Chapter Text
Summer
just before 7th year
I bristled at the mention of my waistline, wondering if I shouldn’t tell them now. It had been a couple weeks since I found out. The words were in my mouth, but I could not force them out. I nodded to mother, brought a strip of bacon to my mouth, and shuddered at the smell of it.
“What do you think, Lucius? Shall I buy him dress robes, too?”
My father’s lack of appetite was even more apparent. He raised his head slowly, looking, as always, pale and drawn. “Whatever you like.”
“That’s settled,” she said grandly, as if her tone would make it so that our family was not stuck in this tiny servants’ dining hall off the kitchen, while the Dark Lord dined in the proper one. “We’ll go today. It’ll be lovely to get some fresh air, don’t you agree? I just hope Bellatrix doesn’t try and join us,” she added dourly.
“I can’t go,” I exclaimed. I pressed my lips together. What now?
“Well, you have to. You need your measurements taken. The tailor can’t possibly flatter you without—”
“No, I can’t go to Hogwarts.”
“Not this again,” my father said, dropping his fork with a clatter. “You know it’s compulsory for purebloods now, and what about studying for your N.E.W.T.s? In addition, your coursework will be far more enriching now that Severus is Headmaster.”
“But, Dad—”
“Don’t argue with me, Draco. I can’t bear it right now.” He cupped his head in his hand, looking as sick as I felt.
I had already tried to sway them this week, saying I had the Witchpox, and then that I would miss them terribly, and then that I was allergic to ghosts. If I stayed home, I had hoped to hide the matter with concealment spells, if I could figure them out, but if that didn’t work I could lock up in my bedroom with bonbons and ride out the farce that I was getting fat. They’d never have to know. No one would have to know.
My mother put a consoling hand on mine. “If you’re embarrassed about the Dumbledore matter, you mustn’t worry. Severus was happy to complete the task himself.”
What a beautiful, sweet liar she was.
“It’s not that.” My eyes squeezed shut. “It’s...nevermind! It’s nothing.”
“Then there’s no reason to put up a fight. Come, let’s dress and go.”
God, shit, fuck. I could no longer avoid it. She was going to find out when the tailor took off my robes for measurements, anyway.
“No! Wait. It is something. I’m pregnant!”
Mum looked at Dad, as if for instructions on how to react. His eyes had gone dark. I never dreamed he’d be so menacingly angry. Upset, yes. Concerned, even. But not murderous.
“This is not the time for practical jokes,” he said quietly. “I can’t believe your gall. Not with everything happening in our home.”
Oh.
“Dad, I wish I were joking, but I’m not. I swear on Merlin’s deathbed. I’m not getting fat.” I lifted up my shirt. I couldn’t bare to look at him, even my mother, as they examined the small mound that was my belly. “I’m pregnant. I don’t know how far along.”
“Draco,” she said, so quietly I could only hear the consonants. “You must be mistaken...perhaps it’s indigestion.”
“Mother,” I said, shaking my head over the surrealness of it all. “I took a test. Two of them. It’s definitely a child. I’m sorry...I’m sorry....”
“Put your shirt down,” my father hissed, looking around. Of course, there was no one in our private dining hall, but the Dark Lord could go anywhere if he chose. “Why would you do this now of all times?”
“I didn’t! I mean, not on purpose.”
“You’re a man. These things can only happen on purpose!”
“Well, it’s not unheard of, Lucius—”
He threw Mum a blazing look, and rounded on me again. “Then how? How, I say?”
“I don’t know!”
Dad closed his mouth so abruptly his teeth clacked. He grimaced. I thought he was trying not to scream at me, but when he pushed up his sleeve to reveal the throbbing Dark Mark, I understood. “He’s calling me. We’ll finish this later. Obviously—I can’t get around sending you to Hogwarts. But we’ll think of something.”
When he strode out of the room, I slumped over my breakfast. Anger and fear be damned, I was so relieved not to be alone in this anymore.
My mother was still there. She brushed my hair behind my ear. I’d forgotten how long it had grown.
“I don’t care how it happened now that it has,” she said coolly. “But I do care who it happened with.”
Perhaps it was the battering of new hormones. I did not normally cry, but I got rather misty as I revealed the most shameful part of all.
“I’m sorry, Mum. But I can’t say I know.”
***
One year ago
He thought he was subtle, but he wasn’t. The idiot had been eyeballing me since Katie Bell touched a cursed necklace and ended up in the hospital wing.
Shut up, I know it was me, but I don’t want to talk about that.
Potter had been a thorn in my side since summertime: practically threatening my mother in Madam Malkin’s, sneaking behind me, spying on me. I’d enjoyed stamping on his nose on the Hogwarts Express, and I wanted to do it again this particular day, when he burst in on me in the boy’s lavatory.
“Come to get a peek?” I drawled. I was washing my hands, staring at him in the mirror. “Well, I’m done pissing, so you’ve missed the show.”
“What are you doing?”
“Being hygienic. I know it’s nothing those Muggles taught you, but we purebloods—”
“No! You know what I mean. I know the necklace was yours.” He was entirely breathless, as if he’d sprinted to the loo just to get this off his chest.
“What’s with you, Potter? Did you just finish running from a pack of dementors?”
He did not answer, except to shoot air out of his nose and try to snap me in two with his mind.
“Well,” I said, drying my hands, “if you don’t want to chat like civil folk, then I’ll just be on my way—”
He had me by the collar before I could react, lifting me, letting my feet dangle uselessly. “Get off! Let me go!”
“Whatever you’re up to, I don’t feel like waiting around for you to succeed. And I certainly don’t think your objective was to harm a girl like Katie Bell.”
“Get off...can’t breath—”
“Just let it go, whatever it is, you don’t have to be an evil little twat—”
“All right, all right! Just put me down. Please, I’ll tell you what’s going on.”
Potter studied my eyes and seemed to accept this. The moment my feet touched ground, I drew back and spat in his face. He cried out. I grabbed for my wand, but Potter was faster, barreling into my gut and knocking the wind out of me, as well as my wand from my hand.
I landed on my back with Potter on top. Instead of cursing me, he was trying to punch me in the face, even though he still had his wand; it was just like him to insist on an equal playing field. I’ve never been one for a fistfight, so the best I could manage was to grab him by the wrists. He jerked, trying to free himself, huffing above me, passionately angry, and I could not help my reaction.
I got a little hard, all right?
Potter’s eyes widened. I swear, he simmered in shock for five full seconds before scrambling off me.
He wiped his cheek and slammed out of the bathroom, muttering, “Fucking disgusting....”
I did wonder if he meant the spit or the erection.
***
I kept clear of Potter until Christmastime. I kept clear of everyone, really, as worn as I was from a certain task concerning Albus Dumbledore. This task compelled me to crash Professor Slughorn’s Christmas party for one reason or another, and, when Filch dragged me in by the scruff of the neck, there he was again—Potter, ogling me like I was an animal on zoo exhibit. I fought not to look back. Surely, I would lash out and curse him in front of everyone if I had to look into those heavy green eyes again; they had developed a habit of meeting me in my dreams since the bathroom incident, and I wanted to hurt him for invading my fantasies, and hurt him more for distracting me from the burden on my shoulders.
In January, my luck ran out. I met Potter again when he burst into the Potions classroom, startling the only inhabitants, Slughorn and me.
“Er, sorry,” he said suspiciously. “Forgot my book after class.”
He raced over to his bench and snatched up his copy of Advanced Potion-Making like he’d misplaced a child. Then he looked around the room, first at me and my boiling cauldron and then at Slughorn, who had been half asleep at his desk.
“So, private lessons, then?” Potter asked.
I narrowed my eyes. “It’s none of your—”
“Oh, nothing, Harry,” Slughorn said cheerfully. “Mister Malfoy and I were just catching up on some of the work he missed this year.”
