Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

The Dove With Razor Claws	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 2318 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 3
- 4
- 5
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Four—Stormclouds
            Harry tore happily, viciously, into a piece of toast. It worked! Malfoy hadn’t even looked in his direction for the last three days. He was currently sitting at the Slytherin table, but in such a way that he didn’t have to look directly at Harry.
            “What happened, Harry?”
            Harry glanced sideways at Hermione. She hadn’t tried to talk to him about anything except homework since the night before his detention. But this question didn’t sound like it was about homework.
            “I made Malfoy sorry that he was messing with me, that’s all,” Harry replied with a shrug, and then went back to eating. The toast had never tasted so delicious, he thought. Or the marmalade. Or the pumpkin juice. Everything was bright and sparkling and fresh this morning, honestly. And sweet.
            “Oh, Harry.” Hermione sounded disappointed in him, and Harry might have cared if he thought she knew anything about it. But she didn’t, and she probably thought he had given Malfoy another bloody nose.
            Harry shrugged at her again. “He came and interrupted my detention. Why he couldn’t stay away from me after getting punched I don’t know.” He went on virtuously eating toast. He thought he could feel Dumbledore watching him from the Head Table, but he didn’t care. The whole point was that he had obeyed rules and stayed inside boundaries, and still managed to have his revenge on Malfoy.
            Ron, sitting on the other side of Hermione, overheard what he’d said. “Good for you, mate!” he said, and leaned across Hermione to grin. “What did you do? Punch him again?”
            “Of course not, then he would have gone whining to Snape,” Harry said. “I told him the truth about his dad. He ended up running away.” He didn’t intend to tell Ron the full truth, either. The last time he’d done that, Ron had only gone and confessed to Hermione. Harry thought it was best if he kept his secrets all to himself for now.
            “Good for you!” Ron repeated, and thumped Harry on the shoulder nearly hard enough to make him drop his toast. “About time someone stood up to Malfoy and made him realize that he’s not Prince of Slytherin anymore!” He shot a triumphant glance towards Malfoy, though Harry didn’t think he met that one, either, and then continued his own breakfast.
            “The war’s over,” said Hermione, dividing her frown between them. “Can’t we just be at peace? Strive for House unity?”
            “Not as long as Malfoy’s around, Hermione,” Ron said earnestly. “He just needs punching.”
            Harry nodded, glad that Ron would handle the explanation this time and he could just be the silent support. He was especially glad when a note suddenly appeared right in front of him, next to his plate, and this time he did drop his toast. Luckily, it didn’t land on the note.
            Or unluckily, as the case may be, Harry thought, when he unfolded the note and realized it was from Dumbledore.
            I think we need to talk, Harry. About boundaries, and rules. Please come to my office at seven. I do have a taste for Lemon Delight this month.
            Harry gave a bored sigh and crumpled up the note. Ron hadn’t noticed it, still explaining the many evils of Malfoy’s existence to Hermione, and Hermione only gave him a single intense look and didn’t say anything about it.
            Across the Great Hall, Harry was displeased to see Malfoy hiding a similar note, although it didn’t seem that any of his housemates were interested in looking at it anyway.
            Putting us in the same room is just asking for trouble, Dumbledore, Harry thought, even as he glanced curtly towards the Headmaster and nodded. Well, maybe you’ll see that when we show up at the same time and I humiliate Malfoy again the minute he humiliates me.
            Snape was watching him, too, Harry saw, with the kind of disapproving glance that seemed common to him since he started teaching Defense and couldn’t fail Harry automatically anymore. Harry gave him a mocking wink and stood up. Did Snape want to complain about Harry’s treatment of Malfoy? He could go ahead. Harry was the one who had the inarguable excuse about Malfoy intruding on his detention.
            Go on and play with me some more, Malfoy. I doubt you’ll like the result very much.
