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The Dove With Razor Claws	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 2318 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
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Chapter Three—Lightning Strikes Twice
            Harry stared at the note that the post-owl had delivered. He had thought it would maybe be from Malfoy, or Snape, threatening him with dire consequences if he said anything about last night. Harry would never say anything about last night, and he thought he could trust other Gryffindors the same way, but that wouldn’t occur to Snape, who only lived to see Harry get into trouble.
            But the note was from Dumbledore, and said, I was distressed to note that you were near the outside wards yesterday, Harry.
            Harry ripped it into halves. Then he ripped the halves into quarters. Then he ripped the quarters into eighths. Then he went on ripping until the paper looked like flakes of salt, and he would have set it on fire, except that he thought he would get in trouble for using a spell like Incendio at the breakfast table.
            “What’s wrong?” That was Hermione, low-voiced, leaning in towards him. Harry only shook his head savagely at her. Hermione thought he should try to get along better with Dumbledore, and Harry had begged Ron not to tell her about the “kiss” between him and Malfoy. Hermione would encourage him to use it as a sign of peace or something.
            “Nothing much,” Harry said, and gave her a grimace that he suspected didn’t convince her, a second before he speared a bite of cheese and brought it to his mouth. “An annoying note bringing up something I didn’t want to hear about.”
            He took the chance to glare across the room at the Slytherin table. Malfoy appeared to be paler than usual, and barely plucked at his breakfast.
            Then Harry yanked his head away, feeling his cheeks flare. He’d actually noted how pale Malfoy usually was? How gay was that? He shook his head, and clenched one hand on the table in front of him.
            He hated this. He hated the idea that he’d found a kiss with Malfoy hotter than the one he’d had with Cho.
            It was probably, Harry decided abruptly, because he’d only had that one awful kiss with a girl. He had to get another girl to kiss him, and then that would be the good one he compared every other kiss to in his mind.
            He looked up and down the Gryffindor table, because Gryffindors were the only ones he could trust for an experiment like this. He would have asked Ginny, but she was dating Dean. And he thought Parvati had a boyfriend, too, and as for Hermione—
            Harry filled his mouth even more with cornflakes at the thought of kissing Hermione. She would probably only agree to it out of pity, and wouldn’t that be horrible? And Ron would never forgive him. Harry hated that thought even more than he hated the thought that he’d found Malfoy’s kiss hot.
            No, the only possible choice was Lavender. She didn’t have a boyfriend, and even though she was silly, at least she was a girl. And Harry hadn’t missed the hopeful glances she sometimes gave him yesterday, or the way she’d tried to sit with him in Charms until Ron and Hermione thoughtlessly took the seats on either side of him, as usual.
            No. He would ask her out and see what happened. He gave her a smile now, and Lavender hid her mouth behind one hand, giggling, before she began to whisper to Parvati.
            Her giggle doesn’t sound as annoying when she’s hiding it, Harry decided hopefully. And he didn’t think she would try to whisper with him. He hadn’t seen her do that even when she was talking to a boy.
            He got up. He wanted to talk to Lavender before classes started, and no time like the present.
*
            No one was pointing and snickering at Draco in the corridors, which meant no one had told anyone else about his “kiss” with Potter. No, they just continued to go silent and avoid Draco like usual.
            But honestly, Draco was almost used to that by now.
            He had just arrived at the door of their NEWT Potions class when he heard voices from further down the corridor, though. And one of them sounded like Potter’s, and it sounded like he was on the verge of laughter.
            Draco turned towards the sound at once. Sure, perhaps Potter hadn’t told anyone about the kiss to humiliate Draco so far, but that could be changing right this second.
            Potter was leaning against the wall, and leaning over a girl that Draco took a moment to recognize. Lavender Brown, also a sixth-year Gryffindor. Utterly insignificant, of course. The only Gryffindors that Draco took the time to recognize were the ones distinguished by academic or magical prestige, and as much as he hated to admit it, that included Potter and Granger. Not Brown, though. Her marks were middling and her magic weak.
