Animus

Animus (Part 11)

So what does it say about me as a person that I’m starting to believe my arrangement with Draco isn’t a good thing three days before it’s supposed to end? Is that good, bad or indifferent? I don’t have an answer, although it’s all I’ve been able to think about lately. Funny that I should be haunted by a conscience now - after all this time - when I was starting to think I didn’t have one anymore.

It is now nighttime, and I am incredibly tired, although I haven’t done anything particularly strenuous all day. I’ve obviously been doing too much of my thinking at night. I sit down on the bed heavily, then let myself fall backward on it, pulling Draco with me as I go. Maybe tonight I’ll be able to let go of these thoughts long enough to get some decent sleep.

“You have to stop treating me like this, Harry,” Draco says suddenly and I freeze in mid-snuggle against my pillow.

He sounds absolutely furious with me and I don’t even bother to try to hide my surprise. Treat him like what? I’ve been on my best behavior around him for days. Ever since finding out about Narcissa, ever since rediscovering what a moral dilemma is - I’ve been the perfect gentleman.

“Like what?” I ask, and I know I sound as completely dumbfounded as I feel.

“You haven’t touched me in days.”

Feeling too tired to truly think about the meaning behind those words, I look down at my arm draped over his waist and say, “I’m touching you now.”

“That’s not what I mean,” he says as he sits up in bed and pushes my arm away from him. “I mean you haven’t had sex with me in days. Since I told you about my mother.”

Oh God. I was so hoping to avoid this until I had my feelings sorted out. I was so hoping to avoid this period. “I just thought that...” I start to say.

“Don’t do this to me, Harry. Don’t treat me like this,” he says, and through his anger I detect a note of desperation; almost of pleading.

“Like what?” I ask, and I am truly, utterly confused. Haven’t I been doing the right thing here? What has he possibly got to complain about?

“Like I’m made of glass or something. Like I’m fragile,” he growls at me. He looks down at me and fixes me with an icy glare. “Don’t. Pity. Me.”

‘So that’s what this is all about,’ I think as the metaphorical light bulb turns on and I’m allowed to see. I follow his lead and sit up, then move my body so that I’m slightly in front of him. I stay like this, trying to decide what to say - I wasn’t expecting this reaction - I thought he’d be thrilled that I wasn’t touching him. Should I explain?

I should. Of course, I will. It’s obviously very important to him that I do so. But just as I decide to speak, my words catch in my throat. And instead of trying to force them out, I find myself discarding them and following the growing compulsion to touch him. He said it himself, I haven’t touched him in days. And I do miss it; oh so much. I reach over and place my thumb against the soft satin of his lips. “You’re so proud, aren’t you?” I whisper.

He looks at me, gaze still cold, and he doesn’t say a single word.

“I used to hate that about you,” I continue as my thumb begins to make lazy circles across his lips. “One of the many things I hated about you - how you used to walk through the school as if you owned it. As if you were better than everybody else.” My hand drifts upwards and now I am caressing his cheek with my thumb, careful not to disturb the bruise that decorates it. He exhales slowly and continues to look at me, and I see that his look of anger is slowly being replaced by one of curiosity. “But now,” I say, “now, I guess I can’t help but admire it.”

He blinks slowly, looking for all the world like a man caught in a dream. “It’s what keeps you going, isn’t it? It’s what keeps you so strong,” I say and as I’m speaking the words, I realize how true they are.

He blinks again and then sighs softly. “I don’t know.”

I continue as if he hadn’t answered me. “And that sense of pride is so deeply ingrained in you that you would rather let me touch you, have sex with you - than pity you.”

His grey eyes harden just a little. “What’s your point, Harry?”

“Is it true?”

He shrugs, turns his face away slightly. I drop my hand into my lap. “Maybe,” he says, then laughs somewhat brokenly. “Oh God, when you put it like that it sounds so sick.”

I manage a small smile despite the fact that I suddenly feel very sad. Placing my hands on his chest I push down gently and watch as he understands the gesture and lies down. When he looks up at me I see a sort of relief on his face; like he thinks everything is back to normal. Like he thinks we’ll have a nice, quick shag and re-establish our twisted little boundaries and forget this ever happened.

