Rating: I'll say R, just to be safe. Don't think I'm going to hazard a NC-17
Pairing : Draco/Ron
Disclaimer : They're all the talented J.K. Rowling's. I don't own anyone. Not even my cat. She prefers my sister.
Warning : SLASH! If you don't like the idea of m/m, then I don't think this story is for you.
Archive : Just ask me. :)

Harry – Chocolate Frogs and Howlers

Harry looked up as Ron entered the Great Hall for breakfast and sent a smile at his friend as the flushed redhead slipped breathlessly into his usual seat.

“Slept in, Ron?” Harry asked, a teasing smile on his face as Ron held the edge of the table in support, taking deep gulps of air. He had obviously run all the way from the Gryffindor tower again, considering the red freckled face and desperate wheezing. Hermione lowered her enormous book on the ‘Mating Habits of Hippogriffs’ (Harry shuddered at the imagery) and presented a still winded Ron with one of her best looks of disapproval.

“It’s the third time this week, Ron,” she pointed out, as though Ron had not been aware of it. Harry threw Ron a sympathetic look but chewed contentedly on his toast, happy in the knowledge that the brunt of Hermione’s exasperation wouldn’t be on him today. Ron rolled his eyes as he patted his chest; coughing a few times to finally get his breath considerably back.

“S’not my fault!” he pouted in frustration, still recovering. “My awakening charm didn’t work…!”

“You mean you didn’t cast it correctly,” Hermione put right, closing her book with a loud thump. Harry placed the now dust-covered remains of his toast back onto his plate, making a face. Ron muttered something that sounded terribly like ‘Girls’ to Harry but knew not to say it loud enough to reach Hermione’s ever-attentive ears.

Flicking her bushy hair from her shoulder to her back, she sighed and scowled at the belated boy but Harry could see soft endearment in her honey-coloured eyes. “You better eat something before Potions starts, Ron,” she said more gently, though her voice still had an air of sternness about it. “I don’t want your noisy stomach losing us any more points from Gryffindor.” However, Ron was looking off into random space with a hungry look in his eye.

“Merlin, I could murder a chocolate frog...” he said, the dreamy look only broken by another violent growl from his stomach.

Harry’s new slice of toast suddenly looked a lot less appealing. Just five more Wizard cards and he would have as many as Ron, though Harry did have to remind himself that most of his cards were given to him by Ron because his best friend already had ‘seven of that card’. Hermione looked at Ron as though he’d just declared that he wanted to eat a raw blast-ended skrewt instead.

“Ron, it’s 8:30!”

Ron shrugged, ignoring her severe look as Harry just smiled at Hermione’s shaking bushy head and inaudible mutters. No matter how much they told each other off, Harry knew how much Ron and Hermione truly liked each other. Every time Harry thought of last year’s Yule Ball he had to suppress a laugh, remembering the look on Ron’s face when he first noticed that that pretty girl on the arm of his favourite seeker, Viktor Krum, was in fact his other best friend. Harry truly didn’t think Ron knew who he was more jealous of at first; Hermione was getting to talk, dance and laugh with one of Ron’s heroes but Krum had been quick enough to ask Hermione before Ron did.

“Bloody seeker like reflexes…” Ron had muttered to Harry at the Ball, who just rolled his eyes and turned them to the less welcome image of Cho Chang dancing with Cedric Diggory. Cedric Diggory…

Suddenly, Ron looked up and across the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables, intent on searching for something with his eyes. On quickly finding it, he scowled. Harry noted that his best friend’s eyes were looking straight at the Slytherin table and the bespectacled wizard didn’t need to guess which certain blond-haired boy had caused such a reaction.

“Bloody Malfoy,” Ron growled as he stabbed his fork into his now massacred scrambled eggs. “He’ll get his owl of like a thousand Frogs any bloody moment now.” Both Harry and Hermione warily looked at Ron as they expected him to go off on one about how poor he was. They really didn’t know what to say when Ron mentioned money, especially Harry who had a vault at Gringotts that was nearly bursting with gold. Harry had told Ron thousands of times that he was a hundred times better than those Malfoys and always tried to share his fortune with the Weasleys, who he loved like his own family, but they never accepted and Ron was far too proud to ever take it anyway.

