Tattoo

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Author's note: The idea is absolutely ridiculous, I know. But… kind of funny, all at once...
Read and marvel at the kind of sick ideas that come to me in the middle of the night.
Ah, insomnia's great for inspiration.
Goddess J K Rowling owns the boys (and the girls…). As if you didn't know that already!
Plot's mine, though. Mine, mine, MINE! Bwahaha!

Uh, sorry.

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The Great Hall was filled with students sitting in groups, discussing the day's hottest topic: the identity of the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Chaos pretty much reigned, and the sound of the chattering adolescents could be heard everywhere.

"I can't believe they let Snape teach us Defence!" Draco Malfoy said enthusiastically to Pansy Parkinson, who was busy writing an essay on Lethe's Bramble for Herbology. "This will be great, I'm telling you. What an opportunity to make life even harder for the Gryffindor's. Snape loathes Potter… I can't wait for our first lesson!"

Pansy looked up from her remarkably empty piece of parchment. "Why does it always have to be about Potter, Draco? I swear, sometimes I think you're in love with him or something." She almost crushed her quill in her hand as she was saying this; her knuckles whitened distinctly.

Draco stared at her, deeply affronted. "I am not! What's with the attitude, Parkinson? I just think it's fun yanking his chain, that's all. You used to think so, too. Maybe it's you who is in love with The Boy Who Flunked Potions."

She glowered at him, then sighed. "It was fun the first five years, Draco. Nowadays I just get bored with it."

"You're daft." Draco shook his head. "If you like the Gryffindors so much, why don't you just switch houses?"

She opened her mouth to deliver a snappy comeback, but froze. Draco felt a soft tapping on his shoulder. He turned around and his eyes met those of the famous Boy Who Lived.

"What do you think you're doing, Potter? Got lost on the way to the loser-table? Hint: there are lots of stupid fucks with red and yellow badges on their robes." He smirked.

Harry, whose hair was looking very much like a magpie's nest, rolled his eyes. "Ha, ha, ha, Malfoy. You're witty as ever."

"Thanks. Well, if you're not lost, then what the hell are you bothering me for?"

"I need to talk to you. Any chance you might be able to walk away from this… riveting pile of homework?"

Draco stared at him. "Talk about what? What could we possible have to talk about?"

"It's private." Harry nodded at Pansy Parkinson, who was very evidently eavesdropping. She immediately looked down at her parchment again, and started scribbling like mad, but when Draco looked, she was just painting small flowers all over her unfinished assignment.

He grunted. "I'll come. But not for your sake, but because I'm curious."

"Curiosity killed the cat, Goldilocks," Pansy Parkinson muttered under her breath. Draco ignored her, and followed Harry out of the Hall.

When they'd gone up some stairs and around a few corners, Harry stopped, Draco following his example.

"You know, that might just have cost me valuable popularity," Draco snapped. "If anyone sees me here with you, they'll start suspecting things."

"Yeah, yeah, and that would certainly be the end of the world," Harry sighed. "Look, there's something I have to tell you – something that might… umm… well, complicate things."

The blond Slytherin frowned. "Complicate things? What's to complicate?"

"What's to complicate? Honestly, Draco, have you gone and misplaced your brain of late? We're having an affair!"

"No," replied Draco, annoyed. "We're not having an 'affair'. We're fucking. There's a difference. I don't like you, Potter, I never have, and you don't like me either. We're in it for the fun, remember?"

Harry sighed again. "Yeah, well, technicalities aside, we've got this charade going on to fool the people around us. And something's happened that might destroy everything."

"Enough with the teasing, Potter. What have you done?"

Harry suddenly found the floor very interesting. He stared at it as though he was waiting for it to wither, so they'd fall through and onto the head of some poor, totally oblivious teacher. "Well… you know how Lee has been smuggling in Firewhiskey into our common room?"

"Yeah," Draco grinned. "You had some with you when we met last week. Fine stuff."

"Yeah, really quite nice… anyway, Ron got hold of a couple of bottles, and we started drinking… Neville was there, too, obviously, keeping an eye out for Hermione; she's never liked us drinking that stuff. So, we were really bored, and we did a sort of drinking game. And, well… I lost."

