ran to ground for a while there but I came off pretty well
I had a dream last night that I was Harry Potter (though this fact is largely irrelevant to the entire dream) and I went to visit Jake Gyllenhaal at boot camp whihc was more like a weird summer camp. It was near Lake Mead. There was some problem with the water in the late suddenly having tides and moving houses around. There also were people protesting a new plan, soon to be implemented, that there would no longer be any public access to the lake only people who owned property around it would be able to get to it. Back at camp Jake was supposed to be doing some chores but he didn’t wnat to. We snuck off and hid under a giant straw hat (the sort you see rice farmers wearing in old paintings) on a porch swing made out of an olive drab colored mattress, and snogged. Until Draco came along and blasted the hat off of us yelling something about Quidditch and throwing a broom at us. Then Dumbledore was there and he was annoyed but amused and I woke up thinking. wtf? The snogging was hot though.
Anyway, I was cleaning out my hard drive yesterday in preperation for backing it up and I found a ton of old fic I'd forgotten about. Some of it was very scary will never see the light of day and some was not so bad. So WIP Amnesty I say. I’m posting them so I can stop thinking I might ever do anything more with them and move on with my life.
Thing one: Shards, an odd bit of Harry/Draco apparently written just post OotP.
Draco makes a sweeping gesture with his left hand. But was it to make a point? What is he talking about anyway. Is he really just flailing about like this? Filling in the increasingly less awkward silences with stupid anecdotes. His hand brushes a glass, perched on the brink of disaster, and sweeps it along with his thoughts and words, and what was he getting at anyway, sending it skittering over the edge, into thin air.
Over the edge. He’s gone over the edge for sure. Standing here in Potter’s kitchen. Potter’s kitchen. And this happened how? Sometimes he’s sure there’s someone else controlling his thoughts, actions, words. Not like being under Imperious or anything. Just that maybe there’s some part of his brain that he doesn’t know is there that leads him to do these things. Like go back to Potter’s apartment with him for a drink when he knows that Pansy is waiting for him at her place. Like the fact that he even talked to Potter at all when he saw him in the cafe. That he didn’t just get up and leave the second he realized that Potter had seen him. That he made eye contact. That he enjoyed talking to him enough that he didn’t want to leave and when Potter said “My place is just down the street. Why don’t you come back for a drink,” he’d felt a sort of aching unexplainable relief and nervousness.
The glass shatters on impact with the tile floor, like a shower of sparks, shards thrown in all directions and red wine, like blood, staining the grout. A muttered, sorry. Both bending down to pick up the pieces. Harry saying, don’t worry about it. His hand brushes Draco’s and he flinches. Harry slips, cutting his finger on the broken glass.
Such tiny pieces. Sometimes it is so easy to destroy something without even meaning to. Shards, like he sometimes feels is the state of his brain. Just one misplaced gesture of the arm and it’s all over. It’s all over.
Blood pools and starts to slide down Harry’s index finger, already stained dark by the wine. He sticks his finger in his mouth and sucks on it. Blood and wine mingle on his tongue. Malfoy is giving him a very odd look, somewhere between curiosity and horror. Or maybe that’s not it at all.
Then he’s pinned up against the cabinet, Malfoy’s hands on his shoulders. For a second he thinks that this has all been an act. That Malfoy was only being civil until he could get him alone and unguarded. That he’s a vampire and the sight of blood has sent him into a feeding frenzy. That he still does blame Harry for his father being sent to Azkaban and intends to make him pay. Malfoy’s face is so close he can’t see it anymore and he closes his eyes, expecting the worst. Then he feels, not teeth on his neck, but tongue on his lips. Then lips on lips, hard and insistent.
Draco tastes blood and wine and feels drunk with the sensation of hands working their way up under his shirt.
Thing Two: Something vaguely Remus/Harry, also just post OotP.
Remus feels the eyes on him the moment he steps over the threshold of number 12 Grimmauld Place amid dear old Mrs. Black’s screams, eyes dulled with grief and longing and other emotions indiscernible to their owners. Eyes that once sparkled with delight at the world around them but have since gone dull and distant. The gaze is steady, though he cannot pinpoint the source, and it raises the hairs on the back of his neck as it follows him down the hall to the kitchen and then into his room at night.
