hd inspiration for dragon_charmer (1)

Author: lettered
Recipient: dragon_charmer
Title: Ain’t No Friend Of Mine (Part 1 of 4)
Pairing(s): Harry/Draco (smidgen of Ron/Hermione, Luna/Neville)
Rating: PG
Summary: Draco has to face the truth of who he is. The truth has long hair and slobbers.
Request: Fluff, humor, angst (but only if it’s resolved with happiness at the end), happy endings. Getting-together-fics [. . .] If there’s plot, that is even more exciting, [. . . ] clueless!Harry . . . dragon_charmer, there was going to be more of that plot thing in here, and also learning to be an Animagus for plot furthering purposes, but said plot sort of went crazy, and in the end I had to reduce the original outline for the story. Even though this is really, really long, it’s mostly character studies! I hope it gives you something of what you wanted, anyway.
Warnings (if any): None.
Total word count: ~33,000
Disclaimer: This story/artwork is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

A/N: Thanks to my mod for being one of the warmest, kindest, most understanding mods and lj-strangers I’ve ever dealt with. You made this fest really awesome for me, though I’m guessing I made it particularly aggravating for you. Thanks for your patience.

Ain’t No Friend of Mine Part 1 of 4

When they said you was high classed,
Well, that was just a lie.
—Elvis Presley

x.

1.

x.


Weak sun filtered through drawn blinds, casting the private investigations office in bands of dark and light. Draco sat in the dark, a mass of shadows masking his quiet observation of the bird who had entered the office.

Her pearl complexion and coal black hair were a higher contrast than the gray light, and even the bars of shadows could not dim the blood red of her dress. Apparently unperturbed by the quiet darkness, she sat with a thigh on the desk, luxuriously lounging, a be-ringed hand propping her up. The other hand rose to pick up a paperweight and set it down, before she took out a cigarette and lit up. She seemed prepared to wait.

Draco was surprised. Pansy never had been one for patience.

Observing without being observed, Draco watched the lit tip move in the shadows, the flame illuminating her face from time to time. After a minute, the door to the office opened, and another bird strolled in. “He won’t be able to help,” the second bird said, her voice low and smoky.

“He has to,” Pansy said, not even breaking the rhythm of the fag rising to her ruby lips.

The second one was more plainly dressed, tweed skirt suit, buckle shoes, dark hair tucked up neatly under a smart hat. The slats of light split up her bulk, but illuminated the hand she placed on Pansy’s satin-clad thigh. “It’s been weeks,” she said, without an air of comfort.

Pansy didn’t move, neither at the words nor the touch. “It’s been too long.”

“He’s probably—”

“Don’t you dare say it, Millie.”

Pansy never had been one for practicality, either. They saved that for Millicent Bulstrode.

Although they spoke cryptically, without context, Draco knew the missing persons case of which they spoke rather well. They were speaking of the disappearance of one wizard—young, handsome, clever, amusing, sparkling ingenious justoverwhelming,really—

A man came stomping into the office and Draco’s thoughts. “Do we really think Potter can do it?” he asked the women.

Of course, they saved utter and complete indiscretion for Greg.

At the noise, Potter stumbled in, looking rather worse for lack of caffeination. He flicked the Muggle light switches, then somehow managed to remember he was a wizard and used his wand to flick the blinds. Morning sunlight flooded in the office, and in it Pansy’s mascara was smudged from an obvious hard night; Millie looked well-flossed as always, and Greg looked worried sick.

Potter looked from one to the other as if he thought he was still dreaming.

Before Potter could properly focus, Pansy slid off his desk in a fluid movement to face him. Her girlish, sing-song voice was steely. “Potter,” she announced. “We’re here to hire you.”

Potter blinked.

“We want you to find Draco Malfoy.”

Potter rubbed his eyes and looked down at Draco. “I thought you would’ve let me know there was someone here,” was all he had to say.

What, like that’s my job here all of the sudden? Draco thought to himself. I just started today. Don’t I get a—I don’t know—an orientation? With instruction pamphlets, about how I’m not your doorbell or personal secretary. Also, eclairs.

Aloud, he barked.

* * *

It all started with the defeat of the Dark Lord.

Of course it was supposed to have ended there, but endings start beginnings. A reactionary group had formed in response to the Muggle-born registration act during the war, called the Muggle-born Martyrs. The Ministry of Magic still hadn’t recovered from its infiltration by Imperius and Death Eaters, even five years later. People still wanted to start wars even while they were still visiting graves.

When Voldemort died the past came alive, and the wizarding world was haunted by times gone by.

Sometimes literally.

At Malfoy Manor: routinely.

Burbage’s ghost had squirreled herself away in the upstairs east wing linen closet.

At one point someone had necromanced the grounds, and Inferi attacked the house. There were undead Malfoys, but also undead Muggles who had no business in those plots. Voldemort had liked to call the Malfoy lawns potters’ fields; he’d had a sense of irony and a dumping ground for dead. And when the Inferi rose there was also a undead pet parakeet from when Draco was seven.

The Howlers weren’t so bad, nor the Imperio’d peacocks, nor the occasional bricks and stones breaking windows. The sense of irony hadn’t died with the Dark Lord, either, because a whole lot worse were the poisoned mead and cursed necklace making widows. Hepzibah just snuffed it after that; that was the end of the Crabbes. Mum, however, possibly became a bit touched. Maybe she just missed her dead husband. Draco rather thought she missed her dead sister.