Draco cocked an eyebrow. "Jeez, Potter, is there anything you don't mess up? You can't even drink properly…"

Harry looked very uncomfortable. "I'm not used to drinking! I know you and that Blaise Zabini party together whenever you can… but I'm not that kind of guy! Not usually, at any rate."

"Great, now you start about me and Blaise." Draco rolled his eyes. "Would you get to the bloody point, Potter? I'm getting tired of you beating around the bush."

"Okay," Harry said sombrely, "here goes." And he rolled up the sleeve of his robes, revealing his right forearm.

Draco just stared for a long time. His eyes hurt like hell, but he scarcely noticed. He stared until everything kind of became blurry and he had to blink, and then, he stared some more.

"What," he finally uttered, "is that?"

Harry folded his arms across his chest, so that his forearm could not be seen anymore. "That's what happens when you drink too much Firewhiskey and are not used to alcoholic beverages," he retorted, his voice weak and indistinct. "I wasn't exactly sober."

"Why the fuck did you get a tattoo stating 'Draco heart Harry'?! I swear I'm going to kill you for this, Potter! You should have fucking got 'I Am Demented, Please Don't Sue'!" The fair boy's face was getting redder by the second, and now, he was shouting at the Gryffindor Seeker at the top of his lungs. "YOU'D BETTER RUN, POTTER, 'CAUSE WHEN I'M THROUGH WITH YOU THE CRUCIATUS CURSE WILL FEEL LIKE A FUCKING SHIATSU!"

Harry didn't look particularly frightened, just ashamed. "I'm sorry, okay? But it's a solvable problem!"

"HOW THE FUCK DO YOU FIGURE? YOU CAN'T JUST WALTZ UP TO POPPY AND DEMAND HER TO REMOVE THAT… THAT THING! SHE'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO SHUT UP ABOUT IT!"

The brunette suddenly looked quite crest-fallen. "Oh, yeah," he whispered. "Right. But calm down, will you, otherwise someone's going to overhear us, and you don't want that, do you? Deep breaths, okay?"

After a few more minutes of rampant screaming, Draco followed Harry's advise, and his heartbeat started taking on its usual rhythm again. "Okay, Potter. Since Poppy's ruled out, there's really only one option left."

"Which is…?"

"You'll have to wear stuff with long sleeves for the rest of your life – or at least until we finish seventh year. Very fashionable, I assure you."

Harry glowered at him. "Oh, yeah," he said sardonically, "that's an option."

"Why the hell not? It would be the easy way out of this mess. It's really not my responsibility, is it? It was you who got drunk and got a fucking tattoo. How did you do that, anyway?"

"Cut my skin with the tip of my wand," Harry muttered, "and poured ink in the wound."

"That's very working-class of you, Potter." Draco smirked. He'd been able to calm down now, and was getting back to his usual attitude and manners. It felt good.

"Thanks. Anyway, I think I've figured out another possibility."

"Really," said Draco, mild interest in his voice.

"If I tell Hermione, she'll probably know a useful spell."

Staring commenced. "You said what? You want to tell the mudblood about this? Okay, Potter, now I know for sure that you need to be hospitalised. I'm calling father. Perhaps there's a vacant space at St. Mungo's."

"She can keep a secret," Harry replied, affronted on his friend's behalf. "And if she can't help, then no one can. Well, except for Poppy, and we've already agreed that's not an option."

"Tell you what," Draco sneered, "it's really your problem. You want to tell her? Go ahead. By all fucking means, if you think you can trust that treacherous little slut, go on. Just get rid of that thing on your arm. I don't care how, just do it. And if she betrays our little secret…" He paused. "Well, they will need muggle dental records to identify her."

Harry nodded. "Well, okay. I will, then. I wasn't counting on you helping or anything anyway, just thought you'd want to know."

"It's your problem," Draco repeated. "Deal with it." And he turned to walk away. Harry didn't move, he just looked at the handsome Slytherin as he walked off, leaving him behind. But when the younger Malfoy had reached the corner around which he had to turn to get to the staircase, he turned around swiftly, wand in hand.

"EXPELLIARMUS!" he shouted, the spell causing Harry to drop his wand and fly into the wall behind him. He slid down to the floor, lying unconscious from the blow to his head, his glasses askew and eyes beneath them closed.

"Stupid git," Draco muttered, a satisfied smirk on his face as he walked off to the stairs. "Don't mess with a Malfoy."