Title: Trick of Fate
Author: I_nv_u50
Pairings: Harry/Draco
Disclaimer: Hm. I might be able to claim owning the plot, but not really much anything else. (figure that one out! :D)
Rating: Still PG13. I think my muses are on a sensual strike.
Summary: Harry depressed, and Lily is getting depressed just knowing he's upset. So, naturally, Lily and James go down to earth to try and cheer Harry up. How they do it comes as a surprise to everyone – themselves included.
Categories: Romance, Humor
Warnings: Just your average slash story.
Author's Notes: It's about time O.o; Of course, I should probably consider updating my other stories as well, but that should come by the very latest on Sunday… yes, this Sunday. Yes, I know I'm going to end up frantically writing then ignoring the deadline, but it's nice to pretend, isn't it?
Draco: Psh. She gets to pretend and live in her idealistic world while we have to work. Where's the fairness in that?
Harry: (whispers) At least we live in the real world. We can say we have a life and mean it!
I_nv_u50: Oh, that's harsh.
Ignore them. They're doing double labor for this, so the other stories probably will get updated by Sunday. Anyway, enjoy, and please review!! ^^
It was almost a good doodle. Of course, he would never be as good as Dean was at drawing, but at least he tried. Harry stared at it closer, looking for a hint of something; something he wasn't even sure was in there.
It was a messy sketch of a bloody battle scene that took up nearly a quarter of the parchment Harry had in front of him. Scrawled over the rest of the parchment haphazardly were notes for History of Magic. Professor Binns was still as boring as ever, and Harry had lost whatever enthusiasm he might have had for the great battle of 1453 after about ten minutes.
Even Ron, who had almost been looking forward to this lesson, had dozed off within five minutes of the ghost's opening words to the class. Hermione was busy, frantically writing things down that Harry was sure weren't notes, but he wasn't positive.
Ah. There it was. Harry wasn't entirely sure on the reasons he had put it in, but there was a faint figure of a woman in the sketch, wearing what was obviously battle armor. Harry didn't know why he just knew she was a woman, but he accepted it as it was. He didn't really care anymore, not now that he had found the thing he had been looking for.
Instead, he turned his attention to the window. The monotonous voice droned on, and Harry slowly began to daydream about quidditch, and the end of the period.
Lily was complaining loudly. She sometimes had a tendency to do that, for reasons that were occasionally beyond James, but he had always assumed it was a girl thing.
On this though, she had his complete support. It went beyond decency to place guardian angels with the son of a worst enemy of one of those guardian angels.
If it hadn't been Michael who had given them the applicant, James would have complained. But he liked Michael, and respected him; in much the same way he had liked and respected Albus. Michael was happily unaware of this, because he tried to be almost scary towards his charges, but only he didn't know that all his charges liked him quite a bit more than he might have liked.
James sighed and flipped over, enjoying his new wings. He had always loved quidditch, and a broom was as free flying as most people got, but he had always wanted more somehow, and now he finally had them. His very own wings. Lily seemed quite happy with hers as well, when she wasn't complaining about Draco.
Draco Malfoy. Their charge, the recipient of their guarding attentions. From what James had seen of Draco's file, Draco was indeed his father's son. A complete and utter bastard. Cold and unfeeling, with hardly a scrap of remorse or decency in him. Lily was right. It was almost enough to make him despair, except he was going back to earth. Back to his son, and his best friends. Even if they wouldn't be able to see him without him wishing it, James was sure that being around them would be enough for them to tell him to show himself. Remus and Sirius weren't stupid, however often Sirius pretended to be, and they would feel and know the presence of the guardian angels.
Harry, however, would probably be a different matter. Both James and Lily could have cheerfully murdered off Petunia and Vernon, if it didn't go against everything angels stood for.
The one who he would get even with though, was Pettigrew. James had sworn that he would have Pettigrew's head. Or at least see his featureless face in Azkaban. Michael had agreed to the Azkaban plan, but not the murdering plan. He had said it wasn't fluffy or cute enough to be an angel's doing.
