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m0srael · 3 years

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For @hp-fearfest’s day 2 prompt: From Beyond the Grave. Thanks 4 the beta @corvuscrowned. CW: spooky vibes and graphic depictions of corpses.

(on Ao3 | T | 2.5k)

Making a Family Makes a Home

“Happy anniversary, love,” Harry pants into Draco’s wet, open mouth. He thinks he can make out the chirping of morning birds over their slowing breaths, and the warm lamplight in the room is slowly being suffused with cool grey from the dawning sun. They hadn’t slept at all that night.

Harry has never felt happier. He’s loved Draco for so long, and now, finally, he’s allowed to show him. The fact that Draco loves him back makes him feel incandescent, like he’s flying.

Draco hums tiredly in response, hands stilling in Harry’s hair. “‘Spose we can tell everyone to settle their bets on whether we’d make it to a year or not. I think Longbottom is the only one who went in our favor.”

Harry laughs gently and captures his boyfriend’s kiss-swollen lips in his teeth. “Fancy shocking everyone even more?”

“Always.”

“Let’s move in together…” Harry whispers into the dip between Draco’s collar bones, where sweat has pooled and started to dry. He darts the tip of his tongue out to capture the salty tang.

Draco goes stiff underneath him and says nothing.

Harry pulls back to gauge his expression. It’s firm, unreadable. “It’s just, we’ve been dating for a year and you’re here just as much—if not more—than you’re at home. We don’t have to stay here, we can find a place we both want to live, somewhere new. You talk all the time about how much you hate still living with your parents. We could… We could really start our life. Together. The way we want.”

Draco’s enigmatic expression breaks a little. “Oh, Harry, love. You know I want that. Of course I want to build a life with you. It’s just… I know I complain about mother and father, but they’re getting old. They need me. I’d… I’d worry about leaving them all alone in that big old Manor.”

“Yeah. I get that, I do. But…They have house elves, don’t they? To look after them? It’s not like you couldn’t visit whenever you want.”

“We couldn’t afford to pay the elves, after the trials. We had to let them go.”

“Oh, right. Sorry. Well, I don’t want to pressure you into anything, so—”

“Harry. I… Want to. I do. Just. Let me think about it a little?”

“Yeah. Of course. Of course, love. Take all the time you need. I’ve already got more of you than I ever thought possible. I’m happy.”

“Sap.”

“You promised you weren’t going to pressure me, Harry,” Draco snaps as he drops their dinner plates into Harry’s sink with a clatter.

“I know, I know, and I don’t mean to. But we’ve been together for nearly three years, Draco, and you still refuse to even stay the night half the time you’re over here. Is it… Do you not love me anymore? Has something changed, have I—”

He watches the shutters fall behind Draco’s eyes, like they always do when they have this conversation. He’s tried so hard to respect Draco’s request for time and space, but lately it’s like a chasm has opened between them, and Harry doesn’t know how to bridge it. His gut reaction to the feeling of impending loss has always been to hold tighter, to grasp and pull. He knows how suffocating that can be for some people, but he can’t help it.

Draco sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Harry, no, of course not. I love you more every day, you know that. It’s just... not that easy. My parents—”

“Oh, sod your bloody parents!” Harry bites back, sharper than he intended. “I mean—I’m sorry—but I feel like you’re sacrificing your own happiness for them. Again! I know you love them, but after everything they’ve put you through. Everything they asked of you. You deserve the chance to make your own choices and live your own life, Draco.”

“I… I know that. I do. I just feel so guilty, sometimes…”

“Look. We can look into some care homes, maybe. Neville says his Nan loves her community. Or—” Harry raises a hand to cut off Draco’s interjection, “—we can interview some live-in Healers. I can help you, you won’t have to do it alone.”

Draco’s face twists into an ugly frown. “No. How dare you—I’m not dumping my parents into some disgusting care home to be ignored and overlooked by overworked nurses. And I’m certainly not allowing a stranger into my home, Harry! Haven’t you heard of elder abuse? How could I do something like that to them?”

“Your home…”

“What?”

“You just called the Manor your home. I thought… I’d hoped you considered this your home.”

