A/N: Firstly, a
big kiss for Cairnsy! It's her Percy that you see in this Part. Many thanks to
her for letting me use him here. Many thanks to Health and Asuka-san for
beta-ing too.And to those who reviewed Part Two.
This
is Part Three of a romance series between Harry/Draco. Thus those who don't
like slash can back out now.
Enjoy
the story. J
First and Only Love
Part Three
Potions and Whiskeys
For the whole of the next
week, Harry and Draco went out of their ways to ignore each other.
However, there were times when they were forced to stay in the same room.
Friday's Potions, in the dungeons, was one.
"Today, we will be brewing the Curatious Potion.
This is a healing potion that cures minor poisonous bites and stings from
snakes and insects. More serious bites can only be cured with this potion after
the adding of certain essential ingredients." Snape's voice remained a little
higher than a whisper but was heard clearly by every person in the room.
"However, today we will be making the normal potion."
Snape looked around the room. "Can anyone tell me
the main ingredient for this potion?"
As usual, Hermione's hand shot up, and as usual
Snape ignored her.
"Mr. Weasley."
Ron momentarily looked at a loss
for words. "Erm…Ginseng?" Ginseng was an herb well known for its healing
effects. Ron, who had used the Curatious Potion often but never bothered to
find out what its ingredients were, just grabbed at the first herb to
come to mind and prayed for the best.
"That's incorrect." Snape said, pleased. "Ten points
from Gryfinndor. Well, I didn't expect any of you idiots to know anyway." He
continued, ignoring the look of outrage from
Hermione. "The main ingredient for the potion is nightshade."
"What? No way! That's poison!" exclaimed Ron, nearly
jumping up from his seat.
Hermione quickly pulled him down. "Shut up. It's
true," she hissed.
"Twenty points for being
rude," said Snape, amused at the little play. "Nightshade is
poison, but one of the oldest rules in potions is that one poison is often a
cure for another. Poisonous plants are especially often cures for the poison in
snakes."
Snape looked around the room and noted with satisfaction that every
student was furiously taking notes. "Now, nine flowers are also essential
ingredients for this potion. Other than that, there is one last essential
ingredient. Who can tell me what it is?"
He again ignored Hermione's hand. "Mr. Potter?"
Harry looked up guiltily.
"What?" He was only half-listening to Snape and didn't catch the question.
"Thirty points for not paying attention in class," said Snape, annoyed. He always prided himself on being able to keep his students' attention in class, and it being Potter's he'd lost added to his anger. "Mr. Zabini?"
"Erm…some kind of tears?"
"Yes. Fifteen points to Slytherin. As most of you
should know," Snape gave a pointed look to a Harry who seemed to be engaged in
taking notes. "tears are known for their healing powers, with the most notable being phoenix tears. What we will be using
here will be fairy tears, whose healing powers,
while not of the same standard as the phoenix's, are also quite powerful
in their own right. Now all of you will come, one by one, to get your
ingredients. These ingredients are all quite rare and expensive; especially the
fairy tears and the blue opium rose, so be careful with
them. If anything goes wrong, you will not be getting more and will go without your marks for this lesson.
Slytherins come first."
While waiting for their turn, Hermione and Ron
whispered to Harry anxiously.
"Harry, what's with you, you have been acting so
strangely this whole week! And not listening to Snape in class? This is the
last straw! You know he's out to get you!"
Hermione looked down at the parchment that Harry was
using. Except for a few words, namely "nightshade, poison, snake, flowers,
tears", the parchment was simply full of doodles.
"Harry! What's the trouble with you?"
Harry shook his head. All
he'd been able to think of since he'd come into the dungeon was that Draco was
in the same room and he couldn't feel the familiar burning eyes on him.
He wasn't looking at him anymore. Why did that hurt so much?
"Harry! We have to go up to get the ingredients now!
For God's sake, pay attention! Don't lose any more points for Gryfinndor."
Harry stood up listlessly and followed Hermione.
On his way to Snape's table, he bumped into a person walking towards him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a vial filled with golden liquid fall. Instinctively, he caught it before it hit the floor.
Straightening up, he handed the vial to the person.
"Here. Sorry."
When the person took the vial from his hand, he felt
the touch of cold skin. He turned almost immediately. And looked into Draco's
cold eyes.
Ice. Harry knew it was ice he saw in Draco's eyes.
