After the Word
Sequel to Afternoon in the Afterword
- for Ria, Annie & Reena -
The house seemed dark, except for the outside light that shone a puddle of flaxen that rippled on the sheen of gold-blonde hair and gold-suitcase clasps. The flower petals, crisp and soft, colours of sunshine and wax and velvet jungle green.
The key rattled in the lock, opening the door smoothly.
It was even darker inside as I peered around the rooms, a foreign anxiety rising up in my chest, the bubble of pressure weakening me with its uncalculated force.
The bed sheets were pulled tight, one corner turned down in regulation-hospital-style. I smirk at Harry's little habit that he picked up from Pomfrey before feeling distinctly annoyed. I told him not to wait up. I told him. The flowers were flung down with impatience on the mahogany bedside table, the cellophane holding them together crinkling on my already hardened nerves.
I storm into the library, the image of him curled up on the grey lumpy sofa chair I let him acquire already fixed in my mind. He would be reading, or at least pretending to, or falling asleep, dark bands of hair falling over his eyes in heavy shivers.
The door swung elegantly open without a touch and I stormed in, before stopping short.
Creases broke across my forehead in old habit. Harry wasn't there, curled up, or reading or drinking a glass of my best wine from the cellars, which I would scold him for later -- he never could appreciate good wine -- I blame his uncultured upbringing. No, he wasn't there, pale and vaguely drunk; in fact, he was nowhere to be seen in my large library, the book that he was reading from several nights the only thing out of place, lying spread-eagle on the small reading table, spine cracked. The house elves by now knew Harry's funny little habits, and while they cleaned daily, they left certain things that were his little habits, bending to his world with a natural grace and harmony.
Even though it was my house, they viewed him at their master. It infuriated me no end.
They saw him as their polite Gryffindor master - the one who had no qualms curling up in one of the kitchen stools, drinking bottomless cups of tea and eating cheesecake with relish, gossiping.
He even offered to paythem. Father would be rolling around in his cell deep within Azkaban, waving his snake-capped cane with vengeance.
I set out for the kitchens, my impatient a flash of lightning getting ready to strike, the portraits respectfully quiet as I passed them, nodding curtly to all of them, before a musical voice halted me in my tracks.
"Draco."
Not Harry.
I turned with a vague smile on my lips, surprised.
"Mother."
Narcissa at twenty-two was almost disconcertingly beautiful, a ripple of apricot silk and cultured elegance, straight teeth and not a wrinkle in sight.
Usually, she never spoke, just observed the comings and goings from the silver guild frame in her favourite alcove. Harry had occasionally murmured to me as I was falling asleep that he had spoken to her that day - but I had never questioned it. She rarely spoke to me. But now she was and she deserved my full and undivided attention.
"You may want to check the piano, Draco darling."
I frowned lightly, tilting my head politely, changing my course instantly.
"Thank you, Mother."
The piano stood, a silent, gleaming frame in the middle of a room, the brilliance of the keys shining in the light, and where music should have stood, a white envelope stood.
Harry's familiar scrawl spelling out my name.
A swirling pit of worry settled in my stomach as I sat there on the piano stool and read his goodbye. I sat there long after the candles burned out, confused, heartless, threadbare…
He was gone. Harry had left me.
Now? It was coffee time again.
Draco sat alone raising the tone and ambience of the bright cafe with his crisp suit and well-shone shoes. Just because he was falling apart on the inside, there was absolutely no good reason for him to drop his exterior that he had worked so endlessly on and appear out in public in a less-than-perfect manner. He was still polite to little old ladies; he was still a conscientious driver; he was still charming to the glossy brunette waitress, with a mildly pretty face, who beamed and made him think of…
Harry had been gone six months.
Gone from Draco's house, with all of its antique furniture and elegant old-paintings. Gone with his messy sneakers and sloppy jumpers that seemed to get strewn in every direction. Gone with his favourite blue shirt that would hang from his shoulders like a curtain around their naked bodies as they kissed, achingly, on the hearth-rug. Gone, leaving just a note on the piano and the mug with Harriet emblazoned on it in gold and scarlet. Somehow Harry had never gotten the Christmas-Stocking joke and never used it, pushing it further and further back into the cupboard as if he was trying to deny its very existence. Draco had tried to throw it away, but it, instead, ended up tucking into the shoebox with his love letters in the back of the wardrobe.
