Seasons

Seasons
written by: Kristi Brownfield [mailto: [email protected]]
This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. With thanks to Tanzy. Written as part of vanityfair's fic challenege. The challenge was to write a Harry/Draco story in which a season was integral to the story. So, here it is.

In A Disused Graveyard

The living come with grassy tread
To read the gravestones on the hill;
The graveyard draws the living still,
But never anymore the dead.
The verses in it say and say:
"The ones who living come today
To read the stones and go away
Tomorrow dead will come to stay."
So sure of death the marbles rhyme,
Yet can't help marking all the time
How no one dead will seem to come.
What is it men are shrinking from?
It would be easy to be clever
And tell the stones: Men hate to die
And have stopped dying now forever.
I think they would believe the lie.
- Robert Frost

Narcissa Malfoy died in the spring of Draco's Seventh year at Hogwarts. Draco's father hadn't allowed him to see the body. He rushed the funeral, refusing to tell anyone about the death. Draco himself didn't know until a routine trip home during a break in classes. His father had met him at the Platform and took him straight to Malfoy Manor.

"Leave your things, and follow me." It was not a request. Draco did as he was asked, confused. His father led him outside of the Manor proper, across the grounds, to the small cemetery that housed nearly 1000 years of Malfoys.

"Why are we here, Father?" Lucius led him to a tree, an apple tree. It was green and blooming. When Draco was younger, he used to make the house elves pick apples from the tree for him. Lucius simply pointed down at the ground.

He noticed a small tombstone, one he had never seen before. Draco kneeled down in the grass, it smelled so freshly cut, and read the words aloud. "Narcissa Malfoy. 1958 - 1998." He reached out and ran his fingers over the name; it was wet. It had been raining the night before.

"Your mother is dead."

"I see." Draco stood and looked over at his father. He looked uncomfortable with the situation. Draco didn't blame him. "How long?"

"Three weeks."

"How did she die?"

Lucius turned around and walked away. Draco knew the answer to that question instantly.

He spent the rest of the weekend outside at his mother's grave, enjoying the cool spring air.

Draco had a decision to make.

Sunburn

Deep down, Harry always believed that his feud with Voldemort would end sometime during his Seventh year at Hogwarts. Halloween, to be precise. It provided a rather sick symmetry to the whole affair that he thought might appeal to Voldemort.

But Halloween of his Seventh year had come and gone without a whisper.

The entire year had come and gone without a whisper.

And now, it was summer. He was legally an adult, free of the Dursleys. Dumbledore had asked him to stay at Hogwarts to start working on plans to check the Death Eater's actions within the Ministry and in the field. Harry said yes. Choices were nice, when you had them. The students had left, Ron and Hermione with them. The pair had waved to Harry joyfully, having announced their engagement the night before. Harry was to be the best man at the wedding. They were going to spend two weeks with the Grangers and then two weeks with the Weasleys before starting their new jobs at the Ministry in London. Harry had told them that Dumbledore had offered him an apprenticeship.

It wasn't a lie.

Not exactly.

He had gotten up early that morning, unable to sleep. 4am. It was still dark, cool in the early summer. Harry took his broom and went out to the Quidditch pitch. He flew laps until he saw the sun start to rise. Harry was dimly aware that he was sweating in the heat and that his face felt hot. Or that he was tired.

He just knew that in the air he really did feel like he was free: free of the Dursleys, free of the Voldemort obligation, free of expectations, free of criticism. Just Harry.

Harry washed up and changed before heading to the Great Hall for breakfast. Dumbledore had told him that all the teachers would be there as Order of the Phoenix members. Sirius and Remus were due to arrive next week, Arabella Figg and Mundungus Fletcher with them. Arthur and Molly Weasley were not to be present, along with all the other members. Harry could appreciate Dumbledore's need for secrecy. There had been information leaks from Order members in the past. It was still early; Harry expected to be the first one to breakfast.

