Fic: The Thirteenth (H/D, PG13)
Anyway. I'm late, of course-- but then, I'm always late. Better late than never?~:)
Also. I wouldn't normally post this here, but erm... a small audience seemed best, as one could see from the fic header. *sighs* But! I don't mind. I loved writing it purely for its own sake and as an homage. ~:)
Disclaimer: I possess nothing but love for Harry Potter.
Dedication: for Aja on her birthday, with affection. Can be read as a follow-up to `Twelfth Night', or not.
Author's Note: Thanks to Eddy for the glance-over. You're my main man. :D Or something.
- The Thirteenth -
Looking at him made Harry feel like he'd swallowed a star.
He couldn't speak, he couldn't think, he couldn't move, but he had to so he did. He walked past. His hands were at his sides and no one noticed except the one person who counted, the one person he had to live with: himself.
How could Malfoy have possibly grown yet more pale, become so motionless?
If he looked at him, Harry had flash after flash of bone-deep memory, each one jumbled with the next. Malfoy, his eyes wild, pointing a silly piece of wood at him and pretending he could hurt him. Malfoy, looking back over his shoulder and sneering as he walked away. Malfoy, fixing him with that stare that he could feel at the back of his head. Malfoy, battered and bruised and still breathing, his cheeks flushed with life. Malfoy, on his back, gasping out his name. Harry. Harry. Harry.
It was all right, most days. He smiled and he played and he fought and there was just no room in it all for this, and he didn't even remember what "this" was most of the time. It was the nights that have always made Harry honest. When the curtains had been drawn and the good-nights had been said and the stupid Occlumency practice-time laboriously passed for the requisite amount of minutes-- that's when Harry closed his eyes and curled up on his side and began to push a pillow on top of his head because he still heard him.
Harry, he called. So softly, like he was right there. Like he was still lying next to him, breathing softly, one of his legs tangled in between Harry's. He'd probably thought Harry had been asleep those times, but he hadn't been. He hadn't really been thinking, but he was aware that it was Malfoy, and that it was Malfoy's leg, and that it was Malfoy's cock digging into his backside even as Malfoy slept. He'd breathed slow and easy from the first. It had reassured him in a different way than usual except it had felt like something he'd always known.
Malfoy had always been a known property.
Malfoy had always been moving, and Harry only realized it when he stopped. Watching him sit motionlessly, all alone at his end of the Slytherin table, he realized he'd never seen him either alone or motionless before. Something was deeply unnatural about the stillness on that face, the unbroken pallor, the neatly folded hands lying on the table. Harry looked away every time, but the image remained. Someone was holding him, and someone was laughing in his ear, and someone was telling him something he knew he wanted to hear, but even four hours later, all Harry could see was Malfoy's newly immaculate fingers on the table.
Harry was happy now. That's what Hermione and Ron and Neville and everybody had told him, and Harry believed it too, which was a nice change. He felt good. He felt the energy buzzing through his bones. He felt like he could do anything, be anything. He didn't even have to be Harry Potter anymore-- he was just doing what felt right. Just like that. There was no past and no future: only the present.
Luna had asked him why he wasn't sad anymore. She looked genuinely curious, and he'd stuttered and felt so much at a loss that he couldn't even walk away. There was a long silence during which she'd waited patiently, and Harry took care not to think about it. "Don't ask," he'd said at last, and she had nodded. She probably thought she understood, and who was Harry to contradict her? For all he knew, she did.
He didn't really think about Malfoy any more than usual. It wasn't like he'd forgotten or anything, but mostly he chose not to remember, and that was fine with him. Life had to go on, didn't it? Soon, Malfoy would be back on track: back with Pansy or Blaise or even Snape for all Harry knew. Because Harry didn't know, and that was all right. The less he knew about those sorts of things, the better. Malfoy didn't actually have a life when Harry wasn't looking, did he? Sometimes Harry imagined that Malfoy simply disappeared when Harry turned away, returning to inchoate void he'd sprung from, like a boggart. It was simpler that way, which that meant it stayed.
And then Harry woke up on the thirteenth of November and it was just another stupid chilly day that made him want to huddle in bed five more minutes, and the first thought in his head was: Malfoy had stuck his tongue into Harry's mouth for the first time today, exactly two months ago. It had been wet, just like the other time, but different. He could taste that difference somewhere at the back of his throat even now, unnamable but not exactly mysterious.
