(no subject)
Title: The Odd Couple
Pairing: RW/DM
Rating: R
The Odd Couple Part 2
Draco wasted no time in moving in.
Ron opened his door to find Draco standing on his doorstep surrounded by a teetering tower of dozens of pieces of matched luggage. Behind the tower, in a line that stretched all the way down his street were assorted crates, pieces of furniture, and some irate neighbors.
“I suppose it pointless to remind you I said bring only the bare essentials.”
Draco fluttered his eyelashes. “I suppose it's pointless to remind you that I am Draco Malfoy.”
“Point taken,” he said with a small smile. “Let me show you to your room…” Ron took another look at the overflowing street….”rooms.”
Ron's home was a lovely two-floor brownstone that looked as though it was decorated by a color blind - or perhaps completely blind - imbecile who had had far too much to drink.
“Good Lord, Weasley. Who the hell decorated this place? And has he been shot yet?”
“Unless you want to scratch your oh-so-delicate skin on rented sheets, I'd keep my mouth shut, Malfoy.” Ron tried to sound annoyed but he couldn't blame Draco; the apartment was a disaster. He had the funds to fix it up but never the inclination. A lover moved in, painted the rooms or bought some furniture, or both. Then, they'd moved out. Sometimes they took the furniture. Sometimes they didn't. Sometimes they burned it. Whichever way, the flat was in a permanent state of flux, and Ron never saw the need to change it.
“I can't live like this, you realize,” Draco said pointedly.
Ron huffed. “You have no choice.”
Draco huffed back. “But I do and I choose to make this place inhabitable to those of us with the gift of sight.”
“Sight? You mean like a seer?”
“No, I mean like someone with eyes.”
Ron smiled, but he hated himself for it.
***
It wasn't long before Ron found himself buried under a mountain of paint chips trying desperately to tell the difference between Nouvelle White, Montpelier Madison White, Bone China, and Snow Ballet.
They started off small - a new sofa for the parlor. That led to an armchair, a coffee table, two lamps, and new carpeting. Before Ron knew it he was looking at crown molding and wall sconces. They bought a new desk for the study, new chairs for the dining room table, a recreation of a painting by some Muggle named Renoir, and a light fixture from someone named Tiffany.
Suddenly the main bathroom had to be completely gutted out and redone, every window needed new curtains, and almost every room had to be repainted.
Ron resisted at first. Who the hell was Draco to come in change everything? He was leaving in a few months, after all. But damn it if he liked the way the apartment looked. Draco never pushed Ron to get something that Ron didn't want. The colors were simple; the furniture, comfortable. And both suited him quite nicely. It was … familiar, but there was also something so fresh and new about it. It was the type of house he dreamt of when he was a child, full of crisp lines and fine furniture, and it was his.
He never asked Draco why he incorporated some of his own furniture into Ron's house. He figured that Draco saw what he saw - it blended in perfectly.
*****
Harry and Pansy found themselves sitting in a dining room that looked like something out of an architectural magazine. For Harry it was shocking to see Ron's house looking so stylish; Harry remembered when the only furniture Ron owned were two broken chairs, a card table with a wobbly leg, and a mattress that smelled of old socks. Suddenly, there was fresh paint on the walls, colorful draperies, and fresh flowers…and nothing smelled of socks, old or otherwise. But the table linens and fine china where not the centerpieces of this dinner party. The main attraction was the couple that sat across the dinner table.
It was odd enough to be invited to a dinner that didn't come in some sort of take-away container, eaten with utensils that were not made of plastic. But seeing Ron passing the carrots to Draco and telling him to be careful as they were made with ginger and he remembered how much it upset Draco's stomach the last time he had too many of them, was surreal. Watching Draco give Ron an extra serving of roasted potatoes because he knew they were Ron's favorite, made Pansy question exactly what was in the wine she was drinking.
The night was made up of a thousand little moments in the lives of two people who knew each other inside and out: private jokes and playful teasing, one's hand resting on the other's back or leg. A thousand moments between two people who became part of the other's life: Ron drinking his tea without sugar and with a slice of lemon, Draco happily eating a cream-filled pastry. And each time one of these moments passed, Harry and Pansy would exchange a look of shock, amusement, and/or bewilderment.
Ron and Harry retired to the study, the room formally known as the “place with all the unpacked boxes” while Draco took Pansy out to the balcony to drink some wine.
“I like what you've done with the place.”
Ron looked up and smiled. “I've done nothing but nod my head and pay for things. This was all Draco's doing.”
Harry thought that perhaps Ron wanted to say more but something held him back. He waited a full minute before he continued carefully. “You like having him here?”
Ron shrugged noncommittally. “It's all right, I suppose.”
“He seems…comfortable here.” Harry watched, but Ron's demeanor didn't change.
“I suppose.”
Harry took a deep breath. “Are you?”
“Am I what?”
Bastard wasn't going to make this easy, was he? “Comfortable.”
“I suppose.”
“You suppose a lot.”
Ron's eyes narrowed. “You're terrible at this, you know that, Harry? What is it exactly that you want to know?”
Harry only shook his head; leave it to Ron to throw subtlety right out the window. “I want to know that you're happy.”
Ron pulled back, clearly not expecting Harry's remark. “I don't know, “ he responded looking a bit lost. “What kind of question is that?”
“It's the kind of question one friend asks another when he thinks that perhaps this friend has gone insane. But rather than point it out, he chooses to inquire about this friend's current state of mind.”
“Did Hermione tell you to say that?”
“That's neither here nor there,” Harry said with a wave. “Are you going to answer the bloody question?”
“It's a stupid question. What is happy anyway?”
