Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Harry’s day is wretched before Ron’s Patronus arrives.

He hates lunch meetings, hates political lunch meetings even more, so at first the Patronus seems like a reprieve.

Less so once he walks out into an achingly perfect early summer day. 

Two weeks into June, and the sun shines gently on his shoulders. A few distant, fluffy clouds. Can’t the Dark Wizards of England give it a rest? He could—

Harry doesn’t know. He could go flying, though he hasn’t taken his broom out of the shed in ages. He could go for a pint with Ron. Walk…around? He could go for a walk. The new summer’s heat makes his robes feel heavy and oppressive. If he wasn’t an Auror, he could vanish them. Transfigure them into something lighter, so he could move. 

But he is an Auror. He was destined to be an Auror. It’s all he’s made for, really.

So he marches to the Apparition point and Disapparates with a neat turn, his Auror robes turning with him, and lands in a neighbourhood on the far edge of Knockturn Alley.

“Oy! Harry. Over here.” Ron waves an arm over his head, as if Harry could miss him in the bright Auror robes. Six of them have set up a perimeter. A Shield Charm hums between the Aurors and a narrow two-story house that looks drawn up tight like Harry’s shoulders, embarrassed that its paint is peeling, disapproving of the racket in the street. Every so often, the whole thing rattles like it’s absolutely furious with all of them. 

Harry goes to stand at Ron’s side. The house seems to scowl at him. He scowls back. The house spits magic from its chimney, bursts of blue and green at random intervals. The younger Aurors steal glances at Harry from the corners of their eyes. He ignores them, heat crawling up his face. Five years on the job, and they still can’t stop staring.

“This is it, then.” Harry juts his chin at the house. “Still unexplained?”

The report had come in while Harry was gritting his teeth through lunch with the Minister, Head Auror Robards, and a political candidate they wanted him to endorse. Not that they’d ever say so directly. He’d been rescued from this particular charade by Ron’s Patronus, summoning him to the field for unexplained magical activity. 

It was better than being stuck at his desk, or the lunch he’d just escaped, but not by much. Harry doesn’t like the look of the house. He doesn’t like the air of Dark Magic seeping out into the street. 

“For now, yeah. The two mediwixens who made the initial report are still in there with the old man who owns the place.”

That brings Harry up short, the hair on the back of his neck standing. “Then why are you out here?”

Ron wrinkles his nose. “Told us to wait ’til he’s done.”

“Who told you?”

“Malfoy’s in there.”

Harry rounds on him, his mouth hanging open in a way that will surely be noticed and commented on by the younger Aurors. 

“Draco Malfoy is inside that house.” He stabs a finger at the house. “The one spewing Dark Magic bloody everywhere. With two defenceless mediwixens and an old man.”

“Don’t look at me, mate. Robards sent him.”

“No, he didn’t. I was in a meeting with him. He didn’t send anyone.”

“I dunno.” Ron holds both his hands up. “Place reeks of Dark Magic. He took one step inside, stuck his head out, and told the rest of us to keep our distance.”

Harry scrubs his hands over his face. “We don’t—you can’t—” Protocol has never been Harry’s great love, and now it’s come back to bite him in the arse. He doesn’t care about Draco sodding Malfoy. He doesn’t particularly care about Auror Department regulations for entering an active scene. All he knows is that this is yet another situation that’s tailor-made for Harry Potter, Hero of the Wizarding World. “He doesn’t have a partner.”

“That’s what I said, and he said, why should anyone’s precious life be wasted on me?” Ron rolls his eyes. “I’m not getting into it with Robards over Malfoy.”

Ron’s a good Auror, though. One of the best in the department. He doesn’t like this, but he’s not going to run headlong into the building and put his people at risk if he doesn’t have to.

Rushing into situations like this is what Harry exists for.

“Keep the street blocked off.” Harry strides toward the house, the beautiful day seeming like a piss-poor joke.

“Mate!” Ron shouts at his back. “He said he wanted to deal with it—”

“Don’t care,” Harry calls. He takes the steps up to the porch two at a time, ignoring with all his might the bizarre, conflicted feelings tugging at his gut. The urge to abandon his Auror robes, toss his badge at Ron, and fuck off to anywhere else has never been stronger. He wishes he was only charging up the steps on behalf of the two mediwixens and the old man. 

He wishes he wasn’t worried about what Draco bloody Malfoy is doing at all.

Harry shoulders his way through the front door. He knows as soon as he makes contact that it’s too much force—it wasn’t properly closed—but he can’t stop it. The heavy door flies open and slams against the wall.

“Shh!” The shushing feels unnecessarily loud, and Harry looks up from his wand-raised, defensive position and into the face of one very annoyed mediwitch. She glares at him from a second-floor balcony, raises her finger to her lips, and shushes him again, then draws her head back and disappears into the house.

“I’m here to save you.” He says it under his breath, but it comes out in a menacing, unheroic tone that makes Harry want to turn around and walk out.

Glass shatters in the back of the house. Harry moves toward the sound without thinking, vision clearing, veins thrumming with adrenaline. He casts a series of detection spells, and doesn’t stop casting. 

A sitting room, open books in a semicircle on the rug. 

A washroom, cabinet hanging open, a potion bottle tipped on its side. 

The kitchen, a plate in pieces on the floor. Is that gilding on the edges? Another detection spell reveals nothing, but the residue of Dark Magic is everywhere. It’s starting to settle on his tongue.

Harry steps through the last doorway, crossing from the kitchen to…

A library.

It takes up the back of the house, end to end. There’s no need for a detection spell here. The Dark Magic’s louder, the taste heavy and bitter. Floor-to-ceiling shelves groan under hundreds of books, some of them wriggling like they’ve been imprisoned there. A soot-covered grate yawns on one side of the room.

The other side is dominated by Draco Malfoy.

By a curio cabinet, bloody hell, not Malfoy. A large curio cabinet, its doors flung open, objects trembling on the shelves.

Malfoy holds his wand out a few steps away, body at an angle, as if he’s in some posh fencing contest. A sapphire necklace, the jewel surrounded by silver, Levitates in the air in front of him. Malfoy tracks it with the tip of his wand. His incantations are too soft for the words to reach Harry, just the tone. It’s calm and authoritative. Cold. Not the disdain he’s used to from Malfoy—that he was used to, once upon a time. 

Harry’s breath catches. 

He wants the caught breath to be because Malfoy is in the process of breaking the cursed necklace, but it’s not. It’s bloody not.

It’s because he has never seen anything as attractive as Draco Malfoy.

Tall. Lean. Dressed all in black. He doesn’t wear Auror robes, though he works for the DMLE. Fitted slacks. A…a leather jacket. Harry can’t begin to describe the style of the jacket. It could be part of a Muggle suit, but it’s too elegant, somehow. That bloody jacket makes Harry feel like a kid playing dress-up in his Auror robes. Malfoy’s got two inches on him, maybe three, and the Auror robes Harry’s worn day in and day out for five years give him the sense that his body’s hulking and clumsy. They make him feel like he should step out and leave this to someone who knows what he’s doing.

Merlin, Malfoy looks like he knows what he’s doing. 

Harry’s pulse pounds. It’s from the Dark Magic in the necklace Malfoy is facing down, and it’s from…he doesn’t know. Shock, maybe. Harry hasn’t taken a close look at Malfoy in years. He’s spent hardly any time in his presence at the DMLE. Now, at close range, Harry can’t stop staring. Malfoy’s not the worry-thin wraith he was at his trial and his outfit, his bloody outfit, only sets off how fit Malfoy’s become.

The necklace cuts left, then right, and then it barrels straight toward Malfoy.

He doesn’t flinch. Malfoy moves his wand, quick and steady, his voice at the same low volume. His magic hits the necklace with a flash of blue. It clatters to the floor, a tendril of smoke rising from the twisted husk.

Why can’t Harry be so collected under pressure? He tries to give the impression of having everything under control, but he never feels that way. Hot, childish jealousy flashes inside his chest like Malfoy’s spellwork. 

“It’s against Ministry protocol to enter an active scene alone.” Harry hates how petulant it sounds once it’s out of his mouth. “You should know that after three years with the department.”

Malfoy turns his head, a smile sharper than a sneer on his face. Harry’s heart skips a beat. It’s worse now that Malfoy’s looking at him. He has a perfect face to go with his perfect clothes, and Harry has no idea how he’s supposed to—what, buddy up with him? Take over the scene? Yes, bloody hell, that’s what he’s supposed to do. What he’s going to do.

“Goodness, Potter. I wouldn’t have taken you for a staunch defender of Ministry protocol.”

“You’ve done enough, Malfoy. It’s time to clear the house.”

“I disagree.”

Malfoy turns back to the curio cabinet. Harry crosses the room in a thunderous huff, takes him by the shoulder, and drags him away. The leather of Malfoy’s jacket is soft and supple under his palm and he lets go like he’s been bitten when they’re a good eight feet from the cabinet. “We’re clearing the house. It’s not stable.”

Malfoy glances at the shoulder of his jacket. He tugs at the hem, drawing himself up to his full height. Harry wasn’t slouching, but he straightens, too.

“I should think not. Its owner is dying.”

“What?”

Malfoy raises his eyebrows as if Harry should have known. “The man who owns this house is dying. The house is responding. I have a theory that their intertwined magic is setting off the cursed objects.”

“If that’s true, then we have to bloody go, Malfoy. It’s throwing Dark Magic out the chimney!”

“Quite. I’m of the opinion that the impact on the surrounding houses could be lessened if the curses are removed prior to the moment of his death. Now, if you’ll let me—”

“Are you telling me this place is going to explode?” It’s more than adrenaline now. Harry wants out. He wants them all out, Malfoy included.

“It’s certainly a possibility,” Malfoy allows. “It’s probably not as likely now that Weasley gave me some time to work without interruption. Every moment you stand here, however…”

“This is a ridiculous way to die.” Harry gestures to the room at large. “Bloody ridiculous, Malfoy. Come outside.”

Malfoy laughs. “I hardly think it would be ridiculous to go out in a blaze of heroism. Better the former Death Eater with a chequered past than a team of upstanding, though relatively useless, law enforcement officers. Oh! You’re jealous, that’s what it is. You want to be the one to go out in a blaze of heroism.”

“I don’t want to go out in a blaze of anything. I want you and the mediwixens to come outside—”

Malfoy purses his lips and makes his eyes large and scolding. “And let an old man die alone?”

“An old Dark Wizard.”

Malfoy waves this off. “Who’s to say? He might not have known the objects were cursed.”

“He was obviously—”

“All right, all right. He was a Dark Wizard. I recognized his name from some old family records. Business dealings, that sort of thing. Wozencroft. He’ll be on to the next world soon enough. No need for a fuss, Potter, I’ve already cleared the upstairs.”

“If the entire house explodes, the upstairs won’t matter!”

“I said it was a possibility, and that it probably wasn’t likely. Now, shoo.” It would be funny if Malfoy’s voice wasn’t so cold. Every word out of his mouth is frigid, exacting, and the posh tone is like a Shield Charm, thick and impenetrable between them.

“I am not going to shoo,” Harry barks. “I’m taking you out!”

“You will do no such thing.” Malfoy moves to return to the curio cabinet, and Harry takes him by the elbow. “Let go, Potter.”

“No.”

Malfoy grabs Harry’s wrist and shoves him off, that same exacting chill singing through Harry’s chest. “Fuck. Off.”

Malfoy’s eyes bore into his, and he’s frozen to the core. Not by the magic crackling through the air, but by the thought of Draco Malfoy dying in a Dark Magic explosion because Harry couldn’t get him out in time. This is all he’s good for, and Malfoy’s just not letting him do it.

He’s about to tell Malfoy that he will not fuck off when the magic in the air goes taut. 

It’s a strange pressure at his ears and his temples. Books jump on the shelves. Antiques rattle harder in the curio cabinet. Malfoy turns his head toward the noise, and so does Harry. All the objects in the cabinet are jumping about, which makes it impossible to see which one they should disable first. Harry’s not a good curse-breaker but he could at least shield them. With cursed objects, there’s always the chance that one could set off another in an awful chain reaction.

A lantern on the middle shelf glows to life.

It’s brass and boxy, with words around the base. The letters are tall enough that Harry can read them from this distance, half the words on one slanted angle of the base, half on the next. WE SHALL SEE FACE TO FACE. He doesn’t know what that means.

“Potter,” Malfoy starts.

A jet of light hurtles out of the lantern.

Harry doesn’t think. He doesn’t cast. He just moves. His body in front of Malfoy’s, between him and whatever’s coming. He knocks against Malfoy’s wand, sending his defensive spell wide. His palm lands on Malfoy’s chest.

It’s a Muggle’s instinct. The Shield Charm is a second too late.

The curse hits him like a bolt of lightning. 

He can’t process the irony through the white-hot pain. Harry feels it arc through him like electricity. It rotates his body, closing the scream into his throat.

The last thing he sees is the beautiful silver-grey of Malfoy’s eyes.

And then there’s nothing at all. 

Chapter Text

Draco is very nearly out of St Mungo’s, away from the surreptitious stares and whispers he pretends not to notice, when heavy footsteps approach from behind him at speed.

Anyone but Weasley, he thinks.

“Mate.” Weasley’s not winded, exactly, but he is a bit short of breath. “Stop. We need you back upstairs.”

He could pretend not to hear Weasley’s big, carrying voice, but where would that get him, in the end? Weasley manhandling him to a stop, no doubt. A scene in front of the Welcome Witch. Not worth the few moments’ delay, even if Weasley’s use of mate makes his stomach turn, even if his need you back upstairs is a cruel way to have a laugh. 

“I’m certain you don’t.” Draco stops, turns, the words already out of his mouth, and so don’t is already hanging in the air between them when he registers the pale of Weasley’s face. His freckles are a stark red on cheeks so white, they verge on green. 

“He’s woken up,” Weasley manages.

Draco does not feel relieved. That’s not what the weight abruptly lifting from his chest is, and even if it was, he has no right to feel it. He’s been checked over by the mediwixens and shows no signs of spell damage. He wasn’t cursed, and all he wants is to go home.

Not that home is available to him in any fashion he recognizes, but that’s neither here nor there.

“Excellent news. You were under no obligation to share it, however. An owl would have been—”

“No, it’s—” Weasley shakes his head, and Draco becomes aware of a dim pounding in his veins, like a heartbeat gone rogue. “You’ve got to come with me, Malfoy.”

He doesn’t want to follow Weasley back through the reception area and take the lifts up to Potter’s floor. Draco categorically does not want that. He’s tired, and the magic in that house felt oily and clinging, as if the old wizard wanted to pour himself into his collection of cursed objects and linger there. Or as if the objects were clinging to him, to his soul, and he had to tear himself away instead of going peacefully.

Draco is quite practised at doing things he doesn’t want to do, however, so he doesn’t argue.

In the lift, Weasley runs his hand through his hair. “Oh, bollocks. Does your mum need you at the Manor? We could send an owl, or—”

“Don’t worry about it.”

The lift doors open onto the sounds of a skirmish.

Not far down the hall, a spell thuds against thick walls. Draco counts two—no, three—shield charms going up, three different voices casting Protego. 

“Someone tell me what the hell is going on,” thunders Potter.

Draco and Weasley run at the same time.

The scene in the room is worse than he expected.

Potter’s backed into a corner, one hand thrown out, fingertips brushing the walls, his eyes wide and searching. He’d been imposing at the old wizard’s house, formidable in his Auror robes. He’s still formidable, but in an entirely different way. Harry’s plain blue hospital robes are too large. They hang off him. Draco wants to demand someone get him a set that fits properly, but Harry’s got his wand up. He aims toward one corner, then another. Magic thickens the air, charging it. Harry Potter’s magic has always been impossible to ignore, and not just because he is the Boy Who Lived, the Saviour of the Wizarding World. Draco has no idea how the Muggles Potter grew up with didn’t notice. It’s as palpable as Dark Magic, a storm surge that laps at Draco’s feet and shins.

Awesome as it is, Draco’s used to Potter’s magic. It’s his expression that sends a shiver, cold and visceral, down the length of Draco's spine. It’s the scratches around the skin of Potter’s eyes, as if he’s tried to tear something away from his face. 

It’s having a similar effect on the two mediwitches in the opposite corner, a few meters from Potter. Granger crouches down on Draco’s right, a shield charm glowing around her. He can see Weasley’s wand in the corner of his vision on his left. 

“Someone say something,” growls Potter.

One of the mediwitches makes a break for it.

She doesn’t leave enough space for the wheeled tray in the centre of the room. 

It clatters to the floor.

Potter’s wand snaps toward it, and Draco calls, “Expelliarmus.” 

The holly wand flies through the air.

It should be in Draco’s palm in a heartbeat, but Potter throws out his hand and the trajectory of the wand slows. It…reverses. Potter’s expression flashes between fury and terror, his magic pulling against Draco’s, taking his wand back. 

Draco’s not thinking, precisely. It’s pure instinct he follows when he stops casting and lets Potter’s wand snap back into his hand. Potter’s fist closes around it.

“Potter,” Draco scolds. “What on earth are you doing?” It’s the first question that comes to mind. Deep down, he means, how are you shaking off Expelliarmus, of all things? I demand to know.

Potter gasps, falling back against the wall. “Malfoy?”

“Guessed it on the first try.”

“You.” Potter points his wand in Draco’s direction. “Why are you here?”

Why is Draco here? It’s an intriguing question. He should be dead, all things considered, and no one in this room has a real need for him, no matter what Weasley said.

“Because Weasley dragged me back here for Merlin knows what. Granger, if you’d shed some light on—”

“Hermione?” Potter shouts. 

“Lower your voice.” Draco lowers his out of habit, but also out of an awareness of the St Mungo’s staff gathering near the door. “You’re causing a scene.”

“Why the fuck would I care—” Potter clenches his teeth, grip getting tighter on his wand. “Hermione.” Draco can tell that Potter just manages to quiet his voice. “If you’re here, answer me.”

“I’m answering you,” Granger says. Potter doesn’t react. Then, to Draco: “He’s not responding to anyone. Just missed both of us with a hex when he woke up.”

Potter grits his teeth. “Malfoy.”

“The tests showed,” Granger continues, shaken, her voice thin, “that his eyes and ears weren’t damaged by the curse. The physical structures are fine. But he can’t see. And he can’t hear us, or the mediwixens.”

“But he can hear me.” Draco’s stomach sinks. He’s been here before. Not with Potter, but…here. With a person trembling as if they’d been caged. It should have no effect. Draco’s heart has been dead since the last time he watched this happen. Since the last time he followed the course of pain like this all the way to its bitter end. The fact that the muscle keeps beating, stubborn and relentless, despite his grief, is beside the point.

“Are you talking to Hermione?” Potter’s defensive, disbelieving, eyes travelling blankly over the room. “Malfoy. Answer me.”

“Of course Granger’s here. Weasley, too. Lower your wand, Potter, you’ll take their heads off.”

Draco will lose his job if he doesn’t mitigate these circumstances. If it’s true that Potter can only hear him, then he has no choice but to—

“Who else?” Potter demands. “Who?”

“You’re at St Mungo’s.” Walls. He needs walls. Draco shoves away the horrible falling feeling, locks away a hundred memories that threaten his balance. He makes each footfall audible as he approaches Potter. “Granger and Weasley are here, and a mediwitch. There are more of them in the hall, likely preparing to stun you.”

Potter’s eyes follow his voice, but it’s a rough estimate, as if he’s not entirely sure where Draco is. “Stun me?”

“I would say there’s moderate concern about you casting indiscriminate hexes at the staff. And your friends.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“What possible motive would I have to lie?”

Potter gazes at the ceiling, though Draco knows he can’t see it. The long-suffering expression is familiar. “Oh, I don’t know, Malfoy. A few come to mind.”

“Yes, I can imagine. I’m your very worst enemy, I’m a former Death Eater—”

“How do I know?” Potter’s voice shakes. He can’t maintain his exasperation. He’s obviously terrified, and Draco hates the sight of it. A swaggering, overconfident Harry Potter—that’s what he understands. The gravity of the situation is beginning to dawn on him, and Draco would rather not, he’d rather not, but it’s too late.

Draco straightens his spine, consciously relaxing his shoulders. “Granger. Weasley. Come here.”

He can feel them exchange a weighted glance behind him, and then they cross the room, coming to stand on either side of him. Is this how it felt for Potter, all those years in school? The three of them, shoulder to shoulder. All that goodness, coming off them like gold.

“You could hear their footsteps, yes?”

Potter’s brow furrows. “Yes, but—”

It’s the panic, that’s all. Draco would know the rhythm of Pansy’s walk, or Blaise’s or Theo’s, even now that he’s left them to their lives. Potter should know Granger and Weasley’s.

“Here’s Granger. If you’ll excuse me…” He reaches across Granger, takes her by the wrist, and guides her palm to Potter’s shoulder. Potter freezes. Another wave of emotion assaults Draco. He puts that away with all the rest, hanging it up like a set of robes. “Now. You’re an Auror. How can you prove it’s her?”

Potter swallows. “I don’t know. She won’t talk to me.”

“Hardly. She’s been speaking to you, but you can’t hear her.”

The creases in Potter’s brow deepen. “Because of the curse.”

“We can only assume. I’m going to touch your hand now, Potter. Try your best not to hex me.” He wraps his hand around Potter’s. The holly wand is still clutched in his fist, so Draco angles it away from Granger’s face as he guides Potter’s touch closer. Granger turns her wrist so that her knuckles rest on Potter’s shoulder. Thank Merlin. Draco didn’t want to ask. Potter relaxes enough to let his fingertips meet her skin.

Draco lets go of Potter’s hand. 

It’s a loss. There is no time to examine that particular feeling, only to shut it away, out of sight.

“Hermione.” Potter’s voice drops. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” she says, her face falling.

Potter brushes his fingertips over the bone of her wrist, then toward her elbow. He stops at the scars. Concentrates. “I’m sorry,” he says again.

“It’s fine, Harry.” There are tears in her eyes, and in her voice.

Weasley elbows Draco. 

“She says it’s quite all right, Potter,” he says, a beat too late. Potter won’t believe him now.

“Tell him I bought him a Cannons jersey for his birthday,” Weasley blurts. “Last year. Gave it to him at the office.”

Potter touches the scars on Granger’s wrist, the pad of his index finger settling over each letter in turn. Feeling for the shape. 

“Hermione,” he says, finally, and pulls her in for a hug.

“Weasley says,” Draco announces, “that he bought you a Cannons jersey for your birthday and gave it to you at the office.”

Weasley leans into Potter’s other side, and like that, the Golden Trio is reunited. Draco feels like an interloper. A voyeur. He’s worse than that, in fact. He’s a translator. A conduit for all their emotions about one another. He has already done this once—been the last connection to the world. Granger smooths Potter’s hair. Weasley pats stoically at Potter’s face. Both of them talk over one another, uselessly, pointlessly. Draco can’t do this again.

Potter lets out a breath, running his hand over Granger’s hair. He tests the curls with his finger, relief plain on his face when he discovers the secondary proof that it’s her after all.

“That curse,” he says softly. “Merlin, that hurt.”

Something in Draco’s chest pulls. He doesn’t need a Pensieve to remember how Potter’s face looked when the curse hit. Agony. It had been agony. The light had gone out of Potter’s eyes. His hand had slipped from Draco’s chest, and he’d crumpled to the floor.

“The house.” Potter’s chin comes up. “The mediwixens. Did it—”

“They’re perfectly well. You were the only injured party.” The burst of magic when Wozencroft had breathed his last had, as far as Draco could tell, been concentrated in the lantern. We shall see face to face. 

“Okay.” Potter nods to himself. Granger looks up into Potter’s face, frowning, and dread cools the pit of Draco’s stomach like frost. Potter laughs, unsteady. “Okay. I got cursed. Better me than the mediwixens.”

Draco can’t help the flare of indignation at this assessment. The mediwixens hadn’t been in any danger. He’d made sure of it.

The mediwitch behind Draco clears her throat, reminding him that they’re not alone.

“Potter—” Draco begins. 

“Right.” Potter’s eyes move over the room again, over Draco. “Malfoy. Hermione. Ron—I don’t care. One of you. Could you tell the mediwixens to take the bandages off? And find my glasses. I can’t see a bloody thing.”

Chapter Text

Harry thought nothing would ever hold a candle to being hunted by Voldemort. 

Well. It has.

It’s not the first time he’s been injured in the line of duty. A little over a year ago, he caught a modified slicing hex to the back of his thigh. “Oh,” he’d said, and tried to jog off to St Mungo’s by himself, only for his leg to give out underneath him, blood pooling on the ground.

This is different.

He can’t see a thing. Not so much as a sliver of light.

It’s worse than the cupboard under the stairs.

Because it can’t be one thing, can it? Of course the curse has dimensions. Harry should’ve expected that, but he didn’t.

Draco Malfoy’s voice is the only one he can hear. Everyone else in his life, in the entire world, has been reduced to footsteps and, occasionally, a huffed breath.

After Malfoy informs him that there are no bandages in a cool, even tone that Harry hates, Merlin, he hates it, Harry makes a silent vow not to ask him for anything.

He breaks that vow less than thirty seconds later.

“Malfoy.” Harry tries to sound calm while his breath gets thinner and thinner. “Can you ask the healers to step out? Please.”

“Yes. Give us a moment?” Malfoy says, and when the door closes, Harry covers his face with his hands.

“Is it still the same day?” he asks.

Hermione taps once. Yes. 

“Do they know a countercurse?” Probably not, since he can’t see, and can’t hear his friends.

Hermione taps twice. No. But then she rubs at his arm as if to say not yet.

