A/N: HELL YES. I got this done, finally. It only took me about three months. All right, here's the response… I love this chapter now. Draco finally gets a bigger section of the chapter at the end, I thought I'd do him justice this time. He's so cute in this chapter. ^_^;; So's Harry. Either way, here you go. It's finally done!
The Snog of Death
Draco Malfoy
The first thought was: There is no way in hell this could be happening.
The second thought was: Damn, Potter's a good kisser.
The third thought was: Jesus Christ, I can't breathe.
We broke away, panting, and our eyes were now locked. He looked away quickly, glanced down at his watch. "Jesus Christ, Malfoy," he breathed.
"Thanks," I said.
"Not that, you git. There's about two minutes 'til Potions!" He grabbed his bag. "I'm not waiting for you, he hates me and if I'm late I'll be poisoned or something just as bad. You're in Slytherin, you're safe." He glanced at me, flushed. "See you there, Malfoy," he said, and bolted.
"I guess that's a compliment," I said to myself quietly and laughed. I wiped my face and found my lip was bleeding again. It seemed a bad omen. I hitched my bag up and hiked through the dungeons until I reached Potions. Snape didn't react when I arrived about a minute late.
Well, at least he's a Pureblood, I found myself thinking. Father won't have a complete coronary if he finds out. When he finds out. Yeah, right.
It's the Malfoy way to do something completely botched then have to do it all over again, and better. I had just snogged Harry bloody Potter, me, Draco Malfoy. I, for one, was not gay, nor was I gay with Harry Potter. It was going to explode in my face. But damn, I wanted more.
His lips slightly swollen now, how funny, his lip was bleeding again too. Like as if those two snogs were the Kiss of Death for us. If Father somehow found out about this strange occurrence, I would indeed be dead.
At least I'd leave a good-looking corpse.
Harry Potter
I'm not gay, I kept telling myself. I have never been, and will never be attracted to men.
Damn, my arguments were weak. Especially considering that I had just full-out snogged that rich arrogant bastard. I huffed in disgust at myself and tried valiantly not to look in Malfoy's direction.
The movement caught Ron's attention. "So what happened with Malfoy?" he whispered, keen as anything.
I'd tell Ron about this around the time that the Dursleys joined up with Voldemort. "Nothing," I said.
He rolled his eyes. "What, are you kidding me?" I shook my head, mainly to deny but to also shut up the two conflicting points of view in my head. "Ah well." He grinned. I grinned faintly but tried my best to just not be noticeable.
"Are you all right?" Ron jabbed me in the side. "You're all green. And your lip's bleeding again."
"I dunno why," I lied.
"Well, if you need a good health potion or charm, ask Hermione," he said. "She'll whip anything up for you; she's been worried as all hell about you, you know that. The Quidditch match, this whole new thing with Malfoy... You-Know-Who... all of us are worried, really. It's a lot of stress on you."
Thanks, Ron, I didn't notice. "Yeah," I said. There wasn't much else to say.
Ron leaned back and watched Snape slink by, then leaned towards me. "Tell the truth,. What really happened?"
"I found him, told him I was sorry, he told me to sod off, and I did. The usual."
He shook his head. "How anticlimactic. Well, whatever."
I glanced up to see Draco intently staring at me. It bothered me more this time than any other time before, because now there was an almost tangible thought behind that stare. He raised his eyebrows slowly and I felt my face grow hot, not only with anger but with discomfort. There is no way this is happening. I turned back to Ron quickly and said, "So everyone thinks I'm going mad, hmm?"
"Never said that," Ron said, scratching his head. "You're reading between lines that aren't there."
"Is that right?" I lowered my voice. "You just said that everyone's worried about me, that I have really bad memories, lots of stress, et al. That pretty much boils down to 'Harry's under a lot of stress and he's going to snap if no one helps him relieve it.'" I shook my head. "I'm fine. And if I do need help, I'll ask for it."
"All right, Harry, all right," Ron said hurriedly. He looked back to the cauldron and swirled the potion around a bit more. There was packed silence between us, thick as a brick wall.
Someone poked me in the back. I looked back and it was Hermione, elbows on the Potions tabletop. "So, what happened with Malfoy?" she said keenly. "Did you get in a fight again?"
I shrugged. "A truce, sort of. We didn't punch each other or anything."
"Oh well," she said. "Too bad." Her face dropped the amused look and picked up a vaguely serious one. "It's good you confronted him. This thing had to be resolved, Harry, or you'd have both gone mad."
"Are you so sure about Malfoy?" I said, and she flashed a smile. She gestured for me to lean closer to her, and she whispered in my ear.
"Honestly, I think he's a bit obsessed with you. All he's been doing is starting fights with you since first year and it's growing more frequent. Plus the fact that he hasn't been able to stop staring at you within the past week. I find it a bit odd, don't you?"
"I've accepted Malfoy as a fact of life after five years," I said. He was a different kind of fact of life now, admittedly, in a way I really didn't want to accept. "I don't think he's gotten any worse, personally."
