Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

All Desire in a Day	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 9359 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
- 6
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Five—Yearning

            “Harry Potter.”

            Harry rose to his feet with an expression of such grim resignation on his face that Draco blinked, or tried to, and then remembered that the eyes he saw out of weren’t his to control. He hissed in irritation and wished Malfoy would stare at something besides Harry, so he could have some context for this image.

            Then he saw the smoking Goblet at the front of the Great Hall, and the students from other schools clustered at their table, and realization hit him like a slap across the jaw. Granger would have been proud, he thought numbly.

            How is he going to survive the Tournament when even his own House hates him?

            Harry paced to the front of the room, his face so still that Draco had no idea what he was feeling. Malfoy fumed and was sure it was just pretend, that mask of his, because of course Harry Potter would be happy to discover a method to get past the Age Line. That he hadn’t shared it with anyone in Slytherin was just more proof of his selfishness.

            Draco sent hushing thoughts shooting at Malfoy like arrows, until he remembered the moment in the last year when Harry had spoken to Blaise. Then he had to swallow and wonder what other secrets Harry might be concealing. Malfoy didn’t know this Harry, didn’t understand him or his reactions, but Draco might not, either.

            They took Harry into a small room off the Great Hall and probably explained his situation to him there, or explained that he couldn’t back out of the Tournament, or whatever the fuck else they needed to explain. When Harry came out, he had a distant look on his face, and left the Hall without attempting to come back to the Slytherin table. Malfoy got up and followed him as Dumbledore dismissed them, but not fast enough. By the time he came out into the entrance hall, Harry was nowhere to be seen.

            I don’t care, I don’t, Draco told himself, as his head buzzed, picking up on the buzzing from Malfoy’s. This is only a vision. Even if I feel concerned about Harry and want to help him survive, there’s nothing I can do to affect events.

            But he could feel a dizzying, worrying prickle of emotion in the back of his head anyway. Something would go wrong—worse than it had the other years, when Harry had at least worked his way through the challenges flung at him, or helped Black to escape so that he could have a chance at a future. Something would be harder here.

*

            The dragon roared, and reared. Draco tensed, something he needed no help from Malfoy to accomplish, since Malfoy was already so tense his shoulders hurt and leaning off the bench. The only difference was that Draco knew what to expect, and Malfoy didn’t. Any minute now, the broom would come hurtling down from the castle.

            But Harry didn’t call his broom. Instead, for some reason, his gaze slid towards Malfoy for a moment, and his lips curled in something that Draco might have called a smile if it was more pleasant. Then he swung his wand and yelled an incantation that Draco lost in the frenzied shouting and another roar from the Hungarian Horntail.

            The silver ropes that shot out of Harry’s wand manifested almost at once into a much bigger version of the glittering net that had surrounded Buckbeak when Harry kept the hippogriff from attacking Malfoy. They wrapped the dragon, which flapped its wings and tried to lift from the ground. Malfoy held his breath. Draco did the same, or wanted to. Surely the spell couldn’t hold against a creature much bigger than the hippogriff—surely something would go wrong with it, as Draco kept thinking it would with the Tournament in general—the net had never been made for something like this—

            But the net held, and the dragon crashed back to the ground. Harry at once surrounded her front legs with another net that yanked them together, and joined up with the one around her wings so that she tripped when she tried to move. The dragon turned her head and opened her jaws, but not far enough to breathe fire before a third net trussed her there, binding away the teeth and the flames.

            Harry bound the tail and the back legs. By now, he was swaying on his feet and sweating with effort, but he still managed a wind spell that lifted the dragon’s bound tail away from the nest. Once it was clear, he triumphantly stalked over, retrieved the golden egg, and held it up.

            Again the crowd went mad, and Draco wanted to shake his head. That wasn’t nearly as special or effortless as the method his Harry had used to win the egg back home. And this Harry was still friends with Granger, whom Draco knew had helped him look up spells to use on dragons; surely he could still have come up with the idea of Summoning the broom?

            Then Malfoy muttered something to someone about how the egg was the only Snitch Potter would ever catch, and new thoughts and realizations jerked into place in Draco’s mind.

            Harry still loves to fly, but he’s not a Seeker in this universe. He doesn’t have the chance to practice as much. He probably doesn’t trust the broom around the dragon, and he wouldn’t want to risk breaking it. Draco could just remember, like a distant dream, the time that Harry had told him the broom he’d used from third year on was a present from Black.

            The judges didn’t agree with Draco or Malfoy, and gave Harry the highest points for that Task. Harry drooped on Granger’s shoulder and said something incoherent in response to someone’s request for a victory speech, and then they ushered him out of sight.

            Blaise watched him go, and Malfoy watched Blaise and plotted murder. Draco wasn’t entirely sure that he didn’t agree.

*

            "Th-thanks, mate."

