disclaimer: jkr says lots of things that i don't. actually she said most of it. and she owns all of it. this is just one of those things she'd never say. but still, one can hope, no?


warning: SLASH. H/D. although there's probably a different category for "past slash, now mush".


a/n: inspired by: "How many different ways can one emotion fail you?" ~~in dialogia, ivy blossom

sankyouuuu ivy:)

~~



~~failure becomes you~~


Why should I cry for you?
Why would you want me to?
And what would it mean to say,
That, "I loved you in my fashion"?
        ~~Sting


Harry was being brave about it. He went on with life. He shoved his so-called `weakness' as deep inside him as it would go, tried to find a lock to bind it with, tried to swallow the key. The key kept flying out of his throat, tasting like tears, like bile, like dust. His head was filled with noise, inconsequential thoughts, and he barely remembered to follow one thread for longer than a few minutes at a time. If he did, he heard the whispers. Draco, Draco, Draco. His head would snap around, feeling like he was being watched, but he never was. Draco was usually just leaving. He'd catch the swish of his robes as he turned a corner, the sound of his mocking laugh echoing in the halls. He'd clench his jaw, and stare purposefully at his dinner, but then he'd hear a strange tapping sound, and when he'd finally look, it would be the sound of his fork hitting the table repeatedly, instead of what was on his plate.


I wish I could stop being angry at you, Harry thought. I wish I could just, get -over- it already. You're not worth this. You're not worth another second, you bastard. Do you even know? Do you even know that the smallest word, the slightest poison glance, just the lack of one, even-- do you have any clue what it does to me? How I ache, whether you're near me or apart? Do you know the nights I spend, going over and over every stupid thing we've said to each other, combing it all for clues as to what you're really thinking? Do you know how the unthinking shifting of your gaze away from me, so minute, so subtle-- do you know how it cuts me? Do you care? You don't, I know that. You only care about yourself, I know that. Why can't I believe it, finally? Why can't I rest in the peace of knowing that you're an unredeemeable bastard, not worth my time?


Why do I want you to look at me, just -look- at me, one more time. Why do I stand around, trying to find something to do, something to say, a face to wear that doesn't let on, that I'm only here to tempt you, to ask you without asking, to beg you to reconsider who you are and who you think you have to be. Why do I play the fool like this, even as I hate myself for it? Why do I allow myself this idiotic dance with self-destruction? I have much weightier things to consider. Much to plan, much to be prepared for. And yet all I can think is, how unprepared I am for that look in your eyes. Iced over, distant, not even sneering, just ignoring my very existence as if that's what you've always done. I want to scream, my toes and my fingers are tingling with that helpless, painful desire. I look at you, walking away, or half-turned to the side, or even right in front of me, and I just feel the scream, biding its time, waiting within my throat.


It's hopeless, he thought, it's hopeless, it's hopeless, it's hopeless. He repeated it over and over, sometimes a mantra, sometimes a wish. He didn't want to imagine. What if. What if he pushed him down, tumbled him onto the stone-cold floor, pressed his burning mouth against his neck, breathed his need and hope and greed for him so deep, so deep inside him. The truth burns and cauterizes and heals-- it doesn't just, fade away. It doesn't just, not matter. These same fingers, heated from the barest contact with his skin, these same fingers on the verge of twisting around his wrist, tugging him back from the brink. All he had to do was pull hard enough. All he had to do was move fast enough, wasn't that true? Harry closed his eyes, leaning against a shadowed stone wall. On the Quidditch field, all he had to do was concentrate, and -move-, and if he was fast enough, if he was fearless, if he was single-minded enough, he won. And now speed meant he missed the details, and single-mindedness meant he was blind to his feelings, and movement-- movement meant moving away.


By the time anything moved, Harry was snapping at shadows, his eyes dulled with a sort of perpetual wounded glaze of the hounded, bags starting to form under them, his hands very lightly trembling. He kept them shoved into his robes, and his bedraggled state was easily attributable to the many stressors in his life, and of course the end of the semester and all those senior projects to get done. Draco walked up to him casually, seemingly popping up out of nowhere, as he was walking back to the Gryffindor dorms. It took a second for Harry to even realize Draco was there, so out of it was he. He started, coming to a sudden halt, no sound leaving him, not even a small gasp.


"You," he said, though it came out as more of a croak, really.


"Yeah, what do you know. Me."


"Didn't we go through this already?"


"Through it? I was about to avoid it, personally."


"Oh, good. Well go on then. Don't let me stop you."


"Now who's being juvenile, eh, Potter?"


"Well. We have nothing to say to each other, do we? We've said it all, haven't we?"


"If that's how you want it." He was having a long-suffering look Harry had come to find so ridiculous on Draco's face now.


