Ain’t No Friend of Mine Part 3 of 4
As Potter and Draco worked more and more together on Draco Malfoy's missing persons case, people started to notice. The two biggest headlines in the Prophet these days were, "DRACO MALFOY, DEATH EATER AND MISSING", and "HERO BOY SIDEKICK DOG FIGHT CRIME, SAVE KITTEN". The part about the kitten was completely fabricated. Skeeter obviously needed to work on her material. Potter saved it; Draco was the one who'd chased it up the tree. It was Arabella Figg's fault, actually, for having so many cats.
Potter had been tracking the not-Dementor across the three counties Draco had already tracked it across weeks ago. Potter's trail was cold, but he kept putting pins in the map.
After Draco's friends left without recognizing him, Potter looked thoughtfully at the map.
Helpful, Draco barked.
"Shut it," Potter said. "Sarcasm won't exactly solve anything."
Draco barked again.
"I didn't exactly love him in school." Draco tilted his head in what he hoped conveyed a skeptic dog matter, and Potter conceded, "Okay, I didn't exactly like him either. Fine." Potter threw up his hands. "I never cared less, and sometimes I cared rather more—about seeing his arse beat and bent—"
Draco started barking. Too much information; too much information!
He didn't exactly want to hear all the horrible things Potter thought about him when he actually . . . knew it was him. Of course, if he ever got to be human again and Potter turned into the big, fat lazy toad thing his Animagus form probably was, Draco would delight in telling Potter all the horrible Potter-thoughts he'd ever thought. But the reverse was not on, and anyway it was awkward hearing Potter talking about doing things to Draco's arse, no matter how clinically sadistic, when Draco still thought about humping his leg from time to time.
"Anyway," Potter said, "that doesn't mean he deserves to be . . . I saved his life," Potter huffed. "He's supposed to get old and stupid and rich like his dad. And have long hair, and marry some pure-blood witch, and—and our kids are supposed to go to school together, and hate each other, and . . . it isn't supposed to be like this."
Stop thinking of the way it was supposed to be, Draco wanted to tell Potter often enough. Sometimes he thought that was Potter's whole problem.
All is never well.
"I know," Potter responded, as if he really could read Draco's frustrated expression. "It's just . . . this Dementor. It's not normal. It's something Voldemort . . . made."
Potter touched his scar, and Draco barked.
"This Dementor . . . and me," Potter said quietly.
No, me! Me me me! Draco was yipping, though he wasn't sure why. It wasn't as if he exactly wanted Potter to find out who he was. When it came right down to it, it wasn't just not getting to work on the cases or getting treated differently by Potter that Draco feared.
When he turned human Potter was never, ever going to find out Draco had been his dog.
Draco would just—just never live that down.
Sure, it was possible to pick up and go on after . . . after detention in the Forbidden Forest and falling off your broom in Dementor drag and getting Bat Bogey Hexed and having your dad arrested and getting disemboweled on a bathroom floor . . . but having been a dog. Having licked Harry Potter's face. Just . . . no.
"What?" Potter was asking, trying to understand him.
Draco stopped yipping.
Potter sighed and came over to the map. "Malfoy was last seen here," Potter said, walking over to the map. He stared for a while. "Do you know, that's very close to Little Whinging."
Walking over to Potter, Draco pressed himself up against his leg, bracing for Disapparition.
Potter shot a tight smile down at him. "I guess we have to," he said, and Disapparated them to his childhood neighborhood.
Draco was not allowed inside of Arabella Figg's home. The Dog Brain would not allow him to behave, and Potter left him regretfully on the pavement.
It was the cats, see.
They were driving Draco—well, barking.
That was when he might've—well, just might've chased one up a tree.
When Potter was outside again, kitten duly saved, Draco could finally force the Dog Brain to stop, due to its own need to pant and jump up on and—how utterly humiliating--lick—Harry's face.
Potter "ugh"ed and laughed, teasing Draco about the poor kitty no one cared about any more because this was Potter; he was safe after going into the crazy old bat's house.
"I'm gone for one hour," Potter started, still laughing.
Draco loved to hear him laugh.
And hated that that was true.
He dropped to his feet and barked sharply.
Sobering, Potter said, "She didn't see Malfoy, just the Dementor, or whatever it is." Potter shook his head. "Woman has a knack for not-witnessing, I guess. She also . . . heard it." At Draco's pressing, he said, "Suffer the truth."
Draco clamped his mouth shut and didn't bark any more.
But Potter was musing, not noticing Draco's silence, or if so, ignoring it. "Some of the other cases . . . that pure-blood kid who lost his magic, the former Death Eater who thinks he's a not-so-former Death Eater . . . Suffer the truth?" Potter repeated. "I mean—Black, listen."
Potter was getting an idea and Draco hated that. In fact, he'd discovered why Gryffindors only stated the obvious and tautological. Of course he should have known; the solution had been staring him in the face. Obviously, whenever Gryffindors speculated, drew conjectures, deduced, it ended badly. A Gryffindor idea was a bad idea, and that was pretty much tautological.
“Dementors usually suck out your soul, right?” Potter was saying. “But this isn’t a Dementor, so he can’t do that. We know it changes people, is changing pure-bloods. What if, instead of taking your soul out . . . it changes it? It doesn’t take your self away and leave fear; it changes you into something you fear.”
I’m not afraid of any mangy mutts, stupid! Draco wanted to bark his head off, but for once the Dog Brain was silent, and he could not force his mouth open.
