[FIC] Strangeways, Here We Come
Nov. 15th, 2009 06:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
battlestarbeanI figured I should put it here as well!
Title: Strangeways, Here We Come
Rating: PG-13, for language and brief sort of sexy time
“Oi,” a disembodied voice calls from somewhere above Draco. “Get up, you lazy sod.” Draco feels the toe of a shoe nudging his ribs. “Seriously, mate get your skinny arse off my floor.”
Draco’s eyes pop open as the foot digs more insistently into his side. “Get up,” the gruff voice repeats. “I don’t recall this being what I pay you for.”
Draco shoves the shoe away irritated, and props himself up on his elbows, yanking the headphones on his ears impatiently to his neck. “Actually,” he replies, cocking his head to one side and looking up at his boss, “It sort of is. See, if I didn’t listen to all this music, which you have no ear for whatsoever, you would continue booking shit acts and no one would come to this godforsaken dive. You need me to be your judgment. You have prescription sunglasses for God’s sake; you certainly can’t make important decisions on your own.”
“For the last time: I took. Them. Back,” Henry grits out.
“Yes, but you bought them. Therein lies the problem.”
“Yes, clearly it is all you, Draco,” Henry replies dryly, rolling his eyes and offering a hand up. “Surely, we would have been sunk if not for your superior bartending skills and keen ear for music. Not to mention your uncanny knowledge of fashion faux-pas.”
Draco flashes a blinding smile at his boss and grabs the hand. “I appreciate the fact that you recognize my many accomplishments here, Henry. You are an exemplary boss, and when I leave this pile of rubbish to create my own bigger and better club, you will be remembered fondly. Like an old relative slowly succumbing to dementia, but who was always considered the life of the party during family gatherings.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that.” Henry sits down behind his desk and gestures for Draco to take a seat as he puts on what Draco likes to think of as his ‘But Seriously’ face. “In all seriousness though, I can’t have you coming in my office whenever you feel like it to have a lie down and listen to records,” he states gruffly. “You actually do have a job here, and it reflects poorly on me if it seems like I’m showing favoritism.”
“But you are showing favoritism,” Draco says drolly, studying his fingernails absentmindedly. “I am the best worker you have, and am treated so. I don’t see anything wrong with it.”
“Well, of course you don’t, you ponce,” Henry crowed, a wide grin on his face. “I swear, for someone who says they can’t remember much of their past, sometimes you act like you knowexactly who you are, and it was someone who was disgustingly rich and entitled.”
Draco’s head jerks slightly but there is an easy grin on his face, which doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Well,” he says loftily, “perhaps being better than everyone is something that’s just in you—a divine right or something. I don’t need memories to let me know that I am of higher status than most. I could live in a gutter and still be above most of those cretins you employ.”
Henry laughs outright, his brown eyes twinkling in that familiar and comforting way that never fails to warm Draco’s heart. When they dated briefly, someone had had the unmitigated gall to call Henry plain-looking right in front of Draco, and before Henry knew it, Draco had the man on the floor with his hand around his throat. “If you even so much as breathe in his general direction again,” he had hissed into the man’s ear, “I will rend you limb from limb. This is a promise.” Henry had thought it was a bit overkill and told Draco so later on that night in his apartment, but Draco wasn’t having any of it.
“You don’t understand,” Draco had told him, frustrated. “You are mine, and you belong to me. No one has the right to say anything like that to you, ever.” Henry, slightly dazed and a more than a little aroused at the outburst, had told Draco that he couldn’t stop people from saying shitty things to him, that it was inevitable and that people had rights to their opinions.
“Bollocks,” Draco had snarled and proceeded to drag him bodily into the bedroom and show Henry just what he thought of other people’s opinions.
“You’re a real piece of work,” Henry says, still laughing and jolting Draco back into the present.
“This is true,” Draco replies calmly, rising from his seat. No use dwelling on the past. “Now, if there’s nothing else, I actually have a job to get back to. We really have to stop having these meetings—it shows blatant favoritism between your employees, and people could get the wrong—“ The sound of a shoe hitting the door cuts off the last of Draco’s words as he heads downstairs to start his shift, laughing, and then laughing more at the fact that there was a time when he thought he’d never laugh again.
Draco is teaching trembling bartender trainee number twelve—Trevor, or Taylor or something—how to make a Harvey Wallbanger when Harry Potter walks into Strangeways. Had it been normal operating hours, Draco wouldn’t have even noticed him, as the bar is packed wall-to-wall most nights, but it’s still early, and there are only a few stragglers there.
Their eyes lock and almost instantly Draco forgets where he is and why he’s there, or who he happens to be terrorizing at the time. Suddenly, there are flames licking at his skin, his voice is cracked and hoarse from the smoke and squeezing and breathing and death—Tim the bartender trainee drops a glass of ice from his shaking hand and the world rights itself again. Draco is not at Hogwarts; he is behind the bar again, and he is putting the fear of God into this young man.
“It’s a bloody Harvey Wallbanger,” he snaps at Tom, proud of his steady voice. “It’s actually quite simple. You’ve got your Vodka,” he pulls the bottle of vodka from the shelf and slams it on the table. “Your orange juice and your Galliano. Use the measurements I gave you and mix them accordingly. You will keep doing it until you don’t suck.”
Ted just nods and gets to work, lining the ingredients up and focusing on the measurements with an intensity more often found in a wild animal stalking its prey. Unfortunately, the broken glass has somehow galvanized Potter into action and now he is heading toward the bar, and once again, Draco finds himself cursing the floor plan of the club, calling for a central bar, with no dark corners to skulk away to, or any quick exits. For a minute, he actually contemplates just full out running across the club to the kitchen, pride be damned, but before he can even will his feet to move, Potter is bearing down on him, staring at Draco as if he’s accidentally uncovered one of those crazy creatures Loony Lovegood was always going on about.
Might as well start as we mean to go on. “Potter,” Draco says softly, holding himself very still. “I don’t even have words.”
Potter runs his hands through his hair absently and looks just as put out as Draco feels. “Yeah, yeah, me neither.”
They stare at each other quietly long enough for Ted to stop what he’s doing and look at the two of them curiously. Draco feels the weight of the stare and whips his eyes back to Ted’s. “Have you suddenly learned how to make a decent drink? No? Then stop bloody gawking and get back to work.”
Harry gives out sort of an exasperated chuckle. “Nice to know some things never change.”
Draco stares at the man that was once the bane of his existence. The glasses are still there, but the frames are more stylish, thicker in a hipster sort of way, and though he is loathe to admit it, Draco thinks they look good on him. He’s not as stringy as he once was; he’s filled out a bit, and he looks healthy and tan. His clothes actually fit him for once; he’s not drowning in horrible denims and tatty shirts anymore. The clothes he is wearing look comfortable and expensive without being ostentatious. Draco is faintly impressed.
Harry hasn’t said anything else, but he is staring at Draco with the same assessing eyes. Draco wonders what he’s seeing. Medium length pale hair in his face, slim build, simple cotton white t-shirt and low slung denims finished with canvas shoes—it’s the farthest thing from what either of them would have been expecting to see on Draco, and he’s sure to have questions, questions Draco doesn’t have the time or inclination to answer.
“So why are you here, Potter?” Draco asks, ending a silence that seemed to last forever.
“So why are you here, Malfoy?” Potter shoots back.
Draco lifts his hands and scans his surroundings. “I should think it would be obvious, Potty. I’m tending the bar.”
Potter bats the response away like an irritating fly. “You know what I mean. How—why are you here? How did you get here?”
“I’m sorry — are you an Auror?” Draco asks, his eyes slits. “There must be some reason you think you can ask me things about myself and I’ll just tell you.”
“No, I’m not an Auror,” Harry replies. “I am just genuinely curious as to how Draco Malfoy ended up in Muggle London, tending bar.”
“I would say I’m curious as to why you are here as well,” Draco drawled. “But that would be an enormous lie. It doesn’t surprise me at all that you’re out here in the Muggle world, slumming it or whatever you turning up here is.”
“Me slumming?” Harry half-laughs, incredulous. “If anyone would be ‘slumming’ it, it would be you, Draco Malfoy of the pure-blood Malfoys, haters of all things Muggle and anything different from himself –"
“Draco, who is this mystery guest you’ve allowed into the bar at this ungodly afternoonish hour?” Henry asks, walking down the stairs from his office and heading toward the bar. “Are you from the licensing board?” he asks warily, “Because we’ve renewed all the paper work and were told everything was in working order.”
“Oh no, no problem,” Harry says, ducking his head bashfully. It takes everything for Draco to keep from rolling his eyes, but he does it for the sake of not having to answer Henry’s questions. Stupid Potter and his bloody innocent act. “Not at all. I’m not here from any kind of board.”
“I see,” Henry said, not really seeing at all. “Well, is there anything I can help you with, Mister...?”
“Potter,” Potter puts in. “Harry Potter.”
Henry’s eyes light up in recognition. “You’re the journalist come to check out our club! Brilliant! You’re a little early but that’s no problem.”
“Yeah,” Harry says, sounding genuinely remorseful. “Something came up and I couldn’t come at the time that we had previously scheduled -"
Henry waves off the apology. “Oh, it’s no problem, no problem. Come, let me show you around the club, meet some of our other employees and such, and maybe when we get back round to Draco, you’ll be able to encourage him not to torture some of our newer employees.”
Draco gives a thin smile as Henry wraps his arm around Harry’s shoulder. “I’ll just bet.”
...
“What was that all about?” Draco asks later on as Henry walks through the door of his office.
“Jesus!” Henry yelps, clutching his heart. “You scared ten years off of me! Firstly, haven’t I told you about being in my office when you should be serving drinks, and secondly, why the bloody hell are you sitting in the dark?”
Draco reaches over and switches on a desk lamp and points to the headphones curled around his neck. “Music sounds better in the dark,” he explains, shrugging. “What was that journalist thing all about?”
“Harry Potter is a music journalist —“ Henry starts.
“A what?” Draco says, laughing. “He’s a what?”
“A music journalist—honestly, I don’t see what’s so funny, Draco. There are others out there that like music and are just as knowledgeable as you.”
Draco snorts. “That’s highly unlikely, but go on. What’s going on with this—I’m sorry—this music journalist person?” He can barely keep it together. The idea that Harry Potter would know anything about anything other than meddling in other people’s affairs, having people worship him, and being an idiot is beyond him. But for the conversation’s sake, he controls himself.
