Fic: War Sanctuary for chaeldub
Title: War Sanctuary
Author: eldee
Giftee: chaeldub
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 3955
Characters/Pairing: Draco-centric; implied Draco/Ron
Warnings: slight language
Author/Artist's Notes: My fickle muse took me on quite a journey writing this, but I do hope you enjoy it! Many thanks to vafizziks for the beta.
Summary: Draco becomes a Prisoner of War, and Ron is his keeper.
Draco Malfoy was aware of the noises of movement somewhere around him before he even opened his eyes. He lay where he was, still and unmoving, trying as best he could to assess his situation before indicating he was awake or drawing any attention to himself.
The last he remembered, he'd been cornered in a back alley of a magical sector of Paris, magically constricted by glowing red bonds that were reminiscent of ropes. Harry Potter stood before him, his wand pointed at Draco, having just cast the spell on him. Draco remembered the look of Potter then: clothes ripped with the spells Draco had flung at him, edges of the tears singed black. His green eyes were hard with emotion, though his voice seemed curiously blank as he taunted Draco about his lack of killing conviction. The words that spilled out of Potter’s mouth made Draco’s blood boil with the long standing hate that had always sat in the pit of his stomach for the other wizard.
“Don’t have it in you, I know you don’t. Not a killer. You’re just a failure.”
Those words had been running through his head for over a year. He didn’t need a fucking sanctimonious prat like Harry Potter spouting them at him. It made it seem all the more devastatingly awful.
Apparently, the moment when Potter sent a spell at Draco that pulled him into a darkened unconscious wasn’t the last encounter Draco was destined to have with sanctimonious prats.
“Malfoy? You awake? Wake up, you arse.”
Draco slipped one eye open just a crack, trying to look in the direction of the voice without being noticed. Behind metal bars, he saw a tall, gangly Weasel looking down at him with bored disgust.
“I know you’re awake. So sit up,” Ron Wesley commanded in his boorish plebeian dialect.
Draco sneered before he even fully opened his eyes, but sighed deeply and finally looked around him. He found that it wasn’t Weasley that was behind metal bars, but Draco himself. He glanced around, seeing he was in some small, dingy room that lacked windows. There were bars across the room between him and the exit door. On his side of the room, there was the small simple bed which he was laid across, simple hygiene facilities behind a screen, and a rickety desk and chair. Beyond the bars, there was only a chair. Draco knew he didn’t have his wand without even having to check his pockets for it. Potter had disarmed him in the alley before he’d even put the restraints around him.
“Before you even ask,” Weasley continued, “I’m not telling you where you are. You’re safe, let’s leave it at that. I, of course, could care less. I voted to hand you over to the Ministry. Or to the Death Eaters. Lucky for you, I was in the minority.”
Draco didn’t say anything to Weasley, just glowered at him as he drew himself to an upright, cross-legged position on the bed. He noted that his torn and ragged travel clothes, the ones he’d worn for months on end while on the run, were gone. He was in simple black trousers and black knitted jumper.
Weasley pointed his wand at Draco. “Stay where you are. Or I’ll, you know. Use this,” he added, waving his wand vaguely. He then pointed at the bars and three in a row disappeared, and Ron leaned in and placed the bowl he had been carrying in his other hand just inside where the bars had been.
Naturally, Draco took this moment to attack, jumping off the bed with an agility he was sure would surprise Weasley. But Weasley quickly stepped back, seemingly prepared for such action. Before Weasley could put up the bars again, Draco threw himself at the opening.
Unfortunately, he'd thrown himself against an invisible magical barrier, with Weasley just two inches away, smirking at him. He waved his wand casually, and the bars reappeared and Draco found himself with his face pressed up against them.
Draco took a slightly step back, shaking his scalded bare foot, which had accidentally stepped in the bowl of soup. He looked up at Weasley with pure venom on his face.
“Why the fucking bars, then?”
Weasley only grinned, but then quickly flashed his hand through two of the bars (unlike Draco, who could not get out through them, Ron had no problem getting in) and grabbed a handful of the front of Draco’s jumper. He heaved roughly, and Draco found his face pressed up against the bars again, though considerably more uncomfortable this time, as Weasley was still pulling him against them.
“Extra protection,” Ron drawled, his hot breath hitting the side of Draco’s face. “You’re a wily one.”
Ron let go suddenly, with a little push, and Draco stumbled back onto the floor. He looked up to sneer at the other wizard, but found he was only looking at a broad back. “Enjoy your soup,” Ron said with a sarcastic wave over his shoulder before he closed the door behind him.
Draco kicked the bowl by his foot with anger. It hit the invisible barrier and spilled all over the floor. He knew he was in hell, then.
//
Life as a prisoner of war was quite boring and, without outwardly indicating so, it really was driving Draco Malfoy up the wall. The same mundane thing would happen each day: Weasley would show up in the morning, instruct Draco to hurry up and eat, while sitting on the chair on the other side of the bars and watching. He’d leave with the plates and utensils, and then return at noon and dinner time, in which the same thing would happen.