“I don’t pity you,” I finally say as I lean down to whisper in his ear. His cheek, against mine, feels much too warm.

“No?” he breaths out.

“No.”

“Then what?”

I prop myself on my elbows slightly and turn my head so that we are eye to eye. I pause to think as I tangle my fingers in his hair. “Empathy - definitely. A bit of respect. I don’t know. Look, I’m not going to deny that I feel differently toward you, but it’s not a negative.”

He shakes his head, inadvertently moving my hands along with him. “I just don’t understand. You want me, I know you do.” His eyes briefly flick down the length of our bodies and I actually have the grace to blush. I know exactly what he’s talking about. I am quite hard. This seems to happen whenever I’m in close proximity to Draco lately, which is so ironic considering that at first I almost had to force myself to touch him.

“I do want you,” I reply honest.

“But you don’t want to...?” He trails off as the look of confusion on his face is replaced by one of knowing and understanding. “Oh. Attack of conscience, Harry?” he asks, smirking just a bit.

God, did he hit that right on the head. And hearing him say it has the same effect as getting splashed by cold water. I shrug, pushing myself away, suddenly feeling the need to put some distance between us. “That’s as good a thing to call it as any.” I get up from the bed and walk towards the dresser that sits against the wall. Behind me, I can hear the whispers of cloth against skin that tell me he’s sitting up.

I stop in front of the dresser and stand there, fighting an internal war with myself. Should I tell him the things that have been running through my head? Should I be honest? I trusted him once before and he didn’t betray that trust...So maybe...

“Do you know why I brought you here?” I ask without turning around. “Why I came up with this idea?”

“Yeah, to hurt me,” Draco replies simply.

Again, he’s hit it right on the head. I choke out a mirthless laugh as I lay my hand against the dresser’s cool wooden surface. “Yeah, to hurt you. I saw you there and it was all so perfect. A chance to get back at you for all the shit you put me and my friends through; all your stupid, cruel jokes and tricks.”

He doesn’t respond and the ensuing silence hangs heavy in the air. I begin to draw intricate, invisible patterns into the wood as I ponder whether or not to go further.

I finally decide to finish what I started. “But that’s not really what I did, is it? I took it all out on you. Everything. I took out every awful aspect of my life on you because you were here and you were convenient and...easy.”

I continue to stare down at the wood, thinking that if my fingers could produce colors, I would have had a masterpiece by now. “God,” I say and I can hear that my voice contains just a tinge of hysterical amazement. “All this time, I’ve been punishing you for something you didn’t even do.”

For a moment, all I can hear is the sound of my harsh breathing. Draco, on the other hand, is so silent, he might as well be a phantom. My body tenses, and my hands curl up into fists as I wait to see what will happen next.

“Harry, I know that. I’ve known that from the very beginning,” Draco says softly, almost kindly.

He’s known? All this time, he’s known? What the fuck is he, a bloody psychic now? I didn’t even know! Jesus, have I been that blind? “Then why did...why have you stayed?” I ask, finally turning around, my voice wavering only slightly.

He moved while my back was turned. He’s standing up by the end of the bed; closer now. He shrugs and shakes his head. “We had an agreement, Harry. I’m getting something out of this too, remember?”

“The money,” I say flatly.

“Yes, the money.”

I nod to show I understand. I knew the money would be a powerful motivator, that’s why I tempted him with it.

I run my fingers through my hair, taking time to try and collect my thoughts before I say anything else. Once I begin to speak, I say each word slowly and with deliberation. What I’m about to say is the culmination of days worth of thinking and analyzing and I want to make sure I get it right. “I think I’m just now realizing what a shitty agreement we have. Because hurting you doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t give me back my parents, or the friends that I’ve lost. It doesn’t give me back my life.” I take a deep breath and exhale shakily. “And it doesn’t make the pain go away.”

And then some sort of strangled, mewling noise makes its way out of my mouth just as my entire body begins to tremble. It must be the exhaustion catching up with me, I think as I fall to the floor.

And it couldn’t possibly be that you just unburdened your soul to this man?, a strange little voice asks from inside my head.

