Letters in French

Letters in French

Prologue

The October sun is bright and too warm for the season. It makes his skin tingle and tickles his nose, stings in his eyes. Across the table Blaise and Pansy are nothing but silhouettes against the light.

Draco feels, for the first time in months, happy again. Alive.

Pansy has finally overcome her jealousy for Blaise, and knowing his two best friends are not planning to rip each other's heads off, is reassuring.

He sighs and leans back in his chair; his hair has grown too long again, and his fringe reaches the tip of his nose before he flicks it out of his face with his right hand. He closes his eyes for a moment, lets the sun heat up his cheeks and, already feeling the impending sunburn, he smiles.

Somewhere in the distance three more figures appear in his field of vision. The unruly hair of one of them is enough for Draco to recognize them all.

And despite the stinging feeling inside him and despite the desperation that makes his heart clench a little, he keeps on smiling because somehow, somehow he just knows that one day everything is going to be alright.

I.

Sometimes, when the occasion was special and Pansy was nervous and desperate, she would have Draco assist her with choosing clothes, make-up and other girly stuff he wasn't particularly interested in.

Sitting on her bed in her Prefect's room he watched her bustling around in front of the overlarge mirror dressed in nothing but lace lingerie, and he thought that women, girls, were nothing but soft flesh, round and undefined and unappealing - to him at least.

Pansy turned, face screwed up with concentration. "You know, Draco, I would wear the green dress but I think it makes me look a bit easy."

"You only have clothes that make you look easy, Pansy." He slung his arms around his knees and raised his left eyebrow at her. "Besides I thought your intention was to convince Theodore of your irresistibility tonight anyway."

Pansy sneered at him and held a lily-white dress to her similarly pale shoulders. Draco sneered back at her and shook his head. "It's white. It will scare him off."

She gave him a look, interrogating and ignorant, pale blue eyes full of concealed curiosity, her small hands resting on her hip. "And why is that?"

"Marriage. He will inevitably think of marriage." He leaned over and sorted through the garments draped over the bed next to him.

"How about the blue one?" She dropped the white dress onto the pile of unsuitable clothes and picked up the one he had suggested.

"You might be right. But isn't it too - Ravenclawishly blue?"

"I don't think Theodore cares much about such things."

Pansy didn't answer, just looked at the dress, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"I'll take the green one. Draco, help me here."

Draco sighed and rolled his eyes, but got up to assist her nonetheless. She slipped into the dress and Draco tied it shut at the small of her back with nimble fingers.

"You could take the emerald earrings I gave you last year," he mused and opened the drawer of her dressing table in which she kept her jewellery.

"Theodore is really nice, you know," she said, either ignoring him or simply not wanting to look for the ear studs herself. She was an unbelievably messy person.

"Something serious then?" he asked separating the earrings from a ruby necklace he was sure she hadn't had last week.

"Maybe." Pansy grinned. "Yes, probably. It's not bad if it is something serious, is it?"

She took the jewellery from Draco's hands and he shook his head watching her put it on.

When she left the room, cheeks aflame with excitement and anxiety, he thought of the way her breasts had shifted beneath the emerald green fabric of her dress, soft and round and perfect, and the delicacy of her skin, that only a female could attain. He thought of Potter, and that sometimes he might just hate her for being able to achieve certain things so easily when everything had to be complicated for him.

II.

Draco was nearly sixteen when he lost his virginity.

Of course, there had been the time after the Yule Ball in fourth year when he had been angry and frustrated because Potter had once more managed to become the centre of attention. Draco had danced with Pansy and got terribly drunk and then a fifth year Ravenclaw named Priscilla, whose last name he couldn't remember anymore, had decided to take care of him.

But that didn't count.

So, for him, he lost his cherry the summer between fifth and sixth year about three months before his birthday.

His mother left to visit his father's cousin in France, and Draco stayed back, completely alone (except for the House-elves) in Malfoy Manor for the first time in his life.

He broke into his father's library and read all the books he had never been allowed to read.

He ate ice cream until he was sick into his mother's favourite rose bush. It insulted him gravely, with words he would never have expected from such a delicate flower.

He did all the things he had never dreamed of doing and when there was no rule left unbroken, no chamber or room unexplored, no restraint unbent in the house, he left it to wander the streets of Wiltshire.

The Muggles didn't frighten him nor did their strange machines and instruments.

When he came back on the first day of his explorations, he sent a House-elf straight to Diagon Alley with a sack full of Galleons and instructions to change them into Muggle money.

The next day he left the house and started exploring the town with his purse full of strange coins and even stranger paper money.

When his feet started to burn and his stomach began to clench he sat down in one of the comfortable basket-chairs in front of an ice-cream parlour to order a coconut-and-chocolate sundae.

The waiter was young and dark-haired and his eyes were the colour of rotting seaweed.

He smiled as Draco fiddled with the unfamiliar money and grinned as Draco told him that he was French.

He introduced himself as Wolf and sat down across from Draco, justifying his actions with the fact that his shift was over in a few minutes anyway.

He watched Draco eat his sundae and when he was finished bought him a drink and then another and told him of Wiltshire and England and Draco smiled and answered the questions directed at him feeling nearly shy and even a bit self-conscious.

They left when the sun was setting and Wolf took Draco to his apartment, arm around his hip and telling him stories of Muggle things Draco didn't understand, even the more with alcohol in his veins.

The flat was small and there were other people, too, and someone pressed something sweet and absolutely alcoholic into Draco's hands and he drank until Wolf took the bottle from his fingers.

All of the other people had strange names. Names of animals and rivers and food. They laughed and smoked and Draco laughed and smoked too, feeling dizzy and lightheaded even as Wolf kissed him and slid his hands under his clothes, all cold, calloused fingers and lingering touches.

They did it behind a curtain of wooden pearls, music and herbal smoke in the background, between masses of pillows and blankets.

Draco breathed that he was eighteen and Wolf laughed and kissed him again, and even though Draco could feel the pill on his tongue, round and hard, he didn't draw back because Wolf's lips were too sweet and soft.

Afterwards when most of the other Muggles had left and Draco's head was spinning and light and full of smoke and music, he told Wolf that he wasn't really eighteen or French, but a wizard and sixteen and Wolf answered, laughing, that with this stuff (he pointed at the smoke in the air and the white capsule on his tongue) he was a knight in a shining armour, a magician and a dragon killer.

And Draco rolled his eyes and punched his arm and kissed him, sweet and light, and felt sad and desperate when he woke the next morning.

III.

Draco owned a small leather-bound notebook with pages so thin you could nearly read the words written on the other side.

His initials were ornamentally inlaid with nacre, and Blaise, who had given it to him for his birthday in October, had assured him that he would have a hard time using up all the pages.

He had pondered what to fill the book with for a long time, until one cold November evening Pansy asked him if he was ever going to write his father.

He had told her, politely, to please leave him alone, but the idea had stuck and so he had sat down started to write what he now called in his mind the First Letter.

It had been silly and short and everything you'd expect a sixteen-year-old to write in a letter to his father who was in prison being terrorized by mad creatures who sucked out your happiness.

It started with 'Dear father, how are you?'

He had never sent that letter.

He had never even thought about sending the second one, where the first sentence, after the usual formalities, was: 'I'm sure you don't know, but I let a Muggle boy fuck me over the summer holidays because he looked a little like Harry Potter.'

Day after day, week after week he filled his notebook with letters to his father, telling him all the things he had never been able to tell him and he surely never would.

Fantasies and wishes, hopes and fears, all these things mixed and mingled in his letters.

It felt a little less pathetic than writing a diary.

IV.

Some cruel goddess - Draco was sure it had been female, because only girls could think of such malice - had bestowed it upon him that through Blaise Zabini's cunning plans, the Slytherins had to share a locker room with the Gryffindors.

Blaise, however intelligent and clever he might seem, had not thought of the consequences that would inevitably follow flooding every locker room but the Slytherin one with stale sewer water during the match.

These consequences would, among other things, include his cruel death inflicted on him by Draco Malfoy, of course.

Draco wondered if it would seem strange for him to bolt out of the room, still half naked and wet and hair out of order, and decided that it would indeed not be like him.

The Gryffindors filed out one after another, grinning and joking, smelling of soap and victory and Draco hated them not only for winning but also because he knew that Potter would join them in their stupid tower and celebrate another Gryffindor victory.

He towelled his hair until his eyes stung and his cheeks burnt from his head hanging next to his knees for too long a time and when he came up again, Potter was still there standing with his back to Draco, obviously having troubles with fastening his trousers.

Idiot, Draco thought and stared at his shoulders, wide and strong, and at his shoulder blades, sharp and angular beneath the tanned skin.

He stared at the play of sinews and muscles, and at the awkwardness that only someone who had taken the steps from boyhood into adulthood too fast and couldn't yet deal with the additional strength that hormones granted could possess .

He finished as quickly as he could and left for the dungeons without brushing his hair, thinking of Potter's neck and the water drops that had spiralled down his spine and his heartbeat was fast and unsteady.

In his Prefect's room, he sat down on his bed, breath quick from running and nearly hating himself more than the Gryffindors.

He reached behind his pillow, pulled out his favourite pen and the notebook and began to write.

V.

In retrospect, Draco thought, it had only been a matter of time until he lost the notebook. Too many secrets were hidden between its pages for it not to be lost one day - Draco had this kind of bad luck.

The first thing he did, after he discovered it was gone, was what every sensible Slytherin would have done: he accused his best friend, Pansy, of stealing it.

Pansy of course denied any fault and for days and days Draco was ragingly mad at her, until he noticed that there were no strange rumours about him and that no Slytherin laughed at him when he passed by.

He apologised greatly to Pansy, gave her flowers, and started to look for the notebook together with her.

After a great deal of thought and lots of crumbled pages full of places and times, Draco decided that he had to have lost it in the library, as it had been the last place he could remember having it.

They searched every inch of the library, looked beneath chairs and crept beneath tables, lifted countless books and even asked Madam Pince whether she had found it.

But there was no trace whatsoever of the book and Draco came to the conclusion that somebody had to have found it, and that it had not been a Slytherin or else there would certainly be rumours.

Three days and many sleepless hours later, he received a small note delivered by an owl he didn't know. The note contained these six words:

Malfoy,

I've got your book.

-HP

He stared at the words, both unwilling and unable to comprehend, and then was violently sick into his waste-paper basket for nearly ten minutes until his mind had calmed down and his stomach was devoid of anything that would have been worth spitting out.

He cleaned up the mess, put the note carefully onto his pillow, showered and brushed his teeth, and then lay down onto his bed.

His head felt more than a little empty with fear and he raised the note to his face wishing that it was fake but knowing that it was as real as his left hand.

He read and re-read the message, word after word, until it stopped making sense, until it became a mantra he whispered under his breath.

He thought, that the note even smelled of Potter - so nice and completely Gryffindor to let him know who had his book, to not simply use it against him.

Draco traced the loops and curves of Potter's scrawny handwriting, feeling nearly voyeuristic.

And when he slipped his right hand into his slacks and thumbed his erection carefully, eyes screwed shut, the note crumbled between the fingers of his left hand, he felt terribly pathetic jerking off to six words directed at him by the Great Harry Potter.

