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Author’s Note: Thank you so much for your reviews and sticking with this fic for so long! I can’t thank you enough. Also, I know. I’m embarrassed by how long it has been since I’ve last posted. I’m probably up to at least 70,000 words, but I think I’m a terrible writer so I’m afraid of posting. Plus, my ideas are insane and my pre-reader has gone MIA. From this point on, it’s un-betaed work that no one except me has looked at.

On that note, if anyone wants me to throw ideas at them or be my pre-reader (semi-beta; you don’t have to know anything about grammar or spelling) and you have Yahoo Messenger, feel free to add me. I’m anda_dalle @ yahoo. com. Simply remove the spaces.

As always, thank you for reading and reviewing!

Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the property of many people. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people.



Persuasion


oOo


Ron winced as he moved to grab the platter of eggs at breakfast. He had hurt his left shoulder falling off his broom last night at Quidditch practice and was too stubborn to go to the Hospital Wing as Harry had told him to. He had a feeling that Ron would have gone to Madam Pomfrey if Hermione wasn’t watching, but his pride wouldn’t let him.

“You really should see Madam Pomfrey about that before the game tomorrow,” Harry muttered to his friend, but all he could think of was the impact at which Ron fell to cause the injury and Daphne. It was way too coincidental. Did Malfoy toss Daphne off a broom? It disturbed him, but Daphne seemed perfectly fine. Yet… she didn’t deny that her shoulder was injured.

Maybe she hid it well.

Then again, maybe she wasn’t as injured as Ron. He hoped that was the case.

“It’s fine.” Harry only half paid attention to Ron’s response.

Glancing over at the Slytherin table, Harry sipped his pumpkin juice not expecting to see anything other than Zabini, glaring at yet another plateful of food, and a very saddened and wary Goyle (he didn’t seem to have taken Crabbe’s expulsion well). Harry practically inhaled his mouthful of pumpkin juice when he spotted Daphne next to the Slytherin boy and spluttered, coughing as it went down the wrong bloody tube. Ron clapped him on the back.

“Alright, mate?”

“Yeah, alright,” Harry said, glancing at him before turning his eyes back on Daphne. His throat burned from the pumpkin juice and he pushed his goblet away. He was surprised to see her in the Great Hall. Both Daphne and Malfoy had been missing from mealtimes for days. He was suspicious of that but now less so, since Malfoy still seemed to be missing. It was also no use to check his map for Goyle impersonating Malfoy if Malfoy wasn’t ever there.

Watching Daphne carefully, Harry rubbed his burning throat. She was having a heated discussion with Nott, who was sitting across from her. Surprisingly, Zabini was actually laughing, and Daphne punched his shoulder without looking at him, silent words spilling out of her mouth like a gushing downpour. Her eyes were lit up like when she was excited about something, or when she had a predominantly mad idea (like semi-public, half clothed, sex under the stands during a Quidditch practice that he was late for). Nott was gesturing wildly with his left hand, as if explaining something, when Ginny sat down in front of Harry, obstructing his view.

Ginny’s hair looked particularly touchable today.

Harry shook the sudden thought from his head and focused on eating the food that was left on his plate. Something had to be wrong with him. She was Ron’s sister, not some random girl that… well. She was Ron’s little sister. It was completely wrong to think of her like that.

All of it just made him crave a smoke.

Turning his attention back to the Slytherin table, watching for Daphne’s departure, he finished breakfast and waited for her. Sure, he could always walk up to Zabini and ask him if he had any fags on him, but he was certain that Zabini would ask for his eighteen Galleons beforehand. Harry wasn’t even sure of how much money he had stowed away in his trunk. He definitely didn’t foresee having to pay Nott to screw Malfoy and Harry wasn’t even sure if it was fair to charge him. Bloody Slytherins.

Daphne got up from the table just as he swallowed the last bit of his pumpkin juice with a wince and he hurried to catch her, hitching his schoolbag up onto his shoulder. He made it around the corner and had to duck when a jet of yellow sparks flew over his shoulder. Daphne was standing there with her wand out, poised in a defensive stance.

“Sorry,” she muttered, “didn’t realize it was you.”

Harry stared at her, his jaw slack. “Who did you expect it to be?”

Malfoy, his brain offered.