James had almost damned the smirking head angel for that, but he wasn't as stupid as he pretended to be either.
Lily stopped complaining suddenly, and gave a girly squeal of delight. A girly squeal that James didn't tease because he respected her temper, and because he was too busy holding back a squeak of delight as well.
Hogwarts was just below them. They were finally home.
Harry looked up with a start, and not just because Ron was poking him viciously with his wand. The things were coming closer. He could feel it, and it alarmed him somewhat. They weren't supposed to come closer; they were supposed to stay safely away, away from him and his friends. They weren't allowed to come closer.
He stopped his half panic when Ron poked him again, and twisted in his seat to glare at Ron.
Ron, blithely oblivious to the glare, just stood up. "Come on Harry, let's go. The period's over, at last. It's about time too." Ron took a closer look at Harry's pale face. "Are you all right? You don't look too good."
Harry, abruptly deciding that Ron didn't need to know, that he would be safer not knowing, shook his head negatively. "I'm fine. Just tired and bored."
Ron gave him a searching look, but didn't say anything, and Harry packed up his stuff, aware that the things were watching him closely.
Surprisingly, it felt oddly comforting now. The things were projecting feelings at him, feelings that felt good, feelings that almost felt like love.
But it couldn't be that.
Draco knew instantly that he wasn't alone. He was sitting on his bed in his dorm, contemplating his toes. They were freak toes, he was sure. They did not suit the perfectionism that was the rest of his body. He idly wondered if they had been made like that on purpose.
He blamed it on his parents, refusing to make a distinction between the two. He wasn't happy with them just yet. It always took a while for Draco to forgive something. Who said grudges weren't the best things?
He looked up when he felt the things, feeling something inside of himself pull towards them, almost desperate to be recognized and acknowledged. He squashed it down viciously. Draco did not need to beg to be recognized. He did that all on his own, just by being in the same room with people.
People pointed out his silver blonde hair, his cool gray eyes and flawless features. No, Draco did not need to beg to be recognized.
"Who's there?" He mentally punched himself after the words slipped out. How cliched.
There was a dim muttering inside his head, as if some people were invading in his thoughts, and he glowered at the empty air around him.
"Show yourselves or I'll have you punished."
A peal of laughter did not improve his temper, and he stood up, prepared to get Professor Snape and complain that the ghosts, or whatever they were, were invading his thoughts.
As this was illegal without consent, he was positive that Snape could do something about it. He wasn't sure about the legal allowances made for ghosts, but he was sure that some people could think of something. It wasn't any of his concern beyond getting the ghosts to stop bothering him.
A shimmering of the air next to Vincent's bed made him switch his glare there immediately, only to be glaring at a pretty redhead, who was glaring viciously back. The fact that he could see she was a redhead gave him pause for a second, because ghosts weren't meant to have color in them. They could wear color, but not be in color.
Another shimmering near the wardrobe made him look there, where Harry Potter was looking around inside the drawers, an expression of extreme distaste on his face.
"I trust the contents of our cupboard is up to your standards, Potter." Draco spat out, the loathing plain for all to hear.
Potter looked up, but his eyes were brown and not green. Draco took a startled step backwards, taken aback by the presence.
"What are you?" he whispered, and then repeated, in a much more confident voice.
"We're your guardian angels." Lily Potter sounded as disgusted as she looked.
Draco looked outraged, and felt it too. "I don't need you to be my guardian angels!"
James Potter looked slightly amused now, and he just sat down where he was, the air holding him up easily. "And we don't want to be your guardian angels. But laws and orders are laws and orders, and there's no way to get around them I'm afraid. Trust me, we've tried."
Draco sat down heavily on his bed, resisting the urge to pout. He glared at them imperiously instead. "All right. Why do I need you?"
Lily almost immediately looked almost pitying. "I'm sorry. We can't tell you that, rules, you know. But you will need us, if not yet then definitely within the next few months."
