AN: So I am writing this on Sunday to get it down on paper I guess, but it's probably Thursday now, right? I don't even know anymore...Nope, it's Friday.
Harry Potter and the Jealous Father
Lucius Malfoy almost did not let Harry into the roller rink even though the boy was banging against the door and had not seen Draco for a week while the family had been on vacation in the Alps. The glasses boy had never gotten a chance to apologize to Draco for using the polyjuice potion against him and had already planned a speech to recite: "Draco, you know what I did right? Yeah, I am so sorry that I betrayed you. I have no excuses. I just want you to know that I want to put this behind us, alright, Coach?" However if his crush's father was going to be in the room, his confidence would disappear like a nervous boy whose date's daddy insists on polishing his gun every time this undesirable shows up.
Lucius of course had no idea what antics Harry had been up to, but knew about the lost roller race and had been questioning whether or not he should continue to let the boy skate at his facility. If Harry couldn't skate there, maybe he wouldn't skate anywhere and would then start losing races, but as he ran through his list of reasons to sabotage the boy, Draco rolled in from the hallways and started warming up, thanking his dad for letting Harry in. The older man could not take an argument with his son after a particularly bad one with Narcissa last night. He nodded a hello to his son's competition and then retreated to his bedroom for some more beauty sleep.
Harry rushed to the rink where he grabbed Draco by the shoulders, stopping him mid-lap. "Draco, you know what I did, right?"
"Yeah, with the snake... It was all my parents could take about during our vacation... Looking for some brownie points? A pat on the back? That's not like you." Draco smiled at him like a clerk ringing up a customer buying a heart-shaped box of chocolates on Valentine's day.
"No, no, no to all of that. Um, the other thing. You know about that, right?"
Draco wriggled free of his friend's grasp, his calm smile replaced with the Malfoy sneer. "Can we stop talking about that race? I've already suffered enough for it at the hands of my father. I don't need you rubbing it in my face. So you won, just don't forget where you came from! You would be nothing without me!"
"I didn't meant that either. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up." Harry reached out a tentative hand even as Draco turned away from him to start up his laps again. :I just want to know, then, that if I ever hurt you, I'm sorry."
A twelve-year old boy such as their peers would have laughed at Harry's sentimentality, but it touched Draco so much that he almost lost his balance in rounding a turn at a tortoise speed. "Thank you, Harry, and let me tell you that I will never try to hurt you either, and I will take full blame for any of my mistakes that affect you."
The mature air swirled around them as they breathed in and out. To Harry, this was how people committed to a relationship talked, and even though his relationship was only as a friend to Draco, he could not help but hope that this was laying the groundwork for something greater along the road.
Draco slid his hands into his pockets and changed the subject with a slow "So..." He had felt the stillness surround them and had become uncomfortable with how perfect it felt to be completely truthful with his friend from whom he hid so much. He had good reason, though! If Harry knew what his family had done to the Potters and other innocents, the skating prodigy may never return, or so Draco thought. The young boy would have had no way of knowing that nothing short of death could of kept Harry from wanting to be with Draco.
The other Slytherins started to trail into the rink, only Blaise carrying his skates. The rest of them, even Pansy, were resigned to their fate of being the kids who would forever say, "Well, I used to skate, but then I didn't have time for it" when the subject of roller derby was brought up in conversation. Pansy did not even bother to hug Draco or otherwise show that she still felt power over his feelings before holing herself up in the ticket booth with Millicent where the girls would read Witch Weekly in between waves of customers. Blaise laced up his skates to get ready to teach lessons while the remanining two cronies planted themselves behind the Concessions counter.
"So..." Harry echoed Draco.
"There's race coming up in a few weeks. Do you think you'd want to do it? It's not a team thing, just a straightaway. It would be an all day thing. I went to once before when I was younger. Everyone races at least once but then people start getting eliminated. You and I would probably make it to the finals for our age group, and you might even beat some older kids' times. You in?"
