potter! (drarry one-shots)

one: saint potter

Now, it depends on the readers opinion, but one could only disagree. Why only the later teenage years? Why not his whole life?

From sweet beginning, to bitter end.

Oh, why couldn't he just end it?

He must have fallen asleep, because when he woke up, he had a rat nibbling at his nose. It was most disgusting, and slightly annoying. What Draco wouldn't do for his wand, if only to just skin the feral little buggers.

He crawled out of his bed after half an hour, and listened at the top of the stairs for noise.

He would have thought it empty, thankfully so, if it hadn't been for the humming, and clinking of utensils.

Potter, his archnemises, was possibly down stairs. Draco wished he knew the time, but every clock was broken, and every window covered.

He went to his mother and father's bedroom, sifting through the clothes he had stored in there before he had realised he was never going back out again. He had been hopeful, younger then he was now.

The dress robes he had pulled on after his shower had been crinkled, moth eaten, and many sizes too big.

Draco walked down the main stairs, long hair knotted and hidden under his top hat, an accessory he had grown attached to over the years.

By his side was his father's dreadful cane, chipped and old and missing a gem eye.

Potter had been listening to a strange, blinking and shining object when Draco had walked in. Draco barely got a glance at it before Potter was pulling the string things from his ears and shoving the whole alien thing into his pocket.

"Good afternoon, Mr Harry Potter. What brings you to Malfoy Manor?" Potter watched him with hooded eyes, fingers twitching to a wand Draco was sure wasn't there.

As if they would allow a wand to come within Malfoy Manor.

"Well, Mr Malfoy. We've been getting, ah, some concerning readings..." Draco leaned on the cane for a moment, thinking absentmindedly if he could get a Fwooper, or a Jarvey.

"Hmm, talking rodents or tricky birds..." Draco almost fell asleep (oh, sweet baby Merlin... sleep...) but his grasp on the head of the cane slipped, his stained gloves seeming much bothersome.

"Oh, ah, yes. What readings, Mr Potter, are we talking about? Have you caught me reading my erotica again, have you?" Potter suddenly went red in the face, and Draco twitched, his lips pulling back in a ghastly sneer.

"N-no, your emotional reader... it was a new spell and potion, that we had discussed last February?" Potter looked at him hopefully, fiddling with a fork and a spoon and-

Was that cereal? How long has Draco been asleep?

Is it still even Tuesday?

Draco stared at Potter, eyes glazing and hat slipping over his eyebrows. Potter stared at him as if he had grown two heads, it was then that Draco dabbed at the corner of his lips, finding drool and blood there.

"It... it transfers your feelings- not thoughts, if you've forgotten. We got a whole lot of... suicidal in that mix this past week." Potter leaned back into his chair, and Draco was picking at the thin layer of his lips.

"More so the past twenty four hours." Draco jumped, looking at the vine-covered skylight his mother had gotten installed in the dining room.

And to think, an angel.

How laughably pitiful. What would an angel be doing, saving him from a mess he had made himself?

"Malfoy?" Draco looked up at that, a toothy grin stretching his face strange.

"Ah, Potter, where's your little lion cubs? Running around stupid someplace else?" He breathlessly laughed at that, swaggering forward as he swung his cane around slightly.

"Or are they looking after other freaks, too?"

Potter rubbed his face, running fingers through hair.

"You know, Potter," Draco moved the cane to hang off his elbow, both hands now grasping the tall, wooden chairs his mother had always hated, "everyone thought you were going to be so handsome..." Potter looked up from his hands, glasses askew and hair no different.

"And you were, for the first few years. You have gotten quiet ugly, haven't you?" Draco watched with excitment leaving tracks down his brow, hands shaking and feet slipping.

Those shoes were too big, also. They were his fathers; Draco had burnt all of his years ago.

Potter sighed and rubbed his brow, taking his glasses off. This allowed Draco to squint at Potter's auror uniform, and the wedding band on his finger.

He remembered Potter was a person, then.

"Look, I have to stay here for as long as it takes, until your mental health picks up." Draco was picking at an ingrown hair on his cheek then, picking until his skin bled.

"What happened to you, Malfoy? They've fucked you right up." Draco pulled the chair out and sat, holding the cane in his glove hands, tightly.

What does one do with canes at tables; what had father done.

Potter watched, flabbergasted as Draco pulled his feet to rest ontop of the table, wood bare of cloth or decoration.

Unless you considered Draco's shoes, and Potter's cereal as such.

Draco smiled kindly, sat awkwardly off to the side of his chair with his bum ready to slip. He swore he was loosing his sight, because Potter just blushed.

Or maybe he didn't have eyes. Maybe they had fallen out, and he was in the process of dying. Because typically, if you hit your head hard enough to make your eyes burst, death must be near.

He almost forgot his father's cane, flopping around in his seat, bending backwards under his chair to grab it.

It's strange, because he didn't remember putting it down. Perhaps he had dropped it when getting comfortable? He thought of this as he sneezed.

Draco placed it inbetween his legs, more accurately between his crossed knees.

Potter looked most frazzled, and Draco felt perfectly sane. As sane as Draco always thought his family were. Being incestuous, and all.

Potter bent down to pick up his fork, poking at a cereal Draco had been given three years ago.

Aurors dropped groceries off twice a month, though they now only gave him the bare minimum.

It could have something to do with the time he had shown up in the foyer naked, covered in rotten food, with the leftovers as weapons for the two lady aurors.

Look, war does thing.

But this isn't one of them. After that day, he hadn't seen a lady since.

Watching Potter with fascination, he took of his hat. Maybe Potter had never been eating cereal, and had only used it as a flimsy shield.

A, 'look, this is normal, I am normal. People eat cereal, so do I,' type of thing.

Draco took off his hat and started to brush his hair back, a dirty blonde, strangely. Mother, what had you been up to?

But, he didn't miss Potter's grimace, or the way he touched his own hair. Was this considered strange?

"God, Malfoy... your hair looked better even in third year," Potter was looking anywhere else, but he was Draco's centre of attention. The Malfoy heir, it was funny to think about it sometimes, leant sideways on a lone back leg, smirking in a way he had perfected over the years.

"God? There are no gods, Harry." It tasted strange in his mouth, but he went along with it anyhow, tutting and rubbing at his nose.

He was cold.