Coveting Thy Enemy

Chapter 22: Discovery

"You do realize we're in deep shit," Draco said after the inevitable post-coital high had worn off.

Harry rolled to his side to escape Draco's rather bony elbows, which seemed to jab him quite often in the too small bed. He looked into the beautiful silver eyes of his lover and noticed the trepidation they wore. "I don't think we have to worry. Ron may be an arse at times, but he has some logic. He knows blabbing would hurt us, so I don't think he'll say anything."

"Really, Potter?" Harry grimaced at the use of his surname. "Who would it really hurt if the school found out about us? Would it hurt you in any way?"

Harry thought a moment. "Not really. I mean, other than being jibed for being gay and sleeping with my former enemy . . . no. Eventually everyone would get over The Boy-Who-Lived becoming The Boy-Who-Loved-Boys." He smiled, hoping his joke would alter the mood of the Slytherin lying next to him. "Or, better yet: The Boy-Who-Shagged-Draco Malfoy-As-Much-As-Possible."

"Make jokes about it, Harry," Draco sighed. "I don't think you're seeing my point. If my father finds out about this, I'm worm food. Worse yet, he might see this as an advantage."

"What do you mean?"

Draco sighed again. Sometimes Harry could be unbelievably stupid. "Harry, my father's been trying to get me to hurt you since he found out we were going to school together. This would give him the prime opportunity and advantage to become the Dark Lord's favored. If he knows you have feelings for me, then he'll want me to use those feelings to hurt you, or worse yet, kill you."

Harry contemplated this for a moment. "You're right, of course. But, that's only if he finds out. Like I said, I don't think Ron will say anything. He may be pissed at me right now, but he would never hurt me."

Draco shook his head. "No, I don't think he would either, but you're forgetting something."

"What?"

Draco's eyes captured Harry's in a locked gaze. "I'm not exactly his favorite person. He may not want to hurt you, but he'd gladly hurt me in a millisecond, taking further anguish into consideration afterward."

Harry lay on his back for a few minutes thinking alongside his lover, whose elbows were yet again jabbing him in the side. Finally, he came upon an idea. Leaning up, he looked down at the silver-haired Slytherin. "Alright, this is what we do."

"You better have a good idea, Harry because if you spout off with more nonsense . . ."

"No, this is brilliant," Harry said, deciding to ignore the doubtful look Draco shot at him. "I'll admit, you probably are my biggest weakness, but what is Ron's?"

It took Draco very little time to respond. "Hermione," he said, a hopeful glint in his eye emerging.

"Right, and if there's anything Ron wants, it's to please Hermione. Because if he does . . ."

". . . then maybe she'll come back to him," Draco cut in, the hope aware in his voice now. "Yea, but do you think she'll talk to him? She's pretty pissed."

It was Harry's turn to shake his head at Draco's stupidity. "Of course she will, love. If Hermione's anything, it's a good friend. She wouldn't want to see either one of us hurt. We'll talk to her in the morning. After all, she's meeting us in the library at nine sharp."

"Can't we talk to her now?"

"No, it's . . ." Harry looked at his snitch clock, "four a.m. Hermione sleeps like a log, We'd never be able to wake her up anyway. It can wait until tomorrow."

"Fine," Draco said, "but we'd better hope Ron doesn't say anything before then."

***

True to her word, Hermione was in the library at nine o'clock. In fact, she had been there for over two hours already. She had decided to skip breakfast in order to get some studying done as early as possible. Draco and Harry were also up early. They had both shown up to breakfast in order to see if there was any sign that Ron had blabbed about them. Luckily, no one seemed to be aware of anything out of the ordinary. Ron had been at breakfast, but the only acknowledgement he gave them of their relationship was to glare daggers at them throughout the meal.

When the two arrived in the library, Hermione seemed quite glad to see them. "Great, you two are on time. I thought we would start with History of Magic, since that's both your worse subject, and then move into Transfiguration. Then, we can . . ."

"Um, Herm," Harry interrupted.

Hermione stopped mid-sentence. "What is it, Harry? Don't tell me you two want to take today off, too. After all, we only have about two months before NEWT's and . . ."

"Herm!" Harry yelled to gain her attention. Madame Pince hissed at them from her desk, so he lowered his voice. "Herm, I think Draco and I got into a little bit of trouble last night."

Hermione sat down. From the look of Harry's expression, he was going to ask her to sit down anyway. "What happened?" she asked, looking back and forth from Harry to Draco.

Harry and Draco sat down on the opposite side of the table. "Well, you see .. . Last night, Draco and I . . ." Harry stammered, slowly turning into an impossible shade of red.

Draco decided to cut to the chase. "Harry and I were caught in a compromising position last night."

Hermione looked confused. "What do you mean `compromising'?"

Draco decided then that Gryffindors were just naturally dense. "We were screwing, Hermione. Well, not actually screwing, but humping like rabbits anyway."

The shade of Hermione's face was now winning the contest against Harry's. "Oh," her mouth held the "O" much longer than was necessary. "I-I didn't know you did that. . . I know you two are a couple, but . . .I mean, I didn't know you were doing . . . Oh."

Draco looked at Harry, who seemed to be relying on him to explain. "Yes, Granger, we do do that. And, we do it rather well, if I might say so." He said, smirking at Harry who had just won the blue ribbon.

"You don't need to explain. Graphic memory. . . I really don't want to picture what you two do behind closed doors." Hermione said, her shock wearing off.

"Well, closed curtains would be more like it, I guess," Draco said, trying to be humorous but failing miserably. "Your friend Weasely decided to get a free show."

"Oh, shit!"

"That's what I said," said Harry. Now that the awkward part of the story was over, he finally decided to speak in coherent sentences.

"So, what do you do, now?" Hermione asked.

"Well, not us, Hermione. I was hoping," Harry corrected himself when Draco coughed, "We were hoping you would talk to him. You know, convince him to keep quiet."

Hermione didn't like where this was heading. "Why would I have to do this?"

"Well, everyone knows the Weasel still has the hots for you." Draco said in his usual uncouth way.

Hermione was getting the picture. "You mean, you want me to play up his feelings for me in order to keep his mouth shut. You're forgetting something. I am completely and utterly pissed off at that red-headed git at the moment, and I'm not likely to get over it very soon."

Harry's voice was gaining a pleading edge to it. "We know, Herm. We wouldn't ask you to do this if it wasn't necessary, but if anyone finds out, we're in a heap of trouble. I mean, everything that happens here eventually gets back to Draco's father. Do you know what would happen if he found out?"

Hermione wasn't a stupid girl, despite Draco's earlier gleanings. "I know. I understand. I'll do it."

"Thanks, Herm." Harry said, hugging her across the table. Hermione was taken aback when Draco hugged her, too; although, his thanks was slightly muffled and absolutely incoherent.

Hermione got up to find Ron. "I'm going to do this, but I'll have you know I don't like it a bit," she chastised before exiting the library.

***

Pansy Parkinson placed the book she had been pretending to read back on the shelf before she slipped out from behind the bookcases she had been listening through. She had a lot to do. After all, it was quite a lot of work keeping the school abreast of the latest gossip. Not only that, she had a certain Master to inform as well. On the way down the hall away from the library, her ego raised a few notches. At least now she knew Draco Malfoy hadn't rejected her because she wasn't pretty enough. She simply just wasn't the right sex.