Tumgik
#five: unimportant don't you want to save the world
isamijoo · 3 years
Text
Can You See Me
Tumblr media
Written for @amortentiaboys (again! lol). Betaed by @fw00shy! Also many thanks to @orange-peony & @vukovich.
Features Unspeakable!Draco in a Soulmate AU.
WC: ~2.6k.
Rating: Teen and Up
A/N: The fic takes place in another realm where they are 'souls' while their physical bodies remain in the 'real world'. Some lines are inspired by Doctor Who.
READ ON AO3
~~~
If Auror Harry Potter had to describe his relationship with Unspeakable Draco Malfoy, seven years after the war, he would use the phrase "in limbo": neither here nor there. Frustratingly stuck somewhere between nothing and everything. Friends? Yes, but not really. Boyfriends? Maybe, but not quite. Perplexing? Absolutely.
Hermione, an Unspeakable herself, had a theory that the problem lied in their inability to communicate effectively. Harry was notoriously bad with words while Draco became quiet and subdued after the trials and induction into the Department of Mysteries.
Except when Draco was drunk.
The first time Harry and Draco kissed, they had just solved their first case together. Harry dragged Draco to a pub, and after several rounds of drinks in a booth, the alcohol loosened Draco's tongue and reduced his inhibitions. Before they knew it, they were making out right in the booth, unhidden, out in the open for anyone to see.
One week later, Harry chanced upon Draco at the Auror Office when the blond came to submit a report. Harry caught his eye and shortly afterwards, found himself slammed against the wall in a broom cupboard by a charming Unspeakable, who was crafty with a Silencing Charm.
They fell into a pattern. They kissed, bit, and groped each other. Although inappropriate, Harry loved these private moments with Draco. He often glimpsed Draco smiling dreamily between their kisses, grey eyes gazing at him with an adoration that never failed to make Harry's heart beat faster.
They never brought each other home. They never went on dates. They never addressed what they did, but not due to any lack of effort from Harry. Whenever he tried to talk about it, Draco would stare at him in trepidation and despair, as though Harry was going to curse him or strike him with a sword. Then he would use whatever Unspeakable skills he had to escape and disappear.
Did Harry find Draco infuriating as hell? Yes, very much so.
Did he also love the git to death? Utterly and completely.
So when Hermione barged into the Auror Office and hurried to his desk as though chased by lightning, screaming "Malfoy is in trouble!", what would you expect Harry to do?
~~~
Harry landed on two feet in a shallow puddle of mud.
He quickly surveyed his surroundings. He was standing in a clearing in the middle of a vast field of yellow wheat. Earthy brown mountains lined the horizon, and a strong breeze chilled him down to his bones, despite his thick Auror uniform and robes. As he looked down to inspect his boots, he realised that his glasses had vanished, but his vision was perfectly clear.
Harry brought his hands to his face, just to make sure. A finger graced his forehead and — his breath hitched — touched the smooth skin over the spot where his lightning bolt scar should have been.
The scars at the back of his left hand were gone too.
He hastily patted his chest, stomach, arms, and thighs. Aside from his eyesight and scars, his physique was unchanged. He still wore the same uniform he had on at St Mungo’s before he blacked out.
As he got his bearing, he felt the air chill and the wind blow stronger. He heard footsteps approaching and immediately grabbed his wand by his hip.
About five metres from where Harry stood, a tall wall of wheat parted and out walked Draco Malfoy, decked in his elegant navy blue Unspeakable uniform. His skin was pale and there were dark circles below his eyes, but he appeared unharmed. His usually immaculate blonde hair was slightly tousled, thanks to the breeze.
“Potter?” Draco yelled, a hand shielding his squinted eyes from the harsh wind. His dark robes billowed out around his knees “What are you doing here?”
With a grunt, Harry tucked away his wand and trudged across the muddy soil until he reached more solid ground, taking note that Draco was also moving in his direction. “Saving your arse, obviously. What the fuck were you thinking? Sending your soul to another dimension?” Harry shrieked. “Where the hell are we, anyway?”