Draco stomped venomously on the parts that wanted to sulk and the parts that were immediately half curious. It needn't concern him yet.
"All right," he replied instead, the picture of calm reasonableness. "So what is it you actually do? Or plan to do?"
James gave a slight shrug, reclining back in the air. "We don't know yet. We just watch you and guide you and all that crap."
Draco eyed him incredulously. "So you stay with me every minute of every day until I no longer need you?"
James shrugged again. "Sort of. We will leave sometimes, you know how it is, places to go, people to see…"
Draco raised his eyebrows thoughtfully. "What about Potter?" he drawled out slowly, "Does he know you're here?"
"He suspects it," Lily answered quietly, "but he doesn't quite understand what he's feeling yet."
Draco smirked triumphantly. He had always suspected that potter was stupid, of course, but no one had believed him. No one but Potter's enemies, but Draco didn't care about them. He wanted to see Potter rejected by those he cared most about as well. "I always knew he was stupid."
The heated glare from Lily was back on at full force. "Don't you dare call my son stupid. He just doesn't know all there is to know about us. Not surprising, given my family, but still."
Draco held up his hands placatingly, an effect that was spoiled by the triumphant smirk on his face. "I knew Potter had it bad, but how could he not know?"
Lily gave him a dubious look. "Draco, he's a wizard raised by muggles. I'm sure he knows a lot of things about muggles that you don't. It's only natural he doesn't know some of the stuff you do."
Draco snorted. "I'm not sure I'd want to know anything about muggles, Potter."
James smiled slightly, apparently amused again by something Draco couldn't see. "Do you always call Harry 'Potter' as well?"
Draco looked at him suspiciously, unsure about where the question was leading. "Yea."
"Maybe you should start calling him 'Harry'."
Draco was incensed at the suggestion. "Why the hell would I want to do that?"
"Because if you keep calling him 'Potter', you're going to get the whole family mixed up."
Draco stared at him blankly.
"If you want to call one of us, what will you say?"
"Potter," Draco answered automatically, then blinked at himself, realizing what the problem was.
"You see?" James stood up again, a simple matter of putting his feet on the floor. "If you keep calling him 'Potter', we'll keep thinking you mean one of us, and we'll come when you don't want us to."
Draco stared at him, barely suppressing his horror at the idea. "Exactly how close are we tied together that if I say 'Potter' you can hear me?"
"We're only supposed to hear your voice," Lily answered, "but Michael granted us permission to hear whomever we chose to. But your voice will always be the loudest to us, even if you are whispering from the other side of the castle and someone else is screaming directly in our ear. Apparently we can also talk inside your head and you in ours, but we're not quite willing to try that just yet."
Draco was horrified. "I should hope so!"
James walked closer, not touching Draco, but almost close enough to. "We've given you a shock. Have a nap, Draco, never mind your next class. Sleep it off, maybe you'll feel better when you wake up."
"I sincerely doubt that," Draco muttered, but he obeyed the quiet order, which was just proof at how shaken he really was.
Lily looked down at the prone, pale blonde. "I still don't like him."
James gave her a look, and she shrugged guiltily. "I don't. Maybe in a few days I'll feel better about this, but right now, he's too snobby."
"You're right, as usual," James replied, grinning, and he shimmered out of sight before she could slap him.
She stared at him. "I can still see you, you know," she remarked blandly.
He grinned at her again. "I know. But if I'm like this, Harry can't yet, and I want to go see him."
Lily nodded happily, thoughts of Draco fading as she shimmered out of sight and followed her husband out of the dorm.
Draco waited until they were gone before smirking slightly to himself, and he sat up, prepared to roll out of bed and go wreck havoc, when his cruelly gleeful gaze caught sight of his still bare toes.
He was more sure than ever now that the Gods were punishing him, and the identities of his two guardian angels only confirmed the fact.
What was he going to do?