Holiday

Holiday by Charlotte Sterling

Chapter Two

***

A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

Oscar Wilde

Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't.

William Shakespeare

Nothing is permanent in this wicked world - not even our troubles.

Charlie Chaplin

***

Oh Merlin, I am in so much trouble. Harry thought with mild alarm. He was horrified to discover that an overwhelming urge to laugh had developed within him over the last few seconds. Do not laugh! You are clearly about to die a most gruesome and violent death; laughing will only make your demise more painful. Do not laugh. Do not laugh. Do not-

"Knnrgkt," a sound more suited to a vacuum cleaner than a human leaked from Harry's nose. He squeezed his eyes shut in a futile attempt to stifle it and tried to quash the traitorous grin that had stretched across his face. My own body is turning against me! Do you want to get us killed? After a few more seconds of struggling Harry mercifully regained a slight amount of composure and chanced a glance down at Malfoy.

An eerily calm smile had crept across Malfoy's face. Run! Escape while you can! Shut up, you. Malfoy may be extraordinarily pissed off, and I may be drunk, but he is sun burnt, and... er... shite. He's gonna kill me. This is all your fault. No! Look how skinny he is! And he's such a whining, weak little bastard; we can take him easy...

Harry's internal arguments were cut off quickly as Malfoy drew in a breath and prepared to speak. Harry breathed in as well and focused all his energy on trying to be sober for a moment.

"Potter! Are your lips blue?"

Of the ten thousand possible scenarios that had just run through his head, this one had not occurred to him. He had been prepared for violence; had expected a flying hex or a swinging fist. But this? Harry quickly tried to dissect the situation to see from which angle he was planning his attack. Ah ha! Trying to get me off-track, so you can strike in my moment of weakness! The battle of wits has begun.

"Yes, Malfoy, I believe they are."

Interestingly, this seemed to be exactly the answer Malfoy was looking for. He nodded, nearly imperceptibly, and yawned. It was the long, lazy yawn of a dangerous predator; a panther or a jaguar. Harry noted that Malfoy seemed to have a large number of sharp looking teeth. After yawning and executing an equally disturbing predatory stretch, he turned back to Harry with an expression of mild curiosity.

"How old are you?"

If Harry hadn't been transfixed by Malfoy's chilling gray gaze he would have looked around to make sure the question was directed at him. He hesitated a moment, trying to remember any hexes that required the wizard to know his victims exact age, then answered, against his better judgement. "Er, I'll be seventeen in about two weeks... why?"

Malfoy ignored Harry's question and frowned just a little. He tilted his head to the side and squinted at Harry inquisitively. "How did you convince the Muggles to serve you alcohol, Potter? Did you bribe them?" His eyes widened and a trace of devious delight spread across his lips. "You put them under the Imperious Curse!"

Harry goggled at the accusation. He was about to launch into a diatribe of all the things that were So Very Wrong with Malfoy for charging him with such a ghastly accusation, when Malfoy began grinning wickedly.

"Ha ha, Malfoy, very funny. You would think of something like that." Am I actually having this conversation? With Malfoy? "And what makes you think I'm even drinking?" Harry realized the awesome stupidity of the question even as it sprang from his mouth. He would have slapped his hand to his face, if the action would not have further proved his glaring lie to be exactly that.

Malfoy flashed his unsettling lazy cat grin again. "Don't even try to play innocent with me, Potter. Honestly, the only thing worse than a Gryffindor, is a drunken Gryffindor trying to lie about it and failing spectacularly. Besides, you'd have had to be drinking to physically assault a Malfoy. Answer my question."

Draco Malfoy was the only person Harry had ever seen who could command an air of regal dignity and superiority while wearing green dragon swim trunks and sporting a rather lopsided sunburn. "Why do you want to know?" Harry asked with a mocking sneer. "Are you going to tell? Try to get me in trouble?"

"Would I do that?"

Harry answered this with a pointed stare and a raised eyebrow. "For your information, no one has asked me if I am old enough to be drinking and no one seems to mind either." After a brief pause, he added, "I think it's the accent."

Malfoy looked Deeply Annoyed. "Damned bloody famous Harry Sodding Potter! I should have known."

"What are you on about?"

