The Big Green Chair

Summer 4: Part B

“Potter, this is horrible.”

That afternoon, Professor McGonagall had shown up and, after speaking with the Headmaster, had decided that it would be most pleasant to have both boys with her in the tower that summer. Secretly, Harry thought she was giving Snape a break before he snapped completely. It wouldn’t take much more, either. Harry had been treading on thin ice the last week. Any sudden movement, any noise above a whisper was considered an atrocity and it was getting so that Harry was afraid to even step out of his room in the morning, let alone eat breakfast.

He couldn’t imagine what had the Potions Master so bent out of shape, but he certainly wasn’t going to ask. Besides, now that he had been rescued from that horrid dungeon, he could sit back and relax. Well, almost.

Harry grit his teeth, “It’s not horrible, it’s cosy.”

“It’s small.” Draco sat on the little bed. “Look at this, we’ll be practically back to back at night.”

“There’s a window.”

Draco rolled his eyes and flopped onto his back, reaching his hands over his head to grasp the other side of the bed, before giving a disgusted grunt and sitting up. “Who cares about some stupid window? There’s hardly any room for my trunk.”

Giving up, Harry sat at his windowsill and looked out over the grounds enviously. He wanted to go outside and practice his flying, but Dumbledore had said that he couldn’t without supervision. Biting his lip, he considered asking Professor McGonagall, but she’d only just gotten back and he didn’t want to bother her so soon. He’d just have to wait until tomorrow.

Someone blew on the back of his neck and he turned abruptly, nearly slamming his head into Malfoy’s nose. The blonde was staring at him, a disturbingly familiar smirk on his pink lips. Harry shifted uncomfortably, “What?”

“Want to wank?” Draco watched in amusement as colour spread from Harry’s cheeks to his ears and down his neck. He’d spent the whole of the school year lamenting that he couldn’t tease Potter about it when his friends were around. He’d found plenty of other things to tease him about of course, but the embarrassment on the other boy’s face when Draco mentioned that wasĽ well, there was just something entirely pleasant about the way he blushed.

“No!”

Shrugging nonchalantly, Draco sat back on the bed, his hands pressed into the covers. “Well, what do you want to do then? And so help me if you say ‘read’, I’ll shove you headfirst out that bloody window.”

Harry looked sceptical; the traces of his blush still visible, though fading. “I don’t know, what to do you want to do?”

Draco fought not to smile, “Wank.”

The blush returned full force. Draco couldn’t imagine what was so embarrassing about the prospect of wanking. It wasn’t like it was some forbidden dark magic or something. Everyone did it. In fact, in Slytherin, it wasn’t uncommon for people to do it in the shower, regardless of who was watching.

“God, Malfoy, you’re such a... pervert. Is that all you ever think about?”

Draco crossed his arms over his chest defensively, “At least I’m not a prude, like you.”

“I’m not a prude!” To be honest, Harry wasn’t really even sure what a prude was, but he denied it on principle.

“Then do it.”

It was quite obvious that Harry wasn’t going to be caught that easily this time. He pursed his mouth and returned the glare. “I am not in the mood. I can’t just get it up because you want to have a go.”

Draco threw himself back, “It’s not that difficult. God, Potter, you’d think you never have fantasies. You’re on the house team with that Spinet girl. She’s got some nice breasts and she plays Quidditch, so you know she’s got to be pretty flexible. And her legs...” He looked up to see Harry, who was half-hunched over, covering himself with his hands. “There, that wasn’t so hardĽ or is it?”

Harry knew it was a losing battle. He had tried desperately to keep his body from reacting, but there didn’t seem to be anything he could really do about it. To make matters worse, his hard-on had nothing to do with Alicia’s breasts - he’d never even really noticed those before – it had everything to do with Draco bloody Malfoy’s cock straining in his trousers, clear for the world to see, and that strangely husky voice he was using.

“Oh, damnit, Malfoy, fine.”

Draco didn’t bother to hide his self-satisfied smirk as Harry crossed the room, lay on the bed next to him and unfastening his trousers hastily. Of course, the only problem with it was that this bed really was much smaller than the one they shared in the dungeons. There they had been a good two or three feet apart and it had been easy to ignore the other boy’s presence in the bed, here they were practically shoulder-to-shoulder. Harry’s body heat made Draco feel more flushed than usual and somehow it made what they were doing feel more intimate.