Then there were the Dementors. They were still roaming about in clutches out of control on the countryside. The ones about Wiltshire were in particular persistent and fond of the manor. Draco rather thought they missed Voldemort.

You wouldn’t think it to look at them, but they weren’t completely mindless. That seventh year, often locked in perpetual fear and amongst Voldemort’s multitudinous and varied minions, Draco’d gotten to know Dementors better than he’d ever wanted. Enough to notice a clutch of them, or one especially, seemed to have grown more mind of late than most. It definitely seemed to have a pattern, anyway, and was making it hard for more than one family of Death Eaters to go on with their lives.

Because Draco meanwhile had gotten over his past. Most of it. In some respects. Anyway, the point was, he was tired of the past hanging around the present. If it wasn’t Dementors, it was Howlers, or his friends’ mums or dads snuffing it. Or it was undead parakeets. And Imperio’d peacocks. There was definitely a recurring bird theme, Draco concluded sourly.

In fact, around the time this avian motif became apparent, Draco also concluded he was going to end the harassment, once and for all. Starting with the Dementors who were persecuting Voldemort’s former followers. Particularly the Parkinsons; Pansy only had her mother and sisters, now; there were so few fathers left. Draco wasn’t going to stand for them hurting her; she had had enough of that.

He was going to track these Dementors down; he was going to find out what they were up to; he was going to stop them.

“In other words, he was going on stupidest, most ridiculousest task he could assign himself, obviously,” Millicent said much later, when she and Pansy and Greg were hiring Potter to find him. “Everyone knows if it’s pointless and impossible and Don Quixote, Draco’s for it.”

Draco turned up his nose. Everyone also knew not to listen when Bulstrode talked about filthy Muggle things.

He thumped his tail on the ground, too, but no one noticed. He had been doing just fine tracking down the Dementors, thank you.

Before everything went pear-shaped.

* * *

When Draco finally came face to face with the Dementors he’d tracked across three counties, he found that it was not many Dementors but one Dementor, and not a Dementor but a man, and not a man but something in between. He had eyes like a man and walked like a man, but a mouth like a Dementor, the presence of a Dementor.

The air was cold and full of fear. Draco was in an alley between two Muggle brick walls, the dark, forbidding figure on the other end, blasting icy terror down the alley. A gutter nearby kept going drip, drip, drip—, but to Draco it sounded like a warning to run, run, run. His fingers felt so cramped around his wand he wasn’t sure he could let go of it, but his hand was so sweaty and clammy he wasn’t sure he could hold onto it.

Then the not-Dementor spoke and sounded like neither man nor Dementor; it sounded like a thousand different happy cries sewn together into bits and pieces to make speeches. If it was a Dementor, it was using Kissed, stolen souls to say, “Young Mister Malfoy.”

I know I am, but what are you? Draco thought wildly, but his mouth felt frozen shut in the icy air.

The—the it, it laughed, like birdsong and hearth fires and the tinkling of bells, moments of bliss stolen from condemned souls. “Once, I could’ve cured you of your fear,” it said. “I could have Kissed your happy memories away. You don’t have to be afraid of anything, once all your peace and joy have been robbed.”

The sounds of the souls with which it spoke didn’t come from its mouth. They flowed all around—the happy memories, joy, peace of which it spoke seeping into Draco instead of out of him, the opposite of a Dementor. Draco was the Dementor; he was a monster.

He was doing nothing to stop it.

“But that power was taken away, and what is left?” the not-Dementor said. “You should know. The Dark Lord showed you, just like me. He stripped you of your power, revealed what you really were underneath. Obedient, weak.”

Draco knew what he wanted to say.

Voldemort had created this creature, made him not a man and yet not a Dementor. This was some remnant of Voldemort’s terrible experiments with magic and power, the rending of Riddle’s soul. Some shadow, some impression left on the world by both Riddle the man and Voldemort, the terror in every man’s heart.

But Draco had never been able to say “no” when Voldemort told him to cast Cruciatus, either.

“See,” the not-Dementor said. “Too spineless, even, to admit the truth. Luckily, even though I can no longer steal joy, I can steal the lies.” The not-Dementor laughed again. It raised an arm. “Without them, I doubt anyone will even know you. Your real essence.”

“What are you—what’s going to happen to me?” Draco stuttered.

“Suffer the truth,” it said.

And that was how Draco got turned into a dog.

* * *

After a not-so-thorough investigation—he was canine and he drooled—Draco first concluded the not-Dementor made no sense. Draco wasn’t really a dog; this wasn’t any truth; and the not-Dementor was stupid. And had a low self esteem; apparently, it’d lost its powers of soul-sucking and the only way it could feel good about itself any more was by faffing about changing random people into midsize fluffy house pets.

Draco had a long lean body with a deep chest and slender hips, and absurdly long legs that should have been awkward but somehow weren’t. He had a long tail and a narrow head and snout, and longish hair everywhere that was the pale, washed-out color of his normal hair. Some sort of deerhound maybe.

His sense of smell had gone very sharp, but his eyesight basically sucked, and mostly his body (dog’s body! Dog’s. Body!) instinctively knew how to—to pant and to wag his tail and to itch his ear with his foot and his crotch with his mouth, God.

