This one goes out to....
Jul. 21st, 2004 08:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
geovikiA tribute site to Switchknife - The Arsenal just came online. Many great stories, poems, feedback, art. I wrote my first deadline fic, a companion to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
switchknife's Un Dieu Anonyme. (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ficbymarks wrote another fic using this story, too, so go check hers out, too: Un Dieu Imagine)
Title: Variation on Un Dieu Anonyme
Author: Duinn-Fionn
Pairing: DM/HP
Rating and Warnings: PG-13, AU
Notes: Written for writer and fan extraordinaire, Switchknife. This is another take on part of Switchknife's original AU story, Un Dieu Anonyme, this time from Draco's perspective. Best to read that story first, actually. It's one of my favorites, although it was hard to choose.
An enthusiastic thanks to Isis for her terrific beta editing.
"Good afternoon, sir. I trust you had a pleasant day at school?"
Draco gave Dobby a fleeting smile in polite acknowledgment, slipping wordlessly into the back of the long, black Mercedes and dropping his books unceremoniously beside him. Dobby closed the passenger door, and all the noise from the crowd of students outside was cut off by flawless German engineering.
A pleasant day? No, more like a boring, tedious, painfully dull day. Just like yesterday. And probably tomorrow, since nothing seemed likely to change any time soon.
Draco watched without real interest as the large, awkward shape of someone crammed on a too-small bicycle barreled precariously around several nearby students. Heads swung around at the near-miss, but he couldn't hear their angry invectives through the thick window glass. Their nasty expressions, however, spoke volumes.
Belatedly, he recognized the careless rider - Dudley Dursley, one of the school's recognized thugs. Not someone he'd normally have given a second glance, except that Draco's friends had recently let slip an interesting piece of news. Dudley happened to live with the enigmatic Harry Potter - or rather, Potter lived in the Dursley home.
A cousin, they said. An orphan, they said. A loser, they said.
"Dudley Dursley hates him," Pansy had insisted. "His whole family does. I can see why - he's a creepy little geek, isn't he?"
"Too right," Blaise had agreed. "Dresses himself up like a freak, too. Someone ought to tell him that grunge went out after Kurt Cobain offed himself." He laughed at his own wit, and Pansy joined in with an annoying bray.
Appearances would suggest his friends were right. Draco had an eye for clothes, and Potter's were nothing but ratty and tasteless. Dudley's cast-offs, Draco realized with a shudder. But something had made Draco reserve judgment for once.
Luckily, no one had noticed his new weakness for watching Potter - he kept an eye on him in their shared classes, listened for his voice in class, followed his slow steps past the lunch table where Potter shoved his nose in a book to disguise the fact that he always sat alone.
Draco was curious about Potter. He was even more curious about his own growing fascination with him.
"Dobby," he said to his driver, who had been waiting for the mass of students to clear before easing the car into traffic. "That boy on the bike. Follow him, would you?"
He could see Dobby's eyebrows rise, but the man said nothing about the odd request, merely nodding and edging the car forward.
Dudley was absurdly easy to follow. Although he ignored traffic signals, which Dobby couldn't, he pedaled so slowly that the sleek black car had no trouble tracking his progress. Finally, the red-faced boy swung onto a small street - Privet Drive, Draco noticed - and dismounted at number 4, dropping his bicycle gracelessly on the sidewalk before heading inside.
Potter's house. But the other boy was nowhere in sight.
"Shall I-" Dobby began.
"No, that's fine. Keep driving. Home."
Dudley had made it to number 4 just in time, Draco noticed. Rain had threatened all day, and fat drops began to streak the windows. In no time at all, the skies had opened and a full-fledged rainstorm engulfed them. Dobby switched the car's wipers to high, the noise echoing like a quickened heartbeat. The side windows began to fog up, and Draco absentmindedly wiped a clear spot with the back of his hand.
Shops passed in a wet blur. As the car slowed for a light, he watched a florist rearranging his sidewalk display out of reach of the water now pouring off his awning. He loved flower shops - he reveled in the smell, the texture of leaves and petals, the contrast of color and foliage. God, Draco, you are so gay, he thought, allowing himself a tiny smile. That was okay, though. He was rich enough for his friends to overlook almost anything.