Harry smiled softly; this, he knew the answer to. “Happy is waking up with a smile because you look forward to every day. Happy is feeling warm on a winter's night because there is a soft body lying next to yours. Happy is arms wrapped around you and not letting go.”
Ron raised an eyebrow. “You sound like a man who's been having sex. Lots of sex”
Harry's smile widened.
“Who?”
Harry let out a laugh. “You would never guess. I hardly believe it myself.”
Ron's eyes went wide. “Parkinson! You're sleeping with Parkinson.”
“I'm dating Pansy. The sex is a benefit. It's an incredible benefit. You would never believe what she can do with her-“
Ron blocked his ears with his hands. “Stop it right now.”
Harry sneered. “Consider this payback for me having to listen about your 'Stephan in the baths' story a thousand times.”
Ron's hands went up in surrender. “Since when?”
“Just about when Draco moved in here. We both had a lot of time on our hands while you two kept each other busy.”
Ron's brow furrowed. “Busy? What the hell are you talking about?''
“You and Draco.”
“Me and Draco what?”
“Well, you…you're together. Aren't you?”
Ron was still visibly confused. “He a roommate. A temporary roommate.”
Harry was visibly astonished. “ Temporary? It's been six months.”
“He's not staying.”
“He's not leaving, either.” Suddenly, something dawned on Harry. Something he totally missed. “You…You're not sleeping with him, are you?
“Of course not. I told you I'm not doing that any more.”
Harry was looked at Ron like he had just sprouted a third eye. “You mean, you haven't…all this time and you've never…Are you no longer gay?”
“Of course…what a stupid thing to say. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Are you not attracted to Draco?”
Ron's shoulders fell. “He's attractive, I suppose.”
“Back to supposing.”
Ron threw his arms up in the air. “All right, he's gorgeous. Is that what you want to hear? Even first thing in the morning when he stumbles into the kitchen with his hair ruffled and his eyes bleary, he's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. He always smells good. His skin is always smooth. And I fall asleep with him on my mind every night and wake up thinking of him every. Blasted. Morning. Is that what you wanted to hear?
“Yes!” Harry exclaimed. “That's exactly what I want to hear.”
“Have you been dipping into McGonagall's biscuit tin again?”
“Ron, you and Draco are good together. Lord knows why. I certainly don't understand it, but it works. You have to see that?”
Ron fell back onto an over stuffed armchair. “Do you know he walks around in my shirts because he finds them comfortable. They're three sizes too big and hang loosely off his body, far down enough for me to see his collarbone, and all I want to do is scoop him up in my arms and sink my teeth into his neck.”
“That's great!”
“Great? We've become friends. I can't hit on him now. It would ruin everything. “
“What's there to ruin? You're not sleeping with him.”
“It's not about that. “ It was painfully clear that or neither was buying that one. “Okay, it's not only about that. Things are nice now. Do you really think I want to take the chance of saying or doing something that could change everything?”
Harry looked pitiably upon his friend. “I think that's exactly what you need to do.”
*~*
Meanwhile, on the other side of the apartment….
Pansy was leaning against the railing of the balcony with one arm wrapped around the stone gargoyle that sat guard on the ledge. “So tell me, Draco Darling, is he as good as I always thought he would be?”
Draco continued to pour his wine. “Good? Good at what?”
“Oh, come on. You can tell me. As a matter of fact you usually do. In vivid detail. With sketches. And costumes. And background music.”
Draco took a long sip of wine. “There's nothing to tell, Pansy. There's nothing going on.”
Pansy put her glass down next to the gargoyle. “What do you mean by nothing? Nothing as in nothing particularly kinky. Nothing that you haven't done before. Nothing worth recording.”
“Nothing as in nothing. We're just friends.”
She laughed. “Draco, you don't have friends.”
“What are you?”
“A masochist. Can we go back to this nothing business?”
Draco went to put down his glass and thought better of it. He opted to filling it to the rim instead. “Okay, let's try it this way. I have a bed, and Ron has a bed, and every night they are both occupied.”
Pansy's eyes perked up. “You go back and forth. That seems needless.”
“For the love of … Pansy, I haven't had sex in months and, frankly, I'm on the edge. Keep antagonizing me and I might be forced to do something drastic.”
“Like jumping off this balcony?”
“Like sleeping with you.”
“Too late, I'm taken,” she said with a wicked smile.
Draco scoffed. “I know, and let me tell you I'm not pleased. Sleeping with Potter is a disgrace to your race, your species, and worst of all, to me.”
Her smile dropped. “How did you know?”
“You reek of faded glory and Muggle cologne.”
It was Pansy's turn to scoff. “At least I'm not considering changing sexual orientations.”
Draco picked his glass up to take another long sip when he stopped dead. “Wait a minute. Did you ask if he was as good as you always thought he would be?”
“Yes.”
“When were you thinking of Weasley?”
“I've liked pretty boys longer than you, Draco, and Weasley is nice on the eyes.”
Draco didn't seem to like that answer. “You always said he was too tall, too thin, too red, too spotted, and too poor to waste time on.”
Pansy leaned in and tilted her head forward, looking up a him through thick eyelashes. “So did you.”
“Point taken. “ That admission didn't go down as easily as his wine.
Pansy watched her friend closely and careful concern crept into her mind. “Draco, that was a lifetime ago. He's a different man now. I've noticed, and I 'm pretty sure you have as well.”
“Oh, I've noticed. You know he spends half the day topless? The bastard walks around with his muscled arms and broad chest and rippled stomach all mocking me with their chiseled perfection. I've taken to wearing his shirts because they are three sizes too big on me and I'm hoping he won't see how thin I am.”
That made Pansy smile. “He has a nice arse, too.”
“Nice!? Sonnets should be written about that arse.”
“So what's the problem, then?”
“There is no problem.”