No, there was no mystery there anymore. Harry knew exactly what it was like to swallow stars; to have them stuck in your throat every time you looked into a pair of hazy eyes, to have them dance behind your eyelids for the first time when someone wrapped their mouth around you. It had only happened once, but it wasn't the sort of thing you misplaced.
It wasn't that Harry had anything he wanted to do with that piece of useless old knowledge, but it lodged itself in his brain, simmering in the background as he trudged to the shower and onward to breakfast and his first class that morning, which just happened to be Transfiguration. He wouldn't see Malfoy today; not that he cared. He was already beginning to forget the particulars of what Malfoy looked like when he screamed as Harry came inside him. It was about time.
He didn't blink, just wrote his boyfriend's name on his parchment carefully, shifting slightly to ease the pressure on his trousers. He put a good bit of effort into his attempt at impromptu calligraphy, biting his lip absent-mindedly as he wrote. When he'd finished, he couldn't contain the gasp: `Malfoy', it read in careful script. It was made worse by the fact that Harry had signed his name right underneath, bumping the bottom of the M with his H.
Harry groaned. This was bloody unfair. What did he have to do?
Meanwhile, Harry's cock was demanding yet more of his attention. He thought of Oliver's smile, and all he saw was the giddy look Malfoy had afterwards, when he curled up on Harry's chest. He thought of Oliver's eyes and gradually noticed they really had much more grey in them than by rights brown should contain. When Harry had fucked him yesterday, he'd had to keep his eyes open because it had been startling to suddenly feel Malfoy's cock inside him. Harry didn't know how he could, on the brink of orgasm, because the cock shoved inside him had been nothing like Malfoy's cock. It wasn't a question of having a problem with that; it was simply a question of being very aware of the fact. To sum up: this was not Malfoy's cock. This was not Malfoy's hand. This was not Malfoy's mouth. This wasn't Malfoy.
Without having to think about it, Harry got up as smoothly as he could with such a persistent hard-on and made his way out of McGonagall's class, not saying a word to anyone. He didn't care: this had to stop. He didn't know where Malfoy was, but all that took was a quick trip to his room. And yes, there's the little dot with "Malfoy" on it, stationary as always. Slytherin dungeons, then. Harry smiled grimly and put his cloak on. He didn't want to do this, but he had to. Harry Potter did what he had to.
It turned out Harry didn't need enough cunning or even thought to remember Malfoy's password to get in: there was a gaggle of frighteningly loud first-years coming out just as he got there. Had he ever been that loud? Certainly not.
"This has to stop," Harry said, staring holes into the side of Malfoy's skull. The stupid idiot was just sitting there motionlessly as usual, staring out into nowhere. Malfoy didn't jump, but he did incline his head slightly, as if in curiosity.
"Why do you say that, Potter?"
Harry's brows furrowed: this was ridiculous. Malfoy's voice wasn't flat like this. Malfoy's eyes weren't empty like this. He wanted to hit him at that moment more than he'd ever had in his whole life.
"I hate you. I really do. Do you realize how much? Do you?" Harry's fists clenched as violently as they possibly could at his sides.
"Fuck you," Malfoy said in that same flat voice. "Is that what you came here to tell me? Well, bully for you, likewise and I'll thank you to get the fuck out now. If you don't mind."
"No," Harry said, smirking a little. He was a tad surprised. He hadn't expected anything to amuse him, but this did. "That part's over."
Malfoy's head whipped around and somehow, he unerringly found the empty space where Harry's eyes were. "Is it. So tell me this, Potter: what in bloody hell are you doing trespassing on Slytherin ground, eh? Want a detention that bad? An expulsion, maybe? Want to suck Dumbledore's cock again, is that it?"
Harry moved a few heated steps, ripping his cloak off and hissing audibly at the impassive expression on Malfoy's face. "This isn't going to work, Malfoy. I won't do this! You-- you can't make me do this!" He exhaled sharply, stopping just short of Malfoy's bed.
"You are doing this, Potter. You're not fooling anyone with that bloody miraculous recovery, you know. You're still the fucked up violent bastard I knew and loved." He laughed harshly. "At least, that's how the story goes, yeah?"
"Malfoy...," Harry whispered.
Malfoy leaped forward in a single fluid movement, standing between Harry and the edge of his bed in moments. "Save the pity for someone who wants it, Potter," he snarled, and bit Harry's lower lip, pulling and worrying it between his teeth. Malfoy's tongue darted and jabbed against the upper lip, and Malfoy was moaning over and over just like he'd always had before, like he was having the best nightmare of his life.
