I have officially gone off my rocker. Yes, I said in the summary that this is part of my "No Angel" series, but the song is not by Dido at all. In fact, it is by one of my other favourite divas, Celine Dion, and the song is "It's All Coming Back to Me Now," from the "Falling Into You" album. This was, I believe, the first CD I ever got, and it's been part of my music collection for a very long time. It was just too appropriate for the situation the boys were in, and I simply had to use it for this story. Read, enjoy, and then review, please. It makes my life that much happier to know what you think of my writing.
All Coming Back: An Interlude
Eleven years it had been now, or almost that. He'd spent so long in this pitiful excuse for an existence, hiding from everyone and everything. Yet his loneliness, the longing for the one man who was out of his reach, had been there with him every single day.
There were nights when the wind was so cold,
That my body froze in bed
If I just listened to it
Right outside the window.
He could barely sleep in the cold, empty bed. Some nights, the wind howled around the Manor, its moans strangely in tune with the cries of his broken heart. Those were the worst times; he couldn't sleep a wink then, or even close his eyes.
There were days when the sun was so cruel,
That all the tears turned to dust,
And I just knew my eyes were
Drying up forever.
His skin had become paper-white because he'd avoided the sun so much. It reminded him so much of his former lover's smile, the way it appeared from behind the clouds as though it were shy.
Sometimes it seemed like he'd been alone forever, and he wondered if his father had trapped a Dementor in the Manor before he'd finally been caught and died. It would have been very like Lucius. The man had been bonkers on the best days. Azkaban prison had truly unhinged him, and he'd always been a bit of a sadist. In the end, he'd just become more blatant about causing others' pain.
I finished crying in the instant that you left,
And I can't remember where, or when, or how,
And I banished every memory you and I had ever made…
He'd had polish before, both as a student and as a warrior in the Great War, but he'd been soft, like a pure silver ingot. Now, ever since Harry left, he'd remade himself. He'd lost all of the Malfoy brilliance and shine he'd been proud of, in favour of a hard, tolerant core that would withstand anything, like steel.
He'd tried his damnedest to do away with his memories of Harry when he remade himself, but they still haunted him in his dreams and on his worst days.
He was changed from the "Ice Prince" of his first five years at Hogwarts. He was harder now, not nearly so brittle. He'd given up on being beautiful a long time ago. Now he was not nearly so brittle, and more resistant to hot tempers and the blaze of emotions.
He was further yet from the "Silver Prince" he'd been in seventh year and the following year of warfare. Blaise and Theo would be appalled to see him now. That year and that summer had been so quiet and eerie, everyone both enjoying the peace and afraid of the next attack.
He slept the majority of the time now, really just dozing, as he'd exhausted the family's impressive library years ago. He could practically recite anything contained upon the shelves, given the book's title and a page number. The library was almost as large as the one at Hogwarts, but much more comprehensive; a researcher's dream, but Draco never had any visitors.
But when you touch me like this,
And when you hold me like that,
I just have to admit
That it's all coming back to me.
When I touch you like this,
And I hold you like that,
It's so hard to believe, but
It's all coming back to me.
(It's all coming back, it's all coming back to me now…)
His monotonous, routine existence was shattered one day. It started with the reverberating gong that signalled a guest's arrival at Malfoy Manor.
"Master, guest is wanting to sees you," Winny the house-elf told him moments later, having popped into sight by Draco's bed.
"I'll be down in a few minutes, once I'm decent," he grumbled, throwing back the covers. He pulled on the first shirt and trousers in his dresser, slipping yesterday's outer robe on over them. His toilette was quick and simple; brush teeth, wash face, replait the wrist-thick blond braid that fell past his waist. Then he headed down to the formal parlour where Winny put any guest.
He was completely unprepared for this guest.
When he entered the parlour, Draco was shocked to find Harry Potter kneeling at the centre of the genuine Persian silk rug. The now-legendary hero sat there, weight distributed evenly between his knees and the feet tucked under his bum, head down and hands palm up on his thighs. The familiar holly and phoenix feather wand lay several feet in front of Harry, well out of reach.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" Draco spat. Memories long buried were flooding back, and he was having so much difficulty dealing with the past.
"Ginny is gone. Dead." The words were muffled, spoken into the carpet as they were. The wizard hadn't lifted his head.
"So? Just because your little whore is out of the way, I'm supposed to welcome you back into the life you ruined?" This brought the face off the floor. Dazzling green eyes looked at him, studying him for a long moment.
"Do you know what cancer is, Draco?" Harry finally asked.
"What does cancer have to do with anything?" He'd had too much time on his hands, to have studied such rare diseases—at least, cancer was rare among magical folk. There was no cure in either world, and there had never been any attempt to treat it with magic. It was that recent a discovery among wizards.
