The Fortunate Fall, 2/6- for twistedm
*
Draco arrived at Potter’s house exactly on time, not a minute before and not a stroke after six. The most powerful glamour he had been able to find in two years of study was affixed to his right cheek, and Draco had checked in his mirror to make sure it was undetectable so many times before he left that the mirror had threatened to shatter itself. He put one hand up now, by habit, as he neared Potter’s gates, and then dropped it again. The spell would be fine. It wouldn’t do to draw Potter’s attention to that area of his face, though.
He opened Potter’s gates, and then stopped, astonished.
He had never seen such gardens, such rich and flourishing life overflowing its bounds. The late sunlight stroked red flowers whose name Draco didn’t know, which were already almost closed, as though anything less than perfect noon made them hug themselves shut. A chain of white flowers he didn’t recognize either danced up and down and in between stands of irises. Mingled petals strove against each other for the light-or was that only the many-colored petals of a single flower?
And there, off to the side-
Potter had black roses growing in his garden.
And there was Potter himself, probably alerted by his wards, moving easily down the scalloped path towards Draco. He was far more appealing than he’d looked in Draco’s flat, though Draco didn’t know how that could be; even if he wore robes instead of Muggle clothing, his hair was still unkempt, his chin hadn’t seen a Shaving Charm since that morning, and his eyes were too wide and too earnest behind those ridiculous glasses.
But-
It was a matter of environment, maybe, Draco deduced quickly, to keep himself from staring when Potter took his hand and bent over it like a courtier. Potter was out of his element in Draco’s drawing room. Here he was on his own ground, proud and graceful as some ancient sacrificial king of the woods in the midst of all the life around him.
And if you don’t stop thinking in absurdly poetic metaphors soon, you’ll embarrass yourself, Draco thought sharply, and cast a subtle Tempus Charm as he sneered at Potter. Five minutes he’d been here. Fifty-five minutes left before he would start distrusting the glamour and need to leave.
“Did you pick up those manners from the same friend who taught you to make gazpacho?” he demanded.
Potter grinned at him. “Maybe.” He stepped out of the way and gestured Draco to the house. Draco shook his head. No way he was walking in front of Potter and making a spectacle of himself if they came upon something remarkable and he just happened to gape at it.
Potter only nodded amiably, as if he had been prepared to take “no” for an answer, and then turned and led Draco up the path, telling Draco the names of the flowers they passed. Draco listened with half an ear; he had just discovered that being behind Potter lent him a nice view of the man’s arse.
“I breed angels here, too.”
Draco snapped back to full attention. Never mind about Potter’s arse, he couldn’t let a statement like that go unchallenged. “You have a lot of faith in your breeding abilities, I suppose, Potter?” he drawled.
“That’s just what I call them,” Potter said, with a shrug. “Their full name is this incomprehensible Latin mouthful that I’d embarrass myself trying to pronounce.”
“You notice when you’re embarrassing yourself, now?”
Potter just laughed, a sound that did not have permission to send thrills up and down Draco’s spine, thank you very much, and then stepped out of the way to reveal a tall stand of flowers to Draco.
Draco’s breath caught. His first, traitorous impulse was to say that the house-elves at the Manor couldn’t have done better, but of course they could have. They were working with elf magic, which was superior to wizard magic for any menial task. Everyone knew that. And everyone knew gardening was a menial task.
But the flowers in front of him…
Well, all right, he wouldn’t have turned one away if it was offered to him as a gift. Let Potter be content with that, if he were foolhardy enough to ask.
The flowers were the exact lavender color that Draco often saw in sunset clouds and had never thought he would see anywhere on earth. They were open, flaring, their petals spread to the June sky above them like praying hands. Their stems were green corkscrews, bearing their uplifted hands at the end of such a long, delicate span that Draco thought the weight must beat them down and snap them, eventually. But it didn’t. They hovered at the ends of those impossible stems, like angels in flight.
Potter watched him with a faint smile. Draco cleared his throat, realizing he was waiting for some compliment on or reaction to the flowers.
“Yes, very nice,” he said.
