hey anyone remember that book where harry followed draco around all year?
(part 1 of a collab with @wizardnem ! we’re gonna be sending some snaps back and forth. if anyone else wants to join in and draw some hogwarts shenanigans from the perspective of different students you definitely should! cause that would be very fun.)
cockiness is so attractive to me in a way and it’s so irritating. like it’s annoying. and it annoys me. but the kind of expression and body language that comes with it. the self-satisfied attitude. the smug comments. the eye rolling. the smirking. “come and get me” hand gestures during a fight. eyebrow raising with an air of superiority. it’s just like. fuck you. i’m annoyed right now. i am so annoyed right now. but oh my fuck i am also so very, very attracted right now
Harry’s glass of champagne was halfway to his mouth, the beginnings of a laugh dying on his lips as Draco Malfoy walked into the ballroom. He was late—something Harry had learned over the last few years Malfoy usually abhorred—and Harry wondered if he’d done it on purpose. If he’d time his arrival specifically to draw attention to himself.
Hermione was still talking and Harry was vaguely aware of her speaking but everything dulled away into a vague buzzing sound in the background, his mouth falling open as he took in Malfoy’s attire for the evening.
Malfoy was wearing, fuck—Harry wasn’t even sure what to call what he was wearing. He supposed it was a suit. Sort of. Except the entire thing was red. Fucking Gryffindor red.
Malfoy’s trousers were red, his suit jacket was red. Fuck even his shirt was red. His shirt. Was that even a shirt? Did it count as a shirt if it was see through? Harry’d never seen a shirt you could fucking see through—Malfoy’s flat stomach and pert nipples on display beneath the sheer material—it was practically obscene. The only thing that wasn’t red were his expensive looking black leather shoes which instead of looking out of place with an entirely red ensemble managed to look effortlessly stylish in a way only Malfoy could manage.
As if the bold outfit weren’t shocking enough Malfoy’s hair—usually slicked back and completely immaculate without one strand of hair out of place when Harry passed him by in the lift every morning at the Ministry—was falling around his face in loose, soft looking waves.
“Harry. Harry, are you listening to me I—oh.” Hermione stopped speaking, lifting her own glass of champagne to her mouth. Harry would’ve sworn she mumbled fucking figures before taking a drink but he was too distracted by watching the way Malfoy’s stomach muscles quivered beneath the sheer fabric of his shirt as he laughed at something the Minister was saying.
Harry looked around to see if anyone else was as taken aback by Malfoy’s outfit choice for the Ministry’s midsummer Ball. He could see several sets of eyes following Malfoy’s graceful movements across the room but no one looked the way Harry felt—close to losing control.
Harry spent the next hour blindly agreeing with everything everyone said with him which earned him particularly strange looks from Robards and Ron but Harry couldn’t even be arsed to care. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to fraternize and hobnob with Ministry officials when Draco fucking Malfoy was walking around the room looking like that.
Harry did his best to avoid Malfoy—darting away whenever the other man came within ten feet of him—not trusting himself to be close enough to Malfoy to touch. Because fuck he wanted to touch. And that was really not an appropriate thought to be having in front of all his friends and colleagues. Harry wanted to glide his fingers down the fabric of Malfoy’s shirt and watch the shimmering material ripple beneath his ministrations, wanted to make Malfoy’s body rithe. Fuck he needed to get control.
Ignoring Ron’s shouts as Harry walked away mid-conversation, Harry shook his head and made his way out the double doors and down the corridor, grateful there was no one else around as he wandered away with absolutely no idea where he was heading.
“Potter!” Malfoy called.
Harry turned just in time to see Malfoy following him and while his brain was screaming run, his feet betrayed him, planting themselves in the middle of the corridor as watched Malfoy approach.
Harry swallowed, willing his heart rate to decrease. “Malfoy.”
Malfoy’s lip quirked up in the corner—an all too familiar smirk—as he walked directly into Harry’s personal space, body just inches from him. “You’ve been watching me all night,” Malfoy whispered, leaning forward so that the tips of his hair brushed across Harry’s cheek.
“Yes,” Harry answered, not seeing the point in lying.
Malfoy’s smile was practically victorious. “Want to do more than look?”
Harry faltered for only a second.
“This looks good on you but—,” Harry grinned, giving in to temptation and reaching out to run his hand down Malfoy’s chest, delighting in the way the silky material felt beneath his fingertips. Even more rewarding was the warmth of Malfoy’s skin beneath it, shuddering at his touch.
“But what?” Malfoy asked, voice laced with arousal.
This time it was Harry’s turn to smirk. “But it’d look better on my bedroom floor.”
A little progress shot of a piece I started before school consumed all of my free time. RIP me.
I feel like if you asked Draco why he’s so in love w Harry, he’d just silently show you this picture and you’d understand.
