Rating:
R
House:
Schnoogle
Characters:
Draco Malfoy Harry Potter
Genres:
Slash
Era:
Multiple Eras
Spoilers:
Philosopher's Stone Chamber of Secrets Prizoner of Azkaban Goblet of Fire
Stats:
Published: 12/05/2002
Updated: 05/30/2003
Words: 114,031
Chapters: 15
Hits: 378,784

Beneath You

Cinnamon

Story Summary:
Draco had no idea that the repercussions of stealing Potter's journal and shoving it down the back of his trousers would be so extreme. Featuring nefarious plots, the mating rituals of Slytherins, double-crossing spells, Ron/Pansy, and Draco/Harry.

Chapter 01

Posted:
12/05/2002
Hits:
80,573
Author's Note:
If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, than the road to heaven must be paved with bad.

Beneath You
By Cinnamon

Chapter One


I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light.

Oh plunge me deep in love -- put out
My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
Swept by the tempest of your love,
A taper in a rushing wind.


--‘I Am Not Yours’, Sarah Teasdale

Beautiful was not a word Harry Potter used often, and it certainly was not a word he would have used to describe autumn. He didn’t like it. The dead leaves crackling on the ground when he walked, the trees growing more exposed with every day, and the thick smell of wet dirt that was heavy on the cold air all served to make it his least favorite time of year. Only the beginning of the Quidditch season made it in any way redeemable, and then, only if he was having a good season, which, of course, he usually was.

Spring was more to his taste, more of a beginning than an ending, where things came back to life rather than died. He liked the smell of clover in the air, though he never knew that was what he liked about spring so much. He just knew he liked it and didn’t spend time deciding why. There wasn’t enough time in the world to think about the reasons for everything, and Harry had long ago decided that the smell of clover was something he would not think about. The smell of fresh clover and the crackle of dead leaves were all too frivolous to think about.

Instead, as he walked home alone through the darkness, Harry was thinking about Quidditch. The first match of the season between Gryffindor and Slytherin was scheduled for the next day, and he was grimly determined not to let the other house take a lead in house points by winning the match.

The only sound was the grinding leaves under his boots and the wind blowing through the trees, and Harry, for the first time, considered that setting out alone for Hogwarts was not the best idea. However, it had been a Hogsmeade weekend and he, Ron, and Hermione had all gone to the Three Broomsticks together, drinking butterbeer to ward off the early-October chill and laughing the way they always seemed to when they were together. There was Quidditch to think about, however, and Harry had left shortly before dusk, leaving his friends to return to the castle. He needed to be well rested to beat Slytherin, after all.

Harry had just noted with relief that he would soon be in sight of the castle, when a strange noise nearby made him freeze, his eyes widening a tiny bit. It sounded like some sort of wild animal in pain. Harry had not known Hagrid for all these years without at least a small degree of the other man’s love for animals rubbing off on him, so, clutching his wand in case he needed a quick stunning spell to help him escape, Harry followed the noises off the path and into the trees.

He stopped abruptly when the exact cause of the noise was revealed in the silver moonlight.

“What,” he asked in a voice that implied he very much did not really want to know, “on earth are you doing to that tree?”

Draco Malfoy stiffened at the sound of his voice and slowly pulled his head out of the hollow in the trunk of the tree and turned around. He insolently ran his eyes over Harry’s body and then said, carefully enunciating every syllable, “I am drunk.”

Harry smirked. “Which must be why you had mistaken that poor tree for a person and started molesting it. Though, had you thought the tree was a Slytherin, I can see how you’d make that mistake. Ugly lot, you Slytherins.”

Malfoy’s eyes, already glazed from too much Firewhiskey, narrowed. “No,” he said, voice slightly slurred. “I am drunk because you are an illusion sent to torment me in my drunken state.”

Snickering, Harry sneered, “Damn, Malfoy, you even manage to sound like a prissy git when you’re sotted.”

Malfoy shook his head, lost his balance, and fell against the tree trunk. He reached one arm back into the trunk and started rummaging again. “Piss off, Potter,” he said in a dismissive tone, turning his back to Harry.

“What are you doing?” Harry asked again.

“Looking for more whiskey,” Malfoy muttered.

“Oh.” Harry briefly considered telling him that he had obviously had enough whiskey, but the prospect of playing Quidditch in the morning against a hungover Draco was too good to pass up.

“Don’t you want to know why?” Malfoy called over his shoulder, fumbling with a bottle that was too tall to pull through the hole. “Why I’m drunk, I mean.”

“Not particularly.”

But Malfoy was a chatty drunk. He managed to pull the whiskey bottle out of the tree and leaned against the trunk. “Father says I’ve got to stay here for Christmas.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Poor you, Malfoy. Honestly, cry me a river, because I care. Really, I do.”

“Don’t get your knickers in a knot, Potter, just because you always have to stay here over the holidays doesn’t mean the rest of us want to.”

“There are worse places to be,” Harry said with a shrug, turning to leave.

“Oh, you can say that,” Malfoy called woefully. “You indeed can say that, Potter. But you don’t have to share a dorm with Crabbe. And your roommate doesn’t insist upon shagging Pansy practically every night, forgetting that you’re in the bed across the way.” He took a long swallow of whiskey.

Harry had turned back around, inspecting Malfoy critically, and with more than a little amusement. “Malfoy, honestly, spare me the details? I didn’t expect you to have it in you to be this pathetic. Getting drunk in the forest while your thug shags Pansy in your room? Nasty.”

