Two Weeks to Christmas:
Okay, all right, yes, change is in the air, right along with the unseasonable snow they've been having. Draco's never known this, quite like this! Fireworks, like Guy Fawkes, zooming through his bloodstream? Harry, making eyes at him, undeniably? Flirting?
Harry, his lovely secretary, his secret torment, has been flirting. Dead on, spot on, cannot be denied, flirting. With him, Draco.
And then?
The wanker, the fucking wanker, the snake-eyed, gormless bully, right in the midst of his first Official Visit has to gall to remark, "Excellent." This he drawls, straight to Draco's face, having just been introduced to Harry in passing. "My goodness, that's a pretty little son of a bitch. Did you see those pipes?"
Of course Draco's seen those pipes. Those are, in a way, a very odd way, his pipes. They are Harry's legs, behind a pair of useless trousers (dark blue today, and Harry's rump is just delicious in them) and they are perfect. No one alive other than Draco should be allowed to look at them…that way.
"Yes, he's terrific… at his job."
There! Diverted, and Draco and the rude wanker move on to business. That should've been the end of it; it wasn't.
"Well, now, that was an interesting day."
"I'm sorry if our line was firm." A sharky, serpent-like smile is directed towards Draco, one he resents very much. These US politicos should be sentenced to fewer teeth. "There's no point tiptoeing around today, and then just disappointing you for four years. I have plans and I plan to see them through."
"Absolutely," Draco shoots back, quick as anything as he has 'plans' as well. And old Fork-tongued Fuckwad here could use a bit of a comeuppance. "There is one final thing I think we should look at. Very close to my heart. If you could just give me a second."
"Hah!" The cretin has the gall to chuckle. "Right, right." Yes, Draco determines. His first instinct was correct: this man is a slippery scum and in spades. "Sure, now, I'll give you anything you ask for. As long as it's not something I don't wanna give."
He's only popped out of the room for one moment, Draco is. But it's one moment too long.
"…Hi."
The President waves his tumbler-full at Draco, and it's a bit like a red flag. Certainly Draco sees red.
"It's great Scotch."
"…Draco…" Harry? Harry visibly cringes at them both, easing away from where the real bastard in this godawful scene playing out here has him literally backed up against a wall. "I'll, erm... I'll be going, then."
Draco briefly wonders if it is permissible to bash in the so-called Leader of the Free World's forehead with a decanter of Scotland's finest whisky. He has just determined that it is, when…
"Harry," the wart on the anus of the whole planet hisses after Draco's hastily retreating secretary, clearly having no idea his very life is in imminent mortal peril and there may just be an International Incident. "I hope to see much more of you as our countries work toward a better future." His eyes are glued to Harry's bum, the invitation for Harry to have a little fling for profit is scandalously evident.
Draco's breath catches in his throat for an instant, a long instant. If Harry should…if his Harry? If there's even the slightest chance of his Harry…?
"…Thank you, sir." Harry might be a potty-mouth normally, but when it comes to delivering a level set-down he has full command of the platitudes. One last cold-eyed green stare at the offensive pile of shite hailing from America and Harry is well out of the study, unscathed.
No—oh, cheers. Bravo! It's thankfully over and done, this horrible day, and Draco's at last gained the privacy of his quarters and has space to properly brood and fume, finally. Which is brilliant, as he's a great deal to brood and fume over!
(Harry, making desperate eyes at him, panicking and clearly uncomfortable. Pressed nearly up against the wall by a loudmouthed brass-bollocks sneaky prat of an American politician. Ewwww!)
Faugh! It's an outrage!
Fucking sodding rude Americans, upstart Americans! Boorish, bloody gaspers! And that particular snake-in-the-grass is bloody well married, isn't he? With kids of his own? And still has the 'nads to scent after Draco's own innocent little biscuit-bearing secretary?
Draco Malfoy is livid. He's fit to kill, and his temper has officially just boiled over. Justifiable homicidal rage, is more like—that's what he feels. No one would know it, but he does. He does.
(And, by the by? Not just only the issue of Harry, but fucking well remove those greedy grubby foreign fingers off his military bases, his standing treaties, his monetary system and his goddamned fit staff! Bloody! Bloody jumped-up bucolic Ugly Americans! That thing is their President! President? No! Giant talking head—practically noseless—bloody grasping capitalistic puppet!
It's been but one single moment taken to tip the balance in Draco from happy to furious; one open door and he strolls in, all unexpecting, and sees that—is confronted with that. Dreadful. Hideous and horrendous. An insult that transcends nations—NATIONS.
