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Water from a Stone	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 14851 -:- 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 Nine—For the Sake of the Strategy

            Harry planned things carefully. He acted and moved so silently that Malfoy had no idea what was happening until he awoke from the cold, caused by the loss of the blankets as Harry Levitated him above the bed. And maybe the loss of Harry’s body warmth, too, but Harry wasn’t going to think about that.

            Malfoy blinked slowly awake, then thrashed and struggled as he realized that he was hovering three meters above the sheets.

            “Listen to me,” Harry said, and watched the way Malfoy’s head snapped around towards his voice. At least that showed he could pay attention. That was good. Harry was thinking of things that were good this morning, not things that were bad. “Are you listening?”

            Malfoy nodded, then looked ill. Perhaps the blood was rushing to his head. Harry had no sympathy. If Malfoy didn’t want to be in this position, he should have considered what he had done yesterday better.

            “You snogged me,” Harry said. “And then you pulled me into your bed so that you could tell everyone we slept together.” His voice was fragile, but he took a deep breath and pulled it more back into that playful tone he had worked so hard to come up with in the first place. “That’s a little far to go for the sake of truth, don’t you think?”

            “But we did sleep together.” Malfoy sounded calmer than Harry would have thought he could be when he woke to find himself suspended upside-down in midair.

            There was another tone in his voice, too, which Harry told himself he was not going to think about lest he should start bouncing Malfoy off the walls and not stop. See? he thought. I’m getting better at not thinking about things.

            “Not in the real sense,” Harry said. “And you’re going to go back out to the Slytherin common room and tell everyone that.” Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t imagine what he was thinking, following Malfoy into the bedroom without any caution. Zabini might have been all right, or Nott or Goyle, who hadn’t shown any unnatural interest in Harry’s chest. But no, Harry had followed Malfoy. Why?

            The potion that Madam Pomfrey gave me, he reminded himself, and then shook his head and refocused on Malfoy. He couldn’t spend this much time reflecting on his mistakes. He had to deal with the consequences instead. “You’re going to tell them that,” he said. “Aren’t you?”

            “Tell everyone that I didn’t have Harry Potter in my bed?” Malfoy asked. “Tell them that I didn’t snog him? But that would be lying.”

            Harry ground his teeth, and dreamed of casting a spell that would grind Malfoy’s teeth, too, until he was picking shattered remnants out of his gums and had to walk around for the rest of the year unable to give anyone else the innocent smile he was using on Harry now. But sadly, that would probably count as assault on a Slytherin, and his oath wouldn’t allow him to get away with it.

            “Listen,” Harry said. “You tell them exactly what happened, the way you took advantage of me because of those potions Madam Pomfrey fed me for my injury that made me sleepy and not like myself—”

            Malfoy laughed. The sound shut Harry up. Then he told himself that it wasn’t because he had wanted to listen to it, it was because it was so sharp and desperate and obviously a sign that Malfoy was finally starting to lose his mind. Well, good. That way, he couldn’t come up with any more devious traps for Harry to tumble into.

            “Madam Pomfrey never allows a patient to leave the hospital wing until she’s certain that they’re not suffering from anything, whether that’s the potions or their injuries,” Malfoy said. “If she let you go, either the potions were out of your body or you were a good enough actor to convince her they were—in which case you fooled me, too, and you don’t have an excuse for stumbling into my arms like you were made for them.” His voice lowered and got heated.

            Like an argument, Harry told himself hastily. Not like a fire. There are other things that can be heated. You don’t have to compare them all to flame.

            “You’re a Potions expert,” Harry said loudly. He couldn’t sense anyone else in the room. He thought that meant the other boys were gone, but just in case, he was going to make it absolutely and utterly clear what a liar Malfoy was. “You must have been able to tell.”

