Title:  Balk (Love Ridden 14)

Author: Romie

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

Rating:  PG

Pairing:  prelude to Harry/Draco.

Spoilers:  none

Disclaimers:  Rowling is God.

Warnings:  This series features non-explicit same-sex romantic interaction.  If it's not your thing, don't read it.  You have been warned.

Summary: Harry tries to do right by Draco, which, as usual, turns out to be a bad thing. 

Note: Harry is on a bit of an adrenaline kick at the time of narration, for reasons that should be clear from the first two paragraphs.  This makes him considerably less focused than usual, because he's thinking *very* quickly; this also makes him even more postmodern than he has been previously.  So if he's less introspective than you've come to expect, that's why.  He should have calmed down by the next post, or even the end of this one.  Don't get me wrong, though - he's still calm, reasonable Harry.  He just acts a little odd in places. 

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Madam Pomfrey says that my jaw is only fractured and it should re-knit itself by tomorrow morning.  Nevertheless, it feels as though a giant vibrating church bell has replaced my chin, tolling out warning messages enthusiastically enough to rattle my teeth.  And Pomfrey flatly refuses to do anything for the pain.  Despite my protestations to the contrary, she knows that I've been fighting; she'd have to be blind not to, what with the articulate imprint of knuckles on my mandible.

 

It's her policy, you see, never to give painkillers for combat-related injuries.  The theory is that the pain acts as a deterrent to brawling, and I must admit that I have no desire to ever fight again (at least until I have my own private array of pharmaceuticals and healing charms).  Not that I was fighting *this* time; I was actually trying strenuously *not* to.

 

I'm no good at this.

 

Hermione didn't get back last night until almost eleven o'clock, but she was alert and full of news.  (You can always tell when she's excited, because she starts whispering.  I've never figured out whether it's because she'd be shouting otherwise, or because she equates subterfuge with exhilaration.  I doubt she even notices she does it; as incisive as she is when watching others' psyches, she pays very little attention to her own.)

 

"They've got Narcissa Malfoy," she said (in exactly those words - and she ordinarily uses such proper English), a broad smile breaking over her face.  I glanced over at Ron to find that he was grinning too, and felt my own mouth quirking up at the corners.  We stood there like a bunch of beaming idiots until we dissolved into great, gasping peals of laughter from just looking at each other.

 

This may seem like an overreaction.  But, you see, where you find Narcissa Malfoy, you find Lucius Malfoy.  And where you find Lucius Malfoy, you find Voldemort.  So what Hermione was saying was "we have Voldemort."  Certainly, it may take days or even months, but we're *close*.  The Ministry has a source, and a place to start looking, which is more than they've had in a year.  Voldemort might even be caught before we graduate.

 

(If you worry that my euphoria is talking for me, it's a valid concern.  Rest assured that I know that Voldemort is very difficult to kill, or to stop.  Of All People, I Know That Best.  But this. . .  We can pursue, we can chase, we can strike instead of simply waiting for him to make a move.  Instead of reacting, we are reborn.  It's an amazing feeling, as though your heart is dancing instead of merely beating.  As though with each breath you swallow supernovas.)

 

In my giddiness, I didn't realize that there was one person who would Not be celebrating;  that didn't occur to me until several hours later, lying stiffly across my bed, trying to force my body to sleep.  (Either self- hypnosis is a sham, or I'm no damn good at it.  Most likely the latter.)  No, for the time, my elation was undiluted, and the three of us danced about like fools at a May Day picnic.  Lord, we must have looked a sight.  Without music, we each moved to different rhythms.  And the only one of us who's any good is Hermione, who had a book under her arm.

 

(Ron's always worried about jabbing people with his elbows - his height, you see - so he keeps his arms stiffly at his ssides.  It's *highly* comical, because his feet skip quickly and nimbly, his head turns from side to side . . . and his arms stay rigid, like splints against his torso.  Come to think of it, it's a bit like Irish step-dancing.  And of course . . . he's . . . Irish. . . .  I am *such* an idiot sometimes.  God, how many years has he been my friend?  And I just now picked up on that. It's funny how you don't realize what you know about a person until you try to explain them to someone else.  Ron's not clumsy at *all*; he does that *deliberately* because it's part of his *style*.  He's probably been *trained* in it.  Lord.)

 

(My dancing, on the other hand, is quite the opposite.  No control whatsoever, just energetic flailing.  Hermione tried to teach me to dance *properly* a few years back, but it was thoroughly hopeless.  I'm a bad dancer.  I accept it.  So instead of even *attempting* to do what looks good, I go with what seems fun.   It can be freeing to realize you're incurably bad at something, because then you don't have to worry about it anymore - in my case, I can do what I want to do, and enjoy it, and not bother with wondering whether anyone else likes it. This tends to involve a lot of jumping up and down.  Good thing my glasses are enchanted so they won't accidentally fall off (an absolute *necessity* for a spectacled seeker).)

