Unlikely Beginnings

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Chapter Ten

After Care of Magical Creatures, they had another ten minutes of free time
before the next class started, and they were on their way up to Gryffindor
Tower to get their books for the next class. Ron and Hermione still had a
bit of a lead on Harry, and he was glad for the privacy. He hadn\'t really
noticed before how good Draco actually looked. Harry had to admit he liked
the silver blond hair, a lot. He\'d never seen a Muggle with hair naturally
colored that light, and he supposed some might think it made Draco look a
bit like a girl. In fact, he\'d heard people say that before, but he didn\'t
agree with them. It went perfectly wellh hih his eyes and his sharp
features, and was he really thinking about Draco\'s eyes?

Harry shook his head at himself before he got to the Fat Lady\'s portrait.
\"Bumblebee Tuna,\" Harry said to her, and she nodded and swung herself open,
and slapped shut behind him. Harry felt a tug as he took his next steps past
the doorway, or tried to, at least. He looked behind and saw that a draw
string from his bag had caught in the door. Guess she\'s having a bad day, he
thought, before he heard a shout from upstairs.

\"IS THAT HARRY?!\" Ron screamed down the stairs. Lavender and Parvati were
already in the common room, and shook their heads at the yelled question.
Harry could imagine Ron asking every time he heard the door open and shut,
and just as easily could picture Lavender screaming right back at him. Harry
grinned at them before walking to the stairs to the boy\'s dormitories.

He dropped his bag onto a chair as he went, and started up the stairs and
went straight to the room he shared with Ron, Neville, Dean and Seamus. He
found Ron pacing around between their beds, staring at Harry\'s trunk,
clearly wanting to rip the lid off and go through it. \"What\'s up?\" Harry
asked, curious.

\"Oh, I wanted to ask a big favor of you, mate,\" he said, putting on his best
smile. Harry knew right then. That was something Ron had learned from Fred
and George, even if he didn\'t want to admit it. That smile meant that he
wanted a bit of help for some crazy idea.

\"Yeah?\" Harry asked, sitting down on his bed, and Ron sat down opposite him
on his own.

\"Could I borrow your Invisibility Cloak?\" Ron asked, and sort of squished up
his face, awaiting a \'No.\'.

Harry hadn\'t been expecting this, but then, what would he have been
expecting? He hadn\'t had time to think about what Ron would want, but this
seemed like a reasonable request. \"What do you need it for?\" Harry asked as
he got up and went to his trunk, Ron grinned when Harry did this, and moved
over to Harry\'s bed to watch as he drew the cloak out.

\"To skip Divination. I\'m going to tag along with Hermione to Muggle
Studies.\" Harry was surprised at this, but he supposed if he had been
listening to them more closely, he would have heard more of the specifics.
He wouldn\'t have known Ron to rather listen to some teacher, than sit in the
back of a room, albeit an incense smogged room, and have fun predicting
ridiculous events, not even paying attention to the professor.

\"Who teaches that again?\" Harry asked as he dug through his bag, looking for
the silvery material. \"Professor Tast?\"

\"Yeah, she\'s almost as old as Binns,\" Ron said, looking gleefully at the
cloak Harry had pulled out of his trunk.

Harry didn\'t want to picture an old woman that wrinkled, so he tried his
best to wipe that image out of his mind. And what did his brain want to
replace it with? Malfoy. \"Okay,\" Harry said, handing the cloak to Ron. \"But
make sure to bring it back, and don\'t rip it or anything.\"

Ron nodded and swore that he\'d take good care of it, leaving Harry to get
his Divination books. Oh, he hoped Harry would get his homework, as well.
Professor Trelawney may be more of a quack than anything else, but Ron had
always gotten good marks in her classes, if only for his originality.
Apparently, his spine was going to twist up and in twenty years, he\'d become
a snail-like being and need to wear some sort of protective outer covering
as a shell to keep his fragile, spongy body from being damaged.

