Rejection and Acceptance

Draco ran out of the Great Hall after Harry. He wasn't sure where exactly he would go, but he needed someone to be with him. Someone he could lean on. So Draco followed and the two ran out the front doors and down the lawn to the lake. They were hidden from most of the castle, though anyone on a tower might catch a glimpse of them.

"Harry..." Draco panted as he caught the boy.

"I... and he... how am I... how could he?" Harry sobbed into his arms.

"He's a prat. I've been telling you this since first year." Draco answered and hugged him tighter.

"You said me that about me too." Harry answered a hint of a smile showing through.

"Yeah well I tried to be your friend and only snubbed you because you snubbed me." Draco retorted softly.

"Because you insulted my friends." Harry pouted.

"Because they were idiots... as they proved by rejecting you." Draco pointed out smugly.

"I guess so." Harry said as his tears started flowing a bit more.

"Let's not dwell on what we can't affect...Unless you want to use a spell or a potion?" Draco inquired.

"I don't want fake friends." Harry frowned up at Draco, as they were now sitting on the ground. He shivered.

"It's kind of cold hmm?" Draco stated as a question.

"Yeah... Wasn't my smartest move to run outside in the middle of winter." Harry conceded. "I should get up and we should go inside."

"Yes, we should." Draco answered. "But not just yet... I want to do something but I'm not sure what you'll think." Draco worried.

"Well, just tell me." Harry proposed pragmatically.

"I couldn't... Just... Like... Don't be mad okay?" Draco requested.

"Mad about what?" Harry demanded. He was about to make more demands as he turned to look up at Draco, but all thoughts flew from his mind as he looked up into Draco's face. Draco's eyes gleamed silver, and his pupils were all but absent and Harry quickly got lost in the hypnotising silver that was Draco's eyes.

"You won't be right?" Draco's breath ghosted along Harry's lips as he spoke and he shuddered violently. Draco slowly brought his hand up to caress Harry's face.

"Hunh?" Harry asked completely confused.

"You won't be mad at me?" Draco asked as he continued to rub random patterns on Harry's cheek as he was held in Draco's lap.

"Mad, why would I be mad?" Harry asked as he turned his face partway into Draco's caress and more fully towards Draco's face and lips.

"If I kiss you?" Draco questioned as he ghosted closer so his lips were mere inches away from Harry's.

"Just kiss me already." Harry half demanded and half pleaded.

"Alright." Draco acquiesced as he closed the gap and met Harry's lips softly. He made it a chaste kiss, because he wasn't sure how much Harry was comfortable with. He moved his lips slowly upon the soft lips beneath him. Harry sighed softly as Draco pulled slowly away, before he shuddered violently.

"I'm not mad." Harry said as he looked up at Draco and smiled brilliantly even though his body was again wracked with shivers.

"Come on, you're freezing." Draco pushed as he stood up, dragging Harry with him.

"Do we have to? I just wanna stay here." Harry whined.

"We can... if you want... maybe... we can... y'know... try it again?" Draco asked shyly.

"I think it might be an awesome idea... If you... erm... wanna..." Harry answered without looking back at the other boy.

"That would be brilliant... But inside where it's warm." Draco laughed grabbing Harry's hand.

The two moved back towards the castle and moved to a cozy room near the top of the Astronomy tower where they would have peace and quiet for most of the day as long as no one ventured around them.

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

Colin was on the topmost tower learning some new spells for his camera. Last year he'd been taught how to develop his film so the pictures moved. This year, he was learning a spell to zoom into a scene within one mile. He was just practicing, even though he should have been at breakfast. However he had grabbed a bowl of cereal early and he was really in the mood to practice.

"Vidi longe" Colin announced with a wave of his wand. Then he picked up his camera and looked through it. Gazing around the castle, he saw the ground as vividly as the wall beside him. He snapped an awesome picture of the owls as they soared into the chute leading to the Great Hall.

Staying still he captured several more owls soaring through the skies, he even caught a picture of the amazing Great Eagle that signalled Draco Malfoy had mail. Determined to finish the film, he glanced around the grounds. He caught a picture of the Whomping Willow smacking at some squirrel teasingly.