Remus feels it still when he wakes from dreams of desperate looking black dogs imploring him to follow and he squints into the darkness trying to discern the outline of a boy who is there but is not, in more ways than one. Remus is sure that Harry will soon emerge from his cocoon of invisibility, his cocoon of the one tangible thing he has from his father, but he doesn’t.
Five days on Remus wakes in the shimmering light of a gibbous moon to the ghost of breath on his cheek. His hand brushed fabric as he reaches out, calls Harry’s name. He feels fabric on fingertips then the rush of air as the door is opened and swiftly closed.
Six nights on Remus pretends to sleep until he feels the gaze emerge from the corner, the barely audible swish of fabric belaying Harry’s whereabouts. With eyes closed he can feel the slight figure standing over him, then there is a hand, tentative, on his cheek. Remus is faster this time and he catches the too thin wrist as it emerges out of thin air and whispers “Harry” into the darkness.
Harry jolts at the touch, as if Remus’ hand imparts not only warmth but an electric charge, and tries to pull away. Remus holds fast and pulls him closer, the cloak catching on the bed stead and falling, in a shimmering pile, to the floor. And Remus sees, for the first time in weeks, the source of the gaze that has been haunting him.
The eyes are dull and numb and full of grief at the same time Remus can feel the weight behind them, holding Harry down, crushing him, “Harry” he whispers again and the boy crumples into him with the sigh of one whose world is falling apart. “Oh, Harry” and the boy presses closer, the poles have shifted from not wanting any contact at all to wanting more than is available.
Harry shifts around and presses his hands to Remus’ chest, then neck and arms and stomach and Remus finds his fingers absently stroking Harry’s side. The eyes are imploring now, pleading, and far more effective than words ever could be.
Thing Three: A fic that was seemingly meant to be for longsunday and contains both Blaise/Harry and Blaise/Draco.
It wasn’t that Blaise found Potter attractive exactly, though not unattractive either, but intriguing. There had to be more to this so-called hero than sidekicks with ridiculous hair and Dumbledore’s good will.
There was something behind his eyes when he glared in the Slytherin’s direction in response to Draco’s inane taunts. Something that said there was more there than the surface revealed.
Once the thought had lodged itself in his brain there was no shaking it. Only confirming.
When Potter peeled himself away from Weasley and Granger after Potions and headed away from the Great Hall Blaise pounced.
Potter was leaning against the wall when he rounded the corner. As if he’d been expecting him. Green eyes fixed him in a level gaze, and when Blaise stopped in front of him and leaned in, right hand on stone inches from Potter’s head, he didn’t flinch. Potter’s eyes were hard and unreadable even as Blaise bared his teeth at his ear and was rewarded with a small gasp.
Potter’s hand was on Blaise’s wrist even before Blaise had really thought about moving. A surprisingly tight grip for one so seemingly slight; seeker reflexes, some sort of movement based sixth sense. Blaise had expected indignant accusations and slurs against Slytherin, not a firm grasp and stoic - almost willing - acceptance.
The taste of tanned Gryffindor skin was somehow refreshing on his tongue. Tangy, almost. Spicy. And Potter leaned into him, with a moan, as teeth pierced skin. Suspicions confirmed. There was most definitely more to Potter than first glance revealed.
:::
Draco cornered Blaise (this was new) quicksilver fire and fencing precision and pulling back the collar of his shirt with enough force to tear the fabric. Exposing a neat row of teeth marks marking the edge of his collar bone. Silver eyes coloured with rage. And hissed “Who.” It wasn’t a question. A pause then: “No. I know who it is. And don’t want to hear you say his name.”
And Blaise whispered “Potter.”
Draco was feeling reckless and the look in Blaise’s eyes that normally sent shivers down his spine and unmistakably said don’t fuck with me just made him want to push further. See how far he’d go. Find out just exactly how murderous that glare was. Fucking Potter. Of all people.
There was just something about an enraged Draco that made Blaise purr. Indignant clenched fists, silver sparks and almost-deadly glare.