“And I certainly appreciate the extra assistance, Professor.” I said this glaring at Potter, all the while feeling absurd pangs of lust as he glared back. Bastard sexy brute.
That night, as I returned to my dorm looking forward to succombing to the dark peace of sleep, Potter emerged from the shadows.
“Is he on your side too, then?” he asked, pointing his wand. “Who else is in cahoots with you besides Slughorn and Snape?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’d better get that out of my face before Filch sees you.”
“Don’t play stupid. I heard your little chat with Snape at the Christmas party. You’re up to something—something to do with Voldemort, no doubt—and you’ve got others in on it.”
“Fuck off, Potter. I was making up a Potions assignment with Slughorn. And I’m not in on anything with Snape.”
Both statements were true for once.
The muscles of Potter’s jaw were bulging with tension. “I don’t care if no one believes me. I’m not letting you hurt anyone else. Get in here, so I can figure out what to do with you.”
I found myself in the spare Potions equipment room. Thinking fast, I pretended to have an itch on my neck. When my hand went up, a row of ladles clinked together like wind chimes, and Potter’s attention wavered. I took out my wand and spun around.
“Wait, no!” he cried. He knocked the wand out of my hand, only to send his wand flying with it. Once again—brute. He took me by the collar, pushing me into the nearest shelf with a great clamor of bottles. My hands flew to his, and I tried prying, and clawing, and even though blood was drawn, Potter’s grip held firm. “Stop,” he growled.
“Let—me—go!”
“Admit what you’re doing, and I’ll let everything go.”
I opened my mouth, certainly not about to admit anything. I can’t remember what I was going to say, but I remember stopping short. Potter was holding me at arm’s length. More than arm’s length. His pelvis was so far away from mine that he was bent at the waist for those last few inches. It was truly comical.
I began to snigger. “The gay can’t contaminate you, Potter.”
“What? The—gay?”
“Come on,” I said, growing confident. “I may have been hard up that day in the lav, but it wasn’t for you. You just came at an unfortunate moment. Or was it an opportune moment? Depends on what you like.” I reached out—slowly, so the bastard wouldn’t punch me—and took him by the shirt. I barely had to pull for him to walk dumbly towards me. “Though, I don’t know. Now that you’re getting all intimate with me, maybe I can be hard up for you.”
This seemed to knock Potter out of his stupor. He wrenched himself away and went to grab both wands.
I lifted my hands in mock surrender, all the while slinking towards him.
“I swear,” Potter said uneasily, “I’ll snap your wand if you do anything funny.”
“And what’s your definition of funny? This?” I invaded his space. We were practically belly to belly.
“Back away.”
“This?” I walked my fingers up the front of his shirt, and my breath nearly hitched. I did not expect Potter’s chest to be so firm. I smiled, and it was not entirely to mess with his head. “...Or this?” I pressed my thigh gently into his groin. Merlin’s hat, he had meat.
Potter’s grip tightened on the wands. He did not look at me as he said, “Why don’t you just cooperate with me and—then I’ll—I’ll leave you alone?”
“Oh, Potter,” I murmured, and (I shit you not) this what I said next: “Why don’t you just shut up and bend me over that desk?”
But you don’t want to hear about what happened next, do you?
You want to hear about how I got so hot to submit. All right, I’ll tell you.
***
The Montagues were an elderly couple who lived in Hogsmeade, and they were kind to me but largely absent. They were tending to their son, who had been transferred from Hogwarts to Saint Mungo’s for a Vanishing Cabinet-related injury; apparently, when the boy Apparated out of the cabinet, he’d ended up in toilet and was so crushed they’d had to turn him into putty and draw him out like gum from hair. He came home midsummer, walking into his family’s cottage with a wooden cane, slow but determined.
“Draco,” he said, taking my hand. That was an understatement. Montague’s hand consumed mine, plus much of my wrist. He had always been burly, and Saint Mungo’s had seen to it his growth hadn’t stunted during recovery.
“You’re looking much better, Montague.” And by that I meant the hazelness of his eyes had never stood out before today.
“Graham,” he said with a quirky smile. “It’s Graham to you.”
Graham had always been strange for a Slytherin. We all thought he’d been wrongly Sorted. His focus in academics made Pansy peg him as a Ravenclaw. But I saw him as a Gryffindor: twice he had leapt into the bare sky during Quidditch practice to save someone from a rogue broom. Once it was me, back in second year, when I lost control of my Nimbus 2001. If he’d missed my broom, he would have plummeted several stories to his death. He hadn’t seemed to care. If Graham had Slytherin qualities, they were hidden under his deliberateness and bravado.
One morning, I awoke to the sounds of hard, rhythmic breathing.
“Must you do that everyday?” I asked, stretching out of the covers. Graham finished a set of deep squats, and went right to the floor for pushups. “You’re already big enough.”
“It’s less about getting big and more about discipline. How do you think I’m healing so fast? By never letting an opportunity to improve pass me by. Come here, you try.”
I stayed on my cot, not having a proper bed like Graham’s. His family was old, yes, but not wealthy.
“No,” I drawled, watching him huff up and down. “It looks so plebeian.”
“If you want to get anywhere in life, you need to learn some discipline, Draco. Especially now that your dad’s—well, you know—”
I rolled my eyes and then off the cot, not wanting to get into That. I mimicked Graham’s position, balancing my weight on my hands and toes.
He swatted me. “Bum down, this isn’t a wank mag.”
I did as I was told, quite aware of the residual sting of his hand on my arse. I bent my elbows, lowering my body a couple inches, and then pushed back up. Easy.
“Touch your chest to the floor,” Graham said. “Here, like this.”
Easier said than done. Once my chest was on the floor, it was a strain to return to the starting position. It was probably easy for him because his chest was the size of a barrell, lower to the ground and all that.
“It’s too hard.” I flopped onto my belly.
“You’ll get the hang of it. Practice everyday. Just like studying for your N.E.W.T.s or something, right?”
“Easy for you to say, you’re done with all that.”
Graham sprawled on his side, staring at me with his head propped on his fist. I felt a bit on display. I rather liked the feeling. “You’ve always been a slender little thing, haven’t you? Can’t fend for yourself.”
“I can fend for myself just fine,” I snapped, producing my wand. For good measure, I stuck it into his chest. “Care to duel?”
“No,” he said, and there was that quirky smile again. “That’s cute, though.”
Cute? How dare he? I ignored him for the rest of the day.
Except it was impossible to ignore Graham. He had a bearing that demanded attention. He was a voracious eater—no wonder his parents were poor—and in the mornings he consumed half the table’s porridge, a full box of strawberries, and a pint of milk. His mother was forever leaning out the kitchen window, telling him to rest, but once he’d kicked his cane, Graham would run, lift logs, and ride his broomstick over the rose gardens. I would peek from over my magazine and wait until the wind drew up his shirt to reveal a flat, pale stomach with a black trail running down his shorts. His ankles and thighs gripped the broom handle, vise-like, and I wondered what it might feel like if he gripped me that way.
Sometimes I would join Graham for callisthenics. He was always on me, saying, “Get your bum down!” about pushups and “Stick that bum out!” about squats and “Use your bum to push yourself up!” about lunges. If it was the only way to get him to notice my bum, then I didn’t much mind.
In August, he sat next to me in the garden, damp with sweat and smelling of it, too. “I’ve got to ask you something. You know He’s coming, right?”
I didn’t look up, too distracted by Witchcraft Couture’s centerfold. A new designer was gaining popularity for his vanishing underwear collection, and the Italian bloke modeling them...well, if I just stared a little bit longer....
“Yes,” I said distantly. “I’ve known for quite a while.”
“No, Draco, I mean He’s coming for you.” When my eyes flicked up, Graham’s brow wrinkled. “We’ve all got our part to play. I’m afraid he’ll give you yours, and it won’t be easy.”
