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Draco knew, now, how one could truly come to realise that they’d fucked up harder than anyone else in the entire fucking world had ever done: Harry Potter would kill you. He’d slice you to ribbons with a single spell and leave you in a puddle of toilet water and blood. Head lolling to the side whilst you watch your life go swirling down the drain in the middle of the bathroom. 

He knew, as his consciousness became tenuous, that he’d tried to cast the cruciatus at the end. Spent long seconds attempting to force out the syllables as he watched Potter scramble under the sink. Draco hadn’t succeeded before Potter closed his hand around his wand. Turning in a whirl of messy curls to face Draco with a thunderous expression that would have caused any adult wizard’s heart to stutter. Let alone a cowardly Slytherin who had been crying to a ghost only moments before. His expression twisted and cruel. Just as Voldemort’s had been as the mark had been branded onto Draco’s forearm. Burning in its hatred as the water pipes burst and flooded the tiles around them.

Sectumsempra was a good spell. Brutal in a way that Potter had never been before, thought Draco as his spine arched and his final breath left his body. His eyelids fluttered, fighting against closing and taking with them the sight of Potter’s horror and shame. Their first duel had started with a snake. Poetic, really, that it would end because of a spell from the chosen one striking through his defences like a cobra. He could feel a dribble of hot blood slither its way down his torso as the cold seeped up to shiver through his chest and he watched his wand roll away from his limp right hand through the last crack of light he could see. 

Ah. Well that was that, then.

He’d died trying. 

Perhaps that would be enough to save his mother. 

Possibly not.

But it was hard to care as the dark closed in. 

“No - I didn’t -”

Potter’s voice sounded small, scared, and drifting as knees came down by Draco’s nose. Potter would remember his first kill at least.

Then the yelling started. Myrtle was getting blurry on the edges and slicing through the walls to rattle the school with her screams.

“MURDER! MURDER IN THE BATHROOM! MURDER!”

Draco tried to say something but he was fighting against bubbles that burst against his lips. 

It was almost relaxing, in a way. Potter’s hands clutched at Draco’s robes, trying to smooth his skin back together and losing to the gashes that decorated his chest. Potter’s fingers were strong and warm - comforting. Death wasn’t as painful as getting the Dark Mark had been. This time it was as though a great golden blanket spread through his body - pushing warmth and love through every nerve ending as Draco lost his toehold on his body. The last shudders ripped through him, he slipped out of his skin, and the world faded to grey. He could have sworn, just for a moment, that he heard Snape as he left this world with a sigh and a self-reflective chortle that died before it made it out of him.

What Draco was certain he wouldn’t do, later that evening, was wake up in the hospital wing of Hogwarts.

And yet that was what occurred.

Quite against Draco’s own will.

Every part of his body hurt. A pulse of pain ran up his chest, itching to get out before falling backwards into oblivion again. He lay there, eyes screwed shut. Accepting the rise and fall of the fire and ache that matched his breathing until he was interrupted by a stiff cough and cracked open his eyes to bright sunlight and reproach.

Snape was sitting on a hard wooden chair. Ramrod straight with his cheek twitching a staccato that made him look even more severe than he normally did. Black eyes, deeply sunken into their orbits noted the exact moment Draco’s eyes fluttered against the potions and salves keeping him under. 

“That was stupid, Draco,” he spat. “Incredibly stupid and shortsighted, going after Potter like that.”

Draco pushed his thin shoulders further back into the thin mattress and held his breath. 

“Your father made you take Latin before you started here. I know that you know what semper means.”

Giving a cautious wiggle of his fingers and toes reassured Draco that yes, he was still alive. Yes, he was still here. It felt as though he’d been wrung through the Forbidden Forest face down. It was so confusing. His brain felt like soup as he swam further into consciousness. He sucked in a burning breath before coughing, Snape’s warm hand helping him sit up slightly. It wracked through him, tearing at his insides.

“Always.” 

It came out half a gasp, half an accusation.

Snape nodded warily, sitting back into the chair contemplatively and flicking his wand to move a cup of water so Draco could take a sip while trembling.

“You shouldn’t have survived that. You were lucky that Potter could tell me what he’d cast.” Snape’s dark eyes met Draco’s as they fluttered open, some strange ghost passing over his gaze. “You bled to death on that bathroom floor. It took minutes to bring you back and I was fairly certain I wasn’t going to be able to. It’s a miracle you’re still here.”

Draco stared up at the heavy beams of the ceiling that arched darkly over the neatly-made white beds. There wasn’t a sound in the ward that wasn’t the harsh sound of Snape’s breathing or the creak of the springs under Draco’s body as he turned his head away from the Potions Master. 

“Sorry to disappoint with my survival. I’m sure Potter’s next attempt will accomplish the job.” Draco could hear the scratchiness of his voice. As though it had been used for screaming. Though he couldn’t remember that through the cobwebs coating his memories. Snape clicked his tongue and Draco’s temper rose before settling again. 

“Those wounds were never supposed to close. Something knitted you together at the last moment and it had not a whit to do with Dark magic. What have you been playing with?”

Ignoring Snape’s questions Draco pressed into the bed and glowered back. “Nothing I’d share with you.”

“I swore an unbreakable vow to your mother, boy. You would have taken me with you.”

Draco could swear that it was so quiet in the hospital wing at that moment that he could hear the tick from the Hogwart’s clock two floors up and at the other end of the castle. Despair threatened to drown him. He’d never be able to complete the vanishing cabinet. No matter how much Snape pushed there was a limit to how much he could trust another Death Eater when Voldemort would sweep through his thoughts as soon as he completed his task. If he accepted that help his life would be forfeit at the end, and only after he watched the Dark Lord flay his parents in front of him. 

“Malfoy…” Snape hesitated, his voice coming haltingly, “Draco, you are going to need to be careful. Stay away from Potter, at the very least.”

He could feel his neck jerk into a nod, and Snape relaxed just a fraction. “Then I’ll expect you for Occlumency lessons. Every night after this, and after if you need them. I assume you have no objections?”

“Did it.. Will it scar?” Draco’s breath came out haltingly. “Mother won’t worry so much if it hasn’t.”

Snape stood, smoothing out his robes with hands that trembled not a wit. Showing just how much better a choice he’d have been for this mission than a cowardly sixteen-year-old who couldn’t force himself to cast a crucio at the right moment. Potter had gotten out sectumsepra before Draco had forced the three syllables from his throat that could have saved him. Draco had started casting first. A lump started to form in his throat and he fought down the hot tears that threatened. Meeting Snape steely gaze with his wavering own.

“It has. Scarred that is. Potter certainly has a flair for the dramatic.” He turned with a flick of his black robes. Pausing at the threshold to toss back a quick “I’ll see you in my office tomorrow. After dinner.” Before gathering them like armour and striding out the door.

Draco raised trembling hands under the covers. Under the pyjamas and covers that he’d been swaddled in. His fingertips traced the criss-crossing scars that started at his left shoulder, sliced to the right over his heart and stabbed its way down to his right hip.

He almost laughed at that. Branded by Harry Potter with a curse scar to match the one Potter wore on his face.

Detention.

That was all that was going to happen to Potter for committing a murder inside a school - and all because his victim survived the experience. 

Detention.

Draco scoffed, flicking his fringe behind his ears and levering himself out of the chair across from Snape. His long legs nearly caught on one of the spokes and he staggered slightly. Still weak like a calf to slaughter. All thanks to Potter. Snape had tried to raise his spirits by pointing out, rather weakly for a man who’d never truly followed Quidditch, that Potter himself wouldn’t be able to play for Gryffindor that Saturday and Ravenclaw might win the House Cup.

But what use was the House Cup now? Draco thought viciously as he closed the door behind himself and stepped into the corridor. He’d slam it, but between the weakness of his arm and the spikey nature of Snape’s personality, it was no longer an option. Sweat broke out across his forehead as he forced his steps steadily against the floor on his way up towards The Room of Hidden Things.

He was so close to victory that he could taste it.

There was no escape into the blackness now - for if it weren’t at the hands of Potter his parents would follow him soon after at the Dark Lord’s hands. He’d tried before - in moments of weakness - in the bathroom with Myrtle. Spent time in The Room of Requirement with his hawthorn wand to his temple and turning it at the very last second - sending a random tottering pile of detritus into a hazy mist of sparks and smoke and wishing at that moment he dared to end it all. 

But daring wasn’t an attribute of Slytherin House. Slytherins moved only when the coast was clear and the consequences measured. One more thing to hate his father for.

Passing three times in front of the doorway and slipping through it relaxed Draco. If one is working the problem one can compartmentalise and forget about the Dark Lord holding your mother under the cruciatus or watching your father slowly morph into a shaking, simpering sop that slowly sucked away every drop of hero-worship Draco had ever felt for him. 

Before him lay a room that was bursting with everything one might ever wish to find in Hogwarts that had once been lost. 

And with a castle full of children, much had been lost over the centuries.

There were alleyways and viaducts between the enormous piles of items. Fanged frisbees jostled with heavily damaged furniture from the Elizabethan Era and topped with potions ingredients and several rusting swords. The double-bladed axe still dripping with some sort of black substance that puddled on the ground and misted droplets into the air always made Draco shiver down his spine. Counting trails Draco turned right past an enormous stuffed troll and stopped at a cabinet that looked as though the doors had been burned with acid. A cage within had a skeleton with five legs and spindly bronze bars. Underneath the cage was the leather-bound notebook that housed the experiments he’d been making with the broken vanishing cabinet a mere ten feet away past the winged catapults that whipped ice cream at those who passed. 

Draco ducked slightly, lifting the cage and saw another book thunk down on top of his notebook. He squinted in the dim light, shrugged and took the book out with his notebook. Every once in a while the room would place something else in his path. Some spanner or primer or help for his task within the room. Replacing the cage Draco meandered over to the cabinet, flipping the book over and then nearly dropping it. It was a copy of Advanced Potion Making with Snape’s notes in the margins and across the pages. 

Some annotations crossed out ingredients and added instructions on better preparation ideas. The cover was bright and new while the interior pages were cracked, aged, and relentlessly dog-eared and soft along the edges.  He flipped through the pages, his notes falling to his feet and releasing pages and bookmarks onto the floor as he moved both hands to the textbook, leafing through it faster and faster. It said The Property of the Half-Blood Prince on the flyleaf. But there was a particular space in the binding, on a page that was well foxed, where it nearly fell open from use. 

Sectumsempra - for enemies .

The book slipped from his grasp as a shot of pain sliced through his scar. Finding himself down on his knees, motes of dust swirling across his vision as his gasps turned to hysterical laughter and then back to wracking sobs, he pushed the heel of his hand onto his sternum where the scar crossed over.

Snape had created the spell Potter used and Potter must have hidden it here afterwards. 

He couldn’t trust Snape.

He couldn’t trust anyone.

Had Snape betrayed him by giving Potter this book so he could kill Draco before putting his plan in motion?

No one would ever help him. 

The sobs eventually retreated like a wave, returning his tears to the room of requirement and he dragged himself back over to the cabinet. 

It was the only way out. 

It was the only way in. 

And the only person who could fix it needed to pull himself together.

The fact that Harry Potter was dating Ginny Weasley seemed to interest a great number of people, yet Draco found himself impervious to the gossip over the next few weeks. The girl Weasley had caught not only the winning snitch but the boy wonder himself. After all, it behoved the populace of the school to ignore the fact that their saviour was a killer and allowed them to fawn about him as he took a victory lap. 

A lap it looked like Potter enjoyed frolicking in.

Draco had known he had been interested in boys for a long time. He’d known he’d been interested in Potter since he’d come up from the Black Lake with his best friend and Draco had wanked himself to sleep wishing that he’d been the one clasped in Potter’s cold arms and breaking the surface of the water to the cheers of the crowd. Joining the Inquisitorial Squad had allowed him to quietly stalk Potter in fifth year and Potter was popping up everywhere in sixth year. 

Harry locking lips with the Weaselette in the Great Hall as Draco poked morosely at his porridge put paid to the idea that someday what Draco considered flirting would boil over into a hasty shove into an alcove by a boy who was so much braver than Draco had ever been and would devolve into a flurry of torn robes, popped buttons, and bruised lips. Potter, he thought as the porridge congealed onto his spoon, was not interested in mildly inbred, pointy-faced male persons who’d know what to do with a cock as he had his own. He was looking for a pillar of fire pureblooded witch with a strong right hook who would match him on and off the Quidditch pitch.

He couldn’t watch the witch squirm her way onto Potter’s lap any more and he shoved away from the Slytherin table, stalking away from breakfast and up the moving staircases, stepping neatly over the trick stair that squirted you with lemon juice and avoiding the newel that made you recite the Hogwarts motto backwards before it would release your hand. 

Draco was still weak through the chest since his “misadventure in the bathroom” as Pansy had called it, hiccuping on Gillywater next to the common room fireplace. The green light from the Black Lake that streamed in behind her had made her black hair shine brilliantly even as Draco wanted to punch her for taking it so lightly. Misadventure. He snorted under his breath, rolling his eyes as he panted up the last staircase to the seventh floor and made the tired pacing that he’d attempted over and over during the past year.

It was getting close to the summer and Draco felt itchy inside - deepest where his scars were healing. Time was running short to get the Death Eaters into Hogwarts, but the book was helping with that. Draco had no guilt about keeping Snape’s copy of Advanced Potions Making . It had nearly caused his death - least it could do was keep him alive now.

This time when the doors opened it didn’t show The Room of Hidden Things. It didn’t show the mirror-filled room that Potter and his army of friends had practised in the year before. It gave him a well-equipped potions room. He dropped the satchel on the dust-free and gleaming countertop and trotted over towards the cauldron that was still bubbling merrily. Casting a quick tempus he smiled and stirred the potion eight turns counterclockwise and then twice clockwise, rather than the four then one ratio that was printed, Draco was following the Prince’s directions. The potion he was working on had been heavily annotated from the original. Draco needed something else to help him fix the cabinet because his natural magical ability was simply not up to the task. The Exstimulo Potion promised to enhance a single spell when drunk by the caster. If it was to be cast on an object a bath in the formula could enhance the magic as well. 

Getting the re’em blood had been the hardest part, and he’d only be able to do so because he’d bribed that Hufflepuff - Cornfoot - to add flakes of gypsum instead of moonstone to his brew in class and he’d been able to nick a vial from Snape’s stores in the ensuing chaos. The granian hair had been a quick letter to his mother asking about the herd of flying horses that visited the Manor property. The Snowdrops had been the work of four terrifying walks into the Forbidden Forest on his own. He’d have even taken that useless dog, Fang, that Hagrid had attempted to give them for protection in first year rather than going alone. But fear of the Dark Lord ran deep within him and he’d forced his feet into the loam beneath the towering trees until he’d cried when he found a small patch of the flowers deep within.

Tonight would be the bottling process. Tomorrow he’d bathe the cabinet in the potion. The day after he’d confirm it was working. Then he could press his Dark Mark and the rest of Voldemort’s followers could come through and his mother would finally be safe. 

Draco sighed, relaxing onto the hard stool and staring hard into the bottom of his cauldron. It was cloudy at the bottom and he started to chant the words to the spell he wanted it to enhance.

harmonia nectere passus - harmonia nectere passus - harmionia nectere passus.

He watched the tip of his wand nearly skim the surface as it twirled, bringing sparks and mist up from the depths of the potion. The bitter root nearly made him sneeze and the onion juice scraped at his eyes and made them water. A small breeze moved through the room, pulling the fumes away from him and he sent a thin trickle of thanks to the Room. It had been such a comfort this year. Finally giving him this copy of Advanced Potion Making so that he could fix the blasted cabinet. 

Losing himself in the words and the movement he drifted. This was nearly over. The ache in his chest, that had kept pulsing since the bathroom flared for a moment and he pushed through it to continue with the incantation until his wand buzzed from the timer. Sitting back he rubbed his sternum, tracing the centre of the scar that had healed to almost look like a lightning bolt. It was the centre where it jogged over that was where the worst of the pain bubbled under the surface.

Snape hadn’t been able to draw out the last of the curse Potter had hit him with. In fact, the last time he’d arrived at his head of house’s quarters for his daily occlumency practice - a set of lessons the Dark Lord himself had insisted upon as Draco walked back into Hogwarts at the beginning of the school year - Snape had gone even paler than he normally was, insisting on taking a pensieve memory of the moment sectumsempra had hit him so that he could study it further.

Personally, Draco had no desire to see Potter’s eyes before he’d realised what he’d done again. Watch as blood sliced across the tiles and the deep anguish that had transformed the other boy’s face as Draco toppled over in a pile of broken sticks in front of him. That stabbing pit of pain pushed up against his fingertips as he tried to smooth down the ragged edges of his scar. Throbbing back it let him go again and he found himself panting, staring down into a perfectly clear potion whose surface was smooth and still as a mirror. 

Lines near his mouth spoke of one that frowned far more than laughed these days. Still far too pointy on every edge, like one could cut themselves on his cheekbones rather than touch them with blunt fingertips. Every plane was now washed out in a way that it hadn’t been before the Dark Lord had sunk his magic into his arm and twisted Draco’s own power around it. It had started to ache whenever Potter was nearby and Draco wondered, though not with enough curiosity to ask, if Snape, too, felt a low-level pulse through the mark whenever he was around Potter. 

With a sigh and flick of his wand, he gracefully siphoned up the potion into three bottles. One for himself, one for the cabinet to soak. One for the final attempt at passage.

He sighed, made a quick sojourn into the hallway to reset it to the Room of Hidden Things and left two of the three bottles in the cabinet with his notebook. Then he turned his steps towards the dungeons. It was far past curfew so when he heard a giggle up the passageway he ducked behind a tapestry of prancing unicorns. The bright laughter seemed to awaken all the portraits along the corridor and they took their time to tune their steps to the calls that came to greet her. Loony Luna stopped directly across from him and got into a long discussion with one of the fairies in the portrait about the qualities of the dew that could be collected off the eaves of the various Hogwarts rooftops. 

Draco’s head was beginning to pound and all he wanted was for Lovegood to leave off questioning fairies and head off on her Prefect rounds and away from this section of the castle. 

“Oh, I don’t know about that, and he should pay better attention,” she said with finality to the empty air. “Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who need it. They need only ask for it. Have a lovely evening Aerouant. Goodbye!”

Her steps, tinkling with something that sounded like tiny silver bells, swept down the hall leaving a trail of glitter behind her while Draco took the opportunity to slip back out into the corridor, making it down to the dungeons without being spotted. He slithered deep into the bowels of the dormitory and carefully closed the door so that neither the hinges nor the thunk as it shut would wake his roommates. Curling up in his bed he pulled the curtains and thunked back onto the covers. He pulled himself together. Grouping all his apprehensions together and sitting on them he cast a silencing charm and lifted the last bottle of potion to his eyes.

With shaking fingers he unstoppered the vial, drinking it down in a single gulp before he could think too hard about what he was about to do. He nearly gagged at the taste of rancid cabbage and old socks invaded his nose through the back of his throat and brought tears to his eyes as he fought to down it.

harmonia nectere passus.

He coughed it out, feeling a tingling sensation invade every pore and cranny of his body before he collapsed onto the sheets. Desperately trying to keep the spell in his head as the potion did its work and he spiralled into unconsciousness. 

Draco could hardly believe his good luck. 

After waking that morning, the zing of the potion flooding his body and making him feel as though he could cast the strongest spell in his life, he had gone immediately upstairs, eschewing breakfast, to soak the wood of the vanishing cabinet with the potion he’d brewed. The room had almost vibrated with joy in giving him a wide variety of paintbrushes to choose from. Draco had delighted in choosing a brush that was bristled with hair harvested from shedding unicorns. It worked well with the unicorn dew in the potion’s base and it glowed as Draco carefully spread it onto the dark wood, lighting the cabinet around every whorl in the wood. 

It gleamed and glimmered under his hands and warmed his skin through his robes. 

Stepping back he drank the remaining dose of potion, screaming the spell as he collapsed in front of the wooden altar that would be his destruction or salvation. The light blinded him and he squeezed his eyes shut. The cabinet screamed into the air - vibrating as though an explosion was imminent. It felt like it was pulling every ounce of magic out of Draco and he fought it until it dragged him away like the tide. 

Some string pulled him back to Hogwarts Castle. Though the current threatened to pull him under, some tether kept him anchored in this room at Hogwarts. Pulling him back and giving him strength that he was sure wasn’t coming from inside of him. It ripped through him like a tsunami, keeping him atop the water and setting him gently back down at the end. It felt like small flares of power burnt the space between the cabinet and himself and it was only through the thinnest of margins that he wasn’t immolated with them. The thin specks that floated across his vision slowly cleared and he could hear the harsh sound of breathing before he relaxed onto his heels. 

The cabinet was repaired. 

It radiated power. 

A solidness that hadn’t been there before.

Then someone tried to get into the room. The door shuddered but kept whoever it was out and Draco started laughing in glee. It was done. His laughter veered towards hysterical, tears of mirth and joy and relief running down his face as he clawed back his thinly held control. 

It was repaired. 

He had to test it.

But first he retreated into the well-worn occlumency exercises that Snape had been teaching him. 

“ Clear your mind ,” he could almost hear Snape reminding him, a hand on his shoulder grounding him as he retreated into his thoughts. “ Breathe steadily. In and out. Imagine a room that looks almost like this one, and lock all thoughts you don’t want me to see away in a small chest that you carry in your pocket .”

Fidgeting, he reached into his pocket, taking out the pocket watch that had become the sink into which he drained every thought he didn’t want the Dark Lord to see or know rattled around inside of him. He opened the back cover and watched the gears turn against themselves, the quiet tick filling his senses. He pushed all his doubts and fears into the pocket watch. Every time he truly felt as though he wouldn’t succeed. He felt lighter as the memories slipped their way through the shiny surface of the cuvet and into the mechanism. 

He took a deep breath and stepped through the cabinet, opened the door a crack to watch Borgin sell a dark device to a coughing warlock and dashed back to Hogwarts. He breathed deeply, a wide and languid grin across his sharp features and collapsed against the dark wood. 

It was done.

It was then that the galleon in his pocket began to burn and he pulled it out, reading the words that flashed across the golden surface. “He leaves. Apparition.”

Everything was coming up Malfoy. He clutched the galleon that was spread with the beautiful words that Rosmerta had sent him while he used the other to unbutton his cuff before lifting the fabric to touch his fingers against the rigid edges of the Dark Mark. It was time, he reminded himself. Time to get himself out from under the rock his father had dug them under. 

Girding himself against the twist in his stomach he’d feel, he pressed down. 

… and nothing happened. 

He dropped the galleon and watched it roll away in shock before scrambling after it and shoving it back into his pocket. This was supposed to work. It had to work. The consequences if it didn’t weren’t worth thinking about. He tore the cuff straight off the end of his robes, pushing the fabric up past his elbow and leaned in to stare at the Mark. It was as it always had been. A snake skulled and tongued as though it were trying to lift itself off and eat you without a second’s thought. He’d been told how to summon the Dark Lord. All he had to do was press the Mark and Voldemort would know that now was the time to invade Hogwarts.

Draco broke out into a cold sweat. 

There was only one hope right at that moment. 

He had to get Snape. 

He left the room at a run - the soles of his shoes slapping against the marble floors and steps as he raced down the moving staircases to the dungeons. He brushed past a knot of Griffindors, sneering at the youngest Weasley and scoffing at Longbottom who seemed to have a post taken up on the stairs by the dungeons. He could feel his shirt sticking to his skin across his back as he lifted his hand to pound against the wood of Professor Snape’s dungeon door.

Snape opened it quickly, a sneer ready for whomsoever it was who beat at his door so frantically. Something about the wildness of Draco’s eyes must have stopped him in his tracks, as his mouth, open to take whatever student it was to task snapped shut, his dark eyes widening as he took Draco in. 

“Let me in. It’s time.”

Quick as a flash Snape reached out and snatched Draco into his quarters. The moldy smell of the dank room struck him as harshly as a slap and his breath came in puffs from his quick descent. 

His voice shook as the words tore out of him. “It won’t work.”

“What won’t?” 

“The Dark Mark,” cried Draco, pushing up the arm whose sleeve hung in tatters. “It won’t call.”

A frown creased every line on Snape’s face as he snatched up Draco’s arm, bringing his nose nearly to the skin in his examination of the Mark. He scrutinized it closely, pushing Draco against the wall, until he dropped his arm and reached out, tearing the buttons from his robes and shirt and exposing his chest. Draco watched as Snape’s face fell as he reached out trembling fingertips and traced the lightning bolt scar across his chest.

“Oh you poor boy,” Snape’s voice was strange, carrying some vibrating emotion that Draco couldn’t even begin to identify. As quickly as the emotion graced Snape’s features, softening them in a way he’d never seen them move before, they were gone. A stoic man stared at him again and the quick shift made him shiver. “I take it whatever you’ve done has borne fruit, else you wouldn’t be calling?”

Draco nodded dumbly. With a jab of his jaw and his wand Snape repaired Draco’s clothes and cuff, lifted his own sleeve and pressed the Mark. A short jolt travelled up his own arm. Confusion set in. Why wasn’t his own working?

“Did you feel that?” Snape inquired, head cocked to one side and looking at him as though he were an especially interesting cauldron. 

“Yes.”

Snape looked grim and gestured at his door. “Let’s away, then.”

Draco led the way up the steps eight stories and through three secret passages that took them through walls that Draco was certain no other student at Hogwarts would have ever been so desperate to discover. They made it to The Room of Hidden Things just ahead of a passel of Gryffindors. The doors slammed shut behind them to a chorus of groans. 

“It’s just this way,” said Draco, pointing towards the sagging piles between which he knew the cabinet awaited. He snaked through the stacks of sticks and scrolls and cheap costume jewellery to the Vanishing Cabinet with Snape on his heels. 

Snape stepped forward, one trembling hand caressing the wood of the door before he opened the hinge, staring deeply into the depths..

“And you’ve tested it? It works?”

Draco nodded and Snape seemed to deflate. He stared at Draco with intensity as he weighed the moment. Finally, with a sigh that sounded more like resignation than anything else, he nodded, lifted his wand and encouraged Draco to lift his own with a gesture. Together they opened the passage that ran to Borgin & Burke’s. A tunnel between the two so it was not one person travelling at a time but transformed it slightly so that a stream of Death Eaters could flow into Hogwarts.

A short, lumpy man was the first through. One of the Carrow twins, Draco thought disjointedly. Followed by his sister, Rowle, and four other Death Eaters he’d yet to meet but recognised from his own Marking. Gibbon. Meadowlark. Smythe. Yaxley. No one needed to introduce Greyback. He towered over the lot of them, face anticipatory for the fight ahead of them. 

“Well done, Draco.” The werewolf’s nose twitched towards the corridor. “Do they know we’re coming?”

“Perhaps.” His voice was slightly scratchy and Draco cleared his throat before continuing softly. “I have Darkness Powder and a Hand of Glory to get you out of this room. The plan is for you all to create chaos until Dumbledore returns and we can kill him.”

“You can kill ‘im.” Yaxley’s voice was flat and frightening. “Our Lord was quite clear about that.”

Draco found himself the focus of all the other Death Eater’s stares as Greyback licked his lips in anticipation. “Well, let’s get going then.”

“I’ll take the boy to where I’m sure Dumbledore will return to. When he’s succeeded we can retreat to the base of the Astronomy Tower and then off the grounds from there,” Snape added reasonably, his face utterly devoid of emotion.

Passing the Hand of Glory to Rowle, Draco pulled the pouch of Darkness Powder he’d ordered from Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezies from his pocket. They crowded around the door and he felt Snape grip his elbow firmly while the other Death Eaters linked their arms so they could be led through the cloud of darkest night. Snape edged Draco closer to the other side of the jamb. Creating a distance Draco was grateful for.

Refusing to think too much Draco threw all of the powder onto the hard stone floor as he cracked open the door. A chorus of stunning spells missed as they waited a moment before crowding through the exit and then moved quickly. The Death Eaters down the western steps towards the Great Hall. He and Snape towards the eastern steps.

“Where are we going?” Draco asked, voice low.

They dodged a curse together as Snape pulled him along behind himself, shouldering a body out of the way as they sprinted down the corridor.

“The Astronomy Tower.”

Draco remembered the Astronomy Tower from class. The round room with a variety of different telescopes set in brass along the rails of an open balcony. The shield charms that kept the weather out but the heat in in the frosty winters that swept across Scotland. The creaking floor that had been laid down in his great-grandfather’s time with a hefty donation from the Malfoy family. The way Potter seemed to both be alive with curiosity on occasion yet utterly asleep during other classes as Granger took notes for him about the stars and the work they did on plants for potions making.

It was just as they exited the cloud made from the Darkness powder that the pain began. 

The push started right between his heart and his ribcage. Expanding like a balloon and putting pressure against the inside of his chest - almost making his heart stop beating for a moment to readjust to the pain that sliced through him over the curse scar. Closing his eyes he gasped as a small island came into view, wrapped in fire and inferi. Cold, clammy hands reached out of icy water, dripping over grubby, unlaced trainers, wrapping their long fingers around his ankle as the heat from the fire forced his body back onto the rocks. 

Draco yanked himself back, almost collapsing against Snape’s side, the Potion Master shifting Draco’s arm around his shoulder and hauling him along with clawlike fingers against his ribs. He cried out as the pain flared into bone-deep fear, the whipping fire casting shadows onto the walls of the deep cave he was in as the emotions receded and he was back in Hogwarts, fingers pressed deeply into Snape’s shoulder.

They were at the foot of the tower now, and Snape manhandled him through the door, pushing him down onto the steps. Draco automatically reached up to hold onto one of the railings. He felt as though he were seasick and the deep chasm of pain and fear slowly started to fade. Looking up he watched as exasperation warred with concern for a moment before Snape’s features smoothed out again.

“What happened?”

“There was a lake and fire and I was there and here,” Draco could hear his voice getting louder, bouncing off the stone in frantic echoes. “What’s happening to me?” 

Snape gave him a quick hard shake. “Pull yourself together, Malfoy. Get up to the top of the tower and I’ll be right behind. After I seal the doorway so they can’t come after you.”

He pulled Draco to his feet and pushed him towards the stairs. “Get moving.”

He looked so foreboding that Draco couldn’t find, through his swimming thoughts, a reason to stay and argue. He turned his face upwards, setting one leaden foot in front of the other and using his arms to help pull his body up the winding spiral staircase towards the top.

At approximately the halfway point when the communication galleon burned in his pocket again.

“He’s coming back.”

 Draco gripped the galleon so hard the ribbed edge bit into the skin of his palm, the pain grounding him as he stared upwards. Loud shouting boomed up the stairs as the fighting rocketed through the corridors. Through a window, he watched as a side of the castle crumpled against the night like a sheet of parchment but bursting like a shower of sparks as the blocks of stone cascaded onto the courtyard. Setting his jaw he kept climbing.

Up was the only way out.

He could see Gibbons through the tower arrowslits - howling in laughter as he raced his broom around the peaks of Hogwarts, casting bombarda over and over against the windows of the Gryffindor common room and setting the Dark Mark alight in the sky above the Astronomy Tower.

The minutes ticked by as he shuddered his way towards the door that led into the wide area that was used for classes. He stood there, arguing with himself as he waited. For what? He couldn’t know. But there was some ache inside him that glued the soles of his dragonhide leather shoes to the slate and kept his arms pinned to his sides. 

When he could delay no longer he lifted his wand listlessly, flinging open the door as expelliarmus lept from his lips. By the light of the Mark, he saw Dumbledore’s wand fly in an arc over the edge of the ramparts. Dumbledore looked… calm. No sign of the panic and distress that wrecked through Draco’s core. Stepping forwards, Draco kept his wand trained on the half-moon spectacles and glanced around quickly, making sure that he and Dumbledore were alone. 

One wizard. Two brooms.

Was this it? A chance to escape? Was Dumbledore offering him a way out, even now?

His mind twisted into suspiciousness and he narrowed his eyes. “Who else is here?”

“A question I might ask you,” came the reply, slightly wheezing, as Dumbledore’s head tipped to the side in curiosity. “Or are you acting alone?”

“Not alone. I’ve got backup. There are Death Eaters here in your school tonight.” Draco tried desperately to keep the waver out of his voice as he stared at Dumbledore. The Headmaster looked terrible. There was a shiver and sway to him that gave him a less solid countenance than he usually presented. In fact - his voice was softer too.

“Well well. Very good indeed. You found a way to let them in, did you?” There was most definitely something wrong with Dumbledore. Draco desperately tried to keep the tip of his wand pointed and fought the breath that came as pants.

“Right under your nose and you never realised.”

“Ingenious. Yet… forgive me… where are they now?”

There was definitely something wrong with Professor Dumbledore. His blue eyes held not a single glimmer of the twinkle that Draco had always found hiding in the corners. He was slurring his words around the edges and it made Draco feel off-kilter. Dumbledore gestured, using his claw-like hand and continued.

“Well, then, you must get on and do it, my dear boy. But Draco… Draco, you are not a killer.”

Rage rose inside of Draco. “How do you know? You don’t know what I’m capable of, you don’t know what I’ve done!” Draco had died for this already, no matter that Snape had brought him back. Dumbledore’s Golden Boy had killed. Might have to kill again. This was Draco’s turn.

Dumbledore came back quickly, even as his voice gave out in the middle of his sentences and his eyes unfocused. “You have been trying, with increasing desperation, to kill me all year. Forgive me, Draco, but they have been feeble attempts … so feeble, to be honest, that I wonder whether your heart has been really in it.”

“It has been in it!” Draco spat out, trying to be vehement but knowing it came out feeble. 

There was a crash as Gibbons, flying past on his broom, lost control and spiralled into the castle wall below, his scream cutting off after he hit. Draco watched him fall just to the left of Dumbledore’s right shoulder. His broom falling next to him. He thanked each of his lucky stars individually and by name before his attention returned to Dumbledore - who was still talking in a soothing manner, even as he fought to remain standing.

“...there are members of the Order of the Phoenix here tonight, too. And after all, you don’t really need help… I have no wand at the moment… I cannot defend myself… unless… Draco, are you afraid to act until they join you?”

“I need a witness so that I can be celebrated when I return to the Dark Lord,” said Draco. “I just need them to see it happen.”

“But why? I don’t think you will kill me, Draco. Killing is not nearly as easy as the innocent believe…”

“I’m not innocent,” replied Draco, tearing his sleeve with his teeth, and rucking it up to his elbow. The Mark nearly jumped with its starkness. “I’ll never be again.”

It took Dumbledore a long moment before he sighed and responded dourly. “So tell me, while we wait for your friends… how did you smuggle them in here?”

“I had to mend that broken Vanishing Cabinet that no one’s used for years.” Draco's voice choked him halfway through the sentence and he struggled to get it back under control. No sixth-year student should have to answer Dumbledore about how his school was breached. “The one Montague got lost in last year.”

