Here In Your Arms

The sun is poking through the window and directly into my eyes. I groan…

“Harry, are you awake?”

“If I say yes, do we have to get up?” He grumbles into the sheets.

“No…”

“Then yes, but not for long…” his voice drifts off, and I know that he’s asleep again. I snuggle up against his back and sigh. I drift off once again…

***


I reawake, and as my vision adjusts, I read the time on the digital clock on the night stand. It’s 11:53. Great, that means I have time to make brunch and go to the office after lunch to quit. Harry mumbles something about not being able to move, so I get out of bed. I pad over to the bathroom and turn on the shower. I feel the hot water wash away the tension in my muscles. I turn off the water, step out and towel off. I look up and see Harry leaning against the door way, staring me up.

“Enjoying the show?” I ask as I strut over to him.

“Yes, a lot in fact.” He kisses me and continues. “Did you want me to make some breakfast?”

“No, I’ll make breakfast. If you want to shower, go ahead. I’ll be downstairs.”

I walk back into the bedroom and grab a pair of faded and ripped jeans from my dresser and one of my many t-shirts from the closet. I head down the stairs into the kitchen. I pull bacon, eggs, milk and bread from the fridge and set to work. I put the bacon in a pan to fry and mix an egg and milk with some vanilla for French toast. I dip the bread and place it in a different pan. As I pick the last slices of bacon from the pan a pair of arms slip around my waist, and a soft kiss is placed on the back of my neck.

“Breakfast is ready, and if you’d let go then we could eat.”

“But I don’t want to let go!” I can feel the pout on my back.

I chuckle and move to put the plates on the table. He doesn’t let go. He stumbles along behind me. I step in front of my chair and pretend to start to sit down.

“NO! DON’T SQUISH ME!” He yelps and steps around in front of me, and sits to my left. I laugh and sit down.

“Thought you’d see it my way. What do you have planned for today?”

“Nothing in particular, just what I feel like doing…I might work on my ‘blue’ piece this afternoon. That’s just the beauty of being a painter; I don’t work when I don’t feel like it.” He replied while nibbling on a piece of bacon.

“Hmm, yes, well, that is why I love you.” I lean over and kiss him.

We eat in relative silence after that, his hand on my thigh. He sighs and lays his head on my shoulder, showing that he’s full. “What did you have planned?”

“Well, make brunch for you, then go in to clean out my office, and come home to make dinner, perhaps watch a movie or whatever you wanted to do afterwards.”

“Mmm, sounds like fun. Did you want me to come?”

“Although it would be nice to have the company, it could be ugly, so no, and it’s okay. Stay home; take care of Apollo and Mars.” I say as he snuggles further into my neck.

“That’s the only time I’m glad that I still have magic. I don’t like to have to muck the stalls, it’s so much work.”

I kiss the top of his head and say, “Wouldn’t want to break a perfect nail…” I giggle, that’s more something that I’d be worried about.

“Well then maybe you want to go riding later?”

“Sounds like a plan sweets, but I should get going…”

“Sure, leave me with the dishes!”

“I’ll clean dinner up, I promise.”

“Fine then.” He raises his head and walks me to the door to kiss me off to work…or what used to be work.

***


I drive the twenty minutes to the office. I park in my assigned spot, and walk into the lobby. The receptionist waves at me and I head to the elevator. I ride the 4 floors up. As I exit the elevator, my boss spots me.

“MALFOY! WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?! THE KENSINGTON JOB IS DUE TOMORROW, AND YOU AREN’T EVEN HALF DONE! WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?!” She screams at me.

“I left here at 10 o’clock last night; I slept until noon this morning. The only reason I’m here now is to tell you I quit and to clean my stuff out of my office. So, I hope that answers your question.” I say calmly as a walk past the she-devil. She huffs loudly and screams something else at me, but I can’t hear it, or I don’t want to hear it.

I arrive at my office, unlock the door, and start to load all my personal items into the boxes I’ve brought with me. I take a few of the office things, but who doesn’t when they quit a job? I leave my keys on my desk, exit the building and drive home.

***

I carried my stuff upstairs into my study. I unpack my laptop and boot it, then walk to Harry’s painting room and see him busily adding delicate paint strokes to a portrait of some girl for one of his commissions. It’s so close to the photo the buyer provided it’s uncanny.

“What you doing?” I ask as I kiss behind his ear.

“Painting. Almost done, about half an hour more. Then we’ll go for our ride okay love?” his eyes never moved from the canvas. “How did the bitch from hell take it?”

“She was pissed, but I really couldn’t care less. I’m going to send out a few emails…I think I’ll come join you in here.”

I grab my computer from the study and sit on the couch in ‘Harry’s’ room. It’s a comfortable silence; just having the other in the same room gives us a sense of security that was unachievable not all that long ago.

I send emails to both of my work friends. They wish that they could leave the clasp of the witch, but can’t until something better comes along. I feel a dip in the sofa next to me. I’ve been playing solitaire for the past ten minutes and my eyes are unfocused.

