Chapter 49
Draco shoved past crates, nudging things aside to leave a pathway in his wake. He peered around each stack and did his best to examine everything stored in the corners without having to move everything around. A loud, “Oof,” sounded behind him. Not for the first time. Draco was tall, but he liked to think of himself as lithe, or at the very least scrawny. It worked to his advantage when he navigated the attic. Ron, on the other hand, was big. Not big the way Vincent and Greg had been big. They had loomed even as children. Draco doubted they would fit up here. Still, Ron managed to be taller than Draco, and was all broad and sturdy about it. Like his body was meant to block dangerous things from reaching Teddy, or jam his shoulder into boxes.
“Steady on, we’re almost there,” Draco said as he peered behind a trunk, hoping that was where ‘there’ was located. It was not.
There was a grinding of metal on wood as Ron forced storage crates aside. Ron huffed out, “I’m leaving. Just send for George. He’s good at this sort of thing.”
Draco gulped. “He’s busy.”
“George is never busy,” Ron retorted. “Isn’t there a servant who can help you?”
Maybe, but Draco would have to order them and then they’d do double the work by the end of the day to catch up on all their other obligations. It felt like overstepping. So Draco said, “They’ve got jobs.”
“I have a job!” Ron exclaimed. Ron seemed like the sort who wouldn’t abandon a man mid attic, so Draco simply ignored him and continued his search. Proving Draco right, Ron just groaned and trudged along. Until he had cause to shout, “oof!” again, but by then Draco knew Ron wasn’t going anywhere.
Somewhere behind a trunk and underneath a sack that had seen far better days, Draco spotted what he’d been looking for. “I found it!” He hollered.
Hope gave Ron light feed and he was quick to reach Draco’s side. He peered, trying to see what Draco was pointing at. “A rug?” he did not sound pleased with the discovery.
Draco nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah. Let’s get this stuff moved so we can get to it.”
Ron acted for a full minute like he wasn’t actually going to help Draco lug things around, but deep down he was one of those noble, kind-hearted folks who couldn’t watch Draco struggle to lift trunk after trunk by himself.
“What the hell is in this thing?” Ron growled as he worked with Draco to move a crate over three feet and onto a different haphazard pile.
Draco heaved a deep breath as soon as they had it down. “Precious family heirlooms,” he wheezed.
“Mate, it ain’t precious if it’s buried up here to die.”
Draco patted the crate. “Carefully stored for posterity,” he corrected.
Ron gave in and laughed. “Okay, but what’s in it?”
Together they opened the crate and found out. They stared down at what was clearly the fanciest plates Ron had ever seen.
“This is actually the fourteenth formal dining set I’ve found up here,” Draco admitted. Ron gaped. “You should take one, give it to Hermoine for your next anniversary.”
The older man sputtered, clearly flustered. “I can’t steal from Andromeda!”
Draco spared him a smile. Ron had that same overblown sense of virtue as King Harry, which had gotten Draco into this mess. “Fine. I’ll choose something out and have Andromeda give it to you directly.” Draco ignored Ron’s protests. He recalled a lovely set with delicate roses that they could put in their daughter’s dowry package, so it wouldn't go to waste if they were too stubborn to use it. “Anyway, we’re almost there.”
Almost there wasn’t so much a lie as unrealistic expectations. It took too long to pull the rug out from under the storage heap, and when they freed it enough to roll a bit out for examination both men grimaced in sync.
Ron tried to be charitable. “Must be one of those historic designs.”
“From the rubbish part of history,” replied Draco. Ron didn’t even argue as they rolled it back up. Draco wanted to stack things back on top of it, but Ron made him pull the rug out, stack everything up, and put the rug on top so the whole lot of it wasn’t left lopsided. Only after all of that did their search continue.
Killing time, Ron asked, “What happens if one of these piles falls and traps us?”
“We’re crushed to death and die,” drawled Draco.
Surprisingly, Ron chortled. “Bad way to go,” he said. “Couldn’t we just shout for help?”
Draco half shrugged, even if Ron couldn’t see it because he was currently squeezed between a cabinet and a tall wooden box. “Unlikely anyone would hear.”
Draco couldn’t see Ron but he could tell he’d turned serious from his voice, “Huh. Didn’t think of that. We can’t be up here too long, then. I am on the job, you know.”
“Don’t you have, like, half a dozen soldiers down there standing guard?” Draco asked offhandedly. He twisted just a bit to get in further, confirming that yes, that vague shadow he saw beneath the trunk there was indeed a rug.
Ron was rambling on about something Draco didn’t quite catch until the end, “... so Dean will only leave with Hugo and Rose if I’m with Teddy.”
“Ah, of course,” Draco murmured as if he’d heard the whole thing, even though he was mostly trying to figure out how to get back up to standing when the furniture had him properly pinned. “Smart to split the kids up. Cause, you know…” Draco couldn’t quite think of a respectable way to point out that Ron would have to choose between saving his kids’ lives and the life of the heir to the throne if they were all in the same room together during an attack. He sidestepped it with, “I think I’m stuck.”
