Title: Stars, Hide Your Fires
Author: Aristide Cauquemaire
Pairing: HP/DM
Rating: M for grown-up language, some hotness and a sh*tload of drama
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Whoops, a bit late again! Gah, sorry!
Thanks to CaiKa and LaDiE AkEginU o.0.o for following and/or fav'ing my story! And a virtual hug to Collette Nicole for the review! (I'm afraid you're not going to like this chapter's ending any more than the last one's. So sorry. I am just not a nice person.)
This one is really goddamn short. My apologies. I couldn't segment it any other way.
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-/Chapter 24/-
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Draco hardly recognizes him. His expression is so raw.
"Have me?" is all he manages weakly in response.
The desperately irate stranger dissolves in an instant, and Potter lets his hand go. Draco numbly sinks back onto his chair and rubs his sore wrist. All the while he finds he cannot break eye contact.
"I desire you, Draco," Potter says, slowly and clearly enunciating every syllable, stressing the second word so there is no room for doubt. "And I know that you once thought you might desire me as well. But I know that it appals and frightens you. So much so that I can never have you."
Draco knows that he hopes for him to contradict. Suddenly, unexpectedly, he finds himself hoping for the same, but there is a hard knot in his throat.
The distant sound of a car horn reminds him that the front door is still open.
He remains seated.
"This is a side effect from the implantation spell," Draco finally says. He is not sure how the words make it past that knot. "My dreams somehow- festered. It isn't really you."
"You're right," Potter accedes calmly, then tilts his head. "And you're wrong."
"This is all my fault." I corrupted you and this is my punishment.
For me to hear you say those three words.
"Yes," Potter again agrees, and again shakes his head next. "And no."
"Potter, this is-"
"Unnatural?" he prompts, and Draco falls silent so he answers himself. "Yes. No. Perhaps. Who cares?" He shrugs. "Is it really important?"
Before he can answer – a choked 'Yes, it is!' is on his tongue – he continues, "You see, ever since it started, I agonised over this. You, figuratively and literally, put the idea of you and me into my head. It is therefore not my own. It's not my own desire. It is artificial, and therefore it is false."
Potter turns his head to look out of the window. Draco follows his eyes. Raindrops are racing across the pane.
"But isn't-" He licks his lips. "Isn't just- flirting essentially the same?" Potter suddenly asks as if to himself.
Draco isn't sure if he is serious although the idea of him joking in a situation like this is hard to stomach.
"The whole point of making advances to somebody else," Potter continues almost absently, "is to put the idea of a relationship into their mind. If this idea catches or not depends on the person who is being flirted with, but ultimately, one must argue that it wasn't that person's original idea either. It is equally artificial, but we wouldn't call it false because that person was- favourably disposed towards it."
As if coming out of a reverie, Potter looks back at him again.
"I caught your idea, Draco. I had the disposition. So you might have provided the spark, but it is my flame. It is my desire."
A tense moment passes, then breaks when Potter shrugs.
"In the end, I guess it is impossible to know which one is true." He pushes his glasses up on his nose. "Likewise, no one can tell me whether all things are always on the same trajectory anyway. Like, if we hadn't done the spell, maybe I would have felt the same eventually. Or not. If you had taken me up on my offer to find a capable lawyer who would have handled everything for you, maybe I would never have wasted another thought on you and all this for the rest of my life. Or maybe your first few words from our first meeting at the café would have haunted me forever. Like they do now," he adds with a frustrated huff.
It seems that I desperately want to have sex with you, Draco remembers himself saying. Although it is only a month ago and although the general condition hasn't changed at all, it already seems like a distant dream.
"Maybe, if you hadn't come to the café that Friday, I would have hunted you down, out of- out of a sense of obligation, or maybe I would have gone to Wales with my colleagues to hunt down Thorfinn Rowle with them instead. Maybe," he breathlessly continues, "maybe if your father had been a slightly better man, I wouldn't have had a reason to turn down your handshake when we were eleven, and I wouldn't have refused the hat when it tried to put me into Slytherin. Who knows, we would've been more like Al and Scorpius. Maybe, maybe, maybe."
Draco can find nothing sensible to say. His head is spinning.
"In the end, all I can possibly know for sure is that I want you. I want you so badly it aches, so please- please believe me. And let me keep the memories. That is all I ask." His breath trembles again. "That is all I know I can ask of you."
It is not possible to stand that look another second.
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the frayed strip of shirt fabric Potter had given him at the room 419. With a violent motion, he undoes the knot.
There is no sound or sensation about it this time. His fingernails hurt, that is all. He tosses the rag onto the table carelessly.
He gets up and takes a step toward the door, then turns around as he reaches into his pocket a second time.
With a force that makes the makeshift pensieve saucer jump, he slams the two dice on the table. Potter seems startled and watches him leave, wide-eyed and silent.
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When he looks back to this moment later, he is not sure why he did what he did. Potter had merely asked him to not obliviate him, to release him from that vow he had made. He is not sure why he didn't stay another moment so Potter could obliviate those six imaginations from him that he can feel quickly spreading through his bloodstream.
Perhaps, he reasons, he needed to show him that there was more that he could have asked of him after all.
/ TBC
Only one more chapter and an epilogue to go. I'm going to post them both (!) tomorrow to make up for the shortness of this one.
Thank you for reading!