hd inspiration for femmeferret (1)
Author: calanthe_fics
Recipient: femmeferret
Title: Crup-tion of the Not-So-Innocent. (Part 1 of 2)
Pairing(s): HP/DM
Rating: Adult/Explicit (NC17)
Summary: If you thought that befriending Draco Malfoy would be easier than defeating the Dark Lord you’d be wrong. Harry Potter has to grow another pair of legs and a forked tail before he can break down the frosty barrier blocking the way into Malfoy’s heart (and his underpants).
Warning(s): Swearing, voyeurism, hand shandies (‘wanking’ to you), very slight references to animal touching, even fewer slight references to tit groping and ew!het.
Genre(s): Humour, mild (resolved) angst.
Word Count: 17,193
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Notes: Written with my best wishes for femmeferret who requested new relationship, humor, witty dialogue, plot, happy ending, love, in canon as much as possible, EWE, and accidentallyonpurpose walking in on the other in the shower. It’s not easy to write a witty and IC Draco. So I didn’t. Crup information is from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Also, my betas rule.
Crup-tion of the not-so-innocent Part 1 of 2
If anyone had predicted to Harry Potter that within ten weeks of offing Voldemort he’d have a forked tail and open permission to fondle Draco Malfoy’s naked buttocks (albeit generally not at the same time) he’d have called them ‘bonkers’. That said, Harry was not known for being the sharpest goblin-forged sword in the bank vault, and a similar prediction that he might eventually kill Snakeface with a simple Disarming Charm would probably have been greeted with the same level of gravity as any one of Trelawney’s many visions about his untimely demise. Which was to say ‘not much’.
Yes, a lot could happen in ten weeks, not least of which was Harry finding himself a week and a half after his victory living amongst house-elves and magical construction operatives in the ruins of Hogwarts. In the dungeons more precisely. It hardly seemed appropriate to him that the House most likely to have fought on Voldie’s side was the only one whose residential space remained undamaged. But at least he had somewhere to sleep with no windows, thus preventing a second Boy Hero sleeps in grey underpants! revelatory feature on the front page of the Daily Prophet. Most young, eligible wizards would have loved the attention, but sadly the underpants Harry had been sleeping in at the time had once belonged to Dudley, which made the potential sexiness of the photo a lot less, well, sexy. But on the bright side, he’d never need to buy any smalls (or in Dudley’s case, bigs) again, not after the four hundred and thirty-three and counting pairs he’d been sent by ardent admirers post-publication.
Overwhelming was the understatement of the century when it came to describing Harry’s life immediately post-battle. There weren’t just the public appearances, newspaper statements, memorial services and private funerals to think about. There were also the issues of where he was going to live and how he might spend some quality time with Ginny. Perhaps unsurprisingly both issues went pear-shaped remarkably quickly.
Harry grabbed his very minimal sleep at The Burrow for the first couple of nights when it was all over. Their reuniting snogs had been sheer bliss for both himself and his long-suffering ‘girlfriend’. However, Harry’s inability to schedule Ginny any time in his immediate diary went down like a dose of galloping Spattergroit and was not helped in the slightest by the aforementioned photo of the bare-chested and angelically-sleeping Harry plastered all over the largest-circulating national paper in wizarding Britain. The resulting tidal wave of hormonal hysteria left Ginny seething and resentful and ready to resort to highly risqué behaviour in a bid to secure his undivided attention. Late one evening as he stumbled out of the fireplace she frog-marched Harry to the broom shed and pressed both his hands firmly against her braless breasts while she moved her own attention to his trousers. ‘Little’ Harry dealt with the shock much quicker than big Harry, and was already making a break for freedom when the rickety door was yanked open by a beige dressing-gowned, rollered and hair-netted hostess from hell, who Petrified them both before bellowing for her husband to come and dish out a good walloping. After the humiliation of both Mr and Mrs Weasley seeing little Harry at half mast and cocooned in their baby daughter’s fingers, there was no option but to move out, and he found himself sadly grateful to be away from Ginny’s accusatory eyes if not her wandering hands.
Grimmauld Place very quickly proved to be the wrong choice for home. Without the Fidelius Charm there was no privacy at all, and Kreacher took to indiscriminately spearing the hoards of gathered hero-spotters with a medieval pike to keep them away from the door. Kingsley reluctantly suggested Harry could accompany Ron and Hermione to Australia to repatriate Mr and Mrs Granger, but the deep disappointment in Ron’s eyes ruled out that option too. George suggested he might return to Privet Drive, and unsurprisingly Harry offered a concise two word expletive in reply.
He found himself a bed at Hogwarts quite by accident. On returning to the school with a group from the Ministry to do some publicity about the rebuild, he was struck by the image of a somewhat unkempt and manic Minerva McGonagall haring about the place, trying to keep tabs on everything at once. She looked like he felt, and he thought his old Head of House could probably use the extra hands and moral support. Hagrid cried like a girl when Harry told him he was moving back in, causing Grawp to growl threateningly and Harry to hide behind Hagrid’s tree-trunk leg, ‘just in case’.
When Harry returned to Hogwarts after putting Ron and Hermione on their flight at Heathrow he found Kingsley’s personal assistant, Jamie, waiting with case upon case of clothes for him to choose from. Shopping in Diagon Alley - and even Muggle London for that matter - was a major no-go thanks to the mobs of people all wanting to thank him personally for saving them from a lifetime of Hallowe’en robes, sweaty face masks, and macho tattoos. Having not the slightest interest in discussing the relative buttock-enhancing values of one pair of jeans over another, Harry delegated the task to Jamie and went to wheedle a mammoth portion of spotted dick and custard, currently available to heroes at any hour of the night or day, out of Kreacher. Bugger Hermione and S.P.E.W.. House-elves ruled.
Harry passed a week at Hogwarts without noticing what he was doing. He slept late, ate everything put in front of him, and then went and busied himself on whatever was the clear-up task du jour. The problems started when construction staff began bickering amongst themselves and vying to be on Harry’s team, and he was quite thankful when McGonagall finally put an end to it by asking him to occupy himself elsewhere.
He spent a lot of time flying until the novelty of having no competition wore off. He even got bored enough to look at the clothes Jamie had left, which gave him a bit of a shock. All the T-shirts seemed a size or two too small; they clung to him like a second skin and showed his nipples and everything! It was so embarrassing! He tried casting a localised Warming Charm on them both to keep them from getting pokey, to no avail. In a choice between erect nipples and sweat stains the nipples won. The jeans were better - a bit baggy - just enough to sit low on his hips but not so low that he’d need to cinch them in with a belt. The only problem was that the tops of his underpants tended to show above the jeans, and given their saggy state it really ruined the new look. But then he found the ‘Jamie-approved’ underpants, selected from the sackfuls received from Harry’s fan-club. They were certainly a bit skimpier than he was used to, and low-riding, too. Standing in front of the mirror modelling a pair made him feel very self-conscious about the smattering of hair that extended downwards like an arrow from his belly button, pointing the way to the surprisingly tidy bulge encased in the moulded front pouch. He cupped it experimentally, unable to get over the weird feeling of being held in by his undies. It felt nice. And they went perfectly under his jeans too, so he supposed that made them all right. Not at all gay or anything. Because underpants couldn’t make you gay. Just because Harry couldn’t help imagining what other blokes’ bulges might look like in the same pants did not mean he was a woofter.
Over breakfast in the Hogwarts kitchen one day McGonagall asked Harry what he might be interested in doing with himself in the run up to the school reopening the following January. He really wanted to become an Animagus but didn’t want to tell her because she’d make him register his form, which would ruin all the fun. He had this fantasy about being a stag like his dad. He gave McGonagall a bland response about brushing up on some of his neglected Transfiguration skills and smoothly changed the subject.
Later that evening when he returned to the dormitory he’d commandeered he discovered two books on his pillow, bound together with a thin leather strap: Advanced Theories of Transubstantial Transfiguration, and, Awakening The Animagus: A Practical Guide To Human-Animal-Human Metamorphosis. He turned the slim volumes over in his hands before picking the strap undone. A single folded sheet of parchment slipped out from between the books and floated down to the bed. In a highly recognisable script were the words,
Our little secret.
He was quite glad she wasn’t there; he’d probably have kissed her. Instead he threw on his pyjamas and slid under the covers, reaching for the top of the two books. One page turned, and another, and then another, until it would have required more willpower than Harry possessed to put the book down and go to sleep. It ended up being a very late night.
Harry skipped going down to breakfast the next morning and reread the two chapters from Awakening The Animagus that had left a particular impression. The first steps of the spellwork were simplicity itself, and he ploughed through the preparatory theories with unprecedented speed. Clearly months in a tent with Hermione had benefited him after all. The trickiest bits were the practical application of the spells controlling mass expansion and contraction. Without them it would be impossible to become an animal with a greater or lesser weight than his human form, and looking down at himself, Harry realised he’d make a pretty weedy stag if he couldn’t crack the formula. But for once he didn’t allow his motivation to wane when he couldn’t perform the necessary incantations correctly the first few times. Becoming an Animagus wasn’t easy; if it was then everyone and his dog would be doing it.
And so Harry settled into a routine over the next couple of days; study and test himself during the morning, break for lunch, walk the school with McGonagall, fly for a bit, tea, and then more study. McGonagall didn’t prod for information on his studies and Harry didn’t offer any, but every so often she would demonstrate a particular wand movement and incantation for usually flimsy reasons before going on to explain the numerous transfigurative benefits of mastering the spell. He took it all in without saying anything, and within only a few days he knew he was on the cusp of his first real attempt. The Forbidden Forest was alive with tree felling to build Grawp a sturdy log shelter, so Harry’s number one choice of venue for his first transformation was ruled out. If he was going to be a stag he’d need a decent sized open space, and the Slytherin common room seemed a bit low and oppressive for such a large animal to move about in. He found, or rather rediscovered, his solution on one of his afternoon walks with McGonagall. The tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy was gone but there was no mistaking the corridor or the doorway; the Room of Requirement was the perfect place to go.
After tea it was easy to slide off without appearing suspicious. He headed up the stairs, running through the series of incantations in his head, full of excitement about finally becoming a stag. But when he rounded the corner to the Room of Requirement he could not believe his eyes.
“What are you doing here?”
Draco Malfoy stood staring at a spot somewhere between the wall and the floor just outside the Room of Requirement. His head snapped round to face Harry, and there was a bitter anger in his face. There were long seconds of eye contact, accusatory from Malfoy, resenting from Harry, before Malfoy deigned to reply.
“What’s it got to do with you?” His voice wobbled and it was higher than Harry was used to hearing. But it wasn’t coloured by distress. No, it sounded much more like fury.
“I’m interested, that’s all,” Harry said as levelly as he could, not that the expression on Malfoy’s face relaxed as a result. He took several paces forward and Malfoy’s body tensed.
“I find that hard to believe,” Malfoy snapped. “You’ve never been interested before.”
Was that disappointment underneath the anger? Harry wasn’t quite sure what he was hearing. “That’s not true, Malfoy. But it doesn’t matter what I say because you’re not going to believe it anyway, are you?”
“Don’t tell me the thought hurts your feelings, oh great and wonderful hero,” Malfoy railed, his tone tight with venom.
Harry watched Malfoy’s right hand twitch towards his wand. His stance altered noticeably; he pivoted a few crucial inches until he presented himself side on, making the potential target smaller. It was clear he’d been practicing his duelling skills. “Okay, I won’t,” Harry offered carefully. “What are you doing here? Come to visit your friend’s last resting place?” He meant the comment to be an olive branch, but knew as soon as the words left his mouth that it was the wrong thing to say.
“Do you think that’s funny?” Malfoy exploded. “Just one more mini Death Eater wiped out, isn’t that right, Potter.”
Harry felt the first bubbles of anger in his stomach. “It’s not remotely funny. I know how it feels to lose a friend.”
