Title: A Doll's House
Author: Audley ()
Furniture: a doll's house
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: Many thanks to Vinagrette who gave me such a bolshy lomtick of furniture <-- I am much with the nadsat ;) The opening sentence of A Doll's House is taken from '20 Years Too Late' by Edwyn Collins.
This fic is dedicated to the incomparable Miss Douglas who is The Coolest and inspired me to the end.
'Hello chaos, my old friend.'
Draco Malfoy continued writing at the desk in the sitting room when he heard the voice of his guest. 'Cute,' he remarked in a way that made cuteness sound like a morbid fascination. 'You always were a one for dramatic introductions.'
'And you never were?'
The quill in Draco's hand stopped scratching away at parchment and he held his hand mid-air for a moment; just one moment, though he didn't want it to seem like such an offhand little reply had challenged him any more than it had.
Draco twisted around in his chair and saw Harry Potter standing before the entrance of the sitting room, not one inch of him crossed beneath the arch that lead from the entrance hall into the sitting room. Draco found himself spending more and more time in that room lately, so he was very well practiced in watching people enter it.
'Asking questions already,' Draco noted with a raised eyebrow as he stood up and leant against the desk to steady himself. 'I love it.'
Harry smiled, a plain and almost innocent smile. 'Do you?'
Draco smiled too; he wasn't at all surprised by the demure way in which Harry's voice came towards him, although maybe he should have been. It had been ... perhaps a year now? A whole year that they had not seen each other - not in person, anyway, Draco amended to himself, thinking of the many times he had come across Harry's pictures since-
Even the threat of thinking about the last time he had seen Harry was enough to alter his disposition, his discomfort hid by the fact the curtains in the large room were drawn closed. The only light came from candles located in places that couldn't shine directly on Draco's face from where he stood and from light beyond the room's entrance where Harry was; it had the effect of showing him Harry's outline quite clearly, but few other details. He had never needed a clear field of vision to know exactly what Harry looked like, though.
Retrieving a large candle from further along the desk, Draco took it in his hands and walked towards Harry, who, he noted with a small jolt of masked pleasure, remained as well trained as ever. It had taken Draco quite some time to get Harry to not come into his presence until he was brought there, and the fact that he still took this to heart was something Draco could easily mistake as being concerted effort.
For not the first time in his life Draco ignored the spoilt voice of cynicism that insisted Harry's actions were purely based on habit and not on any lingering emotional ties.
'It's very dark in here,' Harry noted with slight amusement when Draco came within a few feet of him.
Draco turned to him and copied his expression, the white candle in his own hands illuminating his face from the darkness. 'Well, we all know that obsessive psychopaths can never have enough mood lighting.'
Harry put his hand up to his mouth and made a half-hearted attempt to cover the little grin Draco's remark engendered on him, the purpose being to make sure that nothing was hidden from Draco at all. He wasn't entirely certain, but Harry thought he spied a smile, the kind of smile that used to make his face flush with delight.
But that was before he went away, and long before Draco went away too.
As Draco led him inside Harry realized that not a lot had changed about the main sitting room in Malfoy Manor since his last visit, something that didn't surprise him as he didn't think anything in the room had changed much at all in the last two hundred years.
Still the outline of stately old furniture stood out to him: the desk in front of glass windows that overlooked a courtyard, the faded green and silver brocade that covered walls and chairs and divans, portraits of Malfoys that seemed to have been painted while the wind was changing; familiar things like that which Harry almost found himself missing.
There were only two unfamiliar differences of note and they both seemed negligible: the usually immaculate desk had a small structure resting upon it and a stack of parchments beside it, and, seemingly more note-worthy, there was a large wooden chest in the centre of the room. Harry could tell it didn't belong there, but he didn't feel he should pry into what its purpose was. Draco could be terribly particular about his family's possessions.
There was also an unfamiliar scent in the room that Harry couldn't quite place so he took a deep breath in, noticeably enough so that Draco would see him do it.
'It's an interesting fragrance,' Harry said when Draco failed to be baited into explaining it, he did, however, seem perfectly content that Harry had picked up on it.
'A little vinaigrette,' Draco nodded to a small silver bottle on the desk, flopping casually on the couch that faced towards the windows and placing the candlestick he held on the floor in front of him. 'You can look at it, if you like.'
'Why, thank you,' Harry resisted the urge to chuckle at how entirely too quaint Draco was being, and instead did as suggested and removed the bottle from the table and held it under his nose.
