Famous Blue Raincoat (story archive)
Famous Blue Raincoat
by Marysia (April 2002)
Rating: PG
Pairings: Harry/Draco
Summary: Based on the song Famous Blue Raincoat by Leonard Cohen, listen to that first before you read this. As written by Hermione Granger.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
MP3 file of me singing the song at http://www.marysia.com/FamousBlueRaincoat.mp3
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Dear Draco,
It's four in the morning, the end of December. I'm writing to you just to see if you're better, I heard you'd been ill. New York is cold, but I like where I'm living. There's music on Clinton Street all through the evening, you can hear it from my apartment. It's funny that we all ended up over here, not Ron obviously but the three of us. After what happened in London I didn't think I'd see you again, didn't think I'd ever want to. I hear that you're building a house somewhere out in the desert, doesn't sound like your kind of place but I guess the privacy would suit you after everything that's happened. You're living for nothing now after all the money and the priviledge and the attention, must be strange. I hope you're keeping some kind of record, one day you should let people know what really happened. We all wonder.
I guess the reason I'm writing is that Harry came by and we were talking and he showed me a lock of your hair he keeps in his wallet. He said that you gave it to him that night that you planned to get away from your father and the Death Eater's and everything. I sometimes wonder, did you ever get completely away?
The last time we saw you, back in London, you looked so much older than I remembered. I can still picture you. That infamous blue cloak you started wearing in sixth year was ragged at the hem and torn at the shoulder. You'd been to the station to meet the Hogwarts Express but you came back alone. I never knew who you were looking for.
I remember that weekend so well. You took Harry out for a drink that night and you were both missing for two days, I was frantic. And then when you brought him back he wasn't mine anymore. I can still see you standing there, you walked through the door with a rose in your teeth and Harry was laughing so hard saying you'd tango'd all the way down the road. You looked like some sort of gypsy, all thin and slightly unshaven, wearing those tight black jeans and a silk shirt with your hair long and bedraggled and one earring... and all I could think was you thieving bastard. Cause I could see it, in his eyes, in his body language, in the way his lips were swollen from kissing... I knew what you'd done.
Well, I see Harry's awake. He stayed over last night... he sends his regards. He misses you.
What can I tell you? There were times when I looked at you like a brother, times when I felt like you'd killed everything I ever cared about. What can I possibly say? I suppose that I miss you too and I guess I forgive you. I'm even glad you stood in my way. Harry had to find himself and I know now that he couldn't do that with me.
If you ever come by here, for Harry or for me, I'm over the anger and Harry... well he's not seeing anyone right now. If you're interested. Like I said, he misses you. And I should say thank you too, for the trouble you took from his eyes. I thought it was there for good so I never really tried. I didn't know where to start. But you knew, you knew part of him better than I ever did.
So that's all I can think to say and I probably never would have done this if Harry hadn't come by with that lock of your hair that you gave to him that night that you planned to go clear...
Sincerely, H Granger
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Note by Marysia: This isn't what I envisioned happening but the great thing about the story I wrote is it's so sketchy everyone can fill in their own explanation. Here is one of those explanations...
FROM: "Ashe ..."
DATE: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 00:09:00 -0500
SUBJECT: Famous Blue Raincoat
Famous Blue Raincoat is my favorite of all your stories.. It helps that I like the song.. I've been thinking about it a lot lately.. And I wrote a kind of response to it. It's Harry's POV.. About going over to Hermione's and what really happened the night Draco left to go clear.. It's called, simply enough, "The Night You Left To Go Clear". I figured I'd send it to you, cause well.. Without you it wouldn't be written. Besides, maybe you'll get a kick out of it. Here it is.
The Night You Left To Go Clear
by: Ashe
I was on my way to Mione's flat from the one I had in Greenwich Village. Men in high heels, women in peasant dresses and preteens on skateboards zoomed passed. I saw a peacock blue jacket and white blonde hair, my heart stopped; I turned to stare. It was a bleach blonde in her mid forties walking a St. Bernard. My lungs sucked together painfully as if they were devoid of air. They are, symbolically: you were my air, and, like any man drowning, I didn't realize how much I needed you until you were gone.