All Draco did was sit on his bed, stare up at the ceiling, and come up with elaborate plans of escape, all of which he knew he would never dare execute. There were too many variables - he didn’t know where he was, was wandless, and had no idea what waited for him outside his cell room were, just to list off a few. And, while he’d never admit it to anyone, especially his do-gooder captors, he finally had a sense of safety he hadn’t felt since he was sixteen years old. But he was not happy, not even appreciative, about these disgusting confines - he felt like a caged animal, and that was below Draco Malfoy.
But that was all there was to Draco Malfoy’s day. There was no talking; Weasley wasn’t offering up any conversation or information, and Draco certainly didn’t want to initiate anything with the red-headed buffoon, either. However, after five days, Draco could not help it. Things needed to change. They’d either better Avada Kedavra him so his death was quick and over with, or give him something to do, as he was likely to die a slow and painful death from fucking boredom. He had nothing to do but stare at the ceiling or glower at Weasley when he was in the room. Weasley paid him no mind, though, so it wasn’t even entertaining.
On that sixth morning, Weasley had placed the morning breakfast inside the little cell, put up the bars, and settled on his watcher’s chair, leaning back nonchalantly, and stared at his crossed ankles that were stretched out before him.
Draco internally struggled with approaching Weasley with conversation, as it was the last thing in the world he wanted to do, but bit back his pride for a moment and finally just spoke to him, for the first time since their first encounter. “I need something to do,” he stated formally.
Ron looked up and blinked. “What?”
Draco resisted rolling his eyes at the simplistic retort. “I need something to do. Reading. Writing. Something.”
Ron was smirked at him now. “Finally cracking, are we?”
“No one is cracking,” drawled Draco bitterly. “Surely you don’t expect me to sit here staring at the ceiling all day?”
Ron shrugged and looked up at the ceiling himself, lazily putting his hands behind his head. “I don’t care.”
“Fine,” Draco retorted bitterly. He ate his breakfast with dignified quickness, shoving the plate towards the bars and retreating to his bed, hoping to get Weasley out of his sight as soon as possible. The ploy worked, thankfully, as the sight of the red-head really grated on Draco’s nerves and he would rather stare at the ceiling coming up with escape plans any way.
//
However, at the noon hour (or what Draco could only assume was the noon hour) Weasley returned with his dinner, but also happened to place a book beside the tray. Draco waited until the bars were put up and Weasley was sitting staring at the ceiling before he went over to inspect the book.
He knew right away it was Muggle, before even picking it up. The cover looked soft and malleable, unlike the hard covers the encased wizarding books. Also on the front was a semi-erotic and undignified display of a half-naked man embracing…caressing…a woman whose chest looked like it was about to pop up and out of her garment.
“What the hell is this?” Draco asked bluntly, poking the book away with his toe and refusing to touch it any more than that. “And where did you get it?”
Weasley only shrugged. “You asked for something to read. I snagged that from one of the girls.”
Draco didn’t ask who the girls were, though he didn’t doubt it was that Mudblood Granger and some other Muggle-born witch of the Order who were holed up in this hide-away hovel.
He leaned over and picked up his tray, taking it back to his bed. He ate it in silence, staring at the book on the floor, which was a different activity than glowering at Weasley, yes, but not one that was any more improved. Returning the tray to where it was, Draco intently ignored the book and left it right where it was on the floor.
Weasley was just about to leave the room before Draco spoke to him again. “Get me different books,” he demanded haughtily. “Wizarding ones.”
Weasley looked over his shoulder and smirked. “You really think we’d give you anything that had anything to do with magic?” Weasley asked, shaking his head and talking condescendingly as if Draco were a five year old child rather than a pureblood dark wizard. It disgusted Draco; Weasley was nothing but a faux tough guy with a wand on the other side of bars.
//
Later that day, at dinner time, Ron leaned over to place down a supper tray and got hit upside the head with a semi-pornographic Muggle book. The book fell and knocked over a bowl of stew.
“What the fuck?” Ron asked, standing up and stepping away from the cell, rubbing the side of his head. He pointed his wand at Draco, alert and ready for another attack.
Draco only sat on his bed, back leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and petulant pout on his face. “Get me new books.” It was a demand, not a request or suggestion.
“Didn’t enjoy it?” Ron asked. He looked amused and was obviously satisfied by the fact that Draco had obviously not enjoyed it.
“Surely you must have something that’s not so,” Draco waved his hand, trying to come up with the appropriate word, “…barbaric.”
“Excuse me? Barbaric? I thought it was, like, a love book. You need to learn a bit about love, eh, a mean git like you?”
Draco only scowled more but shifted on his bed, obviously unhappy with the topic. “It wasn’t about love, you buffoon. It was all about sex. Is that all Muggles think about? Sex?”
