That Hissing.
Warnings: A little OOC and slashy love, but nothing graphic yet. Don't like, don't read.
Draco Malfoy isn't himself.
He could be found, in recent days, pacing the lawn of the castle. Aimlessly. Which is completely not fitting with the cool, careless image cultivated by his pureblood family. He was fidgeting with his robes clasp. He was running his chaffed fingers over the seams of his sleeves. His teeth were making a subtle grinding noise much like that of a mortar and pestle. His hair was unkempt and whipped around uselessly in front of his blue eyes. Eyes which had, in the past, cause many people to quiver in fear when he stared them down. Ha. No longer did his eyes bring darkness upon others, instead it was under his eyes which one would find dark spots - bags, if you will.
Many Hogwarts students thought that Draco had finally cracked under too much involvement with dark magic and whatnot. Some Hogwarts students assumed that Draco was under a curse of sorts. Even fewer Hogwarts students declared that Draco was undergoing a powerful change and could, at any moment, sprout wings or a beak or a tail! Or all three! A small portion thought that he was simply rotten to his core - and they thought they, as Ron Weasley said, "Should probably just ship him off for the Kiss to be certain." And an even smaller population - six of his fellow Slytherins to be exact - knew the precise and painful truth.
Draco Malfoy had a kink.
His classmates, housemates, friends knew. His friends for Merlin's sake! During that monumental game of Truth or Dare (which was not monumental only because Greg had taken his anger out of Draco instead of simpering - a unusual sight to see - but also because Draco had ousted himself as a parseltongue lover - a highly unusual sight to see), the Slytherin's had played it cool. They said it was 'all right,' a 'secret between mates,' and that it 'was not within his control.' They had all offered their retorts or, in Pansy's case, advice and Draco, very pink in the cheeks and cool demeanor cracked, left the game directly following his first and only selection. Immediately following his departure, they had all discussed how good this gossip was and seeing as Draco had committed many crimes - albeit small pranks, petty jokes, and revealing silly truths - against each of them, that they should come up with some creative ways to use this newfound knowledge. Creative, indeed.
And by creative, they clearly mean demeaning, disrespectful, and downright vile.
Their game had been played on Saturday night. No one saw Draco leave his dormitory on Sunday. Not for food or drink or to use the loo even. His bed curtains stay closed and silent - due to a spell perhaps? By Monday the shenanigans had begun. At first they were subtle, little playground tricks between friends. Nothing too public or too humiliating.
Draco could not miss breakfast on a school day so he had showered, shaved, and dressed very early in the morning. He might be prideful and be able to keep cool under his collar, but he was still human and had faults. He, without a doubt, found the revelation of his most awkward, private secret embarrassing and uncomfortable. He was supposed to be the one holding secrets over the others' heads. He was supposed to be poking fun at their shortcomings and awkward bits, but instead they knew something blush-inducing and downright lewd about him and all he knew was that Theo like blondes. Pfft, as if he didn't already know that.
He made it through breakfast, Charms, and Herbology fine. No incidents there. He was completely aware of the tension in his shoulders as he walked into the Great Hall for lunch. He had thought himself free from the gloomy secret hanging around overhead. He assumed his classmates were good people - yes, maybe a bit biased on blood issues, a little snaky, a little evil even, but good people nonetheless. Boy, was he wrong.
After rationing out some potatoes and ham onto his plate, Draco asked Blaise to pass the string beans. Blaise smiled at him and handed Draco the casserole dish full of thin, dark green, steamed beans. As he began to fork some onto his plate, the whole bowl transfigured into a dish of small green, hissing garden snakes. Draco's cheeks instantly tinged pink, he dropped the ceramic dish with a loud snap, and jumped back from the table. Blaise simply smirked at him.
