Catching up
As the school year went on, there was more talk about Malfoy than there was about Harry in the papers, which he supposed was a good thing since he never liked being in the paper. However, this was different; Draco’s headlines were not about him teaching potions or being an ex-death eater, but it was mainly about him being head of S.Q.U.A.D. Which is what Harry feared for himself, he couldn’t help but pity the man. For once, Malfoy is fighting the good fight, and this is how he’s treated. All speculations about his ‘intentions’ with the students, nothing about an anti-muggle uprising but about, well, he’d rather not say. Just a bunch of ignorant slop that the writers make up to sell copies, but come on.
“What is Draco Malfoy teaching your kids?”
“Malfoy is using his new authority to corrupt his students!”
“Should Malfoy be around first years?”
Among other ridiculous things, that are just proving how much S.Q.U.A.D. is needed. It was hard for Harry to ignore, especially when a very similar thing happened to him for pretty much his whole life, not to mention in more recent years. He would collect a stack of the papers and keep them in his room just to get them away from the students. They don’t need to be reading such ignorant shit. He’s probably given out the most detentions he ever would imagine if anyone dared to mention them so much. That must have been the last red flag Hermione needed to step in and stop his descent into madness because this weekend, she asked Harry to go out with her and Ron. She said she already worked it out with Ginny that James would stay with her this weekend, so Harry had no way to get out of this one.
So now here the Golden Trio was at The Broomsticks, stumbling through pints of butterbeer as the main couple of the three tried to pick at Harry’s brain. It’s like nothing has changed.
“So, is there any particular reason you’ve been becoming Snape?” Hemione asked while she gave Harry a protruding glare.
“Yeah, seriously mate, since when do you care about ‘student gossip’?” Ron swigged down the last bit of his pint.
Harry darted his eyes as he sipped his barley-touched beer “It’s not gossip, it’s harmful misinformation, and don’t act like you two wouldn’t do the same if it were me”
“Yeah, but it’s Malfoy,” Ron chuckled to himself.
“Not just him, it’s also causing harm to the students, both in and out of S.Q.U.A.D.” He tried to defend himself, but he was mainly being protective over Malfoy
“That may be true, but dealing out punishments instead of teaching about how harmful the articles are is not going to solve anything.” She was right, of course, she was “That’s what I’ve been doing, I even told them that you don’t have to be gay to show support for gay people. I told them that I could’ve just as easily been president, and I’m straight.” She gestured to Ron as she said the last part.
“Exactly,” Ron said as he put an arm around Hermione.
“But he is gay-” Harry caught his tongue and froze whoops.
Ron nearly spit out his drink, and Hermione froze as well with a similar look as Harry. She quickly looked around to see if anyone was in earshot, Merlin forbid that got out on top of everything Malfoy is probably going through.
“How do you know that?” She whispered
“He told me when I went to the meeting”
“You went to a S.Q.U.A.D. meeting?” Ron asked with slight judgment in his voice. Hermione glared at him as she often did when her partner made such comments. Harry never blamed him, for he did the same until he realized he was queer himself.
“Yes, is that alright to you?” Harry never objected to Ron’s ignorance, but since that meeting, he promised himself to start fighting harder.
“Well yeah, of course, but Hermione told me-” He got cut off by Hermione elbowing him. “What? You weren’t the only one to figure it out!” He protested to her.
“Figure what out?” Harry asked
“You know that you…fancy blokes as well as ladies,” He whispered the last part as Hermione hid her face in her hand.
Harry’s face went bright red. He figured that Hermione knew, but Ron did. “Oh, yeah, I guess Hermione told ya”
“No, I just assumed, wait, did you tell her before me?!” Ron turned to her as if betrayed.
“He didn’t! I was his roommate for years, ya know! Ya pick up on things”
“Well, yeah, but-” Hermione began, but Harry just about had enough of people knowing things about himself before he even did.
“Alright, does everyone just know!” He threw his arms up, frustrated.
“Not everyone,” Ron said “I’m assuming just Ginny, Hermione, and I. Assuming you told her”
“I did, but how did you, too, figure it out, I didn’t even know until after James was born,”
“Really?”
“Really?”
They said in unison, both with shocked faces.
“I knew around the Yule Ball, what with you being all hooked up on Cedric going out with Cho,” Hermione said while sipping her drink.
“Yeah, and I didn’t fully know until 6th year with your Malfoy obsession, figure you’d only be that interested in that git if you thought about him in, well, other ways”
“Gross!” He immediately protested that idea “I can understand Cedric, I mean, you’d have to be blind not to find him attractive, but Malfoy?” Ron should’ve known exactly why he was keeping tabs on him during then.
“I didn’t mean you were in love with him or anything, but come on, mate, you were obsessed!” He finished off the rest of his drink, “figured it was some phase or something, like ‘he’s so horrible and awful, but I can fix him’ type thing”
“I can see that”
“Hermione!” Harry wanted to kick both of them from under the table, but then he thought. He guessed from an outside perspective. It was pretty odd to stalk him using the map and cloak. But Ron and Hermione aren’t outsiders, they know exactly why he was doing it, and look, he ended up being correct, so HA.
