Bored

Bored

Harry Potter was experiencing a very odd state of mind. He felt dizzy and strangely tired, and not in a usual way. It was not the kind of dizziness steaming from a particularly difficult piece of Transfiguration homework, or the tiredness he seemed to stumble across every time he opened the Potions book outside of class. It was not exactly foreign, but more like a bad reminder from the times before Hogwarts where he would sit in the cupboard and stare at the small spiders crawling around on the walls, counting their legs in order to keep himself entertained.

To sum it up, he was not just tired or lazy. He was bored.

One would think that he had enough to occupy himself with, of course. Lord Voldemort was one very persistent worry in his mind. His lessons in Occlumency, a subject he did not master yet, were weighing rather heavily on his consciousness, especially since Snape seemed to lose patience earlier and earlier during the private lessons. Of course, Harry was getting better, but the professor seemed to think it was happening way too slowly. To which Harry could only agree - he was beyond tired of having to look at the potions master and answering each cursed insult with a "Sir". The alternatives to Occlumency with Snape were on the other hand quite poor. Either he could be taught by Dumbledore while feeling a murderous urge to throttle him every few minutes, or he could ignore it all and have Voldemort probe around in his head without hindrances.

Harry sighed. Since neither option seemed worth the consideration, he could just as well declare himself trapped on that point. Ron and Hermione were sharing some common interest in their Prefect duties and both were starting to get on his nerves. Their false concern, their pretending to understand his situation... he had decided to accept the fact that he was on his own in this game, no matter how many people seemed to think they were part of it as well, and so he really did not fancy listening to their better-knowing pieces of advise and Hermione's hidden accusations every time they came too near the topic of that night.

Shaking his head slightly, he tried to shove the thoughts out of his mind. It was not his fault, and even if it was - then who was she to blame him? It was not her loss. It was not something she could relate to. He sneered. Why was he even referring to it as "it"? Did Sirius's death really mean nothing more to him than a simple "it"? He liked to tell himself he had no problems accepting what had happened which was why he kicked himself mentally every time he had to say it out loud and his voice trembled, or when people tried to comfort him, either through words or embraces, and he felt the urge to cry. He would have none of it, however.

Which was why he was where he was today. He had decided to shove it all away - Occlumency, his friends, Sirius, the general problems of his daily life - and forget for one day. Other people had spare time and could take "a day off". Now he was doing the same, and found himself utterly bored and walking around aimlessly in the castle. He strove to not worry at all, and it was with great dismay he realised, he did not know what to do with himself when he was not walking around with his heart in his throat.

Not that anyone cared, but himself and of course they shouldn't feel obliged to do so. He was after all only marked with either death or murder. No need for them to care about anything else, but their own lives.

"What do you think you're doing down here, Potter?"

He was startled, much to his own irritation. There was no mistaken the drawl even though it was now tinged with something heavier than usual. He looked up to see Draco Malfoy standing with his back against one of the dark walls, his posture indicating he had been standing there for some time. "Walking. Do you have a problem with that?" Harry said, by instinct brushing his hand against his pocket, reassuring himself his wand was in place.

"Well, not usually," Malfoy said, not moving from his spot, "but since it's you, I'll make an exception." He pushed his hands in his pockets, looking at Harry with narrowed eyes. "Not afraid to come down here to our icky Slytherin dungeons... on your own, huh?"

Harry laughed coldly. "Not exactly," he said, noticing the other's grey eyes darken, probably at the arrogance in his voice, which sometimes surprised even himself. "What should I be afraid of?" And he looked at Malfoy meaningfully, daring him to produce the predictable answer.

Malfoy seemed to stop himself before blurting out something, pausing to reconsider. Then he said, "You think you're bloody invincible, don't you Potter." His lip curled slightly as he added, "You won't see it coming, because you're too absorbed in your own little dream world." He stepped closer to Harry, smiling a bit shrewdly. "It'll be your death, you know."

Harry stared at him, feeling the careful shield of indifference quiver dangerously. The cold feeling of carelessness was starting to heat up, becoming something much more difficult and it bothered him. He'd been through so much, he should be able to keep it down, but as Malfoy whispered, "Like they put down dogs" he felt his control slip gradually. Hatred was shimmering inside him, building up at an unsettling pace, and he knew he shouldn't feel this way, but God... the thought of throttling the boy in front of him, just reaching out, grabbing a hold on that pale neck, squeezing and leaving angry, bluish marks behind, was so powerful it would have probably scared him, had it been earlier this day.

Right now, he was finding it so difficult to control his urge to hurt the other boy; he was focusing on nothing else but restraining himself. It was, to put it mildly, difficult.

"Malfoy, I'll advise you to get the Hell out of my way," he hissed, even though Malfoy wasn't really preventing him from leaving, "Your threats are nothing to me." He narrowed his eyes. "You are nothing to me."

The second the words left his mouth, Harry knew he lied. There was something in him that protested, and he felt the hate rising warningly. Feeling a bit disoriented, he glared into Malfoy's face, catching an expression of what - amazement? Shock? It disappeared quickly though, being replaced with something that looked a great deal worse than hatred. He could not quite place it, just as he could not understand why something about his statement did not add up.

