Out

The first thing you have to understand is that Harry Potter had fallen in love with Draco Malfoy, and fallen hard. He could not really be blamed for what he'd done to Cormac, nor could he really be blamed for losing his temper in the hallway in what was one of the greatest love melodramas to go down in the history of Hogwarts. Draco Malfoy had Harry wrapped around his skinny little finger, and now everyone knew it. And of course, there was nothing else anyone wanted to talk about; pretty soon, even the poisoning of Hermione Granger was practically last year's news. But the best thing is to start at the beginning, and see how this incredible turning point came to be.

It all started with what would have been Harry, Ron, Hermione and Draco's seventh year at Hogwarts, if it had begun normally. The past year had been traumatic. Hogwarts finally reopened almost halfway through the typical school year, after the events that led to the downfall and defeat of Voldemort once and for all. Harry himself played a rather crucial role in all of this, but that's another story. When the wizarding world reemerged-somewhat worse for the wear but still essentially intact-from the bloodshed and mayhem, everyone seemed wearily ready to go through the motions of normalcy…for lack of anything better to do. Thus, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ronald Weasley found themselves back at Hogwarts, wrapping up their interrupted seventh year before belatedly entering the world as adults.

Under the circumstances, it was a bit of a surprise that the first week of school began with such a bang, thanks to two major events which were actually quite unrelated. First, there was the return of Draco Malfoy, whose arrival was preceded by a torrent of wild rumors with a disturbing basis in truth. Everyone knew what had become of the once-proud prince of house Slytherin; his mother and father had been banished to a U.S. prison for wizards, reputed to be far worse than Azkaban (although there was some debate as to whether this was because of the bad reality television they would have to watch, or because it was actually Abu Graib).

There were other rumors, however-and it was here that the students of Hogwarts showed their otherwise stifled creativity-that had taken hold of the imagination, and these almost always involved some speculation as to how Malfoy was coping with his fall from grace. The most popular one, and simultaneously the most taboo, was that Malfoy was gay, had recently come out of the closet and was now throwing himself at this or that other rich lover in the hopes of securing some means of a future.

They did not see him for the first week. Then one day, during breakfast, a collective wave of whispers began to travel throughout the feast hall. Turning to find out what everyone else was looking at, Harry, Ron and Hermione looked up to see Draco sauntering down the hallway between the feast tables, ignoring the curious stares from each of the houses. He walked right up to the long, imposing faculty table, his white-blond hair hiding what might have been a dull expression in his eyes, and spoke in a low whisper to Head-Mistress McGonagall, who seemed to have been expecting him and leaned forward to converse.

After a moment she gave him a curt nod and, tossing his chin in the air, Draco stalked over to the Slytherins' table and sat down. Without any further ado his housemates leaned toward him and began chattering in low voices as he reached for food and began to eat with relish. He seemed oblivious-or indifferent-to the buzzing around the feast hall. Harry and Ron threw each other a glance, raising their eyebrows. Hermione looked thoughtful.

"Hadn't expected to see him back this year," Ron said.

Harry turned conspicuously in his seat to stare at Draco again, not caring if he was noticed. In fact, he somewhat hoped he was. Although the rumors about Draco's sexual preference had made their way into the Gryffindor common room on many occasions, Harry had only been peripherally aware of them at all. Still numb from the aftermath of Voldemort's violent rebellion, Harry gave little thought to the hallway gossip these days. What had Malfoy been up to all this time?

The second thing that happened, and this really did shake up the student body, was that Hermione Granger was dragged from the library a few days later, convulsing and foaming at the mouth, and quickly taken up into the hospital wing. News traveled faster than ever these days, considering the fact that everyone in the wizarding world was still rather jumpy, and it was soon widely known she was the victim of an attempted poisoning. Whatever the poison was it had to have been pretty nasty, for she stayed in the hospital wing for almost a month. It was some time yet before the culprit would be discovered, however. Of course, everyone's first guess was a particular Slytherin who was known for having once had Death Eater loyalties, but it turned out he had a solid alibi after all.

