It was all Potter's fault.
Looking back, if he hadn't of kissed me in an act of bravery I wouldn't be here.
Here: in the middle of a school corridor getting pummeled by kids of different ages and houses.
Ah yes, diversity.
My back arches as shoes push into it, probably looking to break something. The kids above me snicker like they've seen something funny. Maybe they have-me writhing in pain on the ground acting like a worm in the dirt would be funny to me. But me, being the worm that's in pain, makes this not fun nor funny. More shoes stomp on my body and my hands automatically move to cover my head. If any part of me should come out of this unharmed, it should be my head. You know, the thing I use that holds my brain that helps me to do all bodily functions and think? Yea that part.
The shoes only stop when a sound echoes from down the corridor. The kids slowly stop kicking; a few take their foot off of me while others just lay their foot on top of me, keeping me down. I get the message: I am less than them. I don't deserve to stand up.
The feet finally move when the kids hear the sound of a person's shoes running against the ground. They grab their backpacks they had slung in their rush to kick me and dash down the hall, their feet moving comically like in cartoons. The person who was running comes up to me. I stay looking at their feet- just in case they're one of the kids who think I should bow down to them.
"Draco." The voice above me says.
Potter. I should've known. His hero complex really needs to be checked out down at Mungo's. I quickly (and painfully) pull myself up, making sure to put distance between me and him. My back throbs and my legs feel like they're about to give out, but I stand with all the dignity I can muster. A few seconds of silence pass. I pretend to dust off dust from my shirt and shoulders, steadily ignoring him.
He calls my name again with demand in his voice, causing me to look up at him.
Potter steps towards me, looking at me wordily. I take about five steps back and almost trip as I do so.
"What the hell, Potter?" I demand, glaring at him. He doesn't say anything for a few moments and because of this my fury at him grows.
"What are you doing here," I pause, opening my arms to indicate where 'here' is "and why did you come?"
We both already know the answer. I just want to hear him say it out loud- to admit that he thinks I'm incompetent of doing anything without his help.
"Answer me!"
"You needed help. So I ca-"
"I needed help? I needed help? From who? From you?" The mere thought of this has me laughing. "Oh St. Potty, I need your help! I can't survive without you!" Potter doesn't say anything. He simply just stands there looking at me. I taunt him a few more times, just to see if I can get a reaction out of him.
Nothing.
Knowing that Potter saw me at one of my worst moments embarrasses me. I hate that he saw me vulnerable; weak; small.
"Go. To. Hell."
"Dra-" He calls out as I turn on my heel to walk away.
"Go to hell!" I flip him off with my back turned. I turn down the next hall then break into a run; not stopping until I reach the Slytherin dorms.
This isn't the first time it's happened, but it is the first time Potter has seen it happen. As I mentioned earlier, all of this was Potter's fault.
He had decided sometime after we had come back for 8th year that he liked me. And I had decided that I hated him. (Can you tell who was more dedicated to their decision?) So it began- the countless days of him flirting with me and sitting beside me in classes and talking to me for no reason. At first I had been annoyed. What did the chosen one want with me, an ex death-eater, who tried to kill him? But after a while, I had gotten used to his flirting and talking-liking it, even. It had made me smile, blush, and like the fact that someone could ever like me. That didn't mean that I wanted Potter to make an actual move on me.
What did I expect? Potter never does what people want him to.
An early November morning found me and Potter down by the lake. I was sketching the beautiful landscape, my pencil brushing against the paper and the constant rustling of leaves across the ground being the only sound to our ears. I was about half-way through when I felt Potter's eyes on me. Did I enjoy having his attention? Sure. It's nice to be looked at; adored even. But then Potter started to move closer. Soon enough, he was crouching right behind me, so close that I could smell his cologne. The smell carried as a breeze hit us, and I tried to bite back a smile as he intruded my senses.
"Where did you learn to draw like that?" Potter asked from behind me.
"I'm self taught."
"Self taught?"
"It means I taught myself how to draw." I explain. Potter laughs, his black curls bouncing a bit as he does so. "I know what self-taught means. I just was wondering how you taught yourself."
"I don't know? I just started drawing one day and went from there." I turn back to my sketchbook and start sketching again, completely aware of Potter's presence next to me. My hand gracefully sketches out the trees that rim the lake, trying to capture every one in the small sized paper.
Eventually, Potter gets bored (I guess) and starts playing with my hair. I had run out of gel today and had owled my father to buy me more, but in the meantime I was stuck with whatever my hair was doing now. I tell Potter about my hair problem.
"What?" Potter asks, drawing out the a to make the word dramatic. "I love your hair like this. It's all free and soft and silky." He continues to run his hands through my hair and I catch myself almost falling into his hands. After a while, his hands start traveling towards my neck and I mess up a few lines in my sketch. "What are you doing, Potter?" I asked, trying to turn my neck around. "You're messing up my drawing."
