[one-shots, Cloak and Dagger] Letters From Exile, PG-13
Title: Letters From Exile
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Warnings: References to violence, minor character death, angst, letter!fic. EWE.
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3900
Summary: Harry and Draco write each other on life, death, and everything in between.
Author’s Notes: This is the seventh story in my “Cloak and Dagger” series, about Harry and Draco working as Aurors in the Socrates Corps, dedicated to hunting the Darkest wizards. You should read the previous stories if you haven’t already to make sense of this one: “Invisible Sparks” (one-shot), Hero’s Funeral (eight chapters), “Rites of the Dead” (one-shot), Sister Healer (ten chapters) , “Working With Them” (one-shot), and This Enchanted Life (12 chapters) in that order. The first chapter of the next long fic, Writ on Water, should be up next Wednesday.
Letters From Exile
September 13th
Dear Draco:
(Given what we confessed the last time we were together, I reckon I should call you that).
It’s beautiful here. No, I don’t intend to tell you where I am, but it’s somewhere with lots of old buildings. I walked out and stood under a stone arch this morning that looked like it could fall on me at any second, but because it was poised just right, it didn’t actually do that. I wondered how many people it had seen walk under it, people with worse troubles than I’ll ever have. That’s something to think about, isn’t it? How many people have come and gone in the world, and there must have been somewhere, someone, who hurt worse than you did.
I think this is what I needed. I know you don’t think so, but I had to soak my head in something. Philosophy does at a pinch, though I know you’d probably prefer cold water. Wandering helps. Looking up at the stars and thinking about how long they’ve looked down and how I just don’t know what they’ve seen helps.
I’m sorry, this is a rambling letter and probably one that you didn’t want to receive. What’s been happening at the Ministry? Did they assign you to work with anyone while I’m out of the country?
Harry.
September 14th
Dear Harry:
(Yes, of course first names are appropriate. I might have had something to say to you if you had tried to get out of using them).
I wanted to receive your letter. If you hadn’t sent one, I would have hunted you down, and I doubt you would have liked that, given how far you’ve already run to avoid my chasing you.
Currently, the Ministry has me working at the desk and filing all the work of the other Socrates Aurors. They’ve decided that it’s “too dangerous” for a Socrates Auror to be in the field alone since Latham’s death. And also, I think, since the dangerous twisted that we’ve arrested. Not that Okazes is willing to admit that anything you were involved with could have that kind of effect.
There’s one thing that happened unexpectedly, and which I should mention to you: Leah died in her cell last night. Apparently one of the Aurors assigned to guard her woke up standing over her corpse, and swears that he has no idea of what happened. The Mind-Healers have examined him, but they can find nothing but a blank in his memory during the time when the strangulation must have happened.
Does that sound to you like someone we know?
Tell me what you’re thinking, if you won’t tell me where you are. Tell me why you think wandering might cure you, when staying in one place won’t. Tell me when you plan to come back and resume your rightful place at my side. Tell me.
Draco.
September 15th
Draco, damn it. I know that I should have arranged for better protection for Leah when she talked about the blue-eyed twisted finding her. Because that’s what must have happened. We know he either has the ability to sense the flaws of other twisted or he has a very reliable method for finding them, and it makes sense that he would eliminate her as soon as possible, since we know her gift was locating people like him.
And the poor Auror who killed her, too. I hope this wakes the Ministry up to the danger of leaving one person alone on guard in a situation like this; I’ve always said that Aurors should at least work in pairs in the holding cells.
Bloody hell. Now I’ll be thinking about this for the rest of the day.
Harry.
September 15th
Dear Harry:
(This is to teach you the value some people place on a salutation).
That’s not the kind of thing that I wanted you to write about, and I never would have mentioned Leah’s death if I had known that it would have that kind of effect on you. Yes, it is unfortunate that two Aurors were not placed on guard, but the last I heard, no one was going to blame the man the blue-eyed twisted used to kill her. The memory blank is a convincing argument that he wasn’t under his own control at the time, although I believe that most people think it was the Imperius Curse.
You aren’t to blame yourself. You do that too often. Enough about work. Talk about something related to you, something more personal.
Draco.
September 18th
I notice that for all your emphasis on greeting, you still can’t be bothered to put a “Sincerely” or anything else in front of your name.
And yeah, I do blame myself, because I could have done something to prevent it. The same way that I would blame myself if you died on my watch, because that’s something I’m supposed to be there to bloody prevent.