It was because of the possibility in what Potter said. The possibility Draco had never wanted to face, and so could never consider, even though he had had all the information Mrs. Figg had just given Potter. The possibility of the truth.
That what Draco really was, deep down—the truth—was a dog.
Not so much with the slobbering or the squirrel chasing or even the leg humping.
But Draco recalled again the way Snape had been called a lapdog, Lucius Voldemort’s dog—how he had wanted to be each of those men he had so revered, and how each of them had crawled on their bellies for Voldemort.
And Draco had crawled too—crawled for them, for his family, and for himself, his pride, his honor. Voldemort had raised his banner, and Draco had come running. His father had said to jump for the man, and Draco had said, how high?
Draco wanted to howl, but his mouth was still clamped shut.
“You could be changed into anything,” Potter was saying. “That Nott woman Mrs. Malfoy told us about was afraid of being a Squib. That one who found out she was adopted was afraid of not being a pure-blood. That one with amnesia was afraid of being no one, having no family history, nothing to relate to. If you were afraid of heights you could turn into a skyscraper; if you were afraid of going crazy you would . . .” Potter broke off, looking straight at Draco.
No, Draco wanted to howl, because he didn’t want Potter putting the pieces of Draco’s story together. This was the real reason he wouldn’t let Potter know with a couple of well-timed barks that he was human. He didn’t want Potter finding out who he was, what he really was, the truth. Not that his dog was Draco Malfoy, but that Draco Malfoy was—
Suffer it, the not-Dementor had said.
Potter was shrugging it off. "She said something else," he added quietly. "The Muggle-born Martyrs. She saw some of them. Described them to a tee.
“They're the ones controlling the Dementor."
* * *
By the time Draco had officially belonged to Potter for around a week, they had established a sort of routine. Potter woke late and showered in the morning with Draco scratching on his door to go out. Then they went outside to the little copse of trees across the street, Potter jumping from foot to foot to keep warm (because apparently he’d forgotten the power of warming charms because he’d forgotten he was a wizard, God) while Draco did his business.
Then they went in and had breakfast. Initially this had consisted of dog food, until Draco decided to test the Potter-spoiled-people theory, and declined to eat food made for dogs. Acting like a spoiled brat of course had only occasionally worked with Mum and Dad, who had fed him gruel most mornings of early childhood (it worked much better with Dobby). It sort of worked with Potter, who began to worry Draco wasn’t eating properly so finally took Granger’s advice and took him to the vet.
Draco alternately whined and growled the whole time, but it ended up not being so bad. Potter made him wear a collar only for the duration; the shots didn’t hurt much more than a hippogriff ripping him to shreds, thank you very much, and he didn’t have to worry about never ever being a man ever again. “Don’t worry," Potter kept murmuring into Draco’s soft, large ears. “I wouldn’t let them do that to you.
“I won’t let anyone hurt you.
“You’re mine."
Potter loved puppies and unicorns and pretty frolicking butterflies in meadows; God, Potter was a sap, and where was Rita Skeeter to dish to when you needed her? But anyway, the vet said that Draco was being a snob, which Potter, when he got Draco back home, said was a lot of bollocks. Then he muttered on for a while about doctors being stupid and not knowing anything, but this was before Potter started confiding in him, so Draco didn't know anything about what had happened with Potter and St. Mungo’s.
After that Potter fed him beans and toast for breakfast, until Draco decided to test the Potter-was-a-sap-and-would-spoil-him-rotten theory, and refused to eat that, too.
Worriedly, Potter tried everything, eggs and bacon and breakfasts worthy of Hogwarts. He even called Kreacher back from who-knew-where and started getting him to cook. The only thing that really worked was Kreacher’s filet mignon and lemon butter sauce.
That’s when Potter looked down at Draco and said, “I think that vet was right about you. You just want to know how far you can take it, don't you?”
Took it pretty bloody far, Draco thought.
“Don’t you smirk at me like that,” Potter said, but he was smiling.
Draco was ashamed to realize his tail gave a wag, and he was bantering with Potter.
It was all very horrible. Except that Potter didn’t stop with the filet mignon in lemon butter sauce, which Draco guessed made it alright.
In fact, Potter seemed to not only be humoring him, but humoring himself, too. He had Kreacher try more and more exotic foods, and price was no object. Maybe he was trying to call Draco’s bluff and ply him with rich foods until Draco broke down and begged for something plebeian. At any rate, Potter seemed to get a real kick out of eating Wheetabix while Draco had escargot for breakfast.
Which was weird. If Potter’s Muggle relatives had spoiled him so much, seemed like he should be wanting caviar, too. Instead all he seemed to want was something that wanted things, something he could spoil.
After breakfast Potter would Apparate to his office. While Potter was at work, Draco would try to make sense of Potter’s cases, files, and notes. Draco didn’t worry too much about mixing papers up and rearranging them; even crumpling and tearing them seemed just fine by Potter’s . . . system. Draco did worry though about getting slobber on the papers or teeth-marks on the files. He didn’t want Potter to know he was in here and taking particular interest in legal pads with Death Eaters listed on them.
It was around then Draco discovered that nowhere in Grimmauld Place was there a room full of Quidditch trophies and Orders of Merlin. There weren’t even random Witch Weekly spreads Spellotaped about. Grimmauld Place seemed exactly as old Grandmother Black would have wanted it, except for a few Muggle things here and there, and the MUDBLOODS, BLOOD TRAITORS and MANGY MUTTS SULLYING THE NOBLE HOUSE OF BLACK, and such.