I got to her building, signed myself in and got on the lift. I took out my wallet, reached behind my green card, and instantly relaxed. I curled my fingers around thin ropes of silk, braided together, fastened with magic. I rolled it in my fingers, brushed the ends over my cheeks, then held it to my nose. I closed my eyes and exhaled: sugar cookies and patchouli. I inwardly laughed at your cookie-scented shampoo, and it all came flooding back to me.
It was late and I was packing. It was dark outside. The moon wasn't even showing, but you were ghost pale and I could still see her face as you wrapped on my window, famous blue cloak shining azure as it billowed behind you in the wind. I smiled but you were scowling as I let you in. You cursed the wind for mussing her hair, threw her broomstick on my bed and ordered me to get out my invisibility cloak. You just smiled, hair glowing, ears pointing, I-teeth sharp and shining. I refrained from insulting her bloodline by refusing to speak my mind and telling you that you must be a cross between veela, wizard, and elf.
I reached into my trunk and unfolded my cloak. Before I could ask where we were going, you pulled it over us and we were halfway to the statue of the humpbacked witch.
"Hogsmeade?" I questioned; the hot air from my whisper reverberated back from your ear onto my lips in an echo of breath.
You stopped short, I nearly collided with you, but by that point I could read you like nursery rhymes: pulse and rhythm and every move calculated perfectly in a smooth heartbeat of motion.
"Hogsmeade," you whispered back over your shoulder, I could feel the heat from your smile and I knew your left eyebrow was raised to meet your hairline. You pulled the statue of the witch aside and motioned me through. The invisibility cloak came off and I was right, you were smiling, left eyebrow raised, one corner of your mouth higher than the other. You followed me in and pulled the statue back into place behind you.
"Hogsmeade," you repeated, "something like that."
We stumbled down the narrow path and emerged in the basement of Honeydukes, still laughing from a joke I told, imitating Seamus' accent and drunken slur to near-perfection. You could've done it better; I never was much of an actor.
There was a gleam from your teeth as you smiled again, and you took my hand and drug me up the stairs and out the door. I winced when the bell clanged behind us but you rolled your eyes and muttered something about incompetence, burglary wards and house elves. Your legs are longer and you were walking quickly; I was pulled sideways along with you like luggage, my boots were getting dusty and I knew you'd make a comment about how disgracefully common it was to soil Italian paten leather. I didn't stop you or slow you down. You've an infectious enigma, and I was smiling too hard to speak anyway.
We reached the Shrieking Shack at the end of the street, and you released my hand, pulled out your wand, and whispered alohamora. You stood behind me and your hand closed over my eyes; your wrist dangled in front of my nose and I could smell you there, the same smell in the braid that I still keep in my wallet, though less of cookie dough and more of mischief and patchouli.
I could feel you smiling again and wondered briefly how long it'd been since you'd smiled so much in one night, and hoped that the last time it happened that you were with me.
"I've got a little surprise for you, Potter." You spoke from just below my ear and swished the door closed behind us after you steered me into the condemnable structure. Your other hand moved to meet your other and you were standing close behind me, heat radiating from you to me and back again in an endless cycle that made me feel like part of you; I'd never wanted to be part of anything so much.
The door opened and you removed your hands from my eyes. There was a blanket before us, and a basket, a book, and a muggle stereo. My lips curled up and I spoke to you, "Why are you doing this, Dray?"
You hmphed at the much hated nickname. "Well, Hair," you retaliated, shutting and locking the door behind you, "I won't be around forever," you looked down then, and I read the double meaning in the words, "and there are things you need to know if you want Granger to make you a happy man."
You pulled me onto the blanket and opened the basket, took out two butter beers and handed me one after opening both on a summoned can opener. You tossed your head toward the book, your hair flying back over your shoulder like fluid. I wondered if tiny silk worms lived under your scalp, spinning white-gold hair against peach-cream skin, the tips skimming the shoulders of your blue cloak; the one you only wore to make your eyes change from cement to cerulean--the one you only wore when you wanted someone to want something.
My eyes swept the cover of the book, which read: 2002 Spells to Please Your Lover. I blushed; you laughed at me. "Really Potter," you scoffed, "I can't bloody well hide under the bed and whisper instructions when the time comes."
I looked down, suddenly very aware of the texture of the blanket beneath us and the heat of my ears. "The wedding isn't for months now," I managed.
