Black Sheep

Chapter Five
In Which There Is Nudity

DRACO MALFOY WAS STANDING, DRIPPING, on the carpet of Harry's sitting room. He had Harry's fluffy yellow towel wrapped around his bony hips and water still clung to his white skin in shivering droplets. He pushed his clingy white hair away from his face and said, "I could hear you from the bath, is all, and it was quite distracting." He looked pointedly at Ginny, who was still stuck in shock, and then at Harry, who was watching the scene unfold miserably. "Where are my clothes, Potter?"

Harry gestured toward the machine under the counter and explained in a muted voice, "I put them in the machine, but I haven't started the wash yet."

Draco frowned momentarily and then turned to the young woman with a smile. He spoke lightly as he said, "You, my dear, seem to be delaying my laundry. Why don't you do like Wonder Boy told you and get lost?"

This got a reaction from Ginny and she choked disbelievingly for several moments, looking between Harry and Draco. "You - you can't just - he -" she gabbled incoherently, unable to express her fury at Malfoy's gall or her anger at Harry's lack thereof. Then without another attempt at speech, she pulled her wand, spun on her heel, and apparated away with a loud, angry crack.

"Great," Draco said, rubbing his hands together. "Now you can clean my clothes." Harry only shot him a deadly look and so he asked, but in a surprisingly serious voice, "Did I do something wrong?"

His tone caused Harry to pause and think before he answered. "No," he said slowly, "you didn't."

"Well, then?" Draco said curiously, glancing meaningfully toward the washing machine.

"Oh, fine, I'll start the damned laundry." He felt peevish and he looked resentfully at Draco to find something wrong with him. His eyes stopped on the towel wrapped around Draco and he said nastily, "I'll need to wash that, too. Now that it's been touching you."

The blond shrugged and pulled the towel off in an easy move and threw it at Harry. It struck the unresponding man in the chest and then fell to the floor at his feet. Harry was too boggled by the sight of Draco Malfoy standing easily in his sitting room, completely nude. There wasn't enough cleaning in the world to make that right again.

He forced his eyes onto that pale smirking face. He hadn't really wanted the towel back that badly. He'd just been spoiling for a fight. He asked disbelievingly, "What are you doing?"

"What?" Draco asked innocently. He glanced down at his own wiry body and then began to smile. "Oh, please..." he had to pause here because his grin was getting out of control, "please don't tell me your flustered? Avert you're blushing eyes, Potter!" He positively burst out laughing and cried, "My god, weren't you on the quidditch team for something like six years?"

"Five," Harry corrected him stiffly.

"And you're embarrassed by seeing a naked man? And not even a bad specimen, if I say so myself."

Harry felt the need to argue and he picked up the towel to avoid looking at Malfoy's... well, his body, "Of course I saw my teammates, but you're... you hate me. Or I hate you. I mean - it's just different."

The blond grinned ferally and held his arms out expansively, revealing the faded Dark Mark on his forearm. "Well, then, spell my clothes clean and your problems will be solved!"

"Oh, I wish," Harry muttered sincerely. But with one more glare in the other man's direction, he took the three steps to the laundry machine and threw the damp towel in on top of the other man's clothes. Tossing in a packet of detergent, he viciously wrenched on the machine's knob and it started up with a faint knocking noise. He turned back around and of course Malfoy was still standing there in his sitting room, legs shoulder-width apart and his arms now slung behind his head. He looked at Harry expectantly.

One green eye twitching, Harry waved one hand vaguely in Draco's direction and said, "Put something on, won't you?"

"My only clothes are in the wash."

"Fine," Harry capitulated, his face screwed up in distaste, "Use something of mine, then. Anything's got to be better than..." He looked pointedly at the other man's wiry, white body.

Malfoy spun on his heel, laughing, and Harry couldn't help seeing the flash of his white backside leaving the room. From down the hall, amid the sound of drawers being rifled through, the blond yelled back at him, "So what are we going to do now?"

We...? Harry mouthed silently. He snapped back loudly, "I am going to finish my cleaning."

The blond man walked back into the sitting room, barefoot and now wearing one of Harry's worn pairs of jeans, like the one Harry himself was wearing, and buttoning up a plain white shirt. Harry frowned uncomfortably - somehow seeing Malfoy in his own clothes seemed more intimate than simply seeing the other man naked. But the blond started talking before he could formulate anything to say about that. "I meant what are we going to do about getting me 'the hell out of your life.' I believe that was the tune of it anyhow."

Oh, right. Of course. Harry cleared his throat distractedly. "Well, you seem to have given up on finding your wand...?" He let his statement trail off into a question and the blond shrugged noncommittally.

"Do you want me to send you to Diagon Alley, to get a new one?"