Pansy went to retrieve her glass from the gargoyle but stopped as his words. She whipped her head around and glared at Draco. “No problem. Are you even listening to yourself? You've become a housewitch, buying curtains and furniture, planning dinner parties, playing house, and you aren't even having sex. I consider that a problem.”
“I'm not a housewitch.”
“What do you call it?”
“I told you, we're friends. We do things for each other the way that people do when they are friends. I decorated the place because he has no taste whatsoever. I planned the dinner party because he missed Harry, and I know that the only way to get him out of your bed was to entice him with food, knowing full well that you don't even know where you kitchen is. I'm doing what one friend would do for another.”
Pansy's voice was soft. “And what does Ron do for you?”
Draco just looked at her, his shoulder squared and his proud chin jutted out. And with that look Pansy knew Draco was in more trouble than he would ever admit.
“Why don't you tell him?”
“There's nothing to tell.”
“Again with the nothing. You know, for someone who's got a whole lot of nothing going on you sure are staying here an awfully long time. “ Pansy looked pitiably upon her friend. “Tell me, Draco, since there are no more windows to be dressed, no more rooms to be furnished, no more walls to be painted, and your apartment has been Nargle free for months, then why are you staying?”
Draco didn't say anything; instead he turned to look over the balcony and drank the rest of his wine.
~*~*~
Later that night, Ron Weasley couldn't sleep. He got out of his bed and took a long hot bath to loosen the ring of tight muscle around his neck and shoulders. As he lay there, immersed to his chin in a near scalding pool, he looked at the little mementos of Draco that decorated the bathroom: the scented soap, the bath salts, the half dozen bottles of cologne. No wonder Draco always smelled so good.
Ron got up out of the bath and while still dripping wet and naked, he walked over the shelves that held the colored glass bottles. He picked up a small green bottle and removed the stopper. He lifted it to his nose and inhaled deeply. This one was a spicy scent that Draco liked to wear when they went to the theater. Ron picked up another that smelled clean and crisp; Draco liked to wear that one when they went out to dinner. A third smelled like the ocean. That one Draco wore when it was just the two of them at home playing chess, or just making dinner, or talking about something Ron had read in the paper that morning.
He went to pick up another when he heard a noise coming from the parlor. Ron grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist before going to see what was stirring it the middle of the night. What he found was Draco packing some books into a box.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Draco looked up with a start and froze as his eyes scanned Ron's towel clad body. After a minute he seemed to gather his wits and answered: “I'm packing.”
”What? Why? What for?”
Draco didn't look up. “There are no more windows to be dressed, no more rooms to be furnished, no more walls to be painted, and my apartment has been Nargle free for months. It's time I stopped imposing on you.”
“You're not imposing,” Ron half-whispered.
“You can't honestly tell me you want me here.” Draco stopped packing but he still didn't look up. He was waiting for an answer.
Ron didn't have one. After a short pause Draco continued to pack.
One by one, books began to fill the box, and with each one Ron felt like his life was slipping away from him. His heart felt like a stone in his chest and his stomach began to churn violently. “We were supposed to go shopping tomorrow so you could pick out all new shirts for me because my old ones were too scratchy on your skin,” he said with a hint of a smile.
“Your shirts are fine,” came the listless reply.
“What about the play in London next Thursday?”
“I heard it was awful, we won't be missing much.”
“And dinner at my Mum's on Sunday?”
“Give her my regrets. I will miss her blackberry pie.”
Ron wanted to be angry, but he couldn't get past the hurt. “So that's it, then.”
Draco said nothing and continued to pack.
“I should have known you couldn't change.” Ron did his best to keep his voice steady. “Still the same selfish bastard you always were. I don't know why I thought you'd be any different now. You've had your fun, and now what?…You're bored with me. Had fun spending my money. Making me-“ he stopped himself. He felt himself starting to lose control and he pulled back. He wasn't that insecure boy any more and he sure as hell wasn't about to let Draco see him break. “Do what you want.” He turned to leave.
“It was all a scam, Weasley.”
Ron turned and saw Draco looking pale and small and tired. “What are you talking about?”
“You were my ticket back into high society. You were going to all the parties I should have been attending, and it was killing me. I got sick of seeing your name in the paper and decided to do something about it. I made sure we accidentally bumped into each other and made sure we went out together right after. You were supposed to fall for me, take me to the most exclusive functions and galas, and once I was firmly embedded back with the societal strata I would unceremoniously dump you, leaving you a quivering heap at my feet. ”
Ron was quiet for a long moment and then quite suddenly said, “We haven't gone to one party since you moved in.”
Draco shrugged. “I didn't say it was a good plan.”
“So what happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“There were no exclusive functions or galas, no brushing elbows with high society. There was you and me making dinner and going shopping and looking at swatches.”
“Things changed.”
“What changed?”
“Things?”
“What things?”
“Look, I don't have all night to run around in circles. The plan failed, and now I'm leaving.”
And that was what was bothering Ron. Draco probably could get exactly what he set out for with a bit more prodding. He got Ron to agree to Slytherin green floor tile in the entryway. Could a few Ministry galas be that far behind? Instead, Draco chose to make a full confession and leave without asking for anything, which was almost an honorable thing to do. So the question that begged to be asked was why. The answer, it seemed, was that in many ways the plan worked, only not with the results that Draco wanted.
Ron hurt. He hurt in a way he never had hurt before and he didn't know what to do about it, but he knew he had to do something. “It didn't fail,” he said softly.
“You just listed the many glorious ways it did fail. Galas, no. Swatches, yes.”
“It all didn't fail.”
Now Draco looked up but said nothing.
