Distorted Exposure

Disclaimer: I don't own anything you may recognize. Everything belongs to the wonderful JKRowling and others. I am making no profit from this. To put it plainly: don't sue.

AN:Sorry for the wait. Thanks for the reviews, but more on that later.

-------------------------------------

The silence was deafening, and long after the words had ceased to sound, they reverberated in Harry’s mind, taking several long moments to seep in. Everyone’s eyes were on Malfoy and he didn’t seem to care in the least, the look he wore was so cold and uncaring and it made Harry want to simply tear the mask away.

Every bit of rage he had ever felt towards Malfoy came flooding back and Harry considered it a miracle that he didn’t just jump the prick and beat him to a pulp on the spot. After all the years he had spent struggling against Voldemort, after all the people he had lost, to think that Malfoy had the nerve to toss about such words in such a pathetic manner made his blood boil in anger.

Harry stood up, not sure of what to do, he felt more than saw, everyone’s eyes turn to him. He was almost positive of the pitying look he would see in Alex’s eyes if he were to look, or even the anger that he knew Ren’s expression would show. But his gaze was fixed on Malfoy, on the condescending, self-satisfied smirk he wore as he watched Harry, clearly thinking he had won.

The anger seething just below the surface reached its peek as he continued to watch Malfoy, the hatred from years of torment fuelling the rage that swelled up in him. It wasn’t that Harry was self-conscious about his heritage, he had had enough jibes at his magical background to be numbed to such clichéd insults. No, it was the fact that Malfoy dared to use something so taboo, so frowned upon simply because he could. The careless throw away manner in which he fell back upon his teachings made Harry feel as though nothing had changed from when they were in school, and that was a feeling he didn’t appreciate.

If things were to work out at all he had to Malfoy in his place before the arrogant blond thought he had the upper hand, because if that thought ever entered his mind, Harry knew he would be beyond insufferable.

Harry hands were clenched at his sides as he strode up to Malfoy, punching him out felt like the best approach but Harry knew that calling Malfoy out would work the best. Still that didn’t mean he couldn’t get a little rough about it.

Not stopping his advance until he was nearly shoved up against Malfoy, Harry grabbed the material of his jacket with both hands, and pulled the bland in so that he was pressed flush up against him, making the scant difference in height between them noticeable. Harry was surprised at how easily Malfoy fell into the pressure but he attributed it to shock and took it to his advantage.

Making sure he matched his eyes with Malfoy’s startled and oddly discomforted gaze Harry spoke, his voice low and deadly and oddly husky.

“Haven’t you learned your lesson yet, Malfoy? Are you thick or do you act that way on purpose?” Harry paused for a moment, feeling Malfoy’s breath with uncomfortable sensitivity against his own skin, but he didn’t give in, he was enjoying how unnerved he made Malfoy was far too much to notice how nervous he felt himself. “Does it make you feel filthy to be so close to me, to have me touch you, to have to touch me?”

The statement left an odd taste in Harry mouth but he pushed himself closer to Malfoy all the same, feeling the corded, tensed muscles beneath his clothes and the heat of his body as he did. For a moment Malfoy was still, his breathing forcibly controlled, adverse to how harshly Harry was panting in his barely controlled rage. The next second he felt the weight beneath him shift and the warmth of Malfoy’s body disappeared, throwing him off balance for a moment, long enough that Malfoy was able to grab Harry by the shirt and toss him unkindly to the ground.

Harry lay on the ground dazed, unsure of whether or not it was the sudden change of position or the fall that had disoriented him more. Either way he was in no condition to think rationally when Malfoy knelt down next to him, pulling him up by the material of his shirt. The only compressible thought his mind formed was to punch the living daylights out of the ex-Slytherin.

The throbbing of one shoulder which had been unfortunate enough to bang against a table was enough to convince him of the validity of the idea. But as he clenched his fist, ready to give Malfoy a good beating a hand closed around his wrist, squeezing it painfully to the point of making Harry gasp in pain. Before he could respond Malfoy was in his face, his silver eyes flaring in anger to match the rage that was coursing through Harry.

“Don’t ever do that again Potter.” All thoughts flooded his mind as he realized the proximity of Malfoy and for a moment the only coherent thought that he could form left him wondering whether he had unnerved Malfoy just as badly a moment before. Then there was a familiar click and Harry could almost feel the rage drain from him as the sound of the camera’s shutter reached his ears.

Suddenly the pressure left and Harry recognized the fact that Malfoy had stood up and was looking down at him, making Harry feel more vulnerable than he cared to feel. The blond turned to go then, threw Harry one last hateful look and added almost as an afterthought. “It’s not Half-bloods I’m adverse to touching. It’s just you.”