“This is my secret stash,” Malfoy said with a nod, indicating the hole in the tree. “No one knows its here.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “I do.”

Malfoy considered this for a moment, swaggering closer with a thoughtful smirk. “I suppose it’s not so secret anymore then. Now it’ll have to be a place I keep things I want you to find, and there certainly aren’t many of those.” He drank more whiskey thoughtfully. “I’ll have to find a new stashing place, you’ll steal this one, I’m sure.”

Draco was close enough now for Harry to smell the whiskey on his breath and spilled on his clothing, and he wrinkled his nose, stepping away. “I don’t drink whiskey, Malfoy, so your stash is safe from me.”

“Ah, yes,” Malfoy said in a voice heavy with woeful amusement. “The Paragon Of Goodness and Perfection would hardly lower himself to drink whiskey like us mere mortals. But then, a Gryffindor and a Muggle lover would never appreciate whiskey of so fine a caliber as this, so your ignorance is forgivable.” The entire speech was made all the more ridiculous in that it was slurred and made Malfoy sound years younger, like a child.

“Bugger off, Malfoy,” Harry snapped, having grown tired even of watching Malfoy humiliate himself in his drunken state. He turned to leave again, and Malfoy grabbed his arm.

“You think you’re better than us,” he hissed. “You and your little friends. Heroes and champions of the school.”

“We think we’re better than you? C’mon, you’re a Malfoy, who could possibly think they’re better than you?” Harry said sarcastically.

“You, apparently, and wrongly so,” Draco snorted. “You’re not, you know. You’re just like everyone else.”

Harry glanced over his shoulder and said coldly, “I am just like everybody else, Malfoy, and even then, I’m a good ways better than you.” He shoved him hard, easily knocking Malfoy to the ground, and walked away without glancing back. Malfoy cursed at him and shouted as many insults as he could remember, but Harry walking away lost precedence to the whiskey he had spilled when he fell.

Malfoy eventually made it back to the castle and collapsed onto his bed to sleep off the whiskey, but Harry didn’t care one way or the other, and spent an hour before bed going over various Quidditch maneuvers he had taught the team during practices over the last month and hoped to try out against Slytherin the next day. Then, he opened the notebook he, Ron, and Hermione wrote in together, and scribbled a few lines about seeing Malfoy drunk in the woods. He was sure Ron would find it amusing.

The notebook had been Hermione’s idea. They would take it with them to class, writing in it whenever they felt like it, messages to each other or thoughts they had had, sometimes nothing more than doodles made out of boredom. It was a way to keep in touch even when seventh year classes threatened to overwhelm them. After writing in it for a while, they would trade off who got to take it to class, and that person would comment on what the last person had written and then write something if the mood stuck. By now, the book was half full of jokes, comments on various classes and teachers, complaints on homework, and even some more serious things, like thoughtful predictions on what Voldemort’s next move might be and discussions on Sirius’s whereabouts, all protected with code words and such, of course.

Harry finished writing and set his quill aside, climbing into bed. Ron had just snuck into the dormitory when he finally drifted off to sleep.

***

Waking up early and on the Quidditch pitch before dawn, Harry spent the early morning hours lazily circling the pitch, getting a feel for the weather conditions, the wind, and the visibility, planning how he’d have to adjust the game plans for those contingencies. It was a crisp, cold October day with a haze of gray clouds just thick enough to block the sun and not dark enough to warn of rain; perfect Quidditch conditions. He entered the Great Hall for breakfast eager to get on with the match, sure that it would be a Gryffindor victory.

“Big game today, right, Harry? You’re going to slaughter Slytherin!” Ron called happily when Harry entered the Hall.

Davis Connelly, the fifth year who played Keeper, overheard and grinned. “Of course we are, mate,” he said easily, his broad face lit up with excitement. “Don’t we always?”

“With Harry as our Seeker,” Seamus, a Chaser, boasted, “we can never lose!”

The other Gryffindors cheered, and the Slytherin table all turned to look and scowl at them.

“Good luck, Gryffindor,” a few of the Ravenclaws called, and Harry smiled to himself. It was just a normal game, after all. And Quidditch was always something to smile about, especially when it meant slaughtering Slytherin the way they always did.

***

The whole student body had gathered to watch the game, and Harry took his place above the other players, calling a few words of encouragement to his teammates. He had been made captain after Angelina had graduated.

The game started, and Harry’s eyes scanned the field, watching the progression of the Quaffle almost absently as he searched for the Snitch. He cast a few amused glances at Malfoy, who looked more like he was about to keel over and fall from his broom than offer any competition in catching the Snitch, but he knew better than to underestimate Malfoy. After all, it would be a very Slytherinish thing to do, to appear hungover to lull him into a false sense of security and then trounce him by easily catching the Snitch.

A Bludger nearly knocked Malfoy from his broom, and Harry laughed. Scowling, Malfoy glared at him, before a glitter of gold caught his eye a short ways above. Harry saw it at the same time, and they both soared upwards together, Malfoy with grim determination not to fall of his broom and to humiliate Harry by beating him when he could barely keep his breakfast down, and Harry with vague amusement at the wretched look in Malfoy’s eyes.

The Snitch darted away, and Harry cursed softly. Gryffindor and Slytherin were tied for points now, and he circled the pitch restlessly. He was about to go up a little higher to get a better view, when Malfoy suddenly dove straight down and Harry instinctively followed. His broom was faster and his technique more polished, especially since Malfoy was wobbling a little, his hands too shaky to keep the broom straight, and Harry easily caught up with him. He was flying nearly straight down, too close to Malfoy to pull away without risking getting the ends of their brooms tangled, but he didn’t care. His eyes were still restlessly scanning the ground below for the Snitch.

