"What happened to Malfoys bow to no one, hm?"
"Blaise I swear to god-"
"I'm just repeating what I've heard you say like forty times, and I couldn't help but notice you bowed to two people just now. Weasley being one of them I might add and what were you saying about his family just now?"
Draco didn't even bother that with a response, shoving past his roommate and towards his area of the room the second they got back to their dorm. He'd half thought that rooming with a grey-oriented family heir would be slightly easier than with darker families, but Blaise was still a Slytherin and a royal pain he was discovering. And a chatterbox.
But as a Slytherin he had etiquette, and despite this being an open floor plan, if one retreated to their alcove then the polite thing is to leave them be, so as Draco plopped down at his desk, the other two filtered away automatically. Blaise was still grinning like a Cheshire cat, but he'd stopped talking thank god.
Until he turned on Nott with a plethora of other comments from across the room and Draco banged his head onto his desk in utter exasperations.
He frowned into the wood, considering what he was doing.
It had been a calculated risk. Gryffindor would (and does) always believe the apology was a lie, and maybe the apology to Weasley was. He couldn't erase a lifetime of prejudice in a couple weeks after all, not within himself and not in the wider school, definitely not in the upper years who've had quite a while to get entrenched in their ways. So, how to get on the lions' good side?
They knew the apology was a lie, so he had to get them to think that even if it was a lie, he was there for non-Slytherin reasons.
On the flipside, Slytherin would be watching, and they had to believe it was for Slytherin reasons or they'd denounced him a traitor on top of everything else they called him these days.
The answer had taken him just under a month to figure out, and he hadn't eaten a thing all dinner as he prepared himself to do it, but in the end… it just might've worked. Blaise's comments to his pride aside.
The answer of course, was that he couldn't be friends or even on friendly terms with any of the Gryffindors except Harry. He made sure the lions all saw him obey Harry's orders, and he made sure his body language was uncomfortable and unhappy the entire rest of the night so that the Slytherins didn't think he was actually enjoying himself.
The truth of the matter? His apology to Weasley was utter bullsnitch and he honestly had nothing against the likes of Dean or Seamus. Their muggleborn or half-blood status left something to be desired, but these days he was trying not to think of that too much. He couldn't change on a dime, but he was making the conscious effort.
And Seamus knew as much, if not more about quidditch than Draco himself did, so it wasn't like there wasn't stuff to talk about between the two of them. He just couldn't appear to get too chummy or the charade would be up.
Now the Gryffindor's didn't trust him (like they ever would've though, not so soon obviously) but would let him be so long as Harry vouched for him. Likewise, Slytherin was content knowing full well he was simply manipulating most of the lions' house and that he only really cared about Harry. Choice of friend aside, they were at least impressed about his dedication in going after what he wanted and how clever he'd been about it.
They still highly disapproved of his choices and actions, and certainly let him know it, but they at least liked that he was being a Slytherin about it. It didn't win him any points necessarily, but he didn't lose anymore than he currently already had either.
And given that he felt like drowning in the politics of his house on a daily basis, that was an important thing for him.
Bowing to people though… he still wasn't sure how he felt about it, but at least knew it was the Slytherin thing to do. Pride was something he'd been mulling over for weeks now and still as of yet had no answer to. Slytherins were prideful, but honestly, when did that become attributed to their house? Weren't the lions the prideful ones?
Slytherin was supposed to be clever, and ambitious. At what point did everyone seem to just forget that playing the meek, beaten opponent for strategic purposes was a valid tactic? He got his way, he won… so why did he feel like his pride was stinging something awful?
Ambitions are about getting what you want, no matter what. I can want it all I want and it means nothing if I can't actually get it. This was the right thing to do, to bow even if I didn't mean it and get my way in the end.
He lifted his head and glanced at his roommates, where Nott was still fully reading whatever book he had on him and Blaise chatting his ear off, completely fine with the fact his audience was not listening to him at all.
As much as he hated to admit it, Blaise was good at this. He balanced his pride and his knowledge of his own status with his ambitious almost effortlessly—he played the part of the snarky little chatter box but he always knew what he was doing. He always knew when to shut his mouth and smile, and when to strike back. He knew exactly how hard to hit so as not to lose face for being weak, but not too hard that he overstepped his bounds.
