The Dare

Author: liyu

Warning: R, no plot whatsoever... or is there?

Summary: Draco makes a dare he regrets... or does he? H/D

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

A/N: I can't believe where this story is heading towards. That's just my way of saying I've completely lost control. Who would have thought that the fumble in the dark would lead to something like this? Not me... I would really like the story to continue on, but I've no control whatsoever on my writing, which you may have realized from the hazardous way I update...

Warning: not a hint about h/d sex (ok, just a few small ones, very very subdued)) and big hints of fluff following

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It was very strange how Harry Potter ended up gossiping with Draco Malfoy in the broom shed. A couple of coincidences, all at the wrong moment, brought them here, trimming broom tails talking about their comrades' love life. A well placed comment from the Slytherin, the kinds that always brought Harry's blood boiling, in a crowded hallway with Madam Hooch not far, brought the detention, but the rest was mainly due to boringness and, Harry would admit, uneasiness.

Since a couple of weeks before, their usual banter had turned less physical. They still exchanged insults, but they were always the same with no spells or curses involved. And there were some new ones, which no one seemed to understand except them. Allusions to potion mishaps or dares, or dark hallways would come up suddenly in a shouting match, puzzling their respective friends to no end. The rare times they spent together during potion or another assignment were usually silent, sometimes uneasy until one would say something.

The level of uneasiness was reaching new summits in this small enclosed space, dark and dusty resembling strangely a certain hallway, when Draco broke the silence by saying: "Did you know that one of your 4th years is having an affair with a Slytherin?"

Harry almost jumped at hearing his voice saying so suddenly something so strange.

"How would I know that? Who is it?"

"Gwen Lundstrom, a little blond with blue eyes. And I just assumed you would know about those gossips. It caused quite a scandal in Slytherin."

"Well, there you go. I'm not a Slytherin. How would I have heard of that?"

Draco looked strangely at him.

"Maybe because her housemates decided not to speak to her for a whole week?"

"They did? I didn't notice."

Draco rolled his eyes and chuckled.

"You are so clueless."

Harry glared a bit, not sure if it was an insult. "I don't spend time gossiping."

"Gossips are a form of information. Information is always valuable."

"Gossips are just a distortion of the truth. Like that gossip going around saying that Ron and me are competing for Hermione."

"Oh, you are not?"

Harry looked at Draco as if he were an idiot, savoring the action because he didn't have many occasions to find him stupid. Mean, yes, but not stupid.

"Are you daft? Do I look like I'm interested in Hermione?"

"Well, you don't look like you are interested in me either."

"I'm not interested in you!" Harry denied, albeit a bit too forcefully.

"Right. And how do you justify those two little encounters before to your feeble mind?"

"They were dares!"

"Don't deny too much Potter or I might believe you."

"Stop smirking! And I'm not interested in you. Nor in Hermione!"

Draco stood up to take a new broom and smirked.

"A lot of people think you are nonetheless, interested in her I mean. A love triangle between you three wouldn't be surprising."

"You believe that?"

"How would you explain that you study together, go to each other's dorms often, according to gossips, go to Hogsmeade together, and usually spend every free time together?"

"We're good friends. Best friends do that."

"Looks to me more like you were attached at the hip. The weasel on one side, the mudblood on the other."

Harry stood up too, brows furrowing.

"Don't call her like that."

"What's it to you, you didn't even know what it meant."

"But you mean it when you say it, and it's not true."

"Of course it's true. Her parents' blood were not magic, thus hers not too. It's tainted."

Harry seized Draco's arm. "Hermione's a witch, and a better one than you."

Draco looked down at Harry's hand on his arm, eyes blazing. "Let go of my arm."

Green flashed with grey and eventually, both backed down. Harry sat down while Draco returned with his broom to the other side of the shed.

Silence ensued. It was always the same thing. Always the same big arguments they were having over and over, each one recreating in a new setting the old patterns. They yelled a lot at each other, but most of the time, it was without consequences, regarded as more of a game than an argument. Still, some subjects never failed to bring an icy edge between them. Hermione, Lucius Malfoy, the death eaters, Harry's parents... It always amazed Harry how they could joke about their strange sexual activities but not about their relatives. He sighed.

"So who's the guy going out with Gwen?"

Draco's back was to him and he didn't act as if he heard the question.

"Daniel Goldberg."

"I'm surprised you Slytherins permitted inter-house relationship."

Draco turned his head to glare.

"Why wouldn't we permit it?"

"Your talks about Gryffindorks and their idiocy?"

"She's from a pureblood family."

"That's the only criteria to make a relationship acceptable?"

Draco put his broom on his knees to turn halfway towards Harry.

"He's just infatuated with her. It won't last."

"How do you know?"

"It's obvious. He's a Slytherin."