He apologizes, giving me one of his sheepish grins.
Putting my sketchbook and pencil on the grass, I turn away from my half-finished drawing and look up at Potter. "Stop apologizing for everything-it's annoying." I move to rest my arms and then my head onto one of his legs.
"Sorry."
Raising my eyebrows, I put my head back up and give a 'are you serious' gesture. Potter only then seems to realize that he apologized for apologizing about everything. He catches my eye and we both start laughing. Being with Potter means I'm carefree. I have no problems in the world right now- not even the one on my lower right arm. When I looked up at Harry again, he seems to be closer to me than he was before. For some reason I don't pull away as he leans in towards me. We end up face to face, looking into each other's eyes. And then he gives me the faintest kiss-his lips barely brushing mine. He pulls back for a second, maybe to catch his breath, or swallow the fact the he just kissed Draco Malfoy, his 'enemy' (haha), and then he leans back in and crushes my body into his while he kisses me. My arms wrap around his neck and my fingers clutch at his shirt. The kiss isn't soft, and it isn't rough, but it's hot and it's just right, and oh merlin that's overwhelming. I murmur a quiet "Harry" and he kisses me deeper and pulls me impossibly closer to him.
I never call him Harry.
Ever.
We pull apart after a while, panting and looking at each other every few minutes. My heart is beating wildly and I want more. My fingers itch to clutch his shirt again, and I want to be closer to him. Potter seems to be thinking the same thing I am because the next thing I know I'm sitting in his lap, kissing him feverishly.
Ok, ok. So It wasn't exactly all of Potter's fault that we kissed, but he did play a very big role in how our kiss happened. He insinuated it at the least. (And at the most.)
It is Potter's fault however that I constantly face bullies and get pummeled in our school's hallways. When our relationship first started, the bullies weren't bad. There was the occasional teasing and hitting but nothing too bad. But soon people started to take steps further. They would grope me between classes, running their arms up my legs in class. They would push me into walls, and sometimes, if they were feeling generous, into the ground. I tried to stop it- I would purposely sit alone during class and make sure nobody sat beside me. I would run from class to class and never, ever be outside without somebody with me.
But it wasn't enough.
It was never enough.
I've tried telling Potter about it. There have been several times where I've pulled him aside and tried to explain to him what was happening to me. But in the end, I think about this past year and his life.
Voldemort. The grief he has on his shoulders of so many people dying. The constant stress of the media. The Ministry pushing him to become an auror.
He doesn't need my problems on top of that. He doesn't need me on top of that.
Today was the first day Potter had caught anyone doing anything to me. He's suspected, of course. He's not a dolt. (I hope.)
He's asked me, while we were lying in bed, our bodies cooling from our previous activities, if something or someone was bothering me. I would always lie and shake my head no, smiling at him and making fun of him for being so overprotective. I don't know if he knew something was going on or just thought I was off.
But today would most likely confirm his suspicions. I know Potter isn't the brightest bulb in the box, but he does have some brains. Laying across my bed, I see the sketchbook that had witnessed Potter and I's first kiss. It's pages aren't on the sketch of the lake anymore, but instead on a portrait of Potter's face.
We had just been talking to each other, lazily hanging out on my bed when I had grabbed my sketchbook and started drawing. I started with the view from my window (a pretty little tree that owls love to come and hang out in), but then Potter had asked me to draw him.
"It's gonna look bad," I told him, swatting his hands away as he tried to cup my face.
"Come on, angel. Please?" Harry begged. My nose scrunched in disgust at the awful nickname he had just given me.
"First of all, stop with the 'angel' thing. I am not your little angel!" Harry had only smiled and wrapped his hands around my face. 'Oh," he told me, kissing me lightly. "But you are."
After more persuasion from him, I had finally agreed to draw Potter's face. It was only half-done however, because half-way through drawing it Harry had gotten bored and distracted himself with uh other things.
A knock at the door pulls me out of my thoughts and I stand up. Instead of going towards the door, however, I go towards the sketchbook and turn the page over, making Potter's face disappear from view.
"Draco? Angel? Are you in there?"
Speak of the devil.
Part of me wants to run to the door, open it, and throw my arms around Potter and kiss the living hell out of him. Another part wants to draw this out, and make Potter feel the emotional hurt that I felt physically.
But another part, a third part, wants to hear what Potter has to say.
And you know what they say: Curiosity killed the cat. (Or the angel, in my situation.)
Potter calls my name again and I stalk slowly towards the door.
Barely making any noise, I slide open the hatch and open the door just slightly. Potter comes into view, his hair as wild as ever and his eyes a bit puffy. Guilt swirls around in my gut. I made him get stressed. Over me. The thought of Potter, who a few months ago was just my enemy, standing at my door crying over me almost makes me laugh. But the sight of him kills my thoughts.
