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He was not going to worry about such a foolish thing.
After all it was just a love letter. Not even that actually. It was an insult, and a disgusting one.
Almost violently he unfolded the small piece of paper again. Still just this one sentence and yet it made him blush partly because of anger, party of shame:
Well, well, Potter,
I know you love me, come on, confess!
DM
That creep, that annoying, arrogant creep.
Harry was positively not even aware he existed most of the time. At least not unless Harry was annoyed or angry about him, which was the case every time that twerp opened his big mouth.
So he clearly was NOT in love with Malfoy. Not a bit!
No point in getting upset about such a nonsensical letter. And since Harry didn’t notice Malfoy slipping the letter into his bag there was a good chance nobody else saw it. He’d better just forget this incident and its cause: Draco Malfoy!
That creep, that annoying, arrogant creep.
Before Harry could start his internal litany all over again Ron and Hermione burst into the common room, obviously searching for Harry, because Ron greeted him with:” There you are, Harry.” Harry hastily stuffed the give- away letter into the pocked of his robes and tried to look unsuspicious. It didn’t seem to work out all that well, because Hermione frowned and asked:” Harry, are you all right, you look pale and somehow… nauseous.” Harry coughed, but shook his head:” I just haven’t slept all that well and I probably ate something wrong.” He could see in her face that she wasn’t convinced at all, but Ron cut in before Hermione could question Harry further “You know what, Harry, there is a rumour, that Draco Malfoy is secretly in love with someone from… Gryffindor!” All the blood drained from Harry’s face
and he felt sick. Could someone know the truth, had someone seen Malfoy slipping the letter into his bag or had Malfoy told…?
“Hello, Harry.” Ron franticly waved a hand in front of his eyes, while Hermione’s frown deepened considerably. “Really, Harry, I just told you the hottest rumour we had for years and you just fall asleep on you legs.” Ron sounded exasperated, but Hermione cut in:” Yeah, that’s certainly true. Malfoy’s love life is definitely more interesting than a hidden Philosopher’s stone, the heir of Slytherin running amok in the castle and the return of the most evil wizard of all time.” “You are such a spoilsport, Hermione.” Ron pouted “It’s just that Mr. Aloof himself has a weakness. And the whole school knows it. No Gryffindor girl, boy or household pet for that matter would ever consider Malfoy an adequate boyfriend. So it’s love in vain and everyone can watch him being rejected. And it serves him just so right, running around this school as if he owns it…” Harry stopped listening to Ron’s usual rambling about Malfoy, the mean maggot and caught Hermione’s eye. His initial relief that Malfoy hadn’t been running around composing love songs for Harry in public withered under her knowing
stare. She tilted her head inquiringly and asked: “So, Harry, what do you think about all this.” Harry coughed: “I just don’t want to know who caught Malfoy’s fancy this week. And I am most sorry for the poor Gryffindor person who has the bad luck to be on Malfoy’s mind.” “But don’t you think it serves him right, the arrogant prat?” Ron was all eagerness again. “Well… whoever he or she is, if he or she is from Gryffindor Malfoy is probably not going to get lucky this time around.” Harry tried to sound firm and convinced and avoided Hermione’s eyes.
Though Ron was slightly disappointed about Harry’s lack of interest in what he had begun to call ‘The arrogant prat’s downfall” Harry had managed to flee the common room and wandered around the grounds on his own. After the first waves of panic had passed he now felt tired and uneasy. Every single Gryffindor had gathered in the common room and wild guesses had been discussed. Who might be the one Malfoy had fallen for? Parvati Patil, who had reacted with wild giggling? Ginny Weasly, who had endured all the attention with a very bashful manner? Or was it no girl at all?
At this point Harry had left the crowd that had been screaming with laughter. Without knowing where he was going he ended up by the lake, where the giant squid was rolling around in the moonlit water. He sighted and slumped to the ground by the lake and stared at it. The best thing to do probably was to destroy the letter and act as if he knew nothing. Apart from his involvement in this story a heartbroken and tearful Malfoy really was quite a satisfying idea.
