Love Under Will

Part One: Transeamus

Prologue:

Leave we all this worldly mirth

And follow we this joyful birth. Transeamus.

--Benjamin Britten, the Ceremony of Carols

For the 5th night in a row, Draco Malfoy couldn’t sleep.

He looked over his shoulder. He could have sworn he heard something in the darkness behind him, but as he spun around, the noise vanished. "Lumos," he muttered, his eyes glittering in the wand-light. The glow illuminated only the empty corridor behind him. He turned his attention back to the astronomy tower door, a bit nervous, but outwardly as steady and composed as ever. His father had once said Draco had poise under pressure. It had been a rare, rare compliment, but he had been right: Draco did have poise. He had it now, and the pressure was on. Not because he was sneaking out of the dorm after hours—he did that all the time. Getting caught for it, however—that was usually Harry's department.

Harry.

Tightening his lips, Malfoy pushed the door open. No one. In the spring and early fall the tower was a horrible place to go to be alone; it was usually full of foolish boys and girls trying to neck under the stars. Now that the cold of winter had swept through Hogwarts, however, it was always empty. Slowly, cautiously, Draco climbed the stairs, listening for Filch, Mrs. Norris or anyone else who might love to catch him out of bed, like Peeves. Malfoy had a very lithe, cat-like walk that served him well; it was almost like having a built-in invisibility cloak, and sneaking around Hogwarts was a very easy thing for him. He pushed the door to the astronomy tower open without a sound. Satisfied that he was alone, he went to his favorite spot, a thick armchair covered with a funny, gauzy material, like silk but transparent, almost star-like. Sinking into its depths with a heavy sigh, he gazed up at the domed ceiling and the immeasurably black sky beyond it. In the corner he heard a tiny cat scratch of movement, and then—

—Silence.

Malfoy yawned and brushed the fine, silvery threads of his hair away from his eyes. He wanted someone to talk to, to confide in, but thanks to his father's "connections" the only people he would really consider close to him here (Pansy Parkinson didn’t count—he had stopped counting her among the genus homo sapiens years ago when she had eaten a slug on a dare from Millicent Bulstrode) were the sons of Lucius' old friends Crabbe and Goyle. Rotten bunch of lugs, they were. Sometimes he wondered how he had managed to retain his intellect after being around them for so long. He glanced down at his wand and muttered casually, "Nox." The wand went out and he was left alone with shadow and moonlight.

He was a good wizard, he thought. A very good wizard, almost as adept with a wand as That Granger Mudblood, and far more clever than The Boy Who Kept Getting Lucky. He had a good chance at being Head Boy. Snape had told him this confidentially one day after a particularly stimulating potions lesson in which he had humiliated Potter by mixing a brew of Cod's Wallop that made one's opponent feel as though their entire body was asleep. Malfoy’s draught had been perfect, but Potter’s was watery, and while he fumed and tried frantically to regain use of his wand arm by swinging it awake, Malfoy experienced only a mild tickling all over that he rather liked. Draco had watched him with a smirk mixed with disdain, inwardly marveling at how, even when he was furious, Harry managed to seem so calm and controlled.

Malfoy swallowed and clenched his fists distractedly. He loathed Harry Potter. He always had. He hated the cool, composed expression he always seemed to wear. He hated the Look, the one Harry reserved just for him, his dark green eyes flashing and then becoming still, as though sinking in the bottomless depth of his anger. He hated Harry’s goodness: hated his loyalty, his bravery, his reckless abandonment. They were all Draco’s own traits, traits that went forever unnoticed because he had no one at Hogwarts to show loyalty to, nothing to be brave about, and nothing to be won as a rule-breaking Slytherin. He hated the respect Harry commanded from everyone who knew him, and most of all, the respect Potter would never know he commanded from Malfoy himself. No one refused the friendship of a Malfoy. No one. But Harry Potter had refused his, and in his most private thoughts Draco respected him for this. Of course he hated him for it, too. Harry had not only rejected Malfoy on the day they had met, but chosen Ron Weasley over him, a Weasley, the name Draco’s family despised more than any other. Draco would never forget it—and he had vowed that day to make sure Harry never did either.

