Not A Chance

It all happened on October the tenth, when the wind was brisk and loud against the windowpanes and a thick blanket of clouds dared to fall to the ground.

Harry hadn't been drinking the night before - it had been Tuesday - nor had he been hit on the head by a Bludger - the first game of the season was due the following Saturday. Regardless of this all, he felt a bit weird and queasy on the morning of October the tenth.

He told this to Hermione over his breakfast cereal, ignoring her huffs of annoyance at being interrupted reading The Daily Prophet. The ceiling of the Great Hall appeared to be lower than usual because of the heavy sky. In fact, many students were gazing up, their mouths hanging open, a puzzled expression draped across their faces.

Hermione, however, was oblivious to this. Her daily worries usually consisted of making sure Harry was still alive and of noticing any signs of approaching danger, but that day she just wished to read her paper and drink her coffee in peace.

'Maybe you ate something,' she suggested to Harry, not looking up from her newspaper, and tipped a spoonful of salt into her coffee mug, stirring it idly.

'Look, I know I didn't. I just feel...I don't know, mentally retarded, maybe. I can't explain this. I don't know what's wrong with me,' Harry answered so insistently that he didn't notice he'd just put his elbow into Ron's porridge bowl. Thankfully, the bowl was empty, which wasn't surprising, given the fact that Ron usually ate two and a half times faster than everybody else.

'Did Malfoy do something to you, then?' Ron piped up, having only half-listened to Harry. 'Maybe he hexed you. Can you remember?'

Whereas Ron's usual concerns comprised of making sure that Harry was still alive while inventing new colourful insults to use on Malfoy, that morning he thought about the porridge that had just slid down his esophagus and was beginning its long journey through his metabolism.

Harry thought for a little while. No, he most certainly didn't remember. So he just shook his head.

*

It was a deadly boring Transfiguration class and Harry sat low in his chair, looking out of the window and frowning. He had just used forty minutes to write Draco's name in different styles on his parchment instead of taking notes - Draco with curly handwriting, Draco made of spikes, Draco in newspaperly print, Draco Draco Draco... Now he had run out of parchment, so he took time looking at Professor Grubbly-Plank teaching fourth-years down on the grounds. Unicorns. It figured. Harry sighed.

'Mr. Potter!' McGonagall suddenly barked next to his ear. Harry jumped a foot into the air. 'Let me see you perform this spell using this...' She produced a slightly crumbled Ginger Newt from the pocket of her green robes, '...biscuit.'

Harry blinked. Something was poking him in the side. He glanced in the direction of the poking to see Seamus showing him a piece of parchment on which he had scribbled something that looked like "cluckigft". Harry could perform the spell without help, though. He wasn't completely hopeless. He raised his wand, producing an identical biscuit out of thin air without uttering a word. McGonagall nodded approvingly.

'Next time, Mr. Potter, do bother and say the incantation aloud. This is not a place to show off.'

'Sorry, Professor, I will.'

'Good. And to continue on the subject, please note that a magic-maker's...' McGonagall turned away from Harry, tapping her wand against the palm of her other hand in a very stern fashion.

Harry fell back into a daze, but something kept nagging at his sub-conscious, something he knew he hadn't done. Harry shook his head for the second time that day and crammed "Draco Draco Draco" parchment scraps inside his pocket.

On the other side of the classroom Parvati was repeatedly failing to produce a copy of McGonagall's feather hat, which, after turning each colour of the rainbow, finally sprouted little feet and dived under the professor's desk.

*

At lunch, Harry felt gloomy. He poked a piece of an enchanted carrot around his plate with his fork. He couldn't eat it after it had been the object of Ron's furious hex, one that had made it whistle Love Story. Not that he wanted to.

'Harry,' Neville said from across the table, 'can I borrow your quill? I managed to leave mine in the Potions classroom yesterday and...well...' He blushed.

Harry nodded and bent to retrieve one of his quills from his bag. When he had selected the one that wasn't his favourite but hadn't got a broken tip either, he noticed there was a pair of very neat, very new and very black shoes standing next to where he was sitting. He straightened up, finding himself face to face with Draco Malfoy. They stared at each other for what felt like a minute, Harry trying to recall if there was a meaning for this, and Draco smiling smugly down at him.

Draco usually worried about pleasing his father - in various ways - about his grades and about finding new tactics to cheat in Quidditch, but not that day. No, on that significant October tenth he didn't worry about anything at all. He had spent the morning coming up with new ways of torturing House-Elves and pleasing Harry - not at the same time, of course.

Now he bent slightly, resting his weight on his hands he had positioned on the table on each side of Harry, encircling him in a possessive way as he did so. He brought his smiling mouth next to Harry's ear and whispered something. Harry flushed deep red.

Draco's smile turned into a wicked grin as he turned on his heels and walked out of the Hall, holding himself high. Harry stared. When he faced his friends again, he found Ron looking disapproving and murderously squeezing a pork chop, and Hermione laughing into her pumpkin juice. Harry took it as a sign and hurried after Draco.