            “Flattered as the label makes me, Potter,” Malfoy said, swaying gently back and forth in the invisible net Harry had conjured for him, “I’m not a Potions expert. Slughorn still knows more than I do. So either you lied to me and yourself so well that I had no reason to think potions were affecting your behavior, or you came with me willingly. You just don’t want to admit that, because it would mean that you kissed me and stayed with me because you wanted to. Why are you so opposed to admitting that you want me?”

            “Stop it!” Harry shouted, and then paused to let the echoes of the shout die away. He was letting Malfoy get to him. He shouldn’t do that. He should just, calmly and concisely and always with one eye out for any of Malfoy’s dastardly tricks, explain what was what.

            “First of all,” Harry said, “you don’t want me. You’re confused.”

            Malfoy raised an eyebrow. How did he look so sarcastic when he was hanging upside-down? Harry didn’t know, but it must be a special class that Snape had given. How to Confuse and Irritate Your Enemies With Just an Eyebrow. “Am I.”

            “Yes,” Harry said, nodding. “We’ve spent a lot of time together because of the oath lately, and we participated in the attack on the library blockade together. So, because of that, you think that I’m nicer than I actually am. Let me remind you that I didn’t choose to defend you lot. It was the oath. It’s all the oath. When I manage to remove it, we’ll go back to being natural enemies.”

            “The oath doesn’t change your bravery, or the fact that you made the oath in the first place because you defended me from Matthieson,” Malfoy said, and there was a stupid softness in his voice. Harry told himself not to be afraid of it. It was as soft as water.

            Then he thought of how water could wear down rock if it dripped long enough, and hurried ahead. “Then you’re in love with me because I’m a big strong hero. Well, you’re wrong about me. I’m not all that nice.”

            “Aren’t you?” Malfoy sounded more interested this time, and Harry silently congratulated himself for being so smart. Yes, this was why Malfoy was interested, and Harry would change that interest into disgust before he was done.

            “That’s right,” Harry said. “I’ve used pretty nasty spells to fulfill the oath. Leaving people dangling upside-down. Making that girl spin in place until she threw up. Sticking people to the walls with webs when they might have been afraid of heights. I’m not the hero that you think I am. Hell, I didn’t even defeat Voldemort properly. I just managed to use the Elder Wand against him, which was a total and complete coincidence. You could say that you had as much part in defeating Voldemort as I did,” Harry added generously.

            Malfoy turned his head. Harry’s stomach sank. He was smiling at him.

            “I know all that,” Malfoy said. “And I don’t care. None of those people you hurt or killed are ones I cared about.”

            “But you must care about yourself,” Harry said frantically. He could feel that they were hurtling towards something, and he didn’t want them to arrive, because crashing into the something would mean that he couldn’t struggle anymore. It lurked in the back of his mind like a huge spiderweb. “And right now I’m dangling you above your bed like I dangled those kids I fought. See? Evil!”

            “I think that you’re justifiably upset about what happened yesterday,” Malfoy said. His voice was a little breathless, but still calm. “And I reckon I should have thought about that, and realized denial that deep isn’t overcome by a few snogs. I’m sorry.”

            Harry waved his arms. “Malfoy, you’re not supposed to do that!”

            “Why not?” Malfoy spun faster in place now that Harry’s magic was responding to his emotions, but he still smiled. Harry stared. What in the world would it take to get that smile to disappear? Maybe Snape had taught a class about maintaining your smile under difficult situations, too. Then Harry told himself not to be ridiculous. Snape didn’t know how to smile. “Things have changed. I told you this. They’re too big to stop.”

            “Yes, but you were referring to the bullying of the Slytherins,” Harry said quickly. “And that will stop, and there are already people in other Houses helping us, like whatever Gryffindor attacked Everhardt.”

            “I was referring to more than that,” Malfoy said. “Like the process that will result in you calling me Draco someday. I’m already comfortable with thinking of you as Harry, and—”

            “Don’t do that!” Harry could practically feel the heads in the Slytherin common room lifting and turning towards his bellow.

