Poppet

Authors Note: Many thanks to my beta Laurel who helped kick my arse into shape for this chapter! Also, if anyone would like to know about updates and/or new projects you can find me on Facebook or my Yahoo Group (see my profile for details).

Chapter 6 Romancing the Lion

A faint brush of lips brought Harry out of his shallow slumber and he threw his hands up to ward off the midnight intruder.

It was a waste of energy however, because there was no one there.

Assuming it had just been a vivid dream – he had been having a lot of those lately - Harry pulled the covers back up to his chin and snuggled back into his pillow and mattress. He had just begun to feel the creeping tendrils of sleep pull at him once more when the tingling feeling of lips against his own brought him back into a fully alert state. He sat up quickly in shock and instinctively touched his fingers to his lips.

They felt swollen as if he had been snogging for hours and he felt a slight thrill at the possibility that Draco had returned to him. He knew he shouldn’t, it had been three glorious weeks since Harry fought with the petulant boy at the top of the Astronomy tower and since that night he had slept soundly –for him anyway- and not had had any other unexpected sexual occurrences in public or otherwise.

At first he was relieved, figuring he had finally gotten through to the prat and made him understand that he just wasn’t interested. The only problem with that was that he was interested.

He didn’t want to be, Merlin knew it would be far easier if he weren’t but he just couldn’t seem to help himself.

When Malfoy was in the room, Harry’s eyes sought him out at once, when Draco wasn’t there, Harry found himself wishing he were. Ever since their fight in the Astronomy tower, and more importantly, their near kiss, Harry had found himself dreaming of and seeking out the boy he had, up until now, loathed. His thoughts began revolving around Draco as sure as the moon revolved around the Earth. Harry lingered on thoughts of him, memories of him, and worse still, the physical sensations he had experienced at Malfoy’s clever hand.

At the very thought of the petulant blonde, Harry grew warm and fluttery and felt like a silly schoolgirl whenever the boy looked at him. It was disgusting, he knew, and he was reminded of it on a regular basis by Ron, but it made no difference what his logical brain told him because his heart wanted Malfoy, and only Malfoy would do.

A soft feather-like touch ran the length of his torso and Harry gasped. He had the wherewithal to cast a silencing charm just in time, for that same downy caress sought him again, this time running up and down his naked thigh.

His eyelids fluttered shut at the touch. It was like nothing Draco had ever done to him before; gone was the rough penetration and rushed fellatio only to be replaced with these tender, almost loving ministrations. He nearly lost his mind in these new sensations.

With his eyes closed he could imagine Draco pressing firm, yet soft kisses against his skin while his fair and silky mane brushed along the gooseflesh his lips had created. His back arched involuntarily as if trying to get closer to his phantom lover, but he remained wanting, and for the first time Harry wished it was Draco with him then and not some invisible force doing Draco’s bidding.

A guttural moan escaped his lips as the lips turned into a tongue. He could actually see the moist lines around his nipples that trailed down to his groin but stopped just short and left Harry aching for more.

All at once everything ceased; the touches, the kisses and the fond caresses,and the tingle he felt whenever he was under Draco’s spell began to dissipate. He could almost hear Malfoy’s faint chuckle in the air upon releasing his hold on Harry’s body and leaving him cruelly unfulfilled.

He leapt out of bed in a blur of confusion and dressed quickly, skipping his usual morning shower, to hurry down to the common room. “Hermione!” he shouted urgently upon seeing her frizzy hair jutting out above the top of an armchair by the fire.

She turned around, a look of concern clouding her chocolate eyes and set her book aside. “You’re up early. Everything alright, Harry?”

“No, everything is definitely not alright, Mione,” he muttered.

“He’s back isn’t he?” she whispered. Harry had kept her abreast on everything that had happened since he first looked to her for help, and even though she was still researching what it was that Draco could have been doing to him, they had both been under the impression that it was over.

“Yes, and this time it’s worse,” Harry groaned, flopping onto the floor at Hermione’s feet and holding his head between his knees.

“Worse?” she gasped. “What could be worse than… that what he’s already done?” she asked, unable to speak the words out loud.

Harry’s face flushed bright red and he couldn’t meet his friend’s questioning gaze, which seemed to cause her even greater concern. “Harry, what is it?” she demanded in a squeaky panicked voice.

