Recap: "Harry?" Harry turned. "Yes?" Draco grinned. "You can call me Draco, if you like." Harry smiled too. "Alright, Draco, maybe I will." And with that, Harry and Draco started a friendship that would be put to the hardest tests known to muggle or Wizard kind.
Chapter Fifteen
The first of these tests arrived in little more than a day. It came in the form of the Gryffindor/Slytherin rematch, and it wasn't pretty. Furious with that fact that Harry had made a full recovery (and ignoring the fact that they very likely owed their lives to him), the Slytherin team, minus Draco, was determined to make this match one to remember.
And so, it was with great anticipation that the school marched out to the Quidditch pitch that Saturday morning. Once again the five-minute mark found Harry lecturing his team.
"For three years running now, Gryffindor has been in possession of the Quidditch cup. Sure, there were times, in both of the years we actually played, when no one, including ourselves, thought we could do it. Last year, even with three players banned and having to fill positions after the first game, we still managed. While this newer team doesn't quite have the experience of, say, the team that won the cup three years ago, we do have the spirit.
"We've got an outstanding keeper who, even with half the stands chanting against him, even when we were behind, managed to save the match. We've got two beaters who, even with no experience and a, for the most part, rookie team, managed to shove bludgers into the faces of any foe who crossed their path.
"We've got three amazing chasers, one of whom, like her brothers, was born and bred Quidditch and saved the team's life last year. The other two chasers show so much promise it takes my breath away. With a team like this, how can we loose?"
Ron finally spoke up.
"Hey mate, you've forgotten the one player who's never failed to catch the snitch."
"I have too-" Harry began but Ron cut him off.
"The only times you've ever missed it were when you fell fifty feet from your broom while surrounded by dementors and when the field blew up. Can anyone else say the same?"
Harry was blushing but his team dragged him out anyway.
With the usual handshakes and threats about "Foul play" from Madam Hooch, the game commenced.
"Gryffindor in possession. New chaser Frobisher heading down the field. Passes to Weasley who passes to McDonald who dodges a bludger hit by Crabbe, aims, throws and... YES!! 10-0 to Gryffindor!!"
Harry rose until he was circling the pitch about fifty feet above the game. Draco, obviously bored with how badly his team was doing already, flew to meet him.
"Harry." Draco said with a slight nod of his blonde head.
"Draco." Harry acknowledged.
I personally still believe in the cruelty of fate. I think Draco does as well.
"Gryffindor still in possession. Weasley dodges a bludger and heads for the goal. Goyle sends the bludger back, Weasley dodges it a second time and Gryffindor beater Sloper passes it to Gryffindor beater Kirke, who smashes it into Goyle's face. Meanwhile- LOOKOUT!!"
The second bludger had randomly shot at Draco while all of the beaters had been occupied with the bludger in Weasley's vicinity. Draco (while dodging it) smashed into Harry and both of them tumbled off their brooms. Luckily, Harry did manage to catch hold of a broom (Draco's to be precise) and Draco, on instinct, had grabbed hold of Harry around the waist. Harry's broom was sinking, rather rapidly, towards the ground.
"Climb." Harry ordered.
"But–" Draco protested.
"Just do it." Harry growled. If he had been a vampire who'd been around for a bit, it would have been the work of an instant to swing them up. However, as he was a new vampire who had to deal with twice his own weight in a very awkward position, not to mention he was using just one hand, it was all he could do to hold on.
Slowly (or so it seemed to them), hand over hand, Draco made his way up Harry's body. Carefully, so as not to kick the Gryffindor, Draco mounted his broomstick and, with a rather interesting use of one hand and momentum, swung Harry up behind himself. Seeing that Harry's broom was gathering speed in it's downward plummet, Draco dove for it.
If Draco had been consciously attracted to guys (specifically Harry), this would have been a very sneaky move. Suddenly heading downwards was rather unsettling for Harry, who had very little idea of how he'd gotten topside of Draco's broom in the first place. The sudden drop caused Harry to do the logical thing; hold onto something. Unfortunately for Draco, he happened to be the only solid thing in reach.
