"You said you wanted to be in Slytherin and don't know something as basic as this. Professor Snape was right, fame isn't everything is it?" Blaise took a sip of his tea pointedly ignoring the green glare he was getting.
"The best I figure, Ron pissed him off so Snape clearly wouldn't let him work alone, and he likes Slytherins better so you had the clear chance over Hermione at being the group of one, but even if he let you work alone there was nothing stopping him from grouping Neville with Ron. In fact it would've made more sense because Hermione was clearly a, uh, well she knows her stuff already, and Goyle's reputation precedes him and I've been at Hogwarts less than a week to have heard all about it. Logically if he really didn't want to blow up his classroom, he should've grouped them together. Weasley and Goyle will probably kill someone by Christmas." Harry ranted, his breakfast forgotten in front of him.
Not even Neville was up at this hour on a Saturday, but Harry was wired to rise with the sun and the Slytherins wouldn't be caught dead idling even if it was a day off. Draco hadn't said it outright, but Harry got the feeling Snape had made it abundantly clear he expected to see all his students at all three meals a day barring a legitimate excuse like illness or detention. Apart from a handful of Ravenclaws they had the Great Hall to themselves and on this particular morning no one even bothered to look up when he sat at the Slytherin table—he considered that progress, though was a bit surprised how quickly he'd gotten to this point. Or maybe it was because they were around mostly upper years who looked half-dead before they got some coffee in their system.
Either way the looks he usually got were cooled off this morning and Blaise was being abnormally chatty as he hung his knowledge smugly over the red head in front of him, Draco digging into his breakfast and remaining out of their snarky exchange, while Nott had finished quickly and had his nose in a book, tuning them all out. Harry noticed it wasn't a textbook, but it wasn't clearly marked either.
"Some things can't be picked up naturally then. And here I thought you had promise." Blaise sniffed dryly.
"Aw, I knew you loved me Blaise." Harry rolled his eyes, and Draco scoffed under his breath while Blaise grinned a bit maniacally. It was a startling expression on the previously composed Slytherin boy.
"For having no information to go off of he has a decent account of what happened, you know." The blond pointed out and Blaise shot him a sour look for ruining his fun.
"So you do know, but refused to tell me." Harry demanded, and Draco shot him a smirk before returning to his breakfast without answering. Damn Slytherins.
"I'll give you a hint because I'm feeling charitable," Blaise huffed with a very put-upon sigh, smirking once more as he put a finger in the air knowingly. "The twins."
The twins? Like Fred and George? Why would Snape—oh dear. Hm, that's a problem.
"You mean to tell me that Snape hates the Weasley twins so much he'd risk blowing his classroom up in hopes their little brother offs himself? That's incredibly dark for a teacher, isn't it?" Harry demanded, and saw an upper year to their left raise an eyebrow.
Even Blaise looked pleasantly surprised, shooting a glance at Draco who was smirking into his food.
"…okay, you're quick on the uptake, I'll give you that." He allowed, narrowing his gaze slightly. "But yes, word travels and it's become this vicious circle of Snape hating the twins, them pranking him, him hating them more, them pranking him because it's funnier now, and so forth. He might kill them before they graduate. I think there's a betting pool on it."
"You've been here a week, same as me, how do you know that?"
"Slytherins have the unfair advantage of knowing all about Hogwarts and its politics before getting here. Our parents ensure we don't go in blind." He shrugged. Harry couldn't even argue with that, given half of what Draco had told him before they'd started.
"Still, something bothers me about the whole thing." Harry pouted, finally getting down to his breakfast now that he wasn't simmering in curiosity.
Blaise tisked imperiously. "Oh?"
"Yeah. Why'd you do it for Neville, of all people?"
Now the upper years were very unsubtly listening in, clearly surprised by the question. So was Nott, who actually raised his eyes to flicker at Blaise as if he wanted to hear the answer too.
Draco however, snorted into his toast rather ungracefully.
Blaise glared at him before seeming to mentally sooth his ruffled feathers and tilted his chin up proudly.
"Well, if you must know, I admired the way you threatened to lodge a wand into Weasley's brain, especially since I was contemplating doing the same thing before you took the words right out of my mouth. It was a simple enough token to show my appreciation, no? And it's not like I wanted a partner in the first place; it's much easier to work alone in a class like that."
Harry was surprised, but just smiled warmly at that instead.