Spending a whole day with Draco just skating probably all alone! Harry would never wish to win the lottery ever if he could have this one privilege! "Yes! I mean..." Merlin, he had to tone it down. Draco would think he was turning into a fangirl or worse, Colin Creevey. "Sure, that sounds fun."
"Great." Draco punched his shoulder as he skated past to open the doors to the public. July 2nd. Just come over here and my dad will drop us off at the competition."
The customers flooded in, most of them being dragged around by little kids who the three boys would have to teach well lest they wanted a bunch of helicopter parents buzzing around their heads. Harry took a drink of water to clear his head before he started slaloming to finish his warm up and skated circles around Blaise who was the picture of professionalism with his hands on his hips and a flat line where a smile should have been. Harry almost told him to lighten up, but the kids were already lining up, so he skated over to give them obligatory high fives and start running a few simple drills.
His lesson carried on robotically with him mindlessly uprighting seven-year olds and narrowly avoid tripping over his students while his thoughts focused on the upcoming day with Draco. The boy had even been nice enough to concede that Harry would be the one to break the records, not him! Harry led the kids in a line around the rink and almost did not notice when they all fell behind.
Draco gave him a good-hearted smile from across the room, and even Blaise did not seem to mind the obstacles of falling kids from Harry's class. The kids scrambled off the rink into their mothers' waiting arms when the clock struck 10 and the Hogwarts students took a break off the rink as the free skate time started.
"You know," Blaise moaned, "instead of Adult Skate, we should have a time where we can show off our moves. Maybe Flint would come over and we could show the muggles what they can only hope to become. The other two boys laughed him off but of course wished for the same thing-a little glory outside of the incestuous Wizarding world.
Harry was about to reply and jump over the shoe counter to get a drink when a booming voice that had tortured his youth resounded through the whole rink. Blaise whirled around in confusion, but Draco rushed to Harry's side to confront the terrible Vernon Dursely.
"Harry! Where are you? We are worried sick!"
"Lies," both Harry and Draco muttered together.
"I'm over here." Harry gave Draco a parting pat on the back and slid to a halt in front of his horrendous uncle who had already started to send away customers just by being there. "I'm fine."
"No, you're not!" Vernon grabbed his nephew by the shoulder and pulled his ear next to his disgusting mouth to inform him, "Petunia has not been hearing good things about this family. They are on the wrong side of the law, she says, and we don't need you to be off on your won so much. We don't need you getting any ideassss."
Harry reached to pull out his wand from his pocket, but Draco yelled a quick "Don't do it" to remind him about the muggles and the Underage Wizarding Laws. Instead, he swallowed to regain his composure and said, "Well, I'm fine, so please do not worry about me. I will be back in time to make dinner."
"Oh, no you won't!" Vernon boomed while throwing Harry over his meaty shoulder with all of his strength. "You are coming with me, and you are never returning to this blasted place ever again!"
"No, stop! Let me go!" Harry launched into a fit of slaps and punches directed at his uncle's back as he was carted out of his favorite place in England. Vernon threw him in the trunk and locked it before whistling to himself as if nothing was wrong. Harry started focusing his energy on busting the trunk's lock with his skates, but after his tenth failed attempt, they stopped at the house on Privet Drive. Vernon manhandled him into the house where he sent him to his bedroom with an umbrella poking into his back.
Petunia gazed on worriedly from the landing and avoided Harry's gaze as he marched past.
"What have you done? You took me away from my friends and one of the few things that makes me happy! You were the nice one!" Petunia shuddered in place while her husband slapped Harry across the cheek.
"How dare you talk to your aunt like that? After all we have done for you..." As they always did when he was angry, Vernon's eyes squinted up and disappeared beneath his rolls of fat.
Harry took the cue, the final straw and drew his hand. Draco's warning still rang in his head, but he would never use magic against the Dursleys. They weren't worth it, They were fearful, though, and Vernon started shaking as he gave Harry one final push into his room and started hurriedly sliding all the locks into place before avoiding the room like a plague for the rest of the day as if Harry could hex him through the door.
