[FIC] Hours Before Dawn
Author: noeon
Title: Hours Before Dawn
Rating: R
Word Count: ~2.2K
Pairing(s): Albus Severus/Draco Malfoy
Warnings: ADW 22/48
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary:Of course, it was all his fault. Al knew this. He’d never been able to stay away from danger.
Author Notes: Written for prompt #69: "Draco/Albus : Draco can't help but notice that Harry Potter's younger son flirts with him shamelessly, especially when his father's there to see and freak out over it. He only intends to amuse himself by playing along to rile up Harry, but things quickly get out of hand. (Draco physically tops please)" I changed the original to make it Albus POV. Many, many thanks to the lovely hp_nextgen_fest mods and my uberbetas, f and j. All remaining errors are my own.
Al sighed as the fourth speaker ascended the podium at the front of the hall. His much feared former astronomy teacher, Aurora Sinistra smoothed her dark violet robes before laying her notes on the wooden surface and casting an amplification charm.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, witches and wizards, friends, we are witnessing a new era in magical education.’
There really isn't enough gin in the world to make this evening worthwhile, Al thought, noticing that his glass was down to the limes again, and the quality is rather lacking as well.
At the front of the rows of seats, at the foot of the podium, he could see his mother dressed in red, with Lils beside her and James, looking alert and dutiful. His father was seated on the stage of course.
Al was tired of being dutiful. He was standing in the back of the room to watch the proceedings.
Most of the attendees at the Ministry's gathering to launch the New Campaign for Hogwarts were functionaries of some sort or another: his father's colleagues, board members, foreign dignitaries. Except for the staff, there were very few witches or wizards under thirty in the room. Of course Al'd had to attend, as the child of Harry Potter, to bolster the image of his father as politician and family man. After all, the elections were only a few months away and his father was facing a rather serious challenge from Draco Malfoy and the Fiscal Reform Party--serious enough that Al hadn't seen his father in weeks and his mother had been at Madame Malkin's three times in as many days.
Malfoy was divorced, so of course Dad had started parading the entire Potter brood everywhere the minute the WizPoll numbers began to swing in favour of the challengers. His press secretary had practically demanded it.
Al scowled, not quite ruing his fate but definitely resenting the publicity. He had a decent position in the analytical section of Gringotts, given he was good with arithmancy and got along well with Goblins. Frankly, he preferred numerical tables and algorithms to human companionship any day. And this was only the third function this week. Tomorrow they were going to be photographed as a family at the Ministry orphanage, breaking the ground for the new Quidditch pavilion and indoor sports complex. Al couldn't bloody wait for that.
‘Another drink, sir?’
The question came from his elbow. Al turned to see one of the waiters with a tray, offering to take his glass. Al sized him up quickly: pretty, nice jaw, dark hair, decent enough mouth, and a lovely lip ring. Al fixated on the plump swell of flesh and the curl of silver through it. A brief flutter of thick eyelashes told him the attention wasn't unnoticed or unwanted. This might not be a wasted evening after all.
Just as Al opened his mouth to speak, a white flash at the corner of the room distracted his eye. Draco Malfoy. Only he and Scorpius were that blonde and even at a distance, Al could see it was Malfoy the Elder. He stood at a small table, dark robes falling as perfectly as ever, lips pursed in silent amusement. He made no attempt to hide the fact that he was watching Al with the waiter. When Al looked over, he raised his glass.
‘No, thank you,’ Al said, surrendering his empty glass to the waiter. ‘Perhaps later.’
Al didn't wait to see whether a look of boredom or irritation flitted across the boy's pretty face. He was already moving toward the table in the corner, against all common sense, utterly unable to stop himself from being drawn in. Again. His sense of danger told him that it was still too public, that he should run, that it would end in disaster.
He strode forward purposefully.
‘Albus,’ Draco said, and Al shivered slightly at the crisp, almost colourless tone of his voice. Draco’s expression was guarded, screened from Al’s attempt to discern any emotion.