Your eyebrows touched your hairline again. "You're waiting until December?"
I nodded. "I've a lot to do this summer." I wasn't aware how dark my voice had fallen until thinking about it later.
You opened another butter beer and drank deep before finishing. "Take off the chastity belt Harry." You reached out and a bit of butter beer from my chin with your thumb. "You're the only one who can't accept the inevitable. You're the Boy Who Lived, not the Boy Who Lived Under a Rock." You moved your hand away. I looked down, pouting.
"I'm not that innocent."
You smiled sadly and touched my face again, this time your fingers brushed my ear and your palm cupped my cheek. I leaned into you, not realizing how well our bodies were molded to fit. "No, you're not that innocent," your thumb danced over my cheek bone, "and it's okay not to be."
I looked at you, the questions in my eyes reflecting in yours as I stared into the two mirror images of myself. You stood, and reached down your hand. The Muggle radio began to play. "Dance with me." I quirked an eyebrow and you summoned all your strength to pull me unwillingly up to your level. You put a hand on my shoulder and guided mine to your waist. You took my other hand in yours, and guiding me around the room.
"At the wedding," you said, "you have to lead."
I looked down at our footprints that glittered in the candle light over the dust-covered floor. Our boots didn't make sounds as we quick-quick-slowed around the room.
"I've all the grace of a hippogryff," I half-grinned, "You're going to have to shrink yourself and whisper the dance steps into my ear." Your face fell at that. I bit my lip, waiting.
"About that," you spoke. You twirled yourself around delicately, then swung into and out of my arms again, a movement I now look at as twisted foreshadowing with a hint of symbolism. "I'm not going to be here," you said, soberly, "for the wedding."
You twirled again, and I used my free hand to push up my glasses, then swallowed the nothingness that had taken refuge behind the ever-growing lump in my throat. "Why not?"
You stopped moving and stood staring at me as the music played on. "I've never been one for fighting battles, Harry." You swallowed. "And the ministry, they don't know what my role is in this, they don't know what I've been telling you."
I felt my sinuses tighten and my voice raise. "You can tell Snape," I insisted, "and Dumbledore--"
"All they'll see," you whispered, cutting me off, "is my history, and this." You pulled up your left sleeve and I saw the hate glaring starkly at me from your forearm. I knew it was there but I still gasped and covered it with my hand as if I could will it away. The dark magic and ink glared stubbornly and shocked my trembling palm.
My breath was loud and ragged by then, and I could feel my voice shaking. "But I know," I said to you, "I'll tell them everything."
"Their minds are made up, Harry," you said, your voice even though if you were honest with yourself you would've been trembling by then, "and so is mine."
I felt myself crying then, tears of shame, regret, and sadness falling down my face. I thought I could save you. "I can't do this without you," I whimpered. I've never been as good at hiding my emotions as you were, but I've never needed to be. I didn't know how I had emotions until that night, when my lip was trembling and I started to cry.
You put your hands on the back of my head and pulled my forehead down to touch yours. You were swaying to the music and my hands went around your back again. I closed my eyes for a pathetic moment, then pulled away a little. You let me see you raw then; I knew that no one else had ever seen you cry.
"You can do anything," you told me. Your voice was always stone solid and it felt odd to hear it break. "You can do anything," you said again, "and no one will blame you for your triumphs or your fear." You looked into me and placed your hand over my heart. "It's in here," you whispered.
"What is?" I was confused.
"What you have that's so special, Harry, and what you need to save the world."
The moment was serious but I was almost amused by your conviction over something so non-concrete. "What's that?"
"Love," you whispered. "Your love, your mother's love, and mine." You swallowed hard and tears fell down your face. I wiped them away but they continued to fall, spattering saltwater onto your cloak. "You're the
bravest person I've ever met, Harry."
"No I'm not." I shook my head dejectedly "I'm so scared."
You laughed a little, and rolled your eyes. "Bravery isn't about not being afraid," you said, "Voldemort isn't afraid of anything and that just makes him stupid. Bravery is about being afraid but loving something or someone so much that you'd face anything to be able to keep it safe." Another tear fell down your cheek.