“Well, the media has taken a bit of notice that our little club, Strangeways, attracts all kinds of up-and coming musical talent, Henry explains. “It’s suddenly registering to different magazines that our bar is sort of like the new CBGB.”
“So what is Potter doing here?”
“Well, he’s writing for NME right now, and he’ll be coming around a bit, sort of scouting out the new sounds, writing a piece on the club, things like that.”
Draco rolls his eyes and leans back in the chair. Fucking great. If there is anything he needs at this point in his life, it's Harry Bloody Potter showing up and mucking things up for him. “Are you sure he’s a music journalist?” Draco asks skeptically. “He looks as though he can barely string two sentences together; let alone write a column about music, of all things. He could be an impostor or something.”
“Impostor? Draco have you been watching those Bourne Identity movies again? Where do you come up with these things?” Henry asks, distressed.
“Just because they happen in film doesn’t mean they don’t happen in reality as well,” Draco explains, nodding sagely. “I think he’s an impostor.” All he needs to do is get Henry on his side, get him suspicious enough to not want Potter in the club anymore and things will be, what’s the word? Copacetic.
“Well, you’ll have time to suss it out with him,” Henry says, reaching for and putting on a jacket. “I’ve told him that you’re our resident music expert, and that if he wanted to know anything about how we book musicians, or where we find them, he’d need to talk to you.” He winks at Draco’s horrified face as he walks out the door and heads home.
...
The next afternoon, Potter shows up at Strangeways while Draco is setting up the stage for the live acts that night. “Bossing people around and delegating without doing any of the heavy lifting seems to be your thing, no matter where you go,” Harry pipes up and Draco just throws him a scathing look and continues showing the technicians where the plugs and adaptors are.
“You embarrass yourself with how easy you are to predict,” Draco throws over his shoulder. “Please, continue reinforcing every stereotype I have of you.”
Draco can practically feel Potter turning red and most definitely hears the sputtering and sighs because it sounds like Potter’s going to work himself into one of his quietly indignant speeches – you don’t know anything about me, I’m no worse than you, blah blah blah – so he decides to head him off at the pass. “Look,” he says wheeling around to face Potter. “Henry’s told me what you do—and yes, I do find it rather astounding, seeing as I wasn’t quite sure you could read, but if you seriously want to learn about the music, how and why we do this, and where it comes from, I’d be more than happy to talk with you.” The whole more than happy part is in no way true, but he has realized that he could gain something from having his name in a music magazine, and he was never kidding about building a club bigger and better than Strangeways. For now, he’s willing to play along.
Potter is immediately and fiercely suspicious of the fact that Draco has agreed so easily. “What’s in it for you?” he asks warily.
“Why, just the pleasure of your rapier-like wit and charming personality, of course,” Draco coos.
They settle down on a circular velvet couch close to the stage, though Draco doesn’t so much settle as he does melt all over the seat, with his arms spread across the back and one leg propped up on the cushion. He’s as slinky and graceful as a cat and looks positively smug as he stretches even further, making sure that Potter barely has the edge of the cushion to sit on. He throws Draco an incredulous look. “What?” Draco inquires innocently. “I’m lanky, I need room to stretch.” Potter briefly looks up at the ceiling and mutters something that Draco is sure is some sort of calming mantra while his fists clench and release.
“Is it really this easy to wind you up, Potty?”
“I have…issues,” Harry says slowly, still looking at the ceiling.
“That is patently obvious,” Draco remarks.
Suddenly, Potter’s eyes are furious and trained on Draco. “So you escaped clean and free, did you? You left the war behind, all your family and friends, and the blood and madness and carnage and came out the other side smelling like roses, didn't you?”
Draco can feel himself turning white. This is why he hated Potter; this is why he shouldn’t have come. Before he can help himself, he feels himself slipping away, back into the Room of Requirement, back into the fire—
He doesn’t realize that’s he’s closed his eyes until he feels a hand on his wrist and they pop open. Potter is still looking at him, but he’s not angry now, only worried, which is worse in Draco’s opinion.
“Malfoy, I didn’t mean –,” he stammers, and suddenly his bumbling, half-hearted apologies are unbearable to Draco.
“Spare me,” he manages to grit out through the lump in his throat. “Spare me your pity, it’s wholly unnecessary.” He must look a sight—suddenly gone pale, his lips pressed into a thin line—he’s been told he looks a bit like a lunatic when he’s angry, but he brushes it off as simple jealousy. Right now, however, he feels like he may look more than slightly mad. He feels that way; he always does when he wakes up from nightmares about Hogwarts or when he allows himself to think too much about the past. Still, Potter’s not looking his best, either. His eyes, which were bright and furious, are now dulled and seemingly resigned, and he looks a lot older than his twenty-five years. Draco takes a brief moment to feel immensely sorry for the both of them before he schools his features into something resembling light disdain.
Potter looks as tired as Draco feels. “Let’s just talk about music, shall we?” he says lightly. “It’s a relatively safe topic and if Henry’s words are anything to go by, you’re the person to talk to concerning music here. How about that—we keep this just business.”
Draco nods briefly. “Fine. Music. Let’s start. What’s your favorite band?”
He is stunned into silence when Potter admits that he’s not sure that he actually has a favorite band. “This is what I mean, Potter,” Draco says to him after watching him grapple with the fact that he can’t name any band in particular that inspires or excites him. “How are you meant to do your job when you can’t even come up with a particular band or music style that you like?”
“I can like more than one,” Potter says somewhat defensively. “I like all kinds of music for different reasons.”
Draco rolls his eyes. “The only people who like every kind of music are the people who don’t like any kind of music.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, and makes absolutely no sense,” Potter argues. “Liking more one kind of music in no way means you don’t like any music. That’s like saying that just because you like more than one flavor of ice cream you can’t ever really like ice cream.”
“I can’t believe you’re comparing music to ice cream,” Draco retorts. “Potter, music is magic. I daresay it’s a bit more important than some dessert. Think about it for a minute. You start out listening to all kinds of music, feeling it out, figuring out what speaks to you. Then you narrow it down, and you search for the best music in the category that speaks the most to you. You can flit through different kinds and have a shallow sort of opinion on them, but there’s always got to be that one genre of music that you always go back to, that you’re always searching for the best in, the one that you study and soak up and becomes a part of you. That’s how you learn music. That’s how you become a legitimate musician. That’s how you become a journalist who actually knows what the fuck he’s talking about.”
Harry nods, considering. “Okay, well then how about you? What’s your favorite band?”
“Wizard or Muggle?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“I don’t have one.”
“What?” Harry explodes, an incredulous laugh bubbling up. “You just fed me a line of shit then? All that pish about knowing and studying your genre and all that—you don’t have a favorite band?”
“You didn’t let me finish,” Draco says patiently. “I don’t have a favorite band; I don’t think of music like that since no one except maybe the Beatles have consistently good music. I have music I can listen to over and over again and not get tired of rather than favorite bands. It’s similar, but more permanent than just naming off a band and calling it a favored one.”
“Okay, then, what are some of the bands whose music you can listen to over and over again?”
Draco cocks his head to one side and pauses to consider. He’s trying not to focus on the fact that Potter is looking at him with that intense look on his face, as if he were studying Draco—not so much like a specimen, but more like a puzzle to be solved. It’s disconcerting and it takes a good deal of Draco’s will power not to think about it. Right, music.
“Well when I first started working here, I didn’t know much of anything about contemporary music,” he admits. “Plus, I had other things on my mind—where I was going to live, how I was going to eat, how I was going to survive without my family —“
“How did you? Survive, I mean,” Potter asks carefully.
Draco is loathe to divulge any information to Potter, but he’s actually not behaving like a brute and isn’t pushing. Still. "I was a rentboy.”
It’s completely worth it to see Potter’s mouth drop open. “Did you? Were you? A rentboy? Really?”
Draco laughs harshly. “Of course not, Potter. Destitute, yes. A whore? No. Thankfully, I found this job first. Henry found me behind the dumpsters one night, and while I still say he took me in because he found me ridiculously good-looking underneath all those tattered rags and wanted me for the sole purpose of becoming his kept man, he will tell you that he took pity on the frail, pointy-looking thing rooting around in his garbage, fed him once and the bastard never left.”
“So no sex for money, then,” Potter concludes, his face all kinds of red.
“No, no sex. Well, not for money, at least,” Draco amends. “We had all kinds of sex later.”
There is an awkward and terrible silence while Potter’s eyes dart to and fro, looking for an exit. Finally, helplessly, he says, “This is not music talk.”
“You’re the one that wanted to talk about how I survived after everything!” Draco shoots back.
“Well, I didn’t think it would have that much to do with sex,” Potter mumbles sarcastically.
“Please. I’m Draco Malfoy—sex is essential to my survival.”
“Can we talk about music now?” Potter asks, his voice exasperated but his eyes twinkling slightly.
“So dramatic. Yes, yes, we’ll talk about music again,” Draco says, waving his hand. “Where was I—oh yes, having sex with Henry…"
The scraping of the chair cuts Draco off. “Sit down, sit down,” he says irritated, watching Potter start to rise from the table. “I’m only having a bit of fun; you’re ridiculously boring is all. Fine, fine. So I started working here, not really talking to anyone, sleeping on Henry’s couch–not with him or anything, that came later—but just sort of sleeping on his couch and then learning more and more about the bar during the nights. Henry has an amazing music collection, big and brilliant, and there are walls and walls of records. During those early days, when I was still scared of my shadow and saw Death Eaters everywhere, I would stay in Henry’s flat and listen to music all day long. He’d come home from work and there I’d be sprawled on the floor with headphones on, listening to records. He must have found it odd, but he never said anything. He had some records I had already heard of—“
“How’s that?” Potter asked. “You already knew about Muggle music?”
“Well, I certainly knew that they had music, Potter. I wasn’t stupid.”
“Well, yes, okay, but really? How am I supposed to think it’s possible that you know anything about Muggles and Muggle culture other than that it’s beneath you and should be stamped out?”
“My parents always taught me that it was essential to know your enemy. Or at least, that’s how I justified it when I would sneak off to Muggle London during summer hols.”
“What? You snuck off to—what?”