‘Mr Malfoy.’ Al countered with an exaggerated formality, even bowing slightly for effect. A slight pursing of Draco’s thin lips showed Al that he might have hit the mark. Might. He couldn’t tell.
‘Enjoying the event, then?’ They both looked to the dais, where Professor Sinistra had reached the highpoint of her oratory on universal education and promise.
‘Not quite as much as last month’s, sir.’ Al bit his lip as images rose in his mind, unbidden.
The awards presentation up North. The early Spring thaw. Finding Draco unexpectedly in the third floor hall while he was looking for the loo. A cupboard, a muttered spell and the smell of citrusy cologne. The rasp of wool against his skin and elegant, capable hands unfastening his flies.
‘We said we wouldn’t do this again,’ Al'd said and then he had negated the good intention by biting Draco’s neck.
‘We’ve been very good for months,’ Draco had all but purred. ‘Just this once.’
Al recalled Dad’s voice droning from outside as Draco brought him off, quickly and desperately, and then left him dishevelled and gasping against the wall. Draco had appeared outside in perfect time to give his own speech. Al remembered trying to gather his wits and follow his parents across the lawns. Somehow--God only knew, though--he’d made small talk for the rest of the afternoon whilst trying not to look at his father’s opponent, feeling faintly queasy with terror and terribly turned on simultaneously.
Now, here, in the back of a room full of people about to descend and mingle professionally, Al’s skin prickled as he and Draco looked at each other, and for a moment, just a moment, Draco’s mask slipped and Al saw the heat and the desire. Suddenly Al couldn’t breathe, could only look helplessly into Draco’s eyes. He hated himself for wanting like this, for hoping.
‘Time to be presentable,’ Draco murmured, straightening up and snapping a perfect ironic smile into place as Professor Sinistra finished speaking and the clapping began.
Al watched Draco’s broad shoulders as he strode away into the crowd and wondered how he was going to survive the next hour and a half, much less the days after that
***
Of course, it was all his fault. Al knew this. He’d never been able to stay away from trouble. He sought it, and he was perversely good at finding it.
Properly, the whole affair started in the summer, before the political challenges and the charges of corruption and counter-charges of fiscal irresponsibility and cronyism, before the calls for a new election and all the political rigamarole.
Al started flirting with Draco--who’d been Mr Malfoy then--for the simplest reason of all: to irritate his father.
The first time was at a Ministry function. The hall was blazingly hot, and the wine not nearly cold enough despite the chilling spells. Escaping his own table of bored and listless wizards and witches, Al went to the bar to find something stronger. And colder.
He found Mr Malfoy in the queue. Despite the heat, Mr Malfoy was perfectly turned out in summer robes, the barest sheen of sweat visible on his edges of his cool blond visage.
Something in his casual, assessing look made Al smile and lean in. Mr Malfoy put a hand on Al’s arm.
And then Al saw his father eyeing them darkly from across the room.
They exchanged a few droll words, before Al saw the humid crowd parting before Dad like a sea.
Draco smiled icily and nodded. ‘I’d best leave. Do keep in touch.’ His eyes raked Al up and down and then he was gone.
The parental bollocking Al received was bad enough, but not so severe as to stop him from chatting Mr Malfoy up the next chance he got, which happened to be the wedding of Pansy Parkinson Nott Weasley to some unknown but rich French wizard in the country in August.
Al left the ballroom for air and found Mr Malfoy and his ironic smile on the balcony.
That time Dad was quicker to respond to the threat of filial corruption. After ten minutes, he appeared in the doorway, mouth tight and eyes suspicious. Al had no damned idea how he'd known to find him. ‘We’re leaving,' Dad had snapped. 'Malfoy, I’ll have you stay away from my son.’
Draco--he was Draco by then--raised an eyebrow at the threat. ‘I wasn’t aware there was a problem, Potter.’
‘Make sure there isn’t.’ Dad glowered back and all but forced Al back into the ballroom.
