Where Brokeback meets Harry Potter 0_o
Title: Startle Point (Part 1/?)
Fandom: Harry Potter
Ship: Harry/Draco
Genre: Angst
Rating: PG (this chapter)
Disclaimer:Harry, Draco and the Potterverse characters are not mine. Nor is the plotline. God, I own nothing, do I?
A/N: This is in the works to be quite a long project, and I've been taking forever with it due to evil writer's block. Yes, I am completely stealing the essence of Annie Proulx's plot. Lots of shameless stealing going on. (When it's done, it's yours if you want it. You know who you are. Happy b-day. Not much new here, unfortunately.)
Summary: Harry and Draco know what they aren't - not queer, not gay - but they have no idea what they are.
Harry Potter wakes before five, eyes squinting in search of a sun that is still asleep, hidden to a world of yawning darkness. The wind rattles the shutters, and for a moment the noise echoes in his head, pounding and persistent. He thinks he might have a hangover, or possibly a migraine, although he figures that at this hour they would feel pretty much the same. The wind passes by again, and his body shudders in response.
He stumbles out of bed and reaches for a pair of trousers poking messily out of one of his dresser drawers. He can’t be bothered to do the laundry properly, and he doubts it would make much of a difference to begin with. He’s never been particularly organized, after all. It doesn’t bother him. In fact, he hardly notices it.
Shuffling his bare feet across the floor, he makes his way to the kitchen, where he pours himself a cup of coffee. It tastes stale as it slides down his throat, but he drinks it anyway, and then levitates the coffee pot into a box sitting on the kitchen table.
There are boxes all over his flat. Most of them wear blank labels, victims of his indecision when it comes to sorting things. Beside the coffee pot, there is a stack of cracked plates, an old textbook and a solitary slipper. Some of the boxes he tries to organize by room, others he attempts to classify by purpose, but then there are those that only make sense to him, and even then he wonders if he’s just making it up as he goes along. He seals the box shut.
He brushes his teeth in a hurry, pulls on a crumpled shirt and tugs on his shoes as he forces them to accommodate his feet. An alarm clock beeps rudely from one of the boxes near the bathroom, and Harry curses under his breath. He has to be packed and out of his flat that morning. He finished the paperwork just a few days ago, and the new owners would be moving in as soon as the place had tidied itself up. As for Harry, he might stay a few nights with his married daughter until he has a chance to start looking for a new place, but the prospect of it all doesn’t bother him right now, because last night, he dreamt of Draco Malfoy.
The coffee is cold as he frees it from its ceramic prison, draining it in one gulp. It is disgusting and bitter, but he lets it decimate his taste buds for a moment longer, distracted by colourful flashes of memory. He clings to the dream, hoping to find warmth in the aging days when they could be together, laughing and living with the world at their feet.
Outside the window, the wind screeches as it whips through the morning air, pounding at the empty world before it rolls over and drifts away, leaving behind nothing more than a cold, momentary silence.
***
They were eleven years old when they met for the first time. Harry remembers the day clearly - the bright flashes of multicoloured robes, the hoots and screeches of eager owls, the thrill of being included in a secret so extraordinary that it hardly seemed real at all. His head whipped around corners and craned over pointed hats, eyes growing in the warm sunlight as he took everything in. From the glistening beetle eyes in the Apothecary window to the towering white columns of Gringotts, Diagon Alley was a surreal glimpse at paradise; the life he could have had but never dared to dream of. Compared to the rest, Madam Malkin’s was just another shop, really, one with tinted windows and endless rows of school robes, occupied only by a pale boy around his age, his mother, and a squat witch dressed in mauve.
It was a moment before Harry realized the boy was looking at him.
They didn’t speak much at first. In fact, Harry hardly spoke at all. Considering it was his first foray into the Wizarding world, talk of broomsticks, Quidditch and an inbred prejudice towards Muggleborns was really all beyond Harry’s understanding. The boy had a curious sort of drawl that seemed too supercilious for his eleven years, a rather pointed face, and a supremely arrogant tone that vaguely reminded Harry of Dudley. At the time, Harry thought the pale boy to be nothing more than a spoiled, unpleasant little brat.
Predictably, his opinion of the boy changed little over the course of his first few years at Hogwarts.
It was easy, hating Draco. There wasn’t really a justified reason for it, but the boy seemed to go out of his way to provoke him. Harry had never questioned his motives, and was all too happy to play his part in the rivalry that had quickly grown between them. He had always been competitive, and therefore saw no cause to ignore the taunts, the insults, or challenges presented to him. At eleven years of age, not everything had to have a reason.
