FIC: Couldn´t be better
This thing has been written for the Prompt Day at HD_Writers. It is not good and thought out, but it contains every single of the 24 prompts.
Title: Couldn´t be better
Rating: PG-13
Authors Notes Prompts contained: Love/Hate; Describe a first ;On my mind;Picture English Garden, Glaring Fact; Tactile; Hands of faith; Poem - ;Breakable; Come what may; Have your character either lose or find something; subtle; Love is blind; Lucky; Picture: almond blossoms; new neighbor; cold feet; Rapunzel; grey and black Kitten playing with each other; Funeral; Stretch Your Body /Stretch Your Mind ;Black orchids; There's a time for compromise -It's called "later"; glasses
Distinguishing love from hate is not so easy. Both emotions take passion and involvement, if not to say dedication to a person. Maybe that is the reason took me so long to get clear on what I really feel for you. Every waking moment somehow contains a thought of you, a question on how you might be doing. I haven´t seen you in quite some time and just hope that you think about me as much as about as you are still in my thoughts. Mother is worried about me and my lack of direction but I am simply relieved that I have figured out why you are so incredibly present in every thing that I consider doing. But I know I want to do something that will make me worthy of your attention one day, hopefully positive attention then.
It is a first for me to be actually thinking about the things I want to do with my life, I have never had the freedom to explore the possibilities the the world offers when you have money galore. My father had planned my future, every decision had been made for me. And now I am in the situation to think about my own way, and it is terrifying to be honest. The world is so big and who am I without fathers plans? I love potions and maybe I should consider a carreer in healing, but who could tell me if that is a good idea? Asking for advice when it comes to my life is another first for me.
So I have many things on my mind, and my feet have carried me through the streets of London until I find myself in front of the rundown fassade of St. Mungos. And while I still hesitate to enter, wary on how I will me received, will people sneer at me, will I be spit upon, would they even allow me as an apprentice, somebody pushes me forward. So many thoughts are whirling through my brain. But when I get that push, I stumble into the entry hall and am received like everybody else. Nobody spits into my face or sneers. Encouraged I take a step forward and announce my presence at the desk.
“Good Morning, Mrs! I am here to see Healer Highgrove.”
She looks up at me and smiles. “Oh you must be Mr Malfoy! Yes Healer Highgrove is already waiting for you. Just through these doors and then to the left. You can´t miss his office, it has a picture of a beautiful English Garden right across from the hall.”
The friendly reception makes me hopeful and I follow her instructions, and true enough there is a wonderful picture of an English Garden, the white pebbled path reminds me of the Manor and the flowers bloom like they do in our herbal garden in late spring. I am lost in thoughts when a subtle “Chrm chrm” makes me twist around. Behind me Healer Highgrove is smiling amusedly at me, as if people get lost in front of her office all the time. She is a short woman with greying hair but kind eyes and I feel drawn into her office at once. She offers me a seat and a tea. I am beyond nervous, but she gives me a sense of calm.
“Now Mr Malfoy, you expressed a wish to receive an apprenticeship as a healer, specialized in potioneering. I have reviewed your school records and believe that there is potential in you.” and here it comes I think, they won´t take me in because I am a death eater, a former one, but I have the ugly tattoo and it is obvious. “But you have a history with one of our junior healers and I would rather not have my hospital turned into a battlefield!” I lost her and it must be glaringly obvious. “So you would take me despite the tattoo, but there is another thing that would prevent my apprenticeship here?”
She smiles again and this time she reminds me of a shark. “Let's say it has been obvious that you both evoke strong feeling in one another, and I need your reassurance that you will not let it affect your work performance.” By now I know who she is talking about, but I am surprised that you work at St. Mungos. I take a deep breath. “Healer Highgrove, I promise that I will not let my past with Harry Potter affect my work here.” She shakes my hand and I get all the information I need to begin my first day in two weeks time. I apparate home and all but run into the salon where Mother sits most of these days. We have never been the most tactile family, but hugging her comes naturally, I am so happy that I have made the first step into the right direction. I breathe her smell in and snuggle a bit closer, just now I want to feel close to her and she allows it in a rare show of affection.
