A Darker Form of Magic, book one: Dark Affinity

Chapter Ten

Time passed as Halloween drew closer, but for the first year Harry wasn't excited to celebrate the holiday so filled with magic that you could taste it in the air. The only consolation that he could really find was the way that Blaise seemed to watch him closely now, making sure that Harry took the potions that he had brought back with him from Snape's classroom that day. Though it was always a bit of a toss up depending on the smaller boy's mood as to whether or not the boy was actually grateful for the other's constant care or not.

On the morning of Halloween, Harry decided that he was.

Opening his eyes, the boy wanted nothing more than to close them right back and ignore that the world even existed at all, but then the curtains to his bed were being ripped back and light was shining obnoxiously through. Harry could just make out the fuzzy frame of the other boy holding out his glasses to him wordlessly. The smaller boy took them in the same manner and sat on the edge of his bed as the other Slytherin handed him the last of the nourishment potion. They didn't speak, but Harry smiled weakly at the other snake and allowed himself to be pushed off of the bed to where Draco and Theo were waiting for the pair.

Charms class was almost fun enough to make the boy forget what day it was as Professor Flitwick had decided that they'd learned enough to be allowed to attempt the levitation charm, something that many of them had been waiting anxiously to do for weeks.

The charms Professor had put the class into pairs and Harry was very pleased to be with Blasie, the other boy acting as a quiet accomplice during the lesson.

The silent pair watched in amusement as Draco and Theo were paired together, knowing that the other two Slytherins were fine together outside of class, but often butted heads ruthlessly when academics were involved. Harry could hear Pansy, Daphne, Tracey, and Milicent making quick bets from the row above the boys as to how long it would take for one of the two to explode on the other.

Not long at all.

"You're saying it wrong," Theo said firmly, keeping his voice low so that the Hufflepuffs on the other side of the room wouldn't hear the pair.

Just as Slytherins do not fight in public, they don't correct one another either.

Blaise and Harry glanced at one another before turning their gazes to the other two boys, seeing that Greg and Vince were doing just the same from the other side.

"How am I supposed to say it then?" Draco whispered harshly. If there was one thing that Harry knew for sure about the other boy, it was that he never did like to be questioned. 'To be looked down upon' as Harry had quickly realized that Draco saw it, even when it was not so.

Pureblood bullshit.

"Like this," Theo said, picking up his wand surely and waving it at the feather, a simple 'swish and flick' as the Professor liked to call it. " Wingardium Leviosa! " The other boy said fiercely. Harry could feel the magic swell in the room for a moment before the feather between the two Slytherin boys began to float off of the table.

Harry, Blasie, and the Slytherin girls snickered quietly as Professor Flitwick clapped excitedly. "Well done, Mr. Nott. Well done!"

"Harry never does the reading in advance either," Draco said accusingly, drawing disappointed looks from almost everyone that heard the blond to be pointed at the boy. "Why don't you help him with it?"

Theo looked at Harry with an almost quietly accusatory gaze. "You haven't done any of the reading either, Harry?" The other Slytherin asked, sounding disappointed with him, a tone that Harry was all too familiar with and entirely against.

But Harry only shrugged. "I did all of the reading over the summer," he decided to say by way of explanation. While Theo nodded approvingly at that, Draco only rolled his eyes in a very unproven manner. Harry was pleased to see that he'd already been a poor influence on the posh boy these past few months.