Title: Wind
Author: Miss Cora ()ÊÊ
Rating: PG
Summary: Life is an ever-changing tapestry, and you never can tell where it's going from one moment to another. The only constants are the winds of change. But the wind can be awfully cold at times.
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.
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Notes: Response to the seasonal fic challenge. Angsty *and* fluffy.
It was May - spring was well underway and could be found in the soft blue of the sky and the sweet smell of blooming flowers that drifted past them. Draco gazed up, watching the clouds slowly pass before the warm sun and let his eyes fall shut as he felt a light breeze pick up his fine hair and blow it across his cheek.
He'd felt rather than seen Harry come up to where he'd stood at the edge of the forest, gazing out over the bright green grounds. Together they'd stood, enjoying the stillness of the moment and thinking their separate thoughts.
They'd put away their animosity during the preceding winter, a winter Draco would long remember as the coldest and most painful of his early life. He'd been so alone in the dungeons, staying at Hogwarts because he couldn't bear to return to the Manor and be plagued by his father's demands that he join Voldemort. And so he'd stayed and hidden in the dungeons, avoiding the Great Hall and the other students who were there for the holidays. Avoiding Harry.
But he'd been found out, and their fight had rung through the halls and brought Snape thundering down on them. The look of shock which had crossed Harry's face when Snape had taken points from his own house was still a lovely memory. And as a result of their detentions they had started to talk. Slowly the two of them had come to understand each other's past and to begin to worry about their future. They could no longer claim to be enemies, were even friends. But was that all? Draco wondered. He had other friends, but he wasn't ever this comfortable with them. He would never just stand in the sun and enjoy their company the way he did with Harry.
The wind was still playing with his hair while his thoughts drifted, but he was brought back to the moment when he felt Harry's fingers brush his cheek, catching the lose strands and tucking them behind his ear.
He looked over at the other boy, noticing for the first time how close they were standing, and he smiled.
"What were you thinking?" Harry finally broke the silence.
"Just . . . thinking about the past, and the future, and everything."
"Oh?" Although both boys spoke clearly it was with hushed tones and no one who happened to pass by them would have had a chance of hearing what they said.
"How is it we've managed to become friends after everything that happened, everything that was between us?"
Harry's eyes were soft as they looked at the blonde, and Draco noticed that his smile was as sweet as the spring breeze that blew between them. "We're friends because we've forgiven each other. We've cleared the air between us."
"You've forgive me, you mean," Draco said. "You had nothing to be forgiven." As Harry opened his mouth, presumably to refute this Draco forged onward. "You've forgiven me, but you know, I never said I was sorry."
"I know," Harry was quiet, and his eyes never wavered as he stepped forward, closing the distance between them. "You didn't have to."
"But I am, I am sorry."
"I know," and Harry stopped Draco's worrying with a kiss, a kiss as warm as the sun shining down on them, and Draco couldn't help but notice that Harry smelt of freshly blooming flowers and open fields.
It was the end of spring before their seventh year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter were falling in love.
***
It looked to be a cold and rainy fall. The summer they'd planed to spend together after graduating had been brutally interrupted by the serious stepping up of the war. September had come and gone Draco almost never saw his lover anymore.
Harry had asked to meet him in the park a block from his flat so now he waited as the cold wind whipped past him and the ominous storm clouds flowed over the sky. Pulling his coat closer around him Draco once more scanned the distance and finally saw the familiar messy hair and glasses making their way to where he waited.
Standing up Draco started toward Harry, but was stopped when the other man held up a gloved hand.
"Draco," was all that Harry said, but the tone in his voice cause a shiver down the blonde's back which had nothing to do with the wind but everything to do with feeling cold.
"Harry?" It was a question, but Draco didn't even know what he was asking.
"There's been another attack, I don't have long," Harry started. "Draco, you can't keep this up."
"What do you mean?" Draco knew exactly what Harry meant, but couldn't believe the other man was asking it of him.
"You can't cut yourself out of the war, you can't pretend it's not happening. These people are your friends, and your schoolmates, and your family. You know how important it is that we win. Please Draco, you can't turn your back on this, on me."
Draco just stared, shocked at what Harry had said, and as the silence lengthened the look on Harry's face slowly hardened. "Or maybe you can. Maybe it doesn't matter to you." A single leaf - possibly the first that had turned and fallen this fall but certainly not the last that would - blew between them, emphasizing the real distance which lay between them, and outlining the emotional gap which had just sprung up. "Maybe I don't matter to you." Harry started to turn.