"Well, Potter, for your information, I have been trying all day to obtain a refreshing beverage of the alcoholic nature to ease my boredom, using an accent very similar to yours, I might add, with no success, whatsoever. Whereas you -you- look like a twelve year old and have no problems getting anything you want. Sodding celebrity!"

"Malfoy, they have no idea 'who I am' here." Harry scowled, making quotation marks in the air to illustrate the phrase. "And my Uncle's paying for it, so I figured 'why not?' And... what are you doing here, anyway?"

"Getting a bloody sunburn, obviously." Malfoy said with a slight grimace as he shifted in his chair and picked up a nearby cup. He inspected the tiny pink umbrella resting in the drink, then plucked it and the straw from the glass; throwing them over his shoulder. He took several large sips.

Harry reminded himself to stay alert after noticing the fiendish glint in Malfoy's eyes. Constant Vigilance! "You didn't answer my question."

Malfoy tipped the glass back again and drank, while malevolently eyeing Harry over the top. After licking his lips, he smirked. "No, I really didn't, did I?"

He would have been annoyed by Malfoy's evasive answers and snooty glares, but was suddenly distracted by something even more irritating. Snatching the half-empty cup from Malfoy with a horrified gasp, he exclaimed, "Malfoy, you bastard, that's mine!"

Malfoy chuckled evilly. "Yes, and it was very good. Thanks, Potter."

After peering into the little remaining blue slush, Harry handed it back to him. "Here, keep it, it's got your germs all over it now and I'd prefer not to spend the rest of my life soaking in a vat of penicillin."

Malfoy took the drink back and finished it off promptly. As he did so, Harry had a chance to examine his sunburn more closely. He had apparently been asleep in the same position for quite a while. The backs of his arms and legs, his back and neck, and the left side of his face were all bright pink.

With a satisfied sigh, Malfoy threw the cup over his shoulder. It landed in a pile with the umbrella and straw. He then turned back to Harry and gave him an ruthless smirk.

Harry's suicidal urge to laugh returned as he noted that, in addition to a fantastically humorous sunburn, Malfoy's lips were now also blue. Along with this thought came the vague realization that he somehow managed to find himself in the weirdest situations.

The way Harry saw it, he had three choices; he could either hit Malfoy again, leave or stay to annoy the blasted, loathsome, blue-lipped ferret. Ruling out the first two options because he had a strict policy of never being the one to back down from any challenge involving Malfoy and because his rum weakened body was warning him about the assuredly humiliating consequences of a physical altercation, Harry put his plan into action. Besides, A Really Cunning Plot was surely afoot; Malfoys did not sunbathe beside pools in foreign countries without a good reason.

"Er, Malfoy...?"

Malfoy remained still, only raising his eyebrow a little higher to acknowledge that he was listening.

"I was wondering, not that I'm complaining, although it would certainly be less, er, strange if you did... Of course, anything you do is naturally going to be a little odd..."

"Spit it out, Potter."

"Well, why is it, exactly, that you aren't trying to kill me? Or something equally, er, customary? Okay, yeah, it's hot outside. But honestly, you could make a little effort. You're my arch-nemesis, for Merlin's sake! Well, apart from my other arch-nemesises... uh, nemesissies...?"

"Ah, Potter, you noticed my nefarious plan." Some people are born with a talent for humbling others with their scathing and bitingly dry sarcasm, and their name is Draco Malfoy. "Curses, my sinister scheme is foiled. The enemy has somehow seen through my clever ruse... Look, I'll be honest with you- "

He was cut off by a derisive snort from Harry.

Ignoring him, Malfoy continued, "I am sitting here in the hottest sodding place on earth. I am bored out of my skull. I am suffering the most unusual sunburn, ever. And I'm very much in need of something- even a few butterbeers would do at this point- to ease the pain of being stuck in such a godforsaken desert wasteland. I simply don't have the energy or the desire to engage in our usual antics."

"Are you feeling okay, Malfoy?"

"No, you git. Do I look okay? Don't answer that. I'm just saying 'what's the bloody point of trying our damndest to murder each other over here?' There aren't even any decent weapons. What am I going to do? Stab you to death with your little pink umbrella? Even you would catch on before I could make any real progress. Anyway, don't you think it's time we stopped acting like immature and wretched children?"