“Potter, finish a sentence. Your inane babbling gives me a headache. Yes, occasionally I and some of my fellow Slytherins would sneak off to Muggle London for the day. We told ourselves we were training, studying, learning the enemy, but mostly we just got pissed.”
“And being out there, seeing them, that didn’t deter you at all from what your parents wanted for you?”
“Of course not, Potter.” Draco says haughtily. “I wandered around in their world for a bit, but I was not one of them. I was still too self-absorbed and naïve to really care about what plan my parents had in store for me. I was a teenager, for Merlin’s sake.”
“You never thought about how if Voldemort destroyed everyone, how’d there be no more brilliant Muggle music to sneak around and listen to?”
“I told you, I didn’t care,” Draco replied, an edge creeping into his voice.
“It just blows my mind how absolutely blind you could be —“
“Blind? You’re calling me blind? You’re implying that I was the only one blindly following orders? As I recall you were Dumbledore’s man from the moment you set foot into Hogwarts —“
“Gentlemen,” Henry breaks in calmly, “you’re scaring the rest of the staff again.”
“Apologies, Henry.” Draco turns on his brightest smile and watches Henry smile back and roll his eyes.
Potter just stares at Henry strangely. “We have strong opinions on music.”
“I can tell. Now if you’ll excuse us,” Henry says to Potter, “you two have actually been sitting here talking for quite some time and it’s almost time for us to open up. Draco? Can you start your shift now?”
“No problem,” Draco replies, getting up from the sofa. “It’s a great set tonight, Potter. Stick around.”
“I will, thanks.” Harry replies, scooting over and making himself comfortable on the part of the sofa Draco had taken. Draco smirks and takes his place behind the bar, trainees and senior bartenders alike parting cleanly to make room for him.
The set is brilliant, it’s a band called Foregone Conclusion and they’re playing all of Draco’s favorite songs. Throughout the night, he sees Potter writing furiously, but he also sees him stopping and actually enjoying the music. At the end of the night, the band plus Potter and Draco are relaxing in Henry’s office above the club. “Fuck,” frontman Sally Pandemonium says, her voice scraped and raw as she lines her pool stick up with the eight ball. “That was a pretty intense set. I was fucked up during all of it. Don’t remember anything.”
Harry looks wholly unsurprised. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure the crowd noticed a bit as well,” he remarks wryly. “The stumbling wildly around the stage and screaming, ‘Fuck me if I haven’t forgotten the bloody words’ may have given it away just a little.”
Sally straightens up and glares at Harry from across the room. “Hey, fuck you, Potter.” She gestures to Harry and looks around at her band mates and Draco, all in various states of disarray, slouching on one surface or another. “This,” she says. “This is what happens when you become friends with the fucking press. They think they’re in, and that they can talk shit about what they obviously don’t know anything about.”
Potter just rolls his eyes, partly because Sally’s a crazy, wrecked bitch with a beautiful voice and an enormous attitude, and partly because despite all the snarling and obvious need for an intervention, Sally and her band mates seem to genuinely be friends with Potter, and from what Draco can decipher from the slurred speech, have been since the beginning of his career as a music journalist.
“Sal, what’s to know?” Potter replies. “I simply said you acted kind of like you’d lost your shit out there because you had. I didn’t say you didn’t sound as glorious as you always do, because that’s not true, and I didn’t say the crowd wasn’t eating it up with a spoon."
“Too fucking right they were,” Sally growls, leaning against her pool stick. “Never let it be known that Foregone Conclusion doesn’t always deliver. You’d do well to remember that when you’re writing that little column of yours.”
Harry sends a tight smile her way. “And you’d do well to not talk shit about what you obviously don’t know anything about. Leave the writing up to me. You just keep singing like you do and throwing shit fits on stage.”
Draco is reluctantly impressed with the way Potter handles himself with them. He is sarcastic and clever, funny and honest; he is almost cool. It is almost too much to handle.
Suddenly, one of Sally’s band mates rouses himself from his stupor and points at Draco. “I know you,” he slurs. “I’ve seen you before.”
“I’m sure you have, seeing as you’ve been to this bar before,” Draco remarks dryly.
“Don’t be cute,” the band mate sneers. “I’ve seen you elsewhere. I’ve seen you down at the Serpentine during open mic night playing the guitar. You’re bloody good, you are.”
Shit. “You’re mistaken,” Draco lies smoothly. “I’ve never been to the ... Serpentine, was it? It couldn’t have been me.”
“There aren’t many pointy lookin’ blokes with that kind of hair down this way,” the band member points out. “I know what I saw. I may be stoned, but that was you.”
Time to go. “Well unless I found some way to make another one of me, or was drugged or something, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.” He can feel Potter’s eyes on him, sees the questions already forming. Definitely time to go. “It was nice meeting you all,” he says, nodding briskly, heading for the door and ignoring Potter’s insistent calls for him to ‘wait a minute, damnit’.
He’s made it down the stairs and is mere steps from the exit when Potter Apparates in front of him. “Have you lost what little mind you have?” Draco hisses and half-drags Potter out the door and into the parking lot. “Anybody could have seen you—they’re drunk and stoned up there, but you disappearing and appearing is still something not that easily explained.”
“What Gavin said back there,” Potter starts. “It’s true, isn’t it? He’s seen you play at the Serpentine. The man may be high as a kite, but one of the little ironies in this world is that he’s got a memory like a steel trap. So you play? How did you learn? Did Henry teach you?”
“Potter, it’s late and I’m tired. I don’t know about you, but I don’t intend to spend the rest of the night in this bloody parking lot playing Auror Interrogation,” Draco snaps. “Also, it is absolutely none of your business.”
“But why would you lie about it?” Potter asks, clearly unaware that Draco is about three seconds from punching him and then just walking away. “From the way Gavin was talking, you’re actually pretty good. I would think you’d relish the chance to be adored again.”
“The fan club thing was really more your thing than mine,” Draco sneers. “Now move before I make you move.”
From the light post shining down on the lot, Draco can see the stubborn set of Potter’s jaw, his feet are planted and he’s got a determined look in his eyes. “For fuck’s sake, I’m never bloody going home, am I?” he asks.
They stare at each other for a moment, neither willing to give. Finally, Draco sighs and looks out into the darkness. “If I tell you something, will it get you the hell out of here?”
“It’s a start,” Harry answers back, but not sharply. He looks as though he can see how tired Draco is and is starting to feel a little guilty.
Draco doesn’t know what he’s thinking, and he knows later he’ll blame it on the tiredness and the noise in the club and whatever else he can think of.
“Not here. We’ll go back to my flat.”
Now Potter looks nervous. “Yeah, sure,” he says nodding, but not looking wholly convinced.
“For fuck’s sake, I’m not going to do anything to you, Potter. Merlin, I wish I had the energy. Look, this is the one time I’m offering amnesty outside of Strangeways because after this article is over, you will go back to doing whatever it was you were doing and never darken my doorstep again. Take it or leave it.”
“What about Henry?” Potter asks, “It actually is rather late, and I don’t want to bother him...“
“What about him? Oh, you think —“ Well of course he does, the way you were talking about him — “No, Henry and I don’t live together anymore—we don’t have sex either, we’re just good friends now.”
For some reason, this perks Potter up considerably. “Oh, well okay then. Can you Side-Along?”
“Course,” Draco grumbles, and in an instant, they are in his flat.
It’s medium-sized and comfortably furnished, with a mixture of magic and Muggle pictures on the walls. Draco is too tired to feel self-conscious so he just settles down on the couch. “Feel free to make yourself a drink.”
“Already have,” Potter calls from the kitchen, ice tinkling in his glass. Right. Draco heaves himself off the couch with a sigh and walks into the kitchen. “Do you always make yourself at home before someone’s told you that you could?”
“Actually, no," Potter admits. “This is sort of a new experience for me—being here and with you, of all people, so I figured I’d continue being the manner-less boor you think I am, rather than standing around awkwardly”.
“I sort of figured doing things awkwardly would actually be quite normal for you,” Draco retorts, pouring himself a drink. “So. You’ve got me here. Ask your questions while I’ve still got the patience.”
“Why did you lie and say you’d never played at the Serpentine?” Potter asks bluntly.
Draco sighs and takes a long pull from his drink. “What your friend failed to mention is how spectacularly I bollocksed that particular performance up.”
“How so?”
“Yes, I know how to play the guitar, rather well, and that’s not me bragging. My mother and father expected me to know how to play a musical instrument and I was instructed in the piano for years. My tutor, however, was a bit more free-thinking than my parents would have liked and secretly taught me the guitar as well. Well, up until they fired him for supposedly being a blood traitor, but that’s old news. He taught me some, and when I would make those trips to London I learned more where and when I could. I had been with Henry for about seven months when I decided to borrow his and play it again. He had never heard me play, but he encouraged me, because Henry is the encouraging type. Quite ridiculous, really. Anyway, I went to an open mic night at The Serpentine because everyone I knew would be at Strangeways that night. I got on the stage and started to play a song called ‘Sweet Nothing Serenade’ by Ben Harper and everything was fine until —“
“Until what?” Harry asks softly, his voice coming from somewhere close to Draco’s ear.
“Until…the flames came,” Draco finishes quietly. “All of a sudden I’m not on stage, I’m back in that damned room with you and Crabbe and the fire everywhere. I can’t think, I can’t blink, I can’t move, and when I finally come back to myself, the entire room has gone quiet and I’m mortified. Every time I go to play something, my hands lock up and I can’t do a goddamned thing. I suppose it’s why I’m so prickly about my music,” he says bitterly. “A famous Muggle writer once said that the most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and watch someone do it incorrectly without comment. I think he and I would have gotten along famously, wizard or no.”
“How do you know about Muggle writers?” Potter asks.
“Henry thought I would like him—his name was ... T.H. White, I believe? Strangely enough, he had some pretty fascinating ideas about Merlin and future kings and all that. I didn’t mind reading him.”
Potter nods, thoughtfully. He seems to be mulling something over, but then just shakes his head, as if clearing it, and looks at Draco again.
"So you’re just around all this music all the time, knowing you can play, but unable to,” Potter says softly. “Wow. That’s just. It just seems miserable, is all.”
