akahannah's fic journal

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Wed, 23 Aug 2006 12:33:54 GMT

I don't know how many of you have been following the hd_remix comm (you really should, there's some damn good fic being posted).

Anyhoo, someone has remixed the second part of Genesis (my H/D reimagining of HBP) from Harry's perspective. It's absolutely wonderful. I struggle so much with writing Harry, but this is ... guh. There are no words. It's awesome. It's perfect. I love it. I wish I had written it.

If you liked Genesis, please go check it out and leave feedback for the author because by GOD do they deserve it. You can find it here

PoT FIC: 0300; Gakushi; R

Wed, 19 Apr 2006 14:55:33 GMT

Title: 0300
Pairing: Oshitari/Gakuto
Rating: Probably R or so.
Summary: Gakuto can't sleep. This means Yuushi can't sleep either.
A/N: Thought I'd try out a dialogue only fic. This is sort of fluffy and sort of smutty ... smuffy? Let me know what you think!

“Hey, Yuushi.”

“Hmm?”

“I can’t sleep. It’s too hot.”

*sigh*

“And?”

“And I can’t sleep! Do something!”

“Have you tried counting sheep?”

“Yes. But after I got to twelve they turned into that stupid Kikumaru from Seigaku, doing crappy acrobatics over the fence. Then that made me angry, and now I’m even more awake. And it’s so hot.”

“Open the window, then.”

“But Yuushi, you’re nearer. You do it.”

“You’re the one who’s cold. I’m perfectly comfortable.”

“Yuuuuushiiiiiii.”

*silence*

*muttering*

*feet padding across the carpet*

*the scrape of the window sliding open*

*feet padding back across the carpet*

*the creak of bedsprings*

“Hey, Yuushi.”

“Yes, Gakuto?”

“I still can’t sleep.”

*sigh*

“And?”

“What do you do when you can’t sleep?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I read. Sometimes I count backwards from a thousand. That usually works.”

“Boring!”

“Well, you did ask.”

“Che. Ooh, I know, let’s play a game! I spy with my little eye …”

*an amused sort of snort*

“ … something beginning with D.”

*a long pause*

“Is it, by any chance, darkness?”

“Yuuuushiiiii. You were supposed to guess wrong a few times. Now you’ve gone and spoiled the game.”

“Sorry.”

*silence*

“Yuushi?”

“Yes?”

“I can’t sleeeeeeep!”

“Have you even tried?”

“Yes. I’m just not tired.”

“Eh. Go have a wank or something. That always puts me to sleep.”

“Oh.”

*silence*

*the rustle of bedsheets*

“Er, Gakuto?”

“Y-yes, Yuushi?”

“Are you, by any chance, wanking right now?”

*a guilty sort of silence*

“Oh my GOD. I thought you’d at least go into the bathroom to do it!”

“Why? It’s not like you’ve never done it yourself. We’re both boys.”

“It’s just … it’s a bit weird, knowing you’re doing it right here.”

“Heh. You know what else would be weird?”

*a louder rustle of bedsheets*

“What?”

“Look over here.”

“Wha – ARGH! GAKUTO! Cover yourself up!”

*raucous laughter*

“Yuushi, you prude!”

“I’m not a prude. I just have no wish to watch you jerk yourself off.”

“So why haven’t you looked away?”

“It’s dark. It’s not like I can see anything.”

“Why did you tell me to cover myself up, then?”

“Gah! It’s three in the morning. Stop being argumentative.”

*silence*

“Ohhh … mmmm …”

“And stop making sex noises.”

“You sound awfully strained. Poor Yuushi. Maybe you should relieve yourself too, hmm?”

“No thanks.”

“Scared?”

“No.”

“Yes you are, you big coward! Come on, it’s not like I haven’t seen it in the showers before!”

“You were looking?”

“Che. Everyone looks. Come on, get it out.”

*silence*

*an irritated sigh*

*the rustle of sheets*

“Happy now?”

“Heh. You look just like a picture on the front of one of those crappy romance novels you read: ‘the beautiful Adonis, adorned in the silvery moonlight’.”

“Have you been reading Kabaji’s love poetry to Atobe again?”

“… No? Though in fairness, he really shouldn’t leave them lying around like that. So careless of him.”

“Yes, very careless to leave them in a locked cupboard in his locked bedroom where any snooping mischief-maker could find them.”

“You wound me, Yuushi.”

*silence*

*heavy breathing, and the occasional whimper*

“So do you always take this long? Or is this just for my benefit?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Tensai. The longer it takes, the better it feels in the end. Surely you know that. Or are you only an expert on the tennis court.”

“Are you going out of your way to annoy me tonight?”

*laughter*

“Sorry. It’s just difficult to take you seriously when I can see you doing that.”

“That’s not fair, you can see me but I can’t see you. It’s totally unequal.”

“Come over here if you want a better look.”

“Are you flirting with me?”

“Baka Yuushi, I’m always flirting with you. We’re Hyoutei’s Doubles Two pair. It’s what we do, right?”

“Hn.”

“So. You coming over here or what?”

“No.”

“O-oh. Right. I just thought … Never mind. It’s stupid. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t mean no like that. I meant, you come here.”

“Lazy.”

*grumbling*

*feet padding across the carpet*

*the creak of bedsprings*

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

*an awkward sort of silence*

“Can I –?”

“Do you want to -?”

*embarrassed laughter*

“You go first. What were you going to say?”

“I’ll show you instead.”

“Oh, ok … OH. Oh.”

“Is this okay, Yuushi? If you don’t want to, just say stop.”

“No, it’s … it’s good. Can I … I want to touch you too.”

“Don’t ask. Just do it.”

*silence*

*the rustle of bedsheets*

“Harder, Yuushi, please. Yeah, like that. Oh fuck, you’re amazing.”

“That’s it … yes … so good …”

“Fuck. Fuck. I’m going to …”

“’s okay … I am too...”

*gasping and groaning and whimpering*

“Yuushi. Yuushi. Oh god.”

“Ga- Gakuto? Look at me. Look at me. Are you okay?”

*sniffling*

“Yes, I’m okay. Stop looking at me like that.”

“But you’re crying.”

“Shut up! I am not! And if you ever tell anyone that I – this is so embarrassing! You’re the one that cries at everything, not me!”

“I don’t mind. I think it’s sweet.”

“Sweet? Ugh.”

“If you hate that word so much, why are you smiling?”

“Baka, I’m not smiling. Shut up and lie still so I can get comfortable. And stop smirking. Ahh, yeah, that’s better …”

*skin brushing against skin.*

*a kittenlike sort of purr*

*silence*

“Are you okay?”

“Mmm … yes.”

“And … are we okay?”

“Yeah … we’re brilliant …”

“Hey, Gakuto? Don’t go to sleep, we need to get cleaned up. We’re all sticky.”

“Later … so sleepy …”

“You’re going to sleep here?”

“…”

“Gakuto?”

“…”

*a tiny sound that might be lips pressing against a damp forehead*

“Sleep well, love.”

*silence*

Prince of Tennis: Abide: Fuji/Yuuta

Tue, 21 Mar 2006 02:10:17 GMT

... and now for something completely different.

For those of you who are not addicted to the crack that is Prince of Tennis, my apologies. Normal service will be resumed shortly.

Title: Abide
Author: akahannah
Pairing: Fuji/Yuuta
Rating: R
Warning: The characters are both underage. And brothers.
Notes: Set immediately after episode 36. As always, feedback makes Hannah a happy girl.

My thanks to coffeejunkii. I hope I didn't traumatise you too much. ♥

Yuuta comes home, as Fuji knew he would. He watches while his younger brother submits to their mother’s fussing and while he dutifully eats his way through three helpings of their sister’s raspberry pie. He smiles when Yuuta ignores him or tells him to shut up, and persists like he always does.

“How is your arm?” Fuji asks eventually. It’s nearly bedtime, and Yuuta is brushing his teeth in the bathroom. Fuji is sitting on the edge of the bath, watching him.

There’s a long pause, as Yuuta spits out a mouthful of white foam into the sink and rinses it down the plughole. “Fine,” he replies, looking anywhere but at Fuji, just like usual. “It’s fine.”

He doesn’t seem surprised when Fuji follows him into his bedroom, or when he locks the door.

“I enjoyed your game today, Yuuta,” Fuji says, still facing the door, his back to his brother. “You’ve improved so much. You’re really strong.”

“Echizen was stronger.”

When Fuji turns, he sees his brother standing beside his bed, his hands hanging uselessly at his sides, looking intensely uncomfortable.

“Did you mean what you said to Mizuki, Yuuta? About playing your own tennis now?”

Yuuta’s expression darkens, though whether it’s at the mention of Mizuki or tennis, Fuji can’t be sure. Both are surely touchy subjects.

“It was dangerous, that move he taught you. He shouldn’t have let you do it.”

“I don’t want to talk about him,” Yuuta says, and his voice is so low it’s almost a growl. Fuji doesn’t know for sure why he is so angry, but guessing correctly is yet another of his talents.

“Are you in love with him?” His suspicion is confirmed when his brother turns away, blushing furiously.

“He’s my friend,” Yuuta says eventually. “He’s clever and he helps me with my tennis.”

Fuji says his name, nothing more, and so quietly it’s almost a whisper. But he knows Yuuta has heard him because he notices the subtle change in his body language: the tensing of his shoulders, the slight shake in his hands where they hang by his side.

“Yuuta,” he says again. “Look at me.”

When his brother doesn’t turn around, Fuji pads across the floor to him, the boards creaking a little underfoot. He notices that Yuuta flinches with every sound.

“Look at me,” he repeats, and puts his hand on Yuuta’s shoulder.

Yuuta turns, and up close Fuji realises how different he looks already. He’s taller than he was when he moved away, and broader in the shoulders. The tension in his body is unbelievable, like a cornered animal, and the look in his eyes is something akin to one too, dangerous and vulnerable and desperate all at the same time.

“Syuusuke,” Yuuta says. His voice sounds all wrong, not deep and sure like it usually is, but small and scared. No matter how old his brother gets, Fuji is always reminded of the tiny boy who put his fists up to fight bullies four times his size.

Fuji’s hand is still on him. He feels the taut muscle twitching slightly under the fabric of Yuuta’s pyjama top. “Let me stay,” he says, his voice soft, persuasive, his eyes open just a little.

His brother shakes his head, his eyes wide. “Please,” he gasps out, his voice shaking. “Please …”

Fuji smiles. “Are you asking me to stay, or to go?”

The reply is barely a whisper, Yuuta’s gaze anywhere but meeting Fuji’s.

“I … I don’t know.”

Whatever this is, he hasn’t said no.

When Fuji moves in closer, Yuuta tries to back away. After not even half a step, the backs of his knees hit the side of his bed. His legs buckle under him suddenly and he sits down awkwardly on the mattress.

“Do I scare you so much that you have to try and run away?” Fuji asks, standing over him. He’s between Yuuta and the light, casting a shadow over him so that he can’t see the expression on his face.

“I’m not scared,” Yuuta says, each word quivering in the air.

Fuji smiles. “I’m glad,” he says, and pushes him backwards, meeting no resistance whatsoever, until his brother is lying on his back. “I don’t want you to be scared.”

Their bodies align perfectly when Fuji crawls catlike onto the bed and settles down on top of him. Yuuta feels strong and warm, that hidden, coiled tension still zinging through every cell in his body. Fuji can feel it in the quickened beat of his heart, the taut, straining muscles in his neck.

Yuuta’s eyes are so wide they are almost as big as Echizen’s, but where Fuji often recognises a knowing slyness akin to his own in the freshman’s eyes, Yuuta’s reveal nothing of the sort, only surprise and perhaps a certain amount of resignation.

“Syuusuke …” Yuuta says, his voice harsh and pleading, but when Fuji lowers his head to kiss him, he turns his face to the side. Fuji kisses his face instead, just beside his ear, and Yuuta shivers. He kisses him again, this time on his throat, feeling the pulse fluttering against his lips like a frightened bird. Yuuta shivers again, shifting a little beneath him and Fuji feels rather than hears a tiny moan escape from his mouth.

Yuuta won’t kiss him or even look at him, but he’s already hard, his face red and hot with shame.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Fuji says, reaching out to touch his brother’s face. “I’m hard too, see?”

Yuuta flinches. He won’t kiss him, or look at him, and his eyes are tightly closed. But when Fuji slides his hand between them and below the waistband of his brother’s pyjama bottoms, he feels sweaty, tentative fingers against his stomach and then lower, cupping him through the thin layer of his pyjamas, grabbing and rubbing in tandem with the movements of his own hand.

Fuji lets himself go first, quickly, because he wants to see Yuuta’s face when he comes, so that he can remember it. Yuuta gasps and jerks under him, arching his neck, his bottom lip between his teeth and one hand fisting and unfisting uselessly by his side. A bead of sweat forms at his hairline, runs down the side of his face and onto his neck. Fuji dips his head, laps at it with his tongue and smiles as Yuuta’s eyes snap open, as his whole body shakes, as his teeth dig deeper into his lip and he tries to hold back his moans.

“Come for me,” Fuji says right in his ear. “Come for me, Yuuta.”

Yuuta is thinking of him when he comes, Fuji is sure of that. He had hoped that he might say his name, but their gazes are locked and Yuuta’s eyes are glazed as though he has been hypnotised, dazzled by blue.

When Fuji comes for a second time, he realises he must have gone hard again. He hadn’t even noticed.

Once, Fuji watched a nature programme about snakes. One was very large, and could dislocate its jaw to swallow its prey whole. He remembers watching in fascination as it devoured a goat, unhinging its mouth and gulping it down so slowly, so lovingly, he had almost ached to watch it. Part of him wishes he could possess that ability, to somehow open himself up so much that he could completely engulf Yuuta, surround him and keep him safe and whole and for himself.

“I love you,” Fuji murmurs into the crook of his neck, inhaling the scent of sweat and soap and Yuuta. “I will never let anybody hurt you.”

Yuuta shivers, even though he cannot possibly be cold because they are both sweating so much.

Later, when Fuji is pretending to sleep, Yuuta edges out of his embrace. Fuji hears his footsteps across the bedroom floor, and the sharp click as the door is unlocked. The bathroom door across the hallway closes. After a few moments, Fuji hears the unmistakeable sound of someone being violently sick.

He smiles. It’s always the same, every time.

Yuuta will come back to him. He always does.

Tue, 10 Jan 2006 02:59:09 GMT

Title: The Weight of the World
Author:akahannah
Pairing/Characters:Snape/Draco, Harry/Draco
Rating: R
Summary: In the aftermath of his flight from Hogwarts, Snape can’t help but feel like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Author's Notes: Written for caputdraconis77 for the harry_holidays fic/art exchange.

I like feedback. Have I mentioned this lately?

The Weight of the World

Tue, 03 Jan 2006 19:29:49 GMT

A gift ficcy for coffeejunkii who wrote a wonderful ficlet for me at christmas.

Title: 'Tis The Season To Be Jolly
Author: akahannah
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Woefully belated festive fic. Gratuitous food shopping action. Bebbehs.
Summary: Sometimes Christmas cheer is just a little too much to ask for.
Author's Notes: This ficlet is dedicated to the customer who told me the grapes she'd bought at my till were tasteless, and she wanted me to do something about it. Madam, I salute you and your enormous sense of entitlement.

As always, feedback makes Hannahs happy.

Harry Potter has done a great many things in his lifetime that would make lesser men run and hide. He’s been in mortal peril on numerous occasions. He’s destroyed powerful magical objects. He’s killed an Evil Overlord single-handedly.

But all of that pales into insignificance when faced with the Muggles in the Marks and Spencer food department at seven in the morning on Christmas Eve. The crowds waiting for the shop to open resemble nothing more than an angry, pillaging mob. All they need are pitchforks and flaming torches to really complete the image.

“Remind me again why we’re doing this?” Draco asks, his irritable tone softened by a sudden yawn at the end of the question. He’s still wearing his pyjama top under his jacket, and for once his perfect hair is in disarray.

“Because Hermione’s too pregnant to deal with this,” Harry reminds him. “And since it’s her and Ron’s turn to cook this year, I thought it would be a nice gesture for us to shop for her.”

“And why exactly isn’t Weasley here? She’s the one who’s knocked up, not him.”

“You know perfectly well why. Last time she sent him to do the food shopping, he came back with eighty kilos of potatoes and no idea how it happened.”

Draco smirks.

Harry scans the list again while they wait, trying to avoid the beady gaze of an old age pensioner who he’s quite sure will not be afraid to use her walking stick in a violent and unacceptable manner to ensure she gets into the shop before them. “She’s written it in the order we’ll come to things,” he says. “It should be pretty straightforward.”

