Chapter Three:
Passing Afternoon
A/N: Please read, review and enjoy!
thrnbrooke - Sorry about that...but they might be 'lost' for awhile, that is the large chunk of this story. Hope you still like it =)
There are times that walk from you like some passing afternoon
Summer warmed the open window of her honeymoon
And she chose a yard to burn but the ground remembers her
Wooden spoons, her children stir her Bougainvillea blooms.
There are things that drift away like our endless, numbered days
Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made
And she's chosen to believe in the hymns her mother sings
Sunday pulls its children from their piles of fallen leaves.
There are sailing ships that pass all our bodies in the grass
Springtime calls her children 'till she let's them go at last
And she's chosen where to be, though she's lost her wedding ring
Somewhere near her misplaced jar of Bougainvillea seeds.
Harry and Draco were huddled beneath their cloaks, holding the fabric as close to them as possible. With their wretched luck, it was a downpour on the entire forest at the moment and under Harry's protective shield and Draco's warming charms it was still bloody freezing cold and their arses were getting wet from the dirty ground.
When they would shiver and accidentally bump shoulders, both would apologize and look away blushing lightly. Harry nor Draco could explain exactly why this happened, but it just did naturally.
"Don't think we'll be getting much sleep for awhile in this," Harry grumbled, finally breaking the silence.
"And if there is anybody looking for us...I doubt they will get anywhere in this weather," Draco snarled uneasily, he hated the rain, absolutely despised it. But for some reason, being this close to Harry made the rain seem so much lighter.
The silence came back, making them both uneasy. "Do you think that they will excuse us from our exams?" Draco finally asked.
Harry turned to his companion with a dumfounded expression, "Malfoy, we have no idea where we are. We have no idea if we are ever going to get out of where we are," he said increduously, the blonde was giving him a 'So-What?' look, "...and you're worried about whether or not we'll get excused from exams in a month!"
"Well, yes Potter, I need to make sure that I get absolutely premium on my NEWTs next year. I must get into Advanced Potions and most unfortunately Advanced Dark Arts as well," Draco cringed at the last subject.
"You're unbelievable," Harry muttered, his mouth still open in surprise. 'Merlin's hell, he reminds me of Hermione...thinking about school at a time like this!'
"Does it honestly hurt to have some ambition, Potter?"
"Hey," Harry snarled suddenly getting defensive, "I've got ambition but it's about much more important things than how well I do at the end of the year or who gets the blasted Qudditch Cup,"
"Well what is it then? What is the Great Harry Potter so ambitious about, hmm?" Draco urged on, he couldn't stand the silences that lapsed between them any longer and he wasn't finding it terribly difficult to converse with Potter either - which may have come as a surprise to him if not given the particular situation.
"Why in the hell should I tell you?" Harry snapped, he didn't like talking about this as he crossed his arms stubbornly. It was as if he were back at school being heckled by his friends, wondering what courses he would take. But they didn't get it, none of that mattered because he knew he most likely would never see the end of his days at Hogwarts before his days saw their own end...
"Well I want to be a Professor, and not at some rubbish school like Hogwarts. Maybe across seas in Italy or America," Draco smiled at the thought of it, Harry watched with curiousity as the blonde seemed to float away into a slight dreamland.
"Don't you have enough money from your Father to, I dunno, just live off of it the rest of your life?"
Draco sneered, "You think my Father is going to give me any money now? Hah, that is certainly a rich thought,"
"Oh...sorry..." Harry whispered, slightly embarassed for having even brought it up. 'Well duh, the boy just completely disowned himself from his family in front of Voldemort and a bunch of crazy Death Eaters! And if I know Lucius Malfoy, well...he ain't gonna be happy about that!'
"What about you, Potter? Got any plans? Going to be the next Qudditch Seeker superstar?" the blonde teased, attempting to lighten the situation but he seemed to only make it worse.
Harry was now staring idly down at his lap with an unreadable expression, "I haven't thought about it," he mumbled.
"And why is that? We have only got one year left at Hogwarts,"
"I know but...I just haven't thought about it," Harry shrugged.
"C'mon, Potter, you have -"
"I haven't thought about it Malfoy because what is there to think about?! My whole life has been chosen for me already and for fucks sake everybody knows that the particular life I lead isn't going to last till graduation!" Harry snapped angrily now, his eyes were staring holes into his hands that were clenched tightly around one another. He was shaking now, and both boys knew it wasn't from the cold.