A movement caught his eye, people running. He watched them run to the lake curiously and then brought his camera to his eye. Looking closer, he noticed Draco and Harry cuddled close together. He quickly snapped a picture. Watching them he tried to figure out what was happening. Just before he decided to leave he watched the two boys move closer to each other.

Despite feeling like a bit of a peeping tom, he continued to watch the two as they moved closer and closer. At the first tentative brush of lips, his finger automatically snapped the picture. Realising what he's just done, he debated on what to do.

With a start he realized the perfect option. With the hesitance in the kiss, he figured it was probably their first, and since they were walking close together, he figured and rightly so, that the two were not displeased with their first kiss.

Packing up his gear, since his film was done, with that last picture, he returned to his dorm to hide his film for development when no one was around. It would be rather bad for someone like Ron to find that last picture and Colin didn't want to be responsible.

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

Blaise and Pansy wandered away from the Great Hall soon after Harry ran out the door with Draco following like a trained bear. They didn't want to be around any teachers for fear of being overheard. "How many spells do you know that are potentially harmful?" Pansy asked in a whisper, her fury showing as she snapped at a couple of first year Gryffindors running in the corridors because they were late.

"Quite a few I suppose. But just to be safe, about two thirds of them should be discarded since they may potentially kill him and I don't want us to be sent to Azkaban." Blaise admitted thoughtfully.

"Let's go hunt in the library then." Pansy suggested.

"We should really get into the Restricted Section." Blaise added.

"Who would give us a slip without a reason?" Pansy cooed as they veered around and retraced their steps.

"Over here." Blaise grabbed her arm suddenly as he turned down a corridor. Pansy, after righting herself, saw Professor Snape prowling the Hall.

The two students started running forward without a second thought. They passed a few students and slowed, so it didn't look like anything fishy as they caught up to the Professor a bit more.

"...we should get Ginny to put a bat-bogey hex on him." A student said to his companions without lowering his voice.

"I'm sure he could withstand it. We need a fifth year Ravenclaw that can perform a cold-feet charm." The girl argued.

"Getting cold-feet isn't so bad." A second girl insisted.

"I hear he's very terrified of spiders." Snape chimed in as he continued walking past without taking points or giving detentions to the fourth year Gryffindor boy and Hufflepuff girl or the third year Ravenclaw student. Pretending he had neither seen nor heard anything, but was merely talking to himself, Snape continued down the corridor. Pansy and Blaise looked at each other with raised eyebrows and continued forward calling to their teacher.

"Yes? How may I be of help to you?" Professor Snape asked his house students.

"Well, we want to prepare a little surprise for our friend, only we don't remember the incantation." Pansy started.

"We found it in one of the books at the beginning of the year, and I was supposed to write it down but I forgot to." Blaise did a very good job at looking ashamed.

"We'd go and get it again, only it's in the Restricted Section, and another teacher gave us permission last time." Pansy said.

"We were hoping you could give us permission sir." Blaise asked trying not to show he was holding his breath.

Snape might have believed them if he didn't already know Blaise had a photographic memory and the likelihood of him needing to re-check a book was very slim. Nevertheless, he was relatively certain that he knew what they were up to and approved of what they were doing. Not only that, but their cover story too. "Yes, well I suppose that would be acceptable. I would need some parchment and a quill however." Snape answered.

"Oh yes." Blaise answered as Pansy hopped over to the other three students.

"Lend this to us now. I'll explain later and I promise you will enjoy." Pansy promised. The students gave her a piece of parchment and a quill.

Severus signed out the paper for Blaise Zabini and company just in case he decided to invite anyone else to search for that 'forgotten' spell.

"Will that be all Ms. Parkinson, Mr. Zabini?" Severus asked them.

"Yes sir. Thank you sir." The two answered with "innocent" smiles. As they parted, Blaise started to head straight for the library but Pansy stopped him and motioned to the three plotting students.

"What?" Blaise asked.

"I promised to explain. I figured we might be able to use the help in our research." Pansy whispered back. Blaise agreed and then they went to explain their strategy to the other students. With high fives, the students set off to the library as they all had a free period.

