I Will Buy You a New Life (NL/RW/DM) NC-17 pt.1
Just putting it here so I know where to find it when I'm looking next time.
1. This was written a couple of years ago. Before the NC-17 crackdown on FFN, if that gives you any idea. In fact, I had all five chapters up at FFN a couple months before they pulled off all the NC-17 fics there. So yes. Old.
2. I shall keep this as a momento that signifies why I should really think twice before attempting smut. Because...yeah. -_-
3. The above goes for writing in first person.
4. I can not have threesomes in which everyone doesn't live happily ever after. It's an impossibility. And also a reason as to why I shouldn't write them either...
******
Draco’s POV
“Oh God…” He moans as he twists underneath me. I don’t understand this. I don’t understand how the two of us ended up here like this.
And at the moment, I really don’t much care.
His hair is in wild disarray there on the pillow, and it looks as if it could use a good trim. Of course, it always looks as if it could use a good trim. He sees the barber just about as often as Potter, I note as I move my fingers up and brush the strands off his flushed face. His hands are bound magically above his head, per my earlier request, and I can’t help but sit back to watch him, fascinated, as his chest heaves up and down. He looks fragile and bare, yet earthy and resilient at the same time. He’s a lot thinner too. When his parents died, he lost a lot of the pounds we used to tease him about.
I bend over, feeling almost predatory as I kiss him hard. My hands slide over his chest, finding a sensitive nipple and slowly, deliberately stimulating it with the pad of my thumb. My other hand snakes down over the planes of his exposed stomach to touch him.
“Oh god, please, Draco, please…” He gasps as I move to kiss the base of his throat. I sneak a look up at those heavy lidded brown eyes as he begs. God, he’s beautiful like this. The transformation is almost unbelievable.
There are many types of blondes in the world. My own hair would probably be described as white blonde, and I have the complexion to match. There are others who look like Finnegan used to: dishwater blondes whose hair can’t seem to make up its mind if it wants to be yellow or brown. And then there are blondes like him, golden honeyed hues, with dark eyebrows and lashes.
I slowly kiss my way down to his collarbone, and then following a path across his sternum, over the flat of his stomach, stopping at the side of his hip and teasing him with my tongue, enjoying the salty way he tastes. He moans, and I have to apply pressure there on his hips to keep him from instinctively thrusting upwards. Smiling wolfishly, I glance up to see him looking down at me with passion-glazed eyes through those impossibly long lashes of his.
Coming down, I slowly take his erection into my mouth, grazing my teeth lightly over his sensitive head, and feeling a glimmer of satisfaction as his entire body shivers in response. He cries out, and that seems to just spur me on further as I hold his hips down, refusing to let him give into instinct. Running my tongue down over him, and sucking lightly as he cries out, I move my hands up slightly, touching the soft, smooth skin just below his belly button and in the clefts of his narrow hips.
His cries grow more frequent as I play with him. And just as I sense that he’s getting close to release, I pull off, glancing up to look at those pleading brown eyes.
“Please…” He whimpers. “Please…I just want to touch you…”
I have him exactly where I want him, bound and begging. Just the way that I usually have all my lovers when I take them. But he’s different. It seems stupid and almost weak of me to consider caving in to his demands, but like I always do with him, I acquiesce and release the ties. With him, I don’t have to be strong and aloof.
His hands reach up, fingers playing lightly over my scarred skin, making me shiver slightly, before they pull me down beside him. I bury my face in the sweet smelling hollow of his neck, enjoying the feel of his hands as they trace gently over my back.
Gently.
Because I know he’d never hurt me.
His lithe little body curls up against mine, and he grabs my hand, swiftly taking a few on my fingers into his mouth and sucking them. I used to think him pathetic.
In some ways he was like an annoying stray puppy. I could kick him, push him around, torment him, and he’d always come back for more. He was like one of those sick casualties of nature who never seemed to learn better or figure out how to break out of the loop of abuse. Sometimes in Potions, or in the hallways, I’d give him a passing glance as the usual suspects-myself included-pushed him down, and yet there was just something twisted inside him that always made him come back for more…that made him set himself up into those situations again and again.
I used to sneer at him because he was so fucking weak.
But maybe…maybe those things I thought I saw in him and hated in him were things that I saw in myself and hated about myself. Lucius’ little whelp was particularly adept at coming back and begging for more.
Weak…he never fights back. And I thought I could look down on him for it. But really? Who’s broken out of this sick abusive cycle, me or him?