“Aaah. That was clever… there is a pair, I take it?” 

“The other’s in Borgin and Burkes - but I was the one who realised there could be a way into Hogwarts through the cabinets if I fixed the broken one.”

“A clever plan, Draco, a very clever plan… and, as you say, right under my nose. But there were times, weren’t there, when you were not sure you would succeed in mending the cabinet?” Dumbledore was as grey as his robes and it frightened him deeply. Dumbledore was supposed to be this pillar. This person that any student could trust. Draco’s response felt like it was torn out of him in a rush of anger and betrayal.

“Why didn’t you stop me then?”

“I tried, Draco. Professor Snape has been watching over you on my orders -” Dumbledore’s voice was steadier than it had been when Draco had first disarmed him  and reasonable but Draco was not ready to hear it.

“He hasn’t been doing your orders, he promised my mother,” it came out somewhere between a snarl and a sob, the tip of his wand vibrating far faster than it ever ought to. “You never thought to help him, around your private lessons for Potter .”

“Of course that is what he would tell you, Draco, but -”

“That broom was never an escape for me, was it? You’re just going to let me swing, aren’t you?” 

“We must agree to differ on that assessment, Draco.”

“Well, you’re losing your grip then! I’m the one standing here holding you at wandpoint - I’m - I’m about to kill you -”  

Shouting and clanging rang up from the courtyard. Thin snatches of distant screams and shouts streamed over the railings and Draco felt his wrist tremble. Dumbledore was still looking at him, glancing over his shoulder from time to time, as though waiting patiently for something - or someone. Finally, the headmaster sighed.

“My dear boy, let us have no more pretence about that. If you were going to kill me, you would have done it when you first Disarmed me, you would not have stopped for this pleasant chat.”

“Pleasant chat?” Draco felt his jaw drop down. “Why would I stop? I haven’t got any options. I’ve got to do it! He’ll kill me! He’ll kill my whole family!”

“I appreciate the difficulty of your position. It was one of the reasons I asked Professor Snape to tutor you in occlumency, and what a fine job you’ve done learning it. But now, at last, we can speak plainly to each other… no harm has been done, you have hurt nobody, though you are very lucky that you unintentional victims survived…I can help you, Draco.”

“No, you can’t. Nobody can. He told me to do it or he’ll kill me. I’ve got no choice.”

“Come over to the right side, Draco, and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine. What is more, I can send members of the Order to your mother tonight to hide her likewise… come over to the right side, Draco… you are not a killer…” 

It was almost like being hypnotised. Draco felt himself floundering. All alone at the top of the Astronomy Tower. Just Dumbledore at the end of his wand. The slash of cold wind shivering through his layers of robes and chilling him deep in his core. 

“They thought I’d die in the attempt… I have died… but I’m here… and you’re in my power… I’m the one with the wand… you’re at my mercy…” He screwed up his courage like a tight coil inside of him, staring across at Dumbledore and the stars beyond.

Draco pulled at his magic. Desperately trying to make it form the killing curse so he could cast it. But it fizzled just past his heart and refused to move to his wand. Something was wrong. Draco knew he hadn’t been able to cast the crucio on Potter in that bathroom but now the hint of dark magic just sputtered and died as he frantically scrambled internally. His Mark wouldn’t work. His magic wouldn’t work. What was wrong with him? He searched Dumbledore’s face for the answers.

“No, Draco. It is my mercy, and not yours, that matters now.”

The spell fizzled out and Draco felt like sobbing. He sagged against the tiles, his wand dipping. The next sentence came out like a whisper in the night. “Is one of those brooms for me? Please -” he faltered - “is one of them for me?”

The night was still all around them as sprinting steps hurtled up the steps behind Draco. He couldn’t turn. Nearly mesmerised by the sadness Dumbledore was looking at him with. Nothing moved but the pounding feeling as his heart pushed against his ribs, almost making them crack under the pressure.

Snape arrived and Dumbledore sagged with relief.

Out of breath, panting, and with a whirl of black robes, stalking just ahead and placing himself between Draco and Dumbledore. Draco could hear, over the noise that had sprung up in his ears, Dumbledore pleading with Snape.

“Severus… Severus… Please”

Avada Kedavra

The tower moved under Draco’s feet. 

And yet it didn’t.

And yet it was somehow new as Dumbledore’s body absorbed and reflected the bright green light that radiated out of every pore as he was flung backwards from the force and arched over the empty space off the tower. Pinned against the sky like an insect to a card.

Perfect.

Still.

Quiet.

Just for a moment before his body hit the top of its arc and it sank towards the ground and it felt as though Draco’s heart was ripped straight out through his ribcage. Blinding pain burnt through him and it was only the firm grip that Snape had on the nape of his neck that kept him upright. Steps stumbled under his feet as they descended. Snape threw him against the wall while he took down the barriers that had kept teachers and Death Eaters alike away from the stairwell.

Snape was saying something. Draco clutched his chest as the words were lost in the tortuous ball that beat and pulsed against his fingers through his shirt. What was going on? Another bolt shot through him and he groaned. 

“What is wrong with me?” 

It came out in a rush. Snape’s eyes snapped to his. Pity bloomed and was cruelly crushed. A slim arm with strong fingers gripped him around the wrist and Draco found himself being towed out of Hogwarts as though tethered to Snape like a balloon. Following him close behind and bumping against the walls and handrails in their flight. 

Behind them, a primal scream rent the air. Blistering it back with shock and anger.

“Malfoy! Come BACK here you coward!” 

It was Potter. Two stories up but his eyes blazing fiercely enough that he could have been standing next to Draco to how easily it pierced him. Draco gasped, floundering as he stared upwards. Potter’s face was twisted in grief and anger that burnt brightly into Draco’s chest through his scar - consuming Draco from the inside out. 

Snape didn’t slow down. Nor did he swerve. Draco tried to squirm out of his grasp and just ended up thrashing a bit like a fish on a hook. 

Had all magic abandoned him? Draco felt a frission of fear shoot through him and extended his wand arm as they passed the Great Hall.

reducto

The red light shot out of his wand onto the giant hourglass that held the Gryffindor points and a spill of rubies cascaded into the hallway. At least it would come at his call, still. Breathing slightly easier, Draco picked up the pace, lungs burning as he and Snape escaped Hogwarts.

The cold air past the entrance slapped him with its crispness. Death Eaters were running for the woods. Students were running for the inner courtyard where Dumbledore’s body lay. And Potter nipped at their heels.

“Malfoy!”

Potter’s rage was as incandescent behind them as the fire on Hagrid’s hut was ahead. It filled the night with flickering flames of light that pattered the faces they passed and Draco felt nothing but numb. Numb fingers barely kept the length of wood caged within them. Rowle cackled as he dodged Hagrid and continued to fan the fires that raced along the peak of the roof and down towards the windows before he and the rest of the Death Eaters broke for the Forbidden Forest and the apparition line around Hogwarts. Whooping all the way. 

“Fang’s in there, yeh evil -!” bellowed Hagrid over the dog’s yelping cries. 

A useless dog. 

Draco couldn’t breathe.

The dog that hadn’t protected him or Potter from the beast that had been sucking down unicorn blood in first year. A dog that drooled over Hagrid’s knee as his huge thumbs scratched over his ears during breakfast. A dog whose tail thumped the ground and begged for bacon while writhing on his back in Care of Magical Creatures. It was a soft dog. A kind dog. A dog that trailed behind a Slytherin in sixth year and wound its body around his warmly while Draco shuddered and stared blankly over the Black Lake while grappling with the task he’d been set.

Without really thinking about it he left Snape’s side, while Snape blocked a crucio from Potter, and his feet moved towards the hut in a daze. 

“Keep away from there!” 

Draco could hear Hagrid. Just like he could hear Snape tell Potter he wasn’t a coward but the half-blood prince.

But neither stopped Draco as his body picked up the pace, hopping the low stone wall that bordered Hagrid’s pumpkin patch and skidded to a stop at the cottage stone. He could feel the heat radiating off the wall and raised his wand.

aguamenti

Steam poured off the stones as it blasted away the mortar. 

descendo

And the stones wriggled, pulling forward slightly. Dust billowed as they tried to slide away from each other. Behind him Draco could hear Hagrid panting slightly. A large, weighty hand pressed down on his shoulder. Steadying him. A deep, calming breath and he dug deep inside for a touch more strength. He lifted both hands, staring down the wall that divided Fang from escape. 

descendo

The wall crumbled in front of him as Fang’s large, long body forced its way through the gap and flung itself at Hagrid. Hagrid went down under the wriggling body. The dog lashing his bearded, smoke- and tear-smeared face with a long pink tongue. 

Draco froze. 

What had he done?

He looked around, panicked. None of the other Death Eaters were here. Only Snape, who was still squared off with Potter. Potter, looking like some sort of avenging demon, his legs braced for duelling, hair standing straight on end and a snarl across his face that cut as deeply as any sneer Draco had ever made.

“Kill me, then,” Potter panted, contempt blurring his edges. “Kill me like you killed him, you coward -”

“DON’T CALL ME COWARD!” Snape screamed back, whipping a nonverbal spell that lifted Potter off his trainers and flung him onto the hard earth. Driving the air right out of him. Draco had never seen Potter lie so still before. He jerked out of the paralysis that had kept him behind Snape and, almost as one, both of them turned tail and fled towards the shadows of the Forbidden Forest. 

Draco hoped, with every pounding step and burning breath, that he would soon feel the buzzing across his heated skin that would tell him that it was now safe to apparate away like the coward he knew he was.

Chapter Text

The summer Draco turned eleven, and before his Hogwarts letter arrived, his parents had taken him to see Ollivander. The old wandmaker, and his ancestors, had made bespoke wands for the Malfoy family for almost a millenia. He’d felt important and special as Ollivander shepherded him into the back of the shop, humming and hawing over wand cores. Measuring him with his magical tape measure. Setting out all the possible cores out to test which type he was most drawn to.

His parents had looked horrified as Ollivander had declared that, unlike any other Malfoy, Draco’s wand would be most effective if unicorn hair was used in its core construction. 

Unicorn hair was special. 

Pure.

Unblemished by even the faintest traces of muggles and their filth, but shite for Dark Magicks. 

Unlike dragons who would go searching for muggle gold, unicorns shied away from anyone who was not the purest magical soul.

So Draco found himself in an old-growth forest, by a clear blue pond, lightly scratching and grooming a unicorn. He avoided the light stamps of its gold-tipped hooves and leaned into the brushstrokes. Faithfully begging internally that the unicorn would give him the greatest of honours - a single hair that would be placed carefully into the core of his wand. 

He had groomed that unicorn all afternoon fruitlessly.

He’d had to find another. And another. And another.

It was only as the sun was setting when a unicorn stallion had wandered into his glade. Arms leaden he’d tottered over to it, moving the stool as it snorted into his hair and nibbled at his ear as he began to brush. If he couldn’t get a hair he knew that his parents would simply bring him back until he got it right.

His heart squeezed as he swept the curry brush over the unicorn’s flank. Draco switched the brush to his right hand and started on the unicorn’s shoulder, cosying up to its warmth. It snorted, stomped one of its hooves and raced off, leaving a single long hair on his brush. His grin split his face as he showed the brush to his parents. The cosetting he’d gotten afterwards had nearly made him glow from happiness.

It had been a contemplative Ollivander that had taken the hair from him and, two weeks later as they arrived in Diagon to purchase robes and books, presented him with a wand made from that single hair, wrapped in a hawthorn sheath. 

It was the wood that caused raised eyebrows from his parents, though they couldn’t disclaim the results.

Ebony and Elm are strong woods. Unyielding. When paired with dragon heartstring powerful and able to cast the most evil magicks. 

But the wand that had been handed to Draco, that responded best to his magic, was made of hawthorn.

A wood for conflicted wizards. A wizard that needed bending and molding on his path. Voldemort hadn’t been able to use a unicorn-hair-core wand during his first rise to power when he occasionally borrowed the wands of his subordinates so the castings wouldn’t be traceable back to the Dark Lord himself.

Too pure for the depths of dark magic that Voldemort bathed in on a regular basis.

Draco knew this because he heard the house-elves complaining to his mother about the dark magic ring around the tub. 

But perhaps that was why, as Charity Burbage floated in a spin above their dining room table, that Voldemort passed by Draco’s chair and had his father hand over his wand. Draco could’ve felt badly about it. But Snape’s words from earlier that summer were still running around his head from when the Potion Master had deflected the Dark Lord’s annoyance at Draco’s failure to kill Dumbledore.

The Malfoy family, for all that it was their Manor, had been reduced to the farthest seats at their dining room table due to the disgraces they’d brought down upon themselves. Draco, comforted by the distance between his own person and the Dark Lord, found himself tensing as Voldemort glided soundlessly past those further within his favour.

His skeletal hand wrapped around his father’s chair. Refusing to look as he heard his father’s breath hitch in fear. 

Voldemort had a smell to him.

It was earthy. 

Perhaps it would remind an average person of clay - but Draco knew that it was identical to the graveyard that sat behind the manor. The graveyard was for those people associated enough with the Malfoys that space would be given to them and yet not important enough to be granted space in one of the mausoleums that dotted the shaded glen. It had once been a place for him to hide from his tutors, hiding amongst the stones and dodging between the markers. 

Now it was where Voldemort liked to hold court at night.

Where he’d accept new sacrifices as they were dragged around the Manor, heels leaving wide valleys in the crushed shells that filled the drive and were thrown at Voldemort’s feet in the cemetery. 

Muggles, normally. Draco could hear them screaming no matter where he hid. From his bedroom to the orchards. But then there were also witches and wizards. Mudbloods and halfbloods. The worst were the children. Their cries cut high and clear through the night and cut Draco far more than the adults that were never seen again.

The Dark Lord was still not fully here. He had come back with the power that Wormtail had harnessed over his own father’s coffin but he still needed the power from the deaths of others to continue existing. 

Hence the smell.

Sharp iron from the blood and dull clayey earth flooded from Voldemort like the Parisian perfume that used to wreath his mother. 

Draco battled to swallow, his mouth growing dry as Voldemort took his time humiliating his father. He kept his gaze down, tipped away from the conversation on his left, trained on the exquisite carving that ran over the table leg and swooped down to the floor. His mother sat across the table from him. Dead-eyed and silent. Nothing good came from lifting one’s eyes to meet the red-rimmed depths of the Dark Lord’s.

His father made an abortive gesture. It seemed, for a long and deadly moment, that his father expected to receive Voldemort’s wand after having handed over his own. 

It took every fibre of Draco’s impeccable self-control to resist the snort that threatened to ping-pong up his throat and out into a room where one could hear a pin drop. 

“Give you my wand, Lucius? My wand?”

Sniggers rose that reminded Draco of the many times he’d lorded over the Slytherins and bullied the Gryffindors. A knot of shame sat just above his stomach and he gnawed at it silently. 

“I have given you your liberty, Lucius,” the words were slimy and filthy. Hissing at the edges and slithered across Draco’s skin. “I have noticed that you and your family seem less than happy of late… Why do the Malfoys look so unhappy with their lot? Is it my return, my rise to power, not the very thing they professed to desire for so many years?”

The scars across Draco’s chest started to throb. The carvings and inlays blurring across the threatened tears. 

There was blubbering. His aunt loudly pontificating on the hospitality of their family. Their family, as though Draco wasn’t scared stupid by her, too. The great snake started climbing up Voldemort’s emaciated body. Loops of coils hitching its way up, tongue flickering in the air and eyes fixed on the floating body of the muggle studies professor that Draco refused to look at again.

“What say you, Draco?” asked Voldemort, his quiet voice knocking Draco out of his self-imposed isolation at the end of the table. He looked up, startled, fear squeezing through him. “Will you babysit the cubs?”

He sneered, fighting against the terror that threatened to drown him, and grabbed hold of the tiny ember of courage that had taken up residence in his chest. One that beat out of time with his heart and shored up his mettle. Voldemort was talking about his other aunt. The one who’d run away from the responsibility of her name. Draco felt his lip curl up, desperate for a glass of water and a half a moment to collect himself, and drawled back as though he didn’t have a care in the world.

“Why? Are they so eager to deliver their children to you, my Lord?”

That drew raucous laughter from the rest of the Death Eaters. Voldemort cracked a small cold smile and swept his way back down to the head of the table. Draco’s father let out a long, relieved breath while his mother caught his eye and gave him the smallest of prideful smiles.

That was when Snape breezed in. Fashionably late. As always.

He’d refused to meet with Draco after that night in the Astronomy Tower aside from standing next to him while describing a duel at the top of the Tower that had never happened. Snape’s occlumency shields and Draco’s had been built strong and skillfully. Draco hadn’t been able to wipe the emotion off his face but he had over hours of practice, learned to keep his thoughts to himself. To compartmentalize. 

Snape reported that Draco had disarmed Dumbledore at the top of the tower. Then, after making sure that Voldemort’s chosen champion would not be disturbed by the Order of the Phoenix and making a detour to his offices to retrieve any and all papers and items that might lead to Voldemort from his own office, Snape had witnessed the sixteen-year-old Death Eater having disarmed and fought Dumbledore’s wandless magic to a draw. 

It was only then that Snape had stepped in with a final avada kedavra as time was pressing. He’d stood tall. Solid. Staring into Voldemort’s eyes as he lied about Draco’s prowess in duelling. Voldemort hadn’t expected him to come back at all. 

But now Snape walked to the foot of the table, conjured a chair out of a toothpick he tossed at the ground, and sat facing Voldemort, albeit with twenty feet of table between them. 

Not for the first time, Draco was impressed at the way Snape moved not a muscle as he stared down the table, bored. Not even the voice of Charity Burbage distracted him as she revolved to face him. A tear slipped down her face, soaking into her hair.

“Severus… please… please…”

It reminded him of Dumbledore’s pleas and Draco found himself breaking out in a cold sweat.

Professor Burbage had always been kind, if misguided. The Slytherins constantly booby-trapped her office. They pulled the tape from the plastic squares she said played music. They filled her shoes with itching powder. They waylaid the house elves that were supposed to clean so she was forced to do it herself. They scattered her test papers and tripped her with the legs of her strange muggle dungarees. He remembered waiting for Pansy down the hallway and scheming about how he’d make her life miserable after leaving Hogwarts. Perhaps he would be the Malfoy who got rid of Muggle Studies as an elective at all.

What Draco had never wanted was to watch Voldemort peel every nail from her body over the course of several hours that afternoon. The other Death Eaters playing drinking games on her screams and playing drinking games on when she would finally lose control of her bladder from fear. 

It had taken eight toenails. 

Draco had counted. 

They hadn’t even gotten to her hands before whoops filled the room, Professor Burbage’s eyes filled with tears, and pain exploded out of the scars that criss-crossed his chest.

Draco had stayed next to the bookcase. Desperately occluding and trying to make himself one with the wallpaper.

“Not content,” Voldemort said, pulling Draco back to the present, “with corrupting and polluting the minds of wizarding children, last week Professor Burbage wrote an impassioned defence of Mudbloods in the Daily Prophet … she would have us all mate with Muggles…”

That caused a hiss down the table. Rowle stood up and cast at Professor Burbage, a thin line of blood appearing on her cheek in the spell’s wake and dripping down to the table in wet drops. Draco couldn’t tear his eyes away from the drops or their loud spatter on the table. It almost distracted him from... 

Avada Kedavra

The shot of green light lit the room, startling Draco and he lunged away from it, falling towards the floor by Snape’s chair as the Professor’s body landed on the table. Snape had moved quickly, grabbing Draco by the elbow so he wouldn’t fall to the ground. Tucking him into his side he manuvered it so it looked like he was giving Draco an order as Nagini slithered towards her dinner.

“Your occlumency. Harness it!” It was a thought pressed in Draco’s direction through legilimency. Barely louder than the wretched sound of Nagini unhinging her jaw. Snakes eat quietly. Barely a whisper over the slip of scales and the movement of their prey as it’s coiled and bound into the snake’s gullet. 

Draco straightened, bowed slightly to Snape, and then marched himself out of the room, as though he’d been sent on an errand. 

He couldn’t stand to watch any more.

The shame of his cowardice licked at his heels as they carried him away.

The cackles of the Death Eaters - Lord Voldemort’s high-pitched laughter laid above it all as the Muggle Studies professor was eaten - chased him away from the dining room. Would any part of the Manor ever be free of death again?

He closed the door behind himself, pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and daubed at the clammy sweat on his neck. He shifted all his weight behind himself, the sag hitting his shoulders and calves. It was hard, as the wood dug into his back, not to simply allow his muscles to collapse onto themselves and sink down until he hit the magically woven and soft as kitten fur Persian rug - Slytherin green and on the floor of his quarters since infancy. 

“Psst.”

The small hiss came out of a darkened corner and it scared every bit of Draco. He dropped and rolled into a corner, shaking his wand out of his sleeve and into his palm. Trembling as he lifted it. Cautious, for if Nagini had followed him in there would be no saving him from the Dark Lord if he sent a stinging hex her way.

But it wasn’t the snake he was thinking it would be.

It was Theo.

Theo, who had never been anything more than a hanger-on on the outside edges of the older Slytherins. 

Theo, who was soft and asked the other students to help him spell guppies that floundered through the dorm wards back into the lake.

Theo, whose curls were in tangles, a dark smear of dirt dipping into the creases of his face where his dimple ought to be and torn robes that dragged small sticks and leaves behind him, showering the pristine rug around him with detritus.

“You’ve got to help me, Draco.”

It was the pulse that beat - throbbing and thrumming - against the inside of his chest that made the decision for Draco. He couldn’t turn this mostly-innocent Slytherin away. Theo had confessed, as Draco charmed the panels of cloth together for the Dementor costumes in third year, that he had begged the Sorting Hat to put him in Slytherin, rather than Hufflepuff. 

“They - my father - he wants me to take the mark and I -”

Draco had been in that position before. His mother tense and stiff, his father in Azkaban. Not a single friend to whom he turn for without also losing his mother, who was under Voldemort’s thumb and hostage to Draco’s good behaviour. He couldn’t let his friend have the same thing happen to him when he could step in to prevent it. But it would do no good unless -

legilimens

He walked through the cobwebs of Theo’s shields and nearly wept at the depths of the other boy’s fear and loathing of the Dark Mark. This was no plant by the Dark Lord to bring down the Malfoy family. This was simply another scared teenager trembling in fear and looking for escape - an escape denied to Draco. Draco pinned his own fear to the floor and stepped forward, bringing Theo in for a hug. The other boy clung onto him like he was a single buoy in the ocean.

Draco lifted one hand to grasp the back of Theo’s head. Buried his fingers into his curls. Breathed in a wisp of innocence and made the decision.

“I’ll help you.”

It was quiet. 

But it was the beginning of his resistance. 

A resistance that the strange push inside his chest seemed to approve of.

It was with him as he smuggled Theo through the cellars of the manor and hid him in one of the follies along the edge of the grounds. It was with him as he pressed a small note into Theo’s grip, giving him the owl address of his Aunt Andromeda in Wisely. It was with him as he sauntered through the kitchens as though he hadn’t a care in the world and packed food, supplies and a tent into an extendable bag. 

It was luck that held, somehow, as he approached the guards at the gates of Malfoy Manor. The stone pillars at either side of the drive, with Corinthian garnishments atop and bowtruckles climbing up the hazel that fluffed out around the bottoms. He arrived at the only break in the Manor wards with a basket of dinner and he’d arranged them carefully so that Theo could sneak past them.

Draco could see just the outline of Theo’s slim body as he joked and laughed with the snatchers. Pulling a flame from the tip of his wand to light a cigarette, forcing them closer to one side so the route out was clear for his friend. Draco swore to himself, as he curled up in his silk-sheeted bed that night, that Theo had turned just before hitting the treeline and smiled.

A week after sneaking Theo out of the house the morning dawned beautifully sunny. Theo should have arrived at Andromeda’s by now, thought Draco, spelling his curtains open. He should have arrived a few days ago if their furitive planning had bourne fruit. He squeezed his eyes against the bright sunlight and soft breeze that streamed in the lacy sheers.

If not for the stink of dark magic outside his door, seeping in around the jamb and pulling the warmth out of Draco’s bones he could imagine that this was any other summer’s day, near the end of July. Looking forward to a trip to London to visit Diagon Alley. The ice cream at Fortescue’s dripping down onto his fingers in sticky rivulets and a long browse down the aisles at Flourish and Blotts for novels to fill the nooks and crannies of his trunk.

But that hadn’t been his reality for over a year. 

Now his reality was filled with Dementors and snatchers. Death and snakes. And the prisoner in the basement. 

Draco couldn’t help but puzzle with the fact that he’d helped Theo get away - but Ollivander was still shivering under Malfoy Manor. 

The old man had been dragged in halfway through July. The Dark Lord going down to visit him on a regular basis. Screams had come up the stairs but Draco had been cautious and never gone down again. Perhaps he ought to today, he thought as he finished dressing, pulled himself together and went downstairs in search of breakfast.

His mother, since the Dark Lord had come to stay, had been keeping country hours. Since Draco had been home he had picked up the habit. If one appeared at breakfast at five-thirty in the morning, tucked lunch in your pocket and didn’t appear again until one’s absence would be noted at dinner - one could reduce hours under Voldemort’s lack-of-nose to nearly nothing.

Sometimes a muggle studies professor would be eaten by Nagini as a lack-of-amuse-bouche - but the majority of one’s day would be safe.

The Daily Prophet awaited him next to his plate. DUMBLEDORE - THE TRUTH AT LAST? stretched across the top of the paper. Draco’s heart made a flip-flop inside of himself. What truth were they talking about? Draco flipped open the paper across his plate to read further. Ignoring both his mother who was studiously eating her eggs with a spoon and the scones piled in a high fragrent pile. 

Coming next week, the shocking story of the flawed genius considered by many to be the greatest wizard of his generation.

Draco skimmed down the page, noting where the story continued and then ripped the paper open to page thirteen. 

“ ... eye witnesses inside Hogwarts Castle saw Potter running away from the scene moments after Dumbledore fell, jumped or was pushed… ”

He snorted, threw the paper to the floor for the house elves to deal with, then glared down at his breakfast. The Dark Lord was still safely hidden from the average magical citizen. Draco’s involvement was still secret. He blew a slow calming breath from his nose. Methodically, in a way bourne from practice, he pressed all of his feelings behind his Occlumency walls. Ignoring the gnawing feeling of wrongness. Sniffing, he straightened his shoulders and shot a tight grimace at his mother.

Narcissa Malfoy had always been a beauty. 

Draco ascribed at least seventy-five percent of his good looks to her. She was even paler than he was. Long, straight blonde hair cascaded in soft locks down to mid-back. Not a flyaway or curl to be seen. They wouldn’t dare. She was slim, with features she reminded Draco she’d had to grow into as he cried about Pansy calling him pointy at his tenth birthday party. Her eyes were a deep cobalt blue and, as she raised her eyes to meet his he felt a question push at him from behind hers. 

“Have I ever told you about the fairy doors my sisters and I had growing up?” Her voice was nearly silent next to him. The words not meant for ears other than their own. “Bellatrix, Andromeda and I all had them in our bedrooms. Mine was a tiny door. Silver knob made from an acorn cap and attached to a tiny green door. Slytherin colours always. We used to trade small items through them.”

What people often forgot, watching his mother bend to host the Dark Lord or slip easily around the edges of a party with a jug of mulled wine, was that she was a Slytherin. His mother’s talents rested in laying the proper word in the ear of the person who needed to hear it. 

“I’m surprised you took yours with you when you married Father.”

“Of course I did,” she replied blithely, “attached it to the hawthorne in the westwood when you left for Hogwarts. It’s always nice to be reminded of our youths when our children leave us.”

Draco finished his breakfast and trotted out over the portico and out into the gardens. The late July sun streamed across the garden beds as Draco listened to little but the hum of the bees, the whisper of a light breeze through the leaves, the crunch of the gravel under his heels as he strolled down the ancient crushed shell paths that wound their way around trees, shrubs and nodding flowers.

He took a right past the sneezeweeds, another past the cornflowers and a left at a leaping lilac. It took nearly fifteen minutes at a quick pace once he hit the treeline for the hawthorn to be seen just past a ridge above him and in a tiny dale. The berries were just beginning to blush and Draco panted as he reached the crest of the dip. 

Sweat trickled down between his robes and his back as he stood there, taking in the seven hundred year old tree. It was large and looming and had always made Draco feel safe. This had always been his tree. If he squinted up there was still the seat that his mother had charmed into the upper branches for him to sit in as a child and stare up at the sky. He walked down into the dale and around the trunk, where a tiny fairy door winked back at him from behind a jutting root. 

The tiny door popped open as he stroked a single finger down its centre. Beyond the door was a tiny scrap of parchment. As small as his thumbnail. He pulled it out, squinting down through his eyelashes and bringing it close to his eyes so he could read the tiny lettering.

Package received. 

Nothing further. 

But it was in Theo’s handwriting.

He’d made it.

Draco vanished the slip of parchment and felt a spike of pleasure from his curse scar. He lifted a finger to trace the centre line of the scar that cut down over his heart before he set his features into a bored and indifferent expression, vanished the tiny smile that had slipped, hesitantly, into the corner of his mouth and strode out of the dale.

He’d walk a quarter of the way around the perimeter before going back to the manor in time for tea.

There was a meadow with pleated trumpets, hellebore and fluxweed that would be needed for the polyjuice and wolfsbane potions the Dark Lord wanted brewed. He’d do some gathering before returning. 

No sense leaving any traces so that another Death Eater could discover the door or Draco’s small act of rebellion for his friend. It wasn’t as though he’d be back here anytime soon, he thought as he wiped the sweat off his palms and onto the cool grass before he stood up.

After, Draco found himself shivering in his suite of rooms. 

He’d disappeared himself before dinner had even begun, leaving his armful of flowers and roots in the potions room and scurrying through the house elf corridors and behind the heavy door that shut the heir’s rooms from the rest of the Manor. 

There was something in the air that evening. 

He watched out the window as panic clawed its way up into his chest and burrowed into the cavity it made for itself. Stamping around at the edges and licking its chops as it tore tiny pieces of Draco off and slowly chewed on them in satisfaction.

Far too many Death Eaters were gathering in the Manor. 

Every few moments another would land outside the gates and walk through them as though they were a puff of smoke and fume. Easy to cross. As though the ancestral magicks were spiderwebs and as easily broken. 

Draco shivered. 

There were plans taking shape that he wanted no part of. 

His heart beat in a quick staccato, almost reassuring him with the pace and flutter that he was doing the right thing as he slipped out of his own chambers to hide within the rest of the Manor when his father came to fetch him. Lucius Malfoy was becoming even more meek and ineffectual than he’d ever been.

Now, without a wand for weeks, he’d taken to skulking around in the Dark Lord’s shadow.

Draco and Narcissa lived as though they were ghosts. Spending most of their days trying to see no one. Not even each other. The last time they’d been caught together as the Dark Lord swept into the conservatory his mother had been forced to discipline him with the cruciatus curse. She’d held him later that evening. After the card game and the whiskey. The jeering and the braying laughter. One cool hand pressed against his flushed face and petting him the way she’d done when he was a child. 

But she hadn’t made promises that it would never happen again. Or that everything would be all right at the end. She was a Slytherin. She’d never lie to him.

Eventually the gathered Death Eaters, save his father who’d been sent to bed without dinner by the Dark Lord to the high-pitched laughter that had followed, left the grounds together as a unit. Some apparating, but the majority holding brooms and casting themselves up and into the cloudless early evening, their edges dissolving as they disillusioned themselves and flew far and fast to the east.

He took one of the few free breaths that he’d been able to accomplish recently. It almost seemed, at times, that when the Dark Lord left on a mission the Manor had a chance to recover. To rest. To expand in a way that would be lovely and safe. 

Draco took the opportunity first to shake and allow his nerves to overtake him. Then to attend to the one the Dark Lord had pressed upon him.

Jailer.

Blankets were gathered, sandwiches were collected from the house elves in the kitchen, and a salve of his own making - jewel green and smelling vaguely of the murtlap essence he’d distilled - tucked neatly into his pocket. 

What had once been a corner of the wine cellar was now a small dungeon. Malfoy Manor hadn’t had one before the Dark Lord had arrived. It had been that autumn, after fourth year. Diggory’s murder. Potter arriving in a thump of blood and ash.

And it had been after he arrived home for the summer that he’d been summoned to help with its construction. They needed a Malfoy to work with the wards. To bend them to Voldemort’s will. But the results had been a staircase down from the front hallway into a cold and slightly drippy cellar. 

He shivered as his heels hit the bottom step and he cautiously moved towards the small light that anchored the lone prisoner in his cell.

Mr. Ollivander sat perfectly straight in the centre of the light. His eyes following wherever Draco went. He refused to discuss anything with his jailer. Preferring to pull his blankets and remaining dignity about his shoulders. Ollivander had been interviewed by the Dark Lord the week before when the snatchers had dragged him in. Snape, for all that he was Voldemort’s man, had arrived with a box filled with potions to counteract the aches that the old wizard would have from the bone-chilling cold of the cellar. 

Draco stood there, now feeling stupid as he started shoving the food and blankets through the bars.

“Are you going to want the salve?”

Ollivander just sniffed, his nostrils flaring as he stared at Draco.

Draco could feel the shame sweeping through him. 

Ollivander’s hair stuck out in tufts though it looks as though he’d combed it through with his fingers to try and make himself look presentable. There was a dignity written into the lines of him that Draco wished for himself.

No one had been this for him. His father’s dignity was all wrapped up in how other people perceived him and, when the runes were down, cowered and hid behind anyone with more strength than he. His Aunt was simply mad. Following the Dark Lord like a puppy. Every move designed to bring her into his focus. She terrified Draco at every level. His mother, for all that she was more cunning than his father, since the summer after fourth year when Voldemort had moved in, had made herself one with the drapes. Easily overlooked in every room and passing along the edges of every conversation. Draco had no doubt that she was amassing information - as information was power - but for no purpose that he could see. But she’d taught Draco how to survive on the edges.

This frail old man, sitting alone in a cellar, had more strength than any of them.

Draco was bendable. If nothing else, Theo had seen to show him that.

So he stood there like a pureblooded statue, the supplies just inside the bars, staring as though Ollivander might give him that secretive smile the wandmaker was famous for.

Ollivander refused to twitch and hair and Draco felt unease settle in. 

He couldn’t think of a reason to stay - but neither could he countenance leaving.

What was he waiting for?

Then, like a flash, it felt as though he was being stabbed. 

Draco’s eyes opened as wide as they could go as he staggered, hands clutching at his chest until he went down to his knees. A flash of a snow white owl, light dying from its eyes in a burst of green light and falling away. Down. Down. Down. 

Gasping he came back to himself on his knees, hands clasping the bars to keep him (mostly) upright. 

