The Tapestry of the Red Horse: Chapter 15
-September 1 - 2002 -
The tea was just beginning to scream and steam over as I sat down with a pile of notes to get some work done. The tea pot floated to the table and sat down on a tea cozy to await pouring, which I did without looking up from the interview with some Muggle that had witnessed a Deatheater attack on a muggle hospital in Belgium. I jotted a note down while taking a sip, but then spilled a bit onto the parchment when a knock at the door shattered the evening quiet. I set the tea down and dabbed at the parchment with a napkin as the knock came again. Not knowing who would show up at this hour, I stood and went to the door, peering out the peep hole to find a bit of a shock.
He was standing rigid on the doorstep, looking around with an arrogant sneer of impatience. Curiosity got the best of me and I opened the door just as he was about to knock for a fourth time. "Finally, what took so long? You can't be living in more than a box."
I leaned against the doorframe and rolled my eyes. "Is there a reason for this visit or did you just come to insult me?"
"I have something I need to give you. Are you going to show some manners and ask me in or are you going to leave me on the doorstep?"
"I'm tempted to leave you." I moved to close the door in his face, but he stepped forward to hold the door open, stepping rather close to me in the process. He smelled of his expensive cologne with a faint hint of coffee. I tried to convince myself not to like it.
"I don't think so. Let me in."
"What if I don't want to?"
"You do." I was about to retort with something biting, but the words were lost on the way to my mouth. His hand had gone to my face, his thumb stroking my cheek, and his eyes were a bit glazed and searching. "When did you become the most beautiful creature I've ever laid eyes on? How could I have missed that?" His voice held a sort of reverent awe I didn't think him capable of, but I no more trusted it than anything he had ever said to me. He noticed my skepticism and closed his eyes with a sigh, his hand sliding down my neck to my chest to rest over my heart. "Please, just let me give this to you. I've been struggling with it for a long while now and it's time you had it."
I eyed him for a moment longer, then stepped aside. He walked in and looked around at the small living room Harry and I shared, but gave no comment before turning to me. "Would you like some tea? I just made some."
"Tea would be lovely." I nodded and went to get him some. When I came back, he was perched on the edge of the couch, fussing over a square box wrapped in silver that was almost the size of the coffee table, and he looked very much like an anxious bird. He smiled up at me and took the cup when I offered it to him. "Thank you."
I nodded and sat beside him. "So, what is this?"
"Do you still have the chess pieces I gave you?"
"Yes, they're in the hall closet, why?" He didn't say anything, but handed me the present instead. I hesitated for a second, but the nervous look he was giving it convinced me that it wasn't hexed. I pulled the paper off to reveal a lidded box. Lifting the lip up, I was surprised to find a beautiful, ornately carved chess board sitting atop the green velvet lining. I lifted it out of the box to take a closer look while he cleared the box and the paper away and watched me, still with that anxious look. It was made of the same materials as the pieces had been and looked more expensive than six months rent of the flat. "Malfoy…"
"Before you say anything, there's a reason I'm giving this to you and I want you to hear it before you respond." I looked up at him and he took a deep breath, looking more nervous than before. This was very unlike him. "I've been fighting myself with this for a long time, but I'm ready finally. I love you. I'm sick, and twisted, and I've done so many horrible things to you, and I know that I have no right to, but I love you. I can't… I don't want to spend any more time fighting with you or avoiding you. I just want to be with you. Just you. I've left my wife. She's given me a son and a proper heir and now she will live at the villa with the children and do whatever she wants to and I'm free of all obligations to my family. The proper family, proper reputation, proper partner, all of that is gone, doesn't matter. I want you and I want only you.
"Everything I've ever done to you, every horrible thing I've done, was done because I had no other choice. You were not allowed to mean anything to me. No matter how much I hated it, I had to get rid of you, for both our sakes. So I stood you up, hurt you, cheated on you, flirted right in front of you, made you do things I had no right to. I tried so hard to get you out of my head, but none of it did any good. Every time I did some horrible thing to you, you ended up with a little bit more of me until you had all but the shell. And now that I don't have Father or Voldemort telling me they'll kill us both if I even think of you, I'm here to give you the rest, that last bit you don't have. The chess board to play the pieces you've had all along on." In my shock, I had set the board in my lap, and he took my hands and lifted them to his mouth, kissing each knuckle as he said the last sentence.