“I had a plan once also,” Ron started, “Several, actually. Plan number one was become a famous hero. I was seven at the time, and I had thought it would involve ridding the world of garden gnomes once and for all, but needless to say, it all worked out in the end. After I found that fame wasn't all I had hoped it would be, I planned to settle down with a nice witch, raise a family and basically stay as far away from Dark Lords as possible. That plan required a small modification as I found witches nearly as unappealing as Dark Lords. “
Ron paused to take a step closer to Draco.
“The problem was I never settled down. I never found anyone that I liked enough to want to spend much more than a few nights with. Then came the next plan, to stop looking all together because it seemed rather pointless to begin with.”
He took another step.
“Then one day I'm in a tea shop and this pathetic excuse for a human being is telling me that he's changed, that he's just looking for a fresh start, and I agree to go out with him because part me really wants to rub his nose in how well I'm doing. But there's this other part of me that is curious as to whether he can change because I want to hope that he can.
“The next thing I know, and frankly I'm still not sure how we got here, we're picking out furniture and making plans for Saturday night. So you see, part of your plan worked. I'm here and you're here, and this is me trying to tell you that I have fallen for you. And while there were no societal galas to speak of, there is you leaving and the possibility of the quivering heap bit, which is more than I can bear, so I think we both need a new plan.”
Ron's voice was confident but his heart was racing and his palms were sweating. He was almost positive he was blushing because the tips of his ears burned in a way they hadn't since he was sixteen and he walked in on Seamus in the shower doing something obscene, but highly interesting, with a bar of soap. But there was something here and it was something worth fighting for, despite the possibly of an entirely crippling humiliation the likes of which the world had never seen before.
“A new plan?” Draco's voice was so soft Ron almost missed it. “It doesn't seem like that would be a good idea at all.”
Ron dropped his eyes. Here it comes. He held little hope that Draco would be merciful.
“Neither one of us seems to have much luck with plans,” Draco continued. “Let's plan not to make any plans.”
Ron lifted his head very slowly, almost afraid to startle Draco with any sudden movements. “No plan?”
“None. No plans. No promises. No more declarations of emotions; I'm crap at them and they don't seem to you suit you either.”
The side of Ron's lip quirked up in a half smile. “That was rather pathetic, wasn't it?”
“Painful, really.”
“Does that mean you'll stop packing?”
“For now. “
“And you'll stay?”
“I worked hard on this place. I should get to enjoy it a bit.”
Somehow they ended up face to face, their noses almost touching. “Draco,” Ron began, “were there really Nargles in your flat?”
Draco dropped his eyes to Ron's lips and then back up. “Yes, but I'm pretty sure Pansy and Potter had something to do with it.”
“Interfering bastards.”
“That's just what I was thinking.”
Ron was still sopping wet from having just gotten out of the bath. Draco's clothes quickly became saturated when Ron pulled him close. Beads of water fell from the tips of Ron's hair onto Draco's face while they kissed. One particularly persistent droplet traveled down his face, past his chin and over his collarbone and Ron chased after it, softly kissing the moist trail until his lips found the line of Draco's neck. Ron's tongue lapped up the wayward drop, and made Draco's knees buckle and his eyes roll the back of his head. Draco felt like air, light and free, and he hoped Ron would breathe him in and never exhale.
Unless you ask Ron, who claims he was most certainly not still wet at that point but rather just slightly damp.
Draco clung to Ron who wrapped his arms around the slender waist and hoisted Draco up, pulling their bodies closer still. They clumsily fell atop the sofa in a pile of interlocking limbs, neither attempting to disengage. Instead they twisted further into each other, trying to touch every inch bare skin that they could reach with fingertips or legs or lips.
Draco scoffs at the hoisted remark as it is in direct conflict with the “light and free as air” imagery and feels “clumsily” is a rather harsh term - awkwardly, perhaps as Draco has never been clumsy a day in his life - but the rest seems accurate.
Ron was particularly interested in the small of Draco's back and the slight rise of his hips. He nuzzled gently into the crook of Draco's shoulder and neck, and inhaled deeply trying to memorize Draco's scent that night and catalogue it along with the dozens of other smells that already had a place in his heart. Draco lazily ran his tongue over Ron's ear lobe and placed small kisses along his hairline. His nails grazed the muscles of Ron's upper arms and broad back as he had wanted to since the first time he saw Ron walk across the parlor in a pair of worn jeans and nothing else.
Draco contends that there was nothing lazy about any of his actions that night and resents the adjective. Ron agrees…and promises to wear those jeans more often.
When he could take no more, Ron bit down on the neck and shoulders that teased him from beneath the collars of his old shirts for months. From that point on the rest of that first night played out in slow motion: Ron sliding down Draco's body and tasting him for the first time while Draco's soft moans echoed softly around the room, Ron gently moving in and out of Draco in perfectly paced movements, whispering in Draco's ears with every thrust.
Ron always blushes at that part. Draco likes to embellish the scene further just to see how red Ron can actually get.
They woke up the following morning still on the sofa using the towel Ron had wore the night before as a blanket. Ron woke first to find Draco asleep underneath him, snuggled into his chest and smiling in his sleep. As if feeling eyes watching him, Draco blinked himself awake. He stared back at Ron and reached up to place a soft kiss on the tip of his nose. “Take me to bed,” he whispered.
They didn't leave the house for a week.
For years they would argue about who said what or who kissed who first. They would argue about a lot of things, actually; it would be a lie to imply otherwise. But they always made up, choosing not to dwell in the foolishness of petty arguments. As Draco had requested there were no declarations of anything other than what to do on Saturday nights. No promises other than the ones that they both made to themselves, and to each other when the other wasn't looking. And no plans, other than to send Harry and Pansy the biggest fruit basket known to wizard-kind on a special date every year with a simple card that read, “Thanks for the Nargles.”