But why am I sitting here trying to justify myself to you? I’ll just send the letter, and you can be assured that I’m safe and well. I don’t feel much like talking right now.
Sincerely,
Harry.
September 18th
You might regret that, Harry.
September 19th
That Howler was the most childish thing I’ve seen in a long time, Draco! It made everyone in the hotel here stare at me and think we were sleeping together. Thank God I’m in a wizarding place this time, and not a Muggle one. They would have needed a full team of Obliviators, one for each curse word.
Sincerely,
Harry.
September 20th
Dear Harry:
(It’s good to see you taking an interest in salutations. The more I can make you focus on something like that instead of brooding about the past which you can’t change, the happier I shall be).
Yes, I did send the Howler, and I did make it as childish as I could on purpose. I don’t think that you realize how childish it seems, to me, to put off discussing the things that matter and that we both know are between us in favor of talking about work. And blaming yourself is supposedly one of the habits you went on this journey to escape from, isn’t it?
Perhaps not. I suspect that sometimes you would remain warming yourself by the fire of your guilt all your life, if I let you.
You know that I consider you a valuable partner, and that I consider your crush on me both deep and flattering. Will you not do me the consideration of at least assuming that my feelings have equal weight, and that I haven’t fallen in love, in defiance of my own good sense, with an utter idiot? Value yourself enough to reply to me with a real letter, one that discusses what you’re feeling. The first letter is a good model to follow.
Yours,
Draco.
September 23rd
Dear Draco:
All right. I reckon I deserve that. Some parts of it, anyway.
But…it’s not that I don’t consider you a deep person, or whatever you were implying with your last paragraph. But your comments about my feelings for Lionel were what gave me the insight that I’m not a very deep person.
Maybe I’m still marked by the war. Maybe I never finished growing up the proper way I should have because of that.
But seriously, I’m an emotional teenager who vows never to love anyone else or have sex in his life because of the obsession he had for one man, and you want me to think that my very next crush on my very next partner-the man who I despised in school, no less-is deep, and profound, and a real feeling?
I’m in Italy, since you asked. I was in Rome for a week, and now I’m in a village so small that I don’t think it has a name. I wish I could watch the sea and never look at anything else for the rest of my life. It’s so much bigger than I am.
Harry.
September 24th
Dear Harry:
Your feelings for Vane were intensified by his death and by the fact that he did not return them. Had he lived, I believe you would eventually have found someone else to love, and never experienced the combination of guilt, self-doubt, and regret that prolonged your obsession past the point of its natural death.
Your feelings for me, on the other hand, can’t have too much encouragement.
Yes, I do believe that you are capable of deep and abiding feeling. If you are not now, then watch and wait and see whether what you think of me diminishes the longer you’re away from the Ministry. If your love is a hothouse flower only, nourished by the focus of the Socrates Corps and the danger we share together, then I expect you to start smiling at other men on your travels soon.
I enjoy watching the ocean, too, though I haven’t had an opportunity to observe the Mediterranean in several years. You might come with me on a visit to Scotland when you come back home, and then to Cornwall. The difference in the seas is instructive, and I believe everyone should know best the oceans around his own land.
Yours,
Draco.
September 26th
Dear Draco:
I never realized how much I’d missed sleeping in. At home, there’s always a case to work on or a report to file for the last one. But here, no one cares what I do as long as I stay out of the way and spend money for what I need.
I slept in until noon yesterday, and then watched the light creeping up the walls until I fell asleep again. And I wasn’t even hungry. At home, some sense of duty would drive me out of bed. Isn’t that strange, the way I can put it aside and just relax here, in a country I chose randomly off a map?
Then I used Apparition to put myself out in the middle of the ocean, and splashed around for a while. No one looked twice at me there, either. I nearly got my teeth knocked out by a wave, but even that’s a new sensation.
Sometimes I think I should have gone traveling after the war instead of becoming an Auror, and just not come back. That way, no one could bother me about signing autographs for them, and I could drift through the world, and the blue-eyed twisted would never have known about me.
But then I remember that I wouldn’t have got to know you the way you really are. And I think that would be too high a price to pay.
Sincerely,
Harry.
September 27th
Dear Harry:
Ah, so you’ve learned something else new. That sense of allowing oneself to sleep in instead of being driven by duty all your life is what we normal people call taking a holiday.
