A Darker Form of Magic, book one: Dark Affinity

Chapter Seven

Classes continued on nicely from there, with Harry happy to find that only the Gryffindor and Slytherin heads of houses seemed to have a problem with the boy; though Harry was pleased to see that the latter had begun to tolerate him more during Thursday's potions lesson. Or he wasn't openly trying to find Harry to be overly incompetent to say the least.

Defense Against the Dark Arts on Tuesday was just about as much of a joke as the Slytherins had gone into it thinking that it would be, with the professor stuttering every few words. Harry could help but wonder by the end of the lesson if the stutter was even real or not for how often it occurred. Not that Harry had much time to ponder at all given the thick stench of garlic from within the classroom and a headache that seemed to pulse almost like a heartbeat.

"You should go to the nurse," Pansy whispered quietly as the Slytherins left their Tuesday morning defense class in the second week of term. Harry was holding his head as if it had done something to personally offer him as the group walked to their History of Magic Class. "You might be allergic to something in there if you react so badly to the room."

"Yeah," Blaise said with a mick supportiveness that no one needed any sort of help to understand. "He'll just go there and say what? 'Hey, I'm allergic to the bloody castle, you got anything for that?'" The other boy asked in a sarcastic, but passable imitation of the smaller Slytherin.

"So, what do you think that he should do then, Zabini?"

"He should go to Snape-"

"Hey! I know, why don't we ask Harry?" The boy in question said with a rough voice. "It's not like he's standing right here or anything." Harry looked at Pansy and then at Blaise, his gaze hard. "No Pomfrey, and no Snape either," the boy decided, his voice holding no small amounts of finality.

The other two Slytherins pouted but didn't say anything else. Harry couldn't understand why they seemed to care so much in the first place.

—-

Wednesday morning, the Slytherins woke to find a notice pitiless in the common room about flying lessons with the Gryffindors on Thursday. Harry felt a small smile curve onto his lips at the thought.

"Someone looks happy," Draco said,taking his place at Harry's right side as the Slytherins made their way to breakfast, the group subconsciously placing the pair at the heart of their little mass.

Harry shrugged. "I've always loved the idea of flying," the boy said honestly. He didn't tell the other of the way that he had longed for the freedom of it, or of the dream that he'd had of flying before. It didn't seem relevant; or at least that was the lie that he told himself. At the same time though, he thought that the other snake could at least understand half of it.

Draco practically bea,ed at the other boy's words. "You're going to love it," Draco decided, and Harry knew that he would be right.

The blond spent the morning explaining to Harry about some wizarding sport called Quidditch, but it sounded to Harry like some sort of demented version of football on brooms. Though not even he could deny that there was an appeal to it all.

—-

At two o'clock that Thursday, Harry and the other Slytherin first years hurried down the front steps of the school grounds with little less grace than the group usually held, childlike grins on each of their faces. The sun shone down nicely on the clear September day. The front lawn of the school was smooth, lacking any sign of the tall grass that might get tangled in. It was just another foreign thing for Harry to add to the list of them.

The Slytherins each moved to stand by one of the twenty or so brooms that had been laid out for the lesson, excited chatter breaking out among them at the promise of flight, it flying at all in Harry's case.