“Mum I really did it! I have a job at St Mungos and I can learn to work with potions, and Healer Highgrove doesn´t even care about the mark!”
“No why should she? Harry Potter vouched for you, and the six months of house arrest are done. You trial was public, so people know you only joined under duress, and that you never had your heart in it.” Mum has a wonderful way of putting things in perspective.
“I know I still feel like the luckiest person around! I get to do what I want and I get to work with Harry! Maybe he can finally see that I am not the most spoiled person there is!” People might think it strange but I have never had to hide who I am from mum, she knows how I feel about Harry judging me and finding me unworthy. Father was a different story, but he is paying for his choices and the hands of faith have dealt him 15 years in a reformed Aszkaban and now I have the chance to arrange my life in a manner that I like. Maybe the hands of faith also made me apply to St. Mungos even though I had no idea Harry would be there.
Pansy suggested once that I should just tell Potter about my feelings, but I can imagine how well that would have gone over! I can just see it - my owl going something like this:
Hi. Well, I love you. I always did. And I always will. Bye
Now that would have been a foolproof way to get myself hexed six ways to Sunday. So I am keeping my feelings to myself, thank you very much! I am looking forward to my time at the hospital and I will take my chances proving that I am not the evil bastard, Harry might see in me.
Come what may. I will make sure that I am using the chance life gives me. And it doesn´t matter if Harry or Weasley looks at me with suspicion. With that in mind I am entering the place where I will hopefully learn how to use my passion for potion to help and heal. Healer Highgrove shows me where I need to change my clothes, and I learn that I will spend the first month not in the lab but on the floor learning the basic skills every healer needs. Harry has not repeated the last year at Hogwarts but started directly with working at St. Mungos. I am nervous if he can forget the past or if he will try to make my life living hell.
I am pleasantly surpised when Harry only nods at me and tells me to watch with the phials, they are breakable, although I wonder why they would use not a different material, because I am sure that often a phial is breaking due to the hectic. Harry tells me that the spells to breakproof them interfere with many potions. I am already pondering the best way to get that improved, some materials should be less prone to breaking while still not react too much with most potions ingredients.
I love working with Harry and through it we grow closer. At first we really only work together, but Harry really doesn´t carry a grudge and invites me out for an after work drink, and somehow it becomes something regular just between us, Harry gives me mixed signals though, sometimes I wonder if he is just trying to be subtle with me, testing the waters so to speak. But I can make my own feeling clear one day when I lose my signet ring. It is not that I am so keen on the monetary value, the ring is valuable no doubt, but it is more about the memories. My father gave the ring to me on my fiftheenth birthday, the last one we celebrated properly and one of my last memories fo him laughing with me without taint is connected to that ring. Losing it would shatter me. So when I tell Harry about it, he helps me search the entire lab instead of going ahead to the pub, and when he finds it, wedged in a corner between the working station and the wall, and brings it up with a triumphant shout I don´t just say thank you. No I just have to go ahead and kiss him, square on the mouth, no doubt about what I feel for him. But he doesn´t allow me time to freak out, he slips his arms around my waist and kisses me back. I am in heaven.
Dating Harry and getting on with my potioneering degree I couldn´t be happier, until Harry proves me wrong again. We have been going out for six months when he says that Ron is moving out of Grimmauld place to live with Hermion fulltime and that he rather would like it if I move in with him. Seeing as I spend a lot of time at his already it is only a natural consequence but it is thrilling that Harry truly honestly wants me in his life. It is not that we both are perfect all of a sudden, I am still prone to sulking and having a temper tantrum once in a while and Harry is impulsive and a bit paranoid on a good day, but thank god Love is blind and so we could care less about our character flaws. We both push each other to be an even better person, although I wonder how Harry can still improve, he is after all almost perfect to me and only needs me to stay grounded. And yes I know people might think I have gone soft, but I don´t care anymore. I have grown comfortable with myself and I like who I am.
