Yes, I like this.
Jan. 15th, 2003 09:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hackthis_archiveThe exceedingly intelligent ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fearlessdiva pointed out a pattern where I saw none, and then it was like ‘I see, said the blind man.’ So, no, this isn’t the same story, or maybe, yes, it is. Or maybe it’s just variations on a theme of truly depressing stuff.
Je n’en Connais Pas la Fin (A Triptych)
I: Table for Two
II: Things to do When Your Lover is Dead
and this is the last bit:
Harry Potter
Tea for Ghosts
Maybe it goes like this:
Harry has a box of trinkets that Draco never gave him: threatening love letters, a snitch, dried up flobberworms and a green and silver scarf that threatens to unravel when Harry touches it.
The scarf has been dolling out the same threats for ages now - since Harry’s sixth year - and it has yet to follow through. Harry’s not sure what he would do if the scarf ever did fall apart, but he would definitely have to repair it, and maybe then he’d learn a thing or two about taking care of himself.
At the very least then he might learn how to darn a sock.
Harry’s self-sufficient, but in other ways, and it’s been a whole year.
Harry’s got a lot of socks with holes. Harry’s got a lot of socks full stop, and the oddest bit about it all is that he doesn’t have a pair that match anywhere.
He’s got socks in the bedroom, and socks on the line in the bath. He’s got socks sticking out of potted plants and socks that have been ripped to shreds by cats that haven’t been house-trained yet. Harry’s not sure how he loses so many socks; he just does.
Maybe there’s a ghost that comes and takes them all.
After all, Harry’s invested an untold amount of pounds and galleons in buying his socks, and yet, somewhere between the washing machine and his chest of drawers they get lost. Nothing matches up: striped and argyle, dotted and solid, cotton and something like silk that quite obviously doesn’t belong to him. However, it can’t all be the socks’ fault because Harry’s favorite pair don’t match either. One is red with little golden broomsticks, and the other is striped in forest green, and it practically reaches his knee.
They’re three years old, and Harry hates knee socks. This one has a hole in the heel; he doesn’t care.
Of course, Harry doesn’t care about a lot these days.
He doesn’t care that people call him the eccentric boy who lives in the tower and might be insane. It’s magic, not insanity, and it’s not a tower, it’s just a really high up flat. This way Harry doesn’t have to have many neighbors, and if people are willing to walk up seven flights of stairs there’s no doubt in his mind that they came to see him.
He’s glad that nobody – with the exception of Ron and Hermione - makes the effort.
His flat doesn’t have a fireplace, but that doesn’t mean he’s cut himself off from the world.
He hasn’t cut himself off from anybody.
Not deliberately anyway.
At least that’s what he thinks, but Harry’s socks don’t match, and he can’t quite remember the last time they did.
+++
Draco left Hogwarts in their last year to stand by a father he hated because that’s what he was supposed to do, and Harry never forgave him for it. Harry never forgave Draco for being exactly who he was, because Harry was in love, and love is supposed to be immune. It’s not as though Harry didn’t know about the Malfoy legacy the entire time they were at school together, and it’s not as though Draco had promised him another sort of life.
But he still didn’t like it.
So in the end, when the Death Eaters came marching up two by two, Harry killed them all because they broke his heart. Except for one, because he couldn’t actually let Draco go, it would’ve been like cutting off his own arm. He missed him, and by that time Harry honestly wasn’t that bothered. He just wanted Draco to come back with him. Harry didn’t think that anything else really mattered. He had just found a new flat, and they could go away and start again.
Harry only cared about certain things at that point, and that may be what ended the war more than anything else: Harry Potter wanted a life of his own. Mistakes, flaws, mucked-up parts and all, and so he told Draco this.
And Draco said ‘yes.’
Harry had always believed that he needed loyalty above all else from whomever he was with, but it was in that moment that Harry understood that there were different kinds of loyalty for different kinds of people. Standing back-to-back on a hill overrun with dead wizards and lost chances, Harry realised that Draco gave him what he could.
When Draco died by his side on that same hill, Harry saw that Draco had a better sense of what was important than he did. And on the last day of forever, Harry didn’t fight for good, and Draco didn’t fight for evil, they just fought to fight.
Maybe they fought for each other.
And every night, when Harry tries to die in Draco’s stead, he thinks of this and wonders if there could have been another end.
