Chapter Text
This year was going to be a perfectly normal year.
At least that’s what Harry had told himself on the way to Kings Cross, but that was before the barrier had sealed itself and Ron had had the brilliant idea to take Mr Weasley's flying car. If Remus and Sirius were there they probably wouldn’t have had the opportunity to make such a rash decision, but Remus and Sirius had said goodbye to Harry that morning before they both had to leave for work, leaving him in the care of Mr and Mrs Weasley, who were very much on the other side of the barrier to Harry and Ron.
Harry tells himself that it sounded like a perfectly good idea at the time, although the more he thinks about it the worse it becomes. If he’s honest, there really hadn’t been anything more to it than to twelve year old boys wanting to drive a flying car. Which, if Harry was really honest, he didn’t see any particular problem with, although Snape seems to think otherwise.
Sitting beside Ron in Snape's office, looking at the front page of the Evening Prophet and listening to Snape read the article aloud, Harry begins to wonder whether he’s just destined to always get into situations like these. Unlike Ron, Harry stays silent as Snape continues, but an awful knot does form in his stomach as the extent of the repercussions begin to dawn on him.
“Most unfortunately, Weasley, you are not in my house and the decision to expel you does not rest with me. I dare say that Professor Sprout will let you off with a lot less than you deserve, but I guess you’ll find that out yourself,” Snape says coldy before moving from behind his desk and opening the office door, “Weasley, come with me. Potter, you will wait here until I return.”
A lump in his throat joins the knot in his stomach and swallowing doesn’t do much to dispel it. There was no questioning it; he was getting expelled. The way the word had rolled off of his tongue, as if the very idea filled him with joy, made Harry shudder. He tries looking around the office to distract himself while he waits, but the questionable bottles of potion ingredients don’t do much to help him relax.
His mind moves quickly onto Ron and how his punishment’s going to end up being a lot less severe than whatever Snape gives him. After their argument things hadn’t fallen right back into place but they also hadn’t brought it up again either, moving on as if it hadn’t actually happened.
Harry isn’t sure how long Snape is gone for, but by the time he comes back he’s not sure if he’s shivering from nerves or from how long he’s been sitting in the dank, cold room. When the door closes with a loud thud Harry flinches and looks up just enough to be able to see Snape, once more behind his desk, weight resting on his hands that are splayed on the dark wood desk.
“Explain yourself then,” he says, voice cold but not as cold as Harry expected.
“A-aren’t you going to expel me?” Harry asks before he can help himself, he’d been so sure that his fate was already sealed the second Snape had shown them that paper.
Fingers rap impatiently against the wood, “I wasn’t planning on it, but I might have to reconsider if you continue to test my patience.”
Hands grasped tightly in his lap and knee bouncing out of anxious habit, he risks looking up properly only to meet Snape's cold black eyes. He regrets it immediately. Even in the low light of his office, Harry can see the twitch of his jaw as he waits for him to reply. So before he knows it he’s explaining it all, stuttering and stumbling as he tries to get his words out under Snape’s intense gaze, all the time avoiding meeting his eye again.
When he’s done Snape lets out a long sigh. “The incompetence of children will never fail to astound me, did it not occur to you you could have sent us an owl? Or waited for an adult, just because you couldn’t get through the barrier doesn’t mean they couldn’t apparate back.”
Harry thinks of the two-way mirror in his trunk and how he knows Sirius always carries its counterpart with him at all times. Now he thinks about it properly there’s countless other things they could have done, but Ron’s sudden idea at the time had seemed completely logical.
Realising Harry isn’t going to say anything, Snape lets out an irritated noise, finally sitting down. Leaning back and placing his hands together in contemplation, he looks at Harry analytically, as if he’s trying to figure out the next move in a game of chess. Harry struggles not to squirm whilst he waits in silence, the only sound a soft dripping somewhere near the back of the room.
“You have flouted the Degree for the Restriction of Underage Wizardry and caused serious damage to an old and valuable tree,” he pauses, intertwining every finger except the index’s before bringing them to his lips in further thought, “however, expulsion isn’t an option.”
