Third Place - Drama

(Thursday morning)

All the way to the hospital wing, I thought about it. And I came to a conclusion. I did agree. I agreed all the way back when I found him, shivering and convulsing, small and injured, beautiful and broken at the manor. I agreed when I prevented my father�s future torments. I agreed when I bundled him up and held him tenderly as I flew him back to Hogwarts. I agreed when I snuck in night after night to check on him, to sit vigil until he awoke. I agreed when I created something tangible for him to hold onto in the darkness. I agreed when I kissed his forehead and promised I�d be back.

Yes. I did indeed agree.

Harry was up, showered and dressed and ready to go. He still wore his Gryffindor school robes. His hair was still in a shambles. His glasses still perched on the end of his nose. But there was a new look in his eyes that belied the idea of normality. He was afraid. It was the fear of a small child left alone in a strange place with everyone else making decisions for him.

That look disappeared when I walked in the door. It was replaced with delight. That, more than anything, convinced me that I had agreed.

Pomfrey gave me a list a mile long of what Harry should and shouldn�t do, things to bring him back to the infirmary for, things not to expose him to. I tuned out after realizing she was mother-henning him and watched Harry play with the dog I made him the night before. After a bit, Pomfrey realized I was no longer listening to her and she sighed.

"Just take care of him," she concluded.

I nodded. Of course. What else would I be doing? Stupid woman.

"Are you hungry, Harry?" I asked softly. He nodded vigorously. "Then let�s head off to breakfast." Harry bounced over to my side, waving goodbye to the nurse. She smiled worriedly and waved back, watching us carefully as we moved out into the hall. I couldn�t refuse the sneaky hand that slipped into mine as we walked, and so our great entrance to the Hall was complete with Harry clutching my hand on one side and the dog on the other.

A hush fell over the room as we entered and all eyes were on us. No one gave me a nasty look as I led Harry by the hand through the crowd. Rather, curiosity ran rampant. So, Dumbledore must have made his announcement. I shot a look at the Gryffindor table, as Harry didn�t know to look that direction, and found Weasley staring at us with tears in his eyes. Granger had his hand wrapped tightly in her own and was trying to comfort him.

I nodded respectfully at them. After all, they�d just turned over the most important person in their lives to a dreaded Slytherin. That took courage. Even for a Gryffindor. Weasley�s eyes widened and Granger just nodded back with a smile.

I steered Harry to the Slytherin table and seated him with his back to the bulk of the room. No reason to have him see that he was the newest oddity in Hogwarts. I sat beside him and began absently dishing myself up. It wasn�t until I lifted my fork to take the first bite that I realized Harry wasn�t eating. He was just sitting quietly and looking longingly at the food in front of him and absently petting his puppy.

"Harry?" I questioned. "Aren�t you going to eat?"

Harry shook his head slowly. "It�s okay," he whispered. "I�ll just wait for the leftovers."

I frowned. Leftovers? What the hell? "There won�t be leftovers, Harry."

He paled a bit and then looked resigned. He nodded. "That�s okay. I wasn�t really hungry." Now that was a blatant lie. I could hear his stomach growling from where I sat. And he�d told me not five minutes ago that he was hungry.

"I mean the house-elves just magic it away when it�s done," I continued, watching him carefully. "So, no leftovers." He looked scared. I sighed. "No one will starve you here, Harry," I reassured him softly. "Do you go hungry at home?"

Harry frowned a bit. "I don�t remember. I just remember being really hungry, and that it was important to wait for the leftovers only."

Bastards.

"You don�t have to worry about that here, Harry," I soothed, trying to cover my inner anger. "I want you to eat."

Harry nodded and smiled shyly. "I�ll just take some porridge." I know I had an �ick� look on my face. I hated porridge. But I served him up the only thing he seemed comfortable enough to eat and resumed eating myself. Harry dug in carefully to his unflavored porridge but couldn�t stop his hungry eyes from moving over the food still laid out in front of him.