The other day our new neighbour moved in and I didn´t even complain about the cats! I really am not to fond of feline creatures, apart from Harry, but the old man has two little kittens, one is gray almost silver and the other is black with white boots - I have to admit the little tykes are cute and seeing them play in our backyard does warm my heart, when they playfully bat at each other with their tiny paws. It is only much later when Harry tells me that they remind him of us, that I see how they do resemble us with their mock fighting and adorable cuddling together. But the man is old and the house has been adapted for old people, so that he can sit outside and enjoy the sun. During the day a nurse looks after him, and sometimes in the evenings Harry and I go over and keep him company. He tells us that the kittens have been a present from his son who lives in Germany and can´t come by too often. “They keep me company, because I get lonely when you are not around.” Harry and Mr Smith grow closer over the next few months. So we do notice that his health is deteriorating, and there is nothing we an do to make it better. Age does claim all of us. I start mixing potions into the tea we are drinking and it does alleviate the worst pain for Mr Smith, but I know that his time is drawing near.
Sure enough two months later we are at yet another funeral. Harry would not let him go without a proper goodbye. Castor and Pollux have moved into Grimauldplace permanently now, and I have gotten quite used to not having cold feet anymore because of a pair of cats wrapped around them every night. In memory of Mr Smith we have a black orchid in our salon, it is a beautiful flower even if it looks a bit sad. It is after all fond memories mixed with sadness when we think about those we lost. And sometimes I catch Harry talking to the flower, explaining things the way he explained them to Mr Smith. It is just the way he remains with us.
Living with Harry is wonderful and I know that I want to spend the rest of my life with him. I think I have always known that, and now I live in his house, work with him and have two cats with him. So I will ask him to marry me. Spring is in the air, and I know the perfect place for my proposal. Sunday comes and I have taken Harry to the manor gardens with me. We have a picnic under the pink blooming trees and I watch him as he digs into the trecle trart with gusto. I am just glad he has lost the habit of taking huge bites, because him choking on the ring isn't what I planned for. Thankyfully he finds it before swallowing and just looks at the ring in his palm. I am nervous and I launch into my speech before he can get a word out.
“Harry, before I truly met you I felt as if I was isolated waiting for someone to rescue me from that lonely existance always looking out of the window and wondering what the world out there really had to offer to someone like me. I didn´t lack, food or clothes or anything material, but I didn´t have freedom in my choices. But then you burst into my life and you made it possible for me to make my own choices, you made me someone, I hope you are proud of today. And I want to continue growing with you, to grow up and old with you. I have been in love with you since forever and I hope that you will do me the honour of becoming my husband.” I hold my breath. Harry smiles, that radiant smile I only get to see when he is truly happy about something.
“Of course Dragon, I will marry you!”
I slip the ring on his finger and he laughs softly. “What is so funny Harry?”
He smiles a mischievious smile. “I have to show you a fairytale when we get home - it is called Rapunzel. Maybe then you´ll understand why I am laughing. For now lets just say - there are some unexpected parallels.”
We pack our picknick up and aparate home after breaking the news to mother who is estatic about planning a wedding. I think I need to break it gently to her that I do not want 300 guests and endless discussions about colourschemes. Our wedding is the one thing I will put my foot down on. There is a time for compromise in my life but that is called later. If mother can´t accept that we will elope, just Harry and I on a sandy beach.
It is one thing to let her walk all over my husband to be when it comes to the choice of his glasses, and I do admit he looks much better in the silver frames she picked out with me, but our wedding is ours and no amount of pouting on her part will make me relent on the issue. We want a small and private affair, nothing huge and lavish for her tastes.
I am sure she will come around, the yoga classes I am paying for have alleviated a lot of the stress and after all the saying is not for nothing “Stretch your body / stretch you mind” Mother will adjust to the idea, she is flexible in that regard.
Thinking about it - life now is what I always wanted. I have a wonderful man at my side, a job that I love, cats to cuddle and godkids to pamper. Life really couldn´t be better.
