A Flawless Plan

V. [Collateral Benefits]

"You're silent tonight."

There was an unasked question in Potter's voice. Funny how there always seemed to be unasked questions when it came to him. Well, damn Potter and his worries, I told myself. I didn't need anyone, much less Potter, to feel worried about me. But he wasn't worried about me, actually. He was worried about 'her'. In which case, Potter, I have news for you! 'She' kind of... died. You're stuck with me now, except that you don't know this! But some day you will and it will be the worst of your life!...

That was the night when I took two very important decisions, concerning my outcome, Potter's outcome and, most importantly, the outcome of my mission.

One. If I was to hate myself for the rest of my life, I might as well make the best of it in the process.

I slowly leaned over and reached for Potter's lips. I wanted to own them, make them burn and ache with the touch of my own, then heal, melt into them and forget. The violence of the kiss startled Potter.

"Harry, my love, be still," I said in 'her' mellifluous, childish voice. "I'm not gonna break you!..." Oh, but I will... I moved my lips from his mouth and started to place rough kisses on his neck. I could feel him shivering under my breath. Then the next thing I was aware of was Potter's tongue into of my mouth and I abandoned myself to the unearthly sensation I was experiencing. And then, he was whispering something into my ear but I wasn't listening.

Two. I would carry on with my mission, no matter what. I was doomed to fall and break, and so was Potter. Not because it was Father's wish, not because it was what He-Who-Fucked-With-People's-Lives had demanded, but simply because there was no turning back now, for neither me, nor him.

I searched his lips once more. Only when our mouths connected and every breath of mine became his, and every breath of his became mine, only then I felt somewhat released from my hate. It didn't disappear, but, rather, it was consumed in our kisses, and I knew that Harry felt it too, and, unlike me, he didn't understand.

"You're making me loose my minds," he said darkly, between two kisses, while we were recapturing our breath.

"I've already lost mine, so that only makes us even," I whispered, biting his lower lip provocatively. But he pushed me away gently.

"I want to tell you something. I wanted to for a long time now."

I felt the sudden need to sit down, as an incredible feeling of nausea captured my stomach. Surely, the idiot wasn't going to declare his undying love, or something of that sort?

"I thought I was going to die at the end of this year."

I felt released. It didn't sound like a love declaration. Or else Potter was doing a very poor, uninspired work at choosing his words. I looked at him expectantly and he continued.

"You probably think I'm talking nonsense. But, you see, I used to believe that Voldemort would kill me when this year would be over."

"Most of the would fear that." Honestly, Potter! "Nobody's completely safe from him," I pointed out matter-of-factly. Not even his devoted Death Eaters, not even Father. Not even myself, were I to fail. And try to remember that, Draco Malfoy!

"You don't understand," he said, sounding disappointed. "But you will, soon enough."

His voice had got hoarse at this point. He cleared his throat before continuing.

"There was a prophecy made years before my birth. A prophecy Voldemort had found about." He paused. "A prophecy which stated that only one of us can live. That it is I and only I who can defeat him." He made a brief pause. "Or get killed in the attempt."

And the last piece of the puzzled finally fell into place. Father's letter, my mission, Harry's change of attitude, Harry's words and hollow laughter, one day, outside the Potions classroom after we'd fought... A time so distant, it could've been from a different life.

I suddenly realized I hated He-Who-Would-Make-Me-Die-A-Painful-Death-Were-I-To-Betray-Him as well. Because he would kill Harry. Because Harry was perhaps meant to suffer, like me, but not get killed. He was meant to get messed-up like I had, but not to be put out of his misery with the quick green flash of an Avada Kedavra. Yet that was precisely what was going to happen. When the time would come for him to fight, he would be too broken to care. And I was doing my part.

"I don't want this bloody choice. It's not even a choice! It hadn't been fair it was me, I thought when they told me," Harry meanwhile spoke unperturbed, not looking at me, but at the shadows on the most distant of walls.

"It hadn't been fair," he continued, and I could feel his anger raising through his heated skin, "that they didn't even bothered to let me know until the end of my fifth year here. It hadn't been fair that my family died, that Sirius died, that all the people I cared about almost died, at one point or another, because Voldemort wanted me! I hadn't even known! And now that I do, it's not fair that I have to live knowing that I'LL die and everybody's hopes will die with me! I don't want this responsibility! I don't want it!"

His voice had been gradually rising, without him noticing it, until the point he was yelling.

I've never known how to soothe. It was probably the thing my former role would have demanded at that precise moment, but I wasn't playing 'her' anymore. 'She' would have had to soothe Harry, but I wasn't going to. It's not like I was his mother or his sodding guardian angel! I was merely the one to deliver his head on a plate to the Dark and Evil One.

"I'm not strong enough to fight Voldemort. I know it. I've survived until now, but what if I won't, next time? I dream about it, this 'next time', over and over again, night after night. That's why I started sneaking out of bed in the first place. I didn't want to fall asleep, I couldn't let myself fall asleep! Can you imagine how it feels, dying in a different way every night, again and again, and knowing you've failed everyone by dying? That they're condemned because of you?"