But he still had a man’s brain. Or at least he thought it was a man’s brain. A dog’s brain couldn’t wonder whether it was a dog’s brain or a man’s brain, could it? Which made him conclude he’d basically been turned into a dog Animagus. Which wasn’t so bad. Except he’d wanted to be something halfway decent, like a water snake or a great white shark or a leviathan. Or a merman, but he never told anyone that one.

The point was, was that he’d wanted to be an Animagus, and now he was one. He just had to figure out how to . . . unbe one. Which shouldn’t be so hard.

Except that it was impossible.

He couldn’t use his wand, as it had disappeared along with his clothes, along with He Who Was Not A Dementor. Draco tried to will himself human. He also tried tucking his tail between his legs and growling in frustration, but not on purpose.

Realizing this, he saw he should be deliberate, instead of just wanting very much to not be a dog. Deliberate and Determined, and—that other one. He imagined his Destination (man’s body! Man’s. Body!), but soon saw it was going nowhere. Literally, because after trying a few times he found he couldn’t Apparate, either.

Which made it that much worse, since Plan H had been to get some help (Plans A through G being all the ways he might manage to turn back on his own), and help was nowhere to be found around here. He was in a Muggle area. He was in a Muggle area in Merlin knew where, seeing as how no one who was anyone cared about Muggle areas, and geography was of little import to wizards. But now he couldn’t Apparate, and he couldn’t Floo, since he couldn’t speak (other than in barks and growls and—and was that a whine?), and he couldn’t seem to dredge up any other magic to help him find a wizard.

He had the general idea of being in northwest Surrey, some sort of western suburb of London. The only thing for it seemed to be to head to London.

Knockturn Alley.

Wizards.

* * *

There were many things to be learned traveling by dog’s body, Draco learned.

1) Muggle roads were confusing, and Muggle cars were stupid. They never watched where you were going. Also when you ran out in front of them they acted as if you couldn’t see them—as if you could possibly miss them honking at you like big murderous geese. There was that alary theme again, Draco was none too pleased to note.

2) There were apparently no wizards in Surrey or west London. Obviously, because:

3) Surrey and west London were stupid, too. They smelled bad and felt dirty and were full of starving, straggly strays far more starving and straggly than he, who’d gone native—or nasty and wolfish, anyway, as far as he could tell—due to strain.

4) Surrey and west London were also full of children, and children were the largest-most-horrifying menace of all, because:

5) When two little girls with pigtails accosted him on the pavement, going home and being their pet forever didn’t sound so bad, next to the week he’d already spent starving and straggling on the street. Draco imagined thick T-bones and warm fires, gentle, enamored petting and possibly some frolicking in clean, sparkling fountains in stately gardens.

He did not imagine tail-pulling, ear-jerking, and hair-yanking, or wearing dolls’ clothes, or being chased through mud in a yard of broken toys, or being finally run out by a mother and a broomstick she didn’t even know how to fly, and being called a “filthy animal.”

Apparently not everyone knew Muggles were the filthy animals. He didn’t add that to the list, though, because everyone had learned that thoroughly during some war or other everyone had to have about it.

6) No one ever thought to tell a dog directions.

7) He couldn’t make or buy food, and he couldn’t hunt, either, considering the lack of huntable creatures hereabouts, and anyway, he had a human brain. He had no idea how to hunt, and the thought of actually killing something and eating its guts and liver or whatever made his stomach turn.

Which left begging. Draco should have been more reluctant, but Voldemort had taught him all about being on his knees.

Draco had long known the power of mercy.

8) Speaking of which, Muggles were hard-hearted, vicious, and cruel. They rarely gave you food, and if they did sometimes they threw it at you and laughed. And sometimes they threw stones instead, or bricks, or once or twice a lit fag. They kicked you and called you names. And chased you with brooms.

9) Malfoys might eat from rubbish bins if forced.

10) None of this knowledge would never ever ever be advantageous in a future which did not include being a starving and straggly stray, thus rendering said knowledge entirely useless.

So he might as well forget the rubbish bin thing ever happened.

11) The Tube was magical and lived underground. You had to figure out the maps, which were color-coded and thus much more difficult considering his species. And you had to figure out how to sneak on board, which wasn’t as difficult considering his species—how fast he could go and how small he could make himself. Then it could take you straight to somewhere else where you transferred, and to somewhere else where you transferred again, and then somewhere else which was very near the Leaky Cauldron.

12) Wizards could be more hard-hearted, more vicious, and more cruel.

* * *

Once finally in Knockturn Alley, Draco had headed toward Perseus’ Pernicious Potions shop. The Malfoys weren’t on such good terms with Borgin and Burkes any more, and the potion shop’s proprietors were acquaintances of Draco’s. Dorcus was Flint’s sister, and the older Capulet had a little brother in Slytherin two years below Draco. They were married now and had just recently bought the shop.

Draco wished he had actual friends somewhere about, but no one very close to him lived in London, and if the Capulets couldn’t help him, then at least there were other wizards about who might. All in all he thought it a good place to start, a pretty safe bet.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Dorcus apparently needed various dog parts for her potions, and Capulet locked Draco in the back to cut them from Draco and give them to her. It was worse than Muggles could have ever done, because wizards could enspell body parts—ears, tails, bits of skin—to grow back. It was worse than Muggles could have ever done, because these were wizards, and they should have been able to tell that Draco was not a dog, that he wasn’t natural, that he needed their help.

The operative element in that, he supposed, was that they had to care first.

This went on for several days, and Draco had worn his throat out barking, gotten beaten a time or two for biting Capulet when he came in the back, and was currently trying to dig through the metal floor of his cage.