On the evening of this incident, Harry was going into the boys' room after supper-the pumpkin juice just wasn't the same these days; whatever Hermione said, he personally believed that being forcibly freed had seriously lowered the morale of the house elves-when he froze stockstill in the middle of the bathroom, his mouth stupidly hanging open. There, right up against the far wall between the last stall and a tiny window caked with dust, leaned Malfoy. His arms were thrown casually around the neck of another boy who was leaning against him much closer than any boy should, and looking as if he were just about to start a fierce sequence of nibbling at his collarbone. At the sound of the door swinging shut with a bang the boy looked at Harry over his shoulder, Harry thought he recognized him as a sixth year from the Ravenclaw Quidditch team of last year.

When Malfoy saw him, his grey eyes glinted with surprise and dull fury. A second later, however, the old anger dissipated. His face now twisted with apparent disgust at having been interrupted, he merely stared him down.

"What are you gawking at?" he spat, cradling the Ravenclaw's neck in his arm again, which he'd instinctively pulled away a moment before.

"Oh….So….it's true then," Harry said offhandedly, going toward one of the sinks even though he had no reason to wash his hands. It was a force of habit that he never backed down from Malfoy; but in this case, Harry felt completely taken off guard, and there was no dark-magic defensive technique that could possibly have prepared him for this.

"Piss off, Potter. I'm busy."

"Don't you know when to make yourself scarce?" the Ravenclaw said after a second or two.

"No, no…see, you're actually expecting him to have manners," he heard Malfoy mutter in a tone of affected patience. He had gently, but firmly, taken the boy's chin in his other hand and was now turning it toward him so that he could kiss his lips.

Harry slowly wiped his hands as he regarded them with open curiosity. He threw the paper towel away, then looked back at Malfoy, who was now leaning his head back against the wall and meeting his eyes with an odd, infuriatingly dismissive expression. His grey eyes narrowed as the Ravenclaw made the slightest motion to pull away, and he hooked a finger into the boy's belt, anchoring his body in close proximity. The boy responded by burying his face into Malfoy's neck, ready to resume their activities.

"Well, if there's nothing else I can do for you-unless you like to watch?" He smirked, and Harry felt an unpleasant lurching sensation in his stomach.

"Think I'll pass. See you around, Malfoy."

See you around?!?! He asked himself incredulously, as the door banged behind him again. He headed as fast as he could to the Gryffindor common room, shaking his head. "Real good comeback, Harry," he muttered.

"So did you hear about Malfoy and Zabini?" Ron asked Harry a few days later, as they sat glumly in the quiet common room. They were staring at their respective Transfiguration textbooks, where neither had turned a page for the last half hour.

"What about them?"

"You don't know?"

"No, Ron, I don't. Why should I?"

Ron leaned forward, whispering with conspiratorial delight.

"Apparently, Malfoy's got a thing for…well, you know…blokes."

Harry gave him the most skeptical look he thought he could muster.

"You can't possibly be serious."

"It's true! Well, I mean, I don't know if it's true-" Ron wrinkled his eyebrows. Harry said nothing. He knew it was true, but he had somehow neglected to tell Ron what he'd seen in the bathroom the night Hermione was poisoned. When he'd come back, the rest of the school was in an uproar. Ron had come up to him, face white, stammering something about "Hermione" and "murderer." As if the shock and terror of this sudden attack on his other best friend hadn't been enough, moments later he had been summoned to McGonagall's office by a very grave-looking Flitwick.

When Harry arrived at the office that had once been Dumbledore's, he was very surprised to see Malfoy standing there, a mixed look of defiance and apprehension on his pale face. It was immediately apparent to him that Malfoy had had no idea why he was called there until only a few moments ago. He guessed within seconds what must have happened; Malfoy had been unaccounted for at the moment of the attack, and his other alibi, for whatever reason, had not come through. Sure enough, Harry found himself reluctantly clearing Malfoy of any blame-he left out the specifics of his knowledge-and they were both promptly dismissed to their respective houses. "What did McGonagall want?" Ron had asked him, and Harry explained in as few details as possible. Luckily, at the time, the subject was left well enough alone.

