The Balcony
Draco went out to the balcony to smoke, wearing nothing but a pair of Tom’s silk briefs. It was stinking hot, the kind of weather that made all of London smell of exhaust and curry and sweat, and Draco swore if he sniffed deep enough he could smell a ghost of Victorian effluvia wafting off the Thames a few blocks away. He lit his cigarette.
“Those things’ll kill you,” said a voice from the shadows, “not that I’d mind much.”
Draco started so badly that he dropped his cigarette, then went to stomp it out only to realize, painfully, that he was not wearing shoes. He gritted his teeth against the sizzling of his foot and glared at the shadows, where a pair of green eyes glowed like a cat’s.
“Harry,” he greeted. “Summited a new peak of desperation, have we?”
“I can smell your skin burning,” said Harry.
“How horrifying.”
“No, I mean--” Harry growled in frustration-- “d’you need to go inside and get a plaster?”
“Make up your mind,” said Draco. “Murderous stalker or caring acquaintance? I need to know if you’re going to stab me or light my cigarette, and the suspense is killing me.”
“Not going to stab you,” said Harry.
“You’ll have to go through me to get to him,” said Draco, annoyed with himself that he meant it.
“I just need to pick up something that got left here,” Harry tried.
“Don’t suppose it occurred to you to knock on the door and ask.”
“No,” said Harry with a quirk of his eyebrow, “I rather figured two world wars had been enough for Britain.”
Draco cringed, remembering the last time Harry and Tom had encountered each other face to face. He nodded slightly, conceding the point, and reached for another cigarette.
“If you’d just let me pop in,” said Harry, stepping into the light a bit. Then he added, “I suppose Tom’s in the kitchen.”
“He is,” Draco agreed, smug. Tom always went to the kitchen after sex to make and drink a cup of coffee. It was his way of enjoying the afterglow while simultaneously letting his bed partner know they were not welcome to spend the night. “And I won’t.”
“He won’t see me. He’ll never even know I was here.”
“Why do I doubt that?” Draco lit his cigarette and inhaled. He tried to focus on the sweet relief of it, but Harry’s voice insisted on cutting in.
“Please--I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important.”
Draco looked askance at Harry. If he himself were in Harry’s position, he knew he’d have clung to any excuse to be near Tom, even if it were just to lurk on his balcony. Not that Draco would ever lurk. He was far too well bred for that.
“I mean it, Draco.” Harry looked pained. “I really don’t want to be here. I don’t--it’s not fun for me, all right? This is not a lark.”
“What is it?”
“It’s the locket,” Harry said with a cringe.
Draco responded with a sharp glance. “The locket is Tom’s.”
“I know, but--”
“--but it’s Tom’s family fucking heirloom and you have no fucking right to it?”
“I know that,” said Harry, freezing Draco with the intensity of his voice. “But it’s something I left in the locket, all right? I don’t want the bloody fucking thing, why would I? This is just a simple extraction.”
“In the locket,” Draco said blankly.
“A picture.” At Draco’s look, Harry continued quietly, “of my parents.”
Draco swallowed. That...well, he wasn’t quite heartless enough to scorn that, even if he did hate Harry with all his might. No friend of Tom’s could take orphanhood lightly.
“And you can’t have another copy made...why?” Draco tried.
“It’s the only copy.”
“You put the only copy of a picture of your sainted parents in a locket you were borrowing from your boyfriend?”
Harry shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t think we’d break up.”
Draco huffed. “Of all the--”
“Draco? Is someone there?” Tom’s voice. Tom’s footsteps approaching.
“Best scarper,” said Draco to Harry. “I was planning on having a nice fag and slinking home, not refereeing a duel to the death, tonight.”
“Right then,” said Harry. “I’d say it was nice chatting with you, but, well, you know.” And with that, he disappeared down the fire escape. Seconds later, Tom stepped onto the balcony, godlike in his black satin pajama pants, hair mussed, bare chest gleaming in the porchlight. He pinched Draco’s arse in greeting and then stole his cigarette, taking a deep drag.
“Were you talking to someone?” he asked. Draco contemplated telling Tom what had just passed. He loved Tom. He didn’t like to hide things from him. But sometimes it was necessary--like, for example, when a storm of temper threatened to ruin a decent night. So Draco decided to keep Harry’s confidence, Lord help him, for the moment.
“Pigeon,” he said. “I’m trying a new thing, making pithy comments to passing vermin. It has a sort of maudlin, Cambridgean whimsy to it, don’t you think?”
“And an Oxford toff would know about that, would he?” Tom teased. Draco’s cigarette was nearly gone, and he still hadn’t passed it back.
“Perhaps an Oxford toff can learn a thing or two from his serious Cambridge b--from his Cambridge mate.” Draco tried to control the blush that was creeping up his neck. Fuckety fuck, he had almost said 'boyfriend.’ Tom’s eyes grew cold at his slip-up as he flicked Draco’s now spent cigarette over the side of the balcony.
“Well, a Cambridge man has work to do. I trust an Oxford toff can see himself out?”
“I trust he can,” agreed Draco, making his manner as easy as he could make it.
Tom turned and went back into the apartment with barely a further glance. Draco lagged behind a bit, then made his way to the bedroom to dress. As he did, he stared at the locket, which hung on a nail above Tom’s dresser, the only piece of decor to grace the yellowish-white walls. It was an ugly thing, really, a hunk of malformed gold inlaid with crudely cut emeralds. It was old, granted, probably the sort of thing that should be rotting in some museum’s undisplayed collections. It was all Tom had of his mother, the last inbred scion of the Gaunts, the family itself a long-rotted twig of the British nobility. She had been descended, she claimed, from the great Elizabethan courtier the Earl of Slytherin, whence the locket. Of course, it could be an erroneous claim. Probably was. The Slytherin earldom was long since disbanded, its manor absorbed into another noble family’s holdings. In fact, Hogwarts Hall now belonged to Harry’s family. Perhaps that was what Tom had seen in him, Draco mused, considering the man didn’t have many other redeeming qualities.
No--Draco had to admit to himself that that wasn’t true. He may not like Harry, but he oughtn’t fool himself that it was actually Harry himself that had brought on his ire. A bit creepy, a bit intense, and stubborn as hell, he was, but not a bad bloke in all. No, nowadays Draco hated Harry almost solely because of Tom. Harry had captured Tom’s attention in ways Draco never had--probably never would, truth be told. Maybe it was that desperate, self-immolating honesty of his. That was a trait Draco could never attempt to replicate.
Well, Tom probably had no intention of leaving the safety of his kitchen until Draco had cleared out of the apartment. With a resigned sigh, Draco quietly took the locket off the wall and opened it. Inside, cut into an oval, was an old photograph of a dark-haired man resting his chin on top of a red-haired woman’s head, looking fondly down at her while she smiled at the camera. Her eyes were the same startling green as Harry’s, but the rest of Harry’s looks were all his father’s, excepting that Harry’s father appeared to have been much taller than Harry would ever be. Tom would probably burn this if he found it. The spiteful bastard, thought Draco fondly. Well, it was a good shot, no need for it to go to waste. Draco slipped the picture into his wallet, then closed the locket and hung it up again.
On his way out, Draco steeled himself to avoid looking in the kitchen doorway. He imagined what he would see if he did: Tom hunched over a willow patterned mug, inhaling coffee fumes meditatively, the shadows of his long lashes brushing his cheeks. At peace in a way he never was with Draco present.
Boyfriend, indeed. Draco vowed not to allow himself to slip up like that again. He could afford a lot, but he couldn’t afford that.