VI.

Potter stayed behind the next day after the Care of Magical Creatures class. Granger gave him a pointed look, her lip pursed as though she was trying very hard to keep herself from saying something. The Weasel was staring at him, spite and malice in his eyes.

Draco thought that if it hadn't been for Granger's presence there'd have been blood and gore.

Potter shrugged and looked at him and then back at his friends and then they both stormed off, confused and angry looks on their faces. Draco watched them go, ignoring Potter who was pointedly staring at him.

He put his books into his bag and then turned to leave as well, because he was not going to ask. Surely not.

He heard steps behind him and repeated to himself over and over again Not going to ask, not going to ask, notgoingtoask, and then whirled around on his heel, cheeks flushing with embarrassment as he faced Potter.

"Give it back," he hissed biting the inside of his mouth until there was copper and salt taste on his tongue.

Potter looked startled, but regained his composure quickly. "I don't have it with me."

"You bastard," Draco sneered, feeling as though he might just start to cry right then and there from anger and frustration. "Did you read it?"

He grasped his bag harder, pulling it closer to his chest.

"Listen, Malfoy..." Potter's breath was an ice-white cloud before his face.

"It's got nothing to do with you, Potter," Draco interrupted him. "So give it back. I demand you give it back! It's my property and nothing of your concern!"

Merlin, how much he wished that Potter hadn't read it. How much he resented himself for not simply putting a concealing charm on the pages.

"How can 'I want to suck off Harry Potter' be nothing of my concern?" Potter hissed back, voice wild and fierce with leonine rage, and Draco lunged at him cheeks aflame and heart pounding hard and fast with anger in his chest.

They tumbled down into the snow, the strings of Draco's bag cutting into his arms restricting his movements and the chant 'IhateyouIhateyou' on his tongue while he tried to gain the upper hand, but of course failing to do so.

The snow seeped into his boots and his cloak, cold and wet, and forced tears of pain into his eyes, and he pushed at Potter's shoulders and arms not particularly keen to suffocate underneath sweaty Gryffindor-coloured gloves.

He managed to ram his knee into the delicate area between Potter's legs 'Dracodracodon'tthinkof'betweenPotter'slegs' and Potter rolled halfway off him, eyes screwed shut, his lip bloody from the force of his teeth.

Draco pushed him off and felt himself lifted into the air the same moment, and then the world was spinning and upside down and blurred as his back collided with something solid and absolutely unwilling to move.

VII.

Draco had once had a dream where he'd died. It had not really been an unpleasant dream - rather a strange one. Dead, he had wandered the empty halls of Malfoy Manor and the floors of Hogwarts, covered in dust and snow as though the ceiling was leaking.

He couldn't remember much of that dream anymore, but at the moment he felt just the way he had felt in his dream.

I'm dead, he thought numbly and tried to blink the darkness in front of his eyes away. It was heavy and black and Draco thought it might suffocate him if he didn't stop it soon.

There were voices somewhere distant, but he was too tired and too far away to concentrate on them. And, after all, he was dead, so it didn't really matter anymore.

Slowly but steadily light began to creep into his vision and he groaned - or at least he thought he groaned, it felt as though he had groaned - and then really opened his eyes.

The brightness blinded him for a moment and he knew he squeaked and then coughed, and it hurt a lot.

"I'm dead!" he breathed. "I am dead!" Somehow the thought was strangely amusing.

"No, dear, you aren't," answered a female voice close to him and a soft hand patted his forehead.

"Now, now, Mr Malfoy, people don't die that easily."

Draco knew that voice - he should really know it -

"But I am dead!" He felt like he was arguing with a wall. Which he probably was. There couldn't be any other people after death.

"Throwing children around! Really!" That was the first voice again.

Draco screwed his eyes shut for a moment and then opened them again to find himself in the infirmary tightly wrapped into warm blankets.

Madam Pomfrey was sitting close to his bed and opposite to her stood Dumbledore, and everything came rushing back into his head.

"I don't think Rubeus was aware of the consequences that would follow throwing young Mr Malfoy against a tree." Dumbledore explained, his tone light and amused, and Draco felt annoyed for he had been the one to suffer from these consequences.

"I certainly feel dead," he emphasized and coughed to demonstrate the severe graveness of his injuries.

"Well then, I hope that you will join the completely living again soon , Draco." Dumbledore's smile wasn't entirely genuine and left to shut the door behind him.

Madam Pomfrey got up with a sigh and started to rummage in one of her various cupboards and Draco very much hoped she was looking for something strong that would make him forget, because he didn't want to know anything at all at the moment.

"One rib is a little cracked," she explained when she came back a bottle filled with white fluid in her hands, "but this will mend it in no time, dear, I promise!"

Draco drank unwillingly, the taste bitter on his tongue and then slept through the pain of having a bone magically mended and dreamed of Potter and snow and other things teenage boys with a heartache dream of.

VIII.

When Draco returned from the infirmary the next day, he felt surprisingly blank and unattached, as though a part of him had stayed back in that little white room or out there next to the giant's cabin.

Or somewhere else.

He attended the lessons of the day, ate and drank, his chest still a bit sore, and then went to his room and locked himself in. He tried to write, but he only had loose pages of parchment and it felt as though they might be carried away by the slightest breeze - straight to Harry bloody Potter.

He started words and sentences and paragraphs, but never finished them, fingers shaking and blotting ink all over the parchment and his bed sheets.

He started to cry then, long, silent sobs, until his chest and throat hurt, and curled up and rested his chin on his knees, not wanting to be like that all.

And that was how Pansy found him not much later after she'd managed to break the door open (Draco suspected her creepy female mother instincts had led her here) and she embraced him softly and patted his back and he told her of the things he wrote into his book and Potter, who had it, and the note and how much it hurt.

She conjured hot chocolate and tissues and told him that Slytherins shouldn't cry even if they didn't get what they wanted and then Draco started crying all over again and fell asleep with his head in her lap while she talked of love and friendship and revenge and other things that seemed important to her.

The next morning she walked up to the Gryffindor table and broke Harry Potter's nose with a swift punch, and Draco thought that he could've fallen in love with her if he didn't like boys.

IX.

Potter stopped him the next day on his way out of the Potions classroom, after Pansy, Blaise and the other Slytherins had already left and the class was steadily growing emptier.

His nose still looked a little blue, but Draco thought Madam Pomfrey had done a nice job re-mending it. His tie was askew and his hair was a detestable mess and Draco could neither stop staring at him nor thinking of his notebook and the letters and the things he'd written.

"Malfoy, can I have a word?" he asked, eyes following the other students who were hurriedly leaving the classroom.

"I can't keep you from talking, Potter," Draco snapped and noticed Granger, who was approaching Potter; heard her tell him not to be late for dinner and watched her touch Potter's arm lightly and watched her leave - and not even once she looked at him. As though he wasn't even there. Bitch.

Snape gave them a pointed look and Potter ushered him out into the corridor and Draco was too surprised and too occupied trying not to blush to really protest.

"I hate you, Potter," he hissed after Potter had stopped somewhere dark and far away from Snape. "Give me back my book."

Potter ignored him, ruffled his hair obviously trying to find the right words.

"Look," he began then, and Draco thought that it was the most Potteresque way to start a conversation he'd ever heard.

"I want my book back," Draco answered and bit his lip to stop it from trembling. He didn't need a trembling lip in addition, when he was already blushing this hard.

"Listen, Malfoy, out there is war." The words were tumbling from Potter's mouth so fast Draco nearly had a hard time catching them.

"I have no time for - err - quarrelling, when I know perfectly well that you're on our side. Or, I mean, could be on our side." Potter worried his lip and Draco followed the movement of his even white teeth and watched his lip redden from the contact.

"I honestly cannot see your point," he said and sighed and shoved his hands into the pockets of his robes so that Potter wouldn't see them shaking.

"Okay, you're a neutral, but a neutral good - and I already knew this, but now I'm sure because, well, I did read some of those letters, you know? But what I'm trying to say is this, Malfoy: I - err - I want you on our side, I mean, I want you to help us, if you can."

Potter was talking too fast and his voice was making Draco's heart thump hard in his chest, and so he needed a few moments to take in what had just been proposed to him, and then it stung like a fresh acidic burn.

"You are such a stupid, imbecile brat, Potter," he answered then, voice dry because he felt like crying and shouting and breaking things. "Do you think, just because of these new circumstances, I will bow to you and follow you and your orders like one of your little brainless lackeys? Nothing has changed - I hate you, Potter, and you know what? You can keep the bloody notebook and wank off to it since you seem to be so fond of it!"

He turned on his heels, blood rushing soundly in his ears, and stormed off nearly knocking over a suit of armour as he turned around the corner.

X.

One had to consider when looking at the following events, that Draco Malfoy had an unusual talent for completely misjudging a situation.

It was either his paranoia or just plain inheritance from his eccentric mother, but it was a fact that had and would make his life much more complicated than he actually cared for.

So, Draco lying on his bed trying to read one of the books he had taken with him from his father's library, was not reading at all, rather pondering and well on his way into another misunderstanding.

He thought of his father and the Death Eaters he had invited to their home; he thought of his mother who was so scared of these men and women in their white masks and robes.

He thought about the Dark Lord, to whom his father bowed dragging his mother and Draco himself with him, and of Potter and Granger and all the other Muggles and Mudbloods and of a boy named Wolf and of Wiltshire.

He saw the Dark Mark flashing its green skull at him in his mind and smelled blood and burning flesh, stale and dead on his tongue.

He fell asleep, past, present, reality and dream blurring into each other; the stuff nightmares are made on.

XI.

It was dark when Draco woke again, his cheek and hand full of little wrinkles from the bedspread.

He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, disoriented and uncomfortable in his school uniform and his robes in the overheated room.

His head was pounding with an already fully developed headache, persistent and sticky like honey, and he groaned and buried his head in his hands.

His throat was dry as sandpaper and he slid off the bed, a little unsteady on his feet and yawning left his room into the direction of the common room to amble down the floor, the emerald carpet soft beneath his bare toes, and down the stairs and the moonlight coming in through the coloured windows was slowly fading into soft candle light.

The fireplace was still crackling with flames and Blaise was curled up in Draco's armchair reading a book and greeting him with a jovial "I was here first." and a smile.

Draco shrugged and sat down in front of the open fire, his back against the worn-out armchair.

Blaise presence had always had something very calming - unlike Pansy who was so full of energy and the urge to be active either in speech or action, Blaise had become his favourite conversation partner; philosophical and intelligent, he proved worthy of this attribute.

After Vince and Greg had not returned to Platform 9 ¾ this September, Blaise had silently claimed their former place, staying by Draco's side together with Pansy even when most of the other Slytherins turned against them.

Draco shifted to look at Blaise's face, dark eyes fixed on the pages of his book, night-black hair falling into his face.

His mother had come from one of the old gypsy families, and it showed in his hair, eyes and features, making him look like a prince from an Arabian fairy tale.

Draco grinned at the thought, toes tickling with the heat from the fireplace, and Blaise shut his book with an audible sound.

