Chapter Six of 'The Same Species as Shakespeare'- Cruel Only to Be Kind

[lomonaaeren]

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Six—Cruel Only to Be Kind

“But the bloodline wards should have prevented him,” Malfoy whispered for the fifth time.

Harry spoke as gently as he could. “Your father was going to research the relative who might have done this. I’m sure he’ll find something, and then we’ll be able to repair the holes in the bloodline wards.”

Those were a variation on the words he’d already spoken six or seven times before. He was wearying himself, and he was sure that Malfoy must think he was stupid, but he didn’t know what else to do. He had no concrete answers to offer, especially since his specialty was offensive magic and Defense Against the Dark Arts, not wards. He could recognize the various types well enough, but he’d never learned much about repairing them.

And touching Malfoy, wrapping a comforting arm around him as he longed to do, was out of the question.

Malfoy shook his head, staring at his hands. “I didn’t pay much attention to him so far, because what he wanted seemed so unimportant, what he did so petty,” he murmured. “I should have. Maybe I could have prevented this intrusion.”

“You’re blaming yourself?” Harry leaned forwards before he could stop the motion; he’d been leaning against the wall of Malfoy’s bedroom, feeling it was best for both of them if he wasn’t in touching distance. And then, well, it would have looked stupid to retreat, wouldn’t it? And Malfoy was staring at him. Harry shook his head. “You can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Malfoy had a sneer buried at the back of his throat.

Of course, he won’t see what’s so self-evident to me. Neither would Ron or Hermione, which was part of the problem they had with Malfoy. Harry ran a hand over his face and tried to explain it. “That’s probably what he wants you to do. Trap yourself in mazes of thought. Paralyze yourself with indecision. Look into his motives, which the Aurors have done so far with no success.”

Malfoy’s eyes were fixed on him now. Harry didn’t think he’d ever been an object of such piercing attention, even when two reporters had descended on him at once with breathless questions about his preference for bondage in bed. He knew he was already flushed, and this close to Malfoy, he couldn’t have hidden it. He settled for staring back and trying to look calm.

“Why haven’t you learned anything about him?” Malfoy’s lips barely moved.

“No one claims to know him, the way they often claim to know criminals, if only for the excitement of the thing,” Harry whispered back. He was so close that he could have cupped Malfoy’s cheek without bending his elbow. He tried to forget that, and the way morning light through the windows caught in Malfoy’s eyelashes, and concentrate solely on the reasonable question he’d been asked. It helped that he had recited the answer for several interviews now. “We can’t learn where he came from. We have no name. His motives for the crimes remain inexplicable. He wants to smear your name, or so we thought, but an attack on you makes no sense, because it would show that you aren’t him.”

“You can only have come to that conclusion last night.” Malfoy leaned on an elbow. He’d put on a robe when Harry carried the news of the attack to him, but nothing underneath, and Harry kept catching flashes of pale skin that were deeply distracting. “Why were his motives inexplicable before that?”

“Because though the crimes could have been disastrous if they got out of control, they never did. They seemed more like pranks.” This was a conclusion Harry had come to independently of Ron and Kingsley, so he spoke more carefully. It would have helped if he could have taken another step away from Malfoy as well, but his body wasn’t listening to him. “I mean, releasing a hippogriff? It’s not exactly murder.”

“No, but it’s annoying, isn’t it?” Harry wasn’t sure who had moved closer, him or Malfoy, but suddenly he could feel the other man’s breath raking across his cheek. “The Aurors can’t find him, don’t know who he is, and perhaps want to arrest me on principle, and then he shows up in the middle of Mr. Palliser’s party and in the middle of my home, thus adding extraordinary magical powers to the list of his doubtful attributes.”

Harry felt as though the cadence of the words were drifting through him, making his blood burn and coil in strange directions in his veins. He shivered and said, because he had to join himself to those words somehow, “Kingsley did want to arrest you on principle. But I prevented him from doing it.”

Malfoy’s eyebrows rose. “Really.” His breath wasn’t sweet, but it was better than that—warm, and near. “Why were you so certain that he wasn’t me?”

Harry swallowed. He wanted to tell Malfoy about the connection between their wands. Really, what harm could it do? It might make Malfoy more comfortable, knowing that Harry would always know the difference between him and the imposter, or that Harry could track him if he got kidnapped, as long as his wand stayed with him. And anything that moved him closer to Malfoy was good.

