Thanks to Sanguiyn my wonderful beta, who not only saves me from grammatical errors, but also dresses as a super hero when she does it.
Disclaimer:
Loosely based on '10 Things I hate about you', which was based on Shakespeare's 'Taming of the Shrew'.
Gilmore Girls quote alert in this chapter too...kind of. ;-)
You all know that I don't own the Harry Potter characters (JKR does). But if I did, something like this would happen to them...
---
"Harry, please stop! I'm sorry!"
"You're only sorry because you got caught."
But I love you.
"Please listen to me! I can explain everything!"
"I'm not interested in anything that you have to say. You're a liar."
But you love me.
All the torches lining the corridor flicked and burnt out, signalising that it was now after curfew.
The darkness was intense, and Draco widened his eyes in an effort to see ahead. Harry was only a couple of steps in front of him.
Filch and Mrs Norris could be anywhere, lurking and waiting, immediately ready to catch students out after hours, yet Draco felt a pressure to speak that was too strong to resist. He had to tell Harry something he had never told anyone else, and the urgency of it filled his mouth.
I love you. You love me.
It was the truth; as close as he had ever got to it. But Harry didn't know. He had forgotten, fallen asleep.
A liquid wash of desperation poured through Draco. If he didn't say it now, this minute, it might be too late. All the blocked avenues and dead ends of the past would come together to make one huge impenetrable dark obstacle, and that would be his life, and there would never be the light and luminosity that he was stumbling towards in this fateful night.
"Harry, I l--"
Suddenly there was a crash. Harry swore and muttered, "Lumos".
A second later, light was lapping up the walls and sending a moving orb of visibility around where Harry had walked straight into a suit of armour.
He scrambled to his feet and shone the light on Draco.
"Stay away from me." The wand-light threw his features into exaggerated relief. Draco couldn't see his eyes, only the dark sockets. Harry turned and stalked away.
Draco found that his confession had died in his mouth. He couldn't pipe up now and tell Harry. He could only continue along the corridor with him; keep walking and pleading and calling Harry's name through the darkness.
The smear of Harry's wand light was visible in the distance, swaying in the blackness. Draco toiled on after it, following Harry's light up the stairs and down the endless hallways.
---
"I told you Draco would come around," Blaise gloated as he reached the portrait hole for the Gryffindor common room with Seamus. "I was right. Admit it." It was too dark to see anything but the faintest outline of Seamus's face.
"Fine." Seamus aimed a kick at his shin, and Blaise caught his wrists to stop him. They scuffled like puppies, laughing and puffing until they stumbled against the wall. "I should have never doubted you. Happy?"
"No, actually. It kind of backfired on us. We lost our room." Blaise slid closer to him, winding his arms around Seamus's neck.
"I suppose you expect me to wait here all night for you," the Fat Lady huffed from her painting. "You boys are aware that it's after curfew?"
Seamus ignored her. "If we hadn't gotten out of there as fast as we did, we would have lost a lot more. I didn't want to end up like Nott."
"I think I should check and make sure that everything is still in place," Blaise replied, "just to be on the safe side." He ran the tip of his tongue from the corner of Seamus's mouth to the angle of his jaw and buried his nose in the warm cleft behind his ear.
"I think you'd better," Seamus replied breathily.
Hip to hip they began to slide down the wall. The sound of approaching footsteps jerked them upright again in a tangle of legs and arms. Blaise whirled around and almost collided with Potter.
Potter was holding his wand in front of his nose, bisecting his features. The wand light neatly divided the planes of his face, light and shadow, sharp and soft.
"Harry?" Seamus lit his own wand to see him better. "What are you doing here?"
Harry didn't answer. His face was puffed with rage. He withdrew the parchment from his pocket, scrunched it up and flung it at Seamus.
Seamus caught it and asked, "What's this?" before the hall became very quiet. The Fat Lady peered over his shoulder as the ball of parchment was unfurled with a small scratching noise. He shone his wand light onto it.
