Microfic Day 3: Horizon

@microficmay

@microficmay Day 2: Resplendent

Voldemort stood at the edge of the ballroom, watching as Bellatrix took part in a group dance that involved switching between multiple partners, content in the knowledge that none of the wizards she wove between meant anything to her; she was simply dancing for the fun of it.

Bella was always gorgeous but there were two things that made her come alive like nothing else: fighting and dancing. Voldemort greatly enjoyed watching her do either but felt more relaxed when it was dancing, and he was free of the persistent worry that she might be hurt or worse. Tonight, she was resplendent in a deep blue gown with several diamonds affixed to it, calling to mind the night sky from which she had gotten her name. Most of the witches around her had tied their hair up into buns or complicated braids, but she let hers fly free as though it was doing a dance all its own. The diamonds, her dark eyes and the occasional stray curl reflected the candlelight as she twirled, making her look ethereal, divine even, in the dim light. Appropriate for such a goddess. Certainly, the only one beside himself he’d ever had any faith in.

As the dance came to an end, her eyes found his. He gave her a smile and she returned it in full force. With a tilt of his head, he beckoned her forth, determined that her next dance would be in his arms.

On ao3:

microfic may day 2 - resplendent

Draco wakes with his alarm. Cleans his teeth, his face. Shirt, trousers, grey robes. 

8:55 — tea and small talk, the daily team all hands. 

1 PM — lunch. Turkey. Sat on a bench, outside. 

A breeze, soft and warm, lifts the hair from his brow. 

Draco squints into the light.

Harry and Draco came to their agreement at Ginny Weasley and Pansy Parkinson’s wedding. After nearly three years of evading conversation, Harry knew dodging Draco would no longer be sustainable. It was a problem for a different day, as Harry was focused on working himself up to cross the dance floor to get more to drink.

The dress Ginny wore was no one’s but her own, despite Molly's protests. Harry thought it was fitting; she was so unlike any other person Harry had ever met. He thought no bride had ever been so utterly resplendent in her happiness as his best friend was. 

“Potter,” Draco Malfoy said, suddenly appearing at Harry’s side and dropping into the chair next to him without asking. 

Harry’s mouth twitched as he fought a smile. “Malfoy.”

The beginning of the universe, according to the church the Dursleys sparingly attended, was a story Harry could only remember in bits and pieces. What stuck out to him the most was the time it had taken: seven days. Rubbish, Harry had thought. Seven days wasn’t enough time for that kind of creation.

But seven days was all it had taken for Harry to fall in love, and love was a brand new universe inside of his chest, expansive with opportunities and images of the future that made his skin hot and ribs ache. He fiddled with his thumbs and stared at an idly passing car, dreaming up alternate universes. Would they be holding hands? Could Harry kiss him?

“We do alright as temporary friends, don’t we?” Draco asked, not quite meeting Harry’s eye. Their elbows brushed on the railing of the balcony. Inside the house, someone laughed, though it was muffled. “Our week-long experiment was a success, I suppose.”

Harry felt the spinning galaxy locked behind his ribs shudder; hope was so fragile. Clearing his throat, he nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I knew we’d be able to. Seven days isn’t very long.”

With a hum, Draco said, “You know, a month would be a real challenge.” 

“A month?” Harry glanced at Draco, who was staring off at the sky and the stars like poked holes dotting through it. Draco’s jaw was clenched, ruining any attempt to look casual. Seven days had been enough for Harry to fall in love. Surely Harry could make sure Draco caught up with him in a month. 

Draco raised an eyebrow when Harry’s thoughts continued to drag out the silence between them. “You don’t think we could be friendly for an entire month?” 

“I think a month is plenty of time to create a friendship,” Harry said, and Draco smiled, his teeth glimmering in the dark like the stars in the night sky.

Draco had been raised within the macrocosm of good taste. 

The Manor, obviously, was beautiful. From its magnificent Anatolian rugs, textiles in such surplus they sometimes lay stacked two or three deep, to the quiet, pale giants of Tuscan, Doric and Corinthian looming over floors of agarwood or pink ivory. Each wall was imbued with a deliberate moment - linenfold paneling, secret passages, carved English ivy crawling toward the ceiling, rendered in bas relief and enchanted with thick, verdant scent. 