But he still had Auror instincts and his friends’ voices in his head, and they told him that Malfoy might still have ulterior motives for the friendliness he was showing Harry. So he said, “You’ve changed since the war. And you’ve invested a lot of yourself in your new job. Why would you want to throw that all away, for the sake of causing the Aurors to run in circles?”

Malfoy narrowed his eyes, but didn’t actually disagree. Instead, he murmured, “If you think you know me well now, it’s nothing compared to how well you’ll know me in a short time.”
Harry succumbed to his weakness then, and reached out to touch Malfoy.

But Malfoy had pulled back before his hand began to move and was springing to his feet, stretching his arms above his head. “Come,” he said. “We should have some breakfast, examine the bloodline wards to see if we can determine the spot where he broke through, and then go to the office. I do have a client to meet with.”

Harry checked his sigh. His passion still thudded in the center of his chest like a second heartbeat, and he averted his gaze as Malfoy went to use the loo. Harry sat down on his conjured bed when he heard the door click shut and attempted to get his breathing under control.

No going too fast. Even if he does like you, even if you could sleep together without compromising the case, you can’t create something lasting by forcing your presence on him. And this has to be something lasting. It won’t be enough for you if it isn’t.

By the time Malfoy stepped out of the loo in brand-new robes, with his pale hair clean and hanging straight about his face in a sheer silk curtain, Harry had got himself under control. He paced behind Malfoy as they both went down the tight spiral stairs, his eyes alert for any threat.

If he allowed himself one glance at Malfoy’s hair every third step, well, that was because he knew indulging himself within a certain limit would soothe his frustrations and make him more alert in the end.

*

Draco peeled a banana and leaned back in his chair, subtly flexing his fingers. If he concentrated, he thought he could actually feel the silken strings attached to each of them. The other end of the strings was wrapped about Potter’s soul.

Potter appeared unaware that he didn’t often take his gaze off Draco, even whilst he recited the tale of the burst of magic that had alerted him to someone breaking through the bloodline wards and jerked him out of bed. He noticed when they got close, but he reacted as if he thought that only natural. His skin, in its flush, and his eyes, in their darting, and his hands, in their trembling, showed every thought that passed through his head. Draco had never encountered someone so susceptible to seduction and yet so incapable of recognizing that a seduction was, in fact, happening.

Draco ate his banana now with leisurely grace, keeping one eye on Potter. The way he stretched his lips around the banana and licked the length wouldn’t have fooled any Slytherin over eleven years old, but Potter leaned towards him, one hand twitching constantly under the table, as if he would reach out and replace the banana with his fingers.

“I hope that my father will find something in his research,” Draco said, to keep the game from moving too fast. “However, I’ve studied the genealogical records myself, and I’m almost certain there is no long-lost Malfoy relative.” Potter didn’t need to know that Draco had memorized the records in the aftermath of the war, looking desperately for a reason to be proud of his family after his father’s temporary arrest and his mother’s shame. “That means we have to look for more arcane explanations for the breaking of the bloodline wards.”

Potter blinked slowly, like someone coming out of a long sleep, and then nodded. “Wards aren’t at all my specialty,” he said. “Would you trust another Auror to come here and examine them?”

Draco pasted a horrified look across his face. With someone else, he might have worried about overacting, but Potter had already proven his lack of skill in detecting such things. “When that Auror might have a connection to my enemy?”

“It’s unlikely—“

“You’ve admitted you don’t know anything about him.” Draco leaned forwards. “Well, I know one thing about him. He keeps escaping from the Aurors. What could that indicate but someone on the inside, someone who gives him enough warning to flee?”

Potter’s nostrils flared, and he gave his head a toss. “We’ve investigated that angle,” he said.

“And?”

Potter’s mouth opened, but then he clamped his lips together and shook his head. “Sorry,” he said, and he did sound genuinely apologetic. Draco licked his lips; there was a sensation in his mouth like candied fruit melting on his tongue. He had dreamed of Potter apologizing to him. The sensation grew sharper and sweeter when Potter’s eyes followed his tongue. “But it relates to the internal politics of the Auror Department and, well.” He shrugged. “I can’t.”

