Celestial Being

“Draco, you absolute strumpet!”

“Jesus, George, not in front of the kids.” Draco stumbled out of the drawing room, wiping paint off his hands and chin with a towel. He shoved George ahead of him, not minding if he stained George’s suit jacket as he did. Draco closed the drawing room doors, muffling children’s giggles at his expense, then put his hands on his hips and cocked an eyebrow at his guest. “What’s this about, then?”

“You’re sleeping with Harry!” George did not keep his voice down.

Down at the end of the hall Angie paused her step. Draco grimaced at having witnesses. He spoke to her instead of George, “I’m not sleeping with the king.” Angie stared at Draco flatly.

“You are too! Percy told me,” George retorted.

Angie’s flat expression got thinner. The look she threw Draco left him shaking his head and motioning in denial. She had grown into her role and was above things like eyeroles or quizzical expressions, and instead held her head high and kept walking. Draco felt judged to the core.

Draco turned and scowled at George. “There’s no way Percy told you that.”

Only George wasn’t listening. “I can’t believe I had to find out from Percy,” he whined.

Draco shoved at George again, pushing him out of the main hall and into the dining room where his trouble could be contained. “You know damn well Percy would never say that. Tell me what he actually said.”

George waved his hands around theatrically. “He said enough. You talked him into visiting the king and then stayed with the king… all night.” George did an eyebrow wiggle before making a lude gesture.

Draco whacked him over the head. “Cut it out. This is unbecoming, even for you.”

George snickered before holding up his hands in surrender. “Fine, fine. You know I thought it was all nonsense, until I heard it from Percy. Seriously, though, it’s all over court.” He paused to lean against the dining table. “So, what really happened?”

Draco opened his mouth to explain. It stayed hanging open.

What had really happened?

Draco closed his mouth and licked his lips, looking away.

“Oh my god you slept with him,” all the teasing was gone from George’s voice.

Draco stretched out his fingers before tightening them into fists. He could recall each moment King Harry had opened the door for it to happen, and all the ways Draco had put distance between them until his efforts hit their mark and it was the king who shut things down. After dinner, King Harry didn’t so much as hint at other activities. He provided Draco a change of clothes, let him know where he could tend to hygiene, and pointed out which sofa folded out to a bed. Then he left Draco alone in the king’s chamber and didn’t come back until after breakfast was served.

King Harry showed Draco out with the parting words. “They’ll think we had sex. Don’t correct them.”

Which left Draco here, unsure of what to do. His uncertainty was to the king’s favor, because the longer he said nothing the larger George’s eyes got.

George ran a hand nervously through his hair. “You really did it. Wow. I wasn’t expecting that,” he said, his voice still too serious, like when he told Draco his dad had died. George looked Draco over, perplexed. “And did he…” he struggled to find his question. “Figure it out?”

The entire world slowed down as Draco processed that question. His skin itched under the weight of George’s gaze.

“Figure what out?” Draco asked. A cop out of a question.

George’s eyes narrowed nearly imperceptibly. He suddenly looked taller, having shed his easy going slouch due to the gravity of the conversation. “We’re seriously going to do this?” he asked.

Draco stood stiffly under George’s scrutiny. Draco could hear his heart beat in his ears.That was it, then. George knew. It wasn’t such a shocking revelation. George had probably known all along. At least since spring. Likely since the moment Draco thoughtlessly answered him in the kitchen when George went looking for liquor. He knew, and he hadn’t said anything. Not to anybody. He’d just… made excuses to spend time with Draco and play what amounted to social games at the king’s expense. As if…

Now was an exceptionally bad time to consider what it was as if. Somehow, everything had gotten more complicated since the balls. What had been guiding him, driving him, for more than a year was to keep his secret no matter what. He knew in his soul that he wouldn’t be forgiven if anyone - especially the king - found out what Draco had done. Only, George had found out, and he didn’t care that it had been the disgraced Malfoy heir trudging through the mud with him. He maybe even was fine with it. That should have been plenty, more than plenty, for Draco to finally confide in someone like he had desperately wished he could. Draco had accidently left so many breadcrumb trails to be followed it was just a matter of time before he was caught, and why not let it be now, with someone holding out an olive branch for Draco to take? Draco’s chest was so tight he feared he wouldn’t be able to breathe.

Percy hadn’t told George, though, that the story about King Harry and Draco was a lie. Percy had encouraged George to think the same lie the king wanted Draco to spread, that Draco and the king were having an affair. Neither man saw George as their inner circle. Even if Draco wanted to open up to George, which he could admit to himself deep down that he did, every other person he trusted repeatedly told him they didn’t trust George. What was it Percy said, the best way to keep a secret is to tell no one? If Draco admitted George was right, he’d have to explain that the king didn’t recognize him, which would only have been possible if he hadn’t slept with the king, which would only make sense if something else was going on, which even if Draco didn’t explain would open enough doors George’s natural curiosity could wander down and cause mayhem in.

