Title: Love Me Like You Mean It
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Rating: PG-13
Summary: (AU) Harry Potter transfers into a prestigious school and is loved by everyone because he becomes the star of the soccer team. He's also the team's only hope for bringing down the schools rival team. When Draco Malfoy is booted from the team to make room for Harry, a feud begins between the two boys, but what's really behind all the tension? (Set in America [but they can keep their smexy accents] because the European education system confuses me, but feel free to imagine it in England if you know how everything corresponds!)
Chapter 1/? - The Transfer Student (Posted August 15th 2010)
Harry was currently in the air, being held on the shoulders of his grateful teammates. Their team had won yet another game, quite a nice change since the Potter boy showed up. He was in his senior year in high school, and had just transferred from a public school to a private school.
On his way to the locker room after the game, he thought of how much everything had changed. He'd been living with the Dursleys, his stupid Aunt Petunia, disgusting Uncle Vernon, and spoiled cousin Dudley for as long as he could remember. His parents died when he was still a baby, and of course his only living relatives would be great pathetic beasts. Dudley had attended one of the most prestigious boys' schools in the entire country. Harry, however, was not permitted to go to there; instead he was forced to go to the dreadful public school in the neighborhood. Then, one day, he got a letter saying he'd inherited an entire fortune from his parents, and the lawyers had been trying to reach him for years. Eventually he'd collected his inheritance under the conditions that it would be used wisely, and he enrolled himself in a private school away from the bullies and stressful environment of the public school. The school he transferred to was not his cousin's school; even if he wanted to waste that much money to go to that stuck-up brat's school, he wouldn't have just because Dudley was there. No, he chose a respectable little school way out of the area. It was a few states away, in fact; the Dursleys lived in Michigan and his new school was all the way in California. He lived on campus, of course, and planned on never going back to the Dursleys' house again.
Harry came out of his daze when he bumped into something. "Watch where you're going, Potter." a voice hissed.
"Sorry, Malfoy." Harry said, annoyed, as he walked around the other boy. He made it to the locker room and proceeded to change out of his soccer outfit and back into his school uniform.
When he left, he was the last one out, so he switched off the light and shut the door properly. As he turned to leave, he saw someone leaning against the wall. Then he realised who it was and groaned to himself.
Hoisting his sports bag onto his shoulder, he walked passed Draco Malfoy and intended not to say a word to him. However, when he noticed Draco was following him, he just had to say something.
"Why are you following me?" Harry asked. "As much as I enjoy being harassed by you, I am not in the mood, so please, just this one time..."
"My, my, Potter, aren't we a bit touchy today?" Draco jibed. "I am not following you. It just so happens that my shoe came untied so I stopped to tie it, and you just happen to come out as I was about to walk back to my dorm."
"Your dorm is in the opposite direction, Malfoy." Harry replied.
"You do realise you just earned your team another victory, don't you?" he asked sarcastically, ignoring Harry's comment. "Normally people are happy when that happens."
"Why do you care?" Harry asked angrily.
"I don't." Draco answered. "See you tomorrow, Potter." and he turned around and walked the other way to his own dorm.
"He must've scored some pretty strong drugs," someone said from further down the hallway, "to have been acting so nice to you, Harry." It was one of the first friends he'd made when he transferred, Hermione Granger. "What did he say to you?"
Harry caught up to her and they walked outside. "He didn't say much. He's been acting strange lately." After earning a 'duh' look from Hermione, he added, "I mean strange for Malfoy. I don't know, when I came here, he hated me, but lately he's been so... nice. He's plotting something, I know it, I just wish he'd get on with it already so I wouldn't have to stress out over it!"
"Who knows," Hermione said, "maybe he knows he was behaving wrongly and wants to make it up to you."
Then they both laughed. Harry walked Hermione to her dorm and said goodnight to her. Then he walked to his own dorm.
When he got to his own room, he saw it was a mess. "Ron!" he shouted at his friend who was passed out on the floor. He bent down and shook his friend awake. "Ron, you filthy liar, you didn't even come watch me play." he said when Ron's eyes snapped open. "And look! You've completely trashed the room! Now someone's gotta clean it up, and I know you're not gonna do it!" Harry set to work right away, straightening up the room. He absolutely couldn't stand having garbage and clothes lying all over the floor and every other available surface. It didn't take him long, being the expert organizer that he was, but it still irritated him that his best friend and roommate didn't seem to care about cleanliness.
