To Dance

Chapter 8: To Speak

"Harry, I'm worried about you."

Harry looked up at Hermione over his Shepards pie, mouth half full and a look of confusion on his face. He swallowed his food laboriously and cleared his throat. "Hermione, I know that I'm in danger. I pretty much figured that out after I faced the Horntail. I can understand your being worried but honestly, right now it's kinda pointless."

Hermione shook her head, waving her hand dismissively. "No, no," she huffed, wearing a patronizing look. "I mean I'm worried about how Malfoy is treating you."

Harry blanked.

"I mean," Hermione elaborated. "That he's been acting strangely." At seeing the uncomprehending look on her friends face, she huffed irritably and continued. "He's been acting so, well, friendly. It's unlike him. It makes me worry he's up to something."

"Stoph fussin' 'Mione," Ron forced out over his mouthful of once appetizing food now transformed into repulsion as he joined the conversation. Hermione shot him a look of disgust at his speaking with such copious amount of food still half chewed. He hastily swallowed with difficulty. "I mean," he continued, his speech now clear due to the lack of obstruction. "You shouldn't be so paranoid. Right now, if we were being paranoid, we'd be testing this food for poisons, considering the circumstances. Stop being such a worry wart."

Hermione shot Ron a very dirty look, huffed, grabbed her school bag, and marched off, probably headed to the common room to fume as she completed her History of Magic essay. Ron turned to Harry. "And she says you're the one with mood swings," he said, smiling slightly. "What time of the month is it? We should start recording and seeing if there's a pattern so we can be prepared."

Harry burst out laughing at this while Ron watched his friends reaction, smiling broadly. A light tap on his shoulder made him turn around and swallow his laughter in surprise, making him choke and cough.

Malfoy waited patiently for Harry's coughing fit to cease as all the eyes of Gryffindor table turned to stare at the out of place Slytherin and Ron glowered at the pale boy. The sight of two house rivals who practically embodied the battle between the two houses in the same area, let alone one of those people invading the territory of the other. "You going to live, Potter?" the Slytherin asked dryly.

Finally having recovered, Harry straightened up and look steadily at the young Malfoy. "Can I help you?" he asked cooly.

"How polite," Malfoy said, grinning slightly before motioning for Harry to stand discretely. "I was hoping that you'd be good enough to come and complete that potions lab we are supposed to do."

Harry's eyes widened and his face reddened in embarasment. He had completely forgotten about the lab he was supposed to do tonight. So much had happened today that it seemed to have pushed it from his mind.

"You have to do a lab with the ferret?" Ron asked incredulously, gaping at Harry.

"Yes, he does," Malfoy responded for Harry curtly. "And since when did you get off referring to me as 'the ferret?' Think it's funny, do you?"

"Yes, I do," Ron shot back, grinning obnoxiously. "It is very funny, Malfoy. You just have no sense of humor."

Malfoy sighed in exasperation. "Whatever. C'mon Potter," he said, turning and indicating for Harry to follow him. "I want to get this lab over as quickly as possible."

Harry got up, grabbed his school bag, and hurried out of the Great Hall after Malfoy as Ron scoffed behind him, returning to his interrupted mound of food which rivaled the diet of mountain troll. Once they were a little way from the Great Hall, Malfoy slowed slightly and heaved a sigh.

"His remarks are really beginning to annoy me," the pale boy said heavily, turning his face slightly to Harry as he spoke. "Is he always that obnoxious or is it just for me that he goes out of his way to antagonize?"

"You're one to talk," Harry retorted, feeling it odd to be speaking so casually with his arch rival. "It's not like you have drops of sugar dripping from your lips when you talk to him either. You can't blame him for it all." Suddenly he grinned, turning to Malfoy, who eyed his apprehensively. "Maybe his minds just like yours, doing it for the 'entertainment' or whatever."

Malfoy glared at him and decided chose to ignore his comment, instead replying to his previous statement. "Have I ever had sugar dripping from my lips, Potter?"