For several heartbeats, Harry was motionless, his mouth completely unresponsive, and then it was like someone had belatedly flipped a switch, and he gasped. Harry's arms went up around him and connected around Malfoy's back. Malfoy froze, not kissing him anymore, just breathing raggedly into his mouth for the longest time. They stood together like that until they almost forgot what brought them there, and then Malfoy fell back onto the rumpled covers, and Harry fell on top of him.
Later, when he was watching Malfoy sleep, Harry wondered why that same motionless body would fill him with such a feeling of... peace. It shouldn't be true. It couldn't be true. Peace had nothing to do with either of them. Harry fully expected to be dead before he saw such a thing. The truth was, he was alive, and maybe never before as much as right at that moment. This wasn't happiness, he thought. It wasn't that old sense that he could do anything, be anywhere, have it all, because there were no limits. This was something else. There was a limit, and maybe his arms could easily encircle it, or maybe not.
Malfoy shifted restlessly against Harry's chest. Apparently, neither of them was asleep.
"I thought you--" he whispered in a heavy voice, and Harry pressed a warm palm against Malfoy's mouth.
"Shhhh.... Wait. Tomorrow," Harry whispered back. "Tomorrow, we can talk."
Malfoy's moist breath curled gently against Harry's skin. "Are you sure?"
Harry had to laugh; it was such a supremely silly question. It was a free laugh-- a relieved laugh, and he thought maybe Malfoy knew. He hoped. "Of course not. I still hate you, you know," he said easily.
"But...?"
"But." Harry smiled against the salty-tasting side of Malfoy's smooth neck. "But you were always wrong about me."
"Well, that's bloody marvelous, Potter. I feel much better, thanks." But Malfoy stayed still, lodged quietly against Harry's chest and thighs, and the backs of Malfoy's knees remained curved around Harry's.
"It is, isn't it?" Harry kept smiling, grinning wider as he felt Malfoy shiver when he blew a puff of air against the back of his ear.
"You're a lunatic. Has anyone ever mentioned that? Because I'd like to hope so."
"Go to sleep, Draco," Harry said, resting his hand on Malfoy's bony hip. It fit there, somehow.
And it wasn't the end.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Also. I wouldn't normally post this here, but erm... a small audience seemed best, as one could see from the fic header. *sighs* But! I don't mind. I loved writing it purely for its own sake and as an homage. ~:)
Disclaimer: I possess nothing but love for Harry Potter.
Dedication: for Aja on her birthday, with affection. Can be read as a follow-up to `Twelfth Night', or not.
Author's Note: Thanks to Eddy for the glance-over. You're my main man. :D Or something.
- The Thirteenth -
Looking at him made Harry feel like he'd swallowed a star.
He couldn't speak, he couldn't think, he couldn't move, but he had to so he did. He walked past. His hands were at his sides and no one noticed except the one person who counted, the one person he had to live with: himself.
How could Malfoy have possibly grown yet more pale, become so motionless?
If he looked at him, Harry had flash after flash of bone-deep memory, each one jumbled with the next. Malfoy, his eyes wild, pointing a silly piece of wood at him and pretending he could hurt him. Malfoy, looking back over his shoulder and sneering as he walked away. Malfoy, fixing him with that stare that he could feel at the back of his head. Malfoy, battered and bruised and still breathing, his cheeks flushed with life. Malfoy, on his back, gasping out his name. Harry. Harry. Harry.
It was all right, most days. He smiled and he played and he fought and there was just no room in it all for this, and he didn't even remember what "this" was most of the time. It was the nights that have always made Harry honest. When the curtains had been drawn and the good-nights had been said and the stupid Occlumency practice-time laboriously passed for the requisite amount of minutes-- that's when Harry closed his eyes and curled up on his side and began to push a pillow on top of his head because he still heard him.
Harry, he called. So softly, like he was right there. Like he was still lying next to him, breathing softly, one of his legs tangled in between Harry's. He'd probably thought Harry had been asleep those times, but he hadn't been. He hadn't really been thinking, but he was aware that it was Malfoy, and that it was Malfoy's leg, and that it was Malfoy's cock digging into his backside even as Malfoy slept. He'd breathed slow and easy from the first. It had reassured him in a different way than usual except it had felt like something he'd always known.
Malfoy had always been a known property.
