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Title: Overly Dramatic
Author: me
Pairing: H/D
Rating: PG-13
Summary: One night, one play, and one very unhappy couple.
Disclaimer: The boys aren't mine. Neither is the play. Points to anyone who can figure out which one it is, and who wrote it.
Marriage Arc parts One Two Three Four Five Six Seven
Part 8:
Overly Dramatic
Draco’s program sat stonily on the floor between Harry’s feet. Harry looked stonily down at it. Draco looked stonily at Harry.
“Stonily” was fast becoming the perfect word to describe this week.
Saturday night in Piccadilly Circus, laughing people everywhere outside, good-natured chatter from the theatre-goers all around him, and Harry, quite frankly, wanted nothing better than to bite Draco’s head right off his pompous shoulders. And if his fiance’s expression was anything to go by, then the feeling was very, very mutual.
It was the first week Draco had had off in months; apparently it had been given to him by his exasperated employer because Draco couldn’t stop snapping at his assistants for interrupting his carefully crafted schedule of wedding planning and potions licensing. The weary older wizard had shooed Draco out the door a week ago last Friday, telling him to get your bloody wedding in order, for Salazar’s sake, Malfoy, please, before I have to sack you and you’re forced to go without a suitable chandelier in the reception hall because you don’t have enough Galleons!
Harry had been overjoyed. Up through the following Sunday.
It wasn’t as if Draco had even been doing any of the planning, Harry thought nastily. Oh no. They were supposed to have a seating arrangement for the guests by now. A cake tasted and decided upon. Appropriate wedding party members notified on Draco’s side. And what did they have? Hermione, determined to pick out a dress ensemble before Pansy Parkinson was even aware that she was going to be in the wedding. Two cancelled cake-tasting appointments at the finest wizarding bakery in the country. And a seating situation that was starting to resemble a Slytherin-Gryffindor Quidditch match.
Tonight, the beginning of a new weekend of rest and relaxation, had been wonderful.
“Oh, please, Potter. As if I would push my own mother back to the second aisle.”
“Funny. I didn’t think we were even inviting her after what she tried.”
“She happens to be paying for half of this wedding, so like it or not, she’s coming.”
“Since when are you on speaking terms with her?”
“Don’t you dare blame me for this! She insisted. And I didn’t even get to talk to her anyway, Potter. There wasn’t time to refuse before the damned house-elf cut the Floo off.”
“Well, she can’t sit in the first aisle. It’s full.”
“Then move someone.”
“Not a chance, Draco, we can’t just go around switching up seats!”
“Well, maybe I don’t want your bloody friends sitting right under my bloody nose, staring at my bloody back and thinking how bloody nice it would be if they could just leap up at the right bloody time and object to the whole bloody thing!”
“They bloody well will not do that! And stop saying ‘bloody!’”
“They sodding well will, and you know it! The Weaslette alone will bring a bullhorn.”
“Not if your dear friend Bulstrode doesn’t decide to show up late out of spite and ruin the whole damn wedding!”
“Potter, maybe if you would actually look at her like she’s a human being, she wouldn’t scowl at you all the time!”
“Maybe if she stopped saying how much of a boon to society it would be if I fell off the face of the earth and let her into your pants where she belongs, I would!”
“Come off it, she stopped doing that months ago. Besides, do you think I like having to threaten Finnigan with Unforgivables just so that he’ll keep his hands off your arse at pubs?”
“He was drunk!”
“Oh, I don’t think he was as far gone as you’d like to believe, Potter.”
“So that explains why he keeps magically getting assigned to a folding chair in the front atrium instead of a seat in the actual church then, Malfoy?”
“Why don’t you tell him to fuck off, then? If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were hoping for a fallback Gryffindor.”
“Oh, I see. Planning on a temporary marriage, are you?”
“Potter, when I marry, I marry for life, you arse. Our life! Not the lives of whichever Weasel accidentally crosses me off his or her guest list at Christmas parties.”
“Tell your friends to stop shunning my friends at all their little overly cultured get-togethers then!”
“Maybe if your friends stopped making my friends feel like inferior Grindylow feces, they wouldn’t!”
