hackthis_archive | Not for the faint of heart

I thought I was done for the week. Apparently not.

Harry Potter

Table for Two

This is how it goes:

In the mornings Draco makes the tea. The bedsprings squeak as he shifts and swings his feet off the left side of the bed. His shoulders roll forward as he sits up and scratches at his chest. His eyes are barely open as his feet scrabble along the floor seeking out his slippers, one green and one red, a Christmas gift and a concessionary house alliance.

There’s still sleep in his eyes as he crosses the bedroom, stubbing his toes on the armoire that should have never been put that close to the bed in the first place. He curses softly with regards to blood and gifts of furniture, mindful of waking ghosts.

Draco’s coordination is never that great this early on, and nine times out of ten he winds up taking Harry’s dressing gown from behind the door instead of his own. He shuffles – Harry’s word, not his own – into the kitchen and sets about the tea making process. Mugs, sugar, whole milk, bread, jam onto a counter dulled by the sun coming in a window which hasn’t been cleaned in months.

Draco has never been that big on housework.

He picks up the electric kettle – still a novelty – empties it from last night’s leftovers and refills it to the line.

There’s always plenty of water for tea.

He goes about getting ready for work and makes sure to shave carefully. Harry’s never been that big on stubble and sometimes Draco supposes it’s the least he can do.

He never makes the bed, that’s not his responsibility.

He switches off the kettle before going to work, but he doesn’t drink the tea.

Draco’s never liked tea in the morning.

Then he leaves.

+++

Draco doesn’t have to work, but it’s a living, and apparently even he needs one of those. He doesn’t need the money, but it keeps him busy, and Harry pestered him for months to stop mucking about the house and do something, so now he does.

Except that Draco’s found that just because he has a job doesn’t mean he’s living.

But no one told him that was in the small print.

The good thing about Draco’s particular employment is that it keeps him busy. He doesn’t really have time to think about things that he doesn’t want to think about in the first place.

He works in something called ‘private practice’ and what he does is still a mystery to everyone except him. However, he gets paid, and he doesn’t have to interact with Muggles. It’s not a glamourous sort of job, but he gets to make Potions and he’s kept ignorant of their consequences. It’s not quite bliss.

Every now and then he gets an owl from people who claim to know Harry. He doesn’t know why they write to him, so he scrawls ‘Piss Off’ on them and returns them to the sender. Draco has no time for people who couldn’t bring themselves to acknowledge him before Past Events, so he’s not going to humour anyone now.

He doesn’t miss Harry at work. It’s not allowed.

+++

Draco has disconnected from The Floo Network, and taken to using the front door. There’s something about a key in his hand that rings of hope, but Draco doesn’t like to think about hope either.

The lights are on when he gets home, but it’s not as though he turned them off before he left. The situation being what it is, if he doesn’t take care of things around the flat then they don’t get done at all.

At least he’s finally started to remember to turn the kettle off.

On the whole though, the flat is still the way the way it was the day that Harry left to go out and get himself killed. There are still two pairs of trainers collecting dust under the sofa, and Harry’s side of the bed is always made. Hedwig still comes and goes at all hours of the day and night, and Draco has set up a rubbish bin for her dead mice.

It’s been four months, two weeks, three days, eighteen hours and thirty-three minutes.

Draco’s still waiting for Harry to come back, but he doesn’t talk about that to anyone. He has appearances to uphold. He doesn’t allow people in the flat anymore though, and Draco always thought that the end would be more fiery, have more explosions and changes in the weather. The end of the world wasn’t supposed to come on a Saturday morning when they were planning to have a lie-in.

Harry wasn’t supposed to just not be there when Draco woke up, and Draco never wanted Harry to be his hero. He’s still vexed that Harry thought he had to save everyone, and one day he’s going tell Harry so. Just as soon as Harry comes home. But until that day, Draco keeps the routine they set up, because that’s the plan.

Harry was always big on plans.

Draco makes breakfast and Harry takes care of supper. Draco’s the better cook of the two, but it’s part of the deal they made when they decided to move in together: everything split fairly down the middle. A share in the cooking, a portion of the chores, equal division of the the bills and to each a half of the bed.

Funny how they always slept in the middle.

Nevertheless, Harry never consulted Draco about bringing about the end of the war, and Draco still feels like he didn’t get to do his bit. He hates this feeling: the sense that he’s always missing half of something.

So Draco makes a point of always doing his share: home by half-six to eat, Daily Prophet on the sitting room table for dissection with dessert, a kiss for his dead lover, and table set for two for supper.

-fin-

Notes: Enormous thanks to