Quicksilver

Quicksilver
(title subject to change)
story rating NC-17
pairing: DM/HG

Disclaimer: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, etc. are the sole property and copyright of the lovely J.K. Rowling. This story is for entertainment purposes only and is in no way affiliated with the original Harry Potter novel series or the Warner Bros. films.

This story contains minor violence, some adult language, and overt sexuality.
------------------------------

Chapter Nine
But on the Other Hand...

The first day back in Transfiguration, they were having an open class discussion about Animagi -- witches and wizards who could turn into an animal at will. Professor McGonagall often assumed the form of a tabby cat and was very keen on the subject. Harry and Ron had begun a personal discussion about Harry\'s father and his friends, who were all Animagi except for one (who was simply a werewolf).

Hermione wasn\'t paying a shred of attention, which was quite unusual. She was watching Draco Malfoy, who was looking confusedly at his hands. He picked up a quill, dipped it and wrote with his right hand onto a piece of parchment. He then scratched his head, took the quill into his left hand, and did the same. He put the quill down, and flexed the fingers on his left hand. Then he picked up his wand.

\"Ah, Mr. Malfoy. Thank you for volunteering.\" Draco\'s eyes went wide as McGonagall addressed him suddenly. \"As I\'ve said, the first step to learning personal transformation is to first transform someone else. Mr. Goyle, please stand up for Mr. Malfoy. Don\'t worry, this is a simple transformation to which I know several antedotes, in case something goes wrong.\" Goy Goyle stood up slowly, with a gulp. He\'d been released from the hospital wing only recently and was probably now dreading another visit.

\"Now, I\'ve heard that you all have seen this done, thanks to the edgy temper of our imposter former Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher--\" the Gryffindors all snickered, remembering Malfoy\'s stint as a ferret, \"--but it is indeed fairly advanced magic. There will be no tolerance at Hogwarts for those who abuse this spell. Malfoy, I\'d like you to circle your wand in two clockwise swishes and say \'Morphosis souris\' and Mr. Goyle will transform into a mouse if all goes well.\"

Draco stood uncertainly, cleared his throat and looked anxiously at the wand in his hand. He followed instructions well, swirling it twice and repeating the incantation, but was blown backward in a flash of blue. He stood up, shook himself off, and, with a humiliated grimace, stared at his wand.

\"Mr. Malfoy, are you alright? It\'s very unusual for you to backfire a spell...\"

\"It didn\'t backfire...I\'ve not become a mouse. I just think my wand rejected it,\" he said slowly, then his face lit up with a sort of recognition. He took his wand into his left hand and repeated the spell. This time, Goyle disappeared and everyone leaned forward to see the floor. A small gray mouse peered up at them, and squeaked in protest.

Malfoy wasn\'t the least bit fazed by his success with the spell, but was instead staring with disbelief at his left hand. Professor McGonagall regarded him with annoyance and said, \"You can hurt someone else if you cast a spell with your unnatural hand. Of course the wand rejected it. Don\'t ever try that again.\" She turned her wand upon Goyle the mouse and changed him back.

\"But...Professor...I\'m right-handed...\" he half-whispered and she didn\'t hear him. But Hermione did. She glanced at the parchment on his desk. The first line, written by his right hand, was barely legible, like primitive scratching instead of written word. The second line, a product of his left hand, was written flawlessly...better than his writing had previously been with his right. She looked up at him, and his gaze met hers. He swallowed hard, then grabbed his books and left the room.

***

She found him in the library, obsessively practising writing with his right hand like a small child would. She alerted his attention by putting down her possessions then looked at him with a great deal of curiosity. He threw down his quill in frustration and said, \"I don\'t understand!\"

\"Maybe you\'re ambidextrous, Malfoy...it isn\'t a big deal...\" Hermione began.

\"Did you forget my first name?\" he asked, a slight grin turning up the corners of his mouth.

\"No...Draco.\" She swallowed. \"Don\'t change the subject!\"

\"You\'ll scream it in bed but you can hardly choke it out in the library?\" He prodded, blatantly ignoring her.

She looked around, almost horrified that he\'d said that out loud, then turned to face him again. \"No, that\'s not it...I\'m just not...used to it is all. Force of habit.\" She blushed, then continued. \"We\'ll go into a deeper discussion about the implications of a first-name basis relationship later...stop avoiding the obvious subject at hand.\" She cleared her throat. \"Literally.\"

His smile faded into an uncomfortable sneer. \"Hermione, wordy sentences like that one make it quite obvious that you\'re nervous.\" He chuckled, then looked back down at his hands. \"I can\'t be ambidextrous if my right hand doesn\'t work the way it used to. It\'s like reversing the poles of a magnet...I don\'t understand.\"

\"Are either of your parents left-handed?\" Hermione asked, unsure if natural hand preference was genetic.

\"My mum is. But if I was to be left-handed, wouldn\'t I have started out that way? I can\'t even cast spells with my wand in my right hand anymore and that\'s how I\'ve done it for years...\" Draco trailed off.

