Seven Days in June

June 20^th, 2005

Harry sat up with a startled yelp, which was followed by a thud as Max the cat, who'd been sitting on Harry's chest, slid off the couch and hit the floor. He threw Harry a look of deepest loathing and stalked off while Harry furiously rubbed his nose. It took him a moment to remember where he was; only then did it register on him that the room was bathed in the brilliant light of the early morning sun, which meant that he'd obviously spent the night on Draco's sofa.

As if on clue, the door to what turned out to be the bathroom opened, and Harry heard Draco's amused voice asking, "Finally back among the living?"

The answer Harry had been about to give died somewhere between his brain and his mouth when he turned his head to look at Draco.

He'd got one burning question answered, at least: Draco's hair definitely was black all over.

Draco was leaning against the doorframe, wearing nothing but a pair of loosely fitting pyjama bottoms. His chest was smooth, but the trail leading down from his navel to the waistband of his pyjamas was as black as the hair on his head, although it looked much finer and fuzzier than any kind of body hair Harry had ever seen. Harry was aware that he was staring, but he found that he couldn't help it; somewhere at the back of his brain, his rational mind protested that the sight of black hair against milk-white skin really had no business being that erotic, but his traitorous body firmly insisted that it still was.

Draco raised an eyebrow when he got no reply; Harry could only hope that he would mistake his clear befuddlement for the effects of having been startled awake. "Slept well?"

"You could have woken me." Harry hadn't meant to sound snappish, but it was the best he could manage given how much he was struggling not to let Draco notice the effect he had on him.

"I tried, but you sleep like the dead. You'd better get up now, though; I have to leave in twenty minutes."

"Right." Harry self-consciously ran his hands through his hair, although he was aware that he probably just made it stick up more. Draco returned to the bathroom and closed the door while Harry got up from the couch and tried to straighten his rumpled clothes. It was a hopeless cause; finally he got his wand from his bag and cast a few charms to make himself at least somewhat presentable again.

Any lingering excitement from the sight Draco had presented him with dissipated with the sobering realisation that this was really it - Draco was leaving in a quarter of an hour, and he wouldn't be back before Harry had left the city. "Don't look at me like that," he said to Max, who was sitting on the windowsill and eyed him with a guarded expression, "you've got the couch to yourself again now."

When Draco re-emerged from the bathroom, he was fully clothed. "Oh, look who's upright. Listen, I don't want to throw you out, but -"

"No, I really should be going." Harry shouldered his bag and went to find his trainers which he'd toed off in the hall the night before. Draco followed him and unlocked the entrance door while Harry put on his shoes; he was still standing there when Harry straightened, so that Harry had to walk right past him if he wanted to leave the flat. There was hardly room enough for two people in the hall, and when Harry stepped up to the door, Draco was suddenly standing so close to him that he could almost feel his body heat against his own skin.

He was looking straight into Harry's eyes with a strange expression on his face, and Harry's heart skipped a beat. Everything that had seemed completely out of reach until now was here all of a sudden - waiting for him to reach out and take it. His eyes were drawn to Draco's lips, and he just knew without the shadow of a doubt that any moment now, they were going to kiss him. Any moment -

Then Draco took a step back, and the spell was broken. His expression didn't change, but it seemed to Harry as if a veil had descended over his eyes, hiding everything he might be thinking or feeling from view.

"Have a safe trip home."

There was something in Draco's voice that sounded almost like regret, but Harry didn't allow himself to dwell on it. The message couldn't have been clearer, and it was time to let go of things that couldn't be and move on. He took a deep breath, desperately hoping that he'd be able to keep is voice even.

"I never thought I'd say this, Draco, but it has been good to see you again."

For a moment, Draco stared at the hand that Harry held out towards him, and Harry couldn't help remembering that other time on the train that seemed to have happened a lifetime ago. Then Draco took his hand, his grasp warm and firm, and smiled in a way that somehow reminded Harry of the eleven-year old boy he'd been then.

"It's been good to see you too, Harry."