            Brown giggled as though she was trying for a NEWT in it, her arms folded and her head ducked as she peered up at Potter from beneath her eyelashes. Potter had a look of disdain in the crinkles of his eyes that Brown should have recognized. Hell, Draco could, and he barely paid attention to Potter!
            “You’d like to go with me to Hogsmeade next time we have a weekend, then?” Potter’s voice was so soft and intimate that Draco almost lost the words in the storm of Brown’s giggles.
            “Oh, yes, Harry,” said Brown, and reached up with what she probably thought was a sultry expression on her face to draw Potter’s head down. “But you were asking about kissing me. You don’t have to wait until then to kiss me. Didn’t you know?”
            Potter froze. Draco could tell that, too. He thought Brown would notice any moment and release Potter with some kind of an offended remark. She would probably only want someone who wanted her back, right? That was what sensible people did.
            Then Potter seemed to recover, and nodded eagerly. “Right, Lavender. I want to know what it’s like to kiss you.” His eyes rested on her lips in a way that made it seem as if he was trying for his own fake sultry expression.
            “Call me Lav,” Brown breathed, and then their lips touched.
            Draco couldn’t stand here and watch this. And it had nothing to do with decency or standards. If Potter and Brown had standards of any sort, they wouldn’t be snogging in the corridors. Hell, if Potter had standards, he would have chosen someone besides Brown in the first place. Granger was the only Gryffindor girl worth anything.
            He cleared his throat, and watched in pleasure as Potter and Brown shot apart like someone had cast a Mutual Repulsion Charm on them. Draco stepped closer and said in a concerned-sounding voice, “Really, Potter, don’t you have somewhere to be? You’re not good enough at Potions to be late to it.”
            The glare Potter gave him was absolutely sparking murderous, but Draco realized, with a light-headed feeling, that he didn’t care. There were Death Eaters after him, and probably some of the Slytherin students whose families wanted them to take the top place in their House. Draco had real problems.
            He didn’t have to give a—a fuck about Potter, if he didn’t want to.
            Potter clenched his hands and took a step forwards. “If you try to get Lavender in trouble, Malfoy—”
            “I said nothing about Brown being in trouble,” Draco interrupted, and this time, the boredom imitation in his voice was perfect. “I said something about you being in trouble, if you’re late for class, especially given how hard you already have to work to catch up.” And he turned around and walked back to the classroom door.
            He could hear Potter saying something to Brown. He had no idea what, but he knew Brown wouldn’t follow them around the corner. She wasn’t in NEWT Potions.
            For that matter, how did Potter get in?
            Draco was revolving that intriguing idea in his head when Potter burst around the corner, seized Draco by the collar of his robe, and crammed him against the wall. In the small, hot space that had suddenly formed between them, Draco could hear and feel every one of Potter’s breaths.
            “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Malfoy?” Potter barked at him. “Do you always spy on people snogging? Jealous because you can’t get any unless you steal it from other people?”
            Draco felt the light-headedness change to light-headed rage, and Snape’s warnings flew away. He leaned in and murmured, “Interrupting something you clearly weren’t enjoying, Potter. Because we all knew who set the standard for a real kiss for you, don’t we?” He fluttered his eyelashes at Potter.
            Potter let him go as though burned. Draco straightened slowly up, watching as Potter shook his hands and clasped them and rubbed them as though trying to get sweat off. Draco had no idea what that meant, but he found he didn’t care.
            Here was something that bothered Potter, and would certainly get his attention. Draco’s plan might not have worked out the way he’d wanted it to, but it had done something.
            Draco gave Potter another flirtatious smile and moved a step forwards. Potter retreated in high disgust, fluttering his hands.
            “Careful,” Draco whispered. “Someone might look at the way you act around me and come to the right conclusions.”
            Draco thought he had never seen anything as delicious as the way Potter was spluttering and flailing around. But he didn’t get to have more fun, because then, unfortunately, Professor Slughorn arrived, musing aloud to himself as he always did. He lit up when he saw Potter.
