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Wolf in the Making	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 8561 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this story.

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Chapter Three—Beautiful

            “You’re making stupid decisions, you know.”

            Harry didn’t look up from the letter he was writing. Yes, he knew he would never be allowed to owl it, but when he wrote to Ron and Hermione, describing his situation and how much he hated Malfoy, he didn’t feel as helpless. “I’m glad that you said that,” he murmured. “Because I value your opinion so much.”

            Thalia sighed and leaned against the wall of his room, watching him write. Harry watched her back out of the corner of one eye. He didn’t think she would attack him except on Malfoy’s orders, but in her Animagus form, she had jaws that could crack his skull. That made her always worth keeping an eye on.

            “Lisa told me that you were still moping around,” Thalia said, scratching her left arm above the Mark. She did that all the time. Harry didn’t know if it was a nervous gesture, a habit, or a signal to him that he should think more about what it meant to be Marked by someone like Malfoy. “I didn’t believe it. I told her that you were stronger than that, that you had to be to be an Auror, and that you’d adapt.”

            She dropped her hand from her arm and scowled at Harry. “I’m always annoyed when someone proves her right. She doesn’t deserve to be right all the time.”

            Harry gritted his teeth. For some reason, though Lisa said many of the same things that Thalia did, he found her less irritating. “I see no reason to give in and accept my slavery like a coward, as you’ve done.”

            Thalia laughed at him. “Is that supposed to be an insult? You aren’t that good at them.”

            Harry laid his quill down and turned around to face her. Lisa was content to gloomily urge him to accept the Mark and then drift off if she didn’t get the answer she wanted. Thalia would remain here, stinging him, until Harry retorted hard enough to make her go away. “I don’t care what you want. I don’t care what you like. I care about remaining free, and that’s not what you’ve done.”

            Thalia smiled lazily at him, lounging back against the wall. Harry wondered if all her movements were really that cat-like, or if he only noticed because she had fought him as a jaguar. “Why would you assume that being Marked is such a bad life?”

            Harry glanced at her leg, which Malfoy had twisted the other day when she hadn’t fulfilled one of his orders exactly on time, and didn’t answer.

            Thalia snorted. “I’d be suffering pain of one sort or another, no matter what my job or condition in life. Yes, Lord Malfoy does punish me too much at times, but rarely as hard as he did when I was newly Marked and stupid. Besides,” she added casually, “I think that his punishments for the rest of us have increased since you joined us. He almost never takes his anger out on you, have you noticed? The rest of us bear his displaced rage.”

            Harry’s stomach clenched. He hadn’t thought about that. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

            “Dear Merlin,” Thalia told the ceiling, “he picks up guilt from the air.” She looked back at Harry and cocked an eyebrow. “Any normal person would think about what it means that Lord Malfoy hasn’t hurt you as badly as he could have.”

            “I resisted the pain the first day he Marked me,” Harry said. “Of course. He saw that it would drive me mad if he tried again, and he does want to keep and corrupt me. So he decided that he would find other ways to punish me.”

            Thalia gave him a slow smile. “That’s a good explanation,” she said, “logical and wrong.”

            “What other reason could it be?” Harry demanded. “If he only wanted to break me and didn’t care about the condition of my mind, there’s no reason for him to hold off. But he wants to see me turning my back on the Ministry and the ideals that I live by of my own accord, and he can’t do that if I only agree to what he wants under duress.”

            Thalia sighed. “Guilt from the air, but logic can’t enter,” she said. “He’s courting you, as best he can without simply forcing you to your knees with the Mark and taking you.”

            Harry stared at her. He had known, of course, that Malfoy wanted to sleep with him, but he would never have thought to describe this irrational, long-drawn process of innuendo and smirks and light touches as “courting.”

            “But I don’t want to sleep with him,” was the first thing he could think of to say.

            Thalia held up her arm. “And I didn’t want to be Marked, and neither did Lisa, and neither did Mina. It’s always hard to tell what Victor wants, and I think Oliver was fine with it, honestly. That didn’t stop Lord Malfoy. Why would you assume that he would care about whether you want him? He wants you, and that’s enough.”

