WARNINGS for this chapter: Under-negotiated kink.
Chapter 21: Out of the broom cupboard
The next two weeks dashed past like an avalanche, and research into the Malfoy family history was not the only thing that occupied Harry's mind. Hogwarts sank into the pre-Yule-Ball fever. Classes, Quidditch, and politics fell out of the range of socially acceptable conversation topics. The only things anyone cared about were dress robes, make-up, and dance steps, and even Sabrin Gibbon cancelled their usual Sunday morning Quidditch practice.
When Harry woke up in the morning on the twenty-second of December, his insides were tied in a knot. At breakfast, he wasn't able to push more than a corner of a toast down his throat, and even that got stuck somewhere outside his digestive system. The horrors of four years ago flashed through his mind, Cho's rejection, Parvati's disappointment... Only on his way out of the Great Hall, when he caught a glimpse of Ewen's mysterious smile and conspiratorial wink from across the Hufflepuff table, did the tea finally have an effect and a warm feeling spread in his chest. He was in good hands. He just had to follow, and relax, and...
When Harry left the Slytherin dormitories in the evening, all dressed and groomed according to Draco's instructions, a colourful crowd had already gathered at the bottom of the Grand Staircase. In the air above it floated a young man, performing avant-garde gymnastics. Apart from his vertical coordinates and the amount of glitter in his clothing, nothing distinguished Peeves from a normal seventh-year boy, waiting for his date like all the others.
Harry scanned the space around him, but Ewen was not there. Without feeling his feet under him, Harry drifted to the Entrance Hall. Before his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light (someone had apparently thought it was extra romantic when you could not recognize a face from a distance of more than four feet), something crashed into his side and he was thrust into a broom cupboard.
"What the—?"
"Lumos!" Malfoy started examining every inch of Harry's clothing and uncovered body parts. Not finding any fault with Harry's bow tie, hair and finger nails, he finally attacked his cuffs, "Potter, the cuffs should be kissing!"
Whatever, thought Harry, while Draco was rearranging his cufflinks. But now that Draco stood bent in front of him...
"Hey, Malfoy! What have you done to your— my hair!"
"Git a decent herekit," replied Draco, holding a cufflink between his teeth and messing with the second cuff.
"Fuck you!" But Harry was probably not angry enough. Malfoy's hair had not grown back to its natural Harry Potter length. Aunt Petunia would be delighted.
"Now you can be presented to the public," Draco said, stretching to his full height.
Harry opened the door of the cupboard and pulled it shut again, realising...
"The last thing we want is to present ourselves to the public coming out of a broom cupboard together."
By way of punishment for his ambush, Harry left Draco in the cupboard counting to one hundred and slipped cautiously out.
He headed back and immediately saw Ewen on top of the first flight of the stairs studying the crowd below. Their eyes met, Ewen waved to him and started fighting his way down through the swarm of frilly dresses.
Harry wasn't sure if this was what Draco would call 'wearing something decent'. Ewen was dressed in all the obligatory garments, but, well, one thing he was not—inconspicuous! Rather in the style of Kingsley Shacklebolt, the dark blue dress robes of gleaming silk were trimmed with a thin golden braid, which gave off rays of red and emerald in the light of the torches. In one ear, Ewen wore a golden hoop earring. It suited him, Harry thought. Malfoy could rot in that broom cupboard!
Girls started throwing puzzled looks at Ewen when they entered the Great Hall together. All through the feast they were probably wondering who the heck that exotic boy without a date was, sitting next to Malfoy. But when the last plates disappeared from the tables and Ewen pulled him to the dance floor at the first tones of the opening waltz, out of the corner of his eye Harry saw heads turning. By the looks of it, the Hufflepuffs were busy explaining to the rest that no, this was not an alien, or a spectre, that the bloke had been among them for seven years. But that he was with Malfoy? No, they had had no idea! They were shocked too!
"Hey, have you seen that?" Ewen said, with a light nudge of his finger at the small of Harry's back. "Ginevra has whipped Potter into shape. Chapeau!"
Draco and Ginny waltzed past. What a shame it wasn't true! The thought of Ginny whipping Malfoy was... deeply satisfying.