He doesn’t elaborate on expulsion not being an option any further and Harry decides it unwise to ask.
“Your potions grades last year were barely passable, and don’t think I don’t know Miss Granger helped you with the written work,” Harry starts at the seemingly sudden change of subject, how can his potions grade have anything to do with this? “You will have weekly detentions with me from next week up until Christmas, and if I catch you getting help from Miss Granger again I’ll have to reconsider your place on the Slytherin Quidditch team.”
Harry stares in astonishment at his head of house. He’d been certain he was a goner. He isn’t even sure what Remus and Sirius would have said if he did actually get expelled.
He leaves Snape's office in a daze. In any other, less servere circumstance, the idea of weekly detentions with Snape would sound like absolute torture, but right now he feels like he’s witnessed a miracle.
***
As he’d expected, Pansy’s waiting for him when he finally gets to the Slythern common room, quite literally on the edge of her seat with anticipation. It’s not just Pansy that greets him though as George is by his side before he knows it.
“That was brilliant! ” says George before Pansy reaches him. “Can’t believe you didn’t call me and Fred back though.”
“Uh, sorry?”
“Never mind that,” says Pansy, who stops no more than a few inches from his face, brown eyes staring at him imploringly, “how in Merlin’s name did Snape not kill you on the spot? Blaise and I thought you’d been expelled.”
“So did I,” Harry admits sheepishly, very aware of nearly everyone in the common room looking his way. Some look impressed, but mostly it’s just looks of silent judgement, as if Harry himself is no more than something nasty stuck on the bottom of their shoes.
Currently, he doesn’t want to think about what Hermione’s reaction is going to be, let alone how Remus and Sirius will react, he just hopes they’ll be glad to know he hasn’t been expelled for it. The mere thought of Remus and Sirius makes his stomach tie itself into the same knots that had only just begun to untie themselves.
Despite how sick he feels, he entertains Pansy for a bit by answering all her questions, knowing if he doesn’t do it now he’ll have to do it in the morning either just before or at the exact same time he’ll have to deal with Hermione’s reaction to the whole thing.
In an unexpected turn of events, he finds himself feeling better for talking to Pansy. Due to the whole Dobby situation they’d only been writing to each other for the last few weeks of the summer; he hadn’t admitted it to himself at the time but now he’s talking to her face to face it’s obvious that he’s missed her. He even finds himself thinking about inviting her to Grimmauld Place over the Christmas holidays. Of course he’d have to check with Remus and Sirius and he’s not entirely sure how they’d feel about it.
And there it is again, the feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. It’s as if someone has quite literally filled it with stones, like that goat had done to the wolf in one of the stories they’d read in his primary school, the only difference being Harry definitely hadn’t eaten any live goats.
“I’m pretty tired, I think I’m going to go to bed,” he says suddenly, interrupting Pansy halfway through whatever she was saying whilst Harry was zoned out.
“Oh, alright then,” replies Pansy who, to her credit, does look a little concerned as he stands up to leave.
“Night,” he calls before ascending the steps to the boys dormitories and he thinks he’s just able to hear her reply from halfway up the stairs.
The boys that are already there don’t break their tradition of not speaking to him, but he catches a few of their eyes and if he’s not mistaken there’s at least an inkling of respect there. Trying not to think about it too much, he gets changed and into bed, pulling the curtains shut around him as if sealing the rest of the world out with just a piece of fabric.
It hadn’t taken Draco any longer than it had taken anyone else to find out what Potter and Weasley have already managed to get themselves into this year. Inexplicably, whilst the rest of the Ravenclaw table had argued whether it was an act of stupidity or brilliance his first thought after hearing of the incident had been dedicated to worrying if the two of them were okay. The second after that had been about the consequences the whole ordeal would have on the Weasley family. He quickly shook himself out of that however, he didn’t give a toss about the blood traitors and he wasn’t going to start anytime soon, being civil towards Ron was purely for keeping up his friendship with Potter.