Draco gazed idly out at the unfamiliar neighborhood of Little Whinging, by habit ignoring the heads turning to admire the expensive car prowling their street. They were backtracking, he noticed, closing in again on Privet Drive, and he briefly wondered why Dobby was going this way. His glance took in a bus shelter that held a single - and very wet - figure. Startled, he sat forward and dashed his hand roughly across the clouded window for a better view.
Harry Potter.
The Mercedes was halfway down the block before he could find his voice.
"Dobby. Stop."
For a minute, he thought that the car had swerved to the curb before he'd even spoken, but that didn't make sense. Dobby swung effortlessly into the first parking spot he came to. Not for the first time did Draco marvel at Dobby's ability to respond almost instantly to a sudden change of plans - it was almost as though the man could read minds.
"Shall I go back?" Dobby asked politely.
"No. This will be fine. We're near Privet Drive, aren't we?" he said, then wondered just how Dobby had known he was interested in something they'd passed. He fumbled under his seat for the black umbrella Dobby kept there. "There's someone from school I need to talk to," he muttered.
He walked back along the street, feeling detached under the protection of his umbrella, and more than a little unsettled. He slowed his steps, hoping to buy a little time. Some insight into just what he thought he was doing would be nice, too. The sound of the Mercedes idling in the distance grew faint, muffled by the rain. At least Potter won't notice it, he decided, surprising himself with the uncharacteristic thought - usually he liked to show off his toys.
The bus shelter had appeared too soon - he still had no clue what he was going to say. But he couldn't just lurk in the doorway like some vagrant. Potter hadn't noticed him yet, and Draco saw him clearly for the first time. His head was tipped back against the shelter wall and his eyes were closed. He looked uncomfortably drenched, with his black hair in dripping tendrils framing his face, his glasses streaked with water, and his pants dragged even lower than usual by the weight of water soaking his cuffs.
He looked pathetic. Draco felt an unfamiliar stirring at the sight, and made himself shrug it off before he found himself saying something stupid. Instead, he cleared his throat and said, "Potter."
The other boy's head snapped up so abruptly that drops of water propelled across the shelter, spraying Draco in an impromptu baptism.
"Malfoy -" Potter said with obvious surprise. His mouth hung open.
Whatever casual remark Draco planned to say next evaporated. But none of this was planned; that was the problem. He couldn't remember ever feeling so tongue-tied and awkward. He covered his lack of conversation by carefully folding his umbrella and propping it against the wall.
"Potter," he repeated. This was going badly.
"What are you doing here?"
Draco wished he'd thought to ask that question first. If he had, maybe Potter would have answered with an account of some mundane errand, explained why he was hanging on to his damp parcel with that death grip. Draco had the odd sensation that by not offering up that question to Potter first, he had wiped away any chance of having a normal conversation with him. He wanted to answer Potter, he really did, but the only thing he could come up with was: "You tell me and we'll both know," which was unbearably flippant. He wasn't feeling flippant. He was feeling something altogether different.
Potter was getting closer, and it took Draco a moment to discover that it was because his own feet were moving. How peculiar. Even more peculiar was the way his hands proceeded to frame Potter's head and rest on the wall on either side of his face - and they were indeed his hands, he confirmed, pale and thin and usually under his control. He looked at Potter and waited patiently for the other boy to explain to him just why these things were happening without his knowledge.
But clearly, Potter didn't seem to have the vaguest notion, either. He saw a look of panic in Potter's eyes, as if he was afraid of Draco, or of what he might do. Did Potter think he was going to hurt him? Although maybe he was right to be afraid, he decided, just before he leaned in and kissed him. Maybe they should both be afraid.
Well, that act did manage to answer the pressing question of what he was doing here. Sadly, it left him with a much more difficult question - why was he kissing Potter?
Potter had turned to stone beneath his mouth, and Draco's hand lifted and caressed Potter's face in an effort to try to bring him back to life. Potter's hold on his parcel relaxed abruptly, and papers spilled around them like leaves. With that barrier removed, Draco pressed himself closer to Potter, molding against him, trying to remove the stony grip that held Potter rigid. He almost expected to hear the sound of shattering rock when Potter arched into him with a gasp and came alive in his arms.
All thoughts of conversation, of questions or answers, vanished. Draco was now speaking in tongues - with tongues - noiseless questions voiced only in the soft whispering kiss they were sharing, unspoken answers found in the rhythm of tongue against tongue.