Potter would stay away until quite late, although Draco noticed that as the week went on Potter came back earlier and earlier. Maybe he was on a declining schedule until Friday, or maybe it depended on his cases. Maybe he just wanted to come home to stare at Draco blankly and try to think of things to give him—the collar, the special name tag, the flea bath. The escargot.
When Potter got home Draco got to go out again, and then they had supper. After that they sometimes went their separate ways. Usually Draco nosed around the old Black house—there were plenty of interesting things in his cousins’ rooms and the attic, that apparently Potter hadn’t seen any necessity in cleaning up.
Sometimes when Potter went out at night or met with friends. Sometimes he worked on more cases. More often than not, they both sat down and watched the Muggle telly thing.
It was Muggle, so Draco disdained it at first, but the colored lights and music worked very unMuggley. They called to him. They drew him in. They were just like magic.
So beautiful. And sometimes sparkly!
Potter told him not to sit so close to it, because it would ruin his eyes and also because Draco liked to plunk himself down right in front of it and Potter couldn’t see, but Draco couldn’t resist the bright dancing lights. He liked the ones with talking dogs and Julie Andrews best. It was obvious Dame Andrews was not a Muggle; she used a shrinking spell on that carpet bag, and her umbrella was obviously spelled just like a Nimbus. Draco didn’t understand the ones that had plots about Muggle crime and gun things so much. They also tended to be less colorful and didn’t have singing, so he didn’t really care.
Potter seemed to get amusement also from Draco’s fascination with the telly-thing, which was rude if you asked Draco. It wasn't as if anyone had made fun of Potter for not even knowing he was a wizard at first. Anyone but Draco, that was, and anyway that didn’t count.
After the telly Potter would let him out one more time and then they would sleep. Mostly Draco had commandeered Regulus’s room. He seemed the more reasonable of the two cousins.
Not such a bad life. For a dog.
* * *
“When was the last time you let this dog out, Harry, for Merlin’s sake,” was Ginny’s advice.
They were across from Number Twelve in the copse of trees, Potter and Ginny waiting for Draco to do his business.
Potter looked confused. “We’re out right now.”
Draco was beginning to think maybe it was unGryffindor to state things that weren't obvious.
“From what you said, it’s the only time he gets out.”
“I said I let him out three times a day.” Potter looked down at Draco. “You think he needs more?”
“Yes he needs more!” Ginny said, without taking a breath. “He needs to go out. He needs to run around. He needs to chase that squirrel.”
Ginny Weasley was amazing and fascinating, Draco recalled.
Almost as amazing and fascinating as that squirrel.
“He needs exercise?” Potter looked blank. “I guess I hadn’t thought.”
“I don’t know what he needs.” Ginny put her hands on her hips. “Walks around the neighborhood, visits to the park. Some dogs need to herd sheep, I hear; I’m not the dog owner here.”
“Herd sheep?” Potter turned to Draco. “Do you need to herd sheep?”
Possibly. Draco’s palate had developed quite a preference for lamb Tikka Masala, when Potter wasn’t torturing him by saying, “Thought you preferred escargot?” Nasty, slimy things.
But right now what Draco really needed was to chase that squirrel, and he couldn’t, because—because . . .
Right. He did not need to. The Dog Brain needed to. The Dog Brain did not control Draco. He controlled the Dog Brain. The Dog Brain was not him. They were completely different and that not-Dementor was bollocks, because Draco had never felt the need to chase squirrels before becoming canine, thanks.
“Oh,” Potter said. He was watching Draco, head tilted. “Well, Black. You can go on. If you want.”
And Draco was off.
He ran so fast he found he could go utterly new speeds as a dog. His legs naturally, without thought, moved with remarkable force, the hind legs coming up and forward so far they were almost in front of the forelegs, before the forelegs left the ground again and stretched him out so long he thought he might be flying. He raced across the street, after the squirrel who scuttled up a gutter. If he could get around the house—and then he saw another tiny movement, much farther away but also closer to the ground, and he was off again, around the corner of the block.
It was horrible, because he realized he had not made one move toward the squirrel until Potter told him he could.
Of course, that was the Dog Brain too. It wasn’t as if Draco had ever felt the need to obey Potter before becoming canine, either.
But Draco was thinking about it, and what the not-Dementor had said. About what he was, the truth underneath when all the lies were stripped from him.
Snape had used to get called Father’s lapdog, because of the way he was always there with the Malfoys, willing to do what they asked of him, willing to give to them, to make Unbreakable Vows. But Draco had heard Father be called a cur too—Voldemort’s, because even though Father had resented him, resented that he’d come back and spoiled father’s plans of securing Malfoy power, Father had in the end given in. He’d had to follow Voldemort—follow him and obey him, follow him and grovel to him. Snape had done it out of love, Father had done it out of fear, and Draco had had to do the same.
When Draco thought about it like that he wondered if he’d been doing the same even before Voldemort’s second rise to power. He’d always followed Father. He would have given anything to make him happy. He would’ve made an Unbreakable Vow.
He couldn’t ever really remember living for himself.
It was a squirrel, God, obviously it was the Dog Brain, and Potter giving him “permission” to chase it just happened to coincide with the collapse of Draco’s resistance to the canine impulse; that was all. It was annoying and infuriating he couldn't resist the impulse, but it wasn't his fault. The not-Dementor had made him into something different, something he wasn’t before. He wasn’t this; he wasn't just some animal at Potter’s heel until Potter told him to go. This wasn’t him.
