index about this archive - biographies Surfacing by Kay Taylor It was the summer after Voldemort, and Draco Malfoy had seen three generations of his family put into the ground. He'd picked out coffins for them all. A grandiose, mahogany casket to lay his grandfather to rest. The twin biers for his mother and father, angels spreading marble wings around their bodies. And the small box, inlaid with rosewood, to sing his baby sister to sleep, under the soil. And quietly he'd hated them all, sprinkling earth into their graves. The knot in his heart was starting to ease, and it made him feel strange. Nothing stayed with him, any more. He wasn't a Malfoy, because the family was disgraced, and the boarded-up windows at the manor looked like scabs over old wounds, casting hollow shadows over the gates. Chained shut now. The family lawyer had explained it to him - the inheritance was nothing, a run-down appartment overlooking the Piazza in Rome, and a handful of relics that not even the shadiest Knockturn Alley dealer would dare to touch. And he wasn't Draco, not any more, not the persona he'd so carefully built up. Because his family power was crumbling, too - the other Slytherins no longer danced in his footsteps, and Professor Snape definitely wasn't going to keep up that 'trusted mentor' act any longer; he was a hero of the war, now, and Draco was just another nasty pure-blood child whose parents had tried to wipe out half of humanity. The only people that paid attention to him now, ironically, were the people he hated the most. Harry had been in attendance on the death of Draco's father, and this seemed to make him think he shared Draco's pain. Hermione had been instructed - no doubt by McGonagall, who was popping up in corridors like a jack-in-the-box with a concerned look just for Draco - to help him resume his studies, an arrangement which had them both spitting with rage. It meant long nights in the library, with Granger explaining again and again in that insufferable voice what the crucial factors were in the build- up to the Grindewald war, and Draco wanted to grab her by that horrible sweater and shout, what about OUR war, what about THIS war? The war that had left over half their year orphans, and Draco with nothing but his own native wit, everything else irrevocably tarnished by what all of Wizarding England had seen that spring: Lucius Malfoy riding into the battle at Voldemort's right hand, bearing the standard of the Dark Mark. And while her attention was on calculating Arithmancy vectors, Draco's thoughts were neat columns of numbers - add the tax, subtract war damage, divide and conquer, and you get. nothing. He was poorer than the Weasleys. He thought of that whenever he saw their youngest son, his own hands so recently covered with grave-soil. Ron was a silent presence in the library, hovering just out of reach beyond the torchlight, its golden glow playing over hair that was no longer bright red, now a darker auburn, as if it had been washed in blood. Ron's older brothers had gone off to war, and only the twins came back. And Draco wanted to shake him, make him SAY something, even trade insults the way they had the year before. - "Are you looking at me, Malfoy?" "No, Weasel, I'm looking at the wall behind you." What a stupid fucking question. - But no-one had heard Ron talk for a very long time. * Summer hadn't diminished the rain, and the Hogwarts sky was drenched in it; a swathe of blue-grey clouds, scudding across the darkening sky like galleons before a storm. Draco exhaled softly, seeing the smoke catch in the breeze and fly away. He was sitting in his favourite spot; the top of Slytherin tower, where the spiral stairs came to an abrupt halt at a trapdoor without ladder or inscription. No-one knew what was up there, but Draco had adopted the wide window-ledge on that final landing as his own, commanding perfect views across the grounds towards the Forbidden Forest, a looming dark mass on the horizon. There had been centaurs there, once, he remembered. Before the war. The rain was spotting his robes, coming in the open window with a flurry of cold air, staining the pile of letters at his feet. More lawyers, more lies. His father had certainly picked QUITE the little court of sycophants, and none of them were the slightest bit of use in telling Draco where the million-Galleon fortune had gone. Professor Snape advised him to go abroad, to make the most of whatever was left before the trials began, the war crimes tribunals that would hammer the last nail in all the Malfoys' coffins. And so Draco was thinking of Rome, where maybe it would be a little warmer. Where he could sit on the terrasse