Un Dieu Anonyme

Un Dieu Anonyme

- II -

The Dudley-alarm woke him up again--that is to say, the sound of Dudley stomping heavily down the hallway on the way to the toilet.

Harry threw an arm over his eyes and groaned. Bloody Monday.

Back to school.

Back to work.

Back to--

'Fuck!'

And Harry nearly fell out of bed, half-tangled in his sheets--because this wasn't just another Monday. This was the Monday after--after--

--you kissed a boy, said Harry's mind.

'Oh, shut up,' he grumbled, pressing one hand to his aching head and groping for his glasses with the other. He found them--cold with the morning's chill--and put them on, the blurred shapes of his desk and chair snapping into focus.

'I don't even know if I k--k--,' said Harry to his chair, mortified that he still couldn't say it, even to himself. Mortified that he both wanted and didn't want to believe what had happened on the weekend. No. What might have happened. That Malfoy--rich, prissy Malfoy--had--could he have?

Of course he couldn't have. Millionaires' children didn't just go around snogging poor orphans in bus-stops. It didn't make any sense. It must've been the leftover chicken wings Aunt Petunia had forced him to finish off on Friday night.

Yes. That must've been it. A chicken-induced hallucination.

'Meet Harry Potter,' Harry bowed to his reflection in the cupboard mirror. 'Dursley Rubbish Bin.'

'Oi, freak!' A series of bangs rattled Harry's door. 'Talking to yourself again?'

'Piss off, Dudley.'

'Already have,' Dudley snickered. 'Mum said to tell you not to take more 'n two minutes in the shower. She wants you to make us French toast.'

French kiss, said Harry's mind suddenly, and he nearly dropped his towel.

'Er, yeah,' he called, and Dudley humphed before stomping away again.

Another Monday at the Dursleys'. Harry thought it was stupid that Aunt Petunia insisted on Harry being 'clean' before he cooked them breakfast--he'd have more time in the shower if they just let him use it later instead.

Although that would mean waiting for the water to get cold while Dudley splashed away.

Well. You couldn't have everything.

It wasn't until Harry had quickly flung out his uniform after his shower, towelling his hair dry, that the headache struck again.

Sharp pain lancing behind his scar--and--fuck--he'd almost forgotten his medicine again.

He stumbled to his desk with his trousers half-on, uncapping the little green bottle there and quickly gulping down a smooth, white pill.

The headache began to dull almost immediately.

Harry drew a sigh of relief. It occurred to him, again, how strange it was that his medicine worked so much faster than Uncle Vernon's painkillers--if his uncle's groans were anything to go by some evenings--but these were Harry's pills and he'd been taking them since the age of ten, when the headaches had started, and Aunt Petunia had told him he'd develop brain problems if he didn't take one pill everyday.

Runs in the family, she'd said tersely. Your family, that is. And she'd turned away again, thankfully without the insults to James Potter that usually followed. To think that the government wastes its money on pills for useless runts like you, Uncle Vernon had growled.

Harry's head cleared further as he slipped on his shirt and buttoned it up, shivering at the cool cotton against his skin.

He could hear Dudley heading for the shower this time--which meant it was time for Harry to be in the kitchen, making breakfast.

He sighed, tightened his tie, and hauled his schoolbag onto his shoulders to take it downstairs with him.

'Harry!' Aunt Petunia's voice called from the kitchen. 'HARRY!'

'Just a minute!' Harry cursed as he couldn't find his shoes, and realised he'd left them downstairs again, on the shoe-rack. Shit. He hoped Uncle Vernon hadn't noticed. Keep your damn things in your own damned room, boomed Vernon's voice in his head, and Harry nearly winced.

'HARRY!'

'I'm coming!' --And don't you say a thing, he hissed at his recalcitrant mind, which seemed to have become awfully dirty over the weekend.

He flung open his door and hurried past the shower, with the sounds of Dudley's off-key singing following him down the stairs.

* * *

The trip to school was uncomfortable, jammed against the car door as Harry was, with Dudley taking up what felt like the entire back seat.

I'll end up getting squeezed out of the window , Harry thought.

Uncle Vernon was muttering about having to drop 'the bloody runt' off at his 'bloody school' again, even though Harry knew that the only reason he was given a lift to school at all was that it was on the way to Dudley's Smeltings, and that Uncle Vernon couldn't tolerate the thought of paying for Harry's bus fare.