“How do you know? I thought my mother sent me here because your family was neutral.”
“Not quite,” he said, and leaned in conspiratorially, “but perhaps someday. In the meantime, protecting your loved ones is more important than doing what’s right, wouldn’t you say?”
Maybe he was a Slytherin.
“And how are you protecting your family?” I asked.
“When the Death Eaters came for my father, I said I’d take the Mark in his place. He’s very old. I couldn’t let them rope him in, even if his task was simple.”
“What was his task?”
“Hm,” he said, looking at me sideways. “That would be making sure you don’t run away before they come get you.”
My mouth opened, wanting to ask, “And why would that be a task?” but I did not have the courage.
That night, I lay in my cot, staring into darkness. I could not get Graham’s words out of my head—they were so casual, as if it were obvious the Dark Lord had his eye on me. Not my family, but me.
Graham fell out of bed. I sat up, afraid he was dead, but then he started counting and breathing rhythmically. Can you believe it? He was doing push-ups in the still of night!
“You really didn’t know, huh?” he asked breathlessly. “You stayed here because you wanted to?”
I fell back onto my pillow. “Stayed because my mother said it was safer.”
“If safe means hidden from the Dark Lord, then she’s wrong. Now what?”
“I’ll...continue to stay.”
I couldn’t see him, but could feel him working next to me. “And what if you get scared?”
“Doesn’t matter. I have a duty to my family. And, by extension, Him.”
“Yeah?” he huffed. His movement ceased. The room was black, but I could sense he was looming over me now, speaking softly. “Have you met him? Have you seen his white flesh, and his red eyes, and the way his tongue flicks like a snake?”
“N-no.”
“Then how are you sure you won’t run?”
“Because I have a duty to my family honor. And protecting myself comes second to that.”
“What if his task involves killing someone?” he asked, so close I could feel his breath on my cheek. “Are you capable?”
“Of course. I’ve been studying the Dark Arts for ages.”
“Is that all? What if you have to overpower someone bigger than you? You can’t even manage a proper pull-up.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’re wizards, right? All I have to do is—”
Graham forced my wrists over my head. “Practice getting away,” he said. “Can you do it? You have no wand, and unless you’re a powerful wizard your wandless spells are going to be child’s play.”
I arched my back, trying to throw him off, but couldn’t get leverage. My hips rocked. My feet kicked. Graham responded by throwing one huge thigh over me, straddling me. Those broom-gripping muscles flexed, and I was lost in the pleasure of his handsome body bearing down on mine.
“Come on! Get away, Draco.” There was a grin in his voice. His full lips descended to my ear. “If I wanted to choke you, I could.”
“Oh, God,” I moaned. My whole body convulsed.
“So, you’ve got to get away,” he whispered. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness. I found him staring at me, nose to nose. “Or else you’ll be mine.”
“And if I want to be?”
Graham smiled slowly, and said, “That’s a different matter, entirely.”
My heart was pounding. I bit my lip, growing impatient with his staring. “Please, Graham.”
He kissed me with such tenderness that I was startled by the contrast. His grip relaxed.
I shook my head. “No, keep holding me.”
“You like that?” He pinned both of my wrists in one giant hand, and brought the other to my cheek. Without warning, he slapped me. I cried out, more in shock than pain. “I asked if you liked that.”
“Yes!”
He bit me on the neck. It crossed my mind, as I exposed my throat for him, that he was less attracted to me than the idea of overpowering me. Not that I cared. I enveloped him with my legs, felt his erection against mine, and imagined I’d be happy to take whatever he wanted to give. Or give whatever he wanted to take.
“Have you ever been with anyone else?” he asked.
“No.”
“Good. I like that.” When he kissed me, his stubble scraped over my lips, his fingers dug into my flesh, and I couldn’t help making weak, breathy noises. He pulled back, shaking with desire. “I’ve been wondering about you. Whether I’ve been imagining you looking at me. If I fucked you, would I be the first? You can’t be more than fourteen, but you know what you want, don’t you?”
“I just turned sixteen,” I moaned.
“Not my point,” he said, flinging off his shirt. I was caught by the sight of his washboard stomach, the muscles barely visible underneath an expanse of hair. I’d seen it many times, never touched it, though, never....
His hand was on me now, covering my bulge, squeezing it. He could take my entire cock and balls into that hand, and still have a spare finger to touch down below, pressing the cloth of my pajamas against my hole.
The bedroom door flew off the hinges.
There was no time to jump up. Bellatrix Lestrange was already standing there, wand out, smirking at the sight of us: me, sprawled on my back, and Graham, between my legs with his shirt off.
“Is this how you kept my nephew contained all summer?” she asked. “I don’t believe our Lord asked you to ravage the boy.”
“No! No, madam.” Graham stood, snatching up his shirt. “It’s not what it—”
“Spare me. It’s no matter. Draco, gather your things.” She lowered her wand, as Mr. and Mrs. Montague ran in, tying their night robes, and she smiled in her terrifying way. “Do forgive me. My Master informed me he might try and run. But you don’t seem to be in the state for that, do you, Draco?”
Once again, I was struck by the mention of me running. What was this task of mine? I would find out that very night, but right now I wanted nothing more than to kiss Graham Montague goodbye and ask him when we would meet again.
The answer would turn out to be not till next summer.
I didn’t know that yet, but I threw a look over my shoulder, as Bellatrix led me out, and from the weighty stare Graham sent back, I imagined he was telling me we would continue tonight someday and until then I should save myself for him.
***
She shuffled me into a physician’s office in Knockturn Alley, not such a dank and secretive place now that the Dark Lord’s influence was spreading. The placard on the door said, “Doctor H. Wayman, MD, OB/GYN, OB/WIZ. Practitioner of Pureblood Pregnancy Since 1959.”
Doctor Wayman entered the exam room, all gray hair and thick spectacles, and held out his hands.
“Narcissa Malfoy,” he said, “I haven’t seen you since this one was born. All two point eight kilograms of him! How are you, darling boy?”
I couldn’t manage a word, disturbed by the surroundings: diagrams of babies in the womb; a fleshy, detailed model of a lady’s privates that looked like it had been used for demonstration a few too many times; a thick glass wand labeled ultrasound only.
“Mrs. Malfoy,” the doctor was saying. “Are you really with child after all these years? The spirit of Venus has blessed you.”
“No, Doctor.”
Her head turned. I could feel them staring.
“I see.” His excitement ebbed away, but he remained gentle. “Draco, son. Come, sit. Before we begin, was it a potion you took? Or did you see someone about a charm?”
“I didn’t do anything. It wasn’t planned.”
“I see. You’ll have to excuse me, but unplanned pregnancies in wizards are relatively unheard of, so you’ll have to—”
“I already told my father and I’ll tell you, too. I simply turned up pregnant, and that’s that!”
“Draco, hold your tongue,” my mother snapped. “This is embarrassing enough without you being ill-mannered.”
Wayman smiled indulgently. “It would be helpful to know the mechanism that enabled your pregnancy, but if you don’t know, then there’s nothing to be done. My job is to maintain your health and the health of the darling child, and I can still accomplish that. Now, then—Accio parchment! Accio quill! Let’s start with the basics. The other father...of course, he’s a pureblood?”
My eyes flicked to my mother, who was still a little frosty. Then back to Wayman. I nodded.
His eyes brightened behind his glasses, but I cut off his next question. “What would happen if he were not—erm—pureblood?”
Wayman and my mother traded a look. “Naturally,” he said, “we would discuss your alternatives to bearing this child.”
“Naturally,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“Well. Ahem. Moving on! When did you first start noticing symptoms?”
***
My invitation to Potter—“Why don’t you just shut up and bend me over that desk?”—was met with disbelief, and then a mad escape from the storage room. He popped back in to throw my wand at my chest, only to bolt again.