and drink strong, black coffee, watching the people go by, waiting to find some way into society again. Maybe he'd dye his hair, a rich deep black that would look startling with his pale Malfoy colouring. Maybe that would be enough to disguise him. Maybe. "I'm sorry. About your family." Draco expected to see Harry again, insufferable of insufferables, wearing that compassionate war-hero face. But instead, it was Ron Weasley standing a few steps away from him, ridiculous as always in that baggy sweater and his brothers' hand-me-downs. Draco wondered how long it would be until HE started to look as poor as that. "You CAN talk then," Draco said, stubbing out his cigarette on the stone window-sill, throwing it out into the coming storm. Ron shrugged. "Of course, I can." His voice sounded hoarse, as though he was recovering from a sore throat. "I just didn't want to." "It's been three months since the war ended, and you just didn't WANT to?" Ron shrugged again, leaning against the wall, shivering slightly as the cold stone touched his bare arms. "There wasn't anything to say," he said, simply. "A born philosopher," Draco sneered, finally turning to face him, a touch of the old emnity rising. He looked pointedly at Ron's shabby clothes, folding his arms. "And you've certainly had to get accustomed to forgoing earthly comforts." Ron raised his eyebrow. "As will you." He reached out for the neat pile of letters on the window-sill, and Draco didn't stop him. "Hermione thinks you're just worried about failing your NEWTS. But you really don't have ANYTHING, do you?" The crisp pieces of parchment rustled in Ron's hands, and Draco had time to see the look of intense concentration on Ron's face as he scanned the opening lines. "No," Draco replied. "I don't." "I noticed." His voice was starting to come back, the faint regional lilt to the vowels, the infuriating sense that he was grinning, even when he was deadly serious. "And I suppose you think it's funny," Draco said, clenching his teeth, poised to spring off the ledge and lay into Weasley if he so much as DARED to crack a joke. But, to his infinite surprise, Ron shook his head. "No, I don't. I don't think it's funny. I think it's a damn shame." He hesitated, looking down, scuffling his feet in the dust. "I'm sorry for what happened to your family. I - well. It's hard to think of you, without thinking of your family." Draco gave him a long, hard look, making him flush. "I'm not my family any more. They're all dead, remember?" "I know." Ron's new-born voice caught a little, making Draco clench his fists at his own stupidity. He sighed, swinging his legs around to sit cross-legged on the windowsill. "Weasley. I'm - I'm sorry about your family, too." Ron looked up. "Really?" Draco scowled at him. "YES. Honestly, does NO-ONE believe a word I say?" Ron smiled slightly. "No." He handed the letters back to Draco, his hands still trembling slightly, as they had since the day the first casualty list had been read, Dumbledore's voice solemn and sonorous in the Great Hall. "But thanks, anyway." He paused, as if searching for more words, then turned to go. "Weasley," Draco called, sliding off the ledge with a slight thud. Ron half- turned on his way down the stairs, the dim light making his freckled skin look paler than usual, almost ghostly. "What?" Draco shrugged. "You're talking again, that's all." He paused, giving Ron a searching look. "Why talk to me?" Ron mirrored his shrug, a faint smile playing over his face. "You were there," he said, and disappeared down the narrow hallway. * It had been another rainy day, the castle's medieval plumbing straining to keep up with hundreds of gallons of rain-water; sluicing down the roof, hammering on the castle window-panes, leaking into the corridors and causing puddles in unexpected places. The steady drip-drip-drip in Potions class had been the worst, Ron reflected - after a whole hour in the dungeons, he was no closer to guessing what it was. Hermione had kept poking him in the ribs, trying to get him to pay attention as Professor Snape explained the Draught of Borrowed Breath; but there was no potion that would make Bill and Charlie breathe again, no medicine that could make Percy's chest fill with air, six feet under. He shredded lacewings between his trembling fingers, and watched as the Slytherins took it in turns to whisper snide things about Draco Malfoy, throwing beetle's eyes into his cauldron and sniggering. He had failed the last Potions test, as he'd expected - a large red five out of twenty, and next to it, in Snape's meticulous handwriting: 'Do try harder, Weasley.' It made his heart clench in frustration because he