Confessions of an Ex-Death-Eater

Monday 5th November 2007

At 10am exactly on Monday morning there was a knock upon Harry's office door.

'Come in,' Harry called out without looking up from the paperwork he was elbow deep in.

'Harry, is this a bad time?'

'Draco! No, of course not. Just grab a seat while I finish up here.'

They spent the best part of forty-five minutes in one of the Defence training rooms and it didn't take Harry long to get Draco moving between two circles at each end of the room. There was a brief incident with an eyebrow being left behind but it was quickly undone and Harry tried not to laugh too hard.

As they wandered back to Harry's office, with his heart thumping slightly faster than usual, Harry said, 'the next exam board is just before Christmas. I reckon I could get you in for doing a Level 1, if you can manage Thursdays as well.'

'Really?'

'Sure, why not.' He pushed open his office door. 'Plus, it gives me a good break from all that sodding paperwork.' He nodded in the direction of his desk.

'Wouldyouliketogoforlunchwithme?' Draco suddenly blurted out, Not Looking at Harry.

'Oh!'

'Well, obviously if you don't want to...'

'I'd love to, it's just I've got to teach now. I've got to give a lecture on using magical defence techniques in muggle spaces and then we have one of my rare hour and a half practical's. I won't finish until half one.'

'I'll wait, I can do some reading here, or, perhaps...'

'What?'

'Well, could I sit in?'

Harry raised an eyebrow at Draco's request, 'why on earth would you want to do that?'

'Well, it sounds interesting. And I'd quite like to see you in action, so-to-speak.' Draco flushed slightly and Harry's stomach did that Little Flip-Thing again and they were both Definitely Not Looking at each other.

'Sure,' Harry said, feeling slightly nervous at the prospect for a reason he couldn't quite fathom because he'd given this lecture to the past five years without a problem.

When he got back to his office after lunch, Harry found a parcel, wrapped in brown paper, on his desk. When he opened it up, inside was a copy of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. He smiled to himself.

Draco must have left it for him. He flipped it open, savouring the smell of new book. Inside there was written in rather shaky cursive handwriting: Dear Harry, thank you for everything you have done for me and seem to keep on doing. This is one of my favourite nineteenth-century novels and a wonderful place to start your education. There are, perhaps, parallels with our own stories too. I look forward to discussing the text with you in more depth soon. Yours, Draco.

'Hmmm, your organ for amativeness is inflamed, Professor' Anthony said from the bookshelf. He was still wearing Harry's formal witan-professor's floppy hat.

Harry turned sharply towards the Phrenology Head, his lips twitching. 'Oh my god! Was that a phrenology innuendo?'

'I've waited one-hundred and ninety-two years to say that and you don't even appreciate it.'

'That's how old you are?'

'Stop trying to divert the conversation, you have found yourself someone of interest, at last.'

'I don't know what you're talking about, Anthony?'

'I would bet my sagacity that you have an impulse for propagation.'

'I've still no idea what you're talking about.' Harry turned his face away, blushing slightly.

'That man has an aptness to receive an education and a large faculty of compassion. At one time, his faculty of ambition and vanity was encouraged and his propensity for pride and arrogance was over enlarged but he was young and circumspection has countered that.'

'Anthony, I've told you before that I don't need an analysis of everyone who walks through my door. It's just plain rude.'

'But it's what I was made to do.'

'I'll drop you out of the window and, I remind you, we are on the fourth floor.'

Anthony gasped and turned the back of his head towards Harry so his face was hidden under the hat. 'You're displaying psychopathic tendencies, I'm scared.' Anthony's voice was slightly muffled by the hat.

'I didn't know ceramics had an ability for melodrama,' Harry muttered. He scrubbed his hand through his hair, making it even messier. 'Besides, I don't know how he feels about me these days.'

'Oh, I shouldn't worry about that,' Anthony said from under the hat. 'He displays a inclination for fidelity that is related to perseverance. I should think it's almost painful for him.'

'What do you mean?'

Anthony re-emerged, 'he's been in love with you for a very long time, Professor. Your recent reacquaintance has only served to strengthen his feelings for you.'

'You can't possibly know that.'

'I can and I do.' Anthony and said smugly. 'How was your lunch?'

'Very pleasant, we talked a lot about my work. Not a single allusion to, what did you call it, inflamed organs of amativeness.'

'It'll come!'

'What, the inflammation?'

'The conversations, Professor,' Anthony huffed. 'When are you seeing him again?'

'Thursday,' and Harry's stomach definitely did that Funny Little Flip-Thing again at the thought. Maybe he needed to talk to Mione about it.

'You should ask him out for a date.'

'NO!'

'Why ever not?' You've never been one to procrastinate before, you're normally utterly deficient in any circumspection.'

'It's too early,' Harry muttered, embarrassed to be talking about his distinctly lacking love-life with a porcelain head, which seemed to know more about it than him.

'At nearly seventeen years and you say it's too early...' Anthony said quietly.

'You can't possibly know that!' Harry was indignant.

'I can. And I do.' Anthony was decidedly smug.

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