Chapter 15
The elevator pinged, the doors slid open, and the first thing that Draco saw was –
Glass. A wall of glass. And then beyond that…
"Bloody hell," he muttered to himself. "Extravagance isn't exactly unanticipated, but this…"
Since departing the dainty little portkey terminal in Lucerne barely an hour before, Draco had little enough time to sight-see. He'd had little time to do anything, really, despite spending the previous night in the capitol, Bern. Checking into the hotel had been a late-night event, and the portkey booked for that morning was ridiculously early. Draco appreciated the tourist gig, and had never been to Switzerland before himself, but the miss was practically negligible because –
"Wow. Madame Clementine doesn't do anything by halves, does she?"
Glancing sidelong, Draco couldn't help but watch as Harry took half a step towards the wall of window on display across the breadth of the room. His eyes were wide behind his glasses, his eyebrows raised and his mouth slightly ajar, and in all honesty, Draco couldn't blame him for his stupefaction. Still, despite the view, he found himself almost as transfixed by Harry and his open wonder as he was what lay beyond the window itself.
Madame Clementine's studio building perched atop a cliff of sorts. A cliff that overlooked not only the huddled little city of Lucerne in all of its picturesque glory but also the sprawling expanse of the lake it sat alongside. That lake, wide and so dark and deep that it could have been a reflection of the night sky Draco had glimpsed that morning, had become a golden mirror of the rising sun in breath-taking glory. The haphazard ring of mountains surrounding it, the green hills interspersed and speckled with distant, winding roads that traipsed across their splendour and all upon a backdrop of orange, pink, and pale blue – it was stunning.
Not that Draco could look for long. It was beautiful, yes, but he was just as intent – if not more – upon watching Harry's reaction. Harry was, he'd discovered, nothing short of a novice when it came to travel and sightseeing. He took every turn and lookout with a face of wonder.
I'm so far gone that barely a year ago I would have been thoroughly disgusted with myself, Draco thought, but he couldn't find himself objecting to the fact. Harry was here, with him, had said "yes" and "please" as though he actually wanted to be, and that agreement somehow meant more to Draco than the job itself. In the face of second-guessing his inclination to take the job at all – the interview package offered by Syren and Estallas was good but not good enough to turn up his nose at more work – simply because it would mean leaving Harry behind in London, the outcome was nothing short of ideal. Almost too good to be true.
That entire morning, the entire night before, the evening in the hotel, Draco struggled to properly believe the reality he'd fallen into. 'Too good to be true' didn't necessarily mean that it wasn't true, did it? He and Harry hadn't discussed just what lay between them, hadn't really had the time, and yet…
"Hallo," a voice said, interrupting Draco's thoughts and staring. "Wie kann ich lhnen helfen?"
Drawn from his attentiveness, Draco glanced across the wide – ridiculously wide – spread of the foyer that mimicked the lake beyond the window almost eerily. An equally wide desk, of darkwood and shining with polished reflectiveness, stretched along the wall adjacent to the elevator. A single young man sat behind it, perfectly groomed in a tailored suit and blinking at them with quizzically raised eyebrows and open expectation.
Brushing past Harry where he too had shaken himself from staring out of the window, Draco approached the desk. He knew enough hodgepodge German to make sense of the man's words, but replied in French nonetheless.
"Hello," he said, tipping his heat in a nod of greeting. "My name is Draco Malfoy. I've got an appointment with Madame Clementine."
The man's face cleared instantly, and he too switched to French without a hitch. "Ah, of course! Mr. Malfoy. You have made good time today. I trust your travels were agreeable?"
How different it was, to be met with a smile by not only someone in the industry but also a wizard as Draco knew all of Madame Clementine's workers were, and face not prejudice but a professional greeting. How strange, yet how satisfying. Draco would always love England, and he would always long for it just a little when he was abroad, but there were definitely benefits to stepping outside of its disfavouring borders.
"Well enough," Draco replied. "The connections were efficient."
"Wonderful," the man said, smiling easily as he rose to his feet. "If you please, I won't be a moment. I'll just inform the Madame of your arrival."
With that, he skirted around the desk, crossed the room, and slipped through one of only two doors in the wall. In the minimalistic refinement of the space, the doors themselves almost invisible in their seamless camouflage with the wall, the man's confident, fluid step fit perfectly. He disappeared in a muted click of the door.
Taking a slow glance about the room, Draco ran his gaze over every inch of space that breathed of Madame Clementine. She had a style that he'd seen many a time in the work attached to her name, and even if she wasn't the one directly behind the camera, nor the one who crafted the garments her models wore or the one who held the brush and applied the makeup, her presence pervaded nonetheless.
White walls and dark floors. A predominance of crystalline glass. A glorious image of a young woman in blacks and whites taking up the majority of the wall-space between the two doors. Throughout the room, that style of minimalism, of refinement, extended without the rigid lines that such designs might otherwise entail. A pair of seats alongside the glass window-wall, positioned just so and with a low-lying table between, a stretch of space along either side of the seating that was empty of adornment or furnishings and only seemed to enhance the beauty of the room rather than make it appear dauntingly sparse. Even the receptionist's desk embodied Clementine's unique style.
"I've seen her work before, but I've never met her myself."