“Maybe if your friends didn’t keep calling my friends Mudbloods and blood traitors behind their backs, they would!”
“Maybe you should have a more exclusive selection process for friends, Potter!”
“Maybe you should have a less exclusive one, Malfoy!”
It all culminated in this moment, seconds before the curtain lifted, with Draco’s program on the floor between Harry’s shiny black, ill-fitting shoes – which he was wearing at Draco’s insistence, no less – and Draco refusing to pick the bloody thing up.
Well. Damned if Harry was going to get it for him. He looked resolutely ahead at the heavy velvet curtains shielding the stage from view. Draco stared at him for a moment, then let out a short huff of air and crossed his arms over his chest, scowling. Harry felt a lovely wave of satisfaction flow over him.
“Potter.”
“Yes.”
“Will you please hand me my program.”
“I don’t see any reason to.”
“What?”
“Well. You must know the entire repertoire of this acting company verbatim, considering how cultured you purebloods are. I, on the other hand, might need a second program to help me through the play.”
Draco let out a word that drew the gazes of several of their fellow box occupants. He leaned over Harry’s leg, shoved it aside unceremoniously, and jerked his program off the floor. Harry was fairly certain that his scowl matched the worst Draco could offer.
Was currently offering, actually.
The lights dimmed. A low tendril of lute music drifted up from somewhere backstage. The curtain began to lift. An expectant hush fell over the audience.
Almost.
“For your information, Potter, I haven’t ever seen this sodding play.”
“Well, bully for you.”
A woman down the row frowned at them from behind oval-framed glasses and sniffed. “Shhhh.”
Draco gave her a charming smile. The woman blushed. Harry ground his teeth.
The play, for its part, began.
* * *
Act I, scene 1
“I can’t bloody understand this.”
“Just shut up and listen, Potter.”
“Oh, and that will help?”
“It’s like a foreign language. You hear it enough, you start to understand it. Of course, it takes a cultured intellect.”
“Prat.”
“Arse.”
“Shhhh.”
Act I, scene 3
"This is stupid, Potter.”
“What?”
“The answer is right bloody there.”
“What?”
“That family has a son. This family has a daughter. Both the same age. It’s obvious what they should do.”
“Not everyone thinks about marriage like you, Malfoy.”
“But these people do, look at them!”
“Well, no one’s thinking about the good that could come of it.”
“Because they’re acting like fools.”
“Shhhh.”
Act II, scene 5
“This is bloody ridiculous.”
“Quiet, Potter.”
"World’s shortest courtship.”
“You are so exasperating. Clearly, the playwright is making a statement about the foolish nature of courtly love.”
“Oh, come on! Their behavior is so silly, Draco.”
“Obviously! You think I don’t know that?”
“Shhhh.”
Act III, scene 1
“I still think he’s an idiot.”
“Well, if Ron up and stabbed Blaise through the gut right in front of your face, you’d probably do the same thing, wouldn’t you?”
“Potter. I would be more levelheaded.”
“Shhhh!”
Act V, scene 3
“Wait. She killed herself?”
“Yes, Harry.”
“Over that?”
“Yes.”
“They’ve only know each other for two days!”
“Shhhh!”
* * *
The walk back out of the theatre and down Piccadilly was very quiet. Harry shoved his hands in his pockets and bumped shoulders with Draco as they pushed through the jostling, laughing late-night crowd. Double-deckers rumbled by laden with people, and the cool air nipped at his cheeks and throat. Harry glanced at his fiancé once, watching as Draco adjusted his scarf to cover his chin. Blond hair gusted about his face.
A gaggle of teenage girls passed in front of them, heading for the tube, and Draco caught Harry’s arm, silently preventing him from being herded down onto the Victoria line. Harry gazed at his shiny shoes until the crowd thinned, then walked on, looking straight ahead.
“Thought we might…” He gestured toward the edge of Hyde Park, just coming into view through the thin fog.