This went on, in fact, until Harry Potter showed up.

Though obviously, Draco would’ve gotten out on his own. He had very strong toenails and metal could only put up a fight for so long, after all.

Anyway, of course it would have to be Harry Potter. Big hero, saves day from evil, same old story—because of course the Capulets were evil. They were Slytherin and knew Draco and one of them had been a Death Eater. Everyone knew anyone with any three of those traits might as well drink Muggle baby blood or frolic with Fenrir, or something, according to press and public.

And anyway, Potter managed to always be there at Draco’s lowest—crying in the bathroom, screaming at the approach of Fiendfyre, panting like a dog. Being a dog, in point of fact. No surprise Potter’d be here now, even if he wasn’t an Auror, like everyone had predicted.

Potter was a private investigator. Draco later found out Potter was following on a case of a potions addict who thought some of the ingredients being used might be illegal. So there Potter was, finding all the things being done to make potions addictive and habit-forming, and meanwhile the culprits were on their way to escaping, edging around the equipment tables toward the front of the shop.

Draco barked sharply and Potter whipped around, flicking out spells faster than Draco could keep track of. Then the Capulets were face down on the ground and going nowhere fast.

Potter turned toward the cage where Draco was kept, and cast a spell on the lock. He knelt down and peered in. Draco pressed himself against the back of the cage and snarled.

This was Potter, after all.

Potter stank, and Diggory was the one true Hogwarts Champion.

Potter reached in further and Draco pulled back more, curling deeper into the cage.

At last, muttering and looking angry, Potter gave up and stood. He turned back to the couple bound to the ground. Then he cast something at one of the prone, helpless figures, still muttering so that Draco couldn’t hear what he said.

Capulet writhed once.

It was only just then Draco realized he still had a scar across his ribs and stomach, even as a dog.

After the one writhe, Potter quickly lowered his wand and stepped toward the couple. For one crazy moment, Draco thought Potter was going to start kicking them. Instead Potter’s hand just clenched and unclenched on his wand as he looked down at them.

Then Aurors started popping into existence all around.

They took the Capulets into custody and began collecting a lot of the equipment about the place as evidence. No one seemed to notice Draco, and Potter seemed to have forgotten about him.

Instead, Potter was yelling at one of the Aurors, waving his hands, growing red in the face. The Auror’s words back were low and sharp. Potter clenched his jaw and turned to leave, and that was when Draco first found out he was far more dog than he realized.

He streaked out of the cage after Potter.

It was probably a good idea to escape the Aurors, who’d probably bag and process him for evidence too, just like everything else. But once Draco got out the doors of the shop, he should have run in the other direction.

Instead, he followed Potter.

Of course he didn’t want to follow Potter, of course he didn’t care that Potter was leaving or where Potter was going. But there was something else in Draco’s head, something driving him forward, something like: good, food, protector, good, strong, warm, safe, good, and so on. It was incomprehensible and even more than that, appalling.

Thinking about it later, Draco realized he might very well have displayed some canine instincts before that. The Surrey sisters with the pigtails, for instance. He never would have thought being their pet was a good idea had he been in his right mind.

Nor would he have begged.

Nor would a Malfoy ever eat out of the rubbish.

As if!

During these other instances, though, Draco had excused his own bizarre behavior because he’d been exhausted, starved, and suffering. But he knew no matter how much he was put out, he would never, ever, willingly follow Potter. Which meant something was compelling him some of the time that wasn’t himself. Something that wasn’t human.

Outside the shop, Potter sensed Draco following. “Go on,” he shouted. “Get.”

It was the Dog Brain that made Draco lunge toward Potter and press into his legs as he Disapparated. They Side-Alonged to Grimmauld Place.

And that was how Draco became Potter’s pet.


x

2.

x.

After Pansy, Millie and Greg came to hire Potter to find Draco Malfoy—well, Pansy and Millie came for that; Greg apparently came to pet the dog—Potter got to work.

And brought Draco with him.

Really, it was almost as if he knew who Draco was.

Draco was suspicious. He was even more suspicious when Potter took him to a car, and expected him to get in. Draco had learned on his trip to London that cars were awful, horrible, and stupid. They honked like geese, and he had had enough of his avian motif.

Potter said they were going to a dark place where they wouldn't be seen.

Potter was going to murder him.

Draco's suspicion increased.

Then they were going to watch a house for hours and hours while sitting in a car, with nothing to do but suspiciously sniff the binoculars. Potter cheerily explained, "It's called a stake out."

Draco's suspicion knew no bounds. He had to know who Draco was. He had never liked Draco, and there was that time in the bathroom with the Sectumsempra.

Potter was going to murder him with boredom.

Then they were outside in the night air and Potter was driving like he flew, a maniac. Draco wasn't sure what to think of that, until the window on his side magically opened. It was Muggle magic, Draco supposed, seeing Potter's hand moving out the corner of his eye. Muggles used buttons instead of wands, which bespoke some kind of disgusting mechanism to make things work instead of the beauty of mysticism, but Draco hardly had time to consider that.

He had to put his head out the window.

He had to.

Obviously, this was what life was all about.

He also had to open his mouth so his tongue could fly in the direction the wind was whipping his fur and ears. It was glorious.

Potter was laughing. "Dogs," he said, as if it wasn't all about missing the feel of a broom.