They were nearly to the ground when Harry realized what Malfoy had done, pretending to see the Snitch to throw Harry off, and he cursed at himself for not realizing it before. Malfoy heard the curse and laughed softly.

There were only seconds left before they’d hit the ground, and Harry moved to turn out of the dive. He was too close, however, and Malfoy hadn’t turned. Harry knocked into him, sending him off balance, and Malfoy, whose balance was already shaky at best, slipped sideways, yelping a little and holding fast to his broom. The ends of their brooms had gotten tangled, and Harry tried desperately to pull away, but it was too late, and, only seconds since beginning the dive, both of them slammed into the ground with a cracking of bones and broomsticks, and blackness swallowed Harry just as the agony of his broken bones tore into his mind and made him scream.

Beside him, just as broken and bloody, Malfoy muttered, “Weak, Potter,” before losing consciousness as well.

***

Draco was haunted by dreams where dark shadows like cobwebs kept brushing over his face, no matter how hard he struggled to push them away, cool and leathery like bat wings. He woke up clawing at his face, and it took him a few seconds to realize that it wasn’t real. And then his aching body reminded him of what had happened and where he was, and he moaned a little, grimacing.

Pomfrey had mended all his broken bones and fixed up his cuts and bruises, but his nerves still ached from the beating he had sustained. There was nothing Pomfrey could do to cure startled nerves, and his had been very startled at the sudden impact with the ground.

Pushing himself into a sitting position gradually, Draco pushed his hair out of his eyes, wincing at how limp and dirty it felt, and was about to call out for Pomfrey to demand to be allowed back to his common room, when a voice nearby startled him. It was Potter, who was still unconscious, and talking in his sleep.

“Don’t touch me,” he mumbled, turning restlessly on his side. Draco smirked, watching him.

“Don’t tell me the Boy-Who-Lived has nightmares,” he whispered to himself. His smirk widened. “Now what does Potter the Paragon of Perfection have to be afraid of? Voldemort? My father?” He scoffed, “You should be scared, Potter.”

Potter’s lips were compressed into a tiny line, and his face extremely pale now. He was tossing and turning even more restlessly, his hands clenching and unclenching into fists. “Don’t,” he whimpered. “Ginny, don’t touch me.”

Draco nearly choked on his own saliva. A startled burst of laughter erupted from his throat, echoing loudly in the empty room and nearly waking Potter. Though he did not wake up, the noise had served to startle him out of the nightmare, and he drifted into easy sleep again, sighing and relaxing his fists. Draco even loathed indirectly helping Potter escape from his nightmare.

Before Draco could quite come to grips with the idea that, rather than being haunted by images of his own death at the hands of Voldemort, Potter had nightmares of being touched by Ginny Weasley, the door opened and a sliver of light lit up the dim room. Granger was peering into the room.

“Harry?” she called nervously. “Are you awake, Harry?” She pushed the door open a little bit farther. When she saw Draco watching her, she squeaked a little and looked as though she were going to turn and run.

“Books, Granger?” Draco drawled, rolling his eyes at the pile of books she was carrying. “You’re bringing him books?”

She glanced nervously at the book she held and then back up at him. “Yes. It’s his homework,” she said.

“By all means, come in and leave them then. Very important, homework is, especially for unconscious people. Gives them something to pass the time with, you know?”

She scowled. “I’m not afraid of you.”

Draco smiled slowly. “Of course not,” he sneered.

She nodded, though she didn’t look certain if he was just being sarcastic. “I’ll just leave the books, then. When he wakes up, will you tell him—”

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I wanted you to tell him!”

“I’m not going to tell him anything. Why would I tell him anything? I hate him, remember? So just leave the books and go, you’re making me ache even more than I did before you got in here, and I assure you, it’s not the good kind of ache. It’s kind of like a throbbing sort of burst blood vessel, right behind the eyes. Not pleasant.”

“Are you always this nasty when you first wake up?” she snapped, slamming the books down on the table beside Potter’s bed.

“I’m not being nasty, Granger,” he replied absently. “I’m being honest. Now do hurry up.”

She scowled at him and then turned away, reaching into her robes and pulling a small, leather bound notebook out of her pocket. She glanced nervously at him and then slipped it on top of the pile of homework she’d brought, before hurrying out of the room.

It wasn’t even a full minute after the door had closed before Draco was gingerly getting out of bed and making his way over to the table, curiosity making it easy to forget his protesting nerves. He snatched the small book off the table and brought it over to the window where the light was better, inspecting the worn cover carefully.

“A journal?” he whispered to himself, impressed not that Potter would keep a journal, because that was a rather girlish hobby, really, but impressed that he, the son of Voldemort’s second-in-command would be so lucky as to find it and be given a glimpse into the inner workings of Potter’s mind. “How sweet, Potter, Granger brought you your journal.”

“What?” Potter asked groggily from the other bed, having just woken up. He squinted at Draco, looking extremely bad tempered. Draco quickly slipped the journal into his trousers and smiled, his most charming, Slytherinish smile, even as he frantically thought Potter’s journal is in my trousers. Potter’s journal is IN my trousers. Oh, shit. What am I doing?

“Nothing.”

Potter glanced around, still squinting, and fumbling for his glasses. “What happened?” His voice sounded thick and deeper than usual.

“Quidditch accident,” Draco replied in a chipper tone.

