Jem: Hi everyone! It's dead week here at college. Have had a busy semester. So sorry for the lack of updating in pretty much forever. I do promise I've been working on stuff in the interim… but transcribing from paper takes a really long time when there seems to be no time. Have "Harry, Hero of ?" almost completely done and will get more up as soon as possible. Also working on one with a friend of mine that has yet to come to full fruitation of where we Think it'll go.
Anyway, on to the oneshot. Inspired by "Lucky We Are" by Meiko.
Sarin: WAIT!
Jem: ...oops, almost forgot the disclaimer. As Always, blablabla don't own just playing so no sueing bla.
It's hard to be deep undercover, not as Aurors but as a simple citizen. Disappearing from the eye of the Wizarding World had worked a lot easier than one would expect when your name is Harry Potter. But when all you are expected to do is kill an evil wizard and save the whole world, after you accomplish the task no one apparently wants to look for you. Not the Ministry you had been living under for the last several years, not those who were supposed to be your friends and ran away at the first glimpse of the real Voldemort instead of the abstraction that had they had understood through your stories of the battles, no one… except him.
Somehow, you had picked up your rival from school. Neither of you quite understood why he had turned on the Lord his family so loyally followed or why he had decided to follow you out of the battlefield into a life neither of you understood. You find it doesn't matter. There is a sort of loving-hate between you that feels closer than the relationship of brothers. It's not inclined to make you want to jump into bed and have randy sex necessarily, but if there's nothing better to do...
He still hates you to some degree because of your fame and instant acceptance into his world when you were eleven… but the hurt from when you rejected him, he finally admits, faded not long into the first year but "appearances were everything". To the same degree, you still hate him for how hard he made your life when all you wanted was to fit in and his prejudices against those with little money and "not the right pedigree"… but without him, you wouldn't have been able to stand up to the biggest bully the Wizarding World had known, the self-proclaimed Lord Voldemort. And so it's an easy relationship where you're intimately comfortable with each other in your apathetic contradictions.
He works at the library during the day while you do night security guard duty, leaving just a little time together as well as days off. So what if you both have enough money to rebuild anything that could have possibly been destroyed? It doesn't matter and you're happier not to just sit around resting on the laurels so easily forgotten. No one has come looking; you made sure your name was clear in the phone book. And every time you moved, you updated it. Not even one owl of thanks, which is the most disappointing in some ways but not unexpected by any means. Even one of the remaining Death Eaters trying to come and kill you again would be a relief to know you weren't just abandoned and forgotten once your duty was done.
You're content just sitting next to one another after work. Sometimes reading (you just started the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher while he would rather read a Muggle encyclopedia just to watch your face twist in something between horror and disgust), sometimes watching mindless television (to admit that Project Runway has somehow caught your attention is something to make you cringe but not him while American Idol is completely embarrassing to you both), just getting off your feet is worth it. And despite your mutual "hate," you don't mind being roommates.
One day, you'll move out of the apartment you chose together. It isn't the best, but you have decided to live your lives as they come instead of planning everything out. It's not the best place, but it's home. For now. It'll be his turn to decide when to move again anyway.
And when that morning comes, I'll make coffee and you'll read the paper. We'll talk about our plans and I'll keep saying how lucky we are
"… Potter?"
"Malfoy?"
"Let's move."
"Ok."
"…"
"Roadtrip first this time?"
"Sure, why not…"
"Where to?"
"Wherever… shall we have an adventure and just see where we end up when the car runs out of gas?"
It's been a while since you've decided to indulge in the luxury he was used to and you could never tire of. But only spending a weekend here and there at the nicest place around will sate that hunger and leave you anxious for more… feeling like you do when it's hot and you walk past the ice cream shop. You know you'll need more later, but it will do for a while to indulge.
He didn't complain at the choices you made, even when the first apartment had been about as bad as they could make one for a wizard. The first rule to be made (and therefore, the first to be broken) was that there was to be no magic, but to live the Muggle way. It did work until the first plate that cracked down the middle when full of food, leaving a mess on the floor with broken ceramic sprinkles. And still no one came looking. What would they say if they saw you together in such ease?
Thinking about it, you snicker. Malfoy just looks at you, one eyebrow raised and head cocked like a curious cat. You just give a smile. He continues regarding you until he tires of it, knowing you'll tell him when you feel inclined.
Cause all I know is I got you and you got me
Finally, the day comes when turning on the television to the only wizarding channel reveals that the news has nothing about war. An end to the search for Death Eaters, the celebrations from the reports of the last one captured. You turn to look at the man beside you whose tattoo shines like an oil slick on his snow white arm.
Is he your friend? Something more? Who knows… but you're sitting together on the couch with him in comfortable silence as both your names have been long forgotten.
"Hey Draco?"
"Yeah Harry?"
"I'm gonna make coffee. Want the paper?"
Draco looks at you, curious as to why after living together you suddenly find the need to declare this absurd statement. He reaches out to accept the paper he thinks is the proffered business section that he always peruses first… and then sees it's your section, the comics. He never gets those first, so smiling, he accepts the gesture for what it is.
"How lucky we are," you whisper as you go into the kitchen.
Hope you liked. Please review. :)