All I own is Drey, unfortunately
"So, what do you think so far?"
The resulting babble almost made Narcissa sorry that she'd asked the question, but at least it was positive babble.
"It's great."
"It's so beautiful."
"The library is fantastic."
And so it went on, and on, and on. In five minutes they seemed to want to make up for all the silence during their tour. Some muffled sounds had emerged when they walked through the gallery, and were subjected to the gazes of every member of the Malfoy family from the last three hundred years (the older portraits were in a separate part of the house), and Hermione had been ecstatic when she walked into the library with its vaulted ceilings and multitude of books, but for some reason she had toned it down and just been content with spinning around in circles pointing at everything and covering her mouth to stop from screaming out loud (though why exactly she was trying to hide it all was still a bit of a mystery).
Unable to resist the temptation, when they'd quietened down Pansy said:
"So you like it then?"
And so started off another enthusiastic round of 'praise the Manor'.
It continued in that way for another ten minutes before the Malfoys grew tired of hearing the same statements over and over again. You'd think that if people were going to enthuse this much about something, they wouldn't say the same thing every time they opened their mouth. Not a single one had commented on the portraits in the gallery, seemingly uncomfortable around them, not even a smile for the portraits of the twins.
A piercing whistle finally broke through the babble, and every eye turned to the house elf who was just lowering his fingers from his lips.
"Luncheon is served."
And with a crack he disappeared.
"Oh good, I had it held backing case you all wanted to unpack or take a tour of the house first."
With that Narcissa disappeared through the open doors leaving the teenagers to follow along behind. Drey easily threaded her arm through Bill's and the two followed her mother, while ignoring the dark haired boy blushes, Draco followed her actions with Harry, then Vince and Greg. After a slight pause, Charlie and Pansy headed towards each other at the same time and swiftly followed suite. Blaise and Seamus were next, only being delayed this long because Seamus was transfixed by the moving figures on a glass vase. After many shy looks, blushes and feet shuffling Neville sidled over to Ginny and did his best to control the forest fire erupting in his cheeks while she hid her small hand in his larger one. Hermione had been standing around awkwardly, knowing that all the others were paired off and wondering if she would have to walk in on her own, and really not wanting to, Merlin that would be embarrassing!
She was broken out of her thoughts by a shy cough and found herself staring at a pink face and a gallantly out held arm. Neville was staring at her shyly, Ginny perfectly matching his expression. Although both faces were wreathed in smiles when she took the outstretched hand and the three headed through the open doors.
"Come on Harry, you can't sleep down here."
"Watch me."
The words were muffled in a large cushion, Harry was lying face down, stretched along one of the plush sofas, his ankles and lower legs resting on Draco's cotton clad thighs. Bill was settled deep into an armchair, with Drey huddled on top of him, those four were the only ones left downstairs, everyone else had poured themselves into bed after a splendiferous five course dinner. Stories had been told about everyone's lives, anecdotes from childhood, Seamus came out with some tales that ad everyone n stitches, as did Blaise and the twins. Then Bill and Drey told stories about their time in Egypt together, a subject they hadn't really touched on before, the separation was still a sore point with Draco, and the transition between Egypt and Hogwarts and the break-up still held bad memories for Drey and Bill, but tonight they'd had a good time and all the embarrassing stories, most of which were about Bill, came streaming out.
The quartet had been indulging in rich chocolates and sweets, and were consequently feeling rather sluggish, instead of the raucous chattering that had taken place earlier in the evening the conversation was more mellow, memories more intimate, voices softer. Drey had long ago acquainted her boyfriend with Draco's feelings towards Harry, and as the two of them watched the weeks pass they noticed the frequent looks and touches that passed between the two. Harry was often found staring at the back of a blonde head, looking as though he was trying to read the thoughts floating around inside. They had been spending a lot of time together recently, doing their potions project, homework, quidditch practice, there were very few moments when they weren't together anymore. A far cry from the way they had acted over the last several years.
It was painfully obvious to the two observers, and Charlie and the members of the original court what feelings they had for each other. The others, Hermione, Neville and Ginny had been a bit slower about picking it up, probably because they were so used to seeing him in the role of infallible Golden Boy. Seamus knew, his own experiences with Blaise over the years made him able to recognise the signs of unrequited love. But they'd figure it out, their friends, Drey in particular wouldn't let it go on for too long, although they should be able to figure it out themselves, they were fairly close as it was.
Throughout the evening Drey and Bill had watched the other two, seen how close they were getting, and as the crowd dissipated and everyone went to bed, they watched how comfortable they were with each other. They moved around each other as though they were in a choreographed dance, it was just one they hadn't figured out that they knew yet.
"I'm gonna head up. Night Draco, Harry."
Kissing her brother and friend on their heads Drey headed out the door, closely followed by Bill as he echoed her sentiments and waved goodnight. Draco stared at the door for a while after it closed, then shifted his gaze back to the boy across his lap. He was snoring very softly, the side of his face that wasn't pressed into the cushions was dead to the world, lashes resting on smooth skin, mouth relaxed but slightly open, dead to the world.
Shifting his legs just made the sleeping beauty shift with him, so Draco now had the room to lie down, curved against Harry's back, or move and wake him up. It didn't take him long to decide which he was going to do, for several reasons, it wasn't just that he wanted to lie down next to him…honest.
A whispered word extinguished all the light except for the slowly dying fire, and for a long time Draco watched the orange light flicker over Harry's face, and very lightly he traced the planes of the sleeping face, cheekbones, nose, eyebrows, savouring every forbidden touch. And gradually, he fell asleep, arms curled at his side. But later when the room was only illuminated by a few nearly burned out embers they shifted, Harry moved around so he was facing Draco, his arm shifted over the blonde boys waist, and later, when there was no light left at all, Draco moved, his body pressed in closer to Harry and his leg slid in between the other boy's two. And they remained that way until they were woken in the morning.