Malfoy had always been moving, and Harry only realized it when he stopped. Watching him sit motionlessly, all alone at his end of the Slytherin table, he realized he'd never seen him either alone or motionless before. Something was deeply unnatural about the stillness on that face, the unbroken pallor, the neatly folded hands lying on the table. Harry looked away every time, but the image remained. Someone was holding him, and someone was laughing in his ear, and someone was telling him something he knew he wanted to hear, but even four hours later, all Harry could see was Malfoy's newly immaculate fingers on the table.
Harry was happy now. That's what Hermione and Ron and Neville and everybody had told him, and Harry believed it too, which was a nice change. He felt good. He felt the energy buzzing through his bones. He felt like he could do anything, be anything. He didn't even have to be Harry Potter anymore-- he was just doing what felt right. Just like that. There was no past and no future: only the present.
Luna had asked him why he wasn't sad anymore. She looked genuinely curious, and he'd stuttered and felt so much at a loss that he couldn't even walk away. There was a long silence during which she'd waited patiently, and Harry took care not to think about it. "Don't ask," he'd said at last, and she had nodded. She probably thought she understood, and who was Harry to contradict her? For all he knew, she did.
He didn't really think about Malfoy any more than usual. It wasn't like he'd forgotten or anything, but mostly he chose not to remember, and that was fine with him. Life had to go on, didn't it? Soon, Malfoy would be back on track: back with Pansy or Blaise or even Snape for all Harry knew. Because Harry didn't know, and that was all right. The less he knew about those sorts of things, the better. Malfoy didn't actually have a life when Harry wasn't looking, did he? Sometimes Harry imagined that Malfoy simply disappeared when Harry turned away, returning to inchoate void he'd sprung from, like a boggart. It was simpler that way, which that meant it stayed.
And then Harry woke up on the thirteenth of November and it was just another stupid chilly day that made him want to huddle in bed five more minutes, and the first thought in his head was: Malfoy had stuck his tongue into Harry's mouth for the first time today, exactly two months ago. It had been wet, just like the other time, but different. He could taste that difference somewhere at the back of his throat even now, unnamable but not exactly mysterious.
No, there was no mystery there anymore. Harry knew exactly what it was like to swallow stars; to have them stuck in your throat every time you looked into a pair of hazy eyes, to have them dance behind your eyelids for the first time when someone wrapped their mouth around you. It had only happened once, but it wasn't the sort of thing you misplaced.
It wasn't that Harry had anything he wanted to do with that piece of useless old knowledge, but it lodged itself in his brain, simmering in the background as he trudged to the shower and onward to breakfast and his first class that morning, which just happened to be Transfiguration. He wouldn't see Malfoy today; not that he cared. He was already beginning to forget the particulars of what Malfoy looked like when he screamed as Harry came inside him. It was about time.
He didn't blink, just wrote his boyfriend's name on his parchment carefully, shifting slightly to ease the pressure on his trousers. He put a good bit of effort into his attempt at impromptu calligraphy, biting his lip absent-mindedly as he wrote. When he'd finished, he couldn't contain the gasp: `Malfoy', it read in careful script. It was made worse by the fact that Harry had signed his name right underneath, bumping the bottom of the M with his H.
Harry groaned. This was bloody unfair. What did he have to do?
Meanwhile, Harry's cock was demanding yet more of his attention. He thought of Oliver's smile, and all he saw was the giddy look Malfoy had afterwards, when he curled up on Harry's chest. He thought of Oliver's eyes and gradually noticed they really had much more grey in them than by rights brown should contain. When Harry had fucked him yesterday, he'd had to keep his eyes open because it had been startling to suddenly feel Malfoy's cock inside him. Harry didn't know how he could, on the brink of orgasm, because the cock shoved inside him had been nothing like Malfoy's cock. It wasn't a question of having a problem with that; it was simply a question of being very aware of the fact. To sum up: this was not Malfoy's cock. This was not Malfoy's hand. This was not Malfoy's mouth. This wasn't Malfoy.
Without having to think about it, Harry got up as smoothly as he could with such a persistent hard-on and made his way out of McGonagall's class, not saying a word to anyone. He didn't care: this had to stop. He didn't know where Malfoy was, but all that took was a quick trip to his room. And yes, there's the little dot with "Malfoy" on it, stationary as always. Slytherin dungeons, then. Harry smiled grimly and put his cloak on. He didn't want to do this, but he had to. Harry Potter did what he had to.
