Chapter Five: Instincts

Warnings: OK, this is the chapter you want to avoid if you are young and innocent. There is m/m interaction (as they call it), and some crude language. If you don't like it, go away and don't upset yourself. I would like to make it explicitly clear that the boys are in Year 13 and hence are easily above the age of consent in Britain.

A big Apology: I got the books back the other day, and I realise that I've been referring to Professor Pomfrey as Professor Trewlaney, so deep, deep, apologies and I'll try to do better next time.

I've also been spelling 'Weasley' incorrectly (as someone also emailed to point out) and again I apologise, it's corrected from here on in…

Thanks again to the lovely lovely reviewers…cheers m'dears

~~***~~

* No *, oh no.

Look at that mess, all that dirt, remember why it's there? It's pathetic. Malfoys don't lie alone dreaming of what they can't have, they take it. And they never want to take poor impudent youngest sons with no money or reputation.

And with smiling eyes and soft pale hands sugared with freckles. I remember his hand in mine…and his hand on other places, images from the dream. But what seems foremost in my mind are other fantasies - my hands on him, stroking, caressing. Making him moan but never beg. Watching his eyes light up in happiness because of me.

Look at you! At your disgusting bed. What if someone else saw this? Look what he's reduced you to! People like him can't have power over you. Hate him, hate him.

Hate is obsession and need. Having it matter terribly where someone is, what they are doing, what they think of you.

Sounds a lot like something else…

~~***~~

I walk slowly to the Infirmary. This is the last visit, he is out tomorrow. One visit too many…

Who am I kidding? This whole thing has been one event too many…

It would be better if this had never happened.

I report to Pomfrey, who frowns as usual. She'll be glad to see the end of my visits; she doesn't trust me around her patients. With reason, I suppose, given the number of times Potter, Weasley and I have turned up here with the various wounds of our fights.

The door to the room is ajar. I had forgotten the trepidation I used to feel opening it, but now the feeling is back and horribly multiplied.

As I reach out to open it I feel resolved.

Just laugh at him. Taunt him. Blackmail him even. Anything to push him far, far away and never let him near again. Make him hate you, it's the only way it can work He'll hate you in time anyway, you know, so be in control instead. Force him. Be a Malfoy. Just * remember * to…

'Ron!'

He turns in surprise and almost falls over. I was shocked to see that he had got out of the bed and is now trying to walk around the room, clinging to the furniture but otherwise doing well. He smiles, but he's wobbling…

I run over and steady him. Then I realise I can feel his warm skin through the pyjamas and I quickly help him to the bed where he can rest. He grips my arms in response surprisingly strongly - a thought flickers through my head, I wonder if he actually meant to fall?

Do I care? Well, it doesn't make me angry…

He collapses onto the bed and pulls me down to sit next to him. There is a silence, as we stupidly smile at each other, without noticing that our hands have never let go each other's arms.

This has to stop; this has to stop…

I've forgotten everything, why I didn't want this, why I felt so scared, why I'm here even…It all narrows to him, but then, didn't it always?

'Clumsy'

The word leaves my mouth by some in-built response, but it isn't vicious. My gaze doesn't leave his and I'm still smiling - this is some kind of record for me.

He seems to understand

'Cruel bastard' he half-whispers back, almost tenderly

'Pauper'

'Snob'

'Malfoy'

'Weasley'

I'll never be able to insult people with those words again…

With each word we are closer, nearer. The words are as they always have been, and somehow the rest seems almost usual too. Perhaps this was what those words always meant, underneath.

He runs one hand up my back and gently holds my neck, rubbing his thumb over my chin. I shiver in response and he grins and he moves his mouth to mine

'You called me * Ron * a minute ago, Bitch!'

And with that final insult he presses his lips to mine and moves into my arms. I hug them around him and kiss him back, and I think that this is a * much * better way of resolving tension than plotting to maim each other.

I didn't expect him to be this confident. But then I didn't expect any of this…

We're more similar than we seem, he and I. Steeped in family, with clear precedents to live up to. We're tacticians, thinkers. I've played enough chess with him over the last two weeks to make me respect his strategies almost as much as my own.

We're worthy opponents indeed, but now we're both aiming for the same goal, and that feels * so *….

'Hey, you want to pay attention here?'

'Mmmfff'

I can't answer because he decides to follow his question with a hand movement better than I even dreamt about. And before I know it our clothes have disappeared, he's gasped out a silencing and locking charm for the door, and the entire world consists of the two of us.

I can't even tell where one of us ends and the other begins…

'God, Ron, where did…mmm, there... you learn how to do…mmff… * that *?'

'Oh, I think about it - a lot'

And hot as that image is, I can't really process it because him talking makes his mouth vibrate, and where his mouth is right now that has the effect of rendering me speechless.

We tangle and stroke and whisper to each other, and melt and shiver and kiss and kiss. And it doesn't take me long to realise I can make him unintelligible as well….