            In the silence that followed, Malfoy’s eyes narrowed mischievously. Harry found himself staring in horrified fascination, although he all but knew what was coming next.

            “Harry,” Malfoy whispered, in a tone that wasn’t mocking, the way Harry had expected, but low and sensual. “Harry. Harry. Harry.”

            There was only one way to handle this, and the way that it made Harry feel as if he had jelly instead of bones. He flicked his wand, and Malfoy dropped to the bed. There, Harry thought. Let’s see him say that with his mouth full of pillow.

            Malfoy shook his head and raised it, and then focused his bleary eyes on Harry. His smile was still sharp. He opened his mouth as if he was going to whisper Harry’s name again, but Harry cut in. He had to make Malfoy shut up and listen to him, and maybe reminding him of what was really important was the way to do that.

            “We can still use to this our advantage,” he said. “Imagine how mad everyone will go when they hear that a Slytherin and a Gryffindor slept together.”

            One of Malfoy’s eyebrows rose, but he seemed to accept the truth for the truth it was, rather than treating it as a distraction from some overriding purpose. “That’s true,” he said. “But to do that, you have to be willing to admit that I didn’t lure you up here under the influence of any potion, and that you kissed me back. Willingly.”

            “I’ll say that publically,” Harry said, and glared at him, the same glare that he gave the Daily Prophet reporters when they printed a story that wasn’t true. It felt good to be back on ground that he understood, instead of feeling that he had to scramble to catch up to Malfoy. “But we’ll both know what really happened.”

            “Yes,” said Malfoy. “You yielded to my seduction.”

            “No, I didn’t,” Harry said. “You took advantage of me.”

            Malfoy sighed. “You’re perfectly capable of hurting anyone who does that. I took a risk. I would have backed off if you had screamed at me in disgust. But you just stood there as if you were hypnotized, which I took to mean that you don’t really know what you want. So I took another chance and kissed you again, and you responded. Unless you want to tell me that I attached your hands to my hair by some super-secret web spell,” he added sarcastically.

            “You probably know one,” Harry muttered, but he was bewildered for the moment, because what Malfoy said sounded true.

            Then he reminded himself it couldn’t be true, because Malfoy only wanted him based on a false perception, and Harry had given in based on false perceptions, and the whole thing was false and anyway only a trick to fool the enemy. Malfoy had even said that when they were preparing to go to sleep.

            “We’ll come up with the tale and maintain it in front of people if we need to,” Harry said. “But it isn’t real, and it’s going no further.”

            Malfoy stared at him. “You’re an idiot,” he said. “Why do I want you?”

            Harry pointed his wand triumphantly at him. “Yes! That’s the right direction! Think it through and you’ll realize that it makes no sense and that the only reason you want me is because Harry Potter as he exists in your head has taken over from the real one!”

            Malfoy put a hand over his eyes. Then he dropped it again and spoke with what Harry assumed had to be a sudden return to sanity—or, more likely, he had realized that his evil plan hadn’t worked and never would work. “Fine. But we’ll tell everyone that we’re together for the sake of the strategy, right?”

            “That’s right,” Harry said, and smiled at him. “You know, Malfoy, you aren’t half-bad when you actually listen instead of plunging everything in your head behind a wall of massive denial.”

            “And that’s why,” Malfoy said, which made no sense, but he leaned forwards to shake Harry’s hand. If his fingertips stayed on Harry’s palm, caressing, for a moment longer than they should have, Harry understood the reason. Malfoy wanted a false version of him, and it would take him a while to wake up.

            In fact, Harry thought, it was a lot easier to smile at Malfoy now that he knew that Malfoy knew the truth. A lot easier to smile. He felt as if he could go on doing it all day.

*

            “Harry! You slept with Malfoy?”

            Harry sighed. He had wondered how he and Malfoy were going to announce this, and he had quietly told his friends that morning at breakfast, thinking they might come up with ideas. But now that Ron had shrieked that information out, they didn’t have to come up with a way to spread the rumor.

