All About You

Through Harry's post-coital haze, it begins.

"So what did you do today?"

Little known fact, Malfoy is a talker.

Harry reaches for his shorts. "I'm off," he says.

Malfoy pouts on the bed. Malfoys get what they want, he'd once said, and I want you. Well, Harry can't let him have everything. "Fine. Fuck you."

"Next time." Harry smirks to himself, because sexual innuendo is rather new to him. He pulls his trousers up over slightly sex-shaky legs and wishes that once, just once, Malfoy would keep his mouth shut. He thinks he'd have a truly spectacular night's sleep if he did. And Harry hasn't slept properly in months.

Everything is absolutely normal. Seamus wakes Harry with a pillow to the face and a red-faced laugh before sprinting out of the room. Two hours sleep at the most, Harry's groans join with Ron's.

"I hear Slytherins have their own rooms," Ron mutters, pulling his pillow over his head.

Harry eyes his friend sharply but finally takes Ron's comment at face value. Subtlety is not, after all, Ron's thing.

Harry slides out of bed and heads for the bathroom.

After six and a half years, Harry longs to tear his uniform to pieces. His frayed cuffs are a joy to him, the thumb-hole in the grey jumper a convenience when he has forgotten his gloves and he deliberately drags the ratty ends of his too-long trousers through puddles. And he makes sure to emerge at breakfast each day with a new twist to his uniform.

He gives Hermione an innocent smile as she frowns at him, gives Ginny a not-so-innocent smile, and sits down next to Seamus, who glances at the green T-shirt under his white shirt and says nothing.

The Restricted Section is quiet. Harry sits with his back against a bookshelf, a book on the Dark Arts spread open on his lap. He lowers his wand's brightness, the Marauders' Map at his feet, and reads.

That weekend, while everyone is buying sweets in Hogsmeade, Remus will arrive and in the Forbidden Forest Harry will begin his lessons.

"Hate is not simple, Harry."

"Legilimens! "

This is getting old very fast. Harry stands firm under Snape's attack, holding eye contact. He's been repelling Snape's attacks for weeks now, but the professor refuses to give up and admit defeat.

If he was a Gryffindor, he would have been called stubborn. But he's a Slytherin, so he's just a sore loser.

"Fine. Go." Snape's tone is biting.

"Thank you, Professor." But when he turns,

"Legilimens!"

It's unfair, Harry supposes, but then Slytherins and Voldemort (the two can be separated, he has learned through painful trail and error) aren't always fair.

Snape sees something he shouldn't have and they spend an uncomfortable five minutes briefly discussing, in the most evasive terms, what is the wizarding equivalent of 'safe sex'.

It is, unequivocally, the most awkward moment of his life.

Harry's not sure how Malfoy does it, but he's barely out of Snape's door before his wand is in Harry's face. "You shit," Malfoy sneers. "You complete bastard."

"What?" Harry eyes Malfoy's wand until he's cross-eyed. He's really not feeling up to this. "Malfoy, what are you doing?"

Malfoy pokes him in the middle of his forehead, his neat, white teeth bared in a snarl. And then, with a sound of utmost frustration, he stalks off.

"Hey!" Harry stares after him. "Malfoy!"

Whatever it is, it doesn't last long and by the end of the week, Harry is in Malfoy's bed again, on his hands and knees, this time, because he did sort of promise. His knees hurt, after, because Slytherin beds are quite hard and Malfoy takes his fucking time about it.

His second orgasm of the night and Harry falls face down into lavender-scented pillows. (Malfoy is such a girl.)

Malfoy is a hot, heavy weight against his back, sticky in places, damp in others. His breath is definitely not as minty-fresh as it had been when he kissed Harry hello at the door.

"Harry..."

He groans.

"Hate, Harry."

"CRUCIO."

"Hate harder, Harry."

"CRUCIO!"

"I hate you!" Malfoy screams. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!" As he screams, tears run down his face and Harry's hands automatically reach out, even as Malfoy stumbles back.

"I don't understand, Malfoy– "

Malfoy sobs. There's nothing girlie about it, though. It sounds awful, like he's hurting himself. Harry doesn't know what he's done wrong. He can't think. He despairs.

He's never felt like he was lying, before. He sits between Hermione and Ron in Transfiguration and feels like exploding. On the opposite side of the room, Malfoy is sitting, staring fixedly at McGonagall. He looks no different from normal, despite the fact that he'd cried himself raw that morning in front of Harry. He won't let Harry catch his eye.

Harry turns desperately to Hermione. "I don't know what I did," he whispers.

"What?" she mouths at him.

"I have to tell you something."

"That's not a school tie." She leans closer. "Are those... ferrets?"

Harry grins. "Fred and George sent it to me. It's brilliant!" He can't wait to show it to Malfoy.

"Are you sure– " Hermione's brown eyes slide one way then the other. "You-Know-Who will like that."

Harry snorts. "I've tried everything else."

"Unless he sees it as tantamount to a public declaration of love, I'm not sure that it's going to work."