"Well?" he asked after a second. "What makes you interrupt my reading hour?"

Draco rolled his eyes, knowing that one of the traits that had caused to the Sorting Hat to put Blaise into Slytherin instead of Ravenclaw, was his nosiness.

"You know," Draco said less as an answer than just as an expression of his thoughts. "The Dark Lord is an imbecile and I don't understand why my father bows to him."

Blaise shrugged his elegant Blaise-shrug and answered: "I guess, you're right. But everybody makes mistakes." And then there were fingers pulling his hair and Draco winced and batted Blaise's hand away.

"Tell me why Pansy broke Potter's nose the other day."

"I don't see how this is any of your concern," Draco said dryly thinking of Potter's lips and hair.

"But I know you want to tell me. Or else you wouldn't be sitting here." Blaise climbed down from his place in the armchair and sat down on the rug in front of the fire next to Draco.

"What would you think if Potter suddenly asked you to come and join the good side?" Draco asked, trying to keep his voice as neutral as possible.

"That Potter is a brat," Blaise said loftily and fed the fire another log. "But then, Potter's brat all the time." A moment of silence. "What was he offering anyway?"

"Nothing. Redemption probably." Draco didn't say any more and just stared at the flames and remembered the talk in the corridor by the Potions classroom. He suddenly felt very weak again.

"Is it about the notebook?" Blaise inquired and then yawned openly.

Draco frowned and shrugged. "Pansy told you?"

"Of course she did." A pause. "You lost it and Potter has it now. What did you write in there that he thinks he can blackmail you now?"

"Things you write in a notebook. That is all." He sighed and buried his face in his hands, drawing his knees to his chest. "He wants me to give him information."

"Well," Blaise began, "you are not a follower of the Dark Lord. In fact, you think that he quote 'is an imbecile idiot' end quote. Why don't you just let some information slip to Potter? Then you'll get the book back."

Draco sighed again and Blaise ruffled his hair again, but this time he really didn't mind. "It's much more complicated than that. It's Potter, for Merlin's sake."

He turned his head to look at Blaise and found him grinning knowingly.

"Indeed, it's Potter." Blaise yawned again and then got up. "Well, you know what I think?"

"Hn?" He ignored the grin and Blaise's tone, too tired to really care right now.

"You shouldn't let a git like Potter cross your plans of being redeemed and celebrated as the true hero of the wizarding world" - Draco snorted and raised his brows at him - "just do what you feel like doing."

Another yawn, a stretch, a few inches of exposed caramel-coloured skin and then Blaise was gone and Draco thought that he didn't know more than before.

XII.

Breakfast the next morning was an unpleasant affair.

Draco's head hurt from sleep deprivation and too much coffee and Pansy and Blaise were huddled together over plates and cups of untouched food and beverages talking in hushed voices, their glances dancing to Draco from time to time.

He sat crouched over his neglected toast next to Theodore Nott who looked as though he was feeling as much out of place as Draco did.

Draco sighed, downed his coffee in one long draught and got up, head spinning a little with the suddenness of his movement.

"Girl's talk," he muttered to Theodore, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his robes and slowly headed in the direction of the Gryffindor table.

It was not a decision that had been easy to make. And after he had made it, actually following it through seemed even harder.

He wouldn't admit it to anybody else, not even Pansy, but he had spent the greatest part of the night turning from one side to the other, acting out scenes and possible dialogues in his head because it frightened him so much to not know what was going to happen.

He walked past the Hufflepuff table and the Ravenclaw table, ignoring stares and occasional quiet, curious comments.

Potter was sitting with his back to him, Granger and the Weasel on his left, that Irish boy on his right.

He took a deep breath and edged closer, and seeing how deeply immersed Potter was in his butter toast and his cup of cocoa, felt even more like an intruder.

"Potter," he sneered then, voice carefully measured for the perfect Malfoy-drawl.

And Potter jumped, jerking around and managing to catch his cup with his elbow, spilling hot chocolate all over the table, and Draco asked himself how he could have fallen for such a clumsy git.

The Irish boy - Finnigan? - barely avoided coming in contact with the spilled liquid and the Weasel's head shot around, copper brown eyes fixing on Draco.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" Typical of Potter to let his lackeys answer for him.

"Surely nothing you would be able to afford, Weasel," he shot and looked at Potter who was raising a rather amused eyebrow at him, still not talking.

Draco felt the urge to bite his lip, but suppressed it with great effort.

The Weasel's jaw tightened and he surely would have gotten up if Granger hadn't put a placating hand onto his arm.

"I have to talk to you, Potter," he said and ignored the Weasel and every other damn Gryffindor on the table who all seemed to have nothing better to do than to watch him.

"About what?" Potter looked visibly uncomfortable with the situation. It gave Draco a little twinge.

"Not here," he explained, voice not as steady as he wished it'd be.

Potter studied him for a moment, then nodded and gave him a little smile. "Fine." Swung his long legs over the bench, awkward and unsteady on his feet for a moment and Draco felt his face flush a bit.

"Harry..." The Weasel, face as red as his hair from anger, tugged on Potter's robes. "You seriously want to go? With Malfoy?" He looked sincerely put-off by the prospect.

Draco pursed his lip, ready to snap at him, but to his surprise Granger tightened her grip on Weasley's arm.

"Let it go, Ron," she sighed, obviously annoyed and then turned to look at Potter. "Well, Harry, go. It seems to be important. Go."

Potter nodded shortly, and then his hand was on Draco's elbow, gently pushing him back towards the doors that lead into the Entrance Hall.

Draco hissed and jerked his arm away, blood rushing into his cheeks at the unexpected touch. Potter raised his brows at him, but didn't say anything and Draco let himself fall back a step or two to evade his gaze.

They passed the Slytherin table and Blaise tilted his head and poked Pansy, a curious smile playing with his lips.

Draco gave them his death glare and followed Potter out into the Entrance Hall, the sudden silence falling between them like an invisible veil.

He stared at Potter's collar, every single thing he'd prepared to say gone from his mind, and absently sucked his lower lip between his teeth.

Potter smiled, looking nearly self-conscious, and ruffled his hair with an awkward gesture that made Draco wonder if it felt the way it looked.

"Err -" Potter began rather eloquently. "What did you want to talk about, Malfoy?"

Draco sighed, wet his lips and answered: "I have considered your offer, and came to the conclusion that it bears some advantages for me as well."

Potter raised his brows, and then a stream of Hufflepuffs rushed past them, chatting and laughing, and Potter ushered him towards the corner next to the staircase that lead down into the kitchens, his hand ghosting over the small of Draco's back, a whisper of a touch that made him shiver.

"So, you're going to help us?" Potter asked, lips spreading into a grin, teeth white and even, and suddenly Draco felt very small and helpless standing with his back against the wall and Potter so close, too close, in front of him.

He swallowed and felt the blood rush into his cheeks once more. "I will give you information, what you do with it is none of my business." That had sounded much more insecure than he had feared it would.

"That's great." Potter reached out, fingers grasping his arm and sliding lower, reaching his hand, and only then, when he felt Potter's warm fingers against the tender skin of his wrist, Draco jerked his arm away, heart pounding desperately with fear, confusion and adrenalin.

Potter's grin didn't fade, he didn't seem to notice. Draco felt taunted and incredibly stupid for forgetting that Potter touched and grinned at anyone who was ready to offer help against the Dark Lord. This all, he thought, was nothing but a bit of revenge. A bit of teasing and making fun of him.

The knowledge crept down his throat, over his heart and into his stomach, twisting his insides until he felt sick.

"So, can you come to the library tonight?" Potter brushed a few strands of hair out of his eyes. "Just so, you know, we can share information and stuff. You know. Right?"

Draco nodded and buried his hands in the pockets of his robes, trying to look anywhere but Potter - which was of course in vain, because Potter was blocking anything else from Draco's view at the moment.

"We've got a date then?" Potter's grin got a bit lopsided and Draco's eyes narrowed, blood rushing into his ears.

"You wish," he sneered and pushed his way past the other boy, the short contact between their shoulders sending another wave of shivers down his spine.

"Be there around seven!" Potter called after him, his voice sounding strangely cracked, but Draco wasn't really listening anymore anyway, mind focused on escaping to the Arithmancy classroom as fast as possible.

XII.

The day passed in a flurry, and Draco avoided Potter and his lackeys as much as possible.

Pansy and Blaise were occupied with something Draco obviously wasn't allowed to know about, both of them whispering animatedly during lessons, which left Draco with Theodore as the only company since the other Slytherins were either not taking the same classes as he did or mad followers of the Dark Lord.

And Draco did not converse with other Houses. Period.

Theodore, it turned out, was actually a rather quiet person. More of a Ravenclaw, Draco decided after the Care of Magical Creatures lesson where they'd paired up to feed a very silent Augurey flobberworms and fairies (Draco avoided the fairy-feeding part though).

When he returned from taking a shower in the Prefect's Bathroom that evening, Pansy and Blaise were, once again, sitting close together, the flames in the fireplace painting strange patterns onto their clothes and faces.

Theodore was sitting next to Pansy, an open book in his lap, holding Pansy's hand. He looked up and gave Draco a nod and Draco sat down on his favourite spot on the rug in front of the fire.

"Fancy a game of Wizard Chess?" Theodore asked.

Draco shook his head, noting Pansy and Blaise who were both watching him intently. "No, I have to go to the library in a few minutes."

Pansy grinned and Draco cursed himself for explaining himself at all.

"Meeting someone?" She asked, leaning against Theodore, an odd gleam in her dark eyes.

"That, Parkinson," he said coolly and got up. "is none of your business. And neither yours, Zabini."

Neither of them looked very impressed, but Draco thought that might because they knew too well what they could allow themselves.

"The signs," Blaise answered, smirking. "You are missing the most obvious signs, Draco."

"Yes, indeed. That you do," Pansy added and Draco stared at them, knowing that if he looked as stupid as he felt right now, he ought to kill himself right away.

"The signs," she sighed again.

Theodore snorted, shook his head, patted Pansy's knee and, turning to Draco, said: "Let the girls talk, Draco."

Draco bit his lip and gave him a short nod, incredibly thankful that there was least one coherent person that didn't want to chop off his head, and left the common room, even though his hair was still a little wet and unbrushed - but he'd rather dance into the Great Hall clothed in nothing but a thong than listen to more cryptic messages from his two best friends.

XIII.

Draco wasn't sure what exactly he'd expected, but it certainly wasn't what awaited him when he arrived at the library ten past seven, cheeks a little flushed from running and also, admittedly, from excitement.

Potter was bent over rolls of parchments, his nose and fingers full of black ink, and Granger and the Weasel were thumbing through books with pages made of yellow parchment full of dust and stains.

When Draco approached them, tentatively, ready to run at any time, Potter didn't as much as look up and gesture him to take a seat.

Something wormed its way up Draco's throat while he pulled the seat back and sat down, and he didn't even have to think to know what it was. It was disappointment, bitter and stale, and, well, it hurt.

He crossed his legs and leaned back, the way Potter's glasses were crooked and the hardly audible sound of Granger turning the pages of one of the books unnerving him to the point where he wanted to scream at them.

