The Potter Configuration
Title: The Potter Configuration 1/1
Author: That’d be me, faith1922
Words: EDIT8250 (this is by far the longest one shot I have ever written. You should bow before me.
Rating: R for language, some sexy situations and general fuck-uppedness
Warnings: See Rating for that one and for the die hard H/D’s among you, there’s that part where Draco does an OM and an OC.
A/N: Ok, first of all, I guess I should say that this is inspired by a weird mixture of Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray (which I hate passionately) and Domino, the movie, from which I shamelessly borrowed the ‘crossed-wire’-line. You’ll know which one when you see it. Some Brit-picking has happened here, but if we missed something, tell me please. Comments are welcome as always, because I’M a whore and I need to know how good I am. Now, have fun.
Disclaim Her: I own the computer and the three bucks Mary gave me last night for gas, as I got abused as the designated driver again! Nothing else.
Summary: A story about war, love, hate, confusion and bitterness. About two boys who never were children and a whole generation that’s wasting away. A story about the importance of hope.





+

The Potter Configuration

+

It all starts five days after the final death of Voldemort.

Funny, you think, how it all comes down to this now. Time isn’t measured in BC and AD anymore; it’s measured in Years of Peace, now. Out there, it’s a new world order and you have yet to decide how you feel about all this. But then, no-one really cares about your opinion, do they?

So it all starts on the fifth day of the first Year of Peace.

There’s a press conference (or rather, a public announcement, since half the British wizarding world is present) and you stand in the eager crowd, caught between a pregnant woman and an old man that smells of cigars and unmentionable things, both Ministry workers. You watch, only half listening as Potter is draped lazily in his chair, balancing it on two legs, long fingers on the edge of the table the only thing keeping him upright. He smiles into the cameras, entirely unaffected by the carnival around him and the Minister falling over himself to answer all the questions.

You almost smile at the sight. Typical, arrogant Gryffindor.

But not really. There is something very un-Gryffindor like about the way he sits, so relaxed, so easy going. Less arrogance and more a true lack of interest. You’re surprised that the Golden Boy is even capable of such an emotion. Actually, you’re surprised he isn’t standing up there on the stage, holding passionate speeches about new beginnings and friendship and whatever other codswallop lions seem to believe in.

But that’s not the beginning. No. The beginning, that’s one specific moment, ten maybe fifteen seconds and it happens when Rita Skeeter shouts her question over the din of the newly freed masses of wizarding kind.

“Tell us, Harry, are you seeing someone right now?”

The noise level miraculously goes down as everyone turns to hear the answer to the first really important question. Potter leans forward until his chair snaps into an upright position, then rests his chin on his fists, picture of cute innocence.

“I don’t think that’s any of your fucking business, is it, Rita?"

A collective gasp goes through the crowd at the revelation that, yes, by Merlin, Saint Potter knows a bad word. And it’s the F-word too! Skeeter looks like she’s contemplating a heart attack right there.

And that’s where it all starts. While the rest of the crowd turn to each other in astonishment, your eyes are fixed on your once nemesis and you see what no-one else sees. There, curling around his mouth is a small smile. But it’s not like the other smiles you’ve seen from him. It’s cold. That’s the only word to describe it.

He’s still beautiful, because he’s Potter and he will always be beautiful, but there is something extraordinarily ugly in that coldcold smile. Something that tells you that he said what he said, knowing exactly what reaction it would provoke.

He enjoys it.

And that’s where it all starts. That single moment, as Potter smiles down at his clueless worshippers and smiles. And you see him doing it and it will forever be burned into your memory, because with it comes the realisation that behind the beauty that is Harry Potter – messy black hair, AK green eyes, glowing white skin and perfect fuck-me lips – there is something indescribably ugly and brutal.

+

The next day the nasty word disappeared out of Potters quote, leaving the article nice and clean, just like Potter. The people who heard him talk are all more than willing to forget that one little slip and so the whole world sinks back into blissful ignorance.

And, while you don’t forget that smile – not that you think you could – you push it to the back of your mind and close the door on it after a few days of contemplation. After all you’ve got a family name to restore.

And that’s just what you spend the next two years of your life doing. You remind the world of the reason that the Malfoys were once respected instead of feared, and you do it with a finesse and skill that would leave Dumbledore breathless.

And, while the Malfoy name slowly recovers economically and therefore also in society, you spend your time at the manor.

The Death Eaters left behind quite a mess when they fled, especially in the lower levels ( read: dungeons). Of course, the Aurors cleared most of that stuff and everything even vaguely resembling something that might possibly be a Dark Artefact out once the Death Eaters had left. They too, left a mess.

Pansy once suggested turning the manor into a hotel for Muggles and moving into London proper instead. You laughed quite long and loud, before telling her to please go and walk off the roof. It seems that Parkinsons are born without the loyalty to the family that led your every action for most of your life. Even after you fought your own father in a war, you are still a Malfoy, and selling Malfoy manor or allowing Muggles to set foot onto the grounds would resemble putting fire to the building yourself. Impossible.