Ollivander had moved too. He was crouched down on the other side of the bars, hands warm over Draco’s. Searching Draco’s face with narrowed eyes. 

The blanket he’d been wrapped in was discarded halfway between where he’d been sitting and where he was now, long fingers gripping the backs of Draco’s hands and a thin smile. The one edge turned like a foxed page. Draco tried to pull away but Ollivander held on. 

“... and how long has this been happening to you, young Mr. Malfoy?”

He tilted his head to the side, observing him as closely as he would the wands he laid out before wizards and witches in his shop. 

Draco shook his head, terrified, the sweat allowing him to slip his hands out from under Ollivander’s grasp. He pushed himself away from the bars, only stopping as his back hit the hard stone bricks. He wrapped his arms around his long legs, a tight gut squeezing all the breath out of his lungs as he rocked back and forth. 

Back to the wall. Rock forward. Panic. Squeeze the knees. Rock backwards. Back to the wall.

All the while being stared at like some bug under glass by Ollivander. His big eyes shining with some repressed emotion that Draco couldn’t find the words to ask about.

It took a long time for Draco to unwind himself. 

Time for his ragged gulps of air to even themselves out.

Time for another burst of panic as the image of his Aunt Bellatrix flared through his head, pushing up from his chest. 

Draco arched back, knocking his head against the wall - hard - before slumping down, the sparks of light dancing in his vision.

Ollivander looked triumphant.

Shakily, Draco used the wall to lever himself off the ground.

“What is happening to me?” he cried plaintatively, launching himself to his feet. “There is something wrong. There is something terribly, deeply, utterly wrong.”

“Young Mr. Malfoy, you may not believe it now,” Ollivander said, kindness creasing his features for a moment, “but there is something happening that is unbelievably right .”

“I can’t believe you. Nothing about this is good.”

“There is a strong affinity between wizards and their wands. Hawthorn is a wood of contradiction - yet you were chosen one where the hawthorn was wrapped around the purest core of unicorn hair. You may be wrapped in uncertainty - but your core is of the gentlest magic.”

“I am the furthest thing from gentle.” Draco’s lips curled into a familiar sneer, even as his hand shot out to the wall to keep himself from slipping back down to the floor as his knees threatened to take him down again. “I am a Death Eater. I am dangerous.”

“Gregorovich was like you, before he found the Death Stick.” Ollivander’s voice was dreamy. His pupils expanded and it felt as though he was no longer looking at Draco - but, rather, through him. “The Death Stick has been lost and found throughout history but it is important that you remember that Gregorovich had it until he was himself disarmed.”

Draco blinked at Ollivander.

“Can you remember this for me? It’s going to be important, in the long run. The loyalty of wands, Mr. Malfoy, can only be received when one wins it. But there are several ways of winning wands.” Ollivander had Draco pinned against the wall with nothing more than the force of his personality. “It is important that you place your loyalty - and your wand’s - where you think it will do the most good.”

He gave a quick nod, then turned, plucking his blanket off the floor along the way and then wrapping it around himself again as he creaked back down to the floor. One skeletal hand pulled a corner of the blanket tighter.

Draco tried to pull himself together. 

He stood there gaping for a moment. Later he would curse every second he wasted between that point in time and when the Dark Lord burst into the cellar, a trickle of maroon blood seeping down the side of his neck and bringing with him the scent of death and destruction.

It tasted like copper and fear.

The swirl of Voldemort’s heavy black robes crowded Draco into the corner as the rest of the Death Eaters spilled down the stairs, many of them looking the worse for wear. Shunpike looked like he’d taken a stunner to the back of his head. Snape’s face was battered and bruised, though totally immobile. Rowle’s hair was shorn from one side of his head and the skin bright and new across his skull - as though he’d been in the centre of a conflagio.

Draco couldn’t make a sound for the fear took him utterly. His eyes widening as he watched the Dark Lord shriek in fury, though Ollivander never spun around to face him.

“You told me the problem would be solved by using another’s wand!”

His wand slashed down, bending back the bars and leaving an opening for the Dark Lord to pass through. Voldemort swept the runes that dampened magic back like a snallygaster opening a clam, his full and undivided attention on the wandmaker.

crucio

The curse lanced across the cell at Ollivander’s back. The wandmaker didn’t seem to flinch as his body lost its ability to remain upright. Draco, just as he had with Professor Burbage, was unable to look away.

“No! No!” Ollivander’s voice broke across the jeers of the Death Eaters and the cackle of Voldemort’s laughter. “I beg you, I beg you…”

Avery stepped forward, teeth biting back his anger and he aimed a kick at Ollivander’s back with his dragonhide boots. “You lied to Lord Voldemort, Ollivander!”

“I did not… I swear I did not…” Ollivander’s voice was breaking around the edges. Draco’s eyes fixated on the spittle that was collecting at the corner of Ollivander’s mouth. Tinged with blood the bubbles just kept coming as his body was wracked with the curse.

“You sought to help Potter, to help him escape me!” Voldemort’s high, cold voice slammed into the corners of the cells and echoed around Draco’s ears. There was no escape from the voice that crawled down his spine with cold calculation.

“So he escaped? Good for him, then.”

That was a mistake. A massive one, in Draco’s opinion. Which no one asked for as they fell upon the old man in a series of moist hits and low groans from their victim. 

Ollivander was still babbling on the ground, one hand reaching up towards the Death Eaters that were gathered around him. 

Draco realized that he was, at the very depths of his soul, glad. Glad that it was the wandmaker and not himself at the centre of the circle of Death Eaters. Blows coming down from every direction as his hands came up to cover his head. There were only flashes that he could see as the kicks, and punches came down. The Dark Lord raising his wand over and over again as Ollivander’s body spasmed.

The blows came quick.

It didn’t take Ollivander long to lose control of his bladder and the sharp scent of urine permeated the cellar.

Eventually the centre cleared again, the body that remained was barely recognizable. 

Cheekbones had been smashed. Hands crushed. His nose as flattened as Voldemort’s had become.

Draco wanted to be sick. 

This wasn’t how this was supposed to end.

Ollivander was completely unrecognisable in a puddle of ragged wizarding robes and blood.

Voldemort spat down on Ollivander, the liquid beading before sloping down what remained of his eyebrow, before spinning his robes out in heavy folds as he swept out of the dungeon. His Death Eaters trailing behind him, with a “clean it up, Malfoy.”

Draco was able to contain his stomach until the last Death Eater left the cellar. The steps finally echoing away before he lost his battle with his nausea in the corner. Now, along with the scent of urine, blood, and bowel, came the scent of sick and that turned him inside out again and he threw up again in the corner. 

He stood there, using one arm to hold himself up and made himself a promise.

Never again.

He’d seen two adults he could have trusted murdered in front of his eyes thus far and it was two too many. 

Shaking, Draco sidled towards Ollivander’s body, tamping down his distaste for the body he’d been left to deal with. When Professor Burbage had been killed, Nagini had eaten the body and nothing had been left after she’d been done with it. Now, with Ollivander, he was adrift in a sea of fluids without any idea of where to start. 

Did one scourgify the mess or begin by removing the body? 

Draco knew you couldn’t vanish one, and he wasn’t good enough at transfiguration to change its shape. So he stood there, waiting for some sort of miracle to save him - and not a single one appearing.

With a sigh he tried to block out the motion of his hand and carefully folded the wandmaker into the blanket that was spread across the floor underneath him. 

His wand, the wand that Ollivander had carved especially for him his brain reminded him unhelpfully, shook like the last leaf on a tree in the autumn. Quivering at the end of a branch, soon to be snatched away by the wind.

With a quick flick of the tip he bundled the body that used to house the greatest wandmaker in the world and cast a stasis charm to make sure it wouldn’t drip onto the rugs on the way out of the Manor. 

Gently he maneuvered him down the twisted corridors with the Dark lapping at the baseboards and out into the garden. There was only, if one thought about it, one place where he could put the old man to rest. 

The night breeze flattened his hair as he took Ollivander with him on a walk to the wandwood trees near the gates of the property. Bowtruckles ducked behind leaves and the gnomes raced away from his boots as his heels stopped crunching and transferred over to the loam of moss that made the ground feel almost springy underneath his soles.

There was a small clearing and Draco lightly set him down, using magic to pour water out of a hole, place Ollivander’s body at the bottom, and cover it again. 

He refused to open the blanket and see the broken limbs and teeth, preferring to scrub those memories from his mind as he watched the last of the dirt settle into an arching mound. It was an ignoble end for such a well-beloved wizard.

Everyone knew the power and strength of Ollivander’s wands. Foreign magicians came to London specifically to take the walk down Diagon Alley, enter the brightly lit store and receive Ollivander’s full and uncompromising attention. 

Draco stood there until the early morning dew rolled in over the Wiltshire hills and settled across the corpse of trees. 

There was no help for it.

He was going to have to help whatever prisoners he could escape from the Dark Lord because he couldn’t bear to do this again and again - over and over - until Potter finally defeated him. 

For he’d have to.

The pulse that seemed to beat a tattoo inside his chest warmed at that notion. 

Draco would have to sneak whoever they brought in out. Waiting too long would mean that he’d have to dig another grave next to Ollivander’s in this quiet glade and there was already a body six feet under. He refused to disturb Ollivander again.

He squared his shoulders before turning back towards the Manor. 

Fingering his scar under the layers of outer robe, inner robe, shirt, and under shirt he considered the windows of his childhood home. Looking down on him through sleepy, half-curtained eyes it almost seemed pleased with the direction of his thoughts.

The scar warmed under questing fingers that wriggled between the hems and edges until he could stroke it with a tiny sliver of finger. 

Perhaps he could be brave. 

If only in a small rebellion.

The door that his mother had directed him to did take notes from him to his Aunt Andromeda.

The first had been a small curl of parchment that had simply said that Ollivander hadn’t been able to escape.

There hadn’t been a response to that one.

But the word that the ministry was about to fall did draw an answer. 

Draco hadn’t been able to pick it up, trapped in the house after delivering the tiny envelope into the tree door. He’d popped by the creature meadow to collect the manticore hair off the trees they would rub up against during shedding season. 

All Death Eaters. Even skinny, seventeen-year-old disappointments, were expected to be there. He could give them no other warning than a scrap torn from his desk calendar with the first of August circled and the word ‘ministry’ in tiny script in the box.

The robes he was to wear as a Death Eater were embroidered black-on-black with acromantula silk. The Malfoy crest was pricked out in careful, house-elf-placed stitches with black peacocks standing guard on either side. The trailing end of the robes at the back were covered in cascading peacock feathers. 

His father had been proud to bursting that summer before fifth year, measuring him for these robes.

Draco hadn’t understood what being a Death Eater meant as he watched his father puff up behind him before brushing off an invisible bit of lint from his shoulder. He’d been proud then. Setting himself firmly in the louvred mirrors as the tailor did his work. He’d thought he looked handsome and powerful. That the world would soon fall at his feet.

Just two years later and the weight he’d lost showed in the arms and across his back, creating sweeping dips in the fabric that had never been intended. He could probably have fit two of himself in them.

They’d measured him the next summer for the silver mask that he placed atop his features now. The metal chilled him down to the bone. Luckily, as he’d been such a lanky disappointment to the Dark Lord he hadn’t had to parade the robes that cost more than your average worker would make in a year farther than the atrium.

The other Death Eaters trusted Draco to watch their back as they came in as a wedge. Headed straight into the ministry to very little resistance. Most of the offices were empty.

Voldemort cackled as his minions went to take their proper places in the ministry. 

 Draco shivered as he helped Greg transfigure the statue in the centre of the atrium.

Greg gave a cold clear smile as he sculpted the wizards who would sit atop the pile of magical creatures and rule over Voldemort’s new era of magical dominance of Britain. Draco was in charge of twisting the faces and bodies of those they rested upon. He used the previous statues as a base, turning their faces towards pain and sorrow. Doubling, tripling their bodies. Shrinking them down and blowing them up until there was a tall tower of living misery. 

It was only when the Death Eaters came back with several shivering muggleborns that he recognized what was going to happen.

His eyes panicking as he shuffled backwards through the crowd of black-clad wizards who hissed and booed the captives.

“These muggleborns,” Voldmort said, his biting voice strong and sure in the centre of the crowd, “were brought up from the cells at the DMLE. They preyed on the people they stole magic from and were awaiting trial. I think justice delayed is justice denied and they should be the first to pay for their crimes against the wizarding world.”

Cheers sprang up around Draco and he closed his eyes. Panic resurfacing deep inside. The calm core that had been living inside his chest pressed him. 

Do something. 

Save them.

But there was no way to save them.

If Draco took a single step. Placed a toe out of order right at this moment he’d be struck down by an avada kedavra before he could take a second breath.

He pressed down against the warm calm and grit his teeth. He’d made it to the back of the crowd and was near the floos that lined the entranceway. It was there, as Voldemort killed the first muggleborn, bronzing their body and chaining it to the bottom of the new sculpture, that Draco saw him.

Red hair and a hand-me-down robe? It had to be a Weasley.

This Weasley was panting, hiding between the edge of a Floo and the column nearby. It didn’t look as though he had a wand in his hand. This Weasley, unlike the youngest brother, was quite slim, with a thin silver glasses that perched precariously on the end of his nose. Draco palmed his wand and debated what he would do. 

It was just himself and Greg at the back of the pack of Death Eaters. And Greg wasn’t even marked the way that Draco was. 

What was this Weasley’s name? Draco raked his memory until it yielded the name of Percy. The one that had been Head Boy when he was in school. Not that much older than the twin Weasleys. 

Percy’s hair was damp with sweat and he was wedged back as far as he could go. 

The Death Eaters hadn’t found much of the ministry elite. They were also supposed to have been brought up and publicly tried in the atrium. But the minister and the majority of his staff had been gone when the Death Eaters arrived. This lithe Weasley must have been caught back at the office as everyone else had escaped. 

The fires were still burning, but the powder that activated the system had been taken.

Perhaps this Weasley was smart enough to keep a pinch of floo powder in his pocket for a quick escape from time to time.

Draco rolled the problem over in his mind as he stood there. The conviction of having to help this straggling Weasley building within him. He bit his lip behind the silver mask. The nip helping to sharpen his resolve. He pointed his wand at the Weasley and cast a wordless dissolution charm at him, and then pointed it up.

“All hail the Dark Lord!” he cried before casting Morsmordre up into the air. 

Black smoke poured into the atrium as the snake catapulted out of his wand towards the towering ceiling.

Death Eaters were nothing but loyal to the Dark Lord and Draco’s cry had spurred the rest to cast the same spell. The room darkened under the curls of black smoke that flooded every corner.

Not a single other Death Eater seemed to notice the quick flare of a floo as the Weasley escaped.

Draco felt numb as he watched the rest of the muggleborns struggle against the Dark Lord before being added to the bottom of the statue. He nodded along as assignments were given out between the older Death Eaters on where each was going when the Ministry-backed protection orders on houses were dismissed and attacked. He felt shaken as he was dismissed back to the Manor to arrange a victory feast with the elves and prepare everything for the Dark Lord’s return.

He couldn’t string two words together as the conquering heroes came back that night and tried to drink the Manor cellar dry. Over the swapping of stories on how they’d broken up the Weasley wedding. How Andromeda’s cottage still stood strong against the Dark Lord’s forces though the Bones’ house was now a smoldering wreck. 

He stayed anaesthetized and tottering all throughout the evening until he retired to his suite of rooms, far from the Dark Lord’s purview. 

Where he curled up on silk sheets, lightly traced the lightning shaped scar across his torso for comfort and slowly fell apart.

Chapter Text

Longbottom was a natural leader. 

When the ministry had fallen, and the children were forced back into the castle, Longbottom had somehow organized an underground resistance. They had hidey-holes all over the castle from the top of the Astronomy Tower to the deepest, darkest dungeon under the Slytherin common room. 

No one could have imagined that a pudgy, clumsy, ineffectual student would come into his own as a champion far more effective at subtlety than Harry had ever been. Using the Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Gryffindor students as tiny cells to disrupt as much of the Carrows’ influence as possible. Headmaster Snape was able to keep away from Voldemort on a regular basis, being at the school - and Longbottom made sure that the students remained safe, even within walls that housed multiple Death Eaters. 

The curriculum was changed to the Dark Lord’s specifications. Yet there was always the threat that the rest of the staff would rebel against Snape so he had a ready excuse to be in Scotland as the Dark Lord swanned around Wiltshire and London. 

Draco had poured the majority of his attention in the past six months to try and lock down his occlumency. He’d only been partially successful. Whatever Potter had left inside him after gutting him on the bathroom floor was now mostly quiet. It took something quite extraordinary, now, for Potter’s thoughts to crowd into his own though the nature of Draco’s thoughts were always there, much to his chagrin and filled him with shame. Potter’s were special and always started the same way - with slicing precision through his chest, as though he were being hit with sectumsempra all over again, and then building out, tearing down his internal walls and stabbing him deeply with pain and sadness.

What a way to punish your enemy far longer than the pain, blood, and scarring.

Sectumsempra was a hell of a curse - Snape should be proud of his creativity.

But as the New Year started with fireworks below and a large bonfire that the rest of the Death Eaters were spinning around, Draco stared out the window of his bedroom and watched the snow settle down in pillowy snowdrifts past the confines of the formal gardens. He furrowed his brow while he considered his reflection. The other half of his disappearing into the glass as though he were only half there at all. 

For a person who’d always been on the slimmer side, Draco had lost a full stone since the end of sixth year, and that was a time when he hadn’t had much left to lose after a year of stress while trying to fix the vanishing cabinet. Instead of simply being slim, or thin, his fretting and worrying over the last year had taken him down to near skeletenal. His cheekbones sharp and his collarbones prominent. Stress seemed to melt any weight that he could have gained and he was beginning to look so sickly that the house elves delivered him a nutrient potion every evening on his mother’s orders and watched him drink it.

And Draco did, so the house elves would stop punishing themselves when he forgot.

He’d also taken to biting his nails. A disgusting habit and quite unlike the habits that had been drilled into him as a child. So he kept healing the edges with tiny spells that nipped the blossoming blood from his nailbeds. Instead of the nails that had always been almond-shaped and well manicured they were now short, stumped and ragged. He ran the edge of his thumb over the remains of his fingernails and contemplated the dilemma he was currently in.

His mother was on his side. She often dropped an idea or piece of information over a half grapefruit at breakfast or a minor rebuke. Always subtle. Right under the Dark Lord’s lack of nose. But his mother wasn’t willing, or able, to make the larger moves that he’d been making.

He’d been able to create a distraction when some snatchers had come close to catching the youngest Weasel. He’d been able to sneak Dean Thomas out of his chains and into Seamus’ loving arms over Hallowe’en and they were both hiding in the Room of Requirement with the rest of Longbottom’s merry band of delinquents. He’d been able to continue to use the door to slip information about Death Eater movements to his Aunt. He assumed those were being acted on by Scrimgeour as the Dark Lord would often come back to the Manor after one of his missions in a temper. Flinging spells into the corners until there was a permanent tilt to the house.

He’d been able to do these things by stealing black fabric from the house elves to make himself a set of plain black Death Eater robes. No Malfoy crest and peacock feathers to alert the Order of the Phoenix, halfblood, muggleborn or anyone else who might know who he was. Thank Merlin he’d practiced making robes starting in third year with that Dementor’s costume. He had kept the hood clasped over his face until he traded Griphook’s freedom for a plain silver Death Eater mask worked in Goblin silver.

He’d even agreed, as no Malfoy had before him, that upon his death the goblins could have the mask back.

Nothing that could be traced back to him as dignity didn’t have even a nodding acquaintance with the Malfoy name now. Always finding ways to be visible to the rest of the Death Eaters when his petty rebellions bore fruit.

He’d had to almost live in his occlusions this past six months. 

And it was leeching every bit of life out of him.

He’d witnessed muggle killings. On bonfire night they’d tied a young muggle girl from the village in the garden to make bets on when the smoke and fire would take her in a reverse of the witch burnings of the 1600s and drank themselves stumbling on mulled wine.

She’d looked like Pansy.

Draco had spent that evening swallowing bile, sneering and, with Pansy’s help, concealing a panic attack in the broomshed. All he wished for, as his lungs fought against his body, Pansy squeezed his shoulders and gently kept his head between his knees, was Harry Potter. No matter what the problems of years before, until he’d split Draco open and left him for dead there had always been a piece of him, even if it were small and quiet, in the back of Draco’s head that thought that Harry Potter would pull a solution out of his arse and save the lot of them. 

It hadn’t mattered if it had been a bloody werewolf or a dragon. Potter would slip around it sinuously and come up clutching a golden egg or take down Draco’s father deep in the bowels of the Department of Mysteries. Just as fit and stubborn as he’d been the last time.

But now, as the final seconds of nineteen ninety seven slipped away his latest problem was curled up in the centre of his bed like a kitten without a bespeckled, hydra-haired saviour to help them.

Luna had stared at him with wide blue eyes in the cellar on Boxing Day as Draco had had another one of his strange attacks. When Draco’s eyes had closed to see a lake, phantom hands pounding at the bottom of a blanket of ice as his lungs burned. And the youngest boy Weasley. A doe made of moonlight. His thoughts twisted and flew apart like smoke, dragging him along behind them like a fairy to honeysuckle.

It was only once the sword had driven its point into a locket that his eyes had fluttered open to realise that she’d been looking curiously at him from the centre of the cell. Closing them again he felt the rolling sickness that flooded his system and his stomach had heaved itself empty. When he’d finally come back to himself again, sprawled out on the floor next to the bars she’d been within touching distance, staring at him as though he were the most interesting thing she’d seen in aeons - and this was the girl who’d been dragged off the Hogwarts Express right after the train arrived in London - packed with students for the Christmas break on nine and three-quarters.

Luna Lovegood was fast asleep now, but at that moment he’d panicked, watching her eyes on him, understanding flooding her face, and tried to forcefully enter her mind with legilimency - but Luna Lovegood had to be one of the most talented occlumens he’d met in his life - and Draco wasn’t a slouch at the art himself.

There wasn’t a single crack in the foundations of her mind.

When he’d pulled himself out, blinking at her with respect and confusion while gasping and unsettled she’d given him the kindest of smiles, small hands curling around the bars. 

“It’s the only way to keep the nargles out.”

So he’d replaced her body with a similar body from a muggle morgue, torso torn open and the face destroyed as though one of the werewolves had gotten loose in the cellar during the full moon and ripped open their prisoner.

The Dark Lord, distracted by the constant attacks by the Order members that had slipped his noose at the ministry, barely registered that she’d died. 

Just one of a dozen gambits to get Potter’s attention and lure him out so the Dark Lord could finish him off. Potter had been spotted in Godric’s Hollow just before Christmas but had managed to wriggle away from Nagini’s coils. 

Draco wouldn’t admit it to anyone - not even himself - but the evening he’d found out about Potter’s miraculous escape he’d drawn the curtains around his bed and tried to centre himself. He’d gotten another vision that evening just as he was leaving the Hawthorn’s door. He’d come to with grass stains on his knees and shivering between the dew and a coverlet of fog. 

Nagini’s teeth. 

He could never forget those. 

The sinewy body of the snake and its heavy coils weren’t anything he could easily forget.

Somehow, he knew now, that he was getting visions of what was happening with Harry. Heat crept up his neck..

Harry - not Potter. 

One couldn’t share experiences like that and still call someone by their last name. That kind of distance didn’t exist any more between himself and… Harry… the name shivered against him and he enjoyed every flutter.

His heart - or the small burst of courage that sat in the middle of his chest where Harry had sliced him open - felt as heavy and hard as a stone.

He had to get Luna out of here.

She stirred slightly and he started, nearly jumping out of his skin.

“It’s all right, Draco,” she said, her musical voice sounding almost like a dirge rather than the breathy twinkles. “We’ll find a way through together.”

“I feel like I’m going mad, Luna.”

“You’re as sane as I am.”

“That isn’t as comforting as you think it is,” he sneered back. 

Luna deflected him easily, scooting off the bed and walking towards him. “Have you thought about how I’m to return to Hogwarts, now that I’m dead?”

Draco gave a dark chuckle. “I’m thinking that it’ll be easier to sneak you in to Hogwarts, since they don’t think you’re coming.”

“I don’t think anyone knows what’s coming, Draco.”

Slim arms quickly encircled his waist and she gave him a quick tight hug from behind. Draco nearly held onto her wrist, desperate for a longer hug - it had been so long since Pansy had stroked his hair in front of a peaceful fire on a quiet evening, or Blaise had slung his arm across his shoulders. Blaise was gone. His mother had spirited the both of them out of Britain before the school year had begun and Pansy was jumping at shadows - rarely being spotted outside of the girls’ dormitory in the dungeons. 

Vince and Greg were stone cold stupid and had never been an option.

Luna released him, giving him a small sad smile.

“Luna, it’s another two weeks before term begins, and I can keep taking as many meals in this room as I possibly can, but we have to get you out of here before you’re discovered one way or another.” Biting his lower lip, nearly tasting blood as he bit down, Draco contemplated Luna, eyes roving up and down her body. “Have you ever tried to fit inside a school trunk?”

Draco carefully trundled his trunk behind himself as he alighted from the Thestral-draw carriage at the gates of Hogwarts. Filch, his mouth twisted into a deep scowl, tried to stop him, but Draco sneered back, back straight and every ounce of his pureblooded breeding on display. 

“Squibs should stay out of my way, lest the Dark Lord be informed that you were trying to stop me,” hissed Draco before shouldering the smaller, but heavier, man out of the way and stomping his way through the school doors.

He could hear his heels echo in the silence as he stalked across the entrance hall and towards the dungeon steps. The day of Hogwarts being a place of light and learning was gone. Sure, the school was based in Scotland, but because of the weather spells it had far more sunlight than the rest of the blasted country. But the sun hadn’t peeked between the clouds since the last day of September. 

The school hadn’t even been decorated for Christmas this year.

No large trees brought in to the Great Hall. No gleaming baubles casting the light a gentle gold and silver. No mulled wine in the common room hearths spicing the air with cloves and cinnamon. No flaming pudding the last night. No carols. Nothing but long nights and shivering draughts.

Normally Draco would have left the trunk on the train, for easy transport back to the castle. Normally he’d have left the trunk in the luggage compartment and not set eyes on it again until he’d entered his dormitory room. Normally he didn’t have a sixth year Ravenclaw tucked into a false bottom of his trunk.

He’d charmed the trunk to an inch of its life so that anyone who tried to pry into what (or who) was inside it would only register the cauldron, the robes, the books.

He, as a prefect, had been granted his own room in the dungeons this year. 

The other Slytherins accepted it because the truth of who had let the Death Eaters into the school had spread like wildfire through the student body over Hallowe’en. 

Now they gave him a wide berth as he ghosted through the corridors and down the staircases. 

He hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the Gryffindors that Snape was trying to track down within the school. He could swear that Hogwarts was trying to help those who no longer attended class. He’d seen them their shadows, of course. Hogwarts had always had a way of understanding exactly what its students needed, wanted, was hunted by. Even the basilisk that a founder had left floundering amongst the catacombs that had been (mostly) contained when the Chamber of Secrets had been opened and Potter had come back looking like a pincushion. 

He knew the rebels were there if only because the castle seemed to know that he needed the warmth of knowing that the resistance was alive and well.

Once he got into his chambers, closing his door with a firm slam so as to discourage anyone from asking stupid questions, he cast a firm locking charm and quickly unlatched his trunk. Gasping, Luna tumbled from the trunk. She pushed her sweaty braids back and smiled up at him from the floor. He extended a hand and hauled her up off the ground.

Luna Lovegood might no longer have her butterbeer-cap necklace, her dangly dirigible plum earrings or the multilayered skirt that cast silver sparks as she twirled, but she was here at Hogwarts again. Without thinking of it too hard he grabbed her into a tight embrace that she returned.

“It will be all right, Draco.”

His chest felt like it would burst from happiness right at that moment. Warm tendrils shot out from the centre of his chest, bathing every extremity in a heat that only seemed to come whenever he rescued another person out of the manor cellars.

It was a highly addictive feeling and Draco couldn’t get enough of it. He felt his body melt a little before he pulled away. Luna stared at him with a contemplative look in her that warmed the cockles of where he assumed his heart was.

“Sneak out in about a half hour. We should all be at the feast. Keep away from Mrs. Norris and head for the seventh floor corridor. Where…”

“Where we practiced with the DA. I know.”

Draco nodded stiffly before stepping away and pressing a wand he’d snuck out of the pile that was building up at the Manor from all the wizards and witches that had been killed in the field or the ministry or taken before they’d been dumped in the manor cellars and he hadn’t been able to free them before they’d been killed.

Ollivander had company now and every new mound killed him just a little bit more.

“I don’t know whose this was, but they don’t need it any more.”

Luna’s face was creased with sadness as Draco cast some ironing charms over himself. He twitched the sleeves of his robes into place before squaring himself, pushing down the panic.

“Now, you can’t tell…”

“I won’t.”

“Because if you do…”

“I know.” 

Luna’s face was firm, her shoulders square. Far too serious for the person she’d been before.

“I’ll tell them I fought my way out. I mean, it’s what you’ve already done for me.”

Draco suppressed the small twitch of a smile that threatened him before nodding perfunctorily. 

“Stay out of sight. I can’t pull this trick again for someone else if they think I’ve helped a one of you.”

Then he turned on his heel, dismissed the locking charms with a practiced wave, and left Luna alone in his chamber. She had a half hour to practice whatever spells she needed with a new wand. 

He shuddered as he swept back through the common room and up to the Great Hall for the new year’s feast. If he had any luck at all he wouldn’t ever see Luna again. 

The Great Hall now held, as the tardiest of students entered, perhaps half of the students that it had at the end of last year. 

Slytherin was just as populated as it had ever been and Draco slid his way onto the end of the table, as far from the head table as possible. Snape, from his perch on what had once been Dumbledore’s chair, glowered down at the assembly. McGonagall had switched seats so that she now sat as far away from the centre as possible, within easy eyeline of the Gryffindor table.

A Gryffindor table that was the smallest of the bunch. 

Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw might look anaemic compared to Syltherin, but the Gryffindor tables were sparse.

There were perhaps one or two students at every year level at the table, and those students were the most pureblooded of the lot, the most level headed, the least likely to put their foot wrong and get sent to the Carrows. 

The Carrows themselves were seated on the other side of Snape, as far away from McGonagall as they could be. They cast surreptitious glances down at the Head of Gryffindor House who ignored the both of them. Eyes zeroed in on her soup.

Merlin, she looked old. She’d been old when he’d first come to Hogwarts but the last six months of Ministry micromanaging of classes and trying to protect students from the Carrows had aged her more than the last half century combined.

Draco kept his head down and listlessly added food to his plate, ignoring the others around him. He managed two bites before his stomach twisted in on itself and he had to stop. He spent the rest of the feast moving his portions around and avoiding the eyes of Greg and Vince, who kept looking at him as though he were about to grow wings and fly.

Merlin, how much easier would it be to do so? He unfocused his eyes, staring past the teachers’ bench and into the dark night beyond them.

The night stretched out, clear, clear, cold and perfect. There weren’t Ravenclaws to save or Dark Lords hiding behind the clouds. Just endless stretches of sky until you touched the horizon.

He was brought back with a bump as Vince elbowed him in the ribs as his plate disappeared in time for the puddings. Bile caught in his throat. Not even the apple pie in front of him, steam curling up from the crust, could tempt him at this moment. 

McGonagall was speaking and Draco tried to keep his attention on her but the word kept slipping away like water through sand.

“Draco?”

Greg’s eyebrows were doing that funny little mountain thing in the middle that he’d spent aeons at the mirror trying to fix. Wouldn’t do for the Goyle heir to have wrinkles from worry before he turned twenty, would it? 

The whole Hall was getting wavy. 

He gripped the edge of the table as the blackness swirled around him, eyes rolling into the back of his head as he clung onto the edge of consciousness. He could feel his arms being flung around strong shoulders and the drag of the stones against his shoes as he was bodily removed from the hall. 

Luckily Hogwarts was cooperative.

The staircases didn’t swerve and startle as Greg and Vince pulled him up the staircases to the hospital wing, Snape following in their footsteps silently. He could feel Snape’s presence in the back of his mind. It was pressing into the cracks and crannies as Draco fought to plug them so he couldn’t read what he’d been up to these past months. The hiding. The subterfuge. The working against the master that Snape had kept quietly loyal to for nearly two decades under Dumbledore’s nose.

It was only after he was deposited. Again. Onto one of the hospital beds that Snape shooed off a concerned-looking Vince and Greg. Draco’s head was still pounding as though a marching band had gone parading through. 

The matron, skirts flaring as she stared down the Headmaster of Hogwarts in the ward before finally relenting when Snape said that there was something the Dark Lord would need seeing to and there was nothing that she could offer to them. He can almost feel her reluctance to leave a student - even a student whose arm is branded the same way the headmaster’s is - alone in a crisis. 

But whatever Snape murmured to her chased her away into her office and Draco found himself under the microscope of Headmaster Snape’s dour nose.

“Again, Malfoy?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”

There was no way he was going to tell Snape about the vision he’d just had of Potter, Granger, and Weasley at what must have been the Lovegood property as Death Eaters burst in from above and nearly captured the lot of them.

Snape was quiet as he contemplated Draco and Draco tried his best to ignore him, sinking again into the nearly-too-short beds and petulantly looking away.

“Before he died, Dumbledore let me know that there was a deep connection between Potter and the Dark Lord. It is important, more important than you could ever imagine, to try and deny any connection that might exist between yourself and Potter.” 

Draco lifted his chin, attempting defiance, but he was arrested by the look in Snape’s eyes. The pupils and irises as dark as they’d ever been and an expression that toed the line of tenderness across his forehead. Draco had never seen such a strange and off-putting expression on Snape’s face before. Not even when Longbottom had added moonstone rather than moonflower and soaked the dungeons in a slime that Draco’d been certain he would have been murdered over.

Snape continued, his gaze boreing deeply into Draco’s. “You need to keep him as far from your thoughts as possible.”

“Yes, because I obviously seek such contact with Potter.” Draco snapped back. 

“Potter will not survive his final conflict with the Dark Lord.” Snape responded shortly, looking as though he wanted to grind his teeth. “You need to understand that and make plans for that eventuality.”

Without much else to do, Draco spent his time ticking down the seconds as his headache refused to recede. He felt the Headmaster test his mental defenses, pulling back fingers of Finally, Snape arose with a sigh. 

“I know what you’re doing, and that you’ve been doing so for quite some time.”

Draco drew a sharp breath in.

“I’m going to give you two pieces of advice. First - come visit me in my office on a regular basis. The Dark Lord will request your presence at the Manor on occasion, and you will have free use of the floo. It is important that you are able to reach him when he calls and he believes that Hogwarts is what is interfering with your ability to apparate when he wants you.”

“Fine,” said Draco tightly. 

“The second concerns your wand.”

