wook77 | One Last Fare

I give you the last part of One Last Fare. I hope you enjoy. Feel free to review. Anything to help me grow as a writer.

“I know cabbies are normally not native English speakers, but surely you understand a simple direction like Thirty-four Highland.” That condescending tone, that arrogant way of speaking, pulled Harry into the past. With a shake of his head, he resisted the tug and moved away from the curb.

“Sorry, sir, I was a bit distracted.” The pale blond man rolled his eyes.

“I would hope that you are not too distracted to actually drive this cab.” Harry only nodded to the mirror and kept driving. In his past life, Harry would have had a creative rejoinder at the ready. They would have bickered back and forth to their hearts’ content.

Not so, now. Instead, Harry heard the slide of the glass as Draco sealed Harry out of his life. Harry was thankful that the cab company routinely installed listening devices in the backseats. The entire conversation piped into Harry’s ear.

“Spill, Malfoy. Was it him?” Ginny turned to face Draco Malfoy.

“No.” Ginny slumped. Her confident demeanor changed with that one word. Draco’s voice sounded drained, its cocky tone gone.

“When are we ever going to find him? How hard can it possibly be to find one stupid, missing, arrogant prat of a man?” Harry could hear the tears in her voice.

“I doubt we’ll ever find him. He doesn’t want to be found, Ginny. He’s not coming back and we need to face that. This was the last one. I’m done haring off on some random tip. I’m tired of getting hopes up only to find that the information is wrong. It hurts.” Harry’s eyes kept drifting into the back of the cab at his passengers. From the set of the shoulders, the dismissive wave of a hand and the tilt of the chin, Harry could tell that Draco meant what he said.

“Draco, we can’t give up hope. We’ll find him.” Ginny put her arm around Draco’s shoulders. Harry felt a mild twinge of jealousy.

“I’m not kidding, Ginny. I’m not going off on another of these wild goose chases. The entire trip was a waste of time. I had the worst accommodations! The hotel dared to give me an inferior wine at dinner! There were only two pillows when I specifically ordered four, the sheets were scratchy! Then, while I was in the, err, transportation center, there was a woman that kept sniffling the entire time. I swear she wanted to use my sleeve as a tissue.”

“There, there, Draco. Everything will be fine; Mummy Ginny will make it all better.” Draco shook his head.

“Ginny, if you weren’t pregnant, I’d have to hex you. Merlin’s balls, if you weren’t pregnant, I wouldn’t be stuck in this sleazy muggle cab. Next time, I won’t care that you could get splinched away from the baby. I’m going to apparate us and that’s that.”

Ginny only rolled her eyes at Draco.

“I know you’re only whining because you’re frustrated. You can’t give up hope, Draco. Will you be by for dinner tonight?” Draco nodded.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t dream of missing it. After all, it’s only weekly that I get the honor of watching Weasley and Granger fawning over their disgusting array of children.”

Harry pulled the cab to the side. The separating window slid open and a wad of bills were thrust through. Harry took them and slid them into the small receptacle in his dash.

Ginny got out of the cab, lugging her laptop and purse with her. Harry couldn’t help but look at her to see if she really was pregnant. He couldn’t tell because she leaned into the window and her coat drifted down to cover her.

“You coming up?”

“I think I’ll take this horribly plebian mode of transportation to my flat. It will give me time to think.” Ginny pressed a kiss onto Draco’s cheek. With a jaunty wave, she walked into a bricked building.

“Where to, sir?”

“Just drive for now. Take me wherever your little muggle heart leads.” Harry nodded and pulled away from the curb. Draco slouched, although that was too déclassé of a word to describe the truly aristocratic way of sitting, down into the seat.

“Did you have a pleasant flight, sir?” Harry didn’t want to miss the opportunity to hear Draco’s voice, even if he was hurling insults at Harry.