            “So why doesn’t he rape me, then?” Harry rose to his feet and paced back and forth. He had managed to ignore the seduction Malfoy was trying to pull on him so far because he considered it so patently ridiculous that he would ever give in, and he had believed Malfoy thought the same way. But if Malfoy was serious, if he thought he could conquer Harry’s resistance and bring him to his bed…

            “He wants you willing,” said Thalia. “I don’t see it, because you’re so stubborn it destroys all your attractions for me, but I’ll concede that Lord Malfoy might be able to look past that and enjoy your slender body and your pretty green eyes.”

            Harry snarled at her. Thalia wrinkled her lips and gave him a far more impressive snarl. Harry started back, and Thalia chuckled, walking around him towards the door of his room.

            “Consider giving in sometime soon, will you?” she added over her shoulder. “It would make the rest of us sleep more easily, without being rousted out of our beds every five minutes to deal with our Lord’s sexual frustration.”

            She was gone before Harry could frame a reply. He shut his eyes and sat down on his chair, putting his hands over his face.

            Well, this is a dilemma.

            If his resistance was hurting other people, than he almost felt it was his duty to give in. The whole reason he hadn’t Portkeyed away from Fox Valley the minute he realized what was happening here was that he had felt he had to stay to protect Malfoy’s victims, and he didn’t know when assistance from the Ministry would reach him.

            But his will turned to steel the moment he considered sleeping with Malfoy purely for that reason. No. He would break free before that happened. He would die before that happened. Malfoy would think he’d won and start relaxing if Harry slept with him, yes, but it would be a crime along the lines of giving in and believing what Malfoy wanted him to believe, or willingly stealing magic from others. It would be Harry betraying what he was for the sake of a little more comfort.

            On the other hand, it did give him a different idea about how he could lead Malfoy along, if Malfoy was serious and not using his “seduction” as another way to assert his superiority over Harry. Harry could not only pretend to surrender and do what he wanted, but pretend to be struggling with an imaginary attraction.

            The notion made his skin crawl. Harry didn’t casually sleep with people. He had his fancies like anyone, sure, but he didn’t simply ditch everything important to him and pursue them mindlessly.

            But needs must when he had to survive. And Malfoy was vain enough to accept Harry’s “temptation” with a lesser standard of acting, so he would explain lapses in Harry’s behavior once the “surrender” had begun to himself and smooth away the contradictions on his own.

            Harry stood up, his mouth grim.

            Time to begin this.

*

            Potter had been caught in the whirlpool of attractiveness that Draco knew flowed around him even without his own efforts to add to it.

            He showed up at odd times in the office, and then mumbled that he didn't know why he was there and turned away in confusion to study the walls. He spent more time than necessary discussing tiny details of the plan they were putting together to attack Robards, and argued things Draco knew, from his darting eyes and grinding teeth, that he didn't believe. He watched Draco all the time, and, being Potter, wasn't good at concealing it, glancing away with a flush in his cheeks every time he was caught.

            Draco was beyond pleased.

            But calling attention to such behavior would only make Potter try to suppress it. And though he would fail, leading to more amusement from Draco, that meant Draco would have to wait longer before Potter crawled into his bed and made his fantasies come true.

            So he said nothing, and only gave Potter heavy-lidded glances and prolonged the talks between them when Potter wanted to do so. He made sure that he leaned on the desk or the wall or his chair at the best angle for profile viewing, and drank water or ate fruit in Potter's presence more often than he needed to.

            Potter licked his lips in sympathy when Draco tried to stop the juice of pears or strawberries from escaping down his cheek. He would always refuse to share, but he couldn't stop sharing the look in his eyes.

            He's almost mine, even if he doesn't realize it, Draco thought, and decided that it was time to start the lingering touches.

            His hand fell on Potter's one afternoon when Potter was leaning forwards over his desk and snarling at him about the state of Robards's defensive wards. Draco let his fingers stroke Potter's knuckles exactly once before he pulled his hand back and shook his head.

            "Excuse me," he murmured. "I didn't mean to do that."

            "Of course you did," Potter snapped, snatching his hand away and cradling it against his chest as if it were injured. He turned his head aside, but Draco had seen the blush beginning in his cheeks and the dilation in his pupils.

            Like it or not, he was affected.