He was wrong. Snape was sitting at the head table, calmly chewing on scrambled eggs. Harry blanched and idly wondered how anyone could eat them. Of course, scrambled eggs were one of Dudley's favorite summertime foods. Dudley liked to make Harry butter his toast then add strawberry jam, and on top of that came the scrambled eggs. Snape sneered at him when he saw Harry, but the sneer lacked heat. Perhaps the summer sun sucked some of the malice out of Snape; it was too hot to be irate.

Next to Snape sat Draco Malfoy. He was wearing black trousers and a long-sleeved white shirt, no robes. Not a hair out of place, but as Harry approached, he could see sweat gathering on Malfoy's brow. Still he kept a wintry expression on his face as Harry sat down next to him.

"Professor," Harry nodded to Snape. It never hurt to be polite. "Malfoy?"

Malfoy snorted and rolled his eyes. "No, Potter, I'm Dumbledore under the influence of Polyjuice Potion."

Harry scowled. "I just wanted to know what you were doing here. Shouldn't you be at home?"

"I could say the same for you, Potter."

"I asked you first."

Snape growled low in his throat and both Harry and Malfoy jumped a bit. "There will be no fighting."

"Yes, sir," they replied in unison.

"Aren't you going to eat anything, Potter?" Malfoy looked pointedly at Harry's plate.

"No," he shook his head. "It's too hot to eat."

"It's perfectly fine here, Potter. You'll be sick if you don't eat."

"No, it's hot." Harry glared at the plate and placed his order for one piece of toast, plain. He did his best to ignore Malfoy's disapproval as he slowly ate the food.

"What exactly is wrong with you, Potter?" Malfoy's voice was ice.

"I hate summer," Harry muttered, standing up. He decided to go to the library, it would be cooler.

"Your face is sun burnt, Potter!" Malfoy called to his back.

Harry snorted and kept walking. What did Malfoy know anyway?

The Wicker Man

They had been working together for nearly four months. Harry found Draco's company oddly appealing, once he had figured out that Draco wasn't about to work for Voldemort and Draco realized that Harry wasn't a bastard.

They were quite a bit alike. "They used to burn them, you know," he said.

Draco moved closer. "What?"

"It's the equinox," Harry looked outside from the classroom. The trees of the Forbidden Forest were turning colors. Some of them were bare.

"And that explains absolutely nothing, Harry." Draco laid a hand on Harry's back.

"Accord to Caesar's writings. The ancient Celts used to burn effigies today. Wicker men."

"Caesar?" Draco seemed confused.

"Muggle dictator. Not important."

"So what's really bothering you?"

"I just sometimes wonder if I'm their Wicker Man." Draco was silent at Harry's words. There wasn't much to say. He continued to watch the trees.

"To some, perhaps," Draco finally replied. "But not to me, if that helps any."

Harry turned and looked at the other man for the first time. He smiled. "Yes. You remind me of what it's like to fly."

They kissed, and Harry discovered a different way to burn.

Frostbite

"Potter, get back in here!" Draco pulled his winter cloak around him tighter, and glared at the black haired man as he hovered in the doorway of their flat. It was a small flat, not anything like Draco had grown up in. He found it cozy, just a few rooms, a fireplace, a large library of books taken from Malfoy Manor, and Harry. To his surprise, Draco didn't miss the life before Hogwarts, the life before Harry. Despite Harry's penchant for winter.

Harry was outside, playing with the children of a neighbor. Harry did that a lot, went out into the neighbor, talked, cooked, and babysat. Draco wondered if Harry did it as a reaction to Voldemort. The longer the war dragged on, the less time Harry had with people, the less time to interact. Most of the time, Harry only saw people wrapped in black robes or dead. His activities in the neighborhood grounded him, Draco believed, kept him from forgetting why he was fighting against Voldemort.

