"Out."

Softly spoken, but the house elves knew to scatter at the command, abandoning their tidying of sheets and opening of windows. They whizzed apologetically between their master's ankles, out onto the landing and down the stairs. Draco didn't watch them go, closing the door to his bedroom behind him and locking it. He would have liked to add a charm or two for reinforcement, but now was the last time he wanted a note from the Department of Underage Magic.

Not that what he was doing was illegal, strictly speaking. He'd scoured the rules for loopholes, inquired of his most adored teacher, and had come away glowing with the knowledge that brewing and usage of potions did not count as underage, forbidden summer magic. It was just too hard to manage, what with so many students who might need to take potions for scrapes and such during the course of the holiday, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop him.

Because, as he told himself smugly, he wasn't doing anything wrong.

That knowledge had never given him such a thrill before, and he smiled, beginning to understand his father's love of never breaking any rules. You didn't need to, when you could writhe in and out through them like a serpent escaping a wicker basket.

Draco strode into his room and emptied his pockets onto his desk: a good quantity of small, corked glass bottles. One didn't really need to drink much of the stuff, and it kept forever in these specially sealed vials—a gift from his favorite instructor. He held one up to the light, eyeing the thick, opaque potion inside. Tricky, to brew it without his father's knowing, and he hadn't quite managed to do so. But as it turned out Lucius Malfoy considered his son's diligent studying of Moste Potent Potions to be a worthy pastime, and let him do as he pleased so long as it didn't interfere with his own activities, or call the attention of the Ministry of Magic.

Which of course it wouldn't. Draco smiled at his reflection. He'd learned how to be sneaky from the best.

He tugged open a drawer on his bureau and pulled out a parchment envelope, breaking the wax seal and dipping his hand in to remove one single dark hair.

He had a whole lock's worth; the owner of that tousled thick darkness would never miss this one. It had been carefully harvested in potions class when that Longbottom idiot had blown up his thunderstorm philter, and nobody noticed a quick, simple severing charm cast with careful aim during the ensuing chaos.

Too bad he couldn't brag about the smoothness of his operation to anyone else, although he suspected that Snape knew something. Draco carefully re-sealed the envelope with the candle on his desk, blowing gently on the smear of wax to cool it, and slipped the packet back into his drawer.

Now, in the cool June darkness of his room with the windows flung wide to the manor grounds and one candle burning, he would find out if it had been worth the effort. He uncorked one of his bottles and dropped in the strand of hair, pale eyes watching as the thick liquid fizzed a bright, emerald green and gave off a scent like mown grass and cucumbers. Draco toasted himself in his tall mirror, and drank it down in one swallow.

There was not much of him to change; they were the same age and roughly the same size, but every centimeter of Draco's skin prickled as his cells eagerly rearranged themselves, his hair whispering along his neck as it turned shorter and darker and decidedly untidy. The worst moment was a flare of quick pain across his forehead, and a simple white scar cut itself between his eyebrows.

It took perhaps thirty seconds, and Draco Malfoy looked in his mirror and saw Harry Potter looking back at him.

He blinked in astonishment, and Harry blinked back. His verdant eyes were huge without his glasses and distant things were certainly a bit fuzzier. Well, that was one weakness accounted for. That was, after all, why Draco was doing this. Weaknesses. Best they be learned on the most intimate of levels, and this was as intimate as it got, inside Harry Potter's skin. True, he was limited in only physical terms, but that was useful enough to Draco for him to go through this trouble. He leaned in close to his glass, rubbing a finger over the scar. It evoked no particular response to be exploited, but Draco lingered a long moment, memorizing the feel of healed skin under his fingertip.

"Fascinating," he said, and it came out in Harry's voice. Draco laughed, and the sound of his rival's chuckle floated around him, soft and dark like his hair. "Oh, perfect," he purred, his reflection's green eyes bright with delight. "just absolutely perfect." It was marvelously entertaining, more than he thought it would be. He begged himself for mercy, admitted he was a stupid nothing, and swore that he was quitting Quiddich for his fifth year, because "...Draco Malfoy is just so much better than I am." He smiled secretly at Harry Potter's flushed image, and Harry Potter, lips parted and eyes hooded, smiled right back.

Draco started, his reflection looking a bit surprised. Here was something he hadn't really thought of. He must have been too preoccupied with brewing the potion correctly to ponder its exact results. Watching his mirror carefully, he ran his tongue over his lips to wet them, one hand sliding down the velvet front of his robe. The clothing was unmistakably Draco's, a touch too long in the arms, rich material that hung in deep folds and was enchanted to never feel as heavy and hot as it did at this particular moment. He slid his fingers through the shock of dark hair, feeling it slightly damp at the base of his neck. The buzz of crickets outside seemed suddenly loud, the room sticky humid with summer and Draco watched slender fingers undoing the silver toggles holding his robes closed, sighing with relief as cool air moved against his chest and the fabric slid obligingly down off one shoulder, revealing a delicate collarbone and the softly defined tendons of his rival's vulnerable throat.

