A Dark Time For The Light

56

The combined odours of coffee and bacon awakened him the following day. No headache, check. Dope hangover. Check. Dragon. He extended a hand out feeling cool sheets. Nope. Bugger. He was a-lying there as hard as a rock. He could hear voices from the kitchen. He called out, “Draco”, and fell back into his pillows. Draco appeared moments later. Harry gave him that look and Draco kicked the bedroom door shut behind him and advanced on the bed, peeling off his robe.

After thoroughly thanking his Dragon for his present, they both rose and re-joined their guests, now curled up on the settee in the lounge which had been cleaned up and the furniture set to rights. Harry giggled, “I remember lamenting the loss of house-elves before I went to bed. It would appear we have had a visitation after all”. Severus laughed, “No, Harry, you still get to take the rubbish out on bin day, but it’s all bagged and in the kitchen”. Harry dragged a hand through his damp hair and thanked his guests.

They all staggered over to the House for a late Sunday lunch that Dean, Colin and Seamus produced between them. There was gentle ribbing of George when it was revealed that he and Caroline had swapped phone numbers, “We’re going to the pictures on Wednesday. I’ve seen TV, but I’ve never yet stepped inside a cinema”. Harry high-fived him. At around five, George and Ginny set out with Ron to see him off at Heathrow. Harry held his friend long and tight. “Thanks for coming, Ron. It was fuckin’ Magic to see you. We’ll be over to see you, just as long as we get a decent break between us. Take care and give Blaise and your sweet little Freya a kiss from her uncles”. Then he was gone.

After a blazing kiss from each of Sev and Remus, the boys watched them go and collapsed on their sofa. “Just us again”, sighed Draco, gathering Harry to him, and, back to chest, they slept through some inconsequential movie, until Harry woke and got them both to bed, setting the alarm as he faded to oblivion, his Dragon holding him tight.

That week and the next were blissfully quiet. George went on his date and was ribbed by his house-mates. In return he glued all the breakfast bowls together the next morning and howled as folk had to try and eat cornflakes and milk off dinner plates as he soaked the glue away. Ginny groused but Hermione grinned, George was coming back to life.

The House cooked Sunday dinner as usual, then Draco and Harry took everyone to the pub for some snooker and Seamus Dean and Colin watched the big football match on the pub’s large screen TV. Harry greeted John and Frank who were already at one of the tables. Draco and he had taken up the man’s offer for Tuesday knockabouts and their game was improving to the point where each now had his own cue. Terry took a turn against Draco and just beat him after a tense safety game and lots of snookers. Just that week, Terry had started work as an apprentice on a new government scheme to a firm of car mechanics. Like Ginny, he wasn’t earning a lot, but he could contribute in his small way.

The next weekend Harry and Draco were invited to a barbecue at Alice’s. As she spoke to Harry, he could hear her husband, Tony, in the background, “Invite his guitar, but tell ‘im he’s welcome to accompany it!”. Harry laughed and accepted.

Sunday rolled around and the boys decided to take a cab rather than the bike as Steffie had warned Harry that Alice’s ‘do’s tended to involve lots of beer and Harry had the guitar with him. Harry took Alice to one side. He had news for her from Scotland. She smiled as he mumbled prices on individual kilos down to ounces. “Now, love, I need a price on 10k. 3 of the ‘Lights’, 3 of the ‘Widow’ and 4 of the ‘Bubblegum’. If we can thrash out a decent price, we could do this on a regular basis. The gear was very good. Whoever’s growing this is a fine horticulturalist”. Harry grinned, “He was the best in our year at Herbology, so this is a walk in the park to him. I’ll talk to him this week and get back to you”.

Secretly, he was amazed and more than a little anxious to be entering into transactions of this size, but he was willing to act as a go-between for now, though he hoped in future that Alice would do her business direct with the cadre. She thanked him and they wandered outside into her yard to join the others.

The yard, although small, was filled with plants. Climbers covered the walls and there were banks of narrow wooden platforms around three sides filled with clay pots sporting a huge variety of annuals and perennials. There was a wooden bench on one wall and a hexagonal slatted wooden table with several chairs disposed about. In the centre of the table was a hole that held a parasol, now open against the sun’s fierce glare. In the narrow strip of yard that ran alongside the house were a potting bench and a narrow greenhouse, bursting at the seams with young peppers and tomato vines. The effect was staggering and Draco complimented her on the garden, “It’s my little green lung and I love it out here. We spend hours out here in the summer. The cats like it too”. Harry now had one of said cats in his lap. “Who’s this then?”, he asked, scratching the black and white longhair behind an ear. The cat wriggled into his touches, purring loudly, “Oh, that’s George. He was rescued at five weeks old, he’s a bit clingy. He loves to find a new victim to give him a fuss and you’re it, sorry. If he gets on your wick, just chuck him off your lap”, but Harry was enjoying the cat’s attentions.

Tony set to lighting the barbecue, apologising for the choking smoke from the charcoal, “It will clear in a minute”. To escape the fumes, Draco went indoors and stood chatting to Alice as she prepared a salad in the kitchen. She asked him about his work and Draco was happy to supply details, “So here I am trying to replicate this 3 metre diameter ceiling rose from a few dusty old photographs. I have to make the thing, so I’m learning about plaster moulding, then I have to gild it. It’s brilliant, I’m picking up all sorts of new skills”, she smiled at his enthusiasm and asked lots of intelligent questions.