The words written on it read:
Step 1: Draco asks Potter out
Step 2: Blaise gets Seamus
Step 3: Draco shags Potter
Step 4: Break up one of the Gryffindor couples
Step 5: Draco breaks up with Potter
"Oh my," The fat lady gasped, covering her mouth with her podgy hand. It was a theatrical gesture.
"Blaise, what is the meaning of this?"
"I don't--"
Harry cut Blaise off before he could answer. "You don't know?" he demanded of Seamus. "You didn't have anything to do with it?"
"Of course not! If I had known what they were up to, I would have never…"
Blaise made the connection quicker than Draco had done. The parchment. The one Draco had written the plan on. Pansy had told him to throw it away. He had forgotten.
He rushed in, "Seamus, Potter, you know, it isn't--"
"It isn't what we think? Is that what you're going to say?"
Potter and Seamus had the same stance, the same look of confusion and anger on their faces, and their likeness made Blaise feel defeated. They protected and looked out for each other, the two of them, that's why they started the pact in the first place. If it came to a test of loyalty, Blaise had always known there was no question to where Seamus's would lie.
"It was all an act. You used Harry to get to me."
"No, not that. Honestly, it's not what it looks--"
"It looks like Malfoy didn't break up with Harry because he was afraid of commitment at all. He did it because that was your plan all along."
"That's not entirely true--"
"You lied to me. You tricked me into believing that I was helping Harry when I was really betraying him."
"I didn't lie. I just didn't tell you every--"
"Harry!"
Somehow, through the din, the sound of Draco's arrival registered on them. They swung their heads and wands in his direction and saw the damage on Draco's eye, shocking on his pale face.
"Hinkypunk!" Harry immediately yelled the password and climbed into the portrait hole as it opened.
Draco began to slide past the others in an attempt to follow him, but Seamus moved with surprising speed and cut him off.
Draco began a protestation, but Seamus hushed him. "You don't have a responsibility to him anymore, Malfoy. You can stop pretending. It's over. I'm ending this right now."
Blaise darted around and stood next to Draco. "It wasn't supposed to turn out like this."
There was an edge in Blaise's voice that gave away much more than his words. He was trapped, resigned to his fate, like a werewolf's victim when the bloodthirsty jaws close around their throat.
"No, we were supposed to be together," Seamus snapped sarcastically, "and Harry was supposed to end up alone. A much happier ending."
"No. Draco was supposed to end up with Harry."
"Not according to this." Seamus referred to the parchment. "'Blaise gets Seamus. Draco breaks up with Potter."
"I was tricking Draco as well, in a way."
"Well, that makes it okay then!" More sarcasm. "You can fool your friends as much as you like, I don't care, but my friends are important to me."
"Harry's important to me too," Draco said, finally stopping his attempt to get through the portrait hole. "I'll sleep out here all night just to prove that."
"Wow, Malfoy," Seamus said. "You should get yourself an agent, because you're wasting all your acting talent on duping us humble Gryffindors. And as for you…" He turned back to Blaise. "I think you are selfish. You are a horrible person and you were a lousy boyfriend."
"Were? What do you mean were?"
"You know exactly what I mean." Seamus threw up his hands and pressed the flat palms against Blaise's shirt-front. His amazing strength propelled Blaise backwards.
Blaise stumbled over his own feet, his mouth gaping open in momentarily surprise.
"Go away. Go away right now and don't ever come back here. I don't want to see either of you ever again."
Blaise took two more steps backwards and raised his hands in a gesture of defence. "I'm sorry you misunderstood me. I didn't--"
"It's not a misunderstanding. I'll say it again: Go away!"
"Can we at least talk this through?"
"Talk? I can't even bear to look at you right now. Just go." Seamus squared his shoulders and watched Blaise steer Draco away.
Blaise's grip was firm but Draco wouldn't relent. He tried to drag him down the corridor but Draco kept pulling away. His head went down and he writhed like a hippogriff being dragged to slaughter.
It looked as if they were fighting. Draco's arms raised; Blaise's locked round him. They lurched and banged against the walls.
"Get your hands off me, Blaise! I'm not leaving him! I'll stay out here all night if I have to!"