Madam Pince let them all into the Restricted Section with harsh looks and several admonitions to 'be quiet' and 'be careful'. When the third year grabbed a book off the shelf it let out an ear-piercing shriek as it was opened and the librarian rushed over, scolding them again. She decided to stay close just in case and consequently heard their low voiced conversation.

"Well we don't want to hurt him, right?" The Gryffindor boy insisted.

"Of course not. Or not much, mainly just terrorize him." Pansy assured him.

"Umm, apparently spiders work." The fourth year girl volunteered, without having realized the other students had heard Snape.

"It will take forever." Their Ravenclaw year mate pointed out happily.

"Let's get started. Carefully however." Blaise instructed.

With a small swish of her wrist, Madam Pince sent little flowing balls in front of each book she thought they might find interesting. She spied on them and watched happily as the students hesitantly started looking through them and then more eagerly grabbed the books, flipped through them and compared notes. Just because the librarian tended to stay in her library didn't mean she wasn't able to hear the gossip. And she was quite able to make decisions about certain situations herself and help them if need be.

For the next several weeks, the five students taught their friends some of the spells they had learned and all together they exploited Ron's fear of spiders, terrorizing him whenever they could, with visions of fake spiders, conjuring small and large spiders, sending him gifts of live and stone spiders. They also used a variety of other spells, jinxes and hexes they learned from the books in the Restricted Section.

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

Ron's life became miserable after his stunt with Rita Skeeter. For several weeks he was roughly shoved around in corridors. Whether he tried to walk on the proper side, the wrong side, the middle of the corridor or the outskirts, someone always bumped into him, squashed him or sent him spinning until he no longer remembered where he was going, or the way to get there.

Possibly even worse than that however was when the students dived away from him. They had somehow created a silent communication ability and when Ron was left alone he was bombarded with whatever mischief Peeves had up his sleeves. At first, when students weren’t fast enough, Peeves pelted anyone who was around Ron as well, and so everyone learned to get out of the way no matter what the cost.

Ron suffered through Peeves' dung bombing, his pelting of rice bits, fruit, rotten fruit, rocks, sticky stinky bubbles of goo that no amount of spell he tried could remove, and even once he got his clothes and himself cleaned, he himself smelled for more than two weeks. None of the other students helped him. The only one who agreed with him was his sister. Ginny Weasley started to suffer from the same attacks, though hers were much less frequent.

The only time Ron received help from these incidents was when Peeves decided it would be amusing to drop pots on Ron's head. Ron wasn't fast enough to get out of the way of an iron skillet and it gave him a glancing blow that knocked him out cold. Because of this, McGonagall was given a whispered warning and went to bring the outcast boy to the hospital wing where he spent two days to recover.

Despite his wishing to stay longer and his moans and groans, Madam Pomfrey sent him back into the chaos of his life he had caused. She insisted he was all better and that he had important classes to attend to.

Despite the fact that no teachers had witnessed any 'mishappenings' Peeves was given a stern talking-to by both the Headmaster and the Bloody Baron. They both agreed that dropping pans, and especially iron skillets on the heads of students, was neither safe nor acceptable behavior for anyone, even a poltergeist. Though Peeves acceded to their wishes, his attacks on Ron and indeed the rest of the random troubles he caused increased for a week after his disciplining as he showed his very evident displeasure of being punished.

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

When Ron returned to the common room the second day, he went to see Hermione first thing. He found her studying in the common room, her usual spot.

"How come you didn't come see me?" Ron pouted. "You always came to see us when we landed in the Hospital Wing."

"You didn't merit it." Hermione stated. "You brought all this upon yourself."

"I didn't drop a skillet on my own head!" Ron argued.

"You sent Rita Skeeter information she should NOT have gotten." Hermione glared at him. "Excuse me, I need to go rest." She snapped and gathering her things she stomped her way up the stairs to bed.

The twins sidled over to their fuming brother.

"So, what happened?" George asked.

"Have a fight with your girlfriend?" Fred asked.

"Who did you sell her out to?" George mocked.

"Or is it only your best friends you sell out?" Fred sneered at him.