“Not necessarily,” Draco replies, looking down into his drink. “I mean when the music’s good, it’s just like being on stage with the band—it comes rather close to being perfect.” When Potter doesn’t say anything, Draco looks up and finds that he and Potter are standing a lot closer than he thought. Draco’s back is against the counter and Potter is standing in front of him, with that same appraising look on his face. His eyes are searching and intelligent, and for a fraction of a second, Draco appreciates how it must feel to have Harry Potter’s full attention. He wonders if this is the kind of notice Potter’s legion of adoring fans must scrabble for, and he’s a bit proud that he gained it fairly effortlessly. He does not, however, say any of this, as that would be ridiculous.
“What?” Draco snaps, though it doesn’t come out as fiercely as he intended. “Why do you keep staring at me like that?"
Potter runs his hands through his hair self-consciously, making an even bigger mess of it. “I don’t. You’re nothing like I thought you would be. When, when I went home after first seeing you, I saw you yelling and being an arse and was convinced that you hadn’t changed—now, I see that it’s not the case at all, and that you’ve managed to do something I’ve been trying to do for years and, and it’s utterly fascinating. You’re utterly fascinating. How? How did you manage to actually move on past all the horror? I’ve run away and I still can’t escape it,” he chuckles bitterly. “My. Issues.”
“Potter, what makes you think I’ve escaped?” Draco asks softly. Somehow, in his kitchen, the two of them have created a sort of barrier to the outside world. It feels as though he can say anything—it feels comfortable and Draco is loathe to ruin it. “I can’t even do what I’ve grown to love anymore because my past haunts me so.”
“But you’ve adapted—you’ve changed,” Potter says carefully. “You’re this person who is exactly the same and yet completely different. You’re snarky and sarcastic, but you’re smart and a little funny and –I don’t know. It’s like you became who you would have been if your family had been normal and not under the control of a lunatic. How did you come out of the other side, and just sort of, recreate your life?”
“One of the most important mottos of Slytherin House is Adapt or Die. That’s the way it has been with us for years, and while I’d like to believe that I am uncompromising and would not yield to something I didn’t necessarily believe in, I also had Professor Snape as a teacher and friend, and I learned more from him than anyone in my family or circle of friends. If you don’t change to suit your surroundings, you die. You become obsolete. You fade away. I chose not to do that.”
Draco has no idea where the kiss comes from. If hard pressed, he couldn’t even explain who made the first move. All he remembers is the gap between the two of them closing suddenly and the press of lips against his. Potter is gentle, but insistent in his kisses and Draco can feel the barely contained power there. He presses soft, dizzying kisses against Draco’s lips; they part and he sweeps Draco’s mouth with his tongue. Draco shudders and lets out a soft noise that should be embarrassing, but actually only succeeds in making the two of them more aroused. He feels Potter’s hands on his hips, warmth bleeding through his thin t-shirt. Draco bites at his lips and Potter shakes and presses Draco full-bodied into the counter. They explore each other’s mouths fiercely, only breaking apart for much needed air and even then, pressing soft kisses at the corners of kiss-swollen lips. Draco’s breath is coming in hitches and he cannot form a single coherent thought to save his life. The tiny voice that had screamed just what in the hell he thought he was doing had long ago been silenced by Harry’s deepening kisses, and in the end there is nothing to think about, really, all focus diverts to gasps and stuttering breaths and exploring fingertips and a warm sense of right and yes and home.
Later, much later, Draco wakes up naked in the darkness of his bedroom, the sheets in a twisted pile next to him, covering Harry. ‘He would be a duvet hog,' Draco thinks, and then stops. There’s no need for that, not now, it feels too much like lying to himself. He sits up quietly, throwing his legs over the side of the bed and walks to the window seat. The lights from neon signs and passing cars make the shadows move across the walls and everything is still. It is like a half-death, this time of the morning. Draco feels neither awake nor asleep. He can however feel the soft aches his body registers when he moves. Aches made by the desperate grasping of flesh, half moon bite marks on a pale shoulder, fitting together like stacked spoons. He can’t explain what has happened, and he doesn’t know what will happen next. In the cathedral silence, Draco sighs. He’s adapting again, he reckons. He wonders why it doesn’t seem as hard as it did before.
Harry shifts in the bed, and Draco sees him reach out into the empty space beside him and let out a soft moan that sounds sad, empty, and a little lost. Before Draco can climb back into bed, Harry is awake and sitting up, eyes sleepy but focused. “Are you okay?”
“Of course,” Draco replies. He means it. He’s okay. “How are you?”
“I’m good,” Harry replies. His eyes quickly scan over Draco’s naked form in the window and his tongue darts out to wet his lips. Draco is hit with a hard punch of arousal that settles somewhere in his lower stomach.
“You. You know how to set up a scene, don’t you?” Harry’s voice is suddenly breathless and Draco feels the flush crawling up his cheeks but he doesn’t know what he’s done.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re sitting there, in the window seat, backlit and, and glowing,” Harry replies, his voice low and hungry. “You’ve inadvertently managed to make yourself absolutely fucking beautiful by just sitting in a window.”
“It’s a gift and a curse,” Draco throws out carelessly and secretly thrills to Harry’s delighted laughter. He watches as Harry’s eyes scan the room, and then settle on the acoustic guitar on a stand in the corner.
“Hey,” Harry says softly. “Play something for me.”
“I thought we’ve been over this. I can’t.”
“Will you let me try something?” Harry asks carefully, shifting and rising from the bed.
“I thought I had,” Draco remarks, pointing toward the crumpled sheets. “I thought I let you try several somethings.”
“Pillock,” Harry mutters good-naturedly. “Let me try something.” Draco sighs his assent and watches as Harry pulls the guitar off the stand and walks over to the window seat. “Grab the guitar.”
Draco reaches up and pulls the guitar from Harry’s hands, his fingers already tingling slightly. As Draco settles the guitar in his hands he feels warm flesh against his back and arms wrap around him softly. He lets out an involuntary noise and before he knows it, he’s settled into the comfortable curve of Harry’s body. “Remember how you told me that you would play and then the panic would set in?” Harry whispers, his warm breath tickling Draco’s ears. “Don’t think about the flames, and the smoke. Do you remember how firm the grip was I had on you? How tight you held me? Think about how I wouldn’t let go, how I didn’t let go.” Draco shifts a little and Harry’s arms hold him tighter. “Remember that. You’re here, I’m here, and I won’t let you go.”
Draco feels his eyes close and he relaxes. His fingers know the strings as intimately as he knows his own body. Finally he let’s go, and lets the music wash over him.
“The morning sunrise spread her wings, while the moon hung in the sky. Held the sea in your hands, and happy ever after in your eyes.”
His voice is strong and melodic, his hands firm and sure on the strings. The music comes from everywhere inside him. He’s missed this.
“Wouldn’t leave you to go to heaven, I carry you in my smile. For the first time my true reflection I see, and happy ever after in your eyes.”
When he finishes the song, he opens his eyes and feels Harry trembling softly around him. He turns to look at him, ask if he’s okay but Harry buries his face deeper into his neck and hair and lets out a shaky sigh.
“Who knew?” he whispers. “Who knew you’d be so perfect?”
“I did.” Draco states lightly. He’s a little shaky himself—he hasn’t played in so long and it feels amazing. Like it's been stored up inside him and he can only now let it go. “I told you I was.” He feels Harry’s pleased rumble of laughter and is suddenly sad when Harry’s arms unwrap and he walks back to the bed.
“Come here,” he calls softly to Draco. “Come back to bed.”
“Will I actually get sheets if I do?” Draco asks, laying the guitar down softly, his feet already making the steps back over to Harry.
Harry nods. “You do. And me, too.”
“The sheets will be enough, thanks,” Draco replies and laughs when Harry lunges and pulls him back down into bed and into his arms.
...
The following weeks are the strangest, most wonderful weeks Draco has had since he left the wizarding world. Harry finishes his article after a manner of days, but keeps coming back to Strangeways. “Why are you here again?” Draco teases. “Certainly not because of me, because that would just be really fucking creepy.”
“Shut it, you tit,” Harry shoots back. “I’m here because you have music here and it’s my job to listen to music.”
“That was quite possibly the flimsiest excuse I have ever heard. ‘You have music here and it’s my job to listen to music’? Are you retarded?”
“Quite possibly, as I slept with you,” Harry replies, sotto voce.
“No, that makes you smarter than you look, actually.”
“Or maybe it just means you were easy.”
“Touché.”
And on and on it goes until Harry becomes a regular presence. It doesn’t shake up Draco's world like he thought it would, and it’s actually nice to be able to have someone to talk about home with. Of course, never in his wildest dreams did he imagine it would be with Harry Potter, but he takes what he can get.
“Why was this so easy for us?” Harry asks one night sitting at the bar waiting for Draco to close up.
“Why was what so easy for us?” Draco says.
“This,” Harry says gesturing between the two of them. “Us. Occasionally getting along, occasionally having sex. We are the two most unlikely candidates to have any sort of relationship—and yet here we are, with me thinking you’re actually not as repugnant as you appear to be at times.”
“Fucking thanks, friend,” Draco says, smirking. “It’s quite sad since I actually can’t stand you and you can’t seem to take a hint.”
“Do you do what you did last night to everyone you hate?” Harry asks.
“You wouldn’t be the first,” Draco retorts. He likes the give and take of their banter, the bite and sting of it. It keeps things lively, but when he looks over at Harry he sees that he is genuinely curious to know what Draco thinks about the two of them.
“You’re…okay, like this,” he says to the ceiling. “You’re not walking around thinking you’re better than everyone, and in small doses and simple conversations you are actually tolerable.” He gets a punch in the shoulder for that one, but he just smiles and continues, not looking at Harry. “I never thought that we’d ever, really, talk or anything, and I certainly never dreamed up this scenario, even in my most hideous nightmares, but here we are—and you…you’re okay. You get the music, even if you are woefully uneducated, and I don’t mind it.” He turns his head and looks at Harry, grey eyes bright even in the dim light of the club. “Don’t expect me to declare my love for you or anything,” he drawls, “but you’re actually alright. I miss home sometimes, and you’re not necessarily the horrifying reminder I thought you would be. I can’t explain it; don’t ask me to.”
Harry is staring at Draco in that way he’s been doing of late that makes Draco feel a little proud and inexplicably shy, like Harry thinks the greatest wonders and mysteries of the world are wrapped up in Draco and it’s his goal to unwrap and discover every single one. Draco thinks he just might let him.
