A/N: This is my first attempt at the Harry Potter fandom and also that of HPDM, so please give comments and constructive criticism. It's a very tricky relationship to get right. I hope to only get better with more practice. Enjoy.

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Weeknight

Part I – Snake Fed on Jealousy and Want

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It wasn't the best idea in hindsight. It wasn't the smartest thing to be doing on a weeknight with a Charms scroll due the next morning and only a few curly scratches as of yet on the roll of parchment lying next to his bed—a bed with two pillows Transfigured out of pens lumped beneath the scarlet and gold comforter holding his stead while he roamed the corridors. It was not something Hermione would approve of should it drift down to her ears, and an offense that would earn him a snubbed noise, a turned shoulder and a whip of hair as she walked out, leaving him with no idea of how to begin to finish his scroll before he stepped into Flitwick's classroom. So no one was going to know.

With no shoes, he noticed immediately noticed when he'd left the range of the dormitory warming charms, but he made less noise. And with his body wrapped around his broomstick as well as a rock could wrap around a stick, trying to keep it beneath the invisibility cloak, it was rough enough. The straw kept scraping on the floor when he was sure it was hidden, and when he hiked it off the floor, pressing it harder into his chest and against his temple, it hurt and he could see the tips of his toes as he walked.

But when he saw the pitch through the stone columns, it was worth the pain and the risk of after-class detention and his own broomstick riding up further than after shooting across the pitch and swinging backwards at top speed. A night flight. And there were no clouds to blind the stars.

That afternoon, a storm had rolled in thick and dark over the mountains and poured for hours. It effectively killed their only day of practice that week. It drove Harry to curse out loud, having taken no more than four steps out of the shelter of the corridor onto the grassy hub before the clouds ripped open its thunderous seams and drowned the school. A few of his younger teammates looked at him, nearly sallow, from the pure force of the words.

His entire team was disappointed and missed a crucial time to condition, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Tomorrow, it would be Slytherin's turn as kings of the pitch (being the only ones there), and the day after that, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff after that, etc, and forthwith locked in a strict training regiment. And the infamous Snake and Lion match was only a week away, Gryffindor versus Slytherin. Only one more practice was cutting it close.

All he could do was sneak out illicitly at night and hope to work out a strategy on his own. Or, should he find it more impossible than usual to concoct a winning plan without any players to base said plan upon, he would ride out the frustration and hope that something struck him the next morning while Flitwick shook his head at his parchment.

Either would do on a starry night like tonight.

Even with the cloak hanging heavy on his hunched back and a rigid broomstick inflicting a distinct ache in his lower back, icy cold toes, the smell of the cool night air mingling with the rain-soaked earth was tempting. It would smell brilliant on the wind as he coursed the pitch, making each loop faster and faster, diving and wheeling with nothing to hinder him but his own furthest limitations.

As he neared the pitch, about to drop off into the grass and make a beeline, he let his eyes drift close, his glasses pressed tight against his nose from the broomstick, and take an eager breath. A few more steps and he could shed the cloak, uncurl from his excruciating coil, and kick off from the sopping ground. It would be great. He wouldn't have to live in his world until he came back down to solid ground, he wouldn't see anyone, he wouldn't hear anything but the wind hissing in his ears, jealous of his speed.

He couldn't cover those few steps fast enough.

But as the final column moved out of his line of sight, something caught the slim moonlight and glow of the stars, weaving around the garish yellow and black tower and then plummeting to the grass, scraping the ground and arching straight back up, as smooth as a coil of a cat's tail. And Harry was pretty sure there was no house elf in possession of a broom on the grounds.

He uttered another curse that would turn a second-year sallow and quiet as he stepped out and neared the edge of the pitch.

Keeping his uncomfortable position beneath the cloak, he came close enough to see the shape on the broom. It began a lazy circle coiling up into the sky, then began skimming the oval-shaped pitch, making the flags on the towers dance in the drag. Someone else had apparently hatched the same plan and gotten there first. And unless it was someone who he could trust not to rat on him, he was probably out of luck for tonight.

