Unlikely Beginnings

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Chapter Twenty Six

Later that night, Harry couldn\'t help but become restless. After getting
back to Gryffindor Tower, he\'d told his friends that as he was on his way to
the infirmary, he\'d felt better, so he turned around, and after two
confusing hallways, he found himself back in the common room. Harry watched
Ron try and teach Hermione to play wizards chess for the thousandth time,
and it was enjoyable, and succeeded in taking Harry\'s mind off other things,
but not for long.

When it was time for their evening meal, Harry focused on eating, and only
looked for Draco once, before going back to the common room to start on his
homework for the day. He hadn\'t had a class with Draco in the afternoon, and
he felt like things were left unfinished between them, though that could
just be from the way they parted. It didn\'t feel right to leave without
something happening between them, like it usually did from their
confrontations. It felt like something was missing, and Harry tried to
squish those thoughts out of his head, to try and get some sleep.

It didn\'t work, and here he lay, restless and wide awake. Hnishnished all of
his homework, and helped Ron with his Astronomy paper before going up to
bed, thinking he was tired enough and his brain overworked enough to just
fall right asleep. Well, he\'d been wrong, and all he could think about was a
certain silver haired Slytherin. Harry got up and went to the end of his bed
where his trunk was open, trousers strewn about it from where he\'d tossed
them before getting into bed. He grabbed them, quickly took his pajama
bottoms off, and put his trousers back on.

They were a comfortable, loose fit, black, and they were durable, good for a
lot of purposes, and not to mention they went with anything, which was very
good considering his fashion ineptitude, as Lavender liked to put it. He
rifled in his trunk for another shirt, picking a heavier sweater, a deep
blue color, and he pulled that on over top of a black t-shirt. Grabbing his
robes, and his invisibility cloak, Harry wrapped both around himself before
closing the curtains on his bed and making his way out of the room.

When he got downstairs, thwereweren\'t many people awake still, despite the
relatively early hour. Ron was still up, putting away his chess set, and
Harry stayed as quiet as he could as he made his way to the portrait door,
and when Ron\'s back was turned, Harry opened the door quickly and left,
hoping the Fat Lady wouldn\'t make a fuss over an invisible entity. She
turned out to be asleep, and Harry hurried down the hall.

Down a flight of stairs, two corridors, past the Great Hall, down another
stair case, a left turn, and he found himself in the main passage leading
into the dungeons. What a lot of people didn\'t know was that there was two
floors to the dungeons, though it was more like one and a half. Harry jogged
down the halls in search of the entrance to the Slytherin common room.
Unlike the rest of the Houses, the Slytherins actual housing wasn\'t hiddenIt wIt was well known it was in the dungeons, but who in their right mind would
ever go looking for it?

Granted, it wasn\'t in plain sight, as to go along with the general theme,
but for someone who knew the tricks of the unseen and overlooked by Salazar
Slytherin, Harry soon found what he was looking for. There was a black
doorframe, engraved with twisting and twining serpents in the wood, and
inside the borders of the frame, were blocks of stone, much like the normal
walls of the castle. The thing was, the stones were cut in different sizes
here, and arranged to make the picture of a cobra rising to strike.

It was a marvelous work of mosaic, and Harry didn\'t have much time to
inspect the masonry for too long before he heard heavy footsteps coming down
the hall. He pressed himself up in the nearest corner, forgetting he was
invisible for the time being, though he relaxed when he remembered, waiting
for the owner of the steps to appear. It was Millicent Bulstrode, and he
knew she was a Slytherin Prefect, which is why she would be in the halls at
this time. Harry guessed it wasn\'t much past eleven at night, but they had
to go to bed early to get up early.

Of course, there were some who pulled all nighters, but since there wasn\'t
too much to do at night without drawing a teacher\'s attention, most people
just went to bed at around ten thirty. Belatedly, Harry realized that he
would have needed a password to enter into the core of Slytherin territory,
and shuffled quietly to get back to the door before it shut itself after
Millicent passed through. \"Vipera penetro.\"

Harry watched as the cobra\'s fangs elongated, and a faint hissing sound
emanated from the stones as they started to slide away from each other,
rearranging themselves much like the secret passage Draco had used to get
them down to Potions on time. He hurried to slip in behind Millicent,
meanwhile wondering how many secret passages that Salazar had built into the
school, and the major thing was, they weren\'t on the Marauder\'s Map.

Once inside, Harry was confronted with the sheer size of the ceiling, and
the luxurious furniture in the common room. He\'d been in the room before,
but it seemed a lot more sharper this time around, as he\'d had nothing much
else to focus on other than gawking at the portraits on the walls. There was
a large picture of their House Founder above an equally large fireplace,
three wing-back black leather chairs fanned out in front of the crackling
fire.