“Apart from the small matter of hundreds of angry people,” Draco observes. “OW!” he adds, as a security guard begins to unlock the door, and an elderly woman bangs into his ankle with her shopping trolley as she jostles for pole position.

At seven exactly, the door is unlocked and shoved open by at least fifty people, who are never going to fit through all at once. The poor security guard ends up squashed between the door and the wall, but Harry has no time for sympathy as Draco has grabbed him by the arm and is dragging him towards the trolleys, a strange and terrible look in his eyes, like a man possessed.

They make it through the fruit and vegetable section relatively unscathed, and it seems that perhaps this isn’t going to be as bad an experience as Harry was imagining, until they reach the pre-prepared foods and come to an almost complete standstill. It’s complete and utter carnage here, people rifling through boxes that the shelf-stackers haven’t had time to put out yet. For some reason he’s reminded of the opening thirty minutes of Saving Private Ryan, “My god …” he says, horrified. “Where did they all come from?”

“I don’t bloody know,” Draco snaps, using a nifty manoeuvre to nip between two bickering middle aged women so that he can grab a packet of pork and chestnut stuffing they were arguing over. “The Rude Village in Evil County, probably. How hard is it to show some consideration for your fellow shoppers? Would you fucking move,” he bellows at a hoodie-clad teenager of indeterminate sex, earning an angry glare from its mother and also somewhat undermining his previous point.

“Draco, calm down,” Harry says in what he hopes is a soothing voice. Draco gives him a Look that would manage to lower the temperature at the arctic.

“Don’t patronise me,” Draco says, through gritted teeth, his knuckles very white. “I’m a man on the edge, Harry.”

“It doesn’t matter if we get it all here. We can always go to Asda and pick up the rest if we need to.”

Draco stops the trolley in the middle of the aisle, so that Harry bumps into him. Behind them he hears the clash of trolleys banging into each other, and some really rather creative swearing considering the store’s main customer demographic. “Potter. Darling. We are not going through this again. We are getting everything here, even if I have to kill you in the attempt.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Harry says dryly.

“Nobody’s indispensable,” Draco says, with the air of a battle-hardened sergeant major. “Now, run along and grab a Christmas pudding.”

“But there isn’t one on the list …”

“It’s Christmas, Harry. We are having Christmas pudding. It’s the law.”

“The law?” Harry scoffs. “What, is Father Christmas going to come round and arrest us if we don’t buy one? Will he take us away in his reindeer-drawn sleigh and lock us up in jail at the North Pole?”

“Nice imagery, son. But why don’t you just move along and get the pudding?” suggests a voice from behind them. Harry turns round to see that there is an enormous traffic jam of trolleys building up down the length of the aisle, and it’s them causing it.

“GAH,” he snarls, and stomps off in the direction of the puddings, cursing Draco, Hermione and the festive season in general. His foot only gets run over twice, which he supposes he could consider as fortunate, considering how most of the shoppers look crazed and ready to commit murder. He grabs the first pudding he can reach, and heads back to find Draco, whose bright hair is at least highly visible among the crowds. “Here’s your fucking pudding,” he snarls, hurling it into the trolley. It makes a satisfying clang as it hits the bottom.

Draco leans over and picks it up. “Nuts, Potter?” he says, with raised eyebrows. “You chose one with nuts?”

“I chose the one I could reach, and if you think you can do any better …”

Draco stares at him, but doesn’t say anything else. “We should probably get the turkey now,” he says. “Before they’re all gone. Come on, it’s this way.”

Harry has to admit that apart from all his griping, he’s really rather Draco is with him. His lack of certain social niceties such as a fully functioning set of morals can be awkward at times, but it sure is useful when it comes to ploughing slow-moving customers out of the way.

“Survival of the fittest!” Draco crows, as he knocks a granny headfirst into a freezer full of sausage rolls. “Out of my way, Muggles!”

Honestly. Give the man a prefect’s badge, or subordinates, or a shopping trolley and he’s abusing his power in seconds. I’m in love with a psychopath, Harry thinks, as he follows along behind, apologising and occasionally pretending he doesn’t know Draco.

“Here’s one,” Draco says eventually, pulling up beside a chiller cabinet. “That looks big enough to feed a family of hungry Weasleys, right?”

The bird is roughly the size – and undoubtedly weight – of a small bungalow. “They’ll be eating turkey sandwiches until May,” he points out.

“Not my problem,” Draco says flatly. “Put it in the trolley.”

“You’re nearer. You do it.”

Draco makes a face. “I’m not lifting that,” he says disdainfully. “What if it drips on me? I could get salmonella and die. Do you want that great loss to wizardkind on your conscience, Harry? Do you?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Harry says, starting to get annoyed. “You’re nearest to it. I can’t reach it properly. If you don’t pick it up soon, that woman will. Look, she’s really gunning for it.”

“It’s too heavy,” Draco says. “I just can’t lift it, all right?”

“You lazy sod!” Scowling, Harry leans over at an angle that will surely require at least ten visits to a chiropractor, and picks the turkey up. It’s unpleasantly cold and squishy and, as Draco predicted, is definitely dripping. Harry dumps it in the trolley and is left with an unpleasantly sticky residue all over his hands.

“All right,” he says, pulling the list out of his pocket and managing to smear bloody fingerprints all over it. “We’ve got party food and the desserts to get. Can you remember seeing the party food anywhere?”

Draco shrugs. “Excuse me,” he says, hailing a passing shelf-stacker. “Can you tell me where the party food is?”

The man turns and stares at them, boggle-eyed and slack-jawed, looking rather like a recently landed carp. “What?” he manages to gulp out after a long pause.

“Party food?” Draco repeats, looking torn between amusement and despair. “Do you know where it is?”

The shelf-stacker shrugs. “Could be anywhere,” he says. “There’s a lot of food about.”

“Thank you,” Draco says, smiling in a way that suggests his vengeance will be swift and thorough. “You’ve been incredibly helpful.”

“That was their employee of the month,” Harry says, laughing. “Oh, cheer up,” he says to Draco, who’s gone rather quiet and uncomfortable looking. “Hey … are you all right?”

“I really need to get some fresh air,” Draco says, and sure enough he’s gone a delicate shade of green. “Carry on without me.” He staggers off in the direction of the side door, and Harry’s pretty sure he’s going to be sick.

After wandering past the soups three times in quick succession, Harry asks another shelf-stacker for directions. The man proves to be somewhat more helpful, and Harry heaps mini-pizzas and vol au vents into the trolley. Mrs Weasley will probably be scandalised that Hermione didn’t prepare all this by hand, but as Hermione regularly says, she can’t expect everyone to be superwoman just because she was.

He’s just perusing the desserts, torn between the chocolate trifle and the profiterole mountain, when Draco returns, looking slightly more human and carrying a half-empty bottle of water.

“You okay?” Harry asks.

Draco nods, though he seems rather sweaty and pale. “It was the smell of that fucking turkey,” he says. “Sodding thing. I’m fine now.”

“Sure?”

“Yes. Now let’s get out of here before I take out my wand and start hexing everyone in sight. I want to get back to bed.” He picks up both of the desserts Harry was eyeing, and balances them on top of the heap of food in the trolley. “Checkout. Now.”

The queues are already eight deep when they get to the checkout. They join the end of the first one they get to, and wait. Behind them, the queue rapidly grows longer, snaking down the bakery aisle.

The first customer pays by cheque, and spends a good while rummaging around for his guarantee card. The second customer’s card won’t swipe through the machine. The third customer is some old biddy who has apparently been saving up her change since world war two just to pay for some dog food and hairnets. The fourth customer is outraged by the licensing laws and demands to see a manager, who does his best to explain that they really can’t sell alcohol at this time and that yes, this law has to apply to everyone and that no, they can’t make an exception just because his family has been shopping here for four generations.

The woman in front of them stops fussing over her child for a moment and turns around to say, “So. How long do you give it before that cashier starts to cry?”

“I think the next customer’ll set her off,” Draco predicts. “He looks kind of mean.”

“Nah, I reckon it’ll be me,” pipes up the woman from behind them. “I have two trolleys with me and I don’t have anyone to help me pack. It’ll definitely be a fifteen minute job” Behind her, several people groan. Several more move swiftly sideways into other queues.

“You all right?” Harry asks Draco, who is leaning quite heavily against the trolley, still not looking completely well.

“Stop fussing,” Draco says. “I’m fine. Just looking forward to getting back to bed.”

“We’ll be back there soon enough,” Harry says, lowering his voice to add: “You can stay there all day, and I’ll make you anything you want for breakfast.”

Draco smiles a little. “I’m sorry I’ve been so grumpy,” he says. “It’s just …”

“Oh bugger,” says the woman in front of them, interrupting whatever it was Draco was going to say. “I’ve forgotten the cranberry sauce. You couldn’t watch her for a minute, could you?”

“Sure,” says Harry, who is brilliant with toddlers, even if he does say so himself. “What’s her name?”

“Lucy,” says the woman. “Hopefully this won’t take too long. Be good for the nice men, honey, okay?” she says to the little girl, who is ridiculously adorable, with curly blonde hair, blue eyes and a pink dress with matching wellies.

The fourth customer is still arguing with the manager, while the checkout girl glances along the queue, her expression one of extreme panic. Harry makes eye contact with her and smiles in a reassuring sort of way. She grimaces back at him.

“Mummy?” says Lucy, not looking overly concerned at being left alone with complete strangers.

“She’ll be back in a minute,” Draco says, in the kindest voice Harry’s ever heard him direct towards a child. Generally he ignores them, or refers to them as ‘irritating crotch droppings’ within hearing distance of their parents. “Can we give her a cookie, Harry? She has teeth, right?”

Lucy grins broadly at Harry, revealing a number of very white teeth. “I don’t see why not.”

Draco breaks a piece off one of the white chocolate cookies that Harry doesn’t remember him sneaking into the trolley, and hands it to the little girl. “You want?” he asks.

She claps her hands with delight and reaches for it, but when he gives it to her she doesn’t stuff it in her mouth straight away like Harry is expecting. Instead, she breaks it in half and holds out the bigger piece to Draco.

“Oh,” Draco breathes, a very strange expression on his face. “Thank you.”

Harry’s still staring curiously at him and watching Lucy create a lot of crumbs when her mother returns, looking rather dishevelled but triumphantly holding a packet of cranberry sauce aloft like the Olympic torch. “I had to kill five old age pensioners to get my hands on this,” she says, dumping it in the trolley, and Harry is only half sure that she is joking. “Oho,” she says, when she spots the cookie. “Little madam’s been charming food out of strangers again, huh?”

“She’s really lovely,” Draco says. Harry feels really rather left out, as he’s usually the one who makes this kind of small talk while Draco glowers in the background. “How old is she?”

“She’ll be two in a couple of days. We were going to call her Holly if she was born on Christmas day, but she managed to hold out until Boxing Day instead. A cunning ploy to get two kinds of presents, isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

Lucy opens her mouth wide, revealing a mouthful of mushed up cookie. Her mother – and, bizarrely, Draco – smile indulgently at her.

Customer four finally stomps off towards the collect by car desk looking disgruntled, to the applause of most of the people in the queue. Customer five only has ten items, but has clearly got out of bed on the stupid side today, as he’s attempting to pay with John Lewis vouchers and thinks it’s the cashier who’s in the wrong. Rather than being on the verge of tears, she looks like she wants to slap him. Harry feels he rather underestimated her.

“Next year,” Draco says, “Hermione can do her own bloody food shopping.”

“Agreed,” Harry says. “I’ll offer to baby-sit if she needs, but I’m never doing this again.”

Draco mumbles something that sounds like we might be a bit busy by then ourselves but Harry forgets about it almost instantly, as the queue is moving again. Customer six has her husband on packing duty, which means they should get through more quickly, but it doesn’t quite work that way. The husband, who has a droopy moustache and therefore is probably called Norman, can do nothing right in her eyes, and she ends up repacking everything that he does, clucking at him like a particularly nagging hen. Every now and again Harry can hear fragments of sentences like “… frozen food with bananas? How could you?” and “… my loins! Keep my loins flat!”

Customer seven is on her own, but Lucy’s mother unpacks her trolley for her, and the transaction is quick. Then Harry helps her unpack, while Draco keeps Lucy entertained. Harry really has no idea what’s come over him, but perhaps this will make tomorrow, which is bound to be filled with loads of noisy Weasley kids, a bit easier than it usually is.

“Have a great Christmas,” says the woman, and she and Lucy head off for the front door, Lucy waving the soggy remainder of her cookie.

“You too,” Harry calls after her, and begins packing the bags while Draco unloads the trolley.

“I’m bored,” Draco whinges after a few moments. “I don’t like bending over. My feet hurt. Swap with me, Harry.”

Feeling that he can put up with practically anything now that they’re almost done, Harry even manages a smile as they swap over, subtly groping Draco’s arse as he squeezes past, which causes Draco to let out a very unmanly squeak, but at least makes him grin a little.

Harry hefts the large bag of potatoes onto the conveyer, and picks up the enormous turkey, which is still vile and dripping gore everywhere. He’s never seriously considered vegetarianism before now. Hopefully it will be a bit better once it’s cooked, provided Ron can follow Hermione’s instructions.

When he pushes the trolley round to the end of the counter, Draco doesn’t really appear to have packed much at all. He’s engrossed in conversation with the cashier, apparently unaware of the irritated glares he’s earning from most of the rest of the queue. ”… no, I can’t imagine why I look familiar to you. I’m sure I’d remember you if we’d met before.”

“It’s strange,” says the girl, who is looking quite cheerful now that five seconds have passed without someone complaining. “I could swear you two were … but never mind. I’m sure you just look like someone else.”

“Hurry up, Draco” Harry hisses, all too conscious of the time they’re taking. “We’re holding up the queue.”

Draco scowls at him, and begins tossing things carelessly into bags. If the eggs survive the journey, Harry will be quite astonished, but at least Draco is, indeed, hurrying up.

“That’ll be one hundred and ninety eight pounds exactly,” says the cashier. “Will you be collecting by car today?”

“No, we’re Apparating,” Draco says loudly. Harry looks at him sharply, but the girl doesn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary.

Harry hands her his debit card, and he isn’t entirely sure, but he thinks she might have done a double-take when she looked at his name. “Would you like cashback, Mr Potter?”

“Doubt there’s much to get back,” he says, and the girl smiles politely.

“As if she hasn’t heard that line a million times before,” Draco says snidely, dumping bags into the trolley, the eggs ending up under the potatoes, of course. “What?” he says, when Harry gives him another look. “My feet hurt. I’m fed up. Can we please leave now.”

“Have a lovely Christmas,” says the girl as she hands Harry his card and receipt.

“Hmph,” Harry says, really not feeling very festive right now. He grabs the trolley in one hand and Draco’s arm in the other. “Seriously, Draco, what is with you this morning? You’ve been an absolute nightmare from start to finish. Would you care to explain what I’ve done to piss you off so much?”

“It’s not you,” Draco says, frowning a little. “It’s … well, it’s nothing.”

Harry Disapparates with the shopping in two trips, leaving it on the kitchen counter for Ron to pack away when he gets up. When he arrives back at the shop, Draco has ditched the trolley and retreated to a chair where he is slumped, looking exhausted and miserable.

“We’ve only been up for an hour,” Harry says. “I knew you weren’t a morning person, but …” He sits down beside him, earning a dirty look from an old man who had been heading for the same seat. “Really, are you all right? You keep saying it’s nothing, but it must be something.”

“Well, okay, yes,” Draco admits. “It’s something. I’ll tell you tomorrow night, when we get home.”

“I have to wait that long? It’s not .. it’s not something bad, is it?”

Draco smiles sleepily. “I don’t think it is. Now, why don’t we go home? You said something about breakfast. Anything I want.”

“If it’ll stop you being grumpy,” Harry says, reaching for his hand and squeezing it.

“It will,” says Draco. “I want bacon, eggs, sausages, black pudding, fried tomatoes, potatoes, two rounds of toast …”

“Anything else?” Harry asks, mostly joking, when Draco pauses for breath.

“Yes,” Draco says. “You, for dessert.”

Finally, Harry thinks happily, something they agree on.

Maybe he is in the festive mood after all.

-fin-

Thu, 27 Oct 2005 00:17:52 GMT

Title: Feel
Author: akahannah
Rating: Somewhere between PG-13 and R
Warning: Death of a non-central character
Scenario: #2 Draco to Harry: I promise to sleep with you soon.
Summary: In which Draco reminisces and Harry helps him remember how to feel.
Author's Notes: Written for the second wave of the_eros_affair.
This is not the fic I set to write out for this scenario, but it's the one I was in the mood to write. Dedicated to my grandmother, who passed away on Monday. Fic ... it’s like therapy in a way.
As always, reviews and con-crit make Hannah a happy girl.

The first dead body I ever saw was Albus Dumbledore’s, but I try not to think about that.

