1. red red wine

The walk from the station was fairly short, but not short enough to stop doubt from entering my mind again, trying to get me to change what I was about to do. As the tube station disappears form view, I readjust the bag in my right hand with the bottle of red wine in it. My peace offering. Thoughts niggling away there, I walk past a parade of shops, then an ugly bridge over the busy main road, then more houses, and the street where I'm supposed to go to should be coming up soon, while thoughts of chickening out become annoyingly loud, telling me that I still have time to change my mind, that I could still just do my Saturday shopping in the Tesco's that I'd wandered past, and take the next tube train back to my neck of the woods and resume life the way I'd gotten used to in the last few years. Not to have it disrupted again, with a meeting between myself and the man that had so long been at the heart of so many of my problems, back in the 'old days'. Now that I had my life in some sort of balance, after the years of struggling to make sense of it all. But I had to do this, I had to at least say thanks, for what he'd done, and maybe, maybe move on.

The street I walk in now is pleasant, green from the trees that line it, the houses not very grand, Victorian, in different shades of white plaster and yellow brick, just cosy, for small families or couples who work in the city, and the cars that are parked say the same – either family-sized with all the kid-based paraphernalia cluttering the back seats, or small-ish, neat ones that are probably used to do the shopping with. As opposed to the trucks that I see on a daily basis in the road where my flat is. I have no idea how people manage to drive those things down the busy roads of inner London and not get into massive trouble every time, feel grateful for taxis and the London Underground… The number of the house I need to get to is approaching fast, and with each step my heart seems to pound that bit harder. By the time I reach the blue front door, I feel it's beating so loud that I'm sure the entire world can see it. As I raise my hand to press the doorbell, it's shaking, and I almost decide to do an about-turn, when I press the button involuntarily, as if something beyond my control has taken over. Still a bit freaked I step back, out of the small porch, ready to run, when I see a figure appear in the frosted window of the door, and I freeze. What am I thinking?! Why couldn't I just send him an email, like normal people do?! Why a meeting? What good will this do?! But it's too late to do anything about it, because the door has been opened and a young man with mad black hair has just appeared and looks me up and down, trying to place what he knows me from. Then I see that the penny has dropped.

'Malfoy…' says Harry James Potter, with an audible air of tired astonishment. 'Hi… What do you want…'

The last was said more wearily then annoyed, which gives me hope, if only slightly so. The bottle of vintage wine that I'd been carrying with me feels heavy, and I hold it up to him, hoping to dissuade his mood and cheer him up. It helps: now he looks startled, which is better than the tiredness that oozed from his eyes before.

'Hi Harry,' I make myself say. 'I was hoping to find you in… I, uh. I still never thanked you for rescuing me from the Room of Requirements, now nearly seven years ago, you saved my life, and it's the one thing I haven't been able to deal with, and it's been eating away at me for all that time. And now I feel the time is right to put all that behind us, or have closure or whatever, and I was hoping that I could speak to you…' The words rambled out of my mouth uncontrollably, and I would've been fine with Harry slamming the door on me, being convinced the last seven years had rendered me nuts, but he didn't, he just gave me a friendly, confused smile, stepped aside and told me to come in.

It has taken me a lot of work to get where I am now, since the madness of the last year in Hogwarts, when things went completely crazy, and I felt I'd lost everything I understood, all that I was made to believe in for so many years, and then, as if that wasn't enough, making the break with my parents, who weren't much pleased with the fact that their only son had no intention to find a female partner ('not my area', I told my mother when she was fishing for possible candidates I might be interested in. Her obvious disappointment was nothing compared to my father's, though…) to carry on the family line, and the inheritance I got from an old auntie on my father's side (disputed heavily by him, to no avail) that I'm living on still tides me over, having made it possible to buy a lovely top floor flat near Regent's Park, and plenty of therapy… It wasn't until I discovered my inner strength in an ashram for wizards (my mind was blown away when I discovered this existed!) in India, where I stayed for a few months needing to run away from it all (since chickening out is really my natural way of reacting to difficult situations) that I managed to move on from the indoctrination and conditioning that I had received for so many years, and many things became clear, the main one being that I needed to talk to Harry about our, how do I say this, prolonged dispute…

Harry's house is nice, though very cluttered, but it's oozing a kind of pleasant friendliness, with all the wood and orange walls and many plants and books and photos of strangely familiar faces – I see Granger staring back at me from the wall in the hall, as well as the Weasel, and Luna Lovegood who's dwarfed by Hagrid the enormous groundskeeper as they stand in front of his ramshackle excuse for a house, and some others that I haven't thought about for years. Harry beckons me to follow him to the kitchen, where a pretty chaotic mess stares at me from the table and worktop. And somehow this does not really surprise me. Harry never struck me as tidy… He should see my place…

'Tea?' I hear, and I nod. He flicks on the kettle, and goes to find a few mugs in the sink, gives them a quick wash and sets them upside down on the draining board. 'Sorry about the mess, but I haven't had much time to clear up… Well, I say time, I mean I haven't felt like it, since…' A deep sigh escapes him, and he rakes a hand through his wild hair, nervously, 'Anyway: why didn't you ring first? You're familiar with phones by now, I assume? Ron said that you live up near Lord's – he goes to see the cricket there with his dad, since they discovered it, a few years back… ' I'm shocked at the low tone of his voice, and when I inspect his appearance, I'm struck by how scruffy he looks, well, even more so than how I remember him from Hogwarts. His shirt hasn't seen an iron, his trousers could do with a wash, and he hasn't shaved for a while. Dark stubble marks his jaws, which gives him not so much a smouldering look – he hasn't got the posture to carry that off - as it does the appearance of a gloominess that awakens a kind of concern in me, suddenly. A weird kind of caring instinct…

'Yeah, I do, right near the Park… Nice out there… And yes, I do have a phone, and a pc, and was thinking of sending you an email first, to be on the safe side… But I wanted to see you in person, I suppose… To see how you're doing now, and to tell you how grateful I still feel, without the risk of you turning me away by way of computer…'

Harry smiles at me, then does a silly 'tadaa!' movement, as if to say: well here I am, don't I look splendid… and nods at the bottle of wine that he's found a spot for on the table, next a weeks' worth of newspaper and a breakfast bowl with the remnants of cornflakes inside it. 'Well, thanks for that bottle… must've set you back a few bob… What do you do for a living now?'