            Draco brushed past him when they rowed, and ensured their shoulders touched. He leaned into Potter's face and used his breath to touch Potter's cheeks and ears and ruffle his hair. He held out his hand one day when Potter had got worked up about Draco's assertion that it would be easy to sneak into the Ministry and waited, fingers splayed, until Potter stalked past and Draco could cup a handful of his neck.

            So easy to twist Potter's head to the side and clamp his lips down, then extend his tongue, taking what he was owed, what was his, what he wanted…

            But easy, too, to ruin the light seduction he had built up so far.

            Easy to drive Potter back into exaggerated startle reflexes, and hasty denials of what he was feeling, and equally hasty actions.

            No, Draco would wait.

*

            Harry lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling and regretting, for the first time, that he had refused Malfoy's offer of more and softer pillows. Lying on them might have helped to ease his headache.

            He hated himself.

            He hated that he could go near Malfoy and train himself not to flinch away, that he could accept the slimy slide of the git's hand up and down his back, or over his shoulder, or over his arm.

            He hated that he saw, but could pretend to ignore, the possessive shine in Malfoy's eyes when he stared at Harry.

            He hated that he hadn't found some other way to fight Malfoy. A real hero would never have been Marked. A real hero would have forced Malfoy to his knees by now, forced him to beg forgiveness, remove the Mark, and swear never to harm someone else by draining their magic again.

            But Harry wasn't like that. And he ought to remember it, given how many mistakes he had made in the last few months alone.

            So maybe the way he had to handle things wasn't the way a real hero would handle them. He had to sneak about instead, and give false smiles, and act as if he were being pulled to Malfoy despite himself.

            There was something he hated more than the touches, though—something that he didn't think Malfoy was doing on purpose, or at least not as much in a calculated way as the touches. Malfoy's hands and eyes followed predictable patterns. They were patterns he must have had success with in the past, and there was no reason for him to stop using them as long as they worked.

            But Malfoy gave him compliments, causal and unforced and without apparent purpose, and Harry felt little thrills each time, as though they were healing the wounds in him that the casual disregard by Robards and others in the Ministry had caused.

            Harry clenched his teeth.

            It was a stupid way to feel.

            And it wasn't as though the compliments were substantial—not the kind of thing that Ron would have said to him when he wanted to let Harry know that his Quidditch performance was impressive or Hermione would have said about his marks. Like yesterday, when Malfoy was bending over a diagram of the Ministry and tapping his fingers along the edge of the parchment, and Harry had leaned against the wall, doing his best to show an infatuated stare whenever Malfoy glanced in his direction.

            But Malfoy hadn't been glancing in his direction when he murmured, "The information you gave me has added a lot more than I would have thought possible, given how well I know the building from Robards's reports. You're a very keen observer, Potter, and not all of that can be your training."

            And then he'd gone on, and hadn't turned around to see the way that Harry's jaw dropped. That was a good thing, Harry thought fervently. He would have pressed his attentions even more closely if he had, delighted with the way he could surprise Harry.

            Harry ground his teeth together now and shook his head. It was off-hand. That should make it less valuable, not more.

            His memory, which wasn't doing what he wanted tonight, skipped to another compliment. Malfoy had asked Harry to demonstrate some of the offensive wards they would encounter. Harry had been more than willing to do so, hoping that it would show Malfoy what they were up against and so prolong the planning sessions, which would prolong the amount of time Harry had to gain his trust.

            Harry had only seen those offensive wards in action once, but he knew what they were, what they must be. Auror training had increased his knowledge of both defensive and offensive magic, and he'd studied on his own since then, as well as picking up tricks from Dark wizards. It took him three seconds to create the shimmering spiral of silver fire in midair that would make the door splinter in a dozen different directions.



            He turned to Malfoy, and saw his eyes wide, his face flushed, his gaze locked not on Harry but on the magic.

            "Wonderful," Malfoy breathed. He looked as though someone had come down and handed him his own personal star. “I’ve never seen anyone do that. It’s—you’re magnificent.” And he shut up and stared at the magic again.

            He didn’t sound seductive. He sounded full of wonder, the way he looked, as if his inner and outer states had aligned perfectly for a moment.