And it’s fine to speculate on what your life would have been like if you’d left Britain earlier. That doesn’t mean that it would have been all peace, though. You have a restless energy that burns in you like lightning. I think you would have found something to become involved in. Trouble would find a path to you.
And that last line…I don’t think I’ve ever received a letter that was such a unique mix of the rambling and the romantic.
Yours,
Draco.
September 28th
You confuse me so much, Draco.
Harry.
September 29th:
Dear Harry, do you mind telling me why? I promise to listen faithfully to any and all descriptions of my actions, even the ones that you might think are too wordy or contain too much of an education for me.
Yours,
Draco.
October 2nd:
What did I tell you about preserving silence, Harry? While it’s true that you might have been traveling in Muggle fashion for the past few days, for some strange reason, and therefore might not have incinerated a Howler the minute you received one, I wanted to let you know that I am still perfectly capable of sending one.
Answer me, please. I want to know that you are still among the living, and still among those I count as mine.
Yours,
Draco.
October 3rd:
Please don’t send a Howler, Draco. I’m in hospital in France, and yeah, it’s a Muggle place, and yeah, it would be more than a little embarrassing to have to explain why I’m waving a piece of wood around and yelling about fire in the middle of my room. I’ll explain everything as soon as I have enough time to write in private, but it was hard enough to charm an owl into carrying this as it was.
Harry.
October 3rd:
Yes, Harry, I am waiting for an explanation. I will wait as long as necessary.
But it had better be good.
Yours,
Draco.
P. S. In future, keep in mind that you don’t have to charm an owl into carrying your post. Magical owls watch over even Muggle areas, because there could be an emergency that requires them. I know that’s true in most countries of the Continent, at least. Only cast a simple spell-one that won’t frighten the Muggles, of course-and an owl should follow the trace and find you.
P. P. S. It might amuse you to know that the Daily Prophet takes your “disappearance” extremely seriously, and rewards are out for the least informed speculation-excuse me, for information leading to the recovery of your body. I hope you told those friends of yours where you were going.
October 4th
Dear Draco:
Thanks for the advice about the post-owl. One followed the Lumos Charm I cast last night, and now it’s patiently waiting for me to finish this, so I should have no trouble writing it, if I can get my broken arm to move.
That was a joke. I don’t really have a broken arm. Just lots of burns.
Anyway.
I decided that I might as well visit Charlie Weasley while I was abroad. He works as a Dragon-Keeper in Romania, and not even his own family goes to see him much, and of course he can’t get away often. He was awfully pleased I showed up; he must have talked about the favor I was doing him a dozen times.
Of course, one of those “favors” was to help him subdue a mother Horntail with lots of eggs that Charlie was afraid had weak shells. She wouldn’t let him close enough to inspect them, and apparently mother Horntails in the process of incubating real eggs-not golden ones that give you clues when you open them-are even more resistant to magic than usual. So he had me distract her on a broom while he cast the spells that would bind her and make her sleep for an hour.
Yeah, you see where this is going.
But I promise, both Charlie and I thought it would be fine. He was there to see me fly in our fourth year, and it wasn’t like I’m not confident on a broom. But I reckon we both forgot how long it had been since I was flying for a Quidditch team. The dragon aimed high, and the fire caught me when I was turning around to make a loop near her head.
I managed to cast enough spells to protect myself from the worst of the flame, but my clothes caught on fire. I honestly didn’t think to protect them; I promise I wasn’t trying to get killed, even if you’ll probably think so. There was a lake not that far away, so I aimed in that direction and dived.
And it worked, even if some of the Dragon-Keepers will probably never get over the sight of a burning man dropping out of the sky like a screaming comet.
Charlie and the other Dragon-Keepers took care of me for a day, and I thought the worst of the burns were healed. But then I fainted when I started the series of Apparitions I thought would take me to Spain, and…yeah. The right general direction, at least? So I can be proud of that. Some Muggles found me, and apparently the burns weren’t healed enough for them, so they brought me here. I’ve made up a load of bollocks that satisfies the people who can talk to me. The others think I’m just mental and avoid me.
There. I think that was the fullest explanation I’ve given someone in a long time. So, relax. I’m fine. I’m healing. I’ll be home in a month, maybe.
Sincerely,
Harry.
October 5th
Dear Harry:
I’m very glad to hear that you’re all right. And I accept that what happened to you was the result of a misadventure, not deliberate intent to die or reckless disregard for your own life-both of which I have seen you exhibit in the past, so don’t glare at the parchment.
