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Draco received Andromeda’s floo call at 6:13am, just after he’d regained the dubious ability to walk. 

“Auntie?” Draco asked groggily, feeling like three-day old minced beef. He staggered from his washroom with his dressing gown wrapped tightly around him, aware that he was an absolute wreck. His joints cracked audibly as he reached for the wall to stabilise himself. The room refused to stop spinning at a lazy, sickening tilt. 

Blast it, Draco thought. Ladon hadn’t drunk any of the water left out for him. They’d be sick as a dog for the rest of the day. Draco blinked hard, dragging himself arduously to the present moment. 

Andromeda’s head was in the fire of the floo he had jerry-rigged in his living room. Her neck was craned at an awkward angle and a few of her flyaway curls dragged through the grate. 

“I need you to go check on the house,” she told him in that brusque, no-nonsense way of hers. Her face was stern and pinched in the fire in a worried expression that Draco could read well, a skill hard won from years spent together, years where he verbally tiptoed around his worse ideas and she, too wily by half, could cut down all his hedges. “The wards picked up some activity last night. Can you make sure they’re not faulty?”

Draco groaned, sliding down to the floor. His legs felt so stiff he entertained that he would never get up. He would just die here, on the tatty rug of the student home he was living in, calcified until his flatmates found him. Finding a student house share with a fireplace and hassling the floo office into getting it connected had been a nightmare and a half that he now regretted even envisioning. It probably wouldn’t have happened at all if not for Hermione Granger's unique ability to threaten the professionalism into even the laziest of government bureaucrats for a short time. Draco wasn’t even supposed to employ Leedy, technically, but he paid her better than he could afford, and she was discreet enough that his flatmates simply thought he was particularly tidy. “Potter is there, I’m sure he has a handle on whatever’s going on.” 

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Andy replied grimly. “What if Teddy’s had another accidental magic outburst and Harry’s accidentally made it worse? You remember the vanished living room.”

He remembered the vanished living room. “I remember the vanished living room,” Draco reluctantly agreed.

It had taken ages to remove the abyss from the centre of Andromeda’s house, and even longer to return her living room back to its original state. The sofa was still a much more dingy brown and much more singed than it had been for all its time spent drifting in the aether, and nobody ever could get the faint smell of ozone out of it. 

Draco sprawled his limbs akimbo in a way that would have appalled himself any other day. “Give me a few minutes. I’ll be there,” he sighed.

“Thank you,” she said, her expression softening. Her eyebrows drew up again and the lines around her eyes and mouth faded. When they did, she hardly looked like a shadow of Aunt Bella. “You know I would go, if it wouldn’t be such a hassle to get to the floo office.”

Draco waved her away. “This is your first vacation in years, Auntie,” he said. “Enjoy France.” 

A vacation wasn’t quite the word for what Andromeda was doing, but Draco couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge the truth out loud. Andy was visiting Narcissa, who staunchly refused to set foot on British soil since the post-war trials. 

Draco was twenty-four. He no longer needed a mother figure. He was a grown adult. But he had been eighteen once, and desperately worried he would be incarcerated for life. He had been sixteen once, and asked to throw himself in the line of fire for her and her husband, into the fray they had helped create. He had been a child once, desperate for approval that had never been granted. 

Draco vacillated between obsessively planning out what he would say if he ever spoke to his mother once more, and never wanting to see her face again. 

He knew Andromeda deserved the chance to reconnect with her sister if that’s what she so desired. He had to tell himself over and over. It didn’t mean she was choosing his mother over him. It had taken the two Black sisters nearly seven years of correspondence to reconvene, and even now, Andromeda was staying in a separate wing entirely at the Black family chateau outside of Nice. 

Draco desperately wanted to know how things were going, but only if they were going poorly. Otherwise, the less said, the better. 

Ladon had no such avoidant aspirations. Draco had been trained up, rigorously, to ignore and suppress his most unruly emotions, an indoctrination his wolf had never suffered. The only living person he wanted to attack more eagerly than Narcissa was Lucius, imprisoned for life with no chance of returning to society, whether polite or profoundly uncivilised. 

Draco often thanked the stars for that verdict, cold and hollowed out though it made him feel to contemplate, as though at his core he was composed of a black hole instead of a constellation. 

Still within the floo, Andy advised sternly, “And take care of yourself today, darling.” Embers blinked throughout her curls as she slowly withdrew her head from the grate, cursing as she bumped her crown on the brick and the floo whooshed shut.

Draco spent another few minutes laying on the ground, groaning as he felt his spine slowly straighten with gravity’s assistance. He rested an arm over his eyes to shield them from the early-morning sunlight.

“Leedy,” he croaked, clearing his throat. The house-elf appeared with a softer pop than usual, for which Draco was grateful, though it still made him flinch. 

“Yes, Mister Draco?” Leedy asked quietly. Through his squinted, grainy eyes, the floppy ears of her little bunny slippers padding on the floor beside him were all he could see of her. 

Rubbing the grit away, he followed the line of her floor-length nightie to her outstretched hand, which held in it a phial filled with a shining grey liquid. The painkilling potion was reminiscent of quicksilver in a way Draco was always gratified to observe. Quicksilver had once been thought of as a panacea, in the magical and muggle healing spaces of the 1800s. Though proven to be quackery, Draco took solace in knowing that something so mercurial had been so revered. Perhaps one day he would view the quicksilver of his soul as a soothing balm instead of turpentine and water, made only for treachery and greed. 

Not today, though. Despite the pink and yellow of the blushing sunrise creeping shyly through the curtains, today was a rotten day. Draco despaired at the lack of rain. Sunny days never provided an adept backdrop for steeping in self-pity. 

“Could you make me a coffee please?” he groaned, necking the potion back. He enjoyed tea, strong and black with honey, but his post-transformation days were special occasions. The pea-soup fog his mind experienced required the jittery brilliance of caffeine to eradicate, no matter the nausea in his gut the acid would evoke.  

“Of course, Mister Draco,” Leedy said, patting his hand affectionately as she retrieved the empty phial and disappeared to the kitchen. His flatmates wouldn’t be up for another four hours at least, so he let himself close his eyes and relax as the potion began to take effect. 

Draco sighed, casting a breath-freshening charm on himself without opening his eyes. Soon, he smelled the rich scent of Leedy’s coffee, mixed with her blend of cinnamon, cacao, and cayenne. His favourite. Draco vindictively indulged in it the mornings after his transformation, especially when Ladon had acted a brat and a fool and left them both dehydrated for the rest of the day,  specifically because Ladon seemed to loathe it. The wolf within licked his fangs and grunted in distaste. 

“It’s what you get for not drinking water,” he chided him aloud. “You know we have to drink more water than we think.” In his mind, Ladon seemed to huff moodily and retreat, as he did often when forced back into Draco’s body, disappointed to be caged once more. 

Fifteen minutes later and revived by Leedy’s coffee, Draco strode back to the floo with an anti-spill-charmed half-cup still steaming in hand. He had taken more care with his appearance than perhaps strictly necessary, knowing he would likely shortly be laying on the ground playing dragons (in today’s case, a slain, prone, trying-not-to-vomit dragon) with his rambunctious little cousin. 

But Andromeda had employed Potter to watch him, and it had been a few weeks since he and Potter had run into one another at Andy’s. Even longer yet since they’d engaged in a truly meaningful exchange. The most meaningful of all had the day before he descended the groaning, rotten front steps of Grimmauld, all those years ago. And yet still, the feelings remained as vivid and jarring as the day he had departed. If anything, softened and made rosy with graceful age, and perhaps Draco would revisit them soon, if he ever were to pluck up his courage. 

So although it was ridiculous and vain, Draco cleaned himself up as best he could, mocking himself all the while. His skin was screaming at him today, overly sensitive from the night’s shift, so his button-up was a loose cotton under a soft jumper, and his trousers were a worn corduroy to keep out the chill he always felt after Ladon retreated. The smoke and ash from the floo still curled up his ankles as he spun to Andy’s cottage. 

It was 6:34am when Draco stepped over the threshold into Andy’s living room. Though his body stopped spinning as his feet touched the plush carpet, his head did not. It took a mighty effort when he was ejected to stay upright, and as he cast a light wind charm to remove the dredges of the fireplace from his person, the smell of the fire was replaced with a muskier, more animal scent. 

Ladon’s ears perked. His eyes were wide open. New wolves, he insisted.

“Oh,” Draco breathed. “Oh, no.”

Distractedly, he set his coffee on the mantle, that uncomfortable wide-eyed feeling encroaching on him as it did whenever Ladon began cohabitating while Draco was still in control. It felt like he had drunk a Wide-Eye Potion, except all his senses had become sharper, scents overlapping with sounds overlapping with sharpened, miniscule details he would never have been able to detect before being bitten. 

The acrid scent of root rot, emanating from an overturned snake plant in the corner. The dusty smell of a ruined ceramic pot, its shattered bits scattered on the buttery wood floor, now scored with deep, chaotic, inhuman marks. The smell of Teddy, like raspberry jam and laundry detergent, underlaid with an earthier scent. One of fear and sweat and the bright, unforgiving moon. 

The smell of Potter, of sunlight and grass, underlaid, as well, with something other. Something darker, perhaps. Or, perhaps, simply unfamiliar.  

Draco crept out of the tiny floo room, calling Teddy’s name softly. The animal scent was all throughout the house, mixing with the sharp tang of panic. Draco could hear a shuffling from down the hall, followed by the irregular sound of thick, hiccoughing sobs. His pulse sped in his ears, his own breathing sharpening in every swift inhale. Draco called Teddy’s name again, louder, surrounded by the sour reek of anxiety and not knowing if it was his own. 

“Uncle Draco!” Teddy’s watery little voice chimed from his bedroom, the last down the hall. The dinosaurs Potter had joyfully painted and spelled were all hiding, peering out of their caves or perched atop the distant mountains, save for one lonesome, out-of-time Antipodean Opaleye, who circled nervously near the ceiling. Above them, painted astronauts clung to their tethers amidst the twinkling stars, their gazes affixed on the small boy and his caregivers beneath them. 

Teddy was stumbling out from Potter’s arms, the two of them wrapped in torn blankets shorn from Teddy’s bed. Down feathers were spilt like offerings along the floor. Potter had some stuck in his hair. His green eyes, so often in Draco’s memory sharp and determined, were wide and unfocused without the shielding lenses of his glasses. Teddy’s hair was bright red, shifting in colours varying from Chudley Cannons-orange to a vibrant magenta hue, a beacon signalling his distress. 

Draco crouched down, soil rubbing into the knee of his trousers, and enfolded Teddy in a crushing hug. The shoulder of Draco’s jumper was made wet in short order by tears and snot, but after seven years with a clumsy little boy, his priorities had ungracefully shifted slightly away from vanity. 

Draco stroked Teddy’s hair while he sobbed into his shoulder and looked over at Harry in askance. Harry looked hardly any better for wear, his face a sickly ashen shade that was so incongruous with his ordinarily sun kissed skin, his forearms crisscrossed with cuts. He had deep bags under his bloodshot eyes, the green in them weakened and muddied with shadowed fatigue. 

Ladon smelled raspberry jam and laundry detergent and green grass and sunshine. He smelled damp untilled soil and the harsh, transmuting moonlight. He smelled fecund moonrise and the agony of unwilling change. The stubborn resolve of two tectonic plates clashing, the gust of burning wind dredged up from the core of things to singe his soft flesh. 

“Not you,” Draco whispered, quicksilver eyes affixed, quicksilver heart stopped in his chest. 

Potter raised a torn hand from his lap. There, gouged into the padded flesh of his calloused palm, was the needle-sharp mark of a bite from a tiny wolf pup. 

Emotion surged within Draco. He squeezed his eyes shut and dug into the constricting tightness of his chest, curling himself around the little boy in his arms protectively. One thing at a time, he thought to himself, breathing deeply and pressing his cheek into the crown of Teddy’s head. One thing at a time.    

Teddy sobbed into Draco’s shoulder, the fabric of Draco’s jumper clutched and wrinkled in his small fingers. “I didn’t–I didn’t–” he gasped, snot and tears covering his flushed, sweaty face. “It hurt, Uncle Draco, it hurt,” and the last word became another wail as the tears overtook him once more. Draco held him tightly, a bolt of electric panic running through him.

“I’m right here, baby,” Draco said gently, holding the side of Teddy’s head and pressing a kiss into his tangled hair, still so wispy and fine even at age seven. “I’m right here, little bug.” He cast a basic diagnostic charm over the little boy, carefully depositing every racing thought his mind doomfully provided for him into the mental flower vase that he and his Mind Healer had built for his worst memories. From the fluted neck of it, Snapdragons lunged and growled, the Mimbulus Mimbletonia’s pods swelled with ire, and Devil’s Snare waved their fronds menacingly, barricading Draco from chasing the dread down its awful sucking spiral. 

Elevated respiratory rate, sinus tachycardia, dehydration, fatigue, musculoskeletal trauma (healed)...

Draco glared at the diagnoses running in red script through the air like a news banner. If there had been anything acutely wrong with Teddy, anything to make him hurt badly, it would have come up first on the list. He stroked Teddy’s hair and pointed his wand at a bleary, squinting Potter, who jolted as though ready to lunge out of the way. 

“Easy,” Draco said, in the tone of someone addressing a spooked Thestral. “I’m going to cast the same diagnostic charm on you, alright?” 

Potter acquiesced slowly, nodding and looking as though even that small movement was painful. When Draco cast, the banner ran through the same diagnoses as Teddy to the letter. 

“It was a full moon,” Potter scratched out hoarsely, blinking hard and scrubbing his face with his left hand, which had a small but unmistakable bite mark running from the meat of his thumb to the thin skin of his wrist. “Teddy’s never changed before. We didn’t think he ever would.”

“Shit,” Draco breathed, clutching Teddy tighter. The boy wriggled in his grip, not ready to release Draco but struggling in the tight hold nonetheless. Draco reluctantly forced his arms to relax, stroking the boy’s hair gently, as Teddy’s gasps of distress slowly quieted as he swayed back and forth. 

Draco curled around Teddy, holding him close to his chest and rocking slightly side to side. “It hurt,” Teddy whimpered again. Draco exhaled and nodded once more. He rubbed Teddy’s back, still rocking back and forth, trying to keep his breaths deep and even. 

“I’m going to call my house elf,” he quietly told the two of them, making eye contact with Potter. Potter blinked at him, then nodded. He had met Leedy plenty of times–had interrogated her, even, about the status of her employment when she had first appeared at Draco’s side in Grimmauld. He had received a ferocious glower and an impassioned tirade about Mister Draco’s myriad positive qualities for his righteous suspicion. Draco had snuck a bonus into her apron pocket at the end of the day for it, knowing that if he were caught he would be slapped away.  

“Leedy,” Draco called to the air, and, feeling a tug on his magic, she appeared. 

“Oh!” she exclaimed, entering the room with her little pop! of apparition. She gazed around the wreckage of ripped clothing and eviscerated stuffed animals with wide eyes. 

“Leedy, could you please fetch some of my pain relief potion? It will have to be the purple phial for Teddy, but Potter can have the grey.” Draco eyed Potter’s old Gryffindor Quidditch jersey and ratty sweatpants, barely held together more with shimmering repair charms and magic that would have smelled like clipped grass and sunshine if not for the overpowering scent of ozone emanating from the sheer mass of it. “Some extra clothes for Potter, too, perhaps. From my armoire is fine,” he continued, not wanting her to have to rummage around Andromeda’s cottage or venture off to Grimmauld. 

Leedy nodded and peeled off to do as she was bid. She returned in an instant, pressing an old Wimbourne Wasps tee-shirt and some joggers into Harry’s hands as well as a grey phial of specially-brewed pain relief potion. She handed Draco the phial for Teddy and stood a bit away from the two of them, wringing the frills of her pink gingham apron in her small hands. 

Her nervous gaze swooped from Teddy to Potter, looking over them both meticulously. Draco was immensely grateful that Teddy’s—and Potter’s, by the teething bite mark on his hand, which would not, he doubted, have left such a wound if not for the transmutative magic carried within it—first shift had been nothing like his own. 

Leedy had been the one to help Draco lick his wounds that first morning after, once he had collected his tearful self from Luna’s arms and dragged his sorry carcass back to his personal chambers, and it had not been a pretty sight. Leedy had stood silent vigil over him while she tended to his wounds and he rested. She was the only member of his family who had not shied away from him after he had gained his “unfortunate affliction”, as his father had dubbed it, with his patrician nose wrinkled in disgust and his colourless eyes as sharp and biting as cold steel. 

Leedy had been his personal elf as Draco grew up. When as part of the restitutions he had been forced to release her from her bond to House Malfoy, she wailed and sobbed as she threw herself at his feet. He had held her and tried to soothe her, assuring her that she would find a much better place of employment, somewhere, he drawled darkly, that didn’t even have any dungeons to scour. 

She had wiped her teary eyes on the apron Draco had given her and whimpered, “But what will Young Master Draco do without me?”

Finally they had managed an agreement. Leedy insisted on working for free, and Draco had insisted upon paying. The small wrench was that he was unemployed, still living at Grimmauld Place post-trial, and had nothing to his name but a Manor he never wanted to lay eyes on again in indefinite Ministry holding and a paltry stipend from his trust fund, most of which the Ministry had managed to seize, alongside all the Malfoy assets contained on British soil. 

Luckily for Narcissa, both she and Lucius had been wily with their fortune. Unluckily for Draco, he never wanted to speak to her again, and therefore was too prideful to ask for any of it. Prideful, and perhaps cowardly, the part of him that was so wounded at her rejection after his turning still crouched in the dark recesses of his soul, gnawing at its stinging wounds. 

More than pride, and, Draco hoped, more than cowardice, he thirsted to prove himself. He was more than a Malfoy. He was greater than a legacy of hatred and self-aggrandizing stupidity. He didn’t know if he could achieve the level of self-respect he strove towards if he leaned on his family’s dirty money. 

So, Draco managed to stronghold Leedy into a signed contract that stated Leedy would receive a not inconsiderable sum of galleons every two weeks for her work, and were Draco unable to provide said galleons within the allotted time frame, he could pay back his debt to her at 10% interest. She muttered ominously the entire time, glowering about rubbish and nappies and how Leedy had been in a long line of house elves proud to serve House Malfoy, but it was the only way Draco could bear to let her stay. 

It had been seven years since Leedy had cared for Draco after his very first nocturnal transformation, and Leedy had cared for Draco nearly each one since. Draco truly did not know how he would have gotten on without her, especially when his more experimental potions forays ended in catastrophic failure. 

“Leedy is going to the kitchen now,” Leedy announced, looking between Draco, Potter, and Teddy. “If one of sirs is wanting assistance, all they needs to be doing is calling for Leedy.”

“Thank you, Leedy,” Draco murmured, focusing once more on Teddy. Draco coaxed the little boy into swallowing his potion, complimenting him for how well he did when he took the medicine and shuddered, sticking out a dyed-purple tongue. Ever dramatic, like the rest of the family save for his stoic grandmother, Teddy’s hair stood straight up and turned an electric green, curling in disgust as he finished the phial. 

Draco kissed the side of his head again, mopping up Teddy’s sodden face with a sleeve, and asked Leedy if she could make them all some breakfast as Potter summoned Teddy’s pyjamas. His favourites were a soft Hallowe’en costume from the autumn before, a homemade sewn dinosaur outfit that Harry and Molly had worked on together. It had multicoloured spikes down the back, raising up into a hoodie shape, and detachable mittens in the shape of what could, theoretically, be a very soft dinosaur footprint. 

“I can do it alone,” Teddy argued grouchily when Draco tried to help him with his pyjamas and underwear. His face was still red from exertion, and Draco fretted that if Teddy’s wolf was half as stubborn as Ladon, if the boy wasn’t dehydrated before, he certainly was now. Even with the pain relief potion, he was certain that Teddy needed to eat and drink something soon to avoid a catastrophic meltdown. 

Teddy scowled balefully at Draco as he continued, “I’m a big boy.” 

Draco nodded curtly, mimicking a military salute. He let his hands fall away from the little boy, assuming that he had likely met his limit for physical contact just then. “Right you are, Tedgar. Please, carry on.”

Draco’s stomach still turned at the thought of breakfast, though that was more a reaction to his experimental wolfsboon than the transformation. Draco remembered the first few moons he had endured without any help from any of his personal potions, and the empty feeling and ravenous, unendurable hunger he felt afterwards. Heavens knew they all needed something in their stomachs, especially the two who seemed to have just gone through their first full moon in furry fashion. 

Potter had replaced his hideous glasses once again on his slightly-crooked nose when he lurched upright. He stumbled as though he had forgotten how to walk. Some new moons, it took Draco the whole day not to trip over himself, expecting two sets of paws instead of one set of feet.  

“Teddy, would you want to be carried to the living room?” he asked. From the way his eager hands were already outstretched, it seemed to be more for his benefit than Teddy’s. From the acrid stench of fear and worry that wafted from him, Draco knew it to be true. Especially since the urge to hang onto the little boy was mirrored in himself, the need to cling to Teddy like the Giant Squid and never leave him until the flush had left his round cheeks and all his sorrow had been absorbed into Draco’s body instead of his own, sucked like venom from a snakebite.

Teddy considered his options briefly. After a moment, he replied “Yes” magnanimously, in a fashion that he couldn’t have adopted from anyone else but Draco himself.

Crouching once more to heave Teddy into his arms and hefting him into a more manageable grip, Potter rose to stand with the boy’s arms wrapped around his shoulders, exhaling a bit as he adjusted to Teddy’s weight. Draco rose with them, one firm hand planted between Potter’s shoulder blades. It wouldn’t do, just after they had managed a modicum of collective calm, for someone to trip and fall and hurt themselves all over again. Of course, that was the only reason he reached out. 

“You’re already growing so strong, Tedwin, perhaps one day you’ll be able to lift your Uncle Harry like this,” Draco mused consideringly. “I doubt he would let you try, though.”

Teddy giggled, damp and hiccoughing. “I can’t lift him, Uncle Draco.” 

“We’ll see about that, little bug,” Draco replied warmly. He glanced over at Potter as they slowly walked to the living room, somewhere between a shuffle and a stagger. He was watching him with that same strange, melancholy, yearning expression he sometimes wore whenever he caught Draco and Teddy together. 

“Come on, Potter,” Draco said. He knew Harry would protest, would say he could walk himself, if Draco insinuated that Harry may have required some help. 

But if Draco was asking? Potter hadn’t refused a request for help from Draco in living memory, not since he had moved into Grimmauld that summer between Azkaban and eighth year. “Lead us to the living room,” Draco continued. “We can eat on the sofa together.”

Potter’s warmth beneath Draco’s hand was a begrudging comfort as the three of them walked slowly to their seats. Despite wanting to be as close to Teddy as possible, Draco was reluctantly glad Potter had offered to carry him–had Draco been tasked, he wasn’t certain his shaky arms could have handled it. His muscles were already so overtaxed from the inhuman stretch of the night before. 

Ladon whimpered at the loss of contact when Potter moved away from him, settling himself and Teddy down on the cushions. As he went, Draco squeezed his shoulder instead and settled into the sofa, handing Potter one of Andy’s many blankets and tucking another around himself and Teddy. 

“That was so scary,” Teddy whispered. His little dinosaur spikes poked out of the blanket wrapped around him. His hair was still a bright, curly green, vibrant beneath the shelter of Potter’s broad shoulders. 

“We can talk about it together,” Draco said. “It might be less scary if we do. I might be able to help you understand it better. But I want you to try to eat something first, alright?”

As if waiting to hear those words, Leedy appeared with a tray stacked with jammy toast and scrambled eggs. “Leedy is returning with the sausage and bacon!” she squeaked, pushing a fresh mug of coffee into Draco’s hands and levitating a teapot and jars of milk and sugar to Potter. 

Teddy began eating with ferocity, the sight of Leedy’s cooking inspiring a barbaric display from the little boy. Potter began to fill his plate at a more sedate pace, staring at the jam with a glum sort of detachment as he spread it across the fresh bread.  

Ploddingly, he finished preparing one slice of toast, then another, then another. Draco watched him quietly, preferring not to look at the carnage Teddy was creating, ravaging his breakfast. When Leedy returned with a serving platter of eggs and bacon, he loaded heaping spoonfuls of that onto the plate as well. 

And then he held the plate out to Draco. “Here,” he said hoarsely. His throat sounded horribly raw. “Eat.” 

Draco was reminded of eighth year, when Potter would sit on his own bed, cross-legged with his dinner plate in his lap, crunching on this or talking through a mouthful of that while he urged a prone, nauseated Draco to eat the dinner he had brought to the dorms for him. 

He held the plate up, waiting, until Draco accepted it, before he turned again to fix his own. 

“Thank you,” Draco replied softly. Potter sent him a wry, unconvincing smile as he scooped scrambled eggs and slices of grilled tomato onto his plate. 

When Teddy and Potter had cleaned their plates and Draco had mostly moved things around on his own, Teddy asked, bursting with apprehension and reluctant curiosity, “What happened, Uncle Draco?” 

Draco considered how he should begin, seeking solace from the dissipating heat of his mug between his palms. Hesitantly, he asked, “Teddy, do you remember how some wix have special gifts? Like how you can change the way your body looks, and your Uncle Harry can speak to snakes?”

“And you can turn into a wolf,” Teddy sniffled. “Just like Daddy could. But only sometimes. You take your special medicine and it makes you grumpy.” 

Draco nodded slowly, unwilling to argue that he was not grumpy, he was just achy and nauseous, because that wasn’t a discussion that needed to be launched right this moment. “I think…I think you might have the same special gift as your Dad did.”

Teddy’s eyes, grey as they always turned to emulate Draco in his presence, flew open. “I’m a wolf ?” he exclaimed, his hair expanding outwards and turning white-blond with a little poof! of excitement. He grabbed onto Potter, who held his shoulder with a fond little huff. 

Draco went on to explain that some things in his life may be different than before, but they would navigate that together, and if Teddy wanted to talk, or if he had any questions, he could always floo him with Andy. He said that next time, after Teddy had been taking his medicine, it wouldn’t hurt nearly so much. 

“Your wolf might seem scary right now,” Draco continued, “and I can assure you your wolf is just as scared. But if you try to be brave, little bug, and you try to make friends, you’ll find that all your wolf wants is to be friends with you.”

Potter’s eyes bore into him as he explained this all to Teddy, making Draco feel uncomfortably watched. It had taken him years and years of work to realise these things about his relationship with Ladon, and he hoped desperately that Teddy wouldn’t have to struggle as he had. He wanted to make sure, right at the front of it, Teddy and his wolf had as positive of a relationship as possible. 

Draco tried as hard as he could to frame this as a good, exciting thing that was happening. A next step in Teddy’s magical growth. An exciting new adventure for the little boy, and a way he and Draco could spend more time together. As Draco continued talking, the apprehension seemed to fade from Teddy’s expression, replaced by tentative excitement and, following swift on its heels, deep tiredness. 

By the time he had finished answering all of Teddy’s questions, the little boy’s eyes were drooping and he was falling asleep on Potter’s shoulder. 

Leedy popped quietly into the living room, so softly Draco hardly heard her. “Leedy has tidied Teddy Lupin’s bedroom,” she whispered. 

“Thank you, Leedy,” Draco replied softly. “You’ve been a wonderful help today.”

Leedy nodded crisply, the dainty bows on her ears somehow adding to her stern demeanour for their incongruousness. “Leedy is cleaning the rest of the cottage,” she announced, shooting Draco a sharp look. “Young Mister Draco is not to be paying Leedy overtime.”

Draco sighed. “It’s not your responsibility, Leedy,” he argued, but she just shook her head, tsking as she disapparated. 

Potter shifted on the sofa, gently scooping Teddy into his arms. “I’ll carry him to bed,” he said, his throat still sounding raw. 

Draco nodded, huddled around his mug. He cast a warming charm on it, letting the steam lick his face. The old wooden floorboards creaked under Potter and Teddy’s combined weight as he walked down the hallway. 

In the quiet and the softness of this small respite, Ladon allowed himself to relax for the first time this morning, resting with his chin on his paws in Draco’s mind’s eye. Draco himself slumped into the cushions, exhausted. He closed his eyes and exhaled.

Listening to Potter’s footsteps as he returned, Draco’s eyes flickered open. He looked older than his twenty four years, grim and shell shocked, and yet somehow younger as well, when he gazed at Draco. 

New wolf, Ladon supplied once more. He wasn’t territorial, as Draco would have thought he would be. He was curious. Coy. Inviting, even, in a way that Draco didn’t like. Especially so because of the satisfaction Ladon felt, noticing that Potter had returned in Draco’s proffered tee-shirt and joggers, straining at the shoulders and rolled at the ankles.

Go on away now, Draco scolded him. Go on.  

To distract himself, Draco asked Potter a question he already knew the answer to. The scratches on Potter’s forearms, standing out in red amongst the dark hair, and the bite mark of a small wolf on his palm already told the tale. Needlessly, Draco inquired, “Did he bite you?” 

Potter bristled. Ladon’s ears perked in fascination, his front half low to the ground as he cocked his head in sly curiosity. More of a fox he was, on occasion, than a wolf. 

Potter leapt to Teddy’s defence, that righteous flame alighting the spark within him. As always, Draco thought, less derision in his own mind than he cared to admit, too little spiky animosity to cover the well of affection that bubbled like some noxious heated potion within the cauldron of his soul, protector of the small. 

“He didn’t mean to,” Potter rushed, gruff and insistent. “It was just a little bite. It was my fault. I startled him when I tried to grab him.”  

“It was nobody’s fault,” Draco agreed softly. He straightened up and crossed his legs on the couch cushion, turning sideways on the sofa to better see Potter. He continued, “It was an accident.” 

“Oh,” said Harry, visibly deflating as all his righteous indignation spilled out on a shaky exhale. “Yeah.” He looked forlorn, lost, a little. As though needing to protect someone had brought him back to his body but now, with no crisis to avert, he was left adrift at sea. “Yeah it was.”

Draco sighed, thinking back to that awful morning after his first transformation. Recalling Luna’s frail, skinny arms that had held him as he sobbed, covered in his blood and the blood of another. Unable to comprehend the new life that had begun sprawling out before him, sure that it must have ended the night before. Certain that he could not go on, not with this awful sadness in him, not with this howling, lonely wolf snarling in his chest. 

Draco knew from experience that Potter’s wolf would likely be closer to the surface than Ladon would for him. It had taken months for him to let down his Occlumency walls and even begin trying to meet Ladon. Severus had told Draco, in quick, snide little hints, that Potter was no talent at mind magic. 

He wondered how his wolf was faring, within the exhausted man before him, and whether or not he longed for a pack. At that thought, he could feel Ladon scratching under his skin. He wondered if Potter’s wolf was as eager by half as Draco’s to get to know the other wolf, and despaired that the distrust Ladon had held for Potter all those years ago had dissipated in the interim like mist in the morning sun.  

Draco cleared his throat and gathered his disparate parts close into himself. He couldn’t keep pushing down Ladon’s impulses–it wasn’t good for either of them. He recalled his Mind Healer, Vee, telling him how much progress he had made, trying to allow him and Ladon to peacefully coexist. Draco didn’t want to disappoint all three of them just because he was overwhelmed by his old, incorrect conditioning. 

Draco recalled the dying Fortune-Telling roses in Grimmauld’s least-worst living room, their dusky petals whispering untellable secrets as they crumbled. The way the dingy wallpaper that had only just started to lighten enough to catch sight of the playful red-eyed rabbits tumbling outside their burrows grew darker once more. How the newly sprouted spring leaves on the creeping vines by the wainscotting had wilted and fallen to the stained, dusty floor. All because he had said, “I have to leave.”

He knew the only reason he sat alone was himself. 

“Potter,” he began tentatively. “Can you feel your wolf?” 

Potter considered his tea, as though it could divine his present as well as his future. The lenses of his glasses were smeared and he didn’t seem to care at all. Draco wondered if he noticed.  Draco noticed. Like most things about Potter, it bothered him. 

“Yes,” Potter replied eventually. “Yes, he’s–he’s very strong.” He exhaled lowly. “Was your wolf this strong?”

Draco remembered the feeling of feeling pursued in his own body, of the damp sweat that had run in clammy beads from his hairline to his chin. Of the fear and the rage and the howling betrayal Ladon had felt, brought to this body only to be abandoned by its owner. 

“My wolf was powerful,” Draco admitted. “I’m not sure about strong.” 

Potter’s dark brows furrowed. Draco could read most of Potter’s expressions, but this was one of the more commonly employed. “Aren’t they the same thing?” he asked, confused. 

Draco shook his head. “Not at all.” 

They lapsed into an uneasy silence, within which Draco began casting, fiddling with the pots Leedy had rightened, brightening a spot on the carpet that Leedy had already bleached to be new.  He opened many of the windows, then closed a few. He adjusted the curtains, letting the early morning sunlight stream though the glass, marvelling that so much had happened in such little time. 

Ladon paced within Draco’s mind. It was not enough to be soothed by Draco. Here he was, this other wolf, promising comfort and trust from a human they had grown to know over a span of years, and yet here was Draco, withholding. 

Draco knew all he ever needed to do was reach out, and he would be held. 

Potter said yes to Draco more often than not. It had begun sometime between those first few awful post-bellum weeks, when the Aurors had stolen Draco away from the battlefield Hogwarts had become and brought him, limbs bound and shivering, to a cell in Azkaban, and before Draco accepted his letter, addressed to “D. L. Malfoy, Last Bedroom on the Right, 4th Floor, No. 12, Grimmauld Place, Islington, London”, inviting him to spend his eighth year at Hogwarts. 

The morning after Teddy’s and Potter’s first shift was no different. It had not been different in some time. Potter had made it clear where he stood, always: Draco was the one who made the rules. It had been Draco who had re-drawn this chasm between them.  

Draco recalled how the woodgrain of the floorboards had begun to darken with dust and grime, new cobwebs spun before his eyes on the moulding by the floor. He had watched the patterns on the rug become less defined, fraying at the corners. The shining glass coffee table had become smeared and cracked, as though invisible hands beat at it.

“I would prefer it if you stayed,” Potter had said, as though the whole house wasn’t dying around them. 

“I don’t know that I would,” Draco had replied, and it had not been mean and cutting and vindictive, as he may have purposefully forced it to be before his many terrible illuminating Mind-Healing sessions and the feelings he could no longer ignore. How dare Potter try to convince him that the truths Draco had held so close for so long were nothing but falsehoods. How dare Potter contrive to unravel the awful realities that sat tangled at the core of him.

Draco didn't want what he believed of himself to be true, but he couldn't convince himself that Potter was right, either. Draco had fought hard to keep the derision he'd felt of Potter's opinion off his face. Through the suffering of his decision, the agony of their separation, the cleansing pain of knowing he was doing something good for both of them even though it felt awful, Draco felt amidst the hurt a little zing of satisfaction to see the despair on Potter’s, to know that he cared so desperately. The vindictiveness was tinged with a pulsing ache from the loneliness so ancient within him that it sometimes felt as though he was not a person but merely a vessel for something far more primordial. As though the very first inception of the feeling had crawled from the centre of the nascent planet Earth, black and steaming, and had sunk beneath his thin, pale skin, throughout the lacy white fascia strung across his shaking muscles, and packaged itself neatly within the soft marrow of his bones. Like a gift, or a curse.

What kind of a fool couldn’t see that Draco had always repelled love, even when he tried to hold it close? 

It had taken many, many tearful sessions with Vee, and many years of work since then to understand that the reason Draco had so craved and reviled Potter during that last summer was because he disproved the central fact of Draco’s bitterly sheltered life. 

If Potter could love him. If Draco could be loved, seen, freely and without limits, without expectations or transactions, from someone who had only really just begun knowing him–then he had done it all for nothing. 

He had flung himself into a war for people whose affection for him was tempered and conditional. He had abandoned himself to their beliefs and manipulated his morals to best suit their own, obsequiously and without question. He had thought, this is as good as I can get. He had thought, I’m just difficult to love, so difficult, and I should be grateful for this. He had ruined his past, and tarnished his future, because the central facet he had taken as true fact, that had been solidified, cemented into his aching lonely heart over and over and over again, was that he was undeserving of love, undeserving of affection. He was even, when it came down to it, undeserving of that cursory disgusted glance, those viciously spat words, “an unfortunate affliction for an unfortunate, disappointing child ”, as though to insinuate Draco had never been his own child, but merely a changeling, strange and unwelcome, who had existed for some time in his home. 

And so when Andy had asked him if he wanted to go to France with her, Draco had laughed and laughed. Laughed and cried, and tore at his face and hair as he had not done since those first eternal frozen days of Azkaban, and then laughed some more. 

All you have to do is reach out. 

Draco thought of the crumbling Fortune-Telling Roses. Of the echoing footsteps of Azkaban, vibrating in the damp, chilled air. Of Ladon, and how he had met Potter with fear and suspicion, then wary toleration, then eager acceptance. 

“What does he think of me?” Draco asked instead. He directed his question to Harry’s cooling mug of tea. His face a carefully constructed mask of indifference, Draco did not look at him until the weight of his gaze became unbearable.

The green of his eyes was still so muddied with fatigue. “Did you make that pain potion the same colour as your eyes on purpose?” he asked, a little wry smile tugging the corners of his otherwise downturned mouth. “I bet you did.” 

“I don’t care about the pain potion,” Draco argued.

Harry shrugged. “I don’t either.” He sighed. “Draco. Isn’t it obvious?” 

Draco thought perhaps it was, but he had never pretended not to be selfish. On the ever-unrolling scroll of sins and flaws to work through, selfishness had hung low on the list. Far beneath the prejudice, self-loathing, and the snivelling servility that had sent him skulking straight into Vee’s office.

“Any iteration of me would love you, Draco,” he said, kindly, terribly, ludicrously. “Any and every.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Draco sat with Potter, because he couldn’t not, not after what he had once again confessed to. Draco’s opinions on the matter had already been hashed out five years prior, upon his acceptance to PITIE and his insistence to move out of Grimmauld. The cracked grandfather clock, that Draco had spent hours labouring over fixing; the stunning Persian rug, which began emanating a fusty, mildewy odour as Draco reached for his shoes. He had looked anywhere and everywhere but Potter’s face when he left. 

His presence was a comfort, if a dubious, multifaceted one, and he and Draco sat in pensive silence as the sunbeams throughout the living room grew. At some point, Draco fell asleep on the squashy brown couch that still smelled of ozone and the aether, awakening with his mouth tasting of dust and his eyes glued together in dehydration. He had a quilted blanket thrown over him and a glass of water at his side, and Potter was curled at his side less than an arm’s distance away, squinting myopically at one of Draco’s least-favoured pseudoscientific texts on lycanthropy with his feet tucked under him.

“You’re reading Breithart’s 1892 ‘Lycanthropic Examinations’ ?” he asked groggily. 

“Trying,” Potter admitted, looking even more defeated, if possible, than earlier that morning. He removed his glasses and massaged the bridge of his crooked nose with an expertly bandaged hand. Leedy’s doing, no doubt, was Draco’s quicksilver thought, recalling in a flurry the many mornings she had had to patch him up without wolfsbane or blend.  “His writing is…dense.” 

“His writing is supremacist, pseudoscientific tripe,” Draco scoffed, rubbing the grit from his eyes. “Among everything in the Manor library on werewolves, his one, feeble accolade is that he was one of the least repulsive.”

Tentative fond lines fanned out from the corner of Potter’s celebrated eyes. “That makes sense,” he replied. “I asked Leedy to get things to read from your collection.” He gestured to a large stack of books, all of which Draco had very intimate knowledge of. Many of them had helped him immensely with furthering his understanding of wolfsboon, which had morphed from his juvenile experiments in replacing wolfsbane with the haphazard ingredients found at a wartime Malfoy Manor in seventh year to an actual, marked improvement on the original recipe, which he hoped to submit at the thesis to his Mastery.

From Draco's experience as his own guinea pig, wolfsboon allowed Ladon to remain in control during the moon, separated from the well of uncontrollable grief and suffering that he and Draco were working so hard on getting a handle of outside of full moons. Rather than banishing the wolf into caged submission and cementing Draco's dominion over a body they shared, as wolfsbane did, wolfsboon availed Draco an almost supervisory role to Ladon's actions, if he so chose to have it. Sometimes he chose not to, and retreated instead to Miss Persephone's living room to spend the night, trustfully allowing Ladon to do as he pleased. 

An additional benefit of wolfsboon, as well, was it liberated Ladon from the constraints of the moon cycle. He would emerge at the full moon no matter what, but he was not confined to it. In an ongoing negotiation, wolfsboon simply availed Draco and Ladon another tool in their toolbox: were the two of them so enormously threatened that Draco could not protect them, Ladon could take over in his stead. And unlike with Draco, many people did not, somehow, seem nearly so eager to engage a wolf in a fight as they had a willowy, exhausted young man. 

Draco had done so much research over the past five years of his formal schooling. Many, many books existed in haphazard piles in his carrel in the PITIE stacks, copies from which were inkstained and overrun by sleepless cursive. Many books that were of a significantly higher calibre of scientific and peer-reviewed than Breithart's demagoguery. 

Sneering at the cover, Draco asked, “And you selected him?” 

Potter shrugged, the lines deepening, the colour of his eyes behind his smudged lenses a softer colour than the emerald about which his crazy fans waxed poetic. They weren’t even the colour of the warm grass he smelled like. Sea glass, perhaps, tempered by the long erosion of the waves. Soft and shining. “I like your annotations.” 

Those annotations had been scrawled by an insomniatic, short-tempered, irascible teenaged Draco, bundled under piles of blankets like the den animal he had become, attended to by Leedy and the half dozen other house elves who Draco had insisted take up residence in his warded chambers when not on duty around the ransacked Manor. The only safe outlet for his tightly contained rancour had been between the pages of books that endeavoured as his father had, more intellectually and with much less success, to convince him of his newfound hateful inferiority. Years later, Draco couldn’t recall what he had written, but he suspected whatever it was had been venomously derisive. 

“They’re very descriptive,” Potter continued, thumbing the pages contentedly. A foil to Draco, who seemed filled with ever-burning, restless energy until his transformations wrung it entirely out of him, Potter seemed to have gotten more measured in their time apart. The type of man who could happily sit still for hours in a quiet sunlit room. “You’re funny, you know. When you’re not taking the piss out of me.” 

“I’m funny especially when I take the piss out of you,” Draco replied loftily. “You just don’t have the sense for it.” 

When Potter was amused, a dimple appeared by the left side of his mouth. Draco passionately hated that dimple. “Debatable on all counts.” 

“Has Teddy woken up? How long was I asleep?” 

Potter shrugged. “Forty minutes, maybe. He hasn’t.” He sighed, spelling his used teabag dry and stiffly crackling, stuffing it between the pages he had been reading. Had any other book in Draco’s possession suffered such indignity, his white-blond hair would have risen from his scalp in poorly contained fury. The tag stuck out, as though the tome of self-important eugenicist offal could be steeped and drunk down if one wanted to know disgust inside and out.  

Replacing the dubious tea monstrosity atop Draco’s tower of educational readings, Potter glumly stared at Andy’s snake plant by the fireplace as it slithered contentedly around its repaired terracotta. “We’re going to have to tell Andy about this.” 

“Undoubtedly.” Draco felt a familiar and unwelcome nervous pit in his stomach open, right next to the interminable well of loneliness. He had often gloomily considered as he first consumed the noxious Lycanthropic Examinations, if he were to be vivisected like some of the more misfortunate subjects of Breithart’s least ethical studies, where one might find the loneliness within him. Perhaps within the liver, all across his chest for how it mercilessly reverberated through him. Perhaps hiding behind the heart, infecting it, making it shrink, crooked and small. 

No matter where the loneliness lived, it called to Draco’s current anxiety like a diabolical ally, warlike in confrontation with their feeble host. Their insidious conversations never failed to send Draco into a spiralling panic even on the best of days.

This day, with Andy gone to visit Narcissa, and Teddy and Harry both newly-minted members of Draco’s ill-starred pack, was not the best of days. 

Potter reached out and patted Draco’s quilt-covered calf. Of course, with his senses overwhelmingly sharp, his wolf only just came tearing into reality and unwilling to relinquish its vibrant freedom just yet, he would have smelled the brimstone smell of apprehension. “It’ll be alright,” he assured him steadfastly, and though Draco would have liked to argue for the sake of who they were, he clung to the words and held them tightly to his chest like a candle against the darkness that threatened to consume him. 

Andromeda had always been an entirely logical sort of person, made of more weather-sturdy stuff than many of her family. Through a thin, pinched mouth in her bloodless face in the floo, she had only spared a moment to say, “Thank you, boys. I’ll take care of this,” before enacting the whirlwind preparations for an emergency portkey procedure. Three hours later she returned at the cottage, after apparating straight from the Black family chateau to the British consulate in Nice, queueing through the security line to get Probity-Probed between a gaggle of green-haired hoodlums who snickered about gillyweed and a haggard-looking young mother with a baby at her hip, spit-up on her blouse and a dull, steely look in her eye that begged the onlookers to start a snit about the crying. She made her way down endless squeaky linoleum corridors to the floo office, where she sat, files A-10,137 and D-8,305 neatly in her lap, and waited for the remaining two and a half hours of her journey.  All that, and Teddy hadn’t even woken up yet. 

Caught in her arms, she hugged Draco tightly, so firm and solid and reassuring around him that he felt his traitorous eyes prickle with tears even though Potter stood not two feet away. Draco could have blamed the surplus of sentiment on Ladon, but it wasn’t. Draco had had an awful, no-good, very bad day, a trying night and a frightening dawn and then an emotionally fraught morning to boot. Having Andromeda here, having her hug him so ferociously, chased away the yawning pit that had almost convinced him, by the end of the three hours, that what small family he had carved out for himself would abandon him just as his first had. 

That traitorous prickle morphed into unmistakeable tears when she stroked his hair, as his mother once had, and told him, like his mother never had, how very proud she was of him. 

So easy to capitulate, he was when he heard those words. They were all he had ever wanted to hear from his father, after all, and he had never received them. 

He cried in mourning for the child who could have had this aunt of his in his life, had things been very, very different. He cried because Andromeda had gone to see his mother, had wanted to, and Draco would likely never want to see Narcissa again. He cried because he hadn’t expected to have to take care of Teddy in this new and deeply important way, and was profoundlyingly terrified of ruining him permanently the way his parents had ruined him. He cried because Potter had said that he loved him, again, and Draco was still too fearful to accept it, caught between knowing that the awful pit of loneliness within him was a lie but still unable to acknowledge that in its stead, its opposite could be true. 

She held him tightly, firm and unwavering, a lighthouse during his turbulent storm, when the sky was still so blue outside and the house still smelled of treacle and cut grass and new wolf because Potter was down the hall, still, gone to check on a sleeping Teddy but only just out of sight, and never truly gone. 

“It’s alright, darling,” Andromeda whispered, stroking his back. Even though Draco was far taller than her, he felt at once as though he were of Teddy’s stature in her arms. “I’ve got you.” 

Chapter Text

Harry’s ominously unwelcoming bedroom in Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, was Sirius Black's old room. The only break from the oozing dark substances on the walls that dripped eternally from floor to ceiling was the lurid photographs of muggle women winking coquettishly as they bared their behinds to the camera. Harry wasn’t certain which made him more uncomfortable, not in the least because they were photographs that a rebellious teenaged Sirius had presumably selected himself. Harry convinced himself that they’d been hand-picked to incense Wallburge, rather than to please his godfather, and refused to pursue the matter further except to fruitlessly attempt to unstick them from the wall every month or so. 

Almost all of the shelves of the wobbly ornate dresser were stuck, spitefully so. The few that weren’t were instead a teeming home to a species of robust and opinionated magical bugs that Harry had never before seen and never wanted to again. They put the chattering, doxy-filled curtains to shame, smears of toxic blue doxy shit and all. 

The bed frame shrieked in protest if he so much as leaned on it in an awful, metal-on-metal cacophony, and the mattress was thinner than the makeshift trundle he had slept on in the cupboard. The rug, an unidentifiable colour that had evolved to live somewhere between filthy brown, mournful grey, and sickly green, squelched every morning when he put his feet on it, dampening his socks with some unknown and undoubtedly foul substance. 

The kitchen was hardly better, covered in a thin film of grime which got over everything, including their food. The gas stove spluttered and spat at him, refusing to ignite but leaving the kitchen awash in the unmistakable stink of leaking petrol, as though Grimmauld were determined to evict Harry by self-immolation if necessary. Harry couldn’t even make a coffee in the house without it tasting gritty and sour, as though flakes of poison had drifted innocently from the caving, water stained ceiling.

But this was his house, and Sirius had given it to him, and if Grimmauld wanted him to suffer, well, he would make Grimmauld suffer with him. He brought back greasy takeaway bags and kicked his muddy trainers up on the coffee tables until Kreacher cried himself hoarse and Wallburga had run through a screaming marathon of insults. The hard sofa hardened further beneath him with every churlish crumb he spilled, and the grease he wiped from his fingers onto the pillows stained in figures that appeared, in the right light, like baleful masks of grief and rage.