But there was a problem, a serious one. Al found himself falling for his father’s rival. And he didn’t fall. Ever.
It came to a head over an ill-fated lunch at Saxifrage. Draco saw Al in the entry hall and invited him to share a table. The encounter stayed at flirtation, although just barely. Unfortunately the Prophet had a critic nearby and the lunch made an extended gossip column mention. Names were not revealed but the details were damning.
Dad was incandescent with rage. After their first altercation over the matter, Al didn’t speak to his father for two weeks, until Draco was called in for Auror questioning on a minor corruption inquiry.
The next day, Al burst into his father’s office and accused him of causing trouble. The ensuing fight was bitter, even for them.
‘Al, as you’ve seen in the papers, the internal investigation has been in progress for months.’ Dad had cast a Muffliato hastily, but the entire office had seen Al storm in.
‘I don’t care. You did this as punishment and I know it.’
Dad drew himself up and assumed full paternal authority mode. ‘Al, you can’t see Malfoy. I forbid you.’
Al drew himself up as well. He was a good six inches taller than his father. ‘I wasn’t going to do anything but now....’
No charges were pressed against Draco and his solicitors filed a suit against the Ministry.
The next day, Al went to find Draco in town, using the invitation card Draco had given him with the Floo coordinates of an Unplottable flat.
Draco welcomed him in and cancelled his dinner plans by firecall.
***
When the Malfoy political challenge came, Mum implored Al to stop seeing Draco. For his father’s career. For family honour. For all of them.
And Al had.
Except for the one slip, he’d been very, very good.
And each smile and each empty hour had hollowed out his heart.
***
Al staggered through the remainder of the weeks leading up to the election like a well-mannered Inferius. He appeared at every event and smiled for every camera when asked. He shook hands and watched Dad grow more haggard and more resolved and Mum's temper wear thin behind the mask of charm.
And then the day was upon them and after nerve-wracking hours, the results were in. But there was no firm result.
It took days for a coalition to be formed. Al and the entire Wizarding public were sick with anticipation and exhausted by the time the agreements arrived.
At two in the morning, well after his parents had celebrated and staggered to bed, well after the well-wishers and party rank-and-file and family members and newshounds had cleared out, Al stepped into the Floo with a well-worn card.
He emerged into a dark, empty flat.
The house elves were clearly keeping the dust from accumulating but it smelt disused. All of the furniture was gone: the antique wing chairs and the long, well-tried sofa. Everything. The emptiness was echoing.
Al didn’t even know why he’d hoped.
He let himself walk through the chambers of memory, remembering the hours and stolen moments of this place. The lump in his throat grew a bit bigger as he went from room to room, but he knew he had to say goodbye. To whom he was. To whom he’d been. To all of the things he’d done and let Draco do to him, all gathered in the place memory of these walls but now gone.
With a heavy heart and an odd sense of being years older than he was when he entered, Al walked back to the Floo.
He trailed a hand upon the chimney-piece.
And saw a small envelope. With his initials on it in a familiar, bold hand.
***
When Al stepped out of the unfamiliar Floo, Draco pulled him close before he could utter more than a noise of surpise.
‘I didn’t think you were coming.’
Perhaps it was exhaustion, perhaps exhilaration, but Al had never felt so openly needed before.
He clung to Draco’s shoulders, leaning back just a little so he could look him in the eye.
‘I can’t stay away.’
Draco smiled at him, gently. ‘Thank Merlin for that.’
***
Hours later, as the pale of early morning fell upon the tangled sheets where Al lay beside Draco, Al asked, ‘And what are we going to do now?’
Draco stirred from almost-slumber. ‘Hope that your father's also too tired to kill me until tomorrow.’
Al knew he should let Draco rest. ‘No, honestly.’
Draco sighed. ‘Stop pretending until the next election. And let me sleep. I’ll shag all the questions out of you tomorrow, but I have to be up in two hours.’