Pansy was watching him from across the table. She had that look in her eye. The one that says she�s about to do something that will set the world on it�s ear. She caught Harry�s wandering eye and he jumped, his eyes immediately dropping back to his bowl. She smiled. "Do you like sausage?" she asked, holding up her fork with a sausage link speared on it.

Harry glanced up shyly through his eyelashes and shrugged. "I don�t know," he replied in a squeak. "I�ve never had it."

Pansy�s eyes widened, but she dunked her sausage into her syrup and handed over her fork. Harry stared in fear at the utensil. "It�s okay," she smiled again. "Try it, I think you�ll like it." He looked at me warily but I just continued eating, letting Pansy do as she wished, wanting to see where she�d take this. She wasn�t a bad sort. She�d stood by my side more times than I could count, even after I�d flat out told her there was no way we were ever going to marry. And she was good with children which, for all intents and purposes, Harry currently was.

He leaned forward cautiously but didn�t take the fork. He just opened his mouth and slid the sausage off of her fork, his tongue flicking out to capture the last bit of syrup. Pansy stared at her fork for a moment, then shrugged.

"I suppose I�ve had worse things in my mouth than Harry Potter�s spit," she smirked. "Do you like it?" she nodded at Harry.

His face broke into a grin and he nodded. "It�s really good!"

Pansy smiled. Strangely enough, a real smile. One I hadn�t seen on her face for years. She then looked down at Vince�s plate and nudged him, looking pointedly at his ham slice. He looked pained, but eventually sighed and cut off a piece of ham. "You ever had ham?" he asked wearily. Harry shook his head. Vince sighed and speared a piece, handing his fork over to the eager man/boy. Vince winced as Harry took the piece off of his fork with his mouth as he had with the sausage but straightened up at Pansy�s elbow in his gut.

Harry grinned. "That�s really good too," he replied, a bit louder than before.

It became like a bizarre game after that with the Slytherins trying to one up each other. I think that the game overshadowed the fact that they were playing for the attention of Harry Potter. Millie started it by cutting off a piece of omelet and sharing. The rest of the Slytherins, not to be outdone by Bulstrode, began passing bits of their breakfast down to Harry as well and soon Harry was full, having never placed a bit of breakfast on the plate in front of him.

Once again, his innocent happiness overcame my common sense. I smiled down at him when he glanced at me, happy and contented. I lifted a hand and stroked it over his messy hair, then stiffened as I realized that I�d just shown affection for Harry Potter in front of all and sundry. Harry, unknowing of the faux pas I�d just committed, leaned into me and wrapped his arms around me in a hug.

Flushing, I placed an awkward arm around his shoulder and glanced up at the Head Table to find Dumbledore smiling and nodding.

(Thursday afternoon)

Classes were odd, but doable. I was afraid that Harry would be bored, as he�d opted to leave his dog in the common room since I promised to be with him all day. He wasn�t inclined to touch anything he hadn�t been given permission to touch. That didn�t mean that everything wasn�t inclined to touch Harry. In Transfigurations, McGonagall wanted us to practice the color-changing spell on animate and inanimate objects. The inanimate things went fine. Harry stared at the wand movements as though they held the secret to his world.

Strangely enough, they might have. I could tell that Harry recognized that he should have been able to do what we were doing. He seemed to even understand some things. But mostly, he just sat with a confused look on his face, as though he couldn�t quite put it all together. Goyle...yes, Greg Goyle...occupied Harry with his color changing marble.

It was an accident; the marble should have stayed an emerald green. Greg just screwed up the grounding charm and it kept changing colors every few seconds. But Harry didn�t know that and he was delighted with his gift. So delighted that McGonagall didn�t lower Greg�s grade to the D it should have been for the assignment. He got an Acceptable and Harry got to keep the assignment.

Sappy Gryffindors.

The problem came when we moved on to animate objects. Apparently Harry had some small amount of wandless ability. One would think the Headmaster would have shared that information with me. Obviously not. I found out as Harry accidentally compelled the Gryffindor Patil twin�s bird to perform for him.

