Threadbare

Two: Cheating

Draco.

After three days, it isn’t too hard to figure out that Harry is avoiding you. What baffles you is why.

Because of curiosity -- or perhaps neediness - Thursday afternoon finds you on the Quidditch pitch, waiting for the usual three-hour Gryffindor practice to start. The autumn colors are beautiful around you; but the cold breeze seeps in through your robes and you shiver, wishing you had brought along your cloak. You sit down on the bleachers, and it isn’t long before the Gryffindor team walk out of the locker room, their Quidditch robes snug around them.

“Cold,” you hear Weasley remark before he spots you by the stands. You trudge over to them, instinctively searching for a head of black hair; but Harry is nowhere to be found.

“Where is he?” you demand. Ginny Weasley raises an eyebrow.

“He wasn’t feeling very well, so he decided to skip practice,” she replies, looking at you warily. “Didn’t you know?”

“No, he hasn’t been...”

Your voice trails off, not willing to finish the sentence. Ron Weasley, acting as substitute Captain, you presume, tells them to go start practicing. When they’re all in the air, he turns back to you. There is no typical trace of dislike on his face, the one he does his best to hide for the sake of his best friend. Instead, there’s worry. You don’t know if you should feel better.

“Are you two having problems?” he asks. His straightforwardness takes you aback.

“No, not that I know of... why?”

He shrugs, observing the team from a distance. “Harry’s been weird lately. When he told me he felt too ill to practice, he didn’t seem as sick as, well, I don’t know. Tired. Sad. I’d thought it had something to do with you. I mean, it didn’t really seem like you were having a fight, but I just had to make sure.”

So Weasley’s noticed as well.

“Is he in the hospital wing?”

He shakes his head. “No, he said he’d just stay in bed, get some rest.”

“All right.” You consider, for a moment, asking if you could possibly visit him; but he says quickly, as if afraid he might someday regret it, “The password is telephone.”

You step back. “Thanks, Weasley.”

“Anytime.”

It’s only when you turn around and walk away that you awkwardly realize that, not only did Harry skip Quidditch to stay in bed, but you also had a civil conversation with the Weasel lasting more than ten seconds, including the Gryffindor common room password, and ending with a word of gratitude. From you.