Sex as a defense mechanism. Imagine that. Still, I would not have come onto him if the idea were repulsive.
You see, Potter was a side character in the theater of my mind, with Montague playing the lead, as I harkened back to that night this past summer—Montague’s hands on my wrists, his lips on my ear, his erection bearing down on mine—and then the stage lights would flash and Potter was there, right on cue, as I penetrated myself with a gentle finger, and Potter was fucking me on the lavatory floor with that passionate, hateful stare and a dick I imagined was just as heavy. God, coming to that image was strange and sweet. And I would not have to imagine for long.
Potter emerged from the shadows again as I was leaving the Room of Requirement. He’d probably been stalking me with that Invisibility Cloak of his, but he seemed too out of sorts to note our location.
“I’ve heard rumors about you,” he said, falling into stride. “That you’re—you know. And that you even asked Blaise Zabini to the Yule Ball or something. Back then. I didn’t take it seriously.”
I stopped, pursing my lips in annoyance. “And now?”
“Well, after the other night, I don’t know what to think.”
“And what does my sexuality matter to you? Unless you want to take part in it.”
Potter flushed. “I don’t! I don’t even care.”
“All right. Then bugger off.”
He did not bugger off. He followed me to the dungeons, scuffing his ugly trainers, positively steaming some emotion I couldn’t place. I led him in a circle, not wanting to show him our common room entrance.
“Were you being serious?” he finally asked.
“About what?” Of course, I knew.
“About,” he said slowly, “me,” quietly, like the whole school was listening, “buggering you,” he finished, looking like he wanted to cut out his own tongue.
We were in front of the empty Arithmancy classroom. I shrugged, walking in. “Care to find out?”
Potter was supposed to flee again. I was supposed to laugh and go to bed and continue to wrack my brain about the Vanishing Cabinet and spatial continuum charms. Instead, his footsteps sounded behind me. The door shut. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. What now? This wasn’t Montague. This wasn’t the Italian bloke in the fashion magazine. This was Harry Potter, my enemy and my nuisance.
I decided to do what any Slytherin would do. Up the ante. I spun on my heel and untied my robes, holding Potter’s gaze as they fell down my back. When he did not react, I began undoing my shoes and trousers.
He made an abrupt movement. This is it, I thought, the coward’s going to run. But he only adjusted his glasses and stepped forward. He seemed to be getting a better look at me now that I was only in pants and a white shirt. I could detect no certain reaction. That is, until—
His belt buckle clinked. I looked down, and his dick was there, a clearly defined bulge within the blue jeans still hanging around his waist. Well then.
I upped the ante again, placing my thumbs in the elastic of my pants and slowly, deliberately, working them down my legs. I would rather have taken off my shirt, but I didn’t want to show my Dark Mark.
All right, I thought. Now stopping looking at my junk and walk away. No—away! Not towards me!
As Potter approached, I held his gaze, but I was also aware of his hands, how they held up his jeans, and how his boxer briefs were starting to reveal themselves. If only they would slip a little bit more. As if I’d said it aloud, Potter toed off his trainers and yanked down his jeans; his gusto caused his pants to slip, too, and from my periphery I saw his dick pop over the rim, swollen and bouncing, and fuck, it was probably very nice if I could just break down and look directly.
If it hasn’t been established yet, I fucking love bravdo. Potter was the epitome of bravado, standing tall, holding my gaze while holding his dick, that muscle twitching his jaw, his chest heaving with anticipation. He would probably take me by the hair next and pull my head back, and leave bite marks on my throat. He would probably trip me and catch me with strong arms and penetrate me before I could speak and leave fingerprints in the flesh of my shoulders and soreness in my arse. That is, if he didn’t command me to service him—leaning against one of these dusty desks, his hands gripping the edge, as I clasped mine behind my back gently sucking that huge, thick, pink shaft.
“Don’t touch yourself,” he would say. “Don’t you dare.”
And I wouldn’t. I would run back to my dorm and only then, in privacy, would I let myself take pleasure.
Or none of that.
That’s right. You heard me. Instead, Potter ruined it.
“So, er, now what?” he asked.
“What?” I said flatly. I put my hands on my hips, taking in the sight of him. The bravado had been an illusion. It was just skinny Potter there, gawking, covering his normal-sized prick with an annoying amount of modesty. I threw my hands up. “Fine, fuck it, I’ll just do everything.”
I dropped to my knees, slapped his hands aside, and enveloped him in my mouth. He gasped, and popped out again, tripping backwards in surprise. He landed in a chair with his glasses askew.
“Do you even want to fuck me?” I asked, taking in his anxious face. I crawled the inches towards him, pushing my hands up his thighs, letting the flat of my tongue drag up his dick, before looking him in the eye.
“I don’t—I mean, I’m not gay—”
“That’s not what I asked.” I straddled him. It was hard not to smile at his reaction: he had craned his neck toward the ceiling, as if not looking at our dicks would mean they weren’t really touching. “I asked—do you want to fuck me? As in, do you want to put your cock in my arse?”
He didn’t answer, so I didn’t ask again. I was willing to make this a collaborative decision, but only if Potter was able to rise to the challenge. He might not have been, but his dick certainly was. I rose up and slowly began to push myself onto it.
“Oh!” he exclaimed. “Oh—gah—”
Indeed. This was somewhat new for me, too. It took a bit to find my rhythm. I had to stand up, spit on his dick, and reposition us. I steadied myself on Potter’s shoulders, since he was no help, scratching his fingernails into the underside of the chair as he opened his mouth to the ceiling like he was trying to catch a snowflake on his tongue.
I grabbed his chin and hissed into his face. “Grab me. Smack my arse. Do something, Potter.”
He did. He grew tense, and made a strained sound, and shot warmth up into me. See, now would have been a good time to stun him and stamp on his face again.
I stood up, snatching my underwear to hold against my bottom. I made an embarrassing noise as his semen drained out of me.
“Son of a bitch,” I said. “That was not what I had in mind.”
He buckled his belt, looking out from under his eyelashes. “Can’t you—I don’t know. Isn’t there a cleaning spell of some kind?”
“If there is, I don’t know it.” I shoved the pants into my robe pocket and began to dress.
“Right,” he said awkwardly. He stood. “Well. Bye.”
***
“Look, it’s none of your business what I’m doing,” I told Crabbe, when I thought the rest of the students were distracted by the lesson. “You and Goyle just do as you’re told and keep a lookout!”
Potter’s cocky voice turned up behind me.
“I tell my friends what I’m up to, if I want them to keep a lookout for me.”
I spun around, ready to curse him for sticking his nose into my business again, but the Heads of House admonished us for talking, and I decided to finish the job later.
I didn’t even have to look for him. He lingered after Transfigurations, Weasley having gone ahead with Lavender Brown and Granger running off to the library. The Room of Requirement was calling me, but I sensed Potter following. I rounded a corner, pointed my wand, and waited for him to catch up.
He stopped in his tracks.
“I swear, Potter,” I said, backing him up with my wand. “if you don’t leave me alone, I will Imperio you to drown yourself in the lake and then I will finish my task.”
His eyes flashed. “So you are up to something specific.”
Damn my pride. “Shut up.”
“What are Crabbe and Goyle on the lookout for?”
“I said shut up! Incendio!”
He dodged my spell, only singeing the sleeve of his robe. I turned on my heel and ran. By habit, I ended up in the left wing of Hogwarts, near the Room of Requirement. I ran past it three times, thinking, “I need to stop Potter...I need to stop Potter....”
I flung open the door and tried to lock it behind me, but the bolt would snap back with each attempt. There were footsteps echoing behind it. Shit. I whirled around, finding I was not in the Room of Hidden things. It was a much smaller space, with padded walls and plush animal furs covering the floor. There was only one piece of furniture: a tiny wooden stand in the corner, which held a vial. I picked up the vial. The contents were clear and viscous. Should I drink it?