+++

By the time Harry got back to his hotel room, his mind was a mess of conflicting thoughts and emotions, while his body ached with a frantic, burning need that was unlike anything he'd ever experienced before. He had his jeans open and his hand down his pants the moment the door fell shut behind him; he curled up on the bed, squeezed his eyes shut and fisted his erection with fast, hard strokes, desperate to relieve some of the painful tension that made him feel as if his sinews were going to snap any moment. He allowed himself every fantasy that came to mind, anything that would ease the hollow feeling of yearning in the pit of his belly.

It didn't help, though, as he somehow had known it wouldn't. Although he came so hard that he saw little pinpoints of lights dancing behind his closed eyelids, the hollowness remained; this just wasn't something his own hands could take care of, even if he wanked himself raw over it.

He'd slept quite well that night, but he still felt completely exhausted. He couldn't even bring himself to undress or get under the blanket, so he stayed where he was, curled up in a ball on top of the covers. When he finally dozed off, his dreams took him back to the war, and to the time before, mocking him with the remnants of horrors he'd thought he'd long put past him. He woke with a start towards noon to the image of Draco on the bathroom floor, covered in blood, although it was Draco as he'd seen him today, his hair long and black and his shoulders broader than they'd been back then.

Harry's heart was racing, and for a moment, he looked around in bewilderment without remembering where he was and what had happened. When he finally was able to focus on the here and now, he flopped back on the bed with a sigh, the image of his dream still vivid in his mind. He hadn't given it any thought at the time, but now he remembered that there had been no scar on Draco's chest, no disfiguring blemish to indicate that Harry had almost killed him once. For a fleeting second, Harry almost wished that it were different; that he had left a mark on Draco's body that would somehow make sure the memory of him remained an ever-present part of Draco's life.

Then he realized what he'd just been thinking and jumped to his feet, thoroughly disgusted with himself. This had gone far enough; it was about time he pulled himself together.

After a long, hot shower and a change of clothes, Harry was beginning to feel human again. The hollow feeling of emptiness remained, but there was nothing to be done about that. It was barely past noon, and he'd be damned if he'd lock himself in his hotel room to lick his wounds for the rest of his holiday. He wasn't in the mood for anything cultural, though; after a while of leafing through Hermione's guide book, which he hadn't touched for several days, Harry finally decided to go to the zoo. He'd always liked zoos ever since he'd been a child; perhaps it would take his mind off things.

+++

His plan to avoid any culture-related activities proved to be impossible to carry out, though, because the zoo was situated in the park of the imperial summer palace of Schoenbrunn. Trust the Viennese, Harry thought with a hint of sarcasm while he made his way through the maze of clipped trees, marble fountains and ornate flowerbeds, to have a baroque zoo - allegedly the oldest in the world, if the guide book was to be trusted.

Still, Harry had to admit that the baroque layout of the zoo was pretty to look at - most of the actual cages seemed modern, but they fit nicely into what still gave the impression of an imperial park. Despite the beautiful weather, there weren't too many visitors, leaving Harry at liberty to wander around wherever he pleased without getting jostled.

For a while, he managed to distract himself quite well. Many of the animals were dozing in the warmth of the early afternoon sun, but there were still plenty that seemed willing to put on a show. Harry spent an eventful half hour watching a band of lemurs that lived on a small island in a pond get into a food fight that eventually led to the merkats on the same island snatching most of the stuff the lemurs were fighting over. The monkey house proved to be equally entertaining since the monkeys were let loose inside, allowing the visitors to get really close to them. The stench was overpowering, though, which soon caused Harry to go back in the open and resume his aimless wandering.

He was standing outside an enclosure where a couple of elephants were busy tearing the bark off a tree trunk when he was startled violently by the howl of a wolf in the distance. A second howl answered, then a third; after a moment of looking around, Harry realized that what he'd taken for a forest outside the zoo was actually the enclosure where the wolves were kept. He took a calming breath, chiding himself for overreacting so stupidly. These were perfectly normal wolves, after all, not the murderous beasts that had haunted Voldemort's enemies with their howls at night during the war.