Once he had fled the Great Hall, Draco found himself walking down to the kitchens for some biscuits, a sandwich, and tea, perhaps. He hadn't been able to go back into the hall for the rest of the mealtime, nor had he ate anything before the snake-incident, so he had gained quite an appetite. His hand trailed over the cold stones of the walls as he made first a right down the main hall, then a left, then another left, passed behind the statue of Dilys Derwent, then a right, and finally, he found himself tickling a pear painting to gain access to the main kitchen. After a filling snack, he made his way back up to the main staircase - first a left, past the statue, then a right, then another right, and then he stopped dead in his tracks. Before him he saw a rather large basket on a rug, with a small plum colored cushion next to it. He quirked his eyebrow and made to move around the interruption and onto Transfiguration, but suddenly Harry Potter appeared before him, dressed in flirty, cream colored pants and a tan vest. Yes, this should have tipped Draco off to the fact that this was not the real Harry Potter, but he was very sated from his meal, very annoyed by the snake-incident from earlier, and in a bit of a rush to not be late to class. McGonagall would have his hide, and Slytherins points, for being late again. Harry sat before the basket and whispered something Draco couldn't quite hear. Suddenly the basket lid was knocked eschew and a black snake rose from its innards. The snaked locked his eyes on Draco's form and, just as he seemed to decide to lunge forward and sink his teeth into the pureblood's flesh, Harry began a beautiful hissing command at him. The snake turned away and began to sway under Harry's words.
Sadly, Draco did too.
He found himself unknowingly gyrating and panting - much like the basket snake - under Harry's direction. The words came out sibilant and sweet, asking the trained snake to dance and perform. And, honestly, beyond the kitschy outfit, nothing had looked more attractive on Harry Potter than his eyes locked on the dangerous animal as sweet hisses and sighs parted his pink lips. Draco was putty. And Harry hadn't even looked or reached in his direction. The whole display was very sad in many ways: that Draco could and would turn completely boneless at the soft hissing and purring coming from the Boy-Who-Lived's throat; that the normally sharp and witty Draco honestly didn't realize that this Harry was a mirage; that Draco was disappointed that this fake Harry hadn't reached out to touch him, to kiss him, hiss at him; and that this all meant that Draco hadn't been joking, lying, or hadn't outsmarted the Veritaserum the weekend before as they had all hoped at the time of the game. Once they had realized the final bit, Crabbe and Daphne revealed themselves from the corner, breaking the illusion, vanishing their spelled Harry Potter and laughing at Draco all the way up the main staircase.
Draco, on the other hand, had not been laughing. In fact, he had to head to the third floor boys bathroom to take care of a very different type of problem. One which was no laughing matter. By the time he got to McGonagall, he was flushed, sweaty, somewhat saited, and annoyed. He couldn't forget the delicious noises coming out of Harry Potter's mouth a mere twenty minutes earlier - fake Harry or not.
No one seemed to notice the extra angry looks he cast in Harry Potter's direction.
On Wednesday, after a long day of twitching in classes and studying in the library, waiting for something else horrible to happen, Draco decided to call it an early night and head up to his private room. But there on Draco Malfoy's door hung five very particular posters. One had the crest of his house, with the regal snake twisting and twirling on top of it, hissing silently. Two others had images of live snakes with speech bubble that had colorful speeches written in - the more innocent examples: "ssssay my name," "ssssuck me," and "sssslytherin sssssex god." One was an image from the Prophet of Harry Potter handing him back his captured wand after the final battle. In the original, the pair had a moment of tug-of-war over the wand while speaking in hushed, harsh tones. The poster image, on the other hand, was skillfully cropped so that it seemed that young Mister Potter was grabbing and tugging a completely different wand of Draco's. The fifth poster was a portrait of Harry Potter. It was spelled to hiss short, soft sounds over and over again, ad nauseum.
Draco turned a particular shade of puce, squeaked, ripped off the posters, and slipped inside his room.
As the week drew on, he had thought that they were over their little pranks. He had came down to the common room sulking, each step heavy like lead. He lacked his usual poise and je ne sais quoi. There had been no posters or fake Potters or green bean snakes. He hoped - prayed even - that these jokes had lost their humor. That was very unlikely. The moment he stepped off of the staircase that led up to the boys' dormitories, the common room was filled with hissing intonations and sucking noises. The noises were coming from everywhere and no where all at the same time. He looked into each of the room's corners, up to the vaulted ceiling, towards the stairs he had just descended…everywhere. Yet he could not locate the source of the horrible (read: lovely) soundtrack. Behind him on the stairs stood four snickering Slytherin boys.