“Now, Potter, that’s interesting. I thought I was the only one who is running around here at night all mournful and sad, grieving over my lost Gryffindor love. At least that’s what they say.” Harry looked up at Malfoy. He didn’t seem mournful at all but cool and superior, his usual smirk perfectly in place. “You seem to cope with it quite well. “ Harry tried not to search Draco’s face for any signs. “That seems to prove my theory that you have no heart at all.” “Ow, Potter, that was rather uncharacteristically cruel of you. Maybe you are the one with the broken heart after all. If you get all bitchy like that.” Harry’s stomach churned suddenly “No need to be concerned about my heart, it is perfectly save and sound, thank you so very much…And I am not bitchy at all, I just don’t like you.” Malfoy laughed dryly and sank down to sit beside Harry. “You know what Potter, I don’t like you either, but I do my best not to show it.” “Yeah, sure! It’s always so touching how you are all peaches and cream to me every time you try to hurt, blame or annoy me or my friends.” Malfoy laughed again leaned back, resting on his elbows, while he stretched his long legs. “And now imagine how I would treat you if I weren’t so composed and calm. But say, who is winning the race?” Harry was too startled to snap at Draco, so he asked “What race, Malfoy?” “You know. The ‘Gryffindor, who stole Malfoy’s heart award’ I guess it has been the main theme of tonight’s bedroom conversation. You Gryffindors are probably having a pyjama party with hot chocolate and luke warm talk.” “You don’t seem to be bothered that your expectedly broken heart is discussed as evening entertainment among people who think you are world’s
greatest twerp.”
“Why should I be bothered about a bunch of teenage boy and girl scouts who are fantasizing about my love life? You should be much more bothered, nobody is fantasizing about you, Potter. So, tell me who the lucky winner is?”
Against his will entertained, Harry considered this for a moment and then answered: “I think it is a close one between Parvati Patil and Ginny Weasly, if it’s a girl at all that is.” “Oh, please!” Malfoy looked annoyed “Potter, can you be my little minion and tell everybody that I already had a go with both Patils last year and that I am not at all inclined to come back for more and as for the little red- head: any Malfoy can do better that any Weasly at any time.” “Well, I guess that brings Neville back into the game.” Harry sniggered meanly about Malfoy’s disgusted look.
“It is not Longbottom, period.” Harry looked at Draco’s face, ghostly pale in the moonlight and wondered very briefly, if, under different circumstances in another life and place, they might have become friends. Of course Malfoy was nasty and arrogant and everything a true Gryffindor should loath, but maybe, if Draco’s parents weren’t so cold and cruel themselves, maybe if they had shown more love and patience to their only son everything would be different now. Maybe Draco was just a victim of his sad and lonely childhood and maybe if someone showed some affection for him now…
Harry’s thoughts trailed off, when his eyes met Draco’s silvery stare. “What’s going on in this scarred head of yours, Potter? Are you fantasizing about Longbottom… or about me?” Harry felt a most embarrassing blush rise in his cheeks “I wasn’t…I mean of course not…brrr.” “Don’t bother, that was a rhetorical question, which means you don’t have to answer it. And since your glasses are all steamy I think I can guess in which direction your thoughts were going.” With that Malfoy rose elegantly and began to walk back to the castle. After a couple of steps he turned and called:” I hope you sleep well tonight, Potter. And if you have any wet dreams about me…don’t tell me.” With that he turned again and vanished into the dark.
Harry sat there for a while, cleaning his glasses, deep in thought and when he went to bed that night, he didn’t sleep well, but dreamed dreams he couldn’t remember in the morning.
Harry had hoped that after a couple of days the interest in Malfoy’s heart would lessen, but NO! On the contrary, everyone in the school seemed to be eager to find out, who the ‘lucky one’ was. There were bets going on and as Harry understood Ginny- to Parvati’s constant annoyance- was the favourite.
To Harry’s constant annoyance he was ranging on place 16 between Seamus and Ron, but even more annoying and irritating to him was a certain feeling, that he should do better than this! Somewhere in the lower top ten, maybe. Not that he cared, not at all.
All in all Harry felt … well, annoyed and miserable and lonely, because he had lately taken on the habit of avoiding Ron and Hermione. Ron, because he was so gleeful that his sole purpose in life seemed to be making bad jokes about Malfoy, which made Harry’s eyelid twitch after ten minutes and Hermione, because he’d never kept a real secret from her and she was already shooting him knowing looks.
Instead of spending time with his friends he wandered down to the lake more often, sat there, sometimes hours at a time, brooding.
He seemed to be far more concerned and bothered about the whole sad business than Malfoy himself. In fact Malfoy seemed to be enjoying himself a lot. He even placed e pretty high bet on Trevor, Neville’s toad.
Harry could still see the smirk on Draco’s face when he had entered the great hall at breakfast, had climbed onto a bench and had announced that he would not only give 20 Gallons to the
one who discovered ‘the truth’ but also would go out to a candle- light dinner with her or him.
He had looked so very confident and… Harry shook his head violently. He more and more often was daydreaming about Malfoy… the prat, he added with only little enthusiasm. He caught himself, just sitting there with his eyes closed and a picture of Malfoy’s face clearly in front of his mind’s eyes. At first he had told himself that this was only natural regarding the fact that literally everyone he knew was constantly talking about Malfoy, but lately the picture had become so clear and real that he sometimes imagined opening his eyes just to find…
Harry gave a shocked yelp when he actually opened his eyes just to look into Draco’s real face, smirk and all.