I am glad that you gave me a full explanation. I would like other things from you, of course, but this is a good beginning, and a good sign.
I would like to know who you are, what you like outside of work-and thank you for not spending your entire last letter talking about it-whether you’ve hinted to your friends that our relationship has improved, what your partnership with Lionel was like beyond the romance. It’s true that I might not have a right to all of those things yet, but I hope that you’ll trust me with them when the obvious reasons for distrust have been eradicated.
In the meantime, I hope that you won’t stay away for a month and hope that you will at the same time. You need the time to get used to thinking about something other than your bloody duty. But I want you back at my side again.
I’ve been watching the other Aurors in our Corps, especially Rudie and Macgeorge. Rudie in particular is so young that I constantly expect something to happen to her, but so far she handles the cases well. Macgeorge’s possible talent for necromancy-and, therefore, possible flaw-is much more visible to me now than it used to be. If all our cases leave a lingering mark on us, the way the Alto case left on me, then I think the mark of the Alexander case will be making me more sensitive to traits such as that.
But, as I said, I’ve been watching them, the way they move in concert with each other, their rows and their jokes, and how they watch each other. We already watch each other differently than they do, did you know? Rudie and Macgeorge are friends, but that’s all they are. Warren and Jenkins work together more like true partners, but without the way that we can flow together, without the way that we both know where the other one is in the room at all times.
Come back soon, Harry, so that we can be partners again.
Yours,
Draco.
October 6th
Draco…
I have to admit, this is part of the reason I left. It was all too intense, too overwhelming. I wanted to find some solution to the puzzle of my feelings for you and for Lionel, but thinking about them being real is more terrifying, in a way.
And I don’t know that I’m any closer to a solution on that problem than I ever was, really. I wanted distractions. I got it, especially during these last few days of recovering from the worst of the burns. Ow.
But I still don’t know why I turned my feelings for Lionel into an obsession. Maybe you’re right and it was his death that caused everything. If that hadn’t happened, I might have accepted that he wasn’t bent, and that might have meant we would have drifted apart, because he didn’t trust me when I confessed my feelings. Maybe I would have had a different partner inside a year, and it would be a better experience than I had with Hale.
I can’t imagine it being a better experience than the one I’ve had with you, though. Bans from hospital and torture and all. And if you want to take that as romantic, you can.
It’s strange to think that I left home in search of answers and I’ll probably return home without them. I can go and look at some other things in France, and I want to-I’ve always wanted to go to Paris just because some people I knew went there once-but I think I’ll be coming home sooner than a month from now.
But maybe the answers are waiting behind me. You were the one who gave me the clue about what my feelings for Lionel really meant. Maybe you’re right about the reason that they developed, too. It wouldn’t surprise me.
This isn’t permission for you to consider yourself smarter than me, by the way. You could be wrong tomorrow.
Sincerely,
Harry.
P. S. Why do you keep signing yourself “Yours” when you sign the letters?
October 8th
Dear Harry:
You didn’t guess that on your own?
It means that I’m yours. You don’t have a choice about that, by the way. I’m giving myself to you.
Yours,
Draco.
October 9th
Of course I didn’t think that! Why in the world would you want to give yourself to someone who, to paraphrase you, ran away because he couldn’t face up to what his crush meant, and someone you sent a Howler to less than a month ago?
Sometimes I don’t understand you at all.
Harry.
October 10th
Dear Harry:
Those are called “normal stupid things that people do sometimes.” Yes, if you had avoided writing to me or said that you were quitting your job because of me, then I would have decided that I had misjudged you and endeavored to find another partner. Two partners, one for work and one for pleasure, because I doubt that I could find another person who could fulfill the same two needs at once.
You blame yourself for too much. Deaths that aren’t your fault, for example. And you think every fault is unforgivable, and that anyone who once criticizes you, or sends a Howler, will never want anything to do with you again. If you think about it, you know that’s not true. How many times did your Weasley’s mother send you a Howler? And yet you’re still friends with him, and you still visit his family.
I insist that the same standard applies to us. I’m not going to give you up as long as you’re doing normal stupid things, and I expect-I demand-the same consistency from you.
I’ll see you soon.
Yours,
Draco.
October 11th
Dear Draco:
Yes, you will. I’m going to visit Paris once, because I want to, and then come home, because I want to.
I think I’ve found my answers.
Yours, if you want me,
Harry.
Writ on Water.