Hermione was waiting with a big smile on her face when she saw Ron come out
of the boys\' stair well. \"Did he let you have it?\" she whispered to him, and
Ron nodded enthusiastically. \"Great, let\'s go.\"

Ron hadn\'t a clue where the Muggle Studies classroom really was, and he
hadn\'t even been on much of the West side of the castle at all, except if
he\'d gotten lost. Hermione knew the way, though, so they started on the trek
from the North side, where Gryffindor Tower was located, to the West. They
decided he should put the cloak on before they got into the corridor that
contained the Muggle Studies room, so people wouldn\'t see him going into the
room with Hermione, and then disappearing.

They made sure that no one was looking, and Ron swung the cloak around his
shoulders, and made sure it was all the way down to cover his shoes.
Hermione walked slowly so Ron\'s usual long strides wouldn\'t expose his feet.
They came to the door to her classroom, and waited for others to pass
through so they didn\'t try to walk closer to Hermione to get past the door,
coincidently, trying to walk right in the space that Ron was actually
occupying. Ron tried not to scuff his feet as he walked, and managed most of
the time, and he almost stumbled twice, but managed to right himself before
falling flat on his face, or tripping over the cloak and having it pulled
right off.

Hermione sat down at her desk, and Ron stayed standing beside her, he poked
a finger against her shoulder to let her know where he was, and he looked
around the room as the rest of the students got settled. There were maps
posted up on the walls, big outlines drawn on them showing unplottable areas
set aside for various purposes, and various flyers that had been collected
of memorable Muggle events. There was a long table along one wall, with
strange devices Ron had barely remembered seeing before when he was ever in
Muggle London.

One thing in particular caught his attention. A \'toaster\', claimed the label
above it, and Ron followed the strange cord that led from its base over the
edge of the table and nodded his head in a bit of false understanding. He
now saw what a \'plug\' really was, even if not what purpose it served, and
was a little more informed about his father\'s strange collection of the
things. He vaguely heard the door shut, and then heard a shuffling across
the floor, and turned, scanning his eyes over the back wall that was covered
in a giant bookshelf, before his focus landed on an old woman.

Professor Tast. She didn\'t quite hobble, and she didn\'t have any sort of
cane to help her walk, and Ron had the strange suspicion that she could very
well run down the hall at an alarming speed if it was needed. As she started
to dig in a folder for some papers, Ron looked for a place to set himself
down. He couldn\'t pull out the chair of one of the spare desks at the back
of the class, even if there was one right behind Hermione. It would look
strange to see the chair moving of its own accord, and then see the cloak
pulled up to reveal his feet as he sat down. No, the best thing he could do
was to pull his limbs in.

Hermione had described to him how the classes usually were; no one was going
to be walking around much, so Ron opted to simply sit cross legged on the
floor beside his friend\'s desk. He sat himself down with minimal noise, and
reached a hand out to press against Hermione\'s leg when he was settled. She
jumped a bit and looked down at the empty space on the aisle where she
presumed Ron was sitting, and she smiled. The elastic on her sock was pulled
back and let go to make a small snap against her calf, and she felt like
almost squirming at the content of Ron\'s hand, through the invisible silvery
material of the cloak, brushing against her bare skin exposed past the hem
of her skirt.

\"Now,\" Professor Tast started, drawing some of the students out of whispered
conversations with their neighbors. \"Last session we were in the \'W\'s on our
review for next week\'s test.\" Her voice was slightly gravelly, but sweet,
and you felt like going into her office for tea and sweets. Though, when
Hermione had been telling him about this (and she had been right in her
description of the old teacher) she had ended up telling him about a story
of Hansel and Gretel, and vaguely gave him the idea of this nice old lady at
the head of the class turning into a hag and trying to eat them if they
actually did accept a nice invitation to her office for tea. It was a scary
thought, but there was something about her that made you think there was
more than what you saw.

Getting off that oddly frightening train of thought, Ron turned his
attention back to Professor Tast, and what she was starting to ramble about,
reading off her notes that she was holding in front of her. She had taken a
stool from in front of the long table at the side, with the toaster, and set
it in front of her desk. Clambering on top of it, she sat, mumbling out
loud, while some students took notes all the same.

