happy birthday, twin!!!!!
Title: Still Life
Song: Frank Sinatra - My Foolish Heart
Author: sappholococcus
Pairing: Draco/Morag
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Life was a concept that Draco had never quite appreciated until Morag came along.
Word Count: 2000 (20 100-word drabbles)
Disclaimer: I do not own. You do not sue.
Warnings: MINOR SPOILERS FOR DEATHLY HALLOWS (crapilogue not included). Also: het, flangst (mainly angst), ust, hurt/comfort, character death
Author’s Note: canon-compliant through DH, with a slight twist.
Dedication: This is birthday fic for dark_adrenalynn, my evil twin and one of my very best fandom friends. Happy birthday, love!! ♥
The night is like a lovely tune, beware my foolish heart!
How white the ever constant moon, take care, my foolish heart!
There's a line between love and fascination,
That's hard to see on an evening such as this,
For they give the very same sensation.
When you are lost in the passion of a kiss.
Your lips are much too close to mine, beware my foolish heart!
But should our eager lips combine, then let the fire start.
For this time it isn't fascination, or a dream that will fade and fall apart,
It's love this time, it's love, my foolish heart!
-Frank Sinatra
.:.
i. truth or dare
It was just a crush. Not even a crush, because Morag didn’t have crushes - those were for romantics, like her cousin Marcella.
But Marcella was French, and very perceptive. “Malfoy,” Morag answered, when asked who was the best shag at Hogwarts. “Pointy,” Luna added, nodding sagely.
This was fourth year, and the excitement surrounding the Triwizard Tournament had to go somewhere after curfew.
Morag didn’t back down from the challenge, but the stolen Quidditch jumper turned knickers went unnoticed, despite Marcella’s proficiency with masturbation charms.
Eight public orgasms, all foiled by an oblivious blond with cleaning charms on his locker.
ii. when we were young and foolish
Fifth year: when Draco was self-important, a prefect with ambition. When getting someone in trouble was his favourite pastime. Potter, of course, was his main victim - and Potter’s friends, too - though the slippery git had a very annoying tendency to escape punishment.
And there was Morag MacDougal. It was a dangerous thing, a Ravenclaw that actually lifted its nose out of a book and put its cunning mind to use, but Draco was determined not to let her win. He was a Slytherin, after all, and there was no trick in the Ravenclaw’s book that could fool him.
iii. a fine line between love and hate
Draco tapped his fingers impatiently against the desk he was lounging on, staccato noises to keep time with Morag’s scrubs. Occasionally, he whistled, and smirked when she glared. She wanted to kiss it off his face.
They didn’t speak except to insult each other. Arrogant bastard substituted for I love you, scowls for caresses, and whenever possible she hid in haughty silence. Draco remained oblivious and inordinately pleased with himself for getting under her skin, though he did not know to what extent he had succeeded.
If only there had been a Slighted Admirer to English Dictionary at Draco’s disposal.
iv. a brush with mortality
Morag was in detention with Snape when it happened. She disobeyed Snape’s orders to stay put, cloaking herself in shadows as she crept through the echoes of Myrtle’s shouts to the bathroom.
Too much blood mixing with dirty water, and in the middle of it - him. Morag’s heart jumped from her chest, bouncing across the floor and urging his to keep beating. She clung to the stone to keep herself in place, and lingered there until it was over, but her heart never returned.
There were flowers at Draco’s bedside when he woke. He assumed they were from Pansy.
v. like pigs to the slaughter
Morag threw herself into her task while Draco was in the hospital wing. If Draco was his father’s protégé, the same was true of Morag to Bellatrix: the older woman saw something of herself in the powerful, sadistic girl, and after just one meeting she agreed to give Morag a chance at getting her Mark.
Second semester, she was making regular trips to Azkaban. By the time Draco fled the school his father was home under the watchful eye of the Dark Lord.
Only two were exempt from the mandatory school attendance rule, not counting the hero on the run.
vi. the good times are killing me
Unlike Draco, Morag enjoyed the long hours spent at the Manor. Draco barely spoke unless spoken to, and Morag almost missed the familiar insults, but seeing him was enough. Occasionally her eyes caught him in an unguarded moment: his features relaxing as his thoughts drifted, or contorted with emotion that he didn’t dare show in front of the Dark Lord.
He considered emotion a weakness, but Morag thought it made him beautiful, in a tragic sort of way. She kept this observation to herself.
Until one day she arrived at the Manor to see Bella and found him in tears.
vii. we were just wasting time
She hesitated to approach him, lingering out of sight where she could examine the despondent curve of his spine and the waterfall of blond hair around his bowed head. He looked exhausted, washed out and shuddering in the undertow of fear.