Potter slipped his glasses on, his eyes narrowed now for a different reason. “Oh yeah. You were hungover and nearly killed me,” he accused.

“Now, Potter, if you weren’t so clumsy at pulling out of a Feint, we wouldn’t have gotten tangled up,” Draco scolded. “If Pomfrey ever shows up, tell her I’m better and left.”

“I’m not giving anyone your messages!” Potter snapped.

For a moment, Draco was strangely disconcerted. He smirked. “You and I are more alike than you thought, Potter, because that’s just what I said to Granger.” He slipped out of the room before Potter could protest that the accident had been his fault or before he could ask exactly what Hermione had wanted Draco to tell him.

Draco snickered all the way back to his common room.

***

It was halfway through Double Potions with the Slytherins the next day and Harry was watching Snape rather absently as the professor did a demonstration of a very complex potion Harry hadn’t bothered to listen to the explanation for. Hermione would undoubtedly lend him her notes if he decided to study for this class anyway.

Snape had just added the last ingredient to the potion, leading to a rather anticlimactic soft popping sound, when Hermione leaned over and poked his shoulder. “Where’s the book?” she hissed.

Harry blinked. “What?”

“The book!” she repeated. “There’s something I want to write in it.”

“I don’t have it, I haven’t seen it since Saturday,” he whispered back.

“I left it for you in the hospital wing.”

“It wasn’t there. Are you sure—”

“Is there a problem?” Snape interrupted, arching one dark brow. His eyes were fixed on Harry’s face, and Harry fought the urge to squirm like a nervous first year. “Mister Potter?”

“No, sir,” Harry replied, licking his lips nervously.

“Alright then, Mister Potter, allow me to make a small wager. Since you seem to be so anxious to leave my classroom to talk with your friends, I’ll dismiss class early today on the condition that you prove you were listening to me by telling me exactly what the properties of Gobbler’s Ink are.” He smiled in a predatory fashion, and waited for Harry to answer. All of the Gryffindors turned to stare at him beseechingly, the chance to escape the dungeon an hour early something they had all been yearning for, and the Slytherins scowled at the knowledge that their freedom rested in the clumsy hands of a Gryffindor.

Harry swallowed hard, and said, “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know.”

With a triumphant and sour smirk, Snape said silkily, “I didn’t think so, Mister Potter. Ten points from Gryffindor for interrupting my class and not paying attention. Now then. The preparation of Gobbler’s Ink, as I have shown you, is an exacting process.” Snape went on to list the attributes of different concentrations of the ink, and Harry leaned back in his chair, preparing to slip back into his stance of ‘I’m listening, Professor—Really, I Am’ that he had perfected after six full years of Professor Snape’s long and boring Potions class. Before he could settle into the stance, however, Malfoy’s eyes met his across the room, and he smirked in some strange, knowing sort of way that made Harry incredibly nervous.

Before he could scowl in return, Hermione, who had waited until Snape turned away, leaned over and whispered, “Sorry,” her face looking incredibly pale the way it only did during final exams or Snape’s Potions class.

Harry shrugged easily and by the time he’d turned back, Malfoy had turned away, almost as if nothing had happened.

Unnerved, Harry settled back into his chair and assumed his pretend-listening expression, all the while wondering what Malfoy could possibly know about him that would inspire that smirk. The possibilities left him cold.

***

At Hermione’s insistence, Harry had searched his dorm for the notebook but it wasn’t there. Together, the three of them searched the common room and checked with Madam Pomfrey, but she hadn’t seen it, and then, at a loss, they had finally gone to the library, sitting at a table in the back.

“We can’t just let it be lost,” Hermione hissed, looking pinched and irritated. “If any of the professors found that and looked at the drawings Ron did of them and thought I did it, I’d be in so much trouble! The notebook does have my name on the cover, you remember.”

“Come on, Hermione,” Ron scoffed. “They know you’re not creative enough to draw like that. Besides, they’re great pictures.”

“Yeah, if Snape really had a broomstick shoved up his arse and Dumbledore really had birds flying out of his ears,” Harry snickered.

Ron looked injured, though his eyes glittered with amusement. “You laughed just as hard as I did at those, Harry. And besides, Hermione, if you hadn’t insisted we keep that book and write to each other in it, none of this would have happened.”

“If you hadn’t insisted on only writing about how much you hate each one of our professors, it wouldn’t have been a problem!” she cried.

“That’s not all I wrote about,” Ron argued. “I also wrote about what a git Malfoy is.”

“Malfoy!” Hermione’s eyes widened. “He may have it! Harry, do you think he has it? Oh, please don’t let him have it, if he reads that, he can… he can use all of that stuff I said about McGonagall on that day I was annoyed at her for taking five marks off my assignment against me! He can blackmail me! Oh, Harry, you’ve got to get it back!” Her eyes were shining with tears, and Harry grimaced. The idea of Malfoy having that book was nasty enough without Hermione getting all weepy about it.

“How am I supposed to get it back?” Harry asked.

“Just ask him if he has it,” she begged.

“You know what an arse he is, Hermione, he’ll hardly just give it back!”

“You can always threaten to beat his head in if he doesn’t,” Ron suggested brightly. “Oooh, and let me help.”

***

Harry waited until the evening, when he knew the Slytherin team would be practicing. Then, wearing his crimson and gold scarf to ward off the autumn chill, he left the castle and made his way to the pitch, climbing up to the stands to sit and wait for the practice to be over so he could ask Malfoy about the book. He didn’t expect a straight answer, just as he didn’t expect to escape this without a thousand insults against his mother, father, parentage in general, intelligence, and worthiness as a human being. However, he was feeling confrontational himself and looked forward to unleashing that on Malfoy, who was always good for that sort of thing.