 

(Before you get a *completely* disdainful opinion of me, let me say that it's better than being a wallflower.  And I'm not actually too terrible as a dance *partner*, because I'm very enthusiastic about throwing people for spins and dips.  Moreover, it encourages people who are uninterested in all the serious stuff that always seems to accompany asking someone to dance - I hate that nonsense.  I don't know what I'll do if I'm ever asked to a truly formal event - not a Hogwarts affair, but, I dunno, a wedding or something.)

 

I am so unfocused right now.  It's the smell of iodine, I suspect.  Pomfrey keeps it around even though it's muggle, because, well, it *works*.  Quickly and efficiently.  But it makes me queasy whenever I'm in this corner of the medical wing.  I hate the smell of iodine.  It's what the nurse at my elementary school would put on my cuts whenever Dudley felt the need to rough me up a bit.  Of course, she never thought to phone the headmaster, or child services, or to comment on all the *other* injuries that appeared when she rang the Dursleys the first time it happened.

 

I'm not bitter.

 

Really, I'm not.  Bitter, that is.  I suppose she had her reasons, and one cannot change the past.  But iodine still makes me queasy, bringing back that feeling of utter helplessness, the memories of sitting as a small boy on a too-large chair in an empty room with peeling yellow linoleum and a nurse who reeked of nicotine and too little pay.  Weak sodium lamps overhead washed the walls with sickly light, and the woven orange curtains were *always* closed over grimy windows that were soldered shut.  The backs of my legs stuck to the vinyl, the heavy-metal tang of blood clung to the back of my tongue, and I felt as though I couldn't *breathe* the still, stale air, but I knew that if I one of my cuts ever got infected, the Dursleys wouldn't take me to the doctor until it got so bad that I could lose a limb.  Actually, they might have enjoyed that.  It would have allowed them to collect Disability from the government, none of which I'd ever see.

 

Stop it, Harry.  You're not there any more, and will never have to go back unless you want to.  (The circumstances of which I can't imagine.)

 

Where was I?

 

Right.  Happiness.  Capering in the common room with my best friends.

 

There's not much more to that story, I'm afraid.  We kept on for a quarter of an hour, then disbanded to go to bed - class in the morning, after all.  I, of course, couldn't sleep.  I tried for a couple of hours, but my heart wasn't in it.  I put it up to a combination of being keyed up from the dancing, and staying awake too late the night before.

 

And that's when I realized about Draco.  Narcissa's Draco's mum.  That he's a racist wanker and a patronizing bully didn't negate the reality that his *mother* was probably being interrogated, (and likely tortured,) that very moment, something no one should have to experience.  I know what it's like to worry for Sirius, who I'm used to thinking of as endangered, and who is secure in his hiding place.  What must the difference be for Draco?  And he was alone, cloistered from anyone who could comfort or even distract him.  One o'clock in the morning, but if I was up, he surely must be.  (Mirror logic, I know, but it did prove true.)

 

(I'm going to shift tenses now.  Don't let it confuse you - it just makes things easier.  This all still takes place last night.)

 

I run to his room, terry-cloth robe billowing out behind me, bare feet slapping against the flagstones.  I remember to knock this time, tapping an irregular rhythm as I heave in swallows of oxygen and habitually shove my hair back.  A long pause with no answer - he must've fallen asleep with the light on.  When I hear a quiet "enter," I've already turned away to try again tomorrow.

 

I push the door open almost gingerly.  It seems impossibly heavier than it was before - a subconscious reluctance on my part, I suppose.  Either out of laziness or of fear, I sidle through the narrow half opening, edging warily into the room.  Later, I will realize that I am using the door as a shield for as long as possible; for now, I don't analyze it.

 

I don't know what I expect from Draco; I was so alarmed (so guilty) that it didn't occur to me to wonder about his reaction during my flight down the hall.  Only now that I'm half inside, now that I'm irrevocably committed, do I begin to speculate.  He could be crying; he could be violent.  I don't know which prospect is more terrifying.

 

I completely fail to anticipate what I witness.  Draco reclines cross- legged on the floor, coolly reading _Hogwarts, A History_ as he sips from a bone china teacup.  "What the hell do you want, Potter?" he demands, voice clipped.  I realize for the first time how carefully he enunciates, 't's sputtering like gunfire, 'h's gusting like wind on the open moor.  Finally, I understand his usual insistence on 'Potter' instead of 'Harry'; it's more than just a method of distancing me.  'Potter' is a name that can be growled, spat, disparaged, uttered with venom and crushed under a heel.  And he has had so much practice.

 

"I came to see how you were," I reply, voice miraculously clear and steady, refusing to rise to his bait.  I came here for honorable reasons; if he feels the need to strike out at me, so be it.  I refuse to hurt him back.