Title: Strangeways, Here We Come
Rating: PG-13, for language and brief sort of sexy time
“Oi,” a disembodied voice calls from somewhere above Draco. “Get up, you lazy sod.” Draco feels the toe of a shoe nudging his ribs. “Seriously, mate get your skinny arse off my floor.”
Draco’s eyes pop open as the foot digs more insistently into his side. “Get up,” the gruff voice repeats. “I don’t recall this being what I pay you for.”
Draco shoves the shoe away irritated, and props himself up on his elbows, yanking the headphones on his ears impatiently to his neck. “Actually,” he replies, cocking his head to one side and looking up at his boss, “It sort of is. See, if I didn’t listen to all this music, which you have no ear for whatsoever, you would continue booking shit acts and no one would come to this godforsaken dive. You need me to be your judgment. You have prescription sunglasses for God’s sake; you certainly can’t make important decisions on your own.”
“For the last time: I took. Them. Back,” Henry grits out.
“Yes, but you bought them. Therein lies the problem.”
“Yes, clearly it is all you, Draco,” Henry replies dryly, rolling his eyes and offering a hand up. “Surely, we would have been sunk if not for your superior bartending skills and keen ear for music. Not to mention your uncanny knowledge of fashion faux-pas.”
Draco flashes a blinding smile at his boss and grabs the hand. “I appreciate the fact that you recognize my many accomplishments here, Henry. You are an exemplary boss, and when I leave this pile of rubbish to create my own bigger and better club, you will be remembered fondly. Like an old relative slowly succumbing to dementia, but who was always considered the life of the party during family gatherings.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that.” Henry sits down behind his desk and gestures for Draco to take a seat as he puts on what Draco likes to think of as his ‘But Seriously’ face. “In all seriousness though, I can’t have you coming in my office whenever you feel like it to have a lie down and listen to records,” he states gruffly. “You actually do have a job here, and it reflects poorly on me if it seems like I’m showing favoritism.”
“But you are showing favoritism,” Draco says drolly, studying his fingernails absentmindedly. “I am the best worker you have, and am treated so. I don’t see anything wrong with it.”
“Well, of course you don’t, you ponce,” Henry crowed, a wide grin on his face. “I swear, for someone who says they can’t remember much of their past, sometimes you act like you knowexactly who you are, and it was someone who was disgustingly rich and entitled.”
Draco’s head jerks slightly but there is an easy grin on his face, which doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Well,” he says loftily, “perhaps being better than everyone is something that’s just in you—a divine right or something. I don’t need memories to let me know that I am of higher status than most. I could live in a gutter and still be above most of those cretins you employ.”
Henry laughs outright, his brown eyes twinkling in that familiar and comforting way that never fails to warm Draco’s heart. When they dated briefly, someone had had the unmitigated gall to call Henry plain-looking right in front of Draco, and before Henry knew it, Draco had the man on the floor with his hand around his throat. “If you even so much as breathe in his general direction again,” he had hissed into the man’s ear, “I will rend you limb from limb. This is a promise.” Henry had thought it was a bit overkill and told Draco so later on that night in his apartment, but Draco wasn’t having any of it.
“You don’t understand,” Draco had told him, frustrated. “You are mine, and you belong to me. No one has the right to say anything like that to you, ever.” Henry, slightly dazed and a more than a little aroused at the outburst, had told Draco that he couldn’t stop people from saying shitty things to him, that it was inevitable and that people had rights to their opinions.
“Bollocks,” Draco had snarled and proceeded to drag him bodily into the bedroom and show Henry just what he thought of other people’s opinions.
“You’re a real piece of work,” Henry says, still laughing and jolting Draco back into the present.
“This is true,” Draco replies calmly, rising from his seat. No use dwelling on the past. “Now, if there’s nothing else, I actually have a job to get back to. We really have to stop having these meetings—it shows blatant favoritism between your employees, and people could get the wrong—“ The sound of a shoe hitting the door cuts off the last of Draco’s words as he heads downstairs to start his shift, laughing, and then laughing more at the fact that there was a time when he thought he’d never laugh again.
Draco is teaching trembling bartender trainee number twelve—Trevor, or Taylor or something—how to make a Harvey Wallbanger when Harry Potter walks into Strangeways. Had it been normal operating hours, Draco wouldn’t have even noticed him, as the bar is packed wall-to-wall most nights, but it’s still early, and there are only a few stragglers there.
Their eyes lock and almost instantly Draco forgets where he is and why he’s there, or who he happens to be terrorizing at the time. Suddenly, there are flames licking at his skin, his voice is cracked and hoarse from the smoke and squeezing and breathing and death—Tim the bartender trainee drops a glass of ice from his shaking hand and the world rights itself again. Draco is not at Hogwarts; he is behind the bar again, and he is putting the fear of God into this young man.
“It’s a bloody Harvey Wallbanger,” he snaps at Tom, proud of his steady voice. “It’s actually quite simple. You’ve got your Vodka,” he pulls the bottle of vodka from the shelf and slams it on the table. “Your orange juice and your Galliano. Use the measurements I gave you and mix them accordingly. You will keep doing it until you don’t suck.”
Ted just nods and gets to work, lining the ingredients up and focusing on the measurements with an intensity more often found in a wild animal stalking its prey. Unfortunately, the broken glass has somehow galvanized Potter into action and now he is heading toward the bar, and once again, Draco finds himself cursing the floor plan of the club, calling for a central bar, with no dark corners to skulk away to, or any quick exits. For a minute, he actually contemplates just full out running across the club to the kitchen, pride be damned, but before he can even will his feet to move, Potter is bearing down on him, staring at Draco as if he’s accidentally uncovered one of those crazy creatures Loony Lovegood was always going on about.
Might as well start as we mean to go on. “Potter,” Draco says softly, holding himself very still. “I don’t even have words.”
Potter runs his hands through his hair absently and looks just as put out as Draco feels. “Yeah, yeah, me neither.”
They stare at each other quietly long enough for Ted to stop what he’s doing and look at the two of them curiously. Draco feels the weight of the stare and whips his eyes back to Ted’s. “Have you suddenly learned how to make a decent drink? No? Then stop bloody gawking and get back to work.”
Harry gives out sort of an exasperated chuckle. “Nice to know some things never change.”
Draco stares at the man that was once the bane of his existence. The glasses are still there, but the frames are more stylish, thicker in a hipster sort of way, and though he is loathe to admit it, Draco thinks they look good on him. He’s not as stringy as he once was; he’s filled out a bit, and he looks healthy and tan. His clothes actually fit him for once; he’s not drowning in horrible denims and tatty shirts anymore. The clothes he is wearing look comfortable and expensive without being ostentatious. Draco is faintly impressed.
Harry hasn’t said anything else, but he is staring at Draco with the same assessing eyes. Draco wonders what he’s seeing. Medium length pale hair in his face, slim build, simple cotton white t-shirt and low slung denims finished with canvas shoes—it’s the farthest thing from what either of them would have been expecting to see on Draco, and he’s sure to have questions, questions Draco doesn’t have the time or inclination to answer.
“So why are you here, Potter?” Draco asks, ending a silence that seemed to last forever.
“So why are you here, Malfoy?” Potter shoots back.
Draco lifts his hands and scans his surroundings. “I should think it would be obvious, Potty. I’m tending the bar.”
Potter bats the response away like an irritating fly. “You know what I mean. How—why are you here? How did you get here?”
“I’m sorry — are you an Auror?” Draco asks, his eyes slits. “There must be some reason you think you can ask me things about myself and I’ll just tell you.”
“No, I’m not an Auror,” Harry replies. “I am just genuinely curious as to how Draco Malfoy ended up in Muggle London, tending bar.”
“I would say I’m curious as to why you are here as well,” Draco drawled. “But that would be an enormous lie. It doesn’t surprise me at all that you’re out here in the Muggle world, slumming it or whatever you turning up here is.”
“Me slumming?” Harry half-laughs, incredulous. “If anyone would be ‘slumming’ it, it would be you, Draco Malfoy of the pure-blood Malfoys, haters of all things Muggle and anything different from himself –"
“Draco, who is this mystery guest you’ve allowed into the bar at this ungodly afternoonish hour?” Henry asks, walking down the stairs from his office and heading toward the bar. “Are you from the licensing board?” he asks warily, “Because we’ve renewed all the paper work and were told everything was in working order.”
“Oh no, no problem,” Harry says, ducking his head bashfully. It takes everything for Draco to keep from rolling his eyes, but he does it for the sake of not having to answer Henry’s questions. Stupid Potter and his bloody innocent act. “Not at all. I’m not here from any kind of board.”
“I see,” Henry said, not really seeing at all. “Well, is there anything I can help you with, Mister...?”
“Potter,” Potter puts in. “Harry Potter.”
Henry’s eyes light up in recognition. “You’re the journalist come to check out our club! Brilliant! You’re a little early but that’s no problem.”
“Yeah,” Harry says, sounding genuinely remorseful. “Something came up and I couldn’t come at the time that we had previously scheduled -"
Henry waves off the apology. “Oh, it’s no problem, no problem. Come, let me show you around the club, meet some of our other employees and such, and maybe when we get back round to Draco, you’ll be able to encourage him not to torture some of our newer employees.”
Draco gives a thin smile as Henry wraps his arm around Harry’s shoulder. “I’ll just bet.”
...
“What was that all about?” Draco asks later on as Henry walks through the door of his office.
“Jesus!” Henry yelps, clutching his heart. “You scared ten years off of me! Firstly, haven’t I told you about being in my office when you should be serving drinks, and secondly, why the bloody hell are you sitting in the dark?”
Draco reaches over and switches on a desk lamp and points to the headphones curled around his neck. “Music sounds better in the dark,” he explains, shrugging. “What was that journalist thing all about?”
“Harry Potter is a music journalist —“ Henry starts.
“A what?” Draco says, laughing. “He’s a what?”
“A music journalist—honestly, I don’t see what’s so funny, Draco. There are others out there that like music and are just as knowledgeable as you.”
Draco snorts. “That’s highly unlikely, but go on. What’s going on with this—I’m sorry—this music journalist person?” He can barely keep it together. The idea that Harry Potter would know anything about anything other than meddling in other people’s affairs, having people worship him, and being an idiot is beyond him. But for the conversation’s sake, he controls himself.