Especially at Potter.

He sighed and rubbed his eyes, feeling miserable and left out. He hadn't thought that Potter would drag his lackeys along, but then, he really should have expected it.

This meeting meant nothing, was just for the simple exchange of information that Draco probably didn't even have.

"Well," Granger began suddenly, her dark eyes fixed on him. "Let's start, shall we?"

Draco folded his hands, raised his brows, determined no to lose control over the situation.

Potter looked up from his parchment again, straightened his glasses absently, quill dancing in his fingers.

The Weasel didn't say anything at all. Just stared at the book in front of him, mouth set grimly in a thin line.

"Okay," Granger continued, her small, white hands folded neatly on the table, a sign of truce. "Let's get some facts straight." Her eyes wandered to Potter for a moment before she went on. "Your father, Lucius Malfoy, is a Death Eater. Is that correct?"

He narrowed his eyes and said slowly: "Yes, Granger, this is correct."

"And he is currently in Azkaban for the use of the Unforgivables. Or has there been a new development that I am not aware of?"

Draco very badly wanted to hit her, but he knew that this wasn't a very good idea, at the moment at least. Instead he brushed some invisible dust off his cashmere sweater and answered: "No, he has not yet bribed the guards, Granger." He paused and shot her a cold look. "Are you going to ask sensible question, too, or can I leave?"

Granger glared at him. "These questions are sensible enough for me, Malfoy. Can we continue?"

"Please go on, Granger."

His gaze flickered to Potter who was drawing stick figures on a piece of parchment, green eyes fixed on Draco. When he noticed Draco noticing, he cleared his throat and gave Granger a short nod.

The Weasel shortly looked up from his book, giving Draco a distasteful stare, and then returned to ignoring his presence.

"I suppose you're not or have not yet been involved in any Death Eater activities?"

Draco didn't answer, just raised his brows and nodded. Potter was still staring at him, his stick figures becoming even more crooked and unproportional, and Draco nearly blushed.

"And your mother?"

Draco couldn't stop himself from wincing, not only because Potter's voice sounded croaked, hoarse, not only because it was Potter who had asked. He hadn't expected this question.

"She-," he cleared his throat. "She knows." He bit his lip, feeling their stares on his skin like needles, feeling trapped and tricked. "But she never- she never- she's not a Death Eater," he breathed at last, heart thumping rapidly. "Just leave her out of this," he added after a second, tempted to throw in a threat or two.

"Of course," Granger answered, her voice nearly gentle to his surprise.

Potter reached over the table and would have touched his arm, if Draco hadn't shied away at the thought of his touch.

Not that he didn't want Potter's touch - he did want it very much, really very much - but pity was nothing he could stand, and least from Potter of all people.

Potter's hand dropped onto the table, and then withdrew slowly to reach up and ruffle his hair in an awfully familiar gesture. Draco looked away, looked at Granger instead. That was safer.

"Does Voldemort - " Draco flinched, Granger did too, and the Weasel nearly ripped a page; Granger sighed and tapped the book with her wand, whispering under her breath to fix the damage. Potter smiled apologetically. "Does you know who come to Malfoy Manor sometimes?"

"No." He closed his eyes for a moment. "I don't know about anything before my birth, of course."

"Any popular Death Eater gathering places you know about, Malfoy?" Granger refolded her hands.

"No, I'm sorry I haven't yet participated in a Death Eater group holiday yet," he snapped, feeling a bit useless. In truth, he realized, he didn't know a single thing. Not one thing that could be of use to Potter. Not really at least.

Ganger sighed, shifted, elbows planted on the tabletop now, her chin resting on her hands. "Malfoy. Draco. How much do you really know?"

The Weasel closed his book, leaned back in his chair and gave him a spiteful glare. "Yeah, Malfoy, how much do you know about Daddy's Death Eater activities?"

Draco straightened his back, taking a deep breath to hiss something at the Weasel, but Potter's head shot around.

"Shut up, Ron."

The Weasel wanted to protest, but Granger patted his arm, and he closed his mouth and looked away.

Draco would have smirked about the small victory, only he didn't really feel like smirking at all right now.

"Well?" Granger was giving him this superior look he hated so much about her.

He averted his eyes from her and studied his nails instead. "I know some things. I know the names of some Death Eaters that you don't know." He wet his lip and looked up again, meeting Potter's intense stare. "I'm not a Death Eater nor am I planning to become one. I'm not doing this because I like Dumbledore or because I want to help you, but because I don't want to die and because I think the Dark Lord is a fool."

"Alright," Potter said with a small smile that made Draco's heart skip a beat. "But we shouldn't talk about this here. Can you, err, write a list of all Death Eaters you know?" He checked the big, circular clock that hung behind Madam Pince's desk. "Just give it to me or Hermione tomorrow, okay?"

Granger got up, straightened her robes and skirt. The Weasel put the books together, got up as well, slammed the chair back under the table, wood clattering against wood and then walked away towards the exit of the library, shoulders shaking.

"We're -" Granger cleared throat, looking more than a bit embarrassed. "We're leaving now, Harry."

She turned to Draco, examined him with a stern glance, and then nodded shortly. "Malfoy."

He blinked and nodded back, more than a little confused, and she left, hurrying after the Weasel, calling his name throughout the whole library.

Draco brushed some loose strands out of his face, uncomfortable because of the things he'd said and the things he wanted to do. "Is that all? Or can I go?"

Potter shouldered his bag, scratched his head for a moment, staring at him from behind his ruffled fringe and then said: "Actually, I wanted - err - wanted to ask if I could walk you back to the Slytherin common room."

He looked a bit embarrassed, flustered, bit his lip.

Draco swallowed dryly and shared Potter's slight blush

"Don't worry," he half-sneered back, "I won't go running off to the next best Death Eater and offer him my -" He stopped dead, feeling his mouth hanging open - what an undignified pose for a Malfoy- and cleared his throat after a moment.

"Your ... what?" Potter was wearing that lopsided grin again.

"Nothing. Forget it." Draco stood up and walked away, forcing himself not to turn back. Oh, but how he wanted Potter to accompany him to the dungeons and his room and into his bed.

Potter caught up after a moment, hands shoved into his pocket, still grinning. "So. Can I? Walk you there, I mean?"

Casually opening the door of the library for him; casually touching the small of his back lightly as he stepped through it into the corridor; casually smiling at him, all white, even teeth and dimples and forest-green eyes.

Draco shrugged and looked away. "Do what you wish, Potter." His mind screamed for an explanation, screamed for questions and answers and other things. But he stayed silent.

Next to him, Potter rambled on: "I just thought we could, you know, talk and stuff."

Draco shrugged and stopped dead, waiting for the staircase they'd been walking down to connect to the next floor. Potter's presence was warm and familiar next to him, and Draco wondered how someone could exude that much body heat.

Draco stepped onto the next floor and rushed down the big marble staircase that lead into the Entrance Hall and then turned right, down another staircase that lead into the Dungeons, Potter on his heels.

He slowed down then, realizing that it had to look as though he was running away (which was true anyway).

"Are you -" Potter cleared his throat. "Are you still planning to kill me because of your father?" he finally asked and Draco bit his lip and let him catch up, their steps synchronizing.

"Yes, of course, Potter," he sneered, shoving his hands into his pockets. "As if I had nothing better to do."

"I'm sorry," Potter said suddenly, sounding very earnest.

"It's -" Draco sighed, scanning Potter's face, eyes, nose, lips. "He is a Death Eater." He couldn't say any more; telling Potter that he'd been right from the very beginning, that his father had been wrong all along and with him Draco - that would be too much like admitting defeat.

"I'm sorry anyway. You -" Potter tilted his head, hair standing up into every possible and impossible direction. "He is your father, after all."

Draco didn't answer. He couldn't. He remembered his sixth birthday and the hot June day some years ago, where his father had taken them out sailing, and he remembered countless fights and dinners and parties and conversations and that he'd really never written him.

His eyes stung suddenly, and he couldn't stand looking at Potter anymore because for all that had happened, he couldn't even hate him anymore. He couldn't even take revenge properly because he was right.

"You can -err, hit me if you want to." Potter's fingers tugged on his sleeve and Draco glanced at him from the corner of his eye.

"I wouldn't mind, really." He gave him another crooked smile that made Draco very much want to kiss him.

"You wouldn't mind if I hit you, Potter?" he sneered. "What is this? Another kink of yours?"

But Potter did neither blush nor fret, but instead grinned and said: "Oh, I guess you know all about kinks, don't you? I remember this page in the notebook..."

Draco hissed and averted his eyes. "Shut up, Potter."

They turned around a corner, passed by the portrait of Vendelin the Vulpine, silent, awkward, the rustle of their robes echoing in the dark hallway.

Draco idly wondered why Potter seemed to know the way to the Slytherin common room, let alone the exact position of the hidden entrance - because Potter was very accurately stopping in front of the plain stone wall Draco knew was a concealed door.

He had to have looked rather bemused for Potter shrugged apologetically and said: "I err - have a map. Of Hogwarts, I mean." He ruffled his hair, wet his lips and Draco's gaze followed his movements.

"Well," he turned a little, wanting to escape into familiar territory already. "See you, then."

But instead of leaving, Potter just nodded and then shook his head and said: "Hogsmeade, this weekend. I'm sure you know. Err - wanna go there? With me?"

Draco blinked, mouth hanging open, unable to say anything. Potter simply went on. "In the evening, I mean. We're all meeting in the Hog's Head." Potter swallowed visibly. "I just - wanna come too? Saturday? 'Round eight? You can bring your friends as well."

"O-okay. Saturday. Eight," he breathed. Oh sweet Merlin, he couldn't feel, couldn't comprehend, his heart was thumping so hard.

Potter's lips spread into a relieved smile and with a "See you there, then" he turned and left, disappearing around the corner.

Draco gulped, suddenly feeling very unsteady on his feet, and whispering the password, stumbled into his common room, head abuzz with hope and fear and saccharine hysteria.

XIV.

Draco told neither Pansy nor Blaise about Potter's invitation, but he told them they'd stay longer in Hogsmeade than originally planned to which Blaise reacted with a smirk and Pansy with a giggle.

Draco didn't have to see the gleam in their eyes to know that they ... knew. Something. Draco wasn't entirely sure what they knew, but this was mostly due to the fact that there wasn't anything he was entirely sure about anymore at the moment anyway.

On his way to dinner on Friday, Adrian Pucey, the new captain of the Slytherin team, pushed himself between Pansy and Draco, leaving Blaise to frown slightly, and informed him that they were going to have Quidditch training on Tuesday evening.

Draco called him a sadist under his breath and watched him hurry off, mood sinking another level.

Potter, he thought while pushing his way into the Great Hall and sitting down at the end of the Slytherin table to snatch at least a little bit of his favourite pudding (Slytherins were a greedy pack), Potter had not looked at him all day. Been too busy, too stressed, too bustled about by Granger and the Weasel.

Not that he was jealous or anything.

Blaise gave him a strange look when he pierced the lamb fillet on his plate rather forcefully with his fork.

"It's already dead, you know," Blaise said, long fingers working his own knife and fork to part and cut and sever his already-dead fillet.