I stared at him, frozen to the spot. How was I supposed to respond? He'd hurt me irrevocably on more occasions than I could count and I had sworn to never touch him again, but I knew by the rapid beat of my heart that I still loved him, still wanted him above all others. But could I risk my heart again for such an unsure thing? Could I rise above if he hurt me again? Could I live with myself if I denied him?
My silence made him even more nervous and I watched the frantic search of my face his eyes made. I was struck again at how un-Malfoy he was acting and wondered if it really was just an act. But that frantic panic doesn't come with acting, not in the eyes, and certainly not with someone that has never known an emotion like frantic before in his life. I found words once more. "What is your son's name?"
He studied me for a moment, his thumb absently rubbing the top of my hand. "Libertas."
"Does he look like you?"
"Yes, for the most part. For the parts that count."
"Blonde hair and gray eyes. You're little girl has dark hair, like Pansy."
"She has her father's features though, and mannerisms."
I nodded and looked down at my hands ensconced in his hold. "Harry won't like you here."
"Potter? What does Potter have to do with anything?"
"He lives here with me. He's in Belgium right now, but he's due back later tonight and he won't like you here."
"Do you want me to leave, then?" Disappointment seeped into his stature like water to a sponge.
"No, just thought I would tell you." We sat in silence for a long moment and I watched the circles of his thumb, and decided that maybe it was worth the risk, maybe the possibility of a living, breathing 'us' was worth it. I tentatively leaned in to set my lips against his. I felt him relax into me, a hand sliding into my hair to keep me where I was. The familiar need fell over me like a warm blanket and I suddenly realized I'd been freezing all this time.
Afterward, I lay curled into his side. He had been warm and gentle and needy and I had fallen in love with him all over again. His fingers were entangled in my hair and he kissed my forehead, and I waited for him to tell me that it was late and that he needed to go, but he only continued to stroke circles along my spine. The silence was soothing and comfortable, like a moist summer night, and I settled further into him as I closed my eyes.
There was a CRACK and I suddenly remembered that we were on the couch under a flimsy throw blanket and not in bed, tucked away from a work- and travel-weary Harry. Draco's head shifted from its resting place on top of mine and I looked up to see him quietly watching Harry, his fingers still scattering circles against my skin.
"What the fuck?" came Harry's mottled voice, half-way between exhaustion and confusion. I steeled myself for the confrontation and turned my back to Draco so I could look at Harry. Draco's arms pulled me into the crook of his hips and he watched from over my head.
"Hi, Harry."
"What's going on?" He looked confused, a little hurt, and on the brink of extreme anger. He set his bag down next to his reading chair and sat in it, looking at us.
"Do you mind if Draco stays for a little while?"
"Yes, I do. I mind a great deal. He hurt you, what's the bastard doing here?"
I felt Draco tense, but placed a hand over his to calm him down. "We've worked it out."
"You've worked it out? You've worked it out! Do you remember the last time you 'worked it out'? Because I remember a fight and then him leaving you on the ground all but in tears while he went off and married some slimy, disgusting cow and you didn't speak for a month." He stood in his frustration and was gesticulating wildly, his cheeks flushed with anger.
"It's not really any of your business, Potter. Ron's an adult and he can do what he pleases, and already has, and there's no way you can stop it."
Harry turned from angry to seething and I knew it would only be a moment before his wand was out. "Not any of my business! I'm the one that picks up the pieces every time you break his heart! I'm the one that has to watch him whither into nothing because he can't eat. I'm the one that has to hold him while he cries until he can't breathe because you've left him. I have to watch him fall apart when he's my best friend and I can't do anything about it. Don't tell me it's none of my business because it's every bit my business. I won't let you break him again." I burrowed further into the curve of Draco's body and let them talk above my head, watching Harry's hand cautiously. These things needed to be said if either of them was ever to be in the same room with the other for more than a minute without some sort of violence.
