Previously:
"What do you want, Malfoy?"
Draco Malfoy smiled his nastiest smile yet.
Chapter 5 – Break Me
"Read to me."
"What?!" Harry exploded.
"You heard."
"Read this to you?"
Draco nodded.
"No!" Harry cried.
"Potter, I'm not really giving you a choice. Ok, well there's always a choice; cake or death and all that-"
"What? How do you know-?"
"Never mind that, Potter. Read to me or I'll send every damn word to the press."
"All of it?"
"Every word-"
"No; I meant, do I have to read all of it?"
"No. I'll pick some bits…"
There was silence for a moment while Draco leafed through the book.
"Why, Draco? I don't get it: why this?"
"Because I get to see you reading out your inner most thoughts to your worst enemy; the person you'd least want to hear them… it's all very delicious… and rather obvious, I thought. You don't have one Slytherin bone in your body, do you Potter?"
Harry blushed violent red and looked away. It was a combination of the realisation of reading his journal to Malfoy; knowing he could have been in Slytherin and hearing Draco say the words 'a Slytherin bone in your body' (Harry's mind had filled in the 'would you like one?' follow-on line.)
"How do I know you won't just tell everyone anyway, once I've read it to you?"
"Hmmm… well, you could trust me? Isn't that the point of this 'punishment'?"
"I thought we agreed you couldn't be trusted." Harry frowned.
"Well, when I agree with you, you're probably right. And there's a first time for everything."
"So…?"
"Do I have to come up with all the ideas?!"
"Malfoy, you live in your own autocratic little world; there would be no point in anyone suggesting anything to you, least of all me!"
"Hmm… good point; I am in charge here. Right, well; I could let you Obviliate me once you've read it- but you've got no arms and I'm not sure I want to lose these memories-"
"How about I Obviliate you once I get my strength back?" Harry suggested; Draco ignored him and continued to muse.
"-Plus you'd probably wipe my entire memory: I'm not sure I want your wand anywhere near my head…"
"You'd probably only do the whole thing again if I wiped your memory anyway…" Harry muttered in resignation.
"That's true: this is very true to my character and if I didn't know I'd already done it, I'd almost certainly do it again." Draco said smugly.
"You're really enjoying this, aren't you?"
"Of course I am! Why wouldn't I be?" Draco laughed.
"Because it's cruel beyond belief!" Harry spat, attempting one last stand against the blackmail.
"Your point being…?"
"Even you can't possibly be entirely mean…?"
"Slytherin! …and Malfoy too actually! I don't see how you can possibly still be in any doubt that I am 'this mean' and that I am cruel and evil and blah, blah, blah! I thought you knew me, Potter?" Draco looked down at Harry, then back at the book, flipping through the pages again.
"I do have one idea… but it's y'know… a bit grown up… not sure you'd be up for it, Potter…" Draco said, glancing up at Harry though his hair.
"What are you trying to goad me in to now, Malfoy?" Harry asked, rolling his eyes.
"Ever heard of an Unbreakable Vow, Potter?" Draco said seriously, looking up from the book and staring at Harry's eyes. Harry shook his head.
"Well, as the name implies, it's a promise that can't be broken. I'll make one with you that I won't breathe a word of this to anyone-"
"Why?" Harry interrupted suspiciously.
"Because you won't take my word for it, so, being the gentleman that I am, I'm trying to offer you an assurance-"
"And that's the part I don't get! You just assured me that you were an evil bastard, so why would you tell me about something that would make you keep your word? You could torture me far more by telling everyone about this. You could even have made up this 'Unbreakable Vow' thing just to taunt me some more for all I know!" Harry ranted.
"It hurts me that you don't feel you can trust me, Harry…" Draco feigned hurt, then smirked and made to get off of Harry. As he walked across the room towards his trunk, Harry rolled his eyes.
"Have I ever told you how much you piss me off?" Harry growled.
"No actually. But I can normally tell… all the same, hearing the words means a lot to me." Draco winked, then rooted through the chest for a moment and pulled out a heavy leather-bound book.
"My father gave it to me," Draco muttered as he flicked through the pages. "No, it's not dark magic." He said without looking up, as Harry opened his mouth to ask. "You may be surprised to know we have an entire library with many, many books that are not at all evil…" Draco continued distractedly.
Then, a minute later, Draco shocked Harry by cackling with glee as he found the page and strode back to the bed. He held the book open before Harry, who was now sitting on the edge of the bed. Sure enough the page heading was 'The Unbreakable Vow'. Harry read a few lines.