The second was my father’s. One June morning, a few weeks after he’d decided to stop eating and drinking, he didn’t wake up.

Four years, he was locked in Azkaban. Four years without a trial, without hope, without anything but that tiny cell he measured in five paces by five paces until he stopped caring enough to move off his bed. If it was me, I doubt I’d have lasted half as long.

The Ministry called it ‘the remains’ in the letter they sent to my mother, hours after it had happened, blunt as you like. Your husband is dead, what do you want us to do with the remains? They offered to bury him outside the Azkaban fortress, but mother couldn’t bear the idea so we had them send him back to us, so that we could have him buried in the family plot in Devon, in the graveyard most of the wizarding families still use.

They always say that dead people look peaceful, like they’re asleep, like they’ve gone to a better place. Whoever they are, they’re talking shit. But father didn’t look peaceful at all when I lifted the lid off his coffin. He looked dead. He looked emaciated, older than his years, and so much smaller than I’d remembered.

“Oh Lucius." My mother's voice trembled as she spoke. She was standing beside me, touching his cheek with a shaking hand, and it struck me how little she seemed, just like him, and how frail.

I stared at him, at the closed, blank face that was supposed to look so much like mine, and felt nothing.

Fuck, what was wrong with me? There were only the two of us at the graveside, mother and I, and she was crying. I wasn’t. Couldn’t. The tears just weren’t there to fall, no matter how much I wanted them to.

The Ministry official rambled on, struggling to come up with something meaningful to say about Lucius Malfoy: Death Eater, murderer … loving husband and father. I couldn’t hear a word of what he was saying over mother’s sobbing and my own frantic thoughts that damned myself for obviously not caring enough to be upset. I was broken, that must be it.

At long last the official concluded, earth was heaped on top of the coffin and that was that. The official left, and mother turned to me, burying her face in my chest and crying all down the front of my robes. I stroked her hair, stared over the top of her head, my eyes dry and sore.

I suppose it was pure coincidence that led me to look where I did at the time, but I thought I saw a flash of something dark under a nearby cluster of trees and knew it couldn’t be a trick of the light. I kissed mother on the cheek, told her to go home and rest, and made my way over to the spot.

“Getting too tall for that invisibility cloak of yours,” I observed nonchalantly, leaning against a tree trunk and sliding down until I was sitting on the ground, which was warm and too-dry in the early summer heat. There was a shift of fabric, a strange shimmer in the air just to my left, and Harry Potter appeared.

“Draco,” he said. That was all. Just my name. Without waiting to be invited, he sat down against the same tree as me. We were practically shoulder to shoulder.

“Wouldn’t have expected to see you here.”

“No,” he said, looking rather awkward, probably at having been found out. “I’m not sure why I’m here. Just wanted to see you, I guess. To see how you are. It’s been a long time.”

And so it had.

Four years ago, my father was sent to Azkaban. Three years ago, I became a fugitive from the Ministry. And just under two years ago, Harry Potter found my hiding place. He burst in completely unexpected in the middle of the night while I was asleep in bed.

Nothing was ever the same after that.

“Malfoy?” he said, squinting at me in the wandlight.

“Potter?” I was still half asleep, thought this might be some kind of nightmare, because it couldn’t possibly be one of the other dreams I periodically had about him. It had been so long since I had seen someone other than Snape or Pettigrew that I was almost glad to see him, even though I knew that he was probably going to kill me or hex me into a million tiny pieces. And that I probably deserved it. “What are you doing here?”

“I got a tip-off,” he said, pointing the wand away from me and around the shabby, single room that had been my home for the past year. “I was told I might find something I wanted here.”

“Depends what you want, I suppose,” I said, my voice still rough with sleep, and you should have seen the way he looked at me. Suddenly I found myself wondering if maybe this was one of those dreams after all. “Going to take me prisoner, Potter?”

He shook his head, lowered his wand. “Snape comes here, doesn’t he? When?”

“As if I’m going to tell you that.”

Harry Potter smiled at me, actually smiled. I was in such a sorry, desperate state that it felt like the sun on my face. “I guess I’ll have to come back, then,” he said.

He did.

Why I didn’t tell Snape or Wormtail the hideout had been compromised, I’m not entirely sure. Maybe it was because I liked the idea of having a secret that was just mine, instead of having to wait for them to come and tell me things. Or maybe it was just because it was him. It was always him.

He came back again and again, usually appearing when I was asleep. I never was entirely sure that it wasn’t just a dream, some figment of my overactive imagination. Sometimes he would ask about Snape or the other Death Eaters, and very occasionally I had information to give him. Sometimes he would tell me how the war was going - who was still alive, who had disappeared.

“Why haven’t you turned me in to the Ministry?” I asked once.

He shrugged. “Maybe I like having someone to visit.”

“That’s no answer, Potter.”

“Well what do you want me to say? I should turn you in, I know that. But what would that actually achieve? Another person locked up in Azkaban without a trial, that’s all.”

“Sometimes I think I’d rather be anywhere but here,” I said.

“You could leave if you wanted, couldn’t you? What’s stopping you?”

“I’m scared,” I said quietly, as though if I said it low enough I could somehow better hide the fact that I was nothing but a coward.

He didn’t say anything for a moment, just reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. “We’re all scared, Draco.”

I hadn’t realised how close he was.

I wanted him to kiss me for a very long time before he actually did. I’d wanted it for months. Years, probably, if I’m being completely honest with myself. It really is possible to hate and love someone at the same time - believe me, I should know.

It was near the end of the war, though we didn’t know that yet, when he turned up later than usual one night, so late it was almost morning. He slumped onto the bed next to me, hands over his face. When I peeled them away I saw that the scar on his forehead was bleeding.

“Been doing this for hours,” he said, wiping at it with his fingers so that the blood smeared. “And my head hurts like a bastard. Voldemort is angry.” But despite the bleeding and the pain he was in, he was smiling fiercely, almost triumphantly. If I was Voldemort, I’d have been shitting myself right about then.

“Let me get something for that,” I said. I got out of bed, went over to the sink and dampened a cloth under the cold tap. When I came back, I knelt on the bed beside him and pressed it to his forehead, cleaning the blood away.

He tensed for a moment but soon relaxed and allowed me to do it. When I was finished and went to take my hand away, he reached up and put his own on top of it. “Draco …?” he whispered, but his eyes had already finished asking the question and the answer was yes.

“What took you so long?” I asked as he leaned towards me, but I never got a reply. Well, not in words, anyway. Next thing I knew, his mouth was on mine, his hands were sliding up the back of my pyjama top and across my back, and we were both shivering like crazy even though the room was warm.

I don’t know how long we stayed like that – minutes or hours, it didn’t really matter because it was never going to be enough time. I have no idea how it happened, but when I came to my senses we were lying down on the bed, the covers tangled around us.

“I should go,” he said, looking like it was the last thing he wanted to do. I saw that his scar had started to bleed again, but didn’t mention it. God, all we’d done was kiss, but it really felt like it had meant something, you know?

The moment he left, I knew he wasn’t going to bother coming back. I just knew this was it.

But I’d been wrong before.

The next night, he came in so quietly I didn’t wake until the bed dipped beside me, and a slightly cold arm wrapped around my chest.

“Hello,” I whispered, but he didn’t say anything. Instead he began kissing my neck, his lips hot against my skin, burning a trail right up to my earlobe, his hands stroking tiny circles on my back. I hadn’t realised my skin was so sensitive before, but every nerve ending was tingling, everything he did was making me gasp.

When he moved back a little, I rolled over to face him and noticed that he had already removed his glasses and his robes. “Are you … are you okay?” I said, between kisses. There was a fierce light in his eyes and a hard sort of intensity about him that I hadn’t seen before. It bothered me. Something else was on his mind.

“I’m fine,” he said, one hand trailing down my chest, down my stomach, and lower. “I’m more than fine.”

Yeah, I wanted him. Wanted him more than I’d ever wanted anything, and that’s saying something. I raised my hips as he slid my pyjama bottoms off, couldn’t help but reciprocate as he ground against me, achingly slowly. It was like being drunk, if it was possible to be intoxicated by another person.

We would have done it, I think, if I hadn’t opened my eyes just as we neared the point of no return. He had this look on his face, bordering on panic. “Harry, stop,” I said, reaching up to touch his face. “We don’t have to do this right now.”

Ever done something you know is the right thing to do, but regretted it anyway? Yeah. Tell me about it.

His arms buckled. He sort of collapsed on top of me, and his body wasn't heavy at all on mine. “I’m scared, Draco,” he said, his voice vibrating right in my ear, “that if we don’t do this now, we never will.”

“Of course we will,” I told him, while his face was pressed against the crook of my neck. “I promise. Once the war’s over. It won’t be in some horrible musty room. It’ll be someplace nice. And it’ll be brilliant, you’ll see.”

He stayed that night, all night, for the first time ever. I don’t think either of us got much sleep, because I know that for me at least, I had to keep reaching out to check that he was there. To check that this wasn’t just another dream.

At some point I must have fallen asleep. One minute he was there, and what seemed to be only seconds later he was gone. The bed next to me was already quite cold, as though he'd never been there.

Harry defeated Voldemort that day.

Twenty four hours later, he disappeared.

“It’s been a while,” Harry said, sitting next to me, looking more or less the same as he had the last time I saw him.

“It has. Almost a year.” Eleven months, twenty eight days and ten hours. Maybe I had been counting, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.

“I know. Too long.”

I stared out across the graveyard, avoiding looking at the fresh pile of earth nearby. “So where did you go?”

“Here and there,” he said quietly. “I lost my magic for a while –“ (so the rumours had been true, I thought, trying to figure out if that made me feel any better) “-and I was angry and messed up. I needed some time away from … well, everything.”

“And now?”

He smiled humourlessly. “Now I’m no more messed up than anyone else. And I have my magic back, mostly.”

I got to my feet and began walking away. “It’s been good seeing you,” I said over my shoulder, perhaps more coldly than I’d intended. “But I should head home. My mother needs me right now.”

He called my name, just once. I slowed my pace but didn’t stop, and he caught up with me quickly enough. “I never stopped thinking about you,” he said.

“You just vanished,” I told him. “Not one word. Not even a note to tell me you were all right. What was I supposed to do, just wait for you? When you’d never even promised me anything?”

“I know I should have been in touch,” he said quietly. “I know. But if you’ll let me, I’ll try and make it up to you.”

Even though I was angry with him, I couldn’t help it. I moved closer, scuffing the toe of my shoe against his, and he looked up at me with something like hope in his eyes. Maybe it was too much, too soon, but I allowed him to wrap his arms around me, leaned my forehead against his because I needed it right then. I guess we both did.

“I’d like to take you up on your promise sometime,” he said, and I noticed that we were both breathing in tandem, deep, shuddering breaths. “If you still want to, I mean.”

I closed my eyes, but I could still see his face in my mind’s eye because until that day it was all I’d had. “I don’t know. I just ... I don’t know anything right now.”

But I loved him. I knew that. Maybe it was enough.

Harry pulled me even closer, warm and solid and there. “I’m so sorry about your father, Draco,” he said, and held me as I cried.

~fin~

Sat, 17 Sep 2005 13:26:40 GMT

Written for the perposterice 'summeries' challenge.

Title: Ploy
Author: akahannah
'Summery': #60. Draco, for no discernible reason, has decided to walk to San Francisco.
Summary: When Draco makes a surprise announcement, does he really mean it, or is it just a ploy to get a certain Gryffindor's attention? H/D.
Rating: PG-13

One morning, Draco Malfoy, gorgeous and fabulous heir to the Malfoy fortune, stood up at breakfast and announced:

“I have decided to walk to San Francisco. For no discernible reason.”

The moment he sat back down, the Great Hall was abuzz with conversation about what he’d just said. Harry listened in to what the other Gryffindors were saying.

“Isn’t that a gay city?”

“Isn’t that a Muggle city?”

“Why on earth does he want to go to America?”

Harry sat very still, his cereal spoon halfway to his lips, and marvelled at the stupidity of his schoolmates. He was no genius himself, but really. This was the kind of kind of idiotic thinking that led to unwanted pregnancies, evil being done and people walking to San Francisco.

“Hey, how’s he going to walk across the Atlantic?” a lone voice called from across the table. It was the chunky black kid from PoA, but everyone ignored him because he was only there the sake of exposition. “It’s like trying to catch smoke … like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands …” he added hopefully.

“Oh, shut up,” Harry snapped. “Who do you think you are? Dean Thomas?”

+++

“Malfoy,” said Harry, at the first opportunity he got to speak to him. It was during a Slytherin Quidditch practice, but the captain didn’t seem to notice there were now two Seekers. “Why are you walking to San Francisco?”

Malfoy turned his steely grey gaze on him. “What’s it to you, Potter?”

~~God, he was gorgeous when he was annoyed.~~ God, how he annoyed Harry.

“I was just wondering how, exactly, you plan to do it.”

They ducked as a Bludger whistled overhead. Immediately afterwards, Malfoy took a small mirror out of his pocket and began fixing his hair.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” he said. “But I suppose I could enlighten you anyway. I plan to do it the usual way. One foot in front of the other. You are familiar with the concept of walking, I suppose?”

“Yes, but are you aware of the fact that there is quite a large ocean between here and America?”

A brief frown creased Malfoy’s aristocratic forehead, but he shook it off immediately. Frowns led to wrinkles, after all. “Very funny, Potter.” He grinned. “Nice try. You nearly had me there. I suppose now you’re going to tell me the earth is round.”

“Er –”

“Harry, Harry, Harry,” Malfoy said calmly, patting him on the arm in a friendly sort of way like he was a particularly retarded toddler.

More to distract himself from the strong urge to push Malfoy off his broom than for any other reason, Harry reached out and caught the Snitch which just happened to be cruising by.

“WHAT THE FUCK?” yelled the Slytherin captain.

He had a point, Harry decided, as he fled under a barrage of hexes.

+++

“So what’s so interesting in San Francisco anyway?” Harry asked the next morning.

Malfoy let out a somewhat less than manly scream, and covered himself with the shower curtain. “What the bloody hell are you doing in my bathroom?”

“Asking you a question.” Harry repeated it.

“Yes but how did you get in here?”

“I am Harry Potter. I am omnipotent.”

“I fucking knew it,” Malfoy muttered, then recovered his composure indecently quickly. “So, Potter. Been watching me long? Been ogling me while I soap up my Quidditch-toned body, paying particular attention to –”

Harry shifted nervously from foot to foot, suddenly wishing he had a shower curtain of his own to hide behind. “No?” he suggested tentatively.

“Harry, Harry, Harry,” Malfoy said for the second time that week. If possible, he was being even more patronising than yesterday. “You amuse me, you really do. You’re so repressed.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Malfoy smiled. It was a slow, sexy smile, and he accompanied it with letting the curtain slide down a little. His body really was very Quidditch-toned, Harry observed in a completely detached manner. “Come to San Francisco with me and you’ll find out.”

“YOU CAN’T WALK TO SAN FRANCISCO! THERE’S AN ATLANTIC IN THE WAY!” Harry capslocked dramatically, and then stormed out of the bathroom to the very surprised stares of a long queue of Slytherins.

+++

“See, the thing is,” Harry said at lunchtime, shoving Pansy Parkinson aside so he could sit beside Malfoy at the Slytherin table. “I think this some kind of ploy for attention.”

“Is that right?” drawled Malfoy, ignoring Pansy’s indignant entreaties for him to ‘do something’.

“Yeah,” said Harry. “OW!” he added, when Pansy kicked him in the back. “You think that just because you’ve come up with some outlandish scheme, everyone’s going to be talking about it.”

“Look around you, Potter,” said Malfoy, pointing with a roast potato that was speared on his fork. “Does it look like everyone’s talking about me?”

Harry looked along the Slytherin table, then further afield to the rest of the room. It was true that people were looking in their direction, many of them whispering, but it didn’t sound like they were talking about Malfoy.

“What’s Harry doing at the Slytherin table?”

“I heard he’s been spying on Malfoy in the shower.”

“Maybe Potter’s the one who should be going to San Francisco.”

“Ah,” Harry said. “FUCKING OW!” he added, when Pansy kicked him again.

“One million points from Gryffindor for bad language, Mr Potter,” said Snape, who happened to be walking past at the time.

“I hate you,” Harry told Malfoy.

Malfoy grinned, revealing two rows of perfect teeth that Lockhart would probably kill for. “Ah, but you’ll miss me when I’m in San Francisco, Potter.”

“I’m going! I’m going!” Harry yelled, as Pansy booted him in the spine again.

+++

Ah, the Gryffindor common room. A red and gold sanctuary of peace and sanity and – most importantly – no Malfoy.

Well, that was what Harry was hoping for.

