(with a heavy and morose sigh) part nine

Maybe we write fanfiction because we're lonely.

Maybe we want a happy ending because we believe it's the only one we can trust.

Maybe we ship because it's the only thing we have left to hold onto.

So imagine that one day Harry and Draco are arguing in an abandoned corridor (like they always do) and Draco has Harry shoved up against the wall and they’re breathing heavily and Harry just says offhand, “What are you gonna do, Malfoy? Kiss me?”

And to both their surprise, Malfoy lunges forward and does just that. It’s rough. It’s desperate. But after a moment they stop. And they’re just standing there glaring at each other. Like their both so pissed that they did that.

Harry shoves Malfoy off of him and says, “Always knew you were a poof” and Malfoy snarls back, “Like you weren’t begging for it, Potter.” They walk in opposite directions and don’t talk about it again.

A few days later Malfoy is reading a Potions textbook in the eighth year common room and Harry flops down on the sofa beside him and proceeds to lay his messy, unwashed, fresh-from-Quidditch-practice hair on Malfoy’s lap.

Everyone around them stops what they’re doing to see what will happen. But neither Draco nor Harry make any comment and act like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Harry closes his eyes and acts like he’s gonna fall asleep. And Draco keeps reading his book.

After about five minutes Draco finally snaps, “When was the last time you washed your hair, Potter? I’ll have to throw these trousers out after this.”

And Harry, without opening his eyes, yawns and says, “Anything to get you out of them, Malfoy.”

“Look who’s a poof now.”

“Says the one with a hard on from just my head in his lap.”

“Git.”

“Prat.”

“Fuck off, Potter.”

Then Harry yawns again and Draco turns back to his book.

And then Harry legit falls asleep still with his head in Draco’s lap.

In Charms later that week, Malfoy insists on being Harry’s partner. They fight and say the nastiest things to each other the entire time. After class, they’re still fighting, but holding hands all the way to the Great Hall for lunch. When they part ways, Harry scowls and makes an obscene hand gesture while Malfoy gives him his best derisive sneer.

A few nights later, Harry wakes up to find Malfoy cuddled up to his side, fast asleep.

“Malfoy.”

No response.

“Malfoy.” he whispers a bit louder.

He prods the other boy’s shoulder who then wakes up with a start and immediately looks pissed.

“What.”

“How long have you been here?” Harry can’t help asking.

“Does it matter? Go back to sleep. It’s two in the morning for fucks sake.”

Malfoy lies back down, curling himself around Harry again, and closing his eyes.

Harry rolls his eyes, but then looks down at him for a moment. He can’t see too well in the dark and without his glasses, but Malfoy’s blonde hair and pale skin almost seem to glow. He can just make out the peaceful look on his face and for the first time ever, he sees Malfoy as Draco. An 18-year-old kid.

“Wait.”

Malfoy looks up, thoroughly annoyed. But before he can say anything, Harry catches his lips in a deep kiss. It’s open. It’s hot. It gains speed quickly. But all the while, still soft. And sweeter than Harry would have ever thought anything could be with Draco Malfoy.

Harry pulls away suddenly and lays his head back on his pillow. Slightly breathless and with a small smile on his lips he whispers, “Fuck.”

Malfoy snorts and says, “You wish.”

I’m grinning like a loon, because YES, this feels like an essence of at least a 1000 Drarry fics I’ve read, and I know what will happen next, but I’m holding my breath and rooting for these two idiots, and I’m all like: OH NO, WHAT’S GONNA HAPPEN NEXT?!?! and never get bored.

The Half of It x Merthur

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thinking…

I loved this meme so much, so I did a thing, it’s simple but is made with love.