A trade? Seems to be a Slytherin trend. So not only was specialization critical for a career, it was also the key to getting anywhere in the social game—or at least so far as Slytherins went. And they honestly seemed to control quite a bit without letting on how much they knew, so I should probably be taking notes…
"One more question."
"You sure are chatty this morning," Blaise hummed as he took another sip of his tea.
Draco shot him a disgusted look. "You're one to talk."
Blaise's cup of tea hit his saucer a little too hard when he went to put it down and somehow ended up in Draco's lap—the blond blinking in surprise and Blaise's grin absolutely evil.
"Oops." He said while looking directly at Harry so it was made abundantly clear he was not sorry at all.
"You piece of-" Draco cursed under his breath as he pulled out his wand to clean it up, shooting his roommate death stares. No one but Harry was surprised about the brief exchange though.
"Your question, Potter?" Blaise's smile was positively honey while he ignored the boy sitting next to him cursing his family to the pits of hell, and Harry didn't trust it for a second.
"Okay now I have two questions." He deadpanned. "First of all, Draco you need to teach me to do that spell."
"It's just a household spell," He frowned, still checking his shirt to make sure he hadn't missed a spot.
"Raised by muggles, as a reminder. Please teach me?" He pressed and Draco seemed to remember and then just nodded absently as he continued to fix his tie distractedly. With that settled Harry promptly returned to Blaise with a glint in his eyes. "And you, Mr. Zabini, are perplexing. You want nothing to do with me, but you can't keep your mouth shut. You clearly want to avoid conflict but aren't afraid to finish it when it starts; you look down at me and certainly don't like Neville, but you put at least some effort into defending him as a favor for me out of some kind of twisted respect? Or perhaps even some odd form of obligation so that there would be no interpretation that you would then owe me for telling Ron to get lost. And on top of it all, you weren't afraid to speak up in Snape's class and seemed certain he wouldn't turn on you: professor Snape may favor Slytherins, but that's because you all can keep your mouths shut and perform well—and one of those things you cannot do."
Blaise was scowling outright by the time he finished talking.
"Well you certainly are blunt." He scoffed.
"But correct." Draco chirped up, smoothly sliding the tea pot out of Blaise's reach before he could even make a motion to grab for it. The tall boy gracefully returned to neutral position as if he hadn't just been about to dump tea all over his classmate and looked blankly back to Harry to answer his question.
"I'm afraid there's wasn't really a question in all of that for me to answer."
"No, but there was an implication and as a Slytherin I would assume you'd be clever enough to pick up on it." Harry returned fire with an innocent grin of his own, which Blaise couldn't help but be impressed by.
"What can I say, I'm not your average Slytherin. And I have no qualms about flaunting the Zabini name like anyone else here, so…" He trailed off and dotted the corner of his mouth daintily with a napkin before standing up, tossing said napkin into Draco's face for flare, and smoothing the non-existent wrinkles in his clothes as he neatly side-stepped outside of Draco's immediate retaliation range. "Well it's been fun, and by that I mean Draco you may rot in hell."
"Likewise." Draco deadpanned and then with a deceptively friendly wave the tall Slytherin was gone, the odd exit somehow not taking away from his regal stride. "I hate him." Draco told Harry in a blank tone that implied it was a lie.
"So you do," He agreed similarly, with a roll of his eyes. "And you won't tell me then?"
"It would ruin Blaise's fun and I have to live with him." The blond said by way of apology, and Harry just sighed, accepting that.
"Do you have any plans for today? I got into another argument with McGonagall and now have even more homework so I was going to check out the library and see if I can't find anything to prove her wrong. Also you have to teach me that spell sometime." He chatted happily.
"Are you sure the hat didn't mean to say Ravenclaw?" The Malfoy heir drawled primly.
Harry just maturely stuck his tongue out at him before deciding to take a shot at the last remaining member of their breakfast group. "And how about you Nott? Any exciting plans for today?"
He was greeted with an impressively blank blue-eyed stare before he too, closed his book and stood, walking away without a single word.
"Someday I'll win him over." He announced and Draco scoffed loudly.
"Good luck with that, but hell will freeze over first."
"Hey, Blaise likes me!"
"Blaise likes you in the way a wolf likes a fox. Certainly not how you think he likes you, I promise."
"A wolf? Wait—what is that supposed to mean?" He narrowed his gaze suspiciously but Draco had suddenly found the ceiling quite interesting.
"It's nice weather today, isn't it? Maybe we can check out the quidditch pitch once you're done with the library."