I uncorked it and held it to my lips, but the smell hit me: it was the same lubricant I used when I wanked. I flushed and cursed my subconscious. Then I realized.
No working lock.
Lubricant.
Soft surfaces.
The only thing missing was a bottle of elderflower wine, a roaring fire, and—
The door slammed behind me. Then it locked.
Potter stood there, panting, holding me at wand point. “This is the last time I’m going to do this. Confess. Dumbledore will be lenient, I’m sure of it.”
What to do? The Room knew this scenario would help me stop Potter. But I still had to be clever with the tools I was given. The answer dawned on me as Potter’s wand shook in my face.
I slowly held out my own wand and placed it on the table.
“What are you doing?” Potter asked. “Confess or fight.”
“No,” I said quietly. I stepped forward.
“You’re not going to distract me like that again.” Not too convincing. He backed away, tripping over a bear skin rug, until his back met the pillowy soft wall. “Malfoy,” he breathed, eyes fluttering closed, black lashes laying against his cheek. He was really quite fetching up close.
I took off his glasses and tossed them aside. With his face clear, I could see light freckles on the bridge of his nose. His eyes opened. I thought he might smile.
So I punched him in the face.
“Argh!” he cried, careening into the doorframe. Ha! Ironic, him landing on the only unpadded part of the room.
Potter launched towards me and slammed me into the wall, trying bash my head into it, but the padding broke the force, and I began to laugh.
“Fuck you,” he said, reeling back his fist. “You crazy, fucking—”
His fist connected, and I saw stars. I fell to the ground, clutching my face, but he was already on me again, fisting my hair and pulling so hard I had to arch my back to avoid pain. He knelt behind me, his wand at my throat.
“No wands,” I rasped out. “S’not fair.”
“What is this, a game to you?”
“Little bit. So much better than last time, don’t you think? You’re not afraid to touch me now.”
I relaxed into him. His chest supported my back. I felt his pulse everywhere: in his hands, in his heart, in his trousers. His dick twitched as soon as my arse settled there.
He was breathing hard into my ear. “I don’t trust you a lick.”
“Yet you trust me to lick.”
“I ought to hex you for the other day,” he said hotly, his hand trembling on my hip. “I’m not...fuck you...I’m not even—”
“Yes, fuck me. I don’t care what you are, just hurry up and fuck me while you’re still angry.”
I don’t know how it happened, still dazed from my beating, but there were clothes and then there were no clothes. There was lube. And then there was me, legs spread out shamelessly with one knee pressing into my shoulder and Potter penetrating me powerfully. There was skin, so warm, and God did he have a chest on that skinny body, and there was sweat. It dripped off the tendrils of his hair, onto my face, over, and over again. He was so very worked up.
I whined like a cat. So what? It felt good. For a moment, concern flashed in Potter’s eyes. I wanted it gone. I reeled back to punch him in the face, but he caught my hand and growled, pushing deeply into me, bending me farther in half.
“Stop doing that,” he said into my face.
“How else does one get a proper response out of you?”
Potter seemed to understand. He pulled out with a wet sound, flipped me onto my knees, and sank into me again.
“That’s it,” I urged him. “Give me your dick. Give it to me, fuck me. Fill me up.”
When Potter finished, it was not like last time. It was a gasping, grabbing, prolonged sort of affair. He took me around the middle with his cheek on my shoulder, muffling his shout in my neck. It was a strained “Hah! Hah!” and when I felt the heat this time, he did not stop. He kept fucking me after he was soft, as if he didn’t want to let go, and I stayed there with my arse up until my muscles forced him out.
He was lying on the floor, his dick soft on his stomach, as I pulled on my robes.
“Malfoy,” he said weakly. “What...is this...?”
“Whatever you’d like it to be. As long as you stop spying on me.”
***
“To punish me, no doubt. For all I’ve put our family through.” He said this staring out the window at the Death Eater children practicing hexes on each other.
“Lucius,” Mum said, perching on the edge of his desk, “since when are you one for self-pity? Do trust our son, and save your wallowing for privacy.”
He sighed and returned to his paperwork, stacks of birth records, provided by a Dark Lord sympathizer working at Saint Mungo’s, under the guise of Dad wanting to make a log of recent pureblood births.
“I can’t make heads or tails of it,” he said. “Eight out of ten male pregnancies are the result of genentalia-shifting through potions administered by a mediwizard. The others involve a charm that let the men conceive through—well, typical homosexual relations. And they had to have cast the charm themselves. Only two men in the past decade have conceived on accident, and both had Veela ancestry within the century. You have zero Veela ancestry ever, Draco.”
“Are you quite sure?” I asked, examining my nails. “We are very blond. And angular in bone structure.”
“I’m sure your grandmother would be pleased that you attribute your inherited features to her being an androgynous humanoid bird. But I will double check the family histories....”
“Do research the Blacks, too,” Mum added, tapping his desk and summoning a tea tray.
I stood up, still bothered by my poochy stomach. I was about three months along, if Dr. Wayman was right, 13-weeks in his words, so I couldn’t imagine what I’d look like in half a year.
“Are you supposed to be this big so early?” I asked my mother.
“You are rather lean, Draco. Perhaps it shows on you easier. Come have some tea.”
“I don’t want to eat ever again. I don’t want to get bigger.”
“You will eat and you will be much bigger by the end of this.” She handed me tea with milk and a biscuit.
“I don’t know. Perhaps it’s not too late to—?” I made a throat-slitting motion with my hand.
“Are you mad?” she whispered, leaning in so Dad didn’t hear. “A pureblood baby aborted? Our family would never recover from the scandal. Far worse than even a bastard child.”
“No one would have to know.”
“My love, people always find out your secrets in the end.”
“Blast it all!” My father slammed a fist into the desk, rattling the cups and saucers. “There was a wizard in the fifties who turned up pregnant on accident, but his psychological records indicate that it might have been a trick to keep his lover around.”
“Why is it so important how it happened?” I asked. “Mum doesn’t care.”
He flipped a page, eyes glued to the records. “I do not care how it happened for the sake of knowing. I care because I want to protect you.” He seemed to feel my confusion. He leaned back in his chair, and studied me. I realized it was the first time he’d looked me in the eye in days. “What you’re not grasping, son, is that rogue magic is a dangerous thing. You weren’t born with the ability to conceive. Someone, at some point, had to intend this. If not a potion, or a charm, then what about a curse? What if this thing growing inside you is harmful?”
I glanced between my parents. “That’s not likely, is it?”
Mum sipped her tea. Dad frowned.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But it is possible the fault lies with the person with whom you conceived this child. I have been avoiding this question, as it is not a thrilling subject for me, but I suppose I will have to know sometime. Who is it you slept with?”
I looked at my mother imploringly, but she was still face-first in her teacup. Embarrassed, I muttered, “Montague. Graham Montague.”
“All right,” he said, emotionless. “He is unlikely to have designs to harm you. Unless it has to do with money....”
Mum made a funny, strangled sound.
I sighed. “And, maybe, Blaise Zabini.”
“Maybe?” my father asked.
“Definitely.”
He shifted in his seat. “The Zabinis are also sympathizers of the Dark Lord, and unlikely to want to harm you or our family. Anyone else?”
“No,” I said quickly.
“Well.” He was oddly pleased-looking. “At least paternity will be obvious once we get a look at the child.”
It felt wrong to lie to my father. I wanted to confide in him, and in Mum, the third possible candidate. You can probably guess why that was not an option. I had imagined the disappointed look in their eyes, yes, but that was nothing to compared to this: the picture of Dad standing in the Dark Lord’s circle, trying desperately to shield his mind from thoughts of Harry Potter; the Dark Lord, tapping in and seeing my child there, possibly still in the womb, and smiling that devilish smile.
