A Dog and His Boy

Word count: 5345
Rating: R
Pairing: eventual HP/DM
Warning: minor character death, HBP-spoilers
Disclaimer: These characters belong to JK Rowling, even though she didn't hang a label on them.
Most Brilliant Betas: Kathleen and Vaughn.

It is a dark time for the two fugitives. Although

Dumbledore has been destroyed, the Death Eaters have

driven the two from their hide-away and pursued them across the country.

Snape is forced to resort to desperate measures to protect Draco. After his mentor's

death, Draco's only hope of being human again rests withthe blindly oblivious Harry Potter...

(-o-)

"Draco, you do realise that this cannot continue anymore," Snape said in his accusing nasal baritone. Draco nodded that yes, of course it couldn't, because he didn't like at all how it was. He had known that sooner or later Snape would become tired of the added responsibility Draco's presence vested on him, and do something so he wasn't in his way anymore. But he wasn't afraid. Snape was obligated to protect him; he had told him about the Vow. He had been there for him, and Draco was confident that Snape knew how to keep him safe. On the night of his ultimate failure in the Astronomy Tower, Draco had learned not to question the wisdom of his elders anymore.

Everything had changed in Draco's life since the night on which Snape had stepped in front of him and, after a lengthy but without doubt necessary mental conversation, killed Professor Dumbledore. Draco had expected things to change, of course, just not the way they did. They were on the run, or something close to that. Snape seemed to play for both teams, working for the Dark Lord's minions and for the Order at the same time. Draco just tagged along like a faithful little dog, without understanding most of the time what was going on until things were already done. He only knew that it was the reason why he was still alive and relatively unharmed. And that Snape didn't really need or want him to be there. Draco did realise that he was only making things harder for Snape, having to protect a virtually useless Death Eater whelp while trying to manoeuvre between the two parts of the quick-flowing river that the war had become. He had expected that, sooner or later, Snape would do something to alleviate the situation.

"You are in danger, and I cannot protect you anymore. Not the way you are," Snape told him, and Draco nodded again, though he was scared of being left alone. He would have tried to beg on his knees, had he not been aware that such behaviour would have only earned Snape's disgust, not his compassion. But he also knew that Snape hadn't kept him alive for so long only to simply get rid of him or leave him for the dogs. And he was right, of course, in a way. In another way Snape did exactly that.

"Now you're going to be safe," Snape told him when he lowered his wand from pointing it at Draco. Draco didn't move. He didn't wholly comprehend yet what had just happened. He stood – or rather sat there, frozen into an attentive statue, and listened to Snape until the man finished speaking, as if he needed to carve everything into his memory. "Now you can go out and no one will know who you are. You will be able to hide in plain sight."

"But what should I do?" he tried to ask, but the sound turned into a half-choked growl reverberating in his throat.

"Just stay away from the war. When everything is over, I'm going to reverse the spell." Draco still didn't know what Snape had done to him, but he felt different. "Or if I'm not around anymore, find Potter. I cast it in a way that he will be able to undo it as well."

Later he realised that this move was typical for Snape: protecting Draco while at the same time getting his revenge on him.

"If neither of us is alive in the end, then you will be better off staying as you are."

Snape left during the night, while Draco was out cold from the fatigue the transformation produced in his body. When he woke up the next day, everything felt different. The most important change was that he wasn't afraid anymore, even though he knew he had been left alone. He should have been terrified of the other changes he discovered during his usual morning ritual: the fact that instead of peeing in a standing position he only had to lift a leg and take aim at the nearest tree; that he drank from a puddle and found it refreshing instead of disgusting. That he had to shed his clothes, because they didn't fit his body anymore, and was walking around naked as the day he had been born, but the thick fur covering his body protected him from the elements better than robes ever had. That when he got hungry he instinctively sniffled out a vole, chased it down and ate it raw before he even started thinking about why he was doing it. For the first day after his transformation, he felt absolutely free and happy, like he hadn't felt since the day his father had been imprisoned.

His world adapted itself to his new form seamlessly, even though he was still in possession of his former intelligence. At least he thought he was. On the other side, being turned into an animal had the fortunate effect of getting rid of most of the human anxiety that had formerly filled his mind, so he could concentrate on his two prerogatives: staying out of the line of fire and making sure that Snape survived.