After a long moment, he became aware of the eyes on his back and spun around, bristling like a startled cat.
“You.”
Morag didn’t even have a chance to step out of the way of the word, sharp with accusation. It was the first word he’d said to her since school, and it hit her directly in the heart.
vii. you, sir, may have forgotten how good your world can be
“Me,” she said simply. Draco looked startled, but the defiant light in his eyes didn’t fade.
“What do you want?”
A loaded question, one that Morag was not sure how to answer. You was the most honest, but there were enough tears without her falling apart too, which she would surely do if he laughed.
“To help you.”
Draco laughed mirthlessly. She started to break.
“You can’t help me.”
“You won’t let me.”
He was suddenly uncertain, eying her warily. Morag wondered if those silver eyes could see right through her. The thought was as exciting as it was terrifying.
ix. it shouldn’t hold me back, shouldn’t keep me from you
The space between them felt like miles, but Morag moved forward bravely, keeping her eyes on his to remind herself why she was doing this. She stopped when he flinched uncomfortably, not wanting him to run away.
“You’ve defied death once. You can do it again.”
Draco’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know about that?”
“Detention with Snape,” she answered easily. Blood and nightmares and puking her guts out over the edge of the roof, unable to sleep…
They stared at each other.
“Don’t get attached to me,” Draco said finally. Morag took that as an invitation to touch him.
x. everything’s been augmented
Tears evaporated under her fingertips. Draco’s eyes closed to keep new ones at bay. She traced the lines of his face, made sharper by hardship. He shivered at the first brush of her mouth, soaking up the affection like a sponge wrung dry by the hands of fate.
After a moment Morag dropped her hand and waited for his eyes to open. They were darker now, deeper, making her breath catch. Somehow, she knew that his shields were gone, and it was time to be completely honest.
“I took this,” she said softly, rolling up her left sleeve, “for you.”
xi. put down your hollow tips and kiss your lover’s lips
“Me?” Draco asked, an echo of Morag’s earlier reply. “I’m not worth the effort.”
He looked as if he believed it, and Morag could not quite believe how different he was. A fallen angel, with a halo of blond tufts sticking up in all directions, and even in his distress she still found him incredible.
She reprimanded him gently. “You are worth it,” she said, and kissed him.
His mouth tasted like salt and expensive spices. He only gave a small whimper when her hands wandered up to tangle in his hair, perfect hair she’d wanted to touch for years.
xii. just keep us where the light is
Draco shook as badly as one of his victims, infuriated by the constant jibes at his family’s honour. It was his fault, and he hated feeling like a disappointment, but all he could do was bear it.
Under Morag’s touch, even the scars of Potter’s carelessness turned to gold. No matter what he did, she didn’t think him weak. He flourished under her attention, turning toward it like a flower to the sun.
The change pleased Morag greatly; she loved that he transformed at the mere sight of her, cherished the stolen moments when he surrendered entirely to her desires.
xiii. you let me complicate you
Much as they hated to admit it, life got better after Potter won. The Manor belonged to the Malfoys again, though it would take a long time before it really felt like home. Silhouettes of the dead lingered behind Draco’s eyelids, and their ghosts surrounded him until he struggled for air.
Still, he stayed, for his parents’ sake, and because this was what he had left. People that he once considered friends had turned their backs on him. He had no love for them, either.
The hole in his heart didn’t make itself known until Morag returned to fill it.
xiv. you should try not to be so courageous
Every touch was a breath of relief, every kiss a hymn to the simple reality of being alive. Their nerves were raw from the final battle, strung out like taut rope, and the brush of warm skin was enough to set them on fire.
It was animalistic, leaving streaks of red on pale skin, and it ended in screams of utter ecstasy as their bodies trembled and shook. They were consumed by it, two phoenixes drowning in flame, and at the end - breathless, sated, wonderful end - they were reborn.
There were only three words needed to encompass it.
xv. but don’t tell me we’re forgiven
Draco was beginning to think that he had found paradise - he had his family, whole and healthy, and a girlfriend who loved him, what more could he ask for? - when it happened. An accident, the Prophet called it, but Draco, who had to identify the bodies, knew otherwise.
Sometime in the night, Macnair and Dolohov had escaped from prison, and his parents had been murdered.
They were not clean, painless deaths. The bodies - his parents - were mangled and bloody, covered by stained sheets and Ministry lies.