Who are you?, he wanted to say, but the desire to ask was not enough to stop his mouth's rather more intimate conversation.
Potter - very much alive now - responded as if he had never felt anything that had ever stirred him, as if he'd been sleeping for years and had finally been awakened by Draco's tongue stroking against his. Draco had never before kissed anyone who seemed so desperate for his touch.
But slowly, Draco awoke as well, to the blinding realization that he was madly kissing a very wet and disheveled Harry Potter, a boy he barely knew, in a public bus shelter. His courage abruptly failed him.
He pulled away, pressing Potter back with reluctance. A sudden wave of embarrassment and horror engulfed him, and trying to calm his too-aroused body, he allowed his head to drop heavily and rest on Potter's shoulder. Except for the diminishing shudders and the rise and fall of his too-rapid breathing, Potter was motionless.
And now Draco was the one with panic in his eyes - panic that Potter, eyes still closed, thankfully couldn't see. Quietly, Draco lifted his head and took a step back. Potter never moved - in fact, he seemed not to have noticed anything amiss - and Draco sighed. Wordlessly, he grabbed his umbrella, turned tail, and scurried back to the safety of his car.
switchknife's Un Dieu Anonyme. (ficbymarks wrote another fic using this story, too, so go check hers out, too: Un Dieu Imagine)Title: Variation on Un Dieu Anonyme
Author: Duinn-Fionn
Pairing: DM/HP
Rating and Warnings: PG-13, AU
Notes: Written for writer and fan extraordinaire, Switchknife. This is another take on part of Switchknife's original AU story, Un Dieu Anonyme, this time from Draco's perspective. Best to read that story first, actually. It's one of my favorites, although it was hard to choose.
An enthusiastic thanks to Isis for her terrific beta editing.
"Good afternoon, sir. I trust you had a pleasant day at school?"
Draco gave Dobby a fleeting smile in polite acknowledgment, slipping wordlessly into the back of the long, black Mercedes and dropping his books unceremoniously beside him. Dobby closed the passenger door, and all the noise from the crowd of students outside was cut off by flawless German engineering.
A pleasant day? No, more like a boring, tedious, painfully dull day. Just like yesterday. And probably tomorrow, since nothing seemed likely to change any time soon.
Draco watched without real interest as the large, awkward shape of someone crammed on a too-small bicycle barreled precariously around several nearby students. Heads swung around at the near-miss, but he couldn't hear their angry invectives through the thick window glass. Their nasty expressions, however, spoke volumes.
Belatedly, he recognized the careless rider - Dudley Dursley, one of the school's recognized thugs. Not someone he'd normally have given a second glance, except that Draco's friends had recently let slip an interesting piece of news. Dudley happened to live with the enigmatic Harry Potter - or rather, Potter lived in the Dursley home.
A cousin, they said. An orphan, they said. A loser, they said.
"Dudley Dursley hates him," Pansy had insisted. "His whole family does. I can see why - he's a creepy little geek, isn't he?"
"Too right," Blaise had agreed. "Dresses himself up like a freak, too. Someone ought to tell him that grunge went out after Kurt Cobain offed himself." He laughed at his own wit, and Pansy joined in with an annoying bray.
Appearances would suggest his friends were right. Draco had an eye for clothes, and Potter's were nothing but ratty and tasteless. Dudley's cast-offs, Draco realized with a shudder. But something had made Draco reserve judgment for once.
Luckily, no one had noticed his new weakness for watching Potter - he kept an eye on him in their shared classes, listened for his voice in class, followed his slow steps past the lunch table where Potter shoved his nose in a book to disguise the fact that he always sat alone.
Draco was curious about Potter. He was even more curious about his own growing fascination with him.
"Dobby," he said to his driver, who had been waiting for the mass of students to clear before easing the car into traffic. "That boy on the bike. Follow him, would you?"
He could see Dobby's eyebrows rise, but the man said nothing about the odd request, merely nodding and edging the car forward.
Dudley was absurdly easy to follow. Although he ignored traffic signals, which Dobby couldn't, he pedaled so slowly that the sleek black car had no trouble tracking his progress. Finally, the red-faced boy swung onto a small street - Privet Drive, Draco noticed - and dismounted at number 4, dropping his bicycle gracelessly on the sidewalk before heading inside.
Potter's house. But the other boy was nowhere in sight.
"Shall I-" Dobby began.
"No, that's fine. Keep driving. Home."