They'd told Harry he was the untouchable Slytherin, and Draco really, really felt that now that he was comparing their two positions.
He buried his face in his hands, rubbing his eyes as if he could get rid of his racing thoughts that way. He'd just made so many mistakes so far, and the road back to being in control (if he'd ever had control, he was realizing) was going to be a royal pain in his rear end. It'd taken him a month to figure out what to do with Harry so that neither of their houses would get too peeved off, and be recognizable enough that in light of it most would forget about the fact he'd been punched in the face by his best friend like he was a flippin' muggle.
Harry was going to be the death of him, honestly.
He needed a better plan than to just be friends and hope everyone got over it someday. Harry himself would go a long way because he was a very Slytherin-like Gryffindor, and hell he'd won Blaise over in less than two weeks, but Draco needed more.He was forced to admit though, that it likely wouldn't be this year that he'd start making any progress. He'd messed up by trying to get into Marcus Flint's good side too quickly, wanting to be on the quidditch team next year and apparently he was far to obvious and also no one liked him already because he'd very publicly been seen with Harry their first day of the year. Now the quidditch team hated him, or at least thought he was an arrogant idiot, and all the upper years were entirely hands off because no one wanted to get involved in the mess he'd created for himself. He was associated with Harry Potter after all, and if anyone was even remotely connected to the Dark Lord, that meant association with Draco himself was an insanely bad idea.
Blaise was one thing, he was from a grey family and he could do whatever the hell he wanted. Winning over people like Nott or literally anyone else was going to be a multiple-year-long effort, but to make those years worth anything, Draco needed a plan now, and he needed to work on it constantly until it showed results.
He just had no idea where to even start with making a plan.
He needed to have more power in his house, because if he had power, even if people disagreed with his choices they wouldn't go speaking behind his back or excluding him like this. But how the heck was he supposed to get power? He was a first year for god's sake, and he'd already dug himself into a fine hole less than a month into the school year. His family had money, yes, but from watching Blaise he knew that would only get him so far. The Malfoys were the richest in the country of course, but the Zabini family had old money, which seemed to stretch farther and in more areas of the world than just magical Britain.
And Blaise didn't need to flaunt that he was wealthy to be the untouchable Slytherin. Hell, Draco was utterly distraught to realize no one in this house needed to flaunt that they were wealthy to get their way. Most of them were wealthy in one way or another, but even people from poorer backgrounds still clawed their way up into places of good standing by the time they were fourth or fifth years. His own godfather was a shining example of someone who'd entered Slytherin with nothing and then gotten everything by just being a good snake—ending with being a spy trusted on both sides of the war by two insanely powerful wizards who Draco knew his godfather held no true allegiance to either of them.
The people who couldn't get standing were almost always younger years, or they were idiots. Crabbe and Goyle being good examples of people who were not going anywhere without someone's coat tails to ride, and he knew of a couple upper years who were in very similar situations.
And so, the one thing he thought he had going for him upon starting at Hogwarts—his wealth—he was depressed to realize wasn't really that advantageous at all. Or, it could still be used, but he was sure he'd be laughed at behind his back if he resorted to using money like no one else ever felt the need to use it. Harry had called him a spoiled brat once and while he'd said it with fondness, he knew it wouldn't sound so kind coming from his housemates.
He plunked his head down on the desk again, tired of his own mind.
The answer was clear, if he took a moment to stomp on his pride a little more to realize it was an option.
He needed allies.
He was too far in the hole to dig himself out, so he needed to lean on the better reputations of others for a little while. Blaise would see it coming from a mile and way and laugh in his face, and there was no way Nott would stay in the room long enough to hear him out. And pretty much all of Slytherin was hands off so…
Well. Blaise got won over by Harry pretty easily, so what if Draco wasn't actually the one doing the convincing?