He wouldn’t leave the Manor; and Morag stayed with him.
xvi. want to keep you from sinking
He had nightmares every night, except when their lovemaking exhausted him so completely that his mind slept peacefully. This was, thankfully, very often. It was a rare moment when they were more than a few rooms apart, and rarer still when this lasted for twenty minutes before Draco went to make sure she was alive.
“Stay with me,” he pleaded, needing reassurance even though she never gave any sign of wanting to leave. On the contrary, the constant affection was as good for Morag as it was for Draco.
He was broken, and she survived by gluing him back together.
xvii. our time is borrowed and spent too freely
It hadn’t occurred to Draco that she might get pregnant. Not until she started to actually get out of bed before him - she always woke early, but she knew he hated waking up alone, and never left the bed - to spend her mornings bent over the toilet bowl.
He thought she was dying, at first. Fate had taken his childhood, his confidence, and his parents: would it stop at nothing to destroy him?
He cried at the news. With a little love, life can start in the most barren ground, and love was something they had in plenty.
xviii. slow down and lay with me
Their situation was unconventional at best. Neither of them cared much about marriage; they knew where they stood, and that was enough. But Draco had fallen in love with his children from the second he’d known about them, and he was determined to give them a life free of stigma, a life where they could flourish.
They were married in the Manor gardens, with only Morag’s remaining family and friends in attendance. Nine months later the twins were born: a boy with powerful lungs and Draco’s sharp features, and a quiet girl with Morag’s intelligent face and Draco’s silver eyes.
xix. fly and never come down
Now it was Morag who woke to an empty bed, often in the middle of the night. But Draco was not straying far, only to the small crib on the other side of the room, to watch the twins while they slept. Their every breath was a wonder to him, the small curled fists were miracles, and he could not quite believe they existed.
He wished he could ask his parents if they felt the same way. Morag reassured him that they had, that he had been just as beautiful - he still was -- but he would never know.
xx. we must free up these tired souls
Draco’s health held out long enough to see his son happily married, he even danced at the wedding. He’d made Morag promise to kill him before he got old, but she could not bring herself to do it. They left the Manor to Tristan and his wife, MacDougal Castle to Vanora, and made a nest for themselves in a small house on Morag’s land.
It was a simple life, but it was happy till the end. Death knocked on their door, willing to take them both together, and since life had given them all that they wanted, they went peacefully.
.: FIN :.
Song: Frank Sinatra - My Foolish Heart
Author: sappholococcus
Pairing: Draco/Morag
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Life was a concept that Draco had never quite appreciated until Morag came along.
Word Count: 2000 (20 100-word drabbles)
Disclaimer: I do not own. You do not sue.
Warnings: MINOR SPOILERS FOR DEATHLY HALLOWS (crapilogue not included). Also: het, flangst (mainly angst), ust, hurt/comfort, character death
Author’s Note: canon-compliant through DH, with a slight twist.
Dedication: This is birthday fic for dark_adrenalynn, my evil twin and one of my very best fandom friends. Happy birthday, love!! ♥
The night is like a lovely tune, beware my foolish heart!
How white the ever constant moon, take care, my foolish heart!
There's a line between love and fascination,
That's hard to see on an evening such as this,
For they give the very same sensation.
When you are lost in the passion of a kiss.
Your lips are much too close to mine, beware my foolish heart!
But should our eager lips combine, then let the fire start.
For this time it isn't fascination, or a dream that will fade and fall apart,
It's love this time, it's love, my foolish heart!
-Frank Sinatra
.:.
i. truth or dare
It was just a crush. Not even a crush, because Morag didn’t have crushes - those were for romantics, like her cousin Marcella.
But Marcella was French, and very perceptive. “Malfoy,” Morag answered, when asked who was the best shag at Hogwarts. “Pointy,” Luna added, nodding sagely.
This was fourth year, and the excitement surrounding the Triwizard Tournament had to go somewhere after curfew.
Morag didn’t back down from the challenge, but the stolen Quidditch jumper turned knickers went unnoticed, despite Marcella’s proficiency with masturbation charms.
Eight public orgasms, all foiled by an oblivious blond with cleaning charms on his locker.
ii. when we were young and foolish
Fifth year: when Draco was self-important, a prefect with ambition. When getting someone in trouble was his favourite pastime. Potter, of course, was his main victim - and Potter’s friends, too - though the slippery git had a very annoying tendency to escape punishment.
