Black Sheep

Chapter Seven
In Which There Is Alcohol

"THE GAME IS IN PLAY."

After his declaration, Malfoy had once again made as if he were going home. Harry looked from the paper on his refrigerator to the blond, and back. "But didn't you just say...?" he started and his voice trailed off into silence.

Draco looked at him with a sort of open appraisal and Harry felt his face flush hotly. He was such an idiot. Why did he keep saying these things, when he wanted nothing more than for Malfoy to disappear? But then maybe he did want something more. Because right now he wanted answers to his questions; the curiousity that the incomprehensible blond had aroused in him was like an itch that he couldn't ignore and couldn't help scratching, though he knew it could only make things worse.

His pale eyebrows raised curiously, Draco pointed out, "Well, since you have already used so many of your questions, I thought you might want to save what's left." Harry didn't dare shake his head, but it seemed that Draco could read his denial all the same. He slung his jacket on and said, "Well, if we're going to be interrogating one another, there's only one proper way to do it: over drinks."

He grabbed the list again from the refrigerator door and picked up his pen, declaring, "To the pub!"

Harry swallowed nervously. "You want to go to a Muggle pub? Are you going to get pissed and turn them all into toads or something?"

"No wand means no curses," Draco said as he came along and shoved Harry in the direction of the door. Harry protested and was awarded the time to grab a jacket for himself as well, and then they were both out in the crisp evening air. They walked out the garden gate and past Malfoy's bike.

"So..." Draco pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Where are we going?"

Harry blinked. "Umm... I don't actually know."

"What?"

"Well... I've never actually been to a pub here."

Draco's eyes were wide. "And you've lived here how long?"

Harry raised his eyebrows and asked, "Is that one of your questions?"

The blond deliberately pulled the paper from his pocket and made a tick under his own name.

"Five years," Harry answered.

"Since the war, then."

Harry started. "Er, yeah. I had the idea to come here, back when we were hunting after Voldemort. As soon as it was all over, I came here."

"And you've never been to the pub? You really are pathetic." But his harsh words were paired with an amused smile. He said, "Well, let's just find any shop that's still open."

So they walked up and down the few streets of the small village, till they found Godric's Arms. Malfoy groaned out loud. "As if it weren't bad enough that I'm in Godric's Hollow, now it's even Godric's Arms?" But he pushed the door open and stepped into the pub first. Not many of the regulars looked up, until they realised that it was not just another regular who had walked in. The pub was half-full with grizzled local men. The two fit young men, still littered with bruises, stood out for being the only ones under the age of forty, which would have set them apart even if they weren't the only strangers in the room. Which they were.

Draco marched straight up to the bar, seeming unbothered in the least by their reception. He grinned at the landlord and ordered, "Two doubles of your best scotch. And then two pints of bitter."

Harry looked at him with curiosity and so the blond quoted cheekily, "Beer before liquor, never been sicker. Liquor before beer, you're in the clear."

The man behind the bar was looking at the youths askance, but knew his job. He started laying glasses out on the countertop and pouring drinks. Draco gestured Harry over from where he'd been hovering awkwardly in the middle of the room. Harry made his way up to the bar reluctantly. He hissed into Draco's ear, "'Your best scotch?' Do you think I'm made of money?" He practically was, with what he'd inheritated from both his parents and the entire Black estate, but he tended to forget it. Spending one's formative years in near poverty could have that sort of lasting effect.

Draco pulled a money clip from his pocket, which was holding a very thick wad of £20 notes together. "I know that I am." He laughed at the expression on Harry's face. "I came prepared for my trip into Muggledom this time."

The keep had filled the glasses in front of the two young men and said bluntly, "'At'll be forty quid, lad."

Harry made a choking noise, but Draco peeled off two of his £20 notes and handed them over. He slid a scotch and a pint in Harry's direction. He then tossed back his entire double in one go, and Harry watched the other man's pale throat work as he swallowed, slightly awed. Draco slammed the glass back on the bar and licked his lips, then pulled another £20 note from his wad. "Why don't you give me another, and keep the change?"

The landlord's jowled face did not really change expressions - it hardly seemed able - but there was something grudgingly respectful in the way he poured Malfoy another two measures. Not even many of the old regulars would be able to drink scotch like that. And none of them would be able to pay for scotch like that.

