wook77 | One Last Fare

My first HP fanfiction, be kind please.

This is part one of a multi-part. Not sure how many parts at this point. This is for a quotations challenge. The idea behind it was inspired by Harry Chapin's Taxi but it is by no means a song-fic. It also doesn't really go too far along with the storyline from taxi. So, without further ado...

Author: wook77
Title: One Last Fare
Summary: Post Hogwarts. Harry leaves the Wizarding World behind to drive a cab in Muggle London. He picks up one more fare and encounters his past.
Challenge and quote: Battlefields Quote Fic Challenge – Quote #60 – “Love me when I least deserve it, because that's when I really need it. - Swedish proverb.”
Rating: R
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Warnings: Contains Slash. Contains Spoilers for HBP.
Genre: Angst/Drama/Humor
Disclaimer: Not mine. I have four bucks in my checking account, please don’t sue me, I need that money to go to the grocery store.

The inside of his cab was immaculate. The seats were stainless, the glass was clear and the notebooks and logs that the government insisted he keep were all organized and filed. The radio crackled as dispatch called the drivers and ordered them about.

It wasn’t the dream job for the driver of this cab but it was a dream. Here, he didn’t have to worry about all the different expectations on him unless it was to get the passenger from Point A to Point B. It was a simple job that soothed the driver’s soul.

He kept the radio on very quietly as the range of passengers went from the sublime to the ridiculous. The passengers were doctors, lawyers, students, protesters, sports fans, harried office workers and high and/or drunken revelers. This range of people also soothed the driver’s soul.

Today, his CD of choice was Mandalay. The band had a female vocalist that drifted, almost dreamily, from song to song. It provided a perfect backdrop to the stresses of the day. The traffic melted into an accompanying dance to the beauty of the music. Each passenger provided a type of percussion to the music of the traffic. There were pauses and abrupt voices, a trilling giggle that sounded like a brush against a cymbal.

The driver, himself, was not noticed by many of his passengers. They were simply too busy, too important, too something to pay attention to the man ferrying them around London. To those passengers that did notice him, he was a quiet young man with soft blue eyes, messy red hair and a face that hadn’t smiled in true happiness in years. No one saw what the real man looked like underneath the glamour he’d cast on himself. No one saw Harry Potter, formerly the Boy-Who-Lived.

Harry preferred it this way. He’d grown tired of the way everyone fawned over him in the wizarding world. It was impossible for him to pick out a book in Diagon Alley without passersby grabbing his sleeve, touching his hand or even caressing his face. They called him the Saviour of the Wizarding World in the Daily Prophet. The stress of the war and then the subsequent stress of being the hero had finally gotten to the young man so terribly acutely that he simply vanished one day. He left his apartment, his vault at Gringott’s, his friends, his lover and his adopted family. He left the world that had rescued and then, in his opinion, imprisoned him, without a backward glance.

The only thing he took with him when he left was his wand. This one possession was the reason that his cab was the envy of all the other drivers in his company. With a quick "scourgify", the cab was, once more, immaculate. The passengers that felt a need to make conversation with their driver would always remark on how his cab was the cleanest in London. It was a small point of pride for Harry.

All in all, it was a simple and tranquil life for the man that defeated Lord Voldemort. This simplicity fit the new Harry Potter very well. The brash and outspoken boy that challenged the Ministry of Magic was gone. In his place was a quiet young man that drove his cab during the day and then went home to read a book. On the rare occasion that he went out, Harry had a small group of people that would drag him along.

He wasn’t happy by any definition. Instead, he was content and he valued that contentment. It was a nice steady emotion that kept him sane.

If he caught himself wishing or missing the world he’d left behind, he need only look at the Daily Prophet on a daily basis to reinforce his decision to escape. The newspaper printed articles that speculated on his whereabouts and whether he was dead or not on a daily basis. He was taking up where Voldemort left off, he was surfing in Aruba or he was married with fifteen children in Switzerland. Each suggestion was more outlandish than the next. Every article finished with an offer of a reward for any information leading to the confirmed whereabouts of one Harry Potter.

The only article in the rag that ever made Harry want to go back to the wizarding world was the announcement of the wedding between Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. The article featured a plea from both parties for Harry to please come home. Ron was married without a best man because that was where Harry was always meant to stand. The situation hurt Harry but he couldn’t face going back.

The door to his cab opened and startled Harry out of his reverie. The passenger tossed in a brief case and quickly slid into the seat. The door slammed shut and a voice called out the destination.