He didn't perceive the progress of time the same way he had as a human. He was living day to day, running after Snape – the idea of having to entrust himself to Potter was nothing more than a distant possibility he didn't like to consider. He would have completely avoided even the thought, had it not been for Snape's capture and subsequent death during the following summer.

One afternoon, while in the middle of a chase after a particularly fat rabbit, Draco felt the faint magical link, created either by the Unforgivable Vow or some other subtle spell neither Snape nor Draco in his human form had been aware of, diminish at once. He stopped, his mind instantly focusing on the new stimulus, and when he realised what was happening: he could only think of one thing that could have caused it. In his panic, he instinctively grabbed for his magic. In the next instant he found himself standing above a corpse that once had been Severus Snape.

Draco hadn't got there in time and couldn't do anything to save him. He didn't have a wand, and even if he had possessed one, most likely he wouldn't have been able to use it. He hadn't even thought of trying whether or not he could Apparate until he had done it. He had been running around for the longest time thinking that his not being a human anymore automatically prevented him from doing magic. Snape had neglected to tell him, or didn't know himself, that this wasn't true, and now that Draco realised the failure in his thinking, it was already too late.

With the discovery of the fact that he was still able to practice magic, another realisation came to him: he mustn't allow Potter to die the same way his ignorance had let Snape die.

He didn't stop running for days until he found his subject in the middle of a battlefield, duelling with two masked figures. Potter efficiently wounded one of them to the point where he was forced to withdraw from the fight. The other one, though, would have surprised him had it not been for Draco, who tackled the remaining Death Eater at the last minute. Potter reacted just a second later, and while he Petrified the black-robed man, Draco disappeared into the surrounding woods.

During the following winter and spring Draco followed Potter like a shadow. He didn't have a connection with him like the one he had with Snape, so he had to apply his other senses: smell, sight, hearing, and the instinctive knowledge of how to find someone, all of which he had apparently gained with his new appearance. Had he still been a human, the feat would have been nearly impossible. Being a dog, he didn't waste time on thinking about the improbability of his situation, he simply followed his instincts, and those always led him onto the correct path. He was able to avoid being seen again until he had to save Potter's life one last time: in his final battle with the Dark Lord.

The final battle took place in Hogsmeade. Potter was standing, surrounded by duelling Death Eaters and Order members, opposite of the Dark Lord. Draco was hiding not far from him, in the shadows the building of Honeydukes cast on the small alleyway next to it. Potter looked and smelt tired. Draco knew that he had been hunting down some artifact for weeks without taking a break, which, as Draco had overheard Granger saying, Potter had needed to find before he could kill the Dark Lord. Now the battle took out his last reserves.

The Dark Lord was interested in some kind of prophecy, for whatever reason, and was willing to grant Potter a pause in the middle of their duel while he recited it to him. Secretly, Draco thought that the Dark Lord wasn't a big tactician if he allowed his enemy to regain his power, but now that he was rooting for the other team, he shouldn't be disappointed by it. He saw Potter's right hand jerk, and that started some kind of reaction in him, calling to his magic while he listened to Potter's almost hypnotising drone with one ear and fought against becoming sleepy. Damn, and they say you can't learn anything from Binns!

"…and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal…"

Draco growled softly to keep himself awake. He stalked out of the shadows; no one noticed his presence. No one, except Potter. Draco knew this, even though he hadn't even looked his way.

"…but he will have power the Dark Lord knows..."

"He will have power the Dark Lord knows?" the Dark Lord's high-pitched voice repeated, entranced by the new knowledge. Potter repeated his words slowly.

"He will have power the Dark Lord knows... NOT!"

That was his clue. Draco sprang. His jaws closed around the Dark Lord's wand, fangs splitting the fine wood, and the core exploded in a bright magical cloud containing a part of the last spell the Dark Lord had been just about to cast. In the next instant, as Draco landed on the ground, the words of the Killing Curse left Potter's lips.