"You say I can't turn my back on you, but what are you doing then?" Draco finally found his voice. "You say I have to take part in the war, but what you're really saying is that I have to chose sides. No," Draco gave a short, sharp laugh as Harry turned back towards him. "No, that's not what you're saying, is it? You're saying I have to choose you. Yes, these people are my friends and schoolmates and family. And these people, as you put it, aren't on your side, are they? You don't need me to take part in the war, your friends and schoolmates are strong enough to stand up to mine. I'm not necessary to the war. What you need me for is to say 'Yes, Harry, you're right. What they're doing is wrong and I support you. Let me help you. Please let me help you kill my friends and family.'" The temperature between them seemed to drop even farther as Draco spat out this last sentence, but he wasn't done. "Well guess what, Harry? You are right, and what they're doing is wrong. But I won't help you."
"But if you agree that it's wrong -" Draco cut him off.
"Yes, it's wrong, and evil, and they must be stopped. But how can I help you? How can I raise my wand against the people who shared my room when I was younger, who sat at meals with me and made jokes and loved me as one of their own? And I was one of them, so how can I betray them?"
"They've betrayed you," Harry said, either unable or unwilling to understand. "They've done horrible things and betrayed the things you believe in."
"No, Harry, that's where you're wrong. They fight against the things you believe in. The only thing I have ever believed in was you, was us. And so the only person who has ever betrayed that belief is you, Harry Potter."
Harry's green eyes narrowed and he glared across the ground separating them. "How can you say you don't believe in what I'm fighting for? You don't believe in equality and freedom and goodness? These people are evil. They follow an evil man and they hurt people because they can. They've killed dozens, hundreds of people, and they'll kill hundreds more if we don't stop them."
"If you don't stop them Harry. I can't."
"You say I've betrayed you by asking you to fight with me," Harry's voice broke and his words dropped like lead from his tongue. "Well you've betrayed me by refusing. Voldemort killed my parents -"
"And you're going to kill mine. I'd say it's a fair trade." Harry gasped at Draco's low, harsh tone. "Good bye Harry. This conversation is over."
The black haired young man looked like he might protest, but finally he just turned away. He paused, and Draco heard clearly as he said, "I love you Draco," and walked away. Draco closed his eyes and sank onto the bench next to him, shaking with reaction and fear and simply with the cold. Opening his eyes he watched his love leave him and he felt the first drop of rain fall onto his hand. Above him the gray clouds that matched his eyes began to cry out the pain he felt inside and would not, could not express.
***
It was proper, Draco thought, that Voldemort should fall on the first of January, should ring in the New Year with his downfall and the survival of the wizarding world. It was right, and proper, and all over the world people were celebrating. But not Draco.
In the cold, desolate afternoon light Draco Malfoy made his way through the silent stones, stopping in front of a small, plain marble block. He barely registered the frozen flowers some previous visitor had laid on the stone before he dropped to his knees in the snow before his mother's grave.
She hadn't been an innocent. You couldn't live in Lucius Malfoy's house and be an innocent, you couldn't be a Malfoy and be uninvolved. He'd known that and so he'd left. But Narcissa had never had a chance to get away. Draco didn't even know if she would have taken such a chance had it presented itself.
But despite that, it hadn't the aurors who'd killed his mother. She'd been killed, the Prophet had claimed, by Voldemort himself when it became apparent that her only child had abandoned his cause. Draco had refused to take sides, to battle against his family, but his mother had been killed because of him anyway.
Slowly a single tear made it's way down his cheek, crystallizing in the cold and freezing as it fell, indistinguishable from the other crystals of frozen water that covered the ground. He shivered as the icy wind brushed against the trail it had left.
His father was awaiting trial, would be going to Azkaban it was assured. He'd tried to kill Harry when Harry was weakened by his battle with Voldemort but Hermione Granger had stopped him. The irony of Lucius' downfall being at the hands of a Mudblood didn't escape Draco, but he really didn't find it all that funny.
Because he'd not taken sides in the war, had demonstrably not fought for Voldemort, the Ministry had not struck at Draco too much. The Manor was gone, destroyed in the fighting, but Draco's flat remained his own, and the vaults which had been in his parents' names had been searched and then the keys were turned over to him. He was one of the richest wizards in Britain, and it meant nothing to him anymore.
