Celestial Being

Today

Draco didn’t wait for the fall out. He didn’t need to hear Prince Viktor’s declaration that he was already betrothed to someone else, his true love. Scripted lines sorted out well in advance that Draco was nearly certain would ensure the treaty would still be successful. Marrying King Harry would have been a safer bet, but a miserable one. And Prince Viktor instantly took to Draco’s suggestion that embarrassing the king instead could solve any hurt pride Prince Viktor’s father still harbored. The prince had been right, though, he needed a marriage to seal the kingdoms together. Draco didn’t know or care who the prince had persuaded to take on that role.

It had all gone to plan. Draco should feel victorious. He should be crowing.

Instead he couldn’t move fast enough to get away. Always, always he was pushing himself too hard. He should be wise and go back to his room and rest. Only then people he didn’t want to see would come to him. They’d expect him to talk about what happened and about the king. There was nowhere in the castle where he could find peace. Nowhere to hide from all his choices and what he had done.

Yesterday

King Harry opened his chamber door fast enough that Draco thought he must have been waiting for the knock. A smile tugged at his lips and he stepped back to let Draco in. Draco squeezed a smile back as he slipped by, stepping around the king so they wouldn’t touch.

Draco could see where George’s fire had been by what in the room was missing. The large table and benches had been removed, replaced by a smaller round table with more comfortable seats one could lounge in. The green and gold rug Draco had gifted had been removed, the floor left bare where it once was. The rest was intact, colorful and bright in the midday sun. Draco gazed at the windows, imagining brighter curtains that would further liven the room. His fingers twitched with the desire to touch the ones hanging now, as if it wouldn’t be wildly inappropriate to make any changes he wanted.

“I was just sitting for lunch, will you join me?”

Having skipped breakfast, Draco found his appetite restored and then some. He nodded agreement and followed the king to the table where a whole spread was laid out. The king easily took a seat, and it should have been just as easy for Draco. If not for his bundle of nerves and uncertainty. He didn’t know where to sit. Next to the king? Awkwardly far away? He chewed on his bottom lip until the king kicked out the chair at his side in invitation. Right. Draco sat without making eye contact then busied himself collecting sweet meats and dried fruits onto his plate so he wouldn’t have to figure out where to start.

King Harry wasn’t a dunce. He noticed immediately that Draco was being avoidant. “Did it go poorly?” his voice was far tighter than just a moment ago when he’d greeted Draco.

Draco forced a smile and tried to at least look more relaxed. “I think it went well, actually.”

The king let out air he’d been holding in. “Good.” He said. Then more firmly, “Good.” He noticed Draco was still picking at his food instead of looking up at him. King Harry reached out a hand to take one of Draco’s. “Something happened. What’s wrong?”

Draco paused to stare at how well the two hands fit together. He wasn’t quite certain what to say. It wouldn’t be so bad to tell King Harry he’d need to be publicly rejected, because he was certain the king could take it. It looked like everything he did in front of the court was an act and this would only be a slightly different version. It was just that the longer he thought about it the more he considered that the whole situation was entirely fucked.

He wanted badly to unfuck it. He just wasn’t certain how to start.

“Your majesty-”

The king squeezed his hand almost painfully tight. “Draco, please. Call me Harry.” Draco visibly balked. “You called me Harry before,” the king reminded him.

Draco looked up then so the king could see him roll his eyes. “Yes, when I was dying. A man’s allowed to ignore decorum when he’s dying.”

Draco had the perfect view of the king’s smile, which reached all the way to his eyes. “My friends call me Harry.” The king’s thumb stroked down Draco’s hand for emphasis. Draco repressed a shiver at the sensitive touch.

Draco wasn’t so sure whether the king saw him as a friend. “What about your lovers?” Draco asked pointedly.

The king’s smile turned bashful and he hid it behind his free hand. “Are we going to have that discussion now?” He wasn’t defensive. If anything, he was embarrassed. Draco knew it wasn’t because he’d had so many partners. King Harry wouldn’t care about that. Maybe it was facing how Draco had been one of them and the king never knew. Perhaps it was even remembering how King Harry had wanted to take the Draco he knew to bed as well, when it wouldn’t have been meaningful. The king sighed through his discomfort and approached this as he did most things: head on. “If they were my friends, they called me Harry.”

Draco bit the edge of his lip nervously. He was hesitant, but he had to ask. “And if we were not… if you were no longer interested in me that way… you would still prefer I call you… Harry?” The name felt as awkward to say it now as ever it had before.

The king shifted his hand and stretched out his fingers so he could lace them through Draco’s own. “Yes, Draco. I think I’d like that very much.”

This time it was Draco’s turn to hide his blush. Right up until he realized what he was doing and snapped up to look at the king - Harry - head on with his best attempt at a smirk. “I accept your offer of friendship.” He tried to sound snobbish and unaffected but it was hard when he meant it more than a little.