Draco woke up in a basket with Potter petting his side. An empty potions bottle stood nearby on the floor. Potter's eyes were strangely unfocused and he wasn't wearing his glasses, but his face radiated a serene calmness Draco hadn't witnessed on it ever before. That was what told him that it was finally over. That meant he was free, and that, even if Snape wasn't able to give him back his human form anymore, Potter was still there to do it. He was so overjoyed that his tongue rolled out of his snout and he instinctively licked Potter's palm, while his tail was beating a rapid drum on the floor.

"Come on, Harry," sounded a familiar voice from behind Potter, "the bloody dog is all right. Now you have to come to St. Mungo's and let your eyes be checked."

"Yes, Hermione," Potter said, while carefully arranging his features into a blank expression, and only Draco could see the change happening. Then he stood up and left.

Draco soon realised that it was not going to be easy to make Potter see the truth and reverse the spell Snape cast on him. Mainly because Potter had gone blind as a result of the last spell explosion out of the Dark Lord's wand. No Healer in St. Mungo's was able to help him; and after some time even his friends had been forced to acknowledge that fact. So even if the transformation hadn't deprived Draco of his ability of writing, because of that, now he would have it twice as hard to make Potter conscious of his situation.

Draco decided that his work would become considerably easier if he stayed with Potter. That's why he refused to leave even after he had fully healed from the spell damage – and not because Potter gave him food and wasn't above combing out his shamefully neglected fur and scratching behind his ears from time to time. It didn't hurt that Potter lived in a house with a garden separated from the neighbourhood by tall and thick hedgerow, where Draco could still chase field mice and stray Garden Gnomes to his heart's content.

Potter's friends made it obvious that they didn't like Draco, even though they didn't yet know what Potter had only started to notice himself: that Draco was in possession of some innate magic. He hadn't seen him Apparate – the only real spell Draco could do – he only felt a vague magical aura around him at times, and Draco figured it out that that always happened when he tried to think like a human. Potter told Granger about it, and he mentioned that he also thought that Draco was more intelligent than normal dogs. Unfortunately, Granger found the idea of a magical dog ridiculous. She straight out refused Potter's request to research it. Weasley just plain hated him, not that that was something new.

"Mate, are you sure that this is a dog?" Weasley asked him on the day Potter announced that he was keeping Draco.

"Why?"

"I dunno; it has such a shifty face. Just like Malfoy when Moody transfigured him into that ferret."

Draco's first reaction was anger. Pot and kettle, Weasel-face! But then he realised that this could be his chance to let Potter figure out his true identity! So instead of growling and biting the Weasel on the arse the way he would have deserved it, he started to jump up and down. He would have been ashamed of his immature behaviour at the same time, had he not a bloody good reason to act on it.

"What do you think is wrong with the dog?" Weasley asked then.

"No idea," Potter answered and kneeled next to him. "What's the matter, girl?" he asked, his unseeing eyes rendering his expression so open that Draco had almost missed the question in his surprise. But then the meaning of Potter's words finally reached his mind and he leaped backwards. "How dare Potter offend him like that?", he thought and a high-pitched howl left his throat.

"Mate, I don't think the dog's a bitch," Weasley interrupted, not at all helpfully.

Potter stood up, turning towards Weasley so he would have been looking at him, had he still been able to see anything.

"No? But she's so sleek and graceful. She must be a girl, I already have a name for her," he said, slight hurt in his voice.

"See if you don't want to believe me." Weasley rolled his eyes.

Before Draco realised what Potter intended to do, Potter crouched down next to him again and ran his fingers along Draco's belly until he reached his destination. Draco jumped and couldn't hold back a startled yelp.

"You're right, Ron. He really is a guy."

Did Potter just feel up my prick?

"Told you so."

Oh my God! Potter just groped my dick!

"I guess I can't call him Darcy if he is a guy," Potter said, and Draco nearly missed his words again, but he was able to snap out of his humiliation, thankfully. This could be his chance to make Potter to guess his real name!

"Not Darcy, but Draco!" he shouted, but of course it came out in the form of a stream of excited barks.

"You like that name?" Potter asked, smiling. "Let's see if I can think of something similar."

"Yes! Draco! Draco! DRACO!"

"Darcy, Darien? No. Derek? Ugh. Drake? No, of course, you aren't a duck. Just a minute and I'll get it."