“He didn’t finish,” Harry muttered softly.

“What?” she asked, leaning closer so that she could hear her friend.

“He didn’t finish,” Harry repeated, still finding the rich wooden floorboards fascinating.

“He didn’t –oh,” she replied at last, clearly trying to hide a snicker by coughing into her hand.

Harry scowled up at her with narrowed eyes. “It’s not funny,” he stated firmly.

“No, no of course it’s not, Harry,” she replied, still fighting the urge to laugh. “It’s just that this is a new complaint.”

With a heavy sigh, Harry tugged at his raven locks. “It’s like he knows and he’s toying with me,” he muttered at last.

“Knows what?” she replied, moving to sit on the floor beside her weary friend.

He hesitated for a moment, not sure how to put it, and then finally just sighed. “It’s like he knows that I’m falling in love with him.”

Harry had never seen Hermione’s eyes so wide; not when he helped to rescue her from that troll in first year, not when she first saw Lupin transform, and not even a few weeks before when Ron had finally thoughtfully and romantically asked her to the dance in a way that even he hadn’t expected. “Harry, you can’t mean-“ she began but Harry poured all of his confusion in his eyes as he looked up to meet Hermione’s soft brown ones and she stopped talking.

“I don’t know. It’s the only thing that makes sense though. I dream about him, I think about him all the time… I want him, Hermione,” he groaned at last, ashamed to even be saying it out loud, but at the same time knowing it to be the truth.

“And now you think he’s toying with you?” she asked in a way that reminded Harry why he loved her so much. She skipped right over the painful confession and focused on the heart of the problem -not that it wouldn’t crop back up later- but while it was fresh and open like a wound, she avoided it.

“It was brilliant, Mione,” he mused, and he knew he must have looked like a wistful idiot. “It was gentle and nothing like before, and then it was just over.”

“Maybe his spell faltered, or maybe whatever it is he’s using to do this to you is being used up,” she reasoned. “If it’s a potion, he might only have a limited supply.”

“Maybe,” Harry replied, but he didn’t really think that was the case.

“We’ll figure this out, Harry, I promise,” she told him as she ruffled his hair. “In the meantime, you should go get ready for breakfast. The other students will be waking up soon,” she offered and Harry nodded and got up.

“Thanks, Mione,” he replied and kissed her on the cheek before rushing up the stairs to his dorm, missing the fact that she at once made her way to the portrait hole and left.

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Draco was humming to himself happily as he made his way to breakfast. He liked to arrive early so as to grab up his favorites before there were all pilfered by the other Slytherin’s. He felt good about the day ahead, having already enraptured Harry that morning he looked forward to seeing Harry’s smoldering green gaze staring at him from across the room with the kind of hunger Draco knew he left him with. He was nearly to the entrance doors of the Great Hall when a hex hit him square in the shoulder sending him flying down an adjacent corridor.

He barely had an instant to recover before a binding charm slithered around him and kept him pinned to the floor.

“What the hell are you playing at, Malfoy?” asked a decidedly feminine voice coming from just out of his sight. A moment later a ball of frizzy brunette hair towered over him with a furious scowl and with a wave of her wand she released him from the binding spell.

Draco took his time getting up and made a show of brushing himself off before narrowing his eyes at Hermione. “Is there any particular reason you’ve decided to attack me in the halls like a feral animal, Granger?”

“I know what you’ve been doing to Harry, and I won’t just stand by and let it happen,” she hissed.

“If only I knew what you were referring to, I might be able to help,” Draco replied noncommittally.

“You’ve sunken to a new low, Malfoy. Just give it up before you hurt him,” she growled.

A twinge of guilt washed over him and despite his better sense he asked a question he hadn’t intended to. “Have I hurt him?”

Hermione’s face softened slightly at his question and she shook her head before returning to her previous scowl. “Not yet, but you will if you keep this up.”

“It’s not my intention to harm him,” Draco replied honestly.

“What is your intention, Malfoy?” she asked with a genuinely curious look.

Draco wasn’t one for sentimental mush. It was one thing to tell Harry that he fancied him and another thing altogether to talk about it with a virtual stranger. He certainly wasn’t in the mood to gossip about flowers and feelings with Harry’s best friend so he answered her with something he was fairly certain would get her to storm off in a snit. “My intention is to fuck him, Granger. Multiple times preferably.”