Harry wondered vaguely if one of the symptoms of heatstroke was a startling lack of animosity toward ones arch-nemesissiseses. Or if perhaps someone had slipped a Pacifidus Potion into Malfoy's Cheerios that morning. "Er, that's awfully weird- I mean mature- of you to say..."

"Yes, it is. I am a paragon of all things elegant and civilized."

"Well, I wouldn't go that far-"

"Silence, Potter. I am a fount of maturity. In fact, in the spirit of concordance, I'll even make a deal with you."

Uh oh. Here it comes. "And what would that be?"

"Simply this- I'll agree not to devise any cunning plots that would lead to your tragic and highly entertaining demise, if you'll keep me properly hydrated. And by 'properly,' I mean alcohol."

"What? You're saying that if I keep you drunk you won't be such a bastardous prat? That's your 'elegant and civilized' plan? You expect me to agree to that?"

"Well, it sounded much better when I said it, but yes," Malfoy replied, holding out his hand.

Harry was immediately struck with the memory of a much younger Malfoy in a similar situation. He flashed back to a Malfoy with a slightly less hardened expression, but the same cool and calculating expression. An expression that unintentionally revealed a fading ghost's echo of nervous anticipation as he stood outside the Great Hall of Hogwarts; his hand offered to Harry in friendship. Harry thought of that scene every time he had found himself on the receiving end of Malfoy's wrath and always wondered if things could have been different. Having a sinisterly scheming Master of Mayhem working for your side is always an asset.

He never would be sure if it was the aching loneliness that he had been feeling more strongly than ever during the last few days, the copious amounts of slushy tropical goodness he had consumed, the sheer morbid curiosity of how a Malfoy would behave in such a strange setting, or the final delicious musings from Malfoy himself on the subject-

"Just think of how appalled your noble little Gryffindor friends would be."

-but something made Harry reach out his hand, after only a moment of hesitation, to grasp Malfoy's firmly.

"Deal."

Malfoy looked calmly pleased, but Harry was sure that he had also seen another slightly stronger unidentifiable emotion flicker across his face.

"Excellent. I'll have another one of those," Malfoy said, gesturing to the empty cup behind him, "but not blue. You look bloody ridiculous with blue lips, Potter."

Harry considered informing Malfoy that, he too, was a member of the Bloody Ridiculous Blue Lips Club, but decided to let it be. It was time for a refill, anyway, so Harry didn't mind walking to the bar and ordering two Waikiki Woo Woos. He even noticed a little spring in his step as he returned to where Malfoy sat; carefully positioned to allow sun on the parts of his body that were not already bright red and smiling only a little wickedly.

Harry handed Malfoy his drink, then stood next to him, uncertain of what to do next. After a moment Malfoy noticed Harry's vacillation.

"Well," he said, patting the lounge chair next to him, "are you going to stand there all day or what?" Reeling again with the surrealism of the situation, Harry sat down.

"Thanks for the drink," Malfoy said quietly, as if he were not used to expressing gratitude. "Oh, and Potter, since we're going to try this whole 'not killing each other' thing, you may call me Draco."

Harry kept his head straight but his eyes zipped over to Malfoy. "Okay, er, Draco." The name felt strange on his tongue; like trying to pronounce something in a different language. Still looking straight ahead at the pool, he continued, "And you can call me Harry."

"Naturally."

This goes against the very laws of nature and everything that is sane in the world.

Highly Gryffindorish emotions of guilt, suspicion and loathing tried to creep into Harry's consciousness. Malfoy was the enemy. He was responsible for a large part of Harry's misery over the last six years. He had openly expressed contempt of all the things that Harry stood for. He was evil and vile. Harry's friends, self-appointed 'family' and professors would have been appalled. Why then, instead of shame and remorse, did the image of their shocked faces give him an odd twinge of delight?

Harry caught the brief smile in his peripheral vision; the first true and unguarded grin he had ever seen on, er... Draco. It suited him. Harry wondered if they had been thinking the same thing moments earlier. He grinned back.

Ah, screw it all. I'm on holiday. The last meddlesome whispers of uncertainty died quietly and scattered in the wind.

The sun was warm and the cool breeze was refreshing. A peaceful silence settled over them as they sat sipping their drinks and staring out at the water.