If you've ever flown on a broom (or straddled a stair rail and pretended to fly), you might realize how Harry grabbing Draco made things difficult for the Slytherin. When going into a dive, you generally lean forward and down, and that doesn't work if you have something attached to your back and using all of it's vampiric strength (which is substantially more than the average teenager's) to keep you in the same position.
Fortunately, even if Harry is a bit of an idiot sometimes, he does know something about broomsticks and the basic principals of flying, and he quickly realized that if Draco could not move, he could not control the broom, thereby, causing it to fall.
Kinda hard not to notice that, really.
Once Draco felt the arms around his waist loosen their death-grip, he flattened himself to the broom handle and Harry did the same behind him. They quickly pulled up along side Harry's, still sinking, broom and Harry grabbed it. Muttering a quick "thanks", Harry slid off Draco's broom. After a brief free-fall, he mounted his own broomstick and the two boys returned to their previous height, this time with their eyes open for bludgers.
The whole thing had taken little more than a minute.
The rest of the game went by with little more incident. Sure, there was the usual cheating and dirty playing that came with any Gryffindor/Slytherin match, but that was to be expected. In fact, Vincent and Gregory were caught in no less than twenty-seven different fouls, which (while proving that they did have some creative thinking skills) was down right embarrassing and would probably have left the game at about 260-0 to Gryffindor, were it not for the fact that Ron Weasley had to leave the pitch in the aftermath of the duo's brains. The Gryffindor team's reserve keeper, third year Ethan Andree, had to replace Weasley. That little bit of cheating, on the idiot Slytherins' parts, was how Madam Hooch caught the two of them attempting their own demented version of stooging. They'd tried to claim that they didn't know it was no longer legal.
"Even if you had pulled it off correctly, which would have been highly unlikely as it requires three chasers, it was outlawed in 1884 and has, therefore, been illegal for over a hundred years. Penalty to Gryffindor and get Mr. Weasley to Madam Pomfrey!"
The game had been going on for maybe thirty minutes and Gryffindor was actually down by something like twenty points, before Draco, dodging another bludger, realized he had a problem. Up to this point, he'd decided that, since it was hot out, he must have had beads of sweat rolling down the side of his face. It wasn't until, while dodging a bludger, he'd tried to wipe his forehead that he realized it wasn't sweat, but blood on his hand. It turns out that when he crashed into Harry, he wound up with a vertical cut through the left side of his left eyebrow. Lucky for him, it hadn't really bled until he accidentally tore it open during one of his dodges.
Realizing that it was, now, bleeding quite profusely (which was rather dangerous anywhere near Harry), Draco briefly considered signaling for a timeout, but there were two problems with that. One; no body save the teachers, Granger, Weasley and himself knew that Harry was a vampire (and it would look a mite suspicious if Draco were to signal time-out for the Quidditch equivalent of a paper-cut), and two; Harry would definitely notice the blood if Draco drew attention to it.
Suddenly, he spotted the snitch at the opposite end of the pitch, the Gryffindor end.
He dove. Harry looked at him. Draco covered his face.
Whoops. Too late.
With inhuman speed (no duh) Harry changed the direction of his flight and dove towards Draco. Knowing he had only one chance to both, live, and keep their cover, Draco dove downwards at an angle. Faster and faster he flew. The snitch was just a few feet above the ground but the two of them had been over a hundred feet up.
"Go!" Draco yelled. "Please! Faster!" But Harry was gaining on him. The vampire had flattened himself out completely and, as a result, was a great deal more aerodynamic than Draco.
It was then that Draco, fumbling around in desperation, happened upon an epiphany. In his extra classes with Harry (history and advanced defense) they had discovered that Harry could use aspects of his vampire nature without surrendering to the blood lust.
What if Draco could do the same thing? Squinting, he searched for the sense of something foreign in his mind. That's what he did when he transformed at will, he searched his mind until he found a place, a sense, that was different, that didn't quite belong. If he focused on that point, he was aware that it had, at the moment, three elements.
