Disclaimer: All fictional elements referred to herein belong to their respective owners. Harry Potter is Rowling's. The title and references to Wildfires belong to The Limousines. Very little of consequence is mine. No copyright infringement intended.
Author's Note: This was a plot bunny that wouldn't let me be. I thought this would be a quick one-shot, and it got out of control. It's complete now, and is eight relatively short chapters. I'll post one each day from now until the eighth one goes up. If you've never listened to Wildfires by The Limousines, go do so. The title and a number of vague references in this story are based on it, and it's been on repeat in my head and on my iPod for days.
To everyone who is reading, and to those of you who have commented: I am so very grateful. I'll respond as soon as I can, but in the meantime, please know I really do appreciate every one of your reviews, adds, hits, etc.
Draco does not, in fact, produce a full Patronus charm. But he does manage a fairly strong light, bright and wispy from the end of his wand, and he can sustain it for quite a long time. Far from being disappointed, Draco is beaming at Harry, and Harry is once again reminded just how much has changed. The Draco he once knew would have pouted and made excuses and probably found a way to blame Harry (and possibly have thrown an errant hex at him when no one was looking).
They practise for an hour or so, until it becomes clear that the light that shot from Draco's wand on only his second incantation is as much as he's going to get for today.
"You're on the right track," Harry says as they walk out onto the lawns, brooms in hand. "I'm honestly not certain if you need a happier memory, or if you just need to concentrate harder on the one you're using, but you're really close."
"Concentrate harder?" Draco smirks and reaches out to grab Harry's sleeve, pulling him up short.
He moves in until their faces are inches apart, and Harry rolls his eyes as Draco puts on a look of mock-concentration. The effect of the eyeroll is somewhat dampened, however, by the smile that may actually split Harry's face at Draco's outright admission that he's what Draco was thinking of. The ache in his chest is overpowering, and Harry never, ever wants it to stop.
"Not what I meant," Harry says, "but I'm not complaining."
Draco smiles back and runs his free hand up Harry's arm before letting it fall to his side, his gaze lingering on Harry's for a moment.
"Come on," he says as he turns, "we're wasting a beautiful afternoon staying on the ground."
Harry decides, as he revels in the wind in his hair and the sting of the cool fall day on his skin and the view from high above Hogwarts as he looks for the Snitch, that riding a broom really is like, well, riding a broom. Once you learn it, it doesn't really matter how long you go without flying, it comes back to you pretty quickly. He's chalking yesterday up to nerves, because today he feels like he's been flying every day for his entire life.
As he lets his gaze fall on Draco for a moment, hovering just below him and to his right, he wonders idly if Draco might be part of why he's feeling that way. When Draco catches him looking, he quirks a wry smile that turns to outright laughter when Harry puts his tongue out at him like a child, and Harry knows the answer to his own question. Strangely, he's not bothered by it. It doesn't scare him, doesn't make him nervous.
"I suppose that's what happens when you've nothing left to lose but yourself," he mutters.
He sees Draco's eyes sharpen a second before his own fall on the fluttering golden ball some distance below them and back toward the castle. It will take some manoeuvring, and Harry's lack of time on a broom recently does flash through his mind, but as Draco looks back over his shoulder with nothing but unbridled pleasure and the hint of a challenge on his face, Harry points the handle of his broom down and grits his teeth.
"Live today," he says into the wind as he streaks after Draco. "We'll just see what happens tomorrow."
They twist and flip and tear toward the castle, then reverse direction as the Snitch flits back up into the sky. They're even with one another now, and Harry's not sure he's ever flown this hard in his life. Nor enjoyed it so much.
"This is more like it, Potter!" Draco calls to him as they bank toward the owlery, and Harry just grins and flattens himself to his broom, putting out a hand as he nears the Snitch first.
When his fingers close around the cold metal, he whoops triumphantly without thinking, and Draco is laughing as he pulls up next to Harry.
"I'm starting to think you were holding out on me yesterday," Draco says as Harry grins at him. "I'd not have thought to see you fly like that ever again, must less in one day's time."
Harry shrugs. "I think I'd forgotten how much fun it was." He's winded, and his voice is coming out in light gasps, but he can't feel the fatigue that his muscles will soon scream with after that much effort because his entire body is buzzing with exhilaration. He nudges his broom closer to Draco's and he lets the smile slip from his face for a moment, just so Draco knows he's serious when he goes on. "Think I'd forgotten how much fun it is to have fun. Thank you."
Draco nods, looking out over the vast expanse of grounds and castle and hills beyond. Without looking at Harry, he reaches across the space between them to take Harry's hand in his own wind-chilled one and rests their twined fingers on his knee. Harry gulps and feels the telltale flush creep up his cheeks, and he hums aloud without meaning to when Draco's thumb begins feather-light strokes over his own.
