Disclaimer/Notes: All characters belong to JK Rowling. Plot belongs to William Shakespeare and myself. The idea for this came from reading Harry/Draco slash where Draco is good, which, though not bad, is sort of implausible. So, evil!Draco. Who still loves Harry. Who are you kidding, anyway?
Star-Crossed
Harry Potter, Boy Who Lived, sneaks alongside a building, stopping in the shadows to shed his robes. They impede his progress down the side of the building, and they make noise when he moves. And they're uncomfortable.
Rainwater drips down his hair, into his eyes, and he reaches up one black-gloved hand to push the hair off of his forehead. In his hand, he grips his wand. He holds that hand, the skin bare and pale in the darkness and makes a small signal with his fingers. He hears his team moving into position, and feels his second move up behind him, her breath on the back of his neck causing him to shiver. He turns, and Hermione Granger gives him a smile, her teeth the only thing visible in the dark.
He makes another signal, and they move forward.
Harry moves to the side door of their target, and he prepares to open it.
Behind him, a voice rings out.
"Lumos."
That one word, and the entire team is revealed, sparkling silver wandlight, revealing silvery-blonde hair, grey eyes, and features carved from ice.
"Sorry, Potter," says the boy that stands in front of him. Draco Malfoy leads his own team, a group of Death Eaters that formerly attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. "Looks like you die tonight."
"Not bloody likely, Malfoy," Harry says. He drops into a crouch as Malfoy raises his wand and a stream of green light passes over Harry's head. Harry can hear his heart pounding in his ears as he screams for the rest of his team to retreat.
Draco raises one slender, pale hand into the air—his right, keeping his wand always at the ready—and motions the rest of the team away. "Go after them," He orders. "Capture as many as you can, and take them to my father. He will give you orders from there."
The Death Eaters disperse, leaving Draco and Harry alone in the alleyway. Draco stands tall in the pale light of the wand, not a silver strand of hair out of place. He watches Harry with eyes far too old for one so young. Harry wonders briefly if his own eyes look that way.
"Get up, Potter. It's difficult to conduct business with you crouching down at my feet like that," Draco says. A sneer tugs at his lips, and he straightens his black robes, embroidered on the breast with the Dark Mark. "Though, crouching like that does put you at approximately the right height…"
Harry stands, and Draco appraises him, as he always does. Harry is suddenly aware of his wet hair slicked back from the scar on his forehead, and he reaches up to smooth it down, exposing a pale stripe of skin where his shirt has gotten too short for his body and doesn't quite meet his trousers.
"For pity's sake, Harry, I've seen the entire show before, and I really think it's no big deal." Draco tells him, lowering his wand slightly and putting his free hand on his hip.
"Aye, you have, and if anyone knew, they'd kill us both." Harry said. He stands silently as Draco moves forward and slides that pale hand down his cheek, and he turns to meet that hand, pressing a kiss into battle calloused skin.
"I'm not sure death would be in order," Draco says, backing Harry into the shadows of the doorway. "But certainly Drastic Measures."
"Yes," Harry says, and for a moment, Draco ponders whether this is agreement, or consent, then decides that Harry would never agree with him, even if he said the earth was round and Harry had to declare it flat just to disagree.
Draco decides that it must be consent, permission to do what have you with body parts meant to remain concealed beneath clothing. He presses his lips to Harry's, and a shock runs through Harry at the electric heat that soars from his lips down through his body and causes him to stand at attention. Draco laughs against his lips, and it is a low, throaty sound that a man only makes during foreplay or sex, and causes Harry's knees to go weak.
Draco is attempting to remove Harry's clothing in the almost-privacy and definite dampness of that alley doorway when he vaguely hears a gasp, then an utterance of Inappropriate Words.
He turns to see the bushy haired accomplice standing there, her face turned away, and all exposed skin bright red in embarrassment. He buttons Harry back up and turns to her.
"Thank you for interrupting out clandestine tryst, Granger. I'll thank you in the future not to return to see to Potter's safety when he is left with me." Draco says.
"Hermione, I can explain," Harry says.
"Thank you SO much for not saying that this isn't what it looks like, because with my hand down your pants and jerking, there's not much else it could be." Draco says lazily, giving Hermione his patented knee-weakening smile. It doesn't work on her. Perhaps it is not so much that it doesn't work on Hermione, but that it is entirely useless upon the mortally embarrassed.