This entry was originally posted at http://lomonaaeren.dreamwidth.org/437182.html. Comment wherever you like.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Warnings: References to violence, minor character death, angst, letter!fic. EWE.
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3900
Summary: Harry and Draco write each other on life, death, and everything in between.
Author’s Notes: This is the seventh story in my “Cloak and Dagger” series, about Harry and Draco working as Aurors in the Socrates Corps, dedicated to hunting the Darkest wizards. You should read the previous stories if you haven’t already to make sense of this one: “Invisible Sparks” (one-shot), Hero’s Funeral (eight chapters), “Rites of the Dead” (one-shot), Sister Healer (ten chapters) , “Working With Them” (one-shot), and This Enchanted Life (12 chapters) in that order. The first chapter of the next long fic, Writ on Water, should be up next Wednesday.
Letters From Exile
September 13th
Dear Draco:
(Given what we confessed the last time we were together, I reckon I should call you that).
It’s beautiful here. No, I don’t intend to tell you where I am, but it’s somewhere with lots of old buildings. I walked out and stood under a stone arch this morning that looked like it could fall on me at any second, but because it was poised just right, it didn’t actually do that. I wondered how many people it had seen walk under it, people with worse troubles than I’ll ever have. That’s something to think about, isn’t it? How many people have come and gone in the world, and there must have been somewhere, someone, who hurt worse than you did.
I think this is what I needed. I know you don’t think so, but I had to soak my head in something. Philosophy does at a pinch, though I know you’d probably prefer cold water. Wandering helps. Looking up at the stars and thinking about how long they’ve looked down and how I just don’t know what they’ve seen helps.
I’m sorry, this is a rambling letter and probably one that you didn’t want to receive. What’s been happening at the Ministry? Did they assign you to work with anyone while I’m out of the country?
Harry.
September 14th
Dear Harry:
(Yes, of course first names are appropriate. I might have had something to say to you if you had tried to get out of using them).
I wanted to receive your letter. If you hadn’t sent one, I would have hunted you down, and I doubt you would have liked that, given how far you’ve already run to avoid my chasing you.
Currently, the Ministry has me working at the desk and filing all the work of the other Socrates Aurors. They’ve decided that it’s “too dangerous” for a Socrates Auror to be in the field alone since Latham’s death. And also, I think, since the dangerous twisted that we’ve arrested. Not that Okazes is willing to admit that anything you were involved with could have that kind of effect.
There’s one thing that happened unexpectedly, and which I should mention to you: Leah died in her cell last night. Apparently one of the Aurors assigned to guard her woke up standing over her corpse, and swears that he has no idea of what happened. The Mind-Healers have examined him, but they can find nothing but a blank in his memory during the time when the strangulation must have happened.
Does that sound to you like someone we know?
Tell me what you’re thinking, if you won’t tell me where you are. Tell me why you think wandering might cure you, when staying in one place won’t. Tell me when you plan to come back and resume your rightful place at my side. Tell me.
Draco.
September 15th
Draco, damn it. I know that I should have arranged for better protection for Leah when she talked about the blue-eyed twisted finding her. Because that’s what must have happened. We know he either has the ability to sense the flaws of other twisted or he has a very reliable method for finding them, and it makes sense that he would eliminate her as soon as possible, since we know her gift was locating people like him.
And the poor Auror who killed her, too. I hope this wakes the Ministry up to the danger of leaving one person alone on guard in a situation like this; I’ve always said that Aurors should at least work in pairs in the holding cells.
Bloody hell. Now I’ll be thinking about this for the rest of the day.
Harry.
September 15th
Dear Harry:
(This is to teach you the value some people place on a salutation).
That’s not the kind of thing that I wanted you to write about, and I never would have mentioned Leah’s death if I had known that it would have that kind of effect on you. Yes, it is unfortunate that two Aurors were not placed on guard, but the last I heard, no one was going to blame the man the blue-eyed twisted used to kill her. The memory blank is a convincing argument that he wasn’t under his own control at the time, although I believe that most people think it was the Imperius Curse.
You aren’t to blame yourself. You do that too often. Enough about work. Talk about something related to you, something more personal.
Draco.
September 18th
I notice that for all your emphasis on greeting, you still can’t be bothered to put a “Sincerely” or anything else in front of your name.
And yeah, I do blame myself, because I could have done something to prevent it. The same way that I would blame myself if you died on my watch, because that’s something I’m supposed to be there to bloody prevent.
