Blue Windows behind the Stars (Harry Potter fanfic)
AN: WHAT is UP with all these 2nd person stories I’m writing? I have no idea. HP isn’t mine, of course.
Draco/Harry. Oneshot. Draco isn’t going to take the Mark, expecting death instead. Harry’s pretty sure there’s another option, and he, Hermione, & Ron aren’t giving up on him, whether he likes it or not.
(orig. posted on ff.net -- 02/03/09)
./.
Blue, blue windows behind the stars,
Yellow moon on the rise,
Big birds flying across the sky,
Throwing shadows in our eyes.
Leaves us
Helpless, helpless, helpless
Helpless, helpless, helpless
--Neil Young, “Helpless”
./.
…Blue Windows behind the Stars…
…X…
…I…
You pass him in the halls day after day, month after month, and after a while you can’t even muster the requisite sneer.
You’re tired, you’re lonely, and more than anything else in the world you wish that he’d accepted your proposal of friendship all those years ago, even though you know prophecy and destiny and your father and Dumbledore would never have allowed it, never have allowed you to be happy.
Except you’re lying in your bed, listening to Crabbe and Goyle sleeping beyond shut curtains, your little self-contained island, and you can’t help but wish for one moment. One true smile.
You pass him in the hall and you try to call the brunette witch a mudblood, try to spit out some derogatory remark to Weasley, but they’re so happy, it’s hard to even be bitter anymore. You want to feel angry getting such a shitty deal, but you’re tired and worn out and worn down and you can feel the ending closing in and you know it’s coming for you.
It’s been years since you were hiding under your bed, young and terrified and dreading your father’s hand against your flesh.
It’s been a year since he made you kneel in front of Lord Voldemort-Voldemort you repeat with a bitter sort of satisfaction-and proved his loyalty to his Master. You still have the scars from that encounter, curse scars that you can’t magic away, can only wait to fade. Not that either of them would give them a chance to fade. You learned your lesson about that well, especially when you returned to the Manor and some stupid, pathetic, foolish part of you had hoped, desperately, that Lucius would help you somehow, give you something, at least, to dull the pain. Instead he’d backhanded you for embarrassing him with your screams.
You’ve played the good, dutiful son as long as you could, and you’ve stumbled to the loo to throw up and scrub your tears away more times than you count-than you want to count.
Idle days you’ve daydreamed about telling Dumbledore, about somehow being protected, somehow being a spy, somehow being as brave and happy as the boy you try but can no longer hate. But you know, deep down, that you can’t live that life, even for pretend, even for the greater good, and protecting a bratty Slytherin is hardly how the side of Light will be committing their resources.
At the end of this year-your fifth year-your father wants you to take the Mark.
At the end of this year you’re going to die.
You haven’t quite decided how, yet. You don’t fancy the idea of taking your own life, but Voldemort and your father will torture you for hours-days-if they catch you, and making a run for it will only prolong the inevitable. Lucius would use blood magic to find you, and he’d never let you go.
You move through classes silently. It’s hard to gather the energy to study, let alone taunt and tease and keep up the pretence. Your father sends you angry letters, but he can hardly send you a howler asking why you aren’t busy intimidating your fellow students.
Snape tries to talk to you, but all you can do is stare at him, wondering if he’ll be the one deal the final blow. At least, you think, seeing the affection, the honest worry in his eyes, at least he’d make it quick.
./.
…II…
./.
It takes an hour-a day-a week of the boy, of Harry bloody Potter-watching you, staring at you, practically stalking you, for you to walk down a deserted hallway, sit down, and wait. Clearly he has something to say, and really, if he’s inclined to kill you, you aren’t going to contest the matter.
He sits down next to you on the cold ground, close enough that your arms are practically grazing.
You figure, since he’s been following you, he can be the one to speak first, and he does after a while, voice soft, maybe a bit grudging.
“Ron reckons you’ve stopped eating,” he says, and you blink slowly in surprise.
“Weasley?” you ask, almost needing the clarification.
“He says you look like a hurt bird he found once. He brought it home and his mum fixed it but it wouldn’t eat. It just sat looking out the window.”
“Potter-” you say, and then stop, not knowing really how to continue.
“Ron reckons the bird felt trapped, and didn’t think life was worth living without being free.”
“Weasley said that,” you say, letting your voice drawl, finding the sneer you’ve almost forgotten how to use.
“Hermione says that she tried to help a hurt cat, once, and it wouldn’t let her. It hissed and clawed and ran away. She says animals can be like that.”
“The mudblood,” you say, forcing your voice hard and sarcastic, but you look away from Potter’s thoughtful face, tensing your own up in the way you learned as a child, so that the tears don’t fall, so that no one can see behind your mask.
