Title: In The Interests Of …
Author: I_nv_u50
Pairings: DracoXHarry
Disclaimer: They're mine I tell you!! All mine!! And the games and stories are going to be redone in slash!! Whoo!! . …. Yea right. I only wish.
Chapter Rating: PG13 for cruelty to Draco's …
Author's Notes: Wheee!! This is being posted in honor of my first flame!!! :D … it wasn't exactly mine though, was it? It was every HP slash flame T.T And here I was thinking I got my own flame. Oh well. We can share it if you want ^^ That kind of laughter shouldn't be contained ^^
Anyway, Harry teases Draco in this one ( that's for everyone who wanted MORE!! MOOOORREE!!!)
Draco: God, did you give her sugar again?
Harry: Who me? No, I think it was Sirius.
Sirius: (in an innocent way that fools no one) Who, me? Would I do something like that?
Draco & Harry: Yes!
But I don't think he means to tease…
Harry: (smirks) Wanna bet?
Draco: You bastard!
Anyway, The marauders are finally here!! Pity they're only guests, I do so love writing them. Even though I only write them as teenagers O.o; So if they're not serious enough, I'm sorry ^^;;
Anyway, enjoy the story, please review, and remember to thank the flamer to whom both Harry's Teasing Moment (capitalized :D) and this chapter are dedicated!!
Harry: (bored) Hip hip hooray…
Draco: Feh. Wanna go to bed?
… Aside from that, the next chapter's written, and I finally started a classic HP story! It actually includes Hogwarts! Wow! And that regency fic isn't going to be out for a while I'm afraid. I like this one and my classic too much to actually do a good job on it. But if it does get posted suddenly, give it a try, k?
Cheers!! Please review!!
When Harry accompanied Ron and Hermione down to breakfast the next morning, after multiple assurances that he, and they, were none the worse for the previous night's mishap, it was to find that everyone was suspicious and scared of him.
He still didn't remember much before Zell had fought him, and he only vaguely remembered fighting people before that, but Ron worriedly informed him that he really shouldn't have been able to beat even half the people that he had.
They were sitting down, Harry with just a glass of orange juice because he wasn't that hungry, when he felt Draco tentatively approach the cafeteria, and he knew that the blonde was annoyed.
Harry had woken up half an hour before to find Draco still fast asleep, breathing lightly through parted lips, looking like a dignified kitten when his cold eyes were closed and his face relaxed, his entrancing features keeping the slightly feline look.
Harry had wriggled out from under Draco's arm, careful not to wake up the sorceress, because he was probably still exhausted from the night before.
Exhausted Draco might have been, but when he had registered that the warm and soothing presence of his knight was missing, he had not liked the flash of fear and vulnerability that had abruptly followed. Even less likable was the sudden feeling of abandonment.
Searching almost desperately for his knight, which had vexed him further, was a job which had been laughably easy, the link strengthened by the night's contact and the almost enthrallment that had happened.
He hadn't thought about how easy it had been to get Harry to do what he had wanted, and he didn't want to, as ignoring the terrified and horrified stares as he stalked to the cafeteria took up most of his remaining energy.
They had deserved it. They were living in his house, something that he had never really wanted but agreed to because it kept him in his home, and they had no right to go digging around in private areas which he was sure were off limits anyway.
Nevertheless, he managed to hide his anger at his own reaction that morning, correctly assuming that any show of anger would send the SeeDs into a panic.
Harry went to go wait at the doorway for Draco, preferring not to have the sorceress walk across the entire cafeteria with all the stares and whispers. He himself was having a tough time trying to ignore all the resentful, wary looks that everyone but Ron and Hermione seemed to be directing at him.
The SeeDs entering were no better; they ignored him in the doorway after giving him quick, hateful glances. Even his old roommates. It was starting to chafe at Harry.
If this was how Draco was being treated, it was no wonder that the sorceress was so annoyed. Even if Harry could sense an underlying reason for the emotion. He didn't want to pry too much, he still wasn't sure how much pestering Draco could actually take.
