The Snitch

Epilogue: Part One

By Libertine

       

The room was filled to bursting. Draco peered apprehensively around the curtain at the crowd, and the rowdy cheers which met him caused him to flush bright red. Graduation day, and they were all there – not only his classmates, but also their parents. And his parents, too, Draco thought, unhappily – Lucius and Narcissa were out there somewhere, awaiting their son's debut to the stage.

His parents hadn't been particulary pleased to know about Draco's affair with Harry. In fact, Narcissa still couldn't look at him directly – she was probably cursing herself for that time she'd made him put on a dress in order to appease her desperate desire to have a girl child in the family. But at least Lucius had managed to swallow his pride. After a month of stolid silence from Lucius, his father had owled him during his exams the previous year.

The message had been breif but comforting. Lucius didn't see the ‘Potter-phase’ as a cause for great shame – it wasn't something done, of course, but at least Draco had chosen a worthy and famous partner. So long as Draco was willing to produce offspring to continue the majestic Malfoy line ( Lucius hadn't mentioned how, exactly ) then Draco could still be assured that his father loved him.

But the greatest relevation had been near the letter's conclusion, where a few offhand remarks suggested that Lucius had once felt a certain something for the young James Potter – back in the day. Who would have guessed it? Draco grinned now, despite himself. History repeats itself – and opposites again show their remarkable tendancy to polarise each other with secret longing..

He chanced another look into the crowd. Behind him, one of Harry's friends, the Irish boy, nudged him in the back.

"Would you get on, Malfoy," Seamus grinned. "Are you really going to do this, or just dither the night away?"

"This is so utterly demeaning," Draco lamented.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," said Seamus, brightly. "You look rather attractive – for a weedy British git, that is. Did you shave your legs?"

"No," Draco grunted, pulling the satin slip lower over his knees. He was wondering if perhaps he'd taken it all a little far. Singing – that was fine, he'd always had a husky voice, and he practised often enough in the showers. But dressing up for the part? He was regretting the clinging black material – it was all too revealing. Trust Harry to pick the shortest dress he could find; the neckline plunged almost to Draco's navel.

"They look fairly – um, shaved to me," said Seamus, still grinning.

"I said I didn't shave them," Draco snapped. "I didn't mention that Harry did."

Seamus doubled over with laughter, and Draco rolled his eyes.

"Oh for goodness sake," he muttered. "Hit the lights. If I'm going to make a fool of myself, I might as well do so with style."

"Very Malfoy of you," said Seamus, appreciatively, and trotted off.

       

Sitting at his front-row table, Harry had been attempting to coerce Vincent and Gregory into conversation – but the bulky duo were evidently unimpressed with him, no matter how much their ringleader enjoyed Harry's company. They shuffled their feet and answered Harry in monosyllables until Harry gave up, and turned around to shrug, hopelessly, at Ron and Hermione.

"What did you expect?" Hermione whispered. "They're troglodites, the pair of them."

"Anything they can't hit or eat is of no interest," Ron agreed. "I don't understand what Draco sees in them."

"Don't be quick to judge," Harry warned him. "That's what you said about Draco, not so long ago."

"At least Draco has fashion sense," muttered Hermione, and then looked up. "Oh, hush! Here he comes."

Harry was about to point out that it was only herself Hermione was hushing, but his words caught in his throat as he turned his eyes to the makeshift stage. Elegant and be-skirted, Draco was emerging from clouds of wand-smoke, heading toward the microphone – Harry had bought an old-style muggle mic on a stand, just so the image would be completely flawless. Draco's silver-blonde hair, now long enough to brush his shoulders, fell seductively over one sparkling grey eye.

When he stared out at the crowd, though, Draco didn't look girlish, despite the black satin slip and the silver shoes he'd borrowed from his mother. He didn't look masculine either, though – instead, he seemed like some angelic creature, sexually ambigious, and awesomely, starkly beautiful, without the aid of the cosmetics he'd refused to accept from Lavender.

Draco swished his skirt experimentally as he clasped the microphone. The crowd was too shocked – too utterly awed by the sight of them that any jeers or bawdy comments they might have made died on their lips. Draco had that effect on people: he could silence a room just by entering it.

"Give me back my program, Harry," Ron said, under his breath. "It's not as if everyone doesn't know what you're doing underneath it."

"Shut up," said Harry, in a strained voice.

"Hi, all," said Draco, with a sudden grin. "Now that we've all graduated – seems like a perfect time to go a little crazy, right?"

The crowd laughed, most of them with relief, more than thankful for the excuse to release the building tension.

"All right, settle down," Draco drawled. "And the first person who catches a happy-snap of me in this state will get a bogart under the bed. Finnegan, where ever you are – cue the track, hm?"

A purr of jazz drawled its way through the room, a sexy Dusty Springfield number that Harry had heard once in a Muggle music store, and hadn't since been able to get it completely out of his mind. Draco minced to the microphone, playing the part of the husky club diva to the hilt, and began:

"In the cool of the evening when everything is getting kind of groovy.."

Harry thought he might faint. Draco was staring him right in the eye as he sang – and maybe his voice wasn't as sweet as Dusty's was, but each word was invested with the pure, unadulterated sexiness of Draco's soul. He cradled the mic as if it were a body, but his touch was tentative – his fingers would coil and uncoil, as if unsure of how much he wanted to give.

"I get confused, I never know where I stand, and then you smile and hold my hand.."

"He's good," Hermione commented, from beside Harry.

"Would you shut the hell up?" Ron hissed at her.

"If you decide someday to stop this little game that you are playin', I'm gonna tell you all the things my heart's been a-dyin' to be saying. Just like a ghost, you been a-hauntin' my dreams, but now I know – you're not what you seem.."

And now Draco was leaning in close – he'd left the mic standing, and had fallen almost to his knees, with the slit of the slip dress revealing a perilous expanse of toned, pale thigh. His fingers touched the edge of the stage, and he leant forwards – gone was the pathos, the prettiness, the fragility of his act. In Draco's stance there was only a predatory lust, all feeling and emotion claimed and held star-struck in those shimmering grey eyes. And Harry could feel it palpably, the bond which tied them, as strong as he felt it when the snitch had allowed him to see straight into Draco's heart.

Except this time, Draco gave the knowledge willingly, and so much more.

"Love is kinda crazy with a spooky little wizard like you," Draco sung – those silly, pretty words drawled in a hoarse whisper which managed to incense every nerve in Harry's body to contraction. And then Draco extended his hand, and tossed something to Harry. Harry reached up and caught it, automatically – and then Draco was rising, and smirking out across the crowd.

"Well, boys and girls. I hope you've been adequately entertain–"

But his next words were lost in the shreiking applause.

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