A Valentine's Day Massacre | By : pittwitch Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 11093 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. |
Chapter Four
~* While the Cat’s Away *~
I sat, in staggered incredulity and not breathing, staring straight ahead with unseeing eyes while my internal heat subsided as Professor McGonagall’s heels primly but rapidly clicked across the stones.
“Mr. Potter!” she called out brusquely, her piercing eyes full of concern. “Are you all right?”
Shaking my head to clear my absolute confusion, I stared back at her gape-mouthed. She hurried closer, her wand drawn. She obviously thought I shook my head to indicate that I wasn’t all right. And, mentally, I wasn’t sure if I was.
“What did he hex you with?” she demanded.
“Hex? Who?” I finally managed to stutter.
“Draco Malfoy, of course.” She began waving her wand in front of me, looking for spells. “Sauntered in pleased as punch, he did, looking like the Kneazle that ate the Snidget."
“Uh, Professor. He didn’t hex me, just surprised me. That’s all.”
“Are you quite sure?” She peered closer at me, looking straight into my eyes as if expecting to see something other than my usual green hue.
I smiled my best reassuring smile and nodded. Standing, I held out my hand to help her up as well.
“Do you think it’s possible for people to change?” The words tumbled uninhibited from my thoughts.
Her concerned eyes considered me closely while her lips pursed thoughtfully, her eyes still focused on finding anything untoward in my behavior. She thought for quite a while before choosing her words with extreme care.
“I believe people can change their behavior, but not who they are.”
We both turned as Neville galloped out into the garden as well.
“Harry?”
“Hey, Neville.”
I left McGonagall to follow in my wake. I put my arm around Neville and waited for her to catch up. With Neville and I framing her, a trio of Gryffindors re-entered the Great Hall: two perplexed, one pleasantly mystified. Time seemed to drag on interminably that night. The noise our kids called music blared, making my head pound, and the remnant of my scar throbbed with my pulse, keeping tempo. Finally the last of the amorous adolescents were shooed out, and I was free. I was beginning to understand Snape’s continual foul mood. Neville and I stood tiredly outside the doors to the Hall as McGonagall set everything back to rights. Draco elegantly swirled his robe over his shoulders, staring straight at me in an open challenge—a challenge I almost didn’t dare to accept.
“Uh, Neville?”
“Yeah?” He looked intently at the blond clearly stalling by the outer doors.
“I think I’ll just go home and sneak in. Maybe sleep on the couch, you know?”
“Don’t blame you, mate.” He clapped my shoulder. “Say hello to Ginny for me?”
“You bet.”
“Hope she feels better soon,” he continued softly, concern etching lines on a face too young to bear such marks.
“Me, too, Neville.” I tried to smile, but suddenly the molten lead in my heart weighed the corners of my mouth down, not allowing them to turn up completely.
Neville understood without an explanation. He patted me on the back. “Take care,” he added with a nervous glance towards Draco. “Watch your back,” he whispered in my ear.
“No worries, Nev.”
I pulled back and flung my own robe around my shoulders sans flourish. Draco exited the school with a curt nod toward Neville and a flourish of robes. I knew he would be standing outside, waiting to pounce.
“Three Broomsticks?” I asked as the heavy doors banged shut and locks began to slide into place.
“You owe me some scotch.”
That was all he said the entire time we walked back down the snow-covered path of our youths into Hogsmeade; the crunch of the snow made a wonderfully quiet counterpoint to the cacophony we had left behind. For me, the silence was both uncomfortable and soothing. I wasn’t ready to think about the emotions he had stirred inside me as we had sat in the garden. We tromped through the village past Honeydukes and Madam Puddifoot’s Tea Room. So many more memories floated along with the flakes of snow that night.
As I reached for the door at Three Broomsticks, I was struck with the recollection of my flight from this very same pub, under the protection of my father’s invisibility cloak, with McGonagall’s words ringing in my ears, and my heart ready to explode with so many emotions, as I processed that Sirius Black was my godfather. How odd that I stood there again with so many emotions I couldn’t process them all. My heart was once again ready to explode. Stamping the white crystals off our feet, we pushed inside the pub to take the “grown up” stools at the bar. Everything felt vaguely familiar, yet so odd at the same time.