“Your eyes say more than that,” Potter murmured, but not in a challenging tone, more as if he understood how hard it was for Draco to speak the necessary words aloud. He cocked his head towards the house. “Shall we?”
Draco gazed at him, more appraisingly this time, and then nodded. Potter simply looked delighted, as he did with every motion Draco cared to make.
Such delight around Draco, such careless ease and grace in his own surroundings, such pride in his eyes when he gazed at the flowers.
Draco might not object to letting a Potter like this stick around for a little while. If he was very good, of course.
*
Harry watched out of the corner of one eye as Draco ate. He was not sure when he had started thinking of Malfoy as Draco, but he had, so he might as well continue it. If nothing else, it made sense to differentiate the man he hoped to flirt with, and maybe seduce, from the man who had attacked Harry and his friends in the Department of Mysteries.
Draco was at least proving very different from Raphael in one respect. Raphael would have made a face if he had disliked his gazpacho, or smiled and told Harry it was good immediately. Draco sipped it slowly, his eyelids fluttering shut now and again, but he seemed more overtly interested in the wine. Harry noticed, though, that he always put down the glass of wine after just a few sips, to devote more attention to the soup than he wanted Harry to see.
That was perfectly fine. They ate in silence, and it was a comfortable silence, at least for Harry. He could sip, and gaze at Draco in the light of the lamps placed about the room-he had decided not to use candles after all, fearing it would make Draco turn tail and run-and rejoice in both Draco’s presence and the fact that they were in the same room without sniping.
When Draco finally did pick up the conversation, his subject wasn’t one Harry had expected, but it was one he probably should have. “Is there any particular reason why you didn’t become an Auror, Potter?” he demanded, in between one flourish of his wineglass and another. His gray eyes glinted at Harry across the rim of the glass, as if he thought Harry would scramble after an answer to the question.
“Of course,” Harry said, glancing at him sidelong. “Too many people I loved died during the war. I decided that was enough death for me. I didn’t want to hunt anyone anymore, even Dark wizards.” He closed his eyes so that he could more fully enjoy the taste of the tomato in the soup. Even gazing at Draco couldn’t make that particular experience better for him.
Of course, it would help if I knew what Draco tasted like.
Harry drowned such thoughts with a little more soup.
“That’s rather a sentimental reason,” Draco said.
Harry shrugged. He had heard the same thing from Ron, and, far more endlessly, from Raphael. “It’s my reason.”
“That’s another thing I wanted to ask.” Draco set down his wineglass hard enough to make it ring. “When did you become so-“ He paused, evidently casting about for a word.
“Handsome?” Harry offered helpfully.
“Calm,” Draco said, with a freezing glare to show that he did not appreciate Harry’s flirting, which made Harry leer at him. Draco glanced aside, a faint flush creeping over his cheeks. “Mellow. You’re acting as though the war never happened, even though you say that you couldn’t become an Auror because of it. So. What’s the answer? Why the contradiction?”
“The answer’s simple enough,” Harry said calmly, and ate a few more spoonfuls of gazpacho, which made Draco tap his fingers impatiently on the tablecloth. “And no, it’s not a contradiction. Gardening suits me. Bringing things to life suits me. That’s helped me forget a lot of the trauma from the war. Not everything.” He still woke up screaming from nightmares regularly enough, which Raphael had always complained about. “But enough that I’m happy from day to day, instead of mourning. Becoming an Auror would simply have depressed me.”
“I’m surprised that you haven’t settled down to raise little Potters, if you enjoy bringing things to life so much,” Draco muttered.
“Rather hard to do that without a willing woman, and most willing women would prefer that their husbands weren’t dating blokes on the side,” Harry said. “And I don’t care what Hermione says about experimental potions that will be properly advanced sometime within the next century or so, I don’t think I could bring myself to get pregnant or ask my lovers, who should always be very male, to get pregnant.”
Draco stared at him. “You’re bent?”
Harry laughed outright. He would have been afraid that Draco had somehow mistaken the signals, but no, he couldn’t be that dense. “Of course I am! Unless you think that I just like gazing soulfully across the dinner table at handsome wizards, and then I go off and fuck a witch.”