Then, later in the same file with no real connection between the two:
Draco, sat alone in his room feeling sorry for himself. If he didn’t no one else would. His father had been thrown in Azkaban, His family was all but ruined. Potter, the little fucker, had once again come out on top.
When Narcissa called from the foyer that Blaise Zabini had come to call Draco didn’t answer, or even move. Nor did he wonder just exactly why Blaise had decided to show up the last week before the start of term when he hadn’t heard so much as a peep from him for the entire summer. Not that it really mattered anyway. Not that Zabini had ever been a very attentive or entirely enjoyable companion, if you could call him that, in the first place. However, Blaise’s lingering presence did have certain... advantages.
Advantages that involved swift and skillful removal of clothing and well placed teeth, hands, tongue. Advantages that were not, in fact, advantages at all if he cared to think about in the way Lucius would. There was no advantage in wanting something from someone, no matter how deeply it was hidden. No advantage to the one who wanted it anyway, and huge advantage to the one who it was wanted from. It did not do to dwell on such things.
And, of course, when Blaise walked into the room, there was no dwelling on anything that wasn’t directly related to him and whatever marginally sinister thoughts were prowling about his brain, gnashing their teeth and searching for someone to pounce on.
Blaise eyed Draco, sprawled on the bed like a repentant sinner waiting to be struck down and snorted.
“Don’t tell me you’ve been lying here like this all summer. Feeling sorry for yourself.”
“Fine. I won’t then.”
“You’re looking peaky, you need to get some air. We’re going outside.”
“We? I really don’t think there is a we. You may go outside. I’ll just stay here thanks.”
“I may? Why thank you, oh great and powerful Malfoy, for giving me permission to leave your exhaulted presence.”
“Did you really come all the way over here just to insult me?”
“Actually, I came to cheer you up.”
“Well, you’re doing an absolutely crap job of it.”
“You have no one to blame but yourself.”
“Of course, my fault. Because it couldn’t possibly be the fault of the one who’s trying to cheer me up with incredulous statements and insults.”
“Now you’re on the right track.”
“Fuck off, Zabini.”
Blaise shot Draco a smug smirk. “I did take your mind off it though, didn’t I.”
“Off what?”
“What ever it was you were broodilly obsessing over.”
“I’m not obsessing. Just thinking.”
“Whatever you say, dear boy,” Blaise said and flopped down on the bed beside Draco.
Draco rolled over, turning his back to him.
Thing Four: This was apparently meant to be a Coil challenge of some sort. It didn't get very far.
The hiss drip of the rain outside mingled with the sizzle pop of the fire and the ringing in his ears until he couldn’t tell one from the other. Fire from rain, from noises that weren’t even there. He glanced down at the parchment in his hand, for one last time, then with a flick of his wrist, tossed it into the fire. It sat, for a moment, untouched and unmarred upon the coals, before it burst into flames and darkened and curled and was gone. The image of the words written upon it still burned against the back of his eyelids when he closed them and no amount of trying not to think seemed to help.
The rain fell in sheets, pounding pounding on the glass, trying it’s best to break through and so loud that he felt he might just drown in sound. Moisture magnified the colors making green greener, richer, deeper, to the point where it seemed unreal and too bright and all consuming tinting everything in off coloured half shadows. Rain sliding off the roof in light dancing streams leaving the impression of water running down and around and over everything dark and light and all green.
It is possible that there are no happy endings for Slytherins. Something in the blood maybe. The quality that marks them as Slytherins in the first place. The one defining factor that the sorting hat is searching for as it probes all those eager eleven year old minds. Something to do with cunning ambition that calls those to it who are looking not for contentment but power, satisfaction of a different sort, an end that justifies the means.
Thing Five: a very small Blaise/Draco snippet.
“The most severe heat wave in over one hundred years.”
Draco decides that he is going to hex the next Ravenclaw he hears uttering those words in awed tones as if it was all just one grand charms project. An amazing feat, creating a heat that can even penetrated the dungeons, not the life sucking force of misery it actually is.
The air in the dungeons is... sticky would be the only word to describe it. As if the air has been mixed with treacle, a fine mist of it hanging in the air. Cooling charms hardly have any effect as they do nothing about the humidity and end up just creating condensation on the stone.
