Strange Brew

Title: Strange Brew
Author: Phantomtale
Pairing: HP/DM
Rating: Eventual NC17
Summary: Something strange is happening at Hogwarts and Harry does not approve, neither does Draco. The rest of the students are running around in happy, fluffy, ignorance. Takes place in Harry’s seventh year after the defeat of Voldemort.
Disclaimer: JKR’s not mine *sniff*
Genre: Slash, romance, silliness and fluff (oh and over the top OOC but for good reason as you will soon see
Feedback: Yes please - with a lubed up Harry on the top - tastier than a cherry don\'t ya think?
Beta: Thanks to the intrepid [info]noesnifunifa for braving the harsh terrain of my grammar and taming it;-)

Chapter 5

Draco Malfoy stalked down the dungeon corridor on his way to brave breakfast, or rather Hogwart’s crude interpretation of breakfast.

Oh, how he longed for Crêpes! Crêpes filled with sweet cream sauce and freshly picked bananas.

Unfortunately, Hogwarts’ vertically challenged kitchen dwellers wouldn’t know what a crepe was if it sprouted legs, dressed up as Liza Minnelli and sang an energetic rendition of ‘Cabaret’ in the middle of the Great Hall. Not that Draco knew who Liza Minnelli was, of course, because he abhorred all things Muggle. Nor had he seen the movie twenty-six times, thank-you-very-much!

Draco sighed, turned a corner and glared as Theodore Nott ambled towards him with a genial smile on his face.

Urgh! In what alternative universe does a Slytherin amble? Come to think of it, in what fucked-up, inverted universe does a Slytherin smile? Yes, they smirk, leer, sneer, glower and quite often grin evilly. Draco himself, at last count, had no less than thirty-four nefarious facial expressions at his disposal. A genial smile was not amongst them. A fist in the face soon sorted out that particular annoyance.

“Draco Lucius Malfoy!”

Draco froze in the process of stepping over the unconscious, yet comically still smiling, Nott. Confronted by the horror of hearing his carefully enunciated name, Draco was suddenly seven-years-old again, caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, which in his case was usually the Dark Arts section of his mother’s library at Malfoy Manor.

Draco spun round, heart pounding, a multitude of excuses lined up in the back of his throat and ready for deployment.

He relaxed upon realizing that it was his housemate and one-time attempted lover Pansy Parkinson standing before him and not his Amazon of a mother with a dangerous weapon concealed about her person. In the blink of an eye, Draco’s expression changed from ‘wretchedly fearful’ to ‘bored and unattainably sexy’.

“Pansy darling, light of my life, buddy of my bosom, is there a problem?”

His caustic tone could have curdled milk. It could have curdled a cow. Luckily for Pansy, she was well-versed in the ways of appeasing Malfoys’. Indeed, she was well versed in appeasing ‘volatile megalomaniacs’ in general – her mother (a very forward thinking individual, mindful of the social circles her daughter would one day associate with) had sent her on a course.

“Draco, darling,” she said sweetly, “your recent behaviour is quite alarming. You’re so full of rage. Would you like to talk to me about something, something that’s been bothering you lately? Anxieties? Feelings of inadequacy? Latent homosexuality?”

Draco looked alarmed.

Pansy gave a thoughtful hum and gestured serenely towards Nott.

“This is not like you. Granted you were always a very quick-tempered individual, but…” she placed a calming hand on his shoulder and simpered, “…physical violence, Draco, it’s just so Muggle.”

The hand on the shoulder was an error of judgement. Before she could blink she was backed up against the damp dungeon wall.

“Have you been snorting Billywigs, Pansy, my angel, my shiny little buttercup?” The sarcasm was so evident it could be seen from outer space.

“Look around,” hissed Draco, his voice hoarse with passion. “The world is falling to pieces, and I’m the only one lucid enough to see it. The rest of you are walking around in some kind of happy-clappy trance, chanting ‘I want to cuddle a tree and be kind to small furry creatures’… smiling and giggling…. skipping through frickin’ meadows and…and…and holding hands…” he paused for breath, “…and what is that thing around your neck?”

Pansy gulped, “It’s a daisy chain; someone made it for me.”

“A Hufflepuff no doubt,” Draco sneered. “Don’t think I don’t know what going on here. I’m on to you – all of you. With your strange new ways and your secret meetings and your…” Draco had finally run out of steam, “…your…your stupid hair,” he finished lamely.

Pansy appeared hurt by the hair comment but little else. She decided to pay heed to rule number four of ‘Amicus Quigley’s Quick Course on How to Deal with the Unbalanced and Homicidal’, which was simply ‘walk away’. She inched carefully out from between the wall and Draco, cautiously implementing rule number three: ‘never turn your back on the mad bastard’.