A few more steps and he could see the figure's dark clothes, slung over the broom, drifting down into another dive. Whoever it was, he was not happy with them for making him hobble uncomfortably the rest of the way, still twisted up underneath the cloak. He stopped beside the Gryffindor tower, still stooped over. The figure kicked off from the grass, not seeming to notice his presence, and lifted and lifted, arching into the sky at the most leisurely pace. Harry could practically see the carefree and tender lines of the body wrapped around the broom, in a transcendental and pure state of abandon.

He was feeling a little jealous, yes.

Harry could see through the cloak, but the iridescent, enchanted material often distorted his vision, making edges blurred and images shimmer. He stared up at the figure as it wound higher and higher. He could make out little more than the dark clothes and pale skin, but that could be anybody in possession of a broom and simply clever enough to sneak out at night past Filch.

Finally, the discomfort of hunching around his broomstick grew unbearable and he accepted the risk he took by pulling off the cloak. He shrunk it, folded it up, and slid it into his back pocket. Taking a distinct breath of relief, he uncoiled from his broom and threw a leg over it properly. His back and knee joints gave sounds of relief as well. The cold night air ran into his lungs deep and clean, and he looked anxiously up to the sky, watching for the figure. It had stopped and now hovered, waiting on high.

Harry forgot his caution and instead chose the liberating sensation of digging his toes into the dirt, feeling its resistance, then kicking off with all his strength and flying up and out. Becoming totally intoxicated with freedom, but linked with every alert pore of his body as the air rushed outside and magic thrummed, grinning, inside. This was worth more than the agony of a week's detention, a bad mark, and a lecture from Hermione. It was a runner's high without a foot on the ground; it was ascension to Heaven without death. So Harry didn't think much more than once when he launched upward to match the other rider's height, and there was a broad grin across his face as he finally leveled off, the tip of his broom facing the opposite direction of the other rider.

"Hullo," he breathed out happily, mouth still slung wide in a smile. He didn't know what to do with it when it finally hit him that he was smiling directly at Draco Malfoy, glowing pale and surprisingly quiet underneath the moon. And he was giving Harry a stare, almost as if he didn't know how to respond to such a cheery and fair hello, and halfway opened his mouth.

But Harry beat him to it. "Oh. Never mind," he amended, and slowly floated downward.

There was a moment of silence before a sharp voice followed him. "What kind of civilized greeting is that, Potter?" Silky and toxic, all at once. A wasp in a honeycomb. It took a certain type of artistry Harry had to admit he did not have to be as meticulous as that, but he did not have the want to deal with it tonight, either.

Harry let out a long and gloomy breath, still drifting away. So he was out of luck.

"Goodnight and sweet dreams, Malfoy," he drawled unhappily, waving once as he motored away. "Is that better?"

A sharp wind cut downward and ruffled his hair. Malfoy whirled and dropped, reining his broom hard to match Harry's descent, still facing the opposite end of the pitch. "Now you're just being deliberately unkind, Potter. It doesn't suit someone of your House. I think an apology on your part is in order." His chin lifted defiantly, but Harry knew the waspy smirk of confidence was gone. Wiped clean, he thought with satisfaction.

"I don't see the wrong," Harry said, matching the gaze. He'd seen and countered worse. "So no."

Malfoy had to kick out another swing to match Harry's casual descent, gripping the broom so his knuckles stood out white, even against his starlight skin. There was no sneer in his face as Harry stared back, but it was not exactly welcoming, either. Something about it made him grin, and it was returned with suspicion.

"Something amuse you, Potter?"

"Yeah," he answered, arching an eyebrow. "Your persistence."

Malfoy hesitated long enough to allow Harry the opportunity to give him the corner of a savage smirk, drop his feet back to the straw of his broom, and kick forward with the force of a bullet. He could hear him give a rather draconian hiss of frustration—not suiting someone of his House, either—and instantly turn and kick after in wordless pursuit with equal force.