Yes, his house hated him, and it hated Ginny and Neville almost as much. He wasn’t sure if it was the fact that they were all purebloods that spared them from the brunt of its wrath, however tarnished the title was for all their family history, or if it was just that their names were not on the ill-gotten deed. The only resident who seemed to have any luck at all with the house was Luna, but then, she had always been exceptional. 

Harry had invited Hermione and Ron to live with him after the Battle. Begged, nearly. But Hermione had hardly taken a second after Voldemort’s mortal dust had settled before jetting off to Australia to attempt to restore her parents’ memories. Ron had made the voyage with her, stupefied by grief for his fallen brother and unable to set foot in a Burrow that rang with Molly’s muffled sobs. They departed for the floo office a mere handful of hours after Fred’s funeral, still smelling of lilies and sorrow, pushing Crookshanks’ oversized form into Harry’s unsuspecting hands with a neatly printed list of instructions for his care. 

Hermione had promised to gather him back in a few weeks, insisting it wouldn’t be fair to haul him across the world for such a short journey. Crookshanks had blinked at Harry slowly, his one snaggletooth bared in not quite congeniality, and launched himself from Harry using the softest part of his stomach as a springboard to explore the dubious nooks and crannies of Grimmauld. 

Instead of Hermione or Ron, Ginny had moved in, and brought with her all the luggage—emotional or otherwise—that that entailed. Harry wondered if it was some sort of hex she had woven into her clothes, to make him act so insufferably awkward around her, but he knew it was just his own foibles creeping out to haunt them both. He never could bear to let anyone he loved down, and he felt, deep to the centre of him, as though he had stolen a beautiful future from Ginny by not jumping back into her arms in the aftermath of the war. Little did he suspect that Ginny, relentless and indefatigable, was less bothered by his decision than he was. 

Shortly after Ginny had followed Neville and Luna, trailing after her stubborn ebullience in easy foil. Neville spent his days at war with Grimmauld’s greenery, a type of combat which suited him less heroically but more readily than any other he had engaged in. The only sorts of flora which flourished in Grimmauld seemed to be the vindictive kind. He had brought in clippings of Piping Poppies, Fortune-Telling Roses and Eye of Newt from the Hogwarts greenhouses as he helped with the cleanup. The main cuttings which survived, dogged and scraggly, were menacingly waving fronds of Devil’s Snare and Snapdragons which frothed at the mouth. Not even the Snakeweeds appreciated Harry, instead responding to his politely hissed greetings with grumbled, half-garbled insults. One had even uprooted itself and flung itself on the floor in kamikaze protest of his company. The last of the cuttings Neville brought to Grimmauld which flourished, besides the Shrinking Violets which seemed to have shrunk so ambitiously that they had reduced themselves from existence, was a Mimbulus Mimbletonia which aimed sickly-smelling greenish yellow pus at Harry’s untamed head whenever he passed by.

Sometimes Crookshanks batted at the ominous bulbs when Neville or Ginny was nearby. Charitably, Harry chose to believe that Crookshanks thought Harry had suffered quite enough, though he still wanted to indulge himself in the minor daily chaos of the house. An agent of mischief who was finally on his side. 

In the aftermath of the war, Harry seemed to be the only one who struggled to entertain himself. Neville was stubbornly committed to keeping plants that seemed intent on killing him alive. Ginny, for the brief periods she was indoors, was always windswept and breathless, having just hopped off her broom to scarf down a takeaway meal she fetched with Harry before soaring to the sky again. Luna, for her part, had taken to chatting often with the attic resident of Grimmauld Place. Persephone was an elderly ghost with a much brighter disposition than Walburga. She was barely a shade of a shade, having existed for much longer than Humphrey, their very own toilet ghost, but she had mostly forgotten what her unfinished business was. Humphrey’s, presumably, was to make himself as much of a bleeding nuisance as possible. He enjoyed hiding in the fourth-floor toilet tank only to burst out and terrify anyone who had unsuspectingly unzipped in his presence. In contrast, the attic ghost seemed quite pleasant, with her one flaw being that she disliked Harry on principle and refused to show any sign of herself to him. Harry unsuccessfully tried to resist the dispiriting suspicion that his singular chance at befriending something in Grimmauld had been dashed before it even began.

“Miss Persephone and I had a lovely chat,” Luna told Harry airily one summer afternoon. It was bright outside, the sky that cloudy white that stretched forever, but it could have been downpouring for all the sunlight reached the least-worst living room. Harry grunted around a handful of crisps and watched Neville arm-wrestle his watering can back from the Devil’s Snare. That seemed all Harry did those strange and amorphous days after the Battle, gorge himself with junk food, stare listlessly at the self-peeling wallpaper of Grimmauld and refuse to have any thoughts at all, or fall into coma-like periods of unrestful sleep that felt more like unconsciousness. 

“She wants to see her Great-great nephew,” Luna continued, stroking Crookshanks slowly. The rumbling half-kneazle was sprawled across her lap, nearly obscuring her thighs entirely with his prodigious fluff. When Harry was not woken up by the strange gurgling noises from whatever creature had taken residence under his bed, he was awoken from the cat hair which found its way in his nose and mouth. Crookshanks’ second favourite spot to nap was Harry’s chest, eye to yellow eye with him in a stare-down that presumably Crookshanks was winning. This was, however, preferable to his first favourite spot, which was on Harry's face. “I’d like to, as well.” 

From the corner, Neville made a strangled noise that had Harry double-checking that the Snare only held the watering can in a chokehold, instead of his friend. Harry stared at her in confusion, slowly wiping salt and grease off his stubble. It took him a moment to fire up the cogs in his sluggish, overtaxed mind. A vision of Malfoy’s pointy, snide face on the Black family tapestry as Sirius’ hand pressed into his shoulder surfaced from the sucking pit of shut-away memories. “Malfoy?” 

He sprayed crumbs on the sofa with the force of his incredulousness. The cushion beneath him suddenly turned soggy and foul-smelling, as though he had set off one of the Wheeze’s portable swamps under the seat of his secondhand jeans. Harry jumped up with a curse, kicking the sofa angrily. A loose board sprung up in its wake, whacking Harry in the shin. 

“Yes,” Luna replied, seated cosily in her velvet armchair by the floo as though Harry’s personal circus of torment was not unfolding before her guileless cornflower-blue eyes. “He was very kind to me, in the Manor.” 

Harry scoffed, clutching his shin and glaring at the sofa, whereupon the swamp was spreading. He cast a stinging hex at it, and then a great maw emerged from between the cushions and the deck to blow a filthy raspberry at him. Harry scrambled across the coffee table with an undignified yelp, knocking the remains of his lunch on the streaky floor. He ground his half-eaten sandwich into the cloudy wood grain with spiteful satisfaction, watching the sticky darkness of his fizzy drink spread from where it had fallen. Crookshanks watched him with boredom and judgement in his slit pupils. Harry made an unpleasant face at him, which earned him a slow, dispassionate blink. 

“Look, Luna,” Harry said, addressing her with a hassled air that the sofa or perhaps the cat deserved far more than her, “I dunno what Stockholm Syndrome you might be suffering, but Malfoy is a prat. A total wankstain. There’s no way in hell Neville, Ginny, or I will let you go near the Manor ever again.” 

“Agreed,” Neville interjected, walloping the Snare with a spade and casting an irritated sunlight charm at it. Though the charm was dampened by Grimmauld’s gloom, the Snare still recoiled from it with a vexed little shriek, dropping the watering can on Neville’s toes and causing him to withdraw with a hasty muttered curse. Harry smirked. At least he wasn’t the only casualty of today’s armed conflict with the old hovel. 

“Oh, he’s not at the Manor,” Luna clarified, giving Harry an almost scolding sort of look that would have been better suited to Hermione’s features than her own. “He’s in Azkaban. Haven’t you seen Daddy’s paper?” 

Harry glowered, contemplating which piece of furniture would be his next victim in the least-worst living room. Besides Luna’s armchair and the swampy sofa, there were two enormously uncomfortable looking ornate chairs, a furry ottoman that may have once been an animal and looked on the verge of collapse, and the ruined coffee table. There were also many bookshelves, containing tomes of questionable provenance and dubious material, but Harry had no doubt had he attempted to sit atop one of them, he would have been pelted by a flurry of the written word. “No, Luna. I don’t read the papers.” 

“He’s been disinherited,” Neville piped from where he was bent, collecting the watering can and spelling the floor free of his and Harry’s spillage. “Because of how he helped Luna, presumably. They’ve moved him to holding Azkaban while Lucius and Narcissa are barring Auror entry from the Manor. I’d reckon Robards thought keeping Malfoy would make his parents more likely to negotiate, but,” Neville grimaced. “They essentially told him to shove it.”

Harry grunted, scratching his tangled hair uncomfortably. “Dunno how that’s our problem.” Despite his words, from the pool of memories Harry was refusing to acknowledge swam the frantic expression that flitted across Malfoy’s face as he recognized Harry’s swollen, aching face at the Manor, and the resolute blankness that replaced it as he said “I can’t be sure”. 

And that’s when Luna told them both what, exactly, Malfoy had done for her.

Chapter Text

Harry wished Hermione had selected a more sedate venue for his Congratulations-It's-A-Werewolf party, if she'd had to throw a party at all. The sickly sweet scent of vermouth, energy drink, and flavoured vodka coated the inside of his nostrils slimily. He would have found the cacophony of the crowded bar's raucous patrons and the booming thrum of whatever musical monstrosity the soundtrack played overwhelming even without his newly keen hearing. He could only thank whatever genetic deity was in charge that he had not received markedly improved eyesight, or he would undoubtedly have been forced to bear witness to sweat stain after unflattering sweat stain upon each dancing person's clothes, the cigarette grime on their yellowing teeth all the more noticeable in the roving multicoloured lights for the pungent, acrid, sticky smell that wafted from them and joined the vermouth in repulsive concert for each of Harry's reluctant inhalations. 

It had been less than a week since his first transformation and Harry had spent most of it indoors. He knew Hermione had meant well, setting this up immediately after she'd seen the state of him during their weekly Tuesday floo chat three days prior, but gathering a whole group for a night out at the bars was not what Harry had had in mind when she suggested they return to catch up after Harry’s incident. 

Harry had crammed himself into the corner seat of the farthest booth, miserably watching the door to the bar with his hood up and his shoulders hunched, waiting for the paparazzi to get wind of his presence and lay siege to the establishment. 

Hermione had gathered Ron, Luna, Neville, Draco, and a recently England-bound Pansy from Switzerland in a misguided attempt to instill in Harry the sense of community that had been stripped from him somewhere between spending his early childhood locked in a cupboard, living in a tent on the run as a fugitive with a bounty on his head with his two similarly incriminated best friends, and becoming a werewolf. Ginny was invited as well, because Harry refused to confide in anyone that he still felt terribly awkward and guilty and ham-fisted around her some days, but she had been touring with the Harpies and had a big game the next day against the Wimbourne Wasps. Harry was certain he knew which team Draco would be supporting.  

Harry mourned that he had not decided to become a Quidditch player as well after quitting the DMLE, so as to have a good excuse not to attend his own morale-boosting charade. 

“Why did you invite Pansy?” Harry asked tiredly, already suspecting the answer. 

“Draco doesn’t leave PITIE much,” Hermione replied, blunt and practical as ever. “I thought he might need some extra encouragement.”

Harry glowered at the dark circles soaked into the water-stained table. He and Draco had been on good terms since bloody eighth year. Perfectly good terms! Harry spent time with him. He knew Harry. He wouldn’t have even needed to go out to see Harry if he’d just been living in Grimmauld, Harry thought unfairly. 

Draco had been seeing a Mind Healer since his trial, and he had cited his therapy as one of the reasons he needed to move out–something about cycles of enmeshment and understanding his independent selfhood and Harry really had tried to follow, but the wilting dead thing in his stomach had made focusing very, very difficult. Draco had let him down as kindly as he could, more kindly than Harry, truly, had thought him capable, and perhaps that should have shown him that it was the right decision after all.

Whether right or wrong, Harry had tried to respect it as best he could. He congratulated himself on doing quite well, all things considered. He only purposefully ran into Draco at Andy's and Teddy's every other week, he went on dates with muggle men and sometimes women too, and he tried with little success never to think of Draco when he pulled himself off, furtively skirting around memories of blonde hair on bedsheets and long fingers clutching the fabric of his shirt and stormy grey eyes boring into his own. On nights like these, he couldn’t help feeling mullish and unfavourable. Especially not tonight, when his wolf was scratching at the edges of his mind, whining and howling for the lack of that pointy nuisance he had orbited since the age of eleven. 

But on a deep exhale Harry considered the paparazzi, and how they had thrown slanderous accusations at Draco since the moment Harry walked him out of Azkaban, horrible viperous speculations about his money, his sexuality or his history, and Harry’s puffed-up chest deflated. Of course Draco would want more than just Harry around in the public eye—being seen with Harry would just inflame the embers that had only just begun to fade. He scowled and tried to convince himself the realisation did not sting as much as it did. 

Hermione and Ron were chatting together across and next to him in the booth, respectively, probably about something he would have wanted to listen to, had his wolf not picked up a scent. Harry wasn’t sure if it would always be like this, so overwhelming with the wolf’s sharper senses so close to the surface, barrelling his own out of the way. He hoped it would become less jarring, their shared senses, as they settled into each others' precense in Harry's body. Harry wasn’t sure how Draco had stood it before beginning his apprenticeship at Perkins', working in sticky, smelly, crowded places like this night in and night out, weaving shifts around courses and homework. 

Cut through the comforting scents of Ron, Hermione, Luna, and Neville, alongside all the almighty odours the bar and its faceless patrons had to offer, Harry smelled deep earth and cinnamon and citrus. Ladon and Draco. 

He was watching the door when Pansy strode in, her shoulders back strategically to show off her ample bosom. Her makeup was immaculate, her stilletto heels sharp, and if Harry had never met neither her nor Draco before, perhaps his attention would have been caught by her alone. 

But Harry had met Draco before, and had been half in love with him for near on six years now. So of course he was watching when Draco swanned into the bar, looking elegant and bored even in his dark jeans and the Nirvana tee shirt his flatmate had gifted him last Christmas to ‘bring him into this century’, his hair styled immaculately and—Harry rolled his eyes and covered his face, pissed off at himself for feeling a little frisson of appreciation run down his spine—fucking glittery makeup on his eyes. 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Harry mumbled, exasperated. 

Unlike Harry, Draco was at ease at the bar, and what a mindfuck that was to think about. Pureblood Prince of Slytherin, slumming it with a bunch of bawdy muggles and actually dare Harry say seeming to enjoy himself as he did so. 

Harry supposed, surreptitiously eyeing Draco with a covetous gaze, that anything was possible if you looked and acted posh enough. Not that it had brought Draco any more wealth than Harry, and in fact profoundly less, as he found himself for the first four years of his Mastery in the dubious employment of a backbreaking position called “barbacking” at a seedy dive two blocks away from their current situé, working on the weekends and sliding in shifts when he should have been sleeping.

Harry knew this, because he had owled Draco for days after he first left Grimmauld Place, until Harry bribed the Eyelop’s rental to simply stay there and peck his recipient until he gave him an answer. During those hectic years, the only time Harry could spend with Draco was on shift, elbows to the bar while he watched Draco flit from table to empty table, always restless. 

Hermione had suggested with wide, earnest brown eyes that it was important that Harry see “representation from his community” on his first foray in public waters since the incident. Harry had hugged Hermione, feeling wobbly and grateful, as always, for her enduring support of him. But now, sitting in this dingy booth surrounded by a cadre of his closest and dearest as though about to launch a surprise attack against the other patrons, the only thing Harry wanted to do was slink back to the bedroom he had so carefully spelled and painted with dinosaurs and astronauts when Teddy was three to have a cuddle with the little boy, or perhaps wrap himself in the quilt that Molly made that he could imagine still smelled like the Burrow, or sit in Andy’s kitchen and ask her how her tomato plants were growing. 

Harry had thought he would grow into liking bars eventually, but, as he rubbed his face tiredly, he suspected that belief was wearing thin with age.  

Pansy smarmed her way into a seat next to Neville, looking like the cat cornering the canary, and Harry was well satisfied with leaving them to it. Pansy had always been first and foremost a low-level threat to Harry, of which she liked to remind him often. She had gone out of her way to hunt him down and tell him face-to-face, when Draco had first moved into Grimmauld, that were anything to happen to her best friend while in a fragile state and under Harry’s questionable care, she would personally resurrect the Dark Lord for the singular goal of sacrificing Harry to him herself. Mutinous as he still was then, on the fence about even allowing Draco into his personal abode, Harry had taken the threat with a lot less grace and poise than he liked to remember. 

Unfortunately for him, Pansy did not simply remember. She held grudges, too, apparent as it was by the way her narrowed dark eyes met his, both taunting and resolute. Harry sighed once more and turned to Draco, who was gazing dispassionately at the barren table before him. 

“Hi Draco,” Harry said from the corner. Draco quirked a smile at him, and yes, that was fucking glitter on his eyelids, goddamn it.  

“ ‘Hi Draco’,” Ron mocked, leaning back and grinning meanly. Draco turned his abruptly steely gaze on him, all warmth fleeing his expression and in its stead raising an imperious eyebrow, his lip curling in a sneer. 

“Weasley,” he drawled, making Harry’s palms sweat clammily  as he recalled mashing ingredients with fumbling gracelessness in Potions class, such an unimpugnable impression of Severus Snape Draco managed. Hermione always got terribly stressed whenever Ron and Draco sniped at each other. Harry found it amusing to watch Draco unleash himself upon someone who wasn’t Harry himself. All the better that Ron could stand his ground with the best of them, calmer and more collected now that he had years of aggravating suspect interviews under his seasoned belt. 

For his part, Ron seemed to enjoy using their conversations as a vehicle to exert his much-ignored lesser demons. It seemed to be some bizarre sort of incessant, cathartic bonding ritual for the two of them, and when Harry thought back to his conversations with Draco, well, he found he couldn’t judge. Especially since Draco had been providing Hermione with all sorts of anti-nausea and prenatal potions, refusing any and all payment, and Harry knew for a fact—though he was sworn to secrecy, under penalty of being forced to buy Ron’s daily coffee and weekly pints out for a year—that Ron had personally manœuvred the Auror force from investigating Draco on some half-cocked, rotten suspicion, once his parole had ended. 

“No drinks?” Draco asked Hermione. 

“We were waiting for you,” she smiled sweetly. 

Draco sighed. Exaggeratedly, he rolled his eyes heavenward, turning away from the table. “Fashionably late gets the first round, is it?” he muttered, not even deigning to sit before strolling away to the bar. Harry was entranced by the way his shoulders moved, like a panther through the night instead of a wolf in a shitty bar.  “Dunno why I bother.” 

Ron and Luna had begun chatting, and Neville looked like he was trying very hard not to allow his soul to vacate his skin as Pansy pushed her cleavage up and leaned into him while Hermione stared disapprovingly on. Harry still felt like fresh hell, though, with the sights and sounds and smells in the bar assailing his prickling senses, so he kept his eyes between Draco and the middle distance, recalling the way his hair had felt under his hands and trying to keep ahold of the soothing sensation in his mind’s eye. 

And that was when the other man strode up to him. 

Draco was leaning on the bar, looking elegant and disinterested with one refined cheek resting in his palm. The man who loped up to him was tall and strapping, the type of person who only aspired to achieve inflated muscles to contribute absolutely nothing of meaningful value with them, or, in this man’s case, reduce the quality of general society by a not inconsiderable fraction.

He tossed his foolish chestnut curls and invaded the personal space Draco was so particular about maintaining with everyone in a display of audacity that had Harry’s wolf rumbling in his chest before he could even see Draco’s reaction. 

Draco swayed away from the stranger, lifting his chin imperiously. Harry watched his shoulders become straighter, angles pointy as always, and from his face in profile, he could see the cutting sneer, so much more sinister on his face when not addressing Ron in their strange neverending competition of arseholery. 

Harry glanced at the bartender, who was taking her sweet time taking Draco’s order, fielding questions from other patrons and chatting with her coworker. All the while, the man’s insolent hand inched closer to touching Draco, first resting on the bar next to him, then ghosting across the back of the seat where Draco was lightly perched. 

Harry could feel his wolf step into his body with flattened ears and an exposed fang. His senses, overwhelmed by the stimuli around them, sharpened suddenly, filtering out Ron’s low laugh, Luna’s spicy perfume that might have been weedkiller, Pansy’s floral scent, and the other myriad data points from being in a busy space. He could smell the strange man’s awful cologne, viscous and cloying, purchased from some cheap boutique that no doubt claimed it was sensual and alluring, as if he could ever be any such descriptors. Harry could smell the drink wafting off the man, could smell the dark scent of the arousal he felt looking at Draco. He could smell the sharpness of Draco’s discontent, spiky and…yellow, he wasn’t sure how else to describe it. Like a low-grade alarm, not yet gone off, but blinking, ready. 

The man had been asking Draco token, asinine questions, all of which Harry was vindictively pleased to hear answered monosyllabically. Undaunted, and Harry had to begrudgingly give him points for his delusional tenacity, he changed tracks, perhaps thinking Draco’s standoffishness was shyness or perhaps not thinking at all as he sidled up closer to him. Harry watched Draco eye the serving platter of all the beers he had ordered, yet unpoured.

“So,” the insupportable man purred, one of many unwelcome interjections he had already clearly directed at Draco, and leaning in that intolerable inch closer, “what’s the worst sexual experience you’ve had, eh?”

Draco scoffed, appalled, and from across the bar Harry nearly did the same. 

“What, don’t tell me you could do better,” Draco sneered derisively, his tone flat and condescending as though he was totally unaffected. But Harry could smell the discomfort wafting off of him, sharp and urgent, and Harry, for one, was already sick of the other man’s twaddle.  

Harry was already moving to a stand, hurrying Ron, Neville, and Pansy out of his way. Hermione hastened after him, hissing at Ron to sit down, the lot of them likely having seen the no doubt thunderous expression on Harry’s face. 

“Draco,” Harry called before he reached him, but Draco hadn’t seemed to hear him, shuttered eyes gazing into the middle distance someplace between him and the filthy bar mat, glowering as the man continued to butcher their already dying discourse. 

Harry repeated Draco’s name when he came upon them, shoving himself into the minuscule space between Draco and his conversational assailant, turning to box the prat out with his back and squared shoulders. Draco looked up from the bar, squinting in confusion. “Pansy had a question for you.”

“Ah.” Draco glanced back to their table, looking past Hermione. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry could see Pansy watching their social snafu unravel with pursed red lips and a ferocious, spine-quivering scowl, her nostrils flaring angrily. 

“Go on,” Harry encouraged, as the dickhead began angrily protesting from behind him. Paying him no mind and not looking away from Draco, he continued firmly, “you can get the next one. She said it was important.”

Draco slowly raised a surprised, suspicious eyebrow. “Alright,” he agreed, the word drawn out to indicate that he knew exactly what was happening. As he turned to go, the wanker attempted to sidestep Harry, who blocked him eagerly with anger that was snarling and vindictive crawling up his throat, dredged from both him and his wolf. 

Hermione, playing interception, stepped in to ask the piece of shit what he thought about some such thing or another that baffled him enough for the moment to let Draco slip away. Harry watched him stride back to the booth and relaxed into a watchful, waiting stance at the bar. 

He listened to the man’s angry noises and Hermione’s exasperated placations. When Draco sat at the booth seat next to Luna, Pansy scurried over to his side, shoving the two of them down deeper into the booth and plonking herself beside him huffily so that Draco was sandwiched between the two girls. He watched her cluck over him and whip her head back to the stranger, devil’s horns practically curling from her perfectly coiffed bob. Were Pansy a pyromancer, Harry was sure the stranger would not have evaded a fiery demise of spontaneous combustion. 

As it were, the jackarse evaded Pansy’s inferno, but he was not quite fortunate enough to escape unscathed. 

Harry’s attention was caught once again by Hermione, who flounced to the bar next to him with a pleased hum, her wild curls bouncing.

“I haven’t gotten to do anything like that in quite a while,” she admitted in satisfaction, a mischievous, secretive little smile curling her lips. She sipped on the glass of water she had retrieved earlier, and her eyes danced over the rim. 

“What?” Harry looked over to where that jackarse had been standing. He was nowhere to be found, despite his wolf’s swivelling satellite ears primed for his obnoxious crowing. “What did you do?” 

“He reminded me quite a lot of Cormac McLaggen, don’t you think?” she asked primly, the smile she tried to repress dimpling her cheeks.

Shocked, Harry guffawed. “You didn’t!” he wheezed, clutching her shoulder and then bringing her in for a hug, taking care to be more gentle than usual since her and Ron’s announcement. Her hair smushed into his face, knocking his glasses askew. “Oh, I love you.”    

She chuckled, wrapping her arms around him as well and giving his ribs a squeeze. “Yes, well. It was light enough that it wouldn’t trigger the statute against casting on muggles, so hopefully he’ll just have taken himself home.”

“And if he hasn’t, we’ll just sacrifice him to Pansy,” Harry decided happily, giving the bartender his card eagerly as the drinks finally arrived. 

“She’s really not that frightening,” Hermione replied, watching doubtfully as Harry attempted to balance the tray himself. “I consulted her for a bit on financing SPEW and the lycanthropy initiative. I mean, she’s certainly an acquired taste, but,” Hermione shrugged, “I suppose that could be said for just about all of us.” 

“Yeah, tell that to Neville,” Harry joked, focusing on not dropping the drinks that had taken so much effort to procure. “He doesn’t seem to be acquiring it yet.” 

“I don’t know if that’s quite it,” Hermione doubtfully opined, a secretive little smirk playing on her lips, but didn’t deign to argue further.  

Harry weaved his way back to the table and announced grandly, “Drinks for everyone.” Hermione sat herself beside Neville and Harry happily shoved Pansy farther into the booth the way she had done for Draco and Luna and plopped himself down beside her. Though she said nothing, she dug her sharp red nails into his arm for it.  And though Harry was now exactly in the opposite position he had been before Draco entered the bar, the wolf in his chest felt contented by his decision, knowing that if Hermione’s Confundus was too light on account of the Statute, Draco was now barricaded in on all sides. 

His heart rate was still elevated, though the huge red stain of danger and threat on his scent had faded into something less jarring and abrupt. Draco was glaring daggers at Ron with a high, blotchy flush to his cheeks, and Ron was leaning back in his seat, looking smug. 

“What did I miss?” Harry asked the group, knowing that Draco would skin and tan him if he made a big, public deal about what had just happened. 

“Draco is making fun of Ron for being poor again,” Luna observed to Harry, sounding wholly unbothered.

“Were you?” Harry asked curiously to Draco, who was mulishly sitting in his seat with hunched shoulders and a stormy glower. Certainly he would have as a child, but Draco now tended to think more creatively when he and Ron traded insults. The habit was hard to break, but their insults were usually in jest…mostly.  

“I was simply stating facts,” Draco argued petulantly, at the same time that Neville interjected with false seriousness, “Yes, Harry, it would appear so.”

Ron had a shit-eating grin slapped on his face as Draco sighed dramatically, slumping farther down into his seat. There was a bump from under the table–Harry thought one of the two of them had tried to kick the other, though he couldn’t tell which. “It’s more fun when you don’t just say it like that,” he muttered tragically to Luna. 

“I reckon that’s why she does it,” Ron interrupted with triumph. “Because you’re a dick.”

Neville raised a pint as though it was an olive branch. “Cheers?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Four rounds later, and Pansy had convinced a red-faced, stuttering Neville onto the dance floor with her.  Luna was standing off to the side, swaying with her arms in the air to some internal rhythm that was at complete odds with the pulsating music pumped from the speakers. Ron and Hermione were standing at the bar, waiting to be served again, and Harry was adamantly not looking over there or else he would risk seeing what their hands were doing. 

Draco, meanwhile, remained on the same side of their booth, now closer to Harry for being left behind. Harry’s wolf liked that. Harry liked it, too. 

“You didn’t have to save me, Saviour,” Draco drawled, his s’s more syllabant than usual, but his posh tone still incongruent with how drunk Harry knew he had to be. “I could have handled that guy.”

Harry shrugged. “I know,” he said defensively, taking another swig of his pint, grimacing at the lukewarm beer. “Shouldn’t’ve had to, though.”

Draco waved his hand dismissively. “You think I can’t handle someone who looks like a cheesier, smarmier Gaston?”

Harry furrowed his brows in confusion. “Who?”

“Gaston?” Draco asked quizzically. “The arsehole from Beauty and the Beast?” 

Harry returned his stare with a disbelieving one of his own. He had never been able to watch Disney movies, not in the Dursley’s household, but Dudley had had the television on enough times when Harry was doing the washing up to get a general sense of the films. “You’ve seen Disney movies?”

Draco snorted. “‘Course I have. Cady and I get stoned and watch them every other Thursday.”

“Who the hell’s Cady?” Harry asked, and then shouldered him amicably. “I didn’t know you could make friends.”

“Oh, piss off.” Draco rolled his eyes with a smile, scanning for their friends. Luna still seemed eminently at peace. Neville was tripping over Pansy’s toes. And Harry was certain Draco didn’t give a shit where the hell Ron had gone off to as long as it was far from them. “Cady’s my favourite housemate. She convinced me to get a mobile phone, so we can send textual messages.” He showed Potter the little muggle device fished from his back pocket, which on the screen had an image of an opening and closing envelope, encasing a message from Cady that consisted simply of “XD”. In the same tone of voice that Arthur used often when referring to muggle innovation, Draco explained, “They’re like owls, but they don’t bite you.”  

Harry smiled, charmed. "I would hope not." He thought then of the biting couch, and shuddered. Perhaps wizards being fascinated by something's lack of sentience wasn't truly so astonishing.

Draco downed the dredges of his pint and waved his empty glass, foam ringing the bottom. "Another round?"

“I’d do shots with you,” Harry offered immediately. He began awkwardly scooting out of the booth, offering a hand to Draco that Draco batted away. “I’ll do them right now.”

“Be on the lookout for Gaston,” Draco muttered darkly. “If he tries to touch me I’ll break his nose.”

“Oh, Hermione Confunded him,” Potter chirped victoriously between ordering with the bartender. “I bet he hardly remembers where he is anymore, if he’s even still on this street. She said it was nothing, but you know how she casts.”

Draco spluttered. “Hermione Granger?” He stood there for a moment while the liquor glugged from its bottle, utterly boggled. “If she’s willing to do that to just some guy, I guess I’ll consider myself lucky the worst I ever got was a punch to the face.”

“Yeah, she’s fantastic,” Harry smiled fondly. 

Their shots poured, they necked them in sync, both grimacing at the taste. 

“Tequila, really?” Draco coughed hoarsely, licking salt off his hand and sucking on his lime. “Fucking hate tequila.”

“I panicked,” Harry confessed, though he had done no such thing, feeling his cheeks heat as he watched Draco’s tongue on his skin. Wondering what it would have felt like on Harry’s own, the back of his hand where it still said I must not tell lies, and then he lied, “I like it, anyway.” 

Draco shuddered, his glitter and the dark flecks of it fallen beneath his dove grey eyes catching the light. “Whatever you say, weirdo. Merlin, that was awful.”

“Your eye makeup—it’s all smudged,” Harry noticed, resisting the urge to swipe his thumb where it had fallen, to caress the lovely face it covered. “When you coughed. It’s under your eyes.”

Draco sighed heavily. “That would be the mascara, probably. I told Pansy not to put it on—I knew this would happen. Come on, then, otherwise I’ll lose you,” Draco muttered, grabbing Harry’s hand and weaving aggressively through the throng of people, “it’ll be a pain in the arse finding you again when we’re both wasted—”

“I’m not wasted,” Harry argued, shimmying between a group of people that Draco nearly pushed over, apologising to them over his shoulder. “I was actually kind of trying to, but I think my metabolism is faster now.”

“Are you sure you should be telling me that?” Draco asked, elbowing an offended couple out of his way. “Shouldn’t it be a secret that you’re trying to get blackout?”

“What, like you’re gonna tell the Prophet on me?” Harry snorted. “Please. All the shit they post about you, I know you wouldn’t.”

“How do you know it’s shit?” Finally Draco fought his way to the bathroom, shouldering his way through the door. 

“Have you tried to ringlead an upsurge in ancient dark magyks recently?” 

“No,” Draco grumbled, glaring at his reflection in the streaky mirror. He grabbed a paper towel and began fruitlessly wiping at the dark blotches beside his eyes. “That would be Theo, if anyone. He’s actually angry that his father is in Azkaban. Lucius can stay there and rot for all I care.”

Harry’s eyebrows flew to his hairline in the streaky mirror. Harry had known Draco had a rough relationship with his father, of course–the marks of it had been all over his aching soul. But he had never known him to speak badly of him, not outright. “Ah.”

Draco glowered at him, the effect ruined—or perhaps enhanced—by the artificial circles he had now created under his eyes. “Shocked?” Draco snorted inelegantly, louder for the drinks in him. “What kind of maniac serves up his child to appease a mass murdering psychopath? What the fuck was I supposed to do?” Draco spat, practically incandescent with fury. Harry had seen Draco as an angry child, a bully and a menace. He had seen him snide, had seen him terrified out of his mind and relieved beyond belief, but he doubted he could find a time where he could recall Draco looking so fully, powerfully enraged in that moment. Perhaps because, finally, the anger he’d been unleashing at random throughout his life had finally found its intended target.

“I…yeah,” Harry croaked, scratching his head. He didn’t like to think what kind of maniac would serve a sixteen year old up to a mass murdering psychopath. Because, well…hadn’t that happened to him, too? 

Draco heaved a sigh, deflating as he leant against the spotted counter. He noted Harry’s discomfort with a discerning eye. “I’ve been hashing it out again with my Mind Healer recently. Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” 

“It’s not that!” Harry hurried to reassure him. “I’m not uncomfortable because of you. I think it’s great. You know I’ve always thought your father was a dick.” 

Draco chuckled darkly, turning back to mutilate his makeup once more. “Yes, that seems the general consensus.”  

Harry hesitated. He knew Draco was different–the manner in which he talked to Teddy was so wholesome, his interactions with Andromeda and Luna so genuine, in ways that Harry could never have imagined of the brat from Hogwarts being capable. Even in Grimmauld that first summer, he had been withdrawn, sullen, and spiky more often than not. Eighth year he was exhausted and irritable all the time, not that that was any different from the rest of the traumatised masses of students, not any different from Harry himself. But the anger and irritation had given way to someone Harry liked, and then someone Harry loved. Perhaps Harry had loved him even with the anger, and had been too angry himself to notice  

Whatever the case, Draco had flitted out of Harry’s life. Now, he only appeared in the random intervals when they met in groups, or passed one another at Andy’s, or with Teddy. Every time they met, recently, Draco seemed to have gained another small piece of himself somehow. Harry had never thought of him as lacking anything before, but now his step seemed more sure in a way he couldn’t quite place. 

Finally, he blurted, “Can I ask about the Mind Healing?” 

Draco raised an eyebrow, pausing in his assault to give Harry his full attention. The wrecked dark splotches made him seem more human, and more enticing, than the perfect glittery vision he had made walking into the bar. “What do you want to know?”

Harry grimaced and bit his lip. “Do you think…?” He paused, trying to order his thoughts into some semblance of logic. If only the alcohol worked on him. He wouldn’t have been hesitating if his blood was half beer and ten percent tequila.  

He recalled Draco’s words from long ago, “I’m afraid in all the ways that ruin me, I am my mother’s son.”

Before Draco, all Harry had ever known about Mind Healing was from what Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had discussed when telling everyone Harry went to St Brutus’s Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys.  He supposed, after grand theft, breaking and entering, vandalism, and assassination on his part, and aiding and abetting criminal activity, assault, attempted assassination, and mauling (though that was self-defence and defence of another, Luna had testified herself when she had recounted Draco’s heroic dark night), both he and Draco could have been very well titled as criminal boys. It made a sort of sense to Harry, that way, when Draco’s verdict had included five years of mandatory weekly sessions with a Mind Healer.

But then Draco had told him about his Mind Healer, about what he actually discussed in Mind Healing, about how very far he had to toil before the inherited yoke on his shoulders could lighten. About how Harry could be there, but only at a distance, as he did it. 

Harry wanted to know if that distance had to be quite so far, now. 

Draco gazed at him assessingly. Harry winced. Draco’s sharp eyes, all steel and bronze and metal, pierced the centre of him with surgical swiftness. The eye contact was too painful to maintain. Harry had to shy away, cursing himself for acting a coward in front of the man everyone said he had always been braver than.  

“Do you think it’s been enough, now?”

Draco sighed, gazing at the untamed mess that was Harry’s curls, his dishevelled collar, the stray hairs that refused to align with the rest of his brows–anywhere but Harry’s eyes. 

He asked softly, “Do you know yourself, Harry?” It wasn’t meant to be mean, Harry knew, because Harry knew Draco’s voice when he got mean. Regardless of intention, the words sounded cruel to Harry’s ears. “I mean really know. No ego, no defences. Strip yourself down. Can you see all your talents and flaws, all your dark, screaming parts that have been left untended? Are you willing to face the seething maw of the neglected places within you and make peace with them?” 

Draco sucked his teeth, thoughtfully, and shared, “The worst thing I ever did was fix that Vanishing Cabinet. I have been learning how to love the person that did that, that caused so many people pain and suffering. I have been trying to understand and forgive.” His mouth was a straight line. He blinked hard, gazing at his hand curled around the sink, gripping the wet, stained paper napkin he had been using. “I’m not quite there yet, but I am trying. If you think of the worst thing you’ve ever done, do you think you could love that person?” 

Oh!  

That was the sound Draco had made when he fell onto Myrtle’s flooded bathroom floor, soft and surprised and not at all like he was dying. 

The wet sounds of his laboured breathing had bounced around the tiled floor and mirrored walls. Harry had thought he would pass away right there beside Draco, right at the exact moment that Draco’s soul left his body. He remembered how he had looked to an incandescently furious Professor Snape in desperation, a voice in the back of his head screaming tell me he’ll be fine, please, just tell me he’ll be fine. Lie to me if you have to. Just tell me. 

He recalled shamefully how he had fled the bloodied scene upon receiving no bloodless platitudes to get drunk at the post-Quidditch piss-up and forget, trying desperately to lose himself in his friends and girlfriend. Fruitlessly trying to replace the awful things he had seen and done with good things, as though if he collected an abundance of positive memories, they would bury the terrible unreachably far down. All while Draco lay pale and quiet as the grave in the darkened hospital wing, alone save for his carrion crow of a godfather. 

Draco was quiet now, too. He watched him with that penetrating dove grey that looked neither like metal nor mirrors nor reflective water yet untinged with blood. They were so luminous that one, were they not Harry, would think they could never dim. 

“I can never forgive that person,” Harry managed, his voice creaking and his eyes burning.  “I don’t–he doesn’t deserve it.” 

Draco reached out, patting Harry’s hand. His fingers felt slim and soft and cold to Harry’s touch. His thumb passed over the old scar, I must not tell lies. He tapped it. 

“It’s not about deserving,” Draco replied earnestly, a rueful, unhappy little smile twisting his lips. “It’s just about wanting.” 

Harry would have said something more, or perhaps done something, maybe leaned into Draco’s touch or crushed him into his chest so he could feel how Draco’s skin was firmly knit back together or even kissed him for how raw and vulnerable and in need of reassurance Harry fet, but the door to the bathroom flung open, exposing them to the din of the bar from the outside, the waves of scents and sounds invading their quiet solitude. 

“Hey, it’s you!” boomed the dickhead from before, shoving Harry into the stalls from behind. He drunkenly lurched into Draco’s space, grabbing his shoulder roughly. “I remember you. I didn’t get a chance to tell you how sexy you were.”

“Ugh,” Draco gagged, twisting to remove himself but only ending up pinned to the counter as Harry struggled with the stall door that had been flung in his face made clumsy with indignance and fury and haste. The man’s breath was sour with booze and the stench of his cologne was underlaid with the smell of sweat, and Harry could smell it from all the way across the stalls. He couldn’t and did not want to imagine the assault Draco was enduring on multiple levels. The thought of it mixed with a strange flooding sensation of warmth coursing through Harry’s body, a new sort of adrenaline that made his limbs feel longer, more powerful. “Can’t say I feel the same.”

“Come on,” he cooed as Harry’s vision swam with red. The stranger continued lecherously as Harry’s vision sharpened, the smells of the bar becoming even more pronounced, and somehow, strangely, the grimy, sticky washroom floor becoming closer,  “I love a thing like you, I swear,” which was interrupted both by Draco’s incredulously scoffed “ew” and a deep, foreboding growl from, surprisingly, Harry’s own chest. 

The stranger jolted and stumbled away from the sound in surprise. “What the—”

“Confondo!”

Draco had shook his wand from its holster and cast it point-blank. By the sudden hush and woozy tilt of the stranger, Draco clearly held none of the qualms Hermione had maintained when she cast the same spell an hour or so prior. The quiet was broken only by the bark of Draco’s spiteful laugh, harsh and vindictive. He sounded like Sirius. 

Harry—or, well, it was sort of Harry, because he was still present, even though he didn’t quite feel like himself anymore—pulled their lip up in a snarl, watching the intruder’s eyes go glassy. His gormless mouth went slack while Draco  manhandled him out of the loo, shoving him bodily through the door and into the blaring darkness of the bar. He slammed the door shut with a curt, definitively spat “fucking loser”, and locked it with a jerky wave of his wand. 

He turned back to Harry with wide, wild eyes in his colourless face. 

“What the fuck?” Draco asked, finishing the muggle’s train of thought. He trained his wand on Harry, too. 

He was also, oddly, much taller than Harry remembered. He’d been certain they were of a height just moments ago.

Harry, and whoever else seemed to be budging up against his consciousness, flattened himself—themselves?—to the floor, whining and peering at him from beneath a wrinkled brow imploringly. They felt their ears—their ears?—fold back and opened their mouth, gratified not to smell the awful stranger as strongly, but upset by the scent of stress clearly emanating from Draco. Finding Draco’s gaze unsoftened, they grumbled a bit before rolling onto their back, limbs akimbo in the air and mouth open in a silly grin, wiggling their hindquarters on the tile floor in a manner they were certain screamed ‘nonthreatening'. 

Unwooed, Draco glared at him suspiciously. “You haven’t been stealing my wolfsboon, have you?” he accused, casting some sort of diagnostic charm on them that Harry couldn’t begin to understand, even when he was fully human. “Bloody menace. And it’s so close to your first shift. It’ll be a fucking nightmare getting your wolf to let go now.”

Draco sighed, contemplating the floor in distinct distaste before casting a cleaning charm so fur-curlingly strong it made Harry sneeze in thrice before he sat primly cross-legged, his back very straight. 

“Alright,” Draco began, shooting another Colloportus and a Notice-Me-Not charm at the door for good measure. Good luck to any patron who had a full bladder in the foreseeable future.

“Alright. I don’t know how you’ve managed this, Potter, but yet again you’ve contrived to defy the laws of man, nature, and magic, and managed to do so with an excruciating lack of personal effort.” He blew a stray lock of hair from his forehead in exasperation, leaning his cheek on his palm in the same gesture as before while he waited for their drinks. His fringe glinted in the fluorescent lights, silvery blond. A bit like moonlight, a bit like sunlight. 

Harry—his wolf—whichever they were, could still smell the distress radiating from him despite his calm facade. They themselves still felt prickly and unstable, the follicles of their fur feeling itchy, the pads of their paws sticky and distracting, the glare of the overhead lights too strong. 

“You’d better not bite me,” Draco warned sternly, straightening his shoulders firmly. “I bite back.” 

Harry and his wolf whined, tossing their head and pressing their chin to their paws, hindquarters wiggling with their lowly wagging tail. 

“Yes, well, if you’re going to be like that,” Draco sighed, opening his arms, “you might as well come here.” 

Happily, the wolf bounded to Draco, pressing their face into Draco’s torso and wriggling ungainly, trying to step fully into his lap. 

“Oof!” Draco protested. A skein of reluctant amusement wound its way through his warm voice. He wrapped his arms around the wolf’s head and shoulders, using one hand to ward off their eager paws. “Paws on the floor where they belong,” he chided. It would have sounded more scolding had he not also been giving the back of their ear a scratch that had the wolf panting in delight. 

The wolf breathed in deeply, comforted by the scent of Draco’s body in his nostrils and the sound of his beating heart in his ears. Draco curled around them more comfortably, and the wolf relaxed, dropping the rest of themself to the floor. The sensation of Draco’s fingers sliding into their coarse fur felt heavenly. The only thing better would have been Ladon with them instead, laying with them, and the awful fluorescence to be replaced with the gentle moon that Ladon’s fur so took inspiration from.  

Soft and wry, Draco asked, “It’s always washrooms with you, isn’t it?” 

A rumbling sigh of relaxation vibrated through their barrel chest, exhaling hotly onto Draco’s wool-clad thigh. They could feel Draco take many deep, measured breaths as his heart rate slowed and returned to normal. 

“So,” he breathed eventually. He sounded less rattled than the wolf knew him to be. “I suppose introductions are in order.” 

The wolf made to move their head, but Draco’s fingers tightened around his neck, and the wolf felt his pointed chin come to rest on the top of his head. The bone on bone was uncomfortable, but not enough to justify moving away, and Draco turned shortly so the soft plane of his cheek replaced it. 

“Potter, you have managed to transform, without the moon, without Occlumency, and without wolfsboon, and you can bet your sorry arse after you turn back I’m dragging you to my room in the house share—” sensing Harry’s feelings, the wolf’s ears perked up in excitement “—to run every test imaginable on your ridiculous magic—” the wolf’s ears flattened in disappointment “—because this shouldn’t be possible. I do a whole ritual with Ladon every equinox and solstice, and I take wolfsboon. Salazar but you’re frustrating.” Draco exhaled, scratching the wolf’s fur once particularly roughly in a way that was likely meant to convey his annoyance but felt quite nice, actually. Were that his mate had to be human, the wolf could find at least a few perks. 

“Anyway,” Draco muttered, returning to his task at hand, “you’ve summoned your wolf. By the lack of blood and screaming, it seems despite the early stages of your lycanthropic journey, your wolf either lacks the rage most of us have from the generational curse—” Harry suspected not, considering the brutal scenes that had flashed before their reddened eyes as that shameless interloper pawed at Draco— “or, your wolf feels safe with me.” 

The wolf’s tail thumped on the tile in ready agreement. Mortifyingly, and much against Harry’s wishes, Harry’s wolf felt such a wave of affection towards Draco that denying the feeling would not only be a fruitless endeavour, but a foolhardy one too.  

In the back of their mind, Harry was not truly surprised, only disappointed. Just like Grimmauld and her awful portraits, his whole self capitulated to Draco. It had been so for years—Harry wondered what his wolf’s opinion would have been, had he been present when Harry had stepped into Draco’s cell in Azkaban, before they had each held the raw parts of one another and knew only pain and rage and tangled grief between them. 

Harry and his wolf both could have resisted what they felt now, they knew, but- why would they, when Draco looked to them like the moon and the stars in the sky, beautiful and untouchable and ageless in their constant presence just out of reach. 

“Right,” Draco noted, sounding amused. “My wolf, Ladon, he loves Luna.” The wolf that was with Harry grunted, butting their head more firmly into Draco’s chest. As the acrid scent of Draco’s fear receded, the overwhelming odours of the washroom and the crush of people in the bar past the door grew more distracting. “Yes, and you’re here too.” 

He stroked his fur soothingly. The wolf and Harry both wanted to melt into him, so delighted to be held. 

“You and your wolf should discuss names,” Draco continued. “Ladon and I settled on Ladon because it is the name of the protector of the garden of Hesperides, mythologically speaking, and is mythologically connected to the Draco constellation. Because he is a part of me–the part that protects, even if he can be frightening with the darkness that comes with him, the rage and jealousy and the grudges he carries. But, I would suspect it’s those qualities that make him such an adept guardian, I suppose,” he mused. 

He scratched the wolf’s ears pensively, quieting as he let his words linger between them. “I’m addressing you, Harry, but—that isn’t quite right just now, is it? You may be here, but your wolf is leading.” 

The wolf huffed. They didn’t give a fuss regarding the particulars of who Draco addressed. He was paying attention to them, both of them, and that was what mattered. And then all they knew was that Draco was moving, and that was bad because now their head was dislodged, and everything smelled a lot less like Draco and a lot more like a sticky, unwashed bar bathroom floor. 

Abandoned, they whined, peering up at Draco with wide, imploring eyes.

From far above them, Draco scoffed at the wolf sprawled pathetically on the washroom floor as he fished a pen and paper from his magically expanded pocket. 

“I didn’t expect your eyes to stay green,” he noted softly, smelling of warmth, like cinnamon and cloves and the earthy smell of his own wolf, the citrus smell of his magic. He leant over the sink, scrawling something on the paper. “Ladon’s are amber. I suppose grey isn’t a colour Ladon could have, though.” 

The wolf watched Draco’s clever fingers fold the note into a small paper crane, lightning with his citrus magic, fluttering its folded wings. Draco waved his wand at it and the door, through which it flitted, happily soaring off to its recipient. 