Draco took a deep breath, he didn't want Harry's magic lashing out at them accidentally especially since it was the brunette's shield that kept them warm and dry from the heavy rain. "Potter, I do not believe that to be the case. I have heard the Prophecy, all of the Death Eaters have, and their problem is that they are blinded by this superficial power Voldemort holds. I have seen you grow up over the past six years and I know the real power you posess, and it frightens me. The Dark Lord cannot frighten me, he is only a sick and twisted man with too much time on his hands in my opinion. So all-in-all, you are going to win this silly war," Draco said with confidence and assurance.
Harry's mouth dropped open and closed again, nobody had ever said something to that effect to him. Of course many people, mostly those from the Order, have promised him that he would win against the fight with Voldemort but nobody said it like they actually understood it. "I-uh-it's just...erm..."
"I have faith in you," Draco said softly, looking out through their shield into the falling rain forming puddles all around them. Before Harry could respond, the blonde continued talking, "So since you have never given it a thought, I do believe now is the perfect time to do so, is it not?"
"Uhm..yeah, I guess...I think I'd like to be an Auror, but really...I dunno, maybe just stay at home? I-I have a house and all, but I'd get awefully lonely there," Harry sighed heavily, thinking about Twelve Grimmauld Place always brought flashes of Sirius' face to his mind.
"You have a house? Where?"
"It's not really mine, I just inherited it unrightfully. It's probably more yours than mine, considering it is the Noble House of Black,"
"You live there? Oh, Merlin, that place gives me the creeps! I hate it there, I hate Mrs Black and that crooked House Elf. Urgh, how can you stand sleeping in that wretched excuse for a house?" Draco shivered at the thought of its disdainfully grey walls and morbid feeling.
"I've slept in worse places, s'all I have to say 'bout that," Harry mumbled, briefly recalling The Dursleys before quickly pushing them from his mind. They were quite far from where he currently was, no reason to give those bastards a second thought.
"So how did you inherit that House? I was expecting to recieve it once Sirius Black was murdered but heard no news whatsoever, which greatly surprised my Mother and I," Draco admitted.
"Er, well...I'm kinda Sirius Black's Godson so he gave it to me in his will,"
"Your...wow, Potter, you are just full of surprised aren't you?" Draco whispered, trying to wrap his head around that last little fact. The same Sirius Black, whom the Slytherin knew wasn't the murderer everybody thought him to be, was apparantly Harry Potter's Godfather. The world has a strange way of twisting fate, he decided at that moment. "And I am truly sorry,"
"What for?" Harry asked, raising his eyebrow.
"For your lose. I mean, Sirius Black died last year so I am truly sorry for that. It must be hard to be in that house after all of that ruckus. But if you are going to lonely there, why don't you just get Granger and the Weasel to live with you? Or maybe your family, I thought you had an Aunt and Uncle or whatnot?"
"Don't call Ron that," Harry quickly quipped before leaning against the tree they were sitting cross-legged underneath, "And I refuse to call those...Muggles...my family, even though they are related to me. They're straight bastards is what they are and no I don't want to talk about it so don't even begin asking," he snarled quickly just as Draco was opening his mouth, who promptly closed it. "Plus, I'm guessing Hermione and Ron'll move in together when they're out of school. Even if they don't know it yet, they're totally made for one another. If they're not fighting, they're making lovesick puppy eyes,"
"Urgh, do not make me throw up that rabbit, Potter," Draco groaned, pushing images of two Gryffindor's as faraway from his head as possible, "How do you stand those two? You are obviously fit for much better company than those nitwits,"
"Hey! They're not nitwits! Hermione's the smartest witch Hogwarts has ever seen in awhile!" Harry defended quickly.
"She is all booksmart, Potter. No common sense whatsoever, and look at the Weasel...sorry, Weasley, he has all common sense and no book knowledge! You, however, are a perfect mix of both. You can exceed tremendously if you try in school, and you know enough about the real world to be well rounded," Draco explained, ignoring Harry's rather flushed look.
"Erm...thanks? I think? How come you notice so much about us?"
"I spent six years trying to make your life hell and do not try and tell me you did not try doing the same to me. You know things about me too, Potter, and it would surprise you just how much," Draco's smile became an amused smirk now, which unnerved the other boy.
"Well, uhm...how come you stick around goons like Crabbe and Goyle then? Your certainly a lot quicker than they are," Harry wanted desperately for the subject of conversation to change from him and revert to Draco.
"I am pretty sure everybody is quicker than they are. I only stick with them because they are loyal as hell and still know how to play dirty, which is quite useful might I say,"
"Hmm...figures that's how you choose your friends,"
"I did not choose my friends, Potter, I just have them," Draco relpied gently, making Harry blink once and then twice again.
'Wow...Malfoy actually sounds not only sincere, but realistic and intelligent,' he thought to himself before shaking out of his stupor. They sat in another uncomfortable silence before Draco brought up something Harry most definitely wished he hadn't.
