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Tender Enmity 3 As Good as it Gets...The day after
By Anne Phoenix
E-mail: AnnePhoenix@yahoo.com
The cold winter sun was flooding the rapidly emptying dorm of the 7th Year
Gryffindor boys’ dormitory. Time to get up and think of breakfast.
“Harry!” Ron yelled through the room to awaken his best friend, yet the
curtains around Harry’s bed did not move. Impatiently, Ron crossed the dorm and
wrenched them aside, intent on dragging Harry to the breakfast hall, lest the
Boy-Who-Lived miss another meal.
The blood froze in his veins, chilling his entire body like jagged frost that
prickled its way dangerously across his skin, his throat went as dry as
sandpaper and his jaw dropped in incredulity. Three times he blinked
disbelieving eyes, but the horrendous nightmare before him did not dissipate.
Draco Malfoy was sleeping in Harry’s amorous embrace, nestled up contently in
the comfortable crook between Harry’s neck and collarbone. His usually sharp
face was serene beyond recognition, bearing a felid smile of intense
satisfaction on slightly parted lips.
Harry’s arms surrounded him completely, fingers latched together behind the
boy’s back to hinder any motion, any hint of escape. His mouth and nose were
buried in silver strands, which ruffled slightly at every soft breath. Harry
too, looked more tranquil than Ron had ever seen him, not a line of tension
visible on his oft-haunted face… and both boys seemed quite naked.
Abruptly unfreezing, Ron squealed, “Harry! What the fuck are you doing?!”
Ron’s heart tore brutally within the security of his chest as Harry’s first
reaction, when jolted awake in shock, was to tighten his hold around Malfoy,
pulling him closer, as though unconsciously shielding him from any potential
harm. Then reality hit the dark-haired boy and he stared at Ron in blank horror.
“I… errr,” Harry stuttered uselessly, drawing his hands sharply away from Draco
as burnt.
Draco shifted, mumbled a complaint in his sleep, and moved his hands down to a
part of Harry that was mercifully covered by the heavy blanket.
“Oh my God!” Ron screamed unreasonably loudly, face contorted with a disgust
that masked his rapidly shredding emotions, and Harry groped around blindly for
both excuses and his glasses.
This time, the noise had the desired effect and Draco’s eyes snapped open,
accompanied by a whining moan. He focused on Harry, allowing a loving grin to
fleet across his features before turning his attention to the source of the rude
awakening.
“Err, good morning Ron,” he said weakly, rubbing the sand from his eyes.
Ron’s eyes latched on the nasty red welts around Draco’s wrists; he gulped
wildly, trying to think, to understand!
“I don’t believe you… you fucking freak! You traitor!” he screeched at
Harry who still sat in bed, gaping like a fish, not understanding the true
nature of Ron’s anguish, not hearing the shards of Ron’s life tinkering down in
a shower of darkness around the dorm, slicing through the red-head, piercing him
through heart and soul.
“What have you done?” Ron whispered brokenly before turning to leave, feet
dragging as he almost stumbled in his debilitating, miserable desolation.
Draco looked down, away from Harry, any trace of peace and happiness dissipated
by a tense grimace of apprehension. “Sorry,” he sighed despondently and started
heaving himself out of bed, refusing to catch Harry’s eyes for fear of them
breaking his defences entirely. But Harry stopped him.
“Malfoy, if you leave me now, I will kill you,” he vowed, and not caring that
the curtain was no longer drawn, pulled Draco close for a morning kiss, stroking
his cheek reassuringly, muttering that he would talk to Ron, that it was a
miracle things had stayed secret for over two years anyways, that he wouldn’t
let anyone hurt his little dragon…. His little dragon… His…
He pushed Draco back into the sheets, reaching back to close the curtains before
devouring the sweet mouth with affection, trailing his tongue through the soft
heat sensitively, yet not resisting a sharp little nip when his tongue ran over
the coppery scar he had left… It made Draco moan in unreserved desire.