After a couple of dances, McGonagall called the assembly to attention and was giving a celebratory speech. Harry was not listening. He let his gaze slide around the circle, wondering who was with whom. There was Sabrin Gibbon. It looked like she had scored a head taller female Ravenclaw (with boobs!). Good thing he hadn't asked her! Sabrin gave him a silent thumbs up across the dance floor and whispered something into her date's ear.
"Finally!" said a voice behind Harry's left shoulder. Parkinson? She was the only one in the room who did not seem surprised at all. "Will you introduce us?" She didn't add another 'finally', but it sounded like the introduction was badly overdue.
"Er, Ewen Arling..." Harry was unprepared for doing introductions. "Pansy Parkinson, and er..." Parkinson stretched out her hand, and Ewen bowed down for a kiss. "Blaise Zabini." Zabini was beyond surprise. His eyebrows pulled into a strained frown, as if he was trying to solve a complicated puzzle in arithmancy.
There was a round of applause, McGonagall must have finished her speech, and the musicians went back to business.
"Do you mind, Draco?" Ewen said.
Parkinson and Zabini were gone. Instead, Harper stood in front of Ewen.
"Er. No."
Harper gave him a condescending glance and swirled away with Ewen in the dazzling kaleidoscope of the next waltz.
For a moment, Harry felt strangely unprotected. He caught some hesitant looks of male students turned in his direction, and wanted to dive under his Invisibility Cloak. He could only dance with Ewen, that was clear. That was the only thing that worked. With anyone else he would make a complete fool of himself. He grabbed a butterbeer on his way to the exit and found a quiet corner in the Entrance Hall under a large photograph of a vaguely familiar looking witch with an unfamiliar looking wizard.
"This is McGonagall at the age of sixteen," said Astoria Greengrass, who was also carrying a big glass of butterbeer. She looked critically at some details in the picture only she could see. "The contrast decreased when I enlarged it."
"It looks great!" Harry didn't know moving pictures could be enlarged, nor that Astoria was into that kind of thing. "Cheers!"
Their glasses clanked and Harry looked around cautiously for signs of Astoria's date.
"I'm alone." She nervously touched at her sophisticated updo. "I don't dance."
"I don't dance either," Harry said, relieved to have found a like-minded person.
"Come off it! You've just— I have documentary evidence!" She swung a camera hanging on a belt across her shoulder from back to front. Her pearl necklace got caught in the strap and she started fumbling at it to free it, but only got it even more entangled.
"You wait until I develop these," she said, giving up. "I have at least a dozen of you and Arling."
"You know him?"
Astoria was the second person Harry had met so far for whom Ewen's name meant something.
"He kept vanishing from my pictures for two years. When I confronted him, he just laughed, gave me a chocolate frog, and promised not to do it again. Since then he's been vanishing only half of the time."
"I think he can't help it, sometimes..."
"Oh yes, he can! Look! All eyes on him tonight," Astoria gestured in the direction of the Grand Staircase where Ewen was standing with a lost expression. All faces in the line of sight were turned to him. "He's looking for you."
And indeed, a second of eye contact, and Ewen made a beeline for him.
"Here you are!" He took the glass of butterbeer out of Harry's hand and unceremoniously took a few sips. Astoria had drifted to a group of girls admiring a picture further down the hall.
Ewen had deposited his extravagant dress robes somewhere and was now only wearing a waistcoat over his shirt. His earring shone even brighter against the backdrop of his exposed neck.
"I've made a wish. I really hope you'd join me for it." Ewen handed his glass back to him. Their fingers brushed and Harry almost said sorry, but his voice failed him at the sight of Ewen's embarrassed face. The vision of a scented bath flashed through Harry's mind and his stomach gave a weird lurch. Ewen gave him a worried look, and produced a tiny metal flask out of his breast pocket. He took a big gulp and offered it to Harry.
"For courage."
"Will we need courage?"
"Hurry up, before we're seen. I almost got caught smuggling it in."
