Breaking Potter
Chapter 1: Problem Solving
Pairing: DracoxHarryxDraco
Rated: pg13
Warnings: Strongly implied yaoi/slash and a swear word or two
Legal stuff: Well... I think it's obvious but I'll state it anyway. I down own them! Please don't sue me? I'm poor... seriously...SERIOUSLY.
Author notes: Allllright it's been FOREVER since I posted ANYTHING and I think it's about time that I actually post a fic. This fic takes place sometime after Harry's second year but before the last year and it's from Draco's perspective. Dun Dun duuuuun. The first part isn't too naughty but the second part is a bit more so, so keep an eye out for that (yes, there is only two parts).
Feedback: I'll admit it, I'm a review whore.
Thanks to: The people who read this :D!
Many people have always been under the impression that Harry James Potter, the boy who lived, is a kind and gentleperson in absolutely every aspect of his life. This, of course, is a gross misconception.
While Harry may be kind and gentle with his friends, colleges, and various other assorted individuals, Harry is neither kind nor gentle with me. Never has been and doubtfully ever will be.
An average person might say this is because I bring out the worst in the boy - that I provoke him until he strikes and that I get every ounce of what I deserve. Fortunately the average person is usually, if not always, shamefully wrong.
I don't believe I bring out the worst in Potter, I believe I bring out the reality of Potter -the things that have been hiding under the surface. For you see, and I WOULD know this better than anyone else, beneath all that goodly-natured-Gryffindor crap beats the blood of a perfectly driven Slytherin.
He could have been one of us but, I suppose, if he had been… he wouldn't have been nearly as interesting and I wouldn't be in the predicament that I'm in now.
Potter is my opponent in life, my sworn enemy since we formally met on the train. Which is somewhat tragic because I had had it in my mind to make a friend of the boy I'd met in that clothing store on Diagon Alley. He was the first Hoggwarts student (my own age) that I'd met that day and when I later figured out who he really was... I wanted him.
Not in that sexually driven manor, persay, but in that all-consuming need to have someone in your life, sort of way. That definite absolute must. Yes, from the moment we met I knew that the boy with unruly black hair and brilliant green eyes would play a significant role in my life.
It was fate, if you believe in such nonsense.
I'm not sure if my father would have agreed with my obsession or not. He was certainly interested in the boy -grant it, not with quit as much gusto as myself, but he never quite made it clear if I should destroy the boy who lived or bring him over to our side of things. And because of this, I assumed his blatant obscurity was a sure sign of his authorization in allowing me to decide what I should do with my life for the first time in my life.
In retrospect, I should have realized that his poignant lack of commentary was on account of the fact that he didn't have a damn clue what to do about Mr. Harry Potter.
And really… little surprise there. My father doesn't have much of a clue about anything. Oh sure, he could act like he knew all your dirty little secrets and exactly how to use them against you but it was little more than that, an act.
Can you guess who I learned most of my... less-than-endearing traits from?
Anyway…
Over the time I spent observing Potter (closely) I started to notice traces of unusual patterns in his normally passive friendly behavior. Only minute things, of course -things that even his closest of friends wouldn't have caught. Things like how worked up he started getting over little stuff. Or how he wounded much deeper and more quickly than he would have in his first or second year.
The great Harry Potter was growing very thin indeed, his nerves and self-respect being frayed away by the weight of all the obligations that came of him and his name.
I hate to say it, but I related.
I, unlike most of the babbling simpletons at that damned school, understood what it meant to have to live up to a name you didn't ask for. What it meant to fill out all those nearly impossibly expectancies that people had come to count on you for. After all, I AM a Malfoy.
In my more sagacious (if you will) perspective from the present, I suppose it was because I finally found a really significant common ground with my obsession that I started pushing him even harder. My words became crueler, my pranks became more dangerous and all those buttons I knew I could push, I pushed.
And I did it because I wanted him to explode.
I wanted to see the real Harry Potter and what laid beneath that facade of his. Glimpses were no longer enough, I had to know and I would do whatever it took to find out.
Unfortunately, what it took to find out was time.
Much
May it never be said that a Potter doesn't have an iron will of resistance. I found myself mirthlessly impressed by how much force he put into maintaining his composure and repelling any opposition (me) that tried to break it down. However, may it also be ubiquitously known that a Malfoy's stubborn determination can out-last anything which, gleefully, includes Potters.
As previously stated, it took a lot of time and diligence to run him down but it finally happened. And let me tell you, it wasn't pretty.
When he finally cornered me in an empty classroom (and god how I wish I could remember how the hell he got me in there in the first place) he let go. He simply pulled out all the restraints and just let go.
What a fucking mess.
I had never met someone more internally messed up, appallingly confused and so very enraged in my entire life. Well, other than myself on the occasion but not like this. I, for one, was not filled with a powerful sense of self-loathing that I had to cover up by projecting it onto another person.