“It’s going to be weird, isn’t it?” Ron observed, during their twelfth game of Exploding Snape. “No more Malfoy.”

“It’s going to be great.” Harry slammed his hand down on top of the pile a bit too hard, and people nearby turned to look at where the noise had come from. “Er, snap.”

“Yes, but aren’t you going to miss him even a bit? I mean, who are you going to stare at in class? Who are you going to glare at in the corridors? You’re going to have to find a new nemesis, Harry.”

“Hello? Voldemort?”

“That’s just semantics, Harry,” Ron said, waving his hand airily. “Nemesis, arch-rival, whatever.”

Harry stared at him. Since when did Ron use a word like ‘semantics’? Clearly going out with Hermione had proved beneficial to his vocabulary. Moreover, he actually had a point. Clearly, there was a first time for everything. What would Harry’s life be like if Malfoy actually was going to walk to San Francisco?

His epiphany was accompanied by his handful of cards blowing up in his face.

“What am I going to do, Ron?” Harry said desperately, through a thick cloud of smoke.

“Fix your eyebrows,” Ron suggested. “Then go and speak to him.”

+++

“What took you so long?” Malfoy asked, when Harry crept into his room later that night. He was sitting up in bed, reading a Muggle tourist guide to San Francisco. “It’s been at least eight hours since you last appeared out of a cupboard or walked in on me naked. You’re losing your touch.”

Harry sat down at the end of the bed. “It’s come to my attention,” he said, “that you leaving Hogwarts would leave me needing new arch-rival.”

“Is that all I am to you, Potter?” Malfoy said, sounding rather hurt. At this point, the thought certainly did not cross Harry’s mind that he was alone with an scantily clad Malfoy in a state of repose. “Not even important enough to be a nemesis? Just another arch-rival?”

“You’re a very good arch-rival,” said Harry placatingly. “But that’s not my point! Stop being distracting!”

“God, it’s so hot in here.” Malfoy delicately peeled off his pyjama top to reveal a torso which may or may not have been attractively sweat-dampened. “And what do you mean, ‘stop being distracting’?”

“asdf!ghjk;” exclaimed Harry with little concept of sense or punctuation. “I mean, yes. It is hot. Very hot.”

“Hmm. You do look rather flushed,” Malfoy said, leaning in rather closer than was strictly necessary in order to examine Harry’s, er, well-being. “So. What was it you were saying again, Potter?”

Afterwards, Harry would maintain it was definitely Malfoy who kissed him. This is, in fact, not the case, but let’s leave the poor boy to his delusion if it makes him happy.

“You know,” said Malfoy some time later. The length of this time is unknown, but it was long enough for Harry’s pyjama top to vanish (he never would find it again), and for them to scramble under the covers and mess up Malfoy’s hair thoroughly. “Easter’s coming up. I’ve heard San Francisco is lovely in the springtime.”

“Mmm,” Harry said, which meant ‘yes’. To be fair, the way Malfoy’s thigh was rubbing between his legs was having such an effect that he would probably have agreed to anything Malfoy suggested. Malfoy would learn this soon enough, and it would lead to the incident involving Professor Flitwick’s wand which we will not speak of here. “But we’re not going to walk, ok?”

Malfoy’s thigh stopped rubbing, and this was bad. Why stopping? Why? “Potter, why on earth would I want to walk? There’s an Atlantic in the way, don’t you know. God.”

“The hell? But you said –”

Fortunately the friction began again at this point, and this went a long way towards dispelling his confusion and annoyance.

“I was being elusive,” Malfoy said, rolling his eyes as if it was the most obvious thing ever. “I’m your arch-nemesis. It’s my job.”

“I’ll show you arch-nemisis,” said Harry, moving suddenly so Draco was pinned beneath him.

And he did. All night long.

Fic: Genesis (R, H/D, mpreg)

Mon, 12 Sep 2005 23:09:59 GMT

Title: Genesis
Author: akahannah
Rating: R
Warning: Slash, mpreg, HBP spoilers aplenty.
Word Count: 16,357
Summary: This year isn’t going to be like all the others. He just knows it. A Draco-centric reimagining of HBP.
Author Notes: My eternal gratitude goes to josephides for the fantastic Simon Cowell-esque beta on my first draft and to coffeejunkii for being so encouraging to the little random who turned up on her LJ squeeing about The Boys.

Dedicated to citizenkreacher who read the dreadful earliest version and still managed to say "Aww" like she meant it. <3

Genesis

When it breaks, Harry Potter’s nose makes a wonderfully satisfying crunch under Draco’s heel.

Draco has been waiting so long for this that it’s no surprise it’s well worth it. This is payback for five years of defeat and humiliation, and it tastes as sweet as he’s always imagined.

“That’s from my father,” he says, smirking down at Potter’s frozen expression of surprise, at the uncomfortable position he’s stuck in and the blood gushing down his face into his mouth.

Exquisite.

Then Draco has another idea, a better idea. He drags the Invisibility Cloak out from under Potter’s immobile body and throws it over him. If he imagines hard enough, it’s almost like the Boy Who Lived never existed.

“See you around … or not,” he taunts, and leaves him there, walking over something that has to be Potter’s hand.

When the insufferable bastard appears in time for dessert, it’s a bit of a shame, but not entirely unexpected. After all, Potter always seems to have a large group of people fussing around after him, as though he’s incapable of looking after himself.

So, Draco remains philosophical about Potter’s rapid return because this time he, Draco, came out on top.

He relives the satisfying crunch again and again in his mind, and smiles.

This year isn’t going to be like all the others. He just knows it.

After the first Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson, Potter’s waiting for him outside the classroom. Draco walks past him, keeps walking until Potter calls his name. Then he stops, turns where he stands and glowers at him.

“What’s the matter? Want me to break your nose again?”

Potter takes a couple of steps towards him. “I don’t appreciate being made a fool of,” he says, his voice as dark and dangerous as the black lake. “You might think you’re some kind of big Death Eater or whatever, but to me you’ll always be you.” He spits the last word out, like it’s some kind of filthy bug that has just flown into his mouth.

Draco laughs humourlessly as Potter moves closer still. “Like I care what you think,” he sneers. “Your little Gryffindor pals might be desperate for the Chosen One’s approval, but I don’t give a shit. I’ve got other friends … bigger and better friends …”

“Well I don’t care that you don’t care!” yells Potter, and when Draco laughs scornfully at how absurd and childish he sounds, he gets even angrier. “Oh, go fuck yourself,” he snarls, his right hand twitching at his side as though he longs to take out his wand and hex Draco into a fine red mist.

“Certainly,” says Draco.

As he turns and strides off, Potter says something else, something he can’t quite hear. It sounds like, “How dare you walk away from me!”

Draco keeps walking, hoping Potter can tell from looking at his back that he’s grinning from ear to ear.

After the first week back at school, Draco decides it’s time to put the plan into action. He transfigures the Vanishing Cabinet into a matchbox and puts it in his pocket, then goes in search of somewhere to work on it. Somewhere he knows he won’t be disturbed.

Obviously, his dormitory is out, because Nott is too curious for his own good. Likewise the many disused classrooms scattered around the school, because there’s always a chance some snogging couple in search of a room will burst in on him.

It isn’t very long before he remembers that room Potter and his DA cronies used last year. He goes to the seventh floor and wanders along the corridor until he recalls it’s near that painting of ballet-dancing trolls.

I need somewhere to hide, he thinks urgently. Somewhere no-one can find out what I’m doing.

The Room is full of all kinds of random cast-offs, and disgustingly dusty, but it will have to do. He clears a space by one of the walls, a good distance from the door, and returns the Cabinet to its normal state.

Borgin’s instructions are long and detailed, but he can’t begin following them yet. They require books Draco is struggling to get his hands on, books from the Restricted Section. Not for the first time, he wishes he had an Invisibility Cloak, like Potter.

Annoyingly enough, the first person Draco sees upon leaving the Room is Potter This is not unusual, as he seems to have been tripping over him ever since he walked off and left him fuming the other day. The Gryffindor doesn’t spot him at first; it’s late, and the corridors are dark and shadowy.

“What are you doing here?” Potter demands when they are so near he can’t help but notice him.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Draco replies, “what with me being a Prefect, and you being out this late without permission.”

“I’ve got a permission slip. Anyway, I heard you weren’t doing your Prefect duties on the train. Why the sudden interest now?”

“Never mind my Prefect duties, Potter. Why the sudden interest in me? God, if you carry on following me around like this, people will start saying you’ve got a crush on me.”

Draco goes to walk past him but Potter grabs him by the sleeve, yanking him around.

“You’re nothing to me,” says Potter, and his face is flushed, and his chest is rising and falling quickly. “Nothing.”

It happens like this –

Potter is still holding onto his arm, right on top of the Mark, which is still tender several months on, and Draco is wondering if it’s deliberate, if Potter is suddenly going to roll up his sleeve and shout “Aha!”

Potter is glaring at him, and Draco is glaring back, tugging his arm fiercely, trying to break free, wondering out loud if he’s going to have to break all of Potter’s face this time.

Potter is snarling like some wild animal, pushing Draco against the wall so hard his head smacks against the stonework, his forearm pressing against Draco’s throat so he can barely breathe, his face so close Draco’s vision is blurring, and then closer still …

Potter is kissing him.

"I hate you,” Potter moans into his mouth on Tuesday as they make out behind the statue of the One Eyed Witch. “God, I hate you so much.”

Then there is no sound but the occasional click of their teeth, the soft wet sounds of their lips moving together, and their breathing, harsh and ragged. Draco hits Potter’s head off the statue (mostly by accident) and even that doesn’t interrupt them because the only important thing is that they don’t stop doing this.

“What the hell are we doing?” Draco asks when they eventually emerge, half an hour after curfew, both dishevelled and panting.

“Damned if I know,” says Potter. “Same time on Thursday?”

By Thursday, Draco has had time to think things through and has come to the conclusion that it’s very wrong and he’s not going to allow anything else to happen between them. His resolve lasts until just after dinner, when he and Potter happen to be leaving the Great Hall at the same time. It can’t hurt just to go with him once more. Just once.

Without saying a word to each other they head out of the front door and across the lawn, walking so fast they’re all but running.

“We’d better make this quick,” Potter says, when they go round the back of greenhouse three to hide from any prying eyes. “I’ve not finished my Potions essay yet.”

“You can have a lend of mine,” Draco suggests. It’s only when Potter gapes at him that he realises it was a fairly unlikely thing for him to say. “I’m not doing this out of the goodness of my heart. This is just so you can stay longer.”

“All right,” Potter agrees. “Cheers.”

“No more school talk now,” Draco says, putting his hands on Potter’s shoulders and pushing him up against the side of the greenhouse.

“Okay,” Potter mumbles, closing his eyes as Draco leans in to kiss him. Before long, Draco can feel Potter’s hard-on pressing against his thigh. He reaches down between them, unzips Potter’s trousers and curls his hand around his cock.

His breathing harsh and noisy, Potter grins and returns the gesture. His hand is cold and kind of clammy, but his grip is firm and sure. Draco wants to say something like I always knew you were a wanker, but when he opens his mouth what comes out is a strangled moan. He’s intensely aware of Potter gasping and shuddering and writhing against him, of Potter’s cool, slick hand surrounding him, of how good this feels, and how wrong.

“Dirty … Slytherin … bastard …” Potter hisses in his ear, and maybe he means it, but it’s hard to take him seriously when he’s thrusting hard into Draco’s hand and practically crying with how good it feels. “This ... oh Jesus ... this doesn’t mean I like ... YOU,” Potter whispers loudly, crying out and arching against him as he comes down the front of Draco’s robes. Only now does Draco let himself come, quietly smug that he’s managed to last longer, as if this is all some kind of competition.

They clean themselves up quickly, straightening their robes and picking up the schoolbags they discarded earlier.

“So. Um. There’s that essay,” Draco says, holding out the scroll of parchment. He feels shaky and awkward and uncertain. Miles out of his own comfort zone. He wonders if Potter feels the same.

“Thanks,” says Potter, taking the essay and putting it in his own bag. “See you tomorrow.”

The next morning, Goyle trips the Weasel as they’re queuing for Defence class. The great oaf falls flat on his face, and when he scrambles to his feet, his gaze goes straight for Draco, waiting for him to say something scathing.

Draco doesn’t say a word.

“What was that all about today?” Potter asks that night as he leads Draco into a disused classroom on the third floor. “You didn’t even laugh at Ron or anything.”

“Your point being?” Draco replies mildly.

“Next time just say something nasty, ok? I don’t want people getting suspicious.”

“Potter, just because I didn’t make fun of Weasley today doesn’t mean that everyone’s going to come to the conclusion that we’ve been, um ...”

Potter looks amused. “We’ve been what?”

“Why don’t you stop talking now?” Draco suggests.

Potter growls, pushing Draco up against the teacher’s desk and sinking to his knees in front of him. “No talking,” he agrees. Soon he can’t talk, because his mouth is full of Draco’s cock, but he’s definitely glaring at him while he sucks him off.

After all, nothing says I despise you like a blowjob between enemies.

“Thanks for the loan of the essay,” Potter says afterwards, breaking the silence during which he’s brushing dust and grime off his trousers, and Draco’s watching him “It was good.”

“You handed them both in, then?”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t see you over the weekend,” Draco tells him when it’s almost time for curfew. He’s trying to keep focused, but it’s difficult when Potter insists on standing so close to him and doing that thing to his neck. “I’ve – oh! – got things to do.”

“Sunday,” Potter insists, biting him so hard Draco just knows he’s going to have a love bite.

“Bastard!”

On Sunday, he doesn’t go to meet Potter because he realises it’s been a whole week and he hasn’t worked on the cabinet once. He goes to the Room of Requirement, examines his stolen textbooks and tries not to think about Potter and his delicious mouth. When that doesn’t work, he has a wank instead.

Next morning at breakfast, one of the school owls delivers a note. Inbred wanker, it says, in messy black ink. Meet me on Wednesday.

Wednesday can’t come soon enough. They snatch a few minutes immediately after lunch in a dark corner of the dungeons, but their time together is all too brief. Draco is left unsatisfied and has to sit through a Potions lesson with all kinds of images of what he’d like to do to Potter running through his mind.

Unsurprisingly, he screws up his potion royally, while Potter’s turns out perfectly.

Potter doesn’t turn up on Wednesday night. Draco waits a whole fifteen minutes for him, then gets fed up and goes to find Pansy. Not much of a substitute really, but she has a mouth too, and knows what to do with it.

On Thursday he goes to breakfast holding hands with her, his gaze flickering over to the Gryffindor table to gauge Potter’s reaction. Potter is carefully ignoring them, but Draco notes that he’s ignoring his housemates too.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” Potter mutters, pausing by his desk as they go into Transfiguration that afternoon. “You’re trying to mess with my head.”

“Is it working?” Draco asks, twirling his quill between the fingers of his left hand.

Potter rolls his eyes, and goes to sit down between Granger and Weasley.

On Friday, Draco sits with his back to the Gryffindor table at mealtimes, and doesn’t let himself look over to where Potter is sitting in any of their classes.

That evening, Potter corners him in the History of Magic section of the library and presses against him so that Draco is sandwiched between Potter and Y to Z.

“So you’ve remembered what I look like, then,” says Draco, grinning at Potter, who still looks rather annoyed.

“Oh, fuck off.”

They grope each other, fully clothed and suppressing their groans, until they both come. Draco can hear the voices of other students nearby, and wonders what would happen if someone decides they need a History of Magic book at this precise moment.

“Now that’s what I call an effective study session,” Potter whispers, leaning in so that his mouth is right beside Draco’s ear, his breath tickling the side of his face.

“When can I see you again?” Draco asks, and it’s needy and desperate and so unlike him but he can’t help it.

Potter shrugs, smiles, and vanishes among the stacks.

On Monday night, they only manage to make it as far as Filch’s cleaning cupboard. Checking that nobody’s watching, they slip inside. Draco locks the door behind them, while Potter casts a silencing charm around the tiny space.

“Lumos,” Potter mutters, and instead of lunging at Draco like he usually does, he just stands there, staring at him in the flickering wand light.

“Something the matter?” Draco asks, though that much is obvious from the troubled expression on Potter’s face.

“This can’t go on,” Potter says abruptly. “It’s getting weird and ... I think we should call it a day.”

Draco wonders idly if Granger and the Weasel have started commenting about Potter’s long absences, or if he’s just started thinking too much. All he knows for sure is that Potter is right. It can’t go on.

He squashes a pang of something that might have turned into disappointment, reminding himself of how much he hates Potter. He hates him. He –

“We should stop it right now,” Potter says, “before ... well, before it becomes a problem.”

“Good idea.”

“No more meeting like this,” he says, taking a couple of tiny steps closer to Draco, apparently unaware that he’s doing so.