"-But anyway, that's what everyone's saying. It's been all over school for weeks. But him and Zabini. I heard they've been snogging all over the halls in the dungeon."

"Well, who'd you hear it from? Slytherins or some silly first years from somewhere else? That's disturbing, by the way. And a bit gross, that you'd even be thinking about it."

"Pish," Ron scoffed with a wave of his hand. "You know just as well as I do that, true or not, it's bloody hilarious, if you think about it. Malfoy, of all people. That's just rich. Malfoy, a bloody fruitcake."

Harry felt a smile tug at his mouth at this. It was ironic, almost deliciously so, the way Ron put it. But he had simply found little to laugh about these days.

"So who'd you hear it from?"

"Actually, I heard it from a very reliable source," Ron said, his ears turning red for some reason. Harry stared at him, waiting. "All right," Ron spluttered, "I heard it from Romilda Vane."

"Mmmhmm."

"But Hermione confirmed it!"

"Ron, what does Hermione know about Malfoy's sexual activities?! Last I heard, they weren't exactly exchanging personal secrets."

"But Hermione pays attention to those kinds of things. You know that. And you know she would never have bothered to express an opinion if she didn't have good reason to believe…"

Harry shrugged, closing his book and standing up. He'd given up on studying altogether.

"Well, it's a compelling theory. Much more interesting than Transfiguration. But I think, if it's all the same to you, I'll refrain from wasting any brain cells on Malfoy's sex life."

"You know, you sounded like Hermione when you said that," Ron observed with awe.

"Yeah, well, I expect she's rubbing off on me a little after all." Secretly, he suspected Ron just missed her terribly. He already spent every free hour he could visiting her in the hospital wing, and he had almost been fit to be tied when Harry mentioned that Malfoy had been a suspect. "I'll see you later; think I'll go let out a few bludgers and let them chase me around the Quidditch field for a bit. This school's feeling a bit stifling these days."

"I know what you mean."

Harry did not forget his conversation with Ron, no matter how hard he tried to brush the subject aside whenever it came up. There did seem to be something different about Draco Malfoy, however. It did not make itself apparent right away. First, there was the oddity of his anticlimactic arrival. The haughtiness had not disappeared, but there was something in it less hostile, less confident; it seemed to Harry, though he might not have been able to articulate it himself, more of a delinquent demeanor than the all-too-familiar bravado of the rich, spoiled heir. Second, while he had reintegrated himself into his old social circle without difficulty, he seemed less inclined to interact with his housemates and showed even less interest in his old hobby of intimidation and bullying. It was this second observation that baffled Harry the most. Draco Malfoy was both the subject of frequent gossip, and yet, apparently, had otherwise faded into the general social background of Hogwarts for all intents and purposes. Was Malfoy keeping to himself more than usual? Was he keeping company with new faces these days?

As for their old rivalry, which had progressed from bitter antagonism to outright violence by their sixth year, Draco seemed to have decided he had more important things on his mind with which to be preoccupied. If he happened to make eye contact with Harry in the feast hall or in class, he merely looked away with the same cold air of dismissal that now irked him to distraction. Harry was inclined to take this behavior as his way of showing gratitude. But, in the end, it was this odd transformation that finally awoke Harry's curiosity, after the numb shell shock of a tragic year. He began to listen a little more closely when the gossip sprang up again.

It seemed that everyone was interested not only in who Malfoy might be dating, but the whole seventh year class seemed to be irritatingly obsessed with who was hooking up with who. Harry had himself dodged several hundred questions about Ginny on several hundred separate occasions, until he finally bit someone's head off in the common room. When the questions were replaced with curious looks and whispers then after, he guessed word of his outburst must have quickly spread. Good, he thought bitterly. The less said about that subject, the better…