All They've Got: "You're Dying, Potter."
Summary: "I know your little secret. You're dying, Potter. You're losing everything." – D. Malfoy. A one shot that may, or may not become a two shot. Slight HPDM.
Author's Note
This was originally meant to be a one-shot, but then I got a bit wordy, so now it's going to be a two-shot… type thing.
This is entirely un-beta'd, because I don't have a beta. Are there any volunteers? Please?
Disclaimer: No, I don't own it. Yes, I want to. No, I am not a man. Yes, I – What's Chewbacca got to do with any of this?
The Disclaimer Monkey is mad.
The bell heralding the end of Transfiguration was still ringing when Professor McGonnagal approached Harry.
"A moment of your time please, Mister Potter," she said. It was not a question.
Harry turned to Ron and Hermione, who were standing beside him, both wearing identical expressions of curiosity. Harry shrugged. "Don't worry," he told them. "I'll catch you both up in the Great Hall." Hermione nodded, looking slightly worried as she scooped up her books and left the classroom. Ron was close behind her, looking anxiously over his shoulder at Harry.
The Boy Who Lived smiled encouragingly at his friends, despite the fact that he was the one McGonnagal had ordered stay behind. But that was just Harry's way.
As soon as they had left, he looked questioningly at McGonnagal. He was almost her height now. Despite this, the professor was undeniably dominant in the conversation that had yet to ensue. He had a really bad feeling that he was in trouble. He had been in trouble a lot recently, ever since Malfoy had –
"Potter," said McGonnagal, her voice stern, informing him that he was indeed in trouble.
Harry bit his lip. He then regretted it, for the lip in question was already split, and it cracked open and began to bleed. He grimaced at the horrible, metallic taste. His lip didn't have to be split. In fact, it wouldn't have been split if Malfoy hadn't –
"Potter," said McGonnagal again. Her tone was softer this time, and Harry looked up from where he had been wiping the blood from his mouth on the sleeve of his robe. "Are you feeling alright?" she asked, her voice taking on that sympathetic quality he assumed would be used by a councilor, or something.
"I'm fine," he answered, even as a little more blood seeped into his mouth and he resisted the urge to spit it out.
She must've noticed this, because she then asked pointedly, "Why is your lip cut?"
Harry was surprised. "I – I fell. There was a – a vanishing stair – and I forgot –" He broke off lamely. He really, really had to think of better excuses.
"Why is your jaw bruised?"
"I hit it on the banister when I fell," he replied, trying to keep his face sincere.
The professor was silent for a moment as she looked at him, her gaze piercing. "You do understand that it is my duty as your Head of House to know these things?" she asked, her voice as hard as her eyes.
"Yes." His alibi was not going to be broken. But he was definitely going to think up better ones for the future. The future. He was already assuming it would happen again. Not assuming. He knew it would happen again. And again after that. And even after that –
"This issue between you and Mister Malfoy has to be resolved." McGonnagal's stern voice broke through the silence.
Harry said nothing and refused to meet her eyes.
"The both of you have been to the Hospital Wing four times each over the past week. It takes no Merlin to figure it out, Potter."
Harry remained silent. There was nothing McGonnagal could do about this. Putting either of them in detention wouldn't make a difference. Neither would the abduction of House points. Harry didn't think it would ever be resolved. It was just one of those things. It was almost a way of life now. He would get used to it, he would learn to heal his own bruises. Maybe, one day, Malfoy would just get bored. Even as this thought occurred to Harry, he dismissed it. Malfoy would never get bored. His entire life revolved around making Harry's a living Hell. As if it weren't already.
Before, it wasn't this bad. Before, it was just the occasional taunt while passing in the corridors, maybe a rogue spell or two. But that was before. Before the Battle for the Ministry. Before he had learnt of the Prophecy. Before Sirius had died…
His face became stone, his green eyes apathetic.
The professor sighed, sensing an argument lost. "You are dismissed," she said, turning back to her desk at the front of the class. Harry said nothing as he swiped his books off the table and into his bag, picking up his wand and stuffing it into his pocket as he left the classroom. All he had to do was drop his bag in the Griffindor common room and then get down to lunch as fast as possible. If he were fast enough, Malfoy wouldn't have any time to 'pass by' and pick a fight. If he were fast enough.
He wasn't. It was in the wide corridor, in which the entrance to the Griffindor tower lay, that he spotted Malfoy, leaning against the wall beside a very disgruntled Fat Lady. One knee was bent, his foot propped up against the stone. His wand was in his hand, tapping some sort of beat against his thigh.