“Never mind that,” Daphne said with a wave of her hand. “Is there something you wanted?”

A fag for starters. Harry mentally shook that thought away, thinking of something a bit more… smooth. “I’m sorry for the other night.” He didn’t feel that guilty for it but, maybe if he apologized, she might as well for blatantly lying to him. And not telling him anything about Malfoy, her shoulder, or what the bloody hell was going on.

Daphne’s forehead creased slightly at the centre. “You don’t have to do that. You didn’t do anything wrong.” She paused and ran a hand through her hair before pulling out her silver case. “We have our differences. It’s only natural.”

Daphne offered him a fag and Harry took it, lighting it up with his wand as if it were second nature now. Daphne’s eyes kept darting around the corridor as if something were going to pop out of the niches in the walls.

“I know it’s about Malfoy, Daph,” Harry muttered, taking a drag off his cigarette. It made him feel a bit calmer about the Malfoy situation. Not much calmer though.

Her expression was guarded when she looked at him. “Could we possibly go somewhere else to talk about this?” Her eyes went back to watching the corridor for any probable danger that Harry couldn’t perceive.

She didn’t wait for an answer and took off down the corridor toward the dungeons without him. Harry inhaled deeply at his cigarette and followed. “The common room is likely empty,” Daphne told him, glancing at him out of the corners of her eyes.

“Right,” he muttered. Her actions were starting to make him paranoid; it was as if she were waiting for the castle to be under siege by Death Eaters.

Daphne muttered the password to the darkened wall that was the entrance to the Slytherin Common Room. Harry entered behind her, looking around for any stray Slytherins, but he found none. “Before we go into this, if you don’t mind – I’m late to make a firecall,” she said, glancing at her watch.

Harry just threw her a confused look, but she didn’t explain further and tossed a bit of floo powder into the fireplace. Standing in the middle of the room awkwardly, he wasn’t sure if he should stick around and listen or not.

Who the hell would she need to firecall anyway?

A girls head popped up in the fireplace before he could make a decision to stay or flee. The girl stared at him and turned her attention to Daphne in front of the fireplace. “You’ve company.”

“It’s alright,” Daphne said with a wave of her hand, blowing a puff of smoke toward the mantle. “I’m coming in.”

She stuck her head in the fireplace, half engulfed by the green flames that muted the entire conversation. That was disappointing. Harry looked around the common room for anyone once again, despite that fact that Slytherins seemed to mind their own business, even if Harry Potter were being dragged into the Slytherin Common Room by Daphne Greengrass. It was bizarre. Gryffindors would have had a conniption if the opposite were to happen. Yet, the last time he was brought in here, he was paid no mind.

Upon declaring the room officially empty, he supposed that most of the students were out and about the castle and at breakfast. Who was Daphne talking to when she knew the Common Room was empty? That was suspicious. The fireplaces allowed firecalls, but didn’t allow floo transport. He wondered why Dumbledore would even allow firecalls, which were great methods of passing information quietly. Maybe they were monitored like the post…

“Alright, well, owl me if you need,” Daphne said as she pulled out of the flames.

“Ugh. Why can’t they just invent proper magical telephones already?”

Daphne laughed as the conversation ended and the girl disappeared from the fireplace. Harry raised his eyebrow questioningly. “Who was that?”

“My cousin, Astoria,” Daphne explained with a shrug, taking a seat on one of the sofas in front of the fireplace. “She wanted me to call her. She doesn’t like owls so much – they frighten her kids.”

Well, at least that made sense, sort of. Harry didn’t push the topic and joined her on the sofa, after vanishing his dead cigarette. Daphne chucked her fag into the fireplace. “So what exactly did you want to ask out in the corridor?”

Not moving for a long while, he worked out in his head how to go about questioning her. Carefully, Harry reached out to touch her left shoulder and Daphne just stared at him. She didn’t wince like Ron did whenever he bumped Ron or brushed past him there. So maybe Malfoy didn’t push her off a broom. That was only a tentative maybe. She said she liked racing brooms around the school.

Daphne shrugged him off like it was nothing, but let out a shaky breath that he could barely discern. Raising an eyebrow, she asked, “I really don’t understand you, Harry.”

“Zabini was right, wasn’t he?” Harry asked in the same guarded tone that she regarded him with.