Harry gave up, knowing a lost cause when he saw one. "Smooth Malfoy. You're supposed to be the most Slytherin-y Slytherin if your boasting was to believed but that was positively Hufflepuff of you."
"Take that back!" He gasped dramatically, but the smirk to his lips spoke differently.
"Maybe if you teach me a spell or two I just might," Harry teased, grabbing his bag to stand now as well, Draco quickly gathering himself to follow him towards the exit.
"A spell for a favor? How positively Slytherin." Draco smiled as they got to the Great Hall—a real smile this time, and not the prim and slightly sneering one he'd been wearing since they got to Hogwarts. Harry was relieved to know the politics of this place wasn't getting to him too much…though it was clearly still getting to him, and so was him trying to act cool when a Gryffindor kept insisting to sit with him in public.
Harry didn't mean to make Draco's life difficult… but he also didn't want to just give up. He vowed he would if Draco didn't seem like he could handle it, but in the meantime Harry would just have to work at worming his way into Slytherin's hearts so they'd leave Draco alone for befriending him.
It was a big question though: how to get into the hearts of those who were very proud to claim they didn't have hearts at all?
He'd gotten Blaise, but Blaise was true to his word in that he was not the typical Slytherin. The challenge was clearly there for Harry to go about figuring out why, but he couldn't exactly ask a Slytherin or that'd be cheating… or at least it felt like cheating, and he was quickly learning that going with ones instincts (within reason) wasn't a waste of time.
Like a wolf likes a fox, huh? Both predators I guess, though why Draco would call me a fox I don't know. Unless… well, Blaise only started liking me after I threatened Ron. Actually it was like the flip of a switch and suddenly he felt he owed me a favor and therefore helped Neville? Slytherins worked in trades, and favors and information were worth more than galleons to most of them since they all seemed to be after something far bigger than fame or wealth.
Power, Harry realized. Slytherins were ambitious, clever… patient and cunning. Why though? They had goals, dreams, aspirations… but most of them were from well-off families and even those that weren't didn't seem to in it for the money. They were after something, and as he and Draco walked out into a lovely autumn day as he procrastinated going to the library, it hit him that they were after power.
Knowledge was power, but only if you could use it like a weapon. Friends could take you places, but so long as you kept them at arm's length—kept close to cash in favors on or cut ties with depending on where the most favorable wind was going that day. Sometimes you needed to take a risk, but only if the reward was worth it.
The Malfoys had money, which was a power in an of itself which was probably shielding Draco to an extent. Blaise… had to have power somehow, because he'd been warming up to him and yet no one had dared shoot him a dirty look like Harry had caught many people doing to Draco.
A wolf and a fox. Predators. Blaise had power somehow and so he could get away with talking to me… and so I need to have power in the Slytherins' eyes so they won't feel it's a slight on their person to be seen with me.
Honestly it'd work better if Draco were the one with the power, but as they walked along the side of the lake and Draco peered curiously (if not cautiously from the warnings about the giant squid) into the dark waters, Harry felt something inside of him melt.
Draco already knew all about what he was up against and had his own things to worry about. He wouldn't have been in Slytherin if he didn't have an ambition already in mind—Harry was the one who'd walked into his life and made it significantly harder for no other reason than he wanted to keep this endearingly bratty boy close.
So it's simple. I become someone Slytherin has to respect, and they'll leave Draco alone. Draco can then focus on doing whatever it is he wanted to come here to do in the first place…or he'll at least be able to figure it out in peace.
Decision made, Harry nodded once to himself and smiled.
It dropped in a second as he remembered that he still needed a way to actually do that now…
"You seem to be thinking pretty hard over there." Draco called from where he was crouched by the water, and Harry walked over to crouch by him and poke at the rocks that had been washed smooth by the tiny little waves.
"Plotting, of course. Seems to be what I do these days. Plotting to bust Neville outta his shell, plotting to make McGonagall love me…"
Draco snickered lowly. "Are you sure the sorting hat didn't mean to say Slytherin?"
Harry nudged his shoulder playfully, before getting a guilty grin. "I'm not sorry I'm in Gryffindor, but sorry it makes your life so damn hard."
The blond gave a sigh, picking up a rock and tossing it into the water a little deeper so that it disappeared into the inky shadows with a little plop."Apology accepted. No matter how much it is or is not your fault." He shrugged. He tilted his head enough to give him a smile that went all the way up to the corners of his grey eyes, and Harry felt himself smile back automatically.
That's it, operation fox is a go. No one gets to pick on this dork but me.