Draco Malfoy was embarrassed.
"Ha ha. Very brilliant. You've had your fun. Turn it off now."
Blaise had stepped forward a bit, to address Draco, when he was knocked aside by Vincent Crabbe. He might not have been the brains of the operation, but he was certainly the first brute to pick up a pitchfork and rush towards Draco. Metaphorically, of course. Slytherins may be lots of things, but they weren't sketchy enough to go into battle in a totally antediluvian Muggle way. That would be beyond demeaning.
"I don't think so. I decided," Goyle said, evenly, "we decided, that we are all sick of being your playthings. We wont go along with everything you do or say anymore, Draco."
If Draco Malfoy was smart he would have done the decent thing and apologized for his past shortcomings. Alas, Draco Malfoy wasn't very smart. Now he wasn't top in the class - Hermione Granger - but he also wasn't last in his year - Pansy Parkinson. He should have been able to deduce the outcomes of this situation, which were something like as follows: 1. He apologizes, they all accept, they walk off into the sunset laughing about snakes. 2. He apologizes, they pretend this did not happen/he oblivates them all. 3. He never apologizes, they miraculously stop bothering him/he oblivates them anyway. 4. He never apologizes, they harass him until he dies - probably by jumping off of a high tower, hoping there is no snake pit at the bottom.
He should have been holding out for the top three options. He should have closed his eyes up really tight, twisting his face up until no light shown through his eyelashes, and wished with all of his might to get off so easily. Instead, he basically set himself up for option four. Because of which, by the way, Draco Malfoy began wondering how one would locate a topographical survey of Hogwarts buildings.
Needless to say, he did not apologize and instead, turned on his toe and stalked out of the common room. Turns out, the sounds weren't sourced in the room, but instead were located somewhere under his delicate, coifed hair and between his perfectly symmetrical ears.
Yes, by NEWT Potions, Draco was toeing the edge, considering which tower would present him the best last view of the world, and had a screaming, pounding migraine. Draco thought that there was nothing worse than the searing pain of a migraine - not even pain potions could totally drain the symptoms.
But, as usual, Draco Malfoy was wrong. And life could always get worse.
His dear, wonderful friends were steadly pushing his limits. At dinner, as the hissing and sighs danced around his ears, he had snapped and yelled at every single member of his house. Even Slytherin's head, his godfather, Professor Snape, was not left out of his tirade. He bickered with Blaise, he spat at Pansy, and he knocked Theo off of the bench. He sneered at Daphne and squawked at Crabbe. He tried to yell at Greg, but the boy had - apparently - grown a set of bollocks this week and instead smiled back during Draco's speech. And then things got complicated.
"Just stop it."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"YES!"
"I said, 'no.'"
"And I said, 'yes.' It isn't funny. At all. It's fucking annoying. And idiotic. Stop it," he snarled, "Now."
"I've said it before and I will say it again, I'm sick of being your callboy. I'm sick of you thinking you're on top. You aren't, Draco. Your last name used to mean something, but look around, mate. It doesn't matter anymore."
Draco looked at Goyle. He was absolutely, entirely stunned into silence for the first time in his life. Whoosh, and it was the absence of sound. Well, silence except for the annoying ringing of babble in his ears, of course.
"In fact, I might say this is just the beginning. I think you deserve a bit of…discomfort for all those years."
And suddenly the soundtrack of snakes died out. At first, Draco thought he had lost his hearing. He panicked. But he could still here the muffled conversations of his housemates, the clinking of spoons and forks, and the general noise of human existence.
"Thank you," he said curtly. Malfoys didn't usually do such plebian things. Begging was for those who were weak, thanking for those who did not deserve everything they received, and apologizing for those who were wrong. A Malfoy was never, if not rarely, any of those things. But Draco Malfoy was very, very thankful to not have that blasted din screaming in the recesses of his brain. Thank Merlin it didn't have the same effect on him as Harry Potter speaking parseltongue would. Draco couldn't explain why a human speaking to snakes was different from snakes talking to snakes, or even snakes talking to Potter, but only the first effected him. Effected him in very pronounced ways that couldn't be easily hid in Draco's uniform robes. Now that would have been embarrassing. But as annoying as this whole situation was, his friends - could he even call them that anymore? Slytherins were ambitious and mean, but this was pretty rude, even by their standards - wouldn't go that far.
