Tapping

Disclaimer: None of the HP universe is mine. But I do like to play with it.
Possible Spoilers: Some HBP things be mentioned here. Not many, though.
A/N: This story has gone through several iterations, featuring different characters and different plot threads. I\'ve decided to stop picking at it and plop it down. Here\'s Chapter 1.

The tapping started promptly at 7:30, just like always. He wasn’t sure why it woke him every day; usually he could sleep through almost anything. But the tap, tap, tap of the bird in the window made Ron’s eyes shoot open as if there were a firefight going on.

“Bloody fucking bird,” he swore angrily, throwing the covers off of himself. He went to the window and rustled the blinds noisily. The bird fluttered off, frightened. It might return in a few minutes, or it might not reappear until the following morning, but it always came back. “Fucking seven thirty,” Ron muttered, crawling back into the heavy warmth of the sheets and blankets. It was cold in the basement apartment, but it was dark and private, and that had been the selling point. Ron covered his head with a pillow. After a few minutes, he rolled over and vented a frustrated sigh.

He supposed he should have been grateful to be awakened; he had been dreaming again. When he had first started having the dreams, they were fuzzy and uncertain, just like his memories of that night. Now they were clear. The staff at St. Mungo’s had told him that he would remember more and more as time went by.

“You’re never going to get back to sleep, you know,” came a drowsy voice.

“I know.” Ron sighed once more. “But it’s so bleeding early.”

Draco chuckled indulgently. He rolled over and rested his head on Ron’s chest. Ron looked down at him and smiled, trailing his fingers through Draco’s long, tangled hair. It had reached past his shoulder-blades already, and he shifted so it covered his face. Ron resisted the urge to push it back. Draco was extremely sensitive about his features.

“You were talking in your sleep again,” Draco said.

“I was dreaming about…” Ron trailed off, stroking Draco’s hair. He closed his eyes.

“The night you killed Harry.”

“You always knew how to put a fine point on anything, Fireball.”

“No sense sweetening the things we’ve done,” Draco said.

Ron swallowed. There’s no sweetening such bitter deeds, he thought. He stared at the ceiling.

“I’m going to get a shower,” he announced. Draco murmured assent and let Ron push past him to stand up. “Are you coming with me?”

“Sure,” Draco said, stretching lithely. He stood up and walked toward the bathroom. Ron stumbled along behind him in the dark. “Mind the end table,” Draco warned, just as Ron was about to trip over it.

Ron looked at the windows; the sun was barely up. He didn’t have to be at the Ministry until eleven, and normally he wouldn’t have gotten up until nine-thirty, but the bird in the windowsill had other ideas. It was trying to build a nest there for some reason. Their window was only six inches off the ground, since they were in the basement, and it didn’t make sense to lay eggs there, but try telling that to a creature with a brain the size of your thumbnail. Ron had hoped that by scaring it off every morning he could convince it to go somewhere else. So far that theory hadn’t played out.

He turned on the lights in the bathroom and squinted at the sudden brightness. Draco was slipping out of his t-shirt and shorts, and Ron took a moment to appreciate.

“You’re staring at me.”

“How can you tell?” Ron asked. He turned on the water.

“You breathe funny when you’re watching me,” Draco explained. He shivered slightly, and Ron pulled him into his arms to ward off the chill. Spring was taking its sweet time arriving, he thought. He tested the water and gently pulled Draco into the shower with him.

“I wish you wouldn’t,” Draco said, as Ron pushed his wet hair out of his face.

“I like to look at you.”

Draco turned away, lips tight. Ron touched Draco’s chin but did not push; if he did, Draco would become angry and leave the shower cubicle. Ron had made that mistake before. Draco did not like to be told what to do, or forced into anything. His bullheadedness was part of what attracted Ron in the first place, but it did make for some tension. Ron waited for a moment, and was rewarded when Draco turned back to him.

“They’re just scars, Fireball. You should be proud of them. You earned them.”

“I’m hideous.”

“Have you seen them?” Ron asked.

“Shut up.”

Draco was lucky to be alive, Ron knew. But the other wizard sometimes did not feel that way. He had not lost his sight gradually, which might have been easier, but all at once. Then he had spent the next several months in Azkaban, Ron reminded himself. Staring blindly towards his father, the source of all his misery, in the next cell. Not knowing if his lover was alive or dead. Whenever Ron caught himself feeling self-pity, he looked at the thin white lines that ran from Draco’s cheekbones to his eyebrows.

“I’ve decided to grow my hair out like yours,” Ron said slyly. “I think that would be hot.”

Draco laughed.

“Oi, what’re you laughin’ at?” Ron grunted, bending to bite Draco’s shoulder. His lover cried out in protest and hit him in the chest playfully.

“Something amusing I read in the Prophet yesterday,” Draco said.

“Is that so?”