I smile back, receive the thanks and raise my shoulders, not really knowing how to answer his question. 'Live of the money from my dad's oldest sister… I do some work for the Ministry, studying potions that have been discovered recently, or haven't been registered by Professor Snape, before he... And I write the odd piece for the Gazette. And attempt to get my book published, but my father is doing his best to thwart my efforts, so that's not working out so well…'

'Ah, the same old Lucius up to his old tricks… Is your mum not able to help you out?'

I love the way Harry assumes that your mother would just be on your side, just because she's your mother… I'd love to help him out of that dream, but I'm trying to keep things light for now, so I smile a wry smile and shake my head. 'Nah… I'm fine without them, really… I do see my mother sometimes, but only for a meal out… And yourself?'

Harry sniffs, then takes a deep breath and puffs his cheeks. 'Umm… part time auror, part time teacher at Hogwarts - I'm still training to teach Charms and Transfiguration, but I've taken some time out... Oh, and part time screw up… I've split up from Ginny last month, she was fed up with my sulks, and I can't blame her… She's very caring and sweet, but even I was getting fed up with my moodies… Poor girl…'

'Ah, also not suffering at all from the aftermath of… you know… the war… God, we should be on some sort of Wizard Rehabilitation Program, us lot…' I say, half joking, half bitterly serious.

In front of me, Harry fumbles with a tea cloth that he would be using to dry out the mugs he'd cleaned earlier on, and I see how far away his thoughts have drifted. He too must be having the odd nightmare about the battle at Hogwarts, he too will probably still be mourning the loss of friends, although they won't be the same friends, but still…

'Harry, just a hunch here, but would you like to have dinner with me tonight? As long as you haven't got anything else to do… I just thought… I know a nice place near where I live, and maybe we could… I don't know, put the past behind us, once and for all… Move on…'

The man in front of me looks up, snapped out of his dreaming, and smiles.

'Well, that sounds nice. Maybe I should… Oh, I don't know if that would be… I.. Oh, well… Okay then…'

I leave his house feeling strangely high, delighted to be seeing Harry later this evening, having told him I would send a cab around for half six.

*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

I don't think I've been as nervous as I was while waiting for Harry to arrive. The taxi was late, as Harry was held back by a visit from Weasley, he said, who was in tears after a domestic with Granger, and by eight o'clock I was convinced that he wasn't coming after all. But he was, and I felt as excited as I expect muggle kids are waiting for Father Christmas each year, when I finally saw his familiar features walk through the door. He scrubbed up very nicely, had put on a fresh pair of jeans and a mauve shirt, and a shaved Harry looked gorgeous…

God!

All of a sudden I realised that I found myself having feelings for the guy I had been loathing for years at school, then admiring for his kind heart, and ending up feeling fairly indifferent towards, but found that indifference fading fast when he opened the door to me this afternoon. For years I had been pestering Pansy with my cod psycho-babble ('if you're that rotten to the guy, you must fancy him to pieces…') and I'm surprised to think that she hadn't thrown my 'knowledge' right back into my face, cos the amount of grief I've given Harry over the years should mean I've been wanting to get inside his pants pretty desperately… Now, I was breathing butterflies out of my stomach… But hey, I am a practitioner of Inner Wisdom, and surely I was above all that silly earthly nonsense?! I had lived in an ashram for months, I knew how to sidestep temptation. Harry was small beer compared to the guys I've managed to pay no attention to in the last two years…

To little avail… The longer the evening went on, the more I wanted to touch him, hold his hand, stroke his face… Me?! Draco Malfoy?! Cold fish, intellectual, deep thinker (yes, I've developed on from the air head idiot I was in my teens… Death and betrayal in the ways I've seen will do a lot to bring out the serious side of a person, even if they are the heir of Slytherin…) But the things he told me, the Harry I was slowly getting to know, was becoming more and more endearing to me, more and more alluring. He was finding himself becoming intrigued by eastern philosophies, he said… He'd travelled to other Wizard communities, which he liked very much, he said… He was single, he said… He liked guys too, he said… More, actually – now why would he say that?

We've left the restaurant by now, are walking towards Regent's Park, as it's still a bit light and we haven't finished talking yet.

'Nice out here,' Harry gleams, while walking into the park. 'I can see why you're spending all that cash on a place here… So pretty here… A nice pond… I like to walk by the river after a hard day, or in the morning, if I have a day off… So lovely there now, that it's been done up. You should come and have a look one day…' he glances sideways as he says it, to catch my reaction, and I smile encouragingly.

'That'd be nice,'

We walk on, looking at how the sun goes down behind the trees, all pink and orange clouds around it, and I feel happy, for the first time in ages. Just happy… We walk back out of the park, wary of attracting the wrong kind of attention, and as we get near my street, I can hear a moped making its way along the street, which is quite narrow, and as I want to look around to see how far away it is, I see it catch Harry and knock him over. The guy riding the moped stops for a second, looks around to check the damage he'd caused, and sprints off again. There was just enough time for me to see which pizza delivery service he works for, but my attention goes to Harry, who's lying knocked out on the floor… And is that blood coming from his head…?

- to be continued -


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