He stopped, almost out of breath.

"There is only one way Voldemort would kill you. And that is Avada Kedavra." Really, I didn't believe the Dark One would have the patience to wait for Potter to die by Cruciatus, appealing as that might be to his corrupted mind, so I was telling the truth. "So at least, you shouldn't worry about ways to die."

He looked at me quite surprised, even shocked. I suppose 'she' had sounded a bit unsympathetic.

"Yes, you're right." He shook his head, smiling a wry smile. "I shouldn't worry about ways to die. But, you see, right now I don't want to die. I never did, but, before, I had come to accept it."

"Before what?" I asked, my lips trembling a bit, probably with the long time that had passed since they had parted from Harry's skin.

"Before you," he responded in a slightly incredulous voice, like I'd asked a stupid question, like the answer was obvious and self-understood.

~''~

Late on the same night, I sat in my bed, staring at the ceiling and unable to sleep. It wasn't an unusual occurrence. I didn't know whether I had the Transjuice Potion to blame for my insomnia, or whether it was Potter's fault for claiming my thoughts so completely that I could hardly get myself to rest.

But that night I had a lot more than the usual to think about. Potter and his stupid trust in 'her'. Potter and his devotion for 'her' so great that it had made him want to fight He-Who-Sensible-People-Didn't-Dare-To-Oppose instead of lying down and die! Which only meant I had miserably failed in my mission.

Or maybe not.

If 'she' had come to mean that much for him, 'she' was the key to his destruction. No, my flawless plan was going as well as always, after all. All I had to do was wait for the right time and do the right thing. Do what was expected of me. And, in the meanwhile, enjoy all the collateral benefits that presented.

~''~

The Christmas break was fast approaching. Everybody was tired and they didn't pay much attention to classes anymore. One day, during Transfiguration, McGonagall announced we would be studying Feature Changing Spells for that class. She was quite impressed when I turned my eyes black and then back to their original colour several times without effort. (Practice does make perfect, I guess.) She even awarded ten points to Slytherin for that.

Pride is a dumb thing. I was so happy with the impression I had made during Transfiguration, that I stupidly agree to perform the charm again in the corridor when Crabbe asked me to. He and Goyle seemed to find my eyes changing colour extremely funny.

Then Potter showed up. Ah, the look on his face when he saw my eyes! Surprise, confusion, anger. He dropped his books and stood there petrified, while Weasley and Granger were making a big fuss around him. It was of no use that I quickly muttered the 'Finite Incantatem' and the black eyes were gone in a second. Potter had seen them. Maybe he believed he'd started hallucinating, I don't know. All I could tell looking at his face was that he didn't understand how 'her' eyes could fit so well on my face.

And when Potter doesn't understand something, he goes chasing after the answer. In this case, it meant chasing after me. I have no idea how he got rid of his friends so quickly. After five minutes, I was on my way to History of Magic, when I had the strange feeling I was being followed. I stopped, turned around and Potter nearly crashed into me.

"Watch it, Potter!"

Crabbe and Goyle had already assumed their usual threatening pose.

"I need to talk to you, Malfoy!" It sounded like an order. Some nerve Potter had!

"Let me see." I pretended to consider. "No!" And I turned around to leave. That's when he grabbed me by the back of my robes.

"Oh, no you're not turning your back on me, Malfoy!"

"Go to hell, Potter!" I glared at him.

"No thanks! I'd rather stick around and torment you!" He glared in return.

Crabbe and Goyle were on their way to trashing him. "Leave!" I ordered and they obeyed.

"I'm not skipping class for you, Potter!" I warned him.

"I don't care about your fucking class, Malfoy! You're coming with me! Now!"

"Potter, people are staring," I pointed out, trying to awake some sense in him. He apparently didn't care, because he literally dragged me right under their noses all the way to a deserted corridor.

"What kind of sick game do you think you're playing, Malfoy?" he asked, looking straight into my eyes.

"Funny thing for you to say, Potter, I was going to ask you the same. I have no idea what you're talking about," I replied, trying to remain calm and not lowering my gaze.

"Don't fuck with me, Malfoy!" He advanced towards me, wand pointed to my face. "I'm talking about this."

I could feel the familiar sting in my temples and I knew, without needing to look into a mirror, what he had done. My eyes were black again. Potter lowered his wand and stared into my eyes, fascinated. I started to have troubles breathing, as I became suddenly very aware of the closeness between our bodies. And Potter was looking at me in a way he had never done before. Not with contempt, not with hate, not with disgust, but enraptured, utterly and completely enraptured. Like he sometimes looked at 'her'.

That was the moment when I lost the last shred of sanity I might have possessed. Potter's face was so close and his eyes were subduing me, making me feel again the desperate need to drown into their bewitching, gloomy, deadly beauty. Without thinking clearly, because thinking clearly would have been too painful right then, I extended my hand to his face and slowly took off his glasses. I couldn't bare to have anything between myself and those eyes that claimed my every thought, my every breath, my every heartbeat. My entire being. That made me willing to give myself up without a fight.