“All right,” Draco agrees.

Potter moves closer to him again. “Everything will just go back to normal and it’ll all be fine.”

“Sure,” says Draco, and he feels the toe of Potter’s shoe scuff against his own. “Potter?” he breathes.

Potter’s eyes look black in the wavering light. Even though his voice is quite calm, he looks anything but composed. “Yeah?”

Draco moves his other foot so that it bumps against Potter’s, and watches as he jumps at the unexpected contact. “Why aren’t you leaving?”

“I don’t know,” says Potter, and his wand slips from between his fingers. Neither of them bothers to search for it because they’re already wrapped around each other, both suddenly brave in the darkness.

Draco scrabbles at Potter’s shirt, cursing the small, fiddly buttons and his own sudden clumsiness. Potter unbuckles Draco’s belt with deft fingers, unzips his trousers and pushes them to the ground where Draco steps out of them, stumbling a little and shivering like mad.

“You’re hopeless,” Potter says, a bit of a smile in his voice as he brushes Draco’s hands aside and pulls his shirt over his head without bothering with the buttons. Draco quickly takes off his own shirt and tie, Potter bumping against him slightly as he kicks off his trousers.

“Are you sure about this?” Draco whispers shakily. Potter’s still at arms length, though he can feel the heat radiating off him.

“I need to get this out of my system,” says Potter, drawing him close.

Draco knows exactly what he means.

They sink to the floor on top of the pile of discarded clothing, knees and feet bumping against pails and mops and brooms, hands and mouths sliding over hot, damp skin.

Draco is nervous, and he thinks Potter is too, but he’s damned if he’s going to admit it. He certainly doesn’t want them to stop doing what they’re doing when it feels so fucking fantastic.

Potter’s between his legs, their hard-ons rubbing together through underwear neither of them was bold enough to remove. It feels good, but Draco thinks it could be so much better. He slides his hand beneath the waistband of Potter’s boxers, pushes them down as far as he can, and runs his hand over Potter’s bare arse.

“That feels good,” Potter sighs, wriggling the rest of the way out of them. Even though his face is close, Draco can hardly make out his features, and he’s glad. He can’t imagine what it would be like doing this in the light. “Take yours off too.”

“You’re going to have to move,” Draco says impatiently. Potter shifts to the side a little and Draco raises his hips to allow him to slide his pants down his legs and off.

Draco can’t help but let out a moan as Potter settles back down on top of him. The friction alone makes him want to come right there and then, but he distracts himself by curling his hand round the back of Potter’s neck and kissing him so hard he makes himself feel dizzy. “I want you in me,” he whispers, barely recognising his own voice.

Potter’s voice is low and husky with lust. “Good,” he says. “Because that’s what I want too.”

When it happens, it isn’t like Draco imagined. It’s uncomfortable, kind of painful even, but at the same time it’s brilliant because it’s Potter and they’re having sex. He clutches at Potter’s shoulders, his ribs, his arse, gripping hard enough to leave marks. The feeling of Potter inside him isn’t that thrilling, exactly, but there’s enough room between them for Draco to touch himself, and all of it together is enough to overload his senses.

“Ohbloodyhell,” Potter groans, and he’s coming already, but so is Draco, and it doesn’t really matter anyway because they’ve done it, they’ve got it out of their systems, and now things can go back to normal. He collapses on top of him, sweaty and breathing hard, and Draco can feel Potter’s heart pounding, or maybe it’s his own.

Afterwards, Potter looks anywhere but at Draco while they get dressed. “Nobody finds out about this,” he says. “Nobody.”

Draco’s hands are shaking, his fingers fumbling as he tries to fasten his shirt, but he’s damned if he’s letting Potter know. “And there was me desperate to go and brag about it to Professor Snape,” he sneers, retrieving his tie from a dusty corner.

“Good,” says Potter firmly, almost brutally, and Draco takes a savage sort of pleasure in watching him struggle to find the armhole of his robes. “Because as far as I’m concerned, this never happened.”

“Fine by me,” Draco snaps, though his aching arse will be a reminder that it did happen. He grabs Potter as he’s about to leave, pushes him roughly against the shelves and kisses him hard. The kiss is violent, painful, all teeth and grabbing hands and Potter’s thigh between his legs.

“I fucking hate you, Malfoy.”

“Likewise,” Draco replies, glaring at him. He looks at Potter, all flushed and sweaty and sated. “You should take a moment before you go back to your common room,” he says coldly. “Unless you want people asking who you’ve been shagging.”

Then he goes straight to the Room of Requirement to begin another night’s work, even though his mind is on anything but the plan.

I let Potter fuck me over, he thinks, with a growing sense of unease.

I let Potter fuck me.

It’s almost as though nothing ever happened.

They glare at each other when they pass in the corridor, but other than that Draco gives off every impression that he’s ignoring Potter. He wishes he could, but it’s just not possible to completely disregard him. Potter, who watches him when he thinks nobody’s looking, and who Draco finds himself seeking out more often than he’d like.

The plan is going badly. He’s following Borgin’s instructions to the word, but doesn’t seem to be making any progress. This leads him to the conclusion that the shop owner is playing him for an idiot, so Draco sends a note to the werewolf.

The next morning, a different set of instructions arrives by owl post, and Draco sets to work immediately. He’s still not completely convinced of how secure the Room is – could it be possible for someone else to get in while he’s using it? Since no solution to this problem immediately presents itself, he carries on, his attention always half-focused on the door.

The stress of all this, and the ridiculous amount of homework he has, and his mother’s increasingly hysterical letters, does not help his general well-being. Draco is no stranger to ill health – Pureblood children are generally more susceptible to illness than others – but he’s never felt so bad in his life. He feels exhausted no matter how much he sleeps, sick with worry and just generally strange in a way he can’t identify.

The Quidditch season is fast approaching, and the first game of the year is Gryffindor versus Slytherin. Last year their match ended in a brawl between Potter and Draco. This year, Draco thinks it’s more likely it’ll end with him falling asleep on his broom.

For no apparent reason, his flying is shot to hell. Yet another addition to the list of things that are making him so angry right now. He has no idea what the problem is – maybe it’s just that his head is too full of other stuff to concentrate.

To make matters worse, the Snitch keeps slipping through his fingers during practice. When the Captain yells at him for not paying attention, his performance gets even poorer.

On the day of the match, he goes off sick without very much regret at all. It’s easy enough to persuade the rest of the team he’s ill, because he has actually been throwing up since the early hours of the morning. Just like every other day this week.

While everyone else heads off to the Quidditch pitch, Draco slopes off to the Room of Requirement and lies down on an old sofa with yet another mouldy Dark Arts tome. He wakes up six hours later feeling hungry and horrendously guilty for having wasted the day.

When he goes back to the common room, everyone’s sitting around looking grumpy and mutinous.

“What’s the matter with you lot?” he asks, sitting down in his usual spot between Pansy and Blaise.

“We lost,” Pansy says grumpily. Draco must look nonplussed because she adds, “You know, Quidditch.”

“Oh,” says Draco. “Yeah.”

“Why weren’t you playing, anyway?” Blaise is looking at him with suspicion. He can sometimes be a bit too sharp for Draco’s liking. “There’s nothing wrong with you, is there?” he adds contemptuously.

“Yes there is,” Pansy says, putting her arm around Draco’s shoulder, and for once he finds he is almost grateful for her ridiculous mothering. “Look how thin he’s getting.”

Blaise snorts, and turns his back on them both to speak to Nott.

“You should go to Madam Pomfrey,” Pansy clucks, still eyeing Draco as though she thinks he might fade away at any moment. “I’m sure she’ll be able to make you better in a minute.”

Unfortunately, Madam Pomfrey has a bad habit of asking uncomfortable questions. And if she asks him to roll up his left sleeve ... well ...

The sickness and tiredness doesn’t stop. If anything, it gets worse. Eventually, Draco goes to the library and finds himself a stack of medical textbooks.

His two main symptoms - nausea and exhaustion – keep leading to the same conclusion in every book he tries. Pregnancy.

“Yeah, right,” he says scornfully, discarding the books one by one until he gets to the last one. It’s a bit newer than the others, in that it was written within the last two hundred years.

Pregnancy, it says, just like all the others. He’s about to slam the book closed and give up his search when he notices some smaller words underneath.

Also see: Male Pregnancy, page 498.

“Oh, what is this rubbish?” But he’s curious enough to riffle through the pages to four hundred and ninety eight, and squints at the tiny, fading print.

Though a rarity, male pregnancies can and do occur in the wizarding world. They are thought to be particularly prevalent among Pureblood wizards. Research indicates that male pregnancies occur in three situations:

-A deliberate transference of a pregnancy to a wizard by a witch if she has been placed under undue physical or emotional stress – for example anger, grief or a near-death situation.
-If certain fertility and transfiguring potions are consumed, a wizard can temporarily develop the required physical female characteristics in order to become pregnant and to bring that pregnancy to term.
-On some occasions a male pregnancy may occur without any apparent reason. It has been theorised that the significant alignment of certain stars and planets may be a contributing factor in these cases. Or perhaps it’s just bad luck.

The male physique is not designed for childbirth, which in most cases is achieved via surgical means. Though male-born babies are generally smaller than their female-birthed counterparts, pregnancy nevertheless takes a very high toll on the wizard involved. Embarrassing as it may be to admit to being in such a condition, failing to seek medical attention is not advisable, as -

Draco can’t read on. The words have turned into a blur in front of his eyes. His brain doesn’t seem to want to take any more information in.

“What a load of crap!” He slams the book shut with a big enough bang to make Madam Pince shush loudly from the issue desk, and stomps out of the library, shaking his head at the ridiculousness of it.

Next day, he comes back and reads it again.

And the next day.

He stares at his reflection really hard in the bathroom mirror, but he doesn’t think he looks any different. Just a bit thinner, a bit more tired. It’s just stress, right? He’s let himself get run down because he’s working too hard. Right?

(pregnancy generally takes a very hard toll on the wizard involved)

“I’m not pregnant,” he tells the mirror defiantly. “I can’t be.”

The mirror coughs in a way that suggests polite disbelief when he hunches over the toilet and heaves until there’s nothing left to come out.

Oh shit.

Draco discovers it’s quite easy to pretend there’s nothing wrong if you keep yourself very busy. He goes to class, he goes to the Room of Requirement, he practices Quidditch three times a week with the rest of the team. In the evenings he sits in the common room and forces himself to interact with the others. It’s all a distraction, a diversion from a problem he really doesn’t want to have to face.

He knows there are tests that witches can do to find out if they are expecting. But his mother has always said you just know, and now he thinks he understands what she means. Apart from the obvious physical symptoms, he feels completely certain, no matter how much he might want to deny it.

So the question is this: should he tell Potter?

He doesn’t want to, obviously, because it’s incredibly embarrassing, and because he’s fairly sure that Potter isn’t going to have anything useful to say on the subject. But he has this vague notion that Potter ought to know. It’s the right thing to do in these situations, isn’t it?

One evening he runs into Potter. Quite literally, as it happens, because Draco isn’t looking where he’s going. After they partake in the requisite amount of shoving and name-calling, he decides he might as well have a go because it’s as good a time as any.

“I need to speak to you,” he says.

“I’m on my way somewhere. Can’t it wait?”

“Well, it’s pretty important. Urgent, even.”

“Oh what could you have to say to me that’s important?” And with that charming retort, Potter walks off.

“Fine! Fuck you!” Draco shouts after him.

It’s nothing more or less than he’d expected, yet he finds he feels some obscure sense of disappointment. This lasts until he’s overcome by an unexpected bout of nausea and has to duck into the nearest bathroom. He barely makes it into a cubicle before he vomits.

When he straightens up, scraping the back of his hand across his mouth, he realises he’s shaking and it’s not just from being sick.

He hates Potter, and he hates himself, and he hates this ... this thing that’s poisoning him.

He flushes the toilet, turns to go, and finds there’s a girl standing in the doorway. It takes him a couple of seconds to notice she’s actually a ghost.

“Are you ill?” She’s the most miserable being he’s ever seen – even her voice is a glum sort of whine.

“In a manner of speaking.” He can tell his bitter smile confuses her.

He exits the cubicle feeling like he’s been hit with the jelly legs jinx and walks straight through the ghostly girl, who lets out an indignant squeal. Leaning against the sink, he turns on the cold tap and splashes his face with handfuls of cold water. At length, he feels almost human again, and dries himself.

“Yes, but are you dying?” The girl sounds almost hopeful. “Because if you are, you’re very welcome to come and share my toilet.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” he tells her as he leaves the bathroom.

Outside, he leans against the wall, still shaking.

Oh god, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s going to do.

Maybe he doesn’t need to do anything. Maybe it will all just go away, if only he can try to forget about it.

Maybe.

December comes, and with it a sense of impending doom. Draco is going home for the holidays and there is no way the Dark Lord will miss the opportunity to summon him and enquire as to his lack of progress.

He applies himself to his Occlumency practice more frequently, clearing his mind and collecting his thoughts whenever he gets some time to himself. After all, he’s never had so many secrets to hide.

Just before Christmas, Slughorn has another one of his parties. The school is full of students milling around without permission slips, and Draco decides it would be the perfect opportunity to have one last go at the Cabinet.

Unfortunately, Filch catches him and drags him downstairs to the party, calling for every punishment under the sun. “It’ll be the thumbscrews for you, m’boy,” he mutters as he manhandles him over to where Slughorn is standing with Snape and Potter, probably the two people in the world he least wants to see.

Potter stares at him at him with something like shock, and Draco thinks for one horrifying second that maybe he suspects something. Then he realises that Potter hasn’t seen him up close for weeks now, and he certainly isn’t at his best. He’s pale, thinner than ever, and his skin has taken on a definite greyish tinge.

Snape drags Draco off to an empty classroom and tries to interrogate him, but he brushes off the former Potions Master’s attempts at Legilimency with ease. Indeed, he slams the shutters of his mind down so tightly that Snape can see nothing at all.

“Let me help you,” Snape says, and he’s practically begging. He’s his favourite teacher, and Draco wants so badly to let him in, but he doesn’t know if he can trust him. Doesn’t know if he can trust anyone these days, even himself.

Especially himself.

When it all gets too much, he walks out on Snape. He goes straight past the party and up to the Owlery where it’s quiet and he can be by himself.

He stares out into the dark, savouring the feeling of the cold night air against his face while owls glide soundlessly in and out of the windows. After a while, the feeling of being irretrievably trapped begins to subside a little.

A voice from behind makes him jump.

“Malfoy?”

It’s Potter, of course.

“What do you want?”

Draco doesn’t bother to turn and look at him because he really doesn’t need this right now. In fact, if Potter pisses him off, he thinks he might just rip his head off with his bare hands. And enjoy it.

“You’re up to something,” Potter says. “Tell me what it is.”

Draco’s horrified when he realises that he’s actually putting a facial expression to the tone of voice Potter is using – determined, stern, and maybe even a little righteous.

“You’ll have to do better than that.”

Potter speaks again. “Malfoy,” he mumbles, and this time his voice is different. He’s nearer, too. “I-.”

“Just go back to the party, ok?”

There’s a long silence, but Draco knows Potter hasn’t left because he can sense him staring at the back of his head. He feels Potter move closer, and then a hand on his shoulder.

Surprised, he half-turns. Potter’s hand curls behind Draco’s head as their lips brush, barely a kiss. Draco doesn’t react, his arms hanging uselessly by his side, his knees feeling suddenly very weak.

“Merry Christmas,” says Potter quietly, then he turns and leaves.

Draco stands there for a long while, tingling all over. Savouring the taste of Potter on his mouth.

Next morning the bottle of poison he ordered from the Apothecary in Knockturn Alley arrives, disguised as toad tonic. He holds it in his hand for a long time, just looking at it.

He’s going to send it to his assistant in Hogsmeade, but in an abstract sort of way he thinks that this would solve all his problems. Wouldn’t it?

He can almost hear his father’s voice in his head: “Malfoys don’t commit suicide.”

There are a lot of other things Malfoys don’t do either.

Like kissing Harry Potter. And liking it.

The official summons arrives two days after Christmas, delivered by his aunt Bellatrix. Draco puts on his Death Eater robes and mask and tries in vain to stop himself from trembling before he floos to the meeting place.

“My Lord, I am honoured to receive an audience with you.” He crouches down low, kisses the Dark Lord’s hem just as he has been taught.

“Indeed." The Dark Lord sounds as cruelly amused as ever. “The plan, Draco, how is it progressing?”

“Slower than anticipated, my Lord,” Draco confesses, staring at a speck of mud on the Dark Lord’s shoe. Surely Dark Lords are supposed to have clean shoes? “There have been delays – certain people at Hogwarts are suspicious, and Borgin was less than helpful at first. These problems have now been dealt with, and I hope to have made significant progress by Easter. My Lord,” he says again, for good measure.