So he could count on those Seeker instincts. It would have been a far less interesting night if he'd spent it winging circles around Malfoy like a dumbstruck first year, the only challenge being stomaching the hollow threats of his words.

He threw a glance over his shoulder to egg on his pursuer, but found nothing tailing him but gusts of wind. Harry grimaced, confused. Instinctively, he gripped the broom tighter, hanging closer to the center of balance, and shifted, starting a wide, fast turn. The stars gave little light, and what did shine enough to see was often cut by the shadows of the towers. Harry cut through one, gazing backward, and came through to the other side, in the sight of the moon but still doused in a menacing shadow.

Harry banked sharp right and Malfoy lunged down where he had been only an instant before, looking fiercely at him.

"You're being deliberately unpleasant now," Harry couldn't help but taunt.

It brought out another glowing stare of stone-gray eyes, which became the fuel that shot him back across the pitch in challenge. The cold satisfaction of night air whipping by, tousling his uncontrollable dark hair, and running stark and bracing in his lungs only added to the thrill of the chase. And when he made an abrupt dip, swooping down and turning back to have Malfoy overshoot and arch past him, then pulled the broom shaft to his chest and headed for the moon—he thought that an enjoyable night might be salvageable after all.

The Slytherin Seeker let out a growl worthy of a Gryffindor lion and pursued.

Harry led him consistently in circles, dropping back, feinting, toying with every standard maneuver and twisting it to make him overshoot, miss, and tail in widening distances with infuriating ease. He was good at leading the chase and using it to his advantage, as much as it seethed his mind to admit it, made his bones burn green. But manipulation of boundaries and rules was a skill that was taught well and thoroughly in the Dungeons of Hogwarts, and Draco walked them everyday.

It wouldn't do for a Slytherin to chase in blind determination. Harry could keep his distance all day. Lions might fight with eyes clouded with purpose, but Serpents possessed minds cleared by it.

He watched Harry's taunting silhouette turn around the Ravenclaw Tower and resisted the raw urge to chase that made his knuckles white around the broom and instead whirled about, cut altitude and bolted along the grass in the opposite direction.

He skimmed dangerously close to the fence as the colors of gold and green and red and yellow blurred by, changing from one to another in an instant. He turned to look over his shoulder and up into the night sky. It nearly caused him to loose his balance and ram the shaft of his broom into the passing Gryffindor tower and pole-vault into the ground, but he swung away back away and took a deep breath. A new bout of determination flooded through him to the tips of his white fingers and he threw his weight to the side without listening to the ever-rational Slytherin voice in him. It told him he was being stupid. It told him there were much more elegant ways to champion over Harry than risking his neck on a risky and rather Gryffindor maneuver.

But it that voice couldn't be any louder than the image of Harry Potter, arching up to meet him with a face and a smile to dim the sun, greeting him as if he were an old friend—and then snatching it away. A snake in his belly hissed, crying for retaliation.

So he raced barely inches off the ground of the pitch, his elbow running through the grass, lying completely parallel to the dirt. Thunder and blood rushed through his ears, but he was hidden in the shadow of the stadium's towers, and he could see Potter perfectly, drifting high above and still jetting along. For a moment, the figure hesitated, glancing backwards, finding nothing behind him but stars, and slowed. He kept the same course, though, and Draco was running parallel with it, undetected. Within moments, he had matched Harry's speed. And Potter was none the wiser to it.

Draco grinned wildly. He was still pushing all his energy into keeping the broom perfectly balanced and not catching the ground and snapping it in half. With another deep breath, he looked up to the sky, calculated, and rolled back up into the air. He pulled the tip of his broom to the stars and bolted upwards.

Harry couldn't help but look over his shoulder again and curse again. Malfoy had disappeared, it had seemed, and even in a harmless game of cat-and-mouse, he couldn't trust him not to try some slimy tactic. Like a horse chomping on the bit, he slowed, gripping his broom, giving sharp looks all about him.