“I don’t know about you,” he announced while still facing the closed door, “but I didn’t even really want to come here tonight. A good cup of Leedy’s tea and a wash sounds nice, don’t you think?” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I wouldn’t want to be presumptuous,” Draco said later, curled in the armchair of his rickety student bedroom. He had one of the many blankets he kept to ward off the draft tucked around his shoulders and a steaming mug in his hands. “But the sacred animals of the god Apollo were ravens and wolves. He’s the god of the sun, and — well, I find that quite fitting, in an opposite sort of way.” 

Thoughtfully, he stroked the dark fur on the crown of the wolf’s head while their muzzle rested on the side of his thigh, now covered in warm, soft flannel instead of stiff wool. His voice wobbled uncharacteristically as he said, “I’ve only ever been able to cast a Patronus once, after it really struck me that I wasn’t going to Azkaban, that the war—that the war was over and, and I could start over, sort of. I don't know that it was happiness—I don't know that I was capable of true happiness, back then. I think rather it was simply the sheer force of my relief, after it all was done.” 

Draco told them that he had once been incapable of true happiness with the mild, factual way a Professor Binns recited the Goblin Wars. The wolf blinked up at him, pressing their body more firmly against Draco, wriggling to put their head more firmly under his hand. They could feel the irregular beat of Draco’s heart and smell his melancholy as he reflected.

“It was a raven.” He smiled. The wolf could smell the bittersweet sadness, a low, deep scent like the dark ocean, vining its way through Draco’s scent. “A Patronus is supposed to be the thing that protects you, that makes you feel safe, even your protector part. It makes sense the idea of your father would be yours. My godfather—I know his wasn’t a raven, but I always imagined that maybe it would have been, otherwise. So.” Draco swallowed. “So that’s mine. But I wouldn’t want to overstep.”

Apollo, thought Harry, the first purely independent thought he could recall since the wolf embodied them. Apollo. 

Apollo hummed back, delighted.

Chapter Text

In retrospect, the hallucinatory post-Battle moments were not ones Draco cared to recall with clarity. He could hardly bear to access the sensation of overwhelming, all-consuming relief, pursued swiftly by yet another bout of universe-eclipsing dread when the Auror’s hand fell heavy on his bony shoulder. He shied away from anything more than the barest of impressions.  

After a rough dragging to his cell in Azkaban and a jocular drubbing to boot, Draco clapped a hand to his bleeding mouth to stifle his sobs and curled in the filthy, cobwebby corner for what felt like a never-ending winter. Blind and insensate with panic, he clawed at his hair, his face, his eyes that had already been blackened by rough hands, his lips that had already been split by an unwashed boot. 

He would waste away in a cell without a trial like his first-cousin on his mother’s side, even worse for the lack of potions. Toiling in his childhood bedroom under the vigil of a half-dozen battered Malfoy elves and limited access to the demolished Manor gardens had produced an undoubtedly ghastly creation, but even it, with all its dreadful side-effects, had been salvation from the horror of an unfettered full moon. He had swapped one gaol for another, and yet in his gilded cage he could at least entertain the illusion that he had chosen imprisonment for himself. 

With naught to distract him but the reek of fishy brine and the slow glide of meltwater drops between the draughty bricks of his well-worn cell, Draco had no illusions, only nightmares.  His thoughts spiralled, providing him with macabre scenarios where he maimed himself or where his transformations became so unbearable he would wish he had. He wept even harder. 

Days or weeks or perhaps years later for all Draco knew of time, a rusty creak squealed from the reluctant hinges of his iron cell door. Draco cringed away, covering his face from the intense brightness of a Lumos after hours and hours in inky, frigid darkness, anticipating yet another eager greeting in the form of a merciless fist. Deep within him, overwhelmed and overwrought, the hateful predatory wolf that had been forced upon him was pacing. His ears were flat to his skull and his fangs were bared. His eyes were wide in stress and he was panting with his tail between his legs. 

Footsteps approached him and Draco curled in on himself tighter, whimpering. Some of the kinder guards, still wretchedly, thankfully human, had thrown food and water at him at seemingly random intervals, which he had been so hungry for that he'd snatched them off the floor. Perhaps this was all it was. Perhaps a kindness, not a beating. Perhaps it was even—

“Malfoy?” 

Draco’s nostrils flared. The loathsome wolf snarled with his scruff raised. The intruder sounded like—no, he couldn’t have been—

“Potter?” Draco blurted, his incredulousness tempered by the hoarseness of his throat. His head throbbed and his voice felt foreign and scratchy to his own ears, but he forced his shaking hands to drop and convinced his hunched shoulders to slide back into their proud place. 

“Fuck, Malfoy,” Potter repeated, a strange strained undercurrent running through his voice. The accursed wolf within couldn’t puzzle out his scent, awash as they were in a bitter cold ocean of fear and misery. “Come on. We’re leaving.”

Draco tried to stand, but he had hardly moved from the floor in days, only leaving his spot to use the horrific toilet and sink combo in the corner and hope that none of the leering human guards or terrifying, gut-twisting dementors drifted past. His joints cracked as he made the attempt, grabbing onto the wall for support. 

Potter held out his hand, apparently assuming with obscene swiftness that Draco had been perhaps lobotomized into docility by his captors. “Here, Malfoy,” he repeated, palm outstretched like Draco had waited for on the train all those years ago, “I can help you.”

Perhaps this is why Potter had chosen Weasley instead of him. Perhaps he liked his sycophants pathetic, naught but charity cases to work on, so that he could bask in the warm glow of his own charlatan heroics.  

But Draco knew he was no charlatan, not after the death of the Dark Lord, and that made him all the angrier. “Shut the fuck up,” Draco spat, grimacing and furious. “You’ve just come to gloat? To see me at my lowest? Well go ahead and laugh, Potter,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “Ha! As if it wasn’t so fucking predictable.”

“I haven’t come to gloat,” Potter retorted. “I’m here to cart your sorry ass out of here, you ungrateful prick. Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll leave it, thanks.” Draco bared a canine in a snarl. For once in his merciless recent life, Draco wished the full moon would rise, so he could really show Potter his fangs. But the fettered wolf within had no hold with neither the moon nor Draco’s nascent experiments, and even if he had, the deplorable animal lacked Draco’s fearsome pride. He’d have scurried through the open door and shivered at Potter’s heroic heels like a half-drowned kitten and twice as feeble. 

Draco did not reflect that pathetic was not perhaps the correct term to dub the creature that ran from confinement, instead of the one who insisted upon languishing in it.

“You’d rather stay in Azkaban than come with me?” Potter asked, dumbfounded, apparently, by Draco’s stubbornness. Clearly he was of the same mind as the snarling, panicking cretin Draco used all his Occlumency ability to lock away. “You’ve always been a bleeding idiot, Malfoy, but stupid? This stupid?”

“The stupidest thing I ever did—” Draco began, and he wanted to end it with “was not Cruciating you when I had the chance”, he had meant to end it with that. That would surely have chased Potter away, those famous eyes flaming with rage and angry lines scored into the sides of his chapped lips, but Draco’s mind supplied for him a myriad other more awful scenarios instead. 

He remembered the Dark Lord’s fingers curled around the back of his chilled neck as he whispered in his ear to cast the curse with more feeling, to really make Rowle understand his failures. Recalled Severus’ prone body in his arms, stiff already as rigour mortis began to set in, uncertain of when or how his godfather had died in the blistering fray, unable to comprehend that he had even as his body cooled. The Astronomy Tower. The Manor cellars. The Vanishing Cabinet. And on, and on, and on. 

Draco swallowed. “The stupidest thing I ever did,” he repeated, meeting Potter’s eyes, “was reach for you in the Fiendfyre.”

Potter reeled back, shocked. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do.” He did. Dead would be better than Azkaban, even a horrific death of unstoppable immolation. Dead would be better than whatever circus of humiliation this was, Potter reaching a hand only to snatch it back when Draco reached for it. “You should have left me there.”

Potter looked away first, looking unnerved by the truth in Draco’s gaze. He cast around the room, his myopic eyes landing on the toilet, on the grime, and on the dingy stretches of dark nothing. 

“Luna sent me,” he eventually said. “As a favour to her? She didn’t tell me anything else, just that she needed you out.” 

Draco laughed creakily, like the throaty croak of a chthonic crow. How fitting it was, that once again Luna proved how desperately she had never deserved her cell as Draco did his. Better to leave him to the carrion–once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater. There would be no salvation for him, not when he had already thrown it away. Best he rot with the indelible mark on his arm instead and the terrible scars which covered it. 

Potter stared at him suspiciously through his breakdown, with not a little disgust splashed across his heroic features. “Did you Confund her?”

His laughter morphing in the cold damp to rattle his skinny frame with hacking coughs, Draco glowered. “I tried not to curse the captives when I could help it,” he forced out, his throat constricted. “It seemed unsporting. Luna was incorrect. You may go.”

The crease between Potter’s brows was angling for permanence, with how distinctly it was embossed into his face. He cast his roiling gaze first on Draco’s blackened eyes, surely a monstrous sight, to his swollen split lip which, pulled by his funerary hysterics, wept blood. “You’re on a first name basis with Luna?”

Draco sank back onto the wall, giving in to the spinning feeling. “We have made our acquaintances.” 

Potter looked at him hard. “Well,” he huffed, gesturing around again with an angry, disappointed air, “I’ll be back tomorrow. And the next day, I guess, until you snap out of whatever level of self-loathing and idiotic this is that you’ve sunk to.” He began slowly walking backwards to the door where he had entered, his eyes never leaving Draco’s sunken form. “And I thought Slytherin was all about self-preservation,” he mocked, softly and poisonously. As though perhaps that would be the thing to drive Draco out. As though Draco’s insensible pride could ever be moved.

“Then you’re even stupider than I thought,” Draco muttered, staring at the ground between his feet until he heard the door snap shut and the light of Potter’s Lumos disappeared. 

Draco had become used to dungeons, having spent most of his time before Potter’s intrusion to his ancestral home stalking them, conjuring mirages to confuse the other Death Eaters and sneaking hastily-brewed potions to the prisoners. When he was not knocking the others out or—cruelly, perhaps—relieving their pain, if only it was temporary, he sat with Luna Lovegood. Her presence in the dungeons had unnerved him when she had first shown up, the first prisoner he knew of not well than at least recognizably, and her wide light blue eyes were too knowing, too sad, too unbearably pitying. 

But she had also been kind, and Draco had had such a dearth of kindness in his miserable life for so many terrible years. So Draco had returned. And returned. Much like Potter did, every day after menacing the bars of Draco’s cell, just as he had vowed he would. 

Whenever Potter left, one of the guards in particular would stand vigil instead, his attention no doubt caught by Draco's heroic unwelcome guest. The guard was a horrible ungainly thing, part troll Draco uncharitably believed, who stopped at Draco’s cell every evening and wouldn’t leave for hours. He acted friendly, giving Draco more clean water than any other, as if Draco was too addled already to smell the potions in it. His nose was more sensitive for the accursed lycanthropy humming in his tarnished blue veins. 

Catching on quickly, after two head-pounding, thirsty nights, the drugs had been removed and plain water replaced the tainted kind in an attempt at underhanded charity. Draco had not spent a year and a half living on and off with the Dark Lord in his childhood home to learn nothing at all. He had always been a quick study, and he ascertained even more quickly that the guard’s kindness was connivance. Clearly, the part-troll had not anticipated that Draco was the sanest and youngest prisoner by a long shot. Or perhaps the half-troll simply had not thought at all. 

Clearly, He wanted Draco out of his chosen corner and out in the open, drugged and vulnerable. Draco did not give it to him. Nervously, he did not know how many days remained until he was dragged from his corner with force, and he did not care to make that calculation. 

So, Draco lasted one week, just about, before he cracked. There was no dramatic, self-sacrificing end to his confinement. Only a wordless lurch to a standing position, the squaring of his bony shoulders as though he were about to march into a battle he finally truly believed in, and a curt nod. It would have been less, far less—perhaps he would have been grovelling at Potter’s ratty muggle trainers that very first day—had Narcissa not taught him Occlumency. But Narcissa was the best Occlumens Draco knew, perhaps the best alive in Britain, after her performance before the Dark Lord, and so Draco’s shields were strong. 

Strong, but not infallible. Not thick enough to insulate him from the frigid crawling feeling that trickled down his spine when that troll-like guard gave him a lingering once-over as Potter frogmarched him away with an authoritative hand between his shoulder blades. 

Chapter Text

Draco was laying on the floor, yet again, when once more he was so uncouthly interrupted by a Potter-related event. It seemed to be an unsavoury trend of late. No matter that they shared hectic time slots with an infinitely beloved, but so very ceaselessly energetic, seven-year-old child.

This time, at least, Draco felt much more spry than before. Teddy had insisted they play wolf pack instead of knights and dragons, and Draco had readily obliged. They had spent the afternoon tumbling around, three hours of which were marked teal in Draco’s mobile phone’s calendar, “VISIT TEDDY” blaring at him from the lock screen. Draco explained to him how it might feel to stalk a crow in the silvery moonlight, knowing that every powerful coil in your body had been made for this. How the cool soil would feel under his paws, how the soothing earliest morning breeze would feel through his heavy coat. 

Draco took care, as he recounted tales of running through the Manor’s expansive woodland or Grimmauld’s expansive back garden or the untamed Forbidden Forest, to remind Teddy that his wolf—Bear, he had been preliminarily named by a utilitarian Andromeda, and who Draco had taken to calling BugBear, for both the conjunction of his nephew’s nickname and the amusingly nefarious connotations it had for such a small pup—his wolf may not want to share at first. His wolf may want to hoard his memories all for himself, because he so jealously treasures the little time he has to be free. 

It wasn’t until Draco had begun routinely using a reliable brew of wolfsboon, after all, that Ladon had begun feeling generous with his memories. Once the wolf began to understand that he did not need to hold onto his treasured moments of freedom so very tightly. Once Draco became able to impress upon them both, truthfully, honestly, that the freedom Ladon craved and fought so hard for could be in abundance. If only Draco were to trust him, if only they both proved themselves worthy of one another. 

Draco had had to fill and refill the Vase of Monstrous Thoughts over and over and over, those first few months. He had been so unstoppably worried, pulling out his hair at the crown of his head, then tugging at his eyebrows, then picking at his cuticles, the awful little sound it made echoing in his ears over and over until his hands were a bloody mess and he was no less a mess for it. But the Snapdragons and Devil’s Snare had done the best they could in protecting him from falling into the darkest of the dread swirl, and slowly, in its place, Ladon had tentatively stepped into his life. 

Draco hoped, as he slung his arms around Teddy’s waist and spun them around the woodland rug of his bedroom, gnomes running for cover from his stumbling feet and waving their tiny fists in cantankerous outrage. He hoped that Teddy would not grow up with the white-knuckled fear knocking against the flimsy foundation of his soul or the sour, starving taste of panic that infected every ragged breath the way that Draco had. He hoped that his spirit would be a beautiful woodland, open and free and ready to experience whatever delights the world presented him, rather than the feeble cage Draco had locked himself in for so long, praying for protection from a world he had always been taught to dread. 

Certainly, Teddy seemed happy enough, from the way that he spun and giggled, his arms out wide. He showed Draco his loose tooth with pride, the second of its kind.  

“We’d best be giving that straight to Andy, when it does pop out,” Draco said seriously, doing his best impression, which was shadowy and half-formed at best, of a muggle dentist. “Let’s see, this one’s not there yet, nor this one,” he began, poking at Teddy’s small, white baby teeth as the little boy giggled and grinned. “My goodness, Tedwin, is that a fang already? Quick, quick! Before the tooth fairy comes! It will definitely covet your shiny teeth, Tedwin, and we must build a fortress against it.”  

And that was how Potter found the two of them, just as Draco’s accursed phone alert rang. His hurricane calendar was emblazoned on the backs of his eyelids, and he didn’t need the red banner on his mobile to remind him that it was now “5:30-7:30: INSECTOLOGY HW”. 

Draco and Teddy both groaned, Teddy shaking a convincing cardboard pike Draco had transfigured from a toilet paper roll at his godfather. The two of them were crouched beneath a fort of blankets, both wearing tin foil hats like Draco had once seen in a muggle movie. He promised Teddy that if he ever did catch sight of the nefarious tooth fairy creeping greedily towards Andromeda’s cottage, Draco would transfigure their hats to iron posthaste, all the better ward to the frightful creature away from the treasure trove Tedwin naively carried in his innocent mouth. 

“What are you two doing?” Potter asked. His accursed dimple of amusement had returned. Draco wanted to pretend that it did not exist, but alas, like the tooth fairy, some monsters were real. 

“Fighting the tooth fairy!” Teddy explained, eyes bright with bloodlust for the imagined foe. He shook his pike once more at Potter and roared in a better impression of a lion cub than a wolf pup.

Potter cocked his head. The dimple was gone, replaced by a bemused grin. Sourly, Draco wished the tooth fairy would target the Boy Who Lived instead of his nephew, for the gall Potter had to turn such an arresting expression onto the two of them. He smelled of spring and something sweeter, his beloved treacle tart perhaps. Draco had never liked treacle–it had always been far too saccharine for him. He liked it even less on Potter. 

“Is the tooth fairy very frightening?” he asked, looking between Teddy and Draco with repressed laughter. Draco nodded sanguinely, thumbing his tin foil hat in front of his eyes so he didn’t have to look at the horrifyingly fond expression on Potter’s face while he rolled over and stretched. Draco’s limbs creaked. Likely, this was the first time today his spine had been straight, having spent most of the foggy morning hunched over a bubbling cauldron and more of the yellow-lit evening before bent over his textbooks in PITIE’s expansive library stacks.  

“Very,” Draco confirmed in complete seriousness, as Teddy squeaked with contained emotion, “It wants to steal my teeth!”

“A criminal,” Draco agreed, slowly crawling out of the confines of their cosy fortress. An ornery gnome grumbled something unintelligible at him from the rug, annoyed, no doubt, that Draco had just stepped onto his two-dimensional hedge. Draco tossed his tin foil hat on top of him to muffle the sound of his complaints. “We must do what we can to protect your bodily autonomy, young Tedwin.” 

“Dudley left his teeth under his pillow for the tooth fairy,” Potter offered, leaning on the threshold with his arms crossed before his broad chest, peering down at them both, looking charmed. The fine lines beside his eyes reminded Draco of the green grass and sunshine that he always smelled like, and he felt his stomach roil in discomfort. “He would get pound coins in return.” 

“A paltry sum for one’s bones,” Draco sneered, rolling his eyes at Dudley ’s foolishness. He knew a bit about Dudley—not much, but some, gleaned from the dark corners of Grimmauld and deep blue conversations in the early mornings of their eighth year.  A bit, and far too much. 

Potter shrugged, something almost wistful flitting across his sunkissed features. “He bought Maltesers from the primary school vending machine with them.” The way he said it was more sad than nostalgic. He had gotten like this sometimes, in Grimmauld, in eighth year, and as he did now, Draco had always shied away, forever unable to look straight at anyone. 

“Right,” Draco replied bracingly, before turning to Teddy. “Tedwin, I must be off. Remember—how do we protect against the tooth fairy?” 

“Milk and honey by the gate to distract it,” Teddy recited, having memorised the mantra that Draco drilled into his colourful head as they erected their plush defences. Beneath the tin foil hat, his hair was pink and purple. “Salt around my bed in a circle to confuse it.” 

“You’re a quick study, Tedwin,” Draco nodded proudly, giving him a tight squeeze. The tenacious rug gnome squirmed his way out from under Draco’s tin foil hat and beelined for the two of them, tiny fist aloft. He prodded Teddy’s stripey-socked heel belligerently. Once Draco released the little boy, he spun to engage his newest foe in combat with boundless alacrity, cardboard pike raised in eager threat.

Leaning in that careless manner, Potter almost looked as though he had never clenched his fists in rage at Draco, never sat at Grimmauld’s coffee-stained kitchen table pensively after a full moon with Draco, never leaned across the chasm between their dorm beds to deliver a stasis-charmed plate of food for Draco. But he had, and the sunlit warmth of his spring gaze betrayed it. The buttery warm scent of sunlight and pastry and treacle threatened to surround them both.

“Can I talk to you for a moment?” he murmured, too lowly to distract Teddy from his fearsome opponent. Teddy appeared to be winning, but then, Draco hoped he would be. He had a whole third dimension more than his fellow combatant. 

Draco pursed his lips and flashed him his glowing red mobile home screen. “I have homework,” he replied crisply, grateful for the excuse. Aside from that first full moon, nearly three weeks ago now, Draco had not experienced the dubious pleasure of Potter’s presence without Teddy or Andy hot on his heels. 

“Okay,” Potter said, easily turning and walking with Draco as he beelined determinedly to the floo room. “What about after? Andy returns from her book club at 7:30.” 

“They hardly teetotal at Andy’s book club,” Draco scoffed, already envisioning the pile of readings balefully awaiting him with dread. “Would you abandon her in her time of need?” 

“I doubt she’ll need me all that much,” Potter smiled. “I could buy you dinner?” 

Draco stopped at the floo, scowling. “Leedy has a very strict dinner schedule. Tonight is swordfish and ratatouille.” Besides afternoons with Teddy, dinners with Leedy, at 7:30 sharp, were the one constant in his life that was not related to his punishing school, work, and research schedule. He wasn’t quite sure from where she got her ingredients–Draco paid her as well as he could, which was far more than he could afford, thus eliciting cabinets that would sooner cough a lone, pathetic dust bunny at you than reveal anything edible. Perhaps every night she was feeding Draco beans and rice under some elaborate enchantment. If so, Draco would rather not know. Let her keep her secrets.  

“What about coffee?” His scent was honest and imploring, his hands splayed out to his sides, like he was addressing the wild animal Draco truly could be. “Tomorrow, at 10. It’ll be my treat.”

Within Draco, Ladon huffed testily, pacing and impatient with the way Draco hedged. Draco wanted to argue with his wolf that it was Potter and that Draco was not and likely never would be ready for what had been offered to him years ago on the squashy couch of the least-worst living room in Grimmauld. That doing anything with Potter, even grabbing a coffee, would be cruel. Allowing him to envision a future Draco wasn’t ready to have. 

But Draco had told him not to wait for him. He had made that very clear. And Potter had said that he wouldn’t, that he didn’t want to, but that he wanted to be a part of Draco’s life regardless. And then there was Ladon, insisting pack in time with his heartbeat, his instincts growing ever stronger with the waxing of the moon. Safe. 

Draco sucked his teeth in frustration. “Pick me up at PITIE,” he finally decided, spine straight and a hint of wry challenge in his voice. “I’ll be in the stacks. I like the French cafe by Downing street. Don’t be late.” 

“Where are the stacks?” Potter asked as Draco stepped into the grate. Likely, the only library he had ever set foot into was Hogwarts’. Draco was unsure Potter was even aware they were referring to a library.

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” Draco replied airily, and spun away in a flurry of green embers. Just because Ladon made a nuisance of himself for Potter’s presence, didn’t mean he had to give in easily. 

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Draco had elected to go to the Potions and Ingredienteur’s Technical Institute of England because he was already angling to invent a groundbreaking potion by the end of eighth year. The fact that PITIE had rolling acceptances and that Draco had wanted to remove himself from Grimmauld posthaste upon Potter’s forgivable but unforgettable love confession had much to do with it as well, but Draco would not disclose that fact to anyone else. There were other institutes far more prestigious in Spain, or in Turkey, or even in Canada, but none of those places had the quality of being a mere apparition point away from Teddy’s house, nor a stone’s throw away from the flat Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom shared. 

Draco thought it was a damn PITIE that the program was so interminably long, however, as he sorted through the indecipherable notes he had scrawled at 3am the night before. The lamps glowed a sickly yellow just feeble enough that his head hurt after more than a few hours. He had to shove his papers myopically to his nose. When brief moments of vanity invaded his rigid, tight-fisted practicality, he felt deep pangs of panic that he, too, may one day be forced to sport ugly round frames. Surely any magiopthamologist worth their salt could righten him once he had the funds for it, no hideous spectacles needed.  

The muffled sounds of other students pacing the carpeted floor between towering bookshelves and the hushed, furtive whisper between them reminded Draco of how muggles portrayed ghosts. If only the Bloody Baron had been so subtle. On the rare occasions he ever did speak, he would use the opportunity to groan about how the youths of today did not espouse his personal outlook on masculinity. He would further impress his disappointment upon the male Slytherin population by skulking in the corners of their dorms and glowering ferociously, clanking his chains. He had resided menacingly in Draco’s dorm like this for a tense three weeks in third year before Theo threatened to use an extra-strength Banishment spell on him. 

Draco had been a student at PITIE for five years. His classroom portion tapered off to half time after four years, but those courses he lacked were swiftly replaced by the work done at his apprenticeship placement. This apprenticeship was supposed to be tailored to Draco’s study interests, which was not Draco’s lived experience. He suspected darkly that simply nobody else would take him other than Perkins, and Penelope Perkins likely only had because she had not cared to read Draco’s CV thoroughly enough to catch his name. 

Perkins’ Potions and Poultices was located on a small offshoot of Diagon, with enough foot traffic to maintain good standing but enough quiet that Draco was rarely spotted. He divided most of his time between Perkins’ tomb-like lab, the Aesop Sharpp building where he took most of his courses, and his wretchedly familiar carrel in the stacks. Next year, the course portion of his studies would drop off completely, and then he would spend the next two half-time as an apprentice and half-time (or full-time, the way Draco did it) in the lab, perfecting his line of wolfsboon through further experimentation and then clinical trials. Rounded out, a Mastery at PITIE was seven years long if everything went right, which was, Draco thought miserably, at least better than thirteen, the second most potent magical number.  

Draco had been in the stacks since 6am, trying to figure out substitutions for ear of nogtail in his most recent wolfsboon manipulation. The recipe worked well for him, and had done since his experiments in eighth year, and most potions shops—Slug & Jiggers, Perkins’, etc—thought well enough of having just one remedy to peddle to the lycanthropic minority. But Draco had been a delicate child, unable to stomach some of the more pungent potion’s ingredients, and so he knew from personal experience how inaccessible some of these bespoke remedies were, even for the opulent Malfoy family. 

When he launched his shop—for it would be a when, not an if—he would sell remedies that truly catered to their buyers. He was skilled, adept and creative. Much like figuring out the Vanishing Cabinet at sixteen, Draco had parsed out a wolfsbane substitute at eighteen, no matter how grim and ceaseless his toil had been. At twenty-six, by the time he finished his Mastery, he would be more than equipped to figure out basic potions substitutions for clients with particular needs. 

So, under the windowless glow of yellow lamplight, cloistered tightly to the centre of the earth where time became insubstantial, Draco was trying to get ahead of it. It may have been futile, counting his peacocks before they hatched, but if he liberated himself from his dense web of responsibilities to take one moment to think, he would collapse under the sheer weight of all the pressure he had put on himself. Better to just hop from one task to the next, and not look up and see the vast mountain of loose and craggy stepping stones before him.   

It was in this timeless close that Harry Potter discovered him. 

Wolf, Ladon helpfully supplied, wrenching Draco sharply from the depths of his research just moments before he heard a smug “Found you” by his left shoulder. 

Draco sighed as he turned, his chair creaking awfully in the echoey silence. “Welcome to my humble abode,” he leered, rolling his eyes and spinning back to straighten his papers. “Give me a moment.” 

“You don’t live here,” Potter countered. “I know where you live.” 

“A creepy thing to say,” Draco replied blithely, ignoring Harry’s squawks of “I’ve picked Teddy up from your front step!” and continuing, “And that’s what you think. Any fourth-year student or above lives in the stacks, Potter. It’s an open secret. We’ve got bunks down here and everything.”

“You do?” Potter asked, the gormless fool. Draco closed his books and hefted his bag from behind his chair, holding it out for Potter with a challenging look. Potter took it with a beaming grin, as though he would have liked to do nothing more than haul Draco’s prodigious bookbag from London to Timbuktu. 

“Of course not.” Draco strode out from the shelves, flicking his wand to replace those he no longer had use for, levitating them back up to where he had meticulously placed a stand-in charm. There was nothing worse than receiving a Howler from one of the librarians—it echoed across the vaulted ceiling and throughout all three stories, casting the recipient’s sorry name into instant disrepute, instantly the locus for the day’s mudslinging when the rest of the student body required a mental break from poring over staid potions texts. 

Potter hummed, unconcerned, and craned his neck gawking at the ornate ceiling as they made their way up the thankfully immobile staircase. “Hermione told me this place was pretty swanky. ’Course it would be, though, with you here.” 

“Yes, well,” Draco sniffed. PITIE was the fourth-best potion’s institute in Europe. The Spanish Instituto de Graduados en Pociones Especiales was the best in Europe by far, but Draco neither spoke Spanish nor had the patience to learn. Hard-won as they had been, he hadn’t wanted to give up his connections with Teddy or Andy, either. “I have good taste.” 

“Annoyingly posh taste,” Potter clarified helpfully. “Outrageously so.”

“Considering the present company, I’d say that’s an unfair assessment,” Draco drawled, eyeing Potter’s ratty trainers and the hems of his frayed jeans, which trailed on the ground behind him repulsively. Potter shrugged. 

“I’m the richest eligible bachelor in England,” he replied, quoting Witch Weekly’s latest yellow spread about him. Ad campaign or smear campaign, Draco could never tell. “ ‘Ladies, line up! The Chosen One loves milky tea and long walks on the beach. A family man with a heart of gold, he hasn’t found Miss Right yet, but he’s not giving up now!’ Ugh.” Potter rolled his eyes. Draco smiled into the overlong sleeve of his jumper. Witch Weekly did this sort of thing on a predictable quarterly basis, every three months or so popping up with another four or five front pages dedicated to how to win Harry Potter’s heroic heart. “It’s not that I don’t love women. Who wouldn’t?”

“Romantically?” Draco interjected wryly. “You’re alone there, I’m afraid.”

“But,” Potter continued on, “are they tall, blonde, mean, and lycanthropic? Because I hate to break it to them, but I’ve got a type.”

Draco snorted. “We said no waiting.”

“Who’s waiting? I’ll have you know, Anthony and I dated for seven whole months. He’s missing out on his monthly furs, but who’re you to say he’s not the one who inspired the fascination with all the other attributes? You may have lost the chance to lock down the wizarding world’s most eligible bachelor, had he not that weird foot thing.”

His interest entirely piqued, Draco leaned in, eager to gossip and a little spitefully so. Just because they had agreed it hadn’t been the right time to date, didn’t mean Draco hadn’t wanted it to be. Just because they’d agreed they couldn’t rightfully wait for one another to grow enough to handle a romantic relationship didn’t mean a larger part of Draco that he was fully comfortable with didn’t also wish terrible misfortune on all of Potter’s subsequent lovers. “What weird foot thing?”

Potter, the bastard, simply laughed. 

The French café Draco liked was appointed in draping greenery and leaves of all shapes. The booths were tufted and secluded, insulating those who sat from the rest of the patrons, making them Draco’s preferred place to do readings when not cloistered in the stacks. Their coffee was hot and strong, and Draco commanded that Potter order him a cappuccino and an almond croissant, waving him to the counter as Draco sniffed out a place to sit. Nervous as he always became with Potter without any activity to unite them or any seven-year-old to attract their attention, Draco picked at the cuff of his jumper, forcing his breathing to steady and the jut of his chin to become less revealingly proud. 

Potter returned with a tray of Draco’s order. Potter’s coffee was in a ceramic, but Draco’s was in a paper cup, his favourite Muggle invention after rocket ships and the telly. He waved a hand to the barista in thanks, who waved back cheerily, well accustomed to him after four years at PITIE. 

“What’ve you been working on recently?” Potter asked, crunching into a sausage bap. He worked his way through it happily as Draco launched into a description of his favourite class, Component Theory , and how he would like to use what he was learning to make potions with substitutions for allergies or dietary restrictions later on. It wouldn’t be profitable to only cater to the werewolf population, not slightly because there were such Mediaeval beliefs about handicap accommodations, chronic illnesses, and sick leave in the wizarding world. Though better than the nineties, many still found themselves in similarly desperate positions as Remus Lupin had.

At the mention of Teddy’s father, Potter got a glassy-eyed look on his face, and posed Draco another question. “Why d’you reckon we’re actual wolves?” Potter mused over the ceramic rim of his disgusting milky-sweet abomination. He was staring at Draco’s restless fingers, which had foregone torturing the cuff of his jumper for instead twisting his glinting rings—none of them a signet ring, of course, Draco thought sourly—around and around. 

Potter’s jumper was green, the same springy colour that suited his scent. It made his eyes appear even more vibrant. Draco wondered if one of the women in his life had purchased it for him. Granger, perhaps. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Surely you know we’re not.”

Potter took a pensive sip of his beastly beverage and, as before, Draco cringed at the thought of what it must taste like. “Well, yeah, ’course we’re not. But Remus wasn’t a wolf at all,” he said, eyes far away, misted by memory and nostalgia. “He was, when he took his wolfsbane. But, when I saw him once, when he forgot it—he was sort of, erm, stuck in between.”  He shuddered. “It was pretty horrifying.”

Draco tapped his fingers on the cardboard holster of his steaming paper cup. He liked the way the deep purple of his nails, painted by a gift from Luna two years prior, caught the light. It was much more fascinating than whatever Potter’s face was doing, reminiscing about their old professor. 

Pretty horrifying. Yes, those were those first bloodied full-moon dawns, awash in dread and injury. But Potter wasn’t asking after him, and so Draco dredged from his memory the foggy recollections of the first werewolf he had ever met. 

His father had advised him, before his third year began, not to trust the new Defence professor and not to find himself alone with him. Having endured first the stuttering, half-formed lectures of one garlic-infused Quirinus Quirrell, and then suffering the charlatan buffoonery that was gilded and gleaming Gilderoy Lockhart, Draco breezily thought quite little of his father’s oblique forewarnings. 

Despite his appearance, more rag-tag and beggarly than Quirrell by half, Draco had been begrudgingly impressed at the aptitude Professor Lupin had displayed at his post. He had thought his father’s ominous counsel was merely posed in threat to remain arm’s distance from the impoverished, lest their grime sully the pristine facade that Draco did not yet know the Malfoy family cowered behind.

Any facsimile of admiration dissolved the day Draco encountered the dark oak wardrobe. Draco had anticipated his boggart as one of the more nefarious peacocks that roamed the Manor gardens, forever a malicious glint in its beady red eyes and a cobra-like neck poised to strike. He had said so on Professor Lupin’s preambulatory one-on-ones, defensive and surly, ignorant that the reason he was being asked after his worst fear was because he would in short order come face to face with it. 

Distress was too weak a word to describe the feelings which surged within Draco when he heard the telltale thud of his father’s snakehead cane on the floor before the wardrobe door. Too shocked to stumble, Draco stood frozen as his father emerged from behind the dark oak, slow and foreboding with predatory feline grace. Draco could not take his eyes away from the ferrule of the snakehead cane, accompanied closely by the shining leather of tanned and darkened dragonhide boots. They were made of Antipodean Opaleye, Draco knew, because Opaleye was the most expensive. They seemed a portent of Draco’s impending demise. A black curl of panic erupted in his chest, like plumes of smoke from the mountains of the White Islands where the Opaleyes were slain. 

Egocentrically, as Draco had often been, the pale beauty and slight build of the Opaleye had always inspired a kinship within him. Opaleye hide was the most expensive, as the creatures lived long lives and were not warlike in nature. Most of their leather was procured by poachers, staking out the craggy mountains of the White Island and risking life and limb for slaughter and profit. Draco recalled reading this in the dog-eared Encyclopedia Draconis he’d been gifted by his Grand-Mère Druella, could envision the page, because it was better to think about dragons than face the towering beast before him. 

Father had murdered his son’s favoured animal, flayed its hide, and then emerged, bedecked, to flay Draco’s own before an audience. For all the Black family was known for dark dramatics, the Malfoy genes lacked no poisonous flair. 

“Draco,” he began, rolling his son’s name in his mouth as though he had never chosen it. Draco’s chin wobbled. “Look at me.” 

Draco knew what that freezing tone heralded. A summons to his Father’s office and an hours-long lecture on the pride of the Malfoy family, how he had thought Draco was worthy of the noble title of scion but perhaps, if it were too heavy a yoke for his scrawny shoulders, a more heavy-handed instruction was needed. If Draco was lucky, his father would endeavour to list his innumerable deficiencies, beginning with his mortifying dull-wittedness, continuing with Draco’s general demeanour, and ending with his grotesque lack of manners, etiquette, understanding, and sociability. 

Draco had been unlucky a rare few times in his life, only when his father was truly incensed. He recalled the burning rage and humiliation of being struck, the shock of the pain that first strike evoked. Subdued though Draco became in Lucius’ presence, he had seethed with repressed ire. Once released, Draco had, with viciousness and absolutely no preamble, smited hapless Leedy. She had asked gently after him, and he had ordered her to close her fingers in the oven door. 

The memory of her bandages pursued him, as though paid to do so, with more slavering intransigence than the poachers of the White Island. On his worse days, they were all he could think about. A testament to his cruelty, his wrongness, his inevitable failure and his wretched, crooked nature. 

Unwilling to be any unluckier than he already was, Draco snapped his gaze to his father’s left eyebrow. Whenever he was in trouble, Draco always gazed at his left eyebrow, at the small light hairs at the very peak that bent against the grain of the rest of it. Better not to know the wicked disappointment in those searing steely eyes. 

A voice far rougher and less familiar than his father’s own repeated his name. “Draco,” called Professor Lupin, “cast the countercurse.” 

But Draco could not, pinned, yet again, by the freezing blade of his father’s inescapable fury. 

Hissed as though emanating from the mouth of the silver snakehead cane instead of through his father’s upturned lip, “Such a disappointment,” his father spat at him. 

Draco flinched as though he truly had, the insult dripping viscously down his wan features in a heavy glob, warmed from his merciless mouth, the only thing warm about his father.  “I’m sorry, Father,” he whispered around the smoke in his throat. When an Antipodean Opaleye was isolated from its thunder and cornered, its wings slashed and its fire extinguished, its last line of defence before the others came was to hide behind its whip-like tail, cracking and slashing through the air like lightning given flesh and blood. 

But Draco had no tail, and he had no thunder, and the only time he felt any fire within him was before a boy who was nowhere to be found. Had Draco been born with wings, surely he would have been such a malformed burden that he could have never taken flight. 

Professor Remus Lupin was no thunder of dragons, but he stepped between Draco and his worst fear regardless. Lucius Malfoy was replaced with a mystifying, tranquil orb that existed for a mere blink of the watering eye before becoming a flatulent deflating balloon. 

As it raspberried chaotically throughout a giggling line of students in green and yellow, he ushered Draco to a desk towards the back of the classroom. Into the seat Draco sank, boneless and liquefied in misery. 

Misguidedly, perhaps wrongfully assuming he was doing Draco a kindness, the professor held Draco back from classmates who had already begun whispering, with dedication and alacritous schadenfreude. His reputation was nothing but grist in the ever-churning rumour mill. 

Glumly, Draco gazed at the Grindylow contained in the tank at the far wall. The tank was illuminated in a greenish, heated light, covered in waving fronds. He watched the Grindylow stretch its long, spindly fingers, the digits moving independently like the legs of a hungry arachnid. Professor Lupin approached him with kindness in his tired eyes, and Draco felt no more powerful than a fly in a web. “I once had a very good friend whose worst fear was his mother,” Professor Lupin began gently. "In some ways, you remind me quite a lot of him." 

The desk clattered to the floor as, abruptly, Draco stood. It was hardly audible over the sound of the roaring pulse of his prey-animal heart. A shame it was that Professor Lupin had wasted his time vanquishing Lucius, for now he stood awash in heartfelt pity, himself the embodiment of Draco’s abruptly realised second-worst fear. Even the Antipodean Opaleye, least warlike of all dragons, could not flee as Draco did.   

Had he known, at the tender age of thirteen, that in six short years he would endeavour to care for the only child of his terror’s object, he may not have petitioned Severus to remove him from Professor Lupin’s instruction. As it was, Draco’s only desire was to never feel the weight of that empathetic gaze, so unsuited for a vagrant to aim at a Malfoy, directed at him again. 

Upon finding his godson pale and shaking as a wet dog in his private quarters, as the wards would only him allow, Severus had demanded an explanation. His usual caustic manner was tempered with concern. Draco had shrunk further into his seat, feeling as though he could never escape watchful eyes. Halting and embarrassed before that glittering gaze, only finding it fractionally more tolerable than the warm brown that had spooked him before, Draco persevered.  

Seething with quiet fury, Severus had strode to the Headmaster’s quarters with his cloak whipping behind him in a fashion that announced the anger already plain on his sallow face. Draco had had to scramble to keep up, scurrying close to him throughout the corridors. He jumped at every noise, as though his father would swan from behind the portrait of Barnabas the Barmy to continue his amputated diatribe. 

He had snarled the password to the Gargoyle and flew up the spiral staircase like the grim bat he resembled. Barely waiting for Dumbledore to grant him entry, Severus intoned that he had found Professor Lupin determined to sacrifice his godson at the altar of unfulfilled childhood grudges. 

Severus queried darkly, noting that Lupin’s behaviour was indeed so insupportable that, were Draco at no fault of his own to continue under his biassed, spiteful tutelage, he would surely find himself failing his end-of-year examinations. Were the Headmaster, however, to allow Severus to further demonstrate his as-of-yet unemployed skill in teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts by taking on his godson in private tutoring, they may find themselves in the enviable position of continuing the arduous monthly transactions foisted unwillingly upon Severus at the start of the year without proper compensation.  

Draco recalled his raven Patronus with fondness. As well, he now recalled the full moon, that idle shining orb, with perhaps as much pity for Lupin as the professor had held for him. 

“I never knew him well,” Draco hedged. “Never as well as you. But, if I were to guess…I would say Lupin was terribly afraid, Potter. More than either of us.” His cappuccino was cold and flat, but he took a sip anyway, taking the acrid opportunity to gather his muddled thoughts. 

“His wolf was his worst fear,” Potter agreed sadly. But Draco was shaking his head. 

“No, I don’t think that’s right,” he disagreed. Potter’s bushy brows furrowed. Behind smudged lenses, surprised eyes analysed his face in a way Draco couldn’t stand to look back at. He stared at the Pothos leaves by Potter’s head instead, almost of the same colour and yet so much safer. “Otherwise it would have been his wolf the boggart turned into, no? It was just the moon.”

Blinking, Potter’s lack of understanding was clear on his face. Before he could say so, Draco continued, still fiddling with his rings, around and around. “He was afraid of losing control,” Draco said instead, feeling a heavy kinship with the dead man. Those clawing first moons, the howling agony, the terror of mauling or losing himself entirely. The reluctance and bitter concessions it had taken to even address Ladon as a being, rather than a cretinous, unbearable burden. “That’s why he wasn’t a full wolf. He couldn’t concede to him, because giving in to the moon would mean relinquishing control. He still tried to hold on through it, and hurt them both because of it.” 

Potter hadn’t thought of that, Draco could tell. Ever the Gryffindor, he offered hesitantly, “It’s brave to try to fight what you’re afraid of.” 

Draco hid behind his paper cup once more and resolutely did not think about himself nor the man in front of him. He did not remember any iteration of me would love you and the skin-crawling fear, the need to run from Grimmauld’s squalling walls, screaming. 

“Not always,” Draco sighed into his cup. The foam was almost all gone, just a thin, deflated circle of white around the rim. Around him, everything was green. “Sometimes, it’s cowardly.” 

Chapter Text

The least-worst living room was the only nearly habitable space in the entire accursed hovel, and Harry’s bedroom hated him. He wasn’t about to haunt the fourth-floor toilet with Humphrey, the ghost who lived in the tank. Even Myrtle was better company than Humphrey, so. It really wasn’t his fault that he overheard quite as much as he did.  

Harry glowered, alight with poorly contained rage, at the dark ash-laden fireplace as he heard Kreacher turn obsequious and ingratiating as he simpered, “Master Draco, Mistress Cissy’s son,” and Wallburga’s portrait coo “Just like your mother, those cheekbones. She was always my favourite niece, such a good-tempered girl”. He stamped on the newly green leaves of the creeping vines that appeared whenever Malfoy swanned into a room and hexed the doxy-laden curtains whenever they pulled back to light the path before his pureblood stride brightly, snapping shut dramatically whenever Harry followed. 

So his house was half in love with Draco Malfoy. He could manage that. Grimmauld was just as prejudiced and stuffy as Sirius’ worst family members, so of course the house loved Malfoy.

Harry didn’t care, he really didn’t. He didn’t care that something with long, fragile, grasping fingers like an above-water Grindylow had taken up residence under his bed to snatch at his bare ankles when he went for a slash in the dead of night. He didn’t care that when he asked Kreacher to fetch milk from the larder, it was always chunky and sour. He didn’t care that all the fruits that grew on the wallpaper trees when Malfoy passed by rotted and fell whenever Harry entered the room, the birdsong cut off abruptly, as though Harry himself had slaughtered the creatures. A sulky, moody, angry Grimmauld Place was still better than a cramped and apathetic Privet Drive. 

Harry’s one consolation came in feline form. Crookshanks would lie in wait for Malfoy to enter a room, his hindquarters wiggling and pupils fully dilated to launch himself bodily at Malfoy’s skinny ankles. Malfoy squawked like the insipid peacock he was and danced as Crookshanks curled himself around his leg, all scratching claws and gnawing fangs. Harry would snigger and mock him from the sofa’s swampy seat, pleased that for once Malfoy was reduced to a similar state of indignity as that Harry endured on a near-constant basis.  

Crookshanks aside, Harry could have suffered his house preferring Draco fucking Malfoy, he really could have, if only Luna hadn’t been entirely taken with him as well. 

Harry supposed Malfoy had done the brave thing, helping her and the others in the dungeons, but he’d been such an awful coward and a bully throughout their teenage years. It wasn’t fair, that now everyone seemed to fall over backwards for him. Nobody meaningful in Harry’s life had ever fallen over backwards for him, except for the legions of vapid, mindless fans who didn’t know him at all. 

Malfoy’s trial had been moved up, due to Harry’s involvement. Like his mother, Malfoy was a non-violent offender—his trial was one of the last on the roster for that summer. If not for Luna and Harry, the ungrateful bastard would have languished forgotten in Azkaban for months, with no company but the dementors and the guards. On Harry’s blackest, meanest days, he wished he had never rescued him at all. 

The night before his trial, Harry could hear Malfoy pacing in Regulus’ room, the one he had secreted himself in immediately upon his entry to Grimmauld place. He was murmuring things to himself, what to say, what not to say, in quick, nervous whispers. Harry hoped he stopped too close to the Mimbulus Mimbletonia, were he ever to resume pacing elsewhere in the house. He drifted asleep with a smile on his face to visions of Malfoy’s appalled visage, getting blasted by a torrent of sickly yellow pus. 

His dreams were an awful, confusing barrage of choking ash and broken noses. Malfoy reached out for him amidst toppling piles of garbage and priceless treasures, but once Harry got to him, he looked at him impassively, one cold eyebrow raised. 

“Who are you?” he asked, as the flames, in the shapes of goats and dragons and serpents, licked his ankles. Harry’s lips felt thick and foreign, and his vision narrowed between swollen slits. “I can’t be sure.” 

Harry was on the ground in Myrtle’s flooded bathroom, bleeding out from his flayed chest. Malfoy stepped on his nose, the refined heel of his dragonhide boot crushing his cartilage with a sickening crunch. From far away, Harry could hear Humphrey exclaim breathily, in a girlish mockery of Myrtle’s simper, “Oh, good! We can stay here forever!” 

“I can’t do it,” Malfoy gasped, Harry’s holly wand on the floor between them. Dumbledore was already gone, fallen from the Astronomy tower before his time. “I can’t do it.” The Crucio Harry had cut off rang in the silence between his laboured breaths. 

“He helped me, you know,” Luna said from behind him, and when Harry whirled, he saw Luna had the same disfiguring scars that Malfoy now sported, one running from hairline to cheekbone, and one at the curve of her jaw. They were open, still, fresh but not bleeding, gasping and pink and open like the gills of a fish. “He made quite the significant sacrifice.” 

And then Harry was in the forest, falling. When he hit the ground, he awoke. 

Malfoy looked like absolute shit, but that was nothing new. He always looked like shit, waxy and shaky. But he looked especially shit, sitting in the Wizengamot Accusation Chair.

Harry didn’t like the git, obviously, but if anyone had asked him, he would have said the chains were overdone. He’d participated under the Carrows, sure, but so had most of the other Slytherins and a good portion of the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, and none of them were on trial. Other than that, his biggest offence had been fixing the Vanishing Cabinet, and it wasn’t like Malfoy was going to bludgeon the lot of them to death with a physics textbook. 

He looked small in the accusation chair. Harry wasn’t used to seeing him look so small.

He’d always puffed his chest and strut around Hogwarts like he was just a particularly large albino peacock. He was always in Harry’s face, nose to pointy nose, seething and screaming and snide. If nothing else, the gravity of his presence never failed to draw Harry’s gaze like a black hole instead of a constellation. 

It didn’t make sense for Malfoy to be small. 

