Ame's Insanity (amejisuto) wrote in the_playground, @ 2008-05-31 16:46:00 |
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Entry tags: | ame's fics, drarry |
Haven HP/DM Rated R 6/?
Title: Haven
Chapter Six
Author: amejisuto
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Harry/Draco, various background pairings but the main one will be Fred/George/Lee.
Rating: R
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoat Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. .
Warnings/Squicks: Manipulative!Dumbles. I wouldn't go so far to say Weasley!bashing but um, I'm close. A few minor character deaths are mentioned, but not any of the main characters. Mpreg of secondary character. More warnings may be added as I write the story.
Summary: Harry's graduated from Hogwarts, turned eighteen and defeated a Dark Lord. Now what is he going to do with his life?
Find the previous parts here.
Beta'd by the wonderful suki_blue. Thank you sweets!
Notes: First of all, I tend to totally ignore HBP and DH. I tend to think JK lost the plot sometime halfway through OotP, but that's just my opinion. So yeah, this is a total AU after book five. Don't look for quick updates with this story, I'll try to put up a new chapter once a month. Oh, and for any HP reading that haven't read my Spander epics, I tend to suck at writing smut so there will be much on the friendship and THEN the relationship and then a tiny bit of smut. LOL Hope y'all enjoy the show!
Chapter Six
After he'd left Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, Harry found himself at a loose end. He spent a good hour playing with Scrappy, throwing his ball for him and getting dog slobber all over him. He already flew for an hour this morning with Hedwig before visiting his friends, and she was currently taking a nap. Monty was currently asleep on a rock on the edge of the lake and Edmund was off hunting something, not because he was hungry really but because he loved to terrorize the local field mice.
The adder was such a Slytherin.
Harry wished that Ginny wasn't such a ... well, a stalker for lack of a better term. Infatuated wasn't strong enough of a word, that was for sure. He would have loved to pop over to The Burrow and spend the afternoon visiting with everyone and maybe getting a Quidditch game together. As it was, Harry wasn't planning on visiting The Burrow for at least a month, if not longer.
He had no wish to get his ear twisted off, or yelled at.
It was times like this when he always got jealous of Ron. Not that Ron ever understood. He'd give his last sickle in his vaults to have a hoard of brothers and sisters annoying him like his so-called best friend complained about. Not to mention various aunts, uncles and a cousin that Harry had never really met but the two youngest Weasley children always seemed to take for granted.
Right now it was Fred and George who stirred those feelings of jealousy. They had everything, a business that was theirs, they knew what they wanted from their life, they were in love with Lee and Lee loved them back and now they were starting a family. They would probably be formally bonded before the end of the year and in nine months, babies. A family all of their own to love and care for.
As much as Harry was enjoying what he was coming to call his Second First Childhood, that was what he really wanted. He wanted a family to care for, for the sounds of children to echo through the halls of the castle. To find a partner, a best friend, a lover and a mate.
Harry had the magic castle, and while not really a prince he was the sole Heir and Lord of two families. Now all he needed was the beautiful princess. Better yet, considering his inclinations, another handsome prince.
Too bad he had a crush on the Evil Fairy.
When Harry's eyes started to open about Dumbledore, he started really looking at everyone he went to school with. Luna's ... oddness, was actually a mask to hide how intelligent she was. Neville, once he gained some self confidence, was turning into a man to be reckoned with. He was content puttering around in his greenhouses or gardens but by the winter holidays in their Sixth Year, his dueling and DADA scores were level with Harry's. Not many people actually noticed the change though, which gave Neville an edge.
Personally Harry thought Nev would have made as good of a spy as Snape had been, if needed. He had a tendency to fade into the background with his overwhelming ... brownness. Brown hair, brown skin from working outside in the sun, brown clothes. People usually took notice of Neville in the Library or Common Room and quickly forgot he was there.
It was thanks to him that Harry realized just how obsessed Ginny was with him. He might have been getting better at reading people but he hadn't anticipated his best friend's sister being a few cards short of a chocolate frog deck.
Harry had also noticed a few things about the Slytherins. For one thing, while there was still a lot of fighting between them and the other Houses, they didn't always start it, and when they did start something it was so they could be in a position of power. Well, and so they could control the situation and get the other Houses to leave them alone.