However.

Malfoy's pale amber-gray eyes flickered with intensity, and he drummed his fingers noiselessly against the arm of the chair. However. Things had changed. No; things had never changed. He had just only now awakened to what had always been. He had always known that he and Potter, since their first year, had continually sought one another out. He knew that he possessed an uncanny ability to decipher whatever plots Potter was devising with Granger and Weasel, and to know whenever Harry entered a room and wherever he was in it. And he knew that the power of a single glance between Potter and himself was enough to send a shiver through everyone around them.

He had always accepted this enmity as completely natural, even as destiny. Nothing went deeper within him than the animosity he felt for Harry Potter—nothing except the satisfaction of knowing that Harry Potter felt exactly the same way about Draco Malfoy. Draco knew that, apart from the Dark Lord, Harry despised no one on earth more than him, and every malice-laced comment, every narrow glare Harry shot him rested with Malfoy as proof of his power over The Boy Who Lived. He was absolutely Harry’s equal, and Harry knew it. Malfoy was never happier than when he was under Harry’s skin. He was his enemy: it was where he belonged.

But now Malfoy knew he had made a mistake.

Looking back, understanding how it began, he was surprised that it hadn’t started differently, more aggressively. So far, everything about their history together had been aggressive; although he and Harry had never actually had an all-out physical fight, their confrontations on the Quidditch field were brutal. He relished playing Harry even though he knew Harry was the best player he had ever seen—the sheer act of meeting him in the air and meeting Harry’s gut-wrenching stare as they circled one another was enough to give him the biggest adrenaline rush of his life. Once in a dive for the Snitch he had body slammed Harry across the sky only to find himself blocked by the Firebolt an instant later as Potter veered and cut him off with a curse and an about-face so masterful it left Malfoy breathless. No one could bring it on for Malfoy in Quidditch like Harry. Childish jealousy and the stupid pranks he had pulled on Harry as a second and third-year aside, playing against Harry was the most stimulating thing Draco did at Hogwarts. And he loved it.

And yet, in all that time he had never realized…God. How could he have been so blind?

He shifted uncomfortably in the gauzy chair, which seemed almost to float beneath his thin body, and thought back over the past week, wondering for the thousandth time how he and Harry had come this far…

Chapter One: No Rose of Such Virtue

Early every morning, Malfoy jogged around Hogwarts. He had gotten in the habit two years earlier when everyone was on edge about the Azkaban dementors. They frightened Malfoy. His father had given him plenty of over-eager descriptions of those monsters and what they could do, and all the tormenting he had given Potter over them that year was nothing more than a diversion from the fact that he was terrified of them himself. As the dementors got bolder, his jitters had increased so much that he had started getting up early every morning and taking a jog to clear his mind and keep himself focused. He wasn’t about to let the dementors affect his studies. For all he grumbled about Hogwarts and what a lousy headmaster Dumbledore was, he loved it there, and would do just about anything to see Slytherin recognized as the best house in the school. He suspected Dumbledore knew how he felt: he always seemed more tolerant of him than any other adult there save Snape. But to be the student he wanted to be, he had to stay in absolute possession of himself, and so every morning he ran, often using the image of Potter fainting before a dementor to spur him on.

The daily exercise had revitalized him and given him a quiet assurance he had come to relish, and so after the removal of the dementors he simply kept running. The few people he met so early never gave a second thought at seeing his spare, light form jogging through the wet morning grass. The more he ran the more he liked it. He liked the feeling of security, the power it imbued his well-toned muscles, and the confidence it helped him develop—a confidence that came, for the first time in his life, not from being a Malfoy, but simply from being himself.