“A place where souls transit between life and death,” Draco replied, not having to shout now that they were within arm's length. “Some people call this place Bardo.”
Anger burned in the pit of Harry’s stomach, yearning to burst. Didn’t Draco have any idea how worried he made Harry?
But his desire to scold vanished when Draco asked, “Why did the Department of Mysteries send you, an Auror? Why not another Unspeakable?”
Harry breathed heavily. The wind was picking up and he figured they should get moving, but he couldn’t move, not when Draco was gazing at him curiously. “They couldn’t locate your soul. They needed me to find you.”
Pale eyebrows rose quizzically. “Why you?”
Harry gazed into his cool grey eyes. “You know why,” he muttered. “Apparently I’m your soulmate.”
Draco’s jaw went slack; no words came out as he stared unblinkingly at Harry’s face.
“Were you planning on telling me at some point?” Harry asked softly.
“Do you have a way to get us back?” Draco enquired instead.
Harry reached inside his shirt and pulled out a silver medallion that fit nicely in his palm. At the centre of the medallion rested a small piece of jade stone, which now glowed red. Hermione had told him to wait until the stone turned green before attempting any more dimension-hopping.
With a small squeak of excitement and relief, Draco grabbed the medallion with both hands. It was still connected to a chain around Harry’s neck, so Draco stood close to the Auror as he ran his fingers over the jade stone.
“A Dimension Transporter, perfected by Granger herself. This is powered by your magic,” Draco said almost reverently. “I can feel it.”
Unable to help himself, Harry took the other wizard’s hand and held it to his chest. “I'm glad you're alright. Don't scare me like this.”
“I’m not here by choice, Potter,” Draco clarified, rolling his eyes as he slowly pulled his hand out of Harry’s grasp. “I suppose now that you’re involved, I can explain how I got here, while we wait for the Transporter to recharge.”
Suddenly a strong gust of wind blasted around them. Draco grabbed Harry’s wrist and pulled him towards the direction he came from. Harry followed Draco into the wheat field, but as soon as he stepped between the tall stalks, his surroundings changed. Gone were the yellow scenery, replaced by a vast landscape of a snowy mountain valley.
Draco appeared unperturbed by the sudden change in climate. The wind was still strong here, though, so Harry obediently followed Draco as the latter trekked up a small hill.
At the top of the hill was a small hut, in which they took shelter from the harsh elements. Inside, Draco had arranged several flat stones to masquerade as a stool and a table. On the table sat an emerald green sphere the size of a Remembrall. A small key-shaped trinket suspended inside the misty orb. Numerous narrow cracks ran around the surface of the sphere.
Harry had seen the sphere before, minus the cracks. He was the one who found the sphere a few months ago during a raid. The sphere was unimportant to the case at hand, but Harry had a suspicious feeling about it, and after blasting it with every curse-detection spell he knew, he wanted to destroy it. But Robards stopped him and sent it to the Mysterious Artifacts Division, more colloquially known as MAD.
The idea of the sphere falling into Draco’s hands and potentially harming him made Harry angry again.
“Why do you have that?” Harry’s voice trembled with barely disguised fury as he kept his eyes on the orb.
With a sigh, Draco went to a corner of the hut and kicked a large rock the size of Quaffle to Harry’s feet. “Do you have a wand?”
Nodding, Harry transfigured the rock into a proper stool, complete with a cushion. He then did the same to Draco’s stone-stool. Draco muttered his gratitude as they both settled down around the table, the sphere glowing ominously.
“The people at MAD sent this to my department last month,” Draco explained. “My senior colleagues knew right away that this sphere was previously used by Dark Wizards in the seventh century to extract a person’s soul from their body, basically leaving behind an empty shell.”
Any talk about souls — extracting, separating, severing — always reminded Harry of Horcruxes. Even when Hermione was explaining to him the plan to save Draco by sending Harry’s soul after him, Harry had been uneasy. Their real bodies — both his and Draco’s — were lying in a ward in St Mungo’s, lifeless and dependent on magic to keep them alive. “Sounds like something you should stay away from.”