Draco choked, but Harry wasn’t sure if it was at his honesty or at his use of the word “fuck.” After a long, delicate pause, he said, “I try not to assume about people. You could have been bisexual, for all I knew.”
“If you’re worried about that, please be assured that I am one hundred percent an arse man.” Harry leaned across the table. Maybe it was just Raphael’s earlier appearance, but he found himself rapidly tiring of ambiguity. Flirting was one thing; finding out that he might have flirted with a completely uninterested target was something else altogether. “And what about you, Draco?”
Oh, yes, that got him. One other useful thing Harry had learned from Raphael was that he had a sexy voice when he lowered it. Draco’s sudden flush and slightly parted lips said his attention had been caught.
“I didn’t give you permission to use my first name,” he said, when he spoke again.
“Draco, Draco, Draco,” Harry said, teasingly the first time, but with greater and huskier emphasis the other two. Draco’s eyes darted to Harry’s lips, and then away, as if he couldn’t quite decide where to rest them.
In the silence, Harry heard a soft chime, the kind that might come from setting a Tempus Charm to go off a certain hour.
Draco’s face turned completely white, and he rose to his feet. Harry rose after him, concerned. “You don’t want to stay for dessert?” He tried to sound hurt. In truth, he was less worried about losing Draco’s company than he was about the sudden cause of Draco’s pallor.
Draco gave him a sickly smile. “It’s all right,” he said. “Just something I have to do. I did say that I would leave at seven on the hour, didn’t I? That was my charm reminding me not to spend much time in your uncivilized company.” He turned hastily for the door, one hand hovering near his face as if to cover his cheek, but he did turn back long enough to add, “Thank you for the lovely meal.”
Harry narrowed his eyes. He was thinking of the odd way that Draco had stood when he first visited his flat, with his head turned in profile so that Harry couldn’t see his cheek. “Is something wrong with your face?”
“Nothing!” Draco spat the word, and pain and panic were flashing through his eyes. Harry took a step backwards. “Don’t-just don’t ask about that, all right? I’ll go on another date with you, but don’t ask about that.”
“You don’t need to go on another date with me,” Harry murmured. “I don’t do blackmail. You have a right to your secrets.”
Draco closed his eyes tightly, and Harry had the oddest feeling he was fighting tears. Wonder stirred through him. Had Draco really had so few people in his life who would offer to respect his privacy?
“Thank you,” he said in a tiny voice, and then ran through the folding windows. Harry heard him Disapparate a moment later.
Well, that was certainly strange.
But only one thought was on Harry’s mind as he turned to gather up the dinner dishes and fetch the flan to eat by himself. He wanted to do this again.
*
The smell slowly traveled into Draco’s dreams, stirring him from uneasy contemplations of the night before. He had arrived back at his flat just in time. When he glanced in the mirror, he could already see the glamour tattering over the scar, as the Permanence Charm his attacker had put on the wound came through. He had stood there with his fingertips tracing the circumference of the hole, bitterly wondering if Potter would be quite so enthusiastic about him if he knew what Draco’s face really looked like.
And then he had fallen asleep and dreamed about his own ugliness and loneliness.
What good was it to be able to do magic again, if it couldn’t bring him the respect and the ability to go out into public that he desired so much?
But now there was this smell.
Draco opened his eyes slowly and rolled over. A quick glance around his bedroom revealed that nothing in here smelled like that. In the end, he rose, secured his pyjamas around himself and cast a quick glamour over his cheek, and then padded out into the drawing room.
Nothing there, either, but the scent was stronger. Draco, his fingers shaking for no good reason, opened the front door of the flat.
Sitting on his threshold was a vase of the angel flowers that Potter had shown him last night, bobbing brilliantly on their impossible stems, smelling like ripe oranges. Their petals were open, stubbornly, as though they only needed dawn to call them to their fullest extent, and a card nodded in the middle of one of them, lightened by a charm. Draco plucked it out, waited a moment for his hands to calm their stupid shaking, and opened it.
