Chapter Thirteen of 'Ancient and Noble Houses'- Black Descent

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Twelve.

Title: Ancient and Noble Houses (13/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco, Ron/Hermione, past Harry/Ginny
Warnings: Angst, violence
Rating: R
Summary: Harry finds out that being the heir to the Black fortune—at least once he’s of age and residing in Grimmauld Place full-time—is a lot different than just inheriting some vaults and property. He’s changing in ways he doesn’t understand, both body and mind. Even with Draco Malfoy to help him, the chance that Harry can resist becoming the perfect Black heir, with all that implies, seems slim.
Author’s Notes: This story came from wondering exactly what the house part of “The Ancient and Noble House of Black” might mean. This fic will have short chapters, and update every Friday and Saturday.

Chapter One.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Thirteen—Black Descent

Draco sat on his bed and closed his eyes. No one else could see anything, he was sure. He had perfect control of his features when he wanted to, and not that many people in Slytherin had acted interested in him since he came back to the school.

Besides, he had the curtains of his bed welded shut.

But inside, the emotions tumbled and spun like clothes subjected to house-elf magic. What the hell had Potter been trying to do, when he looked at Draco as though his mouth was dry with desire? It had made Draco’s mouth dry, too, but with fear. Did Potter want him?

It seemed so. Draco had been the recipient of looks like that from other people, and it always had to do with desire. He had simply never thought that Potter would be one of them.

Why not? Your aunt was.

Draco shuddered. That was one memory of the war that he always shied away from, but it was waiting for him in his nightmares.

Maybe running from it wasn’t the way to exorcise it. Maybe he would only get rid of it when he faced it squarely.

He knew what his mother would say about that: it was a Gryffindor thing to think, and Draco had been affected by the articles in the paper that praised Gryffindor values. But Draco, now, recalled the look in Potter’s eyes—which he could do without much effort—and then called up the image of his Aunt Bellatrix.

She had been waiting for him outside his parents’ bedroom, which the Dark Lord frequently used as a torture chamber. She had crowded Draco up against the wall, her hands hovering just above his arms. Draco had stared down and watched the way the short hairs on his arms stood up, as if reaching for her palms. Even the knowledge that it had to do with her proximity and not any desire on his part couldn’t lessen the sickness. He might have vomited if he’d had anything left in his belly after the latest session as the Dark Lord’s interrogator.

“You’re grown up now, baby boy,” Bellatrix had crooned to him. “Look at me.”

And Draco had looked up and straight into her eyes, huge and liquid and dark and black and Black, and he’d run, the way he had from Potter. Bellatrix had laughed at his back, and hadn’t bothered to come after him. She knew, the way Draco had, that she could find him whenever she wanted in Malfoy Manor. And she stood considerably higher up in the hierarchy of Death Eaters than Draco or his parents did. Others wouldn’t deny her clues to find Draco, if he tried to hide.

Draco came out of his trance, breathing fast. So. Yes. The look in Bellatrix’s eyes and the one in Potter’s had been the same.

Draco’s hands clenched in front of him, and he wanted to spit. There was a difference, though. Hogwarts was a lot bigger than Malfoy Manor, and Potter didn’t have power over him the way Bellatrix had, because he didn’t have the favor of a crazy Dark Lord.

But he could command you to be silent because he’s the Black heir now. What if he could command you to keep still?

Draco nearly ripped the sheets off the bed. He shook his head violently, and went on shaking it long past the point where he would have had to explain it if someone else was there. Hell, he almost had to explain it to himself.

No. No, he was not going to let that happen. Potter might want it to happen, as he fell further and further under the influence of the house, and at least it was less like incest than what Bellatrix had wanted to do. But Draco was not going to allow it.

Because he didn’t want to. Because sometimes, he could enforce his will despite everything outside him disagreeing with it.

He would help Potter to solve the seemingly insoluble problem, and get rid of the house’s influence. Because his own safety was bound up in it now, and if his mother had thought he should stay out of trouble this year and not become an instigator, it didn’t mean that he had to become a victim, either.