Potter didn't protest at my actions. While I was loosing mine, his breath accelerated. Fragments of images, sensations, ideas, memories were suddenly rushing through my mind in a complete disorder. Out of this madness of thoughts, one eventually surfaced and engulfed the others, because it seemed to make such perfect sense at that point. Suddenly, I wanted to drive Potter mad, to make him experience my own painful confusion, wonder what was real and what was not, question all he'd believed and known until then. Question himself about me, like I was questioning myself about him.

Slowly recapturing my breath, I placed a hand upon the back of his neck and drew him closer. His eyes widened in surprise, not leaving mine, but he didn't react or push me back. I dropped his glasses on the floor, and they broke, but he didn't seem to notice. I ran my other hand through his hair and finally kissed him.

Kissing and feeling Potter with my actual lips and body had been unexpected. I hadn't taken into account the things this kiss would do to me. My blood accelerated, boiling with anger, no, with something more powerful than anger, like there was fire, instead of liquid running through my veins. And that was just the least embarrassing of my reactions, but I didn't care I was making a fool of myself, and I didn't care whether Potter realised, due to our proximity, that it wasn't my wand pressed into his thigh, but - to use a fascinatingly cheap euphemism - my, ahem, 'other' wand. I didn't care about anything but Potter's taste in my mouth.

It simply drove me crazy how Potter kissed me, and how different it was from him kissing 'her'. Because he did kiss me back. I must have been as shocked as himself. He kissed me with a mixture of urgency, not-understanding and fear. His lips trembled and I could tell that he was scared, not of me (he had never been scared of me), but of himself and what he was doing. He suddenly closed his eyes and it made me angry. I wanted him to look at me, to know and understand it was me who made him shiver so uncontrollably, to consume so helplessly and hurt so deeply. And once he understood, I wanted to make him loose his senses so completely that the only way for him to breathe would be through our mouths eagerly connected, and the only way for him to taste would be through my tongue that tasted him in return. I wanted to make him sink so deeply that the only thing for him to hear would be his own heartbeats, echoing in my ears, and the only thing for his skin to feel would be my own skin, and the only way for him to see would be by locking his eyes with mine and never look away. I wanted - no, I needed him to open his damn eyes and see me!

It was time to put my hands at a better use. Not one second breaking the kiss, I let them slid over his body, exploring. He opened his eyes instantly, looking frightened again. I didn't stop. There was something painfully enticing in that look that made me never want to stop. The slight reluctance and his involuntary gasp when I slid my tongue inside his mouth and pull his hips against mine made him taste so absolutely delicious that I my knees almost gave in.

I was the one, though, who broke the kiss. Potter's cheeks were flushed and he was breathing hard. I, of course, knew only too well that kissing tended to have that particular effect on him. More surprisingly, I was breathing hard as well, and, by the way my face was burning, I assumed it was as flushed as his. I had to recompose myself quickly if I still wanted to be in control of the situation.

Taking some steps away from Potter, I used my wand to return my eyes to their natural colour. Potter was staring at me (well, he mostly stared through me, to tell the truth), completely lost. It was only a matter of time before he realized what had happened, before his mind registered he had kissed Draco Malfoy, whom he despised, and then his perfect, little world would crumble into dust. And he would hate me more than ever. Perhaps he would hate himself, as well.

It seemed I had been right. Out of the sudden, a shiver shook his body and he paled.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Malfoy?" he drawled. His voice was cold and full of disgust. For me, for himself, for the world. I could tell by the way he clenched his fists that there was nothing he wanted more at the moment than slowly break every bone in my body and then start over again. He would, however, have had to touch me again, and it was only this, I believe, that kept him rooted to the spot. He just gazed at me, looking sickened. This look infuriated me more than it should have.

"What do you think I'm doing, Potter?" I answered his question with another question, in the nastiest tone I could summon. "I'm fucking with you," I threw back at him his own words.

He was positively enraged now, but still didn't dare to beat the crap out of me. I took advantage of that.

"Oh, come on, Potter! Don't give me that look! I know you wanted it, too! Because of her eyes. What do you see at those eyes, I wonder? What do you see at her?" I took a step towards him and he pulled back like I was a poisonous snake. "The wonder of the wizarding world, the great Harry Potter, falling for a girl he knows nothing about! I thought you were smarter than that!"

While I spoke, the look in his eyes had been gradually changing from rage to fear. But what were you afraid of, Potter?

"How... how do you know?"

"About her?" I raised an eyebrow, putting an amused look on my face. "Oh, I have my methods, Potter." I paused and returned his glare.

"Go on and hit me like you want! Though you should ask yourself, if you like her that much, what the hell did just happen here now, Potter," I continued to provoke him. He didn't move. "Well, if you're too scared of touching me, I have better things to do right now."

He still didn't react. The whole thing suddenly made me feel very tired. So I turned around and left him alone.

~''~''~