Like a House on Fire

"Have you heard the news?"

"What news?"

"Draco gave Harry one of his shirts."

"The DMB shirts?"

"Yeah, those."

"I'm so jealous! I've wanted one forever!"

"Me too!"

*******

Harry decided that nothing could ever be remotely as funny as the image of Draco in a royal rage wearing a pink party dress. The fact that he was enjoying seeing exactly that was diminished only slightly by his very uncomfortable, very embarrassing current attire.

"So, Malfoy," he began smugly. "What are you going to do?"

"Shut up, bitch," Draco snapped. "I'm thinking."

Suddenly, he started smiling slightly. The smile widened and soon Draco was laughing evilly for all he was worth. Even as he was extremely worried about what Draco was thinking, Harry was grudgingly impressed by the depth and malice of Draco's evil cackle.

"Stay," Draco said eventually.

He swept out of the room, pink taffeta rustling behind him.

Harry settled into the chair, vainly trying to pull out the most painful wedgie of his life. He reflected sourly that going commando under leather pants was never comfortable. Not that a thong would have helped much. Then he would have a permanent wedgie. It was a measure of his instability that Harry didn't even notice that he had spent the last three minutes thinking about wedgies.

Why does Draco always have to pick on me? he thought grumpily.

At that moment, Draco reappeared, looking sour.

"Do you know how hard it is to avoid been seen going from here to the Slytherin common room during lunch?" he complained.

Harry shrugged. "Don't expect any sympathy, Malfoy. You brought this upon yourself."

The look Draco slashed at him should have left him bleeding. "At least I'm not wearing tight pants, pudding," he snapped.

Harry mimed being shot by an arrow. "Ouch!"

"Anyway," Draco continued, ignoring Harry's bizarre antics, "I have an excellent plan."

Harry stopped faking a death scene. "Oh?"

Draco strutted over to where Harry had been rolling around on the floor moaning. He produced a furry brown headband with dog ears on it and ceremoniously placed it on Harry's head.

Harry flashed Draco his patented what-the-hell-are-you-doing look.

Draco flashed Harry his trademark I'm-better-than-you-are-so-just-do-my-bidding,-pawn look.

Five minutes later, Draco's binding-magical-contract! look made Harry give in with nothing more than a muttered "Spoiled brat."

Smugly, Draco produced a leash and briskly clipped it onto Harry's spiked dog collar. Harry stared. That can't be good, he thought apprehensively and prayed fervently to any convenient deity that this did not mean what he thought it meant.

"Now say woof."

Harry snarled. Obviously he had prayed to the wrong deity.

"That was a very impressive snarl. Now woof."

"Woof."

"Very good!" Draco exclaimed sarcastically. "Damn Harry, have some spirit! Don't make me spell your voice..."

"Woof!"

"Obviously the leather is pinching your balls," Draco muttered.

Harry fought a very canine urge to bite Draco on the leg.

"Now, crawl!"

Reluctantly, Harry did as commanded, the urge to sink his teeth into Draco's leg intensifying.

"Come on," Draco said briskly. "We're going to tour the halls."

"Don't I get to eat?"

Draco glared at him. "Oh uh... woof woofle arf grr?"

Draco rolled his eyes. "No, you don't get to eat. It'll do you good. You can loose some weight."

"Rar."

*******

Harry's knees and hands hurt from crawling. He was getting a headache from the tight doggy headband. The leather was pinching in nasty places. His throat was dry from woofing.

That was all shit, but worst of all, Draco seemed to be enjoying himself! How he could enjoy himself while strutting around Hogwarts wearing a pink dress escaped Harry, but he suspected it had something to do with the fact that Harry was forced to crawl along behind him and woof, bark, snarl or snap at passing students.

I don't know where he gets the ideas for all these tortures, Harry thought to himself, then got a disturbing mental picture of Lucius Malfoy in knee socks and pigtails dragging Draco around behind him on a leash. Harry twitched.