+++
Two months after Harry moved into the flat he found a scruffy, ginger-haired kitten on his doorstep that reminded him of Draco. Not for obvious reasons. He calls the cat Snitch, and every night when he sees Draco, he tells him about this little kitten that he’s raising.
That they should be raising together.
And it’s on a day like any other, that Harry opens the door to his flat and finds another kitten sitting on his doorstep. It looks just like the one clawing a hole in his second-hand sofa, and the first thing that strikes him is that they’re like matching, mewling socks.
They’re a pair.
Harry thinks about how nice it would be to have something that matches, and so he takes the kitten in. He decides to call him Nimbus because the more the merrier, and what does it matter if the flat had never actually been Draco’s home?
It doesn’t matter to Harry, and it certainly doesn’t matter to the ghost who lives there with him.
+++
These days Harry goes to work occasionally – the perks of freelancing – and he eats what he wants when he wants. His flat is sparsely furnished, just some chairs, a sofa, a bed, and television.
Harry’s never had much in the way of physical belongings because he’s never found a place he belongs. Yes, Hogwarts was his home for six and a half years, but then there was that business about a war. Harry really lived everywhere and anywhere then: churches, half-blown off houses, attics and ditches.
Now, home is a three room flat, with too many socks and two cats that mew incessantly when he’s away for too long.
If home is where the heart is then Harry thinks he’s always lived alone, even when he shared a room with four other boys and lived in a cupboard under the stairs. He knows there was a time when this wasn’t true, but those memories are fleeting.
That’s when he pulls out his box of trinkets, makes tea for ghosts, and tries to match up his socks.
-Finis-
Thanks: None of this would be possible with out the incomparable Jen (bonibaru) thanks to her for beta-duty, support and making me laugh. Thanks also to Silvia (silviakundera) for allowing me to start this mess when I was supposed to actually be carrying on a conversation with her – I get sidetracked easily. Thanks to fearlessdiva) for seeing a pattern where I only saw spots.
Notes: The title of the series comes from a song which is covered by the incomparable Jeff Buckley. Translated it means ‘I don’t know the ending.’
fearlessdiva pointed out a pattern where I saw none, and then it was like ‘I see, said the blind man.’ So, no, this isn’t the same story, or maybe, yes, it is. Or maybe it’s just variations on a theme of truly depressing stuff.Je n’en Connais Pas la Fin (A Triptych)
I: Table for Two
II: Things to do When Your Lover is Dead
and this is the last bit:
Harry Potter
Tea for Ghosts
Maybe it goes like this:
Harry has a box of trinkets that Draco never gave him: threatening love letters, a snitch, dried up flobberworms and a green and silver scarf that threatens to unravel when Harry touches it.
The scarf has been dolling out the same threats for ages now - since Harry’s sixth year - and it has yet to follow through. Harry’s not sure what he would do if the scarf ever did fall apart, but he would definitely have to repair it, and maybe then he’d learn a thing or two about taking care of himself.
At the very least then he might learn how to darn a sock.
Harry’s self-sufficient, but in other ways, and it’s been a whole year.
Harry’s got a lot of socks with holes. Harry’s got a lot of socks full stop, and the oddest bit about it all is that he doesn’t have a pair that match anywhere.
He’s got socks in the bedroom, and socks on the line in the bath. He’s got socks sticking out of potted plants and socks that have been ripped to shreds by cats that haven’t been house-trained yet. Harry’s not sure how he loses so many socks; he just does.
Maybe there’s a ghost that comes and takes them all.
After all, Harry’s invested an untold amount of pounds and galleons in buying his socks, and yet, somewhere between the washing machine and his chest of drawers they get lost. Nothing matches up: striped and argyle, dotted and solid, cotton and something like silk that quite obviously doesn’t belong to him. However, it can’t all be the socks’ fault because Harry’s favorite pair don’t match either. One is red with little golden broomsticks, and the other is striped in forest green, and it practically reaches his knee.
They’re three years old, and Harry hates knee socks. This one has a hole in the heel; he doesn’t care.
Of course, Harry doesn’t care about a lot these days.
He doesn’t care that people call him the eccentric boy who lives in the tower and might be insane. It’s magic, not insanity, and it’s not a tower, it’s just a really high up flat. This way Harry doesn’t have to have many neighbors, and if people are willing to walk up seven flights of stairs there’s no doubt in his mind that they came to see him.