Hermione disappeared into another area of the library, but returned within a few moments. \"I don\'t know where to look to find information about any sort of sudden talent switches,\" she said exasperatedly. \"And I don\'t know for sure if that sort of thing is genetic. It sort of seems like a silly little thing to be worried about, but on the other hand, it seems ominous.\" She smiled at her own bad joke and fidgeted as Draco shook his head.

He stood up, then leaned to whisper in her ear, \"Nervous isn\'t your style. Brilliant is.\" Then he gathered his school things and left the library. She couldn\'t decide whether his comment was flattering or irritatingly intuitive. Most of the things she thought she knew about him were dissolving before her eyes, but he seemed to know her almost better than she knew herself.

***

Onhe\'he\'d entered the portrait hole, someone immediately grabbed her wrist and pulled her off to a corner of the common room. \"HARRY! You scared the hell out of me! Don\'t do that!\" she cried as soon as she saw her assailant. He raised an eyebrow at her, then sat down in an armchair.

\"You and I need to talk. NOW, while Ginny and Ron appear to be absent,\" he said firmly.

\"What about?\" She placed her books and other items on the floor, then sat and faced him.

\"The marks on your neck and your weird behavior since the Yule Ball,\" he responded with a note of concern.

Hermione\'s cheeks betrayed her and immediately went red as she cleared her throat and said, \"Weird behavior?\"

\"Don\'t bother playing dumb. While Ron is just oblivious enough to think that maybe you just need a break from your compulsive studying and working, the break in the norm is a little too weird for me.\" He stared at her expectantly.

\"I can\'t tell you anything about this, Harry. Not yet. Not when I don\'t know anything for sure myself.\" Hermione spilled forth, then ran from the room, leaving all of her things on the floor in front of Harry.

***

Draco had his second head-on collision in a month\'s time, but this time the other party was Professor Dumbledore. After a hearty chuckle and a dusting of hof his robes, Dumbledore turned to the humiliated young wizard and said, \"I had a feeling that you wanted to see me and I had come to look for you...but it seems you found me first.\"

\"Yes, sir, but...I don\'t really want to talk about it here in the hall,\" Draco said, rubbing his shoulder.

\"Very well, we shall speak in my office. Follow me.\" Dumble tur turned, beckoning to him, then walked in the opposite direction from which he had come.

Draco was very amused by the password Dumbledore gave when they\'d reached the gargoyle. He\'d heard of the headmaster\'s fondness for muggle sweets, but couldn\'t help giggling upon hearing the words \"Chocolate malt balls\" like a 10 year old child that\'s heard something dirty.

Once they\'d arrived in Dumbledore\'s tower office, the sage old man turned to Draco and asked him, \"Is there something troubling you, Mr. Malfoy? It seems unusual that you should want to speak to me.\" Dumbledore was well aware of the way that Draco perceived him under normal circumstances.

Draco hesitated, then burst forth with, \"This morning in Transfiguration, I couldn\'t write with my right hand. It really started to vex me, so I grabbed my quill with my left hand and suddenly I could write...and better than I had before! So I was going to experiment with my wand when Professor McGonagall called on me to demonstrate a spell for the class. I cast the spell with my right hand and my wand rejected it. When I got off the floor, I cast the same spell with my left hand and it worked perfectly. It seems so stupid to worry, but why would something like that change after 17 years?\" He caught his breath and looked wearily at his headmaster.

\"Is that the only thing that has been different lately, Mr. Malfoy?\" Dumbledore looked at him knowingly over his half-moon spectacles.

Draco felt as if he\'d been fed Veritaserum. He wasn\'t sure why he began to tell things like this to someone his family \"hated\", but it was almost as if he couldn\'t help it. \"My parents have been doing odd things, like sending me letters with different owls. My father sent me one letter that was three sentences long and he never does that...he writes novels for letters. Things that I used to obsess about seem stupid to me now...like Potions class and going out of my way to be a bastard to people I don\'t like. Granted, I still don\'t like everyone and I don\'t feel the need to be nice to anyone, but...I now am completely obsessed with someone whom I hated.\" Draco stopped after blurting out that last sentence and turned beet red.

\"Well, you had better sit down, because I\'ve been instructed by your parents to tell you a very long story, my boy,\" came the calm response. Draco nervously sat on a chair facing Dumbledore\'s desk, feeling a knot of dread as it began to grow in his stomach.

***

Ron came down from his bed, yawning, after a long nap. d sld slept for an inordinate amounttimetime due to Ginny\'s drugging, after which he\'d stayed awake involuntarily for three days. Unfortunately, he\'d collapsed after Transfiguration for about an hour. Now he entered the Gryffindor common room and found that it was mostly empty except for Harry sitting in an armchair in the corner.

\"Oi, Harry. What time is it?\" Ron said loudly, then yawned again.

\"Ugh, I don\'t know. I\'ve been sitting here hoping that Hermione would come back down from her dorm. I tried to ask her something and she ran off...without even taking her things,\" he said, pointing at the scattered schoolbooks and items. \"Then my scar started to hurt and that\'s all I\'ve been concentrating for a few minutes now.\" He rubbed his forehead and grimaced.

\"That can\'t be a good sign.\" Ron replied. They exchanged a knowing look.