Chapter Three: Renaissance

Chapter Three:

Renaissance

Harry woke up early the next morning feeling more alive than he had in a long time.

The silken sheets brushed against his skin, and he could feel the fuzziness of sleep leaving the edges of his mind. He hummed as his fingers and toes tingled, not really awake and not really asleep.

The heavy green drapes concealed him, a great shield hung around his bed as Harry remembered the dream that he had had last night.

Harry gasped as he felt his erection, still there, bulging inside his boxers. He moved his hips slowly against the fabric, his body remembering the feelings of his dream last night. He gasped at the friction his cotton boxers created against the swollen skin, and he moved his hips some more, desperately.

Harry tried to remember where he was; this was his third night in Slytherin, he was surrounded by sleeping boys, and – oh god, he had the tightest erection imaginable. There was no way in hell he could just ignore this until the showers, he thought desperately as he rolled again, feeling woozy. His head buzzed as he let one of his hands fall off the bed. It hung there, suspended, and Harry knew this was what it felt like to be drunk. He smiled lazily, this one perfect moment to be remembered forever; a light in dark times.

A hand snaked down and started to stroke his erection, slowly trailing over the head and playing with the slit. A hiss sounded from between teeth, lips pillowing out between them and toes starting to curl on the sheets.

His lip was starting to bleed, surely, but how could he possibly care now when this felt so good? His eyes fluttered shut. He didn't want to see the darkness of the room now, so different and so cold, so strange.

When he started to move, all consciousness ran from him, like so many butterflies in a field of poppies.

Who cared where he was? He could do this anywhere that he could trust he was alone, and he could relish the feeling of a hand moving over his painful erection and his hips starting to slowly buck into it.

He could almost feel the tickle of someone else's hair on his bare chest, fingers on his nipples. They were wet, and they left him feeling cold and wanting more.

Harry gasped as his fantasy started to take on elements from the dream he'd been having, and his body wound up tight like a drum. His knees rose off the bed and lolled over to one side, winding him up. This ghost left to haunt the waking realm of his life was controlling him, bending him to his will as it bit him on the side of the neck.

Harry almost forgot that when he looked in the bathroom mirror he wouldn't find bruises sprouting there.

Oh, but this lover was cruel.

Speeding up and slowing down as Harry could feel himself coming closer and closer to the edge, letting him hover just over the brink of it, and then bringing him back, drawing him out, making him want to moan out loud with long unrequited desire.

Harry twisted on the bed, his throat letting out a strangled cry, and he almost felt like he was being raped by his dream lover. Raped by someone he didn't know, and goddamn this rape felt so fucking good.

Could it really be rape if he wanted to scream down the walls?

Harry bit his pillow, drooling blood onto the sheets from where he'd bitten through his own lip. How could that be the only mark of this passion? It was an amazing punishment; his psyche was cruel. He would only be left wanting, and soon that wanting turned into need, and that need turned into action, and still he wanted so much more, knowing that he was cheating himself of something exquisite and oh god his hips were bucking against his hand.

The feelings were overpowering.

Wanting those fingers on his frenzied cock not to be his own, but someone else's.

Someone powerful.

Harry twisted painfully in the bed, his eyes popping open at the passion and then slamming shut at the shame.

Wanting for their touch to actually be there. Someone passionate.

He could almost feel his imaginary lover biting his shoulder, tearing at his stomach, ripping at his eyes.

Someone dark.

Harry saw stars as he came into his hand, the sticky mess of his dream spilling over his pants and reaching his bare stomach, staining the perfect sheets in this perfect bed.

Alive.

**

When Harry looked at himself in the mirror, he noticed that his black eye from last night was swelling badly. Spitting his toothpaste into the sink and wiping his mouth, he admired it.

Somehow, it didn't really look that bad.

He smiled at himself and felt the skin crinkle together painfully. Doubtful that he'd be able to go to Madame Pomfrey without her asking questions, he figured he should wait it out until the swelling went down.

A concealment charm should do the trick; no one would have to know. Harry carefully cast the charm on himself and left the washroom.

Malfoy was casting a similar charm, and Harry couldn't help but smile.

**

Harry hadn't realized how delicious green tea was until that very morning. It tasted like dirt, and the summer air, and the deep wooded places of the Forbidden Forest.

Of course, he didn't really know what these things tasted like, but he had a good idea, and he just knew that they must have tasted something like green tea.

He couldn't get enough of it.

Malfoy was staring at him again.

Such a pity it was, to not be able to meet a simple glare with one just as fierce. Distance had never really shown him how much those eyes reminded him of a cave; he'd always dimly associated them with hate, but their deep gray color reminded him of frozen ice over a great rock in the lake in the wintertime. They weren't very clear, but they had a million different shapes floating in them all at once and they were enough to make Harry confused over whether to look away or keep looking for eternity.