Draco started to jump around Potter again while howling his name. He was annoyingly aware of the fact that he was making a clown out of himself. But that shouldn't matter when he was this close to being human again!

"I've got it!" Potter said with bright eyes that made Draco wonder whether his face always had been this expressive, or was it just because of the lack of glasses now? He waited with bated breath – or rather, as he realised later, his tongue lolled out of his wide open jaws, tail sweeping in the air as if he were trying to chase away a swarm of Doxies, and he was gazing at Potter like he saw the Messiah.

"I'll call you Darling."

Draco left Potter standing there with a disappointed yap and refused dinner.

Potter tried to placate him by letting Draco sleep in his bed that night. Draco decided that he had to start acting more like a human and less like a dog; perhaps that would make Potter realise sooner that he wasn't one. With that in mind, he consciously lay in the bed next to Potter as opposed to the strip of empty space at his feet. Not because, as Potter had joked, he found Potter's feet smelly or too hairy. Why would he be complaining about a little hair?

Continuing in that manner, he tried to sit on a chair at breakfast, but Potter quickly disabused him from the notion with a slap at his bottom while Draco was circling on top of the seat surface, trying to find a comfortable position. For now, Draco allowed it.

He insisted on coming along with Potter whenever he left the house – it wouldn't have been safe to just let him wander around blindly, anyhow. As a sign of his appreciation, Potter bought him a collar with a matching leash and muzzle, trying to explain to Draco that some stupid law forbade taking a dog for a walk without them. That was the only reason Draco allowed Potter to put them on him. Later, he checked out his new look in the full length mirror once Potter was away, since, thank Merlin, he hadn't entirely forgotten how to read. The collar had a label hanging off of it with Draco's new name and Harry's home address.

Great. Draco snorted. Now he was officially labelled as property of Harry Potter.

A dog's life also involved bathing. Potter bought dog shampoo for him, and Draco insisted on bathing every odd day. If he couldn't get Potter to do it otherwise, he jumped into the stall while he was showering. To his limited knowledge, dogs didn't particularly like bathing; perhaps that would make Potter conscious of the truth. And he sort of liked it when Potter massaged the soft smelling shampoo into his long, thick tresses, then rinsed him carefully and spent hours drying his fur and combing it out until it was all shiny and silky. And after that, Draco was content to rest his head on Potter's lap while he tried to figure out those books full of useless bumps, giving him a pet from time to time.

Acting like a human also meant that he had to stop sniffling Potter's crotch whenever Potter arrived home without Draco and he couldn't hold back his excitement. That wasn't really his fault, he told himself; he would do it even if he were a human. And there was something wrong with that image, too, but Draco had found it more and more difficult to distinguish between human and animal behavioural patterns. That was another incentive to spur his efforts.

Once again it was spring, and nature had just started to reawaken outside. Actually, it was still cold and the streets and the garden were covered in thick snow, but Draco was able to smell the change in the wind nonetheless, and it made him more excitable. He liked to go for a walk and jump around Potter until they arrived in a park and he was finally let him off of his leash. That didn't mean that he hadn't liked spending afternoons half asleep on a couch or on a rug before the fireplace with Potter snuggled to him listening to the radio or struggling with a book.

Book – that meant those funny bumped pages that Potter dragged around his fingers on, and needed an eternity to figure out. Evidently his blindness was permanent and they couldn't heal it, since they couldn't figure it out what exactly had caused it. Potter seemed to be resigned to it already. It wasn't as if he couldn't see anything, as Draco once discovered. Potter was apparently able to sense magic to a small extent – not enough to help him out in everyday life, but it was still useful in preventing accidents.

And to sense Draco. That's what made Draco sure that, meanwhile, Potter must have figured out that he was no normal dog; he couldn't understand why Potter hadn't done anything in order to help him, or at least to find out what was different about him. But if he considered it that way, his life as a dog wasn't that bad. He had sort of got over the idea of living with Potter. Sometimes he even forgot entirely about the role Potter had played in his life as a human and thought of him as his master, seeking his touch and smiles. Afterwards, when he remembered, he despised himself for forgetting. Why would he need be told that he was a 'good boy'?