"She had ovarian cancer, Draco. She needed a stable home, and I married her so she would have it. She didn't want me to tell anyone."
Draco's knees gave out on him. He knew all too well how Harry's "saving people" complex worked. His ex-lover felt responsible for everyone around him, even when it was not his fault. Maybe more like especially then.
"And the child?"
"Adopted. You remember Ginny and Sev getting off on their own during the manor fight." Draco nodded. "They found your aunt in premature labour. Genetically, Tom is hers and Voldemort's, but I believe that environment makes a hell of a lot of difference."
It took several minutes for all of this information to sort itself out in Draco's mind. Tears began to stream down his cheeks unheeded as he realized the truth behind all the news, rumours, and assumptions of the years they'd been apart.
There were moments of gold,
He remembered a blissful August day during that strange summer after seventh year. They'd been at Hogwarts, just the two of them, and all the professors had gone out for the day. They'd made love for hours out on the grounds, the bright summer sun casting a golden glow over everything.
And there were flashes of light.
He lived again the battle in Voldemort's stronghold, fighting back-to-back with Harry, protecting them both as they fought through the halls.
There were things I'd never do again,
But then they'd always seemed right.
He recalled defending Harry against his own parents, matching them both spell for spell. He'd ultimately won by hitting Narcissa with a disarming charm and a Levicorpus, then Lucius with a Sectumsempra. Lucius had died within moments, and Narcissa was imprisoned in one of the new cells in Azkaban; she'd been bricked in, with only a small window left, and that opening was warded so that no living material could pass through it.
There were nights of endless pleasure;
It was more than any laws allow,
Baby, baby!
He remembered all-night and all-day sessions in their London flat, each of them finding new and often… coughinteresting cough ways of making the other come.
If I kiss you like this,
And if you whisper like that,
It was lost long ago,
But it's all coming back to me.
If you want me like this,
And if you need me like that,
It was dead long ago,
But it's all coming back to me.
It's so hard to resist,
And it's all coming back to me.
I can barely recall,
But it's all coming back to me now!
He waited quietly, his heart shattering again as Draco visibly went through buried memories. He longed to reach out and brush away the tears falling from the tightly closed eyes, to put his arms around the only person he'd ever truly loved, but Harry forced himself to be still.
He, too, was plagued by painful memories.
There were those empty threats and hollow lies,
He remembered all too well the rivalry they'd had at Hogwarts, and he could see, in hindsight, how they'd both disguised their true feeling about each other. They'd done so well that they'd even hidden those feelings from themselves.
And whenever you tried to hurt me,
I just hurt you even worse
And so much deeper.
After their break-up, he'd occasionally gotten anonymous owls about Ginny spending the night with some paramour or other. Harry has supposed they were from Draco; after all, they were in his handwriting. He'd ignored them because he and Ginny knew that she'd never get any action from him, and they weren't really married, anyway. In retrospect, ignoring the letters had probably come across as though he didn't give a hang about fidelity at all. He'd still been exclusively Draco's, and always had since he realized his feelings for the blond.
There were hours that just went on for days,
When, alone at last, we'd count up all the chances
That were lost to us forever.
They'd both hated the Order meetings, especially during the long, quiet year and a half when no one could find Voldemort. The meetings took forever after the Aurors joined, and the wasted time had added up rather quickly. Harry had very much wished, after he'd married Ginny and lost his love, that they'd been brave enough to skip some of those gatherings.
But you were history with the slamming of the door.
And I'd made myself so strong again some how.
And I never wasted any of my time on you since then…
He'd found out about Ginny's health, and she'd immediately overridden anything else in his life, even his own life, such as it was. Not even his powerful love for Draco had been able to stand in the way of taking care of his surrogate little sister. So he'd buried his feelings again, occupying his time with charities, the Ministry, and soon, raising his son. He'd ignored the mornings he'd woken up hard and the times he woke to sticky sheets.
But if I touch you like this,
And if you kiss me like that,
It was so long ago,
But it's all coming back to me.
If you touch me like this,
And if I kiss you like that,
It was gone with the wind,
But it's all coming back to me.
(It's all coming back, it's all coming back to me now…)
He watched Draco return to the present with a mixture of hope and fear. He didn't know how the blond would react. Eleven years in seclusion could do almost anything to a wizard.
Tears still brimmed in the familiar silver eyes, and one pale, slim hand reached for him.
"Sorry… So, so sorry. Always loved you…" Harry took the searching hand in his own as he heard the half-sobbed words.
"I'm the one who should be apologizing. I love you, Draco, and I made a huge mistake. Can you ever forgive me?" He was cut off as his arms filled with blond wizard.
"Always forgiven," Draco murmured as he pelted Harry's face with soft kisses.
"Mine," the dark-haired man growled, then he kissed his beloved firmly. He would remember this day forever.