"That won't do any good. You'll just make it worse. There's nothing you can do."
Eventually, after more struggling and pulling and shouting, the sharp teeth bore down and made their mark. Draco gave in for the night.
He and Blaise made their way back to the dungeon in painful and blurred slow motion.
---
"Shit," Seamus exclaimed when he entered his dormitory. "Shit and fuck, and all that."
He realised that he was still holding the parchment and hurled it away from himself in disgust.
Harry was sitting on the edge of his bed. He had put his elbows on his knees and was resting his head in his hands.
Seamus walked over and hugged him. "How are you feeling?"
Harry snorted at the question and lifted his head. "Stupid. Deceived. Really, really angry."
He pulled away from Seamus. There had been too much touching tonight and his skin felt bruised by it. "I'm sorry for accusing you. I shouldn't have jumped to that conclusion. I was just really angry, you know. Couldn't see straight."
"I completely understand. What they did was deplorable, even by Slytherin standards. Do you want to talk about it?"
Seamus had told him it was okay to be angry, and it was anger that made him say coldly, "I don't know. Talk about what? We just need to be more careful from now on, that's all."
"Okay," Seamus agreed. "They'd better be careful too and keep out of our sight for a while."
---
The days passed, but every hour stretched out painfully.
Draco's eye turned from red to black and then faded through purple as the bruise healed, although raggedly, because he hadn't bothered to have it fixed by Madam Pomfrey.
Harry refused to even look in Draco's direction. Granger and Weasel were always beside him, two impenetrable stone pillars, somehow more menacing than Crabbe and Goyle had ever been.
Blaise had told Draco that there was nothing he could do, so all he had to do was wait until Blaise came up with another plan. Draco obligingly sat in the common room with him, completing his homework as though nothing had happened.
He eventually got sick of waiting. He threw down his Potions textbook and demanded, "What do we do now?"
"I don't know."
The realisation that Blaise truly didn't know shocked Draco at first. But then he became mollified by Blaise's shrugging carelessness. It meant – it must have meant – that their plight wasn't serious. He would just have to wait until Harry's anger subsided.
"So they're not an item anymore then?" he overheard a fifth-year Hufflepuff muttering in the library one afternoon.
"Who?" his companion asked.
"Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy," the boy replied, certain that no one was listening to them.
"I don't know. I don't think so. He wouldn't be ignoring Malfoy if they still were, would he? No, I'm sure they've broken up."
Draco suddenly became aware of his half completed Potions essay, which he had unconsciously crumbled and balled up in his fist. He shivered with a mixture of jealousy and fury.
"Good," the boy sighed contently.
"Fancy your chances with Potter, do you?"
"I might do. Hogsmeade is coming up, thought I could ask him."
At that point, Draco appeared from his hideout behind a nearby bookcase, flashed his prefect badge at them and gave them both detentions on the Hogsmeade weekend for 'making too much noise in the library'.
By the end of the week, Draco had put fourteen Gryffindors, twenty-one Ravenclaws and half of Hufflepuff house on detention for the Hogsmeade weekend.
The time for waiting was definitely over. He couldn't rely on Blaise to come up with the answers. Harry confronting him was even less of a possibility. He was the one who needed to take action.
He had been bending and conforming, doing what he ought rather than what he could. He had been too dependent on other people for too much of his life. On his mother and father, his friends, Blaise.
He had set too much store by their instruction and trusted too little in his own instincts. Except for asking Harry to make love to him, that is. He had done that by following his own instincts.
Right or wrong, foolish or insane, he had brought himself to this point, and all that mattered now was, as he had once said to Harry, to get on with his life. There was no question that he would and that Harry would be a part of it.
He lay on the couch by the fire in the Slytherin common room coming to these revelations.
"If we're going to mope around, we might as well do it properly." Blaise appeared and handed Draco a large bottle of Firewhisky; it was the type of thing that most Slytherins kept handy.
Blaise had misinterpreted Draco's silent contemplating as wallowing, yet Draco still accepted the bottle appreciatively.
