fantasyfiend09

Title: The Arrangement (13 of 25)
Author:

fantasyfiend09
Word Count: 664
Rating: NC-17 overall
Prompt: Red phone booth
Warning: None
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Notes: Unbetaed.

Harry woke to the sounds of someone moving around his room. His instant of panic vanished as he remembered the night before. Draco was there. Imagining ways to lure Draco back to bed, Harry sat up and blinked open his eyes.

And frowned.

Draco was clearly leaving. He was fully dressed, slipping his wand into his pocket and looking over the room for missing possessions. Harry tried to ignore the heavy weight of disappointment.

Draco met his eye and gave him a distracted smile. "Good morning." Draco walked over and gave Harry a brief kiss on the cheek. "I've got to run." Harry caught the word 'late' as Draco turned and left the room.

Sitting alone in his bed, Harry tried to make sense of the empty feeling in his chest. Why had he assumed that Draco would stay anyway? They would see each other that night at Luna's. Of course Draco would have other things to go with his weekend than spend every moment with Harry. And Harry had other things to do, too.

He felt a rush of annoyance with himself as he realised how clingy he was being. He'd lived alone for years, enjoying the peace and quiet of a Saturday morning to himself to do chores or just relax. Sure there had been some painful adjustment in the autumn when Teddy started Hogwarts, but he'd learned how to fill that extra time with chores, case files, and hobbies. There was no reason for Harry to be feeling lonely when he was socialising more than he had in months.

Well, he was not spending the day moping in bed. He used the toilet and brushed before marching himself downstairs to the kitchen. As he waited on the kettle, he threw cleaning charms around the room, needing more than one Scouring Charm to get the hob sparkling. At the tea seeped, he gathered a load of laundry and put it on.

He had eaten and tidied the living room when he decided he really needed to get out of the house. The restless feeling required fresh air.

Instead of Apparating to Diagon Alley, he chose to bundle up and walk into the village. It was snowy, but not too cold, which made for scenic walking. He passed his neighbours' cottages with their Christmas trees glowing in the windows. Everything was covered in a heavy blanket of white, making the red phone booth at the corner of the main street stand out like a beacon.

Harry smiled at it. He loved the iconic Muggle contraption, even if some of the younger villagers complained how useless it was in the modern age of mobiles. There had been murmurs that the phone company might disconnect it now that no one used it, so old Mrs Garner had taken to using it every Sunday to check in with her son. It was ridiculous to pay the phone booth fees when she lived three doors down, but he loved her for doing it.

By the time he reached the village proper, he felt more like himself again. He waved at Mr Post, who was carrying a bag of groceries home, and ducked into one of the shops to do some Christmas shopping. Teddy would be home from Hogwarts soon, and Harry planned to spoil him with presents, Muggle and magical.

Harry treated himself to lunch at the pub and got caught up watching the football with a few of the villagers. It wasn't Quidditch, but he had grown to appreciate the sport well enough. What he really enjoyed was the antics of the fans. Derrick and Frank, who worked together at a local farm, supported rival teams, and their conversations were always viciously entertaining. More than once, Harry had feared they would come to blows, but Carol who manned the bar always kept them in line.

By the time he was back home with his purchases, he realised it was time to get ready for Luna's party.

Part 14