“Isn’t that all anyone thinks about?” Weasley retorted, grinning at Draco’s discomfort.
“No,” answered Draco, absently rubbing his hand over his lower left arm, where a tattoo represented where his thoughts had been for years. “Though, it’s not a wonder they’re at the bottom of the human-chain, being lead around by their genitals.”
A deep-set look of anger crossed Weasley’s face then, and he abruptly left the room then, without saying anything else. Once upon a time, Draco would have laughed and felt malicious glee at getting to Weasley like that. Now, he just sat there and thought about how he would have found that incredibly funny once.
//
The next morning, Ron didn’t say anything as he put down a tray. But he did take the book sitting there, and left another one. Draco snorted grumpily when he saw a muscular Muggle male and his nearly naked tart on the cover. Weasley just grinned, but at least had the sense to duck when the book was thrown at him at noon this time.
And so the days continued for at least another week - Draco was able to keep track of the days by the number of horribly written Muggle books he read. None of which he liked, not only because they were Muggle, but because he didn’t understand most of the Muggle context in it. Plus, all those Muggles did was play mind games and have meaningless-that-turned-meaningful sex, which they tried to cover up with an illusion of romance. It really was no wonder that wizards were going to take over the halfwit Muggle population.
If the Order was trying to make Draco be more sympathetic to the Mudblood or Muggle populations, these books were the wrong tactic. One, it would never happen anyway so they should just suck it up and leave him alone. And two, it only made Draco think less of Muggles. They were disgusting, weak, and useless. Obviously.
It didn’t even make Draco think of sex any more than he used to, other than it was a random act caused by nothing but lust, and that turned him off. But maybe, because of those damned books Weasley kept bringing him, it was because the only images he had in his head were of lowly Muggles going at it. And that inspired nothing from Draco at all.
But he kept reading them. He had nothing else to do, and at least it was one way to make fun of the Muggles. The Order, the bunch of blathering idiots that they were, probably didn’t even realize that was what he was doing.
//
After a couple weeks - with no talking to that insufferable Weasley, more books, and a lot of elaborate escape plans that never took place - Draco finally addressed Ron again one evening.
It was more that he threw another book at Weasley’s head, though the prat wasn’t caught off guard by it.
“What now?” Weasley asked impatiently, as if Draco had been constantly at him, which couldn’t be farther from the truth, in Draco’s opinion.
“You brought me that one already. Don’t do it again.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No I didn’t.”
“Yes you did.”
Apparently, that’s all the goading Weasley would take - he must have been schooling himself how not to, because it would take far less that that to set Weasley off when they were at Hogwarts - as he just sat down on his chair with a blank face and stared at the ceiling.
Draco sat on his chair at the little desk in his room, now stacked with the disgusting Muggle books, as Weasley didn’t bother taking them away anymore. But Draco, who normally would just eat his food as quick as he could to get Weasley out of his presence, didn’t do so at the moment.
For the first time in weeks - hell, maybe even months or years - Draco felt a little bit of a spark that he used to. It had been a slight rush arguing with Weasley like that, seeing the pink rise to his cheeks and his jaw set in anger.
“So, Weasley, what’d you do to get the ‘baby-sit the Prisoner of War’ job, anyway?” Draco asked with disgruntled airs, though he keenly watched Ron’s reaction.
Weasley shrugged. “Someone’s got to do it,” he muttered quietly.
“Yes, perhaps. But Potter’s right hand man? Something must have gone terribly wrong. Sleep with his girlfriend?”
Ron’s eyes flashed angrily. “Watch your mouth, Malfoy.”
“Oh, right,” Draco said, smacking his palm to his forehead in mock realization. “He’s with your sister. How crude of me. My apologies,” he added, though he didn’t sound sorry in the least bit. “But, seriously, though. It must have been big, really big, to get stuck with this job.”
Ron didn’t say anything else, resolutely staring at the ceiling, though Draco could see his anger in the way he sat. It made Draco smile inwardly, though he just remained quiet for a moment, chewing his sandwich and looking thoughtful.
“Big slip in the heroics, I’d say,” Draco continued after he swallowed his bite. “I’ll guess….under the Imperius?” he asked offhandedly.
Draco knew he hit the gnome on the head when he saw Ron’s entire body tense up, and it made Draco laugh outright for the first time in a very long while. “That’s it! So, did they make you kill someone or something?”
“No,” Ron bit out shortly. “Just shut it, Malfoy.”
“Well, did they have you try to get info from Potter? Are you sure they didn’t make you try to kill him?” Draco asked, ignoring the demand on him. He could see Ron’s fists curl into balls. “Whatever it was, they stuck you here with me as punishment, right?”
“Protection,” Ron said, though quickly snapped his jaw shut as if realizing he said more than he wanted to. He just stood up and left, Draco’s menacing laughter following him out of the room.
