AUTHOR'S NOTES: The characters, setting etc. belong to J.K.R not me.
This is a sequel to Unfreezing Ron Weasley and Unfrozen Thoughts but you don't need to have read them to make sense of this.
WARNING: Slash. A sexual act. Adult language.
Unfreezing Draco Malfoy
The Hand of Glory: it gives light only to the holder. That would be me, Draco Lucius Malfoy. That is how I am able to sneak unseen through the school corridors at night. I have wrapped its fragile fingers around a lit candle which I charmed to not drip wax. Holding its desiccating flesh I can see everything. Barefoot, my footfalls are silent. The rats don't scuttle away at my approach. Nobody can tell that we're here - me and the limb of a long-dead wizard. The portraits are not disturbed in their sleep or other nocturnal activities. I am as good as invisible.
I've been here like this many times before. Some nights I feel smug or proudly powerful. Occasionally I experience an adrenalin rush of excitement. Not tonight. Tonight my guts are as lifeless as this arm. My palms are sweaty, mouth dry and heart pounding for quite a different reason. I step over Mrs Norris; she is none the wiser.
It was lunchtime when I heard what had happened. For over twelve hours I have had to maintain an expressionless façade whilst I died inside.
I have killed him.
I crouch down to take careful hold of the bottom hem of a tapestry. I lift it as high as I can without making a noise and then crawl underneath it. The cold of the stone bites through the flannel of my winter pyjamas. Sensation is a shock. I have been numb. Safely on the other side of the fabric I stand up in the secret passageway.
It was Millicent Bulstrode who brought the news back to the Slytherin Common Room. Naturally, I had already noted his absence from the Great Hall at lunch, but who could I have questioned without arousing suspicion? That vicious elephantine girl was gleeful: "Potter was sucking up to Slughorn again and he's managed to get his Weasel poisoned!"
I knew, of course. Straight away I knew. Professor Slughorn had failed to pass the mead on to Dumbledore. I had killed him. My him. My secret.
Not everyone laughed. Slytherins aren't all as bad as people think we are. Losing all strength in my legs, I sank into an armchair and attempted a sneer. I think I pulled it off. While my housemates gossiped about it, I tried to look bored, as my heart sank and stopped, my mind whirled.
I have killed him.
At the end of the passageway is a door, I whisper a charm onto the hinges to ensure that it opens silently. Then I need only cross one corridor. If he has survived then that is where he will be. He won't have survived.
Potter's meant to be a bloody hero. What use is that if he can't even save his best friend? I know how potent that poison was. I made absolutely sure of it. Potter won't have saved him.
I'm gripping my wand with one hand, the dead arm with the other. Hands clenched tight. White knuckles. Clear even on my skin. Never thought I'd see my hand whiten. My knuckles. My bones. I transfer my wand to my sleeve to free one hand to open the door. I'm shaking so badly I nearly fumble it.
I've been so frightened for so long that I didn't think it could get any worse. Instead I have found a further fathom of fear into which to fall. I am but a veneer. Beneath the curled lip there is only ice and putrefaction. There was one warm, living, hidden glimmer. But I have killed him.
I wait outside Pomfrey's lair. If she is tending to a patient with the lights on when I open the door then I will be discovered. There is no point in my being here; there is no way that he could have survived. I have killed him. I should go back to my dorm.
I will just have to smirk my way through this. I can do it. I always do: Don't you know who my father is? You should be more careful, I have dangerous connections. I am above your silly school and its petty rules - or perhaps I would draw less attention to myself by playing within the system: Prefects are entitled to -- I forgot. They took that away from me. I just started the year and it was gone. Nobody said that it was due to Father's arrest, but it … It hardly matters. It barely stings. All our lives are at stake. What's a little dent in the Malfoy pride?
I'll just ask for something to ease a headache. It's a legitimate excuse. I even have the headache. I always do.
I need to know whether the room is lit, whether I will be seen. That's the problem with this torch, I can't tell how the world looks to everybody else. I place the Hand of Glory carefully on the floor. I must not lose it. I must not let the candle blow out. I rest it against the side of my foot and let go. Absolute darkness. It rests my eyes. Strange, the comfort I find in the dark. I could happily sink into permanent darkness. So easy. I could give up, let go, stop fighting. Forever rest.
Tempting, except that my parents' lives are in my hands too - my pathetic, white, shaking hands. I have to continue. And - who knows?- I might find a reason to keep going, inside the next room: breathing, alive, with a heart that beats and muscles that can tense and relax. I know he won't be there. I turn the handle, push on the heavy wooden door.
If I were more courageous then this would not have happened. The necklace and the mead are the ploys of a coward. I know myself. That is what I am. I had hoped to be able to kill from a distance, had hoped to avoid my victim's eyes as he fell. The distance left spaces where errors could occur.