A girl pushed through the doors, making Harry jump out of the way, only just in time to avoid being hit as the doors slammed open. She stalked through, looking remarkably like a pug, and she stopped to glare at Harry.
Then she did a double take and paused to get another look, a gleam of greedish fascination entering her slightly squashed features.
Thus, when Draco stormed through the door, approaching the peak of his anger, it was to find his good-natured knight backed against the wall by a female cadet, being all too polite to just push her away.
Draco had by no means the same problem.
The situation, added to the irritated feelings he had gathered on his way, and the sudden, expected jealousy that flared in his chest; enabled him to grab the back of her cadet uniform jacket and yank her away roughly.
She stumbled away, whipping around to deliver a scathing remark, gasping in righteous indignation as Harry blinked at him in grateful astonishment.
Draco disregarded him, still not happy about his own feelings from earlier, somewhat judgmentally blaming it all on Harry.
He turned to the girl with a disarming smirk, his eyes cool and clouded with hostility.
She stared at Draco warily, updates on the incident, and he could feel lust oozing from her, with not nearly the correct amount of fear to stop her from acting upon it.
"If you will excuse us, ma'am, I need to have a word with my sorceress. In private." Harry spoke up, feeling with no little dread the murderous jealousy raring to escape Draco's already worn control.
Harry gripped Draco's hand and tugged him to a small corner of the cafeteria, not far from Ron and Hermione's table, pretending not to notice the stares and frowns they got. Ron and Hermione gave little waves to acknowledge them, and wisely stayed away.
Once there, Draco violently pulled out a chair and threw down Harry's hand, lounging back in the chair in a direct and blatant sulk, while Harry tried his hardest to cheer him up.
All the good work the contact had done for the bond the night before seemed to have disintegrated.
Draco purposely repelled any overtures Harry made, either physically, like refusing to talk back, or mentally/emotionally, clamping down on everything before it could enter or leave.
When Draco refused the offer to get a small lunch, frowning resolutely at the wall over Harry's right shoulder, silently, but projecting it loud and clear to Harry, Harry gave up, throwing his hands up in frustration.
"Fine! Draco, just give it up! What do you want?"
Draco switched his gaze over calmly, sullenly regarding Harry. "I want to eat in your room."
He didn't really, but he had toyed enough. He thought he had a safe, reasonable explanation to the flash of vulnerability from that morning.
Harry frowned at him in confusion, but was willing to forgive. "Fine. Just… fine." He absently pushed his glasses up and stood up. "Come on then."
Draco smirked and followed Harry out into the main hallway, where they, and more specifically, he, received more stares from the people who either hadn't seen him before, or hadn't stared enough.
He tried hard to ignore it, but it was bothering him a lot by the time Harry closed his bedroom door behind them.
Draco heaved a sigh of honest relief and flopped on his back onto the big bed.
Harry watched him for a second before slowly sitting on a barstool.
Draco silently gestured to the big space next to him as he generously moved offer, sending a tendril of welcome to Harry.
Harry shook his head reluctantly. Oh, how he wanted to go suddenly, and just sit there in silence with Draco…
"No, Draco. Not until you tell me what you were supposed to last night."
"Why did you leave so early this morning?" Draco blatantly ignored the request, refusing to acknowledge the hint when Harry glared at him reproachfully.
"Come on Draco! Tell me!"
"Come here or I'll tell you what that boy does in his spare time."
Harry scowled and gave in, going to sit on the edge of his bed cautiously. "That's blackmail."
"Think of it as… bribery with a twist. Besides, I don't know either. Even less do I want to know. Who was he?"
Harry grinned at him. "You mean Colin? He's nothing for you to worry about."
"I'm not worrying!" Draco sneered at the idea. "If he's stalking you, I'd like to know, that's al. Just so I can tell him where to go next time he tries." Draco gave the ceiling a dirty look as if he blamed it for Colin's misplaced affections.