As Harry approached, he looked up, smirking. There was a dark bruise marring one angelic cheekbone and Harry silently thanked Ron for putting it there.
"Hey, Potter," drawled Malfoy, sauntering towards Harry. "Where's Weasel-Bee? And your dearest Mudblood dog?"
Harry looked down at his knuckles. Oh how he wanted to pound that smirk right of that terribly beautiful face. "Not now, Malfoy," he said quietly. Even as he said it, he knew it was futile; if Malfoy wanted it to be now (as he clearly did, considering he had hunted down the entrance to the Griffindor common room), it would be now.
"What?" demanded the Slytherin, still indignant, despite the obvious bruise across his face. "Backing down already?"
Harry refused to take the bait.
Malfoy took a new attack. "You know, Potter, there are a lot of dogs in your life," he began casually, but the malicious glint remained in his eyes. He was standing in front of Harry now, they were fifteen feet apart, but it didn't matter how close they were if it came down to a duel. "First you've got Granger," he said. The blond picked nonchalantly at some nonexistent dirt beneath a fingernail as Harry bristled, his shoulders turning rigid beneath his loose robes. "Your Mudblood pet. Then there's Lupin –" he laughed, short and hollow " – and I had to call him professor." There was more bitter laughter in which Harry fumed silently. He kept his face to the ground, refusing to meet those pale, mocking eyes. If he did, he knew there would be nothing to stop him throwing the most savage hex he could think of across the distance separating them. He was certain that Malfoy was aware of this, but Harry refused to act. This time, he would not be the first to pull out his wand, no matter what the loathsome Slytherin did.
"Third, you've got Sirius Black," Malfoy snarled, his voice searing across the empty corridor. Harry's eyes shot up to meet the steel fifteen feet away. He didn't realize until it was too late that his wand was out of his pocket, his arm raised at shoulder height, directed at the boy across from him. The muscles of his bicep were pulled taught, and his wand point deadly still.
The blond boy was smirking, his wand out and aimed. "Couldn't resist, could you, Potter?"
Harry's teeth were grinding hard against each other. Oh how he wanted to smash that arrogant smirk. But he was tired. So, so tired. His arm dropped. Not tonight, he told himself. Slowly, he turned his back on the Slytherin. He wouldn't bother with the common room; he'd go straight down to the Great Hall, where Malfoy wouldn't dare pick a fight. He'd collect his books later.
The other boy wasn't so enthusiastic on this decision, however. He growled something; two words that Harry failed to catch. It must have been an incantation of some sort, because he suddenly found himself flying swiftly backwards through the air, his wand slipping from his fingers and his book bag sliding off his shoulder as he twisted rapidly and crashed painfully against the wall across from the Fat Lady's portrait. His shoulder blades, which had struck the stone first, began to burn as if set alight with an icy flame. The excruciating sensation spread quickly down his arms, which were thrown wide against the worn rock. It then shot downwards, encompassing his entire back and legs. The Fat Lady made an indignant sort of noise, but didn't dare run to find a professor, solely for fear of missing some action.
The pain subsided to a duller, frosty throb and Harry slowly opened his eyes, which had instinctively squeezed shut against the agony. He noted tiredly that he was not only stuck firmly to the wall with some cold, clear adhesive, but also about twenty feet up. Damn Hogwarts and its high ceilings.
Looking down (silently thanking Merlin that he could move his head) he saw Malfoy standing directly below him. All traces of that smirk were gone, replaced by blistering, unadulterated fury.
He flicked his wand carelessly and Harry skidded down the wall, coming to a halt with his feet on the ground, but still fixed firmly to the stone, directly before the irate Slytherin. "You do not turn your back on me," he hissed, his breath hot on Harry's face. "You do not turn your back on me."
Harry was exhausted. Shamelessly, bonelessly, exhausted. He had spent his last spark of defiance in Siruis' defense, five minutes ago.
Malfoy made a barking sound. It wasn't so much a laugh as a harsh burst of air that made Harry's fringe flutter over his glasses. "This is it, Potter? Is this all you can give me?" he spat rhetorically. Harry was silent. He could feel the adhesive on his limbs beginning to weaken. The Slytherin didn't seem to notice this. "You're overrated, you know that, Potter?" he was saying. "The way the Prophet tells it, you'd have been to Hell and back."
His arms were free now, but his back and legs were still firmly attached, keeping him suspended. His shoulders were still burning from when he had crashed into the wall. If he had been just a little more awake, maybe he'd be worried that something was broken.