Malfoy took another step forward. Harry noticed his body was trembling and his voice was shaking when he spoke again. "You think you're above me, don't you Potter?" Their faces were inches apart and Harry could feel the other boy's breath on his face, warm and yet cold, as smoke blowing off an extremely icy object. "You think you're special."

Harry really wanted to contradict him, but found that he had no words to do so. He simply couldn't argue the point and this realisation shook him out of his daze. Before Malfoy managed to continue his speech, Harry moved forward, catching the other boy off guard, his hand never reaching his wand, before Harry had him pinned up against the wall, one hand on his left wrist, the other on his throat.

Speaking softly, focusing on the point on Malfoy's throat where the blood pulsed fiercely, Harry said, "I am special."

Malfoy snarled and tried to push him away, but Harry used his own body, trapping the slighter boy efficiently against the stone wall. "And you are just annoyed," he said, his fingers tracing the soft skin of Malfoy's neck lightly, "that the only person who made you special is currently in Azkaban." The skin quivered slightly beneath his fingers, and Harry raised his face to stare at the Slytherin, who had gone deadly pale.

"When my father returns," Malfoy spat, his eyes shining with rage, "you'll pay for... for-"

"For what, exactly?" Harry leaned in closer, their noses almost touching, but not quite. His fingers were caressing the skin right around Malfoy's pulse, and he stopped on top of it, pushing a bit harder and causing the other boy to squirm uncomfortably, "For putting your dear daddy in jail?" He pushed a little harder, making Malfoy's eyes go wide with panic for a moment, as the pressure threatened to cut off his blood circuit, "For being able to kill you with nothing more than a mere movement of my hand?" Malfoy made a move to kick him and Harry blocked the movement with his own legs, increasing the pressure on the pulse beneath his hand. "With you being completely defenceless." He shook his head in mock horror, not caring that he was presently losing the control he had spend the entire day gathering. "Daddy would be so disappointed in you, Draco."

"Sad, isn't it?" Malfoy rasped, struggling in vain against the hold on his throat and hand, "To not even understand parental disappointment." He shook his blond hair in defiance. "What's bothering you Harry? Feeling a little left out?"

Harry stared at him, his grip loosening a bit. He pondered the other's words for a moment, realising there was something he had overlooked. His hand was caressing again, moving in small circles and Malfoy was shivering under his fingers, his eyes fluttering close for a moment before locking with Harry's. They looked at each other, their bodies close and heated and their tempers only barely held in check.

"Yes," Harry said slowly and he was not lying this time, "I guess I am." He cocked his head a little to the side and saw Malfoy startle as his hand moved away from his throat to rest on the back of his neck. The other boy did nothing but stare at him, as they locked gazes, something settling inside Harry as the rage started to boil away. The salt of his anger, the frustration of being secluded, denied any chance of real choice, remained in its wake and he felt days hurt and concealed imprisonment shatter his hard façade, leaving his eyes more open than before. He bit his lip from uttering anything that would look undignified and saw Malfoy wrench his gaze away, breaking the eye contact, but not without taking with him the recognition of something they, amazingly enough, seemed to have in common.

Moving in closer, their lips almost seemed to brush against each other, before Harry let go of the Slytherin, only barely managing to stay on his feet as he was shoved violently backwards. He looked up, meeting the other's gaze, not knowing what he expected to discover. Sliding slowly down the wall into a sitting position, he tried to get a grip on his emotions, which were tumbling wildly among each other. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he should get up, do something, instead of losing his composure, but the mysterious disorientation seemed to prevent him from moving. The boy across him had a blank face and his demeanour was impossible to predict.

Reaching into his pocket, the Slytherin clearly had a mind to grip his wand and Harry was surprised at his own lack of reaction to this. He simply continued to look at the other boy, his thoughts back on his life and the bottled up emotions, which seemed to be stuck inside him in a terribly huddled mess.

"Impedimenta!"

Harry barely managed to duck out of the way, scrambling awkwardly off to one side as the spell soared past him, leaving quite a scorch mark on the wall behind him where his head had been. Malfoy stared at him rather blankly, holding the wand in his left hand high above his head. Harry was contemplating whether or not to actually grab his own wand and defend himself, when Malfoy suddenly spoke, the sound of his voice even more startling in the groggy silence than the curse had been.

"You really should bugger off." He gestured in the direction Harry came from. "I believe it's that way."

Harry rose slowly, his eyes on Malfoy. "How do you know?" he asked, wondering what kind of a question this was, and yet having a strange urge to hear an answer from the other boy.

Malfoy gave him a look which clearly said, it is glaringly obvious, you idiot. "That's how this castle is build, Potter," he snarled, taking some steps down the darker corridor. He interrupted something Harry would've said, something he forgot again. "The stair cases might lead you elsewhere, however." He smirked. "Which you've probably been too dumb to realise. Ooh Potter, in that case I think I just did you a favour."

Harry replied rather lamely, "That's really too bad, don't you think?"

The other boy shrugged. "I don't think it'll help you much in the longer run, anyway. So I really don't care."

With that salute, Malfoy turned on his heel and walked off into the darkness, leaving Harry standing alone in the middle of the corridor, his stance still defensive. His mind was reeling as he turned around slowly, walking away in the opposite direction.