Two of the elements were quite familiar, after all, they all had colors attached. The first element was the one he wanted, though. It was his hawk self and, as such, was white. Now, usually, when he chose a form, he would carefully ease into the feeling that signified that shape. It would envelop him like a wave of water and he would emerge from it, changed.
This time, though, he didn't submerge himself. Instead, he performed the mental equivalent of laying a hand on the feeling as if it were a solid thing. He could still sense the shape twisting beneath his mental fingers, but he was not drowned by it. In this situation, his body retained its human-like shape, but his mind went falcon. He found himself much more in tune with the air currents. Suddenly, he knew where the patches of rising, hot air were in relation to the cooling air. Every little adjustment helped and he soon found that Harry was no longer gaining on him.
A few drops of blood dripped off of Draco's face. They hung, suspended in the air, as time seemed to slow down.
The small, insignificant drops made contact with Harry's lower lip.
In an instant Harry was beside Draco, staring at the blonde's eyebrow. What happened next could have been instrumental in their relationship, were it not for the fact that the ground was less than fifteen feet away.
Harry reached for the trail of blood leaking down Draco's cheek. He didn't see the ground.
"Harry look out!"
Harry jerked around just in time to bring his arm sideways, close his hand over the golden ball that Draco had just barely missed, and pull out of his headlong dive
"No!" Draco shouted. "Dammit, dammit, dammit!!"
Harry was being borne away by the cheering mob of red, but the dark-haired Gryffindor didn't look happy. He had his face scrunched and he looked like he was concentrating very hard on something. Draco stared in fascination as Harry found the audacity to lick his lips.
Harry had really been enjoying the game until Draco had crashed into him and they'd had to perform death-defying stunts on high-speed airborne broomsticks. Even then, the game hadn't been terrible. At least, it hadn't been until he had seen the blood running down the side of Draco Malfoy's face. Harry had fed the night before, so that sight should have affected him very little, if at all.
That wasn't what happened, though
Instead, he had been almost instantly overcome by the blood lust. When Draco dove, Harry couldn't help but follow. He quickly reached his limits and was stuck about ten feet behind Draco and unable to gain any more than a few inches every second.
Then Draco's cut had dripped, and the blood spattered Harry's lips. His tongue darted out before he could stop it.
The taste of the other wizard's blood filled him with feelings he'd never had before, or at least not to that degree. He felt as if he could live forever on just those few drops. It was the most exquisite thing he'd ever tasted. It was like water in the midst of a desert. It was delicious wine in a romantic setting. It was hot fudge in the depths of winter.
It was golden nectar from Heaven.
He wanted more.
Without knowing exactly how he'd done it, Harry found himself beside Draco, matching him dive for dive. He stretched out his hand to touch the cut on Draco's forehead. The blood running down the side of the blonde's face was both maddening and hypnotizing. Nothing could have broken him out of the trance he was falling into. Nothing, that is, except his voice.
"Harry look out!"
In slow motion, Harry turned his head and saw the snitch. In slow motion, he swung his outstretched arm forward and caught the snitch. In slow motion, the two of them pulled out of the dive.
The world sped up again.
The cheering crowd quickly engulfed Harry, but he couldn't take his eyes off Draco, who was shouting something that looked rather profane.
The crowd was nearly Harry's undoing. He was quite deep in the blood lust and being surrounded by a hundred people, all, bear in mind, full of blood pulsing even more strongly and quickly than usual, due to the atmosphere, wasn't helping. The only thing that kept him from turning an exciting Quidditch match into a bloodbath, was the fact that he didn't really want any of the crowd's blood. The only blood, it seemed, he hungered for, was that of the Slytherin seeker currently glaring at him from across the pitch.
His face was scrunched up in concentration as he fought the blood lust.
Draco was watching him.
He couldn't resist. He licked his lips.