“My wand?” asked Draco, confused.

“Yes. The Dark Lord would like students to be disarmed before they return to their homes, during Easter break and over the summer, so they will be less of a threat if their parents are planning to oppose him.” Snape came closer, searching in the younger’s eyes for something that Draco couldn’t put his finger on. “There will come a time when you should leave it behind. I trust you will seize that opportunity as those of our house have always looked for ways to turn situations to their advantage.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Do you want to?”

That brought Draco up short. His head was splitting and he couldn’t bear the idea of trying to either protect his own motivations or delve into the Headmaster’s at this point. He closed his eyes, shaking his head minutely. Every part of him hurt. His chest most of all.

“I will be requiring your assistance within the castle. The Carrows do not seem to be able to make any headway with the rebelling students. They aim to make the older years who have learned the cruciatus practice on the younger years.”

Draco shuddered and, as he always did when he was feeling overwhelmed, began to trace the scars across his chest.

“I expect your full cooperation, Malfoy.”

Opening his eyes Draco searched for something - anything - that would tell him what Snape was thinking - but the professor’s lips twisted sardonically to fill in the gaps his sluggish brain refused to make.

“I am responsible for the children in this school. This includes you.”

Draco didn’t think he’d ever seen Snape as flat and serious as he was right at this moment.

He nodded mutely and Snape straightened the tiny buttons on his robes. A quick freshening charm and his lips quirked just a touch. “I can only assume that you will act in the best interests of the school in your prefect duties. Come see me in the Headmaster’s office when you’re done here - I tire of visiting you in the hospital wing.”

The Headmaster swept out of the ward, leaving him in Madam Pomfrey’s tender mercies. The matron spent nearly an hour lecturing him about proper nutrition and eating well, then poking at the ribs and knobby bits of bone that had come to stick out far more than was healthy. He escaped her grumbling about teenagers and their ability to shoot up a half foot without gaining an ounce and weakly accepted the bar of Honeyduke’s chocolate.

He nibbled at it guiltily as he crossed the corridors to the Headmaster’s Office. Unlike Umbridge, who’d been relegated to her less-than-prestigeous teacher’s office when she’d been promoted to Headmistress, Snape had access to what had been Dumbledore’s office. Snape hadn’t made many changes but to the password (now lacewing flies) and the brewing station that took up the other half of the room. 

Snape glared at him over the vast expense of his desk after pushing a cup of tea Draco’s way. He tented his fingers, dark eyes tracking the sip that Draco took before he’d realised that perhaps that wasn’t the best idea. The world wavered, though he remained upright, blinking stupidly as time seemed to lunge forwards.

Draco came out of his meeting with Snape with a missing six hours, an understanding that he needed to hide his activities both from Snape and the current residents of the Room of Requirement, and a migraine that made the headache from this morning seem like a hangnail.

He tottered into the Slytherin Common Room, grabbing a textbook and mechanically turning the pages without retaining anything at all, curled up at the lake window and staring into the greenish depths until it was finally time to go to bed.

Draco grit his teeth in frustration as he stood next to the small patch of swamp that stretched across the corridor as left by the Weasley twins at the end of fifth year. The two postage-stamp sized bits of water and reeds with a tiny isthmus of dry ground between them had had the red velvet ropes around them transfigured into reaching tentacles that kept grabbing junior years and pulling them into the water. 

As a prefect, Draco had been excused from the lackadaisical Valentine’s Day feast by Snape to patrol this particular hallway towards the Ravenclaw Tower. At least this time it had come as an official placement rather than previous incidents where Snape had noticed either his panic or inability to cast unforgivable curses and removed him.

His ability to connect to darker magics had plummeted over the past few weeks. On occasion he’d be able to cast it, but it would be far less powerful than what a third-year Slytherin was able to accomplish. Truly humiliating, especially since the Carrows tried (on occasion) to put him in charge of the punishments. Punishments that he twisted so that he only had to flay them with his sarcastic tongue. 

Reducing the firsties to tears with sarcasm and a cruel twirl of phrase was far preferable to leaving them cowering in a corner, still shaking from repeated crucios. 

That didn’t even count the few Gryffindors that had recently been snatched near the kitchens the day before. The laws of transfiguration are simple and finite - and unless you had access to food to replicate to begin with there was little you could do to try and make more. Food that was stolen from the kitchens could be replicated several times but eventually you’d end up with food that didn’t fill you up and had the consistency of soggy sawdust.

The non-student rabble-rousers had been caught by the portrait of a bowl of fruit, just about to tickle the pear. The Carrows had crowed and cast as they led them down into the true dungeons just before the Slytherin Common Room and chained them to a wall. 

Draco hadn’t gone to visit them. 

But their wails that first night had splintered through the Slytherin dormitories and kept them all from sleeping.

Now he glummed his way through his prefect rounds. He frowned down at the swamp that he’d been asked to stand beside - it was between the Dark Arts classroom and what had been Umbridge’s office. A tiny grindylow poked a tiny hand out of the smaller swamp in an attempt to swipe at his shoelaces and Draco cast a quick stinging hex. It withdrew with a hiss that nearly covered the soft footsteps behind him. 

Every hair on the back of his neck prickled as he stared into the water. 

“Draco…”

Luna’s voice was soft. Melodious. He refused to turn around.

“...can you get the Carrows to the courtyard tomorrow evening during dinner?”

He gave a short nod and a dismissive sniff before rucking his hair back from his forehead with an open palm. He didn’t hear anything else. Just the gentle rustle of the reeds and the call of what he could swear was a golden sparrow. 

It called once for sorrow and left joy standing in silence.

He moved on from his patrol, making sure his footfalls were heard echoing up the long and winding corridors so that he wouldn’t stumble over couples entwined in the hallways. Slowly weaving his way down and into the courtyard. 

One of the few benefits of being a prefect, he’d noticed, was that no one stopped him in the corridors. Assuming, perhaps erroneously, that he was supposed to be wherever he was. He started combing through the pages of Hogwarts: A History in his mind. There had to be some clue - some way of manipulating the castle to create his distraction. It would be better if, when the time came to draw the Carrows out of the castle, he was easily spotted in the Great Hall with the other students. Preferably speaking with the Carrows or Snape at the moment the distraction grew legs.

Luna’s request probably had something to do with those Hogwarts prisoners. 

He left the school through a side exit with a heavy oak door that thunked behind him as he moved into the crisp air of the courtyard. 

As it was February the wind nearly flattened him against the stones. Filled with sharp blades of ice it swept down off the muirs that would, in the fall, be again covered in thick stands of heather, and pierced the skin of his face, bringing out red frostbite across his cheekbones. Draco swept his wand around him as he cast a heating charm. 

What he wouldn’t give for someone to lean on right at that moment. As he swayed under the pressure. He could feel his breathing speeding up in the drowning panic he’d lived with for months now. With a supreme effort of will he pushed it back down again next to the limp ball of nerves that throttled his appetite and gnawed ulcers in his stomach.

His cloak warmed his fingers as he hurried around the perimeter of the courtyard, clutching the rich fabric between his fingers. 

Not even magic kept him warm for long and he felt the sting of snow on the backs of his hands far sooner than he ought to have. Perhaps every part of his magic was weakening with the assaults Harry kept thrusting into his mind. Of cold. Of loneliness. Of jealousy towards Weasley and Granger. Of frustration.

The barriers between the two of them were slowly peeling back and Draco found it terrifying.

Eventually he found himself huddled in the shadow of one of the large stone knights that marched along the outer wall of Hogwarts and he found himself grinning up at it.

These knights were built to defend the students of Hogwarts. All Draco had to do was convince them that dinnertime tomorrow would be when they ought to wake. Snape might be called. The Carrows would certainly come too. Students would pour out of the Main Gate in awe and terror as their waking shook the castle down to the bottommost stone.

It would create the distraction that Lovegood needed. 

No one would be watching the prisoners.

Draco lifted a hand to stroke the knight’s sabaton. It felt almost alive, the smooth cold stone rippling under his fingers. The pads clung as though unwilling to let him go. 

“No one’s afraid of little old me,” he whispered, letting the wind take his words with it. “But they might be of you… so I will require your cooperation. Some of the students are needing rescuing…”

The first clue that something was wrong at dinner was when a bolt of stars flashed across the Great Hall’s ceiling and the floor stuttered beneath them. The students gasped and stared - Draco was certain he saw a few of the younger years clinging to each other. Draco stood quickly and marched over towards the head table to speak with the Headmaster, narrowly missing the Carrow twins as they raced down the length of the Great Hall.

Snape was remarkably blase and raised a single eyebrow towards Draco. Draco didn’t get within speaking distance before the floor of the Great Hall tipped away from the windows. Every last student and teacher lost their footing, sliding down the large slate paving stones on their backs and crashing into benches and tables. McGonagall reacted the fastest of all the teachers, transfiguring the tables from wood into rubber and Flitwick was right behind her, casting sticking charms and arresting the slide of the heavy furniture and students.

Groans of pain and fear rose around them and Draco, who had grabbed onto one of the legs and was staring through both sets of doors to the courtyard, shivered.

One of the knights from the outer courtyard was bent over, crooking a finger into the school. The Carrows, firing blasting curses, chased it out of Hogwarts, and the rest of the student body stood in the doors, staring at the mess of rock and pebbles that the centre fountain became as the knight tipped backwards onto it.

A plume of water rose, soaking the knight and freezing its joints. 

It levered itself up slowly, drew its broadsword and set itself in a ready position. The Carrows split up, one circling right and the other left. The knight was holding its own. Its movements sounding like the quiet rumble before an earthquake.

Draco had been worried that the students wouldn’t want to stay - but not a single person took their eyes off the battle taking place in the courtyard for there was nothing the student body would like better than to watch the Defense Against the Dark Arts professors get flattened by a giant stone sword. Two Hufflepuffs right in front of Draco were making larger and more elaborate bets on how the fight would end, much to Draco’s amusement, until a tall Ravenclaw hissed at them that the Dark Arts job was still cursed and were they thinking that this year’s teachers weren’t going to be gone by the time the NEWTs rolled around?

The knight was far more dexterous than his stone facade would have suggested. 

He bent backwards and forwards, letting spells zing by him and then catching them on the edge of his sword, flinging the Carrows’ spells back and forth between them. 

But ancient stone can only last so long. One of the twins started freezing joints so the knight couldn’t parry any more and it was soon over. 

The students gasped as one when the first bombarda took out one of the knight’s knees. Its arms wavered before it lost its balance and went down, keeping its sword up and level in guard. As the Carrows pressed in on both sides, spells chipping off more and more stone, the knight seemed to decide that it was going to be destroyed.

It folded down into itself until Amycus, cackling in triumph, pressed his advantage and the knight suddenly struck out, faster than it had been when whole, and its sword lifted him up into the air before batting him into the wall.

Alecto cried out in horror but took the opening she’d been given to shatter the knight’s chest.

The last piece of stone that fell was the knight’s visor. Open with the unseeing eyes seemingly fixed on Draco. As though asking if it had done a good enough job. Of course it had, Draco thought, pulling the edges of his robes together and shooing the students back into the hall and sending them back to their dormitories as Alecto rushed to her brother and started screaming for help.

Draco had never seen his teachers, as one, refuse medical help when needed. Even Hagrid had picked him up, tucking him into his chest when he’d provoked that stupid hippogryff and gotten him to Madam Pomfrey quick enough to staunch the bleeding and make a full recovery. 

But there was Amycus, nearly cracked in half with his sister wailing and not a single teacher rushed to help.

“Headmaster,” called McGonagall. “I’ll just be getting my house back up to the Tower with an extra tuck-in since we weren’t able to finish dinner. I trust you’ll be fine?”

She turned in a swirl of tartan and Draco felt a giggle rip through his chest, just barely managing to control it. 

They shuffled off with their students, leaving Snape alone to conjure his potions and salves and try to patch Amycus Carrow back together. Snape gestured for Draco to assist. 

“Hold his leg right there, yes.” 

A dull crack echoed off the stones and turned Draco’s stomach as his femur went back into its hip socket. He watched as his hands turned red from the blood that seeped from the cuts as Alecto cried, holding Amycus’ torso in her lap and smoothing back his hair.

Finally Amycus mercifully passed out and Snape conjured a stretcher, strapping the other man’s body down for transportation. Alecto cast the levitation spell and disappeared into the school - bound for the floo and a ward in St. Mungo’s.

All was silent in the courtyard. 

And he’d be surprised if they saw Amycus again except in a casket.

The stone dust still choked the air and Draco could taste it all the way in the back of his throat. Making him cough and wheeze.

Snape clasped his shoulder in one of his large hands as though proud of what Draco had done, pushing down against the bone and sinew. A shade of concern crossed his features as he noticed just how much weight Draco had lost since the beginning of the year - but then the shadow was gone, taking with it any trace of emotion.

“You ought to go back to bed. You have double potions tomorrow morning.”

Draco nodded dully, valiantly trying and failing to wipe the dust off of his black robes. He trudged back into the school and down into the dungeons. No sound wound its way out of where they’d been keeping the captured students and a single long chain, the cuff broken and left halfway across the corridor, limply implied their successful escape.

As he entered the common room the waves of noise and conversations buffeted him.

Was Hogwarts itself rising against Voldemort? Where was Harry Potter? Did those who were against Voldemort coming after Hogwarts too? Where was Snape?

His own passage through the sea of other students left a wake of quiet but Draco did not pause along his route into his room. Pushing in he barred the door before slumping down upon it. The mirror under his cheek told the tale. Half of his hair was sticking straight out on the side held in place by a stiff poultice of blood and dirt that dripped down past his ear. 

He shivered and refused to look again. 

He dropped his uniform, the robes pooling at his feet and barked an order to the House Elves in the empty air. 

He never wanted to see them again.

Stepping into the shower cubicle he sat on the floor. Watching the patterned swirling of blood and mud down the drain until the water ran cold and his teeth started chattering.

Chilled to the bone he didn’t bother getting into his pyjamas before collapsing onto the bed again, fingering his scar. It had been so quiet this evening. What had he let leak through? He traced it over and over. A long lightning bolt crossing his body. Marking him as Potter’s under his clothes.

He’d always be Potter’s. 

The Dark Lord just didn’t know it. 

But he would, someday, when he slid into Draco’s thoughts and saw how many times his fantasies would twine around Potter. What would it feel like to be wanted by him? Draco had no illusions that that could ever be his future - but it was easy to slip into a fantasy where nothing in the whole world could touch him because Potter would save him. 

Potter always had a fondness for hopeless cases - and a reluctant Death Eater working against the Dark Lord would fit in well with the rag-tag band of idiots he surrounded himself with.

Wet hair drooped into his eyes, stinging at them before he closed his eyes and succumbed to the all-over panic that eventually dragged him down into sleep. His lungs seizing against his breath and limbs shaking over the covers.

Perhaps it would be better. 

Be sweeter.

Be a boon to the world.

If it would just.

Stop.

Lovegood was an excellent liaison between himself and Longbottom.

He never saw her. 

But he saw her fingerprints all over the new attacks within the school.

There was always the danger, as one went down the hallways, of finding oneself in a pit trap. A hollow or slide built into the floor and depositing you in a different part of the castle or your common room.

Or a series of flash spells in the hallways, allowing even more students to slip away from regular classes.

Or a giant pinata that, when Alecto tried to vanish it, duplicated itself until it overfilled the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.

Or the Thestrals who now often entered the school and refused to be shooed out.

Like Umbridge before her, Alecto found herself waging a one-woman war against both the student body and Hogwarts castle and was losing. Badly.

Draco used Snape’s Floo frequently to return to the manor, obstentiably to do the Dark Lord’s bidding but in reality leaving scraps of paper in the tree. Many Death Eater meetings were now filled with the Dark Lord flying into rages that ended with new and even more elaborate plans to crush opposition to his rule. 

The muggleborn hunting was getting more brutal, with more and more snatchers killing in the field over dragging them back to the manor. Draco could still find ways to get those prisoners out, using his blank slate Death Eater costume that he hid in the cavity under his mattress. Often these sortees consisted of him leaving Hogwarts in the dead of night through the Headmaster’s floo, Snape hunched over his desk and studiously ignoring his comings and goings, before stealing into the manor, dressing in the heavy robes and blank mask. Then descending into the cellar and taking them off the grounds and making a note in the prisoner logs that they’d been fed to the werewolves.

But he couldn’t save everyone and the dark pit in his chest kept gnawing at him. 

Sometimes he would arrive for a dinner at the manor and watch Voldemort’s magic skin a muggle as the evening entertainment in place of a centrepiece. 

Sometimes Carrow would have him supervise the cruiciatus curse while she swanned off to terrorize the house elves, leaving him glowering in a corner with a flat expression and desperately trying not to sick up as he watched green light play over Greg or Vince’s features as they enjoyed the pain they were wielding. 

Sometimes Snape would tweak the prefect patrol schedule so he was working alone and purposefully looking the wrong way when needed. He was almost certain it was only ever Luna. Leaving a small trail of plum perfume behind him as she snuck down corridors and around corners.

But just as March came in like a lion, blasting over the hills of Wiltshire and over the combs of Scotland, there was a small photograph in the tree. It depicted a fair-haired big-bellied man with an easy smile and laugh lines decorating the corners of his eyes. The loop of the picture had him turning towards the camera, a bright grin flashing across him and a hand lifted to beckon the picture taker towards himself. Draco felt a twist of envy towards any two people who felt as comfortable with each other as those. Curious, he flipped the photo, warn and soft around the edges and read the back of it. 

Bring him back to me.

The twist of envy turned to wild raw jealousy. 

In a fit of pique he reduced the photograph to ash with a twist of his fingers, immediately regretting it. 

He hadn’t had a good look at it.

But then again - did he need to?

That man - he’d find him. Draco set his jaw as stubbornly as he ever had. The place to start was with the snatchers.

He smoothed his robes down and began to formulate a plan. Unfortunately for Draco, it might be one where it might lose some - or all - of his teeth. With the threat of violence buried deep in the back of his mind he quickly floo’d himself back to Hogwarts and set his feet on the thin path that led to the edge of the Forbidden Forest and Hagrid’s hut.

He stood on the porch, staring at the lopsided wooden door that kept out the worst of the weather but let out a veritable wall of heat that warmed his front as he shifted his weight from side to side and left his backside freezing in the wind. Lifting a hesitant hand he rapped at the door properly with his knuckles.

Raucous barking shook the hut as much as Draco was currently shaking. Fang bouncing against the door as Draco hopped back a step, wary as the door swung inwards and Hagrid’s bushy face frowned down at him. He watched as Hagrid’s eyebrows shot up before knitting and coming down over suspicious eyes. The half-giant crossed his arms over a broad chest and leaned against the doorway, one knee splayed out to keep a very excited Fang behind him.

“Keeper of the Keys of Hogwarts, I have need of a key.”

That drew an even deeper frown from Hagrid and Draco had been pretty certain that there was nothing that could create more craigs and valleys in his cheeks. 

“An’ why,” drew Hagrid out slowly, “would I give you a key by asking?”

And wasn’t that the true question? Why would Hagrid give him one of Hogwarts’ keys? Draco gave a non-commital shrug. Hagrid blew out a deep and breathy sigh that seemed to come from a place of deep sadness.

“You’re going to h’ve to better than that, lad.”

“I am a student here,” said Draco slowly, “and students who have need to bring a friend for safety have the right to request a key. It is your duty to determine if I should get one.” The ache in his chest circled around for a bit before lying down, radiating twinges down his torso towards his belly. It was almost as though it were glad to see Hagrid and heartbroken all at once.

He looked deep into Hagrid’s black eyes. This was a man who liked dangerous beasties and Draco, though his control of Dark Magic was wavery, was nothing but dangerous. 

“I was asked to bring someone back. You know as well as I do that the person will be brought straight to you. If you decide he’s dangerous you have all the power to send him straight back.”

Draco firmed up his spine and met Hagrid’s close scrutiny. His skin crawled as he remembered all the times he’d led the laughter against him in Care of Magical Creatures or conspired to release doxies into the drapes of the Hufflepuff common room that Hagrid would have to cleanse. He remembered the sharp slice of the beak and the hippogryff that Draco’s father had arranged to die. But he tried, though he could not speak it, to convince Hagrid to pass over a single key.

Something about his posture, his presence, or his patience eventually convinced Hagrid.

The groundskeeper scratched at his chin, the sound of his fingers scraping against his stubble loud in the evening air. 

“Th’rs just something a bit different about ya, lad. Merlin help me but I do trust ya, ‘Specially after Fang. Ya remind me of ‘Arry somehow.” With that Hagrid closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment, drawing from the awesome power that was hidden in the grounds of Hogwarts. This wasn’t something that the Keeper of the Keys could do on a regular, or even semi-regular basis. It wasn’t something that could be taken from a wizard who’d been gifted it by Hogwarts Castle itself - which was why, even with his promotion to teacher for Care of Magical Creatures Hagrid was still the Keeper.

He drew one giant, meaty finger straight down in the air, the atmosphere charging with the smell of ozone - as though lightning was about to strike. A golden line came after it as sweat broke out across Hagrid’s face. He cupped his hand and a tiny golden key dropped down into the dinner plate-sized palm. 

Draco let out a soft breath that he hadn’t realized that he’d been holding. 

Hagrid, for his part, gave a huff and thrust the key at Draco’s chest. When it touched his torso, over the robes. Over the overrobes. Over the scars - it gave a bright flash. That gave Hagrid pause and he gruffly patted Draco’s shoulder before shoving him back towards the castle.

“Take care, lad.”

It was time to find the snatchers.

His steps back up to the castle, through the floo and to the manor seemed as though they were swimming through air rather than running over uneven ground.

Swiping the map that denoted the snatcher camps from his father’s study was quite easy. The Dark Lord was off on one of his international sabbaticals, his mother was in the London townhome wining and dining high muckety-mucks from the ministry and securing their political support and his father was ineffectually drunk of firewhiskey in his quarters. 

Draco felt a curlique of disdain sprout and squished it.

He moved silently through the halls, ducking into alcoves until he reached his room and could pull out the unmarked Death Eater robes. The voluminous and heavy folds of fabric only moderately lighter when spelled to be so. He settled the silver mask over his features, blotting out his identity and went searching for a wand to slip into the captive’s hand.

It was always better to grab one of the wands that had been taken to cast when he rescued others. He never knew which to take for the prisoner - but a wand of any kind was better than no wand at all - and when, in one heart-pounding moment the Dark Lord had taken every Death Eater’s wand in turn to try and discover who was helping his enemies Draco’s wand did not betray him.

Salazar, not having his wand on him meant that the magic he cast to free someone never clung to his own wand.

He’d heard from others that wands would often be tricky to use if they were not the wand that chose you but Draco had never had that difficulty. 

It was only when he reached the chest that contained the taken wands that he paused. There was only one wand left. Many Death Eaters had been disarmed recently with Draco’s reports to his Aunt and he hesitated, his hand still in the empty space.

No wands in the chest would be suspicious. 

But the only wand he could leave was… his own.

If he were back at Hogwarts before it was discovered.

His hesitation drew itself out, winding around until Draco felt almost dizzy.

But then he pulled himself together. 

He was a Malfoy, Merlin-damn-it.

He took out the pine wand and dropped in his hawthorn.

It would be fine. 

A quick glance would show that there were as many wands as there were before and no one knew he’d come in from Hogwarts, so he could always retrieve it before returning. If he was lucky he’d be able to send the person he’d been asked to retrieve straight to Hogwarts and he’d be able to switch out the wands on his way back to school himself.

A shiver wrecked him as he moved away and worked his way off the property and to the first snatcher camp.

Snatcher camps were always terrible to visit. 

Most of them had at least one werewolf, so Draco added two layers of scent depression to himself. Most of them had traps on the outskirts, so Draco cast spells to light up the alarms and leglocker curses sprinkled about. 

It took him nearly a half hour to get into the centre of the camp, determine that there were no prisoners, and then retreat out to the edges again so his crack of apparition didn’t alert them, causing a rippling tightening of security in the next one. 

Four snatcher camps later, in the early hours of the morning while dawn stole across a field, he found his target.

Nerves flashed through him as he contemplated the layout from high up in a tree. He fingered the pilfered wand in his fingers, flipping it through the spaces between his digits as he thought. 

The man from the picture was trussed up next to the trunk far below him. He was high in what he was nearly certain was a Scot’s pine tree. The prisoner had obviously been beaten, but the slim filaments of gossamer spellwork that Draco had cast down towards him showed that he was still remarkably healthy for the number of cracked ribs it had found. 

So Draco began to slowly take apart the caterwaul charm that rested across the clearing and tents underneath. 

It took enough time that it was nearly full morning before he dropped silently on the ground and looked down at the man. He struggled against the ropes, his dull brown-blond hair flopping into his eyes as he desperately tried to wriggle away from the Death Eater that had suddenly appeared next to him. 

Lifting his wand he crouched down next to him.

“Ssh,” he whispered, noticing the man’s pupils’s widening in panic as Draco grabbed his chin. He leaned closer and brought his mouth next to his nose. “I’m not here by the Dark Lord’s orders.” He pulled back a bit and waited for the man’s breath to steady just a touch. “I’ll be untying you now, don’t run.”

He sliced downwards with a quick and precise diffindo and then pulled off the ropes, dropping them limply next to them. Draco moved on, rubbing the man’s feet and helping him up. He smiled behind the mask. It was almost over. Draco lifted the other man’s arm across his shoulders. Nearly there.

The man winced and clung on, pulling Draco off balance for just a second too long.

A bombarda went off in the centre of the camp, freezing Draco in his movement and both he and the prisoner’s heads whipped around to see Bellatrix step out of one of the tents, Rabastan and Rodolphus Lestrange flanking her. They lifted their masks, smirking as Draco futily struggled against the bonds of the spell and a stab of pain ripped into his chest.

Save him!

The call nearly knocked him over and he fought to stay on his feet.

Bellatrix’s spells grabbed at Draco’s legs and he made his decision.

It was a decision that, later, he would always express wonder over. It was thoroughly against the self-serving nature he’d nurtured for seventeen years. 

But it was also a decision that he didn’t even hesitate over in the moment, to his eternal surprise.

He fished the Hogwarts key out of the inner pocket of his robe, turned it towards the man and then shoved it straight into his heart.

He disappeared into a flurry of golden sparks that quickly dissipated into the air just as Draco was hit with an incarcerous that slapped his legs together and his arms to his sides.

“You’ll regret that.”

Draco shivered at his Aunt’s words, struggling against the curses that kept his legs and arms in place, but tapped into a source of courage that warmed him from the inside out.

“We’ve thought there was a snake amongst the snakes these last few weeks.” 

Bellatrix cackled, shooting tiny stinging hexes that drew welts across his body and Draco shuddered from one side to another until he fell over. She strode over, her husband and brother-in-law snickering like mongrels behind her and Draco’s felt his face go red with contempt.

Both for himself for falling for such an obvious ruse and them for pulling it over on him.

“Was it you who sent me after him?” he spat against his mask and watched Bellatrix’s face fall.

“No,” she whispered, hand tracing her lips in mad delight. “I hadn’t a clue it would’ve been you.” 

Bellatrix gracefully crossed to him and ripped the mask off of Draco’s face. 

Aunt and nephew stared each other down for a moment before she began to cackle. Draco started to wind himself up enough to snark back at her, for all that he was bound in thick magic and in no position to defend himself, but she quickly hit him with a langlock and his voice was stolen out from underneath him.

“Saving one uncle to spite the aunt who has trained you, protected you, made sure to tell the Dark Lord about the loyalty of her family? You’ll bring us all down, and I refuse to let you take us down with you.” His aunt’s face twisted as she cast the first crucio and Draco seized in front of her. She cut away his clothes, taking him down to his underrobe with poorly-placed slicing charms, leaving red streaks across him.

But there wasn’t anything left of Draco as he shivered and balled himself up in an effort to escape his own nerves. The crucios were strong and it felt as though every part of his body was on fire. Breathing hurt and he could feel the spiderwebs of pain spin out into the rest of his organs. No one, he thought as the spittle threatened to choke his screams, should know how much their ribs could take before cracking. 

The pain went on for what seemed like forever, the faces and voices fading in and out as he stretched and pulled and tried to get away from it.

This was so much worse than the panic that had had his body under its spell for so long - this was terror and there was nothing else to cling to.

A distant thump and he scrabbled away, his fingers searching and finding the edges of the cobblestones that paved the floor of the Malfoy cellar. He was home.

He lifted his fingers to his face, pushing away the tears just before Bellatrix sat on his chest, looking deeply into his eyes as Rodolphus dislocated every one of his fingers and Rabastan broke the bones of his hands. Every time he nearly passed out from the pain Bellatrix would cast another ennervate. 

But there was something inside of him that refused to break. A warm safe sphere that Draco held onto with everything he had left. That kept him safe. Warm as his body was broken all around him. It was all that he had left as they sliced away at his body and Draco loved it.

She was staring as he screamed and cried. “My sister has a soft spot for you, but the Dark Lord will be back soon and I can’t wait to see what he has plans for a filthy little spy like you.”

Draco panted against it but every part of his brain was consumed with pain rather than trying to figure a way out from underneath.

He felt his heels catch on some of the cobblestones as his aunt pulled his head up by his hair until they were eye to eye. 

“Let’s see you try and escape with no ability to cast anything - wandless or wordless. I hope they never heal and you’re never in charge of your own magic again - I’ll heal them tomorrow just to break them again every day for a month if that’s what it takes.”

She let go - and Draco curled up into a ball and sobbed as he floated through a sea of throbbing pain.

Sobbed as they slammed the bars behind themselves.

Sobbed as they celebrated on their way up the stairs.

Sobbed as all the lights went out and he was left alone in the darkness.

Sobbed as he wondered how long it would be until they broke him.

It was soon and it was forever before they dragged him up the stairs again, smelling like piss and shit with hands that were reduced to clawed bundles of pain on the end of his arms. 

The Death Eaters they’d sent down for him simply levitated him, cracking him off the walls as they dragged him down to the parlour where there was a crescendoing sound that broke off as his body rounded the corner and was thrown down on the carpet. Something ripped out of the bottom of him by the root by the pain in his hands as the shards of bones shifted as his weight caught on them.

His Aunt, none too gently, lifted his face so that he could see the boy right in front of him. 

It was a boy about his age. His face was creased under what looked like a hedge of stinging hexes. But there was no way to deny the slash of bright bottle green across his eyes, the taste of his magic or the way the pit in his chest opened its maw to welcome him. 

“Well, Draco,” she said - her voice cloyingly sweet, “is this Potter?”

And that’s when Draco plucked up every scrap of courage he’d ever had and decided to convince himself of the lie he was about to tell.

It was a beaten body that happened to have Harry Potter’s face.

This wasn’t Potter.

It couldn’t be.

Even if he knew in the darkest pit of his stomach who was there, sitting on his ankles, looking to him for help.

“That’s not Potter,” Draco spat. “I’d know him anywhere.”

Chapter Text

It was a beaten bloody body that happened to have Draco Malfoy’s face.

Harry was nearly certain Malfoy knew exactly who was kneeling on the marble inside of Malfoy Manor but the shake and explosive no was certain too. But Malfoy looked at him, his forehead sliced down over the eyebrow and drips of blood slowly seeped down his long nose. It took a moment, but Malfoy eventually shook his platinum hair - dirty, stringy and clinging to the edges of his face, letting off a cloud of smell that made Harry gag.

“That’s not Potter. I’d know him anywhere.”

The kick that Bellatrix delivered to Malfoy’s ribs after he’d refused to identify Harry spun him like a dandelion puff until his back hit the wall. The silver-grey eyes stayed wide, scared, and open. Locked onto Harry’s. He’d been having more visions over the last few months of Voldemort, but in between those had been shorter visions - snatches really - of Malfoy. The last one had just been two days ago - quick pictures as though he were looking at a jerky animation of Bellatrix and crucios that made him scream until Hermione and Ron finally woke him up as he emptied his stomach on the ground inside the tent.

There was something lost and familiar about him and Harry wanted to reach out with both hand and magic to put Malfoy back together but he was roughly pulled back by Bellatrix, wand at his neck.

He tried to calm down and cool the racing beat of his heart. 

Ron was struggling, trying to get to Hermione, but the snatchers had them held tightly. Harry himself tried to keep his attention on his friends but kept getting distracted by Malfoy.

He looked starved, and his hands were a giant mess of puffy skin and pulverised fingers that looked incredibly painful. Malfoy turned over on his back, groaning, as Bellatrix paused, her eyes opening wide as she caught sight of the Sword of Gryffindor, cutting short some sort of argument she’d been having with Greyback. 

“What is that?” Harry heard her say, unable to wrench his gaze away from Malfoy.

“Sword,” said one of the snatchers off to his left.

Bellatrix rounded on the snatcher. “Give it to me.” When he didn’t move fast enough she snapped her fingers at him dismissively. “Now.”

“It’s not yorn, Missus, it’s mine, I reckon I found it - “ he started before Bellatrix quickly cast a stunner at him without warning. Right underneath his jawline and he staggered back. Righting himself he scowled and then handed it over to her. Point first. Harry could understand why. He’d want to stab Bellatrix too.

A quick charm so her hands wouldn’t get sliced as she grabbed it and Bellatrix picked it up, weighing it with both hands and then with one, testing the balance. Her hard eyes met Greyback’s and his lips curled in contempt.

“Where did you get this sword?” she questioned, dropping the sword on the ground carelessly and pressing towards Greyback with the point of her wand extended in front of her.

“How dare you?” he responded, teeth bared as she continued to advance.

“Where did you find this sword? Snape sent it to my vault in Gringotts. I’ve been to visit since and Ive seen it there with my own two eyes.” Her voice was low. Dangerous.

“It was in their tent,” the Snatcher said petulantly, gesturing to where Harry, Ron and Hermione were still on their knees, bound, bloodied and waiting to be butchered. Harry felt his heart hammering in his chest as his mind raced. He needed to get out of here.

Harry listened, with half an ear, as Bellatrix paced the room and muttered to herself but sent the rest of his brain at finding a way out. 

“If this is indeed Potter, he must not be harmed for the Dark Lord wishes to dispose of Potter himself… but if he finds out… I must… I must know.” She swirled, a cruel smile and dead eyes staring down at them. “The prisoners must be placed in the cellar, while I think what to do. Take these prisoners down to the cellar, Greyback. Wait. All except… except for the Mudblood.” 

She stretched out one fingernail, drawing it and a red mark down the side of Hermione’s face. Hermione whimpered, squirming away, as Ron lunged towards Bellatrix, murder in his eyes.

“No!” shouted Ron. “You can have me, keep me.”

“If she dies under questioning, I’ll take you next,” Bellatrix purred. “Blood traitor is next to mudblood in my book. Take them downstairs, Greyback, and make sure they’re secure, but do nothing more to them - yet.”