It wasn�t his fault. He just thought it was pretty. And then he said, "Isn�t it pretty, Draco?" That was unfortunately followed by a sigh and the wistful comment, "I wish it would fly over here so I could see the pretty colors up close."

We spent the rest of the class being dive bombed by a multicolored �dove of peace.� Well, everyone but Harry. Harry just jumped up and down as the stupid bird performed more and more ridiculously hazardous stunts to please him. The rest of us either ran for our lives or tried to capture the stupid thing. Granger cast Immobulus on it, eventually, and we stuffed it back in the cage.

And then Harry felt bad for trapping it in the cage. Poor bird? Poor Harry? Hell no! Poor McGonagall! Harry�s wistful sigh once again provoked magic to accommodate him and the cage disappeared, leaving the bird flitting about the room again, feathers on display. At McGonagall�s pinched glare, I hastily gathered my charge and hustled him out of the room, where he couldn�t make any more wishes or give any more wistful looks.

We took lunch after that. Harry sat wedged between me and Pansy, who had taken an odd shine to the new Harry, with Greg and Vince across from us. Pansy didn�t take Harry�s hesitation for an excuse. She simply began loading up his plate for him. I nodded approvingly at Harry when he looked to me for permission and he dug in, stuffing food into his face as though he hadn�t eaten at breakfast.

I noted that when Pansy wasn�t looking, Vince took to adding desserts to Harry�s plate. He might have been doing it just to piss Pansy off, but then, Vince loved food. Knowing that someone had been deprived of it could have been enough to open him up to Harry. I ignored it, smirking at the knowledge of what Pansy was going to do to Vince when she found out that he was sabotaging her efforts to give Harry a nutritious and balanced meal. Either Vince was getting sneakier, or it was just that it was food, but he didn�t get caught. I could hardly wait to see what happened at suppertime.

After lunch, we had Care of Magical Creatures. Normally, I hate this horrid class. A lummox who has more Gryffindor bravery than brains runs it and it is full of hideous creatures that all seem to want a bite out of me. Today was worse than usual. It was still run by the lummox. We were still learning about hideous creatures. Only now, the hairy giant was sobbing into his beard about his �wee little Harry� and attempting to drag him into a hug.

Obviously, the Headmaster hadn�t made it clear that Harry didn�t remember anyone. Or perhaps the slobbering oaf had forgotten. Either way, as soon as he caught sight of Harry, he trundled over like some weepy hippogriff and lifted us up in his great hairy arms. I say us because as soon as Harry saw the huge monstrosity coming, his eyes widened to saucers and he attempted to hide behind me.

I�m sure that it is plainly obvious that the lout didn�t care one way or the other whom was in between his hairy hug and his �wee Harry� because we were both swept up against him. Harry began whimpering and kicking his legs, moaning out my name. Though it pains me to say it, that pissed me off more than being held in the grip of the horrid half giant.

One well placed kick and Hagrid�s blubbering went up an octave or two and he promptly dropped us both. Harry nearly leaped into my arms. He hit them so hard that we both went down onto the wet ground. My robes were soaked, I smelled like wet lummox and Harry was snotting all over my neck. However, all I seemed to be able to manage was to hold Harry tighter and rock him until his shivers stopped and he quit moaning.

When he eventually lay silent in my arms, I glared up at Hagrid, who�d managed to drag his hand out of his crotch by now. The half giant was flushed with embarrassment. It tickled me to see Granger in the midst of chastising him, one hand on her hip and the other shaking vigorously at him. He hung his head like a well trained dog and apologized before ambling off to start the lesson. Granger helped me to help Harry to his feet, though she backed off quickly enough when Harry whimpered again and wrapped his arms around me.

I don�t know what was wrong with me that I felt bad to realize that Harry was more comfortable surrounded by a horde of Slytherins while his former Gryffindor friends stared longingly at him from across the field. The elitist in me shuddered as I made the decision right then to reintroduce Harry to his Gryffindork friends and to encourage him to spend time with them.

Retreat - Chapter 4

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