𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐘 𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐌𝐀𝐆𝐔𝐒 2008

Snakes and Ladders (3/3)

Snakes and Ladders Part 3 of 3

The silvery light of the three-quarter moon fell in a wide stripe across the bed and a pleasant cool breeze wafted into the room through the half open window. Harry lay in an awkward tangle of sheets, wide awake and uncomfortable. Next to him Ginny lay sleeping peacefully.

Harry sat up and untangled himself from the sheets, straightening them out and covering Ginny properly before once more lying down. It was impossible! He couldn’t sleep next to her. Not after Draco and the past month and a half. Unpleasant feelings of unease, guilt and a deep sense of wrongness churned inside him. How could he go back to sleeping and living and laughing with his wife as if nothing had happened, nothing had changed?

Harry tossed and turned for a couple of minutes longer before giving up and transforming. Maybe as a snake it would be easier. Maybe the simplified and distanced perspective that the snake’s consciousness afforded would help.

It didn’t. The scent and presence of Ginny grew stronger and wronger. It was the familiar scent of someone beloved and dear, but it wasn’t the scent he craved, the scent of his lover. In the snake’s mind, all his logical explanations and reasons started to feel trivial and circumstantial. The snake felt restless in this place he no longer belonged.

Harry slithered up the bed’s headboard to the windowsill. Following a whim, he slid out the window and wound his way down the flowering wisteria till he reached the cool damp grass of the garden. His sensitive senses were assaulted by the smells and sounds of the summer night. The garden was beautiful and familiar and almost as dear to him as the people sleeping in the house. A strong wave of melancholy stole over Harry. Even the snake seemed to be in a thoughtful and introspective mood tonight.

Hogwarts had broken up for the summer holidays and earlier today he had joined Ginny and an exuberant Lily at King’s Cross to welcome James and Albus home. He had seen Draco further down the platform with his ex-wife as he too waited for his son. It felt strange, returning to the old distance between them. It had seemed like a parody of the previous September, when they had stood in almost exactly the same positions. Everything seemed to be the same, and yet it was not and never would, could, be. Harry, no matter what Draco said, could not return to his old life.

And now Harry was once more home. Once more back with his wife and children. But home was no longer a place he felt like he completely belonged. The nagging feeling he’d persistently ignored for the last decade, that all was not well, was now a glaring certainty. No matter how much he loved his children and didn’t want to let his wife down, he found that he no longer had the fortitude to return to the numb incomplete life of before. The past few months at Malfoy Manor he had been confronted with what he desired but had given up hope of ever attaining. Now that he felt whole and completely alive again, he found that he was greedy and selfish. He wanted it all: a lover he desired, the love of his children, and the friendship and understanding of his wife.

Harry sighed; the snake hissed mournfully. All the time he had spent at the manor he had been plagued by desire, both for the man who obviously wanted him and for the chance to finally experience what he had only covertly dreamed of for so long, and by a heavy sense of duty and trust that commanded him to be strong and not to give in to fleeting sensual pleasures. But he was only human, and he had not been able to resist stealing a kiss. Stealing a kiss that had turned his world on its head, because he found that he would gladly break promises and betray trusts for another kiss like that.

It was with great difficulty that he had fought the losing battle of not giving in. He had been torn apart by longing and guilt until he was confused and delirious, until it had been too easy to fall. Each night he had dreamt of Draco and each morning had remembered Ginny. And then with a few well-placed words Draco had made him more jealous than Ginny ever had. After that he had lost the battle; seeing Draco with another man had only been the final straw. He had let himself drown in the unknown bliss that was Draco; sleeping with Draco, waking up with Draco, laughing and talking with Draco. Harry hadn’t felt so carefree and happy and satisfied in too many years to count. And yet, whenever Draco wasn’t there he was wracked with uncertainty and guilt, but still he couldn’t stop what he had begun, he couldn’t give up what he had found.