As the heat increases the amount of clothing students feel it is appropriate to wear decreases until Blaise is lying naked on his fourposter, curtains pulled back, idly fanning himself with a well worn copy of The Picture of Dorian Grey.
Thing Six: Wolf, another Blaise/Draco. This is the only one I really remembered and also the only one I kept thinking I was going to finish. It's not going to happen though.
Draco had spent many an hour playing childish games with Crabbe and Goyle as a small child and been perfectly content (or as content as a young Malfoy could ever be). Yet when they were appointed his 'friends' by his father on the platform before boarding the Hogwarts Express for the first time he suddenly realized how incredibly boring they were. And all it took were nine little words: "We are not sure where the Zabini's loyalties lie," in passing, over an elegant dinner of grand proportions during the Easter holidays later that year, to make Blaise Zabini - who had been a non-entity in his mind up to that point - incredibly interesting.
The Zabinis had visited during the Christmas holidays, third year, for what reason Draco couldn’t fathom, or remember. He and Blaise wandered off while the adults sat at the dinner table being pretentious and talking of uninteresting things; all sweeping declarations and verbal patting each other on the back. In the cramped and badly lit corridor behind the kitchens where only house elves tread /Why do you want to go down there? It’s filthy./ Blaise discovered a splintery wooden crate of vodka, twenty four bottles all printed in red ink with lovely indecipherable Cyrillic. It was a gift from one of Lucius' 'clients' in St. Petersburg. Blaise insisted they open it.
Then: "Now that it’s open I think we ought to sample it." Draco’s protests quickly fell by the wayside under Blaise's persistence.
When the bottle was mostly empty, and things were blurring around the edges, Draco was sure he could see Blaise for what he really was, with his wide teasing grin of too many teeth and too sharp, and trying to tempt him closer. It was a sly wolf's trap, Come a little closer and I'll eat you up. Here was the sort of person (entity?) parents warned their children about, if they were that sort of parents. With all the sudden clarity of one who is engulfed in a drunken haze Draco decided that he knew exactly what was going on. And he wasn't falling for it.
Draco remembered that moment of clarity at odd times (though not what the thought was, just that he knew something, and that it had to do with Blaise) which left Draco eyeing the dark haired boy warily as he passed in the common room and thinking "I am not afraid," and then wondering where that thought had come from.
Ghosts of these thoughts flitted across his mind as he watched Blaise, standing just the other side of the iron gate, grinning like an unsolved puzzle, the headstones of hundreds of Muggle graves fanning out behind him in the moon light. Few wizards ever ventured here, the site where so many were burned. Blaise seemed to find it somehow compelling. Something about his not-quite-trustworthy-too-many-teeth-grin reminded Draco of a Muggle fairy tale he'd once heard about a boy who captured a wolf. Possibly Blaise was the wolf trying to tempt him over the fence to eat him up. Or possibly he was the wolf and Blaise was the boy trying to tempt him over the fence and capture him. Or possibly they were both the wolf, tempting each other, yet also both the boy.
Or maybe it was just the bottle of scotch they'd finished off before Blaise had decided they needed to go for a midnight walk in the woods behind the Zabini estate. Draco found he didn't care all that much as he clambered gingerly over the more-dangerous-than-he'd-really-like-to-think-about spike-tipped iron fence.
He followed Blaise /and why is it that he follows Blaise/ through winding semi-wooded paths past graves long forgotten, the headstones, like the bodies buried beneath them, working their way toward dirt; names obscured by year after year of biting wind and rain and the nibbling feet of lichen. Draco stoped for a moment in front of a headstone pushed at an odd angle and swallowed almost whole by a tree. Then, with a sudden fear that the tree didn’t grow over the stone over the course of years but mere minutes, he hurried off as nonchalantly as possible before it engulfed him too.
The statue of Michael, he had to admit, was quite well done despite being tarnished and black with age and ill repair.
"I've always liked this statue, the beast in particular. There is a sword piercing it's throat, true, but it is stronger than it looks. It could still triumph. Take the angel down with it."
"How much have you had to drink?"
"Enough."
Draco tried to ignore the way the moonlight glinted in Blaise's eyes like sparks, like fire. "Why must we always visit these ruined places? They don't suit me."