*
            Draco huddled on the chair in the Headmaster’s office. His note had said to be here at six-thirty, but he didn’t think the Headmaster had come back from dinner yet. Or maybe he just wanted to leave Draco to suffer. It seemed like the sort of thing a sadistic Gryffindor would do.
            You don’t know he’s sadistic.
            I don’t have any evidence the other way, either, Draco thought, and touched his face. It was burning again, the way it seemingly always had for the past three days. Besides, his favorite student is Potter, and Potter is pretty bloody sadistic.
            The phoenix on his perch gave a sudden croon. Draco gave him a sharp look, then turned back to the desk again. He’d had enough of meeting the bird’s eyes already. It seemed to watch him and bob its head to encourage some action, and Draco suspected it was a Gryffindor action. Potter would probably have had the silver instruments down and smashed to pieces all over the floor already.
            Well, it’s a Gryffindor bird. Bloody Gryffindor colors.
            The inner door opened then, and Dumbledore stepped into the office. He nodded to Draco and said, with every appearance of good humor, “Thanks for waiting for me, m’boy. We just have to discuss the little matter of your attempted murder. Lemon drop?” Draco honestly almost took a sweet before his mind caught up with the words.
            Then he jerked his hand back, heart fast, and shook his head. “I didn’t try to murder anyone,” he whispered.
            Dumbledore peered at him over his spectacles. He still looked as cheerful as that bloody phoenix of his. “I must have misunderstood, then,” he said gently. “You didn’t cast a spell that clipped bristles out of Mr. Potter’s broom and could have killed him?”
            “I didn’t want to kill him,” said Draco tightly. Damn it, damn it, damn it! How did he know? There were no portraits on the Quidditch pitch, and that had been one reason Draco dared to try the spell at all. He knew the portraits in the school spied for the Headmaster. “I just wanted to win the race.”
            Dumbledore laid his hands flat on the desk. “And yet, our actions can have such unintended consequences,” he said, still gently. “Your teasing of Mr. Potter because of what happened in his web spell, for instance.”
            Draco squeezed his eyes shut. He had been careful. So careful. He hadn’t looked at Potter after that, and certainly hadn’t taunted him. Potter couldn’t have told Dumbledore. Snape might have, because Snape seemed to know everything that was happening as a result of him and Potter interacting, but Draco still felt sick.
            “You know, don’t you,” Dumbledore said, when some time had passed and Draco didn’t open his eyes, “that you may have opened a door that would have remained closed?”
            “The door that leads to utter humiliation and expulsion from the school?” Draco’s mouth was so dry his voice barely emerged from it. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Humiliation and expulsion?”
            “You thought I called you here to expel you?” Dumbledore sucked on a sweet and watched him.
            “I didn’t—I didn’t know you knew about the spell I cast on Potter’s broom.” Draco made his throat work, although it took a lot of effort. “But if you think I tried to kill him, aren’t you going to expel me?”
            “I think you need to consider the consequences of your actions,” said Dumbledore, his voice a bit sharper now. “And no, I am not about to expel you when there are people outside the school who would murder you. I do take the safety of my students seriously.” He seemed about to say something else, but there was a knock on the door.
            “That would be Mr. Potter, then,” said Dumbledore, and called, “Come in!”
            Draco slid down the chair, closing his eyes. He did find the strength to voice one word. “Why?”
            “Because I think you two need to have a conversation that clears the air,” said Dumbledore, and smiled serenely at him. “A very special kind of detention, if you will. Come in, Harry,” he added, without raising his voice. “And do assume that I know about everything that happened between you and Mr. Malfoy, will you?”
*
            I won’t react.
            Harry had already decided on that. He had heard voices behind the office door as he got closer, and assumed it would be either Snape or Malfoy there. If it wasn’t both.
            But Harry wouldn’t have reacted even if it was the Dursleys. He reached out, stiff-arming the door open. Malfoy was sliding down in his chair so that only the top tuft of his hair showed over the back. Harry sneered.