Draco nodded, letting his hand dip to cradle Ron gently in the palm of his hand. It always surprised Ron how casually sexual Draco could be, and at the same time so closed and reserved. He met Ron’s eyes easily. He had an uncanny instinct for where someone’s eyes were that sometimes made Ron shiver. Draco sighed, his hand resting contentedly on Ron’s penis. Draco always insisted on calling it that, rather than some of the more creative euphemisms Ron favored. A cock crows. A member votes. A prick is what I was at school. This is your penis.

If Draco had done that when they first became lovers, Ron would have had a great deal of trouble not embarrassing himself. Perhaps it wasn’t entirely a good thing that he was no longer so easily aroused, he mused.

As Ron walked back into the bedroom, he heard the tapping again. “Fucking bird,” he muttered.

“Oh, leave her alone.” Draco dressed as if in the darkness, choosing clothes seemingly randomly. He did everything by feel. “She’s too stupid to know better.”

Ron rolled his eyes and sat down on the bed to put on his socks. “That doesn’t stop you from picking on me,” he said.

“She has an excuse,” Draco said. “Her brain is the size of a peanut.”

Ron made a face, knowing Draco couldn’t see.

“Do you want me to go out for coffee and pastry?” Ron asked, slipping into his shoes.

“What’s the weather like?” Draco asked. Ron rubbed his eyes tiredly for a moment before answering.

“You know what happened last time.”

“I’ve got it under control,” Draco insisted. He raised his chin. Ron had never told him, but he looked uncomfortably like his father when he did that. Ron had been very happy to testify against the older Malfoy at his sentencing hearing.

“The coffee shop will be crowded this time of morning,” Ron said.

“I said I had it under control, Weasley,” Draco said, his voice hinting at a snarl. He was pulling his hair back into a thick tail, leaving a few shorter strands around his face. Ron sighed.

“Grab a jacket at least,” he said.

The shop was indeed crowded. Draco settled in a booth in the far corner while Ron got them coffee. He set down a paper cup and brown waxed-paper bag in front of Draco and smiled.

“One latte, splash of amaretto,” he said.

Draco could not see the smile, but he could hear it. He smiled back and sipped his coffee.

They attracted only the occasional stare. In wizard neighborhoods, Ron could tell himself they were staring at him. He was, after all, quite famous these days, or perhaps infamous. And in most of Muggle London he could excuse it as part and parcel of being openly homosexual. But here, surrounded by chatty gay couples and starving art students, people were looking at Draco. The other man thought it was because of the sunglasses and the folded-up cane on the table beside his arm, but Ron suspected otherwise. A younger man who was looking at Draco caught Ron’s stare and glanced away, blushing. The glasses hid the scars perfectly, and without them Draco was as handsome as ever.

Mine, Ron thought.

“Are you done?” he asked, after Draco had finished his scone. Ron found it disconcerting to watch him eat, since he always knew where every crumb had fallen. Draco licked a finger and picked up the last morsel.

“Sure. Are we going somewhere?” Draco asked, smiling.

“The park.”

As they walked, Ron lit a cigarette. Draco wrinkled up his nose; he never let Ron smoke in the house. “I thought you were quitting,” he said.

“After this one,” Ron said, voicing an old joke between them.

“You’d better not expect me to kiss you anytime soon.”

Ron led him to a bench under a tree and they sat down. He put his arm around Draco and lazily finished his cigarette. Then he leaned over. Draco squirmed away.

“You reek.”

Ron rolled his eyes and dug a tin out of his jacket. Popping a couple of mints into his mouth, he mumbled, “Is that better?”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Draco chided, touching Ron’s lips. He was nervous, more from being out in the daytime than anything. Ron looked around them at the empty park. One old woman fed pigeons nearby. She was steadfastly ignoring the queers under the tree. Ron listened to Draco’s breathing carefully, frowning as it quickened.

“I shouldn’t have come out here,” Draco said, hunching in on himself.

“Do you want to go home?”

“I think so.”

Ron considered this a victory; for many months Draco had been trapped in the apartment, unable to even step outside. He couldn’t even remember how many times he’d held his shaking lover, trying to get him to calm down. They didn’t talk about it. Ron settled beside Draco on the sofa and held him until he felt the tension melt out of the other man’s muscles. He glanced up at the clock.

“I’ve got to go to work, love,” he murmured.

“I’ll see you tonight then.”

“You be good.” Ron kissed Draco’s forehead. He stood and grabbed his briefcase; he was halfway out the door when he remembered.

“Ginny and Colin want us to come to dinner,” he said hesitantly.

Draco hummed.

“What time?” he asked.

“After dark,” Ron assured him. “You don’t have to go with us.”

“I’ll think about it,” Draco said softly.

“I’ll be by around seven-thirty or so to change, and you can decide then.” He opened the door again. “I love you,” he said, feeling momentarily tied to the front step.

“Love you too.”