Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/234956.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Harry_Potter_-_J._K._Rowling
  Relationship:
      Vincent_Crabbe/Gregory_Goyle
  Character:
      Vincent_Crabbe, Gregory_Goyle, Draco_Malfoy
  Stats:
      Published: 2011-08-05 Words: 2024
****** The Cactus Where Your Heart Should Be ******
by Jane_St_Clair_(3jane)
Summary
     The summer after fifth year's kind of depressing. Draco sulks. Crabbe
     and Goyle amuse themselves.
Notes
     post-Order of the Phoenix
 
They were sent to keep Draco company, that summer.
 
They went nearly every summer, in fact, but this year Draco didn't want them
there. He was angry all the time, and when he was really angry, he threw
things. Glassware. Curses. Small animals. Then he stormed off and locked
himself in his room. Vince tried a few times to unlock the door, but whatever
charms held it closed were stronger than his abilities to open.
 
So for the first time since they were small kids, Vince and Greg spent a lot of
time alone. Or, well, together. They play a lot of card games the first week,
camped on the floor outside Draco's bedroom. Draco came out occasionally,
stormed around the house with both of them trailing after, brooded for a while
on a terrace while they sat to one side and went back to their card game. In
mid-afternoon, Greg offered to deal Draco in, silently, and he accepted. And
that was fine: three boys and cards on flagstones ignoring the sunshine.
 
Once or twice, they coaxed Draco out to do other things. Pick-up quidditch,
with Vincent on one side and Greg on the other, Draco on his own, hunting the
snitch. Polo. The Malfoys had a few trappings of Muggle aristocracy, and horses
were among them. Mr Malfoy used to play. Greg remembered him coming in at
evening with his robes thrown over field gear, white breaches and leg guards
like a quidditch uniform. Horses didn't respond as easily as brooms, though,
and they screamed if you pushed them too hard.
 
Draco muttered something about a gentleman having a horseman's hands. It
sounded like he'd been told that a few times.
 
They were taking the horses back when Greg turned and saw Draco with his face
buried in his horse's neck. He might have been crying.
 
Only Greg still had a father at home, but Vince didn't play it up like Draco
did. But, then, Draco and his father were completely different than anyone else
they knew. Greg was never that interested in his father, not like Draco, who'd
spent so many evenings curled up in the drawing room, talking and listening.
Draco had Mr Malfoy; Greg and Vince had each other.
 
At supper, Mrs Malfoy nibbled at her food and tried to make conversation. Her
new dyeing spells weren't working properly; her hair changed colour almost day
by day. Draco wouldn't look at her.
 
The second week, Draco went out flying by himself. He left in early morning
without waking anyone, and he came back after supper. Left again in the
morning.
 
It meant they didn't have to haunt Draco's door. If Draco had wanted them to
follow, he wouldn't have hexed their brooms to spark at a touch. No quidditch,
then. But the Malfoy estate had small, dark things in its corners, and Vince
was determined to see at least some of them. Monday they went on foot, but
landed up to their knees in itching mud, so the next day they took horses in
spelled shoes. Pools in the estate woods were very clear, and exposed all the
little deaths of animals within them. Some of the creatures living in those
waters must have been created just for the show: they were bright-coloured and
had too many eyes and legs. Greg lunged in, finally, and caught one. Let its
purple-fringed body writhe until it suffocated, then threw it back into the
water and watched the fish devour it.
 
Long insects came out from under the house at a wand-tap. Greg brought a bird
down with thrown rocks and threw it to the crawling things. Mrs Malfoy drifted
out to find them watching and crouched for a moment beside them. She'd lost
weight; Greg could see it in the loose skin around her neck. Her hands showed
small age-spots on the backs.
 
She lifted one blue-green-black thing out of the pile of biting insects and
held it up to them. Whispered over it and showed them what a bug looked like
with its carapace pulled back. How there was nothing, almost, under its shell.
Then she dropped it and hugged Vince. Vince held very still until she let him
go and drifted back to the house's dark.
 
Later, after dinner, Greg found Vince holding the peeled-back insect in his
hand, looking at it.
 
They kissed the first time that night. Both of them were lonely, and Vince was
miserable in his own quiet way. It was hard not to notice it without Draco
around to distract them.
 
They sprawled on Greg's bed, lying next to each other and staring at the
ceiling. A few years ago, one of the Slytherin girls had stolen a sappy little
poster from a Hufflepuff. It featured two Shar-pei dogs lying in a basket, and
it read, *Sometimes we sits and we thinks, and sometimes we just sits.* She
spelled the poster to replace the dogs with Vince and Greg, then passed it
around the common room for a laugh. Draco got hold of it, finally, and his
mouth curled, but his eyes sparked, too.
 
The poster was, on some level, absolutely right, because that evening they were
just sitting. Or lying. But without anything like heavy thought. And then Vince
rolled toward him and Greg leaned in, and their mouths missed each other. Vince
licked Greg's jaw, and that wasn't as disgusting as Greg would have thought.
Nothing like the kid-games they played that involved spitting on someone to see
them squirm.
 
The second time, they aimed a bit. Got it almost right. Vince's mouth was
different than Greg would have thought, but he tasted good. It was. Wet.
Friendly, really. Their noses bumped, and then their teeth ground together.
They pulled back a little and stared at each other. Tried it again, tilting
their heads.
 
