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The Heart of the Matter	By : Jad Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 7323 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 16
- 17
- 18
Chapter Seventeen

'That's what learning is. You suddenly understand something

you've understood all your life, but in a new way.'

- Doris Lessing

: : :

The moment the sun had peeked over the horizon and doused the room in it's rays, Draco had rolled out of bed. Theodore lifted his head at the noise, his hair mussed and eyes squinting against the light.

'Malfoy?'

'Shower,' Draco muttered quickly, averting his eyes from the equally mussed head of hair resting on the pillow by Theodore's shoulder. He grabbed his clothes to take with, throwing on a robe and disembarking the room quickly, before Theodore could ask him anything else. He was sure he heard a snicker as he closed the door, and scowled.

Going straight from his shower to the kitchen, Draco found himself alone in the basement, it being far too early in the morning for anyone else to be stirring. Grateful, Draco fixed himself tea and toast and had just sat down at the table with Lupin entered, looking just as tired as Draco felt.

'Good morning,' he said, and Draco grumbled a greeting in reply through his breakfast. Lupin didn't seem to mind. He poured himself a cup from the kettle Draco had heated. 'How is he?'

Draco shrugged. 'Why don't you ask Potter?' he muttered.

Lupin looked up and raised an eyebrow. 'Everything all right, Draco?'

Draco looked up at him, and suddenly wished he hadn't said anything. Lupin was watching him curiously, the corner of his mouth just slightly slanted upwards, and it was then Draco realised he alreadyknew.

'Dandy,' Draco replied, rolling his eyes.

Lupin chuckled and stirred his tea thoughtfully. Draco scowled at him. 'Does it bother you?'

'No,' Draco replied automatically. 'Well. Yes. Of course it fucking does. He's my friend!' Draco snapped indignantly. Well, it was sort of true. 'He's in my House! That's bad enough as it is—and he's a werewolf! It's not right!'

Lupin raised the other eyebrow. 'Because he's your friend, or because he's a werewolf?'

'Both!' Draco snapped, only then realising he was talking to the only other werewolf he knew. 'Er. I didn't mean—'

'It's fine,' Lupin said, waving his hand dismissively. 'I'm more than used to it.'

'Sorry,' Draco mumbled anyway, remembering the bright look on Tonks' face as she'd declared her feelings for his old Professor. 'And Potter—he's—well—a Gryffindor!'

Getting all of this frustration out—finally—may have actually helped Draco's nerves, had Lupin not started laughing at this point. Draco glared at him.

'Sorry,' Lupin began, covering his mouth with the back of his hand until he'd managed to contain his amusement behind a smile. 'Let me get this straight—it bothers you because Theodore is not only your friend, but a fellow Slytherin—not to mention a werewolf—and because Harry is Harry, but even more so because he's also a Gryffindor?'

'Yes!' Draco snapped in outrage. How could anyone not see a problem there? It was as clear as day! 'What is so bloody funny?'

'Sorry,' Lupin echoed, struggling to quiet himself and smirking. 'Calm down. It's just—honestly, Draco,' Draco stared at him. 'I mean, just who—and what—they are?'

'What do you mean, "just"?' Draco demanded, still staring. 'What else is there?'

'The fact that they're both boys?' Lupin suggested, pensively sipping his tea.

Draco blinked. 'Oh. Er.' Having been preoccupied with the other aforementioned facts, he'd sort of glazed right over that detail. 'I don't,' he started, faltering. His teenage imagination was running away with the information, and he shook his head to clear it. 'I don't know much about it. It doesn't matter. Does it?'

'It does to some people,' Lupin said, putting down his cup. He stood and returned it to the basin as he continued talking, his back to Draco. 'Just like it matters to some people that I'm a werewolf, or that Hermione is a Muggleborn. If you take my meaning.'

Draco didn't say so, but the clarity in that statement was extremely unnerving. 'It's not right,' Draco repeated, glaring at the table top. 'It's just—not right.'

Lupin poured himself another cup of tea. 'According to whom?'

: : :

It was midday before Draco worked up enough courage to go back into that room. Well, perhaps it had less to do with courage and more willingness to face the lesser of two evils, for just as the grandfather clock in the hall struck noon, Draco heard the door to the master bedroom upstairs slam open. Deciding that being crammed in a room with Theodore and Potter was much safer than being confronted with his Housemaster, Draco dashed up the two flights and into the room before Snape had the chance to descend on him.

Theodore and Potter both looked up as he slammed the door closed behind him, leaning against it and panting. 'All right there, Malfoy?' Potter asked, eyebrows raised. Draco was about to tell him where he could shove his concern when he opened his eyes and the scene before him stopped him short.