"Did it ever occur to you that maybe I was trying to protect him by leaving? Did you ever think about my father? My place under the Dark Lord? Did you know what he did when he found out Zabini was gay? Did you hear about how he forced him to fuck his partner with a hunting blade and eat the entrails when he was done? Do you think I wanted that for Ron? Did you think about any of that? No, I don't think you did. I think you saw me as your arch nemesis, the selfish, cruel boy who never gave a damn about him at all. You never thought that maybe I loved him, but couldn't express it. That I'd give my life to make sure he was safe. You never thought of the possibility that I almost had to when I left." His last statement hung in the air like a droplet frozen to the tip of an icicle, always anticipating the fall, but never quite getting there.
Something changed in the way Harry's eyes shimmered, turning perhaps to weariness or guilt. But there was still anger and before I could stop it, his wand was at Draco's throat. "If you hurt him again, I will take it as a personal vendetta to hunt you down and have you drawn, quartered, and castrated." They proceeded to stare each other down. Not anticipating either of them backing down, I cautiously reached up and moved his wand to point at me. He looked down at me in confusion.
"This is the way I want things to be, Harry. If he hurts me, then that's my mistake, but please don't stop me from making it."
He searched my face for a minute before pulling his wand away and turning towards the hall. "It's late, I'm going to bed."
I watched his back disappear down the hall before turning back to Draco. "Are you going to stay tonight?"
He smiled and brushed fingers through my hair, "If you want me to."
I smiled and kissed him quickly before sitting up and pulling on a pair of boxers that had been lying near me. I'm fairly certain they were not mine. "Come on, then. I'm sick of sleeping on couches with you." I stood and waited for him to wrap the blanket around his waist before heading down the hall to go into my room, the sounds of Harry violently getting ready for bed coming from the door across the hall.
- September 2 - 2002 -
I was pleased to see Draco still in my bed and still sleeping when I woke up. He was sprawled out on his stomach with one arm draped across my stomach and his hair dreadfully mussed. For some reason, I had always thought his hair would be neat in the mornings. I kind of liked that I was wrong. I kissed his cheek and slid out from under his arm, pulling on some jogging pants before going to the kitchen for coffee. Harry was sitting at the table with a mug curled between his fingers, starring at the chess board he must have brought in from the living room.
"Did he leave you this as compensation for leaving you and breaking your heart again?" His voice was slightly bitter, but I tried to ignore it.
"No, he hasn't left. He said he wanted to be with me. He's left his wife. He's going to stay here."
"No, he isn't. You're my best friend, my adopted brother, and I'd do anything, including die, for you, but I will not live under the same roof as Draco Malfoy. You can be with him all you want and I'll try to hold my tongue, but I am not going to allow him to live here."
I sighed and settled into a chair across from him, sipping at my coffee. "Fine, he won't live here. But he can stay the night if I want him to, right? Once in a while?"
He eyed me and then the chess board. "Fine, if he must. But not every night."
"No, not every night." We stayed quiet, both looking at the board.
"He does have a taste for beautiful things, though. This is exquisite…" He brushed his fingers across a corner of the carvings, looking every bit as in awe of is as I was.
"Handmade in Italy, one of a kind; I picked the designs myself. It will never be recreated. The gentleman who made it died last December and was buried with every tool and drawing in his shop," Draco's voice floated into the room, followed quickly by him, wearing a pair of my pajamas pants and one of my favorite Chuddly Cannons' t-shirts. He pecked my lips as he slid into the chair to my right. "We really need to organize that room of yours, love. It's amazing you can find a pair of underwear, let alone an entire outfit."
"You managed to find something, I see. And fixed your hair." I grinned at him over my coffee.
"My hair? What was wrong with me hair?" He began to smooth it self-consciously, giving me a worried look.
"You just looked a bit a mess, is all."
He bristled, "Malfoy's are never 'a mess'. It goes against our very nature."
"You need to change your name then, 'cause you do a lot of things that go against the 'Malfoy nature'."
He relaxed some and dropped his hands. "Indeed." There was a bit of silence where I stood to pour him some coffee. I heard him mutter 'Potter' and turned to see them curtly nod at each other. It wasn't much, but it was something.