"It's not stalking. It's more like… playfully following." Harry grinned again, his eyes lit up with appreciative mirth.
Draco blinked, and then he stared, and then he tried to look away, tried to pretend he wasn't as fond of Harry as he really was, but no reason would come, and he couldn't tear his eyes away. The late morning, early afternoon sunshine caught on Harry's hair, making a few sparkling strands of the midnight hair shine conflictingly, a striking contrast. His glasses weren't reflecting any light because of their angle, leaving his eyes wide and sparkling a dark emerald green.
"What? Why are you staring at me? What did I do this time?" Harry narrowed his eyes in sudden thought, and Draco shook his head quickly, trying to dispel the image.
He grinned. "Sorry. No, it's nothing. I was just thinking."
Harry smiled back, albeit shyly. "S'ok. It's… flattering, I guess, to be looked at like that."
"You deserve to be flattered more." Draco spoke softly, and Harry heard a note of wistfulness that went unnoticed by Draco.
He caught his breath suddenly, and looked at Draco carefully, searchingly, all previous arguments forgotten. Dare he?
Draco was careful to keep his expression soft, with no expectation written anywhere clearly enough for it to be read and denied, but hope was flaring up determinedly.
Harry leant closer unconsciously. "Draco… I… I'm scared…" he murmured frankly, too awed by the suddenly blinding facts to even try lying.
"It's worth being scared. I'll never hurt you, Harry…" Draco's tone was gentle, encouraging, and Harry leant closer.
Their eyes stayed open and locked on each other, one a heated silver, the other a deep, clear green. Both were searching, and finding what they were looking for.
Harry flicked his eyes from Draco's to be caught and held by Draco's slightly parted lips, so much like that morning. He drew in a deep, shuddering breath and started to move closer…
There was an insistent knock at the door, and Harry jumped back, startled and flushing. The spell had broken, he was wondering how he could have ever thought of doing such a crazy, stupid thing, and even as Draco sat up straighter, a query in his eyes, Harry turned emphatically towards the door.
Draco cursed freely in his mind at the inopportune intrusion, and Harry walked towards the door, studying the floor as it passed underneath his feet as if it held all the answers to the secrets and mysteries in Draco's obviously turbulent mind.
A young girl, about thirteen years old, with vivid red hair was standing on the other side of the open doorway, shifting nervously when she saw the blonde teenager past Harry.
"Ginny!" Harry exclaimed, sounding too happy about the interruption. Draco frowned at both the SeeD and the young cadet darkly.
She tried to ignore him, and rushed forward to give Harry a hug before flushing and stepping back quickly, snapping a salute.
Harry bit his cheek to stop himself laughing at her and saluted back, touching two fingertips to his forehead, before ruffling her hair fondly and pulling her into the room. She flushed redder.
"Draco, this is Ginny Westley, Ron's younger sister. Gin, this is Draco."
"I… I know." She mumbled, half shy and half scared.
Draco snorted in disgust and lay back down again, stubbornly tuning Harry out.
Harry sighed at him. "So what is it, Gin?"
"Oh! Headmaster Seifer wants you to go down to the
office as soon as you can, there are some people who want to talk to you!"
Harry smiled. "Very well. Coming Draco?"
Draco grumbled something quietly, but slid off the bed, walking past both of them without even looking at them, staring straight ahead, his face blank.
Harry sighed again and ushered Ginny out. "Thanks Gin. I'll see you later, all right?"
"Okay Harry!" Ginny smiled up at him happily and ran off.
Harry had to jog a bit to catch up with Draco, where he was waiting by the head of the stairs.
"She likes you, you know." It was a simple statement, but sounded almost like a question.
Harry glanced at him in surprise. "Is she being obvious? Poor Gin. Yea, I know. It's just a phase."
"Hmph." Draco grunted, and as he didn't invite any more conversation, they walked to the office in silence.
There were three strangers in the room, along with other knights and sorceress.