"You love so hard," you continued. "You love in spades. I can see it when you're with Hermione, or Sirius, or Lupin, or Dumbledore. I see it when you catch the snitch or get an unfair question right in potions. I see it when you laugh; I see it when you fly. You love the world, Harry, you love life, and I know that no matter how scared you are you'll fight until you've won because nobody can take what you love away from you; and nobody deserves it more."
I looked into your eyes, and I spoke then, my voice was thick with tears. "I love you, Draco, and I'm scared. I'll kill you before I let you go."
You smiled. "If I stay, you won't have to."
We both broke down then, falling to our knees on thick blankets of dust, tears choking up our throats and pain ripping out our lungs, drowning us both in sorrow.
I sighed, defeated, then felt your fingers twine into mine, a ribbon of silk between our hands. I looked down and saw the white-gold braid, tied together with magic and blunt on one end where you had cut it from the nape of your neck. I gave you a confused look.
"It's to remember me by," you whispered, and squeezed my hands.
I set my lips in a firm line and closed my eyes. I pulled my wand out of my pocket. I said thickly accented words in Latin and handed you a lock of my hair. You braided it into yours, ivory and ebony in an endless swirl of white silk and a darker cheap imitation.
"You're a part of me now," you said when you'd finished. The zebra striped braid fell behind your ear and swing back and fourth as you spoke. "I just need one more thing." You paused. "Before I go."
"What is it," I whispered, suddenly realizing that we were on our knees on the floor and the braid you'd been keeping in the back of your hair for the past seven years was now tucked safely into my wallet. I felt whole
somehow, and humble. "I'll do anything."
Your hands were on my cheeks again, and you were moving slowly closer until your lips were on mine. It felt like completeness and I sighed, contented. My mouth opened slightly then your mouth melted into mine and you took your cloak off. You spread it out then lay it beneath us--we made love and cried until sun up.
I woke up at some time past nightfall to find you wrapped around me, smiling fey like and feral with your eyes wide open. I rubbed my eyes and muttered, "Glasses."
You extracted your hands from my hair long enough to retrieve them, then flipped me to my back, straddled my hips and perched them on my nose, then promptly kissed the end of it. I tossed my head back and caught your bottom lip between mine, and kneaded it with tongue and teeth until I felt your hips grind against me. My hands moved from your hair down your back and over your ass. I pressed you into my hips and you smiled into our kiss. We grew hard into one another and the whole process started all over again.
We made love on your famous blue cloak until noon the next day, then cleared up our mess and left the shack. My heart was light and I felt as if I could do anything. You plucked a rose from a near-by bush somewhere between the Shrieking Shack and The Three Broomsticks. You put it in your mouth and took me by the hands. We tangoed all the way to Honeydukes with the basket bouncing between us with the muggle radio inside, playing an oddly appropriate tune.
The bell to the lift rang when the door opened onto Hermione's floor. I never told her what happened. She still knew, somehow; said something about my eyes. We didn't marry when the whole thing was over. I begged her not to hate you for it; told her it was all my fault. She said she couldn't blame anyone, but she couldn't step in the way of destiny. If it wasn't for you, she said, we'd all still be in London and maybe Ron wouldn't have been one of the only three light lives lost over the summer. She knows and I know you're the reason I bothered to survive.
I got to her flat and knocked on the door. She answered with a smile and hugged me when she saw me.
"You've been crying," she said. I didn't realize that my eyes were wet. "You've been thinking about him."
I nodded, and held up the braid. "He gave it to me on the night that he went to go clear. I still wonder about him," I whispered.
She led me to the couch. "Go on," she prodded.
"I hear he's somewhere in Nevada," I said. "He's poor now, he's lonely, he's got nothing to live for. What if he's not still alive?"
I clutched your braid harder in my fist and began to shake violently. Tears and sobs came down from my eyes. I don't think I've ever broken down like that before. And I know for a fact that it's only the second time in my life that I've cried. Her hand rubbed soothing circles on my back until I fell asleep.
I woke up at some point in the early morning feeling thick-tongued and drained. Hermione was at her breakfast nook with a piece of parchment and a quill.
"What are you doing," I yawned at her.
"Writing."
"To who?"
"To whom," she corrected.
"To whom," I repeated, and rolled my eyes.
"To Draco," she said.
My heart stopped. "Oh."
