A Fangirl's Perspective
and
Harry and Draco are Stumped
Draco Malfoy, formerly Lord Malfoy Jr, former heir to millions of galleons of property, stocks, and artifacts, was sitting alone at a sun-worn, unvarnished table beside an open window in his pajamas. He tipped back in his chair; years of training still forced his spine into a parallel line but his shoulders were slack and relaxed by contrast. The Daily Prophet was openin one hand and a teacup rested in the cusp of the other. His espresso, oily black like the blood of Satan, rippled with every sigh as the quicksilver eyes scanned the gossip-fest masquerading as 'news.'
Outside of his high-towered abode, the golden sun simmered close enough to touch. It licked the white skin of the graduated Slytherin, making him shift every now and again in discomfort. No matter how many times he was pestered to try to look somewhat healthy in color Draco would always resent the sun for the way it dried out his skin.
As he took a slow sip of his Italian black, the burning sensation of the sun disappeared. Surprised by this, the boy turned his eyes out the window, looking for cloud cover. Instead, his gaze met that of a long-winged Great Grey Owl swooping towards the window, a black image of death in the sky, its piercing yellow eyes alive with electricity.
Draco shot upwards from his seat, carefully cupping his coffee but letting the newspaper slip from his hands, an undignified scream escaping his mouth before he could clap a free hand up to stop it. The owl floated in through the window momentarily, taunting Draco with his serenity. He hooted gently in his direction and picked unhappily at the sugar crystals on the table. Tied to his feet were two envelopes, a thick parchment one bearing his godfather's familiar red wax seal and an unfamiliar letter made of some strange type of paper that fluttered with every slight breeze.
"I hate that stupid owl," Draco grumbled to himself, taking a steadying sip of coffee, already hearing footsteps thundering down the stairs. "Honestly," he murmured to himself, ignoring the unblinking demon eyes of Severus' owl and turning to the doorway, "can't he walk like he's not a Crumple-Horned Snorkack?"
"Draco, Draco!" the anxious voice was spiked with adrenaline. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," he called out, drowning himself in the rest of his morning fix. "Would you calm down? It's just…" he paused, a nagging worry in his head that if he said the owl's name it would know. However, his problem was soon solved on its own at the arrival of his dearest protector—or rather, over reactor.
"Samson! Oh, it's just—oh."
"Shut up Harry," Draco murmured, turning to pour himself some normal coffee.
His roommate stood at the doorframe, one foot out of his slippers and his pajama bottoms hanging haphazardly under one thin hip. His dark grey sweater seemed out of place, ballooning around what Draco knew was an equally bony chest and broad but unpadded shoulders. The tousled, just-woke-up look on his hair and face completed the typical morning-loving Harry Potter the blonde was stuck with on a day-to-day basis.
The pale face grinned at him, some toothpaste still in his gums.
"I hate that bird," the blonde bemoaned, hearing the muffled footsteps pad over to him from the doorway, the old floorboards groaning under his light weight. Then, thin, ropey arms were around his midriff, the smell of soft linen, wind, and the slightest hint of snow coming off his distinctly warm skin. Draco breathed in deeply, closing his eyes and feeling like he'd just swallowed his second shot of firewhiskey, all dopey and hot. Harry always made him feel that way, morning, noon, and night.
Then Samson clicked and squawked indignantly, breaking the moment. The two men sighed in perfect step, turning to the bird. Draco sucked in some black coffee and promptly reached for the sugar cubes. Harry, perky as always, something to do with living for everyone who's died, was approaching the evil owl, cooing at it softly. He reached out, letting the owl press against his palm like a cat. Finally, taking some owl treats from the counter, he gave some to Samson.
"Food is the gateway to the heart," he sang, giving Draco a pointed look.
"Mmph," Draco rolled his eyes, watching the routine with bored indifference.
Samson clicked appreciatively, allowed Harry to untie the letters, and swooped off to the upstairs owlry where Hedwig stayed.