Still, the idea of a flat in London tickles some hidden desire in you. So you spend months and months working through the countless rooms, putting things into storage, throwing them away, destroying them or, in some cases, repairing them.

In the end your mother decides to move into the East Wing, leaving the rest of the building to be hidden under white sheets and conservation spells and you buy a flat in London.

A pretty one too, with giant windows and a balcony and high ceilings and a loft.

+

It’s been two years since you last saw Potter – during that press conference – when Pansy marches right past your house elf and right into your office. She is wearing a short black dress and black spiked heels, like she always does these days. Her lipstick is smudged, not from some phantom lover’s kisses, but from the ever present cigarettes.

She throws herself into the chair in front of the desk, lighting a smoke without a thought, despite knowing that you won’t allow it in here. She takes a deep drag, a slow somewhat demented smile spreading across her features before she acknowledges you, “Hi, Dray.”

“Pansy,” you say and lean over the table to snatch the cigarette from her fingers and drown it in the sad remains of your tea. She pouts. You give her a pointed look. She sighs.

“Anyway, we decided you need to get out more.”

“We,” you ask, ignoring the rest of the statement for now. It’s not as if you have to worry about Pansy Parkinson outwitting you. There’s enough time for more questions later.

“Yeah, you know, the usual, Crabbe, Goyle, Theo, Blaise, me. A few others. The Slytherins, mostly. You spend too much time working. You need to go out more.”

“I think I can see to my own needs rather well, thank you,” you reply haughtily, hoping she gets the hint and moves her cheap little ass out of your office. She doesn’t.

“Blaise is having a party. Nothing really big. Just our year from Hogwarts and a few significant others. It’ll be fun. Come on!” She’s whining. You hate it when people whine and you hate it even more when Pansy whines, because her voice takes on a pitch that makes you want to stab your eardrums with your wand so you don’t have to hear it anymore.

“Pansy...” She interrupts before you get past the second syllable of her name, pouting in that ridiculous way that never gets anything out of you except annoyance.

“Dray, I’m not leaving without you, so you might as well just give in and come with me. Just a few hours. It won’t kill you.”

You sigh. It’s not Pansy’s fault that she still has that school girl crush on you, although she denies it. And it’s not her fault that she rubs you in every wrong way while trying to please you. Taking your frustrations out on her always makes you feel like you just kicked a puppy.

That’s why the others sent her, because they are Slytherin and they are expected to exploit every weakness. So you nod and motion for her to get moving because you’re going but that doesn’t mean that you’re happy about it.

“If it does kill me,” you threaten while you put on some shoes and a jacket, ”Then I’ll bloody haunt you for the rest of your life.”

She giggles and lights another cigarette.

+

For once Pansy seems to have told the complete truth, because there really aren’t all that many people at the party she drags you to. 20, maybe 30 people sitting in various corners of the room on expensive couches or making their way from group to group, with a sway in their step and a glass in their hand. All very nice, really. Nice enough that you actually take the time to look around before starting to look for ways to escape.

The best parties, Narcissa tends to say, are those that you leave five minutes after coming. That ensures that you are on some photographs and gives you a chance to do something useful with your evening after all.

Well, you think, at least there are no rabid reporters and photographers running around. As you said, all very nice.

You allow Pansy to push a glass of something into your hand that looks like water but probably burns a whole lot worse and find an empty couch to throw yourself into. They can force you to go to a party, but they can not force you to be social, right? Right.

Once the glass is empty you look around again, your eyes falling on the one person you would never expect at a party like this. A party hosted by a Slytherin.

Potter.

It actually takes your brain a few seconds to link his face to his name, because it just doesn’t seem right. But then your brain supplies the name along with that smile that shook you so badly two years ago and you find yourself nodding slightly.

You should have expected Potter here after all.

Pansy drops by to hand you another glass, then leaves you alone again to go sit with Potter and the circle of people that formed around him. He sits on one of the biggest chairs in the room, something that is not lost on you, chatting with Nott, Abott and some hopelessly intelligent Ravenclaw, a year above you at school. And he has Daphne Greengrass sitting sideways in his lap, hanging on his every word.

It’s not like Daph’ at all, to hang off someone like a wet rag, but as usual, Potter seems to accomplish the impossible without even trying.

He doesn’t so much as look at her, but he keeps bouncing the leg she sits on sporadically, jostling her around in his lap. The fifth or so time you watch as she complains, a cute pout on her lips. All the Boy Saviour does in response is give her a look that seems to say ‘take it or leave it, but don’t you dare complain.’ She falls silent after that.