            Heads turned all over the Great Hall. Harry leaned back in his chair, raised his glass of pumpkin juice in a toast to the stares, cast Malfoy at the Slytherin table what he hoped was a sufficiently melting glance, and then turned to Ron. He had his mouth open, full of half-chewed food, and Harry shivered in revulsion. Hermione was staring at him over the top of her book.

            “Yes, I did,” Harry said. Really, “sleeping together” was a useful phrase. It said exactly what had happened—because of Malfoy’s tendency to let himself be easily fooled—without telling the truth. “We decided that—well, you’ve seen the way he looks at me.” Malfoy had assured him that it was obvious, and everyone would believe it. Well, as long as he didn’t mind looking stupid in public when the truth about his obsession with Harry was revealed, Harry decided he could do what he liked.

            “But that’s,” Ron said, and left the sentence dangling, much like the piece of toast that was creeping past his teeth.

            “Oh, honestly,” Hermione said, and picked up a napkin from the table to toss at Ron. “At least catch it if you’re not going to eat it!” Then she turned to Harry and stared at him, her eyes so piercing that Harry felt as if he knew how insects on pins felt. “Is that really true? You really felt comfortable enough with a Slytherin to sleep with him? And a boy at that?”

            Harry widened his eyes and nodded earnestly. “Yeah, I did.” There were so many issues under the surface that the simple words didn’t address, but he didn’t see why Ron and Hermione needed to know that Malfoy had made a mistake and was slowly changing his mind. They could know that later.

            “Oh, Harry,” Hermione whispered. “Forgive me. I thought this was all about the oath, but it’s bigger than that, isn’t it?”

            Harry hesitated for a minute—he and Malfoy hadn’t discussed what to do if someone got overly enthusiastic about this—but then ended up nodding. After all, Malfoy had used the same phrasing, so he probably wouldn’t object to Harry agreeing with Hermione.

            Hermione flung her arms around Harry in a hug so hard that it made some of his toast join Ron’s in flight. “Harry! I’m so happy for you! You’re really committed, and it’s not just the oath! I always knew that you were a better person than you’ve been making yourself sound this year!”

            “Er,” Harry said, not really knowing what else to say with those last few precious gasps of air. It sounded like she was joining Malfoy in his denial, but he couldn’t be sure.

            “I’ve got to go talk to them,” Hermione babbled, getting up from the table, picking up her first book, starting to turn away, realizing the second book was still lying on the bench, and then dropping the first as she bent down to pick that one up. “Some of them thought you were just doing it to get in the papers again. They’ll have to recognize that it’s different now.”

            “Who?” Harry asked in bewilderment, envisioning Hermione telling Rita Skeeter to write a serious story or else.

            “The people who came to me about how you were ignoring their feelings,” Hermione said. “Some of them thought that you were just helping the Slytherins to get attention. But you wouldn’t sleep with a Slytherin just to get attention! I know you, Harry. You’re such a good person. This is true love, and that’s bigger than just about anything.” She smiled tenderly at him, finally got the books settled in her arms, and bustled away.

            Harry stared helplessly after her, half-standing, and then sat back down with a plop and shook his head. Maybe this was a good thing, he told himself. Attacks on Slytherins had been decreasing in the last few days. Maybe they were finally getting through, and Hermione would tell the group of protestors who didn’t want to be lumped in with the attackers but also didn’t want to help something that would turn them into helpers.

            He realized Ron was still sitting there, staring at him, the napkin caught on his lips where Hermione had thrown it. Harry blinked. “Are you all right with this, mate?”

            Ron finally picked up the napkin, closed his mouth, and swallowed the bite of toast. Then he leaned towards Harry and whispered seriously, “If you’re dating a bloke, then you must have…well, experience with blokes, right?”

            “Malfoy’s the first one I’ve ever dated,” Harry said warily. Once again, he wasn’t sure where this was going.