"I'd really rather you didn't explain, Harry," Hermione says. "But I can't leave you here. We have to go, and we have to go now." She bites her lip, and looks at him. "They've got Neville."
"Pity," Draco says. "Not that it really matters, as he's sort of useless, anyway."
"Sod off, Draco," Harry says. "Remember our rule."
"Yes, yes, I remember. I just couldn't help myself." Draco says.
Ron Weasley suddenly materializes from nowhere and goes at Draco. Harry pries him off, and with Hermione's assistance, begins dragging him away. Draco transfigures a brick into a mirror and fixes his hair.
"Another time then, Potter," He calls, and smiles at Harry.
At this point, Harry does not care if his friends know about his desires, or his lover. He smiles back at Draco. "You can count on it." He says.
"What say you, one in the morning, next Friday?" Draco suggests.
"Or anytime before then," Harry replies, dragging the struggling Ron away. Draco Disapparates, and is gone.
"Harry, if I didn't know any better, I'd think you just made a date with that scum," Ron says. Hermione almost chokes to death. Ron looks at her, and pales. "No. You're kidding me."
"Harry and Draco are… involved," she says, then dissolves into giggles.
"Kill me now," Ron says.
"Okay," Harry agrees.
"Not serious," Ron says, fending Harry off. "That's really sick, Harry. When? Why? How?"
"Well, basically, I stick my—" Harry begins, a look of evil glee on his face.
"No!" Ron yells. Hermione almost falls over in laughter. "Seriously, Harry. Why Malfoy? When? How long?"
"I wouldn't have expected you to notice, but Draco is rather handsome," Harry says. "Whenever I can, and for about a year. Does that answer your questions sufficiently?"
"Harry, you can't… You have to stop."
"I can't, Ron. I love him."
"How can you love him? He can't return that! He's evil!"
"He does. Even evil people feel."
Harry stares at his best friend, and is old beyond his years. Ron still holds an innocence that few retain. Harry doesn't have it, Hermione doesn't have it. They have become hard, become cynical from battle after battle.
"It's sort of romantic," Hermione says. Ron looks at her sharply, and she shrugs. "Very Romeo and Juliet."
"Right," Harry says. "But without the suicide."
"Hopefully," Hermione says.
"Romeo and Juliet?" Ron asks. "Who're they?"
"Characters written by the greatest playwright of all time." Hermione says. "Shakespeare wrote the story of two lovers from feuding families who kill themselves."
"Only it's more complicated than that," Harry supplies.
"Of course," Hermione says.
"Apparently, he wasn't that great of a playwright, because I've never heard of him," Ron says.
"Well, Shakespeare was a Muggle." Hermione says.
"Then that explains everything." Ron says.
"I'm rather damp, and I'd like to go home now, guys," Harry says. "We can finish book club later."
"Right," Hermione says, and pulls a small box from her robe pocket. She, Harry, and Ron reach out and touch it, and they disappear.
~`~
The battle is over.
Bodies litter the field, some covered with blood, others unmarked and simply peaceful in their death. Hermione, her curly hair matted with blood, walks across the field, careful to avoid the bodies of friends and enemies alike. The dirt that covers her face is streaked by tears, yet she stands tall, walking forward, never looking back.
Finally, she comes to the clearing where the final battle with Voldemort took place. There is an altar, yet the only body that lies upon it is that of the Dark Lord himself, broken and bloody, carved by the sword of Godric Gryffindor himself, by the hand of the Boy Who Lived.
A stab of worry rushes through Hermione. Harry, though victorious, is not to be seen. She hears the sobs, and she turns sharply, to seethe figure of a woman with silvery-blonde hair kneeling on the ground, her entire body shaking with sobs.
Narcissa Malfoy.
Hermione raises her wand, and she moves forward, but she has no choice but to stand and stare at the scene that has moved the first lady of the Death Eaters to tears.
Upon the bloodstained earth lies the body of the Boy Who Lived, unmoving, silent.
Hermione's breath catches, and for a moment, she feels as though she will suffocate before she is able to draw a breath.
But Harry's death is not the reason Narcissa cries.
Beside Harry Potter lies the body of Narcissa's own son, Draco Malfoy.
Draco's body is unmarked, the victim of Avada Kedavra. His pale face is even paler in death, turned toward Harry, the boy he had loved. His lips are parted, his grey eyes resting upon Harry.
