Fahrenheit - Chapter 4 by HollyandHawthorn
DISCLAIMER: I apparently own a dog that has a severe snoring problem. Not Potter though.
A/N: I get tension headaches from all of my uni work, it's something I've learned to live with. In fact, I'm writing with one right now, so it's only right that Harry should get one too. So here you are, grumbly headache Harry. In other news, I've managed to throw out my whole routine through daylight savings and am now in a rather tight spot at work, oh dear, time to turn on those stupidly happy smiles and make coffee like a champ for the next few days, or risk my boss exploding everywhere. I feel bad. Oh well.
con·trol [kən-trōl]
(noun): The power to influence or direct people's behavior or the course of events.
(verb): Determine the behavior or supervise the running of.
Harry sits in potions with his cheek pressed into the palm of his hand, textbook opened to a rather elaborate potion that he's already miles ahead on. He stirs it slowly, watching the colours change gradually from green to a violent pink, before tossing the next set of ingredients haphazardly into his cauldron.
He isn't distracted so much, nor overly tired. But he has the worst fucking headache imaginable. It feels like it's clawing at the backs of his eyes, throwing itself at the walls of his skull and seeping it's dull, numbing ache all the way down to his neck. He's had it for hours now, and it's draining all his energy just trying to keep his damn eyes open.
He blames it on Pansy.
It isn't even that she's having another one of her extra clingy, extra whiny phases, or that she's been asking him questions so stupidly obvious that he feels like thumping his forehead into the stone walls. No, she's just being her normal, frustrating self, but Harry feels like ripping the hairs out of his head just at the site of her.
He really has to do something about her, before he explodes.
In, and out.
He glances down at the instructions in front of him, eying step number eight skeptically before glaring into his cauldron. Everything seems fine, now it just needs to stew for a few days. He sits back on his stool, hooking his feet around the legs and pulling his face away from his hand just as he recieves a sharp jab to the ribs.
The look of contempt he shoots at Draco makes the other boy snort, a smile quirking the corners of his lips as he points awkwardly at his own cauldron, "I'm only at step five, care to enlighten me as to how the hell you managed to get it to thin?"
Harry blinks at him, cracking his knuckles gently in his lap before huffing dramatically, standing to peer into Draco's cauldron, before raising an eyebrow. "At least it's salvageable," he jabs a thumb in Goyle's direction, where the boy appears to be struggling to stir a potion that has taken up the same consistency of tar. "You just need to stir it anticlockwise a few times, it'll be fine."
He drops back onto his seat without another word, and presses his fingers back to his temple, massaging the side of his head in an attempt to ease the tension in his brain. Snape walks in his direction, Harry's eyes following the tall black figure as he winds his way through the tables to glance into Harry's cauldron. He isn't horrible to Harry, though he isn't particularly pleasant either.
He gives a reluctant nod of approval before sweeping away, Harry's eyes still staring down at the table and his thumb still pressed against his head.
God, damn, it hurts.
Draco's staring at him. He can feel his eyes boring into the side of his head.
Maybe he's adding to this headache as well, just a little bit.
Harry runs his spare hand through messy dark hair, letting his eyes fall closed for a moment and sighs. His headache rears it's ugly head, sinking it's claws back into his eyes for a moment as he attempts to think. It shouldn't hurt to think.
Draco seems to be invading his mind far more often than what Harry would like, images of bare pale skin and shimmering grey eyes haunt him in his sleep, sleepy conversations follow him around all day, and when Draco stares at him, like he is right now, Harry's skin feels like it's going to catch fire. His blood rushes to every impossible part of his body with the power of a tsunami, ripping it's way down to his fingertips, down the bridge of his nose and into his stomach, uncoiling itself into some vast, intense humming that consumes him. It's all wrong. Nobody should make him feel like that.
Because there's only one thing that can make Harry feel like that.
He often stares wide eyed at the ceiling of an evening, counting over and over the pattern of his breathing, never satisfied that it's perfect, he feels thrown off balance. He walks through the school with the same harsh expression plastered on his face, his strides still long and sure, but inside, his mind is warring with itself.
He doesn't understand.
A firm hand squeezes his shoulder, and he finally snaps his eyes open, turning to look at a worried looking Blaise. "You alright?" the dark boy asks slowly, "You look like you've been hit by a train."
"Thanks a lot," Harry snaps, flicking his book closed and shoving it unceremoniously back into his bag as Professor Snape sweeps around for another lap. "I'm fine."
Pansy is clearly the most popular girl in all of Hogwarts.
She has all the boys going gaga over her and all the girls are jealous of her almost-relationship with Harry Potter, she does well in her classes and all of her jokes are funny. Everybody loves her, it's a fact. And nothing is ever going to change that fact.