Draco lifted his head, realizing this plan had merit. Whether he knew it or not, Harry had used him to make a point about where he stood in this school—and Draco had known from literally day one (literally hour one, actually) that Harry was in this to be free, and to have fun. If Draco got in his way, he'd be left behind without a second thought, and he'd known that.
If Harry wanted to be free, Draco would let him.
Let him loose on the Slytherins, that is.
He smiled slightly as he stood up and got changed for bed, thinking through where his first target would be, and comforted in the fact that this friendship he'd once thought was going to be nothing but trouble, might actually have some advantage to him after all.
000
"They are not! The Harpies have Garett Plasie this year so there's no way-"
"You are insane if you think one mediocre chaser like Plasie is going to do a damn thing, Finnegan."
"Mediocre? How is an 85% hit rate mediocre?"
"It's no Hasian Grey, that's how."
"You're comparing Garret Plasie to Hasian Grey? Are you insane?"
"You know, this really feels like you're just calling me insane over and over again. Not very tempting discourse, you know." Draco rolled his eyes, and Seamus glared daggers at him from across the library table.
Seamus and Dean weren't exactly the studying sort, but they had a potions test this week and when Harry mentioned he and Draco were reviewing in the library, they'd tagged along. Harry had been thrilled his Gryffindor friends had put aside the rivalry in he face of actually getting a passing grade in potions (what they thought of Slytherins aside, Draco was Harry's friend and amazing at potions so the negatives for hanging out with the guy were far outweighed by the pros) but he hadn't accounted for how much Draco and Seamus liked quidditch.
It'd been half an hour now and they hadn't really touched their potions material yet.
"Do you have any idea what they're talking about?" Harry sighed to Dean, who'd chosen to ignore the two and study on his own anyway. He looked up from his notes and squinted as if tuning back into the conversation.
"Vaguely—Seamus has filled me in a lot on of those names, but I'm not quite as invested as he is yet."
"Yet? So there's some interest?"
"A bit. I mean I like the magical world, but there's no football here. I like sports and I think I could get into quidditch." He sighed as Seamus spluttered at Draco's latest rebuttal (Gryffindors could win a fight, but they rarely won verbal sparing matches against Slytherins apparently, and Draco was proving that once and for all). "Man! I'm so bummed there isn't a football team here. I mean quidditch sounds awesome but all this strategizing bums me out." He pouted a bit.
"You played at your old school?" Seamus recalled out loud, abandoning his losing conversation with Draco who just rolled his eyes and tapped his quill against his notes in annoyance.
Dean nodding morosely. "I spent so much time practicing too--thought it'd ensure me a spot on my high school team and then maybe I could go pro or something. In the minor leagues at least, or at least I was hopeful about it since I thought pretty highly of my talent at least." He grinned, earning himself a pair of snickers at that.
Harry perked up, an idea tickling at the back of his brain. He had never really played football before outside of the rare gym class since no kids wanted to associate with Dudley Dursley's preferred target, but the couple times he'd kicked the ball around during mandatory PE lessons, he hadn't hated it. In fact he liked it a lot since it was largely running, and he liked to run. Flying was absolutely amazing, but it wasn't the same muscles stretched as running around the heavy ground and feeling your heart pump out those lovely endorphins once you pushed past the air in your lungs and burn in your muscles. Harry didn't see any reason to give up one or the other, having to choose just because one was magical and one wasn't.
Maybe it was an Odd Solution, but the magical world seemed to be in need of a couple more of those.
"Why don't we form our own team? I mean there has to be at least a football team's worth of muggleborns who'd be interested in this school, and Hogwarts has probably quadruple the amount of land you'd need for a football field—probably more to be honest." He suggested, and all three of them looked at him in surprise. Seamus and Draco seemed too taken off guard to be sure, but Dean lit up like a Christmas tree.
"That's bloody brilliant Harry! I brought a ball with me too, just in case you know? We could ask around and make up some teams, even if they're pick-up games! Like a club or something," he was grinning now and Seamus took one look at his friend and decided it couldn't hurt—it's not like either of them were on the quidditch team for at least this year and he'd heard a lot of the muggle game from Dean so was interested in playing.
