Lux et Umbra Vicissim III - Always Love
- Rowan
A/N : I'm so sorry that I took so long… I have final exams in a very short while! Please forgive me for the shortness of this post. I absolutely PROMISE the next will be longer. Thanks to LC, CSHayden, Leyo, Inspiring Author, Al, magical*little*me, Paco the magnificent penguin, elel88, Suki China-Lantern, Destiny, Jenn, whitney, Viola, Katia, Landry Anne, tippy, Juliet Davis and A. Smith for reviewing!
Disclaimer : All belong to J. K. Rowling, you know the drill.
There was silence for about ten agonising seconds – or perhaps it was fifteen. None of the three moved an inch, Draco's pale large eyes like chips of ice, Hermione's pleading brown eyes, Harry's green eyes that had never looked so stunned before.
Then, as usual, Draco broke the silence – by turning swiftly and staring at Harry, his feet swishing on the stone floor. Hermione stared at the portrait, cracked in two, with wide horrified eyes.
'Potter,' said Draco. 'Remember – you have to be calm…'
He was intercepted by Hermione, who very unfortunately still had her hand on Draco's arm. 'Harry,' she pleaded. 'Did you do that?'
Harry looked very coldly at her and shrugged. Never before had a shrug been so final. Draco would, of course, have done it better most of the time, but those horribly cold green eyes could almost match Draco's now.
'Did you?' asked Draco curiously.
'Did you?' asked Harry, looking at Draco's bracelet.
Hermione looked at both of them, then seemed to stiffen her resolve. 'Stop it,' she said. 'Stop it, both of you.'
'I never started anything,' said Harry in that adorably snooty yet childish voice he usually reserved for Dudley and Aunt Petunia. Draco looked at him with more than a tinge of amusement. Seeing this, Harry turned on his heel and stalked off down the corridor, his footsteps making short staccato beats on the cold stone floor.
Hermione turned to Draco. 'One of you must have done it.'
'Done what?'
'Cracked the portrait.' She reached out to run her fingers over the smooth grass in the painting and the rough edges of the separation. 'You or him. You're the one with Wild Magic.'
'Yeah,' said Draco dubiously, 'but I didn't feel anything…' He grinned suddenly. 'Other than –'
'I DON'T want to hear it,' interrupted Hermione. 'What did you do that for?' she said suddenly, turning on him. 'Did you just want to make him angry with me?' Her hair was slightly tousled, and she was breathing rather quickly. 'You'll be pleased to know it worked.'
'But,' said Draco.
'You just like getting a rise out of all of us!' She was breathing very quickly by now; Draco had never supposed the ever-collected Hermione could become agitated so fast. 'You're just the same as always. Good at manipulation!' And with that, she stalked away in the same direction as Harry had.
'But,' said Draco again, then decided that it wasn't worth it and stalked off the other way.
* * *
'I'm so full,' said a voice behind him, 'I think I'm going to burst.'
Draco's pale hair hit the speaker in the face as he turned swiftly. A muffled 'Ow!' reminded him somehow of Harry. It was James Potter, clutching the corner of his eye and groaning.
'Sorry,' he said very insincerely. The fact that James looked very much like Harry did not help any possible feelings of apology or need for forgiveness.
'You need a haircut,' said a soft voice behind him in a tone of amusement. It was Lily, Draco realised instantly, and turned to her. She was stretching out a hand to pull on a long strand of hair. Surprising himself, he let her.
'He needs a haircut,' said James, 'and he's sitting in the bouillabaisse. Or,' he corrected himself, 'what's left of the bouillabaisse…'
Draco looked beneath him hurriedly and realised that he was indeed sitting in the bouillabaisse. Further explorings told him that he was sitting in the half-finished plate of bouillabaisse.
'Ugh,' he said, getting off quickly. He slipped off the table and dropped lightly to the ground. 'I'll bet there are stains.' Then he blushed rather uncharacteristically. 'I mean –'
'No, there's nothing on you,' said Lily, with a rather evil grin. 'Nothing at all.'