Harry's murmured words drew Draco's attention towards him where it could never drift for long. He was staring out the window once more, but less in awe and wonder this time. He seemed more… contemplative.
Draco took himself back to Harry's side. Even so close, it was nearly impossible to believe that Harry was with him. They'd shared a portkey, and Draco had stood alongside Harry as he'd called his agent Picard from Bern in a belated explanation of his abrupt trip to Switzerland. He'd met Harry's stare when he'd ended the call, and Harry had smiled a little tentatively with an almost questioning "I guess I'm free to go now."
The urge to reach out a hand and touch his shoulder was almost impossible to resist. Just to be sure that Harry was there. That he was with him. That he'd decided to accompany Draco, not because Draco wanted it and had demanded it of him but because Harry wanted to be there. He wanted it. Draco was still reeling slightly with that knowledge; it was enough to distract him from the job that should have, by all rights, monopolised his attention.
Draco didn't think he'd ever been less focused on a job in his life.
"She's good," Draco replied to Harry's words in perhaps the biggest understatement of the year. "There's a reason she's Creative Director of Karisma."
"I know," Harry said, and likely he truly did. Draco knew he would have and could accept that he did, but in some ways, despite that even to simply look at him would give evidence that he was model material, it still struck Draco that he was a very different person to the boy he'd once known.
"Would you like to work with her?" he asked, tipping his head in a curious study.
Harry pursed his lips, frowning slightly as he stared out the window, before nodding slowly. "I think I would. I'd learn a lot from someone like her, I think."
"Learn a lot?"
"Of course. It's not like I know everything about modelling, Draco. Not even close."
Draco opened his mouth to ask the obvious – that a part of him was almost surprised that Harry would even want to so actively learn – but he was silenced by the quiet opening of the door across the room and the re-entrance of the receptionist.
Not that the receptionist was the most important of those that entered. He was barely noteworthy at all in the company he held.
The first impression Draco had of Madame Clementine was… tall. Startlingly tall, and to the degree that Draco doubted many of the models she corresponded with would manage to cap her height. That, and that she was, remarkably, rather plain. Tall was the only distinctive feature Clementine possessed; simple-featured, mousy hair with just a hint of grey affixed in a low bun, a plain pantsuit and heels that were modest if nothing evident at all. She would have been almost underwhelming to behold in light of the reputation she possessed.
Except that she wasn't.
As Clementine strode towards Draco and Harry in confident steps, she carried with her an air of professionalism, of superiority without condescension, that immediately made Draco feel just a little small even without consideration for her height. Not even the small smile that touched her lips alleviated that, nor that she immediately stuck out a hand towards Draco as soon as she was close enough to suitably offer it.
"Mr. Malfoy," she said with a nod. "A pleasure to meet you."
"Likewise," Draco said, mimicking her French and accepting her proffered handshake.
"I appreciate the promptness of your attendance. You arrived in Lucerne just this morning, did you not?"
Draco nodded. "We did, though I've no dispute for the fact. It's hardly unexpected, and I'm eager to see what we'll work with today."
Clementine's smile widened with a twitch, satisfaction softening her features. "I'm pleased to hear it. Word is that you're an efficient and dedicated worker."
"Is that the only word you've heard of me?"
"Of course not. I'm hardly the kind of person to request the attendance of a worker that I know nothing of."
Draco tipped his head in acceptance of her rational. "Then I thank you for the opportunity. And for your consideration. I've never travelled to Switzerland before."
Clementine's smile widened further. "Then you must make the most of it," she said. A gesture towards the wall of window seemed to be in deference to the entire country. "Lucerne is a delightful site for visitation. Perhaps you may consider extending your trip?"
"Perhaps," Draco said with a slight shrug. "But we shall have to see in due course. I understand that you wished to begin shooting just as promptly as my arrival?"
There was definite approval in Clementine's smile this time, and that, alongside her entire lack of disagreement, condescension, or hatred that so often splashed across the faces of those who had employed Draco in the past, left a tightness in his chest to the point that he had to swallow thickly to attempt to rid himself of it.
"Ideally," Clementine said. "Not only an apt photographer but a dedicated worker, Mr. Malfoy? You do yourself proud."
"I think you're one of the few in the world who would think that," Draco said, though a hint of pride settled within him at her words. Madame Clementine thought he was 'apt' and 'dedicated'. There was little higher praise in the industry.
"Oh, I don't think so," she replied. "Take a compliment, Malfoy."
"With no strings attached?"
"No strings. This time. Besides, I'm not hiring you without consideration. You've made a name for yourself, particularly of late."
Draco frowned in silent query, but Clementine's gaze flickered away from him and over his shoulder. Turning, Draco followed the line of her gaze.
He'd only been half aware that Harry had drifted away from them. Whether for the sake of offering them privacy or from his own boredom wasn't apparent, but he'd taken himself back towards the window. Instead of the open-eyed fascination he'd briefly worn upon entering the reception, his attention seemed almost calculating. Harry was drawing his own gaze about the room contemplatively, curious and considering in a way that bespoke not the intimidation of an amateur but calm recognition of the unfamiliar and gradual assessment of the little hints that resounded just a little.