“Just wonderful, I love traveling all over the world looking for someone that walked out of my life years ago with no word, no explanation, nothing. Really, it thrills me to spend time with common people in crowded apparat…errr, transportation centers. It especially brings a tremor to my soul to talk about my travels with a cab driver.”

“Sometimes it helps to talk to someone not involved in the situation. You’d be amazed at what people feel free to say and do in a cab.” Draco cocked and eyebrow and Harry was tempted to declare himself right there and then. His desire for peace in his life took precedence, though, and Harry simply stared at that wonderfully aristocratic eyebrow.

“How special for you, I’m sure. Tell me, what sorts of things people do in the back of a cab while you’re driving them?” Harry smiled as he thought back to a cab ride they’d both taken after a night out at a muggle club, too drunk to apparate home. Harry had been leaning against Draco. He didn’t quite remember the words, but he remembered the feelings. The conversation was soft and the touches to each other’s cheeks drifted languidly. A light went on in Draco’s eyes as he whispered a naughty suggestion into Harry’s ear.

“I had this one couple sit in the back of my cab and, well, let’s just say they were very familiar with each other.” The brow cocked again and Harry felt his resolve melt a little more.

“Familiar, you say? How familiar?”

“Well, the one bloke’s head disappeared from view. The other one looked mighty pleased with himself. They were a handsome looking couple. One had dark hair, all messy around his head. The other one was blond, a blond that, well, actually was close to your coloring. The thing I remember the most about them is how happy they seemed together.” Draco looked thoughtful.

“How could you tell?”

“They kept touching each other. A quick brush of fingers down the cheeks, a peck on the lips, that kind of thing kept happening. They spoke in a real quiet tone, too. I remember their smiles. The two had these big grins on their faces. Well, the last could’ve been because they were drunk but I like to think that it was because they were in love. I wonder, what ever happened to that couple?” Harry flashed another look at his rearview. Draco looked thoughtful and sad.

“They probably broke up, fought over who got to keep the cat and proceeded to never talk again.”

“You’re awful young to have lost faith in the world, aren’t you?” Draco snorted.

“I never had much to begin with. I’ve only ever had faith in one person and that person left me.”

“Did this person have a reason?” Harry tried hard to keep his tone neutral.

“He left me some horrid little note that explained nothing.” Harry thought back to the night he’d left.

The sky was crystal clear. Firenze would be reading the different omens and looking to the future. The constellations blinked happily in the sky while Saturn continued its journey through the Zodiac.

Harry looked around the flat he shared with Draco. It was neat to the point of painful. There were few personal touches; a photograph here, a small knickknack there. The only thing that showed that Harry was even living there was a tattered photo album on a bottom corner of the bookcases.

In the dim light cast by the moon, Harry could see the glowing shift of the different wards around the flat. It was almost like watching the Northern Lights flickering across the sky.

However, instead of seeing the beauty, Harry saw a trap. The jaws were closing in on him and were almost pricking his skin. It was harder and harder to breathe every day that he was here. The wards no longer kept others out, they kept Harry in.

Harry looked at the sleeping face of his lover. Draco Malfoy, ex-enemy and rival, slept peacefully. Having grown up more in the spotlight than Harry, he was better equipped for the celebrity, the stalkers and fans and the constant invasions into his privacy. Harry, on the other hand, had quickly become a hermit after the press latched onto the relationship between the two of them.

As Harry shifted in his stance, a crinkling noise reminded him of the note he was leaving. Harry Potter might have been brave enough to be sorted into Gryffindor, face Voldemort countless times, battle limitless Death Eaters but he quailed at the thought of facing his lover. Instead, Harry succumbed to his Slytherin side and self-preservation. With a quick flick of his wrist, he read the letter in the scattered moonlight.

Draco,

I admit that I’m lacking in Gryffindor bravery for leaving this note for you. I’m also lacking in Gryffindor bravery when it comes to facing my life. It’s time for me to spring the trap that I’m stuck in. You know as well as I that I’ve been having problems with all the trappings of being the Boy-Who-Lived. I only ever wanted to be Harry. I only ever wanted to live as Harry.

