Calming

Thck, thck, thck - somebody was knocking at his door. He woke up for the third time that morning. First he wondered if it was Mrs. Weasley, but by seeing the quality of light struggling to get through the blinds and simply sniffing the air, using his even keener than usual senses, told him it was a bit past breakfast time now.

That left only three possible options - it was Mrs. Weasley anyway, it was Lupin or it was Potter deciding that morning visits were now a good idea too.

The evening before had this time gone without a hitch - mostly because Potter barely even glanced at him, which in a way had been amusing. Instead he had picked up another of Draco's books, probably at random seeming as it concerned brewing potions using aquatic weeds, and Draco did likewise, managing to pick up the dragons book which had been one of his Godfather's more interesting choices. They had settled down and whiled away a few hours, eventually getting lost in reading and each other's quiet company, until Harry had yawned, set the book down and said a hasty goodnight before dragging his feet across the room and closing the door.

It had been easy and had fulfilled the ache he usually felt inside now when he was left alone - he blamed it on the surprisingly sociable creature that was the wolf. It was getting louder and louder nowadays, just waiting to howl at the moon as it would tonight, and Draco felt too tired to quieten it quite as severely as per usual. At least Potter seemed to temporarily satisfy it.

Three more knocks sounded and he deigned them an answer.

"Enter." For once he didn't care if he looked sleepy and bedraggled - because he was. It wasn't any fun tossing and turning most of the night, constantly waking up after a bout of shallow slumber, not being able to sleep no matter how much you wanted to. He blamed it on the wolf, again, which gave a grumble of dissatisfaction at its continued foul treatment of blame.

The door opened slowly, tentatively, and he guessed it was Lupin before he even saw his face. Mrs. Weasley would have barged in with a loud, cheery hullo and even Harry would have moved faster. Lupin seemed far too considerate of others for his own good - he would make a good doormat, Draco concluded to himself.

"Good morning," he said in his quiet voice and Draco looked away - it was not a good morning in the slightest.

As Draco sat up in his bed, trying valiantly not to look too grumpy and smoothing down his hair, as was habit, Lupin chose a chair and perched on it, evidently here for another talk about the annoying little problem they both happened to share.

"Well," Lupin began, "Today's the day."

How observant of you, idiot.

"I haven't talked about the transformation until now," Lupin kept glancing at him, "because I don't mean to distress you at all - but I will be honest. The first transformation always hurts."

Draco took a deep breath.

"It hurt with me, it has hurt with every new wolf I have looked after so far - by which there have been a few. Firstly, I want you to be able to brace yourself for the pain, be ready for it, so it doesn't catch you by surprise."

Draco exhaled slowly.

"Also, I want you to understand the arrangements we'll have for tonight. This afternoon Severus will be dropping by with some Wolfsbane which we will take first - it's not the most pleasant of tastes, but you get used to it," Lupin shrugged lackadaisically, "Then I want you to rest as much as possible in your room, sleep if you want to, so you're not too tired by the time the transformation comes - I doubt you will get much sleep tonight."

"All right." Draco replied half-heartedly, even though the advice seemed sound enough - it was just that he would have to be in his room all alone again, which he enjoyed even less than bearing the Weasel's company. In the night it was okay, seeming as he was just sleeping, but when he was on his own he began to feel paranoid - the heavy ghosts of fear began to settle onto him and make him uneasy.

"I heard... about Harry finding out." Lupin added, looking levelly at Draco this time, who looked away again.

"Did you?" He asked, his voice sounding mildly interested.

"I can talk to Harry if you want, about the-"

"No, no, it's fine," Draco supplied, anything to stop more fuss, "in fact Granger seems to have forced us all into a truce - so there shouldn't be any problems."

Lupin gave him a beaming smile, which looked foreign to his usually meek and sombre features - "That's wonderful! I wasn't too sure about Ron at first - but I knew that Harry and Hermione would handle this in the right way..."