            Harry was wrapping the towel tenderly around Weasley's shoulders and smiling at him as if he were the most precious thing in the universe. Just like in Draco's world, he had gone back to rescue Delacour's little sister, but then hadn't paid much attention to her. He was talking to Weasley instead, peering at his arm to see if one of the tridents had scratched him, or casting Drying Charms on his hair. Malfoy was starting to wonder if he should be jealous of Weasley instead of Blaise, but then, jealousy about Weasley was a normal state of existence for him in the past three years.

            The judges called out their scores, and then the group around the lake began to break up, Krum herding Granger in front of him and Delacour following with her arms around her sister as though she would never let her go. Weasley and Harry lingered behind, though, which Draco didn't remember from his fourth year. And Malfoy didn't seem to have expected it, either, because he promptly slid out of his seat and hid behind a leg of the stands to listen as Harry and Weasley walked slowly past his hiding place.

            A part of Malfoy understood, and hated, the notion that he was eavesdropping on their conversation instead of walking at Harry's side, in Weasley's place, the way he should have been. But certain desires were stronger than others, and so he remained, to hear the way Harry talked with his friends when he thought he was alone.

            You heard that in second year, when he was talking about speaking Parseltongue to them, Draco thought in disgust. You idiot, he would probably notice you more if you didn't follow him around and obsess over him, the way he noticed me in sixth year.

            But his advice would fall on no ears but his own, so in the end Draco sighed and paid attention to the conversation.

            "I didn't know it would be me, you know?" Weasley shook one more trickle of water out of his hair, and then tilted his head and pounded some out of his ear. Malfoy sniffed, and Draco had to agree. Neither of them would ever do anything so awkward or silly. One Drying Charm and it would have been taken care of. "Half thought you might find someone else under the water."

            "Who?" Harry laughed, and Draco wanted the laughter, wanted it badly enough that it took him a moment to realize that was Malfoy's desire he felt, throbbing in his nonexistent chest and behind the eyes that watched Harry's every move. "Hermione was Krum's choice, couldn't have been her. And you know I don't value anyone else more than you, mate." He slung his arm around Weasley's shoulders and grinned at him.

            That grin, Draco had seen before, and he felt none of the softness of Malfoy's mingled admiration and wonder. Harry smiled at Weasley like that, never at him.

            Of course, Harry back in their world gave Draco different smiles, a kind that he valued more than Weasley could ever value the gift just handed to him. But still, he wanted all the different kinds for himself. He was the one who had a right to them, Harry's lover--

            Not this Harry. And apparently, yours didn't value you enough at first to tell you that he was almost Slytherin, either.

            Weasley stopped walking and turned to take Harry's shoulders. Harry blinked at him and shook his head.

            "There isn't someone in your House you value?" Weasley asked, and gave Harry a little shake. "Honestly, I'm glad for you. Was starting to think that all the snakes would be awful to you forever, and we'd have to wonder whether the Hat was senile, putting you in the wrong place."

            Harry flushed now, and reached up to brush one of Weasley's hands off his shoulders. "I don't know what you're talking about," he mumbled.

            "Yes, you do," Weasley said, and put the hand back in the same place, and Harry just looked at him and then looked away, instead of snapping the way he would have if Draco had tried the same thing. If Malfoy had tried the same thing, Draco reminded himself. He couldn't start thinking that they were the same person. He had already lived through too much of this bizarre alternate universe, and watched Malfoy fuck up too many times, for that. "Blaise Zabini? I know I've seen you talking with him, and working with him, and joking with him, and hell, all but flirting with him."

            Draco stilled. He could feel the star burning at the bottom of Malfoy's chest, ready to burst out of him, and the same one was in him.

            He had thought Harry in this world might not be bent, because he hadn't thrown any admiring glances at other boys, and he ignored Malfoy instead of returning the attention with interest. But of course he might be bent, and simply choose someone else.

            No. No. I--cannot watch that. He reached out, and, for the first time, tried to locate the seam in the illusion, tried to end the vision and return to the ritual circle. He had said that he would pay any price, but he hadn't meant--

            He hadn't meant that he would pay the price of watching Harry walk away from him, with someone else at his side.

            But the ritual might have taken him at his word, and at any rate, Draco couldn't find the seam and couldn't change what was going forward. Harry was looking at Weasley in question, and Malfoy had remained hidden.

            "You wouldn't mind if I was flirting with him?" Harry asked, and Malfoy rolled his eyes and thought disgusted things about Potter's need for his friends' approval, while Draco thought of a bland Muggle home from which all "abnormality" was shut out. "Really?"

            "Of course not," Weasley said, and cuffed Harry gently on the shoulder, finally letting him go so they could walk on to Hogwarts. "Not when you'd have an ally at your back in the snake den." He hesitated. "Just be careful about breaking up with him if you date him, mate. I think having a scorned Slytherin lover could be even worse."

            Yes, Malfoy's thoughts whispered, yes, it could be.