            “Mr. Potter! Eager for your Potions lesson already?” He wagged a finger at Potter and opened the classroom door. “That’s grand, but you mustn’t let your eagerness get ahead of your talent. I remember your mother when she first entered my classroom, how interested she was in learning, and how long it took her to be able to get the Boil Cure Potion correct…”
            Draco held back a crow of laughter as he followed Potter. He knew, if Slughorn didn’t—if Brown didn’t—when Potter was concealing a lack of interest. The stiff way he held his shoulder was a giveaway if nothing else was.
            Potter looked back at him once.
            Draco fluttered his eyelashes. Potter jerked back to the front and nearly slammed into Slughorn.
            Draco snickered again, and thought about ways that he could make Potter’s life miserable from here on in.
*
            Harry sat on the couch in the Gryffindor common room with his arms folded and his head buried in them, and refused to look up when someone sat down beside him. He knew it would be Ron, come to get angry at Harry again because Harry had lost Gryffindor House twenty points for punching Malfoy in Potions that day.
            If Ron only understood that it wasn’t that day, it was every day of the last bloody fortnight!
            But then, Harry would have to explain about the secret smiles and little innuendos and puckered kisses Malfoy was sending him, and why he always reacted to them violently. And Harry knew that the heat brewing in his belly was disgusting, and he hated himself. Even if he was gay, this was Malfoy! How could he like a git like that?
            “Harry?”
            It was Hermione, not Ron. Harry sat up and stared at her blankly. He had thought she was even less likely to come and talk to him about it. At least Ron hadn’t been there when it happened, since he didn’t have NEWT Potions. But Hermione had, and she had scolded him viciously for it.
            Now, Hermione sat there with one hand in her hair, looking him over gravely, as if he was wounded or something. Harry made himself sit up straight and nod to her in the same serious way. “What is it, Hermione?”
            No one else was in the Gryffindor common room, he noticed. Well, it was late. Harry hadn’t wanted to go up to his room, not when he would have to endure shaking heads and sideways glances and little remarks made to the air about how certain people understood the value of getting along with Slytherins.
            Hermione studied him with a frown, but it didn’t turn into the horrified scowl she had been using in Potions when Harry punched Malfoy. She leaned forwards and whispered, “Ron told me what happened on the Quidditch pitch.”
            Harry shut his eyes. Traitor. Ron’s a traitor.
            “That’s the real reason you did it, isn’t it?” Hermione continued, in a tone that she’d probably copied from her mum. “You couldn’t stand your attraction to him, and you had to do something about it.”
            Harry whirled up and around to face her. Hermione, in the middle of saying something that would probably have been just as unforgivable as what she’d said so far, promptly clamped her mouth shut and went white. Her hair was trembling now, and Harry realized he had drawn his wand.
            And he didn’t want to curse his friend. He never wanted to curse his friend. He put the wand away and turned to the side, where he could see the fire instead of having to look into Hermione’s frightened eyes. He spoke softly and rapidly, because he was only going to say this once, and he wanted to have it over as soon as possible.
            “Listen, Hermione. Are you listening?”
            He saw the shadow of her head bob.
            “I kissed Malfoy by bloody accident, when his web forced us together,” Harry said, and ground his teeth. “And ever since then, he won’t let me forget it. He keeps teasing me about it. Giving me these looks when other people can’t see. Whispering to me about how I’m his ‘lover.’” Harry was proud of how he spat the word. “And I don’t—I’m not going to put up with that. It was his fault. He can deal with having a bloody nose for a while.”
            Hermione was quiet. Harry didn’t know if she had gone away or not until she put a hand on his elbow, and he started so badly that he almost knocked them both off the couch. Hermione made him turn around, and leaned against the back of the couch, studying him gently.
            “Have you considered that he’s trying to express his own attraction, then?” Hermione asked. “The only way he can that he knows how, while pretending he’s not serious?”
            Harry snorted. “No. He’s playing with me.” And now he had detention with Slughorn tomorrow night, wonderful. At least it wasn’t going to be detention with Malfoy. Or Snape, who would probably spend the entire time warning him away from making trouble for Malfoy and complaining that Harry didn’t deserve someone as wonderful as a Potions-making Slytherin.