“Myself,” the boys says, hands twisting a bit in his lap, “Myself, I get the bird thing, because my uncle used to hit me a bit, and if I had to go back there, forever-well, I don’t think I could.”
“Oh,” you say, and nothing else really makes its way out of your constricting throat, and dimly you feel the boy slip his fingers into yours.
“As for the cat, I figure that if years before the cat had offered you something, and you’d turned it down out of pride and fear and ignorance, and you could do something now to help the cat, to make up for it, I think the cat should be allow you to do something to help.”
“Potter,” you whisper weakly, and he squeezes your hand.
“Don’t you think so?” he presses, and now you do turn to look at him, and he smiles at you encouragingly, and you angrily you can feel your eyes start to fill up with unshed tears. “You don’t have to be anything you’re not,” Potter whispers, and you shake your head.
“Potter, what are you doing? You’re my-we aren’t friends-Voldemort’s trying to kill you, you can’t-”
Potter’s smiling at you, and still holding your hand, and you hear your voice stumble to a stop, edged with confusion.
“Dumbledore’s brilliant, he is, and so’s Black and everyone else, Draco, but when Ronald Weasley agrees that you aren’t loyal to Voldemort, then you aren’t loyal to Voldemort.”
You manage a weak smile at that, and Potter’s face flutters into sorrow as his eyes travel along the curve of your shoulders.
“He and Hermione were following you under my invisibility cloak after I’d started…uhm…stalking you,” he says, his lips momentarily quirking up before falling back down. “They saw your scars.”
You nod, numb, and then stand and start to walk away, because you’re proud and arrogant and you can’t do this, not with Harry, the-fucking-boy-who-lived, not with even shadows of Weasley and Mudblood-you can’t do this ever.
Potter catches you halfway down the hall, and furious and acting on pure instinct you grab him and slam him against the wall, your forearm on his throat. Wouldn’t daddy be proud?
“I’m taking the Mark, Potter,” you say, because you want him to stop looking at you so worriedly, because you want to see him wince and hurt and hands are suddenly pulling you off of him.
“What’s the meaning of this, Potter?” Snape growls, looking between the two of you, and Potter glances down.
“I tripped and Malfoy helped me up. Sir,” you hear him say, and you look at him, stunned.
Dimly you hear Snape sneer, “Ten points from Gryffindor for you inability to walk,” and then he sends Potter away and you turn and walk the down the opposite path, feeling Snape’s gaze with every step.
All you wanted was one true smile.
./.
…III…
./.
You’re sitting in an empty classroom. It’s after hours, but you don’t especially care. You aren’t too worried about school punishment these days. It’s been a week since Potter’s little chat with you, but you’ve been a bit too distracted to worry overmuch about it. Daddy’s talked to Goyle and Crabbe Sr., who sent their sons some rather…creative instructions on how to help you regain your mojo. You don’t especially want to put up the effort to restart your evil ways, but it also seems an especially bad time to off yourself, what with your recent talk with Potter.
You are not, you tell yourself, firmly, the cat that scratched.
In the doorway, a figure melts out of the shadows, and you look up to see one Hermione Granger, bane of your existence. You almost smile as you consider the utter exaggeration of the statement, given your real bane.
She comes and sits next to you, and you quirk an eyebrow up at her, feeling a little more prepared for her words than you did for Potter’s.
“You like him, don’t you?” she says, and you blink at her, once more shocked into incoherence.
“What?” you try, and you think it’s clear enough if only by the way she looks at you, amused.
“You like Harry,” she repeats, as if it’s obvious and everyday and ordinary and not at all impossible and terrifying.
“Of course not,” you try to sneer, but the mere fact that it’s garbled makes it sound uncertain.
“He’s liked you for a while,” she continues, as if you hadn’t said anything at all, and you just sort of stare at her. “He hasn’t actually come out and admitted it, of course, but it’s easy to tell. Even Ron’s starting to suspect, which is really saying something, since he’s a bit dense when it comes to these matters.”
“Aren’t you dating?” you hear yourself ask, as if from far away, and vaguely you watch yourself exchange small talk with the girl you’ve taunted for years. You remember her slapping you, and you feeling oddly proud of her for doing it.
“Doesn’t mean I don’t see his faults,” she laughs, and you smile before you remember to stop yourself. Almost immediately your face snaps back to emotionless, and you look away.
“You should tell him to stop this,” you say, wishing you didn’t care, wishing you could walk away without giving her this warning, this plea.
“He feels guilty, you know,” she says. “He seems to think that if he’d been your friend when you asked him your father wouldn’t have hurt you.”
“How did…?” you ask, eyes wide, and you can’t help but feel terrified. She shifts, as if she were going to touch you and then thought better of it, and you’re glad she’s keeping the distance, because your heart is in your throat, your nerves are on fire.
