Frozen Door-to-door Salesmen
The seasons were turning, and now, it was Winter.
He had always liked winter. It was his element--beauty in sterile, clean white--just as spring was Harry's, with its cool green and soothing rain. Snow crunched under his feet as he walked, the wet night having frozen clumps of yesterday's fall into crystalline drifts. His breath misted the air briefly, forming smoky clouds that dissipated almost as soon as they appeared.
He glanced up.
The sun was blinding in its intensity, reflecting off and back against the frost-coated ground, so much so that he had to squint a little against the glare.
The sky was clear.
But later, it would rain.
Most of the students had decided to stay in--no reason to be out, really, since the snow wasn't at all right for any kind of winter sport, and the castle, at least, was warm and comfortable. The only other person occupying the courtyard was standing in the opposite end, in what little shadow a leafless willow offered, long dark hair falling into green eyes as he stared down at... something.
Harry Potter, of course. Champion of all that was good and brave and courageous and bloody stupid enough to be out in biting, negative-degree cold. He paused. A list which, if only for the last qualifier, probably included him, as well.
/Oh, what the hell./ It was early, and he was bored.
He shrugged a silent excuse and apology to no-one who could see him--Salazar Slytherin, maybe--and walked over.
Harry turned as he got within arm's reach, raising an eyebrow as recognition hit. He shrugged again, explanations coming to mind, none of them voiced /too noisy, too hot, too crowded inside, only by to bother you, we hate each other, remember?/--Harry didn't ask, just turned his attention back to whatever he had been looking at.
It was a bird, he realised. A sparrow, plain and unmagical and dead, right wing stretched out against the snow, left tucked closely to its body, as though it were trying to get relief from cold it did not feel.
There wasn't anything remarkable about it, but Harry just kept looking down.
That struck him as rather rude, because if anyone happened to take a lucky glance through the tower windows, through snow-glare and shading trees, his reputation would be utterly ruined. And as long as he was taking that chance, for whatever reason had prompted him to try and seek amusement from the Gryffindor /seeker/, of all people, Harry ought to at least acknowledge his existence.
Sometimes, really, damn that the world didn't revolve around him.
"It's only a bird," he said finally, irritated.
"Yeah."
"Just a muggle bird, too. They die all the time."
"Yeah," Harry agreed again. "They tend to do that."
Silence fell then, oppressive and still--the entire scene could have been a painting, noted the portion of his mind which /noticed/ things like that, noticed rhythms of words in literature and careful brush-strokes of art. Noticed the way the light reflected off Harry's hair, raven-black and raven-shine.
A painting, then--'Winter Mourning', or some other pretentious title like that, except it didn't really look like Potter was /mourning/.
The feathers on the sparrow's oustretched wing fluttered as a breeze teased at them. Down worked free, white invisible against white as it drifted away from the contrast of black and brown.
"You know, Malfoy," Harry said, slow and thoughtful-- "You really don't have any respect for death at all, do you?"
He blinked. Ran a gloved hand through gel-slick hair. "Not really. It's just another natural process, isn't it? Eat. Sleep. Die. You know."
A shift in Harry's posture told him that he was being watched out of the corner of one brilliantly green eye. "Some people might disagree with that."
"Yeah, well," he said, wryly arrogant. "Some people are idiots."
That earned him an amused quirk to the corner of Harry's mouth, a lopsided half-smile that faded quickly.
"But really, Malfoy. Haven't you ever touched a corpse?"
Draco rolled his eyes. "/No/, Potter. Malfoys don't get their hands dirty."
"Because you're too aristocratic for drudge work, of course," Harry snorted, heavy sarcasm colouring his voice.
"And don't you forget it."
"You, Malfoy," Harry said, shaking his head and laughing, "Are such an asshole."
"And don't you forget that, either."
Harry laughed again, the sound hanging in the air, warm and crystalline-quiet. Pushing his glasses higher up on his nose, the teenager made a brief show of examining the frost-whitened bark of the willow.
"We graduate next year," he said, quite suddenly, one of those charming conversational non-sequitors that he seemed so fond of.
"You noticed," Draco replied. Harry shot him a brief glare, a /cut it out you toff, i'm trying to be serious here/ look that he blithely ignored.
"Anyway," Harry continued. "Do you think you ever will?"
"What, graduate?"