Draco’s eyes flickered over Harry’s face for a second before he dropped his gaze. “It’s my job to figure out how it works. I managed to dismantle it. See these cracks?” He pointed at the lines over the sphere, careful not to touch it. “I was able to decode the spell inside it, layer by layer, until I reached the key inside. When I touched it with my magic, I blacked out and woke up here.”
“And that thing followed you here?” Harry raised an unbelieving eyebrow, but it explained why nobody mentioned finding any cursed objects around Draco’s unconscious body.
“I suppose,” Draco replied, uncertain. “Maybe it’s pissed at me for taking it apart, and wants to make sure no one in the physical world can use it to rescue me.”
Harry leaped to his feet and pointed his wand at the sphere. “Reducto! Evanesco!”
The sphere exploded into a hundred pieces before vanishing into thin air.
“There," Harry said contently, dropping back onto the stool. "I should have done that as soon as I found it.”
“Good job, Potter,” Draco said sarcastically, grimacing. “Please remember next time you destroy my projects, that I’m the one who has to write the paperwork.”
“It could have killed you!” Harry protested.
Draco shrugged flippantly and rested his elbows on the now-empty table, purposely avoiding looking at Harry.
A few minutes passed where no one spoke. The wind outside grew more violent, transforming into a full-on blizzard.
Harry glanced at the red glow of the medallion around his neck and pulled his stool closer to the other man. "Draco, we need to talk."
Draco's nimble fingers tapped the surface of the stone absentmindedly. "If you say so. It's not like I can go anywhere."
Now being given the chance to address their relationship, Harry didn't know where to start. So he started with the most recent development. "Did you know we're soulmates?"
"Yes. I'm a member of the Soul Squad. We study anything related to the human soul. The Soulmate Detection spell is a simple spell, created by the Unspeakables themselves.” Draco paused before adding. “Of course, I've tried it on myself."
"When did you find out?" was the next question, loaded.
Draco studied Harry's face silently for a few seconds before answering, "After our kiss at the pub." He tucked strands of blond hair behind his ears and cleared his throat. "I was just curious. There is no benefit in knowing your soulmate, after all. It's old magic; interesting to study, but practically, it isn't useful."
"Now, hang on." Harry's own throat constricted. "Not useful? Your colleagues spent 48 hours going round in circles, no idea how to find you, until one of them suggested the soulmate route. They taught me a spell to make me aware of the soulmate connection, and then I could locate you easily." He gestured at the medallion around his neck, pointedly ignoring the green glow of the jade. "I only needed one jump."
Draco gazed forlornly at the device resting against Harry's chest. "Well, it's not typical to find oneself in a limbo world and needing to be rescued, is it?”
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"What would that change, Potter?" Draco snapped as his hands started gesturing wildly. "I know how your childhood and teenage years were influenced by a madman's response to a prophecy that was out of your control. Isn't this similar? An ancient, poorly understood magical force dictates who is compatible with your magic and soul. It's not even comprehensive! It doesn't take into account your emotions, your minds, or your physical compatibility. Why do you think the Department of Mysteries never shared this knowledge with the public? It's useless and even harmful in some instances. It gives false hope and robs people of their agency. Not all soulmates end up getting along. They can even be enemies."
Harry tasted bitterness in his mouth. "We're not enemies."
Draco rubbed his forehead exasperatedly. "Then what are we?"
"That's exactly what we should talk about."
Draco's lips twisted in displeasure as he glared at the table, arms firmly crossed over his chest. "I know what you want, but it's not going to work. You'll get sick of me very quickly. You hate when people keep secrets from you. My whole career is a secret."
"Sure, you can't talk about your job. But you're more than that."
"If I'm not an Unspeakable, what am I?" Draco demanded, the unspoken implication hung in the air.
"Draco, you're not defined by your job. You're brilliant and intelligent. I like you for you." There, Harry had said it. He could not backtrack now. “Hermione and Ron can make it work. They even have a baby together.”