The spirit burned in Harry's mouth and his head went waltzing. As the flask disappeared in Ewen's pocket, fragments of a seething rhythm came wafting from the Great Hall, Ewen vanished Harry's butterbeer and pulled him by the hand to follow. Harry quickly realised why.
"Are you crazy? We've barely practised that."
"Come. Please." Ewen pulled him through the crowd. "Just let me. You just relax. Just... give in."
Next second, their feet were walking past and around each other to the beat of the tango, while their chests were merged in a close embrace.
Thanks to the firewhisky, Harry's self-consciousness had got lost somewhere on the way to the dance floor, and he let it happen. He was floating inside Malfoy's body and couldn't care less. His mind was free, and he inhaled the space around him with every pore. He suddenly felt Ewen's presence so vividly. His moving body was the most tangible part of that space, and Harry could tell that Ewen was nervous. His fingernails dug into the flesh between Harry's shoulder blades. It didn't hurt, no, it was just... oddly refreshing.
Ginny, Ron, Dean, Hermione, Terry Boot, Astoria—astonished faces flashed past, Draco's inscrutable one among them. The only other couple on the dance floor was Benveniste and Charnay.
It ended suddenly, like a popped balloon. Ewen stood still, panting, and the music turned to clattering noise. Were people clapping? In god's name, why?
"Thank you," Ewen said and the heat of his hand left Harry's waist.
Harry wanted to thank him back, but by the time he was in control of his muscles again, Ewen was swept away by a mixed-house gang of boys. The songs started to get rockier, the lights dimmed, and the dancers mingled in a wild tumble.
"So," Astoria emerged out of the crowd with the camera in her hands, her pearl necklace gone without a trace, "you don't dance, do you?"
Next morning, Harry woke up to the sound of opening and closing doors, his roommates packing, bickering, and stumbling over each other's trunks. Harry lingered in bed, reliving the glorious moments of last night, and a warm cloud of happiness enveloped his whole body. The only thing, he did not get a chance to say 'thank you' back. The pleasure was his, really.
Harry showered, pulled a couple of pieces at random out of Malfoy's wardrobe—what felt softest to the skin, and cheered silently: no cufflinks today!
The Great Hall was back in its usual configuration. A few heads turned and a few giggles chattered when he entered, but it didn't bother him. As he walked along the Slytherin table in search of an empty space, he passed Sabrin Gibbon who sat next to Astoria, her cheek leaned against Astoria's shoulder. Astoria was flipping through a stack of pictures. A gang of girls hung over their heads. A round of either giggling or moaning sounded each time Astoria flipped another photo. The corners of Harry's mouth pulled into a smile. Giggling was not that bad after all. Giggling was okay.
Just as Harry loaded his plate with toast and scrambled egg, a piece of parchment came fluttering his way. Harry caught and opened it:
Hey, Malfoy! You're dog's bollocks on the dance floor you are! SGSabrin gave him a wink and went back to watching the pictures.
Harry glanced over at the entrance every so often, as he worked his way through his toast. Unbelievable! It was the same door he had stumbled through yesterday, dizzy and electrified. That spot between the Hufflepuff and the Ravenclaw table was where Ewen had swirled him like a top... a spinning top. They'd put on a good show, Harry thought, twisting Sabrin's note between his fingers. If she'd only seen the stunts they'd pulled in the Room of Requirement, she would have given them a few more expletives. How many hours had they spent trying to get him to relax and... give in?
As the memories of the last practice sessions floated to the front of Harry's mind, a sudden realisation pierced him with a cold blade. It was over. The Yule Ball was over. There would be no more practice sessions. Harry jerked bolt upright. He had to thank Ewen, for everything, before he vanished from his life forever. But Ewen was not coming. Had he vanished already?
Harry leapt to his feet, stumbled over the bench, and ran out of the hall. Ewen was nowhere around the Grand Staircase and not in the Entrance Hall. Harry raced to the dungeons, charged down to the dorms, to his room, and pulled the Marauder's Map from underneath his pillow.
"I solemnly swear that I'm—" his breath ran dry before he could finish the sentence. He gasped for air. "I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good!" Lines and dots burst into bloom all over the parchment.
