The Alternative to Loneliness

Ch. 7

Lion hunt

Colin huddled in a spare closet, nibbling on a muffin. The Great Hall was no longer safe, so he'd had to fetch the hamper of muffins Luna had given him the day before. He wasn't sure how long they would last, but he knew that he was no longer free to eat with the rest of the students, while still avoiding Harry.

Sure, he had gotten out of the arrangement with Draco without getting hexed, but now he had Harry to worry about. Knowing that the older boy was looking for him, Colin felt sure that he'd been found out. His conversation with Ginny kept playing through his head. Harry looked like he hadn't slept. He wanted to talk to Colin about pictures. Just the thought sent an icy dripping feeling down his spine. How long was it possible to avoid Harry Potter? They were in the same house, after all! There had been a time when Colin had thought that it was brilliant. Now he wished he'd been sorted into Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff.

"Colin, you're in a closet again."

Colin nodded, then sat up straight and looked up as he realized the closet door had opened and Luna was standing in the light. "Luna!" he exclaimed, stuffing the muffin wrapper into his robe pocket. "What are you doing here?"

"I was looking in closets," she said as if people did this all the time. "Closets are so interesting. I have found you in closets quite a few times."

"Yes, you have," he replied, thinking back on a few of the times, which had been quite wonderful.

She stepped into the closet and shut the door behind her. "Aren't those muffins for you and Harry?"

"Not for Harry," Colin mumbled, really wishing she wouldn't bring him up.

He felt her sit beside him and wrap her arms around his shoulders. "Oh my, are you scared?"

"Well...er...yes," he said, knowing that this wasn't a lie. He really was scared, just not about what Luna thought he was scared about.

She snuggled close to him and laid her cheek on his shoulder. "Oh, I suppose it must be very unnerving. I have an idea that maybe would make you less scared."

An idea? He wasn't sure he liked where this was going. "What's that?"

"Well, what if I was there, too?" She leaned close and kissed his ear. "And your first time could be with the two people you love."

"You mean a threesome?!" he yelped. "You, me, and Harry?"

"Yes. Would you like me to ask him for you?"

"N--no! No, I'll--no, that's alright. You don't have to."

He felt her nod against his shoulder and then kiss his ear again. "Yes, I suppose it would be strange for me to ask when you are the one who is in love with him."

"Yes," he agreed. "It would be strange." He squeezed her shoulders and then turned his head to kiss her.

~*~^~*~

When evening arrived, Colin found himself at a loss for what to do. For the first time since he had arrived, he didn't want to be in his darkroom. And he knew he couldn't go to the Gryffindor Common. So instead, he made his way for the library, looking behind him every other step. When had life gotten so nervous?

He managed to make it to the library unnoticed. When he closed the door behind him, he looked around for any familiar faces, then made a mad dash for the back shelves. Nobody had seen him. Harry wasn't there. Maybe now he could relax and get some studying done. Maybe he could even sleep here; he knew there was no going back to Gryffindor Tower.

That day's Transfiguration lesson was just starting to soak in when he heard a familiar voice ring out across the library. Colin sprang up from his place on the floor; Harry was here. He inched along the aisle, trying not to make any noise. When he reached the end and could see into the main part of the library, it was to find Harry bent over a table, asking a Hufflepuff girl if she had seen Colin.

The small boy was about to sneak back into his aisle when Ernie MacMillan strolled up to Harry, his chest puffed out and a self-important look on his face. Colin froze. Had Ernie seen him? Was he going to tell Harry which aisle he was down? Would Colin have to run for his life?

But it was much worse.

"Hello Harry," he said in a bold, cocky voice. "I noticed you've been looking over my way every day in Herbology this year."

Harry turned. "Who's been looking your way?"

"You don't have to be so coy about it," Ernie continued. "Of course at first I thought it was just to see how I was tending my plants, I am quite good at the subject after all, but then I realized what it was."

"That your big head was in the way of me seeing Professor Sprout?" Harry said in a flat tone.

Ernie laughed and what he said next made Colin straighten in panic. "It's alright, Harry. After all, I fancy you, too."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Too?"

"Well yes. After all, you are the Boy Who Lived and all. And you're damned sexy at that. Whaddya say we find us a quiet corner and snog for a while?"

Before he quite knew what he was doing, Colin barreled out from his secluded spot with only one thought in his mind; nobody could get in the way of Draco and Harry. It wasn't until he had thrust himself between them and pushed them apart that he even stopped to think.

What was he doing? This wasn't his business anymore! He was no longer in Draco Malfoy's employ and could go on letting whomever do whatever they wanted to Harry. So why was he forcing Ernie MacMillan back from Harry? Especially when he was trying to avoid Harry!

When he looked up, it was to find that the entirety of the library was looking at him. People began to whisper. Colin felt his throat tighten and he darted out from between the two older boys, eager to get away. That hadn't looked good, but there was no taking it back now. At least Harry hadn't managed to grab hold of Colin and force him to have that talk, whatever it was about.