The only thing left for her on her climb to the top spot is to get Harry to actually admit that he's obviously head over heels in love with her, which she thinks may happen sometime in the next few weeks. She's been preparing for it for a long time, almost two years in fact, ever since that time he had asked to borrow a quill because his had broken in class.
He hadn't given it back to her, so obviously he was keeping it as some kind of reminder as to how amazing Pansy really is. She never said anything about it, of course, instead choosing to make it as obvious as possible that she clearly returned his romantic feelings.
She likes knowing that she's the only girl on his mind, and she loves the way his eyes darken every time he spares her a glance. He definitely feels the same way.
She walks down the corridor on the fifth floor, shoving her way past a group of scrawny second years, commenting on the terrible state of their uniforms as she passes, "Did you all dress in the dark this morning? Or do you still need mummy to tie your ties?" she drawls, Millicent laughing loudly at her elbow and a vicious smile gracing her lips.
"That was a good one, Pansy," Millicent giggles as they near the door to Charms, heels clacking on the stone floor and their laughter echoing from the high walls.
"I know," she replies.
The classroom vibrates with quiet chatter, and Pansy notes the absence of Professor Flitwick happily, falling into her usual chair right in front of Harry and tapping her manicured fingers on the tabletop. They share this class with the Gryffindors, a group of arrogant and somewhat dim students with terrible hair and a weird need to help each other all the time. She wrinkles her nose at them, before turning her attention to the little man making his way to the front of the room.
Charms as it turns out, is an incredibly boring subject, and before Pansy knows it, she's drifted off into her own little world, imagining all the romantic ways Harry could admit his feelings to her, down by the lake as the sun sets, serenading her in front of the whole school at dinner - could Harry even sing? She hopes so. Maybe he'd take her to that adorable little tea shop in Hogsmeade and buy her coffee.
She turns in her seat to spare him a glance, only to find that he isn't even looking at her, in fact, he's looking in completely the wrong direction, his chin balanced on his free hand as his wand waves vaguely at the little collection of bells on his desk. She turns the other way, looking for whatever it is Harry looking at so intensely.
Because if it's a girl, well, that just won't do.
But it isn't a girl. Not even Daphne, who's about as much competition as Pansy could possibly have. It's Draco.
She stares, dropping her wand onto the tabletop and quirking an eyebrow. This didn't make any sense whatsoever. She turns back to look at Harry, who continues waving his wand, bells jingling onto the table and eyes set off to the side. It isn't until Blaise clears his throat loudly that Harry snaps his head around to look at her, eyes grow darker, and it feels like he's almost trying to burn her with his eyes.
Go, that's so hot.
"What?" he snaps, lip twitching slightly as he continues to stare right at her.
"Oh, nothing," she says, attempting nonchalance, "just wondering what you were staring at."
"That," Harry growls, voice low and husky, "is none of your business, Pansy." He picks up his wand again, shoving it into his pocket and scooping up the little collection of bells on his table.
"Oi!" Blaise yelps before Harry gets too far, "throw me one!"
The bell hits Blaise square in the face, and Pansy can't help but laugh, Harry is such a charmer, and he always seems to go out of his way to impress Pansy with silly things like that.
Blaise glares at her, hard, so she twists back around to the front, glancing over at Draco, who follows Harry's movements to the front of the room, before dropping his eyes back to his work. It's really quite odd, and Pansy has absolutely no idea what the pair of them are playing at.
"Miss Parkinson, eyes on your own work, thank you!" Flitwick squeaks from behind her, and she gives up wondering whats up with Draco for now.
Harry's still pressing his fingers to his temples by the time dinner rolls around, and while his headache continues it's persistent assault on his sanity, Pansy appears to be all for adding her little bit to the pressure cooker as well.
"...and then they told me that I was just some stupid girl," she whines, her voice vibrating through his head from where she sits, wedged between a disgruntled looking Blaise and himself, "I mean, why would somebody say something like that to me? I'm obviously very intelligent, did you know I'm sitting on an A average for all my classes this year?"
"I don't care."
"I'm doing much better than what I was last year, especially with that god awful McGonagall woman giving me a D for my stupid exam, who needs transfiguration, anyway?" Harry shuffles a few inches further away from her, glaring down at his roast and holding his hands firmly to the sides of his face. Every fiber in his body wants to shut her up, his fingers itch for it.
But he can't right now, because there are four hundred other students sitting around him, and he has no doubt that the teachers would be watching him closely right now, too.
He tastes bile in his throat as his head continues to throb, and the whole room begins to spin.
Oh, god, in, and out.
He closes his eyes for a moment, inhaling deeply before pushing himself up from his chair, away from the sickly sweet smell of Pansy's perfume, and the persistent yammering of her voice. He barely even hears her protests as he starts walking, hands still holding his head and his footing unsure.