Harry almost tripped, not noticing the stairs he\'d almost stumbled down.
That would certainly have blown his cover, toppling down the stairs and
landing in a heap at the bottom. There were still a few students up and
doing homework in the common room, and a girl reading on one of the couches
near the fire. He watched her as he stepped down the stairs, knowing that
there weren\'t many girls in Slytherin at all, and that most were really ugly
or, quite frankly, dogs. She was pretty in a quiet, dark haired, glasses,
bookworm sort of way, and Harry wondered if people thought that about him,
except the bookworm part.

He was more of an adventurous type, which he supposanceanceled out the quiet
part. The decor was set out in mostly black and deep green, with the dark
and light greys of the stone which made up the entire walls, floor and
ceiling. It wasn\'t as drab and dark as he\'d faintly remembered, but it
wasn\'t as cheery as Gryffindor Tower, though it was really nice, in a rich
sort of way. Harry was sure he could appreciate the effort and money gone
into decorating the rooms he She Slytherin dormitories and common room, but
he had other things to do right now.

Looking around at the doors in the room, Harry spotted three bathrooms
(girls, boys, and Prefects) and the doors leading through to the
dormitories. One for girls, on the right, and the boys\' door was on the
left. Harry made directly towards it, deviating to walk around a couch or a
table, and he made sure no one was looking before he pushed the handle down,
black marble carved out as the end of a snake\'s tail, and entered into the
next room. Now he was in a hall way, that had three doors on each side, and
one on the end.

He looked to each side, and they were labeled by year. Common logic would
state that the year he was looking for was at the end of the hall, the main
door at the other end. He made his way to that door, and sure enough, in
ornate silver lettering, it read \'Seventh Year\'. Harry opened the door, but
before he did, he took a deep breath and secured his hold of the cloak
around himself. He squinted his eyes, ready for an impossible scene, no way
for himself to speak to Draco, but found himself in a moderately sized round
room.

Harry frowned, wondering if this was a trick, and the room knew he wasn\'t a
Slytherin, and was therefore leading him through a maze, by not letting him
see the right doors and choosing the wrong one. No, that wasn\'t true, Harry
found out, as he looked around the room at the rest of the doors that lined
the curving wall. It was another small common room, exclusively for the
Seventh Year\'s. There was a smaller fireplace, a large table, and couches
(curved to fit against the walls) around where there was room between doors
and portraits and a notice board.

There was no one in the room, for which Harry was thankful, though he did
take time to worry about what he\'d walk into next. He went up to the door
closest to him, and read \'Nott\' and \'Crabbe\'. Harry snickered. Not crab,
like written in olde English. He knew it was stupid, but he couldn\'t help
it. It seemed that there were only two occupants to a room, their names
stated on the door. Harry walked around the room until he came to \'Zabini\'
and \'Malfoy\'.

Harry couldn\'t recall hearing much about Zabini, and to be honest, he\'d
forgotten the boy\'s first name. He thought for a minute before remembering.
Blaise, that was it. Harry opened the door, not as tentatively as he had
before, and went into the room. It was lit with sconces on each wall,
because this room did, indeed, have four walls, not being circular like the
small common room. Harry looked behind himself to the door, and it was a
flat wall. He frowned, but chalked it up to more charms and let it be.

There was a moment before Harry determined which bed to go to, and decided
upon seeing a small tuft of blonde hair sticking out from under the covers
of the bed to the left of the room. Harry crept up quietly, hoping not to
wake Draco\'s room mate. He got to the edge of Draco\'s bed, the side that
Draco was facing, towards the wall, and he decided to sit down. Draco felt
the new weight on his bed and opened his eyes. They were a bit blurry and
strained, but he would know Harry\'s face anywhere. You know, after he took
off that damn invisibility cloak. \"What are you doing here?\"

\"You know it\'s me?\" Harry asked, quiet, still mindful of their not so
private state. He smiled a bit.

\"Who else would come and sit in the curve of my body in the middle of the
night, under an invisibility cloak?\" Draco whispered, following Harry\'s
quiet tone. Honestly, he would have forgotten about Blaise, and he spared a
moment to glance across the room, making sure that the other boy was asleep.
\"I thought you were mad at me,\" he said, and almost felt he hadn\'t because
he didn\'t want this to escalate into some type of verbal spat. And, since
they were already in akingking bed, Draco thought, it wouldn\'t take much to
go past verbal.

