Harry Enjoys His First Year- Despite a Rivalry and Almost being Thrown off a broom
Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter did not like each other. Ask anyone in their year- anyone in Hogwarts- and they’d probably tell you that Malfoy hates the so-called Chosen One. And that the Chosen One hates Malfoy right back.
Their first year so far has consisted of the blond antagonising Harry and his friends, Harry usually retaliating with a well-aimed punch. That is, until he got too many detentions- so, more recently he’s been trying Hermione’s ‘just ignore him’ tactic. This new approach hasn’t been very successful either, as Draco can’t seem to leave off taunting Harry, even when the Gryffindor simply ignores the blond’s insults. Harry’s begun to respond to Malfoy with a calm smile whenever the Slytherin taunts him- but this approach has, so far, only seemed to spur Malfoy on. Harry honestly doesn’t understand Malfoy at all.
*
Harry has officially had it with the Slytherin.
A few days ago, Harry, Ron and Neville had carried out what Ron later called the ‘Dragon Disaster’, meeting Ron’s dragon-tamer brother at midnight to hand over Norbert, they had been caught by McGonagal and a smug, snitching Malfoy.
Malfoy has, at least, seemed a bit repentant for his snitching behaviour, avoiding Harry and making fun of him marginally less. Perhaps, though, thinks Harry vindictively, this is only because Malfoy also got detention...
After trudging down to Hagrid’s hut, ready for the Dragon Disaster detention, Harry is feeling- if possible- more unlucky than ever. Hagrid’s paired him and Draco together to go off into the Forbidden Forest, and the Gryffindor consoles himself by shooting the blond annoyed looks as they head off to ‘search for dead unicorns’.
Harry muses to himself that even detentions at Hogwarts are super weird, just like the lessons and magic itself. Who assigns a bunch of first years the detention task of searching for dead unicorns? Hagrid, apparently.
However, Malfoy isn’t being as much of a posh twat as usual- the blond has actually begun a civil-ish conversation, quietly telling Harry he hopes they didn’t find a dead unicorn. Harry agrees. This ‘nice’ Malfoy is rather suspicious but Harry doesn’t mind chatting to Malfoy, as it makes him a little less scared of the night’s gloom, the black Forbidden Forest.
The Slytherin further surprises Harry by asking about Muggle games. The two of them proceed to play ‘kiss marry kill’ to cheer them both up, in the dark whispering forest with only Fang to protect them.
Harry doesn’t realise till afterwards that Draco- so often careless, confident, cold- was actually scared shitless too, and had been trying to keep them both from running for the castle.
“Okay, Potter. An actual hard one now. Kiss marry kill. Flitwick, Trelawney, and… Snape.”
“Ugh. We all know you’d snog Snape in a heartbeat Malfoy. Fine. Kill Snape, kiss Flitwick, marry Trelawney.”
At Draco’s raised eyebrow, Harry explains himself,
“Why are you so surprised, Trelawney would probably straight up forget we ever got married, so I’d be free from that. And Flitwick’s an absolute catch.”
Draco broke out into an unexpected laugh, Harry laughing slightly too while struggling to disguise his own confused stare at this not-so ‘evil-Slytherin-bully’ side of Draco.
The game abruptly stops, however, when they walk into a copse, weakly aglow with moonlight, in which a hooded form os crouching by a dead unicorn and drinking its blood.
Malfoy immediately shoots red sparks from his wand to alert Hagrid, before pulling a frozen Harry away from the cloaked figure.
It’s lucky for both of them that the centaurs are nearby to scare away the hooded figure, otherwise, Harry doesn’t know what would’ve happened. They probably would’ve both been killed by the cloaked guy- his scar had been so painful that he’d barely been able to move, but Draco hadn’t run away...
*
When Harry thinks over this whole incident later the next day, he is, for the 200th time, flooded with confusion over just what to think about Malfoy. Most of the time he’s just awful, it’s true, but sometimes..
