Happy Birthday / Merry Christmas, Cassie!
Only five months late and not too early at all. XD!
A Different Kind of DDRDisclaimer: Harry Potter is not mine. Has never been mine. Will never be mine. Woo.
While he was perfectly aware of the politically correct answer, Draco couldn't help but wonder what was truly the crueler fate: a world in which the great and benevolent Lord Voldemort ruled all, or a world in which the world's savior lost almost as much as he'd gained, and not even been allowed to go out in a bang of glory.
"One cannot live while the other is alive," the prophecy had said. Perfectly comprehensible. But it had forgotten that small print that always comes on the coat-tails of such things: "And the one that lives, since he seems incapable of death, cannot go free unscathed, nor can he go, after the aforementioned surviving, more than two-point-two-five hours without a combined shot of vodka and morphine."
The battle with Voldemort had come and gone, and the great and stupendous Harry Potter had emerged not from the ashes, but rather the blaze, victorious, but not free of blemish. He had now been a less-than-proud owner of a quaint little limp and a surly disposition to rival that of a drunken Irishman for a little over a month.
Tales, both true and false, had spread throughout wizardkind, heralding the demise of Lord Voldemort and the subsequent ascension of Harry Potter from mere child legend to outright god. That drunken god had heard all the rumors, read all the letters, and sat all the while in his rickety bed, disfigured leg hanging grotesquely before him.
Only one man knew the true, unaltered tale: former Death Eater Draco Malfoy. He wasn't going to come up with some crude, pseudo-romantic tale, recounting how he'd changed sides early in the fight and been spying all along. Draco wasn't fond of lying. The only truth was that he hadn't been able to kill Harry when he'd been told, and had instead stepped back to allow his leader to breathe his last. He had been unable, unwilling, to help when what was now whispered as the "The Final Duel" had taken place. He'd watched Harry lose his leg, compelled by he knew not what to stand back and be witness, then scoop up the victor after the fight and help him to something vaguely resembling safety.
The stories like to stop there, but they leave out some of the more important, though admittedly less interesting, details. Like the fact that many of Lord Voldemort's followers remained on the loose for a few weeks after his demise, and some very lucky, or just very crafty, ones remained out there still. However, once the Death Eaters were gone, Draco found it terribly likely that they wouldn't be back for a long, long time, if ever. But the stories all said one thing: the Boy Who Lived had fulfilled his prophecy. He had won. It was his victory.
And any time someone tried to explain that philosophy to Harry himself, he promptly advised them on where to stick it. That was why Draco, long-time enemy and short-time splash of reality, remained as Harry's sole caretaker. He didn't try to convince Harry of his brilliance, or flatter him with optimistic words about his leg. It wasn't in his character to do so, and while Harry was indeed glad at the death of his arch-enemy, he was in no mood to be happy-go-lucky, and wanted a chance to mourn his victory as it was meant to be mourned.
Harry needed constant watch, as he couldn't move on his own, and his magic was doing strange, inexplicable things whenever he tried to use it. Draco didn't mind the chore for the most part, seeing as it allowed him plenty of time alone in Harry's company.
Draco was a very practical person in most circumstances: when he had realized that his view on their love-hate relationship had dispelled the latter of the hyphenated emotions -- almost simultaneous with the instant he realized his inability to kill Harry at Voldemort's orders -- he had allowed himself to admit it mentally as well as vocally.
He's gotten the reaction he'd expected at such a revelation: many shocked looks, a few dumbfounded ones, and even a couple amused grins. Yes, the reaction he'd expected, from everyone but Harry himself.
Harry had simply looked at him, green eyes calmly calculating, as Draco met gaze for honest gaze. Then he'd smiled, shrugged, and informed then all that, "I don't mind," and that had been that.
Somehow, his declaration had caused something of a chain reaction, as each of the Order members slowly warmed to his presence. They began to treat him like a human being. They didn't like him, precisely, but he was no longer worried about cyanide in his oatmeal.
When Harry had kicked all his friends out, one by one, for their unwanted flattery and optimism, Draco had taken mental notes and remained cool and apathetic. He no longer actively pissed Harry off -- no more than twice a day, anyway -- but remained a subtle reminder that the world had not, in fact, ended, simply shifted off kilter a bit, and life would carry on.
Eventually, however, even Draco grew tired of Harry's looming Cloud of Doom. It wasn't self-pity, so Draco wasn't forced to lose any of his respect for Harry, but it couldn't go on.
That was when he got his amazingly brilliant tango-flirting-cross idea.
"Harry," Draco announced one morning, coming in to give Harry his usual vodka on the rocks, with a shot of morphine, "I think it's time for you to learn to tango." He'd said it with a perfectly straight face, and an impressively serious posture, sitting straight-backed on the edge of Harry's bed.