Harry missed all the introductions, the self-aggrandising titles that meant nothing, the fanfare and traditional blathering. He was too busy watching the beads of sweat roll down Malfoy’s pinched and sallow face. 

In the end, it wasn’t Harry’s testimony that made the papers. He was glad for it—he was ineloquent, inadequate. He’d wished Hermione had been there to help him write what he wanted to say. Instead, he’d procrastinated, opting to prod the Snapdragons and scream at Walburga and try to hunt down Luna’s Miss Persephone in the attic. He resorted to scrawling his speaking notes on the back of his left hand in the hasty few minutes before he’d left that morning, an unbuttered piece of toast shoved halfway in his mouth and his face unwashed.

Can’t be sure, bled in black ink across Harry’s I must not tell lies. Astronomy Tower, failure to kill. 

No, it wasn’t Harry’s faltering, inarticulate defence of Malfoy that made the Prophet headlines the next morning. It was Luna’s. 

Undeterred by the venomous, serpentine inquiries of the prosecution, Luna’s tale sprawled out in horrifying detail for all the kangaroo court and their slavering menagerie of reporters in the wings to record. 

Luna had been snatched from the Hogwarts Express just before Christmas. She had been cold, alone, and terrified, shoved into a prison cell far below ground with no light and no explanation. Cruel, domineering voices had echoed through the walls, punctuated by the screams and pleading sobs of their victims. Cries of mercy were more often than not met with derisive laughter. They didn’t go after her for their fun, nor anyone else in her cell, the delirious Garrick Ollivander and a seething, watchful Griphook. 

Luna was unable to tell time in her cell, but there were periods in which the torment would cease and the dungeons would quiet. It was in those periods when sometimes one could hear the soft pop of stifled apparition, the small clink of potions phials. 

One of the Malfoy house-elves would establish herself at the mouth of the cells, wringing her hands and the front of her pressed pillowcase while Malfoy would descend on the prisoners. Luna wasn’t certain what was happening at first, nor who the perpetrators were—the two of them would only target those prisoners who had suffered greatly, which never included any of the inhabitants of Luna’s cell. Working swiftly and tersely, Malfoy and the house elf would only be in the dungeons for a mere handful of minutes before spiriting themselves away. 

Later, she would ask what he was doing. He would tell her about the slapdash Dreamless Sleep and the slipshod Healing Potions and the Draughts of the Living Death made with cipher upon cipher of substitution, trying to wring out as much utility as possible from the limited ingredients of the Malfoy storerooms and gardens. 

Malfoy had a knack for glamours. He used one on himself every morning to hide the scar that climbed up his neck and caressed his jaw. Turning them on the prisoners after a bout of healing wasn’t so difficult an endeavour, were it a day when his hands didn’t shake overmuch from poorly repressed anxiety.  

It was the night after Ollivander had been tortured, yet again, that Luna encountered Malfoy. 

Ollivander had been in a rough state before he’d been dragged out of the cell by Bellatrix Lestrange and another hulking blond Death Eater. He’d been returned even more insensate than before, doing little but laying, wheezing, sightless eyes staring at nothing at all. The delicate pop of Malfoy’s apparition had been underlined by a sharp intake of breath as he appeared at the bars of Luna’s cell. 

“Lovegood?” he asked, confused and dismayed. 

“Oh, hello, Draco.” Luna smiled in relief. He had been the best Slytherin to receive as a tormentor, under the Carrows. His Cruciatus never had any power beneath it, and all the students knew to pretend under his wand. Sometimes he casted spells that looked like curses that were at most merely uncomfortable, like a convulsing spell that looked, to the outward eye, as though the recipient was writhing in agony. She, Ginny, and Neville never knew if he had followed in his godfather’s shrouded footsteps with the Order, or if he was simply uniquely untalented at true malice. 

Nevertheless, Luna flinched when he turned his wand on her. Casting nothing more harmful than a diagnostic charm, he blipped out of existence and then back in a blink of the eye, pressing slices of bread and a bar of chocolate into her surprised hands. 

Gruffly, he told her, “Eat.” Luna passed a portion to Griphook, glowering in the corner with glinting fangs displayed, and reserved a third portion off to the side. 

“For Mister Ollivander,” she explained as she tucked in hungrily. 

Malfoy grunted, heading towards Mister Ollivander himself with his wand out and a keen, assessing glint in his eye. “Best to eat it now,” he argued. “If it’s still there when I’m done, I’m taking it with me.” It was practicality, not cruelty. Malfoy was already taking far too much of a risk in indulging his sentiment in simply being here—leaving definitive proof behind him was too far. 

Luna hadn’t realised then that Malfoy would become a semi-permanent fixture in the dungeons, but he was. The other prisoners, those who remained, learned it swiftly. Sometimes, Malfoy had to silence or stun them, for fear he would be overrun in their desperation. Sometimes, he did not have enough potions for everyone who needed it. 

He had been administering a silvery pain potion to a muggleborn witch by Luna’s cell when one of Greyback’s lieutenants had burst through the upper doors. Luna hadn’t known it was the full moon, and Malfoy, knowing it had been but having endured months of moons listening to the pack howl from his western wing, had relied on the dense forest of Malfoy Manor’s grounds to entice them away. He hadn’t thought to doubt their safety. 

“Leedy, get to my chambers,” Malfoy had ordered, the first folly in a series of deadly blunders. Unable to argue a direct order, the house-elf disapparated with a crack as Malfoy slammed the witch’s cell shut. He had been about to apparate away when the wolf had beelined straight to Luna’s cell, smelling the decrepit weakness of Garrick Ollivander and the easy prey within. 

Luna huddled to the corner of the cell with Griphook and Ollivander as the wolf began throwing itself at the bars. Rabid and slavering, with psychotic, unknowable strength, it was with a slow grinding shriek that blow by blow the bars began to twist. 

Luna saw a stunner ricochet off the wolf’s broad back, then another, and then a curse far darker. Finding no purchase, Malfoy began casting on the bars, shooting over mending charms and slapdash transfiguration spells to strengthen the bars. 

Still they bent. 

Everyone in Hogwarts knew Malfoy’s spells were the weakest of all the Slytherins, enfeebled by his self-loathing and the snare in his magic, torn asunder by the horrors he had been forced to commit. The shakiest spellcaster of seventh year was no match for a full-grown werewolf. 

Sweating and shaking, Malfoy apparated into Luna’s cell, grabbing Ollivander first. Griphook, ever clever, latched onto the old wizard with a bone-crushing grip, his claws digging into the papery skin. The insinuation was clear—if Malfoy wanted to disapparate Ollivander, he would have to side-along the goblin as well. 

Malfoy had no time to argue, apparating them both to the muggleborn witch’s cell in such a hurry that he left a hank of hair and skin from his hairline behind. Bloodied and half-blinded, he apparated back into Luna’s cell with not one moment to spare. The bars gave one last mighty shriek beneath their onslaught and, with a dying howl, collapsed. 

Without enough time to even draw breath, Malfoy cast a wordless shield between the werewolf and the two of them. Unfortunately for him, if iron bars were not enough to keep a rabid werewolf out, a terrified, tremulous teenaged wizard’s charm had no chance at all. 

Breaking through the charm with one heavy swipe of his black-clawed paw, the wolf snarled, lunged, and bit. 

The Supreme Mugwump raised his wand and the binds of the Accusation Chair rippled off of Malfoy’s trembling arms. “The Court must be shown evidence of such claims.” 

Folding back the cuff of his tidy button-down shirt with shaking hands, Malfoy bared his left arm to the elbow. There was the terrible and familiar black head of a snake at the thin skin of his inner wrist. Instead of looking as though it was rearing to strike, however, it writhed in agony. It was torn asunder at the lowest coil. 

Instead of the reviled skull, a gruesome scene of macerated flesh greeted the gasping court. The scars travelled far past Malfoy’s elbow, obscured by the rest of his pressed cotton best. He held his chin at a proud jut, his cut-glass jaw sharper than whatever instrument had placed the scar upon it. Harry gripped his wand in his pocket, discomfited. A bloodthirsty werewolf had not been the only one to permanently disfigure Draco Malfoy.

Malfoy replaced his forearm back upon the armrest of the Accusation Chair and the binds sprung back in place. He did not bother to cover himself. The court had already seen all his most shameful secrets. 

Malfoy was given a five-year probation with restrictions on his wand and mandated Mind Healer and Auror weekly meetings. His trial made the front page of the Prophet , the image of him revealing his ghastly scars replaying over and over. On the fifth page, in the continuations, Harry could be seen, shoving the boxed Hawthorn wand back to a stumbling Malfoy with an expression of disgust. The wireless replayed snippets of Luna’s testimony, overlaid with interviews from victims’ families.

Harry shut himself in Sirius’ bedroom to start a fight with the thing under his bed and perhaps, if he was feeling particularly spry, set fire to his oozing walls. 

He did not come out for three days.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That first full moon at Grimmauld, Luna sat outside Regulus’ room. Despite his better instincts, Harry joined her. 

Shaken by the gruesome sounds that erupted from behind the closed door in a way that Luna was not, Harry felt protective. Not of Malfoy, certainly. He had deserved to be in that cellar, deserved what he’d gotten and more. Godrick knew Luna suffered worse just for being the daughter of a half-mad conspiracy theorist. 

No, Harry wasn’t about to let her get torn to shreds for her good nature, not when he had seen how Remus had acted during the full moon. Harry loved Remus. Malfoy didn’t even like him. Harry still remained mostly unconvinced that Malfoy didn’t even like Luna, and that it was all a contrived sham to prove his wide-eyed, guileless innocence to the Wizengamot. He still wasn’t convinced Malfoy could like anyone, except perhaps himself. 

“You’re going to want to have your cloak, if you’re going to stay,” she told him. Harry blinked at her. 

Visions of Remus, half-wolf and half-man, seared across his eyelids in bright and terrifying silhouettes. Harry didn’t think an invisibility cloak would do much good against it, even a Hallow. Harry wasn’t sure the solid oak of Regulus’ door would do much good against it, either. Not if iron bars had done nothing against the wolf who turned him. If Malfoy asked Grimmauld to reinforce the, the blasted thing would become strong as steel before he’d even finished the thought. But if Harry asked? Likely he’d get a door no thicker than parchment. “Why?” 

“Well.” She seemed to think, pursing her lips. One of her radish earrings swung as she leaned first one way, then the other. “Draco’s wolf doesn’t know you. He might take you as a threat. He’ll be on edge anyway, since this is a new place. It would be a shame, right after Draco’s trial, if something were to happen.” 

A shame indeed. Even worse that it would be Malfoy doing it. Myrtle’s bathroom ran red, and Harry fetched his cloak.

Harry returned just as the grotesque noises began to ebb, replaced by whimpers almost pitiful if not for the blood-chillingly animal sound of them. Much too close for Harry’s comfort, a frightful snuffling noise could be heard by the crack between the wooden door that had moments before seemed much heavier, and the floor. As if trapped in some nightmare, perhaps one of the past few nights, Harry watched Luna reach for the doorknob. 

“Luna—” Harry began, appalled, but Luna assured him, “He won’t want to leave. It smells like Draco in there. He just wants me there, too.” 

Throwing his cloak over himself and with his wand at the ready, he watched in disbelief as Luna turned the ornate knob. Harry was of half a mind to tell the slithering snake on it to lock it fast. The door opened slowly, within the complete control of Luna’s small, soft hands, the only sounds now her delighted murmur of “Hello, darling,” and the rustle of fabric and fur. 

Harry stood beyond the threshold of the room to observe the wolf with wide-eyed shock. He didn’t look like how he had thought, if he had ever thought at all. He wasn’t the lanky, ungainly creature that Remus had become that one harrowing full moon: he was a wolf, as simple as it was, different from any other only for the white of his coat, suited better for the arctic than England in no small part for the freezing predatory gaze he levelled at Harry, even behind the cloak. 

Behind the wolf was Luna, looking small and fragile seated by his sleek powerful limbs. His gaze never leaving Harry’s person for more than a moment, he swiftly herded her into a corner bedecked with pillows and blankets as a mother would a wolf pup. He laid his great mass between her and the rest of the room, blinking at Harry with that piercing inhuman gaze. Though still, only a fool would have mislabeled him as calm: his predatory limbs buzzed in witheld violence, every stark mote of his attention focused on the intruder at the door. 

“He can see me?” Harry had asked, despite himself feeling offended, and beneath it, ridiculously, wounded. “He—Luna, get away from him.” 

Luna had piped up from behind the wolf, “Draco’s wolf doesn’t know who you are,” she said placidly. “He can smell you, I think—you do live here. But I doubt he knows that you’re you under the cloak, or I suspect he would have attacked you.” Harry’s fingers tightened on his wand, and he wished Luna had told him this before opening the door. 

Unable to see Harry’s current small crisis, she continued, “He remembers what you’re capable of.” She didn’t say it unkindly, but Harry flinched regardless, remembering red dreams awash in spilled water and blood. 

Through the silvery translucence of the cloak, he watched her pet the wolf as one might a trained crup, marvelling at the singularity that was Luna Lovegood. “Wolves were originally protectors of their hosts, before the generational curse set in,” she explained, sinking a hand into the dense fluff of the wolf’s scruff. “You’ve saved Draco before, but you’ve also hurt him, haven’t you? He just doesn’t know what to make of you.” 

“How many times have you done this?” Harry asked in wonderment.  

“Oh, every time,” Luna replied easily. “Even if Draco shut himself in his room or hid himself in the middle of the Manor woods, his wolf would always seek me out at some point in the night. He and I understand one another.” She smiled softly as he rubbed his great cheek into her small palm, scratching behind one ear.  

“How do you mean?” Harry wasn’t sure how anyone could understand a werewolf. But then, Harry was hardly sure, anymore, how anyone could understand Luna Lovegood, so brave and kind it didn’t look like either, just forthright compassion. Friends, she had painted, over and over on her bedroom ceiling, and Harry had never paid enough attention to her. Never deserved her in his miserable, unhappy life.  

“At the end of it all, Harry,” she shrugged, “we all just want a pack.” 

Chapter Text

Sunday lunches at the Burrow were always the most anticipated staple of Harry’s week. 

After the catastrophe that was his unholy stint at the DMLE, Harry found he couldn’t return to languishing in an empty Grimmauld without the sunlit brightness of Draco’s presence, barren even the easy company of Neville or the airy kindness of Luna or the fiery, bawdy companionship of Ginny. But he didn’t know much of what else to do. His only goal in life up to this point had been to survive, and then to join the Aurors. Having done both and failed at the latter while thankfully succeeding at the former, Harry was left adrift. 

The paparazzi hounded his every step when he ventured to the public, and Harry, gloomy and restless and fed up as he was, was unwilling to put up with them. This limited his scope to a handful of venues. Andy’s cottage. The Burrow. The Wheezes, when he could stand the chaos and the crowds and the jarring, unbalanced lack of Fred Weasley, which wasn’t often.   

So Harry divided his time between the two wherein he felt most at ease. He loved helping Andy with Teddy, though sometimes the sight of the small boy, wobbling throughout the cottage on pudgy legs that seemed to consist of no kneecaps, only small lines in the baby fat, brought him to tears. He recalled the way Remus had confessed that he didn’t feel he was worthy of a child, how his absence may have been a blessing to the boy. Harry recalled the furious words he had spat at him, followed swiftly by his death before they made their peace. 

Harry, mystified and filled with sorrow, looked at Teddy, giggling, wide-eyed and clumsy, his fine baby hair haloing his head in wispy curls of light brown, and wondered how someone could shut a being like that in a cupboard and lock the door behind them. 

Whenever Draco would stop by, his face wan and shoulders tense but reliably sporting a delighted if weary smile and a posh handshake for his little cousin as though he was meeting the Queen, Harry would force down all the memories of how much easier it had been to fall asleep when he could listen to the cadence of Draco’s steady breathing from across the eighth year dorm or when he knew that Draco was just a few doors down the slowly-gentling corridor of Grimmauld Place’s fourth floor.

When helping with Teddy became too much, Harry went to the Burrow instead. The warmth of Molly’s hearth was always a balm to his ragged, hollow soul. He hadn’t quite meant to spend the vast majority of his days there, but it felt warmer and more inviting to stay with Molly after Draco moved out, the small overtures made by Grimmauld to become more inviting withering away in his wake. At the Burrow, Harry never had to fight with the furniture for a comfortable seat or bludgeon cabinets that held his food hostage. Molly draped him with a well-made, hand-knit quilt, and floated over a steaming mug of strongly brewed tea, and the piled couch felt like a warm embrace around him. 

For the first time in years, after weeks and weeks spend slowly untensing before her cheerily crackling fire, doing nothing much but reclining with thinly shut eyes, listening to her hum with the wireless and following the sounds of her cooking in the kitchen beyond the hearth, Harry felt his shoulders loosen and his breathing even. 

Occasionally, Arthur would drift through the home, often vaguely hassled at the end of his workday or meanderingly content on the weekends. A red-topped aimless comet, always orbiting Molly’s hearth. He would stop to peck her on the cheek, ask her how her day had gone and what she had made, and then he would join Harry on the sofa. His vibrant joy in discovery cut the bleak grey miasma of Harry’s worst days. 

Ever insatiably curious, he asked Harry about how cricket was played, how vacuums were built, how a microwave could heat without fire but a lightbulb didn’t cook the inhabitants of a room. Harry found that he didn’t have many answers for him, having departed the muggle world at age eleven and eagerly leaving it behind. Arthur had been over the moon when Harry had offered to accompany him to the Muggle library in Ottery St. Catchpole. Without truly meaning to, every Saturday then became their tradition. When Arthur was not at work and Harry not hovering just within the sweet circle of Molly’s maternal warmth, they spent much of their time learning about electricity and the Industrial Age, from the advent of cars to the Space Race. 

He and Arthur would walk back to the apparition point, leisurely, never minding taking the long way to give the church graveyard a wide berth, which Arthur told him was very important with something like superstitious certainty. Arthur chatted companionably, happy and simple in a way that Harry wished desperately he understood. 

Arthur would marvel at New York City construction workers jauntily eating their packed lunches on beams hundreds of feet in the sky, nothing but a thin rope tether protecting them from deathly gravity. Photographs of Neil Armstrong and the Earth from space made him tear up. He would sniffle surreptitiously into his coat and tell Harry thickly that there was always so much to learn from each other. Harry hadn’t wanted to learn anything at all, not for a long while, but when he saw the way Arthur’s face lit up as they looked through the science section together, he thought maybe he would one day agree.  

When finally Harry felt somewhat more rooted in growth than stagnation, he appeared at the threshold of Molly’s well-commanded kitchen with his mug of tea in hand, happy to be shepherded to a stool and sat there watchfully with a snack plate of something-or-other, listening as Molly shared bits of her life before her children with him.  

With speckles of fruit juice on her apron and a dusting of flour in her grey-streaked bun, she told Harry about her parents, Mary and Alfred Prewett. How her mother Mary had taught Molly how to knit at her knee. How her pureblooded grandparents on the Macmillan line had been appalled with her mother became a vocal supporter of the muggle rights movement, ever ones to toe the neutral line, and how her grandfather had begged her to reconsider the publicity of her stance. How Mary Macmillan had met Alfred Prewett at a three-day-long muggleborn rights protest in front of the Ministry, stopping traffic and impeding work with their vociferous calls for equality, their impassioned spirits captured forever in the rowdy black-and-white of the Weasley family photo album. Molly talked about how Alfred had fallen in love with Mary’s passion, her fire and her steely sense of justice, and how Mary would have loved Ginny more than anything.  

Molly would hand him a sturdy pair of gloves and help her in the garden, feeling so much more peaceful and accomplished than whenever Aunt Petunia had made him labour over her hydrangeas, watching his arms fill out and his skin take on a darker hue as the summer passed. She talked about her brothers. Bill, Billius instead of William as her eldest son was named, but still the oldest of the lot of them. Her parents always said they knew he was queer from the first word he spoke, but they held fast to their own, her mother having endured exile for her values already in her life. 

Harry chopped tomatoes while Molly told him proudly that her mother always said she wasn’t about to lose the family she had sacrificed for, not for something so glorious as the ability to love. 

They would sit by the fire together reading, where sometimes she would try to teach him how to knit. Bill had been one hell of an older brother, she told Harry, in between knit one and purl one. The voice of an angel, he sang at all their family events, and had he lived to be older than his twenty-one years, she assured Harry he could have put Celestina Warbeck or the Weird Sisters to shame. He had been sneaking through the church graveyard in Ottery St. Catchpole, angling for the hidden apparition point between his secret lover’s home and the Burrow, when he had caught sight of the Grim. 

Harry seared long, browning spears of asparagus with broccoli and cauliflower florets as she told him about the twins, Fabian and Gideon, of whom Fred and George so reminded her. Her eyes had spilled over and the vegetables burned as she leant over the counter, dabbing her cheeks with her apron and Harry’s hand on her shoulder, and told him that she hoped they would take good care of her son for her, until she got to see them again. 

Her eyes brown and warm as the fertile soil of her fruitful garden, she talked about how her father Alfred was a soft-spoken man with a deep-seeded sense of justice, one who had never raised his voice in anger before the first war. His favourite dessert had been lemon bars, which Mary had made on every occasion, special or otherwise, from the lemon tree in their backyard.

“Could you teach me how to make them?” Harry asked, and now every Sunday, they had lemon bars for afters. 

“Glorious, these are,” Ron complimented through a full mouth. Unlike Harry, when he spilled crumbs on the table, it was accidental. A hazard of having grown up fighting for the last of anything with six siblings. A winner-take-all, take-no-prisoners dining style. He had told him once that Ginny used to lick whatever it was she wanted to eat the most the moment it was placed at the table, tongue out and saucy fingers outstretched, flitting from one piled plate to the next. Ginny whacked him and said it was better than what he did, moving too slowly and crying to mummy every time Fred or George purposefully ate the last of it in front of him, just to get a rise. 

“Same recipe as always,” Harry shrugged, and Ron hummed in appreciation. Ron had come straight from work, still in his Auror reds. Something about a robbery at some famous Quidditch player’s mansion, one casualty, a magical creature—he’d shown up to lunch late, in a flurry of ash and apologies, and tramped straight to the table to pile his fill onto a waiting plate. 

Harry tried not to be envious of Ron. He failed, often, but he tried. Not because he wanted to be an Auror—the jittery, heart-attack fits he’d had during those first few months in the field had proven he hadn’t maintained the constitution for it. No, he wasn’t envious because Ron was an Auror. He was envious because Ron’s life was, all around, well and proper, figured out. 

NEWTs requirement waived, Ron had jumped straight into the Auror department after his and Hermione’s year long stint in Australia. The two of them still made a biannual voyage to the other side of the world, where her parents underwent routine magi-mental health treatments. Their memories were largely restored, for the most part, but they began to get foggy if they didn’t see Hermione in more than a few months. They still referred to one another as Wendell and Monica, on occasion, and still insisted that moving to Australia had been their life’s goal. Harry had never met them, nauseated by the idea that Hermione’s parents had been stricken in any way like Neville’s, and at their own daughter’s hand, nevermind as a mercy. 

Ron had risen to Auror training with grace and determination, whereas Harry mostly blundered through on the sheer battering ram of his name alone. Certainly nobody should have passed him, after his third panic attack during a routine training duel, nightmare scenarios of Ron bleeding out in Myrtle’s bathroom flashing before his blinded eyes. Clearly mandated Mind Healer sessions shouldn’t have been the only measure the DMLE implemented, but. Ever the figurehead, they hadn’t wanted to humanise Harry too much. Getting put on probationary mental health leave would have been a step too far for the staid and traditional Ministry higher-ups who had secreted themselves away during the wars, first and second.  

Never bother. Never one for tradition, Harry had retained the Mind Healer but dropped the job and set his sights on an even more alluring goal. Remembering Draco’s childhood dream, Harry had asked Charlie about dragon taming the Sunday lunch after he left his resignation letter on Robards’ desk. He was genuinely interested in the subject—and genuinely interested in Charlie’s well-muscled arms, not that he would admit that—but fearing death by Death Eater or death by dragon proved not so different, in the end. 

With no dangerous or deadly career in sight, Harry dejectedly left Charlie to the dragon taming, and Ron to the Auroring—and in Harry’s place, Ron quickly became the DMLE’s rising star. 

His cunning strategic mind was suited perfectly for the long hours poring over case files and conducting interviews, his rough-hewn features, made handsome with adulthood, lending him an affable, trustworthy air. Unlike Harry, with whom interviewees bumbled over themselves to appease or recoiled in distrustful dislike, Ron more often than not got at least a kernel of utility out of their recorded conversations. 

His case closure rate was impeccable, his reputation unimpugnable. He was set to be promoted from Junior  Auror to team-lead standing in less than six months, and Robards had rumbled, often, that he looked forward to what Ron could do with more freedom at his disposal.

Not only that, but he had a girlfriend, Hermione, the brightest witch of her age. If Ron was a rising star, Hermione was a blazing sun, and he seemed more than content to bask in her radiant light. Four months prior he had asked Harry if he thought Draco would go with him to pick out engagement rings, willing to concede, in this particular instance, that perhaps his expertise was limited compared to a Malfoy’s. One month prior, at Weasley Sunday lunch, they had announced Hermione was pregnant. 

They had told Harry earlier, right when they had first found out. Hermione didn’t want to tell the world, as she regaled Harry with information on women’s health and complications and so forth with the prim crispness of Madame Pomfrey, the same lecture she had given Ron not twenty-four hours earlier when the charm she completed on herself revealed she was pregnant. Once she had finished releasing her avalanche of information upon Harry, Harry had replied, “I’ll help however I can, ’Mione,” while holding one of her hands in his. Her nails were a soft baby blue, and Harry wondered if she had chosen the colour with this very conversation in mind. “I’m so, so happy for you. Whatever you need, I want to help.” 

Hermione had fallen into his arms and squeezed him so tightly he felt she might’ve broken a rib or two. He had meant it then and he still meant it when Molly had cried three months later, overwrought, and vacillated between flitting over Hermione, posing inquiries too rapid to possibly answer, and sobbing into Ron’s shoulder. Arthur had clapped him into a crushing bear hug and told him he was proud. Harry had embraced them both with a smile that felt painful on his cheeks and told them he loved them. He did. He loved them so much. So much so, that it hurt, when it felt like their family was growing, slowly choking him out of their beautiful  lives.

He knew they wouldn’t, knew they loved him, but it was hard to fight the idea, so rooted deep within him, that love was a scarce resource. That if they were to find such a deep well of love for one another and their child, then naturally their spring would run dry at Harry’s outstretched cup. 

He told himself it wasn’t true. That he would always have a place in the Weasley home, of which Molly made certain he had no doubt through her myriad yearly jumpers and endless steaming plates of food and lovely, quiet hours, sitting by the wireless together and not talking much at all. That Arthur made clear, every beaming Saturday morning. He knew he had a family in the way that the Weasley youngers always ribbed and jibed with him, never to pull a punch as a show of affection, but to hit harder for it. 

Harry had Andy, and Harry had Teddy, and sometimes, Harry had Draco. That was more than he had ever had before, and he wished it would have been enough to stop him from scrabbling for love as though it was the fine sand of a Time-Turner, swiftly slipping through his clumsy fingers. No matter how many times he and his Mind-Healer revisited it, on his most hopeless days, Harry despaired that he may always measure the love in his life by its lack. 

Lacking in nothing if not subtlety, Ron has apparently decided that the drowsy, trickling end to Weasley family lunch was the perfect venue for asking after the most mercurial addition to Harry’s nearest and dearest. “Noticed you, erm,” he coughed, pounding his chest to dislodge a sticky bit of lemon curd. “You and the Ferret left the bar early.” 

“More of a wolf, now,” Harry countered, unwilling to fight about the nickname. It had become a lot less funny, after Draco had spent time living in Grimmauld Place, and Harry had witnessed the tense, dark strain on Draco’s psyche that his unwilling transformations left. But Ron wouldn’t know that, because Ron wasn’t there. He had been helping Hermione through her own psychological battle, and the rift between them had just begun. 

Ron nodded pensively. “Back together then, are you?” 

Harry snorted, pushing half a lemon bar around his emptied plate with a butter knife. “Not hardly.” Harry sighed. “I dunno, I tried to ask him…and then, erm, we were interrupted.” 

“Not the Cormac McLaggen guy?” Ron asked, wickedly amused. “Oh, I knew Hermione was too light on him. She’s tempered off, she has, since school. A damn good thing most times, but what a damn shame.” He shook his head and shot a crooked grin at Harry. “Let me guess. Malfoy finished him off, and then you pissed on the dredges?” 

Harry scoffed indignantly. He gestured with his speared lemon square, curd dripping down the knife edge like ichor from a slain god and not like someone who pissed on the dredges. “Who’s to say I didn’t finish him off?” 

“Mate,” Ron replied emphatically, leaning in on both elbows and peering about conspiratorially. “I dunno if you’re aware, but if you’d’ve finished him off, the whole bar would have known about it. If there was enough of the bar left afterwards.” He sat back with a cocky grin, always satisfied to piece a puzzle together. “Paper cranes have never been your schtick, anyway. Malfoy’s the bird freak.” 

“He hates birds, actually,” Harry corrected. “’Cept ravens.”

“’Course he does, that dour little weirdo,” Ron grimaced. He shrugged out of his robes, battling with the buttoned cuffs, and throwing them over the back of the chair. Waving over a couple of Hopping Cauldron IPAs, he clinked the neck of his with Harry’s and took a deep swig. “Speaking of animals. How’s your furry little problem?” 

Harry shrugged. “I mean…” he took a sip of his IPA and grimaced. He never liked the hops. They made his stomach feel like a trampoline. “It’s weird, mostly. Like I’m too small for both of us.” Harry sighed, staring at the scuffed wood grain. Behind him, George was making fun of Ginny for something or other, her latest purported love interest according to Witch Weekly most likely, and Ginny was threatening to tackle him to the ground. “It’s just overwhelming, really.” 

Ron peered at him consideringly, nodding. Slowly, he said, “You know, Lavender and I still owl on occasion.” 

“Your ex-girlfriend?” Harry scoffed, and then chortled. “Do you still have that ‘My Sweetheart’ necklace? Does she reckon there’s still a chance?”

Ron snorted. “As if anyone could hold a candle to Hermione,” he replied contentedly. “Lav’s a lesbian, anyway. A hell of a lot nicer to talk to when she’s not halfway hanging off me.” 

“She is, now?” Harry asked, surprised. Her theatrics in school certainly hadn’t suggested as much. “When did that happen?” 

The deadpan expression Ron adopted could have rivalled Draco’s very best. Harry was certain he’d picked it up from him, recalling the innumerable instances Draco had levelled it at him across pub tables, too far away to give him a kick in the shins for whatever impolite quip he’d made last. “I suspect forever. You’re supposed to be the queer one, you know that. She might’ve been overdramatic for a reason, you know? Gotta commit to the bit.” 

Harry eyed him wryly. “Well, yeah. Sexuality’s a spectrum, though. Different for everyone.” Poking unnecessarily, still sometimes surprised that the insecurity had sloughed off of Ron like ill-fitting clothes as he sprouted up his last six inches, Harry prodded, “Bit of a blow to your ego, though, no?” 

Ron shrugged grandly, searching around for his fiancée. She was, as usual during Weasley Sunday brunch, locked in conversation with Percy about the most recent mind-meltingly dull Ministry policy framework initiative bullshit. She had her sunny yellow-manicured pointer finger pressed to the table, her curls bouncing around her head to punctuate whatever she was arguing about, a passionate flush crossing her dark cheeks. “Why would it be?” He shook his head, craning his neck to grin at her and hollering cheerfully down the long table, “When Hermione is gonna be my wife!” 

Hermione glanced over and raised a quick hand, smiling happily, and returned undeterred to harangue Percy once more. Percy fussed with the fiddly wire-frame glasses perched on his nose, scrawling notes on a napkin and looking very consternated indeed.   

Ron was still watching Hermione with awe, as though she was doing something far more spectacular than further stressing his highest-strung brother. “Gonna be the mother of my children,” Ron beamed fondly, his freckled face awash with affection. He turned back to Harry. “I can put in a word for you with Lav,” he said. “If you want. She’s been a werewolf ever since the Battle, and I’m sure she’d be more forthcoming than the Ferret.” 

Harry licked his bitter upper lip and thought resignedly that Ron, though biassed, had a solid point. Draco was always off jetting from one thing to another, his pulse up and his breathing rapid, that manic faraway gleam in his eye that signified his body was only barely present, and his mind was already triangulating the future. For all Draco talked about finding himself and learning one’s values, throwing himself into the two soul-shaving crucibles of self-betterment and career-advancement, he was certain Draco hadn’t spared any time at all to find one’s community.

Harry took a considerable swig of his swill, repressing the urge to cough as it jumped in his throat. “Can’t hurt,” he grunted, swallowing hard. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry found that Lavender was very much the same, and also much different than how Harry pictured her. 

She still had her beautiful light brown curls, which cascaded down her shoulders and shone in the sunlight through the cafe window. Her nails were painted a friendly light pink, her hands perfectly manicured. Her lipstick was the same shade, and she had on the same sort of glittery makeup Draco had worn, that night he’d named Apollo. 

She had numerous whitish scars crisscrossing her face, many more than Draco’s singular deep one by his jaw, but her beauty was, in Harry’s personal opinion, enhanced by them in much the same way as Draco’s. By the way she held herself, she seemed to think so too. 

“It’s good to see you again, Harry,” she had said warmly, reaching for his hand. She grinned widely when he shook it. It wasn’t until Draco mentioned some months later about how the lab techs flinched from him that Harry thought it may have been a test. 

Over coffee, Lavender told him all about the project she had been working on. 

“So, my girlfriend worked at a dog shelter when we first met,” she chatted, showing Harry a picture of a pixieish blue-haired woman in overalls through her cracked phone screen. “She loves animals, and I really, really hated working in MAD–the Ministry’s Auditing Division—it was fine, but it’s just, ugh, the enchantments on the walls were never strong enough to trick my senses into believing they were windows, and the work was so monotonous. My mum kept telling me it was better to get a stable career and work on my creative projects on the side, but Jessie was so passionate, and I thought between my business sense and her know-how, we could really make something happen.” She shrugged, sipping her matcha—lavender, egotistically, as though she would get any other flavour. 

“What’s your business?” Harry asked, intrigued. 

“Animal rescue,” she grinned. “Made sense for Jessie to stick to what she knew, and I love ‘em. My wolf does too. Ever since I’ve had her, I’ve really craved connection even more, you know? Like a pack or something.” 

Harry was nodding into his chai before she had even finished her sentence. He did know, very personally. We all just want a pack.  

This past week before the moon, he felt the need to corral all his friends and family into one space, happiest when he could lay on top of all of them. Teddy never minded, always pleased to see Harry unless he was in a strop, and even then his stormy moods never lasted longer than an hour or so. Whenever Harry could in the lead-up to the night, he cooked Teddy and Andy dinner in Andromeda’s cottage. Hermione and Ron, too, to Ron’s infinite relief - having grown up on Molly’s cooking, Hermione’s forays exploring the limits of edible food never ceased to pain him. Harry, having been at this point taught up by Molly for near on five years, was far and away the next best thing. Molly had even admitted one day that she thought his hearty stew was better than her own, tearing up a bit in pride. 

Draco was more difficult to hunt down, obviously, never an easy target for anything. Harry hadn’t yet been able to pin him down. He would do so soon, though. The moon was right around the corner, and Teddy was going to have two out of three of his caretakers with him for his second shift, that was for certain. 

“Draco named our wolves,” Harry offered, wondering if Lavender had done something similar. “His is named Ladon, and mine liked Apollo. We offered Teddy a couple of different options–I thought Bear would be cute, because his name is Teddy? And then Draco sort of went off the rails and offered Bugbear, which he thought was hilarious, and then Bugaboo, and because he calls Teddy Little Bug sometimes. Ted’s wolf seemed content with Bear, though, which was a relief.” Harry huffed an amused laugh. “Not that it really matters what he’s called to Draco. Recently he’s taken to calling him Booberry. Andy and I have a bet for who can guess the most outrageous diminutive Draco will come up with by the time six months roll around.”

Lavender smiled. “You’re really taken with him, aren’t you?” 

“Draco?” Harry asked, scratching his head. “Is it that obvious?”

Lavender patted his arm reassuringly. “Only to anyone with eyes and ears.” 

She downed the last dredges of her coffee and hummed happily, checking the time with a quick, surreptitious Tempus and swearing at the time. “Shit, I’ve got to get back. Look, if you ever want, you and your man should come around Creature Comforts,” she advised, collecting her things and moving to a stand. Harry followed her, happy to walk her out. 

Lavender continued, “Jessie’s phenomenal, and being around the animals is good for my wolf. Plus, every Thursday, I host a support group at the pub around the corner from her’s. We’ve got to stick together, eh?” She winked. Pausing, as if not quite sure what to do exactly, she extended her arms for a hug.  

Of course she would, the woman she had grown into, sly and cheerful and friendly. In the gentle squeeze of her arms, Harry replied, “ ‘Course we do. I’ll see if we can make it.” 

“See that you do,” Lavender waved, casting a Tempus again and darting off swiftly to the apparition point. Over her shoulder, she called, “We’ll provide a couple pints for you both. My treat!”

Harry thought of Remus before the crack of Lavender’s apparition had finished ringing in his ears. How alone he must have felt, without this sort of community. Without a Molly Weasley’s hearth to slink to when he was feeling low, or a Ron to commiserate with and seek advice from, or a Hermione to depend on, or a Teddy to derive heart-clenching joy from, or a Draco to endlessly strive to be better with. Without a Lavender to guide him to an even wider community, rich with people just like himself. 

He thought about how, instead, Remus had concluded that his son was better without him. That the best thing he could do in this world was disappear.

With a low, mournful keen deep in his stomach, Harry thought of the dread, so ancient and deep within Draco, that he hadn’t known about until he’d told Draco he loved him. He wondered if Remus had felt the same, so consumed with self-loathing that no love could break through, instead barred entry at the seething, warded door. 

Harry would be different. Draco would be different. And he only hoped that Teddy would have a different life, one where the pit never need exist at all. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dust itched the back of Harry’s throat as he descended, tip-toeing, into sooty dimness. Sensations reminiscent of those from the cupboard under the stairs made his breathing speed, wheezy from the pungent fumes. Steam from bubbling cauldrons of varied shape and size crawled through streaks of watery sunlight, struggling in through the barred windows just at the top of the subterranean lab. They reminded Harry, uncomfortably, of the bars on Draco’s cell in Azkaban. He contented himself with knowing that Draco already endured an excruciatingly thorough trial, in which he had been found not guilty of his worst crimes under the all-enduring umbrellas of coercion and extortion, and had been sentenced to three years of parole, which he had already completed, and confiscation of the majority of his material possessions after his disinheritance, which he had already given up. 

Harry wasn’t supposed to be visiting Draco. It was a huge hazard having an ordinary person with a less than ordinary understanding of potions in a lab. But Draco had complained about how Perkins rarely gave him time off in the middle of the day to eat. Harry extrapolated from past experience that unless he brought lunch to work for Draco—not packed or owled, but brought, personally—Draco would shirk his body’s signals in lieu of toiling, endlessly, from the moment the shop door dinged open to the moment it clicked shut. It’s what he had done in eighth year, starving himself for some half-formed ideal, some useless self-sacrificial martyrdom. 

“The devil you know, Potter,” he had drawled at him, staring at the canvas of his canopy bed aimlessly, dull with fatigue and hunger. And then Harry had descended the stairs, off to get the insensible moron a hearty plate of shepherd's pie. 

From the threshold of the lab, Harry watched Draco work. His back was hunched over a copper cauldron, peering at the light blue concoction within. In a ladle, he held a small portion up to the light, scrutinising it before turning to an open journal covered in a cramped, elegant cursive to hurriedly jot something else down. 

Harry marvelled at how he once never would have pictured Draco looking so ruffled.  His flaxen hair curled at the ends in the steam of the cauldron, his fringe dishevelled across his forehead and his pale face flushed. He bit his bottom lip as he wrote, straight white teeth biting into that rosebud pink, so different from the fangs that revealed themselves every moon and sometimes, on rare occasions, when Draco felt threatened. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows in his state of fixation, revealing the ropey scars from his first night. They had faded after the years, evolving from an angry mottled purple to a raised red and now to a pinkish hue that matched the scar slashing across Draco’s face, which no longer stood out so aggressively on his marmoreal skin. Draco needlessly worried over them still, self-conscious of his arms for the proof of his lycanthropy and past mistakes. 

“Hi, Draco,” Harry said quietly, trying not to startle Draco at his cauldron station in the basement of Perkins’. Surprised, far-away eyes met his, blinking quizzically. “I brought you lunch.”

“Ah,” Draco said, squinting around as though his well-worn surroundings were something totally novel to him, so lost in thought he had been. “Potter. You’re not supposed to be here.”

“And yet,” Harry grinned, gesturing magnanimously, as though he had brought with him a world-class menagerie instead of a ten-pound takeaway. “I thought you might want lunch.” 

Draco raised a cutting eyebrow. “And must I have to eat it with you?’ 

Winningly and caustically facetious, Harry beamed. “Such a charmer, you are.” He slung himself down on an unoccupied stool and pawed through the brown paper for his meal in slippery silver foil. His mouth watered as he seized his lunch, crumpled the bag, and tossed the rest to Draco, unwrapping his burger hastily and tucking in with abandon. 

Plucking the bag from the air in a display of his old Seeker reflexes, Draco sneered delicately. “Like a wild animal,” he observed. His derision did not stop him from opening the bag curiously, picking through it in interest. 

He bit into a chip, and Harry felt the old burn of sunny victory alight in his chest, the very same sort of satisfaction he always got in eighth year whenever he watched Draco eat a meal Harry had brought to him. Apollo huffed in appreciation, senses attuned to Draco’s scent, carefully noticing how it softened from the acrid peak of stress and focus and hunger to the gentle slope of calm. 

“I know,” Harry said through a purposeful mouthful of food, because he liked the little wrinkle of disgust it put in Draco’s nose. This meal was an indulgence Draco would have never bought himself and about which he would undoubtedly complain vociferously to Harry. But he would finish every delightfully greasy bite, and Harry knew it.

Chapter Text

Blaise was out of the country, afraid to return to England until the dust had well and truly settled, though if you owled him, as Draco had done, he would tell you that he preferred the Italian autumn. Pansy, Theo and Greg had all quite reasonably decided never to set foot at Hogwarts for the rest of their mortal lives. Draco, spurred onwards by alternating fits of insanity, Panglossian delusion, and self-loathing, had in fact returned for eighth year, and had learned without preamble exactly why every other Slytherin yearmate had declined their letter. 

The Frankenstinian abomination that Draco had fiddled with since becoming a werewolf was a rough-and-ready concoction at best. It allowed Draco some semblance of control—though not quite over his wolf, the way that Wolfsbane did. With Wolfsbane, the wolf never led. Even in the full moon, even in different skin, it was the human mind that reigned. 

Draco wished his potion could emulate that. He would have preferred to clamp down the wolf’s every dark, hateful thought, and bury it somewhere too dark for even the moonlight to illuminate. A living grave, upon which Draco could walk without fear. Would that it were so simple. 

Alas, instead, Draco’s potion only helped mute his own frantic, impotent overtures for usurpation. It calmed him, tranquilised him, almost, though he would not have said that he ever felt exactly tranquil on it. It made him feel like he had no body to cede to the wolf, and the only space he needed was deep in the recesses of his own mind, tucked behind his Occlumency shields in the oasis of his own design, into which he had so often retreated those dark days in the Manor. 

That poisonous brew made him feel less agonised and hobbled than if he had never taken it at all. Those first few moons without it, he had awoken to a messy, bloody room, furniture overturned and smashed, the floors gouged, the down pillows torn and bursting feathers as though the wolf had slaughtered a henhouse. Shards of smashed mirrors—that’s seven years more luck like this, Draco thought hysterically—littered the damaged hardwood. In comparison to Draco, however, the room looked positively pristine. 

Refugees in their own home, the house elves would pop into the chambers in which they most often resided for twenty-nine out of thirty nights, bent on setting the demolished rooms and their bloodied owner to rights as swiftly as possible. Leedy spoon fed him potions and clucked over his wounds, sorting through the stores of healing agents he hoarded for himself to get the right amount of trimmed dittany or murtlap essence or poultices of ginger, thyme and myrtle. Jörmungandr, Draco’s nervous area rug, would often do naught but make himself a nuisance, slithering in a circle around the bed in which Draco was seated, hissing worriedly and tripping the house-elves as they tried to bring him remedies.

In contrast, Draco awoke in the Shrieking Shack every accursed monthly dawn whole and hale. A headache, some dizziness, a sticky, roiling nausea in his gut and an inability to leave bed for an overwhelming sense of foreboding and doom—that was a small price to pay, to not have to fret every month about what creative new way he would maim himself next.   

And though Draco wouldn’t exactly call it fretting, Potter seemed to act the sentiment. 

They had, awfully and terribly and obviously, been put together as dorm-mates. It had not been their original assignation—Potter had been set to bunk with one of the lesser Gryffindors in their year. Draco had been slated to lodge with a well-built, milkfed Hufflepuff boy whose name he had never cared to learn and never would. That combination had lasted not even one full night. 

Draco could not so much as jinx anyone without an alert cast out to the Auror division, primed, as they were, to confiscate his wand and slap him back in Azkaban for violating his parole. The Hufflepuff boy did not know this. He therefore spent the first half of the evening scurrying around Draco, saying nearly nothing at all but when he did speak, it was in that same unctuous, singularly grating way that Wormtail had had before his single-handed demise. 

He trundled off to bed early and Draco turned in late into the night. No dark magic at all, that had been the regulation—luckily it did not extend to potions, generally, or at least, not the sort Draco was dabbling in. Unluckily, it did extend to all the sorts of blood wards that Draco had used to defend his chambers throughout the war. He knew protego and a few basic wards, of course, but the basic wards would interact with those sewn into the fabric of his canopy bed, and the protego would collapse the moment Draco fell asleep. 

Draco hedged his bets and had he put money down, he would have lost, but not by much. He had never been one for optimism. 

An ungraceful, unanticipated meeting with the carpeted floor awoke Draco, swiftly pursued by another unexpected rendez-vous with the Hufflepuff boy’s fist. Jör released a hiss of alarm and retreated to the relative safety beneath Draco’s bed, and Draco wished, once he understood what was happening, that he could do the same. It took a half-dozen strikes for the boy to get tired enough to forget Draco’s wand wrist, clasped in punishing grip, and Draco shoved between them the strongest Protego he could fathom at fuck-all in the morning with a bloody nose and two swollen, visionless eyes. His head rang with bells, rattled from the first contact his forehead had made with the unmercifully thin carpet and the cringeworthy clunk that followed. 

As Draco had done many times before the Dark Lord and his ingratiating gargoyles, he summoned his Occlumency walls and retreated. The oasis he had created for himself was the crown jewel of his study in mind magic. No bad memories, he had whispered to himself, and so the Manor and her gardens were out of the question, Hogwarts dismissed just as swiftly. 

No, his oasis was, of all places, Grimmauld herself, the beautiful visions of which Persephone Malfoy had described to him on his very first visit to the attic, ten years prior. 

In Persephone’s time, Grimmauld had been a beautiful townhouse, the centre of Pureblood Society and the pulsing heart of Wizarding London. Her Fortune-Telling Roses were fought over by Seers across the British Isles: her grand dining room held dinner parties for scores of the most fashionable and wealthiest individuals from Islington to Monaco City: her chandeliers glittered in the pooling sunlight as laughter rose to greet the rainbow hues which bounced across the intricately designed walls. In the larder grew whole fields of corn and squash and beans, great trees bearing plums and peaches and apples and lemons. 

Draco could have picked any room in Persephone’s Grimmauld to make his hideaway, but he picked the second-smallest living room, with its cosy sofa, velvet armchair, and wallpaper depicting a beautiful, sprawling woodland of fruitful trees and fanciful birds. Through the underbrush, Draco liked to watch the slender bodies of sly foxes pad delicately. If he was lucky, a mother and her kits would sometimes tumble and play beneath the apple trees. The birdsong was soft and sweet, and the hearth crackled and popped, reminding Draco that he was not alone.   

Draco was in Persephone’s living room when his wolf showed himself, for the first time, beyond his full moon. 

The Hufflepuff boy was casting hexes at Draco’s shield, only incised further by its existence instead of losing interest as Draco had hoped. Between the blood seeping through the fingers of his left hand, held to stifle the rivulets of red that ran from his nostrils, and the shaking wand wrist weakened by that grip so awkward and crushing he had felt his bones rub uncomfortably across one another, Draco calculated he possibly had a minute or two, at best. Enough time to think of something, probably, if only his head didn’t feel stuffed with cotton, and the incessant ringing would quiet, and the throbbing axis of hot pain in his forehead would cease. 

So, not enough time for Draco. But for his wolf? Certainly. 

The bark of victory the Hufflepuff boy released upon the collapse of Draco’s shield was replaced by a yelp of confusion and fear when he found an adolescent wolf at his throat instead. 