But Malfoy wasn’t anywhere near finished. “Oh, spare me your platitudes,” he shouted, hair flying as he whipped his head forward to emphasise his point. “As if you care.”
“Just because I wasn’t friends with Crabbe doesn’t mean I’m not sorry he’s dead.”
“It’s just one less person to worship you, isn’t it?” Malfoy drew his wand and gripped it hard, pointing it just up from the floor.
“What is your problem?” Harry asked, lifting his hands in an attempt to diffuse the situation.
“You. And people like you. Making it impossible for the rest of us to get on with our lives.”
Wrong thing to say, Harry thought in the split second before he opened his mouth and let rip. “Your life as a Death Eater, is that the one? The one where you would have been used and then cast aside when Voldemort discovered you couldn’t kill anyone?”
“SHUT UP! You don’t know anything.”
“I know a damned sight more than you think I do.” He took a step towards Malfoy.
“Are you threatening me? The great saviour resorting to threats now, is he?” And then Malfoy raised his wand and pointed it between Harry’s eyes. The tip quivered; up-down-left-right, anywhere but dead centre. And just beyond the wand Harry could see Malfoy’s squinting eyes, the ones that meant business but were so full of fear.
“For goodness sake, Malfoy! Are you always this paranoid?” Harry took a risk. He reached out to take hold of the shaft of Malfoy’s wand, but Malfoy jerked it out of the way before he could reach it.
“Stay away from me, Potter. Don’t come near me, my mother, my father; any of us.” Malfoy side-stepped Harry, so close that the hem of his robes brushed against Harry’s shin, and bolted past him. Harry turned and watched him disappear from view, and waited for his heart to slow down.
“Shit.” Stupid, stupid, stupid.
He moved to the door and opened it, his thoughts full of Malfoy’s words and the last time they’d been together, on that fateful night.
It was the smell that hit him first; scorched wood and the lingering, bitter scent of manmade materials incinerated to nothing more than resinous blobs, with a nauseating undertone of charred meat. He stood in the open doorway, unable to move. The Room of Hidden Things stretched out before him, lifeless and blackened, every inch of every surface coated in a thick, sooty residue. Stacked furniture had toppled during the inferno leaving a skeletal landscape of jutting table legs and precariously twisted metal pipes, which had solidified mid-melt to leave grotesque shapes in the place of their once-crafted forms. Harry couldn’t breathe. The memories of his panic-filled escape with Malfoy in tow were crystal clear in his mind. And so were Vincent Crabbe’s screams.
He slammed the door shut and walked away.
Harry took a meandering route to get back to the dungeons. He walked through the common room and went straight down the narrow hallway to his room. He had a moment to register that a light was on before he swung the door inwards and stepped inside.
“What...?” There was Malfoy leaning over an open trunk, his outer robes discarded across one of the untouched beds to reveal a sweat stained shirt and smart trousers. What’s all that stuff on my bed? Harry thought.
“Get. Out.” Malfoy stood ramrod straight and ordered Harry in a voice surely learned from his father. “Sod off back to your tower right this minute and get your filthy, impure blood out of my House.”
“Oh, for…” Harry began but didn’t finish. He was not cranking it up all over again. “I’m sleeping here. This is my room now. The tower’s wrecked.”
Malfoy looked aghast. “You’re...?” he said, and then paused as the cogs turned in his brain. “That’s your junk on my bed? In my cupboard?” The shaking was back, but now it was accompanied by a greater degree of confidence. Malfoy puffed himself up and did his best to appear intimidating. “What else of mine are you going to steal?”
“I haven’t stolen anything!” Harry said, outraged. “How was I to know it was your bed?” Out of five beds what were the odds on me picking his? he thought.
“Oh, you knew,” Malfoy seethed, approaching Harry slowly, deliberately. “You knew and you thought you’d push me out because no one would ever dare tell the great Harry Potter he couldn’t have something. Well you’re not going to bully me. This is my bed, my cupboard, and you’d better steer clear if you know what’s good for you.”
Harry grew defensive. “It’s not like you’re staying here,” he said, noting with horror a hint of self-pity in his voice. “I am. I’m living here. You can bugger off to your massive house any time you like.”
Malfoy looked like Harry had slapped him hard across the face. His eyes and mouth widened, and it was clear he was lost for words.
And then Harry realised. “You’re living here too now,” he said. Malfoy simply continued to stare. “Aren’t you?” Harry pressed, watching Malfoy shut down on him, the barriers clanging into place. “Aren’t you?”
“Move your rubbish and get out of my room.” Malfoy composed himself and pointedly turned his back on Harry.
“I will not. You move.”
“Hardly. This dorm was mine long before you came along. Find somewhere else.” Malfoy resumed unpacking his trunk and placing the contents on Harry’s - his - bed.
All Harry could think was that there was no way he was letting Malfoy dictate the terms. “No.”
Malfoy’s voice assumed an air of bored authority. “As you wish. Don’t leave then. But don’t touch my things, don’t look at me, don’t talk to me, and don’t you dare snore or disturb me in any way. Got it?” And with that he flicked his wand and the cupboard drawers flew open and belched out all of Harry’s clothes, which landed in a heap on the floor.
“You’re a total arsehole, you know that, right?” Harry replied as he drew his own wand and rescued his clothes before Malfoy could walk on them. He picked the farthest bed and re-stowed his clothes, making a bit more noise than he needed to in his anger. They spent five or ten minutes with their backs to each other before Harry heard curtains being drawn. He sat down and dared a peek to find that all the clothes were now gone and Malfoy had retired for the night.
Bubbling with irritation, Harry got into his new bed and tried to get to sleep. It wasn’t easy - just a tiny sign of things to come, perhaps?
~*~
They woke at roughly the same time the following morning, and Harry decided to set aside the bickering and do his best to get on with Malfoy. One of them had to make the effort and he thought it was more than likely going to have to be him. When Malfoy returned from his shower Harry said, “We eat meals in the kitchens seeing as there’s not many of us living here. Do you know how to get there?”
Malfoy continued to comb his hair without turning to look at Harry. Eventually he spoke. “I recall telling you not to speak to me. Are you so stupid that you can’t even remember a conversation from yesterday?” His voice was back to that typical, self-satisfied Malfoy tone.
Harry gnashed his teeth, bit back a snotty response, and left.
At the breakfast table Professor McGonagall stared hard at Harry until he was forced to look up and acknowledge her attention. “I was half expecting to hear further structural damage occurring yesterday evening,” she said.
“Why’s he here, Professor?” he asked, and he could hear the whiney tone in his voice.
“For protection, Harry. For the duration of his father’s trial.”
“But I thought he’d go to Durmstrang or something.”
“Hardly a wise move when trying to convince the Wizengamot of one’s eagerness to renounce an affiliation with the Dark arts.” She sipped her tea calmly and continued to survey his reaction.
“But,” he moaned, “but he’s a prat!”
“Think what you might have called Mr Creevey once upon a time,” McGonagall said, “and look how well he turned out.” There wasn’t much Harry could say to that. “I’m trusting you to do the right thing by the boy, Harry,” she continued, and that’s when he knew he was lost. McGonagall’s trust was inviolate.
“Okay, Professor,” he agreed reluctantly.
He couldn’t wait to get to the Room of Requirement and spend some time on his own.
~*~
In two hours of trying to transform Harry had worked up quite a sweat. He’d felt a few tingles in his limbs, and he was starting to get a headache. He sat down on a grassy bump and leaned back against the trunk of an oak tree while he caught his breath and stared up through the canopy of branches to the fake sky above. In the days he’d been going to the Room of Requirement to practice he’d not seen Malfoy in the vicinity again. In fact he hadn’t seen much of Malfoy full stop. He was like a ghost, making the odd noise but otherwise doing his best to be invisible, and Harry was fine with that. It made him easier to deal with, and it also made Harry a lot less jumpy. He felt like his transformation efforts had gone backwards since Malfoy had turned up, and he was only just getting back to the point he’d been at before. He broke off a few chunks of chocolate and ate them for fortitude before standing up to give it one last go for the day.
He held his wand loosely at his side while he breathed rhythmically in an effort to achieve a sense of pure peace. He pictured his human form in his mind, and imagined it twisting and reshaping itself to reveal the animal form hidden within. He whispered the incantation under his breath and felt the onset of the now-familiar tingling working up his fingers and his toes. He accepted the sensation and paid attention to its progress as it moved up towards his torso and enveloped his chest.
In the back of his mind he knew he’d done it even before his body started to change. He felt himself become weightless, as insubstantial as a breath of air, and he kept his eyes tightly closed until the static flow had ceased and he could feel the ground beneath his feet once more. When he tensed his muscles he was astounded to register the difference in his centre of gravity and how firmly rooted to the earth he was. He shook himself and couldn’t believe how sturdy and well-balanced his stance was. Harry told himself triumphantly that he knew he’d be a stag! It was predestined!
However, when he opened his eyes he immediately knew that something was wrong. He was much too close to the ground to be a big animal so a stag was out of the question, unless there was a super-secret pygmy breed native to Britain, which he was pretty sure was not the case.
Looking around, he was aware of a long nose of some description, and that he had short, black hair and distinctly canine front paws. He didn’t have to lean forwards very far before his nose touched the ground, and he thought, Oh, bugger. I’m a bloody sausage dog! Amidst his crushing disappointment he realised it could have been worse; he could have been a Chihuahua, which was almost certainly gayer on the spectrum of gay dogs, of which he appeared to be a new member. For once he was almost grateful that Sirius was dead.
Accepting that sulking was pointless, Harry set about learning everything to do with his brand new Animagus form. He bounded around to test the pogo-springiness of his legs and was filled with a sense of uncomplicated pleasure in his range of movement. He could feel a tail wagging furiously just above his compact doggy bum, and twisted himself as far as he could go and ran round and around in an attempt to catch hold of it in his jaws. All he could make out in his peripheral vision was its very tip, and he realised he’d never be able to catch it, but it was such good fun that he didn’t stop trying anyway. He tried leaps and swerves and running full tilt, and when he’d finally exhausted himself and was panting fit to burst his little lungs, he sank to the ground.
What a rush!
Okay, so a miniature dog was nowhere near as glamorous and impressive as a stag, but at least he could change into an animal, and better than that, he’d done it all by himself! He laughed out loud . He’d be able to use the skill when he eventually became an Auror because no one would look twice at a puppy scampering down a street, unlike a stag, which would not be quite so useful on an urban stakeout, although it would be an excellent makeshift clothes airer on those uncomfortable over-night camp-outs Aurors had to do.
Having spent half the afternoon in his dog form, he changed back and headed outside to get a broom from the supply hut and go for a fly. He bounced down the steps as though on a cushion of air. Close to the hut Harry spotted Malfoy walking with his head down. As they neared each other, Harry called out, “Hey! Malfoy! Fancy a game of one-on-one to the Snitch?” His exuberant suggestion was met with a sour sneer and Malfoy veering off in the other direction. Harry huffed. I’ll take that as a no, then, he thought, refusing to let the snub dampen his mood. He caught the Snitch twelve times in the space of a single hour, a new personal best. If any recruiters had been there to see his performance they’d have soiled their robes in excitement and offered him a contract on the spot.
I’m an Animagus! I wish I could tell mum and dad and Sirius. And then his mood fell just a bit. And Remus and Tonks.
Feeling slightly more sober, Harry headed back to the dungeons to shower and get out of his grubby clothes. The dorm door was ajar, and when he entered Malfoy was only half-dressed. In the fraction of a second before he snatched up a jumper and threw it on, Harry got a full and memorable eyeful of Malfoy’s lean upper body; his non-existent stomach with its tight slash of a belly button, his hairless chest with its tiny, pink nipples, and his unmarked forearms with their fine covering of silvery hair. Malfoy looked ruffled and embarrassed at Harry’s intrusion so Harry pretended he hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary, despite the fact that Malfoy’s luminously fair skin could not in any way be described as ordinary. Touchable, maybe - but ordinary? Never.
