Blackmail

Chapter 7

A few days after Easter Sunday, the students population returned to Hogwarts. Harry was incredibly nervous of seeing Draco, especially after the realizations he had made during the past week. He was almost certain now that he was falling in love with Draco… but Draco was most likely using him for his own evil purposes. How was he supposed to act around him now? Things are a hundred times more complicated than they used to be.

He couldn’t face Draco. Not yet. So Harry kept himself cooped up in the common room the evening the rest of the students returned. He skipped dinner, asking Ron if he could bring him up something small to eat.

The next morning classes resumed, and Harry was forced to emerge from the safety of his dormitory. At breakfast, he deliberately avoided looking over at the Slytherin table. In the classes he had with the Slytherins, he stared down at his desk, concentrating hard on the lectures and taking careful notes. In the hallways between classes, Harry kept his head down, staring at the flagstones as he walked.

Hermione wondered what was wrong with him. But she didn’t question. She would only watch. Ron, of course, wasn’t observant at all, and kept going on and on about the horrible Christmas he had listening to Percy talk about work all the time (he was now trying to increase the number of safety regulations on Apparition).

Finally, the inevitable happened. On his way out of the Great Hall after dinner, accompanied on either side by Ron and Hermione, Harry was just congratulating himself on a successful day of avoiding Draco when he crashed right into someone. Both lost their balance and tumbled to the floor.

"God," the other person muttered. "Why can’t you watch where you’re-?" The voice stopped abruptly as the person caught sight of just who he had crashed into.

Harry, heart sinking with dread, looked up and found himself staring right into the cool silver eyes of Draco Malfoy.

Harry stood up quickly. "Sorry," he muttered, just wanting to get away from there as quick as possible.

Draco stood up too. But he didn’t deliver a nasty insult like Harry was expecting. Instead, he was… well, staring at him, quite oddly.

Harry felt himself flush under the intensity of the gaze.

"Sorry," he muttered again, before brushing his way past the other boy, and making a quick escape.

Draco frowned and walked away in the other direction.

Ron had barely noticed had just happened, as he was busily predicting his own death for his overdue Divination homework.

But Hermione watched it all.

* * *

It came for Harry the next morning. A small, simple note tied to the leg of a reddish brown barn owl.

Harry skimmed the note, then set it down with a sigh. Of course he had to serve his detention with Snape. Just one more piece of bad luck to add to his increasingly rotten week… no, make that month.

"Something wrong, Harry?" Ron asked through a mouthful of toast.

"Detention," he said miserably, showing him and Hermione the note. "With Snape."

Ron grimaced sympathetically. "Ouch."

"Well, Harry, maybe this will be the time you finally learn," Hermione said in her best Head Girl’s voice. "After all, if you hadn’t been fighting with-"

"I know, I know," Harry snapped. He hunched his shoulders and slumped wearily down in his seat. "You’ve given me this lecture before, Hermione."

Hermione’s face darkened slightly, but she let the matter go. The rest of breakfast was spent in companionable, if rather awkward, silence.

The rest of the day went quickly for Harry. Too quickly, in fact. Care of Magical Creatures was just a big blur to him, and History of Magic never seemed to go faster. Before he knew it, it was time to meet Snape in his classroom. After eating a rushed dinner, he said good bye to his friends and set off to meet his fate.

"Good luck!" Ron called after him.

Harry mumbled a distracted "thanks" over his shoulder and made his way down to the dungeons. His footsteps echoed eerily in the silent, empty hallways, and the torchlight cast imposing shadows over everything.

After what seemed like an impossibly short amount of time, Harry finally arrived at the Potions classroom, shivering slightly as a cool draft washed over him. He lifted one arm, twisted the door knob, and pushed the door open with a soft creak. He entered the classroom, closed the door behind him, turned around and saw Professor Snape standing next to his desk with his arms crossed and one foot tapping impatiently. And behind him was standing…

Harry blinked.