He failed to see, as he disappeared through the doors, a seething, pink-faced, frost-blond Slytherin boy who had been looking on from a far corner.

~*~^~*~

Colin was so paranoid now of being cornered by Harry, that he didn't return to Gryffindor Tower at all that night. Or the night after that. He searched the entire school for the most comfortable closet and holed himself away, subsisting on water and the muffins Luna had made. He only left the closet to use the loo and go to class, but other than that, he hid out in his tiny sanctuary and tried his best to study by wandlight.

Finally, on the third day, he had run out of muffins and snuck down to the Great Hall at what would certainly be too early for Harry. When he peered in, he saw quite a lot of students already up and helping themselves to breakfast. It must have been later than he'd thought. Colin's stomach gurgled and pinched as he looked out on the enormous bowls of porridge and platters of bacon and carafes of pumpkin juice.

He tore his eyes away from the food and concentrated on the people instead. It seemed like everybody was at breakfast now, but somehow, he had lucked out and missed Harry. Now if he could just grab a few bowls of food and hightail it back to his closet...

He walked into the hall and turned when he reached Gryffindor's table. His stomach was twisting painfully now, with the delicious smell of the food accosting his nose. When he reached an empty chair, he bent quickly over it and grabbed a large buttered toast, which he shoved into his mouth.

Then that was it. He continued to grab food and shovel it in, relieved and quite forgetting that he was supposed to be hiding. He was just working on his fourth bacon when a hand clutched his shoulder and spun him around. Colin stared wide-eyed at the older Gryffindor boy he had wished for years would give him the time of day but who he now wished would leave him alone.

The entire Hall hushed and Colin could feel the eyes of however many hundreds of people on them. He swallowed the bite of bacon and waited. Harry seemed to be working something through his head, as if trying to find the right words or just simply trying to keep from mauling him. The smaller boy searched around for his wand as he continued to stare, but was begrudged to find that he had left it in the closet.

Finally, Harry opened his mouth and said in a voice Colin wished wasn't so loud, "Why have you been taking all those pictures of me?"

"Pictures?" Colin squeaked.

"Three nights ago!" Harry boomed, then closed his eyes and tried to compose himself again. "When you snuck into my dorm and set up all those lights and things."

Colin's eyes darted around the room, wishing that at least one person wasn't looking at them, but every single eye in the entire Great Hall was focused on the two of them. He swallowed again, which was hard as his throat had gone bone dry. "What do you mean?" he managed.

"Don't play dumb!" Harry snapped. "You've been taking pictures of me all over the place. In my dorm, on broomstick, in the shower! Now I want to know what this is all about!"

People started to murmur amongst themselves as Colin looked desperately around for somebody to save him. All he could find was Draco Malfoy, sitting at the Slytherin table, his pale pointed face severe. Even if he no longer worked for him, Colin knew he had to keep their arrangement secret.

"Uh, w--well, you see," he began, looking alternately from Harry to Draco as he spoke. "The thing is...I love you!"

The tables around them seemed to explode in a flurry of whispers. "I mean, I always have and everything only it didn't seem that you did and I got lonely and wanted something to remind me of you and so I started taking pictures and I'm really sorry if it inconvenienced you because that's the last thing I would want to do is to upset you or anything, only I think I did so I'm really, really sorry!"

Harry stared down at him, nonplussed, his mouth moving like a fish. The last thing Colin had wanted to do was to make anybody think that he liked Harry, but that was the only way he could give Harry any sort of answer without letting him know that it was Draco.

It was then that Luna walked into the Great Hall and spotted Colin standing with Harry. She walked over, an enormous smile on her face. "Oh wonderful. Are you asking him about the threesome?"

Harry started coughing then. "Threesome?" he sputtered. "With who?"

"Oh, well you, me, and Colin, of course," Luna said.

Colin looked toward the Slytherin table, hoping against his better judgment that Draco would come save him from this nightmare gone horribly wrong.

Only Draco wasn't at the Slytherin table anymore. Colin watched as he strode toward them, shoving Ravenclaws and Gryffindors and even other Slytherins out of his way as he went. His eyes were flashing and Colin had never seen him madder than he was now. The small boy shrank back, wondering why Draco was so angry. He hadn't said anything about their agreement.

"Creevey, you filthy little mudblooded traitor!" he hissed when he reached them. He grabbed Colin by the robe and lifted him up off the floor a few inches. "Why did I even think I could trust you! Oh well of course, I suppose it was rather stupid of me not to think you wanked your tiny pencil of a prick at the thought of him every night when you told me you had his whole sodding schedule memorized! Bet you were thinking I was some kind of niffler, shelling out Galleons for you to take those pictures!"

Harry was looking at Draco now, his jaw gone slack. "Pictures? Galleons?"

"And you love him? Don't make me laugh, Creevey. As if he'd want your scrawny little mudblood body when he's got somebody like me!"

