responsible, adj.

a. able to make moral or rational decisions on one's own and therefore answerable for one's behaviour

b. able to be trusted or depended upon

Hi everyone! This is what happens when students get subjected to hot yet painfully boring Maths professors. Written on a BlackBerry, so beware of typos. Hope you enjoy! :)

To readers of TbS: Hey there! Firstly, thank you for being so open-minded as to actually open this fic, instead of just writing me off as a hopeless nutcase right away - you wouldn't be far from the truth if you did, heh. Don't get angry, please? This came out of nowhere, honest! Besides, I have nearly 2000 words' worth of new TbS chapter already, so it might just so happen that this update will not take as long as the last one - which is not such an impressive feat, I admit... Anyways, hope you enjoy this one as well :)

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Warnings: BDSM

Summary: Malfoy hits breaking point. Harry hits Malfoy - in more ways than one, eventually. Hermione would be proud, in theory. Was supposed to be PWP but I never quite manage to let flat characters stay flat for long. Oh, well. Dom!Harry, Sub!Draco. Set in 6th year, HBP following Myrtle's Bathroom scene.

Harry is either OOC, here, or has a profoundly Slytherin moment, gets carried away by the game and comes out a changed man. Take your pick.

Can't say Draco is OOC, since JK never really got into his inner workings much. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure this is not what she had in mind.

*JK is a star, right? :)

Chapter 1: Instinct

*Draco Malfoy was standing with his back to the door, his hands clutching either side of the sink, his white-blond head bowed.

"Don't," crooned Moaning Myrtle's voice from one of the cubicles. "Don't... tell me what's wrong... I can help you..."

"No one can help me," said Malfoy. His whole body was shaking. "I can't do it... I can't... It won't work... and unless I do it soon... he says he'll kill me..."

And Harry realised, with a shock so huge it seemed to root him to the spot, that Malfoy was crying-actually crying-tears streaming down his pale face into the grimy basin. Malfoy gasped and gulped and then, with a great shudder, looked up into the cracked mirror and saw Harry staring at him over his shoulder.

Malfoy wheeled around, drawing his wand. Instinctively, Harry pulled out his own. Malfoy's hex missed Harry by inches, shattering the lamp on the wall beside him; Harry threw himself sideways, thought Levicorpus! and flicked his wand, but Malfoy blocked the jinx and raised his wand for another-

"No! No! Stop it!" squealed Moaning Myrtle, her voice echoing loudly around the tiled room. "Stop! STOP!"

There was a loud bang and the bin behind Harry exploded; Harry attempted a Leg-Locker Curse that backfired off the wall behind Malfoy's ear and smashed the cistern beneath Moaning Myrtle, who screamed loudly; water poured everywhere and Harry slipped as Malfoy, his face contorted, cried, "Crucio!"*

As soon as the first syllable of the curse left Malfoy's lips, for the second time in the last minute, Harry's shock robbed him of the ability to move. In that moment, he realised with no small amount of surprise that as much as they fought and exchanged insults and generally did their best to make one another miserable, there had always been a line they had never crossed. It was ridiculous to feel betrayed by-

And that was as far as his brain got before his world became painpainpain and Harry screamed. He bit his lip to stop himself from giving Malfoy any more satisfaction but the sound seemed to go on forever, echoing against the bathroom walls. The pain of the torture curse left him. The sting of betrayal stayed as Harry tried to catch his breath and look nowhere near the origin of it all.

From somewhere he wasn't looking, Harry heard the distinct clatter of wood against tile, the faint sound of movement and then quiet sobbing. An inexplicable surge of relief washed over him.

How did one deal with a situation like this? he pondered, closing his eyes and trying to tune out the background noise. He'd bet even Hermione would be at a loss for what to do. Besides, somehow, Harry felt he should figure it out on his own, anyway. Somehow, he felt it was his responsibility.

"...unless I do it soon... he says he'll kill me... "

Malfoy was not doing any of this of his own free will. However guilty he was of getting himself into the predicament in the first place, he had been backed into a corner and given some impossible task to complete. And the reward? Some more time trapped in that same corner - at least until Voldemort thought better of it.

Curse and poison, both delivered through intermediaries. Desperate, half-baked plans, strictly non-confrontational. Harry knew how inventive Malfoy could get when it came to hurting people. There had never been anything half-hearted about his malicious plots until now. Until success meant a dead body and blood on his hands. Dumbledore was right in his hesitation to intervene. There might still be hope for him.

How should Harry go about showing Malfoy there was still time to back up and go down a different path? The boy was under the threat of death. He was desperate, exhausted and no longer capable of rational judgement. Having hurt Harry so directly and seeing the immediate result must have woken him up to the reality of what it actually meant to torture someone he knew. What it could possibly feel like to kill them. There was a big difference between the abstract concept and the act itself, Harry imagined. Some were simply not born with the stomach for cold-blooded murder - himself included.

