Title: Mistranslation
Author: Arawna
Disclaimer: Anything pertaining to Harry Potter and Co. does not belong to me, rather to JKR and anyone else who has stuck their hand into this cauldron.
"And exactly what do you think you're doing, Potter?" Draco asked the door which he had been leaning on. He flinched slightly as something made contact with the door, and by the sound of it, it was a heavy something.
"I'mtrying to get away from you, Malfoy," came his venomous reply.
"You know you can't really do that, right?" Draco pointed out, inspecting his cuticles. He could feel a pull in his abdomen, urging him to get closer to the boy who had locked himself in the room.
"You're so infuriating!" Harry yelled from the other side of the door. Something else was thrown at the door and shattered. Draco hoped beyond hope that it wasn't the porcelain statue his mother had sent him for Christmas.
"Using big words now, are you, Potter?" Draco smirked. "I must admit, that's a first."
"BITE ME!!!"
Draco rolled his eyes. "I can't do that if you don't open this door."
"Then go. AWAY!" He could hear the blush in Harry's voice.
"I can't do that, either. Not with the bond you inadvertently placed," the blonde reasoned. He then pushed himself from the door and he could feel the pull grow stronger. "How dimwitted to you have to be to not realize that was a bond spell and not…well, not whatever you thought it was. No doubt some sort of a hex."
This wasn't the first time the topic had come up in a week's worth of forced company and seclusion from the rest of the school, but Harry always managed to skirt the truth and change the subject; or at least with Draco. The blonde knew that Harry's friends and Professor Dumbledore knew the whole predicament; he could see it in they way they looked at him. He also noticed the look of irritation Granger had shot Harry on more than one occasion.
Harry made no immediate reply and nothing smashed against the door. After a moment, Draco heard the boy inside mumble something.
"What was that, Potter? You have to speak up," he said.
Another moment of silence before: "I didn't think it was a hex."
Draco sighed. At least he was making progress. "Okay, I'll concede that it wasn't a hex, if you'll tell me what you thought it was."
He heard the Gryffindor grumble again.
"For Merlin's sake, Potter, if you're going to mumble at me, then I'm going to come in there," Draco threatened through the door. He pulled his wand from his sleeve and pointed it toward the door.
"No! I'm still mad at you!"
The Slytherin rolled his eyes and put his wand away. "Then answer me."
Another long pause followed his demand. Many times, it sounded as if the other boy tried to start a sentence, but never got much farther than a stuttered 'I-I-um….'
"Potter, I'm gonna come in there if you don't tell me," Draco warned again.
He heard a heavy sigh. "I - uh - kindaknewitwasabond."
"What?" Draco asked, a little more than slightly confused.
Another sigh. "I knew it was a bond. What I didn't know was that it was a - erm - lover's bond."
The blonde had to push his ear up to the door to hear the confession.
"Harry," Draco said softly, using the Gryffindor's given name for the first time that week. "I'm coming in there so you can better explain."
Before Harry could protest, Draco cast the unlocking spell and was across the room, on the bed, in only a few strides. The tugging in his stomach fell away with each advancing step and quickly turned to pleasant warmth when he set beside Harry.
"Now what nonsense are you spouting?" Draco asked, pulling the dark-haired boy into a tight embrace. Although they didn't talk too freely or use each other's first names so often, this physical contact was something that occurred every night since the incident, whether they understood the attraction or not.
Harry sighed and relaxed against the blonde's chest, resting his head against the other boy's shoulder.
"I found this bond in a book," he began, "and Hermione was able to translate part of it. From what she got, it was a spell that would allow the bounded to feel each other's emotions. I thought that maybe it could help me understand your moods, so that we wouldn't get into so many fights and bring about another feud or battle or war. Anyway, I suggested this to Herm, and she told me not to even try it because there was a large section which she couldn't translate. Evidently, that was the important part."
"So you were looking out for the good of the entire Wizarding world?" Draco inquired. Harry nodded against his shoulder. "How very Gryffindor of you."
"I just didn't want to go through what I went through with Voldemort." Harry caught the shudder that passed through Draco at the name, but chose to ignore it. "He's dead and gone, and I don't feel like killing more."
A silence stretched out between them, echoing off the walls of their new shared room to reverberate through to their bones. Silence can sometimes cause more unease than a bitter argument.
"Well…if it were to make you feel my emotions, has it worked?" Draco asked softly, his voice almost a whisper.
Harry snorted in an undignified manner. "No. I think Hermione may have translated it wrong, but that'd be insulting her intelligence on any level, so I wouldn't verbalize my suspicions."
The blonde laughed through his nose. "At least this prolonged exposure to me has given you a better understanding of the English language and its vocabulary, even if you can't manage to use it during a fit of 'rage'. And what makes you think it was Granger? Maybe you botched the spell? Ever think of that?"
Harry squirmed in Draco's arms. "Uh, no, I hadn't."
The Slytherin rolled his eyes. "Apparently."
Gray eyes roamed around the room, trying to assess the damage that their disagreement had caused. Nothing seemed to be out of place, except for the fact that a certain statue was not sitting on his dresser.
"Uh…Harry…" Draco whispered. "You didn't throw my mother's Christmas gift at the door, did you?"
Harry shifted in his arms again. "No. I - uh - hid it and - erm - threw a transfigured pillow at the door instead." He paused for a moment. "A week ago, I would've readily thrown your statue and would've been jubilant that it would've broken."
"And now?" Draco prompted.
"Now…I just hate seeing you miserable," Harry confessed. "You're no longer my enemy, but now my loved one."
"Yeah," the blonde sighed. "I guess I love you too." He looked back to the empty space on his dresser. "So…uh, where ismy statue?"
The Gryffindor smirked. Evidently, the vocabulary isn't the only thing he'd picked up from the Slytherin. "Oh, it's in the top drawer of your dresser."
FINS