Al smiled and watched the dawn arrive.
Title: Hours Before Dawn
Rating: R
Word Count: ~2.2K
Pairing(s): Albus Severus/Draco Malfoy
Warnings: ADW 22/48
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary:Of course, it was all his fault. Al knew this. He’d never been able to stay away from danger.
Author Notes: Written for prompt #69: "Draco/Albus : Draco can't help but notice that Harry Potter's younger son flirts with him shamelessly, especially when his father's there to see and freak out over it. He only intends to amuse himself by playing along to rile up Harry, but things quickly get out of hand. (Draco physically tops please)" I changed the original to make it Albus POV. Many, many thanks to the lovely hp_nextgen_fest mods and my uberbetas, f and j. All remaining errors are my own.
Al sighed as the fourth speaker ascended the podium at the front of the hall. His much feared former astronomy teacher, Aurora Sinistra smoothed her dark violet robes before laying her notes on the wooden surface and casting an amplification charm.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, witches and wizards, friends, we are witnessing a new era in magical education.’
There really isn't enough gin in the world to make this evening worthwhile, Al thought, noticing that his glass was down to the limes again, and the quality is rather lacking as well.
At the front of the rows of seats, at the foot of the podium, he could see his mother dressed in red, with Lils beside her and James, looking alert and dutiful. His father was seated on the stage of course.
Al was tired of being dutiful. He was standing in the back of the room to watch the proceedings.
Most of the attendees at the Ministry's gathering to launch the New Campaign for Hogwarts were functionaries of some sort or another: his father's colleagues, board members, foreign dignitaries. Except for the staff, there were very few witches or wizards under thirty in the room. Of course Al'd had to attend, as the child of Harry Potter, to bolster the image of his father as politician and family man. After all, the elections were only a few months away and his father was facing a rather serious challenge from Draco Malfoy and the Fiscal Reform Party--serious enough that Al hadn't seen his father in weeks and his mother had been at Madame Malkin's three times in as many days.
Malfoy was divorced, so of course Dad had started parading the entire Potter brood everywhere the minute the WizPoll numbers began to swing in favour of the challengers. His press secretary had practically demanded it.
Al scowled, not quite ruing his fate but definitely resenting the publicity. He had a decent position in the analytical section of Gringotts, given he was good with arithmancy and got along well with Goblins. Frankly, he preferred numerical tables and algorithms to human companionship any day. And this was only the third function this week. Tomorrow they were going to be photographed as a family at the Ministry orphanage, breaking the ground for the new Quidditch pavilion and indoor sports complex. Al couldn't bloody wait for that.
‘Another drink, sir?’
The question came from his elbow. Al turned to see one of the waiters with a tray, offering to take his glass. Al sized him up quickly: pretty, nice jaw, dark hair, decent enough mouth, and a lovely lip ring. Al fixated on the plump swell of flesh and the curl of silver through it. A brief flutter of thick eyelashes told him the attention wasn't unnoticed or unwanted. This might not be a wasted evening after all.
Just as Al opened his mouth to speak, a white flash at the corner of the room distracted his eye. Draco Malfoy. Only he and Scorpius were that blonde and even at a distance, Al could see it was Malfoy the Elder. He stood at a small table, dark robes falling as perfectly as ever, lips pursed in silent amusement. He made no attempt to hide the fact that he was watching Al with the waiter. When Al looked over, he raised his glass.
‘No, thank you,’ Al said, surrendering his empty glass to the waiter. ‘Perhaps later.’
Al didn't wait to see whether a look of boredom or irritation flitted across the boy's pretty face. He was already moving toward the table in the corner, against all common sense, utterly unable to stop himself from being drawn in. Again. His sense of danger told him that it was still too public, that he should run, that it would end in disaster.
He strode forward purposefully.
‘Albus,’ Draco said, and Al shivered slightly at the crisp, almost colourless tone of his voice. Draco’s expression was guarded, screened from Al’s attempt to discern any emotion.