There were moments of gold,
They made love right there on the silk rug, the tensions of eleven years apart seeping out of them over the course of several hours.
Two days passed before they were ready to do anything but renew their bonds. The first order of business was to find a home. Harry couldn't possibly stay in Ginny's cottage, and Malfoy Manor was a resounding no.
They soon found a penthouse flat with more than enough room in downtown London. The next task was to retrieve Tom from his godfather and his housemates.
And there were flashes of light.
Upon seeing Draco clinging to his father—a familiar sight for the adults of Grimmauld Place, but a new one for the young wizard—Tom had closed up, his face becoming the unfathomable mask he'd learned from Harry.
"I would never try to replace your mum," the blond had patiently explained. "She was quite a formidable woman and a good friend of mine, and she'd probably come back and kick me all the way to Australia if I even tried." The boy couldn't help but laugh at the idea.
"Then what would you be, if you're not taking Mum's place?" It was a shrewd question, and difficult to answer.
"Well, for one, I'd be your dad's help-meet and partner. We love each other, you see, while he and your mum felt like they were siblings." The blond allowed Tom a moment to think this over, and continued at the boy's nod. "Also, your birth-mother was my aunt, despite our differences, and I would enjoy being your cousin." Tom was silent for a few minutes.
"Do I have any other cousins?" the young wizard finally asked.
"Well, your dad might have exposed you to one reprobate Auror… That Tonks is quite a strange one, and I wonder if it runs in the family."
"Aunt Change is my cousin!"
"Why, yes. Our three mothers were sisters, you know. The terror and pride of Slytherin in their day, the Black sisters were." With this bit of knowledge, Harry's lover and his adopted son began an incredible friendship. He'd know that Remus was watching the entire conversation, and he was glad that the werewolf had not needed to intervene.
There were things we'd never do again,
But then they'd always seemed right.
They'd tried auto shopping later that summer, all three of them going out to the dealership. The experience had been an unmitigated disaster, and became a source of laughter for years. Draco and Tom had asked the salesman so many questions, some of them extremely strange to the Muggle, that the poor man could barely get a word in edgewise. In the end, it was decided that they would just build a magical vehicle that looked like an auto. It had become quite an enjoyable project.
There were nights of endless pleasure;
It was more than all your laws allow,
Baby, baby, baby!
Late in Tom's third year, almost three years after they'd become a family of three wizards, a surprise was sprung on all of them.
Harry had been feeling off for a few weeks, and, in frustration with St. Mungo's, had turned to Madam Pomfrey at Hogwarts. She'd agreed to check him out immediately, and he arrived via her private Floo connection.
After hours of exhaustive tests, the mediwitch had almost given up on diagnosing her frequent patient. Desperate, she'd dug a vial out of her storage cabinet and returned to Harry's side. He'd stared at the pale grey solution blankly.
Wordlessly, Poppy had taken his hand, pricked his thumb, and squeezed three fat crimson drops of blood into the vial. The mixture had reacted violently, foaming to the very brim before subsiding to a wildly coruscating fluid.
Obviously confused, the witch had fire-called Severus and held a hushed conversation with the potions master. Harry was soon confronted with a bottle of the same grey potion, considerably less dusty than the vial, and donated another three drops of blood, his former professor watching from the grate. The results were precisely the same. Another whispered conversation ensued before Severus returned to his experiments and assistant at Grimmauld Place. Poppy had then faced him, hands on her hips.
"I don't know how, but you've made history once again, Mr. Potter. I'll be blunt; you're pregnant, and you'll be the first known and documented male pregnancy." He'd groaned.
"Bloody brilliant, I'm a lab rat again."
Eight months later, his experience was being lauded as a miracle, and Harry and Draco were the proud parents of Hyacinth Marie Malfoy-Potter, known as Cynthia for short.
When you touch me like this,
And when you hold me like that,
It was gone with the wind,
But it's all coming back to me.
When you see me like this,
And when I see you like that,
Then we see what we want to see;
All coming back to me…
The flesh and the fantasies;
All coming back to me…
I can barely recall,
But it's all coming back to me now!
Harry knew that his life would never be normal, and no one would ever consider his family run-of-the-mill, either. After all, they were Potters and Malfoys. Normal would simply never do.
Still, he had the family he'd always dreamed of but never hoped for, and that was all that he needed to be happy.
That, and his dragon, the blond wizard with the funny name: Draco Malfoy.
(It's all coming back to me now…)
And when you kiss me like this,
(It's all coming back to me now…)
And when I touch you like that,
(It's all coming back to me now…)
If you do it like this,
(It's all coming back to me now…)
And if we…
Well, how about that? I just love happy endings. There's just one more story to go in this series, and it's already written, I just need the motivation to type it up. Again, please review, and I will try to get the last bit up soon. Thanks!