“Well, the media has taken a bit of notice that our little club, Strangeways, attracts all kinds of up-and coming musical talent, Henry explains. “It’s suddenly registering to different magazines that our bar is sort of like the new CBGB.”
“So what is Potter doing here?”
“Well, he’s writing for NME right now, and he’ll be coming around a bit, sort of scouting out the new sounds, writing a piece on the club, things like that.”
Draco rolls his eyes and leans back in the chair. Fucking great. If there is anything he needs at this point in his life, it's Harry Bloody Potter showing up and mucking things up for him. “Are you sure he’s a music journalist?” Draco asks skeptically. “He looks as though he can barely string two sentences together; let alone write a column about music, of all things. He could be an impostor or something.”
“Impostor? Draco have you been watching those Bourne Identity movies again? Where do you come up with these things?” Henry asks, distressed.
“Just because they happen in film doesn’t mean they don’t happen in reality as well,” Draco explains, nodding sagely. “I think he’s an impostor.” All he needs to do is get Henry on his side, get him suspicious enough to not want Potter in the club anymore and things will be, what’s the word? Copacetic.
“Well, you’ll have time to suss it out with him,” Henry says, reaching for and putting on a jacket. “I’ve told him that you’re our resident music expert, and that if he wanted to know anything about how we book musicians, or where we find them, he’d need to talk to you.” He winks at Draco’s horrified face as he walks out the door and heads home.
...
The next afternoon, Potter shows up at Strangeways while Draco is setting up the stage for the live acts that night. “Bossing people around and delegating without doing any of the heavy lifting seems to be your thing, no matter where you go,” Harry pipes up and Draco just throws him a scathing look and continues showing the technicians where the plugs and adaptors are.
“You embarrass yourself with how easy you are to predict,” Draco throws over his shoulder. “Please, continue reinforcing every stereotype I have of you.”
Draco can practically feel Potter turning red and most definitely hears the sputtering and sighs because it sounds like Potter’s going to work himself into one of his quietly indignant speeches – you don’t know anything about me, I’m no worse than you, blah blah blah – so he decides to head him off at the pass. “Look,” he says wheeling around to face Potter. “Henry’s told me what you do—and yes, I do find it rather astounding, seeing as I wasn’t quite sure you could read, but if you seriously want to learn about the music, how and why we do this, and where it comes from, I’d be more than happy to talk with you.” The whole more than happy part is in no way true, but he has realized that he could gain something from having his name in a music magazine, and he was never kidding about building a club bigger and better than Strangeways. For now, he’s willing to play along.
Potter is immediately and fiercely suspicious of the fact that Draco has agreed so easily. “What’s in it for you?” he asks warily.
“Why, just the pleasure of your rapier-like wit and charming personality, of course,” Draco coos.
They settle down on a circular velvet couch close to the stage, though Draco doesn’t so much settle as he does melt all over the seat, with his arms spread across the back and one leg propped up on the cushion. He’s as slinky and graceful as a cat and looks positively smug as he stretches even further, making sure that Potter barely has the edge of the cushion to sit on. He throws Draco an incredulous look. “What?” Draco inquires innocently. “I’m lanky, I need room to stretch.” Potter briefly looks up at the ceiling and mutters something that Draco is sure is some sort of calming mantra while his fists clench and release.
“Is it really this easy to wind you up, Potty?”
“I have…issues,” Harry says slowly, still looking at the ceiling.
“That is patently obvious,” Draco remarks.
Suddenly, Potter’s eyes are furious and trained on Draco. “So you escaped clean and free, did you? You left the war behind, all your family and friends, and the blood and madness and carnage and came out the other side smelling like roses, didn't you?”
Draco can feel himself turning white. This is why he hated Potter; this is why he shouldn’t have come. Before he can help himself, he feels himself slipping away, back into the Room of Requirement, back into the fire—
He doesn’t realize that’s he’s closed his eyes until he feels a hand on his wrist and they pop open. Potter is still looking at him, but he’s not angry now, only worried, which is worse in Draco’s opinion.
“Malfoy, I didn’t mean –,” he stammers, and suddenly his bumbling, half-hearted apologies are unbearable to Draco.
“Spare me,” he manages to grit out through the lump in his throat. “Spare me your pity, it’s wholly unnecessary.” He must look a sight—suddenly gone pale, his lips pressed into a thin line—he’s been told he looks a bit like a lunatic when he’s angry, but he brushes it off as simple jealousy. Right now, however, he feels like he may look more than slightly mad. He feels that way; he always does when he wakes up from nightmares about Hogwarts or when he allows himself to think too much about the past. Still, Potter’s not looking his best, either. His eyes, which were bright and furious, are now dulled and seemingly resigned, and he looks a lot older than his twenty-five years. Draco takes a brief moment to feel immensely sorry for the both of them before he schools his features into something resembling light disdain.
Potter looks as tired as Draco feels. “Let’s just talk about music, shall we?” he says lightly. “It’s a relatively safe topic and if Henry’s words are anything to go by, you’re the person to talk to concerning music here. How about that—we keep this just business.”
Draco nods briefly. “Fine. Music. Let’s start. What’s your favorite band?”
He is stunned into silence when Potter admits that he’s not sure that he actually has a favorite band. “This is what I mean, Potter,” Draco says to him after watching him grapple with the fact that he can’t name any band in particular that inspires or excites him. “How are you meant to do your job when you can’t even come up with a particular band or music style that you like?”
“I can like more than one,” Potter says somewhat defensively. “I like all kinds of music for different reasons.”
Draco rolls his eyes. “The only people who like every kind of music are the people who don’t like any kind of music.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, and makes absolutely no sense,” Potter argues. “Liking more one kind of music in no way means you don’t like any music. That’s like saying that just because you like more than one flavor of ice cream you can’t ever really like ice cream.”
“I can’t believe you’re comparing music to ice cream,” Draco retorts. “Potter, music is magic. I daresay it’s a bit more important than some dessert. Think about it for a minute. You start out listening to all kinds of music, feeling it out, figuring out what speaks to you. Then you narrow it down, and you search for the best music in the category that speaks the most to you. You can flit through different kinds and have a shallow sort of opinion on them, but there’s always got to be that one genre of music that you always go back to, that you’re always searching for the best in, the one that you study and soak up and becomes a part of you. That’s how you learn music. That’s how you become a legitimate musician. That’s how you become a journalist who actually knows what the fuck he’s talking about.”
Harry nods, considering. “Okay, well then how about you? What’s your favorite band?”
“Wizard or Muggle?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“I don’t have one.”
“What?” Harry explodes, an incredulous laugh bubbling up. “You just fed me a line of shit then? All that pish about knowing and studying your genre and all that—you don’t have a favorite band?”
“You didn’t let me finish,” Draco says patiently. “I don’t have a favorite band; I don’t think of music like that since no one except maybe the Beatles have consistently good music. I have music I can listen to over and over again and not get tired of rather than favorite bands. It’s similar, but more permanent than just naming off a band and calling it a favored one.”
“Okay, then, what are some of the bands whose music you can listen to over and over again?”
Draco cocks his head to one side and pauses to consider. He’s trying not to focus on the fact that Potter is looking at him with that intense look on his face, as if he were studying Draco—not so much like a specimen, but more like a puzzle to be solved. It’s disconcerting and it takes a good deal of Draco’s will power not to think about it. Right, music.
“Well when I first started working here, I didn’t know much of anything about contemporary music,” he admits. “Plus, I had other things on my mind—where I was going to live, how I was going to eat, how I was going to survive without my family —“
“How did you? Survive, I mean,” Potter asks carefully.
Draco is loathe to divulge any information to Potter, but he’s actually not behaving like a brute and isn’t pushing. Still. "I was a rentboy.”
It’s completely worth it to see Potter’s mouth drop open. “Did you? Were you? A rentboy? Really?”
Draco laughs harshly. “Of course not, Potter. Destitute, yes. A whore? No. Thankfully, I found this job first. Henry found me behind the dumpsters one night, and while I still say he took me in because he found me ridiculously good-looking underneath all those tattered rags and wanted me for the sole purpose of becoming his kept man, he will tell you that he took pity on the frail, pointy-looking thing rooting around in his garbage, fed him once and the bastard never left.”
“So no sex for money, then,” Potter concludes, his face all kinds of red.
“No, no sex. Well, not for money, at least,” Draco amends. “We had all kinds of sex later.”
There is an awkward and terrible silence while Potter’s eyes dart to and fro, looking for an exit. Finally, helplessly, he says, “This is not music talk.”
“You’re the one that wanted to talk about how I survived after everything!” Draco shoots back.
“Well, I didn’t think it would have that much to do with sex,” Potter mumbles sarcastically.
“Please. I’m Draco Malfoy—sex is essential to my survival.”
“Can we talk about music now?” Potter asks, his voice exasperated but his eyes twinkling slightly.
“So dramatic. Yes, yes, we’ll talk about music again,” Draco says, waving his hand. “Where was I—oh yes, having sex with Henry…"
The scraping of the chair cuts Draco off. “Sit down, sit down,” he says irritated, watching Potter start to rise from the table. “I’m only having a bit of fun; you’re ridiculously boring is all. Fine, fine. So I started working here, not really talking to anyone, sleeping on Henry’s couch–not with him or anything, that came later—but just sort of sleeping on his couch and then learning more and more about the bar during the nights. Henry has an amazing music collection, big and brilliant, and there are walls and walls of records. During those early days, when I was still scared of my shadow and saw Death Eaters everywhere, I would stay in Henry’s flat and listen to music all day long. He’d come home from work and there I’d be sprawled on the floor with headphones on, listening to records. He must have found it odd, but he never said anything. He had some records I had already heard of—“
“How’s that?” Potter asked. “You already knew about Muggle music?”
“Well, I certainly knew that they had music, Potter. I wasn’t stupid.”
“Well, yes, okay, but really? How am I supposed to think it’s possible that you know anything about Muggles and Muggle culture other than that it’s beneath you and should be stamped out?”
“My parents always taught me that it was essential to know your enemy. Or at least, that’s how I justified it when I would sneak off to Muggle London during summer hols.”
“What? You snuck off to—what?”