            Ron checked over his shoulder both ways, looked up at the ceiling and under the bench, and then leaned even nearer and whispered, “I don’t really have a small penis, do I?”

*

            “I just wanted to let you know that I really did want to help, but I was afraid.”

            Harry kept a big smile on his face as he nodded, and even patted Robinson on the back when he looked as if he needed it. “I understand.” And he did, in one sense. Hector Robinson was a fifth-year Ravenclaw who felt sorry for the Slytherins but was afraid of what his House would say if he stood up.

            The problem was, Harry couldn’t feel sorrier for him than he was for the Slytherins, like Parkinson, who had suffered most directly from the bullying. He really wasn’t as nice a person as people thought he was, and his sympathy was limited. Once he had only given it to his best friends; then to a few other Gryffindors and people who suffered from Umbridge; now to the Slytherins. He might not want to hurt people, he might sacrifice himself to save them, but he wasn’t going to sit around worrying about people who might possibly get their little feelings hurt from some action of his.

            Robinson straightened up with a sniffle and gave him a firm nod. “I just wanted you to know. So now I’ll come to the defense class that you have set up for the Slytherins, and help teach them.” He hesitated. “I’ll be welcome, right?”

            “As long as you want to help, yes,” Harry said. “And as long as you keep in mind that if you attack anybody with more force than is necessary for demonstrating a spell, you’ll be out of the class in a minute.”

            Robinson nodded seriously. He had glasses that made his eyes squint in an earnest manner. Harry had noticed that most of the Ravenclaws did. “I know that. I hope I’ll convince a few other people to come with me.” He gave Harry one more brilliant smile and then scurried away.

            Harry leaned back against his chair in the library and sighed. That was the sixth conversation he’d had today with one of the people Hermione had talked about who wanted to help but didn’t want to be accused and didn’t want to be blamed and didn’t want to be hurt and didn’t want to actually do anything. At least they sounded like they were doing something now. Most of them had promised to come to the next gathering of the Slytherin defense class tonight, and others had promised to talk to their Housemates about the stupidity of their attacks.

            If the attacks continued.

            Harry was cautiously hopeful so far. There had been none today, and people had been looking at him with more thoughtful expressions and less anger than usual. More and more of the Slytherins knew the Patronus Charm, although none of them could make a corporeal Patronus like Malfoy or Harry. Others were becoming expert with the Shield Charm. McGonagall had punished two of the Gryffindors who a prefect had overheard making plans for a raid on the Slytherin common room with detention.

            Things were working out.

            Harry rubbed the oath-scar on his chest. He would have to ask Hermione to start researching whether he would have it forever, and how responsible it might make him for Slytherins who entered the school after he left. The terms of the wording were probably important, so he might have to give her the Pensieve memory. If—

            “Harry?”

            He looked up, blinking. Romilda Vane stood in front of him, staring at him with her hands clasped near her waist and her mouth locked in a frown. Oddly, all Harry could think of at that moment was how differently she said his name from the way Malfoy said it.

            “Yes, what?” Harry asked, when he realized that she wasn’t going to get the hint from his silent stare and simply leave.

            Vane smoothed her skirt for a moment, and then blurted out, “Is it true that you’re dating Malfoy?”

            “I slept with him, yes,” Harry said. He refused to say anything more or anything less than the absolute truth, in case it gave Malfoy ideas. It was people’s fault if they misinterpreted his words.

            “That’s—that’s not fair,” said Vane, and her eyes filled with tears. “Not when you knew I wanted you! Not when I tried everything that I could to get you when you were here during your sixth year!”

            Harry put his hand over his face. Just what he needed, someone getting jealous over a love affair that didn’t actually exist. He thought the imaginary version of him that Vane had in mind, the dedicated and tender lover who somehow never glanced at her, made even less sense than Malfoy’s vision of him as a hero.

            “Go away, Romilda,” he said wearily.