Harry tried not to think of what was going to happen today. He usually liked school because it gave him time away from the Dursleys, even though he didn't really have any friends at Carlton--all the students there were so much richer than Harry was, and Harry almost regretted, sometimes, the fact that his parents had set aside his school fees for that particular school in their Will.

It pissed the Dursleys off to no end, that their darling Duddykins was going to Smeltings, but that Harry was going to a good private school too. Even though Uncle Vernon took every opportunity to point out just how much better Smeltings was.

He tried not to think of what was going to happen now that--what? Now that he did have a friend at school? Was Malfoy a friend? Did the, er, snogging, mean anything--and had the snogging even happened?

Harry sighed and pressed his forehead against the window.

Uncle Vernon's attention flicked to him immediately. 'Did you take your medicine, boy?' he asked sharply, and the question could have been mistaken as one of concern, had it not been for the sudden, angry flare of Vernon's nostrils.

'Yes, Uncle Vernon,' Harry replied wearily, wondering why this in particular sent his aunt and uncle into such fits. They didn't seem to mind it when Dudley tripped him on the stairs--why should they mind their burden of a nephew having a splitting headache?

'Freak,' mumbled Dudley through a mouthful of chocolate--Dudley always seemed to have chocolate in his pockets--and Harry, who had no pocket money for anything, only scowled at him and looked away.

Maybe I could earn money as a Carlton caretaker , Harry thought sarcastically, but that immediately made his mind conjure an image of Malfoy pressing him against a damp bathroom wall, a bucket and a mop abandoned on the floor and Harry's soapy hands twining in blond, impossibly fine hair.

Fuck, he thought, and felt his face grow even hotter at the word. Maybe those damn pills weren't working after all, and Harry really was losing his mind.

An elbow jabbed him cruelly, and Harry jumped.

'Your school,' Dudley said sullenly, and Harry looked through his window at the high grey walls of Carlton, with PRIVILEGE, PURITY AND PRIDE written across the central arch in golden letters.

Uncle Vernon snorted in disgust as he parked the car outside the front gates. 'If you want to call it that. Teach nothing useful there, they don't. Now, in Smeltings--'

'Thanks for the ride, Uncle Vernon,' Harry said hurriedly, and tumbled out of the car with his bag in tow.

Vernon snorted again--and the car took off, but not before giving Harry a good view of Dudley pressing his face against the back window, sticking out a chocolate-covered tongue.

* * *

Dobson backed the Mercedes out of the Malfoy garage, careful to avoid Lucius Malfoy's other prized vehicles. The door lowered itself noiselessly after Dobson exited, and he drove the car up to the manor's entrance.

Draco was, to his surprise, already waiting. In a tie more carefully done than usual--his crisp-collared white shirt tucked neatly into grey trousers and a perfectly ironed, grey school blazer settled elegantly over his shoulders. His shoes shone as though poor Winky, the new housemaid, had been told to go over them again and again and again.

'Dobby!' Draco came clattering down the front stairs, and Dobson stepped out of the car to open a door for him, as well as to take his schoolbag.

'Good morning, sir,' said Dobby, and saw young Winifred appear at the manor's door shortly afterwards.

'Mister Malfoy,' she called, and Draco rolled down his window to glare at her.

'What do you want now, Winky?'

Winky flushed. 'M-Madame Malfoy says you're to be home early today, sir, because your father will be having Mister Nott over this evening. Sir.' Her hands knotted nervously.

Draco frowned. 'I already knew that, Winky. Mother told me over breakfast.'

'Oh,' said Winifred softly. Then, slightly defensively: 'S-she told me to tell you anyway, sir.'

'Tell her I'll remember this time. All right?'

'Yes, sir,' replied Winifred. 'I'll--'

'Thank you, Winky,' said Draco, and then he was rolling up his window, gesturing at Dobson to leave.

Dobby pulled away from the mansion and drove through the gates, which opened automatically just as the garage door had done. Winky became a small, white-and-blue shape on the front stairs--and Dobby felt a twinge of sympathy.

He glanced back at his young master for a moment, and saw Draco looking back at him.

'What?' asked Draco irritably.

'Sir?'

'You're giving me that look again.'

