Drarry One Shots

Of Snakes and Love...

A/N A year eight story, slightly longer than usual but I didn't feel able to split it into two parts. Also, Harry is book height, not film height in this story (still shorter than Draco).

Think I'm obsessed with Harry's hair at the moment!

Warning: particularly sweary Robards (above my normal levels).

Artwork by EgoNorainu

***

'NO, NO, NO, MR POTTER,' yelled Professor Hillingsrack, the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.

Professor Hillingsrack was the third Defence teacher since we'd returned to Hogwarts after the war... and it was only mid-October. The first had positively shaken in his boots when Harry turned up for his first lesson of the year. After five minutes of sweating and stuttering through an introduction, he yelped and fled the classroom. No one was quite sure why beyond that he was clearly petrified of teaching Harry anything. Who knows, perhaps he was an aspiring Dark Wizard who suddenly had second thoughts. McGonagall took over classes until Hillingsrack stepped forward for the post.

It was clear that Hillingsrack was making a massive, mistaken assumption about Harry. He obviously thought Harry wasn't trying due to the way he stood opposite Ron Weasley, his wand held neatly in front, as he flicked it this way and that to accurately deflect each spell. He was barely moving as they duelled.

I admit, Harry's supposed indifference didn't look right. If I am to imagine of Harry duelling, I see of him using all his body, all of himself, every fibre of his being. He is never someone to do things by halves. He always gives himself completely to whatever he commits to. I can still picture him during that final battle, the way he threw his body forward as if forcing his determination through his arm and wand as he fought with everything he had to survive. And those eyes, those damned emerald-green eyes that are normally so expressive. They should always give his adversaries a hint of what they face. They always reveal his bloody-minded determination, even when the odds are stacked impossibly against him.

He never gave up and his very being showed his commitment to live. When Voldemort announced to everyone in the courtyard that Harry had died begging for his life, I think that it wasn't only that people didn't want to believe it; people couldn't believe it, even if they didn't understand the reasoning. Only Neville truly saw it when he answered back to Voldemort and said he was wrong and that Harry's heart did beat for us, for all of us! That it wasn't over... Neville was right, Harry's heart does beat for all of us and it shows in that commitment to everything he does. He displays a remarkable passion to whatever he commits to. Even our bloody Seeker's Games that we play. That was why it looked so wrong now.

Yes, things had changed between us. In many ways, it was still the same competitive and personal fight between us, in other ways, it was tentative and new and building towards something that should always have been.

That division between us was bridged on the Hogwarts Express, before we even got back to the school. Harry, Ron, and Hermione found Blaise, Pansy, and me in a carriage and they'd barged their way in and just said, in a Gryffindorish blunt kind of way, that everything was in the past now and we should all try to get on, including no more surname crap. I got the feeling Hermione had bullied the other two into it but Harry seemed relatively at ease with it all and Ron only sulked a little bit. For a moment, the train journey was destined to be horribly awkward but then Pansy stood up, hugged Hermione, apologised profusely to Harry and by extension, to Ron. She then got out a bottle of gin from her school trunk and six hours later we rolled into the Sorting Feast drunk and nearly the best of friends.

The six of us stuck together after that. Hermione and Pansy just clicked over everything from Wizarding Law to feminism to the Wyrd Sisters and Prosecco and nail polish. And as for Ron and Blaise; they might have been actually separated at birth if it wasn't for their colourings. At times, it was still a little awkward between me and Harry but it was improving daily despite the tendency to watch each other closely.