“Yes.” Draco gave a curt nod. His eyes flickered to Harry’s and then away again. At the edge of the park, Harry left the sidewalk and Draco followed, their shoes making a soft swish-swish sound in the grass. The sounds of the street faded as they moved away toward the trees.
Harry glanced at Draco and found his fiancé looking back at him out of the corner of his eye. Draco abruptly looked away, raising his chin and sniffing the air.
“Like the play?” Harry ventured presently. Draco shrugged, and nodded.
“Exquisite sonnets.”
“Yeah.”
“You?”
“Liked that Queen Mab bloke.”
“Mm.”
They walked on. Harry blew on his hands through his gloves.
“Ridiculous premise, though,” Draco said at last.
Harry let out a soft snort. “Barmy. Who falls in love the instant they meet someone?”
“Certainly not me.”
More walking. The moon was a bright crescent, peeking through the cloud cover. Harry looked sidelong at Draco and was caught for an instant by the silver glint of his hair. The silence was soothing, underscored by the muted rumble of traffic and voices.
“Harry.”
Harry looked up and found Draco gazing at him, one eyebrow cocked.
“Yeah.”
“Let’s not fight over something so stupid.”
“No.”
“They’re not worth it. Any of them.”
“Overly dramatic anyway.”
Draco nodded and looked forward again. His hand brushed Harry’s where it swung at his side. Harry’s stomach fluttered and he eased his fingers gently around Draco’s. The other man’s cheeks flushed and he leaned in toward Harry’s body, a warm line pressing up his side.
“Not gutting myself over you, Harry.”
“Wouldn’t ask you to.”
Draco’s smile was bright under the moon.
...
Part 9: No Such Cake
...
Okeedokee. This fic series is far from over. FAR. But I am going to be taking a bit of a break from it so I can get some other stuff together, stuff that has been waiting patiently for my attention. Do not fear; I will definitely be coming back for more of the Marriage Arc.
Tidbits to look forward to: a certain mini-Grangley, cake-tasting, and Narcissa's "revenge" of a sorts. Plus, Harry runs into someone he most certainly didn't expect. ^_^
Author: me
Pairing: H/D
Rating: PG-13
Summary: One night, one play, and one very unhappy couple.
Disclaimer: The boys aren't mine. Neither is the play. Points to anyone who can figure out which one it is, and who wrote it.
Marriage Arc parts One Two Three Four Five Six Seven
Part 8:
Overly Dramatic
Draco’s program sat stonily on the floor between Harry’s feet. Harry looked stonily down at it. Draco looked stonily at Harry.
“Stonily” was fast becoming the perfect word to describe this week.
Saturday night in Piccadilly Circus, laughing people everywhere outside, good-natured chatter from the theatre-goers all around him, and Harry, quite frankly, wanted nothing better than to bite Draco’s head right off his pompous shoulders. And if his fiance’s expression was anything to go by, then the feeling was very, very mutual.
It was the first week Draco had had off in months; apparently it had been given to him by his exasperated employer because Draco couldn’t stop snapping at his assistants for interrupting his carefully crafted schedule of wedding planning and potions licensing. The weary older wizard had shooed Draco out the door a week ago last Friday, telling him to get your bloody wedding in order, for Salazar’s sake, Malfoy, please, before I have to sack you and you’re forced to go without a suitable chandelier in the reception hall because you don’t have enough Galleons!
Harry had been overjoyed. Up through the following Sunday.
It wasn’t as if Draco had even been doing any of the planning, Harry thought nastily. Oh no. They were supposed to have a seating arrangement for the guests by now. A cake tasted and decided upon. Appropriate wedding party members notified on Draco’s side. And what did they have? Hermione, determined to pick out a dress ensemble before Pansy Parkinson was even aware that she was going to be in the wedding. Two cancelled cake-tasting appointments at the finest wizarding bakery in the country. And a seating situation that was starting to resemble a Slytherin-Gryffindor Quidditch match.
Tonight, the beginning of a new weekend of rest and relaxation, had been wonderful.
“Oh, please, Potter. As if I would push my own mother back to the second aisle.”
“Funny. I didn’t think we were even inviting her after what she tried.”