He'd never realized how much Blaise Zabini's skin reminded him of chocolate.

The owls were hooting noisily as they delivered mail, and Harry could almost hear the power they held in their wings, the absolute freedom and at the same time their absolute slavery. Harry pitied Hedwig. He hoped she didn't resent him too much.

Professor Snape's eyes were pure black like his robes, only they didn't move as much, and Harry wondered if he had accidentally gotten ink in his eyes so many times that it stained them black permanently. Or perhaps, he mused, if they weren't made up of very large pupils with no irises.

Harry wondered if that was even possible.

His plain scrambled eggs were disgusting; they were just there, rubbery, yellow, and still perfectly done.

Harry decided to go outside. It was a Sunday, and everyone was relaxing. Except possibly Pansy Parkinson, who was worrying over Malfoy.

Harry grabbed his bag. This was so surreal; he was carrying nearly as many books this year as he and Ron had teased Hermione for carrying. They had been so stupid, Hermione so smart.

Outside, fresh air, wonderful. Bloody brilliant Sunday.

**

He should have been exhausted. But honestly, he wasn't. He wanted to do some more research.

Where Harry's strange new surge of energy had come from, he had no idea, but he was definitely interested in finding out if he was on the right track, and he definitely knew that he should have crashed by now.

Mind magic ...

Occlumency had suddenly gotten so much more interesting than it had been last year; Legilimency even more so. So, while he should have been writing up his project for his independent study, he was searching through Hogwarts' mind magic section.

Barriers; the Psychology of Mind Magic

This looked interesting.

... The problem that most wizards have with mind magic is not that they are unable to perform it, it is that they don't have the focus and don't know how to go about opening certain parts of their minds and closing others.

Mind Magic is very unique in that it holds a very different psychology than a lot of other magics. One must know themselves, inside and out, and have accepted their weaknesses and strengths. They haven't delved into the corners of their mind that may very well be used against them; in essence, they don't know what they need to protect. This causes many problems for them, great and small. If they don't want someone to know a certain habit in their thought, but are not quite sure what it is or how deeply it resides in the brain, it is much easier for someone to crack their code.

Harry read for a while, but the Freudian speak turned indecipherable the later the night became. He didn't know enough about what the woman was writing about; he'd never studied psychology, and therefore couldn't grasp exactly what the woman was talking about.

He gathered his books, Madame Pince watching him carefully from her position at the main desk of the office. He fished her a bare minimum of polite recognition; a tight-lipped almost-grin.

The castle was damp after nightfall. The dungeons would always carry a certain gloom about them. It was one of the few Muggle stereotypes that had actually turned out to hold some truth. Dungeons are most always going to be cold and extremely dark.

Harry passed a group of giggling Ravenclaw girls. He thought they may have been fourth years.

Had it really been that long ago since he was an underclassman? Somewhere he must have lost track of the time. After last year, his beginning years at Hogwarts seemed foolish. Whenever he remembered something he had said or done, he would have to also stop and wonder why. It wasn't as though he had lived in a bubble for most of his Hogwarts career, simply that sometimes he could have been more cautious.

More cautious, more stealthy, more careful.

He reached the Slytherin common room and uttered the password.

Not one close-knit group of students looked up from their work as he made his way to his dorm.

**

Blaise bent over his textbook in the common room. He tried to ignore Pansy's demanding, annoying voice asking where Draco was. He attempted to sink into his chair, undetected. Crabbe and Goyle weren't giving her any help. Oh, honestly, Blaise thought to himself. She could at least ask someone with an IQ over 100.

The chair next to him was suddenly occupied.

"Do you know where he is?"

Blaise didn't take his eyes off his homework.

"No."

"Hmph," Pansy snorted. Her voice was too high for it to be effective.

It probably would have been best for him to indulge her in whatever it was she wanted to say, so he decided against his strong urge to ignore her.

"Why do you need him so badly?"

"Because I hear he's in contact with his father, and I need to talk to Lucius."

This was not something he could ignore.

"Pansy?" Blaise asked, setting down his quill and looking tentatively at her.

"My mum won't listen to me, but maybe she'll listen to him."

"Pansy, I don't think this is a very good idea," he lowered his voice considerably, the publicity of the Common Room not escaping him. "Perhaps there's reasoning behind the madness. You have always deeply respected your mother, as have I, but..."

"Oh, what would you know about it? Your mother is almost as much a whore as Potter's was!" Pansy snapped, melodramatic and extremely aggravating.

"Don't talk about my mum that way," Blaise's voice was dangerously low, his eyes a dark fire slowly burning.

