Threadbare

Four: Hogsmeade

Draco.

Hogwarts is up and abuzz at breakfast the following morning, with the subject of talk being the Hogsmeade visit. The sky above is a smooth periwinkle with a few clouds dotting the surface: a pleasant difference, you note, from the dreary weather of the past few days. Harry is laughing with his friends at the Gryffindor table when you strut in. Almost immediately, he looks your direction and sends you a smile, as if sensing your presence. It’s weird how he can do that. Maybe one of the powers You-Know-Who left him or something.

You raise your eyebrows -- only slightly, of course, who knows what the Slytherins would do if they found out -- and sit down to eat. Preston arrives not a minute later, landing on your shoulder and holding out a scroll of parchment. It’s from your father: hurriedly written, as you can see thin trails of ink from word to word. Your mother will recover in two weeks. No need to worry. It’s just common wizard fever.

‘Common wizard fever,’ for your healthy mother, would really just need less than a week to cure. You’re not being told something, and you know this for sure. But you don’t know what should possibly be kept secret. Strange what’s happened the past week, your parents and Harry keeping things from you--

Which reminds you.

Earlier this morning, you sent Harry an owl telling him to meet you in the Charms classroom after breakfast. So you eat and wait. When the time comes, you rise from the table and see him doing the same across the room. The Slytherins don’t ask when you excuse yourself. They’re deep in conversation and couldn’t really care less.

You fall into step with Harry in the corridor, but you don’t speak until you enter the empty classroom, closing the door behind you.

“So, hey. What time are we going?” he asks. His eyes are a startling green behind his glasses. It amazes you how, after years of enmity and months of passion, they still surprise you. For a moment you forget that this is not the brave, loyal, trustworthy Harry (or Potter) you used to know. That this is him hiding beneath deceit and dishonesty for the first time since you first met him.

“I was thinking late in the afternoon. Like six, maybe? That way it’ll be more like a date than an outing, and there’d be fewer students, since, you know, only serious couples really take advantage of the ten-o’-clock curfew. You all right with that?”

“Yeah, sure.” You don’t understand what the pinkish tinge on his cheeks is all about : is he glad you think you’re serious with him, or is he embarrassed that you are? Is it guilt? you wonder.

He continues, “Ron and Hermione are going out at six too, you know. It doesn’t mean--”

“Weasley and Granger have more sexual tension between them than all the couples in Gryffindor -- since Hogwarts started. Those two are so deep in denial that I’d kill myself if I had to match them up. I just wouldn’t have the patience.”

“No, you wouldn’t, would you.” The corners of his lips curl up to form an amused smile.

“Anyway. I’ll meet you five-thirty later, at the statue of the one-eyed witch on the third floor. Bring your Cloak, all right? And tell those two you might be back late. They’d probably forget all romance worrying about you, for all I know...”

“But why don’t we just get there the normal way like everyone else?” His expression is curious and too innocent for his own good. You want to hit yourself for finding it somewhat... charming.

“I have plans. You’ll see.”

