What It Means To Be

by spinner

4

"What's this? Has it been here long?"  Draco asked, using his good hand to dig around inside his green stocking.  He retrieved a golden key adorned with a beautiful scarlet ribbon long enough to hang around his neck. 

"Dunno," Harry commented from his slouched position on the settee before the fireplace.  Comic books were spread out around him, a great feast of four-color storyboards and bubble-enclosed words.  Draco tilted his head sideways and back again, shaking his head in dismay at Harry's choice of reading material. 

"Have you been sitting here all day?" Draco asked.

"' 'Cept for Heathrow this morning, and for lunchtime.  How was the ice-skating?" Potter mumbled, nose in his comics. 

"It was fun," Malfoy shrugged, unsure if he should have admitted that.  "Someone gave you a key as well?" Draco asked. 

Without showing his face, Harry dangled a silver key from a long green ribbon where Malfoy could see it.  

"Are you sure that's not mine?  Look at the colors.  It's obvious they got them switched around," Draco decided, coming forward. 

"No, no, no, no," Harry laughed, vanishing his key back into the stomach pouch on his sweatshirt. 

"How are you so sure?" Draco wanted to know.

"Mine.  All mine.  Mine, mine, mine," Harry laughed, treating Draco to a Cheshire grin. 

It had taken Potter two days to stop teasing Malfoy about his new haircut—high above the ears and close to the scalp to disguise the naked pate where the flames had taken away his hair to the skin.  Harry was dying to tease again now but refrained.  Two days of being called 'Brother Draco' had been enough to make Malfoy's face tighten in anticipatory anger every time he saw Harry.  All that fury was keeping uneasy gratitude away, which was what Harry had been going for in the first place.    

"How do you know?" Draco huffed. 

"Figured out where it's from already," Harry confided.  He waved the key at Draco and made it disappear again quickly. 

"Where?" Malfoy asked, bored with these childish games.  Weren't heroes obligated to go around pouring off cheerful goodwill and boisterous hearty laughter?  Heroes did not tease.  Heroes did not lurk.  Heroes did not use charisma spells to convince seasoned Aurors that the near-catastrophic bomb blast that had wrecked Malfoy's entire apothecary shoppe had been the result of two vials of incompatible potions being stored next to one another on the same shelf.  Heroes didn't deceive.  Wasn't that against the rules?  Didn't heroes have specific rules of conduct, like the code of chivalry for knights from the Middle Ages, or rules of engagement for dueling wizards and what not?  Why couldn't Potter play by the damned rules?  Why did he try so hard to make Malfoy like him?  Further yet, why-why-why did Draco find himself a second from giving in before being able to master himself and hold back?  It was becoming a near thing! 

"Room Thirteen, Three Sheets," Harry purred.

"Someone gave you a key to a private room in a brothel as a Christmas present?!" Draco exclaimed, flush with jealousy.  "That's got to be a sin on at least six levels!"

"One can only hope," Harry gushed, hugging his stomach pocket and humming to himself.  Draco studied his key around his neck, gold and scarlet and garish to the eyes, and he reluctantly took a few tentative steps closer to Potter. 

"What room does mine go to?" he asked, dangling the key near eye-level for Potter.

"Not the Three Sheets," Harry informed him, hiding behind his comic book again.

"You're so sure?" Draco mocked.  "You didn't even touch it.  Go on.  Touch it."

Harry extended two fingers, and Draco lowered his neck and thus the key.  Potter clutched the key briefly, and the comic book lowered.  Potter was trying not to frown.

"Isn't that curious?" he was heard to murmur before pretending boredom and letting go of the key.

"What?  What's curious?" Draco demanded, taking away the comic book and practically sitting down on Harry's feet before Potter pulled his legs out of the way.   Harry snatched the comic back and hid it under himself. 

"It's to the front door of the library."

"Hogwarts?"

"Grimwood," Harry informed him.

"Who would give me a key to your library?"

"Someone wishing to grant you safe access at all hours, no doubt.  It's beside the point, I must say.  The wards are already charmed to let you in."

"They are?" Draco was shocked. 

"They have been since Halloween.  I thought you'd be there for the party, but you were otherwise engaged.  I haven't reset the wards.  No point now, I suppose.  The keys are charmed to lower the wards.  The locks are charmed to recognize the keys."

"I can go there anytime I like?" Draco seemed to warm to the idea.

"Apparently you can now," Harry stressed. 

"It wasn't you then?"

"No," Harry said stiffly.  "You'll have to abide by the rules while you're there."

"What rules are those?"

"Let me see that key again."

"Why should I?" Draco laughed, jumping up from the settee and getting out of reach. 

"I want to know who gave it to you, that's why."

"No," Draco mocked, retreating to his bed and protecting the key in both hands.  Potter watched him with narrowed eyes, but eventually went back to his comic.

"I'll find out, you know," Potter echoed quietly. 