Two innocent victims.
A hero would have walked straight up to the Teachers' Table in the Great Hall and performed Avada Kedavra, coldly watched the old man crash lifeless to the floor, and been dragged off to Azkaban. To be safe with Father, knowing I had done all in my power to protect Mother. It would have been all over months ago. He would be alive now.
I have opened the door. Beyond it is also darkness. I reach down to pickup the dead flesh against my ankle. I listen hard. All I hear is my own blood pulsing. I have learned how to live inside despair. It is this hope that could finish me.
I swallow, I breath. I try to be calm. Ice cool. I hold up the Hand of Glory, blink, let my eyes adjust to its illumination.
Only one bed is occupied. Vomit rises, I swallow down its taste of decay. Softly, slowly, I step forward..
I clap my free hand to my mouth, muffle my own gasp.
Ginger hair!
Another step. A deep breath.
Long nose. Freckles. Long, red eyelashes.
He's alive!
In my chest, something warm flickers back to life. I breathe deeply. I had forgotten that my lungs had so much capacity. My knees stop working and I sink to the floor, bracing, conscious of the need for silence, as I land.
I have not killed him.
Of course, it's not important. It was only ever about sex. There's no more to this obsession. Couldn't be deep. He has a good body. I wanted to play with it so I did. I might even do it again. Malfoys deserve the best of everything. No more to it than that.
I can go back to my bed now - should start to walk back now - now that I know which side of the veil he lies. My feet are cold. I've just noticed how bloody freezing my feet are. My hair is sticky with cold sweat. The headache has intensified. It has localised over my eyebrows. Why am I pressing my back teeth together like that?
I expect Potter saved him. He usually does. I need sleep. I should go back. It was only a sex thing after all. I am reassured that he's not dead.
I sit on the floor, dead arm over my knees, wand up my sleeve, head in hands. He is but a few feet away. In bed.
I really must get back to the dorm now. He's not dead. I have only made him very ill. He will recover. Probably.
He is in this room. In bed. In the dark. Just him and me. I only need to stand up and walk for a few steps to reach him. I feel myself smile into the darkness. If I did go over to him, then what would I do? Touch him? He's unconscious. Am I a necrophiliac? What then? Watch him sleeping? How unbearably, pathetically sentimental would that be?
I take hold of the Hand of Glory and rise to my feet. I walk to his bed. I might as well have a quick look as I'm here. My footsteps are soft. The only sound in the room is his breathing. He is breathing. His chest rises and falls. Inexplicably, that fans the flicker of fire in my dead heart. Warmth spreads slowly over my ribcage. Mostly the sound is even, with just an occasional jagged judder. That's hardly surprising, given what he's been through, what I have put him through.
The grey school blanket is pulled up to his chin and tucked tightly round him. He's pale, with an unwonted darkness under his eyes and around his mouth. His hair fans out - tangled and lank - over the white linen pillowcase. He turns his head, moaning lightly. A new heat awakes in my groin and, when I realise my reaction I blush, the colour rising unwitnessed. I cool my cheeks with my icy hand.
I am watching him sleep. That's ridiculous.
I wonder if he is dreaming. I wonder, does he ever dream of me?
I nearly killed him.
I move closer. My thighs are against the cold metal of the side of the bed now. It's not like anyone will ever know. Would he wake if I touched him? If he stayed asleep would I keep touching him? Even if he opens his eyes, he won't be able to see anything.
His fringe is in sticky strings across his face. I reach out my bloodless fingers and they don't shake. Surely now is when I should be trembling? I push back his hair, touching his forehead. He is mildly feverish. My hand must be too cold for him, he shivers in his sleep. I rest it on the top of his head. Perhaps I can warm up as I cool him down.
There is a scent in the air which I recognise. I lean forward over him, inhaling. It's stronger than usual, that's probably due to the high temperature. Smells like home. It heats my balls and warms my guts.
What am I doing, one hand holding dead flesh, the other resting on a living skull, relishing the stink of a sick man's sweat?
I push my fingers through to his scalp. He doesn't wake. I should go now, before he does. I need my bed; my feet are icy; my eyelids are heavy. I stay where I am. Madame Pomfrey could come out to check on her patient at any minute. I don't move.
Candlelight plays over his features, casting shadow under his long nose. I want to stroke that length, but I can't let go of his head and if I don't hold the Hand of Glory then I won't be able to see him any more.
I bend forward. He goes out of focus. My nose touches his. He whimpers, his hot breath blowing across my lips. I pull back. His lids are fluttering. I can see a scrawling of blue veins through the thin skin there. As I approach him again warmth rises from him, heating my lips before I make contact.