For a while you get distracted from watching Saint Potter as Blaise drops down beside you, forcing you to make decent conversation. Unfortunately, Zabini is one of the smarter people you know and not as easy to satisfy as Pansy or Crabbe and Goyle. Random grunts don’t work on him and you have no desire for him to catch onto your Potter Watching.

Finally, after a full ten minutes he leaves again to fulfil his host duties and terrorise someone else, leaving you alone. Just in time to see Daphne shift in Potter’s lap, an annoyed but somehow at the same time coy look on her face. She moves her legs on either side of his thighs, so she’s facing him and blocking pretty much everything else. He looks up at her, eyebrow raised, and pushes her to the side, so she’s sitting on his right leg again. It can’t be comfortable for her, but she stays where she is.

And then Potter bounces her again. You can’t help the small chuckle that escapes as the Slytherin ice princess groans loud enough to be heard across the room and buries her face in his neck. When she looks back up there’s a look of angry contemplation on her face.

If she gets up and leaves now, the game is over and Potter will no longer humiliate her in public. But if she stays, there’s the chance that he will shag her later that night. Either Daphne is very, very horny or Harry Potter is a lot more desirable than you thought.

You look back up in time to catch Potter staring at you with those impossibly green eyes. As he notices you watching him watching you, slowly, ever so slowly, a smile splits his perfect deep red lips. It reminds you of the last time you saw him smile, but this time is different. This time there is nothing cold about it. It’s wild and fierce and bloody hot. And it’s cruel. And so you watch the Boy Who Lived watching you, smiling. And then he bounces and Daph’ gasps again and you know that he’s doing it for you.

When you fail to react to the blatant invitation, or is that provocation, he slowly raises his glass to you in a silent salute, completely ignoring the conversation around him.

You’re not sure how you feel about catching this particular Gryffindor’s attention, though.

An hour later you have enough and floo home. You end up sleeping on your couch, because Pansy is coming down with a severe case of drunkeness in your comfortable bed.

The Saviour was still bouncing the ice princess when you left.

+

It’s still too early to be up on a Saturday when the combined discomfort of the remote control pressing into your lower back and the loud retching noises from your bathroom wake you up. You climb to your feet, briefly considering helping a friend in need, but then deciding against it. Watching other people rid themselves of half digested food swimming in vodka always provokes the urge in you to hurl right alongside them.

Instead you make coffee.

After ten minutes of silence the noise starts up again and then, another five minutes later, Pansy is complaining about the noise of the shower making her head throb. You roll your eyes.

+

Your floo activates as soon as the whining from the bathroom dies down and in walks no other than Daphne looks-pretty-on-Potter Greengrass.

She looks about as rested as you feel, wearing the same clothes as the night before. You offer her a seat by kicking the chair across from you, sending it skidding across the tiled floor. She takes it, lighting a cigarette with the same practised sensuality Pansy shows when she’s sober. It looks a little cheap and a little worn, reminding you of elderly women in ill fitting cocktail dresses.

Funny, you’re all barely twenty.

“So you stayed in his lap after all, yesterday. Why are you here?”

“What makes you say that?” she asks with mild interest. She seems to be quite sober. “I’m looking for Pansy. She wasn’t home and I saw you two leave together.”

You pour yourself another cup of coffee, not offering her any. If she wants coffee, she can get to her feet and fetch herself a cup.

“She’s currently chasing her hangover down the drain. And Potter obviously shagged you. For him to do that, you would have to have played his game with him to the end.”

She throws her head back and barks out a laugh. “It took the rest of us months to figure out his games. Trust you to do it in one night.” She seems genuinely surprised, and that’s saying something.

You smirk and put an ashtray in front of her when she holds up her cigarette in question.

“Tell me about him,” you demand.

She shrugs, fiddling with the hem of her dress for a second.

“We, all of us, we fought a war before we reached twenty. Some of us moved on and built new lives, some left. Some stayed. And we’re rich and we’re fancy free and we’re bored. We fight, we yell, we love, hate, fuck, kill, break, bend, heal and hurt not because it’s the right thing to do. Not because it’s what we have to do. We do it because we’re bored and there is nothing else to do.”

“Normal people have to work, to fight to keep their families fed and watered, but we? Most of us never planned past the war. We’re living post-life. We are the rich, the powerful, the beautiful, the cold of this world and reality doesn’t touch us. Everything we do, we do for show, for entertainment. We’re above everything. We spend our lives looking for anything that will keep us occupied for the next five minutes, be it love or hate, right or wrong.”

We eat souls, Draco, and we destroy worlds for no other reason than to entertain us. It’s not right, the way we are, but it is, and nothing can change that.”

She stubs out her fag violently and then leans back in silent expectation of your reaction. Coming out of her mouth, the words sound wrong, practiced. Like she stood in front of a mirror, searching for the best way to prove how badly they all failed, were failed. Daphne is a fallen star, you think.