Yes, the world has turned upside-down.

~~~

Harry.

It’s quite warm in the room, but you wrap your arms about yourself. You’re alone, seated on a chair beside the window, The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Seven forgotten on the floor before you. Your mind is devoid of thoughts, your eyes trained outside. The clouds are dark, as if rain is about to come down in torrents. They embrace the trees of red and gold as if attempting to immerse them in a monochrome gray.

You’re so caught up in everything: nothing: that you don’t notice anyone coming in until you see, reflected on the smooth glass, eyes as gray as the sky outside.

He stares at your reflection, his cheeks flushed and his hair in uncommon disarray. His shallow breath tells you he has hurried to see you, but he doesn’t make another sound.

You haven’t been this close to him since -- when? He has a scent of fresh laundry: not a sharp smell, but soft. Pleasing. Unlike:

The cutting smell of woods, of rain, of the ocean... wizard perfume, made with magic, so many tangs at once.

He’s still gazing at you from behind. Slowly, he lifts a hand, laying it on your shoulder in what you think should be a comforting gesture.

Hands on your skin.

It lingers there for the longest time, it seems. Every second is a new touch, and it takes everything from you not to flinch or to hold your breath. His hand warms your skin, but freezes your soul, for a few harsh moments. Then you stand, turning to him, and he lets his hand fall to his side.

“What’s wrong?”

His expression, you see, is sincerely worried. You don’t know why. You expected him, perhaps, to be angry -- or pissed off, at least. He’s used to your attention -- and he thrives on it, having parents who give him all he wants, but not always what he needs. What he needs is someone to really care: by ignoring him, you’ve taken it away, and you would understand if he were spouting fire right now. But he isn’t, and so you’re at a loss for words.

“Harry?”

You watch his lips form your name, his tongue lingering on the r. His lips are thin, but not pressed, and extremely tempting. If only...

You remember, this time, not hands, but a mouth trailing where they used to be. Lips and a talented, unwelcome tongue, down your neck, down your chest, down...

You shudder, and he must have seen it. He takes your hand gently, and you don’t notice very much, no because that mouth -- that mouth is still all over you, like water, or warmth, like joy or sorrow. It is nothing, yet everything like them: if only you could forget, if only you could even try, but it’s so much a part of you now that--

“Tell me what’s wrong. Why are you -- why don’t you want to talk to me?”

You can hear his usually steady voice waver.

You thought, when you went to meet him after the Slytherin-Ravenclaw game, that he would -- that he would be your comfort, your strength. And that he would take care of you and make it all right. But he needed his own solace: it was not for him to give. So you held your tongue, and somehow, in between then and now, you decided that your demons are for you to fight, not for him. You don’t want to bother him, what with schoolwork and the future hovering imminently over you two already. And he’s suffering the loss of a victory, and his father...

His father.

You shiver as you think of him, still loose, still having the Ministry convinced it wasn’t him in the mask, no, that Potter boy must have been mistake. With the Dementors all gone and not enough employees to guard all the cells, they’d let him out of Azkaban willingly after another donation to St. Mungo’s. Draco obeys him, but not in his head, where he has better plans for himself than bowing down to the enemy of the wizarding world. He dreams of starting a large potions company, but if his father refuses to help him with the capital, applying at Gringott’s would be a good idea. Knowing Lucius Malfoy, any son of his refusing to become a Death Eater would likely suffer the consequences.

Draco knows this, but he isn’t scared. He thinks his dad incapable of doing anything too bad to his own son. He thinks he has nothing to lose.

You always have something to lose, you want to tell him. And it’s true: people -- wizards and Muggles alike -- tend to take what they have for granted, not knowing their worth until it’s too late.

You know his father, and you know that Draco will have so much more to worry about in the coming months. And you don’t want it to include you.

You let go of his hand, afraid that the truth is seeping from your skin into his.

“There’s nothing wrong, I was just... giving you time. You’ve never lost--”

“But it has nothing to do with that,” he retorts, not angrily or even insolently. Instead, as if he’s speaking to a child, willing him to understand that he would understand, whatever it is that implores to be told. “Something happened.”

From the deliberate upward tilt of his chin, you can tell that it’s only a guess. But a damn good one, of course. For a moment, you wonder what you could say to possibly sound convincing enough for him to let it go: to believe that it was about a Quidditch match and nothing else.

“What do you mean?” Innocently.

“You know what I mean, and I’d like you to tell me.”

“There’s nothing to--”

“Tell me, or we’re never snogging again.”

You blink at that. It didn’t even occurred to you that... well... you haven’t thought of any kissing -- proper kissing, at least -- since the last Saturday, the day life changed. You haven’t thought of touching Draco, even -- or anyone else. All ideas of physical contact disappeared that day: all except the memories that just couldn’t stop coming back.

“Let’s see how well you can resist,” you reply in what you hope to be a teasing manner. He mustn’t notice. You can’t let him.

He searches your eyes so earnestly that you think he might even know: it’s the way Dumbledore looked at you, especially before you finished quite a superior level of Occlumency. A century passes before he says, and in a more enthusiastic tone of voice: “Hogsmeade weekend on Saturday. Would you come with me?”

“Wha...? But we’ve never...” He’s never asked you out before: only some of the Gryffindors know he’s your boyfriend, and the Slytherins would throttle you both if ever they find out.

“There’s Madam Puddifoot’s Tea Shop, which is on a side road. If not, there’s the Hog’s Head... and we could always pretend we’re just dueling.” He shrugs nonchalantly. You nearly chuckle -- Madam Puddifoot’s frilly decor would hardly seem like a good place for two male seventh years to go out on a date -- but he’s ostensibly serious, and you’re pressed for an answer.

“Er, sure. I’ll tell Ron and Hermione right away.”

“Great.”

You smile with your mouth closed.

He frowns.

“I know you don’t want to tell me what -- whatever happened. But stop avoiding me, all right? I won’t force you to tell me, but just... I don’t know. I hope you don’t keep it to yourself forever.”

Another denial is about to burst forth from your lips; but simply, you nod. You can’t lie to him for that long, but at least he knows -- he understands -- that some secrets just can’t be divulged. Not right away.

“I’m worried about you, Harry,” he admits. He bites his lower lip as he waits for an answer.

“Don’t,” you say. “I’m okay.”

He nods slowly, and the conversation is over. Before he walks out the door, he takes your wrist, about to pull you to him and probably to press his lips to yours; but he only gives you a one-armed hug, as if he can feel what you’re afraid of.