//
Draco did have a little fear that Weasley wasn’t going to return to the cell room. After all, Draco did want to eat. But Weasley returned the next morning, and even brought a book with him. He wouldn’t look at Draco, though, nor did he say a damn thing. Draco decided to give him a few days to cool off before he said anything; he was still riding high off the fumes of the previous encounter, anyway.
However, during his supper meal, Draco noticed that Weasley was watching him a bit more…expectantly. As if he wanted Draco to say something, which of course, made Draco say nothing at all.
It wasn’t until Ron nearly left the room that he turned around abruptly to address Draco. “Didn’t you read the book?” he asked bluntly.
Draco merely looked at him with a bored expression. “Yes. So?”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
Ron blinked, as if confused by Draco’s flippant attitude. “Well, what did you think of it?”
Draco raised one eyebrow. Never before did Weasley take an interest in what Draco thought of the damned stupid Muggle books that were brought to him. “It was imbecilic, like all the other books you’ve brought me.”
“Yeah. But why was it?” Ron prompted.
“Because it’s about Muggles,” Draco replied flatly.
Again, Weasley just stood there blinking at him, like some oversized demented owl. “But…it was about two blokes. That doesn’t upset you?” Weasley asked in disbelief.
“Is that what this is about? You thought you’d disgust me about giving me a book about two Muggle males getting it on?” Draco asked dryly. “You’re incredibly juvenile, Weasley, you know that? I don’t give a hippogriff’s arse what equation of gender it is, Muggles disgust me. So grow the fuck up.”
Ron just stared at him, and shook his head slowly, as if not believing Draco’s answer. Suddenly, something crossed Draco’s mind.
“Where did you get that book, anyway?”
Ron’s face turned red and he looked angry, probably much the same way he wanted Draco to react. Draco laughed meanly, and Ron left the room.
//
For the first time in…well, as long as he could remember, Draco had a dream that wasn’t full of masks, Dark Lords, black tattoos, death, destruction, and flashing green lights. It was entirely different, but like the other dreams, he woke up with a start and covered in a layer of sheen sweat, confused and unsure where he was at first.
But this time, he couldn’t look Weasley in the face the next day.
//
Draco stopped reading the books. He picked them up, and put them in a pile on his desk, but he didn’t read them anymore.
He and Weasley had a silent understanding; not to talk to each other, or address each other in any way. They both seemed fine with this, though there was a tense and thickly awkward feeling in the air whenever they were in the same room together.
But one morning, a couple of days after the book/dream incident, Ron Weasley didn’t come to the cell room. In fact, no one did. But a tray magically appeared on Draco’s desk.
So Weasley finally made it up, did he? Draco thought to himself, bitterly. Or begged to get out of Prisoner duty.
Draco had a weird empty feeling in the pit of his stomach throughout the day. He absolutely refused to admit or address it, but that night, his dreams did it for him.
//
Draco was surprised to find Ron come into his cell room early the next morning, though he instantly knew there was something off with the other wizard. There was a curiously blank look to his face; not Ron trying to be blank, but that he actually was.
The other indication that there was something off was that Ron pointed his wand and muttered two spells. One made the bars disappear, and with a crackle of light, Draco knew the invisible barrier was gone, too.
“Go,” Ron said emotionlessly.
Draco walked up to the other wizard, just a couple inches away from him. He looked deeply into those blank eyes, and he could feel the dark power emoting off Weasley. He knew who was behind this, and he involuntarily started shaking. He bit his lip, his feet rooted to the spot, and he was smart enough to know to fear what - or rather, who - was waiting for him outside if he left.
“Go, now,” Ron repeated, shoving his wand hard into Draco’s stomach. Draco knew that either way, he was a dead man.
Suddenly, someone burst into the room, sending a spell right at Ron. Draco looked over right in time to see Harry Potter spell him unconscious again.
//
When Draco came to, he looked around and he knew he was somewhere new. Yes, he was still in a cell room - hell, even his desk and pile of books were there - but he knew it was a different one.
Not only by glancing at the walls, the paint a different colour and peeling even more badly than the last cell. But, also by looking around, he saw a second desk, chair, and bed in the cell room. On the other bed, huddled in the corner leaning against the wall, sat a tall, gangly red-headed wizard, knees folded up with his chin resting against them.
“Weasley,” Draco addressed groggily, still coming out of the sleep spell. “Welcome to the War Sanctuary, where you are kept safe from yourself and others.”
Ron didn’t say anything, but only buried his face in his knees, sighing deeply, as if he was in some sort of pain. That made Draco grin.
Draco reached over to his stack of books and grabbed a specific one, throwing it over to the other wizard’s bed. Ron looked over at it, clearly seeing the two half-naked men embracing on the cover, then looked over at Draco with wide eyes.
“To pass the time,” Draco said vaguely, smirking when Ron’s cheeks turned red.
