Title: The Grass Is Always Greener...
Rating: PG-13, A/U, Drama, Romance, Mild Violence
Important Pairings: HP/DG
Summary: During the second term of Harry's sixth year, he ends up saving Daphne Greengrass from a fate worse than death. To repay him, she teaches him Occlumency and they get to know each other well enough to learn that labels are not always useful, and that treasures can be found in unusual places. Vaguely follows events found in book 6.
((A/N: For every author who writes enough stories, I think they should have a "Good boy falls for 'bad' girl" story. This is mine. I had wanted a longish one-shot, but the story grew. I could still make it a one-shot, but it would stretch the definition to the breaking point. :-) So you'll get 4 chapters. This story also contains mild Dumbledore bashing.
I want to give an big "THANKS!" to ReadingFreak2005 for beta'ing this story. He wanted to try beta'ing and has done a pretty good job with it. Any errors left are mine.
Note to those waiting on "Lily's Child". Real Life has not been kind to my beta team. Then about the time chapter 2 made it's way back to me, I lost the motivation to write for a couple of weeks. Fortunately, my desire to write is coming back, and proof is the release of this story. It's been sitting on my hard drive for a while and I finally decided to let someone else look at it and then release it into the wild.
Disclaimer for the obvious-impaired: This is fanfiction, and as such, the Harry Potter universe this story resides in is not mine, but belongs to someone commonly known as JKR. I am not her; I am not even the right gender to be her. Anything that looks like hers is, the rest is mine. No profit is being made on this, yada, yada, yada.
This is meant to be a fun read. I hope you enjoy it. -- Kevin))
The Grass Is Always Greener...
Chapter 1
Harry Potter put his Marauder's map away and pulled out his Invisibility Cloak, disappearing from sight a few seconds later. He was on his first reconnaissance mission after the Christmas break of his sixth year and his quarry was just down the hall in an unusual situation that he felt like he needed to check out. Fortunately, he had already cast a Silencing spell on his shoes, so he noiselessly crept up to the next hallway to see and hear what was going on.
He peeked around the corner to see his nemesis, Draco Malfoy, holding his wand on a regal looking girl he had spoken to maybe once in the last five and half years. That did not mean he did not know who she was, everyone knew who the Ice Queen was. He was curious to know why Draco, along with his ever present two goons, appeared to be ganging up on one of their own. Slytherins never fought each other, at least not in public.
"Leave me alone, Malfoy. You do not want to do this." The tall statuesque golden blonde, known as Daphne Greengrass, or the Ice Queen to many, told the white-blond boy in front of her in her typical cold tone. "You will be sorrier than you can ever imagine."
"But I think I do want this, Greengrass." Malfoy slowly and lightly trailed the tip of his wooden wand over her robes from just under her chin down to the middle of her body. "Besides, after I've finished -- experiencing you -- you need never even remember, so nothing will happen to me."
As Harry figured out what was going on, he was not sure if he was more sickened by the lustful sound of Malfoy's voice or the leering of his two followers. No matter, he could not let this happen, even if it was to a Slytherin. No girl deserved to be taken advantage of like this; the three on one numbers just made it worse.
Knowing he had to get Malfoy first, he carefully crept around the corner so he could get a good shot. He heard Greengrass continue her threat, and that was helpful as it kept everyone's attention away from him.