\'You\'re Muggle born, though, and you actually learn things in here?\' Ron had
whispered to her, looking around the room again, even though she couldn\'t
see him do it. He would have asked her why she was here, but he already
knew. She wanted to see the other side, the wizard\'s perspective, of events
and happenings in the Muggle world.

\'Well, I do know it,\' she whispered back, trying to scoot as low in her seat
as she could go without being accused of slouching or not paying attention.
She couldn\'t shout down at Ron, or seemingly, the floor to anyone else who
was looking. And even though he was tall, his head still only came past the
top of her desk, and there was still another foot and a half or so between
them. She had paused, waiting for Professor Tast to start speaking again,
having lost her place. \'But it doesn\'t hurt to find out a bit more in depth,
as I never got up to the higher grades in which I would have learned it in a
Muggle school.\'

A girl that Ron knew was from Hufflepuff raised her hand, and Ron couldn\'t
remember her name, but knew she was familiar from somewhere, other than
being at the same school and only a table away at lunch, not to mention
probably in at least two of his classes. She said something about armpits
and Ron made a face. What on earth did they learn about Muggle armpits?

It turned out that there had been a type of movement that women had
protested for the right to shave themselves of unwanted and unsightly hair
in whatever place they felt they wanted to be smooth as a baby\'s bottom.
While Ron agreed with that, not particularly liking *that* type of hairy
woman, he didn\'t think it should be such a big deal that some Muggle women
make a big deal out of it. Going to such lengths as laser hair removal was
ridiculous, Hermione had whispered to him. He had to wonder what a laser
was, and he thought maybe he should have brought a pad of paper to write
things down himself.

He had waited a few moments, but Hermione\'s attention wasn\'t on him, and she
didn\'t hear him \'psst\'ing at her, so he chose a more direct way to get her
to listen to him. He reached out again, and brushed her leg. She looked down
immediately, and Ron had to note that he\'d felt a teeny bit of stubble on
her legs, though never enough to panic about. Ron jerked his gaze away from
her calf, though not before darting his eyes up to her half covered knee
before remembering she couldn\'t see him anyway. \'That\'s gross!\' he
whispered, a bit loudly, and a boy two desks ahead turned back for a second,
but seeing nothing out of the ordinary, turned back. \'You mean they didn\'t
shave at all?\'

Hermione shook her head slightly, and stuck out her tongue in a little
gagging face. Ron grinned, and looked down at himself to make sure he was
covered. He\'d been making sure every few minutes, just in case he had
shd and and a shoelace was showing or something. Ron was about to look back
up at her and ask how much longer the class was (his arse was getting numb)
but his eyes caught again on her bare knee, noticing that she\'d shifted as
well, and the gray fabric had ridden a bit higher on her leg. He grinned
suddenly. She\'d not even have a clue if he\'d looked up her skirt or not.

He was about to clear his throat, but definitely thought better of it, and
instead swallowed hard and looked resolutely ahead at Professor Tast, yet
still his mind wasn\'t focused on the teacher. He was glad Hermione shaved,
though, despite old Muggle habits. It would be a bit uncomfortable to have
wiry hairs like men had on their legs. That\'d be quite uncomfortable in bed,
to rub up against a body as hairy as your own. Ron blushed, and tried to
change to a more safe thought. He assumed she did her armpits, because that
seemed positively awful. Sometimes he even contemplated shaving his own
after a particularly sweaty Quidditch practice, he thought maybe if he
didn\'t have the hair to collect the scent in, it wouldn\'t be so bad. Then
maybe he could collapse on his bed without showering.

