HD 'Least Common Denominator'

Potter's a bother.

Draco knows this, as he knows his Father is generally right on the big ideas even if he fucks up the little shite. This switcheroo action, mid-stream; jumping ship, it's a prime example. Potter's fault, of course—except he's not Potter.

He's—

What Draco has wanted since he learnt wanting.

What he couldn't have—and then could, easy as pie and ripe for the taking. Too easy, in fact.

Whom he teases and torments and pleases, nightly.

Potter—my brother, Draco thinks, looking full at him, just sprawled there, as though Draco's rooms are his natural environment…as if he's every right. Not so. Potter has very few rights to him; he's all wrong.

So….bloody…wrong.

"Get out." Draco says this same thing every night, or some variation. "Haul your arse out of here, Potter." It's his fair warning. Malfoys are gentlemen, after all. They may not play fair but there are rules, nonetheless. "Clear off."

Potter ignores him, studying assiduously, messy black head bent over his notes. Draco spares a little worm of hatred for the pamphlet the mudblood cunt made up. He's got better and really reams of better, all of his own making, that he employs and he might possibly be persuaded to share them—or not. But Potter hasn't asked for any assistance and has shown no signs of wanting to, even though it's glaringly obvious Draco's been referring to various parchments for every 'lesson' his Father—their Father—directs him to provide Potter. 'A Wizard needs to know the Dark Arts…son," his father had announced. "You, Draco, will show Po—Harry, here, the magic we Malfoys have relied on this past age."

Father's little lessons, Draco knows, will be the death of him, one day. They've certainly been the death of any number of lesser life forms.

Lessons. More like tutoring an ape. Or a hippogriff—a birdbrain. Potter's flighty, but too…Potter's quick off the mark, right enough, but still, he's got no finesse. He's all bumbly, stumbling into this, bumping into that, simply not knowing. Draco abhors sloppy work; conversely abhors Potter's raw power, which blows holes in his delicate incantations and sets the handmade ebon-inlaid glassed-in bookshelves afire.

He's been forced to use Reparo a million times over since Father brought Potter home with him. White-faced, big-eyed and ratty-tatty, like a misused field mouse brought back to nest in an eagle's aerie.

But—but.

Potter's got power in droves and cartloads. Malfoy power, undeniably. It's…a call to respect, even if the very last thing Draco would ever wish to do is…'respect Potter'. He can't be bothered; he daren't. Potter—faced with any genuine emotion Draco might show to him—would…laugh. His fucking bloody arse off.

"I said, Potter," Draco repeats, speaking nasally, flipping Potter the bird, "to go. Be off with you. You've your own bed in this suite—go there. Get out of mine."

He meant his rooms, not his own bed…but he meant his bed, too. His trusty old four-poster, that he's slept in since he was old enough to be allowed a 'big boy bed' by his mum. And no matter what he says—he can talk till he's bloody blue—Potter'll still end up in it. They both know this.

Potter studies, sighing, fiddling with the lock of hair that's fallen down over his stupid scar. Draco watches, silenced by silence.

He's ignored. It's as though Potter delights in ignoring him, knowing exactly how much it teases Draco's nerves to the thinnest. It's as though he can sight a soft spot, a weakness, from miles. Not that Draco's got much to hide away these days. God and Merlin only know what he might be blurting aloud as he sleeps next to the git nightly and he-again Merlin save him—sleeps with Potter every single night.

Draco's eyelids pinch from squinching them tight—too tight. He'll give himself the headache if he's not more careful; he doesn't care. Doesn't care.

…Does Father even know? Does he care? And Mother…what of her? She's—well, she's not well, even if she seems to be coping. Headmaster's revelation wasn't what was needed to bolster a happy marital life. It's been all tenterhooks and tiptoeing 'round the Manor since that fateful moment and though Draco knows it's not technically Potter's fault he was a by-blow of an unfortunate connection, he still blames him. Blames him well and blames him often…and then recalls the sodding Dursleys.

Wouldn't wish that miserable lot on anyone, not even a ruddy hippogriff. Potter's damned lucky he's got Father. And—and Draco, for that matter.

"Are-are you leaving, then?" he prods, though he doesn't expect much. "You should go." It'll require him budging off his arse and doing something, before something actually happens. He knows this, as he knows that Potter's got his ears cocked and is just being the prat he is naturally. "Potter."

If Potter can't get to Draco one way, he'll be sure to sneak in another. Gets under his skin, this chap. It's the way of the world, any more.

Draco sighs. Huffs, rather, and rises. Dusts himself down, feeling the weight dragging in his gut—more a warmish spiral and its want and not fear either. He's half-hard already, just from anticipating it. Been that way since before supper. Been that way since this morning, when Potter sucked him off and then tripped off smiling to the loo, whistling as if he'd not a care in the world.

He steps into it, as he's stepped wide-eyed into every other confrontation with Potter. Now 'not' Potter. Malfoy.

Potter hums, under his breath. The tune to 'Weasley Is' and it's horrid that Draco knows exactly what he's up to—goading. Claims he wants to 'rub along'; that they two should be mates. That he's glad to have more family. Family.

