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Chapter 38: Motives
xxx
Ron was not the quickest of thinkers, but when a particular suspicion occurred to him – and repeatedly popped into his head when he was least expecting its presence, resulting in the most interesting expressions springing into life – even he could no longer ignore the unwelcome thoughts.
Currently, he was sat with Harry and Hermione at the Gryffindor breakfast table. While the rest of his housemates exuded a sense of relief to see their Trio talking again, Harry was tenser than ever. Once again, he was worried about Remus, who'd been called away in the middle of the night and had yet to return or be heard from. The boy stared morosely at his food, glaring at a dry piece of toast and poking at his bowl of soggy cornflakes.
From the corner of his eye, Ron saw the Slytherin breeze into the room. He scowled, unable to rid himself of the automatic resentment that filled him, but his attention stayed on Harry. Green eyes blinked themselves into awareness, slowly flicking up to settle on the blonde, following him as he crossed the Hall.
The Suspicion pounded away in Ron's mind, but he shoved it violently aside, shaking his head.
Around them, a dozen conversations that would normally be considered riveting were taking place. Hermione and Ginny were talking about the DA meetings – what was coming up, what they'd already covered, what an improvement it was over Snape as a DADA Professor. Katie was telling anyone who would listen about the Quidditch matches that were scheduled for the rest of that year, the strategies they'd use, and the plans she had to incorporate Harry's Seeker skills. And across from them, Seamus was leading a conversation on the usually fascinating topic of, quite simply, girls. Beneath the table, he passed around a magazine containing Merlin only knew what kind of brilliant pictures...
And throughout it all, Harry's attention never strayed from the bloody Slytherin. Ron twitched with pure frustration.
The Suspicion reared in him, and he found himself turning to Hermione with an expression of mild panic.
She was waiting for him, it seemed. Calmly, momentarily breaking away from her conversation with Ginny, she looked at him inquisitively. "Ron, you have finished Professor Snape's essay, haven't you? It's due in today, you know."
His eyes went wide. Essay...? What essay? Why hadn't she told him before now?
He vaguely recalled being given some long winded title he hadn't been able to make heads nor tails of, and instructed that he was to write a full roll of parchment on the subject. Shit! Snape would give him detention for a month if he didn't have something to show, not to mention the amount of points he'd take...!
"Gotta go."
Hermione watched with a sense of satisfaction as the redheaded wizard rushed off, presumably to make some last-ditch attempt at his homework. She'd seen the frown that had slowly gathered on his face, and known what it meant.
Leaning across, she poked Harry sharply in the ribs, making him jump and recoil. "Stop being so obvious!" she hissed at him, and had turned away before his look of incredulity had even been fully realised.
xxx
The day dragged on forever, until by the end of it Harry felt exhausted. Not from class work – which he'd tuned out for the most part – but from worry. Remus had said he probably wouldn't be away for the whole night, and certainly not this late into the day. He still couldn't believe this was happening again...
It had been great timing that he and Ron had made up the previous evening. He suspected he would have lost his temper entirely if the other boy had continued his sulking any longer, the mood he was in. As it was, both Ron and Hermione had come through for him, offering what useless comfort they could.
But, just as he'd suspected last time, being in their presence only made it worse. They might like the adult werewolf well enough, but neither would be devastated in the same way as Harry if he didn't come back. They didn't know what to say, afraid of acting too normal or too happy in case he took it as insensitivity.
Which had led him here.
"Hello, Lilith."
The portrait immediately lit up, giving him a smile that showed far too many teeth. Harry hid a flinch. It wasn't something he'd readily admit to, but he suspected that, had he ever known the Sorceress in real life, she'd have scared the hell out of him.
"You didn't drop by last night," she pointed out, with a pout of discontent. She'd grown accustomed to his presence, at least for a minute or two, each evening of late.
"Er, yeah... Had some things to sort out."
She stared at him expectantly, watching him shift from foot to foot, coughing uncomfortably.
"So... can you let me in?" he asked finally.
She sighed and swung forward, not even bothering to mention the existence of a password anymore. It was only Draco she demanded it of, occasionally changing it without his knowledge just to amuse herself.
Harry stepped past her, knocking out of politeness on the door frame to give the Slytherin fair warning he was coming. "Draco?"