They moved on from recovering that subject, and moved onto equal rights for
what jobs women could have, and how the Muggles had held back their women
unjustly. Women in the wizarding world had already been able to become
mediwitches, and even Aurors, centuries before the Muggles did. That was one
thing that started wizards to thinking they should separate the two cultures
before any more damage was done. With witches working in these jobs, Muggles
were sure to notice. Therefore, a witch who had a medical license couldn\'t
work in a Muggle inhabited area, which might have limited the amount of
patients she could have treated due to word spreading that she was \'rising
up in rebellion and stealing the rightful place of men in the world\', as
Professor Tast mumbled from her papers.

\"Any questions?\" the elderly woman asked from her perch. A few hands were
raised, and Professor Tast began to answer their questions, but Hermione
didn\'t hear what they were, or their answer, as Ron had piped up beside her
from the floor.

\"Yes, Professor Tast, what exactly is the function of a rubber duck?\" Ron
whispered to Hermione from his seat between the aisles. The old teacher
never made the walk up and down them, so it was safe for him to sit there
for most of the class. Hermione almost snorted to keep her laughter inside.
\"Honest, my dad has asked Harry that more than ten times over the years, but
Harry never gets to answer him before something interrupts.\"

\"Miss. Granger?\" Hermione abruptly stopped laughing, and reopened her eyes,
which she\'d shut in an effort to keep her amusement inside. It hadn\'t
worked, and the insides of her eyelids only served as movie screens as the
hilarious scene Ron had described tried to play itself out on them. \"Do you
have something to share with the class?\"

\"Yes,\" she said, and Ron gaped from under the cloak, and scraped his shoe
along the floor, creating a shuffling sound as he turned to look at her. She
wouldn\'t. \"What *exactly* is the function of a rubber duck?\" The room was
silent for a long moment before several students began laughing. He couldn\'t
believe she could ask as calmly as she could, having been trying to stop
uncontrollable laughter only the moment before she was spotted.

@>*~


@>*~

Chapter Nine

Draco had gone straight to the Slytherin common room after Potions, having
ten minutes of free time before he had to be in Care of Magical Creatures.
He\'d gone to his room, and had gotten his Quidditch robes together, along
with his Nimbus 2001, and had set them all in place for tomorrow. They had
practice right after lunch, and afternoon classes were canceled for the day,
due to the first Quidditch match of the season.

There were posters noting the event all over the school, and when Draco left
his room, he went to the Slytherin notice board to look at one. He knew he
wasn\'t the best player in the world, but he enjoyed the game and that was
what counted. He scoffed quietly to himself; he\'d never thought he\'d hear
himself think something like that before. He really hoped the recent
proximity to Potter wasn\'t wearing off some of the Gryffindor\'s morals on
him.

Slytherin vs. Hufflepuff, first weekend in November, classes canceled, what
could go wrong? Slytherin was sure to win, and have the rest of the
afternoon off to do whatever they wanted. Just as Draco was about to head
for the door, it swung open, revealing their Head of House. Snape burst
through the large stone door with a medium sized box in his arms, which
strangely had a few vines twisting out from the corners it\'d obviously
broken through.

\"I need a volunteer,\" he called out. Several people came forward, eyeing the
box curiously, but not wanting to get too close. \"This box needs to go to
Professor Sprout, and as I\'m not in the right mood to deal with her, I\'m
leaving it up to one of you.\" No one showed any interest in the task, and
Snape sighed. \"Ten points if someone takes it,\" he added.

Crabbe pushed his way past a Fourth Year, \"I\'ll take it.\"

Snape raised his eyebrow, fighting the urge to ask to see the large boy\'s
hands. \"As much as I\'d really not let you do this for me based on common
logic, I\'d disallow it for your safety as well. I doubt any kind or color of
frosting would react well with this particular sentient plant. Any others?\"
Snape glanced around, and caught sight of Draco, who had sat down to wait
until Snape had left before he went up to the main floor. Draco had one
eyebrow slightly raised, and Snape thought it was due to the fact that he\'d
offered back the points he\'d taken away for Draco\'s laughter earlier.