I land easily and immediately draw my legs up to my chest and wrap my arms around them, hugging them to me. I close my eyes and drop my head to my knees, going as fetal as I can. Maybe if I press hard enough, this stupid shaking will stop.

But it doesn’t, and I sit here, on the floor, trembling like a child while waiting to hear his next words.

“Well, I was wondering how long it was going to take you to figure that out,” Draco whispers slowly from somewhere out of the darkness.

I open my eyes and look up to see that he is much closer to me now. If I reached out, my fingers would ghost upon his skin.

“I don’t want to hurt you anymore, Draco. That’s the bottom line. I just don’t want to hurt you anymore.”

He folds him arms across his chest and tilts his head to the side, as if trying to figure out a particularly difficult puzzle. Finally he asks cautiously, “So our agreement is over, then?”

I nod. “Your end of it, yes. I’d like it if you stayed for the remainder of the month. But if you don’t want to, I’ll understand. I’ll pay you either way. And you don’t have to do anything with me or for me...” A wishful thought jumps into my head and I blurt it out before I can censor myself. “Unless you want to...” I say somewhat timidly.

He laughs a little, but it does not sound mean-spirited. “Nothing against you, Harry. You’re a good enough looking bloke and I’m sure you’re that when you actually give a damn about the person you’re sleeping with, that you’re absolutely marvelous. But...sex is... not a pleasant thing for me anymore.”

“I’m sorry about that. I...”

“Don’t bother apologizing. That came about long before you entered into the picture.”

“It’s never, ever good for you is it? You never enjoy it at all?”

“No. It used to be. It’s...not...anymore,” he says simply, if not a little sadly.

Nodding, I ask, “So will you stay or are you going to run for the hills?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I suppose three days won’t kill me.” He waits a beat before saying, “I can stay.”

Relief floods through me at hearing those words. It may be pathetic and completely illogical, but I really don’t want him to go.

A moment of awkward silence ensues, where we both just sort of stare at each other, both of us probably trying to figure out what to say next. After a minute, he shuffles his feet and murmurs, “So...”

But I cut him off before he can go any further. Not entirely sure whether I’m saying the right thing, I blurt out, “Listen, it’s getting late, why don’t you...ummm...sleep in the other room tonight? I mean, it’s a perfectly good bed, why let it go to waste?”

Draco arches his eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yeah,” I say as I wave my hand in the air and try to sound casual, when really what I’m thinking is that it’s the least I can do for him after how I’ve treated him.

“I have to admit it would be nice to have a bed all to myself,” he says.

“Well, there you go then.” I pause for a moment, then softly say, “Goodnight, ” before lowering my head again. The shaking has subsided, but the exhaustion has returned ten-fold and all I want to do now is close my eyes and try to forget that reality exists.

With my head bent to my knees, I can’t see him, yet I know that he has walked over to me and is now standing above me. I can feel him, you see. And it is a very strange and disconcerting thing to think that I am so attuned to him that I feel his very presence.

I lift my head.

He bends down toward me and my breath catches in my chest. A shaky little exhale escapes my lips and then...I can no longer breathe. I watch in fascination as his face continues to draw closer to me and I close my eyes only moments before his lips settle on mine.

It is a chaste kiss really, and yet somehow it fills my body with more heat than I have ever felt in my life. But it is such a good burning that I never want it to end. Without thinking I try to lift my arm so that I can touch him; bring him closer, so that I can bring this beautiful, infuriating, enigmatic creature closer. But I can’t seem to move. Can’t move, can’t breathe, all I can do is feel.

And oh God, his kiss feels like...salvation...forgiveness...redemption.

And then, just like that, he moves and we are no longer together.

The loss of heat is so brutally intense that the shivering begins anew.

“Why did you do that?” I whisper.

On his face is the ghost of a mischievous smile. “Because I wanted to.”

I open my mouth, try to think of something to say, and fail miserably.

He straightens up completely. “Goodnight, Harry.”

And before I can say anything in return, he is gone.

I touch my fingers to my lips and feel the lingering warmth there.

It is the kindest kiss I have ever received.

And to think that Draco Malfoy was the one to bestow that gift upon me.