After All TBGC
Updated: October 1, 2005
Summer 3: Part
D
It wasn’t until Harry had finished
marking the second week off his calendar that he realised how long the month was going to
be. He remembered once, when he’d gotten
in trouble for what he now knew was wild magic and Uncle Vernon had locked him in his
cupboard for an entire month, only letting him out to go to the bathroom and to do chores. He hadn’t even had the broken soldiers back
then, all he’d been able to do was stare at the spiders and watch shadows pass under
his door. Compared to this, that had been a
picnic. Despite the fact that he hated the
looks of disappointment on McGonagall and Dumbledore’s faces when he got into
trouble, he actively considered doing something that would piss Snape off enough to lock
him back in the store room. At least then he’d
have some peace and quiet.
“What are you doing, Potter?”
Harry looked over and saw Draco standing in the doorway to
the bedroom. “Why do you care, Malfoy?”
“I don’t, only you’ve been staring at that
bloody calendar for the past two minutes. Is
there anything interesting on it?” Draco
stepped forward and leaned over, pushing Harry aside with his shoulder. “As I expected, absolutely nothing. You’re so boring.”
Harry felt his face flush in annoyance. He set down his quill, got up from the desk and
moved to his trunk. Draco threw himself down
on the bed and sighed, “I’m bored, Potter. Think
of something to do.”
“I already have.”
The blonde sat up quickly, “What?”
“I’m going to the tower to see Hedwig and then I’m
going to the library to do my homework.”
“You’re always doing your homework. I don’t see how you could possible have any
left.”
In truth, he didn’t.
He’d finished it before Draco even arrived, but of the five times he’d
gone to the library, the Slytherin had followed him in only once and even then he’d
left quickly. It was like a sanctuary; a very
dusty, silent one, but it was all the same to him.
Draco frowned as Harry pulled on his socks and shoes. “And what is it with you and that owl. I swear, it’s every other day with you up
there and I’m either stuck here alone or listening to you coo over a… bird. Not like she ever brings you anything, anyway.”
“Shut it, Malfoy.”
It was true, besides his birthday, Hedwig hadn’t brought him so much as
a letter from any of his friends, just the usual questions from McGonagall; was he
behaving, had Snape abused him in any way or gotten out of line, had he finished his
homework, was he having fun…?
Harry bit his tongue to keep from saying
anything as Draco followed him out of the room and through the halls of the dungeon,
“We could go to the field and you could let me fly your Nimbus 2000.”
“For the tenth time, no.”
Scoffing, Draco shoved his hands in his
pockets, “I haven’t asked ten times, Potter.”
Without turning around, Harry shrugged,
“Fine, then - for the sixth time, no. You
are not touching anything of mine, especially not my broom. You’d probably just break it to get even with
me for god-knows-what.”
“That’s not true, I’d know
exactly what I was getting even with you for.”
Harry rolled his eyes and started up the
winding stairs to the Owlery. He could not
possibly comprehend how one person could be such a complete and utter arse. All he ever did was talk down to people and treat
them like dirt. Back when they’d first
met, Harry had thought that maybe it was just him. Maybe
something about Harry just rubbed Draco the wrong way, because something about Draco sure
as hell pissed off Harry.
However, it hadn’t taken him long to realise during
their first year at school that Draco just simply treated everyone like that. The blond Slytherin was a prat, through and
through. There was nothing more to it. Harry had eventually decided that he had dealt with
his cousin for eight years and he could very well deal with Malfoy. The key was to have as little contact as possible.
“Potter.”
If only that were as easy as it sounded. “What, Malfoy?”
“I want to do something.”
“Well, don’t let me stop you. Go do it.”
“Come on, Potter, you have weeks to finish whatever’s
left of your homework. If you agree to come
with me to the Pitch I’ll break into the ball crate and we can chase the snitch.”
Opening the door to the Owlery, Harry stepped in and
looked around for Hedwig, finding her on her usual perch at the far side. “And if we get caught, which we will, Snape’ll
blame it on me.”
Harry walked quickly across the room to where Hedwig was
perched and reached a hand out, stroking her feathers.
“Morning, girl, are you doing alright?” He ignored Draco’s snort from the other side
of the room. “I brought you a treat.”
After a few minutes watching Hedwig eat out of his palm,
Harry wiped his hand on his trousers and turned around.
“I’m going to library now.”
Without waiting for a response, he brushed past the
annoyed Slytherin and headed down the stairs. Part
of him had hoped that his dismissive tone would put Draco off following him; the other
part knew that it wasn’t likely and the sound of footsteps close behind him confirmed
it. Maybe if he picked a particularly tedious
subject and read some of the material out loud, Draco would leave.
Madame Pince had been loathed to leave the library doors
unlocked, so instead of giving all and sundry access to her precious books, she’d
given Harry the password and told him to guard it well with a few stern finger wags to
help get her point across. As if Harry could
think of anyone who would try and steal the password to a library. They were only books, after all.
“Studious.” He tapped the knob with his wand and it creaked
open, giving way to the cavernous, echoing chamber. During
the school year it wasn’t nearly this bad, even at night it seemed to have life in
it, but in the dead of summer with only four or five people in the entire castle it was
like a tomb.
Half closing the door behind him, Harry went
in search of the dullest, most mind-numbing volume he could find. Hm, dragons were too interesting; in fact the
entire section on magical animals was probably well out of range for the kind of boring
that he was looking for. What he needed was
something that would read like a textbook, something bland with no spice, something…
“Potter.”