"Weasley and Granger survived a war together."
"Didn't we survive a war too?" Harry quipped, earning a frustrated growl from the other wizard. "Draco, please look at me."
After an excruciating wait, Draco turned on his stool until his body faced Harry, though his arms remained crossed. He lifted his chin and locked eyes with Harry, flinching when the Auror tenderly touched his jaw but neither broke eye contact.
"You can't see me, can you?" Harry murmured bleakly. "No, you refuse to. You always work hard for people to acknowledge your work and that's fine but I'm also right here. I'm right in front of you and I'm in love with you. But you don't want to see that. You don't see me. Have you any idea what that's like?"
Draco’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. "I see you, but... Potter, if I do this with you but we don't work out," he whispered, "I won't be able to handle it. I'm not… strong enough."
Harry felt an invisible weight lift off his shoulders while another, newer and more hopeful, sensation settled in his stomach. "Then let's make sure we make this work," he said resolutely. "It takes effort from both of us. We have to try."
Draco closed his eyes, another protest ready on the tip of his tongue, but he pressed his lips shut together, visibly holding himself back. He was already making an effort.
When he opened his eyes again, he reached out and cupped Harry's cheeks. Draco turned Harry's head from side to side, studying the latter's face. "You're pretty handsome without those ugly glasses."
Harry chuckled. Draco smiled before they both leaned forward and their mouths met in a chaste kiss.
"Thank you," Draco said after they separated, "for coming for me."
After a few more kisses, Harry decided he had held Draco hostage long enough. Harry lengthened the chain around his neck so that it could loop around Draco's neck as well as his own. With Draco's help, he rotated the jade stone a few times before pressing it firmly.
~~~
If Harry had to describe his relationship with Draco Malfoy, five years after they exited the realm of limbo, he would fiddle with the silver wedding band on his left ring finger and grin happily, no words necessary.
~fin~
LINK TO AO3
34 notes · View notes
ragsweas · 5 years
Text
Okay fellas, here's the deal....I have seen enough Bucky supports post-endgame and I love Bucky Barnes with all my heart and I love Stucky too....but calling on Steve Rogers because he lived a life he never thought he could is just...enough.
Think about the timeline for a while for this guy. He woke up in 2012, a few weeks after Bucky was gone and he was supposed to adapt. He tried, he fought but for him, everything in the 40s happened like a month ago. Steve Rogers was not given the time to recover, he was not given any time to grieve and he accepted it, tried to move forward.
Fast forward say two years (though the MCU timeline is still sketchy). He has perhaps started moving forward. Steve has made friends with Natasha and he has a team of his own. This guy in his 20s has something similar to his life in the 1940s. He finds Sam and yeah, he gets another friend and BAM! HYDRA is still spreading! Bucky is alive! Can you imagine the level of grief he went through? Remember that scene from TWS after Bucky's mask fell down? Steve was heartbroken. He couldn't believe he had failed, that he had given up his life for nothing. Three years after he gave up his life to wipe out HYDRA, it's still there. And that too in the organisation made by his love and his friends/pseudo family.
Like one year later, one of his other friends creates a murder bot (no I am not hating on Tony Stark, that man is amazing and yes I know Ultron was a product of his PTSD) and Steve Rogers has to asses his ideas again. Yes, he lied to Tony about his parents but remember Civil War the final scene?
"I didn't know it was him."
I mean, seriously, Steve cared about Tony. When given a choice, yes he chose Bucky but do you think if he knew that Winter Soldier had killed Howard and Maria Stark, one of whom just happened to be Steve's old friend too, he wouldn't have told Tony? He messed up, yes. Dang did he mess up bad. His letter of apology was shitty at best.
Bucky Barnes went under and Steve took off with Natasha and Sam. Let's look at this guy now, will you? He has a link to his past and he is trying to desperately hold on to it. But at the same time, he has Natasha and Sam. And you know what? Peggy is dead. He is grieving her but he is happy that somehwere, Bucky is there for him.
