Obsession and Her Trappings
(Pairing, summary, and ratings can be found in chapter one.)
*****
Chapter ThreeDraco 2— Masochistic, Really
Draco watched Harry go, the soles of Harry's shoes slapping the stone floor. He walked at a jaunty gait, as if daring Draco to run after him. But Draco was sick of Harry Potter, sick of everything about him. Something about that final blow had hurt, something had hit where all the physical blows had merely grazed past. He no longer cared that he hadn't had the parting shot. It didn't matter; all he wanted was to be away from him. He wouldn't have followed for anything in the world.
A sparkle caught Draco's weary eye. He looked to where Harry had been standing a few seconds ago. A scrap of parchment on the ground, the letters glinting in the light. Careless, callous Potter, leaving his things about. He should have known better than to drop something in a Slytherin corridor. For Slytherins, there were few things to which 'finder's keepers' didn't apply.
He walked over to where it lay. Hopefully, the paper was something of some importance. A password to the Gryffindor tower, perhaps, or an important spell that Harry was trying to memorize. Something of that sort, to cause him annoyance or frustration. Something that would give him a pang of regret for assaulting a Malfoy.
He squinted, trying to see what had been written.
"Ask for what you want, even if you know you can't have it."
Harry. Green eyes. Smiling, laughing, shouting. Harry…
Draco was against the wall, his back pressed against the cool stones. His body had obviously reacted faster than his mind, fight-or-flight instincts kicking in. His heart was pounding, and his breaths were coming in shallow pants. The parchment lay on the floor, dropped before he was actively aware of what he had read. From his toes, up his spine, and cresting in his mind, a terrible panicking pain hit him; he flinched at its crescendo in his brain. Fear and confusion, two twin succubae, accompanied this wave up and down his body, slithering up and down and nipping at his soul to feed their terrible hungers.
Draco heard the feeble voice of reason pipe up in his mind. Was he sure that was what he had read? Perhaps it had just been a trick of the light that his senses had used to manipulate into the words. They might very well be nothing at all; this panic could be of Draco's own making.
Willing his heart to stop that infernal thundering in his ears, Draco took cautious steps towards the paper. With each one, he was able to calm himself a little more. This was not proper Malfoy behavior; Malfoys never scare so easily; be a proper Malfoy, Draco; don't let your imagination run away with you, you silly boy; don't be such a disgrace; fight you fears; don't have fears at all….
The mantras, drawn from thousands of childhood chastisements, served their purpose well. Draco bent down to pick up the paper with only a hint of his former fear. He stood, and pulled out his wand. "Lumos," he whispered, hoping that the flare of magic would not be enough to draw any attention.
The corridor bathed in warm light, Draco slowly uncurled his fingers. The paper, though more wrinkled than it had been the last time he looked, was otherwise as it had been. "Ask for what you want, even if you know you can't have it."
So it was as he had thought. He took a deep breath, having not really ever expected anything different. Draco knew those words, knew them with the grim recognition of a man identifying the person who killed his lover. Those words and he were old adversaries.
Yet, how perfectly uncanny that Harry should know them, too. No, not even just to know them— to be familiar with them enough to carry them around on a scrap of parchment. Draco indulged in a few fantastic scenarios that came to mind. They were Harry's hair shirt, the reminder of his inner sin that he carried as penance. They were a prank; they meant nothing to him. Finally, most ominously: Harry knew.
Ask for what you want, even if you know you can't have it. The first time Draco had noticed these words was at the beginning of third year. Returning after holidays, Draco had found them scrawled on the wall of the second-floor boys' bathroom. They had just appeared, some strange testament, some graffiti prophesy.
Upon careful inspection, Draco had learned that whoever had been brazen enough to defile the wall had also been a fairly clever wizard. The words were infused with a charm— one that was well beyond Draco's abilities— that made them irremovable. Draco had later heard that they were a source of constant anguish for Filch, too inept to do anything about them. Masterful work.
They had captivated Draco from the first. There was something about the urgency of their command, as if they compelled a person to obey. Ask for what you want, even if you know you can't have it. Whoever had written them was someone that Draco could admire. That person knew his mind, knew what to do. He was powerful and forceful, and brave. Unlike Draco himself.
Darkness. Like a candle snuffed by a giant hand, the corridor was suddenly black. The spell must have worn off, Draco thought. It hadn't been strongly cast, after all— Draco's mind had been elsewhere.
Taking this as a hint, Draco decided it would be best to go back to his room. He set off, unhindered by the gloom. He knew this wing of the castle almost as well as he knew Malfoy Manor; he liked to prowl it as if it were his own territory. Third passage on the right; up five flights of stairs and down one; bear left at the fork in the corridor…. He had memorized his way by the end of his first month.
