Secret Keeper

Chapter 8 -- Thoughts and a Secret Meeting?



Disclaimer: Anything you recognize belongs to JK.



Draeconin: Except for the margarine, Draco\'s breakfast in chapter three still stands; I think it\'s a very accurate example of British breakfasts.



The last of the chapter, after the flashback, has not been beta\'d. Any mistakes are mine.



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Draco Lucius Alexander Malfoy was not afraid of Harry James Potter.



Even if he had constantly used his sense of smell and hearing to avoid the corridor\'s Potter was or had been in. Nor did it matter that whenever he was in the same class as Potter, he had done everything possible to ensure that his entourage was between them to block their view of each other. And, of course, the very fact that he had taken both lunch and dinner in his room was nothing to think of.



Sighing miserably, he rolled over in his bed and curled in to the fetal position, pulling the green comforter closer to his head. He\'d had little opportunity during the day to think of all that had happened, but now his head was buzzing with thoughts and constant replay of everything, and a migraine had settled its heavy weight on him. Draco was tempted to cast the basic healing spell he knew would take the headache away, but he was feeling rather perverse right now and decided he would prefer to suffer through it.



The first thing he mulled over was the dream and the subsequent wanking from this morning. It was now obvious to him that Harry was the person in the dreams he\'d had this summer. Indeed, it was hard for him to understand how he had not seen it. He prided himself on his rather genius intelligence and cunning, but they had failed to make him realize that the black hair, the burning green lights, the hardness of the body that rubbed against him - all were indicative of Harry Potter. They\'d gotten progressively - well, he wouldn\'t say worse as he actually liked them, but they had become progressively more erotic and more tantalizing; an arm shown here, a leg there, and et cetera. Despite this, he had never called the other unknown person by a name and he certainly would never have considered calling them Harry Potter. The dream this morning was different from all of the others though. When the dream had begun he had known who it was. Instantly and unforgettably.



He didn\'t know why the sudden change. It was like a curtain had been lifted from his mind, revealing everything that had been hidden behind it; he could clearly see all the dots and make the connections now. His thoughts jumped suddenly, leaping light years back to a book he had read when he was ten. The memory of the book was fragmented, large pieces of it missing or drifting just out of his reach. What he could remember though was that the book had said the human mind went in to denial when it received information it couldn\'t handle - a protective gesture to prevent a nervous breakdown. Instead, it would send the overload of data deep in to the subconscious, allowing the more primal part of itself to nudge, hint, and slowly display the information. Maybe the dreams had been a part of that. He had known that it was Harry the first night, but because he wouldn\'t have been able to handle it, his subconscious had divulged the information to him in pieces, over time.



But had he really come to terms with the fact that he had been dreaming about Harry the entire summer? Frowning, Draco rolled back on to his other side and scrunched his blanket up some more, his gaze absently focusing on the wall a few feet away.



No. He didn\'t think so. Sure, he had somehow come to terms with it mentally, but ... he didn\'t know what it meant. He still didn\'t know why he was having the dreams, he still didn\'t know why it was Harry of all people, and more importantly, he didn\'t know if Harry was having dreams either.



And, now that he thought about it, what had gotten in to his rival?



Both the erotic dream and the incident in the corridor this morning had displayed another side of Harry that Draco hadn\'t known existed. He\'d always seen the other boy as a clumsy, unconfident wreck; someone fun to taunt because you could always count on a fiery reaction. Now, he simply couldn\'t reconcile the drastic difference from what he knew Harry to be, to how he had acted today. Was it just a fluke? Or a permanent change?



Yes, he would admit that he had been frightened. Why shouldn\'t he? The way Harry had utterly dominated the encounter, had pushed him against a wall and dominated HIM, was scary. And a little ... arousing. That, he thought, had been why the incident was so traumatizing. He had been afraid because he\'d been dominated so harshly, and yet he\'d been turned on by it as well - which had frightened him still more, because surely he must be some kind of nutter to actually enjoy being treated so disrespectfully.



Harry had changed; he had more confidence, more composure, more arrogance. And Draco had seen it quite evidently in their shared potions class.





.Flashback.



\"Lost your way, Potter?\" Blaise said scathingly, Pansy snickering and his fellow Slytherins laughing riotously in response.



Surprised at the strange comment from Blaise, Draco glanced at him and then to where he was looking, only to see the very person he most wanted to avoid at the moment. Instead of sitting with his usual clump of Gryffindor friends, Harry had wandered over to the Slytherin side and stood expectantly next to the table behind him, Crabbe and Goyle. The entire class had grown quiet as Blaise and Pansy glared at the Gryffindor, the Weasel and the Mudblood warily fingering their wands next to him and throwing Harry perplexed glances. Harry didn\'t seem to care about their confusion, the gasps from the rest of his housemates, nor the menacing scowls from the Slytherins. Draco\'s \'eat shit and die\' glare didn\'t appear to have an effect either. Harry simply stood there, fingers restlessly tapping against his thigh, his other arm hanging from his bag strap.