Blaise flashed a grin, white teeth in the moonlight, ran his finger along Draco's jaw and hissed. "Oh, but you see, dear boy, it does suit you. The only son of Lucius Malfoy poised to very much not follow in his father's footsteps. And," Blaise took a step closer, hot breath coiled around Draco's neck, lips brushed his ear. "Not product an heir. You are the ruin of your name. I've always felt quite at home in ruins."
Ah, I feel so much better now.
Anyway, I was cleaning out my hard drive yesterday in preperation for backing it up and I found a ton of old fic I'd forgotten about. Some of it was very scary will never see the light of day and some was not so bad. So WIP Amnesty I say. I’m posting them so I can stop thinking I might ever do anything more with them and move on with my life.
Thing one: Shards, an odd bit of Harry/Draco apparently written just post OotP.
Draco makes a sweeping gesture with his left hand. But was it to make a point? What is he talking about anyway. Is he really just flailing about like this? Filling in the increasingly less awkward silences with stupid anecdotes. His hand brushes a glass, perched on the brink of disaster, and sweeps it along with his thoughts and words, and what was he getting at anyway, sending it skittering over the edge, into thin air.
Over the edge. He’s gone over the edge for sure. Standing here in Potter’s kitchen. Potter’s kitchen. And this happened how? Sometimes he’s sure there’s someone else controlling his thoughts, actions, words. Not like being under Imperious or anything. Just that maybe there’s some part of his brain that he doesn’t know is there that leads him to do these things. Like go back to Potter’s apartment with him for a drink when he knows that Pansy is waiting for him at her place. Like the fact that he even talked to Potter at all when he saw him in the cafe. That he didn’t just get up and leave the second he realized that Potter had seen him. That he made eye contact. That he enjoyed talking to him enough that he didn’t want to leave and when Potter said “My place is just down the street. Why don’t you come back for a drink,” he’d felt a sort of aching unexplainable relief and nervousness.
The glass shatters on impact with the tile floor, like a shower of sparks, shards thrown in all directions and red wine, like blood, staining the grout. A muttered, sorry. Both bending down to pick up the pieces. Harry saying, don’t worry about it. His hand brushes Draco’s and he flinches. Harry slips, cutting his finger on the broken glass.
Such tiny pieces. Sometimes it is so easy to destroy something without even meaning to. Shards, like he sometimes feels is the state of his brain. Just one misplaced gesture of the arm and it’s all over. It’s all over.
Blood pools and starts to slide down Harry’s index finger, already stained dark by the wine. He sticks his finger in his mouth and sucks on it. Blood and wine mingle on his tongue. Malfoy is giving him a very odd look, somewhere between curiosity and horror. Or maybe that’s not it at all.
Then he’s pinned up against the cabinet, Malfoy’s hands on his shoulders. For a second he thinks that this has all been an act. That Malfoy was only being civil until he could get him alone and unguarded. That he’s a vampire and the sight of blood has sent him into a feeding frenzy. That he still does blame Harry for his father being sent to Azkaban and intends to make him pay. Malfoy’s face is so close he can’t see it anymore and he closes his eyes, expecting the worst. Then he feels, not teeth on his neck, but tongue on his lips. Then lips on lips, hard and insistent.
Draco tastes blood and wine and feels drunk with the sensation of hands working their way up under his shirt.
Thing Two: Something vaguely Remus/Harry, also just post OotP.
Remus feels the eyes on him the moment he steps over the threshold of number 12 Grimmauld Place amid dear old Mrs. Black’s screams, eyes dulled with grief and longing and other emotions indiscernible to their owners. Eyes that once sparkled with delight at the world around them but have since gone dull and distant. The gaze is steady, though he cannot pinpoint the source, and it raises the hairs on the back of his neck as it follows him down the hall to the kitchen and then into his room at night.
Remus feels it still when he wakes from dreams of desperate looking black dogs imploring him to follow and he squints into the darkness trying to discern the outline of a boy who is there but is not, in more ways than one. Remus is sure that Harry will soon emerge from his cocoon of invisibility, his cocoon of the one tangible thing he has from his father, but he doesn’t.