Her face turned Weasley red with a mixture of anger and embarrassment but she did not leave him alone as Draco expected. Clearly her skin was thicker than he thought.

“You’re disgusting, Malfoy,” she spat.

He just shrugged elegantly and smirked at her fury. “Just let it be. I’ll do things in my own time and in my own way, and there is no use for you to worry over it because there is nothing you can do to stop me from winning him over.”

“I don’t know what kind of voodoo you’re using on my friend, but you had best watch yourself, Draco Malfoy, because I’m not going to stop until I smoke you out of your foxhole,” she seethed.

Draco’s eyes widened slightly and Hermione felt an odd sense of triumph at being able to intimidate the boy she had always loathed. But something about his reaction confused her and when she thought on it she quickly realized that his expression had become frightened at the beginning of her threat, not the end of it.

All at once the puzzle pieces clicked together and she gasped slightly from both relief that she had finally figured out Malfoy’s secret and a sense of awe at his unexpected brilliance. She had named it, the very thing he had been trying to keep from the lot of them, and cleverly so.

“That’s it, isn’t it? You’re using voodoo on our Harry,” she whispered emphasizing the word and Draco was fairly certain she didn’t mean to include Draco in that ‘our’.

Draco laughed a harsh, but clearly nervous laugh. “Why would I mess with that tripe when I have a plethora of Dark Magic at my fingertips?” he responded with narrowed eyes and a suddenly closed expression.

“Because it would throw us, and it worked too didn’t it?” she mused. “Here I’ve been researching all kinds of Dark Arts looking for a spell or potion you could be using but I never once suspected that you could be using a doll to control him.”

“I’m not doing anything to your precious Potter, Granger,” he replied and started to walk away. He needed to get away from her before they attracted a crowd.

“Do you have it with you now?” she called after him with a knowing laugh.

Draco ignored her and continued to walk away, picking up his pace so that he could reach Harry before Granger did. If she told Harry what she knew then Draco would lose all the ground he had built over the past several weeks. The fact that Harry’s friend attacked him in the middle of the castle proved that Draco was on the right track and close to a break through.

He dashed quickly up to the Gryffindor tower and paced back and forth, waiting for Harry, or someone that could fetch him, to emerge. He waited nearly ten minutes without seeing a soul so, feeling like he was losing his advantage, he ran back down toward the Great Hall, taking the stairs two at a time.

It only took a minute before he spotted Harry sitting beside Ron and across from the Weaselette. Surrounded by that much red hair Harry would be a beacon even in the dark. After seeing no sign of Hermione he took a deep breath and stalked up to Harry, grabbing him roughly by the elbow and pulling him to his feet.

“We need to talk,” Draco demanded.

“I’m eating, Malfoy,” Harry grumbled.

“Now,” Draco said and started pulling Harry toward the door. All eyes were on the exchange, but Draco didn’t care. He was about to lose precious ground with the man he loved; he felt as though if he were to convince Harry now that he had real feelings for him and that it wasn’t all a game, then it might not matter when he told the Gryffindor how he had managed to manipulate him. He needed to talk to him alone before Granger got to him and it all came crumbling down around him.

Harry hesitated at first but eventually stopped resisting and started following Draco from the room, so Draco loosened his grip on the Gryffindor’s arm.

“You’re too late, Malfoy. I know your game, I know what you’re doing,” Harry remarked lightly.

Draco immediately pulled Harry into the nearest empty classroom and whirled on him, pressing his slight body into the wall and gripping his upper arms tightly in both hands. “So she told you then?” he asked and Harry nodded, his eyes looking like a darkened forest.

“So now I suppose you’re going to claim that you didn’t enjoy it?” Draco muttered, refusing to lighten his grip of Harry’s arms. For the moment Harry seemed content to remain held in his rough embrace, but Draco doubted that his complacency would last.

“I rarely enjoy being manipulated, Malfoy,” Harry replied. It was not the outright denial Draco had been expecting and it gave him a spark of courage he hadn’t known he had.

“I only had the best intentions, Harry,” he replied, and though that might not have been true at the start, it certainly was now.

“You know what they say about the road to hell,” Harry muttered.

