New Beginnings

Chapter 16

Draco had been on his way to meet Pansy when he'd seen Harry in the middle of some stairs.

Ever since the double homicide, Harry was a constant source of worry for him - more so than normal - the boy hadn't been speaking and most of the time seemed to be in his own world.

He'd be hoping to cheer Harry up, even slightly, just to see him to smile again.

So when presented with a golden opportunity, Draco wasn't going to let it go. Plus the kitten was adorable (he still needed to find out its name).

Draco lead Harry through the secret passages of Hogwarts - knowing Harry didn't need extra attention right now. By the time they reached the Slytherin common room, Harry appeared slightly winded - Draco didn't blame him.

Knowing that Harry was going to get stared at Draco subconsciously pulled the younger behind him, wanting to protect Harry. The funny thing was both of them were used to attention and being in the public eye, except Draco was used to it and knew how to manipulate the masses into liking him. Harry had been thrust into the limelight with absolutely no idea of what he was supposed to do.

The door slid open and Harry got a very different impression of the common room than second year. The room had been gloomy and damp, an incredibly indescribable place to live for most of a year.

Now it was lush and definitely fit to house some of the countries most powerful children. Vibrant green and silver banners hung from wall framed by gleaming stone walls that radiated warmth. A huge glass wall dominated one side and on the other side was part of the black lake - mermaids and their creatures swimming by every so often. Spiral staircases probably lead to the dorm rooms and comfy looking sofas dominated a large portion of the space.

Whilst Slytherin stared at Draco and Harry, the latter glanced around subtly as he took in the change. However, Draco was glaring at everyone - daring them to challenge him. Despite being younger to several of the current occupants, nobody would dare to question him as he currently held a stronger societal position.

He lead Harry onto a sofa, keeping the boy close; an arm wrapped around Harry's shoulders as he made sure Harry was sat in a corner.

Across from him was Blaise and Theodore, two boys giving him curious looks but keeping quiet. He got Theo to watch Harry as he slipped upstairs.

Considering everyone knew Harry couldn't speak, no one approached him for conversation and most went back to whatever they'd been doing. Those with less sense where suspicious of Harry's presence, the rest trusting Draco's position.

True to his word, Theo made sure Harry didn't look too uncomfortable and in the end hadn't needed to as Harry focused on Salem most of the time.

When Draco came back down he held a light blue ribbon in his hand. Wordlessly Harry and Draco moved together to tie it around Salem's neck as a collar before relaxing back into their seats.

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It became common to see Harry in the Slytherin common room and everyone grew fond of the mute child. 

Salem - as they found out the kitten was named - had a permanent corner just for her, most Slytherin's not bringing their pets to Hogwarts. The kitten spent most of her time in the dungeons now and aside from the snake house, nobody knew of the cat's presence within Hogwarts.

When he wasn't with Draco, Harry would be with Theodore Nott or Blaise Zabini. Both came to see Harry as their younger brother and, with Pansy, made sure he smiled at least once a day.

Though Draco knew (read; assumed) that Harry wasn't romantically interested in either three, the lingering threads of jealousy clinged tightly to him. 

This was more prevalent with Theo than the other two - mainly because Blaise were straight and Pansy had raging crush (She wouldn't say who) on someone else. Whenever Draco wasn't around Harry had somehow managed to get Theo to read to him.

The funny thing with Theo was that he hated being interrupted and reading was one of few things he seemed to enjoy. Begrudgingly he'd read to a younger year, but that was rare and only in extreme cases. However now Theo could be seen reading quietly to Harry in a corner, out of the way.

So it made Draco jealous even though he knew him and Harry weren't a couple. He didn't let his jealousy control him because he knew he was just being irrational.

 
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With a few days til the start of December (time got away from Harry), the Gryffindor knew Hermione had to go. 

Though she was fairly incompetent with solving Ron's murder and didn't even notice that he hung out with Slytherin, Harry knew that she could be minutes away from a breakthrough at any moment.

Now Hermione was special. Her ass-kissing had gotten her special treatment by most teachers and she was certainly more trusted than a Weasley. Whatever she'd managed to learn could be ground-breaking - not only would Harry no longer be constantly in the dark but Hermione was also the type of person to know everyone's names.

He just needed to kidnap her.

The only problem was if Hermione was too valuable. Then he couldn't do something similar to Cassidy and Ron. 

Instead of focusing on negatives, he decided to just follow Hermione for a night.

All night she was prowling around the castle, wild hair like Hagrids and crazy eyes searching Hogwarts. Whilst many of the places she investigated where worthless, Hermione occasionally went to a dungeon or abandoned classrooms.

Technically still worthless as they meant nothing but interesting because she must've found something that lead her to those locations. 

After almost three whole hours, Harry was about to give up when Hermione stalked into the second floor girls bathroom. 

Slinking in, Harry didn't get time to contemplate why she'd be there when he heard small hisses. 

Hermione was imitating parseltongue.

Whilst it didn't mean anything, a collection of random words that ended in steak, Hermione imitation was good enough to open the chamber.

Harry needed to improve security because he'd never realised that any hissed words would open the chamber - he'd assumed Salazar was smarter than that.

Infuriatingly, Hermione had the smugest look ever. Pride glowing on her face. He couldn't wait to eradicate it.

She squatted down near the edge, only looking down into the abyss and not going further. So Harry gave her a nudge, a whispered spell made her fall down the pipe with an echoed shriek of terror.

Wrapping himself tightly in the invisibility cloak he noted after her. At the very bottom, Hermione lay in a tangled heap, messy robes tying her up.

Though she didn't get untangled and stood as pretentiously as ever, the show had been amusing.

With her trapped in Salazar's labyrinth, Harry realized he had all the time in the world to do what he wanted. A simple spell showed him he had several hours til breakfast.

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