Stand Up For Judas

Stand Up For Judas

5
McGonagall’s Office

     Harry sprang back from Malfoy, blushing furiously. What was McGonagall thinking? Did she really believe that he and Draco had been fawning over each other? And why did that warrant a trip to her office?
     All thoughts of McGonagall vanished, though, when he glanced at the blonde, who was still pressed up against the wall, and saw he was blushing as furiously as he himself was. Draco at the height of embarrassment was the cutest thing Harry had ever seen.
     ‘Cute?’ Harry thought ‘Since when did I start using the word cute?’ But he had no time to paw over that thought because at that moment Draco noticed he was being stared at, and looked mortified. He turned round and practically ran after McGonagall, leaving an entirely bemused Harry in his wake.
     ‘He didn’t jeer at me?’ Harry’s brain didn’t seem to want to take that in. It had only just started to accept that Harry had been pressed up against Draco just moments before.
     ‘Bloody hell!’ Harry thought, as the realisation washed over him ‘We were up against that wall.’ He suddenly felt dizzy, his knees almost giving way. He’d been collapsed across Draco and the blonde hadn’t shouted at him. No harsh remarks, nothing. A faint bubble of hope began to bloom in Harry’s chest.
     ‘Potter!’ McGonagall was at the end of the corridor by then and Harry had to set of at a trot to catch up. Draco was still a few paces ahead of him as he slowed down, giving Harry a perfect view of his arse. Draco’s faint swagger had it rolling in a way that mesmerised Harry. So much so, that when he stopped outside McGonagall’s office, Harry nearly walked straight in to him.
     ‘Watch it, Potter’ Draco muttered, looking at the floor, and, to Harry’s ears, not with nearly as much venom as usual.
     Professor McGonagall swept in to her office, placing herself behind the desk and motioning for the boys to follow. Once the two of them were in front of her, Harry shot Draco a nervous glance. He seemed to have his eyes fixed on the floor again.
     ‘Now boys, you both know why you’re here’ Harry actually didn’t have the first idea why he was there, but decided it was best to keep his mouth shut. ‘Your behaviour a moment ago was not at all what I would expect from two of my students.’
     ‘But Professor’ Harry couldn’t quite work out what they’d done wrong ‘You didn’t need to seem to need to see us before you realised who we were.
     ‘Yes, well,’ She said, becoming ever so slightly flustered ‘Once I did realise who you were your behaviour became entirely inappropriate’ Harry still didn’t understand. Was McGonagall annoyed with him because Malfoy was in Slytherin? And anyway, he thought to himself, he and Malfoy hadn’t actually been doing anything.
     ‘Professor, nothing was happening, I just fell over!’
     ‘That’s hardly the point, is it now, Potter?’ Harry thought that was exactly the point ‘I will not stand for two young men doing such things, especially not in public!’
     ‘Hang on’ Harry started, realisation suddenly dawning ‘You’re telling me that the reason we’re being punished is because we’re both blokes?’
     ‘Yes, Mr Potter, that is exactly why you’re being punished’
     ‘You can’t do that!’ Harry exploded, completely forgetting the fact that he had merely fallen over ‘That’s discrimination! That’s not fair!’ McGonagall sighed, softening slightly for the first time since she’d seen Harry and Draco at the top of the stairs.
     ‘You have to understand, Harry, I am a very old fashioned witch and some things I simply do not find acceptable’
     ‘No, Professor!’ Harry was furious by now, he couldn’t believe that his head of house was so prejudiced ‘I’m sorry, but what’s not acceptable is your bigotry! Me and Malfoy weren’t even doing anything, I tripped up the stairs and fell in to him, Okay?’
     ‘That is quite enough, Mr Potter,’ Professor McGonagall snapped, seeming as worked up as Harry by then ‘And no, it is most certainly not “okay”. Whatever your excuses, I simply cannot condone what you and Mr Malfoy were doing in the corridor.’
     Draco, who until then had remained silent, suddenly seemed to come to life.
     ‘We weren’t doing anything!’ He yelled, shocking both Harry and the Professor in to momentary silence. Apparently horrified at his outburst, Draco’s eyes shot back to the floor.
     ‘Be that as it may,’ McGonagall said calmly, once she’d recovered ‘After your flagrant display-’ Harry opened his mouth to retort, but she gave him the same cold, hard stare she’d given Snape earlier, and he shut it again ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to give you both detention’
     ‘What?!’ both boys shouted in unison.
     ‘Don’t argue with me, either of you’ she warned ‘Detention, tonight, my classroom, eight o’clock’ Harry couldn’t see how McGonagall thought a detention would curb his feelings for Malfoy. As he turned to leave the room in defeat, the memory of the argument she and Snape had had earlier that day flashed back in to his mind. He turned back, not quite willing to let it drop.
     ‘Professor, if you’re so homophobic’ Harry couldn’t quite believe the words were leaving his lips. Did that mean he was accepting he was gay? ‘Why did you defend me against Snape earlier?’ There was a long pause before she answered him.
     ‘I presumed Professor Snape’s words to be an empty insult. Now please get out of my office, Potter’
      So she hadn’t defended him after all. Harry could feel his previous misery sinking back in to his body. He’d expected something like this from Ron, not his teacher! Hermione better work out how he was going to get over Malfoy quickly.
     ‘Shit!’ He thought ‘Malfoy!’ Harry suddenly noticed that the blonde had left the room without him realising. He ran to the door, but by the time he reached it Draco had already vanished.