Would he simply punish me for my treachery? My father? Or—if the child was Potter’s—would he take it and use it for his purposes?
I never wanted to know. So, my father could never know.
***
I was first drawn to him in fourth year, when his chest and arms filled out and his dick seemed to thicken overnight. He caught me staring as he bathed once and smiled a great wide smile that was bright against the darkness of his skin. I was so cocky back then that I’d asked him to the Yule Ball afterwards. Yes, Potter had heard right.
“Are you serious?” Zabini asked, pulling on his pajamas, those ones that slung low on his obliques.
“If you’re interested I am.”
“What do you think people would say?”
“The purebloods wouldn’t say anything. Who cares what the rest of them think?”
“Your father would care. My mother would care. Look, two blokes at a ball together? That’s a bit poofy even for the civilized upper-classes. They might not say anything to your face, but you know it’s not ideal. Best you ask Pansy.”
“I don’t want to go with Pansy. I want to go with you.” I stepped closer. God, I remember how he smelled like spices and shaving cream. I didn’t shave yet. It was so hot!
“No, Draco.” He put a hand on my chest, gently urging me away, and I felt the instant sting of rejection, just like first year on the train when—
“Fine,” I snapped, and practically flounced to bed. I could just make out Crabbe’s smirk from across the dormitory. I felt like a fool. Zabini was right: they might not say anything to my face, but if Crabbe had heard my proposition all of Slytherin would be whispering about it by the end of the tomorrow.
As a cover, I did ask Pansy. She accepted with no mention of my sexuality. So far so good. But when Zabini sidled towards me during the Ball, looking dashing and succulent in plum blue robes, my Housemates began to murmur. It was like they anticipated me breaking into a sweat at the thought of him asking me to dance.
I decided not to care. Yes, I was cocky and a romantic. I edged in front of Pansy, not wanting Zabini to think she mattered, not one bit.
He held out his hand. “Would you care to dance?”
I placed my hand in his, and mine was so white and his was so brown and—God, when had he become sexy?
Zabini smiled slowly. “I meant Pansy.”
My sweat turned into a tidal wave of horror. My Housemates were stifling sniggers. Thank goodness we were isolated in the corner, no Gryffindors to be seen. Pansy and Zabini swept away, and I whipped around, catching Crabbe mid-laugh.
I took him by the lapels and barked, “Do you want me to tell my father how you’ve been spreading lies about me?”
“But—I haven’t been —”
“Good. Keep it that way.”
One dark look, and the rest of them shut up, too.
I dated Pansy religiously for another year or so, somehow managing to avoid touching her excessively or kissing her at all.
But I digress. Back to sleeping with Zabini. This didn’t happen until sixth year.
After Aunt Bellatrix broke up my night with Montague, I was on edge for the rest of the summer. I was so pent up that I bought a dildo in Knockturn Alley, but all fucking myself on it did was make me want the real thing more. The romantic in me wanted to wait it out for Montague. The boy in me just wanted to get laid. You can probably guess who won.
There was a party in the dungeons the first Friday of the school year, a Slytherin-Ravenclaw mashup that somehow went unnoticed or ignored by Professor Snape. I lost myself in the music, the alcohol, and the dancing, overwhelmed with how I would go about completing my task (Montague hadn’t been any help with figuring out the mechanics of the Vanishing Cabinet he’d been stuck in). That’s when I caught Zabini eye-fucking me from across the room. This was not unusual. He had been toying with me ever since I made my attraction clear. I imagined it made his ego hard. Then he would run off and snog some girl, leaving me wet in my pants. But not tonight, I told myself. This year I was a Death Eater, and I could do anything.
Halfway through my third glass of mead, I saw Zabini running into our dormitory. I sloshed my drink into Pansy’s hand and followed, finding him standing over his trunk with his shirt over his head.
“What are you doing?”
Zabini jumped. “Shit, I didn’t hear you. Just changing my shirt. Millicent spilled whiskey all over it. If she didn’t have those nice tits, I’d have hexed the bitch.”
“Oh,” I said, suddenly bold at the sight of his bare chest. “You don’t need a new shirt.”
“Malfoy,” he said, chuckling to himself, “I don’t like blokes. In case you haven’t gathered.”
“You don’t? Well, maybe I’m the exception. I am good looking.”
“Maybe I’m pissed, but I can’t argue with that.”
I sauntered towards him, enjoying the lazy way his eyes followed my hips. “And I am gifted in a variety of ways,” I reasoned. “I don’t see why this should be any different.”
Zabini looked at the ceiling, as if he were trying to talk himself out of something, and then he rolled his head down and grinned. “Why don’t you prove it, then?”
My heart skipped a beat. I dropped onto my knees, undid his trousers, and found that some things looked much bigger up close. Like scary big. But I’d wanted this for so long. I closed my eyes and swallowed him whole. It was too much, the fullness of him, the way his hair tickled my nose. I choked and spit him out.
He took me by the hair and held up his dick. “Come on, then. You said you were talented. I’m not seeing it.”
There it was again, that long, dark, wet thing, so imposing in his grip. It was rosy brown at the head, and as he worked it against my lips I tasted bitterness and salt.
“No...fuck me,” I slurred.
“Yeah? You’re an eager slut, aren’t you? How many guys have you fucked, and yet you keep after me?”
The answer was none. His was the first dick in my mouth, then in my arse, with no more than a spattering of saliva to ease the pop past my opening. It hurt, but not much. Perhaps the alcohol helped. He bent me over the bed, his trousers around his ankles, my robes around my waist. There was something exhilarating about him panting against my neck. When he kissed me there—I don’t think he realized he’d done it—I felt warm all over. It was the first affection I’d had since Montague. My Mark had been burning since arriving at Hogwarts, but not now. Not with Blaise loving on me. He took me by the neck as he came, pressing my face into the pillow. God, how I loved to be handled with abandon! It was like a forceful, physical declaration: You’re mine, all mine!
I expected him to crawl into bed with me when he pulled out. Once again, the alcohol was thinking for me.
“Thanks,” he said, patting me on the bottom. “Still don’t like blokes, though.”
I stayed in bed the rest of the weekend.
***
“You’ve been...off the map a lot these days.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What map?”
“Oh, just an expression. Haven’t seen you around much, is all.”
“I’ve been occupied, not that it’s your business. Homework and all that. Slughorn’s pretty tough.” So is ruddy Dumbledore.
“Right. No need to hide from me, or anything. That’s all.”
“You arrogant sod. You think it has anything to do with you?”
“What has?”
I snatched my book bag and left without a word.
As the school year approached its end, the weight of my task was so stifling it was hard to breathe. Fantasies about Potter’s hands on my face became nightmares about the Dark Lord’s hands on my throat. I wondered if he could read my mind from afar, know how much time had I spent sucking Potter’s dick instead of fixing that damned Cabinet.
The thought made me violently ill. I ducked into a boy’s lavatory one day to lose my lunch. When I ran out of stomach contents, I lay my head on the rim of the toilet and burst into tears.
That was when I felt a ghostly hand on my shoulder.
***
“Are you avoiding me?” he demanded. I did not respond, except to begin disrobing. All except my shirt. He’d still never seen my Mark. Potter followed suit, and was promptly inside of me. So easy, I thought, as he pressed my face into the desk. “Still busy with your scheming?” he asked, as he fucked me.
“Sod off,” I said, though it came out weaker than intended. “Stop following me. I’ll stop fucking you if you don’t.”
“Haven’t been following you.”
“Then why did I find you pacing back and forth in front of the Room of Requirement?”
Potter stopped moving. “You saw me?”
“Once again, you’re not the picture of subtly. On that note, did I catch you making eyes at me in the Great Hall today?”