It wasn’t long before the Slytherin team noticed him sitting there and Zabini, the captain, flew over to hover near, scowling. “What are you doing here, Potter?” he snarled. “Spying on our team?”

Harry laughed. “If I was going to spy on you, I’d do it from my tower where it’s warmer, and I certainly wouldn’t do it on your team. I’d choose a team I could learn something from.”

Zambini growled some sort of insult that Harry didn’t catch. “What do you want then?” He asked finally.

“To talk to Malfoy, actually. Whenever you guys are done.”

Zambini looked startled, and then he smirked. After all, it was unseemly for one team captain to beat up another, especially when one of those captains was a lanky, awkward, speccy git like Potter. It was quite another story to allow one seeker to beat up another. It was almost expected. “Practice is finished now anyway,” he said, his eyes guarded, a tight smirk on his lips. “I’ll tell Malfoy you’re waiting.”

Malfoy laughed when Zambini gave him the message, but Harry didn’t care. He had climbed down from the stands and was waiting on the ground when Malfoy, who took his time, finally landed and sauntered over.

“What?” he asked, mild curiosity the only emotion in his tone, though amusement glittered in his eyes.

“You took it, didn’t you? Our book.”

Malfoy looked thoughtful for a moment, as if considering whether or not to confess or not. Finally, he smirked. “It was quite a disappointing read.”

“I want it back.”

“You’ll have to find it.”

“Give it to me.”

“Nothing is ever that easy, Potter.”

Harry smiled grimly. “Give it back, Malfoy, because your entire team left you and we’re the only ones out here and if I were to attack you this time, you wouldn’t have your precious Slytherins to protect you.”

“Ouch, Potter, I’m very nearly scared,” Malfoy snickered. “You’ll have to find it. I want you to find it.”

“Malfoy—”

But Malfoy, laughing as if he knew some great inner joke that Harry was too thick to catch on to, hopped back on his broomstick and took off into the sky, flying back towards the castle. Soon Harry was alone on the pitch as the sun started to set.

“Bloody prat,” he mumbled to himself. “He wants me to find it? How am I supposed to do that if he doesn’t tell me where it is?”

***

It shouldn’t have taken him as long as it did to figure out where Malfoy had put the book, but he wasn’t used to having to decipher riddles from Malfoy. Usually all he needed to figure out after a discussion with the Slytherin was whether or not his mother, father, intelligence, looks, or friends had been insulted, or rather to what degree, as the insults were almost a certainty. He managed to figure things out shortly after he had finished his homework and gone to bed.

Malfoy had basically told him where to find it, after all, though he had been drunk at the time and Harry hadn’t been sure he would be able to remember it in the morning.

Unwilling to listen to Hermione over breakfast the next morning, worriedly predicting the consequences, should any of the professors find the notebook, Harry snuck out of bed, grabbed his invisibility cloak, and hurried from the room.

It was only a quick jog to the hollow tree, and Harry smiled grimly as he peered into the hole. The notebook was there, and he pulled it out, turning to hurry back to bed. The wind was cold and he didn’t want to be out any longer than necessary.

Something made him pause, however. There was something else in the hollow and Harry grabbed his wand. “Lumos,” he whispered, squinting into the dark crevice as his wand began to glow. Malfoy had removed his stash of whiskey as he had promised, but now there was a quill and some ink lying in the hollow.

“A quill?” Harry whispered out loud. “Like he’s expecting a reply?”

Eyes widening a tiny bit, he flipped to the last page that had been written on, scanning it quickly in the light of his wand.

Hermione had scribbled a message there and it read, “Harry! I can’t believe you’d do something so reckless that once again put you in the hospital wing! But then, everyone knows you’d give your life if it meant winning a Quidditch game. I missed you in Charms today, and picked up your homework. Ron’s being annoying; I think he misses you too, though he won’t say it. Get well soon! He’s never this insufferable when you’re around!”

In the margin, Ron had scribbled, “Insufferable?? Shut up, Hermione! But I do wish you were here, Harry. It’s boring without you.

Harry easily recognized Hermione’s careful writing and Ron’s scrawl. The elegant writing below that made him scowl, however. Malfoy had written in the book.

Cute, Potter. Here I was, expecting a deep, thoughtful look into the inner workings of The Mind of the Boy Who Lived, and instead, I got a mess of doodles and class notes Granger was too frightened to actually pass in class. Lovely. It almost makes me wish I were worthy enough to belong to this exclusive little club of yours. Then again—No, it really doesn’t. You realize that if I ever respected you before, even as a worthy enemy, this has totally destroyed that, don’t you?

Harry flipped through the entire book, and on nearly every page, in the same elegant writing, there was a sarcastic comment about the entry or the drawing. On the page where Hermione had gone on about what she thought the Death Eaters were planning (which included various unlikely plots such as taking over the word through subliminal messages disseminated through owl post), he had written, “I sincerely hope you are not the brains in this group, Granger.” On the page where Ron had drawn an elaborate picture of Malfoy kissing Snape’s ass, he had written, “You wish, Weasley. Kindly refrain from involving me in anymore of your sexual fantasies, because if my real self finds it this nauseating, I bet the me you dreamed up found it even more distasteful.