Harry searched frantically for Ewen's name. He was not in the Hufflepuff basement, not in the North Tower, and not anywhere between those places and the Great Hall. Harry searched the grounds and saw him. The dot with the flag of 'Ewen Arling' had crossed the bridge and was moving steadily towards the Hogsmeade gate.
Harry grabbed his coat and rushed back upstairs, putting it on as he ran and stuffing the map into his pocket. Scared second-years jumped out of his way as he crossed the Entrance Hall. He sprinted across the bridge and only now could see a dot in the distance, not much bigger than the dot on the map.
"Ewen!" he called at the top of his voice, but the dot continued moving. Ewen hadn't heard him.
Harry pulled his wand. 'Sonorus!' he thought, saving breath.
"EWEN!" his magnified voice rolled over the hills and echoed between the towers of the castle.
The tiny figure in the distance stopped, and, as far as Harry could make out, was looking around for the source of the thunder. Relieved, Harry trotted down the hill and across the field. Ewen's figure grew and gained detail as he approached. He could soon see Ewen's face. He looked seriously worried.
"Draco? What's wrong? What happened?"
It crossed Harry's mind that his performance was a bit over the top for someone who just wanted to say goodbye, but he was too breathless to be embarrassed.
"Nothing... happened," he said, panting, though he had a strange feeling that it wasn't true. "I just... wanted to... say... 'thank you'."
Ewen smiled incredulously.
"My pleasure."
"for all... the dancing..."
"You're welcome." A little cloud of fog left Ewen's lips and dissolved quickly in the frosty air. Harry was still puffing gusts of steam like Hogwarts Express.
"I... enjoyed it... a lot!"
"I enjoyed it a lot, too," Ewen said, surprise still lingering in his face.
"I just thought..." Harry was catching his breath, and was now up to the challenge of utterring more than three syllables in a row. "I just thought... our practice sessions... I enjoyed it... them... it... a lot too. Now it's over, I'll miss it."
"Who says it's over? We don't have to stop. We can continue practising," Ewen said matter-of-factly.
Now Harry felt stupid. Why hadn't this simple idea occurred to him?
"Er. Great!" Suddenly it was unbearable to look Ewen in the eye. Harry stared at his shoulder and noticed his backpack. "You're leaving? So early?"
"I'm meeting my mum in Hogsmeade, and then we're going on a holiday. To Brazil!" Ewen added with a luxurious sparkle in his eye. "While you guys are freezing your feet off, we'll be sunbathing in the sand and slurping mangoes."
Just now Harry realised that he was wearing Draco's dancing shoes, and his feet should technically be freezing, but he could feel no cold. He imagined Ewen lying in the sand and slurping at a mango, juice running down his chest covered in light tan. Ewen continued picturing the pleasures of the tropical climate, and Harry found courage to raise his eyes again.
He hadn't noticed it before. Ewen's eyebrows were so flexible, they arched, and curved, and bent to sharp angles when he frowned, and flattened again, along with every emotion that that face expressed. His eyes were very dark, one could barely tell the pupil from the iris. His nose was so shamelessly straight, like the noses of those Roman sculptures that decorated the prefects' bathroom. And his lips were... his lips were... not talking? His lips relaxed and parted slightly. Harry looked up. Ewen was also staring at his lips.
The next moment Harry's mind went blank. Ewen's lips touched his and the ground was pulled from under his feet. He grasped Ewen's shoulder for support, but it didn't help. Ewen slipped his arm under Harry's unbuttoned coat. They were falling into the abyss, locked together in a firm embrace.
The burning tip of Ewen's tongue slid between his cold lips and stung the corner of Harry's mouth. Harry stopped free-falling. He was now floating weightlessly in the mist of Ewen's breath, his insides bound into a tight knot. The tightness grew, and spread from the inside to the outside, defeating the softness of his trousers, and turned into the horrifying longing to press against something equally hard.
"I'm sorry, I have to go. Or we'll miss the Portkey," Ewen said, breaking away with an effort. "See you after the holidays." He took a step back. His eyes were sparkling. "I'll miss you too."
The ground rematerialised under Harry's feet. He stood rooted to the spot and saw Ewen disappear behind the gate. He was unable to move. At least, moving was very uncomfortable.