"He's got aggressions to work off, you know?" Pansy told Blaise over the bowl of peas she was handing over to them and just then pierced one of the baby carrots on her plate with deadly aim.

Draco glared at them and nibbled at the piece of fillet on his fork. He very badly wished for friends who were either sane or didn't think he was mad, or better: both. And he wanted Potter to look at him. That, too, badly.

XV.

Cho Chang approached him, silently like an eagle on the prey, her dark eyes fierce like coals burning with black fire.

Dusk bathed the castle in a vermilion red glow, and Draco was on his way to the dormitories.

Blaise and Pansy had both hurried off into the direction of the library, muttering of plans Draco wasn't supposed to know about, but Draco thought there were being so very subtle about it that he suspected they might want to him to know anyway.

So. Cho Chang stopped him just as he set foot onto the steps down into the dungeons and he raised his left brow at her inquisitively - tired and wanting a shower, he wasn't in the best of his moods.

"Malfoy," she began and after a moment of silence where she obviously expected him to say something (which he didn't), continued: "Draco. Can I talk to you for a minute?"

He blinked at her and then nodded. "Go on, Chang."

"Not here." She glanced over her shoulder and Draco noticed that the fingers of her right hand were curled around her left arm, pale against the stark black of her school robes.

"People might listen. This is about things not meant for everybody's ear." Her tongue scraped over her lips, which were dry and chapped, and Draco saw the shadows under her eyes and the way she held her body, the way she was broken and scattered, and he knew. He just knew.

"Chang," he said quietly and put his bag onto the floor, undid the buttons on the left sleeve of his robes and rolled it up to expose his white, unscarred inner forearm. "I think I am the wrong person to contact about ... these issues."

She stared at him for a moment until her face contorted, eyes fierce and mouth set in a vicious line. "Traitor," she hissed and Draco couldn't look at her, suddenly feeling very lost and guilty and alone.

"Traitor! Wait until the Dark Lord hears of that! Or your father!"

Draco felt his right hand jerk slightly, fingers craving the feel of his wand. But instead he simply answered: "I doubt this will faze them anyhow."

Chang laughed dryly, her long black hair dancing as she shook her head. "You are the last person I expected to become a Mudblood-lover, Malfoy."

Draco didn't say anything. He just picked up his bag and walked away, knowing that nothing he would say or do would change her mind.

That night Draco wandered off into the regular sixth year dormitories where he sat down on one of the two empty beds that framed the only window.

He drew his knees up to his chin and curled up and thought about Vince and Greg and all the others and the Dark Lord - and icy guilt burned its way through his insides.

He fell asleep, still in his school robes and his shoes, tired and exhausted, and dreamed of his notebook, its pages fluttering around the towers of Hogwarts like little, white birds, spreading his secrets like the thousand mouths of Fama, and Hogwarts was her home full of ears that listened eagerly to every word and eyes that caught every movement without blinking.

XVI.

It was his third glass of Sugargin. No, the fourth. Or it might as well have been the fifth for all Draco could care because he felt comfortably numb and couldn't remember anymore.

The Hog's Head was a dirty, shabby place and if Draco hadn't been so drunk he would have been shocked at himself for even accepting Potter's offer to come here. But he was drunk and the filth on the tabletop and the chapped leather of the narrow bench in the booth they were sitting in weren't disturbing him as much as they probably should have.

Blaise was nursing his second glass of some Muggle beverage that smelled sweet and looked like caffé latte and that obviously was not very intoxicating for Blaise seemed still very sober in Draco's eyes.

Pansy's whereabouts were uncertain, but Draco suspected that she was somewhere with Theodore and was surely having a better time than he was, having a boyfriend and all that.

Funnily, the thought amused him and he smiled into his glass. Next to him Blaise was rambling about some book or another, his right hand drawing lazy circles on the small of Draco's back, where it certainly did not belong.

"Blaise," Draco mumbled, furrowing his brows in concentration. "I'm aware of my irresistibility, but do you really think it's necessary for you to take advantage of me in my intoxicated state?" He raised his right brow and emptied his glass feeling rather superior, indeed.

Blaise glared at him, all dark eyes and honey golden skin and Draco thought that if he wasn't his best friend he might just allow him to take advantage of him. But then Blaise destroyed his illusions by ruffling his hair and whispering: "Shut up, Draco. This is part of the plan."

Draco opened his mouth to interrogate him, but he was interrupted. "No. No! Don't ask. Seriously, you don't want to know. It's Pansy's plan. A brilliant plan, but a Pansy-plan." Blaise sighed and downed his drink. "Now, be nice and play along, will you?"

Draco shrugged because he had lost the thread halfway through Blaise's interesting, yet slightly confusing monologue. For some reason, though, he was rather certain that it had something to do with Potter.

Potter. That git.

He turned his head a little, glimpsing over Blaise's shoulders to where Potter had been roaming about ten minutes ago and still was. The youngest Weasel, freckly and red-haired, was standing in front of him, hands pressed on her hips, whispering furiously.

Potter was frowning, rubbing his forehead, a bottle in his hand, gesturing with the other while he answered.

Draco stared and blinked, averted his gaze only to look again seconds later. It seemed very much like a row. A big, ugly row between lovers.

He suddenly felt very empty - it was illogical, for Potter was not especially cosy with the Weasley girl at the moment. But still. Potter had a girlfriend. Or had had a girlfriend.

Draco wished he didn't care.

He sighed and bit his lip and leaned against Blaise, their shoulders and knees bumping together, and felt a little better.

"Another drink?" Blaise patted his cheek, looking too sympathetic for Draco's liking. He nodded and waved him off and Blaise slipped out of the booth and towards the bar, disappearing between bodies and curtains that were clustering the space around the bar.

Draco exhaled slowly, leaned onto the table, chin resting on his arms. The alcohol was buzzing through his veins like a dull, but persistent noise, and his head felt odd when he moved too much. As though it was filled with jelly.

Potter was still arguing with the Weasley girl; though now it seemed to have turned into a one-sided conversation for Potter had stopped talking and was now resting against a pillar, arms crossed over his chest. He appeared to be angry and sad at the same time, and Draco thought it made him look a little funny; his hair was a wild, scrubby mess and he was biting around on his lower lip scowling at the same time.

Just as Draco was once more about to decide if he was miserable or pathetic, Potter apparently noticed him watching and looked back at him, brows raised, half a smirk on his face.

Draco jumped a little and turned away, burying his face in his arms. Merlin, he wanted Blaise to return now or he wouldn't be able to able to responsibility for his actions anymore.

He peeked over the creases in his sleeves to where Potter had been just moments before; now he was gone, and the Weasley girl was leaning against the next wall talking to Granger, looking rather upset.

He closed his eyes again, fingers tracing the surface of the table, and started to count the bumps, wondering idly what had caused them.

The wood felt alien beneath his fingertips and when a soft 'clink' went through its molecular structure straight to Draco's ears, he took a few seconds to understand the origin of the sound.

He grumbled and turned his head, reached out at the same time to claim the drink Blaise brought him, only to see Potter looking down at him, a drunk grin on his face.

"Go away," he mumbled against his sleeve. "Just go away."

Potter ignored his protests, pushed the glass in his direction and settled down next to him, placing a half-empty bottle of Muggle beer on the table. "Where's Zabini? Hasn't he been kind of all over you all evening long?"

"Hmph," Draco answered. He sat up, leaned against the back of the bench and eyed first the orange drink and then Potter suspiciously.

"What do you want?"

Potter shrugged and grinned again, a bit sheepishly this time, and Draco looked away because he felt the blood rush into his cheeks.

"It's err - something with mango, I think. The drink, I mean - It's for you."

Draco turned his head again to raise his left eyebrow at Potter. A moment passed and Draco stared at the neon coloured beverage and it stared back, and then he reached out, lifted the glass and took a sip. It was a drink sweet as honey and sugar, somehow sour and somewhat alcoholic, but to Draco it tasted like sin.

Under the table, lying against the broken leather of the bench, his left hand was shaking a little, unnoticeably so.

"You know," he said, while carefully setting the glass back onto the table. "You don't have to be nice to me only because your little experiment to finally unite the two most alienated Houses has failed pathetically."

He desperately hoped that he had not forgotten any words. And that it had at least sounded a little like himself.

"You're really a dumb git, Malfoy," Potter said almost fondly, prodding Draco's drink with the forefinger of his right hand as though it might move and run away any second. Draco could very well imagine it in this filthy shack Potter dared to call a 'bar'.

He rolled his eyes and sighed. "Well, if you say so. Takes one to know one, non?"

"Don't get all French-y with me, you sophisticated brat," Potter shot back, but his tone was amused and his grin lopsided and, well, charming.

Draco bit his lip and then took another sip from his horrible drink, because he didn't want to smile back.

Silence crept out of the shadows and comfortably settled down between them, even as Potter cleared his throat and scooted a bit closer on the bench when a group of hags staggered past their table.

He was radiating so much, too much body heat and Draco could feel it through the fabric of his robes, their thighs pressed against each other, just a casual touch. Potter didn't seem to notice.

It was awkward and stupid and Draco didn't know what to say; the alcohol was slowly draining away and leaving him with the cold reality of the situation.

A moment later, Potter tapped his fingers against a black spot on the table and then said: "Are you okay with all of this? I mean, helping us and stuff. Aren't the other Slytherins troubling you all the time? You're the only one, right?"

Draco stared at him for a second or two or even longer and then snorted, shaking his head. "I'm not the only one, of course. We're not all evil, you know? Start realising that the world isn't just black and white" - Potter interrupted him with an angry 'I know!', but Draco ignored him and continued: "People from other Houses follow the Dark Lord, too, and I'm not the only Slytherin who doesn't."

Potter was quiet then, drank from his beer, head tilted as though he was encouraging Draco to go on, which he did.

"Pansy and Nott, they aren't going to keep up their family tradition either. And Blaise's parents never were Death Eaters anyway. There are a few in the lower years as well."

"And what about Death Eaters who aren't Slytherins?" Potter asked, brows raised in question, doubt in his eyes.

Draco suddenly felt the urge to run away, thinking of Chang and yesterday evening. He shrugged and looked away. Telling him about Chang would not be a good idea.

"There. No one." Potter looked smug and Draco wanted to hit him all of a sudden.

"I know there are some," he hissed. "I know it because one approached me yesterday." He ran a hand through his hair to keep it out of his eyes.

"Who?" Worry. There was worry in Potter's voice and Draco felt jealous and stupid and pathetic.

"A Ravenclaw. You know her," he answered quickly, watching as Potter's mouth tightened. A nod followed. A silent admission at having been wrong. It made Draco's heart flutter a little that Potter didn't assume he was lying.

Potter was still staring at him, eyes wandering over his face and neck, fixing on his mouth, throat and finally his eyes. Draco bit his lip and pulled his right leg onto the bench to rest his chin on his knee.

"I just thought - if you had problems with people - I could..." Potter trailed off, ineffectively trying to blow his fringe out of his eyes.

"I don't need your help, Potter. You have a serious saviour-complex." But it didn't sound as venomously as he'd wished it would.