Rather like a rattlesnake, shaking its scales to scare off predators, or a cobra spreading it's hood.
That had set Harry to thinking about all his past encounters with Malfoy and the other Slytherins, and what he saw he didn't really like. More often or not, it had been Ron's big mouth and taunts that started the fights with the Slytherins. Oh, it looked like Malfoy and the others were coming out of nowhere, but Ron was usually saying something in confidence to Harry and Hermione or the other Gryffs and, well, Ron's indoor voice was a lot like Lee's Quidditch announcing. Loud enough to hear two counties away and extremely critical of Slytherins.
Harry had been horrified to realize that he acted much like Remus Lupin, deciding that it was okay to get involved in the fight after someone else started it, or rationalizing that he was backing his best mate up. And he decided right then and there that unless the Slytherins had started it, he wasn't going to let Ron or the other Gryffs be nasty. Time and time again he broke up fights between the Houses, pointing out that if the Gryffindors took the higher road and ignored the "Slimy Snakes" they'd come out looking better, especially to the professors.
It wasn't the real reason why, but it was the one the other Gryffs could understand. Well, most of them at any rate. They still caused problems but not around Harry at least.
That was when his problems with Ron and Hermione really started. They couldn't understand his new attitude, and while Hermione was proud of his new 'mature' approach to Malfoy, he could still see her watching him at times. Ron didn't like it at all, which led to even more tensions especially since Draco was still a "Death Eater Wannabe".
Things got even more tense between Harry and the other members of the so-called "Golden Trio" at the start of Seventh Year. Draco and he had managed to communicate through charmed parchments for a few weeks, Draco asking Harry about every encounter he'd had with Voldemort. Draco wasn't trying to spy, or even taunt Harry. Instead he was looking for information and Harry had made a bargain for it.
Information on Voldemort for any books Malfoy might have access to that would help Harry fight the bastard. Even if it was just the name of a reliable supplier. Flourish and Blots had proven to be very inadequate, at least in the owl order department. He couldn't find any reputable books there on Defense or Dark Arts, or anything really that was more advanced than Hogwarts. Draco had agreed, pointing out that the Ministry regulated what kind of books were published, unwilling for mediocre witches and wizards to try something more advanced.
And so Harry wrote about Tom Riddle. Everything from First Year on up, going so far as to ask Hagrid about his fellow student one night when the half-giant was a bit pissed. It was incredibly personal at times, or at least Harry felt like it. But Malfoy came through, with books and a letter of introduction to one of the booksellers who bought his supplies from estates when a witch or wizard died out.
Still it had been odd, transcribing every dream, every taunt he'd thrown at Riddle, right down to what Harry heard when Dementors got too close. It had been a huge risk on Harry's part. It would have been so easy for Malfoy to use the information against him, taunting him in the corridors in-between classes with his Mother's final words.
But Malfoy – Draco – didn't do that. He didn't do anything. Well, other than send him more books. Ones that could have gotten Harry expelled if he'd ever been found with them.
That was when Harry knew he was in trouble. He'd been having inappropriate dreams for more than a year, ever since he'd seen Dean Thomas dress up as a character from a Muggle movie. Harry had never seen Blade, but he knew who Wesley Snipes was and Dean had looked damn good in the black clothes and Muggle trench coat. He'd gone to Fred and George for advice; they were pranksters but they were older and he trusted them, and had found out about their relationship with Lee. By the time he'd started corresponding with Draco, Harry had accepted that he was a card-carrying poofter.
He really did have a card; it was something the Twins came up with. It had glitter and a rainbow on it and two wands crossed. It even started playing "It's Raining Men" when it was out of his wallet for too long. It now was stocked in their shop with a pamphlet of beginning gay sex and a small tube of lube as the "The Little Wizards Poofter" gift set. Harry was terrified to look in the "How to Get a Perfect Ten While Muff Diving" set designed for the lesbians. He really just did NOT want to know.
So Harry was gay, and he'd noticed that Draco, when he wasn't being an arsehole, was pretty interesting. Oh, he wasn't nice, and the only time he was polite was when Draco was using his impeccable manners to hit someone over the head with them. Still he had changed from the spoilt brat that parroted everything his father had taught him, into a young man who was beginning to think for himself and stand up for his own values, something Harry understood and respected.