That did the trick. Ron laughed uproariously and kept insisting Draco try shouting for help to see if anyone would hear. Draco kicked out at him, landing one blow, but not hard enough to bother. Draco twisted a couple more times, leveraging one hand on the stack in front of him, and one hand on the side of the shelf he was stuck on. He pushed on both and squeezed until he was able to pull himself up. He turned to grin his accomplishment at Ron, but saw Ron to the side, having pulled on the wardrobe to loosen its hold so Draco could escape.
“This place is a death trap,” Ron said jovially.
Draco rolled his eyes before informing Ron that the death trap was in need of relocation because, once again, they had found it. Possibly the real it this time. Who was to say?
They had to move other stuff first, so they had room to move the furniture somewhere else. Then Ron insisted on stacking everything safely, which took time because they had to dismantle less safe mounds and reassemble them. Ron was really stuck on the “what if you get trapped and die?” thing. Draco imagined it must be because he had small children who had no skills in life preservation.
“I wouldn't have been so careless if I were alone,” Draco argued when Ron tried to use his own mishap against Draco's arguments to try less hard in order to save time. Ron wasn’t having it. “Don’t we have to hurry so you can get back to work?” Draco tried another tack.
Ron’s eyes narrowed at Draco even as he kept working. “We’re going to get you your stupid rug. Andromeda will hold off the assassins herself if she has to.”
Draco snickered. “With what, her sturdy and practical low heeled shoes?”
“Nah, Andromeda is wicked good with a sword.” Ron said it offhandedly, but in his serious tone that stopped Draco short.
“For real?” asked Draco.
Ron didn’t slow down at all as he answered. “Sure. She joined the resistance movement as soon as she moved north and learned there.”
Draco could feel cogs moving in his brain as they realigned his understanding of his firm and scary aunt into an even more firm and scary swordswoman. “You don’t say.”
Ron shrugged. “C’mon, let’s move the wardrobe.” Draco helped him lift the beast of furniture. They inched it along, going at Draco’s pace because he was puny compared to the buff captain of the king’s guard who probably worked out daily. Draco actually missed the days of shoveling horse shit because at least then he had some strength to speak of. Draco collapsed against the monstrosity of furniture as soon as they’d maneuvered it into a place suitable enough for Ron’s exacting standards. “Chin up, it’s out of the way now for the next bloke looking for floor coverings.” He said it as if he thought that would please Draco, too. At least the going was easier for the rest of it. Ron kept prattling on. Draco knew Ron must be tired because Ron was sweating through his outfit same as Draco, but Ron didn’t let it slow him down. Draco, meanwhile, hardly heard a word he was so tired. Another sentence trailed off before Draco bothered to make sense of it. “... so I reckon you’d be useful, push come to shove.”
Draco dropped a box he had heaved into the location Ron directed him towards. Twice as far away from a perfectly serviceable pile that wasn’t up to Ron’s safety standards. Maybe Draco should have made peace with George, since he’d clearly recruited the wrong Weasley.
“I didn’t,” pant, “hear,” pant, “any of that,” Draco panted. He breathed deep through his nose and held it a moment before releasing all of it out in one big gush.
“If we were attacked, you’d be useful, yah? Hold your own in a fight,” Ron repeated.
Bursting out into laughter took a lot of effort, seeing how Draco was still struggling to breath due to all the manual labor, but Ron’s statement got him there.
Ron looked befuddled. “What? You’re like, a marquis? You must have been formally trained at some point.”
Draco laughed so hard he knocked into the carefully planned out stack of crates that still almost tumbled over. “An earl!” he corrected, as if the title he’d been stripped of mattered in the discussion.
“I’d have thought your subsidiary title would be Marquis,” Ron said in the tone of voice you’d use if you were saying you’d thought someone preferred caramel to vanilla. Draco marveled at how perfunctory and unimportant Ron could make social hierarchy sound.
Draco managed to steady himself out and regain his control. He held himself as tall as he could in the cramped space and tried to put on his haughty son of a duke expression, but his grin revealed his teasing. “A subsidiary title improvement was on my father’s to-do list.”
“What, between tidying the kitchen and picking up groceries?” Ron asked.
“Just so,” Draco agreed. “Such is the life of a duke.”
Eventually, they did reach the rug. Turns out, it wasn’t one rug. It was a stack of them pushed into the triangle corner where the ceiling reached the floor. It made the most sense to look at the one on top of the pile. Both men held their breath expectantly as they rolled it out, just far enough to get a good look at the pattern.
It was a gray, nearly silver, with black edging and a design that ran across it that made Draco think of the ocean at night. The details were bold and beautiful, and completely out of place for what Draco was going for. Ron only grumbled a little when they put it aside and pulled out the next one.
It was blue. Midnight blue on the edges, with a tiled cerulean pattern on the inside, and small yellow accent lines throughout to liven it up.
