The voice under all silences. Chapter 39
Sep. 5th, 2012 07:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pekeleke
THE VOICE UNDER ALL SILENCES. Chapter 39
The middle of February was upon him so fast that he reeled. He could not recall exactly what he'd done with the last weeks of his life. They'd just... flashed by and disappeared in a literal whirl of work and increasingly longer evenings shared with Harry...
One day they were nearing the end of January and the next thing he noticed was that Valentine-day-fever was taking over the school with the speed of a derailed train-engine. He was shocked to discover that Minnie was expecting him to decide how they should celebrate the ridiculous date.
“You wish for me to do what?" He looked at her in blank befuddlement when she'd addressed him with that perfectly deranged assumption. Her request had been so unexpected that he hadn't been able to control the absolute horror that turned his usually even tone of voice into a guttural half-screech and his pale face flushed scarlet when a smattering of truly amused titters began to roll around the staff room.
To his shocked dismay Minnie remained perfectly serious. Her brown gaze confronted him, over the top of her square glasses, and her mouth became a pinched thin line when she turned an absolutely terrifying glare around the room.
"Something must be done to acknowledge the day, Severus!. There is an unprecedented level of excitement this year, as it'll be the very first one with you actually heading the celebrations. Christmas was such a success, wasn't it?. Now every single student is bouncing with the expectation of what you are going to come up with for Valentines' day. You can't possibly disappoint the children!...”
“Yule is a perfectly reasonable tradition that has magical roots all the way back to Merlin, Minerva. Valentine's day is just a load of nonsense!. There's nothing of value to the date except for the overly hopeful expectation to receive Honeydukes chocolates and the embarrassment to be had by all of us, when we are unwillingly forced to witness the overly mushy declarations of one teenager to another in every corridor.”
“Severus Snape! I can't believe I'm hearing you spout such nonsense in my presence! Love is the energy that built this very school and kept it safe. Love was the weapon that destroyed the Dark Lord and brought us all to peace. Love is the most powerful form of magic known to any wizard, and it's celebration is of utmost importance to all of us!”
He shrank against the backrest of his chair and stared, wide-eyed, into Minnie's absolutely livid face. He was wishing, so very hard, for the floor to open and miraculously swallow him whole that it was only when Weasley snorted noisily that his attention was re-directed to the horrible discussion.
"Come on, Minerva... Why don't you give the man a break and tell him that the kids are betting on how far he'll be willing to relax his starchy approach to school discipline for the day?. The little beasts have started a poll over the chances that Snape here will ignore the date altogether and serve a good, old-fashioned, steak-and-kidney pie for dinner"
Surprisingly, it was Longbottom who came charging to his rescue with an irritated huff:
"Knock that off, George!. The kids are having a harmless bit of fun at the Headmaster's expense, that's all. I don't think any of them actually believes him to be lacking in any way. They are loving that reward system that was implemented back in October. I've personally seen a sixty per cent improvement in the quality of the material that my students are turning in these days. Everyone wants to make the cut for an Exceeds Expectations, so that they might earn their tickets for the Sunday cinema showings. The thing is so popular that it has even replaced Hogsmeade as a preferred activity for many of the kids. They are even taking their dates to the shows...”
Horrified dark eyes settled on Longbottom as he gasped out a truly stressed:
"What?. The Cinema showings are a reward for good grades, not an opportunity to engage in... mischief... while the films are underway. Maybe there should be some adult supervision put in place..."
Minnie looked at him fondly.
"Don't spoil the magic of it for the kids, Severus!. You insisted on having it done, despite everyone else's reservations, and it has proven to be a huge success. Enrollment for the muggle studies course has increased ten-fold, because of the appealing nature of the activity that you chose to introduce the children to.
That concession table idea was truly inspired too, and the most enterprising members of the houses are making an absolute mint by exchanging their extra-sweets with one another before the shows. If you add too many rules now, it'll become far less enjoyable for them and the wonderful results we are seeing might be affected"
His frown deepened as her impassioned defense of the little monsters made him falter. He did not want to jeopardize the program, but... there was no way that he could just condone that sort of unseemly behavior. Not once he'd become aware of it.
"It's still not right, Minerva... This is a school, for Merlin's sake!. I can't possibly turn a blind eye to the fact that the children are using a board-sanctioned activity as a dating venue"
"If they want to go out together they'll do it either way, Godfather. Trying to ban public displays of affection from school grounds won't make them happen any less. They'll just hide it better. Having constant patrolling on the Astronomy tower never stopped me from losing my virginity under the stars, you know?"
