Warnings: slash themes
Rating: an honest PG13
---------------
"Why breakfast?" grumbled Ron, "what's wrong with lunch?" He was not a morning person, and the Great Hall seemed particularly loud today.
"Breakfast is closer to dreamtime," Hermione answered, trying to infuse her voice with an aura of the mystical. "Or the author just wants to set things up early in the day."
"Oh.... here, Harry, have some toast or something." Ron and Hermione turned to their friend, who was leaning forward, elbows propped on the table, staring with glazed, lovelorn eyes across the hall. At none other than the one and only Draco Malfoy.
"Is it me, or has Draco - I mean- Malfoy become much more.. muscle..bound since.. uh - yesterday?" Having rather botched this sentence, Harry now tried to sigh for dramatic effect. But he almost choked on his porridge; he hated mornings too.
"No, he's the same scrawny, pale wretch as usual," corrected Hermione.
"Well, that's your opinion. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
Hermione rolled her eyes: she might have been a morning person, but she was not in the mood for relativistic rhapsodizing. "What do you say, Ron?"
"I can't believe you're having this conversation!" Harry, meanwhile, went back to his oogling and sighing. "Oh, cut that out!" Ron noticed Hermione was frowning disapprovingly. "Don't look at me like that - in a conservative British boarding school like this someone has to be skeptical... if not overtly hostile," he added with a pout.
"British Boarding School." Hermione said pointedly.
"Er - can you two continue this conversation elsewhere?" asked Harry. "I'm trying to have a tortured dialogue with my nagging inner voice."
"Come on, let's go to class." Hermione dragged Ron away. "Although I can't stand Professor Trelawney," she added on the way out.
"Ah, alone at last!" exclaimed Harry, even though the sound level in the hall rose as a food fight broke out at the nearby Ravenclaw table.
"If only I was alone with HIM!" answered the inner voice.
"If only I were," corrected Harry outloud; no one heard him above the squealing Ravenclaw who'd just been pelted with elderberry jam.
"Er - yes, ALONE with him! and look deep into those pale.. gray.. steely ... -sometimes opal -"
"I don't like opal," Harry muttered under his toast. A biscuit flew past his ear.
"Oh, he's standing up - what grace and eloquence-" Harry frowned. "-how beautiful - and now he's maybe taller than me too..."
"Taller than I am!" snapped Harry. Neville looked at him from across the table.
"Isn't it time for class?" asked Neville concernedly.
"Yes, let's go," said Harry, and not waiting for Neville, he grabbed his books and hurried out. "I can see our real battle is going to take place on the grounds of grammar," he muttered to himself, "since at base I agree with what you're saying."
---
Divination class was difficult for Harry. Not because he was bad at divination (he had learned all the tell-tale signs for death by now), but because he could not stop thinking about Draco Malfoy. He stared into his cup of tea leaves.
"That looks just like his two eyes - narrow slits that seem to be deeper-" Harry frowned again; seeing Malfoy in his tea leaves was not going to impress Trelawney.
"I hope you're feeling better now," Ron said, leaning over to Harry. "Nothing like divinations to put me in a good mood. I'm dying on Tuesday by lightning strike."
"All I can see is Malfoy." Harry muttered.
"Not that I'm complaining. Too bad he's not here, then I wouldn't have to look in my tea for him, searching for a way out, for someone who will love him-"
"Hold up, I got tangled in that last clause." Harry frowned more severely. His forehead began to hurt.
"What?" asked Ron obliviously.
At that moment, Trelawney swanned over to the table and looked dramatically into Harry's tea cup. "Ahhhhh, I see you are torn, Harry..."
"Between love and hatred? - desire and duty?" he asked hopefully.
"No! Torn limb from limb by wild beasts!" She shook her head solemnly, "I divine you will be ill-received by someone in the future." She returned to her desk and fell into her seat, apparently tired from all the hard work.
"Sirius Black, I bet," Ron whispered. "He wants to kill you after all."
"NOT BY DRACO! OHhhh, what if he doesn't know my love? he's probably too lost in his own wonderings-"
"Please, please - let me do the rhapsodizing," urged Harry.
Ron scowled. "Are you hearing voices again?"
"Ron," said Harry, a wistful twinkle in his eye, "I must make my love known to Malfoy- I mean Draco -"
"-dear, darling - de......u.."
"delectable - ahem," Harry saw Ron's appalled expression and continued quickly, "OR Else-- or else I will have to put up with this inner voice." Ron didn't looked convinced. "FOR EVER!" Harry nodded for more emphasis.