Harry picked up the thick envelope from Severus, tearing it open with interest and reading the long reply to their earlier letter. Draco watched, his gaze immediately drawn to the strange paper that floated gently to the ground once released from its tie.
"Hmm, Snape says your father won't even let him through the floo. He thinks he might start deflecting his mail, which isn't a surprise, he's already deflecting ours," Harry pursed his lips unhappily, collapsing into the chair opposite Draco's. His green eyes, now lens-less due to a hefty investment in a much-needed surgery, scanned the rest of the letter avidly but with a small amount of disappointment. They'd though Severus would've been the best moderator in this feud between father and son, but apparent Lucius just hated Harry that much. Draco, without the continued narration, found his attention slipping to the floor, to the second letter.
Walking over he picked it up, his curiosity spiking as his fingers ran along the extremely thin and soft but strangely artificial feeling paper. It was folded over several times and sealed with something even thinner and rectangular. Bringing it up to his eyes for close inspection, Draco didn't realize Harry had stood to look too.
"Is that muggle paper?" he asked with interest, splaying out one hand for it. Unwilling to give up his prize, Draco tore the sticky thing up and turned slightly away from his boyfriend. As it unfolded, a long message that looked like it had been written in ash came into view. Harry leaned in closer as the blonde cleared his throat to read.
'To Mssrs. Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy,
I don't expect you to know who I am, and, Draco; you probably don't know what this paper is. It's called notebook paper; it's made out of trees and a lot easier for Muggles to make than parchment.
"Who does this kid this he is, calling me by my first name?" the blonde groused, already irritated by the fact that he was being addressed to informally by a Muggle.
"Shh, keep reading," Harry urged, poking his shoulder.
'I've noticed this owl stops to rest on the oak tree in my backyard, he must travel far so I'm probably the halfway point between your house and Severus Snape's. How do I know that? Well, that owl's a bit clumsy; he accidentally ran into the tree once and knocked himself cold—
Draco snickered, feeling much better now that he knew that owl was stupider than it was demonic.
'So I took it into my house and that's when I noticed the letter. Man. I can't believe you guys are real. I mean, I almost had a brain aneurism and I did faint. I bashed my face on the counter top for that one. Don't worry, I didn't open it and read it, but the address had your names on it. Anyway, once I got over it I just promised myself not to tell anyone. It's not like anyone would believe me anyway, right?
"What the hell is this person talking about?" Draco deadpanned, looking up at Harry disbelievingly. "What does he mean; he can't believe we're real."
"I think it's a girl, actually," Harry said, pointing to the signature.
"Shut up, Harry."
'I wanted to write you a note, but I was kind of scared I'd get in trouble for knowing that you were real, because I'm a muggle or whatever. But today, oh my god. Today, at my school, it was a Harry Potter spirit day.
"Harry Potter spirit day?" the two boys cried in sequence.
'I came in a Drarry t-shirt (that's the pairing name of you two online) and I took a lot of heat from students. Muggles really hate homosexuals, and people who stand up for them, you know?
Wizards do too, sometimes, Draco couldn't help but think.
'Well, the fact that I just spent this whole day arguing with even my friends about true love having no boundaries broke the camel's back for me. When I saw this guy in my tree again (I've been feeding him grasshoppers, so he comes to perch on my table for them) I decided to send you a letter.
I don't know if you two are actually together. I figure you are because this owl actually brought me a real live Daily Prophet and there was an article in there about you two supposedly living together. It doesn't take much to see that you two were supposed to be together all along. (DOWN WITH THE WEASELETTE! Sorry. It's been a long day.) But I just wanted to say that if you are together but it's a secret, you should stand up against society. Imagine, two of the most powerful people in the world coming out? It would cause a revolution!
That, and I want to rub it in the faces of all the losers I go to school with.
"This girl is crazy," Harry said, staring that the letter with wide eyes.