"I'd be willing to trade," Malfoy offered.  He appeared on light feet right next to Harry again.  The golden key dangled down over the front of Potter's comic pages, sliding back and forth.  "Give me your key, and I'll give you this one back," Draco tempted.  Harry watched the golden key for several seconds before smiling again.  Someone had given them opposing keys as a test, hadn't they?  It was clear to him.  He could accept the key to the library back, and keep Draco out, but at the cost of whatever lovely surprises waited for him at the Three Sheets.  He could have his fun at the brothel, but it would mean that Draco would be able to intrude on him at Grimwood, day or night, rain or shine.

However clever, this mysterious someone was assuming Harry wouldn't floo-call the first available locksmith and change the key to every bloody portal in Grimwood.  Harry chuckled to himself, knowing however satisfying that might have been, that it was the worst possible choice of the three options before him.  No….too clever entirely….no, it wasn't a possible choice, but it was tempting, too tempting. 

"No trade.  You can keep it," he brushed Draco away, swatting him with the flat edge of the comic book.  It felt rather hard for mere colored newspaper stock.  Malfoy rubbed his side, and retreated to his bed.  He climbed across the covers and sat against his headboard and pillows.  Malfoy worried if he had won this particular battle or not.

"Do you plan to spend your entire holiday soaking your mind in that sewer?" Draco asked after a couple minutes of quiet.  "You've hardly moved since you got back from London this morning."

"I moved for lunch.  I won't sit here all holiday," Harry replied.  "Just today."

"What are your plans for the rest of hols then?  Stay at Hogwarts, wander around Hogsmeade, pester the Snapes at Ravensrood?  I've been told we're both expected for a visit on Christmas Day.  It's expected.  I've been told more than once."

"Sparks is cooking a special dinner tomorrow night for Christmas Eve, and we’re taking it over to the CeeBees.  You should come too.  Sister Silverthorne would greatly appreciate the help.  No point in staying at home alone.  I'd be at Grimwood, but I don't like to be there alone.  It's usually me and Hermione, maybe Remy, but he's holed up at his cottage again, being a hermit.  I've hardly seen him, except for the other day.  He helped me delivering presents and clothes to the CeeBees."

"You're not going to spend time with Granger?"

"No, she's spending the break with her parents, and they are having dinner with the Stoneburnes, remember?"

"Right, right.  I think I make her uncomfortable.  She tries to be overly-kind to me.  I'm not fooled though.  I keep waiting for the next punch."

"She's taking sparring lessons.  I'd watch out if I were you," Harry mused.   "Other than Grimwood, I'll be at Hogwarts, just like you."

"And the expected visit to Ravensrood."

"And the expected visit to Ravensrood," Harry echoed. 

"Your healer is off on her vacation?"

"Her departure got bumped up two days because of the holiday rush.  She shipped out this morning from Heathrow, barely made it in time.  Left with nothing but an overnight bag.  Modesto followed her two hours later to take her some luggage.  Hopes he can catch her at a connecting location on by an express.  I gave him my wallet so he'd have traveling funds.  He'll be back as quickly as possible."

"Teddy is going to have to wear that bikini after all?" Draco asked.

"If Modesto doesn't catch up to her, she's going to be wearing that thing most of vacation.  She'll probably never want to see it again.  If it comes to that, I'll be expecting another whack in the head when she returns home."

"Wait.  If Modesto has gone to catch up with Teddy to deliver her luggage, and Teddy will be gone for nine days, not seven, and you gave Stoneburne a week off with the family, telling him that Modesto would be watching over you, who is watching your back at this very instance?"

"I won't play in traffic, and I won't run naked up and down the streets, all right?  Keep your yap shut," Harry warned. 

"You coordinated this?" Draco wondered. 

"I did not," Harry lied.

"You arranged this!" Draco accused.  "I knew it would take more than a cup of tea to get you out of bed at four in the morning.   You tricked Teddy and Modesto both!  'I've got a bad feeling about your Floo-trip.  Maybe we should head to London this morning?'  You bloody fraud of a Gryffindor!" 

Harry held to his insistence of innocence for a short time, but Malfoy's uninterrupted non-verbal prodding finally won out.   Potter had never realized how very gimlet-like Draco's gray eyes could be.   

"You have no idea how much energy it took to charisma spell the ticket clerk to bump Teddy's trip up two days.  Let alone convincing Modesto that he had to rush after her with her luggage.  I'm exhausted," Harry slyly admitted.

"You're the worst sort, you know that, Potter?  What's your freedom worth to you?"

"I don't understand."

"I could spill my guts, and you wouldn't be able to leave this Tower," Malfoy taunted, wicked smirk firmly in place.  Potter lowered his funnies and studied Malfoy with malevolent green eyes. 

"You could.  But then I'd have no choice but to stuff you in a box and mail you to the Antarctic, which I've heard is none too pleasant this time of the year.  You'd be forced to live by your wits in an extremely harsh environment."

"Not an unfamiliar situation," Malfoy mocked until Harry gave him an even more-threatening stare.  "Perhaps I'd better keep quiet then, hm?"

"Yes, perhaps you'd better," Harry agreed grimly. 

"You could reward my silence with a small, complementary offering."