 

"How noble," he simpers sarcastically.  I've been working so hard to stop regarding him as my enemy that I forgot what a total bastard he can be.  Yes, a trapped animal only lashes out because of pain and fear, but the handler still gets bitten.

 

He continues: "what are you pitying me for *this* time?"  My stomach clenches into a walnut knot.  Could he somehow not know?  Is it possible that no one's told him?  Certainly *Dumbledore* would have come as soon as he heard, and there's no way the information reached Hermione before the headmaster.  Perhaps Draco's bravado is just denial.  Yes.  He has to know.

 

But, God, what if he doesn't?  What if somehow, in their excitement, everyone forgot about him, and he's been sitting calmly in his room, innocent of the information I've had for hours (i should have come sooner)?  I wasn't prepared for this.  I'm not prepared for it anyway, but I thought I at least had a list of supplies.  It's like that nightmare in which you find out you're late for an exam you didn't know you had.  Now imagine that you didn't even know you took the class.  That you didn't even know that the subject existed.  Or the language the teacher is speaking.

 

How do you ask whether a boy knows that his criminal mother has been apprehended, that she's probably being interrogated as you speak?  How do you tell your rival that you're sorry without sounding like a gloating, condescending, ingenuine prick?  You don't.  Not without turning it into a challenge.  Especially when dealing with a boy such as this, one so accustomed to insult and enmity.  I shouldn't have come.

 

And how could I possibly stay away?  It suddenly strikes me how deeply *wrong* it is that I'm standing and he's sitting.  By sheer elevation, I'm involuntarily victimizing him, looming ominously.  Yet to take a seat without invitation would require a markedly greater familiarity than we share; any such action on my part would be a usurpation of his control.  (Does he have any idea that I'm as trapped in this as he is?)

 

"Draco," I begin, blundering ahead as best I can.  He cuts me off immediately, "don't" hissing out between clenched teeth, slim fingers tightening around the teacup handle.  He looks up at me, staring me down, and I see it.  No matter how much of a show he puts on, his eyes never hide any of what he feels.  It's funny that his favorite offensive tactic is to look me straight in the eyes; it's lost him more fights than he knows.  Oh yes, he *knows*.  And he is *angry*.  I am the prince of fools.

 

"I'm sorry," I say, and I mean that I'm sorry I came, sorry for presuming, sorry for putting him in this position.  I recognize my mistake when spots of high color flare across his cheekbones; he thinks we're having a profoundly different conversation.

 

He flings his cup down so forcibly that shrapnel scatters as far as the fireplace.  I am stunned; I've never known Draco to use physical violence of any kind.  Too inelegant.  Tiny droplets of blood well up on his arm where miniscule china fragments have impacted; he doesn't seem to notice.  I try desperately to backpedal, to erase those two stupid words, but they underscore the air between us and the floor between our feet.  So many layers to such a basic phrase; it was a code, a cipher that I'd hoped would convey the complexity of the feelings which brought me here.  I didn't realize that he lacked the key to break it.

 

"I didn't mean-"

 

"Shut.  Up."  Although he doesn't raise his voice even a decibel, his tone employs the full weight of command, and my mouth closes almost reflexively.  He returns to his reading as though nothing has happened, leaving me standing there helplessly.  I can't leave; I can't stay.  I feel impossibly awkward, more self-conscious than I've been since early puberty.  I wait for an indeterminate length of time, simply watching him read.  He looks genuinely interested, but perhaps that's just his way of proving how unimportant to him I am.

 

Finally, *finally*, he seems to reach a stopping place, and snaps the book shut with one hand.  With long-limbed grace, he rises; it is as though the law of gravity does not apply to him.  He can stand without needing to push himself up, without even needing to uncross his legs; he simply . . . elevates.  He slinks over to me, blatantly invading my personal space.  I could step back, but I don't.  I have to show that I trust him, that he's in charge.  (God help us all.)

 

Smoothly, he instructs me to close my mouth, although it is already closed.  He adds that my teeth should be together, not just my lips.  Furthermore, he instructs me to place the tip of my tongue at the highest point of my palate.  I do so.

 

I don't even see the windup; I just feel the impact, staggering back several meters.  Shooting pain networks through my jaw, and I know with a certainty that it would have been dislocated if Draco hadn't told me how to position my mouth before he struck.  He turns on his heels and stalks to his bed, yanking the curtains closed behind him.  The message is clear: this audience is *over*.  I leave, cradling my mouth in one hand.

 

Well, that's the story.  I did the sorts of things one usually does - got some ice from the kitchens, grabbed a book from the library.  Pomfrey arrives at 5:00, so it was only three hours I had to wait.

 

Even with those three hours to think about it, I have no idea what just happened.