“You have a choice, here, Draco,” she says, and you shuffle a bit at the sound of your first name on her lips, but stay silent, waiting for her to finish. “The three of us, we aren’t going to go away, but you’re going to have to want to fight.” She smiles wryly. “Not even Harry Potter can help you if you keep letting yourself slip farther and farther away.”
“Mudblood,” you try to hiss, except it comes out choked and this time she does touch you, this time she wraps her arms around you and kisses your forehead.
“It’s all right, love,” she whispers, and you choke out a sob, but she can feel you tensing, feel your muscles clenching together and she pulls back reluctantly.
“Hermione,” you whisper, because you’ve never had anyone who wanted to touch you bend to your wishes.
“Let us help,” she says, and her voice is less than an order, more than a plea. She squeezes your hand and then stands up and melts away into the night.
./.
…IV…
./.
You don’t know where your wand is, and you trytrytry to find it, hands scrabbling in the dirt, but someone kicks you in the ribs and someone else sends a curse at you and it’s so hard to think and part of you is ready to just let go and drift, except three nights ago Hermione asked you not to, ten days ago Harry was ready to fight for you even if you weren’t, and that other part of you, that’s thinking of them, won’t let you let go.
You hit someone in the face, hard, but when someone crucio’s you it doesn’t matter how hard you’re willing to fight. You fight the screams erupting out of your throat, but that’s all the choice you have left, except suddenly there’s no pain, suddenly someone’s yelling stupefy and lights flash overhead and people are running away.
“Get the teachers,” you hear someone shout, and then someone with red hair is crouching down next to you.
“Weasley,” you breathe out, and he smiles at you, and for a second all you can do is stare at him in surprise. He has, you think vaguely, a nice smile. Lots of white teeth.
“Harry’s getting help,” he says, frowning down at your cloak that’s now a tattered wreck.
“Ah,” you say, trying to sound wise and knowing and understanding, but getting the feeling that you’re falling rather short of the mark.
“I think,” he says, now frowning down at your face in an uncomfortably direct matter, “I think it’s time that you stop playing games, Draco.” Your eyes widen at your name coming out of his mouth.
“What?” you say, the word stumbling out of your mouth before you can remember that responding will only encourage him.
“I think you need to stop running,” he says, and you’ve always noticed that this boy, however dense he may or may not sometimes be, has the unpleasant ability to cut to the heart of the matter. Maybe it’s his remarkable lack of tact.
“The way I see it,” he continues, “You have two choices. You’re either going to die, unprotesting, at your hand or someone’s else’s, like you-know-who’s, or you take what we’re offering.”
“What’re you offering?” you try to smirk up at him. He bites his lip thoughtfully, and you try not to squirm.
“Harry likes you. No, Harry being Harry, Harry loves you. I’ve shared my family with him, I’ll share it with you, too. Mum will die of happiness to have yet another son. And Hermione will figure out a way around the blood curses your father’ll send your way. Sirius can probably help there.”
“Black?” you say, almost snorting at the absurdity of Sirius Black helping you.
“I’m sure his father sent some his way in his time.” You frown a little, because this is starting to make an uncomfortable degree of sense.
“Dumbledore will agree, and even if he didn’t, it wouldn’t matter. We,” he says, puffing up a little in pride that almost makes you smile in something you would hate to think was affection for the blood traitor. The insult sounds weak even to your own ears. “We,” he continues, “Have faced down you-know…” He pauses, frowning. “We’ve faced down Voldemort,” he corrects, and again you feel that unwelcome twinge of affection. “If we decide we’re doing this, we’re doing this.”
“And what,” you say, eyes narrowing, for the moment forgetting about the pain that’s fairly radiating through your body, “Is ‘this’?” You’re waiting for him to say it’s rescuing you, or helping you, or something similar that will make you feel pathetic and helpless and you try to brace for the pain.
Weasley looks at you, wide-eyes, confused.
“Being your friend,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. The teachers have come running, so you don’t really have a chance to respond, and you can’t quite decide if it’s a good thing or not.
Pompfrey thinks the tears in your eyes are because of the pain. You let her think so, but you can’t quite lie to yourself.
./.
…V…
./.
You’ve lived your entire life with grand gestures, so two nights later, when you get out of the infirmary just in time for dinner, you walk into the Great Hall. Everyone else is already seated, and the room grows uncomfortably quiet as they all turn to look at you. You lift up your chin and survey the room, cold and arrogant and aloof and the murmurs that threatened to break out stop at this one glance from you. The entire Slytherin table tries to stare you down. You lift up an eyebrow and feel your sneer creep onto your face and force them down, one-by-one. It feels fantastic.