His world is just somehow different from the one the rest of us live in. Violence doesn’t have a place in it. And he’s totally unlike anything that’s ever been in my sphere of influence before. My life is comprised of cruelty and blood and baser needs.
And his life? Well, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to totally comprehend it. In private, he’s delicate, ephemeral. Is it any wonder that when I see him like this--when he whispers gently in my ear and caresses without causing pain--that I lean into the touches hungrily?
I sneak my fingers out of his hot little mouth and trace the insides of the curve of his ass with them before slowly inserting them inside him. He gasps at the intrusion, and I kiss him, forcing my tongue into his mouth, to drown out the sound. He moans into my mouth and I feel those light, clever fingers trailing down my sides, grasping my erection as he arches his hips in an attempt to force my fingers deeper inside him.
His thumb brushes lightly over the head of my erection, coming away sticky as I feel a few drops leak out. Slowly, I pull my fingers out, watching him through my lashes as I push his thighs apart and position myself just right on his sweet body.
I move inside him as gently as I can. It’s odd how much consideration I give him. Of all the people I’ve ever fucked…It’s different with him. He gives one of those rare breathy moans that send shivers up my spine as we find a rhythm in our gyrations. And it’s my name he calls as he spasms onto my stomach, the hot, sticky come sliding between us as I orgasm as deep as I can inside him.
“Draco…” He breathes in an awed voice, and I feel his fingers there at my temple, smoothing away the pale, fly-away strands of my hair. There’s an admiration in his eyes that seems to go farther than just my body. Or, at least, that’s what I like to believe as I bend down to kiss him softly. Almost like a contented kitten, he leans into it, curling up tightly beside me as I flop down at his side. “Hmm…” He grins sleepily as I trace the edge of his jaw and then the soft velvet of his kiss-bruised lips.
I don’t understand him. I don’t understand the way I am when he’s here.
I reach down, pulling the blankets up while making sure not to jostle the boy in my arms as I do so. He’ll stay here like this with me until the early morning hours when he’ll wake me up, say his goodbyes, and take the money I hand him each time.
I keep thinking that the money should make this cheaper. I want it to make this cheaper because then I could tell myself that it didn’t mean anything. But it does.
He won’t leave me alone in the middle of the night. He’ll be there, his heart beating along side mine as I hold him.
He curls his head up underneath my chin, and I hug him tighter against me. “Good night, Neville” I whisper down on those honey blond locks. And sometimes-even as I listen to his breathing level off into sleep-the masochistic part of me wishes that he wasn’t here.
I know how to be the conceited, spoiled, little rich boy. I know how to channel my anger at myself back out onto everyone else. I know how to kick helpless puppies when they come running back for more. I’ve been in this cycle for too long, and I’m too old, too ingrained in this way of life…This is who I am, and I have to accept that.
And damn him for giving me the slightest of hopes to think that maybe I could change and break out of this existence.
I sigh slightly, and he nuzzles up against me in his sleep.
It’s always the quiet ones, the ones you don’t expect, who can screw you silly.
*****
Here is the money that I owe you
So you can pay the bill
I will give you more
When I get paid again
*****
Neville’s POV
I suppose I ought to feel guilty. I play the whore for one, accepting the money that he hands me in the early hours before dawn, and then I make the other play the whore for me, passing the gold on along an unbroken chain.
But it never really ever was about the money.
How long has it been? Three months? Since the start of this school year, at least. When I’m sitting alone up on the tower’s roof in the afternoon, I like to recall the way Draco’s face looked when I accepted his offer. I look at his guarded grey eyes sometimes when we’re together, and I can see that he’s still trying to figure out what’s happened.
The joke he meant to play on me, somehow turning back on him.
Oh, I know he never meant for me to take his lewd proposition seriously. I’m not stupid, despite what my grades might reflect. I knew he meant to humiliate me, to bring me down, to crush me under his foot like he’s crushed so many other people.
It’s just that in order to humiliate the school’s walking joke, you have to try a bit harder than that. I’ve been pushed down for six years already, ground under heels far more well-intentioned and subtle than his. And there comes a point when you learn to accept things for the way they are because you know that nothing you do will ever change them.
I am a complete klutz. I am the school’s running joke. I am that painfully embarrassing blemish on the records. And I am the easily forgettable soul that blends into the masses.
I know exactly what I am. I have no delusions about life, or my place in it. The world is filled with beautiful people…and then there are the people like me. I’ll take this tiny little corner of existence and I’ll fit myself into it, eking what small joys I can from it.