Draco saw it. He admired it and even respected it, for it was an embodiment of everything that he too embraced in a professional context. Harry wasn't working, likely wasn't even considering appealing to Clementine's own assessing gaze, but he gave off a favourable and professional impression nonetheless.
As if he wouldn't in any context, Draco thought to himself. It wasn't only because he was Harry Potter, because he was famous from a walk down more than one avenue, or because he was beautiful, though each element likely contributed. Harry made an impression whether he wanted to or not.
"Mr. Potter, is it?" Clementine suddenly asked, slipping readily into English with only a slight skew of her accent. Her long stride took her to Harry's side, and she was towering over him almost before he'd properly turned towards her. Harry wasn't tall by modelling standards, instead lying distinctly on the shorter end of the spectrum, but he looked almost childlike by comparison.
Not that it seemed to faze him. As Draco slowly followed in Clementine's footsteps, eyes flickering between the two, he saw Harry smile with the quiet reserve that bespoke real professionalism once more. He accepted the hand Clementine extended towards him without hesitation.
"Yes," Harry replied. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Madame. You've turned Karisma on its head in all the right ways since you took it by the reins."
Draco felt his eyebrows rise and almost raised his voice to speak – to rebuff what could have been a criticism, or to lessen the open honestly Harry displayed even a little – but Clementine was chuckling in a warm, rich voice. "Are you attempting to curry favour with me?" she asked.
Harry shrugged a shoulder. "That depends. Is it working?"
"That depends itself upon whether you actually know what you're talking about. I'm not partial to appreciating the regurgitation of flashy headlines."
Harry's own smile widened, the dimple appearing in his cheek. "You and me both. But I'd like to think I know what I'm talking about and keep up to date with the news when I seem to be in it so often."
"Is that so?"
"Is that a surprise? From what I've heard, you're gradual diminishing of Silvio Carle's residue was definitely impressive, especially since no one seemed to even realise what a mess he was happening until he was halfway out the door. When was it, May, two thousand and one? That was when the first article came out, wasn't it? The one where you…"
As Harry spoke, continuing with a tangent that Draco was familiar with but hardly to such an extent, Draco could only stare in suppressed wonder. Harry actually knew what he was talking about. Really knew rather than just 'regurgitating headlines' as Clementine had said. Had he looked it up before they'd arrived? But no, he wouldn't have had the time. Had he really had an interesting in working with Clementine for so long that he'd made a point of keeping up with news of her? No, that didn't seem right either.
The stereotype that models were dumb and oblivious was largely inaccurate, Draco knew. Of course, there were always exceptions; every industry had its share of illiterate and crass fools that begged the question of just how they'd managed to attain the position at all, and the role of a model was far from exempt – and yet it wasn't as overwhelmingly consuming as many assumed. Not in the least.
Yet somehow, Draco hadn't expected Harry to be as up-to-date with the politics behind the scenes of photography and magazine management. Not in the least, and definitely not after how little interest in studying he'd had in school. It was surprising, yet oddly satisfying, and Draco couldn't help but smile a little as he watched Harry gesturing with a sweeping grace he definitely hadn't had in school, in full possession of Clementine's attention.
"... can't say I'm familiar with Marco de Grace specifically, but he's definitely left a trail of destruction behind him," Harry was saying, nodding with a slight purse of his lips.
Clementine hummed, her lips twitching. "Yes, I've always thought so. But then, de Grace never had much of a hand for subtlety."
"I know, right?" Harry agreed.
Clementine chuckled again. "You surprise me, Potter."
"Please, feel free to call me Harry."
"Harry, then." Clementine nodded, half turning away from him but not quite shifting her attention. "I take it you've taken the chance to visit in the company of Mr. Malfoy?"
"You could say that," Harry said. "I'm not going to pretend I'm not interested myself, though."
"As you should be." Her smile became a little more of a smirk as she turned back to Draco. "I take it you don't have any objection to Harry's presence in the studio?"
Draco shook his head. Would he ever object to Harry's presence? "Not in the least. Provided he doesn't make a scene of himself."
"I'll do my best," Harry said, flashing Draco a smile.
That smile - it was entirely for Draco. As though he didn't care that Clementine might see it and see a hidden potential behind it, or that the receptionist might catch a glimpse and wonder what it meant that Harry Potter would smile like that at Draco Malfoy. It was more than likely that he truly didn't.
Harry wasn't quite like anyone's expectations. Not even Draco's. He was realising that only more and more the longer he spent in his company.
Really, Harry wasn't anything like he'd expected at all. That fact only made Draco want him more. How was it possible to long for someone who was stood barely a handful of steps away?
"If you'll follow me this way, then," Clementine said, breaking into his thoughts. "Despite any inclinations we might share for talking the morning away, time waits for no witch."
With leggy strides, she was crossing the room again without a backwards glance. Only a word flung to the receptionist, a querying "Josef hasn't called in yet has he?" and the replying dissent, was spared before she all but disappeared for the efficiency of her step.
Draco offered Harry a glance of his own over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow. Harry only shrugged. He was smiling, though, and that smile was comfortable, and easy, and so different to those he wore before the camera that Draco couldn't help by respond in kind.