The green pitch was deserted save for the chalk white lines and shadows of towers. The stands, normally crawling with crowing and singing housemates, were empty and clean and had much fewer eyes. He might have enjoyed the thought more, had he not been scanning the stars and trees for the slightest amount of movement. This was a different kind of being watched. He felt the hidden pair of eyes set on him as he slowed and turned his head out towards the forest again, his feet drifting in the silent air.

Malfoy slammed into him without a moment's warning. He threw his shoulder into Harry's leg with such abrupt, upward force that it nearly completely dislodged him from his broom.

Gravity pawed at him and pulled his right leg clean off, almost the left, which caught the broom in the crook of his knee. Pain swam in both, and the stars and pitch spiraled into a slur of black and green and starlight. His right hand flew off, his left barely scraping the wood of his broom, clutching mostly at cold air as his body lurched towards the ground. A curse jumped from his throat that would have sucked the color out of Malfoy's face if it hadn't always been the color of the moon.

Harry groaned, an angry sound, and threw his pained right leg back around his broomstick, clenching through the pain and effort. And when he heaved and righted himself again, Draco saw the polar opposite of what had greeted him that night and felt those eyes rip through him. It was betrayal.

"Bloody fuck, Malfoy," he growled, leaning forward over the broom to let out a braced breath. "It's a game, for God's sake. If either of us ends up in the hospital wing, we are both going to get detention. What is wrong with you?"

Draco had always had a response ready for Potter's words. Always a superior line to strike down whatever could escape his mouth, always an uncaring and distant word. Something that made him comfortable and satisfied, even when eyes greener than the Qudditch Pitch bore into him. This was different.

He opened his mouth and made a noise that would not become a confident word. Harry gave him one last moment of poison expression, and turned away.

Draco struggled for a response. "You were the one to start it in the first place!" he snapped, turned sour by Potter's sourness. "I should be the one to ask you that. Did your unbred Mudblood mother drop you one too many times?"

Harry whirled and faced him. Fury made him glow in the moonlight; the light reflected off his glasses paling next to that in his eyes. "You have no right to talk about her, and I'll make sure you understand that, Malfoy, even if we both have detention until Christmas. So sod off, why don't you?"

"I can talk about any one I please. It's a basic right, Potter," he slung back.

"Always the elegant one, aren't you, bringing up mothers as soon as you open your mouth. Maybe I should just let you, then. You must not have anything else to say." The terrible expression slung back into a grimace. "Pity."

It burned every fuse Draco possessed to see that condescending look. Every pureblooded inch of him turned furious and jagged. "You're just as impolite, Potter," he forced out, running his voice into poisonous honey. "Be damned if you would have a civil conversation with anyone not bending down and kissing the bottom of your robes at every turn."

Harry fought the slight with silence and simply did not move. His hands remained gripped tight, knuckles white, and neck tense, eyes trained on him. He would not feed this serpent.

But he could charm it with a little of its own language.

"You're jealous," he said. "And it's pathetic."

"You wish," Draco shot back.

"I know," Harry corrected.

The Slytherin faltered a moment, and his broom dipped low, but he fiercely corrected it and set his jaw. "Go back to your Tower of worshippers, Saint Potter. I'm not going to bow before you just because you've got a nasty little scar on your face."

The corner of his mouth turned upwards all the while. Draco couldn't imagine what was so amusing about the situation, how he could grin in the middle of their animosity. But there it was, a genuine look of laughter slung across his face. It made something in him, constantly sent into frothing rage by jealousy, taunted by defeat, and enraged by lack of attention, settle and quiet for a moment when Potter smiled at him, and it was more laughter than mockery. "And I'm not going to turn and run just because you've got a nasty mouth, Lord Malfoy. This is as much my pitch as yours. So don't think you're gonna get it all to yourself."

With that, Harry Potter turned the straw towards him, and whipped back across the night air, free and unbridled—and ignoring him again.