It turned out Harry didn't need enough cunning or even thought to remember Malfoy's password to get in: there was a gaggle of frighteningly loud first-years coming out just as he got there. Had he ever been that loud? Certainly not.
"This has to stop," Harry said, staring holes into the side of Malfoy's skull. The stupid idiot was just sitting there motionlessly as usual, staring out into nowhere. Malfoy didn't jump, but he did incline his head slightly, as if in curiosity.
"Why do you say that, Potter?"
Harry's brows furrowed: this was ridiculous. Malfoy's voice wasn't flat like this. Malfoy's eyes weren't empty like this. He wanted to hit him at that moment more than he'd ever had in his whole life.
"I hate you. I really do. Do you realize how much? Do you?" Harry's fists clenched as violently as they possibly could at his sides.
"Fuck you," Malfoy said in that same flat voice. "Is that what you came here to tell me? Well, bully for you, likewise and I'll thank you to get the fuck out now. If you don't mind."
"No," Harry said, smirking a little. He was a tad surprised. He hadn't expected anything to amuse him, but this did. "That part's over."
Malfoy's head whipped around and somehow, he unerringly found the empty space where Harry's eyes were. "Is it. So tell me this, Potter: what in bloody hell are you doing trespassing on Slytherin ground, eh? Want a detention that bad? An expulsion, maybe? Want to suck Dumbledore's cock again, is that it?"
Harry moved a few heated steps, ripping his cloak off and hissing audibly at the impassive expression on Malfoy's face. "This isn't going to work, Malfoy. I won't do this! You-- you can't make me do this!" He exhaled sharply, stopping just short of Malfoy's bed.
"You are doing this, Potter. You're not fooling anyone with that bloody miraculous recovery, you know. You're still the fucked up violent bastard I knew and loved." He laughed harshly. "At least, that's how the story goes, yeah?"
"Malfoy...," Harry whispered.
Malfoy leaped forward in a single fluid movement, standing between Harry and the edge of his bed in moments. "Save the pity for someone who wants it, Potter," he snarled, and bit Harry's lower lip, pulling and worrying it between his teeth. Malfoy's tongue darted and jabbed against the upper lip, and Malfoy was moaning over and over just like he'd always had before, like he was having the best nightmare of his life.
For several heartbeats, Harry was motionless, his mouth completely unresponsive, and then it was like someone had belatedly flipped a switch, and he gasped. Harry's arms went up around him and connected around Malfoy's back. Malfoy froze, not kissing him anymore, just breathing raggedly into his mouth for the longest time. They stood together like that until they almost forgot what brought them there, and then Malfoy fell back onto the rumpled covers, and Harry fell on top of him.
Later, when he was watching Malfoy sleep, Harry wondered why that same motionless body would fill him with such a feeling of... peace. It shouldn't be true. It couldn't be true. Peace had nothing to do with either of them. Harry fully expected to be dead before he saw such a thing. The truth was, he was alive, and maybe never before as much as right at that moment. This wasn't happiness, he thought. It wasn't that old sense that he could do anything, be anywhere, have it all, because there were no limits. This was something else. There was a limit, and maybe his arms could easily encircle it, or maybe not.
Malfoy shifted restlessly against Harry's chest. Apparently, neither of them was asleep.
"I thought you--" he whispered in a heavy voice, and Harry pressed a warm palm against Malfoy's mouth.
"Shhhh.... Wait. Tomorrow," Harry whispered back. "Tomorrow, we can talk."
Malfoy's moist breath curled gently against Harry's skin. "Are you sure?"
Harry had to laugh; it was such a supremely silly question. It was a free laugh-- a relieved laugh, and he thought maybe Malfoy knew. He hoped. "Of course not. I still hate you, you know," he said easily.
"But...?"
"But." Harry smiled against the salty-tasting side of Malfoy's smooth neck. "But you were always wrong about me."
"Well, that's bloody marvelous, Potter. I feel much better, thanks." But Malfoy stayed still, lodged quietly against Harry's chest and thighs, and the backs of Malfoy's knees remained curved around Harry's.
"It is, isn't it?" Harry kept smiling, grinning wider as he felt Malfoy shiver when he blew a puff of air against the back of his ear.
"You're a lunatic. Has anyone ever mentioned that? Because I'd like to hope so."
"Go to sleep, Draco," Harry said, resting his hand on Malfoy's bony hip. It fit there, somehow.
And it wasn't the end.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~