All I Ever Wanted

DISCLAIMER: Warning! I make no claim to any property of J.K. Rowling's, and am in no way profiting by this. I do offer her my sincerest thanks for allowing us this garden of the mind in which we play. Further Warning! This story...and likely any I ever write...are dominated by gay themes and characters. That's how it is, if this in any way makes you uncomfortable...do not read further.

All I Ever Wanted" chap. 17 'A Dish Served Cold'


Draco was dressing himself in the hospital ward, straightening his robes and adjusting his tie. He'd have loved to have perfect hair for this, but he didn't have the time.

He mulled over the previous night's events. Crabbe and Goyle did their part, he had the cloak and two student practice wands. They'd been further instructed to pass the word to Blaise and ONLY Blaise that this morning's meeting would go better for him if he were close to an exit.

Snape had come by late last night, pleasantly surprised to find Draco awake, then started into a stern lecture on his having tempted the 'wrath of the gods' by dating Harry.

Draco had patiently waited until it was finished, then politely informed the professor that; this sort of thing would not be happening again, that Harry was his boyfriend now and forever, and that if Snape didn't like it, that was a problem that could only be fixed by correcting his own attitude. Snape took it well, in light of Harry's collapse from Healer's Drain, and he'd actually gotten the cagey old crow to 'turn his head the other way' during this morning's meeting so Draco could work unhindered. He did have to promise not to use any Unforgivables or leave any bodies, but he hadn't intended to anyway.

Lessons only stick to the living. He wanted a revenge that would live in the fear his enemies felt every day for the rest of their lives. Deaths would be a hollow victory for him next to that. It was almost time.

He turned to look at Harry's still pale face and leaned close, "I'll be back, Harry, I'll make you proud of me. I love you." He kissed the cool cheek and lips of his lover and stood up. Draco whisked the Cloak over his shoulders and vanished from sight, the only trace of his departure the seemingly inexplicable opening and closing of the hospital ward doors.

At the entrance to Slytherin's common room, Crabbe and Goyle were waiting nervously. It was less than five minutes until the meeting and no Draco in sight. They shuffled nervously, wondering if something had gone really wrong. Then Draco's head popped out of the air in front of them, smiling in the wicked way they'd come to miss the last couple weeks. It gave them a start, but Draco wasn't wasting any time.

"Right on time. In a few minutes you'll hear a lot going on, but I want you two keep this door spiked shut, and keep chain-casting Locking Spells on it one after another. When ten minutes have gone by, remove the spells. No one gets out until ten minutes are up! Understood?" They nodded.

"Good...seen Snape around?" Two heads shook in unison. "You won't, either...took care of that last night. Last but not least, is Blaise on his way to let me in discreetly?" Goyle gave him a final thumbs up as they heard footsteps approaching. Draco whisked the Cloak over his head again and waited. Blaise Zabini strolled casually down the hallway toward the door. He gave Crabbe and Goyle a silent thumbs up before uttering the password and stepping through into the commons, an unseen passenger following along just behind.

Draco slipped in behind behind Zabini and scanned the room. Blaise was moving toward the dorm's exit, the rest of the room was packed with students, and that insipid, thumb-dicked bastard, Theo Nott, was sitting in Draco's chair! He'd have hexed the smarmy fuck right there...if he hadn't had a bigger point to prove.

Draco moved around the edge of the crowd, finding a spot that offered good aim and a safe wall behind him. Then Nott rose and began the meeting. All heads turned to him, and he looked like he was lapping it up like honey.

"A great day for Slytherin! First order of the day is the absence of Crabbe and Goyle. They clearly show open disloyalty to this house, and everyone in it, by not showing up today as all of you have. I declare open season on them! No punishments will be placed upon those who hex or harass them inside these walls. For my second order of business..."

Draco dropped the Cloak. Zabini yanked Pansy through the dorm exit and slammed it behind him. From his vantage point against the wall, Theo Nott was looking right at Draco when he appeared out of nowhere, not a scratch to be seen on the face they'd ruined the morning before. Theo gaped silently, horrified by the smiling visage against the wall, then others began to look as well and gawk in surprise.

Draco raised his twin wands. "OH I'M SORRY, DID I BREAK YOUR CONCENTRATION?!" Gods, but he loved Muggle cinema.

Nott made a scarcely detectable twitch toward his wand.

Slytherin House descended into chaos.


Outside, in the hall of the dungeon, Crabbe and Goyle wondered what was happening. It had been dead silent over a minute. Then the first screams began. The faint tremor of dozens of feet running, the sizzle of hexes filling the air behind that great stone door.

They started to chain-cast Locking Charms one on top of another. The screams reached a crescendo. Over it all, they heard the voice of Draco Malfoy in full roar.

"YOU ARE ALL MY FUCKING BITCHES!"

Following that outburst another series of hex blasts struck noisily. More screams, more feet running, the sound of children crying, they heard hands pounding on the exit desperately seeking safety. They kept casting the Locking Charms, never breaking pace, one after the other, ignoring the madness that was separated from them by only a foot of weathered stone.

Draco was blocking hexes with one wand, throwing them furiously with the other and walking sideways to stay a moving target. His lips were working frantically to utter hexes and counterspells with the quickness needed to supply two wands with ammo. He cast without discretion or mercy at anyone he'd seen that Monday morning, allowing the youngest and least involved to flee for the dorms.