‘Mr Malfoy.’ Al countered with an exaggerated formality, even bowing slightly for effect. A slight pursing of Draco’s thin lips showed Al that he might have hit the mark. Might. He couldn’t tell.
‘Enjoying the event, then?’ They both looked to the dais, where Professor Sinistra had reached the highpoint of her oratory on universal education and promise.
‘Not quite as much as last month’s, sir.’ Al bit his lip as images rose in his mind, unbidden.
The awards presentation up North. The early Spring thaw. Finding Draco unexpectedly in the third floor hall while he was looking for the loo. A cupboard, a muttered spell and the smell of citrusy cologne. The rasp of wool against his skin and elegant, capable hands unfastening his flies.
‘We said we wouldn’t do this again,’ Al'd said and then he had negated the good intention by biting Draco’s neck.
‘We’ve been very good for months,’ Draco had all but purred. ‘Just this once.’
Al recalled Dad’s voice droning from outside as Draco brought him off, quickly and desperately, and then left him dishevelled and gasping against the wall. Draco had appeared outside in perfect time to give his own speech. Al remembered trying to gather his wits and follow his parents across the lawns. Somehow--God only knew, though--he’d made small talk for the rest of the afternoon whilst trying not to look at his father’s opponent, feeling faintly queasy with terror and terribly turned on simultaneously.
Now, here, in the back of a room full of people about to descend and mingle professionally, Al’s skin prickled as he and Draco looked at each other, and for a moment, just a moment, Draco’s mask slipped and Al saw the heat and the desire. Suddenly Al couldn’t breathe, could only look helplessly into Draco’s eyes. He hated himself for wanting like this, for hoping.
‘Time to be presentable,’ Draco murmured, straightening up and snapping a perfect ironic smile into place as Professor Sinistra finished speaking and the clapping began.
Al watched Draco’s broad shoulders as he strode away into the crowd and wondered how he was going to survive the next hour and a half, much less the days after that
***
Of course, it was all his fault. Al knew this. He’d never been able to stay away from trouble. He sought it, and he was perversely good at finding it.
Properly, the whole affair started in the summer, before the political challenges and the charges of corruption and counter-charges of fiscal irresponsibility and cronyism, before the calls for a new election and all the political rigamarole.
Al started flirting with Draco--who’d been Mr Malfoy then--for the simplest reason of all: to irritate his father.
The first time was at a Ministry function. The hall was blazingly hot, and the wine not nearly cold enough despite the chilling spells. Escaping his own table of bored and listless wizards and witches, Al went to the bar to find something stronger. And colder.
He found Mr Malfoy in the queue. Despite the heat, Mr Malfoy was perfectly turned out in summer robes, the barest sheen of sweat visible on his edges of his cool blond visage.
Something in his casual, assessing look made Al smile and lean in. Mr Malfoy put a hand on Al’s arm.
And then Al saw his father eyeing them darkly from across the room.
They exchanged a few droll words, before Al saw the humid crowd parting before Dad like a sea.
Draco smiled icily and nodded. ‘I’d best leave. Do keep in touch.’ His eyes raked Al up and down and then he was gone.
The parental bollocking Al received was bad enough, but not so severe as to stop him from chatting Mr Malfoy up the next chance he got, which happened to be the wedding of Pansy Parkinson Nott Weasley to some unknown but rich French wizard in the country in August.
Al left the ballroom for air and found Mr Malfoy and his ironic smile on the balcony.
That time Dad was quicker to respond to the threat of filial corruption. After ten minutes, he appeared in the doorway, mouth tight and eyes suspicious. Al had no damned idea how he'd known to find him. ‘We’re leaving,' Dad had snapped. 'Malfoy, I’ll have you stay away from my son.’
Draco--he was Draco by then--raised an eyebrow at the threat. ‘I wasn’t aware there was a problem, Potter.’
‘Make sure there isn’t.’ Dad glowered back and all but forced Al back into the ballroom.