But after a few hours of homework and studying, he even forgot he'd been mad at Ron. And he felt bad for being so harsh with him lately. He was just so frustrated, so on edge he didn't know what to do with himself. He really liked his new school, and he loved that he'd found he was good at soccer, but he really wasn't the best student and had to work really hard not to be kicked out of the school for not meeting the academic requirements.
Once he'd completed all his schoolwork, he laid back and fell asleep. He was still in his clothes and still had books and papers scattered around him, but he was so tired. He dreamt about his first few days at his new school.
His first day was a nightmare. He'd been so looking forward to get away from his "family" that he'd overlooked the fact that he was moving to a new school. He didn't know what to expect, and made a fool of himself on the very first day.
He walked through the doors in his regular blue jeans and STYX t-shirt, feeling like he'd forgotten something, and was immediately pulled aside by a teacher.
"Excuse me young man," the teacher said, "are you lost?"
"Um... no... I'm Harry Potter, the new transfer student from Michigan.
"Did you not know about the uniform, Mr. Potter?"
"No... I must have missed that in the student handbook..." Harry stuttered, finally realizing what he'd forgotten.
"That is not a very good first impression to make. I'm afraid I'll have to insist you purchase a uniform right away and do not attend classes until you do so."
So Harry was directed to the campus store where he could buy the uniform. He bought just one set to get him through the day and changed in the bathroom, stuffing his other clothes into the bottom of his schoolbag.
Then, in Gym class later that week, they'd had to play soccer. Harry never had much interest in sports, and at his old school they'd always played dumb, useless, and straight up boring games such as dodgeball which shouldn't have even had a place in the curriculum.
He didn't even know the rules of soccer. The coach, Mrs. Hooch, was shocked when she learned this. And all the other boys and girls laughed at him. But he caught on quickly, and turned out to be one of the best beginning soccer players, and Mrs. Hooch decided to give him extra lessons between classes so that he could be on the team.
He thought things were finally going well when he was finally ready to join the team. Unfortunately, he didn't get along with the captain of the team, Draco Malfoy. He didn't know why, exactly, but the blond boy hated him from the moment he set foot on the field. He considered quitting the team so as not to upset the balance and cost them the game, but Mrs. Hooch wouldn't hear it.
She tried talking to Draco, explaining to him that Harry was exactly what the team needed. Draco didn't like it, not one bit, and threatened to abandon his post and quit the team if Harry joined. And that's exactly what he did when Mrs. Hooch wouldn't let up. And they'd won more games ever since Harry took over.
It wasn't really Harry's fault Draco wasn't on the team anymore, he quit on his own, but Draco still blamed him, and they've been enemies ever since. Until recently, when Draco had become suspiciously nice.
Suddenly the dream of memories turned into a dream of horror.
Harry was sitting in the cafeteria, innocently eating lunch, when, ever so sweetly, Draco sat next to him and offered him some desert. As Harry smiled and took a bite, he realized it was poisonous and watched Draco laugh evilly as he laid on the floor, dying.
Harry woke up with a start, all cold and sweaty. It was dark outside. He checked his clock, it was just after midnight. Ron was snoring loudly, laying on his back with his hand down his boxers as if he'd fallen asleep in the middle of pleasuring himself.
"Typical." Harry laughed at his friend. "Disgusting, but typical."
Harry cleaned all the stuff off his bed and set it neatly on his desk, then climbed back under the covers and tried to sleep peacefully.
0o0o0
AUTHOR'S NOTE: this is my first Harry Potter fanfic! I'm a littler nervous about this because I've never written AU before, so I'm not sure if it turned out good or super crappy. I was curious to experiment with this fandom and pairing because I love reading it, so I wanted to try writing it. I'd appreciate some feedback, good or bad as long as it's honest :) I posted this on my LJ just a few minutes ago, and figured I might as well post it here too just because :D