Finis
(Back to Part One)
Pairing: RW/DM
Rating: R
The Odd Couple Part 2
Draco wasted no time in moving in.
Ron opened his door to find Draco standing on his doorstep surrounded by a teetering tower of dozens of pieces of matched luggage. Behind the tower, in a line that stretched all the way down his street were assorted crates, pieces of furniture, and some irate neighbors.
“I suppose it pointless to remind you I said bring only the bare essentials.”
Draco fluttered his eyelashes. “I suppose it's pointless to remind you that I am Draco Malfoy.”
“Point taken,” he said with a small smile. “Let me show you to your room…” Ron took another look at the overflowing street….”rooms.”
Ron's home was a lovely two-floor brownstone that looked as though it was decorated by a color blind - or perhaps completely blind - imbecile who had had far too much to drink.
“Good Lord, Weasley. Who the hell decorated this place? And has he been shot yet?”
“Unless you want to scratch your oh-so-delicate skin on rented sheets, I'd keep my mouth shut, Malfoy.” Ron tried to sound annoyed but he couldn't blame Draco; the apartment was a disaster. He had the funds to fix it up but never the inclination. A lover moved in, painted the rooms or bought some furniture, or both. Then, they'd moved out. Sometimes they took the furniture. Sometimes they didn't. Sometimes they burned it. Whichever way, the flat was in a permanent state of flux, and Ron never saw the need to change it.
“I can't live like this, you realize,” Draco said pointedly.
Ron huffed. “You have no choice.”
Draco huffed back. “But I do and I choose to make this place inhabitable to those of us with the gift of sight.”
“Sight? You mean like a seer?”
“No, I mean like someone with eyes.”
Ron smiled, but he hated himself for it.
***
It wasn't long before Ron found himself buried under a mountain of paint chips trying desperately to tell the difference between Nouvelle White, Montpelier Madison White, Bone China, and Snow Ballet.
They started off small - a new sofa for the parlor. That led to an armchair, a coffee table, two lamps, and new carpeting. Before Ron knew it he was looking at crown molding and wall sconces. They bought a new desk for the study, new chairs for the dining room table, a recreation of a painting by some Muggle named Renoir, and a light fixture from someone named Tiffany.
Suddenly the main bathroom had to be completely gutted out and redone, every window needed new curtains, and almost every room had to be repainted.
Ron resisted at first. Who the hell was Draco to come in change everything? He was leaving in a few months, after all. But damn it if he liked the way the apartment looked. Draco never pushed Ron to get something that Ron didn't want. The colors were simple; the furniture, comfortable. And both suited him quite nicely. It was … familiar, but there was also something so fresh and new about it. It was the type of house he dreamt of when he was a child, full of crisp lines and fine furniture, and it was his.
He never asked Draco why he incorporated some of his own furniture into Ron's house. He figured that Draco saw what he saw - it blended in perfectly.
*****
Harry and Pansy found themselves sitting in a dining room that looked like something out of an architectural magazine. For Harry it was shocking to see Ron's house looking so stylish; Harry remembered when the only furniture Ron owned were two broken chairs, a card table with a wobbly leg, and a mattress that smelled of old socks. Suddenly, there was fresh paint on the walls, colorful draperies, and fresh flowers…and nothing smelled of socks, old or otherwise. But the table linens and fine china where not the centerpieces of this dinner party. The main attraction was the couple that sat across the dinner table.
It was odd enough to be invited to a dinner that didn't come in some sort of take-away container, eaten with utensils that were not made of plastic. But seeing Ron passing the carrots to Draco and telling him to be careful as they were made with ginger and he remembered how much it upset Draco's stomach the last time he had too many of them, was surreal. Watching Draco give Ron an extra serving of roasted potatoes because he knew they were Ron's favorite, made Pansy question exactly what was in the wine she was drinking.
The night was made up of a thousand little moments in the lives of two people who knew each other inside and out: private jokes and playful teasing, one's hand resting on the other's back or leg. A thousand moments between two people who became part of the other's life: Ron drinking his tea without sugar and with a slice of lemon, Draco happily eating a cream-filled pastry. And each time one of these moments passed, Harry and Pansy would exchange a look of shock, amusement, and/or bewilderment.
Ron and Harry retired to the study, the room formally known as the “place with all the unpacked boxes” while Draco took Pansy out to the balcony to drink some wine.
“I like what you've done with the place.”
Ron looked up and smiled. “I've done nothing but nod my head and pay for things. This was all Draco's doing.”
Harry thought that perhaps Ron wanted to say more but something held him back. He waited a full minute before he continued carefully. “You like having him here?”
Ron shrugged noncommittally. “It's all right, I suppose.”
“He seems…comfortable here.” Harry watched, but Ron's demeanor didn't change.
“I suppose.”
Harry took a deep breath. “Are you?”
“Am I what?”
Bastard wasn't going to make this easy, was he? “Comfortable.”
“I suppose.”
“You suppose a lot.”
Ron's eyes narrowed. “You're terrible at this, you know that, Harry? What is it exactly that you want to know?”
Harry only shook his head; leave it to Ron to throw subtlety right out the window. “I want to know that you're happy.”
Ron pulled back, clearly not expecting Harry's remark. “I don't know, “ he responded looking a bit lost. “What kind of question is that?”
“It's the kind of question one friend asks another when he thinks that perhaps this friend has gone insane. But rather than point it out, he chooses to inquire about this friend's current state of mind.”
“Did Hermione tell you to say that?”
“That's neither here nor there,” Harry said with a wave. “Are you going to answer the bloody question?”
“It's a stupid question. What is happy anyway?”
Harry smiled softly; this, he knew the answer to. “Happy is waking up with a smile because you look forward to every day. Happy is feeling warm on a winter's night because there is a soft body lying next to yours. Happy is arms wrapped around you and not letting go.”