Surely, they wouldn't.
Right?
Again, he was not so lucky. Right after the ringing stopped, the famous Harry Potter and his faithful sidekick Weasley approached Draco's end of the table. Harry had a question about the Quidditch training schedules and Weasley just wanted to offer flak if needed. He wasn't needed. Draco switched days with Gryffindor. Partly because he couldn't imagine directing a practice after a week like this and partly because he wanted Harry Potter far away from his table and as quickly as possible just in case one of his friends got any dangerous ideas.
As predicted, Greg was watching the exchange with glossy eyes. The moment Harry turned away to walk out of the Hall, he flicked his wrist and quickly whispered 'Serpensortia' a few times.
Several large serpents appeared, slithering down the aisle between the Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables. The students sitting closest screamed, huffed, and/or fainted. Yes, two Ravenclaw girls passed out headfirst into their squash soup. A Slytherin first year hopped up onto the table. Blaise rolled his eyes and looked towards the spell caster.
"A bit much, eh?"
"Not at 'll."
Everyone in the Hall stared while Harry walked back towards the Slytherin table, eyeing the snakes.
Harry Potter began speaking in the hushed tones of Parseltongue.
Draco Malfoy's brain went into overdrive. It buzzed and blanked out. His eyes shut and he could hear nothing else but the sweet hissing of Harry Potter. All day long he fought hearing the fricative sounds of snakes, had wanted it to end, but now he closed his eyes to relish in Harry's version of the language. While the endless track of hissings hadn't stirred a single feeling in Draco, this ebb and flow of sibilant noises pouring out of Harry Potter's lips had created a certain…feeling almost instantaneously.
Harry kept talking to the serpents, while walking towards them. Draco couldn't understand what he was saying - hell, even if it was in English, he would not likely understand it at the moment - but he seemed to be reprimanding the agitated snakes. Draco's body felt flush and his mouth ran dry. He was stuck in his seat at Slytherin table.
"Evanesco." With a swish of his wand, Harry had disappeared each of the snakes, one at a time.
Most of the students and staff in the hall looked thoroughly relived for their Hall to be rid of the serpents. Honestly, everyone was relived to be rid of the serpents, Draco Malfoy was just sad to hear the noises end. They rung sweet, like honey, in his ears. He was stuck between wanting to hear the sounds again and hating himself for the reaction in his , he wished he was wearing his uniform robes instead of just his jumper, so that his clammy palm attempt to relieve, well, his snake. He looked completely undone, but in a very different way from the insanity of the past few days. This look was decidedly wicked and sinful.
Harry looked around to see if anyone had been hurt or endangered by the snakes. Beyond the few fainted or terrified students, it seemed like the snakes had harmed no one. Yet, the Great Hall was suddenly in chaos. Professors were asking about who was responsible, some students were helping other students to the hospital, and some students were helping to clean up the spilt items.
Harry Potter watched as Gregory Goyle was escorted out of the Great Hall by two of the teachers. His eyes met Hermione Granger's and she shrugged. Ron Weasley, it should be noted, was purple in the face, as if he had forgotten to breathe. Terry Boot looked like he could throw up. Roger Davies kept looking between the stones where the snakes were and Harry's face. Harry's eyes kept moving around the room until they drifted down the Slytherin table.
As the students rushed down the now unoccupied aisle, trying to leave for class or just to get out, Harry Potter met Draco Malfoy's eyes squarely. It was something that Harry saw there, hiding behind Draco's grey eyes, that had made him blush and scamper out of the Great Hall.
AN: Thank you to everyone who took the time to review the last chapter, PM, and add me to alerts/favorites. Reviews are always appreciated! :)
Quick question: In later chapters, and maybe in more sexual situations, would you rather read explicitly what Harry's hissing or just infer it? I'm not sure how I want to handle this yet...
Thanks again for reading!