"Heathrow, please." Without looking in the mirror, Harry nodded and shifted into gear.

It was a few minutes and a couple of miles before Harry glanced into the mirror. The bright red hair that shone back at him tugged at his memories.

<i>"Ginny, I can’t do this anymore. I’m not who you think I am." Harry pulled Ginny’s hand off his arm.

"I, just, I can’t let you go into this battle without closure. You deserve to be happy, Harry." The almost frantic gaze coming out of the young woman’s face caught at Harry’s heart and conscience.

"Ginny, I am giving you closure. I can’t do this, it isn’t me. I just don’t feel anything, Ginny." Ginny started to protest but Harry interrupted her. "I don’t feel anything, Ginny. I don’t feel. It’s not just towards you; it’s not just towards Ron or Hermione. I’m numb."

With a soft sigh, Harry turned away from Ginny and the rest of the group preparing for the battle. He didn’t see the sad expressions of his companions.</i>

Harry sat there, in the driver’s seat, and listened as Ginny spoke with Ron. He let her voice, now staccato sharp, wash over him. The memories, those unhappy memories he’d fled the wizarding world to escape washed over him. He drove obliviously. The road in front of him blurred and images from time spent at the Burrow flashed, lightening quick, through his brain. A quick hug from Mrs. Weasley, a clap on the shoulder from Mr. Weasley, Fred and George’s happy laughter, Bill and Fleur embracing and throughout it all, Ron. His best friend, his first friend, not always the most steady of friends but then, for a boy who had had no friends, any type was welcome. Images of Ron brought images of Hermione as he couldn’t remember one without the other. They were two halves of the same whole.

His memory drifted towards the lover left behind but Harry reined it in quickly. It was better not to remember him. It was better to leave those memories on a shelf. In Harry’s mind, he stored them just like the prophecies in the Ministry of Magic.

It had been so long since he’d heard any of their voices. Harry had thought himself prepared to encounter them but no amount of preparation could have accomplished it. His peaceful existence, so hard won, was shattered and all it took was one fare.

As Harry remembered, Ginny’s voice continued.

"Ron, I’ll let you know as soon as I finish picking him up." A slight pause as Ron said something. Harry wanted to rip the phone from Ginny’s ear and listen to his friend’s voice but he didn’t, he couldn’t. "I don’t know. For fuck’s sake, Ron, what part of I don’t know do you not understand? I’m not there yet, traffic is horrible and I’m stuck in a cab!" Another pause as Ginny tapped her nails on her purse. "Ron, I’ll call you in a bit. I have to go, Mum’s on the other line."

The phone clicked closed and Ginny cursed under her breath.

"Do you have any brothers…Jimmy?" Harry was startled to realize that the question was directed at him.

"No, ma’am. I’m an only child."

"You’re lucky. Older brothers are annoying and you’re better off without them. Only thing worse than an older brother is five of them."

"Five?" Harry asked with what he hoped was an innocent tone. Which one was not counted? Which one was missing?

"Well, I guess it’s technically six plus an adopted one. I don’t count my brother, Percy. We haven’t talked to him in about eight years and my adopted brother, Harry, is missing." The last was said in a quieter, less assured tone of voice.

"How long has he been missing?" Again, Harry hoped he was using an innocuous tone of voice.

"Too long, five years too long. I miss him. The whole family does. No one knows what happened, he just disappeared one day. We’ve been searching for five long, lonely years."

While Ginny was speaking, the exit for the airport came up and Harry concentrated on his driving. The only remark he could think to make was a quick "I’m sorry," as he pulled into the queue waiting to drop off people.

"That’ll be fifteen pounds." Ginny handed the fare plus a sizeable tip through the window.

"Thanks for listening. Guess it’s one of the skills you develop, eh?" Ginny spoke one last time as she stepped out of the cab.

"Part of the job, I don’t mind." Harry nodded and pulled his cab into the queue that was waiting for new fares. As he drove away he stared into the rearview for one last glimpse of his past.

The queue for new fares was long and Harry sat in line for quite awhile. When he reached the front of the queue, his door opened and a voice he hadn’t known how much he’d missed spoke.

"Ginny, give me some time to decompress. You’re worse than a…" The voice broke off as the two new passengers sat down.

"Thirty-four Highland, please." Harry stared in shock at his new fares. Surely the man with Ginny was not who he thought it was. Looking sleek and sharp and unbelievably unchanged from years past sat the one man Harry refused to remember. Sitting in the backseat of his cab was Draco Malfoy, bane of his childhood, holder of his heart.