His eyes are questioning you still, but you leave with an enigmatic smirk, rumpling his hair.

~~~

Harry.

“We, Harry,” Draco announces, “are having dinner.”

The High Street sidewalk is still bustling: there are mostly couples now, out on the dates and romantic escapades that usually begin about this time on the rare Hogsmeade trips. You are watching the crowds head back to school -- and the couples come in -- from a narrow alley in between two food shops. You and he are under the Cloak, pressed up against each other by the hips and shoulders. He’s so close and warm that it almost reminds you of -- well, it does remind you of...

“We’d better keep the Cloak, we might literally run into someone and they might find it suspicious... I’ll just go ahead and you follow, all right?”

Making sure no one’s looking into the alleyway, you slide the Cloak off you both and shove it as neatly as possible (which isn’t neat at all) into your bag. Draco nods once; then he inconspicuously slips out to the street. You wait for him to reach a pursuable distance before you set out to follow him. It feels strange and stupid, not being able to walk alongside him while lovebirds all around are holding hands and sharing saccharine laughter. You hope your time will come, someday.

He turns at a side street. There are restaurants and a few stores on both sides, and a small, three-story hotel in the middle. The Bophurt, it says in sparkling gold and silver dust on the front of the building. You follow him to the far end of the street, and the first thing you see is a beautiful fountain in a cobblestone square. Okay, so he wasn’t serious about Madam Puddifoot’s. But then, that place is a coffee shop, and you’re out for dinner.

The most expensive dinner Hogsmeade can offer, apparently, because when you pull back the ornate copper handle of one of the glass doors, the air that hits your face and the sight before your eyes is celestial, otherworldly, and elegant. It looks like a large hall, with platforms and low stair steps and intricately carved balustrades. Darkness surrounds the room, but each small round table has its own light floating above it: a cluster of fluttering blue fairies, sprinkling dust at each other, their laughter a soft melody. The ceiling is a permanent replica of the night sky; there are a few diaphanous clouds, and there are stars twinkling softly, dotting the black satin surface. A beautiful blond witch is on the high, spotlighted platform at the very center of the hall. She’s playing the piano and singing a soulful, romantic tune.

Draco clears his throat, and you see him waiting for you by a maitre d’.

“Welcome to the Starlit Hall -- follow me, sirs,” the latter says stiffly, but his eyes are twinkling like Dumbledore’s before he turns away and walks.

“This place is amazing. Look at those lamps, they look like concert glow sticks.”

“What are concert glows? What do sticks have to do with them?”

“In Muggle concerts, the audience usually has these sticks -- they look like wands a bit, but they’re plastic and more flimsy...” You proceed to explain as you’re taken to a table in a secluded corner far from the entrance. A waiter soon comes and pours a bottle of wine -- a pricey wizard brew that tastes like champagne and sherry and -- for some reason -- strawberries, at the same time. The flavors merge naturally, which you never thought possible. The magical world presents many surprises indeed.

The dim light illuminates Draco’s hair and eyelashes, leaving shadows on his cheekbones. He looks breathtaking

“Isn’t this -- well you know, it looks like--” You’re about to say ‘too much’, when he interrupts you with a benign smile:

“It is beautiful, isn’t it? But wait till you taste the food.”

“Oh, you’ve been here before?”

“With my Mum and Dad when I was nine or ten. It was their fourteenth anniversary, I remember, and they brought me along because I was being whiny.”

“Yeah, I can imagine.”

“And I kept asking to be taken back, but they said this place was for couples... and it wasn’t like I could’ve come up to you in fourth year and asked you to go out with me--”

“You could’ve, I started liking you then, too--”

“But I didn’t know. So I blamed it on hormones instead. Then you had to start going out with that Cho girl and make me jealous, and she had to jump you last year even after you were over, and I couldn’t take it anymore.”

“You cornered me and murdered my mouth.”

“A favor which you enjoyed and thus returned. If you want to say it that crudely...”

“There’s no better way to say it.”

He smirks wryly.

You forget who you are for the rest of dinner as you relive what few memories you have together at six months: the initial trysts, divulgence to Ron, Hermione, and Ginny, embarrassing and near-discovery moments, summer lettering... The food is indeed unbelievably good, the music soothing, the ambience calm and romantic; but you find the most enjoyment in the company. He makes you feel like yourself again, as you were only weeks ago. It’s weird. Everything’s changed so suddenly for you, but he’s still there: something to fall back to, like a comfortable home.

*

“Where are we going?” you ask subtly as you walk a bit behind him away from the fountain. The sun has set by now, and the lamps lined along the street -- as well as the outdoor lights of the establishments -- have been charmed on. You’ve never been in Hogsmeade at night, and it’s beautiful. Either that, or his presence is making things look better than they really do.

“There,” he replies, tilting his head toward the Bophurt.

“Wha -- wait, we’re going...” You follow him down the street and through the doors of the hotel. Inside, it looks as expensive as the Starlit Hall, or perhaps even more. You can’t believe a place as grand as this is inside Hogsmeade.

“I have reservations,” he informs you, heading straight for the -- Merlin, is that glass? -- staircase.

“Er, Draco.” You freeze on the spot for a while, so you have to run to catch up with him, your heart beginning to beat rapidly as you realize what his plans are. And it’s not excitement. It’s apprehension. He wants to do it with you. Now.

You’re quiet as you walk beside him down the third floor hall, stopping at door 305. It takes him forever to push the key into the lock and turn it. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you wish it doesn’t work. But it does, and soon the door is open and he’s inside and beckoning with his eyes for you to follow.

You step in.

The door closes with a click behind you.

The room is delightful: the walls and furniture are all in creamy, peaceful tones; there’s a king-sized bed at the very center, covered with a sable bedspread, whose headboard is made of solid brass; a floor-to-ceiling window occupies the entire wall opposite the door; between the window and the bed are a table and two maple chairs.

You’re drawn to the window right away: it presents you with a stunning high view of nighttime Hogsmeade. There are lights sprinkled over the landscape, fewer than a city’s, but more magical than you deemed before. From here they look like small prickles of flame, so many of them. Hogsmeade looks bigger than the village you believed it to be.

“It’s a great view,” you tell him, not knowing what he's doing all of this for. Except -- well, if you can consider what he’s planning... “Thanks. For dinner, you know, and... everything.”

“Anytime.” He smiles.

“So, what’re you -- I mean -- so this is why we were gonna be out late?”

“Yes, about that.”

He moves closer to you, taking your wrist like he did that cold Thursday. You like the way his thumb and forefinger curl around the bony flesh and join in the middle; the way his palm is soothingly warm against your skin. And the way it doesn’t bring back memories, doesn’t make you want to pull back and escape, because he never touched your wrist, never even held it, because it was held, instead, by cold, bruising metal.

“I wanted to wake up beside you, that’s all. We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to; but remember that one time you said sleeping with me -- literally -- would be great? Well, so I got this place for the night, and...” he shrugs.

“Wow, that’s... wow.” That’s all you can say because you can’t, in fact, remember. And you want to kick yourself for it. It’s not that it was that long a time ago; maybe it’s that you’re in a different world now, and there’s no way you can undo what has changed.

Still, you can pretend.

He pulls you close to him, his arms slithering around your trunk, and you do the same. You pretend all you can that it doesn’t bother you, when your insides are burning. You remember the same arms and the same hands and -- no, you try to tell yourself frantically, this is not him.

Draco captures your lips in his, and you want to run. Get those arms off you, push those lips away. He feels the same, he feels like him a week ago; there is no difference. You want to stop--

But you can’t move. Suddenly, it's hard even to breathe.