     Not being able to face his lesson, Harry walked to the Gryffindor common room with a heavy heart. Professor McGonagall’s reaction confirmed his worst fears about what people would think of him, but the way Malfoy had acted had made his heart swell. He couldn’t bear feeling that way about the boy and knowing that everyone else would despise him for it. He reached the portrait of the Fat Lady with his mind in the worst state it had been since the whole thing started.
     ‘Amortentia’
      Harry scrambled in to the common room before the Fat Lady could start another one of her crooning love songs.
      ‘Harry!’ Hermione jumped up from one of the armchairs by the fire, leaving a faintly stunned looking Ron and rushing over to see how he was ‘Are you alright? What did she say?’
      ‘Oh, just how inappropriate it was for two guys to do ‘such things’ in the corridor’ Harry said bitterly as the two of them walked back towards where Hermione and Ron had been sitting. Despite the pile of text books around him, Ron seemed to be playing wizards chess against himself.
     ‘Well I can see where she’s coming from’ Said Ron from his armchair ‘If you and Malfoy had been doing stuff it would just be weird’
     Harry tensed at Ron’s words.
     ‘Calm down’ he thought to himself ‘Hermione will help you fix it, it’ll all be over soon and everything will be fine’
     ‘What about you two, why aren’t you in the lesson’
     ‘We had Transfiguration,’ Hermione explained ‘Professor McGonagall had spelled a note onto the board telling us the lesson was cancelled’ That didn’t bode well. ‘Well, at least it gives you two more time to work on your Charms essays’ Hermione added, brightly.
     ‘Hey, Harry,’ Ron seemed very eager to change the subject ‘Are we going to have a quidditch practice tonight?’
     ‘No’ Said Harry dejectedly ’She gave me detention.’
     ‘Detention!?’ Hermione was incredulous ‘She can’t give you a detention for that, it’s completely unfair!’
     ‘I know, Hermione’ Harry sighed ‘But arguing would just have got me in more trouble’ Then a thought occurred to him ‘At least this way I get to-’ He stopped himself, realising too late that Ron was still there.
     ‘Get to what, mate?’ Ron asked, confusedly.
     ‘Er, get to watch Malfoy suffer as well’ Harry cursed, it was the most unconvincing cover story he’d come up with yet.
     ‘Yeah, I guess so’ Ron seemed to accept it though. Harry had been going to say ‘at least this way I get to spend the evening with Draco’, and that thought kept him going through several games of wizards chess and Hermione pestering him to do homework until eight o’clock.

