Draco dying his hair light blue

Harry can’t stopstaring. His breakfast is forgotten. Malfoy’s hair is blue.

“Harry! Harry? Whatare you – “

“Malfoy.” Harryanswers Hermione without looking away.

Ron pauses midway through a mouth of potato.“What?”

“Malfoy,” Harryexplains again, “He – Look what he did.”

Hermione’s eyes remainfixed on Harry. “Don’t you think you need to stop obsessing over him? The waris over. We’re all on the same side.”

“No, look what he didto his hair!” Harry all but shouts. MALFOY’S HAIR IS BLUE.

Hermione and Ronfinally follow Harry’s gaze to the Slytherin table to Draco Malfoy, blue hairand all.

“Bloody hell.”

“That is surprising,”Hermione admits.

“Maybe someone cursedhim?” Ron suggests.

“I hope not,” Hermionefrowns. “Like he doesn’t have enough to deal with – his mother is being retriedthis week.”

Harry’s chestconstricts. “That’s this week?”

“Yes, Harry. I thoughtyou were the one stalking him?”

“Well he has beensadder than usual. He’s been eating cereal since last Friday which is odd as healmost always goes for – what?” Harry stops at the looks Hermione and Ron are giving him.

Hermione shakes herhead. “I was being facetious, Harry. I can’t believe you’re stalking himagain.”

“I’m not stalking,”Harry clarifies, focusing his attention solely on Hermione and Ron to prove hispoint. Which is difficult when MALFOY’S HAIR IS BLUE. “I’m just observant.”

Hermione smiles wickedlyand Harry already knows he’s stuffed before she opens her mouth. “Okay, thenwhat do I usually eat for breakfast?”

Harry tries to eye herplate discreetly but she already has her hand covering it. He desperately triesto remember what she’d been eating only seconds earlier. “Uh….uh…”

“That’s what Ithought.”

“I’m not stalkingMalfoy,” Harry tries again.

Ron sniggers into hismorning omelette. “Sure, mate.”

Hermione rests herhead in her hands (revealing her breakfast of poached eggs). “Why don’t you goover there and ask him?”

“Ask him what?”

Hermione closes hereyes in obvious exasperation. “Why hishair is blue.”

“I can’t – “

“Mate, just go,”Interrupts Ron, now with a mouthful of tomato. “You’re going to be like thisall day if you don’t.”

Malfoy looks up insurprise as Harry approaches, his cereal spoon hovering above his bowl. “Potter?”

“Malfoy.” Harry nods.He tries not to stare so openly at Malfoy’s hair but…it’s BLUE.

Malfoy drops his spoonand pushes the cereal away. He stares at Harry suspiciously. “Are you lost?”

“No, I – why is yourhair blue?” Harry blurts out, unable to hold it in any longer.

One of Malfoy’s handsautomatically jumps to his hair, as if he’d forgotten the colour for a moment.After the initial surprise, Malfoy’s turns defensive. “You got a problem withit?” He asks.

“No, not at all. It’sjust – never mind. Forget I asked.” What was he thinking? What were Hermioneand Ron thinking sending him over here? He turns to leave.

“it’s poetic, Potter.”

Harry turns back toMalfoy. “Poetic?”

Malfoy shrugs, andlooks down into his cereal bowl. “I’m feeling blue. I dyed my hair to match. Itmade sense last night after the second bottle of firewhiskey.”

Harry considers this. “Yourmother?” He asks, softly.

“Yes,” Malfoy saysinto his cereal.

“Do you – I mean,would you – would it help if I came with you?” Oh Merlin, did Harry really just saythat?

Malfoy looks up,sharply. “Why would you want to do that?”

Harry feels his cheeksreddening. “Your mother saved my life,” he offers, which is true at least, but only a small part of his real motivation.

“Of course,” Malfoysays with a polite nod. Is Harry reading into it or does he seem…disappointed?

“And you mightneed…support.”

A small smile plays onthe corner of Malfoy’s mouth. “I have friends, Potter.”

“Right, I didn’t meanto say – it’s just – I’d like to be there. For both of you.”

Malfoy tilts his headand looks Harry over with a curious gaze. This only makes Harry blush harder.

“Okay,” Malfoy finallysays, “You can come.” He picks up his spoon and returns his attention to hiscereal.

Harry can’t stopstaring. His breakfast is forgotten. Malfoy’s hair is green.

“Go ask him, already.”

Malfoy looks up. Thistime he doesn’t seem surprised. “Potter. What brings you here?”

“You know what.”

Malfoy smirks. “Enlightenme.”

Harry stares at Malfoy’shair. “Why green?”

Malfoy shrugs. “Justfelt like it.”

Harry frowns. Hewonders whether Malfoy’s being entirely truthful. “That’s not very poetic,” hepoints out.

“His eyes are as greenas a fresh pickled toad,” Malfoy whispers.

Harry blinks,processing. “What?”