No biting, Draco could remember thinking sternly, cocooned safely away in an incongruously chunky knit quilt in the velvet green armchair of Penelope’s second-smallest living room. He was admiring the ornate brocade on the arm of the chair with singular intensity, determined not to investigate why he was thinking what he was thinking, or to whom he was thinking it at. Again, he pushed with all his might, NO BITING. 

The wolf had paused, jaws open before the whimpering Hufflepuff lad’s face, ropes of saliva dripping from his pearly fangs and landing on his tearful cheeks to mingle with his sour sweat. The wolf huffed, eyes wide open and black lips drawn back in an abominable snarl. Snapping his jaws shut mere inches from pink skin, he leaned in and growled, a full-body timbre that seemed to emanate from the very heart of the Forbidden Forest for how feral and inhuman it was. The wolf smelled the pungent stink of urine and stared at the boy beneath him in flat disgust, licking his nose to clear it and pushing off of his heaving chest. The boy scrambled back, fumbling over the carpet and his own two feet in his haste, fleeing the open door in abject panic. 

Disdainful and unbothered, the wolf had leapt up to the other boy’s bed and pissed all over his unmade sheets for good measure. Then, satisfied with the mess he had made, he sauntered over to Draco’s bed, pulled the curtains from their rods and the blankets and sheets from their mattress, and piled them into the farthest corner, obscured from the open door by Draco’s barren bed. He ripped open the down pillows and lined his bed with feathers, circling contentedly as he did so. He paid no mind to Jör, who fearfully emerged to scent the air around him, only to catch a feather on his pink tuft and hiss disagreeably, wriggling in upset as he disappeared once more.

When Draco tried to leave Persephone’s sitting room, he found the doorway had ceased to exist. 

Not safe, came the thought. Though it was in Draco’s mind, it was not Draco’s own. Not yet. 

And so, with nothing left to do, Draco waited. Through a thick fog of floaty detachment, he noticed that he felt impatient and panicked, though it felt like those emotions were far away from him. 

The wolf would not release him for a full twelve hours. 

Not until Luna, unrepentant, unimpugnable Luna, had crouched down before him with an outstretched palm. The wolf smelled Potter with her, as he had before. As he had done before, Potter lingered at the threshold and smelled of ozone and fire. The wolf shepherded Luna to his corner, as he had done, and thought to himself, a whole castle of foes would be too much for one. But one foe, perhaps friend, who had met him before? 

Like Draco, the wolf had to sleep. When he did, his protection would lapse like Draco’s failed Protego. But under Luna’s gentle touch, the wolf thought perhaps this human would not misguide him, as the other often had. 

Let me out, the other demanded. Let me out. 

Draco, once reinstated to his bludgeoned body, refused to further perseverate on the matter. He’d been beaten; he’d retreated; something else had responded in his stead. Simple as that. It needed a host–it couldn’t live if Draco was incapacitated. It was a parasite, nothing more, and sometimes, if Draco thought this enough times repetitively throughout the day, he could almost convince himself of it. 

He had to convince himself of the wolf’s utilitarian viciousness, because ceding control had felt so disgustingly tempting, and the corridors were gauntlets of seething stares and viperous hissed insults. Draco kept up an Impervious and a small, clinging Protego throughout every hallway and well into most of his classes. When was asked to recreate practical spellwork and could not maintain his shield charms, his things often went missing, or his clothing was ripped or stained, or he was hit discreetly under the desks with stinging hexes or tripping jinxes. Draco did not fight back. How could he? He deserved it, all of it. A little shoving in the halls, a little jeering at his turned back, some stolen objects and nasty hexes cast with his back turned—it was nothing compared to what he had done just a short while ago. 

He deserved it, he was certain. But the wolf was not of such a mind. The wolf hadn’t existed for Draco’s seventh year crimes beneath the menacing wandpoints of the Carrow siblings, after all. The wolf had been born out of the one brave act Draco had ever so foolishly committed himself to, and therefore believed wholeheartedly that they did not deserve such vicious treatment. Draco agreed that however feral and vicious an animal he was, the wolf did not deserve the abuse they endured, even if he was of a divided mind about himself. It made him sad to hear the wolf whimper in the back of his mind even as he wished he could eradicate him from it entirely. 

“How does this all make you feel, Draco?” his Mind Healer, Vee, asked. 

“I have a nephew,” Draco replied, as though he hadn’t heard. “A first-cousin. He’s Potter’s godchild.” 

Her glasses were square and turquoise. Her long hair was a pile of dark curls atop her head, and her knowing dark eyes were trained on him in a way that made him feel more like a petulant cornered housecat than a werewolf. 

Vee nodded. By now, she was used to his hedging. “So I’ve heard.”

“Family is important,” Draco recited. “Mother told me Aunt Andy was the wrong sort. But we were the wrong sorts. She, and I. And father.” Draco released a breath. “Everyone knows it. Young Edward and Aunt Andromeda would certainly know it. The students do.” 

“Well,” Vee said. Her eyebrows were furrowed behind the rims of her glasses. “Let’s explore that. I know you’ve had many challenging and stressful encounters with the other students and some of the staff.”

“I deserve it,” Draco replied immediately, truthfully. That punishing pit of viscous guilt clung to every inch of his haunted mind, desperate for an outlet. Vee was one of the kinder ways out. “I did awful things last year and the year before. I hurt people, I hurt their siblings and their friends.”

“Other people did, as well,” Vee reminded him gently. “The Carrows asked just about every student to participate, from what you’ve told me.” 

“Not every student did participate, though,” Draco insisted. “Some resisted. But I didn’t. I did everything they told me to.” 

Vee nodded. She blinked at him, waiting, as Draco lapsed into nervous silence. He wanted to do well here—he always wanted to do well. He didn’t want to make the same mistakes that he always seemed to be making. He picked his cuticles, biting and peeling, until he tasted blood. 

“I deserve it,” he repeated, more softly than before. 

“Is there any space for you to acknowledge that you were seventeen?”  Vee asked quietly, compassionately. “You were so young, Draco. Can’t you see that?”

“Potter was young,” Draco insisted, lurching forward in his fuzzy yellow seat. Everything in Vee’s office was brightly coloured. The desk chair she sat in was hot pink: her curtains were mauve: her hair bow was lime green. She had a bouquet of cheery muggle flowers to the left of her notepad. Perhaps she thought the bright colours would help her deal with the darkness within her clients. “Longbottom was young.” 

“Your life is very different from their lives,” Vee pointed out, a flutter of repressed emotion crossing her features. Perhaps she hated him. Everyone hates you, a voice that sounded like his boggart whispered insidiously from the roiling pit of guilt and sorrow. Everyone is disgusted by you. 

Draco shook his head. “You don’t understand,” he maintained fiercely. “I was an awful child, I-I did awful things. I behaved terribly, and it was all my fault. If I had been a better son, or a better person, I wouldn’t even have been in those positions.” He took a shaky breath. In his lap, he clutched his thumbs in his fists, knowing that they were bleeding onto his palms. “There’s just, just something rotten in me. People can see it. My parents, my-my classmates, now. Luna doesn’t think so, but she wouldn’t, she never did even when I was horrible to her and her friends. Pansy doesn’t either, but she’s not objective at all, trained up since our marriage contract was signed to worship the ground I walked on. Greg knows,” and Draco didn’t know why it was so important, to convince his Mind Healer that he was so fundamentally broken and flawed, but it was. “Greg knows. He said it to me after Vince—I’m the reason Vince d-died, we wouldn’t have been in the room if I hadn’t tried tracking down Potter.” 

“And why did you try to find Potter?” Vee asked. 

“I don’t know,” Draco answered miserably. “I don’t…I wanted my wand back, but I didn’t want to fight. I just wanted to hide, and I wanted-I wanted to see them, I think, to make sure they were real. That they’d gotten out of the Manor.” He sighed, disgusted with himself for being unable to control it, but incapable of lying to Vee. “The wolf wanted to see him.”

Pensively, Vee nodded. Slowly, she began, “I would urge you to be curious about what the wolf feels,” she told him. “He has a wisdom and an honesty in him. Perhaps you could explore what he feels about your time at Hogwarts, and what he feels about your relatives.” 

Wisdom and honesty Circe’s left tit. What his wolf felt was absolute shite, whenever Draco asked. He hated the taunts in the halls, he hated the constant prickling feeling of being watched, and he hated, hated, that Draco constantly tried to ignore him most of all. 

Traitor, he growled, a full barrel-chested rumble, with real loathing in it. That sort of hatred set Draco’s palms clammy with fearful sweat: it was the sort of hatred he’d seen in the eyes of the wolf that had bit him, angling relentlessly to tear chunks off of the defenseless whip of a girl behind him. It was the sort of detestation he had felt that very first night erupt from within him like a primordial volcano, fit to rain fiery apocalypse. It was the furious cold abhorance that he had seen in his father’s steely eyes when he’d looked upon him for the very last time. 

Draco felt the accusation vibrate through the marrow of his bones. Worthless, he thought, clenching his eyes tight at the horrid truth of it. He hung onto the sink in his and Potter’s shared washroom, transferred after that stupid Hufflepuff oaf had gone crying to McGonagall. Last time he had sobbed at a sink, he’d been rent clavicle to hipbone. 

He didn’t feel like sobbing now. 

Worthless, worthless, worthless. You worthless traitor.

No, he didn’t feel sad. He didn’t feel fear. He felt—

Traitor, traitor, traitor.

—he felt full of rage. 

Vee had told him to be curious. Was this right? Suffering a barrage of indignity, feeling the dark drag of helpless, impotent fury straight to his core. Would it be worth it to fight the anger and the accusations? Fighting them somehow felt even worse. His feeble protests would be torn to shreds from the conviction that came from somewhere inside of him—whether the deep pit of loathing within himself, or from the wolf, he wasn’t sure. 

Traitor Traitor Traitor Traitor Traitor Traitor Traitor Traitor 

What the fuck had he been supposed to do? What the fuck was he supposed to do when on one side there was Saint Potter tearing him in two and Pansy staring at him with wide, horrified eyes as he told her his mission, and Severus whispering in his ear to let him help him while his mother sat herself in the Dark Lord’s clutches with Greyback’s slavering underlings drooling at her delicate ankles? What the fuck was Draco supposed to do, realize that his mother was a wholly capable witch who could have released herself and the Manor from the dark stain of the Dark Lord if she had not been such a bleeding, foolish coward? While at the same time, she kept begging him to accept the Dark Lord’s terms, tearfully insisting that he, her child, was the only one who could return their family to the burnished standing it used to have? 

Traitor Traitor Traitor Traitor Traitor Traitor 

What a fucking joke. She had taught him what love was, and he’d listened. He’d thought he’d known. He’d thought what he was doing was love, trying to protect her from the consequences of her own actions, nothing more than a frog in a pot. 

She had taught him what love was. She had taught him what love was, and he believed her. She had lied to the Dark Lord. She was as accomplished as Severus was, and yet, she sat, buried in the grave she shovelled herself and told Draco she was helpless, reaching out a hand in askance. Because this was love. Shouldering the mess she and his father had made, buckling under its weight as he carried it as his own. 

He felt such rage consume him like he had never felt before. His pulse was elevated, his breathing heavy. A ringing in his ears consumed all sound.

She had lied to him, too. 

TRAITOR TRAITOR TRAITOR TRAITOR TRAITOR   

And Draco knew, truly. The only one he had betrayed was himself. 

The porcelain cracked beneath his hands as he struck once, twice. The mirror shattered beneath his clenched fist. Seven years. 

But Draco didn’t care, because seven years of bad luck would be an improvement upon the lifetime of lies he had already endured. 

He felt the sting of fresh cuts as he released his fists, his nails grown thick and sharp, his knuckles larger and coarser. If he were to have glanced in the broken mirror, Draco would have seen his grey eyes had taken on an amber cast. 

But he had no time, because he was opening the cabinet and, with robotic methodicalness, began shattering its contents against the far wall as hard as he could. The citrus smell of his hair potion, the phial for which crunched satisfyingly in the tiled corner of their bath, mingled with the mint of his toothpaste—smash—and the face ointment he brewed for himself shattered apart, releasing the scent of cinnamon and cloves. 

So rageful he felt as though he could breathe fire like his moniker, Draco did not stop until every item he owned in the medicine cabinet was destroyed. He slammed the door shut and smacked the mirror again for good measure, hissing and swearing as a shard slashed into the meat of his palm. The pain felt like cleansing fire running through his veins. In his left hand, his Hawthorn wand, given to him by perhaps the only other person besides Luna who had never lied to him, shot red-hot sparks and embers across the destruction, showering the shattered glass and oozing products in a dark rain of ash. 

The anger, all-consuming. 

He had been betrayed by everyone he had trusted. By the very two people he had been taught to trust above all others. Worse yet than even their abandonment, he had been trained to betray himself. The anger was never-ending, a vast landscape of loathing and pain, and Draco, stripped down by his wolf’s biting midnight snarl, had been stripped of his illusions. 

Looking into the shattered glass, seeing red-rimmed eyes sparking quicksilver and molten amber, Draco asked the anger, “What’s your fucking name?” 

Ladon, the anger replied. A part of the Draco constellation. A fearsome beast, angry and wild, and a guardian of something valuable. 

Amidst the devouring anger, the anger they became. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Potter found him some time later, sitting on the side of the bath with his head in one hand, a reddened towel wrapped tightly around his slashed palm. The hard bath had bruised his sitz bones, scrawny as he had become from his years of playacting as a predator when he had been nothing more than a prey animal, but Draco had long become numb. He knew he needed to get up and do something about his palm, but. Getting up meant doing something, and that was just too much for the moment. Maybe the next one, or the next, he kept thinking until Potter was there, flummoxed and gormless as ever.  

The detritus of his outburst Draco had banished regretfully some time before, wishing he could instead send the lot of it up in flames in their shared bath. The porcelain of the sink had returned to its smooth, unblemished white of before, which Draco was quite pleased with. He’d always had a knack for Charms, when not terrified halfway out of his own mind. 

The mirror, on the other hand, was unsalvageable. When Draco had attempted to mend it, the glass had gone foggy and mottled, brownish in some spots and warped like a circus mirror in others. He wondered if he had not accidentally cast some dark blood magic upon it, for it looked like the type of creation children would rhyme about amongst their friends and dare their enemies to look into.

“Er, I—oh!” Potter stopped short at the threshold, eyeing Draco’s bloodied towel. Draco had occasionally dragged his sorry carcass back to their shared room after an altercation. He had taken his humiliation, and his wolf had howled and frothed in his chest, but none had ever come to the same heated climax as his frenzied rendez-vous with the unlucky Hufflepuff. 

“I’m sick of this dance,” Draco grumbled, referring to the inevitable argument where Potter would with increasing annoyance try to convince him to go to Madame Pomfrey, and Draco would refuse with increasing ire. As Potter was with most dances, he was gods-awful at this one, ending the conversation by storming out or seething while Draco readied himself for bed, their sides of the room divided one by roiling frustration and the other by icy disdain. Potter needn’t know that Draco was disdainful not of his argument but of the idea that he was even worthy of being seen by Madame Pomfrey, the woman who had taken care of so many of his victims the year before. “I’m not fucking doing it.” 

Potter sighed, heading to the cabinet, now empty save for his awful muggle collection of foamy shaving cream and something called a 3-in-1 in bottles that did not shatter. Draco had tried many times. It would have only been to Potter’s betterment. A favour. “You’ve got to have some mad concoction in here for it, right?” 

“The fuck do you care?” The rage was still there, boiling so close to the surface now that he finally had a vent for it. The steam screamed out, unable to be repressed any longer. Not that he had ever tried very hard to repress himself around Potter. 

This access point was old and eroded from use. It made him feel tired, all of a sudden, to understand so finally that he had wasted so much of his time and efforts angry at the wrong person. 

“You’re right,” Potter snapped, unaware of Draco’s resignation. The door to the barren cabinet snapped shut with him. “Why even bother trying to be civil with you?” 

He turned to go, and Draco said, “Wait.” 

Potter paused at the threshold, eyebrows raised in a sardonic manner that suggested if he had the ability to raise only one, he would’ve. Draco swallowed heavily. 

The wolf—Ladon—still paced in his chest and growled. But the snarl wasn’t meant for Potter. If he had to live with Ladon, which he did, he had to start doing things Ladon approved of. He had to start showing him he was worthy of trusting, because he had so mercilessly betrayed them both for so long. 

He had to show him he could do something for them, instead of for people who didn’t love them, and didn’t know how to. 

“I’m sorry, Potter,” Draco apologised, the words creaky and heavy and unfamiliar on his tongue. As though speaking through a gritty mouthful of mud, grainy and viscous as it slid across his soft palate to the back of his throat, Draco forced himself to continue. He did not look at Potter’s face, only the ratty trainers, scuffed and stained with a fraying hole in one side and an aglet missing from the rightmost lace. “I’m sorry for the vicious taunts. Targeting you for your family history was uncouth and boorish. I’m sorry for the things I’ve said to and about Granger, Merlin knows she’s suffered more than anyone should’ve at the hands of my family. I’m sorry for being an arsehole, and a general twat, and I’m sorry my family has caused you and yours such pain. They’re an awful bunch, and I,” Draco took a deep breath. The shoes had not moved, and neither had Potter. “I am trying to be better than my predecessors.” 

Potter did not move for a long moment, mulling over Draco’s confessions. Slowly, he nodded. “I suppose I’m also—”

“Don’t bloody apologise just because I did it!” Draco chided. “Shut up, you moron!” He buried his head in his good hand once more and growled with frustration. “Stop fucking manufacturing a martyr out of yourself, for one bleeding moment of your life!” 

“I’m also going to need proof, before I can really believe it,” Potter finished. When Draco risked a glance to his face, a mocking dimple had appeared beside the left corner of his mouth, though Draco was certain that was not what he’d intended to say. 

Draco gestured to his left forearm tiredly. “This was enough for the court.” 

“Not a criminal doesn’t mean not a twat.” 

“I never said I was trying not to be a twat,” Draco retorted. “I’m sorry, not lobotomised.”

Potter paused, then, incredulously, chuckled. “It’s good to have attainable goals.” His shoes stepped towards Draco, the browning plastic of the toe tips facing him. Draco could have Scourgified them, had he the urge, but then, so could Potter. Wisely, he commended himself, he left them as they were. 

His heart was still racing, though Draco felt for certain that was simply because of the burst of adrenaline he had experienced at formulating the first sincere apology he’d uttered since his trial. Ladon was no longer pacing in his chest, instead laying, forepaws resting before him, ears perked. The self-hatred that had so crescendoed within him had stilled to a gentle background hum, quieted for the moment. 

“If not Madame Pomfrey, can I heal that, then?” Potter asked, gesturing. “I had to get good at healing charms, that year on the run.” 

Draco looked up at him, truly at him, for the first time since Potter entered the bathroom threshold. He thought perhaps, pride aside, if he had not been able to trust anyone but Luna in his life until now, that Harry Potter may not be so terrible a second choice for the afters. If he was, of course, truly trying to be better than his predecessors. 

“Alright,” Draco agreed. 

In his chest, Ladon laid his chin on his paws. He breathed deep in peaceful slumber.  

Chapter Text

“It’ll be fun,” Harry insisted as he guided them to the apparition point. “A much-needed break from all the studying. It’ll be good to stretch your eyes—any more time spent in that carrel and you’ll need thicker glasses than I do.” 

“I have never liked dogs,” Draco intoned, following regardless. He had been trying fruitlessly to solve a replacement cipher for dragon’s blood for the past two days, and had managed a combination of Snapdragon saliva and salamander’s tears, but the concoction wasn’t quite right. Any more time hunched over a cauldron in Perkins’ and he would huff and puff and burn the whole shop down. 

“You’ll love them,” Potter grinned. “Lavender loves them. They’re much better company than your father’s stupid chickens.”

Draco shuddered, appalled and only halfway convinced, despite the fact that his father’s peacocks had been once terrifying enough to contend as his worst fear. He tucked his chin into his scarf to defend from the howling afternoon wind and squinted. “Are you quite certain she has the best taste?” Draco drawled. “Need I not remind you of ‘Won Won’.” 

“Yes, yes,” Harry waved him away, shaking his flyaway curls uselessly out of his face. The wind blew them right back in, anyway. “Ron and I had the same conversation. But she’s better, she really is. She’s a lesbian now.” 

Draco hummed and nodded, brightening considerably. “Yes, I suppose dating Weasley would do that,” he quipped, earning himself a sharp elbow to the ribs that he dodged with a snide little titter. 

The biting wind was as good a distraction as any from the way, when Draco stepped back to his side, Potter’s hand rested on his elbow. The wrenching twist of apparition helped Draco convince himself that there had been no flutter in his stomach at all at the contact. 

Lavender and Jessie’s dog rescue wasn’t anything like the awful fluorescent prison Draco had envisioned when Potter told him about a shelter, nor was it anything like the sage-filled smokey frou frou teahouse like he had envisioned with Potter mentioned Lavender, ever associating her with quackery like divination and astrology. 

Instead, the front window had pawprints in brightly coloured paint running across the cartoon flowers of their floor-to-ceiling front window. Creature Comforts Rescue and Sanctuary was written in bold, cheerfully bubbly letters above them. Through the window, Draco could see the waiting area, awash in soothing colours of sage green, forest green, and light pink. The chairs and couches were a squashy, mismatched sort. To the side away from the reception desk, there was a table with water, tea, an electric kettle, and an assortment of joyfully coloured mugs that looked as though they had been selected from multiple different charity shops. To the right of it was a light blue door, just behind it a pale pink door, and to the left, a sunny yellow one.  Potted plants—all canine-safe, Ladon ascertained from the back of Draco’s mind, breathing in deeply—hung in the sunlight or sat on the low tables.

And behind the reception desk itself, a poofy-haired, pixie-like woman nodded happily to him. She had a pen with a fluffy pink pom-pom at the end of it sticking out from behind one ear, and what were likely clips of real flowers in her blue curls. 

Lavender opened the door with an excited grin, the bell for which rang with a cheery ding!. “Brought your man,” she said to Harry knowingly, and Draco watched, smugly, as Harry flushed under his deadpan gaze. 

“He’s not—” he blundered. Draco didn’t care to listen, Ladon insisting that there were more important stimuli to pay attention to. Taken aback to the point where Draco could feel his eyes dilate, the interior of the sanctuary smelled like other animals, cats and dogs, but also like warm sunlight and the earthy smell of freshly turned soil. 

“Welcome in,” the blue-haired woman said, smiling at him as she got up from her chair and walked over to them, pecking Lavender on the cheek. Nearer to her, Draco could see that it was not the pom-pom of a pen by her ear, but a tiny Pygmy Puff braiding himself into her hair. “I’m Jessie.” 

Draco swallowed, gathering himself, and nodded. He introduced himself and Potter. “I like your little friend,” he noted. The pygmy-puff reminded him of Luna, who had jetted off last week shortly after Potter’s wayward congratulations-you’re-a-werewolf party with her father to somewhere in La Mosquitia, Honduras, off searching for some sort of lost city.

Beside him, he felt Potter’s beaming satisfaction at being introduced by his full name instead of just a flat “and this is Potter”, as Draco had considered. His steady presence radiated warmth at his left shoulder. 

Jessie beamed and tapped her little friend affectionately, who began braiding himself in her hair at an even faster pace, as though now that he had been discovered, he was fearful of being removed. “The others in his poffle don’t seem to like him very much, so I’ve decided to carry him around.”

“Where did you find him?” Draco asked curiously. He was certain London wasn’t their natural habitat. He had studied a bit of Magizoology for his degree, mostly to understand the creatures’ magic and how it interacted with the potions they would be designing, but enough to know that Puffskeins were most often woodland creatures. 

Jessie smiled. “The sanctuary. Here, before I show you—how is your wolf? Would he be alright around others?” 

“I—yes,” Draco replied, surprised that Jessie had asked and touched that she had. “He’s alright.”

“Let me know if either of you get overwhelmed at all,” Harry said quietly, his mouth closer to Draco’s ear than strictly necessary. Draco shivered, though he tried not to. “I’m right here.” 

“I know where you are,” Draco replied, rolling his eyes. He tossed his fringe from his eyes to dislodge the memory of Harry’s warm breath by the shell of his ear and resolutely followed Jessie deeper into the shelter. 

She showed him around, talking about how their business catered to wix and muggles, since Jessie was a squib. Through the light blue door they had a hallway that led to muggle-only breeds, one side to cats and the other to dogs. Draco eyed the cat room curiously. A wall of cubbies lined the far side. From within one a large striped tabby glowered at him cantankerously, begging for a fight. Two small kittens were fighting over a tufted feather toy, tumbling playfully, and a calico sleepily bathed herself in the sunny window. On a large armchair, threadbare at the scratched armrests, an adolescent orange cat groomed himself with single-minded determination. It was much calmer than the dog room, where mutts jumped up to greet them at the mouth of their cages. No matter how soft and well-appointed they were with toys and beds and food and water bowls, the sight of the bars made Draco feel sick and Ladon snarl. 

Through the pale pink they had mixed and magical breeds, crups and miniature cerberi, who, she assured Draco at spying his greenish expression, were socialised all together with the muggle breeds when not during open hours. They’d had a bit of trouble from a miniature dachshund who had bonded with a half-crup beagle and kept attempting increasingly creative escapes. When they met the beagle mix, her white tails wagging madly, Harry, clearly charmed, said he could hardly blame the dachshund. Once again, Draco preferred the cat room, eyeing a large tomcat that reminded him of that monstrosity that had haunted the halls of Grimmauld and their dorm when Granger was away. 

Through the yellow door was undoubtedly where the scent of grass and sunlight would have emanated from, had Potter not been at Draco’s side. A vast wizardspace clearing greeted them, surrounded by trees whose branches rustled softly in the summer breeze. The clouds overhead were white and fluffy in the blue sky, and the summer sun beamed down upon the frolicking figures of many of the dogs who had not elected to remain in their crates. Draco spied the miniature dachshund making herself a menace before a slow-moving pitbull mix, his great brown cow eyes peering at her worriedly from where his square-jawed face rested on his paws. Birdsong emanated from the tall trees, the breeze ruffling the branches and carrying the sweet scent of sap and fresh leaves.

“This is some impressive charmwork,” Draco marvelled, casting his gaze from the sky, so realistic in its clear blue and luxurious white clouds, to the earth beneath his feet, springy and coated in a dense layer of grass. He was faintly appalled at himself for being so appreciative of Lavender Brown’s work of all people, and then sheepishly acknowledged that he didn’t have a hint of a leg to stand on for judging people for who they’d been in school. 

Lavender beamed. “Took ages,” she admitted. “I had to meet with Flitwich and McGonagall about a half dozen times to consult with them about the schematics.”

Harry had followed Jessie out to play with the dachshund, the two chatting amicably with grand gestures and beaming smiles. Draco closed his eyes and luxuriated in the warming sunlight stretching across his skin. 

“Hasn’t been weather like this in millenia,” he mumbled, recalling the stinging wind that had driven them inside upon their visit. 

Lavender nodded. “Feels nicest close to the moon,” she said. “It’s good to just lay out here, let yourself touch the ground. It calms you and the wolf down before the shift.” Eyeing his designer trousers and leather loafers, she snorted. “Not that you’re exactly the type.” 

Draco felt the need to argue simply for the sake of it. Nevermind that she’d read bang on with one glance. “I’ve gone outside,” he pouted, offended. “I just prefer not to.” 

Her grin was a little sharp around the eye teeth when she smiled. “Bet your wolf hardly likes being outside either. Doesn’t even get his paws dirty when he makes his own bed. A dainty creature, I bet he is.” 

Ladon huffed angrily. “He is not dainty,” Draco hissed in offence. “He’s ferocious, I’ll have you know.” 

Lavender laughed. The sound was like bells, clear and pretty, and Draco wanted to throttle her for it. “I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it,” she replied. “What pack do you shift with?” 

Draco blinked. Despite himself, he cocked his head at a forty-five degree angle, as Ladon did when he encountered something he did not understand. “Excuse me?” 

Confused, Lavender pressed on. A wrinkle appeared between her perfectly sculpted, honey-brown eyebrows. “Surely you’ve got a pack?” 

“I…well.” Draco cleared his throat, suddenly deeply uncomfortable. “I’ve got Luna, usually. And Potter and my nephew, now, as well.”

“Oh,” Lavender replied, her voice suddenly quite soft and, humiliatingly, laced with pity. “Oh, Malfoy—”

“It’s fine,” Draco interrupted her. “I prefer to be alone. Ladon does as well.”

Lavender smiled indulgently, and Draco wanted to throttle her even more. “I’ve not found very many lone wolves, actually, in my time at the support group,” she confided. “Usually they just prefer isolation because they’re afraid of rejection.”

Shoulders squared as though in confrontation, Draco stared unblinkingly at Potter. He was beaming at Jessie, his eyes screwed up to nothing but slits in his face. The half-crup was pawing at his jeans, streaking the thighs with mud. He gestured madly as he talked, a red ball in his hand, and the pitbull mix tapped the ground in barely contained impatient exuberance. “I assure you I’m not.” 

“Great,” Lavender smiled. Her voice was as warm as the sunshine and as sweet as the honey in her honey-brown hair. “I can’t wait to introduce you. The group meets in twenty minutes, I’ll corral those two so they can say their goodbyes.” 

“Wait,” Draco protested, whirling belatedly to look at her. She was already walking off, waving to Potter and Jessie and hollering after them. “Wait, what?” Draco didn’t have much time to ponder Lavender’s response, however, because abruptly, the two dogs that had been occupied with Potter’s game of fetch launched themselves at him like four-legged missiles and were closing in quickly. 

“Ah! N—Oh,” Draco interrupted himself, capitulating to the canine onslaught he found himself in once the fine linen of his trousers became stained from the first pawprint. The half-crup was sniffing him avidly, while the pitbull seemed to be trying to wiggle and worm his way into Draco’s shins, pressing right up against him with enough force to make Draco stumble backwards. The dog looked at him with a dopey grin and wide-set, heavily-lashed eyes that reminded Draco of a cow. 

Potter came jogging up behind them, his curls wild and dark skin healthy and glowing in the sunlight in a way that Draco could never hope to emulate. Direct sunlight only seemed to illuminate what an eye-watering shade of pale Draco was. He didn’t mind overly—so sensitive as he was to the light, his skin and eyes so devoid of natural protections from it, that he had seemed to instinctively understand from a young age that he was, among the frogs and moths, a creature of twilight. 

“Shit, I’m so sorry,” Jessie started as she reached for the pitbull, whose tail was beating a rhythmic thump-thump-thump on Draco’s calf. The dog’s eyes were squinted in an expression of pure bliss. Despite himself, Draco was charmed. “Here, Ajay, come here boy. That’s it. Sorry,” Jessie huffed, wrangling the wriggling canine, who was equally excited to be turned onto her, “he really likes meeting new people and he gets…exuberant. He broke down a door once to greet Parvati.”

In contrast, the half-crup was almost regal. She had feigned to sniff Draco’s shoes, but was now looking at him expectantly, perhaps almost impatiently. As if to say, “Have you not noticed that it is your proper duty to attend to me?”, she placed her paw on one of his loafers and tapped firmly. 

“She wants pets,” Lavender explained, helping Jessie handle the dog who seemed as though he’d devoured three boxes of Mexican Jumping Beans in that very sitting. “You don’t have to, of course, but she’ll get prissy.”

“She throws very precise temper tantrums for a dog,” Draco remarked, crouching down to give the half-crup the attention she desired lest his trousers suffer even more unduly. 

“She’s a princess,” Jessie snorted. “She needed to be put on special food for a while and disliked it so much that she chewed up every hat Lavender wore here for a month in winter.”

“I’m sure Lavender deserved it,” Draco said wryly. In the back of his mind,  Ladon had deigned to  observe from afar, waiting to gain further information with which to cast judgement on the pup. 

“Parvati made me those hats!” Lavender protested, hurling the ball she’s relinquished from Harry with a grunt. The pitbull tore after it like a rocket. The crup mix, enamoured by Draco’s belly rubs and having lost much of her put-together impression, was too busy rolling and lolling her tongue to notice. Potter was crouched before the two of them, looking at them with a fondness that Draco decided was purely for the dog. 

“I’ll hop back out to the front with this one,” Jessie smiled, brushing dirt from her embroidered skirt and clipping on Ajay’s lead. “Keep them in line,” she whispered loudly to the crup, before pecking Lavender on the cheek and heading through the yellow door. 

“Right,” Lavender said decidedly to the boys. “Fifteen minutes more of fetch, and then off to the pub Draco was so eager to get to, yeah?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Draco muttered peevishly, in what seemed to be the general refrain of the day, “I did not agree to this.”

Potter leaned over at him and grinned. “I did, though. It’ll be fine. The shelter was good, wasn’t it?” As they entered the pub, his glasses, always the same godsawful circular pair, fogged up in his face. He removed them, squinting myopically at their bustling surroundings, and began wiping them on his shirt as though cleaning charms did not exist. 

Draco confiscated them with a tetchy little click of his tongue and spelled them clean tidily before handing them back to Potter. Still, he doubtfully chewed his lip. “The shelter was animals. This is new people.” He sighed. “I don’t like new people.” 

“They’re nice people,” Potter reassured him, shoving his glasses up his slightly crooked nose with one knuckle and getting another blasted fingerprint on them. “Jessie reminds me a lot of Luna—I think Lavender has good taste. It’ll be good to meet some new people and see what they’re like, won’t it?”

“New people don’t tend to like me, either,” Draco argued. He elbowed a large man with a goatee discreetly out of his way, and when the stranger protested, Potter snorted. 

“Sorry, fell over,” Potter called contritely over his shoulder, at which the man grumbled but returned his attention to his pint, which had only sloshed a little down his front. To Draco he insisted, “They’ll like you. I like you.” 

“Yes, well, you’re hardly unbiased,” Draco scoffed. Lavender was weaving them through a well-appointed wizarding pub a few streets over from Creature Comforts, a small crowded number with dark leather booths and yellow light. “And I have always doubted your intellect.” 

“You and half the wizarding world,” Potter grinned, bowing dramatically. “And yet, here I am. Basically a fucking god.” 

Draco eyed him up and down with a judgemental moue to his mouth. “I don’t know if you mean because of your celebrity, or because of your weird little stunt with the Hallows in the Forest,” he intoned, purposefully sounding equally unimpressed about either option. “If it’s the latter, you fell into fucking god-hood out of sheer dumb luck and my, let me remind you, my wand, you wanker.” Draco sucked his teeth. “Stupid Deathstick and I didn’t even fucking know it.”

“Boys,” Lavender raised her voice to be heard over the din of Draco’s irritation and Harry’s smug relentlessness, “this is the group. Group, meet boys.” Lavender gestured to a hodgepodge group of a half dozen people of varying shapes and ages. “This one’s Harry, and this one’s Draco,” she explained, gesturing at each one in turn. Draco seemed to shrink under the scrutiny. Potter put on his best Quibbler face (as his expressions towards the rest of the press were decidedly unsightly—Draco would know. He’d done dramatic renditions of nigh on every one. They made Luna laugh like no other). 

Lavender ferried the two of them into the booth and spirited herself away to the bar, off to pester the bartender who seemed to be well aware of her order, by the way she was already filling up pint glasses. Draco found himself squeezed between Potter and a woman with dreadlocks piled high atop her head like a waterfall. She sported handfuls of gold rings. They matched the gold in her amber eyes. Draco blinked, positively itching to ask after it, but–he had done so much research into wolfsboon. He had never gotten Ladon to come out when they were at rest, not through his eyes. The only time Draco’s eyes became amber was when Draco wasn’t totally in control anymore, and this woman, poised and proper as she sipped her pint, seemed precisely so. 

Nervously, he decided to peer around the table first. There was an older woman, possibly about the age of Penelope Perkins, give or take a few years. Her knuckles were swollen, but her hands looked strong, and she was laughing bawdily at something the man next to her was saying. The man, also laughing, sported a green-dotted navy button up that he obviously had selected out of the rubbish bin or perhaps pilfered from a colourblind circus clown earlier that day.  Directly across from Draco was a girl who hardly looked to be out of her Hogwarts uniform, quiet and shy as she peered from her dark curtain of hair. 

Potter was already befriending the man he had sat across from. 

“Harry,” he said, stretching out a hand. “Nice to meet you.”  

The man across from him had long, wavy brown hair that looked to be cut in a more pureblood style, and was the only one of the group wearing robes. “Tobias,” he returned with a dazzling white grin. “Charmed.” 

Draco did some quick arithmetic. “Tobias Perrot?” he asked quietly. 

Tobias flitted his gaze to Draco and gestured with his pint in greeting. Around his left pinky finger rested the Perrot family signet ring. The shining gold bezel was intricately engraved with swirling patterns, all wrapped around one stylised capital P. 

The Malfoy family ring was composed of a single large, carved diamond set into a silver band. Draco wouldn’t have been able to wear it even if he had inherited it. Better he hadn’t, he thought bitterly, and wished he had a pint of his own to bury his face in. Cool tones always washed him out horribly. 

“You must be Draco Malfoy,” Tobias nodded warily. “Charmed.” 

Draco nodded silently in a way that would have gotten him rapped on the knuckles by his etiquette tutor’s wand.

“My name is Lina,” said the woman next to Draco, holding out her hand. Draco shook it. The skin of her palm was warm and rough, as though she worked outdoors. “I’ve been here the longest. This is Martin,” she gestured to the man in navy and green, “Aggie,” and the older woman raised her hand with a warm grin, “and Sammy,” and the smallest of the bunch released an even smaller, whispery “Hello.”  

“It’s nice to meet you all,” Potter said enthusiastically, resting a reassuring hand on Draco’s knee. “I’ve known Lavender since school, but I’ve only recently become a werewolf. She’s said great things about this support group. Are you all…?” Potter stumbled, realising too late that perhaps posing this question was a social faux-pas.

“We all have our wolves, yes,” Lina replied with a smile. Her lipstick was a deep plum purple that offset her striking eyes. “And we’re happy to have you.” 

Martin asked, “Are you and Lavender close?”

Potter shook his head. “Not really–we were in the same year in school, but we never really kept in touch. She chats with my best mate pretty regularly, though, so we reconnected through that.” 

Aggie piped in to add something, and Draco let his attention drift.  Draco listened to Potter field the chit-chat with the others with half an ear open, glad to be able to sink back into himself for a while. Insectology readings, again, and then that damned substitution cipher, not to mention an essay for Advanced Tropical Herbology on Mosaic Flowers and their properties in traditional remedies. They had a practicum for insectology the upcoming week, and Draco hated it, being surrounded by swarms of the tiny buzzing, humming creatures. He knew he needed to work on his memorisations, so even if he was overwhelmed he could get in and get out quickly. 

Draco was dragged out of his spinning thoughts by a question. “Is there anything you enjoy doing?” Lina asked him. “A job, or anything like that?” 

“I’m a potions student,” Draco replied. Her gaze was the same sort of penetrative stare that Severus could wear, and it reassured him and made him want to recoil as one. “Fifth year. In the program they have the upper years do half classroom work, half apprenticeships, though really it’s more like two full time jobs.” 

“Do you like it?” Lina asked.

Draco nodded. “It’s like a puzzle. I mean, the work is shit on your back and your eyes, and the hours as a student are endless, but there’s nothing like finding how the ingredients all work together to produce a whole that’s bigger than each individual component,” he replied.

She nodded. “I loved being a student. I went to muggle uni.” 

“Did you?” Draco asked, intrigued. “Muggle science is fascinating.” He said it with not one shred of irony, as he might have once. As he might have been expected to do. Tobias took a surprised sip of his drink.  

Lina laughed. “And I still couldn’t tell you much of it. I studied literature. I could spend the next hour or two waffling about Austen or Shelley, though.” 

“I’m afraid I don’t know who those are,” Draco admitted. Potter’s hand on his knee tightened encouragingly, and Draco couldn’t help but envision all the commentary Potter had to say about Draco willingly admitting that he didn’t know something someone else did.

“If you like Muggle science, you’d like Shelley,” Lina insisted. “I’ll give you my copy next time we meet.” 

“That’s very kind of you,” Draco answered honestly, wincing. “Though I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get to it. My mentor is a bit, ah, strident with–”

“She’s an absolute slavedriver,” Potter interrupted, scooting Draco’s pint across the table for him. Lavender had already sat down and was engaged with Tobias in a very animated conversation. “Hardly even lets him take lunch. Has him work overtime sometimes, too.” He took a generous swig while Draco ground his elbow into his side. Undeterred, Potter continued, “It’s because she knows his potions blow hers out of the water.” 

“I’m not sure I would say that, exactly,” Draco hedged. 

“Who’s your mentor?” Martin asked. He wore a navy blue button-up with the first few buttons undone. It was polka-dotted with miniscule little drops of green and if anyone had asked Draco, he wouldn’t have had much flattering to say about his sartorial decisions.

“Penelope Perkins,” replied Draco, and almost before he was finished speaking, Aggie gasped. 

“Oh, Penny P!” she exclaimed. “I knew her. You think she’s a slavedriver, boy, you should have seen her when we were younger. Absolutely ferocious at Hogwarts, a work ethic like nobody else. Get in her way, she’d tear you to shreds,” she nodded. “A Ravenclaw, if I remember right, but she could’ve made Slytherin easy. Good to hear she hasn’t lost her edge.” Aggie grinned, the gold fillings in her teeth flashing. 

The evening continued in much this way, with idle chit-chat and getting-to-know-yous. Everyone was kind, welcoming, and lovely, but Draco was relieved when Potter said, “Draco and I are on kiddo duty tonight, so we’ve got to head out. Lavender, thank you so much for inviting us.”

“Don’t be a stranger!” Aggie called, and Martin lifted his pint in agreement. 

The others said their goodbyes as well, and Draco was striding for the exit, arm in arm with Potter. The crisp evening air felt like a balm on Draco’s skin, overheated from the crowded pub and from the moon that was still days away. 

“We’re not minding Teddy this evening,” Draco mused, double checking the calendar on his clunky mobile. “I would have gotten an alert. Or Andy would have sent a Patronus.” 

“No,” Potter said, leading them both to the apparition point. “You just got that look on your face, the one that says, ‘if anyone makes another noise in my general vicinity, I cannot be held liable for my actions’, so I reckoned it was time for a swift exit.”

“My face doesn’t say that,” Draco grumbled. 

Potter held up his hands placatingly, a small, knowing smile twisting his lips. “Just an observation.” 

“Your observation is shit,” argued Draco cantankerously. Potter just grinned, the smile turned shit-eating and self-righteous, as though Draco had proved his point.  He sighed. “I still have Insectology homework.” 

Potter made a protestful noise. “You’re dead on your feet! Draco, the moon is less than a week away. Don’t you have some sort of accommodation?” 

Draco shot him a scalding look. “Do I look like an imbecile? Of course I don’t. I’m not giving them a single reason to doubt my accomplishments, not with this,” Draco gestured to his left forearm, “branded on me in public record.” 

“You need to sleep,” Potter clucked over him, as though Draco was a chick and he a mother hen. He spent more time with Molly Weasley than was good for him. “And probably a meal, since you drank that whole pint. And you were at Perkins’ earlier, I bet you skipped lunch, didn’t you?” 

Draco shrugged shiftily. Potter continued, “How Leedy doesn’t lose her mind around you I don’t understand. I really, I, er–” Potter cut himself off, scratching the back of his head. They were at the apparition point, and yet neither of them had withdrawn their wands. “I really want to invite you to Grimmauld and tell you to come have dinner with me. We don’t even have to talk, because I know you’re tired. I could set up the least-worst living room for you to do your work there. It wouldn’t be—it wouldn’t be like before,” he stumbled, “and I wouldn’t be asking you to stay over. But Apollo, he—I…” Potter took a breath. “It just doesn’t feel right, knowing you’ll be slaving away without someone taking care of you.” 

“I take care of me,” Draco argued, more than a little prickled. “I do a great job. Leedy does, too.” 

“Yes, you do,” Potter agreed readily. “She does too. But you don’t have to all the time, you know?” 

Draco bit his lip. He thought of eighth year, of the tiny shattered phials in their shared bathroom and the bloodstained towel around Draco’s fist. Any iteration, Potter had said. And it didn’t have to be the night. Just the evening. Just like the last time they had apparated away from a bar, except this time, both of them were human beings, and neither of them had turned into a wolf to scare off some drunk lout who was easier taken care of with a stern Confundus charm. 

Draco thought of Persephone’s velvet armchair, of her tufted white sofa and crackling hearth. Of the Fortune-Telling Roses, whose divinations were always sweet. 

Giving in was always the easy part.

“I won’t talk much,” Draco warned with a cutting raised eyebrow. “And neither will you.” 

Potter beamed. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You’re very good with people,” Draco stated. His attention had been drifting from his Insectology memorisation for the past half-hour. There were only so many moving photos of Tarantula Hawk Moths, spiderling Acromantulas, and Vampyr Mosps one could look at before they became vaguely ill. 

Potter smiled sleepily from across the sofa. He had cast a fluffy blanket between himself and Draco and seemed for some reason inordinately pleased as he opened the folds not to see anything untowards crawling inside it. He appeared to be drawing something in his sketchpad, though Draco didn’t think Teddy had any more wallspace to cover. “It’s because I’m more relaxed,” he replied honestly. “In school and after the war, it was hard…I was so stressed out all the time. I always thought I hated people, between the weird things fans would send me, or the hate mail, or the press…” Harry sighed. “And yeah, that didn’t help. But it’s a lot easier to keep space for people to be who they are, when I move slower.” He smiled again, his expression soft and fond. “Arthur helped a lot with that, actually. He and I, every Saturday, we go to the muggle library over in Ottery St. Catchpole, and he never had a clue how to work anything those first few months. We got to know just about every member of the library staff, and most of the cleaning crew, because he would stop to ask questions.” 

Draco hummed. “That sounds…infuriating.” Draco’s time was stretched so thin and was so valuable. At any moment, he knew that he could be doing any number of other things, and those other tasks clamoured in his mind like collicky infants, untended and loud. He couldn’t help but feel the passing moments like grains of sand in a Time-Turner, slipping away between his clumsy, lethargic fingers. 

Potter chuckled. “Oh, it was. There were plenty of weeks I had to go fuck off into the shelves somewhere so I didn’t lose my mind. But it helped a lot, just to faff around and see people interacting for no, erm, set purpose, you know? Like there was no objective, and it didn’t really matter whether they talked or not, but it was nice to, so they did. I couldn’t understand that until I sat around in Molly’s kitchen for the better part of two years, though.” 

Nodding, Draco mulled over what it must have been like, the quiet, quaint library of Ottery St. Catchpole, perhaps with a colourful children’s section adorned with rugs and soft things and a table of flyers for community events, so different from the hulking, sepulchral altar to knowledge that was the PITIE stacks. Draco thought it must have been nice to spend time somewhere so unassuming. It seemed to him that everywhere he’d ever been, he’d had to prove he belonged there. Including Azkaban, unfortunately. Running from one prison to the next, it seemed some days, awash in deadlines and red ink like condemning blood on the pages of his essays, telling him he hadn’t deserved his second chance.  

Intercepting that macabre train of thought, Draco decided to let his memorisation settle in his brain more fully, allowing that effortful focus of searing that knowledge into the back of his eyelids to calm. He flipped through the insects in his mind. Trollcleg, found under bridges: identifiable characteristics, red eyes, iridescent green double-wings. Good for Befuddlement Potions and Invigoration Draughts. Death’s-Head Hawkmoth, the largest moth on the British Isles: identifiable characteristic, giant skull on its back (very Dark Lord chic). Good for the Animagus potion, Skele-gro, Draught of the Living Death, many poisons, and many antidotes. To occupy his restless hands as he shuffled and organised his thoughts like a deck of cards, he began to doodle a Glumbumble. 

It was amateurish at best. It had not been so hard, when he was at school, to make little doodles like this. He was out of practice, spending so many lectures bent forward and at rapt attention, his full mind occupied with the education at hand like a coiled spring. The classes of his adolescence spent in boredom, slouching down in his seat and doodling quidditch players in the sky or dragons flying around his papers, felt far-off and foreign to him now.  

“What are you drawing?” Potter asked him eventually. 

Draco, who had been in the middle of Flitterby Moths, found in dense forests: identifiable characteristics: glowing orange wings, similar in pattern to Monarch butterflies. Good for Laugh-Inducing Potions, Felix Felicius, and Euphoria Elixir, blinked slowly. “Pardon?” 

Potter repeated himself and Draco showed him his doodle. The Glumbumble was now battling a Fanged Geranium, and when Draco was done, he would spell it to win, buzzing away in victory. Potter smiled, those famous eyes mere slits in his delighted sun-kissed face. 

“I’m working on a design for the new nursery in Hermione and Ron’s cottage,” Potter offered, moving closer to Draco so their hips were brushing, and had Draco been sitting up, their shoulders would be too. “Want to see?”

“I’m sure you will show me,” Draco intoned, and he was correct. Potter had sketched on his pad of paper a nursery replete in nautical themes. On one wall, herds of hippocampi frolicked in tall sea grasses, braying and galloping. On another, in the distance, merpeople swam around a village not unlike the one Potter had traversed at the bottom of the Great Lake. Multicoloured jellyfish, glowing like delicate decorative lamps, drifted past. 