Harry didn’t say anything. He simply lay on the ground for a long moment, waiting until he could be sure that Malfoy was long gone. Then he got up and without so much as a nod to Alex or Ren he left, taking a moment to be glad that they didn’t call him back.

On the inside, Harry couldn’t quite decide how he felt. He knew that Malfoy hated him, he had hated him equally at one time, and still did if the anger and discomfort he felt towards the blond were anything to gauge by. And yet instead of taking Malfoy’s words in stride Harry felt caught up by the events of the day as they had come to pass.

Maybe it was because he had hoped to get the upper hand in the situation, and somehow in his own distasteful way Malfoy had robbed him of that. Or maybe, just maybe, it was because the only thing he could recall of the long moments that had passed between them was the disorientation in Malfoy’s eyes at the first contact. But Harry refused to entertain the latter thought, it was just too precarious a path for his mind to take.

[~][~][~][~][~][~][~][~][~][~][~][~][~][~][~][~]

Draco flopped himself down on the bed he had slept in the night before. He had left the shoot and headed directly back to the room, not even pausing to deal with the repercussions his words would surely have. He knew that the first place Potter would look for him if he was inclined to beat the shit out of him was the bedroom but Draco wasn’t exactly worried.

In what he gathered from the fraction of a second that he had still been looking at Potter after having said what he had, Draco knew that confrontation was probably the last thing on Potter's agenda at the moment. He was thankful for that much in the least, though he couldn’t bring himself to admit as much.

Draco groaned in frustration and turned over on his stomach, resting his head on his arms as he let his eyes flutter shut. This was not how things were supposed to turn out. He had agreed to do the photo shoot with the intention of promoting his own businesses. His mother in her time had started a clothing line herself and often times he modelled for it and he had it on good confidence that his appearance in the magazine would boost sales exponentially.

Up until the very moment when he had come face to face with Potter [for the first time in years] the idea had seemed nothing short of brilliant to him. But in the last little while Draco felt himself dreading the next instance in which he would have to face Potter again.

It was so irrational, so inexplicable and it set Draco more on edge more than anything he could remember. Normally he was composed and level headed, but so much as seeing Potter set him off. He hated how the smallest little look could send him into a rage, he hated how uncertain he felt.

Recently however he had found a much more tangible reason for hating the git. Every moment he spent in the vicinity of Potter made him all that more sensitive to the Gryffindor, not because of all the hatred that was seeping through the seams of their encounters but because of how he looked, physically.

In the moment that Draco had locked gazes with Potter to feel a tingle run the length of his spine he had known that things had gone too far. The prompt to touch Harry had been a verbal excuse for him to snap, to put himself out of the picture as fast as possible.

Normally things would have ended there, feeling uncomfortable was not a feeling he appreciated and definitely not one he was willing to put up with. But it seemed nothing that concerned Potter was ever simple for him and despite how hard he tried, he never could walk away. So it was with a tense posture that he had readied himself for the fighting reaction he would get to the words he had used as an excuse to distance himself.

Even while saying it he knew that they weren’t true. It wasn’t Half-bloods he was uncomfortable with, not any more anyways, not after having slept with quite a number of them. No it was Potter that set him off. It was always Potter. And so in the end he had done the only thing he could think of, he had said as much and stormed off, trying to steal his mind away from the thought of how vulnerable Potter looked simply lying there on the ground, even after Draco had turned to leave.

And now Draco was lying here, in his bed and he still couldn’t stop thinking of Potter. Of how delectable he looked. And it wasn’t right because he was Draco Malfoy. And as gay as he may have been, no Malfoy looked at Harry Potter with anything but spite and distaste, contempt and anger. Still it was hard to get that image out of his head, at this rate Draco has a sinking feeling that things were not going to turn out pretty for him.

-----------------------------

AN: wow. I got twenty seven reviews, that's the most I've ever gotten for one chapter and it made me feel so happy. Unfortunately I was really busy throughout the week so I didn't get much writing done. The weekdays are going to be like that but I will write two chapters during the weekend and post one during the week just to keep the updates fast. It's the least I could do after all these wonderful reviews.

Anyways the ending is kinda cliffyish isn't it? Well I wonder what will happen now, things aren't off to a smooth start now are they? Still I'm very happy with this chapter, it went exactly where I wanted it to and hopefully you enjoyed it as well. Review please.

Oh and if anyone wants to be notified of updates just say so in your review and I'll make sure to notify you.

- Incessant_Darkness

Edit: Sorry found a couple mistakes I wanted to fix.