Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Warning: I guess the rating jumps up a notch now. Blood and violence and nasty things in the past...
A/N: Someone told me Draco needed some shampoo... This one's for you Tazy :) I want to thank my betas Minerva Solo, Lisa and Lynn, any remaining mistakes are my own. Guah... Had to rewrite parts of this chapter and I hope I didn't mess up too badly...
"If you believe that's how it's gonna be I'd better put you down." Tightrope - ELO
This was surreal. He was sitting in a small kitchen drinking tea with one of the infamous Weasleys. An awkward silence floated like a foul smell in the air, and the small yellow teapot was the unquestionable centre of attention. It didn't seem to mind actually. Stupid teapot, why did it have to be so… yellow. The silence was starting to get on his nerves. He didn't mind being silent all by himself, he could always entertain himself with one of his inner monologues, but now when he actually was sitting at a kitchen table with a fellow wizard (even if it was a Weasley) it felt rude not to say anything. Or something. What the hell did you talk about with a person who had stalked you for weeks, broke your nose, mended it again and then invited you for a cup of tea? Come to think about it, 'surreal' didn't even start to describe this situation.
He had woken up in an unfamiliar flat with the redhead of his nightmares bent over him, looking worried. After some fussing over his newly healed nose and still very black eye Weasley finally managed to heal him completely and proceeded to clean up the mess that had been a perfectly decent face before the redhead had hit him. It had been nice to feel the familiar tingle of magic as the man had tried to clean his face, but it wasn't very effective.
"This is going to take forever." Weasley groaned and tossed his wand aside "Do you want to grab a shower?"
"Um... Sure," he had said, much to his own surprise.
"This way."
The bathroom smelled clean. Weasley withdrew an orange shower-curtain revealing a white bathtub standing on golden animal-paws. He had left him there with a towel and a warning not to turn the hot-water tap too much if he didn't want to be boiled. Great. Eccentric plumbing.
He undressed quickly and folded every item of clothing neatly. Without clothes he felt terribly exposed. When had he last been completely naked? He didn't know. The layers of clothing had become a second hide to him. They were his suit of armour, his shield against the outer world. He started to shiver uncontrollably but got a grip on himself and climbed into the bathtub. The warm water finally allowed him to relax, and he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.
He watched a clot of dried blood swirl down with the water and disappear somewhere down the drain. A fit of nausea hit him and he had to steady himself against the wall. Blood, his great weakness. It was ironic really. Who had heard of a Death Eater with haemophobia? No one. And no one would ever hear of one now.
He suddenly found himself staring at his black mark for the first time in years. It might have faded a little, but it hadn't disappeared like the marks of Voldemort's true children had when their master had died.
Still, it would always remind him. Something stupid he had done when he was young and... No, not innocent. Foolish. He scrubbed furiously but the mark on his upper arm stayed where it was, the Muggle ink was safely buried under his skin and couldn't be removed with soap and water. He still remembered the words and wand movements to create the glamour he had intended to use in order to hide it from his mother. As things turned out he never got around to use that charm.
When he had finished his shower he found a pair of jeans, and a maroon sweater waiting for him instead of the pile of shabby clothes he had left. It spooked him that someone had entered the bathroom while he was showering and stolen his clothes without him noticing. He dressed quickly. Being naked was far more embarrassing than walking around in someone else's hand-me-downs.
And now he sat in a small but cosy kitchen drinking some kind of cinnamon tea. He watched Weasley drop a lump of sugar in his tea and stir until it dissolved. Another lump of sugar. Plop. Stir, stir, stir. Plop. Stir, stir, stir. Plop. That had to be disgustingly sweet by now. Weasley stopped after the fifth lump of sugar and took a sip. If he where to judge by the look on Weasley's face it was disgustingly sweet. The silence was starting to get to him. Suddenly the teapot started humming a cheerful tune that made both of them jump. Weasley looked embarrassed and covered the offending piece of china with something lumpy and orange that looked extremely hand-knitted. It continued to emit muffled sounds for a while before calming down.
"Where are my clothes?" he asked in an attempt to break the silence.