Dudley had made it to number 4 just in time, Draco noticed. Rain had threatened all day, and fat drops began to streak the windows. In no time at all, the skies had opened and a full-fledged rainstorm engulfed them. Dobby switched the car's wipers to high, the noise echoing like a quickened heartbeat. The side windows began to fog up, and Draco absentmindedly wiped a clear spot with the back of his hand.
Shops passed in a wet blur. As the car slowed for a light, he watched a florist rearranging his sidewalk display out of reach of the water now pouring off his awning. He loved flower shops - he reveled in the smell, the texture of leaves and petals, the contrast of color and foliage. God, Draco, you are so gay, he thought, allowing himself a tiny smile. That was okay, though. He was rich enough for his friends to overlook almost anything.
Draco gazed idly out at the unfamiliar neighborhood of Little Whinging, by habit ignoring the heads turning to admire the expensive car prowling their street. They were backtracking, he noticed, closing in again on Privet Drive, and he briefly wondered why Dobby was going this way. His glance took in a bus shelter that held a single - and very wet - figure. Startled, he sat forward and dashed his hand roughly across the clouded window for a better view.
Harry Potter.
The Mercedes was halfway down the block before he could find his voice.
"Dobby. Stop."
For a minute, he thought that the car had swerved to the curb before he'd even spoken, but that didn't make sense. Dobby swung effortlessly into the first parking spot he came to. Not for the first time did Draco marvel at Dobby's ability to respond almost instantly to a sudden change of plans - it was almost as though the man could read minds.
"Shall I go back?" Dobby asked politely.
"No. This will be fine. We're near Privet Drive, aren't we?" he said, then wondered just how Dobby had known he was interested in something they'd passed. He fumbled under his seat for the black umbrella Dobby kept there. "There's someone from school I need to talk to," he muttered.
He walked back along the street, feeling detached under the protection of his umbrella, and more than a little unsettled. He slowed his steps, hoping to buy a little time. Some insight into just what he thought he was doing would be nice, too. The sound of the Mercedes idling in the distance grew faint, muffled by the rain. At least Potter won't notice it, he decided, surprising himself with the uncharacteristic thought - usually he liked to show off his toys.
The bus shelter had appeared too soon - he still had no clue what he was going to say. But he couldn't just lurk in the doorway like some vagrant. Potter hadn't noticed him yet, and Draco saw him clearly for the first time. His head was tipped back against the shelter wall and his eyes were closed. He looked uncomfortably drenched, with his black hair in dripping tendrils framing his face, his glasses streaked with water, and his pants dragged even lower than usual by the weight of water soaking his cuffs.
He looked pathetic. Draco felt an unfamiliar stirring at the sight, and made himself shrug it off before he found himself saying something stupid. Instead, he cleared his throat and said, "Potter."
The other boy's head snapped up so abruptly that drops of water propelled across the shelter, spraying Draco in an impromptu baptism.
"Malfoy -" Potter said with obvious surprise. His mouth hung open.
Whatever casual remark Draco planned to say next evaporated. But none of this was planned; that was the problem. He couldn't remember ever feeling so tongue-tied and awkward. He covered his lack of conversation by carefully folding his umbrella and propping it against the wall.
"Potter," he repeated. This was going badly.
"What are you doing here?"
Draco wished he'd thought to ask that question first. If he had, maybe Potter would have answered with an account of some mundane errand, explained why he was hanging on to his damp parcel with that death grip. Draco had the odd sensation that by not offering up that question to Potter first, he had wiped away any chance of having a normal conversation with him. He wanted to answer Potter, he really did, but the only thing he could come up with was: "You tell me and we'll both know," which was unbearably flippant. He wasn't feeling flippant. He was feeling something altogether different.
Potter was getting closer, and it took Draco a moment to discover that it was because his own feet were moving. How peculiar. Even more peculiar was the way his hands proceeded to frame Potter's head and rest on the wall on either side of his face - and they were indeed his hands, he confirmed, pale and thin and usually under his control. He looked at Potter and waited patiently for the other boy to explain to him just why these things were happening without his knowledge.
But clearly, Potter didn't seem to have the vaguest notion, either. He saw a look of panic in Potter's eyes, as if he was afraid of Draco, or of what he might do. Did Potter think he was going to hurt him? Although maybe he was right to be afraid, he decided, just before he leaned in and kissed him. Maybe they should both be afraid.
