Undisguised

Undisguised
Cptr IV: Faded Colors

A Storm on the horizon washes out all color and turns it gray.

“Hey, Harry!” Seamus called from down the hall. “Have you heard?” he continued as Harry and Ron turned towards him and Dean.

“Heard what?” Ron asked, shifting his books from one arm to the other.

“Hendricks left,” Dean said. “There’s a rumor going around about a terminal illness that even magic can’t cure. I also heard that Dumbledore’s already replaced him, only it’s being all hushed up right now.”

“Why?” Harry asked absently. Ron followed his gaze and spotted Malfoy coming up the hall.

“I think,” Seamus started. “I think it may be because it will upset our parents. Maybe they are bringing back Lupin. That would be really cool.”

“Yeah,” Kayden said as he joined them, “that would be cool. He was the best Defense Against the Dark Arts professor we’ve had. Harry, can I have a word?” he added, turning to the dark headed boy.

“Huh?” Harry said, looking at him as if coming out of a daze. “Oh. Yeah. Sure. Go on, guys. I’ll meet up with you in class.”

“Class?” Dean said, tilting his head to the side. “Harry, have you been listening to a word we’ve said? There’s no teacher. We have free time now.”

“Oh, ok. Then I will meet up with you later. See you around, Ron.” Ron’s knowing look was missed by Harry as he followed Kayden away from the group.

Turning back to Ron, Dean noticed the look on his face and worriedly asked, “is he ok, Ron? He’s been so distant of late. What’s up with him?”

“I think so. He’s been like this since Malfoy’s show in the Great Hall two weeks ago. He says he’s not thinking about it, but I think that’s just a farce. I mean, look at them. Aren’t they cute together? He really shouldn’t be thinking about Malfoy anyway, especially when he’s already got such an angel.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Dean said, touching the back of his hand to the other boy’s forehead.

“Of course I’m all right,” Ron said, smacking the hand away. “What would be wrong with me?”

“Well, you didn’t blow up at the mention of Harry thinking about --“

“Wait!” Seamus suddenly exclaimed. “Harry’s not gay, is he!?”

The sudden question made Dean blink. Ron’s face was as blank as a stone wall. Only his eyes quivered in response.

“I-I wouldn’t know,” Ron stammered. “W-what would m-make you say t-that?”

“Oh, come off it, Ron. You just said something about Harry and Kayden and cuteness and what?”

“Hey, yeah,” Dean joined in. “You did. What’s that all about?”

Ron looked around. There were way too many people in the hall for him to say anything now… but if he left with them, then anyone who had heard Seamus’s big mouth would just assume that he was telling them Harry was gay. True, yes, but it certainly wasn’t Ron’s to spread. He looked pleadingly at his fellow Gryffindors. Seamus was just staring impatiently at him, but Dean got the message.

“You know, Sea? I think that this is something we should ask Harry. I mean, even if Ron did know something, it wouldn’t be right for him to say. It’s not his place.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Seamus said, his expectant look changing to one of disappointment. “Still…”

“No, Sea,” Dean said firmly.

“Fine,” Seamus huffed and walked away.

Dean leaned close to Ron. “Later?”

“Yeah,” Ron said, looking and sounding like he wanted to crawl under a rock. “We’ll talk.”

Ron’s gaze followed Dean as he left. How in the world was he supposed to tell Dean what he himself was not supposed to know?

* * *

Kayden pulled Harry into an empty classroom after turning a few corners and finding a deserted corridor. He pulled his famous boyfriend into his arms and kissed him. His heart sang when the kiss was returned just as passionately as he gave it.

“Where have you been?” Kayden asked as he broke the kiss. “I haven’t seen you in forever.”

“I’ve had a lot to do,” Harry said with a small, apologetic smile. “Gryffindor’s first Quidditch game is this week and I’ve been pushing the team. We’ve been practicing everyday.”

“Yeah, I know. Don’t think that your chasers are going to get too many past me.”