“Potter, finish a sentence. Your inane babbling gives me a headache. Yes, occasionally I and some of my fellow Slytherins would sneak off to Muggle London for the day. We told ourselves we were training, studying, learning the enemy, but mostly we just got pissed.”
“And being out there, seeing them, that didn’t deter you at all from what your parents wanted for you?”
“Of course not, Potter.” Draco says haughtily. “I wandered around in their world for a bit, but I was not one of them. I was still too self-absorbed and naïve to really care about what plan my parents had in store for me. I was a teenager, for Merlin’s sake.”
“You never thought about how if Voldemort destroyed everyone, how’d there be no more brilliant Muggle music to sneak around and listen to?”
“I told you, I didn’t care,” Draco replied, an edge creeping into his voice.
“It just blows my mind how absolutely blind you could be —“
“Blind? You’re calling me blind? You’re implying that I was the only one blindly following orders? As I recall you were Dumbledore’s man from the moment you set foot into Hogwarts —“
“Gentlemen,” Henry breaks in calmly, “you’re scaring the rest of the staff again.”
“Apologies, Henry.” Draco turns on his brightest smile and watches Henry smile back and roll his eyes.
Potter just stares at Henry strangely. “We have strong opinions on music.”
“I can tell. Now if you’ll excuse us,” Henry says to Potter, “you two have actually been sitting here talking for quite some time and it’s almost time for us to open up. Draco? Can you start your shift now?”
“No problem,” Draco replies, getting up from the sofa. “It’s a great set tonight, Potter. Stick around.”
“I will, thanks.” Harry replies, scooting over and making himself comfortable on the part of the sofa Draco had taken. Draco smirks and takes his place behind the bar, trainees and senior bartenders alike parting cleanly to make room for him.
The set is brilliant, it’s a band called Foregone Conclusion and they’re playing all of Draco’s favorite songs. Throughout the night, he sees Potter writing furiously, but he also sees him stopping and actually enjoying the music. At the end of the night, the band plus Potter and Draco are relaxing in Henry’s office above the club. “Fuck,” frontman Sally Pandemonium says, her voice scraped and raw as she lines her pool stick up with the eight ball. “That was a pretty intense set. I was fucked up during all of it. Don’t remember anything.”
Harry looks wholly unsurprised. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure the crowd noticed a bit as well,” he remarks wryly. “The stumbling wildly around the stage and screaming, ‘Fuck me if I haven’t forgotten the bloody words’ may have given it away just a little.”
Sally straightens up and glares at Harry from across the room. “Hey, fuck you, Potter.” She gestures to Harry and looks around at her band mates and Draco, all in various states of disarray, slouching on one surface or another. “This,” she says. “This is what happens when you become friends with the fucking press. They think they’re in, and that they can talk shit about what they obviously don’t know anything about.”
Potter just rolls his eyes, partly because Sally’s a crazy, wrecked bitch with a beautiful voice and an enormous attitude, and partly because despite all the snarling and obvious need for an intervention, Sally and her band mates seem to genuinely be friends with Potter, and from what Draco can decipher from the slurred speech, have been since the beginning of his career as a music journalist.
“Sal, what’s to know?” Potter replies. “I simply said you acted kind of like you’d lost your shit out there because you had. I didn’t say you didn’t sound as glorious as you always do, because that’s not true, and I didn’t say the crowd wasn’t eating it up with a spoon."
“Too fucking right they were,” Sally growls, leaning against her pool stick. “Never let it be known that Foregone Conclusion doesn’t always deliver. You’d do well to remember that when you’re writing that little column of yours.”
Harry sends a tight smile her way. “And you’d do well to not talk shit about what you obviously don’t know anything about. Leave the writing up to me. You just keep singing like you do and throwing shit fits on stage.”
Draco is reluctantly impressed with the way Potter handles himself with them. He is sarcastic and clever, funny and honest; he is almost cool. It is almost too much to handle.
Suddenly, one of Sally’s band mates rouses himself from his stupor and points at Draco. “I know you,” he slurs. “I’ve seen you before.”
“I’m sure you have, seeing as you’ve been to this bar before,” Draco remarks dryly.
“Don’t be cute,” the band mate sneers. “I’ve seen you elsewhere. I’ve seen you down at the Serpentine during open mic night playing the guitar. You’re bloody good, you are.”
Shit. “You’re mistaken,” Draco lies smoothly. “I’ve never been to the ... Serpentine, was it? It couldn’t have been me.”
“There aren’t many pointy lookin’ blokes with that kind of hair down this way,” the band member points out. “I know what I saw. I may be stoned, but that was you.”
Time to go. “Well unless I found some way to make another one of me, or was drugged or something, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.” He can feel Potter’s eyes on him, sees the questions already forming. Definitely time to go. “It was nice meeting you all,” he says, nodding briskly, heading for the door and ignoring Potter’s insistent calls for him to ‘wait a minute, damnit’.
He’s made it down the stairs and is mere steps from the exit when Potter Apparates in front of him. “Have you lost what little mind you have?” Draco hisses and half-drags Potter out the door and into the parking lot. “Anybody could have seen you—they’re drunk and stoned up there, but you disappearing and appearing is still something not that easily explained.”
“What Gavin said back there,” Potter starts. “It’s true, isn’t it? He’s seen you play at the Serpentine. The man may be high as a kite, but one of the little ironies in this world is that he’s got a memory like a steel trap. So you play? How did you learn? Did Henry teach you?”
“Potter, it’s late and I’m tired. I don’t know about you, but I don’t intend to spend the rest of the night in this bloody parking lot playing Auror Interrogation,” Draco snaps. “Also, it is absolutely none of your business.”
“But why would you lie about it?” Potter asks, clearly unaware that Draco is about three seconds from punching him and then just walking away. “From the way Gavin was talking, you’re actually pretty good. I would think you’d relish the chance to be adored again.”
“The fan club thing was really more your thing than mine,” Draco sneers. “Now move before I make you move.”
From the light post shining down on the lot, Draco can see the stubborn set of Potter’s jaw, his feet are planted and he’s got a determined look in his eyes. “For fuck’s sake, I’m never bloody going home, am I?” he asks.
They stare at each other for a moment, neither willing to give. Finally, Draco sighs and looks out into the darkness. “If I tell you something, will it get you the hell out of here?”
“It’s a start,” Harry answers back, but not sharply. He looks as though he can see how tired Draco is and is starting to feel a little guilty.
Draco doesn’t know what he’s thinking, and he knows later he’ll blame it on the tiredness and the noise in the club and whatever else he can think of.
“Not here. We’ll go back to my flat.”
Now Potter looks nervous. “Yeah, sure,” he says nodding, but not looking wholly convinced.
“For fuck’s sake, I’m not going to do anything to you, Potter. Merlin, I wish I had the energy. Look, this is the one time I’m offering amnesty outside of Strangeways because after this article is over, you will go back to doing whatever it was you were doing and never darken my doorstep again. Take it or leave it.”
“What about Henry?” Potter asks, “It actually is rather late, and I don’t want to bother him...“
“What about him? Oh, you think —“ Well of course he does, the way you were talking about him — “No, Henry and I don’t live together anymore—we don’t have sex either, we’re just good friends now.”
For some reason, this perks Potter up considerably. “Oh, well okay then. Can you Side-Along?”
“Course,” Draco grumbles, and in an instant, they are in his flat.
It’s medium-sized and comfortably furnished, with a mixture of magic and Muggle pictures on the walls. Draco is too tired to feel self-conscious so he just settles down on the couch. “Feel free to make yourself a drink.”
“Already have,” Potter calls from the kitchen, ice tinkling in his glass. Right. Draco heaves himself off the couch with a sigh and walks into the kitchen. “Do you always make yourself at home before someone’s told you that you could?”
“Actually, no," Potter admits. “This is sort of a new experience for me—being here and with you, of all people, so I figured I’d continue being the manner-less boor you think I am, rather than standing around awkwardly”.
“I sort of figured doing things awkwardly would actually be quite normal for you,” Draco retorts, pouring himself a drink. “So. You’ve got me here. Ask your questions while I’ve still got the patience.”
“Why did you lie and say you’d never played at the Serpentine?” Potter asks bluntly.
Draco sighs and takes a long pull from his drink. “What your friend failed to mention is how spectacularly I bollocksed that particular performance up.”
“How so?”
“Yes, I know how to play the guitar, rather well, and that’s not me bragging. My mother and father expected me to know how to play a musical instrument and I was instructed in the piano for years. My tutor, however, was a bit more free-thinking than my parents would have liked and secretly taught me the guitar as well. Well, up until they fired him for supposedly being a blood traitor, but that’s old news. He taught me some, and when I would make those trips to London I learned more where and when I could. I had been with Henry for about seven months when I decided to borrow his and play it again. He had never heard me play, but he encouraged me, because Henry is the encouraging type. Quite ridiculous, really. Anyway, I went to an open mic night at The Serpentine because everyone I knew would be at Strangeways that night. I got on the stage and started to play a song called ‘Sweet Nothing Serenade’ by Ben Harper and everything was fine until —“
“Until what?” Harry asks softly, his voice coming from somewhere close to Draco’s ear.
“Until…the flames came,” Draco finishes quietly. “All of a sudden I’m not on stage, I’m back in that damned room with you and Crabbe and the fire everywhere. I can’t think, I can’t blink, I can’t move, and when I finally come back to myself, the entire room has gone quiet and I’m mortified. Every time I go to play something, my hands lock up and I can’t do a goddamned thing. I suppose it’s why I’m so prickly about my music,” he says bitterly. “A famous Muggle writer once said that the most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and watch someone do it incorrectly without comment. I think he and I would have gotten along famously, wizard or no.”
“How do you know about Muggle writers?” Potter asks.
“Henry thought I would like him—his name was ... T.H. White, I believe? Strangely enough, he had some pretty fascinating ideas about Merlin and future kings and all that. I didn’t mind reading him.”
Potter nods, thoughtfully. He seems to be mulling something over, but then just shakes his head, as if clearing it, and looks at Draco again.
"So you’re just around all this music all the time, knowing you can play, but unable to,” Potter says softly. “Wow. That’s just. It just seems miserable, is all.”