"This has absolutely nothing to do with want, you know that."


"Oh, don't get all angsty on me now, Potter. I was having a good day," Draco said, his lip curling in something that was almost a sneer.


"Well, that's just brilliant. I'm glad. So what are you doing speaking with -me-?"


"Oh, -please-. Why does this have to be an interrogation, every bloody time?"


Harry didn't meet his eyes. "I just want to know," he said under his breath.


"Why can't you let it go, just once? You bring it all on yourself, you know."


"I don't make you be how you are, Malfoy, don't you even -try- pinning your behavior on me. I won't have it," Harry said, in his most self-confident tone, crossing his arms.


Draco laughed, looking at him. "So the great Harry Potter is reduced to petty posturing, huh," he said with a smile.


"I'm tired...." Harry was suddenly feeling like standing up was an effort. He couldn't very well sink to the stone floor in front of Malfoy, of course, so he locked his knees and tried to stare like he meant it.


"Yeah."


Harry glanced up in surprise, but Draco's eyes were veiled, as usual.


"I'm tired too. It seems like we're reliving the same day over and over again, with just enough different to make it interesting. I think I've forgotten what the point was."


"Why can't we just stop? Why can't you just-- leave it be?"


"I want it to be your decision, Harry."


"Hah. Somehow I don't think that's out of the goodness of your heart."


"Of course not. I have my dignity after all," Draco huffed.


"We can't be friends, can we."


"Of course not!" Draco looked alarmed at the very idea.


Harry smiled, in that thin, humorless way he'd picked up. "Why does everything have to be up to -me-?" He glanced heavenwards at this, too resigned to manage much indignation.


"Hmm, I didn't realize you were -this- self-absorbed," Draco remarked, quite conversationally.


Harry just gave him a -look-. "What the hell are you getting out of this?"


"Why do you keep obsessing over that?"


Harry stifled a sigh. "No reason. I wouldn't have to obsess if you didn't keep following me," he said, at which Draco had to laugh.


"Oh that's rich-- me, following you. I can't get away from you, more like."


Suddenly, Harry took a few steps, bringing him almost nose-to-nose with Malfoy. His arm whipped out, his palm hitting the wall next to Malfoy's head. "Oh, I can help you get away from me. It's easy." His face was leaning minutely closer to the other boy's, who was beginning to look faintly flushed. "Go ahead. Go," he whispered, his lips millimeters away from skin.


"If you...." Draco cleared his throat. "If you wanted to seduce me, you didn't have to try so hard, you know."


Harry gave a strangled little laugh. "Seduce you?" He turned away abruptly, his face hidden in shadow. "Yeah, right."


"You know I want you," Draco whispered, reaching out and grasping Harry by the waist, pulling his back flush against his own chest. Harry was stiff and unmoving, but he didn't attempt to get away. "The question is, what are you going to do about it?"


Harry's muscles seemed to relax a fraction, before he fought his way out of the loose embrace, turning back around, his eyes blazing fury. "How dare you do that to me?" He looked ready to inflict physical violence. Draco had to admit to a certain degree of surprise. He never knew what would set Harry off anymore.


"Can't we just fuck without all the strings and the angst?" Draco smirked, amused at his own nonchalance.


"It's too late for that, now. There's no going back to the way things were, before... before... this," Harry said, wearily. "And you don't even mean that, anyway. You just like fucking with my head, more than anything."


"Aww, you're no fun," Draco whined in a soft, fake voice.


"Go abuse a Hufflepuff, Malfoy," Harry snapped. "As you so keenly observed, I'm no fun."


Draco folded his arms across his chest and tried to look cross, though the effect was mostly comical. "And you tell -me- to lighten up."


"Yeah, well. As fun as this is... I have Potions homework to amuse me, right now," Harry offered as his parting shot, walking away.


"Fine! Be that way!" Draco was scowling, quite fiercely in fact, but he had the sneaking suspicion that if he wasn't, he'd be pouting. Some days, he just didn't understand why he must go through all this garbage, just to get laid. Of course, he realized, on some level, this was all largely his fault. But that didn't mean he couldn't feel resentful about it. Just thinking about Harry Potter, bent studiously over his Potions book, that unruly curl that always slipped over his right eye, up to its old tricks again, biting the corner of his bottom lip in concentration-- just flashing that image for three seconds in his mind, was quite enough to give him a hard-on that just wouldn't quit. "Fuck!" He muttered it like a sort of prayer, over and over under his breath. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, -fuck-!" This life has just -not- been going his way, at -all-, he mused. He didn't even know what he was being punished for. What in the world was going -on-, in that fevered, delirious Gryffindor brain of his?


"Fuck," said Draco Malfoy with feeling, one more time, for good measure.