Fucking wastral! Wanky grabber! Slimy cheeseball! Arse!
Draco paces; cannot cease dwelling, conversely cannot bear to recall watching Harry's eyes widen, would've given anything in his considerable as PM power to prevent it. The green gone all thin and flat, and that sharp-cut but gorgeous face pinched tight with barely disguised distaste. No one touches Draco's Harry. His lovely Harry, whom he can't even have (or touch, or fondle, as that is a pleasure reserved for rude wankers from the dodgy end of Wandsworth, apparently!) Dog in the manger, yes, all right, but!
He cannot bear it, that's it, end story. It shall not happen again, not on Draco's watch, and it's a bit fortunate he's PM, and has a weapon at hand. No! It's a bit inevitable, the coming fall-out. It'll be on a nuclear scale, politically, and Draco's always possessed a way with words, hasn't he. Words are a politician's weapons of choice, really. Tromp, tromp, tromp, then, in the best British oratorical fashion, a la Winston, and according to the old ways; Draco will march on and this upstart smarmy poisonous serpent of a grasping grabby-handed foreign gasper shall be made a hash of, veritable mincemeat, and in the largest public arena Draco can bring to mind: before the world's Press. The world's Eye.
He writes his own damned 'Report of the Official State Visit' speech, and internally damns poor Pansy for offering her able assistance, shooing her off when she offers. This is become a grudge match, cheers, between him and that snake-tongued git and Draco is more than game. He'll do it himself.
"I love that word 'relationship'. Covers all manner of sins, doesn't it?"
Draco pauses for one lingering momentous second before delivering his coupe de foudre. With a smile.
"I fear that this has become a bad relationship. A relationship based on the President taking what he wants and casually ignoring all those things that really matter to, erm... Britain."
A brilliant, brilliant smile. Americans do not have the corner on cosmetic dentistry, no.
"We may be a small country but we're a great one, too. The country of Shakespeare, Churchill, the Beatles, Sean Connery, Harry Potter. David Beckham's right foot. David Beckham's left foot, come to that. And a friend who bullies us is no longer a friend. And since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward, I will be prepared to be much stronger. And the President should be prepared for that."
('Relationships?' Bad or good, and sod all best intentions, most still doesn't quite work out, in the end; Draco knows this, all too well. His and Harry's, for one example. But Draco will take his lumps if he must, and it's all good, even if it's a damn crying shame he can't take up with his own PA, no more than Old Snake-Tongue here is allowed. Right. Good enough, then, to be going on with.)
"We may be a small country," Draco may or may not have told the gathered Press, with his best charmingly ferociously boyish smile.
"—Sean Connery, Harry Potter—" he might've thrown about, carelessly, and even the international press corps fucking love it, are all supping his speech up with a bloody spoon, aren't they just?
"…should be prepared for that."
Draco flashes that trade-mark grin of his around the room like a bloody beacon to ensure his intended effect and arches the one particular eyebrow of his, the one on the left which his own sister refers to as the 'Blond Slayer'. He bobs his well-groomed coif in just that one especial manner his sister also claims is purely cruel, it's so fucking charming and likeable and sincere. Yes, sincere. Because Draco didn't get to be the PM by playing Mister Nice all the bleeding time, did he? No—there's a certain amount of cutthroat-and-backstabbing involved, yes, and sincerity is integral to it, oddly enough. His constituents love Sincere! And Draco is so game. He's made of game, blast it! And in all the many games played out here, he is clearly the victor. The Fork-tongued geezer now knows it, too. Gone all red as a common carnation in bloom, and all perspiring too, hasn't he? Humiliated. Well, sod him.
"Thank you."
At the end of his speech Draco hears the muffled cheers but distantly. Pansy and Greg and even Blaise; they're all present. Albus and even McGonagall, too, so even Draco's staunchly grim Scots household engineer is plumped firmly on his side—and then there's …his Harry.
Harry. It's been for him, all of it, every word. Not on behalf of Draco's country, much as he loves her. No, it's all been meant for the sake of the one green-eyed bloke gazing at him wonderingly from the very bitter edges of the crowd, and Draco's been gone fathoms deep since the start and is well drowned. He so knows it, too, not that knowing improves his chances at all, nor even Draco simply being what he is naturally—a charming and quite wily politician, out for the main chance, always. Just the same as this piss-poor excuse for a human being standing by his side on the podium.