He’s glad that nobody – with the exception of Ron and Hermione - makes the effort.
His flat doesn’t have a fireplace, but that doesn’t mean he’s cut himself off from the world.
He hasn’t cut himself off from anybody.
Not deliberately anyway.
At least that’s what he thinks, but Harry’s socks don’t match, and he can’t quite remember the last time they did.
+++
Draco left Hogwarts in their last year to stand by a father he hated because that’s what he was supposed to do, and Harry never forgave him for it. Harry never forgave Draco for being exactly who he was, because Harry was in love, and love is supposed to be immune. It’s not as though Harry didn’t know about the Malfoy legacy the entire time they were at school together, and it’s not as though Draco had promised him another sort of life.
But he still didn’t like it.
So in the end, when the Death Eaters came marching up two by two, Harry killed them all because they broke his heart. Except for one, because he couldn’t actually let Draco go, it would’ve been like cutting off his own arm. He missed him, and by that time Harry honestly wasn’t that bothered. He just wanted Draco to come back with him. Harry didn’t think that anything else really mattered. He had just found a new flat, and they could go away and start again.
Harry only cared about certain things at that point, and that may be what ended the war more than anything else: Harry Potter wanted a life of his own. Mistakes, flaws, mucked-up parts and all, and so he told Draco this.
And Draco said ‘yes.’
Harry had always believed that he needed loyalty above all else from whomever he was with, but it was in that moment that Harry understood that there were different kinds of loyalty for different kinds of people. Standing back-to-back on a hill overrun with dead wizards and lost chances, Harry realised that Draco gave him what he could.
When Draco died by his side on that same hill, Harry saw that Draco had a better sense of what was important than he did. And on the last day of forever, Harry didn’t fight for good, and Draco didn’t fight for evil, they just fought to fight.
Maybe they fought for each other.
And every night, when Harry tries to die in Draco’s stead, he thinks of this and wonders if there could have been another end.
+++
Two months after Harry moved into the flat he found a scruffy, ginger-haired kitten on his doorstep that reminded him of Draco. Not for obvious reasons. He calls the cat Snitch, and every night when he sees Draco, he tells him about this little kitten that he’s raising.
That they should be raising together.
And it’s on a day like any other, that Harry opens the door to his flat and finds another kitten sitting on his doorstep. It looks just like the one clawing a hole in his second-hand sofa, and the first thing that strikes him is that they’re like matching, mewling socks.
They’re a pair.
Harry thinks about how nice it would be to have something that matches, and so he takes the kitten in. He decides to call him Nimbus because the more the merrier, and what does it matter if the flat had never actually been Draco’s home?
It doesn’t matter to Harry, and it certainly doesn’t matter to the ghost who lives there with him.
+++
These days Harry goes to work occasionally – the perks of freelancing – and he eats what he wants when he wants. His flat is sparsely furnished, just some chairs, a sofa, a bed, and television.
Harry’s never had much in the way of physical belongings because he’s never found a place he belongs. Yes, Hogwarts was his home for six and a half years, but then there was that business about a war. Harry really lived everywhere and anywhere then: churches, half-blown off houses, attics and ditches.
Now, home is a three room flat, with too many socks and two cats that mew incessantly when he’s away for too long.
If home is where the heart is then Harry thinks he’s always lived alone, even when he shared a room with four other boys and lived in a cupboard under the stairs. He knows there was a time when this wasn’t true, but those memories are fleeting.
That’s when he pulls out his box of trinkets, makes tea for ghosts, and tries to match up his socks.
-Finis-
Thanks: None of this would be possible with out the incomparable Jen (
bonibaru) thanks to her for beta-duty, support and making me laugh. Thanks also to Silvia (silviakundera) for allowing me to start this mess when I was supposed to actually be carrying on a conversation with her – I get sidetracked easily. Thanks to fearlessdiva) for seeing a pattern where I only saw spots. Notes: The title of the series comes from a song which is covered by the incomparable Jeff Buckley. Translated it means ‘I don’t know the ending.’
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-01-15 09:24 am (UTC)*tries very, very hard to avoid crying while at work*
*fails*
I'm sorry I haven't got anything more coherent to say.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-15 02:07 pm (UTC)*tries very, very hard to avoid crying while at work*
*fails*
I'm sorry I haven't got anything more coherent to say.