And I will not feel guilty for it. Maybe what I’m doing is wrong, but I’d like to think that the benefits aren’t just one sided. I like to think that I’m useful even in the tiniest of ways. For all that he has the face of an angel carved in ice, the scars that cover his body belie a different kind of past. I touch him sometimes, or cuddle up against his warmth, and I’ll catch his grey eyes looking down at me in confusion. As if he can’t believe that someone might come to him with gentleness. As if it were totally foreign to him to have someone offer kindness.
It’s arrogant of me though to think that I have that much of an effect-or really, any kind of effect-on him. In reality, I’m probably just a passing fancy for him, and I know the day will come soon where he’ll stand there coldly in front of his bed and push me away.
It’s no use worrying about things like that until they happen though, so I slip through the portrait hole and into the common room. And true to my usual form, I trip over my feet before I can take more than a couple steps.
“Neville, you’re hopeless.” Ron tells me affectionately as he reaches out a hand to me. I accept it, knowing that my face is red, and he easily pulls me back up onto my feet. I glance around the room quickly to see if I’ve attracted any unwanted attention. They’re so used to me, though, that my fall doesn’t even cause a ripple.
“Ron, just the person I was looking for.” I smile up at him, and he quirks one slender red eyebrow. It’s a game we play. “Look, I could really use some help in Divination. If I get another bad grade, I’m going to flunk.” Not too far from the actual truth, but that’s not why I’m saying it, and he knows it. I can see the small flicker in his blue eyes as I talk.
“Well, I think I left my book up in the dorm, why don’t we go up there? It’s quieter anyway, and I can help you out with the star chart that’s due tomorrow.” He shrugs nonchalantly before leading the way. The room we share with Harry and Dean is empty, and walking over to his bed, I open the drawer to his beside table, dropping the coins in it as he turns away in embarrassment to lock the door.
“Ron?” I ask, and he crosses the room, stopping in front of me. He’s so much taller than me. Larger than life. Not quite the same as Draco’s presence, but still…I barely reach his chin. He rests a hand on my shoulder as the other one brushes the hair out of my eyes. “I need another hair cut, don’t I?” I ask nervously, and he nods, smiling down at me.
“You could use a trim.” He bends his head, and kisses me lightly on the lips as I make the conscious effort to push away my nervousness.
I know you can’t buy love. And I know that money can’t give you happiness. But as he pulls me gently down onto his bed, wrapping his arms around me, and laughing as I ungracefully fall on top of him…I can pretend.
*****
I know we can never look back
Will you please let me stay the night
No one will ever know
*****
Neville’s POV
Transfiguration is supposed to be the subject that Gryffindors excel at the most. The head of our house teaches the class, and most everybody in the dorm seems to be pretty adept at making pin cushions out of hedgehogs and the like. Maybe an ability to transfigure things is supposed to reflect somehow on the members of this tower. As if we all have this ability inside us to change reality to what we want it to appear as and to be.
Maybe that’s why I suck ass at it.
Why should I transfigure something to be an object it isn’t? Wasn’t it made a specific way for a reason? If an apple was made by nature to be a fucking apple, who am I to change it into a feather?
But I guess it goes a bit deeper than that in some respects. I can’t change things, transfigure them. Life made them one way and all that’s left to do, for people like me, is to accept that this is what reality decided it should be like.
This is my life, this is my reality and I have to accept myself for who I am. There is no changing myself into someone else or transfiguring my personality into an entity that I can like or feel better about. I have to accept what I have and who I am now, and be content with that somehow.
I glance over at Ron, who’s reading his Divination book on his bed. And as I pull my shirt over my head, I can’t help but muse a bit. He has such faith that he can change the world, and change the things around him. Even with the losses he’s suffered this past summer…I’ll bet that it’s never crossed his mind to think that maybe some aspects of life are fixed. Some personalities that cannot be redeemed, or some battles that can not be won no matter how much sheer willpower lies behind them.
A part of me wishes that the world could actually be like that, even when I know better.
“Night guys.” I call softly. Harry waves a hand distractedly, and I think Dean’s already asleep. Ron looks up from his book, and gives me a kind of appraising, questioning glance. I manage a small grin at him, and then head out the door.
I know that he wonders where I go at night. I know they all do. But really, how do you tell a group of well meaning…I guess they’re friends…that you’ve been sneaking down to see the Slytherin they all detest? If you’re me, you don’t. No amount of explaining would make them understand, I think. That and I know that this can’t last forever. Nothing good ever does. Besides, the last thing I want to give my friends, my enemies, my teachers, everyone who knows me…is more ammunition.