"Hmm?" the other man looked up from his teacup.
"My clothes," he asked again, "Where are they?"
"I washed them for you."
"Oh."
"Should be dry soon."
"I better go change then," he said uncertainly and twisted a loose thread from the jumper round his finger, "Where do you want me to put these?"
The other man got a pained expression in his eyes and then looked away.
"Keep them," he said with a forced smile, "I never wear them nowadays."
More silence. The distraction that stupid teapot offered lasted longer than that.
"So... Weasley." he started again, uncertain how to go on. The other man dropped his spoon with a clatter and stared at him.
"How did you know my name?" the redhead asked. He was slow.
"I guessed." he admitted, "Wizard, redhead, and since there are quite a few of you… I had the odds on my side." He drank some of his tea, enjoying Weasley's confusion. Damn, he was good.
"Oh."
"I haven't the faintest idea which Weasley you are though." he admitted generously.
"Don't call me Weasley," the redhead pleaded.
"Or what? You'll kill me? Hit my nose again?"
Weasley looked like he actually considered the options but stayed silent.
"If I can't call you Weasley," he continued, "then what am I to call you. Carrots?"
"My friends call me Ron," came the honest answer.
He spluttered tea all over the table. Ron? Ron? Ronald fucking Weasley?
"You don't look like Ron," he blurted out before realising what he'd done. He hoped that Ron the Weasel would be as dense as he had always appeared to be, but sadly the git seemed to have a bright day today.
"So we did go to school together?" Weasley said, suddenly very interested.
"No" he said, too quickly.
"No?" the redhead said mockingly. "Then how do you know what I'm supposed to look like? Do I know you from somewhere else?" Damn him. Damn him and those piercing eyes!
"Or maybe yes." he blurted "Yes we did, but not in the same year, definitely not." Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
"So..." Ron Weasley said to him "What's your name then?"
That's none of your fucking business! Was that bastard smirking at him?
"Fine," he said, "I'll tell you, Draco Malfoy."
It was his turn to knock his mug over in shock.
"I know who you are," Weasley said while mopping up the flood of tea with a dry cloth.
"No. You don't." he wanted to scream but it came out as a whisper, "No one knows me."
"I know what you've done." Weasley said with a sad smile
He laughed mirthlessly. "You can't know half of it."
"I know enough. A couple of years after you disappeared I found out why."
Random thoughts fluttered in his head like scared birds. His mouth was dry and his heart beat too fast. Someone ought to slow the world down; it was spinning way too fast right now.
"Would you believe me if I told you I don't care about what you've done?"
"No," he managed to croak.
"I sometimes envy you, you know. You never had to deal with the worst years of war. Not that I wanted to be where you were, for all I know you might have been raped in prison... sorry. But..."
"You're babbling again."
"Yeah. I am."
The conversation lost speed after that. Weasley poured him some more tea and they drank in silence. After a while they managed to break the silence, talking about neutral things. The weather. Lockhart. Other idiotic DADA teachers, but they were carefully avoiding every teacher after fourth year. They almost started to fight over that werewolf, but Weasley gave up and changed the subject. Draco even started to talk about Quidditch despite the fact that he hadn't cared about the Quidditch league in years. The pauses became longer and longer, but the silence felt better now than it did before. Draco didn't have the energy to fill every minute with meaningless jabber, the silence felt almost comfortable.
Sometime during the evening the weather got worse. Angry storm clouds gathered overhead creating a premature dusk, but Draco had been too busy to notice, and when he finally did it was already late. If he were to judge by the non-existent light outside it had to be very late. He cursed himself for staying this long. He wasn't even sure where he was. For all he knew Weasley could have Apparated him to another country while he was out cold.
Walking home on dark streets wasn't his idea of a fun filled Wednesday evening. His spot would probably be taken already and he didn't like the prospect of a knife-fight before bedtime. He could roam the streets until morning or try to find a nice bus-driver who would let him sleep on the bus if he paid for the ride, but none of the options felt appealing.
He stood up and prepared to go. Weasley was staring down in his mug with that empty expression typical for a person who should have gone to sleep a several hours ago. He looked a bit pale.