Afterwards, he pulls the covers over us and wraps his arms around me, and I discover that my lesser height means I fit just right to spoon nicely onto his lap and soak in his heat, and as I drift to sleep I can feel him softly butterfly kissing my neck.

And I feel a sense of quiet satisfaction that I'm quite clear on the location of * all * his freckles…

~~***~~

Warmth.

Smiling.

Content.

* Ron *

Wake up, wake up Draco Malfoy, this is all very very wrong.

Happy.

No, this is weakness, this is foolishness. You've been a fool, and an idiot, letting him touch you that way. Doing * that * to him, you wanton little shit, debasing yourself and all for his pleasure.

Yes, I remember that. I was nervous, afraid I was doing it all wrong, but he seemed more than satisfied, and afterwards he kissed me like I never imagined. Urgently, passionately....lovingly.

Because you lowered yourself to the level of a _ whore _. Malfoys don't give pleasure, they take it. Every time he sees you, he'll remember that you did that, and be sure he'll tell his friends. Imagine them all - Potter and Granger and all the Gryffindor boys - laughing at you, the whole school looking at you and whispering your new nickname.

'Draco Malfoy, cocksucker'

He wouldn't do that

He hates you. You hate him. Alter that and it all goes, he can't be on * your * level…

No, he can't.

That's right…

Because if he were 'on my level' everyone would hate him too. I can't continue this precisely because I don't want that to happen to him, I don't hate him.

I don't hate him at all.

That's right, Malfoy. Delude yourself into thinking you're acting in his interests. Screw him over and hurt him and tell him it's for his own good. That's the way you treat these people. Well, I say 'people'…

No more thoughts. I have to act.

~~***~~

I can barely force myself to move from his arms, I keep thinking that another minute won't hurt, then another, then another.

But then he mutters something in his sleep, and that makes me scared that he will really wake up soon, and if he does that I'm trapped. I can't face him, not after…not after how he made me feel…

I slip out from under the covers and grab my clothes, sliding into them quickly. My skin has the horrible feeling of waking up unwashed, and my mouth tastes foul inside, but I know that the disgust I feel for myself won't be washed down the bathroom shower plughole…

I unhex the door and open it as silently as possible. I cannot resist the temptation to turn back and look at him one more time. He lies still; red hair severely messed up and with a mark on his neck I hadn't noticed until now. I guess that was me then…

I find I can no longer look, and make my way as quickly as possible to the Slytherin tower.

You belong there, with the reptiles.

~~***~~

Of the next weeks little can be said. They are the Christmas holidays, and thus a time for celebration and those who do not feel in the mood for such gaiety tend to either force it or be overlooked.

Certainly Harry and Hermione attributed Ron's solemnity to recuperation from his illness. When they noticed him sitting apart or silent, they exclaimed how much they disliked Malfoy, and how glad they were that he went home for Christmas.

Ron would only grunt and change the subject. Only once, in response to a question about how it had been spending those hours with Malfoy, he answered

'I didn't think he wanted to go home very much - maybe I was wrong.'

'Well,' said Harry 'What would keep him here after all?'

Ron shrugged lightly and dug into his pudding, but a careful observer might have seen that though he cut it and moved it around his plate a great deal, he ate almost none.

Once he wandered to the Infirmary but was not allowed into his old room as it now held a flu case that was very contagious.

He knew that there was nothing either to worry about or hope for. Nothing had been said, or not been said. The slate was blank.

And yet… and yet he was often caught by fits of despair, and sometimes of joy, when he looked across at the almost empty Slytherin table and considered it filling with faces in the next week…

As usual, Draco Malfoy told no one about his visit home. His family, rich as it was, was generally assumed to have the best Christmas of anyone, but he never talked about it much.

When he arrived at the station those on the train with him thought he looked tired, but they did not like to point it out. There was a thin look about him, and kind of desperation they had never seen before.

They also noticed that he became more unsettled as they neared Hogwarts, but by the time the train pulled in he seemed back to usual.

In fact, when he began making loud remarks about the general appearance of some third-year Gryffindors, they felt reassured that the old Draco was back on track…

… and they hoped fervently that the Potter gang would be the first to know it…

~~***~~

I walk into the Great Hall. It is lit up in a subdued manner for the beginning of term, but nonetheless it feels good to back here, in the happiness and light.

I can crush that feeling in two ways; either by thinking of something better, or by simply ruining it for everyone…

Choosing the latter is usually easier…

During the meal I keep my eyes on my food, staring straight at my pasta as though I can see through the table to my shaking knees. I have to relax at mealtimes again now, remember that I'm not at home.

As we all rise at the end and mill through the Hall, I slip away quickly. I * don't * want to do this.

I have to.

Sooner or later, I have to face him. To make him truly and utterly hate me.

If I allow myself to see the looks he's given me since I arrived, the way he tried to accidentally run into me at the end of the meal…then I'll never manage it…

I * have * to… the next time I see him…

~~***~~