"Meaning you can't have lasting relationships?" Harry teased.

Draco glared.

"Meaning he won't have a lasting relationship with a Gryffindor."

"You know, I'm sure it happened before."

"Never. We don't need Gryffindors, Slytherins are enough to make other Slytherins."

"So you'll marry Pansy Parkinson in the end?"

Draco turned his chair and looked strangely at Harry.

"Why do you say that?"

Harry shrugged. "She's always with you. And she's a pureblood."

"There are plenty of pureblood girls around me. I won't ever transform her into a breeding machine."

Harry looked thoughtfully at the Slytherin. "So... you like her?"

"Of course, why would I spend so much time with her if I didn't?"

"I thought... Nevermind. I never want to see your children. They'll be worse brats than you, I'm sure."

Draco smirked. "Anyways, Goldberg won't stay with her long because they're not in a relationship."

"I thought you said they were going out."

"I said they were having an affair. They slept together. You can't build a relationship just on that."

"Uh, right."

This conversation was strangely reminiscent of their own situation. Not that they were having any kind of relationship because of what happened. Their interactions didn't change much, except for the sex part that was really just more dare than sex and only twice, and the conversations they sometimes had. Still, Harry was uncomfortable with where this conversation was heading.

"What about the weasel and the bookworm?"

"Who?"

"Muggleborn Granger."

"What about them?" He definitely sounded more defensive than he wished.

"Are they together? You said you were not interested in her, but what about him?"

"I'm definitely not interested in Ron!"

Draco looked blankly at Harry's flustering face and started laughing.

"I meant him interested in Granger. You're so stupid."

"Stop insulting me and how would I know you were talking about them?"

"Maybe because we obviously weren't talking about you."

Harry harrumphed. "I don't know if they'll ever get together. They're obviously in love."

"In love? How do you know?"

"They're my friends, I just know."

Draco considered him carefully. "Honestly Potter, I don't think you would recognize love if it hit you with the death curse."

"What?"

"Your relationships in the past showed clearly that you have no idea what love is."

"What, who, do you think you are to lecture me on love and relationships?"

"Everybody knew you thought you were head over heels for Chang."

"I was!"

"Then you obviously didn't have eyes to see that she wasn't interested in you."

"We kissed."

A pale eyebrow arched. "She's the one who taught you to kiss? No wonder you're a lousy kisser."

"I'm not a lousy kisser and I loved her but it didn't work between us, that's all. But I know what I felt for her, unlike you who talk about me as if you knew me."

"Potter, Potter, looking at all the people around you that you are interested in or are interested in you, there's not one you can honestly say that you love that way. Don't start with Chang. You know that you don't love her. Maybe attracted because she does have a certain charm, but not love, right?"

Harry started to deny, only to find that he couldn't. He loved Ron and Hermione greatly, but they were friends. He even loved profoundly Remus and Dumbledore, but more like parents. And the girls that were around him, he couldn't say he cared in that way for any of them.

"See," Draco grinned. "You don't know love."

"Are you trying to make me feel miserable?"

"It's my goal in life."

"It's not as if you knew!"

Draco started. "I never said I knew, which is very different from you who insist on knowing when you don't."

"Whatever, who cares?"

They returned to silence. The only sound was the scissors clipping the twigs of the brooms and their breaths, sounding strangely loud in the quiet shed. Harry got up to lay his last broom against the wall. His back ached from sitting so long and he stretched his arms while yawning. It was late and he was tired.

"Did you know there was a graveyard in Hogwarts?"

He turned around suddenly to find Draco's clear eyes fixed on him.

"Where did that come from?"

Draco shrugged. "Did you?"

"No... where would I have heard of that?"

"By reading Hogwarts: A History of course. Why are you staring at me like that?"

"I've only known one person who has dared to read this book."

Draco frowned, standing up to place his broom beside Harry's against the wall where all the school brooms where aligned.

"It's mandatory reading for Slytherins."

Harry looked surprised. "Did Crabbe and Goyle read it?"

Draco sniffed, his nose held high. It was the air he liked to affect when he wanted to show how ignorant Harry was compared to his very superior self.

"The dumbest Slytherins are still less stupid that the usual Gryffindorks."

Harry would have reacted badly if there wasn't this light in Draco's eyes. Lately, Harry had seen this mischievous small spark in the pale eyes more often. He wondered if it had always been there and he just had never seen it, or if it was really a recent occurrence. He would think the latter since he could remember no sparks at all when, a few years ago, Draco was shouting insults about his parents from the other side of the hallway. Still, they tended to avoid the subject of parents, from both sides, nowadays. Sometimes, Draco would drive Harry so crazy that he just wanted to either punch him in the face or say something about his father to watch those hard eyes crack and burn. But the conversations between them, just the two of them, where so rare that he never succumbed. He suspected Draco made the same efforts, but that would bring in a lot of suppositions best left alone.