Draco, usually so clever when put on the spot, couldn’t work out what he was supposed to do in this moment.

Oh, fuck, he was going to lie. He was going to lie to the one person who saw through his mask and went out of their way to build a friendship with him in the real world as if he was a person who mattered.

But it was Draco, and if he wanted to lie successfully he had to do it by telling the truth.

“He doesn’t know we’ve been joking around about finding him a better husband,” Draco tried to say it light-hearted but it fell flat. Clearly that wouldn’t be enough to quell George’s questions. Draco continued. “Which is just as well, because he’s clearly obsessed over someone.”

George’s clenched jaw hardly moved as he drawled, “You don’t say.”

Draco nodded along, willing his body to ease up and relax as he spoke until he looked and sounded natural and unforced. “Have you been in his room? He keeps, like, these momentos out on his table. It’s somewhere between romantic and creepy.”

“Let’s say creepy,” George pipped in, unable to stop himself from being pulled into Draco’s story.

“Sure, let’s say,” Draco rolled with it. “In any case, you know how he is. Basically a brick wall whenever anything personal comes up. But we got to talking.”

“Talking.” George said, only when he said it the word sounded like “having sex.”

“Yeah,” Draco said, breathy and uncomfortable. He didn’t insist it was just talking. He didn't identify timelines for different pieces of the conversations. He just kept rambling. “We were talking, and he explained why he told Luna he was either going to marry Colton or Prince Krum.”

“What the fuck.”

Draco ignored the interruption, “And he told me, ya know, before, that he didn’t want to marry Prince Krum. He said he was boring.”

George made a distressed noise. He was well and truly sidetracked now.

“And he said Colton, because he got the king’s attention when Colton won a contest at the equinox ball.”

George made an even bigger distressed noise. “He cheated!” George all but yelled. “Charley told me all about it, Colton is such an ass.”

Draco shrugged helplessly, not disagreeing but knowing he couldn’t take George’s side without abandoning his purpose. “Anyway, he’s all obsessed, and he talked a lot about Colton, and, like, he has these golden shoes on his table from a past ball,” why did Draco need to throw in that detail? It had been weeks and he still couldn’t get it out of his head. “And I think he’s going to propose.”

The noise George made this time was nothing short of a squawk. “He can’t!” he said it like Draco might be able to stop it from happening, but Draco could only shrug like the useless fool he was. “That wasn’t Colton! Colton wasn’t even on my list, he wasn’t at the spring ball.”

Draco seized on that. “That’s what I heard! The king had been looking for someone who wasn’t even on the list. Somehow… it must all be connected.” It sounded like drivel in Draco’s own head but he forced out sincerity to make the point.

George looked downright queasy. Draco realized what he was implying, that the king thought it was Colton in Draco’s place at the spring ball. Which meant, Colton who ran through the mud and befuddled everyone with the mechanical maze at George’s side. George’s mouth twisted unpleasantly as he considered the idea, and clearly he wanted to discard it but Draco could see the moment George realized he couldn’t prove it wasn’t true. In that moment, the sour expression deepened, his features sagged. He looked unbearably tired and more unbearably sad. He rubbed at his face, trying to force the feelings off of it.

Draco couldn’t bear to watch. He nervously rambled more. “So… the king… propositioned me… but it was clear how, you know, he only wanted sex… and… anyway, I hope he has a happy life with whoever he ends up marrying.” That last bit sounded bitter even to Draco. It unintentionally added more credence to everything else he said to have a clear lie to juxtapose the rest to.

“Damnit, Draco, I told you not to sleep with him,” sighed George.

If Draco recalled correctly, George had only ever said that to Draco at the ball. He shrugged since it didn’t matter either way. “It was a mistake.” Draco couldn’t help but remember what it had felt like, both times, to give in to being desired by the king.

George looked at Draco with pity, as if he didn’t believe Draco meant it. George blinked and looked away from Draco for a moment. When he looked back, he was staring at Draco like he’d never seen him before. As if Draco had convinced George to second guess his belief that it had been Draco in the maze with George all along. Draco couldn’t help but meet George’s eyes. He watched in real time as George cataloged all his memories of Draco, trying to separate out his impressions of the man in the maze from how Draco acted in the real world. George’s forehead crinkled in deep thought as he considered only the man before him.

“I should go,” George said, unusually solemn. Nothing like the George Draco knew.

“Um,” Draco said, ineloquently.

George’s smile was small. “I’ll see you around, Draco.” Only, it didn’t really sound as if he would.