I don’t want or need the thousand ‘I told you so’s that’ll come when the inevitable finally happens. I don’t want the well meant pity or the amused scorn. Maybe I am forever getting myself into hopeless situations, but I have learned to insulate myself a bit over the years.
I spit out the password, and I’m in the dungeons in front of his room before I even realize it. A couple years ago, I used to wonder how the Slytherins stood it, being cooped up away from the light in the darkest, dankest, oldest part of Hogwarts. But I’ve since learned that they magic their rooms to stay warm, and there is something oddly comforting about being closed in with the dark.
“Back again, I see.” I turn to find Draco standing behind me, towel around his shoulders and pajama pants hanging on his hips. His hair is still damp and dripping slightly from his shower, and I want to reach out to touch it, but I know better.
There’s just something about him that screams ‘hands off’. It’s in his body language, the way he walks, the way he looks at you, the way he keeps a certain distance. I guess I’ve understood from the beginning, maybe even before then, that it’s not okay to reach out until after he’s reached out first. He guards his personal space fiercely and woe to those who invade it without permission.
I nod at his words, and he walks into the bedroom, leaving the door for me to close. I envy him sometimes and his ability to keep it all inside and not let anyone else see him hurt or upset or sad…People will never look down on him with thinly veiled pity or embarrassment. He’ll never give them a reason to.
“You should really wear socks, you know.” He states calmly as he throws his towel over onto a chair in the corner, I shrug a bit self consciously as I curl my toes on the stone floors.
“Why should I when the floors are magicked to be so warm down here?” I return softly as he flops down on his bed and watches me. I can’t tell if it still comes as a shock to him or not when I show up here every night at about this time. I can’t help but wonder what he thinks at all. Sometimes I think he looks at me standing beside his door with relief, glad that I’m here for whatever reason, and then sometimes I think he resents that I’m there and I get the feeling that he’s merely toying with me and playing this out to see where it might go for his own sordid amusement.
It’s the hope though, the thought that someone might actually want me-even maybe need me I guess-to be with them that keeps me coming back here. It’s like an addiction, that hope that I just might be something more than an embarrassing burden or a harmless, helpless friend to him.
“Yes, well, it’s not my cold toes against your ass at night.” He smirks slightly as he pulls back the blankets. That’s my cue and my invite, so I sit down on the bed, blushing like mad.
“Okay, I’ll put on some socks next time.” I return, a faint smile on my lips before I peel off my shirt. Even if we don’t always have sex, it gets too hot under the covers if I’m wearing too many clothes.
“Whatever.” He looks at me, a small half grin on his lips as my shirt pops off, and my hair stands on end due to static electricity. I try to smooth it down, but from the strangled snicker he gives, I don’t think it’s helping any. I roll my eyes, and I think his coughing is to cover his laughter. His arm snakes around my waist and he pulls me back over towards him and down beside him.
I look up at him then to see if he wants to do anything tonight, but he just yawns and pulls the blankets back up over us and lies down beside me. He’s got to be exhausted anyway with the Quidditch game he played this afternoon, and I’m not exactly chipper myself. So I curl up beside him and close my eyes as he trails his fingers idly over my collar bone.
I’m half asleep when his fingers poke on one particular spot on the back of my shoulder.
“What’d you do here?” He asks softly in my ear, maybe he’s concerned, maybe he’s not. The only emotions he ever gives voice to are things like scorn and disdain.
“Ron must’ve nipped me harder than he thought.” I mumble without thinking as I try to burrow deeper into the covers. He fingers stop their path over my skin abruptly and he pulls back the blankets completely.
“Weasley?”
I turn at the deceptively calm question, and my eyes widen as I realize just what’s about to happen. “Um, listen, it’s not-“
“You’ve been fucking Weasley.” He states coldly. It’s not even a question and I cringe as he says the words. “How long?” He snaps as he gets out of bed. Scrambling to my feet, I try not to panic.
“Draco, I can explain…”
“Get out.”
“But…”
“Get out. Now.” There’s no inflection in his voice. He opens the door and I give him one last look before walking through it. “Don’t bother coming back.” He sounds like he’s instructing a lost first year on which stairs not to take. “I don’t take seconds from anyone, and especially not from people like you.”