He got a private thrill out of the fact that people noticed the difference. Heads turned when he entered a room; younger girls blushed, and those his own age gave him their full attention. He had respect, if not approval, from the other houses. He knew everyone saw the change—he liked to think of it as a graceful malignance—except for Harry Potter. They had grown out of shooting firecrackers into each other’s cauldrons or sending ridiculous spells at each other during a dispute. Their enmity had grown a bit quieter, a bit more intense; a bit more telepathic. Yet he knew Potter still saw him as the spoiled, Mudblood-hating snob who envied him his fame.

Draco Malfoy did not envy Harry Potter.

But.

Over the previous months, ever since the beginning of their fifth year together—had he really only known Potter 4 years?—something about Harry had been nagging him. It had been bothering him for so long he had almost gotten used to it, but at times, as it had in that Quidditch match, it shot to the forefront of his consciousness and lingered there unpleasantly:

The truth was that Draco didn’t just respect Harry.

He admired Harry.

He couldn’t begin to say when his loathing had turned to respect, nor when respect had increased to admiration. He knew only that ever since the Tri-Wizard Tournament—no, specifically, ever since his remark about Mudbloods on the train home after Voldemort’s return to power— Harry had come to breathe venom around him, while Malfoy had come to admit a bitter admiration for the wizard he still despised.

Suddenly, for the first time in Malfoy’s life, he and Harry were out of balance. Suddenly Harry looked at him with pure hatred, borne of experiences Malfoy could never understand. He’d thought he knew Potter’s rage, but he soon realized he had only scratched the surface of Harry’s darkness. The change stunned Draco, who felt as though he were losing something vital with each contemptuous stare, and he became icy and silent in his turn. He had gradually begun to chafe under the heaviness of Potter’s wall of loathing—and the fact that he was spending so much time thinking about Harry Potter’s opinion of him at all made him that much more bitter.

And then, that Monday morning, it had started.

Malfoy was out for a very invigorating jog through the frozen Hogwarts gardens, his breath settling on the air in perfect white clouds. No one was around. He cut through the gardens on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. This year a portion of the grounds had been converted into a large magical garden with a very oriental layout. Thanks to Professor Sprout’s assorted enchantments, the plants bloomed all year, even now amid bitter November frosts. Draco jogged through and had decided to turn and head back, when he saw it.

He ran past it, did a double take, and stopped. He saw at first only a sparkling, uncatchable light that made him think initially he was looking at a thousand tiny snitches. As he moved closer he saw it was a rose, enlarged to three times its normal size and with petals as thick as velvet. They shimmered with an iridescence that reminded Malfoy of sun on the ocean. He could hardly decide what color it was. It was the only flower on the vine, and the vine itself seemed to begin and end nowhere, its branches so thick and numerous, wrapped around each other so intricately, that it was impossible to tell where they started. It was covered with long thin thorns that shone like ebony.

He stood staring at the flower for a moment, transfixed, and slowly reached up to touch it, gingerly brushing it with his forefinger. At the contact a delicious sensation invaded him, as though he were being bathed in waves of luxurious silk. He smiled. Just then the morning sun topped the mountains and sent a demanding shaft of light streaming over the rose. When the golden beam met its petals they refracted it into the air as though they were made of crystal. The light spun and danced all around him, immeasurably bright.

It was quite simply the most beautiful thing Draco had ever seen.

He didn’t know what possessed him to do it. He only knew that a moment so beautiful needed, well, something more… He took a quick, fleeting look around to make sure no one could witness: he wanted only to be left alone. Somehow it was a completely private moment, as though that flower had been put there only for him. Whipping his wand from where he had tucked it inside his Slytherin sweats, he murmured gently, "Musicalis."

Instantly, softly, almost with the wind itself, an unseen harp began to play around the rose. Malfoy recognized it as a song he had known in his childhood, from so long ago he could barely remember. Indeed, the music was at first so faint it seemed drawn straight out of his memory. He shut his eyes and concentrated on the harp and the melody; gradually, slowly, the sound grew stronger and more audible, and he heard a non-existent children’s choir begin to sing:

There is no rose of such virtu
As is the rose that bare Jesu:
Alleluia.