"But Potter," growled Malfoy leaning maliciously forward. "I know your little secret." Harry swallowed as the taller boy's arm snaked between them, his forearm pressing against that sensitive spot directly below the ribcage. He leant forward a bit more, and the pressure on Harry's diaphragm increased, making it harder to breathe.
Malfoy's mouth was millimeters from his ear when he hissed his poison. "You're dying, Potter. You're losing everything." Harry couldn't breathe. His shoulders were free from the wall, but he didn't notice. "Granger and the Weasleys, they're with you now, but how long do you think they'll last in the war? The war that you caused." He paused, jamming his arm hard against Harry. The smaller boy gasped for air, trying to wrench himself from the wall despite his sore and weary body, which refused to aid him. "The Dark Lord, he's been through Hell. But you haven't. You're still so innocent, despite yourself. If you don't understand the dark, how can you defeat it?"
He shifted backward. "You can't," he answered himself softly, turning away from those green eyes that were so piercing in spite of their naivety.
Harry looked at Malfoy, something more than incredulity across his face. The blond boy was distressed. Not just a little anxious, but seriously distraught about something. Curiously, almost tenderly, Harry reached out with one hand. This was why Malfoy had been giving him such a hard time; the Slytherin knew that he couldn't do it. He knew that Vodemort would win the war. More over that, he was one of the scant few that truly understood what it meant. As a Death Eater's son, he had been stripped bare of his innocence too early. Far too early.
Harry's hand made a slight contact with the opposite side of Malfoy's turned face, his fingertips touching the hard line of his chin. The Slytherin turned to meet his eyes, an expression of utter helplessness altering the set of his lips. Harry felt as vulnerable and defenseless as the other boy looked.
One second past, then two.
Five seconds gone and nothing changed. There was no tense silence, there was no charged quiet. There was no development as they assessed their completely hopeless situation. They did not assess their completely hopeless situation. They stayed.
Ten seconds. Malfoy's arm was still bent against Harry's stomach in an act of hostility, Harry's hand was still touching Mafoy's face in an act of understanding.
Fifteen seconds of absolute stillness. Then Harry's other hand reached out, pleading. His fingertips ghosted over Malfoy's jaw, coming to hover, with only the barest contact, over that angle of bone, directly below the ear, where the face meets the neck.
There was no force, no pressure, just a touch. But his entire center of gravity had shifted. He was falling forwards. He couldn't have stopped his decent, even if he had thought to try. It all happened in a moment, too fast to interrupt, but so slow it was as if time itself were moving through quicksand.
Then, they were together. The kiss was slow, and dragging. It was the kiss of somebody who had been through Hell. Soft lips pleading with soft lips. Pleading for consolidation, pleading to be understood, pleading for liberation from this mess.
'This mess' that was just about to get a whole lot messier.
Harry felt Malfoy's other hand move up to warm the back of his neck. The last of the adhesive securing him to the wall faded, and their chests pushed clumsily together. Then there was a flash of tongue – a sudden flick of lust that caught them both off guard. Harry felt his blood rush downwards as a strangled sort of growl escaped his throat. Malfoy sprang away from him, panicking. His pale eyes flickered between Harry's horrified face and his wand on the ground at the boy's feet, where he had so stupidly dropped it.
He darted forward in an attempt to pick it up, but Harry beat him to it, plucking it from the stone floor, moving as fast as lightning. The next thing the Slytherin knew, the point of his own wand was digging into the soft flesh beneath his chin. His breath caught in his throat as he looked over at the boy threatening him. The green eyes were dark, the black pupils having dilated, giving the image of an almost animalistic craze. The lips were set firmly together, turned down slightly at the corners.
Then his shoulders slumped and the dark fire in his eyes faded. There was a clatter of wood against stone as he dropped Malfoy's wand, then a swish of robes as he slipped from between the blond and the wall, turning his back for the second time. He didn't look back until he was at the opposite end of the hall, his book bag over his shoulder and wand returned to his pocket.
"I know I can't," he said, his voice breaking. "But I'm all they've got." And then he left, in the opposite direction to the Great Hall.
Author's Note
The offer is still up if anybody wants to beta this for me. I will give you virtual cookies! And… er… Draco Malfoy action figures! And maybe some virutual money, too, while we're at it.
In other words; 'please'.
And I've got inspiration to make this a two-shot, but I don't know if it's good enough... you'll have to tell me, okies? All the more reason to review/dance/
- Stephanie R.