Now Severus was so flustered that he snapped his quill in half. Thick gobs of ink spurted all over his pale hands, bathing both his skin and robes with heavy dark ink. Everyone was so startled by his reaction that they gaped idiotically at him until Minnie intervened with a sharply toned:
"I believe there's absolutely no need to discus your past affairs with the rest of your colleagues, professor Malfoy!"
Draco's pale complexion blushed pink. He looked both flustered and worried as his beautiful gray gaze alternated between Minnie's forbidding expression and the aged hand that she'd curled, in a motherly and reassuring gesture, around Severus' own shoulder.
"I didn't mean to offend anyone's sensibilities. I was just pointing out a fact that I thought shouldn't be ignored. We've all been there and done that. It's not as if it'll shock anyone to have it said, for Salazar's sake!"
Severus would have choked on his drink had he accepted the tall glass of water that his deputy was so insistently trying to press into his sweaty palm. He hoped that it was indeed impossible for anybody else to realize just how... out of his depth he truly felt when it came to discussing this particular topic.
He looked curiously around the room, surveying all those present thoughtfully. Had they all really shared clandestine assignations in the Astronomy tower with someone?. Was he then, the only one among them who'd never experienced that particular situation?. He felt suddenly inadequate. Flawed, somehow. Conscious of his own lack of... attractiveness in a way that he tended to ignore most of the time.
“That's beside the point, professor Malfoy. We are now in the position of having to at least appear to be engaged in the act of protecting our students' presumed innocence, regardless of how strongly we might suspect that they no longer have it!“
Severus was so shocked by that blatant confirmation of Draco's claim, that he stared at his deputy with an horrified sort of sudden awareness. Minnie had... she had done the unthinkable in the astronomy tower!.
His mind shorted with the realization that he'd never actually thought of her as a sexual being. Looking at his colleagues now he could see the way that Fillius was biting his lip harshly, as if trying to contain a sudden bout of laughter, his eyes flashed with a merry light of obvious reminiscence. The same could be said of Poppy. And Aurora. Even Madam Pince was flushed a bright red color and looking pointedly towards the floor...
Abject misery swept through him then. He felt worthless from the inside out and from head to toes. He sat there, frozen speechless in his high-backed chair, as he wrestled with the idea that he might very possibly be the last virgin left in Hogwarts. For some reason that idea brought him the worst kind of discouraged heartbreak...
How could he be less appealing than Fillius or even Hagrid?. How could he be considered less approachable than Minnie?. How had he... failed... to ensnare the sexual interest of a single person, in the whole of his life, when it was plainly obvious that everyone around him had managed it, at one point or another?...
His thoughts whirled as he pondered that dismaying truth, he was so lost in his ruminations that he wasn't aware of the fact that he'd lost all color. His dark eyes shone with a feverish brightness and he looked so sick that Draco could not resist the impulse of standing up and walking towards him.
“Godfather, are you all right? You don't look so well...”
He jumped when his boy's fingers settled gently over his arm and his head turned towards that beloved and obviously worried face. His throat constricted and he found it hard to swallow past the thick knot that was logged within it as his mind frantically searched for any plausible excuse to explain away his behavior.
”I'm afraid that I hadn't considered the need to plan any sort of celebration for that day. I'm chagrined to confess that I've come... woefully unprepared to this meeting and have, therefore, wasted everybody's time. I'm sorry.”
Draco's fingers squeezed his limb gently. Grey eyes searched his own with a focused intensity that was only a breath away from actual suspicion. It was obvious to him that his godchild sensed that there was something else on his mind, but wasn't willing to challenge him in front of the others. His eyelids lowered, veiling the expression within them from his godson's scrutiny, and he turned slightly around to face the rest of the room.
“I'll have to cancel this meeting and rearrange it for another time. Maybe day after tomorrow, around six?”
There were nods of easy acceptance all around and even a few joking comments, about having been granted a reprieve from the interminable boredom of a staff meeting, were uttered among the younger gryffindors. Severus sighed when he realized that Draco hadn't moved away from his side and his pale hand rose to rub the bump on the bridge of his nose with frustrated discomfort.
The rest of his staff slowly wandered outside, while his nosy godchild looked down at him with a deep frown marring his pale beauty. Draco's delicately curved mouth looked thin and pinched, betraying the mulish stubbornness that characterized all Malfoys.