"It's late." Draco said, "I better leave now."
Weasley looked up at him, "Do you have anywhere to go?"
What was this? The Weasley-evening of stupid questions?
"No," he said acidly, "unless you let me sleep here." He didn't know what possessed him to answer like he did instead of saying something truly nasty. If he had been in his right mind he would never have said that, must have been something in the tea. Whatever it was it must be affecting Ron the Weasel too because he didn't tell him to sod off, or punch him in the face for suggesting something like that.
"I guess," stammered Ron, "I guess you could do that. You can sleep on the sofa if you want."
Weasel got up and put the mugs in the sink. Draco cautiously followed him into the main room and watched as Ron transformed the sofa in the corner, apparently without the use of magic. It unfolded to a very big and comfortable looking bed. Hey, wait a minute... Draco scanned the room in search of the door to the bedchamber. It could have been the narrow door next to the bathroom, if it hadn't been for the ugly hand-painted sign with the word "closet" surrounded by painted socks and underwear that danced around slowly changing colours. Red, gold, orange, black, yellow, maroon... Disgusting. He shook his head and tried to figure out the size of Weasley's home. From what he had seen the flat seemed to consist of the hall, the bathroom, the kitchen, the main room and the unknown "closet". He scanned the room once more, but beside the sofa that now had turned into a double bed there was no other bed or mattress in sight.
Ron went to the closet and came back with a second pillow and a pile of blankets and bedclothes that he put on the bed, and that was when it hit Draco. Did that git seriously think that he, Draco Malfoy, would share a bed with a Weasley? He didn't care how big the bed was, or that he would get to sleep under clean blankets, between clean sheets for the first time in many months, or that those pillows looked really comfortable, or that he was tired enough to fall asleep and never wake again...
Ron must have noticed the expression on his face when he came back from the closet with a second pile of blankets.
"I... Uh..." he bit his lip, "I can sleep on the floor or in the armchair if it's making you uncomfortable."
It was tempting to say yes, if only to see Ron suffer on the cold floor, but something about how Weasley phrased the offer had made him seem weak. As if he couldn't cope with one night that close to another man. Person. Another person. So he just sneered, removed his sweater and socks and sat down on what from now on was "his" side of the bed.
"I can deal with it if you can," he said and curled up as far to his side as possible. He closed his eyes but stayed awake. He could hear Ron go out in the kitchen, and then to the bathroom before the shifting of weight told him that another person had joined him in bed. It wasn't that bad, he had lots of air on his left side while Ron was stuck between him and the wall.
He woke in the middle of the night with the claustrophobic feeling of something holding him down. After a moment of panic he realised where he was and that his bedpartner had moved in his sleep and was now lying on his side with an arm across Draco's chest. When Draco tried to free himself the arm and the warmth behind him disappeared. His pulse was racing as if he had run a marathon and he was wide-awake. It was still dark outside but a streetlight shone in through the half-drawn curtains and painted eerie patterns on the walls and ceiling. A couple of deep breaths later he had calmed down somewhat and dared to turn around to face his enemy.
Ron Weasley lay on his back with the blankets tangled around his legs, arms outstretched and mouth half open, sleeping like a baby. If he ignored the different hairstyle this looked more like the Ron Weasley he had known at school. Younger, and without those eyes that had seen too much. The Ron Weasley he had known wouldn't have looked this peaceful however. He rarely saw Weasel-boy with any other expression than hate, spiteful glee or suspicion, unless he watched when Ron wasn't aware of it.
Draco sighed and collected the blankets he had kicked down on the floor. A distressed sound made him turn towards Ron again. The peaceful expression was gone, he had curled up in a ball and his forehead was covered in a thin layer of sweat. Weasley made that horrible sound again and purplish boils had started to appear on his arms.
There wasn't any time to think; Draco knew a poisoning when he saw it. Snape and six months of NEWT potions classes had made sure of that.
Next chapter: Hallucinations I guess, it's a bad thing to poison the POV-character. :/
And the end, finally. We'll meet a few old friends.