But why am I sitting here trying to justify myself to you? I’ll just send the letter, and you can be assured that I’m safe and well. I don’t feel much like talking right now.
Sincerely,
Harry.
September 18th
You might regret that, Harry.
September 19th
That Howler was the most childish thing I’ve seen in a long time, Draco! It made everyone in the hotel here stare at me and think we were sleeping together. Thank God I’m in a wizarding place this time, and not a Muggle one. They would have needed a full team of Obliviators, one for each curse word.
Sincerely,
Harry.
September 20th
Dear Harry:
(It’s good to see you taking an interest in salutations. The more I can make you focus on something like that instead of brooding about the past which you can’t change, the happier I shall be).
Yes, I did send the Howler, and I did make it as childish as I could on purpose. I don’t think that you realize how childish it seems, to me, to put off discussing the things that matter and that we both know are between us in favor of talking about work. And blaming yourself is supposedly one of the habits you went on this journey to escape from, isn’t it?
Perhaps not. I suspect that sometimes you would remain warming yourself by the fire of your guilt all your life, if I let you.
You know that I consider you a valuable partner, and that I consider your crush on me both deep and flattering. Will you not do me the consideration of at least assuming that my feelings have equal weight, and that I haven’t fallen in love, in defiance of my own good sense, with an utter idiot? Value yourself enough to reply to me with a real letter, one that discusses what you’re feeling. The first letter is a good model to follow.
Yours,
Draco.
September 23rd
Dear Draco:
All right. I reckon I deserve that. Some parts of it, anyway.
But…it’s not that I don’t consider you a deep person, or whatever you were implying with your last paragraph. But your comments about my feelings for Lionel were what gave me the insight that I’m not a very deep person.
Maybe I’m still marked by the war. Maybe I never finished growing up the proper way I should have because of that.
But seriously, I’m an emotional teenager who vows never to love anyone else or have sex in his life because of the obsession he had for one man, and you want me to think that my very next crush on my very next partner-the man who I despised in school, no less-is deep, and profound, and a real feeling?
I’m in Italy, since you asked. I was in Rome for a week, and now I’m in a village so small that I don’t think it has a name. I wish I could watch the sea and never look at anything else for the rest of my life. It’s so much bigger than I am.
Harry.
September 24th
Dear Harry:
Your feelings for Vane were intensified by his death and by the fact that he did not return them. Had he lived, I believe you would eventually have found someone else to love, and never experienced the combination of guilt, self-doubt, and regret that prolonged your obsession past the point of its natural death.
Your feelings for me, on the other hand, can’t have too much encouragement.
Yes, I do believe that you are capable of deep and abiding feeling. If you are not now, then watch and wait and see whether what you think of me diminishes the longer you’re away from the Ministry. If your love is a hothouse flower only, nourished by the focus of the Socrates Corps and the danger we share together, then I expect you to start smiling at other men on your travels soon.
I enjoy watching the ocean, too, though I haven’t had an opportunity to observe the Mediterranean in several years. You might come with me on a visit to Scotland when you come back home, and then to Cornwall. The difference in the seas is instructive, and I believe everyone should know best the oceans around his own land.
Yours,
Draco.
September 26th
Dear Draco:
I never realized how much I’d missed sleeping in. At home, there’s always a case to work on or a report to file for the last one. But here, no one cares what I do as long as I stay out of the way and spend money for what I need.
I slept in until noon yesterday, and then watched the light creeping up the walls until I fell asleep again. And I wasn’t even hungry. At home, some sense of duty would drive me out of bed. Isn’t that strange, the way I can put it aside and just relax here, in a country I chose randomly off a map?
Then I used Apparition to put myself out in the middle of the ocean, and splashed around for a while. No one looked twice at me there, either. I nearly got my teeth knocked out by a wave, but even that’s a new sensation.
Sometimes I think I should have gone traveling after the war instead of becoming an Auror, and just not come back. That way, no one could bother me about signing autographs for them, and I could drift through the world, and the blue-eyed twisted would never have known about me.
But then I remember that I wouldn’t have got to know you the way you really are. And I think that would be too high a price to pay.
Sincerely,
Harry.
September 27th
Dear Harry:
Ah, so you’ve learned something else new. That sense of allowing oneself to sleep in instead of being driven by duty all your life is what we normal people call taking a holiday.