"Hang on, does Granger know about it?" With uncharacteristic stupidity, Draco had not thought of that. He had simply thought she wanted to stop the arguing or some other Mudblood thing.

"Well," Lupin looked sheepish again, an expression far more suited to him, "after the whole incident with Harry finding out he talked to Hermione about it before things could get more out of hand. She's very talented at sorting out problems, is Hermione."

Draco couldn't help but feel a rising resentment - didn't Harry think Draco's secrets were sacred and to be kept to the grave? He would certainly be asking him about that.

"Is there anything else you want to know?" Lupin asked, evidently trying to change the subject.

"No," Draco replied coldly, feeling more hatred towards Lupin than he had before, mostly out of his general anger. So what if he had questions really? This was a matter of pride - he would not rely on this man for anything, for the fat lot of help he had been so far.

Lupin left silently, seeing that Draco no longer wanted to talk. He wondered if the boy really would be easier to handle in wolf form than the unpredictable, emotional landmine of a boy he was now...

***

In the end his growling stomach managed to persuade him and he went downstairs and warily entered the dining room, the barrage of voices hitting him like one of Mrs. Weasley's heavy metal pans. There was no moment, as he had secretly dreaded, of everybody turning around and staring at him, their words left half spoken, and in fact nobody paid him much attention as he took a seat at the empty end of the table and took a sandwich from the nearest plate.

It was a minute or two before he even made eye contact with anybody, and it had not been who he had expected - Granger looked at him and smiled. He didn't know whether to feel revolted or... relieved? Either way, he knew that winning over the residents of the house, no matter how unsavoury they were, was the intelligent thing to do (so living with them would seem less of a daily war.)

The second to look towards him, though surreptitiously, was Lupin. The looks were frequent, and it was easy to tell that they were trained on Draco's food intake - Draco swallowed the resentment that Lupin was monitoring how much food he ate like his minders used to do when he was a toddler. He decided it best to simply forget Lupin's existence for a while.

The third was Potter. They happened to catch each other's eye at the same time and played what Draco thought to be a battle of stares. Then, with the fluttering in his stomach as a reminder, he realised that Potter could be seeing it as something else and tore his gaze away. He didn't want Potter guessing anything if he could help it.

The Weasley children all steadfastly ignored him, which was fine by Draco, the main Weasel trying especially hard to forget he was there. Perhaps it was his own way of avoiding confrontation, because merely looking at Draco usually seemed to anger him.

He picked up his fourth sandwich, his stomach willing him to push it to the twentieth, and stared at the table, his brow creased slightly. Tonight is the night.

A rush of fear started to course through him - tonight is the night I become an unsightly beast!

His breathing quickened, his heart raced in trepidation, his hands clenched and sent his nails digging into the tablecloth. He felt out of his depth, out of control, out of it, out of it-

Calm down, the wolf, the very thing itself, told him in its soft, gruff voice. I know how much you hate public displays of emotion - you're about to commit one now.

It had been the right thing to say. Draco forced his nails out of the table and clasped his hands together loosely. He took a deep, quiet breath. He saved his panicked brain from the brink. This was how a Malfoy behaved.

That's it, the werewolf agreed, there's no point panicking.

Why are you being nice all of a sudden? Draco wondered - even a few minutes earlier the wolf had been panting with anticipation, howling with excitement, whimpering with glee. Now it was comforting him?

We're in this together. I am you and you are me now.

Draco still found it a bit odd that the wolf, which was only a disease in essence, could have a voice, but what it said still managed to somewhat comfort him.

***

Harry couldn't help but eventually let his eyes train on Draco not long after he entered the room. Whilst scrutinizing as much subtlety as he could muster, he could see that Draco was determinedly trying to look stoical, emotionless, but flickers of what he must have really felt were still showing, if you looked as hard as Harry was for them. The way his eyes suddenly darted from one place to the next, the faint signs of fatigue that further paled his skin, his fingers tense on the table. Harry thought he had every right to feel afraid, no matter how much he himself tried to hide it.