The two of them sat on the floor, Potter cross-legged and Theodore sprawled carelessly beside him, chin perched on his shoulder. Strewn around them was what looked like several disembowelled books, a couple of open ink bottles and a wing's worth of quills. Potter had black ink smudged against the side of his nose and on his chin, and Theodore had piece of torn parchment stuck in his hair.

'What the hell are you doing?' Draco demanded.

Potter scowled at him but didn't answer. Crossing out something with his quill, he rubbed at his nose again, spreading the black stain there further across his cheekbone.

'Studying, what's it look like,' Theodore said casually, glancing up at him once more before looking back over Potter's shoulder. 'No, that's right, that one's wrong,' he said, pointing.

Scowling further, Potter scratched out the line beneath and scribbled something else down. 'I still don't understand how we got to this from that.'

'That's because you didn't take Arithmancy, twit,' Theodore told him affectionately. 'Which is like trying to take Transfiguration without Charms: idiotic. You can learn to do them independently, but youneed one to understand the other. No, you've got it wrong again—you need enough fluxweed to balance the monkshood solution, or you're just going to end up poisoning whoever drinks it, werewolf or not. Three grams to the millilitre, Potter.'

Draco pushed himself off the door and went to stand over them, squatting down to get a better look at the parchment all over the floor. He looked up at them in disbelief. 'You're trying to learn to make the Wolfsbane Potion? Are you mad?'

'Not trying to make it,' Potter corrected him, glancing up only briefly. 'You're in the light, bugger off.'

'Trying to improve it,' Theodore explained at Draco's look of confusion. 'He's actually not half bad at Potions, if you ignore the fact that he can't do arithmetic to save his life.'

Potter elbowed him but didn't look up again; he was making a long list in minute short-hand that was impossible to read upside-down. 'How much silver do you think you could take?'

Theodore made a face, likely remembering the effects of last night. 'Dunno. Should probably ask the other wolf.'

Potter nodded and made a note. Draco was still trying to get over what he was seeing: not only were the two of them sitting entwined on the floor, but they were doing homework together. Not even homework! Independent study, apparently! It was so utterly ridiculous that he almost burst out laughing.

'You all right?' Theodore asked.

That snapped Draco out of it. 'What?'

'You looked like you were going to have some sort of fit.'

'What would happen if we used ginger roots instead?' Potter asked. 'We can't use scarab beetles with the belladonna, but the armadillo bile might work...'

'You want to add Wit-Sharpening Potion to it?' Draco asked, catching the ingredients and putting them together. 'You're crazy; the reaction of silver solution and ginger would kill anything that ate it; you'd probably cause a werewolf to bloody combust.'

'What do you suggest, then?' Potter snapped, glaring at him.

'How the hell should I know? I don't even know what you're trying to do!'

'We're trying to improve it, I told you,' Theodore said simply. 'Wolfsbane Potion prevents the dementia and aggravated aggression in werewolves, but it still leaves them as dangerous as any normalwolf.'

'And you're trying to make them what, harmless?' Draco asked in disbelief.

'Aware, actually,' Potter corrected him, eyes still on the parchment he was scribbling corrections on. He spared Draco a glance. 'Think how useful a werewolf on our side would be if once a month he turned into a wolf and could not only remember who he was, but be in control of himself?'

Draco blinked. 'You mean an involuntary Animagus?'

'Something like that,' Theodore said wryly. 'You're Vector's prodigy, Malfoy—why don't you have a look at it?'

'Vector's?' Potter asked, looking up.

'Miss Magdalena Vector,' Theodore said in such a sultry voice that Draco blushed. 'The Arithmancy Professor, twit. I don't know a bloke who hasn't had a wank over her,' he added, giving Draco a look, 'present company hardly excluded.'

'Well I haven't,' Potter pointed out, apparently uninterested. Then he paused, glancing sideways at Theodore. 'Have you?'

Theodore met his gaze and smirked. 'Maybe.'

Draco waited, but neither of them seemed keen on looking away, and Draco decided to intervene before he witnessed something he'd rather not. He cleared his throat—loudly.

'Anyway,' Potter said, looking away, 'we don't need his help.'

Theodore frowned, but shrugged. 'All right.'

'I never offered,' Draco pointed out sourly.

They ignored him, and set back to work.

