DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Harry Potter or any of its characters. I also do not make any money from this.
WARNINGS: Yaoi (male x male), Yuri (female x female) adult topics, swearing, sexual scenes and violence.
This has not been Beta'd.
PAIRINGS: Ron x Hermoine, Blaise x Cho, Neville x Ginny, Saito x Draco
'text' is thought
"text" is talking
Hidden Element
Chapter 20: Deeper
Elementals:
Ice and Void – Draco Malfoy
Fire – Pansy Parkinson
Earth – Blaise Zabini
Nature – Cho Chang
Light – [Name]
The Forgotten:
Electricity – Saito Blackstar (OC)
[Element] – Carsly Hendricks (OC)
[Element] – [Name]
Water - Yasmin DiAngelo (OC)
Wind - Miya Hendricks (OC)
Deep clear pools of melted silver, hair the colour of the moon feathering in breathy light layers across a heart-shaped face. Dew drops seemingly clinging to individual strands.
The warm fire had doused the unsure look from his eyes, and in an instant, a kinder variation of the Malfoy mask (perfected after months spent with Harry's friends) had been set in place.
Although the room was a sudden whirlwind of movement and laughter to Draco, for Harry, it felt like time had stopped. A sudden ringing cacophony in his ears accompanied with the sudden movement of people surrounding the blond.
Draco seemed to freeze before his very eyes, every detail carefully stored with renewed vigour.
Much about Draco had changed, yet he could still find traces of the young boy he used to know. Same high cheekbones, pouty lips and eyes that told him everything without ever meaning to.
He was sure that if Draco ever knew this fact, especially under current circumstances, he would do everything in his power to stuff the cracks in his armour.
Anxiety, doubt, sadness, guilt, he could see them all reflected through crystalline eyes. It had been as easy as breathing to untie the threads holding that mask together.
For once, Harry was happy not to know what was happening. The words that assuredly left Draco's lips would not be the same as the emotions that glinted from his eyes.
It was an art he had mastered while he still had the notion of studying the 'enemy', one of the reasons why he had decided to befriend him the day he came to comfort Harry. He had been completely sincere.
It was in the details.
A bite to the lip; a question that had caused slight anger the blond didn't want others to know about. A fist slowly holding the hem of his shirt, just below the collar bone; happiness.
Suddenly seeing Draco like this, had bought about a strange sort of calm.
There was no more need to find him, for the answers were now already here. The ache in his heart telling him to search, mission be damned, was now a dull thud against his rib cage. Had he always been this calm when Draco was there? Had he always felt this sudden bliss?
He felt alive, more lively than he had felt for five years.
He suppressed a wry smile at the thought that Draco Malfoy may as well be his life line.
Had Draco's eyes always been that sad? Had he been unhappy? Was he unhappy now?
Was he... staring right back at Harry?
It had only then occurred to Harry, that sometime through his floating thoughts, the blond had turned his gaze to meet his own. With a slight blush, he settled further into his seat, determined to stand his ground.
His heart lurched, his avada kadavra eyes widening. There it was. A pale hand fisting the collar of his shirt.
In the instant he had responded, Draco had swept his head to the side indifferently. He had noticed. Of course, Draco wasn't the only one that left behind a trail of signs.
At first the blond had been angry at the lack of response on his ex's behalf, yet the silent tapping of his right index finger indicated the fact that his head was in the clouds.
It had been something that Harry had unconsciously developed since the stress of the war had started to mount. To the entire world he looked like he was paying attention, his thoughts, however, were drifting farther from reality with every passing word you spoke.
He supposed it was a good thing that he didn't need to worry about facing Harry the second he stepped into the house.
A sudden clearness had entered those green eyes, the raven head leaning more comfortably in his chair. A challenge, he wasn't going anywhere, or looking elsewhere, one he would have met had Harry not begun to open his mouth wider with sudden realisation.
What exactly Harry had realised, he didn't know, but the thought of him knowing more than he was willing to let on was disconcerting.