Harry had seen Malfoy cry and how had the boy dealt with the humiliation? He had lashed out blindly, without giving it a moment's thought. Would kindness and understanding from Harry Potter humiliate him some more? Undoubtedly. Unless he was careful with the dosage and found a sufficiently roundabout way of administering it.

The idea came to him so suddenly that Harry barely fought his instinctive reaction to the notion. Having successfully not punched himself, he turned the plan over in his head again and again, inspecting it from every angle before finally coming to the conclusion that it was so crazy it might just work. He still wanted to punch himself for coming up with something so twisted and morally questionable yet some part of him resonated with excitement at the thought, which merely gave him one more reason why he should knock himself out cold before he did anything inexcusable.

This approach would not have worked on Harry, who had little to no trust in authority figures to begin with. But from what he knew about Malfoy's upbringing, it might just do the trick in his case. When faced with a difficult choice and a limited amount of exclusively bad options, Malfoy probably wouldn't be too thrilled if Harry added yet another bad option to the mix. What he might find appealing, though, was not having to make the decision at all. Just a hunch.

Laboriously, Harry got to his feet, the tremors in his muscles, while bothersome, nothing in comparison to his previous encounters with the Cruciatus. Summoning Malfoy's wand from the floor, he turned to Myrtle, who was hovering just high enough for her wide eyes hidden behind thick, round glasses to peer over the door of her cubicle.

He braced himself - he had never done this on purpose. From this point on, he would have to be completely in control of the situation. Unshakeable confidence. There was no room for doubts, indecision or insecurities. He would have to follow his instincts and hope they didn't chose this particular time to lead him astray.

"Go spend the rest of the day in the Prefects' Bathroom, Myrtle" he addressed the ghost flatly.

"No more fighting?" she asked hesitantly.

"No fighting. Now go."

She dove into the toilet bowl with a splash. One problem solved. About a hundred to go.

Slowly, he turned to face Malfoy, who had stopped crying and was currently looking at Harry as if he was seeing him for the first time. Well, that sort of was part of the desired effect.

He closed and locked the door with a wave of his wand, then cast a quick notice-me-not and a silencing charm. Nobody needed to witness the Lucious Malfoy, Severus Snape and Lord Voldemort Melange a la Harry Potter.

The blond sitting propped up against the far wall in a puddle of water, hugging his knees, snorted softly.

"Making sure no one takes away your chance at revenge, Potter?" he asked bitterly, sounding alarmingly composed, all things considered. His sneer was noticeably less impressive than usual, though.

"Would you like me to take revenge?" Harry paused here, letting the question sink in. "Would it be easier on your conscience?"

Malfoy attempted to stare him down for a while before giving a broken chuckle.

"Poor, naive Potter. You think I didn't enjoy seeing you writhe on the floor? Hearing you scream?"

Harry did not call him on the non sequitur, did not meaningfully specify what he had said and had not said, had meant and had not meant, neither did he insist on Malfoy actually answering his question - that would have been petty. The double entendre notwithstanding, Malfoy either did not see the inconsistency, or chose to ignore the fact that breaking down crying and claiming to have enjoyed himself afterwards would not win him any arguments. Either way, it proved that the blond was not trying to win anymore, that he was slowly but surely giving up.

"I don't think you enjoyed causing me pain," Harry said, unflappable. "You do not want to do this for the rest of your life, Draco," he added and quite liked Malfoy's reaction to the use of his first name. The boy's almond-shaped grey eyes widened, then he closed them, either to savour the feeling or to calm himself down, maybe both, Harry couldn't be sure.

Trying to trace the path Malfoy's own doubts had been taking these past few months, Harry continued, his tone firm but not unkind.

"You are not cut out for this," he began, doing his very best not to sound patronising. "You are too confused, too lost, too scared, too young," just a bare statement of fact. No condescension, no judgement. "It's too much. You need time and space of your own and he will not give it to you, Draco," here, he added some urgency. The way Malfoy's eyes fluttered shut again at the sound of his name was simply delicious. Wait, what? No, he should not question himself now, there was too much at stake. All he had to do was play the role and follow his instincts. And at this very moment, they told him it was high time for the bait.

"I can," he stated with as much confidence as he could muster. No, that did not feel like enough. These were just words, he needed to somehow make this a bit more palpable, more believable. Real. Here and now.

He took the few steps to close the distance between them, watching Malfoy's reaction carefully. The boy had excellent control of his muscles so his face gave nothing away but Harry was finding himself rather taken with how expressive those grey orbs were. There was surprise, a touch of hope and no small amount of fear. And from time to time a trapped-wild-animal sort o look filtered through as it registered that Harry knew with some certainty whom he was working for, maybe even what he was tasked with. Harry, of course, knew jack shit. Guesses were guesses.

By the time Harry stopped in front of him, the blond was looking up at him, eyebrows raised in silent question. Harry lifted his hand to that thin, pale face and touched his knuckles to one prominent cheekbone in a slow caress. The skin felt as perfect as it looked. There was a sharp intake of breath and Harry's supply of gray awe-fright-something-strange was cut off abruptly.

