Secondhand Robes

DISCLAIMER: Warning! I make no claim to any property of J.K. Rowling's, and am in no way profiting by this. I do offer her my sincerest thanks for allowing us this garden of the mind in which we play. Further Warning! This story...and likely any I ever write...are dominated by gay themes and characters. That’s how it is, if this in any way makes you uncomfortable...do not read further.


Secondhand Robes (part 10)…by Samayel


Draco maintained the same cool distance from Harry right up to the holidays. Harry sulked, having apologized for his friends, his allies, the Ministry, and everyone else that had been involved in the fiasco at The Three Broomsticks. He’d tried notes and letters, hints about needing a few minutes to talk, and pleading glances in the hallways. His efforts had been in vain.

In Slytherin, rumors flew back and forth. Some wildly inaccurate, others dangerously close to the truth. At the moment, the majority of the school suspected that Draco had at least been involved in some kind of attempt on Harry’s life, even though there was no proof. The rest of Slytherin wavered between threatening to ostracize Draco for being caught in public with Harry, and lauding him as a hero for nearly getting Harry killed without winding up in Azkaban. Only a few people knew the truth, and they weren’t talking.

Harry had been brought to ground by his friends and the Order, and would be spending the holidays at Grimmauld Place with no hope of setting foot outside. Ron was barely speaking to him, Hermione constantly returned to the subject of Harry taking unnecessary risks, and Draco hadn’t spoken a word to him since that night.

After the first two days of silence from Draco, Harry had found himself crying into his pillow before he could sleep at night. After a week, and with his departure for Grimmauld Place in front of him, Harry finally became desperate. His classmates knew he was a wreck, but if Draco wouldn’t talk to him, he had to take some action that would get a response.

His cloak had been confiscated, ostensibly for his own good, but his map was still in his trunk. Risks be damned, he would find Draco before he left today! There were only a few hours left at his disposal, and he meant to use them. Harry opened the Marauder’s Map and activated it.

To his surprise and shock, Draco Malfoy was en route to the Gryffindor Tower. The labeled dot moved unerringly through the map of the school, and the only place it could possibly be heading from its current position was here. Harry’s heart leaped in his chest.

‘He’s coming to see me! He finally got over it…and we can talk…or snog…or god, anything he wants! I knew he’d get over it!’

Harry stemmed the tide of giddiness that threatened to leave him dancing through the common room and stowed away his map. He made a beeline for the common room and stepped out into the hallway, waiting nervously for Draco to appear in the hall. He did have to keep wiping his hands on his shirt, as his palms were sweating quite badly. A bit embarrassing, but hey, he had the right to be a little anxious!

Draco finally rounded the bend and saw Harry in the hall a second later. He looked like he hadn’t slept well, and Harry wanted to take that as a good sign, and assume that Draco had missed him just as much as he had missed Draco. Of course, Draco also looked like he was steeling himself for something unpleasant, and Harry’s stomach fluttered nervously in the meantime.

“Potter. There are some things I need to say. Do you want to talk here, or shall we take this somewhere a little more private?”

Harry didn’t fully trust his voice, so he nodded assent and led Draco to an old prefect’s suite that wasn’t far off. They walked in silence, and Harry was afraid that if he did speak, he’d break down almost instantly and wind up babbling, or worse, crying. It was nerve wracking and annoying, feeling so emotional over another person.

They reached the safety and privacy of the suite, and after a Silencing Charm and a quick Locking Spell, Harry sat down on the edge of a slightly dusty chair. Draco remained standing, and paced a bit before Harry prompted him.

“Draco, I meant it when I said I was sorry about all of that. I’ll..”

“Potter, don’t…don’t say anything. This isn’t easy, but I have to get this out. Okay?”

Harry let himself be interrupted, suddenly filled with absolute dread. His stomach clenched, and it was suddenly very hard to breath. This wasn’t the conversation he’d been hoping for…and his gut told him it was going to get worse.