And there was Morag MacDougal. It was a dangerous thing, a Ravenclaw that actually lifted its nose out of a book and put its cunning mind to use, but Draco was determined not to let her win. He was a Slytherin, after all, and there was no trick in the Ravenclaw’s book that could fool him.
iii. a fine line between love and hate
Draco tapped his fingers impatiently against the desk he was lounging on, staccato noises to keep time with Morag’s scrubs. Occasionally, he whistled, and smirked when she glared. She wanted to kiss it off his face.
They didn’t speak except to insult each other. Arrogant bastard substituted for I love you, scowls for caresses, and whenever possible she hid in haughty silence. Draco remained oblivious and inordinately pleased with himself for getting under her skin, though he did not know to what extent he had succeeded.
If only there had been a Slighted Admirer to English Dictionary at Draco’s disposal.
iv. a brush with mortality
Morag was in detention with Snape when it happened. She disobeyed Snape’s orders to stay put, cloaking herself in shadows as she crept through the echoes of Myrtle’s shouts to the bathroom.
Too much blood mixing with dirty water, and in the middle of it - him. Morag’s heart jumped from her chest, bouncing across the floor and urging his to keep beating. She clung to the stone to keep herself in place, and lingered there until it was over, but her heart never returned.
There were flowers at Draco’s bedside when he woke. He assumed they were from Pansy.
v. like pigs to the slaughter
Morag threw herself into her task while Draco was in the hospital wing. If Draco was his father’s protégé, the same was true of Morag to Bellatrix: the older woman saw something of herself in the powerful, sadistic girl, and after just one meeting she agreed to give Morag a chance at getting her Mark.
Second semester, she was making regular trips to Azkaban. By the time Draco fled the school his father was home under the watchful eye of the Dark Lord.
Only two were exempt from the mandatory school attendance rule, not counting the hero on the run.
vi. the good times are killing me
Unlike Draco, Morag enjoyed the long hours spent at the Manor. Draco barely spoke unless spoken to, and Morag almost missed the familiar insults, but seeing him was enough. Occasionally her eyes caught him in an unguarded moment: his features relaxing as his thoughts drifted, or contorted with emotion that he didn’t dare show in front of the Dark Lord.
He considered emotion a weakness, but Morag thought it made him beautiful, in a tragic sort of way. She kept this observation to herself.
Until one day she arrived at the Manor to see Bella and found him in tears.
vii. we were just wasting time
She hesitated to approach him, lingering out of sight where she could examine the despondent curve of his spine and the waterfall of blond hair around his bowed head. He looked exhausted, washed out and shuddering in the undertow of fear.
After a long moment, he became aware of the eyes on his back and spun around, bristling like a startled cat.
“You.”
Morag didn’t even have a chance to step out of the way of the word, sharp with accusation. It was the first word he’d said to her since school, and it hit her directly in the heart.
vii. you, sir, may have forgotten how good your world can be
“Me,” she said simply. Draco looked startled, but the defiant light in his eyes didn’t fade.
“What do you want?”
A loaded question, one that Morag was not sure how to answer. You was the most honest, but there were enough tears without her falling apart too, which she would surely do if he laughed.
“To help you.”
Draco laughed mirthlessly. She started to break.
“You can’t help me.”
“You won’t let me.”
He was suddenly uncertain, eying her warily. Morag wondered if those silver eyes could see right through her. The thought was as exciting as it was terrifying.
ix. it shouldn’t hold me back, shouldn’t keep me from you
The space between them felt like miles, but Morag moved forward bravely, keeping her eyes on his to remind herself why she was doing this. She stopped when he flinched uncomfortably, not wanting him to run away.
“You’ve defied death once. You can do it again.”
Draco’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know about that?”
“Detention with Snape,” she answered easily. Blood and nightmares and puking her guts out over the edge of the roof, unable to sleep…
They stared at each other.
“Don’t get attached to me,” Draco said finally. Morag took that as an invitation to touch him.
x. everything’s been augmented
Tears evaporated under her fingertips. Draco’s eyes closed to keep new ones at bay. She traced the lines of his face, made sharper by hardship. He shivered at the first brush of her mouth, soaking up the affection like a sponge wrung dry by the hands of fate.
After a moment Morag dropped her hand and waited for his eyes to open. They were darker now, deeper, making her breath catch. Somehow, she knew that his shields were gone, and it was time to be completely honest.
“I took this,” she said softly, rolling up her left sleeve, “for you.”
xi. put down your hollow tips and kiss your lover’s lips
“Me?” Draco asked, an echo of Morag’s earlier reply. “I’m not worth the effort.”
He looked as if he believed it, and Morag could not quite believe how different he was. A fallen angel, with a halo of blond tufts sticking up in all directions, and even in his distress she still found him incredible.