Accident—it was purely an accident, all of it. That Lily Evans couldn't keep her knickers on seventeen, eighteen years ago; that Lucius Malfoy is a cheating, lying rotter; that Draco has always, always wanted to be integral to the life of Harry Potter.

Brothers. It leaves him ill. Physically ill, the thought. Tears his gut up, harms him internally.

"Potter—take off," Draco growls and begins his nightly wander. His circling is like that of the hyenas: it's got purpose, sly as it is. It'll fetch up at Potter's perch on the divan in a moment or two and Potter'll be forced to raise his eyes from that frigging parchment he's got glued to his specs. The one he's hiding behind—imperfectly. "Potter, really."

"No."

Draco halts, startled. Usually it's only him, making threats, promising retribution. Potter doesn't bother himself enough to join in. He must—he must want it, then. Tonight. Least as much as Draco does, if that telling hand straying into his lap has anything to say about it. Parchment's crackling as he rustles it, folding it down over his denimed thighs; Draco takes a short, sharp breath when he catches sight of what Potter's absolutely no longer concealing.

Flash of skin where the shirt's ridden up; partially unbuttoned flies, just waiting for Draco's arrival. Belt's still fastened, though. Potter never makes it that easy, no. Never. He wants…he wants Draco to want it and then to show he wants it. Work for it, like a plebe.

"I won't leave, Malfoy—Draco," Potter says. Says this without much inflection. "Bugger off, then."

"Bugger you!"

Draco's never been this furious for this long a time. Sure and absolutely Potter's wound him up before now. Does it every year—every day at school, like clockwork. But this last six months he's not taken a calm breath—he's not been at ease for a single moment. Too—too angry. Livid, furious…despairing.

"Look," he says, his lungs aching fiercely; his too-tight chest caught in steely bounds and cords. Incarcerous from the inside but he can't stop moving closer—he can't. "You should—you should really go. Now, Potter."

He can't be responsible. Not for this. It's a sickness; he's mental. Just like Potter, apparently, and maybe it's the Black side of the family, but that makes no sense either, as Potter's not a Black—he's a Malfoy. Maybe it's the Purebloodness. Maybe they're all loopy as mooncalves and it's actually the normal thing to do, shagging your close relatives—your blood brother. The one you didn't know you had—didn't want. Couldn't stand the sight of.

Yearned over like a girl. Hated.

Wanted. Despised.

Couldn't seem to be free of.

"No." Potter's stony-faced but his eyes are brilliant. Familiar but not family. Father has a few photos of Lily Evans as a girl. Mother has more, in her albums from her school years. They'd all known one another, that crowd. Te werewolf, Professor Snape—his cousins Sirius and Regular. Mum and Lily Evans...maybe even mates. Potter—the dead one, James. The one who hadn't got the bullocks to be Potter's real dad, as he should've, the git. "No, Draco. Malfoy."

Potters are gits, even the ones who aren't really Potters.

"Open it up, Potter." Draco's arrived, on the lip of Hades. Is peering into the green inferno that's Potter's gaze behind the smudged glass of his spec lenses. They are newish—Father takes excellent care of his own—just as all of Potter's accoutrements are new, by the six months. "Shift your legs, git. Make way."

He can't really inhale all that well, not now he's here, on the verge of it. It's painful. His dick hurts him—and his silly arsehole. Potter hurts him, just by sitting there, looking up with those familiar eyebrows (a negative image; Draco sees the exact same arch in his mirror every morning as he brushes his hair) angled.

"C'mere, then."

It's not a request.

"Draco."

It's a siren song.

"Take it, yeah? If you want it so bad. Not stopping you, am I? Not going, either."

How can a voice be so quiet and yet—? Draco winces quickly and glowers dourly to hide it.

"You're the one who's gasping for it, Potter," he taunts. "Fucker."

"Fuck you."

"First!"

Draco's hair is coming up rumpled under the fingers thrust through it; Potter uses it for leverage to pull him down into the Pit.

S'funny.

"Draco!" Potter moans—he's so gagging for this, he's not minding his inflection anymore. Draco reminds himself to remind Potter to watch it. That sort of slip-up gets a chap AK'd in a blink. "Draco, give it to me—give it over."

S'funny, Draco thinks, even as he plonks himself down across his brother's spread thighs, two hands gripping his own buttocks, spreading them. Sleakeasy's—he uses it still but he can't persuade Potter to, not even with stepped-up taunting. One would think he'd wish to, really. But he doesn't.

Claims it's his thing—his Potter thing. Trademark. Won't give it up, not for the life of him.

Draco quirks his lips under his brother's, and inside he's laughing his arse off, too. There's a sad black humour to this commedia dell'arte act the Malfoy family's been thrust into. And if Draco cannot give himself leave to cry he can at least snicker, knowingly.

Lucius's hair is as curly-wild and free as Potter's ever is, when fresh from the bath. As is Draco's. Blond but not smooth—not perfect or never out of place. Untamed and uncombed, au natural, it bears a remarkable resemblance to Potter's thatch.

Funny…what he and his beloved brother have in common.