Then Draco looked up and Harry could have clutched the table-cloth himself. His deep-set eyes, usually calm and collected, looked at first like two abysses of exhaustion and fear. He watched, transfixed, whilst they slightly widened at their and Harry's eyes' contact and then seemed to mellow in a way that Harry didn't completely understand, yet he was glad for it - making Draco more comfortable was his current purpose after all.

Then Draco looked away and Harry let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. His heart arched back again from where it had been stretched against his ribcage - he blamed the curious feeling it inspired on the empathy he had always been told he had an abundance of.

The rest of lunch passed in relative relaxation, Harry no longer staring at Draco but concentrating on making himself eat (the progress was slow, but at least he felt some real hunger now that food could even fulfil.)

Just as he was on his second sandwich Lupin stood and glanced meaningfully across the table to where Draco, who Harry assumed to be under his care for the night, was sitting and had finished eating. He also rose, taking a deep breath that could have been to steady himself, and then began to leave.

Harry blinked once, twice. Thought about what was going on. Would he see Draco again before the transformation? He decided that he really did want to talk to him just before it happened, perhaps comfort him with words the way that his eyes had done earlier, make things slightly better than they were.

He stood up impulsively, let his legs lead him to where he wanted to be, and was hot on Lupin's heels. Lupin turned around, gave him one of his trademark warm smiles.

"Harry, is there anything you want?"

"Dr- I mean, I want to speak to Draco quickly." He admitted after a pause, reddening at what he had been about to say: Draco's name - now that would have had embarrassing connotations!

His gaze fluctuated between his former teacher and Draco, who himself was looking at Lupin for his opinion. Lupin gave a nod and another smile, "Take as long as you like."

He made his way up the stairs with quick and quiet grace, leaving Draco and Harry to dart looks at each other, neither knowing really what to say. Even Harry didn't know what to say, which was stupid because apparently he had wanted something to say. But what? What? His mind raced - I'm making a fool of myself here-

"Do you want to go into the study?" Draco gestured to the right door with a small jerk of the head and Harry nodded, grateful. The time to get there gave him time to gather his thoughts.

They both sat down on the only sofa, Harry making sure that he left Draco enough personal space - he didn't think that he would want to be crowded.

"Erm..." he began and didn't get much further.

"This is about tonight, isn't it?" Draco asked, voice low and defeated, eyes focusing on his delicate hands. "You're trying to reassure me." The words had no emotion, were forced into submission as neutral statements, though Harry could see that Draco's hands were beginning to tremble infrequently.

He nodded, then realized that Draco wasn't looking at him. "Yes," he said, cleared his throat, "I suppose that's what it is."

Any comfortable atmosphere that could have been, that had been during the last few times they had spent together reading in companionable silence, crept along the floor and escaped under the door. Harry cleared his throat again, at a loss. How exactly would he go about comforting someone who was going to transform into a werewolf anyway? I'm sure it's not that bad? Maybe you'll like it? Everything he thought of seemed insulting and ridiculous.

"You don't have to," Draco said, now with a hint of the misery he must have been feeling behind the wall of his face, "it won't change anything. There's nothing that could comfort me now."

Harry's mind was racing again, riffling through thoughts and memories on how to comfort people, something he had never been good at. He thought about how other people did it - Ron would be no good. Lupin only had to smile, but Harry didn't have a smile like that. Tonks would crack a joke, but Harry didn't think that would be appropriate towards someone like Draco. Hermione! That was it! Hermione would... she would...

He followed the instructions of how she would comfort him or Ron as if her voice was in his head, telling him with an air of authority exactly what to do.

Don't seem like you completely oppose what he's saying, or he'll get annoyed with you... Hermione had used that on Ron a few times and Draco, though he hid it, was nearly as easy to anger as Ron was.