He pulled out and whirled me around, searching my eyes with ferocity. “You wish.” His face relaxed. “Hold on, you’re just trying to distract me. I’m on the verge of figuring you out, and you’re trying to put me off course. Is that what all these...afterhours shenanigans are about?”
“Potter, you’re the one accosting me.”
“Well, you’re the one tempting me!”
“You find me tempting?” I asked, smirking.
“Shut up.” He tried to back away, but I grabbed him around the waist with my legs, and took him by the penis.
“Where are you going? We still have this to deal with.”
“Is this a part of your plan?” he asked, though his jaw was growing slack and he was getting hard again. “You mess with my head, try and get me obsessed with you, and then you pounce on me with your scheme?”
“Oh, my. Obsessed, are you?”
“Shut up! I have half a mind that you slipped me a lust potion.”
“Don’t make me laugh.” Though, laugh I did. “A lust potion? Why would I brew you a lust potion when I’m clearly trying to keep you out of my business? No...you’re lusting after me on your own, Potter.”
“Then you’re fucking me...because you like me?”
“Nothing could be further from the truth.” I licked my hand and rubbed it on the head of his cock. His eyes were shut now. “Liking your...endowments...is not the same as liking you.”
“Just like a Slytherin to keep them separate.” Potter leaned into my neck, and I shuddered as his lips grazed my skin. Was this the first time his lips had touched me?
I pushed him away. “What am I, your girlfriend? Get on with it.”
He flushed with embarrassment. Then he hiked my legs over his shoulders and nudged his cock into me.
Once Potter stopped talking, he let himself go. He threw his head back, mouth open, pinning my thighs to his body, occasionally smiling, perhaps forgetting who he was fucking. I touched the hair on his forearms, the curve of his lean biceps, and the muscles that ran from there up over square shoulders. I touched his firm, tan chest. I may have grabbed his hands. He may have grabbed back. I don’t know. I was too caught up to tell. He had no care for touching my privates, nor did I ever prompt him; the idea of him using my body solely for his pleasure made me ache with desire. He seemed ignorant to my prostate, too, how his hardness worked within me, urging me dreadfully close to climax without pushing me over. Though, now his angle was unwittingly perfect. My pleasure grew as his cock did. I smiled, keened, and came all over my thighs without laying a hand on my cock. Potter blinked at me, mystified but pleased with himself.
It was all so distracting, I never noticed the door open and gently close.
***
Crabbe shrugged, and turned over in his bed.
I flung all his blankets off and pointed a finger at him. “Get up and get to that corridor! I’m this close to finishing, and I won’t have it messed up by the likes of you.”
“Finish what? You won’t even tell us what you’re doing in there. And if it’s what I think it is, then I want no part of it.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, boggled. I looked around the dormitory. Goyle was there, pulling on his robes. Nott was absent, as usual. Zabini was asleep. “What I’m doing is of utmost importance for Him.”
Crabbe glared from over his shoulder. “Which him?”
I was shaken and confused. Which him? Did Crabbe mean Dumbledore? Snape? He couldn’t possibly mean....
“What are you on about?” I asked urgently.
“Nothing I want to relive,” he said, pulling the blankets back over his head.
Anger flared within me. There was no time for this!
I ripped off the covers, throwing them onto the floor. “Get—up—there. If I fail at this task, yours will be the first head the Dark Lord takes after mine. I’ll make sure of it.”
My days were spent in the Room of Hidden Things. Still no luck. Which meant my evenings were spent in the boy’s lavatory, pouring out my soul to the ruddy toilet ghost.
“I know how dreadful you must feel,” Myrtle would say, resting her hand on the back of my neck. I was red from weeping and hot all over, and her deathly cold flesh was a strange comfort. It was fortunate I had that comfort. Potter had stopped seeking me out.
There were rumors that Dean Thomas and Ginny Weasley had split up. I had seen Potter at Quidditch practice, staring up at her like a great, mindless sod. It bothered me. I didn’t know why. I must have been envious that Potter was able care about inconsequential things, like sports and girls, while I forever had my head in a piece of magical furniture, sweating over thoughts of my family reaping the Dark Lord’s punishment because of my failures.
It was too much. I tried to put Potter out of my head, but he would cling to my brain, like some sticky, mind-altering curse. I hated him for it. Or something like hate.
“He’s so fucking carefree,” I told Myrtle. “He just follows me around...takes what he wants...and disappears until the next time he feels like showing up...which really hasn’t been in a long time....”
“Who? Who’s doing this to you?”
“It’s not like I like him. But it’s not fair. I can hardly even enjoy myself when we do it—but he can!—because I’m always thinking about that stupid Cabinet. I can’t work it out! I just can’t work it out....”
The tears began streaming. I watched them fall into the soapy residue in the sink.
“Don’t,” Myrtle crooned. “Don’t...tell me what’s wrong...I can help you....”
“No one can help me,” I said, convulsing with sorrow. “I can’t do it...I can’t...it won’t work...and unless I do it soon...he says he’ll kill me....”
I looked at my blotchy, pathetic face in the mirror. That was when I saw Potter.
Had he heard anything about the Dark Lord? The Vanishing Cabinet? Had I revealed any of my embarrassing feelings?
I let instinct take over. I drew my wand on him. Curses flew, water pipes burst, Myrtle shrieked, and there was the heart-stilling moment when I thought I’d breathed my last breath.
“SECTUMSEMPRA!” Potter bellowed.
It was a curse I’d never heard before. My blood felt like it would burst from its skin, and it did. My chest split open in long, deep slashes. I saw regret fill Potter’s eyes, heard him splash over as I fell, but I have no memory after that.
***
“Darling, calm down. I’m here.” It was my mother. We were in the Hogwarts infirmary. She eased me back.
“Is Potter all right?” I asked without thinking. Crucio echoed in my head.
“Potter?” she said coldly. “He wouldn’t be if I had my way with him. Dumbledore would not let me see him, however.”
Then I remembered the strange spell. I reached for Mum’s purse, and she seemed to understand, handing me a tiny mirror. Sectumsempra had left a faint, silvery line on my neck, tapering off my collar bone. Several more gashed down my chest.
“I’m sure they will fade,” she said. Her chin began to tremble. “I have been so worried about you.”
“Mum, not again. I’m fine.”
“I wish you would just—” She lowered her voice, grabbed my hand. “—just let me take care of this for you. I could find a way.”
“That’s not good enough. It has to be me.”
“You’re my son! You have to let me protect you.”
“No,” I hissed. “It’s my task to complete. And, for once, trust me to protect you. I will come through for our family.”
She shook her head despairingly, but let it go.
“How are you at home?” I asked. “Are you lonely with just house-elves for company?”
She put a hand to her chest. “Just house-elves? Oh...no, of course not. I always manage.”
I found her tone strange, but was unable to question it, since Madam Pomfrey appeared and began to apply ointment to my chest. She checked my temperature.
“You’ve developed a fever. I’m afraid I’ll have to keep you until it subsides.”
“I’m sure I’m fine,” I said, thinking about the Cupboard. Yaxley had owled me just yesterday, wanting a time and a date for the invasion. “I’ll just check out now.”
My mother seemed to read my mind. “You will do as Madam Pomfrey says.”
Not wanting to embarrass her with impudence, and secretly grateful for the excuse to relax for a night, I sank into the pillows. Goyle, Pansy, and Zabini visited that evening.
Pansy took my hand, saying, “I can’t believe Potter’s only getting detention over this. He should be expelled or arrested. Isn’t your mother going to press charges?”
“We have other things to worry about,” I said distantly.
They all exchanged looks. Goyle was kind. “I’ll crush his glasses into his face, if you like.”
“Don’t bother.” As much as I was trying to be furious with Potter, my most prevalent memory from yesterday was the way his face twisted in regret.
“It’s Potter’s lucky week, then,” Zabini said, looking mischievous. “He curses you, gets off easy, wins the Quidditch Championship, and scores with Ginny Weasley.”