Rinoa smiled at them in welcome, and what seemed to be real joy at having them around again. "Draco, Harry, this is Irvine and Selphie, from Trabia Garden, and Headmistress Quistis, from Balamb Garden."
Draco regarded the new three with understandable suspicion and annoyance, an annoyance that was not reflected by anything. If they even noticed his slightly unfriendly demeanor, they chose to ignore it.
There was a short, bouncy type of girl with brown hair and sparkling green eyes that almost reminded Draco of Harry, a dignified blonde with clear blue eyes and a friendly refined air. The remaining person, Irvine, looked like a cowboy, with long, rich, chestnut coloured ponytail, and a light smirk that could have been from Draco if it had been more malicious.
Harry liked them on sight. They all had an easy manner, both with the two strangers, and their friends, even Squall, who wasn't exactly the most friendly one of the group, seemed to open up to them a little more than usual.
Rinoa and Quistis started talking earnestly to each other while Zell, Squall and Irvine did something else – Harry wasn't exactly sure what. Seifer started asking Draco about the previous night. Draco satisfactorily ignored his knight, leaving Harry and Selphie eyeing each other with growing amounts of amusement and varying amounts of interest.
"I'm Selphie." She held out her hand in nonrestrictive friendliness.
Harry smiled back. "I'm Harry."
"So Harry… how did you become a knight?"
"Well…" Harry grinned a little shyly. "He kissed me, and it kind of grew from there…"
Selphie's eyes grew comically wide before she gave a sudden whoop of laughter.
Harry grinned in agreement, the laughter putting him completely at his ease with the older woman, and when Draco discreetly looked at his knight, it was to see him and the girl with eyes that were hauntingly familiar having what appeared to be a marvelous time. He wished he could say the same.
"She's getting closer, Draco, and while we're nearer to being able to defeat her ourselves, we're nowhere near ready yet. We might have to move you and Harry for the time being."
"Where to?" Draco asked, dread settling heavy in his gut.
Harry looked over in concern, and Draco purposely excluded him, full attention on what Seifer was telling him.
Squall had switched his searching gaze to them when Seifer answered gravely. "Centra."
"It's nice in the sun." Sirius mumbled to himself, mainly because no one was out with him to hear him. He turned over to warm his back. "Remus should come here as well. He's too pale. The sun will be good for him now. He should come tan. Get browned. Like chicken…"
Sirius trailed off and yawned, sitting up while he shielded his eyes from the sun to stare through the open doorway, which was extraordinarily dark in the bright sunlight.
"Oi! James! Get your old butt out here!"
Another figure appeared as a silhouette, leaning against the doorframe. "What? Who're you calling old, you old goat?"
"Oh certainly not you!" Sirius smirked. "So how's Harry?"
"Hm? We're expecting his results any day now. Sirius," James paused, eyeing his friend. "Sirius, what are you wearing?"
Sirius mock blushed. "What, this old thing? I'm so happy you noticed! I wore it 'specially for Lil, but she's not here."
"She went to get the post. Again. How many times do I have to tell you? Why are you wearing that for her? Don't you love me anymore?"
"So I could get you mad, of course." Sirius grinned.
"James! Get your old butt out here and help!"
James almost winced, and Sirius almost hid his grin. Almost.
"Lil's back."
"I noticed."
"Why's she angry at you this time?"
"She's not angry. Just excited. Come on, we can show her your special outfit at the same time."
The two 35 year olds made their way to the front of the house, where Lily was reading an official looking letter.
"What's up, hon?" Sirius bounded forward and hung an arm lazily around her shoulders.
She quirked a brow at him. "What the heck are you wearing?"
Sirius glanced down at his outfit, which was little more than an imaginative garden sack with holes. "What, you don't like it? I'm heartbroken!"
James snorted and attempted to read the letter over Lily's shoulder.
She glared at him. "That's rude." Then she grinned happily, her green eyes lighting up with pride. "Harry's got a top ranking SeeD mark. And he's been chosen as a knight. James, we have to go visit him. Let's go to Winhill."