for @drarrymicrofic prompt wound - red string of fate silliness, 700 words.
The first time Harry felt his string was in the dusty aftermath of the Battle. Most of him hurt, and the rest felt numb, and so it was a few days before he registered the tugging, or discovered the length of scarlet thread wound around his little finger. A soulmate, he thought, with no small degree of bitterness. Something new to worry about.
There was no time for worrying that summer, though. That summer was already spoken for: first Scotland for the rebuild, then back home for the trials, and by the time the wind turned autumn-sharp, Harry’s string had disappeared.
It came back at Christmas.
“It’s nothing,” Harry insisted, as Ginny scrambled off the bed, pale-faced. “Whoever she is, she’s probably in Australia or something. Who cares?”
Ginny did, as it turned out.
She wasn’t the only one, either. Most people pretended it didn’t matter at first, but amid the dying gasps of each failed relationship, there it was again: something sour, something rotten. “I’m not your soulmate, anyway,” they’d mutter, as though they’d been tricked. As though Harry had tricked them.
He began to hide it: wearing gloves over the holidays, tucking his hand beneath long sleeves for those same two weeks every June. He’d feel the pull starting and make his excuses, Apparating home or disappearing upstairs. Alone, though, strangely, he found he didn’t mind it. He rarely saw the red of the string, which disappeared off into nothing; usually the only sign was a bloodless indent, just below the nail bed. He’d run his finger over and over the notch and picture a formless someone doing the same at the other end.
“I mean, it’s got to be worth checking out, right?” he said to Ron, tugging on his rucksack outside the Portkey station. “Maybe it’s why I have such shit luck in love.”
But she – or he, as Harry increasingly suspected – wasn’t in Australia, after all. No matter; surely, with this, there was no rush. His instincts took him to the great gardens of Japan, the white sands of Bali, the bazaars of Jaipur. Then, frustrated, he continued west: northern Africa, southern Europe, where he paused in Rome for a brief, unsatisfying affair, then up through Germany; still, there was no sign of the thread.
“You’ve got to come back,” Hermione told him, voice staticky over the international Floo. Harry was in Dinard by then, heart-sick, belly heavy with beer and Breton crêpes. France had been the closest yet, he was sure of it. That first night, in Bordeaux, he’d been pulled abruptly from a dream, could have sworn he’d felt –
“It’s his tenth birthday,” Hermione reminded him. “He’ll be so disappointed if you miss it.”
“Yeah, mate,” Ron chimed in, from somewhere in the background. “It’s been months. Face it, you have shit luck in love because you only date arrogant pricks.”
He was still bitter about Ginny, Harry reckoned.
Reluctantly, Harry Apparated in to the party, though it had been so long that he mistimed his jump, and ended up in Andy’s kitchen. He staggered forward, dropping both his suitcase and Teddy’s badly-wrapped present on the tiles.
“Excuse me,” came an affronted voice from somewhere near the fridge.
Then the man straightened, adjusted his collar and – oh god, it was Malfoy. And oh god, Harry was staring. It was just – he hadn’t expected this, hadn’t expected Malfoy at all, and certainly hadn’t expected him to look like this. Malfoy was broader now, tanned, freckled, and he was wearing a linen shirt, open halfway down his chest. He looked like every one of the arrogant pricks Harry had dated. Harry’s mouth watered, and his heart pounded, and his little finger throbbed. Distracted, he flexed it, then when that didn't work he shook his whole hand in annoyance.
Malfoy inhaled sharply as the motion caught his eye. He stilled, almost dazed, then extended his own hand towards Harry.
Harry knew, of course, before he looked down.
“It doesn’t mean–” Malfoy began, cautious, at the same time as Harry said “we don’t have to–”
They both paused, laughing. Looped between the two of them, their red string shook.
Time slowed down. Around them, everything grew bright. Harry stepped forward, wound the thread loosely around his hand, and reeled Malfoy in.