'You told me he came again last Christmas holidays,' said James, looking at Draco with slight annoyance. 'And you told me he says he knows your son.'
Draco winced.
'Yes,' said Lily. 'You were serving the detention, remember?'
'Yeah,' said James in the tone of someone who is extremely unconvinced. 'But… he's wearing a bracelet.'
Lily's hands closed around it again, but this time Draco felt no tendrils of darkness reaching out to grab him, and sighed in relief. 'It's pretty. And it looks really nice on you.'
Draco knew, just knew from the expression on James's face that he was dying to say 'It looks gay.' It was something Harry would have said. James didn't appear to like the smirk on his face, either. Was it just him or had the identical expression of jealousy run over Harry's face when he had – when he had…
'Thanks,' he said, allowing her to run her fingers over the engraving on the bracelet. Did she not remember that she had given it to him?
With a small sigh she released his wrist and grinned quietly. The grin reminded him of something and he looked around. 'Where are the others?'
James smiled for the first time. 'Sirius and Remus? And Peter? They're over there –' and he pointed to a group of boys appearing to have a slight disagreement with Severus Snape. Well, two were – one was standing and watching, and the other, Severus Snape himself, was folding his arms with a familiar look on his face.
Painfully Draco averted his eyes and realised that Lily was gazing at him again.
'Lily,' said James, evidently disliking very much the look that Lily was giving Draco.
She gave a small smile, and turned to James. 'Yes?' And Draco felt himself floating upwards, drifting away through the walls… it was a very pleasant feeling, drifting to the ceiling of the Great Hall during what he knew must be the Sorting and feast, and watching the others from above.
He could hear the conversation of Lily and James very clearly; they seemed to have forgotten that he had ever existed, and were now discussing him.
'That Draco person,' said James. 'He's… weird.'
Lily smiled, one hand cupping her cheek as she leant comfortably against the table. 'He's quite good-looking, though, James… and he seems very nice.'
James gave a snort. 'Good-looking?' he yelped, as though someone had just poked him in the ribs with a skewer. 'But Lily – he's so thin and – and he's – blond!'
The dreamy expression on Lily's face was slightly disturbing to the boy floating up on the ceiling. 'He looks like an angel sometimes,' she said thoughtfully. 'And he looks better skinny. And,' she looked James in the eye, 'he has a very nice… posterior.'
'LILY!' James's cry of outrage momentarily stunned the hall.
* * *
Charms, now. Charms was a class that was generally energetic, joyful and… squeaky.
'Swish and flick!' squeaked little Professor Flitwick, swishing his own wand. Draco glanced over at Harry, who was sitting with Ron while Hermione on Ron's left was looking almost agitated.
Lazily Draco swished and flicked, his silver bracelet glinting as it shook to the rhythm of his arm movements.
'Now, repeat after me…' Draco heard Flitwick say vaguely; he was feeling sleepier than ever.
A note flew across the class in the form of a paper pellet and hit him in the back of the head. Putting one hand up to catch it and looking reproachfully at Potter, Draco read the note. Is tonight still on? – HP
Yes, he wrote. And I had a dream last night. About your mother. Then he sent the note sailing back malevolently so that it caught Harry on the nose.
What happened this time? – HP
He was surprised. Harry actually didn't sound very angry any more.
I'll tell you later.
He wasn't sure if Harry was going to like the bit about the James/Lily conversation. No sir…
Oh, sod it. Who cared what Potter thought? It wasn't as if his feelings actually mattered to Draco.