            “Have you thought about this from his point of view?” Hermione insisted. “He might have discovered something that he didn’t want to know about, when he was out there. He might just be handling it—”
            “I have to go to bed,” Harry interrupted her, standing up. His face was flaming, and it felt as if his belly was doing the same thing. “Ron and the others should be asleep now. No one to blame me for losing those points.”
            He sped away from her, up the stairs, and flung himself into his bed without even attempting to change his clothes. His face still burned, badly enough that he wished he was up in the Owlery with Hedwig, feeling the cold air blowing through the windows.
            No, Hermione. That’s not him. That’s me.
            And I hate it. Couldn’t I be normal, just once?
            Slughorn and Hermione might be disappointed in him for punching Malfoy, but it was a lot less dangerous than what else Harry might have done.
*
            “Where are you going, Mr. Malfoy?”
            Draco felt his back go up as if he was an irritated cat, and he had to fight to hold a polite smile on his face as he turned around and nodded to Snape. He had come out of a door in the dungeons that Draco hadn’t even known led anywhere. He leaned against the dark wall now and folded his arms, considering Draco as if he was a misbehaving potion.
            Draco widened his eyes and avoided Snape’s gaze. He knew now that Snape was a Legilimens, and successful liars would need to look away from him. “For a walk, sir. The atmosphere of the common room gets oppressive sometimes,” he added, and that was even true. “I want to get away from my Housemates.”
            “And would there be a reason that you are aiming for the Potions office, where Potter is having his detention?”
            Draco bit his tongue. How did Snape always, always know? He was worse than Draco’s mother for knowing things, and that was saying something.
            “Everyone heard Professor Slughorn announce Potter’s detention, sir,” he said evenly. “Including me. I was there. With blood dripping from my nose.”
            “Which makes it all the more imperative that you stay away from Potter and not give him another chance to hurt you.” Snape’s voice was only mild if you weren’t looking at his hands, which Draco was considering out of the corner of his eye. He had tightened his grip on the stone wall as if he wanted to break it to pieces. “Do not think that I have been blind to your teasing.”
            Draco did blink and look up then. “Then why didn’t you say something?” After the warning Snape had given him about humiliating Potter, Draco had been sure that Snape would swoop in and stop him if he’d noticed Draco’s fake flirtation.
            “Because humiliation that no one notices is different from humiliation they do.” Snape moved so he was looming over Draco. “But it is already reaching dangerous levels. Not surprising, with Potters as prone to violence as they are.” Snape sneered, but absently, his gaze still locked on Draco. “Did Slughorn give you detention with Potter?”
            “No.” Draco said it grudgingly. He had managed to come off like a completely innocent victim, and had been very pleased with himself for it.
            Until this moment.
            “Then you have no excuse for being there,” Snape whispered harshly. “And consider the mood that has turned against Potter, but only as long there seems to be no reason for his behavior. If you are there, and he punches you again…”
            Draco shook his head. “I wasn’t going to go into the office, sir. Only gloat through the door.”
            “You are lying.”
            Bloody Legilimens. Draco hoped that Snape did pluck that thought out of his head. He lifted his chin and tried to look like his father had when confronting the Dark Lord, at least in Draco’s imagination. He had never seen his father actually do it. “I have to get some form of revenge, sir. Unless you’re going to deny me that because you can’t get revenge on James Potter, so you don’t think anyone else should be able to do anything, either.”
            Snape’s face turned flushed as he watched Draco. Then his lips parted in a laugh harsher than his voice. “Very well,” he said. “Fool. If you think that you will simply gloat at him through the door and that is the end of it, you deserve the fate I have been trying to save you from.” And he swept off again.
            Draco gaped after him. What fate? I’ve managed to fool everyone but him and Potter. And Potter won’t talk about it because it would be horrible. It really is the perfect revenge.
            Does Snape think I’m incapable of defending myself against someone who doesn’t even have a wand in his detention?