You could, you know, walk over there. You could be their Prince, you could be their King. You’re Draco Malfoy, you could be Voldemort’s right hand.
If you chose.
Everyone’s watching.
You’re Draco Malfoy, and you walk into the center of the room, and throw a casual, mock salute at Dumbledore, who’s watching you as if he knows what you’re about to. You look from McGonagall to Snape, and they’re watching you, intent and curious, and you can’t help but smirk.
You look at Hufflepuff, and they squirm, and you smile at them, and their eyes widen.
You look at Ravenclaw, and their lips twitch, because they’re starting to understand. One of them nods approval, and you nod back because you can.
And then you look at Gryffindor. They’re watching you intently, and you wonder who knows, who doesn’t. But Harry and Hermione and Ron are watching you, and you know, whatever happens, it’ll be okay.
You walk towards the table, and the entire roomful of people are holding their breath, watching your every move. You walk up to Harry Potter, and half of the room braces itself. Harry looks at you. You look at him.
“Is this seat free?” you ask, and he grins at you, that patented boy-who-lived grin that’s always made you want to smile back.
“It’s actually reserved for you,” he says, and you can’t help but grin back. “I’ve been saving it for quite a while, so it’s good you came. People,” he adds in a stage whisper, since everyone there is hanging on his every word, “Were starting to think I was a bit odd saving a seat for no one.”
“Oh, Harry,” you say, mock-sighing, hearing people gasp at your use of his first name, “People already think you’re a bit odd.” You settle into the seat, and smile brightly at the people around you, and they look from Harry to you to Hermione to Ron and frown and shrug, because you haven’t been cruel in a long time, and you haven’t looked happy since they’ve known you.
Dumbledore stands up and makes several announcements, ending with the news that one Draco Malfoy is changing houses.
It’s news to you, but then it sort of makes sense, given that two days ago your housemates tried to kill you. You learn two of them were expelled, and another three are on probation.
Hermione and Ron are chattering away enough for the people who are still quiet and curious, and the rest of the hall has broken into excited chatter. The entire Slytherin table is glaring daggers.
“Don’t worry,” Harry says, leaning over, “It’s me they hate, not you.”
You can’t help the little unexpected laugh that erupts from your throat. It feels good-more than good, since you get the feeling you’re going to be using it a lot more in the coming weeks.
You can feel someone else watching you, and when you glance around you see Snape staring. You expect anger, fury, irritation, disappointment.
Instead…he looks proud. McGonagall is positively weepy. Dumbledore’s grinning brightly and toasting everyone he can reach. Everyone else is babbling like idiots.
Harry’s shoulder nudges yours. “Imagine what they’re saying,” he says, but rather than sounding worried he sounds amused, which helps a bit.
“They’re probably thinking you’ve gone round the bend,” you smirk, and he grins in appreciation.
“Eh, haven’t you read the papers? They’ve already thought that more than once. I figure this time they’ll assume I’ve fallen for the cutest boy at school.”
“Harry,” Hermione hisses. “Not like this,” she says, looking at you as if she’s worried that you’ll bolt. But you’ve given it a lot of thought. You aren’t bolting.
“Will they be right?” you say, quirking up an eyebrow, letting your mask relax enough for him to see your smile. For him to know how much you’re invested in his answer.
He grins back, happier than you ever remember seeing him. “Bloody hell they will be!” he laughs.
“I suppose,” you say, glancing down at his lips, “We shouldn’t shock them too much.”
Across the table, Ron snorts, and you look at him, a question in your eyes.
“Mate, at this point you might as go all the way,” he says, and Hermione nods. Next to her, Neville’s looking interestedly on, and you force yourself to nod slightly. His lips twitch up in response. You look at Harry next to you.
“’Spose you do know the ‘right sort,’” you say, quoting your old words back, and he smiles half-softly, half-sadly before leaning forward until his lips are centimeters from yours.
“I’m friends with you, aren’t I?” he says, and then he leans all the way and you’re kissing Harry bloody Potter.
Won’t Daddy be proud? You smirk into his lips. Daddy, you think, will hunt you down and watch you writhe for weeks. But you aren’t especially caring. You aren’t especially thinking about anything other than how good his lips feel against yours.
When he pulls back you can feel the world watching you.
“Thank you,” you say, feeling, with vague irritation, your eyes burn. You bite your lip but you don’t look away from his greengreengreen eyes. “How did you know?” you ask, and he smiles.
“I started missing your sneers,” he says, and your lips twitch, and his hand is in yours, and this, you think, this is a life worth fighting for.
./.
Finis
./.
AN: This was supposed to be a 1500-2000 word one-shot. Now it’s 2am and I need to go to bed. =)
Hopefully you enjoyed this, because I certainly enjoyed writing it! Much love, Wolfie!
