Banshee\'s Balls!

WOW. I never expected the response I got for just that one chapter. Thank you all so much. Here’s the next one, I would have got it out quicker but I really needed to update my other story.

Amiyom, ZooArmy, Pinkbicyclefish, christylee71, Lilith, L_C, SoftObsidian74, Hazelnutz, Greybird, paigeey07, Dark Sora, Kendra, Kalaway, Hellagoddess, kia thao, Arishaa, Shadowama, Mis, Kaisei13, Anon, Ecks, Yaoi_Vixen, Thrnbrooke, Chrissy, Angel,

Chapter Two


Ron didn’t speak to him for a week. He didn’t know whether the reason for that was that he himself wanted Harry on his team or that he just didn’t want Malfoy to have him. Either way Ron wasn’t happy but there was nothing the red head could do. Harry had spent the rest of the ‘picking’ in a kind of daze. He was stood next to Remus and he only spoke when the ‘team’ discussed who they wanted next. All in all a few people probably thought they were barmy. Some of the choices they’d made had been pretty odd and more than one person had looked at them funny.

But the truth was the Banshees seemed to make decisions based on potential and not on who was currently the best, Harry quite preferred that idea. As Remus had said, “with three other teams to compete against you were unlikely to get all your first picks anyway”.

So instead they were going for players who were showing a lot of potential, but were unlikely to be picked by anyone else because they had a few flaws. They had until the end of October to train them up before the first match and they didn’t even know who was playing first anyway, so they might have even longer than that.

They had a pretty good team if Harry did say so himself. It helped that for some reason when it involved Quidditch he and Malfoy seemed to have the same ideas and opinions. They were both Puddlemere United supporters, they agreed that if the Chudley Cannons changed their lead chaser they’d win more and that if Speel was cleared by St Mungo’s before Saturday, England had a good chance at beating France in the qualifier. That was a little odd, wasn’t it? Who’d have ever thought he and Draco Malfoy could actually agree on something.

The other two chasers who would be working with Malfoy were Blaise Zabini (another Slytherin sixth year) and surprisingly enough Colin Creevey. If this had happened a few years ago, Harry would have argued against Colin just because of how the Gryffindor acted around him. After all they’d never win a match if one of their chasers couldn’t take his eyes off their seeker’s arse.

Luckily though, Colin seemed to have gotten his Harry obsession under control over the last two years. Another thing Harry was extremely thankful for.

The Banshee’s beaters were two Ravenclaws, fourth year twins by the name of Terri and Johnny Corner. Michael Corner’s younger brother and sister and they definitely had the Weasley twin’s level of potential.

And finally their keeper was a Hufflepuff fifth year named Alana Morey. Her only problem seemed to be her tendency to hesitate; they just had to get her out of that and she’d be brilliant.

All in all they had a pretty good team.

The only problem that Harry had was that Snape was a slave driver, he had booked the pitch the next morning from six am until twelve noon. Harry had thought Oliver Wood was obsessed, but the man was a saint compared to Snape. Well anyone was a saint compared to Snape weren’t they? Remus was almost as bad though.

Their first practice went off without a hitch, their Professors sat in the stands offering opinions while he and Malfoy helped out their new team mates. They found themselves vindicated when Colin scored a goal from the halfway line. He had more power in those arms than anyone guessed. Privately Harry thought it was because of all those years holding a camera aloft that did it. Well whatever it was, no one would be laughing at them for choosing the boy now.

Blaise was easily the most manoeuvrable person in the air next to himself and Malfoy, the Slytherin just lacked skill with the quaffle. But the two of them were confident that Blaise would get better with practice. After all that was the whole point wasn’t it?

It was amazing really how easily he and Malfoy worked together. Anything quidditch related just seemed to work for them. Harry smiled to himself often when thinking of this. Discussions and debates relating to Quidditch were as close to friendly as the two of them were ever likely to get, but when they met in the corridors or in lessons it was the same as it had always been. They could rile each other up like no other and the Banshees didn’t seem to have changed that at all.

Right now was a perfect example. Harry had been heading to his lesson when his bag had split, it kind of reminded him of when he had purposely split Cedric’s bag in fourth year. Well, he was putting his things away and out pops Malfoy.

‘Hey Potter, couldn’t afford a new bag?’

Their little tiff had of course escalated from there, in the end Snape had come along and given them both detention just to stop them from yelling at each other. Instead they’d yelled at him for a moment, before coming to their senses and realising what they were actually doing.

That had made it two detentions of course. One assigned for later that night and the other in two days time so that it didn’t interfere with the next practice, meaning that neither of them really had any free time to do their homework. But the worst thing about the detentions was that it was actually fair. Malfoy got the same punishment as he did. Even after a week or two of Snape being nice he still hadn’t gotten used to it.

It was bad enough dealing with a fair Snape in lessons, now he had the git treating him like a human even when they were in the corridors. He’d been caught out after curfew the other night and all he’d gotten was a detention and ten points docked from Gryffindor. If this had been any other year then Snape would have assigned him a months worth of detentions and docked at least fifty points.

And a year ago Harry probably would have died of shock if Snape had smiled at him or offered him a kind word or a bit of praise on occasion. But it seemed that since his defeat of Voldemort he wasn’t so easily shocked or riled up, it seemed Hermione had been right when she’d said his mood swings in fifth year were more Voldemort related than hormone related.

Well after that whole corridor debacle he and Malfoy had decided to try and call a truce, or at the least to try and avoid more detentions in the future and the best way to avoid detentions…don’t get caught!

Neither of them thought it would work, but at least they were both willing to give it ago, that had to be a point in their favour at least.


