A Matter of Belief

By Green

Pairing: Ron/Draco

Series: 'What Matters' Series 2/3

Sequel to 'A Matter of Trust', you won't have a clue what happens here unless you've read that

Disclaimer: Not mine. Well, apart from the Fitch-Harris Cup for Personal Bravery in the Face of Malfunctioning Broomsticks which is entirely my fault.

Rating: R - more or less

Warnings: Slash, violence, naughty words and god knows when they did their homework assignments

Notes: This part is in Draco POV.

I don't know whether ff.n allows this, but I want to rec the excellent art (much of which is R/D) of the great Lizard, who can be found at http:lizardjunk.tk/ Some of the best HP art you are likely to encounter plus she makes v. cool LJ icons

~~~~~~~~~~

'Ron! Ron! Ron, can you hear me?'

I'm calling him, over and over, calling, calling, wanting him to look up, to let me know they haven't fucking * killed * him. I'm straining with all my might - reaching-, trying to get to him, trying to get free, desperately - wildly, with a panic I didn't know I could feel, but a boy and a girl have my arms bent up agonisingly behind my back and I can't escape without breaking my bones.

There are maybe fifteen, twenty people here. Mostly boys. I watched Ron earlier, trying to see them, his eyes burning in the light. I felt terrible, because it was my fault he couldn't see. It must be ten times worse for him, not knowing how many there are, or who they are.

But then, maybe it's better he doesn't know.

Seamus.

Blaise.

Colin.

Lavender.

Quite a few Slytherins, yes, but at least equal numbers of Hufflepuffs, some Ravenclaws and by far more Gryffindors than anyone else.

They're fucking drunk is what they are. They've stumbled out of Hogsmeade, wondered what to do with their evening, and been like, hey, let's beat up the fags…

We knew our relationship wasn't exactly popular, but this?

Colin Creevey looks like he's about to throw up, but he's standing there all the same. Yelling: Traitor, bastard, sicko, pervert, traitor, traitor, traitor…

I should have anticipated this, shouldn't have let my guard down for a second when I heard them coming and went to see who it was. But they were too fast and too unexpected and recently I've forgotten how important it is to mistrust everyone you see, and so I'm standing here * screaming * at him to tell me that he's OK.

Finally he looks up, and I wince at the way his face is bleeding and bruised.

But it didn't look hurt until he saw me.

And as the crowd drag me off and upstairs, trying to decide whether to throw me in the Lake or pit me against the Whomping Willow, all I can see is the hurt and disgust in his eyes.

And I understand.

I understand what he thinks just happened… I understand that he honestly can believe I'd do this to him…

Oh god, Ron…

Why the fuck was I deluded enough to think he ever could trust me?

~~~~~~~~~~

That was one hell of a day, the first time...

And 'one heaven of a day' isn't an expression, but…

Ever since he'd started playing me at my own game I'd begun questioning my own motives... Started to realize that he drove me crazy in all kinds of ways, more than I'd ever thought of…

I was so surprised afterwards when he told me that he was literally feeling his way, that he never had a long-term game plan for his actions.

I can't imagine not planning ahead. Not knowing the timetable for the next hour, next day and next decade. My life is more or less set in stone. It doesn't matter what grades I get or what I have them in, what job I get or if I even get one - my destiny is to sit on the Malfoy millions, produce another heir and maybe aid an uprising of Evil should the need arise.

Or at least, that was my destiny. Maybe for a short while it was even one I wanted.

How to put it? 'Dad, I have to tell you - me - not really a breeder if you know what I'm saying?'

And I hated it, hated myself, until the day I discovered that being like this meant I had a shot at Ron Weasely. Well, I say a shot; I figured I could play him for a while - really get to him and wind him up. Then, when I had him crazy, I would have him, writhing and uncomfortable and desperate, and leave him behind with the last of my innocence.

I thought I would have control.

~~~~~~~~~~

Maybe to him that seemed like my idea today. Control. But I wasn't thinking of that, I was thinking of trust.

Not even a blindfold would have been acceptable, I wanted him to trust me to lead him here because he had a free choice and he chose to… I just wanted to know if he felt…safe, with me. He knows how hard I find it to believe words, promises, how little I am able to trust people, but actions…actions are truer than words. All that was waiting down here was my happiness; I was going to explain it all.

Explain myself. My feelings. Try and tell him that I…tell him everything.

…I wanted him to * want * to trust me…

I believed he could.

~~~~~~~~~~

After that day…that crazy, angry, * hot *….well, shag…that corridor I could never walk down afterwards. After that it all began.