Draco/Harry. Oneshot. Draco isn’t going to take the Mark, expecting death instead. Harry’s pretty sure there’s another option, and he, Hermione, & Ron aren’t giving up on him, whether he likes it or not.
(orig. posted on ff.net -- 02/03/09)
./.
Blue, blue windows behind the stars,
Yellow moon on the rise,
Big birds flying across the sky,
Throwing shadows in our eyes.
Leaves us
Helpless, helpless, helpless
Helpless, helpless, helpless
--Neil Young, “Helpless”
./.
…Blue Windows behind the Stars…
…X…
…I…
You pass him in the halls day after day, month after month, and after a while you can’t even muster the requisite sneer.
You’re tired, you’re lonely, and more than anything else in the world you wish that he’d accepted your proposal of friendship all those years ago, even though you know prophecy and destiny and your father and Dumbledore would never have allowed it, never have allowed you to be happy.
Except you’re lying in your bed, listening to Crabbe and Goyle sleeping beyond shut curtains, your little self-contained island, and you can’t help but wish for one moment. One true smile.
You pass him in the hall and you try to call the brunette witch a mudblood, try to spit out some derogatory remark to Weasley, but they’re so happy, it’s hard to even be bitter anymore. You want to feel angry getting such a shitty deal, but you’re tired and worn out and worn down and you can feel the ending closing in and you know it’s coming for you.
It’s been years since you were hiding under your bed, young and terrified and dreading your father’s hand against your flesh.
It’s been a year since he made you kneel in front of Lord Voldemort-Voldemort you repeat with a bitter sort of satisfaction-and proved his loyalty to his Master. You still have the scars from that encounter, curse scars that you can’t magic away, can only wait to fade. Not that either of them would give them a chance to fade. You learned your lesson about that well, especially when you returned to the Manor and some stupid, pathetic, foolish part of you had hoped, desperately, that Lucius would help you somehow, give you something, at least, to dull the pain. Instead he’d backhanded you for embarrassing him with your screams.
You’ve played the good, dutiful son as long as you could, and you’ve stumbled to the loo to throw up and scrub your tears away more times than you count-than you want to count.
Idle days you’ve daydreamed about telling Dumbledore, about somehow being protected, somehow being a spy, somehow being as brave and happy as the boy you try but can no longer hate. But you know, deep down, that you can’t live that life, even for pretend, even for the greater good, and protecting a bratty Slytherin is hardly how the side of Light will be committing their resources.
At the end of this year-your fifth year-your father wants you to take the Mark.
At the end of this year you’re going to die.
You haven’t quite decided how, yet. You don’t fancy the idea of taking your own life, but Voldemort and your father will torture you for hours-days-if they catch you, and making a run for it will only prolong the inevitable. Lucius would use blood magic to find you, and he’d never let you go.
You move through classes silently. It’s hard to gather the energy to study, let alone taunt and tease and keep up the pretence. Your father sends you angry letters, but he can hardly send you a howler asking why you aren’t busy intimidating your fellow students.
Snape tries to talk to you, but all you can do is stare at him, wondering if he’ll be the one deal the final blow. At least, you think, seeing the affection, the honest worry in his eyes, at least he’d make it quick.
./.
…II…
./.
It takes an hour-a day-a week of the boy, of Harry bloody Potter-watching you, staring at you, practically stalking you, for you to walk down a deserted hallway, sit down, and wait. Clearly he has something to say, and really, if he’s inclined to kill you, you aren’t going to contest the matter.
He sits down next to you on the cold ground, close enough that your arms are practically grazing.
You figure, since he’s been following you, he can be the one to speak first, and he does after a while, voice soft, maybe a bit grudging.
“Ron reckons you’ve stopped eating,” he says, and you blink slowly in surprise.
“Weasley?” you ask, almost needing the clarification.
“He says you look like a hurt bird he found once. He brought it home and his mum fixed it but it wouldn’t eat. It just sat looking out the window.”
“Potter-” you say, and then stop, not knowing really how to continue.
“Ron reckons the bird felt trapped, and didn’t think life was worth living without being free.”
“Weasley said that,” you say, letting your voice drawl, finding the sneer you’ve almost forgotten how to use.
“Hermione says that she tried to help a hurt cat, once, and it wouldn’t let her. It hissed and clawed and ran away. She says animals can be like that.”
“The mudblood,” you say, forcing your voice hard and sarcastic, but you look away from Potter’s thoughtful face, tensing your own up in the way you learned as a child, so that the tears don’t fall, so that no one can see behind your mask.