"I'll tell him you send your regards." I swallowed and nodded.
by Marysia (April 2002)
Rating: PG
Pairings: Harry/Draco
Summary: Based on the song Famous Blue Raincoat by Leonard Cohen, listen to that first before you read this. As written by Hermione Granger.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
MP3 file of me singing the song at http://www.marysia.com/FamousBlueRaincoat.mp3
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Dear Draco,
It's four in the morning, the end of December. I'm writing to you just to see if you're better, I heard you'd been ill. New York is cold, but I like where I'm living. There's music on Clinton Street all through the evening, you can hear it from my apartment. It's funny that we all ended up over here, not Ron obviously but the three of us. After what happened in London I didn't think I'd see you again, didn't think I'd ever want to. I hear that you're building a house somewhere out in the desert, doesn't sound like your kind of place but I guess the privacy would suit you after everything that's happened. You're living for nothing now after all the money and the priviledge and the attention, must be strange. I hope you're keeping some kind of record, one day you should let people know what really happened. We all wonder.
I guess the reason I'm writing is that Harry came by and we were talking and he showed me a lock of your hair he keeps in his wallet. He said that you gave it to him that night that you planned to get away from your father and the Death Eater's and everything. I sometimes wonder, did you ever get completely away?
The last time we saw you, back in London, you looked so much older than I remembered. I can still picture you. That infamous blue cloak you started wearing in sixth year was ragged at the hem and torn at the shoulder. You'd been to the station to meet the Hogwarts Express but you came back alone. I never knew who you were looking for.
I remember that weekend so well. You took Harry out for a drink that night and you were both missing for two days, I was frantic. And then when you brought him back he wasn't mine anymore. I can still see you standing there, you walked through the door with a rose in your teeth and Harry was laughing so hard saying you'd tango'd all the way down the road. You looked like some sort of gypsy, all thin and slightly unshaven, wearing those tight black jeans and a silk shirt with your hair long and bedraggled and one earring... and all I could think was you thieving bastard. Cause I could see it, in his eyes, in his body language, in the way his lips were swollen from kissing... I knew what you'd done.
Well, I see Harry's awake. He stayed over last night... he sends his regards. He misses you.
What can I tell you? There were times when I looked at you like a brother, times when I felt like you'd killed everything I ever cared about. What can I possibly say? I suppose that I miss you too and I guess I forgive you. I'm even glad you stood in my way. Harry had to find himself and I know now that he couldn't do that with me.
If you ever come by here, for Harry or for me, I'm over the anger and Harry... well he's not seeing anyone right now. If you're interested. Like I said, he misses you. And I should say thank you too, for the trouble you took from his eyes. I thought it was there for good so I never really tried. I didn't know where to start. But you knew, you knew part of him better than I ever did.
So that's all I can think to say and I probably never would have done this if Harry hadn't come by with that lock of your hair that you gave to him that night that you planned to go clear...
Sincerely, H Granger
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Note by Marysia: This isn't what I envisioned happening but the great thing about the story I wrote is it's so sketchy everyone can fill in their own explanation. Here is one of those explanations...
FROM: "Ashe ..."
DATE: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 00:09:00 -0500
SUBJECT: Famous Blue Raincoat
Famous Blue Raincoat is my favorite of all your stories.. It helps that I like the song.. I've been thinking about it a lot lately.. And I wrote a kind of response to it. It's Harry's POV.. About going over to Hermione's and what really happened the night Draco left to go clear.. It's called, simply enough, "The Night You Left To Go Clear". I figured I'd send it to you, cause well.. Without you it wouldn't be written. Besides, maybe you'll get a kick out of it. Here it is.
The Night You Left To Go Clear
by: Ashe
I was on my way to Mione's flat from the one I had in Greenwich Village. Men in high heels, women in peasant dresses and preteens on skateboards zoomed passed. I saw a peacock blue jacket and white blonde hair, my heart stopped; I turned to stare. It was a bleach blonde in her mid forties walking a St. Bernard. My lungs sucked together painfully as if they were devoid of air. They are, symbolically: you were my air, and, like any man drowning, I didn't realize how much I needed you until you were gone.