Kayden had been recruited as Ravenclaw’s new keeper at the start of the term. Harry suddenly remembered the glow of happiness that had come over him months ago when Kayden told him.

“I haven’t been taking the pitch from Ravenclaw too much, have I?” Harry asked worriedly.

Kayden laughed. “No. Madame Hooch was sure to even us out. Every time you booked it, she came to our captain and scheduled a practice for us too. Don’t worry, I’ll be ready for you and the infamous Gryffindor Quidditch team.”

Harry smiled happily. The bells tolled the next class period and Harry looked at Kayden.

“You should be getting to class.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s just so hard to leave once I have you in my arms.”

Harry blushed and kissed his boyfriend. “Get out of here before Snape has your head for the Gryffindors to use in their next potion.”

“Okay, okay,” Kayden laughed, kissed Harry one more time and left the room.

Harry sighed happily. His boy knew just what to do to turn his mood around. Now, if the lady Fate would just see that this mood stay a while... He opened the door and left the room with the thought of finding Ron and Hermione. He closed the door quietly behind him and turned to do just that when he bumped into someone and fell to the floor.

“Sorry,” he murmured, embarrassed, and looked up into the eyes of… “Malfoy!?”

“A good day to you too, Mr. Potter,” Lucius Malfoy sneered. “And that’s Professor Malfoy to you, my dear pupil.”

“What!?” Harry looked at him with stunned disbelief. “Whatever are you getting on about, Malfoy?”

“Five points from Gryffindor,” Malfoy snarled. “I told you, you will address me as Professor. I have heard about your lack of respect for the professors, Potter, and I will tell you now that I will not tolerate it. Now, what were you doing in that room? That classroom is not in use. You have no business there.”

Harry was still staring at Malfoy with a stunned look on his face. No one but a professor could take points away so quickly, so certain that they could.

“Well?” Professor Malfoy prompted.

“Oh, I-I was looking for something for one of the Prefects, sir,” Harry replied, the last word dripping with acid.

“You’re a poor liar, Potter. Ten points from --“

“Ask him yourself then,” Harry interrupted before he could finish taking the points away, “if you don’t believe me. Justin Fitch-Fletchy of Hufflepuff.”

“I think I will do just that. But Gryffindor will still lose ten points,” Malfoy said as he reached for Harry’s shoulder. “If you are going to insist on keeping your hair so untidy, Potter, you should really make sure it stays on your head. At least keep it off your robes. That’s just disgusting.”

Harry glowered at him as the man waved a single dark hair in front of his face before seeming to toss it away.

“Well, since you will not be seeing me in class just yet, go back to your common room,” Malfoy ordered.

“Yes, sir.” Harry mumbled and started off in that direction.

It seemed She was not liking him much this year.

* * *

Draco swung, missed, and saw the fist too late. It appeared from nowhere and made contact with his jaw. He stumbled with the force of the blow.

“What’s the matter, traitor?” Crabbe sneered as he threw another punch at Draco. “Can’t protect yourself? How do you expect to protect your lover from the Dark Lord if you can’t even protect yourself?”

“He’s not my lover,” Draco snarled as he dodged the attack and threw himself at Crabbe, landing a fist solidly in the larger boy’s midsection.

Crabbe grunted and doubled over. Draco crouched and brought an uppercut square against his jaw. Crabbe let out this humph sound and his knees buckled. He toppled to the ground.

Draco turned to the rest of the common room. “Anyone else want to try me this time? I am really kind of tired of kicking this stupid grunt’s --“

“Shut up, son,” an acrid voice sneered behind him from the entrance to the Common Room.

Draco froze. He knew that voice. It was the voice he’d been dreading, that he had tried to stop time a week ago just to avoid: his father’s. Slowly, he turned to face the one man he feared more than the Dark Lord himself.

“Hullo, Father.”

“What’s this I hear about you being in love with Harry Potter?”

Draco just stared. Only Lucius Malfoy could cut straight to the heart of the matter without even feigning pleasantries.

