Stay

'Well, well, well. If it isn't Draco Malfoy.'

Slim fingers tightened on the window sill and silver eyes narrowed as the sudden voice echoed in the silence. Draco counted to three before turning slowly around and facing the bearer of that voice. He schooled his features into a blank mask, betraying no emotion save for bored disinterest.

There the intruder stood. At the far end of the empty classroom, silhouetted against a corridor lit ablaze with flaming torches, Harry Potter leaned indolently at the open door.

And at once, Draco was sharply reminded of just why he had sought solace away from the buzzing crowds and blaring music and prying eyes of the Leaving Feast.

He thought of how he had entered the Great Hall only hour before, how his gaze had been immediately, inexorably drawn to one dark-haired figure in particular.

He thought of how he had spent those hours under the cover of creeping shadows, standing in the gloom where the thousand candles dared not touch. He had been suspended in some sort of desperate trance, alternating between the twin worlds of desire and hate.

He had forced himself not to look, but his resolved shattered time and time again. He had broken down and cast furtive glances from the far corners of the room, his eyes searching, finding, drinking.

And when he couldn't stand it anymore, when he had stepped out of the darkness one too many times, driven forward towards the boy with the angel's face and devil's own temptation, Draco had fled. Stalking the endless corridors of Hogwarts, Draco had found no peace until he had stumbled upon the unused classroom with a view of the night's infinite landscape.

The irony wasn't lost on Draco as he focused his attention back onto Harry. The one person that had inspired the urgent need for escape was the one person that he seemed he couldn't get away from. And the paradox of what he felt for this boy who epitomized everything that Draco simply wasn't, gnawed at him.

How he hated the great and honourable Harry Potter. Yet how he wanted him. With everything he possessed, and despite the denial screaming loudly in his mind, he wanted Harry all the same.

Draco pushed down the familiar sensations of self-disgust. He knew that nothing could come of this, this childish infatuation, as he deemed it. So why dwell on what will never be?

'Fancy meeting you here, Potter,' Draco said evenly after the silence had grown long and heavy. He stepped backwards, leaning his hip against the sill that he had been clutching only moments ago in a parody of casual elegance and boredom. He stared at Harry impassively, unwilling to let his ruthless craving show in his face.

It wouldn't do to let Harry know his presence unsettled him so. Draco swallowed back the bitterness rising in his throat. He had been discarded once, long ago, by the very same boy who now stood in front of him. He wasn't about to give anyone, least of all him, fodder to do it again.

Harry pushed off from the door frame and shut the door with his heel. It clicked softly behind him, sounding with far too much finality for Draco's liking. Darkness flooded inside the room. And it seemed all the more oppressing after the brightness that had just fled.

'What are you doing here, Malfoy?' Harry asked in a perfect imitation of Draco's own tone. He took several bold steps towards the centre of the room. He stopped, his feet hovering at the edge of the shadows, his body declining to fully step into the circle of light imparted by the full moon.

Draco sneered, the only display of emotion he showed since Harry's unexpected arrival. 'What's it to you, Potter, what I do with my own time. You are not my keeper.'

Harry crossed his arms over his chest. 'No. I'm not. But curiosity dictated that I inquire as to why the self-proclaimed Prince of Slytherin is in here and not out there,' Harry tilted his lazily head towards the door, 'lording over his subjects.'

'Sod off, Potter. I came here to be alone,' Draco said in a voice that screamed indifference. 'And I'm not being very alone right now, no thanks to you.' He straightened, taking his hip away from the window and turning his back on Harry. Draco hoped that this gesture would not go unnoticed.

Being in such close proximity to Harry was wreaking havoc on Draco's mind. He wished that the other boy would just leave and cease taunting him with the promise of a soft body and warm lips and smiling eyes.

But silence reigned once again in the dusty classroom as Draco listened intently for the sound of retreating footsteps and the unmistakable creak on an opening door admitting release. Such noises weren't forthcoming, though, and Draco heard not a thing except for his own ragged breathing, harsh and uneven in his own ears, and his heart racing wildly, furiously.

Then the footsteps that he had been listening for clipped quietly against the stone floors and thundered noisily in his ears. But instead of growing fainter as Draco had hoped, they grew steadily louder, closing in on him, matching the deafening drum in his chest.

Draco tensed. He could handle himself fairly well around Harry in a classroom, in the hallway, on the Quidditch pitch. But how well he could handle himself when the source of all his dreams and nightmarish awakenings stood mere inches away remained to be seen.

He balled his hands into fists, fighting the urge to turn and close the meager distance between them

'And do you like being alone, Draco?' Harry whispered, his voice floating soft in the air and wrapping around Draco's name like an embrace.

A sense of wrongness flitted across Draco's consciousness as he heard Harry utter his name. He felt a sudden, insistent warning that the Harry that stood behind him was not the Harry he was accustomed to. It was as if he was changed, altered, smoothly seductive and completely unnatural. But Draco pushed all of it aside, unwilling to heed any caution that his mind might cry out against the sensations he had long wanted.

Draco exhaled sharply, his breath coming out in a harsh whoosh from behind gritted teeth. He concentrated on how close Harry was. He was directly behind Draco, his body curving along Draco's own. But not touching. Never touching. Only a tantalizing breath of air separated them. And for Draco, this was far more intimate than actual physical contact.

It was the thrilling anticipation. The golden moment of suspended animation, spilling with promise, brimming with expectation. The heart-stopping, breath-holding, jaw-clenching clichéd moment that Draco had only heard about until now.