Harry bit back his amused smile. He lifted Draco’s hand to his lips and kissed the back of it gently. A soft brush of lips that tingled with sensation. Then he let Draco go and got to business. “Tell me what happened.”

“Oh, well,” Draco mused over where to start. He popped a cube of cheese in his mouth while he considered. “I’m mostly sure Prince Viktor won’t make you marry him.”

“Mostly?” Harry asked with the right level of skepticism.

Draco’s wry smile wasn’t forced. He never felt forced when he was teasing. “He truly doesn’t want to marry you, so you’re starting off in a strong position.”

Harry snorted. “Should have known you wouldn’t pull your punches.”

Draco shrugged and had another bite of food. “It’s not an insult. He doesn’t want to marry you, you don’t want to marry him. Finding an alternative is the best for everyone.”

Harry sighed and leaned back in his chair, food forgotten. “Alright,” he said, but it didn’t sound like things were alright. He wasn’t looking at Draco as he asked, “What’s next, then?”

Draco was ready to launch into the whole strategy he’d discussed with Prince Viktor, and then further fleshed out on the walk over to the king’s chambers, but the words died on his lips and he closed his mouth firmly instead. The king - Harry, he reminded himself - looked upset. Draco wasn’t certain why. “Did you want him to want to marry you?” Draco cursed his own need to always ask the question better left ignored.

Harry blinked hard and a moment later he pulled himself back together. He took his hands out of his pockets and sat up at the table, leaning an elbow on it as he turned to face Draco. “No.” It was firm and sounded true.

“Aren’t you happy then?” Draco asked because it didn’t feel like Harry was happy.

The king’s relaxed smile looked less authentic than how he’d slumped into his chair. It was a head trip to see him hide his inner feelings so quickly. “It is good news, and I appreciate hearing it. It’s just…” In that pause the king’s face softened. It looked more real. It looked like a person Draco could call Harry and perhaps it wouldn’t be weird after all. “I don’t like knowing how few people would tolerate me if I wasn’t the king.”

“You do make yourself quite intolerable,” Draco deadpanned. He hadn’t meant to, the words just came out.

Instead of anger, Harry laughed. It made Draco’s insides flutter. “Alright, yeah. Seriously, though, what’s next?”

Again, it would have been easy to move on. Wise, even. If only Draco were wise.

Instead he asked, “Why were you going to marry Prince Viktor? Not, like, now, but before? When, you know,” this couldn’t possibly get any more awkward except then Draco said, “when we were kissing?”

This time Harry’s blink was very, very slow. Like a cat. “What does it matter?”

Draco either laughed or actually said the words, “Ha ha.” Whichever was totally normal and chill. “It doesn’t. I just wondered. Because you were planning to marry him before, and I have to assume you didn’t really want to then. Or, maybe you did? I don’t know. You weren’t being threatened with war then, so why?”

Harry looked at Draco like he was batty, which was fair because Draco wasn’t feeling entirely sane. He was stressed and he was tired. He hated how the king let the silence stretch out between them while his face got progressively flat. Like every time Draco pushed the king pulled further back away from him. All the warmth was gone from Harry’s voice when he said, “The small council and I agreed, I would marry before the year is out and Teddy would be named my heir.”

Draco might have asked something truly pathetic like, “Why him?” or “Why not me?” but he bit back the sentiment. He didn’t actually want Harry to answer those questions. Or worse, make excuses not to. So instead Draco doggedly focused on a thought that he couldn’t get out of his head.

“I think it’s sad that you’d force yourself into a marriage because so-called traditionalists are afraid you’ll wake up one day and realize you aren’t gay.”

Harry looked confused. “Are you serious with this?”

This would be the time to stop talking. A smart man would stop talking. “That’s why they’re making you, right? You filled your small council with backwards thinking bigots.”

The confusion was rapidly turning into anger. “What the actual fuck.” Harry’s words were almost growling. It sounded familiar. It was how the king always talked to Draco when he pushed.

“I just hate that you’re forcing yourself to do this. You fought a whole war over ending blood supremacy so people could marry whoever they loved, and then immediately toss the idea of love out the window for the sake of people who don’t care a lick about you, or your principals. Don’t you think you deserve to be happy?”

“Happy?” Harry made it a question like maybe he didn’t know what it meant. “I’m doing everything I can to take care of my people, what more do I need to be happy?”

Draco scoffed. “I don’t know.” He really didn’t, not at all. “I think maybe taking time to do things you enjoy with people you care about, instead of constantly fulfilling obligations you resent.”

“I don’t resent them.” It was a full growl now, out in force. “It is my good fortune to have the means to keep the people I care about safe.”

“Yes of course it is,” Draco could agree up to a point, “but you’re describing work, which you never seem to enjoy. Wouldn’t you rather your marriage not be work?” Draco stared past Harry’s shoulder, trying to find the words he was looking for. “Someone you feel safe with, and can be open with, and who you could lean upon when you need help. Or someone who makes you smile and laugh, who you can’t wait to spend the rest of your life with because every new day excites you.” He spoke almost wistfully. “Don’t you want to find someone like that?”