Five days on Remus wakes in the shimmering light of a gibbous moon to the ghost of breath on his cheek. His hand brushed fabric as he reaches out, calls Harry’s name. He feels fabric on fingertips then the rush of air as the door is opened and swiftly closed.
Six nights on Remus pretends to sleep until he feels the gaze emerge from the corner, the barely audible swish of fabric belaying Harry’s whereabouts. With eyes closed he can feel the slight figure standing over him, then there is a hand, tentative, on his cheek. Remus is faster this time and he catches the too thin wrist as it emerges out of thin air and whispers “Harry” into the darkness.
Harry jolts at the touch, as if Remus’ hand imparts not only warmth but an electric charge, and tries to pull away. Remus holds fast and pulls him closer, the cloak catching on the bed stead and falling, in a shimmering pile, to the floor. And Remus sees, for the first time in weeks, the source of the gaze that has been haunting him.
The eyes are dull and numb and full of grief at the same time Remus can feel the weight behind them, holding Harry down, crushing him, “Harry” he whispers again and the boy crumples into him with the sigh of one whose world is falling apart. “Oh, Harry” and the boy presses closer, the poles have shifted from not wanting any contact at all to wanting more than is available.
Harry shifts around and presses his hands to Remus’ chest, then neck and arms and stomach and Remus finds his fingers absently stroking Harry’s side. The eyes are imploring now, pleading, and far more effective than words ever could be.
Thing Three: A fic that was seemingly meant to be for longsunday and contains both Blaise/Harry and Blaise/Draco.
It wasn’t that Blaise found Potter attractive exactly, though not unattractive either, but intriguing. There had to be more to this so-called hero than sidekicks with ridiculous hair and Dumbledore’s good will.
There was something behind his eyes when he glared in the Slytherin’s direction in response to Draco’s inane taunts. Something that said there was more there than the surface revealed.
Once the thought had lodged itself in his brain there was no shaking it. Only confirming.
When Potter peeled himself away from Weasley and Granger after Potions and headed away from the Great Hall Blaise pounced.
Potter was leaning against the wall when he rounded the corner. As if he’d been expecting him. Green eyes fixed him in a level gaze, and when Blaise stopped in front of him and leaned in, right hand on stone inches from Potter’s head, he didn’t flinch. Potter’s eyes were hard and unreadable even as Blaise bared his teeth at his ear and was rewarded with a small gasp.
Potter’s hand was on Blaise’s wrist even before Blaise had really thought about moving. A surprisingly tight grip for one so seemingly slight; seeker reflexes, some sort of movement based sixth sense. Blaise had expected indignant accusations and slurs against Slytherin, not a firm grasp and stoic - almost willing - acceptance.
The taste of tanned Gryffindor skin was somehow refreshing on his tongue. Tangy, almost. Spicy. And Potter leaned into him, with a moan, as teeth pierced skin. Suspicions confirmed. There was most definitely more to Potter than first glance revealed.
:::
Draco cornered Blaise (this was new) quicksilver fire and fencing precision and pulling back the collar of his shirt with enough force to tear the fabric. Exposing a neat row of teeth marks marking the edge of his collar bone. Silver eyes coloured with rage. And hissed “Who.” It wasn’t a question. A pause then: “No. I know who it is. And don’t want to hear you say his name.”
And Blaise whispered “Potter.”
Draco was feeling reckless and the look in Blaise’s eyes that normally sent shivers down his spine and unmistakably said don’t fuck with me just made him want to push further. See how far he’d go. Find out just exactly how murderous that glare was. Fucking Potter. Of all people.
There was just something about an enraged Draco that made Blaise purr. Indignant clenched fists, silver sparks and almost-deadly glare.
Then, later in the same file with no real connection between the two:
Draco, sat alone in his room feeling sorry for himself. If he didn’t no one else would. His father had been thrown in Azkaban, His family was all but ruined. Potter, the little fucker, had once again come out on top.
When Narcissa called from the foyer that Blaise Zabini had come to call Draco didn’t answer, or even move. Nor did he wonder just exactly why Blaise had decided to show up the last week before the start of term when he hadn’t heard so much as a peep from him for the entire summer. Not that it really mattered anyway. Not that Zabini had ever been a very attentive or entirely enjoyable companion, if you could call him that, in the first place. However, Blaise’s lingering presence did have certain... advantages.