~~~

Draco.

He is rigid at first, as if he doesn’t want this. You think you know why, and that anger which you worked so hard to control begins to come again. Perhaps it’s even one of the reasons you’re doing this, but not the most important one.

You just want to know if he still wants to be with you.

You kiss him more forcefully than you’re used to. He doesn’t kiss back. He just stands there, his arms around you but frozen in place, merely fulfilling a routine obligation. When you pull away to breathe, you see that his eyes are closed. You don’t know what to make of it.

You kiss him once more, and this time he returns the gesture, if only slightly. You hold him tighter. One of his hands runs slowly -- hesitantly -- up your back, to your hair. You leave a trail down with your lips to his neck -- the side opposite the one with the nearly-gone bite mark, you only subconsciously remember -- and kiss and taste the skin. He is salty and sweet like he has always been. You rub up against him, a hand on the small of his back pushing him close, and you start grinding, and you can no longer think. You want him. You want him more than anything -- never mind the cheating -- he’s all your body desires.

You push in your knee to part his legs as you lower him to the bed. Your arousal is quite obviously -- painfully -- pressed up against his thigh. He’s opened his eyes; you see they are wide and surprised and innocent, as if you haven’t gone this far before.

You have gone this far, but you’ve always stopped in the middle of it, before anything really happens. Maybe this time, you won’t.

Maybe the reason will be guilt. Ha.

You begin to unbutton his shirt, kissing down his chest as you do so. You can feel his quick heartbeat, his chest rising and falling with every shallow breath. You don’t -- can’t take time to think. He appears to enjoy what you’re doing, and so, you don’t stop. You lick every visible inch of smooth, lightly tanned skin. His breath hitches when you reach his abdomen; you smile despite yourself. He likes it.

You’re pushing his shirt off his shoulders when he says, almost quietly, “Stop, Draco, stop--” and he pulls away from you slowly, moving up the bed and leaning against the headboard.