Potter, being the boy he’s not entirely certain hasn’t just been expelled. He thinks surely they wouldn’t expel The Boy Who Lived, but he also realises that the decision lies in the hands of Professor Snape, who he conveniently notices isn’t at the professors table.
Near the end of the feast, long after the first years have been sorted, Pansy manages to sneak over to their table. Tapping him on the shoulder, she waits for him to turn around before leaning over to swipe a finger through the icing on his slice of cake, grinning and licking it off her finger before she deigns him fit to listen to whatever she has to say. Nudging Terry until he moves over, she slides onto the bench next to him.
“Pansy, you’re supposed to be at your house table,” he berates, more concerned at the attention being brought to them than her getting in trouble.
“I know, but as you can see, I’m not.” Pansy also clearly doesn’t care about the possibility of getting trouble, but unlike Draco she doesn’t seem to care about the people staring either.
“To what do I owe the pleasure, then?” he asks reluctantly, knowing she won’t leave until she’s said her piece.
“I don’t doubt you’ve heard about Harry?” she asks, not outwardly looking concerned, but Draco can hear it in the slight change in her voice.
“I have,” he replies, ignoring the looks from the students sitting around them.
“You don’t know any more than anyone else then?” she asks and Draco frowns at her.
“How would I know more than you, you were practically attached to him at the hip last year.”
“Yes, well you’ve probably noticed that isn’t currently the case, I checked with Granger and she doesn’t know where he is either, and I told her I’d ask you just in case,” increasingly more people are looking and Draco really wonders why there isn’t anything more interesting for people to pay attention to than two second years. He assumes it has something to with how loudly Pansy had said ‘Harry.’
“Well, you asked and I don’t know, so,” he pauses and rolls his eyes as she takes another lot of icing. “Will you stop stealing my food and go back to your own table?”
She rolls her eyes back at him and lets out a huff. “Now, now, don't get your wand in a knot because your boyfriend might have been expelled.”
“What in Merlin's name-” he cuts himself off because she’s already stood up and turned away with a flick of her short, black hair and begun the walk back to the Slytherin table.
Turning back to his own table, he refuses to make eye contact with anyone else, but not until he’s surveyed exactly how much attention Pansy’s impromptu visit to their table has gathered. Fortunately, only a few of the new first years still seem to be staring.
Most of the new Ravenclaws hadn’t caught his attention, he recognised a few of the pure-blood names but besides them none of them particularly stood out. This was all excluding the Lovegood girl, who was wearing pink glasses-which didn’t appear to serve any practical use- and keys dangling from her ears.
People continue to mutter speculations about Potter and Weasley but Draco doesn’t join in. Terry, proving himself a better friend than Draco had thought previously, starts up a conversation about the upcoming tryouts for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, a topic he talks about with easy enthusiasm, the occasional anxiety slipping through.
Soon it’s time for them to go back to their respective common rooms. It’s not all that late and he plays a couple games of wizard chess against some of the other restless students before retiring to their dormitory before any of the others. Digging through his trunk that’s already at the end of his bed, he pulls out the latest book Hermione had sent him and situates himself in the windowsill with it to read up until he hears footsteps on the stairs.
***
From the Ravenclaw table the next morning at breakfast Draco is delighted to be able to get a good view of the howler Weasley receives. Coupled with the weird relief he feels when he realises Potter hasn’t been expelled he decides the school year hasn’t got off to too bad a start.
After breakfast his first lesson is Transfiguration with the Hufflepuffs and naturally Weasley doesn’t grace him with conversation. It’s a relatively uneventful lesson minus the entertainment that comes from watching Weasley try to cast spells with a broken wand. At the end of the lesson he’s left with a small collection of shiny black buttons that had been beetles just an hour before so he considers it a continuation of the good start to the year.
Next is Herbology, which he assumed would give him a chance to properly catch up with Potter and Pansy. As even though he had a regular correspondence with Pansy the issue with their house elf had meant he hadn’t been able to communicate with Potter until the last few weeks of the summer. Whilst he hadn’t told his father about what Dobby had been up to, he had had a rather serious talk with the house elf himself, which had involved threatening to actually tell his father if he didn’t stop. To the elves credit he’d been extremely apologetic, however he was always like that no matter what he’d done.