---
Impatient with the close-set type and bored by the content, Harry looked up from his History of Magic textbook to see Ron standing in front of him. He was holding the crate of Butterbeers that was leftover from the Quidditch party.
"Get your cloak, Harry," he said, winking and patting the crate proudly.
"Why?"
"We need something to hide the Butterbeers under on our way to the Room of Requirement."
"The Room of Requirement?" Harry asked incredulously. "We have Quidditch practice tonight, Ron."
"But everyone is still recovering from last night's practice. We could all use a break, especially you."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Oh, come off it, Harry. You know he means Malfoy." Hermione appeared from behind her own pile of books and parchment. "And he's right; hiding under your broomstick and your homework is no way to deal with him. Put your book down and let's go."
"Those words: book, down," Ron gasped theatrically. "Is it possible for Hermione to use them together in a sentence like that?" Harry laughed and Hermione scowled.
"You're smiling!" Ron pointed at Harry excitedly. "It's the first time I've seen you smile in days! See what I mean? You need this. Grab your cloak. Dean, Neville and Seamus are meeting us there."
Harry rushed to his dormitory only to return and see Ron and Hermione in the middle of a very heated argument.
Hermione was standing in front of Ron, hands on her hips and scowl still on her face, doing her very best Mrs Weasley impersonation.
"What do you mean 'guys only'? Harry is my friend too!"
"I know, but this is a guy thing. We all agreed--"
"Guy thing? Harry's gay! He's having boy troubles, not a guy thing! If anything it should be 'gays and girls only'."
"It's more of a Slytherin thing then."
"Do I look like a Slytherin to you? Dean's dating a Slytherin and he still gets to go."
"I know, but he's a bloke and we all agreed--"
"Fine, Ron!" Hermione snapped before stalking back to her parchment pile. "Enjoy your guy thing and get used to it because it's going to be 'guys only' for you for a long time!"
"I'm going to pay for that," Ron grimaced before smiling at Harry and patting him on the back. "Got your cloak? Good. Let's go."
The Room of Requirement looked comfortable and welcoming.
Dean, Neville and Seamus were already seated in the chairs surrounding a large shagpile rug, and a small fire was crackling away in the corner. Harry sat down with them on one of the cosy couches and let his head fall back luxuriously against the cushions.
"Come on, Harry. Give us all the dirt on Malfoy." Ron handed out the bottles of Butterbeer and popped the top off his. "We'll have a good laugh at him. It'll make you feel better."
"We already had enough on Malfoy before Harry dated him," Dean reminded, pointing his unopened bottle at Ron.
"The amazing bouncing ferret!" Ron agreed, happily raising his Butterbeer in a mock toast before taking a large gulp.
Harry started to laugh, like all the others, then a flicker in his chest made the laughter stick in his throat.
Malfoy had proven to be even more dislikeable than ever before, yet after everything that had taken place between them, sincere or not, Harry knew that he'd never be able to look at him in the way that he used to. Malfoy wasn't the amazing bouncing ferret anymore.
---
"Things are different, you can tell me now." Blaise blinked back the tears the first gulp of Firewhisky brought to his eyes. "What was it really like, the first time with Potter?"
"Are you trying to make me feel more remorseful than I already am?" Draco asked moodily, taking a large swallow of Firewhisky. The rawness of it in his throat was fiercely pleasurable. He thought he could easily get drunk, letting all his locked-up feelings run sloppily loose.
"No, I'm trying to make you feel better. Remind you of the good times." Blaise took another happy swing from his bottle. "Go on, what was it like?"
"Like…" Draco gave a small sigh, his chest perceptibly rising and falling. His idea was tangential enough to make him wonder if he was already drunk, but he didn't miss a beat. "It was like going to heaven."
---
"Bloody hell." Ron cursed, furrowing his brow in concentration. "There are so many…"
"The time Buckbeak attacked him!"
"The time Hermione punched him in the face!"
"The time Harry punched him in the face!"
---
"The look on his face when I told him to call me 'Cupcake'."
"The look on your face when you saved him from that Bludger."
"The look on your face when Madam Pince kicked us out of the library."
---
"What about Zabini, Seamus?"