Harry collapsed onto his bed out of anger and started planning an escape plan for tomorrow so that he could see Draco again. His last contact with the outside world was Hedwig who flew in empty-handed after having delivered a letter to Ron. He stroked her head but was woken from his calm petting by the sound of a whirring drill outside his window. He rushed to where his uncle was attaching an iron grate and quickly slid up the bottom pane to shake the new prison bars, but one screw was already in place. Vernon sneered at him and started muttering insults as the boy banged against the metal, but he had two screws in and the rest would be easy to attach. Harry fell back onto his bed to find his wand where it had disappeared beneath the blankets but by the time he had it drawn on the window, his uncle was gone.
The distraught boy hid himself beneath his itchy blanket and whispered Lumos to watch as tears pooled on his crossed knees. He was always a hopeful boy, but he had no idea where his savior would come from now.
He counted the days by the number of times Ron's owl, Pig knocked at the window with a letter attached to his leg. Harry always opened it for him but could only fit one hand through the bars to give him a treat instead of two to untie the triple-knotted string.
Someone, presumably Petunia, slid plates of food into his room via the cat door twice a day which he ate while lounging on his bed, wishing for once that he had been like Hermione and purchased his textbooks in advance so that he could finish his summer assignments.
To keep in shape, he developed a workout plan composed of lunges and jumping jacks among other cardio moves to keep his legs ready for the competition in case he managed to escape and actually compete in it. He tracked his daily regimen on scraps of parchment with his remaining ink and polished the wheels on his skates each day. Power naps became his preferred way of sleeping so that he could fit in mini workouts and then sleep them off before starting all over again, but he wished for space to skate around instead of having to run in place to build up his endurance.
On the twenty first day of solitary confinement, Harry awoke to a popping noise as the Malfoys apparated into his room. Without being there for more than a minute, Draco started shaking his friend awake and did not blush as Harry rolled out of bed in only his boxers.
Lucius stood in the corner stoically, perusing Harry's desk and eyeing Hedwig as Draco rambled, "Hey, Harry, the race is today. Get dressed and get your skates and then we're gonna go so that we can register and get our times. Hurry up!" He lightly pushed his admirer to the closet and searched for his skates in a pile of dirty clothes.
"Harry, you're room is quite cramped," Mr. Malfoy droned, but the younger boy could not retort as he hurried to pull on a shirt and pair of football pants. Draco tossed him his glasses from the bedside table with a smile, and they were just about to leave wen someone started knocking at the window.
"Oi, Harry!" Ron shouted from his seat on a broom followed by his two brothers. "What're you doing with that pureblood scum."
Draco whirled around at the insult and pulled his wand on his classmate who did likewise and grabbed onto the metal grate that covered Harry's window. "What did you call me?"
"Get out of here, you pureblood scum. Harry, you haven't responded to my letters in weeks, you have to come with us!"
"Shut up, Weasley! Harry is coming to a race with me now leave us alone."
Harry pulled on a belt and pushed Draco out from in front of the grimy window to address Ron, "I promise I will come home with you tonight, but this race is really important to me! I am so sorry, Ron! If you had come tomorrow, I would've been game, but I can't. If it were-"
"Forget it, Harry. Don't bother coming now." With that, the gingers turned their brooms 180 degrees and jetted off into the English sunrise.
Harry's shoulders sagged as Draco grabbed his hand and asked him if he was ready to apparate. The blond mistaked an exhausted sigh on Harry's part for an expression of agreement and nodded to his father who jerked them into a black hole of light that spun them upside before landing them in front of grey-walled building with slivers of floor-to-ceiling windows with a sign reading The Switch Blade. Lucius prodded the boys in the back and led them into a front lobby with glass tables and pictures everywhere of famous skaters. Harry scoured the walls for his parents but only got through looking at half the frames before Lucius was handing them wristbands and pushing them towards a locker room.