The Dark Lord looks much less amused now. He steeples his long fingers in front of him and even that simple gesture is terrifying. “You may recall what we spoke about over the summer, Draco? The futures of your father and mother lie in your hands, child, and you try to mollify me with excuses?”

“My Lord, I am doing my best.” His voice comes out higher than he would have liked. “I am working night and day to fulfil my duties.”

But the Dark Lord is already pointing his wand at him, and doesn’t even bother to speak the word. Without any time to steel himself for what is coming, Draco finds himself face down on the stone floor, twitching and jerking with pain. But he keeps his mouth closed, bites down on his bottom lip when he wants to scream, because he will not make a sound.

He’s escorted out – no, half-dragged, half-carried out - by two large Death Eaters, one of whom returns to the room immediately. The other takes off both their masks, and drags Draco to his feet.

Fenrir Greyback.

“Brave boy,” mocks the werewolf, his voice low and rasping. “No screaming. But I prefer it when they scream. I’ll make you scream, when you fail and he gives you to me.”

He licks his lips.

Draco’s posture is defiant even though he must reek of fear to the werewolf’s sensitive nostrils. “I won’t fail.”

Greyback leans in, squashing him against the wall, and the stench is so awful that Draco actually retches. “You smell different,” he snarls, confused. “Someone’s had you, but that’s not it. What have you done to yourself?”

With a great deal of effort, Draco shoves him away. “Keep your foul hands off me.”

The werewolf laughs, and it’s hacking and wheezing and disgusting. “No matter. You’ll taste just the same as all the others when I rip out your throat.”

Next morning, Draco’s entire body is aching from the Unforgivable. When he has to stagger to the toilet to be sick, he’s surprised. Disappointed.

He didn’t even know he was hoping.

Still there then, he thinks miserably.

The new term starts on a spectacularly awful note when some Ravenclaw boy comes into the Room when Draco’s working. Draco ends up hiding behind a pile of furniture for half an hour while the boy searches for the perfect place to hide something that looks suspiciously like a tiny Hairy MacBoon in a cage

After the boy is gone, Draco crawls out from his hiding place and brushes a thick layer of dust from his robes. “ARGH!” he yells, and kicks the Cabinet several times, achieving nothing but a pain in his big toe and a tiny amount of relief for his frustration.

He takes Crabbe and Goyle aside that afternoon and explains he’s going to need their help soon.

They’re as willing as always.

“Sure, boss.”

“No problem. Just tell us when.”

Now he just needs to figure out what he wants them to do.

Generally speaking, Crabbe and Goyle aren’t very much use. They will never be the world’s greatest thinkers, for example. But they are extremely good at following simple orders unquestioningly, and this is exactly what he needs. He needs them to be able to stand on guard, somehow. But if it’s Crabbe and Goyle, everyone will suspect he’s nearby.

Once again, he wishes he had an Invisibility Cloak.

He’s taking a bath in the Prefects’ bathroom a few nights later when that ghost girl – her name’s Moaning Myrtle, according to Pansy – appears out of one of the taps. She sits on the side of the bath and tries to peer through the gaps in the foam. It’s quite funny, in a disturbing sort of way.

“You didn’t die,” she complains, sounding disappointed. “I waited and waited, and you never turned up.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve been really busy.” And he marvels at how absurd it is to be apologising that he’s not dead.

“That’s what he says.” Myrtle sighs, looking misty-eyed. “Harry Potter. He used to come and visit me in my bathroom all the time, the year the Slytherin monster came back.”

“Oh?” He’s not particularly interested in hearing about perfect Potter right now, thank you very much.

“They were making something in here, him and his friends. Some potion that they were going to use because they wanted to find out who Slytherin’s Heir was.” Myrtle’s voice lowers, her tone that of one long-practiced in the noble art of gossip. “He and the red-haired boy put hairs into theirs and turned into big boys; Slytherins, like you, I think. And their other friend, that girl, turned into a cat!”

She lets out a loud peal of laughter and floats off up into the air for a moment before settling back down on the edge of the bathtub.

“What?” Draco whispers.

“I said she turned into a cat.”

“No, before that. They turned into Slytherins, you say? When was this? Which Slytherins?”

“I don’t pay much attention to the time of year,” she says, sniffing. “It’s not so important when you’re dead. But it might have been Christmas, I suppose. And the boys’ names … I think one of them might have been called Gargoyle ...”

Draco’s up and out of the bath immediately, not even bothered by Myrtle’s delighted squeal at getting an eyeful.

Of course. How can he have been so stupid? Slughorn still has that supply of it bubbling away in his office. This is perfect. With a ready supply of hairs from his housemates, nobody will ever know it’s Crabbe and Goyle with him.

“Thank you,” he says, pulling on his robes without even drying himself. “You’ve been extremely helpful.”

“Any time.” Myrtle giggles, and he gets the feeling she’ll be reliving this for a long while.

Draco runs down to the common room, feeling more energetic than he has in months. Crabbe and Goyle are sitting at a table near the fire, staring at their DADA homework as if it’s written in Mermish.

“I’ve got a plan, boys,” he announces cheerfully, and they’re looking at him like he’s gone mental, probably because he can’t seem to stop grinning.

“What do you want us to do, Malfoy?”

His smile broadens. “You’re not adverse to a little cross-dressing, are you?”

One morning, he discovers he can’t fasten his trousers any more. His stomach has been getting plumper for some time now, curving outwards where before it was completely flat, but this is the first time he has really noticed it. Swearing loudly and at length, he uses an expanding charm and wonders how many more times he’ll have to do this.

Around this time, he starts leaving his shirt hanging outside of his waistband, just to be safe. If people think he looks scruffier than normal, they don’t say anything.

Now that his attention has been drawn to it, he becomes incredibly self-conscious about his growing belly. He feels it pressing against the desk when he sits in class; is extremely aware of it slowing him down when he flies. People’s hands seem to be everywhere, and he has to be extra careful not to let anybody touch him there because if they do, if they find out ...

He tries not to touch it, tries not to think about it, and when he’s in the shower he does all he can to avoid looking at it because it unnerves him to see his body like this, so familiar yet so different. Despite this, he finds quite often when he wakes in the morning that his hands have made their way to rest on top of the growing bump, as if drawn by some irresistible force.

He seeks out Myrtle’s company more and more often now. Her toilet is always deserted, and it’s good to get away from other people for a while, away from the paranoid feeling that everybody is staring at him even though he knows they can’t possibly know.

The afternoon it happens is no different from any other. He’s pacing up and down in front of the sinks, talking about nothing in particular, and suddenly he feels it. It’s completely distinct from the backache and the indigestion and all the other odd aches and pains he experiences on a daily basis. He feels something moving.

It flutters inside him like the beating wings of a Snitch. Tiny hands and feet dancing within.

He doesn’t know why it should come as such a bolt from the blue when he has known what’s happening to him for so long, but it really hits him hard. With a shocked gasp, he stumbles backwards until his back hits the wall, then slides down against it until he’s sitting on the floor.

“Are you all right, Draco?” asks Myrtle, but he barely hears her because all his attention has been drawn abruptly inwards.

It’s all building inside him, all the tension and worry and panic he’s been suppressing all year, magnified by a few tiny, sluggish movements in his belly. He covers his face with his hands, fingers digging in sharply at his temples, and lets out a whimper that’s so pathetic he’s revolted.

When the tears begin to fall, he makes no effort to stop them.

“What’s the matter? Please, Draco, tell me what’s wrong,” says Myrtle. She’s practically the only person he speaks to nowadays, and she looks so concerned, like she really cares. He needs to tell somebody, to relieve some of this pressure, or he’ll go mad. Why not unburden himself?

So he tells her. He tells her everything … and nothing. He tells her how he’s feeling, but not why, and it feels so good to be talking. Even if it is just to a ghost. Even if he is still hiding so much.

Myrtle comforts him as best she can, but it’s hard to console somebody when you can’t touch them. She tells him everything’s going to be all right, keeps saying it as though it’s going to make a difference.

But she’s wrong. Nothing is going to be right ever again.

It’s real. It’s happening. He’s been so stupid, but there can be no more pretending now that he can feel it moving, stretching, yawning. Living.

But there is a way to make it stop.

He hates himself, but he should have done this sooner.

Three days later he visits Myrtle yet again, and in his pocket is another bottle freshly delivered from the Apothecary in Knockturn Alley. He doesn’t know exactly what the substance inside it is called, but he knows what it can do, having learned of it via a late night’s eavesdropping several years previously. Without really meaning to, he’d listened in on a conversation between two Slytherin seventh-year girls whose friend had evidently got herself into trouble.

“It’s just so horrible,” one of them had whispered fiercely. “I know I said I’d stay with her, but I just can’t stand to watch!”

“Well what did you expect?” rejoined the other, who was Head Girl at the time. “Hugs and puppies?” Then she’d lowered her voice even more, and he’d had to move closer to hear what she said next. “It’s an abortion potion, Pru. It’s dissolving the thing inside of her. No wonder it twinges a bit.”

Myrtle is floating around aimlessly by the sinks when he enters the bathroom, and she notices him immediately. “What’s that you’ve got?” she asks nosily as he takes the bottle out of his pocket.

“Nothing much.”

Just the desperate solution to a desperate problem.

He unscrews the lid, raises the bottle to his lips and downs the contents before he can talk himself out of it.

It’s like ice water in his throat, so cold it makes his head ache. He can feel it trickling down his gullet every inch of the way to his stomach, where it fills him with a glowing warmth that rapidly becomes uncomfortable.

“I’m so glad you come and visit me,” Myrtle confides, hovering in midair with her legs crossed lotus-style. “It gets awfully lonely in here, you see.”

Oh, cheer up, he thinks, and he’s about to say it out loud but what comes out of his mouth instead is a loud gasp as he realises the potion is already beginning to work. This feels worse - a million times worse – than when he broke his arm as a child and the bones came out through his skin. He can’t even compare it with the Cruciatus curse because it’s more contained, focused in a much smaller area of his body. This is like knives and acid in his guts, ripping him up, melting him down.

He sinks to the ground, lies down, tries to crawl over to a cubicle in case he needs to be sick, but it seems impossibly far away. Curled in on himself and clutching at his stomach, he closes his eyes. Sweat begins to pour down his face as he concentrates on not making a sound.

“What’s the matter?” asks Myrtle, and he can tell by the slight chill in the air that she’s right by him, leaning over him. “Do you want me to get help?”

He knows that if he tries to speak he will scream, so he shakes his head a tiny bit, every muscle in his body now twitching with pain. Please work, he thinks, as the throbbing in his abdomen reaches such a pitch he’s sure he will split right down the middle. Pleasepleaseplease–

Then he blacks out.

When he regains consciousness, it’s morning and he’s in bed. Racking his brains, he vaguely remembers it being very dark, and the clock in the big tower striking one as he staggered back to the dungeons.

He stretches, sits up. Deep within him, like a tiny echo, he feels someone else beginning to wake up.

You’re still there then, he thinks resignedly.

But when he reaches down to touch his belly, he does it gently, almost affectionately.

Apparition lessons begin and he signs up, even though it means losing an hour or so each week of time he could be using for Cabinet-related activities. It feels good to be out of the dry, musty atmosphere of the Room, even just for an hour. Even if Potter insists on standing right behind him and eavesdropping on private conversations.

Slytherin’s final Quidditch match comes a few weeks after the lessons start. Draco is absolutely appalling, and he misses the Snitch by a mile. He loathes the look of triumph on the Hufflepuff Seeker’s face, the glares of his Slytherin team-mates, the cheers of the other three Houses.

While the rest of the team head off to shower and change, Draco takes his beloved broom back to the shed. He leans it at an angle against the wall, stamps on the handle, and leaves the broken pieces lying in the mud. Then he heads to the stands and sits in the back row for a long time, staring out across the Quidditch pitch, aware only of the dull throbbing pain in his lower back.

The sky is beginning to grow dark when Potter saunters across the pitch, climbs up into the stands and sits beside him.

“Come to gloat, have you?”

Draco gets the first hit in just because he can. They haven’t argued, have hardly even looked at each other, since before Christmas.

“No,” says Potter quietly, staring at the far end goals. “I guess I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I’ve always liked watching you fly. But that? It was like watching someone else. It was depressing. When did you stop wanting to win, Malfoy?”

“So I’m shit at Quidditch. Who cares?” snaps Draco, but Potter’s words have struck him like a slap in the face.

Potter shrugs. “I know you’re still up to something,” he says. “What are you doing in the Room of Requirement?”

It’s that fucking Invisibility Cloak again. Must be.

“Just give up, Potter.” Draco just wants to be alone, but Potter doesn’t seem to want to take the hint, and he’s damned if he’s going to be the one to move.

“I’m going to find out what you’re up to, you know.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

Potter makes a frustrated noise in his throat, turns in his seat to look at Draco. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

And he certainly doesn’t have to be doing this either, Draco reflects, as their faces move closer together.

He doesn’t have to, but Draco’s the one who closes the tiny gap between them, covering Potter’s mouth with his own, thrusting his tongue in as Potter’s lips split in a little surprised ‘o’ when Draco’s hand settles between his legs and begins to rub him.

Neither of them say anything while Draco unzips Potter’s trousers, slides his fingers around his cock and wanks him off quickly and efficiently. Even as he’s doing it, he can’t quite understand why.

“Draco ...” says Potter afterwards, a glazed look in his eyes.

“Yes?” Draco’s lips feel bruised from the kissing, and his hand is still sticky with come.

Potter shakes his head suddenly as if coming to after a daydream. “Don’t come near me again.”

And he storms off.

part two

Mon, 12 Sep 2005 23:01:34 GMT

part one

It’s comforting, in an odd sort of way, knowing that Potter is lurking around. Ironically, he’s probably a better guard than either Crabbe or Goyle, though there’s always the small risk he’ll figure out how to get in.

The note arrives via his eagle owl, in code as always. Draco puts it in his pocket, meaning to read it as soon as he gets a moment to himself, but he’s rather absent-minded at the moment and soon forgets all about it.

After lessons end, he goes to the Room of Requirement accompanied by Goyle, and despairs as yet another test object is spat back out by the Cabinet in ten different pieces. It’s only when he’s on his way back to the common room, defeated and despairing, that he remembers the note and ducks into the boys’ bathroom.

He decodes the innocuous looking message with the usual spell, and reads the words that appear in its place. Then he crumples the piece of parchment, drops it and points his wand at it. It burns to fine ash before it even hits the ground.

His breath is coming in gasps now, and it’s all he can do not to pass out. He leans against the sink, eyes closed, feeling his world tilt alarmingly on its axis.

“Draco, are you all right?” It’s Myrtle, of course.

Fuck. Fuck. He has to keep control. He can’t afford to lose his nerve right now. Not when the Dark Lord is so angry, and there’s so much at stake.

There’s no point answering, because it’s all too obvious that he’s anything but all right. There are tears leaking from his eyes already, and he feels sick and ashamed that he can’t stop himself from indulging in this childish weakness.

“Tell me what’s wrong …” Myrtle croons, and it feels like she’s the only person in the world who cares about him. A fucking ghost. “I can help you ...”

“No one can help me ...” Draco gasps. His whole body is shaking; he can hardly get the words out. “I can’t do it ... I can’t ... it won’t work ... and unless I do it soon … he says he’ll kill me ..."

Struggling to regain control of himself, Draco raises his head, opens his eyes, looks into the mirror and sees –

Potter.

Potter, whose fault this all is. Potter, who has no idea of the effect he has on him. Potter, who can’t possibly imagine what it’s like to be this deep in shit.

One of them takes out their wand first – afterwards, Draco’s only half sure it was him – and then they’re duelling, and Myrtle’s screaming in his ear, and there’s water everywhere and …

“SECTUMSEMPRA!” Potter yells.

Draco’s face and chest suddenly feel very hot. His grip goes weak and he drops his wand, slips on the wet tiles and stumbles over. Potter’s right there in front of him; he’s white as any ghost, shaking his head and shouting something but Draco can’t hear a word he's saying.

He wants to ask Potter why he looks so scared, to ask him why he’s covered in blood and whose blood it is – there’s such a lot of it, that can’t be good – but his mind doesn’t seem to be registering anything, and he can’t make his limbs move like he wants them to ...

When he becomes aware of what’s happening again, Snape’s leaning over him doing some kind of spell, and Draco can feel the hot sensation fading. He’s still dizzy and weak but things make sense now – it’s his blood over the floor, over Potter.

“We have to get you to the hospital wing,” Snape says, but all Draco can do is stare at Potter, whose own wand has fallen to the ground, forgotten. He looks sick, horrified by what he’s done.