I want to be alone. I can't do this right now: being here with him, having to see him-I start to panic and hastily try to close the door.
"Wait-wait!" Potter calls from outside the door, his foot stuck between the door and the door frame. "Please just hear me out."
I stop trying to close the door on Potter's poor shoe and listen. For a few moments the only thing I hear is my jagged breathing and the sound of the castle moving. But then I slow my breath, and the castle stops moving, and everything is quiet.
"You don't need me."
"Potter, I-"
"No. Let me finish."
I stay quiet. Potter is delusional if he thinks I don't need him. He's helped me get through everything. He's the reason why I endure all the bullying and sexual harassment. He's my everything. I would do anything for him-anything really- and all he would have to do is ask.
"You don't need me to protect you 24/7. You're capable of taking care of yourself."
Oh.
Oh Potter. Sweet, sweet, caring Potter.
"A-And I know I overreacted earlier when I found you and I should've trusted that you had it, but Draco, Merlin, it made me so angry that they had their dirty, nasty shoes on you like you're beneath them or something.
I am.
"You're-you're more than that. You're a smart, witty, gorgeous person who people judge based off of one rash decision. You're amazing at, like, everything you do and gosh, Draco, please, Morgana, don't leave me over this. I-I need you. I'm so, so sorry."
Potter goes silent after his apology and he removes his foot from between the door. I know that he wants to see me. To see my face. To touch me. I want to do the exact same thing to him. Finally, I croak up.
"You know, you really should stop apologizing for everything you do Potter. It gets annoying."
Please, Potter. Get what I'm trying to do here. Please. Understand me.
The door opens slowly and Potter's there, smiling a bit at me. "I'm sorry." And then he steps close and gathers me up into his arms, his head going above my head and his arms trapping my waist close to his. I all but sink into him, clutching him tightly; holding him close.
"Harry." I say, his name like a prayer on my lips. He holds me tighter, kissing me everywhere he can kiss me, gathering me as good as he can.
"Draco-angel." He says back, and I smile into his shoulder.
It's only later, when we're both laying on my bed, my head in his lap, that I tell him why I was really upset-and what has really been happening these last few months.
"It started just when we started to date. They apparently didn't care that we were friends before that..."
Potter listened to my story of me being harassed these last few months and being bullied by kids. He listened as I described what had happened earlier today in detail and why I was really upset.
"I wasn't upset because you came to save me. No-I expect that of you. That's just you. I was upset that you saw me at my lowest point: beat up, scarred, and dirty on the ground beneath feet. You had your heart in the right place and you did what any sane person would've done." I took a deep breath and said the next sentence so fast I would be surprised if he even heard me. "It's not your fault and I'm sorry I yelled at you."
I didn't realize I had been crying until Potter had gathered me up in his arms again, kissing me softly and mumbling sweet nothings. He told me this wasn't my fault and he understood why I was upset at him and why I was upset in general.
Such a gentleman.
Potter assured me that something would be done about the people bothering me.
"Oh really?" I drawled, pulling back from him and wiping the tears off of my face.
"Yea!"
"Like what? You're gonna walk me to class everyday and be my personal bodyguard until the bullying stops?"
"Yep."
"Harry, I love you and all but that re-"
I stopped myself. I glanced up at Harry to see if he had noticed or not.
He did.
"You love me?" He asked me quietly. I tried to shake my head no and deny that I even said that. I had 100 witty comments floating around my head reading to launch at any moment. But then, after a deep breath, I realized something: I do love Potter. I love him and his insufferable self to the ends of Earth and back again. All I could do was nod at him.
A moment went by and I gained more confidence. "Yes."
As more time passed my confidence seemed to double. "I love you." I said slowly, testing it out on my tongue. I was rewarded with a huge smile from Harry. I smiled back and said it again, a bit louder.
"I love you."
"I love you too, Draco."
Well damn.
My heart just exploded.
Not literally though. If it did I would be dead.
After we had admitted that we loved each other, Harry and I had sat there, grinning like idiots at each other. My smile would not fall off my face and, to be honest, I wasn't even annoyed by it. We had walked hand-in-hand to the Great Hall, talking and sharing kisses among the way. We had to separate to eat, but as soon as dinner was over we were right back next to each other.
Harry and I decided to go down to the lake before the night was over. We stood against a tree, me wrapped in his arms as he stood behind me.
"You know this is where we first kissed, right?" He asked me, holding me a bit tighter.
"Of course I know that. It was one of the scariest days of my life." Harry takes a deep breath and puts his face into the space between my neck and shoulder.
"You're mine, angel." He tells me, his voice muffled by my body.
"I know."