"I know that there isn't much I can do," Harry agreed with a sinking of his stomach - there really wasn't and it pained him, "but I just wanted to see you before you retired to your room."

He cautiously looked at Draco to gauge his reaction - he nodded, his eyelids fluttering slightly, and he did, as far as Harry could tell, look slightly more positive. Harry tried step number two in his half-formed plan. Make him look forwards, to the future, when the ordeal will be over with. Distract some of his focus.

"And I wanted to say that I'll visit you tomorrow, afterwards, if you'd like?" Harry looked at Draco properly this time, who gave a short nod but kept his gaze firmly from Harry.

"I would." He replied, his voice unnaturally monotonous, even more seemingly emotionless than it was normally.

Harry smiled - it was certainly admirable how calm Draco was trying to appear, but he wanted to show him that it didn't have to be that way. He tentatively lifted one hand and Draco immediately stared at it, although Harry didn't know whether it was a stare that stated 'back off' or one of mere interest at what the hand was possibly going to do. He decided to take the risk, and placed it on Draco's shoulder.

***

It even surprised Draco himself, given that he was used to strange reactions lately, how simply Potter's hand immediately caused him to feel like he was completely on fire. The burn started blossoming at his shoulder, dark red flowers of pure energy, and spread through him, making him want to sigh and close his eyes in pleasure. He didn't even bat the hand away, as part of his brain was telling him to do in a distant voice.

For one, it calmed him like nothing else, not even Potter's voice, could have - and he needed a source of peace like that for his jangling nerves and chaotic senses which were now focused purely on one thing - attraction.

He even let himself sink further back into the sofa, his body before having been tense and unmoving, and took a deep breath. He didn't dare look at Potter, who was probably growing increasingly confused as Draco's showing of anything that was not icy composure. Well, Draco thought, he's being confusing too - since when did Potter even want to touch me?

They stayed like that for a few minutes, Potter's hand a beautiful weight on Draco's shoulder. Draco's mind entertained thoughts of furthering the intimacy, yet in an abstract way - he did not truly expect Potter to be comfortable with anything beyond one hand on one shoulder, and he wasn't completely at home with the ideas popping up in his brain either, no matter how tempting they sounded. Also, ideas too clear could cause him to have an erection, which just was not going to happen.

Then the weight, sadly, was taken away, though Harry's smile aimed at him did lessen the disappointment a little bit. "Sorry, but I promised Ron that we'd tackle our Potions assignment together today - Hermione's refusing to help this time."

The wolf growled, but Draco told it to shut up. It had had its precious time with Potter now.

Now, he thought as Potter walked away with one last glance at him, it is time to transform.

"Okay," he forced himself to say, "I'll see you tomorrow."

Sorry there's been such a space in-between posts... can I cite recent exams and coursework deadlines as an excuse? Yes, I think I will :P

An abundance of gratitude to Merthurtilidie (sorry, no full moon yet! I spent too much time writing filler XD) egoXlockheart (does this prove that I don't update all the time? Heh.) Imperial Mint (definitely wolfy-wolf - I've always imagined werewolves that way, no matter how the films portray them!) Yana5 (patience, it will happen! I couldn't not let it really XD) miss quirky bookworm (I think Ron's okay now...) Draco and Hermione is like PBJ (Thanks! I often see you reviewing stories I've also reviewed - we must both have good taste ^^) funnyducky (no worries, you don't have to leave a review for every chapter! I love hearing from you any time! Also, I do happen to have a little idea about Hermione and werewolf literature... all shall be revealed later...) and nylondon (thanks for reviewing!)

Also, I want to give lots of love to all my subscribers - I can't believe it's at 150 now - I feel so grateful to you all, I've never had a story to this level of popularity before! Thank you all ^^

- purplerawr

p.s. Isn't Lackadaisical such a fantastic word? I felt I had to include it!