The music was celestial—perfect. Malfoy realized immediately that not only could he still see the shimmering dancing flower with his eyes shut, but that the music was intensifying the vividness of its colors and the light around it.

Leave we all this worldly mirth,
And follow we this joyful birth:
Transeamus.

Alleluia, res miranda,
Pares forma, gaudeamus:
Transeamus. Transeamus. Transeamus.

The melody seemed to soar up into the sky and out of reach, leaving a beautiful, swelling ache in Malfoy’s heart. He kept his eyes tightly closed until the last note of the harp had echoed and faded. This was the most relaxing jog he had ever taken.

With the smile still playing about his lips, he opened his eyes—

—and saw Harry Potter hovering on his Firebolt a few feet above him..

Malfoy lurched back so suddenly he collided into an orchid and nearly stumbled into the giant koi pond behind him. Potter was staring at him, wearing an expression that was, well, indescribable. Draco was shaken to the core. It was as if Harry had not only invaded his privacy, but invaded his heart. Startled and indignant, he heard himself snap with more anger than he felt, "What the hell are you doing here, Potter?"

Harry stammered stupidly, "I was flying in the practice field and I saw the light—heard the music."

"Well, you can just fly away again, now, Potter."

But Harry was slowly floating down to the ground, making no attempt to hide the fact that he was completely dumbfounded. This was getting worse by the second. Harry was the last, absolutely the last, person Draco wanted to catch him being sentimental. Harry wasn’t even glancing at the rose beside Malfoy, which churned away, spinning color and light like a kaleidoscope—instead his eyes were boring into Draco’s as though they wanted to turn him inside out.

In that moment, Draco realized suddenly that Harry, for the first time in his life, didn’t know what to make of him.

"I suppose you’re thinking of what you’re going to tell all your pansy-ass Gryffindor cronies about Malfoy’s sentimental side?" he shot out as Harry dismounted his broom and came to stand next to him, his eyes still probing Malfoy’s intently. He had never been this close to Potter on the ground. Inexplicably his heart began to beat faster.

"I’m not going to tell them anything," Harry said quietly.

Draco wished Harry would stop looking at him like that.

"Oh, right, the noble Potter mustn’t do anything beneath him."

"I’m not like you, in other words," Harry said in that same quiet undertone.

"You think I want to be like you?" Harry was silent, his countenance darkening under his disheveled mop of black hair. "Oh, I get it, you’ve caught me having a ‘moment’ and now you think you’ve discovered there’s some good in me after all." He moved closer to Harry, pleased at how perfectly equal in height they were—he could just look full into Harry’s face. "You’re so predictable, Potter. Get over it."

Harry’s eyes flashed. That was better, Draco thought: more familiar, less inexplicably unsettling. "I said I only came over because I heard the music, Malfoy, not because I wanted to gawk at you." He stepped back and added, "So you like gardens. I could care less."

Malfoy glared wordlessly at Harry, hoping his rage and indignation would be more effective through silence. Apparently they weren’t. Why didn’t the bloody git just leave? They looked at each other uncertainly. Malfoy noticed how alive Harry looked, his cheeks flushed from the cold, from flying, his eyes bright and clear and fixed on him with that same amazed look. Malfoy realized he liked that look. He’d never been this close to Harry when he wasn’t embroiled in some kind of rage. It surprised him. He’d always been instinctively aware of the darkness that lurked beneath Harry’s still front; he’d never really noticed before how innocent the young wizard actually looked.

"The music—what was it?" Harry asked nonchalantly.

"Oh, very good, Potter, small talk."

"So it’s not everyday you hear singing out of thin air." Harry shifted uncomfortably.

"Why don’t you—"

"Just forget it." But the prat kept standing there.