Ron cornered him in the changing rooms after Harry had gotten free of the crowd and Ron had been released from madam Pomfrey's lair.
"What's the matter, mate?"
"Nothing." Harry replied. Ron didn't believe him.
"Yeah right. You looked like you were about to kill something after you caught the snitch. What's up?"
Harry realized that, even if Ron dropped the subject (which was hardly likely considering it seemed Quidditch-related), Ron would invariably tell Hermione, who would not let it alone until she was completely satisfied, which could take hours. He also realized that needed to talk to Dumbledore or Krum.
"Alright, Ron. You remember in the middle of the match, Malfoy and I collided due to a bludger?"
"'Course I do, but what's that got to do –"
Harry cut him off.
"Just listen. At some point between in the crash, dive and my fall, Malfoy got cut, just above the eye. I never saw the snitch, I dove to chase Malfoy when I saw the blood."
Ron was staring.
Harry sighed, resigned to telling Ron the last bit but not knowing how the redhead would react.
"That's not the worst bit."
Ron gaped.
"It's not?" he managed to squeak.
"No, it's not." Harry planned his next words carefully. "When we dove, Draco was bleeding freely. Some of it dripped off and, what with the speeds we were flying at, his blood his my face, my mouth to be specific. I was so... mesmerized by his blood that I didn't even realize that the snitch was approaching, and the ground with it, until he warned me. Hell, I didn't even known the snitch had been seen.
"He probably saved my life and I was too far gone in the blood lust to notice."
Ron was still staring.
Harry fidgeted.
"Say something."
After another moment of stunned silence, Ron spoke.
"Malfoy saved your life? Draco Malfoy saved your life? And what's with calling him Draco?"
Harry mentally slapped himself.
"We, uh, decided to be friends." He braced himself.
"FRIENDS!?! WITH MALFOY!?! The god damned BASTARD who's tortured us for SIX BLOODY YEARS!!?!!"
Harry waited for Ron's tirade to run down. When his ears stopped ringing, he spoke in a subdued voice that was, nonetheless, still full of conviction.
"Yes, Ron, I'm friends with Draco Malfoy." Ron didn't interrupt him yet, he seemed to need to hear Harry's reasoning. "Draco and I have almost every class together these days, including Occlumancy, history of magical creatures, and advanced DADA. In all three of those classes, It's just the two of us. the first night back he woke me from one of my nightmares –yes, the bloody ones – and he did it again last week." Harry didn't tell Ron about that vision yet; he wanted to talk to Dumbledore and Draco first.
"He has his own problems as well –and, no, I'm not allowed to tell you – and I've helped him with some of those." Harry gave a faint smile. "Plus, It's hard to avoid first-name-terms with someone you've nearly, well, eaten three times. Do you maybe understand?"
Ron still looked uncertain, but he was no longer angry, and he slowly nodded.
"Thank you." Harry whispered before clasping Ron's hand tightly.
At dinner that night in the great hall, Harry talked to Hermione. With a lot of persuasion, and not a little begging, she and Ron agreed to a truce, at least, with Draco and Hermione even went so far as to suggest that she made be able to carry on a decent conversation with him.
Now the only problem was getting Draco to agree to the same thing.
"Come on," Harry said for the fifth time, "It won't be that bad."
"Yes it will!" Draco retorted from behind his door. "They'll kill me!"
"No they won't." Harry tried to reassure him, but it probably would have worked better if he had been at all sure of that himself.
After about three hours, Harry finally managed to persuade Draco to meet his friends sometime that week. Actually, it was somewhat... funny how they came to the agreement.
See Harry had, with all his attempts at persuasion, managed to piss of Draco, who threw open his beedrom door in an attempt to startle Harry. Draco had every intention of yelling his head off, when he noticed Harry was no longer at eye-level. Looking down, he saw a slightly dazed version of the other boy prop himself up on his elbows, lift one hand, and rub the circular red mark around his eye.
Bad idea.
Harry hissed and decided not to touch it.
Draco was mortified.