"Well, I just don't want you hurt or anything." Potter shrugged, a small grin returning his face. Draco cocked his eyebrow at him, but in truth didn't really feel cocky at all.

He felt the urge to yell at Potter to stop this all, because he was, once again, getting the wrong impression and really, once was more than enough for his ego. But he had to admit to himself, that Potter was flirting with him, or at least attempting to do so; however, this might just have been the effects of a certain intoxicating beverage Potter seemed to have been consuming all evening long.

He moved a little and under the table their hands brushed together; it sent a flood of adrenaline through his veins and he blushed, if only a little. He thought of his notebook and of the nights he had spent writing it and then of Potter, who had spent nights reading it, all of Draco's secrets revealed and unfolded and open in front of him.

"I can look after myself. I don't need you saving me just because you think I'm an ally or something else. Because I'm not. I do the things I do, because I want to and because I think I will benefit from them. Got that?" Yes, he thought, definitely more sober than before. Slowly regaining control of facial muscles and linguistic skills.

"Yeah, I know. You're only doing it because you want to take over the world and rule as the sole emperor. I'm aware of your evil plans, Slytherin scum." Potter grinned warm-heartedly.

He replied without thinking, word after word tumbling from his tongue as though he were losing them accidentally. "Of course. And I shall make you my very personal slave, too, you'll see."

"I bet you'd like that. I read that notebook, you know. You can't hide your deepest and dirtiest secrets from me. I know all your kinks." Not so warm-heartedly anymore, rather rough, words as substantial as the floor beneath him.

"Oh, do shut up." He pressed his finger against his lips, pushing and twisting, wondering about Potter's mouth and fingers and how it'd feel like to touch his hair.

"Can I...?" Potter looked flustered all of a sudden, eyes fixed on a spot somewhere left from Draco's head, and Draco jerked a little, knee knocking against the edge of the table.

"What?" he asked through gritted teeth, rubbing the sore spot on his knee.

"Can I call you by your first name?" Potter responded after a moment. "Draco?" He rolled the name in his mouth, as though he were tasting it, wound lips and tongue around it. "Draco." Letter after letter, emphasized, pronounced carefully. "Draco."

It was the strangest thing he had ever heard; never had his name sounded this unfamiliar to himself before. It was nearly as though Potter had taken it away from him and reshaped it, created it anew.

"Do what you want."

Potter's smirk widened, eyes green and intense behind his glasses. "Really?" He shifted, one knee drawn up, mirroring Draco.

"Excuse me?" Draco blinked, scooted back a little, startled because of the sudden closeness, and nearly fell off the bench.

"What I want?" Potter reached out, catching a loose strand of his hair, tugging slightly; Draco followed the movement, trying to avoid the pain of having his hair pulled, and because oh my god Potter wastugginghishair,touchinghishair,him.

He swallowed dryly, sucked his bottom lip between his teeth and noticed Potter following the movement with his eyes.

"Oh, what the hell," Potter breathed and then leaned forward, hand slipping around Draco's neck, pulling him forward, covering his mouth with his own.

Two, three seconds, he couldn't move, paralyzed he stared at Potter's closed eyes and his hair, smelling soap tinged with sweat and something mossy, earthy, that was, without a doubt, Potter himself.

Then he relaxed, closed his eyes, and responded hesitantly because it all seemed like one of the weird daydreams he used to have as a child. Surreal, Potter's lips against his own, his hands in his hair, the sounds of their breaths and their kiss.

He made a small noise in the back of his throat, finally reaching up to grip the back of Potter's head, fingers twisting the thick hair there.

His leg slipped off the narrow bench, but Potter caught him before he could follow and pushed him against the upholstery, hot, wet mouth encouraging Draco, tongue sliding tentatively between his parted lips.

Draco's inside twisted and uncoiled again, and he felt his lashes fluttering against his cheeks. He pulled away, gazing up into Potter's flushed face.

"Err -" Potter swallowed and shifted and their noses bumped together. "Are you, uhm, okay?" His fingers fumbled Draco's collar cautiously, moved farther to touch his neck gently.

Draco nodded absently, shivers running down his spine because he had just kissed Harry Potter. And he was so close and warm and alive, real. His breath tasted faintly of beer and mints and Draco felt dizzy, heart beating hotly with euphoria.

"You are so gorgeous," Potter breathed and kissed him again, not waiting for answer or consent, but plunging forward, pressing and pushing and pulling until Draco lay underneath him, covered by his body, right leg dangling off the bench.

They melted against each other, sharing breath after breath, until Draco couldn't hear anything but the blood rushing in his ears and the soft sounds of their lips touching anymore . He let out a small whimper and drew Potter closer, arms around his neck, Potter's hands in his hair and fiddling with his clothing.

"Nh, Potter..."

He hooked one leg over Potter's hips - more contact, more warmth - and moved, slowly, upward. The body above him responded appropriately, rhythms matched, tongues and lips and hands entwined, and Potter was doing it just right, his mouth leaving Draco's lips, moving on to his neck, where he had already very effectively unbuttoned his collar.

His mouth was wet and soft and Draco felt him whisper things against his skin, shaking a little from too much friction and heat and touch. His robes and his shirt came undone, giving in to Potter's nimble fingers.

Potter hummed against his skin, biting and nibbling and Draco 'oohed' faintly.

"I," Potter groaned, breath hot and fast, and slid his hands beneath his shirt and farther and slowly, leisurely thrust against him, making his eyelids flutter shut. Teeth tugged on the shell of his ear and Draco moaned.

Then words, a low, rough growl, moist against his skin : "I really wanna fuck you right now. Let's get back to Hogwarts..." Another tug, a bite, a pair of lips sucking at his throat, but suddenly Draco couldn't move anymore. It was as though someone had poured a bucket full of cold water over his head.

Over Potter's head he could see the mango coloured drink and it reminded him of the Weasley girl's hair and of the fight she and Potter had had not quite half an hour ago.

Draco suddenly felt very sick; numb and stupid and used.

He pushed at Potter's shoulders, trying to get him off, the feel of his mouth and lips against his skin unbearable.

"Get the fuck off," he said hoarsely and tried to wiggle away from the body draped over him, suffocating him all of a sudden.

Potter sat back, glasses askew, a confused, but still hungry look in his eyes. "What?"

Draco hissed at him and pulled his shirt and robes back together. "Fuck off." He tried to climb past Potter, escape, run, flee, but the booth was tiny and Potter adamant about demanding information.

"What happened? What did I do? Or are you always like that?" He slammed his flat hand onto the table, the glass on it jumped and toppled over, spilling orange-coloured juice all over the surface.

"You are such an idiot," Draco retorted, once more shoving at Potter, at the same time fumbling for his wand that had to be somewhere in his robes. "Did you really think I would just quietly play substitute for your girlfriend because you're horny and need some flesh?"

He took a detour over the table, ignoring the wetness under his fingers. Potter stared at him with wide eyes.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Ah, wand, wand, wand. Draco gripped it, held onto it, heart pounding with anger, disappointment and embarrassment.

Potter's look spoke volumes; irritation, hunger, frustration, and Draco knew, knew, why; because Potter always got what he wanted, when he wanted it, only not now, not with him. He cursed himself for falling for it in the first place. He should have known.

"I hate you so much right now," he hissed, voice still rough and it was mortifying. He knew he was shaking, half standing, half kneeling on the bench, like an abandoned puppy.

"Look, Malfoy, I'm sure we can..."

Only Potter didn't get any farther because Draco, unsteady on his feet, turned and stormed off through the crowd, but not before hexing the git into absolute oblivion.

XVII.

Sunday was the strangest affair; Potter seemed to be everywhere, seemed only too eager to talk to him, but for once Draco felt only sick when thinking about talking to him.

Potter's stay in the infirmary had been short, not more than a few hours, and he had returned without scratches or burns, and Draco had to admit to himself that he probably had not sent him as much into oblivion as he'd wished to.

Blaise and Pansy, in their unfathomable wisdom, knew everything of course, which might also have been because of the blossoming hickey on Draco's neck, that Blaise had seen before he had been able to cover it with a silk scarf. Not that Blaise hadn't known before.

In retrospect, Pansy's plan had worked out exceptionally well; having Blaise stir Potter's so-called jealousy, vanishing to make space for him. Only that Potter hadn't been jealous, just horny, and had a lousy character and none of the oh-so famous Gryffindor moral.

Draco poked his pillow and it gave a feeble wibble, suddenly sprouting one fluffy bunny ear. He sighed exasperatedly and glanced at Potter's back and his stupid, mussed hair, and at Granger and the Weasel flanking the git like good little minions.

McGonagall passed his row, raised her eyebrow at his bunny-pillow and silently repeated the wand motion that went with the spell.

"Lepo." Another feeble wibble, but no more ears or tails. Draco rolled his eyes in frustration and was tempted to hex Potter again.

And while a black-and-white rabbit jumped from one of the tables in the first row and, upon touching the floor, turned back into a quilted pillow, the other students, including Draco, put their things together as the lesson ended.

Exactly seven steps away from the door and a few feet behind Pansy and Blaise, Draco felt fingers close around his arm, tugging and pulling, and he had his wand out again in a flourishing motion.

"Look," Potter said. "Malfoy - Draco, I want to talk to you, I..."

Draco snorted and yanked his arm free, feeling Blaise's presence warm and encouraging behind him. "I think you already made your intentions quite clear, Potter, and I do not wish to associate any more than necessary with you."

"Which means Fuck off, in plain English," Pansy added with a superior look on her face.

Draco felt miserable.

XVIII.

Potter continued following him around, practically ambushed him after every class they shared on Monday and the following day; after Snape caught him waiting at the door on Tuesday after Potions and deducted five points from Gryffindor for loitering, though, he seemed to become less enthusiastic about pestering Draco.

Quidditch training on Tuesday evening was pure bliss; the sharp wind cleared his mind and the Snitch distracted him from thoughts his brain had been resolute about wallowing in all day long.

After the training he whiled away time by tidying up his locker (which was already very orderly anyway) and watched the rest of his team enter and leave the showers.

He wasn't a prude - four years of sharing a dorm with other boys surely had prevented that - but the whole Slytherin Quidditch team consisted of Death Eater children, all followers of the Dark Lord and Draco wasn't keen on risking anything, especially after the incident with Chang.

When the last player had filed out, Draco spelled the door shut, undressed and entered the showers. He washed, exhaustion making his limbs heavy. The last training had been some time before Christmas, nearly a month ago and he felt it in his flesh and bones, which were wonderfully sore and tired.

He inhaled slowly, water streaming down his face, plastering his hair against his forehead.

Of course Quidditch had brought memories of Potter as well, memories of defeats and sweat and disappointment. He sighed and leaned back against the wall, head knocking audibly against the tiles, and jumped a second later when he heard a door open and then fall shut.

He nearly slipped, grabbed his towel and rushed out into the locker room only to find Harry Potter clothed in Muggle jeans and a red T-shirt waiting for him.

"Err - hi," Potter said, his face flushing red, neck to ears, eyes fixed on a spot somewhere to the left of Draco's head.

