A/N: All rights on the Harry Potter Universe belong to J. K. Rowling!
It's finally Christmas break! YAY! I have to revise for my finals though… But my brain has gone on vacation! This is the absurd and utterly cliché product of my imagination!
It's going to be a daily-updated series of eleven ficlets to count down the days until Christmas!
Read, enjoy, review! Love and snowflakes to you all!
Thursday, December 9th, 2004
Gritting his teeth, Draco exited the bathroom and made his way back to the living-room. Celestina Warbeck's mournful high-pitched vocalizations were becoming louder and louder as he walked down the dim corridor of the vast apartment. When he neared the gaping doorway of the living-room, he stepped within earshot of the hoarse wailing that accompanied the woman's screeching singing. Draco stopped, and careful not to spill the glass of potion he held in one hand, rubbed the bridge of his nose with the other, closing his eyes briefly and exhaling through his mouth to brace himself. When he had gathered enough courage, he plastered a somewhat frozen smile on his face – the kind of smile one would use with a mentally disturbed person – and entered the living-room.
It was plunged in half-light; the curtains of the high windows were drawn, but the little daylight that filtered through the gap between them was enough to make out most of the room. A curious smell of mingled pinewood, alcohol vapors, wood fire and human body in a more than doubtful state of cleanliness floated in the air. Celestina's earsplitting performance was coming in waves out of a gramophone standing in the far corner of the room, next to the floor-to-ceiling Christmas tree, which's silver baubles glinted dully in the light of the fireplace opposite.
The second source of noise was a formless, shivering lump lying on the leather sofa in the middle of the room, and which, on a closer look, was a tall, dark-skinned man curled up in fetal position and wearing nothing but a pair of loose black boxer shorts and a red dressing gown trimmed with white that reminded disturbingly of a Santa's coat. Stepping over the innumerable empty bottles of Butterbeer littering the floor, Draco walked over to the humanoid lump.
"Here, mate! Drink this," he said, setting the glass of potion on the coffee table near the sofa.
Rounding the table, he went to sit in an armchair opposite the half-naked, dark-skinned Santa, and shook his left foot with barely disguised revulsion to get rid of the used paper tissue that was stuck to the sole of his polished shoe.
"Drink," repeated Draco, scowling at the gramophone, which was now loudly lamenting over the fate of 'the hearts filled with the pink poison of love'.
The lump on the sofa shook more than ever, stirred, swung a pair of bare hairy legs over the edge of the couch and sat up, sobbing. Draco politely averted his gaze and leaned forward to take his half-empty glass of Firewhiskey from the coffee table. His fingertips had barely brushed against it that it was snatched out of his reach and downed with a shuddering gulp by the distraught Santa.
"You think you know her… You spend years of your life under the same roof… You are already plan-… thinking about your child-... children's names…" Blaise's cavernous voice trailed off as he broke into another fit of sobs. "And then, she starts buying fucking croissants for breakfast and tells you she needs something different…"
An animalistic howl erupted out of his chest, and the empty glass fell out of his hand and rolled across the carpet. Draco silently stared at his hands in his lap, wondering how many repeats of Celestina's 'Midnight walk on the beach' accompanied by Blaise's echoing crying it would take before he turned his wand on himself.
"I should h-have kn-known!" hiccupped Blaise furiously. "When she st-started buying croissants… She ha-hated glu-gluten! And when she s-said she needed s-something exotic… I am exotic! I am fucking Italian! Th-that's what I told her! I took off my pants and I told that bitch: 'If that's not exotic enough for you, I don't know what you need!'"
His brows rising into his hairline, Draco stared intently at a stain on the shiny surface of the coffee table and hummed distractedly.
"What is this shit?" sputtered Blaise, wincing as he took a sip of the light blue potion Draco had brought him.
"Sobering potion," growled Draco. "Just fucking drink it!"
"Sobering potion?!" bellowed Blaise furiously. "I thought you were my friend! What exactly are you trying to do here? You know what's going to happen if I sober up?"
Draco gave Blaise an unfazed look as he slid from the couch, dropped on his hands and knees and started to crawl through the floor, picking up Butterbeer bottles to check if they were actually empty. He rounded the coffee table and smacked Draco's legs that were in the way. Struggling to keep his calm, the blond man propped up his feet on the edge of the table so Blaise could crawl under his legs.