A few students had followed his gaze over to Draco, who had swung a leg over
the edge of the chair he was sitting in, staring right back at Snape.
\"Alright,\" Snape growled, drawing their attention again. \"Take it,\" Snape
said, thrusting the box into Crabbe\'s arms, and dismissed them all from his
immediate presence. As he made his way back up the steps to the door, he
almost looked back over his shoulder, but he knew full well that Draco was
still watching him. Draco knew he knew something.

The only class held in the dungeons was Potions, and very rarely did
Prefects roam the dark corridors of the basement. The only other time
students were down there was for an occasional detention with Snape, or if
Filch had a particularly bad problem with fungi in a damp room, used for
nothing else but storage. If it wasn\'t a personal slight against Snape,
Potter must have had some other reason to be in the dungeons. Perhaps he was
looking for someone, or waiting for them.

@>*~

After Potions, Harry had made his way to the kitchens and got himself a
snack. He had to politely decline the feast that Dobby kept offering, as he
had to get to class, and didn\'t think he could eat that much, let alone do
it in ten minutes. Hermione hadn\'t even wanted to let him out of her sight,
but she relented, and she and Ron had gone out to meet Hagrid before class
started. Harry was on his way there now, across the Hogwarts grounds,
towards Hagrid\'s hut.

He might not actually have liked Care of Magical Creatures all that much,
since Hagrid tended to hwildwild creatures about, but he enjoyed spending
time with his friend. Since this was a double class, they\'d be joined by the
Slytherins again. Maybe Harry would be able to sit near Malfoy or something,
maybe talk to him. He had no idea what he\'d ever say to the other boy, but
he just didn\'t like the fact that he couldn\'t at all without a teacher
nosing about, or others around who might think their speaking while
remaining civil was a sign of impending apocalypse.

Ron looked up from trying to calm his Monster Book of Monsters into
submission, and saw Harry almost to where they were waiting, just outside of
Hagrid\'s. After Hagrid had told them how to train the books, most of them
still rebelled, and several people usually conveniently forgot their books
when their teacher asked. More like they were still trapped in a cage of
some sort. He retied his Gryffindor colored scarf around the book again, not
having much luck, and dropped it onto the table in front of them. \"Oi,
Harry\'s here,\" he said, and nudged Hermione in the side.

\"Ow, Ron,\" Hermione said, rubbing slightly at her injured ribs. \"Don\'t poke
so hard,\" she complained, before ducking her head slightly, realizing what
she\'d said. She looked in the direction Ron was pointing in and most other
unnecessary thoughts were pushed to the side for the moment when she saw
Harry. Hermione waved at him as he walked over, but before he got there, she
leaned to whisper to Ron. \"Did he tell you what was up with him in Potions?
He really was acting a bit odd.\"

Ron shook his head, turning his head to look at Hermione. \"Nope,\" he
shrugged. \"I tried asking during class, but Snape kept watching us, and I
definitely didn\'t want a detention with that slimy git.\" Harry was just
getting to their table, not having heard their conversation. He had been
pretty much enveloped in his own thoughts to do anything but stare at them
as he approached.

\"Hi,\" Harry said, setting his own book down on the table. Ron\'s gave a
little type of jiggle, trying to get out of the scarf and to sniff the other
book, or something. With those books, you never knew. Before Hermione could
ask Harry anything, Hagrid came out of his hut with a large crate. It seemed
to have some type of mud and twigs and maybe even water in it, and all kinds
of things came sloshing out of the cracks as he walked to their table.

\"Dugbogs,\" he leaned down to them and said, adding a wink. He grinned and
turned away, and they really hoped Dugbogs weren\'t anything dangerous. More
students were arriving and eyeing the muddy crate suspiciously.

\"Oh, please tell me we\'re not studying earthworms,\" drawled a voice from
behind them, and Harry\'s heart started a faster pace, and he tried hard not
to twist his head around to see the owner of that voice.