"If you don't want me to argue, don't disagree with me," she said matter-of-factly, her singsong at it's most annoying. She stood up just as Potter walked into the room.

"Oi! Have you seen Draco?"

Potter blinked, confused, and shook his head.

Pansy stormed from the room, determination set on her face and ferocity in her step.

Blaise watched Potter go back to their dorm, not really seeing him.

The drama between Draco and Pansy had already started, and it wasn't even the second week of school. Honestly, they'd been at Hogwarts for three days. He had a strong suspicion that he and Draco weren't going to have much time alone this year.

And it wasn't even as though the same old drama didn't get recycled every year. Both Pansy and Draco had a tendency to hold lasting grudges. Forgiveness was sparing.

Pansy would make a very good Malfoy someday.

**

School again. There wasn't time for this. Draco had grown up in a very rich, very old wizarding family. Magic should have been a simple instinct for him. But of course it wasn't, and of course that meant he was spending very valuable time with the Vulture in Transfiguration, copying down sheet upon sheet of notes.

He could hear the squeaking of Potter's trainer as he bounced his leg underneath his desk. Draco didn't have the patience for this.

On top of that, he was far too sick of asking Potter to stop to go down that road again.

He tried to concentrate on his formula instead.

Would magic really be any easier now that he knew all of these different complications? He doubted it. In fact, sometimes he thought it only made things more complicated than they needed to be.

When he had been a boy, he had been able to do magic so openly and freely that he had somehow learned to control the outbursts. When he had an outburst, where he had one, and they did what he wanted them to do. He'd always been a very willful child; something his father didn't particularly encourage.

Draco's eyes darkened, malevolence thinly veiled behind them. His father would approve of his pulling in front of the Mudblood in Transfiguration.

Perhaps complicated magic formulae were not so terrible.

**

Harry's good mood was doomed to a rather unpleasant end. Harry had awoken the first Monday of the school year with a determination to ignore his House, but when his morning paper was delivered, he could not ignore the front page story:

Morrigan Clan Found Slaughtered in Ireland

The last remnants of Ireland's fabled Morrigan clan were found slaughtered in their beds early this morning.

The Morrigan, who were fabled as being the closest to royalty an Irish clan could be, haven't lost their prestige or their mystery. Within the last century, they have become almost entirely reclusive. There haven't been any public records made since 1921, when the last to attend Hogwarts graduated.

The murders have only increased their infamy.

"There are many reasons why they may have been murdered," says Irish representative John McCarvey, "theft, bribery, we really suspected them in any crime."

McCarvey reassures the press that while the autopsies reveal very similar results to those performed under the Dark Mark, it is not in fact a Death Eater attack.

The bodies were missing eyes, ears, and in a mad attempt at humiliation, have been castrated. When they were finally found, the corpses were predicted to be four days old. It has been fifteen years since such a brutal massacre has occurred, the last being Peter Pettigrew.

Harry couldn't read any more. He gagged, the smells of a cheery morning breakfast too ironic. The Slytherins around him were quiet. The rest of the hall muttered to one another.

Automatically, Harry turned his head to see how Malfoy was taking this.

Composure and easy breathing stood against a backdrop of shock as the other boy sipped his tea. What if he had known all along? What if Malfoy was in communication with his father in Azkaban, and what would happen if Lucius escaped?

A letter landed in Malfoy's plate, and he scrunched his nose in disapproval.

What if this very instant, as Malfoy scanned his letter, he was reading about a dark wizard's triumph?

With a slamming jolt, Harry realized that any attempt at what he had once thought was normal was now futile. He was caught in the middle of a group of people he knew he couldn't trust, and knew didn't like him. They would not lament his death, if it were to come quickly. Some would most likely celebrate.

Here was Harry Potter, stuck on an island made of guilt, fear, suspicion, and enemies. Lost to an eternal battle that he would not win, not as long as things stayed as they were.

Because before he had kept his head above water with the help of his friends in Gryffindor Tower, and here there was no one to hold him up. Even the people who were not blatant enemies would sooner let him be cut down than saved. He was not a damsel in distress, and he had no sympathy.

Harry glanced at Malfoy again.

He was calmly sitting and eating his breakfast a few seats away from him, features schooled into indifference.

If we made a truce, then perhaps I could get somewhere.

The thought was fleeting and embarrassing, but somewhere Harry knew to follow his instincts. The Malfoys were up to something; that much had been clear to him since he had started this year in the dormitories. What it was, he couldn't know. He had deeply hated the entire family for years, and now he would fight tooth and nail before he let this happen. He could not be sympathizing with them! He refused.

