The Rules of the Game

Chapter 9

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I couldn’t believe that little snake, how foolish I was to begin to get close to someone, this is all that comes of it. It seemed that no matter how many times I reminded myself of my 7th rule my heart always broke it, and I hated it for that. I didn’t want to feel anything for another being, all it would lead to was pain.

A week had passed and I was still ignoring Draco. He continuously tried to talk to me, and though I didn’t make him leave or tell him to shut it, I wouldn’t respond. It had taken him two days of that to finally swallow his pride and apologize to me but when that didn’t get a response either he grew angry and screamed that I wasn’t worth his time if I was going to act childish. I just stared at him uncaringly, not revealing that his words had hurt at all. I knew I wasn’t worth anything, and if I was acting childish, a part of me was glad I was capable of such a thing. But what Draco didn’t understand is that he had forced me into something I had told him I didn’t want to do, and… I had almost begun to trust him, thought that maybe he could be a friend. It was another two days before his anger drained away and he returned to watching me, his expression showing that he wanted to talk to me but wasn’t sure how. Truthfully I had missed his company, and realized that I was holding him to the standards of an adult, when he was still a child who was spoiled and wanted his way. So when Draco finally approached me on the way down to potions I looked to him, acknowledging the questions and asking a silent ‘what’.

“Harry, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have gone behind your back like that, I won’t do it again.” He said honestly, and I stopped to look at him accessing to see if he had really learned that what he did would not be acceptable around me.

“Good, let’s get to potions.” I told him and he feel into stride beside me, the two of us looking like we hadn’t just been fighting for a week.

***

Potions was like normal except for the surge in the number of glares at me from the Gryffindor side. The news that I had been accepted onto the team had spread like fire across the school as my broom had arrived that morning, and from the boasts flint had started sprouting about his new seeker, the other houses were looking desperate to try and figure out a way to get rid of me. During the class Draco and I were working on a boil cure potion, Draco working on crushing the snake fangs as I stirred ten times clockwise. A sudden tingle in my magic surged through me and my hand shot forward, snatching a piece of boomslang skin, inches from our cauldron. I glanced over my shoulder to a white faced Ronald Weasley as the rest of the class stared shocked. I did nothing but look at the boy who looked about to wet himself, never ceasing the stirs in our potion, and then looked away placing the skin on the desk. Snape seemed to be the first one to come back to reality and began screaming at the boys’ stupidity docking a hundred points from Gryffindor for being idiots and giving a hundred to Slytherin for preventing the room from exploding. The boy really did need to learn his ingredients if he was going to be throwing things into other people’s cauldrons, because blowing up the room as well as severely injuring everyone and most likely killing Draco or me was exactly what would have happened.

Despite my shields I could feel the fear rolling off of the boy who knew he was going to pay even more for that. Draco was still staring at me incredulously but then went back to crushing the snake fangs not saying anything. After class I left calmly, with Draco and then waited in the hall for Weasley as Snape had wanted to see him after class. When he finally walked by, not noticing us in the shadows, I reached out and grabbed his arm swinging him around and slamming him into the wall. Dazed from slamming his head against the wall Weasley bonelessly allowed himself to be lead into a room by two Slytherins where I cast a silencing and locking charm before slamming him again up against the wall.

“You should be careful of who you try to kill Weasel, because if you fail next time I will make you beg for death.” I hissed into his ear and then mumbled a spell under my breath. Screams erupted from his throat as he clawed at his skin. I stepped back and watched pleased by the hex that made his mind believe that he was burning up from the inside. After five minutes where he screamed himself hoarse I released the spell, finally allowing him to faint from the pain and then buried the memory of this encounter in his mind to be released at another time if I wished. With a glance at Draco I was pleased to see a malicious smirk on his face and without a word we both left the room.

*****

Draco and I walked calmly down the hall, still pleased with ourselves and our revenge on Ronald Weasley from a few days ago, when I felt something studying me. I stopped suddenly, causing Draco to stop and ask what’s wrong, but I ignored him, looking to my left to see the headmaster starring at me; what a psychotic old man.

“Sir?” I asked in a sickly sweet voice, continuing the act of innocence.