That changed everything. “He what? With who?”
“Yeah, it’s all over school,” Blaise said, leaning casually on the bed. “And so are they—snogging, that is.”
My face was growing hot, and not from the fever.
Pansy noticed, beginning to look pitiful. “Do you like her or something?”
“What? A Weasley? Don’t make me sick.”
I turned away, feigning tiredness, and Pansy and Goyle took their leave. Zabini continued to lean on the bed, though it was more like laying across my legs at this point.
“I didn’t think it was true,” he said with that wide smile. “When Crabbe told me what he saw you doing, I couldn’t believe it. I’m shocked, Draco.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s Potter you’re upset about, not Weasley.”
It felt like I’d been hit in the stomach with a sack of stones. I stared at him, at those unblinking, almond-shaped eyes, until I was able to sputter, “What—rubbish—is this?”
“No need to deny it,” he said, trailing circles on my leg with his finger. “Don’t worry, he only told me. And I know how detrimental it would be if the information got out.”
“It’s a lie! Whatever he said—it’s a fucking lie!”
“What’s a lie? What is it you think he said if you’re so sure it’s not true?”
I could not answer.
“That’s what I thought. But I’ll be blunt. If you want to fuck the Chosen One, that’s your business. But you should be more careful, at least lock doors. You rather put us all in danger with this one. If the Dark Lord calls us, too...finds out we’re keeping a secret like this...it’ll be impossible not to tell.”
“Blaise,” I said tremblingly. “You wouldn’t—”
“Hush, hush. I’m not going to run out and blab. Neither will Crabbe.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m just saying,” Zabini said, trailing that finger up to my cheek, “that the thought of you with him made me a bit...nostalgic.”
“Is nostalgic a synonym for jealous?”
“Call it what you will.”
“Your timing couldn’t be worse. I’m very distracted.”
“You’re not busy here.” His thumb went over my mouth. As much as I had wanted this in fourth year, in fifth year, I wondered if I’d finally outgrown Blaise Zabini. When he kissed me, though, I smelled the spicy, shaving cream scent of him, and remembered. He pulled back and said in a low voice, “I’m going to sneak into the infirmary tonight. And then I’m going to climb into bed with you and fuck you better than Potter ever did.”
Zabini’s ego hadn’t changed either.
When he was on me that night, I couldn’t help myself. I let my eyes fall shut. I could see myself beneath Potter, feel him opening me up. There was no Ginny Weasley. There was no Blaise. Only the two of us. I was a normal boy, with no Dark Lord, and Potter was my boyfriend. I opened my mouth, and before I knew it, the words were falling out: “Harry...oh God, Harry....”
At least Zabini only mocked me with his smile.
***
“Watch it, Potter,” I barked, whipping out my wand.
“Oh, sorry,” he said absently. He tried to steer Weasley away, but she rooted herself, cow-like, and stared boldly at me.
“You’re looking better, Malfoy,” she said, with a tone that suggested she’d rather have seen my entire body split in half.
“And you’re looking thrifty, as usual,” I responded. “The dust on the Weasley hand-me-downs really brings out the muddiness of your eyes.”
“You’d better put that wand away and watch your mouth or I’ll—”
“Come on, it’s not worth it,” Potter said, grabbing her hand.
“Harry, you can’t just let him—”
But he was more forceful, and they disappeared into a flock of passing Ravenclaws.
I shoved my wand back into my pocket, seething. That’s when I found it: a tiny strip of parchment, leathery and limp, as if it’d been riding around in someone’s pocket for days.
Meet me in the classroom across from Transfigurations
at 10 PM on the day you get this.
—H
Potter was sitting on the professor’s desk in the middle of a mostly empty classroom. Most of the student desks were chopped up and arranged in the shape of a giant wooden hand making a lewd gesture. Perhaps Peeves had been here.
Potter was staring at me.
“Well?” I snapped, too winded to say much else.
He hopped off the desk, approaching me with his hands in his pockets. I veered around him, towards the hand, pretending to observe it. I didn’t want to be close to him, to smell him, to pick out the colors in his eyes.
“Eventful day?” he asked.
“Sod off. What do you want?”
“Well.” He cleared his throat. “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry.”
I snorted. “Sorry? Whatever. You can have her.”
“Er—” He didn’t speak after that. I had to turn and look. His eyebrows were knitted together. At last, he clarified, “I’m sorry for nearly killing you.”
My eyes went round. I probably looked like a character in a comic book. “Ah. Yes, as you should be. Now, don’t ever put your hand in my pocket again.” I went for the door, but stopped when his hand met my arm. “Let go,” I said, eyes closed.
“Look at me.”
“Let. Me. Go.”
“Draco,” he said, and no word from his mouth had ever sounded stranger.
I looked. His eyes were filled with concern to rival my mother’s. And something else, something uneasy.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
I swallowed deeply, growing self-conscious of my appearance. What must he have seen? Not someone handsome like he was. He must have seen how much weight I’d lost, how sullen and sunken my eyes were, how long my hair had become from neglect, and how my hands were always slightly trembling.
“Whatever it is,” he continued, “I know it’s not good. And I can tell you don’t want to be doing it. But you’ve got allies if you want them.”
“Keep your pity to yourself,” I said quietly. “I am loyal.”
“That’s been clear since I met you. But what did you find clear about me when we met?”
“That you were an arrogant prick scraping the bottom of the barrell?”
He gave a patient smile. “That I’m a good judge of character. I saw that you were a prat then, and that certainly hasn’t changed.” I tried to pull away, but his grip tightened, and his eyes bored into mine. “But you’re also good-hearted. I can see that now. I saw you in the hospital wing with your mother. I snuck in with my Invisibility Cloak to see you. And even though she was scared for you, trying to comfort you, all you did was act stoic for her well being—despite the fact that every other day, you’re in obvious pain. I don’t see a bad person doing that.”
Gently, firmly, he pushed up the sleeve of my robe to reveal the Dark Mark.
“That’s what I thought,” he said regretfully.
He was still staring at it as I croaked, “You visited me in the hospital wing?”
“That’s all you got from that?” Potter laughed humorlessly and let my sleeve fall down. “Yes, I did.”
“Why?”
“I seem to care for you.” He took a breath, and made funny face, like he was trying to decide whether to take a bite out of a lemon. “Do you...do you feel the same?”
I pressed my lips into a line. If I opened my mouth, the truth would emerge. I shook my head, no.
“That’s what I thought you’d say,” he said, stepping closer. “But I’m going to use my good judgement again...and assume that you’re lying to me.”
And that was the story of my first kiss with Harry Potter.
I knew it was wrong when he took my mouth, but I opened it beneath his. I knew it was wrong when he threw down his cloak and took my hand, and kissed me until I was writhing on the floor. I knew it was wrong when he entered me and I did not slap him or punch him or urge him to be brutal. I knew it was wrong because soon this would be a sweet memory I could never relive. Soon there would be war, and only one of us would see the other side.
“Tell me what it is,” he said afterwards. We were laying nude our sides, facing each other, but not touching. “What is your task?”
“It’s something horrible,” was all I would say.
“Don’t do it. I’ll protect you. And your mum.”
I jumped up. It was just like him to think he was the answer to everything. When he grabbed my hand, I jerked away, gathering my clothes.
“No more of this,” I snapped. “I’ve got a part to play in all this, and you can’t help me out of it. Don’t get in my way and I won’t get in yours. Let’s leave it at that.”
We did leave it at that. Because a couple days later, I fixed the Vanishing Cabinet and made contact with the Death Eaters—and thank Merlin you already know the details of that night on the Astronomy Tower, because I shudder to relive it.
I would not see Harry Potter again for almost a year. But I would think about him. I would think about him everyday, after falling ill with nausea, growing bloated and tender, and then taking a singularly life-altering pregnancy test.