His stomach rumbled.

Oh, bloody brilliant. Well, I think that's every part of me accounted for and complaining now, he thought grouchily.

"Harry!" he looked up.

"Hermione!" he returned to the girl now standing, legs akimbo in front of Draco.

Draco glanced warningly at him.

"Werwyminny woof!" he said.

"Draco Malfoy, what are you doing?" she demanded.

Draco looked innocently at her. "Why, I'm just a girl taking my bitch for a walk," he said sweetly, pointing at Harry's T-shirt.

Hermione stared at him. "I'm going to tell Professor McGonagall!" she snapped.

Draco dropped the innocent act. "I wouldn't," he said menacingly.

"And why not?"

"Binding Magical Contract." he purred. "Right, Potter?"

"Arf."

They both stared at him. Draco with annoyance, Hermione like he was mad.

"Woof?"

Draco, apparently tired of talking to someone as déclassé as Hermione, whirled and set a brisk pace down the hall toward the dungeon, dragging his unfortunate bitch along behind him.

Harry struggled to keep up, eventually abandoning his ineffective crawl and jogging along beside in order to avoid being strangled. Hermione quickly caught up with them.

"You shouldn't be allowed to do this, Malfoy."

"And who's going to stop me? Your precious McGonagall? I think not," Draco was infuriatingly smug.

"You may be able to command him, but you can't command me!"

"Oh, so you want to get your friend in trouble? Aren't you a Gryffindor? Don't you subscribe to all that standing-up-for-one's-friends, loyalty-to-the-death garbage? Or didn't you get the latest newsletter?"

Hermione was silent for a while. Finally she said, "Then I'll take it to Dumbledore. He'll understand."

Draco's eyes were queerly bright. "Dumbledore may regard Potter with favouritism, but not even he can overturn this. Potter is mine, come hell or high water, until midnight."

Hermione was silenced. Harry wished he could offer her a comforting word, but had a feeling that 'Arf' wouldn't make her feel any better.

Finally, they reached the bare stone wall which was Slytherin's equivalent of a Portrait Hole.

"Wait here," Draco said to Harry before inaudibly whispering the password and vanishing inside.

There was only one explanation for Harry's behavior, Hermione had announced.

That he was under some kind of spell.

Harry himself had decided that he had accidentally inhaled some Muggle drug which was making him lightheaded and irrational but he didn't think that telling Hermione of his theory would make her be quiet. Well, it might for a little while, but then she'd just start yelling at him again. All in all, it seemed safest to just stand and look apologetic. Hopefully Draco would emerge soon.

That thought brought him up short. He was looking forward to Draco coming back? Then again, Draco's sneaky, quiet, underhandedness was definitely preferable to Hermione's loud shouting. Harry put a hand to his forehead. His headache was definitely getting worse.

"I am really wondering about what I saw in the hall this morning. Why was he kissing you? You certainly weren't resisting, in fact, it looked like you were the initiator! There is something you're not telling me."

Harry took a deep breath. "Actually yes, Hermione. There's an awful lot I'm not telling you. And you know why? Because it's none of your business."

The instant it was out, he regretted it. Hermione bit her lip, finally silenced. Perversely, Harry's headache got worse.

Finally she said quietly, "I don't know why I help you. I can only guess that it's because you're my friend."

"Yeah," Harry snapped, goaded into an even rasher response. "That just must be it."

"Oh, shall I leave you to wallow in debauchery and humiliation then?"

"One kiss is hardly debauchery." Three kisses might be pushing uncomfortably close though... especially with someone as sensual as Draco

Dammit, did he just think that? That was not a healthy thing to think. First of all, this was Draco Malfoy. And second of all, he was quite definitely straight.

As if to prove this to himself, he grabbed Hermione around the waist and planted a sweet kiss on her lips.