“Oh...well I—”

“Forget it. Look, I just need some space. I don’t want to say something in anger that I’ll regret later. Your feelings are valid, I just...feel a little hurt right now, to be honest. I’m going to Ron and Hermione’s for the night. Feel free to stay. Or not. Merlin knows you never do.”

“Harry—” Draco pleads as Harry turns toward the Floo.

“What do you want, Potter? I’m terribly busy.”

“Pansy, you don’t have a job.”

“And?”

“Nevermind, look. It’s about Draco…”

“Isn’t it always?”

“Please, Pansy. You know I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t serious. I...need your help.”

Pansy sighs, settling herself and her glass of scotch on the chaise in front of her fireplace, which Harry had just tumbled out of unannounced several minutes earlier.

“Fine. Make it quick.”

“Right. Well. Draco won’t move in with me.”

“Mm,” she hums, taking a drag on the cigarette in her other hand. “Sounds normal to me. I don’t see why anyone would want to live with you.”

“Fuck’s sake—” Harry hisses, beginning to pace across the hearthrug. “I know you don’t like me, you wish Draco were with someone else, whatever—can you please just take this seriously for like, one second. Please.”

Pansy exhales an exasperated cloud of spicy smoke into Harry’s face and sits up straight.

“Potter. Draco’s relationship with his parents is… complicated.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

Pansy eyes him sharply over the rim of her rocks glass for a long moment. “No, I don’t think you do, really. Not the whole of it, at least.”

Harry throws his hands up, frustrated. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

A series of emotions passes over Pansy’s face as she eyes him. Amusement, then scorn, then sadness, and finally pity.

“Pansy,” Harry says, slumping down onto the chaise next to her and letting his head fall into his hands. “I love him so much. I…want to marry him. But, I can’t if he won’t be honest with me about why he won’t live with me. I’ve done the best I can so far, but I can’t envision a future where my husband won’t even stay the night with me, let alone share a house with me. And I definitely can’t envision a future where we move into the Manor together.” He shivers involuntarily.

“No, I don’t think that would do anybody any good. Harry… I can’t say any more. I know, I’m sorry, but I just can’t. If you really need to know why Draco won’t move in with you, and he won’t explain it himself, you need to go see them. Lucius and Narcissa. I think you’ll find your answers there. I just hope you’re prepared for them.”

“He’s never asked me to go home with him. I haven’t… I haven’t been to the Manor since the War.”

“Mmhm,” Pansy hums, lips pursed condescendingly.

Harry stands and takes a palm full of Floo powder, gut twisting and thoughts racing.

“Harry—” Pansy says, stopping him as the flames flare green. “If you really love him—”

“Pans—”

“—You’ll let this go. You won’t go to the Manor.”

“I don’t… I don’t think I can do that, Pansy.”

Pansy draws her worried eyebrows down between her liquor-glassy eyes. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Harry never received a reply to his owl to Lucius and Narcissa asking if it’d be alright to visit that afternoon. He isn’t surprised; he knows there’s no love lost between them even now, even after he’s been with their son for years.

He’d considered sending owl after owl until one of them responded—even if it was just to serve him with a restraining order. In the end, he knew he would never be at peace if he didn’t talk to them face to face. He needs to settle this once and for all, so he can move on. So he and Draco can move on, and move in, together.

After deciding that he’s given them enough warning, he apparates to Wiltshire.

When he lands outside the Manor, he’s confused. For a minute he thinks he’s apparated to the wrong location. The once-gleaming gates are rusted and bent, hanging from their hinges. Ivy creeps across the damp stone pillars and flagstones, eating into every fracture and crevice. The footpath beyond the gates is thickly overgrown with weeds and brambles, as though no one has walked it in years.

He pushes past the gates and begins fighting his way through the underbrush. His breath catches in his throat when he comes around the final bend in the path. There’s no way Draco has been living here for the last six years. There’s no way anyone has been living here in a long time.

The entire house seems to sag. The stone walls are covered in a thick layer of black muck. The same ivy that threads through the front gates has all-but consumed the lower half of the building, making it look as though the Manor is scrabbling up from the depths of the earth. All the windows Harry can see are coated in a thick layer of dusty grime; some are broken and grimace at him like mouths full of jagged, glass teeth. The once-resplendent gardens are now buried under thick snarls of thorns and wild, venomous tentacula that wave menacingly at Harry, welcoming him. To what, he doesn’t know.