This time Draco picked up his two glasses, raising them slightly in an appreciative gesture toward the landlord, and led Harry toward a table in one empty corner. They set their glasses on the varnished tabletop and simultaneously pulled out two chairs. Draco spun his around and sat down straddling it, his arms hugging the chairback. Harry rolled his eyes, then did the same.

Draco pulled the list out from his pocket, where it was getting a bit crumpled, and flattened it out on the tabletop. And then he gestured for Harry to start drinking. "Believe me, all the good questions will come after a couple drinks."

Harry shrugged and took a sip of the scotch that Malfoy had downed like water. He immediately choked and started coughing till tears streamed down his face. Draco laughed out loud, slapping his thigh. The other patrons tried to only stare out of the corners of their eyes, but most failed. Draco picked up his second double scotch and clinked it to the glass grasped in Harry's white-knuckled hand. "To your health, Potter."

Harry glared from his red and bleary eyes, then scrubbed the wetness from his face, and raised his glass again, defiantly. They both drank deeply and Harry at least didn't choke this time, though his face was definitely already flushed - either from the coughing or the drink itself.

"So," Draco mused, swirling his drink in his glass, "are you just dynamite in bed?"

Harry did choke again. "Sorry?"

Draco reached out and made another decisive tick under his name, then repeated, "Are you just amazing in bed? Because otherwise I don't understand why that Weasley brat still hangs about you. Or why you let her, unless she is."

Harry had to take another drink. "We, uh, we never..."

"Re-eally?" Draco didn't sound terribly convinced.

Harry glared. "Really."

"Then why?"

Chewing on his lip, Harry looked down at the rich amber scotch in his glass. "Didn't you hear that bit?"

Draco's grey eyes were unreadable again. "Maybe." He narrowed those opaque eyes knowingly and then raised his glass, gesturing for Harry to do the same, suggesting, "A bit of liquid courage."

Harry's mouth twitched into a wry grimace and after another swig of 'courage,' he began talking. "When we went after the second to last horcrux - the snake, Nagini - things went wrong. It was just me and Ron. We split up to find the snake. The place didn't seem to have any protections - I should've realised then that something was up. I found the snake and incinerated it, but Ron didn't catch up to me." It felt odd to even say his best friend's name, knowing he was gone. "I had to go look for him. I searched the house. I began to feel cold and then I knew-"

"Dementors," Draco said in an almost smug tone. After all, he himself had once tried to take advantage of Harry's weakness for the Dark creatures.

"Yes," Harry agreed. "Ron hadn't stood a chance against a whole pack of them. I barely managed to get the two of us away, but luckily we had a portkey."

Draco took a long, thoughtful drink, then he said slowly, "Sooo... your ginger pet got Kissed and how exactly does that explain why the gingette is stalking you? Shouldn't she be running in the other direction, wanting to see nothing more than your backside?" He grinned. "Or maybe the problem is that she wants to see nothing more than your backside."

But Harry was looking between his nearly empty scotch and the paper between them on the table. "Wait - how many questions has that been?"

Draco smiled angelically. "Still just one, I'm afraid. I'm still trying to get an answer to my original question."

Harry furrowed his brow, shrugged and tossed back the rest of his drink. "I don't know, really. I mean, she always had that crazy crush on me - even you Slytherins knew about it."

"Even?" Draco laughed, and slid a pint in front of Harry. "More like especially we Slytherins knew about it."

Harry waved that away with a tipsy frown. "Then when we went out in sixth year... well, it was good. Real good. But come on, we were just teenagers. When I left, I thought I wanted to get back together with her again, when everything was over. But that was all I thought. It wasn't like I was planning a future or proposing or anything. I was sixteen!

"But I think she got some kind of expectation, like I was going to save the world again and save her again and then everything would be sunshine and butterflies. We'd be just like my parents." He frowned and mumbled, "Actually, eerily like them. A near copy."

"Except the whole dying part," Draco interjected. "I hope that wasn't part of the plan."

"Noo," Harry agreed, "I don't think it was."

He shrugged again and took a sip of his pint. "I don't know, really. Maybe she's just crazy. Or maybe I am. But I can't turn her away, after what I did to Ron, and she can't stop coming, after..." He stared blankly at the table and then, unable to think of a reason, finished lamely, "...something."