Determined not to let his apprehension get the better of him, Harry made his way towards the wolf enclosure. It was a huge, fenced-off terrain on the slope of a forest-covered hill; although he could still hear the wolves howl in the distance, he barely got to see a glimpse of them here and there between the trees. Obviously, they stayed clear of humans - which was, Harry reminded himself, just how wolves were supposed to behave.

Banishing any lingering memories of Fenrir Greyback, Harry decided to go back the way he'd come when he noticed an aviary right next to the wolves' enclosure. Sitting on a dead tree inside and eyeing him disdainfully was a snowy owl.

Harry felt his throat close up and had to blink a few times to keep his eyes from misting over. The bird didn't look exactly like Hedwig, but there was enough resemblance to remind him how much he still missed her. She'd disappeared during the last year of the war while delivering a letter to Remus; Harry had never found out what had happened to her. He'd eventually got another owl, a nice brown barn owl named Feeps, but it wasn't the same.

He couldn't help thinking that it was no life for an owl to remain locked in a cage like this all the time, although that was probably true for the other animals in the zoo as well. Harry made his way out of the forest in a decidedly darker mood than he'd been before; he felt as if the magical world had managed to catch up with him yet again.

You can't run from being a wizard. Great, now he'd got Draco's voice back in his mind, too.

+++

The reptile house was a bit of a disappointment; it was smaller than Harry had expected in a zoo of this size, and most of the animals were so well hidden between leaves and twigs in their terrariums that they were barely visible. He had been tempted to try talking to the snakes here, mostly out of curiosity whether he'd be able to speak Parseltongue in these surroundings. The only boa he could spot was fast asleep, though; all the other snakes he saw were poisonous, and although he contemplated addressing the cobra that cast him icy glances through the thick glass, he decided against it; he'd found out during the war that poisonous snakes were really unpleasant conversationalists.

Right across from the snakes, another terrarium caught Harry's eye. A brown iguana, half as long as his arm, had scrambled up to the glass and seemed to be staring straight in his direction. His curiosity piqued, Harry walked over and crouched next to the terrarium so that his face was level with the animal. Iguanas were lizards too, weren't they?

After a quick glance around to make sure no-one would overhear him, Harry leaned closer to the glass and concentrated. He'd done some training to learn how to control his ability to speak Parseltongue during the war; he could now do it consciously, even though the result still sounded like normal English to him. Feeling a bit silly, he finally settled on saying, "Hello, little one, how are you doing?"

The iguana cocked its head, its eyes focusing on Harry as if it were listening to him, but it didn't answer. Harry tried again, but the iguana only kept staring. He seemed to have done the lizard equivalent of addressing it in Chinese - something it would recognize as a language, but not understand.

With a shrug, Harry straightened and stepped back from the terrarium. The iguana gave him one final look and wandered away; it probably wouldn't have had anything interesting to say anyway. Snakes, at least, rarely did; there was little that really mattered to them besides hunting and sleeping.

When he left the room, Harry could have sworn he heard a cold voice from the cobra terrarium say, "I had no idea there were legged ones who could talk."

Smiling to himself, he made his way outside again; it seemed a shame to waste the glorious summer afternoon in the semi-darkness and stuffy air of the reptile house.

+++

Two hours later, it was dawning on Harry how huge the Schoenbrunn zoo really was. By this time, his feet were beginning to complain, and the growling of his stomach reminded him that the slice of takeaway pizza he'd had for lunch on the way to the zoo hadn't been much of a meal. He stopped at one of the numerous food stands to get a hamburger with chips in a greasy paper bag and sat down on an inviting bench in the shade of a huge chestnut tree to eat.

He was soon surrounded by a whole flock of sparrows that fought over every crumb he dropped; after a while, he also noticed a squirrel climbing down from the tree and approaching him cautiously. He supposed the wild animals here in the zoo were probably used to getting fed by the visitors and therefore not particularly shy.