"I will, if you let me, Draco," Harry said gently, running his fingers through the fine, wonderfully soft hair above Malfoy's ear and then returning to stroke the side of his face from temple to chin. Perfect.

Harry started turning away so that he could lean against the nearby sink and let the blond process his vaguely vague offer, when he caught sight of motion out of the corner of his eye. In reflex, he held the wands in his left hand up high so that Malfoy couldn't reach them and pushed the other boy back to the floor by his shoulder. The blond slipped on the wet tiles and landed painfully on his knees.

And then, before he knew what he was doing, Harry had drawn back his arm and given the blond a sound slap in the face.

As he watched Malfoy's head turn, his hands coming to cover the rapidly reddening cheek, for a short moment there, Harry experienced the unpleasant feeling of having hit someone who did not deserve it - Malfoy was just that pretty. But he realized that wasn't the case soon enough.

"I'm-" sorry "-sure you had a very good reason for doing that," Harry said drily, smoothing out the wrinkles on his shirt.

When it became clear that Malfoy wouldn't deign to dignify that with a response anytime soon, Harry locked gazes with the blond and God his pupils were blown so wide there was hardly any grey left, his lips were parted, his breathing shallow, his cheeks a mix of flushed pink and burning red. Harry's pants felt rather tight all of a sudden. He hadn't thought it possible for a person to turn into the epitome of sex in just ten seconds. Maybe it was another one of those Malfoy privileges.

"So you do want me to take revenge," Harry observed, moving his hand as if to touch Malfoy's face again. His eyes already half-lidded in anticipation, the boy kneeling before him did not see it coming.

With a few flicks of Harry's wand, Malfoy's hands were tied behind his back and his knees rested on a soft purple cushion. A needy whimper left the blond's throat before he could stop it. He closed his eyes for a moment to pull himself together.

"Didn't expect you to know how to play this game. Consider me ipressed," Malfoy drawled. He seemed more alive than Harry remembered seeing him this year.

Yeah, me neither... "Silence," Harry hissed and Malfoy bowed his head obediently. "Tell me what you were going to do once you got your wand back," Harry ordered flatly, testing the waters.

A sliver of fear returned into the grey orbs as Malfoy raised his head to look at Harry. He replied, nonetheless, seemingly without second thought.

"Obliviate you."

"Do not do that again," Harry stressed each word. There was no reason to threaten or punish him yet, he had done nothing wrong so far. "Understood?"

"Yes. Thank you," Malfoy bowed his head respectfully. If Harry had known Malfoy would be this easy to deal with once on his knees, he would have had done this ages ago.

"Now, tell me all there is to know about your tasks, Draco," he commanded, his voice uncompromising, making sure his face showed exactly how serious he was.

Even this time, Malfoy did not hesitate for a second. He told Harry about his mission to kill Dumbledore, what he had tried, what and how he had screwed up. There were no plans in motion on that front at the moment. And then he told Harry all about Death Eaters in Hogwarts and his experiments with the Vanishing Cabinets.

As soon as Draco was finished, Harry cast the Patronus charm and sent his stag to the Headmaster with a consise version of the story which did not directly incriminate Draco in any way. He was well past trusting blindly - better safe than sorry.

"You did good. The Cabinets were a brilliant idea," Harry acknowledged, going for impartial, attempting to see things from Draco's perspective. He walked over to the kneeling boy and carded a hand through the silky blond strands. Draco leaned into the touch with a soft appreciative humming sound and nuzzled Harry's side. Harry let him nuzzle to his heart's content. He was painfully aware that there were other highly pleasurable things they could be doing at the moment but there was no rush. They had time, now, they could afford to enjoy the anticipation for a while. And Harry knew those highly pleasurable things would be well worth the wait - he would make sure of it.

In the Gryffindor common room, sitting by the crackling fire were three friends - the bushy-haired girl and the redhead gaping at the boy with a mop of black something on his head. They were looking at him as if he had just told them he had made Draco Malfoy tell him his secret plans for bringing Death Eaters into the school and killing the Headmaster. As if he had asked them to try to be nice to the boy. Please. As if he had refused to explain how he had achieved the impossible and turned the universe upside down, again, and he merely smiled that new serene smile and told them that they hadn't seen proper impossible yet and that Hermione would be proud of him, in theory.

At the end of the day, for the first time in his life - and in all likelihood for the last time as well - Harry Potter was grateful for getting hit by the Cruciatus curse. His brain seemed to be under the impression that he had aged at least a hundred years. He had two people to take care of, now, and somehow, it felt incredibly good.

AN: Thanks for reading! Review, please? :)

Plans for the story: Smut, smut, smut aaaaand smut. Reactions at Hogwarts. The clash of the two personas - Harry Potter, the goody-goody Gryffindor with a pathetically restrictive moral compass, who would rather shoot himself in the leg than hurt a fly; and then Harry Potter, the all-powerful - I will have fun with you yet!