            Then Dumbledore said what he did, and took Harry by surprise. He spent a moment studying the Headmaster before he shrugged and said, as he came forwards to take the other chair, “All right, but I don’t know why you need to ask about it. He humiliated me, I humiliated him back. Fair’s fair.”
            “Do you truly believe that, Harry?”
            Dumbledore had the kind of tone in his voice that made Harry want to lower his eyes and squirm. But that was the old him, the one who hadn’t lost Sirius and hadn’t known that Dumbledore had left him to starve with the Dursleys.
            “Yes, I do,” he said, and sat down with a plump that made Fawkes start on his perch. Harry ignored the phoenix. He would just get more upset if he discovered Fawkes looking at him with disappointment in his eyes or something else stupid. “So what are you going to do with us?”
            Dumbledore sighed quietly, lifting his head as if he was going to look over Harry’s shoulder and see something different in the distance. Harry took the time to sneak a look at Malfoy. His face was the color of old cheese, and he gripped the arms of his chair as if he had to keep himself from running away.
            Coward, Harry thought, with contempt that almost numbed him with its force. He was the one who started this, and then he can’t face up to what he unleashed. Coward. He can’t even look at me.
            That bothered Harry more than he had thought it would, and he had just opened his mouth to say something that would make Malfoy respond when Dumbledore turned back to him and said, “You’ll serve your detention with Mr. Malfoy in the Defense classroom tomorrow at eight.”
            Harry snorted a little. “And that’s what he gets for a fortnight of taunting me, right? Can’t have anyone thinking you favor me.”
            He saw Dumbledore wince a little, and gloated. He had slipped that one in under Dumbledore’s guard.
            “Who’s going to keep Potter from murdering me?” Malfoy’s voice was quiet, of course, and he turned his head away the instant Harry looked at him. Harry shook his own head in irritation. How could Hermione think he was attracted to a git like this?
            “Ah,” said Dumbledore, “the one supervising the detention, of course.”
            “Snape?” Harry asked in a bored tone. It would make sense, because it was the Defense classroom, and it would fit in with Dumbledore acting like Harry was always the one in the wrong when it came to this.
            “You shall see when you arrive,” Dumbledore said vaguely. “And do leave your wands in your dorms, boys. Or I’ll know.”
            Malfoy just huddled in a small and more miserable ball on his chair. Harry barely held back the impulse to lash out with a foot or something just to get him to stop cowering like that. If he made himself a target, then he was going to get treated like one. It was only sense.
            “You’re dismissed, Mr. Malfoy,” Dumbledore said then. “Harry, please stay.”
            Harry rolled his eyes and slumped deeper into his chair as Malfoy almost ran out the door. “Right. Of course I am. Because it doesn’t matter that he tormented me for two weeks, right? It never does. I ought to be bigger and better than that, right? Because I’m the bloody hero.”
            He hoped Dumbledore would at least say something about his language. Instead, Dumbledore looked at him mildly through his glasses and asked the last thing Harry had expected. “Was it something your guardians did that prejudiced you so much against homosexuality, Harry?”
            Harry slammed his hands on the desk as he leaped to his feet. He was breathing harshly enough that his lungs hurt, and the only thing he could think of was what he said next. “You’re the last person who should be talking to me about the Dursleys, sir.” He didn’t shout the words the way he wanted to. There wasn’t enough breath left in his lungs for that.
            “I apologize,” said Dumbledore, and he sighed, his face old and covered with wrinkles now. “I would like to know what to do to make up for leaving you there, my boy.” Then his expression hardened again. “But I would also like an answer to my question.”
            Harry glanced away and shrugged, the skin on his shoulders crawling. He wondered why in the world, of all the questions it could possibly be, Dumbledore wanted the answer to this one.
            “Does it matter?” he asked tightly. “I don’t know why, sir. I just know that I want to be normal, and the best way to do that isn’t going around kissing boys. I want—I want what my parents had.”