“Mr. Potter, I heard the news about the Quidditch team, I was wondering if you would come to my office so we could discuss it.”

“Of course sir.” Something didn’t feel right, something inside me was warning me about him for some reason. I had read in one of the history books that Dumbledore was a highly skilled legilimens so on our walk up to his office I constructed an illusion of the average 11 year old wizard’s mind, adding in some normal family memories and basic knowledge. Him trying to look in my mind and just meeting an impenetrable shield wouldn’t have gone over well.

After we sat down, and I refused the spiked lemon drops, he went off into some inane chatter about getting a broom. In less than a minute I felt a tingle and then the warnings in my mind go off letting me know he was already looking in it. It was quite impressive to see that he could easily carry on a conversation and completely destroy someone’s trust in him simultaneously, but I supposed he did this often enough. But the best part of all was what he did after finding nothing impressive, he left a compulsion in my mind to seek out Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger and be their fucking friend. It was a good thing I had my shields up or else he would have known exactly what I felt about that plan. After describing a few styles of brooms, and adding other things in my mind, telling me to ‘trust Albus Dumbledore’ and ‘desire to do as he wishes’, he let me go with a smile and that twinkling in his eyes. All I could think about as I walked away was how I wouldn’t have to see that twinkle any longer once I removed his eyes. When I got far enough away from him, I lowered my shields a little to allow a small amount of my enraged energy out to destroy the compulsions he had left. I wasn’t sure what made that fool believe that he could control or influence me but he would learn, as they all would, but as for now; let the games begin.

*****

“Hey, Ron! Hermione!” I jogged up putting a smile on my face; bloody hell it hurt to use those muscles.

“Potter? What do you want?” Ron asked clearly confused, but with his intelligence level I suppose I should be satisfied with the fact that he was able to get out the sentence. I saw Granger give him an elbow in the ribs and a look; evidently Dumbledore had informed them of this possible mood shift.

“I just think that we got off to a bad start, truthfully I think you’re a pretty cool guy.” And if he believes that line of crock he’s even a bigger idiot than I thought. Ahh, and there’s that self-pleased smile proving just that.

“Well, I suppose you’re right. We were going to the library, do you want to come.”

“I should probably be off, I have to keep up Slytherin appearances… you understand right?”

“Of course we do Harry.” Hermione supplied, most likely the only one of the two that did grasp the concept of discretion.

I watched them walk away, waving slightly with that smile on my face until they turned the corner. Instantly I let my muscles relax and fall into a much more comfortable sneer. ‘Stupid Gryffindors.’ I thought before turning and returning to the Slytherin dorms.

***

“Harry, what the hell were you doing with Weasel and Mudblood?” I heard Draco yell as he stormed into our room, the door slamming behind. I tensed for a second instinctively, but was able to suppress my instincts and continued to read.

“I’m manipulating them Draco,” I said coldly, looking at him through my hair. “What did you think; that I want to be their friend?” I asked, making it clear that that was the most ridiculous thing in the world.

Draco scoffed, trying to recover some dignity from his out burst. “Of course not, I just wished you would let me know about these little schemes of yours before hand, we are friends after all.”

“Oh, are we?”

“Well… I thought we were.” He said confused.

“Listen Draco, you might not be irritating to be around like most the others here, but were not friends. I don’t need friends, not from Gryffindor and not from Slytherin.” I said, glaring into his eyes and daring him to question what I said.

“Fuck you Potter.” He growled, but his voice broke, betraying the hurt he felt before he fled the room.


~Harry, that wasssn’t very niccce, you ssshouldn’t play with ssso many people’sss headsss.~ A laughing hiss said to my right and I glanced over to see Persephone slither out from beneath my pillow.

~What I ssaid wasss true in part, I don’t need friendsss.~ I hissed back as I absently stroked her.

~You can’t alwaysss be alone, and you ssshould trussst sssomeone.~

~Trusst sssomeone? I think not. And Draco hasss already proven that he isss not ready to be trusssted… but he ssshould make an adequate friend.~

~Asss you sssee fit, little Masster.~ She hissed before slithering off to disappear into the dungeons and continue her spying on Dumbledore and some of the others.