* * *
Hermione came out to meet him that night at the entrance to the bathroom. Before her Draco had enjoyed a vague feeling of solitary walking-to-his-doom-ness, footsteps echoing strangely along the floor, the fingers of one hand clutched tightly around his silver bracelet. Then a small thin forlorn brown-haired Hermione clutched his hand, begging him to keep quiet, and telling him that Harry still wasn't speaking to her and that Myrtle was howling extra loud today…
Then he was actually inside, and confronted with a simmering cauldron and a very miserable piece of ectoplasm who wouldn't stop howling. It was Myrtle, and Harry stood over the cauldron with a determined face.
'Hello, Malfoy,' he said, not looking up. Hermione looked at him, still clutching Draco's hand, and led him over to a cubicle.
'I'm so glad you came,' she said. 'It's dangerous, I know, to be out here at night…'
'Yeah, I know,' said Draco. He privately gave up on both of them – her and Harry both. They were acting very strangely. First they refused to talk to him or screamed at him, then they turned right around… Hermione was practically clutching his hand. He refused to let his heart soften. Who cared if she was miserable? And about Potter?
'Hold out your left arm,' she said.
Draco obliged.
She tapped it with her wand, whispering some words which sounded strangely familiar, and Draco felt a surge of energy run into his arm. 'Ow,' he said, from force of habit, and Hermione looked worried.
'Oh dear, it didn't go wrong, did it?' Her face, bending over his wrist, was so distraught that Draco was almost sympathetic.
'You need to stop worrying,' he told her, steadying her with one hand. 'It's all right.' At the touch of his long pale fingers she shrunk back a little.
'Draco – don't. Harry will be even angrier than he is…'
'Sod Harry,' he was about to say, when the boy in question rapped on the cubicle. With easy fingers Draco opened the door. 'Yes, Potter?'
'I'm ready,' said Harry in a dazed voice. 'Drank – the – potion…'
'Oh, Harry,' said Hermione almost tenderly – making Draco want to throw up then and there – and steered him out to the wall, where he blinked and leant his head back. 'You should have waited… try to hold on, now, try to hold on…'
Harry tried to say something, but no sound came out of his mouth. He nodded.
'Can you hold on to Draco's bracelet?' asked Hermione. Draco took Harry's hand and wrapped its fingers around his wrist. 'That's good… sit down both of you…'
It was too late as she said this, for both the boys had collapsed onto the floor. Harry's eyes were closed, but just before he went out Draco murmured to Hermione, making her wonder whether he was delirious:
'Potter… you really like him, don't you, Hermione…?'
And then he too was gone. She pushed a loose strand of hair out of Draco's eyes, feeling very strange; she had never had the liberty to actually touch him before. Ugh, she thought to herself, you are not going there.
Still, it was nice to be able to observe both of them without disturbance; Harry really looked very sweet when he slept, with his dark locks falling everywhere, and the lines of his mouth relaxed into a half-smile. Draco's pixie-gone-wrong looks were more angelic than pixyish, or a little bit of both… For lack of a better word, the word that formed in Hermione's mind was 'adorable'. Hermione smiled slightly as she stepped back, sitting cross-legged on the floor.
Soon she noticed a change in the two boys; Harry was looking fresh, revitalised, peaceful. His hair fell in glossy locks onto his forehead. Even his hands – they were moving slightly, shaking Draco's wrist. And there was a change in Draco.
He looked suddenly very tired, as though he were drained. Longish silver-blond hair looked paler than usual somehow, and his eyelashes fluttered.
They were, actually, devastating eyelashes.
Hermione stopped herself hurriedly. Such a sap, she thought to herself. He… kisses me twice, and I'm already… but he's better than Harry, he talks to me… She refused to think any more, and turned her thoughts to Harry.
Was it just her, or…
Did he look like he was feeding?
No. It couldn't be…
It was going to be a very long wait.
Hermione settled down into a comfortable position on the floor, her eyes drifting half-closed. Just then Harry moaned slightly, and her eyes popped open. If she was going to wait here all night, why not pass the time agreeably?
Not only did Draco have devastating eyelashes, he also had very attractive elbows…
* * *
Harry felt very strange.
