Disclaimer: Poor innocent Harry Potter and poor...not-quite-so-innocent...Draco Malfoy just happened to wander into my story-starved clutches; they really belong to J. K. All cower before her. The Dumbledore Dragon concept is mine, unless Jo's holding out on us, but his character basis is still the property of Her Eminence Rowling. Grovel, mortals, grovel and flee like hell.
Warning: (music) "SLASH! AH-AHHHHH! IT'S SAVED EVERY ONE OF US!!!" Okay, maybe not, but I couldn't resist the Queen reference; it just kept playing in my head. Guy/guy stuff. No likee, no readee, no problem. ee. (erghm....)
A/N: It took about three months to work up the will to get this chapter out, and in that time I did a lot of gorging upon other people's splendiforous fics (desolation's Petshop of Horrors fic "Some Kind of Bliss" had me clenching my teeth in anticipation). But finally, I decided it's about time I got those silly, endearing boys together. Whaddaya say?
The Makings of a Damsel
Chapter Four
The Learning Curve
Apparently, the boy had taken him a bit too literally when he had said he hadn't wanted him to stay. For here it was, a month and a half later, and Draco had not seen so much as a snippet of unmanageable black hair since the boy had left.
The first week, Draco had been understanding. It was still winter, and a treacherous one at that, and the trip to the clearing was likely hard to manage.
The second week, Draco had been rational. Two weeks was not an especially long time, and the snow had yet to really recede to a convenient state for travel. Besides, it wasn't as if his happiness depended on the boy.
The third week, Draco had been forgiving. It was alright, he figured, if the boy took a little longer than Draco wanted, and it was still a bit chilly, even if the snow had been paltry as of late. He could certainly overlook it.
The fourth week, Draco had been concerned. He had honestly thought that the boy would have returned by now. The thought that the boy might never come back started to wink at him from across his reasoning.
The fifth week, Draco had been anxious. The fear of the boy's permanent departure had wedged itself firmly into the door of Draco's logic, and insecurity was running amok in his brain.
The sixth week, Draco had been furious. How could the boy do this? Hadn't he, Draco, saved his life? Given him his home? True, the black-haired boy had done the same for him, but this wasn't about debts repaid, this was about bonds established. And they had one, Draco insisted willfully to himself; they had one and it was cruel and thoughtless and downright uncivilized to just abandon such a connection.
During a particularly lonely moment when Draco's fury had flared again, he smashed the two remaining bottles of invisibility potion onto the floor, shouting with an absolute rage that seemed jarringly large for his slight form. In the raw, prickly moments immediately after his tantrum, he breathed heavily and indignantly, and as he cleaned up the shards of multi-colored glass on the floor, a binding certainty seeped into his bones. Whatever the black-haired boy had been to him, it was gone. The air around him seemed to drain itself of substance, and a numbing sort of emptiness filled the room as Draco faced his loss honestly.
…Well, who cared about some mangy stray boy anyway, with his scruffy, soft-looking hair and his weird, alluring green eyes and his sappy, heroic smile, and especially his stupid matching scar? Who cared about some poor-but-charming savior who had pulled Draco out of the fatally icy stream and wrapped him in his staggeringly warm arms and carried him back to life itself?
Draco certainly didn't. He did not (here he stomped to emphasize to the world that he was serious indeed) care about any of that. The boy could hang for all he cared.
Except that when he thought of the boy dangling from a noose somewhere, an involuntary tremor seized his hand, one which Draco had to concentrate very hard on to still.
But really, this had to stop. It was Tuesday of the seventh week, and Draco had been stewing on the final departure of the black-haired boy for four days. He rather felt like kicking something. Leering menacingly at the chair, he did just that, but upon remembering the many (fine, only three) nights he had spent sleeping there in the boy's company, he repented and patted the chair mournfully. Then, with an irrationally frustrated hiss, he spun around and stomped out the door.
Squatting by the dying fire, which he still kept going even though nearly all of the snow had melted, he growled, "Dilly Bobble." The fire seemed observant enough to catch Draco's less-than-pleasant mood, for it decided to appease him on the second try and save the torment for another day. Pulling a handful of berries out of his coat pocket, he popped them into his mouth and began chomping maliciously. He was about to launch into another biting mental tirade when he heard a heavy shuffle pushing through the underbrush.
