A Rather Unusual Chain Of Events

If Harry had known what would happen when he bumped into Colin Creevey in the hall that day, he might have chosen a different route. But we don't know about these things ahead of time, and so it was that Harry turned a corner and ran smack into Colin, who dropped his papers all over the floor. This wouldn't have been a big deal, had Harry not noticed something rather odd about the papers he was gathering up.

"Colin," he said slowly. "Why is my name on all of these papers?"

"Harry," Colin panted.

He reached out, trying to snatch the papers out of Harry's hand, but Harry was not seeker for nothing, and so it was easy for him to keep them just out of Colin's reach.

"Harry," Colin said again. "You don't want to read those."

"Oh come on, now," Harry said, grinning at the younger boy. "It can't be that bad. I just want to see what you're writing. And you can't expect me not to look when my name's all over!"

"No, Harry," Colin said urgently. His normally fair skin was turning a pale shade of pink. "Please...don't!"

But Harry had already started reading.

"You really don't want to read them..." Colin said, on a low moan.

"Harry sighed blissfully and kis--," read Harry out loud, then suddenly realized what he was reading and stopped. He turned beet red, and proceeded to make choking noises. "C-c-c-colin.....!!"

"Please, Harry," Colin said, trying to snatch the papers again. "You were never meant to see those!"

"OBVIOUSLY," said Harry as he stood up, eyes wide and skimming across the pages with a sort of horrified fascination.

By now, Colin was really starting to panic, he jumped, trying to reach the papers. Harry, however, was still reading, his eyes locked on the page in a sort of horrid fascination.

"Good god, Colin," he said. "I never knew you were into this sort of thing!"

"Well, now you know," Colin said, laughing in a nervous, high pitched way. "My dirty little secret, hehe! Now that you've seen it, you can give the papers back. Right? Right, Harry?"

"...and ran his fingers through the soft, white-blonde hair..." Harry continued reading, this time aloud.

He paused for a minute, perplexed.

"You don't have white-blonde hair," he said, momentarily thrown off. "And why would you want it? Rather disgusting shade, really..."

Colin couldn't do anything but moan softly, his head now buried in his hands.

"You've got quite a vivid imagination there, Colin," Harry said, a touch of amusement in his voice. "Let's see - "'Tell me you want me, Potter', the other boy said. Harry didn't reply, instead he pulled apart the other boy's emerald green robes and slipped his hand inside...'"

Suddenly Harry went silent, and after a moment, Colin peeked at him from between his fingers. The older boy was leaning against the wall of the corridor, his eyes wide and astonished behind his glasses, his face as white as a ghost.

"Harry..?" Colin asked timidly.

"My god," Harry said. "You've written me having sex with Malfoy!"

It was, unfortunately, at the particular moment in time that Draco Malfoy walked around the corner and Harry realized what he'd just said out loud, rather too loud.

“What the devil are you talking about,” Draco asked, staring at the two of them. “Why did I just hear Harry Potter say something to Colin Creevey that involved my name and sex? Are you two confessing your lust for me to each other?”

“Draco,” Colin gasped, when he realized that Harry was still too shell shocked to say anything.

His mind scrabbled frantically as he tried to think of something, anything to say to explain to Draco just why they had been talking about him and sex - preferably something that did not involve those rather torrid fantasies Colin sometimes had at night - but he couldn't think of anything - what was he going to do?

Then Harry spoke.

“Yes, you heard right,” he said.

His voice sounded rather odd, and Colin stared at him in horror, wondering if there was any way he could prevent Harry from speaking, as he seemed ready to blurt out everything he had just found out.

Draco paused. He preened. Then he turned his attention back to Harry and Colin.

“Well?” he demanded.

“It seems that Colin has a little secret,” Harry said, his voice still rather toneless. “ But you'll never be able to guess it in a million years, Malfoy..”

Colin tried to speak, but his voice failed him. “No,” Harry continued. “This isn't your normal little dirty secret. You see - it seems that Colin here likes to write stories about us having sex, Malfoy.”

For a moment there was a dead silence in the corridor. Then Colin let out an anguished moan before fleeing down the corridor, unable to take it anymore.

Draco stared after him for a minute, then turned to look at Harry.

“Mind explaining all this to me, Potter?” he sneered.

Harry opened his mouth to speak, then realized that there was no way he would be able to explain exactly what Colin had been writing - not to mention he didn't particularily want to say it out loud. At a loss for words, he shoved the papers at Draco. Draco took them and read a few sentences, which was all it took before he went as pale as Harry had.

It was at that unfortunate moment that Professor Snape rounded the corner.

“Mr Potter, Mr Malfoy,” he said. “I should have known. May I assume that you two are responsible for Colin Creevey tearing past me just now?”