There was a large part of the journal that talked about Sirius, and Harry scanned it worriedly, suddenly sick that Malfoy now knew information that could possibly get Sirius caught again, or get him and Dumbledore in trouble. However, there were no comments there, and Harry could only hope that Malfoy had skipped these pages. With a shaking hand, he tore out the pages and crumpled them in his fist.

All the way through, on every page. At first, Harry felt violated. That git had gotten to read all of their private thoughts, had sullied them with his Slytherin ink and his sarcastic comments. Had somehow managed to worm his way into the one thing that had belonged to the three of them solely, that no one else was supposed to even know about.

He slammed the book shut, his fingers tracing the front cover where Hermione had carefully etched her name. Malfoy had removed the letters and instead, written his own, in a final show of ownership, as if he had conquered it, claimed it, made it his. And Harry was furious. He grabbed the quill and ink from the hollow and sat on the roots of the tree, leaning back against the trunk. Intending to write something scathing, he flipped to the last page again and lifted the quill to his lip, narrowing his eyes as he tried to decide where to begin.

He dipped the quill into the ink and then, in the light given off by his glowing wand, he brought the quill to the page.

And then, Harry couldn’t refrain a smile. After all, if he forgot, for a moment, that it was Malfoy who had made the comments, they were quite funny, and very true as well. Most of the stuff in the book was pointless, stupid, and boring. Who wouldn’t have mocked it?

Not knowing what he was going to say, Harry was faintly surprised as he replied to the Slytherin’s last note. “You’re just annoyed that Ron’s drawings of you made you look a thousand times worse than you look in real life.” He frowned. Implying that Malfoy was anything less than the lopsided hunchback he appeared to be in Ron’s drawings was hardly a good place to start. Still, he continued. “How do you know the inner workings of my mind aren’t just a collection of childish doodles and notes anyway? Don’t mock what you don’t understand. But then, you’ve always been good for that, haven’t you?

He chewed on the quill absently, rereading what Malfoy had written and then his own reply. The tip of the quill had just been sharpened, and it slashed his lower lip. He yelped at the sting, sucking his lip into his mouth as he examined the nib, rubbing his index finger carefully against it. The sharp edge easily cut deep into his fingertip and blood welled out of the cut, dribbling down his finger and dripping all over his lap. He dropped the quill, hissing at the stinging pain in his finger, and it landed on the blood-splattered ground beside the pot of ink, which had been hit by a few falling drops as well. Grabbing his wand and muttering a First Level Healing spell, he easily healed the cut, scowling. He hadn’t gotten any blood on the journal, which was lucky, but his hands were stained with it.

Picking up the journal, quill, and ink, he put all three back in the hollow and, absently wondering what he was doing and why, he returned to the castle.

At first, he considered waking Ron up and telling him about the hollow and the journal, but it was quite late, and he decided he could just as easily tell him in the morning.

Still wondering why he hadn’t just taken the journal from the hollow and returned it to Hermione in the morning, Harry finally drifted off into a heavy sleep.

***

Harry had every intention of telling Hermione what had happened to the book the next morning, but instead, he overslept, had to skip breakfast, and barely made it to Potions in time. Bursting into the classroom, panting and flushed, he had just slid into his seat when Professor Snape arrived.

“You were nearly late,” Hermione pointed out, but Harry didn’t hear. He was too busy scowling at Malfoy, who had turned around to smirk at him.

“Why does he keep doing that?” Ron whispered, irritated.

“What?” Harry shot him a startled glance.

“Malfoy. He keeps looking at you, all superior-like.”

“He’s always done that,” Harry replied, feeling strangely flustered.

“Not like that,” Ron argued, still whispering, while Snape got the supplies out to finish yesterday’s Gobbler’s Ink. “It’s like he’s set some giant trap and is only waiting for you to step into it. I’d be careful if I were you, Harry. Honestly.”

Harry rolled his eyes and waved off Ron’s concern, feeling rather guilty over the incident with the book now, and deciding not to tell Ron and Hermione what he had done. Instead, he’d go down to the hollow as soon as he had a free moment, and retrieve the book, use magic to erase Malfoy’s writing, and it would be like the entire thing had never happened.

As they left potions, Hermione grabbed Harry’s arm. “Harry,” she said. “Did you find the book?”

“Uhh, no,” Harry replied, not meeting her eyes. He was suddenly aware of someone watching him and glanced up. Over Hermione’s shoulder, he could see Malfoy watching him, a strange look in his eyes. Just to unnerve the Slytherin, Harry grinned. The other boy actually stumbled a bit, his eyes widening a fraction, and then he scowled darkly and turned the corner.

“What are you smiling at?” Hermione snapped, turning around to glare at the backs of the departing students. “This isn’t something to laugh at, Harry. It’s worse than I thought it was, honestly, don’t you remember? We talked about Snuffles in that book! What if someone—”

“They won’t,” Harry said firmly. “Trust me. Nothing will happen to S—to Snuffles. I promise you that.”

She didn’t look sure, and Ron, who’d been delayed in the classroom being lectured by Snape and losing god knows how many house points, hurried into the hall, scowling. “C’mon, Harry, Divination next,” he panted, jerking his head. “And you know that means if we don’t hurry, we’ll be late, and Trelawney’ll spend the first half of the class telling you that you’re going to be attacked by a thousand garden gnomes who’ll delight in tearing you apart with their teeth or something.”

He hurried away and, with a reassuring smile for Hermione, Harry said, “Trust me, it’ll be fine, Hermione. I’ll take care of it.” Then he took off after Ron, leaving Hermione, looking disgruntled and irritated, to go to Arithmancy by herself.