Behind him, he heard Hermione calling, 'Our next lesson starts in fifteen minutes!'

*

Next time, Draco cornered him before dinner. He pulled him behind a statue of Inea the Innocent and pinned him to a wall, pushing his body against Harry's.

'I thought about you all the way through Arithmancy, you know,' Draco breathed. Harry felt like a voodoo doll, hanging on the wall with only Draco's hands and knees to keep him from falling. Draco leaned in to bring their bodies closer. Harry didn't feel his feet on the floor anymore.

'I thought about you, sweaty and aroused, your skin in red blotches where blood has risen to the surface... about you beneath me, your mouth full of pleas, your eyes closed in shame.' Draco looked past him, as if locking their eyes would remind him of what he was doing. Harry had trouble breathing. He gripped Draco's shoulders as though trying to shake him, to tell him not to do this here where everybody could see them, but Draco didn't notice his attempts at maintaining decency.

'In this fantasy you begged me to take you. You opened to me like a book... you were so... desirable.' Draco's voice was mingling with his panting; it was difficult to make out the words. He rubbed himself against Harry's thigh ungracefully, his hands grasping Harry's, pressing them against the wall. Harry winced - rocks were digging into his wrists, but above this all he felt light-headed; he still didn't know how or why this had happened, but the feeling of Draco around him, almost inside him, was so familiar and good that he forgot his unease for a moment.

Then it was all about the light of the tenth, filling them, trying to give them hope, knowing what would come. Harry savoured Draco's mouth, smelled his skin and didn't care why Draco wanted him like this. When Draco came, unsuccessfully trying not to moan, Harry wanted to cry.

Only a after dozen, forcefully calm breaths later did he become aware of their surroundings: shuffle of footsteps against the corridor floor, laughter, mirth and students' happy faces. And watching them walk by, talking about all the happy mundane things, and with Draco's forehead on his shoulder, Draco's hands in his own and with many imprints of Draco in his pocket, Harry almost felt something bubbling inside of him, wanting to break to the surface, yearning to gasp some air.

It was there, buried deep, but Harry was too absorbed in Draco's scent - that was forcing its way up Harry's nostrils - to actually notice anything. He hid his face in Draco's hair and Draco yanked his head up and stared Harry hard in the eyes.

'I'd like that,' Harry said at the same time as Draco said, 'I'm sorry.' A moment of stillness and then they both started laughing at the coincidence.

*

Around eight o'clock that evening Harry, Ron and Hermione were sitting in front of a roaring fire in the Gryffindor common room, chatting away. Ron amused himself by throwing bits of spare parchment into the grate, Hermione was fingering a strand of her hair, searching for split ends, and Harry tried to compose a poem about love and lust - he couldn't think of anything else to do.

'What rhymes with "flagellate"?' he asked lazily, gazing at the ceiling.

'Dunno,' Ron said, ripping his own Potions essay in order to get more pieces of parchment to play with. 'Mate?'

'Grate, too, and fate, hate, bait, date and debate,' recited Hermione, tossing her hair over one shoulder. 'What are you writing about?'

'Nothing,' Harry said, a little too quickly.

'Not about Ginny, are you?' Ron asked, reaching for Hermione's essay; she promptly snatched it away and hid it in her bag.

'No.'

'Good. 'Cause she promised to curse you if you stalk her again. I know she's good looking, but she expects her boyfriend to be... interesting,' Ron finished lamely, and added, 'No offence.'

'None taken,' Harry yawned and stretched in an unconcerned way. 'I never stalked her anyway. It was a hex Seamus put on her.'

'Uh huh,' Ron said, not listening.

They sat in silence for a couple of minutes. Hermione, who was playing a romantic sexual fantasy in her head, heard Harry whisper something that sounded much like "decapitate".

*

That night - mind you, it was still that same tenth of October - Harry lay in his bed, thinking of nothing else but Draco. Different situations were racing through his mind, swirling drunkenly, almost making him sick. He pictured Draco dominating, making Harry suck him off. He visualised their bodies rocking in unison, their moans tangling in the air, hair falling into their faces. He spread himself on the sheets, with a ghost of his... boyfriend on top of him, declaring his passion and promising more. And more.

Harry wanked himself off slowly, teasingly, those thoughts never ceasing, and when he fell asleep, it was with Draco's name on his lips and Draco's hands touching his imagination.

*

When Harry woke up next morning, the sky was up high again, white and chilly. It was October eleventh and Harry had a headache pounding around his scar.

At the breakfast table he found Ron, faking cheeriness, Ginny, staring hungrily at him, and Hermione, looking tired and worn, buttering a piece of toast.

Later on, he found some parchment in his pockets - full of a name, written sickeningly many times, and a single line that said "Draco, will be come"

He burned it after lessons.