Draco slowly noticed the snow seeping its way through his cloak and trousers, but he didn't think he had the energy to stand anymore. It was cold, but he'd gotten used to the cold in the past year or so. Nothing was as cold, he thought, as an empty bed.
He bowed his head, feeling he should pray but lacking any sort of coherent thought which he could put into words. So instead he planted his hands in the snow, idly noticing their slight blue tinge and realizing without caring that he should probably have been wearing gloves. He levered himself up, standing again and finally taking in more of his surroundings.
His mother's grave was at the end of a row of fresh graves, presumably all wizards and witches who'd been killed in the war. He felt a slight pang that she should be buried here instead of on the grounds, but then remembered that the Manor's graveyard had probably been destroyed along with the building and most of the rest of the Park.
Bringing himself back to the here and now he finally forced himself to look at the inscription.
Narcissa Patrick Malfoy
1952-2002
Loving mother, lost through her love
May she now find the rest she deserved in life
And there, resting on top of the grave, slowly freezing to the stone, was a bouquet of narcissuses and lilies, with a single snapdragon in the center.
"Oh," the low whisper, more exhalation than exclamation, escaped him and Draco turned, scanning the yard. He finally noticed the footprints that lead to and away from the grave. They had clearly been there a while, judging by the snow which had blown into them, and by the temperature of the flowers, which must have been imported, but Draco could still tell who must have made the marks.
Turning back he reached his hand out and rested it on the gravestone, bowing his head once more, now able to form the prayer that rested in his heart.
But his thoughts were interrupted by the slow crunch of someone making their way through the snow. Looking up he made out a woman's shape coming through the weak wintry light.
"I thought I'd find you here," Draco recognized Hermione's voice.
"You were looking for me?"
"I need your help," she said without preamble. "Harry's gone, no one knows where. We need you to find him."
"I don't know where he is."
"No, but you know him better than anyone, you know where he'd be."
"I've not spoken to him in -"
She interrupted him, "No, but you know, we both know he's been here because of you. You two are in love, you can find him."
Draco met her gaze, well aware that she only asked this because she cared about Harry, and aware that she'd never come to him for help if she had any other option. In her eyes he could see that she hadn't forgiven him for not fighting, that she didn't understand how he could have done that to Harry, nor how Harry could still care for him afterwards.
"No," he said at last. "I can't do this for you."
"You mean you won't."
"Yes, that's what I mean."
"Why?"
"Because he needs to recover. He's been fighting all his life, even before he knew what there was to fight. Now he's won and he needs to know what that means for him."
"He doesn't need to be alone for that. We're his friends, we can help. We need him -"
"No, you don't. Not any more. He's done what the wizarding world needed him for, now he needs to learn what else he can do, and why he should do it."
"How can you know that? How do you know he's not in trouble, that he's not hurt?"
"You wanted to trust me to know where he was, but not why he was there?" Draco's tone was quiet, but unyielding. "Trust me, he needs space. He'll be fine, he can take care of himself. He has before."
"Not always. Sometimes he needs help, like after he defeated Voldemort and Luc . . . " she cut herself off suddenly, as though she'd forgotten to whom she was speaking.
"Yes, he did need help then. Thank you for being there."
"Malfoy, I'm sorry. I didn't mean . . . "
"You didn't mean what? To stop him from killing Harry, of course you did, and I'm glad you did. He had to be stopped."
"But . . . but he was your father."
"Yes, and she was my mother," he gestured toward the cold stone surrounded by snow. "Look how much it got her."
"Draco." Hermione stepped closer, laying a gloved hand on his shoulder and he didn't shrug her off.
"Seriously Hermione, it's ok. And Harry's going to be ok. Don't worry. He'll come back when he's ready."
She bit her lip, but slowly nodded. "I guess I knew that, but I wanted . . . " she trailed off again.
"You wanted to be sure." Draco let a small smile grace his lips. "Even at school you always wanted to be sure, didn't you?"
Hermione blushed a little at this, and glanced down at the ground, but looked quickly back up when she felt Draco pull away from her. "Where are you going?" she asked.
"Home," he replied quietly. "It's cold out here and I want to get out of the wind." He nodded his farewell and turned, tracing his steps back out of the graveyard and heading back to his empty flat. And he was cold, but he also knew that the winter turned inevitably to spring and that a new year brought new hope.