            And Harry had felt a warm bolt pass through his stomach. It had been how long since someone had praised his magic, instead of worrying about his strength or scolding him for using a spell too powerful for the situation?

            Some of your spells were too powerful for the situation, Harry reminded himself sharply. Like the one that pulled down a ceiling on top of two innocent people. If you’d had less power, it might have made part of it fall in, and then you would still have had time to save them.

            Guilt, reassuring and familiar, came to him in waves. Harry wrapped it around him, making it into armor to resist Malfoy’s seductions, both the purposeful and the innocent.

            If you want more compliments, act more often in a way that means you deserve them.

*

            Draco nodded wisely as he watched the way Potter stalked around his office. He knew the cause of this restlessness, though Potter would doubtless dispute the idea that Draco could read him so well. Other than casting the offensive ward the other day to show him what it looked like, Potter had simply not had enough magical exercise.

            And power like that needed an outlet. Draco could see it now from the side of his eye if he squinted: a thorny aura around Potter that only flared when he grew angry or energetic or excited. Then Draco could see it like a black crown, floating most strongly behind his head and shoulders.

            “Come,” he said abruptly, interrupting the circle that Potter was spinning in, and strode towards the door.

            Potter didn’t move to follow him. Draco could have predicted that without turning around. He crooked a finger, and knew that Potter would huff at him before he heard the soft intake of breath that signaled it.

            It was ridiculous to know someone so well without also knowing the taste of their skin and the motion of their tongue.

            But Draco was willing to wait, because he wanted to know more than simply Potter’s taste. He merely repeated, “Come. I think you will like this,” and clattered down the steps that led up to his office, running until he reached the floor of Fox Valley.

            Potter did come after him, turning around and stretching like an angry wolf. He was keeping himself between Draco and the houses that lined this part of the valley, Draco was amused to note. Those houses held his paying guests, the ones he gave a restful experience even as he drained them of their magic.

            “You only remain here because you think I’ll harm them, don’t you?” Draco asked softly, tilting his head towards the houses. He walked in the opposite direction, and Potter hesitated for a moment only before hurrying at his heels.

            “You already have,” Potter said grimly. “I’m trying to make sure that you don’t hurt them worse. I wouldn’t put it past you to torture them for your amusement, and then hit me with crippling pain when I tried to rescue them.”

            Draco shook his head. At least that confirmed Potter wasn’t stupid enough to think that his presence meant Draco had stopped draining magic, but his last words proved he understood almost nothing else. “Would you rescue them?”

            “Of course.”

            No pause, no hesitation. And Potter hadn’t broken his stride when he spoke of crippling pain to stand with his arms folded, either. He honestly believed Draco would hurt him, but that didn’t make him back down.

            “Admirable in some ways,” Draco murmured. “But suicidal in others.”

            “What are you talking about?” Potter jogged faster to catch up with him. Draco sneaked a look at him and saw his jaw clenched, his head lifted as if he were staring up at someone who stood over him with a whip and chains.

            “Never mind,” Draco said shortly, and continued walking. He was in the sort of mood where he would snap at Potter if he continued to think about the way in which the bastard wasted all his talents and potential, and that would set his seduction back considerably.

            They halted near the far edge of the Valley, the place where visitors usually entered and Potter had run when trying to escape, in a secluded hollow. Draco had ordered his Marked ones to build several places like this when he first began the resort. Stone walls, which looked natural from a distance, surrounded a shallow bowl of grass and dirt. The bowl filled with water when it rained, but when dry, it afforded Draco several practice grounds that his guests wouldn’t simply stumble into. And the stone walls ensured that the flying magic had at least one cage.

            Potter stopped at the break in the walls and looked around with pure appreciation. Draco smiled, watching him. He would see the advantages of a place like this as well as Draco did.

            Potter straightened a minute later and too-obviously tried to pretend that he hadn’t admired anything Draco owned. “What did you want me to do?” he asked, shifting from foot to foot and reaching up to scratch the back of his neck.

            Draco drew his wand. “Duel me.”

            “What?” Potter dropped his hand from the back of his neck, and dropped his “innocent, ordinary wizard” act at the same time. He was staring at Draco with eyes that couldn’t help but take in his muscles, his balance, his battle-ready stance.