It was a good kind of strange, though; there was a bright light in front of him, and he was drawing strength from the light. Yet the light was cold; it blazed with a kind of white angry heat…
Malfoy.
Yes, it was Malfoy, and he was giving Harry strength…
Harry instinctively tried to fight. He didn't need strength from Malfoy, or anybody else. Turning, he tried to walk away from the light, but he couldn't.
'Potter.' A strange, resonating voice. 'Do you want to see your parents, or not?'
'I do,' said Harry, his voice shaky.
'Then quit trying to get away, or I might just decide to drop you!' And with that, Harry was catapulted through darkness, flying without wings, falling…
* * *
'James? James!'
A voice broke through his consciousness. Harry blinked twice, shutting his eyes again. The voice was musical, soft. 'James?'
A rough hand seized Harry by the shoulders. 'James, wake up.'
Harry's eyes opened, and he saw a boy with tousled dark hair and clean-cut features. It was very familiar.
It was Sirius Black.
Same eyes.
He couldn't think clearly.
'James, what are you doing out here?' asked Sirius, pushing Harry's hair away from his face. 'And what happened to your forehead?'
'Poor thing,' said the musical voice, bending down to touch the scar. 'We all know James. Always gallivanting everywhere, always off with someone else…' Harry was startled at the touch of bitterness in the sweet voice; it was familiar somehow…
'Mum,' he said, clearly and suddenly.
Lily Stanton looked down at him in surprise.
The moment was, of course, spoilt by howls of derisive laughter from Sirius.
'Mum!' he howled, hopping on one foot. 'Lily, he's gone off his…'
'Wait,' said Lily, turning to Harry. 'Your name is…?'
'Harry,' said the boy lying on the grass. 'Harry Potter.'
'I – I'm your mother?' Lily asked, her green eyes searching his face. 'Draco told me – I had a son – but where is he?'
'I don't know…' said Harry. He felt as though there was treacle in his head. 'He sent me here. You're – I think you're my mother. Lily Potter.'
Sirius, who had stopped laughing, was staring at Lily with wide eyes. 'Potter?' he breathed.
Lily reached out a hand to cup Harry's cheek. 'I'm beginning to believe that I need a mental hospital,' she said. 'But Harry, I'm prepared to believe you for now. Nice to meet you.' She looked like she was trying to conceal shock – and horror. Harry didn't blame her.
I wonder if I'll have a son or a daughter, he thought to himself.
'Let's take him back to the castle,' said Sirius, 'it's going to rain…'
Harry never heard him finish, because the silver spots in his eyes which demanded his attention finally got the better of him.
* * *
He was walking through mist. Grey mist. His head was clear again. And there was someone before him… Lily… his mother…
'Mum,' he whispered. She looked older, wiser, a little sadder.
'Harry,' she returned, taking his hand. 'I'm proud of you.'
'But I haven't done anything,' protested Harry.
'Light and shadow by turns,' said Lily, taking him in her arms, 'but always love. Always love, Harry.'
* * *
'Ow,' said Draco.
This was not the reaction Hermione had been looking for.
'What happened?'
'You never told me taking Potter would be so painful.' He was flexing his left wrist with a grimace, but the corners of his mouth were twitching. 'And he's still asleep.'
They both turned to look at Harry, who was sound asleep on the floor. Draco had awoken and tugged his wrist out of Harry's grasp immediately.
'We'll have to wake him,' said Hermione.
She shook Harry awake gently, and Draco went out into the corridor to check what time it was.
He returned in a matter of seconds, gasping for breath. 'Hermione,' he said warningly, and Harry looked up at him with bleary eyes. 'Classes have started. We've been here all night.'
A/N : Forgive me for the Lily/Draco bit... I have dibs on a possible Lily/Draco fic... Wait. Draco? Put that sword away, now, put it down... Of course it isn't going to be this fic, though... Wait! Don't throw that!