***

Harry had an hour after his last class and before Quidditch practice, and he used this to run down to the hollow, intent on grabbing the book, erasing the evidence, and giving it back to Hermione at dinner. However, the words scrawled in green ink at the back made him freeze.

You ripped out the stuff about Sirius, Potter, how disappointing. That was the best part of this entire book.

Malfoy had read the parts about Sirius. Nervousness made his hands tremble as Harry scribbled back a reply. “If you tell anyone, Malfoy, I’ll kill you. I swear, I’ll kill you. Swear you won’t tell, give me your word, or I swear…

He dropped the book back in the hollow and grimly went to the Quidditch pitch for practice.

A nervous ball of energy had coiled in his stomach, almost like a snake, that kept him jumpy for the rest of the day as he waited for Aurors and Dementors to descend upon the castle and drag him and Dumbledore off to Azkaban in punishment for helping Sirius escape. They’d be tortured until he told where Sirius was currently hiding; he knew they would, and he was worried that he’d crack and tell them.

But dinner came and went and the sun set, and still, nothing happened.

Harry snuck out alone, telling Hermione and Ron that he needed to go find Professor Flitwick and ask for help on his homework, just before bedtime. It was a feeble excuse, especially considering that Hermione could have helped just as well as Flitwick, but the nervous tick Harry had developed in his left eye convinced Ron and Hermione to let it go and let him leave unquestioned.

He hurried out of the castle and straight to the hollow. His hands were shaking so badly that he could hardly hold the book and his glowing wand at the same time.

Malfoy’s reply was messier than normal, and short. He had obviously been in a hurry, and the idea of him sneaking about and running to the hollow to read his own replies made Harry dizzy and strangely pleased at the same time.

My word, Potter? What good would my word be? Surely you wouldn’t trust my word.

He picked up the quill and scribbled, “Not your word, but the word of a Malfoy. Surely you have some family code about keeping your word. Promise me.

Still nervous, but feeling a bit better at the knowledge that Malfoy hadn’t told yet, Harry returned to his dorm, finished his homework, and went to sleep.

***

Promise me. For a long while, under the light of the golden moon, Draco stared at the strange words, twirling the quill between his fingers. A promise to Harry Potter? He didn’t owe Potter a thing, let alone something as personal as a promise.

But the chance to have something to give, if only for the satisfaction of having something to take away later, made it worth it, and Draco smiled a little, and replied.

Calm down, Potter, before you give yourself a nosebleed. We do have a family code about keeping our word, yes, but only if it serves us to keep it. But I’ll give you my word. Besides, it’s hardly as if I care about the life and times of some fugitive from Azkaban. You keeping his secrets, however, that intrigues me. He did, after all, kill your parents. But I confess to not caring overly much. Contrary to what you may think, the entire world doesn’t sit on the edge of their seats waiting in suspense to learn about the sordid little criminal secrets of Harry Potter, Boy-Who-Lived. There are other things to think about, you know.

He waited a few seconds for the ink to dry and then closed the book, slipping it carefully back into the hollow and lying the quill and ink on top.

He checked his watch, made sure enough time had gone by for Pansy and Crabbe to be done with their nearly nightly ritual of shagging rather loudly, and started back to the castle.

His dorm room was quiet; Pansy must have snuck back to her own room by now, and Draco got ready for bed, leaving his robes in a messy pile at the foot of his bed. That was one of his secrets, actually. The fact that he hardly gave a damn about things being neat and orderly and perfect. There were more important things to think about. Which was why his father, always concerned with public appearance, had enchanted all his robes to fold themselves in the middle of the night and stack themselves neatly in his chest of dirty laundry.

Silently, with a soft whisper of fabric, his robes started doing just that, but Draco didn’t notice. He’d already fallen asleep.

***

They were finishing up Gobbler’s Ink in Potions class the next day and Draco was sitting in the second row beside Blaise, who was snickering under his breath as he drew lurid, naked pictures of Lavender Brown on his parchment.

Professor Snape was just finishing up the ink he’d been brewing for the last few days and Draco watched with rather detached interest. He already knew most of the seventh year potions as he had excelled at Potions all through school and had been bored over the summer, studying them on his own. It had been more interesting than following the house elves around the manor looking for spots they had missed while scrubbing the floors, at any rate.

Draco only started paying complete attention near the end of the class, when Snape snapped, “Mister Potter. Not paying attention again? But then, obviously, as you demonstrated a few days ago, your knowledge of Gobbler’s Ink is extensive.” Draco smirked, turning around to watch Harry’s face slowly turn red.

“I’m sorry, professor,” Harry said, casting a sullen glare at Draco. “I dropped my quill.”

Snape was smiling grimly. “But you were paying attention?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling the class what the first property of Gobbler’s Ink is?” Snape asked coolly. Draco glanced back at Harry and smirked again.

“Uhh… I don’t recall, sir,” Harry mumbled.

“Please, sir, I know it!” Hermione cried, putting her hand up. “The first property of Gobbler’s—”

“Do shut up, Miss Granger,” Snape barked, turning away. Draco put up his own hand. “Yes, Mister Malfoy? Perhaps you can enlighten us?”

“The first property of Gobbler’s Ink is that, when made with the blood of an enemy, it works like the Imperius Curse. It makes the writer follow the orders of his enemy whose blood is in the ink, and the more you it is used, the stronger and more powerful the effects,” Draco quoted smoothly.