Pushing the thoughts to the back of his head, he concentrated on the first thing he could think of that was not Potter related. Pansy. Yes, that was safe. She wasn’t pretty in the strictest sense of the word, but she was well bred and she’d let him touch her bare breast. It had been small and flat, with little nipples that stuck out slightly from the cold of the dorm room, but it was a breast.

Working his fist over himself, he continued to think about his thirty-second sojourn with Pansy's breast in an attempt to not concentrate on the way Harry’s elbow kept brushing against his arm, or the little puffing breathes that assaulted his ears and made his head tingle. God, there was something so wrong about this and he couldn’t imagine what it was, because he’d done it plenty of times with the other boys.

Harry went suddenly very still and Draco heard the repressed whimper that Potter wasn’t as good at hiding as he probably thought he was. He turned his focus back to himself and followed suit moments later. With a contented sigh, he let his hand flop bonelessly to the bed, ignoring the fact that it landed practically on top of Harry’s.

There was a blissful minute of silence, in which Draco pondered exactly why he was with Pansy anyway. She really wasn’t attractive at all, breeding aside; they didn’t get along in particular either, she annoyed him, and touching her breast hadn’t been all that great. He had other options; he was Draco Malfoy after all.

Then, in the middle of his realisation that he could have anyone he bloody well wanted, Potter shot out of the bed, yanking his trousers up. “I... I’ve got homework.” His voice cracked and his face was white as a sheet.

Without another word, Potter shot out of the room, leaving a befuddled Draco listening to the sound of his feet padding quickly down the stairs and out of earshot. What had that been about?

____________________

Harry raced until he’d gotten to the portrait of the Fat Lady guarding the Gryffindor common room and then tried to pretend that he wasn’t in a hurry to get in. It always went over more smoothly when he acted courteous to her. Inside, the fire wasn’t lit, but the furniture was as inviting as ever and he quickly sank into one of the chairs and buried his head in the armrest. It was a disaster, a complete and utter disaster. He was gay.

It might have been better if he’d even suspected it before now, but he hadn’t, because he was stupid, stupid, stupid! Before school started, he’d thought girls were yucky and when the older boys ogled them, he brushed it aside as a grown-up thing that he would understand later and ever since then he just hadn’t been in a hurry to figure it out.

Of course, he should have suspected something was wrong when Katie Bell had walked through the changing room in only her towel, looking for her clothing (Fred and George had hidden them in the hopes that she would prance around starkers) and he hadn’t been even remotely interesting. He remembered the twins cat-calling her and Wood trying his best not to look, and Harry had smiled and pretended he found it amusing, but he hadn’t really cared.

Oh, bloody hell, what was he going to tell Ron? ‘Look, I know we’re best mates and all, but I’ve decided that what really gets me off is blokes’. Then Ron would accuse him of having checked him out, which he hadn’t. He didn’t think of Ron like that. He hoped.

His head lifted slightly. Wait a minute. He didn’t think of Ron like that. In fact, other than Malfoy he couldn’t think of a single other boy who had ever gotten that reaction out of him. Maybe he wasn’t gay. Maybe it was just Malfoy. Cringing, he buried his head again. That was worse. Ron might forgive him for being gay, but finding Malfoy attractive? Never.

Slowly, Harry forced himself to uncurl in the chair and think about it calmly. Perhaps it was something else, something entirely explainable. He closed eyes and thought about the facts.

Fact one: He couldn’t think of a single girl that he thought of as blatantly attractive. Well, there were a lot of girls out there and it wasn’t like he had seen them all. So, he didn’t like breasts, big deal. Dudley had breasts and that certainly hadn’t turned him on.

Fact two: He’d gotten hard listening to Malfoy toss-off. Not that he’d ever listened to anyone else toss-off before. Ron and him were like brothers and he just couldn’t see anyone in Gryffindor tower deciding to whip it out and ask the others if they wanted to have a go. He imagined Neville’s face if Seamus ever did that and couldn’t help but laugh.