Harry had only stared at him incredulously. "Tango?" he'd asked, disbelief clearly apparent in the tone of his voice. "Malfoy, my leg bends in the wrong direction."
Draco shrugged in response. "So we'll amend the steps as we go." He stood. "If you lie here scowling ten minutes longer, the apocalypse may come, and you'll be forced to spend all eternity watching a short, squat man whack off." He braced his thighs on the edge of the bed, making a clear motion to pull Harry to his feet by his arms. "Up you get."
"That was disgusting," Harry informed Draco succinctly, though he allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. As neither of his legs were used to the weight of a person standing on them, and one was barely recognizable as a leg at all, he was forced to lean most of his weight into Draco's forearms and upper body.
"There," Draco said when they'd finally made it into a clear portion of the room without injury. "That wasn't so bad."
Harry glowered. "It took ten minutes to get to the middle of the room. You expect to tango?"
Draco merely smiled at him. "And it took a month to get you out of bed. Since we're making such amazing progress today, I say we go for another leap." He took a firm hold of Harry's elbows and held the other young man about a foot and a half before him. "Now, position your feet about shoulder-width apart and stand tall."
Harry looked at Draco in amused disbelief, but, with much grunting and embarrassing assistance, was able to meet the order. Draco stepped forward, placing his left foot between both of Harry's, and the right slightly outside Harry's left. With a bit of leaning and posturing, he brought Harry's right arm to rest on his waist, and put his own left on Harry's shoulder, bringing their respective left and right arms up into the generic waltz handhold.
"We're going to walk, together, to the far side of the room. Your left. Foot nearest the wall first, crossing the back leg in front when it steps, and repeating that process." He made the first step as Harry, with the makings of a laughing grin on his face, sluggishly did the same. "Now back foot," Draco said, very slowly crossing his left foot in front of his right, gently nudging Harry's injured leg in the right direction. After two more painfully snail-paced steps, their bodies had worked into something resembling a pattern, and they crossed to the opposite end of the room in roughly the same amount of time the first three steps had taken. "Now, reverse," Draco instructed, moving his left leg, but giving no assistance to Harry's injured leg.
Simply reversing the muscle-memorized steps, Harry's leg moved with less difficulty than the former Gryffindor Seeker had been expecting, and they again crossed the room with relative speed. Reversing again, Draco stopped them in the middle of the room.
He grinned. Without speaking, Draco used his legs and hips to position them both, and quirked an eyebrow. "Let go of your back," he said before dipping Harry backwards over his right knee.
Brought back up with disconcerting speed, Harry was left failing to remember to scowl, and a smile broke through his cloudy atmosphere. "I believe you've made me the girl," he said with some amusement, rearranging his grip on Draco's waist. "I feel I should be offended, but I'm rather closer to laughing."
Draco pasted a smug grin across his features and inclined his head in deference. "You could try dipping me, I suppose, but I'm not to blame if we wind up in a pile on the floor."
At Draco's backhanded manner, Harry really did let out a laugh. "You might be right there," he conceded with a grin, splashed with a décor in white. Draco was pleased with the smile, but Harry's muscles were tensing as they stood, and he realized it might be better to call it a day, and led Harry back to the bed.
Over the course of the next two weeks, Draco made a point to pull Harry out of bed at least once a day, and proceeded to teach him the ins and outs of tango. And, just as it is in therapy, their movements became more confident and Harry's stamina worked itself back up. His muscles hadn't been given enough time to completely deflate, and it was very little work to build them to a point reasonably near where they'd been.
At the end of those two weeks, the first clear day in May, almost surprising in Northern England, the other members of their little house left on a picnic, after trying in vain to drag Harry along and inquiring not-at-all after Draco's lifted brow. Draco took the first hour after they'd left clearing off the outdoor patio and digging out and setting up some musical contraption.
Harry was reading some leather-bound copy when Draco trotted down the stairs, but it only took him a moment to look up, green eyes hovering above glasses in silent inquiry. "Yes?" he asked, dog-earing his page and setting the book down on the bedspread. He was down to tonic every three hours, and Draco had only drugged him an hour and a half ago, so the blond boy's sudden appearance could mean any number of things.
Draco strode over to the side of the bed, and, tossing the book calmly onto a nightstand, hoping he didn't knock anything over, pulled Harry to his feet. "It is a marvelous day outside," he said genially, "and you are going to enjoy it."
Harry raised an eyebrow. "In case you haven't noticed, in order to get outside, one must travel to the ground floor. This, unfortunately, is not the ground floor." He gestured to the stairs. "And while you can trot up and down those stairs like a poor dog in heat, I'm not so energetic." Harry shrugged. "And I'm not sure how to bend this damn thing," he bent his mutilated leg a little for emphasis, "in order to climb stairs. How, exactly, are you expecting to get us outside?"
"Well," Draco began, directing Harry calmly to the stairs, "I could always levitate you, but I'm not fond of being green."
