Gilded Soul

Ch 2 – Secret Keys & Secret Desires

The same frustrating lock sat cold and unyielding in Draco’s hand. As he mentally cursed himself for not being able to locate the key, out of the corner of his eye he noticed a figure standing beside him with an outstretched hand. The hand was clenched into a tight fist, but when Draco turned to learn the identity of the mysterious person, the fog thickened around him. He looked back to the extended hand, and noticed that it was now open, revealing a large tarnished iron key. He knew it was the one he was searching for. He reached for it…

Draco woke to the sounds of screaming from a bed near his own. Looking over, he saw Theodore Nott clutching his arm in pain and several of his roommates crowded around him. Instinctively, Draco touched the spot on his own arm, where the Dark Mark would soon appear if he couldn’t find a way to avoid it. Preferably without being killed. He could see the glowing mark on Nott’s arm from across the room. With a shudder, Draco attempted to block out the sound of Nott’s screams by leaving the dorm; he knew it would only get worse, and there was nothing Theo could do about it until Voldemort ended the summons. Theo couldn’t leave the castle, so he would just have to deal with it.

Draco could remember the day that Theo had come over showing off his arm and the new tattoo that graced it. At the time he had been impressed, and even slightly envious, but Lucius made it clear he would not allow him to accept the mark until he graduated. Now that his father was in prison, Draco feared that the mark would be forced upon him when he went home for Christmas.

Draco curled into one of the sofas in the common room. There was no telling what time it was in the Slytherin dungeons, but Draco sensed it was still too early to venture out. It hit him suddenly what he had been dreaming of; he’d finally had the key to the lock, but now that he had woken, would the stranger return to him? More importantly, who had the key? Was that what the dream was trying to tell him? That he needed to find the person holding the key? Draco’s mind went numb with confusion. He began to drift into a fitful slumber, filled with Dark Marks and snake-like faces, but no locks, and no keys.

--

Draco wondered how long Harry had been coming out to the lake, and why he hadn’t noticed him before. As he made his way over to the tree where Harry stood the lake, Draco began to wonder what nightmares the Gryffindor Golden Boy had to hide from.

“Malfoy,” Harry said, as Draco got closer, eyes not leaving the lake.

“Potter.” Draco responded, in a cool, even tone.

Harry finally turned around and Draco almost stumbled at the look in those green eyes. Had he been crying? Draco knew better than to ask, but that didn’t stop him from pondering the source of those red-ringed orbs. Without thinking, he reached out an unsteady hand and rested it on Harry’s shoulder.

Harry flinched, but didn’t move away. “Malfoy, you don’t have to…”

Draco only nodded. “I know.”

The two unlikely companions stood there for a moment until Harry spoke, his voice cracking slightly. “I just can’t get away from him…” Malfoy assumed that he meant Voldemort, but dared not interrupt. “He’s plagued me all my life, taken away every single person I have ever cared about, and now there is a prophecy, which means I’m stuck with him until one of us is dead!”

“There’s a prophecy? What does it say?” Draco blurted, unable to hold back

Harry just looked at him, as if seeing Draco for the first time. “What does it matter? I either have to die, or murder him.”

Draco sighed in annoyance. “What exactly did it say? Maybe I can help you figure something out. Malfoy’s are experts when it comes to loopholes.”

Harry smiled at that, but his smile quickly faltered. “Why are you doing all of this? Why are you being friendly?”

Draco rolled his eyes. “I think we’ve already been over this.”

Harry laughed. “You’re serious? You just woke up one morning and decided you wanted to be friends with me? Why?”

Draco sneered. “As I recall, Potter, I tried to make friends with you a long time ago, and you dismissed me.”

Harry gaped. “You actually think insulting my friends and acting superior was the way to make friends?”

Draco sagged in defeat. “I’ve made more mistakes than I care to admit. Do I even get points for trying a different method this time?”

Harry’s smile reached all the way up to his eyes when he responded, “Five points to Slytherin.”

Draco rolled his eye, but smiled nonetheless. “So you’re really supposed to kill Voldemort?”

