the artist formerly known as lunacy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mildlunacy) wrote2009-12-05 02:46 am
mildlunacy) wrote2009-12-05 02:46 am
Entry tags:
Fic: The Evolution Principle (H/D, PG13)
Um. Sooo... I wrote an H/D fic just now. I don't know what to say about it. I'm sort of stunned. It probably sucks, I dunno, but. Hey, I'm amazed I feel like it's finished in some way. Mostly, it's a response against the whole... um, limp-noodle post-HBP!Draco phenomenon that drives me up the wall.
I have tried hard to like limp-noodle!Draco. These are the... um, rather disturbing results of my attempt at reconciliation (and/or mockery). HBP H/D. I sort of want to laugh at myself. Who am I kidding, I -am- laughing at myself. *facepalm*
Disclaimer: still not mine.
Author Notes: I really can't believe I wrote this. And yet, I kind of can.
- The Evolution Principle -
Draco woke up without his anger one summer day after he'd become a man. He looked around, considering his options, and shrugged. There was only so much he could do, and after cursory consideration, he realized he'd have to do it. There was common sense to consider, now wasn't there. There was also the matter of self-preservation and cutting your losses and all those other things dear old Professor Snape acted like he knew something about.
As a great man once said: "It is time to separate your games from your sports." Or something to that effect. So said his gift parchment on the Proper Conduct and Happiness of a Malfoy at the Ripe Age of Seventeene.
*
He showed up on Potter's doorstep by a combination of luck, cunning and looking at his Mum in the old way, the childish way, until she broke and led him to her sister's, since she'd heard that was where the Order set up shop the previous year. She hugged him too hard and cried and told him to be careful, and he said, "Aren't I always?" Because he was, wasn't he. Careful was his middle name.
He'd practiced his opening line several times before he had to say it, so that when the door opened to a startled Potter, he could look properly unaffected and genteel. As his mother would say, the best defense is a smashing wardrobe, and when that failed you one smiled and looked well-dressed.
"Potter," he said at last, and gave a little salute.
*
"What are you doing here?" Potter asked, quite reasonably Draco thought, and Draco said, "waiting for you to let me in."
Weasley gaped shamelessly and Granger frowned, like she couldn't quite connect the dots yet, but it was only a matter of time. Granger was always better than him when it came to dots, as well as most other things.
Men called things by name, Draco knew. And if that failed, they found a place to hide.
*
"Someone finally knocked some sense into his head, I reckon," he heard Weasley tell them quietly, as if Draco was a dog and would only twitch if the humans spoke too loud. "It was bound to happen one day, with all the knocking about he got."
"I still think he's hiding something," Potter said crossly, like even he knew he was waging a losing battle. Which of course he wasn't, Draco knew. That was the point.
"Oh Harry," Granger sighed. "Haven't you let go of that by now?"
"No," Potter said even more crossly, and then they all laughed.
Draco went to choose a suitable room upstairs.
*
"We don't have time for you," Potter told him. "There's going to be people coming and going, too, so we can't exactly hide you here either. So... so you better tell me the truth. What do you think you're doing?"
"Hoping for charity, what did you think," Draco said with a straight face, and there was still a part of him that enjoyed the horrified look on Potter's face. Most of him still didn't give a shit.
"I can see right through you, Malfoy!" Potter said with a grim look at his face, arms crossed. He was practically radiating righteous belligerence, standing there in the doorway like he was ready to avenge some wrong or other, in his beat-up jeans and horrid tan hoodie. Draco supposed 'raving bum' was the in thing this year in London and Paris, but he couldn't talk, what with the state his wardrobe was in currently.
"Can you now," Draco said, smiling as he leaned back in the armchair where he'd sat with a perfectly nice book. Draco assumed they hadn't disposed of the Blacks' collection, and of course he was well within his rights. You might say this was his ancestral home, if you wanted to get technical about it.
"Why are you smiling like that?" Potter said, scowling harder, because clearly he couldn't tell a fake smile from a pimple on his arse.
"This is a comfortable chair, Potter. I think I might like it here."
Potter stormed out, and Draco closed his eyes, wishing he would enjoy this sort of thing more these days.
*
"He could be useful," he overheard Granger say urgently, though it wasn't because he meant to, precisely. It was just that Mrs. Black was alright to talk to. Certainly more pleasant than the alternatives, and these days the ruling philosophy urged him to take what he could get. "We should really have talked--"
"Oh, you mean we should interrogate now, before the others could--"
"I meant -talked-," Granger said firmly. "Don't you see how lonely he looks? He needs someone to listen to him, and if we played our cards right, we might get another asset against You-Know-Who. And if he isn't, he's still a human being that deserves our compassion, Harry."