The stake out, though, burst Draco's bubble of suspicion. They were keeping tabs on the Muggle-born Martyrs, the group that had formed after the war that kept demanding reparations, and promised to protect Muggle-borns and Half-bloods from former followers of Voldemort. As if there were really any coherence left to the Death Eaters to cause Muggle-borns any trouble.

As if Potter didn't have far more important cases!

But obviously Potter didn't care about one little missing former Death Eater, or how much it must have hurt Pansy's pride to hire Potter for help, or about Draco Malfoy at all.

Except that the next morning they started working on the case, and Draco found out they had actually sort of been working on it all along.

They started with Dementor tracking, just as Draco had done. Potter always took Draco on surveillance, and even as a dog, he could do some investigation, tracing his steps. In fact, Draco was rather loathe to admit it, but he and Potter made a good team.

Draco had been to these spots before, so he could navigate to some extent when Potter Apparated them there. Draco had to admit, having a nose with a keen sense of smell was no small benefit, but he couldn't speak with the people they questioned. But even if he was human he probably would've been better than Potter at tracking leads anyway. And even as a dog, he was probably still better at human interaction than Potter.

But Potter was good at picking up the details Draco, in his worry and hurry to solve the case, missed. Draco was surprised, considering before this he would've classified Potter as the most unsubtle creature on Earth. Besides Weasley. Maybe Potter had picked up something from all his prolonged and obsessive stalking of Draco in sixth year.

Potter was also really good at scaring people, and when Draco got his growl on, they were formidable. And when one of the Muggle-born Martyrs they'd been spying on during the night previous showed up at one of the Muggle areas the not-Dementor had disturbed, it was Draco who recognized him, but Potter who chased him down, and both of them who cornered him. Draco kept him backed up against the alley wall while Potter cast an anti-Apparition ward. But then Potter played a card only he could play, which was just unfair, really, but who was keeping score? Draco wasn't. That would be petty.

But if he had saved the world, he would do it better.

"I'm the Boy Who Lived," Potter said.

The Muggle-born Martyr got on his knees and thanked Potter for saving said world.

Honestly, the things people got on their knees for these days. Whatever happened to prayer, crushing utter defeat, and blow jobs?

"Get up," Potter said, "and tell me everything you know about the rogue Dementor Draco Malfoy was hunting here a few weeks ago."

It was only then that Draco realized the Muggle-born Martyrs could in some way be connected to the not-Dementor. Maybe the stake out had been work on his own case, and Draco hadn't even known it. After all, where had the not-Dementor come from? Who had made it . . . not a Dementor? It had been set to prey on pure-blood families. Pure-blood families the Muggle-born Martyrs had to hate for their involvement with the war.

The Muggle-born, meanwhile, claimed not to know anything, just passing through, really, can I lick your boots Mr. Brooding Hero, and on and on in that vein. But Draco, realizing the Martyrs could be behind his whole imprisonment in this dog's body, watched the Muggle-born very closely. Potter was about to let him go, when Draco barked sharply.

"Boy?" Potter asked, pausing before letting the Muggle-born walk on out of the wards.

Draco barked again.

Potter looked at the Martyr again, more closely now. "The Dementors were Voldemort's, you know," he said finally.

It was Voldemort's name that did it.

"Yeah," the Martyr spat. Either Potter had broke through to some inner passion, or the Muggle-born was just working up a fine lather to polish Potter's boots with. "It was His. He Who Shall Not Be Named's little project. So why would we have anything to do with it?"

"Project?" Potter repeated. "It? Are you talking about the rogue Dementor?"

"Not a Dementor any more, is it?"

Potter scowled. "What is it?"

"Truth."

"Wha—?" Potter started asking, but by then the Muggle-born had worked through the wards.

He Disapparated, leaving Potter grasping at thin air and Draco barking like mad.

* * *

The first thing Potter tried to do, once he had acquired Draco as his pet after saving him from the Capulets at Perseus’ Pernicious Potions, was to give him away.

To himself, first, apparently trying to convince himself he could possibly put up with something that had hair the color of Draco Malfoy, probably. That is, once they Apparated into Potter’s house, Potter glared down at him with a, “What’d you do that for?” look on his face. Then he paced away a couple steps, and looked back down at Draco.

“You can’t follow me home,” Potter said finally aloud.

Then he did this continuous thing where he looked down at Draco, walked away a couple steps, then looked back. He was obviously nutters, just as Draco had always tried to tell everyone. Potter paced like that over a dozen times, as though trying to come to some sort of decision, before Draco came to his own.

Since he was here—here! In Harry Potter’s house!—he should at least have a look about. He hadn’t been here since he was a child, when old Grandmother Black used to feed him fig biscuits.

Potter followed him around. Sort of like sixth year, and really, why didn’t not-Dementors go around and turn crazy stalkers into dogs, seeing as how they stuck to your tail like a puppy already?

Whenever Draco stopped to look at something—alright, sniff something—Potter would stop to look at Draco.

Finally Potter said, “Have you got a home? Owners?” He paused. “Collar?”

Draco mostly ignored him in order to sniff the yummy mothbally curtains.

“I don’t know what to do with you,” Potter continued, which earned a disdainful look from Draco.

I’ll tell you what you can do, he thought very hard. Change me back into a wizard so I can hex you senseless and wash my hair again, you enormous git!

But the look must have actually been saying, Feed me and keep me warm and give me a place to sleep, and I’ll lick your face all up!, because Potter said, “I can’t keep you. I don’t know how to take care of a dog.”