Until Malfoy, he’d never wanked off with another boy before. So, maybe that was just it. He wasn’t used to someone doing something so blatantly sexual in front of him. Opening his eyes, he stared up at the high ceiling. Would it be so bad if he was gay? Well, as long as he wasn’t attracted to Malfoy, anyway.

With a contented sigh, Harry stood up and looked into the empty fireplace. There really wasn’t anything he could do about it at the moment though, not unless he wanted to ask Professor Flitwick or Snape if they’d get naked and let him see what he thought of it. Shuddering, Harry tried to shake that thought out of his head. He’d just have to deal with Malfoy for now; he’d worry about being gay later.

____________________

Draco pouted at the dinner table that evening. Professor McGonagall was a horrid woman. She had not only had something called ‘hotdogs’ sent up for dinner, but she expected him to eat them. They were messy, they looked funny and they were meant to be eaten with hands. He couldn’t even begin to describe the horror he felt as he’d held the squishy bread in his hand and looked at the darkened sausage sandwiched in it.

Harry had smiled delightedly of course, and immediately reached for thick red sauce to pour on it before shoving nearly half the thing in his mouth at one time. Draco watched ketchup roll off the end of the hotdog and onto Harry’s plate. That was just disgusting. How could any self respecting Professor consider this food?

He looked at the plain hotdog in his hands. Well, he was hungry. He hadn’t eaten much that day and he’d been up at three in the morning. Taking a deep breath, he put the tip of it in his mouth and bit down. Juice from the sausage spilled into his mouth. It was... not bad. He took another tentative bite, this time making sure to get some of the sweetened bread as well. It was actually quite good.

The ketchup bottle was thrust next to his plate and he saw Harry grinning at him impishly. “You’ll like it.”

McGonagall was smiling tersely from her seat across from them, and Draco got the impression she was holding back. “Now, Harry, I’m sure Draco can decide what he likes.” Harry shrugged, nonplussed, and went back to devouring his own hotdog.

Draco, however, was taking another look at the table. There were two kinds of mustard and mayonnaise in little bowls, a shaker of vinegar, and a plate that had pickles and onions piled on it. While Harry seemed to prefer ketchup only, McGonagall had put onion on hers and then sprinkled it with vinegar.

At Malfoy Manor, and indeed at Hogwarts during the school year, the food was prepared and eaten as was, without the need for any additives. The Professor picked up a knife and fork and began dissected the food, but Draco thought this looked just about as dignified as eating it with hands. The bites were big and clumsy.

Finally, he settled on eating his plain and with his hands, taking small, controlled bites. By the time he’d started on his second one, Harry had already finished his and was sitting back in his chair, a contented smile on his lips. “Professor, may I be excused?”

McGonagall nodded, “Go and wash your hands.” Harry darted into the nearby bathroom and then up the stairs to his room. McGonagall’s suite was as different from Snape’s as she was. The door opened into a sitting room that had a large sofa and two chairs facing the fire. To the left of the fireplace was a narrow set of stairs that twisted around at the top and led up to Harry’s room; to the right were two doors, leading to a bathroom and her bedroom. On the other side of the sofa there were three elongated, narrow windows and a thick wooden table with three chairs. The room absolutely reeked of old things, like the antique shops his mother dragged him to on occasion.

He swallowed the last of his hotdog and patted his face with his napkin. “May I be excused, Professor?”

She smiled pleasantly enough, but he couldn’t help feeling suspicious and ill at ease. “Of course Draco, don’t forget to wash your hands.”

The bathroom was as dated as the rest of the suite. However, now he noticed something that he had not before. The pictures hanging on the wall of the bathroom, and most likely the ones in the other rooms as well, were muggle. The edges were frayed brown and the pictures themselves were mostly black and white and hard to make out the details of, but they were most certainly not moving.

He wiped his hands on a fluffy yellow towel and quickly exited, trying not to look discomfited with his surroundings. Harry was lying on the bed when he got back, playing a game of cards with an unruly deck that kept muttering things like ‘no, not me, use him next!’ Harry looked up and raised an eyebrow, “You want to join me?”

Slowly, Draco nodded and took a seat next to Harry on the small bed.

-tbc-