Disclaimer: Still own nothing, still not JK, still live in fear of bid bar lawyers and their big bad lawsuits.

Because while Audrey has decided she no longer wants to be a "wind dancer" (please, for your emotional health, do NOT ask), she has decided her new calling in life is to be Nancy Drew. (shudder) This story came to me while watching her torture, erm.. .I mean play, with her cousins.

Loves!

Roo

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Part 1 of 2

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Harry walked into the Great Hall for dinner and stopped so abruptly Ron and Hermione nearly tripped themselves trying not to run into him.

Hermione gave her friend a questioning look. "Harry, what…"

"Ssh!" Harry waved her off, head cocked to the side. He frowned, green eyes moving to study the Slytherin table with an absent type of horror.

"Hem, hem," a girlish voice simpered from in front of him. Without missing a beat, Harry whipped out his wand and cast a series of spells at Madame Umbridge; starting to walk towards the Slytherin table before her frozen body even hit the floor.

Ron gaped at the body on the floor. "Erm, Harry mate? You just, um, why did." He stopped talking, settling for shaking his head in mute denial and holding onto a slightly overwhelmed looking Hermione.

"Mr. Potter!" Professor McGonagall marched down from the head table, a look of budding fury on her face.

"Ssh!" Harry repeated impatiently. He waved his teacher off as he, once again, began making his way towards the Slytherin table. "Malfoy," he greeted slowly, urgently. "I'm going to wrap my arms around you and pull you up very very slowly." He turned to the rest of the suspicious and wary looking students. "Don't make any sudden moves."

"Potter…"

"DON'T," he hissed vehemently. "Just don't. Trust me on this." He circled the table slowly, ignoring, best he could, the threatening looks he was receiving. Malfoy glanced around at his bewildered housemates nervously; more rattled than he would ever willingly admit by the intense look in Harry's eyes.

Taking a deep breath, Harry slid his arms around Malfoy, just under the boys' arms, and linked his fingers together. Very quietly he turned to the rest of the table, aware of the withdrawn wands and the unnatural silence in the Great Hall as the other students and teachers watched Harry Potter put his arms around Draco Malfoy. "Don't scream," he ordered tightly. Taking one deeper, fortifying breath, Harry tightened his hold and yanked Draco up and out of his seat; pushing the blond behind his back just as a huge brownish tan snake slithered out from underneath the table and hissed menacingly at everyone in the hall.

Blaise Zabini froze with his goblet halfway to his mouth, not even noticing the stream of pumpkin juice spilling into his lap. "That's an Inland Taipan," he said blankly.

"A what?" Pansy Parkinson looked frozen in place, blue eyes wide with fear at the snake hissing menacingly mere inches from her face.

"A single bite contains enough venom to kill 100 humans," Luna offered from the Ravenclaw table. She quite cheerfully took a large bite of chocolate pudding, humming in approval.

The Slytherin table froze, gasps and shrieks rose around the hall, and the slightly acidic scent in the air meant at least one person had wet his or her pants. Draco stiffened behind Harry, gripping the boys' hips convulsively. Harry ignored the blond, glaring at the snake as he engaged it in a furious whispered conversation. "Right," he said at last, nodding grimly, as one hand reached behind him; sliding underneath Draco's outer robe to rub soothing circles on the blonds' back.

"What?" Draco demanded, slightly hysterically. "What did it say?"

"Your family is in disgrace," Harry said curtly. "How best to punish the family then to go after the children?" Several individuals from different houses exchanged uneasy glances over this. Harry ignored them all and snapped his fingers. Instantly, four house elves popped into the room. The castle ghosts, looking grim, floated through the walls a minute later.

Harry looked at them seriously, continuing to ignore the teachers and students. He pointed to the house elves. "The Slytherins are going to be rooming with the Gryffindors tonight, the Ravenclaws with the Hufflepuffs. Seal down the Slytherin and Ravenclaw dormitories and move the children's luggage to the other tower. No one gets into those dorms except me, understand?" The elves nodded, disappearing with a pop.