Cut to Infinity war. He sees Bucky, he is happy, he loses Bucky, again! And he is heartbroken.
But he has five years to mourn. Five years to mourn Bucky and Sam and to some extent, Peggy. He had started a support group. He is the one who tells Natasha that he saw dolphins. But he is also the one who is willing to bring everyone back.
Yet, you see him in Endgame and you realize- he isn't as driven as he was in Winter Soldier because to a great extent, Steve Rogers has moved on. He has properly mourned Bucky and Sam and Peggy. For him, Natasha is his present family. He wants to bring everyone back, he wants them to have a life they deserved.
Then Voromir happens. The final battle. Steve loses two of his friends, both like his family because let's accept it, Steve cared for Tony even if he messed up his relationship with him. The smile on Steve's face when Tony came to the compound and the tears in his eyes when he saw him in the battlefield is answer enough. He wasn't standing watching Tony's recorded message because he liked to- but because everyone knew he was as much a part of his family.
But what about Bucky? He had PTSD, he is a victim, he needs his best friend.
Guess what? Steve needs a friend as well and he has lost them. He trusts Sam, with his shield. He knows Bucky will be okay. It will hurt him, no matter what he says, and it's not completely right.
But after fighting for all his life, since his childhood when people like him would be considered unimportant and people actually thought they should be killed, in World War 2, in 2012 with aliens and his old enemy and his own made up family, after fighting continuously for all his life, Steve Rogers is tired. This man is not even forty and he has seen immense pain and destruction.
Yes, Bucky was hurt. Yes, he was disappointed and heart broken. But Bucky knew. Steve did not leave without telling his once best friend. And Bucky knew Steve was tired. He still had a story left, a world to live in, but Steve Rogers was tired. Is it fair? No, but then life isn't fair. Was it wrong? Probably, Bucky deserved better.
But so did Steve. He saw Peggy after so long and realized that he wanted that life. For once in his life, Steve Rogers did something selfish.
He was done fighting HYDRA, he was done saving the world. He did not give up his responsibility, he passed it on to someone who knew how to do his job.
I really don't think Steve wanted to be with Peggy as much as he wanted to live peacefully. How do you know he ended up marrying Peggy? We saw them dance, we saw them kiss. But did we see them marry?
Did he go in an alternate timeline where he saved everyone and then came back? Or did he live in the existing timeline? We don't know, but what we do know is that he lived peacefully. We know he got married, but to this Peggy? Some other Peggy?
Stop hating on Steve Rogers because that guy had lived through enough. Let him rest. He has lost and lost and lost and lost. He has finally decided to gain something - peace. Let him have it
8 notes · View notes
elbowhickey · 5 years
Text
Tumblr media
What do Tupac, NWA, Green Day, The Beastie Boys, and Boston all have in common? 
It’s almost 2019 and only 4 of them are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I have sat on this for a long time (no pun intended but I’ll take it), but reading the recently released list of the 2019 inductees https://www.rockhall.com/rock-roll-hall-fame-announces-nominees-2019-induction, I am officially past my limit. 
What. The. Hell. 
The reasoning behind this is that Boston has such a small body of work, a total of just six studio albums, and that’s somehow the leading factor. ‘They just didn’t make much music’. I graduated with a degree in Strategic Communications, basically a PR degree, but I started in Pre-Law. So, let me go old-school and formulate an argument, because I cannot understand this to save my life. 
Boston has sold a measly 76 Million albums worldwide, 31 Million in the US. That means they have more albums sold than Journey, The Police, and Aretha Franklin - all current members, btw. But, I digress.  