"Sshh you'll wake them up."
The whispers slowly seeped into the boys' sleep muddled brains, but they were like baby tadpoles trying to fight their way through treacle.
Draco was perhaps slightly more alert than Harry, living with Lucius Malfoy did wonders for your levels of alertness, but ever since his father had been arrested he'd let his guard down. And although there was no small level of animosity towards them at school, great honking piles of it in fact, there was no danger towards the twelve of them in their suite, so they could safely relax while they slept. And after Harry had told them about his foray into the Slytherin common room all those years ago, security had been beefed up, recognition spells were imbedded in the walls of the Slytherin common room, no one, animal, vegetable or mineral, could get in unless they belonged without a magic proof cage forming around them and a siren going off, only audible to Slytherins and the Court of course, and Snape. They'd tested it out on Mrs Norris and it had been absolutely hilarious, even Snape had been in stitches, a sight that had just made the ex-Gryffindors laugh even harder.
And all of those circumstances had conspired to make Draco sleep a lot more heavily than he usually did, and the sumptuous meal he'd had the night before hadn't helped, so he didn't wake until it was too late and the telltale click and flash had already gone off.
He started awake sitting up abruptly, flinging himself over Harry so he was holding himself up by his arms, one on either side of his face, and found himself first staring into sleepy green eyes, then after loosing focus for a few seconds, (but who could blame him when faced with an image like that) he looked up. And found himself staring at eleven smirking human faces, three smiling house elves, and five different cameras. Harry had seen them as well and so at the same time they both went:
"Oh fuck!"
But when Harry moved, trying to hide his flaming face, he jerked one of Draco's arms, making the other boy collapse onto his chest. And amidst more clicks, flashes and giggles, those unmistakeable two words came out of the same two mouths once again. Although the tone may have been slightly different.
"Will you please stop looking at us like that!"
Pansy's eyes flicked up to her friend's steady silver ones before sliding straight back down, successfully intimidated.
During her time at the Manor Narcissa had experienced some very uncomfortable meals, but none of them compared to this. Silence of all different kinds permeated the room, awkward, accusing, threatening, uncomfortable, the list went on and on. The blank, aggressive stares that her son and Harry were sending to any of the others who even so much as breathed too loudly were quite…terrifying…and she'd been on the end of a lot of glares in her time.
She knew what was going on, Drey had told her earlier, and she understood completely why Draco and Harry would be angry, upset and embarrassed, of course she also thought it was absolutely hysterical and had already made sure her daughter would give her several copies of each picture. She just had one minor concern, if this is how two reacted to a few compromising photographs, how would the whole crowd react to the surprise she had for them after breakfast.
"Give me those photos!"
Gritted teeth, flaming eyes, even paler than normal skin, yep, Draco was mad.
Harry was standing by his side, managing to look angry but not quite as threatening as his friend.
"Forget it Drac, these are going where neither of you can find them, they're our insurance policies for if you ever start acting…contrary to our wants."
Flinging her nose up in the air Drey finally ended the argument and stalked off, somehow managing to make Draco and Harry feel as though she were the aggrieved party and they had been the ones to upset her. Avery useful talent, and one she had used on Bill many times in their relationship, which explained the sympathetic look he shot towards the two younger boys.
"Dragons. Children. Could you all come to the foyer please?"
The magically enhanced voice echoed through the mansion in the same way as a tannoy announcement would. So they all trooped off, the two models staring balefully at the others' backs.
"Narcissa stop worrying, I'm sure everything will be just fine."
There was a distinct note of forced, fake, joviality in the visitors' voice, and there were several unbelieving snorts from behind her.
Narcissa didn't reply, in a very un-Malfoyish display she way chewing on her bottom lip and ringing her hands together, house elves who had taken the visitors' luggage up to their rooms were clustered around the balcony, wanting to see the moment when those who were already there met those who had just arrived. It was going to be explosive!
The sound of laughter and joking voices reached the foyer before the teenagers did, and when they did arrive they were all in a cluster, gathered around each other, unconsciously falling into the pattern they wandered around school in. Even then it wasn't a conscious decision, just a way to protect themselves against the hexes that very often came their way, usually from a stuck up, pig headed, egotistical red head (no offence to Bill, Charlie or Ginny obviously).
But when the giggling crowd reached their destination and looked at Narcissa the laughter stopped, smiles dripped off faces and were replaced by grim stares or glares, wands were reached for and Draco was holding out hands that had miniature lightning bolts dancing between his fingers, while Drey had fire decorating the slender digits.
"What the hell is he doing here!"
"Get out of our house!"
Loud, angry exclamations and recriminations continued to pour forth, while the object of their hatred stood there stolidly, growing pinker and pinker.
"Be quiet!"
Narcissa's scream ripped through the air, effectively shutting everyone up, partly because of the force and partly because of the shock of hearing her scream. While everyone was recovering, and the lady herself was getting her breath back, the object of the courts' hatred stepped forward and with a few words managed to make himself despised even more.
"Anyone would think you weren't happy to see me."
And Ron Weasley managed a pale of imitation of a Malfoy smirk when he saw the impotent fury on each and ever face before him.
Hi everyone, sorry it's been so long but I just haven't been able to get to my laptop, sorry, hope this is liked though, please review everyone :)
Morena Evensong: glad you liked it, and sorry it's been so long, everything's got a bit hectic recently, but I hope you like this chapter too.
Nicole: sorry it's been so long but I hope you like this update.
Harrysloverdracosangel: so glad, hope you like the rest of it too.
Silverone3: happy birthday, sorry it's been a while; hope you liked this one too.