He tipped his head and waited for Harry to fall into step beside him before following in Madame Clementine's wake. This job was an opportunity for him, and the lack of animosity he'd encountered until that moment was above and beyond what he'd been offered in almost every job he'd encountered in the past. But, with the comfortable weight of Harry at his side, the weight of what his company meant, Draco thought that the phone call he'd made in in England, his last desperate, spur-of-the-moment plea, was the best choice he'd made in a long time.
What was strange was that the studio in Lucerne was no different to those that Harry had worked in countless times before. Each agency, each photographer, each office building with its towering heights and panoramic views or low-lying building with studio buried in its lower levels – they all had their own distinct style. Their own layout. Their own choice of props, and equipment, and brand of that equipment.
But by and large, the studios Harry had seen weren't all that different. What was different about this instance lay in his perspective.
Watching other models as they performed for the camera wasn't an unfamiliar experience for him. He always watched his colleagues; when he was first learning, and even before that when he hadn't truly believed modelling was a pursuit he would truly undertake, Harry had watched. In more recent years, he observed his fellow models it was with a learned eyes; he knew what they did, why they did it, and how it would translate to the camera, if not quite how he would emulate it himself.
But it was different again this time. It was different because, for once, Harry stood in the studio in a role entirely from being even an onlooking model himself. He watched and he admired the efforts of the models, but his attention lay more specifically upon Draco.
It wasn't a big day of shooting. The preliminaries, Clementine had called it, before she'd all but abandoned the studio to Draco and the team of assistants he'd been introduced to. "Working behind the lens isn't my job," she'd said to Harry as she'd passed him. She'd tipped her head back towards Draco. "Call it a trial-run to see if he's really fit."
Then she'd left, but the way she smiled was very telling. Harry didn't think there was much of a 'trial' truly involved. Not when it came to Draco.
And he was right. Draco hit the floor running. He took command of the assistants with the professional detachment and minimal interaction that Harry had seen of him in his own shoots, seeming to struggle not in the least for the larger cast of attendees. Then he fell to the task of directing the models.
Photos. Shots. Adjustments of the lighting, nudging the softboxes in place, raising and lowering stands. It flowed seamlessly. Standing along the back wall, Harry couldn't help but watch in keen interest as what swelled and roiled behind the scenes was put on display for him. It flowed effortlessly, and it was more than apparent that Clementine's workers knew what they were doing.
But what was truly captivating to watch was Draco.
Harry didn't know what to think of him. He didn't know how to feel, or what to do. Something had changed between them with the single phone call he'd made, but Harry didn't quite know into what shape it had morphed into.
He wanted to know. He wanted to understand what hummed and quivered between them, what that tension – palpable ever since Harry had Apparated to the portkey terminal barely a day before – had been. It wasn't a bad tension, not I the least, but the way it made his skin prickle, dancing as though struck by static, was unmissable.
As Harry watched Draco, he caught himself staring at the little parts of him he'd noticed but never had the chance to really appreciate. The slight curl of white-blond hair around his ear. The line of his jaw as it tightened slightly when he ducked to position himself properly behind the camera. The clever dancing of his fingers, the easy fluidity of his motions, the way he would thin his lips at the same moment he would ever-so-slightly frown in a show of disapproval that was all he let himself show.
Or the way he would glance towards Harry.
It wasn't often – Draco was working and, as Harry had anticipated, he became utterly focused when a model stepped onto the bleached white floor and glaringly white backdrop before his camera. But in the moments of transition when it did happen, Harry noticed. Just as he noticed the barest hint of a smile that accompanied it before disappearing when Draco refocused his attention.
He's so different to when we were kids, Harry couldn't help but think as, leaning against the back wall and deafening himself to the murmurs and snapped directions of the photography crew that flowed around him, he observed through the passing morning. No posturing, no witty remarks, no arrogance…
Draco should have been proud of what he did, for Harry had seen his work. It was, in a word, stunning. How he managed to capture still life in such a unique manner Harry didn't know, but it was impossible not to be more than a little awed. And yet in the single situation that Harry had known him when his childish arrogance would have been warranted, it was absent.
Or smothered, he thought a little sadly as, watching an attentive crew-member nod vigorously to one of Draco's curt directions, he couldn't help but compare them to the assistants at his own shoot. What was wrong with the world that they couldn't appreciate art and the artist without dragging the dark, painful, and utterly irrelevant past into the limelight alongside it?
When the shoot hit a break at midday, Harry was faintly surprised. Had it really been hours? The morning had been chewed away without his notice. Straightening from the wall, Harry spared a glance around the studio, at the myriad of activity from the crew and models hastening off the floor and through the equipment on striding feet and beneath the directive hands of their managers respectively. Harry took a step towards where Draco was turning from his camera but was stopped almost instantly by a tall figure appearing directly before him.
"Ja," the woman said, eyebrows rising with a snap. "Ja, ich kenne dich."
Harry paused, shifting his attention to where she admittedly towered over him. It wasn't solely because of her unearthly shoes, either; she would have rivalled Madame Clementine in height. The girl – for she was only young and couldn't have been more than twenty years old – was stunningly beautiful in a way that had little to do with her makeup, though was certainly enhanced by it. The contouring on her cheeks, the heavy liner around her eyes, the rich curve of her similarly lined lips, all pieced together to build the face of someone that would stop shoppers if pinned to a billboard.