Well, that act did manage to answer the pressing question of what he was doing here. Sadly, it left him with a much more difficult question - why was he kissing Potter?
Potter had turned to stone beneath his mouth, and Draco's hand lifted and caressed Potter's face in an effort to try to bring him back to life. Potter's hold on his parcel relaxed abruptly, and papers spilled around them like leaves. With that barrier removed, Draco pressed himself closer to Potter, molding against him, trying to remove the stony grip that held Potter rigid. He almost expected to hear the sound of shattering rock when Potter arched into him with a gasp and came alive in his arms.
All thoughts of conversation, of questions or answers, vanished. Draco was now speaking in tongues - with tongues - noiseless questions voiced only in the soft whispering kiss they were sharing, unspoken answers found in the rhythm of tongue against tongue.
Who are you?, he wanted to say, but the desire to ask was not enough to stop his mouth's rather more intimate conversation.
Potter - very much alive now - responded as if he had never felt anything that had ever stirred him, as if he'd been sleeping for years and had finally been awakened by Draco's tongue stroking against his. Draco had never before kissed anyone who seemed so desperate for his touch.
But slowly, Draco awoke as well, to the blinding realization that he was madly kissing a very wet and disheveled Harry Potter, a boy he barely knew, in a public bus shelter. His courage abruptly failed him.
He pulled away, pressing Potter back with reluctance. A sudden wave of embarrassment and horror engulfed him, and trying to calm his too-aroused body, he allowed his head to drop heavily and rest on Potter's shoulder. Except for the diminishing shudders and the rise and fall of his too-rapid breathing, Potter was motionless.
And now Draco was the one with panic in his eyes - panic that Potter, eyes still closed, thankfully couldn't see. Quietly, Draco lifted his head and took a step back. Potter never moved - in fact, he seemed not to have noticed anything amiss - and Draco sighed. Wordlessly, he grabbed his umbrella, turned tail, and scurried back to the safety of his car.
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no subject
Date: 2004-07-21 08:32 am (UTC)As this is my first introduction to your writing, I'm finding myself quite astounded by your descriptions - particularly how you described Harry turning to stone:
Potter had turned to stone beneath his mouth, and Draco's hand lifted and caressed Potter's face in an effort to try to bring him back to life. Potter's hold on his parcel relaxed abruptly, and papers spilled around them like leaves. With that barrier removed, Draco pressed himself closer to Potter, molding against him, trying to remove the stony grip that held Potter rigid. He almost expected to hear the sound of shattering rock when Potter arched into him with a gasp and came alive in his arms.
That whole paragraph was so intense for me to read. I've actually re-read it three times already, and I still don't feel done with it.
I'm finding myself to be much more incoherent the more I type, so suffice it to say, this blew me away and I so look forward to reading more of your work. ♥
no subject
Date: 2004-07-21 03:16 pm (UTC)http://www.skyehawke.com/archive/authors.php?no=157
I guess my degree in geology really did help...I can talk all about stone like an expert!
no subject
Date: 2004-07-21 09:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-21 03:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-21 09:29 am (UTC)So nice.
I'm all heart-fluttery and happy and just... GAH, coming from Marks' story to this one.
It's absolutely gorgeous.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-21 03:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-21 09:55 am (UTC)I love the combined sense of compulsion and hesitancy on Draco's part, the way his actions are too far ahead of his thoughts for him to figure out what is going on.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-21 03:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-21 12:26 pm (UTC)oh I loved that part. Draco's voice was perfect. Wonderful remix. Mind if I pimp?
;)
~J~
no subject
Date: 2004-07-21 03:25 pm (UTC)Of course not! Does any author object? Ha ha!
Isis laughed at me sticking that comment in about how Draco ponders his gayness...but I couldn't resist! thanks for noticing it and enjoying it.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-21 05:22 pm (UTC)got to have the Malfoy monoluge!
*hugs*
I always ask about pimpage...just in case!
no subject
Date: 2004-07-22 09:30 am (UTC)I just love this line. A perfect complement to Switchblades' piece. Like having two desserts. Thanks!!!!
no subject
Date: 2004-07-23 09:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-23 09:56 pm (UTC)Hey, we're even almost neighbors, sharing the same wet weather. I'm in Lakewood. We drive down to the Springs sometimes for my son's League soccer games.