~~



Harry knew they were doomed from the start. He never wanted to, he never imagined he'd ever be stupid enough to. It "just happened". He supposed all sorts of things "just happened", and that was no excuse. Maybe Voldemort just happened, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to kill him. You can't just ignore the consequences. The consequence of Harry's own existence seemed to be Voldemort's death. It wasn't like he didn't remember, but he definitely didn't -want- to remember.


It could've been any day of the week, it could've been any morning at all, but it wasn't. It was a Friday, and he wasn't paying attention in Potions, and Sirius was coming to visit that Saturday. He was paired with Neville, and of course the poor lad messed up horribly yet again. Malfoy laughed and said something that made Harry see red, and that was pretty much it. He didn't think, he just hexed him. It wasn't like he even realized he'd raised his wand-- and then Malfoy was on the ground, twitching pitifully.


Harry felt as if a bucket of ice had been dumped on his head, but it was too late. Like Snape -needed- an excuse to torment Harry, but this just seemed almost -too- easy. He'd looked up, not daring to hope, and it was a good thing he didn't, because Snape eyes were pitch-black chips of volcanic rock, still burning. He didn't give away his fear, he thought, that was something. He'd shivered, and raised his chin slightly, and decided come what may, at least it couldn't get any worse, with Snape anyway. This was going to be as bad as it got, and it was good to get it over with, almost.


Snape didn't raise his voice, of course, but there was some sort of faint smile teasing the corners of his lips, or maybe Harry just imagined that.


"Well, Mr. Potter, it appears you've seen fit to assault your fellow students in class, now. What's next, casting unforgivable curses on first years? "


"No Sir, I wasn't thinking Sir--" Harry figured cheek wasn't really going to be stood for right now, so his dignity was going to have to suffer. He backtracked as much as he could stand to.


"I see. You weren't thinking. Well, you're going to have a chance to do a lot of thinking now, thankfully. Thinking about how having the ability to do something doesn't give even the Great Harry Potter the right to just do it at their merest whim," Snape said, with endless softness. He still seemed pretty calm. Too calm. The whole class seemed to be holding its breath as one, and no one moved. Snape seemed to be exuding some sort of field around his person, something that held every one of them in complete thrall.


Harry was blinking quickly, feeling himself break out in cold sweat. This didn't usually happen when Snape was about to pronounce some new and particularly inventive form of punishment for an unlucky Gryffindor, Some sort of especially malevolent vibe was radiating off the dark visage of his Potions professor. Oh well, he was due for his next crisis right about now, he supposed. "Er--" started Harry, but Snape interrupted.


"You'll be working with Malfoy, helping him on his final project this year. If he fails, so do you. Twenty-five percent of your grade will depend on his accessment of your assistance. The details of your responsibilities are up to him to decide on," Snape said, looking steadily into Harry's ever-widening eyes, seeming to dare him to speak against this.


"Er--" Harry began, but he didn't really know what to say, so he swallowed and tried to pretend like the Slytherins weren't snickering like a really loud pack of malicious little rats, and their eyes weren't boring into his back, probably red and glowing and scary. "But--"


Snape almost smiled, folding his arms across his chest languidly. "No buts. You start your 'apprenticeship' tomorrow night in this classroom, Mr. Potter. And if you want to run crying to the Headmaster over this, you're more than welcome of course, but I doubt he will be of much help in this instance."


Harry closed his eyes, trying to look convincingly resigned. "Yes, Professor."


"Good. Now, back to the properties of finely ground medusae eyeballs...."


And that was that. Malfoy wasn't going to miss an opportunity to have the Great Harry Potter at his beck and call, of course. Oh no, he made every use of it he could think of, and some he didn't until Harry inadvertently inspired him. Those first few weeks were sheer hell. He started to have a habit of devising ten new ways to kill Draco Malfoy every night before he went to sleep. It soothed his nerves, though it didn't exactly inspire the sort of pleasant dreams he may have hoped for. Somehow, he managed to slither into his dreams, always glaring at him or asking him to fetch some ridiculously obscure ingredient that only grows at midnight in the middle of the Forbidden Forest, or maybe is hidden behind the secret door in Snapes private potions cupboard near his desk.


He would dream of Malfoy ringed with snakes, or catching the Snitch, or laughing at him as he walked naked into Potions, late, always late. Harry didn't exactly notice when Malfoy stopped laughing-- perhaps it was when he started staring while Harry was awake, staring and refraining from comment. Harry didn't so much mind the staring bit-- everyone stared, one got used to it before it had the chance to drive them insane-- but most people didn't stare looking so intent. As if he were trying to memorize something particularly unpleasant about that tiny birthmark on Harry's left cheekbone. Malfoy stared, and Malfoy, increasingly, said nothing. Oh, he still deigned to give basic instructions, and to brusquely tell him to leave now, but he didn't really -taunt- him, except with the staring of course. Harry was getting more and more befuddled, and quite a bit disturbed.