“No,” says Draco when they get out of the bathroom. “No hospital wing.”

Snape repeats what he’s just said about dittany and scarring.

“I don’t care. You’ve got dittany in your office, don’t you? I’m not going to the hospital wing and you can’t make me.”

Snape stares sharply at him like he’s seeing him plainly for the first time, but doesn’t try to argue. He helps him down to his office in the dungeons, gives him the dittany and tells him he’ll be back shortly, after he’s seen to Potter’s punishment.

Draco doesn’t care about scars, or about Potter being punished. All he’s aware of is the panicked trembling inside of him, and nothing else in the world matters, not even that note from the Dark Lord reiterating his threats in great detail.

Please be all right, he thinks, wrapping his arms around himself. Please.

When he finally does it, it’s so anticlimactic he doesn’t even notice it’s happened.

It’s only when the test object returns intact and with a note from Borgin attached to it that Draco realises the Vanishing Cabinet is fixed.

He wants to celebrate, or at the very least to collapse in relief, but there can be no more delaying. There’s nothing left to do but carry out the final stage of the plan, the part he’s been putting off thinking about all year. He hasn’t got all the details planned out exactly; the most useful thing he’s done is discover an archaic weightlessness charm that will come in handy if he has to run. When he has to run.

Time begins passing in strange speeded-up bursts. One minute he’s standing in the Room, the next he’s out in the corridors, the other Death Eaters on his heels. Then he’s alone, climbing the steps to the Astronomy Tower as fast as he can, feeling impossibly sore and tired.

He never dreamed he’d find Dumbledore there, ill and alone. He never dreamed he’d be so simple to disarm.

It’s too easy. All of it.

And yet, Draco cannot bring himself to carry out his orders. With every moment that passes, he feels what little resolution he has crumble away to nothing.

He only snaps out of his frightened daze when Greyback appears, grinning wickedly at him, and Draco thinks they promised me they wouldn’t bring him here. It suddenly seems important that he should tell Dumbledore this, as though somehow it will excuse everything else.

And then Snape bursts in uninvited and unwanted, and everything goes to hell. The former Potions master takes one look at what’s happening, shoves Draco aside and finishes the job himself while Draco leans against the wall and pulls his cloak more tightly around himself. With just two words, the glory and honour everyone keeps going on about is Snape’s.

Two words.

Just like that, the man who offered Draco his mercy and his protection is dead and crumpled at the bottom of the tower.

Snape grabs Draco by the scruff of the neck, shoving him through the doorway, and they run, slipping quickly and quietly through the battle without a hex so much as skimming them. Twice, Draco feels his ankle bend awkwardly under him, and wonders if perhaps the charm is wearing off. He ignores the pain and keeps moving.

“You cannot return with me tonight,” Snape tells him once they are outside, the sounds of the battle raging inside Hogwarts left well behind them. “I believe I can persuade the Dark Lord to spare your mother’s life, but if you come with me I cannot guarantee your safety.”

He doesn’t mention his father, Draco notices.

“But I let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts. Dumbledore’s dead! I did what he asked, didn’t I?” Draco knows he sounds like a petulant child, but right now he doesn’t really care.

“Your task was to kill Dumbledore,” Snape says, looking paler than Draco’s ever seen him before. “And in that, you failed. Mark my words, the Dark Lord will kill you if you return to him tonight.”

“Then where do I go? What do I do?”

“To the other side. Get out now, before it’s too late. Now run!”

He turns back to face Potter, wand raised and ready. “Didn’t you hear what I said?” he yells as Draco stops and stands there just behind him, frozen with indecision. “Run, Draco!”

So he runs, and when he’s able, he Disapparates, hardly caring where he ends up.

So much for honour and glory.

He runs as far as Diagon Alley and keeps the hood of his travelling cloak up while he asks for a room at the Leaky Cauldron. Business is slow enough that Tom the barman doesn’t ask any awkward questions, just hands over a key and accepts the fistful of Galleons.

For almost a week, Draco stays there. By day he sleeps or stares out of his bedroom window, his mind terrifyingly blank. He touches his belly almost constantly, rubbing it when the baby seems restless. Sometimes he wonders if he might not be the one who finds the motion more calming. By night he hides in a dark corner of the bar, still and inconspicuous, and eavesdrops on conversations about how the war is going.

“Terrible shame what happened at Hogwarts, isn’t it?” says Tom every morning by way of a greeting, and Draco always starts the day with a sick shudder of guilt. But one particular day the barman adds: “The kids are getting sent home today, you know. I reckon that’s the end of the school until Harry Potter kills You Know Who.”

Later that evening, Draco stands just outside the Leaky Cauldron, watching Muggles hurry past, laden with shopping. I want to find Potter, he thinks with deliberation, determination and plenty of desperation. If any of the Muggles spot him vanishing on the spot, frankly he doesn’t care.

He arrives on the doorstep of a house that looks like every other house around it. He’s never seen anything so weird in his life, but he supposes this must be normal for Muggles. Hoping he’s found the right place, he rings the doorbell.

“Yes?” enquires the woman who answers it, and she stares at him like he’s some kind of weirdo. He supposes he does look a bit strange, as he’s still wearing his robes.

“I’m looking for Harry Potter,” he says. A sudden dizziness hits him, and he has to brace himself against the doorframe. Obviously Apparating wasn’t such a good idea. Oh dear.

“Very well,” says the woman, glaring at his hand where it touches her doorway, as though she thinks he’s going to leave grubby fingerprints. Then she closes the door in his face.

He stands there for a few moments feeling extremely irritated by her rudeness. He’s considering ringing the doorbell again, perhaps even buzzing some sort of jaunty rhythm with it, when the door opens once more. This time it’s Potter standing there, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.

“Malfoy!” he exclaims after a long pause. “What are you doing here?”

“I need your help, Potter,” Draco says, and the words don’t choke him half as much as he’s been expecting. “Please. I didn’t know where else to go.”

“Oh,” says Potter. “Right.” Abruptly, he reaches out, grabs Draco’s left arm and pushes up his sleeve. The Dark Mark grins blackly up at them both, standing out starkly against the white of Draco’s skin.

“I was right …” Potter murmurs, staring at it with something like wonder. “I knew I was right.”

“If you’re going to turn me in to the Ministry, get it over with, all right?”

Just getting that one sentence out takes an immense amount of effort. He’s definitely getting dizzier, starting to feel a bit sick.

“I’m not going to turn you in to the bloody Ministry,” says Potter irritably. “Hey … are you all right?” he asks, looking concerned, as Draco begins to sway slightly.

“Yes, I’m perfectly fine,” Draco lies, as everything starts disappearing at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

He’s not thinking anything in particular as he passes out on Potter’s doorstep. He feels himself begin to slump, then a pair of strong arms catching him before he hits the ground.

Then nothing at all.

He drifts in and out of consciousness, aware of bright lights and people around him, sometimes shouting, sometimes speaking in whispers. Sometimes he thinks he recognises the voices. Occasionally he feels like he wants to speak, but he’s too tired and it’s too much of an effort.

When he wakes, he’s warm and comfortable between fresh bed sheets. He opens his eyes slowly, dazzled by the light and the blinding whiteness of the room. A clean, chemical sort of smell tickles his nostrils.

Ah. Hospital.

Last thing he remembers is being on Potter’s doorstep – did Potter bring him here?

He looks to his left and sees a cabinet covered in bottles of medicine. To his right there is a chair. And on that chair, peering cautiously at him from over a copy of the Evening Prophet, sits Granger, of all people.

“Hello,” she says, smiling nervously, speaking in that gentle, hushed voice people use around invalids. It annoys Draco for a moment, until it occurs to him that he’s the one in the hospital bed, and therefore probably an invalid.

“What’s the time?” he asks, as though it matters.

She glances at her watch. “It’s five in the afternoon. And it’s Thursday. You’ve been unconscious for six days.”

“Oh.” Six days seems like a really long time. “And why are you here?”

She puts down her newspaper, folds it up. “We’ve been taking it in turns to sit with you. Right now it’s my turn.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Harry, Ron and I.”

“Oh,” he says. “Okay.”

There’s something he’s forgetting. Something really important. But his eyelids are too heavy, and he’s asleep before he can remember.

The next time he wakes, the room is in darkness, lit only by the glow of the lamps from the hallway outside. He hears whispering nearby and recognises the voices as those of Granger and Weasley. It doesn’t occur to him to alert them to the fact that he’s awake, so he just lies there quietly and listens.

“What did he say?”

“Nothing much. He was still very groggy. Just asked me the time and why I was here.”

“Get any insults in, did he?”

“Hardly, Ronald. And I don’t want to hear you talking like that any more. We have to give him a chance.”

Weasley makes a derisive noise.

“Harry says he came to him for help, and if that’s the case – well, maybe we should consider it.”

“Even after all those times he called you a Mudblood? After everything that happened at Hogwarts this year? He nearly killed me, Hermione!”

Draco winces slightly at the metallic scraping sound of chair legs scooting a little way across the tiled floor.

“Look at me, Ron. Look at me. Harry says that Dumbledore was prepared to give Draco a chance, and if that’s the case then shouldn’t we be willing to?”

Hang on, Draco thinks fuzzily. How does Potter know what Dumbledore said?

He remembers, then. Not all of it, but enough. Dumbledore’s dead. Dumbledore’s dead.

Ohgodohgod.

“‘Draco’ is it now? Going to be best mates are you?”

“Oh shut up, Ron! I’m trying to make an effort. You should give it a go some time!”

A long silence.

“It’s just so ... weird.”

“Mmm.”

“Why aren’t you more freaked out by it?”

Another long pause.

“I suppose it’s because I’m still so new to the wizarding world that I don’t know what’s possible and what isn’t. I’ve learned to expect the unexpected.”

“Yes, but we’re talking about a pregnant wizard. A. Pregnant. Wizard. Who is Malfoy.”

“You heard Healer Thompson. It’s rare but not unheard of. She lent me a couple of research papers on the subject this afternoon. It’s really very fascinating.”

“Scintillating, I’m sure.”

“Ron, are you sure you aren’t just bothered by the fact that Harry might be gay?”

Weasley splutters incoherently for a few moments before changing the subject.

“At least Harry’s stopped shouting now.”

“Mmm.”

“It’s just ... Hermione, why does it have to be Malfoy? You know?”

“I know.”

Weasley sighs loudly. Neither of them say anything else.

Sleep doesn’t come easily to Draco. There’s too much going through his head, and he doesn’t want to think about any of it.

He’s sitting up in bed eating breakfast when Healer Thompson comes to visit him the next morning. She’s an enthusiastic red-haired young witch who gives off the impression of having boundless energy. It’s tiring just watching her.

“How are we doing today, Draco?” she asks, picking up his chart and reading over his notes.

“We are doing fine. This porridge, however, is disgusting.”

“Ah. I’ve been told that you complaining is a good sign. Shows you’re feeling better.”

He snorts.

The Healer gets hold of his left arm and takes a blood sample, apparently not fazed by the Mark gleaming near where she inserts the needle. Then she deposits the blood into a small bowl and begins adding drops of various potions to it, scribbling notes as it changes colour.

“Everything seems fine in that department,” she says after a moment or two. “A considerable improvement from a couple of days ago, let me tell you. Now, can I get you to take off your top for me?”

Draco complies somewhat reluctantly, feeling rather uncomfortable that it’s a woman who’s examining him. The Healer pokes and prods at his belly, her cold hands making him wince slightly.

“You got off extremely lightly, considering,” Thompson tells him, waving her wand over him and making some notes when it produces a purple sort of light. “You should have sought medical attention as soon as you knew you were pregnant. And you certainly should have begun resting months ago. It’s a wonder you’re both still alive.”

“Is that it?” Draco asks irritably, unwilling to take a talking-to from someone who doesn’t look any older than him. “Lecture over?”

A smile flickers across Thompson’s lips. “They were right,” she says. “You’re quite something.”

She’s writing some more notes on his chart when he says hesitantly, “The baby’s okay, isn’t it?”

“Astonishingly, yes. Poor little lamb must have the constitution of a particularly hard Bludger.” But she’s smiling, and her blue eyes are twinkling.

It isn’t until he feels relieved that he realises he was worried.

She finishes up, pulls the covers back over him, and he relaxes slightly now that he’s less exposed. “Draco, have you given any thought to what will happen once the baby’s born?”

“I’ve been a bit preoccupied,” he admits. “I’m in a bit of trouble. I suppose you’ve heard.”

“Trouble? I’ll say. I’m in the Order, of course, so I’ve heard all about it. But getting back to my question. What about Harry? Do you think he might…?”

Oh fuck. Potter. Potter knows.

FUCK.

“We’re not exactly the best of friends,” he says mildly.

“Ah. I rather thought it might be something like that.”

“What’s he been saying?”

She pauses as though taking her time to choose her words very carefully. “What you have to understand is, it’s been quite a shock for him. He’s still adjusting to the idea. But he’s visited every day, and I don’t imagine today will be any different.”

Every day? Really?

“Do you have any other questions at this stage, Draco?”

“Just one,” he says, in a very small voice. “What’s the birth going to be like?”

“We’ll be putting you under a general anaesthetic, and removing the baby surgically. It’s a reasonably complex procedure, but you’ll be fast asleep for all of it, so nothing to worry about. You’ll probably be a bit sore for a few days afterwards, and there may be some mild scarring, but you’ll be as right as rain in no time.”

“You make it all sound very easy,” he says, eyeing her with suspicion.

“That’s my job.” She hooks his chart back over the end of the bed, and picks up her bag of pills and potions. “If you have any more questions, you might want to ask Hermione Granger. She’s been reading up quite extensively on the topic. Probably knows more about it than me by now.”

She breezes back out of the ward, leaving Draco alone with his cold porridge.

He’s got that sense of impending doom again.

A few hours later, Potter comes to see him. He looks tired and strained and his hair’s even more of a mess than usual, which Draco hadn’t thought possible. He throws himself down into the chair by the bed and folds his arms across his chest, looking every inch the poster boy for bad body language.

Draco looks at him with interest. He’s never seen that vein on Potter’s forehead before.

“How are you?” Potter enquires through gritted teeth.

“Not bad. Yourself?”

Draco thinks that strange cracking sound might be Potter’s teeth grinding together.

“Wonderful,” Potter replies in a strangled voice. “So. You’re pregnant.”

Draco smiles vaguely and runs his hand over his undeniably pregnant belly.

Potter stares at Draco’s middle for a while, his expression unreadable. “And you were planning on telling me when, exactly?” There are little beads of sweat forming just below his hairline.

“I tried,” Draco says pleasantly. “At the end of October. You didn’t seem very concerned.”

“Well you could have tried harder. Or tried again. It’s pretty fucking important, don’t you think?”

“That’s interesting, because you said, and I quote, ‘What could you have to say that’s important?’ Isn’t that interesting, Potter?”

Both of Potter’s hands are fisted in his lap, his knuckles very white.

“You all right there?”

“YES!” Potter shouts. “I mean, yes,” he corrects himself, his voice much quieter, even if there’s still a wild, hunted look in his eyes, like a rabbit on the run from a fox.

“It’s just, you seem a bit agitated.”

“Really?” Potter’s foot is tapping against the floor so hard that it’s making the bedside cabinet shake. “Well, I can’t imagine why.”

Draco pulls himself a bit more upright against the pillows, frustrated by how much effort it takes, and how ungainly he feels. He narrows his eyes.

“If you want to yell at me, just fucking do it.”

“Can’t,” Potter confesses, sounding really disappointed. “The Healers said you’re not supposed to get upset. Also, they said they’d throw me out if I started all that again. I’m on my last warning.”

Despite himself, Draco feels his lips begin to twitch.

“Shame,” he says. “I bet you’re dying for a good rant.”

“You have no idea.”

For a moment, they almost smile at each other.

"I’m sorry,” Draco says when Potter appears next day, and the word slips out much more easily than it might have done in the past.

“Oh.” Potter looks surprised and slightly suspicious, as though this is could be some kind of trick. He sits down in the chair nearest the bed again, but this time he doesn’t fold his arms.

“I know I should have told you,” Draco says, jumping in at the difficult part straight away, before his nerve gives out. “And I know I could have tried harder to let you know. But I had a lot going on last year, and … well, what do you think you’d have done if I’d told you? Offered to marry me on the spot? Hardly.”

“It doesn’t matter,” says Potter, staring at the floor. “I had a lot going on too. It’s just … it’s a hell of a lot to take in right now. But I suppose it was for you as well. Worse, even, because … well …”

“It’s inside me?” His bluntness seems to make Potter uncomfortable. “Yes, it was rather a shock. But I’ve had longer to get used to the idea than you. So, what do you reckon, now you’ve had some time to think about it?”

