Chapter Twenty-Two: Draco Malfoy And The Bearer of Unconditional Things
The platinum blonde lay across his canopied four poster bed with his limbs splayed - except for one hand, which concealed the Walkman that rested against his chest, moving in time with his breath and the beat of his fevered heart.
Draco Malfoy knew that if his parents - especially his father - found out that he was using a primitive MUGGLE invention to listen to MUGGLE MUSIC, of all things, he would be beaten within an inch of his life and quite rightly cast out and disowned, but ever since the day the wizarding wireless accidentally picked up a Muggle radio station, he had been hooked, and no matter how hard he tried to avoid the terrible urges, one siren in particular kept calling him back...leading him crashing back into the waves of those treacherous waters time and time again.
Draco sighed with the happiness that comes with feeling as though one has been seen and understood completely as he pressed the button to rewind his all time favourite cassette tape of his all time favourite album to his all time favourite song - You Oughta Know, by his siren - nay, his queen - Alanis Morissette, the only being on the planet, magical or otherwise, who understood his exquisite pain. The pain of being Draco Malfoy.
How did she know? It was like she had read his diary.
Or his mind.
He was convinced that she HAD to be a witch, because her music was like a healing balm that soothed his weary soul and eased his pain. What else could that be but magic?
Being careful not to make a sound, Draco began instinctively lip syncing and headbanging along to the song.
Just as he was getting to a particularly cathartic, rage filled moment, a tiny owl flew in through his open bedroom window and, hooting excitedly, perched on top of his head. Draco bolted upright, flapping his hands about his head frantically, trying to swat the owl away in a panic.
The small owl hooted playfully as it launched itself off of Draco's unhappy head, knocking his Muggle headphones off in the process, and then flew around the room in obnoxious, terrorizing circles before finally dive bombing Draco and dropping a letter onto his lap.
Draco shook his fist angrily at the minuscule owl as he watched it fly out his window and back to the seventh layer of hell from whence it came. "Wait til my father hears about this!" He shouted at the quickly vanishing shit and mail dispenser.
As soon as the offending beast was safely out of sight Draco picked up his precious Muggle headphones and examined them for signs of damage, nearly weeping with relief once he realized that they were fine and he could still hear his queen's voice crackling through the soft foam ear pieces of the headphones. He carefully placed them back on his head and allowed the album to play out as he picked up the letter the huge, violent beast of an owl had attacked him with.
Flipping the envelope over, he immediately recognized the childish, Muggle-bred scrawl of the person who had addressed it to him, using his very own name, and his heart all but stopped beating.
Almost against his will, his finger reached out and slowly traced the letters written by the object of his most forbidden desires.
Funny how even just holding a piece of paper that the other boy had held in his hands and written Draco's name on could make Draco feel as though all the oxygen had been sucked out of the atmosphere just as surely as if Harry Potter had been standing right there in the room with him in the flesh...watching him...crawling across the canopied four poster bed toward him...
Draco shook his head violently to try and stop the thoughts. He had to get a grip on himself.
Draco took a deep breath to calm himself then opened the envelope slowly, taking care not to accidentally rip it or the precious parchment contained within.
He didn't know what to expect before reading the letter, but nothing he imagined could ever have come close to the words that leapt up at him from the page - except, perhaps, for his darkest, innermost dreams and fantasies, but of course he never, not once, not even for a second, allowed himself to believe that they could ever come true.
And yet, somehow, it seemed that they were.
As he read on his eyes widened and he found his disobedient hand trying to make it's way into his trousers. He carefully put the letter down so he could swat his hand with his wand as punishment, but found that somehow doing so just made matters worse. Growling with frustration he took off his Muggle headphones, set aside his Muggle Walkman, got out of bed, marched over to his dressing table and picked up the large, rather full water jug that sat next to the ornate serpent basin where he normally washed up in the mornings. Draco lifted the jug over his head and poured it over himself.
The magically chilled water instantly took effect and Draco shivered violently as he slunk back to finish reading the words of his beloved - no! His nemesis! No! His beloved!
Oh, why couldn't Potter be both?
Draco used his wand to magically dry himself from the torso up while allowing his nether regions to remain drenched in the bitterly cold water, so that he could safely finish the letter without getting it wet or running into any more...problems...and as he read the last words an enormous grin spread across his pale, pinched little face and he hugged the letter to his chest, beaming as though he had just won the House Cup, the Quidditch World Cup and the Triwizard Tournament single-handedly and the world was but his oyster.
Bonnie and Clyde. Thelma and Louise. Draco and Potter. They would take on the world together.
Draco pulled a roll of parchment and a brand new quill from his antique roll top desk and sat down to respond to the letter, smiling as his queen, Alanis - who always knew just what he needed - began singing his second favourite song, Head Over Feet, straight into his ears through that blessed Muggle invention, which HAD to be magic, surely, for Muggles couldn't possibly have created something as brilliant and magical as this. Yes, that HAD to be it, it was magic, pure and simple.
Even though he knew that his parents were home and that his father would flay him alive if he were caught, Draco Malfoy found that he couldn't help but sing along softly under his breath as he began to write his first love letter.