Hermione has a theory–

"Hermione, you're wrong."

"Oh, am I?"

- a theory that Harry is going to ignore. He presents himself to Malfoy in an empty hallway at the first available opportunity.

Malfoy doesn't know what to think. Harry can tell because he's twitching slightly, his long fingers going to his earlobe to pinch, before smoothing his shirtfront down. "They're ferrets, aren't they?" he says eventually.

"Yup."

It's a wizarding tie. The ferrets are running in circles.

"What the hell happened to you?" Seamus asks when Harry enters the common room, complete with a black eye.

"Malfoy."

Ron looks momentarily cornered as the rest of Gryffindor are up in arms. No doubt he wants to join in the furore – it's not as if he likes Malfoy - but his responsibility to Harry is probably giving him reservations. Harry gives him an apologetic look, though not too apologetic. Ron, after all, is in Hermione's good books for being understanding and tolerant and in all likelihood will probably get a shag tonight.

Harry and his black eye will be going to bed alone.

Malfoy sends him hate notes. To be fair, Malfoy's never sent him love notes, so Harry shouldn't really feel so slighted.

"Another one?" Hermione asks as he sets fire to it.

"Yup."

"I told you so."

"Was that necessary?" Was it? Harry drops a whole chicken egg into his cauldron just to see what happens. The ingredient list had called for salamander eggs but Harry had long since given up trying to work properly in Potions lessons. Besides, nowadays when Snape looks him, he looks visibly queasy.

"It makes me feel better," Hermione says smugly, tending to her own cauldron.

"Trust me, Remus, I hate him."

"Well use it."

"I'm trying."

Harry has cuts on his lip and they're not from passion. He finds his head dropping over his books during the daytime, while at night he's filled with renewed vigour. Not that kind; Malfoy still isn't speaking to him. No, Harry has a permanent pass to the Restricted Section where he opens and closes books that shriek and scream and threaten him.

"Do you even know what you're looking for?"

Hermione is really irritating.

"I'm sorry." Please can we have sex now?

"Fuck. You."

"That's the idea!"

Malfoy finds Harry's sense of humour lacking. Harry finds Malfoy is lacking a sense of humour.

Harry pulls up a chair and sits as close to Malfoy as possible. Across the table, Nott and Goyle are wide-eyed with shock. Harry thinks Malfoy's pink ears are encouraging. And... lickable.

"You have no idea what's wrong, do you?"

Harry rolls his own eyes. Or tries to. He gets halfway and then Malfoy has his face pressed down against the table and a wand squashing his temple. "See here, Potter, I refuse to exchange one Dark Lord for another. Get it?"

"Not really – y'argh!"

"Well, at least now you match, Mister Potter."

" - something about exchanging Dark Lords."

"Could he possibly know what... what you're doing in the forest?" Hermione whispers, while Ron looks vaguely uncomfortable. Harry thinks he's more uncomfortable with the helping Harry get back into Malfoy's pants aspect of the conversation than with the Harry's getting taught Dark Arts aspect. All in all, though, Ron was taking it rather well.

"How would he know that?" Harry taps his wand against his trouser-leg. He has his other trouser leg tucked into a long Gryffindor-red sock. "And why the hell would that be a problem?"

"What with you sucking at it and all," Ron says, grinning happily. Seems like Malfoy isn't the only one who's uncertain about Harry learning the Dark Arts.

The truth of the matter is, Harry can hate until the ends of the earth, but the rabbit is still going to twitch its little nose and hop from lettuce leaf to lettuce leaf.

"Maybe the problem is... I don't hate the rabbit."

"Hate the rabbit, Harry."

"It's a fucking rabbit!"

"You are not wearing a skirt down to dinner, Harry."

"Right – so... Well, here it is – um."

Malfoy looks unimpressed. He was raised on politics and Harry was raised in a cupboard. "Spit it out."

"Um. I miss you?" he blurs. When Malfoy doesn't hit/hex/harm him in any obvious ways, he continues. He adjusts his glasses. "I'm not going to be the next You-Know-Who. I'm just trying to – look at all my options. And, also, I'm pretty shit at it..."

Malfoy snorts as if this is a given.

"... but if you're worried about that sort of thing, maybe you should. Well. You know."

"Know what?"

"You know."

"No, I don't."

"Maybe you should stick around. To make sure that there's, er, nothing to worry about."

Hermione got all misty eyed and uses Ron to dab them. Ron is a little green. "You really said that?" he says, helpless at hiding his obvious revulsion. "To... Malfoy?"

Harry is still really, really red. He has been really, really red for about two hours.

Really, really red.

"Yes." He clenches his hands at his sides. "And yet he still walked off."

Remus is looking worn out, but it's midway through his cycle and it has nothing to do with lycanthropy and everything to do with the fact that Harry can't cast a Dark Art spell to save his life. Literally and figuratively.

"I think it's time we spoke to Dumbledore," he says eventually.

Harry, panting, drinks from the canteen of water they brought out with them. "One last try."

