Lets have shmex
I saw young Harry with his visor up.
5
They only had twenty-four hours before falling dead, which was not a lot of time to Draco.
‘Can you believe the nerve of that man? Telling me I won’t need hairbrush where I’m going?’
‘Draco-’
‘I’m going to have to bring my earplugs,’ the blond said. ‘You snore something terrible.’
‘Draco-.‘
‘Lets divide our duties up: I’ll pack my clothes. You can pack your clothes, fetch the sword you used to slay that big chamberpot lizard of yours in the toilet of secrets and find us some Greek coins with a hole in the middle.‘
Harry stared at him.
'Do you think it would be awfully rude to press my great great grand grand uncle into service as a pack mule?’ Draco pondered. ‘I mean, if the bloke can carry all that tin around, a couple of suit cases will barely tip the scale- WHAT?’
‘Draco, I said I’m not going.’
‘Of course you are. This is the perfect opportunity for you to shed that tired old boy-are-you-still-around and be boy, I Wana Piece Of That Arse, mm-mm.’
‘Oh, Merlin.’
‘I’ll even swoon on camera for you. I don’t do that for just anybody, you know. Just think of the headlines: ‘Harry Potter, comes charging to the rescue of childhood lover; boy hero turned manly hunk of burning flesh-‘
‘Of all the ludicrous-‘
‘Come up with your own sound bites then, smart-ass.’
‘SHUT UP AND LET ME THINK!’
Draco stared at him. ‘You’re going to die anyway. You have to end up in Hades, so you might as well help me find my father and persuade him to banish this bloody baby sitter.’
‘How-‘ Harry broke off and pinched his nose, feeling the first stirring of a migraine. ‘How do we even know your father’s the one who siced him on you?’
A needle-sharp brow arched. ‘Nobody else would be such a fucking prick.’
Harry considered this. ‘True.’ In life Lucius had been foul, vindictive, and petty; no doubt death had only given him plenty of time to refine these non-virtues.
‘Where in Merlin are we going to get one of those stupid Greek coins for the ferryman?’ Draco started fretting. ‘Perhaps we should hold a press conference, ask the public for help before my hair starts shedding; god, I should hurry back and apply a conditioning tonic immediately-’
Harry sighed.
*
Four hours later, when a very exhausted Harry Potter flooed back the Manor with the Sword of Gryffindor, he found himself beset by an avalanche of photographers, and the tail end of a very theatrical, very teary-eyed press conference. The devious attention whore had apparently made good on his threat to tell the world about their ‘plight’. He’d never seen Draco so covered up since his father's funeral; he looked practically Victorian, and a velvet hat hid his hair from prying cameras. With a sense of vindictive pleasure, Harry realised that the sheding must have started - at least in Draco's fertile imagination.
His ex-lover was holding out his hand with the most woebegone expression Harry had ever seen the smarmy blond wear.
‘Behold, my knight arriveths, bearing the Sword of Gryffindor as is his birth right, twice slayer of dark lords and Britain’s champion, preserver of our wizarding way of life!’
Harry winced and begun backing away from the flashing cameras.
Unfortunately the consummate Slytherin was only getting warmed up, and he rose with sudden vigor, cape sliding off his shoulders. ‘Show them your sword, Harry!’ he all but roared at the cameras. ‘Show the world how your one-eyed slumber, pleased in peace to be forgotten... only to towering rise up, a bane of evil forces-’
‘Press is over,’ Harry glowered at the cameras. ‘Clear out.’
‘Refreshments are in the adjacent room,’ Draco piped up helpfully, and artfully twirled away before Harry could turn around and tear into him.
The drawing room had rows of tables with a number of witches going through an astonishing sortie of parchments and presents; Volunteers, Draco had shrugged. Even as he continued his coquettish palaver with the camera and quick quill-laden ‘guest’, owls were pouring in through the open windows, pledging help, coinage, reference books, weapons, charms, and the occasional howler, which were immediately deposited into a soundproof bag and burnt.
Idly Harry wondered how many of the howlers came from the Weasely clan.
‘Enjoy the rest of your mad hatter tea party, because I’m going to run you over with Gryffindor’s sword when it’s over,’ he murmured with deceptive civility.
‘Oh, ye of no faith,’ Draco sighed. ‘If we don’t get our Greek coins after this, I’ll eat my hideously expensive hat.’
‘I’d rather have broken into the Museum of Natural History.’
‘For which you’d have to wait till dark,’ Draco pointed out archly. ‘My way is much faster.’
Sure enough by the end of the little soiree, and after the country’s best reporters had been accompanied – roaring drunk – to the door, they had amassed, true to Draco’s wily prediction, a veritable treasure trove.