Harry paused momentarily, settling his hands beneath Draco’s ribs before
allowing his tongue to continue its attentions, this time leaving the warmth of
the inviting tender lips to concentrate on the hard pink buds of Draco’s
nipples, sucking them forcefully until Draco gasped and ran his hands through
Harry’s tousled hair.
“Harry, we don’t have time!” he hissed through wanting wheezes, fingers curling
around the dark strands as he willed his lover to go lower.
Harry frowned, sitting up pensively, brushing over Draco’s cock with a mocking
smile before rolling onto the ground.
“Off with you then,” he said curtly, relishing Draco’s frustrated whimper.
Harry leant towards him and kissed the red branding on his shoulder, his heart
jumping excitedly as Draco failed to suppress a small wince against the pain
that made also him shrink back a little. Getting a grip on himself, Harry sealed
his eyes adamantly against the weakness of his own desire.
“Go now,” he ordered and listened to the scuffle of covers and clothes,
desperately trying to tame the ragged pants of lust that tore through his body.
Soft lips bade him farewell and finally Harry was alone. He let himself fall
back onto the bed with a groan, head dizzy and light, yearning for Draco.
Unconsciously, his hands moved down to his hardened cock, allowing himself to
circle the tip a few times before recoiling like a snake and chiding himself for
sexual dependency.
“Breakfast!” he ordered himself firmly, heading towards the shower-room.
A moment later his cry of pleasure and release pierced the silence of the empty
dorm. Not long after that, a thoroughly satiated and soaked Harry emerged with
dripping hair and trembling skin.
At breakfast Harry did not, could not face his best friend; they both sat
in tense silence, chewing their food numbly.
Ron had obviously not repeated what he had witnessed, for the rest of the
Gryffindor students were buzzing with their usual animation (with the exception
of Hermione whose nose was buried in a transfiguration book “just in case.”).
In his lonesome silence the redhead felt a large lump in his throat… it was
swelling, trying to choke him. He let his eyes wonder to the Slytherin table
where Draco was sitting between Crabbe and Goyle. He bore the usual haughty
glare but turned away a little too quickly when he noticed Ron’s eyes on him.
Usually warn hazel was were narrow with hatred and succeeded in sending a jolt
of unease through the platinum-haired boy.
Harry so studiously avoided Ron’s direction that he noticed none of this. He
realised he needed to talk with his friend but had no idea how to broach the
subject, so he waited until DADA where they always sat at the same bench.
“Ron,” he started softly whilst Rob obstinately stared at the floor.
“I’m sorry Ron, Malfoy…. He, he’s not….” he faltered watching his friend swallow
back tears.
“Since when?” Ron choked, each word heavy, painful to pronounce.
Harry twisted his fingers nervously. “Fifth year,” he whispered and Ron finally
swung to face him, eyes brimming with tears of pain. “You love him?”
Harry shrugged a little, remembering his resolution of the previous night.
“Not love…addiction I think… maybe.”
“Right. Addicted to Draco Malfoy… Ten points from Gryffindor… thousand,”
the redhead snapped bitterly. Harry suddenly felt anger. He could see his little
silver Dragon in his mind’s eyes, prowling around Harry and pouncing upon him
only to let the bigger boy wrestle him into submission, make him plead and cry
as he… as they both writhed in desire. Who was Ron to know better, what
did Ron know?
“Ron, I… You can’t do this to me…” he said and Ron flared up, “I can’t do this?
I just found out you were shagging our worst enemy… I saw… I saw… the…marks,
your…marks.”
He stopped abruptly, unable to continue as single tears finally wrenched
themselves free. Harry put a hand on his arm, but Ron pulled it away violently.
“Don’t touch me, you fucking freak,” he hissed; hurt, Harry withdrew himself to
his side of the bench, spitefully wishing Ron had seen the most important mark
of all… beautiful branding of possession.
After DADA, Harry and Ron went their separate ways. As luck would have it, Ron
found himself in the same corridor as Malfoy and his perpetual living shadows.
Not wasting a second, he stepped right up to the boy, glowering down at him
menacingly.
“We need to have words,” he hissed pointedly at the other Slytherins, who waited
for a signal from Draco to melt away.