Not that anything from Karisma would be seen on a billboard. The magazine wouldn't stoop to such levels of commonality.
"Hello," Harry said, offering a small smile. He held out a hand. "Sorry, I don't speak German. I'm Harry. I was watching you before, you're very –"
"Ja, ja, Harry Potter!" the girl exclaimed, eyes brightening. She clasped his hand in both of hers and squeezed it enthusiastically. Then, all but bouncing in her heeled shoes, she dove into a rapid torrent of German that Harry hadn't a hope of discerning the meaning of.
He couldn't help but smile, if a little bashfully. It was one thing to be noticed by people in England, both Wizarding and Muggle, but in Switzerland? Admittedly, Harry knew his share of models from abroad, from Helena Christensen to Jason Lewis, but then who didn't? To think that he might be known in such a way… He wasn't sure whether being recognised for modelling or for the war was better. Or worse, as it may be.
As the studio climbed in echoing volume, the crew falling from their precise attentiveness to the casualness of their lunch break, Harry was all but shaken by the eagerness of the girl that was still clutching his hand and speaking profusely in words that he couldn't understand. From the way she reached for his lapel to pluck at it, how she gestured to his hair with an appreciative hum, he supposed her opinion of him was influenced by his modelling history, but still. Disconcerting.
"I'm sorry," Harry reattempted as, in a series of repeated words, growing slower and slightly louder with each rendition, the girl squeezed his captured hands and questioned him imploringly. "I don't understand what you're saying. Could you maybe…?"
The girl didn't wait for him to finish before leaping into another string of words. It was only when Harry glanced to their side in a half-hearted plea for rescue that she was interrupted. A woman, dressed down as either a manager or member of the crew typically was, appeared at the girl's side and cut her off with a word and pointed direction. In an instant, startling slightly beneath the woman's suggestion, the girl uttered a hasty apology – Harry could understand that word at least – and trotted away in her too-high shoes. Harry was left staring after her, shaking his head slightly. It wasn't as though he hadn't encountered such enthusiasm before, but here? In Switzerland, when he wasn't even working?
"You appear to have acquired a fan."
Shaking himself from watching the girl disappear through the distant doorway, at the clamour of other bodies, crew and managers alike, swimming after her, Harry dragged his attention to where Draco had appeared at his other side. He was smiling, if only just, and regarding Harry with such an intense stare that Harry almost forgot what he'd said the instant he met his gaze.
"I don't know if it will ever not feel a little bit weird," he said.
Draco, adjusting the camera he always carried on its strap around his neck, cocked his head. "Even after so many years?"
Harry shrugged. "I wasn't exactly celebrity material as a kid. Not to most people."
"Meaning your Muggle family?"
"Yeah. Meaning that."
Draco's expression flickered. Harry couldn't quite place just what it was that cast a shadow across it, but he'd seen it frequently of late. He wanted to ask, wanted to know why Draco would almost but not quite frown, why his lips would press together as though fighting the urge to speak when he'd once been the sort of person who never held back. But he didn't. People changed, after all, and Harry knew as well as anyone how tiresome it became being accused of such changes.
Instead, he half-turned in place, gesturing towards the doors where the last of the crew that weren't still pottering around the studio were trickling through. "You're on a break now, right? Did you want to…?"
Draco blinked. Shaking himself slightly, his expression cleared into the quiet impassivity he always wore. "Lunch," he said with a short nod of his head. "Are you hungry?"
"Not really."
"Bullshit. We practically skipped breakfast."
Harry shrugged. Skipping meals wasn't exactly a foreign concept to him. Even so, he followed after Draco as they made their way from the studio in the general direction of the elevators.
Madame Clementine's establishment – her studios, her reception, her back rooms cluttered with every clothes rack and vanity that a model could need – was more like a hotel than an office building. Removed from Lucerne as it was, the opportunity to immerse itself in magic was far more possible than it was working in the city and for the companies that Harry had been a part of. That Karisma was a solely magical magazine and fashion line made it even easier.
Except that it wasn't. In spite of its isolation, its predominance of witches and wizards, and the head of the company being a renowned with herself, magic didn't permeate every room and fizzle through the walls like an air conditioning system. There were no folded, magically animated notes flapping about as flooded the British Ministry of Magic, no snaps and crackles of spells, no appearing or disappearing employees as they disregarded the elevator system and Apparated instead.
It was nice. In many ways, Harry kind of liked the break from the Wizarding world. Maybe it was a Swiss thing, or maybe it was an industry thing; though not quite to the same degree, he'd noticed that many of the companies he worked for in the past didn't integrate magic into their daily routines quite as much as others. It was an aspect of the modelling and photography world that he hadn't known or anticipated but certainly appreciated.
Despite the absence of magic, however, there was nothing simple or humble about Karisma's headquarters. The hallways were wide and sleek, the elevator just as much and large enough to avoid more than the occasional brushing of shoulders with other passengers. The prevalence of windows, providing frequent panoramic views of the lake and the township at the bottom of the cliff the hotel-office perched upon, made those hallways seem larger still. Even the dining area – an actual dining area that looked more like a restaurant than a cafeteria – hosted a wall made purely of glass much like the reception several storeys above. It must have been magically insulated, for despite the winter that lightly frosted the windows, the restaurant wasn't cold, but that was the only artificiality about the room. The sight beyond was entirely real.
