[hp] king tide
Harry listened.
Listened to the slap, slap, of the waves against the pilings. Listened to the whine of a mosquito, tauntingly close. Listened to occasional fragments of beach-party conversation that the geometry of the bay steered toward the cottage.
The girl came to the open door, naked. She had been at the bar, had sung a couple of jazz tunes with the band. Harry had watched Draco watching her mouth, her hips.
"Want to join us--" Her gesture was both question and invitation, but he shook his head, smiled, and she nodded.
The inarticulate sounds of sex drifted out to the balcony. Harry splashed his feet and listened to the water.
*
[before]
"I hope you don't mind me asking," the woman leaned closer, yelling over the engines, "but my daughter wants to look at your bracelet."
The plane from the main island was a fifteen-seater, and loud.
Harry made sure to smile as he leaned over for the little girl, let her trace her stubby fingers over the smooth wood, across the firey-gold flecks of feather embedded in the entwined forms.
She put out her tongue at Harry and hissed. "Sssssss."
"Oh," said Harry, tongue sliding around unfamiliar syllables, "they like it when you do that," and for a second he let the wooden creatures coil visibly around his wrist.
"She loves snakes," the mother yelled.
*
He stood ankle-deep in the water, scrunching his toes in the soft sand of the beach. Further out, the ocean changed colour dramatically where the bottom dropped away.
Harry wondered if he could ever go out further than that blue line.
Draco stood between Harry and the sea, longboard bobbing around them in the shallows. Harry tried to find the sight of Malfoy in a wetsuit and unkempt hair incongruous.
"They said," he gestured up the beach, "that you're here every day."
"It's like flying, Harry."
"I don't--"
Draco put his hands over Harry's ears. "I don't remember what you sound like."
*
[before]
Ron's face was pale, horrified red blotches on his cheeks, but his voice sounded as if it were enclosed in a soapy bubble.
"--was no need to break it, fuck, Harry, there must be other ways you could--"
Still in shock. Harry felt like he was speaking to himself. "I thought. Thought there was a need." He looked up at Ron, who was still staring at him. "I had to do that, you know." Shook his head. "No, you don't know."
"At least let me--let me do that--"
The sight of the shirt slipping from his hands, folding itself mid-air above the suitcase cleared Harry's filmy haze. Ron became stark. Brittle almost, as he lowered his wand, gaze drawn again to the broken pieces of holly lying on the bed.
"Don't, Ron." He spoke softly, had to repeat himself.
The suitcase closed easily. He hadn't packed much. There wasn't much left.
"Magic makes you lazy, you know."
*
[start]
- it was the fury of spells from twenty-one wands but it was also the loose-limbed careless magic of fear and determination and anger and love (omnia vincit amor, static, metallic, the air like bile) and it was enough to completely obliterate him even as his fleet of serpents wound around ankles and soft bellies and throats.
- and then he was dead, and they were safe, but broken here and there.
*
"Unpack. Make yourself less bedraggled. And then let's go out and get very, very drunk."
Harry rolled his eyes behind Draco. "You're still a completely insufferable prick, Malfoy."
"I read your lips in the mirror, Harry. You're still a fucking idiot--"
The hand around Harry's wrist was rough and cool (saltwater-skin, he thought faintly) as Draco thumbed the bracelet, eyes glittering when they snapped back to Harry's face.
"The last thing I heard was in Parseltongue."
He let Harry's wrist drop, and turned away.
*
[before]
In the taxi to the airport, Harry managed to remove the splinters.
His fingers bled a little on his passport.
Until he felt the tiny tongues from his bracelet swiping at his thumb, he hadn't noticed.
*
"You can still do some things, though?" Draco moved three of the empty bottles into a line. Marshalling. "Harry?"
It took effort, but the beer slid gently into his hand. "Simple charms." Thank heavens Draco had no expression of pity, only a curt nod. "Your voice is different, like, an accent. Or something."
"No feedback for four years." Draco tapped his ears. "Articulation becomes sloppy, apparently." He shrugged, swallowed the remainder of his drink.
Harry felt the sickly rush of jet lag and alcohol, tipped his head onto his hands. "What about Muggle doctors?" The back of his neck prickled with equatorial sunlight.
"You have to let me see your face." Draco was toneless, faraway.
Bleary, he looked up. "You can't hear. I can't do magic. Life sucks."
The look Draco gave him was almost fond.
"And I need to piss."
*
[before]
"He's never quite got the day right, has he?" Remus's voice was light, but Harry could hear the sharp edge. He took the postcard from Remus silently, glanced at the picture. A market in Senegal.
He didn't need to read the message. Draco's scrawl would say Happy Birthday, nothing more. Birthdays and Christmas. Harry had eight - nine, now - postcards taped to his mirror, and one neatly folded letter in a drawer. The letter had come via owl post from Malfoy Manor. The postcards came from everywhere, franked with ink, delivered by the postman.
He slid Draco's card across the table, away from them both, swivelled around in his chair.
"Remus, I'm happy--"
Remus shook his head slightly. "I know. But you'll go. Eventually." His hand slid softly around Harry's collar. "And it's alright."
*
Sun on his hips and belly, the kind of warmth that penetrates pores and prolongs lazy afternoon naps, and a shape that resembled Draco was standing in the doorway.
Sometimes Harry liked the blurriness. Without his glasses the world was softer, like a gentle drunken kiss. He twisted around and arched each of the curves that felt like sex: his neck, his back, his feet, and his fingers moved of their own accord, sleepily curling and uncurling in the sunshine, beckoning Draco.
Draco's voice was muted. "I had wondered what you'd done with your wand."
Something like come here coalesced in Harry's mind, but his mouth felt too wet to speak.
"Did you know I could hear them talk?" There was a slight tremor in Draco's voice, but there he was, a marginally less diffuse blur now he was close, coaxing the bracelet onto Harry's arm.
Harry turned his head slightly to hide his smile. "What did you tell him, hmm?"
Draco's fingers indented deep bruises on his thigh as Harry coaxed the snakes apart, persuading them to disentangle from around his arm. He felt Draco gasp against his shoulderblades when one of the charmed snakes wound itself around his wrist.
"Think you'll ever stop being a walking cliche, Potter?" Draco's tone was without malice, and his mouth was warm on Harry's neck.
**
King Tide: the highest of high (spring) tides. Occur twice a year: in midsummer during the day, in wintertime at night.