He considers screaming, just to release some of the tension coiling in his gut. Instead, he says, “I just want to rest.” 

Harry allows Hermione to take him back to the bed. But…what is he supposed to do, lie here?

“I don’t know, Granger,” Malfoy says. He tells the story of Wozencroft and his collection of cursed objects, pausing at various points. Retracing his steps, over and over, not a hint of strain in his voice.

According to Ron and Hermione, there’s no sign that the lantern was planted in the old wizard’s house. Harry wasn’t targeted, and he’s not currently being stalked by another Dark Wizard. Not any more than he usually is, anyway. Harry gets a few death threats every year from people who’ve fixated on him for one reason or another. The Auror department chases them down. They’re not serious the way Voldemort was serious.

This curse is bloody serious.

Harry focuses on the words until he can’t anymore.

The dark feels closer than the narrow cupboard, and it has no boundaries. Heavy black shrouds the world in every direction. He feels for the edges of his bed for the better part of the afternoon, listening, listening. Ron and Hermione sit close until it’s too close. He needs space, but he can’t bear it. No—what he can’t bear is that they can’t talk to him. Not really. Hermione pats his hand every time Malfoy relays one of her messages, which seems to mean he’s doing it accurately, but he doesn’t trust it.

He and Malfoy aren’t friends. Harry spoke at his and Narcissa’s trials, and Malfoy and Narcisa went back to the Manor. That’s all he knows. Harry didn’t see Malfoy again until he started working at the DMLE three years ago. They haven’t had a real conversation since the war, except for once at the Ministry lifts. Malfoy had been coming out of one of them, Harry going in, and Malfoy stepped out of his way with a posh excuse me, and Harry had said Malfoy and dipped his chin, and that’s it.

Really, they haven’t had a real conversation ever. And he’s just supposed to rely on Malfoy now. Harry doesn’t truly believe he’s lying, but every time Malfoy speaks, questions crowd his mind. What if he is lying? Is he the same kind of person he was in school? Does he wish he was a Death Eater? I can’t see his face. I can’t see. I can’t—

Echoes of the pain from the curse come over him in throbbing, aching waves. 

What is he supposed to do?

“Potter, visiting hours are over,” Malfoy announces. Harry’s unmoored in time. He doesn’t know where the afternoon went. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to bloody do all night. “The mediwitch wants me to tell you that Granger and Weasley will be allowed back in tomorrow morning.”

“What about you?”

A pause. “I’ll be allowed back in tomorrow morning as well, if necessary.”

“If necessary? I can’t hear any of them. I can only hear you.”

“That doesn’t mean you want to listen to me, Potter. I won’t force my company on you.”

Malfoy’s right. What is he thinking? “I’m sure I’ll be fine. I’m sure there’s—I’ll be fine. One tap for yes and two for no, right?”

“That’s right,” Malfoy confirms, and then he must be gone, because Harry can’t hear him anymore. 

He’s showered in hugs from Ron and kisses from Hermione. Footsteps retreat. The hollowed out sounds of St Mungo’s continue around him. Healing spells hum, but there are no voices, only footsteps, doors opening and closing, the glass clink of potion bottles.

He finds the edge of his bed. 

He finds all four edges of his bed, then retreats to the pillow.

Harry’s head aches. He’s tired. He should be able to sleep, but when he lies down, his eyes won’t stay closed.

He knows, rationally, that someone who wants to kill him would approach quietly even if he could hear. They wouldn’t want to draw attention to themselves. But, alone in the dark, his thoughts don’t remain rational. He strains to listen harder. Strains not to listen at all. Squeezes his eyes closed. Tries to sleep, but his breathing is ragged and jerky.

Anyone could be watching him.

People are always watching him, which is what makes the idea so feasible. He’s the Boy Who Lived, so being in public means being noticed as a rule. Harry knows St Mungo’s isn’t the public, but it feels like trying to sleep in the middle of Diagon Alley. How much gold would it take for someone to convince one of the mediwixens to go against their Healer’s vows? There’s money to be made in selling photographs to the Prophet.

This could end up in the Prophet.

A photo of him, helpless in bed, not doing anything to help anyone else. 

Harry pulls the blankets tighter. His head pounds. He can’t remember taking a pain potion. Must not have, because it gets worse as the minutes pass.

There’s no bloody way he can sleep, but maybe if he does…

Maybe he can sleep off the curse. Maybe, if he can fall asleep, he’ll wake up, and he’ll be able to see. From what Hermione said, there’s no obvious countercurse. It could be time-limited, though. It could fade with time.

How much time? A voice like a basilisk whispers in his mind. The rest of your life?

Harry refuses to think about that.

He’s just fallen into an uneasy half-sleep, still listening too hard to relax, when someone touches his shoulder. Harry startles upright, wand out. He knows the questions he’s shouting don’t make sense, but his heart has never sounded so loud. He can’t hear anything over the thudthudthudthudthud. Someone taps at his arm—yes, he thinks, yes, yes, but he has no idea which question they’re answering. Glass shatters nearby and something drips down the front of his hospital robes. He swipes at it, panic rising, then casts a detection spell out of habit.

He can’t see the result.

“What is it?” he shouts at whatever mediwix is at his bedside. It’s not a yes-or-no question. “Is it—what is it?” 

Harry presses his hand to the robes, and he knows, he knows, it has to be a potion of some kind. Pain relieving. Dreamless Sleep. Draught of Peace. That knowledge is like a whisper in a thunderstorm. It disappears in the lash of panic. Harry casts the detection spell again, then again, horror cresting. He can’t see if it’s poison, if it’s harmless, if it’s blood.

He sweeps his arm around him, but the mediwitch isn’t there.

Harry can’t breathe.

He’s going to be sick.

A pressure at his eyes reminds him of blacking out, but his vision is already dark.

Harry backs up as much as he can, pressing himself tight against the pillows. His throat feels raw, though he hasn’t been screaming. Has he? He finds the edges of the bed again but they seem to squeeze in on him. He won’t lie down, won’t be caught flat on his back. He’s afraid he’ll fall, and there’s no telling what’s on the floor.

His pulse is a mad rush in his ears. Half his face has gone numb. He runs through a list of defensive spells but can’t bring himself to cast. It doesn’t matter. Something bangs against the opposite wall, more glass breaking, and he throws his hand up to shield his eyes.

He’s going to die like this, isn’t he? He’s going to suffocate himself without meaning to, right here in St Mungo’s. If that’s going to happen, then this is how it should be. Nobody should get close, not when his magic feels so wild and uncontrollable. He should handle it himself. Harry always handles things himself, because that’s what he’s for. He’s the one who swoops in to save other people, not the other way around.

His heartbeat is painful now. It makes his head throb. How long does he have to wait? At least he could see his parents that night in the Forbidden Forest. Now he can’t even look at a photo. If he could get that Resurrection Stone back, would he be able to hear them?

No, that basilisk-voice says. No. All that’s over for you now.

“Potter.” He can’t catch his breath. Malfoy’s moving through the room. Harry can feel his magic like a cold, silver stream cutting its way through the thrash and pull of Harry’s. “Potter.” Hands come down on his shoulders and give him a brisk shake. “Merlin. I’m taking your wand.”

Harry wrenches himself away from Malfoy’s grasp. “No.”

“I’m afraid so.” Malfoy plucks Harry’s wand out of his fingers. “It’s on the side table—no, stop.” Firm hands return to Harry’s shoulders. “You need to get ahold of yourself. Take a breath.”

What Harry wants to do is take a swing at him. 

“How dare you,” he chokes, the numb, cold feeling all the way around to the back of his neck.

Malfoy laughs. “How dare I? You’re the one who called me back.”

“I didn’t.” It’s a weak protest. Harry doesn’t have any idea what he might’ve said.

“I received three owls and a Patronus, Potter. I’ll spare you the details of the letters. Now stop it. You’re frightening the children.”

“What children?” The panic subsides, if only a little. Harry has a horrible vision of himself as a field trip exhibition. Small wizards and witches brought through his room in a line.

Malfoy sighs. “You’ve shattered potion vials in all the adjacent rooms, including on the floors above and below. You must calm down.”

“There are children down there?”

“One child, or so I gather. That doesn’t mean there won’t be more.”

“Fine.” Harry blinks, several times, trying to clear the pressure from his eyes. “Fine. I’m fine.”

“You have Draught of Peace on your robes.” Malfoy doesn’t mention that Harry has also sweated through them, judging by the clinging damp at his chest.

“The mediwix wouldn’t tell me what it was.”

He expects a cutting barb—of course not, Potter, not when you terrified the poor witch—but it doesn’t come.

“You need a clean change of robes.” Malfoy takes one hand from his shoulders. Harry can feel him moving. Gesturing at someone, maybe. “And then we’ll get you to sleep.”

Harry catches his breath, and maintains a steady rhythm. It’s all that feels manageable. Malfoy carries on half a conversation. 

Yes, thank you. 

No, I think I’d better.

Of course. Whenever you have it.

It irritates Harry, not being able to hear the other person speaking. His head hurts too much for all this. Malfoy puts a set of robes in his hands and Harry jerks them away, hating his own helplessness, but when the fabric is over his head, he loses his sense of the robes and can’t find the neck-hole.

“Stop,” Malfoy says patiently, and that’s even worse. “You have to take off the old robes first.” He pulls the potion-stained robes over Harry’s head, then drops the new ones on and tugs them into place. Then his long, cool fingers are on Harry’s wrist. He presses a small vial into Harry’s palm. “Drink this.”

“What is it?”

“More Draught of Peace, since the last vial ended up on your robes.”

He feels for the stopper and pulls it out, panic swelling again.

“There are two mediwitches in the room,” Malfoy explains. “They gave it to me.”

“I didn’t think it was poison.” Harry lifts the vial, bumping it awkwardly against his bottom lip, and drinks.

Malfoy takes the vial out of his hand and replaces it with another one. “This one is Dreamless Sleep.”

He drinks.

Harry’s exhausted, and his head swims. The Dreamless Sleep takes effect almost immediately. He’s not sure if it’s Malfoy or the mediwitches who pat at him until he slides down the bed. He’s not sure which one of them covers him with the blanket.

“What happens next?” he asks, the world seeming distant and peaceful.

Malfoy’s voice is close by. “More of this, I assume.”

Malfoy’s prediction is wrong.

By the second day, it’s clear that Harry can’t stay in hospital. He still can’t see. He can’t hear anyone’s voice except Draco Malfoy’s. But once the headache fades, they can’t find anything else wrong with him.

Harry can’t stand being here. He’s restless, his legs twitching with unspent energy. The mediwixens don’t like it when he paces the room because he might fall, Malfoy says, so he keeps his fingertips on the wall. Ron and Hermione visit in the afternoon.

It’s awful.

“Hermione says—” Malfoy keeps starting, and then he breaks off while they’re obviously having a conversation about him. “The healers—”

Harry pauses his pacing. “Just give me a full sentence, Malfoy, for Merlin’s sake.”

“The mediwixens and the healers agree that you can be discharged as long as you’re not left alone for long periods.”

Harry’s soul shrivels at the implication. “Why not?”

“Potter.”

“I’ll be fine in my own house. I know where everything is.” He starts pacing again, a knot growing in his stomach. He doesn’t know where everything is, but he doesn’t want to admit it. He wasn’t even alone for an hour last night, and look what happened.

He refuses to ask Malfoy to nurse him back to health.

In the end, he doesn’t even get to ask. Hermione comes to hold his hand while Malfoy explains that the healers strongly recommend he stay at St Mungo’s unless certain conditions are met.

“That’s not—there’s no such thing as a conditional release. They can’t actually keep me here, Malfoy, I’m not a prisoner.”

There’s a brief, embarrassed pause. 

“No, they can’t. But they can be concerned about your safety, as well as the rest of the general population.”

“So—what? They want to send a mediwix home to watch me?”

“Yes, I—” Another pause, as if someone’s interrupted Draco. “Yes. Granger wants you to know that she and Weasley agree with the healers—”

“Oh, excellent.”

“—that I should escort you to Grimmauld Place, then check in on you three times a day. A mediwix and your healers will also look in on you.”

“Perfect. Maybe you can all decide the rest of my life by committee, too.”

Hermione squeezes his hand.

“You were cursed, Potter. No one wants you roaming about, putting yourself and private citizens in harm’s way.”

Hermione squeezes his hand again, and Harry’s hope deflates. He’d built up a little fantasy of waiting this out by himself, but he can’t, can he?

“Fine. When can we go?”

It’s another hour before he can tap his wand to the discharge paperwork after Malfoy reads it to him. He changes into the set of Muggle clothes Ron brought from Grimmauld Place. Ron and Hermione walk on either side of him to the Floo.

“Granger would like to know if you want them to go with you.”

Yes. He would. He’d like them to stay with him until this is over, to never be out of reach, but it’s too much. It’s just—he can’t.

“No, I’ll—” He can’t send an owl. Can’t see the parchment to write, and he can’t remember the spell to use to make the quill write for him. “I’ll send a Patronus.”

Ron and Hermione surround him. Harry doesn’t say that he’s scared out of his mind. He doesn’t say that he’s not sure he can cast a Patronus when everything is so, so dark.

He can tell they don’t want to let go, but they do, and then in a rush of sound, the Floo flares up.

Malfoy takes Harry’s hand in a brisk, neutral way that reminds Harry of the mediwixens and wraps it just above his elbow. The position pulls them closer together than Harry would’ve done himself, and his face flames at how secure he feels, his hand braced neatly on Malfoy’s arm.

“You don’t have to help me with the Floo,” Harry grouses. “I can still say Number Twelve Grimmauld Place all on my own.”

“Of course you can.” Malfoy leads him into the Floo anyway. “Number Twelve Grimmauld Place.”

Harry didn’t account for the spin. He’d stopped noticing it in the years he’s spent Flooing to the Ministry from Grimmauld and back every day for work. Now it’s all he has. He’s instantly disoriented, startling when his feet touch down, and it’s only because of his grip on Malfoy’s arm that he doesn’t fall face first out of the grate.

He stumbles anyway, the two of them lurching into Harry’s sitting room.

“Potter—”

Harry trips over a footstool. Malfoy catches him, but in the process Harry swings his arm out. Something clatters to the floor. Picture frames, by the sound of it. He takes another step while Malfoy tries to pull him the opposite direction and knocks into a lamp this time.

Panic sweeps over him, and the house seems to yawn around him, a black cavern filled with things he can’t see. He tries to picture the sitting room.

He can’t.

“No.” Harry scrambles away from Malfoy, but he can’t remember where the fireplace is. He just has to leave. “No. I can’t stay here. I don’t remember—”

What he does remember is that Grimmauld Place is full. All of it. Every floor. Every room. It houses generations’ worth of Black family heirlooms that don’t like to be moved. His own things, scattered haphazardly through the space. Sirius’s old bedroom. Testy paintings on the walls, a kitchen with brimming shelves.

Glass breaks in every direction, and Harry could cry. His own bloody magic is going to bring the house down on him, and then what?

The room gets hotter, magic buzzing in his ears. Malfoy takes him by the arm and hauls him bodily in one direction. Harry feels him stretching, reaching for something, and Malfoy pulls again. He trips but doesn’t fall, and then Malfoy calls something he can’t make out over the crash of his pulse, and they’re spinning.

He’s losing his mind.

They touch down a few moments later, and Harry’s sure he’ll be sick, so sure that he hurls himself out of the fireplace. That same heat rises again, and from behind him, Malfoy casts an Extinguishing Charm. Something cracks into Harry’s head. A shelf? There’s the sound of shattering pottery. He reels back, then presses on, please, let him not trip over anything else. Harry puts both hands in front of him and walks until he finds a wall, scrapes his hands along it—there. A door.

He opens it and runs.

The air is warm and sweet outside, and he doesn’t care. He’ll just run until he hits water, or a cliffside, anything. He can’t go on like this.

Harry runs into a wall.

He rolls off it, barely manages to keep his balance, and sprints away. Someone’s shouting at him. He can’t make out the words, and doesn’t want to.

He senses another wall looming ahead, a kind of pressure in the dark, a second before he hits it and cuts left, stretching his legs, gaining speed—

Harry rams into something solid.

It’s not a wall.

It’s Malfoy.

Distanty, he realises Malfoy’s speaking to him. He doesn’t register the words until Malfoy shakes him, the same way he did at St Mungo’s. 

“Potter. Can. You. Hear. Me?”

“Yes!” Harry sobs. He’s appalled at how he sounds, desperate and panicked and like he’s been crying nonstop for weeks.

“Stop trying to run away from me.”

“I’m not—”

“Stop.”

Harry hadn’t noticed he was still trying. He stops struggling, and the pressure at his shoulders relents. Malfoy’s palms move, up and down, the way he must be breathing. It seems he’s breathing hard from chasing Harry.

“Potter.”

“What?”

“You need to let me help you.”

“No,” Harry snaps, his chest caving. “Just take me back to Grimmauld, and I’ll—”

“Do not waste any more of my time with that nonsense.”

“How the hell is it nonsense, Malfoy?”

“You shouldn’t be alone.”

“I’ll figure it out!” Harry’s face burns. He’s mortified at the display he’s just put on, the weakness he’s shown—

“You can’t hear anyone else. You’re staying with me.”

That’s what Harry wanted, isn’t it? He didn’t want to stay at Grimmauld Place. He knows even less about…he supposes this is a field. There’s grass under his feet. 

“I don’t know where we are.”

“Wiltshire,” Malfoy says. 

Harry drowns in a new flood of horror. “You brought me to the Manor?”

Malfoy curses under his breath. “Technically, yes. I do live on the Manor grounds. But they’re very large, and we’re nowhere near the main house. My cottage is on the opposite side.”

“Cottage?”

“Yes, Potter, my cottage. I’d have told you earlier, but you bolted. Nearly destroyed half my house on your way out here.”

Harry does, on occasion, destroy things. He might knock a wall down on a raid with a countercurse. He might bleed on the ground a little. He doesn’t rampage through people’s homes and then expect them to escort him back to safety.

“Sorry,” Harry says. 

“You can compensate me later.”

Harry laughs, but it comes out a bit hysterical. He can pay to replace things. How is he supposed to compensate Malfoy for dealing with him? How has this become a situation where he needs Draco Malfoy? 

“Name the price, then, Malfoy. I’ll pay it now.”

“Later. I haven’t done anything to help you yet.”

Yes, he has. Malfoy’s done more than Harry’s allowed most people to do in years. Harry bounces a little on the balls of his feet. There’s too much energy coursing through his muscles. It felt good to run, and the urge is building again.

“You can’t be still, can you?” There’s an edge to Malfoy’s tone.

“Not usually, no,” Harry snaps back. “Sorry to be such a burden.”

“Oh, for Merlin’s sake.” Malfoy grabs Harry’s hand, his other palm firm on Harry’s waist, and turns them. 

“What are you doing?” Harry shouts, brain thick and muddled, concentrated mostly on Malfoy’s touch, and he has to admit it isn’t awful. As soon as the thought registers, he tries to yank himself away. Malfoy won’t let him go. 

“Malfoy.”

“Yes?”

“What are you doing? What are we doing?”

Malfoy spins them in a slow circle, and Harry stops trying to get free.

“Dancing.” 

Harry’s breath slows, embarrassment morphing into confusion. “Why?”

“Because I can’t let you run off.”

“Can’t let me?”

“No. You’ll catch yourself on fire, or worse, the whole forest. Or you’ll run into one of the trees and crack your skull.”

“So you’re…dancing with me?”

“You can’t be still.” Malfoy’s stern but there’s a crack in the shell, isn’t there? “I’d duel you, but I have an unfair advantage.”

“The fact that you can see?”

“The fact that I’m a half-decent wizard, unlike you.”

Harry laughs in spite of himself. “Sod off.”

“No, I don’t think I will.”

Malfoy dances him across soft grass, and Harry becomes aware of singing insects and a gentle breeze and how good it feels to move this way. 

“You don’t want to do this,” Harry says into a summer-scented dark.

“Why would I? You’re an awful dancer.”

“No, I mean, you don’t want me to be here with you.”

There’s a slight pause before Malfoy answers. “It’s better than the alternative.”

Harry’s throat gets tight. “What’s the alternative?”

“Being the last person to see the Chosen One before he immolated himself with accidental magic, and having to explain that I did nothing to stop it.”

“Oh.” Harry doesn’t know what to say to that. 

“Never fear, Potter. The very moment the curse is lifted, you’ll be free of me.”

“Er,” Harry says. “I think it’ll be the other way around.”

Malfoy doesn’t answer. Instead, he keeps leading Harry in what he assumes is a competent dance around the grounds, his hands strong and sure and solid. Harry finds he’s not so panicked about how long the curse will last when he’s locked in the soothing rhythm of their circles. 

He loses track of time. It doesn’t hurt that Malfoy smells good, despite being at St Mungo’s with him for the better part of two days. Harry finds himself leaning into it, breathing deep to capture a scent he could only describe as cool water. Refreshing. 

Malfoy doesn’t seem to mind that there is no music. Harry thinks he must be keeping time in his head from the way their footsteps move in graceful deliberation.

“It seems like you’ve done this before.”

“Only since I was seven, Potter.”

“Well. You’re very good at it.”

Malfoy’s hold on him tightens at the compliment, and Harry feels a bit dizzy at the closeness. He knows this isn’t meant to be romantic.

“Thank you,” Malfoy says, voice warm.

“Was it your mum who taught you?”

Malfoy tenses and drops Harry’s hand. Just like that, the dance is over. The moment’s gone. Malfoy’s hand goes to Harry’s elbow.

“What’s happening?”

“We’ve reached our destination.” Malfoy takes Harry’s hand and reaches forward. The cottage door is there waiting for them.

Chapter Text

Draco has been averting one crisis after another since he was eleven years old. Few of them seemed as formidable as the prospect of a distressed, curse-blinded Harry Potter living in his house.

A Harry Potter who is not the too-thin teenager Draco was enemies with at Hogwarts. This Harry Potter, though he is the same height, has put on muscle and grown into his features. He has, Draco thinks, accumulated more power, if that’s possible. He’s utterly captivating. 

He won’t allow his nerves or his realisations about Potter to show in his voice or his touch, though his heart feels like a trapped bird, fluttering anxiously around his chest. It reminds him, ironically, of brewing Draught of Peace—tipping hellebore in until the moment it reaches that precise shade of turquoise, stopping before another drop lands in the potion. The entire process is precarious.

They step into the cottage, Draco leading the way. Potter’s face falls, and he looks like he did when they arrived at Grimmauld Place. Potter would never allow Draco to see him like this if he knew how hopelessly vulnerable his expression is—eyes wide, brow furrowed, a worried tilt to his mouth, as if something might jump out and bite him at any moment. Draco imagines his hand on the vial of syrup of hellebore. He wills his fingers to remain steady. He can’t, however, recall that shade of turquoise when the arresting green of Potter’s eyes steals his attention. 

Draco closes the door and sets his wards. Potter shivers as the wards slide down over the cottage, his face turned toward Draco.

“Who do the wards let in?”

Draco’s heart does an awful twist. “No one.”

“No one?” Potter echoes, disbelieving. “Not one person? Not Pansy or Blaise, or—”

“You don’t have to worry about any other Slytherins disturbing your peace.”

“What about your mum? Wouldn’t she—”

“She won’t bother you,” he says, a bit too harsh. Draco clenches his teeth, forces himself not to drop Potter’s elbow. “I meant what I said. Not a soul.”

Potter’s cheeks flush. There’s a slight quiver in his chin before he sets his jaw. “Okay. I just thought—okay.” 

Draco wills himself to relax. “So. We’re in the sitting room now. Kitchen’s straight ahead, at the back of the cottage. The study’s on your left. Stairs on the right. Bedrooms and bathroom are on the first storey.”

Potter looks in every direction Draco mentions, blinking, strain obvious in his face. “Okay…”

“Now we’ll walk it, starting with the sitting room.”

The corners of Potter’s mouth turn down, but he doesn’t protest. He follows Draco through the sitting room. Potter lets Draco put his hand on the back of the sofa. The arm of the chair. They go through to the study, where Potter skims his fingertips along the edge of Draco’s desk. His fingertips brush the edge of the framed photo Draco keeps there, and Potter pauses as if he wants to pick it up, to ask about it, but he doesn’t. Draco’s glad for that. He lifts Potter’s hand to the pot of Floo powder on the mantel, and Potter’s face turns a deep, angry red. He doesn’t mention it, lest Potter fly into another panic.

By the time they arrive in the kitchen, Potter’s glowering.

“Here’s the table,” Draco says, putting Potter’s fingers to the hardwood edge. The surface has a simple design that gleams in the fading light of the day. The table is older than either of them. An antique, kept and loved for years before Draco was born. “And here are the chairs. Why don’t you—”

“Sit down?” Potter yanks his hand away from Draco’s, voice brittle and forbidding. “Get out of your way?”

“Merlin, Potter.”

“You have to want me out of your way. This has to be—” Potter gestures wildly, but it’s clear he’s already lost track of the table. “A trick. A joke.”

“Showing you the table is…a joke?”

“All of this. The—the leading me around. The dancing. All of that has to be—”

“Has to be what, Potter?”

“Are you lying about the wards?” Potter takes what he must think is a menacing step in Draco’s direction, but Draco doesn’t find it particularly intimidating, namely because the only place Potter can go with any great accuracy is toward the sound of Draco’s voice. “You could let anyone in here to see—anyone could come in, and I wouldn’t know.”

“Why would I lie about the wards, of all things?” 