"You seem a bit partial to the view," Draco said, drawing Harry's attention back from where it had drifted once more.
Harry, the lunch he'd acquired through use of Draco as a mouthpiece all but forgotten on the table before him, dragged his gaze from where he'd been caught staring. It was a little hard not to look again and again; he'd never seen anything quite like the sweeping line of the cliffs, the fuzzed edge of the lake, the picturesque interruption of the smooth lake-surface by what looked to be a motorboat for the line of white-caps left in the water behind it. It was difficult to be sure, though; at such a distance, it could have just as likely been a freshwater creature of sorts. Harry had barely stepped out of England before, and the only for work and in his younger years of Hogwarts attendance. He'd never really had the chance to appreciate such sights in person.
Glancing towards Draco, his reply died on his lips as he watched Draco draw alongside the table. He placed his own lunch on the table before fiddling briefly with the camera hanging around his neck and take a slight step towards the window. Impassivity swirled in a juxtaposing mix with his concentration, the slight crease on his brow that Harry had witnessed throughout the shooting that day and then before, with his own shoots, the only interruption of his mask. He watched as Draco took a handful of snaps before lowering the camera and frowning instead down at the screen as he flicked through it.
Harry watched and couldn't quite bring himself to look away. Draco was… different, yes. Very different to the person he'd known from their school days, but it was made only more apparent when out of a working context. More than acting different, however, he felt different. Harry felt it in how he watched Draco and struggled to swallow down the lump that grew in his throat when the hint of a satisfied smile touched Draco's lips, or when he absently flicked escaped tendrils of his fringe behind his ear.
Or a very similar lump that arose when he glanced at Harry, met his gaze, and didn't scowl, or sneer, or frown in suspicion.
"What?" Draco asked, less of an accusation and more with open curiosity.
Swallowing down the tightness in his throat, Harry shook his head. Propping his elbow on the table, he dropped his chin into his palm. "Not just me. You too."
"Me what?"
Harry gestured to the window. "You seem a bit taken with it too."
Draco glanced towards the wall of glass. He nodded slowly. "I am. I suppose I'm partial to beautiful things." He glanced down at his camera, finger tapping lightly upon the edge. "Perhaps that makes me superficial."
"I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing," Harry said. "Liking pretty things, I mean. You're allowed to appreciate superficial beauty, so long as you realise it's not the only important thing."
"Of course I know that," Draco said, a slightly condescending edge to his words. It was enough that Harry found himself unable to withhold a small smile that would have once been a scowl. "I'm a photographer, Harry. My work would be very pathetic indeed if I only captured what was beautiful on the surface."
That condescension died as Draco glanced towards him. His smirk faded too, though his careful impassivity didn't quite replace it. Instead, he raised his camera once more and, before Harry was really aware he was even doing it, snapped a few shots of him.
Harry blinked. He frowned. Straightening slightly in his seat, he tipped his head curiously. "Why do you do that?" he asked, and maybe it was that he was no longer working with Draco, but it somehow felt more relevant to ask that confusing question now than it had been weeks before. "For that matter, why do you carry that camera around with you? Is it just a personal one or…?"
For a moment, Draco's expression stilled. The buzz of conversation, foreign words and less-foreign laughter a rippling match to the distant undertones of orchestral music overhead, seemed to grow louder for his silence. Until Draco's lips twisted and his gaze dropped to his camera once more.
"It is for personal use, yes," Draco said, though it sounded more to himself than in reply to Harry. "I may not have always appreciated the captured moment quite like I do now, but when that appreciation manifests, it's impossible to set aside and maintain only in work hours. These pictures… they're my own captured moments."
"Oh." It didn't quite answer Harry's question, but he let that fact slide. "I guess you really are a photographer, then, huh? I wouldn't have picked it for you back in school."
The seriousness of Draco's expression dissolved as he raised an eyebrow and pinned Harry with a hooded stare. "Oh, you wouldn't? So I'm the unexpected one?"
Harry grinned. "Yeah."
"Not yourself, who historically blundered through every confrontation with the press and shied away from every camera you could?"
"Yes."
Draco snorted. He finally dropped into the seat at Harry's side with a shake of his head. "I'm the unexpected one…" he repeated in a mutter. "Honestly. Harry Potter, becoming a model. You know how unexpected that was when I came back from overseas?"
Harry raised a shoulder. "Well, I've got to keep you on your toes."
"Yes, I'm sure that was the only reason. For my benefit."
"You bet." Harry smiled again, picking up his fork and turning his attention to the motley array of his salad. "You should know by now, Draco, everything I've ever done has been in an effort to undermine you."
Draco didn't reply. It wasn't because he'd started on his own lunch, either, which Harry only realised when he folded a forkful into his mouth. Draco had paused, his fork stabbed but otherwise abandoned in what looked like an omelette of sorts. He wasn't looking at it, however, and instead had his gaze pinned on Harry, eyes slightly narrowed.
Swallowing his mouthful, Harry cocked his head. "What?"
"Why did you, then?" Draco asked.
"Why did I…?"