“Not necessarily,” Draco replies, looking down into his drink. “I mean when the music’s good, it’s just like being on stage with the band—it comes rather close to being perfect.” When Potter doesn’t say anything, Draco looks up and finds that he and Potter are standing a lot closer than he thought. Draco’s back is against the counter and Potter is standing in front of him, with that same appraising look on his face. His eyes are searching and intelligent, and for a fraction of a second, Draco appreciates how it must feel to have Harry Potter’s full attention. He wonders if this is the kind of notice Potter’s legion of adoring fans must scrabble for, and he’s a bit proud that he gained it fairly effortlessly. He does not, however, say any of this, as that would be ridiculous.
“What?” Draco snaps, though it doesn’t come out as fiercely as he intended. “Why do you keep staring at me like that?"
Potter runs his hands through his hair self-consciously, making an even bigger mess of it. “I don’t. You’re nothing like I thought you would be. When, when I went home after first seeing you, I saw you yelling and being an arse and was convinced that you hadn’t changed—now, I see that it’s not the case at all, and that you’ve managed to do something I’ve been trying to do for years and, and it’s utterly fascinating. You’re utterly fascinating. How? How did you manage to actually move on past all the horror? I’ve run away and I still can’t escape it,” he chuckles bitterly. “My. Issues.”
“Potter, what makes you think I’ve escaped?” Draco asks softly. Somehow, in his kitchen, the two of them have created a sort of barrier to the outside world. It feels as though he can say anything—it feels comfortable and Draco is loathe to ruin it. “I can’t even do what I’ve grown to love anymore because my past haunts me so.”
“But you’ve adapted—you’ve changed,” Potter says carefully. “You’re this person who is exactly the same and yet completely different. You’re snarky and sarcastic, but you’re smart and a little funny and –I don’t know. It’s like you became who you would have been if your family had been normal and not under the control of a lunatic. How did you come out of the other side, and just sort of, recreate your life?”
“One of the most important mottos of Slytherin House is Adapt or Die. That’s the way it has been with us for years, and while I’d like to believe that I am uncompromising and would not yield to something I didn’t necessarily believe in, I also had Professor Snape as a teacher and friend, and I learned more from him than anyone in my family or circle of friends. If you don’t change to suit your surroundings, you die. You become obsolete. You fade away. I chose not to do that.”
Draco has no idea where the kiss comes from. If hard pressed, he couldn’t even explain who made the first move. All he remembers is the gap between the two of them closing suddenly and the press of lips against his. Potter is gentle, but insistent in his kisses and Draco can feel the barely contained power there. He presses soft, dizzying kisses against Draco’s lips; they part and he sweeps Draco’s mouth with his tongue. Draco shudders and lets out a soft noise that should be embarrassing, but actually only succeeds in making the two of them more aroused. He feels Potter’s hands on his hips, warmth bleeding through his thin t-shirt. Draco bites at his lips and Potter shakes and presses Draco full-bodied into the counter. They explore each other’s mouths fiercely, only breaking apart for much needed air and even then, pressing soft kisses at the corners of kiss-swollen lips. Draco’s breath is coming in hitches and he cannot form a single coherent thought to save his life. The tiny voice that had screamed just what in the hell he thought he was doing had long ago been silenced by Harry’s deepening kisses, and in the end there is nothing to think about, really, all focus diverts to gasps and stuttering breaths and exploring fingertips and a warm sense of right and yes and home.
Later, much later, Draco wakes up naked in the darkness of his bedroom, the sheets in a twisted pile next to him, covering Harry. ‘He would be a duvet hog,' Draco thinks, and then stops. There’s no need for that, not now, it feels too much like lying to himself. He sits up quietly, throwing his legs over the side of the bed and walks to the window seat. The lights from neon signs and passing cars make the shadows move across the walls and everything is still. It is like a half-death, this time of the morning. Draco feels neither awake nor asleep. He can however feel the soft aches his body registers when he moves. Aches made by the desperate grasping of flesh, half moon bite marks on a pale shoulder, fitting together like stacked spoons. He can’t explain what has happened, and he doesn’t know what will happen next. In the cathedral silence, Draco sighs. He’s adapting again, he reckons. He wonders why it doesn’t seem as hard as it did before.
Harry shifts in the bed, and Draco sees him reach out into the empty space beside him and let out a soft moan that sounds sad, empty, and a little lost. Before Draco can climb back into bed, Harry is awake and sitting up, eyes sleepy but focused. “Are you okay?”
“Of course,” Draco replies. He means it. He’s okay. “How are you?”
“I’m good,” Harry replies. His eyes quickly scan over Draco’s naked form in the window and his tongue darts out to wet his lips. Draco is hit with a hard punch of arousal that settles somewhere in his lower stomach.
“You. You know how to set up a scene, don’t you?” Harry’s voice is suddenly breathless and Draco feels the flush crawling up his cheeks but he doesn’t know what he’s done.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re sitting there, in the window seat, backlit and, and glowing,” Harry replies, his voice low and hungry. “You’ve inadvertently managed to make yourself absolutely fucking beautiful by just sitting in a window.”
“It’s a gift and a curse,” Draco throws out carelessly and secretly thrills to Harry’s delighted laughter. He watches as Harry’s eyes scan the room, and then settle on the acoustic guitar on a stand in the corner.
“Hey,” Harry says softly. “Play something for me.”
“I thought we’ve been over this. I can’t.”
“Will you let me try something?” Harry asks carefully, shifting and rising from the bed.
“I thought I had,” Draco remarks, pointing toward the crumpled sheets. “I thought I let you try several somethings.”
“Pillock,” Harry mutters good-naturedly. “Let me try something.” Draco sighs his assent and watches as Harry pulls the guitar off the stand and walks over to the window seat. “Grab the guitar.”
Draco reaches up and pulls the guitar from Harry’s hands, his fingers already tingling slightly. As Draco settles the guitar in his hands he feels warm flesh against his back and arms wrap around him softly. He lets out an involuntary noise and before he knows it, he’s settled into the comfortable curve of Harry’s body. “Remember how you told me that you would play and then the panic would set in?” Harry whispers, his warm breath tickling Draco’s ears. “Don’t think about the flames, and the smoke. Do you remember how firm the grip was I had on you? How tight you held me? Think about how I wouldn’t let go, how I didn’t let go.” Draco shifts a little and Harry’s arms hold him tighter. “Remember that. You’re here, I’m here, and I won’t let you go.”
Draco feels his eyes close and he relaxes. His fingers know the strings as intimately as he knows his own body. Finally he let’s go, and lets the music wash over him.
“The morning sunrise spread her wings, while the moon hung in the sky. Held the sea in your hands, and happy ever after in your eyes.”
His voice is strong and melodic, his hands firm and sure on the strings. The music comes from everywhere inside him. He’s missed this.
“Wouldn’t leave you to go to heaven, I carry you in my smile. For the first time my true reflection I see, and happy ever after in your eyes.”
When he finishes the song, he opens his eyes and feels Harry trembling softly around him. He turns to look at him, ask if he’s okay but Harry buries his face deeper into his neck and hair and lets out a shaky sigh.
“Who knew?” he whispers. “Who knew you’d be so perfect?”
“I did.” Draco states lightly. He’s a little shaky himself—he hasn’t played in so long and it feels amazing. Like it's been stored up inside him and he can only now let it go. “I told you I was.” He feels Harry’s pleased rumble of laughter and is suddenly sad when Harry’s arms unwrap and he walks back to the bed.
“Come here,” he calls softly to Draco. “Come back to bed.”
“Will I actually get sheets if I do?” Draco asks, laying the guitar down softly, his feet already making the steps back over to Harry.
Harry nods. “You do. And me, too.”
“The sheets will be enough, thanks,” Draco replies and laughs when Harry lunges and pulls him back down into bed and into his arms.
...
The following weeks are the strangest, most wonderful weeks Draco has had since he left the wizarding world. Harry finishes his article after a manner of days, but keeps coming back to Strangeways. “Why are you here again?” Draco teases. “Certainly not because of me, because that would just be really fucking creepy.”
“Shut it, you tit,” Harry shoots back. “I’m here because you have music here and it’s my job to listen to music.”
“That was quite possibly the flimsiest excuse I have ever heard. ‘You have music here and it’s my job to listen to music’? Are you retarded?”
“Quite possibly, as I slept with you,” Harry replies, sotto voce.
“No, that makes you smarter than you look, actually.”
“Or maybe it just means you were easy.”
“Touché.”
And on and on it goes until Harry becomes a regular presence. It doesn’t shake up Draco's world like he thought it would, and it’s actually nice to be able to have someone to talk about home with. Of course, never in his wildest dreams did he imagine it would be with Harry Potter, but he takes what he can get.
“Why was this so easy for us?” Harry asks one night sitting at the bar waiting for Draco to close up.
“Why was what so easy for us?” Draco says.
“This,” Harry says gesturing between the two of them. “Us. Occasionally getting along, occasionally having sex. We are the two most unlikely candidates to have any sort of relationship—and yet here we are, with me thinking you’re actually not as repugnant as you appear to be at times.”
“Fucking thanks, friend,” Draco says, smirking. “It’s quite sad since I actually can’t stand you and you can’t seem to take a hint.”
“Do you do what you did last night to everyone you hate?” Harry asks.
“You wouldn’t be the first,” Draco retorts. He likes the give and take of their banter, the bite and sting of it. It keeps things lively, but when he looks over at Harry he sees that he is genuinely curious to know what Draco thinks about the two of them.
“You’re…okay, like this,” he says to the ceiling. “You’re not walking around thinking you’re better than everyone, and in small doses and simple conversations you are actually tolerable.” He gets a punch in the shoulder for that one, but he just smiles and continues, not looking at Harry. “I never thought that we’d ever, really, talk or anything, and I certainly never dreamed up this scenario, even in my most hideous nightmares, but here we are—and you…you’re okay. You get the music, even if you are woefully uneducated, and I don’t mind it.” He turns his head and looks at Harry, grey eyes bright even in the dim light of the club. “Don’t expect me to declare my love for you or anything,” he drawls, “but you’re actually alright. I miss home sometimes, and you’re not necessarily the horrifying reminder I thought you would be. I can’t explain it; don’t ask me to.”
Harry is staring at Draco in that way he’s been doing of late that makes Draco feel a little proud and inexplicably shy, like Harry thinks the greatest wonders and mysteries of the world are wrapped up in Draco and it’s his goal to unwrap and discover every single one. Draco thinks he just might let him.