Potter’s magic ripples. When he’s calm, it’s still a physical presence. When he’s angry it’s like a summer thunderstorm. This is the Harry Potter he knew in school. Hot-tempered, determined, demanding. Oh, something in Draco says. It’s you. 

But even though this is the same Potter from school, Draco does not recognize the fear hidden behind Potter’s power. He’d always assumed the Chosen One didn’t feel fear. Couldn’t, perhaps.

“Why would you lie?” Potter scoffs. “Why wouldn’t you?” Draco shuts away the swell of emotion in his chest, and Potter lets out a frustrated growl. “Would you stop? Circe’s tit, it’s driving me mental.”

“Stop what?”

Potter’s lip curls. “Whatever you’re doing with your magic. You’re hiding from me.” His eyes narrow, and Draco has the terrifying sense that Potter can see him, never mind that he can’t. “You’re Occluding. Why’s that, Malfoy? So I don’t know how much you hate me? Cat’s already out of the bag, don’t you think?”

Occlumency has been a reflex since Draco was sixteen, and it takes real effort to not tuck away his thoughts and emotions. They take up too much space in the front of his mind and in his chest. He lets himself feel them, lets them take up that space, willing his heart to slow naturally.

“I don’t hate you.”

Potter rolls his eyes and folds his arms tight across his chest. “Yes, you do. We’ve always hated each other.”

Draco can feel the heated simmer of Potter’s magic flooding the kitchen. He’s already seen what happens when it reaches a fever pitch, and he doesn’t want to be sliced by airborne shards of glass. He doesn’t want Potter to be sliced by shards of glass, either.

Draco examines his feelings, his memories, trying to come up with something that would convince Potter to believe him.

“I thought I hated you,” he offers after a minute, the words rough in his throat. “For a period of time when we were in school.”

Potter’s shoulders droop, but he doesn’t uncross his arms. “You thought you hated me?”

“There was an element of pretence to it, wouldn’t you agree? How can you hate someone if you don’t know them?”

Potter blinks, considering. “We knew each other.”

“No, we didn’t. I never would have guessed—” Draco chooses his next words carefully. Giving specifics out loud could be a monumental risk. If Potter’s magic peaks, Draco might not have enough time to cast a Shield Charm before the roof caves in or catches ablaze. “I wouldn’t have guessed many things about you, because I didn’t know you in school.”

“Oh, but you know me now?”

“Of course I don’t. How would I?”

Potter’s eyes trail toward the floor, focused on nothing in particular. “So…you don’t hate me?”

What Draco wants to say is that he hasn’t felt strongly about anything for three years. He wants to tell Potter that when the messages arrived from St Mungo’s telling him that Potter needed him, now, the protectiveness he’d felt shocked him to the core. 

“I don’t know you,” Draco says instead, keeping his voice low, earnest.

Potter’s eyes find his face, almost. 

“I cursed you,” Potter whispers, like he’s confessing to a secret-keeper. “You know enough.” The cold agony of the memory suffuses Draco. Potter flinches, seeming to expect retaliation. “See? That’s how you feel about me. You hate me.”

“Merlin, Potter. I am a wizard, not tea leaves in your Divination class. Don’t tell me what I feel.”

Potter stalks closer, scowling, and Draco stands his ground. “I’ve felt you hating me since we were eleven.”

“Then stop feeling it, you infuriating git.”

“I can’t.”

“You defeated the Dark Lord. I couldn’t even disarm you at St Mungo’s. I’m sure your magic is powerful enough that you can shut off your obsession with my supposed feelings for the length of a conversation.”

Potter stumbles back, exhaustion etched in every line of his face, and Draco has to actively stop himself from reaching out a steadying hand. He catches himself on the back of a chair.

“It’s not an obsession,” Potter says, voice sharp. “All I mean is—don’t hide it. Hate me in the open.”

Draco puts his fists in his hair and counts to ten. “You think you can sense my emotions through my magic. Is that it?”

“I know I can.”

“And have you always been so sensitive to other people’s magic?”

Potter purses his lips. “No, I guess not.”

“Did you feel this way about Granger and Weasley’s magic when they were with you?”

“No,” Potter says slowly. “I noticed it, but it wasn’t as obvious as yours.”

Draco smooths his hair into place. “And you felt…what, exactly, when you brought up that cursed bathroom?”

“Cold.” A frown twists Potter’s mouth. “It hurt.”

“That,” Draco says, and takes a slow inhale. “Is how I felt about nearly bleeding to death on a bathroom floor. Not how I feel about you. I don’t have feelings about you, Potter. I don’t have feelings about anyone.”

There is a long, thoughtful silence. “Anyone?”

“I’m starting on dinner.” Draco turns toward the fridge, a charmed Muggle antique from the forties, and swallows over the lump in his throat. Cold air glides over his face. What a prat, asking him not to Occlude. Who in Merlin’s name wants to feel any of this? Fine, then. He won’t Occlude. He will let the emotions sink lower so they’re not front of mind, so they’re less likely to leak out into his magic. Apparently, the Chosen One can sense when that happens, too.

“Malfoy…”

“Is there something particularly distressing about being indoors?”

“I—”

“Out with it, Potter.” Draco glances over his shoulder. Potter’s looking into the middle distance.

“It feels very…small in here.”

“It is small. It’s a cottage.”

“Yeah.” Potter sighs. Draco suspects there’s more to this. He doesn’t want to press. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to come at you over it. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”

“At least the curse hasn’t changed your personality. You’ve always been hostile and suspicious.”

Potter snorts. “Hostile?”

“Good manners are not a joke. I showed you the chairs so you’ll know where to sit, should you want to. Not because I need you out of my way.”

Potter taps his fingers on the backrest. “Sorry.”

“Apology accepted.”

For a minute, Potter hovers at the table. “Could I help? With dinner, I mean.”

“Of course you can help. You still have your magic.”

“Right.” Potter brightens, straightening up. He takes one step toward Draco. His forehead creases. Another step, then another, and he’s crossed to the countertop. He stands there, fingertips searching out the tiles, the sink. 

Draco stares into the fridge. He takes out carrots and celery, still wrapped from the farmer’s market, and drops them on the countertop in front of Potter. “Here are the carrots and celery. Perhaps you could wash and cut them for me?”

“Sure.” Potter casts a Cleaning Charm on his hands without seeming to think about it and touches the vegetables. His face relaxes. He starts to undo the wrapping, and Draco goes back to the fridge and finds some pork chops. A vivid memory pops into his mind—Potter, age eleven, looking at a tray of pork chops like it was Christmas morning.

Draco busies himself with finding a pan and heating it on the hob.

“Don’t you still have house-elves?” Potter’s tone is carefully conversational.

“There are a few who stay up at the Manor. They’ll come if I call them.”

Potter casts another cleaning spell over the carrots, then tests them with his fingertip and his wand, measuring the distance for the spell to chop them. He casts it nonverbally and slices appear in the carrots one by one. “Why aren’t you asking them to cook for you?”

“I find it relaxing to cook.” Draco focuses on collecting the oil and the seasonings he needs for the pork chops. He levitates a roasting pan out of one of the cupboards. “Pan, to your right,” he warns Potter.

Potter lifts his hand to find it in the air and follows it down to the countertop. “I’m sorry, by the way,” he says.

“For what?”

“For…” Potter’s frown returns, only this time there’s pain in his eyes. “For sixth year. I didn’t know what the spell was supposed to do.”

“Interesting way to test it out.” Draco will never forget the breathtaking pain and fear of that curse, not least because of the scars he has all down his chest.

“I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known.”

“Really? You weren’t disappointed, then?”

“Disappointed?”

“When I didn’t die.”

“No,” Potter breathes, shoulders slumping. “No. I was glad you were okay. I didn’t actually want to murder you. I never even wanted to hurt you like that.”

“And here I thought you hated me,” Draco says, Potter’s apology heavy on his shoulders like wool. He tips pork chops into the heated pan.

The sizzle of the oil is the only sound, for a few moments.

“I guess I didn’t know you, either,” Potter says.

Toward the end of dinner, Potter puts an elbow on the table and covers his eyes with his hand.

“Do you have another headache?” Draco asks as he clears their plates.

“Yes.” Potter’s voice is partially muffled by his arm.

“You could close your eyes, you know.”

Potter drops his hand and looks in Draco’s direction. “What?”

“Your head probably hurts because you keep trying to see. I doubt you need to make a constant effort.”

Potter huffs, looking resolutely ahead.

When Draco turns around after he’s cleaned the dishes, Potter’s given in and closed his eyes. His head tips forward and he jerks it back up, blinking hard.

“Oh, come on.” Draco stands at the side of Potter’s chair until Potter stands, then taps at the back of Potter’s hand until he takes Draco’s arm. Potter has only the clothes he’s wearing. He’ll need some brought from Grimmauld Place in the morning. For now, Draco finds a spare set of pyjamas and sends Potter to wash up.

Potter emerges a few minutes later, one of his pyjama buttons askew. 

“You’ve missed a button.” Draco reaches for the fabric without thinking. Potter stills under his touch, his cheeks pink. He could kiss that flushed skin. It would be so easy.

It would be a mistake. Potter wouldn’t want that.

Would he?

No.

“There. All fixed.” Draco drops his hands and Potter clears his throat. Potter turns his head to the left, toward the guest bedroom, then pauses.

“Yes, it’s that way,” Draco confirms, and Potter walks there by himself, dragging his fingertips along the wall. He stops at the threshold. 

“Good night, ” Draco says.

“Good night, Malfoy.” Potter pats the pocket of the pyjamas for his wand. He opens his mouth, as if to say more. “Good night,” he says again, then goes into the guest bedroom and shuts the door.

Draco hovers in the hall. He wants to follow Potter in, make sure he’s found the bed again. He wants to pull the covers up and sit in the chair in the corner until Potter’s fallen asleep, the way he had at St Mungo’s.

After a few quiet minutes, he goes back downstairs. Tidies the dishes. Repairs the scorched wall in the study that Potter lit on fire earlier. He’s just finishing when the Floo flares up.

“Malfoy?” Granger calls. “I’m sorry it’s so late.”

He crouches in front of the fire to face her. “It’s not a problem, Granger.” 

She pushes a hand through her curls. “I tried the Manor, and one of your house-elves said you were here. I hope I didn’t disturb your mother.”

“I’m sure you didn’t.” He tries to keep his tone light, but his face must show some of the strain.

“I’m glad, I wouldn’t want…” Granger trails off, then blinks up at him, eyes sympathetic. “How is Harry?”

Draco thinks of Potter tearing through the cottage like a whirlwind, searching desperately for the door. “He’s fine. He’s here, actually.”

That brings her up short. “There? With you?”

“Yes. It seems he didn’t want to stay at Grimmauld Place, so I brought him with me.” Draco’s a bit stung at her shocked expression. “Given the circumstances, it seemed easiest.” 

“And you’re okay with that?” Granger asks.

“Why would my feelings about it matter? I would have thought this would assuage your anxiety.”

She shoots him a look. “It’s not for me, Malfoy, he’s—”

“I know. I apologise.” He softens his tone. “Potter has been cursed. I’m tired, that’s all.”

Granger looks at him as if she knows perfectly well that it is not all, and Draco looks back, keeping his expression blank. 

“I haven’t found anything yet about the lantern. You’re sure you’re not feeling any effects?” she asks, finally breaking the tense silence. 

“None whatsoever, except that Potter is living in my house. The curse missed me. That doesn’t mean I’m exempt from dealing with it.” He says it with a wry tone and a knowing look that Granger probably won’t reciprocate.

She laughs, sounding genuinely affectionate, and Draco wonders what he’d have to do to feel that way about someone else. What he’d have to do to deserve it. “If you need anything, just owl. Any time. Or Floo. I’m—we’re here for you.”

She’s not. Not really. She’s here for Potter, and that’s fine. “Thank you,” he says.

“I’ll keep looking for answers in the meantime, Malfoy,” Hermione promises.

“I’ll do my own research, too. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

“Wonderful.” She beams at him. “Okay. Goodnight, Malfoy. I’ll call again soon.”

Granger disappears, and Draco gets to his feet. He has a collection of books related to curse-breaking, and there are a few he has in mind to consult first. He gathers them from the study shelves, puts them on the side table, and settles into his favourite chair by the fire.

Draco falls asleep three pages in, the book still open in his lap.

He’s woken by a crash that shakes the cottage and a burst of magic that vibrates through his bones.

Draco sprints for the staircase before he’s fully awake. He takes the stairs two at a time. The guest bedroom door hangs from its hinges, a scorch mark down the length of it. He skids to a stop and looks in.

“Potter,” he gasps, overtaken by adrenaline. “What on earth?”

Potter wheels around, and Draco understands immediately that while this approach worked in hospital, it won’t work now. And he’ll never be able to think of him as Potter again, not now that he’s seen him like this. Harry’s lost all his colour, his eyes wide and staring. Tears stream down his cheeks. He swings his hand in Draco’s direction, his hand, and a bolt of light streaks from it toward Draco’s chest.

“Protego!” Draco shouts. The shield deflects whatever wandless, wordless hex that was, and Draco rushes forward to close the distance between them. He gets there just in time and shoves Harry’s outstretched hand toward the ceiling. Fire blooms from his fingertips, setting the plaster ablaze. Draco casts a frantic Extinguishing Charm just as the bedroom window explodes, spraying glass into the cool night air.

“Potter,” he says, very, very softly. “What’s happening?”

Harry lets out a choked sob. “I can’t do this. I can’t die in the dark.”

“You’re not going to die,” Draco reassures him.

“I’ve got to go meet him, that’s what—I have to. I just wanted to see them. I can’t find the Stone.”

“What stone?”

“The Resurrection Stone. It’s in the Snitch I caught. I want to see my parents. I’ve got to go meet him. Don’t kill me first, please—I want to see them, and I’ve got to go.”

Draco is rendered momentarily speechless. Harry doesn’t seem to realise he’s crying, and he certainly doesn’t know he’s cowering, held up by Draco’s strength alone. Draco’s heard a lot about what happened in the Forbidden Forest during the Battle of Hogwarts. Everyone has. 

He’s never heard it quite like this. 

“You’re dreaming.” He’s as firm as he can be without raising his voice. “It’s just a dream. The Battle’s over. It’s all over. It’s been over for years.”

Harry swallows, more fat tears rolling down his face. “How do I know?”

“Do you remember…” Draco casts about for anything, anything that’s proof the war is over. “Do you remember when I came to work for the DMLE?”

A pause. Harry might not remember, he supposes.

“I remember…” Harry’s eyes are huge in his face, unfocused, unseeing. “You shutting yourself in with Robards and coming out with a job?”

“Yes.” It had gone just that way. He finds another memory that might help anchor Harry to reality. “Do you remember—that first year I was with the department, I missed a curse on an old necklace. It wrapped around my neck.” Draco takes Harry’s free hand and presses it to his nape before he can think about the startling intimacy of the pose. Draco, holding Harry’s wrist to the wall. Harry, his hand like a lover’s on the back of Draco’s neck. It’s far more intimate than dancing. 

Draco clears his throat, trying not to think of the warmth of Harry’s hand on his skin. “I have a scar in the shape of—”

“An arrow,” Harry finishes, voice shuddering with a wave of sobs he doesn’t seem to notice. “Isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Harry’s fingertip brushes over the raised tissue of Draco’s scar.

Their faces are inches apart.

Draco tries not to think of the heat of Harry this close. He tries not to think of how those eyes are so green, even in the low light filtering in from the hall. He ignores his own shiver when Harry traces the scar again. 

He tries not to think of how Harry’s fingertips would feel on the Sectumsempra scars.

He can’t imagine that. It wouldn’t be right. Draco absolutely cannot imagine leaning in, feeling the heat of Harry’s mouth, distracting him with a kiss. He cannot imagine murmuring soft promises to the soft hollow of Harry’s throat. He can’t.

He won’t. 

Harry’s arm sags in Draco’s grip. “It was only a dream.”

“Yes, Potter. You’re safe.” With me, he wants to say, but doesn’t. Now that the imminent danger seems to have passed, a trembling has begun in his own muscles. Draco locks it down tight. No need to mention the scorched hole in the ceiling or the broken door. “You can lie down in the other bedroom.”

Harry is quick to notice the implication. “In your room, you mean?”

Draco answers by tucking Harry’s hand into his arm and walking him down the hall to Draco’s bedroom. When Harry’s legs hit the side of the bed, he scrambles onto it, unselfconscious as Draco has ever seen him. Harry claws at the covers and slides underneath, pulling them tight around his shoulders. He faces the wall, only his nose and eyes above the shelter of the blankets.

The covers don’t hide Harry’s shaking.

Once again, Draco hovers, at a loss for what to do. This was simpler when it was—

Never mind about that.

“I’ll be downstairs,” he finally says to Harry’s back. “If you need—”

Harry’s reply is muffled by the blankets covering his face. 

“Pardon?”

A rustle, and Harry’s chin appears above the blankets. “Don’t leave.”

Draco’s heart throbs at the vulnerability in Harry’s voice. He’s surprised to realise he doesn’t want to leave Harry alone, not for a moment. It’s the easiest thing in the world to strip to his undershirt and climb into the bed. He’s careful not to touch Harry, but awareness of him is in every movement, every stretch as he settles onto his pillow.

Harry’s shaking doesn’t subside.

Finally, he reaches out in the dark and rests a reassuring hand on Harry’s arm.

Draco’s already drifting to sleep when Harry turns, mumbling something.

“What was that?”

“Can’t stop thinking about it. The dream.” Then, softer: “I’m scared.”

Draco’s too tired to resist the pull of the beautiful, trembling man in his bed. He slides over without hesitation and fits his body closer to Harry’s, wrapping his arm around Harry’s shoulders. Has Harry always been this warm? Draco falls asleep wondering.

Chapter Text

Harry wakes up slowly, with the vague sense that it should be getting light behind his eyelids. He’s been deeply asleep. It’s some time before he remembers the curse.

He opens his eyes—still nothing—and closes them again.

Malfoy’s in the bed with him, his arm slung protectively over Harry’s body. He feels…quite close.

What happened last night?

He remembers going to bed, a dull headache at his temples. He remembers thinking the sheets on Malfoy’s guest bed felt nicer than anything he has at Grimmauld Place, though Malfoy claims this is a cottage.

He remembers dreaming about the Forbidden Forest.

The sound of the Forbidden Forest sticks with him in particular, as it was the night of the Battle of Hogwarts, only in the dream, he couldn’t see any of it. Leaves had rustled and distant wails had echoed from the Great Hall while he’d searched on hands and knees for the Snitch, digging through damp earth and dry stones. He’d felt the seconds tick by. He’d known that Voldemort would come for him soon, and he still couldn’t find the Snitch, still couldn’t get to the Resurrection Stone.

He remembers…

Crying?

Harry’s face heats at the memory. He’d had a—a conversation. With Malfoy. Malfoy’s hand had been at his wrist, and Harry had been touching him, almost as if…

Almost as if nothing.

They’d ended up here in Malfoy’s bed.

Malfoy’s hand flexes against Harry’s ribs, and Harry momentarily forgets to be embarrassed about the dream. It feels good to have Malfoy so close. It feels good to be held. When was the last time he felt this safe?

Malfoy stirs. His arm tenses, as if he’s just realised that he’s curled around Harry, and then he rolls away.

“Malfoy.” Harry keeps his voice soft. Maybe Malfoy’s not quite awake yet.

Malfoy makes an irritated sound. It’s muffled, as if he’s turned his face into the pillow.

“Er…I didn’t catch that.”

The blankets tug, sheets rustling next to Harry. 

“What is it, Potter?” Malfoy grumbles, his voice clearer this time. 

“What time is it?”

Malfoy casts a mumbled Tempus, and then wood clatters on wood—his wand on a side table, Harry thinks. “Go back to sleep.”

“I—”

“It’s five in the bloody morning, Potter, go back to sleep.”

He does.

When he wakes again, the bed is empty and he can hear Malfoy moving around the room. Harry can smell his soap in the room, subtle notes of spice over the scent of his skin. Malfoy’s footsteps travel crisply back and forth. Drawers open and close.

He’s getting dressed.

Harry tries not to imagine Malfoy half-dressed and fails. He rolls onto his back before the mental image gets too clear. Then, abruptly, a small panic arrives. “Are you going somewhere?”

“Good morning to you, too, Potter.” There’s a laugh in Malfoy’s voice that’s slightly…chiding. Teasing.

Harry pushes himself up on his elbow and runs a hand through his hair. “Are you?”

“No.” Malfoy’s footsteps pause near the bed. Merlin—is he putting on a jumper or doing the buttons at his cuffs or is he completely naked, still in the process of gathering his clothes? Harry just manages to stop himself from reaching out to see if his fingers meet skin or Malfoy’s expensive trousers. “We have plans.”

“Not at St Mungo’s, I hope.”

“At this very cottage, as I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear. Now get up. We have a full schedule.”

Harry finds the edge of the bed. Malfoy moves about, stirring the air around Harry. Merlin, why? Why does he have to smell so good? Harry’s forgotten how to breathe normally.

“A full schedule of what? I’m out of a job.” Maybe permanently. 

“You’re still a person, are you not? You still need to live.”

“By doing what?” Harry doesn’t love how he sounds. He’s never been this hesitant and wary. “I can’t work.”

Malfoy huffs, and magic prods Harry in the shoulder, then the back. “Come on, Potter, up you get.”

Harry stands, feeling the concentration of Malfoy’s magic ahead of him. He moves toward it and reaches out, finding the spot above Malfoy’s elbow. Harry’s breath catches in his throat. He has no reason to think Malfoy will push him off, but the act of reaching and taking without being invited, without being prompted, makes his chest feel heavy with worry.

“Ah! The Chosen One learns at last.” Malfoy steps forward, Harry at his side.

“You say that like you want to take me everywhere.”

“I do.” Malfoy’s voice is almost…kind. 

“You do not,” Harry scoffs, unable to hold in his incredulity. 

“It’s a matter of degrees. I want this more than I want you to break your neck tripping over a banana peel.”

Harry bursts out laughing at the posh, particular tones of banana peel. “You would never have a banana peel on the floor of your house.”

“I was trying to empathise with your Muggle upbringing.”

“Banana peels lying about weren’t really a thing.”

“Isn’t that interesting?” Malfoy says, and pushes him into the bathroom.

Harry’s first morning at Malfoy’s cottage is less awkward than expected. 

“Your cottage!” He says every time he remembers that Malfoy has chosen to live in a two-bedroom cottage that once belonged to the Malfoys’ forest ranger some centuries ago. “Instead of the Manor!”

They cook breakfast together. Eggs. Bacon. Toast. Malfoy teaches Harry a spell that repels things—“Whisked eggs, for instance,” says Malfoy—from the edge of a dish. Then he shows Harry how to modify the whisking spell, fitting it neatly to the repelling charm so that none of the egg flies out of the bowl.

Harry’s uneasy with the day stretching out ahead of them, though Malfoy keeps insisting they have plenty to do. He finds his silver on the table next to his plate and tries not to think about how Malfoy can see everything Harry does, and Harry can’t see anything. The fact of the curse had been so upsetting in hospital and yesterday that he hadn’t come to terms with all its implications.

“Your cottage!” he says again, a laugh bubbling up out of nowhere. Why was it so damn funny? “Are you sure your mum won’t mind that I’m—” Malfoy thwacks him on the head with what feels like rolled-up parchment. “Malfoy! Did you just—”

“Redirect your attention with a copy of the Prophet? Yes.”

Harry panics at the mention of the Prophet. He doesn’t want this in the papers. He especially doesn’t want a photo of him from St Mungo’s or, Merlin forbid, the Malfoy Estate on the front page. Suddenly his fork feels thick and wrong in his fingers. He can’t remember the right amount of force to stab his eggs with. And there’s toast on the plate, too, there’s bacon—

Malfoy thwacks him again, softer this time. “There’s nothing about you in the Prophet, Potter. Wozencroft is the star of page six.”

“Oh, did he—did he get a mention?”

“Several inches on what the Ministry calls an eccentric collection of historical objects and a rather uninspired career as a Dark Wizard. No living direct descendants. There was a spot of unexplained magical activity at his home, which was—” Malfoy clears his throat. “Mitigated deftly by Ministry curse-breaker Draco Malfoy.”

Harry has to agree with that, actually.

Paper meets the breakfast table, and Malfoy’s fork clinks on his plate.

“They didn’t say I was there?”

“Your selfless act of heroism wasn’t noted in the article.”

“Is that what you think it was?” Harry wishes he could see Malfoy’s face. He can’t, but he can feel something in Malfoy’s magic—not the purposeful opacity it has when he’s Occluding, but a bright sensation, like Lumos cupped in someone’s palm. “A selfless act of heroism?

“No, I think it was a reckless act of self-destruction.”

“I didn’t curse all that stuff.”

“And I told Weasley to keep his people at a safe distance. You went running in for no reason at all.”

“I went running in because you were in there. Alone.” Harry’s plate rattles on the table and he pushes it down with his palm, heart racing. “Against protocol.”

He doesn’t have to see Malfoy to know that Malfoy’s looking at him.

“I mean…” Harry points his fork in what he hopes is the general direction of his plate. “Why would you do that? Go in there alone, I mean. Dark Magic like that isn’t predictable.”

“Life is not predictable, Potter. Do you know what is? Table manners. I’m afraid yours are in need of…remedial attention.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “I can’t see.”

“I noticed this unfortunate fact in our first year at Hogwarts.”

Malfoy gives him a crash course in etiquette, which Harry quickly understands is only a cover for what he’s really doing—teaching him a number of spells modified in small ways to make eating easier. One of them attracts bite-sized portions of food to the tines of his fork and sticks them there until it’s in his mouth. One of them makes his glass of orange juice less likely to spill when bumped. Malfoy shows him how to find the edge of his plate with the tip of his wand so he can aim his post-meal Scourgify with better accuracy.