"She's a muggle," Draco shrugged.
"I meant," the dark-haired boy sighed, "what she's suggesting."
"Well, can you imagine a wizard coming up with that half-baked idea like that?"
"Keep reading."
"You interrupted."
'I know I'm coming off a bit psychotic and I apologize for that. I really admire you guys and I think you have the best forbidden-love story in the known world, especially now that I know you're real.
I love you!
Fight the power!
-Calli Pionica.'
For a long while, there was but the sound of the sun soaking in the wood and the occasional whisper of the wind on the windowsill. Finally, Draco looked up marginally, meeting his boyfriend's glassy green eyes and saying, "We need to kill this girl."
Harry snorted and took the muggle letter from him, "Please Draco, a muggle who can befriend Samson when you cannot shows something to their character. And it's illegal."
"Please Harry," he replied, sticking his nose in the air, "keep the writer bullshit to yourself. Her character is assumptive, pushy, and—and—muggle-ish."
"All I am saying," the dark haired man enunciated, "is that we should leave her alone. In fact, we should write her a letter! And 'muggle-ish' isn't a word." The two boys glared at each other for a moment before Harry went on, more gently, "I think she makes a good point. We are powerful. We don't have to worry about them."
Dipping down into his seat, the languid Malfoy heir brought one hand to his forehead and simultaneously sucked at his coffee. He didn't want to argue with Harry. He didn't want to write a muggle a letter. And he certainly did not want to get into the conversation he knew they were about to get into.
As he predicted, his darker counterpart took a heavy seat across from him. His elbow thumped onto the table, and Draco could just see him in his mind, head tipped to one side, fingers curing about his temple, his too-pale skin reflecting back at him sympathy and want.
It had always bothered Harry that they couldn't tell his friends they were together, for fear of it coming out. The 'it' was always meant to be hidden, kept safe from the caustic gossip in the Wizarding World. Safe from the forces that might want to try to destroy it. It wasn't because they were gay. It wasn't because they were both heirs to massive fortunes coming from a line of purebloods. It was because he was Harry Bloody Potter, the Savior, the Boy-Who-Lived-Twice, Defender of the Light, The Beacon of Hope. And he was Draco Snotty Malfoy, the Darkness Living, Traitor to His Family, A Scourge on the Pureblood Name, A Wishy-Washy Ferret.
They were water and oil, blood and linen. They were never meant to intermix, they would only stain each other, and they were supposed to hate each other. It was just that the Wizarding World missed the part when they kissed each other under the mistletoe in forth year. And kept kissing. And never tried to stop.
"I told you not to write those books," the pale blonde sighed, tracing his long nails on the wooden table.
Harry's knee started twitching under the table; Draco could feel the whipping cloth against his own pant leg. "They were always a good idea Draco. In fact, you suggested them to me, right?"
He sighed again, "I told you to write them, but I explicitly meant for the Wizarding World, love."
Harry shrugged and the knee went still, causing his lover to look up. The Gryffindor was staring a bit absently over his shoulder. "I just changed so much, it seemed right to publish it somewhere where the facts wouldn't be questioned. Or lack thereof. Muggles have no concept of our world, and any wizard who read it would get a laugh out of it. And…I felt good about it. Some Muggles need stories like that. Like this one."
Draco nodded, shifting in his seat, squashing the tiniest bit of guilt for insulting Harry's writing career. But, he could feel the Great Question hanging over head and it was making him antsy. The question had been gradually suffocating them for years. It was the question that had haunted them since their first kiss. Who should they tell? Who wouldn't run away screaming? Who wouldn't hate them? Who would accept it?
Or, in Harry's case, Who would still love me?
Harry was now imitating his boyfriend and tracing pictures in the grainy wood, "Draco."
Resisting another sigh, the blonde waited for the inevitable.