Draco undid the curtains and picked up parchment and ink. He needed to write a letter to his mother, to ask her if she remembered something he didn’t about the Black family and the way it chose its heirs, and if there was any help she could offer him in getting out from under this weight.

Then he would go to dinner and let Potter look at him. He could look all he wanted. He wasn’t going to touch.

Draco paused with his quill just dipped into the ink. Was this another way that he could manipulate Potter? Use desire as a weapon the way he couldn’t with Bellatrix, because she was simply far more powerful than he was?

It’s an idea. It’s an idea that might keep me from being afraid.

And Draco was so sick of being afraid.

*

Harry kept his eyes on the table or on his plate for most of dinner. He didn’t want to look at the Slytherin table. He didn’t want to see Malfoy, just in case what had happened in the library repeated here. It was one thing dealing with it in the privacy of his room; someone was far more likely to notice here.

But inevitably, there was a swirl of pale hair in front of him, and Harry was looking up at it before he thought better, his eyes locking on the blond head.

Malfoy sat at his usual place at the Slytherin table, shoved over to the side now, away from the central action. Strange, Harry thought now, that he hadn’t tried to get that back. It would have been hard, with so many of his friends gone and the students from families who had escaped prison scrambling to dissociate themselves from Death Eaters, but maybe he could have done it.

The Malfoy Harry remembered would have done it, if only because he couldn’t stand to be left out of power.

But he thought the new one was more interesting.

Malfoy met his eyes, and the emotions swirled in Harry’s stomach, and built, and locked. They had claws, and they felt as if they could rip Harry’s belly open. Harry licked his lips, and sat a little further back from the table.

Hermione was the only one to shoot him a keen glance. Ron had got into a heated argument with Dean, who’d apparently gone to see the Cannons play recently, over whether or not they had a sick bulldog’s chance of winning their next game, and most other people weren’t as interested in Harry as they’d been last year. They were focused on living their lives.

Shouldn’t I be, too? And what’s sex if not part of life?

There could be no doubt about it this time. Malfoy was looking Harry in the eye. Then he glanced aside, stood up, and left the Great Hall, not running the way he had from Harry earlier.

Harry couldn’t have resisted if Hermione had been about to announce his secret to all and sundry. He stood up and followed.

Malfoy was waiting for him in the first alcove of the entrance hall where they stood a chance of avoiding the eyes of students coming out of dinner. Harry found himself leaning in front of Malfoy, taking one of his hands and pinning it to the wall above him.

“What do you want?” Harry whispered. “You looked at me like you were thinking something. Have you thought of a solution to the problem?” Not that he really wanted a solution to the problem at the moment. The scars on his neck still only said 1. And solutions seemed like nothing compared to the sweet stirring in his groin.

Malfoy stepped back and ripped his wrist away from Harry.

Harry opened his mouth. He didn’t know what he would have said, but Malfoy stared at him and snapped, “You look ridiculous with that drool hanging from your chin.”

Harry snapped his mouth shut and wiped his chin. There was no drool, of course, although it was a little wet. He glared at Malfoy. “What are you doing?”

Malfoy rolled his eyes. “Getting you out here alone so I can talk to you. Listen. I have no desire whatever to be with someone who can’t control himself, and that’s you at the moment.”

Harry felt a sharp, sudden leap up the middle of his chest, as though someone had hooked his groin to his heart. He said, without stopping to think about the consequences, “Does that mean that I can have you if I control myself?”

Malfoy narrowed his eyes a little, apparently confused by the spectacle of a Harry who wanted him. Harry thought he ought to have felt more confused himself, but…well, it felt too good. And weren’t his friends always telling him that he didn’t have as much to worry about now and ought to calm down and think about dating?

“Maybe,” Malfoy finally said, glancing a little off to the side.

Harry waited until Malfoy looked back again, presenting someone who could control himself. Then he leaned forwards, whispered, “What about now?” and took Malfoy’s face in his hands, leaning forwards to press his mouth against his.