In the beginning, he was just a nuisance. Breaking curfew to sneak out in the middle of the night, waiting for the boy who had never intended to come in the first place. Racing neck and neck with the Seeker who had bought his way onto the Quidditch pitch. Helping Hagrid prepare for Buckbeak’s hearing, all because of an overdramatic reaction to a self-provoked scratch. Draco got in the way, pushed Harry’s buttons and refused to get shoved out of the limelight. It was infuriating. It was distracting. And, for some strange, twisted reason, Harry began to look forward to it.
There was a certain energy to be found in fighting with Draco. It was relieving, in a way, to be able to focus all his anger at the world at one person, regardless of whether or not he had a legitimate reason to do so. It wasn’t as if they were important, these altercations - Harry certainly didn’t give them much thought, and he doubted Draco really cared either. And yet, it seemed weird, somehow, to spend that much time focused on someone you really couldn’t care less about. It was with this train of thought that whenever Draco jeered at him between their fourth year classes, Harry couldn’t help but silently wonder exactly how many hours he had spent making those stupid “Potter Stinks” badges.
At fourteen, he was curious. At fifteen he was reluctantly intrigued. By the time his sixth year rolled around, he had begun to become obsessed. He spent long hours tracing the contours of the Marauder’s map, talking to Ron and Hermione and stalking the Room of Requirement, all in attempts to find out what Draco was up to.
It wasn’t a matter of personal interest, not really. He had to defeat Voldemort, and if following Draco around would bring him that much closer to understanding how to do it, then so be it. However, it was somehow unsettling to realize that, somehow, in the grand scheme of things, Draco Malfoy had begun to matter.
What Harry didn’t understand was why seeing him with his wand drawn on the top of the Astronomy Tower felt like a let down.
By the time the war had reached its climax, Harry found himself too busy, too concerned with the big picture and the ultimate battle to give it much thought at all. With everything else that had been going on, it would’ve been easy to leave Draco behind, his friends aiming to kill in the wake of the serpentine fire. Ron would have.
He rescued Draco anyway, and didn’t think anything of it.
It was early August of 1998 when they met up again.
The war had left England torn and trampled, its people dazed and confused, and the remaining few members of the Order had organized a Restoration Committee to help deal with the damage. Unwilling though he was to part from Ginny, Harry joined up. Neither of them saw it as a big deal: She needed time to grieve with her family and Harry felt the need for a sense of closure. So sure had he been of his imminent death that it almost felt anti-climatic to be alive to witness the aftermath, and he felt somehow obligated to help tie up the loose ends. He hoped, at the very least, that it would help him move on.
“Nothing too exciting,” he told the Committee upon requesting a placement. “ I think I’ve had enough of that.” He smirked in spite of himself.
The members were sent out in groups across the country to repair whatever damage had been done. Some jobs were strictly administrative: Creating Ministry files for those involved in the war, the re-structuring of Hogwarts, the trials of the arrested Death Eaters. Others required more experience, such as dealing with the werewolves who were expecting their reward from Voldemort, harnessing the dementors and re-earning their allegiance, and capturing the escaped Gringotts dragon who seemed to have settled right in the middle of Muggle camping grounds. There was no denying that they had their work cut out for them, and Harry was all too happy to give up the rest of his summer for the cause.
He knew Ron and Hermione were part of a team who consulted with the Muggle police, that George and Percy were working on memory modifications and that Neville and Luna were stationed in one of the more obscure branches of St. Mungo’s, but all the same he was surprised when he entered Kingsley’s office and found Draco waiting for him.
“Um. Hi, Malfoy,” he said awkwardly.
Draco looked up from the papers he was hurriedly filling out at the last minute. “Potter.” He inclined his head briefly, and then returned his attention to his quill.
“Sit,” Kingsley instructed him in his deep, richly authoritative voice. He motioned to the armchair next to Draco.
Harry sat.
“We’ve recently located an area that Voldemort used as a base for holding dark creatures during the war. Considering he managed to get several clans of trolls and giants on his side, much of the area is now destroyed. Small population, mostly Muggle, but they obviously have no idea what has happened - they’re apparently attributing it to a highly destructive series of natural disasters - and they all depend on their farmland to make a living.” He reached up and pulled distractedly on his golden earring before continuing. “We’ll need you two to do some restorative work on the land: Replenishing spells, mostly, and -”
“Wait.” Harry interrupted. “You mean I’m working with him?”
Kingsley raised a long, dark eyebrow. “Are you particularly adverse to the idea? Might I remind you that you agreed that Mr. Malfoy be temporarily placed under the protection of the Order, in respects to Dumbledore’s original offer to protect him?
“Yeah, I remember,” Harry muttered. If it were what Dumbledore had wanted, surely it wouldn’t be without good reason? “It’s… fine,” he added somewhat belatedly, glancing indiscreetly to his left.