"What about the graveyard?"

"It's right across the lake, halfway to Hogsmeade when you take the old forest path."

"So?"

It was late and they both should report to Madam Hooch before going back to their dorms.

"It's a little graveyard, very well kept. You should make a visit, one of those days," said Draco, one hand on the handle of the door.

Harry shrugged, surprised at those comments. "I don't care much for graveyards."

"A lot of important people are buried there."

"So what?"

"Don't you want to know about them? They even have some kind of shrine to the founders."

Draco tilted his head just a little.

"Not really."

Draco narrowed his eyes. "You know what?"

Harry looked back at him questionably.

"I dare you to go."

Harry's lips parted, just a little to let the breath caught in his throat to escape silently.

"A dare."

"Yes. There are those white little flowers growing around, Hepatica they're called I believe. Bring back one and I'll know you did the dare. Because you are no coward and wouldn't back down from a dare, right?"

Harry looked in puzzlement at Draco. Where was this all leading to? The spark was back in Draco's eyes and Harry didn't think twice before agreeing.

Harry was on the old forest path, walking alone. The Sun had not risen very high and a thin mist covered the lake. It was very eerie and surreal, as is he was walking in some kind of dream. Harry thought again about asking Ron or Hermione to come, but he felt this had to be something he did alone. Graveyards held considerably bad memories for him. But the light in Draco's eyes when he had talked about the graveyard, the way his head had tilted to the side, all this and everything else touched something deep within Harry.

It was silly. It was just one of Draco's dares. The two before had drawn Harry into strange and unsettling situations, but not ones he would find horrifying. Maybe that was why he was complying so easily now. He sighed. He was almost there anyways. He would pick up one of those flowers and head back. Just as he made up his mind, he saw little white and blue flowers scattered on the ground ahead, along the bank of the lake. He picked a white one up, twisting its delicate stem in his fingers. It was a very pretty flower, white and delicate.

The mist was fading a little. Right ahead, he could see what he supposed was the 'shrine' to the founders, a carved monument made of rock with moss and ferns scattered on it. The headstone where lined orderly in the graveyard. It was quite small, bigger than the one where he had last seen Voldemort, but not huge. There was a peaceful feeling to this place that the other graveyard lacked. Vegetation was all over the place, but strategically arranged so that it seemed natural while still keeping an order. This graveyard looked more like a garden than a cemetery. He walked slowly around, reading the names and dates engraved in the stones. The mist was fading and soon will be all gone. Harry looked at the names on the headstones. The flower in his hand fell to the ground.

"Malfoy."

Draco stopped and turned around slowly. The moonlight lit his features for a moment before been hidden by a passing cloud. He looked at Harry, nonchalantly standing against the wall, hands in his pockets.

"Were you waiting for me?"

"I knew you passed there for your rounds."

Draco looked surprised. "How?"

With his chin, Harry pointed to a secluded alcove in the wall not far away. "We met there, don't you remember?"

It was so dark, Harry put the blush on Draco's cheek on his imagination's account.

"And why where you waiting here? A midnight rendez-vous?"

Harry detached himself from the wall to stand in front of Draco.

"Did you know?"

"What are you talking about?"

Harry took his right hand out of his pocket and opened it. In his palm, laid a white flower, petals crushed and bruised, but brightly reflecting the moon's pale light.

Draco extended his hand and took the flower by its stem, looking at it intently.

"So you went."

Harry's eyes behind his glasses seemed suddenly very intense. Draco had only seen him like this twice. When he was angered and when he was climaxing.

"Did you know?"

Draco twirled the flower in his hand. "What do you think?"

"Why?"

Draco shrugged. "I didn't think you'd go. I didn't think you didn't know."

Harry turned towards the window, looking at the grounds outside. The moon was not full, but gave out enough light to make out the outline of the forest and the lake.

"No one told me. I didn't think there would be a grave. I just assumed they were... gone."

Draco made a non committal noise.

"I don't think a lot of people knew or they would have told me, don't you think?"

Harry looked back, his eyes looking placid under the moon. "How did you know?"

"All the previous headmasters are buried in this graveyard. I had one in my family."

"You do?"

"I'm a Black too."

"Oh right."

They stayed in silence for a long time, Draco's patrol forgotten. Harry looked outside and Draco looked at the flower twirling in his hands.

"I'm sorry."

Draco looked up, surprised. "What?"

"The flower. It's in a bad shape."

"It's alright. You did the dare."

Draco bowed his head slightly and started down the corridor, flower in hand. Harry stood by the window, looking at him as he disappeared behind a corner.

xxxx

Here's a dare for you: find out the meaning of the white little flower. (I've actually gone so far as to find a fitting flower for this scene!)