"I like the sounds of that," Trewlawney encouraged loftily from her desk, "Eternity is a recurrent theme in divination."
---
Double Potions. Snape stalked about the room, his greasy hair reflecting light in various directions.
"Today we will be arduously concocting a potion that produces the same effect as could be achieved in 5 seconds with a first year transfiguration spell."
Confused silence from the class.
"OR," Snape continued severely, "We will create a potion to repel werewolves."
"He hates Professor Lupin," Hermione mouthed at Harry.
"They're secretly lovers," Harry mouthed back.
"Five points from Gryffindor."
"But professor," Harry protested, "Can't we make a love potion instead?"
"Ten points from Gryffindor." With no further adieu, Snape went about assigning partners.
"Oh he'll have to pair me with Draco."
"That's for sure," Harry thought, "It always goes that way."
"Then I can watch his delicate hands - stare into those icy depths-
"and drown with desire...Ahhhh!!" Harry sighed outwardly.
"Potter and Longbottom." Neville looked relieved, Harry appalled.
"What!"
"Call me a glutton for punishment, but I'm curious to see what you two produce," sneered Snape, "Certainly not the proper potion, but if we're lucky you may come up with one that kills a werewolf."
Harry glared at the Slytherins who were laughing at the next table. Malfoy in particular was grinning nastily.
"Is that a flicker of desire across those frosty... cold.. gray... icy... freezing.."
"4 Kelvin," Harry added ironically. He could overhear Malfoy sneering to his friends.
"Potter's even got his temperatures all wrong. Step four involves Celsius, not Kelvin.."
"Quiet, Malfoy," Harry hissed.
"But how can I confess my love if I keep misleading him??"
"Later!" Harry muttered under his breath.
"Harry..." Neville looked scared, as usual. "I accidently skipped step one... and... you're talking to yourself again..."
"Oh, uh - it's nothing."
"Tonight we will get to the bottom of this.. maybe to the bottom of Him, hehe- that would be nice, very nice - maybe eve-"
Harry made a disapproving growl at the pun; Neville nervously dropped his phial of gnat blood.
---
Late that night, Hermione was surprised to see Harry in the library. More surprised to find him reading books and taking notes.
"Well this is out of character - what are you doing, Harry?" she sat at his table.
"Drawing up plans," he answered.
"Seduction 101, I like the sound of that."
Hermione did not like the sound of it. "What plans - are you going to get in trouble again?"
"I have to let Draco know how I feel."
"So he can hex you?"
"No, so he can fall into my arms - because you know he feels the same way I do - then we can share a night of mad Passion!"
Hermione scowled.
"And after that, we'll be confused and there will be Tension. But no doubt, it will all be resolved in my favour at some indefinite point in the future. But first Passion - lots of it" Harry nodded self assuredly.
"For the purposes of Plot, I'll humour you.. What are your grand plans?" asked Hermione with a smirk.
"I've already sent Hedwig out with a mysterious love note - well, three actually, in case she drops the first one or something. So he should get that by... well, maybe by now already. Then I can make eyes at him in the hall, and he'll understand.
"If that doesn't work, I'll actually HAND him a note when we meet by chance on a midnight run to the kitchen." He paused thoughtfully. "Or maybe in that case I'll just dispense with the notes and take advantage of the conveniently placed broom closet--"
"Ahem!"
"And if he remains stubbornly self-deluded, I can always poison hi-"
"-'LOVE POTION-'"
"-love potion, yes." Harry finished hastily. "That should do it."
"Frankly, Harry, I hope for your sake that the first plan works, because you are really quite bad at potions," Hermione said. "Why don't you get some sleep now? You seem to have planned enough for one night."
Harry brightened. "Good. On to a night of sleepless self-doubt and sexual frustration!" He started to pack his books up.
"And dreaaaaaaaaammsss. oh think what i can do to him in my dreammmssss - wrap my arms around his pale torso - pale like lilies of the field, pale like the moon, pale like untouched snow - writhing in passion, whilst-"
"whilst?!"
"-while I kiss those sweet lips and that secretly-never-wanted-to-do-anything-but-give-in-to-me neck"
"I'd better get some sleep," Harry muttered as he went down the empty hall, "now it's lapsing into German sentence structure. I would be stuck with an inner voice like this, wouldn't I?"
"-and the hair!! - ohhh the glorious-"
"Shut up!"