******
They might make you happy
Yeah maybe for a minute or two
They can’t make you laugh
No they can’t make you feel
The way that I do
******
1. This was written a couple of years ago. Before the NC-17 crackdown on FFN, if that gives you any idea. In fact, I had all five chapters up at FFN a couple months before they pulled off all the NC-17 fics there. So yes. Old.
2. I shall keep this as a momento that signifies why I should really think twice before attempting smut. Because...yeah. -_-
3. The above goes for writing in first person.
4. I can not have threesomes in which everyone doesn't live happily ever after. It's an impossibility. And also a reason as to why I shouldn't write them either...
******
Draco’s POV
“Oh God…” He moans as he twists underneath me. I don’t understand this. I don’t understand how the two of us ended up here like this.
And at the moment, I really don’t much care.
His hair is in wild disarray there on the pillow, and it looks as if it could use a good trim. Of course, it always looks as if it could use a good trim. He sees the barber just about as often as Potter, I note as I move my fingers up and brush the strands off his flushed face. His hands are bound magically above his head, per my earlier request, and I can’t help but sit back to watch him, fascinated, as his chest heaves up and down. He looks fragile and bare, yet earthy and resilient at the same time. He’s a lot thinner too. When his parents died, he lost a lot of the pounds we used to tease him about.
I bend over, feeling almost predatory as I kiss him hard. My hands slide over his chest, finding a sensitive nipple and slowly, deliberately stimulating it with the pad of my thumb. My other hand snakes down over the planes of his exposed stomach to touch him.
“Oh god, please, Draco, please…” He gasps as I move to kiss the base of his throat. I sneak a look up at those heavy lidded brown eyes as he begs. God, he’s beautiful like this. The transformation is almost unbelievable.
There are many types of blondes in the world. My own hair would probably be described as white blonde, and I have the complexion to match. There are others who look like Finnegan used to: dishwater blondes whose hair can’t seem to make up its mind if it wants to be yellow or brown. And then there are blondes like him, golden honeyed hues, with dark eyebrows and lashes.
I slowly kiss my way down to his collarbone, and then following a path across his sternum, over the flat of his stomach, stopping at the side of his hip and teasing him with my tongue, enjoying the salty way he tastes. He moans, and I have to apply pressure there on his hips to keep him from instinctively thrusting upwards. Smiling wolfishly, I glance up to see him looking down at me with passion-glazed eyes through those impossibly long lashes of his.
Coming down, I slowly take his erection into my mouth, grazing my teeth lightly over his sensitive head, and feeling a glimmer of satisfaction as his entire body shivers in response. He cries out, and that seems to just spur me on further as I hold his hips down, refusing to let him give into instinct. Running my tongue down over him, and sucking lightly as he cries out, I move my hands up slightly, touching the soft, smooth skin just below his belly button and in the clefts of his narrow hips.
His cries grow more frequent as I play with him. And just as I sense that he’s getting close to release, I pull off, glancing up to look at those pleading brown eyes.
“Please…” He whimpers. “Please…I just want to touch you…”
I have him exactly where I want him, bound and begging. Just the way that I usually have all my lovers when I take them. But he’s different. It seems stupid and almost weak of me to consider caving in to his demands, but like I always do with him, I acquiesce and release the ties. With him, I don’t have to be strong and aloof.
His hands reach up, fingers playing lightly over my scarred skin, making me shiver slightly, before they pull me down beside him. I bury my face in the sweet smelling hollow of his neck, enjoying the feel of his hands as they trace gently over my back.
Gently.
Because I know he’d never hurt me.
His lithe little body curls up against mine, and he grabs my hand, swiftly taking a few on my fingers into his mouth and sucking them. I used to think him pathetic.
In some ways he was like an annoying stray puppy. I could kick him, push him around, torment him, and he’d always come back for more. He was like one of those sick casualties of nature who never seemed to learn better or figure out how to break out of the loop of abuse. Sometimes in Potions, or in the hallways, I’d give him a passing glance as the usual suspects-myself included-pushed him down, and yet there was just something twisted inside him that always made him come back for more…that made him set himself up into those situations again and again.
I used to sneer at him because he was so fucking weak.
But maybe…maybe those things I thought I saw in him and hated in him were things that I saw in myself and hated about myself. Lucius’ little whelp was particularly adept at coming back and begging for more.
Weak…he never fights back. And I thought I could look down on him for it. But really? Who’s broken out of this sick abusive cycle, me or him?
