The foulest mood that Harry had ever encountered quickly putrefied into guilt and self-admonishment. He realised -seconds after walking off- that he had pushed it too far, there had been no need for him to humiliate the blonde so thoroughly, especially when punching him a few times would've sufficed. What Harry had not foreseen, in what was his own opinion, his stupidity was that Jake would bare the brunt of the snide remarks, accusatory questions and downright rude insinuations. It had taken a few days, but eventually Harry noticed the bassist using his inhaler much more more frequently, the periods of absent-mindedness become longer, and the frequency of accidents almost doubled. Sincerely, he wished he had a time-turner so that he could slap past-Harry, for being such an idiot. As if that wasn't bad enough -Jake being on the verge of an anxiety attack at all times- was that Ron and Hermione were also dragged into it. The same people that were pestering Jake where also hounding his two best friends, and there was very little he could do about it, despite all three explaining that his relationship with Jake was in fact still healthy and strong, and that he had really only kissed Draco in order to humiliate him as publicly as possible. Harry thought he would die of shame the first time Hermione stated -what was admittedly the truth- in her usual matter-of-fact manner.
The almost crippling guilt was easy enough to turn into fuel for his music, the brutality with which he pounded on the drums, the beat quickly came together, and to keep himself occupied in class -mainly to stop him from either glaring at Draco or looking at him with what Hermione described as a 'you kicked my puppy' look- Harry was more than certain that he didn't have a clue what she was on about. There were no puppy eyes involved. Never. It took him many hours, but he was determined to do it all himself, even though he wasn't particularly good at the stringed instruments, it kept his mind off the Slytherin. After many hours of fine-tuning he had what he believed to be something half-way decent, however he had no real way to judge it until he had a chance to hear the whole band play it, he thought it sounded good, and he was determined to play it at the performance for the Muggle Music class.
As his determination formed, he questioned whether Draco actually knew they had to perform in just a few short days, he decided to swallow his pride and find out. Harry waited patiently outside the Slytherin common room, well not right outside of it, that would be a little too dangerous, but he waited in the Entrance Hall, so that there would be witnesses if anyone attacked him. He knew the Slytherins where royally pissed off with his little stunt, and quite rightly so in Harry's opinion. He had decided to play Draco's crush to his advantage.. He knew it was an absolutely awful thing to do, but honestly, he couldn't face the comments anymore, especially knowing that Draco was not faring any better. They could face it together, he thought. Harry knew Draco liked the look of his legs in the white skinny jeans, so he wore them, it wouldn't have surprised if he liked Harry in boots, so he wore the ones Jasmine had given to him, and finally the tightest t-shirt he could force onto his torso completed the outfit. With any luck, Draco would be so distracted by his appearance that he wouldn't realise he was being kidnapped to the music room.
At what would be considered fashionably late, Draco and his band of merry Slytherins exited the dungeons, and the blonde stopped short as he took in the sight of Harry. Perfect. As casually as he could manage, and that wasn't very casually at all considering his knees where virtually knocking together, he made his way over to the Slytherin Prince and clasped his wrist. Without giving the others much time to react, he tugged on Draco's arm and took off in a sprint.
Once they were a safe distance away, he slowed to a walk, but didn't release Draco's hand. He could feel the Slytherin staring at him, and he was more than okay with it, as it was obviously stopping the many, many complaints that would've come his way otherwise. It was a little disconcerting though, he was used to Jake being the only one that actually looked at him like that.. He didn't know whether to be flattered or a little uncomfortable, although reasonably he believed it should be a bit of both.
"Look, Draco, I'm sorry, I know I was out of line, so I'm going to make it up to you," he offered quietly, hoping the blonde had heard, he didn't fancy repeating himself if the Slytherin wasn't paying attention. After several minutes of silence -Harry was quite certain he wouldn't like to know what the blonde was thinking about during that time- Draco glanced up, and Harry took in the sight of the deep red blush across the other's cheeks. "I'm not going to strip for you Draco, sorry."
If Harry was being entirely honest with himself, he would've admitted he liked the shocked expression that briefly crossed Draco's features, almost as if he had been thinking exactly that. It shouldn't surprise Harry. Not at all.
"I came to make sure you know we're performing the day after tomorrow, are you still okay with a duet or would you rather go solo now?"
The complete and utter horror with which Draco now looked at him pretty answered his question.
"I can't perform alone!" Harry was seriously impressed with the pitch of Draco's voice. It was something akin to a mouse on helium. "...I managed to get the Slytherin first years to shut up by threatening to lock them up in the Malfoy sex dungeon with Voldemort."
Harry couldn't help it, he burst out laughing. He knew that if Draco was joking around with him, it meant all was forgiven.
They continued the journey to the music room far more sedately than the mad dash to be out of range of angry henchmen, and it wasn't until they reached the room that he realised he hadn't let go of the Slytherin's hand and promptly dropped it embarrassedly.
Draco immediately made his way over to the desk and inspected the sheets of lined paper that were piled neatly, the first of which was the lyrics for Harry's brand new song. He was rather proud of the lyrics, he wasn't a vocalist, he had virtually no experience with writing lyrics, but he believed they had turned out well. They would be fairly embarrassing for the blonde to sing, but Harry didn't particularly care, as a musician you had to have no shame whatsoever, so it was a fairly good exercise.
"Before you complain, the others want me to see how you do with the kind of lyrics that might make you a bit uncomfortable," he lied "you can't be a singer if you blush and stutter over the rude bits you know."