I do love you, Draco, love you more than you will ever guess or know. I can’t stand the fact that I’m not going to see your face when I wake up. I love you but I need to escape. You’re steady here, I know. I couldn’t ask you to leave the life you’ve carved out for yourself. You’re just now getting the Malfoy named cleansed.

I know I’m a horrible coward and I’m not acting like the man you profess to love. All I can ask is that you love me when I least deserve it because that is when I really need it.

I don’t know when I’ll be back. I don’t know if you’ll wait for me. I won’t ask you to. Instead, I’m only going to ask that you be happy, Draco.

Yours always,

Harry

With a soft brush of his hand down Draco’s face and a sad smile, Harry left the bedroom. As he walked, he left the note on the dresser where Draco was assured of finding it. A last glance at his trap and his salvation and Harry left the world behind.

“He left you a note and disappeared in the middle of the night?”

“I woke up and my faith in the world was gone like a thief in the night.”

“The note didn’t explain anything at all?” Draco snorted yet again. Harry kept tossing glances into the backseat to see every expression that flitted across the face he’d missed for so long.

“It prattled on about loving me. If he loved me, he wouldn’t have left like that. He wouldn’t have left.” Draco sounded as if he were trying to convince himself.

“Perhaps it wasn’t you, maybe he was just overwhelmed. Maybe there were too many things going on and he felt a need to disappear.”

“He could have taken me with him. I would have gone.”

“Maybe he didn’t want to rip you away from your life just because he was having a breakdown. He was looking out for you.”

“He ripped my world away from me. He took everything that meant something to me when he walked away.”

“He didn’t know that he was your world. Did you ever tell him that?”

“Of course I did.” Draco cocked his head to the side in the gesture Harry knew meant that he was remembering and thinking. “Maybe I didn’t. I told him that I cared about him.”

“What about your flat? Was it a reflection of the two of you? Were you partners?” Harry was quickly slipping past being an independent cab driver and reverting back to insecure boyfriend mode. The scenery drifted as they continued to ramble along London’s streets. The outside world had ceased to exist as the two discussed the past.

“I thought we were happy there. He never told me that he wasn’t happy with anything. We did everything together. Maybe I got my way more often than he did but I loved him.” The last three words were whispered so quietly that Harry wasn’t sure if he was meant to have heard them or not. Draco’s head snapped up and looked at Harry.

“Look,” There was a slight pause as Draco looked at the name tag clearly displayed. Harry had a moment of panic as he realized that the name he’d chosen was too closely related to his real name. “Jimmie, I appreciate the talk but you don’t know anything about the situation and I’ve already discussed it more with you than I ever wanted.”

“Sure thing, sir, I was only doing the job. I’m an ear for anyone.”

“I’m sure you are. I think I’m done with the trip down memory lane.” Draco rattled off an address.

“We’ll be there shortly.” Harry continued to snatch glances through the mirror at his passenger. He wanted to store up all that he could.

All too soon, the cab pulled to the side of the road. As Draco exited the cab, Harry spoke up one more time.

“One small thing for you, Dra…sir. Keep faith in the world because others have faith in you. He wouldn’t want you to be like this.” Draco turned around and looked at Harry.

“How would you know that, Jimmie?”

“I know things. From driving this cab, living my life, coping with daily stress, I know what other people are like. Love him when he least deserves it because that is when he really needs it.” With a quick tip of his head, Harry put the cab in gear and started to pull slowly away from the curb. In his mirror, he could see Draco staring with a shocked expression on his face.

“Harry?” Draco ran towards the cab. “Harry, don’t leave me like this. Goddamn you, don’t leave!” Harry couldn’t force his eyes away from the sight in the mirrors.

He watched as Draco stopped his chase and watched Harry drive out of his life. This time, it was in the bright light of day.

~~~Fin~~~

(Don't kill me. This is how Taxi, the song, ended too.)