Checkmate

The Game Part 1

Who'd ever guess it?
This would be the situation -
One more observation -
How'd we ever get this far
Before you showed me what you really are?

Lyrics from "The American and Florence" from Chess by Benny Anderson, Tim Rice and Björn Ulvaeus

* * * * *

Even working as fast as he could, it was well after eight o'clock before Harry finished his homework, and was able to sneak out of the Gryffindor common room. Ron and Hermione were off somewhere having some private time together, and Dean, Neville, and Seamus were concentrating on a major project they had due next Monday for Advanced Herbology, so no one questioned Harry when he simply walked over to the portrait hole and stepped out. He had no intention of telling anyone where he was going anyway. If they missed him before he got back, well . . . he'd figure that out later.

He walked quickly through the halls and down the flights of stairs. He was both excited and nervous at the same time. Oh come on, Potter, he said to himself, admit it. You're scared as hell. He thought about what Professor Dumbledore had said that afternoon about Draco's father. He had taken the warning seriously, because he knew that he was probably going to be forced to face Lucius Malfoy and other Death Eaters sooner or later - he knew he was their prime target. That thought sickened him, and he wanted more than anything not to have to face Voldemort and his followers again. He didn't intend to, if that was at all possible. But Voldemort was a known danger. What was really making him nervous right now, what was far more immediate and unknown, was what Draco could do to him - and what that might mean.

Harry thought back to what Draco had done to him that afternoon while they were talking to Dumbledore. Even now, just thinking about it made his face flush. He had been trying to explain to the headmaster that they hadn't been fighting, and suddenly he was aware that Draco was leaning against him. Then Draco's fingertips had found his under the sleeve of his robe, and Draco had let his fingers travel, oh-so-softly, and oh-so-slowly, up the inside length of Harry's fingers, up over his palm to his wrist, and back down again. Then he had slipped his fingers between Harry's and held hands with him for the briefest moment. Thank goodness that paperweight had rolled off Dumbledore's desk - at least, maybe Dumbledore hadn't noticed what Draco was doing. The whole thing couldn't have taken more than a few seconds, but Harry was nearly reduced to a quivering mass of incoherent jelly before Draco gave his hand a squeeze, and stepped away.

No one but Draco Malfoy had ever been able to elicit these intensely emotional reactions from him with just a look, or a word, and now a touch - or, oh God, a kiss. That had to mean something important, and nervous or not, he did want to find out what.

Things had changed so fast between them, and so completely, that yesterday's reality seemed like a lifetime ago, and so, on top of being nervous, Harry also felt confused and apprehensive. Did he really trust Draco now? How could he, in one day, erase six years of ill-treatment and distrust from his mind, and yet that's exactly what he seemed to be doing. This still might turn out to be some kind of deceitful trick, but he'd seen very convincing evidence that Draco really had changed. Somehow Harry was very sure, he just knew in a way that he couldn't explain, that it wasn't a trick, that the change he was seeing in Draco was real. His heart was asking him to believe in Draco, to forgive him and trust him. But, should he? Thinking about it just led him back in circles to unanswered questions. With Draco was the only place he would be able to find the answers, and so he went.

Harry had no trouble finding the alcove that was the entrance to the tower stairs up to Draco's room. Funny that he had never noticed it before - but a lot of Hogwarts castle's architecture was like that - you never saw it unless you knew it was there. The stairs spiraled up with doors at every level. Harry counted five doors before he got to the one at the top. He wondered briefly who lived in all the other rooms, but every coherent thought drained out of his mind when he found himself facing Draco's door. It was now or never - did he knock, or did he run screaming back to the safety of his cozy little Gryffindor cocoon? Well, weren't Gryffindors supposed to be brave? Harry decided he didn't like cocoons. He took a deep breath and knocked.