A Stranger Garden

Chapter 6.

2028

Harry had to admit that finding a portrait of Malfoy hanging in the ballroom had surprised him. And he'd tried to see what Teddy saw in Malfoy, really he had, but as far as he could tell Malfoy was just the same obnoxious git he'd always been. Mostly. When Malfoy spoke of Teddy, Harry could see that he had genuine regard for his nephew. It softened his face considerably into one that might be thought of as pleasant. He looked much like he had at the end of the war, only healthier, so Harry assumed that the paintings had been done at that stage.

Discovering the portrait of himself had been like a kick in the stomach, and had made his fingertips tingle with the rush of the adrenaline shock. For one moment, a sharp moment that blurred the edges of where he was, he thought it was some trick and he was going to find himself taking the place of the image in the portrait, chained up against the wall. Just like in his nightmares.

But common sense, when it kicked in, told him that there was no magic known that would transport him into the portrait.

No, he was quite safe, but he still wanted an explanation.

Then he took great satisfaction in seeing how drawn and panicked Malfoy looked. When Malfoy only offered a feeble 'just a bit of fun' in response, Harry shook his head and chided himself. Malfoy was only a portrait and he shouldn't let him get under his skin. Harry rather thought that he'd shocked Malfoy enough today as it was. Even if he was a portrait, it couldn't be easy to hear that he'd been more alone than he knew for the last twenty years, that someone he cared about was dead and the other had no regard for family tradition.

Despite Harry not holding with a lot of pureblood traditions, he could feel for Malfoy in this case. The ancestral home should be something that the family could always count on. Always. And Harry's tough beginnings and lack of security in his early years had forged a need for him to feel a connection to the past; to try and remember where he came from and pay tribute to that and their contribution to who he was.

So, he could quite see Malfoy's point, although he'd not admit that too easily.

"So, you've had no visitors since you died, then?" Harry asked.

"No," Malfoy replied warily. "I admit, I expected Andromeda or Teddy to break the wards, but if they didn't even live here..."

"It wasn't their home. Teddy was only ten and she didn't want to upset him more by moving in here to a place that was full of memories of you."

Malfoy nodded. "I can understand that, now, I just assumed..."

"Andromeda had many reasons to like and admire you, but she had no love for your family. After all, she was disowned by the Blacks and ignored by your mother. You can hardly expect her to live in a house where she hadn't been welcome and where, had he still been alive and given the choice, your father would have had Teddy put down."

"I know, I know," Malfoy replied irritably. He stood and walked through to the library and poured brandy into one of the large balloons on the sideboard. He swirled it round the glass, sniffed it and then swallowed the liquid in one mouthful.

"Damned thing," said Malfoy, waving the empty glass at Harry. "Nothing smells in here, so I don't know why I bother sniffing it before I drink."

"Nothing at all smells?" asked Harry, fascinated, despite himself. He'd never thought about the mechanics of portraits before.

"Even my shit doesn't stink, Potter." Malfoy smirked at him and Harry couldn't help but laugh.

"So, what else is new? You never thought your shit stank. Your nose was always so high in the air, even if it had stunk like hippogriff droppings you'd never have smelled it."

Malfoy actually laughed at that while he poured himself another brandy. A double this time. "Touché, Potter," he said, raising the half full glass in salute to Harry then downing that in two gulps.

"Er, don't you think you should slow down?" Harry asked.

"What for? You think I'll damage my liver and die? Oh, no, I should never drink again." Malfoy placed his free hand over his heart and affected a swoon of sorts.

"Whatever, Malfoy." Harry narrowed his eyes. Trust Malfoy to be a dick.

"I can get as sloshed as I like and pass out. In the morning the levels of alcohol in the decanters will be as they were before I started drinking. I will not have a hangover and I will feel no ill effects healthwise. Nothing in these portraits can kill me, Potter," Malfoy said, waving his arms around as he spoke. "I am fucking immortal."