But even so, he started to regard Potter as his property. He realised that he could even get protective of him at the time Weasley checked in, leading another dog by something that wasn't a leash, but iron bars welded onto a frame.

"Harry," he said. "You need a real guide dog."

Potter frowned and Draco felt a growl rising in his throat.

"No, Ron. I told you already that I don't need another dog."

"This is a guide dog. You need it to guide you safely on the street."

"I am safe. And I don't need a guide dog; I only need a friend."

"But Harry, it isn't safe!" the Weasel broke out in a cry that startled Draco, but instead of prompting his baser instincts to resurface, something in how he said it let Draco's mind clear out and regain some of the human intelligence he rarely used anymore.

"Ron, please don't." Potter's voice had only gone softer in contrast to the other's yelling.

"But Harry, this isn't even a real dog! I swear that if I cast a Revealing Charm on it…" But Potter grabbed his hand that was lifting the wand and pointing it at Draco, although he shouldn't even have been able to see the movement. Draco didn't understand.

"Fine!" The Weasel wrestled his arm free and took a step backwards that brought him out of the house. "You know, I like the straightforward way you dodge the issues," he snarled and left.

Potter sagged with his back to the door, slid down to sit on the floor and sighed.

Draco looked at him, trying to comprehend what was going on, before the Weasel's words resurfaced in his mind. Revealing Charm! Why hadn't he thought of that sooner? He could only blame being a dog for so long.

Draco made a sprint into the living room, grabbing Potter's wand with his teeth, and running back, nudged his hand with it. Potter lifted his head. He took the piece of wood gently out of Draco's jaws and smiled into his direction.

"You want to play sticks?" he asked. Draco barked at him. Was Potter really that stupid? "Just a minute, I'll get my coat." Or just determined to act as if he were?

Apparently, he was. If that was the case, Draco couldn't think of a way to change that. He might as well get used to the idea that he was going to remain a dog for the rest of his life. The scary thing was that he should have been more apprehensive about it.

One day the weather turned warmer but rainy, and Potter was in a mood. He was sitting on the couch, firmly resisting Draco's attempts to coax him into playing with him, wrestling on the rug or going outside for a quick jog in the rain. In the end, Draco resigned himself and took his place on the couch next to Potter, his head resting in his lap, and let himself be petted while listening to Potter's rare, melancholy voice. He couldn't guess what had got Potter sulking like that.

"It's Valentine's Day, Darling," Potter sighed. Draco was almost used to his new name, or at least he was able to pretend that it was just an endearment. He didn't like to think about just when he had begun to accept endearments from Potter.

"And I'm here, sitting alone in my apartment…" So that was it. Spring had caught up with him and Potter was starting to feel the urge to mate. Draco climbed into his lap and gave out a sharp yap to remind Potter that that wasn't exactly true.

"That's right, you're here with me," Potter answered him, as if he had understood, his gaze fixed somewhere over Draco's head. And then, to Draco's utter horror, he cradled Draco's snout into his palms and pressed a soft, lingering kiss onto his nose. When Potter finally lifted his head, he looked as if he was waiting for something to happen, but after a few seconds he just sighed again and turned away his head.

"Right. I didn't think that would work, anyhow."

In the next instant everything seemed to go up in a puff of smoke, and Draco lost his balance. He instinctively grabbed after something he could grip in order to prevent falling off and onto his head, and his hands found Potter's shoulders. For several seconds, he just clung to Potter, unmoving, until he realised several things.

First: hands?

"Or it works after all," he heard Potter's cheerful proclamation.

Draco blinked several times then slowly looked down. Yep, he was human again. And he was naked, straddling Potter's lap and clinging to him as if his life depended on it.

Second: was Potter feeling him up? Again?

"Looks like I got lucky." Potter gave him a beatific smile. Draco swallowed, when he realised that he was sitting on something rigid. "Why don't you say something, Darling?" Potter asked sweetly, while his hands didn't stop their wandering for a second. He was mapping out his body with his fingers the way he was used to do when he tried to 'see'.

