and it's such a crime how they waste their time
Post war AU. Draco/Harry, sorta. This seems to be UST month for me. Anyway. I hate H/D, so obviously this is a little...odd.
R.
Voldemort won the war and promptly took away the magic of resistance members and Mudbloods. He let them keep their wands. Some people broke theirs themselves, some carried them around in case they'd start working again, some people just threw them out.
One guy stabbed himself in the heart with his.
There's a bit of an underground, but it's not like they could do anything. Can't be Muggles, can't go home, so they don't do much of anything at all. Harry finds himself in one of these groups, living in an abandoned office building and stealing food from the local market.
They sneak into Knockturn Alley for a fix. Some places there will sell to you for enough money, or a good trade. Harry's broke but he's got a quick tongue, and he sucks off shopkeepers for a handful of charmed amulets. Some people just swallow them, but he crushes his into powder and snorts it. He can feel it in him, like static electricity, cracking against his skin.
Placebo, Hermione says. They can't possibly have any effect if there's no magic in you. All they'll do is ruin your intestines.
And nose, she says with distaste as Harry wipes away a trail of blood from his upper lip.
x
Ginny always smells like coffee and cigarettes and cheap soap. Waitressing's just a temporary gig, she says. She's writing a book, romance novel, in diary form. Harry tells her that it's been done before, but she says, "well, not quite like this." Colin got her a personalized pen and she takes orders with it, writes down Harry's tea and toast. She points it out to him, makes him touch the gilded cursive, tells him how Colin bought it with the money he makes taking wedding pictures. He's really interested in films, though. He's got dozens of videos of Ginny, with her in the same dress in all of them, the same mood. Hours of effort and miles of tape for something that used to take him nothing at all.
Ginny talks and talks in a distracted way as Harry chokes down his toast. When she finally goes to another customer, he leaves the biggest tip he can afford and darts out before she can see him.
x
He drinks the cheapest liquor he can find. Tastes nothing like firewhiskey, but it burns just the same going down. Comes to shows pissed as a rat, and he fights all the way through them, punches and kicks in time to the bum da bumbum da of the drums. Sings along when he knows the words,
a clever fucking trick to hold the people back
, shouts made-up things when he doesn't.
He's walking home alone one night after one of these shows, 40 in one hand and a fag in the other, weaving a little.
"Oh, it couldn't be, could it?"
he hears from somewhere behind him. An arm lands heavily around Harry's neck.
"It is," Draco sneers. "The Boy Who Lived. Just barely living, though, by the look of you." His other hand comes down to rest on Harry's waist, tugging at the patches holding his pants together.
"Fuck off, Malfoy," Harry says, but there's not much spirit in it and he slumps like a rag doll when Draco pushes him up against a wall.
He pulls down Harry's lower lip, drags his wand across the Order tattoo there. "Potter, there are Muggle ways of getting rid of this. It doesn't do to keep reminders of your previous...associations. Some people are provoked by this type of thing."
Harry tries to duck away but winds up just falling down, and Draco kicks him all the way to the pavement.
His steel-toe boot presses down on his crotch, heel firmly on cock. Harry holds his breath.
"You know," he says, pointing his wand at Harry's face. "I've always wanted to know what the world looks like through your eyes."
Harry will later learn that there are indeed Muggle ways to remove tattoos, but there's no way to regain sight. Hermione finds him a pair of glass eyes that match his old green shade almost exactly, though.
R.
Voldemort won the war and promptly took away the magic of resistance members and Mudbloods. He let them keep their wands. Some people broke theirs themselves, some carried them around in case they'd start working again, some people just threw them out.
One guy stabbed himself in the heart with his.
There's a bit of an underground, but it's not like they could do anything. Can't be Muggles, can't go home, so they don't do much of anything at all. Harry finds himself in one of these groups, living in an abandoned office building and stealing food from the local market.
They sneak into Knockturn Alley for a fix. Some places there will sell to you for enough money, or a good trade. Harry's broke but he's got a quick tongue, and he sucks off shopkeepers for a handful of charmed amulets. Some people just swallow them, but he crushes his into powder and snorts it. He can feel it in him, like static electricity, cracking against his skin.
Placebo, Hermione says. They can't possibly have any effect if there's no magic in you. All they'll do is ruin your intestines.
And nose, she says with distaste as Harry wipes away a trail of blood from his upper lip.
x
Ginny always smells like coffee and cigarettes and cheap soap. Waitressing's just a temporary gig, she says. She's writing a book, romance novel, in diary form. Harry tells her that it's been done before, but she says, "well, not quite like this." Colin got her a personalized pen and she takes orders with it, writes down Harry's tea and toast. She points it out to him, makes him touch the gilded cursive, tells him how Colin bought it with the money he makes taking wedding pictures. He's really interested in films, though. He's got dozens of videos of Ginny, with her in the same dress in all of them, the same mood. Hours of effort and miles of tape for something that used to take him nothing at all.
Ginny talks and talks in a distracted way as Harry chokes down his toast. When she finally goes to another customer, he leaves the biggest tip he can afford and darts out before she can see him.
x
He drinks the cheapest liquor he can find. Tastes nothing like firewhiskey, but it burns just the same going down. Comes to shows pissed as a rat, and he fights all the way through them, punches and kicks in time to the bum da bumbum da of the drums. Sings along when he knows the words,
a clever fucking trick to hold the people back
, shouts made-up things when he doesn't.
He's walking home alone one night after one of these shows, 40 in one hand and a fag in the other, weaving a little.
"Oh, it couldn't be, could it?"
he hears from somewhere behind him. An arm lands heavily around Harry's neck.
"It is," Draco sneers. "The Boy Who Lived. Just barely living, though, by the look of you." His other hand comes down to rest on Harry's waist, tugging at the patches holding his pants together.
"Fuck off, Malfoy," Harry says, but there's not much spirit in it and he slumps like a rag doll when Draco pushes him up against a wall.
He pulls down Harry's lower lip, drags his wand across the Order tattoo there. "Potter, there are Muggle ways of getting rid of this. It doesn't do to keep reminders of your previous...associations. Some people are provoked by this type of thing."
Harry tries to duck away but winds up just falling down, and Draco kicks him all the way to the pavement.
His steel-toe boot presses down on his crotch, heel firmly on cock. Harry holds his breath.
"You know," he says, pointing his wand at Harry's face. "I've always wanted to know what the world looks like through your eyes."
Harry will later learn that there are indeed Muggle ways to remove tattoos, but there's no way to regain sight. Hermione finds him a pair of glass eyes that match his old green shade almost exactly, though.