Then the little furry creature Draco had been chasing and really wanted to catch and tear to shreds and eat and smell the blood of just now was out of sight and out of scent. Draco turned around to trot back toward Potter.
And stopped.
He had no idea why he was going back to Potter. Of course, eventually, there were Potter’s case files to get to and the not-Dementor to track down, but not now. Not right this moment. Now he was outside and free, and Ginny was right. He hadn’t gotten in nearly enough fresh air or leg time. He didn’t have to go back to Potter. He could take his sweet time.
But the impulse go back was going stronger and stronger, until somehow it felt crippling. It wasn’t a conscious thought, not anything so easily understandable. But it was something like fear, like anxiety, and also something like desire building in his chest, his legs, even up his throat. He heard himself whine as he tried to take yet another step in the opposite direction of Potter. Of home.
It was the Dog Brain; it was what had made Draco follow Potter home in the first place. Dogs sought warmth and security. They needed humans to love them and take care of them and protect them. Draco didn’t need that.
Draco didn’t need anyone.
But the Dog Brain was pushing at him, rising so high inside of him it would carry him, whether he wanted it to or not.
Then he heard Potter yelling, and that sounding like home, too, and Draco had to go back.
“Black!” Potter was shouting. “Where are you? Come! Black!”
And then Draco was running toward him and jumping on him.
God, he hated his life.
Potter didn’t really seem to hate Draco’s, even if he was busy trying to suffocate it out of Draco by wrapping his arms around him while Draco’s paws were on his shoulders. Potter scratched his head and muttered in his ear, “Jesus, boy. Don’t scare me like that. Jesus.”
Draco had been gone for maybe five minutes, and Potter had obviously gone all to pieces. Having Potter get so soppy over a dog was somewhat gratifying. Obviously Potter needed someone, even though Draco didn’t. It was sort of pitiful, really, considering how bad Potter was with people.
It was also somewhat gratifying being wanted like that, being missed like that, ooh, being scratched behind the ears like that—
But of course that was the Dog Brain.
Ginny was running up from behind. “I’m sorry,” she panted, when Draco was back on his feet again, and she was abreast of Potter.
“No.” Potter was looking down at Draco. “It’s not like you said to go tell him to run away right then.”
“I had no idea he’d just run off like that.”
“You were right. If I’d been letting him out more he probably wouldn’t have wanted to.”
Good luck, Draco thought. If he couldn’t control these impulses, at least Potter wasn't going to either. Let’s see you try to resist a squirrel next time you get cursed with mutt mentality.
Potter laughed. “Black doesn’t think so.”
Ginny laughed as well. “A squirrel is a squirrel.”
Speaking quietly, Potter said, “But you like birds.”
Ginny looked away.
“I guess it’s . . .” Potter took a deep breath. “I guess it’s important to be able to run free, if you need to.”
What was really frightening, and Draco was only just beginning to learn, and Ginny had obviously known a while, was that Potter didn’t understand this simple, simple thing.
Ginny turned back, steady. “You should,” she told him firmly.
And it was even more frightening to consider, for a moment, that the reason Potter didn’t understand it was he’d never gotten to be free. And Ginny seemed to think she knew something about that, too. Seemed to imply Potter’s life had been planned from day one . . . seeing as how day one was the day the seventh month died . . .
Draco’d always just thought if you were born a hero you got to do whatever you damn well pleased, and he’d hated Potter for that.
Potter’s voice was still low. “Then you have to be able to let go, I suppose.”
Ginny gave a small smile. She didn’t say anything, but she slipped her hand in Potter’s.
* * *
“Do you ever pet this dog at all?” was Lovebottom’s advice.
He, Loony, and Potter were over at the Weasel-Mudblood’s for a dinner. Since Potter had always had a grudge against Draco and missed casting Sectumsempra, he settled for the next best thing and brought Draco so “the dog could play with the children.”
But things took a turn for the worse when Longbottom started scratching Draco’s belly. It was disgusting and undignified and bloody brilliant. And Draco couldn’t seem to stop his leg from moving in time with Longbottom’s scratches, God.
Longbottom was smiling. “It’s like you don’t get any love at all at home,” he teased. He didn’t bother to turn to Potter to ask his facetious question. “Don’t you ever pet him?”
“Not really,” Potter said, and went on shelling peas for the dinner.
Longbottom went back to scratching after a momentary pause. Draco’s leg went back to moving and that would have been the end of it, had not Draco wandered into the kitchen looking for scraps when the men were in there alone doing dishes. Or Neville was doing dishes, sleeves rolled up and elbow deep in dirty water.
Potter was frowning down at the towel dangling in his hands.
“I’m just saying this because I think maybe we come from the same place,” Neville was saying. “I mean, I didn’t grow up an orphan, but—well, you know how it was.”
“I know how it was,” Potter said quietly.
No, Draco thought. How was it? Against his better judgment, a bark slipped out in his agitation. It wasn’t that he was so agitated to know how Longbottom grew up into the Lovebottom he was now, or anything. It was just . . .
Draco’d thought he’d known everything necessary about the Gryffindorks, but over the last few weeks he’d begun to suspect some things about Harry Potter that didn’t exactly match up with his previous impressions.
“We come from the same place,” Lovebottom had said.
