Title: One of These Days
Author: Smoo ( )
Furniture: picnic table
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
All your HP are belong to JKR.
Notes: Please be gentle, this is my first attempt at slash.
Splat. Splat.
Fat drops of water suddenly appeared on the parchment, making little brown pools where they smudged the not-quite-dry ink.
Bugger. Harry looked up at the rapidly darkening sky, squinting as more drops of water fell on his glasses, blurring his vision, more rain. Merlin knows we certainly don't get enough of that in England.
His irritation abated as the sound of thunder rumbled in the distance, and then again, much closer. Harry had always loved the sound of thunder, even sleeping in his little cupboard as a child, he used to imagine what it must be like, a force powerful enough to make the heavens move. Whenever he could, he would sneak out of his darkness and sit by a window, long after the Dursleys were asleep, and watch the storm take turns deafening and blinding the countryside, until the first rays of sun would push their way out from behind the grey.
The sharp crack of lightning startled Harry out of his reverie, and he moved to gather up his sodden papers and hastened toward the cover of the verandah. After half-heartedly trying to salvage his report on Dark activities in North Germany, he gave up and, pushing the pulpy mess aside, settled down in the large wicker armchair to watch the rain.
The sky was rapidly turning from a drab sort of grey to black, and as the evening progressed, Harry watched as the greens and whites of his yard dulled and the shadows took over. His eyes scanned the front lawn of their house; his house, he reminded himself with a sharp pang in his chest: only his name hung on the door, only his clothes were piled in the bedroom, and he only cooked tasteless meals for one.
He looked over the picket fence that ran around the property, white of course; it had been a standing joke between the two of them--how Harry had always wanted a house with a white picket fence and No landscaped flowerbeds with store-bought begonias and daffodils. And so the lawn was lined with trees, and thankfully missing any plastic ornaments, the kind his aunt used to be so fond of. The only decoration stood right in the center of the grass, in all its green and red glory. A picnic table, the kind made out of three thick planks of wood, and attached seats on either side.
Harry smiled a little when he looked at it, absently rubbing one side of his bottom, which was stiff from being at a different level from the other. It had been a Christmas present from Draco, who had locked himself away in the shed for weeks, disappearing from after breakfast, missing lunch and reappearing once the sun had set. At first Harry had thought he was practicing the Dark Arts, and after some heavy-duty, and rather sweat-inducing convincing, Draco had persuaded him that nothing of the kind was taking place. Soon, Harry just left him to his own devices, being more than busy with the post-war cleanups of the Wizarding world.
Then, a few days before Christmas, Harry had walked into the kitchen late one morning, after a particularly trying raid on the manse of a suspected Death Eater and found Draco reading the paper, looking tired and extremely strange with a blob of bright red paint clinging to a lock of his silvery hair. He looked up, silver eyes shining, and set his coffee mug down with a loud sound, spilling what was left of the dark liquid onto the countertop. Proudly announcing that he had a surprise for Harry, he had led his bewildered lover by the hand to the front of the house, where, in the middle of the magically cleared, immaculately pruned grass, stood Harry's present.
Harry later remembered the look of naked delight on Draco's face being the only thing that kept him from laughing out loud when he took in the sight before his eyes. Draco had made the entire thing without using any magic, he had declared proudly, having used an instruction manual from a carpenter's magazine and an inordinate amount of patience with Obnoxious Muggle power tools made for the sole purpose of slicing off one's appendages.
The table itself was made of three planks of bumpily sawed wood, held together with what appeared to be sheer will-power, and it was attached on either side to two uneven seats, which dipped in the middle, and curled up on either side. The entire contraption was painted in bright hues of red and green, Gryffindor and Slytherin colours, Draco had informed him happily, and Christmassy to boot. Harry had been so touched that he hadn't had the heart to tell Draco that the table resembled nothing so much as an oversized Christmas elf's shoe.
Later that night, after several hours of alternately energetic and tender lovemaking, Harry, half asleep, had asked Draco why he chose a picnic table of all things, as a Christmas present. Draco, sounding rather like he was talking to a small child, reminded Harry that he had once reminisced about a picnic that he had attended at the Burrow before his fourth year of school, and how he had loved feeling like part of a family, even though the feeling had been short-lived. "I wanted you to always have that feeling," Draco had told Harry shyly, brushing the hair out of Harry's suddenly tear-filled eyes. "Now, we can make our own memories with picnics and friends and--" Draco never got the chance to finish the thought, because Harry kissed him with as much passion as he felt right then, trying frantically to show Draco just how much the thought meant to him, using his mouth and his tears, his teeth and fingers, because no words would have adequately expressed all his love for the man who had used his hands, possibly for the first time in his life, to build Harry a part of the life he had so desperately craved his entire existence.
And there the table remained, months after Draco had disappeared from Harry's life, a monument to the gaping hole that took up most of Harry's heart. He looked at the table for a long time as the evening bore on, and as night fell, he kept looking in its direction even though only its silhouette was visible until the lightning flashed, illuminating everything in its eerie silver light. Almost the colour of Draco's hair, Harry thought before he could help himself. Then, he shook his head and stood up, the armchair creaking as his weight lifted from it. It had been an armchair built for two, but now only the cushion on Harry's side had a dent in it.
Suddenly feeling cold, he wrapped his arms around himself, rubbing up and down to try and warm up again. Enough of this, he told himself sternly, and moved toward the door. The thunder rumbled loudly again, and Harry turned to look back at the garden one last time, and, just then, a particularly bright streak of lightning flashed, illuminating not only the table, but a hooded figure, sitting on the end furthest from the verandah.
Harry screamed in surprise, and blinked several times, but the night was as dark as before, and nothing more could be seen beyond the few feet lit by the feeble bulb over the front door. Scarcely believing what he saw, Harry flew down the stairs and toward the table, sandaled feet squelching through the wet, muddy lawn. He slipped on the slick grass, pitching face first onto the ground, his glasses falling off his face in the process. Not bothering to search for them, he picked himself up and continued in the direction of the table, half blind, his hands reaching in front of him as his feet slid around underneath, trying to keep balance till they reached their destination.
And reach he did, by banging his right shin extremely painfully into the corner of the table. Harry swore out loud, and then forgot about the pain as he groped around the table toward the opposite end, blind in the dark and the rain, water dripping from his fringe into his eyes and down his nose.
"Draco?" he whispered hoarsely, "Is that you?"
He could hear nothing save for the howling of the wind and the hollow sounds of the heavy droplets as they fell unerringly onto the surfaces of the table and seats.
"Draco!" he said a little more loudly, his heart feeling like it was going to explode in his chest. He felt his way around the table, over and over, till his feet started to go numb with the cold. He kept saying Draco's name, sometimes calling him out loud, and sometimes whispering it too softly for his voice to carry over the wind. He ran his hands over every surface of the wood, the legs, the upward curls of the seats, even after losing all feeling in his fingers, his face equally wet with rainwater and his own tears. Finally, frozen to the core, he sank down into the mud, frostbitten hands at his sides, and, leaning against the frame of the table, closed his eyes.
And that was how, at about half past eight the next morning, Ron found him as he came to pick up Harry on his way to work. Shaking his head, he carefully picked up the unconscious form of his best friend and carried him into the house, covering him with warmed blankets before calling Hermione through the fireplace.
"You'd better get over here," he said, "He's done it again.
"I'm on my way," said his other best friend resignedly. "There was a storm last night, wasn't there? I've told you before, never to leave him alone when it's raining. His hallucinations are going to kill him one of these days."