Above the crib in one corner, a mobile of seahorses, sea stars and glimmering fish spun lazily. In the other corner, a cushy armchair shaped like a seashell overflowed with pillows in the shapes of stars and bubbles beside a bookshelf full of picture books. The rug was a large oyster, which drifted open and shut to reveal a large, gleaming white pearl in the centre of it. The whole room was awash in delicate blues, greens, and whites, and the ceiling rippled like sunlight cast from above in shallow water. 

Drinking in Potter’s designs, Draco marvelled, “You’re so talented at this sort of thing.”

Potter gasped, euphoria in his tone as he ribbed, “A genuine compliment! From Draco Malfoy!” He peered around exaggeratedly. “Shall I call Leedy and ask her for a bottle of champagne for the occasion?”

Draco glared. “I give compliments.” He thumbed the corner of his textbook and amended, “When they’re warranted.”

“Sure,” Potter smiled indulgently. His grin, that smug, shit-eating one, made Draco want to argue just for the sake of it. 

“I will leave,” Draco threatened. The sofa beneath them lurched suspiciously. 

“I said sure!” protested Potter, holding up his hands. The smile was still there, but as was Potter’s awful sincerity. “I agreed with you!” 

Draco harrumphed, eyeing him sceptically as he settled more fully into his seat. 

Navigating them back to the subject before them, Potter gestured at the paper and continued, “I really like painting and drawing. When I was a kid I used to draw a lot. Pencils and paper are cheap, and nobody—my Aunt and Uncle didn’t notice often when a few went missing. It was something quiet I could do that didn’t get me in trouble, and it helped me escape for a while.” Potter sighed, the sound heavy and melancholy the way it got whenever he mentioned his relatives. Draco shifted closer to him on the sofa, their shoulders brushing. Potter smiled and adjusted his arm, slinging it around the back of the couch as though if it were perched there, Draco would not notice that it was very nearly around him. “This is—I like being able to do this. For Teddy and for Hermione and Ron’s baby. I just—they deserve so much.” 

Draco nodded, thinking of his own childhood, of mountains of presents and Leedy tending to his every whim. Of waging war with the peacocks and wading through the koi ponds, staining his breeches with muck and algae and spooking his mother from behind her rose bushes and rolling in the grass. “You deserved so much, too,” he said, and pressed more solidly into Potter’s side. His book was still open in his lap as an afterthought, something to look at that wasn’t Potter himself. Draco gazed at the Glumbumble, nervously rubbing its little legs together, and watched the small shapes of the sea shells and fish bob on the tiny mobile above the Granger-Weasley baby’s crib. 

Draco felt Potter’s arm settle around him, slowly and carefully, as though giving him the time to shrug him off. His voice was soft and gentle when he said, “Thank you, Draco.” 

Draco nodded, allowing himself to curl more securely to Potter’s side, and, feeling uncomfortably like Icarus flying too close to the sun, decided abruptly that he ought to get back to studying. 

He stuck his finger in his textbook to hold his page as he shut the tome. Taking a breath, he recited, “The Imperial Dragonfly is known for its pink and red spotted wings,” as his eyes fluttered closed to help him picture his memorisations. Potter’s arm was around him, warm and secure, and Draco could feel the contentment of Grimmauld Place surround him like a caress. Everything smelled of sunlight and warm earth. 

“It originates from the far east, and its uses are multitudinous, especially for Veritaserum, Wood-Eye-Lye, and Clarification Solutions… And then there’s the Emerald Beetle, known for its gem-like back, it…”

Chapter Text

When Harry returned to their shared dorm room, Draco was laying flat on his stomach on his bed, as he so often could be found these days. 

His loafers were still on, his hair still perfectly coiffed save for where it was crushed into the duvet. His robes were crumpled by his bag on the floor in a heap near his bed. Harry would have thought he’d been Stupified, if this hadn’t been a very regular occurrence. This afternoon, Crookshanks had decided to lay on the small of his back, purring in a great rumble audible from the threshold. Yet to be returned with Hermione still halfway across the world, Harry had found his company a solace in the half-ruined, half-filled school. At least one familiar thing among the wreckage and new growth. 

Harry knew the strange concoction Draco made for himself in Slughorn’s classroom, access for extra-curricular activities reluctantly granted and only with the Head Boy or Girl supervising him. Harry had taken it on as his own duty. Seraphina and Nico had more than enough on their plates and seemed to feel as though the very air Malfoy breathed was cursed, hovering three tiers down from Malfoy’s cauldron. Harry, in contrast, knew that Malfoy was a blight all his own. More than that, he liked that Malfoy treated him the same as ever. 

The sycophantic toadying that Harry experienced in eighth year reminded him of the way Umbrige talked about Cornelius Fudge. The other students may have reviled Draco with universal predictability, but great greasy masses of them seemed to stalk Harry’s heels with sycophantic unctuousness. Though Harry needn’t feel the ham-fisted blows of Stephen Cornfoot in the middle of the night as Draco had, he still wondered if maybe he wouldn’t have preferred it. These were the students who, not three years prior, had been buzzing about how he belonged in a padded room beside Gilderoy Lockhart. 

No, Harry preferred people he could depend on. Even if they were dependably hard-headed.  

So, without a word, Harry turned around and descended to dinner. Plonking himself in between Neville and Ginny, he heaped as much food onto two large plates in as little time as he possibly could manage. He scarpered before the gaggle of fifth years Neville was fending off ultimately turned their hungry sights on him instead.

When he returned to their room, Draco had not moved an inch. Crookshanks had migrated to the windowsill lit by the sinking sun, watching the Ravenclaw Quidditch team practice above the pitch as though they were mice, or perhaps Scabbers. Draco seemed to be bent upon becoming one with his bed’s mattress and perhaps sink into the floor below. 

“Dinner,” Harry said, floating a plate over to Draco and sitting cross-legged on his own bed to tuck in. 

Draco groaned, rolling away from the plate and stuffing his head under a pillow. “Nauseous,” he muttered. “S’fine, Potter.”

Harry shrugged, letting Draco’s plate gently fall to his bedside table and casting a stasis charm over it. It wasn’t so much whether Draco ate or not, but that he had the option to do so if he pleased. Harry knew the kitchens were only a few stairs and a hidden passageway away. But for the one closest to the eighth year dorms, you had to guess Sir Scofflaw’s favourite cake of the month, which Harry had found could get rather tedious. If Scofflaw was feeling particularly garrulous it was often prudent to simply walk the extra two floors down to the ticklish pear. But worrying whether Draco might have to go scrounging for food in the middle of the night unguarded or go hungry were he to lack the energy didn’t sit right with Harry. It felt uncomfortably cupboard-y in that restless, itchy, never-to-rest-again sort of way that sometimes overtook him, hopeless and strong. 

“What’s in this horrid remedy you’ve made for yourself?” Harry asked him, chewing an overambitious bite of shepherd’s pie with discomfort. “Tell me again and explain why wolfsbane wouldn’t be better.” 

“I would use wolfsbane,” Draco sighed into his pillow, rancour depleted by fatigue and begrudging familiarity, “If your reparations had left me more than a pittance.” His voice was muffled. 

Harry snorted. “Yeah, because that’s what I’d waste my time on as Minister of Magic. Going after skinny gits like yourself.” 

Draco waved an exhausted hand, determined if not to get the last word then at least the last gesture. “You’ve done it before,” he drawled, surprising Harry when he thought he was too tired to make a retort. 

The mussed locks of Draco’s hair nearly blended in with the white fabric of his pillow. The thought of how  their hair might look if those fine silky waves and Harry’s wild dark curls were to intertwine struck Harry unexpectedly.  

Harry wasn’t sure when he had begun thinking of Malfoy as Draco. Perhaps it had begun when he had started thinking of his face as pretty instead of pointy. Or perhaps it had been that first night in Hogwarts, when he had set cornered with his knees to his bloodied chin after Stephen Cornfoot had run, telling Luna not to associate with him, because she would surely only be hurt again, as he always had done with her.

Harry had watched as Luna had enfolded him in her thin arms and told him that she had seen his soul in Manor, and it was not an evil one. He’d felt a lump in his own throat, traitorous and foreign, as Draco had cried into her shoulder.  

Draco was reciting the ingredients of the concoction he made for himself, as he had every time he had made it this year, holding the ingredients bluntly up before Harry’s face from beside a steaming cauldron so Harry could know exactly what he was using. Perhaps he was afraid Harry thought he was going to try to poison yet another student, though Harry thought if Draco was liable to poison anyone nowadays, it would only be himself. “On low heat, add eye of newt, the plant, harvested on the new moon. Eye of newt, the animal. Tincture of casca bark. Stir anticlockwise thirteen times on low heat and simmer for eleven minutes. Add an expensive fuckton of powdered moonstone. Flesh-eating slug slime, two ounces. Stir thrice clockwise. Seven Henbane flowers, finely sliced. Set on high heat until the mixture reaches a roiling boil, then reduce. Three crushed pumpkin seeds. Some other binding agents.” Draco sighed, losing interest in his own recipe. “Sit for two weeks in a darkened room. Retrieve it and hope nobody fucks with it.” He sent a halfhearted glower to Crookshanks, who twitched a lazy ear at him, unbothered. 

Crookshanks had been the culprit once not so many months prior. Harry had found Malfoy, near-inconsolable with despair, sitting on the floor of their shared dorm with the unstoppered potion open between his knees. Malfoy had been staring at the ceiling, trying not to cry. 

“Malfoy?” Harry had asked. 

“Shut it,” Malfoy had hissed, his teeth tightly clenched. As Harry approached he could see in the dark concoction that could be called sludge more readily than liquid two long, orange cat hairs, floating right at the top. His area rug, Jörmungandr, was fully uncoiled and slithering around him protectively, hissing in a frantic susurrus too soft for Harry to understand.

Harry had sat down next to him. The floor seemed to have become their common place to meet, now that they were no longer in Grimmauld and no stray nails were liable to spring up just before they sat. “You can just take those out, I reckon.” 

“Oh, do you?” Draco spat, voice ragged and semi-hysterical. The noise was ground from his throat, harsh and raw. “My mistake. I hadn’t bloody thought of that, how foolish of me.” 

“Well…” Harry shrugged. “Can’t you make a new one?” 

“Of course I can,” Malfoy exclaimed, exasperated. “But not in time for the moon!” He gestured to the ceiling, as though the waxing moon overhead could be seen from within their dorm room. “This potion takes two weeks to brew, and the moon is one away. I try to stock up early, but I,” he bit his lip, scowling. “Whatever.”

Harry would learn, later, that Malfoy’s delay had been caused by purchasing Teddy and Andromeda’s Christmas presents. Malfoy’s stipend had been too meagre to afford him gifts and supplies that month, and Crookshanks had destroyed the last of Malfoy’s reserves until the first of the next month, just after the full moon.    

“Does the potion help a lot with the transformations?” Harry asked, and received a derisive scoff and a chiding hiss for his trouble. From what he’d learned at Malfoy’s side by the bubbling cauldron in Slughorn’s otherwise abandoned potion’s classroom, he’d thought Malfoy’s creation mostly just allowed his wolf to slip his skin, when he needed extra protection. 

Malfoy bit his lip and clenched his shaking hands. He was still staring resolutely at the ceiling, as though one glance at the potion would cause him to dissolve right into the phial as well. “It makes it easier to let go,” he begrudgingly admitted, sounding haggard and lost. Still with so much pride and defiance in his shaky voice, he continued with an edge as though begging Harry, just begging, for him to do something uncouth so he’d have reason to lash out. “It makes me…it makes me less terrified.”  

Perhaps it had been then, that Malfoy had become Draco. 

“Did you have it when you transformed at Grimmauld?” Harry asked quietly. 

Draco shook his head. “No, but I had Luna.” 

Luna, who had spent the summer at Grimmauld and a paltry few months at Hogwarts before her father, remembering her untimely snatching, had gotten cold feet and begged her to return to live with him. Luna, who was from her letters off hunting Crumple-Horned Snorkacks in Sweden and set to take her NEWTs by owl. Luna, who was the only person, besides Harry, that Ladon had ever greeted with anything like toleration. 

Harry recalled the wary amber gaze. 

“I’ll do it,” he blurted, nothing much running through his head except for the feeling of offence and betrayal that Draco’s wolf had not immediately trusted him. “I’ll help.” 

“You wouldn’t,” Draco retorted, scandalised. “You won’t.”

“I would,” Harry replied, grinning cockily because he liked when Draco looked scandalised by Harry’s bad ideas. “I will.”

And that’s how Harry found himself at the Shrieking Shack at twilight, bundled in two Weasley sweaters, his Gryffindor scarf, and a coat that needed replacing, one week later. 

Draco was scowling at the steps in front of them, his arms crossed in front of his chest. No hat, no coat, and only a wool jumper on, to protect him, Draco’s cheeks were flushed pink, his eyes tearing up from the biting cold. Dead leaves crunched under his boots, his skinny shoulders hunched against the chill. 

Harry unwound his scarf from his neck and offered it to Draco. He shook his head.

“’M hot,” he muttered. “The cold feels nice.” In response, the wind howled, causing both of them to hunch forwards even more. 

Harry didn’t think so. “You sure?” he asked sceptically. Draco was shivering so violently it looked almost like spasms. 

Draco nodded, then paused. Irritatedly, he snatched the scarf out of Harry’s hand. Harry let him have it with a superior little smirk. But Draco didn’t put it on. He just held it, hanging in his white-knuckled grip, like a milk snake he had throttled. 

“You know, you’re supposed to wear it,” Harry prodded. “That’s the usual way people go about using those things.” 

Draco stormed up the cracked, bedraggled front steps. He kicked leaf refuse out of his way with a truculent air. “This is stupid,” Draco reminded him.

Harry shrugged. “I’ve done stupider things,” he retorted. “Got out of them fine. Rode a dragon, once,” he grinned, feeling arrogant once again until the double entendre struck him, and then he flushed hotly. “To break out of Gringotts,” he clarified hurriedly under Draco’s scathingly raised eyebrow. “Hermione pretended to be your aunt.” 

“Andromeda?” Draco asked, bewildered. He pulled the ragged front door open, making a small grunt of exertion as he slipped on the uncleared path. The old hinges shrieked, perhaps knowing what it was built for. 

Harry grabbed the side of it and helped him with it and very staunchly did not think of the last time he had entered the Shrieking Shack. He rubbed the black wood rot detritus that smeared onto his hand off onto his coat with a grimace. “No, the other one.” 

“Ah, yes.” Draco nodded pensively. “Aunt Bella was very upset when the goblins notified her.” His mouth twitched in a deeply unhappy frown. “She killed their owl and…well.” Draco took a bracing inhale. “Well. Weasley’s mother killed her, so. None of that.” 

“None of that,” Harry replied, nodding emphatically. The less anyone thought of Bellatrix Lestrange, the better. Draco especially, from the pallor of his otherwise windblown cheeks. Or perhaps that was the effect of the imminent moonrise. Draco was so twitchy, it was hard to tell. Harry hoped he was neither perseverating on his aunt or his godfather, and mourned the fact that so many of Draco’s relatives had such spotted histories.

The Shack seemed to breathe around them, dust motes drifting through the dim greying twilight. In the front room, an armchair with only one ragged arm spilled its frothy innards, its ticking eviscerated. The other furnishings, perhaps better seen as wreckage rubbish, were in even worse states. It looked eerily similar to the backdrop of a scene he had glimpsed in a memory long ago, and only hoped that this night would have less harrowing results.  

“I don’t want you in the room,” Draco admitted, wringing Harry’s scarf as though to crack it like a whip to fend him off, as though Harry was the one to become a wild beast. “I don’t know what it’ll be like. I don’t want you to hear.”

Harry nodded, grimacing. The awful cracks and crunches from Remus’ transformation rang in his ears. He wasn’t certain, if he were to hear those sounds ripped from Draco, that he would be able to stay away. “Alright. Okay, yeah. I’ll just…” he turned and strode through the Shack, as though the dusty stale air didn’t make him want to hack up a lung, and went through the first door he found. It was, unfortunately, a broom closet. It didn’t have any brooms stored within, but Harry did find a prodigious amount of spiders. They glared at him with eight beady little eyes. He wondered if they’d ever met Aragog’s brood. 

“Er, right, not there,” Harry muttered. Draco barked a mean, mocking little laugh that made Harry’s heart clench. He wished Draco wouldn’t laugh like that. Whenever he did, he sounded so like Sirius. Though, if Draco truly had to inherit a distinctive laugh from any relative, Harry supposed Sirius was better than the aforementioned and never to be mentioned again Bellatrix Lestrange. 

Moving with a confidence he did not possess, as though he had not opened a door to a closet as though fully intending to make himself king of the arachnids, the next door Harry opened led into a kitchen not as ancient as he would have thought. Had anyone asked Harry what the kitchen of the Shrieking Shack might entail, he may have said a rusted cauldron in an old, ash-filled hearth, maybe a woodstove and an array of torturous looking devices off to the side. Instead, Harry found an array of cabinets, an oven, and a hob not unlike that in Privet Drive, if aged back a significant few decades and abandoned quite definitively. The countertops were not grey, as Harry had first thought, just covered in a layer of grime so thick that it coated his fingertips in a thick, grainy, sticky fuzz. “Eurgh,” was Harry’s exacting commentary as he Scourgified the mess on his hand, and then the mess on the countertop. His casting was uneven, leaving streaks of grime interspersed between countertop so gleamingly clean it smelled burnt.

“Alright?” Draco called from the other room. 

Harry hoisted himself into a cross-legged seat on the one marginally clean space in the entire house and made eye contact with Draco from there. Draco’s light eyes were bloodshot, though whether that was from the dust and mould or from the impending transformation, Harry couldn’t be sure. 

He looked so small, amidst the wreckage. 

“You’ll be okay?” Harry asked nervously, hoping though he knew it was foolish that Draco would reassure him he would be fine, that this was okay, and that nothing bad would happen. 

Draco scoffed. “Shut up,” he spat, gesturing with Harry’s wrung scarf. Harry sighed, deflating, and wondered why he had thought Draco would do anything else. Harry watched him cast his own cleaning charm, far superior than Harry’s half-cocked own, and place the scarf and his wand on a side table that seemed barely defying the whims of gravity to cast it hurtling down.  

“You should lock the door and ward it,” Draco instructed him, more formal and stuffy than he needed to be. Veering from anger to formality, as he did when he was fearful. “I’m not allowed wards, not for another four and a half years.” 

“Right, right, yeah,” Harry hurried to agree, unwilling to close the door and stop seeing Draco in front of him, whole and, if not quite hale, well, closer than he would be soon. 

But of course, Draco didn’t share his opinion, strange and undefined and painfully, tentatively caring as it was. “Shut the fucking door, Potter,” he growled. It wasn’t lupine, not yet. Just human, and afraid. 

“Okay, yeah,” Harry replied, waving the door shut so forcefully he didn’t even think to use his wand. Dust and dirt rose up in a nervous poof ! around the threshold when it slammed shut. “I’ll be right here,” he called, raising his voice. “I’m going to cast a Muffliato and a couple locking spells!” 

“ Wards, Potter,” Draco argued. Harry could hear the pique in his voice and imagined the jut of his chin, authoritative and decisive, stuck out to distract from the uncertainty in his face. “I said wards.” 

“Yes, well, Hermione was in charge of those,” Harry argued blithely. He heard a mighty squawking sound from behind the door, as though Draco had become one of his father’s insipid, oversized albino chickens instead of the wolf he was trying so hard to negotiate. “It’s fine! I’m the Chosen One. If Nagini couldn’t get me, I doubt your wolf will.” Harry grinned, trying hard to sound arrogant. If Draco wasn’t going to, then surely one of them had to act it.  

“If my wolf doesn’t get you, I will, Potter,” Draco threatened, and he surely would have continued had Harry not interrupted with a chirpy “Muffliato!”. 

Within a few seconds, however, the victory Harry felt at sticking it to Draco faded into a nauseous worry. Had the transformation already begun? What if something was going wrong? Harry recalled the scars on Remus’ face, hands, and arms, those soulful brown eyes looking out from within a map of pain, and gnawed on his recently Scourgified fingernails. 

How long had it been? Harry cast a Tempus and then scoffed at himself. He hadn’t known what time it was when they walked in. Surely it had to be getting dark though, it was so dark in the kitchen. Aiming a simple cleaning charm at the kitchen window, he accidentally blasted it straight out of the frame.

“Well,” Harry sighed. Perhaps it has been about to shatter anyway. The sky outside had changed from a magnificent orange unbefitting such a harrowing night to a muted mauve, soon to be purple, and then the dark cloak of nighttime. Being so far out in the highlands, Harry had always liked that they had the ability to see the stars. He so rarely looked up. 

Even when he did, he still sought familiar names. His astronomy marks unvarnished by assistance were Poor at best, copying off of Ron or Neville all the time to make up for the myopia he struggled with outside of Quidditch that even magnifying charms couldn’t seem to help. He had no hope of spying the Draco constellation, if it even did reside in this part of the sky, but he could always see Sirius’ namesake. Not quite yet, not when the sun had not quite dimmed. But it was coming, with the moon, and Harry took solace that although he was about to be greeted by a stranger, it would be alongside a beloved friend as well. 

The moon took an interminably long time to rise. Harry cast a Tempus every few minutes and was always shocked that whole hours had not dragged by. Finally, when enough circling footprints had been pressed into the grime of the worn tiled floor to show its original colour, and the sky was a dark, unforgiving blanket of starry black, and the clouded moon had just become visible, Harry released the silencing charm and, slowly, ventured to the door, pressing his palm to the heavy old wood. 

“Draco?” he called softly. “Draco?”

He heard a small, muffled snuffle, a whine. It certainly wasn’t human.

In the very same outcast hovel that Harry stood in now, Severus Snape had once nearly been eaten alive. He had died in that very same shack, a grim portent for Harry’s luck if he ever saw one. But Luna had stroked Ladon’s white fur in Regulus’ bedroom at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. Draco was not Remus, and Harry was certainly not Severus Snape.

Harry then did something both very brave and very stupid. 

The mechanism of the lock clicked open, and there, standing on four legs at a height that reached Harry’s hip, was Ladon. 

Harry lost his breath somewhere in his chest. The amber eyes blinked at him, intelligent and inhuman. Harry had seen Ladon before, at a distance. Had seen him pacing around the room Stephen Cornfoot had darkened, had seen him in Regulus’ bedroom with Luna’s arms wrapped around him. But he had never seen him alone, and he had never seen him this close .

The wolf reached up with his snout, whuffling. From so close, Harry could smell his breath, sour and hot and animal. Ladon took a step forward, and Harry took a step back, and then another, and another. Perhaps Harry wasn’t as brave or as stupid as he had previously thought. 

Before long, his back pressed into the old kitchen counter, and there was nowhere left for Harry to backpedal. Ladon sniffed him again, raising his face once more to gaze at Harry’s own. His ears were front-facing, not pinned back, which Harry took to be a good thing, though he didn’t know for sure. He wished he had done at least some research before cajoling Draco into letting him be here, he thought with a retrospective recrimination of his past cavalier self. 

Ladon lifted his lip in a snarl that should not have reminded him of Draco, white fang bared menacingly. Harry raised his eyes to the crumbling ceiling, uncertain if the same rules for dogs applied to werewolves but deciding to go with his gut nonetheless. It had gotten him into this, and now, it could get him out. Hopefully. 

“You could bite me, I guess,” Harry told him conversationally, suppressing a shudder of fear at the thought. “But Hermione would have a lot to say about it. I bet Draco would, too, and sometimes he’s even scarier. Don’t tell him I said that, though, his head is already big enough as it is.” 

Ladon huffed, and Harry wasn’t certain whether that was a good thing or not, but it was better than being bitten. Feeling like one of three little pigs, Harry continued thinking aloud, recalling all the weaknesses Draco was held to and hoping Ladon was similar. “You’re very fearsome,” he flattered, hoping he was doing the Sorting Hat justice when it had told him he would do well in Slytherin and feeling like he was yet off the mark. “And very beautiful. I can see why Luna loves you so much. She has a good eye.” 

A rustling occurred in front of him that made Harry think Ladon might have sat down, which would have been a remarkable improvement. He wouldn’t know for sure, though, because his eyes were still decidedly pinned on the crack in the ceiling that resembled his own lightning-bolt scar. He was still far too close to Harry for comfort. His muzzle was mere inches away from Harry’s thigh, and Harry would be defenceless if the desire to strike took hold of him. 

“I know you’re very important to Draco,” he waffled on. “He was very nervous about letting me meet you. You do a great job protecting him, though, so, well.” He scratched his head for something to do with his hands, moving slowly so as not to startle the creature who was still staring so intently at him. “I’m glad I get to meet you. Draco’s important to me, too.” 

Harry held his breath. From the airlessness of the old kitchen, it seemed as though the very Shack itself held its breath as well. Perhaps it was waiting to see if yet another life would be taken beneath its dilapidated roof. 

And then Ladon laid down, and all the air Harry had been holding in his burning chest released in one great, relieved whoosh . 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Draco was irritated and near delirious with fatigue as he threw himself with a heavy whump onto his bed. Harry asked him if he wanted to wear something other than his clothes from the day prior, and received a jumper flung at his face and a raised middle finger for his inquiry. Jör emerged from under Draco’s bed to scent the air with his pink tufted tongue, waving his soft head to and fro. 

The fabric of Draco’s jumper was still warm from his body when Harry folded it neatly over the back of Draco’s desk chair. He looked at it, and then at the softly snoring form obscured under piles of mussed blankets, and feared he may have found himself in over his head by quite a wider margin than he had ever expected. 

Harry thought of nothing but the coarse strands of Ladon’s thick, pale fur sliding between his fingers for the rest of his lonesome day of classes. 

Chapter Text

“Hey, Arthur,” Harry asked, leaning on the boot of the inert Ford Anglia. “D’you reckon we could work on Sirius’ old motorbike next?”

Their tools were all spread out around them. The Ford Anglia was, at this point, ancient, and more battle-scarred than most veterans Harry knew. Upon its victory at the Battle of Hogwarts, which was spent gleefully crushing spiderling Acromantulas beneath its wheels, the car retired back into the capable hands of Arthur Weasley, where it promptly spluttered and died. On and off, for the past six years, Arthur had been fruitlessly attempting with varying degrees of frustration and minimal degrees of success to revive it. 

Harry knew next to nothing about machinery, and didn’t exactly care to learn, either. But Arthur enjoyed company while he sweated and swore by the shed in the back garden, and Molly had long since dismissed his hobby as nonsensical twaddle. He didn’t much care whether or not Harry paid attention, and so Harry often brought a book or a practice snitch out to the shed, abusing himself while he chatted idly or handed Arthur this or that tool he thought he needed. Sometimes, Arthur showed him how the innards of the car connected, and though Harry never retained any of this information, he found it charming that Arthur was so impassioned. 

Arthur mopped his forehead with a grease-stained rag, smearing a streak of black near his greying hairline. “I don’t see why not,” he said in that optimistic, practical way of his. “What sort of a state is it in?” 

Harry grimaced. Truthfully, he had not removed it from the expanded bag hanging in the cloakroom in years. He hoped nothing had gotten into it and ruined it. He was certain that the cloaks hung around it, made of thick furs that may have been worth quite the shiny Sickle sometime in the seventeen hundreds, didn’t have any fangs. Fairly certain, anyway. He would check. 

“I’ve been keeping it inside,” he hedged instead. Arthur threw the rag over his shoulder and clapped Harry’s own happily, leaving another streak of black. 

“Good lad, that’ll be a nice break.” He patted the side of the Ford Anglia affectionately. “Want to go down to the library? I’m sure we could find some books on motorcycle maintenance.” 

“I can’t today,” Harry replied, reaching to snatch up the practice Snitch that had been fluttering around his head. He missed the first time, but got it the second, the little golden ball warm in his hands and buzzing with magic. “I’ve got a shift at the shelter.” 

“Are you working there, now?” Arthur asked with interest, strolling back into the house and toeing his boots off at the entryway so as not to muddy Molly’s freshly mopped floors. Two tall glasses of lemonade awaited them for the unseasonably warm day. From farther in the house, Molly could be heard humming along with the wireless, shuffling around. With keener ears than human, Harry could hear the slight gurgle and sprinkle of water from a can, the soft pat-pat-pat of drops falling onto potted soil. The predictable calmness of it all made him smile. 

Taking his own glass when offered, Harry clarified after a deep swig, “No, just a volunteer.” The lemonade was bright and sweet as always, fizzing with some sort of carbonation spell Molly spiced it with. “Lavender and I have an idea for a project I might run, though, and if that gets off the ground, we’ll see.” Harry shrugged. It made him feel itchy to be on Creature Comforts’ payroll, knowing that he was likely richer than Lavender or Jessie would ever be. He didn’t need a career–he’d learned that four years ago. A place to feel like he was doing meaningful work was what mattered to him more than anything. 

He had begun helping Jessie and Lavender at the shelter shortly after his and Draco’s first visit, having decided to return after he found how soothed his Apollo was by the presence of other happy animals around him. Apollo loved it, and Harry, too–the crup mix was his work best friend, often tagging around him while he did routine chores and of course the first in line to be fed. He liked the companionship in the morning, experiencing relatively little himself save for Grimmauld’s host of temperamental fauna and Kreacher, who was particularly untalented at newspaper crosswords and even less helpful. 

Hearing Harry’s plight, Jessie had gratefully given Harry the keys and told him to come as early as he wanted. Though neither Jessie nor Lavender had bad blood with the hours between five and ten in the morning the way Draco did, both of them agreed that were they on their own time schedule instead of the animals’, everyone would wake up at nine in the morning on the dot. 

So now, early every morning, Harry awoke, threw on a pair of ratty trainers and gym clothes that Draco would rather Harry be burnt in than wear, and apparated straight to Creature Comforts. Lavender’s clearing seemed to know what Harry wanted the moment he touched the handle, the door opened to a vast running trail beside a wooded lake. Harry and the ragtag pack of dogs, crups, and one miniature cerberus still roughly the daunting size of a Great Dane, would run the circumference of it and watch the sunrise, listening to the birds chirp around them and smelling the sweet scent of dewey, sun-warmed grass. He would lay with his hands above his head, catching his breath, and watch the others romp and play excitedly. Unlike Grimmauld’s Snapdragons, when these companions bit him, it was always playful or affectionate, and never with real ire. 

Harry would retire back into the shelter, where he would return the dogs to their well-appointed cages after breakfast, and go scrounge some up himself. More often than not, Jessie or Lavender was there when he returned, so he got in the habit of bringing them tea or coffee. In kind, Jessie would ply him with whatever baked good she had attempted that week, which ranged from “excellent!” to, “erm…interesting” depending on what recipe she had dreamt up. 

Jessie’s presence was a quiet, colourful comfort. She and Lavender bustled around the shelter, ferrying cats in their travel carriers to go to their vet appointments, or levitating great bags of kibble before braying, impatient audiences, or sprinting out the door with a half-dozen dogs on leads for an afternoon walk. Their daily life was hectic, but in a fun, low-pressure sort of way, the small chaos that wove itself through existing with dozens of rescued creatures. 

For hours Harry could stand in the clearing and play fetch with the pitbull mix, whose name he learned was Mars. Those afternoons, in the sun-drenched field, Harry wondered if he wasn’t a bit of a rescued creature himself.  

Now knowing a fair bit more about mythology from spending six years orbiting Draco, Harry asked Jessie if Mars’ had to do with the Roman god of war, to which she had laughed uproariously. “His name is Mars because he’s so sweet,” she giggled, and fished a crumpled wrapper for her favourite candy out of her pocket. Mars bar , Harry felt like thwapping himself on the forehead. For the first time in his life, he was gripped by the unique sense of being overly academic. 

While Lavender was working, sometimes, her friends visited. This afternoon was no different. 

“Harry!” Parvati grinned. “I’m surprised to see you here.”

Harry beamed back. “Parvati!” he exclaimed, reaching for her in a hug. It wasn’t often they ran into each other, having drifted away from the Gryffindor piss-ups that were so popular when they were in their late teens and Lavender had never attended, but he had retained a perpetual soft spot for her after she saved his arse in fourth year, all those years ago. “It’s good to see you.”

“Are you looking for a pet?” Parvati asked, smiling. “Lavender has been trying to convince me to adopt a cat for years. She says it would be good for my mental health. Padma adopted two terrors a year ago, a calico and a tabby, so I’d gladly play auntie over having to fret over them constantly.”

“My experience is with children,” Harry replied, thinking fondly of Teddy, “but from what I’ve gathered, aunt or uncle is an ideal position to be in. I’m not here to adopt–I’m just a volunteer.” 

“Oh!” said Parvati. “I’m sure you’ve met Jessie, then?” She peered around, as though Harry had in fact not met Jessie yet.

“No, I have,” he reassured her. “She made apple cinnamon scones this morning.” 

Parvati nodded sagely. “The first ones she had me try were cantaloupe, right when she and Lavender began dating,” she confided. “They were…strange. But Jessie’s great! Way better that the awful strings of men Lav would cry about. I was so relieved when she told me she was gay, you have no idea,” she said, waving at Jessie, who had just burst through one door with an armful of blearily blinking, wiggly tabby kittens. 

“I am too!” Jessie called happily, hustling the litter through another door in a flurry of extended paws, curling tails, and blue hair. 

“Dating can be a bit humiliating sometimes,” Harry admitted, recalling being tripped by Lockhart’s dwarf in second year, that awful wet kiss and subsequent agonising date with Cho in fifth year, getting called Stalker! by an irate Draco in sixth year and left on the compartment floor with his nose smeared on the side of his face.

Parvati snorted inelegantly, the little pink stud beside one nostril catching the light as she wrinkled her nose in amusement. “Yeah, you’ve got that right. You spent so much time with your neck craned at Malfoy in fourth year, I nearly had to amputate my toes just to keep you halfway on the beat.” She smiled wryly. ”How is he, by the way? Been a while since you two have been in the papers.”

“Oh, he and I aren’t dating,” Harry protested, and barrelled on so as not to allow Parvati to voice whatever her expression was already saying. “The reporters never have a chance to photograph us, though, because they always try to get us when we’re with Teddy, and Draco always breaks their cameras,” Harry explained proudly. “He’s gotten really sneaky at it.”

Parvati chuckled. “Yeah, that makes sense for him.” she leant on the counter, making herself comfortable. 

Summoning the remainder of Jessie’s scones, Harry offered her some and asked after what she had been up to. Parvati regaled him of another exhausting transglobal voyage like the one Andy had recently been on, standing in floo queues for ages, small panics about lost documents, and hangry temper tantrums on the part of Padma. But she said that getting to see her Auntie Pooja was worth it, and that the village near Mumbai where she lived never ceased to amaze her. 

She described sitting under the mango trees in her Auntie’s backyard, feeling her joints loosen in the oppressive humidity. Her descriptions were so vivid, Harry could almost picture himself there, listening to the song of birds he had never learned to identify, melting as he endured a heat he had never before experienced. 

“I’ve never been to India,” he said wistfully. “My dad’s family is supposed to be from there.” He’d seen an ad for a muggle DNA kit late one night or perhaps early one morning on the telly, one of the evenings he couldn’t sleep at all but especially not in the solitude of Grimmauld Place. It had been during his awful stint in the Auror Department, and really, that was all the explanation they needed. Hermione and Ron had welcomed him with open arms to haunt their flat for the night, and Harry had watched the flickering screen until his eyes felt dry and burnt in their sockets and Crookshanks, in a sprinting fit of irrepressible nocturnal exercise, nearly knocked it over. The next day, he had sent off for the kit. 

All in all, it was a bit of a waste of money–he knew his bloodline was pale as they come on his mother’s side, nothing but Anglo-Saxon English, and he knew they likely wouldn’t have much from his father’s side, what with the Statute of Secrecy and the division between Muggle and Magical society. Still, the test had informed him that he was half-Indian on his father’s side, already readily apparent with the way his hair curled and the darker tones of his skin, and it had been nice to have that confirmed. 

“Well, yeah,” Parvati blinked. “Your second cousins live in Mumbai proper.” 

“What?” Harry gasped, agape. “Cousins?”

She bit her lip, leaving faint teeth marks in her pretty pink lipstick. Harry thought, wildly, of Draco’s fear of the tooth fairy. “Oh, Harry,” she sighed, gazing around as though the yellow door or the pleasantly non-sentient potted plants would help her. “Wizarding families are huge! Didn’t you ever wonder–British wizarding history is so whitewashed, but surely Malfoy or Hermione must have told you?” 

“Draco’s family records only indicate my grandparents, Euphemia and Fleamont,” Harry mumbled, and that had been awful. The only existing portrait of the two of them had been damaged beyond repair in the burnt out shell in Godrick’s Hollow, untouched for years as a hallowed, iconic site. After he had discovered it, Harry had sat on Molly’s couch for a week and done nothing but dispassionately skim trashy junk thrillers and wallow in self pity. “Apparently Euphemia was friendly with his Grandmother Druella.” Not friendly enough to have played any role of significance in her life, but enough that Harry had seen photos of her and Fleamont in the magnificent French chateau that was, presumably, where Narcissa now resided indefinitely. They had smiled and waved happily in their best attire next to a few of Draco’s farther relatives, forever locked in greeting. Harry had put them in between the photos of his parents and of Andromeda, Teddy, and Draco on his dresser. He hoped they liked it there.

“I’ll come by tomorrow,” she promised, “and I’ll bring the family registry and photo albums. I bet there’s something in there about them, and–and I can floo Auntie Pooja, too. I’ll see if maybe she could owl them, if you like.”

Harry felt a bit dizzy. “I have cousins,” he marvelled in wonderment, and sat abruptly down on one of the waiting room chairs. He had relatives more than just the Dursleys. Of course he did, but–he had simply never thought of it, for them to be outside of England. Dryly, he said, “The most exotic place I’ve ever been is Scotland.” 

Parvati patted his shoulder delicately, gingerly avoiding Arthur’s streak of grease. “I’m not very good at handling emotional breakdowns,” she admitted. “Padma’s the Mind Healer, I just do marketing for Eyelops.” She made a face. “Do you need owl treats?”

Harry laughed a little shrilly. “That’s alright,” he replied. “I’ve got my own Mind Healer, and I’m not very good at handling them, anyway.” Parvati smiled at that, grateful that Harry didn’t seem put out by her awkwardness. 

Taking a deep breath, Harry gathered himself. “I’d really like to see what history your family has,” he told her earnestly. “It’s very kind of you to offer to share that with me.” 

She knocked his shoulder. “We’re friends, Harry,” she said. “We don’t see each other much, but that doesn’t mean we’re not. It’s my pleasure.” She paused, a little awkwardly, and looked down at her shoes. They were a pair of beige ballerina flats, and they had little white and yellow daisies embroidered on the sides. Harry thought Hermione would have liked them. “Has Lavender cooked up any sort of scheme to get you involved in? She always has some or another new plan. She tried to get Creature Comforts involved with Eyelops six months ago, but, well,” Parvati shrugged. “My boss is an old guy, he doesn’t like change much.” 

“Yeah, actually,” Harry said. “I’ve got an appointment this afternoon.” 

Harry’s appointment consisted of showing Martin, Aggie, and Sam through Creature Comforts with Lavender. Three-fifths of the group wasn’t bad, Lavender mused, but she would have preferred to have everyone’s opinion. 

After her own personal experience with the shelter and seeing how content Harry was with it, she had wondered if it wouldn’t make sense to begin some sort of program with the other members of the group, and perhaps reach out to the broader community. Through the late afternoon, she watchfully observed Sam bond with an elderly lab mix named Juniper, and Martin play fetch with a crup named Montgomery, which Harry found an absurd and entirely wizarding name for a dog. Aggie secluded herself to the cat room, and when Harry hunted her down, he found her sitting happily in an armchair by the window, a dusky calico Kneazle in her lap. 

“This is such a nice thing, you kids are doing,” she smiled. “When I was younger, there were so few resources in our community. It’s much better now than it was. I hope none of you ever have to struggle the way I did,” she sighed. Her knuckles were boney and arthritic, but her hands were sure and gentle as they stroked the Kneazle’s fur. 

“I can’t imagine,” Harry said, remembering Remus’ tattered cloaks, his patchy trousers. Remus had had such a poor view of himself, he had thought it better to abandon his family than remain in their presence–had thought so poorly of himself, he’d thought Harry , of all people, would agree. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.” 

Aggie shrugged. “It happened how it happened. But it’s people like you and your friends that make it better, one step at a time.” 

Harry sat down on an ottoman next to her. “My–well. Draco, he’s studying to be a Potion’s Master, and he’s working on this replacement for wolfsbane, it’s mad. He started it a while ago, back when it was more difficult to get ingredients. It’s his whole thesis.”

“He seemed like a smart one,” she remarked. On her lap, the calico yawned and stretched. Harry was reminded of Crookshanks, though the orange menace had never acted so docile in Harry’s arms, not that Harry could remember.  

“He really is,” Harry agreed, staring at his empty hands. He had worked so hard to make the rest of his life a home–afternoons spent with Molly, weekends with Arthur and the other Weasleys. After-school playdates with Teddy and endless conversations about paint colours with Hermione. Despite all his efforts, he hadn’t yet won Grimmauld Place over. She still creaked, and oozed from the walls in strange places, and kept up a layer of grime on everything Harry didn’t use regularly. But this was better than retaining a thick layer of grime on absolutely everything in the house, and Harry took his wins where he could get them. The couch in the least-worst living room hadn’t turned swampy in years. The woodland wallpaper landscapes hardly ever held snarling bears or howling wolves in the darkest times of the night anymore, and the dust bunnies never bit him. 

Kreacher was ancient and ornery, and he absolutely despised crossword puzzles, but he would acquiesce to a game of chess every once in a while. Sometimes, when he got stuck on a move, he would simply get up, bare feet slapping on the floor, and grumble about the half-blood Master who thinks he is wiser than Kreacher. An unfinished game still lay gathering dust on the scuffed kitchen table, untouched after they had reached this very point two weeks prior.  

Still, all parts of Grimmauld and her house elf as well stubbornly refused to cooperate with Harry the way they had with Draco. Harry knew who they preferred, would have in fact had to be stripped of all five of his senses to be ignorant to their preference. 

Draco was cantankerous, dismissive, and judgemental. But he was also funny, and witty, and tried harder than just about anyone else Harry had met to be a good person. He walked the line they had made of their relationship–not quite lovers, but not quite friends–with as much grace and gentleness as he could. 

Harry thought–Harry hoped –that perhaps he could continue that conversation that had laid unfinished between them since they’d been caught alone in a bar bathroom. 

Harry thought of his cousins in India, of his family at the Burrow and at Andromeda’s cottage, and of his friends, however new, at Creature Comforts. 

And he wondered if maybe he could push his luck, just a little bit farther.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That night was a Harry and Teddy movie night. 

Andromeda was being very tight-lipped indeed about her social obligations, greeting Harry happily at the floo in an outfit much fancier than her usual pragmatic shift dresses. He hugged her hello and hissed a jovial greeting to her snake plants, who scented the air and hissed back. Harry thought maybe he would be able to understand them better if they were underwater, like the egg he had received after his First Task, but he had not yet allowed his curiosity to overcome his fear of annoying Andy. 

She blushed when he complimented her and thwacked him on the arm. “No nonsense from you,” she scolded. “I’ll be hearing absolutely none of it.” 

He smiled brightly and would have prodded her for something more on this mystery outing, had she not been saved by Teddy, who was so excited to see Harry he nearly tumbled into the room on all fours.  

“Harry!” He careened into Harry’s legs with a force that sent him stumbling backwards. Today Teddy’s hair was a bright, sunny yellow. 

“Teddy!” Harry hoisted him up and spun him around with a grunt of exertion. He’d need to remember that Teddy was always getting bigger than Harry anticipated, still seeing him, in his mind’s eye, as the diminutive, pudgy little infant in a onesie with nifflers rolling around and around printed on it. If he wasn’t careful, he would throw his back out sooner than later. 

“The full moon is in six days,” Teddy informed Harry seriously when he put him down, who was already very well aware of the date himself. “Grandma and I looked it up together.”

Harry nodded. “Yeah, buddy, it is.” He knelt down to his height, a hand on his small shoulder. “Are you worried about it at all? You're Uncle Draco and I will be right next to you, you know.” 

Teddy considered. “I have to take this potion,” he explained. “From yesterday to the day of the full moon. It tastes like rubbish ,” he whispered loudly, looking nervously towards Andy, who had remained listening by the floo, as though he were keeping a great and terrible secret from her.

Harry resisted the impulse to laugh, and heard that behind him, Andy had had no such compunctions. “Yeah, I take the same one,” he said. “It really does.” 

“I turn my hair green every time,” Teddy said, and turned his hair green, just so Harry would know exactly how it looked. It was the same curly lime-green mop of the morning after his first transformation, a little over three weeks ago. 

“I like it,” Harry complimented. “I wish I could turn my hair green like that.”

Teddy analysed his face. “You can’t have both,” he stated reasonably. “You already have green eyes.” 

Harry smiled, the corners of his mouth pressing deeply into his cheeks as he failed to repress a chuckle. “You know, you’re so right, actually,” he said. “I shouldn’t get greedy.” 

Teddy nodded, staring over at where the snake plants were wiggling in their pots. From behind them both, Andromeda cleared her throat. 

“Have fun, boys,” she said, straightening her hair, which was already more meticulously styled than Harry had ever before seen it. “I’ll be back later tonight.” 

“Bye Grammy!” Teddy piped, and Andy was away in a wash of green flame. 

Harry stood back up, wincing as his knees cracked. “So, Teddy,” he began conversationally, strolling deeper into the house. “What shall we have for dinner?” 

“Chicken nuggets!” Teddy enthused immediately, and Harry grimaced at his own thoughtlessness. If Teddy was in control of the menu, they would have chicken nuggets for every meal, including breakfast

“Maybe chicken parmesan,” Harry negotiated. “And then later, we can have dessert.” 

Teddy remained dubious and followed Harry into the kitchen, asking if he could make the chicken dinosaur shaped, because, very reasonably, it tasted much better that way. Harry couldn’t help but agree. Though he preferred cooking the muggle way, as Teddy returned to his room to stack Legos and wall the garden gnome into a small and brightly-coloured fortress, Harry took the time to spell their chicken breast into what he opined was quite a talented approximation of a Tyrannosaurus Rex for each of them. 

The carrot slices, he made into little  Pterodactyls, and with the broccoli, asparagus that Harry needed no tea leaves to know he would be eating off of Teddy’s plate but gamely made for him nonetheless, and tomato sauce, he made an erupting volcano. The garlic bread was simply a loaf of store-bought garlic bread, Harry’s creativity by then depleted, but by the time the table was set, he felt very self-congratulatory indeed. 

“How’s it going with the gnome?” Harry asked Teddy as the little boy sat down, roaring in delight like the Tyrannosaurus Rex on his plate. 

“He’s captured now,” Teddy told him. “He keeps bumping into the walls.” Harry wondered if it had been such a good idea, spelling Teddy’s rug. He was reminded of Draco’s tin foil hat, and pondered whatever else it was Draco and Teddy undoubtedly did to antagonise him when Harry was not there. Harry despaired that perhaps he had given the garden gnome sentience only for him to exist in a ceaseless life of meaningless torment and half-cocked, immature belligerence. Simultaneously, he was relieved that it was the garden gnome who was getting this treatment, and not himself. 

So, self-centeredly, Harry nodded. “That sounds great, kiddo,” he said, and took a large bite of asparagus. 

Teddy ate the T-Rex’s head, arms, and tail, most of the broccoli, and all of the Pterodactyls. He regarded the asparagus as disparagingly as Crookshanks regarded the kibble Harry once tried to feed him after having forgotten to owl-order more and giving him canned tuna for two weeks. Teddy pushed his plate away and asked, “Can I have ice cream now?” 

“Let me finish my dinner,” Harry parried, spearing a side of the volcano. “And then we can make popcorn and watch a movie, if you want, with the ice cream.”

 “I liked Balto,” Teddy offered immediately, wiggling to sit halfway in his seat, his socked feet dangling. “He was a wolf just like Bear.” 

“He was a wolf just like Bear,” Harry agreed neutrally. He had been trying to educate Teddy on all the positive representations of wolves in media that he could find, to hopefully combat any anti-werewolf sentiment early on that may have wormed its way into his psyche unasked. They had watched the Jungle Book, after which Teddy had begged Harry to convince the snake plants to writhe sinuously like Kaa, and after watching Balto, Teddy had badgered Harry to pretend to be a sickly child so that Teddy could pelt from the kitchen that was supposed to be Anchorage to his bedroom, the remote village of Nome, to save him. 

They had watched Balto a half-dozen times within the past three weeks, however, and Harry feared that at this point he could recite the entire one hour and eighteen minutes of it by heart. Thinking of Draco and his movie nights with Cady, Harry offered, “Want to watch Beauty and the Beast?” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Belle is like Auntie Hermione,” Teddy remarked around a mouthful of melting chocolate ice cream. “They both always have books, and Belle is really brave.” 