She reprimanded him gently. “You are worth it,” she said, and kissed him.
His mouth tasted like salt and expensive spices. He only gave a small whimper when her hands wandered up to tangle in his hair, perfect hair she’d wanted to touch for years.
xii. just keep us where the light is
Draco shook as badly as one of his victims, infuriated by the constant jibes at his family’s honour. It was his fault, and he hated feeling like a disappointment, but all he could do was bear it.
Under Morag’s touch, even the scars of Potter’s carelessness turned to gold. No matter what he did, she didn’t think him weak. He flourished under her attention, turning toward it like a flower to the sun.
The change pleased Morag greatly; she loved that he transformed at the mere sight of her, cherished the stolen moments when he surrendered entirely to her desires.
xiii. you let me complicate you
Much as they hated to admit it, life got better after Potter won. The Manor belonged to the Malfoys again, though it would take a long time before it really felt like home. Silhouettes of the dead lingered behind Draco’s eyelids, and their ghosts surrounded him until he struggled for air.
Still, he stayed, for his parents’ sake, and because this was what he had left. People that he once considered friends had turned their backs on him. He had no love for them, either.
The hole in his heart didn’t make itself known until Morag returned to fill it.
xiv. you should try not to be so courageous
Every touch was a breath of relief, every kiss a hymn to the simple reality of being alive. Their nerves were raw from the final battle, strung out like taut rope, and the brush of warm skin was enough to set them on fire.
It was animalistic, leaving streaks of red on pale skin, and it ended in screams of utter ecstasy as their bodies trembled and shook. They were consumed by it, two phoenixes drowning in flame, and at the end - breathless, sated, wonderful end - they were reborn.
There were only three words needed to encompass it.
xv. but don’t tell me we’re forgiven
Draco was beginning to think that he had found paradise - he had his family, whole and healthy, and a girlfriend who loved him, what more could he ask for? - when it happened. An accident, the Prophet called it, but Draco, who had to identify the bodies, knew otherwise.
Sometime in the night, Macnair and Dolohov had escaped from prison, and his parents had been murdered.
They were not clean, painless deaths. The bodies - his parents - were mangled and bloody, covered by stained sheets and Ministry lies.
He wouldn’t leave the Manor; and Morag stayed with him.
xvi. want to keep you from sinking
He had nightmares every night, except when their lovemaking exhausted him so completely that his mind slept peacefully. This was, thankfully, very often. It was a rare moment when they were more than a few rooms apart, and rarer still when this lasted for twenty minutes before Draco went to make sure she was alive.
“Stay with me,” he pleaded, needing reassurance even though she never gave any sign of wanting to leave. On the contrary, the constant affection was as good for Morag as it was for Draco.
He was broken, and she survived by gluing him back together.
xvii. our time is borrowed and spent too freely
It hadn’t occurred to Draco that she might get pregnant. Not until she started to actually get out of bed before him - she always woke early, but she knew he hated waking up alone, and never left the bed - to spend her mornings bent over the toilet bowl.
He thought she was dying, at first. Fate had taken his childhood, his confidence, and his parents: would it stop at nothing to destroy him?
He cried at the news. With a little love, life can start in the most barren ground, and love was something they had in plenty.
xviii. slow down and lay with me
Their situation was unconventional at best. Neither of them cared much about marriage; they knew where they stood, and that was enough. But Draco had fallen in love with his children from the second he’d known about them, and he was determined to give them a life free of stigma, a life where they could flourish.
They were married in the Manor gardens, with only Morag’s remaining family and friends in attendance. Nine months later the twins were born: a boy with powerful lungs and Draco’s sharp features, and a quiet girl with Morag’s intelligent face and Draco’s silver eyes.
xix. fly and never come down
Now it was Morag who woke to an empty bed, often in the middle of the night. But Draco was not straying far, only to the small crib on the other side of the room, to watch the twins while they slept. Their every breath was a wonder to him, the small curled fists were miracles, and he could not quite believe they existed.
He wished he could ask his parents if they felt the same way. Morag reassured him that they had, that he had been just as beautiful - he still was -- but he would never know.
xx. we must free up these tired souls
Draco’s health held out long enough to see his son happily married, he even danced at the wedding. He’d made Morag promise to kill him before he got old, but she could not bring herself to do it. They left the Manor to Tristan and his wife, MacDougal Castle to Vanora, and made a nest for themselves in a small house on Morag’s land.
It was a simple life, but it was happy till the end. Death knocked on their door, willing to take them both together, and since life had given them all that they wanted, they went peacefully.
.: FIN :.