Emerald green eyes fixed with his. A whirlwind of certainty, determination, and a tinge of fear shown in those eyes Draco treasured. "Draco," he said again, standing this time, sliding closer to the blonde and getting down on his knees. "We need to tell them, Draco," he pleaded, eyes bright, voice soft as a whisper and gentle on his ears. "I can't live like I don't want you to be a part of my life. All of it."
Even as the voice unlocked secret emotions in the blonde's heart, he shook his head, denying the words, needing him not to be asking him this. "We can't, Harry." Draco's voice was strung, bleak of all emotion but a carrying eagerness to make him understand. "We can't. My father, he'll hunt us down. He'll do everything he can to break us." It was a lame excuse, and an untrue one. Harry saw past it.
Standing up to full height, Harry glared down at Draco in an accurate imitation of their favorite potions master. "Who says they'll break anything Draco?" he growled. The blonde flinched minutely, wishing he would stop using his name. Harry knew but did not fully understand the power he wielded when he used his partner's first name.
"We're adults," he continued, less darkly. "We have so much money we have nothing to do with it. We're self-sufficient and nobody can control our lives. Why not? Why can't we just trust in our friends? Why can't we trust us?"
"It's not about us!" The blonde protested, feeling pressured by the direct gaze of Harry. "I know we'll be okay, alright! I lied! It's them. We'll lose them." Draco met the green eyes studiously, feeling this was as honest as he could get without losing control over his tongue. The Gryffindor stilled a look of surprise on his face. The Slytherin collapsed about the shoulders, staring at his lover's feet covered in baby blue slippers from Moscow. "They'll leave us out to dry. They hate me. They'll always hate me."
Quietness overcame them for a moment while Draco sought out the words for his thoughts. Things he had always reflected on were now coming to light. Five or six years late, but carrying more significance now than ever before.
"I'm a stain, Harry, on your life," he intoned, mimicking the words of his father, of the Prophet.
"No you're not."
"Yes I am. That's what they'll think anyway."
"You're the most important thing in my life!"
"But I am nothing to them. I've tried; didn't I try for your stubborn friends?" Draco stood up, violently throwing back the chair. It clattered to the floor, scraping it. He stood to full height, now eye-level with his boyfriend and shouting at him, feeling the words that he had choked back for years rising to his lips, eager to get out and slap Harry in the face and hurt him like they'd hurt him slowly for such a long time. "He's planning something Harry," he imitated in a high, girly voice. "He's never that nice to us, and he wished us a Merry Christmas! Stay away from him. He's trying to get to you.
"I. Am. Your. Bane to your friends. Just like you are the ribbon of my traitorousness to my family and all of my friends. You will lose them just like I lost mine, and even if I am perfectly content with living with you, and being only with you for the rest of my life," he punctuated every word with a sharp poke to his boyfriend's chest. Emotion was making his voice sharper and the alien feeling of a long-abandoned sneer was making Draco feel as ugly as everyone thought his soul was. "You will not." A pin dropped. Then, in a smaller voice, his hand dropping slowly to the side, "I can't let you."
His chest was heaving up and down; the force of his bottled emotions had torn at his throat. Uneasily, Draco massaged it, now determinedly looking away from Harry, anywhere else from Harry, where he wouldn't see those knowing eyes. Those eyes that had plagued him like Dumbledore's eyes, staring down at him, offering him a second chance even while seeing every pathetic mistake that had brought him to the Astronomy Tower and still letting him take another way out.
"Draco."
The simply breathiness of his voice made his throat contract, and suddenly he was flushed with intense embarrassment. Even before the arms were around him, occludingly tight and stuck like glue, Draco knew that Harry was about to correct all of his assumptions. He was about to make everything in the world right. He was about to prove that his friends would love them no matter what, might even be Draco's friends one day. He was about to prove that they really could stick it to the world and nothing worse would come of it. In two little syllables, the world stopped playing in Chinese and everything was perfect English.