Seamus looked as uncomfortable as Harry. He drained the last of his Butterbeer and set the bottle down. "So many faults I wouldn't know where to begin."
There was a small silence, but he didn't elaborate.
Ron laughed, nudged another bottle towards Seamus and sank deeper into his seat.
---
"It's all my fault, you know," Blaise groaned, resting his cheek against the bottle he had just emptied. "Pansy told me to get rid of the parchment, but I forgot to."
"Too – hic - busy – hic - thinking about your – hic – dick."
"No, I was too busy thinking about Seamus's dick," Blaise corrected. He went to take a sip out of his bottle, forgetting that it was already empty.
---
"I think he's an underhanded bastard." Ron was in top form, still convinced that this was the best way to perk Harry up. Harry didn't take the bait. He sat and listened to everyone else bad-mouth the Slytherins.
"Both of them are," Neville piped up, finishing off a Butterbeer and placing it in the large pile of empty bottles that had formed in the middle of their circle. The rug was barely visible underneath.
"They would use anyone in their path to get what they want," Ron nodded enthusiastically. "Makes me sick."
---
"I think I'm going to be sick," Draco cried, covering his mouth with his hand.
"Very funny. You need to stop being so dramatic whenever I talk about it." Blaise clumsily opened another bottle of whisky, spilling a lot of it over his shirt front.
"No, seriously, I'm gonna vom--"
Draco reached the bathroom just in time, throwing up in the green-painted toilet.
---
"We could have done with some real drinks, you know, Ron," Dean complained, opening another Butterbeer with a soft pop.
"I know, but Butterbeer was all I could get on such short notice," Ron replied disappointedly. "Sorry, guys."
Harry stared into his own Butterbeer gratefully. Somehow he didn't see how alcohol would make him feel any better.
---
Draco felt good. He continued to drink more whisky, even after throwing up. It lay uneasily in his stomach, but it had the effect of dividing his thoughts from the rest of his weighty self. He felt clear in the head and quite untroubled, with the knowledge that whatever he did or whatever happened wouldn't matter much. Not enough to worry about. Not enough to care about.
"You're drunk." Pansy suddenly loomed over him.
"You're sexy," Draco giggled drunkenly, almost falling off the couch. "For a – hic – girl."
"Alright, the fun's over. Time for you boys to get into bed." Pansy helped Draco off the couch into a standing position. He swayed uneasily from side to side.
"Don't wanna go to bed. No Seamus." Blaise spread himself out on the couch in the space that Draco had left.
"No Finnigan - hic - no Harry," Draco agreed, not being able to stay upright on his own and collapsing all over Pansy.
"Well, drinking yourselves into a coma isn't going to bring them back." Pansy gritted her teeth, unable to support Draco on her own. "Can I get some help over here?!"
Blaise raised his whisky bottle in a salute and stood up, only to promptly fall onto the floor.
Crabbe materialised at Draco's side, placed a secure, beefy arm around his waist and relieved Pansy of his weight. Goyle appeared a second later and pulled Blaise to his feet.
Draco's shoulders slumped, and his head rolled forward. The next thing he knew, he was lying in his bed and Pansy was tucking the covers so tightly around him that he could hardly breathe. Blaise was already breathing heavily from his bed, small snores catching with each breath in the back of his throat.
"If Potter could see you now…" Pansy said disapprovingly, before flicking the lights off and exiting the room.
The darkness punctured Draco's absorption in his drunken shining moment, and all the old black shadows came flooding in on him. He struggled to stand upright in a tangle of sheets and blankets. He wanted to move. He wanted to go to Harry. Now.
The common room was all in darkness now. He made a beeline to the exit; it was a long way, much further than the thirteen steps he knew it to be.
"Lum – hic – os."
Draco tried, but the spell didn't work. He staggered down the corridors blindly, banging into suits of armour along the way.
"Hink - hic – y – hic – punk."
The Gryffindor common room was dark and empty as well. Draco slipped to the stairs and crept upwards, trying to set his feet silently on each thread. But his legs were unsteady, and the floor dipped beneath him like the deck of a ship under way.