~fin
Author: eldee
Giftee: chaeldub
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 3955
Characters/Pairing: Draco-centric; implied Draco/Ron
Warnings: slight language
Author/Artist's Notes: My fickle muse took me on quite a journey writing this, but I do hope you enjoy it! Many thanks to vafizziks for the beta.
Summary: Draco becomes a Prisoner of War, and Ron is his keeper.
Draco Malfoy was aware of the noises of movement somewhere around him before he even opened his eyes. He lay where he was, still and unmoving, trying as best he could to assess his situation before indicating he was awake or drawing any attention to himself.
The last he remembered, he'd been cornered in a back alley of a magical sector of Paris, magically constricted by glowing red bonds that were reminiscent of ropes. Harry Potter stood before him, his wand pointed at Draco, having just cast the spell on him. Draco remembered the look of Potter then: clothes ripped with the spells Draco had flung at him, edges of the tears singed black. His green eyes were hard with emotion, though his voice seemed curiously blank as he taunted Draco about his lack of killing conviction. The words that spilled out of Potter’s mouth made Draco’s blood boil with the long standing hate that had always sat in the pit of his stomach for the other wizard.
“Don’t have it in you, I know you don’t. Not a killer. You’re just a failure.”
Those words had been running through his head for over a year. He didn’t need a fucking sanctimonious prat like Harry Potter spouting them at him. It made it seem all the more devastatingly awful.
Apparently, the moment when Potter sent a spell at Draco that pulled him into a darkened unconscious wasn’t the last encounter Draco was destined to have with sanctimonious prats.
“Malfoy? You awake? Wake up, you arse.”
Draco slipped one eye open just a crack, trying to look in the direction of the voice without being noticed. Behind metal bars, he saw a tall, gangly Weasel looking down at him with bored disgust.
“I know you’re awake. So sit up,” Ron Wesley commanded in his boorish plebeian dialect.
Draco sneered before he even fully opened his eyes, but sighed deeply and finally looked around him. He found that it wasn’t Weasley that was behind metal bars, but Draco himself. He glanced around, seeing he was in some small, dingy room that lacked windows. There were bars across the room between him and the exit door. On his side of the room, there was the small simple bed which he was laid across, simple hygiene facilities behind a screen, and a rickety desk and chair. Beyond the bars, there was only a chair. Draco knew he didn’t have his wand without even having to check his pockets for it. Potter had disarmed him in the alley before he’d even put the restraints around him.
“Before you even ask,” Weasley continued, “I’m not telling you where you are. You’re safe, let’s leave it at that. I, of course, could care less. I voted to hand you over to the Ministry. Or to the Death Eaters. Lucky for you, I was in the minority.”
Draco didn’t say anything to Weasley, just glowered at him as he drew himself to an upright, cross-legged position on the bed. He noted that his torn and ragged travel clothes, the ones he’d worn for months on end while on the run, were gone. He was in simple black trousers and black knitted jumper.
Weasley pointed his wand at Draco. “Stay where you are. Or I’ll, you know. Use this,” he added, waving his wand vaguely. He then pointed at the bars and three in a row disappeared, and Ron leaned in and placed the bowl he had been carrying in his other hand just inside where the bars had been.
Naturally, Draco took this moment to attack, jumping off the bed with an agility he was sure would surprise Weasley. But Weasley quickly stepped back, seemingly prepared for such action. Before Weasley could put up the bars again, Draco threw himself at the opening.
Unfortunately, he'd thrown himself against an invisible magical barrier, with Weasley just two inches away, smirking at him. He waved his wand casually, and the bars reappeared and Draco found himself with his face pressed up against them.
Draco took a slightly step back, shaking his scalded bare foot, which had accidentally stepped in the bowl of soup. He looked up at Weasley with pure venom on his face.
“Why the fucking bars, then?”
Weasley only grinned, but then quickly flashed his hand through two of the bars (unlike Draco, who could not get out through them, Ron had no problem getting in) and grabbed a handful of the front of Draco’s jumper. He heaved roughly, and Draco found his face pressed up against the bars again, though considerably more uncomfortable this time, as Weasley was still pulling him against them.
“Extra protection,” Ron drawled, his hot breath hitting the side of Draco’s face. “You’re a wily one.”
Ron let go suddenly, with a little push, and Draco stumbled back onto the floor. He looked up to sneer at the other wizard, but found he was only looking at a broad back. “Enjoy your soup,” Ron said with a sarcastic wave over his shoulder before he closed the door behind him.
Draco kicked the bowl by his foot with anger. It hit the invisible barrier and spilled all over the floor. He knew he was in hell, then.
//
Life as a prisoner of war was quite boring and, without outwardly indicating so, it really was driving Draco Malfoy up the wall. The same mundane thing would happen each day: Weasley would show up in the morning, instruct Draco to hurry up and eat, while sitting on the chair on the other side of the bars and watching. He’d leave with the plates and utensils, and then return at noon and dinner time, in which the same thing would happen.