Daphne gave a small laugh and started unbuttoning her blouse to pull aside the fabric. Her skin was flawless beneath, unlike Ron’s mangled and bruised flesh that practically throbbed purple and blue. “My shoulder is fine. See? Blaise draws conclusions from things he cannot see,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Well, if not that, then there has to be something going on between you and Malfoy. Zabini said that there was information that he couldn’t share, or something like that,” he countered. “And you didn’t deny that Malfoy did something.”

“He’s done enough.” Daphne yanked the shirt back over her shoulder and buttoned it again. “As with all past relationships, there’s a few ghosts to deal with.”

What was that supposed to mean? He definitely didn’t have any ghosts with Cho. Aside from Cedric… maybe Daphne had a point then. But how could she have been in any sort of situation similar to that?

“What ghosts?” Harry voiced, staring at her perplexedly.

“Regrets. Bad decisions – mostly on my part. I’m a halfblood, Harry. There were a lot of problems in the mix. A lot of things that you just wouldn’t understand about the blood purity bullshit, and bigotry, and pride, and a whole bunch of mental instability. And the fact that I’ve always hated him.”

So Daphne was an expert at having fucked up relationships. Bearing in mind the odd relationship that they were in, he wasn’t so sure if he were far off the mark by calling theirs another fucked up relationship.

“I’ve been dealing with Malfoy for the past six years,” Harry offered. How could she suggest that he didn’t know much about him? The bloody Slytherin was actually a lot like Dudley. Yet, he wasn’t so certain his cousin would pull something like the necklace incident. That was new. Maybe there was just a bit more to Malfoy than he thought, especially considering Daphne’s interpretation of him, which was still half a mystery. Harry wouldn’t put anything past Malfoy at this point. Daphne had confirmed Malfoy ‘was a violent bugger’ once… and that he was ‘annoying’. Her words in his head were jumbled.

She regarded Voldemort’s actions to be like an obsessive ex-boyfriend. Maybe that had something to do with things. Was she really comparing Malfoy to Voldemort? They weren’t even on the same playing field. Voldemort tried to kill him every bloody year.

“I know you have, but people aren’t always what they seem. And, if you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about it.”

“If he’s hurting you…” Harry started but trailed off when Daphne gave him a sharp look, as if challenging him.

“Don’t you dare think I can’t take care of myself.”

Harry shook his head. “I didn’t say that.” He was certain she could. She didn’t exactly excel at Defence Against the Dark Arts, according to her marks, but she was decent in the application from what he had seen in class.

“Either way, we’re going to be late for Potions if we don’t leave now,” Daphne said, pointing to the large ornate clock atop the snake infested mantle.

They didn’t speak as they walked toward potions and she trailed along behind him, disappearing when he was half way to the classroom. Harry looked round when he realized that he was alone and continued on. She probably didn’t want to be seen walking in with him so she snuck away.

Thankfully, class hadn’t started when he entered but the only empty spot left to sit was in the back, next to Theodore Nott. The Slytherin boy seemed harmless and didn’t look up at Harry as he lingered in front of the work bench. Nott just stuck to organizing his potions kit that looked as if it were going to overflow with ingredients.

Harry took his seat with a sigh and got out his stuff, giving his Moonwart essay to Zabini, who was collecting them for Slughorn. Hermione threw him one of her ‘I’m sorry we didn’t save you a seat’ looks when he glanced over at her and she glared at Ron for some reason that he couldn’t figure out.

Daphne was seated in front of him next to Zabini’s vacant spot, looking the very picture of indifference. He wondered how she got there so quickly. There must have been a secret passageway somewhere that he didn’t know of.

And despite Slughorn’s prattle about the next potion they were going to brew in class, Harry kept looking over at Nott, waiting for the hostility to arise, when an idea suddenly struck him.

Nott seemed to be friends with Zabini and, possibly, Daphne. Daphne rarely spoke of him but they were friendly toward each other, he believed. He felt almost dirty for thinking about using Nott; yet, he wondered if the Slytherin boy would even cooperate. Persuasion wasn’t Harry’s strong suit; however, Slytherins were notorious for their persuasive abilities. All he needed was to find a way to persuade Zabini to tell him everything he wanted and Nott may be the perfect person to go to for that.