"I don't know," Harry mused, smiling slightly as he looked at Malfoy. "I've never seen you in a situation where that would be the case. I imagine it'd be quite a sight to see though."

"I think that the likeliness of that is about equal to you asking Gilderoy Lockhart to adopt you," Malfoy said, grinning broadly at Harry as they turned down the corridor to the potions classroom.

Harry shuddered. "Now I remember why I hate you so much," he grumbled, the distrubing memory of Lockhart still flashing in his mind obnoxiously. "Because you constantly remind me of things which make me feel like kicking in a door or vomiting convulsively."

Malfoy laughed and opened the door to the Potions classroom. Snape was waiting for them there, seated at his desk and reading what appeared to be a stack of essays for grading and with a small plate of food beside him. Hearing the door open, he looked up and, catching sight of the two boys, sighed, placed the essay he had been reading, and stood up, swiftly walking over to them and closing the door behind him.

"Well," Snape said, running a hair tiredly though his greasy strands. "You two certainly took your time getting down here. I believe I told you to come down exactly after dinner."

"You did, Sir," Malfoy said, walking over to a nearby desk, and beginning to remove the necessary equipment from his bag. "It is, in fact, however, the middle of dinner. I believe your clock is fast by at least 20 minutes. I noticed that when I came in after Care of Magical Creatures to remind you that you have to supervise the dancing tonight because Moody obviously can't dance very well, due to his..." He paused for a moment before concluding, "injury."

Snape's face seemed to become even more sallow at this and his scowl more prominent. He took a moment before recovering back into his normal composure and glancing at the clock. "Very well. Get to work. I expect you two to have finished before the 'frivolity' tonight," he said, obviously meaning the dancing lessons, at which Harry internally scowled and groaned at, remembering that he was going to have to learn to dance tonight. Snape, not paying attention to Harry or Malfoy, resumed his position reading the essays at his desk and occasionally picking at his plate of food.

Sighing at seeing his Head of House's neglect to change the clock, Malfoy briefly raised his wand, aimed it at the clock, and the hand zoomed back to rest on the correct time, before resuming to remove the necessary materials from his bag. He looked up at Harry. "Are you planning on just watching me or am I going to get some help in this?" he asked, pausing for a moment in removing his scales from his bag.

Shaking himself slightly, Harry walked over to the desk Malfoy was occupying, now setting up the cauldron and removing the necessary ingredients. Harry opened his potions book to the appropriate page and read. Half way down the page, he looked over to Malfoy, who was beginning to cut up ingredients. "Are we going to have to test this?" he asked, trying to mask his anxiety about doing so.

"Yes," Snape replied from the front of the class, looking over to them. "Since you two were so intent on making a disturbance, you missed the fact that, if your potion is deemed safe, you will be testing it. Under supervision of course."

Harry blushed. He didn't think he would really enjoy blurting out his secrets and the person he was most attracted to in front of his least favorite teacher and rival. The idea made his stomach churn unhappily. He gulped. "Oh."

"In which case," Malfoy said, pausing as he finely crushed up Grindylow spines. "I would hope that you would work with me and try to actually create a decent potion." He gave Harry a meaningful look. "Meaning get to work. Now."

Not wanting to be the subject of that voice any longer, Harry quickly pulled out his own potions ingredients and began to work. Within half an hour, he and Malfoy had managed to prepare a cauldron full of a lightly steaming substance which was slightly opaque and a vague icy blue. Malfoy was scanning the book and Snape had stopped his grading to evaluate the potion at a distance for a moment.

"Well," said Malfoy, his eyes jumping from the potion to the book and back again. "It looks like it says it should look and I can't think of anything we've done wrong. What do you think professor?"

In answer, Snape stood up, swept over to the two boys, and handed each a small beaker saying only one word: "Test."

Harry gulped. Suddenly, he dearly wished that he hadn't done a good job with Malfoy and succeeded in creating the potion. He watched Malfoy dip in the ladel they were using and put a small amount of the potion in the beaker, a slightly look of reluctance on his face. He handed Harry the ladel without looking at him. Harry, hands slightly shaking, managed to ladel some of the potion into his own beaker before he looked up at Snape, wishing that the Potions Master would suddenly become extremely uncharacteristic and laugh telling them he was only kidding.

