Disclaimer: Many thanks to JKR, Scholastic Press, Warner Brothers (*snort*), Comic Relief U. K., and many others for not having shut down the Harry Potter fanfiction.net archive. They own it all.
Warning: This story has characters thinking slashy thoughts. It is in no way pornographic, is not me attempting to let loose my thwarted sexuality, and fully deserves its G rating (can you tell I didn't think much of that recent article on HP slash?) In fact, I think this warning just became worse than anything else you'd read in here.
*Property Of*
By Blackswan15
I don't even know why I picked this thing up. It's old and *dirty* and all torn up along the binding. In a few places something that looks quite like claws has ripped all the way through to the spongy inner cover, as if you weren't paying much attention in class one day. A lot of the leather's been discolored over time, but I can still pick out individual fingerprints.
Maybe that's why I took it. The fingerprints. So I can trace over the cover and think of all the times you touched it. Casually, unthinkingly, maybe grabbing it and throwing it open too look for something to help you in a distasteful assignment, unworried about any damage you might do the thin, fragile pages inside. If you ever touched me, I suppose it would be something like that. Angry... or accidental. I don't think I could stand that. As it is, I can lay my fingers against the imprints of your pads and imagine it's almost touching you without your ever knowing. Yes, that probably had something to do with it.
Or perhaps the sticker. It's old and curling away from the leather, revealing graying adhesive that is only faintly sticky. Property Of: Harry Potter. There are people who would kill to have this signature. Lucky me, I think I've got it engraved right into me.
Harry Potter. You don't have the handwriting I'd imagined. I thought something messy and unreadable, to match your flyaway hair. This isn't a little boy scrawl.
There's more of an adult character to it than I expected, a strength and a poise, a certain surety with a quill. Long and thin and just a little ridged, then turning unexpectedly all to trailing curves. In some ways it seems almost feminine to me, and if it slanted just a little more, I could describe it as delicate. More than anything else, it looks like my own- mine when I trace your name along the bottom of my paper and then have to tear the corner off quickly before anyone sees. How funny. Does that mean we're alike? There are people who say that you can read a whole personality from just a few lines of writing.
Or maybe I'm overanalyzing.
I wonder what you'd be like if you ever wrote a love letter. How would your hand change? Would it shake? Would the letters tumble over themselves as you hurried to disclose your feelings? And who would you write to? No, that doesn't bear thinking about. It would never, never be me.
I flip idly through the pages, looking for any little note I haven't already read a hundred times, and something crinkles. I turn to the final page and watch as it slips from between it and the back cover. It's written in your hand, the style that's so familiar to me now that can close my eyes and see my thoughts run past, written on the pages of my mind in your distinctive fashion.
No comments at all from the Weasel. Is it personal?
I pick it up. A couple of sketches of someone (something?) I can't identify- you really are a lousy artist, Potter. A couple of lines of what might be a poem, and... I blink, disbelieving. My name? Is that my name? Written very faintly, but yes, I have to be right.
Excited, I flip the page over. Yes, there it is again! And another time. Again, again, never stop.... An entire page of green ink pouring itself over the nuances of my name. I think it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. You.... you spend your time in class writing my name?
The edge of the page looks as if you almost tore it off, still connected to the rest by a tiny twist of paper. My name again, and something else I recognize. A signature. Yours. Our names linked together.
Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy.
Coming from you, it looks so right.
My heart feels like it's going to pound hole through my chest. Its like I've been cut open and turned inside out like a glove. I'm sure anyone who came in could see my every thought drawn across my face, and I just can't get a hold of myself. There's a buzzing in my ears and the paper in my hand feels like it's started to burn.
Sooner or later, I'm going to have to give you back your book.
It promises to be a very interesting meeting.
"I was afraid.... to let you in here.... now I have learned love can't be made in fear... The walls begin to tumble down and I can't even see the ground . I'm falling into you.... this dream could come true... and it feels so good... falling into you... Falling like a leaf, falling like a star... Finding I believe, falling where you are.... Falling into you."
A/N: I really meant for this to be an angsty piece, but apparently Harry had other ideas.... *shrugs* This piece was inspired by the "Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them" book, which you can buy (yes, really!) at most bookstores (I got mine at Barnes and Noble) It really does come riddled with notes, most rather boring and stupid, from Harry, Ron, and, in one instance, Hermione. That's how Draco and I know what Harry's handwriting looks like. Sadly, there was no note slipped between its pages.
"Falling into You" belongs to Celine Dion. It isn't really a very good song, and it doesn't fit. I don't know why I had the urge to quote it.