Okay, so Draco also started wearing a pair of skin tight dragonhide leather pants that made his arse look like a fine peach Harry couldn't help but want to nibble on. That was beside the point.
Harry huffted at himself. He was hot for Draco Malfoy, Ice Prince of Slytherin. He'd accepted that fact last November, and had it reinforced by the Draco who had come back to school after winter hols. What had happened, Harry never knew, but the Draco who had walked back into school in January had been much more serious with an air of sadness.
Whatever it was, Crabbe and Goyle, his bodyguards, never returned with him, and at breakfast the next morning back, Draco Malfoy had stood up on the middle of the Slytherin table and proclaimed to one and all that he refused to follow the half-blood hypocrite Voldemort, also known as Tom Riddle. In fact he refused to follow anyone ever again, seeing how even the so-called good guys weren't always good. That last was said as he defiantly looked at the Headmaster, his chin tilted up with an arrogant, rebellious look on his face.
Harry had stood up and starting applauding, leading half the student body. He figured it was better than the alternative, which was grabbing Draco and snogging him until they both passed out from lack of oxygen.
Eventually they had become friends. Maybe not close friends. Harry was afraid of getting too close. While he was sure of his feelings, that of unrequited lust and a healthy bit of like, he had worked too hard to win Draco's friendship to press for more. Still they had enjoyed talking back and forth, using the parchments. Harry secretly enjoyed Draco's caustic attitude, finding himself laughing when Draco mimicked Ginny Weasley in one of her snits. The only Weasleys Draco liked were the Twins, mostly because after he'd stood up and said that about Voldemort, they'd sent him a deluxe package of Wheezes, including a shirt that read "Why Be a Minion When I'd Make a Better Evil Overlord?"
Harry loved that shirt. It was a bit too tight and went well with the leather pants Draco had taken to wearing during his rebellion.
So the fact that Harry hadn't heard from Draco since he'd blasted Voldemort out of existence earlier in the month was bothering him. After graduation, Draco had gone back to Malfoy Manor to live. Harry wasn't sure that was such a great idea, there had been something in the set of Draco's jaw that said the young man was forcing himself to live at the family home, but Draco had insisted. Now he wasn't answering anyone's floo calls or owls. He could call Pansy, but for one she was in Italy somewhere with her boyfriend Blaise, meeting his family.
And two, Pansy scared him. A lot.
"Bollocks!" Harry threw down the Quidditch book he was trying to read. He needed to do something. Anything. Even if he showed up at Malfoy Manor and Draco tossed him out on his arse, then at least he'd know something. He'd managed to keep his worry at bay for a while but now that things were starting to settle down his brain was going into overdrive. Again.
Harry hated it when too many thoughts ran through his head. He started getting paranoid, and wondering what he'd done or said to make Draco mad at him. Did he say something that really offended the prickly Slytherin and didn't realize it? Now that Voldemort was dead, did Draco just have no need of a friendship with him anymore? Was it just a way of manipulating the Boy-Who-Lived?
The last time he talked to Draco in person did he have bad breath?
When he thought too much, Harry's brain turned into a frightening combination of Mad-Eye Moody and a twelve year old fangirl. Well, when it came to Draco at least.
It could have been worse, his brain could have been a combo of Moody and Colin Creevy.
"~You're being ssstupid, you do realizsse thisss?~"
Edmund must have come home, he was curled up on his desk and looking at him through heavily lidded eyes.
"~Yeah, I know. It's jussst ... it ssseemsss like no matter what, Draco Bloody Malfoy hasss me tied up in knotsss.~"
"~Mammalsss. You think too much. Go. Sssee your friend. He'll either talk to you or won't, but either way you won't be ssscurrying like a sssquirrl whossse lossst it's nutsss any longer.~"
Harry rolled his eyes. "~Fuck. I mussst be bad if you're comparing me to rodentsss.~"
"~Yesss. You are. Go away. You're scaring off the micsse. That'sss my job.~"
There was no help for it. Harry was going to have to face the Dragon in his den.
*****
AN: This chapter was to get in Harry's head a bit, and some background. Draco shows up in the next bit, I swear! And I just wrote their first kissing scene so it shouldn't be too much longer. Just so y'all know.