However, Ron didn’t start talking about his financial situation as a sly smile slowly crept on his face. “I sometimes wish that Dobby still worked for the evil little git, you know. He loves you so much, Harry, that I bet he wouldn’t think twice about poisoning Malfoy’s bundle…”

“Ron!” Hermione tried to give him a don’t-joke-about-that look but Harry could see the underlying smile.

“Oh, alright… Not poisoning…” Ron continued grumpily, looking slightly putout that Hermione wouldn’t let him openly fantasise about Draco Malfoy dying a slow and painful death. “But he could at least kick it about in the mud for a couple of hours before packing it.”

Their laughter was soon drowned out by the sound of hundreds of flapping wings and echoing hoots.

Mail.

Owls soared into Hall and dropped packages of every shape and size to the lines of students. Ron was too busy loathing Malfoy and watching closely for the Slytherin’s package without noticing that Pig happily hooted and dropped his own on his flaming red head. However, Ron didn’t seem to have even noticed his rolled up issue of The Daily Prophet as his blue eyes brightened so widely that Harry was afraid he was Petrified.

“I don’t believe it!” Ron looked as though Christmas had come early. “Malfoy’s got a Howler!”

Harry and Hermione turned to the Slytherin table in disbelief at Ron’s delighted words to observe that they weren’t the only ones. Malfoy was holding the familiar red envelope in his hand and looking even paler than usual. He looked as though he was going to throw up the breakfast he had just spent so long eating. Crabbe and Goyle, on either side of him, made him look even smaller and more terrified looking; each staring at the envelope stupidly. It wouldn’t have surprised Harry if they didn’t know what it was; they were infamous for being incredibly slow on the uptake. Without another word Malfoy had jumped from his seat and bolted out the Great Hall and into a nearby corridor. Even if you were battling with the giant squid outside you could still hear the message as Lucius Malfoy’s magically magnified voice shook the entire building like a particularly nasty earthquake.

“RUNNING AWAY FROM HOME?! YOU’RE LUCKY YOU WENT BEFORE I GOT TO YOU, BOY! BRINGING SHAME UPON THE FAMILY BY REFUSING THE FAMILY TRADE AND DISTRESSING YOUR MOTHER! YOU’RE NO SON OF MINE! DON’T EVEN CONSIDER COMING BACK HERE BEFORE THE SUMMER, UNLESS YOU ENJOY LIVING! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?! AND IF YOUR GRADES DON’T IMPROVE, DRACO, THEN YOU’LL BE HOME AND DEALT WITH BEFORE YOU CAN COME UP WITH ANOTHER PITIFUL EXCUSE!”

The silence afterwards was almost thunderous and Harry thought maybe the Howler had rendered him temporarily deaf. Nobody in the hall laughed, as they oft did, when someone received a Howler. Even Ron sat there, mouth open, unable to believe that perfectly spoilt Draco Malfoy had done something to upset his father. Hermione was the first person to speak at the deathly hushed Gryffindor table.

“Malfoy ran away from home?”

“What did he mean by ‘dealt with’?” Ron asked, out of his stupor. Harry looked at Ron in slight surprise. He thought that Ron, of all people, would be enjoying this; after all, Ron was the only person who probably hated Malfoy more than Harry. “I mean… did you hear his voice?” Ron continued with a shudder to emphasise his point. “He sounded way too serious about the killing thing.”

Harry nodded. Lucius Malfoy did sound deadly serious and Harry was never gladder that he wasn’t Draco Malfoy than at that particular moment… but it was still bugging him. The thing that stuck out the most in his mind was the ‘Family Trade’ Mr Malfoy had mentioned. Harry knew all to well that Draco’s father was a Death Eater. He’d seen it himself, had heard his voice when Voldemort addressed him last year…

The bespectacled wizard quietly picked up another slice of toast from the bread rack and began to butter it as he continued to think, the Hall beginning to slowly buzz with chatter again.

What had happened? Did Malfoy refuse to go to the Dark side…? No wonder his father was furious! But why would he refuse? He always seemed capable to Harry and he had boasted to Harry himself about his choosing the ‘wrong side’. And the Boy Who Lived had always assumed that it was a done deal and that the Slytherin had an iron of the Dark Mark piping hot and ready in his room…

Harry’s contemplations, however, were short-lived as he was distracted and soon eased into a conversation with his two best friends about their timetables, driving the blond boy’s problems easily from his mind. In fact, he didn’t even notice that Draco Malfoy hadn’t re-entered into the Great Hall after the Howler. However, he did notice, along with his partners in crime, that for probably the first time in his life, the Slytherin didn’t attend his Potions class.