At first he avoided me, I think, but we saw each other in the Great Hall that evening at dinner. We had to. I couldn't eat, I couldn't think, I couldn't do anything but stare at him. At his beautiful lips and unruly red hair - unruly because of…my hands ran through there…and other places…and he…

Staring back at me…unable to talk to his friends…transfixed like me.

It was one thought, one idea, one total obsession: Horny. Absolutely and purely that.

Bread rolls. Main Course. Seconds. Pudding. Announcements. Tea and Coffee.

By the end of it I was * aching * for him.

And when I ran outside to the Lake just to get away from it all, he was already there.

We met in silence. It wasn't like there was anything we could possibly have said. This wasn't supposed to have happened, and yet…I can't explain what I felt just then…as if, for the first time in my life, I had no idea what I was doing or why.

And yet I knew exactly why. Because of him.

I could see it in his eyes Maybe this isn't exactly what I wanted but I want to get laid more than I want to quibble.

I felt the same. Because that was all it was.

No it wasn't.

Malfoys talk about power a lot, you know. But in the end if you want to have power over someone that badly then it's them that have the power over you.

~~~~~~~~~~

Oh god, Ron…

I don't know how he is, I'm terrified that he's passed out and that he'll choke on his tongue. I'm so angry with him. I'm ready to lash out at him in any way imaginable.

But I want to go and hold him, near and safe and warm.

The fact that they're dragging, pushing, kicking me to the Lake is an almost welcome distraction.

These kids feared me, once. Before.

These fucking shits thought that * I * was evil?

They're getting tired, some of them, I can see the fear in their eyes, the realization of what they're doing, but this just means they can't stop, they can't question themselves now.

I say we show the world!

One of them seems to have become the ringleader. I don't even want to know who.

I say we show them what he is!

Screams of assent, and they grab my right arm, hold the other behind my back even tighter so I gasp in pain, dragging me stumbling along corridors, paths, over grass, rocks…

I can't be here; I have to go somewhere else…

~~~~~~~~~~

I suppose it's been eight weeks since all this started - we never exactly kept anniversaries, because at first it was so underhand, so side-bracketed from 'real life'. Nooks and crannies of time just like the dark corners we met in.

And at first we argued. A lot. More, actually, than we had done before. I was really, really unkind to him and his friends for a while, and he got various tricks from his brothers and played them on me - nasty ones. When we met at the other times we didn't speak. Maybe we truly believed that there was nothing to say, that all we had in common was hatred.

But that was getting harder and harder to believe. Harder and harder to want to believe. We were learning about each other in a million silent ways and I * knew* - I knew what made him shiver and what made him grit his teeth so hard the veins in his head stood out.

I knew how to make his pale, freckled hands with their long thin fingers grab onto me and just hold me, and how to make his eyes glaze over slowly or roll back in surprised ecstasy…

And he, clever bastard, knew how to make me do all that stuff.

And so, when I saw him, the anger and fear was going. When he walked into a room I just wanted to grin and maybe kiss him, or, dear god, hug him. Pavlov, right? See Ron, now drool… Fine, so he turned me on, and he was bloody good at it, so what? I hated him.

But you see, I didn't.

I tried, you know, to find reasons to. There weren't any. He was interesting, funny, *hot *…he didn't seem brainwashed by the whole Gryffindor thing, his sense of humour was pleasantly warped and he played a mean game of chess.

The fact that I couldn't dislike him made me more annoyed with him than any actual quality of his personality…

The bizarre thing was how quickly he figured out that I was worrying more than he was. We still weren't talking in the communicating sense of the word, but sometimes- afterwards - his eyes would widen and he looked…concerned. Then maybe, I don't know, the fifth time or something, an early-morning rendezvous, he just reached out and gently started straightening my hair. Like, caring.

Well I freaked out well and good.

'What the * fuck * are you doing?' I slapped his hand away and ran off with my shirt under my arm, leaving him gasping and outraged on the floor.

Which, you would think, would make us argue more. He'd pissed me off and I had to have annoyed him pretty bad too. But instead of being angry I was just really, really scared. I felt terrified that he was going to ignore me, or be angry. I couldn't stop worrying, couldn't stop wishing it was already Potions just so I could see him, figure out if he would ever let me near him again.

Don't misunderstand, I was being one selfish bastard. I never once worried if he was hurt, if he was going through the mess I was. One of the perks of never having had a functional relationship was never thinking of stuff like that.

But already I wasn't thinking that I could just go and command him to come to me and he would. I got that whoever did work that way, he didn't.

~~~~~~~~~~

It hurts. Pain and red and hurting so much.

But worse is that thought, over and over, He thinks I would do this, He thinks I would do this, He thinks I wanted to do this…

I am * not * going to fucking cry for them…

~~~~~~~~~~

Trying to apologise in an aloof manner to the guy you are having it off with almost every day whilst both of you are in a Potions lesson and ostensibly worst enemies is quite a challenge.