Gods, he's missed touching. And being touched. And he didn't even know he missed it, not until now, when every brush of Draco's fingers drives him half-mad and soothes him all at once.
They hover for a long time, feet dangling from their brooms, fingers tangled together. They talk about nothing - Quidditch teams, books they've read, places they've visited. They kiss in between sentences, laughing as they balance between their brooms to bring wind-burned faces together and slide warm tongues between cold lips.
The sun begins to creep near the horizon before they fly at a leisurely pace toward the entrance to the castle again. Students are milling about in courtyards, but they land a fair distance away and walk back under a modified Disillusionment charm that Draco says will keep the students from noticing their progress.
It doesn't, however, keep one person from noticing, and Harry gasps in surprise when he comes face-to-face with Minerva McGonagall on the steps to the school's entrance. She looks remarkably the same, he thinks, stern, strong, wise, but with the gleam of a person who cares for every child she's ever taught in her eye. To Harry, she isHogwarts, and everything it embodies, and he can't help but smile when he sees her, even though his heart is pounding in his chest.
"Headmistress," he says in greeting, not sure what else to say.
"Good evening gentlemen," she says, her clipped tones exactly the same as they were ten years ago. "Draco, an owl came for you from the Ministry about an hour ago, they're still refusing to admit to the idea that the Dementors are coming back, but they do have a few interesting things to say on the subject of some new charms they're trying to strengthen the Azkaban defences. The letter is on your desk in your office."
Draco is nodding, and Harry guesses the fear of the Dementors' return is a matter of more interest to the both of them than Draco let on. Then again, anyone who was at Hogwarts the first time Dementors set up residence outside its gates would have some fairly strong feelings on the subject.
Harry also realises that the headmistress has all but effectively dismissed Draco, something else that hasn't failed to catch Draco's notice, but he smiles softly at Harry and says, "I'll see you for supper," then takes his leave into the castle.
McGonagall peers up at Harry for a moment, then allows a small smile. "It's good to see you, Mr. Potter. Let's continue this in my office."
As he follows his old teacher through the castle and up the winding staircase to the old, familiar office, Harry can't help but feel a bit like he did in his first year. Though nothing forbade thisforay on his broom, there is a nagging feeling like he's being dragged off for detention or to be told he can't stay at Hogwarts, just like the feeling he'd had that day so many years ago.
"How are you, Potter?" Headmistress McGonagall settles herself in the large, comfortable-looking chair behind an even larger desk in the middle of her office.
The portraits of headmasters past carry on around him, countless mutters and grumbles and conversations create a muffled din on the walls, though his eyes are drawn to two in particular. Professor Dumbledore peers down at him, sitting on a worn leather chaise with a book. He says nothing, but Harry sees him wink, and he's flooded with warmth for just a moment as every pleasant memory of the old man rushes through his head.
Just next to Dumbledore's portrait hangs the one that Harry knew would be here, but makes him shut his eyes against an unexpected sting just the same. Professor Snape, looking so life-like that Harry expects him to come out of the portrait and start belittling his Potions progress, scowls down at him. He's clad in his usual black, arms crossed over his chest. There's evidently a breeze in the portrait, making both his robes and hair blow in a rather intimidating fashion.
Harry can't help himself. He grins at the man. And waves. And to his great delight, Snape scowls even more deeply. Harry chuckles.
"I suspect he's wishing he could hex you." McGonagall's voice interrupts Harry's little reunion.
She's smiling now, and Harry feels relief course through him. He sits in the proffered chair across from her, then belatedly realises he hasn't answered her question.
"I'm...well. I think." He says sheepishly. "I'm a bit of a work-in-progress, if I'm honest. And it's nice to see you as well, Professor. Headmistress. Er..."
Harry flushes again, thinking perhaps this is why he's avoided people for so long. He's absolute bollocks at this...small talk...thing.
"Minerva, Harry," she says, chuckling. "You're an adult, not my pupil any longer. Call me Minerva. Now, I see you and Draco have managed to bury the hatchet and start fresh, hm?"
Harry snorts at her. Subtle, Professor, he thinks. They really are meddlers, the lot of them.
"He...seems to understand," Harry says slowly, measuring the words. No doubt McGonagall knows more than she's letting on - it's her school now, and Harry knows better than to think it's silent about the comings and goings of its guests - but he's still trying out his newfound interest in giving a damn, so she'll have to come out and ask what she wants to know.
"He seems to understand most things these days," she says, a note of pride evident in her voice. "Every now and again, a teacher gets the great joy of meeting the adult one of her students has become, and he so far outweighs any expectations she ever had for him that she feels fortunate to have been one of those who have seen the transformation."