“What is it weasel,” Draco sneered, unconscious of the stab he was delivering to
Ron’s heart. Ron growled and drew a finger slowly over his throat.
“Harry doesn’t know what he’s doing,” he said in a low voice, “if I ever even
see you near him again, I’ll make you regret the day you were born Malfoy.”
The menace in his voice was palpable but Draco didn’t flinch, his pale face
clouding over with anger as he caught the underlying emotion carpeting Ron’s
tone.
“Harry knows damn well what he’s doing. And don’t you dare blame me for the fact
you were too chicken to tell him you wanted to get into his pants before it was
too late. Maybe should have spent less time with that faithful little Mudblood
of yours?”
Ron dug his nails into his palms to save himself from screaming out and hitting
Malfoy. He could barely make out the other boy’s form through his tears of anger
and misery. He swallowed the rage with difficulty and stepped back.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. I know you’ve hexed Harry, but if you
think you can get away with it you-”
He was cut off by Draco’s cold laughter.
“Weasley, I don’t need to hex Potter to get what I want from him,” the blond boy
sneered with a raised eyebrow and Ron’s words dried up. He was feeling the
overkill, but the pain inside him gnawed all the harder, slowing the intelligent
train of thought in favour of animal instinct.
“Just watch your back Malfoy because I will be,” he snapped and tried to force
himself to turn around, but his feet refused, carrying him nearer to Malfoy,
arms snaking out to grab the smaller boy by the collar and pull him forwards.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Get your filthy paws off me!” Draco
hissed, something in Ron’s rage making him a little anxious. He looked around
for Crabbe and Goyle, but they had dissipated as ordered and he was alone… with
the Weasel.
Ron’s grip tightened, dangerously close to Draco’s neck, and the Slytherin
suddenly struggled backwards forcefully, almost freeing himself of the tall boy,
only Ron grabbed out and caught his robe, yanking it downwards; with a loud
tear, his left shoulder was revealed.
Both boys froze, staring at each other. Ron’s face deathly pale. He let go of
Draco, slumping back defeated.
“You fool, Malfoy. How could you let him do this to you?”
Draco raised an eyebrow, not daring to move.
“How could you let him… or did you want it? Did you want something to remind
that you were touched by something so pure as Harry Potter? That he used you… as
You-Know-Who will use you?”
Ron’s voice held pity, as though not thinking of his own misery, but of Draco’s.
Draco felt a lump forming in his throat. “He… doesn’t… use me,” he whispered
with a force that made Ron snort without even looking up.
“How long can you live in a dream, Draco Malfoy? When are you going to wake up
and realise Harry doesn’t care about you. Maybe he thinks he wants you, but he
definitely doesn’t care. He told me so this morning in class… did he forget to
tell you?”
Draco’s skin was trembling, he wanted to shout back, to curse Ron, but the
latter’s words made sense. He thought back on that first night –how angry Harry
had been… what if… But last night… Ron snorted again, derisively, reading the
thoughts through Draco’s eyes.
“The ultimate triumph… branding your enemy’s minions, making them… fall in
love with you.” His eyes gleamed maliciously, “I can’t believe you’d be so
stupid, Malfoy, as to think Harry Potter could ever shed a tear for you.”
With these words, Ron brushed past Draco who swayed numbly on his feet for a
long while until something inside him snapped. Turning on his heels, he ran…
legs moving as though by their own will he ran, faster and faster, through the
castle, through the entrance hall and out into the blizzard that obliterated
from view the forbidden forest. He didn’t even notice the tears on his face,
freezing into crystals as the cold hit him, the wheezing of his lungs, urgently
fighting the stinging cold to keep up with their master’s pace as he bounded
through the snowy duvet carpeting the Hogwarts grounds.
Meanwhile, Harry had returned to his dorm where he sat on the bed holding a
pillow tightly. It smelled of Draco. In fact everywhere he turned he could feel
that musky scent of sex wafting up his nostrils, enflaming him with sharp sparks
into his groin… Not love he had told Ron, just addicted, but… when he
thought of Draco’s endearing smile and half-lowered lashes revealing tempting
grey eyes shining with unadulterated adoration, his entire being told him
otherwise.
