kalpurna

WTF? No, seriously, WTF. Why am I writing Harry/Draco slash? I am not even in this fandom anymore. *waves tiny fist of rage*

Fucking lunatic muse.

Anyway, this is part 1/13 in a series of short fics. And please, don't defriend me, you non-HP folks; THIS IS NOT MY FANDOM. Aaargh. I'm even using a SGA icon to prove it.



Famous

Everyone forgets this about Draco: he was meant to occupy the position which the Boy Who Lived now holds.

He was meant to be the beautiful golden prince, the heir to the wizarding world, the one person everyone wanted most. This had always been his intended role, and he had not been prepared to fill any other. The teachers should have loved him, the students should have feared him. All this should have been effortless.

Instead his features are too sharp, and his skin breaks out, and his bright hair fades to invisibility when Potter’s green eyes flash across the Great Hall. Next to that beauty, Draco is nothing but a skinny, awkward adolescent. Draco Malfoy knows that he will never be as attractive as Harry Potter, and he carries this knowledge like a poisonous flower.

In the summer, his mother brushes his hair briskly every morning. She teaches him spells to clear his skin, and the house-elves are forbidden to serve chocolate. By August, when Goyle comes to visit, Draco is going half-mad with frustrated energy. He waits opposite the door, on the massive marble staircase, jiggling his leg rapidly. Goyle sits down heavily beside him.

“Hullo,” he says.

Draco makes an impatient noise in response. They sit quietly for a moment, galleons rattling slightly in time with Draco’s jerking knee. He stares glazedly at a portrait as Goyle watches him with unblinking attention. After a few minutes, he pats Draco tentatively on the shoulder, and the blond boy turns to look at his friend. Goyle pulls a slightly chewed chocolate frog from his pocket.

“D’you want some?”

Draco looks at it as if he has never seen anything so beautiful in his life. Goyle’s broad, homely face turns pink with pleasure, and Draco takes the frog reverently. When he bites into it, he lets himself lean slightly into Goyle’s fleshy shoulder.

The memory is sweet and thick in Draco’s mind.

Still, it’s only one incident in a long history. In Potions, Granger’s fingers are deft and quick on her knife. The Weasel smears bubotuber pus in a laughing Potter’s dark hair. Draco, watching, wonders what it’s like having friends who are clever, who share your interests. A burst of smoke briefly obscures Crabbe’s unremarkable features.

Even Draco’s strengths are no match for Potter’s talents; it is easy for most of Hogwarts to ignore that Draco is really very good at Quidditch, and that in any other year but Potter’s, he would have been unstoppable. He spends hours practicing every night in the dark, turns and feints and dives. He is the second best seeker Hogwarts has seen for years.

Draco thinks about this loss as the Gryffindors cheer from the stands, and hates Potter until he can hardly breathe.

In his peripheral vision, he glimpses a flash of bright wings. Whirling around instantly, he sees the snitch hovering twenty meters before him. Potter is all the way across the pitch, circling low to the ground.

The air between Draco and the snitch is clear and bright, and it is impossible to believe that he can’t just pluck it gently like an apple from the sky. It’s barely four broomstick lengths away. It’s a gift served up on a woodsmoke-scented platter. It’s never going to be his. Draco hunches low against his broom, chin hovering inches above the smooth wood.

Bruised and sore in the Great Hall later that day, Draco contemplates his green jello, which makes a squishy belch and subsides into torpid passivity. Eyes narrowed suspiciously, he pokes at it speculatively with a fork. A brief tug-of-war ensues as the blob shoots out a prehensile tentacle to defend its territory. It’s surprisingly strong, for a food product. At last, Draco distracts it with a piece of toast and manages to wrench away his flatware, which he brandishes victoriously in the air.

Flushed with success, he looks up to the Gryffindor table, where the golden triplets are flicking spoonfuls of semi-sentient desert across the table at their housemates. Hermione’s cheeks are sticky with sugar as, squealing with delighted outrage, Lavender Brown returns fire. The Bloody Baron drifts silently through Draco’s line of sight, translucent and mirthless.

Draco Malfoy looks around at his dejected teammates, and carefully puts down his fork.

I know you've tried
I know you've cried
I know you've died
A little inside, but

Baby you could be famous
You could see your marble face all around
Baby you could be famous
If you could just get out of this town
Just get out of this town now
-The Magnetic Fields



Feedback is love, and concrit is sex. Also, this is not a final version, because I really super need a beta for this fic. Um... anyone?