His mind freed by the monotony of the journey, he heard the words in his head. Ask for what you want, even if you know you can't have it. When he had first read them, the message had been just enough to tip his preoccupation with Harry Potter into total obsession. For just as constantly as the surfaced in his conscious, so to did Harry. The two became intertwined fro Draco, and soon, he became fixated by the Boy Who Lived. Harry became the driving force in his life, supplanted everything else to take total power of his very being. That face was always in the back of Draco's mind, that sentence accompanying it.
Out of this emotional mêlée of faces and phrases, a new order had been born. His soul realigned, Draco now had a purpose unlike anything before. Ask for what you want, even if you know you can't have it. Harry became the reason he did anything at all; even the most trivial actions were taken under the shadow of those words. Harry never knew it, but it was all just one question; the sniping and the scathing remarks were just Draco asking for what he wanted.
In general, what he wanted was Harry. More specific examples of what he wanted— how and when, where and for how long— could be found in his journals, tucked safely underneath his bed. Each night, after everyone had gone to sleep, Draco pulled one out, and wrote something new. Tonight, it would probably be his newfound affinity for violence. Taken as a whole, they constituted his captain's log, the record of his navigation through the murky waters of forbidden desire. And in the back of every one, like a key to the stars of Draco's universe, were those words.
Draco rounded the final turn. He was almost there, almost at his dormitory. Almost home, or some variation thereof. His breath hitched as he thought of sanctuary. The stone walls, cool and calm, even when the world should be collapsing. His bed, pressed into the corner— his corner.
And then he was pushing open the door, and Draco was inside. The room was cold and empty; he liked it that way. No one to bother him, no questions to answer. The chill in the air woke him, kept him alert and sharpened his mind.
"Lumos," and the torches blazed to life. Draco watched them flicker, creating strange shapes on the walls. Monsters and unicorns and demons and a boy with a lightning bolt scar….
Ask for what you want, even if you know you can't have it. Damn it! Why wouldn't Harry Potter go away? Anyone but Harry, for anyone but Draco. Damn, damn, damn!
Draco stepped over to the torch closest to his bed. How easy it would be to feed the parchment to it, to offer the scrap as a sacrifice to the gods of light and unwanted love. He held his hand to the flame, but pulled back when it scorched his skin. 'Like his eyes, scorching my mind.' Maybe there would be a small shower of sparks as it burned, one last glittering cry as Harry's message disappeared forever. It'd be gone, and Draco would pretend that it had never happened.
He couldn't, though. He knew that. He wouldn't be able to destroy it, no matter how it troubled him. Masochistic, really, but then, who wasn't nowadays? Rainforests going up in smoke; people poisoning the air, the oceans, and themselves; elephants being slaughtered on the Serengeti; infant babies being drowned in China. And a Malfoy, sitting alone and pining for Gryffindor's prodigal son. What a fucked up world.
He knew what he would do with the parchment. Carefully, Draco tapped the bed knob of his huge bed with his wand. "Ouvrious," he whispered, his tongue dry and caked in his mouth.
With the sigh of old oak, a drawer from under the bed creaked open. Made of the same wood as the bed, it had been marvelously hidden by whoever had built the frame. No one who didn't know about its existence would ever see the faintest of lines in the bed frame that denoted its existence. It had taken Draco the better part of three years to find it, and that had been a completely serendipitous discovery.
Inside was a packrat's treasure trove, a cornucopia of odds and ends. Baubles and such, the types of things we keep, the things that have gradually come to contain a piece of us. Draco had put them all there, and each object had its significance. His most prized possessions. They were the only things he had ever cared about. Ask for what you want, even if you know you can't have it.
First, he fingered an old candy wrapper, which had once housed a Chocolate Frog. This year on the train, Harry had bought it. Due to a minor altercation between Draco and Ron, though, an errant blow had smashed the candy. Retreating to lick his wounds and to change his hair back to its normal color (damn that Hermione), Draco had seen Ron try to pay for the crushed chocolate. Harry refused— of course the charitable git would— and to reassure Ron, he had licked the crystallized sugar off the package. Draco could still see the way his tongue had darted out to capture the dark sweetness, his eyes closed to savor the taste.
Later, the Summoning Charm that Draco had used to procure the object had been his first act of magic that term. He had been quite proud; the wrapper had flown into his open palm in less than a minute. He would have liked to send a note of gratitude to Professor Flitwick, but had thought it a tad improper.
Underneath the wrapper lay a photograph. There was a story behind that, as well. Draco had always wanted a photograph of Harry, and one day, he resolved to get one. It had been no easy task to sneak into Colin Creevey's darkroom— the miserable twit had sought to hide the entrance to it. But little had ever been able to be kept from Draco Malfoy when it caught his fancy, and after three hours, he slid into the womblike chamber.