The hope he irately wished he didn't feel died when he saw the massive form of the dragon bumbling out of the bushes. His scales were indeed now gold and not green, and he looked a tiny bit fatter. Of course, the dragon was a preposterously large creature as it was, so Draco wasn't positive of that.
"Draco my boy!" (the dragon's voice was still goadingly cheery and grand) "Oh, the things you missed in Bali! I must say I was so glad to visit it again; it has been such a long time. Still the same as when I was just ten feet tall! Well, they did have something new with fire and a dancing girl," he admitted. "But oh, the sun! The food! And swimming, ah, I'd wager I swam for nearly a month straight out! And the children were so glad to see me again…" he looked fondly into the distance, clearly reliving tan little ten-year-olds, screaming their round heads off in what he interpreted as euphoria. Chuckling a little, he turned to Draco and considerately inquired, "So. How was your winter?"
A number of black responses offensive even for a conversation with a beast flew through his head, mixed in with flashes of truth—terrible, wonderful, hellish and bittersweet and new in ways he couldn't articulate and wasn't sure he wanted to, now that it had all been taken away from him.
He settled on a resigned and half-hearted, "alright, I suppose," and prepared himself for two hours of a newly golden dragon rambling about blue seas and sunshine, but it never came.
"You know," said the dragon a touch loftily, "I believe I saw that wayward youth you made friends with heading this way as I flew overhead."
Draco's brain seemed to shut down while his heart started pounding as if he had been holding his breath for five minutes. He heard himself reply, "We're not friends" even as he dashed across the clearing.
"A bit more to the west, I think he was," the dragon called out. Laughing quietly to himself, the dragon crept back into the forest with a gleam of silly triumph in his amber eyes.
Draco entered the forest, head whipping about in every direction, looking for that annoying, oblivious, perfect idiot who he had thought would never return. Trampling the sprouting flowerbeds as he ran, Draco considered the fact that he had no idea what he would do once he found the black-haired boy. "Cut his hair" came to mind, but Draco shook his head and increased speed. As budding trees flew past him, he tripped over an inconspicuous root and was sent catapulting to the ground. Hissing in irritation, he scrambled back to his feet. His hands, which he had instinctively thrust in front of him to break his fall, began to throb and sting as the cool spring air invaded the scraped-off skin near his wrist. Gritting his teeth, he launched back into full sprint, or at least as full sprint as his less-than-fit body could manage. So determined was he that he nearly missed the black-clad figure walking in the opposite direction mere feet away. Half-tripping over himself in his effort to turn around, he had to stop short to avoid smacking into two bright, surprised, heartrendingly familiar green eyes.
The eyes blinked.
"You're a boy."
An agonizing month of separation and uncertainty, and all the unfeeling boy could say was something as inane as that? Draco wanted to scream.
"I mean…" the boy clarified, "You're not a girl."
"However did the scholar's council let you go?" Draco spat caustically. All in all, this introduction (Draco realized with a funny start that that was what it was) was rather anticlimactic.
The black-haired boy looked appallingly amused. How dare he find humor in this? What right did he have after everything that he had made, yes made, as in forced Draco to go through? The audacity! He was really much more gaulingly impudent than Draco had anticipated. He half-wanted to forget the whole thing and head back to the hut, but the need to regain his dignity was too compelling.
"What exactly…" Draco made sure to sound condescending, "made you think that I was a girl?"
The boy shrugged amicably. "Well, I mean…there were all those dresses in that trunk—nothing but dresses, actually. Not to mention you seemed sort of small, or short, or thin or something, when I pulled you out of the water that time."
"You're barely taller than me!" Draco cried in indignation. If you had spent the last six years eating nothing but birds and berries, you'd be malnourished, too, he thought crossly. He then recalled that the boy's food supply was basically on par with his own, and his sympathy was invoked. That is, until he realized that the boy had still managed to end up standing a fair few inches above Draco's height.
Well, fine. That boy could just take his cheek and his bad hair and his taunting tallness and rot. Draco decided he wanted to forget the whole thing after all, and began walking briskly away.
"Oh come on, I'm sorry!" the boy laughed, sincere repentance in his voice. Draco remembered thinking that it was a voice that you could always trust. He sighed and came to a stop but did not turn around. Crunches on the ground made their way closer as the boy jogged up to him. "Hey," he said, looking more directly at Draco than most people were inclined to look at anybody, "I really am sorry. I just didn't think about it."