“I want to know what's the matter with you, Godfather. Are you feeling unwell?”
He wriggled in his chair to gain some time, attempting to come up with some sort of explanation that wouldn't necessarily expose to the eyes of his boy just how... shamefully maudlin... he'd become in his old age.
“I was caught off guard by the idea of organizing the Valentine's celebrations, Draco. I wasn't expecting the request and it threw me off rather badly. That is all. I need time to come up with some sort of workable proposal.”
Draco's inelegant snort was a testament to how out of practice in the fine art of misdirection he was nowadays.
“That's troll dung and you know it, Severus!. You were flustered, but you were fine until I disagreed with your brilliant idea of trying to restrict the children's dating efforts. Did you interpret my objection to your plan as a lack of loyalty on my part? Is that it?”
Hearing so much nonsense being spouted at him in that disconcerted and wounded tone of voice brought a sudden frown to his pale forehead. His dark eyes rose swiftly to clash with the shadowed beauty of Draco's own.
“Loyalty isn't measured by how many times we agree to uphold another's opinions, Draco. It's measured by how many times we return to the side of those we are loyal to, regardless of the fact that our ideas might not actually coincide.”
A small, wavering smile curved his godson's lips and a hand that was as exquisitely pale as it was certain, rose towards his waxy cheek and caressed it with the kind of pensive gentleness that could topple off a giant.
“I know that I don't say this as often as I should anymore, Godfather, but... for what is worth, I want you to understand that you have been a constant well of unusual wisdom in my life. I don't even want to imagine what kind of little monster I'd have become if it weren't for some of the things that you've taught me. I do love you with all of my heart, but you already know that, don't you?. I just... I can't bear for you to look this upset!”
His mind reeled with the strength of his own reaction to those very simple words. His emotions were too close to the surface for him to be able to manage them with his usual detachment. He felt hammered by an overwhelming sense of affection for this young man who was worth... everything... to him.
“You shouldn't worry so much about me, Draco. I'm doing as reasonably well as can be expected from someone in my situation. Everything is still so new... Everything has changed beyond recognition from what I last remember. Sometimes it feels as if I've fallen down a fairy hole and re-awoken in a different world altogether. But I'm doing better know. I'm growing used to this. Things will settle even more as time moves on and then... all these up and downs that I'm experiencing at the moment will become a thing of the past.”
Draco's searching gaze raked his thin face for a long time.
“So it's just stress. Are you sure?. Is there something wrong between you and Harry?”
He was so startled by the unexpected question that he jumped and his dark eyes widened with flummoxed confusion.
“Harry?. Why would you assume that I'd be adversely affected if there was something the matter between us, Draco?”
The boy chuckled under his breath. Light gray eyes lit with the sort of amusement that Severus most despised when it was so clearly obtained at his expense.
“I'd imagine that you'll be as adversely affected by something being wrong between the two of you, as you are positively affected by everything being right.
I've never seen you as happy as you've looked these past weeks, Godfather. And Harry... he is so cheerful since you allowed him to return to the castle that it makes my teeth grit, whenever I hear his obnoxious whistling. It's just wonderful to see. You... you've found peace, have you not?. Your eyes shine and you smile all the time, for no reason at all. You didn't even recoil in horror the last time Poppy hugged you in the staff room.”
He felt a burning blast of embarrassed blushing spread across his neck and cheeks.
“I couldn't have rejected Poppy's emotional outbursts in good conscience, Draco. She is a very dear friend. And about Harry... well, it wasn't really in my power to forbid his return. The ministry gave him those rooms. I hadn't even known that he was keeping away on purpose. How was I supposed to imagine that, after conning me into living with him, he'd suddenly developed a conscience and decided that he'd made me too uncomfortable already to keep pushing me any further?”
Draco laughed heartily. Blond hair swung around his beautiful face as he shook it slyly.
“Gryffindors! They do everything back to front, don't they?. He pushes you and pushes you, until you feel like screaming, and when you finally surrender, he retreats!. They are all so bloody frustrating.”
Startled black eyes narrowed with the suspicion that they had ceased talking specifically about Harry.
“Draco... do I need to brew an untraceable poison for Longbottom?”
His godchild chuckled ruefully. A deep sigh exploded from somewhere deep within that elegant, narrow chest as his boy looked straight at him with the kind of seriousness that usually preceded the most unmovable of decisions.