"I could, possibly," Harry eased out the words. 

"Say, a nice bottle of Grand Pomme Rouge?"

"Bottle of what?"

"88 was a good year."

"How would you know?" Harry rolled his eyes.

"You should at least tell Professor Snape that you seem to have temporarily come up short on guards."

"Shh."

"What?  Tell him it was an honest mistake."

"Yes, he's sure to believe that," Harry scoffed.

"You should tell him."

"Havoc's around Hogsmeade or Hogwarts somewhere, surely.  I'll stick close to him.  He'll make a fine blast shield if anyone else tries to blow me up or light me afire."

"Potter, your ego is boundless!  Don't forget, Crabbe was after me, not you," Malfoy laughed, opening a textbook that lay on his bed.  He closed it again, shaking his head.  "You happened upon the scene.  You were not the target.  I was.  They want me dead.  That's not to say they wouldn't be happy to see you dead alongside me, but it was me, ME they were after."

"Don't worry.  I'll find Crabbe.  Give me time.  That's all.  Give me time."

"I'll deal with him in my own way, Potter.  Keep your nose out of it."

"Forgive me for saying so, but it never appeared to me that Crabbe could plan much beyond putting one foot in front of the other.  Goyle either one."

"They do require guidance," Draco appeared to agree.

"Who do you suppose is their North Star, what with your departure from their good graces?"

"I haven't proof who they are following, but there are Death Eaters who escaped justice with the Dark Lord's fall.  They haven't vanished.  They're merely gone underground, Potter."

"Maybe you need to hire a guard or two."

"Maybe I should," Draco agreed quietly.  Harry lowered and quickly raised his funnies.  Had he heard resignation or fear in Malfoy's voice?  This wasn't good. 

"I saw in the Daily Prophet that you're selling Malfoy Manor."

"I want a fresh start, and I'm not going to get that by living at my ancestral estate.  There's no point in owning two houses, paying taxes on two houses, not to mention the constant upkeep of a large manor and a villa both.  There's never been a shortage of old-blood wizards willing to pay a handsome sum for a fine estate. There's the house, not a bad spot of land, the lakes, the forests, and the close proximity to London, don't forget."

"Three houses.  What about Belle Font?" Harry wondered. 

"I sold that one over the summer, with the provision that if should I recover my resources I can exercise an option to buy it back and let the current owner stay as long as he wishes.  It will revert to me when he is dead, if I should come into enough money to buy it back from him.  It's a standard clause," Malfoy shrugged. 

"What are you going to do without house elves?  I mean, if you sell Malfoy Manor?"

"Potter, the servants are tied to the family, not to the house.  Know you nothing of true wizard law?"

"Very little.  Don't worry.  Wynding Lane is wonderful.  You'll like it.  Illumina said it's the sunniest estate in the county.   A vine-covered paradise.  I remember something about wine too."

"There's a vineyard attached," Malfoy shrugged.  "What's your point?"

"The best part is, it will be entirely your own."

"Well, some of us don't have a grateful village building houses for us," Malfoy taunted, his tone somewhere between friendly and jealous. 

"Grimwood is not a house.  It's a big hotel filled with books.  It's a library," Harry whispered, uncomfortable being teased about Grimwood.   "If you're lucky enough to sell Malfoy Manor, you might be able to afford a security guard or two."

"Meh," Draco shrugged again.  Harry laughed at his suddenly-confident bluster.  All his fear and fatalism was hidden away again. 

"The indestructible Draco Malfoy?"

"Potter, even if I am shite at protecting myself, I'm engaged to the most decorated vampire killer in the eastern hemisphere.  Anna is phenomenal.  She's vicious.  She's a killing machine.  Somehow, I don't think I lack for security and protection."

"You do realize I'll have no choice but to remind you of this conversation the next time I save you from certain doom," Harry decided.  "Bless me!  Look at the time!" he exclaimed, jumping up from his spot.  He piled the comics together in a bunch and rushed them over to his bed.  They landed with a thud and a sparkle of magic as a concealment spell disengaged.   A heavy book fell out.   Malfoy wondered what text Potter had been hiding inside the comics.  He had to know!  Draco watched as Harry whipped open his wardrobe and grabbed a large, packed duffle bag. 

"Where are you off to?" Draco inquired, raising one brow.

"Father Christmas!" Harry explained.  He opened the duffle and took out a red, pointed wizard's hat, placing it on top of his head.  "I'll dress on the way there.  Don't wait up."

Harry rushed out the door and down the steps, leaving the portal swinging on its hinges.  Malfoy waited a scant five seconds before he raced over to Harry's bed.  He moved all the splayed comics aside and found a copy of Sprit Charms staring back at him. 

What in the hell? 

Draco nervously put the comics in place over the textbook and tiptoed back to his bed.  On his way to the bed, he peered out the Tower window, and spotted Professor Snape crossing the courtyard, coming across from Hagrid's hut with the giant in pursuit.  Hagrid gave Snape an armload of gifts, they exchanged a couple jovial words, and Snape entered the bottom of the Black Queen's Tower. 

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