“Pardon?” Draco asked, thoroughly confused.

“Nevermind,” he replied with a patronizing smile. “What did you bring me here for anyway?”

“I’m tired of only getting to touch you through a doll. I want to make you scream, Harry, and I want it to be because you feel me, not some ghosting replica of my hands. I want you to be my poppet,” Draco purred against his ear, but Harry shoved him away.

“Sod off, Malfoy. I’m not your doll,” he hissed.

Instead of an argument, which he would surely lose against the wizarding world’s most stubborn, self righteous hero, Draco crashed his lips against Harry’s in a violent kiss, bringing up emotions even the proud Gryffindor couldn’t argue with.

Draco felt the lust rise inside of him as his lips touched Harry’s for real. Never in his wildest fantasies had he imagined Harry tasting so good, like hot apple cider and a hint of vanilla. When he felt the press of the other boy’s tongue against his lips, he knew he had finally succeeded.

Draco one, Harry zero.

In a blur of hands and lips Harry tore at him, like a hormonal woman being offered a bar of chocolate. He kissed Draco back fiercely and ran his fingers through his silken hair. Draco relished the texture of Harry’s fingers, not soft and pristinely manicure like his own, but slightly rough and callused like a warriors hands should be. The feel of Harry plastered against him was the stuff of fantasies, even Harry’s scent-which reminded Draco of flying- was completely intoxicating.

All he knew in that moment was that, consequences be damned, he wanted to stay locked in Harry’s embrace forever.

He pressed back into the Gryffindor, letting his hands wander under Harry’s robes, caressing the smooth flesh he had only been able to dream about. Harry was soft and pliable to his touch, as if he knew he was safe here and dropped all of his shields and all of his walls just for him.

Careful fingers grazed over Harry’s nipples, causing them to stand at instant attention and pulled a soft guttural moan from the Gryffindor’s mouth. Draco smiled against his lips, biting gently on the bottom one while trailing his right hand lower to trace along the top edge of Harry’s trousers.

Harry rutted against him, begging for Draco to press further, touch more and take what he wanted. As his lips broke away from Draco’s to ply wanton kisses along his neck, they grazed the edge of his earlobe and released a low whisper that reverberated right through him.

“Don’t think yourself so victorious,” he warned, making Draco’s mind drift from the heat pooling in his groin to the surprisingly brilliant, clear green eyes now staring at him from an extremely close proximity. “I know exactly what I’m doing,” he added.

“And what’s that?” Draco asked in return, proud that his voice didn’t waver as he had expected it might.

“I’m taking what I want,” Harry whispered, his voice slinking along Draco’s skin like a lover’s caress.

He shuddered against the raven-haired beauty, feeling his desire escalate even more for the bold and direct hero. Draco had fantasized about Harry telling him that he wanted him, maybe even needed him. He tried to clear his mind, tried to push back the salacious cloud that was clinging to every fiber of his being so that he could ask the question that would finally reward him for his due diligence.

“And what do you want?” he asked softly, waiting with baited breath for Harry’s answer.

Without uttering a single word, Harry pressed against him, letting his hands work in covetous movements over Draco’s lithe form until finally he smiled triumphantly and stepped back.

“This,” he said at last, holding up the doll for which Draco had poured all of his passion and vengeance.

His steely gray eyes went wide as he realized he had been tricked away from his prize, ambushed out of not only Harry’s embrace, but also his likeness. He made a mad grab for the doll, but Harry held it easily out of his reach and shook his finger in mock chastisement at the blonde.

“You constantly underestimate me, Malfoy,” Harry told him critically. “It’s the largest gap that hovers between us.”

Draco didn’t know why, but Harry’s words struck him as sounding a bit forlorn over that fact. “And if I wish to close that gap?” he asked suddenly, wondering if it were even possible, or if Harry would ever want it.

The infuriatingly nonchalant Gryffindor merely shrugged lightly and smiled that haunting and crooked grin of his. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. You’re a clever boy after all,” he replied at last, before departing with his stolen doll and leaving a thoroughly unfulfilled, yet hopeful Draco in his wake.

Authors Note: I'm slowly but surely finishing up several of my stories, this one included. I'm also working on some others (a 2 chapter long short story I have finished needs a beta if anyone is interested) and happily updating as often as humanely possible.