All Draco did was sit on his bed, stare up at the ceiling, and come up with elaborate plans of escape, all of which he knew he would never dare execute. There were too many variables - he didn’t know where he was, was wandless, and had no idea what waited for him outside his cell room were, just to list off a few. And, while he’d never admit it to anyone, especially his do-gooder captors, he finally had a sense of safety he hadn’t felt since he was sixteen years old. But he was not happy, not even appreciative, about these disgusting confines - he felt like a caged animal, and that was below Draco Malfoy.
But that was all there was to Draco Malfoy’s day. There was no talking; Weasley wasn’t offering up any conversation or information, and Draco certainly didn’t want to initiate anything with the red-headed buffoon, either. However, after five days, Draco could not help it. Things needed to change. They’d either better Avada Kedavra him so his death was quick and over with, or give him something to do, as he was likely to die a slow and painful death from fucking boredom. He had nothing to do but stare at the ceiling or glower at Weasley when he was in the room. Weasley paid him no mind, though, so it wasn’t even entertaining.
On that sixth morning, Weasley had placed the morning breakfast inside the little cell, put up the bars, and settled on his watcher’s chair, leaning back nonchalantly, and stared at his crossed ankles that were stretched out before him.
Draco internally struggled with approaching Weasley with conversation, as it was the last thing in the world he wanted to do, but bit back his pride for a moment and finally just spoke to him, for the first time since their first encounter. “I need something to do,” he stated formally.
Ron looked up and blinked. “What?”
Draco resisted rolling his eyes at the simplistic retort. “I need something to do. Reading. Writing. Something.”
Ron was smirked at him now. “Finally cracking, are we?”
“No one is cracking,” drawled Draco bitterly. “Surely you don’t expect me to sit here staring at the ceiling all day?”
Ron shrugged and looked up at the ceiling himself, lazily putting his hands behind his head. “I don’t care.”
“Fine,” Draco retorted bitterly. He ate his breakfast with dignified quickness, shoving the plate towards the bars and retreating to his bed, hoping to get Weasley out of his sight as soon as possible. The ploy worked, thankfully, as the sight of the red-head really grated on Draco’s nerves and he would rather stare at the ceiling coming up with escape plans any way.
//
However, at the noon hour (or what Draco could only assume was the noon hour) Weasley returned with his dinner, but also happened to place a book beside the tray. Draco waited until the bars were put up and Weasley was sitting staring at the ceiling before he went over to inspect the book.
He knew right away it was Muggle, before even picking it up. The cover looked soft and malleable, unlike the hard covers the encased wizarding books. Also on the front was a semi-erotic and undignified display of a half-naked man embracing…caressing…a woman whose chest looked like it was about to pop up and out of her garment.
“What the hell is this?” Draco asked bluntly, poking the book away with his toe and refusing to touch it any more than that. “And where did you get it?”
Weasley only shrugged. “You asked for something to read. I snagged that from one of the girls.”
Draco didn’t ask who the girls were, though he didn’t doubt it was that Mudblood Granger and some other Muggle-born witch of the Order who were holed up in this hide-away hovel.
He leaned over and picked up his tray, taking it back to his bed. He ate it in silence, staring at the book on the floor, which was a different activity than glowering at Weasley, yes, but not one that was any more improved. Returning the tray to where it was, Draco intently ignored the book and left it right where it was on the floor.
Weasley was just about to leave the room before Draco spoke to him again. “Get me different books,” he demanded haughtily. “Wizarding ones.”
Weasley looked over his shoulder and smirked. “You really think we’d give you anything that had anything to do with magic?” Weasley asked, shaking his head and talking condescendingly as if Draco were a five year old child rather than a pureblood dark wizard. It disgusted Draco; Weasley was nothing but a faux tough guy with a wand on the other side of bars.
//
Later that day, at dinner time, Ron leaned over to place down a supper tray and got hit upside the head with a semi-pornographic Muggle book. The book fell and knocked over a bowl of stew.
“What the fuck?” Ron asked, standing up and stepping away from the cell, rubbing the side of his head. He pointed his wand at Draco, alert and ready for another attack.
Draco only sat on his bed, back leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and petulant pout on his face. “Get me new books.” It was a demand, not a request or suggestion.
“Didn’t enjoy it?” Ron asked. He looked amused and was obviously satisfied by the fact that Draco had obviously not enjoyed it.
“Surely you must have something that’s not so,” Draco waved his hand, trying to come up with the appropriate word, “…barbaric.”
“Excuse me? Barbaric? I thought it was, like, a love book. You need to learn a bit about love, eh, a mean git like you?”
Draco only scowled more but shifted on his bed, obviously unhappy with the topic. “It wasn’t about love, you buffoon. It was all about sex. Is that all Muggles think about? Sex?”