Harry dug around in his trunk for some toiletries, then kicked his trainers and socks off and peeled his perspiration-dampened T-shirt over his head, depositing that on the floor for the laundry too. Without a backwards glance at the silent and unmoving Malfoy, Harry left the dorm for the showers. Upon his return Kreacher had obviously been for the washing and Malfoy had gone. Again.
The following day Harry asked the Room of Requirement for a big mirror in his imaginary forest because he wanted to get a good look at his doggy body. He was still a bit miffed about the whole Dachshund thing and had been trying to convince himself that there were many ways in which it was better than being another animal, say a stag for instance. He transformed with little effort on his first attempt and it felt as natural and unforgettable as riding a broom; once you could do it, it was impossible to unlearn.
What he saw when he scampered across the clearing and looked in the mirror was the source of some confusion. He was definitely a small dog but there was no way he was a sausage dog. He angled his compact body from side to side to get a good look at his overall shape and concluded that he was definitely a small Terrier, probably a Jack Russell, except that his colouring was all wrong. He was jet black except for two big white patches around his eyes. He padded closer to the mirror and pulled faces at himself. His eyes were black too, and oddly expressive for a dog, and when he snarled his lips pulled back and showed a mean, if dinky, set of teeth. His pink tongue lolled out when he panted and he had to admit he was a singularly cute looking (gay) Terrier.
He held onto the thought for a good thirty seconds, right up until the point when he wagged his tail and copped an eyeful of his … his … deformity. It was so unfair! Okay, so he didn’t have a lame white lightning mark in his fur, but why did he have to pay for that stroke of luck with a forked tail? He looked utterly stupid! Like some pathetic devil dog or something. Bollocks; he couldn’t even be an Animagus without carrying a visible stigma. Upset by his discovery, he transformed back to himself and strode out of the room in a huff.
~*~
After a Wronski Feint or four to kick-start a better mood, Harry headed up to the library to see what the books on animals could tell him about dogs with two tails. But when he got there the first thing he saw was Malfoy settled in at a table, surrounded by books and half-eaten plates of food. He sneered silently when he saw Harry, and annoyed at the inconvenience of Malfoy’s position directly in line with the row of shelves he needed to look at, Harry left again.
It was late by the time he made lunch, and the kitchen was empty except for Professor Flitwick who was busy chatting rubbish at a rate of knots to several scared-looking house-elves.
“Erm, Professor?” Harry interrupted. “Have you got any books on dogs I could borrow?”
“Library’s your best bet, Potter,” the cheery professor told him between mouthfuls of trifle. “There are dozens of books about dogs at the end of the Magical Creatures section. Long history of involvement with the wizarding world, dogs,” he prattled on, but Harry had stopped listening the moment Professor McGonagall had entered the room. He really hoped Flitwick would shut up before she heard anything he would rather she didn’t.
Alas.
“You’re interested in dogs, Potter?” she asked as she removed her hat and took the seat opposite Harry at the table.
“Erm, not especially,” he mumbled. “Just, you know - thought I’d do a bit of reading about them while I’ve got some time on my hands.”
She steepled her fingers with grace and precision as she fixed him with a penetrating gaze over the tops of her glasses.
Harry waited for her to speak. Even Flitwick had gone quiet, but mainly because he was too busy filling his face.
“I like dogs,” he added lamely in an attempt to fill the suffocating silence.
“I see,” she finally said. “And what sort of dogs do you like?”
Fuckety fuck.
“Oh, you know - small ones …”
Thankfully Professor McGonagall’s cheese salad appeared. He concentrated with unnatural focus on his own plate of food and hoped the conversation was over. After a minute or two filled only with the sound of iceberg lettuce crunching Harry thought he was home and dry, which just went to prove that Harry and thinking did not necessarily go together with complete success.
“That’s a rather vague description, Harry,” the professor continued as though there hadn’t been as much as a few seconds’ gap since she had last spoken. The thing with McGonagall was that Harry found it almost impossible to tell untruths of any kind when she asked him something. She was like human Veritaserum. “Perhaps if you were to enlighten me further on the identifying attributes of your small dogs I could suggest a book. Or two...”
Damn her and her below-the-belt insinuations about how much she’d helped him already! He stared at her, resignation welling up inside him.
“I thought I saw this dog the other day and I wanted to know what it was.” That was so lame. If she hadn’t suspected before she definitely has now, he realised.
Her gaze bored into him and the half-truth seemed to fluoresce and take on a life of its own, hanging in the air between them and flashing, LIAR!LIAR!LIAR!
“It was black and small,” he babbled. “Er, and it had two tails.”
McGonagall’s eyes popped out of her skull and her glasses slipped so far down her nose that Harry thought they were going to end up covered in mayonnaise and buried in shredded lettuce.
“A Crup!” she exclaimed, and Harry thought vaguely that he might have heard of them somewhere. Probably from Professor Grubbly-Plank because there was no way Hagrid would have taught them about an animal as gay and tame as a little dog. But there was no mistaking one thing: McGonagall looked seriously impressed.
She cleared her throat and placed her cutlery across her plate before taking a sip of tea. “I believe the dog you saw was a Crup, Harry,” she said meaningfully. “Crups are hunters, you know. Very loyal to wizards. Not so fond of Muggles. Insatiable appetite, even for things most other animals would find quite inedible.” She paused, and Harry held his breath. “A black one, you say?” She gave him the once-over and nodded to herself. “Very rare, black Crups. They say that strain was bred in the sixteen hundreds by landed families who partook in night hunting, and not always of four-legged animals as one might expect.” Her tone insinuated more than her words had said.
Oh, bloody great, he thought to himself. I finally become an Animagus only to find I’m the very embodiment of pure-blood snobbery and Muggle-killing to boot.
She resumed eating and appeared to indicate by her change of focus that the conversation had ended. Harry was grateful for the quiet and wolfed his meal down as fast as he could. Just as he pushed his chair back to leave, McGonagall added, “There was a rumour once upon a time that Lucius Malfoy is an unregistered Crup Animagus. I suspect it would have been quite upsetting to him that he would have been unable to overcome his natural colouring. White Crups are ten a Sickle, you see. Common as muck.”
Harry looked at her and watched the beginnings of a smirk shape her lips, but she hid the expression by taking another sip of tea.
“Um, thanks, Professor.”
He left the kitchen and wondered how he was going to get his hands on some Crup books without alerting Malfoy. Crups sounded cool, not least because of the whole Malfoy one-upmanship thing.
~*~
When he tugged his pyjamas from beneath his pillow that night two books had found their way into the folds of fabric as if by magic. A Greate British Bestiarie was a slim volume with a heavily cracked leather cover, obviously aged and well-handled, and Decoding Your Animagus Form: An Exploration Into Personality Traits And Human Transfiguration, which looked to be brand new and not so much as opened once if the pristine spine was anything to go by. The latter book looked like some of that ‘New Age claptrap’ Uncle Vernon often complained about, but its cover illustration of a big, burly wizard shrinking down into a fluffy ball of cuddly Puffskein grabbed Harry’s attention, and he thought he’d give it a go anyway.
Skimming the books, Harry was amazed by what he learned. McGonagall had been spot on; Crups were potentially nasty little buggers with an aptitude for mauling and on occasion killing things much larger than their own size. They were fearless creatures that wouldn’t back down from a fight, and because of that any wizard who owned Crups had to have a license from the Ministry after proving they could control the animal. The Ministry also enforced a programme of tail clipping on all owners who lived in Muggle-populated areas to prevent any confusion with the common Jack Russell Terrier they so resembled. One book hinted that some wizarding families refused to participate in the ‘purposeless maiming’ of the noble Crup, and therefore the only place you were ever likely to see an un-clipped tail was amidst the packs of hunting Crups kept by almost all wealthy pure-blood families. Crups were particularly partial to ferrets (and oh, couldn’t Harry picture the family fun Malfoy and his dad might have with their Animagus forms...) but would take a bite out of almost any tacklable animal they came across if provoked enough.
He was interested in the page or two that appeared to indicate that an Animagus who took the form of a wizarding world creature was always of a powerful lineage, especially in light of what he’d learned about his connection to the Peveralls and the sheer size of his magical heritage. He betted that’s what McGonagall’s impressed expression had been about.
Before he went to sleep that night he lay awake wondering how much Malfoy knew about Crups, and how on earth he could wheedle the information out of the annoying wanker.
~*~
“What do you think about Morrison for the new Puddlemere Keeper?” Harry asked Malfoy the next morning, nodding at the newly-arrived copy of Quidditch Quarterly lying open on the end of Malfoy’s bed. If Malfoy’s upper lip curled any more it’d touch the end of his pointy nose, Harry thought in the extending silence. There was no answer; instead Malfoy flipped his magazine closed before he picked a sports bag up and walked past Harry, out of the dormitory.
Harry turned to face the door and snorted in disbelief at Malfoy’s back. He breathed in deeply through his nose and stretched his arms over his head, just to get rid of the last of the night’s kinks. And then he smelled it. He sniffed again and realised he’d inherited a permanent attribute of his Crup’s hunting ability. He could pick up the faintest background trace of his own smell, and an accompanying scent he registered as Malfoy’s, which was all completely fine given that they shared the room. What didn’t make quite so much sense was why Malfoy’s bag had carried a distinct whiff of Harry on it.
Seeing a handy excuse for a bit of spying, Harry decided to give chase.
Malfoy went outside, headed to the supply hut to fetch his broom, and then went on to the changing tent next to the Quidditch pitch. Harry skulked, Crup-like, around the stands while Malfoy flew alone and ran down the Snitch a couple of times. Harry was just answering the urge to mark the support struts on the Slytherin viewing tower when Malfoy landed and headed in to shower. Shaking his back leg a few extra times to get rid of the last of the drips, Harry trotted in after him.
The showers were already on, the hissing of water hitting tiles echoing out of the changing area and into the communal area of the tent. Malfoy was wrapped in a towel and entering the shower stalls when Harry padded along by the bench to reach the open bag with its outspill of clothes and toiletries. The bag was too high for Harry to reach even if he tensed his legs and tried to spring higher, but his nose told him for sure that something in that bag stank of him, and he couldn’t imagine for a minute what Malfoy might be doing with any of his stuff unless voodoo was real and he was making a poppet to torture Harry with.
Wary of being caught, Harry edged slowly to the shower area to check that Malfoy wasn’t going to come out unexpectedly. If the coast was clear he’d change back and have a root around in the bag to settle his mind. He stuck his muzzle around the doorway and edged out until he could see into the steamy room. Malfoy had chosen a shower towards the far end of the room, and he hadn’t bothered to close any of the curtains to section himself off.
Harry’s doggy jaw dropped open and his tongue flopped out at the sight before him. Malfoy was naked and stretched tall beneath the broad shower head, his hands scraping the fine ashy-blond hair back from his face to lie smooth against his scalp. Harry watched those slender fingers trail down Malfoy’s neck and out across the width of his shoulders as he tilted his face up, eyes closed, into the heavy flow of water. Nothing about Malfoy’s body seemed generous; there was no fat on him and his skin was pulled tight over his tall frame so that his bones were visible in places, but it was far from unpleasant to see. Harry drank in the details, forgetting about the bag in the face of Malfoy’s private nudity and his simple pleasure in washing that enviably perfect skin. For once Harry didn’t worry about rating the gayness of watching another man wash himself simply because he was too busy forgetting how to think or recall his own name.