***


They’d managed to keep their ‘Marital problems’ (as the team called it) at bay for about five hours. They blamed the slip up on detention, not on the fact that they just couldn’t seem to control themselves where the other was concerned. The truth was that even though neither of them would admit it, no one else could get under their skins like the other could.

So this continued on for another week or so. Malfoy riling him up and him doing the same to the blonde. They had more detentions than anyone and not just with Snape and Remus but the other teachers as well.

Harry just couldn’t understand why he and Draco just couldn’t avoid each other when they weren’t on the pitch? Whenever they saw the other they just had to fight and it was starting to get to Harry. He felt slightly sick and had a fluttery feeling in his stomach whenever the Slytherin approached, but even that didn’t stop him from starting a fight with the blonde. It was getting so that Harry was starting just as many fights as Malfoy.

Detention in the Potions classroom was not Harry’s favourite way to spend the evening and that was what he was doing right now. Especially as detentions usually involved Snape, but if that wasn’t enough then Malfoy was always there too. And trying to make a potion when Malfoy was working next to you and just happened to keep glancing at you and putting you off was quite distracting and completely impossible to ignore!

Add to that the fact that Snape was at the front of the classroom scratching away with his bloody quill at some poor, unsuspecting students essay and it really wasn’t easy to make a potion.

Harry didn’t even remember what potion he was supposed to be making anymore, Malfoy was really distracting him. Yeah blame Malfoy. He thought to himself sarcastically. You know you weren’t actually listening when Snape was explaining. Then again that was Malfoy’s fault too, you were staring at the blonde. So it was Malfoy;s fault. Even as he thought it he knew he was just making excuses.

Glancing back at his book he realised he shouldn’t have added the robin’s feathers on the last stir. He should be adding them on the next one. Oh hell what did it matter, he’d just carry on and beg Merlin for a spell.

Was his potion supposed to be pink?

Nope Malfoy’s was blue. How can one stir make such a big difference to a bunch of feathers?

Harry sighed, even though Snape was his coach he was going to have a field day with this one. The bastard may be fairer, didn’t mean he was any less vindictive though. ‘Pink Potter? Are you a girl? Do you enjoy wearing pretty colours Potter? Do we also like lace?’

He could just see it now. He actually shuddered, this will be the talk of the locker room…

Harry shook his head and reached for the next ingredient, as he did he saw Malfoy out of the corner of his eye drop something into his cauldron. With reflexes born of years working near Neville Harry threw himself on the floor, since he was too late to catch the thing.

A moment later he lifted his head; there was nothing, no explosion, nothing only a quiet snickering. One guess who that was coming from…

‘Malfoy!’ he growled, getting up. ‘What did you put…’

His potion was blue, dark blue unlike Malfoy’s pale blue but still…blue, not pink.
He looked over at the blonde and found Malfoy resolutely avoiding his gaze. Harry was shocked. Had Malfoy really just done something nice for him? A sound drew his attention to the front of the room, Snape was just sitting down, he’d obviously nipped out to his office for a moment but Harry hadn’t even heard the man get up.

Dimly he realised he still had one ingredient to add.

Stir counter clockwise three times and add the powdered asphodel root.

He did as instructed, then stirred clockwise once again before stopping. He watched as the colour faded from midnight blue to periwinkle blue and then on to a very pale sky blue, exactly the same shade as Malfoy’s potion.

It was right; he’d made a good potion!

With help…

He bit his lip, slightly lost. Why had Malfoy done that? The boy, well maybe not so much of a boy anymore… Harry stole a glance and felt his cheeks heat slightly when he found Malfoy watching him. Boy or not Malfoy had helped him! Even Hermione hadn’t done that for him. Sometimes she did it for Neville, but only when the poor boy had been close to nervous collapse and under threat of being glared to death by a vampire bat.

She’d never done that to him. Often she would whisper instructions but if the colour was starting to go wrong or something else was happening she’d never told him what to do to correct it, she was too busy concentrating on her own potion by then. As Harry’s potions seemed to go wrong in the last minutes of the brewing stage. He may have made a mistake early on but they never turned out so obviously wrong until the very end. But she knew how to correct them, she did!

But Malfoy, Malfoy had helped him make a potion. Malfoy…

Harry was having trouble getting his head around that fact. Malfoy sabotaged Harry’s potions, he didn’t help him. He had that funny feeling again, that strange fluttery feeling he only seemed to get around the other boy.

Malfoy was ladling his potion into a sample vial now and Harry tore his eyes away from the slight flexing of Malfoy’s arm as he did so and followed suit. When they were done with that they packed up their work areas before taking their samples over to Snape’s desk. The man glanced at Harry’s potion, then at Malfoy and then back at the vial. He dismissed them without a word but he clearly knew that something odd had happened. Harry didn’t make good potions.

The moment they were out the door Harry grabbed hold of Malfoy’s arm and dragged him into a nearby classroom. Harry closed the door, ignoring those odd feelings that had sprung up again and rested his back against it, cutting off Malfoy’s escape route.

Malfoy was staring at him defiantly, his arms crossed over his chest. Harry smiled softly.

‘Thank you.’

The others face softened almost imperceptibly but Harry was watching for it and saw a flicker in the lips and eyes. Harry’s smile widened in answer and it seemed that that was the point where everything truly began to change for them.



A/N…Beg Merlin for a spell, is the wizarding worlds equivalent of pray to God for a miracle.

Please guys R & R. I really need opinions on this. Is Harry too sappy, oblivious, Draco too obvious?

Once again thanks to Ecks for the brilliant idea and allowing me to use it!


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