His expression fading from offended to vaguely annoyed, Draco inwardly sighed.
"Fine." The contrite look on the black-haired boy's face spread into a smile of relief and simple happiness, and Draco became aware of how close the boy's face was to his. Fighting down a ripple of nervousness, he rolled his eyes and continued walking. He did, however, make sure to walk slowly, so as to indicate that the boy could follow if he wanted to. Apparently he did.
"So what's your name?" the boy asked, casually ambling on Draco's right side.
"Draco Malfoy," he replied neutrally.
The boy's mouth twitched, but he didn't say anything about Draco's unusual name. After a short silence with just a faint whiff of awkwardness, the boy spoke up. "I'm Harry."
Something clicked in Draco's brain, and the memory of the dream with the black-haired boy—he was Harry now—and the elusive name he had screamed at the end rushed back and resolved itself. He smirked.
"Kind of a boring name, isn't it?"
Harry raised his eyebrows. "I guess anything would be boring if you grew up answering to the name of Draco Malfoy," he quipped back.
Draco shot him a look. "Commoner."
This only made Harry laugh, and retort, "At least I wear boy's clothing."
"You are in no position to lecture me on my state of dress. You dress like a thief!"
"I think a thief would be able to steal better clothes," Harry pointed out. Draco payed no attention, but continued.
"…And your hair! I'm completely cut off from all forms of civilization, but I still manage to make my hair look good."
Harry grinned. "I didn't realize that vanity was a virtue."
"Just as well that you didn't. Even if you did have the proper appreciation of the personal aesthetic, it would be utterly wasted on you," Draco said, turning up his nose affectedly.
"'Personal aesthetic,' huh? Is that your excuse for wearing frilly dresses?"
"That's all I have! And they aren't frilly."
Harry sighed good-naturedly. "You're right of course. They're the paragon of manliness."
They bickered all the way through the forest. Draco scowled and sneered, and was never sparing in the proportions of disdain that he dished out, but inwardly he was marveling at how easy this was. Somehow he had imagined that it would require a lot of effort to interact with this boy. After all, he hadn't had many (any) friends in the village, and even his mother had given him up to sure death. He had just assumed that you would have to work very, very hard to get people to stay with you, even for a little while.
The pair arrived at the hut and Harry hung behind politely as though he had never been in Draco's makeshift home.
Draco gave him a funny look from through the doorway. "You can come in, you know."
Harry shrugged, an apparent habit, and walked in. "I've only been in here once…"
"Twice."
"…And that was out of necessity."
They both paused and turned their thoughts inward recollecting the furious snowstorm and the treacherous ice.
"Thanks for that, by the way," said Harry, pulling Draco out of his still-difficult reminiscence.
"Hmm? Oh. You already thanked me for that."
"That's true. But I wanted to thank you in person. Or…I mean, you were there, but I couldn't see you and all...you know what I'm saying." Draco gave a breathy laugh from his seat on the bed. "So, thank you."
Again, that ingenuous sincerity that seemed like it could pierce absolutely anything, the strongest metal or the most stubborn hide.
"You're welcome," Draco answered, and his voice was a little bit scratchy and not nearly as easy as he would have preferred. His throat constricted further when Harry sat down next to him.
"Hey…Draco—d'you want me to call you Draco or Malfoy?"
"Draco's fine," he rasped, trying hard not to look over at Harry.
"Draco then. You've got something on…"
Draco turned his head toward Harry as if he had lost all control of his motor functions, and involuntarily leaned in a fraction as Harry's terrifyingly warm fingers brushed a stray piece of his hair off his face and tucked it back behind his ear, which he was sure was impossibly red at the moment. Harry looked straight at Draco and said, "There. Just helping you out with your 'personal aesthetic'."
The boy began to snicker.
Draco pushed him off the bed.
A/N: Gahh, the ending was a little abrupt, but I couldn't go on to the next section of the piece without making it about twice as long, so there the story ends. I'm aiming for one more chapter and a shorter epilogue, but as always, that may or may not happen. Now my brain is all fuzzy, like an image on an etch-a-sketch that got shaken accidentally, all due to lack of sleep. So, naturally, I'll post this and either continue with the next chapter or write something else (Saiyuki!) or at the very least have a fanfic-binge. And I even have to get up at five-thirty tomorrow (the WEEKEND!) for community service. The joy that is my life goes "boink."