Draco sometimes envied him the luxury. But with Draco disinherited, and Harry constantly off fighting, one of them had to work in order to pay rent and feed themselves. And with winter here, Draco worried about money for the power bill. Heating, even with the fireplace burning constantly, wasn't cheap. Some nights, working late at the Ministry, he found himself in awe of the way the Weasleys had managed to stay afloat with seven children.

Not that Harry couldn't equal a handful of Weasleys if he set his mind to it. For example, his activities today.

Of all things he could be doing on Christmas Eve, Harry was building a snowman.

Harry looked back at Draco, smiled slyly, and turned back to the children. They were twins, brunettes. Draco could never remember the names of the girls. That was Harry's job; whenever Draco visited the neighbors with him, Harry made sure to prep him with names. For some reason, it never stuck. Harry was amused by it, and often teased Draco about his ability with names. "Harry's ours!" they chorused in unison, sticking their tongues out at him. He rolled his eyes.

Harry, whose face was red with the chill of the air, and hands even more red from packing snow without gloves, grinned at the expression on Draco's face. "Why don't you join us?"

"I hate winter," Draco muttered. He shut the door to the flat, walked to the closet, and reached around for his boots. "I hate the cold. I hate the snow. I hate winter, and I hate Harry Potter." Feeling slightly better for his whining, Draco headed outside.

As much as he hated winter, Draco did have to admit that it was the season that truly brought out the best in Harry. His tousled black hair was vibrant against even dirty gray slush, the cold reddened Harry's cheeks in the same way sex did. He smiled more, seemed happier, as if the lack of sun simply made Harry happier. It was odd. Draco preferred summer; he liked to be warm. Perhaps Harry's affinity for winter came with the holidays. Or maybe it was the way Voldemort seemed to hibernate like a bear through the winter months, saving his energy for the real showdowns in the summer.

Draco walked outside and studied their efforts. It seemed as if their attempt at a snowman had been abandoned in favor of a snowball fight. Next to a large round snowball, Draco presumed it was to be the base of the snowman, was a black top hat. Draco recognized it as one of his own, a present from his mother. On top of the hat was a long orange carrot, and coal, destined to be the eyes, mouth, and nose of the snowman.

Draco snickered, kneeled down, and grabbed a handful of snow, lobbing it at Harry's back as he retreated from a well-coordinated onslaught from the two girls. "Hey!" Harry jumped around and glared at Draco. "You'll pay for that one!"

"Right. That'll happen," he smirked. The girls laughed at them, and continued to throw more snow, not bothering to pack them into balls. Harry's light jacket was soaked, and Draco could see the white shirt underneath was fairly damp as well. His red snow pants were covered in slush. He was grinning as widely as Draco had ever seen him.

"Oooh!" Harry laughed, holding his hands up in surrender. "I come in peace!" He turned and stalking toward the two girls, who giggled. In unison, they dropped the last bits of snow out of their gloves. "Let's try and finish the snowman, Sarah, Joan." He flopped down on the ground next to the single large ball of snow that the threesome had been able to finish. Draco felt his lips curl into a smile.

"Harry?" He reached into the pockets of his clock and pulled out warm leather gloves. Harry looked over at him, eyebrows raised, smiling. Draco tossed the gloves onto his chest. "I'm going back inside."

"Thanks, Draco."

"I wouldn't want you to get frostbitten." Draco smiled again, and went back inside to start some hot chocolate and a warm fire. Harry would need it when he came back in.

Spring Yew

Harry was 24 years old. He'd been fighting Voldemort, in his various forms, for the last 13 years.

He hated it.

Harry just wanted things to end. He wanted Voldemort to finally just die, so that he could go home. Mourn Albus Dumbledore. Mourn Remus Lupin. Mourn Hermione Granger. Hold Draco again. Remember what it was like to feel anything but numb.

He planned on it. "Hello, Tom," he said politely, addressing the thing in front of him.

"So good of you to join us, Harry Potter," Voldemort replied in the same tone. He waved a hand toward his right. Harry looked over to see Lucius Malfoy smiling, holding a rather beaten Draco. He tensed, and glared at Voldemort, who held up his hands and did his best impression of being innocent. "That's simply what you get for not going home more often."