He and Potter had the same birthday.
“Here, boy,” Potter said.
Hoping he hadn’t ruined the possibility of further disclosure, Draco trotted over.
Potter patted him awkwardly on the head.
Simultaneous with a surge of hatred for the Dog Brain, Draco’s tail thumped.
“See?” Lovebottom said. “Dogs like attention. They need it. It’s reassuring to them. They follow you around and want to be by you, feel your warmth, be touched by you.”
Don’t bet on it. Draco glared.
“I had it better,” Lovebottom went on. “I know my Gran loved me. But she didn’t have good ways of showing it, sometimes. People like us . . . we have to learn how.”
Potter was quiet for a moment, looking down at Draco. “That why you got so into plants?” he said finally.
Lovebottom gave a wry smile. “You mean an interest in roots?”
“I meant because you have to . . . care.” Potter made it sound like he was talking about metaphysical Arithmancy, for crying out loud.
Lovebottom shrugged. “I always was a nurturer, even if I never exactly learned by example. It was something I was good at.”
“Yeah,” Potter said dully.
“Look.” Grabbing the towel from Potter, Lovebottom dried his hands, then spelled it to start drying the dishes. “You know we’re you’re friends. We don’t care if—if you’re more reticent after the war. Take a look at me; I’m less so.”
“Yeah. No. Thanks,” Potter said, in his usual articulate fashion. “I just . . . thought some things would be easier. I’m grown up, and he’s dead.”
“Just because you and Ginny didn’t work out, doesn’t mean you can’t—you know, make it. You just have to try, and work at it.”
“Maybe that’s it,” Potter said. “I always wanted a family. I always thought it just meant . . . people who would be there for you. No matter what, and you didn’t have to do anything.”
Draco had been wrong all along. Potter had not been brought up a spoilt brat. He had not been brought up at all.
Not even by wolves. Even wolves knew you had to do things for the pack.
Lovebottom chuckled. “Guess it’s good you’ve got a dog, then.”
Of course, Draco had forgotten wolves were the non-handicapped un-stunted versions of dogs.
Shortly after this very palpable hit to Draco’s dignity, Lovebottom made his excuses to leave, obviously fearing Draco’s retribution. And Draco very, very much wanted to go with him, admittedly, partly to take many more palpable hits in the form of tummy rubbing. But most of all Draco feared being left alone with Potter.
Potter was very fucked up. From what Lovebottom said, and sometimes Potter, Voldemort had done some kind of number on him, more than the ugly scar and numerous attempts to kill him and torture his friends, anyway. He’d done something to Potter’s brain, and Potter’s friends knew it, and they made allowances because of it. Allowances like having to tell Potter that dogs liked to be pet, and loving people took work.
Even a child should know those things.
What Draco feared most of all, really, was feeling sorry for Potter. It seemed like one thing to not care about anyone but yourself because you were selfish, and entirely another because you did not know how. Maybe it was easier for someone like Potter to live and love when death and war were at his doorstep. Maybe adversity’d been a part of him so long he felt bereft now.
As Draco stood there trying to determine how anyone could possibly be so morbid and nonsensical and yet evoke his pity, Potter tentatively reached out to scratch behind Draco’s ears.
Suddenly Draco supposed sympathizing with Potter wasn’t so bad after all.
“It sort of looks like you’re smiling,” Potter said, after a while.
Draco promptly shut his mouth, only just realizing it was open, and he was panting.
Certainly not because Harry Potter was touching him, though. It was just hot in here. In all this fur, God.
And he was certainly not smiling, anyway.
“You’re so contrary,” Potter said, sounding amused. He stopped petting Draco’s ears, but then looked for a moment at Draco and apparently found him doleful, because next Potter sat right down on the floor and began scratching vigorously behind one ear and on Draco’s chest, double-fisted.
That was the first time Draco licked Potter’s face.
Mortifyingly, it would not be the last.
* * *
Loony’s advice was that Draco needed to be in the society of other dogs.
For all Draco’s annoyance at even Ravenclaws, now, resorting to stating the obvious, it was quickly becoming apparent that Potter did need to be told these things. For instance, Potter didn’t appear to know he needed to be in the society of other people, seeing as how he’d lived a crazy, fucked up life and didn’t know how to live a regular one.
In fact, Draco suspected Potter hadn’t moved out of Grimmauld Place because it was still hidden under a locked Fidelius charm, and Potter didn’t want anyone finding him. Not only did Potter not hobnob with people like the Minister for Magic, or Celestina Warbuck, he actively seemed to avoid reporters and his fanatic fans. Some days Draco thought Potter didn’t actually hobnob with anyone at all, that he was even avoiding his fanatic friends.
“Meeting other pet owners is often beneficial,” Loony added. “There’s always an excuse to talk.” Apparently, as well as being up on dogs’ social behavior, she was aware of Potter’s antisocial behavior. She shouldn’t have had a leg to stand on, seeing as how everyone at Hogwarts had avoided her; also, she didn’t seem to realize that as a crazy person she should have sought the society of other crazy people.
In fact, she and Potter should’ve been institutionalized together, seeing as how they were both crazy, and had a sadistic streak a mile wide, which manifested when Potter did try to make him socialize.
First of all, Draco was not a dog. He did not need to interact with canines, thank you—unless it was that Lassie character on the Muggle telly, because she seemed far smarter than Elizabeth Taylor in the movie or Potter or any of these other people who purported to own dogs.