When he finally faced the man, he had wanted it to be on equal footing, no one knowing more than the other. He forgot how his mask was a mere illusion that Harry always seemed to disappear.
'Back to avoiding me then?' Harry sighed before he moved his gaze to the rest of the Order.
Hermione was talking about all that she'd learned during her five years without the blond. No doubt catching him up on information he hadn't been privy to due to an unexpected 'work' placement. She had been adamant on the fact that as the top two former students of Hogwarts, they both needed to know an equal amount of information. One would always know what the other knew.
Draco had never minded, he loved knowledge, and he was all but willing to share what he'd gathered with her. That included information from a shady opus or two he never hoped to hear about.
Ron stood calmly to the side. He had his fiancé in a strong embrace, not through jealous show, but to prove to the blond that he was happy displaying his love in public. As Hermione's best friend, he thought he owed him the knowledge that he'd been treating her well.
Hermione loved it. She had been loathe to the fact that he always seemed to withhold himself within the corridors of Hogwarts, yet had found it endearing later when Ron had meekly stated that he hadn't wanted the wrong people to know. This way, she wouldn't possibly be placed in harms way. It was impossible to pull out the 'I'm Harry's friend too' card when he was looking timidly at the floor like that.
Ginny was her open self, unabashedly telling the blond the latest gossip, whether others had wanted her to or not. It had been something he always enjoyed about Ginevra. She had always been so blatantly honest about everything, even her hatred for him when he had first started to date Boy Wonder.
Harry had found it disappointing that Draco had replied with just as much brutality... but it had ended up settling them into a comfortable routine of telling no lies, and both enjoyed that fact about one another.
A slight cock of the head; surprise.
Harry smirked as he thought of his own reactions when he had come across Luna's new personality. She seemed to know things that you hadn't even come across in your own mind. She set you reeling with more questions than answers.
They hadn't always been this compatible, had they? Looking at them now, it seemed like the returning of a long lost friend. Harry worried his lip in slight frustration.
What was wrong with him, thinking as if he had never seen this happen with his own eyes before?
And when had his love grown that much deeper?
It had been such an eerie mixture of hot and cold that Harry had been unable to sleep. His churning thoughts hadn't helped in the matter either.
He sat on the carpet in the living room, staring into a sooty fireplace, no longer burning brightly. A small corner of the room was lit by the soft rays of a lamp, creating a barrier against the night that creeped through the air.
He hadn't had the chance to speak to Draco. The blond had seemed genuinely tired when the group had finished grilling him, and he felt somehow guilty that not even Blaise or Pansy got a chance to speak to him before he wandered off to bed. Hermione had kindly offered him a room next to Pansy's, however, in case he decided to get up in the middle of the night to talk things over.
This seemed to be but one of the brilliant things about the charmed house. It automatically made a new room when another person entered the house, yet from the outside, the house never never looked any different.
He chuckled as it made him think about the bag Hermione always carried during the war that seemed to store countless items, no matter their size.
A soft thud beside him startled him out of his thoughts. Pale toes peaked out from behind a red blanket neatly wrapped around its owner.
Harry's breath sounded louder than normal, echoing off the darkened walls. Yet through the tenseness of this meeting, Harry couldn't help but smile.
He knew, the minute he turned his head that he would fall irrevocably and undeniably, deeper than he ever had before.
XxHushHushxX: Harry's not in the wrong for everything, its just that Blaise thinks he is. Everything and anything he does is wrong. I like the points you made (and I can't wait to break Saito's heart!), and hopefully some much needed interaction between the two will fix everything right back up. Now that Draco's there he doesn't need to place nice with others in the hopes of finding out where the blond is, he might just man up. :p
Fighting will be taking place soon as well, with a little Harry action in the mix. As for the whole owning Blaise idea, I might just do it!
GhostLawsOfDoom: Pansy has a semi-crush so far, but its not on Draco, nor will it be Saito.