Draco doesn’t miss Potter being waylaid by Lockhart and when he slips into the greenhouse he shoots a wry smile in his direction in direct response to the clear irritation on his face. Once Potter takes his place next to Pansy on the other side of the length of tables down the centre of the greenhouse Professor Sprout begins to tell them about the Mandrakes they will be repotting. After watching Professor Sprout demonstrate how to re-pot a Mandrake, Draco decides that his good day has abruptly come to an end.
Removing his earmuffs when she makes it clear that it's safe to do so, he listens to the rest of what she has to say then finds a tray with Terry.
“Decided to befriend this year’s Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher instead of trying to kill him?” he asks Potter when he and Pansy join them on the other side of the tray.
“Don’t, he thinks I want to be famous, it’s awful,” Potter complains.
“Are you saying you're not?” Draco asks mockingly, raising an eyebrow at him.
Potter glares, Draco grins, then their earmuffs are back on and there’s no chance for any further conversation. The task of transferring the Mandrakes to larger pots is just as awful a task as Draco had thought it would be. Merely looking at their mottled green baby-like bodies is enough to make him want to quit, but that isn’t exactly an option so he persists.
At the end of class, despite his best efforts to put as little effort in as possible without attracting attention from Professor Sprout, he is as sweaty, achy and covered in dirt as the rest of their class. The bell for lunch sounds, but rushing to the Great Hall is postponed in place of traipsing back up to the castle for a wash first. After he’s removed as much dirt from his hands and uniform as possible he says goodbye to his fellow Ravenclaws in favour of joining Potter and Pansy; deciding observing Weasleys bad mood might serve in improving his deflated one. So he’s particularly satisfied watching his scowl deepen when he joins them at the Gryffindor table.
His plan had been to antagonise him, but he chooses instead to just spend the duration of their lunch talking to Pansy. Weasley’s expression tells him that he’s waiting for Draco to say something, which means that Draco is going to observe his growing anticipation and say nothing.
When they've finished eating the five of them go outside to the courtyard, Draco was hoping to talk to Granger, but she quickly sits on one of the stone steps and buries her nose in a book that Draco recognises as one of Lockhart’s. Partly aiming to see how far he can infuriate Weasley by just existing he joins in with his and Potter’s conversation about Quidditch whilst Pansy makes the occasional scathing comment to show her distaste towards the sport.
“What does he want?” asks Pansy suddenly, nudging Draco gently to make sure she’s got his attention. Simultaneously, the four of them look up to see a small, mousy-haired boy, who Draco recognises as one of the first years that had been sorted the night before. To the boy, Potter seems to be the only one of them who exists judging by how intently he’s staring at him. In his hands he holds what Draco thinks is a camera, although it doesn’t look like any camera he’s ever seen so there’s no other option than to assume it’s Muggle.
“Alright, Harry? I’m-I’m Colin Creevy,” he says breathlessly, taking a tentative step towards them. “I really wanted to be in Slytherin like you, even though everyone else told me that Slytherin is the bad house, I really did ask the hat, but it put me in Gryffindor anyway, but that’s okay. I’m just so excited to be at Hogwarts. Do you think-would it be alright if-can I have a picture?”
He raises his camera hopefully and whilst Potter’s slow to realise what he’s asking, Draco can’t help but laugh.
“I think you’ve got yourself a fan, Harry,” Pansy says with amusement.
Potter either isn’t listening or ignores her as he blinks at Colin blankly. “A picture?”
He starts talking again and Draco can’t quite believe how many words come out his mouth in such a short amount of time, spilling out faster and with more enthusiasm than Granger reciting textbooks.
“-maybe your friend could take it and I could stand next to you? And then, could you sign it?” he finishes and Draco’s extremely happy he decided not to sit with the Ravenclaws today.