The smirk turned into an evil grin and Malfoy asked sweetly:”Are we daydreaming again, Potter? If you don’t take care you will end like Moaning Myrtle, haunting a bathroom. Of course you are going to haunt a boy’s bathroom,” he looked Harry up and down “Although…” “Ha, ha.” Harry answered: “You know, Malfoy, you are really funny, in a mean, cold- hearted lizard kind of way.” Malfoy nodded with mock thoughtfulness “You see, Potter, my secret desire- that is, my other secret desire apart from running away with a certain Gryffindor- always was to become a clown. You know, one of those sad ones with a gracefully painted tear on my cheek, but, “his voice trembled slightly “My cruel father wants me to take over family- business. I will be enslaved forever in that huge Manor with all our money. I’m soo sad.” “Yeah, right, Malfoy” Harry spat out “You are the one with the sad childhood. I’m so touched.” Draco sniggered:”Ooo, I forgot you are the boy, who lived to suffer and lived and suffered and lived and suffered… Maybe your life wouldn’t be so miserable if you kept your nose out of other peoples business, especially if those ‘other people’ are the most dangerous wizard of all time and his loyal followers. Really, Potter, you are pathetic.”
“Oh, yeah? And you are a mean snake, whose parents had to tie muffins to your cloths, so that at least Crabbe and Goyle would play with you.”
“If I were you I wouldn’t be judgmental on other people’s friends!”
“Slimy, shallow snob of a Slytherin!”
“Good hearted, generous Gryffindor girl!”
Their faces were very close together now, and when Draco’s face split into a grin Harry grinned back. Draco’s eyes were very close to his now. He had really beautiful eyes, like molten quicksilver, especially if there was this amused gleam to them like now.
Without thinking Harry leaned in, just to feel Draco’s hand on his chest, pushing him away.
“Whoa, Potter, one of us just got carried away a bit. And guess what? It’s not me.”
Harry felt so confused it took him some time to get angry again. “Carried away? I am not the one who is slipping cryptical love letters into other people’s bags. If you are feeling awkward about that now, it’s your problem, but I am not the one who got carried away… first.”
“Wait a minute. This one is going way too far! All this me- being- in- love- with- a- Gryffindor- nonsense was kind of amusing, but I don’t write love letters, I’m receiving them. If this is your way to get the attention back on you, that’s your thing, but I never wrote any love letter to you. Your head must be far more affected by your scar than we all thought.”
Harry tried to clam down to get rid of the red haze in front of his eyes and failed.
“You don’t write love letters” he shouted “What do you call this then? A shopping list?!” with that he got the note out of the inner pocked of his robes and flung it at Malfoy. He took the piece of paper, unfolded it, read it, looked startled and read it again. After he had looked at the sentence a third time he threw back his head and laughed. When tears began to run down his face he looked at Harry again, who sat there petrified by shame and grieve. “Potter, you are the funny one here I can tell you. This is NOT my handwriting, which you should have known if you had compared this letter to one of the billion notes I send you in terms of ‘Potter, you pathetic pratt, you are going down’. But I understand that you couldn’t show this letter to Granger who is usually doing the thinking for you.
I even have a very good idea whose handwriting it might be, because I received a similar letter some time ago. Her name is Drusilla Montjoy, she is in Ravenclaw, and rather full of herself.”
Harry felt his face going bright red but he didn’t care, he noticed that his stomach churned and twisted and that he was probably going to throw up, but he didn’t care, he couldn’t. Nothing seemed to be of any impotence right now. Even if Voldemort himself would apparate just in front of him, offering Harry to fry him he probably would have walked passed him without a second glance. All he felt was a sudden terrible emptiness. It was as if his heart was broken into so many pieces that it left a bleeding hole in his chest. Draco Malfoy didn’t write a love letter to him, Draco Malfoy wasn’t secretly in love with him; Draco Malfoy wasn’t in love with him at all. He knew that he should be relieved, that he should make a joke about it and never think of it again, but he couldn’t. And he had to confess to himself, that he was the one who was in love with his enemy of many years. Well, he tried to console himself, it could have been worse; he could have fallen in love with Voldemort or feel a sick passion for Wormtail in both of his appearances. At least Malfoy was good looking, even handsome and though he was arrogant he had a lot of reason to be so, too.
