Title: On Nights Like This
Author: Tracy ()
Furniture: inflatable chair
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.
Notes:For the Furniture Challenge on Armchair Slash, in which I attempt to make a story about something as cute and fluffy as an inflatable chair angsty >.< Beta'd by my beloved Lallipoo.
Harry couldn't sleep. He shifted restlessly under the heavy blanket, feeling suffocated rather than comforted by the arm draped loosely over his chest. He turned his head towards his wife, taking in her even breathing, perfect, relaxed features, and long, dark blond hair cascading over the pillow. Even asleep, she seemed to exude love and happiness. And suddenly Harry couldn't take it anymore.
Carefully disentangling himself from his wife's embrace, he got out of bed and stopped for a moment, looking back down at her sleeping figure. So this was Harry Potter's life. He lived in muggle London and had a beautiful wife, two lovely children, and an adorable dog. They all loved him, and he loved them back. In the mornings he and his wife would get up, have breakfast together, make sure the kids left for school, and go to work. When he came home in the evenings his wife would make dinner and he would eat, take the dog out for a walk around the neighborhood, watch TV, and go to bed. It was perfect. He had always wanted to hide from his fame in the wizarding world, wishing instead for family and friends and an ordinary life, and now he finally had it.
It reminded him of the Dursleys.
Harry heaved a small sigh and padded silently over to the window in a far corner of the bedroom, drawing back the curtains and allowing a threadlike beam of silvery moonlight to find its way in. It landed on the inflatable armchair he stubbornly insisted on keeping in that inconspicuous little corner, a muggle item and therefore the only one from his wizarding days that he could still keep without arousing suspicion in his family. He had given his wand, broom, and other possessions to Ron for safekeeping, though he had no intention of ever reclaiming them. Hermione had tried to talk him into leaving the chair behind as well, knowing it would torment him with the memories it held, but Harry had been adamant about keeping it, needing to afford himself the painful luxury this bit of sentimentality provided regardless of the cost.
Now he settled himself in the inflatable chair, hugging his knees to his chest and resting his chin on them. Harry looked out the window at the night sky, where a complete lack of stars or clouds made the pale crescent of the moon seem brighter and more brilliant than usual standing alone against the blackness of its background. Or perhaps it only seemed this way because in Harry's eyes the picture before him suddenly transformed into one of a single sterling blond head held proudly in the midst of a dark mass of warring figures.
Harry shook his head, trying to dispel that image of the Last Battle from his mind. He knew where this train of thought was leading him, had always led him, and he knew it would do him no good to follow it now. But even after eleven years Harry still couldn't manage to stop himself from thinking about it occasionally. Couldn't stop himself from remembering.
It had begun in his last year at Hogwarts, when the war had finally broken out. Voldemort had staged an attack on the school, and had murdered Lucius Malfoy as an example to the other Death Eaters when the other man had failed to gain entry into the castle. Shortly afterwards, Draco had pledged himself to Dumbledore, swearing that he would not let his father's death go unavenged, and he and Harry had forged something of a reluctant friendship over this common goal.
Despite the disapproval of the population at large, it hadn't taken long for their friendship to grow into something more. Harry had found, with no small amount of surprise, that he and Draco could achieve a level of understanding that was never possible even with Ron or Hermione, and had begun to seek the blond's company with increasing frequency. Eventually it had become apparent that neither were quite satisfied with a platonic relationship any longer and by the time they had graduated it seemed a given that they should share a flat together.
The flat, Harry recalled, was a rather small one, as both of them had devoted all of their efforts to the war and money was scarce. Draco had been unwilling to ask his mother for financial aid, knowing that Narcissa would remain devoted to the Dark Lord even after her husband's death, and Harry's Gringott's vault had finally begun to diminish. Their flat consisted of only one room plus a bathroom and a kitchen, and at first Harry had been afraid that it wouldn't be good enough for the expensive Slytherin. Draco, however, hadn't seemed to mind that they couldn't afford any decent furniture other than a bed, a table, and a couple of hard wooden chairs.