“Signed photos?” he mocks, before Potter can formulate his own response.
Weasley shoots him a warning look, but unfortunately for Weasley he takes that as a challenge.
“Everyone queue up!” he calls because he’s in a good mood and he feels like messing about. “Harry Potter’s giving out signed photos.”
“No, I’m not,” says Potter angrily, his eyebrows drawing together in irritation.
He doesn’t think he’s said anything bad, but Potter’s body language seems to disagree, and he daren't look at Weasley.
Draco backtracks quickly. “Calm down, Potter, I was just joking.”
He only fully realises he’s struck a nerve he should have been careful not to when Weasley starts towards him. Pansy grabs his arm, dragging him away quick as lightning just at Lockhart is approaching.
“It was a joke,” he insists as they barge through the crowd of students to get out of the courtyard.
“You think I don’t know that?” she says, no sign of annoyance in her voice at all.
They emerge from the crowd and Pansy keeps them moving until they’re in a nearly empty section of the corridor. She lets go of his arm then and the two of them stand in silence.
Draco’s really not sure what had set Potter off, he hadn’t had malicious intent with his words, he really had just been messing around.
He shakes himself out of it, since when did he genuinely care what Potter thought?
“Draco?” His gaze snaps up to Pansy. “Do you want me to talk to him about it?”
“Merlin no, really, it doesn’t matter, I don’t care,” he says because he doesn’t, he really couldn't care less if Potter likes him, he’s not the one that’d forced the fragile friendship on them anyway, that had all been Potter’s idea. He’d only agreed in the end because he wanted to know what they were up to.
“I’m going to talk to him anyway,” she declares resolutely.
“Pansy, no,” Draco insists but then the bell for the end of lunch sounds and they’re heading in different directions to different lessons.
Entering Lockhart's classroom, he takes a seat at the back of the class between Terry and Goldstein, removing the pile of Lockhart’s books from his bag and piling them in front of him in order to block Hermione’s judgemental glare from the front of the room.
No one laughs at Lockhart’s joke when he introduces himself.
“He sounds like one of those presenters on the wireless,” whispers Terry, loud enough for the whole row of Ravenclaw boys to hear, he scrunches his nose distastefully.
“Nah, he totally sounds like he should be a guy on one of those infomercials,” argues Rivers, grinning as Corner and Goldstein nod in agreement, wide grins on their faces.
Draco has absolutely no idea what they’re on about and is glad to see that Terry shares a similar look of confusion, so he decides it’s probably a Muggle thing and, therefore better not to ask. The easy conversation between them helps improve his mood after the scene that went down at lunch, he’s glad none of them were there otherwise he’s sure they’d already be asking him about it.
“Quieten down, boys,” Lockhart tells them as he brushes past, placing five tests on the end of the table. Terry passes them down and each of their expressions turns to a frown when they look at the paper.
“He can’t be serious,” mutters Corner.
“I don’t know, seems like a pretty Lockhart thing to do to me,” Terry replies.
From the front of the room Lockhart warns them a detention awaits if they don’t quieten down so the five of them fall silent, trying their best to focus on their tests.
He answers the test questions, but doesn’t try to get any of them right, he may care about his grades but he doesn’t deem this at all worth his effort.
After what seems like an excruciatingly long amount of time but turns out to have only been fifteen minutes when he checks the clock, he gives up. Looking up slightly, he catches sight of Granger across the classroom, who seems to have already finished her quiz and is now spending her time looking dreamily at Lockhart.
He scowls at her even though she’s not looking. Back in the courtyard he hadn’t had a chance to gauge her reaction to the situation so he’s not quite sure how she feels about the whole thing. Really, the only thing he has to go off of is the glare she’d given him at the start of the lesson, which didn’t bode well for him.
Finally, Lockhart collects their tests, boosts Granger’s ego then reaches below his desk to retrieve a large, covered cage. For a second Draco thinks they’re actually going to learn something, but that thought disappears as soon as Lockhart lets the Cornish pixies out of their cage. Knowing his creatures and beasts better than he ought to as a second year, he finds Finnigan’s and some of the other students' laughter rather foolish. Whilst pixies aren’t by definition dangerous, they are absolutely a pain to deal with. So when they turn into electric blue blurs and start causing chaos he can’t say he’s at all surprised.