I got to her building, signed myself in and got on the lift. I took out my wallet, reached behind my green card, and instantly relaxed. I curled my fingers around thin ropes of silk, braided together, fastened with magic. I rolled it in my fingers, brushed the ends over my cheeks, then held it to my nose. I closed my eyes and exhaled: sugar cookies and patchouli. I inwardly laughed at your cookie-scented shampoo, and it all came flooding back to me.
It was late and I was packing. It was dark outside. The moon wasn't even showing, but you were ghost pale and I could still see her face as you wrapped on my window, famous blue cloak shining azure as it billowed behind you in the wind. I smiled but you were scowling as I let you in. You cursed the wind for mussing her hair, threw her broomstick on my bed and ordered me to get out my invisibility cloak. You just smiled, hair glowing, ears pointing, I-teeth sharp and shining. I refrained from insulting her bloodline by refusing to speak my mind and telling you that you must be a cross between veela, wizard, and elf.
I reached into my trunk and unfolded my cloak. Before I could ask where we were going, you pulled it over us and we were halfway to the statue of the humpbacked witch.
"Hogsmeade?" I questioned; the hot air from my whisper reverberated back from your ear onto my lips in an echo of breath.
You stopped short, I nearly collided with you, but by that point I could read you like nursery rhymes: pulse and rhythm and every move calculated perfectly in a smooth heartbeat of motion.
"Hogsmeade," you whispered back over your shoulder, I could feel the heat from your smile and I knew your left eyebrow was raised to meet your hairline. You pulled the statue of the witch aside and motioned me through. The invisibility cloak came off and I was right, you were smiling, left eyebrow raised, one corner of your mouth higher than the other. You followed me in and pulled the statue back into place behind you.
"Hogsmeade," you repeated, "something like that."
We stumbled down the narrow path and emerged in the basement of Honeydukes, still laughing from a joke I told, imitating Seamus' accent and drunken slur to near-perfection. You could've done it better; I never was much of an actor.
There was a gleam from your teeth as you smiled again, and you took my hand and drug me up the stairs and out the door. I winced when the bell clanged behind us but you rolled your eyes and muttered something about incompetence, burglary wards and house elves. Your legs are longer and you were walking quickly; I was pulled sideways along with you like luggage, my boots were getting dusty and I knew you'd make a comment about how disgracefully common it was to soil Italian paten leather. I didn't stop you or slow you down. You've an infectious enigma, and I was smiling too hard to speak anyway.
We reached the Shrieking Shack at the end of the street, and you released my hand, pulled out your wand, and whispered alohamora. You stood behind me and your hand closed over my eyes; your wrist dangled in front of my nose and I could smell you there, the same smell in the braid that I still keep in my wallet, though less of cookie dough and more of mischief and patchouli.
I could feel you smiling again and wondered briefly how long it'd been since you'd smiled so much in one night, and hoped that the last time it happened that you were with me.
"I've got a little surprise for you, Potter." You spoke from just below my ear and swished the door closed behind us after you steered me into the condemnable structure. Your other hand moved to meet your other and you were standing close behind me, heat radiating from you to me and back again in an endless cycle that made me feel like part of you; I'd never wanted to be part of anything so much.
The door opened and you removed your hands from my eyes. There was a blanket before us, and a basket, a book, and a muggle stereo. My lips curled up and I spoke to you, "Why are you doing this, Dray?"
You hmphed at the much hated nickname. "Well, Hair," you retaliated, shutting and locking the door behind you, "I won't be around forever," you looked down then, and I read the double meaning in the words, "and there are things you need to know if you want Granger to make you a happy man."
You pulled me onto the blanket and opened the basket, took out two butter beers and handed me one after opening both on a summoned can opener. You tossed your head toward the book, your hair flying back over your shoulder like fluid. I wondered if tiny silk worms lived under your scalp, spinning white-gold hair against peach-cream skin, the tips skimming the shoulders of your blue cloak; the one you only wore to make your eyes change from cement to cerulean--the one you only wore when you wanted someone to want something.
My eyes swept the cover of the book, which read: 2002 Spells to Please Your Lover. I blushed; you laughed at me. "Really Potter," you scoffed, "I can't bloody well hide under the bed and whisper instructions when the time comes."
I looked down, suddenly very aware of the texture of the blanket beneath us and the heat of my ears. "The wedding isn't for months now," I managed.