“Myself,” the boys says, hands twisting a bit in his lap, “Myself, I get the bird thing, because my uncle used to hit me a bit, and if I had to go back there, forever-well, I don’t think I could.”
“Oh,” you say, and nothing else really makes its way out of your constricting throat, and dimly you feel the boy slip his fingers into yours.
“As for the cat, I figure that if years before the cat had offered you something, and you’d turned it down out of pride and fear and ignorance, and you could do something now to help the cat, to make up for it, I think the cat should be allow you to do something to help.”
“Potter,” you whisper weakly, and he squeezes your hand.
“Don’t you think so?” he presses, and now you do turn to look at him, and he smiles at you encouragingly, and you angrily you can feel your eyes start to fill up with unshed tears. “You don’t have to be anything you’re not,” Potter whispers, and you shake your head.
“Potter, what are you doing? You’re my-we aren’t friends-Voldemort’s trying to kill you, you can’t-”
Potter’s smiling at you, and still holding your hand, and you hear your voice stumble to a stop, edged with confusion.
“Dumbledore’s brilliant, he is, and so’s Black and everyone else, Draco, but when Ronald Weasley agrees that you aren’t loyal to Voldemort, then you aren’t loyal to Voldemort.”
You manage a weak smile at that, and Potter’s face flutters into sorrow as his eyes travel along the curve of your shoulders.
“He and Hermione were following you under my invisibility cloak after I’d started…uhm…stalking you,” he says, his lips momentarily quirking up before falling back down. “They saw your scars.”
You nod, numb, and then stand and start to walk away, because you’re proud and arrogant and you can’t do this, not with Harry, the-fucking-boy-who-lived, not with even shadows of Weasley and Mudblood-you can’t do this ever.
Potter catches you halfway down the hall, and furious and acting on pure instinct you grab him and slam him against the wall, your forearm on his throat. Wouldn’t daddy be proud?
“I’m taking the Mark, Potter,” you say, because you want him to stop looking at you so worriedly, because you want to see him wince and hurt and hands are suddenly pulling you off of him.
“What’s the meaning of this, Potter?” Snape growls, looking between the two of you, and Potter glances down.
“I tripped and Malfoy helped me up. Sir,” you hear him say, and you look at him, stunned.
Dimly you hear Snape sneer, “Ten points from Gryffindor for you inability to walk,” and then he sends Potter away and you turn and walk the down the opposite path, feeling Snape’s gaze with every step.
All you wanted was one true smile.
./.
…III…
./.
You’re sitting in an empty classroom. It’s after hours, but you don’t especially care. You aren’t too worried about school punishment these days. It’s been a week since Potter’s little chat with you, but you’ve been a bit too distracted to worry overmuch about it. Daddy’s talked to Goyle and Crabbe Sr., who sent their sons some rather…creative instructions on how to help you regain your mojo. You don’t especially want to put up the effort to restart your evil ways, but it also seems an especially bad time to off yourself, what with your recent talk with Potter.
You are not, you tell yourself, firmly, the cat that scratched.
In the doorway, a figure melts out of the shadows, and you look up to see one Hermione Granger, bane of your existence. You almost smile as you consider the utter exaggeration of the statement, given your real bane.
She comes and sits next to you, and you quirk an eyebrow up at her, feeling a little more prepared for her words than you did for Potter’s.
“You like him, don’t you?” she says, and you blink at her, once more shocked into incoherence.
“What?” you try, and you think it’s clear enough if only by the way she looks at you, amused.
“You like Harry,” she repeats, as if it’s obvious and everyday and ordinary and not at all impossible and terrifying.
“Of course not,” you try to sneer, but the mere fact that it’s garbled makes it sound uncertain.
“He’s liked you for a while,” she continues, as if you hadn’t said anything at all, and you just sort of stare at her. “He hasn’t actually come out and admitted it, of course, but it’s easy to tell. Even Ron’s starting to suspect, which is really saying something, since he’s a bit dense when it comes to these matters.”
“Aren’t you dating?” you hear yourself ask, as if from far away, and vaguely you watch yourself exchange small talk with the girl you’ve taunted for years. You remember her slapping you, and you feeling oddly proud of her for doing it.
“Doesn’t mean I don’t see his faults,” she laughs, and you smile before you remember to stop yourself. Almost immediately your face snaps back to emotionless, and you look away.
“You should tell him to stop this,” you say, wishing you didn’t care, wishing you could walk away without giving her this warning, this plea.
“He feels guilty, you know,” she says. “He seems to think that if he’d been your friend when you asked him your father wouldn’t have hurt you.”
“How did…?” you ask, eyes wide, and you can’t help but feel terrified. She shifts, as if she were going to touch you and then thought better of it, and you’re glad she’s keeping the distance, because your heart is in your throat, your nerves are on fire.