Malfoy picked up his soap and started rubbing the bar across his chest to create thick lines of creamy lather. The water cut rivulets through the bubbles, dragging them down his hairless torso and over his stomach to collect haphazardly in the top of his pubic hair. Harry ogled Malfoy’s crotch with a complete lack of shame; he watched the way the cock and balls swayed gently in time with Malfoy’s rubbing hands, and when the bar of soap finally travelled down and scrubbed firmly in the patch of curly hair until the area was covered in a thick, fragrant whiteness, Harry thought he was in danger of swallowing his tongue. Never had he prayed so earnestly for another man to get a hard-on. He hoped that every stroke of Malfoy’s hand was the kind of stroke meant to tease his body into arousal, and he felt himself growing light-headed from holding his breath in anticipation. He watched the way Malfoy’s hand curled around his penis and washed it carefully before moving downwards to run his cupped palms over the mouth-wateringly dangly sac between his legs. But no erection was forthcoming, at least not from Malfoy. Harry, however, felt a distinct tightness between his hind legs and wondered for the first time about the mechanics of Crup masturbation and how on earth he was supposed to clean his own mess up before it registered that dogs had a tendency to use their tongues for that sort of thing. Not that there’d been anything about that in the books though, and he berated the shoddy research into Animagus sex undertaken by the authors. It was suddenly incomprehensible how such an important area of research could have been ignored.
Malfoy turned around and let the water pound against his chest and rinse his front clean. He leaned his hands against the wall and sighed out loud in contentment, and the bubbles tripped over each other as they ran down his legs and pooled around the plug hole. The long, elegantly curving line that mapped the journey from the top of Malfoy’s spine down his back, around the lean cushion of his bottom and down his legs was a thing of sheer beauty. It seemed crude and unappreciative to ignore that pair of legs in favour of what sat on top of them, but in that moment, hidden around the doorframe in his Animagus form, Harry Potter discovered his true vocation, the single calling that would give his life purpose and pleasure; he was most definitely an arse man. And Malfoy possessed the kind of arse that challenged Harry’s ardent fancy. It was a biteable bottom, a squeezable bottom. A lickable, smackable, fuckable bottom, and one way or another Harry was going to work through his list of fantasies and play every single filthy one of them out on that trim, tasty package, preferably to the accompanying soundtrack of Malfoy’s throaty gasps.
Malfoy washed his hair beneath the steady stream, and as his arms shifted and stretched to massage his scalp and comb out the tangles with his fingers the rest of his body moved too. The shampoo foam coated his shoulders before being washed away by the spray, and Harry imagined himself pressed close against Malfoy’s back, tracing shapes through the bubbles and writing secret messages in ticklish lines to the sound of Malfoy’s playful laughter. God, Harry was growing awfully warm. The heavy steam, his insulating coat, the stifling arousal - he didn’t think he could take much more.
Harry let out the Crup equivalent of a starved moan when Malfoy’s soapy hand reached behind him and ran the length of his crack before dipping his fingertips inside and moving rhythmically for long seconds. His imagination ran riot as he pictured those slippery fingers disappearing inside Malfoy’s body instead of merely washing the skin, and inside his head he was begging, begging Malfoy to do it. And then the moment passed and Malfoy stepped out of the jet of water and wrapped his towel around his waist.
Move! Harry told his four legs. Bloody move! In the nick of time he managed to clumsily scuttle backwards into the shadows and press himself against the wall as Malfoy walked past, a sodden giant in the land of Crups.
Malfoy sat on the opposite bench and commenced drying his hair. His legs were wide apart and the short towel hid absolutely nothing. The view was even better than before, mainly because Malfoy’s penis jiggled happily at almost the same height as Harry’s head, and even through the fresh tang of the soap Harry could discern the meaty, masculine scent of Malfoy’s body. A long string of saliva dribbled over Harry’s jaw and made a tiny pattering noise as it hit the tile floor. He panted a bit too loudly as he tried to stop the slobbering, alerting Malfoy that he was not alone.
“Who’s there?” Malfoy barked. His legs, sadly for Harry, snapped together, his body just as defensive as his tone of voice. Harry let out a muffled whimper and shuffled forward just enough that his two front paws left the camouflage of the shadows. He heard Malfoy sigh in relief, and watched his fair-haired legs as he got up and crossed the narrow changing room, dropping down near Harry to coax him out from his hiding place.
“What have we got here?” Malfoy said in the calmest voice Harry had ever heard him use. “Let me have a look at you.” Malfoy cautiously extended his fingers towards Harry and held them some distance away, letting Harry sniff him and take his own time to respond.
Harry crept forward a bit more, poking his muzzle out into the light and flicking his tongue against the very tips of Malfoy’s soapy fingers. Malfoy chuckled - chuckled! - but didn’t try to reach for Harry.
“Out you come so I can see you.” Malfoy stood and moved back a few paces to give Harry the space to come out, before dropping down to his knees. He could see Malfoy’s face looking into the shadows at him, and he was actually smiling! Harry drew in the Crup equivalent of a fortifying breath and took several careful steps out into the light. He watched Malfoy’s face for signs of warning, but all that happened was that his smile grew more dazzling.
“Well, well, well. What have we got here?” Harry wagged his tail a bit more enthusiastically than was cool or befitting of his heroic disposition. “Look at you with your intact tail. To whom do you belong?” Now clearly unconcerned about the possibility of an imminent savaging, Malfoy reached forward and patted Harry gently on the head, which resulted in an appallingly eager response from the Crup part of Harry’s brain. Not the Harry part at all, oh, no. He found himself padding right up to Malfoy and burrowing his head into the outstretched hand, which prompted Malfoy to laugh and scratch Harry behind the ears.
Brrrr! Wow, if only scratching Harry behind his human ears could produce the same effect! He felt tingly all over and his hind quarters swayed from side to side thanks to the vigorous tail wagging going on. Mmm, you can do that again, he thought, throwing his cute, gay Crup self shamelessly upon Malfoy’s affectionate attentions. “Curious - no mark,” Malfoy said, running his hands over Harry’s rib cage. “Where do you live, boy? Surely not the forest? Are you going to let me have a proper look at you without nipping?”
The next thing Harry knew, Malfoy had gripped him around the middle and picked him up with a skill and confidence that suggested he had done it lots of times before. “Ooh, you’re heavier than you look,” he continued as he walked back to the bench to sit down, placing Harry on the flats of his thighs. It’s not my fault! Kreacher keeps force feeding me and after all those months of eating berries and twig soup I thought I deserved a steamed suet treat or five!
Malfoy’s hands moved to cup his head and lift it so that they were eye to eye. “Clear eyes,” he said as he used the heels of his palms to squeeze into Harry’s throat. “Strong jaw, good set of teeth on you, too. I bet you haven’t chewed too many cauldrons recently, have you? Now hold still and let me see what you’ve got down there.”
Er, what? Down where? Under his smooth black coat Harry blanched. Sure enough, he was efficiently flipped over so that his spine lay in the dip between Malfoy’s legs and his four paws stuck up in the air. And then the thing happened. Malfoy - snobby, pure-blood, attention-seeker and all round pillock Malfoy - grabbed hold of Harry’s testicles and gave them a damned thorough grope, rolling the ovals around inside the stretchy skin sac before unsheathing the tip of Harry’s penis and examining it thoughtfully, his face but inches away. Harry’s body was frozen in shock but his mind was running fifty to the dozen. Gah! Malfoy’s a doggy diddler! A mutt molester! A Crup corruptor! A hound harasser! followed moments later by, Just wait ‘til I tell Ron! and then, Um, perhaps not…
“Fully formed and nicely separated - you’re older than I thought,” Malfoy said knowledgeably. “Lucky for you no idiot Mudblood got their hands on you and neutered you. I should think you’ll make a prolific breeder.” Harry shuddered at the notion before thinking, Only if you’ve got a set of functioning ovaries at the top of your rectum, because that’s the only place my fully formed and nicely separated love spuds are emptying the troops.
The fondling ceased just as Harry had begun to enjoy it, even if he knew it was unspeakably perverted to think about inter-species intimacy of any sort. It was a pity that Malfoy wasn’t so eager to get his hands on Harry’s human ‘down there’ parts, although there was a naughty little thought in the back of his mind about how much he’d like to jiggle Malfoy’s dangly bits with his muzzle and play tongue tennis with both blond-fuzzed balls. Maybe Malfoy’d let him? It was impossible to predict what debaucheries the disgustingly rich got up to behind the warded gates of their country estates. Maybe Crup copulation was a seasonal activity with a Master of Ceremonies and prizes for the most effective handling and the most creative non-doggy style position.
Malfoy popped Harry on the bench next to his bag and returned to getting dressed. “But what’s a lone Crup doing here?” he asked as though Harry might be able to answer. “What an enigma you are.” Yeah, and I’m not the only one, Harry thought as he snuffled about inside the open flap of the bag and sank his teeth into the carefully folded bulk of one of his own mildly sweaty T-shirts. He pulled it out and held fast to it even when Malfoy tried to tug it away from him. “Hey! That’s mine! No eating allowed, okay, boy?” No it’s not yours, you thieving bastard, Harry thought, although he did let the T-shirt drop rather than shove fang holes through the cotton.
Malfoy retrieved the T-shirt from the bench and picked it up like it was the most delicate piece of silk. He refolded it into a perfect square and placed it back in his bag, right at the bottom.
Malfoy’s got the hots for me! I bet he’s been checking me out from between the gaps in his curtains when I get dressed in the mornings! Harry thought, followed by, I wonder if he sent me any undies after he saw my picture in the paper? followed again by, I bet he keeps that picture under his pillow! Oh, Malfoy, resistance to the Potter charms is futile. You and your handsome bottom are mere steps away from my indecently intended clutches.
After that Harry sank, in a particularly self-satisfied manner, to lie on the bench watching Malfoy get dressed and listen to the outpouring of chatter from a clearly very lonely young man. He felt a bit guilty then, as though he was taking advantage of Malfoy’s stubborn rigidity and making him talk, when if he’d known it was Harry in his Animagus form he would have been absolutely furious.
On the walk back up to the school Harry bounded along beside Malfoy or ran around his legs in circles, trying to trip him up. He’d never heard Malfoy laugh so much, and as they approached the school steps that realisation sobered Harry somewhat.
“Off you go then,” Malfoy said, shooing Harry away as he took the steps two at a time. Harry followed, scampering up the steps in Malfoy’s wake. “No, boy, you can’t come in. You’re a hunting dog. You live outdoors.” Yeah. Right, Harry thought. It looks like rain, and it’s nearly lunchtime too. I’m bloody starving regardless of your snide and frankly tactless comments about my weight.
“Go on back to your kennel or wherever you live,” Malfoy said, exasperated, when Harry wove a figure of eight around his feet the moment he stopped climbing the steps. “You can’t come in. Pets aren’t allowed.” Malfoy looked down into Harry’s doggy eyes and pushed him away gently, although even a completely thick person could have seen that his heart wasn’t in it. “Crups aren’t domestic animals as you should well know,” he told Harry firmly. “All the manuals say you can’t be tamed.” While I’d like to pretend for the sake of my masculinity that’s it’s true I suspect some regular oral servicing and the odd grope of your bum would have much the same effect, Harry mused whilst trying his best to look as pathetically puppy-doggish as possible in the hope of melting Malfoy’s faux-stony heart.
Malfoy huffed and rose to go, causing Harry to play his trump card sooner than he would have preferred. He sat down on his hind quarters and lifted his front legs off the floor to reach out towards Malfoy. Then he looked up at him with pleading eyes and summoned the most pathetic whimper he possibly could. He whined and shivered and howled sadly, and he could almost watch Malfoy thawing before his very eyes. Malfoy sighed heavily and ran his fingers through his hair. “Oh, bloody hell,” he finally said. “Come on then, before I change my mind. But don’t you dare chew anything or crap indoors. On second thoughts, you can chew Potter’s things if you want but I’m standing firm on the crapping business.” Fucking typical, Harry thought as he picked himself up and skipped after Malfoy’s retreating form. Nice arse though.