But there was a problem, a serious one. Al found himself falling for his father’s rival. And he didn’t fall. Ever.
It came to a head over an ill-fated lunch at Saxifrage. Draco saw Al in the entry hall and invited him to share a table. The encounter stayed at flirtation, although just barely. Unfortunately the Prophet had a critic nearby and the lunch made an extended gossip column mention. Names were not revealed but the details were damning.
Dad was incandescent with rage. After their first altercation over the matter, Al didn’t speak to his father for two weeks, until Draco was called in for Auror questioning on a minor corruption inquiry.
The next day, Al burst into his father’s office and accused him of causing trouble. The ensuing fight was bitter, even for them.
‘Al, as you’ve seen in the papers, the internal investigation has been in progress for months.’ Dad had cast a Muffliato hastily, but the entire office had seen Al storm in.
‘I don’t care. You did this as punishment and I know it.’
Dad drew himself up and assumed full paternal authority mode. ‘Al, you can’t see Malfoy. I forbid you.’
Al drew himself up as well. He was a good six inches taller than his father. ‘I wasn’t going to do anything but now....’
No charges were pressed against Draco and his solicitors filed a suit against the Ministry.
The next day, Al went to find Draco in town, using the invitation card Draco had given him with the Floo coordinates of an Unplottable flat.
Draco welcomed him in and cancelled his dinner plans by firecall.
***
When the Malfoy political challenge came, Mum implored Al to stop seeing Draco. For his father’s career. For family honour. For all of them.
And Al had.
Except for the one slip, he’d been very, very good.
And each smile and each empty hour had hollowed out his heart.
***
Al staggered through the remainder of the weeks leading up to the election like a well-mannered Inferius. He appeared at every event and smiled for every camera when asked. He shook hands and watched Dad grow more haggard and more resolved and Mum's temper wear thin behind the mask of charm.
And then the day was upon them and after nerve-wracking hours, the results were in. But there was no firm result.
It took days for a coalition to be formed. Al and the entire Wizarding public were sick with anticipation and exhausted by the time the agreements arrived.
At two in the morning, well after his parents had celebrated and staggered to bed, well after the well-wishers and party rank-and-file and family members and newshounds had cleared out, Al stepped into the Floo with a well-worn card.
He emerged into a dark, empty flat.
The house elves were clearly keeping the dust from accumulating but it smelt disused. All of the furniture was gone: the antique wing chairs and the long, well-tried sofa. Everything. The emptiness was echoing.
Al didn’t even know why he’d hoped.
He let himself walk through the chambers of memory, remembering the hours and stolen moments of this place. The lump in his throat grew a bit bigger as he went from room to room, but he knew he had to say goodbye. To whom he was. To whom he’d been. To all of the things he’d done and let Draco do to him, all gathered in the place memory of these walls but now gone.
With a heavy heart and an odd sense of being years older than he was when he entered, Al walked back to the Floo.
He trailed a hand upon the chimney-piece.
And saw a small envelope. With his initials on it in a familiar, bold hand.
***
When Al stepped out of the unfamiliar Floo, Draco pulled him close before he could utter more than a noise of surpise.
‘I didn’t think you were coming.’
Perhaps it was exhaustion, perhaps exhilaration, but Al had never felt so openly needed before.
He clung to Draco’s shoulders, leaning back just a little so he could look him in the eye.
‘I can’t stay away.’
Draco smiled at him, gently. ‘Thank Merlin for that.’
***
Hours later, as the pale of early morning fell upon the tangled sheets where Al lay beside Draco, Al asked, ‘And what are we going to do now?’
Draco stirred from almost-slumber. ‘Hope that your father's also too tired to kill me until tomorrow.’
Al knew he should let Draco rest. ‘No, honestly.’
Draco sighed. ‘Stop pretending until the next election. And let me sleep. I’ll shag all the questions out of you tomorrow, but I have to be up in two hours.’
Al smiled and watched the dawn arrive.