This was how Potter convinced himself to give Draco away, which was just horrible, even as intimately as Draco was aware that Potter hated him and he hated Potter. Draco wasn’t Draco, at least to anyone but himself. He was a dog. And everyone loved dogs! Whoever didn’t love dogs had a stone cold heart and a frigid, frigid soul. And Potter had certainly had some sort of connection with that mutt Sirius Black. But oh no, now that Draco was a dog, he had a sudden hatred of all things canine. Probably contracted an unnatural measure of prejudice against ferrets in fourth year, too.

It was alright, though. All for the best. It wasn’t as if Draco actually wanted to stay with Potter. In fact, he could just march—fine, trot—out this door any time he wanted to. In fact, he would. Right now.

As soon as he figured out how to open the knob without an opposable thumb.

And before that happened, Potter had Side-Alonged him away again, and Draco began his catalogue of people who didn’t want him, which was just fine since he didn’t want them back. He didn’t have anything better to do than keep track of Potters’ failures and it staved off the humiliation to some extent, even if what Potter was failing at was making anyone want Draco.

Anyone at all.

* * *

The first attempt was Weasel. Naturally. The Weasleys had always been the poorest wizarding family and the Malfoys always the richest; obviously, things would shake out such that Weasel ended up owning Draco. The Malfoys might’ve been replete in one form of fortune but they were sorely lacking in another.

Draco didn’t mind; it was all a good laugh, really; he could always appreciate cosmic irony; he was just going to kill them all; that was it.

Potter tumbled them out of the Floo because he was clumsy and clinically insane and clueless and many other alliterative things. Weasel met him at the hearth, but Draco didn’t hear most of the initial comments because he had just realized this was Weasel’s house. Draco was too busy hating Potter forever and twisting behind Potter’s legs, hiding, to listen.

“What is that?” Weasel suddenly said.

“A dog,” Potter said.

These were exactly the enlightened, elevated conversations Draco had been missing by not being in the great House of Gryffindor. He had suspected as much. Despite being a dog, Draco couldn’t help but feel some small spark of triumph.

Potter briefly explained the circumstances of attaining Draco: Knockturn Alley, Capulet and Dorcus, and Draco following him home like a—well, like a lost puppy. “And now I don’t know what to do with it,” Potter finished. “I thought maybe—I don’t know, do you want it?”

Draco’s triumph bottomed out.

“Dogs are a lot of work,” Weasel was pointing out meanwhile. “And—well . . . money.”

“I can—”

Even if it was bitter, some of the remnants of said triumph stirred. Being bought was much, much better than being given away. He was stuck being a dog for the time being; it was horrible enough—if he was going to be owned by Weasel, well, at least let there be some consolation.

Let him know how much Potter thought he was worth.

But Weasel interrupted. “It’s not just that. You’ve got to take him to the vet; he’s probably got all kinds of manky diseases. You got him in Knockturn Alley, remember? I mean, you don’t know.”

Draco bristled; this was the moment he conceived his plan for the Weasel’s death.

Potter stepped away from where Draco was pressing hard against his legs.

Weasel was going to get fatally beaten with Bludgers.

“And it was probably a stray, before Flint and whoever-you-said got a hold of him,” Weasel went on. “He could bite, get into fights . . . Do you even know if its house trained?”

Weasel was going to get beaten with Snitches, which would hurt more because it would take so much longer to kill him.

“I didn’t think.”

The embers of Draco’s triumph glowed feebly for a moment—Potter never thought!—and were immediately banked forever and ever when Potter continued, “I just thought, you know, it might be fun for the kids.”

Kids were evil, Draco thought very hard, trying to convey this to Potter by pressing very heavily into his legs again. Apparently Potter read that as, Why, I love to have my eyes poked and my ears screamed in, bring me more children oh please oh please, because Potter absently patted Draco’s head and said something to Weasel about how dogs loved kids.

Draco had forgotten. Potter was evil, too.

Then Granger rushed in in a flurry of frizzy hair, putting on a shoe with one hand and fastening an earring with the other. Potter started telling his story of acquiring Draco all over again, and that was when Draco realized just how evil Potter was. He was not only trying to give Draco away to Weasel but also the Mudblood, the know-it-all-Mudblood whose screaming he thought he could still hear echoing sometimes in the manor.

Burbage sometimes sang her praises from the linen closet.

The Mudblood-whose-screams-he-heard-in-his-head, who by the way, was cooing over him now and saying things like, “Vile animal. How could he do that to a living thing?” and, “She’s just as bad as he is. The English language is rarely sufficient; she’s not a bitch. Poor thing, just look at him. Malnourished, probably abused—”

Draco remembered her house-elf campaign, and her knit caps. He also remembered the Surrey sisters with the pigtails, and then it was his own screams he heard in his head. He tried to hide behind Potter’s legs again, lest the Mudblood get any ideas about dress-up.

“Hermione,” Weasel was saying. He rather looked like he was remembering the house-elf campaign and knit caps as well. Maybe he was inwardly screaming, too. Too bad for him; there was no more room behind Potter’s legs if he wanted to hide. “We can’t keep it.”

“What?” Granger said.

Then Potter tried to give Draco away again. Just for the hell of it.

“Are you mad?” Granger asked Weasel, in the middle of Potter’s awful spiel. “We don’t have time for a dog. And can you imagine the children? Oh, Lord, Rosie,” she seemed to suddenly remember, and swept off with a reproving look that seemed to say they had one too many pets already, and Weasel just might be it.

