Title: Dirt
Archiving: just ask.
Rating: PG
Date: September 2003.
Summary: This is a story about dirt.
Notes: I think I will dedicate this story to Franzi, just because you really can't ever dedicate enough stories to Franzi, because she is a goddess, and I don't appreciate her often enough.
Draco Malfoy had dirt under his fingernails where he had fallen off his broom. It had been raining, and the pitch was nothing but mud. He had been scrubbing for nearly half an hour trying to get them clean again. His cuticles were nearly rubbed raw and bleeding, but he took a vicious satisfaction in the pain and kept on scrubbing.
Harry Potter walked into the loo. Draco cast Potter a glance of disdain, but Potter didn�t even look at him. Draco scrubbed harder.
It had been a fair game and a fair fight at the end, no matter what those idiot Gryffindors said. Potter had been the one who cheated. Touching his arm like that. You shouldn�t be allowed to touch another student during Quidditch matches, he thought. It was clearly a heinous foul, but Madam Hooch was the worst referee in the history of the game. There were no limits to how low she�d stoop to let the Gryffindors take the�
There was a flush, and Potter stepped outside of the stall as Draco straightened up and looked bored. Potter went to the next tap over and washed his hands. Draco noted irritably that they weren�t brown, his hands�pristine Potter�s hands be caked with mud? Never. They were long and precise, firm and rough. Just about right for catching the Snitch and ruining Draco�s life.
Draco realised he was glaring and jerked his gaze away at the same moment Potter turned off the water and looked sideways at him. Draco dug his nails into the bar of soap. Having soap and mud caked under his nails would be better than having just mud. Potter blinked unconcernedly at him. Draco squeezed the bar, hard, and felt blood running into the layers of soap.
�You know, there�s a spell that can take care of that for you,� said Potter, leaning over. Draco watched him pull the soap away and put his wand there instead. The fingers of his left hand bumped Draco�s, and Draco felt a sudden rush and a jolt through him, as if he were preparing to fall off his broomstick all over again. �Lavare digitati,� said Potter.
Draco opened his mouth to say �I hate you, Potter� as his fingers slipped free of dirt and grime and the last traces of mud speckling his fingernails, but instead he just stared. Potter gave him back his hand, slipped his wand inside his robe pocket. �That�s better,� he said.
Draco eyed him without a word. Potter stood there for a few moments looking awkward, uncertain, and finally hostile, and then left.
Draco glared at his newly clean hands, white and faultless as ever. Even his cuticles had stopped bleeding.
Potter and his damned touching.
~~~~~~~~
�What the fuck did you do that for?�
Draco tightened his hold on Potter�s shoulders and pressed his knee even further into his back. Potter squirmed underneath him and cursed and spat and grappled in the mud, his fists full of it.
�That�s better,� said Draco, grinning happily.