"It's not that I don't pity him, I just-- it's bloody Malfoy!" Draco started to shake a little, but then he hadn't had breakfast yet. "Why me?"
"He didn't come here for our protection, did he. It's between the two of you right now. Maybe it always was."
"You're turning into Dumbledore. You realize that, right?"
"All right, I suppose that's enough for one morning." There was a long-suffering sigh. "Eat your porridge, Harry."
"Yes, Mum," Potter said monotonously, but Draco was already walking away by the time it turned into a laugh.
*
"Did you come to laugh at me again, or is this a social visit?" Draco sat cross-legged on the bed. He hadn't left during the day except to nip into the loo, and he was developing a slight fondness for Kreacher, who brought him his meals, and who berated all things Muggle and Potter-related so Draco didn't have to. While he spent his large stretches of time alone, Draco had taken to devising elaborate strategies to have a little mini-Draco who could say all the things Draco was now too mature to utter. It could be like a doll, and he'd set him on his knee and-- Draco pulled himself together, smoothing his features of any sort of gleeful smirk that might escape.
Potter sat at the edge of his bed, not quite looking at him. "Look," he started, pushing up his glasses. Was he -nervous-? Draco could almost feel himself slipping into a sneer, but he was beyond that now. He had to achieve complete indifference if he was going to keep from cracking, and indifference was what he would have. No matter what it took, he thought grimly.
"You don't have to bother making nice, Potter," Draco drawled. "I am only here to spy for the Dark Lord, you're quite right. Pray don't tell the others, as they might kill me."
"Really?" It wasn't that Potter sounded hopeful, he decided, but neither was he disappointed.
"I'll kill you in your sleep once I can stand to look at your face long enough," Draco said, unable to help himself. It was like Potter was begging for it, and Draco couldn't be so churlish as to not play along.
"It's hard to believe you when you're in your pajamas," Potter said grudgingly, pushing his glasses up his nose yet again. He looked like a twitchy blind mole, Draco thought. All he needed were the whiskers, and those didn't look to be far off from the five o'clock shadow on Potter's chin.
"I'm sorry. I do try, but most of my wardrobe got temporarily confiscated by the authorities, I'm sure you understand. It's not that I don't care."
Potter was staring at him strangely. "You've been acting weird ever since you got here," he said slowly. "You can't blame me for thinking something's up."
"You could always ask if you're that terribly curious. Me, I thought I'd have a nice holiday at my mother's relatives' place."
"We're leaving tomorrow," Potter said. "We can't stay here, and neither can you, so--"
"Ah," Draco said, momentarily stumped.
"I was thinking, maybe...."
Draco raised an eyebrow, trying to ignore how deeply odd and disturbing it was to sit there in the same room with -Potter-, in his -pajamas-, having a conversation about anything whatsoever. Then again, they'd confiscated his wand at the beginning, so his options were limited if he didn't want to resort to gross physical contact. Draco almost smiled at the idea of fighting his way out of here to the brilliant outside and freedom, where the Death Eaters were surely waiting to welcome him into the fold. Right, then. He had to focus.
"You were saying?"
"Do you know anything about lockets?" Potter said tentatively.
"Are you saying I might be useful to keep around if I do? You don't mean you thought I'd -help-, do you?"
"Actually, I was thinking we could keep you prisoner a bit longer if you knew something--" Potter started. "I mean--"
"I know just what you mean, don't worry. I'm sure we could work out an arrangement." Draco smiled again, his mouth almost willing this time. "All I need from you is a bit of time."
"I still don't like you," Potter said, as if to reassure him, or possibly the room. Draco supposed it was true Kreacher must be listening.
"Don't worry," Draco said. He didn't shudder from the sheer distaste of discussing something like this with Potter; it was old news Potter 'didn't like' him a little too much. Not that he'd thought about this subject very often."I don't actually care."
*
The statement twinged at the back of his mind uncomfortably for a few days, until he realized that he could allow it wasn't precisely 100% accurate. Perhaps. Because he did care, and it wasn't necessarily about anything new-- it was still all about survival of the fittest like his father liked to say. And it wasn't that the definition of 'fittest' had changed or now meant he could depend on Potter; he knew he could depend on Potter right about when Longbottom aced Advanced Potions. Potter remained a useless lump of messy-haired four-eyed charcoal. No. Survival of the fittest meant Draco had to compromise before he became obsolete like his bloody goons.