“That’s all right,” Draco said. Potter perked up like a dog offered a walk instead of a bath. Draco muffled his chuckle with the last of the banana, delicately licking the strings of the fruit from his lips. Why not? It offered him another chance to watch Potter watch his tongue. “I have someone who can deal with breaks in the bloodline wards.”

“Who?”

Draco cocked his head at one of the entrances to the dining room, and Severus walked in, on cue. Draco had sent him a message by house-elf whilst he was still in the loo and asked if he’d liked to surprise Potter. Severus had agreed instantly. Perhaps he’d been waiting outside that door that led to one of the sitting rooms for more than ten minutes, but he would consider that a small price to pay for showing up Potter.

Potter pushed his chair halfway back from the table, as if he thought he should rise to his feet. Because he needs to defend himself or because he wants to show respect? Draco thought, and wished for another banana to hold back his laughter. He ought to know that Severus will accept no tribute of respect from him, no matter what happens.

“Professor Snape, sir,” Potter said without inflection.

“Once again you prove the slowness with which your thoughts travel relative to the rest of the world,” said Severus, with the fine acidity in his tones that Draco loved to hear and which had been at least half the reason he’d pressed his father into inviting Severus to live in the Manor. “I am no longer a Professor and have not been for seven years.”

Potter jerked his head in a short bow and said, “How will you use potions to check for the tears in the bloodline wards, sir?”

“You would not understand the method described if dragons wrote it in fiery letters around your head,” Severus said in utterly bored tones. Potter leaned back again, flushing in mortification.

Draco glanced between them as if bewildered by their hostility. “Strange,” he murmured. “I thought you would get on better than this. You’re both war heroes now.”

“There is only one hero in this room,” Severus said, “if you define the word, as I always have, to mean someone who makes great sacrifices for the safety and peace of others, whilst barely seeing reward himself.” He turned his head towards Potter with a coiled strength to his neck that reminded Draco of a hawk ready to tear open a snake. “Someone whose victory is guaranteed by fate, someone who did not understand the sacrifices others made and exploited them when he did, someone granted everything he could want from the day he came into the wizarding world…one must find some other name for such a person.”

Potter had risen to his feet, face one white blaze of fury, hands locked on his elbows as though he would not give Severus the satisfaction of going for his wand. “You’re wrong, Snape,” he said.

“So you have often told me,” Severus said. “And yet, not one preconception of your arrogance have you ever corrected, not one Potions recipe have you ever managed to explain more clearly than I did.”

Potter’s shoulders stiffened. “I didn’t get everything I wanted when I came into the wizarding world.”

“And what attention your slavering fans could provide was denied you?” Severus asked, with a deep sigh.

“My parents, you bastard,” Potter whispered, and then turned and walked of the dining room with stately steps, though Draco was more than sure he didn’t have any idea of where he was going. The doorway he took wasn’t the one they’d entered the room by.

Severus stared after him, face worked in an intriguing mixture of jealousy, hatred, and sadness. Then he faced Draco with a motion that shook his hair, still greasy from the amount of brewing he did, into half-tangled ruins about his face. “The potions to test the break in the wards will be ready soon,” he said.

“Why do you bait him that way?” Draco asked, folding his hands under his chin.

“For the reasons I stated.” Severus stared at him as if he had become the hawk’s prey in turn. “Tell me, Draco, by what standard of justice did I earn no reward, my name still hated and mocked in most of the wizarding world, when Potter may walk freely and be worshipped?”

“You once told me there was no such thing as justice,” Draco said gently, “except for that we made ourselves.”

Severus’s face froze the way it always did when Draco remembered one of his lessons at the most inconvenient times. Then he said, “And there are other reasons.”

“What are they?”

“You need not know them.” Severus turned away. “Ten minutes’ time, and I will test the potions. You may repair to your office.” He glided through the doorway he’d used to come in with a sharp snap of his robes and was gone.

Draco sat back, trembling now that there was no one around to see it, and clasped his hands before him as if he meant to pray. He shook with excitement, with nerves, with pride in Severus for being the only other person Potter didn’t cow—

And with fiery yearning for the light that had flashed through Potter’s eyes when he’d snapped back at Severus.

