Title:  Groping Blindly (Love Ridden 10)

Author: Romie

Archive:  anywhere.  In fact, I'd appreciate it.  Let me know if it's

convenient.

Rating:  PG-13

Pairing:  prelude to Harry/Draco

Spoilers:  none

Disclaimers:  Rowling is God.

Warnings:  Features a male/male romantic pairing.  Don't read if you don't like.

Summary:  Harry ponders.  There's even (after several requests)

more contemplation of the famous "let's draw on Draco!" scene.

=============================================

 

Well, it looks like at least one question is settled; I'm *definitely* attracted to Draco Malfoy.  God, I must have come off as such an idiot.  I mean, honestly; I break into his room, uninvited, and then I just stand there stuttering.  It's not even as though he was in any state of undress; by all rights, I should have been more flustered by our *last* conversation.  The one where he was in a towel.

 

My only excuse is that I didn't know then what I know now.  It's true what Hermione says: knowledge is a powerful aphrodisiac.  This time, I was evaluating Draco as a potential lover, sizing him up as an ally instead of an opponent.  Unfortunately, this was complicated by his adamant efforts to scare me off.

 

It's obvious that's what he's doing.  I'm chagrined to say it nearly worked before I realized his words, his taunts, are actually *dares*.  I read somewhere that most sarcasm is pure honesty hidden in the open.  By telling the truth in a bitter voice, you provide a wall of defense; you haven't denied anything, but the listener would be a fool to believe your confession.

 

I'm not a fool, although of course you couldn't have known that from last night's behavior.  I'm not even sure why I went to see him; it wasn't intentional, yet my feet led me directly there.  I must have heard one of the teachers mention where he'd been placed; the information must have lodged in my subconscious.  Why else would I have walked to the teachers' wing, the place I was most likely to get caught for being out of bed?

 

Once there, I knew that Draco was still awake from the off-key sound of string playing.  (No professor would be that awful.)  That doesn't excuse my blatantly illegal use of magic to enter his locked room.  If he'd called me on it, I could have gotten in a *lot* of trouble.  Why is it that I never think my actions through in advance?  I'm forever reacting, going back to analyze what came before instead of looking to the future.  It's a hand-to-mouth means of subsistence, but I can't seem to give it up.  I'm constantly amazed that things come together as they do; by all rules of probability, I should be dead in the bottom of a pit somewhere.

 

Snape's looking at me sternly.  I ought to do something to disguise my complete lack of attention in his class, but taking notes - even *real* ones - is absolutely out of the question.  The idea of putting quill to parchment is too powerfully suggestive of. . .

 

God, it was glorious.  I couldn't read his mind, but I could sure as hell map his skin.  I started just below his left collarbone, inking-in a corkscrewing serpent to guard the vulnerable hollow between breast and shoulder.  When he didn't object, I rested my free hand at his waist - if he'd asked, I would have said it was to steady him, although he was already perfectly still.

 

I forced myself not to look up or down, to content myself with what I'd been offered.  With a hand steady from years of drafting experience, I made wildly forking tongues erupt from the serpent's mouth to caress the arsenic white of Draco's shoulder.  The lines webbed around and down his arm in sinuous curves, branching into flames, feathers, flowers - whatever I could invent.  I wonder what Draco would have done if I'd had the courage to follow the serpent's tongue with my own, blurring the neat lines into messy streaks and teasing the pale skin to redness. . .

 

This is *not* the place to be thinking these thoughts.  If Snape wasn't suspicious before, he certainly is now; I'm practically vibrating in my seat.  Thankfully, he misattributes the cause, and asks that next time I use the W.C. *before* coming to class.  Even more surprisingly, he doesn't use the infraction as an excuse to take points from Gryffindor, instead permitting me to leave class and attend to my business.  He must have been badly shaken by yesterday's scene in the dining hall; I wonder whether it was his influence that got Draco his near-expulsion, or whether he was the one who worked to stop it.

 

I find myself wandering the halls again, hoping I'll bump into Draco.  This is about as likely as finding a magical flea in the Forbidden Forest.  Not only does Hogwarts have miles upon miles of labyrinthine corridor, but the entire staff is actively working to keep Draco separate from the other students.  I don't even know what I'd do if I found him, (more of the brilliant Potter not-planning-ahead).  Probably rip his robes off to see if he still bears my marks.  See if my touch still traces his chest, closer to his skin than even his underclothes.

 

This *has* to stop.  I haven't even. . . We're barely on speaking terms.  He has *no* right to obsess me so utterly; I don't even *like* him.  He's reprehensible and infuriating and cantankerous, and he seems to have set up a permanent residence in my head.  I'd love to think that he'll change, blossoming under my influence to become a real live Human Being; but I've learned from Sirius that when you try to alter others, it is only yourself that changes.

 

I don't want to change.  Well, yes I do - there's that whole planning ahead thing, to begin with -- but I don't want to become more like him.  Wait - that's not true either.  I'd love to be more cultured, more poised, more elegant.  I'm saying this wrong.

 

I don't want to become the sort of person who finds Draco's behavior acceptable.  I refuse to condone bigotry toward the non-magical, or snobbery for those of lesser means.  All the finer characteristics in creation are not enough to make up for that one glaring fault, that unthinking hatred.  As long as he feels that way, I cannot let myself care for him.

 

Where does that leave me?  I can't accept Draco as he is; I can't expect him to change.  The reasonable, intelligent course of action is to forget about him; there will be other, healthier attractions in the future.  It should be easy - I don't even have to see him again.

 

And when Dumbledore told me to stay out of the third floor corridor, I did as he asked.  And when he said that I couldn't go to Hogsmeade without a parental permission slip, I stayed quietly home.  And when I discovered that Hagrid had an illegal pet dragon, I turned him in to the proper authorities.

 

Tell me again how I'm the smart one?