I didn't mean to make you cry at work, but I do hope that you enjoyed it all the same.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-15 02:56 pm (UTC)...And no big deal, it was only a couple of tears that managed to leak out. <:)
no subject
Date: 2003-01-15 09:38 am (UTC)I have a feeling I'm going to be disappointed in book 5 after this LOL.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-15 02:08 pm (UTC)I'm so happy cos you're so happy ;)
no subject
Date: 2003-01-15 10:12 am (UTC)A pair. A pair.
And the kittens and tea and socks and alone and - and - (must not bawl)
no subject
Date: 2003-01-15 02:10 pm (UTC)And the kittens and tea and socks and alone and - and - (must not bawl)
::hands kleenex::
i'm glad you liked it - i think. :)
no subject
Date: 2003-01-15 10:18 am (UTC)Yes, and yes.
Harry had always believed that he needed loyalty above all else from whomever he was with, but it was in that moment that Harry understood that there were all different kinds of loyalty for different kinds of people. Standing back-to-back on a hill overrun with dead wizards and lost chances, Harry realised that Draco gave him what he could.
This is what I'm talking about. Each has their own lifepath that is impossible to just shrug aside--ingrained in psyche and genetics maybe...and their love has to stand up between all of these pressures. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't, but in the end it never can overcome all of that.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-15 02:12 pm (UTC)I love how you make me think, babe. Thank *you*.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-15 03:03 pm (UTC)Harry never forgave Draco for being exactly who he was, because Harry was in love, and love is supposed to be immune. It’s not as though Harry didn’t know about the Malfoy legacy the entire time they were at school together, and it’s not as though Draco had promised him another sort of life.
Yeah, that's it.
That's it right there. It's what's fascinating and uplifting and tragic about H/D all at once. They're so different. And they rub and spark against each other, and sometimes they click and sometimes not. And in the end it's pretty unreasonable.
But it's like old Norse mythology. The ones on the right side will lose, bourne down under the weight of time and numbers and toil. But it doesn't make them wrong, or make it worthless--it's that struggle while they're there, that liveliness.
Or, y'know, something. I'm not sure that I'm coherent. But anyway, thanks so much. You write such wonderful stuff.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-15 05:42 pm (UTC)I completely understand what you're saying, and I'm glad you liked this. Thanks! :)
no subject
Date: 2003-01-15 08:37 pm (UTC)This, like everything else you've written, is beautiful. Strong, and poignant, oh oh! I've run out of words.
'When Draco died by his side on that same hill, Harry saw that Draco had a better sense of what was important than he did. And on the last day of forever, Harry didn’t fight for good, and Draco didn’t fight for evil, they just fought to fight.
Maybe they fought for each other.'
Am so in love, man. <3 <3 <3.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-15 08:56 pm (UTC)This, like everything else you've written, is beautiful. Strong, and poignant, oh oh! I've run out of words.
Oh, thank you so much for your lovely feedback. I'm glad you like my writing, it means a lot to me to hear you say so. :)
Re:
Date: 2003-01-15 08:59 pm (UTC)I've added you to my friends list; do you mind?
Re:
Date: 2003-01-15 09:19 pm (UTC)not at all.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-16 08:26 am (UTC)Love this, and I love it even better included in this series. I'm just sort of in awe of how much you can say in so few words, how much you can convey with the simplest concepts.
He hasn’t cut himself off from anybody.
Not deliberately anyway.
At least that’s what he thinks, but Harry’s socks don’t match, and he can’t quite remember the last time they did.
This just hurt so much to read. Such beautiful, unhappy boys... I'm now desperately in need of schmoop to cheer me up.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-17 11:37 am (UTC)Love this, and I love it even better included in this series. I'm just sort of in awe of how much you can say in so few words, how much you can convey with the simplest concepts.
::eyes icon:: you are the second person i've seen with the boondock saints icon. what is the big deal with this show - is it a show? is it really so slashy. i see slash on csi, i should be quiet. anyway, thank you so much for your lovely feedback. i'm glad that you liked this. i tend to be more of a concept writer rather than being plot driven, which pretty much explains the brevity of most of my writing.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-17 01:10 pm (UTC)*laughing* Oh, you're getting me started on Boondocks Saints. This is a dangerous thing... I can talk about it for hours.