There was a bareness that Draco didn't suspect had ever been there. The house ran happier, but he never noticed the unhappiness before, so tied up in meetings and other people's money. The stillness between them, which had developed as their friendship, and later on, relationship, had taken an ugly turn. At Hogwarts it had been a calming gesture between them, Draco's head on Harry's chest as they basked in the spring sun, Harry plucking leaves off flowers and shredding them into soft, brightly coloured confetti that spilled into Draco's fine blonde hair. But in the past year or two, stillness had turned to silence, a nasty forked-tongued creature that wrapped its bones into the stillness and their bed, with its dark-blue spread and white Egyptian sheets.
The bitterness had risen like bile, darkening their tastes with it sour existence, bringing with it thoughtlessness and jealousy. Draco had been so focused on being thoughtful to everyone else that he had forgotten about Harry and all the good he stood for and prided himself of. With Draco's reckless use of his heart, he had wilted and become threadbare, like the tatty cast-offs of his cousins that he had burnt the day after Graduation.
Draco sighed heavily, picking up the coffee cup and downing it to the dregs, swirling the remains around, staring into it as if it held the future and all its queer curiosities.
"You're meant to read tea-leaves, not coffee dregs." The shadows that had fallen over him had a rich voice and tatty sneakers. "Hello, Draco."
It was Harry.
"Can I?" Harry was nervous, as he gripped the back of iron boned chair in front of him, his eyes flickering around the busy record store and thick aroma of coffee and hot chocolate. Draco waved him into it, a nervous apprehension creeping up his spine.
"How are you, Draco?" Harry seemed more at ease in his own skin.
His tone more assured than all the long silences that had filled his day while Draco sat behind a desk telling himself that once this account was secured, once this employee was settled; he would take that long-planned vacations of their optimistic youth. But the days just bled into each other, filled with meeting notes and other peoples' problems.
So he had never shown Harry the beauty of the French countryside vineyards. Never drank chilled wine out of tall glasses on an open rooftop in Greece. Never crossed the warmth of the Mediterranean. Never sat in a gondolier in Italy with a singing heart. Never basked in the warm sunshine beach on the Canary Islands.
"I'm okay," he lied, finally. His cool tones vibrated into his cup like tears that fell into his bath water at home. He swirled the coffee wistfully before plunking down the cup and staring Harry right in the eye. "Where have you been?"
"Been?" Harry raised his eyebrows.
"Where did you go? I called Ron, Ginny, Hermione, Sirius…I called everyone, and no one knew. Hermione--"
"--Is obviously not as smart as she thinks she is."
"Excuse me?" Draco's confusion melted into his sharp features.
"I was with Bill."
"Weasley?"
Harry shot him a look. "Do you know any other Bill's that I should know about?"
Draco leaned back in his chair. "In Egypt?"
Harry nodded, sipping his coffee. "One of his colleagues heard of me being a parselmouth and wanted to train me in the ancient arts. He first invited me out there last year, but I decided not to because you said--"
Harry trailed off and Draco tried to remember what empty promises he had made to Harry last year, his blonde hair falling in his hurting eyes. Silence swept over them again.
Draco, as he watch this somehow familiar stranger sitting across from him, not noting the old habits of shredding napkins or testing the heat of the coffee mug placed in front of him with red lips.
Draco had fallen in love with Harry's lips.
While most had been drawn to the startling jade of his eyes and the forked scar above his eyebrow, it had been Harry's mouth that captivated Draco. It was the way the bottom lip was sucked between his teeth when he was concentrating. It was the way his tongue would smooth over the top lip when he was nervous. It was that small upturn of the corners when a funny thought crossed his mind, or in appreciation for Draco's body as Harry, trembling, peeled off the silk shirts in the safety behind closed bed curtains.
It was the way Harry's mouth looked, kissed and reddened, making Draco so crazy he could barely contain himself.
And now, he was simply staring at that same mouth, feeling more separated than he had felt in years.
The coffee mug across from him was replaced on the saucer with an audible plunk.
"Draco?" Green eyes, green falling-into-the-ground eyes, jungle-leaf eyes, stared at him.
"I miss you." Draco blurted out.
"Do you?" Jade eyes that bored into him, relentlessly. "Are you sure?"
A heavy silence, before a warm, callused hand slipped across the table towards Draco and installed itself in a slender, pale palm-against-palm grasp.
"Please come home," whispered Draco piteously, a lock of his fringe loosing its place and falling over his downcast eyes. "Please Harry."
Green eyes smiled carefully, and the silence stretched out on either side, locked together with held hands and two broken hearts, falling once more.
- finished -