“Those are both main staples of their personalities, yeah,” Harry nodded, tossing a piece of popcorn into his mouth. “I like Belle the most.” 

“Lumiere acts like Uncle Draco,” Teddy observed as well, licking his spoon. He had melted ice cream on his fingers already. Harry marvelled at how he could get so messy, so quickly, with even the simplest of tasks. “He says a lot of things that don’t make sense.” 

“He does do that,” Harry agreed, delighted. “You should tell Draco that next time he comes over. Maybe you can make him play butler for the day, instead of dragons.”

Teddy nodded, not sparing a single moment to remove his eyes from the colourful screen. “I don’t like Gaston,” he proclaimed with finality, his gaze affixed.

“You and me both, buddy,” Harry said, tossing another popcorn into the air. He missed it upon its descent, unlike his very first snitch, but the height of it had been ambitious. He fished it from the couch cushions and popped it into his mouth, thankful that the oddest thing about Andy’s couch was the strange indelible smell of ozone. Had it been Grimmauld’s, his popcorn would have been devoured the moment it hit the fabric. 

He was prematurely patting himself on the back on a night thoroughly well planned, until, that is, the wolf scene began. Then, Harry thought perhaps Beauty and the Beast had not been the best choice he had ever made in the history of his godparenthood to entertain his fledgling young werewolf with. 

“They almost hurt her!” Teddy gasped, crushing his handful of popcorn in his tiny fist. Harry winced. Andy would be finding flecks of corn and kernel in the carpet for weeks afterwards. 

Teddy’s hair was bright red in distress as he exclaimed, “They hurt the Beast!”

Harry paused the VHS, wondering dubiously how to handle this unanticipated challenge or if he should even pause the movie. He had forgotten that there even were wolves in Beauty and the Beast–this was his first time seeing it in its entirety, and not simply keeping one ear out for the plot as he scrubbed Aunt Petunia’s pans in the other room. 

“Well,” Harry began. “Sometimes there are good wolves, and sometimes there are bad ones.” He blinked, looking carefully at his godson. “You and your Uncle Draco and I, we have good wolves. They just want to be friends.”

Teddy nodded suspiciously, and Harry continued, “But some people, they have bad wolves. They don’t want to be friends, they just want to be mean. Like the ones in Beauty and the Beast.”

“Why?” Teddy asked, and Harry hoped this didn’t inspire another unending evening of why questions. There was only so far he could follow a train of thought before he needed to contact Draco or Hermione. Hermione was frantic, trying ambitiously to complete the three disparate projects she spearheaded for the Department of Mysteries before she went on maternity leave. So much so that she had missed their weekly Tuesday chat last week for the first time since returning from Australia. Her sleepless missives and harried floo-calls were only ever matched in energy by Draco’s whirring unpresent mind during their lunches in and around Perkins’, or the focused, thunderous mania he embodied poring over his carrel in the stacks. 

“Erm,” he hedged, and thought back to his many conversations with Draco and with his Mind Healer. “Some people choose to be angry, and then they lash out and hurt other people. Some wolves can be like that, too.” 

“Daddy had a wolf,” Teddy stated, as though Harry could ever forget. 

“He did, buddy,” he nodded. “You’re right.” 

With uncertainty in his small voice, Teddy glanced anxiously towards the frozen, lunging creatures on the television screen and asked, “Was his wolf bad?” 

Harry released a slow, plodding exhale and wished mightily for Draco. He was certain he would do a better job of diluting the complex intricacies of love and self-loathing into something a child could understand. Harry thought of the conversation he and Draco had had in the cafe by PITIE, where Draco’s face had lit up as he talked about his favourite class, tangenting about nogtails and Boomslangs and substitutions, incandescent as he shared the most recent discoveries his incessant mind macerated with glee. Of the way his expression had dropped, melancholy and contemplative, as he said of Remus Lupin, He tried to hold on, and hurt them both because of it . 

“You dad was a really brave man, and a really good person,” Harry started instead. “He and his wolf had a complicated relationship. They didn’t know how to talk to each other very well, and so sometimes that made them sad.” The sharp cracks of Remus’ splitting bones, the tearing of his twisting skin, sounded fresh and violent in Harry’s ears. He repressed a shudder and thought instead of his scarred face, tired but content, as he showed Harry how to cast his first Patronus Charm. Of how Harry had basked in the warmth of his approval, once he had finally managed it. “But they weren’t bad,” he pressed, desperate for Teddy to see his father the way that Harry did, without obscuring the truth of his life from him as had been done to Harry so much in his childhood.  “Not either of them.”

Teddy bit his lip thoughtfully. He had a streak of melted chocolate ice cream on his cheek that Harry had not noticed until now, and felt certain when he put Teddy to bed, he would find more evidence of his dessert smeared on the couch. Luckily, there wasn’t much worse either Harry or Teddy could do than banishing it into the aether, so Harry was glad he had set the threshold for unacceptable behaviour low very early on. 

“I want Bear and I to be friends,” he revealed eventually, and Harry nodded eagerly. 

“And Bear wants to be friends with you too!” he reassured him. “Draco and Ladon have a great relationship. They’re friends all the time. When we were younger, sometimes, and Draco was scared, Ladon would come out to protect him. A few weeks ago, I got scared, and Apollo came to protect Draco and I,” Harry confided. He gestured back to the menacing figures on the screen. “Sometimes, wolves can look scary, but that’s just because they’re trying to protect someone they care about. Sometimes seeming scary can be a good thing, because it means you’ve something to protect and can do it well.” Harry breathed out and thought hard. “Do you remember when we went to Diagon Alley, a few months ago, and Draco set fire to that one reporters’ camera?” 

Teddy giggled. “Yeah,” he said, grinning with a smile that included not one but three wiggly teeth that once fallen would surely not be left under Teddy’s pillow for the nefarious tooth fairy to abscond with in the night. “He dropped it and made a big fuss about it, like he was dancing.” 

“Right,” Harry agreed, smiling at the memory himself. He loved when Draco unleashed his more vindictive impulses on the flocks of reporters that bottlenecked Harry like honking hoards of geese whenever he ventured out into Diagon. Five years on from his sentence, now, Draco could do so without worry of violating his parole. 

The journalists had been shocked and appalled  upon discovering the business end of Draco’s first, celebratory hex. One had even tried to go to the Auror Department about it, but Ron had been assigned to their case, and upon heckling them out of the Auror Department with a few well-placed insinuations about the calibre of their writing and the morality of their methods, Ron had summarily dumped the complaint in the bin, clapping his hands off in satisfaction.

“I’m sure those reporters thought that Draco was very scary, in those moments,” Harry continued, recalling the swears that had compelled him to cast a muffling charm around Teddy’s young head. “But he was just protecting us.” 

Repeating the very same question he had that day in Diagon, Teddy asked, “Can I set things on fire like Uncle Draco?” His wide, eager brown eyes held a pyromaniac glint in them. “Can Bear?” 

Teddy may have been Remus Lupin’s son, but he was also Nymphadora Tonks’, and Harry couldn’t forget the Black bloodline ran nearly as strong in Teddy’s veins as it did Draco’s.

Mildly, Harry asked instead, “How about more ice cream?” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once Teddy was put to bed, Harry sat on Andy’s burnt couch and thought of the French cafe by Downing Street. He thought about the crumbling Fortune-Telling Roses and the cupboard. He thought about all the beloved people he had in his bright, endless summer life. 

Ron with his assessing blue eyes, alight with good-natured mockery. Hermione, and her cutting gaze, her thoughtful frown and her coiled curls that exploded from her head like all the brilliant uncontainable ideas which also sprung from it. Molly and her warm hearth and ever-open doorway, endless cups of tea and knit sweaters and quilted blankets and homemade meals. Arthur and his array of Muggle machinery in middling states of disrepair, his library books stacked five high at the Burrow kitchen table. Kreacher and his ominous muttering, grown half-hearted and uninspired with repetition, their chess game still awaiting the old elf’s next move. 

Andy and her pragmatic, no-nonsense demeanour, her shift dresses and her wry humour, balancing somewhere between Ron’s jocular nature and Draco’s regal intensity. Teddy’s hair a whirlwind of colours, his full-faced grin that would surely be gap-toothed before the month’s end. Lavender’s welcoming assuredness. Parvati’s ready willingness to share her family’s history, to connect him to the cousins he may one day visit, all the way in India. 

Harry thought about how he had once said, “It’s brave to try to fight what you’re afraid of”.

Grimmauld had stopped oozing on every surface, and had only begun doing so on the walls. Harry could convince most of the curtains, with some wheedling, to open at least half way. The portraits had gotten tired of screaming at him every time he passed, understanding, at last, that he, as they, had become a permanent fixture in Number Twelve. He could keep some magical plants alive, Piping Poppies and Shrinking Violets, but the Fortune-Telling roses remained stubborn and brown. No matter how hard Harry scrubbed, the counters never gleamed and the windows were always streaked. 

He stared at the sleeping snake plants, unseeing, as he made the resolve to tell Draco that, for him, enough time had passed. 

Harry loved his life. He loved his family and his friends, unique and bizarre as they were. He loved his house, though it was often spiteful and could still be cruel. He loved himself, although the open door of the cupboard still called to him in the early mornings of dark, fitful nights. 

And he loved Draco, clearer and brighter than he had loved him seven years before. Unsullied by the slime of self-abandonment or the stink of cold sweat at the thought of parting from him as though parting from a limb.  

Harry recalled how Draco had replied to Harry’s uncertain assertions of bravery and resistance with such wistful candour on his beloved face, blanketed in leafy green and with something mournful in his dove grey gaze.

Sometimes, it’s cowardly.

Harry had never considered himself to be a coward before, and he figured if he was ever going to be one, he would have begun when he was younger. 

He wanted Draco in his life, fully. Not out of fear of loss or missing something. Not out of fear that love was something scarce, to be hoarded and coveted and polished daily with the miserly affectation of some Ebeneezer Scrooge. 

Out of love, and its abundance. 

Harry decided, there on the brown couch that smelt of the aether and was faintly burnt, beside the snake plants who hissed incoherently and shuffled in slumber, to stop fighting And the next time they met, Harry would ask him, again, if Draco finally did too. 

Chapter Text

The Giant Squid always got restless in the spring, Draco knew. He had spent long hours in the Slyutherin dorms during his depressive episodes the past few years staring at its waving tentacles, the revolting suction cups adhering to the glass and undulating in a way that never failed to nauseate him. Even with these less than fond memories of the Squid, Draco told Potter he would prefer to complete his Transfiguration homework by the Lake than visit Hagrid with him. Draco would likely rather self-immolate than share a cup of tea with Rubeus Hagrid in his homely, honest hut, but he felt this was irrelevant information.  

“Hagrid’s not so bad,” Potter protested. “If you apologise to him, really sincerely, I’m sure he’ll forgive you.” He smiled, and it was as though the clouds had passed from the shaded sun, for his face to warm in such a way. “He brought me ice cream the first time I ever visited Diagon Alley, right after we met in Madam Malkin’s. He bought me Hedwig, too.” 

Draco kicked a stone in the dirt path before them. “I never did tell you how sorry I was for her loss,” he said quietly. Draco recalled tracking her flight across the Great Hall in their younger years, practically green-eyed himself. Hermes, his Eagle Owl, had never taken to him as affectionately as Hedwig had to Potter. 

Potter nodded. “It’s been hard without her,” he said plainly. “She was my first friend. But Fang is a very enthusiastic substitute whenever I visit, if much, much more slobbery.”

Draco shuddered delicately. “I’m not one for dogs, I don’t think.” The only large animals Draco had encountered with any sort of routine before his monthly fur appointment were the Manor peacocks, and though they would no longer ever make an appearance on his list of utmost fears, he still despised them. Had they the ability to conference, Draco was certain he would be their Undesirable No. 1.

Winningly, Potter grinned at him. “You could test out that theory with me!” he coaxed. “’Sides, you’re a wolf. That’s mostways there already.”  

“I'm not a wolf,” Draco clarified, scanning the lakeside for a sheltered space, far enough away from the masses that were anyone to get antsy, he would see them coming. “Ladon is my wolf. I’m a human being. I’ve always been a human being.” He headed for a shaded spot where he wouldn’t have to worry overmuch about getting ambushed from behind, or, even worse, sunburned. He cast a few fiddly little cushioning and drying charms and then sat, rummaging through his bag for his books. 

Potter took a seat next to him in the sun, sprawling out in the light with his limbs akimbo. Draco knew the other students were looking at them–they always were, that year. It didn’t matter if they were separate or together. If they had to suffer, they might as well have company, is what Potter had told him months earlier. And perhaps there had been some truth to his words, because while enduring the stares seemed unbearable alone, with Potter they became if not quite negligible, then at the very least tolerable. 

“What’re you going to get your NEWTs in?” Potter asked the sky. 

Glancing over, Draco tapped his quill on the cover of Transfiguration book restlessly. “All of them,” he replied. 

Potter turned to him, blinking as though coming out of a deep trance or a pool of water. “But…have you got a Time Turner?” 

Three sentences in and Draco was certain Potter had somehow already lost the plot. “I beg your pardon?” 

“Wouldn’t you need a Time Turner to take all those classes?”

Cocking his head, Draco replied slowly, “I’m not taking all the classes.” Squinting, he peered over at Potter, giving him a thorough once-over to determine if he looked Confunded or not. In Draco’s opinion, he did, but he also wore that gormless expression all the time, so resignedly Draco had to hypothesise it was likely simply his unfortunate face. “I’m just sitting the exams.” 

Potter looked agog. He was not doing any service to disproving Draco’s speculations of a sneaky Confund ing. Probably, the caster had been aiming for Draco. Or, perhaps they wanted Potter dazed and confused, thinking that Potter was doing some sort of hero routine to Draco’s dismal in distress. Draco fingered his wand and considered casting a shield just to be safe. “Blimey,” Potter marvelled. “Wait ’til I tell Hermione that.” 

Casting it off as yet another unique Potter oddity, Draco began to flip through the chapters, trying to find the section on raccoon dogs. They were working towards turning rubbish into the furry little animal, which seemed ambitious indeed, but Draco was looking forward to it. He watched the photos of it prance and scamper with interest. They seemed such agile and sly creatures and looked a bit like a cross between a niffler and a fox. Draco hoped they were less curious than either, for the sake of their classroom. 

Interjecting into Draco’s thoughts, Potter asked, “What do you want to do with them?” 

Snorting inelegantly, in a manner that would abjectly horrify his etiquette tutor, he shot back, “It's not really about what I want, Potter.” 

With that bemused expression as strongly plastered on his face as ever, Potter said, “I don’t follow. You’re on probation, sure, but as long as you don’t curse anyone six ways to Sunday, you’re in the clear, aren’t you?” 

“Sure, with a mandated visit from some thug every week to keep me in line, not to mention the need to actually work for a living.” Draco sighed, staring at the ripples in the lake the Giant Squid made as it chased the fish beneath the surface. “I was supposed to live a life of wealthy indulgence as a rich socialite. Unfortunately, Father took it upon himself to socialise with the wrong people, so.” Draco shrugged, preferring to think about the squid and its disconcerting undulating tentacles that would suction themselves to the glass of the common room when upset, rather than the mess his father had unwittingly conspired to make of their collective lives. “When I was a child, I rather egocentrically had it in my head that I would be a Dragonologist someday.” 

“A dragon tamer!” Potter exclaimed, laughing in a way that was only slightly taunting. “You know, Charlie Weasley is a dragon tamer.” 

“Mm, yes, I did know that, actually.” Draco leaned back, remembering watching Charlie’s muscled, scarred and tattooed arms strain in rapt attention after the Champions’ First Tasks came to a close and the dragons were herded back into their cages. “The handsome Weasley.”

Potter grinned a smile that was all teeth. “Should I tell Ron?” 

“That I’d like to shag his brother?” He laughed victoriously at Potter’s gobsmacked expression and the way an uncomfortable flush crawled up his tanned neck. Draco continued caustically, “Sure. Maybe he’ll try to warn him off and get him on my tail instead. At a glance, he seems the type to respond well to reverse psychology. And he certainly doesn’t mind a good bit of a power struggle,” Draco added smugly, smirking as Potter spluttered. 

“Charlie’s seven years our senior,” he protested hotly. He was tearing up fistfuls of grass as though it had personally insulted him. “He’s way too old for you.”

With a cavalierness manufactured specifically to piss Potter off even more, Draco shrugged. “Old enough to overlook my sordid past, perhaps. Or maybe he’d think he could guide me into being a better person.” Draco chuckled at the thought, but it made an uncomfortable though not unpleasant warmth spread in his stomach to think of dating an older man. He thought of his father’s unwavering steely gaze, of the bandages on Leedy’s knuckles. How he longed for a better role model than the one he’d been given. Perhaps in a different life, he really would have gone after the handsome Weasley.

As it were, however, Draco was never going to become a Dragonologist. Taking pity on red-faced, mutinous Potter, who seemed to have temporarily lost the ability of speech and was surely doing worse things to the lawn than any garden gnome had managed at Hogwarts, Draco continued, “Alas, even if the terms of my probation would allow me to travel to Romania, I never had the mettle for it, clearly. Anyone could have seen that even when I was small.” Draco smiled wistfully. “Antipodean Opaleyes were my favourite. I was horribly disappointed when they had none in the First Task, though I admit they wouldn’t have been a good fit. They prefer to flee unless truly cornered—when threatened, mother Opaleyes keep their unhatched clutch in their cheeks, and use their tails to slash their aggressors. I’m not sure how even you would have gotten around that,” Draco said, eyeing Potter appraisingly. “I was quite pleased that you got the Horntail. Vicious motherfuckers, those are.” 

“Yeah, I’m sure you loved that,” Potter muttered with an eye-roll, still flushed but no longer causing heedless destruction among the plant life around them. “Happy to entertain.”

“I was,” Draco replied, his words curling around a catlike smile. “Very entertained.” He remembered leaning to the edge of his seat, his nails digging into Pansy’s and Blaise’s arms, his gaze locked on Potter’s rocketing form. Pansy had complained that the marks wouldn’t leave her skin for hours, and made Draco pet her hair in the common room as she feared she might faint from the pain. They hadn’t spoken much this past year, he and Pansy, their owl missives terse little things filled with not much content but proclamations of persistent, stubborn love. Pansy was wounded that she’d had to find out about Draco’s furry problem through the Prophet. Draco felt abandoned, rightfully so, because Pansy had spirited herself to the continent promptly after the Battle ended. She had boarded herself in with her Auntie Rosie in Lucerne to breathe in the crisp mountain air and recline by a glittering lakeside while Draco withered away in Azkaban. He couldn’t blame her, really, but he had never been the bigger person, and so he did anyway.  The bitterness would be fleeting, he was certain, but it felt healthy to indulge.

Draco fingered the edge of his Transfiguration textbook, a secondhand edition from Headmistress McGonagall’s overflow stores. The corners were so weathered they were nearly rounded. He eyed Potter curiously. “What did you think you would be, before Hogwarts?”

Immediately, Potter knew. “Thought I’d be a forklift operator. Do you know what those are? I just thought they were cool.”

Scenes of cutlery flashed before Draco’s eyes. Leedy had always been so meticulous about where the tiny serving spoons should rest, three or four different forks placed out depending on the guest list. He suspected his etiquette tutor would have approved. “Forklift?”

“Yeah,” Potter agreed enthusiastically. “They’re these giant machines that muggles use in construction. They have these prongs that slide under heavy things and lift them up. Then you drive the whole thing to another place and put them down.” Potter shrugged. “I was ten. It was more practical than wanting to be a dragon tamer.”

Banishing thoughts of Leedy and Miss Shaw, Draco opined, “That sounds dismayingly banal. You wanted to pick things up and put them down as the goal of your one wild life?” He pulled a face. “I would have thought even you would have had loftier expectations for yourself than a trained chimpanzee.” 

Potter shrugged. “Yeah, well, I was ten. M’unna be an Auror soon, that’s lofty enough for me.” 

“Mm.” Draco seethed, recalling the dismissive, loutish Auror put on his dossier with whom he had to meet in the Headmistress' office every week. “Trading a trained chimpanzee for the Ministry's dancing bears. You’ll never hear me say this again, Potter, but I maintain that you could do better.”  

Potter beamed. “Was that a compliment?” 

“No,” Draco replied firmly. “It was an excoriation of the Auror Department.” 

“Oh,” Potter wilted somewhat. “Hey. They’re not treating you—”

“They’re treating me fine,” Draco snarled venomously, scowling at the picture of the Raccoon Dog who had done nothing to warrant such admonishment. “You could just do something more worthwhile, is all.” 

The Giant Squid was causing waves to beach by a group of unwary first years. They cackled and shrieked as the water hit them, sending their book bags and parchments afloat. They waded into the water, their trousers and skirts soaked to the knee, and laughed as though a battle had not raged on these grounds nearly a year prior. As though fire had not swept through the grass that they currently sat on, blackening everything it touched. 

“I’d like to visit Teddy,” Potter offered. “That’s my godson, er—I’ve been kind of a shit godfather, really.” He stared gloomily at the clouded, white sky. “I’ve only visited him a couple of times, it just…it feels wrong. Like, I’m not supposed to be the one there.”

“Teddy,” Draco replied slowly. He wasn’t sure if Potter knew the web of connections that lay between them. 

“He’s living with Andy,” Potter explained. “Your Aunt? She’s always been kind to me. I don’t know her very well, but,” he shrugged self-consciously, his shoulders a tight bundle, and scratched a haphazard hand through his unruly curls. “If you wanted, I could put in a good word for you.”

Draco raised an appraising eyebrow. “You cannot copy my Charms homework.”

“Not so I can copy your Charms homework!” Potter protested. His untamed hair danced around his face in the gentle spring breeze, and he had smudges on his iconic glasses. Behind them, his eyes were warm and amused.

Draco didn’t tell Potter that he’d been on speaking terms with Andy and Teddy since the school year had first begun. He had initiated their rapport by sending a message to Andromeda from the school owlery that October, after a session with Vee. He had thought it would be a futile gesture, a lonesome, unanswered apology and fruitless condolences. The relationship she had then spearheaded with earnestness and robust practicality had become a lifeline throughout his time at Hogwarts, no matter that he spent too much money on owl-order gifts for young Teddy and occasionally ran out of potions supplies. He had been horribly spoiled as a young child, and though he assured himself in his bleak periods of self-doubt that he would be nothing to Teddy like what his parents were to him, he agreed with Lucius and Narcissa at least that children deserved gifts of all sizes. Teddy deserved some spoiling after what had become of his very first year, his introduction to life itself, orphaned before the age of one. 

Draco liked that it was his own secret. A secret he could keep that wasn’t deadly or awful or scary, just a hothouse flower in need of some careful protection. 

“What will you do with Crookshanks?” he asked instead. 

Potter blinked. Crookshanks, who only warmed up to Draco when he was not looking or when he was actively engaged in something that did not warrant a cat’s intervention, had become quite taken with Potter indeed. On more than one sleepless night when the cold damp of Azkaban lodged itself into the marrow of his bones, Draco would look over at the bed next to him to see Potter in the foetal position, mouth open and head tilted at an awkward angle, alongside Crookshanks, who had wormed his way between Potter’s curled arms to be held by him in his sleep. His fluffy tail swished contentedly and he purred loudly like a small, furry motor. 

Sometimes during Draco’s own grainy, dismal sleepless nights Potter’s peaceful sleep became embittered with the beginnings of nightmares. Draco’s attention would be caught with his small noises of distress, at which Crookshanks would turn in Potter’s arms and bat at his fluttering eyelashes until he snorted abruptly awake. If Draco had ever managed to get to sleep, he would have loved to have a protector such as that diabolical half-Kneazle to watch over him before his ruthless imaginings turned unspeakably dark. 

Alas, Draco’s most recent humiliation was instead witnessed, invariably, by Potter. 

Draco had been in the Manor, with the Dark Lord leering diabolically over his shoulder, his skeletal, spidery fingers digging into what little meat was left on Draco’s boney shoulders and whispering in syllabant, domineering tones to torture the great lunk of a man cowering before them. Rowle had curled on himself like a pill bug under Draco’s wand before he’d even begun casting, and Draco had felt the sick acid from his roiling stomach lodge itself in his oesophagus. Rowle had melted into Neville Longbottom, and the Dark Lord into Amycus Carrow. And then Neville became Luna, frail and cowering in her cell, and there had been the wolf, shifting between the dark, mottled grey of her assailant’s coat, and the relentless silvery white of Ladon’s fur. 

When the wolf reared its head and bared its fangs to snarl as the bars shrieked to the ground, the wolf’s eyes weren’t Ladon’s shining amber, but fearsome, quicksilver grey. 

Potter woke him with a hand on his clammy shoulder. Draco thrashed, gasping. Potter reeled back only to return with a hand between Draco’s hunched shoulder blades, rubbing in small, soothing circular motions. Draco’s pyjama shirt clung to his skin, covered in a cold sweat and reeking of the pungent, sickly scent of fear. 

“You’re okay,” he murmured. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, and his eyes looked so much bigger on his face for it, younger, somehow, even though they scoured Draco’s face with searching intent. “Draco, you’re okay. We’re here, we’re at Hogwarts. It’s eighth year. You’re okay.” 

“Fuck,” he gasped, shaking, and ran a hand through his sweaty hair. He clenched his eyes shut and swore again, unable to stop himself from trembling and unable to suck a proper breath in. It felt as though merciless invisible hands were gripping his ribcage and shaking him bodily, as though he were a limp marionette with no control over his body at all. “I-I c-c-can’t stop sh-sh-shaking…” 

“I’m here,” Potter—blast it, Harry repeated. “I’m here. You’re okay.” Harry was leaning over Draco’s bedside, hunched and awkwardly twisted, and narrated, “I’m going to come sit next to you. Don’t move—do you want me to…here, hang on.” He offered his hand, and where it had been clear he’d been intending to walk to the other side, he simply crawled onto the bed in front of Draco’s drawn-up knees and shuffled over to the side of him. 

Curling an arm around Draco’s shoulder, he bundled him into his chest. He brushed Draco’s hair out of his eyes, for once not tamed and smooth but as wild as Draco felt, and pressed Draco’s ear to his sternum. “Listen to me breathe,” he said, deliberately taking deep, measured breaths. 

Draco shook and shook. It felt as though he would never stop, as though he would never regain control over his body. His breathing burst out of him in juddering fits and starts, his teeth clacking together as though he were hypothermic, but he was hot, too hot even as he clung to the furnace that was Harry's body. He tried to even out his breathing to match that of the steadily rising and falling chest beneath his cheek, but found himself unable. He pressed himself to Harry all the firmer, his lighthouse through an unexpected storm he found himself forced to weather. 

“Ten,” Harry began counting softly. 

Draco remembered flashes of white fang, of wild, dark, rabid eyes, caring nothing for the human beneath the flesh as long as it could be torn and could paint that bloodthirsty muzzle red. His limbs shuddered at the remembered sensation of creaking and breaking, all at once, like a great tree trunk giving up to gravity and falling on one earth-shaking crunch. His skin crawled with the itchy, prickly feeling of his follicles forced to sprout dense fur instead of fine blonde hair. 

“Nine.” 

Draco’s whole self was on fire, his entire body consumed with agony. He felt as though his eyeballs would pop out of his skull at the force of his screams. When the blessed crescendo occurred and everything went white, he would leave his body, he knew, and his screams would become a distant sound, far-off and insignificant. But it was early yet in their Occlumency practice, and the peak of Aunt Bella’s dubious instruction had not occurred. He was still horribly aware that he was at the mercy of her crooked, ugly wand, and she was jeering at him in a crooked, ugly laugh to match. 

“Eight.” 

Neville Longbottom was crouched at the tip of his wand, his jaw clenched and defiant as he gazed at his tormentors with contempt. His nose was bloodied, his eyes bruised, and yet he was more noble than Draco could ever hope to be, balanced there with his brown eyes boring into Draco as Amycus Carrow commanded Draco onwards. Gone was the chubby, bumbling child of their younger years, nervous and clumsy. Fear and violence had carved him into a piece of art, worn into him as though he’d been a block of marble. 

Fear and violence had not made Draco an artwork. It had only eroded him. His very soul, crumbling. 

But then, Draco had never been made of marble. Only something cheap and flimsy, easily broken. 

“Seven.”

A plummeting maw opened up in the pit of Draco’s stomach, for he had just fixed the Vanishing Cabinet. His mother, safe. His honour, intact. He should have been happy. He should have been celebrating. 

So why did Draco feel as though every final cog he replaced and broken spell he mended were the obsequies to a funeral that had not yet happened? 

“Six.” 

Vince had died from his own curse, and Draco was undoubtedly soon to be next. It was what he deserved, and yet he felt the rabbiting pulse of a prey animal pound in the cage of his ribs as he ran. He fled from death as only a coward could, feeling the lick of unbearable heat at his heels. Mountains of rubbish and treasure rose up before him, blocking his path and cornering him in. He would surely die an awful, painful death, just as he was deserving of, his miserable name nothing more than a dismissive footnote in the annals of history, if fit to be mentioned at all. 

“Five.”

The cold of Azkaban burnt his throat and lungs. It brought tears to his eyes, so relentless it was, the never-ending watering of them leaving dry, cracked patches where his crow’s feet would have been had he been allowed to grow old. But he never would, because he would die here, surely, before the year was out. Beaten to death or poisoned, no doubt, by that hulking, lurking guard, the one who tried to beguile him with rations as though Draco were truly so naive. And that, Draco mused darkly, was if he was lucky.

“Four.” 

Draco was sobbing, clutching his throbbing forearm and inconsolable in his suffering. None of the attendant house elves could quell the ache, not with murtlap essence, nor with dittany, nor any other remedy. Leedy supplied him with cold rag after cold rag to press to the branded flesh. His mother was nowhere to be found. If this is supposed to be right, he thought deliriously, why does it hurt so unbearably?

“Three.” 

Myrtle’s bathroom ran red with blood. Draco felt a smile kiss the corners of his lips for the first time in eternity. Free, he thought, knowing it in the foreign lightness in his limbs, and dizzy euphoria in his soul. I’m free. 

And then he’d woken up, for Severus had dragged him back to hell. His most stalwart protector nothing more than a prison guard, and perhaps he always had been.

“Two.” 

Rubeus Hagrid, the Hogwarts groundskeeper, was carrying Harry Potter in his arms. The Dark Lord had won, and Draco knew Potter had lifted him from the fire for absolutely nothing at all, and Severus had revived him from the bathroom for no reason, because Draco could not go on.

“One.” 

But Draco wasn’t in hell, and Harry wasn't dead. He was in Harry’s arms, in bed in the dorm room they shared, and this was eighth year, and Harry was alive, and Draco was alive, albeit for better or worse. Draco’s whole body was screaming with life, trembling with it, sobbing with it, and Draco could not stop. 

“It’s alright,” Harry repeated, holding him even more tightly, pressing his cheek to the crown of Draco’s head. “I’ve got you.” 

“I can’t breathe,” Draco panted, blind with panic and terror. “I s-s-still c-can’t…” 

Harry made small comforting noises as he rocked them back and forth. His arms were wrapped around Draco, his torso concave to cover him more fully. Draco could feel his breathing, steady and measured. He could feel Harry’s jaw move from where it rested atop his head, his bone solid and hard, his breath warm. He could even hear Harry’s pulse, steady and strong with his ear pressed to his chest. 

At some point, Crookshanks jumped to Draco’s bed, the only time he had acquiesced to that part of the room while Draco was not laying prone, defeated by the day. He butted his squashed orange face into Draco’s bent knee and rubbed his head across his knobby kneecap. His bottle-brush tail held aloft to bat them both in the face, he stepped lightly around the two boys until he managed to wriggle his way into Draco’s lap. He pressed his furry side into Draco’s chest and paced, kneading. His small, sharp claws poked into the tops of Draco’s thighs and helped him remember where he was, in Hogwarts with Harry Potter and an absurdly brachycephalic half-Kneazle, and he was not dying, he was not dead, and nobody he loved was actively in the process of dying any more than they all already were.

Satisfied with the layout of Draco’s lap after several turns, Crookshanks tucked his legs beneath him and swept his tail to his side, rubbing it across Draco’s sweaty, unkempt face in the process. As deliberately as he could while he was still so shaky, he wrapped his arms around the half-Kneazle gingerly, resting a hand on his spine, demarcated by a long stripe of dark orange. Beneath Draco’s palms Crookshanks began to purr, and Draco almost felt like bursting into tears all over again. 

“You’re alright,” Harry murmured once more, as though if he were to say it enough times, he could will it into existence. He withdrew just slightly enough that he could brush Draco’s sweaty fringe from his eyes. From the washroom, he summoned a small, damp towel to mop Draco’s flushed face with. 

As the shakiness slowly began to subside and his breathing returned to a state that did not resemble that of an actively hunted prey animal, the leaden heaviness of his limbs and the wrung-out fatigue crept in instead. Ladon was nowhere to be found, having hidden himself somewhere in the dark recesses of Draco’s mind to wait out the storm. But that was alright, because Draco didn’t have the space for him then. Draco hardly had the space for himself, then, and didn’t think he would have been able to hold onto that, however barely, without his two unlikely attendees at his side. 

Draco pressed his face into Crookshanks’ thick fur and exhaled, feeling the vibrations the half-Kneazle made as he rumbled and purred like a muggle motor. He kneaded Draco’s lap contentedly, those little pinpricks reminding Draco, once again, that he was here in his body. Surrounded by rumpled blankets and Harry’s strong arms. 

“I’m alright,” Draco finally concluded, removing his face from Crookshanks’ person. His eyes felt sore and swollen and his chest hurt, as though he’d been kicked by Stephen Cornfoot again or perhaps run over by Stan Shunpike's Knight Bus. His voice was hoarse and creaky as he made his assessment. 

Harry–relegated back to Potter, now that Draco was no longer actively in crisis–pressed a glass of water into Draco’s hands, which he drank eagerly. He rubbed a hand up and down Draco’s spine as he did so. “Do you want anything?” Potter asked softly. “I could have one of the elves make some herbal tea. Or if you’re hungry, I could have them bring some food.”

Draco grimaced and shook his head. “No,” he replied. “No. Thank you.” He licked his dry lips and sighed, frustrated with himself because he knew he would retreat back into being formal and distant and cold after being—and continuing to be—so excruciatingly vulnerable, but too depleted to be able to fight it. “I apologise for waking you. It was not my intention.”

Potter scoffed and gave his arm a squeeze. His hands fluttered around Draco, retreating, but hesitantly, moving as though he had forgotten something. A lock of Draco’s hair, just slightly too out of place. The collar of his pyjama shirt, popped and rumpled. The blanket, too far away to cover him. All things that Potter adjusted before moving apart, as though he could not stand to break their contact just yet. 

“I used to have panic attacks a lot,” Potter revealed. “In the tent, with Ron and Hermione. It was always awful, and there was never anything any of us could do.” He shrugged. “I know you wouldn’t choose to have them, if you could.” 

Draco nodded morosely, and continued stroking Crookshanks’ back with a trancelike repetition. The half-Kneazle peered up at Draco with slitted yellow eyes and blinked slowly, rumbling. Draco blinked slowly back. 

“I hate them so much,” Draco admitted quietly. Potter reached out and squeezed his knee. 

Biting his lip, Potter looked anxious as he said, “Hermione did all sorts of reading. Where she got the psychology books from while we were on the run, I’ll never know. I think she thought it would be some light reading on the side, like when we were in first year and she took out this gigantic tome on modern wizarding history that was bigger than Crooks himself.” 

Potter flicked the cat’s tail affectionately, and Crookshanks batted an irritated ear at him, in no mood for Potter's frivolities. “She talked a lot about co-regulation. She said it was good to have someone else close by when I was having those episodes, that it would help me calm down. Always felt awful,” Potter disclosed wryly. “I never had anyone, in the cupboard—I, well. That’s not a now story. But I wasn’t really used to having people around until Hogwarts, and even then I don’t prefer to be emotional in front of people. I know you’re the same.”

Draco shrugged, feeling frayed. He wasn’t sure. He had desperately wanted someone to confide in, all through sixth year, and that’s why he’d kept seeking out Myrtle, over and over to pour his heart out. In seventh, that horrible hellscape that it was, he’d had the elves, who’d been just as afraid as he’d been. He’d had Luna, who had held his hand even after his parents could hardly bear to look in his direction. He’d kept having Luna, even as the seasons changed, until she’d left.

Even when he was a child, he’d had Dobby or Leedy. Even though his parents had never been the people to turn to, Draco had had some people, and couldn't help himself but want them still.  

So Draco didn’t know if he preferred solitude when in this horrible half-alive daze. A pathetic, watery part of him was glad when Potter offered, “I can go. I could go to the kitchens or the Gryffindor common room until you feel better or fall back to sleep, or I could just go back to my bed, but, erm—it was nice, sometimes, even though it felt uncomfortable and awkward. If it was at night that I’d have one, Hermione would hug me until I fell asleep again, but we don’t have to do that, obviously, I-I could just be close, and I think that would have the same effect.” 

Out of his peripheral vision, Draco gazed at Potter’s face, the earnest kindness there. He had no energy for anything else but the unvarnished point. “Why are you being so good to me?” 

Looking taken aback, Potter seemed to say the first thing that sprung to his mind. “You’re easy to be good to,” he replied, the absurd answer still contriving to sound genuine from his lips. He had a scar just underneath the bottom one, a small white line right above the shadow it made, and Draco wondered from where he had gotten it. He had never noticed it before. 

“Not,” Potter amended, a teasing smile dimpling his cheek, “when you’ve decided to act like a twat. But I know even when you mean it that you don't really mean it, so.” He shrugged. 

“You don't know that,” Draco croaked, one tired eyebrow imperiously raised. He thought perhaps the facade was all he was for so long. It was all he ever had been, until he ushered the Manor elves into his chambers. Until the way they huddled together fearfully made him think of the prisoners in the cellars. Until Ladon. 

“No, I do,” answered Potter simply. “I do.” 

Draco mulled this strange assessment over with a slothful, viscous mind, shifting his weight as he found his left leg had become numb under Crookshanks’ weight. Affronted at the motion, Crookshanks stood and stretched, displaying his fangs as he yawned. Draco ran another hand down his spine as he waddled, bow-legged, off the bed and disappeared into the dark hidden spaces of their room. 

“You can stay,” he decided eventually, pulling the blanket up to his shoulders and turning away from Potter. He held the fabric close to him, bunched beneath his chin as though it were a cloak, pulled close to protect against a howling wind. Settling into a comfortable position, he grumbled crankily, “Don’t touch me.” 

“Alright,” Potter agreed, a smile in his voice that made Draco feel both rather content and also profoundly tired all at once.

Draco did not have time for this sort of nonsense. He did not have the space for it. He was getting through eighth year, and then he was going to consult with the Headmistress on what she thought a suitable career would be for a student with top marks who had once been a dispirited member of a fascist, terrorist cult, and then he was going to disappear into the aether, never to be seen again. 

That didn’t stop him from moving, ever so slightly, once Potter had gotten himself settled. Just enough so that the warmth of Potter’s arm could be felt through the back of Draco’s thin pyjama shirt. 

It wasn’t anything, Draco told himself, drifting off to sleep. Nothing at all. 

But when he awoke the next morning, his face pressed into Potter’s broad shoulder and his arms curled into his side, he knew he had told himself a lie. 

Chapter Text

“I wanted to talk again about the Mind Healing,” Harry began. “If you’re up for it.” 

Draco stopped chewing, mid-bite. They were at the cafe on Horizont Alley not a two-minute walk from Perkins’, where less reporters prowled for candid photographs of Potter with his latest conquest or charity case. Draco assumed he would be the latter, and likely would have been splashed across the headlines for the next day’s Prophet with his mouth full had Potter not put up a privacy ward. 

Swallowing heavily, he asked in irritation, “You ply me with pastry and lure me into a difficult conversation?” He waved his ham and swiss croissant at him reprovingly. “Not very sportsmanlike.”

Draco glanced around from within the shield of Potter’s privacy spell and wondered if he could covertly fiddle with it, just enough to arm a few dozen reporters with their location or perhaps summon that lout of a muggle who interrupted them once before, when Potter had attempted to have this conversation prior. But then, of course, Potter had to be unutterably reasonable, and of the two of them, Draco certainly couldn’t be the crackpot. 

Shrugging, the loathsome fool said, “We don’t have to talk about it right now, not if you don’t want to. I know it’s a busy day for you.” 

Draco slumped into his seat, mentally skimming over his schedule. “Every day is a busy day for me.” He waved a hand in a circular motion, affecting bored impatience that he did not feel, to cover the morose agitation and fear that was prowling at his shores. “Well, get on with it then.” He shuddered delicately, wishing he had a tequila shot instead of an espresso shot in front of him. “I have exactly fifteen minutes for feelings.”

“How generous,” Harry intoned, that awful dimple in his cheeks. He continued, “I just think we should revisit it, your living situation. We don’t need to make any decisions, but—when we talked before, it was about knowing yourself, right? Giving both of us the space to know who we are and what we want before we throw ourselves into anything.” 

Draco’s appetite abandoned him abruptly. He nodded slowly, peering at Potter warily as with nervous fingers he pushed the remains of his lunch away. Instead, he snatched his drink from the table—a bottle of Orkney Islands’ Finfolk Fizzy Water—and began peeling the label off the sweating bottle with determination. “Yes.”

“And, well. I just think–we have so much in our lives that we didn’t before. You have your school, and Teddy and Andy, and your flatmates who you get stoned with and watch Disney movies—” 

“Just Cady,” Draco interjected, happy to allow his whirring mind to carry him on a different train of thought that was not feelings, on a Tuesday morning between brewing batches of Collidge’s Cure-All Follicle Care and Weatherby's Sun Cream, Extra Strength. “Last week we watched The Parent Trap. Very clever, the way those muggles made two of the Weasley girl without Polyjuice Potion,” he added, nodding in affirmation of his own opinion. “Very smoke and mirrors of them.” 

“Yeah, see?” Harry continued unswervingly, committed to reaching his point. “And you’ve got Pansy—”

“Pansy is still in Lucerne, most of the time,” Draco muttered shiftily. On the label of his fizzy water, a selkie swam over and began biting at Draco’s restless plucking fingers with panicked urgency. “Laundering money for wix smarter than the two of us who left England when they could. She only returned for your congratulations-it’s-a-werewolf party because she feared for my mental health and because Granger needed more financial assistance SPEWing.” 

“But you floo call…?” Potter prompted, knowing the answer. 

“Once a month,” Draco admitted wearily. “Yes, yes. That bint is still important to me.”  

“Right,” Potter nodded. “Not to mention we’ve got the support group. And you’re still in Mind Healing. And I’ve got the Weasleys, and Ron and Hermione, and volunteering at Creature Comforts now too, plus I’ve been chatting with Parvati’s aunt about meeting my Indian side of the family and I’m in Mind Healing myself…We have whole lives,” he said, gesturing as though they both fit between his spread arms. “We have full lives. And I want you to be a part of mine, more than just on the periphery to bump into with Teddy or Andy, you know?” He blinked up at Draco, his gaze certain and steady. His hand hovered between them with half a mind to stay Draco’s own, busily tearing strips of paper from the chattering mob of selkies as though they had told him his Master’s thesis was rubbish and flunked him. 

Staring at the shreds, Draco said, “It’s not just a series of ticked boxes.”  

Potter nodded. “I know it’s not,” he insisted. He rested his hand on the table, palm-up, willing to be held if Draco reached back out, but unwilling to push if he refused to. An open offering, and Draco knew there was hope without expectation that Draco would reach back. A childish, immature part of him wanted to crumple the discarded bits of his Finfolk label and place the balled up rubbish there instead.

“I know you’ve worked really hard,” he continued. “Draco, I can see it. We both have. I’m not trying to pressure you, and I’m not saying you’ve got to do anything, but—I want to do this. I want you as part of my life, more official than just Teddy’s uncle. You don’t have to move back in, we don’t have to rush it, we could just–well. We could just keep doing what we’ve been doing, really, except for the part where we talk about all the things we don’t talk about.” He scratched the back of his head, never such a rat’s nest as when he was uncomfortable or anxious. “You mean so much to me.” 

Draco gnawed on his lip, looking everywhere but Harry’s earnest face. His hands, scarred but open. His shirt, mismatched by a button at the collar and rumpled, likely selected from the floor of Sirius’ bedroom and shaken out for dust bunnies that morning. His glasses, smudged with fingerprints as always. He was always so haphazard. And yet, never had a thing been so disconcerting than to be in the spotlight of his undivided attention. Never had a thing been so intoxicating. 

Draco blinked hard. “I mess up so many things that are important to me,” he admitted thickly. He hated vulnerability. He hated the gut-twisting honesty of it. And on a Tuesday, of all days. Draco would have set fire to the unappetizing remains of his lunch, to their very table itself if it would have done him any good. “And you’re very important to me.” 

“I’ll be right there with you,” Potter insisted, leaning in closer, as though he could through sheer proximity assuage Draco’s fears. “I’ll be right there, and I’m not going anywhere. I’ve seen so much of you, Draco. I love every part of you I’ve seen.” Draco had only ever seen him so resolute as when he stood in battle. He had never seen him so tender as when they sat at Grimmauld’s kitchen beside the wilting Fortune-Telling Roses. Potter raised his truth-telling hand, let it hover before it reached Draco’s cheek, and then replaced it to the table again, the scars of his blood oath hidden against the wood but still there, indelible. “Even the parts that are inconvenient for me. I know you’re your own person. I want you to be your own person. I just…I want you to be your own person, with me.” 

Draco bit his lip. Though the shoppers around them were distorted and blurred by the privacy charm, the sun was shining brightly, and the breeze was warm and comfortable. Draco was not certain that rain would have been a better backdrop, nor if it would have suited the swirling emotions in his quicksilver heart. “It’s a Tuesday,” he protested.

Potter huffed, disappointed but unsurprised. “Yeah, Draco,” he agreed, more patient than Draco deserved. “And this is when you had time to talk, and when you said you could, so. This is when we’re talking.”

Would every day not have been an awful day to have a conversation like this, with Draco’s schedule? Perkins’, and lectures, and coursework, and Teddy, movie nights with Cady and conversations with Andy and appointments with Vee and every other waking moment spent hunched over that diabolical prison that was his carrel in the stacks. His schedule was so hectic some days Draco felt he hadn’t even the time to breathe. Some days, Draco almost realised this was by his own design. 

If he hadn’t the time to breathe, he hadn’t the time to feel. And if he hadn’t the time to feel, he had no time at all to question whether or not his bedroom in the houseshare by Downing Street was still suited to him, anymore. 

Whether, perhaps instead, an old home awaited his prodigal soul. 

“Can I think about it?” Draco asked, and Ladon whimpered in the confines of his ribcage, a dog imprisoned by a ruthless guard, less like the well-appointed cages of Creature Comforts and more like the arctic confines of Azkaban. 

Potter swallowed hard. “Of course you can,” he said. 

Draco wanted to apologise, so desperately he clenched his teeth against the impulse. Potter collected Draco’s scraps in his open hand, without Draco having to deposit them there himself. Draco wanted to smack them out of it, vindictively. 

He gathered Draco’s naked bottle and the remainder of his disgusting lunch and Draco wanted to shatter the both in his hands. He collected the empty plate of his own as well, and when he stood to walk them back to the counter, Draco resisted the impulse to cast a tripping jinx. 

Potter waved away the Privacy Charm, and Draco fought the urge to scream as though set alight, just to attract the reporters Potter so despised. 

Potter returned, and he asked, “Can I walk you back to Perkins’?” almost as if nothing was different, and Draco wanted to set them both on fire, so fully consumed he was already. 

But he didn’t, because he had a job to do. 

To Perkins’ he returned, like the obedient sycophant he had been trained up to be, and descended, mind already whirring. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Draco was too restless to return to doing homework after finishing his shift at Perkins’. He wasn’t sure how he would have explained his fitful state to Cady, let alone Leedy, if either inquired. It was a Tuesday, so the support group didn’t meet, nor would Draco have wanted to attend, knowing that Potter would also be in attendance. Potter would be at Teddy’s and Andy’s, which ruled that out, and were Draco to retreat to the sepulchral, oppressively silent PITIE stacks, Draco thought he might begin shrieking and need to be carted out with a medical dispensation to take the remainder of the semester off, likely at the seaside like some sickly Victorian woman or perhaps an insane asylum. Pansy was in Lucerne and had run out of patience with Draco about the Potter situation years ago anyway, and Luna was in some Honduran jungle. He doubted he could even contact her if he tried.  

With this process of elimination milling in his mind, he found himself quite without meaning to at the bright front door of Creature Comforts. When he walked in, the bell for the entryway dinged as cheerily as ever, though the space appeared to be entirely devoid of human activity. 

“Hi Draco,” Jessie’s voice piped from behind a gigantic leafy Calathea. She walked over to greet him, an empty watering can in her hands. Her blue hair was plaited back in two dutch braids, the brown roots of her natural colour showing. “Lav’s not here today, she’s over at Parvati’s.” 