“I'm in love with that bloody oaf, Godfather. I'm going to have to grow the balls to tell Father that he'll have to open the house to Augusta Longbottom again.
They haven't crossed a single word with each other since the woman turned his skin purple, during the wake they celebrated once it became obvious that Alice and Frank weren't going to recover...”
Severus remembered that occasion with the vividness of the person who had been forced to restrain Luc's wand hand. His friend had been beyond enraged by such harsh and public rejection of the condolences that he'd been there to deliver. Pictures of the ghastly scene had graced the front covers of the Prophet for many weeks, and his friend's incensed reaction to every single one of them had been truly frightening.
Luc's cold-blooded retaliation had been as brutal as it'd been merciless. He'd personally started a very blatant vendetta against the old matriarch. One, so viciously obvious, that it destroyed both: the impeccable social standing of the Longbottom family and a huge chunk of it's fortune, within the space of three short months.
Anyone who dared to either invite Augusta Longbottom to a party or continue to invest in her extensive portfolio after the incident at the wake, soon discovered that they had been blacklisted straight out of the Malfoy bandwagon.
It didn't matter how unfair anyone might have thought Luc's behavior to be, or were anyone's sympathy with the whole issue could be found. It didn't matter that Augusta Longbottom had been grieving at the time, or that she'd been actually spookily correct in her accusations... the only thing that had mattered was that Luc's pride had been wounded beyond repair and he'd been unwilling to forgive. No one, absolutely no one with the inclination to prosper, had been able to afford losing the Malfoy's favor.
“I was under the impression that he is already aware of your... attachment... to young Neville” He finally offered, wary of venturing into the discussion any further without ascertaining a few more details first.
Draco flopped into a chair with unusual gracelessness and then proceeded to muss up his pale hair in the most distressed manner, making Severus' eyes narrow with concern.
“Draco... It can't possibly be that bad, can it?”
Rueful laughter broke across his godson's lips and the sound grated on his nerves.
“Nev's gone bonkers because I haven't told my parents that we are serious about each other, and Father... Father thinks that I'm just shagging a gryffindor out of some sort of... late teenage rebellion, or something equally stupid. I'd say it's as bad as it can get, Godfather!”
He was absolutely scandalized by the coarse language that his godchild had just used in his presence. His eyes bulged out of their sockets with distress and he cleared his drying throat uncomfortably.
“Isn't the ah... er... shagging... a pretty good indicator that you wish to commit to the man?. I'd have thought Luc would have gotten so large a hint by now.”
Astonishment flashed clear as day within Draco's gray orbs.
“What?... No!. We are living in the twenty-first century, Severus!. Shagging is... it's expected, isn't it?. It's what one does to relieve tension, you know?. Everybody does it all the time and no one turns a hair. Why would Father imagine that I'd... fallen, as hard as I actually have, just because I spread my legs open for Nev on a regular basis? I've done it for plenty of others.”
Now his horror could not be concealed in any shape or form. His mouth opened in jaw-slackened disbelief and his face flamed with appalled embarrassment.
“Draco!”
The boy frowned. That delicate pale face twisted into a mask of shocked understanding and a wide-eyed gaze raked his form, from the top of his dark head to the tip of his old boots, with spluttering incredulity.
“You mean you still are...?. Are you are seriously keeping poor, smitten Potter on the dry and lonely road?”
A single blink after that truly invasive question hit his shocked ears a bark of uproarious laughter erupted from the lips of his one and only godson with so much force that it, literally, shook the boy's narrow frame as he guffawed with malicious mirth.
“That poor sod!... Has he been holding onto his own rope all along?. Then I don't get what in the bloody Hell can be making him whistle so much around here!.”
He felt faint with unutterable discomfort. Outraged by the fact that his boy lacked the tact to abandon the topic at once, or at least stop treating it as some sort of... very amusing abnormality!.
“I don't think there's reasonable cause for anyone to... disdain proper decorum, Draco. One has to be perfectly certain of one's feelings before engaging in the... sharing of one's flesh. Otherwise you are destroying what should be a very special moment, with the memory of all of those whom you've allowed the very same liberties, for no other reason than to assuage a perfectly ordinary lust!. Your Father wouldn't have had cause to be misguided about your relationship with Longbottom, if you had practiced some sort of discrimination in the first place!”
Sudden sobriety returned, with a bang, to those pale features and he found himself on the receiving end of a wishful and shocked look.