Pansy backed away from him, her eyes never leaving his face. Draco guessed that he must have rattled Pansy somewhat because there was a perfectly good wand in her robes, and yet she valiantly attempted to drag the groaning Nott to his feet with her bare hands. It was quite entertaining watching Pansy try to physically lift twice her body weight. He watched for a short moment and then continued on his way to the Great Hall.

Less than five minutes later, he was seated at the Slytherin House table nursing a flask of Italian espresso and plotting the slow and bloody maiming of every single student in the school. He’d just mentally nailed Longbottom’s ears to a Herbology workbench when Potter walked in.

~

Draco hadn’t laid eyes on Potter since escaping to the dungeons on Saturday afternoon. He’d spent Sunday in the Slytherin common room fine-tuning his current self-designated mission to find out what was turning all of his so called friends into simpering morons. Luckily, everyone had left him to his own devices, so he hadn’t needed to dish out any pain. The Finnigan prat had made no attempt to gain entrance to Slytherin quarters for the first time in four weeks, probably because the last time he’d tried, Draco had jelly-legged him so hard his nose had bled. Finnigan had been keeping a startlingly low profile since the storeroom incident.

Draco tracked Harry’s slow progress to the Gryffindor table, slow because with every step Hogwarts’ personal saviour encountered a back pat, a hug or a kiss from the breakfasting students. Everyone wanted to touch the Golden Boy. It was quite disgusting, and Potter seemed to agree judging by the stricken look on his face.

Draco regarded his nemesis thoughtfully. His hair as usual was fascinatingly thick and messy, and it complimented his wild-eyed expression beautifully. And those eyes! They were incredible, Draco conceded reluctantly, but that didn’t mean a thing. Green was Draco’s favourite colour, and that’s all there was to it. It had absolutely nothing to do with the way Potter’s eyes sparkled like emeralds when he laughed or deepened to the colour of malachite when he was angry.

Draco watched a skinny Ravenclaw drape her arms over Potter’s broad shoulders and whisper something in his ear. Small, red lips brushed his lobe and pale cheek, and Draco had the urge to run over and snap her twiggy little neck.

Potter’s skin flared red as he tried to disentangle himself from the overzealous limpet. It took the combined strength of two Gryffindors and a giggling Hufflepuff to drag her off Potter and out of the hall.

Potter gazed on, mortified. So flustered, he looked as though he’d just been involved in strenuous physical activity.

Draco blushed as he felt his body respond to the thought of Harry Potter partaking in certain physical activities.

Damn, his mind was back in the blasted storeroom again.

Ye gods, had he really admitted to Potter that he’d never masturbated? It was something he’d vowed to take to his grave. Along with his embarrassing attempt at sexual intercourse with Pansy and the awful realisation that ‘boy fucking wonder’ was the only person that could get him hard.

The latter had been a shock of world-ending proportions. Draco subsequently refused to touch his traitorous cock in protest, which meant wet, wanton dreams starring a phantom emerald-eyed lover.

Draco again thought of the storeroom incident. He had been more than a little startled when the object of his recent angst-induced panic attacks had barged into his private sanctuary. Like every good Malfoy, he’d buried his confusion under a grade ‘A’ terror-provoking death glare.

And Potter had just grinned.

Grinned!

Draco had been completely confounded by Potter’s apparent lack of embarrassment. Considering the state of affairs, it was inconceivable that the dark haired wizard should look pleased to see him. That could mean only one thing, Potter had succumbed to the same madness that was affecting everyone at Hogwarts. It would explain Potter’s interview in the Qubbler…it would explain the grin. Draco felt unwell.

The sinking sensation in his stomach was surely due to the inedible pancake and not the realisation that Potter’s actions in the storeroom were the result of mental illness instead of uncontrollable lust for him as previously suspected.

He heaved a pained sigh and gave up on the pancake; watching Pansy flit around the Hufflepuff table like a mother hen was giving him indigestion. So was the House integration prevalent to varying degrees throughout the hall.

He watched Finnigan and Creevey the elder talking quietly with a bunch of Ravenclaws as Thomas counted out a large pile of his ill-gotten gains next to them. Occasionally, Creevey would shoot a wistful look at Potter and then glance guiltily around the room as though he expected some kind of backlash for his presumptions. Draco noticed he was getting the same treatment from Finnigan.

Next to them sat a Gryffindor, a Ravenclaw, a Hufflepuff and a Slytherin, all getting on famously, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. It was nauseating and disorganised. And wrong.

The obvious exception to this inter-house love fest was the Slytherin table where Draco sat, for the moment, alone. This table was his private domain. Blaise and Pansy and occasionally other Slytherins sat with him but no one else dare. Well, not unless they wanted to bleed.