            “I just want to know,” said Vane, and moved forwards, reaching out with one hand as if she would touch his face. Harry dodged, and her hand scraped the library table. She sniffled again. “Just kiss me. Let me know if he’s as good as I am. If I’m better, then you have to date me.”

            That makes sense somewhere in her twisted world, I’m certain. Harry stood up. “I don’t want you,” he said. “I thought I’d made that clear.”

            Vane smiled. “But you haven’t said you do want him! That’s as good as an admission.” She stepped forwards again.

            Harry opened his mouth. He knew he was going to retort, but he didn’t know what he’d choose for the substance of the retort. He might not even have chosen it when he felt a strong hand on the back of his neck.

            “He doesn’t need to say what’s absolutely obvious,” Malfoy’s voice snarled, and then he spun Harry around and into another kiss.

            Harry nearly broke free, but then he remembered that they needed to make this look good for Vane. She was an inveterate gossip and would spread the story all over school, whether he stayed pressed against Malfoy or broke free. So he leaned closer and opened his mouth to feed Malfoy his tongue.

            Malfoy moaned and opened his mouth in return, and his tongue swept across Harry’s. That tasted unexpectedly good. Harry decided that he could stay right here and snog for a little longer when it tasted so good. Vane’s mouth would probably taste like moldy cheese.

            He pressed Malfoy back against the table, taking control of the kiss, and then giving a little shimmy maneuver with his hips so that Malfoy’s legs parted. Malfoy moaned again. Harry hoped that Vane was getting an earful, assuming she was still standing there and hadn’t fled somewhere else to indulge in a flood of tears.

            Then he rubbed his cock against Malfoy’s.

            Harry froze, a different kind of tension entirely taking him over and banishing the playfulness. That was—that wasn’t funny. Malfoy was hard, and Harry was on his way to getting there, and suddenly it just wasn’t very amusing.

            He jumped back and stared at the floor. Luckily, a glance over his shoulder revealed that Vane was gone. He took a deep breath and turned back to Malfoy.

            Malfoy took his time about picking himself up from the table. When he sat up, he had more than a faint smirk on his lips. He touched his mouth, then glanced down at Harry’s erection and raised his eyebrows.

            “It was friction,” Harry said quickly. “And your mouth tastes good, and your hair’s nice. I told you. That was unfair.”

            “You think I taste good,” Malfoy said, and his voice was soft. “That’s all I needed to know, to make up for the disappointment of this morning.”

            He stood up, cast a Tempus Charm, and then added, “Seven minutes until the Defense group begins. I think you should be there.”

            He strolled away.

            Harry sat down hard in the library chair and leaned back, staring at the ceiling. He should think about what had just happened. He should think how horrible it was that Malfoy was falling for some version of himself who didn’t exist, and what he could do to discourage the poor boy and point him to someone else who could give him what he wanted.

            But all he could really do was think about how good Malfoy tasted, and keep licking at his lips to get the taste back, until he had to run to the Room of Requirement.

*



            lpnightmare: Not that Draco’s intervention does much good!

            SP777: Anybody can become a member of that club! Just fold your arms.

            More sessions of the Defense club are coming up in Chapter 10.

            Lady_of_Clunn: Not all! Nott and Goyle probably don’t know, or care.

            And yes, you may have Blaise if he agrees.

            Wölkchen: Thanks! That is, in fact, the impression I wanted it to produce, as it deals with bullying, a pretty serious subject, but I wanted the humor, too.

            polka dot: Just spending the night in the dorms and letting rumors do the work was the plan. But he had no idea what else to do, and his extreme denial made him weak.

            tiggator: Thank you! I’m glad you’re enjoying it.

            angelmuziq: Thank you! Of course, Harry doesn’t agree that Draco liked him from the beginning.

            lyra_ofhell: Thank you! Harry’s getting better at denying things in general, although as you see in this chapter, that ability suffers a slight setback.
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Water from a Stone