“You are still a virgin... are you not, Godfather?. You've held out for love all this time... and one of these days you are going to give that moronic gryffindor the kind of treasure that I squandered on bloody Flinn-Fletchey.”
He stiffened in annoyance.
“You are no one to talk. I thought you've grown to appreciate gryffindors as much as I do.”
Draco's relentless gaze became a softened pool of genuine affection as the boy pushed his chair closer.
“Look at you!... You are in love with that idiot. Are you not, old man?. You are defending him to me, as if I've offended him something fierce!. We are talking about sex here, about the possibility of you finally partaking in the activity and the mention of the idea hasn't managed to force you out of the room yet... You've blushed bright red, and you are clearly uncomfortable, but your eyes are shining with hope. They look as if the very stars have come to live within them, Severus.”
There was a moment of thoughtful silence as his godson looked at him with a peaceful kind of satisfaction. He didn't know how to react to the unusual situation, to words such as these being directed towards himself for the very first time in his living memory.
“I'm glad to see that things are finally looking up for you, Godfather. I've never seen this particular expression on your face before now, and I must say it suits you. You look happy and hopeful. Vibrant. You look exactly like a man in the throes of first love should look like...”
His natural reticence to share any kind of information about his personal life tried to raise it's ugly head but he pushed it back down. Detachment had no place here, inside a room that held him alone with his godchild. If he could not confide in this boy then whom could he come to for... advice?.
He was crippled by his own disproportionate sense of proper decorum. By the fact that he saw Draco like a son and, therefore, felt utterly ridiculous talking about such intimate matters with him. Only... he hadn't yet managed to raise courage enough to go to Luc. Not over this, at least...
“I... yes. We've grown very close recently. It's all so disconcerting that I don't really know how to... react... to some of his requests.”
Draco's fine blond eyebrows rose with obvious interest.
“What kind of requests?. Is he a kinky little bastard?. Has he...? Is he pushing you for sex?”
His ears flamed and his eyes widened even further in alarmed denial.
“No!... NO. Sex hasn't come yet into the equation.”
Draco seemed utterly flummoxed by that assertion.
“It hasn't?. Are you kidding?. Potter's reputation is worse than mine, Godfather!. He is an absolute whore of the first order!. I can't believe that you've managed to keep him interested, unless you are putting out some serious petting...”
He was hurt to his very depths by that reminder of Harry's astonishingly active sexual past. He'd known that it existed, of course. The Auror had been more than open with him about it, but... he was attempting, very hard indeed, to ignore it altogether.
Every now and then it became impossible to shy away from the knowledge, though. It... ambushed... him in moments such as this one. Or while they were sitting together on the couch and he was regaled with the kind of kissing that could melt the skin off a man's bones. No one developed skills like those, unless they'd been around the block plenty of times...
“He says he is happy to wait. I don't believe that he has the time to... procure alternative entertainment for himself. Between his work schedule and the amount of time we spend together he hardly has time enough to sleep, but...” His voice faltered at the very last second and the frightened look that appeared on his face managed to bring Draco out of his chair, and into a kneeling position at his feet, in the blink of an eye.
Pale long fingers wrapped around his cold ones with visible concern.
“What is it?”
“I... He is so young and... athletic, Draco. He keeps telling me how happy he is with the way things are going between us, but... I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop!” His voice was gathering strength as he voiced the worrisome thoughts that had started to undermine his fragile confidence in the budding relationship that he was attempting to forge with Harry Potter.
Things were easier when they were together, sharing the same space, exchanging thoughts... Harry had a way of addressing his fears that usually put them to rest, at least for a while. But in the solitude of his own room he turned and turned every conversation they ever held around in his head. He analyzed every word they exchanged. Every touch and caress that Harry granted him. Every request for more that the boy had failed to voice...
“You've said it yourself, Draco. I've found out what others think about his unending string of affairs. I know that he hasn't stayed long with anyone, except for Peterssen. I've heard your father's explanation for that particular aberration, and it does make sense when I put it together with what Harry himself says, but...” His eyes closed in distressed, reluctant awareness of just how much he was revealing about truly private matters.
He was flailing in a sea of heart-wrenching doubts and he lacked the confidence to discuss this with his... his... with Harry himself. He knew not how to address his insecurities. Had no idea, at all, about how to find relief for his deep fears. He wanted... No, he needed reassurance and he felt that, maybe, someone a bit more experienced in these matters could shed some sort of insight into a situation that was simply... way above his head.