Potter, having finally managed to sit at the Gryffindor table, glanced up and caught Draco’s eye; both blushed and dipped their heads low.

He could feel his anger rising again. He imagined a shrieking Lavender Brown being chased through the forbidden forest by a rabid Acromantula and felt his rage dissipate.

Pansy and a few other Slytherins joined him at the table, and Draco listened with half an ear as they discussed plans for the coming celebration. Blaise plonked himself down in the seat next to Draco.

“Hey, Dray.”

There was a blur of movement, and Blaise found himself pulled up against Draco with a spoon pressed up against his throat.

Draco looked at the spoon, frowned and deftly swapped it for a vicious looking two-pronged fork.

“Don’t call me Dray”, he hissed. “In fact, don’t talk to me at all, Zabini.”

Blaise widened his eyes in mock innocence.

Draco glared at his best friend. “I know you’re the one responsible for the Quibbler, and don’t think I don’t know that you’ve been conspiring with Weasley and Granger for some twisted perverse reasons, you disloyal piece of effluence.”

The other students at the table started to edge away from the ruckus, eyes cast down. Pansy’s toastie promptly became the centre of her universe. The rest of the hall watched avidly.

“Ahh come on, Dray….em….Draco. I thought you’d be glad to finally get it all out in the open. Besides, it made a lovely companion piece with Harry’s article. That\'s what the reporter said – a tale of hope in a post-war climate, love against the odds and all that.”

Draco snorted in disgust; Blaise sounded like he actually believed that bullshit.

“Since when do you call him Harry?” Draco snarled, tightening his grip on the back of Zabini’s head.

The boy yelped, “It was only a few photographs. You have hundreds of them.”

“I don’t care if it was my beloved, signed copy of ‘How to Make the World Grovel at Your Feet’ by Perry Película. If I catch you stealing anything of mine ever again, Zabini, I will chop your thieving little hands off, understand?”

Blaise gibbered his assent, and Draco released him. The terrified boy didn’t hesitate once in his rush for the doors. Draco didn’t fail to notice Longbottom leave shortly after with a worried look on his chubby face.

All the activity in the Great Hall resumed. Draco, calm once more, sat down and watched Crabbe and Goyle enter the hall and take their usual place at the side of Granger and Weasley. All four (to Potter’s palpable horror) began to converse in quiet whispers, heads bent together intimately. Potter threw them all vicious looks.

‘Ahh, poor Harry is jealous, well get used to it Potter,’ thought Draco bitterly, ‘it’s a brave new world’.

After frantic whispering between Potter’s sidekicks and his ex-bodyguards, a nervous looking Crabbe and Goyle got up and bumbled reluctantly towards the Slytherin table…. and sat in their old seats on either side of Draco! Places that they hadn’t sat in since the beginning of the madness.

Crabbe cleared his throat theatrically.

“Would you like me to pour you some pumpkin juice, Draco?” he asked, waving a jug of the amber liquid in the direction of Draco’s empty goblet.

Draco, incensed by their impudent behaviour, didn’t bother to respond; instead, he placed his hand over his goblet, a tacit no.

Goyle’s eyes looked at his own nose, his face so determined he looked like he might vomit.

“Draco, pumpkin is one of the principal vegetables rich in bioactive carotenoid. Carotenoids are potent antioxidants and photoprotectants and can additionally modulate gene activity, resulting in protection from experimentally induced inflammatory damage and neo-plastic transformation: a goblet full a day keeps the mediwitch at bay.”

Crabbe was nodding in agreement, holding up the glass jug preciously like it was the nectar of the gods and the answer to all prayers.

Draco blinked twice (once for Crabbe, once for Goyle) and looked over at Granger who was suddenly very busy inspecting her nails.

Draco didn’t even pause to think, “No thanks fellows, I’m allergic to pumpkin juice.”

“Since when?” enquired Goyle.

Draco faltered momentarily. Goyle had never questioned him before.

“Since you developed brain cells,” was Draco’s tart response.

What the hell was going on here?

Crabbe and Goyle looked crestfallen but shrugged and started to shovel in their breakfast.

After five minutes of eating without pause, the two got up and shuffled out of the room. Weasley and Granger quickly followed, leaving a stunned and shunned Potter gazing mournfully into his porridge.

Draco looked at the retreating foursome. He looked at the empty goblet. He looked at the jug of pumpkin juice. He frowned at his half-eaten pancake and then slapped himself on the forehead, gaining startled looks from his already edgy table companions.

The pumpkin juice!

Draco hid his epiphany under a scowl and grabbed a piece of toast, industriously plotting and purposely ignoring everyone else in the room.

tbc