Harry wonders if he and Draco are far enough into their...whatever it is for him to feel pride on Draco's behalf. The sensation is tempered a bit though when a question comes unbidden to Harry's mind.
"And when that same teacher meets the man another of her students has become, and he's frittered away every ounce of potential? Then what, Professor?" He locks eyes with her, and purposefully doesn't use her first name. He doesn't know if he's truly earned it, not yet.
She considers him for a long moment.
"A wise question, Mr. Potter." Harry doesn't miss the emphasis on the Mr. Potter. "She is still a teacher, is she not? Perhaps, in the instance of that student, her job is not yet finished."
"What if he's forgotten how to learn?" Harry whispers.
McGonagall laughs, an unexpected, bright sound in the somber office.
"I think, in this case, someone has helped him remember that already," she says, looking pointedly at the broom resting against Harry's chair, and Harry feels himself flush. "But I've a proposal for you all the same, if you'll permit me a moment?"
Harry nods, grateful to her for understanding, grateful for yet another person in this castle who seems willing to offer a chance instead of looking, as he does, back on the last nine years and thinking the last thing on earth he deserves is a chance.
"Rolanda - Madam Hooch to you I suppose - has expressed her intent to retire, which will leave me without a flying instructor, and the school without a Quidditch official."
Harry looks at her blankly. He hadn't even realised Madam Hooch was still at Hogwarts. In point of fact, he doesn't remember when he saw her last as a student.
"It seems you can still fly," she goes on, "and I expect you keep up with Quidditch in your self-imposed exile. I've a mind to offer you her position, if you want it."
And there it is. The patented Minerva McGonagall why no, Potter, I'm not going to expel you, I'm going to make you the youngest Seeker in a century style of meddling. Harry is gobsmacked. No, actually, he's so far beyond gobsmacked that he's certain his mouth is hanging open.
"Potter, do shut your yap, you're like to catch flies." The drawling, pointed voice from overhead brings Harry to his senses, but when he looks up at Snape's portrait, the raven-haired man is smiling ever so slightly.
Smug bastard, Harry thinks.
"You want me to be a teacher?" he asks incredulously, looking back at an amused McGonagall. "At Hogwarts?"
"I'm not authorised to offer positions at Beauxbatons or Durmstrang, so yes, I thought perhaps you could start here."
He's being mocked, he knows it, but he can't seem to shake the sense that this is so completely surreal, he must be in a dream. Two days ago, he was hungover and hadn't bothered to shower in three days. Last night he kissed Draco Malfoy and shared his bed, and today, his old teacher and now headmistress of Hogwarts is offering him a job. He can't decide if he should panic or laugh or look around to see if this is the newest, most elaborate Wizarding Wheeze George has come up with to date.
"Think about it," McGonagall says. "I know it's sudden, Potter, but I need a teacher, and you might be able to use the work. And it seems you've made quite an impression on at least one member of my staff. Or he's made one on you." She smiles in such a knowing way that Harry blushes. "See how you get on with the students in Draco's class. I'll need an answer by the end of the week, but no sooner."
Harry manages a nod, then shakes himself.
"Thank you, Professor. Minerva. I'm...honoured, truly." He says. "I'm just not sure I'm qualified."
That, evidently, is the wrong thing to say. McGonagall regards him from across her desk like he is a particularly slow first year.
"Potter. Can you, or can you not fly a broom?"
He nods.
"And can you, or can you not remember the rules of Quidditch, possibly well enough to explain it to someone else?"
He nods again.
"And was that, or was that not you I just saw tearing past my window with Draco Malfoy chasing a Snitch like you were at a tryout for Puddlemere United?"
"It was, but-"
"This is my school, and I decide if a candidate is qualified for a position here. I've offered you one, so clearly that means you arequalified. Whether you choose to believe that, and whether you choose to accept are entirely up to you." She sounds so very remarkably like the Transfiguration professor of his youth that he's almost surprised she doesn't end the last bit by docking ten points from Gryffindor for his utter stupidity.
Harry wonders if perhaps his earlier assessment of his level of shock might not have been a bit hasty, because he's run out of synonyms for gobsmacked. The look on her face dares him to defy her though, and in an effort to keep with his new-found habit of at least attempting to think before he speaks, Harry nods.
"I'll think it over, I really will. Thank you." He rises, considers, then finally puts a hand out awkwardly, making to leave.
McGonagall considers the hand for a moment, then rolls her eyes and stands.
"I've known you since you were a baby, fool boy. You needn't get formal on me now." She comes around the desk and puts her hands on Harry's shoulders. "Nice to have you back, Harry."
And then she hugs him, and he's so far past surprise at this point that he hugs her back.
"It's...rather nice to be back, I think," he says softly.