My stomach flipped when I saw him. He looked unhappy, and angry, and sat at the other end of the classroom, with Harry and Hermione between him and me.

I looked at him and then looked down when he looked and then looked up so that he looked away quickly, trying to pretend he wasn't looking.

It wasn't funny at the time. It was hell. Not helped by the fact that he was still wearing the same shirt he'd had on…this morning. Rumpled, and I could see he hadn't repaired where the third button down had been ripped off in our haste and So. Very. Sexy.

But what could I do? How could I talk to him? Oh, yeah…that would work.

On the way out of the lesson I called out:

'A pity your friend doesn't share, isn't it Weasley?'

'Malfoy?' His tone was icy, seriously irritated. His eyebrows were in clear 'What the fuck now?' alignment.

'Time turners? Like the one Granger's been using oh-so-secretly again this term for the NEWTS? I was just thinking that you could use one.'

'OK, Malfoy, skip to the cruel point and let us move on.'

Harry Potter thinks he's so witty. Stupid 'I-could-afford-designer-glasses-but-I-think-these-make-me-cute' little twat.

'Well, Weasley, it would give you a chance to rethink that shirt as a choice of clothing for a human being. Or you could go back to when they were actually fashionable, like when it was bought for your older brother. Don't you ever want that? A chance to go back and not do something stupid you now regret?'

And on that last sentence, * my * eyebrows were trying to communicate pretty hard.

He spent three seconds looking unbelievingly angry, then suddenly I could practically see the lightbulb switch on inside his head. He started one of those gorgeous face-splitting grins that make my knees tremble, then caught himself.

'Go drown yourself in the Lake, Malfoy.'

And so that was settled to mutual satisfaction. Later, at the lakeside, he did an imitation of me trying to insult him and apologise at the same time and the weird thing was that even as I hit out in protest, I knew I wasn't really cross.

And then we had a kind of wrestling match and the usual turn of events occurred.

But afterwards, in the cooling air and nearness, I reached out to him. He turned to look at me, deep into the eyes and I felt…kind.

I don't like it, quite. It's a dangerous feeling to have. Makes you too vulnerable, too powerless.

It freaked me out, or at least I was aware that it should have done. And yet…it's hard to worry about things you enjoy. I mean, at least you can write them off as urges, instincts, you know?

It's when you begin to get altruistic that the freaking out truly begins…

~~~~~~~~~~

There's a red mist over my vision, I can feel searing pain all over and I think my shoulder's dislocated.

The blood in my mouth tastes of mud now.

Maybe they've gone.

I can't see.

I can see, just not with my eyes right now…

~~~~~~~~~~

We'd arranged to meet one evening by the greenhouses. I mean, actually arranged, finally acknowledging that this was happening, that this existed.

Except he didn't turn up.

I strode up and down in the cold for about ten minutes, feeling annoyed, then angry, then worried. Had I offended him again?

I could have walked away. Jacked off in the shower. Found some girl, even, it was easily done.

But I didn't.

For whatever reasons, and I certainly didn't know what they were they were at the time, I went looking for him around the school. He was in the caretaker's office - they'd set him cleaning the silverware for about the hundredth time in his life. I swear, they should get another cup to engrave his name on for that.

Well, you can imagine it; I looked around the door, saw him and sighed. I couldn't help it, I mean, he was clearly not getting away that evening, which was my plans shot. I couldn't be with him tonight, not the way I wanted. I couldn't get any pleasure now.

And yet, when he looked up and saw me, I somehow walked into the room and squatted on my heels next to him and the Fitch-Harris Cup for Personal Bravery in the Face of Malfunctioning Broomsticks, which was still three-quarters silver oxide.

'Having fun?'

'I'm sorry, Draco, I had to come straight here, they wouldn't even let me go to the toilet, so I couldn't get a message to you.' His tone was light, but he seemed a bit defensive.

'Why are you here?' I was expecting, well, actually, I didn't know, most times he had been in detention it had had something to do with me, and lately it had been far from my interests to put him there.

'I was in a fight.'

'Yeah?'

'With Harry.'

'Excuse me?'

'I was in a fight with Harry.'

'Fuck.'

'It's that surprising, is it? I was going with 'Shit' myself.' He was still way, way too casual, his hand was shining this cup faster and faster and I could almost feel the way his eyes were heating and brimming.

What I did next isn't actually that surprising, relatively speaking, when you bear in mind that if it had been anyone else I would never have even begun the conversation, that if it had been a year ago I would have just insulted his mother and gone, that if it had been a week ago I would have told him the next time I was free for some groping and left.