Harry and Ron were forced to their feet as Bellatrix cackled down at Hermione and Ron kept looking behind, trying to get to her and always failed as the Snatcher had him well in hand, one hand over his bound hands and the other across his neck. 

The other Snatchers took the opportunity to rough Malfoy up. He swayed as he was dragged upwards and cried out when they grabbed his hands to bind him as roughly as Harry and Ron were with a quick incarcerous. Ropes looped round right after to hold them fast.

Malfoy seemed to wobble and lurch as he was led first and he left a trail of body odor behind him that would never have happened at Hogwarts, where Malfoy always looked as polished as a new penny. Not a hair out of place or a smudge of dirt - not even in potions where slimes and dust seemed to cling to Harry. He didn’t look clean now, if the stains of his shift were anything to go by. 

Malfoy kept his chin firm as he staggered in front of Harry, Ron squirming and kicking - trying anything to get away and back to Hermione.

Greyback, tall and menacing, took the opportunity to torture Ron just a little bit more on the way to where they’d be held. 

“Reckon she’ll let me have a bit of the girl when she’s finished with her?” Ron grunted and twisted, flashing out with a foot as Greyback bayed with laughter. “I’d say I’ll get a bite or two, wouldn’t you, Ginger?”

Hermione’s screams echoed down the hall as they were forced down a stair that twisted halfway down. The floor was made of cobblestones and there was a dead feeling to the air as they were shoved into the cell one after another and the door was clanged behind them.

“Night night,” taunted Greyback on his way up the stairs. 

Ron threw himself at the bars after him and Harry could hear the clanks asd his shoulder hit the bars in the dark. The only other sound was a tired scoff from Malfoy as he shuffled away from the two of them.

“Hermione! HERMIONE!” 

Harry struggled against the ropes that bound him, tugging futily before elbowing Ron. 

“Be quiet! Shut up, Ron, we need to work out a way.”

“Hey,” came the slightly less known and far hoarser voice causing both Harry and Ron to freeze.

“Malfoy,” said Ron, contempt dripping towards the rasping noises that Malfoy was making in the back of the cell. “Why should we listen to the Death Eater?”

“Don’t you think I want to get out of here as much as you two?” said Malfoy with a short bark of laughter. “Wouldn’t anyone? But if you follow my voice there’s a nail in the brick over here you could get those ropes off with. Easier to get out of here with hands untied I’d say.”

Unable to fight against the logic, Harry followed Malfoy to the corner of the cell where he was able to find the piece of nail with one of his fingers. Sawing at his ropes, Harry called over to Ron. “He’s not lying, let’s get these ropes off.”

“As though I’d waste a lie on you lot,” said Malfoy.

Grumbling, Ron followed and, as they panted and sawed, a piercing scream came echoing down the steps. Harry could hear Ron speed up his breathing through his nose. Frustrated, angry, and just wanting to get back to Hermione. With a snap, Harry’s ropes fell away and Ron shouldered him to the side so he could work on his own. Panting, Harry rubbed his wrists to get his blood flowing again. 

Malfoy was silent as the other two worked on their bonds. He’d grunted a little as he sat down near Harry’s feet, but was, mercifully, silent but for general rustling.

From above came another set of screams and this time they could also hear Bellatrix.

“I’m going to ask you again! Where did you get this sword? Where?”

Hermione’s babbles came after. “We found it - we found it - PLEASE!”

Ron muttered, searching through his shoes until he found the slim interior pocket he’d stuck the deluminator. With a well-practiced flick and click of his thumb a small orb of light burst into the cell, hanging in the middle with a slight swaying motion.

Malfoy narrowed his eyes at the light. He was still bound, his knobby-kneed legs and shapely ankles stretched out in front of him and his head tipped back against the wall. Looking at him more closely now, with the threat of Bellatrix and identification no longer hanging them, he looked even worse than he had before. Bruises blossomed over what they could see of his body and blood seeped from older scrapes along his shins. His lips were chapped and dry and Harry found himself drawn to them for one moment before retreating, pulling the nail from the wall, and returning to start sawing at Malfoy’s ropes too.

His grey eyes opened in surprise, but as Harry held onto his wrist he hissed and pulled away.

“They broke them.”

“Broke what?” asked Harry, nettled.

“My hands.” Malfoy raised them up and, under the loops of rope Harry could see that there were strangely moving bits and his stomach rolled at watching them. “Yesterday. The day before. The day before that. Just leave them. Not like I could help you with them. I couldn’t cast a lumos with them being like they are.” He closed his eyes again, curling his legs up as though he were trying to hide behind them and rested his cheek down on his knees. “Just leave me alone, Harry.”

The use of Harry’s first name shocked him up to standing again, staring down at Malfoy. “Who are you?” he wondered before Malfoy gave him a disgusted look before he sneered back.

“Same as I was when you refused to shake my hand on the train - or are you asking about when I broke your nose for you? Looked better afterwards. Or are you just wishing it was simpler if I wasn’t me so you could feel better about leaving me in this dump?”

“We’ll see about that,” Ron replied darkly from where he was trying each of the bars in turn before his head whipped around as more of Hermione’s screams, chased by Bellatrix’s screeches, came down the stairs to tear at him.

“You are lying, filthy Mudblood, and I know it! You have been inside my vault at Gringotts, Tell the truth, tell the truth .” Another hair-raising scream followed. “What else did you take? What else have you got? Tell me the truth or, I swear, I shall run you through with this knife.”

“The acoustics of this house never cease to amaze me,” Malfoy said sardonically as Ron tried to disapparate to the other side of the bars. “The cellar is completely apparition-proof, Weasel. Well, unless you have a me on the other side of the bars, but since I’m in here with you…”

“Like you’d help us out of here,” snorted Ron, attention still focused on getting out of the cell.

Harry narrowed his eyes and crowded down into Malfoy’s space - ignoring the gasp and shiver from the other boy while he cradled the back of his head so he could growl his question. “What was the last spell you tried to cast in the bathroom?”

Malfoy went as white as his hair before turning red as his face twisted into heated hatred. “Crucio.”

Hatred, that was normal. Not normal was the shiver of desire that snaked down Harry’s spine and the flash of want. For just a split second Harry thought about kissing Malfoy. Just a gentle press against the split lip near his thumb. He watched Malfoy’s Adam’s apple bob before he sat back on his heels, releasing his head. Malfoy jerked away a little bit before Harry fully let go, hitting the back of his head against the stones and then glared at him from the floor.

It reminded Harry of one of the last visions he’d had from Voldemort. Bellatrix cackling and pressing down while her victim screamed in terror underneath her. Could it have been Malfoy? Possibly, thought Harry sourly. He gathered himself together thinking through all the possibilities and came to a decision. They could sort it all out once they were all safe - but there was no way he could leave Malfoy behind. Harry stood and started to pat down his pockets, searching for something - anything - that the snatchers hadn’t taken off of him and could be used to escape this cellar.

“What else did you take, what else? Answer me! CRUCIO!”

Malfoy shuddered as his aunt continued to torture Hermione upstairs, seeming to almost shrink into himself. Harry, having searched the pockets of his jeans kept patting on the way up and then - amazingly - his fingers curved around the moleskin pouch that Hagrid had given him so many years before.

Excitedly he upended it onto the floor and started to pack away anything that might not be able to help them. Malfoy’s eyes tracked his movements, ignoring Ron, who was now checking the cobblestones under the bars.

Harry ran his thumb over the words on the outside of the snitch he’d gotten from Dumbledore - I open at the close - and then shoved it back into the moleskin. Plenty of time later to figure that out. Then there were the two broken halves of his holly wand. At that Malfoy started but Harry refused to think about it too hard and shoved those in after the snitch. The candy wrapper that Neville’s mum had given him, the remembrall that Neville had pressed into his hand at the end of last year - and a single shard of glass. Gasping, Harry brought it up to his eye and could swear he saw Dumbledore’s bright blue eye wink back at him.

He stared into its depths and called out: “Help us! We’re in the cellar of Malfoy Manor, help us!”

“What are you doing, Harry?” Malfoy and Ron asked in unison before they glared at each other.

With a muffled bang the universe twisted just a little bit and Dobby appeared out of nothing in the centre of the cellar.

“Dobby?” asked Draco, one elegant eyebrow raised in surprise. “What are you doing back here?”

Dobby’s enormous, tennis-ball-shaped eyes were wide; he was trembling from his feet to the tips of his ears - as though the only thing that was keeping him in the cellar of his former masters was his terror. When he looked at Draco, though, his eyes softened and he gave a wide grin.

“Master Draco!” squeaked Dobby in tinny voice. “What’s you doing down here?”

“Thrown down by my Aunt.” Draco sounded resigned.

“But Missus Andy got her Tonks back.” Dobby sounded confused, but he was cut off by another sharp scream above.

“Dobby!” said Harry tersely, cutting them off, “you can apparate in and out of here, can’t you?”

Draco looked pained and Harry needed to be able to reorganize himself towards rescuing Hermione. He couldn’t afford to be distracted by a pair of grey eyes that seemed far less harsh than they’d ever seemed before. 

“Dobby,” said Harry, crouching down and gripping Dobby’s shoulder, “can you apparate us out of the cell, then take Malfoy - take him to -” 

“Bill and Fleur’s,” said Ron. “Shell Cottage on the outskirts of Tinworth! They’ll be able to keep an eye on him until we get there. And if we don’t make it, they’ll be able to get any information Malfoy has for the Order. Then come back for us.”

The elf nodded and grabbed both Ron and Harry’s hands before apparating them the quick jump past the bars. Then he slid back through them like an eel, lifting Draco with far more tenderness than he probably deserved and disapparating with a muffled bang.

Voldemort’s thoughts stole into his mind again and Harry found himself clinging to Ron to keep himself up, knees shaking.

Kill me, then, Voldemort, I welcome death! But my death will not bring you what you seek… there is so much you do not understand… it was another prison and another prisoner.

He felt Voldemort’s fury, but as Hermione screamed again he shut it out, returning to the cellar and the horror of his own present. Ron’s blue eyes sick with worry as his attention bounced between Harry and the stairs leading up into the Manor. As though he couldn’t choose which to focus on.

He heard a light tread on the steps and motioned for Ron to join him against the wall where they couldn’t be seen from the door. Ron clicked the deluminator and they waited in the dark. They had no choice - they’d have to do something about whoever was coming because it would be incredibly obvious that there wasn’t a single person in the cell from the base of the stairs.

For a split second, Wormtail was haloed in the light from the stairs, he gazed stupidly into the darkened cellar. It was only after he lifted his wand, stretching his neck forward and calling lumos that Ron and Harry moved and launched themselves upon him.

Harry slapped his hand over his mouth and Ron seized the wand and pushed his wrist upwards. The silver hand, though, lifted easily and clenched itself around Harry’s throat. But not hard - almost as though Wormtail was hesitating.

“Are you going to kill me? After I saved your life? You owe me,” spat Harry, desperately trying to gain the upper hand.

The fingers released abruptly and twisted before grabbing anew onto Wormtail’s throat. Harry kept his hand over Wormtail’s mouth as the silver hand kept him aloft, slowly choking the life right out of him - Wormtail looking as shocked as the rest of them.

“And we’ll have that,” whispered Ron, tugging Wormtail’s wand from his loosened grip as his heels beat a final tattoo against the floor before he unhurridly slumped down, eyes bulging in surprise.

Harry and Ron looked at each other, but their attention was grabbed by the next toe-curling scream followed by loud sobbing that came from above.

“Hermione,” Ron said grimly, and grabbed Harry by the elbow, pulling him behind as they made their way up the stairs, leaving Wormtail’s last spell hanging in the cell. Right when they reached the main corridor there was a small flicker and the lumos orb that Wormtail had conjured burst out of existence.

They cautiously crept along the plushly appointed corridor until they returned to the drawing-room door. Harry quickly glanced in, where Bellatrix seemed to be screaming at Greyback who was still holding the sword of Gryffindor. 

“It must be a fake.” Her lips curled into a sneer as she toed at Hermione’s back. Hermione whimpered softly, wriggling away from Bellatrix. “I’ll get a goblin to verify it after we’re done here. Greyback, take care of little Miss Mudblood. I’m sure the Dark Lord won’t begrudge you the girl -”

That was as far as Bellatrix got before Ron barrelled around the door. 

Harry had always thought that it would take quite the shock to shake a witch like Bellatrix. He wasn’t wrong in that assumption either, as Bellatrix turned, slack jawed and flat-footed to see Ron clear the doorway and point his wand at her nose.

“Expelliarmus!” he roared just before her wand was yanked out of her lax grip and Ron flicked it into Harry’s outstretched hand. 

Seizing the opportunity Harry flung a stupify at Greyback, knocking him backwards into the fireplace and mantlepiece before he, too, was disarmed and Harry tucked Greyback’s wand into the back pocket of his jeans. Dodging behind the sofa, jets of light split the air, firing into the bookcases and sending scraps of paper flapping down around their heads.

Hermione, for her part, had rolled towards where Harry and Ron were crouched and Harry quickly made a split-second target of himself so Ron could pull Hermione in to relative safety. His shoulders bowed as he checked her over and shielded her from the wheezing spells.

At last there was a peculiar grinding noise from above. Bellatrix, Greyback, and the Snatchers all looked up at the same time as Harry. All of them looked upwards in time to see the crystal chandelier tremble; then, with a creak and an ominous jingling, it began to fall.

Bellatrix, who was right in its line of movement dashed back first. Harry, dodging the crystals and chains darted forwards and put his hand around the hilt of the Sword of Gryffindor. Dobby materialized in front of them, one tiny trembling finger raised against his former masters.

“You must not hurt Harry Potter!” Dobby said forcefully, taking one step back to catch Harry around the wrist with one of his hands and Ron and Hermione together with the other. “Dobby has no master. Dobby is a Free Elf!”

As Dobby turned them into the darkness Harry saw the shocked faces of Voldemort’s followers melt away as the pain in his forehead increased. The last thing he registered was the glint of Bellatrix’s knife as it flew at them, end over end.

Bill and Fleur’s he thought as he squeezed his eyes shut. We’ll be safe there. Bill and Fleur’s. We can be safe there…

The push and pull of Apparition pumped them through the ether - this was far further than he’d ever gone before in one jump. He tried giving Dobby’s hand a quick press of encouragement. There were three humans and it had taken the elf quite a long time to get back to the Manor after dropping Draco off. Perhaps that was why this apparition was taking so long. 

They hit solid earth that immediately gave way to sand and tumbled over, squishing Dobby’s hand as he fell.

Harry landed on his back and gave a nervous giggle at the sky. They’d done it. They’d escaped the Manor. They’d lived through it. He took a deep lungfull of the salty air and turned over onto his elbow. The wide, starry sky skated across into the black infinity and he felt peace settle through him. 

Groans rang out around him as he heard Ron and Hermione start to pick themselves up.

“Dobby?” he asked, “is this Shell Cottage?” He pulled the second wand out of his back pocket and clutched at Dobby’s hand. “Have we come to the right place? Dobby?”

He turned over onto his elbow and his heart stopped.

“DOBBY!” 

The elf swayed slightly next to Harry, the silver handle of the dagger piercing his chest. The elf swayed slightly, the stars reflecting in the sparkles of his overlarge eyes as his chest heaved and his breath heaved. A dark stain crept down from the dagger, staining the jumper he’d been so proud to purchase with the wages he’d earned as a free elf. He raised his arms towards Harry and Harry scrambled up to catch him before he fell.

“Dobby. No no no no no -” murmured Harry, clutching the tiny body to his chest, cradling Dobby’s head on his shoulder. “Don’t. Don’t die…”

With a calm smile Dobby stroked his cheek and breathed out - “Harry … Potter …”

A shudder passed through the tiny elf and he became quite still, leaving Harry sitting in cold sand, Ron and Hermione hanging off of him as he mourned the elf under the dark and starry skies.

Harry lost track of how long he sat there, holding Dobby’s cooling body in his arms. 

Long enough for Hermione and Ron to stand up and look around, Ron eventually disappearing and then reappearing with three piping hot cups of tea - one of which they tried to coax Harry into drinking, though that took another hour and two warming charms on the tea.

Finally, after the sun had cleared the horizon and the crash of water against the rocks had soaked into him, Harry finally looked over at his friends. Hermione was still creased with pain and there were two long cuts on her neck that had fresh smears of dittany across them. 

“I want to do it properly,” he said, wrung out, before catching his nose on the sleeve of his jacket. “Not by magic. Have you got a spade?”

Hermione bit her lip, watching him while overflowing with concern, as Ron started sifting through the shells and smoothly burnished sea stones. From time to time he lifted one for Hermione to look over, only for her to shake her head no after barely a glance.

Eventually Ron found bits of driftwood and shell that were acceptable and Hermione transfigured a spade. Its handle, made from sea glass and a spiral shell, fit snugly in his hand and he began to wander down the beach, leaving his friends to chatter worriedly about him and mutter about finding more things to make into spades. 

It was just down from Shell Cottage, as the tiny home receeded in the distance, that he found the perfect spot. It was just up from the beach, shaded by a few willows, and had a marvellous view of the ocean. Harry could taste the salt as he surveyed the sandy ground, then placed the blade of the shovel into the dirt and began to dig.

The scrape and sift of the dirt, sand, and rocks cut through the early morning as the birds woke up and began singing.

Harry could feel the cool drip of sweat between his shoulder blades as Ron and Hermione took their places next to him and dug too. Neither of them pointed out, as Harry’s glasses slipped down his nose and he slammed them back into place or as he felt the blisters bloom across his palms, that they could easily have created this grave with a little bit of magic. A quick swish and a flick and it would have been all over.

But he needed it to not be over yet.

He needed the pull of his muscles and the pain as a stitch pulled itself into his side. He could hear the battering thoughts of an apocalyptic Voldemort but grief, it seemed, drowned Voldemort out. Dumbledore would have said it was love but Harry, now, knew better. 

It frustrated him, because along with the visions from Voldemort that he’d endured over the last few years, he’d had intrusive thoughts about Malfoy. 

While Professor Burbage had been spinning above the dining room table and he’d watched it from behind Voldemort’s eyes he’d ping-ponged between Voldemort and, as he’d discovered after the second switch, a terrified-looking Malfoy. Not everyone would have noticed that he was terrified, but Harry had made quite the study of Malfoy’s face over the years and it was easy for him to track the lines of terror while inside of Voldemort.

He bit his lip and shifted where he gripped the shovel, remembering the night when he’d fled Privet Drive and arrived at the Tonks residence. With Andromeda in the parlour had been a red-eyed, curly-haired Slytherin who’d started upon seeing Harry. His cloak had been slightly torn, his boots dusty, and he had stared listlessly into a cup of tea while preparations had been made to spirit Harry away to the Burrow. Harry had overheard, between the door and the portkey, something about Malfoy sneaking him out of the Manor and had internally scoffed, because who could have expected Malfoy to have helped a friend hide from the Dark Lord himself?

But what of all those who had disappeared into the Manor cellars never to appear again? Xenophilius had cried as he summoned the Death Eaters because Luna was taken off the train before Christmas with rumour of death and torture swirling about her - and Ron had become more and more agitated, knowing the danger that his family, friends and neighbours had been in during their months on the run.

His hands shivered as his spade hit a rock and he grit his teeth before continuing. 

There was only, truly, one way out of this dilemma for the lot of them - they had to get the hallows and destroy the horcruxes.

The rhythm of his digging beat with his heart and drove out the thoughts that drove him forward. He used the words to drive his spade. Hallows - Horcruxes - Hallows - Horcruxes.

He lost track of time, Hermione having left after the first few feet, until he found himself six feet down with Ron on the lip of the grave, heels thumping against the sides and a contemplative look on his face.

“How’s Hermione?”

“Better. She’s fallen asleep.”

Ron walked with him back to where Dobby’s body lay, and stood with him as he brought him back to the grave, nestled in his arms. Ron watched as he laid the tiny elf in the bottom and picked up a shovel to help move the sandy soil back on top. 

There was nothing but the scraping sound of the shovels and the soft swell of the sea.

When they’d finished Harry fished around in his pocket for a wand and discovered two. Right. One from Bellatrix and the other from Greyback. Ron still had Wormtail’s. He lifted Greyback’s wand - it seemed … cleaner, somehow, and called the magic up. The rock he brought from deep underground ran up as slow as treacle and twice as hard. He encased the elf’s body and brought it up, like a pillar, to set above the tides and sand.

He took his wand and carefully carved onto the rock. Something should make the passing. Make it know the bravery of the elf that rested here.

Here lies Dobby

a Free Elf

Harry didn’t bother to wait for Ron to talk or not. “Do we have to go back, yet?”

His friend clasped him on the shoulder and took a sip of his now stone-cold tea. “Nah, mate. Take all the time you need.”

And so Harry did.

Waking up the next morning in Shell Cottage was nearly enough to make Harry dizzy. After months on the run, the capture, the Manor, there was a low murmur of quiet voices downstairs and he took the time to sit on the chintz-covered bed and think. The smells of breakfast making his stomach gurgle inside of him.

Shell Cottage was light and airy - the perfect little seaside getaway, if one had ever been taken to the sea for a holiday before. The closest that Harry had ever gotten was that tiny little island when the Dursleys had been running away from Hagrid and jumping at every shadow. Driftwood and shells piled atop one another, along with curtains made from stringing beads and bivalve shells together completed the cozy picture of domesticity that Harry had never experienced before.

Hogwarts was imposing and forceful. The Dursley’s was cold and impersonal. The Burrow was bustling - but Shell Cottage seemed like just the place to raise up a few children and watch them learn to toddle on the sand without a care in the world.

A place that could hold a fragile shell of peace and keep you safe and happy against the world.

They’d have to leave soon. 

And that would hurt too.

Ron had brought him back yesterday, just before lunch, and he’d barely given Bill and Fleur a wave before disappearing into this bedroom. He had been put onto one twin bed, and the rumpled sheets on the other told him that Ron was already up and about.

Swiping his fingers through his hair and trying to flatten the wild tufts, Harry rolled out of bed and into the pile of fresh clothes that was waiting for him on the chair. They felt like they’d been magically shrunk a bit, but then, Bill was far taller than either himself or Ron.

Harry cautiously opened the door, listening for a squeak and then shook himself with a laugh. It didn’t matter if anyone heard him here. He clattered down the stairs towards the kitchen in hope of breakfast but stood shock-still at the doorway.

Draco Malfoy was sitting at the table and drinking a cup of tea.

Next to Hermione.

Who looked pleased that he was there.

Not an expression she’d ever had seated next to Malfoy before.

Normally it was an expression of disgust, resignation, or hatred.

Malfoy, for his part, paused, taking Harry in, teacup halfway between the saucer and his mouth. Many of his facial bruises had faded and, though his joints were still swollen and his hands wrapped in bandages, his hands looked far better than they had the day before. A soft pink crept across his cheeks that made him look soft and new scrubbed. The slice through his eyebrow was healing - Harry could see it through the platinum fringe. Malfoy’s hair looked… soft. Soft and fluffy and Harry hated everything about it. He found himself clenching his jaw as Hermione looked slightly alarmed.

“What is he doing here?”

Hermione cleared her throat primly as Draco carefully set his cup back in the saucer. 

“Draco’s been filling me in on his side.”

“His side? He’s a bloody Death Eater, Hermione. What side is it where he isn’t trying to kill us all?”

Malfoy flushed up his neck and Harry felt his own do the same.

“I think I’m done, Hermione,” said Draco, vowels rolling around his mouth like marbles over clipped tones. “If it’s not a bother, we can chat again later.” 

Hermione reached out, trying to touch his hand as he stood up. Malfoy swayed a little as though he’d nearly lost his footing before he nodded, stiff as he’d ever been at Hogwarts and left the room. 

She shot Harry a frustrated look and called after Malfoy: “I wouldn’t bother with a lot of things if not for Harry.”

Harry frowned, sitting down on the bench next to Hermione with a thump and laying his forehead down on the table - which pushed his glasses off his nose to the side and into his temple and left a print on the lens. 

“Why is he here ?” he whined. Hermione heaved a heavy sigh before she started to stroke his head. She’d gotten into the habit when Ron had left and it had just been the two of them alone in the tent. Both listening to the rain against the canvas. It was soothing. Just the gentlest of touches until she scratched behind his ear and Harry felt as though he’d melt against the planks.

Ron sauntered in, pouring himself a cuppa from a sky blue teapot with a chipped lid. “Bill’s out checking the wards and Draco’s with Fleur in the swing by the beach gate. What’d you say to him? Because he looks upset.”

“Why,” asked Harry, staring at a whorl in the wood, “is anyone upset about what I said to Malfoy? You hate him.”

With a shake of his head and a scratch at his stubble Ron sat down next to Hermione, dropping a casual kiss on her forehead and bringing out a beautiful blush. “Did I tell you about Percy?”

Harry hit his forehead against the table.

“Mate, you always refused to listen to the radio - but Hermione - I mean, we,” he amended when Hermione’s elbow made contact with his ribs, “noticed that there was a bit of a pattern, see?”

Hermione nodded her bushy head, putting on that lecturing face that Harry hated with every bone in his aching body.

“Just after Bill and Fleur’s wedding - remember how Molly had us postpone in by a couple of days? - Percy had a strange little story about a Death Eater causing a distraction so he could get out of the ministry. Told me all about it when Charlie sent me some supplies. Tall, thin, and in a robe with black emboidered peacocks and feathers all down the back.” She traced the edge of her teacup as she leaned over the table towards Harry. “Did you see the peacocks on the way in to Malfoy Manor? I think Draco has been helping us the whole time. With him being in the cellar of the Manor and then with helping you and Ron get untied down there…”

“You think he’s been helping, but he’s always been a self-serving git. He cornered Dumbledore on that tower, don’t you remember?” asked Harry, heating as he always did when Malfoy was brought up in the conversation. “He’s got that tattoo on his arm. He’s a Death Eater. How do we know that this isn’t some long-term plant to bring down the Order from the inside?”

“We don’t,” Hermione said simply. “But Bill is going to look at his Dark Mark - apparently it isn’t working properly and he’s got some ideas on how to twist it a bit so he can’t find Draco again.”

They were interrupted by Bill’s return from checking the wards. Still tall and lanky with the fang earring dangling from his ear and a tired smile fighting against the scars that creased his face. Anger bubbled up again within Harry. Malfoy had nearly killed Bill by letting those Death Eaters into the castle the previous spring. He shrugged off his black dragonhide boots and jacket, flicking his long red hair behind his shoulder as he moved into the kitchen. 

Like every other time he’d seen Bill, his body reacted and Harry forced down the warmth that exploded through him and the blush that tried to fight its way up his neck. He had no idea what to do with the knowledge that his eyes trailed down Bill’s body and rested on his arse before he yanked them away again. He could hear Bill chuckle as he slid into a seat across the table and Harry could hear him doctoring his cup of tea with a splash of milk and a sigh of contentment. 

No wonder it hadn’t worked out with Ginny, thought Harry. It would have been easier to ignore if her brother hadn’t been so bloody attractive. Ginny, with all the understanding in the world had simply pointed out the obvious with an eyeroll. Harry, at the time, had been heartbroken - though it had changed to grateful as the weeks and months on the run had passed.

“Since the Burrow is being watched by the Dark Lord’s ministry forces we’ve had to move a bunch of us around to other Order members’ houses,” remarked Bill. “When Dad gets home tonight he’s not going back to the ministry again, but he’s headed to Auntie Muriel’s with Mum.”

“Why isn’t he going back to the Burrow?” asked Ron as Harry lifted himself up on his elbows, determined not to check out his best mate’s older brother - made even more awkward by the fact that Harry’d been so recently dating his sister. 

Bill took another sip of tea. “Draco was certain that, since the four of you have escaped from Malfoy Manor it’s only a matter of time before the Dark Lord tries to burn it to the ground. The Burrow has only been a magical residence since Mum and Dad moved in just before I was born - Auntie Muriel’s has had wards since the Norman Conquest so…” he gave a graceful shrug of his shoulders. “Between you and Draco, Harry, we’re nearly out of skele-grow. I’m just hoping the owl-order is still going from the Apothecary on Diagon.”

Harry gave a huff, his scar prickling against his forehead and he scratched at it, dutifully ignoring the snap of attention it brought from Hermione. 

“Where’s the Sword of Gryffindor?” asked Harry, suddenly remembering.

“I locked it up, it’ll be ready when you are, don’t worry,” Bill replied.

“And what if Malfoy steals it?” Harry demanded, thumping the table with his palm as Bill raised his eyebrows as though thoroughly unimpressed with his outburst.

“I assure you,” came frigid, clipped syllables from behind Harry, “that I have no intention of touching anything that gaudy and forged with rubies.” Malfoy shivered and gave Harry a smile that had not an ounce of warmth in it but somehow drew a coil of heat through Harry’s stomach. He walked into the little kitchen with a slight limp, hands wrapped in bandages to his elbows and all the hastily-wrapped dignity that he could muster. 

Ducking his head down Harry tried to pull himself into control. He had no idea why it felt like he ought to touch Malfoy - go after him - and Malfoy would probably bite his hand off if he tried.

“Harry,” Bill said quietly, “what, exactly, is going on? You turned up here with a dead house-elf and a nearly-dead pureblood. Hermione’s obviously been tortured with knife wounds on her neck and Ron’s refused to tell me anything. The only person who’s been half-truthful is Draco, who insisted that I give him veritaserum as Fleur was piecing his metacarpals back together and spilt over an hour of Death Eater secrets before he finally passed out on my kitchen table!”

“I would ‘ave ‘ad you wait,” added Fleur, huffing before shooing Malfoy further into the kitchen and heading for the sink. She washed with quick and sure movements, every line of her showing her frustration. “‘E was in no condition to talk.”

“I am right here and can defend myself, thank you,” sniffed Malfoy. Malfoy, at this moment, standing in a kitchen full of a group that only a few days before had been his enemies, seemed smaller and uncertain - even while he snarled and spat and tried to make himself seem bigger. He reminded Harry of a feral kitten and Harry hastily smothered the humour that mental image brought with it.

Somehow it didn’t matter how much Malfoy postured - Harry saw clearly that Draco was stretched just a hair too thin - like an overworn elastic band. Cracked and near breaking.

Harry cleared his throat and felt every eye in the room snap towards him. Including Malfoy’s. Why hadn’t he noticed before those tiny aqua flecks in his eyes before? “Why don’t you sit down, Malfoy, so we can talk about how to defeat You-Know-Who? Unless, of course, you’d like to simply march your skinny arse out of here and end up in the paws of snatchers?”

Malfoy seemed to stare into a foggy distance before he expertly hooked an ankle around a spoke of one of the mismatched kitchen chairs and lowered himself into it, his attention never leaving Harry.

“Well, that sounds encouraging,” Malfoy said warily, sitting prim, proper and on the edge of his seat. Harry watched as he arranged his hands on the table and gently rebuffed Fleur’s fussing over his hands and the bandages. “I’ll be fine.”

“We picked up some wands while we were in the Manor, would you know whose wands these are?” Harry placed the two wands he’d managed to take with him, and Ron quickly forked over the third.

Malfoy sniffed and leaned forward slightly, eyes rounding before a soft smile graced his features. 

“Congratulations, you’ve got Aunt Bellatrix’s wand.” He poked the darkest of the three off to the side. It was much thicker at the handhold than it was at the tip, and it looked more like a pocketknife than a wand. “Just under thirteen inches, walnut with a dragon heartstring. Those two,” he said, gesturing to the other two wands, “were taken during snatches. I’ve been borrowing them from time to time, so whatever I was doing didn’t get back to the Dark Lord. Prior incantato was always something I was hedging myself against.”

“What happened to your wand?” asked Ron.

“It’s still in the chest where they kept the snatched wands. There was only one left, so I switched mine out so it wouldn’t be empty and tip them off that someone was taking them. Always meant to go back and get it but…” he sighed, and slouched a bit. Harry refused to look at the dishevelled length of him and the twist he made against the back of the chair. “The Dark Lord’s been a nutter for wands this whole past year. Constantly leaving and going overseas. It’s when I’ve done the most.”

It might have sounded a bit like bragging, but Malfoy sounded so tired that Harry was inclined to believe him.

“Tortured Ollivander to death. Right in front of me.” Malfoy swiped at his eyes with one of his bandaged hands with a gulp and then shivered. Scales were raining down his features, pulling every emotion back just a hair so it wasn’t shown at its strongest. It looked sick and strange and much like how Snape had always seemed. Cool. Self-possessed and not letting a single shred through to the outside world that hadn’t been specifically allowed to escape. The look of a person using too much Occlumency.

But Harry could see the wobble in Malfoy’s control.

Somehow Malfoy walling Harry out hurt more than anything else he could have done. What came next was worse and made him snap harder than he had before.

“Harry -” 

Harry saw red, and stood up to yell across the table. All the sleepless nights. The pain. The shame of calling on Dobby only for him to die while saving Harry. The anger catapulted out of him without him being able to stop it. His temper fraying in the way it had when they were still carrying with them that accursed locket.

“And when?” yelled Harry, “have you called me anything but Potter?”

“Well fuck you too, Potter, if that’s what you insist I call you,” snarled Malfoy, snatching his tea cup off the table by the saucer - impressively without losing a single drop. He wound himself tightly, glaring at Harry with every ounce of the disdain that Harry was used to receiving from his across the Great Hall at Hogwarts and turned in a whirl of patched and stretched-out robes and slipped outside the door without another word. Back straight and legs stiff in wounded dignity.

Harry stood in the kitchen, watching Malfoy plod his way over one of the dunes and down towards the sea. 

“Where is he going, do you think?”

Fleur snorted behind him. “Leave ‘im alone. ‘E is already carrying enough.”

“How do you know he’s not passing messages back to the Dark Lord? Hmm? He’s marked.” Harry snapped, pushing his dropping fringe back from his face, eyes never leaving the smear of white-gold hair before it disappeared into the reeds. “Someone should go after him.”

“Someone should mind ‘ees own business.” Fleur ignored Harry in a huff, her knife perfectly mincing the mushrooms that fell beneath its blade. “Especially if he thinks that Beel and I would not ‘ave ‘ad heem swear an unbreakable vow before I even began to set hees bones yesterday morning!” 

Harry ignored her right back and threw on the least-misshapen cardigan from the worn wooden peg by the door. The wind immediately flattened his hair to his skull and drew prickles to his eyes as it darted in around his lenses. He pulled the sides of the cardigan together across his chest and stomped off over the sand and shells towards where Malfoy had disappeared in the long grasses.

The sound that came had been snatched in pieces and delivered by a tendril of wind. It made Harry pause because it wasn’t a sound he’d ever thought he’d hear out of Malfoy again. It sounded… like he was crying. Harry deliberately slowed his steps, twirling his wand and quickly casting a spell to make him quieter. All those practice sessions with Hermione finally coming in handy.

Harry had no desire to end up with Malfoy bleeding to death in front of him like he had when Harry had disturbed his crying in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom.