You don’t know what to say for a second -- he’s stopped you again, and it frustrates you that you keep on waiting because, damn it, you can’t help it, you’re in love with him -- and then you notice what you should have noticed (or should have not) many moments ago. It is what makes this time different from all the others.

“God,” you whisper, loudly enough for him to hear. “You’re not even -- you’re not...”

You don’t continue, because you’re looking at it -- lack of it, really -- and of course, he already knows.

You stand and move backward, away from the bed, away from him. A long silence follows. You look down at the floor because if you keep your eyes on him, you might do something rash like punch him or shout or cry. Right now you want to do all of them at the same time.

Finally, you ask, “What did I do wrong?”

“It’s not you,” he says softly, and from the rustle of fabric you know he’s buttoning his shirt back up.

Of course. You knew that. Truly, who wouldn’t? After everything...

“Who is it, then?” You keep your voice leveled, even though you’re losing your temper and your head is beginning to throb.

“What do you mean?”

Now you really want to yell. You look up at him, your gaze narrowed and unwavering. You don’t expect to see him wearing a genuinely unknowing expression; you don’t expect to see him with his arms around his knees, small and fragile against the elegant headboard, like a little boy.

But he is. You’re unsure when you answer, but still aggressively: “Who’ve you been sleeping around with lately? To tell you the truth I wouldn’t’ve know it was going on if you didn’t suddenly act so different. Or maybe it was only that one time? Was that it, Harry?” You spit out his name like poison; you think you should have called him Potter, if only you didn’t want to forget the years he wasn’t with you.

“I wasn’t -- I never--”

He’s panicking. You can tell from his voice.

“I saw your neck. I saw your wrists, damn it, and Merlin knows... what you let him do to you... I could wait for you, Harry, but if only you let it mean something!”

You’re enraged as you look out the window at Hogsmeade, droplets of firelight and a few townsfolk walking around enjoying the peaceful evening. It wasn’t supposed to be this way, you realize. You were supposed to enjoy this, whether you made love to or simply slept next to him. It was supposed to be one of those moments...

“I didn’t let him do anything,” he says, his tone unrecognizable. He’s admitting he did something, so this is going somewhere. What you don’t know is whether or not you want to go there.

“Oh, so you did it yourself? Handcuffed yourself to your bed, huh?”

“No.”

“So what happened?” You walk across the room toward the window. You lean against the small table, still looking at him, tired of all this. “I sure as hell have a right to know, don’t you think? You told me you were a virgin.”

“I was.”

“So you went to this guy and slept with him while you were with me?” you say bitterly. He’s looking at a spot below your shoulder -- looking right through it, really, at nowhere -- but you can see his eyes are darkening, the whites fading to pink and shining. So this is what he looks like when he’s about to cry. “Come on, Harry, answer me. Did it feel good, making out with someone else? So much better than me, huh? Did it feel good under him? Tied to your bed while you allowed him to fuck your brains out? For the first fucking time? Something I couldn’t give, of course, because you wouldn’t let me. You wouldn’t goddamn let me. I’d give you all I have if could, and you -- you cheating bastard -- you--”

You stop, because tears have made their way down his cheeks. You want to kiss them away, but at the same time keep on going: what’s a few tears? He deserves them more than anything, and you’re supposed to make people cry, you’re Draco Malfoy.

Instead, you direct your gaze at the floor, as you wait for something. Anything.

And, with his voice barely a whisper, as if allowing fate to decide whether you hear or not, he says, “I was raped.”

Silence.

And then it sears through you like hellfire, as you realize.

“No, Harry... no. No.” You try to say it firmly, but your voice shakes. You want him to say it again. Even if the words came out clear and loud and ringing in your ears and throbbing in your head and twisting in your heart. You look into those eyes of hazy emerald, asking -- no, pleading -- him to take it back, or tell you you heard wrong, or...

He looks away, his lips twisted in a bitter wince, his head tilted down, fresh tears falling from his face onto the bedspread.

Guilty, and sorry, and sad, and angry, and weak, and worthless,

You sink down on a chair and bury your head in your hands. There is really nothing else you can do.