“Anyways, the meeting, how was it?” Hermione asked, trying to get them back on topic.
“Right, well, I was at the meeting, and at first, I thought Malfoy was there to take it down, but it turns out he is in full support”
“Hmm, you sure he’s not trying to take it down from the inside?” Ron questioned
“Well, that’s what I thought, but no. He told me he was gay and that he’s been not exactly ‘out’ but also not really hiding it either”
“Does he know that you’re queer as well?” Hermione asked
“No, well, I don’t think, I didn’t think that you guys knew, but here we are.” He wondered if Malfoy did know, or who else for that matter, and whether or not that was a good or bad thing. “Regardless, no one, Malfoy or otherwise, should have to be talked about like that”
“True, but punishing the student won’t teach them anything, it’ll honestly just make it worse,” Hermione pointed out.
“How so?”
“For starters, if they don’t see themselves in the wrong, they may take your punishments as unfair treatment. Like S.Q.U.A.D. members get put on higher levels or something, similar to how Gryffindors and Slytherins feel towards each other.”
“Well then, what’s Harry meant to do just let ‘em insult S.Q.U.A.D.” Ron butted in
“No, obviously, but maybe try to educate them on it, let them see their mistakes for themselves. Maybe have them go to a meeting or do a paper on queer history”
“I feel like that’ll make it worse.” Harry didn’t have a good feeling about sticking homophobes and homosexuals in a room together.
“Maybe talk to Malfoy about it, since he’s the main target of discussion, you should ask him how he wants to handle it,” Ron suggested
“I don’t know; he hasn’t exactly done anything about it, to my knowledge”
“I think most of them are too scared to say it to his face” Hermione chuckled a bit “He does run quite the ‘no tolerance for intolerance’ class, shockingly”
“Yeah, didn't you say he doesn’t even allow discussions of quidditch in his class to avoid fighting?” Ron asked Hermione
“Exactly, so yeah, I doubt anyone would be stupid enough to say any insults to him in his classroom”
“Hmm, heh, maybe I should get him involved, he’s probably placed some hex on them”
“Or ‘accidentally’ spill a stink potion on them,” Ron said, which then started them all into listing cruel and unusual punishment that Malfoy would give out for detention as their night concluded.
Harry knew that he had to ask Malfoy to meet up again to talk, but this time, he was almost looking forward to it. With all the jokes Hermione and Ron made last night, Harry was curious about what he would actually come up with.
He made his way down to Draco’s classroom once again to ask him about the detention for the students. The door to the potions room was open, so he let himself in, taking in the beauty of it all, he may have to ask Draco how to decorate as well.
“Potter?” Malfoy stepped into the classroom, holding a stack of books and a pair of reading glasses resting on top of his pristine blonde hair.
“Oh, Malfoy, sorry, I didn’t realize you weren’t in here.” He now felt embarrassed just waltzing in here unannounced, expecting him to be free to chat about student punishment “If it’s a bad time, I can-”
“No, no, it’s fine, I just needed to go to the library for a bit.” Draco sat the stack of books on his desk with a huff “What do you need?”
“Well, it’s not really a ‘need,’ I guess, but I was just wondering if you had time to discuss the recent ‘rumors’ spreading about Hogwarts”
“Oh? Which one in particular, I happen to know many things about Carl’s relationship with-”
“The ones about you, I guess, you being president of S.Q.U.A.D.”
“That’s not a rumor, more like a fact that you yourself witnessed happen..” Draco to a seat. at his desk as he gave a judging look to Harry
“No I guess it isn’t, but the comments the students are making since then have been completely inappropriate” He pulled up a chair to Malfoy’s desk “no one should be talked about like that especially a teacher”
“So what, you want me to give them detention or something?”
“Well I was thinking we come up with something together, something that’ll show them exactly how what their doing is wrong, and maybe give them something to tell their parents as well”
“Like some gay lesson about the effects of being an idiot” Draco snarked
“No not exactly but just a way to get them to see that queer people aren’t a threat, that they are students and people just like them” Harry saw Draco begin to think for a moment.
He sat there deep in thought for a moment before he spoke “maybe we can get them to work together”
“Get who to work together…the students and S.Q.U.A.D.?”
“Yeah, the members and I were going to carve pumpkins to sell before the feast as a fundraiser, maybe if we make the students helpout…”
“They can learn from each other!” Harry beamed with excitement
“Exactly!” Draco match his energy, and for the first time they were on the same page
“Oh this is great and we can make a whole game out of it like pairing each student with a member and whoever’s pumpkin looks the best and also gets along the best, wins!”
Draco let out a small chuckle “Wins what exactly”
“I don’t know house points, we can work out the details later” Harry checked his watch “But I better start planning my lessons for the week” He got out of the chair and started heading out
“You’re just now starting?!” Malfoy called out as Harry left leaving him to giggle a bit as he skipped down the halls.
Pumpkin carving, not exactly the detention him and his friends thought of when listing their ideas of a ‘Malfoy Detention’ but Harry was confident it’ll benefit both groups of students.