Draco blinked in surprise and looked at the dark-haired man for a long moment, then dragged his grey eyes away to fiddle with the cuffs of his borrowed shirt. "No," he said in a final tone of voice, "that won't help anything."

"I could pay for a taxi to take you somewhere, if it would get rid of you," Harry said, not maliciously but in a matter-of-fact tone.

Malfoy raised his pale eyebrows in sceptical arches which clearly said, "Yes, we could do that. But we're not going to." What he in fact said was, "Where's your car?"

Harry scowled. "I believe," he said shortly, "that it was towed, as you should remember from last night. Why? You expect me to drive you back home?"

A quick flash of canines and Harry realised Draco had smiled. The blond corrected him with a drawl, "Not quite. I deduced, however, that wherever your car is, my bike is likely to be nearby. If I could get that back, I'd happily ride off and ne'er return. Understand?"

He did understand, but still frowned. "I suppose... Well, the only tow truck I know in the area is up in Cherhill. I would guess it must be there. But we couldn't possibly walk there."

Rolling his eyes dramatically, Draco flung himself down on the squashy couch, crying out, "Merlin's beard, Potter! Are you not a wizard? You don't have to walk anywhere."

Harry felt oddly as if he ought to move into the sitting room to continue their... conversation? But instead he turned the tap water back on and picked up his dirty dish to begin scrubbing again, saying, "You're suggesting that I apparate there? And what - steal your bike back for you? If it's not already scrap metal..."

"No," the blond replied from the couch, rolling his fair head from one shoulder to the other. "I'm suggesting that you apparate the both of us there, you get your car back, I get my bike back, I'll tell you how to do any repairs you might need, and we both get to go home happy."

Dark green eyes narrowed at the back of Malfoy's head, Harry scrubbed furiously at the dish in his hand, not realizing that it was long past clean. He said suspiciously, "You wouldn't want to do anything that would make me happy."

This did get the blond to turn around to face Harry with a perplexed glare. "Potter, what are you on about? I don't give a damn about you. I just want my bike back. If the way to get you to apparate me to it includes getting your car back as well, then who the hell cares? I'm certainly not going to cut off my nose to spite my face." He shook his head disbelievingly, his thin hair falling in his eyes. "Honestly, what do you think - that I'm going to turn you over to Voldemort or something?"

Harry jumped. It was the first time he'd heard the name spoken in years. "Well, no, obviously not," he muttered a bit guiltily. He didn't know what more to say though, and so continued to wash his dishes in silence. The other man watched him for several long seconds but finally turned back away and settled into the couch with a little wiggle. Like he had earlier on the hills above A4, he settled into an unconcerned silence. He didn't seem to feel the same discomfort that Harry did whenever these silences stretched between them, without conversation or even insults.

Gritting his teeth and trying to pretend that there was not in fact an intruder sitting casually on his couch, Harry finished the dishes. He arranged them in his metal drying rack, making sure to leave enough space to let them quickly dry. The bottle of furniture polish was still sitting on the counter, on the other side of the sink. He picked it up and, although it was contrary to his usual habit, walked straight to his bedroom with it. He looked around the room warily, half-expecting to see his belongings strewn about and obviously rifled through. But Malfoy had only been alone in the room for moments and the room looked untouched.

Silently berating himself, Harry began to run his oiled cloth over the few wooden surfaces in the room. He repeated these moves in the next room as well, before moving back to the sitting room. With his back still resolutely pointed at Malfoy, he dropped to his knees and began to dust the TV stand. Finally he turned around to the coffee table that sat before the blond man, not looking up into those surely mocking grey eyes. But he could still see the the long legs in front of him, encased in his own jeans. He saw them shift, as Malfoy leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, drawling, "So...?"

"So?" Harry continued to polish the table in broad circles.

"So are we going to go?"

Harry pressed the cap firmly back on to his bottle of oil. If they went, he could get rid of Malfoy and get his car back in one night. His life could go back to normal. "Yes," he told the blond, shooting him a narrow glance. "We are."




AND SO IT WAS THAT Harry apparated across Wiltshire, one hand reluctantly clasped around Draco Malfoy's wiry arm. They landed in an empty field outside Cherhill and the blond man stumbled, gasping at the tingling feeling of Harry's magic surging through him. He straightened up and grinned. "Let's do it then."

Harry glared at him resentfully and strode off through the golden late afternoon light. Autumn could be felt approaching in the air, though the foliage was still green and fresh. From behind him, he heard Draco ask in a faintly amused tone, "Will the tow man even be there now? Or are we sneaking in, under cover of magic?"