“Coming from you, that was almost profound. But what does it have to do with Our Great Saviour?”

She laughs again, a choked, harsh laugh this time that sounds a little like crying and even more like utter disbelief. “What does it have to do with....? Oh, by Merlin, where have you been the past two years? It has everything to do with him. Potter is the Prince of fuck ups and the King of messed up. Potter is the fucking god we worship, Draco!”

She says is with a certainty that is startling and a bitterness that hits you like a whip. She’s right. You know she’s right, because you were the first to ever see the ugly inside of the Boy Who Lived and you were scared then.

You’re pretty sure that you should be scared now, but you’re fascinated as well. Daphne’s eyes are on you, so you climb to your feet and pour her a cup of coffee, setting it in front of her with a carefully blank face.

+

She shoves Pansy through the floo, shoes in hand, before turning around one last time.

“We’re going out tonight, to a club called Thornes. Pick you up at half past nine.”

She doesn’t wait for your answer, before following her best friend home. She doesn’t have to. Potter will be there. Otherwise she wouldn’t have invited you. Just like you wouldn’t have come. Damn sly Slytherins to hell.

Time to get some proper sleep.

+

You’re wearing a black shirt with too long sleeves and simple black trousers. Nothing too flashy and nothing too sexy, because you’re not sixteen anymore and the Thornes isn’t the Slytherin common room where you danced until dawn, scared of living, scared of dying and above all, of fighting a war.

The girls arrive at your flat fashionably late, causing the three of you to reach the club rather unfashionably later still.

Everything inside is black, the bar, the floor, the walls, the furniture, everything. The club is a black hole, the only colour coming from the myriad of people flowing into each other on the dance floor. Flashes of skin and lips and bright eyes.

If you stood very still, you could probably disappear, you think.

Finding the others isn’t hard, as they occupy the only table up on the catwalk, looking down on the dancers like royalty on the court. Decadent, yes, but fitting.

Blaise is there, and so are Nott and Abott and the Ravenclaw, her name is Darcy something.

Drink in hand, it takes you about five seconds to spot Potter in the crowd below. He’s at the very centre of the dance floor, dancing alone. There are people all around him, mostly men, trying to get close, to get a hold of him. To steal some of the deadly grace for themselves.

One of them tries to put an arm around his waist, but he twists out of reach with a saucy smile on his face, turning to the next dancer to spend a moment with. And then he’s spinning again, always moving, always out of reach. Even from up here you can see the testosterone and alcohol levels rising, but the Saviour ignores all the signs of impending doom, lost in his own little world.

Daphne’s word from this morning come back to you unbidden and you frown. He’s playing with fire, courting danger, fucking with fate. And he doesn’t care.

To anyone who knows him the look on his face begs for a fight, for someone to hurt him, to make him feel, to provoke him. And the stupid, oblivious Muggles all around comply. No wizard would ever act like this around a boy who was never a child who was raised to be a weapon that has lost its purpose.

But Potter wants this, he’s begging for it, with his fuck-me clothes, his hit-me movements and kiss-me lips. He’s standing in front of a wand, poking fun at the hand that wields it.

In your eyes, he’s never been more ugly, or more beautiful. Stupid, stupid boy. He’s the only bright thing inside the blackness of the Thornes.

“Look at him,” Daph’ says as she plops down next to you, empty shot glass dancing between her fingers. “There are wires crossed somewhere in his soul.”

You frown at her briefly, before turning back to the spectacle below. Potter laughs as two clumsy white faced boys stumble into each other while attempting to cage him. They glare at him, humiliation screaming from their eyes, and he ignores them. Dancing, spinning, twirling, always moving, never stopping, never slowing.

The ice princess is right, you realise.

+

If asked you would say that you’re stopping a disaster from happening as you make your way down the black stairs, across the black room, until you’re standing only feet away from him. You weave through the inebriated masses, passing the white faced children, trying to get a hold of the man that will burn them like so much dry wood. They Boy Who Lived will burn them all, if you leave him to his games.

But you don’t.

He spins suddenly, movements jerky in the pulsing lights, and his eyes meet yours, like he knew you were standing there all along. One step, two steps and your left hand rests on his leather clad hip, pulling him close.

He lets you.

He allows you to stop his games and his little rituals of violence. You’re grateful, because you too, are flammable in his hands.

You put a second hand on him and he lets you and he smiles as he does it and you know that Daphne is very, so very, very right. Because he smiles and you know that there are wires crossed somewhere in his soul and they are directly connected to his mouth that moves to form a lush red line of contempt and cruelty and cold.

The men around you start to fade into the background, giving up now that their prey has chosen its killer for the night. Some growl and go looking elsewhere, but most just leave.

After all, what is there, after Harry Potter?

Potter’s arms twine around your neck and he pulls you even closer until nothing at all can exist between you anymore and he breathes into your ear, “Draco.”