Addicted, yes. Obsessed, intoxicated, in love… absolutely,
always.
He closed his eyes and let his heart guide his thoughts… Draco looking down,
flushing furiously and giggling with those rare peals of genuine laughter, that
little dimple at the corner of his mouth when he allowed himself to smile, the
way he flicked his hair back callously when it tickled his eyes. Oh Draco, Draco,
Draco! If only Ron could understand!
With a smile, Harry got up to stare through the window at the blizzard outside.
He narrowed his eyes, squinting to double-check, then left the room at a sprint,
jumping down the stairs three by three in sudden chilling dread.
***
Draco pushed further through the knee-deep snow. His lungs burnt brutally with
the evermore-stinging cold, but he still had not slowed down, forcing his body
to battle the elements.
The branding on the exposed shoulder burnt bitterly, but through the haze of his
numbed mind he could no longer feel anything, did not see that he was well into
the forbidden forest, did not notice that the snow he was fighting was now
almost to his waist, until finally the cold claimed him and he sunk to his
knees, drained, almost disappearing into the white powder.
Instinctively, Draco curled into a foetal ball between walls of ice,
uncontrollable shivering as his only futile protection against the storm.
Breathing the wintry air was so asphyxiating that his lungs slowed from
desperate gasps to shallow inhalations.
Slowly his tense muscles loosened, the shivers subsided to stillness. He wanted
to get up, to continue running away but his mind refused to control his
anaesthetized body. Not even his eyes would open, and after a moment’s inner
battle, Draco realised it was less cold… almost cosy in his little igloo… he let
his mind slip away to join the arctic oblivion…
When Harry caught up with him over ten minutes later, Draco was covered by snow,
individual flakes of fluff clinging to his hair.
“Draco!” Harry called to his lover. He was shivering, not having had time to
grab a cloak, and the blue of his lips almost equalled the blond boy’s, yet fear
gave his body the necessary heat to go on.
Harry crouched down in the deep snow.
“Draco!” he cried as he patted the frosty cheeks… ran his own clawed fingers
through hair which was frozen into individual icicles. Stifling a sob, Harry
used all his willpower to pull Draco from his snowy cave.
The frozen beauty slumped lifelessly in his grip and Harry felt his knees giving
way in despair. He removed his own jumper and wrapped it around Draco’s neck,
covering the torn shreds of his robes, then gripping the lighter boy securely,
he started the furious battle back to the castle.
Harry’s tears froze as they fell, showering Draco in a small hailstorm of
anguish. Harry fought through the waist-deep snow, babbling uselessly through
his sobs, telling Draco to hold on. His movements were getting more and more
sluggish and he was forced to clench his fists to stay upright as the wind and
snow bit into his now bare arms, encircled his neck in constricting ice, blinded
him and tried to hinder his progression.
Finally Hogwarts was in view, its outline ominous in the blizzard.
Harry stumbled doggedly onwards, following the already fading tracks of before,
heading towards the entrance doors. He was almost there, arms tightly clutching
his hypothermic lover when the sight before him surged a new frost into his
battered body.
A dark cloaked figure stood motionlessly at the bottom of the stairs, cloaks
billowing around his stern posture, snow settling on his unmistakeable long pale
blond hair.
Taking a final lungful of winding ice, Harry stumbled towards the man, thrusting
the limp body of Draco into his father’s arms with determination before
succumbing to the snowstorm, collapsing into a quivering pile.
Lucius Malfoy surveyed his young enemy, lying in the snow… so easy to turn now,
to take his son and leave Harry Potter to die alone. In fact he had almost made
it to the main door when his eyes fell on the blue wool protecting his son… A
big yellow ‘H’ was visible on the front of the jumper.
Malfoy’s eyes flickered back to the dark haired boy in the snow, taking in his
naked arms, his exposed neck and tear streaked face. Malfoy let a single finger
trail over Draco’s cold face. The skin reacted to the hot touch by an
unconscious wince and Draco mumbled, “Harry!” weakly in his stupor.