“Yes,” Draco said at once. Ron lit up, clearly liking the rug and the fact that their work was done. Only… “let’s look at another. Just one more.” Just one more turned into three more, because the first two were green and Draco wasn’t trying to be funny. More than anything, this process was teaching Draco that Ron was a pushover. More likely that than he could sincerely tell how important this was to Draco and he was the sort of fellow who’d just lend a hand, over and over again, to make someone’s day. The next rug did make Draco’s day. It was large and lush, and so fucking heavy, but Draco looked up at Ron with wide, excited eyes, and he knew instantly Ron would give in and help carry it.
Of course, Ron made Draco put everything back neater and safer than they found it before he’d help haul the two rugs down the four flights of stairs between the attic and the ground floor. They started with the heavier one, because Ron insisted that was responsible. Draco never wanted to be responsible again in his life. He collapsed afterwards, right on top of his beautiful discovery, even as Angie yelled at him for using the front hallway for storage.
Ron wandered off to make sure none of the kids ended up assassinated during their adventure. Draco was still down for the count, blowing off Angie’s demands to move the damn rug, when Ron returned. “All’s well. We weren’t needed to defend the house afterall.”
“Thank fuck,” Draco said.
“Settle down, there’s a lady present,” Ron scolded.
Angie blushed prettily at the attention. She wasn’t formally a lady, but she liked to be treated nicely and Ron did a better job of that than Draco managed. Angie smirked playfully at Draco, as if Draco was still a castoff, unwanted relative and Ange hadn’t needed to adopt proper decorum that set the two of them so far apart. “That’s right Draco, I’m a lady,” she teased. “So show some respect and move this hunk of fabric out of my hallway.”
Draco would have laughed her off again, but Ron wouldn’t hear of it. Ron made Draco stand up and find a closet to hide the rug in so Angie would leave them alone. Then Ron wouldn’t let Draco go back to resting. No, they had to climb back up the four flights of stairs.
“I hate you,” Draco said, each time they started a new level.
Ron marched steadily on with a deranged level of stamina. “You should join us for drills tomorrow morning,” he said out of nowhere.
Draco huffed, “Why would I do that?”
“You’re with Teddy all the time, it would be good to count on you as an extra hand if needed. Only you didn’t sound confident about your skills in a fight.”
Draco was thankful Ron couldn’t see his face. He knew his voice was just as strained but hoped it could be blamed on physical exertion. “I’m afraid I lacked the natural aptitude for sword fighting. Or any fighting. My tutor eventually relented and, well, it is what it is. I haven’t held a sword since the war.”
Ron glanced back. “You know the basics, though.” He paused only a beat before confirming, “You fought in the war?” Draco appreciated Ron’s effort to make the question sound normal.
They’d reached the landing to the servants’ floor and Draco stopped there. He focused on breathing deep, which was a good excuse because he needed the air, but also he hoped that with enough deep breaths his racing heart would slow down and he’d be able to do half as well as Ron at sounding normal.
The hell with it. None of this was normal. “You’ll be pleased to know, I really didn’t,” said Draco, all high pitched and overly casual because he was nervous and it was the best he could manage. “Never had to draw a sword until the end, but that wasn’t so much a fight as my complete humiliation and defeat.” He forced what might be mistaken for a chipper smile. “And that’s where I’d like to leave it. I wasn’t meant for warfare, I was meant for sewing and interior design. On with it, then, only one rug left.” Draco stomped forward with renewed vigor, not meeting Ron’s eyes so he wouldn’t need to see either confusion or pity.
The next morning welcomed Draco with deep aches. Someone was pounding on his door. Which was ridiculous. No one ever came to his door. A glance at the window confirmed the sun wasn’t fully up yet. Bleary eyed, he all but fell out of bed. He didn’t think to grab clothes to cover himself before he answered.
It was Ron at the door. The wanker was smiling. “Time for drills.”
Draco was too out of it to even respond in swears. Instead he tried to shut the door in Ron’s face. Impossible, since Ron was all big and buff and fully awake with actual reflexes that made it easy to stop Draco’s half assed attempt. Ron pushed the door all the way back open, still smiling.
Ron said, “It’s a beautiful day,” it wasn’t, “So put some clothes on and let’s get going,” Draco didn’t plan on it. Ron could tell, so he added pointedly, “because someday someone might come at Teddy with a sword, and if all that,” he pointed to Draco’s brutally scarred abdomen, “is going to happen to someone, it better be you rather than Teddy. Or you can let me teach you how to do it to the other guy.”
Draco was just now realizing he didn’t have a shirt on and the only thing he could think of to say was, “The other guy was King Harry.”
There was a moment where Ron might have flinched but he covered it before Draco’s sleep-addled mind could fully perceive it and what Draco saw instead was an even bigger grin. “Brilliant. I can take down Harry. No better time than now for you to learn.”
Draco didn’t learn that morning, or the next. He was just reminded how useless he was at fighting while he got progressively achier. He told himself every night that he was going to quit, but for some reason he kept showing up. Draco couldn’t have told you why. He was never going to actually be needed to fight, but he supposed sometimes you put in the work so all the boxes are steady and, should you ever need to, you’ll be able to walk through the room without everything falling down on your head.