"Hey, mate! You'll sleep through breakfast if you don't get up now!"
Draco woke up to Weasley prodding him in the ribs.
"Ginny is waiting for you downstairs."
"Tell her I'm coming," Draco said through a yawn.
What the hell was Ginny waiting for, thought Draco, trudging half asleep to the shower. As warm water streamed down his face and chest, the pictures of last night flashed through his mind.
Ewen had whipped Potter into shape!
Draco's feet still ached from yesterday's excesses. When the lights had gone out and everyone had mixed into one wild throng, he had slipped away from Ginevra and plunged into the midst of the rocking crowd. By magic surely, the currents had brought him to Ewen, who was shaking away surrounded by a swarm of horny bucks. They danced next to each other. Ewen's face was priceless when he saw Harry Potter check him out from top to toe. He responded with a smile and a brush against the small of his back. Draco was still savouring the moment when he got down to the common room and saw Ginny, who was, indeed, waiting. She was wearing skinny jeans, a dark sweater that accentuated her breasts and a dangerously mysterious smile.
"I thought we could go and try to find the book, after breakfast," she said on the way to the Great Hall. "If you like."
"Oh yeah, why not?" Draco was wide awake in an instant. Ginny must have taken his dancing skills for Potter's determination to please her. She had softened to him after their second practice, and Draco already sensed a disaster coming, but this... this was not something to let pass. "I mean, if you—" As they were about to enter the Great Hall they were almost trampled down by Potter who charged out of the door with an insane look and galloped towards the Entrance Hall.
"Gee, what got into Malfoy?" Ginny said following him with a puzzled look.
"I mean, if you have time. When are you leaving?"
"Not before lunch."
They took a seat next to each other at the Gryffindor table and loaded their plates.
"Why don't you come along with us to Iceland? It'll be fun. Northern lights and all..."
"I'm sorry. I have to work on a... advanced history of magic project."
"Is it with Malfoy again?"
"Someone has to keep an eye on him during the holidays. Now more urgently than ever."
"You're obsessed with him, you know," she said with a sigh and bit heartily into her jam sandwich.
Ginny's hand brushed against his, and Draco's stomach squirmed. He made an effort not to pull away. Not to scare her off just yet. Not just yet.
When they entered the Room of Hidden Things, it was full of hidden things like never before. The alleyways between towers of junk had narrowed, and top layers of stacked furniture overhung the lower levels, like the floors of mediaeval houses in a spooky gothic city. Endless heaps of books made him think of their recent unsuccessful attempts to research Herman's parents. A Fanged Frisbee soared above their heads, crashed into a wall of stacked pointed hats and brought it down with a dull thud. The Frisbee was buried under the heap, which blocked the passage.
Ginny climbed over it and continued along another cascade of old furniture, peeping occasionally into a cupboard or a chest along the way, until they came to a clearing. It looked like a central square of a ghost town, the alleyways coming from all directions met here. In the centre of the square stood a bizarre object. It could have been a huge stringless harp or the frame of an irregular-shaped mirror, without the mirror.
Draco was trying to do as if he was searching too, but the stringless harp brought him to a halt. Why was it here?
"Close your eyes," said Ginny. Draco had no idea why, but obeyed. He heard Ginny's steps and soft rustling behind his back. A wooden box or cupboard opened and closed. Then another one.
"Ginny?"
"Wait."
He heard Ginny's steps again, very close.
"Ginny?" He opened one eye.
But Ginny grabbed him by his belt from behind, pushed him forward. He felt the tip of her wand prod painfully into his back.
"Incarcerous!"
His hands flew up and got fixed to the frame of the stringless harp with invisible belts.
What the—! He looked over his shoulder, and saw— No way! Ginny stood behind him, topless. In her hand she was holding a— Draco could not see it clearly out of the corner of his eye. Was it her wand? Or was it... a whip?!
"Revel—"
"NO!" Draco pulled violently at the frame but it didn't budge.
There was a silence, and the sound of Ginny's light breathing behind his back.
