Two Sides of the Same Coin(DRARRY)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

He had thought that Malfoy had liked it. From the sighs and the soft desperation of the want that Harry had tasted on Malfoy's mouth, from the way Malfoy had been pulling Harry into his body as hard as Harry had been pushing, Harry had thought Malfoy had wanted every bit of it as much as Harry did.

But that conviction had shattered the moment Harry had felt his back hit the other side of the doorframe and dank dungeon air brush across his skin where Malfoy should have been, when his eyes had cleared and he'd seen the look of horror on Malfoy's features, the angle of Malfoy's face aimed down and away.

In bed, Harry's stomach turned. Nausea had set in sometime during the frantic hour he'd spent alone in the Potions cupboard and had yet to be dispelled. Had that kiss – that eyelid fluttering, pulse quickening, skin simmering, finger grappling kiss which had seemed so eagerly consensual – had that disgusted Malfoy? Had Harry somehow become so overwhelmed with desire that he'd forced himself on Malfoy and deluded himself that Malfoy wanted it too?

The most logical, obvious answer was yes, because in a logical world Malfoy would never consent to, much less enjoy, snogging Harry Potter. But from the moment Hagrid had broken down the door of Uncle Vernon's shack on the rock, Harry had never felt this to be the most logical of worlds.

Besides – there was the panic. The panic that had caused the granite stones of Malfoy's eyes to shatter into a cascading avalanche of gravel. Panic was something altogether different from disgust.

Panic, Harry could fix.

He turned over and thrashed, feeling both hot and cold, trapped and exposed, comfort nowhere.

"Gah," he groaned in annoyance, and sat up suddenly in agitated frustration. He couldn't just lie there, tossing and turning and doing nothing.

An idea struck him. He slid out of bed and made his way quietly to his trunk, extracting a single worn piece of blank parchment, then situated himself cross-legged back on top of his tangled sheets. He pressed the tip of his wand to the parchment and whispered, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

The parchment came to life in a twisting mess of black ink that arranged itself into rooms and corridors and, most importantly – names.

As he had done thousands of times since the map came into his possession, Harry sought out Draco Malfoy's name. It took him several minutes as there were hundreds of names on the map, seven floors to sift through, and Malfoy was not where he ought to be, but eventually Harry stabbed his finger at a dot pacing the Astronomy Tower and murmured, "There."

His heart began to pound and his extended finger shook slightly as his body realized what he was about to do before his mind had time to catch up.

He didn't pause to think. He leapt out of bed, haphazardly slipping his feet into his slippers and hopping clumsily in his haste, and dashed for the Portrait Hole.

Harry had never considered himself a particularly brave person. Yes, he had escaped life-threatening situations. Yes, he had often run headfirst into said situations. But it was always out of a sense of obligation or even, if you thought about it as he did, cowardice – fear of losing what he had wished all his childhood to possess, and more. He thought the word courage sounded far too noble to be applied to him, much less synonymous as so many of his fans had made it. Hermione had said courage was doing what was right in spite of fear. Maybe that was true, but Harry thought that if he had any courage at all, his brand would be better defined as doing what was right simply because of fear. Most times, he hadn't even had time to contemplate acting or not acting. Adrenaline had kicked in and there were only two choices: act or lose. And again, Harry felt that this decision – the decision to act – was merely another manifestation of his innate cowardice – he feared death and he feared loss, so the choice was really no choice at all.