Draco watched the burgeoning confrontation with wary skepticism. He longed to be the one in the lead, the one to insult Harry as he so loved to do, but the episode this morning had given him a new caution in regards to Harry. He didn\'t know what to make of the new Boy-Who-Lived; he just knew that acting rashly before he had figured it out would be a costly mistake.



Harry smiled beatifically and shook his head. \"No, I haven\'t. I\'m just waiting for you to get out of my seat, is all.\"



His answer brought the Slytherins up short, drew a few more gasps from his housemates, and caused his two friends to look at him as if he\'d suddenly proclaimed that he was joining Voldemort in a bid to take over the world. Draco raised a solitary eyebrow at the audacity.



\"What the fuck are you talking about, Potter?\" Blaise snarled. He sarcastically waved a hand in front of Harry. \"Have you gone blind? Your friends are over there,\" he jabbed a finger at the other side of the room, \"and even if they weren\'t, we sure as hell wouldn\'t let you sit over here. This is our side of the room and this is my seat.\"



Harry blinked, frowning slightly as he looked over at Blaise, then down at Pansy who had petulantly crossed her arms over her chest. \"You mean ... you aren\'t going to move?\"



\"Harry,\" the Mudblood tugged on his sleeve, trying to draw him away from the inevitable fight. \"There\'s a seat --\"



\"Of course not, Potter!\" Blaise replied with a frown and wavering confidence at the strange behavior from the Gryffindor. Potter had finally gone off the deep end after toeing the line for years. \"Go find your own place to sit and try no-\"



In the next instant, Harry had gently yanked Pansy out of her chair, promptly set her down on the floor of the aisle, and then reached over to roughly drag Blaise out of his chair by the front of his robes and throw him down the same aisle. Once all three seats were unoccupied, he serenely settled in to the one he wanted, as if he had not just physically removed the two Slytherins with little or no effort. As he retrieved his class supplies from his bag, the Mudblood and the Weasel, clearly unsure on what had gotten in to the Harry they knew, cautiously took the remaining seats on the outside of the table. Obviously flabbergasted, Blaise and Pansy got to their feet and looked to Draco for a clue as to how to react.



Draco merely shrugged. He hadn\'t been involved in the confrontation, and he didn\'t know how he was supposed to react to a delusionally psycopathic Harry, so the two were on their own. And, without much help from him or the rest of the class (who were busy trying to look busy), Blaise and Pansy closed ranks and mutely sat down at another table towards the back of the room. The only sound was that of the clock above the magicboard ticking, second by second, past the start of their class hour.



The silence was interrupted by wood scraping against stone. Harry was squeezing himself between the table behind him and the chairs of his friends, two bags in either hand. He confidently walked back to where the ousted Slytherins sat, blatantly disregarding the 30 or so eyes following his movements, as well as the two wands aimed at him.



Draco had to admire Harry\'s courage in approaching two wizards with wands ready to fire a hex or two. Then again, Harry always had been good at being stupidly courageous. Or was that courageously stupid? Thinking about it now, he found that he didn\'t like the idea of Harry charging blindly ahead, regardless of danger - something that alternately shocked and disgusted him. Since when did he care about the well-being of the git? He should be hoping that Harry, the fucking sod who attacked and defiled him this morning, get his pretty little head blown off. Or, at the very least, horribly disfigured by boils and/or warts. But no, instead he was watching with trepidation, fearing for Harry\'s safety.



\"Here\'re your bags. Sorry I forgot them.\" he stated casually, and dropped them on the table in front of Blaise, before heading back to his seat.



The level of relief at Harry remaining unharmed, and the gaggingly romantic way his heart fluttered at seeing him confront his housemates so fearlessly, assured Draco that he was taking the first steps to becoming clinically insane. It also left him wondering how he could be afraid and ... attracted to Harry at the same time. Were the gods playing some cruel joke on him?



Once again the clock was the central noise, echoing loudly throughout the classroom. Most of the miscellaneous busy-body activity by the other students had stopped and they were now staring unabashedly at the isolated Gryffindors, all three maintaining an air of indifference though the only one who seemed to truly manage it was Harry, doodling away in his textbook.



This was the point wherein Draco got over his impulse to grin like an imbecile at Harry and began to get irritated. Looking about the room, everyone was focused on the mop-headed Gryffindor, all expressing a variant of curiousity, whether it be touched with awe or anger. Harry was the only person who wasn\'t paying attention to anyone, content to draw snitches and dreadfully maimed animals in the margins of his textbook, Draco could see. That indifference caused a rage to boil in his veins and an unseemly tic to start in his cheek. Why such an innocent thing would cause such anger, he didn\'t know, but it was obviously Harry\'s fault. The fucking spotlight-hogging bastard.