One, two seconds passed while Draco stared at him, about a million possible ways to react popping up in his mind. He was very tempted to put the towel to good use and cover certain areas of his body - but then, this would look like admitting defeat, like admitting weakness. He wasn't ashamed. He didn't have to hide anything, and least of all from Potter.

So he swung the towel over his shoulder, took a few unsteady steps forward and cocked his head.

"What are you doing here?" His wand, he noticed a little desperately, was on the bench behind Potter on top of his abandoned clothes.

"I just want to talk to you." Potter ruffled his hair and pushed his hands into the pockets of his trousers. He did look sincere, but Draco thought that all Gryffindors did no matter what they were plotting.

"What? Talk? So you can try and abuse me again?" He stepped closer, Potter and his wand only a few feet away now.

"No, look, Draco." Potter sighed, visibly growing more and more exasperated. "I'm sorry for whatever happened or whatever I did to make you angry. So will you please listen to me? I swear I won't touch you."

"Fine." Draco pursed his lips and edged closer, the row of lockers behind him now. " But it's not as though anything reasonable comes out of your mouth anyway."

"Why do you have to be so stubborn? I already said that I'm sorry, didn't I?" Potter sighed, still avoiding looking at him directly.

"What happened was - "

"A big mistake and you'd rather forget about it?" Draco crossed his arms. "This is such a Gryffindoresque way to deal with problems."

Potter growled then, deep and low, a sound of frustration, and it reminded Draco of Saturday and he blushed a little, suddenly very much wanting to wrap the towel around his waist. And then Potter moved closer and Draco backed off until his back hit the row of cabinets, the floor cold and wet beneath his feet.

"Will you please listen to me?!"

Draco bit his lip, stared at him. "This is so convenient, isn't it? Now that your girlfriend is gone, just move on to the next! Malfoy isn't going to refuse anyway!"

Potter's right hand collided with the metal next to his head a second later and Draco jumped, blood rushing loudly in his ears. He swallowed, fear wallowing up inside him, because Potter was a powerful wizard, was taller and outweighed him by at least fifteen pounds and right now he was apparently very angry.

He exhaled slowly, the handle of the locker digging into his back, and raised his hand to push Potter away, make space for him to breathe, to escape because he couldn't handle this much intimacy, even if it only consisted of a reduced distance between their bodies. But Potter obviously had other plans for he had Draco's wrist caught and pinned above his head without hesitation.

"You will shut up now and let me talk because this is important!" A growl, another reduction of what little was left of space between them, fingers that dug hard into his wrist, making him slink back as far as possible, which wasn't much. At all.

"Get off me, Potter!" He tried to use his other hand to bat the intruder, abuser, Harry bloody Potter, off, but only ended up with two hands uselessly caught above his head and a racing heart. Never trust a Gryffindor, he thought head abuzz with disappointment and regret.

"Why," Potter snarl, leaning in slowly. "Why won't you just get it?" Emphasized his words by pressing closer, by crushing him against the locker, and Draco was helplessly trapped without his hands or his wand or anything at all.

He felt breath hot and moist against his neck, felt the heat radiating from Potter's body penetrating his bare skin, felt fingers skim over his flesh, felt Potter stiffening and hardening against his hip.

He made another desperate attempt to break free, jerking his arms, bringing his knee up, aiming to cause damage. Only it didn't work; Potter twisted his wrists until they started to hurt and then a little more, his free hand catching hold of Draco's chin, eyes wild and glowing behind the glasses.

He stopped struggling then, just slumped back against the cabinet held only by Potter's right hand, breath fast and heart pounding rapidly

"Draco," Potter groaned and tugged a little, guiding him, a repetition of the scene from Sunday, and Draco couldn't resist or refuse because Harry - Potter! - Potter was so very close. They met, all tongues and clicking teeth and bruised, bitten lips.

It was less of a kiss than a demonstration of power, of strength, and when Potter let go of his wrists to slide his own hands down his back, Draco only reacted with a low hiss into his mouth.

"Potter..." He arched, the hands warm and rough against his skin, the towel sliding to the floor, useless.

"Harry." A low mumble against his bottom lip accompanied by scraping teeth. "It's Harry."

And dazed and reckless from adrenaline and arousal and all those other nice things, Draco hardly nodded, hands pulling on Harry's T-shirt, eager for more skin, more warmth.

They pressed and wriggled against each for a few moments, Draco fisting Harry's hair, bliss seizing through his veins like a lightening spell; Harry's hand stopped drawing lazy circles on his ribs and moved lower, brushing, grasping hard flesh.

Draco moaned, head falling back, knocking against the locker, gasping for air, and then reached out to undo the buttons of Harry's trousers, hands shaking violently. He closed his eyes, dipped his hands in, too distracted to respond to the attempts at a kiss Harry was making, or rather stopped making when Draco's fingers closed around him tentatively.

They both moaned, breathing and movement matched in rhythm, similarly awkward and unfamiliar for they had never touched before, symmetrical imperfection in two stroking hands and two shaking bodies.

Their mouths were barely touching, half-opened in a gasp both of them, until Harry pressed forward, his lips onto Draco's in a hungry, wet kiss, tongue lapping and stabbing, the hand moving on Draco's cock forcing him towards orgasm.

Draco, inebriated, lost, returned the favour, kissing back desperately. Somewhere in the back of his mind something was screaming, fear, embarrassment, Draco didn't know, couldn't know, not with Harry quickening the pace, with him moaning his name.

He fell and tumbled and disappeared, mind and body overflowing with heat first and then becoming blissfully blank as his climax slowly ebbed away.

His hand, instinctively seemingly, was still moving over Harry's erection inside his jeans and it didn't take too long, three, four long hard strokes and Harry groaned low in the back of throat, the sound sending gentle shivers down Draco's spine, came all over his hand and sagged against him, face pressed against his neck.

Draco sank to the floor, knees simply giving in, and Harry followed suit, one hand resting against his stomach, the other carefully stroking his hair. Draco shut his eyes again, felt a soft kiss being placed on the corner of his mouth and they were still for a few moments, the only sound in the room their slowing breaths.

Gradually, consciousness came back to him, step after step and then it hit him painfully and he pulled away, becoming aware of his body and Harry's body and their position, their touching hands, the drying sweat and sperm clinging to him and making his skin itch.

The floor, which had been such a temptation of comfort just moments ago, was cold beneath him; he felt betrayed and embarrassed and reached over to drape the towel over his body.

"Apparently promises don't have to be kept if you're dealing with a Slytherin," Draco began with a sarcastic laugh, too spent to move he didn't even try to increase the distance between them.

Harry rolled off him, leaned back against the locker, pushed the hair out his flushed face. "This - Draco. I'm sorry."

Draco didn't say anything. He could only think of how he had let it happen again despite knowing better, despite knowing that this all meant nothing to Harry.

"I lost control. I really only came here to talk to you." Harry, who was slowly turning back to Potter, who had used him two times already, reached out, tried to capture his hand.

"Don't be ridiculous. You don't really expect me to believe you, do you?" Draco snorted, hollow inside, and batted his hand away. "Get lost."

Harry stared at him for a moment, then averted his gaze, got up and spelled the door open to leave. And Draco thought of how he'd promised, sworn not to touch him and yet had done so.

He found it amusing, in a very masochistic way.

XIX.

Harry tried to talk to him one more time, on a sunny afternoon in the library not quite two days after what had happened in the locker room. Draco found himself relatively speechless and quite murderous, but Pansy got up, slammed her book onto table (made Nott jump in response) and told Harry - Potter! - to leave Draco alone. Which he, surprisingly, did after that.

Pansy wanted to make (crazy) revenge plans, had already started with schemes and lists, but Draco didn't really feel like taking revenge; he rather felt like eating chocolate and curling up in his bed with a good book. He kept wondering if it could have turned out different, kept wondering what would have happened if Harry had not been so rash.

On Monday, Draco woke up with a terrible headache and an even more terrible presentiment. Of course he hadn't been feeling particularly cheerful at all the past week, but this time it was more of a something-is-going-to-happen-impression.

He trailed down into the Great Hall for breakfast together with Pansy, Theodore and Blaise, tired and unwell. Pansy was listening to his complaints with only one ear, more occupied with subtly telling her boyfriend what she wanted for her upcoming birthday, and Blaise wasn't taking him seriously.

They sat down at the end of the Slytherin table, Draco flanked by Pansy and Blaise as usual. The coffee tasted stale, but that probably was because of his bad mood - the house-elves were diligent after all.

He reached out for a slice of toast, when Pansy suddenly shrieked, knocked her goblet over and grasped Theodore's arm; he looked up and saw half of the Slytherins' upper years, a few Ravenclaws and some Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors rise to their feet, many with rolled up sleeves and their wands out.

And then there were rushing voices and screams, clattering plates and cutlery and chaos, chaos! as one of the Slytherins cast Morsmordre. The skull shot up into the ceiling, a little faint and wobbly, but still able to fill it up, casting green light into the hall.

Draco's heart stopped beating for a second and then started thumping wildly, as if to catch up with what it had lost.

On the High Table, Dumbledore got up, followed by the teachers; he looked dismayed, old, and just when he was about to speak up, Tracey Davis raised her voice and it was clear and loud and Draco cowered against Blaise, afraid and confused.

"This place," Davis declared, "is impure. We are no longer inclined to stay here." A pause, in which all of the teachers drew their wands.

Then: "Death to the blood-traitors!" A pandemonium of answering voices, someone calling Draco's name, Harry calling his name, and aimless spells and hexes.

Blaise dragged them, Draco, Pansy, Theodore, down from the bench to the floor, and finally he could react, the shock fading to the back of his mind and he pulled out his wand to reflect a hex just as something hit the wall behind him and pieces of stone and plaster rained down on him. He ducked and when he came up again, Harry was kneeling on the floor next to him and drawing him closer, arms around his waist, their bodies touching - a promise of safety. He smelled of sweat and fear and his hands were warm through the material of Draco's robes.

"You alright?"

Draco didn't answer, just nodded and pushed the hair out of his face, dizzy and confused; he heard Dumbledore's voice roar and teachers and students cry and then a moment later, as though commanded by a signal it stopped abruptly with the soft swish of activating Portkeys.

Harry relaxed against him and Draco blushed and pulled away, pushed him away; Pansy and Theodore crawled out from under the table, both unharmed, eyes wide, hands entwined. Blaise was getting up again, hair full of white dust from the walls, a deep slash in his arm.

Draco edged away from Harry, let Blaise help him to his feet, cheeks aflame and heart thumping with fear and embarrassment and shock.

A second later, Snape came hurrying over to them, a cut in his left cheek. "I assume that you are all alive and healthy?"

They nodded and Harry backed off slowly. "I guess I'll be going then..."

"Mr Potter," Snape said and tilted his chin a bit as he walked off. Draco kept silent because his mind was a mess. He leaned heavily against Blaise, who wrapped one arm around him and pulled him close. He too smelled of sweat and fear, but it wasn't quite the same as with Harry.

XX.

All in all, twenty-seven students had left via Portkeys that Monday. Only Orla Quirke, a small, sandy-haired Ravenclaw third year, was caught before she could activate her Portkey. Her parents came to pick her up not quite a day later, both of them looking embarrassed and frightened.