Draco kneaded his brow and paced while he talked. “Believe me, it isn’t that I don’t like you. I do, but no one, and I mean no one, likes ‘us’. I had a while to think about it, and I think your friends and mine are right. We didn’t even make it through a first date without disaster looming over our heads. We don’t belong together, and that’s just how it is. I don’t blame you for the Ministry…or for the others…I know you know the truth. I’m not angry at you at all, but I think we need to be as realistic about this as your friends were, and just put this behind us and get back to our lives. Can you handle that?”

At least Draco looked nervous, but his voice was matter of fact and business like, and Harry felt a lump in his throat blocking his answer. Draco saw the moisture shining in Harry’s eyes, and the tight and miserable expression on Harry’s face, and he frowned.

“Don’t make this harder than it is. It was just one date, Potter! It’s not the end of the world, but we can’t be Hogwarts’ ‘hot new item’. It’s just doomed. Can’t you see that?”

Harry mustered the nerve to speak, trying very hard not to completely humiliate himself. “Draco…I just…I really wanted to try. I don’t care what they think. I’ll do anything I have to…anything you want…just please…don’t quit. We didn’t even get a real chance to try! I…I don’t want anybody else…I want you.”

Having the very thoughts that had nagged at him for days parroted back to him was more than Draco could handle. His face pinched, and he was furious that his emotions were betraying him and fraying his tenuous grasp on self control. He snapped.

“Finite!” The spells on the door ended. “Harry, I said what I had to say. This is over. I expect you to deal with it. Go to your world, I’ll go to mine. This conversation is over.”

Before Harry could do anything but stare in desperation, Draco had slammed the door behind him and was gone. Harry buried his face in in hands and wept.

He tried to tell himself that Draco was right; that it was just one date, that it was impossible, and things were better this way, but his chest still ached, his eyes still burned, and he still felt like some precious part of him had been torn off and lost.

It was just stupid, feeling this way about one pathetic date that had gone pear shaped in a matter of minutes. It wasn’t just that, but in a way, that date had come to represent everything that Harry had already lost to a war that devoured everything good in his life. That one brief fleck of happiness was another casualty of his so-called destiny, and Harry was just tired…so incredibly tired…of losing the things that made him happy.

---------------------------------------------

Draco returned to his rooms in Slytherin, and waited until he was certain that everyone had left. There were only a half dozen students left behind for the holidays, and he was the only Slytherin this time. At least he had privacy, which almost made it a bit of a holiday, even if he was alone and broke and stuck in school.

‘Damn Potter for a Hufflepuff! Why? Why did it have to be him? This…this just…well, it just SUCKS!’

Draco threw himself onto the common room couch with a huff. Anybody but Potter, and this wouldn’t have been such a bloody emotional ordeal. The traitorous voice in the back of his head whispered that, if it had been anybody but Potter, he wouldn’t been interested enough to care in the first place.

Draco ground his teeth and punched the arm of the couch, trying to drive thoughts like that out of his head. He needed a little sanity in his life, and Potter was not a likely source for that. The soppy git had done enough damage. Draco would be fighting off rumors for months, and there was still the risk that, if the truth came out, he could quickly become a target for assassination by Voldemort’s followers. Just being near Potter was a ticket to sure trouble. One date equaled instant chaos…just imagine what going steady would cause!

Then his vindictive subconscious threw the memory of that kiss to the front of his mind, and Draco closed his eyes and savored it, unwilling to fight a memory so pleasant.

It had been the most remarkable moment of his life to date. Harry may have initiated it, but once Draco had started to kiss back, the black haired boy had relinquished control and just melted into Draco’s arms like he belonged there, responding perfectly to every touch and movement. Draco had never been so savagely or suddenly turned on in his entire life, and he’d nearly wanked himself raw over the past week. How could something so simple, so plebian and common, feel that earth-shakingly good?

The first day of the holiday was an empty grind for Draco. He studiously avoided the other kids, and tried to drown himself in homework and Potions projects. Not that it made the night any easier. He slept badly, again, and went to breakfast the next day wishing he’d taken a few potions to soothe nerves and ease sleep.