Draco scooted his chair back a little, immediately drawing the attention of his classmates, and twisted around in his seat, leaning over the back of it. \"What the hell are you doing, Potter?\" he hissed under his breath, knowing the entire class would be able to hear him, but wanting the illusion of privacy, if nothing else.



Harry looked up and blinked, tilting his head inquisitively. \"What do you mean?\" he asked, clearly not understanding the concept of imitation.



Draco wondered if Harry\'s lack of volume control was intentional or simply because he was stupid. He was inclined to think the former, judging by the way his rival\'s eyes twinkled at him. Draco fought the urge to growl and sneered. \"I mean, what the hell are you doing? You aren\'t sitting with your nasty friends, you rudely threw Blaise and Pansy out of their chairs like some mentally deranged monster and this morning you--\" \'... molested me in the hallway and made me stoop down to the level of physical violence in order to get away from you - not to mention the fact that I liked it ...\' \"-- did that.\" he finished lamely. His speel was supposed to set Harry in his place, but it didn\'t. The sod just continued to twinkle his goddamned eyes, making Draco wonder if Harry and Dumbledore were in some sort of allegiance to drive him mad with twinkling eyes in his face all the time. He wouldn\'t put it past either of them.



\"My friends are sitting right here next to me, Draco. Blaise and Pansy were in our seats and refusing to move, which, sadly, gave me no other option but to forcefully remove their persons; and why, this morning --\" Harry leaned forward with a lascivious expression, eyes hooded and sultry. Desire shot down to Draco\'s cock like lightning to a lightning rod. He knew what Harry was going to say. He knew that Harry was going to announce to all and sundry that he, Draco Lucius Alexander Malfoy, had enjoyed being attacked and touched that way. Draco, however, could only watch in the dawning horror of one whose shameful secret was about to be given away. He was frozen in the tingling and pulsing sensation of adrenaline and lust through his cock, helpless to its demands. \"This morning, I --\"



The door to the class slammed open, a few students screaming in fright. \"20 points from Gryffindor, Potter, for speaking out of turn.\" Professor Snape glided in, his robes billowing around him like they always had.



Most could have said that Snape was in as foul a mood as he ever was, but, after 18 years of having him for a godfather, Draco knew upon Snape\'s first words that he was in a particularly horrible one. He wisely squashed the dangerous mixture of lust, anger, and fear down, and whirled about in his chair to face the front, affecting the appearance of a student willing and eager to learn, even if nothing could be farther from the truth.



Harry, not given to particularly bright intelligence, didn\'t. \"I wasn\'t speaking out of turn. Draco was talking to me. Sir.\" he added belatedly.



Eyes widened across the class. Indeed, if Draco was prone to massive amounts of uncivilized behaviour he might have too. As it was he couldn\'t prevent the sharp inhalation of shock. What a fucking moron. Harry was priming himself to be ravaged, torn apart, and emasculated by Snape\'s cruel wit and harsh tongue.



Snape had continued on as if he hadn\'t heard anything, but upon reaching his desk and maneuvering himself to stand between it and his chair, he said, \"Congratulations on reminding all of us that fame and glory do not make up for a weak mind, or lack thereof. Everyone take note that Potter has just earned himself two weeks detention, starting Monday --\"



\"But that\'s our first night of Quidditch practice, sir!\" The Weasel protested.



\"-- night,\" Snape ignored the outburst, \"as well as 150 points docked for cheek and stupidity --\"



\"But now we\'re at -110 --\"



Snape\'s eyes coldly flickered in the Weasel\'s direction, instantly and effectively silencing any further interruptions. \"And another 100 points for not being able to control Mr. Weasley\'s impulse to interrupt, not once, but twice.\" Professor Snape looked down at his desk and shuffled a few papers around. \"It appears that your lack of discretion, Potter, is spreading.\"



.End Flashback.





During the course of the potions class, his godfather had proceeded to scare everyone shitless, even sending that lackwit Neville to the Infirmary by calling on him.



The only person who hadn\'t been scared was Harry, it seemed. Draco had spoken with Blaise after class, oiriginally to discuss Harry\'s sudden onset of barminess, and had been informed that the confrontation wasn\'t the only crazy behaviour Harry exhibited. The Gryffindor had stared at Draco during the entire period; he had straightened his posture and raised his head from his notebook whenever Draco had been called on or volunteered information, as if interested, and then had dropped both when the lecture had moved on to something else. Blaise had also informed him that Harry appeared disinterested in talking with his friends or exchanging notes as he had ignored their attempts with either method.

Draco blinked, suddenly remembering something he had forgotten.