Malfoy had brushed off a rounded stone for his teacup and it was sitting there with a perfectly curled swirl of steam held in place with a strong stasis charm. He was sitting in the cradle of the dunes, amongst the reeds, arms wrapped around his legs and shoulders and shaking violently. 

Harry might have ignored it but there was a light pull that kept him walking. 

And it tugged harder as he watched the fringe of Malfoy’s hair shiver over the edge of his forearms. 

He found himself standing next to the curled up git, shifting his weight from side to side clumsily before deciding just to plop down next to Malfoy and wriggling himself a seat in the cold sand. All he earned himself was a glare and a sniffle. Malfoy pressed the top of his pointy nose into his sleeve and gave it a cagey wipe that Harry chuckled at.

“Come here often?” he asked.

“Oh, every morning, Potter. I come out here and have a good cry after being insulted by the worst berk in history, have a bracing cup of tea by the shore, and then re-enter a house where everyone thinks that I’m working against them when I’m not. You all treat me like I’m going to set off fireworks to draw the Death Eaters in and that couldn’t be further from the truth.” 

Malfoy cuddled further into himself and the oversized sleeves, pulling them over the backs of his hands, bandages and all, before tucking them under his chin. Harry could almost feel himself falling into the storm grey of his eyes that, this morning, matched the sea as it rushed towards the shore. Malfoy never looked away from the crashing waves, staring into the rising and falling depths of the ocean. Harry could almost taste the sand that whipped up as he sat and his arse grew cold.

“I don’t know what you want,” said Malfoy, his words muffled by his sleeve as he crossed his arms defiantly over his knee as he watched the ocean. “I can neither betray nor harm anyone I share a roof with at Shell Cottage.”

The only heat that existed as he sat next to Malfoy radiated off the other boy’s shoulder and Harry found himself edging closer in an effort to snatch some of it for his own. 

“I could see you from Voldemort’s eyes you know, from time to time. It didn’t look as if you were having a good time with what he wanted you to do.”

Malfoy started, dragging his gaze away from the water and fixing them on Harry. Harry watched as his thick eyelashes quivered around eyes that seemed far too wet for a moment before they pulled themselves back again. Just by a bit. Just enough that Harry missed the almost connection that had passed between them. Malfoy’s eyes dropped down to Harry’s lips before coming back to his eyes and Harry found himself chewing on his bottom one. 

Finally, Malfoy broke away and went back to contemplating the space where the sea met the sand.

“I saw that you buried him. Dobby.”

“I did.”

“You’re an unusual wizard, Harry Potter.”

“Why?” asked Harry, bristling.

“You dug the grave without magic.” The statement just hung there and Malfoy took a sip of his tea. His tongue darting out to grab a drop and Harry couldn’t look away. “And you saved me.”

“Was I supposed to leave you there?”

Malfoy gave a short chuckle and shook his head, seeming exasperated.

“Quite unusual.”

And Draco, frail as he was, leaned just a bit towards Harry.

And Harry, feeling as if he’d missed something huge and important, leaned in too.

An uneasy truce had sprung up between Harry and Draco. They’d come back into the cottage after watching the wind pick up all morning. Just before lunchtime, Draco had levered himself out of the sand and looked down at Harry disdainfully. 

“Are you coming? Or do you think I’m going to do something unspeakable to a Weasley or a courgette without your supervision?”

Draco’s tone had been sardonic, but Harry had sensed an underlying humour and just shook his head, scrambled up and walked back with him. The path back was paved in rounded stones and packed sand that must have been held in place by magic for it felt far too stable under their feet. 

As they entered together, Hermione looked relieved. Perhaps she’d thought that one or the other of them would be coming back - but not both - and definitely not as peaceable as they looked next to each other.

Bill herded the both of them into the parlour with Ron, Hermione and Fleur. 

“I assume the three of you are going to use the cottage as a place to plan your next moves?” asked Bill.

Harry nodded, and Bill continued. “We’re going to have to talk about sleeping arrangements then. There’s only the three bedrooms. We had Hermione in one and Draco in the other as they recovered from their wounds, with you two boys together, but that put Fleur on the settee, which she can’t do again - even with softening charms that thing could be classified as a torture device, and me on the swing outside and I woke up with icicles on my nose.”

Harry felt a deep pit of dread open up in his belly.

“No.”

The look Bill gave him, though his face was hard to read under the layers of scars across his cheeks, was that of an adult asking a child to grow up, build a bridge and get over it. 

“Yes. Hermione and Ron have said they’re fine sharing, so you and Draco will have to room together until you’re done with whatever plotting you have ahead of you.”

The blood drained out of Harry’s face and he instinctively turned to Malfoy - thinking that he’d have the same sense of dread - but the other boy’s face went first the merest hint of pale and then a pleased shade of pink before closing himself off again. He looked to Hermione and Ron for help but both of them didn’t seem to see any change in Malfoy and simply shrugged at him, helpless - before looking at each other and humming happily.

Finally Harry slumped just slightly and, with a shortage of grace, agreed.

Fleur, however, seemed thrilled to get her own sleeping space back again, and clapped her hands, organizing the four of them to play a room-switching version of musical chairs. 

With hasty spite Harry loaded up his hands with the few things that Ron had brought out of the beaded bag and huffed off to slam the door of what was now Ron and Hermione’s room and flung himself down on the floor between the twin beds.

“What a smarmy git,” Harry groused as he pressed his back against the nightstand and sighed in frustration.

Hermione twisted on the bed so that her toes poked into Harry’s shoulder and Ron cuddled up on the bed next to her. 

“He seems remarkably subdued compared to when we last saw him at Hogwarts,” said Hermione thoughtfully, flicking Harry’s earlobe with her toes and he shoved at her shins playfully. She pulled her bushy hair over the shoulder opposite Ron and snuggled into his chest. “He dragged himself down the hallway to apologize to me while you were passed out sleeping. Seemed pretty sincere.”

“As sincere as anyone can be while Fleur is trying to force-feed them Skele-grow,” nodded Ron.

“Since it’s just us here,” said Hermione firmly, casting a muffliato around the room, “we should probably talk about the sword.”

“Why?” asked Harry.

“Because that was what Bellatrix was so worried about,” replied Hermione calmly. “Every question she had was about if we’d been in her vault and, if yes, how we’d gotten the sword out and what else we might have taken. Why do you think she was so worried about her vault? We’ve destroyed the diary, the ring and the necklace. What do you think You-Know-Who had her hide in there?”

Harry shuddered and stared at the ceiling. “You know who we’re going to have to ask about that vault, right?”

Ron’s smile slipped across him and Harry wanted to scream in frustration. “Ask him if he know anything about what the noseless wonder would’ve nicked from Ravenclaw too.”

Hermione pulled a sleeve of biscuits out of the beaded bag and they sat there all afternoon, combing through the information they’d already gotten about the horcuxes and helping Harry put together a list of questions for Malfoy. They listened to the house around them, with the light conversation downstairs, the pipes rattling in the walls and the creak of the beams against the chill spring winds outside.

Groaning, Harry slumped out into the corridor just before supper and, on stockinged feet, slipped down the stairs. Gentle French pattered out of the kitchen behind the soft lighting. Draco - Malfoy - had a towel wrapped around him and Fleur had scissors in one hand and a hank of platinum hair in the other. 

Fleur had a smile on her face as she snipped around her fingers. “Peut-être un peu plus?”

“Comme vous voulez,” came the voice from under Malfoy’s fringe. 

“Ou on peut les colorier verts?”

“Plaît-il?”

“I didn’t know you spoke French, Malfoy,” said Harry, watching as Draco pushed his fringe back and frowned up at him. “Why’re you cutting it?”

“Wouldn’t you?” came the counter and Harry just shrugged.

“Never matters much, if I cut it it just grows back on its own.”

“Truly?” he said, his eyes gleaming silver behind the slim bands of fringe. “Imagine that.”

Harry gulped as Fleur rearranged the new haircut. It was short on the sides, soft around the edges and the tattered remains of his plait lay scattered around the chair spokes. It was longer on the top now, the edge of the curl falling just over Draco’s eyes. The rest faded down to near shave by the back of his neck and Harry couldn’t take his eyes off Malfoy as he brushed the loose strands off the towel and Fleur vanished them.

“What was eet you wanted?” asked Fleur, directing Draco towards a pile of vegetables with quick instruction in French on how to chop or dice or whatever them.

Clearing his throat, Harry tried to look as casual as possible. “I just need to talk to Malfoy about… his aunt.”

Draco’s back stiffened as he leaned over the cutting board, his knife making quick and precise thunks as the carrots were chopped into long thin pieces. “Can I assume that this is regarding the more insane Aunt, rather than the one who was blasted off the family tree?”

“Sure.” 

With a sigh, Draco looked over at Fleur and she nodded, thrusting her chin back upstairs. He looked tightly wound as he went up the stairs ahead of Harry. Malfoy paused, however, at the door to Hermione and Ron’s room, twitching an ear up and looked back at Harry slyly. “I don’t think we should interrupt them. That doesn’t mean that I wont tease Weasley about his less than stellar silencing charms. I’m certain Granger casts a perfect one.”

That was true. Hermione had always been a daub hand at casting almost any time of spell, right from their first charms class and floating feather to setting up wards and shields around their tent sites.

Harry’s blush crept over his ears as they went further down the corridor. “I’ll let them know after dinner.”

Draco led the way into the room that they were sharing. He sat back down on the camp cot that Ron had stripped earlier. There wasn’t even a blanket on it, now. Just Draco. It occurred to Harry, right as Draco started to pick at the strands of wool in the sleeve of his jumper, that he was wearing everything he owned right at that moment. From a pampered prince of Slytherin to a prisoner in his own home to … what?

Fidgeting, Malfoy cleared his throat and gave an acidic arch to his eyebrow. Harry started a bit, realizing that the clawing sensation in his gut wasn’t going anywhere, and, in point of fact, was getting more and more worked up seeing Draco on a bed in Harry’s room.  

“We are looking for objects,” said Harry carefully. “Small objects that would have been prized by the Dark Lord. Objects that he entrusted to certain… trusted individuals.” 

Draco looked contemplative. “And you think this has something to do with the Lestrange vault.”

“Why else would she have been so frightened by seeing the sword?”

“True.” Draco bit down on the plump bit of his lower lip, almost bruising it and Harry found himself incredibly distracted by the sight. He chewed it several times, looking up at the ceiling, showing off the long line of his neck and Harry pulled himself up short, wondering where the impulse to nuzzle into it had come from.

“Would it possibly have been a small cup, bronze, like a loving cup with a badger engraved upon it?”

“Yes!” cried Harry, sitting down next to Draco. “You told Bill you’ve been working against him for a long time, are you ready to take the fight to him?”

“With you, Scarface?” and gave Harry a little shove. A shove that seemed to stoke a fire inside of Harry that he hadn’t yet put a name to. It was tugging and clawing on the inside, as though trying to squirm its way out, and the only way to make it quiet itself against his mind was to get closer to Draco.

“With me.”

Harry grinned, before leaning in slightly. It felt like Draco was drawing him in like a magnet and he tipped forward, brushing their lips together and catching the edge of Draco’s tooth with his lip. Pulling away he watched as Draco’s pupils widened, wondering if his own were doing the same. Draco smelled like sea salt and lemon - tasting just the same and Harry couldn’t help but crave more even as he wondered if Draco would let him close enough to taste him ever again.

In the end it didn’t matter, as Draco lunged forward, and caught his lips again. 

Oh god, this was good.

It felt like electricity wherever he touched Draco. Perhaps it would have been different if Draco hadn’t met every swipe of his tongue with one of his own. Every push butting up against another. Harry couldn’t help himself, lifting one hand to tease the tiny hairs at the base of Draco’s head before using it to pull him even closer.

There was a tiny pleased whisper in his ear of Draco sighing “Harry” before Harry attacked Draco’s neck, working up towards his ear, pulling his earlobe between his teeth and tugging until he felt Draco’s breathing hitch as he shoved him over. Down onto the camp cot. Making the joints screech and groan as loudly as they wrestled on top of it.

He pulled and tugged, untucking Draco’s shirt from his trousers and feeling an answering shift of air as a pair of strong hands slipped underneath his jumper and traced the muscles of his back, leaving trails of fire behind them.

It felt like coming home as they writhed together. Draco’s hips were rabbiting back and forth in short bursts so Harry, in a moment of brilliance, grabbed them, forcing him to slow down and enjoy the slower slide as one hard cock slid over the other. Harry suppressed a grin while watching Draco’s mouth hang open, frantic little puffs of air and noise escaping him and his fringe drooping over his eyes. A blotchy flush creept down his neck and Harry followed it with fingers and lips. It felt… safe… with Draco. The contact made him feel complete. It was like coming home and Harry was determined to always come home if it meant rutting down, feeling every seam in his pants and trousers, with Draco underneath him.

Dipping in he caught Draco’s mouth in another kiss, delighting in the whimper that escaped Draco and aiming his cock to do it again.

Harry lost track of time. 

All that existed at that moment was Draco’s hot mouth and long fingers as they curled around his hair and twisted just enough to make him whine. He could feel the flutter and thump of Draco’s heart. Speeding up in time with his movements as they both grew desperate. 

When Harry came in his pants, panting and holding Draco so tightly he was worried his ribs would break, Draco tumbled off the cliff right after him. Harry curled up next to Draco’s side, stroking his hair offhandedly and just appreciating the long body squeezed in next to him. Huffing, Draco lifted his chin, a question on his lips that was cut short when a knock startled the both of them, Harry throwing a hasty cleaning charm at their midsections that froze like ice and drew a hiss out of Draco. 

“Hermione says I should talk to the two of you about your silencing charms. Mate - I love you like one of my brothers and I never want to hear that again.”

Draco’s chuckle at that, muffled against Harry’s neck, was the best sound he’d heard all year.

It took a moment to put his finger on the emotion that bubbled up within him. Joy.

Chapter Text

Malfoy, it seemed, as he murmured to Harry in the dark after dinner, had always known he preferred men to women. It was in surprise that he found that Harry liked both.

Harry, for his part, had never really thought about men until after he’d broken up with Ginny. A post-sixth-year revelation. A sentiment that just made Malfoy chortle. 

“Of course, Harry,” he’d said, eyes half-lidded and mischievous, “you’d just fall into bed with any person in a magical cottage by the beach.” Then he’d slithered his hands down Harry’s body until he’d pulled both their hard cocks out and wrapped his hand around them. Harry hadn’t been able to resist weaving his own fingers around Draco’s. Tugging with long clever fingers as they clutched at each other until they’d come again all over each other. Malfoy poking him and reminding him not to try and freeze their balls off this time.

They’d collapsed, sticky and sated next to each other. Harry wrapped up in the heady feeling of finding that the missing piece that had been disjointed for far too long was Draco wrapped up in Harry’s arms. 

During the night one of his many nightmares had taken over, jerking him out of a sound sleep. He’d sat up straight in bed and clutched at his scar. Draco had woken at just the same time, arms coming around Harry’s shoulders and pulling him in against the shudders. 

“He’s so angry.”

“I know.”

There hadn’t been much talking after that. Draco had gotten dressed again, borrowing Harry’s snatcher wand to cast some cleaning and pressing charms on his borrowed trousers and jumper before heading down into the kitchen and reappearing moments later with two cups of steaming tea and a plate of Madeleines. The taste of the biscuits had melted against his tongue as Draco had smiled at him, sleepy and content. Tucking himself back in under Harry’s arm after he’d finished his tea.

“Go to sleep, scarhead,” he said, affection rippling under the surface, and Harry dug his nose into the short hairs at the top of Draco’s spine, draped himself over him, and fell fast asleep. Warm, sated, and full of baking that smelled just like Draco - all lemon and vanilla.

It was the morning after, as Harry traded little elbows with Ron until both Draco and Hermione had threatened to jinx the pair of them that they got down to the business of acquiring the Hufflepuff cup. 

Gringotts would be a difficult place to break into.

Luckily they had both Bill, who had worked as a cursebreaker with the goblins of Gringotts for years, and Draco, who had been visiting the lower vaults since he could toddle and had actually been inside the Lastrange vault before, to help them plan. 

Hermione also had a few tricks up her sleeve.

She’d started brewing the polyjuice as soon as they’d arrived at Shell Cottage. 

The hunk of hair she’d pulled out of Bellatrix’s head at the root during their scuffle before their escape with Dobby had brought a true smile to Draco’s lips. He’d given Hermione a long, desperate hug, murmuring into her ear and making her blush Gryffindor red before he’d let her go.

The days passed by like beads on a string. It felt like Harry had blinked once or twice before realizing just how much he’d come to care about Draco. 

Draco, though, refused to talk to him about it. 

And he wouldn’t take his shirt off. 

Harry kept trying to pin him down on it - a Dark Mark on Draco’s paleness didn’t scare him - but it was like wrestling with the air itself and twice as frustrating.

He’d start every night on the camp cot, refusing to climb over into Harry’s bed until one of them inevitably woke up with a nightmare. Usually it was Harry, scar prickling and heart racing who would sit up in bed, staring across at Draco’s grey eyes, creased with sleep and concern. Draco was always awake when Harry was jolted rudely out of sleep. Either in the cot next to Harry’s bed or down in the kitchen, already preparing tea.

Harry would wake alone in those instances, staring unblinking up into the ceiling before hearing Draco’s quiet footsteps in the hallway and opening the door with a wandless incantation. Draco’s face would screw up into a smile as Harry was called a relentless show off and his silver eyes grew black with lust.

Sometimes, after Hermione urged him to, he would try to ask Draco questions about whatever relationship it ws that they’d fallen into. But all Draco would do was get quiet, then look up into Harry’s eyes through white-blond lashes and a calculating look. Harry would barely get the start of his question out before Draco’s clever fingers were running under the button of his jeans and squirming them down over his hips.

Harry was willing to admit that there were few things that could distract a seventeen year old more than his boyfriend’s hands stroking him. Replacing hands with mouth and sucking him until he came down his throat.

There wasn’t any discussion about anything but Draco’s low voice whispering in his ear. Asking if he wanted to try fucking him between his thighs or rutting up against each other outside, during the day, behind a copse of trees where they couldn’t be seen from the windows of the cottage.

Bill was worried too. More about the Gringotts heist than anything else. 

Ron liked using that word.

Hermione had used it first but Ron had swirled it around in his mouth and kept using it, trying to sound far more like a career criminal than anything else. He’d charmed a fedora and kept trying to artfully place it on his head so that only one bright blue eye was showing. 

Hermione thought it was charming - but she and Ron were in a relationship. 

Harry thought it was the stupidest thing he’d seen.

Draco told Harry, late at night in whispers that the Merlin-be-damned hat brought Ron an ounce of joy and who was he to rob his friend of a little bit of levity in the middle of a war - and did Harry want him to try and making him come without touching his dick once and Harry quite forgot the whole thing before Draco finally, achingly, against a background of Harry whimpering and pleading, made him come.

But now it was near the end of April and a variety of cups, saucer and tiny strips of parchment hung just above the table at Shell Cottage as they went over the last few details. Hermione’s notes were lengthy and impressive but Draco had spent three evenings with her trying to poke holes in her plan. Harry had worried for a while that Hermione would have been incensed but she’d admitted over tea, later, that having someone whose instincts ran to deception and intrigue made creating an airtight plan easier. 

It was impossible to tear his eyes away from Draco. Every movement or twitch brought a rush that he was losing the will to fight. 

He’d practiced with Bellatrix’s wand. 

When Harry had asked about it Draco had given him a secretive little smile and a lesson on how one could earn the loyalty of a wand. He’d directed them to pick up and try the other wands. To earn a wand’s loyalty they needed to take the wand itself. That was why Wormtail’s worked so well for Ron, who had plucked the wand from his nerveless fingers, and why Bellatrix and the snatcher wand worked so well for Harry. 

Somehow, Bellatrix’s wand worked as well for Draco as it did for Harry - which was a good thing, since Draco would be substituting for Bellatrix and having a wand’s undivided loyalty would be necessary for convincing the goblins at Gringotts to let Draco into the Lestrange vault. Yesterday, to test the theory, Hermione had given him a dose of polyjuice laced with one of Bellatrix’s hairs. It had turned coal black and smelled like garlic and vomit but Draco had barely lifted an eyebrow before downing it and twisting into Bellatrix. But then the wand had worked perfectly in his fingers. Then he’d charmed a window into a mirror so he could practice the lines they’d written for the occasion and practice walking in high heels and a dress they’d borrowed from Fleur. Harry hadn’t known as Draco turned back into himself in a shiver of trembling that his body’s reaction to seeing Draco walk as himself in high heels would necessitate a quick retreat back into the Shell Cottage guest room they shared and several cleaning and mending spells.

Harry shook his head, forcing himself back to the conversation around the table and the plan to break into the Lastrange vault to search for a Hufflepuff-sized Horcrux cup. The guilt from not telling Draco about the Horcruxes was cut by Bill’s forceful baritone. The swell of thanks to Fleur for giving her wand to Hermione. 

“The real trick will be getting around the thieves’ downfall. That waterfall doesn’t let anyone past it. Comes down right over the tracks.”

Draco just smiled sardonically at Bill and kicked his heels up onto the table, leaning his chair back on two legs. “Don’t worry, Eldest of the Weasel clan, we’re just going to get around it.”

Harry, hiding under the invisibility cloak with Griphook under the Imperius Curse, quickly pulled his broom out from under a fold and gripped it with white knuckles. The wind whipped past his hair in the cart, making it stand up far worse than it normally did. Draco wrapped both arms around the imperiused goblin and Harry pulled the both of them back onto the broom, ignoring the bolt of desire that ripped through him, regardless of whether or not it was Bellatrix’s body that he was in.

He heard Draco grunt as he took the weight of the goblin. Clutched and felt Draco’s answering heartbeat under his hand. 

They swooped down together, grinning like fools over Griphook’s head. Harry grabbed the back of Draco’s head, pulling him in and then coughing and spitting around the black curls that invaded his mouth. Under the mask of polyjuiced features he watched Draco smile sardonically before gesturing at the box of clackers.

“Ready to see another dragon up close?”

Shivering, Harry took one of the clackers in hand. It was cold, heavy and, as the ball dropped from one side to the other, remarkably noisy. Nervous didn’t look right on Bellatrix’s face, but the polyjuice would wear off soon and put Draco’s features back where they ought to be.

A dull roar echoed down the hallway and he watched not-Draco’s chin clench against his teeth. 

The gigantic Ironbelly was chained to the ground in the forum before the columns that would lead them into the lowest and oldest vaults in Gringotts. The Lestrange vaults were down there. And the Malfoy ones. Draco had been vague about the depths and vaults that his family had access to, but his knowledge of the deeper levels of old money Gringotts had been useful in preparing to delve into them as thieves.

The dragon’s limbs were securely cuffed and it chuffed and moaned at them as it drew further away from the clackers. Ichor dripped off the bottom of the chains and Harry spared a thought of Hermione, who would have insisted on smashing it out of its prison as they escaped themselves.

“Make him press his hand against the door,” hissed Draco. 

It felt wrong as the spell curled into his chest and he forced the goblin to press his fingers against the vault’s lock. The whirr and click of the tumblers sliding out of their rests ticked into the corridor. Stepping backwards Harry watched as Draco’s hair started to shorten and lighten. He gave Harry a tight smile.

“Keep him here. I’ll be right back.”

Past his shoulders Harry could make out piles of gold Galleons and shelves of treasures that seemed to stretch on forever. 

“Be careful,” he said, before he caught himself.

With a snort Draco stepped into the vault. “Open it again in five minutes. If I can’t find it by then I should never have been sorted into Slytherin.”

“I was almost sorted into Slytherin.”

Draco gave him a complicated look. “We’re going to have to revisit this later.” 

Harry gave a thin smile and watched as the vault door slammed shut behind Draco again. Gulping, Harry waited, eyes on his pocketwatch. Five minutes. He could wait. He did it with bated breath and a thump inside of him. Three minutes in a spike of panic started inside of him. It burned through his chest and spiked up towards his scar. He cried out, grasping at his scar and squeezing his eyes shut.

He pointed his wand at Griphook, feeling as though he were about to vibrate out of his skin. “Open the door.”

The goblin fought the imperius and snarled at him, trying to fidget away.

“Open it!” yelled Harry theateningly. He grabbed the goblin by the wrist, bringing it to bear to the vault door. “Now!”

Griphook tried to kick out at him but Harry drew his fingers down the vault door. The turn of the tumblers took time that allowed the spreading pain to make it through every one of his limbs. The door slid open and out tumbled Draco, breathless and gasping, burns patching the skin of his cheeks and galleons, plates and cups falling with him.

“They have the flagrante and gemino curses active in there. Take it. Quick!” 

He thrust the tiny Hufflepuff loving cup into Harry’s hands. It was the cup that had appeared in the memories he’d seen of Tom. It wasn’t true gold. Harry could see it now. It was bronze with gold plating. The badgers were beautiful - but not as beautiful as Draco was. Harry watched him shake his fingers out, casting to relieve the burns and met his eyes as relief slipped through them.

It was then that they heard the commotion from the upstairs levels of Gringots. Hermione and Ron had arrived with their distraction. 

“Up!” and his broom shot up into his hand. “We need to keep those heels for later,” he growled into Draco’s ear and receiving a soft laugh in return before pulling him close as they shot off into the dark caverns above and Harry couldn’t help but feel a warmth pool inside his belly from the contact of the pleased huff that skittered across the back of his neck as Draco’s arms tightened around his middle.

The sky, as they burst into it from the tunnels, was overcast and closely grey. The fog of London clung to their robes as they flapped in the breeze. They headed north, towards Thetford Forest - where Ron and Hermione would be meeting them. It was a long flight but Harry didn’t want to land and apparate to the forest. A quick patronus back and forth with Hermione soothed him in knowing that his friends were safe and waiting with a set up tent in the forest.

But Harry couldn’t help but enjoy Draco’s body pressed up against his back and the feel of the wind on his face. 

All at once everything that he could see, hear or smell was extinguished. Pain cleaved through his head and he let go - the broom starting to fall to earth. The last thing he felt before Voldemort’s thoughts took him over were Draco’s hands clutching him around the shoulders and taking control of the broom.

The goblin in front of him was terrified and unable to meet his eyes, gaze skittering into the corners. 

Harry felt the Dark Magic sizzling inside himself and sparking at his fingertips as he flung it about inside of Gringotts. The goblins who had let him and Draco through the entrance were sprawled across the marble - some with wet red trails behind them. 

“Say it again!” Harry murmured, enjoying the goblin’s dread.

“M - my Lord … we t -tried to stop the … theft …”

Bellatrix stood behind Voldemort, tapping her wand into her hand while her face was wreathed in a scowl. “My Lord, I updated my wand with them weeks ago… If I’d know what incompetents they were…”

“SILENCE!” Voldemort’s full attention was back on the goblin. “And they took the cup from the vault?”

The goblin nodded dumbly and Voldemort slashed the Elder Wand through the air. Killing over and over again. 

No one could know about the Golden Cup.

“Harry!” He saw a flash of Draco’s terrified face and whipping air before it was just Voldemort plowing through every part of himself again - the leafy sky pattering into terrified goblins racing to get away and Death Eaters who looked as though they wished to be anywhere else, eyes darting for an escape route before they bowed, nearly as one and disapparated away to safety.

Panting he stormed down the trail of bodies and stood in front of the lopsided columns. Mind furiously churning. Surely, if the boy had destroyed all of his Horcruxes he would have known. He would have felt it as fragments. Beloved. Protected. Had left this plane for another. 

The Diary was gone. Lucius had already been punished for his oversight. But that had been because he hadn’t a body to be notified at the time, hadn’t it? He could feel his molars pulse under the pressure. 

No one could find them all. 

But something was telling him that he needed to check. Nagini was always with him, the diary and the cup were gone. He needed to check the lake. Check the Gaunt house. Check Hogwarts.

A quick message to Snape and then he’d check the other two. Snape would hold off the boy and keep the other safe.

He stared up at the foggy sky above the bank and cast morsmordre to scare any who might dare try and undermine his power.

Harry woke screaming under the leafy canopy of the forest, the palest strands of sunset lighting the tops of the trees on fire - and staring up at three worried sets of eyes - blond, brunette and redhead. But the blond was on him first, pressing back his fringe and kissing over his scar. Lips brushing against the clawed marks that Harry had left there.

“He knows.” Draco went pale, clutching him tighter. “He’s checking them all - but the last is in Hogwarts. We have to get there. And we have to get there now.”

“We can’t apparate straight into Hogwarts. You can’t apparate into the grounds,” mused Draco contemplatively.

Hermione thumped him on the shoulder. “Finally! Someone else who’s read Hogwarts: A History …” 

She’d have continued, but Draco cut her off. “There’s no time, Granger. We need to get to Hogwarts before he does…”

“I … I was in his head … he thinks the one in Hogwarts is the safest because he’ll warn Snape to keep it safe.” Harry’s head was swimming and the other three were coming in and out of focus. The only thing keeping him grounded were the five nails Draco was currently digging into his bicep and the curl of smoke going up from the remains of the Horcrux that had been in the Hufflepuff cup - the Sword of Gryffindor still sticking straight up from where it was pinned in the earth.

“Did you see where in Hogwarts it is?” called Ron as he turned and started packing up camp quickly.

“Wait - we can’t just go -” sputtered Hermione, “we have to come up with some sort of plan.”

“The plan is to get to Hogwarts before the Dark Lord gets there. That’s the plan,” said Harry firmly.

“I think we should apparate directly into the Hog’s Head,” said Draco. “The barkeep there has never liked any kind of authority - Dark Lord or Dumbledore - and the rest of the village is under a caterwalling charm. If we apparate directly in and we need to we can take him out and be within striking distance of the castle.”

Hermione thought about it as Ron and Harry started taking down the tent - Harry far more wobbly than Ron - then she spent the next ten minutes arguing with Draco over it. Finally she sighed and pulled the three of them into a hug - for Draco probably unwelcome as he arched his back away from her. She sniffed and rubbed the edge of her nose on her ragged sleeve before straightening her shoulders. 

“Harry, you should apparate us to Edinburgh if Draco thinks he can get us into Hog’s Head it’s better that he does it from inside of Scotland.”

Ron gave a stiff nod before giving a sad tug at one of Hermione’s curls. 

The trip into the Hog’s Head was remarkably uneventful when they looked back at a year full of narrow escapes from Voldemort, on the run, and the deaths they’d all witnessed. Harry had let them into a tiny apparition point in the east end of Edinburgh. Then he pulled the invisibility cloak out of his pocket and the four of them had crowded underneath it. Their ankles and feet sticking out of the bottom before Draco had held out his arms and spun them through the ether into the dodgy Hogsmeade Bar at the far end of the village.

The Hog’s Head had been in operation since the reign of James the First. Its floor of compressed sawdust had always seemed a bit springy to Harry. They’d not been in since they’d signed the scroll for Dumbledore’s Army in sixth year and not a single stick of furniture looked like it had moved since. It was just as dingy, grubby and hair-raising as it had been before. There was a threadbare carpet and stairs that looked like an absolute deathtrap reaching up into a dark corner. 

A clatter came from behind the bar and a giant figure with a long white beard popped out of what seemed like nowhere, marching directly over to where they were crouched under the invisibility cloak.

“Come on out now, Potter and friends, I can’t help but think that this is the end. Especially since Bill has been sending people here all evening.”

The barkeep crossed his arms over his chest and waited. 

Slowly - cautiously - Harry lowered the hood of the invisibility cloak, also revealing the other three. All four wands were pointed at the barkeep and he didn’t bat a single searing-blue eye. Wait. Harry gasped slightly, stepping forward and placing himself between the barkeep and his friends. 

“It was your eye - you saved us in Malfoy Manor.”

The barkeep nodded. “Thought the elf’d be with you. Where is he?”

“He’s dead,” Draco’s voice sounded dry. “My aunt killed him.”

“Bravest elf I’d ever known,” said the barkeep, scratching at his beard, “I liked him.”

It had taken Harry nearly a year to get to this point - but the physical person in front of him, so like his brother, was beyond anything that could be coincidence. “Aberforth.” The barkeep raised an eyebrow and nodded as Harry continued. “You’re Dumbledore’s brother.”

Ron’s stomach rumbled loudly behind Harry and Aberforth’s lips twitched. “Growing children need food. Belly up to the bar and I’ll get you a wee bit to munch on.”

He disappeared into a small room behind the bar and reappeared with some bread, cheese and long sticks so they could make themselves toasties in the fire. Ron immediately set two toasties on the end of his stick. Hermione gave him a soft look and Harry felt a small slice of jealousy. Hermione at least knew where she stood. Draco, who was stiff as a board next to Harry and glaring at Aberforth suspiciously, was refusing to define anything about what was happening between the two of them. 

For his part Aberforth stared at the lot of them with a high level of exasperation and frustration. “What you’re going to do is leave at sunrise when the charm on the streets breaks. Make sure you’re all under that cloak of yours and get the hell out of Hogsmeade.”

“We’re not leaving,” said Harry. “I am going into the castle. “There isn’t much time.”

“You get away, Potter - “ began Aberforth, but Harry cut him off.

“I’ve got to stay. I’m the only one that can do it. You’re part of the Order -” said Harry, pleadingly, “even if you think You-Know-Who has won there a sliver of hope and I can’t just let -”

“Give it to someone else.” 

Hermione snorted and Draco rolled his eyes at Aberforth. Then they looked at each other with a series of well-placed pointy elbows while Harry still tangled with the barkeep. Aberforth’s eyes darted to the side, looking just above the fire. Harry followed it. It was the only portrait in the room. No wizarding photographs waved from any surface. Just a little girl, seated, holding a handful of wildflowers with a secretive little smile. 

“I’m of age and I’m going to keep fighting even if you’ve given up.”

Aberforth’s head snapped around to glare at Harry and Harry gave back as good as he got. Spine straight, gaze steady, hand loosely cupped around his wand. Eventually, with a sigh that made Harry feel every year of Aberforth’s age he looked up at the ceiling and then back at the portrait. 

“Guess you better get going, then.”

Ron looked confused as he ate the second of his toasties and the little girl walked directly back into the painting. As she left they could see a short path underneath her feet that dipped up and down over a series of short hills and then around a curve before disappearing.

“There’s only one way into the castle now, boys. My brother set it up as a failsafe, damn him.”

A tiny white dot, swinging like a lantern, appeared in the painting’s background. A tall figure followed her. His arms waving around as though he were thrilled to be walking through a painting. Which portrait in Hogwarts was helping, wondered Harry, brows knitting as he squinted at the figures, wishing he could see through the girl. Aberforth moved a stepstool in front of the fireplace and gestured at the lot of them to back up. She grew bigger and bigger until her whole body took up the frame of the portrait and it swung out over the fireplace.