“Where did you learn all these?” Harry asks as Malfoy leans over him, clearing the plates. His arm brushes Harry’s, and Harry stifles a wild urge to grab for him and pull Malfoy down to…

Bite him.

God, no, he can’t—Harry hastily retreats from the idea. Kiss him, then. He wants teeth on skin, and that’s not—

“Just picked them up here and there.” Malfoy steps away with the plates and says nothing else about it.

Aside from his newfound attraction to Malfoy, Harry’s main obstacle is his lurking panic.

It’s true, what Malfoy said—Harry can’t be still. When he’s not trying new spells or cooking or pestering Malfoy about his cottage, the dark closes in, choking and oppressive, sending his thoughts spiralling along with it.

“I’m never going to work again,” Harry gasps on the afternoon of the second day, muscles trembling, breath short. “I can’t do anything. I can’t do anything.”

Malfoy drags him out into the fresh warmth of June and dances him around the yard until he can breathe again. But breathing isn’t going to be enough. How could it be enough?

That night, as they’re lying in Malfoy’s bed together with Malfoy’s arm around Harry’s shoulders, Harry tries to imagine slipping off his guilt like an invisibility cloak, as if that will help him escape the mounting shadow of it.

“I’m wasting your time,” Harry whispers into the dark.

“Hmm?”

Harry rolls closer, and Malfoy’s hand glides onto his chest. Neither of them say anything about it. “The Ministry assigned you to me, didn’t they? That’s why you’re out of the office.”

“They did not.”

“You quit your job, then?”

“I’ve taken a sabbatical.”

“The Ministry doesn’t send people on sabbaticals.”

“As I said, they didn’t send me. I informed Robards that I’d be taking one.”

“Those are for—I dunno. Professors. People who study.”

“Who says I’m not studying?” Malfoy says lightly, and Harry’s stomach drops.

“You’ve taken a curse-breaking sabbatical. To study this curse.”

“I—”

“To study the curse on me.” Harry shakes off Malfoy’s hand and turns over, trying to hide how short his breaths have become. “You can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because there are other people who—there are objects.”

“Yes,” Malfoy says, slowly, teasing. “People and objects do exist.”

“It’s not funny, you prat. There are other people who need your curse-breaking talents more than I do. People who need you. I’m taking time from your mum, too. It’s bad enough that—”

“That you’re living here, with me?” Malfoy breaks in, that infuriating mirth still in his voice, a hint of tension there, too.

“No.” Harry buries his face in the pillow, resurfacing when he’s collected himself. “No, it’s bad enough that you’re doing all this for me. Spending all your time—you haven’t even had time to research the curse, because I’m—”

“I’ll have time tomorrow.” Malfoy curls around Harry again, his arm across Harry’s chest. He spreads his fingers over Harry’s ribs, resting his palm there, warming that stretch of Harry’s skin. A subtle relaxation in Malfoy’s magic makes the touch seem casual, almost routine. Like something Harry could count on for the rest of his life.

“What if you don’t?”

“I will. Go to sleep.”

“Sod off, Malfoy.”

Malfoy squeezes his shoulder in response, not letting go. They both know he won’t leave, just as they both know Harry won’t go back to the guest room.

The next day after breakfast, they go outside. Malfoy nudges Harry. “Walk it off.”

“Walk what off?”

“Potter, you frown when you’re fretting. I can see it starting up again. Go for a walk.”

“What are you going to do?”

“None of your business.” Malfoy’s voice is prim. “Now go. I’ll shout at you if you’ve gone too far.”

He hasn’t gone twenty steps when he hears Malfoy start casting behind him. He feels it, though Malfoy’s magic is less concentrated outdoors. He decides to see if he can find the boundary where he stops feeling it.

“Turn around and come back this way,” Malfoy shouts, voice distant and faint.

He goes back. Malfoy sends him away again. 

They do this for quite some time.

“This way,” Malfoy calls eventually. “Keep coming. This way.” Harry follows his voice until he can hear the sound echo closely off the cottage.

“Am I aiming for something in particular?”

“Yes.” Malfoy takes him by the arm. “This.” They pace forward a short distance, and then Malfoy’s fingers are on his wrist to lift his hand, and they meet—

Magic.

Harry prods at it. It’s not hard, like a wall. It has give. “Is this…” Malfoy releases his arm, and Harry follows the magic forward. “Are these wards?”

“Yes,” Malfoy says. “Run.”

Harry goes.

The magic is there on his right whenever he reaches for it. He goes faster, running harder, and the ward curves, guiding him in another direction. Harry’s just beginning to wonder if it’s a square, or a circle, when it transfers seamlessly to his left side, turning him before his muscles have had a chance to get bored.

He laughs out loud. God, this feels good. The breeze tousling his hair. The sun on his face. Malfoy’s magic, everywhere.

The unique silver-cool of Malfoy’s magic is quieter in the wards, but still present. Harry turns toward the boundary and pushes at it. If he’s gentle about it, he can move through the wards and out, but he can still feel them humming behind him.

Harry jogs away, intending to test how far he can go. He’s not sure how far he’s gone when the wards disappear.

Harry’s disoriented in seconds. He has no idea where he is.

Malfoy’s grounds in Wiltshire, he reminds himself, heart beating fast from the run.

“Malfoy,” he shouts. “Where are you?” He can’t tell if he’s feeling Malfoy’s magic or imagining it. Can’t tell which direction to go. He can’t see. He can’t find the way—

“I’m right here,” Malfoy says, voice closer than Harry thought it would be.

He startles so badly his knees give out. Malfoy catches him, lifting him easily. Harry’s hands shake. His entire body shakes.

“I was just—” Merlin, it’s pitch black, pitch dark, there’s no one to help him except Malfoy. “I was—”

Malfoy puts his hand over Harry’s and lifts his wand. From the way Malfoy’s body lines up with his, he’s sure that if he turned just so, he could put his face in Malfoy’s neck and hide there.

“If you’re ever alone—”

“Why would I be alone?” Harry was by himself for, what, four seconds? And he lost it. The last thing he wants is to be alone ever again.

“If I can’t come to you for some reason.”

“What reason?” He knows he sounds needy, which is the worst, the absolute worst thing.

“If I got ill, or—I don’t know. I’m not saying it’s going to happen. I’m saying that if you’re ever alone, and I can’t come to you, this is the spell for finding home.” Malfoy’s voice is steady. “I’ve modified it to find my cottage. Expecto Percormeum.”

He pauses with Malfoy’s hand over his. “I can’t Apparate.”

“I wouldn’t try it. Not this early on.”

Early on reminds Harry that this might last forever. He hadn’t thought of Apparition. Now that he has, he doesn’t know how he’d do it. He’s always focused on what his destination looks like. He’s not sure he can do it based on the feeling of Malfoy’s cottage alone.

“Is it like casting a Patronus? Do I need a memory?”

“No.” Malfoy releases his hand. “Try it.”

Harry points his wand. Repeats the movement. “Expecto Percormeum.”

A warm current of magic flows through him. It feels silver, like Draco. It tugs at his wand as if to say follow me.

Harry does.

Several times a day, Malfoy sends Harry out of the cottage to run the wards. He refuses to take any credit for what Harry knows is complex magic. Wards are easier to manage when they’re anchored to a physical structure, and these are freestanding wards that change when Harry needs them to. Often, this is enough to stave off the panic.

When it hits anyway, Malfoy dances with him.

“My dancing skills are getting better,” Harry says, after a week.

“You’ve made modest improvements,” Malfoy answers, and spins him.

Malfoy also spends time every day teaching Harry spells, mentioning them casually, as if he’d come across them by accident in a book. Harry hadn’t known there was a spell to tie shoes, or that it could be modified to loosen them or tighten them once they were on. He hadn’t known there was a spell to heat food in pre-set increments. He certainly hadn’t known there was a spell that would tell him if he’d spilled something on his clothes. When Malfoy teaches it to him, Harry runs his wand over his jeans, listening for the quiet chime that says the charm has detected dirt or food or whatever else.

“This has to be a complicated modification, doesn’t it? How’d you figure it out?”

“Through my stunning intellectual prowess,” Malfoy says. “You’re welcome.”

Harry laughs and doesn’t ask why Malfoy figured it out, or if he’s been doing it in his sleep, somehow. They’re on to the next spell.

The one thing Malfoy doesn’t have a spell for is Harry’s nightmares.

He wakes up screaming or crying every third night or so. Harry dreams about the War, mainly. Sometimes, the War will bleed into his career as an Auror. In those nightmares, he never has a chance to stop, or to rest. He drags heavy Auror robes to his certain death over and over.

Malfoy doesn’t complain, though Harry knows it can’t be restful to be woken by a screaming, thrashing, occasionally crying man every few days. It’s Malfoy’s voice that he follows back to the present. It’s all right, Potter. Here. Feel my scar. I got it my first year with the DMLE. A cursed necklace. The War’s over. You’re in my cottage. Your glasses are here, but you don’t need them. It’s all right. It’s all right.

One afternoon, two and a half weeks after he was cursed, Harry comes in from running the wards and hears Malfoy in the study.

“—three years.” He hasn’t raised his voice, but Harry recognizes the sharp, precise tones he uses when he’s upset. Paper rips. “This is the best you could do? Adaptive magic can’t be an afterthought. The pages of notes I provided, hours of research—”

“Malfoy?” Harry calls. “You okay?”

“I funded this,” Malfoy snaps, going on as if he hasn’t heard Harry. “I made significant donations. I want something done. People cannot be abandoned this way.” 

A pause. 

“Thank you. I’ll wait for your owl.” 

Then, footsteps. 

Malfoy enters the sitting room and paces back and forth. “How was your run, Potter?”

It was lovely, actually, but Malfoy’s frustrated energy worries Harry. It would be nice if he could dance Malfoy out into the yard, but Harry would be rubbish at it, and he doubts Malfoy would dance for himself. Malfoy usually responds to Harry’s recurring fears by dancing with him, though, and Harry doesn’t want him to be on edge, so…

“I might never work as an Auror again.”

“Oh, for Merlin’s sake.” He doesn’t sound much like he buys Harry’s excuse. Malfoy comes toward him anyway, the clean scent of his skin wafting over Harry, and then Harry’s hand is in his. They go back outside. Malfoy pulls him in with a tense, agitated air and moves him across the grass. 

“The Ministry can wait. Don’t you think they’ve had enough of you?” Malfoy says.

“Er…no.”

“They have.”

Again, Harry has that wild urge to kiss him. To distract Malfoy from whatever it is that’s sent aching sadness all through Malfoy’s magic. He doesn’t know what Malfoy funded, or why it’s upsetting him. He just wants to make it better.

They’re quiet for a while. Harry concentrates on dancing, and on Malfoy’s hand at his waist, his hand in Harry’s. Merlin, he feels Malfoy’s grace and confidence so strongly. It’s in the balanced give and take of dancing, but also in Malfoy’s magic. He inhales the scent of sun-warmed grass and wildflowers and the faintest hint of bergamot from Malfoy’s soap. Yes, something in Harry’s magic seems to say. That’s what you want. 

Harry’s heart does a funny leap, his chest all warm. How long was he thinking about the way it feels when Malfoy moves and dwelling on the scent of his skin? The point is, dancing worked. There’s not so much pain in Malfoy’s magic. 

Malfoy’s wrong about the Ministry, though. Harry’s job hasn’t gotten enough from him. The world hasn’t.

“What about you?” Harry asks. “Was that the Ministry you were talking to before?”

“No.”

Malfoy won’t say anything else about it.

Days pass.

Harry turns over the words from the cursed lantern over and over in his mind. WE SHALL SEE FACE TO FACE. The etching might not have anything to do with the curse, but it could. They have to consider every possibility. 

Harry suggests they try looking hard at each other. 

Malfoy holds Harry’s face in his hands, and Harry stares in Malfoy’s direction, solemn, silent. 

He feels Malfoy lean closer. Once again, thoughts of kissing Malfoy descend. Oh, God, he can’t do that. He tries not to think of kissing Malfoy, which only makes him think about it more.

Malfoy dissolves into laughter, his forehead brushing Harry’s, and Harry honestly can’t breathe, their faces are so close. He’s never heard Malfoy laugh so hard, and it’s…it’s lovely, and maybe a little mortifying.

“What?” Harry asks. “What did I do?”

“Your face. Merlin. Just—try to be serious.”

Harry can’t be serious once he’s said it. He can only pretend to see Malfoy. The more he pretends, the more Malfoy laughs. Harry ends up chasing Malfoy around the cottage, eyes stinging, belly aching from laughing, gasping please, Malfoy, look at me while Malfoy pleads with him to stop and says Merlin, I have tears in my eyes, you prat, I can’t breathe in a high, breathless wheeze.

It does not break the curse.

They try waking up before dawn to see if watching the sunrise will do it. Malfoy holds Harry’s hand, a firm grip keeping Harry facing the sun. All Harry can think about is how bloody perfect it feels to hold Malfoy’s hand. How can they fit each other so well? 

Malfoy gives Harry’s hand a little squeeze. “Anything?” 

The sun must be up above the horizon, but the dark Harry sees hasn’t changed.

“Nothing,” Harry answers. It should be more of a crushing blow, but with Malfoy’s fingers linked through his, it doesn’t seem so bad.

Malfoy casts a number of countercurses on Harry, his magic brushing over Harry’s skin. The countercurses are as gentle as Malfoy himself. Harry hadn’t known that Malfoy could be so gentle. 

None of the spells have any effect.

In the evenings, Malfoy likes to sit in the study and read through his books. While he does, Harry walks the wards, keeping himself moving.

It’s still awful when he stops. With every hour that passes, he slips further and further from usefulness. Harry isn’t the first of his colleagues to be cursed on the job. He knows, like all Aurors know, that some curses have to be reversed within a certain time period, or else they become permanent.

July arrives, the summer heating up. It’s too hot to run the wards during the day, so he gets up early in the mornings and goes out again after sunset.

A few days shy of the one-month mark, Harry’s jogging back to the cottage by way of Expecto Percormeum when something swoops so close it musses his hair.

He covers his head with his arms, heart pounding, and remembers a moment too late to cast a shield charm. It’s windy out tonight. A cold front’s moving in over Wiltshire. Thunder rolls in the far distance. 

There’s a pecking sound.

An owl.

A window opens. “Potter. What are you doing? Are you all right?” Malfoy asks.

Harry uncovers his head. “I’m fine. Who owled?”

Malfoy murmurs something to the owl, and there’s a whoosh of wings. “Come inside and I’ll tell you.”

He goes in and pauses, taking in the sounds of the main room. When he concentrates, he can feel the places where Malfoy’s magic isn’t. It gives him a rough outline of the space. He finds the sofa and sprawls out on it, waiting for Malfoy to come to him. 

Malfoy sits next to him, jostling his legs out of the way. Harry remains where he is, slumped halfway onto the floor. He’s beginning to dread the owls. There hasn’t been a breakthrough. A breakthrough might not exist if Hermione, of all people, hasn’t been able to find it.

“Do you think you’re going to get ill or something?” asks Harry.

Parchment crinkles, presumably in Malfoy’s hands. “Have you been having an entire conversation without me?”

“You’re it for me, Malfoy. I can think about the curse, or I can think about you.” There’s a shift in Malfoy’s magic, like a laugh, or…he’d describe it as a brightening, though he can’t see it. “I mean, you’re the only person I’ve talked to for weeks. That day with the wards, with that spell…you mentioned getting ill.”

“It was just an example, Potter. No need to fixate on it.”

Another subtle shift in Malfoy’s magic. He’s not Occluding, which is an obvious shutting-out. Harry doesn’t know what it means. He’s not sure he’d notice the shift if they weren’t touching, and if he weren’t trying to delay Malfoy in reading the letters. Harry’s the one who asked about them, and now he doesn’t want to know. That has to be annoying at the very best, so Harry steels himself.

“What did the owl bring?”

“Two letters.” Malfoy’s tone is light and even, and the dread curdles in Harry’s stomach. Harry slings an arm over his face. “The first one is from Granger.”

“Did she find anything?”

“She hasn’t.” There’s a pause, as if Malfoy is trying to make up his mind about something.

“What else did she say?”

“Potter, I don’t think—”

“Tell me what she said.”

Malfoy sighs. “She promises to keep searching for a countercurse, but she thinks—”

“Wait. Just…” Harry gets up from the sofa and paces toward the door. Paces back. He is not going to set anything on fire or break any glass. “She thinks what?”

“She found records of a few similar cases, and based on those…it’s time to prepare yourself for the idea that the effects from the curse may be permanent. If you’d like, I can have Granger and Weasley come here so you can—”

“Who was the other letter from?”

Malfoy stands, his shoes tapping the floor. “It’s a joint letter from Robards and the Minister.”

“No.”

“They want to thank you for your service with the DMLE and assure you that—”

“No.”

“—when you’re ready, they’d be happy to have you consult on high-profile—”

“Fuck.”

“—cases, but for now, the department is offering permanent paid leave or early retirement.”

Harry doesn’t know he’s leaving until he’s already outside. He catches the wards and runs, magic boiling, coming off him in hot waves that he can’t stop.

The wards try to guide him in a wide turn. Harry crashes through them, bits of shattered magic stinging his skin.

Thunder booms. It’s as if the wards were holding back the rain, too. A crack of lightning rings in his ears.

The rain comes down in sheets, soaking him to the skin. Harry’s feet slip under him. Something scrapes against his shin. One shoulder knocks into something hard. Probably a tree.

Permanent. Permanent. Permanent.

“It’s only been a month,” he rages. “A month.” A sound like a flame roars nearby, but rain comes down to meet it. Another fire, on his opposite side. He has to get control of himself, has to, needs to run this off. He puts one hand out in front of him so he won’t crack his head open on one of the trees.

Harry’s running as fast as he can when he encounters the root.

The front half of his foot catches on it and he goes down hard, one palm scraping on a rock poking up through the underbrush. The fall knocks the wind out of him. He scrambles at the mud, his toe stuck on the root, ankle twisted.

His lungs force a breath, a string of curses ready at the tip of his tongue. None of them make it out of his mouth. Harry breaks into sobs instead.

He’s only just started to turn over, scraped hand protesting, his elbow throbbing, when there’s a hand at his shoulder.

“Harry,” Malfoy calls over a peal of thunder. He casts Protego and adds Impervius. Rain lashes the shield above them. “It’s me.”

“My foot’s stuck.” Harry can’t stop sobbing.

“I’ve got it,” Malfoy answers. 

There’s a gentle touch at his ankle, another at his foot, and it comes free from the root. Malfoy helps him stand. A shock of pain goes through his ankle when he puts weight on it, and he leans heavily against Malfoy. More thunder cracks overhead.

“Just hang on,” Malfoy says, arm wrapping securely around Harry’s middle. “I’m taking us home.”

Chapter Text

Draco Apparates them to the cottage, touching down solidly in the first-storey bathroom. It’s not the soft landing he would’ve liked, but bringing Harry Side-Along with all his magic means managing that, too, feeling it in his own veins. Harry lets out a creative string of curses when his foot makes contact with the floor. He locks both arms around Draco’s neck, holding that foot up the best he can. Harry’s teeth chatter. His chest heaves with sobs.

“Sorry. Sorry,” he cries through gritted teeth.

“Shh.” Draco smooths mud-streaked hair away from Harry’s face and gathers him closer to take more of his weight. “It’ll be all right.”

Harry shakes his head. “It won’t. It won’t.”

For Merlin’s sake. Has Harry ever let himself have a cry like this? Circe knows Draco has. Draco holds him tighter and flicks his wand toward the tub to run a bath. He summons towels. The stack looks too small for the situation at hand, so he summons more. A pain potion. Draught of Peace. They clink on the edge of the tub.

Harry shudders. Draco glances down to find that he’s now crying silently. He feels the heat of the tears like they’re on his own face. 

He folds his wand arm around Harry, and Harry does an awkward hop and lets his head fall onto Draco’s shoulder. 

“Sorry,” Harry gasps again, his arms tight around Draco’s neck.

“It’s all right.”

“No, I shouldn’t be falling apart like this.”

“Did someone tell you that you’re not allowed to cry? Is that what happened? Tell me who it was, and I’ll hex them into oblivion.”

“No, no one ever—ever said—” Harry can’t finish his lie. He cries hot tears onto Draco’s shoulder. The sobs are wrenching and ugly and, Draco understands, wholly out of Harry’s control.

It breaks Draco’s heart.

He honestly didn’t think his heart could be broken again, but it shatters like the windows in Grimmauld Place. Harry keeps trying and failing to catch his breath.

“Oh, God,” he sobs, the words miserable and halting. “This is—this is ridiculous. I’m fine. I’m fine. There’s nothing—”

Draco holds him, offering reassurances to everything Harry says. He learned the words as a child, but he hasn’t spoken them to anyone in three years. It’s both easier and more difficult than he thought it would be. Of course it’s not ridiculous, he says, and oh, darling and shh, don’t keep it in.

Harry’s sobs slow, but they don’t stop. “It’s permanent. The curse is permanent.”

“It might be permanent. Even if it is, you’ll—”

“I can’t do this.”

“Harry—”

Harry lets out an anguished cry that burns across Draco’s chest, a call to act, to protect him, to do something to stop Harry’s pain, erase it. “You can’t start calling me that tonight.”

“Whyever not?” Draco breathes through a crushing empathy. 

“Because it’s just—it’s out of pity. I don’t want your pity.”

Draco finds a knot in Harry’s hair and works at it with his fingers until it untangles. It’s not enough, untangling that knot, but he’ll do the small things. He won’t leave any one of them undone. “Oh? Did my magic tell you that?”

Another sob that could almost be a laugh. “No. You must be h-hiding it.”

“Harry,” he says. “I am not hiding any such thing. And I refuse to hear a word to the contrary. Not when we need to fix you up.”

“M’fine.”

“I know your ankle hurts. You twisted it badly on that root. I know your elbow hurts. Your hand, too. And I know…” Draco’s throat closes. He’s never wanted to talk about this, never wanted to admit it, but he’ll tell Harry anything if it makes this less painful. “I know how it hurts when something irreversible happens to you.”

“Merlin,” Harry groans into Draco’s shoulder, as if allowing himself to surrender to the pain at last. Draco’s heart strains toward the sound. Let go, he thinks. Let go, let me catch you. Let me. “Fine. You can help.”

As if Harry could stop him. Draco’s determined to help, to fix as much of this as he can. 

The bath stops filling itself. Draco takes a deep breath, suddenly conscious of the layers of wet fabric between them. “Your clothes are covered in mud, and I can’t think of a way to pull them off without hurting your ankle. I’d prefer to Vanish them. Is that okay?”

Harry freezes for a heartbeat, then nods against Draco’s shoulder.

Draco starts with Harry’s shirt. Harry hisses, and Draco’s heart speeds up. “Did I hurt you?”

“Your s-shirt is cold.”

“That’s easy enough to fix.” Draco Vanishes his own shirt, too. He moves on to Harry’s shoes and socks, then his trousers, then his pants, and then a naked Harry Potter is clinging to him, and Draco can’t breathe. “Merlin.”

“What’s that?” Harry says, voice still miserable and muffled in Draco’s shoulder.

I want to kiss you, Draco thinks. “I’m going to help you into the bath.”

He lowers Harry into the water with a combination of strength and levitation spells, leaving his twisted ankle propped on the edge of the tub, supported by a rolled towel.

No one, no one, is supposed to look that sexy when they’re crying in the bathtub. Harry is all lean muscle, the lines of his face made sharper by the splotches of mud. He stares into space, tears running freely over strong cheekbones. Draco dips his eyes to examine Harry’s ankle.

It’s quite swollen, and a bruise is spreading on the outer side.

“I know a spell for sprains.” Draco rests his fingertips above Harry’s twisted ankle. “And one for the swelling, and one to fade the bruise faster. I can also heal the scrapes on your hands, and your elbow. Everything will probably be set right by morning if you let me.”

Harry’s lips part, and for a moment, Draco thinks he might insist on living with the pain. “Okay. Go ahead.”

Draco casts the healing spells one after another. Harry’s ankle is less red when he’s finished, but he knows it’ll still be quite tender. The scrapes on his hands have disappeared as if they were never there. His elbow shows no sign of injury.

He moves to the other end of the tub and helps Harry drink the pain potion. “Now. About your hair.”

“If you spell it off, it’ll just grow back.”

Draco pauses mid-reach for the shampoo and glances over Harry’s wild, black hair, streaming muddy rivulets down his temples. “Why on earth would I spell it off?”

Harry shrugs. “My aunt cut my hair off every year before school. It would never stay flat, which infuriated her, so she’d cut it as close as she could. It always grew back by the next morning.”

“I like your hair.” Draco would also like to find that Muggle woman and threaten her life for being so cruel. “I would never spell it off. Not unless you asked me to. I only meant that there’s mud in it, so I’m going to wash it for you, if you want.”

“Okay.” Harry closes his eyes. 

Draco casts a modified Aguamenti to wet Harry’s hair, then works shampoo through it.

Harry lifts one hand from the water with a trickling splash and swipes at his face. He lets out a heavy sigh, but not one that sounds very relaxed.

“Do you not like this?” Draco asks.

“Like what?”

“Having your hair washed.”

“Not like this,” Harry admits. 

“Oh.” Draco pauses, his fingers buried in suds. “I have other shampoos and potions, if you—”

“I mean, not with you…all the way over there.” Harry turns his face to hide his embarrassed flush, though Draco can still see the plane of his cheek. 