            Draco shook his head fervently as he again started down the corridor. He hoped Snape didn’t think that, because it would be far more humiliating than having the “kiss” spread around the school.
*
            “Scrubbing cauldrons like the house-elf you are, Potter? I always said that you should learn your proper place.”
            Harry had been lost in some strange netherworld as he worked, his hands flying across the rough surfaces of the cauldrons, the sponges and brushes and all the rest. He hadn’t exactly been happy, but there was no Snape to make sharp remarks about his work now. Slughorn was content to sit inside his inner office at his desk, and doze. Harry had been able to forget about everything else around him and become determined just to get the cauldrons done.
            It had reminded him of some of the times that he had worked on chores at the Dursleys’, really.
            And that meant that Malfoy’s remark about being a house-elf ignited something that was already primed to burn.
            Harry turned around. He knew he was smiling. He knew the smile was probably disturbing, and Hermione would have buried her head in her hands and shaken it back and forth if she could have seen his thoughts. Or maybe she would just have shaken him. Harry could envision Ron scowling at him, too.
            Don’t encourage Malfoy, mate. That was what he’d say.
            But right now, none of them mattered. What mattered was Harry in the classroom, and Slughorn’s deep snores floating from beyond the inner door, and Malfoy, the prancing, preening, sneering little git, in the outer doorframe.
            “I suppose you’d know all about abusing house-elves, too,” Harry said. His voice was pleasant. He kind of liked it. “Dobby told me all about the things your father used to do to him, before he fucked off.” He paused, then added, “Kind of the way your father fucked off to prison.”
            Malfoy flushed, and stepped inside the classroom. That was exactly what Harry had wanted him to do. He was using his Slytherin side. The Sorting Hat ought to be proud.
            “You know nothing about my father, or the war, or real political issues,” Malfoy said, the sneer fully in place. “Why so many people bow down to you is beyond me.”
            “Right,” Harry drawled. “I know nothing about real political issues when the major one tried to kill me five times.”
            Malfoy stepped closer. Harry stayed standing innocently still, but he could feel his heart beating, and for the first time since the Quidditch pitch, it appeared to be beating in accordance with Harry’s own desires.
            “You don’t know anything about anything,” Malfoy said. His voice was soft, but shaking. Harry knew that way. Snape talked that way sometimes, and Dudley. But neither of them were Malfoy, and neither of them had tormented him as Malfoy tormented him.
            Made him think about disgusting things. Made him think things about himself that were stupid and—and wrong.
            “Maybe not,” said Harry, and then he gave Malfoy another smile, one that had to work. “Neither did your father.”
            That worked.
            Malfoy charged at Harry, and Harry moved easily aside, the way he would have if someone had charged him in DA practice last year. Then he grabbed Malfoy’s robe collar and twisted it, and as Malfoy came around, angry and gasping, Harry leaned forwards and sealed his lips solidly over Malfoy’s.
            A punishing kiss, this time, meant to make Malfoy feel all the different things that Harry had. Maybe then, he would stop prancing around and acting like he hadn’t been affected at all.
            No one had ever taught Harry how to kiss, but he didn’t need to know how he would tenderly kiss a girl, or someone he was really dating, to kiss Malfoy. He leaned in and ground his body against Malfoy’s at the same time as he ground his tongue against his lips, and he held Malfoy’s chin so he couldn’t draw away, and he grabbed both of Malfoy’s wrists with his other hand and pinned them between their bodies. He kissed as hard as he could, and when he finally jerked back in contempt, Malfoy couldn’t hide his reaction from himself any more than Harry had been able to on the Quidditch pitch.
            Malfoy was hard.
            Harry watched him with gleaming, contemptuous eyes, as Malfoy wiped his mouth and staggered one step back, then two.
            The way he watched Harry back couldn’t keep his eyes from glittering with want.
            Harry smiled again, and that was when Malfoy broke and fled, with Harry’s laughter chasing him down the corridor.
*
starr: Draco wasn’t thinking in terms of defeating Harry magically, just defeating him by humiliating him.
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The Dove With Razor Claws