In the glistening room with stainless steel lockers and mahogany benches, the boys pulled on the their skates as Lucius surveyed the competition. "Each of you will take a preliminary time trial once we enter the arena. Then they will decide which races to put you in. For the first race, you will be the obvious winners. They stack them, you see. They take the top ten kids and put them in different races and then the next ten and so on until they have all the races filled. Most applicants won't even race." He sneered and eyed a wobbly redhead who could not even stand on his own in his skates. The boy's red hair reminded Harry of Ron, but he shut his eyes and thought of only Draco and how it would feel to race against his friend to win their age group.
"Ready, then?"
The boys nodded and followed their guide into the backstage area of the arena where they would await their turn and warm up. They took slow laps in synchronization and stopped every time they passed to talk to Mr. Malfoy and check when they were slotted to skate. When they were halfway through their fourth lap, Draco slowed to a stop and grabbed Harry by the elbow. "I would want to wish you good luck today, but I know that you will not need it," he said with a straight face as other kids stumbled past in the dark spider house.
"Thank you. Same. You're the best jammer Slytherin has ever had, don't forget that." Harry raised his eyebrows, hoping that the move was flirtatious, but the god did not seem to pick up on it as he patted his partner's back and continued their laps. They passed around the dusty track four more times before Lucius led them to wait in line behind their competition. Even there on a red carpet with ropes on either side leading the entrance of what Harry assumed to be a grand theater, they rolled back and forth to keep their legs warm. Other kids stood with their knees locked to keep from falling over while their mummies patted their nervous cheeks.
"Amateurs," Draco muttered. "This is one of those times I wish I could use magic outside of school. I would love to leviate one of these weaklings."
Harry chuckled as much as he could under the quiet circumstances.
The two awaited their turn with eerie smugness as they caught glimpses of racing kids as they neared the end.
"Father, what if i were to slow down a bit to conserve energy and then use it in my first race to beat the kid that was slotted against me?"
Lucius smacked his sound upside the head with a deadening *crack* and leaned in close to him to mutter, "You jeopardize anything today, and I will disown you. Do you hear me? Do you want Harry to win this?"
Draco skated against one of the ropes to avoid his father and muttered an apology as the surrounding mothers shepherded their little ones from this maniac childbeater. Lucius met them all with an icy glare and kept fingering his cane that held his wand.
An employee at the front of the line called Harry's name and grabbed his wrist to scan his unique bracelet.
"Beat 'em all, Potter," Draco reminded him before clasping hands in a shake that felt oddly platonic to Harry as he skated towards the center of the arena. All around him were red velvet seats with various people in them awaiting their scores. Above was a maze of lights and catwalks that beamed down at him as he skated to one end of the perfectly cemented track. On the walls of the rink were mirrors that he had not noticed when they were waiting. They reflected him at every angle, and he was pleased to notice that he looked confident as usual.
"Harry Potter!" A voice boomed above him. "Aged 12. Racing in the 12-14 age bracket. On your mark, get set, go!" Harry leaned into his first push and then settled into a fast pace to glide towards the other end. He imagined himself as Hermes flying across the parthenon or an ancient Spartan in the 100 meter dash as he attacked the cement with his subpar skates and drew in his elbows for a stop once he crossed a golden finish line to stunned silence instead of the Gryffindor cheers that he was used to. Above him was a black and red clock that displayed his time but quickly changed to show the individual standings in electronic letters.
The voice came back. "Um, wow, Harry Potter has set the event record of 5.9 seconds for 100 meters on this course, putting him in the first spot of Team A. Apologies to Samuel Grain whose time is no longer fast enough to race today. Congratulations, Harry."
The champion nodded in thanks and skated off towards the opposite side where a man with a nametag marked REFEREE eyed him from behind wireless glasses. "You are the son of James and Lily?"
"Yes, sir." Harry did not elaborate, instead looking to the track where Draco was taking one last cleansing breath.
"You skate well, Harry."
"Thank you, sir."
"Is that a friend of yours out there?"
"Yes, sir."
"I'll leave you then. Good luck."
He replied with a thank you but thought to himself, I don't need luck. I'm Harry Frickin' Potter as the announcer started Draco's race.