Until the night when he told him to stop, just as he was done with the prescribed mixing and chopping and torture for the evening, just as he was going out the door. Harry stopped, without turning around.


"You don't have to come back, Potter," Malfoy said, his voice strangely even, without that usual sneering drawl. "I don't need your help. Have fun failing Potions without me-- you really don't need -my- help, at least for that." Was that a chuckle? Harry turned around, staring incredulously at the casual-looking boy still bent over a cauldron.


"What's this about, Malfoy? I thought--"


"You thought I was having fun as you mucked up all my hard work with your inept dabblings? No thank you. I'd rather have Fatbottom help me, if you don't mind." Malfoy had stopped his intermittent stirring and sniffing, and was facing him, leaning against the desk they'd been using.


"Well, no.... But...."


Harry was getting that weird, flustered feeling again. He hated being flustered, most especially by Snape or Malfoy. Most definitely by Malfoy. He glared at the composed, ever-smirking nemesis. Slimy git.


"Potter, Potter, Potter," Malfoy drawled, shaking his head. "It seems you need a little-- encouragement. Who would've thought?" He stalked over to Harry, where he stood next to the wall by the door. "What a contrary bunch you Gryffindors are. Never know what's good for you, do you," he said, his voice lowering strangely.


He was pressing against him now, -breathing- on him, and all Harry could do was stare, his mouth dry as his palms were not. He didn't know what one was supposed to do in this sort of situation, though he supposed he should just push Malfoy off him and get away as fast as humanly possible. In all likelihood this was Malfoy's plan-- if Malfoy -had- a plan. Maybe Malfoy was losing his mind, sort of like Harry was in danger of doing. Why did Malfoy have to smell of eucalyptus and lemon and something else tangy that Harry couldn't place, but it was certainly doing a good job of making him dizzy. He leaned his head against the wall. What was he supposed to be doing, again?


Malfoy's breath was humid and blistering hot on Harry's cheek, next to his temple. The blond was hissing something, words or maybe mumbled formless curses. Somehow, Harry had ended up clutching someone's robes, his heart going record speed. He didn't think they were his own robes, but he couldn't seem to let go, for some reason. Malfoy licked along the edge of his ear, and before Harry knew it, he was clutching Malfoy himself, pulling him closer if possible, and moaning helplessly into his mouth. Which was by that point sinking into his, ridiculously wet and soft and deeply intoxicating, in the most addictive, stomach-churning, frightening way.


And then Harry's fingers were knotting in fine, silvery hair, and his hips were having a mind of their own, grinding against the ones now pressing desperately against them, and his legs were shaking so much he would've fallen if he didn't have the wall to hold him up. It wasn't that he wanted to be taken-- and it wasn't that he wanted to take. He just wanted, overwhelmingly and completely, without even knowing what it was he was after.


He still hadn't figured it out by the next day, or the day after that. Malfoy took every opportunity to amuse himself with the sight of him, flailing and arguing with himself and vowing to stop, because he had to stop, that much was always obvious. It usually lasted for as long as it took for Malfoy's body to be pressed against his, for his low hiss to be singeing his ear, for his tongue to be plunging heedlessly into his willing mouth, hot and deep and insistent.


Harry never particularly thought thinking before doing, too much, was his problem. Rather, it tended to be the opposite. And thinking before doing Malfoy was even more counterproductive than some other things he could think of. There was just something about the utter lunacy of it all that got to him, though. It really seemed as if it was some other person, at first. It wasn't really him, licking Malfoy's inner thigh, or nipping at his collarbones, or fucking him frenziedly up against the wall of the Quidditch broom-shed.


It was him, still him, who had to put up with Malfoy's insufferable name-calling and transparent ploys and not-so-amusing remarks in Potions and his casual remarks about the Dark Lord. It was Harry Potter who had to put up with Malfoy on almost a daily basis, and he really had no idea who that black-haired bloke was who was snogging the pale, slight fellow with the green scarf. Harry didn't feel he needed yet another crisis of identity, he was having a hard enough time accepting his apparent connection to Voldemort.


It was a long time before either of them called the other by first name, and a much longer time before it became obvious that what they had was probably a "relationship", because they just couldn't seem to get enough, and no one else seemed appealing. Draco resented it, but accepted it quickly, since Harry was usually willing. Except Harry wasn't. Harry wasn't really willing.


It was at the point where they started to become honest that they started to really become cruel. But by then, every time Harry said he was leaving, it had become a lie.
~~