"Harry," Dumbledore walked over. The snake hissed threateningly, looking nervous and trapped. The headmaster stopped moving instantly. "Harry, what's going on?"

"You," Harry pointed to the ghosts, continuing to ignore the adults and students. "Make sure no one leaves their dorms tonight. No one, unless they are with me."

"And why, Mr. Potter," Snape's icy voice floated over from the end of the table where he was assisting students away from the table as safely as possible. "Why would we be so inclined to listen to you?"

"Because I'm a Parcelmouth," he answered grimly. "There are snakes all over the school and I don't want anyone to get bitten."

Professor McGonagall gasped, looking horrified. "Snakes? Inside Hogwarts? Poisonous ones?"

"Yep." Harry nodded, turning away from his head of house to point to the Gryffindor table. "Ron, Hermione," he ordered sharply. "You are in charge of organizing the Slytherins tonight. No one comes to any harm, understand?"

Hermione was very pale, one hand clasped over her mouth as she shot nervous looks at the head table. "Course, Harry."

Ron nodded, looking slightly uncomfortable. "You got it, mate."

Harry nodded, satisfied, before turning to the Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin Prefects and ordering them to get their students safely to the selected common room and take roll. Professor Flitwick and Madame Hooch levitated Delores Umbridge to the Hospital Wing, silently agreeing to keep her unconscious until the latest disaster had passed. Carefully, one at a time and with many breaks for Harry to calm the poisonous snake down, the Slytherins managed to file out of the Great Hall and towards the Gryffindor common room.

Harry held onto Draco. "Malfoy?" he asked seriously. "I know you want to be safe, but please could you come with me to the Slytherin common room? I need your help with something."

Draco shot an anxious glance at Professor Snape. The man was eyeing Harry as though he had never seen him before, a faint glimmer of respect lighting his eyes at the way Harry was so obviously concerned about the safety of the students. He nodded to Draco. Taking a deep breath, the blond squared his shoulders and tried to sneer at the Gryffindor. "Sure. After all, you'll need help navigating the dungeons."

"Professors?" Harry turned to Professor Sprout, McGonagall, Snape, and Headmaster Dumbledore. "Please go reassure the students they will be all right. I will return with Malfoy as soon as possible, and we will discuss this in the headmasters' office." Surprisingly, they nodded in agreement. Snape muttering something about foolish Gryffindors and making sure Pomphrey had enough anti-venom on hand as he passed by.

Exchanging tense nods Harry and Draco fell into step on their way to the dungeons. The walk was silent, tense, with Harry constantly looking around for snakes and Draco clinging to his arm while manfully pretending he was protecting the Gryffindor from… something. Draco jumped in surprise when Harry nodded at the wall hiding the Slytherin dorm and it slid open easily.

"Sit down," Harry jerked his head in the direction of the black leather couches.

"What?"

"Sit down," he repeated slowly.

Looking rather trepidatious, Draco perched himself on the very edge of the seat closest to Harry. "Tea?" Harry asked politely, gesturing to the steaming platter that had appeared on the table next to him.

Draco looked from the platter to Harry to the locked and presumably sealed door. "Potter?" he asked slowly, automatically accepting a cup of tea. And a biscuit. "What's going on?"

"Let me tell you a story, Draco," Harry said gently. "Once upon a time a twelve year old boy killed a Basilisk with the Sword of Gryffindor. It sucked. And it hurt. And I still have a scar." Harry trailed off, looking slightly disgruntled, before he seemed to shake himself and continue on. "Anyways, upon returning to the Headmaster's office – bloody, filthy, sore, and exhausted, may I point out – the boy was told that only a true Gryffindor could pull the sword out of the hat." He paused in his story, offering the tea pot to Draco politely. "More tea?"

Mutely, Draco allowed him to refill his cup. Taking another two biscuits to fortify himself.