The boy was sat on the couch, the table pulled towards him with rolls of parchment spread across it, quill in hand and hovering over whatever essay he was halfway through writing. He looked up dazedly at the interruption, grey eyes blinking a few times before focusing properly on the other.
He sat back then and stretched, eyeing Harry. "So is the Golden Trio back to its former glory?"
The Gryffindor raised an unimpressed eyebrow and moved to take a seat, propping one foot up on the table edge, purposely to annoy the blonde. "You don't have to sound so unhappy about it."
Glaring, Draco elbowed him until he removed the offending foot. "Well I'm hardly ecstatic," he snapped. "God, you're an idiot, Potter –"
"What happened to 'Harry'?"
"I'm bloody well annoyed with you! It's remaining 'Potter' until further notice!"
The Gryffindor rolled his eyes and settled in for the inevitable rant.
Sure enough, the Slytherin tossed down the quill and turned on him, arms folded. "I can't believe all Weasley has to do is mutter some half-arsed apology and you'll take him back like nothing happened. Merlin, if he were in Slytherin..." With malicious satisfaction, Draco thought about exactly how the redheaded wizard would be taught to respect his betters. "Did you just forget how he's acted this past week?"
Harry looked back at him pointedly. "Yes, actually, I have. Same way I've forgotten everything you've ever done to me in the past five years." He smiled wryly. "It's a talent of mine."
The blonde stopped midsentence, looking put out. He narrowed his eyes. "Is there something you wanted?"
Harry briefly considered what it said about himself that this was the treatment he found comforting in times of stress. He'd never thought he'd live to see the day when arguing with Draco was so thoroughly therapeutic and... welcome.
"Since when do I need a reason to be here?"
The blonde looked unimpressed. "Once, you did," he pointed out dryly, realising it wasn't at all long ago that they would have avoided each other's company at all costs.
Harry smiled, and suddenly he was a lot closer. Draco schooled his expression blank, trying not to smirk. Oh, this should be amusing. Potter clumsily trying to hit on him, still awkward in the first stages of... whatever this was. He wasn't willing to say 'relationship' yet. It was enough that he'd added a 'yet' to the end of that thought at all...
Calmly, he raised an eyebrow, tilting his head away teasingly. "Besides, aren't you supposed to be fretting away over Lupin right now?" It sounded insensitive, but he knew the Gryffindor would take it as intended – his coded version of Are you alright? "How spectacularly callous of you, Harry."
Green eyes darkened for a moment, then regained their spark. "Yeah, well, you're a good distraction..." And that, Draco knew, was an equally coded version of I don't want to talk about it.
Well, he could do that. Talking would hardly be a priority...
Acting with far more confidence than the Gryffindor, bypassing the teenage hormones that sought to make him nervous or too eager and instead falling back on the wolf's clear-cut instincts, Draco leaned forward and kissed the other boy solidly on the mouth, holding him in place with one hand at the back of his neck, fingers tangled in the black strands.
He pulled back after a few moments, observing with satisfaction the stunned expression he'd caused. "Distracted yet?"
Wide eyed, with a vaguely surprised grin, Harry nodded. "...Getting there," he admitted. Then, as if realising what they were doing, he looked down as colour flooded his cheeks. "This is... really weird."
The Slytherin rolled his eyes. "Well, duh..." he muttered. "What did you expect? That we'd just slip into some easy little arrangement?" He hid his own discomfort by injecting perhaps more sarcasm than necessary into the demand.
"No, I didn't expect that..." He continued to stare downwards, watching Draco's long fingers fiddle absently with his Gryffindor tie. Ironic, he thought, that now it was the other boy who seemed more comfortable with this, even though Draco had fought far harder against it.
Meanwhile, the blonde stared at him intently, frowning. At the mere flicker of hesitancy from Harry, he'd felt his stomach go cold. Could he do this? Was it worth the risk to himself even trying...? If he let himself get used to this – used to the idea that maybe, maybe they could do this and it could work – and then something went wrong...
What if people found out? Would either of them be willing to suffer the inevitable publicity and controversy that followed? Could he bear to drop another bombshell on his mother, who had already been gracious enough to forgive him the shame of being a werewolf...?