Harry stood directly in front of the desk, and though he tried to pay attention to the strange scent he was breathing in through the bottle's grill he could not ignore the dollhouse; he couldn't take his eyes off it and he had the feeling Draco had intended it to be that way.
'How completely odd,' Harry grinned and bent down to take a look inside the little house. 'I never had you for dolls.'
Draco rolled his eyes. 'I like pretty little things.'
'I'm sure,' Harry remarked, still smiling and still observing the curious dolls that occupied the house.
There was nothing uniform about these dolls; they occupied every room of the house but none of them looked like they had anything to do with each other. In the dining room of the house a number of wizards crowded around a long table, some with grey beards, others quite young; one was posed in an odd fashion, his arms were outstretched above his head and his cane seemed to be poking the doll next to him in the eye.
Both dolls seemed quite perplexed.
The upstairs rooms were also full to the brim with dolls except one room. This room was the largest and contained a miniature four-poster bed within it, much like the beds Hogwarts students slept in.
Harry took a closer look at the bed in the dollhouse and saw that a chest not unlike the one in the centre of the sitting room was placed in front of the tiny bed. But, unlike the dollhouse, the chest in the sitting room was not open. The dollhouse's was, and within it sat a very familiar doll with a shocked expression similar to the others but slightly more outraged, and slightly more injured too: one of its arms had fallen off.
No, not fallen off, Harry changed his mind; the doll's arm had been torn off, perhaps even ... twisted off?
It was the most well dressed of all the dolls, anyway, with long silvery hair and a black walking stick.
'This is almost disturbing,' Harry said with a little laugh, attempting to ignore the angry blonde doll by picking up a small doll with red hair and a very pale face; it wore an expression of surprise that made Harry wonder if wizarding dolls had the ability to convey feelings or even talk like so many other seemingly inanimate things did in the wizarding world. 'You know,' Harry said and replaced the doll in her chair, casting it one last thoughtful look before turning back to Draco. 'This house really does look very familiar.'
In the mean time Draco had opened a small book from which he looked up momentarily, not at all with curiosity at the remark and perhaps not even with care.
'May I close it?' Harry asked, feeling somewhat foolish that just like old times, he mused whenever he was in Draco's company his voice and his speech always became slightly precious. Like Draco, really, Harry gave a mental nod of agreement with himself.
'Yes.'
Of course, Draco was also very indifferent about most everything too and he returned to his book saying nothing else.
'Well,' Harry grinned when he pulled the two doors of the dollhouse closed, creating its fa�ade and showing him just what building the house was modelled on. 'It's this house.'
Draco looked up again and started making a clicking noise with his tongue, like some sort of clock.
'Close your mouth, Draco,' Harry said with a coy little grin; something Draco hadn't the pleasure to see, only to hear, as Harry remained with his back to him. 'Something might come inside it.'
'Not if it stands playing with dolls all day.'
Harry spun around immediately at that remark and found that Draco had looked away. Something wasn't quite "Draco" though: he was smiling, smiling like a child caught laughing in church might, or, Harry reflected, like someone who wanted something but hadn't the courage to directly say it.
'You're playing with me,' Harry frowned, Draco's teasing words hitting him like he thought they couldn't do anymore. He really shouldn't have baited Draco in such a personal way, but he couldn't help it.
Or he didn't want to.
'You're playing with me,' Draco insisted and turned to face him again, the strange smile gone and replaced with an expression of hurt.
The silence that fell between them was far more menacing than it was uncomfortable, but in the spirit of reconciliation which may or may not have been the point of Harry's visit, neither he nor Draco had decided yet, Harry decided to end the exchange before it became something much worse.
Meaning to join Draco on the couch he took a few steps before the darkness impeded him to such a point where he forgot about the chest in the centre of the room and walked straight into it, wincing before giving the chest a short, vengeful kick.
'Man,' Harry frowned at the offending piece of furniture. 'That chest is really solid,' he said as he tried to push it back with his foot but failed to do so. 'What have you got in here? A dead body or something?'
Draco gave him a faint smile. 'Something like that.'
Harry chose to ignore Draco's macabre little suggestion and sat at the opposite end of the couch, highly aware that Draco had stopped reading his book and was now staring in that horrible way he did when he wanted to force people to talk.
'I was a bit wary about coming over,' Harry admitted tentatively, not at all sure that he sure be saying things like that.