***
It was spring, the crocuses were in full bloom outside his window and the daffodils were starting to open up. Stepping out into the warm sunlight Draco made his way to the park down the street, smiling fondly at the neighbor children playing on the swings and chasing each other around the paths.
He'd been living in this area for almost 6 years now and everyone knew him fairly well as the eccentric who didn't work but would be glad to watch any family's kids so the adults could go out on the town. He led a quiet life, playing in the little workshop he'd set up in the basement (where the strange smells and lights wouldn't attract attention) and staying out of the limelight.
And every weekend, rain or shine, he would go sit in the park and think what he laughingly called 'deep thoughts' whenever asked. He even had a favorite bench, which all the neighbors would leave free for him but which none of them knew was the same seat he'd collapsed onto the night Harry left him.
Today, he decided, was far too nice of a day for such thoughts. Instead he stretched out on the bench, laying his hand against the grass underneath and listening to the shouts of laughter. He wouldn't sleep here, he knew, but feeling the sun shine down on him and the soft breeze was so pleasant.
When he heard the soft beating of wings and the light click of talons above him he opened his eyes. Squinting up into the light he made out the dark eyes of an unfamiliar owl gazing seriously at him.
"Hello," he whispered, slowly sitting up and reaching a careful hand towards the pretty bird. "I take it you have something for me?"
In response the bird carefully balanced itself and lifted a leg for Draco to untie the roll of parchment attached there.
"Thank you," he said once he'd accomplished this. "I'm afraid I don�t have any treats . . ." but the bird had flown off before he could finish. Looking down at the letter he made out the address.
Draco Malfoy
The third bench
The park
Worthington
And, more importantly, he recognized the handwriting. Harry.
After carefully unwrapping the notice, and ignoring the slight shaking of his hand, he fell to the study of the letter.
Dear Draco,
I flatter myself that you might care, but if you do, please be assured that I'm ok.
My, that sounds impersonal. I'd like to start again, but . . .
Actually, maybe that's all I really need to say; that I'd like to start again. But no, you deserve so much more than that.
Before I ever kissed you, you claimed that I had forgiven you without your ever asking, and that I had nothing to be forgiven. Maybe you were right then, but not anymore.
I have wronged you in so many ways Draco - in thought, in word, in deed. I have hurt you and pretended not to care, and I have taken all that you ever offered me and given you nothing in return except pain.
I had no right . . . I used to think that I had every right in the world, that everything I did was right because of who I was.
But I was wrong. I was wrong and I'm sorry.
And that doesn't help, does it? My being sorry won't undo any of it. And yet, I can't help but hope that somehow you have managed to forgive me before I asked, too.
Please know Draco, that if you wanted it of me I would cry out a thousand times every day how sorry I was, and if you wanted it of me I would suffer a thousand torments for every wound I have ever afflicted on you.
And know too that I love you.
I have never stopped loving you, and if I thought it would make you happy I would never say anything ever again, except that I love you and I'm sorry. I would wander the streets informing random passers-by of my abject adoration and apology.
I will always love you Draco, and if you want me back, if you can ever find it within yourself to take me back into your heart, and if ever you need me, for any reason at all, I will be here for you.
Love,
Harry
Draco slowly read and reread the letter several times before closing his eyes and leaning back against the back of the bench. From the quiet in the park he could tell that most of the children had gone home and he felt the wind start to cool off and pick up as the sun slowly lowered itself to the horizon.
And so he sat, gazing up at the fluffy white clouds which made their way increasingly quickly across the darkening sky. As he thought his hand slowly lessened its death grip on the parchment, which is how the sudden gust of wind managed to tear it out of his hand.
"No!" he cried out, starting up from the bench and turning towards the wind. But he stopped there as his eyes rested on the dark haired figure that was standing there, watching him.
He took a few steps forward, and the other man came towards him, both of them stopping, as though by prior consent, with a few feet still between them.
"Draco," Harry began.
"You're forgiven."
"I'm sorry."
"I love you, too."
"I love you."
Knowing that Harry was still unsure of his welcome Draco closed the gap and wrapped his arms around the other man, pulling him into a deep kiss.
The sun finished its descent and the cool bite of the early spring night air was what finally broke them from each other, and taking Harry's hand Draco tugged him in the direction of the flat. It was time to go inside out of the wind.
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