Control breaks. I'm planting soft kisses over his face and neck, my palm is stroking down from his head. Redness clouds my vision. What am I doing? He won't stay asleep through this. I can't find the strength to stop.
He sighs in his sleep. I think he's still asleep. My hand has reached his shoulder. There is a barrier of coarse fabric between his skin and mine. With the hand that holds the Hand, I try to push down the blanket.
In a voice thickened by unconsciousness, he murmurs, "Draco." Fear shoots ice down my spine. I straighten up, back away. His eyes are still closed. I pass my candle in its macabre holder over his features. I'm certain he is not awake. How could he have recognised me? Was it my scent or my touch? A glow spreads across my chest. Or is he dreaming about me? Fire hardens my cock.
I suddenly find myself in darkness, disorientated, something heavy pinning me down, my face pressed into something suffocating soft. He rolled over, hit me, making me lose my footing and knocking the Hand from my grasp. I landed on the bed beside him, his heavy, man's arm pinning me in place.
I pull in rapid, shallow breaths, panicking. I can't move, can't escape. In the morning I will be discovered. I will be found sharing a bed with a boy, a Gryffindor boy whose family is loathed by mine, an unconscious boy, a patient recovering from a potentially lethal poisoning. News will spread through the school that I was molesting him as he slept. My fellow Slytherins will despise me. They will tell their parents. The Dark Lord will learn that I am infatuated with one of Dumbledore's favourites.
I hear my pulse: too fast, too loud. I feel my ribs expand and contract. Light flashes at the edges of my vision. I'm going to pass out.
He whispers my name again - his hot, sweet-scented breath rolling over my face. His warm, well-defined muscles lie over my chest. His next movement brings our heads together. His stubble scrapes my neck, his lips my jaw. That must be his lips, softer, damper than the rest of his skin. I've forgotten what it was that I was worrying about. I can't move much, but I can twist my neck and that's all the movement I need to reach my lips to his.
To start with there is a soft vagueness in his kisses. Gradually they gain strength and precision until I know he's awake. I respond. I push my tongue into the moist heat: thrusting, exploring, caressing. His taste still holds the slightest tang of honey. My captured hand strains round to touch a few fingertips to the soft hairs of his forearm. As he moves towards consciousness his arm gets lighter. He strokes across my chest, languidly at first, then inquisitively and, finally, with purpose as he locates the buttons of my pyjama top. He undoes the first two, before pushing his hand onto my bare chest.
I suppress an exclamation, as every nerve dances. My mouth cools. He has pulled his off. He is whispering, saying in a thick voice, "You came to me. Draco. I hoped. … M'I dreaming? … I never thought … where are we?"
I could stay silent, let him assume that this is a dream. So, he does dream of me! I should go now.
I can shuffle round. The blanket is still between us. I move up against the mound that is his body. I get my mouth up to his ear.
"Hospital wing," I reply.
The smooth skin of his earlobe calls to my tongue, but when I make contact, he moans. Hastily I get my hand over his mouth and 'shush' him.
Surely, he pats down my arm to extract the wand from my sleeve.
"Muffliato," he whispers. I don't know that one. "Can't hear us now," he explains. His voice is still sleepy. "Missed your body. Want to … Why am I in hospital?"
I don't want to answer that. I feel along his arm and take my wand back. I don't know whether to trust this spell of his. I don't do trusting, not unless I know exactly what's going on and what everyone's motivation is. I replace my wand. I don't respond. We must not get caught.
"Draco?" He's talking at a normal volume and now his voice is lost, scared.
I can't not tell him. I keep my voice low. "You drank some poison. You're going to be fine." I don't know if that's true.
"That's right," he says. There is a soft lightness to his voice. His usual bravado is missing. "I keep waking up. Keep being told that. Keep forgetting."
He is talking at a normal volume now and nobody seems to be hurrying towards us. His words vibrate through his chest where it rests against mine. He wriggles his other hand free and touches my hair.
"You feel so good," he says. "Didn't think I'd have this again. Wish I could see you."
I wish I could see him, too, but there would be too much risk in using Lumos and I don't know where the Hand has gone. I've got to keep the Hand a secret. Even from him. Especially from him.
His hands move between us, undoing more of my buttons. I roll my body towards his. Suddenly, I'm trapped by his arms again. They're wrapped tight round me and I'm lifted up, on top of him, pressed to his chest. My own arms are trapped and useless against my sides. He squeezes. I'm having trouble breathing already, without him covering my mouth with his. His biceps spasm against my shoulder. I'm being crushed and suffocated. I've never been happier.
One of his arms slips off me and I feel it twitching and thrashing. He is pushing at the blanket. With my newly freed arm I try to help him. Our lips slip apart, but with desperate, grasping, nibbling movements we re-attach them.