And, if Nott was indeed friends with Daphne, he probably wouldn’t be too opposed to offering Harry advice. Maybe. But it wasn’t as if Nott was Malfoy or Bulstrode, who Daphne had said were ‘horrendous pureblooded pricks’.

When Slughorn directed the class to begin on the Douleur Draught, a complicated pain relief potion that was heavily annotated in the Prince’s book, Harry decided to strike up a conversation with Nott. Spotting a gold pipette on the table next to Nott’s supplies, he said the first thing that came to mind, “That’s a very interesting pipette you’ve got there.”

Nott kept working, as if he was going to ignore Harry. It took a few long moments for the dark-haired Slytherin to respond. “What do you want, Potter?”

Not expecting that type of response, Harry hesitated and figured that he might as well get to the point. “May I ask your advice?” he asked quietly.

Nott still didn’t look at him as he added ingredients to the cauldron in front of him and spoke, “I don’t see why you would need my advice. Your grade exceeds my own in this class – augmented by Slughorn or not.”

“It’s not about potions,” Harry whispered, lighting a fire beneath his cauldron.

Turning his head slowly toward Harry, Nott arched an eyebrow. His eyes appraised him slowly, sizing him up. “I’m listening.”

How was he going to elaborate…

Harry cleared his throat and muttered, “Say you wanted to persuade someone to give you information that they didn’t want to give you. How would you go about doing that?”

A smirk crept across Nott’s lips. “Interesting. Potter asking a ‘lowly’ Slytherin for tips,” he drawled and then paused, stirring five times anti-clockwise. “Okay, I’ll bite. If hell freezes over, I shall not be held accountable. Who is it that you wish to persuade?”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” Harry said, repeating the phrase that he seemed to hear a lot lately from Slytherins that didn’t want to tell him anything.

“Of course. Although, if you want my advice, it may make the process easier if you told me.”

Harry didn’t say anything as he caught up to Nott with his potion. The Prince said to stir four times clockwise and once anti-clockwise, while adding the salamander spleen.

“I don’t exactly need your advice. I’m just trying to figure out how to deal with this person from every possible angle,” Harry half lied, wondering if it would move Nott along a bit. Even to get advice on persuasion, you had to use a bit of persuasion to get it out of a Slytherin. Harry wanted to roll his eyes.

“Right,” Nott muttered doubtfully. “So if I share my knowledge on this particular subject with you, what’s in it for me?”

Merlin, Slytherins were smarmy little bastards. Never did anything for nothing, did they? Harry sighed. “What do you want? I don’t exactly know the exchange rate on advice.”

“Does Slughorn’s Christmas party sound reasonable enough?”

“You want me to invite you to Slughorn’s Christmas party with all the rumours going around about my secret affair with a Slytherin?” He formed air quotes with his fingers when he said the words ‘secret affair’.

“You’re his prized pupil. You could probably invite as many people as you want, male or female companions withstanding. I can make it worth your while.”

That must have been a ‘yes’.

Harry glared at him. “Fine, but don’t think that it’s a date.” He felt he had to make that clear to the Slytherin boy considering the whole ‘Nott slept with Malfoy’ situation. Harry definitely wasn’t gay. And even if Harry were to bat for the other team, Nott wouldn’t ever be his type.

Nott raised a speculative eyebrow. “I never said it would be.”

“Good. So the advice, if you will?”

“Well,” Not started, seemingly gathering his thoughts. “I’m not certain if I could give you a good overview within the time constraints of this class. Persuasion is rather easy, but there are more complicated tactics to consider as well if the other methods fail.” He paused and Harry had to nod to urge him to go on.

“I guess if you want the fast-track advice, employ the basic tactic: if the benefits you offer equal the prospect’s needs, then you can proceed,” Nott explained in a very calm monotone. His hands were busy the whole time, fiddling with potions ingredients – chopping, prepping, and de-boning.

“Basically, you’re saying I should bribe them,” Harry concluded, slicing up a bundle of bilommeal grass and wondering what he could bribe Zabini with.

Nott shook his head.

“No bribing necessary. Appeal to them and appeal to their needs. The best way to do it is to get them to want to give you the information. Explain to your prospect how beneficial it would be for them if you knew the information that they have. Unless what you offer… why’re you adding bilommeal grass? That’s not what it says in the book.” Nott stared at Harry’s cauldron in disgust.