Potter shifts awkwardly in his chair, now examining the back of his hand as though it holds the secrets of the universe. There’s some kind of scar there that Draco hasn’t ever noticed before. “Never really saw myself having children. It’s kind of hard to imagine anything past my next encounter with Voldemort, really.”

Honestly, how can Potter be thinking about the Dark Lord at a time like this?

“Are – are you keeping it?” he asks hesitantly, and meets Draco’s gaze. It’s strange, Draco’s seen the many faces of Harry Potter – happy, sad, outraged, even more outraged. But he’s never seen him look uncertain before.

Draco stares at him. Then stares some more. Potter actually begins to quail slightly. “Obviously,” he says, at last. “It’s mine.”

“But … I mean … do you even know anything about babies, Malfoy?”

“No, but I’m sure it can’t be that hard. After all, if Weasley’s parents managed it seven times, I think I can manage with one.”

“Yes, but there are two of them.”

“There are two of us,” Draco points out.

Potter takes off his glasses, rubs at his eyes. “And you really think that could work?” he says, anger rising up in his voice like toxic fumes from a cauldron. “That two sixteen year old wizards –” (“I’m seventeen,” Draco interrupts, but Potter ignores him.) “– who don’t even particularly get along with each other can bring up a baby together? That I would even want to be involved?

“Malfoy, what you did is just so fucking selfish I can’t even think of enough words to describe it right now. Did it occur to you that you’re handing Voldemort yet another thing to use against me? Did that concept cross your mind at any time? That maybe having this baby was a bad idea?”

So that’s how it’s going to be, then.

Draco narrows his eyes, sneers at him. “Don’t hold back on my account. I want you to be completely honest. Tell me what you really feel, Potter.”

“What the fuck were you thinking, Malfoy? Were you even thinking at all? Or was this just another way to get back at me because your dad’s in jail?”

How dare he. How fucking dare he. He’s been through Cruciatus, the abortion potion, Sectum-fucking-sempra … and none of them did a thing. Doesn’t it even occur to Potter that maybe Draco didn’t have a choice?

Draco’s never hated him more than he does right now.

“What was I thinking? Well, most of the time I was worrying myself sick trying to carry out a plan for a psychotic nutter who was threatening my family. Then there were all those classes I was failing, even Potions. And also, I spent quite a lot of time wondering what the hell you were playing at. Hmm, I’m forgetting something. Oh yeah ... I was pregnant!”

“Quick everyone, let’s all feel sorry for the poor little Death Eater!” Potter spits. “Spare me.”

But he’s looking confused, upset, like some kind of resolve in him is wavering and he’s covering it by being abrasive. Draco knows nothing about that sort of thing, of course.

“I’m not asking you to feel sorry for me, you stupid bastard. I asked you to help me because I didn’t know what else to do!”

“Yeah, well. I helped you. You’re here, aren’t you? You’re alive and under the Order’s protection, even though you don’t fucking deserve it. What more do you want?”

A bottle on the bedside cabinet suddenly shatters, spraying potion and splinters of glass everywhere. The tension is fleetingly diffused as they both turn to stare at it. Draco can’t tell which one of them caused it, because Potter looks just as furious as he feels.

“Don’t you get it?” Potter asks, as Draco brushes a dusting of broken glass from his sheets. “I DON’T CARE.. Not about you, not about any of this.”

He propels himself out of the chair and towards the door.

Draco remembers a time like this, Potter standing not far from him in a corridor, his eyes wild and his skin flushed just like it is now, and screaming at him ...

“You’re nothing to me! Nothing!”

The words are out of his mouth before Draco even realises he’s thinking them. “YOU LIAR!” he yells.

Potter pauses for a second, his shoulders very tense.

Then he stalks out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Another bottle explodes. This time because Draco’s hurled it at the door, right where Potter was standing a moment ago.

Next day, Draco has company as soon as visiting hours begin. Potter comes in, shuffling like a condemned man with his feet in shackles, with Granger behind him. If she’s not got her wand pressed to his back, Draco will be very surprised.

Granger glares Potter into the seat beside Draco’s bed, and Summons one from the other side of the room so that she can sit down next to him. “Since some of us-“ and here she glares meaningfully at both of them, “-appear unable to have a discussion without it leading to an argument, I’m going to have to mediate. You two need to talk, no matter how difficult it may be.”

“This is ridiculous,” Potter mutters mutinously. “We’re boys, Hermione. We don’t do talking.”

“Speak for yourself, Potter,” says Draco, giving Granger a winning smile. “I think it’s a wonderful idea.”

Potter scowls, and folds his arms tighter across his chest. “This is stupid,” he says, and he’s practically pouting.

“Come on, Harry,” says Granger encouragingly. “You must have something to say.”

“You certainly did yesterday,” Draco adds provocatively, and is rewarded by Potter’s lips thinning and going slightly white.

“Oh, this is ridiculous,” Granger says, tugging at her bushy hair in frustration. “If you’re going to be like this, I’m going to buy a book from the shop to keep me occupied. Do you two think you can refrain from any drama for the next couple of minutes? Or am I going to have to take Harry with me?”

“I’ll be good,” Draco says.

Potter grunts.

“Right,” says Granger, getting to her feet. “Talk,” she adds, poking Potter in the arm.

For the first minute, Draco looks at Potter. Potter looks at his shoes.

“I can’t deal with this,” Potter says eventually, his voice very hollow, still staring down at the floor. “I just can’t. Every time I look at you, I get so angry I want to break things.”

Draco doesn’t know what to say to this. What words could he choose that would make any difference?

“So I guess you can see my problem,” continues Potter, his hands twisting in his lap. “I’m angry with you. And I have absolutely no reason to trust you.”

He raises his eyes for the first time, to glance at Draco’s left forearm. Draco instantly moves his right hand to cover it, but the Mark is still there.

“But for some reason, Dumbledore seemed prepared to give you a chance. Some people reckon he was going a bit mental in his old age, but he’s mostly led me right, and I trust his judgement. He said you weren’t a killer, and I believe him.”

“You were there?”

“The whole time. I saw everything. I heard everything.”

“You saw how much of a coward I was, then.”

“You chose not to kill an unarmed man. I don’t call that cowardly. There are loads of names I could call you, Malfoy, but coward isn’t one of them. Not any more.”

“I-I don’t know what to … What are you getting at, Potter?”

“I’m going to give you a chance, Malfoy. One chance. Because I think that’s what Dumbledore would have wanted. So don’t fuck it up.”

There are so many questions Draco wants to ask. What kind of chance? What do you mean? What can I do to not fuck up? But he just says “Thank you,” and means it.

They look at each other warily for a long moment, and they’re still doing this when Granger returns, empty-handed. “I’ve never seen such a bad selection of books,” she complains, sitting down next to Potter again, adding hopefully: “No shouting while I’ve been gone?”

“No shouting,” Potter says. “I’m done shouting.”

They leave soon afterwards, with the promise of returning the next day.

Nothing much has changed. All he’s got is a chance; what does that really mean anyway?

And yet everything feels different.

The following day, Potter arrives accompanied not by Granger, but by a short red-haired woman who, by a process of elimination, Draco realises must be Weasley’s mother.

“Hello, Draco,” she says. “Healer Thompson asked me to come in for a little while and speak to you about what it will be like having a baby. She thought it might be helpful for you and Harry.”

Potter is standing beside her, mouthing something that looks like This has nothing to do with me.

“Right,” Draco says flatly, with the feeling that nothing good can possibly come of this. He’s had a terrible night, too hot and too uncomfortable to sleep, and now a minor Weasley invasion. He’d had such high hopes for today, as well …

“Not long to go now,” she says, and pats his stomach. Draco almost lets out a yelp at the unexpectedness of the gesture, but she doesn’t seem to notice that she startled him. Instead, she sits in Potter’s usual chair and begins relating a long and intricate tale about when she was pregnant with the girl Weasley. The story mainly involves graphic descriptions of how bad her haemorrhoids were.

Draco begins an equally long and intricate daydream in which he collapses and dies on Potter’s doorstep and never has to learn Weasley’s mother’s entire medical history. For fuck’s sake, just because he’s pregnant doesn’t mean he’s a woman.

When she stops talking, he withdraws from his reverie and notices that Potter is standing as far away as he can get without actually leaving the room, apparently too traumatised to make his escape.

“You’re only a few years younger than I was when I had Bill,” says Mrs Weasley, “and I know you’re probably feeling horribly unprepared, but every new parent feels that way. It’s perfectly normal to be scared, because your life is about to change more completely than you could ever imagine. Of course, I’ll be around to give you and Harry as much help and advice as you need.”

You and Harry.

Draco glances over at Potter, who’s still standing over by the door, but he doesn’t seem to notice that she’s paired them up like this.

“I, er, appreciate that,” Draco says, with the horrible suspicion she’s going to be knitting things that will resemble those awful jumpers Potter and the Weasleys get every Christmas. “Thanks.”

“Now,” she says, her tone brisk and businesslike. “I suppose you two will be wanting to know about post-natal sex.”

Potter definitely notices it this time.

“Oh my god,” he says, looking appalled.

“Argh! We’re not –” Draco starts to protest, but she’s already started a story about her and Weasley’s father that Draco is sure no amount of memory charms will ever scrub from his mind.

When she leaves, Potter sinks weakly into the vacant chair, his head in his hands. “Bloody hell,” he groans, his voice slightly muffled. “There’s no chance that was all a bad dream, is there?”

“’Fraid not,” Draco says gloomily. “I don’t think your subconscious would have known that much about Weasley’s mother’s sex-life.”

Potter removes his head from his hands, looking just about ready to weep in despair. “I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life. Seriously.”

“Wait, that was more embarrassing than the time you had to dance at the Yule Ball and you were really awful?”

“Shut up,” says Potter, but he’s starting to grin a bit. “So have you had any problems with haemorrhoids, Malfoy?”

“At the moment there’s only one pain in the arse and that’s you. Go away. I want to have a nap.”

“All right.”

“Hey, Potter?” Draco calls when he’s halfway out the door.

“Yeah?”

“You’ll come back tomorrow, right?”

Next day, Draco can’t seem to get comfortable at all, no matter how many positions he tries to rest in.

“Are you ok?” Potter asks, watching him shift gracelessly against the twenty or so pillows on his bed.

“Yeah. Just uncomfortable.” Draco elbows the pillows in frustration, grimacing as another spasm shoots up his spine.

“Here, let me,” Potter offers, reaching behind him and rearranging the pillows slightly “Try that,” he suggests.

Draco leans back and discovers that it supports the pressure in his lower back wonderfully. “Oh, that feels amazing,” he sighs, closing his eyes for a moment and relaxing back against the pillows.

“Is it really that bad?” Potter asks, and Draco opens his eyes again to see that he’s fiddling nervously with an edge of Draco’s bed sheet.

“Worse,” Draco says. “But it’s better now than it was at the beginning. I don’t feel so tired any more. Just kind of cramped and fed up.”

“Were you scared? In the beginning?”

“No.” Draco shrugs at Potter’s look of surprise. “I was in denial. Scared came later.”

“Are you still scared?”

“I guess. Are you?”

Potter stands up abruptly, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I’m going to get something to eat from the shop,” he says. “You want anything?”

“Chocolate,” Draco replies instantly. “Lots of chocolate.”

“I’m afraid they only had Frogs,” Potter says when he returns. “So I bought them all. Hermione was right, that shop really is crap.”

He dumps a huge armful of the sweets onto the bed beside Draco, who eats three in quick succession before he turns to Potter and says, “You didn’t answer my question.”

Potter breaks a leg off a frog and chews it thoughtfully. “I don’t know if I am or not,” he says. “It only properly occurred to me that it’s really happening yesterday when Mrs Weasley was visiting. Before that it was mostly just me being pissed off with you. What she said about it being life-changing, it just – I’ve been thinking about all night.”

“It’s okay to be scared, you know. You don’t have to pretend to be some big hero around me. I don’t care.”

Potter doesn’t give any sign that he’s heard what Draco’s just said. He sits there quietly, his eyes slightly unfocused. “A baby,” he says. “A baby.”

He stares at Draco’s stomach for a long while, and Draco stares at it too. It’s weird to think that this time tomorrow, he’ll be back to something resembling his normal size.

“You didn’t like it, did you?” Potter asks after a while. “When Mrs Weasley touched you yesterday. I saw you flinch.”

“It just felt weird. I’m not used to it.”

Potter’s mouth twists. Draco’s noticed he does this a lot when he’s thinking. “Could I …? I mean, I know it’s kind of weird and if you don’t want me to …”

“I don’t mind you doing it, Potter.”

“Not just through the blankets,” Potter says, a little shakily. “I ... I want to see what you look like.”

Draco feels his face grow warm. Of all the things he was prepared for, it wasn’t this. “It’s not pretty,” he warns. “I have epic stretch marks.”

Potter doesn’t react to this, so he folds down the bedcovers, hitches up his t-shirt, and looks anywhere but at Potter.

“How did you manage to hide this?” Potter whispers. “That day in the Quidditch stands I was right there and I didn’t suspect a thing.”

“It’s amazing what robes can conceal,” says Draco, looking at Potter’s hand, which is wavering uncertainly by the side of the bed. He reaches out and guides it to his stomach, an oddly forward, intimate gesture.

Potter touches him tentatively, looking every bit as awkward as Draco feels. After a few moments he grows more confident and lets his hand rest there, very tanned against the pale skin of Draco’s swollen belly.

“I don’t feel anything,” he says, moving his hand a little in a motion Draco has used himself when comforting the baby.

“Probably asleep.” Draco is impressed that he manages to keep his voice almost steady. “Resting up before the trauma of being hacked out of me tomorrow.”

It’s been so long since he’s been touched like this, so long since he’s been touched by anyone except to examine and test him. It feels strange, but not in a bad way.

“Are you worried?” Potter asks. “About the operation?”

“More worried about what happens after,” Draco says. “You were right, the other day. What the hell do I know about babies?”

“It’ll be okay. We’ll figure it out.”

“Thought you didn’t want to be involved.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” says Potter, his hand still resting lightly on Draco’s stomach.

When Draco wakes, he’s in rather a lot of pain, but it’s the dull, throbbing kind that has already had the edge taken off it by some kind of potion. He opens his eyes to find that everything seems to be spinning slightly, but he can see well enough to recognise the dirty smudge on one of the ceiling tiles. He’s back in his room again.

To his left are same bottles and potions he’s counted and recounted during bored moments for the best part of a week. To his right, Potter is sitting in the chair by the bed, much like he has done every day. He’s not looking at Draco, but at a bundle of blankets on his lap. He looks completely terrified.

“Potter?”

Potter glances up, smiling with what looks like overwhelming relief that Draco is awake. “It’s a girl,” he says.

A girl. Somehow Draco isn’t surprised. He doubts a boy could have been so tenacious.

“Let me see her,” he says, wincing when he tries to move into a sitting position. He lifts the covers to look down at himself. There’s a lot of bandaging, and beneath that a layer of fat that means no more chocolate frogs for a while.

“You have to support her head,” says Potter, lifting the bundle of blankets so he can move. It looks like it takes no effort at all. “I didn’t even know that until Mrs Weasley went mental at me. I’ve never held a baby before.”

“Is she here? Weasley’s mum?”

“Yeah, she’s outside with Ron and Hermione. She left when you started to wake up. Said she thought you might want a bit of privacy for this.”

Potter places the bundle of blankets in Draco’s arms, and it hardly weighs anything at all. Draco pushes back the coverings a little so he can take a look at the tiny thing he’s holding. She really does seem absurdly small – how can anything this little be alive?

If truth be told, he doesn’t know what to think. In all of the nine months he carried her, he honestly doesn’t remember imagining this moment. He hadn’t dared to. Is he supposed to be happy? Emotional? Overwhelmed? Should he cry?

He just feels tired. Very, very tired.

“What do you think?” he asks Potter, who looks even more like he’s been Confunded than usual.

“I think she’s beautiful.”

Draco glances down at a pink, screwed-up face. “Really?”

“Look at her. Really look.”

Draco looks.

Lots of fluffy black hair. Chubby cheeks. Pale blue eyes that are sort of looking at him. A tiny little rosebud mouth. One small arm tucked outside the blanket, and that just won’t do because what if she’s cold? Half scared that he’ll break her, Draco pokes gently at the exposed hand with a finger, and lets out a gasp when she grasps it with a surprisingly firm grip, holding on tight.

With a rush of something deep and fierce and strong, this is the moment he falls in love.

He glances up at Potter. He’s still standing by the bed, watching them. “She’s not beautiful,” Draco says quietly. “She’s perfect.”

Even though things are as uncertain now as they have ever been, he realises that for the first time in months he almost feels calm. The future’s happening no matter what, and he can’t control it. All he can do is go on living as best he can.

This is the beginning of something good. He just knows it.

~fin~