            Draco sighed. This Harry and Malfoy weren't lovers yet and might not ever be, not if it turned out that Malfoy was unable to do anything but scream at Harry for not being friends with him from the beginning. But he doubted Harry would become lovers with Blaise, either. This still wasn't too far from the universe he had grown up in, the real one, and Blaise had stayed neutral during the war but hadn't been willing to assume a part on the front lines, either. If he was the boyfriend of the Chosen One, he'd have to.

            It seemed a fragile reassurance to cling to as he watched Harry and Weasley walk back to the castle, comfortable with each other as always, and as Malfoy watched them and plotted, half-coherent ideas that faded away like dreams.

*

            Harry staggered out of the maze that had been set up for the Third Task, carrying Diggory's body and with his face so pure white that Draco was amazed he was on his feet. Had he looked like that after the real Third Task? Draco could not remember. It seemed strange he couldn't, and he wondered if being in this Malfoy's head had poisoned or weakened his memories somehow.

            His attention snapped suddenly back to this reality as Harry shoved Diggory's body at someone and turned towards the part of the stands where Malfoy sat. Malfoy rose to his feet, his skin flushing all over and his pulse hammering hard enough to make his throat hurt. He knew it, he knew that someday Harry would realize his mistake and turn to him for help, and he ought to have been better-prepared but that was okay, he was prepared now--

            You fool, Draco whispered, watching Harry's dead eyes. Nothing happened during his confrontation with the Dark Lord that could make him change his mind about you.

            "Malfoy," Harry whispered, staggering to a stop and putting out his hand as though he would grasp something invisible for support. Malfoy reached for his hand, but Harry snatched it back and shook his head. "You have to know this. The Dark Lord was there, and there were--there were Death Eaters, and your father--" He closed his eyes and shuddered.

            "I know who my father is," Malfoy said, and his voice and head vibrated like a bell with his fear. If Harry told everyone around him what Lucius Malfoy did, without any cushion, without any shield, and looking as he did now, then everyone might believe him. Or at least enough people to matter.

            "Was." Harry blinked his eyes open, and they looked as if he had crawled through rainstorms, although Draco didn't think it was raining at the graveyard where the Dark Lord had taken Harry. Or, at least, it hadn't been from what he remembered. "He--he told him to capture me. Kill me. He ran at me, and he was saying something about how he was going to take Cedric's body away from me and destroy me, and--" He swallowed. His voice was dry, Draco could tell by looking at him, his hope gone, his body still shuddering with aftershocks of whatever had happened in the graveyard. "I meant to fire a Stunner. It was a warning!" Harry's voice rose. "But his head hit a gravestone, and his--his wand exploded, and then his head burst apart. I don't understand. I didn't hit him that hard. Someone else had to have been firing a curse at the same time, from another direction..."

            His voice trailed off. In the intense, listening silence around them, Draco thought he could hear the rain beginning.

            Malfoy drew his wand.

            Someone came between them, the Moody who wasn't Moody, as Draco remembered from later, his own wand drawn and his face set in a grin. "Now, then, what's this?" he hissed in Malfoy's face, and grabbed Harry's arm. "Drawing your wand on our own Savior? Your father wouldn't be very proud of that, would he?"

            Draco, out of the silent white maelstrom that had drowned him, didn't hear Malfoy's answer. He didn't see Moody drag Harry away, and he didn't know what the people around him--them--were saying. He sat down on the edge of the stands and put his head in his arms, or Malfoy did, and the world went past them, swift and without the one person who, until that evening, had most defined it for him.

            Because of course it was his father who was the most important person in his life, not Harry Bloody Potter. How could he ever have thought otherwise?

            Thoughts battered at the back of Draco's skull, tried to point out that the Harry who had destroyed his father in this universe was not the same one as the one he loved and had chosen to date, and it wasn't even his father who had died, really--

            But he had never thought that potential for violence lurked in Harry. Just as he had never thought the potential for lying or a romance with Blaise lurked in him.

            Draco had thought it would be different, but he had also thought he would understand the differences. Harry as a Slytherin would be smarter, more cunning, more ambitious, of course, and that would make him a person Draco could understand better and approve of more easily, someone who didn't have friendships with Mudbloods and Weasels. But what Draco saw instead was a warped funhouse mirror version of Harry, someone who could kill his father and announce it in front of everyone.

            This time, when the mists of the vision swept in, Draco almost hoped they would never clear.

*

            AlterEquis: Thank you! Although I think Draco doesn't think Malfoy is as petty and snotty now.

            Talltree-san: I'm really fascinated by stories where Harry is in Slytherin, but most of them don't seem to deal with the fact that there are lots of Death Eater children in Slytherin. Some of them might be friendly to Harry or not care, but some would attack. Hence the spells.

            unneeded: Yes. Draco sees the pressure on Malfoy, but not much of the pressure on Harry.

            Fullmoons_wings: Yes, something worse. And I only wish Draco could find as much humor in the situation. He really is starting to rethink his relationship with Harry.
- 4
- 5
- 6
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

All Desire in a Day