Harry glared again--he lifted his hands and /not like it's my fault your mind works on multiple twisted levels/ took a step back, shrugging.
"/No/, Malfoy. Do you think you'll ever 'get your hands dirty?'"
He raised an eyebrow. "Subtle, Potter. Very subtle."
"I thought it was one of my better attempts," Harry said innocently.
"Tactful, too."
"I learned from the best."
"Yeah," Draco said, smirking. "And does that that muggle family of yours teach you to eat off the floor and wipe your mouth on the tablecloth, too?"
Harry smirked back, almost mirroring his own expression, strange and disconcerting on that usually honest face.
"Answer the question, Malfoy."
"Maybe."
"Is that your answer?"
"Maybe."
Harry made a face. "Would it kill you to give a straight answer once in a while?"
"Probably not." He paused. "But it's so fun driving you nuts."
"I'm glad to be of amusement to you, I really am," Harry said dryly.
"At least you're of /some/ use this way."
"At least I'm /useful/," Harry took those ridiculous glasses of his off and started cleaning them on his scarf, blinking a little in the harsh winter light. "You could try that sometimes. It might prove to be a novel experience."
"Yes," Draco said. "Me the social worker. /That'll/ go over well."
"You don't have to go quite /that/ far," Harry paused. "But as long as your answer is 'maybe', you may as well get some practice."
Draco raised an eyebrow at that, but the other wasn't looking--was, in fact, staring significantly down to the sparrow at his feet. He blinked, then raised his other eyebrow.
"You want me to fondle a dead bird, Potter? That's a little sick, even for you, isn't it?"
"Grow up, Malfoy," Harry said mildly. "Anyway, it deserves a decent burial at least, don't you think?"
"It's just a /bird/."
"Yeah, it's just a bird. What, afraid you'll catch something off it that your delicate constitution can't handle?"
"Screw you, Potter. Is this a dare?"
"Treat it as one if you want."
"Well, right then." He shrugged, a calculatedly casual /this doesn't bother me at all/ gesture, and stripped his gloves off with teeth and clumsy fingers.
Going to one knee in the snow, he ignored the painful dig of the ice against his skin, sharp even through his thick winter robes, and reached out, tentatively, to the bird. Brushed a hand against the outstretched wing.
It felt soft. That seemed wrong, somehow, to him--it was dead, it only made sense for it to be cold and sharp and hard like the winter around them, but it was soft.
And, as he grew bolder and scooped the entire thing into his palm, it was limp, too--it must have died recently, so rigor mortis and freezing cold had not yet been allowed to set in. Its wing was broken, fragile bones twice-snapped at joint and shoulder, twisted unnaturally against his hand. Its /neck/ was broken, head bending back in a way it was never intended to, eyes closed and beak open.
The wind drifted by again, shifting feathers in a parody of life, making him start.
He looked down.
It might have been a fine specimen of its kind when it was still alive, mundane or no--timid and small and drably beautiful, all fast-beating heart and brown feathers and curious black inkdrop eyes.
But now, it was just dead, sad and abandoned against snow. The blood that had collected at the corners of the sparrow's beak smeared onto his fingers, thick and cold.
He stared at it vaguely for a while--/so this is what blood looks like after a heart stops pumping/--it wasn't what he had expected, really. He wasn't a stranger to blood, of course, considering the sheer number of accidents a school full of teenagers could get into over the course of years, but that had always been rich and bright red, a representative of life, not death.
Suddenly, he didn't want to be holding this thing anymore. It was /wrong/, this lifeless replica of what had, not long before, breathed and blinked and flown. It was wrong, and he wanted to drop it as far away from him as he could and bathe in warm water until he erased the memory of sensation.
He didn't want this blood on his hands.
Harry was looking at him..
"You understand now?"
"Understand what?" he asked, challenging, but when he looked straight into the other's eyes, his gaze said yes, yes i understand, and Harry nodded once, satisfied.
"That's good, then." Harry took a breath and turned to leave, tilting his head up briefly to look at the sky.
"Wait a second--Potter?"
"Yeah?"
"What happened to... you know. It?" Draco asked, making an abortive gesture with one hand to the burden of the other, a brief flick of his fingers and nod of his head.
The side of Harry's mouth quirked again, but this expression had little to do with good humour or amusement.
"Guess," he said, and walked away, back to the castle, safety, and warmth, leaving a stunned Draco behind. |