WAS trying harder, he really was, and talking again just fine. And if everyone just left him ALONE then he could start to pick up the pieces, start to look after Ginny like he'd promised. Maybe even play a little Quidditch. * Detention, with Draco Malfoy. Ron was glad that the other boy wasn't talking, because the silence was oddly comforting - scoop, weigh, pour, twist, over and over and over. And it wasn't as if there was anything to say, either. No insults to trade, because if what Ron had read in those letters was true, Draco was poorer than the Weasleys had EVER been, and an orphan at seventeen-and-a-half. He didn't even have his gaggle of Slytherins, and Snape had given him detention - something that would NEVER have happened before. Before the war. "Weasley?" Ron looked up. Draco had paused mid-scoop, the little lizard scales glittering on the balances. "What?" "Oh, so you're still talking." Draco returned to his work, deft fingers twisting the corners of the little paper sachets. Ron watched him working, noticing the dark smudges under his eyes. It couldn't be easy, sleeping in the Slytherin dorms, any more. Ron turned back to his set of balances, noticing dispassionately how they tipped slightly to the side as his hand shook, setting the scales off-kilter. "Draco?" The other boy looked up, startled, a few scales slipping onto the desk - a second detention from Snape in the making. "What?" "Don't call me Weasley." Draco looked surprised. "Why not?" Ron bit his lip, feeling himself flush slightly. "Well, how would you like it if I called YOU Malfoy?" Draco's eyes darkened. "Oh. I see." He paused, trying to brush the small shimmering scales off the desk, only succeeding in sweeping them into the cracks, like trapped seams of diamonds. "But your family weren't - " "Death Eaters?" Draco nodded, a faint tinge of red passing over his pallid face. "Even so. I'm sick of people thinking of my family, not me." Ron swallowed. "I'm always just another Weasley - I've ALWAYS been just another Weasley. Except now, I'm the one who didn't go to war. Not like Bill and Charlie and P-P-Percy, who d-d-" "Ron." Draco's voice was calm. "I'll call you Ron, then." And, a few minutes later, once the steady rhythm of scoop, weigh, pour and twist was established - "I was always sick of being just another Malfoy, myself." * Weeks passed, and still no sign of summer sun. Draco and Ron sat on the window ledge at the top of Slytherin tower; Draco drafting another letter to his father's old friends in the ministero, cordially inviting them to consider him for a place - however small - in the Italian Department of Foreign Affairs; Ron looking over Ginny's Charms homework, taking out some of the more obvious errors. An uneasy truce, really. Ron remembered the first time Draco had traipsed up the winding stairs to find him perched on the ledge, playing chess against himself on the family's battered chess set, arguing bitterly with an opinionated Knight. Draco played too, but different from Ron - more formal, as if he had memorised the book of standard plays and was using them, one by one, in a beautifully choreographed dance. Ron played by instinct, his hands still faltering over the pieces. The trembling was taking longer to subside than Madam Pomfrey had expected, and there had been talk of getting a specialist sent from St Mungo's. "She's missed out the inflection on the last syllable," Draco said quietly, his arm brushing against Ron's as he pointed to the bottom of Ginny's scroll. Ron nodded, and rubbed it out, substituting the correct symbol. "Thanks." Draco shrugged, and returned to his letters, tapping his quill against the side of the ink pot. He was biting his lip, a look of concentration on his face. "How's it going?" Ron asked, looking over Draco's shoulder at his elegant copperplate handwriting. "Not great. My Italian is pretty terrible still, and I don't even know if half the people I'm writing to are still alive." He paused, a slight frown crossing his face. "Or even what SIDE they were on." "Does it matter?" Draco stared. "Yes, W - Ron. Of COURSE it matters. Why would anyone from the WINNING side want to employ me? The son of the war's biggest loser?" Ron's voice was tight. "So you're going to go looking for former Death Eaters, then?" "If they'll have me." "Fine," Ron snapped. "I just thought you'd know better, that's all. You've got a chance to really put everything behind you, everything your father did. And now you're running around begging his former chums to take you on. I thought you wanted to CHANGE things - " "Well, maybe I don't," Draco spat. "Maybe your little Gryffindor plan to reform me has FAILED." It