He's a Gryffindor. They're stubborn.

"I can smell it on you. Just in case you were wondering," Malfoy says in passing. In fact, he passes all the way behind Gryffindor table, then right past all the teachers and back to Slytherin.

Everyone notices.

Hermione taps Harry on the arm and speaks quietly, "I think I know what else he wants."

"Actually, this time I got it, Hermione," Harry tells her.

She looks annoyed that Harry's finally caught on.

"Hello everyone. Glad to see you've all turned up. This is the Room of Requirement and I'm Harry Potter. I'd like to thank you all for coming at such short notice - "

A Ravenclaw sixth year puts her hand up. "Harry - could you get on with it? I've got NEWTs to revise for."

"Right. Yes. Sorry." He pushes his glasses up his nose and takes a deep breath, Hermione smiling encouragingly at him. "I just thought you should be the first to know that me and Malfoy have been getting it off on a regular basis now – "

"Potter, I'm going to fucking kill you."

Remus is standing over the rabbit. "You know, I think the rabbit whimpered."

"That was me."

Remus throws down his own wand. "I give up."

"That's fine, Harry," Dumbledore says placidly. He is sprinkling goldfish food into a goldfish bowl. There are, naturally, no goldfish.

"... fine?"

"While the prophecy does indeed say that he who was born to vanquish the Dark Lord must do so by his own hand, it says absolutely nothing about how. Mr Lupin's suggestion that you learn the very basis of the Dark Arts has merit. You do, after all, have to know what to be expecting from those individuals who follow Voldemort." Dumbledore's eyes twinkle in that disarming way. "And keeping things from you, Harry, despite good intentions, has obviously not proved successful."

"Right. So... this isn't a problem?"

"No, indeed."

Harry stares at Dumbledore for a little longer. "Okay." Interesting. "Not a problem." Worrying about nothing. "Great." Fucking brilliant.

Dumbledore beams suddenly. "I hear you're to be congratulated on another front, however!"

Another – oh he did not mean what Harry thinks he means.

"It seems just the other day when you were being forcibly separated for non-romantic reasons..." Dumbledore muses nostalgically.

"Awful."

Hermione's hand goes to the base of her throat. "Oh, God, really? Did he say you'll have to keep practising?"

"No, oh no. That was fine." Harry waves that off. Dark Arts have nothing on the embarrassment of discussing your sort-of boyfriend with your Headmaster. "No, it was the part where he wanted to know how Malfoy and I got together."

Ron clutches at his hair. "Awful," he says.

Harry fervently agreed. "Yeah. Then I had to explain about the fighting and the way he talks all the time - "

"I still meant what I said. About you sticking around. And I've told everyone now. I don't get why you're still mad."

Malfoy ignores him and stares straight ahead. Snape chooses that moment to sweep into the classroom and Harry slides onto a stool next to Malfoy, casting a helpless look at Ron who now has to contend with Bulstrade.

Snape put his hand to his temple, as if pained, when he sees them sitting together. Possibly because he's seem them together together. In all fairness, if he ever saw Snape getting it off with someone, he'd get a pain in his temple too.

Ew.

"I quit, you know."

Malfoy looks bored. He continues to write languidly. He has very elaborate handwriting. "That's nice."

"I quit. The... you know." He lifts his eyebrows in emphasis.

Malfoy still looks bored. "Shut up, Potter."

Harry throws up his hands, forgetting where he is. "Oh my God, what is it going to take?"

"Detention, Mister Potter!"

His hands slam on the table. "For fuck's sake!"

"DOUBLE detention, Mister Potter."

Post-detention, he storms down to the dungeons, covered in slime, seaweed, bits of broken eggshell and flour. Peeves is pretty fucking amused and Harry imagines the group of Hufflepuff fifth years he just passed will have it around the school in minutes.

His foul mood gets fouler.

He bangs on the entrance to Slytherin, breathing hard.

"Can I hel– " Pansy Parkinson's eyes glow with wonder. "Everyone! EVERYONE. You have to see this!" She grabs a-hold of him and drags him into the common room.

Harry seethes not-so-patiently as they all crowd around. "Where's Malfoy?"

"His room. Where's Davis? Davis, get your camera!"

Malfoy is lying on his front on his bed, legs bent at the knee and swinging behind him as he reads a novel. He is looking exceptionally clean and more than usually angular in a T-shirt and pyjama bottoms.

Harry slams the door. "Right. Here's the deal."

He lazily turns another page. "Malfoys don't do deals, Potter."

"Yeah, well, whatever."

Malfoy smirks and closes his book. "Your wit stuns me."

"Like I give a fuck. I have quit the Dark Arts. I have told all my friends I'm seeing you. I have told all your friends I'm seeing you. I have told Dumbledore I am seeing you. I have walked through your common room looking like Peeves vomited on me because THAT'S WHAT HE DID.

"Now, take your bloody clothes off and get into bed."

Little not-so-unknown fact: Malfoys get a hard-on for authority and this Malfoy is certainly no different.

"Tell me about your day."