*****

It’s amusing to see how fickle people can be, friends one day and enemies the next. Truthfully I thought more of Draco than I had told him, but letting him believe that I hated him and thought he was nothing was much more advantageous to my plans for now. The problem was that he wasn’t as good an actor himself for it to be believable that he hated me. The entire school saw him come storming into my room after hearing that I had been playing nice with the lions, I certainly couldn’t let him leave seconds after pleased about something. Hopefully, if he was as intelligent as I believe he was, he will realize what I did within a week and speak to me about it. If not, no big loss.

The next few days played out perfectly. Draco refused to sit with me in any of the classes or at lunch (still the only meal I went to). The rest of the Slytherins joined him in shunning me, and I played the innocent and caring boy who was hurt from being ostracized by his house-mates, and needed to find comfort with the Gryffindors. It was so much fun. Within three days I had Granger and Weasley wrapped around my finger and buying up every lie that came out of my mouth. Now that the ground work was set and they believed they knew the real me, they wouldn’t question anything I did under the pretense of playing Slytherin, believing that it was an act.

***

It was on that third day while out in Herbology that things began to change. We were waiting outside of greenhouse 5 for Ms. Sprout, me standing over with Granger and Weasel while the rest of the Slytherins stood and either glared at us or ignored us. As usual I was generally ignoring the conversation giving non-committal grunts every once and a while and if they demanded an answer I would scan their minds briefly to see what was best to say. It was as they were rambling on that I heard a whisper in the grass beside us and glanced down to see a snake a few inches from Weasley’s foot.

“Ron don’t move!” I shouted to him in a panicked voice, effectively panicking him.

“What?! What?!” He shouted grabbing the attention of the entire class.

“There’s a really poisonous snake right by you.” It was a Garter snake.

“H-Harry! Help me!” He whined in a high pitched voice that made me struggle to keep from laughing with the other Slytherins.

“What do you want me to do?! Ask it to leave?” I said bringing another gale of laughter that the Gryffindors wrote off as just laughing at the situation.

With a soft unnoticeable hiss from me the snake went forward and wrapped around his ankle, earning a high scream from the boy as tears began to pour down his face.

“What’s going on here?!” Ms. Sprout called over the laughter.

“Ms. Sprout help me, there’s a poisonous snake around my leg! It’s going to eat me!” He squealed in the same high pitched voice as he gasped for breath, on the verge of a panic attack.

“Mr. Weasley, that is a Garter snake, not remotely poisonous and more inclined to eat earthworms and frogs than you.” She said unimpressed, and then bent over to carefully remove the snake before setting it free amidst the laughing students.

****

It was later on that evening when there was a soft knock to Draco’s and my room and with a mumbled acknowledgement, Draco himself entered. I quirked an eyebrow as to why he was knocking but his sheepish look said it all.

“I had been wondering since yesterday if it was all some plan, and I’d say that today proved that.”

I smirked back at him but said nothing.

“Look, sorry I’ve been such a prat… again.”

“Not at all Draco, I hope you understand my reasons for manipulation, but I did need a good show. The Weasel wouldn’t have noticed a thing, but the Granger girl would have.”

“I have to admit; besides being pissed at you I have missed your company.”

“As have I.” I admitted and something small that had been buried deep inside of me long ago gave a stir of contentment at the smile that that comment received.

“Do we still have to act like we hate each other?” He asked reluctance evident in his voice.

“No, I’ll make my excuses about coming to an understanding with the Slytherins to them, just be standoffish tomorrow and then we can go back to normal.” I told him absent mindedly as I returned to my homework.

“You seriously have it all planned out, how did you become such the perfect Slytherin anyway.” He asked as he flopped back on his bed.

For a second I sat frozen my bed, while in my mind years flashed by. I had locked that part of my mind away for these past couple of weeks, but with those few innocent words it was upon me again and I suddenly couldn’t breath, my body was tense with fear and my mind devoid of coherent thought. Instinctually my body moved without command, standing up from my bed, allowing the papers to fall to the floor and I walked out without a word hoping to find somewhere where I will have time to lock everything down again.

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