He’d learned that beauty has a strict definition - something is beautiful when it is careful, intentional, immaculate.

And, of course. Potter leaves that marble a rubbled ruin, too.

It’s early enough in the afternoon and the day’s fat with promise, though Draco plans to avoid most of it, hunched over the backlog of a tedious to-do list until the relentless hollering of his own name sullies the open window of the study. 

“What?” Draco snaps, ten minutes later, blinded momentarily in the sun and taking the steps down to the grass two at a time. He squints, eyes adjusting. “I’m already behind on everything I need to do today, and it’s not like your self-assigned garden project has a deadline, the way-” 

The rest of the words reduce to breath, and then that’s gone, too.

Under the cracked open sky, Harry looks up at him, smirk-ready, dirt-smeared on the gleam of his cheekbone. A mess through and through. Between the grimy, huge sleeveless shirt, the age-gnawed denim and the sweat, there’s nothing careful or immaculate about him at all. He’s wrist deep in the earth, using his hands the way he madly insists on doing. It drives Draco wild - and then, in the lowlit belly of night, or early some mornings, or on afternoons exactly like this one it drives him wild again, in an entirely different way. 

“I wanted to show you something,” Harry says, and wipes his sweat-slunk hair out of his eyes with the back of his brown hand, dragged on the brown line of neatly muscled forearm. Every part of him warm, shining. 

It makes the nerves on Draco’s fingers twist up and dream of touch. And how absurd, to dream of something you’ve held and held and held. Will hold, and hold and-

He means the flowers: the loamy altar of daffodils and tiger lilies he’s kneeling before, that he's made, because Potter’s as sensitive with symbolism as a hammer on crème brûlée. It’s an intentional and lovely thing, but at this moment, Draco couldn’t care less about intentionally lovely things.

Potter looks so beautiful even the concept of light is thrown into question - nothing might have ever been this bright, this glowing, this radiant. 

The smirk is full-grown. Harry jerks his chin. 

“Hey. Eyes on the ground, please.”

for day 2 of @microficmay

My shop is small, with a workroom in the back and a flat upstairs. The tintinnabulation of wind chimes keep me company as I sit on my front step and greet the new day with a cup of Earl Grey.

My life is far from splendour, but it is mine.

<< | >>

2: Resplendent

If he wasn’t blind, he was witless. Draco drank in the gentle curve of her back, her tawny skin bronzed by the candlelight. The delicate golden chain dangling down her back pointed towards luxurious curves, encased in merlot-soaked silk. He groaned, mired in regret. He should have asked Granger first.

@microficmay

Microfic May Day 2: Resplendent

@microficmay

Life in Draco’s eyes was blanketed in a haze. Full of dull grays and mediocre splendors. Until he started working with Hermione.

She was all warm, rich, earthy browns and shimmering gold. Her lips, a rosy pink. Her blush resplendent against her skin when she pressed her mouth against his.

{Microfic May} 2. Resplendent

🍊Resplendent🍊

His parents are whispering conspiratorially at the far end of the dining table. Draco crosses the room, settling in at the empty chair to his father's right, and, ignoring the heaping trays of eggs and sausages, serves himself half a grapefruit, sticky and pink, while they mutter. They both greet him quickly, his mother smiling her adoration, his father gripping his arm jovially, and then they carry on, whispering in anxious, eager nonsense that only the two of them really understand. They are in the throes of concocting a great scheme, Draco knows, and will clue him in at some point; they always do these days, when it takes all hands on deck to get things done for the Malfoys and the Manor and the Money.

The war had driven his parents mad. Both of them, his Azkaban parolee of a father and his Black-born mother. What else is he supposed to think when things have changed so much? When they all sit at the same end of the ancient mahogany table for meals and his mother hugs him often and his father grips his shoulder and tells Draco how very proud he is?

Draco has always trusted his parents implicitly. Has always known they have always done what they thought was best. But now it's evident how much they rely on him to be steadfast and surefooted. They've long included him and conspired with him, but it wasn't until they sat him down on his 18th birthday and told him that they loved him, that he would bring the Malfoys into the future, that he realized he couldn't trust their judgment; the tricky parts of the schemes would just have to go to him from that moment on, Draco decided.