Malfoy ripped his eyes from Harry’s and looked back at the rose, even though he knew Harry was still staring—let him stare, I’m not a fright to look at—and said with his trademark drawl, "A Muggle wrote it for Christmas, I think."

"A Muggle? You know Muggle music?"

"Music is magic, Potter," Malfoy replied shortly.

"But how did you know the—"

"My mother’s family is Catholic," Draco said, unable to resist a glance at Harry for his reaction. He didn’t even try to hide his astonishment.

"Catholic?"

"I didn’t say we were saints, Potter."

Harry looked as though nothing would ever surprise him again.

Malfoy tossed his Slytherin scarf around his neck. "Right, then. Are we done with the male bonding?—because I have a run to finish."

Almost thoughtfully, as if he were wondering why, Harry responded, "You’re such a bastard, Malfoy."

Oh, Harry, you are predictable, Malfoy thought. Harry Potter, trying to decipher the mind of Draco Malfoy—it was just the sort of thing to deserve humiliation. His eyebrows flew up. "This is news?" Potter bit his lip and Malfoy pushed past him. "Spare me the verbal sparring till you’ve grown witty enough to make it worth my while, eh? In fact, better call it off altogether—I only have so many years left to live."

"If you spent half as much time flying as you do mouthing off, Malfoy, you might be able to beat me in a Quidditch match."

Draco whirled. "If you spent half as much time studying as you did flying around on your little stick you might be able to avoid my humiliating you in potions on a daily basis."

"Your favorite professor wasn’t too happy when I won the cup away from you."

"What good did your broomstick do you when the Dark Lord had you in the Imperius Curse?"

"You’d know, as your pathetic Death-eating father will have told you all about how he came cowering back to Volde—"

"Eat shit, Potter!"

They both went for their wands at the same time, but just as Malfoy was about to send a cascade of flames over his archrival’s t-shirt, Harry yelled, "No, wait!" and put his hand on Draco’s chest to stop him. Draco let out a gurgle of disgust and started to jerk away, but then stopped as he saw that Harry was staring at the rose vine beside them.

It had …changed.

The rose had shriveled up completely and turned to a pale muddy brown. The light it reflected had vanished, and a smoky black haze hung around it. The vine had come untangled and was waving its thorns dangerously in their direction: thorns six inches long, with hair-thin razor points. The more they spoke the more the vine seemed to swing and sway near them, as though it were searching for the source of the dissonance around it.

"What’s it doing?" Harry whispered, his hand still lingering cautiously on Draco’s shirtfont.

"I think it draws on the sound waves in the air," gulped Draco. "It must have reacted to the raised voices."

"Bit of a short turn-around," muttered Harry. At that moment the plant lunged for him and swiped at his Quidditch sweats, causing him to jump back with a yelp.

"Don’t scream, you idiot, it’ll hear us!" Malfoy seethed, but the plant took a swing at him next. At the same time Harry and Draco realized that the vine was about to launch itself at them, fifty different thorned tentacles reaching out at once.

"Go!"

"Duck!"

They dived out of the way just as a thick black thorn came crunching down in the spot where Harry had just stood. The dumb bloke had turned around to gawk at it, and Malfoy had to push him violently around the corner just as the plant’s arms swept around after them. One of the thorns caught Draco in the shoulder and he cried out as it tore a deep gash down his back. He found Harry suddenly gripping him by the other shoulder to keep him from stumbling. "No, don’t make a sound. Hold on," Harry ordered. Pointing his wand at the plant, he shouted, "Musicalis!"

Instantly, the air was filled with disco music.

The vines jerked back as if in shock, and so did Malfoy. "What the bloody hell is this?"

"Abba," said Harry with a grimace. "It got stuck in my head this morning," The prisms of light from the vine began to shoot out something that looked suspiciously like strobe lights.

"I’ll never let you forget this, Potter," Draco said, his derisive laugh changing into a wince as his shoulder throbbed. Harry was looking at him like that again.