No less than four owls arrived for Draco in the space of ten minutes. Draco couldn’t seem to get more than a few bites into his mouth before the next owl would arrive and drop another letter at his side. He had his own suspicions about their origins, but he waited until he’d eaten to open them.

He wasn’t surprised to see Harry’s name on one of the envelopes, but all the others astonished him. One was from Arthur Weasley, and another was from Hermione Granger. The third was from his cousin, Nymphadora Tonks, whom he hadn’t seen since he was very small.

He opened Granger’s first. Might as well start with the comic relief. Her high handed, know-it-all tone was almost dripping off the page, but at least it was civil. She seemed to be supporting his decision to call off seeing Harry, and, though she never implied actual trust in Draco, she did imply that she trusted Harry’s account of events, and by default, accepted that Draco hadn’t been responsible for the Death Eater’s presence.

Draco snorted derisively. If Granger was agreeing with him, he might have to reconsider his choices! He opened the letter from the Arthur Weasley next.

Dear Mr. Malfoy,

Harry has spoken very passionately on your behalf, and whatever bad blood may have passed between our families, I have been made aware that you have recently done us a great kindness.

Harry is very dear to us, and it is quite clear that you acted to protect him at some risk to yourself. You have the gratitude of our entire family, and you can be assured that I will use what influence I do possess, however limited, to persuade the Ministry to expedite your case.

I do feel that you have made the right decision about discontinuing this association with Harry, and though he hasn’t accepted this yet, we will try to make him understand the reality of the situation, as you so clearly have.

Well done and best wishes,

Sincerely, Arthur Weasley

Draco read it again just to be sure his eyes were working. It was nice that the Elder Weasel was going to work on getting the Ministry to do its job, but it was disconcerting to have received compliments from one of them, much less gratitude. He opened the letter from his cousin while he mulled over the possibilities of the previous one.

Hello, Little Dragon.

Good job at the Three Broomsticks. I always thought you’d go the way of your dad, but I suppose I can be wrong. For what it’s worth, I’ll put in a good word for you at work, and see if anyone will get cracking on your case, but I can’t make any promises.

Good Luck,

Tonksy

PS: You’re daft if you give up on Harry. He’s keen on you, and a great kid. You don’t know what you’re missing…and I’ve seen him in his pajamas!

Draco flushed pure scarlet. His cousin had always been a bit wild, but that was when she’d been a teen. Evidently she hadn’t lost touch with her playful sense of humor. She still knew how to embarrass Draco effortlessly. She also knew how to distract him completely…as he now had the imaginary image of Harry in pajamas, hair mussed and sleepy eyed, lingering in his skull.

That left only one letter. Draco opened it hesitantly, and took a deep breath before he read it.

Draco,

I’ve talked to everyone I can. If I have to make a deal with the Minister himself, I’ll find a way to get your case resolved.

Everyone keeps telling me that you were right, and that I need to just get over this and move on. Maybe they’re right. I don’t know. I just hate not knowing.

I’ve missed you for over a week, and it’s even worse here. No hallways, and no smiles when no one is watching. I hate it.

I’m sorry if I can’t do like you asked, and just leave it alone, but I have to try just once more. Please think about it again, and this time ignore everyone else and go with what you really want.

If you don’t answer this letter, I won’t send anymore, and I won’t bother you in school. I promise. Hey, even if you do answer it, and you say not to bother you in school, I’ll do as you ask…but either way, I’d just like to hear from you soon. Take good care of yourself.

Yours?, Harry

Draco picked up his letters and slipped back to Slytherin’s common room. It was going to be a very long holiday, and he didn’t know how to answer Harry’s letter, or even if he wanted to. The whole situation was fraught with peril and tension, and it was easier just to ignore it and hope it went away, and took his traitorous heart along with it.

Two days later, a letter from the Ministry arrived. Draco’s case was resolved. He was emancipated from his parents, named as the new Lord Malfoy, and granted full access to all properties and vaults that came with that title.

Draco left Hogwarts for the remainder of the holiday, and spent his remaining time in the home he’d grown up in, surrounded by luxury that was now all his own. For all that he was surrounded by comfort and ease, his holiday was no less restless than it had been at school.

TBC