The Tide of Thy Pride

by CleopatraIsMyName

Summary:

As soon as Draco Malfoy caught a glimpse of Michael in the nightclub, he knew he just had to have him. It didn't matter that he'd just got engaged to an old school friend of Draco’s, plump, good natured Lavender; he was looking at Draco in the way that suggested bed rather than breakfast, and he was weak at the knees... But Draco was used to men falling in love with him at a moment's notice - it happened all the time if you were as rich and as stunning as he was.

An invitation to join Lavender and Michael for a cosy weekend on a Muggle canal barge came like a gift from the gods. How could he fail to hook Michael? But the other part of the foursome was whizz-kid business tycoon Harry Potter, a swarthy half-blood with all the tenderness of a Bludger...definitely not Draco's type! And one way and another, he certainly managed to thwart Draco’s plans...

Notes:

• Inspired by Octavia by Jilly Cooper

This story is adapted from a 1970s romance novel 'Octavia' by Jilly Cooper, a famous and prolific British writer, now in her eighties. She wrote the books Disney's 'Rivals' is based on. 'Octavia' was much beloved by my teenager self, but now has me wincing at the sexual stereotypes and politics. However, since I started reading Drarry, I see Octavia as a female version of Draco: blond, rich and spoiled, and needing to be brought down a peg or several.

This story, 190 pages in the original paperback, has been modified and completely rewritten in places with vast amounts of help from the monumental Craftybadger1234, who has corrected umpteen mentions of telephone to Floo, dealt with my tendency to Capitalise Everything, amended punctuation, helped me wrestle with 1970s macho behaviour and generally always being on the other end of an email. She is completely amazing. I have tweaked it a bit more as I post the individual chapters so all mistakes are my own. It is in British-English.

So I have vaguely set this in the Harry Potter universe but with a lot of tweaking. Voldemort died in 1981 and there were no Horcruxes. Draco was brought up in France and went to Beauxbatons, so didn't meet Harry at school. Harry didn't have any money waiting for him in a vault, so really felt the need to prove himself.

The purebloods still hold most of the money and the power in the Wizarding World. They also dictate fashions and trends. The current fashion amongst the purebloods is Muggle-chic: cars, clothes, holidays, etc.

To misquote Morecombe and Wise, "I'm using all the right characters, but not necessarily in the right order."

Any characters you don't recognise I have made up. Anything canon was by the glorious J K Rowling and was checked at https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki
I am not making any money from this. Please do not copy this or translate without checking with me first.

Chapter 1: Teaser

As soon as Draco Malfoy caught a glimpse of Michael in the nightclub, he knew he just had to have him. It didn't matter that he'd just got engaged to an old school friend of Draco’s, plump, good natured Lavender; he was looking at Draco in the way that suggested bed rather than breakfast, and he was weak at the knees... But Draco was used to men falling in love with him at a moment's notice - it happened all the time if you were as rich and as stunning as he was.

An invitation to join Lavender and Michael for a cosy weekend on a Muggle canal barge came like a gift from the gods. How could he fail to hook Michael? But the other part of the foursome was whizz-kid business tycoon Harry Potter, a swarthy half-blood with all the tenderness of a Bludger...definitely not Draco's type! And one way and another, he certainly managed to thwart Draco’s plans...