            “A life cut short in your early twenties?”
            Harry turned around and glared. He had forgotten how irritating Dumbledore could be when he put his mind to it.
            “No, sir.” He still thought Dumbledore might let him out of the room if he spat the word hard enough. “Marriage and kids and a normal life.”
            “They had the first two,” Dumbledore said, and his voice was very gentle. “But I fear you are basing your conjectures about the normality of their lives on your own so far. It is not normal to be hunted from place to place, Harry, to have to spend the first eighteen months of your child’s life in fear that a Dark Lord will come along and kill him. I hope I have not failed you so badly that you think you aren’t worth more than that.”
            Harry squeezed his eyes shut and bit his lip. Dumbledore was twisting his words all around, he thought. He knew what he meant. Dumbledore must know what he meant. He was just refusing to listen for some twisted reason.
            “I want to be straight, okay?” Harry whispered harshly. “And I don’t want to—look, say that I suddenly decided I was gay and dating boys. It still wouldn’t be Malfoy.” He opened his eyes then and thought to ask a question he should have asked before. “Why do you want me to date him? Is this about saving him, or something?”
            Dumbledore shook his head once. “I will never ask you to do anything like that again, Harry. You have more than earned your retirement.”
            Harry couldn’t help giving Dumbledore a suspicious look, but he could at least radiate sincerity.
            “I think, however,” Dumbledore continued, and his face had gone back to the old expression again, “that your stay at the Dursleys’ home taught you many attitudes I had not realized were so detrimental. So do go to the detention tomorrow night, and do talk with Mr. Malfoy. I’m not sure that I expect you to apologize. I only expect you to realize who you really are, and what you really want.”
            “Oh, only,” Harry said.
            Dumbledore smiled, but his eyes still didn’t have the twinkle. “You didn’t answer my question, my boy,” he said softly. “What can I do to make things up to you?”
            Harry studied him for a second, not answering. Part of him didn’t want to make things easy for Dumbledore. Why should he? He was the one who had condemned Harry to the Dursleys’ and was condemning him to this detention.
            But the only way to test if Dumbledore was really sincere was to take him up on the offer.
            “Let me stay at Hogwarts this summer,” he said, and interrupted when Dumbledore began to open his mouth again. “Or with McGonagall, or Madam Pomfrey, or someone else who could look in on me sometimes. If you try to send me back to the Dursleys, then I’ll just run away.”
            “You could die,” Dumbledore whispered. “Particularly if not all the Death Eaters are captured by then.”
            “I’ll take my chances on that, then.”
            Dumbledore sat back with his eyes closed. Harry waited for him to make his decision, trying not to fidget. At last he looked at Harry again and said, “Yes. All right. I will take you myself, if there is—no alternative.”
            Harry smiled. He doubted that it was a polite or nice smile, but he had won his point. That was all he cared about right now.
            At least until Dumbledore added, with a slight, wistful smile, “If you’ll tolerate one more impertinence from an old man?”
            Harry tightened his shoulders, but nodded.
            “Don’t fight against who you really are,” Dumbledore said. “Don’t make decisions based on a moment of haste, or prejudice and impatience. You might end up regretting those decisions for the rest of your life.” He hesitated, then added, “I did.”
            Harry wondered if he could ask about it, but he doubted Dumbledore would tell him any specifics. In fact, Dumbledore was already going on in a more cheerful voice. “And I was going to say something about the value of family, but I see now that your aunt and uncle did not treat you like family.” He sighed a little, but didn’t seem that upset anymore, not nearly as much as Harry had thought he would be. “Very well. Attend the detention tomorrow with Mr. Malfoy, and I won’t ask you to do anything else.” He reached out and waved a hand over Harry’s head. “Think about it, will you, my dear boy?”
            Harry just nodded, because it was easy enough to do that and keep the Headmaster happy, and then stood up and left the office. What was there to think about? There was normal and abnormal, and he couldn’t—
            And now I sound like Uncle Vernon.