His world is just somehow different from the one the rest of us live in. Violence doesn’t have a place in it. And he’s totally unlike anything that’s ever been in my sphere of influence before. My life is comprised of cruelty and blood and baser needs.
And his life? Well, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to totally comprehend it. In private, he’s delicate, ephemeral. Is it any wonder that when I see him like this--when he whispers gently in my ear and caresses without causing pain--that I lean into the touches hungrily?
I sneak my fingers out of his hot little mouth and trace the insides of the curve of his ass with them before slowly inserting them inside him. He gasps at the intrusion, and I kiss him, forcing my tongue into his mouth, to drown out the sound. He moans into my mouth and I feel those light, clever fingers trailing down my sides, grasping my erection as he arches his hips in an attempt to force my fingers deeper inside him.
His thumb brushes lightly over the head of my erection, coming away sticky as I feel a few drops leak out. Slowly, I pull my fingers out, watching him through my lashes as I push his thighs apart and position myself just right on his sweet body.
I move inside him as gently as I can. It’s odd how much consideration I give him. Of all the people I’ve ever fucked…It’s different with him. He gives one of those rare breathy moans that send shivers up my spine as we find a rhythm in our gyrations. And it’s my name he calls as he spasms onto my stomach, the hot, sticky come sliding between us as I orgasm as deep as I can inside him.
“Draco…” He breathes in an awed voice, and I feel his fingers there at my temple, smoothing away the pale, fly-away strands of my hair. There’s an admiration in his eyes that seems to go farther than just my body. Or, at least, that’s what I like to believe as I bend down to kiss him softly. Almost like a contented kitten, he leans into it, curling up tightly beside me as I flop down at his side. “Hmm…” He grins sleepily as I trace the edge of his jaw and then the soft velvet of his kiss-bruised lips.
I don’t understand him. I don’t understand the way I am when he’s here.
I reach down, pulling the blankets up while making sure not to jostle the boy in my arms as I do so. He’ll stay here like this with me until the early morning hours when he’ll wake me up, say his goodbyes, and take the money I hand him each time.
I keep thinking that the money should make this cheaper. I want it to make this cheaper because then I could tell myself that it didn’t mean anything. But it does.
He won’t leave me alone in the middle of the night. He’ll be there, his heart beating along side mine as I hold him.
He curls his head up underneath my chin, and I hug him tighter against me. “Good night, Neville” I whisper down on those honey blond locks. And sometimes-even as I listen to his breathing level off into sleep-the masochistic part of me wishes that he wasn’t here.
I know how to be the conceited, spoiled, little rich boy. I know how to channel my anger at myself back out onto everyone else. I know how to kick helpless puppies when they come running back for more. I’ve been in this cycle for too long, and I’m too old, too ingrained in this way of life…This is who I am, and I have to accept that.
And damn him for giving me the slightest of hopes to think that maybe I could change and break out of this existence.
I sigh slightly, and he nuzzles up against me in his sleep.
It’s always the quiet ones, the ones you don’t expect, who can screw you silly.
*****
Here is the money that I owe you
So you can pay the bill
I will give you more
When I get paid again
*****
Neville’s POV
I suppose I ought to feel guilty. I play the whore for one, accepting the money that he hands me in the early hours before dawn, and then I make the other play the whore for me, passing the gold on along an unbroken chain.
But it never really ever was about the money.
How long has it been? Three months? Since the start of this school year, at least. When I’m sitting alone up on the tower’s roof in the afternoon, I like to recall the way Draco’s face looked when I accepted his offer. I look at his guarded grey eyes sometimes when we’re together, and I can see that he’s still trying to figure out what’s happened.
The joke he meant to play on me, somehow turning back on him.
Oh, I know he never meant for me to take his lewd proposition seriously. I’m not stupid, despite what my grades might reflect. I knew he meant to humiliate me, to bring me down, to crush me under his foot like he’s crushed so many other people.
It’s just that in order to humiliate the school’s walking joke, you have to try a bit harder than that. I’ve been pushed down for six years already, ground under heels far more well-intentioned and subtle than his. And there comes a point when you learn to accept things for the way they are because you know that nothing you do will ever change them.
I am a complete klutz. I am the school’s running joke. I am that painfully embarrassing blemish on the records. And I am the easily forgettable soul that blends into the masses.
I know exactly what I am. I have no delusions about life, or my place in it. The world is filled with beautiful people…and then there are the people like me. I’ll take this tiny little corner of existence and I’ll fit myself into it, eking what small joys I can from it.