Draco, I wanted to share these flowers with you, since I knew that you admired them. And I have to admit, they remind me of you now, with everything-including gravity!-against them, and yet determined to stand up to the world.
Dinner in Diagon Alley tonight?
-Harry Potter.
Draco closed his eyes and swallowed. Then he heard his neighbor open her door, and scooped up the vase hastily, retreating into his flat with it. He wouldn’t share the sight of his flowers with her.
Besides, there was the chance that she might see his scar.
He stood just inside the door for a long moment, breathing in the angels’ scent, and then sat down to owl Potter. Dinner in Diagon Alley was not an option, not when their meal might take an unknown length of time to arrive and his glamour could fade, but the least he could do was return the invitation.
A squirming warmth in the center of his belly announced that it was more than that, that he was looking forwards to seeing Potter again.
Ridiculous, Draco thought firmly. I’m just returning a favor, that’s all.
That Potter looked good was fortunate for him, as he would never get dates otherwise, but it had nothing to do with why Draco was doing this.
*
“Going out again, Harry?”
Since Raphael had appeared suddenly behind him as he got ready to transport several large loads of flowers on floating wooden carts to Diagon Alley, Harry didn’t spare the time to hit or hex him. He just rolled his eyes and Apparated, after making sure that all the carts were attached to him with lengths of rope.
He appeared, with all the carts and Raphael still beside him, in an alley off Diagon often used as an Apparition point. He wasn’t surprised. Raphael had stayed around long enough to know his most common destination.
“There was something you wanted?” Harry set a brisk pace. It looked like rain, with the sky frowning over the shops, and there were several flowers that needed as much sun as possible but also needed to be protected from the heavier raindrops. Harry had never yet mastered the spell that would pull a cover over them the moment the rain began to fall, so he had to do it by hand.
“Always.” Raphael reached out and tried to wrap his arms around Harry’s waist. His breath was hot and hungry in Harry’s ear.
Harry drove his foot backwards, connecting with Raphael’s knee. The move was one Raphael had taught him, which meant he could mostly twist out of the way to accept the blow, but it made him curse and let go of Harry.
“I see that you still haven’t advanced in your courses on the meaning of ‘no,’” Harry murmured, and ducked through the door of Paley’s Poisonous Potions. The name was a simple advertising mechanism, of course; the Ministry would never have allowed Paley to sell true Dark potions here. “Afternoon, Joseph.”
Joseph Paley looked up with a faint smile. He was an older wizard whom some accident had deprived of both his eyes; he had magical replacements, which didn’t whiz around his head but still reminded Harry painfully of Mad-Eye. “Harry! Good to see you. I said to myself, ‘Just where am I going to get more pollen for that Deafness Potion I need to brew this afternoon?’ and lo and behold, you appear.”
“The usual?” Harry asked, turning to one of the carts that floated off his left hand. He could feel Raphael leaning against the doorway of the shop, watching him, but he knew the Auror wouldn’t come further inside. He disdained Paley’s as too common for him. Or maybe he was just afraid of tripping over something; the shop was, admittedly, dim, and Raphael had never had the best eyesight.
“Two dozen roses, yes indeed,” said Paley, and chuckled under his breath as he took the cart from Harry. He always paid scrupulously, Harry thought, amused, and yet he had to laugh like this, as if he had got one over on the Savior of the Wizarding World.
Harry held his hand out for the Galleons, nodding as they dropped into his palm. His parents had left him a small fortune-not enough to live on forever. Keeping the garden took up a worrying amount of funds, sometimes, but selling what he produced made up for it.
Especially since I live alone most of the time and don’t spend loads on my own entertainment.
Idly, Harry wondered what Malfoy-or Draco, though it felt less natural to call him that when he was out of the git’s presence-did for fun. The stiff invitation he’d received to dinner that night didn’t promise much. And then there was his apparent paranoia about going out in public. Harry would sound him out tonight, though, and perhaps discover that Malfoy retained his schoolboy fondness for Quidditch or enjoyed the theater.
“I don’t understand why you degrade yourself like this,” Raphael murmured, falling into step beside Harry as he ducked back into the sunlight.