"So," Harry continued brightly after taking a sip of his own tea, "the boy plotted and planned. His life was practically straight out of a sci-fi or fantasy novel, and in books the Protagonist of the story always manages to somehow seize control of his destiny and conclude the book with an exciting and heart wrenching victory. Oh, and he always gets the girl, of course."

"Of course," Draco agreed, attempting to gauge the distance between where he sat and the door. After all, he concluded to himself, it was obvious Potter had lost it. He could brave the snakes alone. He was… tough. He nibbled on another biscuit as he weighed the pros and cons between lethal snakes and emotionally unbalanced Gryffindors. "Could you not talk about yourself in third person, though? It's a bit disturbing."

"Right." Harry politely refilled their tea once more. "Once I came to the conclusion I was the heir apparent of Gryffindor, I decided to milk it to my advantage. The castle is bound by their oath to the founders to listen to me, and since I am actually in the castle and not attempting to destroy it, it likes me better than Tom."

"What likes you better than Tom?" Draco asked warily.

"Hogwarts."

"I see."

"Do you?"

"Yes. Potter, being the Boy Who Lived all these years has obviously fried your brains."

"It's possible. But we'll get to that later. Where was I? Right! So, this year has been especially rough for me. I've been separated from my Godfather, still having nightmares of Cedric in the graveyard, and Umbridge is trying to kill me slowly."

"Smart woman."

"What's that?"

"Nothing."

"Hmm. Well, it also sucks for me because I figured out I was gay."

"You're gay??"

"I am."

"But you're Harry Potter! You can't be gay!"

"Oh, but I am. Draco? Hey, Malfoy you ok? Breathe! Here, have another biscuit. There's a good boy."

"Shut up Potter, I am not a dog."

"Trust me, I know,"

"What?"

"Err… so anyway, I came out to my friends and decided I was going to ask the object of my affection out for a date. But every blasted time I tried I kept getting interrupted! Geez, it's amazing the things that go one in this castle. The only time things seem to go according to plan is when there is some extreme plot going on. So I created one."

"You… created… an extreme plot?"

"Yep."

"O –K. And… what do I have to do with your insane ploy? Why are you looking at me like that? Oh God, I'm the object of your affection, aren't I?"

"Pretty and smart," Harry nodded approvingly at the shell shocked blond. "Can you see why I'm crazy about you?"

"But… but I yell insults at you all the time!"

"I have self esteem issues. I take your harsh words as hidden declarations of love."

"But… but you beat me up on the Quidditch pitch!"

"What? It's like the Bush song. I don't believe Elvis is dead. There's no sex in your violence."

"Who the fuck is Elvis?"

"Doesn't matter, he's dead."

"But you just said…" Draco shook his head. "Potter, perhaps you should explain precisely what your mad play entails."

"Well," Harry paused to refill their tea cups and pass out more biscuits. "I ordered the snake by owl from the Magical Menagerie. Then I told him to hiss threateningly at the students and wander around while I got everyone out of the way. The Slytherin common room is sealed off to anyone not with me, and all the teachers are busy taking care of the hysterical students and patrolling the castle for loose snakes to really care what we're doing in here. Luna came up with the idea to include the Ravenclaws because it would look less suspicious, and Hermione agreed to go along with my ploy in order to try and find a way to keep me from getting expelled when I get caught." Harry shook his head sadly. "Eternal pessimist, that girl. So, we're alone, and I can finally ask you if you will go out with me. So, will you?"

Draco paused, waiting, but Harry seemed to be done. "That's it? That's the extent of your plot? What if I were to say no? What will you tell Umbridge, Dumbledore, everyone, after this is over?"

Harry's shoulders fell. "I haven't gotten that far in the plan."

"Haven't gotten that… Harry! You should have gotten to that point before you put your plan in action!"

"Hey," Harry said defensively. "It was a good plan." He looked up, hopefully. "Maybe we can just stay here until the end of the year?" He bounced on the leather couch experimentally. "It's nice here."

Draco stared at Harry again, and whimpered slightly. "Good God, you're insane!" Absently, he took another biscuit and wondered what the hell he should do now.