“Isn’t that all anyone thinks about?” Weasley retorted, grinning at Draco’s discomfort.
“No,” answered Draco, absently rubbing his hand over his lower left arm, where a tattoo represented where his thoughts had been for years. “Though, it’s not a wonder they’re at the bottom of the human-chain, being lead around by their genitals.”
A deep-set look of anger crossed Weasley’s face then, and he abruptly left the room then, without saying anything else. Once upon a time, Draco would have laughed and felt malicious glee at getting to Weasley like that. Now, he just sat there and thought about how he would have found that incredibly funny once.
//
The next morning, Ron didn’t say anything as he put down a tray. But he did take the book sitting there, and left another one. Draco snorted grumpily when he saw a muscular Muggle male and his nearly naked tart on the cover. Weasley just grinned, but at least had the sense to duck when the book was thrown at him at noon this time.
And so the days continued for at least another week - Draco was able to keep track of the days by the number of horribly written Muggle books he read. None of which he liked, not only because they were Muggle, but because he didn’t understand most of the Muggle context in it. Plus, all those Muggles did was play mind games and have meaningless-that-turned-meaningful sex, which they tried to cover up with an illusion of romance. It really was no wonder that wizards were going to take over the halfwit Muggle population.
If the Order was trying to make Draco be more sympathetic to the Mudblood or Muggle populations, these books were the wrong tactic. One, it would never happen anyway so they should just suck it up and leave him alone. And two, it only made Draco think less of Muggles. They were disgusting, weak, and useless. Obviously.
It didn’t even make Draco think of sex any more than he used to, other than it was a random act caused by nothing but lust, and that turned him off. But maybe, because of those damned books Weasley kept bringing him, it was because the only images he had in his head were of lowly Muggles going at it. And that inspired nothing from Draco at all.
But he kept reading them. He had nothing else to do, and at least it was one way to make fun of the Muggles. The Order, the bunch of blathering idiots that they were, probably didn’t even realize that was what he was doing.
//
After a couple weeks - with no talking to that insufferable Weasley, more books, and a lot of elaborate escape plans that never took place - Draco finally addressed Ron again one evening.
It was more that he threw another book at Weasley’s head, though the prat wasn’t caught off guard by it.
“What now?” Weasley asked impatiently, as if Draco had been constantly at him, which couldn’t be farther from the truth, in Draco’s opinion.
“You brought me that one already. Don’t do it again.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No I didn’t.”
“Yes you did.”
Apparently, that’s all the goading Weasley would take - he must have been schooling himself how not to, because it would take far less that that to set Weasley off when they were at Hogwarts - as he just sat down on his chair with a blank face and stared at the ceiling.
Draco sat on his chair at the little desk in his room, now stacked with the disgusting Muggle books, as Weasley didn’t bother taking them away anymore. But Draco, who normally would just eat his food as quick as he could to get Weasley out of his presence, didn’t do so at the moment.
For the first time in weeks - hell, maybe even months or years - Draco felt a little bit of a spark that he used to. It had been a slight rush arguing with Weasley like that, seeing the pink rise to his cheeks and his jaw set in anger.
“So, Weasley, what’d you do to get the ‘baby-sit the Prisoner of War’ job, anyway?” Draco asked with disgruntled airs, though he keenly watched Ron’s reaction.
Weasley shrugged. “Someone’s got to do it,” he muttered quietly.
“Yes, perhaps. But Potter’s right hand man? Something must have gone terribly wrong. Sleep with his girlfriend?”
Ron’s eyes flashed angrily. “Watch your mouth, Malfoy.”
“Oh, right,” Draco said, smacking his palm to his forehead in mock realization. “He’s with your sister. How crude of me. My apologies,” he added, though he didn’t sound sorry in the least bit. “But, seriously, though. It must have been big, really big, to get stuck with this job.”
Ron didn’t say anything else, resolutely staring at the ceiling, though Draco could see his anger in the way he sat. It made Draco smile inwardly, though he just remained quiet for a moment, chewing his sandwich and looking thoughtful.
“Big slip in the heroics, I’d say,” Draco continued after he swallowed his bite. “I’ll guess….under the Imperius?” he asked offhandedly.
Draco knew he hit the gnome on the head when he saw Ron’s entire body tense up, and it made Draco laugh outright for the first time in a very long while. “That’s it! So, did they make you kill someone or something?”
“No,” Ron bit out shortly. “Just shut it, Malfoy.”
“Well, did they have you try to get info from Potter? Are you sure they didn’t make you try to kill him?” Draco asked, ignoring the demand on him. He could see Ron’s fists curl into balls. “Whatever it was, they stuck you here with me as punishment, right?”
“Protection,” Ron said, though quickly snapped his jaw shut as if realizing he said more than he wanted to. He just stood up and left, Draco’s menacing laughter following him out of the room.