It had been altogether too long since Harry had watched his crush skate; he understood why muggles liked to watch the Olympics and why the Ancient Greeks had delighted in them so. There seemed to be few things better than watching one of your best friends use their body so lithely. Draco leaned into every push of his leg and bent down low as he crossed the finish line, throwing his muscled arms up in victory once he dug his right foot into the ground to spin around.
"Draco Malfoy has finished in 6.5 seconds, landing him just behind Harry Potter and securing himself a first place spot on Team B." The announcer continued with apologizing to a young hopeful who was now disqualified, but all that was lost on Harry as Draco rushed towards him to grab him a celebratory hug. "We did it! We did it! We're amazing! Merlin! We're amazing!" Harry laughed at his friend's jubilee and was reluctant to pull out of the hug even as Draco wrapped an arm around him to escort him to the next waiting area where Lucius had already staked his claim to three seats.
"You will each race again at ten o'clock. Here is some money for food. After that race will be the finals." He handed Harry a twenty dollar bill and gestured from to exit the mirrored room to find a cafeteria while he whispered to Draco in anger, "How could you let him beat you? Remember what I said! Now, go!" He pushed his son out of the way and recline in his black leather armchair.
Draco rubbed his abused elbow and followed Harry down a lit, tiled hallway to a cafeteria. They waited in line next to boys of varying ages who all politely asked what the boys' times were before turning away in embarrassment at their own times which they refused to share.
"Are you alright, Draco?"
"Yeah," he muttered as he raked an ivory hand through his perfect hair. "Don't mind Father. He just didn't want to bring you, I guess."
The comment caught Harry off guard and he had to stuff his hands in his pockets to avoid lashing out at passerby as his cheeks flushed and he kept his face down to mask his anger. "Well, then, I don't want to be here!"
"No, Harry! I want you here! Don't say that!"
Their argument was cut short as a nice woman at the cafeteria table took the money and handed them two boxes of cereal and their change. They skated back towards the next waiting room and started munching. "Don't ever say that," Draco reminded him through a mouthful of Cheerios. Lucius cocked an eyebrow at the boys but did not say a word until a new guide came to collect them for their races. He nodded his head in encouragement and that was it.
They followed a line of boys their age down the same school-like hallway to queues that were set up with red velvet ropes like the seats in the amphitheater that Lucius started to make his way towards. A girl in a Switch Blade tee-shirt led them into their lines and then quickly pulled Harry's group out onto the rink where they lined up along the track.
Harry surveyed the competition like a plot of land: two of them wobbled, one stood stock still, and the other six stood with their arms crossed as if they were going to skate like that. He eyed the golden lines on the cement and started envisioning himself rounding them as the announcer's voice came back. He only listened for the word go and then shot off at what he knew was breakneck speed especially compared to his competition. As usual, he thought of Draco at the finish line and imagined that first Gryffindor race that he had won and rounded two corners without even realizing it. His competition fell behind like cars slipping on an icy road, so it was a smooth finish for him as he kicked it into full gear for the last 100 meters, this time, to cheering.
"Harry Potter has done it again! Setting another record of 29.7 seconds for 400 meters! He will move onto the finals for the 1600 meter race! Congratulations, Mr. Potter!"
The Boy Who Lived tried not to shrug off the compliment as he waved to the audience and left the rink where his competitors were still skating, enjoying their last few seconds of glory. People accosted him at the other side and led him into a mirrored room with speakers that spouted questions at him about his parents and skating ability and favorite color and chosen brand of cereal.
He tried to answer the invisible questions, but kept asking one of his one: "Where's Draco?" but no one responded. Harry slipped into a coma of public relations as the questions continued as they waited for the last race. He checked out his teeth in the mirror and aired himself out with shirt before settling into laps that he skated around the small cubicle in order to stay warm. A guide came to retrieve him and he was finally reunited with Draco and their more worthy competition who could skate perfectly.
"Harry!" Draco exclaimed as he wrapped the boy into a shoulder hug and skated in sync with him back the ampitheater via the red carpet they had lined up on before. "Congrats!"
"To you, too! You're doing great today! What was your time?"