“You have a choice, here, Draco,” she says, and you shuffle a bit at the sound of your first name on her lips, but stay silent, waiting for her to finish. “The three of us, we aren’t going to go away, but you’re going to have to want to fight.” She smiles wryly. “Not even Harry Potter can help you if you keep letting yourself slip farther and farther away.”
“Mudblood,” you try to hiss, except it comes out choked and this time she does touch you, this time she wraps her arms around you and kisses your forehead.
“It’s all right, love,” she whispers, and you choke out a sob, but she can feel you tensing, feel your muscles clenching together and she pulls back reluctantly.
“Hermione,” you whisper, because you’ve never had anyone who wanted to touch you bend to your wishes.
“Let us help,” she says, and her voice is less than an order, more than a plea. She squeezes your hand and then stands up and melts away into the night.
./.
…IV…
./.
You don’t know where your wand is, and you trytrytry to find it, hands scrabbling in the dirt, but someone kicks you in the ribs and someone else sends a curse at you and it’s so hard to think and part of you is ready to just let go and drift, except three nights ago Hermione asked you not to, ten days ago Harry was ready to fight for you even if you weren’t, and that other part of you, that’s thinking of them, won’t let you let go.
You hit someone in the face, hard, but when someone crucio’s you it doesn’t matter how hard you’re willing to fight. You fight the screams erupting out of your throat, but that’s all the choice you have left, except suddenly there’s no pain, suddenly someone’s yelling stupefy and lights flash overhead and people are running away.
“Get the teachers,” you hear someone shout, and then someone with red hair is crouching down next to you.
“Weasley,” you breathe out, and he smiles at you, and for a second all you can do is stare at him in surprise. He has, you think vaguely, a nice smile. Lots of white teeth.
“Harry’s getting help,” he says, frowning down at your cloak that’s now a tattered wreck.
“Ah,” you say, trying to sound wise and knowing and understanding, but getting the feeling that you’re falling rather short of the mark.
“I think,” he says, now frowning down at your face in an uncomfortably direct matter, “I think it’s time that you stop playing games, Draco.” Your eyes widen at your name coming out of his mouth.
“What?” you say, the word stumbling out of your mouth before you can remember that responding will only encourage him.
“I think you need to stop running,” he says, and you’ve always noticed that this boy, however dense he may or may not sometimes be, has the unpleasant ability to cut to the heart of the matter. Maybe it’s his remarkable lack of tact.
“The way I see it,” he continues, “You have two choices. You’re either going to die, unprotesting, at your hand or someone’s else’s, like you-know-who’s, or you take what we’re offering.”
“What’re you offering?” you try to smirk up at him. He bites his lip thoughtfully, and you try not to squirm.
“Harry likes you. No, Harry being Harry, Harry loves you. I’ve shared my family with him, I’ll share it with you, too. Mum will die of happiness to have yet another son. And Hermione will figure out a way around the blood curses your father’ll send your way. Sirius can probably help there.”
“Black?” you say, almost snorting at the absurdity of Sirius Black helping you.
“I’m sure his father sent some his way in his time.” You frown a little, because this is starting to make an uncomfortable degree of sense.
“Dumbledore will agree, and even if he didn’t, it wouldn’t matter. We,” he says, puffing up a little in pride that almost makes you smile in something you would hate to think was affection for the blood traitor. The insult sounds weak even to your own ears. “We,” he continues, “Have faced down you-know…” He pauses, frowning. “We’ve faced down Voldemort,” he corrects, and again you feel that unwelcome twinge of affection. “If we decide we’re doing this, we’re doing this.”
“And what,” you say, eyes narrowing, for the moment forgetting about the pain that’s fairly radiating through your body, “Is ‘this’?” You’re waiting for him to say it’s rescuing you, or helping you, or something similar that will make you feel pathetic and helpless and you try to brace for the pain.
Weasley looks at you, wide-eyes, confused.
“Being your friend,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. The teachers have come running, so you don’t really have a chance to respond, and you can’t quite decide if it’s a good thing or not.
Pompfrey thinks the tears in your eyes are because of the pain. You let her think so, but you can’t quite lie to yourself.
./.
…V…
./.
You’ve lived your entire life with grand gestures, so two nights later, when you get out of the infirmary just in time for dinner, you walk into the Great Hall. Everyone else is already seated, and the room grows uncomfortably quiet as they all turn to look at you. You lift up your chin and survey the room, cold and arrogant and aloof and the murmurs that threatened to break out stop at this one glance from you. The entire Slytherin table tries to stare you down. You lift up an eyebrow and feel your sneer creep onto your face and force them down, one-by-one. It feels fantastic.