It's a movie - it went direct to video in 1999, because of very, very bad timing... it features lots of guns and has a scene with boys in trenchcoats, and it was scheduled to be released in theatres two weeks after Columbine. Clearly, that wasn't going to happen.
It's a lovely film - pretty, pretty boys, fantastic dialogue, great action sequences. And Willem Dafoe as a gay FBI agent. Who appears in drag, and it batshit-insane in the funnest way possible. A bit cartoony in parts, and not flawless by any means, but a very fun ride. And it's really extraordinarily slashy, but... um. Most of the slash is between Sean Patrick Flannery's and Norman Reedus' characters, who are twins. Being the twincest-obsessed freak I am, this is quite the opposite of a problem for me, but it seriously squicks some people.
There's a lovely deleted scene on the DVD (which I am convinced was filmed just for me, even though I only heard about the movie two years ago) in which the twins cuddle naked on the floor, and then check out each other's cocks. Really. It's not sexual in context, but... GUH.
The film is well worth seeing even if you're not interested in slashing the twins - it's a lot of fun (and you get to see Willem Dafoe cuddle naked in bed with a boy). But if you have any twincest leanings at all, you'll be entirely enamored. It used to be pretty hard to find in the US, but they finally released an American DVD last June, so it's much easier to get your hands on (though you generally still have to order it online). I think most Blockbusters have copies, as well...
no subject
Date: 2003-01-16 05:14 pm (UTC)i mean, it made me cry a bit, but really, i see what silvia meant now about the ghostfics that are y'know... sort of happy but not happy because you know, they're ghostfics... *sigh*
i just love it. it's sort of happy-ending-ish without being, really. but you know what i mean, right? they love each other at least and they're ... they're not... well... disillusioned. y'know? and ok, so draco's dead. actually they weren't disillusioned in the first one, either, it's just that harry was dead... but that was different. it didn't have this sort of softness to it. that was more angsty with a sweet side and this is more... sweet with an angsty side. and i'm really messed up, apparently. *laughs* i mean, what do you expect? socks! kittens! it softens the blow.
although not really, i still cried. but it wasn't heartbroken, and more just touched, because the way you created them-- the way they are, is just beautiful.
i mean, harry still has his ideals and ideas and hopes-- but he was willing to compromise, to forget all that and just take draco the way he was, in the end, and isn't that what they weren't doing, in the last one?
and of course, the socks. the socks. the socks make you free ><
the connection between the matching socks and the matching people is just ... well... what can i say. then there are the matching kittens. funny how the kittens are the only things that match. maybe kittens have it easiest.
but also, harry & draco never really -did- match, not really, did they?? i mean, they were always at odds, one silk sock and one knee-high with the hole in the heel.
and yet they went together and it was alright, except it wasn't, but that was alright anyway, especially since they really -did- go together, if draco's there even in death, i mean, that's proof for you, isn't it. :)
i always thought so. i always thought, yah, harry would really want draco's loyalty and he'd want to be able to trust draco, and for draco to fight with him, but in the end, they -love- each other and it wouldn't matter, he'd just let go and admit he needs him and they need each other, and in the end they -did- choose each other and that's what matters, even though ok, that wasn't enough and draco died.
so maybe they didn't live happily ever after, but i'm not so much sad or depressed, y'know?
and y'know, i think the first fic of yours i've ever feedbacked was one in which you went through all the ways it could end, with, he could die in the winter, or the autumn, remember?
at least now they're not killing each other, and i think this is the most optimistic ending you've written yet. and again, color me disturbed at myself.
i mean, not as optimistic as silvia's latest, but this still is cozy (if in a weepy way). can't help it. not with harry having to learn to darn socks ^^
~reena
no subject
Date: 2003-01-17 11:42 am (UTC)apparently i make a rather regular habit of killing draco off, which is a shame cos he is my favorite. at last count it was six times, but now i think it might be seven or eight. there's one other options piece (in addition to 'neither here nor there' and 'the almost legend of draco malfoy') that can be found here (http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=hackthis&itemid=44348). I pride myself on seeing the apocalypse coming on lots of different fronts. ;) And of course, I am glad that you liked it - you always provide the best feedback. Thank you!