"Am gonna tell you what's fucking going to happen…" rambled on Blaise, lying on his stomach to retrieve the bottle of Firewhiskey that had rolled under the coffee table. "If I sober up, I'll be able to apparate… And you know where I'm gonna apparate? To fucking France! To get this bitch back! And of course, I'm gonna splinch myself and die, and it's gonna be your fucking fault, you asshole! Blistering dried-up twats!" he yelled suddenly. "There isn't a drop of booze left in this bloody house!"
He stood up and whirled around to face Draco, shaking the empty bottle vehemently at him; his threatening posture was greatly undermined by his drunken swaying.
"A problem, mate?" smiled Draco pleasantly, raising an imperturbable gaze to Blaise. "May I suggest you close that lovely dressing gown of yours? The proximity of your Italian exoticism with my face is making me slightly uncomfortable at the moment…"
Blaise huffed and slouched heavily onto the coffee table, making its wooden surface creak under his weight.
"You are so full of yourself, aren't you?" he groaned, glowering at Draco. "Look at me! I'm Draco Malfoy! My hair is perfect! My ass is perfect! I'm married to Miss Perfect and our life is perfect!" he chanted in a shrill, girlish voice. "What makes you think she is different? Rotten to the core they all are! You're buying her lingerie but you never see the color of it because it's a French prick who is ripping it off her with his croissant-eating mouth while he shows her how he learned to use his baton at Beauxbâtons!"
"Wow, wow, wow!" shouted Draco indignantly. "First of all, my hair and my ass did nothing to you, so please; do not drag them into this mess! Second… Look, it's not because your marriage is a sinking ship that you have to blow holes in mine! There is nothing rotten about Granger!"
"Granger…" scoffed Blaise venomously. "Look at you! You've been married for what – four years? - and you are still calling her Granger!"
Draco shrugged.
"It's a habit."
"Tell me about it…"
"It's a kink, if you prefer…"
"Bollocks! You just can't believe she is yours now! And I'll tell you what… You are fucking right! Because as soon as you start thinking she is yours, she starts bringing croissants for breakfast while trying to convince you that, in France, cheating is part of a healthy relationship! My ship didn't sink, Draco… It sailed… It sailed across the North sea with Daphne clinging onto an onion-perfumed dick and a trunk full of lingerie I gave her!"
Blaise broke off, breathing heavily, and for a moment, he and Draco just stared at each other in complete silence. Then, the record in the gramophone screeched, and Celestina cried ominously 'If I love you, be wary for your heart! It's as fragile as a crystal ball in the claws of a clumsy cat!" Blaise wailed and started rocking back and forth again.
"You are a bad friend… A bad, bad friend!" he sniffed at Draco. "Ogden is my best friend. I need Ogden… I'm going to find Ogden…"
As Blaise dropped back onto the floor, the hem of his red and white dressing gown trailing behind him, Draco buried his face in his hands, and throwing his head back, screamed soundlessly in his palms.
"I knew Ogden would be there for me… Ogden is good…"
Draco peered in the direction of Blaise's voice through his parted fingers; a slanting beam of light was bathing Blaise's butt clad in red while he rummaged under the Christmas tree. Next moment, he emerged from under the tree, making a bauble crash onto the floor, and sat on his bottom, tearing triumphantly the gift paper off what turned out to be an expensive bottle of Ogden's Best Firewhiskey.
"You know…" he said thoughtfully, pausing to uncork the bottle with his teeth, before spitting the cork all the way into the dying fire in the hearth, "She's gonna come back. You just wait… When she's gonna realize what life really is with her Frenchy… breeding frogs in a house made of cheese… She's gonna come back. But I'm not sure I'm gonna wait for her. I think I'm gonna go on a little trip… This fucking country is just like her, you know: cold, gloomy and easily accessed by a Frenchman through a tunnel!"
Note: "cold, gloomy and easily accessed by a Frenchman through a tunnel!" : these words are not from me so I have to reference them! See 'the Big Bang Theory', season 9, episode 8!