"Here," Harry said, reaching for his arm. "Let me take a look."

"No, Potter. I’m fine."

"You’ve got blood running down your elbow."

"So? What’s it to you if I’ve got three heads?"

"Maybe I want to know if you’ll be able to play Quidditch on Wednesday."

"You’d better hope I can’t."

Harry cast him a look that said with supreme smugness, As though you could ever beat me, and then reached for Malfoy’s sleeve.

"I said I’m all right, Potter, if you’ll just—"

"You’re a bloody difficult priss—"

"Oh—ow—get back—"

"Shut up already, Malfoy," Harry said, shoving him forcefully down to the ground with a surprisingly gentle touch. Malfoy plopped down and found Harry on his knees, leaning over him.

Malfoy didn’t exactly know what to say.

Harry pushed up his glasses and bent near Draco’s shoulder. "There’s too much blood," he winced.

"Getting faint, are you?"

"I mean I can’t see the wound." He poked his wand in Malfoy’s face a bit distractedly and muttered, "Wingarmentia." Instantly Malfoy’s shirt was lying in a heap beside him.

"Goddamn, Potter!"

"Sorry!"

"Where did you learn that?"

"Um."

"Why, Mr. Potter. Well, well, well."

"Dissolutia,"

Harry said pointedly, and Malfoy felt the hot blood against his skin dissolve and vanish. "Did you get hit anywhere else?" Malfoy shook his head. He couldn’t decide whether to tell Potter that if anyone ran across them this way he’d kill him, or whether to risk a look straight into Harry’s emerald eyes. Somehow it seemed just the thing to do… but Harry decided for him by looking calmly at the wound and then turning to gaze directly at Draco. Malfoy felt his heart trip, fall, and topple somewhere out of reach. But he looked straight back. They continued to gaze each other down as they talked, each unwilling to be the first to look away.

"It’s nasty. You’ll have to go to Madam Pomfrey if you want to be able to walk around school without everyone gawking at you."

"You’ve been to see her enough times and they still gawk at you," Malfoy responded coldly.

"Sorry. You’ll have to do more than yell at a plant to get a scar like mine."

"Some of us don’t need the fame, Potter."

Harry still looked earnestly back at him, completely silent. Draco noticed how rapidly Harry’s heart was beating. He wondered if the Boy who Lived would leave, would continue to say stupid things, or just stay there watching him in order to humiliate him a little more. After a long moment, lazily, uber-casually, he drawled, "You can get off me now, Potter."

Harry didn’t move. He didn’t even blink. The old intensity of the look he reserved for Malfoy had returned, along with something else, something new and inscrutable. "Why did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Conjure the music."

"What’s it to you?"

"I don’t know." Harry looked down. He seemed suddenly perplexed. "Just forget it."

Malfoy pushed Harry off of him and got to his feet, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. "All right, then," he said coolly.

Draco pulled his shirt back on, trying not to wince. Harry picked up the Firebolt where he had dropped it in the scramble to escape the vine, which was now happily bobbing and swaying to "Take A Chance On Me." He mounted it as though he were trying to think of an excuse not to.

"Say anything in Gryffindor about finding me with that plant, Potter, and I’ll let the whole school know how much you like disco," Draco said malevolently, sweeping his scarf around his neck once more, taking care not to favor his injured shoulder.

"Fine—then don’t say anything to the Slytherins about how you pushed me out of its way just now," Harry said nonchalantly, the faintest trace of a smile of understanding playing about his lips.

Malfoy glared at him with a raised eyebrow, daring him to make an issue of it. "Next time I’ll be sure to push you the opposite direction," he sneered. But it was a half-hearted sneer. Something indefinable had passed between them just now. Draco wasn’t about to pretend it wasn’t there.

But he didn’t have to care, either.

Without waiting for a response, he tossed his head and started off slowly towards the hospital wing, leaving Harry to stand alone looking after him.