This is all her fault, Pansy and her big mouth and persistent hands, her inability to tie a windsor knot correctly, and the fluttering of her eyelashes that makes her look like she's having a seizure.
Harry hates Pansy.
He hates her with everything he has, it spreads through his body like some awful disease, clinging to his muscles and his bones, weakening the mental structure he works so carefully to maintain. She's wearing him down. She has to go.
His footsteps crackle in his ears loudly as he descends the steps toward the dungeons, his eyes barely opened against the flare of the torches on the walls. His feet drag slightly, catching on the rough edges of the stone floor and tripping him up as he goes, and his hands still clasped around his head.
He doesn't really have any idea if he's going in the right direction, merely hoping that his feet have tread this trail enough over the last three years to lead him to the right place. His breathing catches in his throat on every inhale, shallow and shaky, he wants to scream. His breathing is all wrong, and he wants to scream at himself, berate himself for his carelessness.
His foot catches on a particularly high ledge.
His face meets the hard floor before he even knows whats going on, a violent crunch and scrape, and he's down. The taste of blood seeps into his mouth, and the throbbing in his head seems to have grown teeth and spines.
He doesn't move, the warm sensation of blood trickling across his own skin making every nerve tingle, and his breathing stutters even more than what it already had been. He lays very still, focusing on the sting in his forehead and the pain spreading through his nose. At least he's familiar with that feeling.
Dudley had broken his nose enough times to know what that feels like.
The sound of footsteps in front of him makes him groan, though he still doesn't move. His eyes fall closed, and the darkness seems to swallow him.
Fucking Pansy Parkinson.
Heat is so precious. It keep a body alive from the inside, warms the skin and tells a person when they're ill. When they're weak. It radiates from the sun in the sky and crackles in fireplaces, controlled, almost beautiful. Harry, however, likes it best when all of the heat loses that control, that comfortable grip on temperature and becomes something so overwhelming that it consumes everything in a space, scolds flesh and brings irrational fear to the eyes of the people at it's mercy.
Harry had laughed. He had stood at it's centre and he had laughed and laughed, his breathing had been a mess, and he loved it.
Loved it.
He wakes very suddenly, eyes snapping open and his hands fisting into scratchy sheets.
The air is cool against his skin, and the air smells strongly of cleaning solution. He doesn't want to move.
But he does, because he really has absolutely no idea where he is. He blinks a few times, staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling before turning his head to look around. It takes him all of two seconds to figure out where he is, the clinical white sheets covering his body and the flimsy bluish curtains that have been pulled around him tell him he's managed to land himself in the hospital wing. Brilliant.
He turns to look in on the other side of his bed, only to be greeted with the most unfamiliar sight he has ever seen. There are two chairs sitting next to him, both occupied, and a little blue fire sitting in a jar on his bedside table with his glasses.
He snatches them up, pushing them onto his face and wincing slightly at the tenderness in his nose, before looking back at the two people beside him.
Hermione sits closest to him, legs tucked up beneath her and a large book opened in her lap. She mouths along as she reads from it, her frizzy hair tied back and away from her face. She looks tired, as though she's been sitting there for hours now. Had she?
Next to her, much to Harry's surprise, is an equally tired looking Draco. Harry's pretty sure he would be rather uncomfortable with the arrangement, considering how vocal he had been about Hermione in earlier years, and finds it hardly surprising that his hand is running subconsciously through his hair as he reads a significantly thinner book than Hermione's.
Harry stares at the pair of them for several moments, hesitant to disturb the silence that's pressing in around them.
Instead, he wonders to himself what on earth Draco is doing here, sitting on a hard wooden chair, reading, when he could very well be sitting down in the common room tattling over whatever it is he talks about. Harry doesn't really know what he talks about, considering he hasn't really talked around Harry for years now, with the exception of the last few weeks at least.
He clears his throat, watching as the pair of them both jump violently and look up from their books.
"Hi." Harry clears his throat again, trying to wash away the dryness still lingering there. They both close the books in their laps, watching him carefully as he sits himself up. "What time is it?"
Hermione looks down at her wrist, "About nine, you've been out for a while."
Harry scratches the back of his head as he shifts on the bed, noting that his headache seems to have miraculously dissipated in the space of the last few hours, before turning to look at a rather pale looking Draco, "Why are you here?" he asks calmly, keeping as much of the venom from his voice as he can manage.
"He found you," Hermione says bluntly, dropping her book onto the floor and stretching in her seat, "turns out you were quite a mess, actually. Get in another fight with a Hippogriff, Harry?"
"No," he snaps, huffing at her and crossing his arms across his chest, "I didn't get in a fight with anyone."
"Of course not."
"Don't start, Hermione."
"You don't give me much of a choice," she snaps back at him, a pink flush rising in her cheeks. "This doesn't exactly look all that harmless to me."