was Ron who left first. Stamping down the chilly stairs, he wondered why he even cared what Draco was going to do after Hogwarts. * Midnight, and Ron couldn't sleep. For all that the days were rainy that summer, the nights were surprisingly warm. And Harry, still wary after a year of ominous messages and assassination attempts, preferred to sleep with the window closed and bolted, making the air hot and heavy over Ron's bed. It had been days since he'd seen Draco, and most of his waking moments were spent trying to convince himself that he didn't give a damn. It was futile, of course. When he'd been lying there long enough to establish that it really was too hot to breathe, long enough to realise that he really DIDN'T want to drift off to sleep, he slid out of bed, feeling the sheets sticking to his bare skin. Because in a way, the nightmares were worse than the wakefulness; horrible, lurid dreams in which Bill and Charlie and Percy died again and again, in front of him, and he couldn't cry out. Couldn't call for help. Could only stand and watch, small and ineffective, the youngest brother. He padded through the corridors, enjoying the feel of cold stone under his bare feet. He'd used to come down for midnight snacks with Harry and Hermione, and he could almost walk it in his sleep. "Oh. It's you." Draco sounded tired. Sitting alone at the table which took up the length of Hogwarts' cavernous kitchen, with a glass of pumpkin juice and a book propped up in front of him. He looked - SMALL, like a dispossessed House Elf. All rumpled blond hair and sleep-starved eyes. "Going to attack my plans for surviving in the post-war world, again?" Ron shook his head. "Actually, I kind of wanted some ice-cream." Draco laughed wearily, and gestured around the darkened room. "Be my guest." Strawberry ice cream, sticky and cold and sweet. Bringing his bowl to the table, Ron hesitated for a moment, then drew up a chair beside Draco. "What are you reading?" Draco turned the book around so Ron could see the lettering on the spine: "Intermediate Italian." "Difficile?" Ron asked softly. Draco buried his head in his hands. "I've no family, no money, no marketable skills to speak of, and now Ron Weasley speaks better Italian than me? Now I KNOW I'm having a nightmare." Ron laughed. "I only speak a little. Bill tried to teach all of us, after he'd come back from the dig in Pompeii. I wasn't as good as the twins." He looked over Draco's shoulders at the book, and bit his lip. "Actually. if you wanted, I could." "Teach me?" "Well, only if you." Draco sighed. "Ron, do I look like I'm in a position to refuse help from ANYONE?" He closed the book and rubbed his eyes, wincing slightly. "Speaking of help. shouldn't Harry and Hermione be joining you? Because you're never going to eat all that by yourself." "I - um. Well, Harry's still asleep, I guess. And Hermione." he trailed off. "She needs to sleep, she's so fanatical about her NEWTS. Never an hour outside the library, any more." Draco gave him a searching look. "I'm guessing THEY don't get nightmares about the war, then." Ron exhaled. "No. They don't." Harry slept like a baby - well, a baby that slept soundly throughout the night, sometimes murmuring contentedly to himself, very rarely waking up unless it was morning and ten minutes before breakfast. Ron supposed that he couldn't remember much about the war, because the last curse had left him almost unconscious, and for a while after he'd only been able to speak in Mermish, pointing and gesticulating to get people's attention. And Hermione, for all that she'd been in Hogwarts throughout the worst of it. she hadn't known a single person who died. Not personally. Her life had ticked on, after she'd held Ron's hand through Percy's funeral, let Ginny cry on her shoulder every night for a week. "Mostly, I get nightmares about being a tea-boy in the ministero," Draco muttered. Ron attempted a smile. "I'm sure they don't want you to -" "Oh yes, they do. They practically laughed in my face. I'm working for less than the price of living, and they won't even tell me what I'm meant to be doing. Apart from there are 'good prospects for promotion'." Draco made a face. "Presumably, to someone's PERSONAL tea-boy." Ron laughed. "High hopes, then." He turned back to his ice-cream. It tasted of summers at the Burrow before the war, Mum making ice-cream floats on the lawn, the smell of grass clippings in the sun. Summers where there was actually some sun. "Ron?" "Mmm?" "May I?" Draco had conjured up a spoon, and gestured towards the ice-cream. "Oh, of course." Ron looked down at the mound of frozen dessert, the shimmer of ice crystals catching pinkly in