Draco had balked, however, at taking a headshot. Most of them were poorly executed, and more importantly Draco hadn't known how he would ever be able to work if he could see those eyes whenever he chose. They would be forever calling him, two twin beacons that beckoned Draco to lose himself in their light.
Instead, he grabbed a photo that was below even Creevey's rudimentary skills— one of Harry's hands. Something about the shot had fascinated Draco, though. Those hands, so capable with a broom, so agile when they clasped the little Snitch. So graceful whenever Harry talked; they floated about as he spoke. So forceful, balled into fists. They mesmerized him; the photo was blurry now from the fingerprints.
The last thing Draco touched— with careful fingers, so as not to crumble it— was a dried yellow rose. In fourth year, Harry had spent quite some time in the Infirmary, and Draco had been to visit him every night. No one ever knew, and Draco preferred it that way. He would watch Harry sleep for hours, watch the way his chest rose and fell, the way his face would change at every dream. He and Harry could have their battles every now and again, but he was the only one that should be allowed to hurt him. Ask for what you want, even if you know you can't have it.
With a jealous eye, Draco had seen the pile of gifts and flowers grow steadily, as more and more students heaped adoration upon their hero. Finally, Draco had mustered the courage to make his own addition to the collection— that rose. He had laid it carefully on Harry's pillow, brushing the sleeping boy's hair from his eyes. Then, Draco snuck away, half-hoping no one would ever find it.
The next night, he had returned to find the flower in its very own vase. He would always remember the way it stood, all alone on the windowsill, illuminated by the moonlight streaming in.
When Harry left the Infirmary, Draco had taken back the rose. Sometimes, he liked to imagine that Harry himself had discovered it, and had found a vase for the flower. Sometimes, he liked to imagine that, while transporting it, a thorn had pricked Harry's finger. Not so much as to cause too much pain, but enough to let a few drops of blood fall. Draco liked to imagine himself appearing, and sucking at the cut. He liked to imagine tonguing Harry's skin, liked to imagine Harry moaning at the feel of it. Ask for what you want, even if you know you can't have it.
Sometimes, he liked to imagine destroying the silly thing, crushing it under his heel.
It was into this collection, this shrine of his most deranged passion, that Draco decided to add the slip of paper. His mouth forming the words, he dropped it into the drawer. He touched the bed knob again, and the drawer shut. Only now, the sound that it made was strangely similar to a cry. Heart pounding, Draco backed away from the bed. An image of Harry came— unbidden, as always— to accompany that sound. On his knees, just as Draco had jeered earlier. Only now, he wasn't washing and cleaning; he was down there for Draco….
"Damnit, Malfoy!" He shook his head, willing the image to disappear. "Keep your fantasies in check." Now was no time to get carried away, not when there were important matters at hand. He needed all of his blood to stay in his brain, thank you very much.
After a few deep breaths, Draco felt much more in control of his faculties. That was better. Ask for what you want, even if you know you can't have it. Maybe it was just a coincidence. Maybe Harry, seeing the words scrawled on the wall of the third-floor bathroom, had written them down out of sheer curiosity. Maybe they held no meaning at all to him.
They most certainly didn't engender the same feelings in Harry as they did in Draco. That was one thing he knew for sure. Harry, too good to curse someone from behind, even if that someone (Draco) really deserved it. Harry, too good to pick a fight just to see someone's eyes. Harry, too good and too beautiful for Draco not to love him. Harry, too fucking good to ever, ever look at Draco like that. Ask for what you want, even if you know you can't have it.
As this topic had a tendency to do, Draco suddenly felt sapped of all his energy. All these maybes had exhausted him. Worrying only made his head hurt, and he felt the injuries he had suffered earlier all the more. His eyelids were heavy, his limbs leaden. He wanted to sleep, wanted the big warm blanket of oblivion to surround him. He wanted to not think anymore tonight.
He didn't even have the energy to change into his night robes; he could barely open his bed curtains to slip inside. Pulling up the covers to ward off the cold, Draco closed his eyes.
When sleep mercifully came to Draco Malfoy, there was only one graceful figure that slipped in and out of his dreams like an ebony-haired phantasm. When Draco lowered his hands down his body to touch himself there, there was only one face that he saw. And there was only one name that he screamed into his pillow as he came in his sleep.
Ask for what you want, even if you know you can't have it.
*****
(end part one)
Note: There will be more to this, promise. I have Chapter Five diagrammed out; now I just have to get my muses to take a look at my thoughts and rip them to shreds. Hopefully, this extremely bloody process will occur sooner rather than later, and I can add to the piece in the near future.