When Snape was looking at the other side of the classroom during his lecture, a strange little bird made out of paper had pecked at Draco\'s face rather viciously. He had swatted it away the first few times, barely controlling the impulse to shriek in surprise, but it had come back. Persistently, at that. It always disappeared before Snape turned to face his side of the room and it always reappeared right as he looked back the other way. Finally, after realizing that the bloody bird was not going to leave him alone, and had probably left him with severe paper cuts and red spots about his face, Draco had snatched the blasted paper bird out of the air and shoved it into his bag. The quick movement and the birds wild struggles had not gone unnoticed by Snape, who gave him a long look, but opted not to say anything.



That stupid bird was still in his bag. At the time, he\'d thought it some freak occurrence, and fearing the wrath of his godfather, not given it much more. Draco realized now that it was rather stupid of him to think it was a random act of being attacked by a paper bird. He snorted softly. Because you always had to be on the look-out for the blasted things. In light of Blaise\'s observations, he wondered if it was something else entirely. Harry hadn\'t been interested in talking or note-exchanging with his friends, but what if that was because his attention had been on Draco? It was a distinct possibility since Blaise said that Harry always sat up straighter whenever he spoke.



Sitting up the barest amount, Draco glanced over his shoulder at the closest bed, Goyle\'s, and watched as his friend\'s massive bulk rose and fell evenly. His half-arsed recon completed, he scooted over to the right side of his bed, closest to the wall, and innocently dangled his arm over the edge, his fingers just grazing the zipper of his bag. Draco glanced over his shoulder again. Rising and falling evenly, check. He hunched over the side of his bed and began to slowly unzip the pocket, wincing with every snip. A snort from someone in the room and he froze. One ... a glance over his shoulder ... two ... rising and falling evenly ... three ... check ... four ... the zipper continued cautiously. He could almost fit his hand through ...



\"What do you think you\'re doing?!\" A voice interrupted the stillness, causing a riot of grunts, snorts, and bodies rolling about in their beds.



Draco instantly stopped his movements and closed his eyes, pretending he was asleep as best he could despite his wildly beating heart and his chest struggling to even out his erratic breathing.



\"You can\'t have a tea party without some delicious muffins.\" The voice, identifiable as Crabbe, continued.



Jesus. Draco let his breath out in an almost inaudible \'whoosh\'. It was just Crabbe discussing the finer points of tea parties in his dreams. Grumbling, he inched the zipper over another millimeter or two and finally squeezed his hand into the pocket, cursing the red marks that would be on his wrist afterwards. Quietly rummaging through the contents of his bag, stopping at every sound, he found what he was looking for. The paper bird.



Draco cast one last furtive look over his shoulder and waited a few seconds to make sure he was in the clear, delicately, almost reverentially, drawing his index finger along one of the bird\'s lines all the while. Only when he had counted to thirty, and traced the same path along the bird many times, did he take it out of his bag. For a few moments he simply held it. His eyes strained to see the grainy texture and the crisply folded lines in the almost non-existant light of his dungeon dorm. He was reluctant to open it - reluctant to ruin the folds - reluctant to read the note he knew was hidden inside. By opening the paper bird, he would unmake it, unfold its lines and transform it back in to a simple piece of paper with simple words written on it. He was going to defile it. Strip away everything that made it.



He snorted. He couldn\'t believe he was becoming sentimental about a bloody paper bird. Draco pulled on its head and tail absentmindedly and watched in surprised amazement as the wings flapped in correspondence. Smirking slightly, he knew why he was being sentimental. Harry had sent him a note while ignoring the ones from his friends. And it thrilled him that he could exert such control.



He blinked and squinted at the bird, still flapping its wings. What had Harry written him? An insult? A statement or question? His stomach did a somersault. A love letter penned from the very depths of the Gryffindor\'s heart that expressed everything he could never say for fear of retaliation and a fall from glory?



Yeah fucking right. Draco was obviously suffering from a lack of sleep. Best to get this over with. Bit by bit, he unfolded the paper bird, taking care not to upset the lines too much, unwilling to ruin the moment by moving too hastily.



\"Lumos,\" he whispered, pointing at the paper. His index finger flickered for a second then shown brightly down on the dismantled bird, clearly displaying the words written upon it.



\'I have a present for you.

Come to the Owlery at 11pm tomorrow night.

Harry.\'



A present? Draco\'s eyes widened. The Owlery? His eyes widened still further. The fucking bastard! He was going to get owl shit all over himself, just to get a sodding present! And who knew what Harry would do to him when they were alone?



\"Draco, wha\'re you doin\'?\" Goyle mumbled sleepily from his bed.



\"Nothing!\" he snapped, shoving the paper back down in to his bag and whispering the counter-spell.



Goyle grunted and rolled over, promptly falling asleep again.



It was much later that Draco followed suit, having resolved to tell no one about the clandestine meeting and to show Harry exactly what he thought of him being accosted this morning.