Love ridden, I will look at you With the focus I gave to my birthday candles

On the first day of lockdown, my true love gave to me

… a tiny dragon in a pear tree

(this is the first instalment of a little lockdown-inspired Drarry fic I wrote this week - many many thanks to the brilliant @maesterchill​ for the swift beta! Warnings for: first person POV, mentions of the current pandemic, lots of handwashing, keeping a safe distance (for now ;)) and how the characters deal with all of it)

The ring of the doorbell is curt and insistent, just like the man I find standing on my steps when I open the door.

I stare at the familiar face — still as pale and pointy as I remember it from my Hogwarts days — and the grey eyes stare back with an irritated frown.

“There must be a mistake,” I say, and start to shut the door in his face.

Draco Malfoy puts an imperious hand out before I can do it, and drawls — drawls, like five years and a war haven’t passed since we were at school together — “I don’t think so, Potter.”

Blankly, I move aside and let him stroll in, the tips of his deep green velvet cloak brushing the carpet I just laid in the hallway of Grimmauld Place not two weeks ago. He opens the silver clasp at his throat, and takes the cloak off his shoulders with a flourish that would put Professor Snape to shame. Under the cloak, he’s wearing a three-piece tweed suit despite the warm spring weather, a white shirt and green tie underneath, like a gentleman out of a Victorian play and not a normal twenty-first century wizard. My eyes snag on the bulge of his breast pocket. As I watch, a lizard — no, a minute dragon, golden eyes shining as bright as its emerald green scales — pokes its head out of the pocket and blinks at me. Malfoy lets it slither out of his pocket and up to his shoulder, and catches my eye. 

“This is Birgit,” he says absent-mindedly by way of an introduction, as if it were perfectly normal for him to be here, in my house, with a tiny fire-breathing beast sitting on his shoulder.

I’m still staring when he thrusts his cloak at me with a glare. He turns his nose up, probably offended by my lack of manners.

“Where is it?” he sniffs without preamble.

I ignore him, too stunned to listen, anger seeping through me as he stands in my hallway, head high and entitled like he owns the place.

“Are you going to tell me why you’re here, Malfoy?” I ask, though the very moment I voice my question, I’m starting to fear I already know the answer. He must know that too, because he smiles at me, a slow, sweet, horribly sarcastic smile.

“Why, I’ve been sent by Janus and Davies, world-famous antique appraisers,” he says. “I believe you were the one who enquired about their services?” 

“You’ve been sent? You? Draco Malfoy?” I ask, unwilling to fully consider the image of Draco Malfoy, standing tall and lean and tweed-clad in my home, as something real and not out of an odd, hungover, disturbing dream.

“That is my name indeed,” he opines, the self-satisfied grin still in place. He takes off his leather gloves, pulling on them daintily finger by finger. “I’m their best Dark antique expert, after all.”

“I’m not surprised,” I mutter, while he peers down the hall, visibly unsatisfied that he hasn’t located the object of my desperate call to the magical antique dealer. The tiny dragon leans with him, lets out a minute cry that sounds more like a kitten meowing than a dangerous magical beast roaring. The house is still dark at this early morning hour, and the hallway is sparsely furnished anyway — I had to move all the old furniture to the attic when I cleaned and redecorated it a few weeks ago. “Might you show me the way to the nearest lavatory, please,” he asks, “as I wish to wash my hands, per the Ministry’s recommendation?”

His excessive politeness is grating, but I huff and walk past him to the small downstairs loo below the stairs. Malfoy washes his hands for the mandatory twenty seconds, and when he steps out of the looI come in and do the same for good measure, though I washed my hands barely ten minutes before he rang at the door.

Malfoy leans against the door frame while I’m busy soaping my hands. The tiny dragon is nowhere to be seen. I wonder if it’s already escaped. Oh, well. If I had Malfoy as a master, I would probably make a run for it at the first opportunity. 

“Strange times we live in, Potter,” Malfoy drawls,“First a war, now the coronavirus pandemic, all of it in our short twenty-three-year-old lives.”

I rinse my hands and glance at him in the mirror over the sink. “Let’s hope we both stay on the good side of it this time.” It’s petty, and it works. Malfoy’s mouth thins and he turns and strides away.