Draco avoided his gaze.
“As I was saying,” Kingsley continued, “We’ll be sending you up to Cumbria, in Northern England, to help restore the area, keep an eye out for any stray creatures who might still be under Voldemort’s influence, and modify the memories of those who have already had the misfortune to encounter them. We’ll be checking in once every so often by Floo just to make sure things are going as they should, and you’ll receive further instructions along with your Portkey tomorrow morning at reception. Any questions?”
“What are we supposed to do if we meet these creatures? Surely we’re not expected to reason with dementors or possessed acromantulas?” asked Draco.
“Use your discretion. If you don’t think you can handle the situation, aim to stun them and we’ll have them looked after by Ministry officials. Remember, you might not end up seeing any at all. And you certainly won’t find any acromantulas there, Mr. Malfoy, as there are no known colonies of the species where you’re about to go.”
He smiled. “At the very worse, it’s just a little bit of Defense. I think you’re both a bit overqualified, to be honest.”
They exited the office in silence.
“Potter?”
Harry’s hand hesitated at he reached for the elevator button. “Yeah?” He felt Draco walk up beside him.
“Did you want to get a drink?” Draco didn’t sound particularly confident, and Harry wondered for a moment whether or not he realized he was actually speaking. He stared at him.
“I mean, I figure I might as well start drinking now, if I’m going to have to put up with you for six weeks,” he reasoned. “Not to mention the charming wild animals with no deductive reasoning skills whatsoever.”
Somewhere in the back of his head, Harry dimly registered how ridiculous the whole thing sounded. A year ago he would have laughed at the utter impossibility of it all. He thought back to all the times Draco had gotten on his nerves, all the insults and sneers, all the anger that he couldn’t help but release every time he spoke to him. It was tempting to mock Draco for even entertaining the notion. But war had made trivialities of the past, and Draco had made an effort to change in the meantime. It was all rather difficult to process, but try as he might, Harry couldn’t think of a strong enough reason to refuse.
“Okay.”
They bought drinks at some out-of-the-way wizarding pub that Harry had never heard of, with strange ornamentations carved into the legs of the bar stools and an eerie bluish light emitting from the ceiling lamps. Draco seemed comfortable in their new surroundings, and Harry found it rather unsettling to see him so relaxed, considering how edgy and terrified he been during the war.
He signaled the bartender and ordered two Firewhiskies.
Draco looked up at this, and rolled his eyes.
“What?” said Harry indignantly.
“Insensitive gallantry. Don’t tell me - another one of the many valiant qualities of the Gryffindor hero complex?”
Harry sighed. “What are you on about this time, Malfoy?” he muttered.
“Nothing at all. Just pointing out that you went ahead and ordered for me without asking what I wanted first. Honestly, Potter, if we’re going to make this work you could at least make some sort of effort to be less presumptuous.” He attempted a smirk as he turned away to pick up his drink.
“‘Make this work?’”
Draco opened his mouth and then closed it, seemingly at a loss for an appropriate retort. He looked different somehow; older, and less like a scared teenager with blurred allegiances. His platinum-blond hair fell loosely as it framed his face; high cheekbones and clear eyes emphasizing the sharp, arrogant lines of years of arranged marriages and careful breeding. But for some reason Harry couldn’t quite place, Draco looked less sure of himself now, hesitant smiles looking out of place on lips meant for sneering, gestures more cautious then condescending. It intrigued him.
Draco frowned slightly as he took another sip of Firewhisky.
“I never did thank you,” he mumbled grudgingly, as though attempting to get this over with as quickly as possible.
Harry was just starting to wonder if Draco expected him to pay when he continued.
“For saving my life, I mean.”
Oh, thought Harry. So that’s what this is all about.
He nodded, slowly, expecting Draco to go on. Apparently, Draco seemed to misinterpret the gesture for incomprehension.
“What,” Draco snapped, reverting back to his usual sarcastic wordplay, “Has the great Harry Potter really saved so many lives he can’t keep track of them any more?”
“Shut up, Malfoy,” Harry said automatically. After a pause, he added: “And you’re welcome, if that’s what you were looking for.” It came out much more awkwardly then he intended.
Draco held eye contact with him for a minute, before inclining his head in what resembled a curt nod, and draining what was left of his drink.
“Right,” said Harry, attempting to revert the conversation to more comfortable grounds. “So. Six weeks.” He exhaled. “Lots of time to get re-acquainted.”
Draco scowled at this. “It was a small confession of gratitude, Potter. Not a profession of undying love.”
“Fine, have it your way,” Harry conceded with a touch of annoyance. “Lots of time to learn how to stop ourselves from irritating the crap out of each other, then.”
Draco raised his eyebrows, amused. “Fair enough."
To be continued...
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