Some fell quickly, some he stalked like a blood crazed panther and he took them all the more viciously for his effort. In the center of the room was Theodore Nott, bound in writhing snakes that rose from the floor, holding his limbs tight, keeping him safe for last. It was time for another pep talk.

"AND YOU WILL KNOW...MY NAME IS MALFOY...WHEN I LAY...MY...VENGEANCE UPON THEE!" Then he went back to work.

Ten minutes later, all that was left was a room full of groaning, weeping, aching children. Only Draco still stood in the room, eyes blazing like grey storm clouds as he sauntered toward the supine form of Theodore Nott. He pulled Nott's head up by the hair. "I want you to say something for me. Tell me...who runs Slytherin House?"

Nott was stricken with panic. "Draco runs Slytherin House," he murmured in defeat.

"NOW TELL THEM ALL! WHO RUNS SLYTHERIN HOUSE?"

Nott shrieked it out, tears streaming down his face, "DRACO RUNS SLYTHERIN HOUSE!" Then he dropped his face low, all the while begging, "Pleeeeease! Dracodon'tkillme. I...I...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...so sorry!"

"That's a good boy, Nott. I might just forgive you. I just need one little itty bitty thing. Give. Me. My. Fucking. Jewel. You. Little. Shite," he hissed directly into Theo's face with a venom so real that the boy he was holding by the hair wet himself in terror while fumbling with his snake-bound arms to reach his pocket. A second later, he placed the amethyst into Draco's palm and went back to begging for his life.

"Good choice, Theo. You're a smart boy. I've only got a few minutes left before I have to be somewhere, but we'll chat just a bit longer. It's been so long since we spent any time together, hasn't it?" There was a slightly weird gleam in Draco's eyes that belied his gentle tone.

Outside in the hallway Crabbe and Goyle were stripping the last of the Locking Charms from the door when they heard the most horrifying sound. It sounded like a grown man shrieking with every fiber of his being, then it sunk into a low and pitiful wail that spoke volumes of pain and despair...ultimately falling to silence.

They looked at each other and smiled. That just had to be Nott! About a minute later Draco stepped out, looking remarkably calm and pleasant despite the ruckus of only minutes ago.

"Thanks guys. You did great! Pass the word, meeting tomorrow morning before breakfast. Mandatory. I'd stay to celebrate, but I have a date with an angel who's due to wake up sometime today.

In days to come that morning would be a legend. Slytherin students for generations would whisper the story of it in the dark to frighten the first-years. They came to call it "The Malfoy Chain-Hex Massacre." By then it was blown out of all proportion to reality, but legends can be fickle that way.

As it was, the hospital ward was so full of Slytherins that morning, that Madam Pomfrey initially suspected an attack by Death Eaters that had entered through the dungeons. Oddly, the story of the students was uniform. Just an in-house argument gone wrong. So many wands had been used that day that no one could identify who cast exactly what hex.

As the wounded filed through the ward to have their Boil-Hexes, Bat-Bogeys, Jelly-Legs and other curses removed, they each fell under the watchful eye of Draco Malfoy, who sat quietly in a chair by a bed, holding the hand of his sleeping boyfriend, Harry Potter. Perhaps this enhanced their need for privacy about the source of their injuries, but no one that mattered would ever know for sure. Nonetheless, peace returned to to Slytherin House.

In a further bizarre twist, Theodore Nott developed a serious speech impediment so unique that it defied analysts and sorcerers alike. For no explicable reason, he felt compelled to interject statements about the astonishing smallness of his penis into every conversation he had with anyone. Every few sentences into a greeting was broken into by sudden, off the cuff comments like, "...and I'm so poorly hung I couldn't satisfy a lonesome guinea pig..." and similar comments. Eventually he drifted into a life of alchoholism and hermitage, dying young, mourned by none.

That future was far off while Draco sat by Harry's side. Harry finally woke late in the afternoon with a yawn that was almost deafening. The first thing he saw was Draco's face...full of relief and smiling ear to ear. Harry smiled wanly and just gazed into those wonderfully warm grey eyes.

Harry whispered a few words. Draco leaned closer to listen. Harry repeated the whispered words. This time Draco giggled and covered his mouth. "You pig! I have to clean these innocent ears of such filth, and then there's the risk you might slow your recovery! Oh no! You will wait until you're well...and if that bothers you then get as mad as you want...just promise me you'll put that anger to work on me later!"

Ron and Hermione came by after classes were out. Ron looked at Draco with an awed respect after hearing rumors of the Slytherin counter-coup. Hermione chatted with Draco and Harry, slowly making the conversation turn to little things that let her get a feel for Draco, and what she found was amazing.

Ron broke into the middle of the conversation with a quiet gesture that left him blushing and stammering...he handed a box of Honeydukes chocolates to Harry, then another to Draco, with a strangled, "'Cause 'Mione said you both liked 'em." Then he moved behind Hermione's shoulder to hide.

Draco knew an olive branch when he saw one, and he took it happily. He thanked Ron kindly, since Harry could barely speak, and when he tasted the first one, he smiled broadly.

They thought it was just because of the chocolate, but what it was really about...was the sudden realization by Draco that he hadn't hesitated a second before eating the food handed to him by an old rival, and that's where peace has to start, with just a little bit of trust. It really was a bright new day in Slytherin.