Second, Potter was obviously psychotic and needed help, but it wasn’t as if Draco had ever needed the society of his own kind, even as a human, thank you. He was not a freak like Potter; he had a family he loved and tried to honor. He worked very hard to take care of his friends. In fact, that was what had gotten him into this whole thing in the first place, trying to protect Millie, but it was because he could handle it and they couldn’t; he loved them and they needed taking care of.
And the final and most important reason Draco had absolutely no need to socialize was that he—he wanted to sniff the other dogs’ groins, and that was not on.
The world was obviously evil and terrible and going to end.
Then the bitch down the road went into heat. She was inside her owner’s house, but Draco could still smell her when they took walks, which had become horrible ordeals for him. And then Draco never got to her, and all he could think about was wanting to randomly hump things. The Great And Noble House of Black really didn't afford much relief in that respect, either. Potter's leg really seemed like the only viable option, and if Draco did that, the world really was going to end.
"If you had gotten him neutered," Granger said, speaking exactly as if she wasn't talking about the other other end of the world, "he wouldn't be having this problem."
Potter's friends were over at his house for watching Muggle Quidditch. Thomas and Finnigan claimed they hadn't met Draco yet (huh. If they knew) and they had got to talking about the dog. At Granger's words, Thomas, Finnigan and Weasel were currently making choking sounds over their lager and crisps.
"It's just that girl dog," Potter said, sounding unhappy himself—as if he really had anything to worry about, when it was Draco who was reduced to considering Potter’s leg. "Once she calms back down, he'll be fine."
"Maybe you should let him at her," Finnigan suggested, making lewd gestures.
Potter looked blank.
"Well, Harry," Weasel said. "If you're not going to castrate him—which I wholeheartedly stand by, by the way—"
"It's not castration," Granger interrupted testily.
"Then he's going to have needs," Weasel concluded. "It's cruel to keep him away, isn't it?"
"I'm not exactly keeping him away," Potter said. "They keep her in the house."
"You should just talk to the bitch's owners," Thomas said, reaching for more crisps. "How my sister got her dog. We had these two neighbors, and they would arrange breed dates. Two months later, bam, litter, and they give away the puppies."
"Oh," Potter said. "Do I really need to do all that?"
Finnigan scoffed. "Just because you live the life of a bloody monk—"
Granger interrupted him firmly. "If you're not going to get him neutered—which I still think you should,” she added amidst protest, “then you should give him a chance. It's a biological imperative—not necessary for survival, obviously, but a command of nature.”
“True.” Thomas stretched out. “Everyone needs a good breed date now and then.”
“Speaking of which,” Finnigan began. “Harry.”
“No.”
They saw the look on Potter’s face, and that was the end of that.
When the others had gone Potter was still quiet. Closed off, thoughtful, he did that pacing around thing he did, occasionally stopping to look at Draco, just as he had when he’d first gotten Draco and wanted to get rid of him.
Potter couldn’t be thinking that now. Thinking Draco was too much trouble, with the bitch and the bother and the need to leg hump; Potter couldn’t be thinking he couldn’t put up with Draco and needed to give him away again. He couldn’t, not yet.
Draco had all that research to do in Potter’s case files.
“I guess . . .” Potter finally spoke. “I guess I'll talk to that girl dog’s owners.”
Draco whined.
“Er . . . you want something . . . someone else?”
Draco whined again.
Potter took his glasses off and rubbed an eye with a fist, then put them back on. "I don't know what that means.”
Exactly. You have no possible way of understanding. So stay out of my sex life, Potter, Draco thought, barking once, sharply. Idiot.
His parents were bad enough.
Draco thought of Mum and Dad, how they had always expected him to marry and have a family and carry on the Malfoy name and pure-blood traditions. Even with Dad dead, the imperative was there. Even with Mum not quite right any more. In fact, that increased the pressure; Draco was all there was left, all there would ever be.
Potter looked away. "People are always trying to . . . you know. Set me up. I mean, the papers are always saying, ‘When will Harry Potter settle down?’, but it's not just that, it’s . . . Mrs. Weasley and . . . you heard Seamus and Dean. Most of my friends are married and it’s just . . . it shouldn’t be something other people get to decide.”
Alright. So maybe Potter understood. A little bit.
“I loved Ginny,” Potter was saying. He sat down, his elbows on his knees, looking as if he needed to put his head into his hands. “But I didn’t want it to be complicated—jealousy, keeping the lid on the toilet down, learning how to talk. I didn’t want it to be a biological imperative either. I didn’t care about any of that; I just wanted what I wanted ever since I was—ever since my parents died, I guess, just simple, just a family; I just wanted—I wanted someone who loves me, and cares for me, and I don’t know why it’s so hard—”
It’s because you’re an idiot, Draco was thinking, making everything harder than it is. Also, everyone loves you, you selfish self-absorbed fool. And thirdly, of course you didn’t want anything complicated; your little brain couldn’t handle it. And fourthly—you’re going to have to deal with sex if you want a family, but oh that’s right, your dad died before he could teach you about the birds and the bees. And fifthly—
Draco could go on. He knew he could. But Potter was looking at him, just looking, the words, “I wanted someone to love me” caught on his lips. In his eyes.
And Potter was a selfish self-absorbed fool whom everyone loved, but Draco understood.
His parents had loved him to distraction, his relations, some of his professors, and he’d been popular in Slytherin House. But none of that had been anything to Draco in the face of Potter not wanting to be his friend.