"I didn't sell anyone out. And I don't know why Herms is mad at me, I didn't do anything." Ron glared and stomped over to a chair in front of the fireplace.

"So, you didn't send."

"Any information."

"To Rita Skeeter."

"Or anyone else."

"About anyone."

"Or anything."

"That's a sensitive matter?" The twins questioned with disbelief carved on their faces.

"Maybe I did but it wasn't supposed to be like this!" Ron blurted out.

"Were you supposed to be a king?" George sneered.

"A standard role model?" Fred mocked.

"No... but..." Ron looked around bewildered.

"Well then, here is your throne my lord." George announced with a mocking sincerity as he transfigured the chair Ron was sitting on into a toilet bowl.

"Your staff my lord." Fred shoved a plunger, transfigured from a wood chip into his hands.

"My liege." They gave mock-bows as they placed a shower cap on his head as a crown.

The students who were still in the common room laughed as they watched the twins mock their younger sibling. Then Dean Thomas started a chant, though later no one would remember the instigator.

"Weasley is our toilet bowl king! Weasley is our toilet bowl king!" This chant stayed with Ron for the rest of the school year, and even in his later years, people would refer to the incident with the same nickname or variations thereof, depending on whether Ron was close to the person or still "enemies" with them.

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

For the first hour after everyone got their newspapers that first day, Ginny Weasley was firmly in the camp against her brother. When she saw Harry and Draco run out of the Great Hall, she made excuses to her friends and followed them out of the Great Hall. However, once in the Entrance Hall the two boys had disappeared. It was cold outside and neither boy had sweaters or coats on so she dismissed the grounds as a place of refuge.

Ginny decided to roam the school in the search of the boy she still considered her boyfriend of sorts. She started in the dungeons given it was where his new house was located. However after half an hour of searching turned fruitless, she started searching Harry's previous haunts.

An hour after leaving the Great Hall she arrived at the Astronomy tower. Giving a quick cursory look around she saw no one. Acknowledging he was not here either, she decided to take a small rest and then look upon the grounds. Walking into a room she sat at the ledge beside the window and looked out.

After a few minutes, she felt better rested and started her search for Harry again. Exiting the room she passed a room and heard sounds inside. She could tell there was something of a less than innocent nature going on, and being naturally inquisitive and very eager for the latest gossip, she poked her head in just to see who it was. She got the shock of her small lifetime when she was met with the vision of Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy hesitantly snogging each other on a couch in the middle of the room. Despite her gasp of surprise it took several moments before the boys noticed her and started blushing.

"How could you Harry?" She demanded once she caught her breath. "I thought we were... That we might... That you were straight!" She spoke furious.

"So did I... I guess we were wrong huh?" Harry answered even though he was still blushing.

"What did you do to him!!” Ginny glared at Draco.

'He didn't do anything. Except be my friend. And he's really kinda nice and sweet." Harry smiled at the blond.

"You won't get away with this." Ginny hissed. From that moment on, she had switched camps and joined with her brother.

Unfortunately for her, that meant she shared in all the punishments he did, though admittedly it was to a much lesser degree. She spread the news about Harry and Draco's relationship, even though they had asked and pleaded with her not to. Despite that, most students found their relationship was just the next step in their journey, and though many gossiped about it and found much to speculate on, very few people were truly shocked at the news. Indeed most of them were quite happy with it, especially once they noticed that teachers acted more harshly against those who were intolerant to the situation.

AN: Sorry it took a while for the chapter and the authors note. I wanted to send out the story but I was in a rush. Now the authorès note.

Akira_Kushrenada_Merquize: Well I hope the first kiss didnèt disappoint? Love all my reviewers and readers!!!

Crazy Pedantic: Well I didn't get around to the Slytherin's yet... It took a bit of a back burner. Ron is on everyone's hitlist... Even the LIBRARIAN, lmao. I'm not sure if Harry will talk to the Quibbler or what... Thanks for helping XD

Werewolf Mistress:Hope you liked it!

thrnbrooke: Hope you liked it... Brownies for you since I was late D= Hope you don't eat me alive :S