Ron raised an eyebrow. “You sound like a man who's been having sex. Lots of sex”
Harry's smile widened.
“Who?”
Harry let out a laugh. “You would never guess. I hardly believe it myself.”
Ron's eyes went wide. “Parkinson! You're sleeping with Parkinson.”
“I'm dating Pansy. The sex is a benefit. It's an incredible benefit. You would never believe what she can do with her-“
Ron blocked his ears with his hands. “Stop it right now.”
Harry sneered. “Consider this payback for me having to listen about your 'Stephan in the baths' story a thousand times.”
Ron's hands went up in surrender. “Since when?”
“Just about when Draco moved in here. We both had a lot of time on our hands while you two kept each other busy.”
Ron's brow furrowed. “Busy? What the hell are you talking about?''
“You and Draco.”
“Me and Draco what?”
“Well, you…you're together. Aren't you?”
Ron was still visibly confused. “He a roommate. A temporary roommate.”
Harry was visibly astonished. “ Temporary? It's been six months.”
“He's not staying.”
“He's not leaving, either.” Suddenly, something dawned on Harry. Something he totally missed. “You…You're not sleeping with him, are you?
“Of course not. I told you I'm not doing that any more.”
Harry was looked at Ron like he had just sprouted a third eye. “You mean, you haven't…all this time and you've never…Are you no longer gay?”
“Of course…what a stupid thing to say. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Are you not attracted to Draco?”
Ron's shoulders fell. “He's attractive, I suppose.”
“Back to supposing.”
Ron threw his arms up in the air. “All right, he's gorgeous. Is that what you want to hear? Even first thing in the morning when he stumbles into the kitchen with his hair ruffled and his eyes bleary, he's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. He always smells good. His skin is always smooth. And I fall asleep with him on my mind every night and wake up thinking of him every. Blasted. Morning. Is that what you wanted to hear?
“Yes!” Harry exclaimed. “That's exactly what I want to hear.”
“Have you been dipping into McGonagall's biscuit tin again?”
“Ron, you and Draco are good together. Lord knows why. I certainly don't understand it, but it works. You have to see that?”
Ron fell back onto an over stuffed armchair. “Do you know he walks around in my shirts because he finds them comfortable. They're three sizes too big and hang loosely off his body, far down enough for me to see his collarbone, and all I want to do is scoop him up in my arms and sink my teeth into his neck.”
“That's great!”
“Great? We've become friends. I can't hit on him now. It would ruin everything. “
“What's there to ruin? You're not sleeping with him.”
“It's not about that. “ It was painfully clear that or neither was buying that one. “Okay, it's not only about that. Things are nice now. Do you really think I want to take the chance of saying or doing something that could change everything?”
Harry looked pitiably upon his friend. “I think that's exactly what you need to do.”
*~*
Meanwhile, on the other side of the apartment….
Pansy was leaning against the railing of the balcony with one arm wrapped around the stone gargoyle that sat guard on the ledge. “So tell me, Draco Darling, is he as good as I always thought he would be?”
Draco continued to pour his wine. “Good? Good at what?”
“Oh, come on. You can tell me. As a matter of fact you usually do. In vivid detail. With sketches. And costumes. And background music.”
Draco took a long sip of wine. “There's nothing to tell, Pansy. There's nothing going on.”
Pansy put her glass down next to the gargoyle. “What do you mean by nothing? Nothing as in nothing particularly kinky. Nothing that you haven't done before. Nothing worth recording.”
“Nothing as in nothing. We're just friends.”
She laughed. “Draco, you don't have friends.”
“What are you?”
“A masochist. Can we go back to this nothing business?”
Draco went to put down his glass and thought better of it. He opted to filling it to the rim instead. “Okay, let's try it this way. I have a bed, and Ron has a bed, and every night they are both occupied.”
Pansy's eyes perked up. “You go back and forth. That seems needless.”
“For the love of … Pansy, I haven't had sex in months and, frankly, I'm on the edge. Keep antagonizing me and I might be forced to do something drastic.”
“Like jumping off this balcony?”
“Like sleeping with you.”
“Too late, I'm taken,” she said with a wicked smile.
Draco scoffed. “I know, and let me tell you I'm not pleased. Sleeping with Potter is a disgrace to your race, your species, and worst of all, to me.”
Her smile dropped. “How did you know?”
“You reek of faded glory and Muggle cologne.”
It was Pansy's turn to scoff. “At least I'm not considering changing sexual orientations.”
Draco picked his glass up to take another long sip when he stopped dead. “Wait a minute. Did you ask if he was as good as you always thought he would be?”
“Yes.”
“When were you thinking of Weasley?”
“I've liked pretty boys longer than you, Draco, and Weasley is nice on the eyes.”
Draco didn't seem to like that answer. “You always said he was too tall, too thin, too red, too spotted, and too poor to waste time on.”
Pansy leaned in and tilted her head forward, looking up a him through thick eyelashes. “So did you.”
“Point taken. “ That admission didn't go down as easily as his wine.
Pansy watched her friend closely and careful concern crept into her mind. “Draco, that was a lifetime ago. He's a different man now. I've noticed, and I 'm pretty sure you have as well.”
“Oh, I've noticed. You know he spends half the day topless? The bastard walks around with his muscled arms and broad chest and rippled stomach all mocking me with their chiseled perfection. I've taken to wearing his shirts because they are three sizes too big on me and I'm hoping he won't see how thin I am.”
That made Pansy smile. “He has a nice arse, too.”
“Nice!? Sonnets should be written about that arse.”
“So what's the problem, then?”
“There is no problem.”