Harry sighed openly. That had been another reason he and Raphael were no longer lovers; Raphael might not have a lot of awe for the Savior of the Wizarding World, but he thought the job of gardener infinitely too humble for Harry. Harry sometimes wished he could simply tell him to fuck off, but Raphael was Ron’s friend, too, and Harry enjoyed his company when he wasn’t being a prat.
“You never did understand a lot about me,” he said, and had the satisfaction of seeing Raphael’s mouth tighten in irritation.
As he swung into the next shop along his route, he wondered what Malfoy looked like when he was irritated. Harry had seen more anger than irritation, he thought.
And what he looks like when he’s tired, and satiated, and frustrated, and happy…
You do have it bad.
Harry shrugged. He didn’t consider having a passion for Malfoy a problem, not since he had gained the clarity of mind and strength of will necessary to go after what he wanted.
*
Draco was nervously conscious of the finery of his dress robes as he stood aside so Potter could enter his flat. He had spent at least three hours this afternoon arguing with himself as to whether he needed to dress up. Potter seemed perfectly happy to parade around in scruffy Muggle clothes. He probably wouldn’t know good taste if it shat on his head. And since when did Draco want to look good for Potter?
Since he’s the only person in a hundred-mile radius who looks happy to see you?
Draco shook his head. In the end, he’d chosen the frost-blue dress robes with silver filigree around the collar and the sleeves and hoped for the best. He steeled himself as Potter turned around to survey him by the light of the lamps.
The scar on his cheek itched under the glamour. Draco forbore from scratching it.
Potter’s eyes turned so warm that Draco could feel his face yearning to follow them with a blush. “You do look wonderful,” Potter said, and strode over to clasp Draco’s hand and play with the edge of his sleeve in the same movement. His smile was sly, at least as much for Draco’s face-
The face he thinks is perfect.
--As the robes. Draco told himself he didn’t care, and since when had any interaction with Potter ever been on a fair footing? He raised an eyebrow and scanned Potter’s own Muggle clothing. A clean white shirt and jeans, and that was all that could be said for them. Though, after the work he’d seen Potter do in the garden, maybe that was miracle enough in and of itself.
He said as much, and because of it, he got to hear Harry Potter laugh.
Don’t prompt that again, Draco thought, as the shout of unrestrained merriment went straight to his belly, and the squirm of warmth he’d felt that morning was joined by a sharp coil of interest. You’re already playing a dangerous game. Flirting is fine, dinner is pleasant, but no farther than that. You know why. The last thing you ever want to see is Potter looking at you with pity in his eyes.
Though, watching the way he took a jest against himself, Draco was tempted to say that Potter might actually understand him, or only feel sympathy, compassion-
No. That’s the first step on the road to making yourself vulnerable.
He shifted the position of his hand so that he held Potter’s arm, and inclined his head towards the kitchen. The house-elf he’d borrowed from his parents promptly appeared and bowed low. “Shall we dine?”
*
Harry sighed and pushed his plate away from him. He’d had enough duck in orange sauce and hot rice and steamed vegetables to last him for six more meals, though of course Draco murmured and urged more on him.
The meal had been delicious, the equal of any he’d ever eaten at Hogwarts, but what made it special was Draco. Less self-conscious in his own home than he’d been in Harry’s, he had sharp words for Harry’s table manners, Daily Prophet reporters, the latest piece of Ministry scandal-something about Shacklebolt’s niece marrying a Muggle and bringing him around for a tour without properly warning him-the deplorable lack of proper cooking in households without elves, flowers, the weather, Harry’s clothes, Harry’s daily routine, and Quidditch.
It’ll be the way I play Quidditch next, Harry thought.
And sure enough, Draco, lounging back in a chair as if he had almost forgotten his fine robes-though of course they never wrinkled-looked at him thoughtfully and murmured, “Think you could still catch a Snitch? Or will those thick gardener’s calluses of yours prevent it?”
“I could catch one right now,” Harry said, even as he lazily rubbed his full belly.
“Liar.” Draco snorted at him.