It sounds like a prayer.

+

Thirty minutes later Potter’s long fingered hand is locking the stall in the men’s room and then he’s pressing you against the door. His hands roam under your shirt, up your sides, thumbs tracing your ribs almost gently, while his mouth works magic on your neck.

Your own fingers are crawling up his spine, like spiders’ legs, long and thin and graceful.

His mouth moves upward, jaw line, chin, cheek, until it finds your own mouth and you feel like there’s no more air, ever. His hands, rough and angry, reach your belt and start fumbling with it.

You allow it for a moment, caught up in the fire that is Harry- fucking Saint- Potter, but then you grasp his wrists, holding them still, shoving them away from you.

“Stop it Potter,” you demand, turning your face away from his greedy blood red mouth. You have to push against his chest to get him off you.

He’s panting hard; he’s so angry. Green eyes, spitting green fire, fire that still lights your nightmares, paints them in death and decay. He looks like a lion that got robbed of its prey, like the prey that got robbed of its killer and there’s murder in his eyes.

Cold, cold murder.

“What’s your fucking problem?” he spits.

Your hands drop away from his chest, one going behind you to unlock the door. You try to keep your face blank as you answer, “I refuse be a number on your list.”

The door opens with a click and you walk out without a backward glance. Through the blackness of the club, out the front doors and into the night, while the Savior still stands in the dirty men’s room, with that cruel fire burning in his eyes.

You feel cold, and it has nothing to do with the fact that you forgot your coat inside. Maybe there are wires crossed in your soul, too.

+

Blaise drops by with your coat the next day, asking what happened and why you left so suddenly. It doesn’t surprise you that Potter stayed, even after what happened. But what did happen? To him, you’re one in a million, just flesh and bones, flexible and a good fuck. The Boy Who Lived doesn’t give a damn. Why should you?

You thank Zabini for your coat and slam the door in his face. You’ve got work to do.

+

Roughly a week later your doorbell rings and you frown because the only people who use the door instead of the floo don’t visit at eleven o’clock in the evening.

It’s Potter. For a moment you are actually surprised, but then you probably should be expecting the unexpected from the bloody Saviour, right? Right.

You lean against the door frame, one eyebrow raised in silent question, arms crossed in front of you.

He just stands there, not expectant, not curious, not hurried. He just stands in front of your door like he was born for it, looking for all the world like he might spend the rest of his life right there.

“What do you want?”

“What did you mean, ‘you refuse to be a number on my list’?”

You look him up and down, noticing that his clothes by day aren’t any less daring than the one he wears in the darkness of seedy clubs. “Do I look like a whore to you, Potter?”

You can see your old, fat neighbour peek out the door, drooling for some juicy gossip. You ignore her, because you really don’t give a damn.

“You sure acted like one.”

He shakes his head, hands digging in his pockets for something. Then, suddenly he looks at you and asks “Can I come in?”

“You just called me a whore.”

“Malfoy.” Your name. You know your name. He says it like a warning. You don’t move from where you’re blocking the door. Instead, you remember how he called you Draco not two weeks ago.

“I don’t obey well.”

His indifference slips for a moment, leaving his face.... different. But a second later it’s back and he frowns at you, prettily. “Please?”

You step aside with a sweeping gesture, inviting him in wordlessly. “How did you find me anyway?”

“Daph’ told me.”

“For free?” Daphne is a Slytherin, when she has something someone else wants to have, she bargains. Especially when she hates him, but loves what he does to her.

Potter shakes his head and grins. “No.”

Of course not.

He throws himself into one of your chairs without invitation and pulls out a pack of cigarettes, looking at you questioningly. You point him to the ashtray silently, wondering why everyone around you smokes all of a sudden.

To your surprise, he shrugs and offers, “Pan smokes because Daph’ smokes. Daph’ smokes since she had a very fucked up three month relationship with Zachary Smith. Blaise is just Blaise and that’s that.”

It’s weird, the way he talks about your life long friends like he knows them, and then you realise that he does, probably better than you do these days. He always had that way of reading people that no one else can read.

“What about you?”

He laughs a little. “I’ve been smoking since I was fourteen. I started because it helped against the hunger. Then I did it to relax, then to keep from going mad. Then because it pissed people off and now it doesn’t matter anyway, does it?”

He lights a cigarette. It probably doesn’t matter. It’s still wrong though, to see him like this. During all those bloody years of war, he’s never looked as resigned as he does now.

Finally he leans back in his chair, cigarette draped artfully between his long, long fingers. “So, why’d you run?”

You give him the eyebrow. “Do you really need me to spell that out for you? I didn’t think you were that dense.”

He looks at you for a long moment, like he’s never looked at you before. “Yeah,” he finally admits with a lazy shrug of his shoulders and you can’t help shaking your head. It’s the way your mother always shakes her head when you do something disappointing, like admitting that you are gay. It’s that way that says, ‘I know you could do so much better, why don’t you?’