Pansy went to retrieve her glass from the gargoyle but stopped as his words. She whipped her head around and glared at Draco. “No problem. Are you even listening to yourself? You've become a housewitch, buying curtains and furniture, planning dinner parties, playing house, and you aren't even having sex. I consider that a problem.”
“I'm not a housewitch.”
“What do you call it?”
“I told you, we're friends. We do things for each other the way that people do when they are friends. I decorated the place because he has no taste whatsoever. I planned the dinner party because he missed Harry, and I know that the only way to get him out of your bed was to entice him with food, knowing full well that you don't even know where you kitchen is. I'm doing what one friend would do for another.”
Pansy's voice was soft. “And what does Ron do for you?”
Draco just looked at her, his shoulder squared and his proud chin jutted out. And with that look Pansy knew Draco was in more trouble than he would ever admit.
“Why don't you tell him?”
“There's nothing to tell.”
“Again with the nothing. You know, for someone who's got a whole lot of nothing going on you sure are staying here an awfully long time. “ Pansy looked pitiably upon her friend. “Tell me, Draco, since there are no more windows to be dressed, no more rooms to be furnished, no more walls to be painted, and your apartment has been Nargle free for months, then why are you staying?”
Draco didn't say anything; instead he turned to look over the balcony and drank the rest of his wine.
~*~*~
Later that night, Ron Weasley couldn't sleep. He got out of his bed and took a long hot bath to loosen the ring of tight muscle around his neck and shoulders. As he lay there, immersed to his chin in a near scalding pool, he looked at the little mementos of Draco that decorated the bathroom: the scented soap, the bath salts, the half dozen bottles of cologne. No wonder Draco always smelled so good.
Ron got up out of the bath and while still dripping wet and naked, he walked over the shelves that held the colored glass bottles. He picked up a small green bottle and removed the stopper. He lifted it to his nose and inhaled deeply. This one was a spicy scent that Draco liked to wear when they went to the theater. Ron picked up another that smelled clean and crisp; Draco liked to wear that one when they went out to dinner. A third smelled like the ocean. That one Draco wore when it was just the two of them at home playing chess, or just making dinner, or talking about something Ron had read in the paper that morning.
He went to pick up another when he heard a noise coming from the parlor. Ron grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist before going to see what was stirring it the middle of the night. What he found was Draco packing some books into a box.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Draco looked up with a start and froze as his eyes scanned Ron's towel clad body. After a minute he seemed to gather his wits and answered: “I'm packing.”
”What? Why? What for?”
Draco didn't look up. “There are no more windows to be dressed, no more rooms to be furnished, no more walls to be painted, and my apartment has been Nargle free for months. It's time I stopped imposing on you.”
“You're not imposing,” Ron half-whispered.
“You can't honestly tell me you want me here.” Draco stopped packing but he still didn't look up. He was waiting for an answer.
Ron didn't have one. After a short pause Draco continued to pack.
One by one, books began to fill the box, and with each one Ron felt like his life was slipping away from him. His heart felt like a stone in his chest and his stomach began to churn violently. “We were supposed to go shopping tomorrow so you could pick out all new shirts for me because my old ones were too scratchy on your skin,” he said with a hint of a smile.
“Your shirts are fine,” came the listless reply.
“What about the play in London next Thursday?”
“I heard it was awful, we won't be missing much.”
“And dinner at my Mum's on Sunday?”
“Give her my regrets. I will miss her blackberry pie.”
Ron wanted to be angry, but he couldn't get past the hurt. “So that's it, then.”
Draco said nothing and continued to pack.
“I should have known you couldn't change.” Ron did his best to keep his voice steady. “Still the same selfish bastard you always were. I don't know why I thought you'd be any different now. You've had your fun, and now what?…You're bored with me. Had fun spending my money. Making me-“ he stopped himself. He felt himself starting to lose control and he pulled back. He wasn't that insecure boy any more and he sure as hell wasn't about to let Draco see him break. “Do what you want.” He turned to leave.
“It was all a scam, Weasley.”
Ron turned and saw Draco looking pale and small and tired. “What are you talking about?”
“You were my ticket back into high society. You were going to all the parties I should have been attending, and it was killing me. I got sick of seeing your name in the paper and decided to do something about it. I made sure we accidentally bumped into each other and made sure we went out together right after. You were supposed to fall for me, take me to the most exclusive functions and galas, and once I was firmly embedded back with the societal strata I would unceremoniously dump you, leaving you a quivering heap at my feet. ”
Ron was quiet for a long moment and then quite suddenly said, “We haven't gone to one party since you moved in.”
Draco shrugged. “I didn't say it was a good plan.”
“So what happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“There were no exclusive functions or galas, no brushing elbows with high society. There was you and me making dinner and going shopping and looking at swatches.”
“Things changed.”
“What changed?”
“Things?”
“What things?”
“Look, I don't have all night to run around in circles. The plan failed, and now I'm leaving.”
And that was what was bothering Ron. Draco probably could get exactly what he set out for with a bit more prodding. He got Ron to agree to Slytherin green floor tile in the entryway. Could a few Ministry galas be that far behind? Instead, Draco chose to make a full confession and leave without asking for anything, which was almost an honorable thing to do. So the question that begged to be asked was why. The answer, it seemed, was that in many ways the plan worked, only not with the results that Draco wanted.
Ron hurt. He hurt in a way he never had hurt before and he didn't know what to do about it, but he knew he had to do something. “It didn't fail,” he said softly.
“You just listed the many glorious ways it did fail. Galas, no. Swatches, yes.”
“It all didn't fail.”
Now Draco looked up but said nothing.