Standing behind him was Draco Malfoy.

"You’re two minutes late, Potter," Snape said coolly.

"S-sorry, sir," he stammered, trying to pay attention to Snape and figure out why Draco was there at the same time.

"Do not let it happen again," Snape continued.

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Now then," Snape cleared his throat. "For your detention, you and Draco will-"

Harry choked. Me and Draco?!

Professor Snape threw him a piercing glare. "Something the matter, Potter?"

"N-no. Sorry, sir," he said quietly. "I just didn’t think…"

From behind Snape, Draco smirked. "Honestly, Potter, have you no brains at all? McGonagall gave us both detention."

"Quiet, Draco," Snape told him. Then he turned to Harry. "Maybe that’s you’re problem Potter, you don’t think. You never seem to be able to think at all, and that trait is especially evident in my class. Kindly do not interrupt me again, or it’ll be five points from Gryffindor."

Harry’s hands curled into fists at his sides but he kept silent.

"For your detention," Snape resumed. "You are both to take inventory of these new Potions ingredients I have just acquired." He gestured to an array of various substances sitting on a counter off to the side. "Then you are to bottle, label, and shelve them in the storage room. Without using magic, of course."

Harry nodded grimly, and he saw Draco doing the same out of the corner of his eye.

"Very well then," Snape said, gathering up his things. "I’ll leave you to it." With a flourish of his cloak, he breezed out of the room.

The two boys remained where they are, staring at each other.

Somewhere in the school, a clock chimed eight.

"Well," Draco said finally. "Better get started."

Harry nodded and approached the counter warily. On it was an assorted number of items of what Harry silently classified as nauseating. Fish eyes, frog legs, a liver from some poor animal, and a number of things that Harry couldn’t even identify.

"This’ll take all night," Harry sighed.

"It will if you keep complaining about it," Draco snapped. He was standing next to Harry holding a piece of parchment in one hand and a quill in the other. He cleared a space by brushing aside some pig’s ears with one arm, set the parchment down and held the quill poised over it. "You identify and count them, and I’ll write everything down."

"How come I can’t do the writing?" Harry asked, annoyed. How come Draco always assumed that he could order everyone around? "I don’t even know what half this stuff is."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Bloody hell, Potter, you really are useless, aren’t you?"

Harry felt a burst of anger. "I’m not. You just don’t-"

"Never mind, Potter," he said impatiently. "We’re wasting time. Fine, write if you must." He shoved the quill at Harry and brushed past him to get to the ingredients, his right arm knocking into Harry’s left as he did so.

Both boys froze at the contact. Harry jerked his head up, staring at Draco and feeling… well, feeling something move through him. He gulped and pulled his arm away.

Draco swallowed hard and averted his eyes.

"Um…" Harry started.

"Right," Draco cut in brusquely. He took a large step away from Harry and turned to face the counter. "These right here are asphodel roots."

Harry mentally shook himself and started writing the name down.

"And there are…" Draco’s voice trailed off as he started counting. "Ten of them."

Harry nodded. "Ten. Right. Got it," he said briskly, his voice only wavering slightly. He wrote the number down.

They continued like that through the night, and the rest of the detention went by mostly without incident. They finished taking inventory in about two hours, and moved on to bottling and labeling the ingredients. The boys were very very careful not to touch each other again, not even allowing an innocent tap of the shoulder to gain the other’s attention, right up until the end.

And Harry was sure they would have succeeded, had it not been for the bicorn horn.

In the storage room, Draco was shelving the few remaining bottles of supplies while Harry was carefully placing the inventory list on Snape’s desk, making sure it was in full view so that Snape couldn’t accuse him of trying to hide it.

"Hey, Potter!" Draco’s voice called. Harry looked over at him; he was standing with one arm buried in the shelf, keeping some jars away from a small space he had cleared. "There’s just enough room for one more. Hand me that last jar of bicorn horn, will you?"