The last time she gave you that head shake you shagged Blaise on her dining room table as revenge. You wonder what Potter will do, but you can’t honestly say that you are surprised when he doesn’t react at all. He’s too used to disapproval, just like you, just like all of you. Your whole generation is one big fat disappointment and Potter is the damn hero of the piece. Or is that villain?

“Daph’ was right.”

“About what?”

“You’re a fucking zombie rotting vertically and looking pretty while you do it.”

This is delivered in a matter of fact voice that doesn’t leave room for argument, but then Potter doesn’t even try to argue. Instead, he throws his head back and laughs. It’s deep and throaty, not the laugh of a boy, but that of a man. A man who has seen too much, done too much, to still care about being called a zombie. Or maybe he just knows that you’re right.

Still, it’s a little disappointing that he isn’t taking you seriously at all. So you defend yourself, rather childishly.

“I saw you, you know? At that bloody press conference.” He looks a little confused now.

“Five days after you did the Dark Lord in. I saw you look down at all those people and you smiled and you were ugly, Potter, ugly. You want to know why I ran? I ran because you are cold and dead and hard and ugly. You’re a monster wrapped in pretty skin and bright eyes. You seduce to kill and you fuck to hurt and I refuse to end like all the others, following you around, like you are the be all end all, just because you fucked them up too badly to ever be anything else again.”

You shake your head again. “You’re not who you used to be, Potter.”

Strangely, that gets a reaction out of him because suddenly he’s on his feet glaring at you, eyes as bright as they were that night and his voice in dangerously low. “You don’t have a fucking clue who I used to be.”

You stay seated where you are, looking up at him. His anger won’t get to you, because he’s a child suddenly, an angry child wanting to hurt you. He towers over you, breathing hard, spitting hatred and rage, fire and ashes.

For a long time you stay like this, him standing, you sitting below him, looking up into his pretty, ugly face, not saying a word. The lonely cigarette burns to cinders in the ashtray, smoke curling toward the ceiling in a thin grey line and you still don’t say a word.

Finally you lift one arm to point at the door and whisper, “Get out.”

+

He leaves without a word or a backward glance, leaving you alone in the dark, smoke filled room.

Dimly, you wonder if Potter can still stand to look into the mirror.

+

You stay pretty much in the same mood for nine days, not leaving your flat, not talking to anyone. You don’t even do any work.

Because the damn Saint is everywhere and he doesn’t let you go.

Only when you realise that you are sulking like a child, do you open your floo and spin into Greengrass manor.

Daphne is one of the few of you who didn’t flee the place of childhood humiliation and pain, like you did. She wears her mother’s robes and sleeps in the master bedroom, slowly possessing everything that once belonged to the people who made her. People who are dead.

You find her in the drawing room, drinking coffee – another one of those things no-one ever did before the war, like smoking, drink coffee – and reading a magazine.

She looks up as you enter, waving you to the chair opposite her with a distracted gesture. She doesn’t offer you anything to drink because you never do either, so you help yourself. The coffee’s hot and bitter and its colour reminds you of unruly hair, so you add cream until it’s a pasty brown.

“What do you want, Draco?” She closes her magazine and slaps it on the coffee table, breaking the silence with the unpleasant sound.

You give her the eyebrow and ask, “What could you possibly have, that I want?”

You curse yourself as soon as the words flow out of your mouth because they are all the ammunition she needs to bring you down bleeding. There is only one thing she has that you might want. Potter. And you both know it.

She looks at you neutrally for a moment, then smiles, one eyebrow raised sardonically. You repress a relived sigh. Her smile says that she will let it go, just this once, and her eyebrow says that she doesn’t really know why she’s doing it. Maybe there’s a nice person somewhere underneath after all. It’s a nice thought.

You decide to cut the chase and simply do what you – at least subconsciously – came here to do.

“Do you know where Potter is?”

She shakes her head. “Last time I saw him, he was fucking everything in sight and bloody pissed off. What’d you do to him anyway?”

“Nothing,” you say after only a moment’s hesitation. You did nothing. The Saviour did all that to himself.

There’s a look on her face, saying she doesn’t know whether to believe you or not, but she continues, “And then he left in the cold light of morning, and no-one’s seen him since.”

Some of what you feel must seep into your face because suddenly her hand ghosts over yours, cool and small, a gesture to catch your attention. When you look her in the eye, her expression is carefully blank. “You can’t hold him, you know. No-one can hold him.”

She sounds almost wistful.

There is none of the anger you expected when she realises that you are trying to steal her favourite fuck from her. And to return the courtesy, you are not angry that she reads you so well.

Instead you leave with a nod toward her. She’s picked her magazine back up before the door is closed behind you, leafing through it, seemingly without interest.