//
Draco did have a little fear that Weasley wasn’t going to return to the cell room. After all, Draco did want to eat. But Weasley returned the next morning, and even brought a book with him. He wouldn’t look at Draco, though, nor did he say a damn thing. Draco decided to give him a few days to cool off before he said anything; he was still riding high off the fumes of the previous encounter, anyway.
However, during his supper meal, Draco noticed that Weasley was watching him a bit more…expectantly. As if he wanted Draco to say something, which of course, made Draco say nothing at all.
It wasn’t until Ron nearly left the room that he turned around abruptly to address Draco. “Didn’t you read the book?” he asked bluntly.
Draco merely looked at him with a bored expression. “Yes. So?”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
Ron blinked, as if confused by Draco’s flippant attitude. “Well, what did you think of it?”
Draco raised one eyebrow. Never before did Weasley take an interest in what Draco thought of the damned stupid Muggle books that were brought to him. “It was imbecilic, like all the other books you’ve brought me.”
“Yeah. But why was it?” Ron prompted.
“Because it’s about Muggles,” Draco replied flatly.
Again, Weasley just stood there blinking at him, like some oversized demented owl. “But…it was about two blokes. That doesn’t upset you?” Weasley asked in disbelief.
“Is that what this is about? You thought you’d disgust me about giving me a book about two Muggle males getting it on?” Draco asked dryly. “You’re incredibly juvenile, Weasley, you know that? I don’t give a hippogriff’s arse what equation of gender it is, Muggles disgust me. So grow the fuck up.”
Ron just stared at him, and shook his head slowly, as if not believing Draco’s answer. Suddenly, something crossed Draco’s mind.
“Where did you get that book, anyway?”
Ron’s face turned red and he looked angry, probably much the same way he wanted Draco to react. Draco laughed meanly, and Ron left the room.
//
For the first time in…well, as long as he could remember, Draco had a dream that wasn’t full of masks, Dark Lords, black tattoos, death, destruction, and flashing green lights. It was entirely different, but like the other dreams, he woke up with a start and covered in a layer of sheen sweat, confused and unsure where he was at first.
But this time, he couldn’t look Weasley in the face the next day.
//
Draco stopped reading the books. He picked them up, and put them in a pile on his desk, but he didn’t read them anymore.
He and Weasley had a silent understanding; not to talk to each other, or address each other in any way. They both seemed fine with this, though there was a tense and thickly awkward feeling in the air whenever they were in the same room together.
But one morning, a couple of days after the book/dream incident, Ron Weasley didn’t come to the cell room. In fact, no one did. But a tray magically appeared on Draco’s desk.
So Weasley finally made it up, did he? Draco thought to himself, bitterly. Or begged to get out of Prisoner duty.
Draco had a weird empty feeling in the pit of his stomach throughout the day. He absolutely refused to admit or address it, but that night, his dreams did it for him.
//
Draco was surprised to find Ron come into his cell room early the next morning, though he instantly knew there was something off with the other wizard. There was a curiously blank look to his face; not Ron trying to be blank, but that he actually was.
The other indication that there was something off was that Ron pointed his wand and muttered two spells. One made the bars disappear, and with a crackle of light, Draco knew the invisible barrier was gone, too.
“Go,” Ron said emotionlessly.
Draco walked up to the other wizard, just a couple inches away from him. He looked deeply into those blank eyes, and he could feel the dark power emoting off Weasley. He knew who was behind this, and he involuntarily started shaking. He bit his lip, his feet rooted to the spot, and he was smart enough to know to fear what - or rather, who - was waiting for him outside if he left.
“Go, now,” Ron repeated, shoving his wand hard into Draco’s stomach. Draco knew that either way, he was a dead man.
Suddenly, someone burst into the room, sending a spell right at Ron. Draco looked over right in time to see Harry Potter spell him unconscious again.
//
When Draco came to, he looked around and he knew he was somewhere new. Yes, he was still in a cell room - hell, even his desk and pile of books were there - but he knew it was a different one.
Not only by glancing at the walls, the paint a different colour and peeling even more badly than the last cell. But, also by looking around, he saw a second desk, chair, and bed in the cell room. On the other bed, huddled in the corner leaning against the wall, sat a tall, gangly red-headed wizard, knees folded up with his chin resting against them.
“Weasley,” Draco addressed groggily, still coming out of the sleep spell. “Welcome to the War Sanctuary, where you are kept safe from yourself and others.”
Ron didn’t say anything, but only buried his face in his knees, sighing deeply, as if he was in some sort of pain. That made Draco grin.
Draco reached over to his stack of books and grabbed a specific one, throwing it over to the other wizard’s bed. Ron looked over at it, clearly seeing the two half-naked men embracing on the cover, then looked over at Draco with wide eyes.
“To pass the time,” Draco said vaguely, smirking when Ron’s cheeks turned red.
~fin