Abashed, I take a moment to dry my hands. When I come out, he’s halfway up the stairs, watching me from over the banister. 

“It’s upstairs, isn’t it?”

I wonder if he can smell it. It’s Malfoy — anything is possible. “It’s in the attic,” I call from down the stairs. 

He dashes up, not waiting for me. I make an exasperated face at him, but he’s already out of sight. Grumbling, I follow him up. Halfway up the first flight of stairs, I see an emerald-green flash out of the corner of my eye and I stop: Birgit the mini-dragon is outside, flying by the windows of my garden, fluttering over the blooms of the pear tree like an oversized hummingbird. How did it find a way out to the garden? I scratch my head, wondering which of the windows I left open this morning. The dragon sniffs a flower, dips its head in it, then darts to the next. I decide it’s probably more harmless to let a small dragon explore my garden than to let Malfoy roam my house unattended, so I start up the stairs faster.

The house gets colder and darker as we move up, all the floors I haven’t got around to cleaning out and redecorating to my tastes yet — perhaps Malfoy can feel it too, and is judging me for it. When I reach the attic, he’s already in front of the old armchair, upholstered in green and gold brocade, and if I’m not mistaken, he’s murmuring to it in a soothing crooning voice. He turns when he hears the creak of my step on the dusty floorboards. 

“What did it do?” he asks, an accusing eyebrow raised, as if it were my fault that the bloody armchair acted up.

“It tried to bite me. Repeatedly.” It doesn’t help at all that I feel my face heat with anger when his eyebrow goes up even further and he leans in, as if to ascertain that my bottom was, indeed, mauled by a cursed armchair. I shift my backside as far away from Malfoy as I can.

“Not just me!” I add. “Every one of my guests that have been unfortunate enough to try and sit in it!” Ron still reminds me of the incident every time we meet.

Malfoy’s eyes narrow, and he focuses his attention on the piece of furniture at fault.

“It makes perfect sense,” he says, his voice trailing after a thought he doesn’t deem necessary to voice, “it makes perfect sense that the armchair would do just that—”

He’s interrupted by the loud, siren-like wail that suddenly rings through the house — not an ordinary Firecall. Our eyes lock for a moment that stretches… and stretches… and then Malfoy jumps to his feet and we both hurtle down the stairs, bursting through the ground floor’s living room door to find the fire in the hearth turned bright green. Hermione’s head is poking out of the flames, green to the tips of her hair. It looks even bigger and bushier than usual, which tells me she’s spent another sleepless night at the emergency ward of St Mungo’s, treating Covid-19 patient after patient with spells, potions and Muggle medicine alike.

“Oh, there you are! Thank Merlin!” she exclaims when she sees me, her eyes softening with relief. She stops when Malfoy, skidding to a halt next to me, appears in her line of vision. 

“Hermione, why the sirens? What’s going on?” I ask her. She snaps her mouth closed and shifts her gaze back to me, biting her lip.

“Oh, Harry,” she says. “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

She looks at me, then at Malfoy, then at me again, as if she can’t decide where to settle her eyes. She finally turns to me, having apparently chosen to ignore the strange sight of Malfoy standing next to me in my living room for now.

“We talked about it when we came to see you last week? Now it’s official. The Ministry has issued the order for all magical folk to go into lockdown. All forms of wizarding or Muggle travel are prohibited, and we mustn’t go out of our houses.”

“What?” Malfoy has turned so pale he looks grey in the morning light.

Hermione looks at him with a pitiful expression.

“We mustn’t go out of our houses,” she repeats. She takes a deep breath, and adds: “Effective immediately.”

“Go out of whose house?” Malfoy chokes out. 

I suddenly go very cold and still as the meaning of Hermione’s words sink in.

Everyone in England is going into lockdown.

And I’m being locked down with Draco Malfoy.

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