He stayed up thinking about the great whales soon being extinct and how much his father liked his full-scale reproduction of a sabertooth tiger as he stared into the fire, Granger and Weasley already asleep in their tent. The first time Draco had run across that thing in the dark, he'd been around five, and had screamed loud enough to bring Mother down all the way from the East Wing. Some day sooner rather than later, he thought, pureblooded wizards were going to be quite thoroughly stuffed as well.
As things stood presently, however, Draco just couldn't be trusted to have a tent all to himself, so here they were, with the flap open. At least Potter didn't snore.
"If you die, I'm just going to leave you there," Draco whispered philosophically.
"Good to know," Potter mumbled. "Don't you ever sleep?"
"No," Draco said, thinking none of this would be a problem if he could have a bloody fag. But no, that was too much for a goodie-goodie stalker type like Potter. "No doubt it's the vampire in me." He almost rolled his eyes at himself, but then he could always blame the mind-numbing boredom for reducing him to petty banter, he thought.
"I never knew vampires never shut up. The one I met seemed more keen on flashing his teeth and looking peckish."
"Are you chatting me up, Potter?" Draco said curiously, and sighed slightly when Potter stuttered and sat up too quickly. Not that Draco was looking.
"Wha--?!"
Draco had kind of missed Potter's easily won raging outrage, even if it -was- a touch too easy, rather. It was the sort of way one misses a sore, festering toe once it's disgustingly healthy and one begins to think of the mad days of one's far-away youth. "Oh, untwist your bloody knickers, would you. Your virtue is safe and sound, believe me. I am, however, rather bored."
"You mean you-- you want to do work? I thought you said you wouldn't help us if we were 'the last wizards on earth without a contagious debilitating illness', and I quote." He paused. "Not that I'd want a git like you messing about in our business. We don't need you."
"No," Draco said, as if to a small child. "That's why it's really up to me to provide running commentary." He could hear a soft flopping noise, and a groan. Draco couldn't help the smug grin, or the way his toes all but wiggled. "By the way," he said, testing the waters. "How much is Uncle Reggie's old locket worth to you, give or take?"
Potter was instantly at his side, grasping him by the shoulders and starting to shake him. He was nearly -panting-. It was all quite entertaining. "What the fuck do you know about this, Malfoy?!"
The corners of Draco's mouth lifted, a slow sort of burn starting in his gut. Of course he wasn't daft enough to keep the bloody thing in his pocket, but he was quite tempted to pat his thigh regardless, if only to watch Potter squirm. "Just enough," he said.
* * *
I have tried hard to like limp-noodle!Draco. These are the... um, rather disturbing results of my attempt at reconciliation (and/or mockery). HBP H/D. I sort of want to laugh at myself. Who am I kidding, I -am- laughing at myself. *facepalm*
Disclaimer: still not mine.
Author Notes: I really can't believe I wrote this. And yet, I kind of can.
- The Evolution Principle -
Draco woke up without his anger one summer day after he'd become a man. He looked around, considering his options, and shrugged. There was only so much he could do, and after cursory consideration, he realized he'd have to do it. There was common sense to consider, now wasn't there. There was also the matter of self-preservation and cutting your losses and all those other things dear old Professor Snape acted like he knew something about.
As a great man once said: "It is time to separate your games from your sports." Or something to that effect. So said his gift parchment on the Proper Conduct and Happiness of a Malfoy at the Ripe Age of Seventeene.
*
He showed up on Potter's doorstep by a combination of luck, cunning and looking at his Mum in the old way, the childish way, until she broke and led him to her sister's, since she'd heard that was where the Order set up shop the previous year. She hugged him too hard and cried and told him to be careful, and he said, "Aren't I always?" Because he was, wasn't he. Careful was his middle name.
He'd practiced his opening line several times before he had to say it, so that when the door opened to a startled Potter, he could look properly unaffected and genteel. As his mother would say, the best defense is a smashing wardrobe, and when that failed you one smiled and looked well-dressed.
"Potter," he said at last, and gave a little salute.
*
"What are you doing here?" Potter asked, quite reasonably Draco thought, and Draco said, "waiting for you to let me in."
Weasley gaped shamelessly and Granger frowned, like she couldn't quite connect the dots yet, but it was only a matter of time. Granger was always better than him when it came to dots, as well as most other things.
Men called things by name, Draco knew. And if that failed, they found a place to hide.
*
"Someone finally knocked some sense into his head, I reckon," he heard Weasley tell them quietly, as if Draco was a dog and would only twitch if the humans spoke too loud. "It was bound to happen one day, with all the knocking about he got."