Title: Couldn´t be better
Rating: PG-13
Authors Notes Prompts contained: Love/Hate; Describe a first ;On my mind;Picture English Garden, Glaring Fact; Tactile; Hands of faith; Poem - ;Breakable; Come what may; Have your character either lose or find something; subtle; Love is blind; Lucky; Picture: almond blossoms; new neighbor; cold feet; Rapunzel; grey and black Kitten playing with each other; Funeral; Stretch Your Body /Stretch Your Mind ;Black orchids; There's a time for compromise -It's called "later"; glasses
Distinguishing love from hate is not so easy. Both emotions take passion and involvement, if not to say dedication to a person. Maybe that is the reason took me so long to get clear on what I really feel for you. Every waking moment somehow contains a thought of you, a question on how you might be doing. I haven´t seen you in quite some time and just hope that you think about me as much as about as you are still in my thoughts. Mother is worried about me and my lack of direction but I am simply relieved that I have figured out why you are so incredibly present in every thing that I consider doing. But I know I want to do something that will make me worthy of your attention one day, hopefully positive attention then.
It is a first for me to be actually thinking about the things I want to do with my life, I have never had the freedom to explore the possibilities the the world offers when you have money galore. My father had planned my future, every decision had been made for me. And now I am in the situation to think about my own way, and it is terrifying to be honest. The world is so big and who am I without fathers plans? I love potions and maybe I should consider a carreer in healing, but who could tell me if that is a good idea? Asking for advice when it comes to my life is another first for me.
So I have many things on my mind, and my feet have carried me through the streets of London until I find myself in front of the rundown fassade of St. Mungos. And while I still hesitate to enter, wary on how I will me received, will people sneer at me, will I be spit upon, would they even allow me as an apprentice, somebody pushes me forward. So many thoughts are whirling through my brain. But when I get that push, I stumble into the entry hall and am received like everybody else. Nobody spits into my face or sneers. Encouraged I take a step forward and announce my presence at the desk.
“Good Morning, Mrs! I am here to see Healer Highgrove.”
She looks up at me and smiles. “Oh you must be Mr Malfoy! Yes Healer Highgrove is already waiting for you. Just through these doors and then to the left. You can´t miss his office, it has a picture of a beautiful English Garden right across from the hall.”
The friendly reception makes me hopeful and I follow her instructions, and true enough there is a wonderful picture of an English Garden, the white pebbled path reminds me of the Manor and the flowers bloom like they do in our herbal garden in late spring. I am lost in thoughts when a subtle “Chrm chrm” makes me twist around. Behind me Healer Highgrove is smiling amusedly at me, as if people get lost in front of her office all the time. She is a short woman with greying hair but kind eyes and I feel drawn into her office at once. She offers me a seat and a tea. I am beyond nervous, but she gives me a sense of calm.
“Now Mr Malfoy, you expressed a wish to receive an apprenticeship as a healer, specialized in potioneering. I have reviewed your school records and believe that there is potential in you.” and here it comes I think, they won´t take me in because I am a death eater, a former one, but I have the ugly tattoo and it is obvious. “But you have a history with one of our junior healers and I would rather not have my hospital turned into a battlefield!” I lost her and it must be glaringly obvious. “So you would take me despite the tattoo, but there is another thing that would prevent my apprenticeship here?”
She smiles again and this time she reminds me of a shark. “Let's say it has been obvious that you both evoke strong feeling in one another, and I need your reassurance that you will not let it affect your work performance.” By now I know who she is talking about, but I am surprised that you work at St. Mungos. I take a deep breath. “Healer Highgrove, I promise that I will not let my past with Harry Potter affect my work here.” She shakes my hand and I get all the information I need to begin my first day in two weeks time. I apparate home and all but run into the salon where Mother sits most of these days. We have never been the most tactile family, but hugging her comes naturally, I am so happy that I have made the first step into the right direction. I breathe her smell in and snuggle a bit closer, just now I want to feel close to her and she allows it in a rare show of affection.