Part 2
Recipient: femmeferret
Title: Crup-tion of the Not-So-Innocent. (Part 1 of 2)
Pairing(s): HP/DM
Rating: Adult/Explicit (NC17)
Summary: If you thought that befriending Draco Malfoy would be easier than defeating the Dark Lord you’d be wrong. Harry Potter has to grow another pair of legs and a forked tail before he can break down the frosty barrier blocking the way into Malfoy’s heart (and his underpants).
Warning(s): Swearing, voyeurism, hand shandies (‘wanking’ to you), very slight references to animal touching, even fewer slight references to tit groping and ew!het.
Genre(s): Humour, mild (resolved) angst.
Word Count: 17,193
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Notes: Written with my best wishes for femmeferret who requested new relationship, humor, witty dialogue, plot, happy ending, love, in canon as much as possible, EWE, and accidentallyonpurpose walking in on the other in the shower. It’s not easy to write a witty and IC Draco. So I didn’t. Crup information is from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Also, my betas rule.
Crup-tion of the not-so-innocent Part 1 of 2
If anyone had predicted to Harry Potter that within ten weeks of offing Voldemort he’d have a forked tail and open permission to fondle Draco Malfoy’s naked buttocks (albeit generally not at the same time) he’d have called them ‘bonkers’. That said, Harry was not known for being the sharpest goblin-forged sword in the bank vault, and a similar prediction that he might eventually kill Snakeface with a simple Disarming Charm would probably have been greeted with the same level of gravity as any one of Trelawney’s many visions about his untimely demise. Which was to say ‘not much’.
Yes, a lot could happen in ten weeks, not least of which was Harry finding himself a week and a half after his victory living amongst house-elves and magical construction operatives in the ruins of Hogwarts. In the dungeons more precisely. It hardly seemed appropriate to him that the House most likely to have fought on Voldie’s side was the only one whose residential space remained undamaged. But at least he had somewhere to sleep with no windows, thus preventing a second Boy Hero sleeps in grey underpants! revelatory feature on the front page of the Daily Prophet. Most young, eligible wizards would have loved the attention, but sadly the underpants Harry had been sleeping in at the time had once belonged to Dudley, which made the potential sexiness of the photo a lot less, well, sexy. But on the bright side, he’d never need to buy any smalls (or in Dudley’s case, bigs) again, not after the four hundred and thirty-three and counting pairs he’d been sent by ardent admirers post-publication.
Overwhelming was the understatement of the century when it came to describing Harry’s life immediately post-battle. There weren’t just the public appearances, newspaper statements, memorial services and private funerals to think about. There were also the issues of where he was going to live and how he might spend some quality time with Ginny. Perhaps unsurprisingly both issues went pear-shaped remarkably quickly.
Harry grabbed his very minimal sleep at The Burrow for the first couple of nights when it was all over. Their reuniting snogs had been sheer bliss for both himself and his long-suffering ‘girlfriend’. However, Harry’s inability to schedule Ginny any time in his immediate diary went down like a dose of galloping Spattergroit and was not helped in the slightest by the aforementioned photo of the bare-chested and angelically-sleeping Harry plastered all over the largest-circulating national paper in wizarding Britain. The resulting tidal wave of hormonal hysteria left Ginny seething and resentful and ready to resort to highly risqué behaviour in a bid to secure his undivided attention. Late one evening as he stumbled out of the fireplace she frog-marched Harry to the broom shed and pressed both his hands firmly against her braless breasts while she moved her own attention to his trousers. ‘Little’ Harry dealt with the shock much quicker than big Harry, and was already making a break for freedom when the rickety door was yanked open by a beige dressing-gowned, rollered and hair-netted hostess from hell, who Petrified them both before bellowing for her husband to come and dish out a good walloping. After the humiliation of both Mr and Mrs Weasley seeing little Harry at half mast and cocooned in their baby daughter’s fingers, there was no option but to move out, and he found himself sadly grateful to be away from Ginny’s accusatory eyes if not her wandering hands.
Grimmauld Place very quickly proved to be the wrong choice for home. Without the Fidelius Charm there was no privacy at all, and Kreacher took to indiscriminately spearing the hoards of gathered hero-spotters with a medieval pike to keep them away from the door. Kingsley reluctantly suggested Harry could accompany Ron and Hermione to Australia to repatriate Mr and Mrs Granger, but the deep disappointment in Ron’s eyes ruled out that option too. George suggested he might return to Privet Drive, and unsurprisingly Harry offered a concise two word expletive in reply.
He found himself a bed at Hogwarts quite by accident. On returning to the school with a group from the Ministry to do some publicity about the rebuild, he was struck by the image of a somewhat unkempt and manic Minerva McGonagall haring about the place, trying to keep tabs on everything at once. She looked like he felt, and he thought his old Head of House could probably use the extra hands and moral support. Hagrid cried like a girl when Harry told him he was moving back in, causing Grawp to growl threateningly and Harry to hide behind Hagrid’s tree-trunk leg, ‘just in case’.
When Harry returned to Hogwarts after putting Ron and Hermione on their flight at Heathrow he found Kingsley’s personal assistant, Jamie, waiting with case upon case of clothes for him to choose from. Shopping in Diagon Alley - and even Muggle London for that matter - was a major no-go thanks to the mobs of people all wanting to thank him personally for saving them from a lifetime of Hallowe’en robes, sweaty face masks, and macho tattoos. Having not the slightest interest in discussing the relative buttock-enhancing values of one pair of jeans over another, Harry delegated the task to Jamie and went to wheedle a mammoth portion of spotted dick and custard, currently available to heroes at any hour of the night or day, out of Kreacher. Bugger Hermione and S.P.E.W.. House-elves ruled.
Harry passed a week at Hogwarts without noticing what he was doing. He slept late, ate everything put in front of him, and then went and busied himself on whatever was the clear-up task du jour. The problems started when construction staff began bickering amongst themselves and vying to be on Harry’s team, and he was quite thankful when McGonagall finally put an end to it by asking him to occupy himself elsewhere.
He spent a lot of time flying until the novelty of having no competition wore off. He even got bored enough to look at the clothes Jamie had left, which gave him a bit of a shock. All the T-shirts seemed a size or two too small; they clung to him like a second skin and showed his nipples and everything! It was so embarrassing! He tried casting a localised Warming Charm on them both to keep them from getting pokey, to no avail. In a choice between erect nipples and sweat stains the nipples won. The jeans were better - a bit baggy - just enough to sit low on his hips but not so low that he’d need to cinch them in with a belt. The only problem was that the tops of his underpants tended to show above the jeans, and given their saggy state it really ruined the new look. But then he found the ‘Jamie-approved’ underpants, selected from the sackfuls received from Harry’s fan-club. They were certainly a bit skimpier than he was used to, and low-riding, too. Standing in front of the mirror modelling a pair made him feel very self-conscious about the smattering of hair that extended downwards like an arrow from his belly button, pointing the way to the surprisingly tidy bulge encased in the moulded front pouch. He cupped it experimentally, unable to get over the weird feeling of being held in by his undies. It felt nice. And they went perfectly under his jeans too, so he supposed that made them all right. Not at all gay or anything. Because underpants couldn’t make you gay. Just because Harry couldn’t help imagining what other blokes’ bulges might look like in the same pants did not mean he was a woofter.
Over breakfast in the Hogwarts kitchen one day McGonagall asked Harry what he might be interested in doing with himself in the run up to the school reopening the following January. He really wanted to become an Animagus but didn’t want to tell her because she’d make him register his form, which would ruin all the fun. He had this fantasy about being a stag like his dad. He gave McGonagall a bland response about brushing up on some of his neglected Transfiguration skills and smoothly changed the subject.
Later that evening when he returned to the dormitory he’d commandeered he discovered two books on his pillow, bound together with a thin leather strap: Advanced Theories of Transubstantial Transfiguration, and, Awakening The Animagus: A Practical Guide To Human-Animal-Human Metamorphosis. He turned the slim volumes over in his hands before picking the strap undone. A single folded sheet of parchment slipped out from between the books and floated down to the bed. In a highly recognisable script were the words,
Our little secret.
He was quite glad she wasn’t there; he’d probably have kissed her. Instead he threw on his pyjamas and slid under the covers, reaching for the top of the two books. One page turned, and another, and then another, until it would have required more willpower than Harry possessed to put the book down and go to sleep. It ended up being a very late night.
Harry skipped going down to breakfast the next morning and reread the two chapters from Awakening The Animagus that had left a particular impression. The first steps of the spellwork were simplicity itself, and he ploughed through the preparatory theories with unprecedented speed. Clearly months in a tent with Hermione had benefited him after all. The trickiest bits were the practical application of the spells controlling mass expansion and contraction. Without them it would be impossible to become an animal with a greater or lesser weight than his human form, and looking down at himself, Harry realised he’d make a pretty weedy stag if he couldn’t crack the formula. But for once he didn’t allow his motivation to wane when he couldn’t perform the necessary incantations correctly the first few times. Becoming an Animagus wasn’t easy; if it was then everyone and his dog would be doing it.
And so Harry settled into a routine over the next couple of days; study and test himself during the morning, break for lunch, walk the school with McGonagall, fly for a bit, tea, and then more study. McGonagall didn’t prod for information on his studies and Harry didn’t offer any, but every so often she would demonstrate a particular wand movement and incantation for usually flimsy reasons before going on to explain the numerous transfigurative benefits of mastering the spell. He took it all in without saying anything, and within only a few days he knew he was on the cusp of his first real attempt. The Forbidden Forest was alive with tree felling to build Grawp a sturdy log shelter, so Harry’s number one choice of venue for his first transformation was ruled out. If he was going to be a stag he’d need a decent sized open space, and the Slytherin common room seemed a bit low and oppressive for such a large animal to move about in. He found, or rather rediscovered, his solution on one of his afternoon walks with McGonagall. The tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy was gone but there was no mistaking the corridor or the doorway; the Room of Requirement was the perfect place to go.
After tea it was easy to slide off without appearing suspicious. He headed up the stairs, running through the series of incantations in his head, full of excitement about finally becoming a stag. But when he rounded the corner to the Room of Requirement he could not believe his eyes.
“What are you doing here?”
Draco Malfoy stood staring at a spot somewhere between the wall and the floor just outside the Room of Requirement. His head snapped round to face Harry, and there was a bitter anger in his face. There were long seconds of eye contact, accusatory from Malfoy, resenting from Harry, before Malfoy deigned to reply.
“What’s it got to do with you?” His voice wobbled and it was higher than Harry was used to hearing. But it wasn’t coloured by distress. No, it sounded much more like fury.
“I’m interested, that’s all,” Harry said as levelly as he could, not that the expression on Malfoy’s face relaxed as a result. He took several paces forward and Malfoy’s body tensed.
“I find that hard to believe,” Malfoy snapped. “You’ve never been interested before.”
Was that disappointment underneath the anger? Harry wasn’t quite sure what he was hearing. “That’s not true, Malfoy. But it doesn’t matter what I say because you’re not going to believe it anyway, are you?”
“Don’t tell me the thought hurts your feelings, oh great and wonderful hero,” Malfoy railed, his tone tight with venom.
Harry watched Malfoy’s right hand twitch towards his wand. His stance altered noticeably; he pivoted a few crucial inches until he presented himself side on, making the potential target smaller. It was clear he’d been practicing his duelling skills. “Okay, I won’t,” Harry offered carefully. “What are you doing here? Come to visit your friend’s last resting place?” He meant the comment to be an olive branch, but knew as soon as the words left his mouth that it was the wrong thing to say.
“Do you think that’s funny?” Malfoy exploded. “Just one more mini Death Eater wiped out, isn’t that right, Potter.”
Harry felt the first bubbles of anger in his stomach. “It’s not remotely funny. I know how it feels to lose a friend.”