Weasel mock-grimaced and spread his hands. “The Boss says no.”

Potter looked down at Draco in extreme disappointment.

It was such a familiar look, Draco wondered whether Narcissa or Lucius had tried to give him away and failed, too.

But that was unfair, Draco reminded himself. Of course Mum and Dad had loved him.

And anyway it wasn’t as if Draco cared what Potter thought, like he had with Father.

“You know,” Weasel said after a moment. “It might be good for you.”

Potter frowned, still looking down at Draco. “What?”

“You live all alone in that place.” Weasel rushed on before Potter could speak. “I know you like it that way, but . . . it can get kind of quiet.”

“I like the quiet.”

“I know.” Potter’s disappointed-face had switched from Draco to Weasel, and Weasel looked as though he found it familiar, too. “It’s just—look, mate,” Weasel said. “You never even got a new owl.”

Potter’s look now switched from disappointed to sort of like he wanted Weasel to die of Bludger-beating, too. “I don’t see what Hedwig has to do with anything.”

“Nothing.” Weasel didn’t look as though he recalled Potter’s extreme need for physical violence, which had been proven in many places, more than one of which was Draco’s abdomen. In fact, Weasel’s voice was rising, which caused Draco to remember perhaps bloodlust was the whole basis of Weasel’s and Potter’s friendship, and why himself and Potter had utterly failed to relate. “Hedwig hasn’t got to do with anything,” Weasel repeated, “so why can’t you just take a damn dog?”

“I don’t want one.” Potter’s voice was cool, now.

As if on cue, Weasel’s voice went soft. “You just want something,” he said.

That was when Draco began to suspect there was something wrong with Potter.

Not that there weren’t a million things wrong with Potter. A million serious things. But most people were blinded by the great hulking scar or maybe the glare off those glasses, and this was something . . . even Weasel knew. And everyone knew Weasel was dense as a very dense thing and barely knew anything. It must be something different wrong with Potter, something even his scar couldn’t block out.

Draco was stuck with a recognized madman.

Who knew why, since apparently these idiots were made for each other.

Good riddance. Draco had never wanted either of them.

* * *

And he wanted both of them so much more than attempt number two. Draco’d at least had some feelings of kinship with the Mudblood, anyway, haunted by her screams and all, but the Weaseless had made his bogeys bats, for Merlin’s sake.

When they arrived at her flat, Potter tried to give Draco away again and wee woman Weasley looked at Potter as though he was insane.

Rightly so, at that. It made Draco like her a little better.

“Harry,” she said finally, in the middle of Potter’s heroic saga of battling villains and saving puppies and probably rescuing kittens from treetops, achieving world peace. “What on Earth makes you think I’d want a dog?”

“What?” Harry looked nonplussed. “Because you’re nice. It’s a nice dog.” Yes, thank you, Potter. His sales pitch was spectacular, really. How could she resist?

Apparently her powers of refusal were fueled by her stone cold heart and her frigid, frigid soul. She probably didn’t even like Pygmy Puffs, she was that hard.

“I’m not my mother,” the ice queen was saying. “Remember? I don’t dote. I don’t live to take care of everyone else.” She paused. “I don’t marry my schoolhood boyfriend and have a quarter dozen children before the age of twenty-five. And I don’t have pets.”

Potter was starting to look like he thought she had a frigid, frigid soul, too. “Right,” he said slowly. “I do remember. You don’t like animals.”

“Harry,” she said again. Her voice was soft, and dear God, if Draco was going to be subjected to witnessing a lovers’ reconciliation he just might—“You don’t know what I like,” she finished.

Oh.

Come to think of it, it was interesting that Potter had gone to Weasel before Weaseless.
He’d been snogging her while Draco was getting his guts stitched back into his abdomen, after all.

Maybe he would rather have been snogging Weasel.

“Admittedly,” the woman Weasel was going on, “I didn’t give you much of a chance to know what I like. But after the war . . . you’re so closed. You don’t—you don’t let anyone in. And I was trying so hard to be what you wanted . . . I wasn’t letting you in, either. I was letting you live with a stranger—I was being a stranger.”

“I wanted to marry you.” Potter sounded as though he was speaking of something long in the past, but there was still emotion there.

Draco tried to figure out how to make a dog’s throat pretend to gag.

“I wanted to live with you,” Potter continued.

She looked sad. “That wasn’t living.”

Potter didn’t disagree. He said only, “I still wanted you there, Ginny.”

How he had ever gotten a date in his life mystified Draco intensely, and would have kept him entertained for weeks and weeks, had he given half a damn at all.

“You wanted someone there,” she corrected. She sounded so much like her brother Draco began to be concerned Potter was actually a closet serial killer. That was the only reason Draco could think of that they didn’t report Potter’s obvious raving idiocy to the Ministry; they were all too afraid; they talked to him in these soft, gentle voices because they knew if he started twitching he’d fly into a mad rage and kill them all.

Ginny went on, “You wanted someone who loved you, but whose thoughts you didn’t have to know, whose feelings you didn’t have to worry about.—Not that I’m any different,” she added, with a spark of amusement. “The only difference is I know I’m not good at caring for anyone but myself. You don’t.” Pausing, she glanced down at Draco. “What’s its name?”

“What?”

“The dog. Is it a boy, or a girl?”