"Bastard," Harry spat. "You just wanted an audience."

Voldemort laughed. "Perhaps there is merit to what you say, Harry Potter, I have always been rather -" Harry cut him off with a curse aimed to stop his heart. He had long since learned the value in not listening to Voldemort's annoying lectures. The man was too fond of hearing himself talk. Dimly he noticed the sun beginning to rise outside the large Mansion through the windows behind him. Harry found it vaguely appropriate that this, the final confrontation, the last chance, would begin at sunrise. He could see the glint of mist on the grass, and the brown and green of leaving trees. Malfoy took care of his grounds, at the very least. Harry dragged himself out of his introspection, and ducked a curse thrown his way. "Tsk, tsk, Potter, is this how a hero fights?"

"No," Harry said, through clenched teeth, "this is how a survivor fights."

Voldemort laughed. "We do have so much in common, don't we, Potter? Imagine what we could do together," he sighed sadly.

Harry laughed bitterly in response, and sent a stunning spell towards the elder Malfoy. It bounced off a tight shield that Voldemort himself had to have put up, and Malfoy smirked. Draco just watched, expressionless. "Perhaps you should have thought of that 23 years ago, Tom." Voldemort laughed. "Because now it's too late, and I will kill you." Harry threw a quick cast of Cruciatus at Voldemort. He had to incapacitate the man; the spell Draco had found for Harry to get rid of Voldemort once and for all took a lot of power and a lot of time to prep.

For not the first time, Harry wished that the Killing Curse would just work.

"Fitting that this should end in the spring, when it started in the fall, isn't it Potter? Fitting that my wand, the beautiful yew, sadness, faces your holly, good will. I won't make it easy for you, boy."

"I never doubted you would, Tom."

They set to work.

Vacation

"It's beautiful here, Draco. I'm glad you took me," Draco smiled at the man next to him. He reached out and grabbed Harry's hand, making circles with his thumb. Harry closed his eyes and soaked up the summer sun as it beat down.

Ten years after the final death and defeat of Voldemort, they were taking a vacation.

Harry had wanted to run immediately after the fight, but Draco's injuries from the torture the last of the Death Eaters had put him through held them back for nearly two years as the blond recovered. By then Harry had been deeply involved in the reconstruction of Hogwarts, the reorganizing of the Ministry of Magic, and the power vacuum his absence would have created would have been disasterous.

Draco dropped his feet off the dock and tipped his toes into the water. It was cold. "Do you want to go swimming, Harry?" Draco asked, looking down at his feet.

Harry didn't open his eyes. "No, I'm fine."

"You're quiet today."

Draco felt something bump his left foot, looked down and saw a large fish. "Just amazed the way one's feelings can change."

Draco smiled. "Just because you like the cold doesn't mean I have to like it, idiot."

"Living down in those dungeons should have built up more of a tolerance." Harry leaned over to kiss the sweat rolling off Draco's brow before pushing the other man into the water.

Draco paid him back by pulling Harry in with him.

Flying

Draco gently pushed Harry's hair out of his face. "Do you still feel like a wicker man?"

Harry smiled. Draco loved the way his wrinkles creased around his eyes. "No. But you still make me fly."

"Good. That's the way it should be."

An Old Man's Winter Night

ALL out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off; and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon, such as she was,
So late-arising, to the broken moon
As better than the sun in any case
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man one man can´t fill a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It´s thus he does it of a winter night.
- Robert Frost

He stared at the fire for what seemed like a century. Harry could still remember days long past when he had been visited and talked to through it, been warmed by the fire. But now winter seemed to have invaded the small cottage he had built at Godric's Hollow, and the fire burned merrily shedding no heat.

"Harry?" the weak voice called from the room behind him. He closed his eyes and pictured the fire in his mind. Pictured a warm winter blaze, outside, large gatherings of people in front of a bonfire, snow melting through boots and making socks wet. "Harry?" the voice tried again. He couldn't drown it out.