     Harry arrived at Professor McGonagall’s classroom before Draco. He knocked apprehensively on the door, not wanting to land himself in any more trouble than he was already in.
     ‘Come in’ Professor McGonagall smiled at him as he entered the room. Harry was surprised by that, he’d expected more quips about his sexuality ‘Sit down, Potter, we’ll wait for Mr Malfoy for your detention to begin’ Harry took a seat fairly near the back of the class, he didn’t himself not to lash out at the teacher if he got too close. A moment later there was another knock at the door.
     ‘Come in, Mr Malfoy’ Draco walked in to the room without saying anything, taking a seat further along the row from Harry.
      ‘Right, I want you two boys to do me twenty-five inches of lines’ She pointed her wand at the board and the words ‘I will not behave inappropriately in public’ appeared in thick italicised writing.
     ‘You’ll need to use these quills, I don’t want any cheating.’ Another flick of the wand and two dark blue quills shot across the room and imbedded themselves in the desks Harry and Draco were sitting at.
     Harry sighed and yanked his quill out of the desk, taking the chance to glance sidelong at Malfoy as he did so. The blonde had already managed to pull his quill from the desk and was dipping it in the inkwell, before realising he hadn’t got any parchment out yet. Harry failed to suppress a chuckle, earning him a sharp look from Draco. Gulping, Harry tuned back to his own work, pulling out some parchment from his bag and writing the first of his lines.
      Just as Harry was about to start on the next line, he saw ink bubbling across his page, and a neat line of text in cramped, spidery writing materialised below what he had already written.

This is your fault, Potter

     Amazed, Harry stared across at Draco, who looked for all the world as if he was thoroughly engrossed in writing his lines. Harry looked back to his parchment in time to see the words disappearing again. Slowly, he put his quill to the page, wondering if the magic would work both ways, like it had with Riddle’s diary. Sure enough, as he wrote the his reply down, it sank in to the parchment, leaving not even the faintest trace that it had ever been there.

You shouldn’t have been standing there

     He knew it was a completely pathetic counter argument, but he wasn’t going to let Malfoy insult him and just take it. It didn’t take long for a reply to come.

You shouldn’t have landed on me!

     Harry had to bite his bottom lip to stop himself from laughing. He could just imagine Malfoy’s indignant voice saying the retort. Before he knew what he was doing, he’d already written

Well you shouldn’t be so attractive

     He regretted writing it as soon as it had sunk in to the paper. If somehow Malfoy had failed to notice how Harry felt before, he certainly would now. Harry cursed himself over and over, not even daring to look over at Draco. For what felt like hours, nothing else happened. He closed his eyes, wishing that the floor would open up and swallow him. When he opened them, the three words that greeted him nearly knocked him off his chair.

Neither should you

     The bubble of hope in his chest seemed to expand indefinitely, filling his whole body with a glowing warmth. He continued staring at the page long after the words had vanished.
     ‘Potter, I do hope you’re actually getting this work done’ McGonagall’s voice cut through Harry’s new found happiness, dragging him back to reality. He scribbled the rest of his lines down as fast as he could, making his writing slightly bigger to fill up more space. However, before he’d even got halfway down the page, Malfoy stood up, took his parchment to the front and left the room.


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Authors note: Oh dear, I seem to have updated. I didn’t actually intent to write this, but it slightly happened. I think I’ve got in to a bad habit of staying up very late and writing fanfic. Okay, this probably won’t happen again [lie], but when I’m home for the summer I’ll become nocturnal and write fic for 3 months XD
Well, I hope you like this chapter, especially those who hated the last cliff hanger XP Sorry!
And again, thank you to all of you who’ve reviewed [and really big thank you to all of you who’ve reviewed more than once!]
Forever After: That’s what I was aiming for ^-^ I’m really glad you think I’ve achieved it =D
Edit: Proofread. Chapter 6 is 2/3 done. Will be up tomorrow with any luck.