"I know what happened last year at the Department of Mysteries, my Father told me everything," he began gently, feeling the boy beside him immediately tense, "But I have no clue what happened back during the Triwizard Tournament. What happened to Diggory?" Draco's voice was low now, quiet and hardly audible against the patter of rain on the ground.
"Ced-he...Why do you want to know?" Harry asked uneasily, he wasn't exactly used to talking about the Triwizard Tournament anymore, most people had put that out of their minds at least a year ago.
"I just want to know if it was Voldemort that did it," he answered truthfully.
"We had Portkeyed there and almost as soon as we landed, Voldemort ordered Wormtail to kill him," Harry sighed heavily, pushing all memories from his mind that threatened to resurface.
"And that's the night Voldemort resurfaced...using your blood?"
"How did you know that?" Harry's tone was unreadable as he turned towards Draco now, the blonde looking now into two orbs of startled emerald.
"M-my Father," he admitted with a tint of pink on his cheeks, for some reason as Harry looked directly at him this close to his face Draco couldn't help but feel nervous in the best possbile way.
The blush didn't go unnoticed to Harry, as he felt his cheeks warm he quickly turned away to look outwards into the rain again. "Can we just not talk about Cedric? Please, Malfoy?"
"Of course, I apologize," Draco said sincerely, regaining himself as he poked his hand outside of the protective charm and into the rain. He let the water fall on his hand, it felt relaxing and oddly enough the rain didn't make him any colder than he already was.
"Tell me more about Lucius," Harry finally broke the silence.
"Potter, I told you everything. Seriously. All I can say more is that he was more of a Father than ever a Dad," Draco shrugged, seemingly unaffected by this, "Why are you so obsessed with him anyway?"
"Because sometimes I can't decide who I hate more; Tom Riddle, Lucius Malfoy or Peter Pettigrew," Harry spat the names as if they were venomous themselves as Draco nodded understandingly beside him.
"I cannot tell you more about Lucius, but I can tell you more about Narcissa if you would like?" the blonde offered.
"If you don't mind,"
"I fear there's not much to say about her either. She loved me as much as a Mother could in her situation. Lucius had the House Elves constantly watching both of us, making sure we never went against his wishes. If we ever did, well you have got to know him well enough to know what came after disobeying him. There is a problem with Narcissa, however, it is that she does not fear Lucius whatsoever and in my opinion that is a fault. She blatantly stands up to him and it is going to put her in the ground sooner than later. In her growing age she is becoming more rebellious and disrespectful of his decisions and wishes.
"You see, Potter, my Mother did not ever want to be affiliated with the Dark Lord. Her, like myself, did not believe that this entire war held any meaning whatsoever and wished to be in the grey area of it all. We were not so lucky, had I been the Head of the Malfoy Estate things would have been kept much cleaner than they are now. I have no doubt that there is a scandel going on with my family and the newspapers are most undoubtfully keeping their noses out of it. We are one of the last pureblood elite families left in this world, and my Father is throwing away all our kept values by groveling at a madman's feet. My Mother is not happy about that, but she attempts to keep her sanity by staying as faraway from my Father's affairs as possible," Draco sighed with a twisted smile on his face, it felt really good to get all of that off of his chest, for he rarely talked about those such matters with anybody else save for formal meetings with his Mother or Severus Snape.
Harry seemed to be thinking through all of what Draco said, taking it more seriously whereas if a month ago he was told this story he would've responded 'Stop whining, you poof,' But now he knew just how deep Malfoy was into all of this, and through-out his six years at Hogwarts the boy was just trying to get by and survive anyway he could - just like Harry.
"You said that Narcissa has a problem because she disobeys Lucius...but don't you disobey him too? You did just stand up in front of his colleagues and master and basically spat in the Dark Lord's face...I'm pretty sure that's along the same lines as 'disrespecting' him, no offense," Harry added in quickly, not wanting their conversation to suddenly turned heated because of a simple misunderstanding.
"You do have a point there, Potter," Draco chuckled lightly to himself, "But that was more of a spur in the moment type of thing. It has been my Mother's goal to disobey Lucius,"
"Who can blame her?" Harry muttered, making Draco's smirk widen ever so slightly.
"It does not seem as though the rain will be letting up anytime soon, you should get some sleep and I will put my own charm in place to keep us dry,"
"I'm not feeling all too tired yet, you can sleep first tonight," Harry offered, telling the truth. He found the rain soothing and wanted to mull his thoughts with it, and for once he had the urge to sit beside sleeping Draco whilst watching the sun which would come up in however many hours.
"Thanks...and thanks for letting me talk too,"
"I was the one who asked you to, wasn't I?" Harry raised an eyebrow as Draco pulled his cloak tigther around him and pulled out the rabbit hyde he had kept folded in his pocket.