“What does it matter, anyway." Potter lifted his head, stood. "You're just a goddamn dog.”
* * *
By the next day Draco had pretty much forgotten about Harry’s little breakdown. His emotional dysfunction wasn’t nearly as traumatic as Draco’s ferocious need to hump legs and small ottomans had been. They wouldn’t let their issues fester; they would move through them manfully, or dogfully—or anyway, they would ignore them, and hope they went away.
But the next day Potter turned out to be still upset about something or other, which Draco only discovered that night. Potter had come home from work late and unhappy, but Potter was often late and unhappy, and Draco hadn’t had a walk for several nights running. Even though Potter took Draco out so he could do his business, Potter said, “Not tonight, boy,” when Draco hopefully walked a bit in their usual direction to the closest park.
Of course the Dog Brain was very attuned to Potter and made Draco trot right back, but later when they were back inside and he got to thinking about it, Draco resented it. He hovered around Potter, who was at his Muggle computing thing, but Potter was having none of it. After nudging Draco out of the room with his foot, Potter shut the door.
Afterwards, Draco wondered whether it was really the Dog Brain or if it was himself that caused what he did next. Only the Dog Brain wanted to go walking with Potter, naturally. On the other hand, knocking down the hat rack so he could get off Potter’s scarf with his teeth, and then dragging it to the door and scratching at said door—well, it was canine behavior, and yet there’d always been something in Draco that had wanted to defy Potter, make things difficult.
Potter slammed open the door. For a moment he just stared down at Draco with that annoying face of his, with the insane hair, and the disfigured scar. Then he yanked the slobbery scarf out of Draco’s mouth, and said, low and tight, “Leave me the fuck alone, why don’t you; don’t you see I don’t bloody care; I don’t want anyone near me; I DON'T WANT YOU; I NEVER WANTED YOU; GO AWAY!”
And Draco all the sudden remembered why he’d joined the Inquisition Squad.
Potter in fifth year had been exactly like this and it was really annoying.
The Dog Brain, however, hadn’t been inured to Potter’s yelling the way Draco had. Draco tucked his tail between his legs and fled. Once he got downstairs he managed to trip over the hat rack he’d knocked over, which sent him bumping against the wall, which disturbed old Great Aunt Black’s curtains. She started yelling at him, too. Draco hid in the parlor, where her cries were mostly muffled.
Eventually Great Aunt Black stopped yelling and Potter came looking for him. He checked room to room quietly, and Draco stayed hid. Potter’d been angsty and shouty in fifth year, but in sixth year he got much quieter and took to stalking, and that was the year he’d used Sectumsempra to make Draco’s guts spill out.
The truth was you never knew what Potter was going to do.
You particularly didn’t know he’d sit on the floor beside you and spill his own guts out.
Potter had finally found Draco hiding under a large wingback chair, but failed coaxing him to come out. And that was when Potter started talking, there on the floor in the dark. The sound of his low, steady voice eventually convinced the Dog Brain to make Draco slowly crawl out. The words Draco’s human brain parsed, however, should have made him want to run away as far as possible.
Potter told Draco about the Horcruxes first, the secret to Voldemort’s invincibility, the precious key Potter and the two others who knew of it would never share with anyone—anyone not a dog. Draco was stunned at the information and sickened by the knowledge and terrified of the burden of knowing this, of keeping it secret.
Of never, ever making use of it to himself.
Rambling on, disconnected, the confessions of a man who thought no one could hear him or that the one who heard him couldn’t understand, Potter revealed that had been a Horcrux himself.
He spoke of his parents’ death, how his own death had been necessary to bring about Voldemort’s. How Dumbledore had manipulated him into that sacrifice, how he had loved the man, how he had felt betrayed. How Snape had betrayed his own cause to give Potter his, and how Potter had walked willingly into that forest, that darkness, that death.
Draco’s ears perked to hear of what his mother had done in said forest—Mum had never told him that, but it was a fleeting detail in a winding tale, and then came the kicker.
“So that’s how I defeated him,” Potter was saying, “with Malfoy’s wand, and I was alive. That should’ve been the end; everything should have worked out after that. All is well, right?
“But it wasn’t.”
Potter talked about what it was like, knowing Voldemort had lived in your head. Worse yet, knowing you hadn’t even known he was there. Worst of all, knowing you wouldn’t even know now if someone hadn’t told you. Perhaps Voldemort really had made little impact on Potter. Or perhaps since Potter had always had him, he couldn’t know what not having Voldemort in his head might have been like. Worst again, Potter said, perhaps he was just enough like Voldemort that Voldemort not being there made no difference to who Potter was.
“He was like me, you know,” Potter went on. “Voldemort. He tried to tell me, only I wouldn’t listen.”
Then Draco learned for the first time that Tom Riddle had been a Half-blood, found out all about just how like him Harry was, and how different they both had ever been from Draco.
“I didn’t grow up in an orphanage,” Potter said, “but I really can’t imagine the Dursleys was that much better.”
He told Draco about Dudley, Vernon and Petunia, and with the way he spoke, low and hoarse and almost as surprised at his own words as Draco was, Draco gathered Potter had never spoken these things before.
It was because of the Dog Brain, and Potter sitting so still, his voice so hoarse and low, that by then Draco had crept closer.