He watched Draco walk away without a word before
letting Hermione pull him to Snape's table to collect his ingredients.
He thought about the
possibility that he had seen a flicker of emotion in Draco's eyes before he had
walked away, as he made the Curatious Potion mechanically.
While he listened to Hermione and Ron talk about how
Snape had taken away another ten points for
deliberately tripping Malfoy, he suddenly thought that he could no longer feel
the fire from Draco's stare because there was now only ice in his eyes.
That night, Harry's dreams were filled with a pair
of icy slate-grey eyes. He woke up shivering. He gave up the idea of getting
more sleep and went down to the common room. Hopefully, the fire there can warm
him from the ice in the eyes that haunted him.
When he stepped into the room, he was surprised to
see a red-headed boy sitting in the armchair in front of the fire.
"Ron?" Before the words left his mouth, he knew it
couldn't be. He just left Ron in the dormitory. He was too tall to be one of
the twins. Before Harry could wonder more, the boy had turned around.
"Percy? What are you doing down here at this time of
the night?"
"Thinking of some stuff. And you? Don't you know it
is way past the first-years' bedtime?"
"I couldn't sleep." Harry answered, sitting down in
the chair opposite.
Percy nodded and they both fell into silence. Harry
thought the prefect looked different that night. He seemed less pompous and
righteous and more unsure of himself, more…vulnerable. He didn't even give him
a lecture on breaking the school rules.
Harry sighed and looked into the fire. It wasn't
warming him up but it was very comforting to look at the orange and red flames
flicker and dance. He thought of the flicker of emotion he thought he saw in
Draco's eyes today and wondered for the thousandth time if it was just his
imagination.
He shook his head to clear his head of the many
images of Draco clogged in there and noticed a movement out of the corner of
his eye. Percy was gripping his right hand tightly and loosening it repeatedly.
He was turning his prefect badge with his left hand.
"What are you doing?" Harry asked, indicating to
Percy's right hand.
Percy looked down at his tightly gripped hand and
loosened it abruptly. "Practicing letting go."
Letting go. Harry lifted his right hand and stared at it. He tightened it into a
fist and relaxed it. And thought of the night he walked away from Draco. He let
something go that night.
"You never know how hard it is to let go until you
have to do it."
Percy seems to be talking more to himself than to Harry.
Harry knew Draco was testing him that night. He knew
the moment Draco refused to look at him. He knew it was a test. Just as he knew
he would not pass it. Could not pass it.
"If you know it is so hard, so painful, why are you
still doing it?" Harry murmured in a voice less than a whisper.
"Sometimes, you don't have a choice."
He couldn't let himself love Draco. The person he
was couldn't love Draco. Not with the Gryffindor background, the firm belief
against everything associated with the Dark Side.
"Sometimes, you don't let yourself have a choice."
Percy whispered, looking at the prefect badge in his left hand.
Something tugged at Harry's heart. Was it really
Harry's background and beliefs stopping him from falling in love with Draco or
was it just Harry himself?
"If you let something, someone go…is it impossible
to get it back?" Was it too late? Did he want it to be too late?
"I don't know." Percy looked up and Harry was
shocked by the amount of anguish in his eyes. "I truly don't know."
Percy stood up and walked to the windows and stared
out of it. He seemed to collect himself. "It's too late Harry, you should go
back to your dorm."
"Right." Harry stood up awkwardly, wondering if he
should say anything. "I'll go up now."
Harry slowly walked across the room and started up
the stairs.
"Harry?"
Harry turned; Percy still stood facing the windows.
Harry saw that he was still clenching and unclenching his fist.
"I hope you never have to find out…if it is possible
to get back what you let go."
Harry walked up to the dormitory without answering.
If you do not want to find out if it was possible to get back what you let go,
you must first never let go. It was too late for that for Harry.
Back in the common room, Percy looked out of the
windows to the Quidditch field where a certain tall Gryffindor captain waited.
Percy knew that he knew. He knew Percy too well.
In the Quidditch field, a
tall Gryffindor waited for Percy to come down to break his heart.
The next day Harry walked desolately to the
Gryfinndor Common room. He carried a huge pile of
books Hermione had made him borrow. She and
Ron were still at the library researching for clues as to who Flamel was. Harry
just couldn't make himself care for the research now. After catching him
staring off into space for what must be the fiftieth time, Hermione had finally
given up and told him to go back and get some rest. However, she had told him
to carry the pile of books back so that she could continue researching
even after the library closed.