I realise what the lump under my thigh is. Even through both pairs of pyjamas and the blanket it's bruising. I roll my hips against him, rubbing my own erection against his belly.
He swears, loudly, into my mouth.
I blink stupidly in the dark.
He kicks up under me, unbalancing both of our bodies, they move against each other to right themselves. Scratchy wool ripples downwards. Using my feet and hands and with the help of jerks which are not mine -so must be his- we pull the blanket and top sheet free of the mattress and I manoeuvre my legs under it. Heat radiates from his body, drawing me towards it. The sheet is damp and warm. It smells of his sweat. I reached up and get my hands on what feels to be his shoulders, pulling our bodies together. He gasps.
"Your feet are freezing!" he shouts out.
I back away, apologising, but he grabs my elbow, pulls me back.
"I'll warm them up," he murmurs tremulously.
He makes a sharp movement, then his knees make brief knocking contacts and the mattress undulates. My feet are pressed between his calves, his bare-fleshed, soft-skinned, hairy calves. I'm only half aware, though, of the burning heat jolting from my icy toes, because the moist weight of his naked prick is now against my abdomen.
I freeze, lying as still as I can. He doesn't move either. For a moment it feels like we float in a void, a place without light, where the only sound is his heart and our tandem breathing, a place full of his smell where the only parts of me that live are those where his skin touches mine.
A light but uncontrollable shaking starts up in my bones.
I hold myself still, I do not reach out to touch his erection, nor to answer the insistent ache of my own. I should go now. I should stop this now. He will believe that he dreamed this. I must escape from the bed, find the Hand of Glory and sneak back to the dungeons, climb into my own bed and cry silently.
Then he pounces. I am flung onto my back. His thigh lies across my hips, his mouth is on my neck, my throat, my collar bone. He is lips and teeth and tongue. His hands are pushing me. My chest is bare. His chest is bare. His pelvis is thrusting. He pants hard onto my skin. I am responding. I am drowning.
My hands flutter, out of my control, touching every part of him. I want to focus, to remember this. I want to remember this forever. I am lost.
One of his hands is in my hair, his mouth edges back to mine, he shifts his weight, slides his hard, hot, wet, heavy cock over my belly, pulling hairs with it. My crotch twitches upwards.
In that instant, the silk lining of my well-cut pyjamas becomes the most agonisingly uncomfortable thing in the world. I grab the waistband, lift up from the bed, slamming against him as I wrench down the fabric.
He gasps.
Our skin burns, slipping, sweaty, wriggling.
He is muttering guttural incomprehensibles on steamy breath against my temple.
I am holding our two cocks in my one hand without knowing when the compulsion to do so or the decision to act came to me. I have drowned in the darkness, I have sunk into the void, my hand jerking without rhythm or control. His deep growl tremors through both of our ribcages, growing in volume, speed, intensity. Then it is a scream, no, a screamed word. It is "Draco!" and the boiling hot sticky liquid running over my hand and our pricks sends me beyond thought.
Awareness crawls slowly out of bliss. He mutters beside me. I lie still, on my side, turned towards him. I can see a rectangle on the wall which is more pale than the rest of the darkness.
I feel raw, as though my skin has lost a layer of protection. It is damp and chill air crawls over it. I shiver.
That shape must be the window. Out there the sky has begun to lighten.
I despise myself for having fallen back into that sensual abyss with him. This is not who I am supposed to be.
His lazy inarticulate gibberish starts to sound like language.
I stink.
"Stay here," he pleads. That, of course, is impossible. "You make me happy. I was so scared before." I'm the one he should be scared of. I'm the most dangerous thing in this building and pretty soon I intend to let in more dangerous things. I hope they don't hurt him.
I sit up, pushing his limbs off mine, untangling myself from the body and the bedding.
"What are you doing? Stay." He flings his arms back round me. I'm tempted, so very tempted, but if I'm discovered here then we will both be rejected by our people. My only answer is to push his hands off me and slide out of the bed.
I search systematically with my outstretched arms.
"You make me feel so good, Draco."
He wouldn't say that if he knew what I'd done.
"Will we do this again?"
I find fabric, but in the dark I can't tell whose nightclothes it is.
"Won't we ever touch each other again?" His voice is cracking. I have to ignore it.
Finally, with one finger I touch something abhorrent: cold, dead flesh. I grasp the Hand of Glory.
I can see. I can see a sordid mess of untidy grey bedding in a characterless room. I can also see his perfect, flushed, white body sprawled on it. I can see the desolate expression on his face. I ache to kiss it away.
Then he says, "I really like you, Draco."
He wouldn't say that if he knew me. I find my pyjamas and put them back on, then collect up his nightclothes and place them beside him, tuck the bedding back as it was and creep back to my dormitory.
