each other and carry on without any more of these interruptions."

Draco, used to ignoring lectures, had his mind elsewhere. And he did not know what to do.

His shoulder hurt. His chest hurt. There was still a throbbing in his head from hitting the wall. And his heartbeat--the rush had stopped for a while, but had just started again a moment ago; heavy, fast pulsating and a thick feeling rising from the center of his chest into his neck and shoulders.

Ah, he should have seen it coming.

He could remember having only two or three of these episodes in the past, both when he was relatively young. Oh, there'd been minor attacks since the last big one, when he was eight or so, but...no, this one was definitely a big one. You could tell with the big ones, they creeped up on you, lingering there for a few days until you did something, and then striking, intensifying quickly--until you died or found a doctor, anyway. Wondering why it hadn't happened at during the Quidditch match the day before, he tried to regulate his breathing. He kept his eyes fixed on a globe behind Dumbledore's head, taking deep breaths like he remembered someone--at some time--telling him to do. He could almost sense Harry's eyes slip toward him, but even that was less important than this.

All the muscles in his chest and arms clenched, Draco's teeth gnashed and his breath became even shorter, faster. His left shoulder was on fire. It burned from the socket and was numb down to his fingers. His other arm started to shake. He couldn't breathe.

He could not. Breathe.

It's time to say something, he thought, steadily loosing his calm, his head suddenly feeling light; it's not going to blow over. Nope. Need a doctor.

He said, "Professor Dumbledore. . ." He did not hear Dumbledore respond, nor see him stand up. He said it again, louder--maybe Dumbledore hadn't heard him--

Then his back arched.

"Catch him, Harry." Dumbledore was moving around his desk, but since Harry was closer, he obediently if not somewhat nervously caught Draco as he slumped to the side. The now-gasping boy's face was flushed red; Dumbledore instructed Harry to lay him flat. One of Draco's hands was clutching his shoulder, the other was pinned to his chest.

Harry felt a little sick as he watched Dumbledore quickly examine the boy; a part of him was fearful for this usually-healthy-and-breathing-five-year acquaintance (acquaintance?) of his, but the other part sure it was being faked, another classic Malfoy ploy that would earn big laughs back in the Slytherin common room. But could this be faked--a spell or something? Not sufficiently trained in magical medicine, Harry crouched motionless and stiff, his stomach freezing, heavy and unhappy, while Draco Malfoy began to turn purple and jerk in convulsions on the floor before him.

Dumbledore wasted no more time in examination. He picked Malfoy off the floor with surprising ease (Though Draco didn't look like he weighed too much, anyway,) and was gone from his office, leaving Harry only with instructions to "wait here."

Harry did, and for an hour. Professor McGonagall retrieved him eventually and delivered him to the Gryffindor dormitory; his detention, she told him, was pending.