A Saviour Uncaused (Harry Potter, Drarry)

The Mission

Chapter 14

The Mission

“On the bright side, at least I finally get to open up the package he sent me a couple of months ago.”

From the bed Harry frowned at the wry snort from the Slytherin as he slowly and absentmindedly wringed his greying hands.

Draco set the letter aside on the table and made his way around the bed to the armoire. From the top drawer at the bottom of its left compartment he pulled out a dark-red metallic box. Harry twisted around and momentarily forgot about his hands as Draco laid the box on the bed and lifted the lid, the bottom portion of which shone black type that read “Stapelfeldt”. Draco lifted the garment from the box. Judging from his open mouth, Harry surmised the piece of clothing was for whatever reason important. Or expensive. Probably both.

“It’s a robe,” Draco said quietly, his eyes travelling around the shining black fabric. “He says I should wear it.”

“So wear it.”

Draco’s brain seemed to be working furiously as he stood wordlessly at the foot of the bed feeling the robe under his fingers and studying it. “I need—I need time... I’m gonna take a quick shower.”

Harry watched him gently place the robe onto the bed, slope into the bathroom and attempt to tuck a lock of hair behind his ears, only his hair was gelled. A nervous habit. The time Draco took to shower was the time Harry spent trying to figure out why his body was greying. It was profoundly disturbing to feel as though he were rotting.

The eeriest, most horrible aspect of the experience was that he felt no pain. Whatever was making him grey was a silent force, a quiet assassin, ready to reveal itself only when it struck. Pain would have been a welcome symptom, a sign of something gone wrong. Without it he was blind. His affliction had no meaning he could fathom, no explanation he could decipher or imagine. It bore him no pain to relieve him, and it seemed bent on taking over his entire body.

He was snapped out of his thoughts when the bathroom door swung open and out emerged a half-naked Malfoy with a towel around his waist and another twisted over his head. He perched on the edge of his bed, rinsed out his hair and removed the larger towel, thereby exposing his pale lower body. Harry could not whip his eyes away fast enough.

“Do you want me to step outside for a minute?” Harry asked self-consciously in a half-joking manner but quite seriously standing up. His laser gaze towards the door was disrupted by what looked like lotion floating out of the armoire across the room into Draco’s hand.

“Have I trampled on your sensibilities, Potter?” the Slytherin drawled. He raised his leg and ran his hands over it, applying the lotion. He fixed a dark, impatient sideways look at Harry, who swallowed and stood fast in the middle of the room, looking around it desperately for something to which to offer all his concentration: his eyes landed on the letter on the escritoire and stared at it so intently he thought it might ignite. He walked stiffly towards it, sat on the chair and read it.

“‘For the most important night of your life,’” Harry read. “Wow,” he said after finishing reading it. He peeked over his shoulder and watched Draco drying his hair with his wand, the expanse of his flawless naked back towards Harry. He lowered his wand, ran his hands through his hair, smoothed it out and caught items of clothing floating over from the armoire. “Have any idea what’s gonna happen?”

“No,” Draco replied. He grabbed a pair of Barmees, put both feet through its legs and pulled it over. He grabbed the black trousers. “I do know it’s unusual.”

He did not elaborate on that cryptic reply but finished dressing himself. Harry felt slightly more comfortable watching the process because Draco did not seem the least bit awkward. In fact, he appeared quite preoccupied.