No. Nothing could ever make it better, no, but telling the arsehole upstart Colonial git to go and fuck the hell off is a fine fucking start. Relief, yeah? Excellent! Brilliant and all that. One menace shooed off stage and good riddance, too.
His Harry is safe from molestation; Draco has ably managed to accomplish something, then.
Still. Yet. But. Draco has absolutely no idea how to advise a bloke 'I love you'. And he's fucked, he's so fucked. Doubly, trebly, with a blender—he is fucked. Because he can't do that. (Harry's watched him, eyes wide. He'd seemed a bit impressed, and that's all good, but?) Draco can't very well tell a man 'I love you' when the man seems to have no clue, really, that Draco's been sunk. Sunk his battleship, lost his mind, is hopelessly smitten. Looney as a tune.
And—there's no denying it, but he absolutely cannot afford to tell a man how he feels for that man when he's the PM. The still-very-much-closeted PM, cheers for it. It is as simple as that. The public will not stand for it, sadly. This is the Nineties, sure and certainly, but there are still rules to be followed. Cast-in-stone rules of proper public conduct, whatever the EU might dictate. Draco daren't openly flout them. Not even for Harry. Perhaps especially not for Harry.
Ridiculous! (Ridiculous to want someone this much and not be able to have him, nor even attempt a go at having him.)
In a while—a terribly long tiresome while—Draco is aware they've all gone away and No. 10 Downing is quiet again, aping the home it should rightly be, but isn't, as he's pretty much a confirmed bachelor, isn't he?
'Not time for that, sadly' he'd told the President and it's true, and truer still that Draco Malfoy's history. One dead PM, walking. Handsome, young, charismatic, full of higher purpose?—but doomed! Of a certainty. Inscribe it directly upon his tombstone: 'Felled by a stellar arse, a pair of amazing eyes and a bloody perky attitude.' Also? 'A foul mouth, a sense of humour and a heart that's big as the world. With biscuits.'
Love, yes, love. Draco's soul mate, if there is such a thing: he's gone and dug him up, right in his own territory. After bleak centuries of looking-not-looking, and then bleaker eons of giving it all up entirely, for the sake of his future career, Draco has. He has! (Oh...Harry.)
(He can't have him. No.)
(Well...Draco might be able to have him, yes. Yes! Pansy's ever so good with the spin-doctoring, isn't she? But only if…)
(If and only if he oversteps the boundaries of good taste and proper PM-ly behaviour completely, that is. The PM is not supposed to chat up his own staffers. His male secretary, salaried by the governing body to slave away on Draco's behalf, pre-shuffling his file folders and conveying him a cuppa when Draco most sorely needs one. It absolutely smacks of sexual harassment, doesn't it? And then…really, if he acted upon impulse, Draco would be no better than he should be, no better than any of the other predators out there.)
(Draco can't have him.)
"It's your sister on line four."
Pansy buzzes through the next afternoon and Draco eyes the crackling speaker with a feeling of dread. He's been sadly cast overboard on a sea of doubt-and-delight alternating and he's not exactly been minding the time. Also Harry's been mysteriously absent this day and there's been no chocolate biscuits to fling at the creeping depression a sleepless night brings.
"...Sister, sir..."
"Ah." What? Sibling alert? Oh, blast, no. "All right." He gingerly takes up the receiver. "Er, yes, I'm very busy and important, how can I help you?"
Seriously, history. Draco only wishes there was someone to tell—that's he's mad in love and maybe, just maybe? Maybe….? In a far distant galaxy?
"Have you gone completely insane?" Hermione's voice, on the other end, is the exact same as always—chiding and dreadfully bossy-boots. What a question. The answer would of course be 'yes'.
"You can't be sensible all the time," Draco protests. Er, no, he hasn't really. Sailed close but not quite gone over the edge yet. Not that he could say anything of the sort to Hermione, of all people. Besides, she's clearly caught up in the aftermath of Draco's Press Conference, and literally huffing with delight over it. Good old Sis; Draco thinks he might keep her.
"You can if you're Prime Minister," Hermione informs him, giggling. And demonstrably, superbly proud of her brother.
Which is just as it should be.
Draco grins right into the receiver—first smile of the day. Oh, right! He's this one sister, his only, actually? A must-be-bloody-psychic sister, to ring him up in the midst of his existential crises and hand him a little much-needed praise. A bloody beast of a sister but then—she's all right. Really, she is. She'd understand love, of all people. She's married hers, the cunning bint. Love—she's got that bit down pat, right? For a long time now. Love. Kids and a devoted hubby. Draco could maybe talk it over with her, his quandary, spill his soul out? (Can't have him, really wants him, oh, Harry. Harry.)
