Playing the Game

Ginzai

 

Summary:  Take one cliché, add a liberal dose of slash, and mix well.  Harry, Draco, Muggle toys, and dance.  Vague H/D fluffiness with angst on the side.  Also known as How I Spent My Sixth Year Halloween. 

 

 

            It was late October and the moon that night was full and round, as orange as befitted All Hallows Eve night.  Harry wasn't in the mood to look at it, though he'd sat next to his bed watching it for some time.  This night was an odd one for him; it had always been, to an extent.  He knew it was Halloween, but that had always seemed a distant holiday for him, given the Dursley's abhorrence for anything and everything imaginative.  Even Dudley hadn't really cared about the holiday, and had been more than willing to give up walking in the streets in exchange for several dozen Mars Bars and other sweets.  Harry usually spent such nights locked in the cupboard, for fear, Harry now realized, that he would get "ideas" in his head regarding the magical costumes and witches and wizards that roamed the streets on such nights.

            He figured that his general indifference to the hol was based on this, but no matter the reason, he found himself wandering the school, unable to idly sit on his bed, waiting for sleep while the rest of his mates were partying still back at the Tower.  That party had likely died by now, the Gryffindors collapsing into sugar crashes and slumber.  It was very late. 

            Harry paused in his steps, listening.  Was that...sobbing...that he heard?  In the middle of the night?  In a deserted corridor? 

            His steps slowed as he neared the source of the sound.  There was a corner just up ahead, and the soft cries were louder; he could hear words that came out just slightly too muffled to understand.  He stopped and peeked his head around the corner, wishing rather that he had his invisibility cloak on him.

            The side hall was surprisingly large, given its dusty, unused condition.  A bay window was set into one wall, and moonlight spilled in, touching rusty suits of armor, and long faded banners, their lettering stitched in ancient colors that might have once been scarlet and emerald, or it might have been indigo, or brown.  He couldn't tell; they had been painted grey by time and moonlight.  All of this was nothing compared to the figure that sat in the window seat, face and clothing shaded in tones of silver and black, huddled over drawn knees. 

            The boy, Harry knew it was a boy despite slight shoulders and shoulder length hair, shuddered, and pulled his arms in closer.  Harry couldn't see his face, but he didn't need to; there was only one student who could put the moon to shame in its own light, only one student who Harry would know instinctively by sight and scent and sound, and he found that his feet had moved forward of their own accord, so that when he came back to his senses, he realized that he was within a handbreadth of Draco Malfoy, who gave no notice of Harry's presence.

            Harry was at a loss.  Words had never really been his specialty, especially in regards to Malfoy.  He'd always reacted, moved in accordance to the dance that Draco had set forth, proud of his ability to absolutely infuriate the other boy, because while Harry danced, he didn't use the steps Draco wanted him to.  Harry could revel in the fact that in irking Malfoy, he forced the dance to change and move forward as he, Harry, directed.  But Draco wasn't dancing now, he wasn't playing the game, and Harry didn't know what to do or how to make it right.

            He wasn't entirely certain why it was so important that this be done, or perhaps more alarmingly, he didn't know why it had to be Harry who solved the problem and returned events to the norm.  It was easier not to think about it.

            Eventually, when words continued to fail him, action took over.  The seat was large, certainly big enough to fit them both when Harry slipped in behind Draco, wrapping his arms about the slight boy and pulling him back.

            Draco started, and jerked his head about to gaze over his shoulder with wide eyes.  He looks shocked, Harry thought, and realized that this was undoubtedly because Draco hadn't wanted anyone to see him like this, in this condition.  This ever present pride gave Harry a warm, not often felt feeling, and more than ever he knew that he /needed/ to fix this, whatever was wrong. 

            Draco opened his mouth, but words seemed to have abandoned him as well.  Before he could find his tongue, Harry spoke, dispelling the silence that had surrounded them. 

            "Draco...It will be alright, okay?  Whatever is wrong, I promise you, I'll take care of it."  His eyes held the unspoken addition: I'll take care of you.

            This did not seem to have the desired effect.  Draco's eyes narrowed and he scrabbled at Harry's hands, eventually detangling them and shoving away, twisting about to face Harry in the process.

            "What the hell d'you think you're doing, Potter?"  He hissed the words. 

            Harry looked at him sympathetically.  "Always in denial, aren't you?  Can't ever admit in front of others that you're in trouble, or that you might need help, even when you have to run off to find a place like this to cry in."  His face took on a determined set.  "But whatever it is, I want you to know that, like it or not, I'll-"

            Draco cut him off with a wave of one long fingered hand.  He cocked his head to one side, and furrowed his brows, studying Harry's expression a moment. 

            "Potter," he said slowly, "You thought I was crying?"