Advantages that involved swift and skillful removal of clothing and well placed teeth, hands, tongue. Advantages that were not, in fact, advantages at all if he cared to think about in the way Lucius would. There was no advantage in wanting something from someone, no matter how deeply it was hidden. No advantage to the one who wanted it anyway, and huge advantage to the one who it was wanted from. It did not do to dwell on such things.
And, of course, when Blaise walked into the room, there was no dwelling on anything that wasn’t directly related to him and whatever marginally sinister thoughts were prowling about his brain, gnashing their teeth and searching for someone to pounce on.
Blaise eyed Draco, sprawled on the bed like a repentant sinner waiting to be struck down and snorted.
“Don’t tell me you’ve been lying here like this all summer. Feeling sorry for yourself.”
“Fine. I won’t then.”
“You’re looking peaky, you need to get some air. We’re going outside.”
“We? I really don’t think there is a we. You may go outside. I’ll just stay here thanks.”
“I may? Why thank you, oh great and powerful Malfoy, for giving me permission to leave your exhaulted presence.”
“Did you really come all the way over here just to insult me?”
“Actually, I came to cheer you up.”
“Well, you’re doing an absolutely crap job of it.”
“You have no one to blame but yourself.”
“Of course, my fault. Because it couldn’t possibly be the fault of the one who’s trying to cheer me up with incredulous statements and insults.”
“Now you’re on the right track.”
“Fuck off, Zabini.”
Blaise shot Draco a smug smirk. “I did take your mind off it though, didn’t I.”
“Off what?”
“What ever it was you were broodilly obsessing over.”
“I’m not obsessing. Just thinking.”
“Whatever you say, dear boy,” Blaise said and flopped down on the bed beside Draco.
Draco rolled over, turning his back to him.
Thing Four: This was apparently meant to be a Coil challenge of some sort. It didn't get very far.
The hiss drip of the rain outside mingled with the sizzle pop of the fire and the ringing in his ears until he couldn’t tell one from the other. Fire from rain, from noises that weren’t even there. He glanced down at the parchment in his hand, for one last time, then with a flick of his wrist, tossed it into the fire. It sat, for a moment, untouched and unmarred upon the coals, before it burst into flames and darkened and curled and was gone. The image of the words written upon it still burned against the back of his eyelids when he closed them and no amount of trying not to think seemed to help.
The rain fell in sheets, pounding pounding on the glass, trying it’s best to break through and so loud that he felt he might just drown in sound. Moisture magnified the colors making green greener, richer, deeper, to the point where it seemed unreal and too bright and all consuming tinting everything in off coloured half shadows. Rain sliding off the roof in light dancing streams leaving the impression of water running down and around and over everything dark and light and all green.
It is possible that there are no happy endings for Slytherins. Something in the blood maybe. The quality that marks them as Slytherins in the first place. The one defining factor that the sorting hat is searching for as it probes all those eager eleven year old minds. Something to do with cunning ambition that calls those to it who are looking not for contentment but power, satisfaction of a different sort, an end that justifies the means.
Thing Five: a very small Blaise/Draco snippet.
“The most severe heat wave in over one hundred years.”
Draco decides that he is going to hex the next Ravenclaw he hears uttering those words in awed tones as if it was all just one grand charms project. An amazing feat, creating a heat that can even penetrated the dungeons, not the life sucking force of misery it actually is.
The air in the dungeons is... sticky would be the only word to describe it. As if the air has been mixed with treacle, a fine mist of it hanging in the air. Cooling charms hardly have any effect as they do nothing about the humidity and end up just creating condensation on the stone.
As the heat increases the amount of clothing students feel it is appropriate to wear decreases until Blaise is lying naked on his fourposter, curtains pulled back, idly fanning himself with a well worn copy of The Picture of Dorian Grey.
Thing Six: Wolf, another Blaise/Draco. This is the only one I really remembered and also the only one I kept thinking I was going to finish. It's not going to happen though.