'Sir?'

'Oh, don't pretend.' Draco huffed out a sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. 'You're angry with me.'

--Well. Dobson cleared his throat. 'I don't know what you mean, sir.'

Another huff. 'Look. I--it's just that she's so new, Dobby.'

'Sir.'

'Marion was just so much more...' Draco waved his hand, a gesture remarkably similar to Lucius Malfoy's. 'Trained. We had her since I was three. Winky, though--'

'She'll get better, sir.'

There was a brief silence--and Dobby glanced into the rear-view mirror to see Draco looking at him again, grey eyes sharp and narrow.

'You know what,' Draco said slowly, mouth curling into a little smirk, 'I think you like her.'

Dobby looked back at the windshield immediately. 'I've no reason to dislike her, sir.'

Draco chuckled. 'Of course you don't.' That annoying smirk had widened even more when Dobby checked the rear-view mirror again--but it reminded Dobby so much of young Mister Malfoy at the age of five, lording over his playmates, that Dobby found he couldn't be annoyed after all.

The rest of the drive to Carlton passed in a somewhat surprising silence--Draco didn't ask for his usual music, and he didn't talk, which was quite out of the ordinary for the Malfoy heir.

But then Dobby noticed how Draco's face was more flushed than usual, and how his eyes were rather bright as they looked out the window. Suddenly Draco's unaccustomed punctuality at the stairs made sense, as did his extra-carefully done tie.

And Dobby had to smile, remembering the events of last Saturday.

It looked as though Draco Malfoy liked someone too.

* * *

Today was going to be hell. Draco knew it. His first class with Potter wasn't going to be until after lunch--and his insides would be so tangled up by then that he probably wouldn't be able to talk straight.

So to speak.

He'd been waking up hard from strange, half-forgotten dreams about rain-soaked, green-eyed boys--all weekend, all bloody weekend, until Draco was terrified that he might start getting hard-ons whenever he thought of Potter, which was a lot, and Lucius Malfoy wouldn't take kindly to his son getting an erection during a carefully political conversation with Theodore Nott.

Suddenly Draco felt a lot like he was thirteen again, having just discovered the pleasures of... Damn it. No room to do that with Winky hovering about with her laundry and her trays of tea and her Mister-Malfoy-would-you-like-your-breakfast-nows, either.

Fucking hell.

The net result of all this was that Draco thought that all his careful planning of what he was going to say to Potter would just blank from his mind the moment he saw the other boy--and he might become the first Malfoy ever to be suspended from Carlton for publicly assaulting another schoolboy and snogging him senseless against the classroom's smudged blackboard.

--Er. Not a constructive line of thought there.

Draco flushed and contemplated rolling down his window again--but that would mean more rain-scent on the air, and that was something Draco could do without.

He shifted uncomfortably, settling his schoolbag more firmly in his lap. Definitely something he could do without.

Honestly, if he didn't get to talk to Potter soon, he'd lose it.

Even though he was just a little... anxious... about how Potter would react to him today. Stop-stalking-me-you-faggot! might be a perfectly reasonable response--well, it was true, anyway. Draco was a faggot, and he was stalking Harry Potter.

Fuck.

Dobby was darting him another one of those irritatingly amused glances from the rear-view mirror.

'What?' he snapped for the second time that morning, but Dobby only smiled.

'We're here, sir.'

Draco's eyes darted to his window in surprise, realising that he'd been looking out of it for quite a while, but had been so lost in his thoughts of Potter that he hadn't even noticed they'd pulled up to Carlton's gates.

'Thank you, Dobby,' he said as Dobby parked and stepped out to open the door for him--and maybe he looked a little shaky, because Dobson's smile gentled and he said: 'I'm sure you'll do fine, sir.'

Now what the fuck was that supposed to mean?

But then Dobby was driving off, early morning sunlight glinting beautifully along the black lines of the Mercedes--and as the few students still loitering at the entrance gave it appreciative glances, Draco smirked and settled his bag on his shoulder.

Telepathic chauffeurs aside, Dobby was right.

Draco always got what he wanted. And he wanted Potter very, very much.

'Draco!'

Blaise and Pansy were waving at him from inside the gates--and Draco, confidence restored, strode over to them under the golden letters of PRIVILEGE, PURITY AND PRIDE.