\"I\'m not,\" Harry said, answering Draco\'s not quite question, \"but we\'ve got
to go.\" He sat up from the bed, holding his cloak over his arm, and allowing
Draco to sit up. Draco did sit up, and he rubbed at the side of his face
that was against the pillow. Harry couldn\'t help it, and he watched Draco,
looking at the other boy\'s body before snapping out of it when Draco looked
back to him. His hair was out of it\'s usual slicked back state, falling
freely without being held with some type of gel. It looked even more pale
blonde like that.

\"Listen,\" Harry started, but quieted his voice again at Draco\'s \'Shh\'. \"We
need to talk to Snape before this gets any worse, or farther, or whatever
I\'m supposed to call it,\" Harry said, not answering Draco\'s question, but
rly rly sounding confused about what he was worried about. \"The only chance
we have before that happens, is to find him. I don\'t want to tell anyone
else.\"

\"Where is he?\" Draco asked, confused himself, but understanding Harry\'s
train of thought on the matter.

\"Durmstrang.\"

\"Are you mad?\" Harry didn\'t answer him, just shrugged his shoulders and
stood, grabbing Draco\'s wrist and pulling him up to his own feet, and Harry
turned before he could fall under the spell that seemed to like to hold
teenage boys\' attention to certain sexual parts of others\' anatomy. Before
Draco could really say anything at all about the plan, Harry took off
towards the door, not shutting it behind him, and Draco heard the interior
common room door shut as Harry simply left without him.

Draco sighed, rubbing at his forehead for a moment, and flipping his hair
back, though some of it still fell down to the sides, and it stayed out ofis fis face for the most part now. He definitely didn\'t have time to do his
hair. He wasn\'t utterly oblivious when it came to Harry\'s tendency of
jumping off on the wrong foot into poorly planned adventurous activities, so
the least he could do would be to keep Harry out of the major bits of
trouble he was headed for.

He knew there was no possible reason why Snape would make the trip to
Durmstrang for no reason, and no reason that anyone would go to Durmstranwas was for a reason unrelated to Dark Arts. The exception was the Triwizard
Tournament, but every few hundred years wasn\'t often enough to be called a
reason to go to that godfornly,nly, bloody cold place. Draco would know,
having been there a few times himself, with Lucius, of course.

Oh, and Harry has completely fallen off his rocker, Draco surmised. Harry
had come down to the dungeons to enlist his help, and rightfully so. He knew
Snape better than Harry on this type of level, though Draco did wonder about
what went on when, on the few occasions Snape had said something about
training, and his door was found locked with Harry Potter having \'detention\'
that day. It was with a bit of a begrudgingly acceptance to a choice he
didn\'t quite make for himself, that he was going to go with Harry, if for no
other reason than to lead the way there, and to keep this delusional side of
Potter from doing something stupid.

\"Well,\" Draco said, sounding resigned, but challenged, as he tossed the
covers of his bed aside, and stood up. \"I guess we\'re going to Durmstrang,\"
he said quietly to himself, shaking his head as he gathered a few things
into his school bag, after dumping out his books on his bed. He certainly
wouldn\'t be needing those where they were going. Stopping at his bed side
table, Draco put his watch on, and opened the small drawer there, and
retrieved a bag of money, which also contained a key to his vault at the
bank. Satisfied that he\'d collected all they\'d need immediately on their
impromptu trip, Draco followed after Harry, who he found waiting near the
stone door out of the Slytherin common room.

Stone echoes things very well, whether you want to hear things or not. At
least he knew who Draco\'s latest lover was. It was a bit impressive, Blaise
had to admit; Harry Pot He He didn\'t suppose anyone else knew about it, but
if what he heard was true, and the two of them were going off to a school
for Dark Arts, of all places, and together no less, people were going to
notice. If the Headmaster didn\'t know where they went, close friends would
be questioned, and that wasn\'t a pleasant thought, especially considering
Draco\'s father, incarcerated or not.

By now, Harry and Draco had made it up to the main floor, and out onto the
front grounds of the castle lawns, and weradinading towards the gate. From a
window in the east tower, they certainly looked small and unrecognizable to
someone who didn\'t already know who they were, or where they were going.
Dumbledore watched as the two figures sprinted across the grounds. He had
not expected the second addition, but new things happen every day; who was
he to question unlikely relations? Slytherin and Gryffindor were best
friends, after all. Perhaps this would be the beginning of a new
reconciliation of Houses.

Shaking his head, the Headmaster looked down to the note he held in his
hand. He smiled at it, his eyes twinkling as he looked back to his desk re Hre Harry\'s school bag now lay. Fawkes crooned and Dumbledore walked from
the window after one last look towards the gates; normally they were shut at
night, but tonight would be an exception. He stroked the golden feathers
between his phoenix\'s eyes, and the bird closed them, letting out another
soft sound.

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