hp sleep-over

[lobelia321]

The next day, Vincent arrived for a week-long sleep-over.

Draco's mother was away for the week; this was why Vince was there. He would not have been allowed to come for such a long visit otherwise. Draco's mother didn't approve of Vince, nor of Greg, nor of Vince's mother and father and sister, nor of anyone to do with Greg, nor of Draco's father for associating with these people and permitting Draco to run around with their sons. The Crabbes are common, she said, as muck, she said, and the Goyles, well, the Goyles were beyond even that. One did not speak of the Goyles. And yet one had to because darling Lucius would insist, I don't know why, and now it has to be Hogwarts, too, of all places...

Anyhow, mother was at Aunt Belladonna's (OR WHATEVER HER NAME WAS, CHECK THAT LATER) and Vince was over at the mansion. HE'd brought his broom, and they flew about together. He'd also brought his game of WandStaff and they played it endlessly in the parlour,with the sun glaring through the window and the inside cool and the hearth smelling of stone. Elves brought in tea things, and in the afternoon, they opened the windows and Vince pulled out some cigarettes. They sat on the sill and practised shape puffs, and Draco hardly ever coughed anymore.

In the evening, Draco had his bath first and then sat on the edge of the tub while Vince had his. "Look", Vince said and made bubbles fart to the surface, then cracked up with laughing. And, "look", he said again, did something underwater and made his dick stand up out of the foam.

Draco tried to laugh but found his throat to have dried up. Instead, he looked at the mirror which was all steamed up.

"Watch this," Vince said, and Draco had to look. Vince'd piled foam around his semi-erection and proceeded to shake the flocks in all directions. Then he went underwater and cackled until the bathwater churned.

When he came out and stood on the bathmat, still dripping and covered in suds, he said, "Wanna touch it?" So Draco did. But only for a moment.

Later, Draco said, "Don't tell Goyle, will you?" They talked like that, 'Goyle' and 'Crabbe'; they'd been addressing each other by their surnames ever since the summer before Hogwarts. It had been Draco's idea, to be very 'public school boy'.

"Why not?" Vince said. "We do that all the time, Goyle 'n' me."

"What?" Draco said. And was shocked.

One good thing about his mother not being there was that Vince didn't insist on sneaking up on her. Whenever it was hot, Draco's mother went sunbathing in the nude on the upper terrace. Two summers age, Vince and Greg had taken a sudden keen interest in this activity. "Let's ask your mum if we can have a glass of lemonade." "Hey, let's check up on your mum." But then, when they were on the terrace, their cheeks had gone mauve and they'd barely managed to mumble, "Hello, Mrs Malfoy, how are you." All this was excruciating to Draco but asking his mother to desist was an even more embarrassing prospect so he put up with their giggles and tried to imagine Vince's or Greg's mums in the nuddy. That thought, however, made him feel queasy. They were simply not the kinds of mum you could imagine without clothes and headscarves on.

So it was a good thing that his mother was at Aunt WHATEVER's. And his father, well, he didn't really seem to care what Draco got up to as long as he kept out of his father's way and behaved himself when in view. "Glad to see you, son," he said to Vince but Vince only nodded because he was terrified of Draco's father.

Draco didn't invite Vince up the tree. The tree was his. While Vince was there, Draco didn't go into his tree. Except that one night.

He was awoken by noises outside. There was nothing to see outside the window so Draco got up and climbed up on the mullions CHECK FOR CORRECT WORD HERE of the window in the staircase. There was the pot shed, and behind it his tree. Its top was silhouetted in black against the sky. Its trunk was surrounded by lights. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of torches were swarming up and down the trunk, and milling in circles around the base. There was also a low humming noise.

Nobody else mentioned these lights the next day, and Draco forgot about them. He only remembered them years later, and then it was too late to save his tree.

At breakfast, his father said, "I don't want you near that oak tree anymore."

"What?" Draco said and dropped his spoon into his cereal.

His father patted his lips with his napkin. "I don't want to hear any backchat on this. The tree is dangerous, and that is final."

"No,it's not," Draco said, in desperation. "That's my climbing tree."

"One of the gardeners got knocked off the tree last night," his father said shortly. "He died. YOu're not to go near that tree. There are plenty of other trees in the grounds."

He shook out the paper and that was that. Vince shot Draco a look but Draco was dismayed, terribly dismayed. How could the tree kill anybody? The tree wasn't a magic tree. It felt like magic, being up in the tree, but the tree itself wasn't magic. It was just a tree.

It was true, though, that the gardener was gone and that there was a new gardener in his place. He was called Mellors, and he was thick-set and thin-lipped and had a shifty look. At the same time, there was also something strangely compelling about him but Draco didn't figure out what it was until the evening after Vince had gone home and he went skulking up towards his tree. This Mellors popped up out of nowhere, planted his thick legs akimbo and grinned at Draco.

Draco stopped walking.

The gardener didn't move.

Draco opened his mouth to say something, to tell him to go away, when the gardener, to Draco's great surprise,

Comments

[blithesea.livejournal.com]

Hee! Is Draco going to dally with the gamekeeper?

*is gobbling up Lobelia's fiction treats like chocolate*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

This was just a sudden plot bonbon that came to me. A little sideline but to make a bigger point, important for what's to come later in the story. Thank you for gobbling, you are so kind!

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

*glee* . . . and then the gardener . . .

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Did you notice that he is a cross-over from Lady Chatterley's Lover???

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Yes! He gets used in fanfic every now and then. I believe I first saw him in a Horation Hornblower AU. He must be QUITE the gardener!

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Argh. I mean Horatio Hornblower. I think I'll go back to bed.