"Yes but I think I needed it more than you did," Draco settled himself on the ground, curled into the fetal position with his head on the rabbit fur as he fluttered his eyes shut. "Goodnight, Potter,"
"Night," Harry responded, unable to take his eyes off the resting Slytherin. It didn't take long for Draco to fall into a deep slumber, despite the heavy rain outside of Harry's protective charm.
It was hard to allow his thoughts to dissolve as he stared at the sleeping blonde, as his chest rose rythmatically to his breathing. Draco looked rather peaceful when he slept, curled up into a small fragile ball. He looked harmless, and like a soft angel made of uncracked porcelin. Sometimes he murmured incoherently in his sleep, or perhaps let out a muffled giggle of joy from dreamland, and Harry couldn't help but smile.
It was early the next morning when Harry woke up with the sun shining on his face. He felt dry but could immediately tell he was without company. Draco hadn't slept for too long the previous night before Harry was given his chance to rest up, but he found that sleeping on the uncomfortable ground never granted for a full nights rest.
Stretching and standing up, shaking out his numb limbs, Harry glanced around and couldn't see any sight of blinding platinum hair anywhere. He shrugged it off, he was probably just surveying the perimeters or something.
And then Harry heard a frustrated, low but loud growl emitting from the East. Thinking the worst possible scenerio, Harry took his wand out and began to run in the direction of the sound. When he got there, however, it wasn't what he expected to find.
He had expected to find Death Eaters surrounding Draco with all of their wands out stretched.
Instead he found Draco shirtless with his pants rolled up to his knees, his patched bleach hair on his legs were soaked with the clear river water as his socks were balled up in his shoes.
Harry blinked a couple of times before grinning at the scene, the blonde was growling frustratingly as he held a long stick in his hand. He thrust the stick down into the water and it stuck straight upwards, stabbed into the dirt. As Draco lifted it, the end was empty.
Harry stepped forward as he slipped off his cloak and began to kick off his shoes with a smirk, "Having trouble fishing?" he asked, startling the blonde who turned towards him with his tongue stuck out making Harry chuckle.
"They are simply too quick to hex and too bleeding quick to stab, too! Gah, and I am hungry Potter!" he whined, looking up at the brunette with a frustrated glare, clenching the stick in his fist.
Laughing, Harry bent down to take out his knife from his cloak before unsheathing it and stepping into the brisk water with a slight shiver. If he wasn't awake now, the rapids about his anckles definitely woke him up.
"Let me see that," he said softly, motioning towards the stick which Draco handed to him.
"Fine, but I doubt you will have much more luck than I did," Draco grumbled but oblingly handed over the stick and retreated onto the moist dirt and sat promptly ontop of Harry's cloak, laying by the river's edge.
Harry lifted up the end of the stick and with the sharp edge of his knife began to whiddle away at it, the shavings fell into the river. Draco was silent as he watched Harry expertly sharpen the edge of the stick, Harry concentrated on what he was doing and the moving waters around him. When he was finished, he quickly drew back his shoulder and launched the whiddled stick diagonally forth into the dirt next to Draco.
The blonde rolled his eyes expaseratingly, crossing his arms taughtly across his naked chest. "Okay, now that it's actually ready to kill something..." Harry teased, "All you gotta do is wait, watch and be quiet. Come back in, you do it and I'll watch," he smiled encouragingly as Draco grumbled but complied.
As he stood up, Harry's eyes went wide as he looked over the boy sauntering towards him and back into the water beside him. His chest seemed so smooth, white like paper and it glistened too perfectly against the morning sunlight. "Er...aren't you happy the rain is gone?" Harry stuttered, averting his gaze down to the water as he handed the stick to Draco.
"I thought we were supposed to be quiet, Potter," Draco responded pointedly, Harry merely blushed and stood stalk still, forcing himself not to look at the person standing half-naked beside him.
It was only ten minutes later that Draco's thin arm drew back quickly and snapped forward, the stick thrusted harshly down into the water. As he picked it up, he held a triumphant smile on his face. A small fish, maybe only nine inches long, was skewered on the end of it.
"See, told you that you could do it,"
"Shove off Potter! Now gut this thing so we can eat!" Draco demanded.
Harry couldn't wipe the radiant smile off his face.
There are things we can't recall, blind as night that finds us all
Winter tucks her children in, her fragile china dolls
But my hands remember hers, rolling 'round the shaded ferns
Naked arms, her secrets still like songs I've never learned.
There are names across the sea, only now I do believe
Sometimes, with the windows closed, she'll sit and think of me.
But she'll mend his tattered clothes and they'll kiss as if they know
A baby sleeps in all our bones, so scared to be alone.