"We could put a sign up in the Great Hall so all the houses can see it--maybe we shouldn't make it by house since I'm fairly certain there aren't enough Slytherin muggleborns to even make half a team, but knowing them they'd be flipping fantastic at it just on principle. Most likely because someone will inevitably imply that they'd suck at it even if they tried and they will absolutely have to prove someone wrong." Harry suggested deviously, Seamus snickering again and Dean grinning from ear to ear.
The fact he'd said this looking straight at Draco meant he got to see the utter indignation on the blond's face—but he couldn't exactly argue against that logic.
"While I kind of agree with the logic I think you're absolutely insane." He declared slightly too loudly as Madam Pince looked up from her desk to glower at them.
"Oh great comeback," Seamus taunted, immediately turning away too-casually at the fiery grey glare he got in received for it.
"You have them very well measured, I see." Dean chuckled.
"If there's something to win, Slytherin will want to win it even if they'll go to their graves denying they found it interesting. Especially a muggle game."
Draco fumed but couldn't refute the logic despite very much wanting to.
"I'll be shocked if we get even one, to be honest." Seamus admitted. "At least at first. But it's sound logic--and maybe it'll be healthier competition than that Gryffindor-Slytherin thing the upper years are on about."
"Muggleborns weren't raised being told they were supposed to hate a whole group of people for no reason, so my bet is it'll be a way nicer environment. Easier." Harry shrugged, and none of them could seem to argue against that logic.
Draco huffed. "Good bloody luck. Were you born this optimistic or did it hit you over the head one day?"
"So that's what it was, I could've sworn it was a bludger." Harry snapped his fingers as if in realization, earning laughs from the Gryffindors present at least. Draco rolled his eyes and tapped on his notes even more urgently.
"You are on your own for that. Are we going to study or not?" He demanded.
"Oi, I've been here ready for forty minutes—you're the one talking quidditch on study time." Harry countered and Draco ignored it in favor of pushing a textbook into the middle of them and changing the topic to crushed beetle shells quickly, his ears slightly pink.
He might be shooting himself in the foot signing up for two sports but… well, at least he had a potions tutor and was a teacher's pet for Transfiguration to ease up on the course work some, he thought deviously.
000
"Ha! In your face Dean!"
"What the heck Harry, you said you'd never played before!" His dormmate was in a right fit as he glared at the ball ten meters behind him, but the light in his eyes told Harry he wasn't actually in the least bit upset. In fact, he could've sworn he saw that same glint in McGonagall's eyes when she introduced him to Oliver, so he knew he was probably doomed.
Seamus and a Ravenclaw muggleborn who'd seen their sign in the Great Hall and literally jumped from the Ravenclaw table to join them as soon as he saw them hanging it up on the door were only a couple seconds behind him but still too late and panting heavily as they came to a stop behind the smugly grinning red head.
"Slowpokes." He teased lightly, earning playful glares.
"How are you so bloody fast!? I heard about you on a broom but this is absolutely unfair." Leonard Yuu—Lu, as he insisted they call him—was a second year who had had it up to here with his house's bookworm tendencies. He loved books of course, and was a sharp mind that definitely belonged in that house, but he also loved to run around and burn off energy too—and preferably for a win instead of just to run. He'd been bummed when Hogwarts had no sports other than quidditch as he'd been a jack-of-all-trades sort of sports phenom in his old school, but he hated heights so hadn't even bothered going higher than a foot off the ground in his flying lessons much less attempted to try out for the quidditch team. He'd taken to running around the lake but at the sight of a potential football club, was only too eager to join up regardless of what his house might think.
Harry didn't quite know how to respond to Lu's teasing remark, as he honestly didn't know. He didn't remember being good at sports in his other schools, although he wasn't sure if that was because he'd still been learning or he'd been subconsciously not trying too hard to avoid too much attention. Because if there was one class he had to really, really try hard not to be better than Dudley in, it was definitely PE. That baby whale couldn't run three meters without getting winded. And three meters was probably pushing it.