Your eyebrows touched your hairline again. "You're waiting until December?"
I nodded. "I've a lot to do this summer." I wasn't aware how dark my voice had fallen until thinking about it later.
You opened another butter beer and drank deep before finishing. "Take off the chastity belt Harry." You reached out and a bit of butter beer from my chin with your thumb. "You're the only one who can't accept the inevitable. You're the Boy Who Lived, not the Boy Who Lived Under a Rock." You moved your hand away. I looked down, pouting.
"I'm not that innocent."
You smiled sadly and touched my face again, this time your fingers brushed my ear and your palm cupped my cheek. I leaned into you, not realizing how well our bodies were molded to fit. "No, you're not that innocent," your thumb danced over my cheek bone, "and it's okay not to be."
I looked at you, the questions in my eyes reflecting in yours as I stared into the two mirror images of myself. You stood, and reached down your hand. The Muggle radio began to play. "Dance with me." I quirked an eyebrow and you summoned all your strength to pull me unwillingly up to your level. You put a hand on my shoulder and guided mine to your waist. You took my other hand in yours, and guiding me around the room.
"At the wedding," you said, "you have to lead."
I looked down at our footprints that glittered in the candle light over the dust-covered floor. Our boots didn't make sounds as we quick-quick-slowed around the room.
"I've all the grace of a hippogryff," I half-grinned, "You're going to have to shrink yourself and whisper the dance steps into my ear." Your face fell at that. I bit my lip, waiting.
"About that," you spoke. You twirled yourself around delicately, then swung into and out of my arms again, a movement I now look at as twisted foreshadowing with a hint of symbolism. "I'm not going to be here," you said, soberly, "for the wedding."
You twirled again, and I used my free hand to push up my glasses, then swallowed the nothingness that had taken refuge behind the ever-growing lump in my throat. "Why not?"
You stopped moving and stood staring at me as the music played on. "I've never been one for fighting battles, Harry." You swallowed. "And the ministry, they don't know what my role is in this, they don't know what I've been telling you."
I felt my sinuses tighten and my voice raise. "You can tell Snape," I insisted, "and Dumbledore--"
"All they'll see," you whispered, cutting me off, "is my history, and this." You pulled up your left sleeve and I saw the hate glaring starkly at me from your forearm. I knew it was there but I still gasped and covered it with my hand as if I could will it away. The dark magic and ink glared stubbornly and shocked my trembling palm.
My breath was loud and ragged by then, and I could feel my voice shaking. "But I know," I said to you, "I'll tell them everything."
"Their minds are made up, Harry," you said, your voice even though if you were honest with yourself you would've been trembling by then, "and so is mine."
I felt myself crying then, tears of shame, regret, and sadness falling down my face. I thought I could save you. "I can't do this without you," I whimpered. I've never been as good at hiding my emotions as you were, but I've never needed to be. I didn't know how I had emotions until that night, when my lip was trembling and I started to cry.
You put your hands on the back of my head and pulled my forehead down to touch yours. You were swaying to the music and my hands went around your back again. I closed my eyes for a pathetic moment, then pulled away a little. You let me see you raw then; I knew that no one else had ever seen you cry.
"You can do anything," you told me. Your voice was always stone solid and it felt odd to hear it break. "You can do anything," you said again, "and no one will blame you for your triumphs or your fear." You looked into me and placed your hand over my heart. "It's in here," you whispered.
"What is?" I was confused.
"What you have that's so special, Harry, and what you need to save the world."
The moment was serious but I was almost amused by your conviction over something so non-concrete. "What's that?"
"Love," you whispered. "Your love, your mother's love, and mine." You swallowed hard and tears fell down your face. I wiped them away but they continued to fall, spattering saltwater onto your cloak. "You're the
bravest person I've ever met, Harry."
"No I'm not." I shook my head dejectedly "I'm so scared."
You laughed a little, and rolled your eyes. "Bravery isn't about not being afraid," you said, "Voldemort isn't afraid of anything and that just makes him stupid. Bravery is about being afraid but loving something or someone so much that you'd face anything to be able to keep it safe." Another tear fell down your cheek.