And it’s fine to speculate on what your life would have been like if you’d left Britain earlier. That doesn’t mean that it would have been all peace, though. You have a restless energy that burns in you like lightning. I think you would have found something to become involved in. Trouble would find a path to you.
And that last line…I don’t think I’ve ever received a letter that was such a unique mix of the rambling and the romantic.
Yours,
Draco.
September 28th
You confuse me so much, Draco.
Harry.
September 29th:
Dear Harry, do you mind telling me why? I promise to listen faithfully to any and all descriptions of my actions, even the ones that you might think are too wordy or contain too much of an education for me.
Yours,
Draco.
October 2nd:
What did I tell you about preserving silence, Harry? While it’s true that you might have been traveling in Muggle fashion for the past few days, for some strange reason, and therefore might not have incinerated a Howler the minute you received one, I wanted to let you know that I am still perfectly capable of sending one.
Answer me, please. I want to know that you are still among the living, and still among those I count as mine.
Yours,
Draco.
October 3rd:
Please don’t send a Howler, Draco. I’m in hospital in France, and yeah, it’s a Muggle place, and yeah, it would be more than a little embarrassing to have to explain why I’m waving a piece of wood around and yelling about fire in the middle of my room. I’ll explain everything as soon as I have enough time to write in private, but it was hard enough to charm an owl into carrying this as it was.
Harry.
October 3rd:
Yes, Harry, I am waiting for an explanation. I will wait as long as necessary.
But it had better be good.
Yours,
Draco.
P. S. In future, keep in mind that you don’t have to charm an owl into carrying your post. Magical owls watch over even Muggle areas, because there could be an emergency that requires them. I know that’s true in most countries of the Continent, at least. Only cast a simple spell-one that won’t frighten the Muggles, of course-and an owl should follow the trace and find you.
P. P. S. It might amuse you to know that the Daily Prophet takes your “disappearance” extremely seriously, and rewards are out for the least informed speculation-excuse me, for information leading to the recovery of your body. I hope you told those friends of yours where you were going.
October 4th
Dear Draco:
Thanks for the advice about the post-owl. One followed the Lumos Charm I cast last night, and now it’s patiently waiting for me to finish this, so I should have no trouble writing it, if I can get my broken arm to move.
That was a joke. I don’t really have a broken arm. Just lots of burns.
Anyway.
I decided that I might as well visit Charlie Weasley while I was abroad. He works as a Dragon-Keeper in Romania, and not even his own family goes to see him much, and of course he can’t get away often. He was awfully pleased I showed up; he must have talked about the favor I was doing him a dozen times.
Of course, one of those “favors” was to help him subdue a mother Horntail with lots of eggs that Charlie was afraid had weak shells. She wouldn’t let him close enough to inspect them, and apparently mother Horntails in the process of incubating real eggs-not golden ones that give you clues when you open them-are even more resistant to magic than usual. So he had me distract her on a broom while he cast the spells that would bind her and make her sleep for an hour.
Yeah, you see where this is going.
But I promise, both Charlie and I thought it would be fine. He was there to see me fly in our fourth year, and it wasn’t like I’m not confident on a broom. But I reckon we both forgot how long it had been since I was flying for a Quidditch team. The dragon aimed high, and the fire caught me when I was turning around to make a loop near her head.
I managed to cast enough spells to protect myself from the worst of the flame, but my clothes caught on fire. I honestly didn’t think to protect them; I promise I wasn’t trying to get killed, even if you’ll probably think so. There was a lake not that far away, so I aimed in that direction and dived.
And it worked, even if some of the Dragon-Keepers will probably never get over the sight of a burning man dropping out of the sky like a screaming comet.
Charlie and the other Dragon-Keepers took care of me for a day, and I thought the worst of the burns were healed. But then I fainted when I started the series of Apparitions I thought would take me to Spain, and…yeah. The right general direction, at least? So I can be proud of that. Some Muggles found me, and apparently the burns weren’t healed enough for them, so they brought me here. I’ve made up a load of bollocks that satisfies the people who can talk to me. The others think I’m just mental and avoid me.
There. I think that was the fullest explanation I’ve given someone in a long time. So, relax. I’m fine. I’m healing. I’ll be home in a month, maybe.
Sincerely,
Harry.
October 5th
Dear Harry:
I’m very glad to hear that you’re all right. And I accept that what happened to you was the result of a misadventure, not deliberate intent to die or reckless disregard for your own life-both of which I have seen you exhibit in the past, so don’t glare at the parchment.