But, no. That would be monumentally stupid. As it's really not…love, exactly.
(And honestly. That is not what's been happening here, not between Draco and Harry. PM and PA, rather. Lust, maybe, and a great lot of appreciation of body parts and spunk, specs and too-tight trousers, and some small amount of genteel flirtation—and then there's Draco's jealousy and his stupidly undying desire and too, this horrible creeping fondness and—whoa, Draco! Rein it in, idiot! Not love.)
Oh, no, this won't do. Draco's barely rational, as it is. And he's absolutely not talking to the Queen of Bloody Rational, not about this—not one word. Hermione go hang. One cannot tell one's formidable sibling one is considering flouting all the conventions Britain has kept so admirably afloat this age. Even if it would stand as a landmark stride forward socially and be the (probably, likely) supreme example of the right thing to do. For a good many of Draco's constituents.
(Politicians don't always do 'right', however; they do 'expedient'.)
Draco is saved. In a god-sent and miraculous act of perfect timing, Pansy rings through again, on one of other lines. "Sir?"
"Er? Hey, now, Hermione. It's the Chancellor on the other line. I've got to ring off—"
"No!" Hermione scoffs, loud and clear. "It isn't!" Which coaxes a second smile out of Draco, but he can't afford to smile, and it may be that he's forgotten how, actually. Just last night.
"No, it is, seriously, Sis." And Draco's so damned grateful it really is the honest truth it's the Chancellor awaiting his ear to beat, as much as the Chancellor bores him to tears every time they speak. "I'll ring you back, sorry."
Which is something Draco has absolutely no intention of following through on, the return phoning. It's as much as his shabby life is worth, subjecting his every ruddy bloody emotion to Hermione's steely scrutiny. As what she'll say to him is not what Draco wants to hear. ('Can't have him, Draco.')
"No, you won't! You'll—"
Draco doesn't in fact hear anything more, as he's already switched away, his head sunk in his hands and his head pounding and his lips dutifully muttering pointless soothing sounds at the Chancellor. God, but he's…
Lonely. Surrounded by the whole bloody world, and bloody lonely.
Actually.
He can't do this, no, he cannot. This simply must end. Draco can't bear it. It must end, and it's his responsibility to make it happen.
All right, then.
Draco wanders, a bit lost. Be more of a home to him if he had somebody to be home with, but that person's gone off long since, back to the dodgy neighborhood. And the bloody radio, someone's left it switched on. It blares at him, the sole sound of all that sea of Christmas-enjoying humanity milling about outside the bounds of Ten Downing.
"It's almost enough to make you feel patriotic, so here's one for our arse-kicking Prime Minister. I think he'll enjoy this. 'A golden oldie for a golden oldie," the DJ burbles. And it's….god no, save him, it's a song that has the old pelvis swinging, despite the brain. Bloody club anthem, from Draco's own silly-arse youthful heyday. Pointer Sisters, and Jump, damn it!
'Hold me. I'll give you all that you need. Wrap your love around me. You're so excited I can feel you getting hotter. Oh baby, I'll take you down, I'll take you down. Where no one's ever gone before. And if you want more? If you want more, more, more? Jump for my love! JUMP!'
Clearly, Draco he must dance, there's no help for it. So, he does. Pointer Sisters, and isn't it grand? No one's PM right now, not him.
(Oh, yes, and he's seen a film like this once. Should he consider stripping down to his pants? Is there a broom to be found anywhere in No. 10 Downing? Ridiculous notion! Likely not.)
No—no. That's really not...no. No. He was younger then and not the PM. Doesn't need a broom to jump about with; definitely doesn't require an audience. Still? He's perfectly happy, absurdly in the flow, dancing down the stairwell and through all the empty—until—bloody woman! Where does she pop up from? Witch!
As of course he's caught, fair and square: McGonagall. But hey? Politician!
"Yeah, erm, Minerva, I've been thinking," Draco spouts instantly, sobering. "Can we move the Japanese ambassador to four o'clock tomorrow?"
"Certainly, sir." No one single person should be that full of deadly smirk. At least Draco is aware it's a fond sort of smirk; he's earned that much. There is that.
"Terrific," he replies, all butter-wouldn't melt, but not—really. "Thanks…so much."
"Sir."
Right, carry on, then.