'I know,' Draco lied. He had assumed that Harry would feel slightly uncomfortable about being in the manor once again, but he hadn't known it for certain, and he really did hate it when people claimed things they couldn't possibly know. Harry had always forgiven him for being a hypocrite. 'But I never wanted to lose you--lose contact, I mean,' Draco added, but not quickly enough to make it look like a mistake, or even a covered mistake.
Again Harry had cause to ignore something Draco said--he refused to quiver at suggestive remarks, macabre or otherwise.
'No one knew where you were,' Harry said, with such a quiet voice that Draco leant in closer to hear him, something which made Harry swallow nervously at. 'I thought you were dead at one point.'
'Yes well, oops, sorry,' Draco whispered loudly and widened his eyes like some sort of madman. 'I was only mostly dead. My heart, you know,' he explained, his bitterness apparent. 'I didn't have one.'
Harry shook his head, Draco's words ringing true to things Harry had once upon a time said in anger. 'Why do you act like that?'
'You told everyone-' Draco paused to take back his last word. 'You told some people that everything was my fault.'
Harry leant back into the chair so far that his chin rested upon his chest, and having done so he crossed his arms too. 'Wasn't it?'
Draco sniffed. 'I was only several thousand miles away from defending myself.'
'You didn't have to go away,' said Harry, though he wasn't sure he really meant that. It had been a lot easier on him to not have to worry about seeing Draco after their fallout; even now, he was afraid that seeing Draco would act like a temporary amnesia and he would fall again.
Draco gave him a blank look, the inflection behind his words saying more than any expression ever could. 'Neither did you.'
Harry was truly taken aback by this; surely there was no question that he had to leave? 'I couldn't stay,' Harry said with not a little disbelief seeping into his voice. 'You know I couldn't.' Harry bit his bottom lip nervously and implored Draco with his eyes. 'You do know that, don't you?'
'Oh please,' Draco scoffed, but immediately regretted having done so. He had accepted, somewhere along the way when he still felt like he would die from sorrow but that he could at least try to face the world again, that things with Harry had all gone terribly wrong due to his own vulnerability.
There had been a time when he could have lived his life and not bothered thinking about Harry Potter at all, but he couldn't remember what that was like anymore because once he was involved with Harry it consumed him. Slowly at first, but eventually, despite the motions of his daily life, Harry was the only thing he cared about. It hadn't been healthy, and Harry was the first person to know.
'But you were happy, weren't you?' Draco leant towards Harry again, sending off warning signals to both of them. 'At one stage ... we were good together.'
Harry cast him a stern look; he felt awful for looking at him like that, but he could feel them both slipping away from a resolution that had been forced upon them over a year ago. 'It wasn't the kind of relationship you enjoy, Draco.' Harry shook his head. 'It was the kind of relationship you survive.'
The pained expression on Draco's face twisted quickly into one of anger, and he sprang up from the couch and stormed out of the sitting room, Harry following close behind.
'You were right to be wary,' Draco made his way to the staircase, his fists clenched at the end of arms kept still and free of their normal swinging motion. 'You shouldn't have come.'
'I came for a reason,' Harry called, still hurrying after Draco who wouldn't look behind at him.
Draco had only climbed a few of the steps when he stopped on hearing Harry's last words. 'What reason?'
'I don't know.'
It wasn't a lie, Harry had gone there for a reason, but he really didn't know why. Was it just because Draco had asked him? He never could refuse Draco, even after everything that had happened, even despite his best judgment.
His best judgment just could never deny Draco, and perhaps there was more to that than Harry cared to acknowledge. He'd always thought his judgment was weak when it came to Draco ... maybe it wasn't. Maybe it had been strong all along; maybe he was right to never turn away?
Draco tensed his shoulders up before relaxing them, and then, being entirely certain, he turned around and extended his hand. 'Come upstairs.'
Harry glanced up at Draco wide-eyed and apprehensive; it felt too late, too late to avert anything more terrible from happening.
'This won't make anything better,' Harry said, quiet and withdrawn, and almost surrendered.
Draco matched the fragile sentiment in Harry's voice, and asked him to come upstairs again, not with what he said, but with what he meant. 'You,' he said with the conviction he could only hold for the person he loved, 'make me better.'
And, despite feeling as though his knees might fail him any moment, Harry reached up and took his hand.
