"Should Have Been Mine," Harry/Draco, PG-13 Title: Should Have Been Mine Author:green_amber Characters/Pairing: Harry/Draco (*fandom collectively dies of shock*) Summary: Post-war. Voldemort, Lucius, and Narcissa are dead, and Draco is taken in by Remus and Harry. Draco doesn't like this, one bit. Rating: PG-13 Warning(s): language, implied sex Originally Written: 3/06 Notes: For remixredux. Title, Author and URL of original story:Unrequited, by Evie aka phoenixw
Should have been mine.
Draco's fingers curled possessively over the chilly twisted metal of the door handle, sliding up and down its serpentine length. My house. My ancestors' house.
He never spent much time here as a boy. By the time he was old enough to remember, Uncle Orion and Cousin Regulus were dead and Cousin Sirius was in prison and there was only old Aunt Walpurga left, with her pursed lips and beady eyes, always talking about people dead before Draco was even born. The house was going to seed even then, dusty and dank. Draco had dreamed, as a child, of the cobweb-festooned halls thrown open to the air; a thousand mirrors polished back into silver shimmer, and a thousand candles to dance before the glass. Most of all, he imagined himself as a man, triumphant, impeccably dressed, lord of all he surveyed.
Instead, he was coming back here as a supplicant, a poor relation, dependent upon the charity of a bloody werewolf and a filthy half-blood who'd been his nemesis in school and was now responsible for ruining Draco's life. Brilliant, he thought, tasting hatred like acid.
It was Potter himself who opened the door. Draco met his gaze, intending to show no humility or fear, but it was the color of Potter's eyes that undid him. Green: of course Draco had always known Potter's eyes were green, but he couldn't see the color now without thinking of the Killing Curse and how, with one spell, Potter had obliterated all Draco knew.
"Come on in," Potter said, his lips twisting unpleasantly.
From her two-dimensional demesne, Walpurga Black smiled.
*****
"I know this must be hard for you," said the werewolf.
Draco scowled and stabbed at his porridge with his spoon, wondering if the spoon was silver, wondering if he could file it into a point and stick the business end of it into Lupin's eye. "I don't need your pity," he muttered. He knew the werewolf saw him as a project of sorts--the wayward orphan he meant to reach, to mold into a respectable member of society.
I was a respectable member of society, and I wouldn't be an orphan in the first place if it weren't for you Order of the Phoenix bastards.
"I don't pity you, Draco…I merely mean to say that…it's been hard for all of us. Potter's life hasn't been easy since the war, either."
Oh, cry me a bloody river. He must have such a time fending off the paparazzi and shooing away the besotted teenage girls. Such a miserable existence. Yet perhaps there was gold to be gleaned here--some little treasure of a secret that could make Potter hurt as he deserved to hurt. "What's happened to Potter, Professor?" he asked in his best submissive voice, near-choking on the title of respect. Werewolves shouldn’t be professors.
Lupin sighed. "He's a bit lost; doesn't seem to know what to do with his life now the war's over. I think the idea of defeating Voldemort was his Holy Grail, and now…well, he's still so young, and he sees all the years stretching out ahead of him without purpose. I wonder if that's why…"
"Why what?" Draco schooled his features into an appropriately concerned frown.
"He clings to the past, Draco. I can't say I'm not guilty of the same thing, but--He imagines himself in love with me. He hasn’t said anything, but I can tell. Mooning glances, that sort of thing. He's too young to realize it's not me he loves; it's the fact that I've been in his life since before the war, and seeing me every day makes him feel like his life makes some sort of sense. But I can't--I--"
"Can’t love him, you mean," said Draco, thinking because you're still gone on my dead fool cousin and you're just as stupid as Potter.
Lupin nodded. "He needs someone his own age, someone less weighed down by troubles and responsibilities…"
The bile was, for the first time since Draco's arrival, replaced by something sweet and heady as elf-made wine. Power.
Draco lowered his voice to a whisper, and looked theatrically around the room as though making doubly certain Potter was not about. "I've always had this thing for him, didn't you know? Maybe I could go to him tonight…cheer him up?"
The werewolf smiled slightly. "Yes, I think that is an excellent plan." He rose to go, then, leaving behind one graying hair that had fallen to the table.
*****
Draco watched from the rain-streaked window as Potter left the house. He had to admit, the sight of Potter's arse walking away made him a little hard, but that was to be expected.
It had been good--Draco had taunted and teased Potter, and like the whore he was, Potter had eaten up every minute of it. At the last, Draco had ridden the half-blood like an animal, triumph coursing through his veins. The way Nature had intended it, if one disregarded the scarred, tainted body he'd borrowed for the act.
Draco watched Potter until he was gone from sight, and wondered why he felt almost disappointed to see him go. He told himself it was because Potter had refused to acknowledge Draco's superiority over Lupin. Why would any self-respecting wizard, even a half-blood, want a werewolf over the scion of two of the best families in Britain?