: : :

That night, he didn't comment or even turn away as Theodore pulled Potter into bed with him. He actually watched, sideways and wide-eyed, as the two of them settled down in the darkness. Theodore was whispering things Draco couldn't make coherent sense of, so instead he watched Potter's reaction to them. It started with closed eyes and a grin, his back to Theodore's chest, but the more Theodore talked the bigger the grin became, and eventually he opened his eyes halfway and whispered something back. Theodore pulled his shoulder back, rolling Potter onto his back and Theodore holding himself up above him, balanced on one elbow and tracing the fingertips of his other hand over Potter's profile. Theodore stopped his fingers over the soft spot under Potter's jaw and stroked the pulse-point there with his thumb, and waited. It didn't take long—Potter's eyelids fluttered momentarily and a gasp escaped his lips before he reached up and pulled Theodore's head down into a kiss.

It was hypnotising, really, Draco thought a bit idiotically—the slant of their mouths as they came together, noses colliding, lips moulding against one another, the occasional glimpse of a wet tongue flashing between their mouths. Draco had seen plenty of people French-kissing before, but he'd never really paid much attention to it. Even when he was snogging Pansy, he'd never really thought about what he was doing—just sort of opened his mouth and went with whatever felt best.

Theodore suddenly got impatient with the slow, deliberate movements; he growled into Potter's mouth and moved over him, holding him down by the shoulders despite the fact that Potter wasn't fighting him. Potter hissed beneath him and shifted to accumulate the added weight on his chest, gasping as Theodore released his mouth and trailed down his neck with his open mouth. Potter twisted his fists in the sheets and Theodore's hand lifted his t-shirt up, over his chest, holding the hem in a clump at his collarbone. The open mouth moved down to the bare chest, and Potter arched his back and moaned. The sound shot right through Draco, tingling in all the right places and causing him to cringe.

'Shhhh,' Theodore admonished in a whisper, moving his mouth back up to Potter's lips, which were gasping for air. 'Don't want to wake anybody up, do we?'

Potter let out a breathless laugh and kissed him again. Theodore kissed him back, pushing his head down into the pillow—but his eyes, wide open, tilted up and locked eyes with Draco—Draco, who had forgotten that he was staring at them openly, and that werewolves had flawless night vision, and even so could certainly hear the difference between the pulse of one encased in a deep sleep and one wide-awake and severely aroused.

Draco rolled over quickly, wincing as the bed creaked beneath him. He was willing to bet Potter was too preoccupied to notice—but he could still feel Theodore's eyes on him long after he'd turned away.

: : :

Another sleepless night filled with dreams Draco would rather not acknowledge had left him in a considerably foul mood. He snapped at his fellow Sixth- and Seventh Years and snarled at the younger students that had taken up temporary residence at Headquarters throughout the morning, until rumour seemed to have circulated the house that Malfoy was in a Mood and everyone started avoiding him altogether.

Well, almost everyone.

'You look a right state,' Zacharias informed him, entering the lounge. 'Need to be careful, with hair like yours; you'll end up grey before you're thirty.'

Draco scowled at him. 'Who asked you?'

Zacharias shrugged. 'Just saying, mate. You really should get out all that aggravation before you end up splitting hairs.'

'Are you volunteering?'

Zacharias smirked. 'I'll hold Potter down for you, if you like.'

Theodore would rip you to shreds, Draco thought dismally. Then he started to imagine just how he would work out his aggravation on Potter if he had the chance to do so, and choked.

'You all right?' Zacharias asked. He sounded concerned, but looked more interested in the way the drapes were fluttering in the afternoon breeze than why Draco was suddenly suffering from an epileptic fit. 'Please don't choke; I don't know the proper spell to fix that, so you'd probably die.'

'Do you want something?' Draco demanded after successfully surviving his coughing fit.

'Me? With you? Heavens, no,' Zacharias said, waving a hand dismissively. 'But, we got our letters, and nobody else wanted to come within arm's reach of you, so I decided to do you the favour of delivering it.'

He smiled at Draco, as if this is something Draco should have been pleased to hear—that he, Zacharias Smith of the Hufflepuff House, had personally delivered his Hogwarts letter when no one else would.

Draco stared at him. 'Er. Right. Well, where is it?'

Zacharias' smile disappeared; he looked rather crestfallen that Draco did not shower him with 'thank you's and promises of devotion and loyalty. 'Here,' he said airily, tossing it across the room with a sideways flick of his wrist.

Draco caught it and tore it open, using his wand as a letter-opener. It was thicker than his previous letters, but he expected that this being his seventh and final year, they had a lot more specific subjects to cover.

He had not expected a large, embossed badge to come tumbling out and land heavily on his foot.

'Er,' said Draco, staring.

'Hm?' said Zacharias, then followed his gaze to the shiny, silver pin lying on the floor. Then he smirked. 'Oh,' he said, sounding delighted, 'MacMillan is going to be pissed.'

: : :
- 16
- 17
- 18
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The Heart of the Matter