Snape smiled. “Very good, Draco. Ten points from Gryffindor for disrupting me once again, and twenty to Slytherin for showing Gryffindor how they ought to act in my classroom.”

Draco felt both Potter and Granger’s eyes glaring into the back of his head, but didn’t turn around. He was smiling widely, however, and feeling rather smug, both of which lasted until Potions ended and he walked out of the dungeons. Crabbe, who had decided that morning that he was too sick to go to class, was waiting in the hall, and his face was pale, his eyes bloodshot and red with tears.

“Oh, bloody hell,” Draco muttered. “What is it?”

“Pansy!” Crabbe cried. “She broke up with me.”

Elation at the possibility of not having to wait for Crabbe and Pansy to finish shagging before he could go to bed filled him, but he restrained a sunny smile. Crabbe was, after all, a friend of sorts. He glanced over at Pansy, who was talking and giggling with Millicent and some of the younger girls as they walked down the hall, and then turned back to Crabbe. “You’re worth more than she is anyway,” he said loyally. Loyalty, after all, was another Malfoy Family Trait. Another one of those traits that only lasted as long as they were useful.

“But I loved her!” Crabbe cried.

“Alright, alright, calm down, do you want me to talk to her for you?” Draco sighed, and Goyle nodded eagerly.

“I’ll talk to her,” Goyle offered. It wasn’t often that he spoke, and when he did, it wasn’t to offer something intelligent to the conversation.

“No, you’ll just mess it up, I want Draco do to it,” Crabbe argued. “Fine,” Draco said, trying to avoid yet another fight between Crabbe and Goyle that he would have to mediate. “I’ll talk to her for you.”

“Oh, bother,” Ron called loudly as he, Harry, and Hermione finally filed out of the Potions dungeon. “I had wondered what that smell was.”

Draco’s eyes narrowed incredulously and he turned to face Weasley, a vaguely amused smirk on his face. “Weasel, are you implying that Crabbe, Goyle, and I smell foully? Because, honestly, as far as insults go, that was pretty weak.”

“And uncalled for,” Crabbe agreed.

Potter was carefully concealing his emotions, though Draco, studying his face, suddenly wondered if perhaps Potter found his friend’s awkward insult as pathetic as he had. There was a tightness in the other boy’s lips that seemed to indicate that he was hiding a smile, or even a smirk. “Ron, let’s go,” the dark-haired boy said, sliding his eyes away from his rival. Draco didn’t notice; for some reason, he was still studying Potter’s mouth, probably only because he knew it would make him nervous. Yes, just because of that. Proof that it was working, Potter’s tongue flicked out and licked his dried lips nervously. Draco’s eyes flicked away and he smiled.

“No,” Granger argued, which was enough even to surprise Draco. Usually she was the first one to back away from a confrontation with him. He forced himself to turn way from Potter and pay attention to the conversation. “I want to talk to you.” She pointed at Draco, her eyes dark with fury.

“With me?” Draco asked, amused. “What have you got to say, little Mudblood?”

Weasley growled low in his throat and would have snapped something in reply if Potter hadn’t shaken his head so firmly, again drawing Draco’s gaze. “I want my book back,” Granger snarled. “I know you stole it, in the hospital wing. I’ve searched all over for it, and I want it back.”

Draco smiled and opened his mouth to reply, but Potter beat him to it. “He doesn’t have it. Hermione, Malfoy doesn’t have it.”

Again, Draco was surprised, and he glanced at Potter but didn’t speak, waiting to see what his game was. Granger’s hands flew to her hips. “Then where is it?”

Draco didn’t take his gaze away from Potter’s face, so he saw as the boy struggled to think up a compelling lie. Finally, even if the whole idea of Potter lying to his best friends for him, Draco Malfoy, The Enemy, was quite amusing, Draco decided to help him out. He didn’t bother to consider why he’d even consider such a thing. “I burnt it,” he lied, and it was Potter’s turn to look startled. Draco smiled cruelly. “Your stupid journal’s gone, Granger, let it go. Honestly, it was an immature hobby anyway, and I destroyed it.”

The girl’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Because it was yours and I wanted to,” Draco replied with an easy shrug.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Weasley sneered.

“Look, let’s just go. The journal’s gone, I saw Malfoy light it on fire,” Potter said suddenly, grabbing Granger’s arm. His face looked grimly determined now, and once again, Draco couldn’t look away. It was like staring out a window during a thunderstorm, watching all the emotions pass over Potter’s face. Morbidly fascinating. A

Malfoy would never be so transparent. “Let’s go, Ron, we’ve got to get to Divination.”

“You saw him?” Hermione asked, scowling. “Then why didn’t you stop him?”

Potter was backing away down the hall, and Draco watched, intrigued. His face had gone a strange shade of red, all because he was lying to his friends. It was interesting, Draco never had that much trouble lying to anyone, whether they be his friends or enemies. “You didn’t want any teachers finding it, and I figured it was for the best!” was Potter’s answer. “Ron, come on!”

With one last hateful glare, Weasley took off down the hall after his friend, and Granger, still mumbling to herself, followed.

“You’re still going to talk to her, right?” Crabbe asked.

Draco blinked. He’d forgotten Crabbe and Goyle were there. “What?”

“Pansy. You’re still going to talk to her, right?”

“Oh. Oh, yes. I suppose.”

“We’re going to be late for Defense Against The Dark Arts,” Goyle announced suddenly.

Draco scowled. He hated being late. “Then stop slowing me down,” he snapped, pushing past them and leading the way to their next class.