He had known that his father would hear about it. There were so many in Slytherin that were loyal to the Dark Lord that he was bound to hear about it from someone. He just hadn’t imagined that his father would come to the school to see to it personally.

“What do you want to know?” Draco said, adopting his usual cool demeanor.

“Is it true? Did you stand in front of the entire school and tell Potter that you were in love with him?”

Draco steeled himself, taking on a stance that simultaneously oozed confidence and defiance. He looked his father directly in the eye.

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Do you love him? Have you had the traitorous misfortune of falling in love with our Lord’s most notorious enemy?”

“Yes.”

It was a simple statement, but one that brought a complete hush to the Common Room. There were some who had thought he’d been joking. Part of Draco’s mind marveled at just how quiet it had become, while the rest of the Slytherins waited for the elder Malfoy’s response.

“I see,” the man said with slow scorn. The man shook, both with anger and the will required to control himself. “As I am now a teacher here,” he began again when he was able, “it would be…irresponsible of me to do the things I normally would do at home to make you see reason and the error of your ways. Know this, though. You are no longer any son of mine. I will be writing your mother this very night. You will not be allowed to return to my home. I will have her send your things here and you can see to your life from there. I have given you clothing. Good day, Mr. Malfoy. Good day, Slytherins,” he added to the Common Room as a whole. He turned to leave, but stopped just before the entrance. With his back still turned he added, “it would seem that Potter has stolen two servants from my home.”

Draco stared after him in stunned silence. He had just been disowned. Thrown out.

Orphaned.

And what made it really sting? He was all but declared a house elf in the process. He was no longer considered an equal…

* * *

Lucius Malfoy ascended from the dungeons with a slight smile on his face. The look on his son’s face had almost made this whole thing worthwhile. Who would have thought that the boy he had raised to be cold and unfeeling towards him would actually care so much? Then he laughed openly at himself. Draco Malfoy did not care a lick about him. That little house elf was only thinking about how he no longer had a roof to live under outside the Hogwarts walls.

Well, maybe he would do what his old miserable house elf had done, and run to Dumbledore for help. It would be just like him anyway.

Lucius walked into his office and closed the door behind him. Lighting only enough candles to see by, he opened his palm and dropped a single dark hair on the desk.

“It’s amazing, just what you can do with only a hair from someone,” he chuckled to himself as he looked at the dark hair. “Simply amazing.”

He took out his wand and pointed it at the hair. “Crystallize.”

The hair quivered, followed by the air around it. With a flash of blue light, the hair was encased in a small sliver of clear quartz.

Lucius chuckled again. “Only a hair. But I am certain that you, my dear Potter, will be much harder to crack then my own boy was. Then again, I knew Draco’s mind, did I not? Oh, yes, I did. I made sure that he grew up to be as I wanted him. I even groomed him for this very possibility.

“Is he really in love with you, Potter? Oh, yes, he is. I will not let anything stand in the way of standing at my Lord’s right hand… not even my own son. So when I heard that my Lord was going to make my boy a General before me, I put into motion my plan, from all those years ago. Draco will be branded a traitor and you… you, my dear Potter, will help me do it. You may not be in love with Draco yet. But you will be,” he murmured as he picked up the crystal, wrapped wire around it, then hung it from a chain around his neck. It hung gently next to another just like it, the other containing a silver hair. “You will be. Trust me on that, Potter.”

Lucius sat down at his desk and started to concentrate on the new crystal around his neck. Perfect! The boy is sleeping.

* * *

Harry lay in his bed in Gryffindor Tower, taking a nap. Professor Malfoy had told him to go to the common room, and since he had lost fifteen points for Gryffindor on their very first encounter, he was not really anxious to cross the man again.

He had a succession of weird dreams, most of them involving lots of colors and a snake and an eagle.

Then it all changed, as if someone had reached in and changed the channel on a television. He found himself in the middle of making love to Draco Malfoy.

~ tbc ~