So my doing * anything * was weird enough. What I did precisely makes no significant difference.

So no huge deal, I kind of, well, patted him slightly. Then he sort of twisted, almost involuntarily, and before I knew it he'd buried his face in my shoulder, arms clinging around my shoulders. And it's like some kind of jerk reaction, you know, if someone does that, you kind of run your fingers into their hair, pull their head into your chest, stroking, one hand circling on their back. The warm scent of hair reaches deep into your nose and you feel a kind of tightening in your chest, because they're * there * you know?

Once this would have been embarrassing, once it would have been awful and stupid and I would have despised him for it, but once a lot of things happened.

I just…I wanted…I've never been good with these kind of words. All I can say is that, as I sat there, squatting uncomfortably with the circulation to my lower leg gradually getting cut off, I didn't think any of this. Just rocked him, soothed him, caressed him.

It was all about him. I don't remember having one individual thought.

And somehow I felt…warm.

After a few minutes he looked up sheepishly and sniffed, scrubbing the back of his hand over his eyes. But he kept one arm around me, and I didn't let my hand off his shoulder.

'Sorry, Draco. It's just…I've never fought with him like that before.'

'What happened?'

He averts his eyes from mine when I ask, and then looks down at the ground:

'They - Harry, Seamus and Dean - were making fun of you. Being really mean. I told them to stop, to grow up.' I could hear the tremble in his voice. 'They thought I was teasing, and so then went on and on. I tried to ignore them, I mean, I guess they're entitled to an opinion.' He glanced up at me with a half-grin and I chuckled, but I feared what would come next.

Sure enough, his brow furrowed and he unconsciously gripped my jumper more tightly:

'You see, finally, they were just throwing names around. Dean said something about you like ''He's such a bastard'' and then…and then Seamus said ''A queer bastard!'' and then Harry, he laughed and laughed like it was the funniest thing, like calling someone gay was the same as saying they were cruel or vindictive or unpleasant or obnoxious. All of them were just spluttering out things like ''Yeah, he's so gay.''. So I punched him. I punched them all. And then MacGonagall came in.'

He looked up at me, full into my eyes. His still shone with the tears, and I felt at that moment such a pure surge of anger towards Harry-fucking-Potter who could be so blind about his so-called best friends. I could see all the anger and distress I felt reflected right there in him, because I felt for him, with him…and come to think of it, I felt pretty damn proud of him beating up my least favourite Gryffindors…and over *me *.

'Ron…'

I didn't have the words; my throat was too tight. I just kissed him.

And this will sound stupid, but it felt like the first time. Like the first time I, knowing who I was and how I felt, had kissed him, knowing who he was and why I wanted to kiss him in the first place.

He held me so tightly.

After the kiss I released him, and he looked up at me, as if he was about to say something, but he just smiled and went back to shining the cup. And all the rest of the evening I sat there on the floor helping him, his head resting gently on my shoulder. We stayed in silence for almost half an hour, but then he asked me some question, and then we talked and talked and talked. Stuff that would seem boring, and some of it was, but you have to understand, we never * saw * each other. Never recognised each other as people when we were kids. It was like we were each some little stereotype to fit into, so we did.

His family, my family, what we like to eat, to wear, sports we follow, music we listen to…just an ordinary conversation in a way, but then we'd always done things backwards hadn't we? For any other couple this would be the first date, random discussion of tastes and habits.

I even said that to him, and he said 'Couple?'

'Couple.'

'Are you going soft in your old age or what?'

'Going soft is the least of my worries right now, Ron, as I'm sure you know.'

And although I meant every inch of the innuendo, it was also true in the way he'd asked.

He raised an eyebrow, gave a sympathetic grimace, and gave me a gentle kiss on the forehead:

'I know alright, mate - trust me, I know _ exactly _ how you feel. Hey! I'll be finished in…um, a few days.' He grinned evilly, which, believe it or not; he is actually far better at doing than me…

I'd always thought, you see, that caring for people made you weaker… That you lost something. But I had him. I * had * him.

~~~~~~~~~~

Blood…mud…water…

…grass…cold…

…aching head too…cuts there…happened?…blurred, not….who?…aches…bleeding.

I raise my head from the ground, and try to lift myself up. I have to go and get help - he'll still be lying there. I have to get to the School doors. I have to get there.

I fall, and curse, and get up again - I * have * to get there. I have to get there or I'll never be able to yell at him. I'll never be able to be mad at him. That fucking bastard just spat on our entire relationship, lowered me to the level of these pigs, mistrusted me, disobeyed me…

Ron….please, just be alright

Don't let them have hurt you.

Please.

* Please *

……… * Ron *…

~~~~~~~~~~

Continued in 'A Matter of Truth' - coming soon !