“She happens to be paying for half of this wedding, so like it or not, she’s coming.”
“Since when are you on speaking terms with her?”
“Don’t you dare blame me for this! She insisted. And I didn’t even get to talk to her anyway, Potter. There wasn’t time to refuse before the damned house-elf cut the Floo off.”
“Well, she can’t sit in the first aisle. It’s full.”
“Then move someone.”
“Not a chance, Draco, we can’t just go around switching up seats!”
“Well, maybe I don’t want your bloody friends sitting right under my bloody nose, staring at my bloody back and thinking how bloody nice it would be if they could just leap up at the right bloody time and object to the whole bloody thing!”
“They bloody well will not do that! And stop saying ‘bloody!’”
“They sodding well will, and you know it! The Weaslette alone will bring a bullhorn.”
“Not if your dear friend Bulstrode doesn’t decide to show up late out of spite and ruin the whole damn wedding!”
“Potter, maybe if you would actually look at her like she’s a human being, she wouldn’t scowl at you all the time!”
“Maybe if she stopped saying how much of a boon to society it would be if I fell off the face of the earth and let her into your pants where she belongs, I would!”
“Come off it, she stopped doing that months ago. Besides, do you think I like having to threaten Finnigan with Unforgivables just so that he’ll keep his hands off your arse at pubs?”
“He was drunk!”
“Oh, I don’t think he was as far gone as you’d like to believe, Potter.”
“So that explains why he keeps magically getting assigned to a folding chair in the front atrium instead of a seat in the actual church then, Malfoy?”
“Why don’t you tell him to fuck off, then? If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were hoping for a fallback Gryffindor.”
“Oh, I see. Planning on a temporary marriage, are you?”
“Potter, when I marry, I marry for life, you arse. Our life! Not the lives of whichever Weasel accidentally crosses me off his or her guest list at Christmas parties.”
“Tell your friends to stop shunning my friends at all their little overly cultured get-togethers then!”
“Maybe if your friends stopped making my friends feel like inferior Grindylow feces, they wouldn’t!”
“Maybe if your friends didn’t keep calling my friends Mudbloods and blood traitors behind their backs, they would!”
“Maybe you should have a more exclusive selection process for friends, Potter!”
“Maybe you should have a less exclusive one, Malfoy!”
It all culminated in this moment, seconds before the curtain lifted, with Draco’s program on the floor between Harry’s shiny black, ill-fitting shoes – which he was wearing at Draco’s insistence, no less – and Draco refusing to pick the bloody thing up.
Well. Damned if Harry was going to get it for him. He looked resolutely ahead at the heavy velvet curtains shielding the stage from view. Draco stared at him for a moment, then let out a short huff of air and crossed his arms over his chest, scowling. Harry felt a lovely wave of satisfaction flow over him.
“Potter.”
“Yes.”
“Will you please hand me my program.”
“I don’t see any reason to.”
“What?”
“Well. You must know the entire repertoire of this acting company verbatim, considering how cultured you purebloods are. I, on the other hand, might need a second program to help me through the play.”
Draco let out a word that drew the gazes of several of their fellow box occupants. He leaned over Harry’s leg, shoved it aside unceremoniously, and jerked his program off the floor. Harry was fairly certain that his scowl matched the worst Draco could offer.
Was currently offering, actually.
The lights dimmed. A low tendril of lute music drifted up from somewhere backstage. The curtain began to lift. An expectant hush fell over the audience.
Almost.
“For your information, Potter, I haven’t ever seen this sodding play.”
“Well, bully for you.”
A woman down the row frowned at them from behind oval-framed glasses and sniffed. “Shhhh.”
Draco gave her a charming smile. The woman blushed. Harry ground his teeth.
The play, for its part, began.
* * *
Act I, scene 1
“I can’t bloody understand this.”
“Just shut up and listen, Potter.”
“Oh, and that will help?”
“It’s like a foreign language. You hear it enough, you start to understand it. Of course, it takes a cultured intellect.”
“Prat.”
“Arse.”
“Shhhh.”
Act I, scene 3
"This is stupid, Potter.”
“What?”
