Liar

“Ron, how on earth did you get that bruise?” Hermione’s shocked voice draws me out of my reverie.

“Oh.” I cannot meet her eye. “You know, clumsy me.”

Her eyes narrow and she crosses her arms, unconvinced.

“No, really, I just bumped into something,” I lie. Something like Draco’s fist, I think, with only a hint of bitterness. He needed that, and it doesn’t really hurt anyway. Besides, there are worse bruises on my chest, where Hermione can’t see.

We go down to breakfast together. I sit down at the Gryffindor table and glance quickly over at the Slytherins. Draco is noticeable; he’s the only platinum blond in the whole house. His eyes are already on me as I locate him, and he looks away fast.

Last night was painful, and not just for Draco. He had never looked so small and frail to me, not even when he was struck in the chest by that Bludger and knocked cold. I resisted the urge to run up to him on the pitch; I knew he would hate me for it later. And likewise, I resisted the urge to comfort him until I knew he had spent his fury. I held him until his trembling stopped and led him to the Room of Requirement.

Every night I come to him, and every night he cries. Every salt droplet is like a dagger in my heart.

We have a study period just before lunch, and I go down to the library. I knew he would be there. Don’t ask me how I knew; I just did. He is standing in the Potions section, looking rather lost.

I try to act dumb, because people expect it from me. I’m silly Ron, who cares about nothing but food and Quidditch. And I’m big now, bigger than anyone in my house. So it’s easy to fool people.

Draco is not fooled.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, not looking at me.

“Looking for you.”

He had expected me to make something up. My honesty has shocked him. He looks at me and then back at the shelves. Draco doesn’t believe that I’m dumb, but he does think I’m foolish. Foolish for leaving the safety and warmth and caring of Gryffindor Tower every night and meeting him in that dark corridor, taking him to the Room of Requirement, and letting him fuck me. Foolish for loving him. But I see what hides behind Draco’s mask, behind that Malfoy sneer and those eyes like chips of slate. What he covers with proud shoulders and defiant chin and boasting. I see that Draco is wounded.

“Why do you do this to me?” he murmurs. The tears have started already. I glance about and step closer, putting my hand on the small of his back. My hands are big and clumsy compared to his.

“What am I doing?” I ask, my thumb stroking a tiny circle on his waist. He looks at me finally, and I reach up to brush the tears from his cheeks.

“Loving me. Can’t you just leave me alone?”

“No, I can’t,” I answer, pulling him into my arms. He rests his head on my shoulder.

Draco’s voice is impossibly quiet. “God it’s cold in here,” he whispers. It is not the least bit cold, but I nod anyway. “I need to talk to you. Tonight.”

“Alright,” I say, kissing his temple and releasing him. I back out of the aisle and walk away.

That night in the darkened corridor I wait for him, bouncing anxiously on the balls of my feet. We’ve tried meeting in the Room of Requirement, but it’s only ever there when both of us are present. I take this as a sign; Draco takes it as an annoyance. He says nothing as we walk along, says nothing as the door opens, says nothing as he sits down on the soft couch that has appeared there. I close the door behind us and sit down beside him.

“What’s troubling you, Draco?” I ask. He shifts until he is lying across my lap, and I stroke his hip languidly.

“This cannot leave this room,” he says. “Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“I am being pressed into service,” Draco murmurs. “And I do not know what to do.”

“Service?” For a moment I don’t think about what he might mean. I can’t bring myself to think about it. It’s too awful.

“Father says I must decide my loyalties now, Ron.” His eyes are very blue in the firelight. “I don’t want to be a Death Eater. I don’t want to be…your enemy.”

That is the closest to an admission of love I’m going to get from him, I think. “We are enemies, Draco. We always have been. What’s different about it now?”

Draco sighs. “You were never a very good liar.” He brushes his bangs back out of his eyes. “I don’t hate you, Ron, no matter what I’ve said. I just…I hate how you make me feel. I hate being dependent on you. ”

“You are not dependent on me,” I whisper. “You’re your own man.”

He laughs. “That’s very kind of you to say, but sadly untrue. No, I’ve never been my own man. First it was my father, now you…I’m beginning to wonder who I really am. I define myself based on those around me.”

“You are a dutiful son,” I say carefully. “But I hope you will not follow your father’s example.”

“He’d never forgive me for being with you,” Draco whispers. There is fear in his eyes. No boy should ever be afraid of his father. Draco trembles slightly and I hold him close to me. His heart flutters in his chest like a frightened bird. “I’ve disgraced the family.”

“I believe my father once put it very eloquently,” I murmur. “‘We have a very different idea of what disgraces the name of wizard, Malfoy.’”

Draco laughs, for the first time in a long while. A genuine laugh, not the false mockery he plays at in front of his housemates. “I remember that,” he says. “It made my father very angry.”

“Let’s see,” I muse. “What do you think would upset him the most? That I’m a Gryffindor? That I’m a Weasley? That I’m not a woman?”

“You’re loyal to Dumbledore, you’re friends with Harry Potter, you’re poor as dirt…” Draco shrugs. “You really are the worst person I could have possibly chosen, out of the whole school.”

“What about Harry?”

He snorts. “Father at least respects him. You’re like a beetle on his sleeve: he would crush you except that it would be extra effort, and might leave a mark.”

I try not to feel insulted. “Draco, listen. If you don’t agree with him, you shouldn’t let him affect you. Stop pretending not to care what anyone thinks and actually stop caring. No one can tell you who to be.”

Draco looks up at me quite seriously. “I don’t know if I can do that, Ron.”

“Then just care about what I think,” I whisper, bending to kiss his temple.

“And what do you think?” he asks.

A deep breath gives me time to gather my thoughts. “I think you’re hiding a lot of scars, Draco. I think you’re hiding a good person under all that cruelty and nastiness. You’re intelligent, you’re handsome, you’re popular. But you’re not happy. And that makes me ache inside. I want to make you happy.”

Draco shudders. “You do make me happy, Ron.”

“Then why do you cry?” I stroke his cheek with my fingertip. He looks away, pulls away, to sit uncomfortably out of my reach.

“Because I’m afraid,” he breathes. “And I know that when I leave that room each night, and go back to my own dormitory, I’ll be alone.”

I slide to the floor and kneel in front of him, looking up into his face. His hair hangs slightly into his eyes, and he does not move as I brush it back behind his ear. “Hey,” I say softly. “Hey. It’s okay.”

“I wish I could believe you,” he whispers.

“You know I’m a terrible liar,” I say, smiling. His lips curve slightly. “Let me love you, Draco, and nothing else matters. I know that’s terribly naïve of me to say, but I have to believe it.”

Draco’s lips are soft and warm against mine.