Snape, however, maintained his composure and simply nodded at the two boys. Taking a breath, Harry brought the beaker to his lips, watching as Malfoy mirrored him out of the corner of his eye. Closing his eyes he quickly swallowed the substance as quickly as he could. Surprisingly, it didn't taste all that bad, somewhat like Maple tree sap before it had been boiled down for syrup. However, it was feeling it travel down which made Harry shiver, as it felt a little cold and icy and left his throat tingling.

He looked over to Malfoy and saw the pale boy wore the same expression Harry imagined was on his own face. "That was weird," the Slytherin remarked, indifferently.

Harry opened his mouth intending to agree with the blond but instead he heard himself say something completely different. "I am an emotionally imbalanced youth with an identity crisis and sexual preference issues as well as maintaining a constant hatred of my supposed destiny. Most of these things are due to my lack of good parenting and early childhood neglect."

Snape stared at him. Malfoy looked like he was about to laugh. Harry quickly clapped his hands over his mouth in shock as his face reddened in embarrassment. After a moment he opened his mouth, supposedly to respond to his outburst. However, he seemed to now be experiencing what Harry had just done. "I have a superiority complex and an extreme case of self hate and depression as well as issues of empowerment and perfectionistic qualities stemming from an abusive childhood and high expectations due to pureblood status. I am horrible at expressing myself and, in an effort to try to be accepted, force myself onto people and result with the social image of a bully, which I internally despise. I lov-"

Before he could finnish, Malfoy, who had been going redder and redder at every word coming from his mouth and positively blanched at his last interrupted statement, quickly slapped both hands over his mouth forcefully to stop himself from blurting out his last statement. The energy was a bit excessive, seeing as he managed to nearly unbalance himself and fall out of the chair as his mouth kept on spewing information behind his hands, as if determined not to stop.

Snape was watching both boys with supreme interest and what could have been called amusement, except Harry knew that his teacher lacked any sense of humor at all. Harry was watching Malfoy struggle against his mouth in shock. It seemed his mouth refused to allow him to keep the last statement from being heard and it looked as though he was fighting with himself, thrashing slightly in his seat.

The next moment, Harry was speaking again, and he was horrified at what was coming out of his mouth. "I have extreme difficulty in finding anyone who appeals to me, due to a firm belief established as a child that I am unlovable and unworthy of any affection, which makes me deny anything which would even remotely be described as love. However, recently, I have been confused in many regards with the recent situation of the Yule Ball to which Ce-"

It was Harry's turn to clamp his hands over his mouth. Having Malfoy know about him and Cedric's confusing... whatever it was, was one thing but to have one of his Professors, let alone Snape, know, was absolutely horrifying. Therefore, he was now experiencing exactly what his opposite was wrestling with; his mouth seemed to have gained its own personality, and, aided by portions of his body, was trying its best to yell his secrets for the world to hear.

Snape seemed to be enjoying the spectacle before him. "My my," he said, smiling slightly (although, according to Harry, that was impossible). "Well, this is certainly much more entertaining that I had expected it to be. No one has yet before come to the point of admitting their attractions." Malfoy shot an angry look at the Potion's Master, still struggling with his mouth. Harry found himself copying the blond and glaring daggers at the dark haired man. "I must admit, it is quite interesting to see. However, if you two are going to spurt love stories, I might as well leave you to it." And in a complete shift of character, he walked to the door leading to his office at the back of the room and disappeared through it, leaving both boys staring horrified at the now closed door.

The fight with mouths seemed to be intensifying for both Harry and Malfoy, seeing as Harry was finding himself nearly jolted from his seat and it looked as if Malfoy was just as bad. Suddenly, the blond wrenched so violently that he was thrown into Harry, knocking them both to the floor. As he hit the floor, Harry's hand flew away from his mouth and, instead of words, he belched loudly.