"Someone like you?" Harry repeated stupidly.

Colin stared in amazement as Draco did exactly what he'd told Colin under no circumstances to do. "Um! I--I'm not really!" he squeaked. "Since Draco already told everything, I don't love you. I'd really rather not, anyways. Only he hired me take the pictures! I didn't want to make him mad and I could really use the money and so--"

Before he could finish, Colin bolted for the door, desperate to escape.

~*~^~*~

Harry was sure that he was hearing things. It had almost sounded like Malfoy--Draco Malfoy---had hired Colin Creevey to take those...those photos that had caused him so much grief. Surely there had to be some mistake. It was impossible. But he seemed really angry that Colin had confessed, and then recanted, his love for Harry. No, it couldn't be real. It just couldn't be.

No, surely this was some sort of joke. Yes, it must be another one of Malfoy's attempts to humiliate him. Harry grew cross. How dare Malfoy ask poor Colin to take those photos as a way of humiliating Harry. And then to pretend to love him on top of all that; God, nothing was sacred to Malfoy, was it? That little blond shite really had it coming this time.

Harry found that Colin had shaken loose from Draco's grasp and scurried out of the Hall, which was silent, waiting for the two most famous and lusted-after boys to finish this tableaux before them.

Draco looked flushed and angry as he turned to Harry. "Well, I suppose I might as well come clean to you, Po--Harry," he corrected himself. "Although this hardly seems like the time or the place. Had I known Creevey would choose to have this altercation in such a public place, I never would have employed him." He shook his head. "It's impossible to find reliable help these days, you know. I've lost more money this way than you would believe."

Harry was shaking with anger at this point. "Malfoy," he growled. "I don't know what you're playing at, but you'd better put a stop to it immediately."

Draco heaved a resigned sigh. "I knew you'd react this way. That's why I wasn't going to tell you yet. I was waiting to win you over with my good looks and charm before confessing my undying devotion to you."

Harry gaped. He opened his mouth and then closed it again. He appeared to be trying to speak, but was unable to do so. Draco watched warily, waiting to see if Harry went for his wand. However, Harry seemed completely paralyzed by this news, so Draco bravely pushed on.

"Look Harry, I know this may come as a shock to you. It certainly shocked me when I realized that I was lusting after you. But rest assured, it's not just physical attraction, although you are amazingly hot. It goes much deeper than that. I know, you're thinking this is out of the blue, but it's been slowly building for a long time. I know I've been cruel and hurtful to you in the past and contrary to what you may think, I do regret that."

Harry surged with anger once again. "Real funny, Malfoy," he hissed. "Confess your love to an orphan, real cute. Make him feel loved and then crush him later. How very Slytherin of you, you piece of shite."

Draco's silver eyes flashed as he straightened indignantly. "Do you honestly think even I would be that cruel? Haven't I shown you that I've changed?"

Harry looked at him in disbelief. "Of course I would fucking thing that of you! What have you done to make me think differently?"

Draco sighed and rubbed his eyes, trying desperately to keep his temper. "Well, offering to help you in Potions, for one. Being civil to your little cronies, even when they treated me horribly in return. Keeping the other Slytherins away from you. Making sure you were never sabotaged at Quidditch practice. Thwarting my father's plans to kidnap you while he was alive. I don't suppose you noticed," he spat sarcastically.

Harry was floored. Merlin, but Malfoy sounded serious about this. And it was true that he had offered Harry help, albeit condescendingly. And he had been civil to Ron and Hermione, even smiled at them in class. And the other Slytherins never had bothered him, although Malfoy had been enough trouble on his own. But he couldn't really mean it. No. And even if he did, well Harry would never be able to love someone like that. The Malfoys had been into dark magic for centuries and Draco had never shown any indication that he cared who won the war. The fact that Malfoy was another boy didn't particularly bother him. He'd been attracted to other boys before and after much confusion and several counseling sessions with Hermione, he had come to terms with the fact that he was bisexual. But Draco Malfoy?! Never. He had his standards.

Draco was gazing at him with equal parts hope and apprehension in his eyes. Harry shook himself. This was some cruel joke of Malfoy's and he was stopping this right now. "Look Malfoy," he finally said in a low tone. "Whatever this is about, I want no part of it. I don't know if you're serious or having me on or what, but either way, this stops here. So no more pictures, and leave Colin and me alone."

Draco dropped his eyes to the floor, staring hard. "Right," he said in a clipped voice. "Right. I should have realized that it would end this way." He made to leave and then turned again. "But you know, for being on the light side of this war, and being a Gryffindor, you certainly are blinded by prejudice."

He looked Harry in the eyes, slate gray meeting brilliant green. "This doesn't change how I feel about you. And I could have given love like you've never had before. If you change your mind..." He trailed off, shook his head, and walked briskly toward the dungeon, leaving Harry gaping like a goldfish in his wake.