Harry started forward, grabbing the last jar off of the counter as he passed, and stretched his arm out to Draco as he neared. Draco reached out to take the bicorn horn. His hand wrapped around the jar… and Harry’s own hand.

Harry felt his breath hitch as their hands met. His eyes widened as he stared up at Draco, who was staring back at him with the same equally wide eyes. The absolute silence in the room closed in around Harry. He felt like he was in a vacuum. An area of space that existed only between him and Draco. His senses became more acute. He heard the small but audible gasp as Draco’s breath quickened. He saw his adam’s apple bob as Draco gulped, and a single drop of sweat falling from Draco’s brow, down his cheek and neck to pool in the hollow of his throat.

"Potter," his voice choked out. "Potter let go of the jar."

"I-I can’t," Harry whispered hoarsely. Did Draco even hear him? He could barely hear himself. He felt like he could barely breathe. Oh god, what was happening to him?

"Potter, please…"

Harry finally managed to jerk his hand away. He let go of the jar, but the quick motion caused the jar to slip out of Draco’s grasp as well. It fell to the floor and shattered into a thousand pieces.

Through this, Harry and Draco never broke eye contact.

They stared at each other for another minute, the echo of the glass shattering ringing shrilly in Harry’s head.

"Draco…" Harry started hesitantly.

That’s when Draco lunged.

Their lips met in a bruising kiss. Draco’s arms wrapped tightly around Harry’s waist, causing him to stumble backwards several steps before losing his balance and falling roughly to the floor, pulling the other boy with him. But he barely noticed. He was kissing Draco back, just as fiercely, as over a week of pent up emotion broke free at last.

Draco was on top of him, straddling his hips. His hands were busy caressing Harry’s face, his bare arms where his shirt sleeves were rolled up, under his shirt, any part of Harry that he could reach.

Harry’s fingers that were at first tangled in Draco’s soft hair found themselves moving down his face, down over his neck and collar bone, to the buttons of his shirt. He fumbled with the buttons for a moment before finally succeeding in unbuttoning the first two, then slid one hand inside Draco’s shirt. He heard Draco gasp, then let loose a low moan as his fingers glided over his smooth skin.

As their erections ground together, Harry opened his lips to groan quietly, but Draco took that opportunity to let his tongue invade Harry’s mouth.

Harry rolled over so that Draco was the one now laying on the floor. Their tongues duelled for a moment more, before the need for oxygen finally made Harry break the furious kiss.

Harry raised his head only an inch away from Draco’s now puffy and red lips in order to catch his breath. He stared down at Draco, whose hand had just started trailing up and down Harry’s back. His gaze was immediately drawn to his eyes. It was the eyes that had always fascinated him. They always remained the same grey color, but the intensity of them were constantly changing.

Right now, they were like molten silver, and Harry felt himself becoming lost in the emotions that lay in their depths.

Slowly and carefully, he drew one solitary finger down Draco’s brow, over his pale cheekbones that were just so, so smooth, before the whole hand cupped the side of his face.

Draco’s eyes started to close as he tilted his head to rub his cheek along that hand.

"Don’t," Harry said, his voice barely a whisper.

Draco looked up at Harry, confusion evident on his face.

"Don’t close your eyes," Harry continued. "They’re so beautiful." His voice dropped even lower as he said, almost unconsciously, "You’re so beautiful."

The hand running along his back stopped suddenly.

Harry froze. Oh no. I did NOT just do that…

Harry scrambled backwards, away from Draco. They stared at each other for a long moment. "Draco, I-" Harry’s voice faltered.

Draco was still laying on the floor, breathing very hard, his eyes wide and filled with disbelief as he stared at Harry.

What have I done? He’s going to hate me now.

"I’m… I’m sorry," Harry said desperately.

Oh god.

It finally became too much for him; he turned and ran out of the room.

Draco struggled to his feet. "Wait!" He called after him. He stumbled over to the open door frame and looked out into the hallway. "Harry!"

But it was too late. Harry was gone.