Fuck. Shit. Damn. Bollocks.

He was completely screwed.

The Slytherin lay back on his bed and stared pensively at the ceiling, wondering if it would collapse on him if he stayed there long enough.

Of course he bloody expected it. He wasn’t completely stupid or anything. If truth be told, Draco wouldn’t have been surprised if Lucius had sent him an Unforgivable curse through the post. Luckily for him, Crabbe and Goyle were always around and would open anything if he told them there was food inside.

Idiots.

However, Lucius hadn’t sent a thing for three weeks since he’d crept onto his Nimbus Two-Thousand and One and sped from the manor in the middle of the night, armed only with a bottomless bag with all his belongings inside. Looking back upon his escape, Draco couldn’t help but wrinkle his nose in disdain. It was all terribly cheap and he could still hardly believe that he, Draco Malfoy, had run away from home.

But what else was he supposed to do? Wait to be shackled in the dungeons so those bloody insane Death Eaters could mark that grotesque and ugly mark upon his flawless skin? Over his dead (and perfect) body. And what was there to look forward to after they stained him to a crisp? To have to kneel before some skeletal wreck, kiss his robes and lick his fucking shoes clean? Lucius may have had no dignity but Draco would have rather drunk a litre of undiluted bubotuber pus than ever reduced himself to that.

Trying to sniff haughtily, he turned to his side but knew he sounded more like a cat being strangled. He knew he was in up to his knees. Though flying straight to Hogwarts and into the ever-watchful protection of Dumbledore (not that he liked the muggle-loving fool or anything), Draco felt far from safe. He knew that Hogwarts was the safest place there was but hey, the place had been broken into four times in as many years by Voldemort’s cronies… and not even a bloody diary was safe.

If Draco were not as brave or as superiorly arrogant as he was, the Slytherin would probably have been paranoid.

However, he couldn’t deny that he was paler than usual and that he would jump slightly when someone shouted his name. And that fucking sickened him. He was being an idiot, or (as he preferred to entitle it) a Gryffindor. He was letting his emotions affect him, and Malfoys didn’t do that. They didn’t have emotions. They were as cold as they looked and Draco remarkably looked like he’d been carved out of ice.

The only time the Slytherin ever let his emotions run uninhibited was when he had screamed bloody murder at his father… and also when a certain redheaded and quick-tempered Gryffindor pushed his buttons. Of course, Draco would let Ron Weasley stroke more then just a nerve but the poor boy was so oblivious to everything else around him that he was hardly going to notice that his worst enemy was undressing him with his eyes. But of course, Draco didn’t blame him. He spent half his time convincing himself that he only wanted to touch the Gryffindor to hurt him… and he did want to hurt him. He wanted to punch him and break him then viciously smirk and lick away the blood and tears. He wanted to make the boy cry out in more ways than one… and the sudden revelation was disturbing him greatly. He fucking hated it. He loathed the adrenaline in his body when he saw a flash of red down the corridors and the way he just couldn’t bloody leave him alone. He absolutely despised the way he needed to taunt him and see him enraged just to make his day complete. And he especially hated the way he made him want him so badly.

Of course, he didn’t actually feel anything deeper for Weasley. It was all pure, crazed, hormonal lust. Or something along those lines. It wasn’t as though he was a real homosexual or anything…

Which he definitely wasn’t.

Weasley was just a pretty face, that’s all. With those startling blue eyes, his tall frame, the fiery blaze of silky hair and the endearing freckles scattered flatteringly across his adorable face, was it any wonder that Draco wanted to drag the dazzling specimen to the nearest bed? But of course, it was ultimately Weasley’s temper that did Draco in, which was more scorching than his hair and more passionate than anything the blond had ever seen. The way the tips of his ears would go red, the clench of his trembling fists and the fury in those wonderful eyes were only things Draco could unleash. And he loved the power he had over him. He loved the way that just one word from him could turn Weasley into a raging animal and Draco practically chortled with pleasure every time the boy would lose his infamous Gryffindor control. He just adored screwing with Weasley’s head, especially when it evoked that nervous or confused expression on Weasley’s face. But he hated (yes, hated) that he sometimes wanted to screw him senseless more than beat him to a pulp. He simply hated the bastard for being so damn sexy and making him, a Malfoy, think he was a fucking queer. Draco decided recently that merely killing the youngest Weasley boy would resolve all of his problems, but he wasn’t going to commit himself to anything just yet...