But Malfoy wasn’t anywhere near finished. “Oh, spare me your platitudes,” he shouted, hair flying as he whipped his head forward to emphasise his point. “As if you care.”
“Just because I wasn’t friends with Crabbe doesn’t mean I’m not sorry he’s dead.”
“It’s just one less person to worship you, isn’t it?” Malfoy drew his wand and gripped it hard, pointing it just up from the floor.
“What is your problem?” Harry asked, lifting his hands in an attempt to diffuse the situation.
“You. And people like you. Making it impossible for the rest of us to get on with our lives.”
Wrong thing to say, Harry thought in the split second before he opened his mouth and let rip. “Your life as a Death Eater, is that the one? The one where you would have been used and then cast aside when Voldemort discovered you couldn’t kill anyone?”
“SHUT UP! You don’t know anything.”
“I know a damned sight more than you think I do.” He took a step towards Malfoy.
“Are you threatening me? The great saviour resorting to threats now, is he?” And then Malfoy raised his wand and pointed it between Harry’s eyes. The tip quivered; up-down-left-right, anywhere but dead centre. And just beyond the wand Harry could see Malfoy’s squinting eyes, the ones that meant business but were so full of fear.
“For goodness sake, Malfoy! Are you always this paranoid?” Harry took a risk. He reached out to take hold of the shaft of Malfoy’s wand, but Malfoy jerked it out of the way before he could reach it.
“Stay away from me, Potter. Don’t come near me, my mother, my father; any of us.” Malfoy side-stepped Harry, so close that the hem of his robes brushed against Harry’s shin, and bolted past him. Harry turned and watched him disappear from view, and waited for his heart to slow down.
“Shit.” Stupid, stupid, stupid.
He moved to the door and opened it, his thoughts full of Malfoy’s words and the last time they’d been together, on that fateful night.
It was the smell that hit him first; scorched wood and the lingering, bitter scent of manmade materials incinerated to nothing more than resinous blobs, with a nauseating undertone of charred meat. He stood in the open doorway, unable to move. The Room of Hidden Things stretched out before him, lifeless and blackened, every inch of every surface coated in a thick, sooty residue. Stacked furniture had toppled during the inferno leaving a skeletal landscape of jutting table legs and precariously twisted metal pipes, which had solidified mid-melt to leave grotesque shapes in the place of their once-crafted forms. Harry couldn’t breathe. The memories of his panic-filled escape with Malfoy in tow were crystal clear in his mind. And so were Vincent Crabbe’s screams.
He slammed the door shut and walked away.
Harry took a meandering route to get back to the dungeons. He walked through the common room and went straight down the narrow hallway to his room. He had a moment to register that a light was on before he swung the door inwards and stepped inside.
“What...?” There was Malfoy leaning over an open trunk, his outer robes discarded across one of the untouched beds to reveal a sweat stained shirt and smart trousers. What’s all that stuff on my bed? Harry thought.
“Get. Out.” Malfoy stood ramrod straight and ordered Harry in a voice surely learned from his father. “Sod off back to your tower right this minute and get your filthy, impure blood out of my House.”
“Oh, for…” Harry began but didn’t finish. He was not cranking it up all over again. “I’m sleeping here. This is my room now. The tower’s wrecked.”
Malfoy looked aghast. “You’re...?” he said, and then paused as the cogs turned in his brain. “That’s your junk on my bed? In my cupboard?” The shaking was back, but now it was accompanied by a greater degree of confidence. Malfoy puffed himself up and did his best to appear intimidating. “What else of mine are you going to steal?”
“I haven’t stolen anything!” Harry said, outraged. “How was I to know it was your bed?” Out of five beds what were the odds on me picking his? he thought.
“Oh, you knew,” Malfoy seethed, approaching Harry slowly, deliberately. “You knew and you thought you’d push me out because no one would ever dare tell the great Harry Potter he couldn’t have something. Well you’re not going to bully me. This is my bed, my cupboard, and you’d better steer clear if you know what’s good for you.”
Harry grew defensive. “It’s not like you’re staying here,” he said, noting with horror a hint of self-pity in his voice. “I am. I’m living here. You can bugger off to your massive house any time you like.”
Malfoy looked like Harry had slapped him hard across the face. His eyes and mouth widened, and it was clear he was lost for words.
And then Harry realised. “You’re living here too now,” he said. Malfoy simply continued to stare. “Aren’t you?” Harry pressed, watching Malfoy shut down on him, the barriers clanging into place. “Aren’t you?”
“Move your rubbish and get out of my room.” Malfoy composed himself and pointedly turned his back on Harry.
“I will not. You move.”
“Hardly. This dorm was mine long before you came along. Find somewhere else.” Malfoy resumed unpacking his trunk and placing the contents on Harry’s - his - bed.
All Harry could think was that there was no way he was letting Malfoy dictate the terms. “No.”
Malfoy’s voice assumed an air of bored authority. “As you wish. Don’t leave then. But don’t touch my things, don’t look at me, don’t talk to me, and don’t you dare snore or disturb me in any way. Got it?” And with that he flicked his wand and the cupboard drawers flew open and belched out all of Harry’s clothes, which landed in a heap on the floor.
“You’re a total arsehole, you know that, right?” Harry replied as he drew his own wand and rescued his clothes before Malfoy could walk on them. He picked the farthest bed and re-stowed his clothes, making a bit more noise than he needed to in his anger. They spent five or ten minutes with their backs to each other before Harry heard curtains being drawn. He sat down and dared a peek to find that all the clothes were now gone and Malfoy had retired for the night.
Bubbling with irritation, Harry got into his new bed and tried to get to sleep. It wasn’t easy - just a tiny sign of things to come, perhaps?
~*~
They woke at roughly the same time the following morning, and Harry decided to set aside the bickering and do his best to get on with Malfoy. One of them had to make the effort and he thought it was more than likely going to have to be him. When Malfoy returned from his shower Harry said, “We eat meals in the kitchens seeing as there’s not many of us living here. Do you know how to get there?”
Malfoy continued to comb his hair without turning to look at Harry. Eventually he spoke. “I recall telling you not to speak to me. Are you so stupid that you can’t even remember a conversation from yesterday?” His voice was back to that typical, self-satisfied Malfoy tone.
Harry gnashed his teeth, bit back a snotty response, and left.
At the breakfast table Professor McGonagall stared hard at Harry until he was forced to look up and acknowledge her attention. “I was half expecting to hear further structural damage occurring yesterday evening,” she said.
“Why’s he here, Professor?” he asked, and he could hear the whiney tone in his voice.
“For protection, Harry. For the duration of his father’s trial.”
“But I thought he’d go to Durmstrang or something.”
“Hardly a wise move when trying to convince the Wizengamot of one’s eagerness to renounce an affiliation with the Dark arts.” She sipped her tea calmly and continued to survey his reaction.
“But,” he moaned, “but he’s a prat!”
“Think what you might have called Mr Creevey once upon a time,” McGonagall said, “and look how well he turned out.” There wasn’t much Harry could say to that. “I’m trusting you to do the right thing by the boy, Harry,” she continued, and that’s when he knew he was lost. McGonagall’s trust was inviolate.
“Okay, Professor,” he agreed reluctantly.
He couldn’t wait to get to the Room of Requirement and spend some time on his own.
~*~
In two hours of trying to transform Harry had worked up quite a sweat. He’d felt a few tingles in his limbs, and he was starting to get a headache. He sat down on a grassy bump and leaned back against the trunk of an oak tree while he caught his breath and stared up through the canopy of branches to the fake sky above. In the days he’d been going to the Room of Requirement to practice he’d not seen Malfoy in the vicinity again. In fact he hadn’t seen much of Malfoy full stop. He was like a ghost, making the odd noise but otherwise doing his best to be invisible, and Harry was fine with that. It made him easier to deal with, and it also made Harry a lot less jumpy. He felt like his transformation efforts had gone backwards since Malfoy had turned up, and he was only just getting back to the point he’d been at before. He broke off a few chunks of chocolate and ate them for fortitude before standing up to give it one last go for the day.
He held his wand loosely at his side while he breathed rhythmically in an effort to achieve a sense of pure peace. He pictured his human form in his mind, and imagined it twisting and reshaping itself to reveal the animal form hidden within. He whispered the incantation under his breath and felt the onset of the now-familiar tingling working up his fingers and his toes. He accepted the sensation and paid attention to its progress as it moved up towards his torso and enveloped his chest.
In the back of his mind he knew he’d done it even before his body started to change. He felt himself become weightless, as insubstantial as a breath of air, and he kept his eyes tightly closed until the static flow had ceased and he could feel the ground beneath his feet once more. When he tensed his muscles he was astounded to register the difference in his centre of gravity and how firmly rooted to the earth he was. He shook himself and couldn’t believe how sturdy and well-balanced his stance was. Harry told himself triumphantly that he knew he’d be a stag! It was predestined!
However, when he opened his eyes he immediately knew that something was wrong. He was much too close to the ground to be a big animal so a stag was out of the question, unless there was a super-secret pygmy breed native to Britain, which he was pretty sure was not the case.
Looking around, he was aware of a long nose of some description, and that he had short, black hair and distinctly canine front paws. He didn’t have to lean forwards very far before his nose touched the ground, and he thought, Oh, bugger. I’m a bloody sausage dog! Amidst his crushing disappointment he realised it could have been worse; he could have been a Chihuahua, which was almost certainly gayer on the spectrum of gay dogs, of which he appeared to be a new member. For once he was almost grateful that Sirius was dead.
Accepting that sulking was pointless, Harry set about learning everything to do with his brand new Animagus form. He bounded around to test the pogo-springiness of his legs and was filled with a sense of uncomplicated pleasure in his range of movement. He could feel a tail wagging furiously just above his compact doggy bum, and twisted himself as far as he could go and ran round and around in an attempt to catch hold of it in his jaws. All he could make out in his peripheral vision was its very tip, and he realised he’d never be able to catch it, but it was such good fun that he didn’t stop trying anyway. He tried leaps and swerves and running full tilt, and when he’d finally exhausted himself and was panting fit to burst his little lungs, he sank to the ground.
What a rush!
Okay, so a miniature dog was nowhere near as glamorous and impressive as a stag, but at least he could change into an animal, and better than that, he’d done it all by himself! He laughed out loud . He’d be able to use the skill when he eventually became an Auror because no one would look twice at a puppy scampering down a street, unlike a stag, which would not be quite so useful on an urban stakeout, although it would be an excellent makeshift clothes airer on those uncomfortable over-night camp-outs Aurors had to do.
Having spent half the afternoon in his dog form, he changed back and headed outside to get a broom from the supply hut and go for a fly. He bounced down the steps as though on a cushion of air. Close to the hut Harry spotted Malfoy walking with his head down. As they neared each other, Harry called out, “Hey! Malfoy! Fancy a game of one-on-one to the Snitch?” His exuberant suggestion was met with a sour sneer and Malfoy veering off in the other direction. Harry huffed. I’ll take that as a no, then, he thought, refusing to let the snub dampen his mood. He caught the Snitch twelve times in the space of a single hour, a new personal best. If any recruiters had been there to see his performance they’d have soiled their robes in excitement and offered him a contract on the spot.
I’m an Animagus! I wish I could tell mum and dad and Sirius. And then his mood fell just a bit. And Remus and Tonks.
Feeling slightly more sober, Harry headed back to the dungeons to shower and get out of his grubby clothes. The dorm door was ajar, and when he entered Malfoy was only half-dressed. In the fraction of a second before he snatched up a jumper and threw it on, Harry got a full and memorable eyeful of Malfoy’s lean upper body; his non-existent stomach with its tight slash of a belly button, his hairless chest with its tiny, pink nipples, and his unmarked forearms with their fine covering of silvery hair. Malfoy looked ruffled and embarrassed at Harry’s intrusion so Harry pretended he hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary, despite the fact that Malfoy’s luminously fair skin could not in any way be described as ordinary. Touchable, maybe - but ordinary? Never.