How had he even managed to find himself in this mess in the first place? One moment, he was simply expecting a new, darker year in Gryffindor Tower, the next he was left to this isolated existence in Slytherin. How had he made the remarkable transformation from the brave, never-shirking-righteousness Gryffindor to the sneaky, overachieving, manipulative Slytherin?

There was not one clue to the mystery. Had it happened so gradually that he hadn't even noticed it? Had anyone noticed it, for that matter?

He had no idea.

But he had to know. He had to know before he found himself murdering Malfoy. He had to turn this dangerous problem into a winning situation.

The Sorting Hat had put him in Slytherin for a reason, and that reason had to be surfacing. He knew it could have been a mistake, or vindictive pleasure, but somehow Harry doubted that a centuries-old magical device could make mistakes anymore. Or that it wanted someone to suffer. Not now. Not after all that it had seen.

He would watch Malfoy. He would watch, and maybe he would learn something deadly important.

**

"What's that, Draco?" Pansy asked, looking over Draco's shoulder. He brushed her off.

"Just a letter from mother. Pretty mindless reading."

He regretted the words as soon as they left his lips.

"A letter? From your mother?" Pansy's eyes lit like a thousand torches. "What's she talking about?"

Draco rolled his eyes, trying to shrug off Pansy's interest.

"Apparently her last dinner party went poorly. Something about not having any light conversation starters."

"That's a shame."

She wasn't fooled by him in the slightest.

"Now, if you don't mind, I'm off to class. Can't get to Potions too early."

Murmurs spread along the Great Hall, glaring eyes glinting against the Slytheins. They were the only table not entirely surprised by the recent attacks. Honestly, Death Eater impersonators were bound to turn up sooner or later. Apparently, they had decided upon sooner rather than later.

It is a very dishonorable thing, to steal someone else's glory. Very cowardly as well. Malfoys know this, and are never involved in this sort of thing. Malfoys aren't cowards; they may look out for themselves, but they won't hide behind someone else's actions to conceal their own involvement. It wasn't done, and it was hardly appropriate.

What people didn't understand was that this kind of thing takes its root in shame over one's own actions. And Malfoys are never ashamed.

**

If it wasn't the news of an attack, it was news on the different law cases that had turned up. Harry found that once the Daily Prophet had stopped lying, it became a much more interesting read.

Gripping, really.

Perhaps now that there really was something important to read about, and something that Harry suspected would make the Muggle bestseller lists, people realized how important the paper really was. The war made everything seem that much more important.

Little things, like where your friends were, who you were with, how many flavors of ice cream you tried, how many people you blew off. With a deathly possibility of never being able to do anything, suddenly everyone wanted to do everything.

According to rumor, a pair of seventh year Hufflepuffs had eloped overnight. They'd only been dating for two years.

Harry had watched a first year Slytherin dive into the lake and let himself sink. When Hagrid had gotten him out, the boy said it sounded like the best way to go.

The first year Slytherins had separated themselves from the rest of the House. No one stopped them. Harry thought that maybe they were too afraid of making the wrong connections.

Harry had started watching Draco Malfoy so closely that he had figured out his favorite dessert and could almost time his morning routine to the second.

It was under this intense suspicion that Dumbledore decided to make his rather unusual announcement.

"I am sorry to bother you during your dinner hour." There were a few scattered groans, and Harry imagined that Ron's voice was among them. "I know it is a very important matter; however, I must stress to you a very important Point of Grievance."

"A time of war has always been and will always be a time of suspicion, but heed my warning: there is no need to start a second war within Hogwarts' walls. We must, as a school, find a way to band together.

"The Ministry thinks that it would be a good idea for the school to not only find something to celebrate, but to also try to eradicate the many years, centuries even, of House Rivalry and come together in peace.

"So it gives me great pleasure to announce that this Halloween will be a celebration. We will hold a traditional masque." Here Dumbledore was cut off by a slew of whispers all around the Hall. Many Slytherins' eyes had just lit up with delight, and when Harry looked around the Hall, he noticed that several purebloods were whispering excitedly. Dumbledore himself looked as if he had figured this would happen and was waiting patiently on the dais, his eyes twinkling merrily.

"Halloween is on a Sunday this year, and on that day we will hold the grand Masquerade. No one is to come with another; you will all be masked or glamoured to hide your identities completely. No one will know to which House any other student belongs, and no one will reveal themselves. There is nothing like a little mystery to invigorate youth.

"Professors McGonagall and Flitwick will be teaching some basic glamour techniques, and I assure you that the local robe shop in Hogsmeade is ready for a slew of new orders for costumes."

Dumbledore smiled widely, and Harry could almost swear he heard a slight chuckle come from the older man, as he said his last words of the evening.

"Now, return to your meals, and remember that your neighbor is not your enemy."