the faint light. "I was never going to eat all that alone, anyway." They ate in silence, Draco's phrase book propped open between them. Draco's eyes looked slightly puffy, as though he'd either been crying or not getting enough sleep. Ron knew better than to mention it, but he looked. OLD. "Draco?" "Mmm?" "Do you - do you ever miss them?" Draco sighed. "Sometimes. At first I thought I hated them - my father, especially. Because I wouldn't be in this -" he gestured around him vaguely - "this MESS if it wasn't for them. And yes, I'm selfish. I'm a bloody Slytherin. But I don't WANT to be looking for a dead-end job somewhere abroad, so my family name can be safely obliterated in England. I don't want to give up the manor, or learn bloody Italian. I want to go back, you know?" "Mmm-hmm." "Yes, now tell me I'm selfish." "You're selfish." "Thank you. I'm guessing you don't hate - well. Your brothers were heros." "Doesn't make it any easier, though." Ron looked down at the bowl. Draco put a hand on his arm, a touch awkwardly. "I know. But - well. People won't hate you, wherever you go. I have all that to look forward to, just because my father thought he'd look great at the head of a Dark Army. Do you know how many polite rejections I've had already, before getting this? How many Howlers, saying - " he looked down. "Saying I should have died, when the manor was burnt. That our family was like a cancer." "Oh, Draco, NO," Ron whispered, looking up. "And maybe they're right, you know. Maybe I am just this little, SPOILT blond boy who can't cope with the real world now his toys have been taken away." Draco's voice was venomous, his hands curling into fists. "Because I can't even get a JOB. Might as well have got rid of all of us. Burnt down the whole FUCKING lot of it." "Draco -" "Face it," Draco said slowly, his face deathly white. "How many times have you wished me dead, Ron?" "That's not fair." "Why not?" "Because." Ron spread his hands. "It's different, now. I mean. The war's over. Things are." "Not so different," Draco snapped. "Yes different." Ron snapped back, feeling a knot rising in his throat, his hands shaking more visibly. "Different enough so that we're HAVING this bloody conversation in the first place. Different enough that I came down here, when I knew YOU'D be here. Different enough." he trailed off, visibly trying to compose himself. "Out with it, WEASLEY." Draco taunted. Ron took a deep breath, and leaned forwards, brushing his lips against Draco's. They were surprisingly warm, for someone who'd just eaten half a bowl of ice-cream. He felt Draco start in surprise, but he was determined to make his point, and pressed forwards, their noses bumping awkwardly as Draco met him half-way. And, to his utter amazement, he felt Draco start to kiss him back. He tasted of strawberry ice-cream, of bittersweet comfort, and his mouth was warm and soft, blond hair falling into both their eyes. Ron knew his hands were trembling, but he didn't care. He tried to pour everything into the kiss, to tell Draco about hatred that had become acceptance, bitterness that had turned into affection. Draco's eyelashes brushed against his cheek, and it made him pull away slightly, suddenly too aware of what they were doing. "What the fuck," was all that Draco said, his breathing slightly ragged. He pushed his chair away from the table, looking at Ron with a curious expression on his face. Ron couldn't tell whether he was annoyed, or about to make the sarky comment to end all sarky comments. "Okay. THAT'S how it's different? Shit." Then Draco kissed him again, reaching over to pull him close. * "Ron. You look tired." Hermione sounded exasperated, almost as if Ron was purposefully giving her just one more thing to worry about, a week before the most important exams in her life. She was drumming her fingers on the desk, tapping out a mindless staccato rhythm on the polished wood, and Ron could see that she was frustrated. "Where's - where's Malfoy?" "Not here," Hermione replied, starting to leaf through her Transfigurations notes. "You'd think he'd turn up, only eight days -" she looked at Ron pointedly - "Before his first exam. It's almost as if he WANTS to fail." "Maybe I do." Draco had come into the library from the other door, without either of them hearing. He was carrying a pile of textbooks, which he threw down in the middle of the desk. "Granger. Shall we get started?" Hermione scowled. "Well, if you'd bothered turning up on time." "Oh, I'm sorry. I got caught up." Draco sat down opposite her, not looking at Ron. The candlelight glinted off his hair, and - "What have you done to your hair," Ron gasped. At the same