Harry nodded solemnly. “It appears so, yes.”

“Any idea how you’re going to do that?”

Harry shrugged and turned to start heading back towards the castle. Draco followed and matched Harry’s pace. He searched his mind for a change of subject, but Harry beat him to it. “Did you know the Sorting Hat almost put me in Slytherin?”

Draco looked genuinely shocked. “Really? How does anyone almost get sorted into a house?”

Harry laughed. “I argued with it. I told the hat anywhere but Slytherin.”

Draco frowned. “I made that bad of an impression did I?”

Harry smiled and nudged Draco in the ribs. “Yes, you did.”

Draco walked with Harry through the castle, parting at the entrance to the Great Hall. He turned to watch Harry make his way over to where Ron and Hermione were already sitting. He was about to look away when something else caught his eye. He looked over to find Ron glaring adamantly in his direction. Draco tried not to break stride as he walked to his table, sitting between Blaise and Pansy but it was hard to ignore the look of hatred in those fierce blue eyes.

--

Draco was sitting on the floor of the library, looking at a row of books about the Goblin Wars, when he heard a noise.

“Psst!” Draco flicked his head from side to side in search of the leaky pipe. “Psst… Malfoy.” The whispered voice came from the other side of the shelf. Draco moved a couple of large books aside and revealed the image of a fuzzy haired girl. “Granger? What in Merlin’s name are you doing?”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “I was trying to get your attention!”

Draco looked at her incredulously. “By impersonating a broken faucet?”

Hermione came around to his side of the shelf with her hands on her hips and huffed indignantly. “I’ll have you know, Draco Malfoy, that I had every intention of being nice during this meeting, but now I’m not so sure.”

Draco quirked an eyebrow. “Oh really? And what meeting are we supposed to be having that’s so secret it has to be conducted through a bookcase?”

Hermione blushed slightly. “It’s about Harry. He’s been acting strangely, happy even. I haven’t seen him like this since before Cedric & Sirius’ deaths.”

Draco would have smiled at the thought of Harry being happy because of him, if it weren’t for the other statement. “Sirius Black is dead? And that made Harry sad?”

Hermione groaned in frustration. “You didn’t know that Sirius was Harry’s godfather?”

Draco shrugged elegantly. “I never gave it much thought, but I don’t suppose Black would have been my first choice for Harry’s godfather, no.”

Hermione huffed. “Harry found out he was completely innocent. Sirius offered to take Harry in. He was a good person.”

“The way my mother talks of him, he might as well have been dead for years. What happened to him?”

Hermione stopped then. “You don’t know any of this, do you? What have you and Harry been talking about?”

Draco stood up quickly. “Who says Potter and I talk at all?”

Hermione looked at Draco with a sheepish grin. “I can see you both from my dormitory window.”

Draco sighed and leaned his back against the shelf. “So what was it you wanted?”

Hermione smiled mischievously. “I just want to make sure you’re not up to something. Harry doesn’t need to go falling in love, only to have it yanked away from him like some cruel joke.”

Draco sputtered. “Fall in love? Are you mad, woman?”

Hermione grinned and turned to leave, winking at Draco as she did. “Whatever you say, Malfoy.” And with that she disappeared, leaving Draco wondering what just happened.

--

Potions class that later day was exceedingly awkward. Draco tried to remain friendly with Harry and ignore what Hermione had said earlier, but it was not working. Draco found himself analyzing every little movement Harry made, and every word he said, looking to see if there was any truth in the statement.

He had already run through a full gamut of emotions since the brief attack in the library. The thought first struck him as completely ridiculous; Harry barely liked him as a friend. Then his ego got the better of him and he started to think it was a possibility. I mean, who wouldn’t want to date me? He dismissed that idea as quickly as it had come, knowing full well that he could list hundreds of people who couldn’t stand him. From curiosity to anger, Draco had completely exhausted every avenue on the subject, but still never managed to feel disgusted or repelled by the idea.