The books towered so high
that they blocked Harry's view, therefore
he couldn't see who it was when he was suddenly knocked down.
"Hey!" he cried, as he scrambled to get up. But his
specs were knocked askew so his vision was blurred. He only saw a familiar
figure walking away.
When he finally managed to stand up and right his
specs, there were only a few second years standing
aside laughing and a couple of fourth years walking by.
He shrugged and bent down to pick up the books, stacking them up so that he could carry them back to the common room. Nothing much could catch his interest those days. Except a pair of cold slate-grey eyes.
Suddenly, he noticed a piece of parchment lying on
one of the books, Famous Wizards of the Sixteenth Century. He picked it
up and turned it over.
Meet me at the tower room tonight.
There wasn't a question
as to who had knocked him down now.
Draco was already in the room when Harry arrived. He was sitting on
the couch, sipping from a glass filled with amber liquid.
"What do you want?" asked Harry, as he stood in front of him, with his invisibility cloak flung over his shoulder.
Draco looked up into Harry's face before looking
down again coolly. He poured a small amount of the amber liquid into another
glass and handed it to Harry.
"Try some. This is one of Father's best wines."
Harry stared at Draco who walked to the window and
was looking at him with an unreadable expression on his face.
Harry sighed and lifted
the glass to his lips and drank. And choked as the liquid scorched its
way down into his guts.
Draco laughed. "I'm sorry. I spoke
wrongly just now. This isn't one of Father's best wines. It's one of his best whiskeys. And you shouldn't
drink so much in one go if you've never had it before."
Harry finally stopped coughing and glared at Draco.
"Is this why you wanted me to come tonight? To laugh at me?"
Draco set the glass in his hand down at the stone
window and walked towards Harry. "Tsk tsk. Such a temper." He reached Harry, slid a hand up his shoulder and cupped his
face. "You should really try to control it." The other hand slid up his spine. "You never know when a runaway temper
might get away from you." The hands tightened as Draco pressed his body into
Harry's.
Harry felt a tingling feeling all about his body.
"What do you want? I thought we settled everything that
night at the Quidditch stands?"
He tried to make himself push Draco away, but found that he couldn't make himself do it. Instead he said angrily, "If you are just having fun at my expense, I'm warning you to stop now."
Draco watched the conflicting emotion in Harry's
eyes. "Am I having fun?" he murmured. "I
think not - yet." And he pressed his lips onto Harry's.
Harry stood unmoving for a while. Before he groaned
and gave in to the dark emotions flooding him. He let himself flow with the
white-hot feelings raging inside him, rising and falling. When Draco thrust his
tongue inside him, he felt as if he was being
sucked whole into a darkness that was the silver-eyed boy.
When the kiss ended, Harry opened his eyes to look
into Draco's eyes. Instead of the triumph he had expected to see, Draco's eyes were dark and
brooding.
Harry let out a low laugh. "I was really dumb,
right? I truly thought I could let you go."
Draco didn't answer. He
just continued to look at Harry.
"Well, if that was what you wanted to prove, you succeeded."
Draco turned away and walked
towards the window.
"I wanted to stop loving you."
Harry took a step towards Draco.
"Of all the people you
could love, I must be the worst choice."
His voice sounds so dispassionate. Harry wanted to say something, anything. But he just waited for Draco to continue.
"I don't know what I am doing. I want to keep myself
away from you, I want to stop myself from feeling anything for you, not love,
not hate…"
Harry caught Draco in his arms, "Not anymore than I
can. Hate stems from love." He looked at Draco. The dispassionate tone came
with a face with a helpless look on it. "We are fighting a futile battle.
Dark side or Light side, no matter what you are or what I am, nothing can take
me from you. Not even myself."
Draco found that he couldn't say a word. He just laid his head on Harry's shoulder. A luminous cord appeared again and seemed to bind them together.
They didn't say anything this time but wrapped their
arms around each other.
They held each other tightly for the rest of the
night.
A/N: Well, how was that? Please review and tell me! Sorry
for cutting out the long author's note and the thanks section, too busy now. I
will be sure to thank all reviewers in the next part. You are all special to me…the
fact that you took to time to review this story is what encourages me to go on.