“If you don’t want to marry me just say it!” Somehow the shouting was more surprising than what Harry actually said. Although his words also took Draco by surprise.

“That’s not what I meant,” Draco insisted.

“What did you mean? Because it sounded a lot like you were trying to convince me to move along, like you convinced Viktor to.”

“That’s not fair,” Draco said. “I just don’t want you to marry me just because I’m the least bad option.”

Harry froze, eyes wide and jaw clenched. He stayed perfectly still and perfectly silent until he could speak without the slightest suggestion of emotion. “You don’t want to marry me.”

Draco actually pulled at his hair in frustration. “You don’t want to marry me!” He was finally shouting back. “You don’t want to marry anyone! And you don’t have to. You deserve better than this. I can fix this. I… I can make a plan. You know I can.” Draco let go of his hair because he suddenly wanted to be touching Harry. He grabbed for Harry’s hand, meaning to give comfort by holding it as Harry had done so well for him. Harry yanked his hand away. The noise Draco made may have been a whimper. “Please, Harry,” only it suddenly felt wrong to be calling him that. It felt like it was over stepping. “Please, I can fix this. Trust me.”

The king pushed back from the table and got to his feet. He cleared his throat, as if something had lodged itself there. It was impossible to tell when he spoke. His words were crisp and formal like he was speaking to a stranger. “Planning, then. I’ll summon Hermione, she’s good at that.”

The bottom dropped out of Draco’s stomach. He felt impossibly alone. “N-not Hermione,” he stammered. He couldn’t think of a justification for his opposition. Draco couldn’t tell the king that it hurt to think the king might summon a friend when Draco had nothing. Draco wanted to go back and get a full night’s sleep so he could think straight and find the perfect thing to say that would make the king look at him again instead of staring blankly over Draco’s shoulder. Draco wanted them to be friends, like the king had said they were, before he pulled away. He couldn’t stand being right and knowing they were never actually friends. He really needed a friend right now.

“Andromeda?” it was a shot in the dark, but after a pause the king nodded. That was good. Andromeda was… good. Only Draco would have to collect himself before she came because he was shaking and if she saw she would know he’d done something wrong again. Oh, god, that made Draco shake harder. He had fucked up, hadn’t he? He’d fucked up and he was all alone and he was afraid. He did what he always did when he was afraid, he was impulsive. “And George.”

“George?” the king couldn’t, or perhaps just didn’t, hide his disdain for the request.

Draco’s nod was fast and nervous. “He’s clever,” Draco said, because he couldn’t say that George already knew everything and would know with a glance that Draco had ruined it. He would take care of Draco if Draco needed him to.

“Whatever,” King Harry said instead of arguing. It was a bad sign he didn’t argue. He stormed off without sparing Draco another glance.

There was something about being left alone in the king’s chamber, with an abundance of food he had no stomach for, and all the reminders of how Draco could have made a place for himself in the king’s life.

Draco started crying.

It was big, loud, embarrassing tears and he had to stop them soon else his eyes would be red and puffy and everyone would know. It was just the sort of loss of control his father would scold him for. But if he wasn’t willing to bend his morals or give up on a chance of finding someone who could love him for who he was… well, what did it matter if he cried. His father was dead, and Draco had long since outgrown the need to please a dead man. And he’d never felt the need to please the king.

Until today, maybe, and he’d thoroughly fucked it all up.

Today

Thank god Draco found Charlie right away when he entered the stable, and double thanks that Charlie didn’t say a thing about Draco’s red, puffy eyes.

“Charlie? Is there a carriage I can borrow, I need to get home.”

“Whoa, mate, what are you doing here? Isn’t that thing going on?”

Draco didn’t explain anything. If he started talking he might not stop, and he really didn’t want to say anything, anyway.

“I know it’s late, and I’ll pay to stop at an inn if we have to, but I really want to go. Now.”

Charlie gave Draco another look and Draco didn’t doubt he was seeing everything. “Yeah, alright.” Draco sagged in relief at his agreement.

Not twenty minutes later, Draco was in George’s carriage (my carriage, said Charlie), with a driver and two of Prince Viktor’s guards who had randomly been in Charlie’s company (guarding the prince’s prized horses, said Charlie), and the promise to ride all night if Draco really wanted to get to Grimmauld Place that bad (although you’ll hurt in the morning, Charlie again).

Draco really, really did hurt in the morning. He might have slept through most of the trip, but the carriage had still bounced along the road and his abdomen ached. He could hardly get down the servants’ stairs on his own to enter the house. He never would have made it up all those flights of stairs to his own room, and he didn’t have to. Not with Kreacher and Angie there, ready to take care of him. Letting it go when he said he didn’t want to talk about why he was already back. Trusting him that everything was fine. Just let Draco get some sleep somewhere accessible, and when he woke up away from the drama of the castle everything would be totally fine.