Harry reached behind himself and picked up his wand, which was lying on the floor. With a flick and a mutter, Harry had a small bag of ice in his hand, which he promptly placed on his eye, which was definitely going to hurt in the morning.
Draco, to hide his guilt, started in on Harry for being in front of his door handle at all. Harry just grinned and bore it.
When Draco realized harry wasn't gonna rise to his bait, the flow of insults slowly trickled out. Then silence fell; the only sounds were Harry adjusting the ice.
Eventually, Harry spoke.
"So, would you mind meeting my friends to talk in a civil manner?"
Still feeling oddly guilty about smacking Harry with the door, but not about to apologize, Draco gave in without much of a fight.
The next morning, Harry had a splendid black eye.
The following Monday, as the class was leaving from the final period of the day, DADA, Harry paused just outside the door to tie his shoe. Draco stopped as well. He had said that there was something he wanted to tell Harry. Just as Harry was about to stand and head for his room, he heard a raised voice from behind the door and, of course, he couldn't resist putting his eye to the key hole. While gesturing for Draco to be quite, Harry saw a tall figure facing an armchair. Things were too distorted for him to make anything out clearly.
"How should I know? You ver the one who vas alvays vith him. Ven I left, you ver all still discussing the transfer. The last I saw of him vas ven you two vaved me off the day I left."
There was a pause, and Harry could see a shape, outlined by the fire (the classroom had no windows), detach itself from the armchair. It melded into the other standing shape.
"'M sorry. 'M jest s' scared..."
The sounds of quiet sobbing reached his ears and he was about to leave whoever it was in peace, when two things happened.
One, Krum started talking again and two, Harry realized who the second – female– speaker was.
"Ve vill find him. Ve haff to. I vill talk to the headmaster tonight. Jeremy vill be alright, you vill see."
The sobbing died down.
"But 'm still scared. I ain't 'eard from 'im in three months. I miss 'im so, 'nd anyway, you know what 'es like. Probly stopped eatin' 'nd everthin' when I left."
The sobbing started up again.
"Jesse, he vill be fine. I vas vith you long enough to know; the boy does haff some sense. Anyvay, he's strong enough to go a month vithout eating and not combust. He vill be all right and ve vill find him soon. I promise."
The sobbing quieted. With a few sniffs, he heard Jesse talking once more as she collected herself.
"Thanks. 'M sorry I showed up 'nd ruined your evenin'."
"Do not say anything. I'm glad you knew you vould be able to come here. Now," Krum's voice took on a slight lecturing type tone, "you vill go to the Great hall and haff dinner. Then you vill go to Gryffindor tower and you vill do your homevork, after vich, you vill go to bed and get some sleep. It vill do no good to find Jeremy healthy just to haff you get sick."
Jesse laughed.
"Someday, your gonna have t' git married, jus' s' you c'n talk t' a couple a kids like 'at. You'd make a great father."
With out any warning, the door burst open. And where do you think Harry's non-black eye was? You got it.
"Damn it!" Harry swore as he conjured up ice again and put it on his newly damaged eye. "Now I'm gonna look like some kind of insomniac!"
"Vell Harry, you know how to avoid that in the future. Do not listen to private conversations you ver not invited into, and the same goes for you, Mr. Malfoy."
A/N: This chapter was a little more difficult to write than some of the others, particularly because, during the Quidditch scene, I kept seeing most phrases with a double meaning. It was very difficult to be serious, so I apologize if some of it sounds forced. Hmmm. Perhaps I'll try my hand at a scene where all the subtext about brooms can be freely expressed. True, I don't usually write like that, but you never know. Maybe I'll turn out to have a knack for it.
The second reason it took so long was that I acted like an idiot and wrote out most of it on paper, which seriously slowed up the typing process. I'm definitely not doing that again. Nope. Nuh-uh.
Lastly, I didn't come up with the second-black-eye/insomniac part. I was explaining this chapter to a friend of mine and she came up with that. Thanks Lil!
As to reviews, Please&ThankYou.
-Leif