"Draco," he said again, his eyes on Harry's lips in the mirror as they hovered silkily over the syllables. "I want you." The robe crumpled to the thick fur rug at his feet.

Draco's eyes devoured the image in the mirror rather than actually look down at himself, entranced by the illusion of Harry Potter standing in front of him, flushed and breathing a touch too quickly, in nothing but his own pale skin. He half-turned, eyeing the firm line of Harry's spine and the shadow the candle made on one buttock. Surprising, really, to have a shape like this muffled under the too-large clothes and glasses. This was a Harry Potter that Draco could appreciate, whip-slender and turning willingly for Draco's perusal. He trailed his fingers down his body, green eyes too bright as he discovered velvet-soft heat between his legs, shivering and swollen under his own touch.

The fine art of self-gratification was something that Draco had only recently learned to indulge in, and he wondered, watching as the Harry in his mirror lifted his hips into his own hands, if he had beaten his rival to the discovery of that.

"I'd do it for you," Draco whispered, and his promises rolled easily out of Harry's mouth, wet and open in the candlelight. "I'd do it for you, Draco."

The pleasure shot sweet and slow along Draco's spine, building. Draco wanted to close his eyes, wanted to go to his knees, but he would not abandon his creation, a Harry Potter who did as he bid. If only the stupid little brat had conceded right off the bat, he could have spent his summers here, in Draco's own room of the manor, would have been his closest friend and known all Draco's secrets.

"But I wanted to fight you." Draco said, and it came out in Harry's voice, sounding more like the Gryffindor student with Draco's drawl lost in his quick breathing. Draco was unsure if he wanted Harry to say the words, if they were Draco's own words, or if it was what Harry really would have said. "I wanted to be your rival, you are only worthy of being my rival. In friendship one always follows the other, and that would never work for you and me. I'm your reflection. I'm your negative. I'm you, Harry Potter."

But his mirror said "...Draco Malfoy."

Draco's eyes went wide in shock, and Harry's did not obey, narrowing instead.

"Be careful what you conjure, Malfoy," Harry said, even though Draco's lips had not moved. Harry's voice was his own and not an echo spoiled by Draco's northern inflection, angry and fierce from the other side of the glass. "You might get more than you want."

Draco shook his head, and the hair that tumbled across his eyes was pale and silvered. His hour was gone, but his own reflection had not returned. "Wait," he began.

"No." Harry ran his fingers through his hair and arched his body, running one hand down his throat, lips whispering promises that Draco had not given him permission to speak. And Draco found himself echoing them, as if he was the reflection and not the reality, two-dimensions of pleasure made only for another's eyes. Harry threw back his head and his legs went taut, a low moan in his throat as he came and Draco did as he was told, fear and ecstasy a heady rush as they moved in a flawless dance of imitation and command.

And Harry smiled at him, breathless and triumphant. Draco's vision swum with green eyes and then the floor rushed up to meet him, his mirror and his vision going black.

When Draco came to the moon was close to setting, his candle long since guttered out and his body stiff and cold from sleeping on his rug. He lifted his head and stifled a yelp as someone moved in front of him, and then sighed in shaky relief, one hand rising to touch his mirror. His own face looked back at him, grey eyes wide and scared, hair in disarray, and laughed nervously when he did. Surely it was just some side-effect of the potion, Draco reasoned. He'd be swimming in warning letters by now if he'd managed to actually ensorcel Harry Potter in his mirror.

He got to his feet, shakily, and retrieved his robe from the wrinkled pile at his feet. After a long moment he lifted the garment and hung it over his mirror, completely covering the glass. He then marched straight into his adjoining bath, and had the first of twenty-eight bottles uncorked and ready to dump down the drain when he hesitated. He'd gone through an awful lot of trouble for this. Was he going to be swayed by one little glitch? The thick potion hovered at the lip of the vial, ready to spill or retreat. A memory of pleasure slid slowly along Draco's skin, the mirror above his sink regarding him with his own wan face. Was he really going to let just the image of Harry Potter force him to abandon his project? Without finding out what really happened?

Slowly, Draco recorked the vial. "You shan't scare me off that easily, Potter." He glowered at his mirror, emboldened by his own visage and the set line of his lips. "Next time we'll just see who's pulling the strings." He gathered his vials of polyjuice potion and turned his back on his reflection, not seeing as it thoughtfully watched him go.