A rip-robed, tall, imposing, scarred and long-haired Neville Longbottom tumbled out of the portrait, whooping and grabbing the bunch of them in his arms. “I knew you’d come! I can’t wait to get one over on the Carrows!” 

Neville grabbed them one at a time, exclaiming over their own injuries and brushing off his own, laughing as they fingered the holes in his school robes and hugging them hard and tight as if they were about to vanish into a puff of smoke. 

Then his eyes fell on Draco, who had hung back, near the wall of the bar. Draco, who looked extremely uncomfortable. Harry felt a little uneasy. Draco’s time within the Death Eaters was also something that he refused to talk about. And he’d been at Hogwarts that fall and winter. What had Voldemort made him do? It was a long moment between when Neville looked at Draco and when he stalked up to him. Draco retreating slightly, bumping the wall at his back and putting on a face that would read to anyone who didn’t seem to know how deep Draco ran that he was unflustered and calm - two things that the pulse of panic through Harry showed to be a lie.

“You.” Neville’s wand was in his hand and pointed between Draco’s eyes. Draco slid his shut, refusing to show fear or drawing his own wand to protect himself. Harry moved to stop Neville, but he was too late. It didn’t matter, though, because Neville pulled Draco in for a tight hug that Draco looked like he wanted to escape more than Mrs. Figg’s cats did. “Thanks.”

Draco relaxed a fraction, but then pried up Neville’s fingers from his back and sides. “Not sure why you’d say that, Longbottom.”

Neville just looked pleased. He gestured towards the open portrait hole. “Come on, the rest will be wanting to see you. The one Carrow we have left has been run ragged by the lot of us.”

“One Carrow?” asked Harry as they entered the short tunnel between the Hog’s Head and Hogwarts. Aberforth had muttered something about sending notices to the rest of the order as they’d trooped up the ladder and into the tunnel. The sandy floor scuffed against his trainers and hitchhiked onto the laces. 

“Yeah, the other one never came back after one of the courtyard knights decked him with its sword. Made it a lot easier to get around the castle, too. With two of them it would have been much harder to get around. With one - well, they have to sleep sometime, right?” Neville looked pleased. “Snape doesn’t seem all that interested in what the Dark Lord wants when it’s just the students around, and almost half the students are living in the Room of Requirement now, so…” he turned, lantern in hand and grinned at them. “Let me announce you. It’s going to be great seeing all their shocked faces.”

“Sure, Neville,” replied Harry, searching back with a hand and squeezing Draco’s palm before he snaked it out of his grasp. 

“It’s been harder recently. Used to be when members of the DA got caught there’d be a distraction in the castle somewhere, or we’d get warned off certain corridors. But Luna’s been a real godsend since she’s been back. Knew exactly how to pull help out of thin air, almost.” Neville’s looked over his shoulder and grinned at Draco. “But it was harder since mid-March when Draco here disappeared from school and Ted Tonks came to stay.”

Draco was getting redder and redder to the point of nearly glowing in the dim light of the tunnel.

Neville stopped just before the next portrait hole and Draco gave him a weak smile. “Don’t worry, Draco. Most people have put two and two together and come up with you. No one’s going to go mad when they see you.”

“Comforting.” Draco muttered and Harry felt a low warmth diffuse in his chest. This wasn’t going to be a problem - not tonight, at least.

Reaching out, Neville pushed the portrait with his fingertips, revealing a short flight of stairs and a giant room covered in banners from Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. There were hammocks going every which way, some floating entirely in midair and others with ropes and pulleys. It was the Room of Requirement - just a room where what was required was a safe haven for Dumbledore’s Army. 

“Look who it is!” he called, and clattered down the step, leaving the four from Shell Cottage exposed for all to see.

“Harry!”

“HARRY! It’s Harry!”

“Hermione! Ron!”

It was as if the student body of Hogwarts surged forward all at once with a shout. Draco was hanging back and got separated from the three Gryffindors. Harry caught sight of the flashes of white blond between bobbing heads, but couldn’t seem to get a word in edgewise until Neville finally cast a sonorous and told the lot of them to quiet down.

There was Draco, dragged to the edge of the crowd, with Luna Lovegood wrapped around him. Luna had her forehead pressed up against Draco’s and Harry felt a volcanic surge of jealousy crawl up inside of him. Draco’s fingers were tangled in the hair of Luna’s neck and he looked so incredibly relieved. When Luna stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek and he turned red Harry found he couldn’t stand it any more, clenching his fists and wrenching himself away. 

Hermione, who had been watching Harry, looked concerned for a moment, but since it was quiet, Harry tried to speak before he was cut off by Ernie Macmillian - who looked thrilled that they were there.

“What’s next, Harry? We tried to keep up with everything you three have been doing through the wireless and Potterwatch , but there haven’t been any updates on you lately, and …”

Ernie’s voice faded away as Harry wobbled on his feet. A scorching pain slammed through him as he watched Voldemort rip up the floorboards at the Gaunt mansion and howl his frustration at the ring being gone.

“Are you all right, Harry?” Neville was very close, though he could see Draco over his shoulder looking terribly concerned. 

“You-Know-Who is coming to Hogwarts.” That got gasps and not a few whimpers from first and second years who looked as though they were about to faint from fear. The older years were a combination of hard and resigned. His scar was still throbbing and he was having a hard time collecting his thoughts. “I need to find an object in the school and destroy it. But I don’t know where it is. What I could use is a distraction at all corners of the school so I can slip around.”

“Everyone in here was driven in. We’re ready to take the castle back.” 

Harry shivered. Neville had never been like this before the Carrows and whatever transformation that he’d gone through this past year had been enough to transform him from a bumbling, less-than-imposing boy gardner to the rugged and chiseled man was impressive.

“Besides,” continued Neville, “we have a few crates from the Weasleys that we haven’t even tried yet.”

Within moments, Neville was organizing the houses and the crates of Weasley products. Children grimly filling their pockets to bursting with brightly coloured twists of paper that smoked and gleamed dangerously. 

Draco, however, was tugging Luna closer to Harry, Hermione and Ron with a grim determination.

“Tell him,” he clipped.

“You’re looking for something from Ravenclaw? Might it be the lost diadem?”

“I know where it is,” snapped Draco with impatience. “It look like a tiara. With looping diamonds with a large sapphire set in the centre. You know where it is too.”

Frowning, Harry stared up at the ceiling and trying to remember.

“It’s in the room of hidden things.” Draco looked like he was about to fidget out of his skin. “We’ll have to leave here so the room can reset to it. It’s by the vanishing cabinet.” He gulped, looking Harry right in the eyes. “Where you hid Advanced Potion Making.”

Harry felt the blood drain from his face. He remembered his run to try and keep the Prince’s book away from Snape - not knowing at the time that Snape was the Prince himself. He’d hidden the book always intending to go back for it, though he never had.

“How do you know that?”

Draco smiled sardonically. “I found it, of course.”

“We’re going to have to come back in here after everyone leaves. Get the diadem. Destroy it with the sword.” 

“Hang on a moment!” said Ron urgently. “We’ve forgotten about the others.”

“Who?” asked Hermione, whipping her head around.

“The house-elves. If no one tells them they’ll be trapped down in the kitchens - “ he was cut off as Hermione flung herself into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist. Ron staggered, keeping upright by the barest of margins. Hermione yanked herself back just a bit, smiling into Ron’s face with a happiness that made Harry’s heart squeeze tight. 

Draco hadn’t ever done anything like that - and Harry couldn’t ever see him doing so.

And it made him upset even as he wrenched his eyes away from the happy couple and towards the person he was hoping might like him enough to kiss him in public - eventually. 

“We are going to head down to the kitchens,” said Hermione, filling her beaded bag to bursting with the offered WWW products. “We’ll send you a patronus when we’re out and meet up afterwards.”

While Neville started to sneak the defenders of Hogwarts into the corridors and Ron and Hermione left for the kitchens, Harry turned to Draco. 

“You’ll come with me?”

“As far as you’d like me to,” replied Draco, stiffening, “unless you’d rather I didn’t.”

“Of course I want you with me. You haven’t gotten to destroy one yet.” Harry bumped Draco’s shoulder with his own, looking up as Luna arrived and smiled up beautifically. 

“I’ll be coming with you two. You’ll need someone in the hallway as you enter the Room of Hidden Things.” 

If Harry had ever found a way of arguing with Luna he’d have done so. Since that wasn’t really an option, he just pulled her in, breathing in the smell of snapdragons and murtlap from her hair and squeezing her tight.

Harry shifted the sword of Gryffindor from one hand to the other just as the first booms echoed in from the corridor. Neville smiled back before he left.

“We’ve got your back, Harry. Just -” he paused, his pale green eyes pleading, “just find it - and find it fast.”

They were out the door right after them and Luna skipped to the other side of the hallway, tapped a tapestry into a settee and sat with a happy thump, knocking her heels against the ground with a happy smile on her face.

Draco set to walking up and down the corridor in front of the room to reset when they were interrupted by a boom outside of the castle and a shriek that shook the interior walls. Draco froze in place and the door to the room dissolved back into the wall. He swore and Harry felt a slip of a smile flit across him as Draco started all over again. 

“He’s quieter now, isn’t he?” she asked. “I mean, it makes sense of course. He was trapped there longer than any of us.”

Harry swallowed, watching as Draco’s pacing brought back the door. “Thanks, Luna.”

“Of course. I’ll make sure no one comes in after you two.” She shooed him with her hands and sat, holding an odd wand. It was half as long as her first, which had been made of willow and pixie dust - her mother’s if he remembered correctly. She giggled, watching his eyes and pushed him with a foot towards the door. “Draco got it for me when he snuck me into Hogwarts in a trunk.”

Chuckling, Harry followed Draco into the dark of the Room of Hidden Things. It reminded him so much of the last time he’d been in here. The stacks of boxes and crates and hats piled wildly with furniture from every era with cloth and clothes and exploding snap cards that sizzled to a steady beat. 

Draco led the way through the stacks with purpose, ignoring the dead ends of the trails through the perilously balanced bric-a-brac. His hair shining like a new sickle over the overstretched jumper and muggle jeans. Draco had never looked more and less than himself and Harry found himself humming as he followed him.

“What on earth are you butchering, Potter?” asked Draco as he counted pathways and chose the third from the right.

“No idea.”

“As per usual,” snorted Draco.

He made several more turns and twists before he stopped in front of the doors of a small secretary that sat next to the vanishing cabinet, gesturing at the bust decorated with the strange-looking tiara thing with a giant sapphire over the forehead.

“Is that it?”

Harry couldn’t help himself - he reached over bare-handed. That had been a mistake as he felt a flash of stabbing pain through his scar, crying out and pulling back quickly, nearly knocking the pile of teetering books behind him down like an avalanche. It was only through Draco launching himself at it to right it that it didn’t collapse upon them. 

“That’s it.”

“You don’t say,” said Draco blandly, forcing the pile back into order. “Perhaps we should destroy it before the Dark Lord razes the castle?”

“I think you should do the honours.” Draco shot him a dark look but Harry could only reply with a grin. He proffered the sword hilt first. He took it with careful fingers, as though he might be afraid a sword of the opposing house might turn on him right away. 

Steeling himself, Harry knocked the diadem off the head of the bust and onto the ground. Draco readied the point of the sword, but as he threatened it the same mist that had come up when Ron had stabbed the locket through. Skittering on the ground and hissing against the threat.

Narcissa Malfoy stepped out of the mist, as regal as she’d ever been.

Harry heard a muffled gasp from Draco as his mother smiled and sailed towards him, rolling waves of crackling clouds dripping from her hems. “Darling… what are you doing with… him?”

Draco stiffened and took a half step back, resetting his stance and frowning.

“Don’t listen to it, Draco. Stab it. Right in the sapphire.” Pain snapped through Harry and he groaned.

“I mean, if you’d been lonely we could have arranged something … more appropriate. If only you’d listened to me, we’d both be safe and sound in the Manor with none of this unpleasantness.”

Draco grit his teeth and, with a cry that shocked Harry through his chest brought the sword down onto the horcrux. The point slipped through the top of the gemstone, and pinned it to the floor.

Narcissa screamed, light coming through her chest and Draco stepped forward, trying to keep the light within her and failing miserably. Pulsing pain went through Harry. First through the curse scar on his forehead and then pulses that sketched their way into his chest and suffocated him. Draco’s arms were wrapped around his mother, pleading with her - the words lost in the pain. 

With a final screaming flash the horcrux died in a muddy puddle of silver and diamonds on the floor of the Room of Hidden Things. The dissonance matched only by the heartbroken cry that Draco gave, stumbling to his knees. Holding the Sword of Griffyndor with one delicate wrist and the other in a fist against the ground. Harry stumbled over to him, pulling him back and into his lap.

“I don’t know what’s happened to her.”

It was a quiet sort of confession as Draco released the sword and wrapped his hands around Harry’s torso. Pulling Draco in as close as he cound Harry buried his nose in Draco’s hair. Smelled the tarragon and lemon that he used in his homemade hair potions at Shell Cottage and the singe that had come from the Gringotts vault underneath it.

“When they discovered what I’d done and locked me away - my mother gave me the door to send things to Andromeda - “ Draco hiccuped as he burrowed in tighter, as though Harry were about to disappear in a puff of smoke too. “Do you think she’s alright?”

“I’m sure she’s fine. She was sorted Slytherin too, wasn’t she?”

Draco gave a wet kind of cough, looking up at Harry through eyes that were far wateryer and his defences around his face far lower than they’d been before. Harry cupped the back of his head and pulled him in for a kiss. He tried to pour everything they weren’t saying into it. All the worry about if they’d both survive the night. All the fear he had about You-Know-Who and the snake they still had to track down and murder. The rocking of the castle defenses outside and the battles that still lay ahead.

The lips underneath his were soft and warm. The tiny hairs his fingers slipped through short and spiky against his palm. Draco’s tongue battled against Harry’s and Harry groaned as their hips rutted down against each other, the strong slow slide sparking inside of him. He dipped his fingers under the hem of Draco’s jumper and was rewarded with a whine that went straight to his cock.

The embers that always seemed to be banked, ready to flare whenever he touched Draco, burst into sparks and flame. Harry gripped at him desperately. Forgetting that just outside a battle was raging. Content for a moment just to be a boyfriend snogging the hottest thing on two legs he’d ever seen. 

It was inevitable that such an excellent moment would be ruined by Voldemort himself.

A breathtaking amount of pain poured into Harry through his scar and he could see his own agony reflected in Draco - who looked as tormented as he felt. Visions of the lake where Dumbledore had had to drink the potion flipped through his vision - roiling anger sickening him as he pushed Draco off his lap and heaved himself to the side. Coughing he emptied his stomach onto an old biography of Wendelyn the Weird. 

It took a moment before Draco’s warm hand found the small of his back and Harry looked up into liquid silver that took his breath away. Draco cast a quick mouthwash charm that left him fresh and minty and clear. 

“He’s on his way here. He’s found out we’ve taken the locket.”

Draco’s arms enveloped him as he hiccuped his way back from the knee-knocking fear that had shot through him. His heart was going as fast as Harry’s had been. Harry clung to his shoulders, enjoying the firm muscle and steady breathing under his fingertips until his own body had been brought back under control. 

Pulling away Draco looked at him sadly.

Harry wished that they could say fuck it and just run away. Tell themselves that they weren’t needed and go live in a cottage nestled into somewhere soft and green - Devon, maybe. Live in a tiny cottage by an estuary and never bother with magic or anything ever again. With Draco felt like peace and life and love and Harry was loathe to give it up.

But another booming thud came from outside the room and Draco scrambled to his feet, muttering about floors and dirt and grabby Gryffindors. Harry allowed him to pull him up and smiled at him through the throbs of pain that continued to scatter through his scar. He gave the lightening a rub, watching as Draco pressed and rubbed at the centre of his chest, looking thoughtful.

“We should go. We still have a horcrux to destroy before the night is over.”

“Why Mr. Potter,” said Draco, his lips curling up in a half smile, “you have the best date night ideas. I can’t wait to see what you come up with when this particular war is over.”

“Where’s the sword?”

Draco’s brow furrowed and his hand slapped the floor where he’d dropped it. “I… I don’t know…” 

“Perhaps it didn’t like getting used as a harpoon in a horcrux,” suggested Harry and Draco gave him a glare. Rolling his eyes.

“Don’t worry about it. The sword goes where it needs to be. I’m sure we will get it back again before the end. If not, I know where we can get some basilisk fangs at Hogwarts.” Harry gave a short laugh and pulled Draco in for one more hug before he broke away and started to run for the door back into the school, Draco hot on his heels. 

As they entered the corridor they found Luna beautifically smiling while Goyle and Crabbe strained against a shimmering silver net that had catapaulted them up next to the ceiling. They dangled there, swearing up a storm, with Luna’s wand trained upon them. 

“Such a pleasure to see you again. I assume you’ve destroyed what you went to find, then?” If one didn’t know Luna better one might think that she were unconcerned about the two she’d caught, but the steely glint of her eye didn’t fool Harry.

“I’m sure one of the professors will have an idea of where to keep them,” suggested Draco archily, smirking as they growled down at him.

“I’m sure they will. Professor McGonagall is probably waiting for you in the Great Hall. She’s helping coordinate the defense,” Luna held up a galleon with an odd shape on one side. “Ask Neville to send word through the galleon.”

“Of course we will.”

They hightailed it down the staircases. Dodging potted mandrakes and whizzing fanged frisbees. Almost every group of defenders would cheer as they went along, wands clutched in sweaty palms. All was well until they got to the hallway outside of the charms corridor, when Draco was tackled from the side, the uncoordinated body that hit him taking him down to the floor. 

Harry skidded to a stop, turning and stopping himself from blasting the witch on Draco only at the last second when he noticed her purple hair.

“Tonks!”

She looked up at him, smiles ringing around her as her face transformed - literally - into the happiest of smiles. “Whotcha, Harry! This cousin of mine got my father back.”

Draco, blushing on the floor, elbowed her off, scrambled to his feet and started brushing himself off. The tackle-hug had put more creases in his trousers and, though Draco was a daub hand at ironing and straightening spells, a few creases wouldn’t hurt the worn material. He glared at Tonks, pulling himself up with whatever scraps of dignity he could come up with, and sniffed.

“How’d you get into the castle?”

“McGonagall opened the floo in the Great Hall, which the Headmaster can do when the castle is under attack.”

“I thought Snape was Headmaster,” said Draco suspiciously.

“Not any more. They had a duel that took out the window behind the professor’s table and Snape went through it. Disappeared in a cloud of smoke.” Tonks’ grin was infectious. “So Remus and I came through when the floos flared and asked for help defending Hogwarts. Mum has the baby. They’ve evacuated all the younger students out but defenders have been coming in too.”

“I’m on my way to speak with McGonagall…”

Tonks cut him off. “-Say hi to the old bird for me. Stay safe you two. Ron and Hermione are waiting for you there. If you see someone hurt send up blue sparks - that’s what they’re using for the medic teams.”

Harry nodded and Tonks punched Malfoy’s bicep as she dashed off. He rubbed it and frowned at Harry. “One of the many reasons I never wanted a cousin,” he said petulantly as they again raced off down the corridors, through the secret tunnels and burst into the Great Hall.

The calm dark stars twinkling along its length fought against the chaos underneath. Professor McGonagall, dressed in her green tartan robe with her hair done up in braids and wrapped round her head was the one unmoving piece before them. Neville sat next to her on a bench, drinking a cup of tea while Madam Pomfrey wrapped bandages around one of his legs where it looked like something had taken a chunk out of his thigh. A whirl of activity surrounded her as the floo smoked and belched new arrivals halfway down the wall. 

It took her less than a minute to catch sight of them, a smile cracking her stoic features as she waved them over. 

“Potter, I’m not sure what will happen tonight, but it is imperative that we protect…”

Harry was sure that she kept talking after that, but nothing registered as he fell into another vision. 

Voldemort. Nostril slits flaring and screaming against the Death Eaters in a room that Harry’s brain helpfully supplied as the Shrieking Shack. The dusty rooms were quite the same as when they’d arrived there in third year with perhaps an extra layer of dirt and grime across the surfaces and smeared on the window glass. All the ramshackle furniture had been cleared away and Voldemort was screaming at them as Hogwarts had yet to be breached. 

“I know where he is.”

Standing shock still, Voldemort paused, his eyes travelling towards the castle. A sliver of understanding passed across his face and Harry was flung out of his mind quickly and forcefully, pushing him back onto the floor with a shove that took him off his trainers and into Draco’s arms, knocking them both down in a heap.

“I know where he is.” Draco’s eyes widened as he stared at Harry. Ron and Hermione looked over his shoulder with concern and Harry gave them all a weak smile. “We’re going to have to hurry.”

The floo kept flaring green sparks and tumbling wizards and witches - but this time disgorging a tall, slim and determined witch with long blonde hair and a nasty look on her face. 

Narcissa Malfoy arrived in fire and Draco’s face split open in a grin. He scrambled out from underneath Harry and threw himself at her. 

“Mother!” 

She clung to him tightly, her knuckles white over her wand hand as she enveloped his shoulders.

And Harry’s heart broke just a bit. What he would have given, at this moment, to have a parent step out of a fireplace and snatch him up in a hug. Petting his hair with his nose and wrapped close to a strong shoulder that could help him bear the weight of what was happening. The pulse of his chest was pleased but he found he couldn’t accept ripping the feeling away from Draco.

He motioned to Ron and Hermione and they circled around Draco, following Harry away from the tiny knot of blond and whispered French. 

He’d be safer here. Away from anything that could hurt him. 

Harry’s protective instincts had always been strong, but this was beyond them all.

Draco deserved to stay with his mother. 

He needed to stay safe.

It was irrational. It was confusing. But he had to leave Draco behind. 

And his heart and head both knew it with crystal clarity. 

If he could have locked Draco in a lonely tower unreachable from the ground he would leave him there now.

He snorted as they left Draco and Narcissa behind. 

Just like Voldemort and his horcruxes he couldn’t bear to bring Draco with him into danger ever again.

“We need to get to the Shrieking Shack.”

Hermione grabbed him to slow him down just past the doors. “What about Draco?”

“What about Draco?” replied Harry gruffly. “We’re going into danger and I can’t…”

She sniffed but gave him a smile that was half full of exasperation. 

“I know how you two behave in a fight. Draco had a hard time getting in and out of Gringotts,” he replied, trying and failing to keep the panic he felt at the idea of Draco being in danger out of his voice. “I’m leaving him in Hogwarts. Safe as houses.”

Ron sighed. “Let’s go.”

They sprinted out of the doors of Hogwarts. Dodging spells from the Death Eaters who had broken through the perimeter. Flashes of red, yellow and green shot through the air before splintering on hastly thrown up shields. Balustrades crumbled above them, sending down rubble and sheets of gravel. Spiders crept across the edges of the forest and centaurs shot arrows through their thoraxes. 

Several professors crossed their path and they dodged several of the crystal balls that were dripping out of Trelawney’s cloak and rolling across the lawn.

Coming to a skidding stop at the edge of the Quidditch pitch Hermione cut underneath Harry’s arm with a panted perfect reducto that thumbed the knot at the edge of the trunk.

“How are they not coming through this tunnel?” she whispered to Harry and Ron. “Snape knows all about it!”

Ron hissed at her to stay quiet. Just as their feet hit the sandy floor Harry felt a twisting anger alight in his chest, making him short of breath and he had to stop for a moment, clawing at the walls before he could continue. It felt like Draco. Perhaps he’d noticed that they’d left him behind. They crouched and continued along through the spiderwebs and tripping over the mouseholes along the way. As they crept forward the voices from the room beyond came in and out of muffled focus.

“...y Lord, their resistance will crumble, you can be assured…” 

The room that Snape and Voldemort were in was dimly lit, a single lantern throwing everything into extremes. Snape’s pale face caught the light, while Voldemort was hunched near the wall, petting Nagini in a pool of darkness. But Harry, Harry could almost see him in sharp relief as his hand slid across the scales.

Snape’s eyes darted to the sides as Voldemort looked out the window of the Shrieking Shack, searching, perhaps, for an escape that the other Death Eaters had already achieved as they tried to make their way into the school. But Snape had remained. Probably been ordered to remain.

“Why doesn’t it work for me, Severus?” Voldemort’s eyes glowed red in the semi-darkness.

“... My Lord?” asked Snape. It was framed as a question, though not a single flicker of movement graced his features as Voldemort fingered the Elder Wand. It’s baubled surface catching as it moved.

“This wand… this amazing wand has felt no different to me than the one I first bought from Ollivander’s shop as a boy.”

“You have performed incredible magic with this wand, my Lord. I have no doubt that your future deeds will amaze us again.”

Voldemort turned on Snape, Nagini twining its way around his ankles, eyes locked on Snape’s torso. The giant snake’s head wove its way through the air as her tongue went close enough to taste Snape’s skin.

“I’ve interviewed several wandmakers and I have come to the conclusion that the wand’s loyalty is not yet mine. I believe, since you were the one that killed Dumbledore, that your death will bring me what I need most - the loyalty of this wand.”

Harry froze. Snape was looking directly at him. His eyes widened a fraction and a twitch of his lips suggested a smile just as Nagini thrust herself forward, her teeth sinking into his neck and torso. He fell back, his arms pinned back by a wordless spell and a twitch from the Elder Wand. 

Voldemort looked content as he watched Nagini strike again and again.

“Now my wand will bend to my will and no upstart child will be able to deflect my magic. I might lose a lieutenant but I shall gain far more.”

Snape’s groans filled the small space of the Shrieking Shack, Voldemort standing above Snape, waiting as he watched his limbs grow limp against the spells and blood loss. Hermione shifted slightly, trying to move backwards into the tunnel but Harry caught her eye and shook his head. They had to stay.

In the distance they heard a massive explosion from Hogwarts and Voldemort’s head whipped around to look. The smile he gave was cavernous and frightening, as the flickering red of the explosion played across his face. With a twitch of his fingers he called Nagini and disappeared into a cloud of black smoke that flowed out the window and into the starry sky.

It was the opportunity that Ron, Hermione and Harry had been waiting for. They burst from the passage. Harry lifted him into his arms as Hermione and Ron untangled the spells that had kept him bound against the snake.

Snape’s fingers clawed at the bloody wounds on his neck.  His breath rasped hashly out into the room.

“Look… look at me…” he demanded. The last wish of a dying man is sacred and Harry couldn’t help but obey. 

It drew a sigh out of Snape, his eyes overflowing as Harry looked deeply into eyes he’d never enjoyed before.

His lips quivering, Snape left off clawing at his wounds and gestured at the tear on his cheek. 

“Take them.”

Hermione left off casting healing spells for a moment as she hastly conjured a vial out of the thinnest of air and passed it into Harry’s hand. The trickle was just the wrong side of glowing. And it didn’t stop flowing. Snape lifted his hand, holding onto Harry’s chin, staring deeply at him, more vulnerable than he’d ever been before. 

“Hers… they’re hers…” it was just below a whisper and came with a flick of what might have been a smile on any other face.

Then Severus Snape - always watching, always piercing, always observing and never missing a trick vanished until Harry could only see himself reflected in his unmoving pupils.

Chapter Text

“The pensieve. It’s still in Dumbledore’s office.” Hermione’s voice broke at the end of the sentence. 

Harry nodded distractedly, releasing his hold on Snape and listening to the thump of his shoulders on the wood slat floor as though it were happening to someone far more distant than he was. 

Voldemort’s voice filled the shack, just as it shook the ground of Hogwarts and found its way into every classroom from the dungeons to the towers.

“You have fought - and if you continue to resist then you will be killed one by one. Collect your dead. But send out Harry Potter. If he does not come to me in the Forbidden Forest and give himself over to the last enemy, I shall, when the sand falls out of an hour, come for him myself and there will be not a soul left alive in Hogwarts when I am done. One. Hour.”

The high silky voice made Harry shiver and he looked over to his friends and recognized that they were doing the same thing. 

Ron’s face got hard as it did when he’d made a decision that none of his five older brothers could bully him out of. “Don’t listen to him. We’ll get up to the castle, then, if he’s gone into the forest we can come up with a new plan there.”

Harry nodded listlessly and allowed the two of them to manhandle him up off the floor, away from Snape, through the tunnel and back to the Quidditch pitch. They stopped then, gaping up at the damage done to the castle.

The whole west wing of the castle was a pile of rubble. Rocks and blocks of stone were still tumbling over the cliff, dropping either straight into the lake with splashes that could be heard even from where they were standing, or hitting the boathouse at the bottom of the cliffface with splintering wood and thumps that echoed his own heart.

He’d left Draco in there.

He’d left Draco in there.

He’d left Draco in THERE.

It was supposed to be safe.

And he started to run. 

His breath came short and burning hot through his lungs and his feet slapped the stones along his way. He’d nearly tumbled arse over teakettle before Ron caught him.

They burst through the entrance doors, then catapulted through the doors to the Great Hall, Harry’s trainers slapping the stones as the sprinted.

To where Draco would be waiting for him. 

There were many unmoving shapes littering the ground down the centre of the Hall. The Weasleys saw Ron and beckoned him over and he went, tugging Hermione behind him as the wailing got exponentially louder with his arrival. A red-headed figure, limbs akimbo, laid on a stretcher. It was Fred and Harry’s stomach plummeted.

He wrenched his eyes back to where Draco was having his own wounds tended to by Tonks and his mother. They’d gotten his jumper off and an old scar slashed across his chest. Harry knew exactly where that had come from and it made him sick with shame. 

There was another slash that seeped blood from his left arm, and his mother was holding him still as Tonks quickly and efficiently cast healing spells. But that new wound wasn’t what grabbed his attention. That was for the lightening bolt scar. It sliced through his collarbone, thick, ropey and still bright red despite its age, then hitched to the side across his heart then stretched all the way down to his hip. 

He’d done that.

Harry couldn’t stand just staring at the physical proof of his anger. Trembling fingers slipped into his pocket, removed the invisibility cloak and he shrugged it onto his shoulders. Silently leaving the Great Hall and winding his way up towards the stone gargoyle that guarded what had been Dumbledore’s office. 

“Password?” came the grinding voice and Harry’s brain short-circuited.

“I… I have no idea.”

The gargoiyle looked like it smiled as it slid away, revealing the spiral staircase and Harry blinked - hard.

His feet felt heavy as he made his way up towards the pensieve with Snape’s tears clutched in his fist. The wall of headmasters spaced across the fireplace wall were gone from their frames. The only one that remained was Snape. Unlike the other portraits, which at Harry’s last visit were snoozing or reading Snape was still. He hadn’t been activated yet.

Harry turned abruptly, hating the helpless feeling and wiping at his eyes, pushing past the potions equipment that hadn’t been there the last time and saw a wand laying on top of papers, as though it were a paperweight. He ignored all the clutter, stepping up to the pensieve that swirled behind the desk, dumping the memories inside and threw himself down after them. 

Stepping onto green grass he watched as Snape fell in love as a child with a flit of a girl that must have been Lily Evans. They raced through a playground and cut through the woods laughing and spinning around each other.

Then they were sorted away from each other. Snape always hanging around the outer outskirts of his mother’s orbit. Slowly gravitating towards the centre and James Potter - who Snape detested as his friend was captivated by him.

The division. The distrust. The duplicity. The deception.

Snape going to Dumbledore for help against Voldemort - and then being squeezed into a teaching position he hated and asked to be as terrible as he could so that he’d be trusted when, inevitably, the Dark Lord returned - and so he did return and Snape was pushed and pulled and played his part to perfection. Harry watched as the teacher he’d hated - who had tormented Neville almost to breaking - who had worked against them in public and nurtured their path in private in consultation with Dumbledore.

Then the two of them were sitting in this office, Snape with his wand out and working with his potions to try and put his hand back together and he watched as Dumbledore refused to lift a finger to help save Draco and felt a ball of anger burst in his chest, nurtured by all the tangled feelings he had and sat there like an angry ember.

An ember that fanned into a flame as the next scene flared into existence in front of them. Snape and Dumbledore were walking the edge of the Forbidden Forest at twilight. 

“For the last time, Severus, I can not give Harry more detentions when he must be given information before it’s too late.” Snape grumbled next to Dumbledore, who cheerfully ignored it. “Voldemort fears their connection. Harry’s soul burns him like a tongue on frozen steel…”

“Souls? Why would you bring up something so esoteric?” sneered Snape.

“In the case of Harry, Lord Voldemort and Draco, to speak of one is to speak of the other,” Dumbledore said lightly. “After you have killed me…”

Snape tried to shush him, but Dumbledore continued.

“After, when Voldemort refuses to let his snake leave his side - that will be a time to tell them.”

“Which one?” bit Snape into the night.

“Harry. He’ll know what to do. You see, when the Killing Curse rebounded upon Lord Voldemort, a fragment of his soul was blasted away from the rest of him and lodged itself in the only living thing in that room. As long as Voldemort is still within Harry, he can never die.”

Snape looked shocked. Staring at Dumbledore as the breeze ruffled his hair. “You’ve been saving him so he could die at the proper moment.”

“You seem surprised. I thought you hated the boy?” Dumbledore looked at the trees, immobile against Snape’s anger.

“And what has happened to Draco?”

“Well, Harry is a sensitive lad - when he saw Draco dying, a chip from where Voldemort is stuck into his own soul went to save Draco’s life. He’s not a killer.”

Snape’s face was whiter than Harry had ever seen it before. “I have spied for you. Lied for you. Killed for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep her son safe. Now you’re telling me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter - both of them casualties to - “

“I find myself touched, Severus. Have you grown to care for the boy? The boys themselves? Locked in a struggle and guided towards an ending neither Voldemort nor I expected?”

“For him?” Snape’s wandtip glowed blue in the moonlight as a doe burst into the undergrowth. It ducked and wove around the bushes before nudging Snape’s shoulder and receiving a scratch before she exploded into a firework of sparks.

“For how long?” asked Dumbledore.

“Always.”

Harry woke with one cheek pressed into Dumbledore’s office carpet. It was dusty and he sneezed as he rolled himself onto his feet. He could hear a pounding step and drew the sides of his invisibility cloak around himself again. 

“Harry!” Draco shouted, out of breath and red-cheeked from his run up the stairs. “Where are you?” he pleaded into the quiet room. The pensieve still burbled as Harry circled him. Draco was frowning down at the wand that sat on Snape’s desk.

Through the slice in his right sleeve Harry could see the bandages wrapped around Draco’s bicep with blood already oozing through the outside.

The only reason he was worried was because Harry had tied Draco to himself against his will. 

And Dumbledore had known that he wouldn’t duck out at this moment. That knowing at least the beginnings of love through Draco was a final gift that he’d been given before he had to walk his way into the woods on his own. 

He walked his way out of the castle. Seeing Hermione and Ron arguing slightly, pointing up towards the Headmaster’s office before Ron pulled Hermione into his arms and all Harry could see of her was her bushy hair over his forearms as her frame shook within them. He could hear a small voice holding in tears who just wanted to go home but he closed his ears and kept walking across the courtyard.