"I still think he's hiding something," Potter said crossly, like even he knew he was waging a losing battle. Which of course he wasn't, Draco knew. That was the point.
"Oh Harry," Granger sighed. "Haven't you let go of that by now?"
"No," Potter said even more crossly, and then they all laughed.
Draco went to choose a suitable room upstairs.
*
"We don't have time for you," Potter told him. "There's going to be people coming and going, too, so we can't exactly hide you here either. So... so you better tell me the truth. What do you think you're doing?"
"Hoping for charity, what did you think," Draco said with a straight face, and there was still a part of him that enjoyed the horrified look on Potter's face. Most of him still didn't give a shit.
"I can see right through you, Malfoy!" Potter said with a grim look at his face, arms crossed. He was practically radiating righteous belligerence, standing there in the doorway like he was ready to avenge some wrong or other, in his beat-up jeans and horrid tan hoodie. Draco supposed 'raving bum' was the in thing this year in London and Paris, but he couldn't talk, what with the state his wardrobe was in currently.
"Can you now," Draco said, smiling as he leaned back in the armchair where he'd sat with a perfectly nice book. Draco assumed they hadn't disposed of the Blacks' collection, and of course he was well within his rights. You might say this was his ancestral home, if you wanted to get technical about it.
"Why are you smiling like that?" Potter said, scowling harder, because clearly he couldn't tell a fake smile from a pimple on his arse.
"This is a comfortable chair, Potter. I think I might like it here."
Potter stormed out, and Draco closed his eyes, wishing he would enjoy this sort of thing more these days.
*
"He could be useful," he overheard Granger say urgently, though it wasn't because he meant to, precisely. It was just that Mrs. Black was alright to talk to. Certainly more pleasant than the alternatives, and these days the ruling philosophy urged him to take what he could get. "We should really have talked--"
"Oh, you mean we should interrogate now, before the others could--"
"I meant -talked-," Granger said firmly. "Don't you see how lonely he looks? He needs someone to listen to him, and if we played our cards right, we might get another asset against You-Know-Who. And if he isn't, he's still a human being that deserves our compassion, Harry."
"It's not that I don't pity him, I just-- it's bloody Malfoy!" Draco started to shake a little, but then he hadn't had breakfast yet. "Why me?"
"He didn't come here for our protection, did he. It's between the two of you right now. Maybe it always was."
"You're turning into Dumbledore. You realize that, right?"
"All right, I suppose that's enough for one morning." There was a long-suffering sigh. "Eat your porridge, Harry."
"Yes, Mum," Potter said monotonously, but Draco was already walking away by the time it turned into a laugh.
*
"Did you come to laugh at me again, or is this a social visit?" Draco sat cross-legged on the bed. He hadn't left during the day except to nip into the loo, and he was developing a slight fondness for Kreacher, who brought him his meals, and who berated all things Muggle and Potter-related so Draco didn't have to. While he spent his large stretches of time alone, Draco had taken to devising elaborate strategies to have a little mini-Draco who could say all the things Draco was now too mature to utter. It could be like a doll, and he'd set him on his knee and-- Draco pulled himself together, smoothing his features of any sort of gleeful smirk that might escape.
Potter sat at the edge of his bed, not quite looking at him. "Look," he started, pushing up his glasses. Was he -nervous-? Draco could almost feel himself slipping into a sneer, but he was beyond that now. He had to achieve complete indifference if he was going to keep from cracking, and indifference was what he would have. No matter what it took, he thought grimly.
"You don't have to bother making nice, Potter," Draco drawled. "I am only here to spy for the Dark Lord, you're quite right. Pray don't tell the others, as they might kill me."
"Really?" It wasn't that Potter sounded hopeful, he decided, but neither was he disappointed.
"I'll kill you in your sleep once I can stand to look at your face long enough," Draco said, unable to help himself. It was like Potter was begging for it, and Draco couldn't be so churlish as to not play along.
"It's hard to believe you when you're in your pajamas," Potter said grudgingly, pushing his glasses up his nose yet again. He looked like a twitchy blind mole, Draco thought. All he needed were the whiskers, and those didn't look to be far off from the five o'clock shadow on Potter's chin.
"I'm sorry. I do try, but most of my wardrobe got temporarily confiscated by the authorities, I'm sure you understand. It's not that I don't care."
Potter was staring at him strangely. "You've been acting weird ever since you got here," he said slowly. "You can't blame me for thinking something's up."