And I will not feel guilty for it. Maybe what I’m doing is wrong, but I’d like to think that the benefits aren’t just one sided. I like to think that I’m useful even in the tiniest of ways. For all that he has the face of an angel carved in ice, the scars that cover his body belie a different kind of past. I touch him sometimes, or cuddle up against his warmth, and I’ll catch his grey eyes looking down at me in confusion. As if he can’t believe that someone might come to him with gentleness. As if it were totally foreign to him to have someone offer kindness.
It’s arrogant of me though to think that I have that much of an effect-or really, any kind of effect-on him. In reality, I’m probably just a passing fancy for him, and I know the day will come soon where he’ll stand there coldly in front of his bed and push me away.
It’s no use worrying about things like that until they happen though, so I slip through the portrait hole and into the common room. And true to my usual form, I trip over my feet before I can take more than a couple steps.
“Neville, you’re hopeless.” Ron tells me affectionately as he reaches out a hand to me. I accept it, knowing that my face is red, and he easily pulls me back up onto my feet. I glance around the room quickly to see if I’ve attracted any unwanted attention. They’re so used to me, though, that my fall doesn’t even cause a ripple.
“Ron, just the person I was looking for.” I smile up at him, and he quirks one slender red eyebrow. It’s a game we play. “Look, I could really use some help in Divination. If I get another bad grade, I’m going to flunk.” Not too far from the actual truth, but that’s not why I’m saying it, and he knows it. I can see the small flicker in his blue eyes as I talk.
“Well, I think I left my book up in the dorm, why don’t we go up there? It’s quieter anyway, and I can help you out with the star chart that’s due tomorrow.” He shrugs nonchalantly before leading the way. The room we share with Harry and Dean is empty, and walking over to his bed, I open the drawer to his beside table, dropping the coins in it as he turns away in embarrassment to lock the door.
“Ron?” I ask, and he crosses the room, stopping in front of me. He’s so much taller than me. Larger than life. Not quite the same as Draco’s presence, but still…I barely reach his chin. He rests a hand on my shoulder as the other one brushes the hair out of my eyes. “I need another hair cut, don’t I?” I ask nervously, and he nods, smiling down at me.
“You could use a trim.” He bends his head, and kisses me lightly on the lips as I make the conscious effort to push away my nervousness.
I know you can’t buy love. And I know that money can’t give you happiness. But as he pulls me gently down onto his bed, wrapping his arms around me, and laughing as I ungracefully fall on top of him…I can pretend.
*****
I know we can never look back
Will you please let me stay the night
No one will ever know
*****
Neville’s POV
Transfiguration is supposed to be the subject that Gryffindors excel at the most. The head of our house teaches the class, and most everybody in the dorm seems to be pretty adept at making pin cushions out of hedgehogs and the like. Maybe an ability to transfigure things is supposed to reflect somehow on the members of this tower. As if we all have this ability inside us to change reality to what we want it to appear as and to be.
Maybe that’s why I suck ass at it.
Why should I transfigure something to be an object it isn’t? Wasn’t it made a specific way for a reason? If an apple was made by nature to be a fucking apple, who am I to change it into a feather?
But I guess it goes a bit deeper than that in some respects. I can’t change things, transfigure them. Life made them one way and all that’s left to do, for people like me, is to accept that this is what reality decided it should be like.
This is my life, this is my reality and I have to accept myself for who I am. There is no changing myself into someone else or transfiguring my personality into an entity that I can like or feel better about. I have to accept what I have and who I am now, and be content with that somehow.
I glance over at Ron, who’s reading his Divination book on his bed. And as I pull my shirt over my head, I can’t help but muse a bit. He has such faith that he can change the world, and change the things around him. Even with the losses he’s suffered this past summer…I’ll bet that it’s never crossed his mind to think that maybe some aspects of life are fixed. Some personalities that cannot be redeemed, or some battles that can not be won no matter how much sheer willpower lies behind them.
A part of me wishes that the world could actually be like that, even when I know better.
“Night guys.” I call softly. Harry waves a hand distractedly, and I think Dean’s already asleep. Ron looks up from his book, and gives me a kind of appraising, questioning glance. I manage a small grin at him, and then head out the door.
I know that he wonders where I go at night. I know they all do. But really, how do you tell a group of well meaning…I guess they’re friends…that you’ve been sneaking down to see the Slytherin they all detest? If you’re me, you don’t. No amount of explaining would make them understand, I think. That and I know that this can’t last forever. Nothing good ever does. Besides, the last thing I want to give my friends, my enemies, my teachers, everyone who knows me…is more ammunition.