The light dimmed and the house lights came on, but if a house elf ever came in,
they didn't notice. After a while, they scrambled around so that their heads
were more or less on the pillows. Greg on his back and Vince not quite on top
of him. He wondered if they should be doing something more, but they only
kissed. Vince's hair was cut short, almost exactly like Greg's own. Vince's
heart was racing. And he was hard, but it didn't seem very important for the
moment. His tongue was in Vince's mouth, and nobody was laughing at him. He
didn't, somehow, think anyone *could* laugh at him over this.
 
They must have fallen asleep, wrapped around each other. He woke up later to
hallway light pooling on the bedroom floor and Draco silhouetted in it.
 
Draco slammed the door very, very hard. When Greg and Vince made it to Draco's
bedroom door, it was locked.
 
They stayed there. Curled up together against the door and waited. Eventually,
a house elf showed up, proffering pillows and blankets. Vince stretched out and
pillowed his cheek on Greg's thigh. He was shaking again.
 
"He's going to be angry."
 
Greg shrugged. Draco was usually angry about something. He'd never stayed angry
at them for long.
 
He carded his fingers through Vince's hair and settled down as best he could.
He wasn't sure whether he could hear Draco crying. It could have been a house
elf, or the wind.
 
Draco came out the next morning and sat down with them. "I suppose you two had
to do something to keep busy without me. Chocolate frog?"
 
He stayed with them the whole day. Tried, for perhaps the hundredth time, to
teach them to play chess properly. Sometime in early afternoon, he gave up and
let them play checkers. Went back to his bedroom and came back with a half-
dozen chess sets in small suede bags. The checkers piled themselves off the
board, and Draco replaced them with shining chess pieces, more than the usual
number and all strong ones: knights and bishops and queens. Leaned over the
board and whispered, "Have at."
 
The ivory and onyx pieces laid into one another. Bits of bone and stone flew.
 
About the time the sixth queen fell, Draco realized that Vince and Greg were
holding hands. He didn't exactly *say* anything, but he gathered up the
remaining pieces and stormed off. They found him on the mezzanine above the
front hall, dangling a one-armed white knight over the railing. He grinned at
them and dropped it. The little knight screamed all the way down.
 
Bishops, they discovered, howled most convincingly when lobbed upwards. Queens
would turn on you in your hand.
 
While Draco was in the bathroom, Vince pushed Greg into an alcove and kissed
him.
 
It rained harder after dark. They took dessert into the library and created a
folded paper army. About nine o'clock, one of the regiments revolted, and the
folded-paper general carried out an official decimation, killing one paper man
in ten. While the general was distracted, the opposing army attacked and ended
things. Then the troops set out through the library, periodically pulling paper
women-and-children out of corners and mutilating them.
 
Mr Malfoy had taught them to make the paper people during the summer after
their second year at Hogwarts. He knew curses, too, and taught them to Draco,
but he created little games like this for anyone who'd listen. Greg rather
missed him.
 
When Draco had finally wandered off to bed with a book, Greg changed into
pajamas and went to Vince's room. Vince helped him take them off again.
 
Kissing was different with both of them naked. It wasn't enough. They had a lot
of skin between them, and touching it took a lot of energy and attention.
 
Whatever Draco thought, they weren't entirely stupid. They grew up in Slytherin
house; they'd have needed to be blind and deaf to know nothing about sex at
all. Zabini told stories that might not have been true, and certainly weren't
nice, but they were definitely educational. They both knew, in a basic way,
when biting was a good thing, and when it wasn't. Greg's teeth on Vince's
nipple were good. Sharp, hard bite, like a clamp. They'd been bruising each
other since they were kids; it wasn't any time to stop.
 
Both of them hard, rubbing against each other. Tongues in each other's mouths.
Fingers in short hair. Panting a bit. And eventually they twisted, and Vince
pushed Greg down and straddled him. Right *there*, so they rubbed together.
Vince was disturbingly soft where Greg's thing brushed him.
 
Twisting on him and *riding* him, leaning in to kiss him. Something Zabini
never included in his stories was twisting inside Greg's chest.
 
He came, growling, and pushed Vince off. Bent over him and licked, carefully.
Teeth on a boy's cock were bad. Keeping them away was hard, though. He licked
the tip, mostly, and wrapped his hand around the shaft. Jerked him, finally,
and kissed Vince's hip, open-mouthed, until Vince came too.
 
He wrapped an arm across Vince's waist and stayed there, mouthing at his skin
and biting occasionally.
 
Later, he woke up smelling Vince around him, tangled in the bedclothes. Draco
was looking at them again. He was wearing pajamas.
 
He said, "You're supposed to be *my* friends."
 
Greg nodded. Vince stirred a little but kept snoring.
 
Draco padded over to them. Loomed for a minute, then sat down on the edge of
the bed. Greg watched him for a long time, and eventually Vince woke up, rolled
onto his side, and watched Draco too.
 
They'd spent most of their lives watching Draco.
 
Eventually, Draco pushed at them irritably. They crowded over, together and
still tangled, and Draco lay down. He didn't seem to notice that both boys in
bed with him were naked. Or he didn't care. Greg wondered about leaving his
rear bare and within Draco's reach, but there were no wands at hand, and Draco
didn't look like he was planning anything.
 
Vince kissed Greg's hair sleepily. Greg decided to be grateful that they were
all sleeping in actual beds, and that Draco wasn't crying. Even if silver eyes
watched him all night.
 
 
 
[24 July 2004]
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