Neither of the two boys replied.

“Mr Potter,” Snape said, directing his attention to his least favourite student. “I asked a question. That usually means that I would like to hear an answer!”

Harry was still recovering, however, and after waiting for a minute Snape turned to Draco in frustration.

“Perhaps you can enlighten me, Mr. Malfoy,” he said. “Did you and Potter here have anything to do with Creevey's terrified state?”

Draco was still staring at the papers clutched in his hand, and though he opened his mouth as if to reply, all he seemed able to do was shake his head slightly and swallow.

“This is ridiculous,” Snape muttered.

His gaze fell upon the papers that Draco was still holding.

“What are you looking at anyways,” he said, and reaching out, snatched them away.

This sent both Harry and Draco into motion as they realized that unless they did something, and did that something very quickly, they and Colin were in for a rather big embarassment.

“Professor!” Draco exclaimed. “Give those back!”

“You should have answered me when I asked if you didn't want me looking at your little notes, Malfoy,” Snape said, obviously taking pleasure in the moment.

“No,” Harry said loudly, pushing away from the wall and reaching out to try and snatch the papers out of Snape's hands. “Those aren't yours, give them back!”

Snape turned to stare at him incredulously. “Might I remind you, Potter, that they aren't yours, either? Not only that, you should learn to keep your - “

He never got to finish his sentence, however, because it was at that moment that Draco took matters into his own hands.

“Incendio!” he said fiercely.

The papers burst into flame, and Snape was forced to drop them to the floor, hissing in pain.

Harry and Draco shared a momentary grin of triumph as the papers blackened and curled on the stones at their feet, but all too soon the moment was interrupted.

“So,” Snape said.

Harry and Draco both gulped slightly when they turned to face their professor - it didn't take a genius to see that he was positively fuming.

“If you two ever wondered what you would get if you worked together, I have your answer,” Snape said. “Detention. For both of you - tonight at 7. Don't even think about being late.”

----

“I hate you, Harry Potter.” Draco said sulkily. “I hate you as much as I could hate anything that was hateable.”

“Consider it mutual,” Harry said wearily. “And I just adore your grammar skills.”

Draco sniffed, and stuck his nose in the air.

There was silence for a moment, and then Draco kicked the leg of the bench he was sitting on. Finding he rather liked the sound it produced, he began kicking it in a slow steady rhythm, and this went on for a few moments until Harry lost his patience.

“Do you have to do that, Malfoy?” he snapped.

“What if I do?”Draco replied snappily, but stopped kicking the bench leg, instead slumping back as he leaned against the long table behind him.

Harry got up and moved over to stare out of the window, and for a few moments they were both quiet, one slumped at the table, one silhouetted against the window.

“I can't believe I got detention over some stupid story Colin Creevey wrote,” Harry said at last, breaking the silence that had begun to stretch on.

“Interesting, that,” Draco said. “Funny, I was more worried about what he was writing in that story!”

“Well, I would have thought that would be kind of obvious,” Harry said, rolling his eyes.

“Not that I blame him,” Draco said loftily.

“What?” Harry asked incredulously.

“I mean that it's no surprise that he was lusting after me, of course,” Draco explained arrogantly. “Who doesn't, after all?”

Harry shook his head. “You are beyond words,” he said.

“Yes, I know,” Draco said smugly.

“If he was lusting after you then why would he write about me as well,” Harry pointed out. “Why wouldn't he just put himself in there?”

“Well,” Draco said. “It's probably because he knows that you're the only one - “

He broke off suddenly. For a moment Harry continued to gaze out the window, but then exactly what Draco had just said hit him, and he swung around to look at the other boy. Draco was now staring at the table studiously.

“What did you say?” Harry asked.

"Nothing," said Draco quickly, then picked at his fingernails, cheeks slightly flushed.

"You're just hearing voices again," he babbled. "Probably a big snake in the-- oops. Not supposed to know about that. I mean. Yeah, what were you saying?"

Harry raised his eyebrow. “We both know that you can do better than that, Malfoy,” he said. “You're just trying to avoid the question.”

“Well, aren't we a budding little genius,” Draco said, his voice filled with sarcasm.

"Huh," said Harry eloquently. Then - "Yeah."

And then, "Why do you have to insult me all the time? I mean, it's almost like you're trying to hide--"

Draco turned beet red.

"--some sort of inadequa-- uh. Are you ok?" Harry asked.

"Yes!" answered Draco squeakily, who had just figured out that Harry wasn't on to him after all. "I'm ok! Let's mop some floor, shall we?"

At this point, Harry was finally a bit suspicious, and Harry tended to think he tried not to be overly suspicious, or well, he tried not to be paranoid but it was hard because, oh, whatever.

Draco was now looking at him suspiciously. "What?" said Harry, totally perplexed.