“Mum I really did it! I have a job at St Mungos and I can learn to work with potions, and Healer Highgrove doesn´t even care about the mark!”
“No why should she? Harry Potter vouched for you, and the six months of house arrest are done. You trial was public, so people know you only joined under duress, and that you never had your heart in it.” Mum has a wonderful way of putting things in perspective.
“I know I still feel like the luckiest person around! I get to do what I want and I get to work with Harry! Maybe he can finally see that I am not the most spoiled person there is!” People might think it strange but I have never had to hide who I am from mum, she knows how I feel about Harry judging me and finding me unworthy. Father was a different story, but he is paying for his choices and the hands of faith have dealt him 15 years in a reformed Aszkaban and now I have the chance to arrange my life in a manner that I like. Maybe the hands of faith also made me apply to St. Mungos even though I had no idea Harry would be there.
Pansy suggested once that I should just tell Potter about my feelings, but I can imagine how well that would have gone over! I can just see it - my owl going something like this:
Hi. Well, I love you. I always did. And I always will. Bye
Now that would have been a foolproof way to get myself hexed six ways to Sunday. So I am keeping my feelings to myself, thank you very much! I am looking forward to my time at the hospital and I will take my chances proving that I am not the evil bastard, Harry might see in me.
Come what may. I will make sure that I am using the chance life gives me. And it doesn´t matter if Harry or Weasley looks at me with suspicion. With that in mind I am entering the place where I will hopefully learn how to use my passion for potion to help and heal. Healer Highgrove shows me where I need to change my clothes, and I learn that I will spend the first month not in the lab but on the floor learning the basic skills every healer needs. Harry has not repeated the last year at Hogwarts but started directly with working at St. Mungos. I am nervous if he can forget the past or if he will try to make my life living hell.
I am pleasantly surpised when Harry only nods at me and tells me to watch with the phials, they are breakable, although I wonder why they would use not a different material, because I am sure that often a phial is breaking due to the hectic. Harry tells me that the spells to breakproof them interfere with many potions. I am already pondering the best way to get that improved, some materials should be less prone to breaking while still not react too much with most potions ingredients.
I love working with Harry and through it we grow closer. At first we really only work together, but Harry really doesn´t carry a grudge and invites me out for an after work drink, and somehow it becomes something regular just between us, Harry gives me mixed signals though, sometimes I wonder if he is just trying to be subtle with me, testing the waters so to speak. But I can make my own feeling clear one day when I lose my signet ring. It is not that I am so keen on the monetary value, the ring is valuable no doubt, but it is more about the memories. My father gave the ring to me on my fiftheenth birthday, the last one we celebrated properly and one of my last memories fo him laughing with me without taint is connected to that ring. Losing it would shatter me. So when I tell Harry about it, he helps me search the entire lab instead of going ahead to the pub, and when he finds it, wedged in a corner between the working station and the wall, and brings it up with a triumphant shout I don´t just say thank you. No I just have to go ahead and kiss him, square on the mouth, no doubt about what I feel for him. But he doesn´t allow me time to freak out, he slips his arms around my waist and kisses me back. I am in heaven.
Dating Harry and getting on with my potioneering degree I couldn´t be happier, until Harry proves me wrong again. We have been going out for six months when he says that Ron is moving out of Grimmauld place to live with Hermion fulltime and that he rather would like it if I move in with him. Seeing as I spend a lot of time at his already it is only a natural consequence but it is thrilling that Harry truly honestly wants me in his life. It is not that we both are perfect all of a sudden, I am still prone to sulking and having a temper tantrum once in a while and Harry is impulsive and a bit paranoid on a good day, but thank god Love is blind and so we could care less about our character flaws. We both push each other to be an even better person, although I wonder how Harry can still improve, he is after all almost perfect to me and only needs me to stay grounded. And yes I know people might think I have gone soft, but I don´t care anymore. I have grown comfortable with myself and I like who I am.