She tried, you think, she tried to hold him and she failed.

+

You suspect Daphne has pulled some strings, when Blaise shows up at your door the next night, dressed to go out and have fun and determined to drag you along.

This time, you think damn it all, and you put on your leather trousers and make up because what does it matter that you’re not sixteen anymore? Nothing. It matters nothing.

Blaise smiles slyly when he sees your outfit, but doesn’t comment. He doesn’t have to.

You refuse to go back to the Thornes, so Zabini leads you elsewhere and you dance and drink and don’t really talk. He keeps propositioning you though, like he always did.

After the fifth drink, you start flirting back and it’s a little like riding a broom. You haven’t done it in a while, but you never really forget how it’s done.

He hooks a finger into the belt loops of your trousers, pulling you closer and the thumb of his free hand slides beneath the waistband, caressing your ass tantalisingly slow and gentle.

+

So you land in Blaise’s bed, with its owner staring up at you, a little wide eyed from the alcohol and panting from your tongue down his throat. He looks like an eager virgin to you and maybe that thought is what makes you hesitate suddenly.

After all, what else would it be? You’ve shagged Zabini for no other reason than lust and hormones a dozen times before.

You start to pull away when his hand shoots out, grabbing you by your hair and forcing your head back down until you’re close enough to kiss that delicious mouth of his. Not as red a Potter’s mouth though, you note absently. But just as eager to be fucked.

Blaise jerks your head a little, as he notices you slipping to another place and he hisses sharply, “Just get it out of your system!”

He knows. You are here to get Potter out of your head and your body, to close your eyes and turn Zabini’s skin white as milk and his hair black as coffee and he knows.

And that’s the final straw.

+

He’s lying on his stomach; you’re tracing idle patterns on his naked back. Suddenly he turns, so that he’s facing you. He flinches a little as he does it and smiles a very satisfied smile. He acts like the cat that got the cream, you notice.

Blaise is after all, the perfect little whore.

“It’s how we all deal with it, you know?”

You give him a questioning look, so he elaborates, “It’s how we deal with Potter. He comes and he goes and this is how we deal with it.” He laughs suddenly and it sounds a little forced. “What does that say about us?”

Instead of answering you lie on your back so Blaise can’t look you in the eye anymore, frowning.

What does that say about Potter?

+

It’s a damn miracle how much work gets heaped on your desk during ten days. It’ll take you ages to work through this, you know.

+

Instead you pull out your old journal, the one you started in your first year at Hogwarts. The one that ended up with nothing but Potter here and Potter there in it. The Saviour has never seen this book, and yet it is his in every way that matters.

You open it on the last free pages and write everything down. How ugly he is and how pretty and how fucked up. How there are wires crossed in his soul and how a whole generation worships the crumbs he offers them. His fuck-me lips and hurt-me eyes. His long fingered hands and warm tongue.

You write until your fingers cramp and then you burn the whole thing, page by page.

+

Blaise’s cousin comes to live with him two months later. He spent the last six or seven years in Australia, wisely hiding from the war and the Death Eaters. Somehow Pansy manages to convince Zabini to try and hook the two of you up.

You put up a fight, like is expected from you because you ‘don’t like his accent’, but you’re overruled in the end. And, if you look at it closely, there really is no reason to refuse this particular specimen of sexy male wizard.

Your first date isn’t all that bad. You talk about Australia and about the war, without actually talking about the war. He asks about Harry Potter once and you say that, yes you’ve met him, and no, you’re not talking about him and then you change the subject skilfully.

All in all, it’s nice enough to allow a repeat performance, so that’s what you do. Date some more.

+

After the fifth date he invites you to his room – Blaise’s guestroom – and as he drags you through the living room, you wave cheerfully at Zabini, smirk firmly installed on your face.

As the door closes behind the two of you and you find yourself pressed up against it, you briefly consider telling him that you’ve shagged his cousin in this and probably every other room in the house at least once. You’re itching to see his face when you say it, to see how he reacts to the realisation that he’s a piece of ass to you.

Zabini is a pretty little whore, but it’s moments like these that remind you of who taught him that.

Yet, in the end, you don’t say a word and allow yourself to be stripped, silently.

+

It’s early March when your somewhat-boyfriend of eight months escorts you to your front door. He pulls you close and kisses you goodbye and then kisses you some more, just for the hell of it.

Over the last few months shocking your neighbours has become somewhat challenging, but you’re trying, gleefully. Actually, you’re afraid that you’ll give the old lady to your left a heart attack one of these days. Oh, well.

The lift gives a low BING and you hear the doors slide open, followed by wet footsteps coming closer. They stop one door down from you. Silence falls over the three of you and finally you decide to pull away and investigate who the newcomer is.

Never mind the cold little ball of lead in your stomach, letting you know who it is long before you end the kiss.