"Floor. Mop." said Draco, with a pretty good imitation of his usual Could You Get Any Dumber, Potter? Voice.

Harry scratched his head, but didn't budge.

"No, what's going on with you Malfoy? I mean. If I didn't know better, I'd think this whole thing with Colin's story has seriously freaked you out. I mean... it's just a story, right?"

He paused, remembering some of the details of said story, and coughed loudly. "I mean, well. Um."

Now they were both beet red and staring at their toes.

Draco grabbed the mop which was leaning against the table, clutching at it as if he expected it to give him some strength, and gave it a very half-hearted swipe across the floor.

"So,” he said.

"Hm,” said Harry. He was still staring at his toes, and then he coughed loudly again.

"Um," he said at last, out of an effort to spice up the conversation, "Do you need a hand with the er, cleaning? I mean," he amended, gesturing at the very much uncleaned floor, "I'm not saying you're doing a bad job or anything, I mean. Yeah."

“Oh bugger it,” Draco said in amused frustration.

Flinging the mop aside, he walked over to Harry, tilted up his chin. For a moment they stared at each other. Harry's eyes were wide and confused, Draco's hesitant and a bit unsure, and then Draco was leaning forward, his lips brushing gently against Harry's own.

Harry froze, his fingers inadvertently clutching in Draco's robes as his mind raced. Draco was kissing him - Draco Malfoy was kissing him! What do you do when someone who had been your enemy before suddenly kisses you? Was there some kind of etiquette that you should follow? And part of him was sure that he probably shouldn't be enjoying the whole experience, but he was really rather sure that he was, and then Draco's tongue was brushing against his lip and Harry forgot about everything else except kissing Draco back.

Draco felt Harry respond and couldn't help the shudder of relief that ran through him, for a long moment there he had been worried. Worried that Harry would push him away and run off, worried that he had taken the biggest risk of his life, so far, only to have it thrown back in his face. But none of that mattered now, because Harry's arms were sliding around his back, their hips were moving against each other, and everything just suddenly felt so right. Maybe sometimes the best thing to do was to just go with the moment, he thought.

He tilted his head to kiss his way down Harry's neck, enjoying the way the other boy arched against him and moaned in the back of his throat. He pushed Harry's robes down and over his shoulders until they were free to drop to the floor, then sucked in a breath when Harry's hands slipped inside his own robes. He pulled away to shrug out of the offending garments, eager to feel Harry's hands on his skin, eager to feel Harry's skin under his own hands.

It didn't take either of them long to unbutton each other's shirts, and Harry didn't protest when Draco reached out to pull him closer. They both sighed as their skin pressed together, soft and warm and just so good. Harry pressed a kiss to Draco's jawline and Draco turned his head, catching Harry's lips in a kiss that could only be described as lustful.

Harry's skin was so soft, Draco thought, as he rested his hands at Harry's waist for a brief moment before sliding them up and over his chest. His lips were soft, too, and Draco nipped the bottom one lightly, enjoying the way Harry gasped, those lips parting just enough for Draco to slip his tongue inside. Harry was determined to give as good as he was getting, so he didn't hesitate, sliding his hands over Draco's chest to trail a finger around one of his nipples. Draco's tongue moved against his and Harry returned the favour, flicking the tip of his tongue against Draco's and sliding the tip of his tongue along the other boy's lips.

Draco sighed and eased Harry backwards until one of the benches was behind him, breaking away for a moment to grab their robes and toss them across the bench, a quick little wave of his wand laying them out neatly. As Harry found himself being pushed down to lie prone on the bench he absently thought how glad he was that the benches in this classroom were wide so that students could put their supplies on them, but then Draco's fingers were at the waistband of his trousers and the thought flew out of Harry's head.

----

Much much later, Harry slowly opened his eyes, sure that he could see spots dancing in his vision. Draco was grinning at him, but he looked just as satisfied as Harry felt, plus he was moving to lie down beside Harry on the bench, and so Harry decided that just this once he didn't mind that smirk so much. Draco's eyes were a bit hesitant as he gazed at him, so Harry reached out an arm, wrapping it around the other boy. It seemed that neither of them knew just what had happened, or what was going to happen next, but maybe sometimes not knowing doesn't matter.

With that thought, Harry tightened his grip on Draco's shoulder, closing his eyes contentedly.

---

Outside, a wide eyed, breathless and very turned on Colin Creevey slowly backed away from the door. Life was good, he decided. Very, very good. He glanced up and down the deserted corridor before taking up a stance guarding the door, determined not to let anyone find the two boys inside before they were ready. As he did so, the thought ran through his mind that if this was what happened when someone read his little stories - perhaps, just perhaps, he should find a way to “drop” more of them!