Draco takes Harry’s chin in his hand and turns his face forward. Harry’s eyes are still closed. Tears leak from beneath his eyelashes.

“Where else should I be?” he asks, gently, as if Harry might startle.

Harry’s lips part, and he makes a soft, helpless sound.

“Harry.”

“We sleep in bed together every night.” Harry’s chin wobbles, dimpling. “You dance with me every day. I’ve thought about kissing you more times than I can count. But I’m not going to ask you to get in the bloody tub, Malfoy, because—”

Draco releases Harry’s chin, grabs for his wand, and Vanishes his remaining clothes. “Sit forward.”

Harry does, his ankle slipping into the water. Draco casts a nonverbal cushioning spell so it doesn’t hit the bottom of the tub. Then he climbs in behind Harry, legs on either side of him, and bundles Harry against his body.

Harry’s shoulders shake, and both hands come up to cover his face. “You can’t do this.”

“I just did.”

“You can’t want this.”

“I fail to understand why not.” Draco curls himself tighter around Harry, the water sloshing around them.

“Because I can’t see,” Harry manages, voice choked. “I can’t hear anyone but you. I’m helpless. I’m useless. I can’t do anything for anyone. I’m—I’m a full-time job, is what I am.”

Draco holds him, waiting to see if there’s more. 

When he’s sure Harry’s finished, he rests his chin on Harry’s shoulder. “I disagree.”

“With which part?”

“You’re not helpless. I’ve taught you enough spells that you could get by on your own for days, if not weeks. And you’re not useless.”

“All I do is run the wards,” Harry forces through his tears. “And try to remember spells.”

“Harry.”

“Draco,” Harry shoots back, then shivers. “Fuck. Draco. You can’t—”

“You run the wards shirtless most mornings,” Draco interrupts. He feels reckless now, the warmth of Harry’s skin against his so intoxicating that he can’t hold back anymore. 

Harry takes a long, shaky breath. “So?”

“You should be given an Order of Merlin just for how ridiculously attractive you are. Having you here is hardly a burden. It’s not work to make sure you’re all right.”

“Mal—Draco, you—”

“And it is utter nonsense to think that I’m prohibited from wanting to fuck you because you can’t see.”

Harry twists in Draco’s arms, finding Draco’s face with his fingertips, his eyes huge, astonished. The pad of his thumb comes to rest near the corner of Draco’s mouth.

“Say that again.”

“What you said is nonsense. It’s bollocks. Your lack of vision has no bearing on whether I want to fuck you.”

He hopes to Merlin that Harry’s not paying close attention to his feelings now, because they’re a mess of adrenaline and desire and an ache that takes up most of Draco’s body.

Harry’s eyes move all over his face, catching on nothing. “You want to fuck me.”

“Merlin, yes. You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, and not just because of how you look naked. I’ve never been able to stop thinking about you. How—” Draco lets out some of the twisting tension in a heavy sigh. “How could I not want to fuck you?” A bewildered smile lifts the corner of Harry’s mouth, and Draco’s heart skips a beat. “Do you know, you smiled just like this when you caught Neville’s Remembrall?” 

Harry breathes a laugh. “You remember that?”

“Of course I remember. You smiled like you’d never done anything so exhilarating in your life.”

Harry’s smile softens, becoming something earnest and heart-wrenching. His thumb brushes over Draco’s bottom lip.

“I should be honest, however. I don’t necessarily want to fuck you in this bathtub,” Draco says.

Harry narrows his eyes, brow furrowing with scepticism. He clears his throat, the colour in his cheeks turning a deeper shade of red. “That’s not what it feels like.”

Draco’s cock twitches against Harry’s hip. “What, that? That doesn’t mean I want to fuck you in the bathtub. It only means I find your nakedness very attractive. On occasion, it means I’ve thought about you naked. Sometimes, it means I’ve thought about you at all.”

“Oh, good.” Harry laughs. “I’m not the only one, then.”

Draco gasps, teasing. “You’ve thought about me naked?”

“Sod off, Draco.”

“Absolutely not.” Draco wraps his arms around Harry again. “Now. Will you please let me finish your bath? I know perfectly well that you can do it yourself, because you are neither useless nor helpless, but I would very much like to take care of you.”

“Draco,” Harry whispers.

“Yes?”

“Are you flirting with me?”

“Goodness, no. I’m just trying to get you clean enough to take you to bed, and then I’ll have my way with you.”

Harry purses his lips. “Bit presumptuous, don’t you think? You haven’t even kissed me.”

“Are you sure you want that?” Draco asks, “because if you don’t like it, or you decide to resume your old habit of being hostile and suspicious, it would undermine—”

Harry wraps a hand around Draco’s nape, his fingertips squarely over the arrow-shaped scar, and yanks him in.

Draco’s ready. He thinks, in the split-second before their mouths collide, that he’s been waiting for this moment since he was eleven.

Harry kisses like everything else Draco’s seen him do. He runs headlong into it, not bothering to find his balance. He kisses with abandon, tongue searching out Draco’s, a possessive hand coming up to brace Draco’s jaw.

Draco doesn’t care how much he’s giving away anymore. He’s holding Harry far too tightly. The instinct to pin him down, to smother him with love, to keep him, drowns everything else out.

Harry tastes like magic. The flavour of it reminds Draco of sugar straight from the jar, unrefined by anything else. Kissing him feels like flying, like pushing off the ground on his very first broom.

At the back of his mind, a memory rattles free. 

“No,” Harry says, into his mouth. “Don’t stop.”

Draco wasn’t aware that he’d faltered, not for an instant. But if there’s one thing he can’t resist, has never been able to resist, it’s a direct challenge from Harry Potter.

It’s not even a challenge, really, but he doesn’t care. This feels like a dare, like a wonderful, reckless dare.

He dives into the kiss, sinking deep into the blissful oblivion of it. Harry makes a low noise in the back of his throat. Raw power like Harry’s always searches for a boundary. Harry himself is always searching for something to tussle with, to move against, and Draco could be that. He could be that forever, if Harry needed.

Draco discovers that one of his hands is tangled in Harry’s hair. He nips at Harry's bottom lip, tastes him one more time, and forces himself to pull back.

“No…” Harry sounds a bit drunk. “Why’d you stop?”

“You’re still covered in mud.”

“There are spells for that.” Harry traces the scar on the back of Draco’s neck again. “You could just…wave your wand.”

Draco smirks, reaches for a washcloth, and dips it in the water. He runs it over one of Harry’s knees, moving inch by inch along his thigh, until Harry gasps. His hard length is inches from Draco’s hand. Draco’s palm hovers just below the crease at Harry’s hip, prolonging the delay.

Harry’s hand slides down to Draco’s shoulder. He’s panting, his eyes dark and unfocused.

“What do you think? Should I just wave my wand and be done with all this?”

“No.” Harry’s breathless as he leans in, his perfect lips begging to be kissed again. “Please. Don’t ever stop.”

Chapter Text

Harry’s mind is a wash of silver magic and champagne bubbles and I’ve never been able to stop thinking about you. Draco’s done something to his lungs. He can’t catch his breath, but it’s not panic at all. It’s sheer, unadulterated excitement.

In that haze, it occurs to Harry that Draco might actually kiss him forever.

It wouldn’t be so bad to die in the bathtub, still kissing Draco Malfoy.

But Draco’s arms are around him and his hard body is pressed against Harry’s and there is a bed very nearby, and Harry wants Draco to fuck him in that bed more than he’s ever wanted anything.

It takes several tries to pull away from the kiss, mostly because Harry doesn’t want to stop.

“You—the bath. You wanted to finish washing me.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Draco says, as if he’s forgotten about the whole thing. “Turn around, then.”

Harry kisses him again instead.

Finally, Draco’s the one to break away and turn Harry forward. Harry can feel Draco kneeling behind him. He murmurs a charm to clean the water in that posh, elegant voice of his. Draco rinses Harry’s hair, and then he’s running the washcloth over Harry’s shoulders, arms, and back. He cleans each one of his fingers individually, under his nails, even. When he’s finished with that, Draco readjusts behind him and moves the washcloth around to his front.

Harry folds his legs so Draco can reach his knees, his shins, his feet. He cleans the water with the charm again. A bottle of soap clicks open, then clicks shut.

Then both of Draco’s palms are on his chest, sliding down, and Draco kisses a spot below Harry’s ear that makes him shiver from head to toe.

Draco’s hands pause at Harry’s hips. Harry’s cock twitches. He has never, ever been this hard.

“Merlin.” Draco’s teeth skate over the curve of his shoulder. “You’re gorgeous. Can I touch you?”

Harry leans back into Draco’s chest, lightheaded with want. “You’re already touching me.”

“Quite right. I should have been more specific. Can I wrap my fist around your cock, Harry?”

“Yes. Yes. Yes.”

Draco takes him in a firm grip. Harry turns his face into Draco’s neck, mad with how good it feels just to be touched. He wants to bite him, but he can’t quite do it, not from this angle. Harry makes a wordless sound over Draco’s skin.

Then Draco starts to stroke.

He’s slow and methodical. His fingers tighten over Harry’s tip, thumb brushing over his slit, and then his fist glides back down. Harry doesn’t know he’s begging until Draco kisses him like he wants to drink all that sound off Harry’s tongue.

Harry breaks away with a gasp. “I’m going to do accidental magic again. That feels—feels so good.”

Draco leans in so close that Harry can feel him smiling. “Do you want to come already?”

“No—it’s too early.” Panic flutters in his chest. “I don’t want it to be over. Not yet.”

“I have no intention of rushing our first time together.”

“Actually,” Harry says, heat racing over his cheeks. “It’s not just us. I mean—I’ve never done any of this before. With anyone.”

“What?” Draco’s grip loosens, and Harry clamps his hand over Draco’s, both of them squeezing him now. “When you say you haven’t done any of this, what do you mean, exactly?”

“All I’ve done is kiss people. And not—not many people. I’ve never gone home with anyone to fuck. I’ve never wanted anyone to touch me.”

“Merlin help me,” Draco says, voice strained, and gives Harry another stroke. “I’ll still take you to bed if you come.”

“I can last. I don’t want you to think I can’t.”

Draco’s cock jumps against Harry’s back, and he hears Draco suck in a breath. Hold it. Let it out slowly. “Harry. I could come right now just from touching you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes,” Draco hisses. “But I want to do more.”

Harry moves Draco’s hand for him, a single, hard stroke. Draco’s teeth meet the skin of Harry’s shoulder and he bites until Harry’s fucking Draco’s fist, water splashing loudly in the tub. Draco licks over the bite, then Harry’s jaw. Harry turns to bite Draco back, sucking at his neck and his shoulder, wherever Harry can reach. Draco makes a low noise. If I can’t ever see him again, Harry thinks wildly, his voice is enough. Touching him is enough. 

Draco puts a little space between their mouths. “Do you want to come now?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know, I—”

“I could make you wait. Drag it out until you’re begging.”

Yes. Harry wants that. He wants all of it right now, a million moments piled on top of one another, all of them with Draco. “I can’t choose, Draco, please—”

Draco’s hold on him tightens, his hand flying over Harry’s cock. It reminds him of the wards, the way they seem to know what he needs, the way he can run and run and run and they’ll keep him safe.

“Oh, God.” Harry thinks he says it, but he can hardly hear himself. He’s got his face turned to Draco again, one arm thrown around his neck. Pleasure expands like magic, wrapping around his hips until he absolutely has to let it out. “I have to. I have to—”

“I’m right here,” Draco says, and Harry comes, one foot kicking out and meeting the side of the tub. He has no idea what he’s saying, if they’re even words. Draco’s steady, holding him while he rides it out. Draco gentles his grip in slow increments, letting Harry settle. 

As soon as he has control of himself, Harry turns around and straddles Draco. He searches for Draco’s neck and tastes it. Sucks his pulse point. Lowers his body until Draco’s cock is held between them. Harry’s slides against it and Draco’s hands curl around his waist to steady him.

“Merlin, Draco, why didn’t you say you wanted me?”

“There was a curse,” Draco says, and wraps a hand around Harry’s neck to pull him into a kiss so deep it’s nearly bruising.

“So what?” Harry whispers into Draco’s mouth.

“That wasn’t what you needed. It wouldn’t have been right to say anything.”

“Because…”

“Because you didn’t choose to be cursed. You didn’t choose me to take care of you. Saying anything would have been taking advantage.”

“I’m choosing you now, Draco. You’re not taking advantage.” The only thing Harry doesn’t say is that he doesn’t want to leave, not even if the curse breaks. 

Draco shivers, his hands gripping tight at Harry’s waist. “I want you in bed.”

“I want you to take me to bed.” Harry’s heart stutters. He’s nervous to make demands of other people, to be so transparent about what he wants.

Draco doesn’t miss a beat. “Gladly.”

Harry’s only half-aware of Draco getting them out of the tub. He’s too busy finding every dip and divot in the curve of Draco’s shoulder with his tongue. Draco drags a towel over Harry’s shoulders, his waist, and Harry lets the pressure of the towel draw his hips tight to Draco’s. He rolls himself closer, a shameless grind against Draco’s cock, and Draco lets out a series of sounds that could be curses or prayers and holds Harry harder with the towel.

Harry lifts his head from Draco’s shoulder, his arm still slung around Draco’s neck. “Sorry. Got a bit carried away. I’ll stop—”

Draco cuts off his protest with a kiss. He takes one of Harry’s hands in his, puts the other on his waist, and dances him to the bedroom, careful to keep Harry’s weight off his injured ankle. Harry’s breathless with laughter—“Draco, dancing? Really?”—when Draco spins him onto the bed and climbs over him. One touch of Draco’s lips to his chest, hot mouth dragging over Harry’s nipple, and the laughs are transfigured into soft, needy noises that Harry can’t control.

His hands find Draco’s hair and he threads his fingers through it while Draco lingers over one nipple, then the other, then inches down to his stomach as if they have all the time in the world.

They might. If Harry stays with him forever, then they’d have forever, wouldn’t they? He’s all but been dismissed from the Aurors, he doesn’t have to find a way back to that life—

Draco kisses the tip of Harry’s cock, already hard again, and Harry gasps. His vision lightens for a fraction of a second, a fraction of a shade, like one of the dark thunderclouds against the pitch-dark night.

It fades to unbroken black again, and Harry feels oversensitized by magic and the closeness of Draco’s body. If Draco sucks him off right now, he doesn’t know what’ll happen. The house could fall, it could—

Draco spreads his hand across Harry’s hip, seeming to sense his unease. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. Yes. I thought I—” It could have been his nerves. It could have been a ghost imprint of magic. Harry’s never been in bed with anyone before. Maybe this happens every time. How would he know? 

Harry breathes in the scent of Draco’s skin, and his panic ebbs. He reaches for Draco in the dark. “Come back up here.”

Draco lets Harry bring him close by his hair, which is the softest thing Harry has ever felt, bar none. He’s wondered what it would feel like to have his fingers in Draco’s hair a thousand times. He never came close to imagining it correctly. Harry’s drunk on the specifics—it’s not just Draco’s hair, it’s Draco’s hair damp from the bath they took together, the fact that Draco’s still here, naked above him, and now—

“You’re trembling.” Draco touches his face and settles himself over Harry.

“I’m fine.” It’s only when he says it that Harry feels his heart racing the way it did when he left St Mungo’s, like it does every time he thinks of permanent darkness. It’s not that, or it’s not only that. “I want you. I want—I want so much.”

Saying it feels like a dangerous admission. Harry’s life hasn’t been about wanting and asking and getting. It’s been about waking up every morning to find that another ugly problem has reared its head, and the stakes are life and death.

“I’ll give you whatever you want,” Draco says.

Harry doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry or throw his arms around Draco and hold on for dear life. “Is it that simple?”

“Of course it is.” Draco takes Harry’s earlobe in his teeth, a whisper of a bite that Harry feels all the way to his toes. “Just tell me.”

“Please. Will you fuck me?”

“Merlin, yes.” Draco shudders, and Harry’s mind clears enough for him to feel that Draco’s magic is trembling, too, that the cool sensation of it has gone taut, as if he could snap at any moment and devour Harry. Draco kisses him with a little less control this time. “Yes. I will. I promise I’ll take care of you.”

Harry surges against Draco, letting all his thoughts dissolve. At first, the hot, hard kiss feels like a duel, almost as if Draco’s trying to stop him.

No. No. It’s as if Draco could stop him, as if he’s the only person who can take Harry by the shoulders and shake some sense into him, bring him back to himself before he goes too far. But he doesn’t. He rides Harry out like a raging storm, weathering the unrestrained passion of it. 

They’re a tangle of hands, mouths, teeth, and Draco makes a rough sound and rolls his hips against Harry’s. Harry lowers his head and finds the fine, raised lines of Draco’s Sectumsempra scars. He traces them one by one with his tongue. Draco curls his fingers into Harry’s hair, noises catching in the back of his throat. Holding Harry by the hair seems to make Draco even harder, and Harry chases the sting of his scalp and the feeling of victory with everything he has, licking back up to Draco’s mouth to kiss him there again.

Sex is a lot like running Draco’s wards. It feels so good to be out there, running with the wind in his hair. These last few weeks, Harry’s been protected by Draco’s magic, surrounded by it, kept safe by it while he wore himself out.

The wards always know when Harry wants to change directions, and so does Draco. Just when Harry’s racing heart starts to outpace him, Draco turns them so they’re on their sides, face to face on the pillows. His hands slide over Harry’s body, settling him. Draco handles him with the same confidence he uses when they’re dancing, bending one of Harry’s knees and pushing it up toward his chest. Draco rests the weight of Harry’s leg on his side and pauses, cursing under his breath.

“What is it?” asks Harry.

Draco’s hand flexes on his knee. “My wand. The spells—”

Harry puts a palm on Draco’s back and concentrates, and the cleaning and protection spells move over both of them in a wave of magic that’s slightly stronger than Harry meant.

Draco shivers like he’s just jumped into cold water. 

“Sorry.” Harry moves his hand to Draco’s nape, conscious of every inch of Draco’s body, heart speeding again. “Did that hurt? I didn’t mean—”

“You are so bloody hot. Do you have any idea how—Gods. I’m perfectly all right. I’m all right.” Draco takes a deep breath, and his magic relaxes a little. His mouth meets Harry’s hard and fast, matching the pound of Harry’s heartbeat. He lets Harry’s nervousness work itself out, making the kiss slower and deeper and hotter as his hand moves from the outside of Harry’s raised knee down his thigh and to his hip.

He pulls Harry in so their cocks rub together again, and whatever coherent thoughts were left in Harry’s head speed off like a runaway Snitch. His focus swings from Draco’s mouth to the slide of Draco’s length along his to the fingers now gently stroking over his hole.

Draco stops kissing him only to murmur a charm that covers his fingers in warm, slick lube. He touches Harry everywhere. The most sensitive skin on his body. His balls. A fingertip circles his hole, then pushes in.

Harry doesn’t realise he’s got both arms around Draco’s neck, doesn’t realise he’s clinging, until Draco presses a soft kiss to his lips and says, “Tell me if you’re okay.”

“I am, I’m…” Okay is an understatement. “Just nervous.”

“Relax. It’s all right.”

Harry’s sure it’ll be impossible. He’s too wound up, too Harry, but Draco kisses him with steady, sure control. He feels like safe harbour. It’s not long before Draco’s fucking him with that finger, and Harry has forgotten what he was nervous about.

“Please,” he begs against Draco’s skin. “Yes. More.”

“You’re perfect,” Draco says in a reverent voice. He adds a second finger, coaxing Harry through the stretch. “Yes. Oh, that was lovely. You’re taking my fingers so well. Breathe. That’s it, let me—ah. You’re gorgeous.” Harry briefly leaves his body and returns to discover that he’s rolling his hips onto Draco’s fingers, trying to get them deeper. “You like that,” Draco murmurs, voice low and pleased. “It feels good to move that way, doesn’t it? I’ll stay right here for a moment. God, you’re so bloody sexy.”

Harry’s sure he hasn’t said anything comprehensible, but Draco understands, and adds another finger. The pleasure steals Harry’s breath. 

“You,” Harry manages. “You. I want you. Please. You, this time. I need you.”

The next thing he knows he’s on his back. Draco’s hands push his knees up and up, his body close to Harry’s. The tip of him nudges against Harry along with more warm lube, and Harry could cry, he’s so turned on.

Draco makes the first push and Harry bites down on his own knuckles, needing his teeth in something, anything. He’s never made sounds like this in his life. It’s just so good to have Draco inside him like this, stretching him like this, as if Harry belongs to him and always has. It’s so right.

“God, fuck,” Draco pants. The words burn away the last of Harry’s patience. He hooks his legs around Draco’s waist and draws that cock in and in and in until their bodies are flush. He’s filled to the brim with Draco now, muscles working around him. 

“Harry, slow—” Draco’s hips pulse against Harry as if he can’t help himself. A glancing kiss falls to his cheek bone. “Slow down.”

“Fuck me,” Harry begs. “Move. Please. Move. Draco, move—”

Then Draco’s moving, and Harry understands just how much skill he has, just how much control, and just how much he’s been holding back. It’s not at all like Occluding. It’s the kind of self-control Harry can only dream of. Draco’s more than a match for Harry.

Harry gives himself over to Draco completely. It’s the easiest thing he’s ever done.

Draco fucks him hard enough to clear his mind. He fucks Harry like a question that Harry can’t help but answer by meeting every thrust. He sinks his teeth into Draco’s shoulder, pushes his fingers through Draco’s hair, and tilts his hips over and over again. Draco’s mouth glances against his and slides away. Harry brings him back by his hair and Draco makes a desperate sound onto his tongue.

The pace slows so Draco can fuck him deeper. One of Draco’s hands slides between them and he grips Harry’s cock, stroking him with the same rhythm.

Harry’s on the edge, magic strung tight as Draco’s. Draco pulls his mouth away, breathing ragged. “Harry,” he gasps. “Harry…”

“I wish I could see you,” Harry says, voice tight.

Draco exhales sharply. “Close your eyes.” He presses a light kiss to one of Harry’s eyelids, then the other, and finds Harry’s free hand. Draco brings Harry’s palm to his face and slides it over his own eyes. Draco’s eyes are closed, too. “You can feel me.”

Knowing Draco’s in the dark with him heightens the sensation of Draco’s skin on his, of his cock inside Harry, of his tired, trembling muscles and how much he loves this. The instant Draco’s lips graze his, Harry comes.

He’s still coming when Draco moves again with shallow strokes, chasing his own orgasm until he buries his shout of pleasure into the side of Harry’s neck. Draco’s release is hot and powerful, and his magic pulls tight around Harry.

Harry’s mind floats, untethered. He sprawls beneath Draco, whose chest heaves as he comes down from his high. His lips feel swollen, and he sends up a vague wish to whoever might be listening that they’ll feel like this always, always.

He’s not sure how long it’s been when Draco stirs, pulling gently out of Harry. He summons his wand and casts until the sheets are dry and they’re both clean. Harry feels for him in the dark and tugs until Draco’s curled around him, his arm around Harry’s waist, just the way he’s been every night since Harry came to the cottage. Draco charms the sheets over them, and they flutter down to Harry’s skin, light as a breeze. 

“How are you?” Draco follows the words with a kiss to his nape.

“Good. Really…really good. Great, actually.” Harry was going for a more eloquent answer, but being fucked by Draco has apparently not transferred any of Draco’s eloquence to him. “Tomorrow, I think we should do it again.”

Draco laughs, the sound satisfied and intimate. “Do you want me to give you another bath?”

“No. I don’t want to get out of bed.”

“I don’t want you to get out of bed, either.”

“Will you stay here with me?”

“It would be rude to leave you here alone, don’t you agree?”

“Yes.” Harry can’t get any closer to Draco, but he tries anyway. “Incredibly rude. You would never do such a thing.”

“Never,” Draco agrees. Harry thinks he’s fallen asleep when he laughs again. “Where did you learn those spells?”

“Dunno what you mean.”

Draco curls his fingers into Harry’s stomach, almost tickling him but not quite. “The cleaning and protection spells, Harry. You said you’d never done this before.”

Harry hadn’t, but he wanted to be ready in case he ever found someone he wanted to sleep with. He never had. Not until Draco. Harry yawns and slips his hand underneath Draco’s.

“Oh, I just picked them up here and there,” he answers, and drifts off to sleep.

Chapter Text

Harry wakes up with a sunburn, the skin of his back hot and prickling as if he’s nodded off in the fields without a shirt.

He’s groggy, deep sleep clinging to him, Draco’s arm heavy over his waist.

What is he thinking? It can’t be a sunburn. He’s just too hot. The Cooling Charm on the cottage must need fixing. They’ve kicked off all the blankets. 

He pats at Draco’s arm. “Draco. Let me up. Cooling Charm’s broken.”

Draco doesn’t answer.

“Draco?”

Draco doesn’t move.

Harry understands in a single, awful moment that the heat is coming from Draco.

He lifts Draco’s arm off him, and Draco doesn’t react at all. Harry follows the path of Draco’s arm to his face and puts the back of his hand to Draco’s forehead. He puts his palm to Draco’s nape. It confirms what Harry already knows from that sun-scorched heat—Draco’s burning up. 

In the same instant, he feels the fever all through Draco’s magic. It reminds him of a simmering pot, and not in a good way.

Harry shakes Draco’s shoulder. “Draco. Wake up.”

Nothing. Harry bends closer and finds Draco’s pulse with his fingertips. It’s too fast, too faint, though his breathing is a steady whisper on Harry’s cheek. 