***
There was a tight feeling in his chest that wasn't caused by the inability to breathe--this feeling was the thing that took his breath away. He was panicking.
His eyes fluttered open quickly and he rolled onto his back. He stretched his right arm out and then he knew--
Harry was gone.
***
Draco awoke with a gasp, the suddenness of his waking causing his head to jerk back. He was so disoriented by this abrupt movement that he struggled to roll over before going too far and falling out of the bed, reaching his hand out and grabbing onto his bedside table as he went down.
The force of the hard wooden floor making contact with his skull caused a sickening crack to sound, the noise barely heard with the rocking of the table, the thud of his body, and the rattling of his wand across the floor.
Yet even with the pain Draco forced himself to lunge towards his wand; once he had turned around he saw that Harry had sat up and was staring at him, a look of surprise on his face.
It was both impulse and necessity, but Draco still felt guilt when he directed his wand to Harry and cast the spell that would send him back to sleep.
'Oh' Draco meant to say more, but he couldn't bring himself to call upon God. 'Oh.' He threw his wand, and it skittered away beneath a chair, away from a place he could see it. 'Dreams,' Draco murmured, glancing wildly around the room. 'Dreams, I hate you.'
What colour there was drained away from Draco's face as he got on his knees and half- crawled, half-dragged himself towards his desk; the more effort he made the slower he got.
'I can't be without you,' Draco sniffed as he pulled himself onto the chair and looked at the parchments lined up neatly on the desk. 'I can't, I can't,' he whispered and clawed at his chest where Harry had always believed a heart was, his elbow knocking a bottle of ink over.
Draco never cried much, not even when his father had ... gone missing.
'I, I don't know,' he stammered, forgetting what it was he had no idea of. 'I- you- I can't, I don't ... you- you have to stay,' Draco declared out loud and turned around in his chair to watch the sleeping Harry. 'I'll look at you always; you can't ever leave me, you won't ever want to. You don't know, I ...'
A very quiet dripping sound came to his ears: the ink was spilling slowly from the table and onto the carpet.
Draco watched the pool of ink balloon across the floor, and the effect was something inspirational; it reminded Draco of something he had intended to do before but had forgot in the face of Harry's presence.
Giving Harry one last longing look, Draco dashed downstairs, a funny smile replacing his tears.
The chest was still in the centre of the sitting room just where he had left it, which would have been fine if Draco were intending on keeping Harry locked inside it for all eternity. But, he reminded himself loftily as he approached the sitting room desk, there was already something locked inside there already, and he was fairly certain it would be there for a very long time.
Quickly finding the vinaigrette Draco held it close to his chest and envisioned what he would soon do with it; it wasn't just a scent, and he really should have been more disappointed with Harry for not realizing it.
The vinaigrette was only a small part of his intentions, however. It was merely the potion inside it that made it important; once it was used it would have no other significance. Just another pretty little thing, empty and without purpose.
But not the dollhouse, the dollhouse was always going to be important. Draco could look at things that were kept in the dollhouse; some of the things were copies, mere forgeries of the things they claimed to be. The table in the dining room was not a real table, for instance, nor were the flowers real flowers, but the guests ... and the chest in the bedroom, those things were not quite so unreal.
Draco removed the miniature chest from the dollhouse's bedroom and frowned at the little doll with his broken arm and unhappy expression.
'You really do talk too much,' Draco scolded it before snapping the chest's lid shut and banishing it to one of the downstairs rooms.
Nothing so hideous as the chest and its broken doll could be in the bedroom anymore.
Draco had something much prettier for it now.
***
Draco was very tired by the time the sun rose again. He had stayed awake all night, watching ...
But when it had come to seven o'clock in the morning he could not reconcile the idea of sleeping all day with himself and so scampered downstairs with the empty vinaigrette and the new doll he had acquired.
As ever the curtains in the sitting room were not drawn, but just as Draco thought to light the candles he surprised himself by drawing the heavy drapes in front of the desk open instead.
Sunlight really was different; he gave a thoughtful nod to the doll in his hand and looked down into the courtyard, but everything was different today; he didn't feel alone anymore, and it filled him with such a feeling that he couldn't remember knowing before.
'Now,' Draco smiled his first genuine smile the whole time Harry had been there and opened the dollhouse, still resting sedate and untouched on the desk. 'I shall be able to look at you forever.'
And with that he placed another doll inside the house, this one with dark hair and glasses.
And a little scar on his forehead that Draco loved dearly.