"Must've been something, indeed," Draco mused.

Harry took another drink and said, "I think I'm getting a bit drunk. Oh, and I had something to ask!" He seemed to think hard for a minute, musing, "What was it, what was it... oh, yes. Why are you the way that you are? What's wrong with you?"

Draco picked up the pen and looked at Harry questioningly. The drunk man nodded and so Draco made another tick under 'Scarhead.' Then, without any attempts at deflection, he started his story.

"All my life," he said, "I knew I was something. I was a wizard and I was a Malfoy and I was rich. I was clever. I was good-looking-"

"Big-headed?"

"Sometimes," he agreed easily, "but not undeservedly. I was defined by what I was. Wizard. Student. Slytherin. Deatheater. Son." He paused and took a sip from his own pint. "By the time I met you again, when we were seventeen, I had already lost most those things. By the time the war was over, I had lost everything."

"But I thought you still live at the Manor?"

"Yes," Draco said, with an odd soft smile. "I still have a house, money, my good looks, of course, and my wits. But... but everything that was me, everything that I defined myself as - defined life as - was lost to me."

He looked up into Harry's eyes and for once, his eyes seemed clear and open. But Harry still didn't understand what he saw in them.

"I was dead. For a long time, I didn't do anything. My body would've surely died if house elves weren't so endlessly obliging. And since my body didn't die, eventually I had to find a new way to live." Harry understood why he couldn't read those grey eyes when Draco continued, "But inside I've long been dead. I'm just putting in my time and trying to enjoy myself, until my body realises it, too."

Harry shuddered, suddenly feeling chill. He jerked his head up to look at Malfoy, though, when he heard the blond laugh. "Don't worry," Draco said reassuringly, "you probably won't remember any of this tomorrow anyway."

The two men finished their pints in silence and the old men in the pub continued to glare at them suspiciously. Draco looked at their empty glasses. "Do you want another?"

Harry blinked drowsily. "I think," he said carefully, "that I may be drunk."

Draco looked at him closely and then he started laughing, "I think that you may be." Harry looked up at him with glassy eyes and Draco exclaimed, "You really are a light-weight. How much do you usually drink?"

"Usually?" Harry frowned. "I told you I'd never been to the pub here."

"Wait - do you mean that you don't ever drink?"

"Um," Harry mumbled, "I mean, I get a bottle at the grocery every now and again."

Draco ticked the list under his name. "And how often is 'now and again?'"

"...every three or six months, maybe."

"Oh, Potter - you lush." Draco laughed raucously. "Well, let's get one more to keep us warm on the road and then I'll let you go home."

Harry nodded blearily and tried to get to his feet, swaying dangerously. Draco jumped up and came around the small table to steady him. One hand at Harry's elbow, he led the both of them up to the bar again and ordered two shots to go. Throwing another bill on the countertop, he tossed one back himself, then looked over to his drinking mate, who was looking a bit green around the gills.

His pale eyebrows shot up in alarm and he said hastily, "I'll take this one for you, I think," tossing back the second shot as well.

Still pulling the staggering Harry along with him, Draco propelled them back into the cold night air. They stumbled down the road, Harry half hanging from Draco's grip. They hadn't even made it to the road which led to Harry's house before Harry himself groaned, "I think I'm going to be sick."

Draco pulled the other man up straight and said quickly, "Not now, you're not. You'll feel much better getting sick at your own home, believe me." Glancing at Harry from time to time, only to see him looking progressively worse, he forced the two of them down the road. They did make it Harry's house, at least, before the drunk man got sick in his own garden, right on top of a rhodedendron bush. Draco tutted disapprovingly and stepped around the huddled figure to open the front door. He half picked Harry up, dragging him into the house. He took a brief moment to kick his shoes off and then hurried them both down the hall to the bathroom. He dumped Harry in front of the toilet and lifted the seat for him.

Harry leaned miserably against the cool porcelain of the toilet bowl and Draco sat down on the floor nearby, his back against the wall and his legs stretched out in front of him. Mumbling against the porcelain bowl, Harry asked, "What're you doing?"

"Making sure you don't accidentally die."

Harry hiccoughed and made a face, then asked, "But why?"

"Because-" Draco started, but he was interrupted by the sound of Harry wretching again, though at least it was into a toilet this time. He took the opportunity to pull the crumpled tally from his pocket. He marked off another tick on Harry's side and then continued, "Because it would be my fault if you died like this. And I don't think I want you dead."