“Not a liar,” Harry countered. “Do you have one?”
Spots of color took over Draco’s cheeks, and he set his wineglass down a little harder than strictly necessary. “We couldn’t play Quidditch here, Potter. This is a Muggle residential area, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“I have noticed,” Harry said, and stretched his arms over his head. He was content, far from thoughts of the war, which lately was all he needed to stimulate his courage. He cocked his head at Draco. “Care to tell me why?”
Draco’s pause as he picked up his glass again was barely perceptible, but Harry saw his wrist tremble. He waited, trying not to make it obvious, in the meanwhile, how keenly he was trying to picture Draco’s skin under the robes and deduce his taste from his scent.
“Tell you why what?” Draco asked, trying for an aristocratic sneer.
And failing, Harry thought. He leaned forwards. “Tell me why you’re living here instead of the Manor. I saw how much your parents loved you in the final battle at Hogwarts. They would never have turned you away. So it must have been your own choice that led you here-“
“Never.” Draco slammed a hand sharply on the edge of the table the house-elf had put between them and stood up, turning away in a swirl of robes.
Harry sighed, sad to ruin the mood that had settled between them, but badly needing to know the answer. He watched Draco’s pacing without attempting to interfere for a few moments, then said, “Does it have anything to do with the Tempus Charms you keep casting?”
*
Draco froze between one stride and the next. He tried to bring his foot down calmly in the next moment, tried to show that he was unshaken, but the shock had been obvious, even for an unobservant cretin like Potter.
I thought I had done those subtly.
Draco suffered a moment’s wild yearning to tell Potter the truth. Would it be so bad? Potter had a healthy distrust of the Daily Prophet and would hardly sell the story to them. He wasn’t in contact with any of Draco’s old school chums, either.
That you know of. He hadn’t known that Potter knew how to make passable gazpacho or would be content to retire to a life of raising flowers, either. Anything could have happened in the past two years. Even if Potter didn’t have a coterie of Slytherins hanging on his every word, he could still know someone whom he wouldn’t be able to resist telling the story to, and who would relish the tale in turn by spreading it to everyone who “should” know. Draco lived in dread of the glamour failing in front of someone else. How much more horrible would it be to face widespread laughter?
Soft footsteps sounded behind him. Draco closed his eyes when a warm hand came to rest in the middle of his back. It should be illegal, or at least impossible by the laws of nature, for one single hand to be so warm.
“You still don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Potter murmured to him. “It won’t make any difference in the amount of interest I have in you-“
Oh, how little you know, Draco thought bitterly, remembering the way Potter’s eyes had rested in fascination on his falsely smooth, perfect face.
“Or how much I enjoy your company. But I hate to see you looking as if someone’s about to chase you out of your own home at any minute. And I remember how confident you were in the wizarding world, how much at home there. That’s where you belong.” Potter’s voice dropped and turned softer, to the point that Draco found himself straining to hear. “I think you look good in this flat, with your own choice of furniture surrounding you, but the thought of you in the Manor, or a flat where you could openly have moving portraits on the walls and use your wand to your heart’s content…I can’t even imagine what you’d look like then.”
And I want to see it, were the unspoken words.
Draco swallowed several times. His hand rose to rub his cheek; he stiffened just in time and dropped it. No matter how much of a habit it might be for him to touch his scar in private, like some animal licking its wounds, he wouldn’t do it in front of Potter.
But he was considering telling him.
Are you mad are you mad are you mad? his mind chattered. This is the one person in the wizarding world who could get attention from the Prophet for the way he walks, and you’d trust him with this secret?
But Draco wanted to trust someone. And God, he was so lonely, and Potter spoke so sincerely, and this was the first human contact he’d had in two years that wasn’t full of awkward stares and cold, icy mutters…
And maybe he did want to know what would happen when Potter learned the truth. Better to suffer some pain now and be done with it, after two days’ acquaintance, than clutch after scraps of real affection for months and lose them when Potter recoiled in horror. Draco knew how to spare himself pain.
With a quick flick of his wand, he ended the glamour on his scar and turned around.
Part 3.