"You could always ask if you're that terribly curious. Me, I thought I'd have a nice holiday at my mother's relatives' place."
"We're leaving tomorrow," Potter said. "We can't stay here, and neither can you, so--"
"Ah," Draco said, momentarily stumped.
"I was thinking, maybe...."
Draco raised an eyebrow, trying to ignore how deeply odd and disturbing it was to sit there in the same room with -Potter-, in his -pajamas-, having a conversation about anything whatsoever. Then again, they'd confiscated his wand at the beginning, so his options were limited if he didn't want to resort to gross physical contact. Draco almost smiled at the idea of fighting his way out of here to the brilliant outside and freedom, where the Death Eaters were surely waiting to welcome him into the fold. Right, then. He had to focus.
"You were saying?"
"Do you know anything about lockets?" Potter said tentatively.
"Are you saying I might be useful to keep around if I do? You don't mean you thought I'd -help-, do you?"
"Actually, I was thinking we could keep you prisoner a bit longer if you knew something--" Potter started. "I mean--"
"I know just what you mean, don't worry. I'm sure we could work out an arrangement." Draco smiled again, his mouth almost willing this time. "All I need from you is a bit of time."
"I still don't like you," Potter said, as if to reassure him, or possibly the room. Draco supposed it was true Kreacher must be listening.
"Don't worry," Draco said. He didn't shudder from the sheer distaste of discussing something like this with Potter; it was old news Potter 'didn't like' him a little too much. Not that he'd thought about this subject very often."I don't actually care."
*
The statement twinged at the back of his mind uncomfortably for a few days, until he realized that he could allow it wasn't precisely 100% accurate. Perhaps. Because he did care, and it wasn't necessarily about anything new-- it was still all about survival of the fittest like his father liked to say. And it wasn't that the definition of 'fittest' had changed or now meant he could depend on Potter; he knew he could depend on Potter right about when Longbottom aced Advanced Potions. Potter remained a useless lump of messy-haired four-eyed charcoal. No. Survival of the fittest meant Draco had to compromise before he became obsolete like his bloody goons.
He stayed up thinking about the great whales soon being extinct and how much his father liked his full-scale reproduction of a sabertooth tiger as he stared into the fire, Granger and Weasley already asleep in their tent. The first time Draco had run across that thing in the dark, he'd been around five, and had screamed loud enough to bring Mother down all the way from the East Wing. Some day sooner rather than later, he thought, pureblooded wizards were going to be quite thoroughly stuffed as well.
As things stood presently, however, Draco just couldn't be trusted to have a tent all to himself, so here they were, with the flap open. At least Potter didn't snore.
"If you die, I'm just going to leave you there," Draco whispered philosophically.
"Good to know," Potter mumbled. "Don't you ever sleep?"
"No," Draco said, thinking none of this would be a problem if he could have a bloody fag. But no, that was too much for a goodie-goodie stalker type like Potter. "No doubt it's the vampire in me." He almost rolled his eyes at himself, but then he could always blame the mind-numbing boredom for reducing him to petty banter, he thought.
"I never knew vampires never shut up. The one I met seemed more keen on flashing his teeth and looking peckish."
"Are you chatting me up, Potter?" Draco said curiously, and sighed slightly when Potter stuttered and sat up too quickly. Not that Draco was looking.
"Wha--?!"
Draco had kind of missed Potter's easily won raging outrage, even if it -was- a touch too easy, rather. It was the sort of way one misses a sore, festering toe once it's disgustingly healthy and one begins to think of the mad days of one's far-away youth. "Oh, untwist your bloody knickers, would you. Your virtue is safe and sound, believe me. I am, however, rather bored."
"You mean you-- you want to do work? I thought you said you wouldn't help us if we were 'the last wizards on earth without a contagious debilitating illness', and I quote." He paused. "Not that I'd want a git like you messing about in our business. We don't need you."
"No," Draco said, as if to a small child. "That's why it's really up to me to provide running commentary." He could hear a soft flopping noise, and a groan. Draco couldn't help the smug grin, or the way his toes all but wiggled. "By the way," he said, testing the waters. "How much is Uncle Reggie's old locket worth to you, give or take?"
Potter was instantly at his side, grasping him by the shoulders and starting to shake him. He was nearly -panting-. It was all quite entertaining. "What the fuck do you know about this, Malfoy?!"
The corners of Draco's mouth lifted, a slow sort of burn starting in his gut. Of course he wasn't daft enough to keep the bloody thing in his pocket, but he was quite tempted to pat his thigh regardless, if only to watch Potter squirm. "Just enough," he said.
* * *