That was why his name was his weak spot when it came from Harry. He was the siren calling on his soul. He was his Psyche. His Philemon.
And apparently the only one who could make him feel like an idiot in these instances.
"Fine, Harry. We'll tell them."
He didn't even have to look. The black-haired man's smile simply shone through his skin.
Dear Miss Calli Pionica,
We have written to you (reluctantly in Draco's case) to say that we were extremely confused and slightly disturbed by your letter when we first read it. However, in light of certain events that have progressed from it, I am writing to send you my deepest gratitude for helping us take the next step.
I agree that love can have no boundaries if it is truly love, and most of our world does too. However, because we are who we are, it seemed impossible for awhile for me and Draco to ever be together publically. The books I have written under the guise of a Miss JK Rowling (now deceased, as I found the fame to be too much for me to keep up appearances under Polyjuice) were misconstrued with many lies and twisting of the facts. It was merely to protect my friends and family, but the idea is very true. Voldemort was very real as far as the effect on my life, and in reality my story was not very different from the one I painted in the books. Aside from the lack of Draco in my life, which is something I couldn't even tell my friends in school, much less publish in a muggle book.
In return for the great service you've given to my relationship with Draco (and subsequently our friends and family) I've contacted the Ministry and gotten you the forms to from Madame Dukely, director of Muggle Relations. She can help you with joining the Wizarding World (to an extent), should you want it.
Also, I've enclosed a newspaper clipping you might find exciting, a coin of every value for you to enjoy until it becomes so normal to you (assuming you dive into the magical community that is) that you become bored with them, and my full support and gratitude for your efforts to make all forms of love acceptable to the world.
Thanks so much,
Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy
The muggle girl, a strange looking child with two neon colored bookshelves and a thousand paper cranes tied to her ceiling, fainted with a heavy thump at the sight of the picture in the newspaper clipping (more like the front page) sending the stacks of Muggle Relation papers flying all over her Slytherin-green floor. The newspaper settled quite serenely on her chest, and Samson clicked curiously at her from the window.
SURPRISE ENGAGEMENT ANNOUNCED
Forbidden love or madness?
By Rita Skeeter
That is the question on every witch and wizard's mind today as Harry Potter, defeater of Voldemort, child of the heroes of the first Wizarding War Against Death Eaters, Lily and James Potter, has admitted to being in a long-established relationship with none other than Draco Malfoy. The former heir of the Malfoy title and position had no polite comments for this reporter as she tried to get all the facts for the public, and Mr. Potter had only this to say:
"It's wrong that we should have to hide our relationship from the world. I don't want to hide from anybody. I just want to be happy, and I want him to be happy, and the world isn't ever going to change that no matter what they say about us."
Strong words from Mr. Potter as always but could he be under a spell or a potion? We talk to our experts Potions Master Wilson Collins…
For more on Mr. Potter's past relationships, go to page 3. For more on Malfoy and Potter's relationship in school and the date of the wedding, page 5. For more on the disownment of Draco Malfoy, page 10.
The picture on the front was black and white and moving. It depicted a sloppily happy, too-skinny boy in loose shirt holding on to a wiry blonde who was glaring protectively at the crowd of reporters. Harry waved every now and again, and every thirty seconds he would turn to his boyfriend, cusp his face in his hands, his lips moving to say something secret to Draco. The blonde's face would soften, his glare turning to an open stare of adoration and amusement. Then, with a coy glance at the reporters, Harry kissed him spontaneously in front of the press, a final 'fuck you' to end all arguments.
Notes
I just wanted to write this because my school DID have a HP spirit day this week and I was defending Drarry on my own (I made a t-shirt and everything.) Unfortunately, there is no Samson and no contact with the Wizarding World for me, hence the AU intermingling of this one-shot. I hope you liked! I'm trying to update LHSP, but this was something light and fluffy for me to do first! Review if you loved it, favorite if you liked it, and do both if you can't live without it.
-Callipio