"You love so hard," you continued. "You love in spades. I can see it when you're with Hermione, or Sirius, or Lupin, or Dumbledore. I see it when you catch the snitch or get an unfair question right in potions. I see it when you laugh; I see it when you fly. You love the world, Harry, you love life, and I know that no matter how scared you are you'll fight until you've won because nobody can take what you love away from you; and nobody deserves it more."
I looked into your eyes, and I spoke then, my voice was thick with tears. "I love you, Draco, and I'm scared. I'll kill you before I let you go."
You smiled. "If I stay, you won't have to."
We both broke down then, falling to our knees on thick blankets of dust, tears choking up our throats and pain ripping out our lungs, drowning us both in sorrow.
I sighed, defeated, then felt your fingers twine into mine, a ribbon of silk between our hands. I looked down and saw the white-gold braid, tied together with magic and blunt on one end where you had cut it from the nape of your neck. I gave you a confused look.
"It's to remember me by," you whispered, and squeezed my hands.
I set my lips in a firm line and closed my eyes. I pulled my wand out of my pocket. I said thickly accented words in Latin and handed you a lock of my hair. You braided it into yours, ivory and ebony in an endless swirl of white silk and a darker cheap imitation.
"You're a part of me now," you said when you'd finished. The zebra striped braid fell behind your ear and swing back and fourth as you spoke. "I just need one more thing." You paused. "Before I go."
"What is it," I whispered, suddenly realizing that we were on our knees on the floor and the braid you'd been keeping in the back of your hair for the past seven years was now tucked safely into my wallet. I felt whole
somehow, and humble. "I'll do anything."
Your hands were on my cheeks again, and you were moving slowly closer until your lips were on mine. It felt like completeness and I sighed, contented. My mouth opened slightly then your mouth melted into mine and you took your cloak off. You spread it out then lay it beneath us--we made love and cried until sun up.
I woke up at some time past nightfall to find you wrapped around me, smiling fey like and feral with your eyes wide open. I rubbed my eyes and muttered, "Glasses."
You extracted your hands from my hair long enough to retrieve them, then flipped me to my back, straddled my hips and perched them on my nose, then promptly kissed the end of it. I tossed my head back and caught your bottom lip between mine, and kneaded it with tongue and teeth until I felt your hips grind against me. My hands moved from your hair down your back and over your ass. I pressed you into my hips and you smiled into our kiss. We grew hard into one another and the whole process started all over again.
We made love on your famous blue cloak until noon the next day, then cleared up our mess and left the shack. My heart was light and I felt as if I could do anything. You plucked a rose from a near-by bush somewhere between the Shrieking Shack and The Three Broomsticks. You put it in your mouth and took me by the hands. We tangoed all the way to Honeydukes with the basket bouncing between us with the muggle radio inside, playing an oddly appropriate tune.
The bell to the lift rang when the door opened onto Hermione's floor. I never told her what happened. She still knew, somehow; said something about my eyes. We didn't marry when the whole thing was over. I begged her not to hate you for it; told her it was all my fault. She said she couldn't blame anyone, but she couldn't step in the way of destiny. If it wasn't for you, she said, we'd all still be in London and maybe Ron wouldn't have been one of the only three light lives lost over the summer. She knows and I know you're the reason I bothered to survive.
I got to her flat and knocked on the door. She answered with a smile and hugged me when she saw me.
"You've been crying," she said. I didn't realize that my eyes were wet. "You've been thinking about him."
I nodded, and held up the braid. "He gave it to me on the night that he went to go clear. I still wonder about him," I whispered.
She led me to the couch. "Go on," she prodded.
"I hear he's somewhere in Nevada," I said. "He's poor now, he's lonely, he's got nothing to live for. What if he's not still alive?"
I clutched your braid harder in my fist and began to shake violently. Tears and sobs came down from my eyes. I don't think I've ever broken down like that before. And I know for a fact that it's only the second time in my life that I've cried. Her hand rubbed soothing circles on my back until I fell asleep.
I woke up at some point in the early morning feeling thick-tongued and drained. Hermione was at her breakfast nook with a piece of parchment and a quill.
"What are you doing," I yawned at her.
"Writing."
"To who?"
"To whom," she corrected.
"To whom," I repeated, and rolled my eyes.
"To Draco," she said.
My heart stopped. "Oh."
"I'll tell him you send your regards." I swallowed and nodded.