His small lie seemed to do the trick, and Draco didn't say anything about the song's content. While the other's hadn't exactly asked him to see what Draco was like with the raunchier side of their band's lyrics, he still thought it would be a good idea to test. At the very least try and desensitise him to it by the Christmas holidays, when they planned to record their demo CD. It was concerning Harry somewhat that the other hadn't acknowledged the words in front of him, he'd just stared at the paper like it was going to bite him.
"If you can get through it on stage on Wednesday, without stuttering, stumbling, blushing, looking embarrassed in any way shape or form, I'll reward you for it, how does that sound?"
Surprisingly, the promise of a reward did not go over particularly well.
"Do you think I'm five or something Potter? 'Oh be a good boy whilst the nice healer fixes your whatever and you'll get a lollipop'. Do you really think that will work?" In Harry's opinion, the slightly flushed angry expression on Draco's features was tempting, oh so tempting.
"Of course I wasn't talking about a fucking lollipop, Draco, although if it means you'll do well, maybe..." he trailed off with a wink, and could've sworn the blush darkened.
He knew they wouldn't win the competition on Wednesday, there was no way someone that had only started singing just a few weeks prior could hope to stand up to those that had been doing it their entire lives, as Harry knew some of the class had, but he hoped the open ended suggestion of good things to come would motivate the Slytherin well enough to make him want to perform at his best.
With that, he picked up his guitar and made sure the correct spell was in place to distort the sound like a Muggle effects unit would and began playing. Up until that point, Harry had refrained from having any additional sounds on his guitar, it made it more difficult for him discern where he was going wrong, as the sounds blended together nicely on most of the band's songs. Their unit was on the verge of breaking, and there was constant talk of getting a new one, but they were pretty expensive, so it kept getting put off. Draco looked as if his ears had been assaulted, and in fairness to him, it was possibly the first time he had heard that kind of sound from a guitar, as the others typically practised without effects or amplifiers, seeing as it annoyed the neighbours when they did. They were considerate for a punk rock band.
After running through the pacing on the lyrics a few times, Draco seemed to have the rhythm down, so they moved on to memorising the words, with Harry playing quietly in the background. When it got to the point where Harry couldn't comfortably move his hand anymore, and Draco sounded like a decrepit old hag, they decided to call it a night and return to their respective dormitories.
Harry and Jake had decided a few days before the incident as it had now been dubbed, that they would use Draco's rather blatant sexual desire for them as a means of making him improve as rapidly as possible. Once he learned what his reward would be for high-quality performances, he would strive to play in that manner as often as possible. That was what they guessed at any rate. It wasn't a fair thing to do, but it was necessary.
The next day, neither of them practised. It wouldn't do for Harry to give himself a strain injury, and Draco could've done without losing his voice entirely. Thad day, Harry had decided to be a little adventurous. Up until that point, he had actively tried to avoid confrontation with his Professors, Umbridge in particular, as he didn't want to be in any more pain than he typically was, but he acknowledged that part of Draco's encouragement could at least be visual. He wore a shirt from the previous year, it was a little too tight, the buttons across his chest were pretty much straining from his apparent growth spurt over the summer. The tie was knotted asymmetrically, and he added a badge, an innocuous little Fender badge. Accompanying the too small shirt was the tightest pair of black jeans he could find. He sicnerely hoped none of the Professors would become too pissy at the ensemble, but he knew it was fairly likely, he was pushing his luck just a tad.
To his knowledge his plan worked, Draco had surreptitiously glanced at him at every opportunity, it was more than a little surprising to Harry that none of Draco's fellow Slytherins had worked out that Draco was staring at Harry's backside, almost constantly, in fact. Jake at the very least, was unfazed by the look.
Harry emerged nervously from Jake's bathroom, outfitted in the clothes Ezra had sent him. He was more anxious than when he had realised Draco knew his dirty little secret. The look he got from his boyfriend wasn't reassuring in the slightest.
"I don't like it," Jake declared as Harry perched on the sofa beside him
"What do you mean you don't like it? I thought you were pretty excited by the idea?" Harry questioned astonished.
Jake's gaze fell on his stocking clad legs and lingered for some time.
"I was, and no, I was wrong to say I don't like it. I do, I think you're really sexy, but what I don't like is that you clearly feel uncomfortable. I don't like that you feel it necessary, in order to keep the rest of us safe. If you were doing it because you wanted to, for any other reason than just keeping us safe, I'd like it. Even if your reason was just to drive me absolutely barmy, I'd accept it, but it's so obvious, to me at least, that you hate the idea of being on stage in that shit, that I don't want you to do it."
There was a long silence whilst Harry contemplated what Jake had informed him.
"I mean fuck it, I love the way you look right now, fucking love it, can't help but imagine you're wearing girls panties under that skirt, picturing your fucking cock in those panties is making me so fucking hard I can't even begin to think straight, and the idea of being fucked by you, right now, is making me go fucking nuts. If you kept this little goth girl getup just more me, I'd love it all the more."
Harry was being bribed, he knew he was, but it was hard to resist.
"Wait, what?" He asked, ever more confused.
"Juxtaposition isn't it? You look girly, with your skirt, stockings, shaven legs, all that jazz, so the thought of being fucked by my handsome guy in all of that, I can't even describe... it's hot because that's not what you're supposed to do whilst wearing a skirt okay? I dunno, I don't know why I want it, I just do okay?" There was a strained edge to Jake's voice, and the last thing Harry wanted to do was to stress him out any more than the entire ordeal with Draco had.
"Okay, maybe I'll do that sometime," Harry offered as he went back into the bathroom to change out of the offending articles. He was secretly, very glad that Jake had objected, the boy was quite right, he didn't particularly want to pretend to be a girl on stage, but for his boyfriend, that was a doable prospect.