“What?!”
Draco came around the corner, “What are you looking at?”
Harry looked up at the row of books in front
of him, “History of Wizard and Muggle
relations.” That would do, actually. If there was one thing Malfoy hated it was muggles
and the wizards who voluntarily dealt with them.
Draco’s eyes narrowed suspiciously,
“What for?”
“…” Shit. Shit,
shit, oh! “Witch burning essay.”
“Witch burning is one the primary
examples of why muggles should be under our thumbs.”
Harry grabbed a random book and pretended to
flip through it. “It was harmless;
Malfoy, no witch or wizard was ever actually burned.”
“Oh, no, of course not, we’re too
smart for that, but it’s the intent that matters, Potter. They were trying to kill us.”
Rolling his eyes, Harry sat at a table and
went about trying to pretend he was interested in what he was reading. It didn’t take him long to realise that even
if he had been working on his witch burning essay, this book would not have helped. It seemed to focus more on how to interact with
muggles without attracting too much attention. Looking
back at the index, Harry had to bite down a chuckle at the chapter titled ‘Movies:
Why they move and why you shouldn’t talk to one.’
Draco had wandered off at some point, but
Harry could still hear him moving around the library.
After several minutes, in which Harry began to actually enjoy certain
portions of the book, Draco returned, “Potter, can you get into the restricted
section?”
Harry looked up, “Why?”
Sitting down on the table, Draco grinned,
“If I’m to be stuck in the library with you,
I might as well be doing something interesting.”
“You don’t have to be stuck
anywhere with me.”
“No, I suppose I could always just go
back to wondering around the deserted castle, or watching Snape trying to brew a potion,
couldn’t I?” When Harry didn’t
respond, Draco sneered, “Come on, Potter, I’m your guest, you have to entertain
me.”
Harry flipped the page obstinately, still
refusing to look up and Draco sighed, “Fine, what will it take to get you pull your
nose out of those dusty books for one afternoon?”
Looking up, Harry narrowed his eyes
suspiciously, Draco, no matter how bored, had never stooped so low as to genuinely ask
Harry what he wanted to do. He’d always
simply ordered him around. Slowly, Harry
closed the book and bit his lip, “Well, I suppose if you’d stop bothering me
about using my broom I could be up for some flying.”
Then, Draco did something that Harry could
never have prepared himself for. He smiled;
not a sneer, or a smirk, or any of the other sarcastic gestures that he was known for, but
smiled. It made his face light up and his
grey, normally stormy eyes shine brightly in the dim light of the library.
Harry felt his cheeks flush and he looked down quickly,
closing the book and pretending to look around for anything he might have missed while the
heat crept out of his face. By the time he
looked up Malfoy had stopped smiling and was instead standing with his arms across his
chest, tapping his foot impatiently. “Coming,
Potter?”
Nodding, Harry pushed back his chair and followed Draco
out the library door, casting the password on the knob to relock it and trying not to
think about what Malfoy looked like when he smiled.
____________________
Harry was awakened by a jerking motion on the bed next to
him followed by a sharp inhale of breath and more movement.
It took him a moment to realize what was going on, mostly because he thought
he was still asleep and then because he couldn’t believe that anyone would be so
stupid as to do that again. As soon as
he had confirmed that he was indeed awake and that all the available evidence did point
towards that, he couldn’t bring himself to even breathe, let alone interrupt.
After several second of lying there and
listening, however, he found that sitting still wasn’t an option and he couldn’t
very well move without Draco noticing it. “Malfoy!”
He hadn’t raised his voice above an annoyed whisper,
but Draco stopped moving. When Harry didn’t
say anything else, he seemed to get annoyed, “Potter, did you actually have something
you wanted to say, or were just trying to piss me off?”
Harry sat up and turned around, staring openly at the half
dressed boy lying out on his bed. Malfoy hadn’t
even had the decency to do it under the covers this time!
He was sprawled out with his pyjama bottoms and underwear hanging from one
ankle and his hand still on his penis. Suddenly, Draco smirked and raised an eyebrow,
“Or did you want to join.”
Harry thanked his luck that it was probably too dark to
see exactly how red his face. “No, I do
not want to join, Malfoy. I want to be able to
sleep without the fear that you might be groping yourself next to me.”
Lying back down with a dramatic flop, Harry tried to
ignore the fact that his own cock was painfully hard.
He felt the bed move next to him, but refused to turn around and look. “Suit yourself.”
Without waiting for an answer, Draco started moving his
hand over himself again, trying to ignore the fact that Harry was laying stock still next
to him. He’d done this many times during
the school year, with Zabini and Goyle and it had never felt quite so odd. Perhaps it was because Potter didn’t seem
inclined to join or because he kept acting as if there was something wrong with it. As far as Draco was concerned, it felt good, and
that was as close to analysing it as he had come.
After a moment, he felt movement next to him and slowed
his pace a little. It seemed Potter wasn’t
as averse to joining as he’d sounded. Tightening
his legs, he concentrated on the friction building him to orgasm until he felt the flood
of pleasure rip through him.
He felt Harry jerk once and then he went still, his breath
hitching. Chuckling, Draco half turned, “Night,
Potter.” He lay down and pulled the
covers over himself, falling sleep with the uneasy warmth of Harry’s body next to
him.
-tbc-