Draco sleeps closer to the door, so Harry climbs over him and pads toward the hallway. Once he’s at the threshold, he puts his hand out and thinks my wand. The familiar holly wand smacks into his palm a moment later. Bowl, he thinks. Towel.

A few seconds later, the bowl knocks against his stomach and the towel curls around his arm. Harry doesn’t usually try to wandlessly, wordlessly summon things one after the other, but he’s not surprised it worked. His magic feels intense, almost uncontrollable. It feels like his fear. 

Merlin, it’s hard to bloody breathe. How the hell did Draco get a fever like this? He was fine last night. Harry was certain he was fine when they went to sleep, at least. An image of Draco facing down that cursed necklace pops into Harry’s mind. He’d been so controlled that day at Wozencroft’s house, so collected. 

Harry has to be the collected one now. 

Back at the bed, he casts the charm Draco taught him on the first day at the cottage—the one to keep the eggs from sloshing around—and uses Aguamenti to fill the bowl. He wets the cloth, wrings it out, and lays it over Draco’s forehead. Checks his pulse again. He’s still breathing, still with that birdlike, racing heart.

Harry points his wand toward the door and holds out his hand. “Accio fever potion.”

Nothing comes.

“Accio…cooling potion?”

Still nothing. Harry presses the heels of his palms into his eyes and tries to remember every spell Draco has ever taught him, every spell he’s ever used in the field as an Auror, every spell that anyone mentioned at Hogwarts. Anything, for Merlin’s sake. He’s desperate for Draco to wake up, but Harry can’t help him, he’s—

Draco’s voice is clear as anything in his memory. Of course you can help. You still have your magic.

He puts his palm directly on Draco’s chest. “Rennervate.”

Draco stirs, and Harry shakes him again. “Draco? Draco.”

No answer. Merlin’s balls, if Rennervate doesn’t work…

“It’s not hopeless,” Harry says out loud. He casts Rennervate, this time with his wand.

Draco moves, but only a little. 

Harry finds the crumpled sheet and covers him, then casts a Cooling Charm on the sheet. There are more complicated charms that can change the atmosphere in the room, he knows, but Harry never needed those to run headfirst into danger.

God, the urge to run is strong. Harry’s legs ache with the tension. He wants to take Draco in his arms and run until he’s better, but that’s the energy he can never seem to burn off, isn’t it? It’s not a useful instinct. It’s just what Harry’s always done. He wakes up and goes wherever he’s called, which has always been toward the next threat.

He can’t vanquish a fever with hexes. The defensive manoeuvres he learned in Auror training aren’t any help. He’ll just have to use what he’s got. Harry summons more cloth and casts a Timing Charm Draco taught him. It’ll chime in an hour. 

He spends every minute of it trying to bring down Draco’s fever with cool water.

It doesn’t work. 

Once, when he was eight or nine, Harry had spent a stretch of time in the cupboard under the stairs with a first-aid leaflet for child carers. It suggested a lukewarm bath for children’s fevers. Maybe if Draco’s entire body is submerged…

Harry takes himself through the steps, ignoring his growing panic. First he fills the tub with lukewarm water. Draco’s bathroom floor is a mess of dirty towels from when they came in from the storm. He spells them clean and dry and tidies them into a pile by the bath. 

Then he goes to the bedroom for Draco.

Harry’s magic is matched to his desperation, and he doesn’t trust himself not to levitate Draco through the roof. And, anyway, he wants him close. So he gathers Draco up into his arms.

Draco’s taller, all height and fine muscle and long legs, and Harry grunts under the listless, unconscious weight of him. Harry’s chest seizes at how heavy Draco feels, how absent, as if he’s already gone. 

No. No. He’s not. Harry won’t let that happen. 

“Neither will you,” he says to Draco. “It would be rude to leave me here alone. That’s what you said, right?” He tries to keep his voice light, but it cracks on right. “That’s what you said.”

Harry carries him to the tub and lowers them both into the water, propping Draco against him. His throat closes at the awful mirror they make. It was sexy in the tub before. It was fun, once Harry had finished crying. This isn’t how he wants to be in the bath with Draco. At the same time, he’d rather be here than anywhere else. Harry even has a flicker of gratitude for the curse, because if this had happened when Harry wasn’t here…

Someone would have noticed. Narcissa, probably. 

Draco’s heat diffuses into the water so slowly that Harry could scream. He breathes instead. In and out, in and out, until Draco’s forehead feels slightly cooler.

“Rennervate,” whispers Harry. 

Draco stirs against Harry’s chest. “Mmm?”

It’s the smallest scrap of Draco’s voice, and Harry could sob. He doesn’t give in. “Draco, you have a fever. Is there a potion for it? A spell that might help?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Draco says, and slumps over. 

Harry puts his hand over Draco’s heart. “Rennervate.”

Draco’s head jerks up. “Harry?”

“You have a fever. Do you have any fever potion? What’s it called?”

“You have Draught of Peace on your robes,” Draco says, and his head lolls again.

“Draco, please.”

“Clean robes. Sleep.”

Harry leans his head on Draco’s. They can’t sit in the bath indefinitely. It’s not proactive enough for Harry. Not when Draco’s fever has only lowered a little, and he’s delirious.

He could send a Patronus to Ron and Hermione. 

The conversation he had with Draco comes back to him in perfect clarity.

Who do the wards let in?

No one. 

I meant what I said. Not a soul. 

Harry doesn’t want people descending on the house, trying to break through the wards. They’re connected to Draco’s magic, and he’s already ill. Harry has no idea whether it might hurt him, or even kill him, to have the wards broken.

He could take Draco to St Mungo’s, but if he stepped out of the Floo with an unconscious Draco in his arms, there would be a scene. Harry can already feel his magic straining at his control. Again, Draco’s voice in his memory: You’re frightening the children. You must calm down.

He could take Draco to the Manor.

It’s his least favourite option, and as soon as the thought enters his mind, Harry’s in motion. He doesn’t care if the conversation with Narcissa will be fraught and awkward, and that’s if Draco can interpret it for them. He doesn’t care that Narcissa probably won’t be happy about Harry Potter charging through the Floo with her only son in a fever-delirium at best, and might insist on taking Draco to St Mungo’s herself. What Harry knows for sure is that Narcissa loves Draco more than anything. He can still hear her voice in the Forbidden Forest. Is Draco alive? Is he in the castle?

Harry braces Draco’s arm over his shoulders. “Up we go,” Harry says, and stands.

He gets them out of the tub, dries and dresses them, and puts both their wands in his pocket. Draco’s not quite as heavy in his arms on the way to the study now that he’s semi-conscious. His magic is still at that feverish simmer, though, and Harry doesn’t like it.

Harry throws some Floo powder into the fireplace, steps into the flames, and calls, “Malfoy Manor.”

They touch down a moment later, Harry’s head spinning. 

“Mrs. Malfoy,” he shouts as he steps out of the fireplace. He doesn’t care what time it is. Draco needs help, and he’s almost got it. His mother will be here any second. “Narcissa.”

The Manor is cavernously silent around them. Harry can feel the old magic of the wards humming along, but there’s no other sound.

“Mrs. Malfoy,” he yells, louder, this time.

No approaching footsteps. It could be that the Manor is just that huge, but the wards should’ve told her someone had come in.

He holds Draco tighter. “Rennervate.”

Draco startles, his legs pushing against Harry’s arm with surprising strength. Harry lets his feet drop to the floor, and has just caught his balance when Draco collapses into a sloppy hug. His blazing forehead rolls into Harry’s neck.

“Draco.” Harry hopes he sounds calm and in control, the way Draco always has with him. “Where’s your mum?”

Harry feels Draco’s frown. “Gone.”

“What?”

“Dead,” Draco says. “She’s dead. Mausoleum scared her, so I buried her in her rose garden.”

“Oh, God. I’m so sorry, Draco.”

“Mmm. S’okay. She didn’t know she was dying.”

Draco’s head gets heavy again, as does the rest of him. Harry sinks to the floor with Draco in his arms, sick with panic and shame. How could he not have known? How could he not have asked? He assumed Draco had his reasons for living in the cottage instead of the Manor. Harry has no idea what it would be like to be an adult who still had a living parent. He just thought Draco didn’t want to talk about her.

He Rennervates Draco again, and Draco whimpers against Harry’s neck, as if it’s painful to be awake. “Stop,” he says. “Don’t.”

“I’m sorry, Draco, I’m—what’s the name of one of your house-elves?”

“Bibsy.”

Harry doesn’t hear the crack of Bibsy’s arrival. He feels the shockwave of magic in the room and rocks Draco, shaking him just a little. “Don’t go to sleep yet, Draco. Bibsy? Draco’s ill. He has a high fever, and I can’t get it to come down. Has this ever happened before?”

Draco giggles, and it’s the scariest thing Harry has ever heard in his life. “She says it’s my summer fever.”

“What the bloody hell is a summer fever?”

Draco burrows his face into Harry’s neck, then abruptly pulls back to interpret. “A fever that happens in the summer.” He giggles again. “A magical fever,” he whispers, like he’s telling a ghost story. “It’s from my magic.”

“Bibsy.” Harry wants to cry or scream or rage, maybe all three. “Is there a potion for Draco’s fevers that Mrs. Malfoy would’ve kept? Is there someone who knows what to do?”

“No,” Draco whispers. “It’s a secret. Can you imagine if people knew?”

“Draco—”

“Bibsy says you can’t take me to St Mungo’s. They won’t be able to help. Oh, she’s quite upset.”

“I promise, Bibsy.” Harry concentrates on keeping his magic in, where it’s safe, where it won’t hurt anyone, most of all Draco. “I won’t take him to St Mungo’s. Just—what do I do?”

Draco’s arms lock around Harry’s neck and he pulls himself close so he can speak directly into Harry’s ear. “There’s nothing to do but wait.”

Harry can’t breathe, but he has to. There’s no other choice. He stands and casts the gentlest possible hover charm on Draco. “Bibsy, I can’t see. I need you to take me out to the gardens.”

He steels himself, keeping his mind carefully blank. It’s one of Draco’s house-elves, that’s all. He’s asked her to help. It’s not a stranger, not an enemy. He’s all right. He’s okay. 

Someone—Bibsy—tugs at his belt loop, and they go. The gardens are at the back of the Manor. Their footsteps echo in silent, interminable halls. The house feels both heavy and hollow above him, but Harry keeps his mind on the next step, then the next. He doesn’t think of the last time he was here, his face a raw ache, Draco’s eyes on his. He doesn’t think of Hermione’s tortured screams. He doesn’t think of anything. Harry counts Draco’s breaths. How long will he have to wait?

The basilisk-voice whispers, will it be for the rest of Draco’s life? 

Fresh air slips over his face, and Harry walks out into it. He needs to breathe. 

Draco turns his head. “Bibsy wants to know where you’re taking me.”

“I’m taking you home. I’m taking him back to his cottage, Bibsy.” Harry puts a hand out and does the wand movement with a finger. “Expecto Percormeum.” 

This time, the tug is at his spine. Harry starts walking in the direction Draco’s spell wants.

“Roses,” Draco says. The scent of them is in the air. They’re surrounded by Narcissa’s flowers, but she’s gone. 

“I didn’t hear about your mum’s funeral.” It’s not the lightest topic of conversation, but Harry can’t believe he didn’t know.

“Didn’t tell anyone.”

“Why not?”

“Didn’t want it in the papers.”

Harry’s chest aches. He can understand that. The papers were awful after the War. Awful for everyone. “When did she die?”

“I’m going to die.”

His stomach lurches. “No. No, you’re not.” More questions will keep Draco talking, he hopes. “Do you have a summer fever every year?”

“Till I was…” Harry feels him start to slip and casts a silent Rennervate. “Ten,” Draco finishes. “Then they stopped. But they started again.”

“When?”

“Sixth year.”

Harry trips over his foot. Recovers. “The summer after sixth year, you mean?”

“Before. And after. So close together. Mum thought it was from the Mark.” Draco’s voice goes soft, thin. “The Mark is like a curse. And then the fever waits.”

Oh, God. Oh, no. “Sectumsempra is a curse.”

“Fever came on my birthday.”

A month after he’d nearly killed Draco with that damned curse. Harry wants to set the world on fire, on purpose, because if this fever is from that bloody lantern, he hasn’t saved Draco from anything. 

“Draco, I think we were both cursed this time,” Harry tells him. The tug of the home spell is getting more insistent, almost excited, which means they’re close to the cottage. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t worry,” sings Draco. “I can hardly feel it.”

Then he’s out again.

Harry takes him back upstairs, back to bed, and strips them both down to pants and undershirts. He sets the Timing Charm for an hour, gathers his bowl and his towel, and re-sets the Cooling Charm on the sheets.

The fever burns.

Harry’s just set another Timing Charm when Draco jerks. Harry puts a hand out to find him sitting up, arms moving. He can hear Draco’s hands on the sheets. “Her rose garden,” he says, frantic. “I’ve left her in her rose garden.”

“Draco, it’s all right.” Harry squeezes Draco’s shoulder, and Draco startles, scratching at him. “It’s okay. It’s just me.”

“My mother is in the garden,” Draco says, clipped and harsh, and then he’s sick on the sheets.

Harry changes them and makes the cooling spell stronger. He convinces Draco to lie down so he can put a damp towel on his forehead. Draco’s stillness scared the daylights out of Harry before. This is worse. Draco tosses and turns, and everything he says cracks into Harry’s heart.

Please. I’ve forgotten her wards.

I’ve lost her. I’ve lost her.

Oh, Circe, help me, I can’t. 

After two hours, Draco’s hands grip Harry’s T-shirt and he hauls him in, begging. “Please. Please, Harry. Make it stop. Please, it hurts. Make them stop. I don’t want to take the Mark, I don’t want—” Draco’s hands clench tight, and Harry’s heart stalls at the broken, unfinished sentence, at the abrupt silence.

“Draco, I’m right here.” He puts a hand on Draco’s shoulder and slides it gently to his face. Draco’s jaw is locked tight, teeth grinding together, and his whole body so strung with tension that he shakes, his magic at a violent boil. 

It feels like forever until it ends. 

By the time the third one comes, Harry’s pretty sure they’re seizures, and he’s never hated anything so much as he hates those horrible silences. He talks through them, asking Draco to wake up, asking him to stay, though he knows it won’t make any difference.

Panic swells until it engulfs him. Harry can’t run it off, and he can’t shake it out.

All he can do is wait. Replace the water in the bowl. Lay the cloth on Draco’s forehead. Hope.

Harry ends up on the bed, his back to the headboard, Draco in his arms. He casts layers of Cooling Charms on the sheets and the blankets. Draco’s voice is gone, but he keeps begging in a raw whisper. 

He puts both arms around Draco and thinks of the cool-water scent of Draco’s skin. Harry tries to make his magic into that, into Draco dancing in the yard, into Draco’s voice in the dark. He wraps that magic around both of them, through both of them, and imagines cool June mornings and the soft-silver chill of Draco’s eyes. 

Harry is tired and terrified, but he can’t sleep, and he won’t leave Draco. He’s intimately aware of every breath Draco takes, every word out of his mouth, every stretch of wracked, trembling silence, and that’s it. That’s his whole world now.

At some point, Draco turns in his arms and rests his head on Harry’s shoulder. “I only wanted you to need me,” Harry thinks he says.

“I do need you,” Harry tells him, but Draco’s silent again, shaking. There’s nothing to do but wait. “I do, Draco. Please come back to me. Please.”

Chapter Text

Draco dreams of water.

A clear stream in a forest glade at the edge of the Manor grounds, morning sun sparkling off eddies around glistening rock. He’s in up to his waist, pebbles moving gently under his feet. The current seems to pulse, as if it’s alive. 

Harry’s with him.

He holds Draco from behind, strong arms wrapped around him, hands splayed on Draco’s chest.

“I haven’t been here in years,” Draco says. Why hasn’t he? He’d always liked the stream as a child, liked the pond it runs into. 

Harry hums in response, and Draco rests his hands over Harry’s. Harry switches his hold, taking Draco’s wrist in his fingers. The pad of Harry’s thumb brushes over his Mark.

“I’m sorry,” Draco says. “I can’t get it off.”

Harry dips a hand into the stream and tips a palmful of crystal droplets over Draco’s Mark. Draco hopes it’ll dissolve, but it stays, exactly as it has since sixth year.

“You’re still a person, aren’t you?” Harry says. “You still need to live.”

The dream judders and breaks apart into a blinding white. The last thing he feels is Harry’s arms tight around him.

He falls down into the Prefects’ bath at Hogwarts, caught neatly in Harry’s arms again. Harry looks down at him, and for a heart-stopping instant Draco thinks he can see. But then Harry touches his face, feeling for his mouth, his eyes. 

“Draco.” Harry’s solemn now, not like he was in the stream. “Where did you go?”

His mind feels unsteady. The dream feels unsteady. Harry’s arms are the only solid thing. 

“I’m right here,” he answers.

Harry’s eyes go wide, and he clutches at Draco, holding on hard. “Draco, come back. Please.”

“I haven’t gone anywhere. Harry, I’m—”

The dream shatters like glass windows, like potion vials, and Draco is lost in a refracted white that drives into his head and hurts. God, it hurts.

He swims up through the white, up and up and up until it takes on colour and form, until his head breaks the surface of that pond near his cottage. The clean, cool water has gotten into his bloodstream somehow. It’s all through him, every inch of him. Draco gasps a breath and kicks, only for his feet to hit…

Cloth. Sheets.

“Draco?”

The room rushes in. Summer sun streams through his bedroom window. The blankets are a tangle at the foot of the bed. He’s covered in a single, white sheet, and he’s cradled in Harry’s arms, his head on Harry’s chest.

Draco can hear Harry’s heartbeat. It’s an unfailing thrum, and he knows the cadence from Harry’s magic. It was in his dreams. 

He blinks up at Harry’s wide, green eyes, his heart stopping all over again, and Harry touches his face, searching softly at the line of Draco’s jaw, at the corner of his eye. Harry’s thumb stops, and Draco clears his throat.

“I’m right here,” Draco says, jaw aching. “I haven’t gone anywhere.”

“Merlin, fuck,” Harry says, and crushes Draco in a hug so tight that Draco has to move with it, straddling Harry in the process. He buries his face in Harry’s neck and breathes the scent of his skin and his magic, revels in Harry’s palms moving up and down his back. Harry’s chest hitches. “Fuck, you scared me.”

Harry holds him there for a long while, and Draco can’t let go, either. His heart pounds, or else it’s Harry’s. He has the sense they’re connected like that. That Harry can feel Draco’s heart just the same way.

When he can bear to put space between them, Draco pulls back and takes Harry’s face in his hands. Harry’s eyelids flutter shut as Draco tips his chin so he can look at him. 

He looks bone-tired, as if he’s been awake for days. Bruise-coloured smudges darken his under-eyes, and his skin, tanned from his hours in the sun, has faded to a grey pallor. The very embodiment of worry. Draco kisses one of Harry’s eyelids, then the other.

Harry’s lips part. “Are you all right?”

“I think so. A bit tired. A bit sore.” Draco opens his mouth, stretching out his jaw. “I don’t feel feverish, though. You’re cooling me with your magic, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I—it was all I could do.”

Draco’s all but submerged in the sensation. “You can stop, Harry. You have to be exhausted. This kind of magic…” It’s so omnipresent, touching him everywhere, that it has to be draining for Harry. “It takes a lot of power.”

“I have a lot of power.” Harry’s matter-of-fact. “And I’ll stop when I’m very, very sure you’re okay.”

Harry puts out his hand and closes his eyes, frowning. A moment later, a vial of pain potion floats into the room and lands in Harry’s palm. He offers it to Draco carefully, like he’s not sure Draco will be able to hold it himself. 

“Is it the right potion?” Harry frets as Draco takes out the stopper.

“Yes. I brewed it myself.” Draco tips it back, and the pain in his jaw and muscles vanishes, leaving only the relief and heartache of making it through another hellish fever. Relief, because he didn’t want to die. Heartache, because it hurt Harry. He leans over and puts the empty vial on the bedside table. Harry’s hands steady him the entire time.

When Draco returns, Harry pulls him close again. “Do you want to go back to sleep?”

“No…” Draco’s shocked at how cool he feels, inside and out, but the residue of the fever lingers on his skin. “I think I’d rather have a bath.”

Harry touches Draco’s face, runs his fingers through Draco’s hair. “I’ve never been so scared.”

“I’m sor—” Draco’s apology is interrupted by Harry bundling him up into his arms and practically leaping off the bed. He grabs for Harry’s neck. “In Circe’s name, what are you doing?”

“I’m taking you to the tub.” Harry’s shaken, and his chin is beginning to dimple the way it does when he’s about to cry. It’s very like Harry to spring into action instead. “I’m giving you a bath this time, and don’t even think about arguing.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Harry stops in the hallway and holds Draco tight again, the muscles of his arms trembling, his eyes squeezed shut. It’s very strange to be held this way when Draco knows full well he’s too big for it, and too old, but he honestly wouldn’t dream of protesting. Not now.

“Okay,” Harry says, mostly to himself. “God. Okay.”

In the bathroom, Harry waves his hand at the tub, which fills itself, and again at a small stack of towels, which slides across the floor and bumps against Harry’s foot. He walks the towels and himself and Draco to the edge of the tub, then sits Draco there, his hands on Draco’s shoulders. 

“Can you sit up?” Harry asks, his eyes not quite meeting Draco’s.

“Yes. Probably? I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Harry takes one of Draco’s hands and puts it on his own shoulder. “Just in case.”

All Draco has to do is lift his hips for Harry to take off his pants. Harry insists on taking off his shirt for him. He triple-checks that Draco has his balance, then strips off his own clothes and gets them both into the tub.

Draco sinks into the warm water with a sigh, and Harry pulls him between his legs and sets about washing Draco’s hair. Harry’s magic is a pulse. It’s like Draco’s own pulse.

Harry rinses his hand in the tub, murmurs a soft Drying Charm, then slides his palm over Draco’s eyes. He’d already closed them, but Harry lets out a breath when he’s made sure. His hands return to Draco’s hair.

“I need to talk to you about what happened,” Harry says, voice low. “I need you to talk to me about it.”

Draco’s throat goes tight with guilt. “I should’ve told you.”

“You did. While you were ill.”

“I was unforgivably late. The fevers can be brought on by exposure to a curse, but—honestly, I didn’t think anything would happen. There were no signs the curse hit me, too, until last night.”

“It must’ve gone through me to you.” Harry hesitates in rinsing Draco’s hair, like he’s remembering that moment in the old wizard’s house. Draco won’t ever forget Harry’s hand on his chest, a sturdy, confident touch, as if Harry’s skin and bone could protect Draco from absolutely everything. “Still. It’s not as if I have any right to your secrets.”

“I should have told you. You’re living with me, and you can’t hear anyone else. You had a right to know. I was wrong, and I’m so sorry, Harry. I can’t say how sorry I am.”

“Have the fevers always been so bad? You told me they happened until you were ten, and then…started again later.”

Draco’s still so cool from Harry’s magic that he only feels the pressure of his flush, not the heat. “According to my mother, yes. My memories of those times are rather unclear.”

A ripple of anger moves through Harry’s magic, but he just dips a washcloth into the water and adds soap. “And there’s really nothing to be done? Nothing at all?”

“Not as far as I know. None of the healers I saw as a child could find a cure.”

“That’s bollocks.” Draco hears Harry’s teeth click together. Harry takes a deep breath and lets it out in a long exhale. “You need answers. You can’t keep living like this.”

“It’s all right, really, it’s—”

Harry’s hand pauses on Draco’s shoulder, the washcloth curled under his fingers. “Draco, I thought you were going to die.”

Draco turns, opening his eyes, and takes in Harry’s dimpled chin, the unshed tears welling in vivid green.

“Oh, darling, don’t cry.” Draco fits his hands to Harry’s jaw, runs the pads of his thumbs over Harry’s cheekbones, marks the spots of colour there with gentle kisses. Harry’s arm curves around his waist and Draco straddles him again, putting all his weight on Harry. That seems to settle him, at least a little. “I didn’t die. I’m all right.”

“You have seizures. Did you know that? I felt all of them.” A tear slips down Harry’s cheek and drips into the bath. “Those are serious, Draco. They can kill you. I couldn’t take it if that happened.”

“You’d be okay, though. The spells—”

“God, Draco, yes. You taught me enough to get by, but I’m not talking about the bloody spells.” Harry’s hands are tight on his waist now, as if he’s afraid Draco could float away at any second and never return. “I’m talking about you. I couldn’t bear it if you died.”

Draco puts a hand to Harry’s chest. His heart crashes underneath his ribs. Harry’s magic is everywhere, a rising, thundering power that pulls at Draco’s heart. He thinks of soothing it, of giving it a place to run, and it gentles, calming to Draco’s magic.

“Harry,” he whispers, his heartbeat crowding his throat, a tender ache at the centre of his chest.

“I love you.” Harry blinks, and more tears run down his face, clear as the droplets in the stream. “I love you. I don’t want you to die.”

A sunbeam slants through the curtain, and the light touches Harry’s face like it loves him, too. It adds dimension to the strong cut of his cheekbones, his soft lips, his brilliant eyes. Draco has never seen anything more beautiful than Harry Potter.

“I love you.” Draco leans in and kisses Harry, slow and reverent. He never thought he’d get to have this, not any part of it. “Merlin, I love you, too, Harry.”

Harry curls his hand around the back of Draco’s neck and leans his forehead against Draco’s. He takes a long, shuddering breath. The hum of his magic is even stronger in Draco now, or perhaps he’s just more alive than he’s ever been. Perhaps he’s just more in love.