"What do you think, Draco?"

He blinks, turns his attention to his mother. "Sorry?"

His father unveils the front page of the Prophet like it's the Nimbus 2001 (pending creation - Blaise'd gotten a summer internship in Nimbus's development department and had shared covert sketches of its design and Salazar, Draco itches for it). 

Harry Potter- Harry bloody Potter- beams back at him, arm pitched over some poor sucker that looks about ready to be sick, and the headline howls, Potter’s Lost the Plot! and a sub-header, pressuring readers to turn to page eight for the extra editorial, The Tragedy of Child Stars: Skeeter Shares Heartbreak Over Potter’s Mental-Break.

Draco studies the cover briefly, returning to his fruit when he's satisfied he has no real insight. The war is over; what does Draco care about Harry bloody Potter?

"Draco," his father presses.

"What is Potter doing?" his mother insists.

Draco's eyebrows shoot up, creasing his forehead in a furrow. "How should I know?"

And Draco means it, but he doesn't; that had been his primary purpose in the war after all.

"Draco," Dolohov demands, "What's Potter doing in Piccadilly?"

Or, "Draco," Bellatrix whines, "What's Potter want with my sword?"

Or, most disturbingly, "Draco,” muses the Dark Lord, “Do you suppose he'd come for you?" He most certainly would not. Potter? They hardly know each other!

"He saved your life," his mother offers, as if that equates Draco has some sort of value. Potter would have saved anyone.

"You studied together for six years," his father argues, as if they'd shared houses and dorms, when they had barely even shared classes. Potter hated all the classes Draco loved.

"I don't have any clue how Harry Potter's barmy brain works," sighs Draco, broken record that he is.

A silence settles in as his parents consider this. They take Draco’s opinions seriously now, after all. 

His father hums, places a hand on his wrist. "But you could find out."

Draco, in spite of himself, stiffens. He could find out. He does plan on returning to school, after all. It maybe wouldn't even be hard, if he says he's sorry (he doesn't think it matters if he is or not) and pretends to be a better person than he is (this also probably doesn't matter). Potter Gryffindors eat that sort of self-improvement thing up, don't they?

He looks at his mum, smiling at him, then at his father's hand, warm on his arm. He deflates, exhales through his nose. "I suppose I could," he says, and takes a bitter bite of his grapefruit.

resplendent

INFERNO AT ST MUNGO’S: CHOSEN CAREER UP IN SMOKE!

Harry stares into the camera, flames dancing in his pupils. Pictured below: the charred remains of his scarlet Auror robes, his melted badge.

Ron Vanishes the Prophet. Wipes away Harry’s furious, stinging tears. 

“Promise,” Harry demands.

“He won’t feel a thing.”

Also posting on AO3!

Start at ch 1!

@microficmay

Day 2: Resplendent

I got A LOT closer to the word count this time!!

resplendent

“You paint now?” Harry asks. His voice drifts across the rose bushes lining the Manor pathway. 

Draco, seated under the glimmering aspen tree, looks up. He tucks his sketchbook away and rises hesitantly. Baggy clothes drape his slender frame, cheeks sunken against pallid skin. 

“I meant what I wrote,” Draco says, voice fragile.

Harry nods, feeling the unfamiliar breeze nipping at his face. “I believe you.”

~

67 words for day 2 of @microficmay /

read part 1 here

Resplendent

In the full moon's light, the resplendent orange fungus seemed to spread, covering a small patch of the Forbidden Forest's floor. Severus stood in the middle, Hermione's arm around his waist, as they watched the nocturnal world bloom around them.

Resplendent

For @microficmay day 3 - also on AO3

----

James thought Lily looked resplendent in her wedding gown.

But her smile shone even brighter.

At the altar, she took his hand and moved close. Petunia was her, mostly unwilling, matron of honor. But that could not dim Lily's joy.

James stumbled through his vows, humble that this amazing woman would marry him.

"No take backs, Potter," Lily teased.

"None," James promised.