            Draco smiled. He enjoyed Potter in the moments like this, when he forgot about pretense and his apparent need to subdue everything that made him unique and showed that he was dangerous. “Duel me,” he repeated. “I saw you use powerful magic when you were fleeing from my Marked ones, and you managed to defeat them without killing them. I’m sure that you can do the same thing to me. My only restriction is that the spell can’t be of the kind to cause permanent damage. By the same token, I won’t use the Mark against you.”

            Potter drew his wand slowly, but not with reluctance. His eyes locked with Draco’s, and he said softly, “You’re on.”

            Then he threw a wheel of green fire at Draco’s feet—non-verbally, no less.

            Draco jumped into the air and avoided it, but barely. He heard the crack as the wheel opened a gaping pit in the earth beneath him. He landed lightly and whirled around, throwing out one foot as a distraction while he cast a high, Iron-Pounding Hex that ought to catch Potter in the chest and press him to the earth.

            Potter had already leaped and bounced off the stone wall nearest him. Now he was coming in at an angle, chanting spells, each of which sent a new lightning bolt whizzing at Draco.

            Draco couldn’t avoid them all. One hit his chest with a stench of singed cloth, one his arm, which made him wince, and one his leg. But he wasn’t as hurt as Potter’s victorious shout indicated he thought Draco was; he sprawled on the ground and waited until Potter landed beside him, less than an arm’s length away.

            Then Draco cast a Blasting Curse directly at Potter. Yes, it wasn’t imaginative, but that wasn’t the point. He had had years to become acquainted with his own imagination and skills. Now he wanted to see what Potter could do.

            Potter raised a Shield Charm so fast that Draco barely saw it before it blocked the Blasting Curse and sent it ricocheting at him. Draco flew several feet and slammed into one of the walls. He had just raised his head when he saw Potter swirl his wand sideways and rise into the air on what looked like a waterspout made of stones and earth.

            Safely perched above his head, Potter hurled more spells down at Draco: a purple hook that aimed for his guts, a dark cloud of smoke that tried to stretch like a mask across his nose and mouth, a pair of iron pincers that gripped his skull before Draco could cast a spell that fended him off. All the while, he danced in place on the narrow tip of the spout. His hair flew around him. His eyes blazed.

            He was distractingly beautiful.

            Strong, smooth, poised, confident…it was hard to believe that this was the same man who allowed his guilt to hobble him in ordinary conversation.

            That’s the problem, though, Draco thought, as he sent a rain of tiny frogs dripping poison bouncing away from him with a few flicks of his wrist. He can only be like this in battle, when he’s forced to stop concentrating on his faults and just survive. And I think kind treatment over a long period of time will be necessary to change that. He has to see that someone else values him at his true price before he’ll believe he’s worth that price.

            That meant it would take even longer for Draco to bed him, but at the moment, Draco thought he could have all the patience he needed.

            The spout finally retreated into the ground. Potter threw his head back, stretched in a more luxurious manner than he did after his morning exercises, and laughed aloud.

            Draco froze with the richness of the sound. He didn’t breathe or blink, not wanting to disturb the moment, and held more still when Potter strode over to him and thrust out a hand to help him back to his feet.

            He accepted it before Potter could change his mind, and then stood in front of him, making no effort to hide his hungry stare, while Potter turned his head away, flushing. His eyelashes fluttered in apparent confusion.

            “Thanks, Malfoy,” Potter muttered.

            Draco smiled. Potter had fought beside him and enjoyed several minutes in his company where he wasn’t thinking about killing Draco or getting free, and he didn’t know how to deal with it.

            “You’re welcome,” he said simply.

*

            Thrnbrooke: Some of the Aurors would be worried, but Robards will be spreading his own lies to deal with that.

            polka dot: In this one, yes. But Harry is no shining star either.

            SP777: Hee! Yes, you must be slipping. ;)

            I do like a dangerous Harry. So does Draco.

            And thanks for the tip about the fanart.

            mrequecky: There are more stories in the series after this, so a temporary victory might not be a permanent one.

            Night the Storyteller: Not sure what you mean, but if you mean that Harry’s too confident, probably.

            And as you can see here, there are people who do wish Harry would just hurry up and give in to Draco already.
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Wolf in the Making