They got on to her mode of living. “I may be a dealer, Draco, but my first love always will be books. I’ve been a bookseller for over thirty years and have several thousand volumes in the house”. Draco was surprised. He’d seen no books so far in the house, save a couple of shelves of cookery books in the kitchen. She wiped her hands on a teatowel and said, “If you’re interested, I’ll show you. I have quite a collection of Occult material upstairs that may pique your interest”. He grinned, “Yes please. I’m more of a reader than Harry, but Hermione is the real bookworm”. Alice furrowed her brow, “Hermione?, the intelligent one?. Ginny’s girlfriend?”. Draco nodded and she led him from the room.

The front room of her house was entirely given over to books and Draco gasped. She gave him a quick run-down of the subjects on her shelves, everything from Art and Architecture to Sexuality and History. Draco’s eyes lingered on the Art books. She took him upstairs and he was truly awed. All along the landing and on the four walls of the main bedroom were many more tomes, “Mainly the fiction in here, but that’s my Occult collection, there, on the chimney breast”.

Draco scooted over for a scan, thinking they would all be about Muggle charlatanism, but he was deeply wrong, “Wow, we had to have this for upper sixth History of Magic and these Ritual Magic and Tantra books were in the teacher’s only part of the Restricted Section in our School library”. His eyes scanned along, “My Father has this set in the library at the Manor”, he whispered. Alice grinned at him, “The manor, Draco?. I thought you sounded a bit posh”. He glanced round at her and blushed, “Okay, now you know, I’m from a landed family who have disowned me, partly for no longer subscribing to their views, and partly for loving a certain Harry Potter, who I’ve loved since we were in lower sixth at school. Before that, we hated each other and fought all the time”.

This made Alice laugh aloud, “Too confused to admit it to each other, eh?. What changed?”. Draco blushed even redder, “Harry. He asked me why were we still fighting after all this time. We’d, er, faced a similar circumstance, and he told me he admired me for it, and that was that. Now I love him to bits and always will”.

The woman smiled, “You’re a bit young for ‘forever’, aren’t you?”. Draco shook his head, “I think it’s a Wizarding thing, we do tend to pick our partners young. Harry and I intend to marry, here in this world as soon as we’re allowed. I asked him and he accepted me. I believe we will be able to wed by the end of this year”. Her smile was wide and genuine, “I congratulate you both. Matt and Michael also plan to wed as soon as the legislation passes into law. Matt wants me to give him away. I’m so honoured....”, her voice trailed off.

They continued the tour. The middle bedroom of the three was her own study also stuffed with books, plus a laptop an amplifier, speakers, a printer, headphones, and more dictionaries than you could shake a stick at. Foreign languages, archaic words, at least five on slang terms, she giggled as she revealed them. “Tell me you never looked up rude words in the dictionary when you were a kid?”, she quizzed. Draco laughed, “These books are nothing else, they’re brilliant”. The chimney piece of the room was covered in photographs, “The story of my life”, she said as Draco peered at them.

Several of cats, more of her at various ages, a lot featuring a converted bus, lots of friends, folk smoking joints grinning through a haze of smoke, plenty shot in foreign climes, the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the Himalayas, the Serrated Mountains in Northern Spain. Draco was fascinated. He had never travelled out of the UK and asked loads of questions. Alice related many stories. Even the bathroom held a small case of books. The small rear bedroom was her husband’s study, filled with a huge computer set-up with a rack of hard drives storing all the couple’s movies and music, “We stopped using discs ages ago. We can tap into this lot anywhere in the house. There are over a thousand CD’s plus about six hundred movies stored this way”. There was the obligatory bookcase stuffed full.

She led him back downstairs, handed him a fresh can and they joined the others outside. The food was cooking nicely, Tony in attendance. Matt now had George the cat in his lap and Harry was entertaining a small tabby and white female with huge eyes, dangling a loose thread he’d pulled out of the sleeve of his t-shirt for her amusement. Steffie watched and laughed. All in all they spent an extremely convivial afternoon and evening. After dinner, Harry got out his guitar, as did Tony and both played for the assembled company comprising of a few of Alice’s other friends as well as Steffie, Matt and Michael, Draco and himself.

As he brought out his guitar, Chris, one of Alice’s friends asked to see it. “Fuck, dude. A Fylde?”, his tone reverent as he handled it. “May I?”, Harry nodded. Then Tony insisted on another go and it eventually wound up back in the hands of it’s proud owner, who played a few tracks to entertain his hosts. His phone rang while he was playing, but Draco rummaged for it in his jacket, excusing himself and taking the call. A moment later and he asked Alice if she had pen and paper. She found some, “Sorry about this”, he mouthed, his hand over the microphone. “No problem”, she left him in the kitchen.

It was Severus. “Sev, we’re out at the moment. What’s up?”. He listened carefully and jotted things on the paper, then ended the call looking thoughtful. The music session broke up and Harry stepped indoors to put the guitar away. He spotted Draco’s pensive face as he made for outdoors again and stopped, standing before his beloved leaning against the counter, frowning. He threaded his arms around him, fully aware that his hosts wouldn’t mind in the slightest, and kissed him. “Who was that?”, he asked. Draco came out of his reverie, “That was Sev, he’s got a bit of a problem”.