"Become a model." Shaking his head slowly, Draco lowered his fork with the faintest clink. "You've never liked the limelight, so why?"
"Oh, you know I don't, do you?" Harry asked, only half teasing.
"I do," Draco replied. There wasn't the barest hint of jest in his own voice. "I know you never liked being the centre of attention, even if I pretended otherwise. You hated it when reporters came to the school, or when you had to get your photo taken. You always tried to get out of any situation that put you in the middle of it all, though it rarely worked given you're you."
"What's that supposed to -?"
"So why?"
Harry stuttered to a halt at Draco's blunt interruption. Lowering his own fork, Harry dropped his gaze down towards the bowl before him. Why? Why did he do what he did? Why had be become a model when he would readily agree that it was about as far removed from any kind of route he'd felt he should have taken, from anything he'd felt competent enough to pursue?
"I guess…" Harry pursed his lips. "I was going to be an Auror. I really was. Hell, I practically convinced myself that was all I could be from fourth year."
"All you could be," Draco echoed.
Harry wasn't sure if it was meant to be a question or not so continued otherwise. "I started training, and sure, it was what I expected it to be. A bit less glamorous than I'd anticipated, and a good chunk more theoretical than practical, but yeah. Not unexpected. Except that it didn't fit. Or more – I didn't fit. I didn't…"
How could he explain it? How could Harry explain to someone like Draco – to anyone, even – that the thought of facing each day in preparation of a fight, a battle, with walls raised against attack or defence, had exhausted him? He'd been stretched thin to a point he hadn't believed he could be stretched, extended beyond the extension the war had drawn him, and it was tiring. So, so tiring to think that it would never end.
All of the anger, the hatred, the fervent fury and passion that had driven him to fight – it was as though it had all been drained from him, like a bathtub of water when the plug was pulled. Harry didn't even have the dregs left to paddle in, let alone to pretend that he was still swimming.
Modelling hadn't fit him at first. It wasn't something he'd ever considered for himself. But it surprisingly fit more than being an Auror had.
"I know I'm not exactly model material," he said, gaze still downcast and fixed upon his absently twirling fork. "I know that. But I was – I am a face that people recognise, and that people will follow and listen to whether I want to be or not. And if, somehow, in this way, I can do something… if I could be somehow useful, then…"
Pursing his lips once more, Harry lowered his fork to the table. He'd had barely a mouthful, but the thought of eating more clenched his already tightened belly. Modelling was a career he'd pursued and being a model was what he'd become. Harry was proud of that in a way he hadn't thought was possible. And yet, in the face of explaining it all, of turning aside from a life as an Auror where he was fighting, and defending, and standing up for the minority and the victimised…
Sitting across from Draco, a victim himself and someone that Harry could have, would have, defended if he'd been more than a face in a magazine, he couldn't help but feel guilty for his choices.
"You," Draco said, "have a problem."
Shaken from rumination, Harry glanced across the table towards him. Draco's face had hardened, his lips thinned in that way that Harry had recognised in recent months meant he was sorely tempted to speak, even to rant and rave, but that the inhibitions born from a hateful world held him back. He stabbed his omelette, however, his disgruntlement redirected.
"What do you mean?" Harry asked.
"You." Draco punctuated the word with another stab. "You're always acting as you think you should. For other people. To help people or whatever, even if you're only one person and there's only so much you can do. Has anyone ever told you that you have a hero complex?"
The words rung in Harry's ears, so reminiscent of Hermione's, of Ron's, that for a moment he was rendered mute. He struggled to thrust the discomforting feeling aside that arose, but before he could reply, Draco snorted and continued. "I've always hated it, you know. Even before I was photographing you specifically. You stand in front of a camera, and you do as you're told, and you pull up a face and adopt an act because it's what 'the people' want, and what 'the people' need. Because it's your job."
Harry felt his shoulders tighten, his hands curling in his lap where they'd fallen. Draco's words were true, and they weren't necessarily accusing or fierce, but they felt like an accusation nonetheless. An accusation of a wrongdoing.
"There's nothing wrong with trying to benefit the people around in whatever way I can." Even if it's just standing for a camera or supporting a cause with a smile. "Besides, what do you expect? I'm a model. Posing for the camera is what models do."
This time, distaste spread across Draco's face so quickly it was as though it had been simmering beneath the surface the whole time, simply waiting to arise. Clicking his tongue, he turned his head sharply to the side and jerked back into his seat. His arms folded almost fiercely across his chest.
"Sure," Draco said. "That's exactly what models do."
"It is," Harry said. "Just like photographers are meant to stand behind the camera and take the pictures they're told to take."
Draco's lips whitened as he pressed them together. He eyed Harry sidelong. "I don't think models are supposed to do everything you do."
"What?"
"Letting your photographer convince you that it's practically part of the job description to fuck him is part of the job description too?"
For a second, Harry couldn't breathe. All that hung in fractured statements in his mind was "Photographer?" and "but Draco's my photographer". Until it registered that Draco wasn't talking about himself at all.
That unexpected guilt, the same guilt that had been sitting with Harry for weeks since Draco had caught him and Sammy in the club, had his shoulders drawing compulsively to his ears. Fingernails biting into his palms, Harry swallowed down every excuse that arose.