\"Alrigh\' now,\" Hagrid boomed as he came back to them and started poking
around in the crate. \"This \'ere,\" he said, holding up what looked like a
stick, \"is a Dugbog.\"

\"It\'s a hunk of dead wood,\" Malfoy called out, having sat himself on top of
a table and reclining backwards on it. Harry didn\'t even hear Hagrid\'s
response, as his attention was drawn to Draco\'s body. He was taller than
Harry, but not by too much, and Harry thought he might be a bit more
muscular, or else they were even on that front. He\'d never seen Draco\'s bare
chest, had he? He frowned as he found he could barely picture the first time
that Draco had taken him on the grounds.

He looked around himself, and realized that they hadn\'t even been far from
where the tables were set up. It hadn\'t even been that long ago, either.
Hermione\'s voice broke through his own thoughts, her \'answer my damn
question or I\'ll never shut up\' tone always seemed to do that. \"Have they
ever killed anyone?\" she asked. She\'d had to stop asking more politely,
since Hagrid never gave her a good answer to \'Are they dangerous?\' Hagrid
had a very different perception of what was dangerous or not.

Hagrid look affronted at the question, but answered it none the less. \"Well,
no. Bu\' they \'ave bin known ter gnaw off a finger er two, bu\' tha\'s only
when they\'re very, very aggravated.\" He nodded his huge head, looking quite
serious about it. Draco had gotten off the table when some of their
classmates set their struggling books onto it, and Ron looked a little put
down that he wasn\'t the only one to think of tying their scarf around the
Monster Book of Monsters. At least he\'d had a good excuse to give Hagrid
when he saw that the book was apparently tied shut. \'Honestly, I thought it
was a bit cold, Hagrid.\'

Harry\'s attentios cas caught now, as Hagrid began to show them the hidden
limbs of the Dugbogs. Finned paws and very sharp teeth which one attempted
to bite into Hagrid\'s glove, but not getting much anywhere with that. It
looked angry, and Hagrid put it back into the muddy crate, and it crawled up
into a lump of grass that had been dug up. Hagrid had gone out to the small
marsh in the Forbidden Forest, where these particular Dugbogs had come from.

He learned that the dead wood resembling creatures did more injury to
humans, their ankles as they passed, as Hagrid continued, and he gave a
small apologetic glance at Hermione when he mentioned that. A few had even
slithered their way onto the grounds a few years back, when Professor Sprout
had pots full of Mandrakes, the Dugbogs favorite food.

At the end of the lesson, Hagrid summed up his talk on Dugbogs with saying
that any competent wizard should be able to cope with them, but it was
preferable to wear gloves and tall boots if you\'re ever near a marsh. Harry
had missed large parts of conversation in the class, as he was still
sneaking looks at Draco. Once, he\'d even caught Draco\'s eyes, and smiled
slightly. The blond had looked a bit alarmed, but Harry thought it must have
been because it was a bit blatant the way he\'d done it.

When they heard the bell ring from the castle, they started to gather their
books from the tables, and not even Hermione wanted to stay and risk getting
a finger chomped on to help Hagrid with the Dugbogs. They waved goodbye and
headed back to the castle. Harry had lingered behind his friends a bit, and
they were already into a conversation with each other about something or
other, but Harry didn\'t feel like talking. He\'d listen, but he didn\'t want
to take part.

Draco was a little way ahead of him, too, and when they all got to the steps
of the castle, turned to his side letting a group of Slytherin girls go in
front of him and Goyle. Harry watched him as he came up the steps, and Draco
looked right back at him. Harry passed him, and carried on into the castle,
but Draco was still thinking about him. He\'d looked happier now than he had
been in the past few days, and he was a bit unsure of how he\'d actually
deduced that. The only time he spent much time thinking about Potter was
when he had his cock stuck up the Gryffindor\'s arse.

He went in the door himself, Crabbe and Goyle following behind at a small
distance. Harry was going in the opposite direction as he was about to, and
he felt a small pull to follow, but held back on that urge. He did have work
to do, and he had no idea where Potter was off to; he could be going six
floors away for all Draco knew. What he did know, though, was that he
couldn\'t get the image of Harry smiling at him out of his head.

@>*~