Such emotions could not be expressed in front of their target, of course. Draco was meant to consume Potter, not the other way around. But in moments of solitude, Draco might let them ring through him, the way he had always indulged his temper tantrums and fears and rare bouts of sympathy.

*

Draco Malfoy, Harry thought as he watched him deal with the “older and valued client” he had described to Harry last night, was an artist.

Of course, he had learned that from studying Malfoy’s houses, and it was the basis of the defense he had painted to Ron and Hermione when they tried to urge him away from Malfoy. But he had learned everything he knew before this at a distance. The clean lines of houses and pillars and porches spoke their own language, but none of it was as clear as watching Draco study the plans in front of him with a vivid, intelligent eye, and then dismiss them as rubbish was.

The older, valued client blinked. He was the tallest man Harry had seen in more than a year, since he and Ron caught the Giraffe Killer. He had gray hair that he wore wreathed around his ears in a style that made Harry wonder if he knew Luna. His eyes were brilliant yellow, and his robes of so fine and smooth a cloth that standing in the same room with him made Harry feel underdressed. Altogether, he was not the kind of wizard he had expected to see Malfoy treat with impunity.

But the wizard, whose name was Rolfston Keller, seemed to accept Malfoy’s words. He nodded and blinked again and stooped to retrieve the plans from the floor. “Then what will work?” he said.

“You want a home by the sea.” Malfoy leaned forwards, his hands sculpting an outline in the air. Harry tried to make it out, but he was best-suited to seeing the lovely shapes of the houses after they had developed. That was what made Malfoy the architect and him the Auror, he supposed. “You need a home that will partake of the cliffs and the water.”

“I don’t believe I ever requested that,” said Keller.

“You didn’t know enough to request it,” Malfoy retorted. The heels of his hands collided with the sides of the desk. Harry squinted, and this time could make out the box-lines he sketched. Of course, anything more subtle than that was lost on him. “But, trust me, I know how to give it.”

“Why is the way the house fits into its natural surroundings so important?” Keller asked.

Malfoy drew himself up and looked at Keller as if the man had just spat on the floor in front of him. Well, Harry amended as he studied him, a tile floor, at least. Malfoy probably would be more upset if it was a marble one.

“Why is the ceiling important?” Malfoy asked softly. “Why are the walls? The floor?”

Keller frowned. “Without those it wouldn’t be a house, only a space.”

Malfoy flashed a smile that made Harry’s breath catch in his throat all over again, but not because it was sweet. It was just so Malfoy, the smile of an intelligent, predatory man fully content in his natural element.

“You’ve spoken more clearly and earlier than most of my clients would,” he said. “Yes. That’s exactly it.” His fingers rapped a dance on the desk. Harry tried to look for patterns in their darting movements, but once again, couldn’t find it. Perhaps Malfoy was simply occupying his hands whilst his mind danced and dreamed on more important plans. “Without being part of the cliffs and the water around it, the house would be only a house. It won’t be a home, it won’t be yours, and it won’t be mine.”

Harry would have hesitated if confronted with a pronouncement like that, but then, he wouldn’t have known how to give Keller’s first answer, either. The gray-haired wizard simply nodded, resigned. “You won’t build it without redesigning the plans.”

Malfoy’s face took on an intent, persuasive look that made Harry immediately imagine what other circumstances, and rooms, he might use it in. “Have I ever failed you?”

“My nephew’s home—“

“I can’t be responsible if the first thing someone does when he comes into a house is pull the supporting walls out.”

“He wanted a large interior room,” Keller murmured, and then sighed and rose to his feet. “As always, Master Malfoy, a pleasure, and you’ve thought of things I wouldn’t even have seen, which is what I want from my employees.”

“I’m not your employee,” Malfoy said.

“Until I give you money, of course.” Keller took out a large purse that rang and bulged and tossed it carelessly into the middle of Malfoy’s desk. Harry was willing to bet it contained more Galleons than he would make in six months of work as an Auror. He found himself watching not the bag, however, but Malfoy’s face, as he leaned back in his chair and sneered at Keller.

“Not even then. I’m a free man. Call yourself my patron, and that would be a closer approximation of the truth of our relationship.”

Keller laughed and bowed to Malfoy, who didn’t bother to return the gesture, before he strode from the room.