Instead, he had gone out and bought an inflatable armchair in place of a real one, telling his lover that he had chosen a green one because it reminded him of Harry's eyes. Harry allowed the corners of his lips to curl a bit at that particular memory, remembering how he had teased the blond for his attempts at blowing the thing up the muggle way, but the smile faded as his next thought took shape.
What if he hadn't killed Voldemort?
During the war, things had been alright. Their work was grim and often dangerous and they had both lost friends, but they had had each other. They would sit together in that inflatable chair every night and talk and bicker and laugh and cuddle, and it had brought Harry a measure of happiness no matter how dark the days got. It had been during one of these times that Draco had first told Harry he loved him, and from then on Harry had come to think of the chair as something more than just another piece of furniture. It had become something of a private haven in which he could just be with the person he loved and forget the troubles of the rest of the world. That was when things had worked.
But then Harry had killed Voldemort.
And everything had started to fall apart. Without the war to worry about and focus on, they had been forced to turn their attention to other things; normal, everyday things. They had agreed on almost none of them. It had taken an astonishingly short time for their good-natured bickering to turn into all-out fights not unlike the ones they had had as schoolboys, and for them to stop speaking and avoid each other for days and then weeks at a time while the inflatable chair was left empty and forgotten.
Slowly even Harry had begun to see that their relationship wouldn't work.
It wasn't that he regretted ending the war; he wouldn't hesitate to do the same thing if given another chance. But that did nothing to stop the little nook in the back of his mind from wondering what might have happened if the fates had been dealt out differently.
What if he had been a bit more willing to let Draco have his way?
Harry sighed to himself, remembering the fights they had had. They had always been over something little and petty, some minute detail that neither of them really cared about. But they had been competitive, and each argument won had seemed like a small victory, every one greater than the last. Of course, Harry had won some of these, but in the end none of them had mattered. He had lost Draco.
What if he had been quicker to swallow his pride?
Thinking back, Harry couldn't tell if that would have made a difference. But perhaps if he had learned more humility and been quicker to apologize or forgive Draco after their fights instead of lifting his chin and dragging it on, it would have been easier for them to come to terms with each other. Or perhaps it wouldn't really have mattered after all. He would never be able to decide.
What if he had asked Draco to stay?
Eventually, the blond had decided to give up. Harry had come home one day to find his lover sitting alone in the inflatable armchair, waiting for him. This in itself had become painfully unusual during the previous few months, but what had caught Harry's attention the most was the duffel bag on the floor, filled with all of Draco's things. He hadn't been surprised.
Harry had been both dreading and anticipating it for months, but when the time had finally come, he hadn't known what to feel. Perhaps regret. Perhaps relief. Perhaps both.
But that was then. Now whenever he thought about it there was no mistaking the hollow pang in his heart, the wound for which any anesthesia had long since worn off and which never stopped bleeding, never completely healed even with time.
What if he hadn't let his last chance slip away?
When Harry had found him sitting there, face expressionless, there had suddenly been nothing left to say. He had known even then that everything was over, and hadn't thought anything could make a difference. He had seen the other boy's passport in a pocket of his trousers and considered asking him where he was going, but in the end had decided against it because it hadn't seemed to matter.
Not for the first time, Harry bitterly regretted that decision. He had sought for the blond for years afterwards, sure that if he could just see his old lover one more time, they could make things work again. But Draco had left London and gone far away. He had told no one to where.
So Harry had finally given up and left the wizarding world altogether, determined to put the past behind him and start over, taking with him nothing but an old green inflatable chair. Most of the time he thought he was happy with his new life, but on nights like this, bathed in moonlight the color of achingly familiar, downy hair, he would realize the truth. And he would realize that there was nothing he could do about it because he had lost that chance eleven years ago. But he could still wonder. Harry sighed heavily.
What if their love had been enough?
He wondered, but he would never know. Because when Draco had kissed him goodbye, Harry had let him.