Draco's eyes are resting upon Harry, who lies on his back, once fiery green eyes open and now dead, staring forever at the sky. But it was not a quick death for the boy who defeated the Dark Lord. Hermione knows this for certain with one glance, seeing the sword—Harry's own, the sword of Gryffindor—protruding from his chest. His robes are soaked with the blood that has poured out.
Before Hermione turns away, she sees that, before his last breath, Harry has reached out and taken Draco's hand in his own, and closed his fingers around those already cooling in death, a last, desperate reach for the touch of one so loved, one held so dear.
Hermione cries.
~`~
Harry knows that he cannot defeat Voldemort with magic. But Voldemort is mortal as any other, and he raises the sword and, with a prayer, rushes forward, plunging the blade into the very heart of the Dark Lord. He raises the sword again and again, rending the body of his foe bone from bone, tears on his face, his parents avenged, until he can no longer raise his arms.
They come upon him this way.
Draco lifts him to his feet.
"You have to go," the blond boy says. "My father is coming."
Harry says nothing, and Draco thinks that Harry might be going into shock.
"Harry, please!" He cries. "You have to go!" Draco shakes Harry, and Harry flops like a rag doll in Draco's hands. Draco pulls Harry into his arms, desperate for any reaction, and kisses him desperately. Then he starts pulling Harry away from the altar.
"Good, Draco," Lucius Malfoy says. "You've caught the little bastard."
Lucius raises his wand to end the life of Harry Potter, and Draco steps between his father and his lover.
"No," he says.
"Move aside, boy," Lucius snaps. Draco stares his father down, no longer a boy, but a man with eyes too old for his years.
"Kill me first." Draco says, with the thought that Lucius will not take the life of his only son and sole heir.
He is wrong.
Draco's life flashes before his eyes, mostly filled with anger and malice, and the few shining moments, like the one that caused his death, where he truly cared, truly loved. Those moments that he shared with Harry.
Draco slumps to the ground and Narcissa Malfoy screams. Harry returns to himself and moves forward with the sword, his wand long forgotten.
"Accio," is all that Lucius says, before the sword is in his hand and plunged through Harry's heart.
Harry falls to his back on the earth, beside his lover. He reaches out one hand blindly for Draco's, and clasps the dead fingers in his own.
The last thing he hears is Narcissa Malfoy's voice speaking the curse that took the life of her son, the curse that she used to kill her husband.
~`~
Hermione is sitting alone in the great hall of Hogwarts, where the memorial service for the students who lost their lives in the battle has long ended. Among the names of the dead is Harry Potter, who will be missed the most. All he wizarding world believes that he died in the battle with the Dark Lord Voldemort, and few people know any different.
Words were said for all those who died, and everyone was told the tales of their bravery, of how they died.
No one said a word about how Harry Potter really died. No student knew that Draco Malfoy had died saving him. Hermione knew the stories, about how Harry had slain Draco and his father as they attempted to protect the Dark Lord. She didn't try to tell them any different.
She stands and walks over to the banner of Harry, one of the many that adorn the walls of the great hall. She raises her wand, and taps it gently on the tapestry.
In the morning, she walks down the stairs to see a crowd gathered around the banner. She smiles.
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
Hermione thinks that the children who grew up in all-wizard families will never know where the quote comes from. But to that, she has added their story.
Everyone thought that they knew Harry Potter, yet did anyone truly? You all think that he died battling Voldemort, but that is not the truth. The Dark Lord was dead and growing cold when Harry lost his life. He was killed by Lucius Malfoy, who also took the life of his own son when Draco tried to protect Harry. Now everyone knows the secret that they kept.
Hermione watches the gasping and pointing crowd with a smile on her face.
"That was a great thing you did, Miss Granger," Dumbledore says, coming up behind her and resting a hand on her shoulder. She turns to look up at him.
"Do you honestly think so?" she asks.
"I do believe that it is good for the world to know what truly happened, rather than to believe only lies." Dumbledore tells her.
"I just wanted people to know." Hermione says. "Draco wasn't completely bad. He at least tried to do something good."
"Yes," Dumbledore says. But that is all he says, and with his hand still on Hermione's shoulder, he begins his slow progress into the dining hall, and Hermione with him.
They leave the crowd and the banner, now depicting not only Harry, holding the sword of Gryffindor and looking for all the world like the epic hero of old, but also Draco standing over his shoulder, Harry's guardian angel.
They are the star-crossed lovers, simply two people with the misfortune to be born in a time of war, and not of peace.