“Hello, Harry!” Rosmerta called out, sidling cheerfully down the small path on the sober side to stand expectantly in front of me.
“What can I get for you?” she greeted me with warmth and pleasure. She ignored Draco sitting at my side.
“Two scotches neat, please, Madam Rosmerta?” I heard my voice sounding so adult, and calm, eerily calm. It didn’t sound at all like my voice sounded in my own head.
“Coming right up!” She reached under the ledge of the polished wood top, retrieved two glasses with one hand, and, without looking, a dark-colored bottle of scotch with the other.
I watched in fascination as she set the first glass in front of me, filling it, and waiting for me to drink, to taste the scotch as if it were wine, before serving Draco. I wondered if she was paying me respect or Draco disrespect; there were still so many little things about the wizarding world which eluded my understanding. I cocked my head at Draco, still wondering.
He sighed, rolling his eyes while motioning for me to give Rosmerta approval to serve him. Belatedly picking up the hint, I turned back to the waiting barkeep, and smiled, nodding too vigorously, like an eager schoolboy.
Draco raised his glass in salute. “To…” He paused for a long time, unable to find a common ground for us to toast.
“Severus Snape,” I supplied.
Draco smiled once more, then just barely touched my glass with his, the tiny clink of heavy glass chiming together, then lifted it to his lips to drink.
My hand did the same, but my eyes followed his hand to those thin, pale, poisonous lips. The heat from the close proximity of his hand lingered over my chilled fingers still. I set my glass down, and began circling the smooth rim, half-expecting to hear some sort of musical tone.
Draco’s glass settled to the bar without a sound. I wondered if he had to practice that.
He stared into the amber fluid for a moment or two, then raised his glass once more.
“Fred Weasley,” he spoke softly, reverently, holding his glass aloft, waiting for mine to meet it.
“Here, here.” I drank again, pondering this person sitting next to me. Was he always like this and I just didn’t know? Or had he changed? Or had the war changed him?
“Vincent Crabbe,” I offered for the next toast.
“Remus Lupin,” he countered sadly. “And of course, Nymphadora Tonks.”
And so we continued on with our maudlin memories until Rosmerta had refilled our glasses at least three times, each of us honoring people remembered more fondly by the other as in some unspoken truce.
Draco surprisingly tendered, “Albus Dumbledore.”
After a stunned pause, I concluded with, “No more deaths.”
He nodded, eyeing me in the smoky mirror across from us.
“Won’t your sweet, adoring wife be worried about you, Potter?” drawled Draco as he also fingered the less than adequate glass rim.
“Same thing could be said for Astoria, Draco.”
He snorted then. Shaking his head so that his hair shimmered in the low lights of the pub, he answered softly, “I suppose…” His voice disappeared into the silence.
“Surely she would be upset if you didn’t come home, Draco,” I blundered forward, so sure of myself. “She hangs on every word that falls from your lips. She adores you.”
“Pathetic, Potter. Really, still believing that pure-bloods are permitted the privilege of marrying for love…” He downed almost all of his drink. “Absolutely pathetic.”
He slammed the glass down harder than necessary.
“I should have known considering the pure-blood examples you’ve been exposed to.”
I seethed, biting my lip, at the insult to the Weasley family. Of course, Malfoy would go there. He couldn’t ever pass up a chance to denigrate the Weasleys. His next rant caught me totally off guard and saved him from a bloody nose as well.
“Do you know exactly how annoying it is to have someone you don’t even like constantly looking at you with vacant, adoring puppy dog eyes, worshipping you but not knowing you? Everywhere I turn, everywhere I go, she’s practically sitting on my feet…”
When he paused, he caught my eye in the mirror behind the bar.
“Oh, yeah, right, Potter …” His words were beginning to slur a bit. “You have that everyday from the rest of the wizarding world.”
“Malfoy--”
He interrupted me. Anger seethed just below my skin, scratching for a way out. At least I thought it was anger. He averted his eyes.
“Don’t you ever, you know… want to just kick the stupid puppies out of your way?” He asked the question to the scotch left in his glass.
I forced my hand to pick up my own glass, sipping as if contemplating something much more pleasant. A too-comfortable sneer grew on my face. I looked up to see him staring at me in the mirror once more.
“Yes,” I whispered, staring straight into those icy eyes which grew wide in shock—or was it respect?
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