Draco's gray gaze was focused and patient. He seemed to understand instinctively just how difficult the whole situation was for him, and was very obviously attempting to give him room for thought.
A tender smile was grazing those soft lips and the hair that Severus still liked to stroke gently shone under the light, like a beacon made out of moonbeams.
“I'm no match for him, Draco. Either physically or emotionally. I have nothing else to offer him but an old and ugly husk that can't possibly hold his attention for any reasonable length of time.
He... he kisses me as if he'd die without the touch, but... that's all he ever does. He's not gone any further than snogging the daylights out of me, and I... I've been wondering if he's lost interest already but doesn't quite know how to tell me...”
Draco burst out laughing uproariously and he recoiled, in absolute despair at having his very real fears treated with amusement. Hurt dark eyes turned away from his godchild and the boy's mirth died on the spot. Jarringly. Abruptly. Then elegant fingers curled around his thin wrist and tugged, insistently, until his gaze re-alighted on those pale and contrite features.
“I'm sorry that I laughed, Godfather. I truly am. But you have to understand that we are talking about Potter here. That man has some serious thing going for you. I witnessed his obsession with your recovery, your memories, your reputation, your very life... day in and day out for four long years, and I'm telling you that our world will disappear before that man loses his interest in you!”
His dark gaze relaxed minutely and his forehead furrowed in concentration as he wondered how to put his anxiety into words.
“Then why doesn't he... request... more?. What is it that I'm doing wrong, Draco?. How can it be possible that he's engaged in one-night stands with half of the dark haired population of wizarding Britain, but holds out on me for months?. Is inexperience really that easy to recognize in a partner? Is it that off-putting to a man as... well versed... on the activity as Harry is?.
I've ordered a few books and have gone as far as... looking through them, but... the pictures I saw were all so filthy, so revolting, that I haven't been able to bring myself to read the text.”
Draco sighed, reaching out to grab Severus' flailing hands with both his own.
“I think you are mixing things up, Godfather. You've thrown your age difference, and his greater appeal to a wider range of men, into the same pot as his willingness to go at a slower pace. Some of these things are not even part of this equation once we agree that Potter is actually in love with you.
He doesn't care about your age, or how foul your temper is, or the fact that he is good-looking and popular but you aren't. He went past all those things ages ago!. You are not trying to lure him into a relationship. He is already there. He is already committed to you, at least in his head. Bloody Hell, Godfather, the whole god-dammed world knows that he is crazy about you!.
His gaggle of Weasleys accepted it a million years ago, his goody-goody sidekicks have put some serious elbow-grease into finding ways to either bring you back or clear your legal status, just because they know how important you are to him. He has bent himself backwards over you!. How can't you see that his life is ready to welcome you into it with open arms?. He moved straight back here, at the first chance you gave him, because he can't bloody live away from you!. “
He was shocked by the fierceness of the joy that he experienced then. Overwhelmed by the sheer sense of relieved elation that invaded his every fiber and left him feeling weak with a dazzled kind of warmth. He found himself responding to his godchild's claims with the kind of deeply instinctive contentment that he experienced only among his potions. Or Draco himself...
He knew then, with the very same kind of unshakable awareness with which he could sense the exact point when Veritaseurm turned, from merely a mix of ingredients into the perfect distillation of truthfulness made liquid, that he'd fallen hard for Potter. Hard enough to have abandoned self-restraint. Hard enough to be sitting here, literally squirming with embarrassment, as he attempted to understand exactly what was going on with their relationship.
“Then why doesn't he... act, Draco?” He repeated that one question with the doggedness of those who can't really understand and his boy patted him softly on the knee.
“Because he is a gryffindor, of course!. Acting idiotically comes with the territory, apparently. He went ahead and rushed you when he should have waited. And now that he should move forwards he is stalling like a moronic snail, because he knows that he messed things up already. He was so worried when you came back to Hogwarts that your first few days here became absolute Hell for everyone...
He holed up with Granger and Weasley and moped, non-stop, about how he'd scared you off with all his groping and his avowals of love. It was even worse after Father fire-called him and screamed into his face for well over an hour, accusing him of being stupid enough to spook you straight into a retreat with his rushed declaration. I've never seen boy-wonder so dejected. Not even when you were still in your coma. It was horrible. It really was!. I believe that he might have learned his lesson a bit too well, at long last, and now is really erring on the side of overcompensation.”