The other day our new neighbour moved in and I didn´t even complain about the cats! I really am not to fond of feline creatures, apart from Harry, but the old man has two little kittens, one is gray almost silver and the other is black with white boots - I have to admit the little tykes are cute and seeing them play in our backyard does warm my heart, when they playfully bat at each other with their tiny paws. It is only much later when Harry tells me that they remind him of us, that I see how they do resemble us with their mock fighting and adorable cuddling together. But the man is old and the house has been adapted for old people, so that he can sit outside and enjoy the sun. During the day a nurse looks after him, and sometimes in the evenings Harry and I go over and keep him company. He tells us that the kittens have been a present from his son who lives in Germany and can´t come by too often. “They keep me company, because I get lonely when you are not around.” Harry and Mr Smith grow closer over the next few months. So we do notice that his health is deteriorating, and there is nothing we an do to make it better. Age does claim all of us. I start mixing potions into the tea we are drinking and it does alleviate the worst pain for Mr Smith, but I know that his time is drawing near.
Sure enough two months later we are at yet another funeral. Harry would not let him go without a proper goodbye. Castor and Pollux have moved into Grimauldplace permanently now, and I have gotten quite used to not having cold feet anymore because of a pair of cats wrapped around them every night. In memory of Mr Smith we have a black orchid in our salon, it is a beautiful flower even if it looks a bit sad. It is after all fond memories mixed with sadness when we think about those we lost. And sometimes I catch Harry talking to the flower, explaining things the way he explained them to Mr Smith. It is just the way he remains with us.
Living with Harry is wonderful and I know that I want to spend the rest of my life with him. I think I have always known that, and now I live in his house, work with him and have two cats with him. So I will ask him to marry me. Spring is in the air, and I know the perfect place for my proposal. Sunday comes and I have taken Harry to the manor gardens with me. We have a picnic under the pink blooming trees and I watch him as he digs into the trecle trart with gusto. I am just glad he has lost the habit of taking huge bites, because him choking on the ring isn't what I planned for. Thankyfully he finds it before swallowing and just looks at the ring in his palm. I am nervous and I launch into my speech before he can get a word out.
“Harry, before I truly met you I felt as if I was isolated waiting for someone to rescue me from that lonely existance always looking out of the window and wondering what the world out there really had to offer to someone like me. I didn´t lack, food or clothes or anything material, but I didn´t have freedom in my choices. But then you burst into my life and you made it possible for me to make my own choices, you made me someone, I hope you are proud of today. And I want to continue growing with you, to grow up and old with you. I have been in love with you since forever and I hope that you will do me the honour of becoming my husband.” I hold my breath. Harry smiles, that radiant smile I only get to see when he is truly happy about something.
“Of course Dragon, I will marry you!”
I slip the ring on his finger and he laughs softly. “What is so funny Harry?”
He smiles a mischievious smile. “I have to show you a fairytale when we get home - it is called Rapunzel. Maybe then you´ll understand why I am laughing. For now lets just say - there are some unexpected parallels.”
We pack our picknick up and aparate home after breaking the news to mother who is estatic about planning a wedding. I think I need to break it gently to her that I do not want 300 guests and endless discussions about colourschemes. Our wedding is the one thing I will put my foot down on. There is a time for compromise in my life but that is called later. If mother can´t accept that we will elope, just Harry and I on a sandy beach.
It is one thing to let her walk all over my husband to be when it comes to the choice of his glasses, and I do admit he looks much better in the silver frames she picked out with me, but our wedding is ours and no amount of pouting on her part will make me relent on the issue. We want a small and private affair, nothing huge and lavish for her tastes.
I am sure she will come around, the yoga classes I am paying for have alleviated a lot of the stress and after all the saying is not for nothing “Stretch your body / stretch you mind” Mother will adjust to the idea, she is flexible in that regard.
Thinking about it - life now is what I always wanted. I have a wonderful man at my side, a job that I love, cats to cuddle and godkids to pamper. Life really couldn´t be better.