"Hell yes, he deserves some payback! The only thing that'd make this more perfect is if he'd turned out to be some Muggleborn switched at birth!"
Harry almost flinched. Did Ron somehow know about Draco's great-great uncle's shady business dealings? "What makes you say that?"
Ron's forehead wrinkled up. "What, about Muggleborns switched at birth? Everybody says that. Oh, not about him. I mean, everybody wonders if it happens, see? You hear stories but you never know."
"Urban legend," supplied Hermione as she bit her croissant and crisply turned a page. "Wizard legend in this case."
Harry nodded that he understood, and lowered his voice. "Oh, come on, Ron. Be a mate here. Draco's absolutely miserable after the whole Pansy thing. And now Slytherin's giving him an awfully hard time. You've heard what they're calling him."
"Yeah, Malshite." Ron rolled the word around his tongue like it was a sweet or something.
Harry clenched his fists under the table. "Don't make it even harder for him to stick by me, Ron. He's my brother."
Ron sighed. "Yeah, all right. I do get that, you know. I just don't much like it." His eyes began glinting. "Tell you what. I'll be magnanimous and gracious about the whole thing. You know, show him how it's done."
"Don't be too smarmy about it."
"I said gracious, didn't I?" Ron waggled his eyebrows a little, reminding Harry of Fred. Or maybe George. The comparison didn't exactly set his mind at ease, but at least Ron was willing to try. "Thanks," he said, climbing over the bench to get up. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Draco rising to his feet, too. Like he'd been waiting for a cue.
Harry could just barely make out the voices over at the Slytherin table. What's the matter, Malshite? Where are you going, Malshite? Not going to finish your eggs, Malshite?
Harry clenched his fists. Even Snape's hearing probably couldn't pick up on the insults, since he was ten times farther away than Harry. But that made sense. The Slytherins probably knew how far their Head of House could hear. No way would they be calling Draco that if Snape was in range.
By the time Harry had reasoned all that out, Draco was at the doors of the Great Hall, waiting for him so they could walk to Defence together. Ron saw that and made what was almost a grunting noise, but didn't otherwise comment.
"Ron. Hermione." Draco greeted Harry's friends, his silver gaze calm. Another pose, Harry thought. Draco had to be angry over the way Zabini had got almost everyone in Slytherin to start calling him Malshite, both behind his back and to his face. About the only place he was probably safe from it would be in Potions class... but they didn't have that again until Friday.
"Draco," said Ron, in just as level a voice.
Harry couldn't help but be proud of his friend for rising to the challenge.
"Good morning, Draco," said Hermione brightly, her own tone clearly intended to cheer him up. "Have you managed to keep up with the Defence curriculum?"
"Not much to keep up with," drawled Draco, stepping in beside her and letting Ron and Harry walk ahead of them. "Aran being... well, representative of the level of Defence instruction we get at this school."
"Hey, Remus was a really good teacher!" Harry immediately glanced back to object.
"Hmph. For you, sure. Teacher's pet and all, special lessons--"
"I needed them considering somebody was going to pretend to be a Dementor!"
"Yeah!" added Ron, turning around and glaring. "That's right, you've spent years being horrid to Harry--"
"Water under the bridge," Harry quickly said before a fight could break out. He really did want all his friends to get along. "Come on, we'll be late."
"I suppose you can't partner me in this class either," Ron said, his tone somewhere between resigned and sour.
"Thought I would, actually."
Ron seemed to relax a little then, though he still kept up a stance of watchfulness, as if he expected the Slytherins to try anything to get to Harry. Personally, Harry thought it was a lot more likely that they'd attack Draco. But even that wasn't very likely... until after the Quidditch match, at least.
Aran started class that morning by having them all spend about an hour reading about caninae, which turned out to be magical guard dogs. To Harry's surprise, it was a new subject and even sort of interesting. He wondered if McGonagall had said something to Aran about not repeating the previous years' topics any longer.
"Now, caninae are strictly a defensive measure," said Aran when he began to lecture them. "They won't attack on command, and they certainly won't kill. They will, however, launch themselves at the source of jinxes, hexes, curses and the like, and incapacitate the one casting them."
All right, it had been too much to hope that Aran wouldn't repeat everything they'd just spent an hour reading about.
Aran walked up and down the rows of desks as he talked. When he stopped, he was right alongside Draco. "Mr. Malfoy--"
"Snape," interrupted Draco with a glare.
"Malshite," said Zabini in a stage whisper.
"I'll tolerate no filthy language in my classroom," said Aran in rebuke. He was looking at Harry as he said it, though. Hmm, well Harry had sworn at him that one time. But Aran probably wasn't thinking of that. Most likely, he had Parseltongue in mind. It was all Harry could do not to throw something at the stupid man. Needing to vent his anger somehow, Harry beamed a big, bright smile.
He felt a little better when Aran scowled in response.
"So, Mr. Snape," continued Aran, sneering the name. "Why is the conjuring of caninae not taught below the sixth year?"
That hadn't been in the reading at all, but Draco did his best to answer anyway. "Hmm. It requires a good deal of magical control, I would think."
"Precisely." Aran cast his gaze around the room. "There is, of course, one student present whose magical control is simply not up to the task, since he can't even incant normally. You shouldn't even be taking this class, Potter."
"Funny, my official interim mark was Exceeds Expectations," retorted Harry. He knew why Aran had graded him that way, of course. The man was afraid of Severus. He certainly didn't want to have a parent-teacher conference, and Snape would definitely demand one if Harry's marks fell. Aran probably wanted to give Harry a grade of Troll, but he didn't dare.
"There's more to learning than marks," retorted Aran, flushing. "If you can't conduct yourself decently, you shouldn't be at Hogwarts at all!"
Neither should you, Harry almost said. What stopped him was Draco going tense, his eyes glittering in a way Harry recognised as dangerous. Definitely, escalating the situation would be a bad idea.
"Yes, Professor," Harry only said.
Draco turned and just stared at Harry. He mouthed something. Looked like, Yes, Professor? Are you fucking having me on? After a moment he turned back to face Aran, who was still lecturing. The look on Draco's face still had Harry worried, though.
Working quickly, he scribbled out a note. So Aran's rude. Term's almost over, anyway. It doesn't matter. When Aran's back was turned, Harry wadded the parchment up and tossed it over to Draco.
A minute later, a little parchment bird came fluttering his way. It landed gracefully on Harry's desk and proceeded to unfold itself. What are you, a Muggle, throwing notes now? Aran's got you so cowed you're afraid to even whisper an avian charm in Parseltongue? You stood up to the Dark Lord himself! And now all you can say is "Yes, Professor?" Who are you and what have you done with my brother?