"It's been mentioned!"
"You were right. He doesn't do subtle," Draco said to Harry. He turned to Ron and Hermione to add, "It's called sarcasm. For the vocabulary-deficient among us, that means--"
"Behave!" said Harry, laughing. "You'll have to excuse him," he said to his friends. "He's overcompensating because he's been alone too much lately."
"Let's just get to dinner," growled Ron.
"Ah yes, dinner with Slytherin House. What a lovely prospect," said Draco brightly, a smile plastered on his face.
Harry knew then what he had to do. "Yeah, I'll sit with you, I think."
The classroom was empty by then, except for their little group. "I don't need that, Harry," drawled Draco. "Slytherin may be a pit of snakes but--"
"But you fit in just fine?" supplied Ron.
"Ron and I will wait for you outside," said Hermione as she tugged on Ron's arm. Ron grumbled, but went without much of a fight.
"As I was saying," continued Draco in a condescending voice. "Slytherin may be a pit of snakes but at least it's my pit of snakes. I don't need you to sit with me."
"So I'll eat with Gryffindor?"
"Well, that's not to say I'm refusing your company," said Draco, backtracking. "And it's not lost on me that you're a Slytherin, too. I think you ought to do a lot more eating with Slytherin. Severus said you didn't do it very often, really. Oh, but he wasn't complaining, Harry. Just talking."
"So I'll eat with Slytherin tonight."
"Good, then that's settled." Draco lowered his voice. "And afterwards, if you wanted to come with me to the common room to help me... ah... arrange things in my dormitory, I wouldn't object to that either. After all, you are my brother."
Want me to sleep over, too? Harry almost joked, but he stopped himself in time. It meant a lot that Draco could admit to feeling vulnerable and needing support, even if he had to do it in such a roundabout way. "Who's going to walk me home when I need to get back to Gryffindor?"
"Oh, I'm sure Severus will be in and out a few times to check on the House. You know, he's a bit worried they'll... ah, do something to me. You can just ask him."
"All right," said Harry, chewing his lip. Severus wasn't the only one worried about the Slytherins doing something nasty to Draco.
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Harry expected dinner with the Slytherins to be horribly tense. He even half-expected a fight to break out. How likely was that, though, with Snape's eagle-eyes trained on the table as Harry and Draco approached it? The Slytherins knew well enough to behave while their fearsome Head of House was watching.
And anyway, there was something else important that Harry knew he needed to remember.
These students were Slytherins.
If they were angry, they were far, far more likely to hex Draco behind his back than challenge him to his face.
In fact, if they were itching to hex him, they might well be friendly to his face.
Just like Nott.
Yeah... the one and only Slytherin who had made a real effort to get on with Harry... and he'd turned out to be in league with Lucius.
So it really gave Harry the creeps when Blaise Zabini saw Draco coming and shifted over to make room for him.
It seemed, though that Zabini might have another motive in mind than betrayal. As Harry found a seat on the other side of the table, next to Goyle, the black boy leaned over toward Draco. "So, are you fully reinstated, Malfoy? No restrictions?"
"It's Snape," said Draco, though without much heat. "You know it's Snape, so don't be a git."
"Touchy, touchy," said Zabini, throwing his hands up in the air theatrically. "How are we supposed to remember your new name when you don't answer to it, eh? And anyway, Snape, you didn't answer my question."
"Yes, I'm fully reinstated." Draco served himself a healthy pile of mutton and vegetables, though he grimaced. Harry knew it wasn't his favourite.
"Have you thought about Quidditch, then?"
From several seats down, Millicent Bulstrode leaned forward to listen.
"Haven't given it a moment's thought," said Draco breezily. "Though it's not been lost on me how poorly Slytherin's faring this year. Right pathetic, it is. At least there's only one game left this year. The utter humiliation will be over soon--"
"We're going to win this last game," snarled Zabini. "All we need is a Seeker worth his salt."
"Oh, is that all you need?" Draco shrugged, evincing not the slightest interest in the position practically being dangled in front of him. Harry didn't have any doubt Draco was dying to play Quidditch again, so he figured his brother must think it best not to look too eager over the matter.
"Yeah, Snape. You know it is. So, how about it?"
Draco raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry. I must have missed the question."
Bulstrode had had enough. "Will you play ruddy Seeker?" she shouted from five seats away.
"Oh, you'd like me to play Seeker," drawled Draco. "Imagine that. Well, I haven't had much chance to practise of late. Perhaps you should ask my brother. My understanding is that his afternoons aren't booked, either."
"Brother?"
"You do all realise that Harry Potter's my brother," said Draco, looking around. "I'm sure you must. Severus did adopt us both, after all. And I know you're aware he's in Slytherin as well as Gryffindor. He could play for either team, as I reckon it."
A frown creased Zabini's forehead. "Well, we did ask him, yeah."
"You did." Draco glanced across the table at Harry. "You must have forgotten to mention. How remiss of you."
Harry shrugged. "I didn't think I could do the team justice. You know."
"Yes, we know." Zabini barked a short laugh. "You never know what to believe if it's in the Prophet, but is it true, Potter, that you had to have Weasley rescue you from Nott? Weasley?"
"Yeah, that's true." Harry ignored the stares that got him, and started eating his mutton.
"Just imagine how many points Slytherin would have lost if Weasley hadn't rescued him," said Draco, surprising Harry. "A thousand's bad enough."
Well, maybe that was Draco's way of reminding everybody that Severus would be out for blood if anybody actually managed to abduct his son. Either one of his sons.
"Yeah, Snape's got a nerve taking a thousand points off Slytherin!" erupted Bulstrode, pounding her meaty fist on the table.
"Yeah, Nott should have got a medal for trying to hand me over to be tortured and killed," said Harry sarcastically, glaring a bit at Bulstrode and then the rest of the nearby Slytherins. "Is that what you think? Is it? What did you expect Severus to do, overlook somebody attacking one of his own House?"
"Well, you're only sort of Slytherin, aren't you?" snarled Bulstrode.
"And what about Pansy Parkinson?" retorted Harry. He was sorry to bring her up in front of Draco, but this had to be said. "Nott, Torquay, and Greezer killed her! Was Snape supposed to just ignore that, too? I know you all resent him right now, and me and Draco too, probably, 'cause we don't worship that racist piece of shite the rest of you think is the best thing since sliced bread, but come on--"
"I think we're getting a little far from the topic of Seeker," interrupted Draco in a smooth voice. His glare at Harry, however, was anything but smooth. It was a blunt, shut up, you're out of your depth here, glare.
But Harry was on too much of roll to stop it just like that. "Severus might have taken a thousand points from each of Parkinson's killers," he went right on, his voice heated. "And the House would have deserved it!"