Dragonweed

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DRAGONWEED

"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven"

John Milton, "Paradise Lost"

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CHAPTER 2 - Dragonweed

---Draco---

I saw him in the garden last night. I saw the dark figure stop dead in its tracks under the cedar tree. The moonlight was reflected in his glasses, and even if I couldn't see him clearly I knew who it was. I don't know what it is about him these days, but something makes the hairs stand up at the back of my neck when he comes close. It's vaguely unpleasant, like static electricity. I have always been able to feel his presence but this is getting ridiculous.

It was about a year ago that I first had to admit to myself that my antipathy for him was slowly changing into something else, first into some sort of reluctant admiration and then, gradually, into attraction. And the attraction keeps growing stronger. I've never really tried to do anything about it, unless you count some emergency solo performances late at night. I've never approached him in any way. I've also finally had to admit that the the attraction is physical and emotional, although it took me a long time to get there. The physical attraction was easier to admit to; it was more direct and easier to explain. He's not a scrawny kid any more, but tall and lean and rather well-built, although by no means heavy. He has the perfect build for a Seeker. He's the most beautiful flyer I've ever seen, his movements very precise but still with a flowing grace and complete ease. I'm not a bad Seeker or flyer, but I don't compare to him. No one does. To be honest we have lost more than one match to the Gryffindors not because Harry is such a superior Seeker but because I hold back just to watch him. The look in his eyes when he has located the Snitch is so intense it shatters my concentration. My focus shifts from the Snitch to him, and then the game is lost. If anyone has noticed this they haven't said a word to me about it.

My interest in Harry is really nothing new, only the focus has shifted, just like it does when we play Quidditch. I've always watched him very closely, pondered him, analysed him, watched his moves, his reactions, his relationships. He has always seemed completely unaware of this. He also seems completely unaware of his own attractiveness. And that only adds to the attraction. It's -- refreshing. After all, he has faced the Dark Lord on several occasions. He's been very close to death in more ways than one. But those experiences don't seem to have hardened him, just deepened this -- well, whatever it is. Humility, perhaps. His essential innocence and -- and goodness seems to be unaffected by the dark memories he must have. This is a strength in him that I have scorned and ridiculed but also, to be truthful, been more than a little afraid of. It's so ironic that I now regard this as the most desirable characteristic of all. I feel that if he would just touch me I would be healed; he would somehow be able to silence the voices rising from the dark depths inside me.

The other Slytherins are used to my nightmares by now. None of them even asks me if I'm OK when I wake up screaming. They just clamp their pillows over their ears and go back to sleep. I'm left to wonder what foul sources these nightmares well up from. I have no idea why I feel that Harry Potter, of all people, could help me. The thought of asking him, of telling him, makes me sick to the stomach.

I am well aware that I have changed. I've begun to see people in a different light; I've begun to be interested in them for their own sake, not just for any use they could be to me. I've realised I might not be the only one with dark depths, not the only one to see unspeakable things rise from these depths when I'm off guard. I don't find much pleasure in my old favourite game any more; finding people's weak spots and using them to my own advantage. Not that I'm not still good at it -- I'm a fucking expert. But I seem to have lost the taste for exploiting my talent in this area. I don't do it unless I'm given no choice.

Lately I've seen a new element in Harry's attitude towards me. There is a tentativeness, a questioning look in his eyes. I have to seize the opportunity when it's there to be enjoyed. It certainly wasn't chance that placed me on that balustrade last night. I know that Harry sometimes goes to this part of the gardens; several times I have been the one standing in the shadows watching. Last night the roles were reversed. For evenings on end I've been sitting on the balustrade, waiting for Harry to come or just waiting for something to happen, although I wasn't quite sure what. Something did happen last night, but I'm not sure what that was, either.

At breakfast I notice that he turns his back to the Slytherin table. Usually he faces it, and occasionally our eyes meet. But not today. It may just be coincidence, but I feel oddly rejected. Rejection is not something I take well, or lightly. When I walk slowly down to the dungeons for Potions I feel a strange mixture of anger and nausea. But I do what I do best, I feign indifference.

I enjoy Potions, not only because Snape is an excellent teacher and it's easily my best subject, but also because I know that for the next hour my eyes will have access to Harry whenever they want to. It's a secret pleasure of mine, watching him concentrate on his work, a small wrinkle appearing between his eyebrows; watching his hand come up and push the black hair out of his eyes and reveal the lightning-bolt scar; watching the confusion in his eyes as they meet mine. Sometimes I wonder what it would feel like to kiss the scar. For some reason I imagine it to be hot to the touch. Sometimes I have to turn my face away.

Snape makes a joke and Harry's knife slips. (Really, the idea of Snape making a joke is enough to make anyone slip.) The blood-coloured sap from the dragonweed splashes up on his cheek, and I almost have to leave the room. It's beautiful. It's perfect. The black, pillow-messy hair, the green eyes shining with confusion and hurt pride, the drops of dark red liquid on the pale skin. I stare at him, enthralled, vaguely thinking what a good thing it is I am wearing robes to hide the disastrous effect he has on my body. If there were no other people in the room, I would go straight up to him, hold him by the shoulders, our faces level, our eyes locked -- mine forcing down the confusion in his, forcing them to respond to the demand in mine -- and slowly put my tongue to his skin, lick the red drops off, the tang of the dragonweed mingling with the taste of him. Now I have to content myself with watching him wipe the drops off with a finger and put his finger in his mouth -- and really, that's not such a bad substitute. I just wish it was my finger -- or some other part of me -- there in his mouth. My eyes don't leave him for a second.

And then he looks up. He catches me staring, but I don't back down. I hold his gaze almost aggressively. He stares back at me, and there's a flicker in his eyes -- uncertainty, puzzlement... He doesn't know what I want. Or does he? Suddenly his lashes come sweeping down like a bashful girl's, and I watch as deep colour comes into his face, spreading slowly like spilt wine on white linen. I think he really does know what I want. He just doesn't know what to do about it.

Even when we were just kids I enjoyed seeing him blush. I used to taunt him purely to see his colour deepen in anger. I still enjoy making him blush; I feel something close to elation when I can provoke this reaction in him. I dream of seeing his face flushed with pleasure under me.

At other times I still loath him. Potter. His last name is a name you can hold on the tip of your tongue like something bitter and spit out in contempt (a fact that Snape knows well and makes frequent use of). The odd thing is that the things in him that make me loath him are the same ones that make me want him.

Sometimes I have a strong wish to hurt him, to slam him up against the wall, expose bare skin and bite it, break it, draw blood. But I'm never sure whether it's a genuine desire to hurt or just a feeling born out of frustration.

But last night, in the garden -- what were you thinking when you stood there under the cedar tree watching me?

It was deliciously erotic, sitting there in the moonlight half-naked, exposed, stared at. I could almost feel his eyes greedily licking at my bare skin, making it burn and tingle in the cool night air. I looked oh so innocently up at the sky, an incredible starry sky, not giving anything away, carefully not looking in his direction, like an actor who avoids meeting the eye of the camera.

I've stopped saying no to you. Here, in the bleak reality of classrooms and potions and scuffling and shoving, I'm not sure what I'm saying instead. But at night, when I wake up into the dusty silence of the dorm from a deep, dark sleep, gasping as if I have just reached the surface and my lungs are about to burst, I know that if you were there at that moment I would say yes. And yes. And yes.