A/N: Hi, so here's the next instalment. I'd like to warn you again that updates will either be slow or short but i am determined to finish this story, possibly because it's getting acknowledged again. So please continue and check out my other stories :D
So this is basically the chapter that will start to move things along, the realisation and the denial :p
Chapter 10
Return to the Dungeons
Harry really, really, really hated Potions. Especially when the Professor of said subject was a self-serving, devious bastard of a man who had registered Harry at the top of his annihilation via malicious means list. Aforementioned malicious means just so happened to be seating him next to one Draco Malfoy, his supposed enemy who should have been able to cause the maximum amount of irritation with the least amount of effort.
However, Harry was one-hundred percent certain that his current situation was torture for a completely different reason. For two reasons in particular in fact. Firstly, his recent visions were torturing him and forcing his to look at Malfoy in an entirely different light, for example the way his skin looked like it glowed even under the little illumination of the dungeons, which in turn caused Harry to remember how the ivory plains glistened when they were covered in a shining layer of sweat.
Secondly, a new voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Hermione had decided that he needed a new moral compass as it had taken to whispering and nattering to him using quotes from old lectures she had given him and he had apparently actually been listening to because his brain had filed them away at the back of his mind until they were called upon at a more appropriate time. Evidently now.
'You're always at each others' throats,' it would say, making him feel guilty or 'Why can't you be more like Artemis and Jacob?' which would inevitably remind him fleetingly of his apparitions. And it was because of this little voice that he felt the need to be nicer to Malfoy, for Hermione's sake he kept reminding himself but each time he said it in his mind, the more it sounded like a ridiculous reason and the more he came to begrudgingly accept that he was doing it because he wanted to and it was nothing to do with Hermione's peace making obsession.
"Could you pass the Octopus teeth…please," he ground out, almost choking on his own words. Malfoy almost dropped the lavender encrusted stirring rod into the potion in shock. He stared back at him, completely forgetting to hold his breath against the foul smelling fumes and inhaling them, causing a coughing fit that had Zabini behind them paired with Ron to flap his arms around in an undignified state of panic. This is, until the Professor of Evil swooped down and vanished the thick, purple smoke from the Slytherin's lungs. Zabini received a vicious glare of warning for his trouble. Harry grabbed the ingredient himself, trying desperately to hold his breath as he reached across the other frozen boy and not cause more trouble.
Harry's next disaster struck about ten seconds later when he happened to glance over and see that strands of flaxen hair were falling into his eyes, which resulted in Malfoy flicking his head minutely every few moments in a tantalizing way that should have been illegal. This, you might think, is not a disaster, and you're right, what is a disaster though is when said show almost made Harry chop two of his fingers off. He quickly switched to squeezing the juice from the Eucalyptus fig, at which point Malfoy decided he wanted to start stroking the stirring rod as he waited for the required twenty seconds to end. A mixture of pus, fig's blood and the stinking juice they needed splattered haphazardly over his robes, scarcely missing his skin.
Harry's next plan consisted of stealing the easier job from his nemesis. He even added a 'would you mind if' and 'thank you' into the exchange, something that made Malfoy's delicate eyebrows shoot up but he replied in kind, shuffling around him to pick up the knife they were sharing while Harry took the rod, pointedly ignoring the brush of luxuriously soft fingertips as they brushed hands at the exchange. He shivered and begged that Malfoy hadn't noticed whilst cursing those visions.
Hermione had said it was possible they were special moments in a past life that had been ingrained into his soul because they were so important to him. She said she had once had an experience like that, although she wouldn't tell him what about unless he did the same, and of course Harry couldn't let Hermione find out what they were about. So, next he had asked her if it was possible for a person to look exactly the same from one life to another, to which she had replied that it was uncommon but not unheard of and that the reason was unknown. Although she had pondered on whether it was something to do with mutual similarities between the lifestyles, and then twittered on merrily about possible hypotheses, which was when Harry promptly tuned out.
Harry's plan was failing miserably. Malfoy managed to distract him even when he was chopping useless stuff he was sure he would never use after he graduated. Harry's eyes were glued to the way his wrist shifted fluently with the movements of the knife as if he were dancing with it and the way his fingers curled around the handle in an intoxicating way that should in no way been alluring but somehow was. And Harry found himself looking down at his own hand, slowly turning over the putrid liquid in the cauldron, and feeling disappointed and forlorn. Even if one day he did except the fact that he had some sort of weird, corrupt attraction to Malfoy, of all people, that he entirely blamed on his obviously sexually deprived - why else would they choose Malfoy? - past selves, he would have no chance of ever having said desire returned because of his shaggy looks, clumsy demeanour, unrefined behaviour and…he glanced back down at his hand dejectedly…stumpy hands!
"Pass the figs, Malfoy." He said, unaware that he was releasing some of his depression into his voice.
"Here." Malfoy turned back to his work, contemplating something, before abruptly swivelling back. "Can you meet me after dinner. There's something I'd like to discuss with you." Harry was so surprised he only had time to nod dumbly before Snape was sneering orders for packing the class away and he had a sample tube thrust into his fingers then Malfoy fluttered away towards the storeroom, arms full of unused ingredients. And then he was alone in the classroom, watching Snape stalking towards his motionless form with the usual smirk that signalled impending doom on his face.
Review if you please, noting that this is actually longer than the last chapter.
Yours
Dark Raven 4426