Silence spread between them as Severus attempted to digest that point of view. He could not actually believe that the answer could be so simple. He was utterly mortified that he hadn't even contemplated something along those lines on his own.
Then another thought hit him and he stiffened. Apprehensive dismay brought a veritable miasma of stricken panic to his already ashen visage.
“I... I... Does this mean that he... Is he waiting for me to make the first move?”
Draco smiled very gently and a light that was soft and reassuring entered his pale gray eyes.
“You don't have to be perfect about it, you know?. You don't even need to read those books of yours, if you find them distasteful. I have the feeling that you'll need a more gentle introduction to... intimacy... than most people, Godfather. He'll be thrilled enough with some subtle indication that you are ready to move things along.”
His distress was blatantly obvious when he croaked out in alarm:
“Subtle?. He is a gryffindor, Draco!”
“Then talk to him. That always works with Nev. These blokes are suckers for a good little-lost-me-needs-your-help sort of spiel. Does he know that you are... still pure?. That could have messed with his silly goody-goody head something fierce!”
Severus almost choked on his own saliva at the question. He could not exactly remember the issue having popped into an actual conversation with Harry lately, although he recalled having gone as far as implying that he'd been touched, back when he'd been mad with the little brat after that first, ill-timed kiss they'd shared...
“I think he suspects that I haven't been particularly active sexually, but... I believe that he hasn't really guessed the true extent of my actual lack of experience.”
Draco gaped. Those pale features showed crystal-clear worry as the boy stared unblinkingly straight at him.
“You've got to tell him. He can't take your virginity away, without knowing it, or he'll mess things big time for the both of you!. He'll never forgive himself if that happens, Godfather.”
The very idea of confessing such a thing filled him with nausea. He didn't want anyone to know just how... dismally unappealing he'd been considered by others throughout his life. He didn't want to have to admit something so humiliating to any living soul, least of all to Harry...
“I... How could I explain such thing, Draco? It's so embarrassing... He'll think I'm a freak.”
Draco's fingers tightened around his bony knee and his voice was earnest as he refuted that idea with a passionate insistence:
“He won't. He'll love it!. He'll feel all proud and elated knowing that he'll be the one to introduce you to the world of full blown sexuality, Godfather.
He'll treasure the knowledge like a gift and treat the moment with the care that it deserves. You'll both get to cherish it forever... I wish that I had waited. I wish I hadn't been the third lover Neville took to his bed. I'm never going to have the chance to relish the fact that he has only ever been mine. That can't be bought with all the gold in Gringotts!. That is a jewel of an honor and he has to know that you are giving it to him.”
Silence settled between them as those words sank, like heavy rocks, into his psyche. His heart clenched with indecision and his eyes fluttered closed. He felt tired and confused. He felt wrecked. His mind buzzed with a thousand conflicting ideas and desires. He knew not what he would do, and he needed time to ponder about these things that he'd never even considered before.
“As enlightening as this truly uncomfortable conversation did turn out to be, I was meaning to ask your advice about something completely different, Draco...”
His boy frowned. An expectant kind of light entered those aristocratic features as a second turned slowly into another but not a single word further was volunteered.
“Well?”
“Harry is insisting that we should consider spending the Easter vacation together. He has already secured Minnie's agreement to remain at the school and look after the few students who won't return home for the fortnight, just in case I decide to go with him. He... he's got some cottage that he owns, somewhere in Wales. His little place by the sea, he calls it. He has invited me to spend the holidays with him there, and I... I don't know what to do. It sounds so... improper... to visit his home like that, now that we are involved. He might think that I want to... you know.”
Draco blinked in bewilderment.
“Weren't we just talking about how much you want him to jump your bones? I'd have thought this would be the perfect opportunity!”
He looked down at his feet, potion-tainted fingers writhing against one another as he twirled them around with nervous anxiety.
“What would everyone else think of me, Draco?. They'll... they'll assume that I... That we have gone there to... indulge... in such things. They'll think me a shameless trollop!. Unfit to teach young, impressionable, children...
“You are a forty year old virgin, for Merlin's sake!. How could anybody think you a trollop?. I'll hex anyone who even looks at you funny, if you want, Godfather. But I promise you: no one will turn a hair at the two of you taking a short vacation together”
Worried dark eyes settled over earnest gray irises with the kind of uncharacteristic indecision that obviously broke the younger man's heart. He could understand that his boy had never known this side of him. He'd always tried to seem so strong, so... certain... of his every decision in front of Draco that he could certainly imagine the kind of shock he was delivering right now. He couldn't help himself, though. Not in this matter. He felt so ill-equipped to deal with any of it that he was, literally, drowning in a sea of frightened confusion.