“His hair is as darkas a blackboard. I wish he was mine, he’s really divine, the hero who conqueredthe Dark Lord,” Malfoy continues with a shy smile. “Poetic enough for you?”

Harry feels himselfblushing again.

“Maybe I should havegone pink to match your face,” Malfoy suggests with a wink. Merlin, Harry mightmelt.

“You remembered the po– “

“I wrote the poem,”corrects Malfoy.

Harry frowns “But Ialways thought Ginny – “

Malfoy shakes hishead. “Nope.”

“Does that mean you –that you used to – “

Malfoy interrupts witha roll of his eyes. “Like you?”

Harry gulps. “Yeah.”

“I thought that wasobvious, Potter.”

Harry feels like hisknees might buckle at any moment. This is really happening. He runs a handthrough his hair nervously. “And now?” he asks.

Malfoy raises his eyebrows, a playful smirk on his lips. “I thought thatwas also obvious, Harry.”            

And just to be an infuriating bastard, Malfoy chooses this moment todust himself off and leave the Great Hall, with one last wink at Harry.

Harry wants to follow but he thinks his legs may have turned into jelly. Hehas to grip the table tightly just to keep himself standing.

Harry can’t stopstaring. Breakfast never stood a chance.  Malfoy’s hair is pink.

He doesn’t even botherto take a seat at his own table, instead heading straight over to the Slytherinside of the Great Hall.

Malfoy watches him ashe approaches with a smug smile. “Pot – “

Harry interrupts by leaningdown and smashing his mouth onto Malfoy’s, his hands reaching out to finally runthrough that gorgeous hair. The entire Great Hall is watching and Harry’s face ison fire, but none of that matters, because Draco Malfoy is kissing him back.

And his hair is bloodypink.

Do you know they recovered the crossed out words Hamilton sent to Eliza with new technology😯? Do you think they may do the same to lams letters? ;)

I actually didn’t know about this until you sent this message.  I will say that a lot of those missing words have already been deciphered, largely thanks to @ciceroprofacto’s work on Those Five Words.  I’ve also posted several writings and comparisons that reveal Hamilton’s edits and crossed-out words.  So the new technology from the LOC isn’t exactly necessary - but on the other hand, why do the straights get all this technology first?  Historians already readily believe that Hamilton loved Eliza - why not use the technology for better “proof” of the Hamilton-Laurens relationship?  (I could go into a whole spiel about why requiring such extensive proof is queerphobic and inhibits thorough understandings of 18th-century same-gendered relationships, but I digress.)  As @ciceroprofacto said to me: “This is heteronormative technological gentrification of historical interpretation.”  Don’t be such cowards, LOC.  Reveal the gay writings.

I always start scenes with telling what has just happened to the character in the first paragraph and then giving background information in the second. I don't know if this needs to change or anything, but I feel that I could use some input.

This is a very common thing for new writers to do. You’re relying too much on telling and employing info-dumps. While telling isn’t inherently bad, this is not the correct usage, and info-dumps are pretty much always a problem. 

Summarizing is a form of telling and it reminds the reader that a narrator is present and takes their attention out of the story. You don’t have to connect all the dots for the reader– let them do it themselves. Let them infer what’s happen through contextual writing rather than you directly summarizing. 

Just jump into the scene and don’t tell anything until becomes directly relevant. (Also known as the in media res method, which isn’t always the best choice for a scene start, but is something that you would benefit from practicing.) Yes, you still need to do basic scene setting if you just “jump in”, but you can weave that information into the actual story instead of info-dumping. Pick up a book and notice how those authors do it; they definitely aren’t starting every scene with info dumps and summarizing because that’s boring to readers.

Starting with dialogue is one way to create immediacy, but sometimes characters aren’t talking and that’s okay. You can still start with description and action, just avoid info-dumping and summarization of events.

Here’s an example of the first lines of a new scene:

From those few lines, you can infer:

And because this isn’t the literal start to the story, the reader should already know who the characters are and the previous scene would have explored what this “program” was. If it didn’t, then that would be the appropriate time to insert a short explanation after it was brought up (still not in a block at the start).

If that scene were to be continued, then it would definitely help to expand the setting, but you don’t need to push all the detail into the literal start of the scene because taking early scene time to describe or explain anything takes away immediacy. In some cases, that’s okay, but not every scene needs “set-up”. 

If the scene continues a direct idea from the previous one, you don’t need extensive set-up. If there were a time skip between scenes (like a few days or more and something important happened) then you can take the time to expand that set-up, but you still never want to block it all at the start. 

There are times when you don’t need to summarize at all because you need to trust your readers to remember information. You might have to remind them of the name of a magical artifact a few times, but they can reason basic cause-effect in a linear story. 

For your information delivery, I’ll link you to: How to World-Build Without Boring Your Readers. While the purpose of that post isn’t quite on target, world-building is just a form of exposition and the techniques it mentions about pacing the info, using context, and prompting, are all applicable to “giving background information” (AKA exposition). 

Good luck with your exposition!