I was, perhaps, a bit more insecure than your typical growing youth but, for gawd sake, I never doubted myself like he did. And I never took myself THAT fucking seriously either.
So he just exploded on me in a flurry of furious words and gestures. The only thing I could think about for a while was that he must have put a silencing charm on the room while I wasn't looking. Surely a teacher would have come to our aid after all the racquet HE was making that night.
And then he said it.
"Why do you always have to push?! Why can't you just leave me ALONE?! Why... why are you so fucking necessary?"
The words had stunned me blind for all of two seconds before the dawning realization finally came to me like a cold slap to the face. Potter needed me. Not just needed me but bloody well depended on me to get through his, admittedly, fucked-up existence. He needed a person he could project all that hurt and anger towards. He needed an enemy to keep pushing him and prodding him into motion, a person to remind him what he was fighting for when all the bruises and scars failed to do so.
I was NOT expecting that.
And the surprise must have shown on my face because his own closed up and he immediately began to back-pedal. Obviously wishing he could conjure up some kind of memory charm that would wipe the moment away.
I doubt he could have pulled a memory charm off even if his brain HAD supplied him with the words. His hands were shaking like the rest of his body and no one in that condition could have performed that kind of charm and expect it to go off flawlessly. Which sucked for him because, since we were in the school, there was no leeway for error.
"Did you just admit that you NEED me, Potter?" I smirked, so cynically, as I had practiced in my dreams.
"NO!" He stammered, fumbling for an explanation that wasn't going to come to him.
My hand graciously tripped over the lock of the door behind me, clicking it into place before I moved. He hadn't heard the noise –he would never see this coming.
"Don't lie Potter, it's rather unbecoming of you. What would the others think if they knew their treasured golden boy lies on top of everything else he does that they don't know about?"
"Stop." He snarled, eyes squeezing shut in remorse, "Just stop."
"Oh but WHY?" I pushed, slowly sauntering forward, power in every step growing with the confidence I had.
"Draco, please, for once in your life just let it go."
"Funny… I was just about to say the same thing to you, Harry."
It was odd using his first name without following it by some degrading remark or his last name in a mockingly formal manor. I liked the way it rolled off my tongue all by itself and, for an instant, I considered using it more often -to hell with formalities, facade or no. However, I quickly registered the unfortunate draw back to constantly being in the public eye… and that would be the rumors. Oh HOW ridiculously fast the most outrageous rumors spread throughout the school before leaking into the hands of outside forces.
And though the name switching was such a small and daunting thing, I knew the real gravity behind it. What would Father think if he heard I had suddenly grown into a habit of using personal names when referring to the Dark Lord's #1 most wanted enemy? Dear me, I fear that would go quite badly.
"What?" The other boy's voice broke into my thoughts and my eyes instantly narrowed as if his question had somehow offended me. Just reflexes, really.
"I'm not an answering booth, Potter. You heard me. Why don't you just... let go for once. It's not like I'm going to look down upon you anymore than I already do."
He didn't trust me, that much was obvious.
"You'll use it against me."
"Please." I drawled, stepping closer to him than I ever dared to in public, "Give me a little more credit for my creativity than that. Besides, it's not like anyone would believe that the great and perfect Harry Potter actually had issues -seriously deep-seated issues that constantly made him..." My eyes flickered over his body before glancing back into his eyes, "Agitated."
He caught it, swallowed, and pressed himself against the far wall.
"So you're just going to offer a friendly ear then, is that it? I wasn't aware we were on such good terms."
I quirked an eyebrow at that, "We're not. I didn't say this was an amiable encounter. I was merely saying that if you felt like doing a little more screaming, I'm not going to rebuke you for it."
It was strange, I wasn't acting like myself and I'm not really sure what had overcome me or why. What I DID know was that I was advancing my advisory in heavily suggestive overtones and I was enjoying it. Or maybe it was how uncomfortable I was making the boy that I was enjoying... either way, I knew I was having a damn good time. The only thing left was to do was make the final straw snap and I was pushing with everything I had in order to do it.
I-" He was faltering, suddenly loosing all that righteous anger he had built up to use against me (and I reveled on the insight). "-I... don't know what you're talking about."
"Again with the lying." I had finally managed to back him into the corner, pressing my hands against the walls on either side of his head.
He was slightly taller than me but since I had the upper hand, it hardly mattered. I WAS the intimidating force and he wasn't about to take that away from me.
"Come on Harry, just let go. I want to hear you scream."
He stared blankly at me and for a fraction of a second I wondered if he even understood what a double entendre was.
"This isn't the place for it." I'll admit, I was marginally satisfied with the answer. Marginally.
"There is never going to be a place for it, so here is as good as it's going to get."
I had a point and he couldn't deny it. After that, things got a LOT more interesting.
TBC