Flying didn't truly feel like a sport, since it was all instinct and fine-tuned motions to turn a magical broom this way and that. Yes, it took concentration and strength, but not more than an eleven-year-old could reasonably perform if that said anything about the amount of strength required to make a broom do a 180 mid-air. It was more flipping his whole body weight or keeping his balance in check, which was skill and not power or speed.
Football was very much more about his body doing some hard labor to not only run back and forth across the ground, but keep himself upright while his legs went this way and that to handle the ball at his feet. There was no magical broom or unexplained feeling of weightlessness to take off the feeling of heavy gravity working what seemed like twice as hard against his muscles. And Harry had been running for what felt like his whole life, lifting heavy things to garden and moving on quiet feet through a house that didn't want to acknowledge he lived there, so he was very much aware of his body and his abilities, likely probably more than the typical eleven or twelve year old. He simply had more training being comfortable with his body and what it could do, so it wasn't that hard to shift gears and tell it to do something new even if he'd never attempted it before. He'd also been very focused on his health choices, like what he ate and what exercise he kept, for at least a couple years now so he wasn't exactly starting from ground zero. He was at the very least partially athletic and that seemed to make all the difference.
Lu, who hadn't played regularly other than running around the lake since he started at Hogwarts a year ago and hadn't done much over the summer, and Seamus, who'd never run so much in his life since the extent of his sports career seemed to have been exclusively on a broom where gravity didn't come into play, were at very real disadvantages against people like Harry and Dean, who'd been active in this kind of exercise consistently for a long while now. Given that their 'club' had about seven members at this point, Harry wasn't exactly sure he was good at football or rather just better than the current roster they had here. It was probably likely he wasn't actually that skilled but compared to the lack of competition available at this moment, he just so happened to look like he was talented.
Quidditch had more competition--Oliver and McGonagall both being quidditch nerds had gushed over him and they clearly knew what they were talking about, so he could be reasonably sure he was good at flying at least. 'Youngest seeker in a century' and all that, so yeah, he had some proof there.
Football though… he'd see how it went. It wouldn't do to get a big head and then quickly find out he was a big fish in a little pond, so to speak, and not actually all that good.
He was also not sure if it wasn't his Slytherin side showing and making him think he liked football because he was currently running circles around his new teammates, or he actually liked this sport. Maybe he just liked winning—who knew? He figured he'd have to wait that one out and see what happened if this club got bigger.
As it was, they had the Dean, Seamus, Lu, himself, Neville, and two Hufflepuff girls who'd been very curious but had sat out to just watch for now. He wasn't quite sure what was up with them, but he did recognize them from both the train and the sorting and having seen them around in classes. Hannah and Susan, he recalled, having literally run into Hannah on the train.
What was weird was that he'd been pretty sure they weren't muggleborns--not that he would reject them if they weren't, but it was curious as to why they were interested in a muggle game then. Well, power to them for broadening their horizons, even if just to watch a bit.
For now it was just the boys playing, Lu, Seamus, and Dean against Harry and Neville. Neville had been hanging back by their make-shift goal on the most part since no one seemed to be able to keep up with Harry if he got the ball, but he wasn't very good at getting the ball back if the other team managed to steal it so Neville was mostly just defense. He seemed fine with this and although they'd lost several points in the beginning since he seemed to flinch and close his eyes if the ball came anywhere near him, after close to two hours going at it he seemed to get the hang of it and realize the ball wasn't going to take his arm off if he reached out a hand to block it, especially since neither Lu nor Seamus had more than this morning's practice at actually kicking a football straight. He was not even close to doing the dives that Dean was clearly very good at in his attempts to stop Harry from scoring on him, but Harry had surprisingly good aim and quick reflexes to change course last-second if he noticed Dean leaning one way or the other. It was a pretty high-scoring game since none of them were pros, but it was a lot of fun.
The girls kept talking to themselves and giggling quietly as they watched, which was also weird, but Harry ignored it. This time. Next time they showed up, they were going to play or get lost since the giggling was getting old fast.
They'd started at a leisurely hour that particular Saturday morning, but the sun was getting higher now and lunch had to be soon. Harry's stomach told him he had spent up all the calories he'd eaten at breakfast already and just stretched as the others caught their breath and considered wrapping it up.