He is sopping wet, dripping water everywhere, reminding you of the apocalyptic rainstorm outside. His hair is plastered to his forehead, his lips are still fuck-me red and his eyes....

You don’t look into his eyes, not yet. First you take in the rest of him. He’s wearing torn jeans, combat boots, a simple black shirt. Nothing special, nothing flashy. He almost looks like seventeen again.

His eyes are as green as they always were, but some of the malevolence you saw there the last time you spoke is gone. There is only a trace left now, a smudge of ink on his fucked up soul.

“Potter.” You say it without inflection, without heat, because, somewhere inside of you, you knew that he would come back, one way or another, one day.

There’s a gasp beside you, a stiffening of muscle and then, “Harry Potter?”

The green eyes leave yours for just a second to check out the arm around your waist and the man hanging on it. Then he looks back at you, one eyebrow raised, silently asking, or mocking.

You shrug.

“I thought you barely knew him?”

You shrug again, taking a step away from the accusing question and half a step toward Potter. No, you think, not Potter. Harry.

He smiles wryly at you and says, “Draco.”

There’s no heat this time, no sex and no wicked promises. It’s just your name. Just a word. Somehow you like that better. You nod in acceptance of him calling you by your given name.

It’s funny how he understands you perfectly.

“It’s been a while.”

“He looks like ‘Bini.” He nods towards your date, dismissively. It’s not arrogance, though. It’s knowledge that gives him the right to act this way. Knowledge that you will choose him over a date. The Prince of fucked up.

“His cousin,” you offer.

“I need to show you something.” He holds his hand out to you, waiting patiently for you to take it, like he waited months ago in this very hallway, to be allowed entrance to your flat.

You take it without looking back and follow him back to the lift. You never keyed him into the anti apparition wards you put up on this floor. There’s yelling behind you, questions, betrayal, anger, disappointment.

You never look back. Harry’s hand is cool and wet inside of yours and he smells wonderfully of rain and wildness.

+

In the lift he pulls you close, wrapping his arms around you.

“Where are we going?”

He smiles at you and there is laughter dancing in his eyes. You notice for the first time that they are lighter than they used to be.

He really is different. The realisation causes you to finally relax completely against him and allow him to apparate you both away.

+

It’s warm and light and dry where you land. You watch as Harry dries himself of wandlessly, with a wave of his hand. Then he looks at you, making eye contact, like he’s worried that you will leave any second.

He offers his hand again and you take it. The last time he was the one to walk out on you.

+

Everything is green and smells of spring and the grass beneath your feet is soft. It is cliché, but it’s a nice difference from London and its dreary people.

You walk in silence for a while before you hear the unmistakable shrieking of playing children ahead of you, behind the next gentle hill.

If you had to guess, you’d say you are in New Zealand. Which brings your thoughts back to the man you left in front of your closed door. You hope Blaise won’t be too pissed at you.

A moment later a beautiful house comes into view and you spot the children you heard playing tag in the giant garden.

The moment you notice their copper hair glinting in the afternoon sunlight is the moment they spot you. They are, how else could it be, twins. A girl and a boy, dirty and smiling and yelling, “Uncle Harry, Uncle Harry!!”

No older than three, their attack on the Boy Who Lived is quite a feat. You chuckle as he stumbles backward, two bundles of red hair and freckles riding him down.

Granger must have been pregnant by the time she and Weasley disappeared, only days after Voldmort’s final death.

Harry retaliates with merciless tickling and if possible, the children’s shrieks of delight grow louder than Pansy’s whining ever will. Strange enough, it isn’t half as aggravating.

They finally notice you and Uncle Harry uses his chance to get back to his feet as they ask, “Uncle Harry, who is this?”

“This is Draco.” You expect him to say, ‘he’s a friend’, but he doesn’t. You’re glad.

“Hello Draco,” the little devils chorus, looking as innocent as only children can, before bursting into giggles. “That’s a funny name!”

“You’re back.” Weasley is suddenly standing not far away, watching his offspring poke fun at your name, arms crossed in front of him. You’re a little surprised he’s not screaming his head off at you, for simply existing, like he used to.

Instead, he closes the distance, telling the kids to go inside and wash their hands. They scamper off, cutting a path through the high grass with their tiny feet and bell like laughter.

“You’re just in time for dinner,” he says, looking at his best friend. Harry nods, but doesn’t move as Weasley turns to you.

He looks you in the eye, long and hard, looking for something. You don’t know how long he stares but whatever it is, he seems to find it because after a moment's hesitation and one audible gulp he uncrosses his arms and says, “Well, come on then, Malfoy. ‘Mione always cooks for half a dozen people anyway.”

She’d have to, living with three Weasleys, two of them growing, but you don’t say that.

The two men turn and start walking toward the house. You close your eyes, take a deep breath and shake your head in silent resignation.

And you follow.

+

The End.

+





Now, was that some weird shit, or what?