Dragon Rock
Chapter Two
By Libertine
Dragon Rock
Chapter Two
By Libertine
Nice clean shirt, ruffled collar, dark green. Hipster pants with red seams, black. A woolen scarf, knotted loosely about the neck. A belt with a silver buckle. A black beret, set micheviously awry. You could say what you liked about Muggles, Draco thought, but their clothing design was far more impressive than anything any wizarding company could come up with.
He sashayed infront of the mirror. The outfit was just casual enough to turn up at a site with, but formal enough to suggest a business regimen. He experimented with the tilt of the beret, and decided it was most comely when angled down over his right eye.
"I'm in love," the mirror said, in a small, breathless voice.
"Good grief," said Harry. "I don't believe you enchanted the mirror to say things like that." He too had dressed, in the same scruffy old clothes he wore to the school, and stood petulant and dismissive in the doorway. He was always cranky after sex, Draco recalled, with a moderate sigh.
"I didn't enchant it," Draco replied, over his shoulder. "The mirror just knows what it likes, and it likes what it sees now. Don't you, sweetie." He looked to the mirror for confirmation.
"Definately," said the mirror. "All my thoughts are definately ours, sir."
Draco glared at the mirror. Harry snickered.
"You can be so pathetic, sometimes, Draco."
"Watch it, Potter."
Harry flinched, ever so slightly, and looked away. "Sorry."
"So you should be." Draco made the final adjustments to his attire, and straightened. "I'd better be going. Do fetch my broom, won't you. I'll meet you downstairs."
It looked as if Harry was thinking about refusing – his jaw tightened, abruptly – but then the moment passed, and he bowed his head and moved sheepishly from the room. Utterly broken, Draco smirked to himself. When the mighty fell, they fell hard.
Satisfied with his appearance and the victory he'd won over Harry, Draco padded from his bedroom. A whirring in his ears suggested that Ron was attempting to open the telepathic link once more, but Draco forced the man out of his mind. He strutted along the landing, pausing just before the staircase to take a look into his father's study. As always, he found Lucius submerged in papers, studious and sombre; the patriarch of the Malfoy family.
"Going to work," Draco offered, pleasantly. "I'll see you later."
Lucius tore his eyes from the page, and the cool silver irises fixated upon his son's slightly flushed face. "Haven't I told you often enough to keep the door closed, Draco?" he hissed. "I could barely think to myself in here. Even Narcissa complained, and she's three floors down in the living room."
Draco's mouth formed a pert little O. "Oops," he said. "Silly me. We were in something of a hurry."
"Is that an excuse or an apology, Draco?"
Draco dropped the flippant act. "Er. Both."
"The next time, I'll cast a silencing spell on you both – and I'll leave it on for a week," Lucius snapped. "I will not be distracted from my work by two ignorant little boys screaming – what was it? 'Show me the galleons?' I thought I raised you to know better than that, Draco."
"He said that, not me," Draco protested.
"Perhaps. But I distinctly heard your voice squeaking out shortly afterwards, 'Give me your hot broomstick love.' Shameful, Draco. Completely shameful."
Draco fought against a rising giggle – hearing the words come out in his father's voice made them sound even more comical. "Yes, father," he drawled – at a higher pitch than usual – then ducked away before Lucius could make any more comments on his verbose bedroom activities.
He knew Lucius was only half-serious, anyway. The ordeal involving the snitch in Draco's school years still weighed his father's conscience, so much so that he refused to watch Quidditch games. There wasn't a chance that Lucius would ever cast an adversely affecting spell on his son again. The repercussions were too much to bear.
Outside, Harry was holding two broomsticks. Draco raised a questioning brow.
"Going back to Hogwarts?" he asked. "I thought you couldn't stand the room they put you in there. You're always complaining that it's too cold."
"Not going back to Hogwarts," said Harry, shortly, tossing Draco his broom.
"Then what?" Draco caught it, hefting it's slight weight in his right hand.
"I'm coming with you."
Draco blinked. "Excuse me?"
"I said I was coming with you. I want to spend time with you, and I've stopped caring where the hell we spend it. If you have to work, so be it. But I'm going to watch you work. And even if you don't let me come, you know I'll still follow. Even if it breaks all the bloody rules of the Ministry of Magic."
Draco stared at him; Harry was panting slightly, his face the colour of a ripe tomato. It was possible the longest speech Harry had made in – how long was it, four years? Five? Despite himself, and despite the increasing annoyance he felt at Harry's dogging presence, Draco couldn't help but be impressed. He swung a leg over his broom, and squinted out at the horizon.
"Well?" said Harry.
"Well, what?" said Draco, smartly. "Do you think I'm going to forbid you to do anything, Harry? What sort of person do you think I am? You're a grown adult. I'm sure you're perfectly capable of making decisions for yourself."
He balanced his weight expertly on the broom, lifting his feet from the earth and bringing his chin down toward the handle.
"Don't stand there with your mouth hanging open," he muttered. "Are you going to follow me or not?"
"Y-yes."
"Then –" Draco left the word hanging, and kicked off into the sky. He was moving purposefully fast – not to lose Harry, exactly, just to annoy him a little more. There was a perverse pleasure to be gained by making Harry lose his cool, and then – with a word or a gesture – diffuse his anger completely. Sometimes he felt that Harry moved completely under his control, utterly will-less, like a puppet pulled on its strings. At others – this recent outburst, for example – Harry was wholly unfathomable. He could be so desperate it was shocking; almost to the level that it embarrassed Draco.
Fingers clawed about the handle of the broom, the wind in his silverspun hair, Draco reeled across the sky; Harry determined and hopeless in his wake.