The heat from Harry's body scorched Draco's own. Hardly daring to hope, he bit his lip against a moan, a groan, a whimper of Harry's name. He wanted to lean back and fall in the circle of Harry's arms. He wanted to lose himself in the other boy, to forget past grievances and focus on the here and now.

'Yes,' came Draco's whispered reply after what seemed like an eternity. Though how Harry could possibly have heard that was beyond him. He sounded thin and strained, low and so very unreal.

Draco thought he heard Harry say, 'So do I.' But he wasn't sure. And he didn't care. All that mattered was that they stay like this.

Suddenly, Draco felt warm lips pressing against the nape of his neck, cool fingers sweeping over his cheek. Draco's eyes flew open. He gasped. Reflected in the glass window pane in front of him, Draco saw Harry's dark head bent forward, eyes closed in blissful abandon, hands splayed over pale skin.

Draco could stand it no longer. He turned and in one smooth, fluid movement, he buried his hands in Harry's hair and swooped down on Harry's lips with unrestrained abandon.

Six years of hate, six years of passion, of obsession, of weakness and desire and barely controlled rage exploded in that one kiss. Draco articulated all of his longing, all the things that he could not tell Harry in words he spoke through that kiss.

But the bitter taste of alcohol jerked Draco viciously awake. A red haze of rage suddenly clouded his vision, rage that grew all the stronger with the rise of his insecuity and vulnerability, sensations that only one boy could evoke. Staring him the face was Harry, who had to get smashed before reciprocating any sort of emotion. Harry, who had to numb himself and cling to the temporary support of liquor to feel anything other than disgust and hatred for the silver-haired Slytherin.

A lie of the ultimate kind.

Draco couldn't pull away fast enough. He might have stumbled over his own feet once or twice, he didn't know, all he knew was that he had to get as much distance between Harry and himself as he could.

And languidly, Harry opened his eyes. The ghost of a smile played over his lips, pink and swollen from the onslaught of Draco's kiss. 'Why'd you stop, Draco?' His tone was entreating, alluring, suggestive.

Draco recoiled. Where he had reveled in the sound of his name on the other boy's lips only moments ago, it was like in his heart now. Even if it was said with the same breathlessness, the same gentle, caressing quality. He swiped at his mouth, fervently wishing that he could get the haunting taste of Harry out of it. 'What the hell do you think you're playing at, Potter?' he demanded brokenly.

'I'm not playing at anything,' said Harry, bemusement knitting his brows together, confusion shining in his intoxicating - intoxicated - bright eyes.

'Why did you kiss me?' challenged Draco, his voice hard and angry. 'Why are you here?'

'I thought you could use the company,' was Harry's simple reply, said so reasonably and without regret, in a tone that was neither apologetic nor particularly self-conscious. Harry shrugged and looked up at Draco through long lashes and clear glasses.

Draco's eyes narrowed dangerously. 'I don't understand. You thought that I could use the company, so you followed me and forced yourself on my person?' He ignored the fleeting argument that he hadn't actually been forced into anything, that he was willing and, heaven forbid, wanting.

'You're right. You don't understand. It wasn't like that. It was -' Harry faltered. And for the first time since he had walked into the room, he hesitated, instantly become the Harry that Draco knew. His voice dropped to a low murmur as his eyes fell to the floor. 'It was just that -- I saw you. At the Leaving Feast. How could I not? You were all I could see.'

'That wasn't you seeing, Potter. It was you having an alcohol-induced hallucination,' Draco said scornfully.

'No, I don't think so,' said Harry sadly, wistfully. He looked up at Draco, a curious expression on his face that Draco refused to believe was anything close to disappointment or even a dying, wishful acquiescence.

Harry shoved his hands in his pockets and kicked at the floor in a gesture that reminded Draco bitterly of a little boy. But little boys didn't deceive. Little boys didn't hurt. Little boys didn't break hearts.

Draco didn't respond to this. He didn't know what to say. He was torn between needing to believe and wanting to deny. The words pulled at him, stirring at the embers of hope that that sputtered and lay dying in his chest. Long had he wished to hear such things. But if they came under the influence, then he had no use for them.

For a long time, Draco didn't speak, didn't move. And neither did Harry. Silence again rose between them. But it wasn't a charged silence, an expectant silence, or even a heavy silence that enunciated accusations and guilt. Rather it was empty, miserably empty and dead.

Silver eyes locked with green. Both unreadable in the tormenting shadows. It was Draco who moved first.

He strode resolutely towards the door, head held high, arms unwavering at his side, mind turbulent with unwelcome ideas of a happily ever after that would never be. But before Draco could reach the door, before his fingers could close in on the knob and turn it and leave with a resounding finality, Harry's voice shattered the quiet.

'Stay,' he said. 'Please.' And it was wrung from the soul, this supplication that Draco heard. Soft and filled with the same desperation that Draco was all too familiar with.

Draco bit down on his lip. Hard, until he tasted the metallic tang of blood which assured him that this was not a late night imagining, that Harry Potter was indeed asking of him something that he had dreamed of. But does he stay? Does he leave? Does he give in to temptation even if meant hating himself in the morning?

With an imperceptible shake of his head, Draco reached out and clasped the doorknob. He twisted it, threw the door open, and stalked out of the room without a backward glance.

It wasn't until later on in the confines of his room did he realize with a small degree of frozen disbelief that tears were tracking their way down his already wet cheeks.