Please don't talk about Sammy right now. I don't want to think about him.
And, why do you have such a problem with it? It's just sex.
And, Please don't think less of me. Don't look down on me. Don't hate me for it.
And woven throughout it all, what you're thinking – it's not wrong. I'm not helpless and just being dragged along. It wasn't like I expressly didn't want it, it's just…
Draco didn't want to hear that. Harry knew because he'd already tried. He'd tried several times, in fact.
"Can we not talk about this?" he said quietly.
"I don't think it's something that should be brushed," Draco said sharply. His voice rose slightly, and though Harry knew that they were in a restaurant of mostly German or French-speakers, he couldn't help but dart a glance sidelong. "This is a problem. It's wrong."
"It's not like it's exactly unknown, Draco," Harry said, huffing as he folded his own arms across his chest. Somehow, it felt more like he was holding himself than showing defiance, however. "Everyone knows what happens behind closed doors in this industry."
"That doesn't make it right."
"Oh, it doesn't, does it?" Harry felt a spark of anger flicker within him, though not for himself. Not for Sammy, and the sex, and all that he knew – knew – was swept under the rug. "Just like the fact that everyone else looks the other way when you're beaten the shit out of isn't right?"
The twist in Draco's expression unwound as he blinked in surprise. "That's –"
"Just as bad," Harry said flatly.
"It's not – it's not the same as –"
"Maybe not the same, but it's definitely as bad." Harry leant forwards in his seat, practically across the table, and pinned Draco with a frown. "If you're going to get on my back about this kind of shit, be prepared to take it. Yours is a problem."
Draco stared at him for a long moment. A long, breathless moment, unblinking and unspoken. Then he too leant against the table, dropping his elbows with a heavy thud.
"I hate that you're objectified," he said, short and sharp.
Harry nodded, taking the blunt accusation for what it was. "Yeah, well, I hate it that you don't get properly credit for your work just because you're the one standing behind the camera."
"I hate that you don't get a choice in what you do and who you work for, and don't –" Draco raised a finger as Harry opened his mouth to protest, "- try and tell me you choose. That choice is a load of bullshit and you know it."
Harry pressed his lips together, scowled, then said, "I hate that you've been forced to pick up dead-beat jobs that don't appreciate your talent because everyone apparently thinks what the war did to you has something to do with your work."
"I hate that people see your pictures but don't really see you."
That was true, but – "I hate that people see yours and don't see you at all."
"I hate that you feel like you need to be someone and be helping people to be appreciated."
That stung, and yet – "I hate that you've had to change yourself and hide who you are because of a war that no one's prepared to move on from, even after you've finished your sentence."
"I hate that you wear a fake smile so much of the time."
So, so true. "I hate that you hardly smile at all like you've practically forgotten how to."
"You dress like everyone's watching and you're expected to be seen."
Because that's the reality. "You try so hard not to be noticed, and it's so not like you."
"You eat like a rabbit and starve yourself to boot just so people will see what they want to see."
Harry flickered a glance down at his salad. A bubble of distaste fizzled in his belly. "And you," he said quietly, "have to cover up your bruises so that people won't see what they don't want to be blamed for."
Draco paused. His lips were parted, on the verge of speaking further, but he momentarily paused. Then he scoffed, hung his head, and ran a hand briefly, absently, over his cheek as though tracing one such bruise. That flicker of anger ignited into something sharper and brighter in Harry, an unexpected rise of something he hadn't felt but in brief spurts for years. He had to clamp down upon it to keep from glaring at a room full of people that had absolutely nothing to do with his anger.
"I suppose," Draco said slowly, "we're a bit the same in that regard."
Harry waited for him to continue, but as his silence ensued, prompted him gently. "What do you mean?"
"You. And me." Draco glanced up at him, head still lowered but gaze intense. "Why do you care?"
There was a question beneath that question. Harry heard it, even if he couldn't quite make out the specific words. Even so, he felt it. Thought and felt that maybe he might have been able to discern what they were anyway.
Swallowing a return of the lump in his throat, Harry lowered his own gaze, squeezing his clasped hands once more. Being with Draco was strange, and not only because he was different to how he'd been. It was strange because of the anger that arose within him when Harry saw his bruises, the regret when he'd watched Draco on the last day of shooting, the emptiness in the days afterwards when all he could do was wonder what was going on for Draco in the face of publicised articles and published pictures.
"I guess…" Harry trailed off. He licked his lips, took a breath that hitched, and managed to raise his gaze to meet Draco's. It was hard, but somehow utterly necessary when he noticed Draco staring back at him as though he were the only person in the room. "Why did you ask me to come with you? Yesterday, when you were leaving – why did you ask me?"
Draco didn't speak in reply. Harry didn't really expect him to. Instead, he simply held Harry's gaze and somehow, even without words, Harry thought he could heard an answer. An answer of the kind that twisted his gut and inhaled a balloon in his chest, making it more than a little hard to breathe.
He thought that maybe, just maybe, the answers to those not-so-unalike questions might be perfectly the same.
A/N: I am SO SORRY that it's been so long again! Hopefully I'll not be as terribly slow next time. Thank you to everyone who's still sticking by me; you're all so wonderful. And if you're new, thanks for taking a chance on my story!