Draco slings his arms around Harry’s shoulders. “I’m all right, I promise.”

Harry’s brow creases in scepticism.

“Shall I prove it to you?” Draco asks. 

“How?”

He takes Harry’s chin in his hand and kisses him. Harry’s lips part for him, letting Draco in. It only takes a few moments for Draco to convince him to kiss back, and he feels Harry fall into it by degrees. Harry tests them both in the kiss. A harder grip here. A little bite there. By the time Draco tilts his head to drag his mouth down the side of Harry’s neck, Harry’s cheeks have gone a gorgeous pink, and his cock is fully hard against Draco’s.

“I’m going to finish washing you up,” Harry gasps, pulling Draco’s face from his neck.

“That’s very kind of you,” Draco teases, a bit desperate himself, but turnabout is fair play, he supposes. He lets Harry have at it. Harry rubs the washcloth all over Draco’s skin, wraps it around Draco’s cock and strokes, leans forward and licks at the dip at Draco’s collarbone, licks the pulse point at the side of his neck, licks into Draco’s mouth. They both kneel up in the tub and Harry keeps kissing him, nipping at him, leaving faint love marks on Draco’s skin.

It’s bloody difficult to focus on the bath. It’s near impossible when Harry takes both their cocks in his fist and strokes them, slowly, firmly, and Draco could come on his knees like that, could collapse in Harry’s arms. He almost does when Harry presses both palms to his back and casts the cleaning and protection spells there in the tub.

Somehow, he doesn’t come, and neither does Harry.

It feels like a challenge.

Harry draws the line at letting Draco step out of the tub on his own. He gets out first and offers his hand, a towel ready in the other. 

Draco simply can’t wait to dry off. He curls his fingers around Harry’s jawline and kisses him until he drops the towel, then walks him backward out of the bathroom. Harry never once hesitates. He never stumbles. He trusts Draco completely, and Draco’s shocked again at the well of feeling in his chest. Love. It’s love. He wants to dive into it and stay there forever.

He kisses Harry all the way onto the bed, Draco leaning over him, Harry propped on one elbow. The sight of him is like gold-tinged fire all through Draco’s veins, hotter with every beat of his heart. Harry has a runner’s body, legs whittled into perfection by running Draco’s wards, the rest of him carved out by Auror training. Below the vee of Harry’s hips, his cock stands thick and hard and heavy, begging to be touched. Draco’s mouth actually waters. 

“You are so bloody handsome,” Draco says into Harry’s mouth.

“So are you. You’re beautiful.” Harry’s fingertips skim over Draco’s face, a flash of awe in his expression.

“Tell me what you want, you gorgeous, intoxicating man.”

“I want you to make me wait. Make me beg for it.” Harry’s nearly supersaturated with colour now, his eyes sparkling and his cheeks a deep pink. The corner of his mouth turns down. “Wait—what do you remember from before the fever?”

Draco stops him with a kiss so hard that Harry loses his breath. “I remember everything. Turn over.”

“What?”

“Darling. Turn over.”

Harry does, and Draco nudges him further onto the bed, slips a pillow under his hips, and kneels behind him, hands at the curve of Harry’s perfect arse. Draco’s pulse feels like it’s imprinting this image on his soul—Harry, on knees and elbows, back slightly arched. Waiting. Trembling.

“Do you still want me to make you wait?” he asks.

“And beg,” Harry says quickly. “I want that, too.”

“You’ll tell me if it gets to be too much?”

“Yes,” Harry breathes, and rocks his hips toward Draco.

He holds Harry still. “Don’t come until I tell you to.”

Harry lets out a soft groan. “Okay.”

“I love you,” he says, and Harry’s opening his mouth to answer when Draco spreads him wide and licks a long stripe over sensitive, hidden skin.

“Oh. Oh. Merlin, that’s—fuck.” Harry’s voice drops, going rough as Draco licks him again and swirls the tip of his tongue over Harry’s hole. “God, Draco, I love you—I love—fuck.”

Merlin, that voice. Draco licks him slowly, then sloppily, then thrusts his tongue against Harry’s hole until he can feel the frantic clench of his muscles. Harry trembles in earnest, a sheen of sweat down his back, and this is the headiest feeling of Draco’s life. 

Every swipe of his tongue makes Harry shake harder. He clutches at the sheets and rubs his face into the cloth like he can’t bear how good it feels. “Draco,” Harry moans. “Draco. Oh, God, fuck. Draco. Draco.” 

Draco’s name in Harry’s mouth is an incantation. It stirs Draco’s magic and his cock and makes his blood run hot, then hotter still.

Harry is the most powerful wizard of their age, and of all the people he could choose from, he wants Draco.

He keeps licking, teasing, tasting, until Harry buries his face in the sheets with a desperate moan.

“Do you want to come?” Draco sits up, brushing two fingertips to Harry’s hole and lifting them away. “Tell me, darling, and I’ll give my permission.”

Harry’s answer is muffled by the sheets.

“Pardon?”

Harry lifts his head. “No, I don’t—please, I don’t want to come yet. I want you to touch me.”

Draco returns his fingers to Harry and spreads his other hand over Harry’s lower back. “Shh. It’s all right. I won’t tease you.” He adds pressure against Harry’s slick hole. “Relax for me. Push back on my fingers. Slowly—there.”

He keeps Harry steady with one hand and watches Harry take his fingers with the other. Draco is hard to the point of leaking. One accidental brush, and he’ll come all over Harry and all over the sheets and he won’t care at all.

“Ah—Draco—” Harry’s mouth opens wider, as if he might say more. The magic in the room tenses and lets up, reminding Draco of Harry bouncing on the balls of his feet in the field. He knows this pitch of his magic, and of his voice. Harry needs to move.

“Merlin, you’re tight,” Draco says. “It’s all right, my love. Go ahead and fuck yourself on my fingers. I’m right here.”

“Thank Merlin, thank God,” Harry babbles in a low, needy voice. He braces himself on the mattress and rolls his hips back with a relieved exhale. Harry fucks himself on Draco’s fingers shamelessly. He pushes back hard, again, again, again, and lets out a constant string of ahs and oh fucks while he works until droplets of sweat have collected at the base of his spine.

Draco feels the change in Harry’s magic just before he lets out a soft ah, God, oh and slows, clenching on Draco’s fingers. Harry’s absolutely stunning like this, head thrown back, panting.

“Gods. That was—” Draco uses his free hand to guide Harry’s head down so his cheek is flat on the mattress. “That was so hot. Merlin.” He takes a deep breath, ignoring the impatient twitch of his cock, and reaches for control. “Darling, there’s something I’d very much like for you to do.”

Harry nods, his hair slipping into his eyes. Draco brushes it off his forehead. “Yes. Name it. I’d do anything.”

Draco leans down and drags his lips over Harry’s cheekbone to his ear. He clenches twice more on Draco’s fingers before Draco speaks again. “Would you be still for me? Just for a little while?”

“Oh, God.” Harry’s breathless, but the insistent grip of his muscles on Draco’s fingers says exactly what Harry thinks of this idea. “But—but I—”

He’s half-gone with pleasure. That’s what Harry is. Magic winds tight around Draco’s spine. “I want to take care of you. Can you be still for a few moments?”

“Yes,” whispers Harry.

“Tell me if it’s too much.”

Draco would be very surprised if his plans turned out to be too much for Harry. He can feel in Harry’s magic how much he loves finding a boundary and throwing himself against it until he’s certain he’s safe.

He returns his palm to Harry’s lower back, and Harry digs his fingers into the sheets. His trembling has taken on a finer quality and Draco could sustain life, honestly, just by drinking in the sight of Harry this way. He holds Harry a bit tighter, bracing him into stillness, and starts finger-fucking him.

Harry’s still, and Draco can feel how difficult it is just as he can feel that it’s what Harry wants. He guides Harry up until his magic is nearly audible, and he’s almost at that peak.

“Oh, you’re lovely, Harry. I know how hard it is to be still, and you’re so bloody good at it. Mmm—let my fingers in deeper. Fuck. Good. Yes.”

The sheets are a wreck and Harry’s breathing hard into the crumpled cloth when Draco searches out the nerves he’s looking for. When he finds them, he crooks his fingers to rub against Harry’s prostate. He wraps his hand around Harry’s cock at the same time and gives it a firm squeeze.

Harry sobs into the mattress, his magic sweet in the air, sweet on Draco’s tongue. “Please. Please.”

“Tell me what you want.”

“Fuck me. Right now. Please, I can’t wait.”

“You’re sure you’re ready?”

The glass in the windows rattles a warning. 

“Draco,” Harry begs. “I need you.”

He can’t resist that. Draco takes his cock in hand, lubes it up with a muttered charm, and takes Harry by the hips. The head of his cock slips against Harry’s hole, and then he finds his angle and pushes in.

Harry’s hands fist the sheets, and he tilts his hips back to take Draco faster. Draco watches inch after inch of his cock disappear inside Harry, squeezed so tight by his muscles that Draco can hardly see.

“Darling,” Draco manages. “There’s no need to rush.”

“You don’t—you don’t understand. I need it. Yes,” Harry pants. “Like this. I can feel you stretching me. I—Merlin, I like that, but I—I love the way you—”

Draco has to close his eyes, if only for a few moments. “I love the way you feel around my cock. You can move now, darling. I’m going to fuck you.”

Draco’s control frays. He uses both hands on Harry’s hips to pull him back until he’s fully seated against Draco, who knows better than to delay what’s next.

Harry doesn’t hesitate. He meets every thrust of Draco’s with a tilt of his hips, taking him as deep as he can. 

“Yes,” he pants. “This. Like this. Fuck me like this. Circe, I love you, I—” Harry clenches around him and Draco’s eyes roll back in his head. He wants to see Harry like this every day, his cheek pressed to the sheets, lips parted, breathless with pleasure. “Can you—please? Move. I need to feel you.”

“Have me,” Draco says, and curves over him, his hands falling over Harry’s. Harry makes a feral sound at the first thrust. Draco pins him, hips working, and it’s always been like this with Harry, hasn’t it? The both of them colliding until they reach a peak.

Draco licks an open-mouthed kiss to Harry’s spine and reaches around to take his cock in hand. His pleasure feels wild. A power of its own. It’s inseparable from Harry’s magic and his pleasure. Inseparable from Harry. Harry’s so hot, so tight, and Draco pushes in deep and grinds against him. He’s right on the edge. 

“Draco.” Harry’s voice is raw, and the sound of his name nearly undoes Draco. “Draco. I need to come. I want to come. Please. Please. Let me. Tell me I can come. Merlin, let me. Draco, let me, please.”

Draco strokes his slicked-up hand over Harry’s length and grunts with the effort of keeping his own release at bay. “Now, Harry. Now. Yes. Come while I fuck you—oh, Merlin, that’s—so tight I can’t—I love—”

Words break apart in his mouth as his orgasm comes on like a burst of magic. Draco’s distantly aware of Harry shouting something, incoherent as he comes onto the sheets. Draco spills himself into the unbelievable vise grip of Harry’s arse, fucking him all the way to the end, lost in the act of loving Harry. Found there, too.

He rolls off Harry, out of breath. Draco’s not sure which one of them reaches for the other. It doesn’t matter. The end result is the same. A tangle of limbs, Harry’s head on his chest, Draco’s heart tapping out a singular rhythm. I love you. I love you. I love you. 

Chapter Text

They’ve been lying in bed for some time when Harry’s thoughts return, along with a nagging sense that they should finish the conversation he started in the bath.

“Draco?”

Draco pauses in running his fingers through Harry’s hair. “Hmm?”

“I want to keep talking. Come sit on my lap.”

A tiny shiver shakes Draco’s body. “Sounds rather ominous, when you say it like that.”

Harry swallows hard. Draco’s teasing, but nervousness threads through his magic. “I know I can’t actually look at you, but could I touch your face?”

Draco drops a kiss to Harry’s cheek. “I sense this is a conversation we might want to have while clothed.”

“Er…just pants is fine.”

They put on pants, and Draco climbs into Harry’s lap, his arms resting loosely on Harry’s shoulders. Harry takes Draco’s face in his hands very gently. Merlin. Should he feel more awkward about all this? He can’t muster it up.

“Okay.” Harry steadies himself, following the rhythm of Draco’s breathing. “You said before that you remember everything that happened. Did you mean…everything that happened while you had a fever?”

Draco shakes his head. “I remember everything up until we fell asleep. I remember dreaming, and waking up.”

“Then you don’t remember going to the Manor.”

Draco goes perfectly still. “…No.”

“I took you there.” Harry’s entire being seems to hang on the smallest movements in Draco’s face. He’s not frowning, exactly. His expression feels blank, but a wary heaviness in Draco’s magic gives him away. “You were so sick, and I thought your mother would know what to do.”

There’s a long silence.

“I know she’s gone, Draco,” Harry says.

“I must’ve told you, then.”

“Yes. About your fevers, and your mum, and burying her in the rose garden.”

“What—” Draco’s voice is beginning to sound strained, almost like he’s crying. “What do you want me to say? She’s dead, and I didn’t tell anyone.”

“You shouldn’t have had to deal with her death alone.” Harry runs the pads of his thumbs over Draco’s cheekbones. “I just want to understand what happened.”

Draco leans closer, and Harry slides his hands over Draco’s back, running them up and down in a slow, steady rhythm. 

“You spoke at her trial. Did you ever look into the details of her case?” His posh, careful tone could wreck Harry now, it’s so weighted with grief.

“No. I spoke at a lot of trials. That time is mostly a blur of camera flashes all day and drinking until I passed out every night.”

“Voldemort tortured her,” Draco says bluntly, his body tensing with the words. “All through sixth year. He used the Cruciatus as a way to—to motivate me to finish my tasks. I had to Floo home most Sundays to watch. He’d do it in my bedroom.”

Harry pulls Draco straight into his chest, wrapping him up in the biggest hug he can. Draco burrows his face into Harry’s neck. He takes three quick breaths, and Harry’s sure he’ll sob, but—no. His breathing slows.

“I’m so sorry,” Harry murmurs. “Fuck. I’m so sorry.”

“It injured her mind.” Draco’s voice is tight enough to snap. “She tried to get better after the trials, but with my father in Azkaban, she couldn’t heal. The deterioration happened in fits and starts over the span of two years. I cared for her at the Manor.”

“By yourself?”

“Yes.”

Harry’s briefly incensed at the image of Draco, alone at the Manor with his mother while she suffered. He tamps it down. “What about St Mungo’s? Did they send anyone to see her?”

“Three healers who—” Draco’s voice breaks. “They looked at her like she was barely human. I had other healers come from—Merlin, from everywhere. There was nothing to be done about it. Voldemort had done too much damage. The best I could do, they said, was to make her comfortable. So that’s what I did.”

A memory comes to Harry. Pages of notes I provided. I funded this. “Is that what you meant by adaptive magic? I heard you mention it the day you had that Floo call. You modified spells for her?”

“About half of them were modifications. I invented the rest.”

“Draco, that’s incredible.”

“It was necessary.” Draco doesn’t quite snap at him, but his voice sharpens. “She had too many side effects that couldn’t be managed with potions. Her tremors were so intense that—” 

He breaks off. Breathes. Harry strokes hair and waits, quiet, patient, heart a wreck.

“The loss of control over her body frightened her, but it was the loss of her memory that frightened me. By the time she died, she didn’t know who I was, or that she’d been cursed.”

“Oh, Draco.”

“It was all right.” Draco’s voice trembles, and Harry hears him swallow, then swallow again. “It hurt that she didn’t recognize me, of course it did, but there was some—some peace in it, I suppose. She wasn’t afraid.”

“Because of the way you cared for her.”

“She wandered out to the gardens at all hours of the day and night to tend to her roses. I warded them for her so she’d be safe.”

Harry’s heart squeezes until he thinks it might collapse. “Did you dance with her, Draco?”

“She—” Draco chokes back a sound like a sob. “She loved to dance. You asked me once if she taught me, and…she did. When I was a child, my mother interrupted my dancing lessons so often that the tutor finally invited her to attend them with me. Dancing calmed her, like…” He falters.

“Like me?”

“Like you. When she was distressed, it helped her to dance in the rose garden. We spent—Merlin. Hours upon hours there, up to the day she died.”

Harry holds him, wishing he could Vanish all Draco’s pain. “That was very brave of you, Draco. That was unbelievably kind. And then you did those same things for me. You gave all of that magic to me.”

“You needed it.” Draco’s voice drops. “You were frightened, too, and you didn’t deserve—no one deserves to feel helpless. That’s why I shared my research with St Mungo’s. I’m glad I did, even if they haven’t done enough with it.”

“You’re amazing.” Draco straightens up then, and Harry finds his hair, strokes it. Emotion swells in Harry’s throat. “And you love me.”

“Yes, I do.”

“I felt that, running the wards,” Harry muses. “They’re you, out in the field with me, all the time. That must’ve been comforting for your mum.”

“I hope it was.”

“I know it was. What I don’t understand is why you think you’re disposable.”

Draco gives a little snort of a laugh. “Really? I’m the one who thinks I’m disposable? You’re the one who’s been throwing yourself in front of cursed lanterns.”

“Draco. You’re a curse-breaker. If a curse doesn’t kill you, one of those damned fevers could. It almost did kill you last night, and I’d bet my entire Gringotts vault that you were sick after that necklace hit you your first year with the DMLE.”

Draco traces Harry’s collarbone with the tip of his finger. “I was,” he admits.

“That was three years ago. Tell me you didn’t come straight from burying your mother to demand a meeting with Robards.”

A sigh. “I did.”

“Why?”

“Because…” Draco climbs off Harry, pulls him further down the bed, and lies on top of him, fingertips brushing Harry’s cheeks. Harry realises, belatedly, that this is exactly what he wanted—to be covered by Draco, and Draco must’ve sensed it. He puts his arms around Draco’s waist and closes his eyes. “The Dark Magic in the Manor hurt my mother, so I got plenty of experience with curse-breaking trying to clear it out. I supposed it would be useful for other people, too.”

“And you didn’t mind if it killed you?”

“I thought she would be the last person to love me. I knew she would be the last person I ever cared for. What did it matter if I lived or died?”

Harry puts his fingertips to Draco’s nape and kisses him, soft as he can. “I love you. And you cared for me. You’re still doing it.”

Draco hesitates. “My mother wanted me to care for her. No one else would choose me. No one else would trust me, not unless they had to.”

“Do I not count?”

“You most certainly did not choose me. That choice was made for you by the curse.”

“No, it wasn’t. You told me yourself that you could just check in. That was the plan. I was supposed to go to Grimmauld and have you and the healers look in on me.”

“Yes, and then you panicked, and I spirited you away to my cottage without asking.” Draco’s guilt is palpable.

“You never kept me here. In fact, you spent most of your time making certain I could get along without you. I could’ve been gone a week by now. Maybe two.”

“Then why haven’t you?”

“Draco, I don’t want to go. I feel safe here with you, and—” Is it right to be happy, if he’s not giving all of himself to the world? “If I could go back to the day we were cursed, I’d choose you again. I’d want it to be you.”

“Harry…”

“And I don’t want you to be a curse-breaker anymore. The world wouldn’t be better without you in it. All the curses you could remove would never equal you. They would never be worth losing you.”

“I—”

“Haven’t they said? Haven’t your friends told you? Or did you keep them away all this time to protect your mother and let them think you’d moved on?”

Draco rests his forehead against Harry’s. “I don’t particularly like it when you’re so—so egregiously correct.”

“Well, I don’t particularly like it when you see yourself as expendable, and I wish you’d stop,” scolds Harry. “You’re wonderful. You don’t have to be some sacrificial lamb because you got forced into a bad deal when you were sixteen.”

“Fine,” Draco says, voice cracking. “Fine. I can accept it.”

“And I don’t believe for a second that I’m the only one who loves you. Please, Draco, don’t hide away and wait to die from some cursed fever.”

“I won’t. I promise.” Something tightens at the centre of Harry’s chest. It’s like a knot gripping his spine, the rope tensing, pulling. He’s never noticed it until now. His magic coils around it. Draco’s, too. 

“What about you, then?” Draco asks.

“What about me?” Harry spreads his hands on Draco’s back, feeling the life thrum through him.

“Darling, you must know the same applies to you.”

“Er…”

“You don’t have to be a sacrificial lamb because you were forced into a bad deal when you were a baby. You can put down your sword, Harry. You’ve given enough.”

The knot clenches like a fist. “Draco. Do you feel that?”

“Your magic?”

“The—the coil of it. The knot.”

Draco laughs unsteadily. “I thought it was suppressed grief. Or love. Perhaps both.”

“I think it’s the curse, but I—” Harry finds Draco’s face and moves his thumbs slowly, slowly over his cheekbones. “What would I be?”

“Pardon?”

“What would I be if I wasn’t a sacrificial lamb? What am I supposed to be if I’m not a hero?”

“You could be mine.”

Harry’s heart swells to bursting. “I’m yours already. Have been for weeks, I think.”

“Mmm.” Draco’s fingertip traces his bottom lip. “If you’re already mine, then you could be anything you want.”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

“What if I’m only sexy as an Auror?”

“Listen to me carefully.” Draco holds Harry’s face. It’s almost exactly the way he did when they were trying to break the curse by looking at one another. “All I want is for you to be happy.”

Happy. Harry tests the word silently.

“I’m sure,” Draco continues, “that Weasley and Granger would say the same. You are allowed to be happy, Harry. You are allowed to want things.”

“That would be a bit selfish, wouldn’t it?”

“I would go so far as to say that it’s more selfish for you to continue endangering yourself out of a misplaced sense of duty. I should think that’s a result of your untrue belief that because you saved the world once, you must keep doing it forever. You have a tendency toward inertia that way.”

The knot jumps, rattling in Harry’s chest. “More selfish? How?”

“Because the rest of us have to watch you pile hurt on top of more hurt. You can’t honestly say that you’ve spent any time since the War actually healing from it. Not if your nightmares are any indication.”

“No, I have,” Harry says immediately. “I’ve started, anyway, when I…oh, for Merlin’s bloody sake. It was because of you, wasn’t it?”

“What was because of me?”

“I started thinking through it when I was running your wards,” Harry admits. “That’s the most time I’ve spent doing something just because I liked it since I played Quidditch in school. And, I guess…it was safe there. To think about it.”

The knot aches, struggling against itself.

“If you’re entirely sure that I should stop being a curse-breaker for the sake of my health and happiness, then you should be equally sure that you can stop being an Auror.” Draco’s breath heats the side of his neck, and he presses a soft kiss there.

“I’m not an Auror anymore. They don’t want me.”

“If I know you…” Draco touches Harry’s face, and the knot seems to jump up and down. If I know you. Draco does know him. “Then you’ll decide to take them up on their offer to consult. You’ll give as much of yourself as you possibly can.”

“That’s what I should do.”

Draco exhales. “You absolutely shouldn’t. It makes you so unhappy, Harry. It hurts you to be an Auror.”

“How do you know?”

“You can feel my magic, can’t you? I can’t help but feel yours. It’s everywhere. You were a veritable thundercloud that day at Wozencroft’s house, and it wasn’t because of me.”

“It was a little because of you.” Draco’s all-black outfit from that day will be enshrined in Harry’s memory forever. “You were so—”

“Fit?”

“You were beautiful.” Harry sighs. “And you were so…so competent, and so reckless. You were risking everything.”

“It’s rather hot, when you say it like that.”

“Well, you are hot.”

“You fancied me even then,” Draco teases, but Harry can hear the tension from the coil of magic in his voice.

“You fancied me, too.” Harry hopes he did.

“I liked that you came to get me,” Draco admits quietly. “Even if you did blatantly ignore my instructions.”

“God. I wasn’t going to let you go it alone. And once I was in there…” He’d had a lot of feelings. “I wanted for you to tell me what to do. Tell me how to fix it. I still want that.” Harry’s hands fall to the sides of Draco’s neck. “You’re right, obviously. I hate being an Auror.” A great weight lifts from Harry’s shoulders, and the magic pulses, sending a shudder through both of them. “I hate it,” he tries again. “I don’t know what to do without it. I don’t know where to start.”

“You could start with being mine, only mine, and I’ll give you whatever makes you happy.”

“I can?”

“Of course you can. I’ll let you belong to yourself and not the entire Wizarding world, as long as you’re mine.”

Harry laughs. “That’s a contradiction, don’t you think?”

“Not at all.”

“But that’s like saying—I dunno. That I was free inside your wards. More free than outside them.”

“It’s a matter of perspective, I suppose. You only just said that your mind was free when you were running them, and of course your body always was. You could choose to leave at any time.”

“I could stop trying to be a hero,” Harry says softly. “I could choose to be happy. I could choose you. And it would be okay.”

“Yes.” 

The knot seems to spin, winding tighter and tighter and tighter.

“And you…” Harry can hardly speak. “You said something to me when you were ill. You said I only wanted you to need me.” The pieces float together in Harry’s mind like they’d been repaired by magic. “You meant that. You want to be needed. You want to care for people, because that’s who you are. You want to care for me.” 

“Yes.” Draco’s voice is thick with emotion. “I want that very much. I want to be yours.”

“But it’s more than that.” The pressure is bright. Intense. It feels like the moment before a happy explosion, like fireworks, like victory. “You wanted me to understand who you are. You wanted me to listen to you.”

“Harry, I’ve wanted your attention since we were eleven.” Draco laughs, a small, vulnerable sound. “I’ve always wanted to tell you more than I should. And…now that we’ve had this conversation, it’s quite clear to me that you wanted something similar. For a person to understand you, and give you what you needed. Perhaps even what you wanted.” 