Malfoy gave a small giggle while he picked up the brandy decanter and slumped down on the couch with it in his hand, swigging from it directly. "Fancy having to wait until I'm dead to become immortal. Perhaps Voldemort should have done that, too. I hope to Merlin you lot found and destroyed any and all portraits of him, even as a child, or he'll find some way of gathering followers again and then, bam, you're right back where you were all those years ago."

Malfoy was kind of funny when he was slightly sloshed. Harry didn't think he'd had enough to make him actually drunk as such, just enough to loosen his tongue.

"His followers are mostly dead, Malfoy. No need to worry about that. Besides, he would be powerless in a portrait. People followed him because they were afraid, not because he was an inspirational leader. They're not stupid enough to get sucked in by a portrait Voldemort."

"Giants are pretty stupid, Potter, or have you forgotten what they did at Azkaban?"

"I haven't forgotten, no, but they weren't acting on the orders of anyone there. They just...misinterpreted an order. It was accidental. I know it doesn't justify anything, nor bring your parents back, but they weren't under Voldemort's thrall. He is dead and gone, trust me."

Malfoy snorted. "Trust you?" He took another drink. "I tried that, but I still ended up being imprisoned for ten years. I think I would have preferred to go to Azkaban."

"You would have died with your parents, then. A lot earlier than you did die."

"So? You think I enjoyed being restricted to the Manor and the grounds? With no family, no visitors, no friends? Dying with them would have been better than what you confined me to. I was helpless and had nothing to look forward to, to hope for, until Teddy and Andromeda came to visit. They were the one bright little spark in my bleak existence and I'd have done anything for them but my hands were tied. I could do nothing but leave them everything I owned when I died. And they...threw it back in my face, Potter! Neither of them appreciated what I gave them."

Harry could see shiny tears gathering at the corners of Malfoy's eyes and so he looked away to give the boy time to collect himself. "They had their own lives, Malfoy, and I suspect they didn't expect you to die when you did."

"Neither did I. And they might have had their own lives, but they were all I had. They were everything to me."

And there was the crux of it, Harry knew. In Malfoy's reduced world, Teddy and Andromeda were all he had other than his family traditions. And those family traditions had all but caused the situation he found himself in. Harry didn't know what to say to a Malfoy he felt sorry for. He imagined had Malfoy been alive and in the room that he'd have just tried to ignore him or, the little voice of honesty in the back of his head spoke up, he'd have told Malfoy not to expect any sympathy.

But a portrait was different. Face to face with a live Malfoy was a fair fight and Harry would give as much as he needed to battle it out with Malfoy. Just as they'd always done. But with Malfoy a portrait, the inherent unfairness of their respective positions became more evident. Malfoy was to exist for the foreseeable future in a world where he had no say in anything, no control over even his environment, let alone the actions or emotions of anyone else. And he had to do it in solitude.

Feeling sorry for Malfoy wasn't an entirely new feeling, though. He remembered feeling sorry for him during the war when he'd seen through his connection with Voldemort how Malfoy had been forced to torture people and how scared he'd been the whole time.

Wanting to do something to help was a new feeling, though. He questioned himself about his motivations. After all, what did he care if a portrait was happy? Surely he'd done enough while Malfoy was alive in testifying to keep him out of Azkaban? Malfoy was dead, why did it matter that a damned portrait was unhappy?

He sighed. It just did. Perhaps he felt more strongly about the links to the past than he'd thought and perhaps he thought it not such a good idea for Teddy to sell the Manor. Teddy was thirty years old and a man with his own life and future, but Harry had to wonder if at some point Teddy would return to England. His activism would result in new werewolf laws eventually. And then what would Teddy do in America?

"I'll talk to Teddy and see if he will delay a decision on selling the Manor for a while."

Malfoy looked up blearily through the collected tears. He didn't say anything and Harry was grateful. Receiving thanks from a Malfoy might mean Hell had frozen over or something. A nod was as far as Malfoy went.

Harry stood in the silence for several moments not sure of what else to say. He and Malfoy had never been friends and so they couldn't 'catch up' with each other. They had little in common, either. His glance around the room showed that there were no other portraits of people at all. Malfoy really had been alone.