            Harry stopped when he thought that, although the staircase continued to turn beneath him, bearing him downwards. He stood there shivering a little, and wondering if he should—
            He should what?
            Harry shook his head. Dumbledore had said not to make any hasty decisions. Well, Harry wouldn’t. He had a good resolve and some common sense, and he wasn’t going to decide what wanting to be normal said about him, right now.
            His good resolve and common sense lasted until he stepped out the door at the bottom of the staircase, and Malfoy attacked him from the shadow of the gargoyle.
*
            Draco had thought about it and thought about it, after he had got past the blazing, burning sensation of someone knowing everything that had happened between him and Potter.
            And he had come to the conclusion that he didn’t deserve any of it. He hadn’t tried to kill Potter. The spell should have clipped some bristles out of his broom but still allowed him to land safely. He hadn’t meant to drive Potter into kissing him. He had shown up at the detention, but that didn’t excuse the things Potter had said and done.
            Draco was sure that, if other people knew about it (and didn’t laugh), they would agree with him. What Potter had done was assault.
            So Draco would have to get him back for it, because he knew well enough that no justice would be forthcoming from Dumbledore or Snape or anyone else that he might once have counted on to restrain Potter. And when he leaped out and bore Potter to the floor and started slugging punches into his exposed face, he did think for a second that he would get his revenge.
            Potter was twisting, trying to raise his hands in front of his face and not succeeding. Draco felt a strong, vicious satisfaction tear through him, and he laughed aloud. He would go to the detention tomorrow, and be able to look at Potter’s bloody nose and blackened eyes, and—
            Then Potter pushed him so hard in the stomach that all Draco’s air went out of him. His eyes crossed the next second, when Potter hit him in the nose, again. Then Potter pushed him over on his side, and Draco tried to sit up and found Potter punching him in the stomach, again and again.
            It was horrible. It hurt. Draco thought he would start coughing up blood if it went on. And it didn’t seem like Potter was going to stop.
            Draco did the only thing he could do, the only thing he thought would get Potter guaranteed to stop. He reached up and grabbed him by the back of his neck and bit him hard on the mouth.
            Potter bit him back, getting Draco’s tongue in his teeth and grinding down really hard on it. Draco squealed, because there was blood in his mouth, what the fuck was Potter thinking, and then bit down again. This time, he thought he got more of Potter’s lips and less of his teeth.
            He tried to roll them over, but Potter locked his knees against the floor and seemed determined to keep them in the same position. He rolled his hips against Draco’s, actually rolled them as if this was some kind of contest to see who could act the stupidest, and then pulled back. Draco tried to scream, but his mouth was still full of blood, and he had to swallow it.
            Then Potter slammed his lips down again.
            Draco’s mind was swimming. There were dark and red blooms opening in front of his eyes, and he had no idea what he should do next. He opened his mouth because he thought complaining might be a start, and Potter slipped his tongue in.
            It felt far too good.
            Draco bucked more seriously, pushing up against Potter’s shoulders, and this time, he got him off. They stared at each other in silence for a minute. Potter had blood on his face and his hair was as shaggy as though someone had tried to rip it out. Draco suspected he probably looked similar.
            And then Draco stood up and began to run, not looking back, not thinking about the heat in his belly or what it would mean for the detention they were supposed to have tomorrow night.
            If he didn’t think about it, it couldn’t hurt him. He was almost sure.
*
BAFan: That’s what Albus thinks, too.
Kain: He seems to keep getting that, whether he wants it or not.
moodysavage: I’m glad you found it!
It is like a law of nature that all of Draco’s plans (except for the one with the Vanishing Cabinet) fail in a pretty spectacular way. So I decided to hold that law of nature true this time. ;)
SP777: Harry is more dangerous than Draco thinks he is.
starr: Neither one of them wants to admit it.
- 3
- 4
- 5
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

The Dove With Razor Claws