“If I go... I won't be able to turn around. I'll be irrevocably committed. I don't think that I can give myself to him and then... forget him.”
Searching pale eyes looked into his own thoughtfully.
“Could you turn around now, though?. Could you walk out on him, right at this second, and remain whole?”
Draco's quiet non-answer brought home a powerful realization that he hadn't yet contemplated. He'd been so busy freaking out about the future that he hadn't actually stopped to analyze the here and now.
His life revolved around the school and the auror, to such extent, that he'd barely visited Luc in the last month. He felt odd when Harry spent the evening away from the castle, gone to have dinner with his friends or with the Weasleys...
He rattled around his office for hours on end, like a ghost chained to the realm of the living, whenever the boy was absent from their usual evening get-together. He'd started to develop a routine around the demands of their very different schedules that had no meaning without the child there to share it...
“No. I don't think I can. I'll shatter like glass, Draco. I think it might actually destroy me...”
“Then your answer is quite obvious. Is it not?. You accept this invitation and you tell him.
Tell him that you love him, and that he will be your first. The first to love you back. The first to touch your skin. The first to make you happy... You'll leave here a half-man and return to me finally whole, Godfather. Harry will keep you safe. He will treasure you. He will give you all the things that you deserve and not a single one of us, not one, will begrudge you your happiness or think any less of you.”
He was touched to the heart by those quiet words. He was shocked by how much peace they actually brought him. He was grateful beyond words by the fact that they had been pronounced in the first place. He was humbled by the wave of deep affection that was surging throughout his being as he looked at this boy whom he loved like the son he'd never had.
“I love you, Draco Malfoy. I love you with all of my heart. I might not tell you this often. But it's true, nevertheless. I'd forfeit my own life to save yours without thinking twice about it.”
Pale young features smiled brightly at him and his beautiful godchild rose on his knees to kiss his cold cheek softly.
“I'll be happier if you live your life to the full for me, instead, Godfather. No matter how many times you miss the chance to tell me that I'm perfect, I happen to know that you do think it anyway. I love you too, you know?. For what that's worth, I might even confess that I'll continue to love you even after you bond with that blind nightmare, and force me to call my childhood nemesis Uncle Harry...”
They both burst into hysterical giggles at those words and the moment spun gently around itself, coiling tightly within their hearts, within their memories, until it became one more of those simple instants of perfect communion that united them. One more of those shared moments that linked them together in paternal devotion. They were alone and they were together. They understood one another. They loved each other with a limpid sort of simplicity. They would be there for one another no matter who else came or went. No matter who stayed...
TBC...
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-10 10:10 am (UTC)I have a question - I´ve read some of rewiews for this tale and there someone wrote that there is small bonus... Where?
Have a nice day
Pat.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-10 02:41 pm (UTC)I'm thrilled that you are still enjoying this story and hopeful that the ending of it will manage to live up to your expectations.
In answer to your question there is no extra-outtake for this story. I have a feeling that you've been reading the reviews for this over at FF.Net, since that is the only archive where this particular fic -and every single one of my NC-17 one shots- have been systematically cut short to exclude all explicit scenes.
FF.Net has a very strict policy of not allowing NC-17 fics to be posted on their site. There are some authors who ignore this and post explicit scenes, anyway, but this has led in the past to their stories being removed from the archive altogether by the management. That's the reason why this particular story is an entire chapter short over at FF.net. I was forced to remove the original's chapter 42 in order to post it over there, since that contains the actual love scene for this story. I did put a link on the page, so that anyone interested in reading it, anyway, could do so over here or at A03, but if you are reading this fic in this journal, then you already have the entire work at your disposal.
I'm sorry about the confusion over this issue. I very rarely add NC-17 scenes to my fics, but when I do I'd rather they are read along with the rest of the story as I originally wrote it. I find it very upsetting to have to go over my work and chop chunks of it off for FF.Net. Once that's done the stories just don't have the same feeling to them, since that all-important physical coming together of the characters that most readers want to see in a fic like this one ends up being scrapped...
I hope you aren't too disappointed to learn that there's no extra bonus material to this fic and that you get to enjoy the ending as much as you have the rest of the story.
Cuidate mucho, amiga mia.
Hugs
pekeleke