There was a sudden rap at his window that made Draco nearly jump out of his skin.

Bloody Lucius making him feel so weak...

After the initial shock, he soon lifted his nose into the air with a manner of pretentiousness. He was a Malfoy after all and he wasn’t going to be intimidated… He walked straight to his window with his shoulders square and with an arrogant swing in his hips that couldn’t be taught, but then suddenly stopped.

His breath caught and he could taste the bile rising within his throat. His beautiful and rare black eagle owl, Hades, was tapping weakly with what were the remains of her beak. Her feathers were matte and seemed to have been pulled clean out in several places. One of her wings looked as though it had been injured, especially since it was covered in dried blood and was flapping peculiarly and her shining red eyes were now a different shade of red for a completely different reason.

Someone had gauged them out.

She was hooting blindly at him, with such a voice of tired desperation that it took the Slytherin but a second to run out to her. Cradling her within his arms, Draco stroked her softly with his index finger and felt the rage building up dangerously within him. It was one thing to attack him, but to try and kill the one thing he treasured the most in the world was merciless. He snarled in pure rage. If Lucius were standing before him, he would perform the Avada Kedavra curse upon the fucking bastard without the slightest hesitation. Draco was trembling with pure hatred.

The roll of parchment, which was tied to the remnants of Hades’ leg, grazed against his arm as he held his owl closely and Draco looked at it hesitantly. He should really have looked for Dumbledore. Dumbledore had told the currently furious Slytherin to inform him when he got any mail that he believed was sent by Lucius.

But then Draco reminded himself that he wasn’t dependant on that old fool. He could do this by himself. He could battle anything Lucius threw at him. He placed Hades softly down into her cage and preformed a Painkilling Spell, hoping that it lessened the obvious agony she was in.

When all was done and good prevailed (who would have ever thought that he’d want that?), he’d get the bastards. He’d get all of them. Lucius had brought his son up to be an arrogant git and that was exactly what Draco knew he was; he knew he could deal with anything and everything. With body language that simply screamed self-importance, he opened the letter.

Your Loving Father.

He heard the squeal from Hades’ cage as the parchment disintegrated into dust in Draco’s hands. He was panicking.

Shit.

He didn’t have the faintest bloody idea what to do.

Oh shit...

Approaching the cage, he soon stepped back as he witnessed the scene, making a pained face and desperately wishing he could do something. Hades was squirming in her cage as though someone had put the Cruciatus curse upon her. She was squealing in utter agony, looking at Draco with her giant, bleeding eyes. The cage shook and creaked violently with her spasms and then, suddenly, it stopped. She’d stopped. Blood oozed out all around her like a sponge that had finally released all its fluid, slowly dripping to the stone floor in eerie echoes.

The Malfoy just stared in shock.

He felt as though he was going to throw up or even cry, and he hadn’t done either for years. He couldn’t touch her. He couldn’t even bear to look at her. He’d never actually lost something he had truly loved. After all, he hardly ever loved.

He didn’t like this feeling at all. This fucking human feeling.

He had to get out.

He ran out the dorms and out of the dungeons.

He needed to lash out at something. Someone. He needed a good brawl. He needed to break something. Someone. He felt like killing. He needed to feel an adrenaline rush and a charge of tingling blood pounding through his body at a thousand miles per hour, making his head go dizzy and his eyes blur. He needed to feel any emotion other than this sickening one.

Draco resolved that he either needed to get violent or horny.

Turning the corner of the corridor, he couldn’t help but revel at his luck. Ron Weasley and Harry Potter were walking in the empty hallway from what looked like a Quidditch practice, broomsticks over their shoulders and talking animatedly. The redhead was positively glowing with a flush, covered in mud and had a dishevelled windswept look about him. And Potter… who the heck cared about Potter?

Violent or Horny, Draco…?

He couldn’t help but produce a wicked smile, forgetting that he honestly felt nothing for the Weasel and focusing only on a distraction.

Why not combine the two?