Harry dug around in his trunk for some toiletries, then kicked his trainers and socks off and peeled his perspiration-dampened T-shirt over his head, depositing that on the floor for the laundry too. Without a backwards glance at the silent and unmoving Malfoy, Harry left the dorm for the showers. Upon his return Kreacher had obviously been for the washing and Malfoy had gone. Again.
The following day Harry asked the Room of Requirement for a big mirror in his imaginary forest because he wanted to get a good look at his doggy body. He was still a bit miffed about the whole Dachshund thing and had been trying to convince himself that there were many ways in which it was better than being another animal, say a stag for instance. He transformed with little effort on his first attempt and it felt as natural and unforgettable as riding a broom; once you could do it, it was impossible to unlearn.
What he saw when he scampered across the clearing and looked in the mirror was the source of some confusion. He was definitely a small dog but there was no way he was a sausage dog. He angled his compact body from side to side to get a good look at his overall shape and concluded that he was definitely a small Terrier, probably a Jack Russell, except that his colouring was all wrong. He was jet black except for two big white patches around his eyes. He padded closer to the mirror and pulled faces at himself. His eyes were black too, and oddly expressive for a dog, and when he snarled his lips pulled back and showed a mean, if dinky, set of teeth. His pink tongue lolled out when he panted and he had to admit he was a singularly cute looking (gay) Terrier.
He held onto the thought for a good thirty seconds, right up until the point when he wagged his tail and copped an eyeful of his … his … deformity. It was so unfair! Okay, so he didn’t have a lame white lightning mark in his fur, but why did he have to pay for that stroke of luck with a forked tail? He looked utterly stupid! Like some pathetic devil dog or something. Bollocks; he couldn’t even be an Animagus without carrying a visible stigma. Upset by his discovery, he transformed back to himself and strode out of the room in a huff.
~*~
After a Wronski Feint or four to kick-start a better mood, Harry headed up to the library to see what the books on animals could tell him about dogs with two tails. But when he got there the first thing he saw was Malfoy settled in at a table, surrounded by books and half-eaten plates of food. He sneered silently when he saw Harry, and annoyed at the inconvenience of Malfoy’s position directly in line with the row of shelves he needed to look at, Harry left again.
It was late by the time he made lunch, and the kitchen was empty except for Professor Flitwick who was busy chatting rubbish at a rate of knots to several scared-looking house-elves.
“Erm, Professor?” Harry interrupted. “Have you got any books on dogs I could borrow?”
“Library’s your best bet, Potter,” the cheery professor told him between mouthfuls of trifle. “There are dozens of books about dogs at the end of the Magical Creatures section. Long history of involvement with the wizarding world, dogs,” he prattled on, but Harry had stopped listening the moment Professor McGonagall had entered the room. He really hoped Flitwick would shut up before she heard anything he would rather she didn’t.
Alas.
“You’re interested in dogs, Potter?” she asked as she removed her hat and took the seat opposite Harry at the table.
“Erm, not especially,” he mumbled. “Just, you know - thought I’d do a bit of reading about them while I’ve got some time on my hands.”
She steepled her fingers with grace and precision as she fixed him with a penetrating gaze over the tops of her glasses.
Harry waited for her to speak. Even Flitwick had gone quiet, but mainly because he was too busy filling his face.
“I like dogs,” he added lamely in an attempt to fill the suffocating silence.
“I see,” she finally said. “And what sort of dogs do you like?”
Fuckety fuck.
“Oh, you know - small ones …”
Thankfully Professor McGonagall’s cheese salad appeared. He concentrated with unnatural focus on his own plate of food and hoped the conversation was over. After a minute or two filled only with the sound of iceberg lettuce crunching Harry thought he was home and dry, which just went to prove that Harry and thinking did not necessarily go together with complete success.
“That’s a rather vague description, Harry,” the professor continued as though there hadn’t been as much as a few seconds’ gap since she had last spoken. The thing with McGonagall was that Harry found it almost impossible to tell untruths of any kind when she asked him something. She was like human Veritaserum. “Perhaps if you were to enlighten me further on the identifying attributes of your small dogs I could suggest a book. Or two...”
Damn her and her below-the-belt insinuations about how much she’d helped him already! He stared at her, resignation welling up inside him.
“I thought I saw this dog the other day and I wanted to know what it was.” That was so lame. If she hadn’t suspected before she definitely has now, he realised.
Her gaze bored into him and the half-truth seemed to fluoresce and take on a life of its own, hanging in the air between them and flashing, LIAR!LIAR!LIAR!
“It was black and small,” he babbled. “Er, and it had two tails.”
McGonagall’s eyes popped out of her skull and her glasses slipped so far down her nose that Harry thought they were going to end up covered in mayonnaise and buried in shredded lettuce.
“A Crup!” she exclaimed, and Harry thought vaguely that he might have heard of them somewhere. Probably from Professor Grubbly-Plank because there was no way Hagrid would have taught them about an animal as gay and tame as a little dog. But there was no mistaking one thing: McGonagall looked seriously impressed.
She cleared her throat and placed her cutlery across her plate before taking a sip of tea. “I believe the dog you saw was a Crup, Harry,” she said meaningfully. “Crups are hunters, you know. Very loyal to wizards. Not so fond of Muggles. Insatiable appetite, even for things most other animals would find quite inedible.” She paused, and Harry held his breath. “A black one, you say?” She gave him the once-over and nodded to herself. “Very rare, black Crups. They say that strain was bred in the sixteen hundreds by landed families who partook in night hunting, and not always of four-legged animals as one might expect.” Her tone insinuated more than her words had said.
Oh, bloody great, he thought to himself. I finally become an Animagus only to find I’m the very embodiment of pure-blood snobbery and Muggle-killing to boot.
She resumed eating and appeared to indicate by her change of focus that the conversation had ended. Harry was grateful for the quiet and wolfed his meal down as fast as he could. Just as he pushed his chair back to leave, McGonagall added, “There was a rumour once upon a time that Lucius Malfoy is an unregistered Crup Animagus. I suspect it would have been quite upsetting to him that he would have been unable to overcome his natural colouring. White Crups are ten a Sickle, you see. Common as muck.”
Harry looked at her and watched the beginnings of a smirk shape her lips, but she hid the expression by taking another sip of tea.
“Um, thanks, Professor.”
He left the kitchen and wondered how he was going to get his hands on some Crup books without alerting Malfoy. Crups sounded cool, not least because of the whole Malfoy one-upmanship thing.
~*~
When he tugged his pyjamas from beneath his pillow that night two books had found their way into the folds of fabric as if by magic. A Greate British Bestiarie was a slim volume with a heavily cracked leather cover, obviously aged and well-handled, and Decoding Your Animagus Form: An Exploration Into Personality Traits And Human Transfiguration, which looked to be brand new and not so much as opened once if the pristine spine was anything to go by. The latter book looked like some of that ‘New Age claptrap’ Uncle Vernon often complained about, but its cover illustration of a big, burly wizard shrinking down into a fluffy ball of cuddly Puffskein grabbed Harry’s attention, and he thought he’d give it a go anyway.
Skimming the books, Harry was amazed by what he learned. McGonagall had been spot on; Crups were potentially nasty little buggers with an aptitude for mauling and on occasion killing things much larger than their own size. They were fearless creatures that wouldn’t back down from a fight, and because of that any wizard who owned Crups had to have a license from the Ministry after proving they could control the animal. The Ministry also enforced a programme of tail clipping on all owners who lived in Muggle-populated areas to prevent any confusion with the common Jack Russell Terrier they so resembled. One book hinted that some wizarding families refused to participate in the ‘purposeless maiming’ of the noble Crup, and therefore the only place you were ever likely to see an un-clipped tail was amidst the packs of hunting Crups kept by almost all wealthy pure-blood families. Crups were particularly partial to ferrets (and oh, couldn’t Harry picture the family fun Malfoy and his dad might have with their Animagus forms...) but would take a bite out of almost any tacklable animal they came across if provoked enough.
He was interested in the page or two that appeared to indicate that an Animagus who took the form of a wizarding world creature was always of a powerful lineage, especially in light of what he’d learned about his connection to the Peveralls and the sheer size of his magical heritage. He betted that’s what McGonagall’s impressed expression had been about.
Before he went to sleep that night he lay awake wondering how much Malfoy knew about Crups, and how on earth he could wheedle the information out of the annoying wanker.
~*~
“What do you think about Morrison for the new Puddlemere Keeper?” Harry asked Malfoy the next morning, nodding at the newly-arrived copy of Quidditch Quarterly lying open on the end of Malfoy’s bed. If Malfoy’s upper lip curled any more it’d touch the end of his pointy nose, Harry thought in the extending silence. There was no answer; instead Malfoy flipped his magazine closed before he picked a sports bag up and walked past Harry, out of the dormitory.
Harry turned to face the door and snorted in disbelief at Malfoy’s back. He breathed in deeply through his nose and stretched his arms over his head, just to get rid of the last of the night’s kinks. And then he smelled it. He sniffed again and realised he’d inherited a permanent attribute of his Crup’s hunting ability. He could pick up the faintest background trace of his own smell, and an accompanying scent he registered as Malfoy’s, which was all completely fine given that they shared the room. What didn’t make quite so much sense was why Malfoy’s bag had carried a distinct whiff of Harry on it.
Seeing a handy excuse for a bit of spying, Harry decided to give chase.
Malfoy went outside, headed to the supply hut to fetch his broom, and then went on to the changing tent next to the Quidditch pitch. Harry skulked, Crup-like, around the stands while Malfoy flew alone and ran down the Snitch a couple of times. Harry was just answering the urge to mark the support struts on the Slytherin viewing tower when Malfoy landed and headed in to shower. Shaking his back leg a few extra times to get rid of the last of the drips, Harry trotted in after him.
The showers were already on, the hissing of water hitting tiles echoing out of the changing area and into the communal area of the tent. Malfoy was wrapped in a towel and entering the shower stalls when Harry padded along by the bench to reach the open bag with its outspill of clothes and toiletries. The bag was too high for Harry to reach even if he tensed his legs and tried to spring higher, but his nose told him for sure that something in that bag stank of him, and he couldn’t imagine for a minute what Malfoy might be doing with any of his stuff unless voodoo was real and he was making a poppet to torture Harry with.
Wary of being caught, Harry edged slowly to the shower area to check that Malfoy wasn’t going to come out unexpectedly. If the coast was clear he’d change back and have a root around in the bag to settle his mind. He stuck his muzzle around the doorway and edged out until he could see into the steamy room. Malfoy had chosen a shower towards the far end of the room, and he hadn’t bothered to close any of the curtains to section himself off.
Harry’s doggy jaw dropped open and his tongue flopped out at the sight before him. Malfoy was naked and stretched tall beneath the broad shower head, his hands scraping the fine ashy-blond hair back from his face to lie smooth against his scalp. Harry watched those slender fingers trail down Malfoy’s neck and out across the width of his shoulders as he tilted his face up, eyes closed, into the heavy flow of water. Nothing about Malfoy’s body seemed generous; there was no fat on him and his skin was pulled tight over his tall frame so that his bones were visible in places, but it was far from unpleasant to see. Harry drank in the details, forgetting about the bag in the face of Malfoy’s private nudity and his simple pleasure in washing that enviably perfect skin. For once Harry didn’t worry about rating the gayness of watching another man wash himself simply because he was too busy forgetting how to think or recall his own name.