"You punched him," Hermione said. All right, that was true. "And he punched you. I call that worse. You hadn't even touched him until then." I shrugged. She blinked and stared at me for a second.
"What?" I said. It was rather unnerving.
She touched my lip. "Your lip is bleeding." Her eyes narrowed. "You did fight, didn't you? Harry, there's no need to lie to me, I can tell when you're lying."
My lip was bleeding. How funny. The significance was not lost on me. I just shrugged, turned back to Ron.
"So we add the raven feathers first?" he said.
"Yeah," I said. I suddenly wished it was as simple as fighting, as fury, as blind rabbit punches.
Hate was so simple compared to... what was this? Attraction? Lust?
...Love?
Love? Me, in love with Draco Malfoy?
I must have been going mad.
Draco Malfoy
It's funny, you know? How you can know someone exists and trace an outline of them in your head, no matter how little you actually know about them.
But there are moments, times where one is just... underscored. It's as though their existence, their life is opened to you for one small glance, and all you can think of or write is...
Them.
Contrary to what most would think, I was not one raging ball of machismo. I left that to the numbwits like Weasley and Potter. Though this event threatened a basic part of my life dogma, I wasn't going to pretend like it never happened.
I couldn't, anyway. The name Harry Potter was now underlined three times in my head.
Bloody wanker. Of course my archenemy had to be my first kiss. A damned good one, too.
It had been at least four hours since... it happened, and I still couldn't shake the warm feel of his hand touching my shoulder, his lips...
I glanced down at the parchment I had been doodling on and noted quickly--with little joy--that I had been scrawling Potter's name for the past several layers of ink. I tossed the paper into the fire in the Slytherin common and put the quill and ink back into my bag.
As I stood, I remembered. Damn. I had promised to help Pansy with her Charms essay. I headed up to the library, unable to avoid stopping at the place where Potter had snogged me. I was never going to view that part of the dungeon the same again.
Pansy was waiting outside the library for me. "Draco," she said, and linked arms with me. I squirmed against her touch--too familiar, it brought thoughts of his touch even deeper. She didn't notice. "Thanks for coming down, I know this is your best subject."
"Well, as they say in political debate--" I leaned closer to her and whispered, "Know your opponent's side better than your own, and you can defeat him faster." She gave me a cautious little pouty grin. I felt a smirk settling on my face, sprinkled with contempt for her outwardly, pathetically flirtatious ways.
She looked over and rolled her eyes. "Oh, wonderful," she said airily. "Don't look now, it's the Terrific Gryffindor Trio."
I looked up to see Weasley and Potter laughing riotously at something that had the Mudblood quite offended. He hadn't even noticed me yet. I pulled my arm from Pansy and started away before he noticed me. "Come on, Pansy, let's not waste time."
She ignored me. "Oi! Granger!" The Mudblood glanced up. "Funny meeting you here! Are you researching best techniques of boot licking for McGonagall, or do you just have nothing better to do?"
I groaned inwardly, pressed my hand to my forehead. There was no escape now. Granger stormed over, much to the chagrin of her two shadows. "And you're here to learn how to do beautifying charms, I expect?" she said quite nastily. "Of course, even pulling an Eloise Midgen would be an improvement, for you."
"That's it," Pansy said.
I pulled her back by the shoulder and whispered, "You started this. There's no point to finishing it. I don't want a detention, do you?"
Pansy deferred, giving me a slight glare. After I released Pansy's shoulder, I raised my eyes only to see him.
You'd think I would say something clever here, but that was not the case.
"Potter," I said.
The blank stare in his... very, very green eyes revealed that his thoughts were not unlike mine at all.
"Malfoy," he said.
I felt one of my eyebrows twitch up. "Excellent observation skills."
"Yes. Well." He was starting to flush; I couldn't tell if it was from embarrassment or anger. Either way, I couldn't help but be amused.
"And articulation, too. Aren't you the grab bag of skills." I was more taunting than vicious, but in both instances I got another blush. He looked very naive with a rosy tint in his cheeks. I took Pansy's wrist. "Come along, Pansy. There's more important things to do than to bandy around with these three."
She obediently came with, but shot back one last comment to the Mudblood: "Chipmunk!" Snickers followed the echoed comment.
The response, "Pug!" brought laughs out of more of the closer students. Pansy glared sullenly at a giggling Hufflepuff until she stopped. I couldn't say this to Pansy without a week of being ignored, but I agreed entirely.
I opened up my bag and extracted the book I needed from my bag. "Was it on pest control or pest creation?" I asked. I opened up the book, only to reveal yet another sheet of paper covered with many scrawling of Potter's name.
I quickly crumpled it up and shoved it deep into my bag. I swallowed hard, observing her to make certain she didn't notice.
I wished I could just poison Potter and be done with it. Hate was so easy. But whatever this was, this attraction, this lust... was not easy. I couldn't have hurt him if I wanted to. And that could only mean... actually caring.
Was this... love?
Love? Me, in love with Harry Potter?
I must have been going mad.