He passed by Neville at the doors of Hogwarts. One side of the double doors had been knocked down and splintered. Perhaps by one of the trolls that had been part of the attack on the castle. He had a cup of tea in one hand and the Sorting Hat of all things in the other. He was staring into the middle distance, haunted in a way that Harry wished he’d never seen.

He nearly tripped over the body of Lavender Brown. She’d been half-crushed by a column that had falled across the courtyard. The rest of her was shredded across the cobblestones. Far too many had died for him to be able to stand and walk his way out into the forest. Perhaps this would be the end. 

He started into the forest, soles sinking into the pathway under the trees that led deep.

He let the pull from behind his forehead scar lead him further, but the ache in his chest gripped onto him, pulling him back and slowing his steps. He lifted a hand to trace over his heart and his fingers tangled into the strings of his moleskin bag. 

Every once in a while Harry had a flash of brilliance. 

It always felt like the first flush of felix felicis growing up inside of him like a vine. 

Thought tonight it came with a wash of terror.

He opened the moleskin bag that hovered over the ache in his chest and pulled out the tiny snitch that Dumbledore had willed to him - willed to him, perhaps somehow knowing - believing - that Harry would make it far enough for this moment. It gleamed dully in moonlight filtered through Dementors and leafy branches. 

I open at the close.

Harry brought it to his lips and kissed it. “I am going to die.”

It broke open in his palm and Harry’s lip quivered as the halves dropped to the side, showing the rock that had been at the centre of the Gaunt Ring. It was cracked on one edge but the magic that pulsed within it shot straight to his core and stayed there. The invisibility cloak caught up in it and pulsed back. Harry spun the stone that must be the third hollow in his palm thrice and looked up at the person he needed to see.

James Potter was solid yet not. As tall as Harry and had a wide and easy smile on his face. From the foliage behind him came his mum, followed by Sirius. 

“No Remus to see me off?”

“Nah,” came his mum’s lilting voice, “he might be the one Marauder to make it out of this alive.”

“You’re nearly there,” said Sirius, pride colouring every syllable.

Harry swallowed hard against the fear that had made itself at home inside, banking all of his other emotions and warming itself on his worries. “You’ll stay with me?”

“Until the very end.”

Harry nodded, pulled off the cloak and shoved it deep into the moleskin bag. The one thing that could not be taken off him unless he was dead. With it surviving on his person after the snatchers dragged him to the Manor he was pretty sure no one else could even see the bag.

He stiffened his back, straightened his jaw, and followed the pull towards whatever clearing Voldemort was using as a base of operations in the forest. Courage was a hallmark of Gryffindors. And he had three courageous ones who’d walked and fought into their own deaths flanking him, lighting his way, and casting him looks that shored up the stubbornness to do what was needed. 

Disconnection. That’s what it was as they moved towards his ending. Harry took deep breaths, in through his nose, swoosh around in his lungs, out through his mouth. 

Would that be the same path when he was inevitably cut down?

“It’s time.”

“Are you sure?” asked Harry. He wasn’t sure who in the party had spoken.

“Yes.”

He gave a stiff nod and let go of the stone. It dropped and bounced amongst the other pebbles on the forest floor and Harry gave a grim smile. No one would ever find it again now. No one would ever know where to look for it again. 

With a sigh he scratched his cheek with his sleeve to wipe away the smudges and tears, squared his shoulders and stepped forwards. 

Voldemort froze where he stood next to the fire, his eyes fixed upon Harry.

“You were right, my Lord,” said the Death Eater next to him, voice muffled from the mask, “he was on his way.”

“HARRY! NO!” Hagrid was tied and held down by four Death Eaters. Ropes wearing against his neck as he struggled against them. The Death Eaters attached to his ropes were being pulled off their feet as he pushed himself towards standing. “NO! YOU LEAVE ‘EM ALO-”

“QUIET!” shouted Voldemort and the clearing fell into an uneasy silence. “I think we’re done here.”

Avada Kedavra

The green light hit him right over his left eye, where his scar throbbed and his thoughts hurtled into space.

Nearly a kilometer away on the steps of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry - Draco Malfoy, who was in the process of having an absolutely massive tantrum verging on panic attack in front of a passel of Gryffindors who swore up and down that no one had seen Harry Potter leave the castle, stopped shock still, his eyes slipping back, then toppled into an untidy heap, a hawthorn wand gripped tightly in his hand.

The silence was so peaceful.

Sitting up, hand moving through his wild curls, Harry cracked an eye open and looked around. It was beautiful. The wide windows above the tracks of King’s Cross spilled sunlight everywhere - though everything seemed to have a bluish cast to it. He stood, smoothed his jeans down and pressed off the gummy feeling on his palms before setting off towards somewhere.

A giant crack in the wall spilled itself green down one side, and at the bottom Harry found a smear of red. It looked small, red, loathesome and very very still. Swallowing against the bile that threatened, he scrambled back and directly into a warm body that helped him upright and stared down at him with a beloved twinkle in his eye.

“Ah, Harry.”

Harry was stunned, then furious. Dumbledore was just as he had been in life. Long flowing robes and beard, half-moon specs on the end of his long and broken nose.

“How dare you be here?”

“I can see that you’re upset with me.”

“Upset is too small a word for what I’m feeling right now.”

Dumbledore shrugged. Just waiting for Harry to take the lead - unlike when they’d met in his office. Against the rock of his disinterest Harry’s anger broke. “Why… why am I here? I should have died… I meant to…”

“That made all the difference, my boy,” said Dumbledore happily, “intention is always the backbone of any true magic. You’ve known that ever since your first days at Hogwarts.”

“Am I alive?”

“You were a Horcrux, an unintended one to be sure… but you’re also yourself. Since his spell destroyed the piece of soul that he forced inside of you, you’re now free to make your own decisions about what you’d like to do next.”

“Am I only here because I made my own Horcrux?”

“Perhaps, though it was an unintended one,” 

“Looks like there’s a lot of that going around,” Harry said petulantly, kicking at the not-floor with his not-trainer that, even in this not-place was untidily laced. “Do you know why my wand broke the wand he borrowed?”

“I can’t tell you anything that you haven’t already discovered for yourself.”

“He has your wand, doesn’t he? Riddle? The Elder Wand?” 

At that Dumbledore gave him one of his secretive little smiles and nodded. “Though I feel like I should correct you - he tried to kill you with my wand - and seems to have failed.”

“I only have two of The Deathly Hallows.”

That wiped the smile off Dumbledore’s face. “The ring… That was a desire that led to my own downfall. The curse in the ring… it took me away at the proper time but when I knew that you would be vulnerable and for that I am so sorry.”

They walked down the platform together. Always moving but never making any progress. 

“I was safer for the world at Hogwarts. Less ambitious. Less dangerous. A better teacher, I hope.”

“You were. But you had Grindelwald’s wand - “

“A wand that was built for war and death. I set it to teaching, instead. A far better purpose than bringing the world under my heel,” said Dumbledore mildly.

“Did you expect him to go after your wand?”

“I knew that he would try. Especially once Ollivander gave him the information about the twin cores of your wands. He truly, now that he thinks you’re dead, believes that the Elder Wand has made him truly invincible.”

“You planned it with him, didn’t you, so that he’d think Snape was the Wand’s master?”

“I did - though that didn’t work out the way that I wanted it to.”

“No.”

They watched as a train chuffed its way into the station, resting comfortably against the platform and waiting patiently. The steam from the engine settling over him like a warm blanket.

“Where will this train take me?”

“It takes you where you’d like to go.”

Silence.

“Voldemort has the Elder Wand.”

“That’s true. Though as of yet he’s not its master.”

“I know.”

“Of course you do.”

“I don’t fear where I’d go if I don’t go back into that forest.”

“I know. But you pity the living far more than the dead. Though it’s peaceful here I know that you’d regret leaving those who trust and need you behind.”

“True.”

It was peaceful here, as Harry found himself sitting on a seat of the train and staring down at Dumbledore on the platform. The bright light was brilliant and soothing and it was starting to blur the edges of everything around him.

“Professor Dumbledore - is this real?”

“Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”

There was a crashing sound as the train set itself in motion. Harry knew that ahead was more pain. More fear. More loss.

Why wouldn’t it be?

But there was also the possibility for more Draco - and for Draco, well… life was a risk he was willing to take. 

The smell of the forest floor is not the most pleasant of smells. It smells of beetles and mushrooms and leaves and the musty damp. But Harry had almost smelled nothing better in his life. Well, his new life. This brand-new chance he’d gotten to make things right with Draco, defeat Voldemort and live happily ever after - or at least more happily than he’d ever lived before.

“My Lord… My Lord…” purred Bellatrix and Harry felt his skin crawl with the lowerlike overtones in her voice. As though she were about to cling to him and start rutting against him right away.

His head was ringing with the remains of the killing curse but Harry clung to that feeling. Pain was better than unconsciousness.

He’d expected to hear cheering for his demise but, from the corner of his eye he watched as Bellatrix and several other Death Eaters helped Voldemort back to standing. It seemed destroying his second-to-last horcrux had hurt the Dark Lord too and Harry felt a grim satisfaction in knowing that.

“I do not require assistance,” snapped Voldemort. There was a quick hex that burnt the air and a squeak from the far side of the clearing. “You… does the boy live? Or is he dead?”

Jeers and catfalls followed and hands, rough and bringing with them a smell of bursting firewhiskey touched his shoulder and ribs. 

“Narcissa… Draco… are they alive? In the castle?”

It was barely audible, and Lucius Malfoy, his long hair brushing Harry’s cheek and shielding them from Voldemort’s attention, gripped his elbow so hard he could feel all of his fingernails.

Gently and as softly as he could Harry nodded with the smallest shake he could. “Yes.”

Lucius shoved off of him, alive with projected confidence and joy. “He is dead!”

Keeping his eyes closed Harry felt the hits of silver, green and red hexes hit him in celebration of his own death. He needed to stay still and quiet until the most opportune moment. He knew that his body wouldn’t be held sacred by the Death Eaters and they did not disappoint. 

He was launched into the air and the cruciatus cast upon him as he fell again. He could hear Hagrid’s sobs over the laughter and joy as they celebrated the death of the Dark Lord’s greatest enemy. He felt the wand he’d stolen from the snatcher all those weeks ago snap as his body hit a tree. Shouts of laughter followed a hand forcing his glasses back on his nose. 

But the amusement from a dead body, especially when you’ve killed so often recently, is lost quickly. 

Harry’s head was swimming as he vaguely heard orders given. Then he was being lifted by the gentlest of arms. From the size of them he knew exactly who was cradling him as the Dark Lord led his entourage towards Hogwarts.

Hagrid.

Harry’s heart swelled, hurting for him, but taking the time to rest and recover before the final battle would begin. He tried to bring himself together, stretch out his fingers, wiggle his toes in his trainers. Hagrid was so distraught that Harry was sure that he hadn’t noticed that Harry was breathing shallowly next to his vest, or curled his fingers around his pocket. But he lay silent, conserving his strength for what was to come.

Eventually the Dark Lord called a stop, and Harry cracked an eye open. 

They were on the bridge that connected the Forbidden Forest to the courtyard of Hogwarts. The drawbridge was still down over the ditch and, gathered on the other side, were the remains of the defenders.

“The Boy Who Lived is Dead!” gloated Voldemort, who strode into the courtyard with Nagini draped around his neck. “The battle is won! Come out and bow - do not resist or you’ll be lying next to your saviour!”

“No!” There was the sound of a scuffle and thump as though someone had physically stopped Draco from throwing himself towards Harry. He’d know that voice anywhere and his chest ached where his horcrux’s pain seeped into him. “He can’t be dead. He can’t.”

Voldemort’s gloating laughter crackled in the air and pounding footfalls showed another had broken away from the pack. A hex and a short explosion and Harry saw a figure hit the ground. His heart leapt to his throat until he noticed that the hair was nearly brown rather than silver like a sickle. But Bellatrix’s cackle made the hairs on his neck stick straight up in fear.

“It’s Neville Longbottom, Lord Voldemort. His parents were against you but it seems like he will be our first recruit from our enemies. An excellent choice, as I’ve heard he’s been making life difficult for your agents in the castle.”

“Sprited, hmmm?” said Voldemort. “Why don’t we use you as an example to all those who might think to oppose me?” 

He shot a series of spells at Neville that snapped his legs and arms into his body and thrust the Sorting Hat on his head, then - with a lazy flick of his wand - set the Sorting Hat alight, moving towards Neville with a flourish and sweep of his robes that would be more natural on a stage than here in a war zone.

Many things happened right at that moment. 

Neville, who had spent years learning how to break out of a full body bind wandless - perhaps one of the few magical talents he truly possessed - suddenly regained control of his limbs. Tumbling to the side he came up with the Sword of Gryffindor in his hand and chopped at Voldemort with all his might.

Voldemort, who had been leaning in to enjoy Neville’s pain and anguish, started backwards with a high noise that one could call a shriek if one was feeling mean-spirited. He actually stepped on the edge of his robe and faltered - which was when the sword-blade in Neville’s hand connected with Nagini’s neck, slicing clean through and lopping it off as though Neville had been training to do just that for years.

Nagini’s head soaring into the air caught everyone’s attention - which was what Harry used as a distraction as he tumbled out of Hagrid’s arms, racing towards the steps where he could see Draco tugging and trying to get away from his mother, who had him held round the waist.

Harry heard the snake’s body thud against the ground behind him as Draco broke free and ran towards him,

“Stop!” screamed Voldemort - his high voice sounding far more scared and shocked than it had any right to be. Jinxes and hexes spilled from him and Harry dodged them, sprinting all the way.

A huge morsmordre blasted out of the Death Eater lines and Draco, eyes locked on Harry, threw his wand.

Harry had never been an athlete on the ground. 

Dudley had been signed up for football in the park, swimming at the community pool and cricket. 

But Harry was a seeker.

And the wand spun in the air, unerringly towards his outstretched hand. 

His fingers closed around it and he turned, pointed directed at Voldemort and shouted “EXPELLIARMUS” just as Voldemort himself tried to again cast the killing curse at Harry.

They reacted in nearly the same way as they had years earlier in the graveyard. A connection of bridged light sprang up between them. Voldemort trying to force his will down the tie but Harry’s will and spell forcing him back - further and further - and the point the two spells met to retreat away from Harry.

“You thought that you had your wand’s loyalty?” shouted Harry over the noise and ruckus. “Draco disarmed Dumbledore on that Astronomy Tower. You might think that you own him.” Harry took a step forward. “You might think that he’s yours.” Another step. “But he’s mine. And he’s been mine for a long time, Tom Riddle. And he’ll be mine long after you’re gone.”

The light kept pressing away from him and Voldemort kept backing up until there was nowhere left to go. 

When Harry’s spell reached the Elder Wand it blasted the killing curse back into Voldemort and sent the Hallow hurtling into Harry’s other hand. The shields that had kept everyone else from reaching him or Voldemort came down in a cascade of sound. 

Death Eaters were disappearing in clouds of black smoke as Harry wobbled on his feet. 

Strong arms pulled him in and controlled his descent to the ground. Draco, his face screwed up in anger glared down at him. “If you ever do anything like that to me again I’ll kill you myself.”

Harry chuckled and, ignoring the short pockets of fighting that crested and disappeared one after another as the Death Eaters retreated, pulled Draco down and nuzzled into his neck. He couldn’t get enough of Draco. His hands roamed freely as his lips kissed up the curving smirk of Draco’s lips.

“Get a room you two!” called Ron, pulling Hermione into his arms and smiling down at them.

Draco gave Harry a predatory smile. “I’m sure in a castle as large as Hogwarts we can find ourselves a bed.”

Harry didn’t respond, frozen as he realized what he’d have to confess and Draco’s smile slowly wiped off his face, replaced by innocent confusion. 

“What’s wrong?”

He didn’t want to have to tell Draco - but it couldn’t be put off. Not when faced with the Horcrux he’d never intended to make.

Draco had been remarkably silent as Harry had explained what had happened in the bathroom over a cup of tea in the Great Hall, murmurs of pain and relief all around them. 

“Harry Potter and the Unintended Horcrux,” he said sarcastically, looking anywhere but Harry. 

“Please look at me.”

“No.”

Battling against the lump in his throat, Harry tried to reach out, touch Draco - anything. All he wanted was Draco as close as he possible could. He knew that at least some of this could be due to the fact that a fragment of his soul was sitting inside of Draco right now. But Draco recoiled from him. So Harry sat on his hands with Hermione anxiously sitting on the edge of her seat next to him. 

Puffing a bit of air up to force his fringe back with a shake of his head Draco took a shaky breath.

“I never intended to make you... Make you my horcrux,” Harry tried to explain.

“You just always had to be special, didn’t you, Harry?”

“What’s important right now,” cut in Hermione, pulling a book from the stack next to her and opening it on her lap, “is destroying the horcrux in such a way that we don’t also destroy the soul fragment or you, Draco.”

“Thanks ever so,” snarled Draco. “I’m glad my physical safety is third on the list of priorities.”

“Draco…” warned Harry, which only got him a pair of blazing eyes and one of Draco’s legendary frowns.

“No, Potter.” 

Harry winced as Draco used his last name, something that hadn’t happened for weeks, and he wished that they could just take it back. Pretend that he hadn’t heard what he had from the depths of the pensieve or whatever it was that Dumbledore had been and go back to just being loved and loving Draco without all this forcing itself up between them.

Draco exploded, leaping from the chair to pace up and down the room, making sure to stay as far away from Harry as possible. “Do you even like me? Do you even like men? Or are you only attracted to me because I happen to have a sliver of your soul wedged inside of me?”

“I love you.”

“I’d believe that more if your soul was just in your body and you weren’t trying to get in my pants because you feel better when your soul is all in one place.”

Hermione moved first, pushing between them and giving Draco a hug as he curved around her and cried into her bushy hair. She stroked his hair back and Harry tried to move forward but Draco hit him with a leglocker curse and he tipped over.

“You don’t get to toy with me any more, Potter.” His voice was muffled but Harry felt a streak of pain lance through him like lightening. “I want it out.”

“It could be dangerous, Draco,” said Hermione.

“I don’t care.”

Harry quietly forced himself out of the room and into the Gryffindor dormatories, knowing that going to Draco or trying to force him to stay would only make the heartbreak worse for both of them. 

And heartbreak it was. He stumbled out of the Burrow and into the orchard. The trees were green and shaded, the apple blossoms loaded and releasing their scent into the air. The patterned light should have helped him calm but Harry stood there, rough bark under his hands and forehead pressed against one of the branches and had himself an anxiety attack. 

It was as he was breathing heavily, chest heaving, and the world around getting small - totally unable to differentiate between the pain Draco was feeling and his own, that Ginny arrived. She smoothed his hair back and teased him and talked him around until he was lying back, head cradled in her lap and shredding a leaf between his fingers.

“Hermione will make sure it’s as safe as it can be for both of you, you know that, right?”

“What if he doesn’t love me any more?”

“You’ll have to cross that bridge when you get there. But between Draco’s reaction and yours - especially with you two feeding off of each other every moment before that bathroom - I’m sure there’ll be some passion there for the both of you.” He snorted and she flicked his ear. “Come on, then, Mum wants you to get some chocolate into you. Says it’s the best when your emotions are all wonky.”

“Just like dementors.”

“Just like dementors,” she agreed, squeezing his elbow.

In the end, Hermione was able to put together the runes and arithmancy for restoring a Horcrux pretty quickly. Draco had left the Burrow without speaking to anyone and refused all owls save Hermione’s. Harry had nearly driven her mad asking after Draco, but she’d remained firm. 

It was then that he stood in one rune circle, looking over at Draco, who was standing in another, the two of them linked with inked markings on the floor that looked like bloodstains and bathwater and dragon’s soot in the shape of an infinity symbol, holding both their circles inside it. Hermione had booked a room in the Department of Mysteries for this experiment, and, being as she was who she was the Department made itself available to her. Harry wouldn’t be surprised in five years if she was running the whole thing.

Draco looked good. 

Wearing pristine robes like armour.

Even though Harry was distracted by the broad expanse of artful neck. Remembering the way the shell curtains at the cottage had pattered the skin there with bright light and deep shadow. How Draco had arched towards him while they kissed and stared into Harry’s eyes while drawing Harry into his silver. How Draco had smiled and looked at him through thick eyelashes. How he’d fallen perhaps too far and too fast all at once and wished he could scoop those moments back from the rest of the universe. 

Hermione, wand raised in the centre like a conductor, gave Draco a nod and trembling he lifted his hands to the collar of his robes and started to undo all the fiddly little buttons that kept his black robes close to his body. His thumbs were quick and sure and Harry’s guilt gnawed at him as the lightning bolt scar came into view. It was still remarkably puffy for a year old scar - Draco bringing up a hand to stroke at the centre line, much like - much like how Harry himself had been poking and rubbing at his own horcrux scar.

A lump formed in his throat.

“Now Harry, it’s important that you do this with intent. The spell shouldn’t have any real affect on you - aside from bringing in your soul fragment - so most of my attention will be on Draco.” Hermione sounded calm and reassuring, but Harry had been friends with her long enough to see the lines of tension down her back and into her legs. She was scared of what might come, but confident enough to put his soul back together.

She started chanting while Draco looked anywhere but Harry.

Harry, for his part, couldn’t stop looking. For the spell to work and the horcrux to be destroyed but leave Draco alive - Harry had to be appropriately sorry. It wasn’t hard to do while looking at Draco. He winced looking at his scars and knowing that he’d forced Draco into a relationship with him through making him his horcrux. 

Twisting guilt for distorting Draco’s feelings and warping them into a relationship against Draco’s will wrapped its coils around his stomach. He hadn’t been able to keep down more than toast the last few days. 

Draco who, according to all their now mutual friends, was keeping up an impressive strop about the whole situation.

Harry met Draco’s eyes, winced and looked down, allowing the guilt to wash over him, through him like a wave.

There was only way to destroy a horcrux without destroying its container if you didn’t want to tangle with intention and a killing curse - and that was for the person who made it to rip their own soul to pieces over what they’d done and accept the fragment back. 

So that was what Draco and Hermione were doing. 

Draco’s long, slender limbs were graceful as he passed the energy to Hermione and she used it to power the spell.

Harry squeezed his eyes shut.

He couldn’t watch.

The lines and web of the spell grew up around them. Thick and tight. Harry struggled to breathe once they reached his chest.

“Now, Harry,” called Hermione in her best my-friend-is-an-idiot-and-now-I-have-to-clean-up-his-mess voice, “if you could just pull yourself open, just like we’ve been practicing.”

Harry, for all that Hermione was talking to him gently, didn’t want to. He nodded instead. With careful placement, he very carefully drew the Elder Wand and tapped it against his chest - right where Draco’s curse scar sat. He need to be just as regretful as he was when he'd sliced Draco's chest open and nearly - though temporarily - killed him. Worse this time because he'd be knowingly hurting Draco to remove the spark of his soul that he'd left there - right under the centre of his lightning scar.

A cry that echoed through the soul fragment that was once Draco and made Harry feel as though it were the end of the world.

He opened his eyes as they flooded with tears and everything went fuzzy around the edges. Green. 

The Elder Wand trembled, pulling more power through it than Harry had ever felt from a spell before - even the one that had exploded and sent the Dark Lord’s killing curse back at himself. The chattering buzz started in his teeth and spread down his body. He could feel it in every pulse, screaming through his every pore, the hum worming into every cranny.

Harry thought he was screaming. 

Draco certainly was. 

Ribbons of pain fluttered across him as his whole chest lit up from within.

The silence that followed was incredibly loud.

Sprawled out across the floor, Draco was using his arms to get himself up into a sitting position and Hermione was tracing complicated wand movements in the air.

“Well done, both of you…” she murmured, talking to herself as she ran through her diagnostics before she stopped, looking at Draco with what seemed like pity, “Draco…”

“Stop!” Draco said harshly. “Is Potter supposed to look like that?”

Hazy wavering lines crossed. 

Blue? No… green. Slytherin green slid across… silent… calm…

Waking up somewhere else than Grimmauld Place would have been worse, thought Harry. 

Grimmauld Place meant that Hermione had been able to control whatever reaction Harry had had to retrieving his soul fragment and he was, at least for the moment, in one piece and in no danger of dying. Though the Slytherin in the poofy chair next to his bed might not have agreed with his assessment of future health.

Draco’s face was all harsh angles again.

And while Harry still wanted him he missed the thrum of desire that normally pulsed under his skin as he locked eyes with Draco.

He sat prim and proper in the chair, far posher than Harry had ever been.

“I’m glad to see that you’re awake. I’m leaving.”

Harry pushed his elbows back and tried to sit up, stilling as Draco lifted a palm to stop him.

“There’s no use arguing with me, Potter. I’m going to be able to walk away with the heir’s share of the Malfoy fortune. I’ve signed over the rest to the war orphans. There should be no reason whatsoever that you’ll have to lay eyes on me again.”

“Draco - “

“No, Potter.” 

Harry was back to being Potter again. How much of a change had having that sliver of soul done to Draco? He swallowed. Hard. Draco was one of the most stubborn people on the face of the planet. Hermione barely edged him out of first place.

Draco stood, every stitch of himself devoid of personality and Harry muleishly crossed his arms. 

“We had a mutually profitable situationship. I’m comforted by the fact that I was able to provide companionship on your way to saving us all from the Dark Lord but I think it best that we part.”

“Where is this coming from?” asked Harry, anger flushing his neck. “I want -”

“You have very little idea of what you want, Potter.”

“Where are you going to go?”

There was nothing chaining Draco to him any more. With a smirk that looked more like a sneer Draco rose gracefully and looked down at him. “Perhaps Devon. I hear the estuaries are lovely.” He pulled his wand out of his sleeve. The hawthorn slightly dinged on one side but polished as brightly as the sun. “I haven’t any need for this any more. Good luck.”

He placed it on the nightstand near Harry’s head, but paused at the door. He didn’t look back. But that pause haunted Harry over the next few months. He’d left Harry behind himself, bleeding, just as Harry had left him in the bathroom and started the whole mess.

There’d been the usual balls and parties that Harry had been dragged through by the victorious. The Malfoys had never appeared, even on the edges or fringes. Lucius and Narcissa had moved out of the Manor, which was to be used as to the benefits of the war orphans, and to a little pied-a-terre in London. Draco hadn’t had hide nor hair seen anyplace magical since he’d walked out of Grimmauld just before his eighteenth birthday and his confrontation with Harry.

Luna, bless her, had come to visit on Harry’s birthday, tea service in one hand and a smile in the other. 

They’d laughed and eaten themselves sick on pumpkin pasties on the settees in the lounge and Harry spent his first afternoon since the war not thinking about Draco Malfoy. Just as she was leaving she pressed a small candy dish filled with ice mice into Harry’s hands. 

“Thanks, Luna,” he said, popping one of the mice into his mouth and feeling his tongue freeze. He gave her a hug while he waited for it the thaw. The dish was made from clay, with a wonky rim and not-quite-perfect glazing. “Did you make this yourself?”

“No,” she said, a smile curving her face into sunshine. “I got it in Devon.”

“It seems happy.”

“How astute of you to notice,” she said, wrinkling her nose in his direction. “I think it’s time for you to ask yourself what you want, Harry - or, to be more specific - who it is you want. You’ve been herded for so much of your life that I’m entirely interested to see where you lead yourself.”

They sat with that thought through the rest of tea, and as Harry let her out into the July sunshine and sat on the stoop of Grimmauld. The clouds were fine puffs of cloud across the sky. He twisted the bowl in his hands, finding some kind peace in the amateur nature of it.

Perhaps he should take a pottery class. Slipping something useful out of mud seemed soothing.

Perhaps he should go see a mindhealer like Hermione had suggested before they left for Australia. 

Then he could go find Draco.

Chapter Text

The Potter’s Studio was on a short rise and perched near the edge of a muddy estuary. 

Devon is full of them. 

A clear cut where a burbling stream thwaps against the might of the ocean, spilling across the land and creating a unique little ecosystem. 

Harry Potter looked over it and smiled, tipped his head to the side, and subtly adjusted the invisibility cloak around his shoulders. 

He watched as the proprietor of the studio gracefully manoeuvred around the four wheels where students threw pots, successfully or not. The proprietor, teacher in this instance, truly, was endlessly patient. Dipping long and strong fingers into the slip and using the curve of his palm to flatten or lengthen a pot. Demonstrating the proper hand movements, easily spinning it back to how it had been and then cradling the student’s as they tried (usually unsuccessfully) to replicate his.

There was a long smudge of clay that adorned the teacher’s high cheekbone and slashed through the smile lines and dimple that nestled itself against his face, giving him the air of never having had a terrible life, though Harry knew that that wasn’t the truth. The truth was that this particular person had had a terribly difficult life. 

He’d been tortured and tortured others. 

He’d been hurt and killed those around himself. 

He’d once had use of magic, though it was likely he’d never be able to do more than light a candle with what remained to him.

He’d once had a fortune and had walked away with just enough to start over.

The trees and dales quieted around Harry as the sun set, the students set their pots - or masterpieces they’d find some other name than pot for - into the kiln, picked up their bags, hugged or patted their teacher as they traipsed down the steps and meandered down the path, their chatter loud in the quiet evening. 

It was only then that the teacher cleaned his hands quickly without a single wasted motion. He moved to the tiny porch of the studio to drink a cup of tea, lean body melting onto the door jamb and the sea and sky reflecting themselves into his silver-grey eyes. 

After he went back inside to light the kiln and hang up his apron, Harry rambled down to the studio, staring up at the weather-worn sign.

Luna said that it had gone up the first year the studio had been opened. It was white with blue letters and a small green lion in the corner. Luna said she’d come in that day for a quick glass of dirrigible plum wine and a laugh as he’d proudly shown her the tables, the chairs, the wheels and watched as she tried to make a candlestick. Luna had been sure to visit Harry in St. Mungo’s the same day she’d stopped at Draco’s so he’d know where to go when the time came.

Harry had been nearly certain that it would never come.

Draco Malfoy, he was certain, would never want to see Harry again. 

Harry had been the one who had made him into a horcrux in the first place, after all.

But over the last three years Draco had lived quietly in Devon in a cottage just down the lane from his studio. Started with a therapist. Thrown his first pot on a wheel. It still sat in the front window, next to one of Draco’s latest creations. 

The first was squat. Ugly. Slightly mashed on the left side and inexpertly painted. 

The second was as tall, lean and graceful as the proprietor. With a scooped edge and two sophisticated handles and an elegant base.

Along the bottom of the window, through which a passer-by could observe the artisan who now could make beautiful pottery, was a simple phrase.

“Clay can be reshaped and remade into something new and beautiful.”

Harry tiptoed up to the door, considering it, as he had many nights over the last few months.

Today, however, was the day that he finally pushed the door open instead of turning away at the last moment as his courage failed, the jaunty bell ringing into the rest of the shop. 

“Just a moment!” came from the back as Harry nervously pulled the invisibility cloak from his body. 

Eventually Draco appeared from the back, holding an unfired pot. Harry knew it was unfired because it collapsed onto itself when Draco dropped it in shock rather than shattering against the slate floor. 

He still wore his hair half-shaved on the bottom and medium-long on the top, giving him a soft fringe and sweep that made Harry’s heart want to beat straight out of his chest.

“Hullo, Draco.”

Draco blinked, then scooped up the ruined pot and slapped it into the clay bucket. “I’m not sure what I’m going to tell Katherine about her pot. She worked so hard on this tonight.”

“Perhaps you could tell her that an old friend stopped by and you were startled to see him?”

“Is that what we are?” asked Draco quietly, leaning back against the back countertop, eyes sweeping up and down Harry’s body. “I wondered.”

“Perhaps I’d like to get to know you better when we don’t have a war going on in the background.”

Draco looked like he was deciding between fight or flight and Harry decided that he needed to show courage for the both of them. 

“I was wondering if I could take you out for tea sometime.”

“Tea?” asked Draco with a mild scoff, tucking an errant strand of hair behind his ear. “How plebian.”

“That’s what you drink in the mornings,” replied Harry, willing his heart to stop thudding. “You drink a single cup of coffee from the Costa in town in the afternoon. Perhaps you’d let me buy you that cup.”

“Stalking me again, Potter?”

Harry flashed a crooked smile, opening his hands and stepping closer. “Seems like you’ve become more of a Potter than I’ve ever been.”

Draco snorted and Harry took another step into his space, then another when Draco didn’t protest. He stopped just out of touching range, his fingers clenching against the desire to pull Draco in and run them up and down his body. The static in the air pulled up between them and Harry couldn’t help but smile. There was still something there - and Draco wouldn’t be able to hide from it forever.

Harry hadn’t been the one that had run away, after all, and if he were going to catch Draco he’d have to make him curious enough to chase him back.

He watched as a pretty flush crept up Draco’s neck.

Followed the line of his throat as he swallowed.

Fought down the urge to claim that spot under Draco’s ear that made his knees weak and made Harry’s body pulse with desire. 

“It occurred to me that the bloke I’d been involved with during the war might’ve been worried I only liked him because he had a slice of my soul in him.”

“He sounds like a sensible fellow.”

Harry’s lips twitched, forcing down a smile. “He walked away so I could decide my own future. Has to be one of the most Gryffindor things I’ve ever seen him do.”

“Bite your tongue,” sneered Draco as his heat brushed up against Harry’s chest. “Have you made some sort of decision about your own future?”

“I’ve quit the Aurors.”

“Anyone could have told you that you would.”

“I fixed up Grimmauld Place but I gave it to Ron and Hermione. They’re getting married in the fall if you’d like to come.”

“They should know where to send an invitation. I have no doubt that you’ll share the address since you have no regard for my privacy whatsoever.”

“I’ve dated and it wasn’t just you - I do like men. More than women, but I’ve found I like women too. Just not as much as one particular man could.”

Draco cast his eyes down and to the side. “And why are you sharing such a revelation with me?”

Harry grinned, stepping even closer, over one of Draco’s thighs and shivering as the other man started to run his fingers over his hips. “Because I was hoping to retire to a nice and quiet slice of Devon and make some pots.”

With a chuckle, Draco leaned his head back, looking down into Harry’s eyes with crinkles in the corners and a slow smile that was threatening to eclipse his face. “Do you think anywhere you’d ever go could be quiet?”

Leaning in, Harry captured Draco’s jaw with one hand and brushed his stubble against his thumb, enjoying the gooseflesh that rippled away from the contact. “I know that nowhere I end up with you will ever be remotely quiet.”

That got all of Draco’s attention, and Harry continued - “if I kiss you, will you kiss me back?”

Smooth, thin and expressive lips arched upwards into a smile that made Harry’s heart race. 

“You’ll never know until you give it a try, Harry.”

“Then perhaps we ought to.”