"And just what did you see in the past?"
Uh-oh. Exactly what Snape had warned that Draco would ask! Harry stared, not knowing what to say.
"Oh, that's simply fascinating," Draco drawled. "Did a niffler get your tongue?"
Not Lucius in France. Anything but that. He won't believe that-- For what seemed like forever, Harry's mind was flooded with thoughts of nothing but Lucius, but then finally another idea came to him. An awful idea, but the words came spilling out his mouth before he could stop them. "I saw Ron and Hermione having sex!" he blurted.
Draco burst out laughing. "And you know this is true because you what, asked them for pointers? Would you be serious?"
"No, they mentioned it in passing--"
"Potter, if there's one thing I'm sure of about Granger--besides the fact she's just as disgustingly intellectual as Severus always claimed--it's that she's got a bit more class than to kiss and tell!"
"Uh, well really it was just Ron who mentioned it--"
"Your two minutes are just about up, and since I don't believe a word you say--"
"All right!" Harry shouted, fed up. Maybe he was supposed to tell the truth. Maybe that was why he'd dreamed of Lucius turning good, not because it was true, but because he was supposed to have something completely shocking to tell Draco, something that would make him want to live long enough to see his father again so he could ask him about France. Maybe that was why he'd dreamed about the Owlery right after, because seer dreams could be changed and his magic was trying its best to let him know how to go about doing it!
"Lucius Malfoy has been going around France warning Muggleborns to get out before Voldemort attacks them," he admitted, his voice hoarse with needing Draco to listen, to understand.
Draco's breath hitched. "Excuse me?"
"That's what I dreamed," Harry gasped out, feeling as though he'd been running a race and could hardly breathe. "Honestly, Draco, it is. He was talking to this man and his wife, saying how Voldemort was planning an attack--"
"Lucius doesn't say Voldemort!"
"The Dark Lord, he said the Dark Lord, all right? I'm just retelling it, is all! Anyway, the man and woman didn't want to leave; your father, er Lucius, had to sort of talk them into it--"
"So you speak French now, do you?"
"It was all in English!"
Draco, apparently, had heard enough. "English! At this point I don't even know what you're trying to accomplish, Harry! The man raised me! And yeah, he wants to kill me and I somehow deal with that, but that doesn't mean I want to be.... taunted with what it could be like if he'd see things my way!"
"But maybe he has had a change of heart--" Harry tried.
"He'd have to have a heart in the first place! But maybe you don't think I have one either, making up something like that! What's your problem? You want to see if I'm human? You want to see if I bleed?" Draco bared his teeth then, in a feral scowl that probably would have made Neville faint dead away. "Oh, I know what it is, it's payback for that damned elf! You didn't like me taunting him so you thought to give me a taste of my own medicine! Nice, Potter, very nice!"
"I just don't want you tossed head-first off the Owlery!" Harry cried, dashing around Draco to block the door. He glanced behind him into the living room. No sign of Sals there either--
"Enough with the fucking Owlery!" Draco screamed. "I'm meeting Pansy right here in the dungeons, underground, you complete nitwit, so get out of my way!"
"I swear, Draco, I dreamed everything just exactly like I said! Except the Ron and Hermione sex thing; I just didn't want to have to tell you about Lucius, is all. But I did dream that about him, I did! I swear, all right? I swear it on my mother's blood!"
Draco paused, then, panting as he heaved in breath after breath, the anger on his features fading. "If you put it like that, I suppose you must have. But Harry... that just proves you still have issues. Maybe it's your saving-people thing. You're such a Gryffindor sometimes... even after what Lucius did to you, those awful things he did, some part of you wants to save even him? To see him... er, reformed, like me?"
"You're not that reformed," Harry dryly pointed out, thinking of Dubby.
"The point," Draco went right on, "is that your seer dreams obviously aren't reliable. If they were, you'd have warned me before this. And I am not missing my best chance yet to get through to Slytherin because you have an overactive imagination, I'm just not."
"Draco--"
But that was all he got to say, just that one word. Before another one could so much as cross his lips, something hard and solid connected with his left eye, smashing straight into the soft, vulnerable tissue.
Draco's fist, he realised with something approaching astonishment.
Draco had just punched him in the face, and what was worse, the Slytherin boy really knew how to land a blow. In one blinding flash of insight -- a flash originating in his eye, wouldn't you know -- Harry understood what Snape and Draco had been working on in Devon while he'd been in the cottage writing up observations in his spell lexicon. No doubt Snape hadn't intended Draco to use the tactic against Harry, but trust a Slytherin to use any advantage at his disposal.
Even this one.
Even against his own brother.
Harry fell over backwards, thrown off his feet by the force of the sudden attack. He recovered quickly though, all that practice in Muggle fighting kicking in as he scrambled to stand again and charge the other boy, to give as good as he had gotten--because as long as Draco was busy brawling with him, he wasn't leaving the rooms, was he?
Draco, apparently, had thought of that.
"Petrificus totalis," he quietly incanted, his wand out now, and pointed straight at Harry's heart.
Harry's hands snapped to his sides, his legs jamming themselves into a straight position that cause him to topple over sideways.
Draco caught him before his head could smash against stone, and gently lowered him to the floor, laying him on his back.
Harry tried to struggle, but he couldn't move. Not one muscle, though he could still hear and see perfectly well. He couldn't even shout any longer!
"I'll unhex you the second I get back," Draco promised as he left Harry's sight. Harry heard a whispered Evanesco and figured Draco was eliminating the Floo powder that had spilled all over. Did Severus keep a second supply of it somewhere? Not that it would do Harry much good if he did, considering he couldn't say a spell now even if Sals climbed into his range of vision. Harry tried again to move his lips, just enough to crack them open--but it was no use. Draco had mastered Petrificus years and years before. The casting had been flawless; there was no weakness to exploit.
A slight creaking noise caught his attention, a noise he'd heard before. When Draco emerged back at his side, the invisibility cloak that had started the whole argument was draped over one arm. "I'll take really good care of this, I promise," the Slytherin boy said, his voice rasping with something Harry couldn't identify.
Kneeling down at Harry's side, Draco reached into Harry's pocket for the letter, then from the other one slid out Harry's wand. "Just in case," he murmured, leaning over closer, still that strange rasp in his voice. "It'll be okay, it really will. I won't go anywhere near the Owlery, I swear, and I'll be back before you know it. But I'm almost late; I really do need to go, now."