"Malfoy…? It says it'll kill you if you break it… and I don't trust you, even on your life. Dumbledore will kill me if I kill you… well, probably…possibly…"
"I wouldn't have thought his spell would let us go the full whack anyway…despite this exercise being about trust I don't expect they trust us at all… hypocrites! We'll do the dimmed-down version of the spell- less risky… plus also, we'd have to have a witness for the full potency version- and I think that's something you'd probably like to avoid." Draco grinned, then looked at the book again.
Harry nodded. "Ok…so it's an Unlikely-to-Breakable spell?" He raised an eyebrow. "What does it threaten instead of your life?"
"You get to choose. Within reason."
"Good. We'll do it. Do you have the ingredients?"
"We don't actually need anything but our wands…"
"How serious is the punishment for breaking the vow allowed to be?" Harry asked, almost smiling.
"According to the book, anything but death. But if you're asking my opinion…? make sure it's bad, Potter, or I will tell." He smiled horribly and held out his hand.
"You ready? It's easy. You take my hand, I make my promise, then we touch a wand to our hands and it binds them with a tongue of flame…"
Harry looked over the words in the book; he was surprised that Draco was not only telling the truth, but volunteering it. He still didn't trust him, but the offer seemed too good not to. Even if the spell did nothing to stop Draco telling everyone, Harry wasn't losing anything by making him take the vow, so why not?
He tried to lift his arm, then looked up at Draco, who was trying not to laugh. Harry glared.
"Little help here?" he said darkly.
"Sorry" Draco laughed, "I just had to wait until I knew you'd tried…" Draco took his hand: it was odd how Harry could feel Draco's hand on his, even though he had no strength and no control over his arms.
Draco held his wand against their joined hands and begun his promise.
"I promise I will not breathe a word of this, meaning Potter being gay or anything from his diary, to anybody else in the entire world. If I break my word then…?"
"May you always be sexually frustrated and never satisfied, to the point where your hair falls out and you wish to be a eunuch." Harry said proudly, and Draco nodded.
The tongue of flame engulfed their connected hands and the vow was sealed.
Draco held his wand against their hands for a moment after the flame had vanished, then stood up to retrieve the diary from the other side of the bed. Harry sat on the edge of the bed, slightly more satisfied until he realised what was coming next.
Draco yanked Harry backwards onto the bed and straddled him once again.
"Dammit Draco! That hurt! And why must you keep sitting on me? I thought I was the gay one! And I still can't move my arms!"
"I didn't mean to hurt you…" Draco looked like he was almost going to blush, "I just wanted to pin you down while you read to me…" he said quietly.
"You, Draco Malfoy, are a conniving bastard. Get off me."
"No. Now…read to me!" Draco held out the diary, Harry stared up at it and sighed.
"Can I sit up?" Harry said after a moment. Draco lifted himself slightly, but made no move to get off. He grabbed Harry's shoulders and pulled him up, then sat back in his lap and held the book open against his own chest.
"Start here." Draco commanded, looking down and pointing. Harry scanned the page; Draco had managed to find one of the most explicit parts in the whole damn book! And, dammit, there was a part about his type on the next page and he just knew Draco would look so smug at that point…He blushed and began to read.
Four minutes later Harry looked up from the page. Draco's cheeks were a little pink, and, Harry noticed, his eyes were looking very… in fact, he generally looked quite turned on. Harry actually smiled.
"You getting a little hot under the collar, Malfoy?" he gloated.
Draco raised an eyebrow. He shifted his hips against Harry's. Evidently he wasn't as turned on as he appeared to be from what Harry had felt; although, the movement certainly stirred something in the region of Harry's groin. 'Remember' his brain murmured to his body 'we hate him!'
"Sorry, Potter. I know I'm just your type," he leered, then smirked, "but you're not getting lucky tonight- I'm not a batty-boy. Now if you'll excuse me… I have to write my mother a letter."
"Ok, sure Draco… a letter…" Harry slumped back onto the bed as Draco strutted away. He turned his head to the side and closed his eyes, glad that at least the reading was over. And only a few hours more and it would be time for the switch over and he could Draco-proof everything against future attacks; though the phrase 'locking the stable door after the horse has bolted' kept trotting through his mind.
hdhdhdhdhdhdhdhdhdhdhdhd
Right. This is a first draft so there's prolly typo's and punctuation errors, i hope nobody's too distracted by that, 'cause i'm just aiming to entertain here.I hope it's passable, even though I know it's not great. I'm sorry if the Unbreakable Vow medium-strength-edition is lame: it seemed like a good idea at the time, but well….. you know how it is…? maybe…? Anyways… I'm sure there are other things that are annoying… I know there's a lot of dialogue in this chapter… but I like writing dialogue so… anyways I've babbled enough.
Hope you enjoyed! Leave reviews, if you have questions, criticisms or suggestions! Thanks xxtOxx