Harry actually laughs at this, because for the first time since he can remember, this injury is about as harmless as it gets. "I blacked out," he laughs, "happens when you have someone as annoying as Pansy pining after you."
"Explain all the blood then," she pushes.
"I'm pretty sure," he brings a hand to his face gently, "That when your face hits the ground hard enough, it's quite easy to break your nose. Now if you wouldn't mind," he throws back the sheets and swings his legs over the side of the bed, snatching up his wand and stuffing it into his belt loop. "I'm quite done with the prying, I have homework to get done."
With that, he stands, runs unsteady hands through his hair, and sweeps the blue curtains away before walking straight out through the open hospital wing door. He can hear Hermione calling after him, can hear an extra set of footsteps behind him, but he doesn't turn around. He really does have work to get done.
His mind feels clearer than it has all day, his footsteps sharper and more pronounced and his breathing so wonderfully balanced that it makes his hands shake at his sides.
In, and out.
The footsteps behind him speed up, until Draco manages to catch up to him, "Where's Hermione?" Harry questions quietly, keeping his steps long and sure.
"She went back to Gryffindor tower, she's livid by the way," Draco's tone is as conversational as ever, and it takes Harry by surprise. He looks over at the blonde through narrowed eyes, looking him over as they walk. He notes the disheveled state of his hair, the odd sparkle in his eyes and the dried blood still coating his fingertips. Draco seems to notice his eyes lingering, laughing softly as he speaks, "You made a right mess, you know? Blood everywhere. I never would've guessed it was only a broken nose when I saw you, but then again, you are full of surprises."
"Charming," Harry mutters, reaching up to run his fingers over his nose. It doesn't feel crooked, though he can't be sure.
"You look fine," Draco says.
Harry snorts, dropping his hand back to his side as they take the stairs. "Thanks."
The rest of the walk is silent, Harry fidgeting with his tie and Draco half running to keep up with him. It's odd, considering the Draco is at least two inches taller than Harry. He chooses to ignore it, in favour of getting back to the common room, to his bed. He expects the common room to be empty by this time, at least of anybody he knows.
But when he opens the door, the first thing that greets him is Pansy's face, muddy brown eyes and her motor mouth.
The crooked smile on his face doesn't even waver, and as he steps through the wall and into the room, he feels the beautiful rush of heat spread through his entire body.
She rushes towards him, oblivious to everything she's seeing, wrapping her arms around his neck and squealing about something. He doesn't notice, his hands coming up to the back of her neck of their own accord, and latching tightly onto her short hair.
He drags her away from him, feeling her arms loosen around his neck as she finally realises that something is obviously wrong. "Your hair is so pretty," Harry whispers, giving another harsh tug at the back of her head, "So, damn pretty."
He throws her down onto the ground with a flick of his wrists, hearing the crack of her knees against stone and the uncertain waver in her voice.
He shouldn't be doing this. He needs a plan, he needs to think it through, over and over until everything is perfect. But he can't help it. His skin prickles and burns beneath his robes. He won't kill her, not now. Just scare her.
He drops to his knees, places strong hands on her shoulders and leans down over her face, exhaling heavily as he watches fear sparkle in her eyes. He misses it so damn much. "They told me to ignore you," he whispers, "they told me, that you'd go away if I just let you drive me insane, but you didn't, you stupid girl." he brings a hand to her throat, running tentative fingers down it's centre as he speaks, "They told me, that if I told you to leave me alone, you'd go away. But again, you didn't. You just keep crawling back." he laughs lightly, "but there's something you really need to understand, Pansy Parkinson."
He let's his fingers rest at the base of her throat, lingering for a moment, before pressing down hard against her windpipe.
"People like me, we're not very nice people," her breathing stutters, "so when we say 'fuck off' we mean 'fuck off'. Do you understand that, princess?"
Her hands grapple at the fingers digging into her throat, mouth gaping wordlessly, as she nods.
He smiles.
"I'm on an O average in all of my classes, I don't care about what you have to say, and I definitely don't appreciate your filthy hands all over my body." He hisses, standing quickly from his place on the floor, looks down at her a moment longer, the fire in his veins making him shudder. He runs his foot up the side of her face, as the room seems to come back to itself, "Such pretty hair,"he whispers, and steps over Pansy's shuddering body in the direction of his rather attractive sounding bed.
Maybe she'll get the hint.
Maybe she'll come back again. He hopes so.
"Er, Harry? What was-"
"That, Draco, was me sending a very long overdue message. I'm quite certain I've sent you one or two over the years as well."
"Oh, right."
Hello, beautiful bed. Hello, beautiful boy.
In, and out.
Poor Pansy hasn't seen anything yet. Harry's being far too kind. x