“Voldemort was like that, you know. Just another kid, without any parents, anyone to take care of him. Dumbledore said I was different, because I can—I can love. I do.” Potter’s hand reached for Draco, tentatively at first, but then his hand went deep in Draco’s fur, as if assuring himself the warm, living body was there, close. “Of course I do,” he went on.
“If I had to die to save Hermione right now, right this moment, I would. In a heartbeat; I wouldn’t have to think. I could do it for Ginny, any of the Weasleys; I would die and I wouldn’t blink, because I love them. But they don’t need me to do that any more. They don’t need me to die or fight or run for my life or save them from anyone any more, and I don’t know what they need. Those are the only things I’m good at.”
Draco put his head in Potter's lap—jaw on Potter's thigh—and Potter’s hand moved from clutching Draco’s neck deep in the fur to scratching behind his ears.
Just right, just the way Draco liked it.
Potter was good at this.
Then Potter was telling him how he’d tried to be an Auror, and failed. It wasn’t that he wasn’t good enough. He was too good, at least at the part where he caught criminals and made them pay for their crimes. He couldn’t stop himself—it wasn’t Avada Kedavra, never that, but once he’d started using the other two Unforgivables during the war, they got to be so natural. “I was out of control,” Potter was saying. “Everything was supposed to be better, done, over, and here was all this ugliness . . . Even now, sometimes, I can’t stop it. When I found out what the Capulets were doing, I was so angry, and then I saw you and you were helpless, just a helpless animal and I . . .”
Potter’s hand slipped down Draco’s body to his belly, to the scar. You’re a raving loon who can’t control violent impulses? Draco finished for him, feeling the Sectumsempra in Potter’s tracing finger. And yet, Draco didn’t start away, and Potter did basically admit to being raving in the next breath, both of which sort of took the fun out of Draco’s sting.
After quitting the Aurors, Potter had gone to St. Mungo’s. He thought he must still have some Voldemort in him, something wrong. But the healers kept telling him it was psychological, it was post traumatic stress, it was nothing. “But I left him there,” Potter was saying. “I left him there, in my head, at King’s Cross,” Potter wasn't making any sense, “I left him crying, alone, in pain, just left him under the chair, just the way the Dursleys left me, locked under the stairs . . . So he must still be there. Even if he isn't . . . it’s just what he would do, leave something there, alone, just because it was weak, because he could ignore it, because it was in pain . . .”
Draco didn’t know exactly what Potter was saying. All he knew was he should be running away, and instead at some point he’d climbed all the way into Potter’s lap. It was all the Dog Brain, but the human part of Draco, while not exactly eager to drape on Potter’s thighs or anything, couldn’t hate Potter any more, couldn’t even resent him. With all his might, Draco tried to conjure up the hatred of years of stings and insults, being enemies in a war, suffering at Potter’s hands had caused.
But now there was only dull understanding, a kind of pity, and an incredulous disbelief that the only person who could've saved them all, had to have been this fucked. The one who defeated Voldemort had to have been exactly the damaged person Potter was, or else Dumbledore’s gambit never would’ve played out.
“They say,” Potter was saying, “Hermione, Ginny, even Neville—they say I should try. When you showed up, came home with me, they said—they said I could start small, and I started to believe them. It should be easy, being with a dog, way easier than another person. And maybe it is, but—but what does it say about me, if the only one I can say these things to is a dog? And you, too. I yelled at you earlier, but I wanted to do worse. I wanted to hurt you; I wanted to—I wanted to do things to you, because you’re just a dog, because you’re not enough, because I want something—someone more, but I can’t even take care of you, not like a human being should, and—”
Draco licked Potter’s face again.
That was the Dog Brain, too, though—if Potter had been normal at all, he would’ve tasted like tears and Draco’s canine body merely craved that, the taste of skin with a sting of salt. But Potter didn’t taste like tears, because he wasn’t crying. He couldn’t have a normal breakdown like a normal person, obviously.
Maybe that was why he’d looked at Draco so oddly in the bathroom before the Sectumsempra.
“It’s easy for you,” Potter was saying. “For you it’s always like it was for me during the war and at Hogwarts. Life is simple, you love unconditionally, and the way you do that is protecting people you care about. Love is so easy for you, so easy to ask for and receive. You’re a dog.”
Potter kept petting him after that, and Draco was enjoying the feel of it, but that was probably the only thing in good conscience Draco could blame on his canine-ness.
The other things Potter was talking about, they were true.
But not because Draco was a dog.
Love had always been given and received by him; the things he did he did for family. Most of his friends he’d made before the age of five, the pure-blooded and the rich. However, after they’d learned his faults—that he was bossy often, crazy sometimes, obsessive always, and he theirs—that Vince was chronically obese and Greg chronically not much smarter than a post, that Pansy had less self respect than she should and Millie might be part goblin—he couldn’t stop loving them. He couldn’t stop any less than he could stop loving Mum, who clung too much and crippled his independence, and Dad who was always disappointed.
Draco saw now that his animosity towards Potter had often been jealousy, but that it is Potter who would be jealous of him, had he known the kind of love Draco received and gave so easily.
Somehow, the thought of Potter being jealous of him didn’t afford the kind of satisfaction it once might have. This was—this was different, and now that he saw things this way, he couldn’t stop and go back to seeing them the old way. He couldn’t stop.
It was easy, so easy to love and show it and get it back in some form or other.
The only difficult part in all of it was stopping.
Eventually, Potter stopped petting him. He yawned and went upstairs to bed.
Draco was left alone.
* * *