Malfoy picked up his soap and started rubbing the bar across his chest to create thick lines of creamy lather. The water cut rivulets through the bubbles, dragging them down his hairless torso and over his stomach to collect haphazardly in the top of his pubic hair. Harry ogled Malfoy’s crotch with a complete lack of shame; he watched the way the cock and balls swayed gently in time with Malfoy’s rubbing hands, and when the bar of soap finally travelled down and scrubbed firmly in the patch of curly hair until the area was covered in a thick, fragrant whiteness, Harry thought he was in danger of swallowing his tongue. Never had he prayed so earnestly for another man to get a hard-on. He hoped that every stroke of Malfoy’s hand was the kind of stroke meant to tease his body into arousal, and he felt himself growing light-headed from holding his breath in anticipation. He watched the way Malfoy’s hand curled around his penis and washed it carefully before moving downwards to run his cupped palms over the mouth-wateringly dangly sac between his legs. But no erection was forthcoming, at least not from Malfoy. Harry, however, felt a distinct tightness between his hind legs and wondered for the first time about the mechanics of Crup masturbation and how on earth he was supposed to clean his own mess up before it registered that dogs had a tendency to use their tongues for that sort of thing. Not that there’d been anything about that in the books though, and he berated the shoddy research into Animagus sex undertaken by the authors. It was suddenly incomprehensible how such an important area of research could have been ignored.
Malfoy turned around and let the water pound against his chest and rinse his front clean. He leaned his hands against the wall and sighed out loud in contentment, and the bubbles tripped over each other as they ran down his legs and pooled around the plug hole. The long, elegantly curving line that mapped the journey from the top of Malfoy’s spine down his back, around the lean cushion of his bottom and down his legs was a thing of sheer beauty. It seemed crude and unappreciative to ignore that pair of legs in favour of what sat on top of them, but in that moment, hidden around the doorframe in his Animagus form, Harry Potter discovered his true vocation, the single calling that would give his life purpose and pleasure; he was most definitely an arse man. And Malfoy possessed the kind of arse that challenged Harry’s ardent fancy. It was a biteable bottom, a squeezable bottom. A lickable, smackable, fuckable bottom, and one way or another Harry was going to work through his list of fantasies and play every single filthy one of them out on that trim, tasty package, preferably to the accompanying soundtrack of Malfoy’s throaty gasps.
Malfoy washed his hair beneath the steady stream, and as his arms shifted and stretched to massage his scalp and comb out the tangles with his fingers the rest of his body moved too. The shampoo foam coated his shoulders before being washed away by the spray, and Harry imagined himself pressed close against Malfoy’s back, tracing shapes through the bubbles and writing secret messages in ticklish lines to the sound of Malfoy’s playful laughter. God, Harry was growing awfully warm. The heavy steam, his insulating coat, the stifling arousal - he didn’t think he could take much more.
Harry let out the Crup equivalent of a starved moan when Malfoy’s soapy hand reached behind him and ran the length of his crack before dipping his fingertips inside and moving rhythmically for long seconds. His imagination ran riot as he pictured those slippery fingers disappearing inside Malfoy’s body instead of merely washing the skin, and inside his head he was begging, begging Malfoy to do it. And then the moment passed and Malfoy stepped out of the jet of water and wrapped his towel around his waist.
Move! Harry told his four legs. Bloody move! In the nick of time he managed to clumsily scuttle backwards into the shadows and press himself against the wall as Malfoy walked past, a sodden giant in the land of Crups.
Malfoy sat on the opposite bench and commenced drying his hair. His legs were wide apart and the short towel hid absolutely nothing. The view was even better than before, mainly because Malfoy’s penis jiggled happily at almost the same height as Harry’s head, and even through the fresh tang of the soap Harry could discern the meaty, masculine scent of Malfoy’s body. A long string of saliva dribbled over Harry’s jaw and made a tiny pattering noise as it hit the tile floor. He panted a bit too loudly as he tried to stop the slobbering, alerting Malfoy that he was not alone.
“Who’s there?” Malfoy barked. His legs, sadly for Harry, snapped together, his body just as defensive as his tone of voice. Harry let out a muffled whimper and shuffled forward just enough that his two front paws left the camouflage of the shadows. He heard Malfoy sigh in relief, and watched his fair-haired legs as he got up and crossed the narrow changing room, dropping down near Harry to coax him out from his hiding place.
“What have we got here?” Malfoy said in the calmest voice Harry had ever heard him use. “Let me have a look at you.” Malfoy cautiously extended his fingers towards Harry and held them some distance away, letting Harry sniff him and take his own time to respond.
Harry crept forward a bit more, poking his muzzle out into the light and flicking his tongue against the very tips of Malfoy’s soapy fingers. Malfoy chuckled - chuckled! - but didn’t try to reach for Harry.
“Out you come so I can see you.” Malfoy stood and moved back a few paces to give Harry the space to come out, before dropping down to his knees. He could see Malfoy’s face looking into the shadows at him, and he was actually smiling! Harry drew in the Crup equivalent of a fortifying breath and took several careful steps out into the light. He watched Malfoy’s face for signs of warning, but all that happened was that his smile grew more dazzling.
“Well, well, well. What have we got here?” Harry wagged his tail a bit more enthusiastically than was cool or befitting of his heroic disposition. “Look at you with your intact tail. To whom do you belong?” Now clearly unconcerned about the possibility of an imminent savaging, Malfoy reached forward and patted Harry gently on the head, which resulted in an appallingly eager response from the Crup part of Harry’s brain. Not the Harry part at all, oh, no. He found himself padding right up to Malfoy and burrowing his head into the outstretched hand, which prompted Malfoy to laugh and scratch Harry behind the ears.
Brrrr! Wow, if only scratching Harry behind his human ears could produce the same effect! He felt tingly all over and his hind quarters swayed from side to side thanks to the vigorous tail wagging going on. Mmm, you can do that again, he thought, throwing his cute, gay Crup self shamelessly upon Malfoy’s affectionate attentions. “Curious - no mark,” Malfoy said, running his hands over Harry’s rib cage. “Where do you live, boy? Surely not the forest? Are you going to let me have a proper look at you without nipping?”
The next thing Harry knew, Malfoy had gripped him around the middle and picked him up with a skill and confidence that suggested he had done it lots of times before. “Ooh, you’re heavier than you look,” he continued as he walked back to the bench to sit down, placing Harry on the flats of his thighs. It’s not my fault! Kreacher keeps force feeding me and after all those months of eating berries and twig soup I thought I deserved a steamed suet treat or five!
Malfoy’s hands moved to cup his head and lift it so that they were eye to eye. “Clear eyes,” he said as he used the heels of his palms to squeeze into Harry’s throat. “Strong jaw, good set of teeth on you, too. I bet you haven’t chewed too many cauldrons recently, have you? Now hold still and let me see what you’ve got down there.”
Er, what? Down where? Under his smooth black coat Harry blanched. Sure enough, he was efficiently flipped over so that his spine lay in the dip between Malfoy’s legs and his four paws stuck up in the air. And then the thing happened. Malfoy - snobby, pure-blood, attention-seeker and all round pillock Malfoy - grabbed hold of Harry’s testicles and gave them a damned thorough grope, rolling the ovals around inside the stretchy skin sac before unsheathing the tip of Harry’s penis and examining it thoughtfully, his face but inches away. Harry’s body was frozen in shock but his mind was running fifty to the dozen. Gah! Malfoy’s a doggy diddler! A mutt molester! A Crup corruptor! A hound harasser! followed moments later by, Just wait ‘til I tell Ron! and then, Um, perhaps not…
“Fully formed and nicely separated - you’re older than I thought,” Malfoy said knowledgeably. “Lucky for you no idiot Mudblood got their hands on you and neutered you. I should think you’ll make a prolific breeder.” Harry shuddered at the notion before thinking, Only if you’ve got a set of functioning ovaries at the top of your rectum, because that’s the only place my fully formed and nicely separated love spuds are emptying the troops.
The fondling ceased just as Harry had begun to enjoy it, even if he knew it was unspeakably perverted to think about inter-species intimacy of any sort. It was a pity that Malfoy wasn’t so eager to get his hands on Harry’s human ‘down there’ parts, although there was a naughty little thought in the back of his mind about how much he’d like to jiggle Malfoy’s dangly bits with his muzzle and play tongue tennis with both blond-fuzzed balls. Maybe Malfoy’d let him? It was impossible to predict what debaucheries the disgustingly rich got up to behind the warded gates of their country estates. Maybe Crup copulation was a seasonal activity with a Master of Ceremonies and prizes for the most effective handling and the most creative non-doggy style position.
Malfoy popped Harry on the bench next to his bag and returned to getting dressed. “But what’s a lone Crup doing here?” he asked as though Harry might be able to answer. “What an enigma you are.” Yeah, and I’m not the only one, Harry thought as he snuffled about inside the open flap of the bag and sank his teeth into the carefully folded bulk of one of his own mildly sweaty T-shirts. He pulled it out and held fast to it even when Malfoy tried to tug it away from him. “Hey! That’s mine! No eating allowed, okay, boy?” No it’s not yours, you thieving bastard, Harry thought, although he did let the T-shirt drop rather than shove fang holes through the cotton.
Malfoy retrieved the T-shirt from the bench and picked it up like it was the most delicate piece of silk. He refolded it into a perfect square and placed it back in his bag, right at the bottom.
Malfoy’s got the hots for me! I bet he’s been checking me out from between the gaps in his curtains when I get dressed in the mornings! Harry thought, followed by, I wonder if he sent me any undies after he saw my picture in the paper? followed again by, I bet he keeps that picture under his pillow! Oh, Malfoy, resistance to the Potter charms is futile. You and your handsome bottom are mere steps away from my indecently intended clutches.
After that Harry sank, in a particularly self-satisfied manner, to lie on the bench watching Malfoy get dressed and listen to the outpouring of chatter from a clearly very lonely young man. He felt a bit guilty then, as though he was taking advantage of Malfoy’s stubborn rigidity and making him talk, when if he’d known it was Harry in his Animagus form he would have been absolutely furious.
On the walk back up to the school Harry bounded along beside Malfoy or ran around his legs in circles, trying to trip him up. He’d never heard Malfoy laugh so much, and as they approached the school steps that realisation sobered Harry somewhat.
“Off you go then,” Malfoy said, shooing Harry away as he took the steps two at a time. Harry followed, scampering up the steps in Malfoy’s wake. “No, boy, you can’t come in. You’re a hunting dog. You live outdoors.” Yeah. Right, Harry thought. It looks like rain, and it’s nearly lunchtime too. I’m bloody starving regardless of your snide and frankly tactless comments about my weight.
“Go on back to your kennel or wherever you live,” Malfoy said, exasperated, when Harry wove a figure of eight around his feet the moment he stopped climbing the steps. “You can’t come in. Pets aren’t allowed.” Malfoy looked down into Harry’s doggy eyes and pushed him away gently, although even a completely thick person could have seen that his heart wasn’t in it. “Crups aren’t domestic animals as you should well know,” he told Harry firmly. “All the manuals say you can’t be tamed.” While I’d like to pretend for the sake of my masculinity that’s it’s true I suspect some regular oral servicing and the odd grope of your bum would have much the same effect, Harry mused whilst trying his best to look as pathetically puppy-doggish as possible in the hope of melting Malfoy’s faux-stony heart.
Malfoy huffed and rose to go, causing Harry to play his trump card sooner than he would have preferred. He sat down on his hind quarters and lifted his front legs off the floor to reach out towards Malfoy. Then he looked up at him with pleading eyes and summoned the most pathetic whimper he possibly could. He whined and shivered and howled sadly, and he could almost watch Malfoy thawing before his very eyes. Malfoy sighed heavily and ran his fingers through his hair. “Oh, bloody hell,” he finally said. “Come on then, before I change my mind. But don’t you dare chew anything or crap indoors. On second thoughts, you can chew Potter’s things if you want but I’m standing firm on the crapping business.” Fucking typical, Harry thought as he picked himself up and skipped after Malfoy’s retreating form. Nice arse though.
Part 2