His steps were silent as he opened the dormitory door and made his way towards Harry's bed, until he stepped on something which made a soft crunching noise.
He bent down and picked it up. The light from the full moon outside revealed that it was the parchment he had written the plan on. He frowned at it for a moment, before continuing on to Harry's four-poster.
The curtains were already pulled back, and Draco began patting around blindly for the warmth of Harry's body amongst the covers.
"Ha - hic – Harry." When he couldn't find him, he threw in the bedcovers back. "Are you - hic - there? I need to – hic - explain this to – hic - you."
After more feeling around, it became clear to Draco that Harry's bed was empty. But if Harry wasn't here, where was he?
The Quidditch Pitch, maybe. Harry liked to fly.
Draco ran across the room to the steps. Down the corridors he ran faster, even though the stone floor was cold under his bare feet.
Once outside, he looked back over his shoulder only once to check his progress across the grounds.
It was dark outside, except for a golden glow near the edge of the forest and a grey curl of smoke rising from a chimney. It was the Gamekeeper's hut. Harry was always visiting the half-giant with Granger and Weasel. He could be there, rather than the Quidditch pitch.
Draco tripped just short of the hut and landed flat on his stomach on the hard ground.
Glancing into the forest from where he lay, he saw lights moving ahead of him. They were receding further into the trees. There was a pale glow, which wavered between the black holes of the spruces.
"Ha – hic - Haaarrryyy!" he called out, picking his wand up off the grass and standing.
His voice sounded weak and flat as he staggered drunkenly into the forest, and the breeze made an endless whisper. "Harry."
Draco began to run. He stumbled across roots and brambles until he reached the black canopy of trees, and then he threw himself in among them. The light ahead tantalised him; it was further away, growing fainter. "Harry," he yelled. "Wait for – i hic /i – Wait for me."
All around him was the shiver and rustle of woodland. He began to run again, clawing his way through the trees. Sweat from the effort of running so hard almost blinded him. He was crying and gasping for breath as he scrambled on. Harry was here somewhere. He had to reach him.
After another hundred yards, with his lungs threatening to burst, Draco realised that he was running downhill. He crashed to a stop and looked around wildly, his breath as loud as tidal surges in his ears.
The dark was diluted and then dispelled by the light he had followed into the trees. There was the sound of an engine and the screech of a horn.
A car was thundering towards him, its headlights now flashing and its doors flapping as if it were a bird preparing to take flight.
At first, Draco could hardly move against the pressure of shock and dizziness. He unsteadily pointed his wand.
"Petri – hic – ficus Tot – hic – alus!"
His freezing charm backfired, sending him flying backwards, his arms and legs flaring as wildly as the car doors. The back of his head struck the trunk of a nearby tree. He went down in an untidy heap and lay amongst the thick tree roots.
His eyes widened in the blinking darkness and his vision became more blurred. He felt he was drowning in an infinite sea of pain. The car continued to roar towards him.
"Petrificus Totalus!" He raised his wand again, raw desperation in his voice.
It worked. The car froze, the flashing lights stopped, and the darkness became absolute.
Draco stumbled to his feet with difficulty, wincing in pain. Over his head the huge oak tree spread its branches like veins against the sky. They seemed to toss with the wind, though it was a still night. The melancholy and doom that hung about it reached out to clutch at him, as strong as gripping hands. Weakly he staggered backwards a few paces. Harry wasn't here; he wasn't anywhere near this place.
There was a dark mass ahead of him, more solid than the woven trees and branches. When he moved, the wrist thick tree roots caught his feet. He froze into stillness, not knowing which way to turn in order to get out. His innards loosened as he shrank backwards, one more step.
He was stumbling backwards, and then it seemed that the ground opened like a mouth and he was falling into it. A yelp started out of him, but it was abruptly silenced.
Author's Notes:
Oh my gosh! It's time for my notes but I have nothing to say…how very odd.
So…er…I guess the only the left to say is…REVIEW! Go nuts! And when I say go nuts, I expect nuts to be going!
:-) Lucy