"Flattery will get you nowhere, Potter," Draco scolded him as he leaned against one of the ropes and gave Harry a mean smolder, "but it was 33.3. Trifecta!"
Harry started to laugh at the cute boy's cliched word play but was cut off as Draco jerked his beautiful head towards a pair of twins with eyes of death and raven black hair to match. He gestured for Harry to come in closer which he gladly did to hear the boy whisper, "Those guys are fourteen. The taller one is always winning while his brother is always sabotaging other racers. He hasn't done anything yet today, but he usually strikes at the end when it doesn't matter when he's disqualified."
Harry gulped, but Draco reassured him with a pat on the back as they were once more led onto the glimmering track to the ten lines that formed an ellipse. All ten competitors practically had the announcer's speech memorized, so they all set in on the words "On your mark" and we're beyond ready to go when the time came.
"Go!"
Harry leaned forward to become more aerodynamic and sped through the first 200 in a flash. He imagined his parents skating like this when they were kids. Maybe they met at a place like this although amity was not the word of the day, but shook his head against these thoughts as he pulled into the third lap. He could make out his crush in his peripheral and thought of the day they raced at Hogwarts. He channeled that euphoria into energy as he round the corner and listened to the screams of fans around him.
Then everything stopped! Someone to his left shot out their leg, knocking out four boys in a domino effect, including Draco. Harry righted himself and pulled Draco to standing in a rush of adrenaline and the two skating prodigies kicked in their last fuel reserves. Harry telepathically sent an apology to Draco as he pushed off one last time to cross the finish line in 1:59.4 seconds with Draco finishing at the two minute mark as the announcer said, "Dmitri has been disqualified for tripping four competitors, but his brother continues, and oh! Holy smokes! Harry and Draco recover from a nasty fall to finish first and second, both of them setting course records, one of which was set by their parents respectively! What a day!"
They wrapped each other in a hug and pumped their fists in the air for their newly converted fans before skating to the wings to celebrate in private.
But their celebration was cut short as Lucius hijacked them from the magical arena and dropped Harry back in his room after a quick and nasty apparation. He did not even offer a congratulation before whisking Draco away and leaving Harry alone. He clutched at the empty space where his friend had been and shook in frustrating sobs as he realized that he may never see him again. "I should've let him win! I should've let him win," he repeated over and over again as he lay on his hard wood floor.
Harry did not see Ron again until he got off the Knight Bus in front of the Leaky Cauldron after blowing up his Aunt Marge. Hermione rushed down the stairs holding an orange cat, exclaiming," Harry! You're here!" as he gathered his bearings and grabbed a room key. She attacked him, with the cat still in her arms, before grabbing his glasses and checking them over for reparable scratches. "I can't believe it! The three of us together again! Thank Merlin you're alright, what with Sirius Black on the loose! I am so glad to see you!" She pulled him over to a graffitied table and summoned a cup of tea for the both of them.
Harry looked around the dank pub with its clouded windows and scruffed up furniture, but nodded his head in greeting to the eclectic clientale before asking, "Where's Ron?"
Hermione pulled her cat into her lap and stroked its tail to avoid the question. "Well, he's around, but he's quite upset with you."
"But I won that competition! I needed to go!"
"Don't blame me, Harry," she snapped. "I don't know what happened between you two. All I know is that he is mad as-"
"How dare you show your face in London, you traitor!" Ron shouted in a deep voice as he stood at the top of the stairs. "Get out! I don't want to see your face!"
"Ron, please forgive me. I had to go. It wasn't about Draco," he lied. "It was about the race. Please, it was weeks ago. I spent the rest of that time locked in my room. I had to blow up my aunt to get out of that house, for Merlin's sake."
"Don't play the pity card, Potter!" Ron snarled as he grabbed sickles from his pocket and started throwing them at his ex-best friend as Fudge entered the room.
"Hello, children," he sung cheerfully. "Harry? A word?" The minister trotted down the stairs and led the boy into a secret room, putting a temporary hiatus on an argument that would never end.