I am glad that you gave me a full explanation. I would like other things from you, of course, but this is a good beginning, and a good sign.
I would like to know who you are, what you like outside of work-and thank you for not spending your entire last letter talking about it-whether you’ve hinted to your friends that our relationship has improved, what your partnership with Lionel was like beyond the romance. It’s true that I might not have a right to all of those things yet, but I hope that you’ll trust me with them when the obvious reasons for distrust have been eradicated.
In the meantime, I hope that you won’t stay away for a month and hope that you will at the same time. You need the time to get used to thinking about something other than your bloody duty. But I want you back at my side again.
I’ve been watching the other Aurors in our Corps, especially Rudie and Macgeorge. Rudie in particular is so young that I constantly expect something to happen to her, but so far she handles the cases well. Macgeorge’s possible talent for necromancy-and, therefore, possible flaw-is much more visible to me now than it used to be. If all our cases leave a lingering mark on us, the way the Alto case left on me, then I think the mark of the Alexander case will be making me more sensitive to traits such as that.
But, as I said, I’ve been watching them, the way they move in concert with each other, their rows and their jokes, and how they watch each other. We already watch each other differently than they do, did you know? Rudie and Macgeorge are friends, but that’s all they are. Warren and Jenkins work together more like true partners, but without the way that we can flow together, without the way that we both know where the other one is in the room at all times.
Come back soon, Harry, so that we can be partners again.
Yours,
Draco.
October 6th
Draco…
I have to admit, this is part of the reason I left. It was all too intense, too overwhelming. I wanted to find some solution to the puzzle of my feelings for you and for Lionel, but thinking about them being real is more terrifying, in a way.
And I don’t know that I’m any closer to a solution on that problem than I ever was, really. I wanted distractions. I got it, especially during these last few days of recovering from the worst of the burns. Ow.
But I still don’t know why I turned my feelings for Lionel into an obsession. Maybe you’re right and it was his death that caused everything. If that hadn’t happened, I might have accepted that he wasn’t bent, and that might have meant we would have drifted apart, because he didn’t trust me when I confessed my feelings. Maybe I would have had a different partner inside a year, and it would be a better experience than I had with Hale.
I can’t imagine it being a better experience than the one I’ve had with you, though. Bans from hospital and torture and all. And if you want to take that as romantic, you can.
It’s strange to think that I left home in search of answers and I’ll probably return home without them. I can go and look at some other things in France, and I want to-I’ve always wanted to go to Paris just because some people I knew went there once-but I think I’ll be coming home sooner than a month from now.
But maybe the answers are waiting behind me. You were the one who gave me the clue about what my feelings for Lionel really meant. Maybe you’re right about the reason that they developed, too. It wouldn’t surprise me.
This isn’t permission for you to consider yourself smarter than me, by the way. You could be wrong tomorrow.
Sincerely,
Harry.
P. S. Why do you keep signing yourself “Yours” when you sign the letters?
October 8th
Dear Harry:
You didn’t guess that on your own?
It means that I’m yours. You don’t have a choice about that, by the way. I’m giving myself to you.
Yours,
Draco.
October 9th
Of course I didn’t think that! Why in the world would you want to give yourself to someone who, to paraphrase you, ran away because he couldn’t face up to what his crush meant, and someone you sent a Howler to less than a month ago?
Sometimes I don’t understand you at all.
Harry.
October 10th
Dear Harry:
Those are called “normal stupid things that people do sometimes.” Yes, if you had avoided writing to me or said that you were quitting your job because of me, then I would have decided that I had misjudged you and endeavored to find another partner. Two partners, one for work and one for pleasure, because I doubt that I could find another person who could fulfill the same two needs at once.
You blame yourself for too much. Deaths that aren’t your fault, for example. And you think every fault is unforgivable, and that anyone who once criticizes you, or sends a Howler, will never want anything to do with you again. If you think about it, you know that’s not true. How many times did your Weasley’s mother send you a Howler? And yet you’re still friends with him, and you still visit his family.
I insist that the same standard applies to us. I’m not going to give you up as long as you’re doing normal stupid things, and I expect-I demand-the same consistency from you.
I’ll see you soon.
Yours,
Draco.
October 11th
Dear Draco:
Yes, you will. I’m going to visit Paris once, because I want to, and then come home, because I want to.
I think I’ve found my answers.
Yours, if you want me,
Harry.
Writ on Water.
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