So you all remember in HBP when Draco is about to cast a crutioon Harry but Harry hits him with sectumsemprainstead? Imagine if Harry wasn’t fast enough and Draco did get him with the crutio. Only, it does nothing but make him fall over and feel a dull pain, like a pinprick compared to what it should. Harry remembers Bellatrix’s words on how you have to really mean it for it to work. Harry couldn’t even manage to inflict any actual pain after Bellatrix killed Sirius, when he was the most full of any hatred and pain. And Draco didn’t have the hatred in him to hurt Harry like that. So Harry sits up and they look at each other, and for the first time, Harry truly understands just how scared and desperate Draco is. And he offers Draco help, holding out his hand to his old rival. Draco hesitates for a minute, but then accepts it, and then they sit together and try to talk about things and Harry promises that he will help him and his family, and Dumbledore helps them and Harry defeats Voldemort and they fall in love the end
“Potter, what is that?” Draco asks with urgency, his chest
constricting in pain as he catches a glimpse of something dark coiling up Harry’s
forearm.
Harry shoves his
sleeve down and jumps up to meet Draco, his wand clattering to the floor. “Nothing.
How did you find – “
“Show me.”
“I don’t – “
“Show me. Now.” Draco
demands. He can’t believe this is happening. As if it isn’t horrible enough
seeing it on his own arm every day.
Harry pulls up his
sleeve slowly to reveal it – The Dark Mark – etched into his flesh. Draco holds
back a gag.
“It’s not what you
think,” Harry says.
Draco’s eyes dart
between the mark and Harry’s face. “It’s – how did – why?”
“I wanted to practice removing
it,” Harry says slowly, his meaning clear. It only makes Draco angrier.
“So you gave yourself a
Dark Mark? You reckless idiot. What if you can’t remove it? Did you even think
about that before you – “ Draco stops himself. Of course he didn’t. He’s Harry
fucking Potter. Draco sighs and tries to calm himself. He’s not responsible for
Harry’s idiotic antics. “How did you even manage to replicate it?” He asks, his
voice measured.
Harry smiles weakly. “Well,
a fragment of Voldemort’s soul was inside me for most of my life and his magic
left a pretty big trace. I just… accessed it.”
Once again Draco holds
back a gag. The thought of Voldemort’s magic, so dark, so cruel, inside of
Harry Potter, the Gryffindor Saint, is too much. It’s horrifying.
Draco takes a breath
and asks Harry the question he already knows the answer to: “Why do you need to
know how to remove a Dark Mark?” He needs to hear the idiot say it.
Sure enough: “So I can
remove yours.”
Draco grits his teeth.
He’s furious that Harry has put himself in danger for him. Again. “You don’t
owe me anything, Potter.”
“I know,” Harry says. But
he doesn’t.
“You can’t just go
around saving people all the time!” Draco’s raised voice echoes throughout the
room.
“Why not?”
“Not everyone wants to be saved,” Draco points out. He
doesn’t want Harry risking anything for him. How could he ask that
of anyone, after all that he’s done?
“You don’t want the
mark removed?” Harry questions, his eyes falling down to Draco’s left arm.
Draco’s mark is
covered but he tugs on his sleeve regardless. “It reminds me of who I am.”
Harry frowns. “That’s exactly
why you need it removed. That’s not who you are, Draco.”
Draco blanches,
surprised at the use of his first name and Harry quickly corrects himself. “I
mean Malfoy.”
Draco lets his eyes
fall back down to Harry’s mark, taking in the harsh lines of the coiling snake
and skull, and the red raw skin beneath. He shudders. “Looks like you haven’t
had much success anyway,” he says as casually as he can manage. But inside, his
heart is tight. Because now Harry will have to live with the Dark Mark the rest
of his life. Just like Draco, he’ll be forced to carry the weight of the inescapable
dark magic within his skin, forced to feel it crawling through his veins,
through his every spell, with no relief and no hope of salvation.
“I’m getting close. Before
you came in, I could feel it moving.” Harry retrieves his wand from the floor
and points it at his Dark Mark, eyebrows tightening in concentration.
“Go on, then. No other
Wizard has been able to do it, but I’m sure even a Dark Mark will be no match
for the great Harry Pot – oh.” Draco’s knees buckle. “Oh.”
Against all logic,
Harry removes the Dark Mark as if it is nothing more than a muggle tattoo.
The head of the snake recoils into a rapidly shrinking skull until all that is
left is smooth, untainted skin.
Malfoy yanks up his
sleeve and holds out his arm to Harry. Despite all his protesting, he wants to
be saved. More than anything.
Harry’s hand wraps
under Draco’s arm holding it in place and he raises his wand. Draco screws up
his eyes in anticipation – he cannot bear to witness the removal in case it doesn’t
work properly. What if his Dark Mark is worse than Harry’s, having come from
Voldemort himself? What if – Oh.
Draco doesn’t need to
see it happen because he feels it. He feels the darkness extracted from his
body, feels strength returning to his limbs. And he feels light. Lighter than
he can ever remember. As if he might just float away. He opens his eyes and
stares down at his clear, unmarked skin.
There’s a sense of
twisted deja vu when Draco looks up from his arm. He remembers looking up into
Voldemort’s eyes after he was given the mark, and feeling colder than he’s ever
felt before. But now when he looks up into his saviour’s eyes, into Harry
Potter eyes, it’s warmth he feels, from the smooth skin on his forearm to the
centre of his heart.
He blinks back his
tears. “Thank you.” They’re the same words he was forced to say to Voldemort
but their meaning couldn’t be any more different this time. Voldemort had
stolen his life, and Harry Potter had just restored it.
shealwaysreads 