He’s pretty sure Draco’s whole rivalry, his taunting and everything, are just part of some Malfoy act. He’s almost convinced of it, because he’s had a few glimpses of the Draco underneath it, and wishes the blond would drop the act more often.
Hermione shares this theory, and she knows more about the Slytherin than him and Ron considering that her and Draco (as she calls him) study together sometimes. They’d started sitting together before Ron and Harry were even friends with Hermione, and that’s about as much as he knows about it.
Malfoy is known to claim to his fellow Slytherins that he only studies with Hermione because she ‘scares away everyone in their year with her swottishness, so gets rid of distractions’. However, he’s told her privately- and she believes him, for other reasons that she hasn’t confided in Harry- that it’s actually because she’s a good study partner and has knowledge he doesn’t, so they’re a good match for testing each other. Also she makes aesthetic flashcards, muggle ones in pastel colours that Draco is secretly jealous of.
When she told Draco about the Mirror of Erised (she had been reading ‘Hogwarts: A History,’ and it was supposedly somewhere in the castle), he imagined he would see his greatest desire as himself surrounded by thousands of the flashcards. Preferably pink.
Hermione has told Harry all of this (bar the flash cards- Draco would never admit to that aloud), and that she understands his need to have an act, to survive in Slytherin and his father’s house. Harry, on the other hand, still doesn’t really know what to think about Malfoy.
At the time when they had been talking about Malfoy, Hermione had started going on about Muggle psychology, ‘putting up barriers for survival’, and Harry had blanked her out (...accidentally), instead thinking about why Snape would curse his broom, if it was even Snape…
*
And then there are the disastrous Potions lessons with Malfoy. Whether it was cruel fate or just Snape being Snape, the two were assigned as partners in their first lesson. More than a few cauldrons have accidentally blown up due to this arrangement.
At the start of the year, Malfoy normally took every opportunity, gleefully, to make fun of Harry’s potion skills (which, to be fair, the Gryffindor had none of).
But after the first few weeks of lessons where the blond would laugh at him before taking over the task of making each potion himself, Draco had started to help him. Not obviously, and often condescendingly or with a smirk, but help he did. He would let Harry stir and keep time, instead of just preparing ingredients, and murmur things like:
“While that’s an interesting way to stir widdershins, Scarhead, it’s actually more like this”
Or
“It’s easier if you crush them with the side of the blade, Potter, instead of your hand. Don’t want to ruin those seeker fingers!”
(Harry, under his breath: “Git”)
*
After a while Harry- not that he even admits it to himself now- has begun to enjoy Potions, and is actually (pretty) sure he’s getting better. But he knows he can’t rely on Draco’s help forever, if he wants to be great at Potions and not just good.
This is why, on a wintry January morning, he decides to pay a visit to Professor Snape’s office.
Ron had begged him not to go, considering the three of them (and mainly Harry himself) think the Potions Master is currently trying to kill Harry. Harry had staunchly replied that if he didn’t return in an hour, they could sound the alarm and all that. At least he can test out their Snape-is-a-murderer idea in a very literal sense.
He knocks and, at the cold, undeniably-Snape “Enter”, pushes open the heavy door, walking into the odd, dimly-lit room. There are jars of unidentifiable things filling the shelves, and Harry thinks he sees something resembling a human brain. Hm.
He strikes up that famous Gryffindor courage and stares straight at his Potions teacher, who’s looking up from his desk with the expression that Harry has unconsciously dubbed No.12, the ‘I will stare at you until you run away and never come back, preferably crying as you do so’.
~Harry has made a bit of list of all of Snape’s particular looks in his head, mainly because he’s often on the receiving end of them, but also because of his suspicion that Snape is the one trying to kill him and steal whatever’s in the third floor corridor.
In fact, Snape’s No.7 looks a lot like a face Malfoy likes to pull. Maybe it’s a Slytherin thing.~
All of this is whirring through his head until he abruptly realises that he’s been standing there staring like the idiot Snape thinks he is.