"I'm coming, Draco." Harry stood as he answered, holding his hands out to the fire. "I'm coming," he whispered.

Harry strode into the next room, the bedroom. In it, on the large bed, lay Draco, older than Harry always pictured him. It startled him, sometimes, when he looked at Draco. Especially in the winter, the white hair was the color of freshly fallen snow and not the blond of his memories. It hadn't been blond for several years. "Harry?" Draco blinked at him, and Harry approached the bed slowly, sitting down next to the other man.

"I'm here, Draco," Harry took Draco's right hand lightly. Draco snatched it back.

"You're not Harry! Who are you?" he spat. Harry felt his lips twitch into a bitter smile as he placed some of that fire in Draco's voice back to their days in school. It had been nearly a year since Draco had been able to recognize him. He wondered, on the long nights, if perhaps it had been the spells. The several years of Cruciatus and Imperius and pain and torture and hiding and spying and living under Voldemort before the work paid off that reduced Draco to this. They were the same age, but Draco was so much older. So much weaker.

Harry felt his age as he looked down into Draco's eyes. "I'm here, Draco," he simply repeated. It was the only thing he could ever do. The only consolation he had until Draco slipped back into the world with him.

"Harry? Where are you? There's a stranger here, and it's winter, and I'm so damn cold!" Draco was the only person Harry knew who could whine and still sound like he was ordering servants around.

Harry stood, and walked to the linen closet in the hall. He took out the quilt that Molly Weasley had made for them; it had the Slytherin and Gryffindor crests intertwined in the four corners, and a large version of the Hogwarts emblem and motto in the center. It had been a Christmas present the year after they had destroyed Voldemort. Draco had always said it made winter seem more like spring. Harry always replied that he quite liked winter.

Harry returned to the bed, and wrapped the quilt around Draco's frail body. "I'm here, Draco," he said for the third time, tucking the edge of the quilt under Draco's chin.

Draco smiled. "Oh, there you are, Harry. I was worried."

"I'd never leave."

"Could you start a fire? I don't know how you stand it so cold!"

Harry smiled weakly. "After living so many years in the Hogwarts dungeons, you'd think you'd be far more used to the cold than you are, Draco." Another long-standing joke. Another conversation they had many times before. Draco rarely was able to stay in the present.

"Just because you like winter doesn't mean I have to," Draco scoffed. But he smiled as he said it.

"All right." Harry leaned down and kissed Draco on the cheek. He looked at the fireplace in the room, all the wood had burnt out. "Let me get more wood. I'll be back." Draco nodded, and closed his eyes.

Harry slowly walked outside, to the bin of chopped wood that the neighbors were well-paid to keep full. He selected five logs, grateful that he was still able to carry them, and stopped. Looked up.

The sky was clear. Stars were quite bright tonight. "I wonder if Mars is out," he muttered. Harry had never been one for astronomy, even if the Centaurs had attempted to teach him. He shivered. Draco was right, it was cold. No snow, but he could see the branches of the trees resist swaying in the wind as if they were bogged down with ice. The air was crisp and dry.

He walked back inside and slowly made the progress back to the bedroom. He avoided looking at the bed, and started placing the logs for the fire. It was almost as cold in the room as it was outside. Harry fancied that he could see snow in the corners of the room. He fetched matches from the kitchen, once again wishing that the wards around the cottage would allow magic. He lit the fire and walked back to the bed.

Climbing in, he curled around Draco. The man was cold as ice. "Draco, it will take a bit for the fire to really heat up the room." He pulled Draco closer. "Draco?"

Nothing.

"Draco?" Harry shook his lightly.

Nothing.

"Draco?" Harry laid his head on Draco's chest, placing his right ear above his heart.

Nothing.

"Oh, Draco." Harry smoothed the snow-white hair off Draco's forehead, and kissed him gently. At least the night was over for one of them.