"I'm afraid I don't have anything for you," he said to the squirrel, "I don't think chips are good for you. Go find a nut or something!"

The squirrel, however, remained where it was, less than two feet away from him, and calmly began grooming its bushy tail. Harry looked around; he was surrounded by people who walked around between the cages and enclosures, stopping here and there to take a closer look, but no one seemed to pay the squirrel any attention.

"It's funny, isn't it - if you were in a cage, everyone would be staring at you, but out here, no one gives a damn."

The squirrel paused for a moment as if it were contemplating the remark; Harry couldn't help thinking that it was time he stopped talking to animals before he went completely barmy. Then it went back to grooming its tail, paying no further attention to him. Harry finished his food and decided to rest here on the bench a little bit longer; it wasn't as if he was in a hurry to go anywhere.

Predictably, now that he had nothing else to think about, his thoughts kept wandering back to the previous night. Harry still wasn't sure what to make of Draco's behaviour; he'd seemed pleased enough to see Harry again at first, and now that Harry thought about it, he was convinced that Draco had been flirting with him during the early stages of their conversation. The longer they'd talked, though, the more he'd drawn back, as if he'd suddenly remembered that it was a bad idea to let Harry get too close. Or had it been the fact that Harry had made him talk about his past, which must have brought back a lot of unpleasant memories?

Harry quickly discarded this idea. It wasn't as if he'd forced Draco to talk about it; on the contrary, Draco had seemed almost eager to discuss everything he'd been through with someone who knew his true background. Still, had Harry's presence managed to remind him just more vividly of everything he'd lost?

Harry recalled what Draco had said about living with Muggles and tried to match up the casual disdain he had expressed with the fact that photos of his Muggle friends covered half his flat. Even with everything Draco had told him, Harry still couldn't quite believe how far Draco had come in the Muggle world, and he had to admit that Draco was well entitled to the pride he took in his accomplishments. He thought about the way Draco had kept staring ahead when he'd talked about his mother, and how he'd said that he didn't want to burden Pansy with his problems. Harry remembered the spoiled brat Draco had been during their time at school and marvelled at the fact that a life that must have been both difficult and humiliating hadn't managed to break him, but seemed to have brought out a strength of character that Draco probably hadn't even known he possessed before.

The longer Harry pondered Draco's story, the more he felt something that he'd never have expected to feel for Draco Malfoy: respect.

At this point, the rational part of this brain shrieked an alarmed warning. It was one thing to be attracted to Draco, even to the point where he began to find his character somewhat tolerable, but the things that had gone through his mind now were leading him into very dangerous territory. It had been stupid enough to begin lusting after Draco when he knew nothing could come out of it; it would be the height of idiocy to fall in love with him.

What had Draco said about not dwelling on things that could never be, no matter how much he wanted them to? Harry still wasn't sure whether Draco had said it for his own sake or for Harry's, but it was definitely time to start following his advice.

Harry got up from the bench, dumped the greasy paper into the nearest dustbin and resumed his walk through the zoo. There was plenty to see since late afternoon seemed to be the time when most animals got fed. Harry saw a crowd gathered around the huge seal basin, where an oilcloth-clad keeper was throwing pieces of fish for the seals to catch, and stopped to watch. However, he ended up watching the crowd instead of the animals; people laughed and shrieked when water splashed over the rim of the basin, or pointed excitedly so that their companions wouldn't miss it when an animal did something interesting, parents lifted their children up so that they could see, and right in front of Harry, a young woman was filming the spectacle while the man who had his arm around her shoulders gave her directions where to aim the camera.

Among the crowd of talking, laughing, pointing people, Harry could see no one else who seemed to be here by themselves, and for just a moment, he felt depressingly lonely. He told himself that he was being ridiculous; he had plenty of friends back home, and he usually was pretty self-sufficient and didn't even like it when people crowded him too much. Hadn't he come to Vienna in the first place just because of that?

Still, right now, he couldn't wait for this holiday to be over.