"Okay," Ginny's voice was soft again. She released his hands. Draco turned around. "Okay, Harry, it's okay." She wrapped her arms around him and ran her hand soothingly over his back. "I didn't want to scare you."
"No, Ginny, please," Draco freed himself from Ginny's embrace, and pulled his wand. "Reverte!"
Ginny's bra and sweater surged back into place. She looked down at the whip in her hand.
"Oh." A small waving movement, and the whip pulled back into a plain vanilla wand. "I just thought... I wanted to surprise you. I thought you wanted me to surprise you."
Did he? Draco did not feel like talking about Potter's kink, at all.
"I thought..." Ginny's freckles disappeared under a veil of intense pink. "I'm sorry. I went too far. Next time we'll—"
"No no no, Ginny, no," Draco had to make absolutely sure that there would be no next time, "I'm gay," was the only thing he could think of. "I— er— I'm gay."
Ginny stood in front of him dumbstruck.
"Oh." She blinked. "Oh, I see. That's why..." She looked at his wand that was still pointing at her. "It's okay, Harry. I understand. It's okay."
Draco lowered his wand and exhaled slowly.
"Here's your book." And she handed him an old battered copy of Advanced Potion-Making.
It was barely noon, but Draco was exhausted, as if he'd been training for the Quidditch World Cup all night and morning. He had to think hard about what he was going to tell Potter. And what not to tell. And he needed to come up with something quickly. This was not what he had promised. He was supposed to say that he was Draco Malfoy, not that he— Whatever. It was too late. Potter would blow his head off.
Draco trudged half-heartedly to lunch. Right now, he wouldn't have said no to a shot of Quetzalcoatl, for some extra will to live. Oh yes, he had actually looked behind the bottle of Moonseed poison in the bottom row left of the door of the potions classroom, when he had got a chance, but Slughorn was not an idiot. He had moved his silver flask to some new hiding place, and Draco was not going to turn over the whole classroom. He had tried to find something on it in the library, and even approached Slughorn to give him a permission for a couple of books from the Restricted Section that looked promising (for preparation for his Auror career, of course!), but all he found were obscure myths and nothing remotely resembling a recipe. The only thing that warmed his heart now, was Snape's infamous copy of Advanced Potion-Making, now safely hidden in his trunk, and the hope that it would spark some new ideas, now that all his designs related to Quetzalcoatl had found a dead end. He tried to think about the book and not about the way he'd got it. At least, the disaster had paid off.
A handful of late leavers and another handful of those staying for the holidays were scattered across the Great Hall. Draco looked to the Gryffindor table. The Weasleys and Granger sat huddled together. Their faces turned. Granger waved to him to join them.
No. He was not ready to face Granger, no matter how much sympathy her face was radiating.
Potter was sitting alone at the Slytherin table. Fuck the Sorting Hat! Draco clomped wearily into the wrong aisle, and dropped onto the bench in front of him. Potter's hair was wet and smelled of shampoo. His eyes peered through him as if he was made of air.
They sat silently for a while in front of their empty plates. Neither seemed particularly hungry.
"I had a— Ginny and I— In the Room of Hidden—" Draco decided that he was too messed up for telling lies, but even the truth refused to come out in a coherent manner.
Potter continued staring at him with an absent look.
"Ginny cornered me half-naked in the Room of Hidden Things."
Potter's face didn't change a bit.
"She bound me up and almost— never mind."
Potter didn't flinch.
"Hey! Are you listening?"
"Mhm. Ginny bound you up," Potter uttered in a flat voice.
"Yeah, well... I panicked."
"Mhm."
"And then I told her that I was gay."
Potter didn't reply, but his eyes focused, like he was listening very carefully to every word Draco was saying.
"So, now she thinks that you are gay."
"Er... okay."
This was the kind of reaction Draco had expected the least.
"Are you all right?"
"Er... yes."
Bullshit. Something was not all right.
"Anyway. I'm sorry, I just... panicked."
"It's okay." Potter looked straight into his face. "You did the right thing."
END OF PART 2
Note: And we are halfway through! I am very curious to hear what you think so far. What do you expect from the plot? How do you like the characters, especially the OCs, and what do you expect from them?