Man! It is a man, thank you! Draco thought so hard he barked.

Potter looked down at him, startled. “I don’t know.”

Weasley nodded, as if she had expected this. “Have you fed it anything? It looks half starved.”

Draco basked in the wonderful revelation that Ginny Weasley was beautiful and shining and not made of stone or ice at all!

“I don’t know what it eats.” Potter was blinking, as if unable to take in this sudden turn in conversation. Draco was hardly able to take it in himself, he admired and loved Ms. Weasley so.

She smiled slightly. “I’m sure you can figure that out. It hasn’t even has a bath since you saved it from Knockturn Alley, has it?”

Wise woman Weasley, that’s what they all called her, purveyor of sustenance and suds, and any moment now she would be pulling out a nice, smelly bit of jerky that was deliciously chewy like an old shoe—

He really needed to work on subduing the Dog Brain, Draco thought.

“I told you,” Potter said, “it followed me home.”

Case in point.

“I followed you too, Harry.”

Potter got a funny look on his face. “You’re not a dog.”

“No,” she agreed. “I ran away.”

Excellent notion; it was true the Weasley wench was wise. Run away! Of course Draco would get right on it. Later. Seeing as how he was a little busy being given away.

Ginny started to turn away, too, but paused. “I do like animals, by the way.” Of course she did! She probably even loved Pygmy Puffs. She was made of sugar and spice and all things that wanted to feed dogs many many beefsteaks.

“Want to know my favorite one?” Not waiting for an answer, Ginny went on, “It’s birds. I like birds. Because they fly. Because they’re free.”

Figured. Weasel and Granger would have been bad enough, but at least they weren’t Potter, and the whole reason they didn’t want Draco turned out to be something about some dead owl or something. Now here was Ginny who was brilliant and clever and probably had jerky in her pocket, and she didn’t want him because of his problem with this goddamn recurring avian leitmotiv.

Potter and Draco stood there, denied, and Ginny went to go get her Quidditch gear for her next practice.

* * *

It seemed Potter might’ve listened to whatever Ginny had said. Draco couldn’t be sure, since he himself had stopped listening after it had become apparent she wasn’t going to feed him. She was a stone cold ice queen after all, heart hardened to Potter-hating dogs and Pygmy Puffs.

But Potter, on the other hand, seemed on the way to improvement. When they got home he went straight to his freezer and pulled out an entire slab of bacon.

Then he tried to cook it with a spell and burnt it to a crisp.

To truly improve, he’d obviously have to become unPotter.

Draco wondered whether cruel and unusual treatment of bacon was one of the horrible crimes Potter had committed to cause his friends to treat him like they knew there must be something wrong with him. But it all remained very cryptic, and as Potter cursed and swore, Draco was only able to find out some new words, that Potter rarely cooked, and that burnt bacon tasted a bit of alright.

“You don’t have to eat that,” Potter said. “I know I’ve got some . . .” He was rummaging around in a white box. “Um. Tikka Masala?”

Yes, please.

Potter put a box made out of strange material on the ground in the middle of the ruins of the bacon. Inside was familiar enough, though: lamb and Tikka sauce and rice. Draco went to town on that, too.

Potter headed over to the table with some Muggle thing called Wheetabix, and sat down to eat it in a bowl. Meanwhile, Draco couldn’t believe he was eating with Potter, letting Potter feed him. He hoped this was yet another thing he could blame on the Dog Brain. Of course if it were just Draco, sans canine instinct, he would have turned up his nose and nobly refused anything from a specky, jumped-up Half-blood.

Well, unless Snape had worn glasses.

Then Draco forgot all about the Dog Brain, because there were the things Muggles called Jaffa Cakes, and he called ambrosia.

Potter gave him one, smiled when Draco enthusiastically swallowed and looked hopefully back to the package. Potter had one himself, then gave Draco another, and another.

It was worth eating from Potter’s hand.

In fact, it was even worth sharing supper with Potter, who played with his food and liked to eat off all the chocolate first.

“What?” Potter said defensively, when Draco tilted his head at him in disapproval of this manifestly ridiculous behavior. “I like to see what’s in them.”

Draco disdainfully turned back to his smorgasbord.

And sicked up all over the remains of the bacon and Tikka Masala.

Potter put down his Jaffa Cake. He seemed to move very slowly and thoughtfully, looking from Draco to the mess on the floor.

Draco flattened his ears.

With a flick of his wand, Potter had the mess cleaned up. He had barely seemed to move, to notice the vomit, before he went back to eating. After a little while he put the rest of the box of Wheetabix and more Jaffa Cakes on the floor.

When Potter got up from the table, he stretched, and moved toward the kitchen’s exit. “I’m knackered,” he explained, as if a dog needed explanation. “Um. I guess . . . I’ll see you . . .” He trailed off, and paused at the door.

There was a long moment of him just standing there, and Draco knew he was thinking about the mess, even if he’d acted like it had barely happened. And Draco was thinking about the mess, because even if it was all the Dog Brain’s fault, Malfoys did not sick up on Harry Potter’s floor.

This was it, now, what all Potter’s friends had found out about Potter, what was obviously so wrong with Potter: he had no compunction about dog killing, canine beating, puppy tail eating, or a bloodbath, anyway.

Instead Potter said, “I’m sorry. I know what it’s like to have too much after too little.”

Whatever that meant. Honestly, Potter was mental.

* * *
Part 2