Taking a deep breath, Lucius Malfoy entered the entrance hall and called a First
Year student over. “Harry Potter is outside in the snow. Tell a teacher. Be
quick.”
The pupil stared up from Mr Malfoy to the unconscious boy in his arms fearfully
and ran off, leaving Lucius to bear his son to the hospital ward.
***
Harry’s eyes fluttered and for a moment he lay still, barely breathing. He felt
hot, burning… with a gasp he sat up straight, eyes snapping open and instantly
focusing on… -Harry fumbled automatically for his wand- “That won’t be
necessary, Mr. Potter,” Lucius snapped with amusement and Harry immobilised,
gulping.
“You saved Draco’s life,” Lucius stated simply, nodding towards the bed next to
Harry’s, where the young Slytherin lay peacefully under the influence of a
powerful sleeping potion. Colour filled his glowing cheeks.
“He could have died… Hypothermia,” Lucius continued slowly, catching Harry’s
gaze with his own cold blue steel. But Harry has already looked away, gazing at
Draco as though Lucius did not exist. Relief flooded his system and he wanted
nothing more than to take the smaller boy into his arms again.
“I thought I was too late,” he mumbled with a deep breath, quickly closing his
eyes to blank out that awful concept, then remembering Lucius, stared back at
the older wizard once more.
“Harry Potter. I won’t deny I came here with the intent of making sure you would
never corrupt my son again.”
His tone left no doubt as to what he meant and Harry flinched slightly.
“However…” Lucius took a deep breath, trying to speak openly despite the hatred
he held for the boy-who-lived. “…that is no son of mine. You can have
it.”
Harry could see how badly the words stung Lucius, twisting his features darkly
as he controlled his emotions.
“Mr Malfoy. Draco is safe with me,” he answered so simply.
Few words to say so much, but from the small nod, Harry knew Lucius had
understood. Draco was safe, safe… from everything, from Voldemort, from evil,
from Lucius himself.
Lucius quickly sneered to hide the gratitude he felt and stared at his delicate
son for a long time before saying.
“Then this is the last time we meet, Potter,” he lied, knowing that soon they
would have to meet again on the battlefields of Lord Voldemort, although Lucius
would no longer be a threat to Harry.
Lucius turned to leave, a sudden pain flashing across his arrogant features.
“Look after him,” he whispered, voice suspiciously choked, eyes suspiciously
bright, and Harry could do nothing but watch him leave, staring blankly at the
door for a while before turning to Draco with a sad smile. He crept from his bed
and crawled into Draco’s, draping his arm over the small boy, and resting his
eyes until his lover woke up.
***
Ron saw Lucius Malfoy exit the hospital ward. Was that a tear threatening to
escape the Death Eater’s eye? He turned the other way and made sure he was out
of sight before Malfoy saw him. He felt emotionless, empty, all hope of
retrieving Harry savagely torn from him.
His best friend had almost died. Because of him.
Ron trailed away, wishing there to be dungeon he could lock himself into for all
eternity. He never found that dungeon, but remained out of sight for a long
time, blissfully missing Harry and Draco’s grand entrance during dinner; they
entered the great hall hand in hand, walking towards the staff table between the
house tables like a couple down the aisle, stopping only when they reached the
middle, where they halted and kissed passionately, drawing shocked gasps from
students of every house and teachers of every subject.
The moment was broken only the arrival of a huge tawny owl. The letter read
only: “Blessings. Lucius.”
Draco stared at the Malfoy seal with bemusement and Harry laughed in delight.
“I love you, Draco Lucius Malfoy!” he exclaimed happily, loud enough for the
entire hall to hear. He felt an almost painful swelling filling his chest,
pounding for release in every single cell of his entire being. Harry’s grin lit
the room and he spun round and round dizzily, screaming, “I love you, I love
you!” until even the most hardened Slytherins could not suppress happy smiles,
and Draco beamed in pleasure beneath slightly rosy cheeks.
And they lived happily ever after…
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