“The answer is right bloody there.”
“What?”
“That family has a son. This family has a daughter. Both the same age. It’s obvious what they should do.”
“Not everyone thinks about marriage like you, Malfoy.”
“But these people do, look at them!”
“Well, no one’s thinking about the good that could come of it.”
“Because they’re acting like fools.”
“Shhhh.”
Act II, scene 5
“This is bloody ridiculous.”
“Quiet, Potter.”
"World’s shortest courtship.”
“You are so exasperating. Clearly, the playwright is making a statement about the foolish nature of courtly love.”
“Oh, come on! Their behavior is so silly, Draco.”
“Obviously! You think I don’t know that?”
“Shhhh.”
Act III, scene 1
“I still think he’s an idiot.”
“Well, if Ron up and stabbed Blaise through the gut right in front of your face, you’d probably do the same thing, wouldn’t you?”
“Potter. I would be more levelheaded.”
“Shhhh!”
Act V, scene 3
“Wait. She killed herself?”
“Yes, Harry.”
“Over that?”
“Yes.”
“They’ve only know each other for two days!”
“Shhhh!”
* * *
The walk back out of the theatre and down Piccadilly was very quiet. Harry shoved his hands in his pockets and bumped shoulders with Draco as they pushed through the jostling, laughing late-night crowd. Double-deckers rumbled by laden with people, and the cool air nipped at his cheeks and throat. Harry glanced at his fiancé once, watching as Draco adjusted his scarf to cover his chin. Blond hair gusted about his face.
A gaggle of teenage girls passed in front of them, heading for the tube, and Draco caught Harry’s arm, silently preventing him from being herded down onto the Victoria line. Harry gazed at his shiny shoes until the crowd thinned, then walked on, looking straight ahead.
“Thought we might…” He gestured toward the edge of Hyde Park, just coming into view through the thin fog.
“Yes.” Draco gave a curt nod. His eyes flickered to Harry’s and then away again. At the edge of the park, Harry left the sidewalk and Draco followed, their shoes making a soft swish-swish sound in the grass. The sounds of the street faded as they moved away toward the trees.
Harry glanced at Draco and found his fiancé looking back at him out of the corner of his eye. Draco abruptly looked away, raising his chin and sniffing the air.
“Like the play?” Harry ventured presently. Draco shrugged, and nodded.
“Exquisite sonnets.”
“Yeah.”
“You?”
“Liked that Queen Mab bloke.”
“Mm.”
They walked on. Harry blew on his hands through his gloves.
“Ridiculous premise, though,” Draco said at last.
Harry let out a soft snort. “Barmy. Who falls in love the instant they meet someone?”
“Certainly not me.”
More walking. The moon was a bright crescent, peeking through the cloud cover. Harry looked sidelong at Draco and was caught for an instant by the silver glint of his hair. The silence was soothing, underscored by the muted rumble of traffic and voices.
“Harry.”
Harry looked up and found Draco gazing at him, one eyebrow cocked.
“Yeah.”
“Let’s not fight over something so stupid.”
“No.”
“They’re not worth it. Any of them.”
“Overly dramatic anyway.”
Draco nodded and looked forward again. His hand brushed Harry’s where it swung at his side. Harry’s stomach fluttered and he eased his fingers gently around Draco’s. The other man’s cheeks flushed and he leaned in toward Harry’s body, a warm line pressing up his side.
“Not gutting myself over you, Harry.”
“Wouldn’t ask you to.”
Draco’s smile was bright under the moon.
...
Part 9: No Such Cake
...
Okeedokee. This fic series is far from over. FAR. But I am going to be taking a bit of a break from it so I can get some other stuff together, stuff that has been waiting patiently for my attention. Do not fear; I will definitely be coming back for more of the Marriage Arc.
Tidbits to look forward to: a certain mini-Grangley, cake-tasting, and Narcissa's "revenge" of a sorts. Plus, Harry runs into someone he most certainly didn't expect. ^_^
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 02:52 pm (UTC)From:Heh, Narcissa has plans for them, no worries. ^_^
Love you. Thanks so much, dearest!