Draco had spent many an hour playing childish games with Crabbe and Goyle as a small child and been perfectly content (or as content as a young Malfoy could ever be). Yet when they were appointed his 'friends' by his father on the platform before boarding the Hogwarts Express for the first time he suddenly realized how incredibly boring they were. And all it took were nine little words: "We are not sure where the Zabini's loyalties lie," in passing, over an elegant dinner of grand proportions during the Easter holidays later that year, to make Blaise Zabini - who had been a non-entity in his mind up to that point - incredibly interesting.
The Zabinis had visited during the Christmas holidays, third year, for what reason Draco couldn’t fathom, or remember. He and Blaise wandered off while the adults sat at the dinner table being pretentious and talking of uninteresting things; all sweeping declarations and verbal patting each other on the back. In the cramped and badly lit corridor behind the kitchens where only house elves tread /Why do you want to go down there? It’s filthy./ Blaise discovered a splintery wooden crate of vodka, twenty four bottles all printed in red ink with lovely indecipherable Cyrillic. It was a gift from one of Lucius' 'clients' in St. Petersburg. Blaise insisted they open it.
Then: "Now that it’s open I think we ought to sample it." Draco’s protests quickly fell by the wayside under Blaise's persistence.
When the bottle was mostly empty, and things were blurring around the edges, Draco was sure he could see Blaise for what he really was, with his wide teasing grin of too many teeth and too sharp, and trying to tempt him closer. It was a sly wolf's trap, Come a little closer and I'll eat you up. Here was the sort of person (entity?) parents warned their children about, if they were that sort of parents. With all the sudden clarity of one who is engulfed in a drunken haze Draco decided that he knew exactly what was going on. And he wasn't falling for it.
Draco remembered that moment of clarity at odd times (though not what the thought was, just that he knew something, and that it had to do with Blaise) which left Draco eyeing the dark haired boy warily as he passed in the common room and thinking "I am not afraid," and then wondering where that thought had come from.
Ghosts of these thoughts flitted across his mind as he watched Blaise, standing just the other side of the iron gate, grinning like an unsolved puzzle, the headstones of hundreds of Muggle graves fanning out behind him in the moon light. Few wizards ever ventured here, the site where so many were burned. Blaise seemed to find it somehow compelling. Something about his not-quite-trustworthy-too-many-teeth-grin reminded Draco of a Muggle fairy tale he'd once heard about a boy who captured a wolf. Possibly Blaise was the wolf trying to tempt him over the fence to eat him up. Or possibly he was the wolf and Blaise was the boy trying to tempt him over the fence and capture him. Or possibly they were both the wolf, tempting each other, yet also both the boy.
Or maybe it was just the bottle of scotch they'd finished off before Blaise had decided they needed to go for a midnight walk in the woods behind the Zabini estate. Draco found he didn't care all that much as he clambered gingerly over the more-dangerous-than-he'd-really-like-to-think-about spike-tipped iron fence.
He followed Blaise /and why is it that he follows Blaise/ through winding semi-wooded paths past graves long forgotten, the headstones, like the bodies buried beneath them, working their way toward dirt; names obscured by year after year of biting wind and rain and the nibbling feet of lichen. Draco stoped for a moment in front of a headstone pushed at an odd angle and swallowed almost whole by a tree. Then, with a sudden fear that the tree didn’t grow over the stone over the course of years but mere minutes, he hurried off as nonchalantly as possible before it engulfed him too.
The statue of Michael, he had to admit, was quite well done despite being tarnished and black with age and ill repair.
"I've always liked this statue, the beast in particular. There is a sword piercing it's throat, true, but it is stronger than it looks. It could still triumph. Take the angel down with it."
"How much have you had to drink?"
"Enough."
Draco tried to ignore the way the moonlight glinted in Blaise's eyes like sparks, like fire. "Why must we always visit these ruined places? They don't suit me."
Blaise flashed a grin, white teeth in the moonlight, ran his finger along Draco's jaw and hissed. "Oh, but you see, dear boy, it does suit you. The only son of Lucius Malfoy poised to very much not follow in his father's footsteps. And," Blaise took a step closer, hot breath coiled around Draco's neck, lips brushed his ear. "Not product an heir. You are the ruin of your name. I've always felt quite at home in ruins."
Ah, I feel so much better now.