“Er.. Well.. Hi, Professor Snape, Sir. I just came to ask you if it was possible to have a bit of extra help in Potions, like two or-or one evening a week? Because, well, I really enjoy Potions and I’m serious about doing better, of course I’m trying to improve by myself but, as Hermione says, you can’t learn everything from books alone. So..”
During this whole disaster of a speech, Snape’s right eyebrow has been rising higher and higher until it looks close to disappearing into his long black hair.
Harry wonders if he should say anything else, but luckily the Potions master saves him from further embarrassment by speaking himself,
“How very verbose Mr Potter. While that was a fiasco, I do appreciate you coming to ask me. Most first years wouldn’t dare-“
Harry, thinking he’s going to be denied the extra help, interrupts,
“But Sir-“
“Let me finish, Potter. As I was saying, I have seen increased effort this year, and while Mr Malfoy seems to enjoy playing teacher for you, I doubt he can keep up his own marks that way. So. Yes. Two evenings a week, Tuesday and Thursday. But I warn you, Potter, if you don’t apply yourself in these private lessons, or miss even one due to one of your many detentions, don’t bother coming back. Are we understood?”
Harry, who is rather gobsmacked at this not-terrible result and the hidden compliments in Snape’s speech, nods silently. He quickly finds his voice though and grins (which seemed to gravely offend Snape), before saying enthusiastically,
“Thank you, Sir! I’ll be there! See you on Thursday!”
He then runs out of the office to tell Hermione and Ron the news, and to stop them from sending out a search party because they think Snape might have killed him.
*
The ‘catch-up’ lessons, (as Harry told Malfoy they were, to avoid him getting jealous), are actually properly helpful and surprisingly interesting, despite Snape mostly making him watch as he shows him how to brew 1st and 2nd year potions, muttering Snape-ish comments the whole time.
The reason Harry told Malfoy they were only ‘catch-up’, that he was forced to go by Snape, is because the blond would probably murder a puppy to get extra lessons with Snape, who he views as some kind of Snake-y Slytherin god.
To be honest though, Harry thinks Malfoy would probably murder a puppy for a wide number of reasons- like looking at him the wrong way or something.
While Hermione was proud of Harry for ‘taking the initiative with his education’ (her words), Ron still can’t believe Harry goes to the lessons of his own free will and even enjoys them, the ginger boy often whispering to him ‘Just blink twice if he’s cursed you, mate!’.
Snape is even more insulting as a tutor than Draco, but Harry likes to think he’s learned to filter what he says to hear the tips and compliments underneath.
*
After a few weeks of these extra lessons, however, Harry is no longer sure Snape’s the one trying to kill him.
This is worrying, because that means it was someone else who cursed his broom, and Harry had no bloody idea who.
What’s even more worrying is that Hermione had told Harry and Ron that she thinks Snape was actually muttering counter-curses to the cursed broom, which made her feel a bit guilty that she had set his cloak on fire. Not that guilty though- Snape still picks on Hermione the most in Potions, and ignores her raised hand most of the time.
Hermione has made a list of possible suspects to help narrow down Harry’s ‘attempted murderer’ (Ron laughed for a long time at this title of the list, telling Harry that only he could already have an attempted murderer in just their first year- Harry had thrown a chocolate frog at him in response), but they aren’t any closer to figuring it out.
And whatever is under the trap door in the third floor corridor, they’re no closer to figuring out either.
Ron keeps moaning that they basically live in the library, with the three of them studying for end of year exams and also feverishly searching random books for whoever ‘Nicholas Flamel’ is.
To be fair, Ron isn’t doing that much studying anyway- he normally falls asleep on his books.
...After exams, the stress isn’t gone, as the trio are still camped out in the library, looking for the elusive Flamel.
At least Snape told Harry his Weeping potion for the end of year Potions examination was “not a complete disaster”.
In Snape language, that meant ‘pretty good, considering’, and he had scraped by an Exceeds Expectations in Potions.
Malfoy had obviously got an Outstanding. Git.