What if Potter wasn't as serious as he claimed? Surely, he couldn't be. Just like Draco, he hadn't done this before. He didn't know what it involved. He didn't know what he was getting into. To him, this was an experiment. Maybe he was gay, maybe not – this was a convenient way of finding out.
And even if he did intend, in his Gryffindor nobility, to see this through, out of curiosity or something more, he had no idea of the full extent of Draco's expectations. And Draco couldn't help it. He had no choice but to consider what he was getting himself into more seriously than he'd ever considered anything.
It was stupid, what he was doing. Trying to satisfy the craving in him, but only succeeding in this... this half-experience that could never last. He didn't delude himself it could last. This was Harry Potter, destined for glory in the world of Light, the wizarding hero and martyr of their time, who would no doubt marry some pretty little respectable girl and produce three or four brats of his own. That rose-tinted future certainly didn't include his bit on the side in the form of a Dark, male wizard and werewolf.
Shaking his head, Draco began to disentangle himself from the other boy, suddenly longing for distance.
"Don't," Harry said automatically, and the blonde froze despite himself.
And that was another sign that not everything was quite right, wasn't it? The compulsions. They still worked, even though Draco had given in to what the wolf wanted; given in and confessed that, yes, he actually wanted his mate.
The Gryffindor sighed. "...Sorry," he murmured, when he realised what he'd done. "I'm trying..."
"I know," the blonde responded quietly, but wasn't at all sure if he believed that or not.
Still, now was hardly the time to get into an argument over it. Every time he glanced at the other boy, he could see the shadows of worry and stress behind green eyes, and Draco knew he couldn't add to them, no matter how frustrated he felt. He could be selfless. Sometimes.
Putting his own feelings aside, he affected a smirk. "Yeah, well, practice makes perfect," he commented. "Keep trying, Potter."
Harry finally raised his eyes, amused, just in time to find himself with an armful of blonde distraction.
xxx
He spent the day and late evening in the Slytherin's room. Eventually, Draco got around to finishing whatever homework he'd previously been writing, and Harry watched him do it in thoughtful silence.
They had kissed and tentatively groped for the better part of an hour, and to his slight mortification, Harry could still see the evidence in the form of his own bite mark, dark against the Slytherin's pale throat. He blushed to look at it, but couldn't help grinning.
But while he might have been content with the vaguely embarrassed sense of happiness, nothing he did was settling his thoughts. As the hours went by, his mind only became more and more troubled.
At first, he had thought solely of Remus, frantically questioning whether the man was okay, whether he was coming back or not, and what new horror he'd bring back with him if he did.
Then, as he continued to watch his Slytherin companion, thoughts had merged to create new worries.
Remus had always said that werewolves mated for life. And from what Harry had gathered, there was only ever one person in the world that could fill the position of 'mate'. There was no choice in that person, and no guarantee that a wolf would ever even find that person. But when and if they did, Remus had said, there was no one else that would do.
So what the hell was Draco doing with him, when he must know he had a real mate out there somewhere...?
Harry didn't feel up to contemplating Draco's motives, however, so pushed the thoughts from his head.
Sometime around curfew, he noticed the Slytherin starting to doze and shook his head in exasperation. Merlin, but Draco got tired ridiculously early. He really had to start teasing him about that...
And so, it wasn't long before he found himself staring resignedly into space, Draco slumped against his side, head resting on his shoulder. Even Vanima was curled up near the fireplace, fast asleep and of no entertainment value to him.
He stretched, trying to ease the kink from his back without disturbing the dozing blonde. Almost immediately, he felt something jab into his side and sighed with frustration. Annoyed, he twisted an arm behind himself and groped around until he found the offending object. Grasping it, he tugged, and found himself hauling a heavy book out from where it had been shoved and lost under the couch cushions.
Intrigued, he eyed it curiously. Why had Draco left it here, instead of on the bookshelf in his bedroom...?
Setting it down on the armrest of the couch, he examined the cover. It was a book on werewolves, he realised quickly. That made sense. Remus had probably given it to him so that he could study the curse and learn what he was in for.
Idly flipping it open, he ran his fingers over the pages, tracing the words of the introduction. Bored, he figured he had nothing better to do than read the thing, considering Draco was out for the count while he remained wide awake.
Flicking further on, he suddenly noticed that quite a few pages had been marked. Turning to one of them at random, he scanned the chapter title, raised an eyebrow, and started to read.