"Potter!" Draco managed to squeak out, and not just because his voice was disused from forming words consisting of human consonants and vowels, but also because Potter's hand hovered above and then slowly lowered to cover his crotch. Draco felt his prick come alive under the warm pressure and smear Potter's palm with sticky fluid.

"Potter! You are molesting me!" Draco yowled – what an undignified sound for a dog! Even though he wasn't one anymore. And his cock was now ramrod straight, poking out from between Potter's fingers.

"Is that a protest?" Potter asked, as if he didn't believe it.

Draco tried to think about the question, he really did. It wasn't his fault that his recent transformation muddled his mind.

"No," he said in a small voice, and thrust his hips forward without his conscious mind's consent to do so. Apparently, spring had caught up with him as well.

Potter's fingers curled obediently around his straining-leaking cock. His other arm looped around Draco's middle, preventing him from shifting away from his current position even one inch. And then he started to stroke with his hand, slowly moving up and down, and Draco could feel Potter's fingers on every square millimetre of his cock.

He tilted his head backwards, mouth dropping open and tongue lolling out, and started to thrust upwards, lifting his hips at every downward stroke of Potter's hand. Potter moved with him, holding his waist in a solid grip to support Draco's weight, while increasing the speed of his strokes.

Draco was in heaven. It had been so long since he had felt anything like this, and at the same time the thought that it was his master petting him and making him feel this good just increased his pleasure. Had he been a cat, he would have started purring just about then.

The rhythm and amplitude of his frotting against Potter's willing hand increased to a fanatical rate, and he felt as if he would burst if it continued any longer – which was the point of it, really. But still… oh God!... never… this good! And then, with a last thrust of his cock into the slick and delicious cradle of Potter's palm, Draco was coming in ropes. And he also might have been howling.

When he felt like there was nothing else Potter's hand could milk out of him, he sat back on Potter's accommodating lap, head resting on a broad shoulder while he was panting into his master's throat – until he became aware that something was wrong.

Potter was growling and trying to get Draco to shift from his lap, and let him stand up.

"Something wrong?" Draco blamed his dog instincts entirely for sounding and acting that worried for Potter, as he tried to yank Potter's hands away from his face.

"Got spunk in my eyes… Stings," was Potter's grumbling answer.

But in the end that turned out to be a good thing. It gave Potter his sight back.

Later, Potter explained that he didn't know anything about Snape's plan, even though he had received a letter from Snape shortly before his death that read like this:

Potter, you might acquire a pet after

the war ends.

Prince Charming should be able to find

a way to revive Sleeping Beauty.

Apparently, being the Half-Blood Prince hadn't made Snape better versed in his royal cousins from the Muggle tales. Based on that letter, Potter was able to figure out who Draco really was, but since he couldn't think of a means of transforming him back, he thought it would be less stressful for Draco if he pretended he didn't know. Draco was angry with him for that – for approximately two minutes until Potter offered to bathe Draco, wash his hair with his favourite doggy shampoo, and comb it dry afterwards.

Draco stayed with Potter, and Weasley could shove his metal-framed dog wherever he wanted to. No, Draco wasn't yet completely recovered; he had got used to walking around naked, and still forgot to put on clothes sometimes. Potter didn't seem to mind that in the least, and he was even nice enough to remind Draco about it whenever he expected visitors. On another occasion Potter caught him taking a dump in the end of the garden, next to the hedge stems. Draco was incredibly embarrassed afterwards, but Potter said that he understood, and Draco saw that Potter had a bulge in his pants. Nonetheless, Draco managed to become potty-trained again, save the occasional leak in the bushes when he really had to go and there wasn't a toilet in the vicinity, but that didn't count, everyone did that.

Draco continued sleeping in Potter's bed and snuggling up to him while he was at it, and… doing other things with him. Potter was rather skilled in doing other things: particularly in doing Draco. Draco still didn't think that his legs were too hairy; and even if they were, Potter's other assets compensated for that little flaw rather nicely. They threw out all of the dog accessories, save the collar, which Potter persuaded him to keep, and they brought it out occasionally to play. They were still taking long walks, but now Potter held Draco's hand instead of the end of his leash. All in all, they were living kinda happily ever after.

…if only Potter would stop calling him 'Darling'!

FIN