“Draco.” He’s never letting this man go. Not ever. “You have. You’ve given me more than my wildest dreams. Please, promise you’ll tell me everything. I love you. I’m all yours. You have me forever.”

The knot blows apart. 

Draco makes a startled noise.

Harry’s eyes fly open.

There’s Draco.

There’s Draco.

He’s been touching him all this time but the sight of him is the best shock of Harry’s life.

The first thing Harry sees is the stunning silver-grey of Draco’s eyes.

“You,” he gasps. “You. You.” Harry scrambles up, tipping Draco onto his back so he can stare down at him.

“Harry?” Draco’s eyes are wide. Shocked. “I felt something break—are you all right?”

“I can see you!” Harry shouts. “I can see you! Merlin, Draco, you’re so bloody gorgeous, fuck.” Harry bursts into tears, and Draco’s a blur, and anyway, he’s too close to see, because he’s kissing Harry all over his face.

Harry pushes back. “Let me look at you. Let me look.”

He can’t believe he never tried to kiss Draco in school. He’s the most beautiful man Harry’s ever seen. The fine, pale skin. His elegant bone structure, like a bloody Greek statue. Pink lips and white-blond hair and love in his eyes. Merlin, it’s so much love. The way Draco feels about Harry is in the shining colour of his eyes and in the silver hold of his magic on Harry’s heart. Harry squints, the light hurting his eyes a bit, but he forces them to stay open. Draco’s more beautiful now, isn’t he? He’s more beautiful for how he touched Harry, spoke to him, cared for him, all this time.

“I see you,” Harry says, astonished. “I see all of you.”

Draco nods, his eyes lined with tears. “I see you just the same way.”

Harry wants to be all over him. He wants Draco to be inside him. He wants to kiss him until all that perfect skin is marked up by his teeth. He’s hard as a bloody rock. 

“I love you,” Harry breathes.

“I love you. I—”

A loud pounding thunders through the cottage, two fists beating heavily on the door, then three fists. 

“Draco!” Hermione yells at the top of her lungs. “Let us in. I think I know how to break the curse!”

“Hermione, go away, we’re about to shag!” Harry shouts back.

Draco freezes.

Harry freezes, too.

Downstairs, Hermione shrieks, cheering as loudly as Harry has ever heard her, and he can’t make them wait any longer.

He and Draco scramble off the bed, grabbing for pants. Harry races down the stairs and throws open the front door. The sight of his friends overwhelms him. Hermione’s dark curls and strands of gold in Ron’s red hair blaze in the sunlight. He’s bowled over by their wide smiles for all of a second, and then Harry throws himself into their arms.

“Mate,” Ron says. “Hi.”

“Harry,” Hermione says, happy tears in her voice. “Hi.”

“The curse is broken,” Harry says into Hermione’s hair. “It’s over. It’s gone.”

Harry spends the first five minutes of Ron and Hermione’s visit being smothered in hugs from both of them and kisses from Hermione and the next while walking slowly from room to room, Hermione pressed tight to his side, just…looking. His glasses feel strange on his face after a month without them.

The cottage is comfortable. Cream walls. Exposed wood beams, polished to a high shine. A gleaming hardwood floor, worn from hundreds’ of years of life. A round rug by the fire. The furniture Draco keeps is plush and sturdy. Here’s the sofa they’ve spent hours on. There’s the table where Draco taught him all those charms on their first day together. It’s so strange to put an image to them. Harry’s only known them by touch, up until now.

It’s only when they go into the study that Harry realises what’s not here. As soon as he does, his throat closes.

There’s no clutter. It seems Draco’s brought hardly anything from the Manor.

He keeps four photos on the shelves in the study. In one of them, a young Draco throws his arms around Narcissa’s neck, and the two of them hold tight before he throws his head back and laughs in her arms. In the second, he and his mother and father pose for a formal portrait. At the last moment, Lucius cracks a big, amused smile, and the photo repeats. In the third, a tiny Draco flies on a toy broomstick, the sun catching in his hair, an infectious grin on his face. In the final photo, Draco, Pansy, Theo, and Blaise hang on one another on the steps of the Manor, arms around each other’s necks. Harry guesses they’re about thirteen, beaming, happy. 

There’s another photo on Draco’s desk in a simple, silver frame.

In it, Draco dances with his mother against a backdrop of roses. A few tears fall from Harry’s eyes when he blinks. Draco looks almost the same as he does now, which means the photo was taken after the War and before Narcissa died.

“Oh,” Hermione says softly. She leans her head on Harry’s arm, and they watch Draco with Narcissa, his posture perfect, her hand in his as they sway. He looks down at her from his height, the light in their hair, a sunbeam halo. Draco speaks to her, smiling, and Narcissa tips her head back and laughs.

“She’s gone,” Harry says to her, his voice low, heavy with tears. “She passed away three years ago. Draco kept it a secret. Hasn’t told anyone yet.”

Hermione squeezes his arm. “I won’t say a word.” 

Draco has his collection of books in the study, too.

That’s about the size of it, and Harry knows it’s because Draco expected to die young as a curse-breaker and follow his mother into the ground. 

When Harry and Hermione step out of the study, Draco lifts his head from whatever conversation he’s been having with Ron and meets Harry’s eyes. He’s wearing dark trousers and a white shirt unbuttoned at his throat, and he’s every bit as stunning as he was in his curse-breaker clothes. 

Harry takes in the guarded, sheepish look on Draco’s perfect face. If Harry couldn’t feel it in Draco’s magic, the look on his face would be proof that Draco knows. He knows Harry’s seen the emptiness of his cottage, and that Harry understands what it means.

He goes to Draco, buries his face in Draco’s neck, and hugs him like they’re alone. He doesn’t care that they’re not, and doubts he’ll ever care again. Harry has, for all intents and purposes, been alone with Draco since the moment he was cursed, and he’s never been happier. Draco’s arms go around Harry easily, without hesitation.

“You’ll be happy now,” he says into Draco’s neck. “You won’t be alone. I promise.”

“You’ll be happy, too,” Draco murmurs. “I swear.”

Ron and Hermione stay for lunch.

Harry helps Draco cook. Half the time, he doesn’t bother to look at what he’s doing. Hermione hovers, biting her lip, until he has to reassure her. “It’s spells, Hermione, I won’t cut my fingers off.”

“Spells and a knife.”

“Don’t worry,” Draco tells her conspiratorially. “I’m supervising.”

“Sod off, Draco,” Harry says, swatting at Draco’s arm.

“I know the curse is broken, but I’m going to tell you my theory anyway.” Hermione’s eyes brighten. “The lantern was engraved with part of a Bible verse, of all things. I should’ve widened the scope of my search earlier—I’m so sorry, Harry.”

“It’s okay, ’Mione.” It really is. Harry’s not sure he and Draco would have broken the curse without this much time together. And if they hadn’t…well, Harry would still want to be here.

“Now that it’s over, I’d love to do more research into the lantern itself, but the inscription is a phrase from 1 Corinthians 13:12. For now we see a reflection, as if in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am known.”

“Huh,” Harry says. “So the lantern wanted us to get to know…God?”

“Oh, I doubt that,” Hermione says. “I think if the lantern wanted you to know God, it would’ve killed you.”

“Almost did,” Harry says under his breath, an echo of his panic growing louder. He didn’t meet God when he died the last time. He saw King’s Cross and Dumbledore, and he had the chance to walk away and leave his life behind. Imagining Draco alone in that station makes him want to be sick. 

Draco puts his hand on Harry’s elbow. Merlin, his eyes are so soft, so understanding, Harry wants to look at him all day. All night. Forever. 

“It didn’t, though,” Draco murmurs.

“The curse might’ve just been…oh, I don’t know,” Hermione continues. “A joke on the part of the wizard who cast it. It could’ve been a play on the words that were already there when he or she came into possession of the lantern. Regardless, there’s a whole field of research on the influence of intent on curses. This one might’ve shaped itself specifically to you in response to your proximity, or your magic, or any number of…”

Harry’s not too invested in the theory, but he basks in the sound of her voice.

“…most fitting explanation is that the curse was a bond of sorts. You had to see each other face to face. Know each other. Of course, that wasn’t a literal requirement, since—”

Privately, Harry thinks the bond was formed before the curse. He’s always been drawn to Draco. How many hours did he spend during sixth year watching his dot move around the castle on the Marauder’s Map? More than he had to, that’s for sure. Harry can admit now, at least to himself, that he worried for Draco back then.

“—you did it!” Hermione claps her hands. “I’m still so interested to delve into the magical underpinnings, but—”

“But we have so much to talk about!” Ron cuts in with a month’s worth of Quidditch scores and speculation, and he basks in Ron’s voice, too. 

Over lunch, Harry and Draco tag-team the story of their time at Draco’s cottage. 

“Then,” Harry says, feeling lighter than he’s ever felt, freer, “I’m going mental out in the field, and he shows me this spell—did you actually modify it, Draco, or did you invent it?”

Draco clears his throat. “I invented it. I didn’t want you to think I’d gone to too much trouble.”

Hermione looks between them, eyes bright at the prospect of new magical knowledge. “You know, Draco, we’re going to have to have a chat about all these invented spells. I would love to compare—”

“What was the spell, mate?” Ron pats at Hermione’s shoulder, an indulgent grin on his face.

“It was a spell to find home,” Harry goes on. “Expecto Percormeum.”

Hermione drops her fork. It hits her plate with a loud clatter.

“You okay?” Harry asks. Hermione stares at him. “Anyway, it could point me back to the cottage—Hermione, what?”

“When did you say this happened?” 

“Dunno. The third day I was here, I think.”

“Well,” says Hermione. “Well! That is very interesting, Harry. You were saying?”

Harry folds his arms over his chest, relishing in the sight of her. Hermione’s hair is many shades of brown, and the light loves to settle in her curls. When she’s angry, sometimes sparks catch there like lightning, but there are no sparks now. “What’s got you all excited?”

“Perhaps Draco should tell you.”

Draco turns a brilliant red, eyes on his plate. “No, Granger, I’d love to hear your theory.”

“My theory is,” she says, sounding so much like she did in first year that Harry laughs. “That Expecto Percormeum is not a spell to locate, for instance, a particular cottage.”

Harry blinks at her. “What is it, then?”

“Cor meum in Latin means my heart, or heart of mine.” She shoots a knowing look at Draco. “It’s a spell to find home by way of your heart. In other words—”

“It helps you find me, not the cottage.” Draco lifts his eyes to meet Harry’s. “I didn’t modify it at all, after I invented it.”

Harry doesn’t know half of what Hermione does about magical theory and the process of inventing spells, but he knows it’s complicated enough that Draco wouldn’t have been able to do it so quickly after they were cursed.

It hits him, all at once, that Draco invented the spell for his mother. So she could find him whenever she was lost.

Harry looks into Draco’s eyes and tries to send as much gratitude and understanding through his magic as he can. Draco covers Harry’s hand with his and squeezes. 

“But…” The night of Draco’s fever. “I used it to get back from the Manor. You were with me.”

“It finds the greatest concentration of my magic, which builds up over time. This cottage has a high concentration, for example.”

“So if you leave, the spell can’t find you.”

“That’s an unfortunate limitation, yes. In order to guide a person, it needs a sufficient anchor. So I—” Draco glances at Hermione. “I made up for that by adding in an alert, like a ward. Whenever someone uses it, I feel it.” Draco taps lightly at his chest. “If I’m away, I can go back to where my magic is concentrated and meet them.” 

“Tell him what else,” prompts Hermione.

Draco’s hands fly up to cover his face. “Granger, I—”

“Tell him!”

Draco makes an embarrassed noise. “It’s a reciprocal spell.”

“A what?”

“The spell works with the magic of whomever is casting. It needs your magic, in fact, to find your heart in relation to another person’s. In relation to mine.” Draco drops his hands, his cheeks still that fiery red. “We had to have a connection for it to work. I can’t be certain if the curse allowed it or—”

“The fact that I’m in love with you, and maybe I have been all along? The fact that you love me, and maybe you’ve loved me all along?”

Hermione squeals and claps her hands over her mouth. 

“Maybe,” Draco admits, and smiles. It’s the prettiest thing Harry’s ever seen.

It’s dark when Ron and Hermione reluctantly gather their things. They stand in Draco’s study saying their goodbyes for nearly an hour. Hermione’s wresting a promise from Harry to let them visit the next day when he realises Draco’s not there.

“Hang on a minute. Don’t go. Just a minute, okay?”

“Okay, mate,” Ron says. “Be right here when you get back.”

Harry’s in the habit of following Draco’s magic, so it’s easy enough to find him.

He’s in the middle of the field, almost out of sight of the cottage. Draco’s head is tipped toward the moonlight, and he has both hands over his eyes. Harry’s within arm’s reach when he hears a quiet hiccup of a sob.

Harry wraps Draco up in his arms. He’ll never get tired of holding Draco for as long as he lives. Draco folds into him, hiding his face against Harry.

“My darling,” Harry says, feeling not the least bit silly. “My love. My boyfriend. Merlin, I hope you’re my boyfriend, otherwise this just got awkward.”

“Of course I’m your boyfriend,” Draco sniffles.

“Why are you crying?” He smooths Draco’s hair.

“I feel I have to say this to you.” Draco braces himself without leaving the shelter of Harry’s arms. “Now that the curse is broken, you don’t have to stay with me. I would understand if you wanted to leave with Granger and Weasley. I wouldn’t blame you, not in the slightest, if you wanted to reconsider—the emotion of the moment was rather intense, so if you—”

“You taught me a spell to find my heart,” Harry says. “You said it was reciprocal. What would happen if you used it?”

A pause. “It would find you.”

“Do you want to reconsider?”

“No,” Draco shouts.

“Then I guess I have to ask. Would it be okay if I moved in? I recently realised I never want to be without you again.”

“I—” Draco’s arms go around his neck. “I suppose that would be all right.”

“Just all right?”

Draco laughs, voice shaky with relief. “I would love for you to stay.”

Harry stands with Draco in his arms, the warm July breeze ruffling their hair. An owl hoots in the trees, the sound carrying over the dips and swells of the field. Crickets sing in the peace of the night. The curse is broken, and all is well.

This is the first time Harry’s seen the place he’s run so many kilometres in. 

“Merlin! This field is enormous. How much did you ward for me?”

“Almost all of it. That’s why it took the better part of the morning.”

“Draco,” Harry laughs. “You could’ve made it smaller. I never would’ve known.”

Draco raises his head and kisses Harry. He tastes wonderful, like sweet wine and salt tears and hope. He tastes like the man Harry loves. Finally, Draco slows the kiss and smiles against Harry’s mouth. 

“You’re happier when you have room to run,” he says. “It was worth it.”

For once, Harry has no urge to protest, to argue that he doesn’t deserve it.

He takes Draco’s hand in his. “I asked Hermione and Ron to wait in case you wanted to see them off, too. Should we go home?”

Draco squeezes Harry’s hand, his smile like a shooting star. “I’m home already.”

Harry can’t help kissing him. He just can’t. 

“Come back to the cottage with me, then.” He means come see our friends off, and then take me to bed. He means, love me forever, and let me love you just as long. 

Draco does exactly that.

Chapter Text

It takes Draco the better part of a month to get up the courage to owl Pansy.

Dearest Pansy,

So sorry for the disappearing act. My mother passed away and I didn’t tell anyone. I hope you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me.

I send this letter with no expectations. I don’t believe you owe me anything, not so much as the time of day, simply because we were friends as children. Just wanted you to know I’m alive, and if you’re ever in Wiltshire, I now live in the cottage previously belonging to the Malfoy family forest ranger. Quite a lot of history in the building, actually, but that’s neither here nor there.

I would love to see you. I’m sending letters to the same effect to Blaise and Theo. Should you ever decide to visit, the wards will let you in, any time, day or night.

I miss you very much,

D. Malfoy

P.S. I’ve fallen in love with Harry Potter, and he lives at the cottage with me now. Details available upon request.

Draco reads over the letter. Pitiful. “I can’t send this.”

“It’s your fifth draft. Just owl your friends, Draco, it’ll be okay,” Harry says from the armchair by the bookshelf.

“It will not.”

Draco tosses it toward the fire in his study, intending to Incendio it when it’s in the grate, but Harry jumps up, throwing out his hand. The letter zooms straight into Harry’s palm. He takes a quill from behind his ear and is scrawling something on the letter, probably Pansy’s name, as he bolts from the room. 

“You git!” Draco shouts, and chases after him. He collides with Harry just as his owl leaps off the windowsill, speeding into the night. Draco shoves Harry against the wall, his mouth an inch from Harry’s victorious grin. “You infuriating, obstinate, meddling—”

“What are you going to do about it?” Harry teases. “Fuck me very hard? Make me wait to come until I’m begging?”

Draco leans in and in until his lips brush Harry’s, and then he pushes himself away. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes.” Harry follows him back to the study and watches from the centre of the room as Draco gets out a new length of parchment, pursing his lips when Draco picks up his quill. “This doesn’t seem like fucking.”

“I told Pansy I’d be owling Theo and Blaise, too. They’re hardly going to forgive me if their letters were clearly an afterthought.”

“Owl’s not back yet,” Harry points out, a gleam in his eyes.

“Letters aren’t written yet,” Draco says briskly. “You can watch me write them from your knees.”

Harry considers this. “Under the desk?”

“Absolutely not,” says Draco. “From all the way over there, while you wank and think about what you’ve done.”

“I’m sorry.” Harry dips his head and sinks slowly to his knees, unable to hide his smile.

“Prove it,” Draco says in his haughtiest voice.

Harry has been fisting himself for less than two minutes when Draco breaks. 

Blaise and Theo’s letters will have to wait.

Draco has just lifted his steaming mug to his lips the next morning when there is a resounding thump in the cottage, followed by shouting. He startles, spilling coffee all over himself, and is swearing copiously when Pansy tackles him, followed immediately by Theo and Blaise.

The mug skids across the floor and shatters. Draco is nearly crushed between three adult Slytherins, all of them yelling at him. Pansy’s hair gets in his eyes. Blaise grips his face a bit too hard. Theo lightly punches him in the ribs.

“For Merlin’s sake, I cannot die in a dressing gown before the sun has fully risen,” he gasps, and they untangle themselves. Blaise helps Draco to his feet, and Pansy throws herself into his arms the second he’s upright.

“What the fuck, Draco!” She sounds like she’s about to cry, or has been crying. Both might be true. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I’m sorry.” Now he’s going to cry. “I wanted to keep it out of the papers. People were so awful just then, and I couldn’t—well. I shouldn’t have kept it from you.”

“It’s fine.” Theo uses a faux-icy tone, but he’s got a firm grip on one of Draco’s shoulders. Blaise is doing the same on his other side.

“Are you all right?” Blaise’s eyes brim with worry. “What’s all this about falling in love with Harry Potter? Have you lost your mind?”

“Quite the opposite,” Draco says.

“Come on, Blaise, he’s been obsessed with Potter for ever.” Pansy hugs Draco tighter. The familiar scent of the styling potion she’s used since she was thirteen is making him well up. “How the hell did you get him to move in with you? That’s my official demand, you prat. Details available upon request. Honestly, Draco, how dare you write that?”

“Perhaps you didn’t want the details. I was being polite.”

“Give us the bloody details,” Theo demands.

“All right, all right. I was working as a curse-breaker for the Ministry—”

Pansy pushes him away. “We know that, Draco, and believe me, there’s a discussion to be had about why you were spending all your time working for the Ministry and refusing to see us. Skip along to the juicy part!”

“A dying Dark Wizard set off a cursed lantern. Harry threw himself in front of me to protect me from the curse. It blinded him for almost a month. Also, he couldn’t hear anyone’s voice but mine.”

“What a nightmare.” Theo maintains his false sympathy until Pansy snorts. “He’s still into you after listening to you talk for a month?”

“I assume so. Our mornings have been…” Draco hums suggestively, earning him a scandalised smack from Theo. 

“And you’re happy with him?” Blaise’s concern is obvious.

“I love him,” says Draco simply. “I’m very happy.”

Pansy shakes herself as if she’s coming out of a dream. “Where are you hiding him? I thought you said he lives here.”

Draco guides them to the sitting room window, where he’d been standing when he was unceremoniously tackled, and gestures outside.

“Oh,” Pansy breathes. “Merlin’s balls, look at him.”

Harry’s out running in the field. Other than his shoes, he’s wearing only a pair of jogging shorts. His lean, muscular body glistens in the August humidity, and he moves with utter grace and confidence. Harry reaches up every so often to brush black hair out of his eyes.

“I get it now.” Theo nods crisply. “He’s fit as fuck.”

“Indeed,” Draco agrees.

Blaise squints out the window. “Is there a course out there or something? Why did he turn?”

“He’s following my wards,” Draco answers.

Pansy’s eyes get huge. “You put freestanding wards out there for him? Why?”

Draco shrugs, not bothering to hide his grin. “He likes them. They adapt to him so the path is constantly changing to suit his mood.”

“You’re so gone for him,” says Theo. “Merlin. We missed everything, didn’t we?”

“I would like it if you didn’t miss any more.” Draco’s heart speeds. “If you wanted to be part of it—of course, I understand if you can’t—”

“Draco Lucius Malfoy, you are going to be sick of us.” Pansy wags a finger at him. “Do you understand? Sick of us. I don’t care if we have to become friends with Potter’s friends. No more of this nonsense. Cutting off your friends is highly uncouth, and I for one will no longer stand for it.”

Draco puts an arm around her shoulders. Blaise puts his arm over Draco’s shoulders, Theo’s arm slides around his waist, and they stand there like that, in a tight huddle. What on earth was he thinking in St Mungo’s? He’d had this at Hogwarts, too, just like Harry did. Draco had forgotten, somehow. Or he hadn’t let himself think of it.

He won’t make that mistake again.

He’s about to offer his friends tea, or perhaps coffee, when Harry falters. 

It’s one awkward step. Draco’s sure he’s the only one who notices, and only because he watches Harry run every morning. Most evenings, they walk together, or chase each other on their brooms, but Draco’s not at Harry’s level yet when it comes to running. That’s all right. Harry uses the solitude of his morning runs to work through things in his head within the safety of the wards, letting them guide his path.

He holds his breath, waiting. 

Sometimes, Harry recovers and keeps going.

Other times, he doesn’t.

Harry stumbles to a halt in the middle of the field. Even at this distance, Draco can see his shoulders rising toward his ears, see his chest heaving.

Then he turns and sprints toward the cottage, his eyes squeezed shut.

“Draco—is he okay?” Pansy asks.

He squeezes her shoulder and extricates himself from his friends. “He will be.”

Draco jogs for the door. Once he’s out, he shrugs his dressing gown off his shoulders and runs for Harry in his pyjama trousers and T-shirt, barefooted in the early morning dew.

Harry puts his hands out, reaching, reaching, and crashes into Draco. His arms go desperately around Draco’s shoulders and he buries his face in Draco’s neck. The metal frames of Harry’s glasses push into Draco’s skin.

“I’m okay,” Harry gasps, his breathing shallow. “I’m okay. It’s safe. We’re both safe. You’re fine. You’re okay.”

“I’m right here.” Draco holds Harry’s trembling body close. “Nothing’s wrong. Everything is just as it should be. Did it happen again?”

It means that Harry’s vision has temporarily deserted him. It happens several times a week and seems to be set off by stress or guilt or a particularly bad memory resurfacing. So far, his sight always returns within a matter of hours. According to Harry’s healers, it’s not curse damage per se. He’s perfectly all right. It’s simply Harry’s mind in the process of adjusting.

He and Draco are figuring it out together.

Harry nods against Draco’s neck. “I—” He pauses, and Draco feels the panicked thrash in Harry’s magic begin to recede. “I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “I’m—fuck.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s all right.”

“I’m not apologising next time, I bloody swear. I was going for four in a row.” Harry tucks his arms around Draco’s waist, pressing his body more firmly against Draco’s. “Circe’s tit.”

“I’m very proud of you.”

Harry groans into Draco’s neck, but he follows it with a kiss. “I love you.”

“I love you. Do you want to finish your run or come inside? I should warn you—there are three Slytherins watching from the sitting room window.”

Harry pops up from Draco’s shoulder, delight transforming his face, though Draco can tell from the way Harry’s eyes don’t quite meet his that his vision is well and truly gone for the next little while. “Your friends came? It’s the arse-crack of dawn!”

“I was already awake, thanks to you and these joggers.”

Harry strikes a bit of a pose. “You could sleep in, you know. I wouldn’t mind.”

“And miss the show? I think not.” Draco brushes Harry’s hair off his forehead and tugs his glasses off, then tucks them carefully in the pocket of his pyjama pants. Once they’re inside, he’ll clean them and put them on the bedside table for when Harry’s vision returns.

Harry laughs and comes in for a salty kiss. Then he threads his fingers through Draco’s and squeezes. “Take me to meet your friends.”

Draco rolls his eyes and tugs at Harry’s hand. They start walking toward the cottage. “You’ve already met them, Harry. You went to school with them.”

“But have they met me like this?”

“Half-naked? No, and they shan’t. You’ll have to wash and find some clothes first.”

“They’ve already seen me through the window, haven’t they?” Harry waves in the general direction of the cottage. Draco can see a flash in the window—Pansy waving back.

“Pansy waved,” Draco tells Harry. “Blaise and Theo are still staring.”

“Are they jealous?”

“Of you?”

“No, of you.” Harry nudges Draco’s hip with his. “I’m a rare specimen. A very fine one.”

“Goodness, you are vain.”

“I’m yours.” Harry leans in, and a smiling kiss lands on Draco’s cheek. It’s a dream come true, every time Harry says it. “Forever. You’re never getting rid of me.”