time, Hermione drew in a sharp breath. "Malfoy?" "I got bored of it," Draco said shortly. It was the colour of mud, dark and dull, but not quite done properly - there were still glimmers of gold, here and there, as if the spell had been done in haste. It was cropped short at the back, falling haphazardly and lopsided across his face, as though someone had just taken a pair of scissors and HACKED. It was ugly, and made Draco's face look different, showing how thin he really was. "Oh, Draco," Ron said quietly. "Your HAIR." "I don't look much like a Malfoy any more, do I?" Draco replied, shrugging slightly. "That's what I wanted." And Ron could hear the trembling in his voice, see behind that careful insouciance, and - most importantly - catch sight of the grasp marks on his neck. "I'll kill them," he hissed. "I'll fucking KILL them." And he grabbed Draco's hand and squeezed it tight, studiously ignoring the horrified look on Hermione's face. Draco looked faintly amused. "Well, I'd settle for someone fixing the back of my hair." * "Um. It's sort of fixed." "Sort of? What have you done to my hair, Ron?" Draco could feel Ron shifting uneasily on the bed behind him. "Well, I didn't have much to work with." Draco sighed, heavily. "It's a good thing I'm not VAIN then, isn't it?" He felt a soft tremor running up his inner thigh as Ron tried not to laugh, shaking silently. "Well. As long as I don't look like a Malfoy any more, that's fine." Then Ron's hands were back in his hair, gently carding out the tangles. Draco leant back into the touch, shivering slightly as warm fingers brushed against the back of his neck. "You don't look anything LIKE a Malfoy," Ron assured him, pulling him backwards slightly, so that his arms could slip around Draco's chest, his breath warm against Draco's neck. "Mmm. What DO I look like, then?" Draco felt Ron's lips nuzzling tentatively at his neck, and sighed slightly. "Draco." He bent around slightly so that Ron could kiss him, their movements still clumsy, neither one sure where this was leading, or where they wanted it to lead. "Just Draco?" "Yes." Ron sighed into his open mouth, pausing before running a tentative tongue over Draco's lower lip, closing his eyes. Draco deepened the kiss slightly, parting his lips and leaning into Ron, using the weight of his upper body to gently push him down onto the bed. They sank down into the pillows together, Draco's hands tangling in Ron's hair, the colour of old blood and rust. Draco sighed a little as Ron's hand slid up his back, under his shirt, drawing lazy circles on the bare skin. And best of all, as Draco yanked Ron's shirt off over his head, watching as he shivered slightly in the sudden shock of cool air, best of all - "Just Draco?" "Yes." * Afterwards, when Draco remembered that summer, he didn't remember the rain. Partly because it was so hard to remember rain, or cold, or even thunderstorms in the brilliant Mediterranean light. This was light that scalded the eyes, that bathed everything in a rich warm glow, made Draco's hair - now a deep golden-blond - shine brilliantly in the noonday sun, as he sat on the terrasse drinking countless cups of espresso, shuffling papers he never intended to finish. He didn't remember the rain, or even the aftermath of the war. He remembered little things, really. The look on Ron's face when he'd come into the library with his hair all ruined and straggly, and the look on Hermione's face when she'd seen Ron take his hand. The first Quidditch match Ron had played in after the shakes had stopped, and how Harry had run up to Ron and hugged him fiercely, making Draco smile because the shakes had stopped the night before, as they were naked and glowing and shivering against each other with need. The taste of strawberry ice-cream over a hundred separate nights, some when they hadn't made it back to their respective rooms afterwards, making Draco associate cold stone floors with the way Ron tasted, so hot and eager and sweet. Little things. And it was true that under the midday sun in Italy, Draco wasn't a Malfoy, not any more. "I'll visit soon," Ron had whispered, clutching him tightly on the last day of term. And, in the crowd of students flooding out of the Great Hall, talking excitedly about summer and families and plans for the future, "Ricordari. Solo Draco." Remember. Just Draco. It had been the summer after Voldemort, and Draco had seen three generations of his family put into the ground. And, later, had stood beside their gravestones and kissed Ron Weasley, the sun glinting through the trees above, the pale English sunlight catching off their hair, red and gold. ~ Fin index about this archive - biographies