Harry shrugged, making sure the Prince’s book was hidden from Nott’s view. “Unless what I offer…?”

Nott ignored his question. “Why did you add bilommeal grass?” Nott repeated, his eyes narrowed slightly.

“Erm-” Harry glanced down at the Prince’s book for a scant second. “It lessens the sensation of ‘pins and needles’ as the potion wears off.”

Harry could physically see Not process that thought. After a moment, he spoke, his eyes unfocused as he stared into Harry’s cauldron. “Arithmancically, that seems to make sense. You added it in after the spleen, correct?”

“Yeah…” Harry frowned as he watched the Nott frantically dig through the ingredients in his potions kit and pull out a small bundle of bilommeal grass.

“Ingenious. The spleen is a perfect catalyst, I had never thought of that before,” Nott muttered, his attention completely fixed on the task.

Harry added a few drops of dragon’s blood and waited for Nott’s distraction to end, but he had a feeling that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. Nott was quietly speaking to himself and tearing parchment as he cleared the middle section of the workbench Harry shared with him to hastily jot down an Arithmancy table. That was followed by a series of overly complicated equations. And then a flurry of various things in a language that Harry couldn’t comprehend.

“Aha!” Nott cried elatedly, directing the attention of the entire class toward the back of the room.

“Yes, Mr. Nott?” Slughorn called from the front of the class. “Is there something you would like to share with the class?”

“Ahm, no, Professor, small breakthrough. Nothing to note,” Nott quickly replied, grinding up a handful of cloves in his mortar and pestle with one hand while he added dragon’s blood to his cauldron with the other.

Harry didn’t get another thing out of Nott for the rest of the class. The few words of advice flowed through his head over and over. He was certain it would be easier to get Zabini to tell him than Daphne. The hard part was figuring out benefits that Harry could offer that would possibly meet Zabini’s needs. Yet, knowing Zabini, he would likely catch on. Harry would need to utilize a more complicated tactic to deal with someone as unfortunately clever as Zabini.

Glancing back at Nott, Harry pursed his lips, wondering how to rope the Slytherin boy back into the conversation they were having before Nott went mental. Harry needed to get more out of him.

But Nott was still flailing around, much too focused on his potion to be considered healthy. The Slytherin boy stared at the vast array of Arithmancy notes as though they held the cure for cancer. Judging by the length of the parchment, they bloody well might’ve.

As Slughorn moved around the classroom to inspect everyone’s work, Daphne turned toward him and covertly asked, “What exactly did you do to him?”

“Nothing,” Harry replied, whispering out of the corner of his mouth, throwing Slughorn an amiable grin when the professor approached.

“Fantastic job, Harry, my boy!” Slughorn gushed, drawing up a ladle of Harry’s potion and setting it back against the edge of the cauldron. “Do I detect a hint of bilommeal grass in there? Most inventive!” He didn’t even wait for Harry to nod. Harry only smiled graciously and stowed the Prince’s book into his bag as the professor moved on.

“My my, Mr. Nott,” Slughorn gasped in surprise. “What an impeccable batch! And the addition of clove to enhance the anti-inflammatory properties. Imaginative.” The professor glanced fondly over at Harry. “I may have to keep you two in mind for the final project!”

They packed up their work stations quietly and Harry kept trying to catch Nott’s attention. What Nott told him about persuasion definitely wasn’t enough to warrant an invite to Slughorn’s Christmas Party. When Harry finally caught Nott’s eye, Nott slipped a piece of parchment into his hand and walked out the door.


Meet me in the abandoned classroom in the Hall of Hexes tonight after dinner.

-T


Well, that solved it. Harry stuffed the note into his bag with a grin. It may have cut into his plans to finish all his homework before the Quidditch game tomorrow, but at least he was getting somewhere with something. Everything else was taking way too much time.

The MLE still hadn’t arrived to follow the anonymous tip Zabini sent days ago and it was starting to grate at his patience. Harry glanced at Zabini out of the corner of his eye suspiciously. Maybe he had more to persuade out of Zabini than he had previously thought.


oOo


Author’s Note: Thank you for reading! Please review.