This thought was what worried him the most. Try as he might, he could not manage to feel that the idea was wrong. He could hear his Father screaming at him about the responsibilities of a Malfoy, and still he mostly only felt intrigued by the thought. This line of thinking lead to additional worries; was he falling in love with Harry? What if Harry did love him, then what? He was the sole heir to a pureblood line, and even with his current feelings about what the Malfoy name meant, he still couldn’t imagine abandoning it.

Draco slowly stirred the Wolfsbane potion that was currently green in color and smelled of feet, as he thought of a worse problem. What if he fell in love with Harry, but Harry didn’t like him at all? The idea set him in a downward spiral of mental torment, which was apparently noticeable since he suddenly felt Harry’s hand on his own, slowing the speed with which he was stirring the boiling liquid. Draco dropped the spoon and with all the grace he could muster, grabbed his books and exited the potions classroom in a hurry.

--

Draco spent the rest of the day hiding out in the Prefects’ bathroom. He had yelled at Moaning Myrtle over a dozen times to leave him alone, but that just seemed to make her more interested in him. Finally, ignoring her seemed to make her give up and leave to haunt another bathroom.

Draco sat in an empty stall, kicking the door closed over and over, and listening to clanging resonate in the tiled bathroom. He couldn’t recall having ever been so confused. As a Malfoy, he had his life mapped out for him until the day he died. He was meant to finish school, apprentice with his Father in the dark object import business, take over the business and build upon it, then get married, produce an heir, and maybe be allowed to rest in ninety years or so. It was all planned out, and simple, and could be relied upon.

Only now his Father was in prison, and he didn’t even know if the family business still existed. He was almost sure Voldemort had other plans for his career, and he might be gay, which wiped clear the idea of a wife and children. Draco stood and battered his forehead into the door chanting things like, “Stupid git” and “What was I thinking”.

He had finally resolved to leave things be with Harry, not wanting to add further complications to his already complicated life, when he realized that classes would be ending soon. Eventually, someone was bound to wander into the bathroom, so he grabbed his books from the floor and left to seek out a better hiding place.

--

Draco opened the door to the Room of Requirement and could tell instantly that he was not alone. It was the same room, filled with shelves covered in thousands of abandoned magical objects, but it felt different, and was slightly brighter then when he normally arrived. He listened closely for a voice or a movement, anything that would let him know who it was, or where they were. He didn’t have to wait for long, because the intruder made himself visible at once.

“Harry?”

Harry walked forward from the center of the room’s wreckage and stood about ten feet from where Draco was standing. “One might think you were stalking me, with how often you manage to just show up,” Harry said with a heavy amount of sarcasm.

Draco shrugged elegantly. “You never seem to mind.”

Harry blushed but didn’t respond right away. “So, what are you doing here, Malfoy?”

Draco leaned against a nearby bookcase, attempting to look nonchalant, but knocked a knight’s helmet off the shelf. It clattered noisily to the ground, eliciting a wry grin from Harry. Draco, pull yourself together, its just Harry.

Draco flushed; thoroughly embarrassed that he couldn’t seem to keep his cool around the Gryffindor. Draco tugged on his long silver and green tie. “I come here all the time. What are you doing here?”

Harry narrowed his eyes, apparently hesitant to answer. “I was looking for something.”

Draco laughed and gestured at the hundreds of shelves all around. “I think you may have come to the right place.”

Harry smiled. “Yeah, I found a key in here recently that I found useful, and that prompted me to come up and see… What are you gawking at?”

Draco promptly closed his gaping mouth “Nothing. It’s just… a key. You found a key? What did it look like?”

Harry just looked curiously at Draco. “It was iron and clunky and largish, why?”

Draco looked appraisingly at Harry. “No reason. I was just curious.”

Harry dropped it, but Draco could tell that he didn’t believe him for a second. What was happening here? Was the mysterious stranger from his dream last night Harry? If so, how in Merlin’s name did he get there? Were all of his worries based on nothing, and the real connection he felt just part of a dream? Or was the dream just another fragment of their connection? Either way it seemed his earlier resolution to leave Harry alone had flown out the window. He needed to know more about what was happening to him, but the only person he felt could offer that kind of insight would be the person Draco least wanted to discuss it with.

Granger.