You could, you know, walk over there. You could be their Prince, you could be their King. You’re Draco Malfoy, you could be Voldemort’s right hand.
If you chose.
Everyone’s watching.
You’re Draco Malfoy, and you walk into the center of the room, and throw a casual, mock salute at Dumbledore, who’s watching you as if he knows what you’re about to. You look from McGonagall to Snape, and they’re watching you, intent and curious, and you can’t help but smirk.
You look at Hufflepuff, and they squirm, and you smile at them, and their eyes widen.
You look at Ravenclaw, and their lips twitch, because they’re starting to understand. One of them nods approval, and you nod back because you can.
And then you look at Gryffindor. They’re watching you intently, and you wonder who knows, who doesn’t. But Harry and Hermione and Ron are watching you, and you know, whatever happens, it’ll be okay.
You walk towards the table, and the entire roomful of people are holding their breath, watching your every move. You walk up to Harry Potter, and half of the room braces itself. Harry looks at you. You look at him.
“Is this seat free?” you ask, and he grins at you, that patented boy-who-lived grin that’s always made you want to smile back.
“It’s actually reserved for you,” he says, and you can’t help but grin back. “I’ve been saving it for quite a while, so it’s good you came. People,” he adds in a stage whisper, since everyone there is hanging on his every word, “Were starting to think I was a bit odd saving a seat for no one.”
“Oh, Harry,” you say, mock-sighing, hearing people gasp at your use of his first name, “People already think you’re a bit odd.” You settle into the seat, and smile brightly at the people around you, and they look from Harry to you to Hermione to Ron and frown and shrug, because you haven’t been cruel in a long time, and you haven’t looked happy since they’ve known you.
Dumbledore stands up and makes several announcements, ending with the news that one Draco Malfoy is changing houses.
It’s news to you, but then it sort of makes sense, given that two days ago your housemates tried to kill you. You learn two of them were expelled, and another three are on probation.
Hermione and Ron are chattering away enough for the people who are still quiet and curious, and the rest of the hall has broken into excited chatter. The entire Slytherin table is glaring daggers.
“Don’t worry,” Harry says, leaning over, “It’s me they hate, not you.”
You can’t help the little unexpected laugh that erupts from your throat. It feels good-more than good, since you get the feeling you’re going to be using it a lot more in the coming weeks.
You can feel someone else watching you, and when you glance around you see Snape staring. You expect anger, fury, irritation, disappointment.
Instead…he looks proud. McGonagall is positively weepy. Dumbledore’s grinning brightly and toasting everyone he can reach. Everyone else is babbling like idiots.
Harry’s shoulder nudges yours. “Imagine what they’re saying,” he says, but rather than sounding worried he sounds amused, which helps a bit.
“They’re probably thinking you’ve gone round the bend,” you smirk, and he grins in appreciation.
“Eh, haven’t you read the papers? They’ve already thought that more than once. I figure this time they’ll assume I’ve fallen for the cutest boy at school.”
“Harry,” Hermione hisses. “Not like this,” she says, looking at you as if she’s worried that you’ll bolt. But you’ve given it a lot of thought. You aren’t bolting.
“Will they be right?” you say, quirking up an eyebrow, letting your mask relax enough for him to see your smile. For him to know how much you’re invested in his answer.
He grins back, happier than you ever remember seeing him. “Bloody hell they will be!” he laughs.
“I suppose,” you say, glancing down at his lips, “We shouldn’t shock them too much.”
Across the table, Ron snorts, and you look at him, a question in your eyes.
“Mate, at this point you might as go all the way,” he says, and Hermione nods. Next to her, Neville’s looking interestedly on, and you force yourself to nod slightly. His lips twitch up in response. You look at Harry next to you.
“’Spose you do know the ‘right sort,’” you say, quoting your old words back, and he smiles half-softly, half-sadly before leaning forward until his lips are centimeters from yours.
“I’m friends with you, aren’t I?” he says, and then he leans all the way and you’re kissing Harry bloody Potter.
Won’t Daddy be proud? You smirk into his lips. Daddy, you think, will hunt you down and watch you writhe for weeks. But you aren’t especially caring. You aren’t especially thinking about anything other than how good his lips feel against yours.
When he pulls back you can feel the world watching you.
“Thank you,” you say, feeling, with vague irritation, your eyes burn. You bite your lip but you don’t look away from his greengreengreen eyes. “How did you know?” you ask, and he smiles.
“I started missing your sneers,” he says, and your lips twitch, and his hand is in yours, and this, you think, this is a life worth fighting for.
./.
Finis
./.
AN: This was supposed to be a 1500-2000 word one-shot. Now it’s 2am and I need to go to bed. =)
Hopefully you enjoyed this, because I certainly enjoyed writing it! Much love, Wolfie!