As if stung, she leapt back, glaring fit to kill. Come to think of it, that had been a very stupid idea.

At this point, Harry's imagination escaped from the rest of his brain and pelted away. Draco is a better kisser. Fortunately, before any more untold damage could be done by Harry's marauding imagination, his common sense caught it and demanded to know what it was doing. Harry then consigned his imagination to a deep, dark box, guarded by his Gryffindorish sensibilities with firm instructions never to let it see the light of day again.

Thus in control of his mind once more, Harry shuddered. Now that had been the scariest thought he'd ever had.

This highly unproductive train of thought was cut off by the stinging connection of a palm to his cheek. Hermione's palm. He stared at her in shock.

"You prick," she choked out.

"Fascinating," came a cold voice.

Malfoy. Not good.

Harry saw that he had managed to get the pink dress off (no doubt it was lying in pieces at the bottom of some trunk right now) and was back in his Hogwarts robes. Harry felt a bitter envy as he reluctantly put his dog ears back on.

"That will make a lovely picture, Granger," he said silkily, holding up a camera, and removing a string of negatives. He snapped his finger, whispered a spell and the camera vanished

Harry smacked his forehead with his hand.

Very, very stupid.

He knew Ron had been nurturing a mad crush on Hermione for months. What was worse, he knew Ron knew he knew. If Ron saw those pictures...

Hermione then did something so underhanded and Slytherinish that Harry gave her a look of frightened respect. She simply snatched the negatives out of Draco's hand and hared off down the corridor. Draco stared after her for a moment before grabbing Harry's leash and giving chase. Hermione had a fair lead, but not so much that Draco's long stride wasn't soon gaining on her. That was when it occurred to Harry that he should be aiding Hermione's escape. He dug his heels in and stopped, narrowly avoiding being jerked off his feet when the slack in the leash snapped tight and Draco was forced to an abrupt halt.

Draco whirled around and gave him a withering glare. Then slowly the tension drained out of his face and he started to smirk. Soon he was laughing uproariously.

"Your Mudblood friend is a fool," he said in between bouts of laughter. "She may have the negatives, but it was a witch camera! It remembers every photo ever taken on it and can duplicate them."

Which meant they needed to get the camera.

Damn and blast it.

Harry ran through schemes to get into the Slytherin dorms. They all came up impossible. So distracted was he with his scheming that he didn't notice what had happened until Draco had him pushed up against the wall of the deserted corridor. The Slytherin boy's breath was coming in warm puffs right onto Harry's lips. A perfect plan formed in his mind.

He would seduce Draco into letting him into the Slytherin dorms! Everyone knew Draco was both dumb and lusty enough to fall for it! At least, he thought they knew that... and if they didn't, well they must be stupid.

Draco swooped in and planted a soft kiss on Harry's lips. Harry, sensing that Draco would be suspicious if he was enthusiastic, turned his head away.

Draco, undeterred, fastened his lips on Harry's earlobe and Harry made a quiet sound deep in his throat and, seemingly involuntarily, turned his lips to meet Draco's. Their lips met in an intense melding.

"There," Draco whispered, his voice husky. "Am I not a better kisser than that mudblood?"

"I don't know..." Harry said after a pause. "She has had a lot of experience."

He hoped Hermione never heard about that little fib.

"And I haven't?" Draco purred, leaning closer.

Harry hedged. "Well now, I don't know anything about your experience."

Deciding this had gone too far, the Gryffindor boy removed himself from his rival's grasp using a sneaky little maneuvre he had learnt in the muggle schoolyard.

"And what are you two boys doing here? You should be in class, both of you!"

Guiltily, they both turned. It was Professor McGonagall. Harry wished he knew how much she'd seen.

Probably too much. He almost wished it had been Snape who had caught them. Snape would have played it down to protect his wonderful Draco. Harry could hope for no such concessions from his Head of House.

"I think you two had better come and explain this in my office," she said ominously. "Now."