‘Amazing. We actually managed to get all our gear together with hours to spare,’ Draco marveled artlessly, milking his one-uppance over Harry for all its worth.
‘Much good it will do us in Cerebus’s stomach when he eats us alive.’
The blond was still in an irritatingly exuberant mood however. ‘What shall we do to kill time until the hour of death arrive? Shall I condition your hair for you?’
Harry patted the sword on his hip warningly, and the blond’s face fell.
‘Indoor racing? Leap frog? Exploding Snap?’
The dark-haired man eyed the table, considering sweeping its contents off in a dramatic and ultimately self-defeating gesture of bad temper. He pointed at a bottle of Firewhiskey instead.
'Delightful!' Draco cried, clapping his hands. 'Inspired!'
'Thank god you're reasonable for once,' Harry exhaled.
‘I know! I love Spin The Bottle too!’
The boy who lived looked at his watch. He couldn't wait to die.
*
Harry was blitzed, and Draco was blitzed and horny.
‘I’m horny,’ Draco announced. ‘Lets have shmex. Sheks. Shex.’
‘Am not intrest-ed. Yerre rubbish in bhed.’ Harry slurred.
‘But I want some.’ Draco whined. ‘We’re going to be dead in sixty odd minutes.’
‘Go ‘way and lemme die in pieces.’
Instead he found that Draco crawled over him and tucked his hands inside his shirt.
‘Your hands are clammy,’ Harry complained. ‘Gerrof!’
‘Haaaarrrrry,’
‘Now you just sound like Ron, so plee-‘
He didn’t get to finish his sentence because something with the sharp, biting consistency of an ice suddenly went through his gut. He was conscious again a few minutes later, with his legs tangled over the remains of a once dainty tea table and the fringes of a carpet in his mouth, dripping with something uncomfortably like slushed ice.
‘Sorry,’ Draco called out sheepishly. ‘I forgot about Gramps.’
‘Tell your uncle to keep his bloody ectoplasm to himself.’ Harry said through chattering teeth.
‘Do you ever feel afraid?’ The brat’s voice was suddenly, uncharacteristically quite.
‘What are you so afraid of? We’re wizards, and as Snape said, as long as we have our wands, we’re fine.’
‘I meant about dying, oh obtuse one.’
‘Hmm,’ Harry folded his hands behind his head and gazed up at the fat cherubs floating languidly across the enchanted Rococo ceiling and considered the question.
Dying. Death. Atonement and heaven. He didn’t believe in them, not by a long shot; and the judgement of gods was something he viewed with suspicion and resentment. Perhaps he did not see himself deserving, perhaps his beliefs were coloured more by vague shame than true conviction. Even with their impending sojourn unto death, Harry found himself detached, and he viewed his own dispassion as morose and regrettable, but realistic.
‘All my life, I’ve been hounded by the shadow of death. It gets a bit old.’
‘Dying feels lonely,’ Draco complained. ‘I don’t like feeling alone.’
‘I’m here,’ Harry told him quietly. ‘You won’t be alone.’
Draco’s eyes were very bright even through the veil of his alcoholic daze – shinning with something suspiciously like tears.
‘My hero.’
‘You’re welcomed. I hate your father.’
‘Congratulations,’ the blond yawned. ‘You do share something in common with the Wizarding world after all, like you’ve always wanted. Your life is complete.’
Harry looked at Draco, deceptively innocent in his repose, or perhaps he really was in his own way, a child-like ingénue. Many years ago he had been lured by Draco’s passionate response to everything around him, his outrageous declarations, his utterly confident flaunting of the common rules of proprietary. It always seemed that for all his flaws, Draco lived, and lived much better; more richly, with passion and sound and thunder, whereas Harry merely drifted by, vaguely envious and burdened by an unknowing sense of loss.
‘Drake? You turned out well, all things considering.’
‘Of course.’ The blond laughed sleepily. ‘You didn’t.’
Harry snorted.
‘Nggh turned out terrible,’ the blond sniffed on, pompous even in sleep. ‘-do zzomething… with dact hair-‘
‘We can’t all be blond popinjays.’
‘-ant you need somebod… ngggt to fuck.’
Harry chucked darkly, shutting his own eyes against the sweet, almost irresistible drowsiness that suddenly assailed him. ‘Too right.’
‘To love,’ Draco mumbled. ‘yu need to ..learn how-’ a deep snore; ‘-love.’
Green eyes flew opened as if flayed, and for a brief moment, a flood of profound sadness tugged at Harry; drew the breath from his lungs. He fought briefly, trying to identify its direction- then surrendered to the inexorable pull of sleep.
They slumbered.
*