“Hello, Potter. This would be the right moment to claim that you have known this all along and you were only trying to make a very stupid joke.” “I... I ahm…” “Oh, please try to make this situation a bit less embarrassing for both of us and… Wait! This is not embarrassing at all for me, just for you. In this case, do go on Potter: ‘You… You ahm, what?” And then Harry got up and walked to the lake and without looking back, he walked into it. The water was cool and dark and soothed the aching in his chest to a bearable level. When the water reached his chin he felt the tentacles of the giant squid slowly winding around his waist, like the caress of a lover, growing tighter and dragging him under. The last thought that crossed his mind until he drew a deep breath of water was ‘Draco, I love you.’ And then nothing.
At least that was what Harry wanted to do at this moment. But of course he wouldn’t. It would be the easy way out, the complete end of story and he just wasn’t able to do it. Bugger.
Instead He just got up and walked back to the castle to the weak comfort of his dorm to lie on his stomach, bury his face into his pillow and cry till he finally fell asleep.
The next morning Harry woke up with a groan. He hadn’t slept much and not well, troubled by images of a gleefully laughing Malfoy who told Crabbe and Goyle the story of poor pathetic lovesick Potter. His head ached, his stomach revolted, but he dragged himself down to the great hall for breakfast. It was that or telling Ron and Hermione why he wasn’t going and he just couldn’t be bothered with that.
He passed by the Slytherin table stone- faced and tried to ignore Malfoy completely.
He only just noticed, really only out of the corner of his eye, that Draco looked even paler than ever, dark circles under his silver eyes and his hair was very slightly out of place. He looked as if he, too, had spent a sleepless night. Probably spending the whole night in the Slytherin common room, entertaining his followers with how- Potter- tried- to- kiss- me- impersonations, Harry thought, suppressing the burning pain this thought caused not only in his stomach, but also inside his chest.
Harry had just sat down and willed himself to have some toast, when suddenly the murmur in the great hall died and everybody listened in revered silence.
Draco had gotten up and was now standing on his bench with a determined look on his face.
He cleared his throat, as if it was necessary to focus even more attention on him.
When he spoke, only those who knew him- aka no one- would have realized, that his voice shook slightly, that his appearance wasn’t as confident and aloof as usual, but no one did, so no one did.
“My more or less dear fellow Hogwarts- students, I have realized that your interest in my love life is rather immense. That is so touching and so… pitiful of you.
I know, that some of you did everything to find out, who I love and I feel, that it is time to reveal who the one for me is.
Ladies and Gentleman, I am in love with….. Harry Potter.”
For about 10 seconds, there was complete silence then Harry rose abruptly almost knocking over his bench and left the room with long strides but without a backwards glance.
As if this had been a signal chatting erupted in the entire hall. People where shouting and laughing and exchanging their I- told- you- sos.
In all this ruckus Hermione walked over to the Slytherin- table, where Draco still stood on his bench like a statue, staring at the door through which Harry had left the room.
She tucked at his robes, till he noticed her and climbed down again as if she had just woken him from a bad dream.
“Well,” she said “this didn’t go all that well, did it.” “No, it obviously didn’t, but I don’t see why not. I was trying to do something sweet and sincere here. I told everybody that I love him and he leaves the room like this. Why did he leave?” He was looking so exasperated and hurt, that Hermione took pity on him. “He probably thinks you were trying to make fun of him in a very mean way.” She explained and when he started to cut in looking crestfallen, she shook her head. “Come on Malfoy, you placed a bet on Neville’s toad, you rejected him before, what did you think he would do? Melt away just because you embarrassed yourself in public?”
“How come you know about us? Did he tell you?” Malfoy was really bewildered now. “No, of course not. But he is my best friend and I know him and I keep my eyes open. If you want to sort this mess out, I mean really sort it out, then you must find him and tell him what you feel. Him and nobody else. This is not a kind of show.”
Draco nodded and started to hurry out of the room, but then he turned and came back. He stood in front of Hermione a couple of seconds as if he was not sure what to do next, then he stretched out a hand, took Hermione’s and shook it “Thanks” he said, turned and ran.
When he finally found Potter, down by the lake, Draco had struggled to regain his usual cool and calm appearance, but when he saw the other boy sitting sadly on the ground staring at the dark water his heart leaped into his throat and stuck there, blocking all words and promises.
Draco simply crouched down beside his most beloved rival took his face in his hands and kissed him tenderly. At first Harry was stiff in his arms, but as Draco's kiss grew even softer, the other boy relaxed inch by inch and began to kiss him back, careful at first than more and more passionately.
When they finally broke the kiss, Draco was looking deep into Harry’s clouded eyes. Even as they cleared, suspicion retuned and Harry asked “What does this mean?”
“What do you think this means?” Draco felt light headed as if he had been drinking and his heart was beating like a drum. “That means I love you Potter, who would have thought. And you? I know you love me too” He added teasingly
“Come on confess.”