When Draco returned from classes and a trip to the library on Thursday evening, the common room in the Slytherin Dungeons was nearly empty, the small ones already tucked away in their beds. Those who were still awake, were quiet and huddled together in small groups, as though it might start all over again.

But he felt uneasy, itchy in a way, as well, as if there was someone watching him, hovering behind him all the time. Seeing a group of fourth years, huddle closer together by the fire, made him think of Harry - Potter, he told himself sternly, for what seemed to be the hundredth time this day.

He hugged his books to his chest and walked down the corridor next to the fireplace and entered his room.

Soft firelight was filling it with warmth and Draco, shoulders sagging, relaxed and dropped his books onto one of the fauteuils in front of the fire. They bounced once, twice and then slipped to the floor, covers falling open and pages getting folded. He stared at them for a second, felt his left eye twitch and dropped himself onto the chair in front of his desk, utterly annoyed.

There was a prickling sensation passing over his shoulders and neck and he raised his hand to bat it away.

One of the maltreated books gave a feeble tremor, flapping its pages helplessly. Draco sighed and raised his wand to Levitate it together with the others onto the coffee table.

The Latin phrase rolled off his tongue, clean and audible, his pronunciation had always been perfect, only his wand movement was wonky and sent the books clashing against the ceiling, because a head, full of mussed coal-coloured hair, appeared out of thin air next to the right, lower bedpost.

Right after that a body followed, but Draco was too busy falling off his chair to notice. He banged his head against the edge of his desk and a moment later on the floor, managed to twist his legs in his robes and the back of the chair.

His vertebrae cracked and groaned in a rather frightening way and when he finally was able to prop himself up again, Harry was already standing next to him, ready to help him up.

Draco got to his feet, cursed colourfully and stumbled across the room on one foot, since the other was still tangled in his robes, and collapsed onto his bed, from where he tried to jinx Harry.

The spell missed by more than three feet and hit the drapes in front of his window instead. They burst with a 'blop' and Draco lifted his wand to strike again just as Harry raised both hands.

"Get out. The next time I won't miss." He straightened his shoulders, stared at him.

"I just - I just came to talk to you."

"Oh, well, that's a real novelty, isn't it, Potter?" He tightened the grip on his wand, feeling his hands shake.

"Please. Don't?" Harry breathed, eyebrows knit in concern. "Just let me talk. I won't do anything else."

"I've heard that so often already, I'm starting to get the distinct impression that you're not meaning it," Draco hissed and shook his leg to detangle his foot from his robes and then got up, hands stemmed against his hips, chin tilted, wand ready. "Now, get out of here!"

"No! No, I won't. Draco, I want you to listen to me!" Harry groaned, pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "Why do you have to be so bloody obstinate?"

"I'm not being obstinate," Draco replied, pursed his lips, malice in his voice. "I just don't want to listen to anything you have to say anymore. It's always the same! I'm so sick of it and I'm sick of you and I'm sick of your attitude!"

"Fine!" Harry retorted, raising his voice. "Fine! I don't know really know why I bother! It's not worth the effort - I'm not getting anything back at all anyway!"

Draco gritted his teeth. "Of course, for you it's all about the use of things, isn't it? You think I'm easy and it just hurts your pride that you haven't - haven't fucked me yet! And that is all!"

Harry protested vociferously, shoulders shaking, cheeks burning with anger, but Draco cut him off. "You're just spoiled. You think you can have anything and the only reason you're here is because I refused to - to be subdued by you!"

"That's not true!" Harry exhaled noisily and kicked the desk, making Draco jump slightly. "I'm here because I care about you."

"Oh, certainly." Draco snorted. "All you care about is your dick!"

"I'm a man, I can't help it! But a prissy like you wouldn't understand that, right?" Harry ruffled his hair and crossed his arms before his chest. "And you - you just block every attempt at - at making it right!"

"Excuse me?" Draco let out a small, sarcastic laugh. "Making it right? You practically raped me!"

Harry stared at him for a moment and then shook his head. "You seemed pretty ... eager. Both times! I never forced you to do anything!"

Draco wanted to howl in frustration, but instead he just stomped down with one foot. "Do things like 'please, don't' no longer count as an opposition to unwanted activities?!" He didn't give him the chance to react, but simply continued. "And what about that Weasley girl? You broke up with her and then came to me because you were looking for a quick and easy substitute for her! Do you really think that I'm stupid enough not to notice these things?"

"Draco - "

"No! I don't want to hear it! Just get out of here already!" His chest hurt; a burning sensation that made his knees weak. He wanted Harry to leave him alone and he wanted to lie down and never get up again. "Out!"

And suddenly he had to duck away, cover down because Harry was throwing something at him. It hit the bedpost next to his head and Draco grabbed the duvet and sat down on the floor so that he wouldn't fall over.

"There! Your bloody notebook." Harry rubbed his face, anger fading from his features. "You know, I was really trying. I like you. I thought I could deal with your antics and I thought that you liked me back enough to let down at least some of your defence."

Draco stared at him, cradled the notebook against his chest. He wanted to retort with something witty, something biting, but he felt too numb.

Harry sank against the armchair next to him. "I don't want to scream at you and I don't want to hurt you, but you just don't listen to me when I try to talk to you normally. So, are you listening to me?"

Draco nodded and bit his lip, not daring to answer, afraid that his voice would fail.

"Good. Then I'm going to say it again: Draco, I like you. I kissed you in the Hog's Head because I like you and I said this absolutely dumb thing because I like you. I didn't give up after everything that has happened because I like you. If I just wanted some girl or boy for a quick shag, do you really think I'd really make such a big effort?"

"I don't know, alright?" Draco sighed and drew his knees to his chest. "I don't know anything anymore."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Fine, I'll tell you: No, I wouldn't do that for everyone. But I think you're worth the effort. Hell, you're even worth the trouble of dealing with that devil of girl you have as a friend! She broke my nose and look, I'm still here!" He cracked a smile.

"I don't know if I can believe you. You're nice to everybody." Draco screwed his eyes shut for a moment, trying to get his head clear, and then reopened them and continued: "You could be lying."

"But I'm not. I don't want to lie to you. I want you to like me. Plus, I'm a Gryffindor, aren't I?"

Draco laughed dryly and shook his head. "You did a lot of un-Gryffindoresque things in the past weeks."

"I know I screwed up. err. A lot. But I'm sorry. Really, really sorry."

"You threw a book at me. And you just called Pansy a devil. She's my best friend, you know?" Draco scratched his nose, hugged his knees closer to his chest.

"I was angry. I was only trying to shut you up somehow, alright?" Draco prepared to say something, but Harry went on, cutting him off: "But I'm sorry. For both things. My fault. Okay?"

"You don't sound very sorry," Draco remarked, leaning back against the bed.

"Well" - Harry scratched his head -" I don't think you're very sorry for jinxing me either, are you?"

"Of course not. You deserved it. And you deserved Pansy hitting you." He didn't really feel like hexing Harry anymore, but that might have been because of his trembling fingers that couldn't really hold his wand anymore. Things Harry did to him.

"I-" Harry cut himself off by walking around the fauteuil next to him and sitting down. "I'm serious about this. Very serious. I mean, I seriously like you. And I - err I know you like me as well. At least a little."

Draco felt his face go pink and looked away. "You're a pain, Potter." He paused, trying to find the right words, trying to find out what he wanted to say, which was a bit hard, since the logically thinking part of his mind seemed to have taken leave on short term. "And why? Why do you like me?"

Harry sighed and buried his face in his hands and came up again a moment later. "Does everything have to have a rational explanation? I just do, alright?"

"There is always a reason for everything. People have motivations, they do things because they expect something."

"I just like you. You're a snotty brat and you complain a lot and bitch around and you can be awfully nasty - but I just can't help it. I just do. Please believe me, it's not because of sex - well, that too, because you are err - hot, but that's not the reason why I am here. I don't have an ulterior motive. I'm here because of you." He smiled awkwardly, tugged at his shirt.

"Potter," Draco mumbled, placing his chin upon his knees. "Do you want to tell me that you suddenly turned gay and decided to like me? Just because?" He snorted.

"Do you remember Hogsmeade in October? You went there with Parkinson and Zabini and you were sitting outside that new ice-cream parlour and the sun - the light was making your hair glow and you smiled..." Harry trailed off, grinned and blushed. "And I've always been bisexual, just for your information."

"You're such a romantic idiot." Draco hid his face in his sleeves. "I hate that about you."

Harry probably hadn't heard him for there were feet moving across the room and then a warm body settled down against the bed next to him, shoulders and thighs comfortably pressed against each other. A hand snuck between his knees and his body, carefully prying his fingers away from his notebook and he didn't resist as Harry entwined them with his own.

"I don't believe you," Draco muttered again.

"You are complicated and obstinate. But I like these things as well." Harry poked him into his side. "I like everything about you. I like you the way you are. And, yeah, of course, I want to have sex with you, but only if you want to as well."

Draco considered just admitting defeat. But then, it had been too late already when he'd fallen for the stupid git. He idly wondered, while concentrating on the nice, fluttery feeling inside him, how he was always being convinced so very easily. Harry was stirring next to him, fingers drawing slow patterns on his hand, and when he looked up, Harry was looking at him, expectantly, brows raised, and Draco knew that he was utterly lost.

"We can at least try, can't we?" Harry insisted, tilting his head. "If you find that I'm not worth your time, I'll let you hex me all you want and I'll stand still so that you don't miss." He grinned and Draco punched his shoulder.

"You're an imbecilic idiot and I -" Anything he'd planned on saying was lost as Harry leaned over and kissed him until he was quiet and gently pulled him closer to kiss him some more until he was noisy again.

They broke apart some moments later and Draco's lips were tingling and his heart beat loudly in his ears.

"Let me get this straight," he breathed and earned an amused chuckle from Harry. "I will absolutely end this, whatever it is, if I find your company to be unpleasant. Got that?"

"Whatever you say," Harry murmured against his forehead and Draco couldn't help smiling until his chest seemed to burst apart.

"Good." He slid his hands in the hair at the back of Harry's neck, fingers threading through it. "Then kiss me again, before I change my mind." Harry's breath was sweet intoxication against his skin and Draco sighed. "Kiss me again."

And Harry did.

Epilogue

Harry's knee is digging into his thigh while he is stretched out on his stomach, attempting to write a letter. There is also his breath tickling the back of Draco's neck and his hands that are, without any doubt, trying to distract him from his work.

He hisses and squirms a bit to throw him off even though he is, in truth, enjoying the warmth Harry is emitting.

"Are you," Harry starts asking and continues after biting his shoulder, "writing about me again?"

Draco sighs exasperatedly into his pillow. "No, I'm not. But I will if you don't stop molesting me." But he can't help smiling and turns around to kiss Harry on the mouth to prevent him from answering.

Sunlight is seeping in through the high windows in Gryffindor tower and as Draco comes up for breath again, Harry's head is framed by light and his skin is golden and it hurts to look at him so Draco kisses him again, because he will die, die if he doesn't.

Fin