Harry chuckled, remembering the only time someone had tried to levitate him since his magic had been on the fritz. "That's unfortunate. You always looked at home in green."
"I'll ignore that," Draco replied, clearing his throat and poking Harry calmly in the ribs. "Regardless, I believe more conventional methods may need to be taken." Without warning, he locked an arm around Harry's shoulders and brought the other around beneath the younger wizard's legs, shocking Harry into throwing his arms around Draco's neck as he was lifted off his feet.
Making a debatably adorable yelp of shock, Harry used his newfound position to twist a finger around some of the hair at the base of Draco's neck, and pull. "I do not need you to carry me!" he protested, wiggling admirably.
Draco smiled rakishly, white teeth dangerously close to Harry's own. "Of course you do. Don't be a twat." He began climbing the stairs, showcasing longevity of strength Harry wouldn't otherwise have given him credit for. Carrying a wiggling young man up stairs is as difficult as one might assume -- perhaps even more so -- and anyone watching would have been duly impressed.
"I am most certainly not a twat," Harry retorted, recovering from his relapse into submission. "And you are most certainly the most infuriating git on the planet. I demand to be put down."
Draco chuckled. "Yes, have fun getting back down the stairs if I do that," he intoned cheerfully. They made it up the final two steps without unfortunate difficulty, and Draco carried Harry across the living room, using a swift kick to throw the patio doors open.
Setting Harry down in a slightly damp but pleasantly cushioned sunbathing chair, Draco meandered over to fiddle with the gramophone. Harry watched in a mixture of annoyance and entertainment as Draco attempted to work the ancient piece of machinery, and gave in to laughter as Draco let out a particularly potent curse. "You have to wind the crank," Harry said helpfully, though the mirth in his voice was almost insulting.
"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Draco replied, voice surly. "I'm aware of that." Within moments the static of oncoming music drifted out of the machine, and Draco walked back to Harry, pulling him to his feet. "I expect you to keep to the beat," he said, moving Harry's hand from his waist to his shoulder, and assuming the true lead position, using his newfound power to pull Harry against him.
Harry chuckled into Draco's hair, voice resounding very near to his ear, as they were close to the same in height. "I'll keep that in mind," he replied.
The music began, crackling in a wonderfully old fashion, and Draco counted to eight with the beat in his mind before starting them out in a dance across the floor.
Perhaps it was the fresh air, or the warm breeze winding its way around their moving forms, but their motions were as clear and consistent as if they'd been dancing for years, and when the music called for the first spin, Draco found himself giving in to a smile, Harry reciprocating with a loud laugh.
They moved quickly and expertly through the three songs that played before sprawling onto the patio floor, breathing heavy but relaxed.
When they'd caught their breath and sat in companionable silence for a few moments, Harry asked, "Where did you find that, anyway?" gesturing to the gramophone and its accompaniment.
Draco chuckled, leaning against Harry's side. "In the attic, behind some old wardrobes and enough cobwebs to make a cream-colored wedding dress. The music was in a box next to it." He allowed his fingers to fiddle with the fringe of Harry's loose-fitting tee, hair blowing comfortably across his face.
Another calming silence drew up around them as the sun began its afternoon descent and the wind blew the remains of fall's leaves across the horizon. After a while, a clock chimed five from inside the house, and Draco began the motions of standing.
"I suppose it's time to begin making dinner." He grinned at Harry. "It is my delegated day, after all."
Harry laughed, using his elbows to push himself slightly away from the wall. It was said that chores were delegated, but Draco was placed on cooking duty at least three times a week. Considering his previous employment of cooks and formal chefs to prepare his meals, none of the household knew why, precisely, he could cook so well, but to be frank, they didn't much care. He was good, and his meals tended to have great taste diversity.
Draco rolled himself to his feet, making as though to reach down and lift Harry up as well before appearing to think better of it. Instead, he simply put out a hand. "Up you get," he chided, waiting for Harry to raise his arm.
He wasn't disappointed. With a determined expression, Harry lifted up his arm, bringing his hand to meet Draco's, and pulled himself to his feet with surprisingly minimal assistance. His smile upon standing was almost better than the dancing.
"Come on," Draco said, letting go of his hand and beginning his walk back to the house. He stopped to turn and watch Harry make his way, slowly but purposefully, to the patio door. When he grabbed Harry's elbow to help him inside, Harry stopped them with in the doorway something reminiscent of a sly smile on his face.
Without warning, Harry locked his own fingers around Draco's forearm and pulled him off-balance enough to kiss him briefly, soundly on the mouth. "I've got it," he said, letting go and making it, on his own, into the house.
"I can see that," Draco replied softly. Turning to watch Harry make his way to the couch, presumably to surprise the soon-returning party, he muttered into the little wind flitting in and out of the open door, "And that was better than the dancing."