“I had a plan once also,” Ron started, “Several, actually. Plan number one was become a famous hero. I was seven at the time, and I had thought it would involve ridding the world of garden gnomes once and for all, but needless to say, it all worked out in the end. After I found that fame wasn't all I had hoped it would be, I planned to settle down with a nice witch, raise a family and basically stay as far away from Dark Lords as possible. That plan required a small modification as I found witches nearly as unappealing as Dark Lords. “
Ron paused to take a step closer to Draco.
“The problem was I never settled down. I never found anyone that I liked enough to want to spend much more than a few nights with. Then came the next plan, to stop looking all together because it seemed rather pointless to begin with.”
He took another step.
“Then one day I'm in a tea shop and this pathetic excuse for a human being is telling me that he's changed, that he's just looking for a fresh start, and I agree to go out with him because part me really wants to rub his nose in how well I'm doing. But there's this other part of me that is curious as to whether he can change because I want to hope that he can.
“The next thing I know, and frankly I'm still not sure how we got here, we're picking out furniture and making plans for Saturday night. So you see, part of your plan worked. I'm here and you're here, and this is me trying to tell you that I have fallen for you. And while there were no societal galas to speak of, there is you leaving and the possibility of the quivering heap bit, which is more than I can bear, so I think we both need a new plan.”
Ron's voice was confident but his heart was racing and his palms were sweating. He was almost positive he was blushing because the tips of his ears burned in a way they hadn't since he was sixteen and he walked in on Seamus in the shower doing something obscene, but highly interesting, with a bar of soap. But there was something here and it was something worth fighting for, despite the possibly of an entirely crippling humiliation the likes of which the world had never seen before.
“A new plan?” Draco's voice was so soft Ron almost missed it. “It doesn't seem like that would be a good idea at all.”
Ron dropped his eyes. Here it comes. He held little hope that Draco would be merciful.
“Neither one of us seems to have much luck with plans,” Draco continued. “Let's plan not to make any plans.”
Ron lifted his head very slowly, almost afraid to startle Draco with any sudden movements. “No plan?”
“None. No plans. No promises. No more declarations of emotions; I'm crap at them and they don't seem to you suit you either.”
The side of Ron's lip quirked up in a half smile. “That was rather pathetic, wasn't it?”
“Painful, really.”
“Does that mean you'll stop packing?”
“For now. “
“And you'll stay?”
“I worked hard on this place. I should get to enjoy it a bit.”
Somehow they ended up face to face, their noses almost touching. “Draco,” Ron began, “were there really Nargles in your flat?”
Draco dropped his eyes to Ron's lips and then back up. “Yes, but I'm pretty sure Pansy and Potter had something to do with it.”
“Interfering bastards.”
“That's just what I was thinking.”
Ron was still sopping wet from having just gotten out of the bath. Draco's clothes quickly became saturated when Ron pulled him close. Beads of water fell from the tips of Ron's hair onto Draco's face while they kissed. One particularly persistent droplet traveled down his face, past his chin and over his collarbone and Ron chased after it, softly kissing the moist trail until his lips found the line of Draco's neck. Ron's tongue lapped up the wayward drop, and made Draco's knees buckle and his eyes roll the back of his head. Draco felt like air, light and free, and he hoped Ron would breathe him in and never exhale.
Unless you ask Ron, who claims he was most certainly not still wet at that point but rather just slightly damp.
Draco clung to Ron who wrapped his arms around the slender waist and hoisted Draco up, pulling their bodies closer still. They clumsily fell atop the sofa in a pile of interlocking limbs, neither attempting to disengage. Instead they twisted further into each other, trying to touch every inch bare skin that they could reach with fingertips or legs or lips.
Draco scoffs at the hoisted remark as it is in direct conflict with the “light and free as air” imagery and feels “clumsily” is a rather harsh term - awkwardly, perhaps as Draco has never been clumsy a day in his life - but the rest seems accurate.
Ron was particularly interested in the small of Draco's back and the slight rise of his hips. He nuzzled gently into the crook of Draco's shoulder and neck, and inhaled deeply trying to memorize Draco's scent that night and catalogue it along with the dozens of other smells that already had a place in his heart. Draco lazily ran his tongue over Ron's ear lobe and placed small kisses along his hairline. His nails grazed the muscles of Ron's upper arms and broad back as he had wanted to since the first time he saw Ron walk across the parlor in a pair of worn jeans and nothing else.
Draco contends that there was nothing lazy about any of his actions that night and resents the adjective. Ron agrees…and promises to wear those jeans more often.
When he could take no more, Ron bit down on the neck and shoulders that teased him from beneath the collars of his old shirts for months. From that point on the rest of that first night played out in slow motion: Ron sliding down Draco's body and tasting him for the first time while Draco's soft moans echoed softly around the room, Ron gently moving in and out of Draco in perfectly paced movements, whispering in Draco's ears with every thrust.
Ron always blushes at that part. Draco likes to embellish the scene further just to see how red Ron can actually get.
They woke up the following morning still on the sofa using the towel Ron had wore the night before as a blanket. Ron woke first to find Draco asleep underneath him, snuggled into his chest and smiling in his sleep. As if feeling eyes watching him, Draco blinked himself awake. He stared back at Ron and reached up to place a soft kiss on the tip of his nose. “Take me to bed,” he whispered.
They didn't leave the house for a week.
For years they would argue about who said what or who kissed who first. They would argue about a lot of things, actually; it would be a lie to imply otherwise. But they always made up, choosing not to dwell in the foolishness of petty arguments. As Draco had requested there were no declarations of anything other than what to do on Saturday nights. No promises other than the ones that they both made to themselves, and to each other when the other wasn't looking. And no plans, other than to send Harry and Pansy the biggest fruit basket known to wizard-kind on a special date every year with a simple card that read, “Thanks for the Nargles.”
Finis
(Back to Part One)