There was something faintly mocking in the last question and Harry ignored both the needling voice and its speaker. Honestly, even he wasn't sure if the shop would still be open. It was getting rather close to supper time. He began to walk faster, pulling his wand out and balancing it briefly on his hand while whispering, "Point me." It spun about once before fixing firmly ahead and slightly to the left. He set off in the indicated direction and it was only a few minutes before a scrubby lot came into view on the edge of the small town. There were a few rusting husks of cars among the taller weeds and a small garage covered in ugly, peeling green paint.

The two young men sauntered into the yard and Malfoy called out in a bright voice, "Hallo?"

Harry hissed at him, "You're actually enjoying this, aren't you?"

The blond looked at him in feigned surprise. "You aren't? Or are such escapades a daily thing for you?"

Of course, they weren't. And there was a certain thrill about it all. It was almost similar in some way to his school days - sneaking about empty grounds, his wand gripped tightly in his pocket, caught between nerves and anticipation. But surely he wasn't enjoying it.

An older man had stuck his grizzled head out of the garage. His eyes narrowed on them in distracted annoyance and he started out toward the two youths, wiping his oily hands on a rag that was already dyed nearly black with grime. Draco whispered in a laughing voice into Harry's ear, "Personally, I'd recommend a sleeping spell."

The dark-haired man could do nothing more than glare, because the old mechanic was standing before them suspiciously now. "What can I do ye for?" he asked in a decidedly ungenerous tone.

Harry said awkwardly, "I believe you may have picked up two wrecked vehicles yesterday: a BMW and a motorcycle. We've come to collect them."

The old man eyed the plaster on Harry's forehead shrewdly and as he listened, his gaze passed over the bruises decorating both the tall young men. He grumbled in a reluctant tone, "I'll need some form of identification."

Harry glanced at the blond wizard with a question in his raised brows and Draco gave a little shake with his head, his eyes laughing beneath his white blond hair. Great, he thought sarcastically, not that he was really surprised that Malfoy didn't carry any Muggle ID on his person. Meanwhile, the mechanic had been rambling on, "...of course you won't be able to drive them off tonight, not in that condition."

Harry bit his lip for a moment, then whipped out his wand and silently cast a sleep spell upon the old Muggle, who immediately began to blink heavily. He started to topple over backwards and Harry rushed forward to catch him before he fell. Lowering the now deeply asleep man to the ground, Harry glared at Malfoy as if the situation was the blond's fault. Of course, it sort of was.

But Draco walked forward without waiting for Harry this time, letting himself into the garage. Closest to the door was an unfamiliar car, apparently the one which the old man had been tinkering with when they had arrived. In the next stall was the black BMW which he remembered racing against on the A4. Laid out on the floor was his motorbike - or what had once been his motorbike. It was twisted and torn and definitely missing a couple of key pieces. Harry's car wasn't doing all that much better; the driver's side had huge, ragged gashes marring it and the front corner was crumpled like a piece of old parchment.

Harry stepped into the shadowy garage and made a gurgling sort of choking sound when he saw his BMW. Draco grinned again. "Shall we get to work?" The dark man nodded mutely and stepped up to his car, running his fingers lightly over the raw metal revealed under the great patches of paint that had been scraped off.

Step by step, Draco walked the other wizard through the appropriate spells. They fixed the body of the car first, straightening out the bent metal and filling in the chipped paint. The broken wing mirror was reaffixed and its glass fixed with a simple reparo spell. Tyres were reinflated and patched. They popped open the bonnet and leaned over the guts of the vintage car, their elbows balanced on the metal frame. The engine was not particularly damaged, to Draco's surprise, and they soon moved onto the motorbike that was sprawled on the concrete floor.

The bike took more work, as its parts had not been protected within a relatively sturdy frame, as was the case with Harry's car. As Draco demonstrated wand movements and explained spells, Harry couldn't help being oddly impressed. As they worked, he asked, "Where did you learn all this?"

Draco corrected his pronunciation on the last spell before answering, "Don't you read? It's not like there's much else for us rich, useless lads to do."

But Harry didn't read. He hadn't actually been back to Flourish and Blotts since the summer before his sixth year. All he had were his old schoolbooks and they were all packed away in the trunk that he hadn't opened in five years. He used the spells he remembered. He'd never thought of learning new spells before Malfoy had come around, demanding that his bath be warmed and his bike be fixed.

The blond laughed at the expression on the other man's face and said scoffingly, "I'll give you some old spell books. Elementary ones, of course. I don't need them obviously."

Harry blinked in confusion, thrown off by the seemingly genuine offer. But of course Malfoy wouldn't give him any books. They wouldn't see each other after this night. He waited for the next instructions from the blond and they continued their repairs without any more unnecessary conversation.