I don’t want or need the thousand ‘I told you so’s that’ll come when the inevitable finally happens. I don’t want the well meant pity or the amused scorn. Maybe I am forever getting myself into hopeless situations, but I have learned to insulate myself a bit over the years.
I spit out the password, and I’m in the dungeons in front of his room before I even realize it. A couple years ago, I used to wonder how the Slytherins stood it, being cooped up away from the light in the darkest, dankest, oldest part of Hogwarts. But I’ve since learned that they magic their rooms to stay warm, and there is something oddly comforting about being closed in with the dark.
“Back again, I see.” I turn to find Draco standing behind me, towel around his shoulders and pajama pants hanging on his hips. His hair is still damp and dripping slightly from his shower, and I want to reach out to touch it, but I know better.
There’s just something about him that screams ‘hands off’. It’s in his body language, the way he walks, the way he looks at you, the way he keeps a certain distance. I guess I’ve understood from the beginning, maybe even before then, that it’s not okay to reach out until after he’s reached out first. He guards his personal space fiercely and woe to those who invade it without permission.
I nod at his words, and he walks into the bedroom, leaving the door for me to close. I envy him sometimes and his ability to keep it all inside and not let anyone else see him hurt or upset or sad…People will never look down on him with thinly veiled pity or embarrassment. He’ll never give them a reason to.
“You should really wear socks, you know.” He states calmly as he throws his towel over onto a chair in the corner, I shrug a bit self consciously as I curl my toes on the stone floors.
“Why should I when the floors are magicked to be so warm down here?” I return softly as he flops down on his bed and watches me. I can’t tell if it still comes as a shock to him or not when I show up here every night at about this time. I can’t help but wonder what he thinks at all. Sometimes I think he looks at me standing beside his door with relief, glad that I’m here for whatever reason, and then sometimes I think he resents that I’m there and I get the feeling that he’s merely toying with me and playing this out to see where it might go for his own sordid amusement.
It’s the hope though, the thought that someone might actually want me-even maybe need me I guess-to be with them that keeps me coming back here. It’s like an addiction, that hope that I just might be something more than an embarrassing burden or a harmless, helpless friend to him.
“Yes, well, it’s not my cold toes against your ass at night.” He smirks slightly as he pulls back the blankets. That’s my cue and my invite, so I sit down on the bed, blushing like mad.
“Okay, I’ll put on some socks next time.” I return, a faint smile on my lips before I peel off my shirt. Even if we don’t always have sex, it gets too hot under the covers if I’m wearing too many clothes.
“Whatever.” He looks at me, a small half grin on his lips as my shirt pops off, and my hair stands on end due to static electricity. I try to smooth it down, but from the strangled snicker he gives, I don’t think it’s helping any. I roll my eyes, and I think his coughing is to cover his laughter. His arm snakes around my waist and he pulls me back over towards him and down beside him.
I look up at him then to see if he wants to do anything tonight, but he just yawns and pulls the blankets back up over us and lies down beside me. He’s got to be exhausted anyway with the Quidditch game he played this afternoon, and I’m not exactly chipper myself. So I curl up beside him and close my eyes as he trails his fingers idly over my collar bone.
I’m half asleep when his fingers poke on one particular spot on the back of my shoulder.
“What’d you do here?” He asks softly in my ear, maybe he’s concerned, maybe he’s not. The only emotions he ever gives voice to are things like scorn and disdain.
“Ron must’ve nipped me harder than he thought.” I mumble without thinking as I try to burrow deeper into the covers. He fingers stop their path over my skin abruptly and he pulls back the blankets completely.
“Weasley?”
I turn at the deceptively calm question, and my eyes widen as I realize just what’s about to happen. “Um, listen, it’s not-“
“You’ve been fucking Weasley.” He states coldly. It’s not even a question and I cringe as he says the words. “How long?” He snaps as he gets out of bed. Scrambling to my feet, I try not to panic.
“Draco, I can explain…”
“Get out.”
“But…”
“Get out. Now.” There’s no inflection in his voice. He opens the door and I give him one last look before walking through it. “Don’t bother coming back.” He sounds like he’s instructing a lost first year on which stairs not to take. “I don’t take seconds from anyone, and especially not from people like you.”
******
They might make you happy
Yeah maybe for a minute or two
They can’t make you laugh
No they can’t make you feel
The way that I do
******