"Maybe you could teach us some skill drills and we can call it a day, eh?" Seamus voiced Harry's thoughts, directing his question at Dean who looked wiped and satisfied with their little adventure.
"Sure. Oi Neville!" Dean shouted, calling their last member over, and the blond started jogging up to them. Harry turned at met the eyes of two curious gazes over where their theoretical sidelines were and waved at them. They looked startled before glancing at each other and standing to come over hesitantly.
"What's going on?" Hannah asked, glancing at them curiously.
"We're going to do some small drills to practice ball handling and then go to lunch. Interested?" Dean offered, the unofficial leader of the club since this was his sport and he definitely knew the most out of all of them.
"Oh, well…" She shifted a bit. "We were just going to watch." She repeated her initial excuse she'd given this morning.
Harry got a suspicious feeling they weren't here to actually play and decided to get ahead of that line of thinking pretty quickly. He wasn't sure he would be able to politely tell them to get lost if they showed up next week to giggle some more instead of actually playing.
"It's okay if you've never played before, most of us but Dean never really played fully either. But he's going to teach us some things and maybe next time you can help Neville and I out? We were pretty outnumbered today!"
"Tch, not like it stopped you." Lu tisked haughtily, but his eyes glittered in mirth. Harry maturely stuck his tongue out at him.
"Um…" The blonde looked like she was trying to think of another excuse when the auburn haired girl beside her made the decision for them.
"Okay, let's try. I uh, have no idea how this game works to be honest." She admitted, and Dean just waved her off.
"I can go over the basics at lunch, but the core point is that you can't touch it with your hands--only the goalie can to stop the ball from getting into your team's net. For everyone else you just have to kick it with your feet which requires some ball handling skill which we're gonna practice. How about this to start," he dropped the ball he was holding and kicked it gently to Harry who kicked it gently back. "See the part of the foot we're using to kick it? Let's try passing it back and forth between each other."
It was awkward since the girls and Neville hadn't really had any practice at it so far, but after a little while they were passing it back and forth to each other pretty well. Seamus got playful and made up a game that you had to shout someone's name and either 'right' or 'left' and that person had a split second to receive it with that foot. They were all pretty terrible at it, even Dean, but that somehow made it more fun.
Hannah looked stiff and uncomfortable, like she hadn't been planning on getting sweaty that day, but Susan seemed to have a hidden competitive streak and after half an hour was all but screaming Seamus' name before nailing the ball a little too forcefully at his shins. He was all about the challenge though and took it grinning.
Neville fell over at least three times in panic from her hard kicks but got used to it remarkably well, even managing to successfully receive more times than he missed them by the time they called it quits.
The sun was directly over them when their stomachs started growling and Hannah complained about how hot it was, so they called it a day and headed in for lunch. They were all very gross and needed a shower, but figured a quick bite wouldn't hurt--they were all high from the exercise and Susan was not-so-quietly getting into it with Lu about why her kicks were totally legal when both the Ravenclaw and Dean were steadfastly trying to explain to her the actual rules of the game and why some of her tricks were very much illegal. She was surprisingly stubborn and didn't seem to care that she'd only learned the game existed three days ago and didn't even know the rules yet, but defended herself and her actions to the grave—even Lu the Ravenclaw struggled to pit his cold logic against her fiery arguments. Hannah and Neville seemed wiped and didn't say much, but Harry and Seamus were cackling to themselves as they watched Dean get more desperate to get through Susan's thick head. Harry couldn't quite tell if she was doing this to purposefully mess with them or not, but it was hilarious either way.
They got to the Great Hall and Hannah lead the charge by plopping down at the Hufflepuff table, and Lu was so into it with Susan he didn't even notice he was sitting at the wrong table as they didn't spare a breath to stop arguing. The Gryffindors were too used to Harry sitting wherever he liked to think too hard on it and just plopped down around them to dig in. Only Neville glanced around a bit nervously before sitting beside Harry quickly, and yes they did get some odd looks, but not nearly as much as there'd once been.
Harry grinned as he gathered himself some lunch—if this was going to be a team, it was going to be an odd one for sure.