Malfoy cocked his head and smiled. He’d been facing half away from Harry for the vast majority of the conversation, and even now he didn’t turn around. The smile was more for the devious sense of possibilities spinning out in his head than anyone in the room, Harry thought.

“I’ve never watched you work that close at hand,” Harry said, unable to keep silent now. “It was interesting.” Interesting was a pale shadow of the adjectives he wanted to use, but Malfoy would probably scoff at him if he spoke those words now. Harry felt too exhilarated to bear that laughter.

Exhilarated, from nothing more than watching a man act with arrogance and scorn towards his betters? As Hermione would say.

Harry rolled his shoulders. It was Keller’s choice to spend his money this way, and to hire Malfoy. So Malfoy’s arrogance and scorn were not simply that, but a business manner that probably served him well with pure-blood clients.

Malfoy was too well-bred to start, but from the deliberate turn of his head in Harry’s direction, Harry was sure Malfoy had forgotten his presence, at least momentarily.

“Strange,” Malfoy murmured.

“What?” Harry clenched his hands on the arms of his chair as he realized he had forgotten his bodyguard duties for some moments. Of course, Malfoy’s office was a single large room with the door in front of his desk, the blue tiled walls reflecting blurred and wavering shadows of any movement. Harry had noted the wards as they came up the steps outside; he hadn’t had any choice but to notice them, because Malfoy had made him wait five minutes whilst he undid the most complex of them and then did them up again behind Harry. So it was not as though the imposter would find the place easy to attack without being seen, but still. He was here to do a job, not to admire Malfoy.

“That you think it interesting, rather than scolding me self-righteously about my arrogance from your position of Gryffindor humility.” Malfoy’s eyes were half-lidded.

Harry laughed bitterly in spite of himself, Malfoy’s words pulling back what Snape had said to him in the dining room that morning. Harry had made all the overtures of peace and friendship to Snape that he knew how to make, and still the man continued to persist in thinking Harry a copy of his father. If Harry hadn’t received hints that Snape knew his mother and might know untold stories concerning her, the rejection probably wouldn’t have hurt so much. “I’m the arrogant one not fit to be called a hero, remember?”

Malfoy leaned back from the desk to lay his hand on Harry’s shoulder. His face came much closer as well, and it was grave, the eyes shadowed.

“I gave up on believing everything Severus says long ago,” he said quietly.

Harry felt the air between them take fire. He could feel Malfoy’s breath on his cheek, along his lips, again, and Malfoy was watching him with an emphasis that made Harry’s throat go tight. Malfoy suddenly tilted his head, eyes flickering, and Harry knew he felt it, too.

Neither of them could draw away, though Harry knew he should. There were rules about who Aurors could sleep with when on jobs, and the people they were supposed to protect were most certainly not among them. But as he began to lean towards Malfoy, he felt as if he were answering a force of nature rather than giving in to temptation.

Malfoy’s eyes fluttered shut, and he made a small, surprised noise, a smothered moan. Harry feathered his fingers through the hair above his ear and felt the hair rub like down against his skin. He was so close, and it was so warm.

And that, of course, was the moment the imposter chose to try to break through the wards strung around Malfoy’s office.

Chapter 7.

Comments

[absynthedrinker.livejournal.com]

Now you are just teasing me! Arghhhh!!!! I love the tension and raw sensuality between them. It's so palpable at times I can almost feel it physically. Wonderful! Very, very well done. Thanks

Peace,

Bubba

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you! The sensuality will, I think, get stronger as time moves on. Of course, if the damn imposter would just stop interfering it could move faster...

[valkyrie17.livejournal.com]

I think Harry might just strangle the imposter if he can get his hands on him. Talk about bad timing!

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. On the other hand, he doesn't know what Draco really wants yet, so he might feel a bit grateful for the interruption.

[(Anonymous)]

Goodness if Draco isn't an idiot. The man just doesn't get it. (And I have a sinking feeling that those will be my comments about him for a majority of this story.)

Good to see Snape. Yeah, he was a bit of an ass, but that had ulterior motive written all over it. Or maybe I'm a bit of a Snape apologist. Either way, he adds a nice dynamic, and I love to see the way he pulls reactions from Harry.

Great writing- interesting concept. I'm exciting to see where it's going.