“Nine on the ten.” Harry breathes into my ear.

“I’m done. Are you ready to go for our ride?” I say as I close my laptop and stand up. I help Harry up from the couch and we go change.

I grab some snacks, a bottle of champagne and glasses to take with us. I pack them into the two stallions’ saddlebags. It’s funny how our horses mirror us somewhat oppositely. Apollo, Harry’s horse, is the larger one of the two and almost a silvery white. Mars, my horse, is slightly smaller, and blacker than soot. And Apollo can have a terrible tantrum when he doesn’t get what he wants. They make me laugh, a lot.

“Gimme a boost!” I hear from the other side of Mars.

“Coming darling!”

“No, not at the moment.”

“Ah, you’re terrible; do you have to make jokes about that all the time?” I ask as I push Harry up into his saddle.

“Not all the time, just when it’s a good time to…which is quite often, coincidentally.”

“Love you too darling.” I swing into my saddle and we’re off.

Harry’s on my right as we head down the familiar trail towards the river. That’s usually where we end up with our ‘picnic’. We haven’t had one since the fall. It’s been far too cold to stop during our rides.

Once the two animals are thoroughly warmed up, I ask my lover, “Race you to the willow tree!” and I urge Mars into a gallop, which he responds to immediately.

“THAT’S NOT FAIR!” I hear call after me. Harry and Apollo could easily catch us; it’s about a half mile to the willow, and another half mile to the river from there, so they’ll be able to cool a bit before we stop. I look over my shoulder and see that the big white horse is right on my tail. I urge Mars to go faster. He does, but Apollo has a longer stride length, and we finish nose to nose. We slow the two horses back to a walk and just meander to the river bank. We remove the bridles and replace them with halters, so they can graze and drink, and tie them to the post we erected there a few years back. We remove the things from our own saddle bags and settle on the shoreline. The late afternoon sun is warm on our backs in the balmy May weather. We are soon in our boxers jumping into the still cold river.

After we return to shore and redress, we repack the snacks and now empty bottle, re-tack the horses, and head for home, riding into the sunset. We groom the two large animals and put them in the paddock overnight.

We change and make a dinner of salad, pasta carbonera, and sundaes for dessert. We eat with light conversation and end once again with Harry’s hand on my thigh and head on my shoulder.

We settle on the couch in the living room watching ‘The Notebook’ for about the hundredth time. It’s Harry’s favorite so I don’t complain. That’s when he asks the question.

“What do you want to do know that you’re not in graphic design anymore?”

“I’m not sure. I could paint like you, or play my guitar, or go back into graphic design somewhere else. I just want to take a break right now. It’s not that I don’t like what I was doing, it was that I didn’t like the way I was being worked to the bone. I don’t want to spend all day and most of the night at the office. I want to have more time like today where we don’t really do a lot, but spend time with each other.”

“I know what you mean, that’s why I paint. I can do what I like, and still get paid well for it, but you don’t have to go back to work, you know. We could live extremely well for the next 250 years without either of us working. Do what you like, where you want to be.”

“I want to be here with you, where our lips can touch, our cheeks can brush. I think your brave Gryffindorness rubs off on me when I’m in your arms.” I kiss him, and let our cheeks rub together for a moment. “Is it bed time yet? I’m tired.” It’s about midnight, time to turn in.

“Sounds good to me.” We turn the DVD player and TV off as the credits finish rolling off the screen. I’m just glad that he didn’t cry this time at the end. It usually gets him, although it’s okay because he gets cuddly.

We climb the stairs and crawl into bed, forms fitting perfectly like spoons in a drawer. My eyes start to droop almost immediately, but I can’t fall asleep without a sweet nothing from my love. We usually don’t use ‘I love you’ because we agreed a long time ago that those three words are said too much, and don’t mean a lot anymore. We usually give the ‘I like where you sleep when you sleep next to me’. Sometimes, though, the old faithful is used.

“Love you more then you’ll ever know.” I whisper in his ear.

“I love you more than Apollo is a horse bitch.” He whispers back, and kisses every knuckle on my right hand. I chuckle, and soon slip into a sweet slumber with dreams of a certain brunet dancing through my head.

***
A/N: So here's chapter two. I hope you enjoyed it! Tell me if you did! Thanks so much to my beta Ruinithil/Thindiell. All mistakes here are mine and mine alone. Here are some review responses!


Gummi Bear: Thanks! Here’s more for you!

Doinkers: Thanks! I’ll look into writing something for that song! It’s also really good. I wrote one to Nickelback’s ‘Far Away’. So check that out if you’re one of their fans.

Ayla Rouge: Thanks! I know, I adore this song…it’ll make it’s appearance near the end.

ZooArmy: Thanks! I love fluff, it makes my days brighter a lot of the time when school and other stuff gets me depressed. Here’s more for you!