Malfoy didn't seem to have survived the fall as well as Harry did. His face was paled to a degree that wasn't humanly possible and he looked petrified. Harry didn't blame him, seeing as he was feeling pretty awkward himself with the blond practically lying on top of him. Maybe this was how Malfoy had felt when Harry has been sitting on him. Eyes widening Malfoy lurched to the side away from Harry and promptly vomited all over the floor, coughing.

Harry tried to sit up to help the Slytherin (help a Slytherin. Who would have thought) but found it rather difficult, due to the fact that Malfoy was still sprawled on him for the most part. Therefore, all he could do was wait and watch as Malfoy steadied himself on shaky arms, still coughing occasionally, and regained him balance enough to move away from the pile of sick, wiping his hand on his sleeve, to collapse. To Harry's surprise and embarrassment, the blond collapsed back onto him.

"Erm," Harry said awkwardly, caught between patting Malfoy and touching him and keeping his arms on the floor as they were, causing him to so an odd sort of waving with his upper limbs as he lay with the Slytherin on top of him. "Malfoy?"

"Nnnngh," Malfoy ground out, eyes squeezed shut, trying to keep out noise and anything. After a moment he blearily opened his eyes and blinked dazedly at Harry as if not recognizing him before saying "Sick. Hospital. Bed" and promptly passing out on top of Harry.

Harry, already wide eyed, simply stared in shock as the blond lay unconsciously on top of him. After a moment and a bit of struggling, he managed to push the blond off of him for the most part so he could sit up. Taking out his wand, he pointed it at the pool of sick and said "evanesco" making it disappear instantly, before he dragged Malfoy to a sitting postion and leaned him against the wall.

Harry crouched down and, using one of the cloths from the cabinet behind him, wiped Malfoy's face of whatever remnants there were of sick. He felt odd being so kind to the Slytherin rival, but at the same moment felt he had to do it. Snape had left and no one else was here to take care of him. He couldn't just leave him here for someone to stumble across tomorrow morning. Well, he could, but that was just low.

Sighing, Harry placed the cloth aside, having finished getting all of the sick from Malfoy's face, and absently brushed the hair from Malfoy's face. It was odd, but Harry was just now having a hard time seeing how he and the other felt so strongly towards each other and always fought. Right now, as Harry watched his face, Malfoy looked so calm, peaceful, and fragile. It was nearly impossible to see him as the snide commenting prat that he was usually. In fact, right now, Harry felt like h-

Harry's thoughts were shattered as Malfoy moved and groaned, causing Harry to freeze as he watched the pale boy awaken. Slowly, Malfoy opened his eyes and, once gaining focus, settled on Harry and widened. Harry seemed to have been immobilized and didn't move as Malfoy stared in shock at the Gryffindor in front of him. He also didn't fail to notice the hand hovering right next to his face. After a moment or two he licked his lips and stuttered, "E- er. Potter? What-"

Harry seemed to have been slapped from his state as soon as Malfoy had begun speaking and jerked back violently, interrupting Malfoy as he spoke, a confused and shocked look on his face. Malfoy looked at him in surprise, not expecting the reaction Harry had given. The two boys stared at each other for a moment, neither speaking, before finally looking away. Harry hastily pushed himself to his feet and then, when Malfoy seemed to have slightly difficulty getting up, offered a hand, which was gladly accepted, and pulled the blond to his feet.

"Thanks," Malfoy said, eyes hidden by his pale bangs as he scuffled over to his bag to begin packing things up. Harry said nothing and instead began to hastily shove things into his bag as well.

When they had both finished putting their things away, Harry stood awkwardly staring at the black board as Malfoy fiddled with the buckles on his bag as if they were the most fascinating things in the world. Harry looked over at Malfoy sharply, surprised when a pair of stormy eyes rose to meet his at exactly the same moment.

"Er," Harry started just as Malfoy opened his mouth to speak as well. Both stopped expecting the other to speak. Harry gritted his teeth and said quickly "I guess I'll see you later. Bye," and sprinted from the room, not knowing why and not bothering to question it either, just running as fast as he could to the Dormitories.