It was less than an hour later that they finished their repairs, but the sun was unmistakably setting by then. Harry glanced worriedly toward the yard where they had left the mechanic peacefully snoozing away in a bed of weeds. "Are you sure they'll work?" he asked with no little amount of doubt.

"No," the blond shrugged, "but throw a silencing spell on them and try them out if you'd like."

By now used to heeding the other man's instructions without bristling up defensively (in his early frustration, he had even offered Malfoy the use of his wand, but the blond had refused it in distaste), Harry cast a broad silencing spell on his vintage car before sliding familiarly behind the wheel. Thankfully the key had been left in the ignition or he might have had to ask Malfoy for a dodgy spell to hotwire a car, as well. The key was there, though, and the engine seemed to turn over without a problem, if the steady but silent vibration of the car was a reliable sign. He turned the ignition back off and stepped out of the car. Waving vaguely in Malfoy's direction, he offered, "Do you want to check your bike as well?"

Draco grinned. "No need. I was much more careful when we were repairing it than with your car." As Harry spluttered predictably, he continued, "So are you just going to use a standard memory charm on the old man?"

"Memory charm?"

"Well, yes. Don't you think he'll notice us driving away in these supposedly wrecked cars which now, thanks to my spells, look brand new?" Draco asked with cool logic. Harry gnashed his teeth. Of course Malfoy was right, like usual, and of course his solution was the easiest, as usual. It had only been 24 hours and he could already say "as usual." This relationship had to end.

Clenching his eyes shut, Harry let his head fall back, rucking up his own hair in frustration. "Fine," he agreed, "we'll use the memory charm. Obliviate, wasn't it?" He still remembered when Lockhart had tried to use the same spell on Ron and himself in second year. Though he was the only one who remembered the story now.

The two men walked back out into the yard and stood over the prone figure on the ground. Harry gestured toward Draco and the blond man rolled his eyes, then bent down to hoist the grizzled old man to his feet. Harry pulled his wand and took a deep breath, then quickly cast his spells one after another, "Finite incantatem. Obliviate!" For half a moment, the watery blue eyes of the mechanic opened with confusion on to the dark man in front of him, but then they glazed over and his entire face went slack.

Harry waited uncomfortably for the man to come back to his senses, hoping he hadn't permanently damaged someone as Lockhart had done to himself. One, two, three long seconds stretched out and then the familiar scoffing voice broke into the silence of the yard, "You do realise there's a time limit on this, right?"

Harry jumped. "What? What are you talking about, Malfoy?"

This time the look of surprise that Draco shot him wasn't feigned at all. "The spell," he said, quickly now, "after casting the charm, you have about twenty seconds to create the new memories, before they wake up!"

Harry looked at him with panicked green eyes, nearly yelping, "How the hell do I do that?"

"Just make up a story and feed it to him!"

Harry turned his attention back to the dazed man and stared at him wordlessly. How many seconds had already passed? "Um..." he started uselessly, stumbling over what to say, "the car and motorbike that you towed yesterday weren't in as bad condition as thought. You just fixed them and now their owners have come to collect them. You want to bill them and then... er... go home and sleep. You're very tired."

"Suggestions for the future won't work," Draco hissed at him, from where he still stood behind the old man, holding him up with obvious distaste. "Just leave off!"

Harry wanted to snap something back, though he didn't know what, and at that moment, the mechanic blinked and straightened up from Draco's grasp. He looked at the two young men with narrowed eyes for a moment, then said, "Oh, you two lads have come for your vehicles, right? I've just finished repairing them. The damage wasn't nearly as bad as it looked."

And with that, he led them into the shadowy garage, where even he still looked a bit surprised about the flawless pieces of machinery in front of him. But he settled the bill with Harry and waved them off with a blustery glower. "Be gone with you and make sure you don't end up here again. I want to go home and sleep. I'm very tired."

Draco blinked in wide-eyed surprise and Harry couldn't help a bark of laughter. The blond's mouth twitched up in a hint of a smirk and he admitted, "Well, I'll be damned."

"You certainly will," Harry muttered as he slid back behind the leather-wrapped steering wheel of his car. The engine turned over this time with a healthy purr and he grinned, feeling his life settling back into place. Malfoy had stood his bike up and was standing straddled over it, the powerful machine thrumming between his legs as he looked to Harry in expectation. With a last grateful wave to the mechanic, who hadn't actually had anything to do with his car's repair, Harry pulled out of the garage and onto the road, kicking up a hail of gravel and dust behind himself. Moments later, Malfoy roared after him, now crouched low over his bike, as Harry had first seen him yesterday. They sped down the empty road till they reached the junction with A4 and then, without any sign, they each went their separate ways into the gathering night.