Let’s say that we’re keeping Boston out of the voting because of their short body of work. I will leave FIVE of their six albums out of this. That’s right, let’s look just at their 1976 release, “Boston” for just a second. That ONE album is number 15 - no, you did not misread that - NUMBER FUCKING FIFTEEN on the all-time album sales list, as in all of forever and everyone that has ever made music in the history of humankind. That album had just eight songs, so if we take just half of that one album - More Than a Feeling, Peace of Mind, Foreplay/Long Time, and Rock and Roll Band - you will find three songs that made it into the ever-coveted the Top 40. The album stayed on the charts for 132 weeks. If you suck at math, that’s 2-1/2 YEARS. Am just curious, who was the first band ever to debut at Madison Square Garden? Oh, yeah. It was Boston, because of that ONE album. Because of that one album in a total of six which is too small a body of work. 
So yeah, let’s rule them out because their body of work is so small. I mean, is just one album, right? 
Except a Top-5 hit in Don’t Look Back, several Top-50 hits over the next few years, a throw-away album a decade later which produced a meaningless #1 hit (Amanda), a mediocre-at-best Top-10 hit which everyone who makes music apparently manages to do (We’re Ready), and a squeaker into the Top-30 that we’re not even remotely going to talk about. Because those were different albums. I said one. 
So, there’s that, but can we focus for one moment on what we’re actually talking about here? We’re not talking about the most album sales of all time, because let’s face it, as of 2018 ‘The Bodyguard’ soundtrack is #6, which still falls short of Shania freakin’ Twain. But what is it that we ARE talking about? Oh, yeah, it’s ROCK AND ROLL, and the supposed “Hall of Fame” institution that surrounds that phenonmenon. 
I will throw punches with you blow for blow if you can even attempt to tell me that Boston did not shape Rock ‘n Roll in the 70s and 80s, or that their influence is less important than NWA or Green Day. As a guitarist, I can take someone who has never even touched a guitar and teach them damn near every Green Day song in less than a week. And get the fuck out with any argument you can possibly give how NWA (samples? loop editing? ACTUAL SONG WRITING? anyone?) shaped Rock ‘n Roll more than Boston. I will end you. Listen to any classic rock station in any even remotely major US city for a few hours, and tell me that at least three Boston songs are not still played in heavy rotation on a frequency that rivals any classic rock band not already in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, or any other classic rock band at all. It won’t happen, I openly challenge any bean counter. 
I adore Tupac, I grew up on NWA, and I played the Dookie album so many times over - I will never argue that all their contributions were unimportant to music history (to MUSIC HISTORY), but I will feed you knuckles and not feel the least bit guilty about it if you can honestly tell me they meant more to rock history as a whole than Boston has.
Tumblr media
But if you want the #1 reason I am posting this rant? It’s this man right here. It’s Tom Scholz. Yes, he’s aloof as balls. Yes, he downplays his playing ability and his contribution more than anyone over the last several decades. Yes, he’s so humble as to never discredit anyone who has ever done anything at all or recorded anything on their Tascam 4-track in their mom’s basement. He’s a total goofball. He’s flakier than Kellogg’s. He’s your stereotypical rocker toolbox. 
But... he’s a genius. And I don't mean his engineering degree from MIT. He is a tone-chasing perfectionist. He was never satisfied with “ well enough”. I read an interview years ago where he was recording on tape and wanted to add something extra so on a whim he reached over and pushed on the spindle of the tape as it was recording and produced a tone bend that is not possible to play as it recorded. It was just a thing to him, but became something that virtuoso musicians have chased for decades and are still unable to reproduce on an instrument. Tom Sholz was never ok with ok. And THAT is what makes Boston incredible. Tom Sholz is a tone guru who was never satisfied with “what will sell albums”, which may have to do with why there was only six. You know, his all-time  record-setting one and the other five that weren’t just wet sneezes in a bandana but are somehow overly ignored. His music is precise, and exact, and technical, but that somehow falls within a “limited body of work”, despite the one and only one body of work as I’ve instanced here in an attempt to incite a riot being record-setting as fuck and blowing away almost all of history as recorded by mankind.
There are plenty of snubs when it comes to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but none are as heinous as leaving Boston out. Again. Still. What the crap, world. I openly hate all of you. This so wrong that the word wrong doesn’t even remotely begin to cover how wrong it is. Boston belongs in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. 
0 notes