Harry spat into the toilet one last time and then flushed it, croaking out, "Why?"

"Hmmm." Draco stared at the other man openly and curiously, as if trying to figure it out himself. "I suppose because you're interesting. Of course, you might only seem that way since I don't have anyone else to compare you to. Excepting a house-elf." Draco rolled his eyes and continued, "Bothering you has proved an amusing distraction. I like amusing things. Of course, that means that if you stop being amusing, I might leave you to drown in a pile of your own vomit." He then added thoughtfully, "Plus... if you, Harry Potter, died after being seen with a fellow you'd called 'Malfoy' on several occassions, I imagine the aurors might just notice something awry and come knocking round for answers again."

Harry painfully turned to look at the blond, but couldn't tell if he was serious or not. He asked, "Are you drunk?"

Draco held the pen up warningly and asked, "Is that your question?"

"No," Harry shook his head for a moment, then immediately stopped, blinked, and vomited again into the toilet. To the sound of another flush, he said, "I have a better one. Are you a drunk?"

Draco marked the paper. "Am I an alcoholic, you mean?" He seemed to be calculating in his head again. "I've never really tried to quantify my drinking, so I've never thought about labels. But I do drink. A lot."

"How much?"

Draco shrugged. "Don't keep track."

"More than a bottle?"

"Liquor or beer?"

"Either."

"Beer, of course. Liquor, often."

"Every night?"

For the first time, Draco seemed a little uncomfortable. His brow furrowed as he tried to think of the last night he hadn't gone to sleep with at least a couple drinks in him. "Every night except the one when I got stuck here, I suppose."

Harry asked sleepily, "Don't you think that might be a problem?"

Draco noticed that sleepy tone and pushed himself up off the floor. He stood at the small sink, filling up the bathroom cup with cool water. He stared at his own reflection. He certainly didn't look like he'd consumed over seven units of alcohol in the last hour. He looked completely normal. "I never have," he said, as he handed Harry the cup, "before tonight. Now drink your water. You'll get dehydrated after vomiting and that'll only make you feel worse tomorrow."

Harry swished his first sip around his mouth and spat it into the toilet. Then he drank the rest of the water without complaining. Draco took the cup back and filled it again, leaving it next to Harry on the floor this time. He continued standing, still watching his own reflection in the mirror. He tilted his head from side to side. He pulled his face into a grimace. Then he shrugged and sat back down on the hard floor. "Maybe it's not a problem," he picked up his thread, "I've never hurt anyone else by it. I've never hurt myself, other than a few too many nights spent on a toilet floor, much like this. If it makes me feel good and it doesn't hurt anyone else, then where's the problem?"

Harry squeezed one eye shut and looked at Draco through the other. "I'm not sure," he admitted, "but I think there still is one. I think that people should feel good without alcohol."

"Do you feel good without alcohol?"

"I certainly don't feel good with alcohol," Harry said ruefully.

"But do you feel good ever?"

Harry looked at the paper on the floor. "I don't think you've been doing a proper job as score-keeper."

Draco shrugged and made one tick under each of their names, then asked again, "Do you ever feel good?"

Harry looked at the cup of water next to him. "Sometimes. When I'm out in my car, or walking alone, or working mindlessly in my yard or house. When I can forget anything but the moment that I'm in. Then I think I feel good."

Draco looked at him seriously and made another tick under his own name. "Are you happy?"

Harry's breath whooshed out of him, as if he'd been holding it. "No," he admitted. He looked back at Draco, "Are you?"

The blond looked down at the paper as he made a tick under Harry's name. He said softly, "No."

Harry lowered himself gingerly to the floor, lying down on his back but still within easy reach of the toilet. The room seemed to be moving, though he was quite sure that he was perfectly still. He mused to himself, "I wonder why we made it through the war. So many other people we knew didn't. People who would have used the lives that we're just wasting."

Draco slouched further down the wall, and muttered, "Don't be one of those philosophical drunks, Potter."

And they both trailed into silence, each lost in his own thoughts. The game was forgotten for a time and the paper eventually fell from Draco's limp fingers, as he slipped into a heavy, drugged sleep. Harry didn't notice, though. He'd passed out long before.