Dread settles into the pit of his stomach like a heavy stone. His breathing becomes sharp and ragged, and he knows—beyond the shadow of a doubt—that something is very wrong.

When he finally picks his way up the crumbling front steps, he finds that the stately front door is cracked open. From the look of it, the lock fell from the moist, rotting old wood at some point.

He pushes the door open more fully and is hit with a wave of the thick, sickly-sweet scent of decay. His shocked brain finally jumpstarts into action. He jogs into the foyer, the clacking of his dress shoes muffled in the thick layer of dust on the floor. Despite the blood rushing in his ears and his short, wheezing breaths, he can hear the sounds of voices coming from a door down the hallway to his left. He recognizes one as Draco’s.

He moves quickly but cautiously toward the sound, pausing just outside the open door.

“Mother, I’ve told you a hundred times, you can’t have milk in your tea anymore. It upsets your stomach for days. Here, let me—”

“Oh, stop fussing, Draco. I’m an old lady I can do what I like,” comes Narcissa’s high-pitched, croaky voice.

Draco chuckles warmly, and Harry can hear the clink of teacup on saucer.

“So, Draco, my boy. How is your Mister Potter?” Lucius asks. Harry had forgotten how alike he and Draco sound, though Lucius’s voice is a touch deeper.

“Oh, well. Don’t tell him I told you, but I think he’s going to propose soon!” Draco replies, sounding genuinely pleased.

Harry’s stomach flips, despite his overwhelming unease.

“Oh, my love, that’s wonderful. I know you love him very much. Perhaps now you can invite him to come live with us? We’ve got more than enough room, you know,” Narcissa’s reedy voice cracks a little, and Draco clears his throat.

“Mother. No,” he responds sternly, almost shouting, “We’ve talked about this many times. You know I can’t bring him here. As much as I would love—” Draco sniffs wetly, as though he’s crying, “—to have all of my family together, he would never want that. He could never understand. He’s not...not like us.”

Draco sobs, then, and there’s a clatter of china as though he’s shoved his teacup away from himself.

Harry can’t take it anymore. He takes a deep breath, sets his shoulders, and moves around the doorframe to face them.

Draco glances up from the opposite side of the small table, startled. He looks like a rabbit caught in the gaze of a hungry dog--hunched and shivering, eyes wide and darting erratically. But then a smile cuts across his pale face. His pink lips curve up at the edges, but the expression doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Oh, Harry. We were just talking about you. You’ve come just in time for tea. Sit.”

It’s then that Harry looks to Lucius and Narcissa, seated in chairs on either side of Draco.

Neither of them move, and it takes Harry longer than he’d like to realize that’s because they can’t.

Their bodies are stiff and cold-looking. Their skin is waxy and grey, and both of their skulls are swathed in wisps of white-blonde hair that looks to have been tacked on with a hasty sticking charm. Harry shifts one step to the right, enough to see that Lucius’s eyelids are gone and his eyes have been replaced with shiny, black marbles.

He cuts his eyes frantically over to Narcissa, whose ivory teeth look too huge in her face. Harry realizes on a wave of nausea that her lips have rotted, exposing fleshless gums.

“Yes, Harry dear, Draco has told us so much about you, please sit. There’s so much we need to talk about. To clear the air.”

A manic laugh rips from Harry’s throat as what he thought was Narcissa’s voice drips out of Draco’s mouth like the chime of discordant bells. He takes several stilted steps backward toward the door.

Draco shoots to his feet, a soft, pleading look on his beautiful face. He moves toward Harry carefully, extending pleading hands until he can grasp Harry’s shoulders.

Harry wants to scream. He wants to run away from that place and never look back. But here’s Draco, his Draco, jarringly pretty among all this rot. Draco places a soft kiss on Harry's trembling lips.

“Harry. Please. Join us.”

The snick of the door echoes in his ears as it’s spelled shut behind him.

#hpfearfest2021 #hpfearfest #hp fanfic #drarry fic rec #drarry fic #drarry #mosewrites

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