On a side note, I hope the moving went well. Hope you're settling in, and glad to see you up and running again.

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Draco is very, very good at rationalizing. He does have a lot of success in the parts of his life that don't concern Harry Potter, so of course he won't understand the difference in that part of his life even when he tries.

Snape will be an important character in this story, though a secondary one.

And thank you! The moving was hectic, but I managed.

[agr8fae.livejournal.com]

I love your Snape! '“You once told me there was no such thing as justice,” Draco said gently, “except for that we made ourselves.” Severus’s face froze the way it always did when Draco remembered one of his lessons at the most inconvenient times.' This was a fabulous line! It's so funny how Draco thinks he's seducing Harry, but Harry has already fallen for him. That imposter has really good timing!

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

Really good timing, or really bad timing?

[hpstrangelove.livejournal.com]

Great update once again! I love the way you are able to drop tidbits of information (Harry liking bondage, Auror rules), and the way Draco teases Harry with the banana - so classic.

You did a wonderful job with Snape. He's truly IC, at least the way I envision him. Harry tries so hard to give Snape the respect that he didn't give the man back in school, and Snape rejects Harry's overtures so cruelly; I really am looking forward to how you develop their relationship - will he assist Draco as Draco's plans unfold? or will he try and talk some sense into Draco when he sees what is going on?

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Little bits of information will be very important to this story; for example, I believe it's possible to make a guess about how and why Narcissa died right now (though I may only think this because I'm the one writing the story).

Snape's relationship to both Draco and Harry will be complex. And that's really all I can say about it for right now.

[helenadax.livejournal.com]

Hi, Lomona, glad to see you again ^^

Maybe I'm wrong, but I have the feeling that Draco's starting to not hate Harry.

I always love when Severus is mean with Harry, at least in the books, 'cause I don't like Harry in the books. The scene between them is great.

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Hello!

I don't know if Draco ever really has hated Harry. The problem is thathe thinks he does.

And thanks!

[ravenqueen55.livejournal.com]

OMG, that's such a tease! A very, very hot tease...

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

I knkow. *is evil*

[ura-hd.livejournal.com]

Nice chapter. Harry seems totally infatuated with Draco. Does Draco know it? It seems that his seduction is not that necessary.

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

Draco is beginning to realize it in the next chapter. However, he can always come up with justifications for his own actions if he tries hard enough, and at the moment, he really rather wants to seduce Harry.

[aubergineautumn.livejournal.com]

It's been a long time since you released a chapter of this- liked it!

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

It does seem like a long time, doesn't it? And thanks.

[seedless-acorn.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad to see this! xD I hope your move went well (and I'm positively thrilled that you didn't have to wait until September!!)

I just can't help but feel like Draco is going to feel ridiculous if he ever finds out how Harry really feels and what he really thinks! And Snape? Fantastic! That scene between Harry and Snape was amazing!

xD What a dreadful tease this ending was!

Thanks so much for updating!
S_A

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you! And yes, mostly it did.

Draco will go to great lengths to keep from feeling ridiculous, though. :)

Thanks for commenting.

[beatnikspinster.livejournal.com]

Damn! So hot, almost. Thwarted again?! Now I'm suspicious. *narrows eyes* Good chapter!

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I wonder if you will like what happens in Chapter 7...

[irresistableplx.livejournal.com]

Harry swallowed. He wanted to tell Malfoy about the connection between their wands.. knowing that Harry would always know the difference between him and the imposter, or that Harry could track him if he got kidnapped, as long as his wand stayed with him

I can't understand why this particular phrase is haunting me, or would it led credence to my theory that perhaps this evil malfoy imposter was Draco's evil alter ego of some sort x.x

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Well, I can promise that the impostor is not Draco come back through time travel or something similar.

re: Same Species as Shakespeare 6

[vaysh11.livejournal.com]

I adore Snape in this. So IC, the same injustice in his dealings with Harry as back in school, but now we understand where the bitterness comes from. The sexual connection between Harry and Draco is described so very well - Draco may think he is coolly seducing Harry, but I have no doubts he's in for a surprise.

[lokifan]

That was hot.

Although Draco is starting to make me crazy. More because he's so silly than because he's so morally bankrupt - you think Harry can't lie well? Come on, Draco, you were there when he was at Hogwarts!