Expensive Disaster

Authors Note: Okay, so it's Expensive Disaster Update day! Everybody cheer! Hazzah! lol. So of course thanks as always to my lovely Beta Alexandra. She's brilliant as always...though I notice she doesn't review anymore except to flame me .lol. Still, we must all bow to her awesome promptness. I originally had another chapter slated to go here, and then I went back and wrote this one instead and moved the other one to chapter 5. I needed some more Griffin interaction.

Chapter 4 Announcements

The cafeteria was crowded as always at lunch on Friday. Students were chattering about their plans for the weekend and passing their assignments notes back and forth. The major news on everybody’s mind was the upcoming Halloween dance.

Harry groaned when he saw the poster announcing the upcoming costume ball. It was only a few weeks away and Harry had no idea what costume to wear, or who to take, or if he even wanted to go in the first place. Part of him would rather hide in his room and read a book instead of mingling with a bunch of giddy students he didn’t particularly like in the first place.

“So have you decided on a costume?” Griffin asked the moment he sat down.

Harry cringed and shook his head. “I’m not even sure if I want to go.”

“You have to go, Harry. It’s the best party they throw around here. They’ll have live music and everything,” Griffin added.

“I don’t know what I would wear, or who I would take,” Harry replied, immediately regretting bringing up the subject of dates.

Griffin blushed slightly and looked down. “Well, the Minerva Academy will be invited too, so there will be plenty of girls to choose from.”

“Um… Griffin? Have you been paying attention? I’m sort of gay…” Harry trailed off, rolling his eyes.

“I pay attention just fine,” he replied defensively. “It’s not like you’ve come out and said so, you know?”

Harry laughed. “So the fact that I just told the whole student body that I kissed Malfoy doesn’t serve as a public announcement?”

Neville snickered under his breath. “That really doesn’t mean anything around here, Harry. At least half the students here have made out with Malfoy at one point or another, but they still typically date girls.”

“Oh,” Harry replied, slightly dejected. He didn’t know why it upset him so much that Malfoy had been with so many of the students here. Not that he thought he was special, but part of him hoped he had been. “Well, for the record, I’m gay,” he announced to his friends.

Griffin looked up hopefully and Harry deftly avoided his gaze and looked over at Neville and Colin. “So what are you guys wearing?”

“I’m going to be Peter Parker,” Colin said and the other three laughed.

“Why not actually be Spiderman?” Harry asked.

“I think I’m more like his alter ego,” Colin replied sheepishly.

“Isn’t the point of a costume party to be something not like yourself?” Griffin asked.

Colin only shrugged. “I was thinking of going as a wizard,” Neville piped in.

The other three dissolved into laughter.

“Well, that’s certainly a fantasy,” Harry said through barking laughter. “Could you imagine Longbottom doing magic? He’d probably blow us all up!”

Neville feigned a pout but eventually joined in with the laughter. “What about you?” he asked Griffin.

Griffin made a noncommittal noise and shrugged.

Harry nodded. “I have no idea either, but I guess if you guys are all going, then so will I.”

Warm brown eyes stared into his and Griffin opened his mouth to say something, but it quickly turned into a scowl. Harry turned around to see what had caused the look and found himself face to face with Malfoy.

“Potter, if you’re so anxious to kiss me,” Draco said, gesturing to their close proximity from Harry’s turning around, “I could always oblige at the dace. Care to be my date?” he asked.

Harry rolled his eyes and ignored him, going back to his conversation with Griffin. Suddenly that prospect didn’t seem much better since it looked like Griffin was going to ask him out too.

Before Griffin could open his mouth, Harry stood up and grabbed his books. “I’ve got to cram for the quiz in Algebra, I’ll see you guys.”

He left and walked briskly down the corridor toward the dorms, but paused when he heard someone else’s steps behind him. He whirled around and once again came nearly nose-to-nose with Malfoy. “Would you sod off already? You’ve had your laugh.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Are you ever just going to give me a minute to talk to you? You’re always surrounded by your groupies and I can’t get a word in.”

“First of all they are not groupies, they are real friends… ever heard of it? And second, you seem to get a word in quite often, not that I care to listen,” Harry added spitefully.

“So I’ve noticed. Look, Harry…” He didn’t get anymore out before Harry stopped him.

“You lost the right to call me by my given name three years ago, Malfoy, or don’t you remember?” Harry spat.

Draco just nodded, looking dejected. “I remember perfectly,” he whispered. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“What is there to say? You made your bed—and it wasn’t mine, I might add—now lie in it,” Harry stated firmly and whirled back around, making a beeline for his dorm.

He could hear Malfoy following him, not relenting, but he tried to ignore it. “I told him everything,” Draco said clearly still close to Harry’s footsteps.

“That’s sort of the problem,” Harry said softly. “You blamed it all on me, then even after you promised to fix it, you didn’t. I got shipped off to public school because of you. I had to move, my parents had to leave all their friends behind because of the mess you made.”

Harry turned around again, letting Malfoy see his shining green eyes, about to overflow with tears. “They might still be alive if it weren’t for you,” Harry hissed.

Malfoy opened and closed his mouth several times. “That’s not fair, Harry. I can take the blame for everything else, but I had nothing to do with your parents’ death,” he whispered as if he wasn’t sure that was true.

Harry shook his head. “I don’t want to hear it, Malfoy. Everything that’s happened to me over the last three years is a direct effect of what you did to me.”

“I’m not giving up that easily, Harry. I’m going to win you back. I’m going to make it all up to you. You still love me… I see it. I know its there, and I still—“

Harry cut him of abruptly. “Unless you have the last three years of my life in your satchel, there is nothing, nothing you can do to make it up to me.” Harry turned on his heel and flew down the corridor at a light run. He wasn’t going to pause to let Draco see him cry, he would save that for the privacy of his room.

--

“Potter, I’ll need you to stay after class a moment, you too Mr. Malfoy,” Snape told the boys after dismissing the rest of the class. He didn’t look up as the two boys silently approached his desk.

“Erm, sir?” Harry asked finally, after several moments had passed and Snape had still said nothing. He couldn’t bear to be this close to Malfoy without crying or screaming or punching something.

“Patience is a virtue, Potter,” was all he got in reply.

Finally after a several minutes passed the man looked up, his black eyes boring into Harry’s. “You’re rubbish at fencing, Potter,” he stated firmly and raised his hand to block off Harry’s rebuttal. “I’m aware that you are… out of practice, as it were, so I’ve decided a tutor would be in order. I think with some extra evening lessons you could be back on track with the other students in no time.”

Harry nodded his agreement and tried to hold back his anger at having to take extra classes. He didn’t have long to dwell on it though, before the air was punched right out of him by Snape’s next words.

“Good, then it’s settled. Malfoy, you will train with Potter every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening, starting next week and you will continue until I feel he has reached satisfactory improvement.”

Malfoy shot Harry a bright and toothy grin and nodded to the professor. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to work privately with Mr. Potter, sir.”

Harry stifled a bark of vicious laughter. The professor seemed to think nothing of it and waved them out of his office.

--

Authors note: I've been threatened to have my faulty golden wish muffin withheld if I don't update more, so I will, but I also want reviews. lol