            Harry nodded, a touch uncertainly.  Now that he looked closer, there were no traces of tear marks or any other evidence on Draco's face, but Harry couldn't think of any other explanation for the sobbing and the shaking shoulders.

            Draco ducked his head, and Harry was horrified to see those same shoulders start to shake again.  Harry reached a hand out, moving to grasp one of them, but the sound that emerged wasn't one of sorrow, but rather of it's opposite. 

            Harry pulled back, puzzled, as Draco began to howl with laughter.  His expression turned sour quickly as Draco did begin to cry, tears of mirth spilling from his eyes. 

            "Fucking-A, Potter!"  He eventually managed between snickers, "What do I have to cry about?  You I can understand breaking into a huge woobly, given, well, everything about you, but I'm rich, handsome, happy, and about as close to perfection as one can get short of being divine, and according to some of the forth year Hufflepuffs, that last one is still up for debate."

            Harry was definitely annoyed by this point.  When he spoke his tone was rather peevish.  "So what were you doing, if you weren't crying?" 

            At this, Draco looked rather sheepish.  He hesitated a moment before holding up a small plastic tube.  Harry blinked at it. 

            "Is that a kazoo?" He asked, looking astounded.

            Draco scowled.  "No, you idiot, it's a tube of lube."

            Harry blinked again.  "Why would you have a tube-" He stopped, shook his head, and continued on a different vein.  "Why would you have a Muggle toy like that?  And why would you be playing it out here, in the middle of nowhere?"

            Draco shrugged.  "I acquired it from one of the first years and my Housemates tossed me out of the common room when I tried to practice it in the middle of the Hallow's Eve party."

            This did explain the wheezing. Harry, feeling rather foolish by this point, stood to go.  He'd fumbled the new twist in the dance, had turned when he should have leapt and twisted over his feet, popping them both in his mouth in the same breath.  He could feel his face flaming, and wanted nothing more than to leave behind the corridor with its rusty armor and bay windows and stupid silver haired wizardborn boys who didn't know how to play a kazoo properly.  He was stopped by a hand landing on his robe. 

            Draco looked up at him, still smirking slightly but thankfully silent.  There was an odd look in his eyes, as though someone had given him a riddle with no answer, and he was just beginning to figure it out.  Harry half expected him to blink upwards and ask So, why is a raven like a writing desk, anyway?  Harry found he couldn't look at that face, couldn't meet that steady, bemused gaze, and so moved his own to where Draco's fingers seemed to glow against the blackness of the robe.

            "You were worried about me, Potter?"

            Harry frowned down at the fingers that were flexed into the fabric. That was a difficult question to answer.  It was easier to study how the fingers flared into palms and shrunk again at the wrist, and memorizing that tiny bump of bone that stuck out of the side, just before his arm truly began, to see where pale flesh ran under black robe.  He felt the other hand come to rest on his other arm and saw the sudden upward pull of limbs, and unexpectedly he met the grey eyes which were next to his own, Draco's face so close that Harry could practically feel Draco's lips against his cheek.  There was a tingling sensation like static electricity as Draco moved upwards again, leaning slightly in, his Slytherin badge brushing against Harry's chest as he brought his mouth next to Harry's ear and whispered "Thanks, Harry."

            Then he let go, stepped back, and was gone.

            Harry stared after him, the spots on his arms felt bereft without warm hands to rest on them, and his entire right cheek felt enervated.  He felt himself blushing.  His glasses had fogged over with Draco's proximity, but now were clearing again.  He glanced down, and saw the kazoo, which looked pathetic and abandoned in the moonlight. 

            Harry took his glasses off and cleaned them on a corner of his robe.  He had the distinct feeling that the dance had just changed, irrevocably, and he wasn't entirely certain anymore just who was leading.  He had thought he was, when this had started, but the aftermath suggested otherwise.  Harry had screwed up, but Draco was taking the mistake and running with it.

            Such thoughts were too complicated, especially at the hour.  He sat back down, picked up the kazoo and slowly brought it to his lips.  He breathed into it, hummed as Muggle children learn to do, but no sound emerged other than the pathetic squeak of misaligned wax paper.

            It sounded like a sob.

           

 

 

***

 

October 3, 2002

 

Vague H/D fluffiness with angst on the side.  Yeah, I think that about sums it up.  When the idea for this came into my head, I was going to put in AMOPO chapter three.  Of course, the story decided otherwise.  Gods.  Fanfiction is such a prima donna.  I mean, honestly.  Here I am going for the cliché of the Hallway Evening Stroll, complete with Angsting Draco, and what do I get?  Well, actually it appears to be the cliché of the Hallway Evening Stroll, complete with Angsting Harry, so whaddayaknow.  Hopefully enjoyable, at any rate.  I blame it entirely on Aja, because she wrote on the G&H board about the hallway cliché. 

Napes.