"Why did you have your portrait hung in here and not with the rest of your ancestors?" he asked.

"Would you want to spend eternity hung next to my father or his father?"

Malfoy must have seen the grimace on his face, because he laughed. "Neither did I. You really knew very little about me, did you, Potter."

"I could say the same about you," Harry retorted.

"But that's where you're wrong." Malfoy waved the decanter around again. "I had several years watching you to see who you really are."

"I suspect you only saw what you wanted to see, Malfoy."

"Ah, Potter, come now, I know that you secretly loved all the attention. You pretended modesty and humility but you never stood back from an opportunity to rub your propensity for rule flouting and your so called righteousness in other peoples' faces. Mine in particular. Don't think I didn't notice the blatant sucking up to Slughorn in sixth year just to get an invite to his ridiculous Club."

"I did no such thing," Harry replied hotly. "I hated all that - See? I knew you had no idea."

Harry remembered Malfoy crashing the one Slug Club function Harry had attended. He'd have handed Malfoy his invitation if it had allowed him to get out of going. He would have wished Malfoy well and hoped he died of boredom. Knowing Malfoy he'd have enjoyed it.

Malfoy windmilled his arms, sending drops of the brandy flying around the room. "No matter, no matter. All gone, over and done with and I'm dead now so it can hardly matter if I know you or not, seeing as this will be the last time you see me anyway."

Draco's eyes turned sly. "Unless of course, you're going to visit me in the dungeon after you die."

He watched Potter shudder and almost cackled. But cackling wouldn't be very dignified, no matter how much he'd had to drink. Which wasn't all that much, because he was still conscious. Well, what passed for conscious in a portrait.

And he probably should change the subject anyway, because Potter had been fairly decent about seeing himself naked and chained up in Draco's dungeon, but he hardly thought that would continue if he let slip that the dungeon was the only place Potter was going to 'wake up' in when he died. Draco allowed himself a small giggle instead.

"Scared of the dungeon, Potter?"

"Nightmare stuff," Potter said grimly. "I can tell you it will need to be a cold day in hell before you'll find me in your dungeon when I die. Honestly, Malfoy, couldn't you have left me some clothes?"

"Ah well, I have to admit to thinking that naked added to the humiliation when I commissioned it." That wouldn't give too much away.

"Obviously the artist had no idea of what I looked like naked," Potter replied, leaning closer for a closer look at himself. Draco giggled.

"I think he was probably rather generous. You're very average, aren't you?"

Potter laughed, which surprised Draco. Weren't men supposed to brag about the size of their dicks? What self-respecting male didn't care if someone thought their equipment was only average?

"What are you laughing at?" Draco grouched as he took another swig at his brandy. He was a little unsteady on his feet but he would rather think of it as swaying gracefully in time with an inner music.

"You," replied Potter. "Anyone would think you had an unhealthy fascination with me."

Oh, now that was just wrong. Draco hated Potter with all that he was. He suddenly remembered that hate and he sneered, forgetting that Potter was the only person he'd spoken to for twenty years and had secretly been glad for the company. He refrained from releasing a scathing verbal attack on the stupid, old Potter, who still had the ridiculous hair, the bloody woeful glasses and an attitude the size of England. He was sober enough to know that once he started, he'd not stop until he'd admitted his whole plan and that wouldn't do him any good. Potter would just have the portrait of himself in the dungeons burnt or destroyed somehow and then where would he be? Confined to solitude for the rest of forever. With no chance of revenge.

No, this time, alcohol fuelled or not, he would keep his damned mouth shut if he wanted any chance of his adjusted plan succeeding.

"I do not have a fascination with the size of your dick," he blurted, despite himself. Oh, fuck. He supposed at least it was better than admitting he'd knelt before Potter more times than he could count and had sucked on that 'average' sized dick just for practice. And definitely better than saying he wished his portrait Potter could have erections. There was a small silver lining there.

"Whatever you say," replied Potter, laughing again, which infuriated Draco. How dare he?

Merlin, how he hated Potter.