Amid the high pitched noise of the pixies and the screaming and shouting of other students, he can’t even hear himself think. Within minutes the classroom is ruined. Smashed windows, torn books and Longbottom has been hung from the candle chandelier in the centre of the ceiling by his robes. Unsurprisingly all Lockhart does is cast a spell Draco’s almost certain doesn’t exist-it wasn’t even Latin, for Merlin’s sake-before ducking under his own desk.
Surrounded by mess, people, pixies and so much noise Draco can’t concentrate and almost sinks below the desks himself, but then his eyes drift towards the door and he quickly weaves through the rest of the panicking second years until he reaches it and is able to slip out into the empty corridor. As he closes the door behind him he hears a crash above the rest of the noise and Longbottoms screams, no doubt because he’s fallen from the chandelier. He ignores it, shutting the door behind him and hoping no one noticed he’d slipped out.
When the bell goes and the door flies open students rush, almost clambering over each other in their urgency. That coupled with the painfully high jabbering that’s still coming from the classroom leads him to the conclusion that the pixies didn’t end up back in their cage.
“Do you really think I didn’t notice you slipping out? Come on, you can help me,” says Granger, bringing up the rear of the line of students. Not letting him get a word in before she grabs the sleeve of his robes and pulls him back inside the hell that is the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom.
“Where’s Lockhart?” Draco asks after scanning the classroom and realising he’s nowhere to be seen.
“He went back into his office. He probably has a lot to do, being an author and a professor…” she trails off, casting a Freezing Charm and immobilising two pixies at once.
Swatting one away that was beelinging for his face, he copies Granger's spell. The smirk on the pixies electric blue face freezes along with the rest of its body, which remains suspended in the air.
Draco’s convinced Lockhart just didn’t want to clean up his own mess, but he’s not in the mood to tell Granger she’s wrong so he just follows her lead, plucking the pixie from the air and chucking it back in it’s cage.
“I’ve got your book,” he says, reaching into his bag to retrieve it, he’d ended up finishing it even after the other boys had come up to the dormitory, cover pressed firmly against his legs so they couldn’t see what he was reading, not that he knows what reputation he’s trying to uphold at this point, had he not been very clearly hanging around with Granger by choice at lunch?
Granger sighs, but takes the book from him, placing it in her own bag. “You need to apologise, you know.”
“To Potter?” he asks, already having known the conversation was going to go in this direction.
“And Ron, he was really upset after Flourish and Blotts.”
This, he was not expecting and he looks at her incredulously, batting a pixie away when it comes too close to his face. “I didn’t say anything in Flourish and Blotts.”
“I think that was his problem.”
He lets out a frustrated noise through his teeth. “It’s not my choice what my father decides to do.”
“I know that, but you don’t have to act like you agree with him.”
“I never said I don’t agree with him.”
Granger turns to him then, sudden and meaningful, he meets her eye and sees fire. “Then why are you here, Malfoy? Why are you talking to me? Or Harry? I’d say Ron but you haven’t said a single pleasant thing to him since you met.”
“I haven’t and I don’t intend to, he and his family are filthy blood traitors.”
Really, they’re rehearsed words, words learnt from his father. Does he really believe them? He doesn’t know. He feels like he’s playing a part, the part of Lucius Malfoy, because is that not what he is?
No, he’s not. His father brought him up to be a respectable member of wizarding society and the Weasleys are filthy blood traitors, disrespecting wizard kind. Guilt festers from all the Muggle books he’s read over the summer without his parents' knowledge. He shouldn’t like them, he doesn’t want to like them.
“I think you’d better leave,” Granger says, it’s quiet and dangerous, he hears her well enough even through the noise of the still mobile pixies.
“I think you’re right,” he replies, slinging his bag over his shoulder and leaving the classroom without looking back.