“That’s alright,” Draco called back, relieved. Lavender was Potter’s friend, truly, and though they had bantered, sometimes in his less pleasant moments when he heard her name he still saw her, fallen and lifeless on the burnt, streaked floor of the Great Hall instead of the vibrant young woman she had become. 

“Can I go to the cat room?” Draco asked instead, feeling adrift. “I don’t care which, I just need to sit and I...I can’t stand the dogs.” Or their cages, he left unspoken. 

Jessie set down the watering can on their coffee table and motioned for him to follow her through the pale pink door. “Sure. Are you interested in adopting?” 

He hadn’t come to find a pet, not at all. But the thought of that glaring, yellow-eyed monstrosity, cuddled in Potter’s arms to protect him through the night from his fearful dreams, kept floating through the forefront of his mind. How his small, heavy presence on Draco’s back, rumbling contentedly, had been a comfort on the days in eighth year when it felt like the only touch he could expect to receive was a raised fist, and the only respite from the discomfort and nausea he felt from his potions was fitful, unrestful sleep. 

Draco paused. “I…hadn’t come here looking.”

Jessie glanced over, frowning. “But now that you’re here, are you?”

He blinked thoughtfully. “I suppose I am,” he said, realising it as he said so. 

The gigantic, crotchety tomcat Draco had spied on his first visit was nowhere to be seen, and perhaps that was just as well. Crookshanks had not been entirely taken with Draco, favours during emotional crises notwithstanding, and so he thought perhaps he would be better suited with a different sort of feline personality. A little tuxedo kitten with white socks tumbled uncoordinatedly and played with two tabbies of a similar age by the scratching post. A small calico sunned herself directly in the middle of the window’s light, luxuriating in the heat of it and flicking her tail lazily. But when Draco sat down, it was the large black cat who caught his eye, glaring down at him regally from her cubby on the wall.

Draco glared back at her. She blinked at him in a way that he was certain was disdainful, her icy blue eyes closing as she yawned, baring white fangs and a small pink tongue. She stood and stretched, long and languid, and jumped down. 

She landed close to the calico and meandered over to her lazily. Without warning, she pinned the other cat’s tail to the ground with her forepaws. It was then that Draco noticed she had only one back leg, the right one disappeared at the hip with naught but a long, hairless scar and a small nub remaining to demarcate where the limb had once been. 

The calico yowled and swiped at her paws, mightily offended to be so rudely startled from her slumber. The black cat raised a paw menacingly, stopping for a moment as she held it in the air like a sword of Damocles, and batted her adversary firmly on the forehead. Draco snorted in amusement. 

“That one’s Whizbee,” Jessie told him, pointing to the little menace and reclining into an empty armchair, kicking her feet up on the ottoman next to him. “She has a big personality.” 

Draco shrugged neutrally. “She seems completely justified,” he smiled. “The other one was hogging all the sunlight for herself.” 

“Yeah, ’course,” Jessie agreed sarcastically, calling Whizbee over with a murmured psspsspss and wiggling fingers, bejewelled with shimmering glittery nail polish. 

Whizbee paused her assault on the calico, who was attempting to cover the black cat’s front paw and use it as leverage to bite her assailant. Imperiously, Whizbee extricated herself from the calico in a manoeuvre not dissimilar to a barrel roll, and strolled over to Jessie in a way that made it seem as though she had simply decided to walk in that direction completely of her own volition, regardless of any human machinations. She paused and sat just out of reach, her tail flicking and her head turned purposefully away, one ear turned to Jessie as though neither would notice. 

“Oh, you little arsehole,” Jessie grumbled, and trundled ungracefully out of the armchair and onto the floor to reach her. She ran her hand along the black cat’s spine, moving to scratch behind her tail as Whizbee purred appreciatively. “She’s all fixed up now, but when we got her she was in a right state. She’s a Matagot, some pompous Quidditch player was using her as security and she got injured in a robbery.” Jessie clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “Lost her leg, but otherwise she’s good as new. I even got to see her transform the other week when Juniper tried to chase her up a tree.” She laughed. “Nasty shock that was for Junie, when she came face to face with a panther instead of a housecat.” 

“I don’t need security,” Draco said softly, smiling as Whizbee turned from Jessie to himself, butting her small head into his shin and chirruping needily. He reached down and scratched the back of her ear. “I appreciate a good sense of humour when I can see it, though.”

Jessie hummed. “That’s a good thing, she’s a wobbly girl with an attitude. She likes you a lot, though.” The Pygmy Puff was back in her hair, swinging from a small lock escaped from her plait by her ear. She tucked him out of her face gently. “She hasn’t tried to bite you once, yet. Left tooth marks in Harry, last time he tried to pet her.” 

Draco felt the small vibrations of Whizbee’s purring as he ran his hands across the soft fur of her ribcage. “I like her even more, then.” He paused thoughtfully. “I’ve never taken care of a creature before.” 

Jessie shrugged. “She’s not so hard. She’d probably like to go hunting, and don’t let her if you’re attached to any local fauna smaller than your average cow. Keep your sheep away from her. If you get a realistic enough bird toy, she’ll be satisfied as long as it sounds like it’s really dying when she eviscerates it.”

Draco hummed, thinking of Pansy’s stiletto heels and the way she leered at Neville in the bar. “That’s my kind of girl.” 

“She can use a litterbox, she had no complications from her surgery, just eats the same food that all the others do, no special diet…you take wolfsbane, surely?”

“No, actually,” Draco corrected, unable to remove the self-satisfied undertone from his voice. “A substitute. I’ve been working on it myself, for my Mastery.” 

Jessie cocked her head. “I wasn’t aware there were any substitutes.”

Draco’s smile was proud, like Whizbee against the calico. He flinched when Whizbee’s upright tail swiped across his face, denting the facade slightly. “There weren’t, until I designed them.They’re not approved for commercial sale yet, but I hope they will be sometime in the next three years or so.” 

Nodding, Jessie leaned in. “Lav really hates the stuff,” she confided. “She says it tastes awful, and it’s expensive as hell. Smells completely rotten, too, not to mention she feels like complete shit after every transformation.” 

“Mm-hmm,” Draco hummed, knowing the feeling very intimately. The wolf, unsatisfied, pacing under his skin, scratching beneath it as though to claw his way out from the inside. “Trust me, I felt worse on the more experimental versions of this one, I’m certain. But I’ve been working on it for the better part of a decade now and I can say, at least from what I’ve researched and from my personal experience, it’s a much gentler to-do than wolfsbane. It works with your wolf, instead of against them, so the physiological side effects aren’t nearly as awful.”

Leaning an elbow on her knee, Jessie stroked her chin thoughtfully. Between them, Whizbee had begun the wobbly process of attempting to groom herself, the small nub that was left on her hip waving as though her leg was still attached. “Let us know when you’re ready to sell, or if you need some help,” she said thoughtfully. “Or the support group. I’m sure they’d be into it.”

Draco nodded, having thought of this already but uncertain anyone would want to help him. It was good to hear Jessie offer, even if there was nothing she, personally, could do. “Alright. I will,” he promised. 

“Anyway, whatever you use, if you transform near her, just be wary. She might get territorial or not recognize you, and if she’s afraid, then you’ll have a terrified panther in a London apartment, and that’s not ideal. I’d take it slow, and if you want to try to spend the moon together, maybe try it out in a neutral space first instead of your living room.”

Draco nodded pensively. He wasn’t quite sure how that would shake out, but, if needed, he was certain he could foist her off on Neville in exchange for fielding Pansy away from him the next time she visited. Or perhaps shepherding them together, depended on how much Neville enjoyed that night. Draco still hadn’t found the time to check in with Pansy about the state of her conquests. 

“So,” Jessie said, drawing Draco out of his reverie and gesturing to the cat, who had, apparently deeply satisfied with her state of cleanliness, sunk to the floor and began purring loudly. “Is Whizbee the one?”

Draco bit his lip, considering. “What if something happens and I don’t know what to do? I’ve never taken care of anything before, only my houseplants. I…” Draco trailed off, thoughts spinning as he gazed unseeingly at his open hands. “What if I do something to hurt her accidentally?”

Jessie was frowning, small and thoughtful. Eventually, she said, “I think the fact that you’re already asking those questions means you’re more well-suited than most. Secondly,” and at this her voice took on a warm tinge, “We’re not going to disappear the moment you sign the paperwork. Your boyfriend volunteers here nearly every day.” 

Draco felt his face heat uncomfortably. “Oh, he’s not my boyfriend.”

“Is he not?” Jessie asked, surprised. “Could’ve fooled me.” 

Draco shook his head adamantly. “No, we…we have a history.” 

Jessie levelled him with an assessing look, and then shrugged. “So you don’t have a boyfriend. D’you want a cat instead?” 

Whizbee’s tail, much more streamlined and elegant than Crookshanks’ feather duster, swished and curled at Draco’s leg. She rubbed herself against his calves once more, emitting a small, purring “mmrow” as if to say, who wouldn’t?

“Well,” Draco replied, feeling Whizbee rub against his shins and reaching down instinctually to pet her arched spine. Perhaps not the most perfect replacement for Potter in the world, but. “Well, yes.”

Jessie shrugged and stood, entirely unsurprised. “Alright. I’ll get you a clipboard and the adoption paperwork.” 

Draco stared at Whizbee, feeling her soft fur under his hands, and thought of all the things he had not gotten to experience in his life because of fear. She climbed into his lap and began purring, and Draco could think of nothing else but counting backwards from ten, with a different cat in his lap and strong arms around him.

When Jessie returned to the threshold, clipboard in hand, Draco blurted, apropos of nothing, “Potter asked me to move in with him.” 

Jessie halted and blinked. “Alright,” she said, looking sceptical. “I asked Lavender to move in with me after we’d dated for two weeks. Kind of a stereotype, but it worked out for us.”

“Well,” Draco replied. “That’s different.” 

“Yeah,” Jessie nodded in a matter-of-fact sort of way. “Because we were actually dating, and you two are doing…whatever it is that you’re doing.” She said the last clause with a strange mix of humour, disdain, and judgement. “Not that I’m judging,” she elaborated, judgmentally. 

“I—but,” Draco floundered. “Well, no.”

“Is it a no?” Jessie asked, looking dubious. She handed him the clipboard. Draco held it in midair, as Whizbee was still in his lap and was making no motions to leave. Bluntly, Jessie said, “Don’t see how, really.” 

“Surely you must,” he argued. “You’re a Squib, not a muggle. You know who he is and who…well. Who I was.” 

“And thank god we’re not teenagers anymore,” she shrugged blithely. “I was a teenager once. You know what I did? I had a lot of foolish underage sex with disgusting straight men,” she told him plainly. “I regret that. It sucked and it wasn’t fun. But you know why I did that? Because I wanted to make my parents happy, and I thought dating men would do that.” She shrugged. “We age! You get older. You grow up and you figure out who you are. So what if it took you until thirty-three? That’s younger than most people.” 

“I’m twenty-four!” Draco protested hotly. He moved so quickly in his fit of pique that he disrupted a very disgruntled Whizbee from his thighs. Displeased, she let her  opinion be known by launching herself into an attack against the pen hanging on a string from Draco’s clipboard, violently flipping both out of his hands. 

By the way Jessie laughed, she knew his age already and had only said incorrectly to inspire this very reaction. “Even more younger than most people!” she insisted. 

After a giggly breath, she continued. “Look, Draco, you’re an adult. Do what you want. Life is hard. Why deny yourself things that make you happy?” 

“In the past, I’ve thought I wanted something and it was the worst thing that ever happened to me.” Draco felt his throat tighten and his lips twisted into a sad, rueful smile. “I only just stopped feeling like a monster,” he admitted hoarsely, thinking of Potter’s open, empty hand. “And yet here I am again.” 

Jessie rolled her eyes. “The drama ,” she intoned with exaggerated gusto, and socked him in the shoulder. “Let me give you some advice.” 

Scowling, Draco rubbed his shoulder. “I imagine you would even if I tried to stop you.” He wasn’t sure why so many women who associated themselves with himself and Potter were so violent-natured. First Granger, then Ginny, then Pansy—although, perhaps Pansy had always been like that, regardless of Draco’s or Potter’s intervention—and now this, from its most diminutive and unassuming of sources.  

Jessie leaned back and chuckled. “I’m not making fun,” she said, her eyes and voice fond, even though Draco felt his cheeks heat and felt indignantly like he was very much being made fun of. “Well, only a little. Just because you deserve it. Draco, we’re talking about a relationship, not a vow of blood supremacy. You can leave if it goes sideways, and that’s fine, people break up. You’re an adult, not some secondary school twat. You thought you wanted to join some racist cult when you were a teenager, then you realised you didn’t. That sucks, and it could have been permanent, but you managed. You’re here ,” Jessie gestured, waving her hand at the muggle lighting and the Creature Comforts printout newsletters and the pinned flyers on the cork board by the entrance to the cat room. “So clearly you realised what you actually wanted eventually, or you wouldn’t be talking to some random Squib. I’m sure coming here for the first time, or coming somewhere similar, probably really freaked you out, right?”

Draco recalled the muggle housemates with whom he’d been paired his first term at PITIE. He’d been so afraid of them, he hadn’t even realised they were just students like him, attending the University of London. He would hide in his own bedroom or washroom and listen through the walls at the tromp of their feet and their lighthearted chatter so that he could avoid running into them. It wasn’t until he quite literally ran into Cady on the front steps and she kindly stopped him from spluttering an awkward, terrified apology that he even let Leedy venture farther than their personal rooms, for fear that something might happen to his house-elf.

With a discomfited sigh, Draco nodded. 

Jessie shrugged. The little calico sniffed her boots with interest and Jessie smiled, even more indulgent with her than she was currently being with her human counterpart. “So maybe it’s not about being fully ready, yeah? Just let yourself trust yourself.”

Draco blinked hard. “I’ve just…” he found himself grasping at words determined to elude him. “I’ve worked so hard to be who I am, to be better. This feels…it feels like some sort of premature celebration for a finish line I haven’t yet reached.”

Ladon had been born of the single bravest act he had ever committed. Draco had thought he had known what bravery was, fixing the Vanishing Cabinet to save his mother when she refused to save herself, remaining at the Manor when it would have been easy to escape, enduring that awful torment with the idea lodged in his head that he couldn’t go, he needed to protect his mother, he needed to protect the house elves and the Manor and perhaps they had needed protection, all of them, but not whatever feeble protection a sixteen year old child could offer. As an adult, now, the mere thought of what had been forced upon him made him seethe with barely repressed fury. 

No, they had not needed protection from him, and Draco had been too sheltered to understand that what he had been taught had been fundamentally flawed. That he did not need to cling to this family who seemed sometimes to hate him, that he did not need to remain in this deadly prison simply because his parents—the adults in the family, and ostensibly the wiser members—refused to free themselves. 

So he had stayed, and the only good thing that had come out of it was being able to truly be brave that one illuminating dark night in the cellars. The night that Ladon was given to him, and the night that Draco knew he had become a monster. 

When he understood was unceremoniously redeposited in his aching body that dawn, he cried in Luna’s arms in mixed relief and grief. There was no more fighting it. There was no more striving to be good for his mother, for his father. He would never be good for them, because he never could any longer. It was an impossible, eternal, unwinnable game, and in a matter of moments, he had been removed as a player. He felt for the first time in his life as though a heavy yoke had been lifted from his shoulders, and he was finally able to square his shoulders and breathe in deeply. Draco had seen his wolf and rejoiced for the monstrousness he was newly capable of, the freedom that provided him in the den of demagoguery and cowardice in which he had grown and then languished. 

He had only seen him for the rage and violence he could provide, for the utility he added to Draco’s life as a weapon, rather than the vibrant, lovely, multifaceted being he truly was. It had taken so much work. So many hours of fear and grief and helpless rage in Vee’s office. But he had finally come to accords with Ladon. He had finally gotten to like Ladon.

He had stopped denying himself things out of fear. He had begun making overtures with his housemates, had befriended Cady for all that she made references to things he didn’t understand. She had tolerated his eccentricities with good-natured humour, and didn’t laugh at him when he coughed so hard he felt ill, the first time he smoked a blunt. 

He had begun spending more time with Teddy, because he stopped fretting he was too unbearably cursed to be like Lucius or Narcissa. He started letting his intuition guide him, started trusting in Andy or Ladon or even himself to know how to act with the little boy. And he loved him so, so much. 

He loved Harry so much too. It was an awful, sickening, frightful love. 

“Do you receive love as a reward for being good?” Jessie asked softly. She reached a hand to his knee and squeezed. “Or do you receive love because you’re a person, and people love you?”

Draco looked into her face, to those kind brown eyes, the blue hair that the timid Pygmy Puff was still braiding his way into, the smattering of freckles across her nose. Too knowing by half, her expression was unbearable to look at, like the sun shining down on all Draco’s shadowy hidden fears. 

“I…” he blinked, unaware of when the lump in his throat had formed, but knowing that it had suddenly become quite hard to breathe. 

And then Jessie told him, with a pragmatic cast to her voice that was at odds with the devastating truth she was so unflinchingly baring for Draco, “From what I’ve seen of him, Harry is a pretty honest person. If he says he loves you, then that’s what he wants to do. If you want it back, you only have to let him.” 

Harry smelled of cut grass and sunlight and smiled at him like Draco had hand-delivered his Hogwarts letter to him. He held him through awful fearful nights and brought him lunch when he forgot to eat. He read Draco’s books on lycanthropy and welcomed him to Grimmauld Place with a knit blanket and a warm hearth. All this, and yet still Draco hesitated, uncertain. 

I know, Draco thought. Whizbee butted her head against his hip, as though knowing he needed the reassurance. When he reached out to pet her, she dragged the length of herself under his palm, tail straight up in satisfaction. I know he loves me. But do I love myself enough to let him?

Jessie gazed at him knowingly. “I don’t know, Draco, but it seems like you want to. Otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we?” She leaned back, and her smile pushed wise, sly corners into her cheeks. “What does your wolf think?”

Draco’s wolf was an undignified bastard who would roll over backwards for Potter if he asked. He would know, because Ladon had shown him the memories of the Shrieking Shack. The useless fool hadn’t taken advantage of Potter’s fear once, though Draco had been quite pleased when he first recalled Potter saying he was even more fearsome than Granger. A feat, that, even if it didn’t mean much at the muzzle of a werewolf. 

Draco tsk’d in distaste. “Mind your business,” he grumbled. 

Jessie laughed in his scowling face. 

Chapter Text

“Have a biscuit.”

Seated at her desk, Headmistress McGonagall looked nearly the same during Harry’s eighth-year career consultation as she had during his fifth, save for how the war had aged her. The deep line between her brows and the firm set to her jaw were missing alongside Dolores Umbridge, but the welcoming smile for Harry was the same, as were the biscuits on a tray between them.

“You’re well-positioned for the Auror Department,” she agreed when he mentioned what he was thinking of. “You’ve a letter of acceptance before you’ve even taken your NEWTs, which is highly unusual. But then,” she remarked, looking at him from over the bridge of her hands, amusement in her wry lined eyes, “you’ve never been usual, Mr. Potter.”

Harry shrugged, biting into a biscuit and recalculating as the whole thing began to crumble in his hands. He ended up shoving the entire mess in his mouth, chewing vigorously and failing to look subtle as he brushed crumbs off his robes onto her carpet. Swallowing heavily, he coughed, “Yeah. Erm—it makes your job easier, I’d guess. Not always, but today.”

Her voice was warm when she replied, “Not always, indeed.” She sat back in her chair and levelled him with an assessing stare. Bizarrely, Harry was reminded forcefully of Crookshanks. He wondered if the two of them ever met, when the Headmistress wandered the castle in feline form. Would they be friends? Harry was not foolish enough to ask. 

“Are you sure the Auror Department is the right place for you?” she asked him slowly. 

Harry blinked. “Well, yeah,” he replied. “I’ve been thinking of joining the force since fifth year.”

“Yes, I remember acutely,” Headmistress McGonagall scowled, recalling no doubt the fraught exchange between her and the Senior Undersecretary to Minister Fudge. Pursing her lips at the disagreeable memory, or perhaps simply the lamentable company within, she bit into a biscuit herself. Hers stayed together, Harry noted, and wondered if she had cast some sort of magic on it or if he was simply unlucky. 

“I only wonder if perhaps you have considered that you do not have to devote your entire life to catching dark wizards,” she continued. “There are many paths open for you, should you be interested.”

Harry gazed at his hands, and then up at the portraits behind the Headmistress. He couldn’t quite meet her eyes, but spying Dumbledore watching grandfatherly on behind her was nearly as bad. 

“It’s what I’m good at,” Harry said, as though it were obvious. He shrugged again, a bit at a loss. “Professional Quidditch would be fun, but I want to help people, not make myself more of a celebrity.” He grimaced. “They write enough about me in the papers as it is.”

The Headmistress nodded pensively. Leaning forward again, she told him kindly, “If becoming an Auror is what you truly want, far be it from me to stop you. But if you would like to discuss your other options in more detail, my door is always open to you, Mr. Potter. Even after you’ve graduated.” 

“Thank you, Professor,” Harry replied, awash with gratitude for this formidable woman in front of him that had, except for Molly Weasley, been the closest thing to a mother he had ever had. 

She nodded. “Send Mr. Malfoy to me when you get the chance,” she dismissed him, and added unnecessarily, “I’m sure you can find him more expediently than I would.”

Harry found out exactly what Draco’s career consultation was about two months later, when the owl arrived at the kitchen window of Grimmauld Place. 

The only reason Harry could see out of the kitchen window that day, and especially open it to invite the bird in, was Draco’s presence. Otherwise, Harry would have had to go outside under a Disillusionment Charm to collect her, as Grimmauld refused to work with him on anything. On his particularly unlucky days, the door had stuck closed, and he’d had to read his mail in the dismal drizzle before it could be budged. He knew this from multiple infuriating instances of prior experience. 

The owl was a curt, professional sort of creature, the likes of whom Harry had encountered upon receiving his OWL results and his list of required textbooks each prior year at Hogwarts. This would be the very first time since learning of magic itself that he did not receive one. She remained at the window sill and pecked at Harry when he attempted to retrieve the letter from her leg, which, upon further inspection, was addressed to “D. L. Malfoy, Last Bedroom on the Right, 4th Floor, No. 12, Grimmauld Place, Islington, London” in ornate curling script. 

“Stay right there,” Harry instructed the owl, rummaging through the cabinets that would protestfully open–a meagre few–for treats. “I’ll go get him.” 

Untethered from the rigid Hogwarts routine, Draco was a late sleeper. Whereas Harry enjoyed the mornings, quiet and peaceful as they were before all the hubbub of traffic or the cantankerous shuffling of the agitated portraits, Draco preferred never to meet the sunlit side of them if he could help it. He was a nocturnal creature in more ways than one. 

Harry found him in his bedroom, the one that had once been Regulus’. The door was left ajar, as they both always did since returning to Grimmauld, the unspoken understanding between them that it no longer felt right to shut themselves away from one another, even though they retired to their separate bedrooms under the auspices that everything was as it should be. There were no curses or wards at the threshold, and Harry marvelled at how Draco trusted him, not to bar him entry from his personal quarters even when he was in repose. 

No, Draco’s only line of defence was Jörmungandr, who slithered up to Harry and hissed congenially. Draco had rescued Jör from the Ministry-held Manor on the same day he had hired Leedy, an exhausting, eye-watering affair on all accounts. The little area rug had been in Draco’s possession since he was an infant, and he was very, dearly attached. 

Harry hissed back a happy hello, having always had a positive rapport

The dark, velvet bedding was flung this way and that. Draco was not a tidy sleeper, though he was fastidious in almost every other aspect of his life. He tossed this way and that, and often, at Hogwarts, Harry would awaken to a scene at the bed beside him that looked as though Draco had spent the night at war with his bedsheets, only to pass out mid-battle, a perpetual truce to be broken and bartered again every night.  

Within it, Draco’s tangled, bright hair was a beacon. One pale arm was flung over his head, as though he was drowning in the velvet duvet. His eyelashes fluttered in dreamful sleep, and his chest rose and fell gently. 

Harry always felt guilty, whenever he saw Draco sleeping. He tried not to look, feeling as though he was encroaching on something unbearably personal. He was certain that Draco would not have liked the idea of Harry observing him for any stretch of time in such an unguarded position. But Draco had left his door open, and there had been no curses on the threshold, and there was an owl waiting impatiently in Grimmauld’s kitchen, so. Harry thought it was alright if he took a moment to admire the way that sleep stripped the lines of strain and sorrow from Draco’s face, washed the grime of his life from him and made him look as youthful as he truly was. 

Casting a soft chime alarm from his wand, Harry quietly called Draco’s name. The light sleeper he was, Draco’s bleary eyes were balefully open almost immediately, though they were gritty and sightless with sleep. He rubbed at them and yawned, looking in that moment more like a well-bred, overlarge relative of Crookshanks than an albino peacock. 

“Why’re you here?” Draco glared, his mumbled half-accusation muffled as he turned to bury his flaxen head more firmly in the pillows. 

“Owl for you,” Harry answered. “She won’t let me retrieve it for you–pecked me twice for my troubles.” He lifted the proof in the meat of his thumb, but Draco had already flung himself bodily out of the bed. Stumbling and uncoordinated, Draco shoved Harry out of the way with a sharp elbow jabbed right between his ribs. As Harry rubbed his injured side, Draco barrelled down the stairs with such a klaxon that Harry wasn’t sure whether he’d run or tumbled. 

The owl had already departed, the envelope torn and at rest on the wide, clean, gleaming kitchen counter like the shed skin of a serpent. Morning sunlight from the bay windows streamed in, illuminating Draco’s frantic expression as his eyes skimmed the parchment so tightly gripped Harry felt certain it would rip.

The frenzied rictus on Draco’s face seemed somehow to solidify as Harry approached, morphing to something stonelike and heavy. He sighed and slumped into a kitchen chair that had all four legs and absolutely no  wandering hands attached to its arms, poised to pluck Draco’s plate from under his unwary nose and fling it across the room for the Snapdragons to wolf down. Harry didn’t often sit at the kitchen table anymore.  

On the table before him, two coffees appeared. One smelled of spice and chocolate, but both were steamed, hot and fragrant.  

“Thank you,” Draco muttered distractedly. He folded the parchment neatly in his lap, smoothing it, and took the cup from which the spicy cocoa scent wafted. He held it to his chest as though it was a small bird instead of a beverage, and did not move to drink it. 

Harry reached for the second mug, charmed for the moment that Kreacher seemed to be warming up to him, before it blinked out of existence. He let out an affronted noise as two twin pops burst beside them. 

“Mistress Cissy’s son is not wanting Kreacher’s coffee?” Kreacher asked ingratiatingly, wobbly and dismayed. Harry thought he was perhaps near genuine tears, rather than the usual strop he threw whenever Harry asked politely him to do something. In consternation he wrung his pillowcase toga, only ever clean in Draco’s presence as though to reinforce to Harry, when Draco was gone, how inferior he was to Mistress Cissa’s son. 

Smugly, Leedy chirped from behind Kreacher’s hunched back, “Mister Draco is preferring spiced coffee when he is feeling unwell.” 

“Kreacher, could I please have some coffee?” Harry asked with an edge to his voice. Kreacher glared at him as though Harry was something he had discovered on the bottom of his shoe. 

“The half-blood Master is wanting coffee,” he grumbled, shuffling his feet and still peering like a kicked puppy at Draco through his rheumy eyes. “Is Mistress Cissa’s son wanting anything else?” 

Leedy delicately cleared her throat. “If Mister Draco is wanting anything,” she piped, her nails a pale pink on hands dainty that smoothed her frilly apron primly, “Mister Draco can be asking Leedy, as Leedy is his personal house-elf.” 

Draco pinched the bridge of his nose and released a harassed sigh. “Thank you both,” he dismissed them. “Kreacher, please make Harry a coffee. I would like to sit in silence.” 

Kreacher bowed so lowly his beaky nose nearly pressed into the floor. Victoriously, Leedy curtseyed with a superior flourish to her movements. The both of them disapparated, though in their wake, the discarded cup of coffee returned to the table. 

Harry took it in hand, surprised to find it was the perfect temperature and not scaldingly hot. He took a tentative sip and took a quiet moment to ponder how his life might be different, if his house and his house-elf were not so committed in league against him. 

Draco had replaced the mug on the counter to re-read his parchment, his eyes floating over the page more moderately than he had before. His gaze lingered there, staring and impassive. 

“Whatever it is,” Harry offered, without a clue of what sort of news Draco had received,  “you can always stay here. I have fielding charms up to dispose of the worst of the mail–I can include your mail in the spell algorithm too, if you need.”

“That’s just it, Potter,” Draco replied, turning to him for the first time since waking up in disgruntlement and elbowing him in the ribs. His gaze was never so steely or so resolute as in that moment by the gleaming kitchen table. 

“I’m leaving.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry read the letter over again. 

Dear Mr. D.L Malfoy,

Congratulations! On behalf of the Committee on Admissions, I am pleased to inform you that you have been admitted as a full-time student to the seven-year Potion’s Mastery program beginning in September 1999. Your admission reflects your academic accomplishments and we are confident that the Potions and Ingredienteurs Technical Institute of England (PITIE) will help you achieve your professional goals. 

After personally reviewing every application, I am excited to welcome the diversity of backgrounds, talents, and significant achievements that will be represented by the students in this year’s entering class. You have been selected from a highly competitive pool of applicants and should be proud of your outstanding accomplishments. 

Furthermore, I am glad to welcome you to our Scholarship Program for low-income students, which shall find you subsidised housing not far from campus amongst our partners and provide you a board stipend at the student canteen . Please be aware that PITIE partners with a diverse group of academic affiliates, and therefore you may encounter cultural differences between your flatmates or housemates. Our affiliates include the University of London, the London School of Economics, the London Curse-Breaker’s Academy, and University of the Arts London. You may be paired with students from any institution. 

To confirm your intention to enrol at the PITIE, please submit your Decision Reply Form enclosed in this envelope and your non-refundable 200 Galleon deposit (which will be applied to your first semester’s tuition). Please note that August 1st, 1999 is the date by which you should inform us of your enrollment decision. 

If you have any questions about PITIE or the enrollment process, please do not hesitate to contact us by floo. Simply add one Sickle to your floo powder and ask the operator to transfer you to the PITIE Admissions Office between the hours of 9am and 5pm, Monday through Friday . Please be aware that wait times may be extended closer to the beginning of the academic year. The faculty and staff of the Potions and Ingredienteurs Institute of England are committed to making your experience both meaningful and enjoyable, and we look forward to seeing you soon. 

Sincerely, 

Ariadne Borage

Associate Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid 

Harry swallowed down a great lump of bile in his throat. 

It’s not that he’d thought Draco would just wander around Grimmauld like Miss Persephone, spectral and secret and Harry’s own to have, brightening the corridors with his presence and reviving the Fortune-Telling Roses and taming the seething Snapdragons and soothing the Venomous Tentacula. If he had given a second to truly think about it, he knew that Draco had a deep well of ambition within him, set alight to burn even brighter with his family name in disgrace. With gritted teeth and clenched fists, Harry knew Draco would claw himself from the muck his parents had left him in to languish. 

But he hadn’t realised, when he thought about the scale of Draco’s ambitions, that that meant he would leave . 

“This is brilliant,” Harry managed, looking up into Draco’s face, which was slowly softening as the sick sense of apprehension, anticipating a dispassionate dismissal, faded. Harry even thought he meant it when he said,  “I’m so happy for you, Draco.” 

Draco nodded and sipped his coffee, a small, prideful, melancholic half-smile tugging his lips. “I didn’t think they would accept me.” 

“Of course they would.” Harry smoothed the parchment and handed it carefully back to Draco. He took it and held it as though it were worth far more than its weight in gold. “You were cleared of all charges.”

“Except conspiracy,” Draco reminded him cooly. 

Harry shrugged. “Five years of probation and the inability to cast curses seems a bit excessive,” he replied, and Draco snorted, the first sound of true amusement or even contentment he had made all morning. 

“You can’t possibly mean that,” scoffed Draco.

Harry furrowed his brow. “I do mean that,” he maintained. “And anyway, you were salutatorian every year except seventh and eighth. Seventh was a total wash, since you didn’t return after Christmas, and then you were valedictorian this year even with all the, well. All the whatever.” Harry waved his hand in the air in a circular fashion, as though that summed up all the whatever nicely. 

Draco tsk ed judgmentally. “There were barely two dozen people returned for eighth year,” he said scornfully. “It was hardly difficult.” 

“‘You should be proud of your outstanding achievements’,” Harry quoted. “Who are you to go against the Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid?”

Draco sighed. “It feels false,” he admitted. “Like they know my name and my background and my marks, but if they knew who I am…” he gazed off into the corner, where Crookshanks had begun launching a defensive against the potted Devil’s Snare. Harry had stuck it up there so it would stop trying to strangle him whenever he walked by, and so none of the other ungrateful plants would suffer a similar gory fate. Crookshanks seemed keen for the challenge, though, swishing his bottlebrush tail and batting meanly at the vines that stretched for him. 

Harry bit his lip and studied Draco’s face while Draco studied Crookshanks’ tactics. “Is that why you seem sad about it?” 

Draco glanced back at Harry and scowled. “I’m not sad about it,” he argued, clearly sad about it.

Harry held up his hands. He knew he had less chance of winning this fight than the Devil’s Snare. “Alright.” 

“I’m not ,” Draco insisted. “I’m excited. This is a fantastic opportunity. I’m just, I…” he took a deep, fortifying  breath. “This feels like the first thing I’m really doing for me , ever. And-and my Mind Healer and I have been talking, often, and, well. We both agreed that I should pursue their housing assistance program. I’ve never lived on my own, and I think–I think I might need that. To figure out who I am and what I want. I might need that space, and–and maybe more, too.” 

The Devil’s Snare plummeted to the ground and shattered in a shower of terracotta, soil, and wormlike roots onto the hardwood floor. Its fronds waved in the air helplessly, like a beetle stuck on its back. 

Harry couldn’t help but relate. 

He’s leaving , the open cupboard door chanted at him from deep within his soul. He’s leaving, he’s leaving, he’s leaving you . 

“More space from Grimmauld?” he fought to get out. His words were shaky, and saying them made him feel nauseated. Perhaps he could just rip his heart out of the cage of his ribs and give it to the Devil’s Snare, rather than suffer the agony of asking, “Or more space from me?”

Draco blinked and gnawed on his lip. He stared impassively at the panicked fronds, at how Crookshanks paraded in a bowlegged swagger around them. As if knowing when the silence became almost too much for Harry to bear, he finally said, “I really, really like you, Harry.” 

“That’s good,” Harry croaked, eager to jump on something that wasn’t the thought of Draco leaving. Gone. Leaving Harry, specifically. Alone in this house save for Kreacher and the awful portraits and the plants and the furniture, surrounded by enemies. “I like you too. I like you so much.” 

Draco was leaving, just like everyone else had. Ginny had gotten recruited for the Holyhead Harpies. Neville had begun apprenticing at a greenhouse near Wales, and Luna was still with her father on their voyage through Sweden, expecting to find definitive sightings of the Crumple-Horned Snorkak. Hermione and Ron were still in Australia, finally coming to a close of working through the slow, arduous process of rehabilitating Hermione’s parents. Harry’s only ally would be Crookshanks, and possibly Miss Persephone if he could convince her to show herself to him. Possibly Humphrey, who haunted the toilet tank. How had Harry been cut this low?

“I don’t,” Draco replied, with too much ease not to be practised. “That’s the problem.” 

“What?”

Leaning in, Draco clarified. “I hate who I am,” he said, with crystalline eununcement. “I hate what I am. Not as a werewolf,” he cut Harry off. “As a person.” 

 In despair, Harry flipped through the well-loved photo album of his memories of Draco. Draco, laying on the bed in their shared dorm room, unable to summon the energy to even kick off his shoes before laying down, watching Harry eat with tired eyes as his own plate sat under a stasis charm. Draco, sitting bloodied and silent on the floor of his first eighth year dorm room, the acrid sulphuric tang of piss staining Stephen Cornfoot’s bedding. Draco, spitting venom and seething with fury in Azkaban even as he shuddered with its deathly ceaseless cold, telling Harry as though Harry should have been the one imprisoned,  “ The stupidest thing I ever did was reach for you in the Fiendfyre. ”  

He desperately thought of Draco’s fine, flaxen hair on the pillows. Of the way he’d said ever so primly, as though Harry were a fool for even indicating that Draco would ever be anything other than an incorrigible pain in his arse, “ I’m sorry, not lobotomised.” The way, when he laughed in true mirth, his silvery eyes screwed closed and a high pink flush dusted the apples of his cheeks. The way he had reached for Harry, in the middle of a terrifying night, and Harry had already been reaching back. 

“You can’t mean that,” Harry protested, and felt as though the Devil’s Snare had wrapped a vine around his heart at the thought that once, before Harry had even known him, Harry had been the only person between them who thought Draco was worthy of being pulled from the fire. 

Draco smiled ruefully. “I’m afraid I do, Harry.” Harry was unaware of all the sessions spent by Draco in his Mind Healer’s  blue velvet chair. Of all the awful truths that had been wrenched  from the depths of him, as if from the grasping claws of Grindylows for how forcefully they tore at him. Draco had become very aware of his own demons, even those who tried, with every ounce of Draco’s prodigious creativity and intellect, to hide themselves.

“You can still stay at Grimmauld, though,” Harry protested. The chair upon which he sat had become so morose at the prospect of Draco’s departure that it had withdrawn the creeping hands which otherwise would have flung his coffee in petulant glee, the spindly wooden fingers retreating into their arms. “You don’t have to live in student housing.” 

“I’m not your charity case,” Draco argued, and the whole house seemed to sag with Harry at his words. 

Feeling as though his leg was sunk in the trick step on the Hogwarts staircase and he was being carried somewhere against his will, Harry replied with aching earnestness, “I never said you were.” 

Draco shook his head. “It’s not about you. I can’t see myself like that.” Visible from across the threshold, the wallpaper started to peel at the corners of the least-worst living room, the blossoms withering off the trees.

“You’re not a charity case,” Harry pleaded. The woodgrain of the floorboards began to darken with dust and grime, the patterns on the rug in the corridor becoming less defined, fraying at the corners. 

“And I don’t need your protection,” Draco added, his words feeling like a slap in Harry’s face despite the lack of rancour. Scuff marks and coffee stains on the kitchen table began appearing where moments before there were none. The gleam of the copper pots hanging from hooks by the backsplash tiles tarnished before Harry’s eyes. “I can protect myself. I can do this myself.” He held himself tightly, all sharp angles and defensive lines. He looked at Harry and his thinned lips wobbled, betraying the sadness he was trying to obscure. 

“I know you don’t,” Harry insisted. “I’m not saying you do. I just want to spend time with you.” 

Draco sighed. Into the creaking kitchen chair, he deflated like a torn balloon. He rubbed his tired face in his palms, his mussed white-blond hair appearing more grey than flaxen in the mournful, watery light cast from the blurry, streaky windows and sheer moth-eaten curtains. Harry watched with dread in his stomach the sharp angles of Draco’s shoulder blades, still stark even through his soft pyjama top, rise and fall with his deep breathing. 

If Harry could have ventured into Draco’s mind at that moment, he would have queued up, given his ticket to a chauffeur who looked quite like Leedy in a little white uniform and conductor’s hat, and been ushered onto a seat for this particular train of thought: Left unhindered to continue, Draco’s  situation would unavoidably spiral irrevocably out of his control. He would move back into Grimmauld, permanently this time, and he would crave the safety of Potter’s arms, the gentle caress of his rough hands, and he would begin to think of him as Harry , not just when he was in distress but all the time. His defences would crumble easily, because flimsy and breakable was the sort of stuff he was made of.

And Draco would forever thereon live in the shadows of his own life, so subsumed by Potter he would be. He would live as he had forced Ladon to do for so many months, an invader in his own life. He would never give himself the space to exist in any other way, because he had been taught at his mother’s knee that  the point of loving someone was to destroy yourself for them. Even though he didn’t want it to be true. Even though he knew it didn’t have to be, for people who weren’t him. 

But Harry couldn’t venture into Draco’s mind, he didn’t have the skill, and even if he’d had, it wouldn’t have been right. So he sat, and he waited, and every nerve-wracking moment he did so felt more agonising than any spell he’d been cast under. 

“I get defensive,” Draco said eventually, muffled and sad, as though Harry didn’t already know. Didn’t already love him for his ire and pride, and for every other thing he was. “I’ve let myself be controlled so very often before.” 

“I’m not trying to control you,” Harry replied, his hands clenched into sweaty, shaking fists on his lap. 

“But I might make it so you do, anyway.” Draco removed his face from his hands, all sharp points and dark hollows and deep lines, too ingrained on a face so young. He blinked at him, his eyes the same flat hue as his hair. All his vibrant colour, drained to shades grey. “I’m incapable of love, for now.” 

“That’s not true–” 

“Listen to me,” Draco interrupted him. “I didn’t say it for an argument. I didn’t say it for pity. I said it because it’s true.” Draco continued, brutal and crushing and honest, “I have no space for love. If I try to force it, I will ruin it.” 

Except for one delicate petal, limp and tenuously attached to the stamen, all the petals of the Fortune-Telling Roses in the pot next to the kitchen door had fallen and crumbled like old parchment. Harry watched them fall to the dry soil beneath and fade to dust. He couldn’t help but feeling it was an omen, a portent of his own loveless future. “I don’t think you will,” Harry protested, futile and fruitless. 

“Where in my life was there love, Potter?” Draco asked softly. His words were simple and resigned, not designed to cut but hurtful all the same. “With my mother, who bent to my father’s will at every turn, who prided herself on the placidity of objecthood instead of personhood? Who tried to teach me that the best way to live was to have no needs at all, and catered to his at the expense of mine and hers and everyone else’s in that wretched home?” Draco released a harrowed breath, sharp and fast. “Was it my father, who sold us all to feel important because all he ever knew of affection was domination?” 

He looked sadly at his hands, thin fingers so feeble and useless in the dim, awful light of this conversation. “Certainly not the portraits. They trained the two of them up, all my ancestors, and left me with this pit in my soul, Harry, this loathing and dread so ancient and foul within me that for all of our school years I thought it was me, this primordial hatred.” He blinked at Harry, unable to make eye contact as his faded eyes shined with emotion and fixated instead on the thin, unhappy line of Harry’s chapped lips. “I was always able to cast the Cruciatus, even if it was never on you.”  

Harry was so breathlessly, desperately sad. “You’re more than them,” he insisted, gripping the loose fabric of his faded, second-hand jeans so as to not clutch Draco to him, to refrain from grabbing him and shaking him and kissing him until all the love in Harry’s body burst forth and flooded his own. “So much more. I can see it, I know it.”

Draco shook his head, a wry, unhappy smile pulling those beloved lips that spoke such terrible truths. “I can’t see it,” he replied. “I don’t know it. And until I do, Harry, all the love I touch…” He reached out, brushing his fingers across the lonesome petal. It was just a whisper of a touch, a delicate kiss of the slim pads of his third and fourth fingers, but it was enough to send it collapsing to the heartless ground. “Will crumble.” 

“Don’t I get a say in this?” Harry bullied on. There was no life left in Grimmauld but for the choking Devil’s Snare, the spiteful Snapdragons. The portraits who cooed at Draco and spat at Harry. The curtains that shut him in the dark. “I love you.” 

Draco smiled, sad and angry at the words, but his eyes still watched the petals as they had Crookshanks and the Devil’s Snare. “But I don’t love me,” he insisted, his gaze somewhere lost in the middle distance. Misted and foggy, it had never looked less like the steely cut of his father’s. It was the dove grey of mournful, gentle melancholy. “Not yet. And until I do, I’ll always let myself be consumed, because I’ll always love you more. Do you see?”

Harry didn’t, not at all, and so Draco continued. “My mother loved my father. She loved him in equal measure that she despised herself. I know it, because it lives in me. This hatred has lived all through my family long before me.” Draco blinked, looking at Harry, unobscured, for the first time since reemerging. Harry wished he wouldn’t, for how resolute his gaze had become. Deep lines and shadows were all his treasured face was made of. “We’re not my parents, but for all everyone has said I resemble my father,” he sighed, “I’m afraid in all the ways that ruin me, I am my mother’s son.”

“We can help each other.” Harry kept up the pursuit, knowing, helplessly, that he only ran on two legs. Draco ran on four to the wilderness, where Harry was yet afraid to follow. Flashes of the dark cupboard, of Uncle Vernon’s purpled incensed face, of Aunt Petunia's pinched, disapproving, smeared pink lips, flashed before his dismayed eyes. Of all the ways he had failed his friends, of the screaming rows and the jealous insults and the grim miasma of fear and death that hovered over them all. He knew that Draco was not the only one with that seething pit of self-destruction within. “I know I have a lot to work on. We can work together, we can help each other.” 

Draco nodded. “We can,” he said. “I’d like that. I don’t want to excommunicate you from my life. But I need space. I don’t know who I am, and even though I’ve been told to hate who I am, I’d still like to make up my own opinion, finally.” The rueful twist of Draco’s lips, this time, was tinged with true affection. They were the same heartrending pink that the soothsaying petals of the Fortune-Telling Roses had once been. “You have given me quite the recommendation.”  

The halfhearted laugh Harry released was half a sob, the half his heart was in. “I love you,” he repeated, and finally, finally, Draco took his hand. Harry held it close to his chest, feeling the darkness of the house around him close and small. “I’ll wait for you.” 

Thin fingers grasped his shoulder, then knuckled his chin gently, forcing him to look up. Harry hadn’t meant to look away. 

“You won’t,” Draco insisted, resolute and intense, the way he got when he pieced together a challenging Potion’s replacement, the way he became at his best. “We grow together, apart, or not at all. No waiting. We’ll grow, and if we’re meant to, we’ll come back to one another when we’re ready.” Draco cocked his head, self-deprecation shining in eyes that were nothing like his father’s, and perhaps nothing like his mother’s, either. 

“It’ll be a different sort of love story.”

Chapter Text

Andy was wearing a dull orange shift dress. It was nothing like the dark number she had worn the other night. Now, at the kitchen table, her unlined lips were downturned in thought as she stirred her tea. 

“My family can be quite difficult,” she told him plainly, a statement so obvious that at first Harry thought she must’ve meant it as some sort of deadpan joke. Unfortunately, she was not joking when she turned her dark eyes onto him, empathetic and compassionate. 

She had crow’s feet by her eyes and smile lines by her nose. The last time Harry had seen Narcissa was at the trials, and Narcissa’s face had been blank and unlined as a porcelain doll while Harry spoke for her reduced sentence. Bellatrix’s face had been a maze of deep furrows, between her furrowed eyebrows, around her screaming mouth as she displayed her rotting teeth, on her forehead overscoring her wide, crazed, cruel eyes. 

Difficult, indeed. Perhaps Harry should be thanking the stars above that Draco was an only child. In comparison to his mother’s side of the family, Draco’s eccentricity was quite tame. Usually, Harry quite enjoyed it. He still enjoyed it, today, even though he felt quite a bit like he was suffering, too. 

“He said that I was very important to him,” Harry sighed into his mug. It was Teddy’s favourite, shaped like a purple hedgehog. “And that he messes things up that mean a lot to him. And then he said he needed to think about it.”  

Andy nodded. “I’m sure he does,” she said, patting his hand. “You two have circled each other for ages. It’s a big deal for him, changing things like this.” 

“I would date him!” Harry insisted, though Andy had made no accusations. “I would love to. I know the Prophet and their piece of shit reporters will try to rip us apart, but he and I both know everything they report is rubbish.”

Chuckling, Andy rapped a knuckle on the kitchen table. Unlike Grimmauld, which had been in an even fouler mood when Harry returned home than usual, this table had no coffee rings that changed colour depending on its pique, and the only scuff marks were from Teddy or Harry himself. “The reporters aren’t the issue, and you know it, Harry,” she said. “It’s the all-in thing for him, I would suspect. Neither of you boys know what it means not to throw your whole selves into something. He’ll come around,” she reassured him. 

Harry sunk to the table and stuck his chin atop his crossed arms, unable to sit still and yet boneless with worry. From the living room, Teddy could be heard smashing his legos with verve. He was playing Godzilla once again, no doubt, or perhaps dinosaurs. He preferred playing dragons when Draco was over—Teddy opined that Harry never did the roar quite right. 

Love isn’t a scarce resource, his Mind Healer had told him not three days ago. There is so much out there for you, Harry. 

Harry knew there was an abundance of love in his life. He had tried very, very hard to make it so after the loveless, hellish childhood he had endured. But this wasn’t a friend, or a mentor, or a child to help raise himself–this was a romantic partner, and it felt different. Bigger. More immediately personal, the depth of connection more complicated than pints with Ron after his shift or hugs with Hermione when he arrived at her kitchen to make curry after she nearly burnt down the house again. 

Draco would see all the spaces where Harry had never grown, where he was too damaged to fulfil, like a leaf massacred by aphids. Draco had already seen some of him, and, nervously, Harry knew there was yet more to uncover. 

“What if he says no?” Harry asked with a wobble, knowing, as he said it, that Luna or Hermione or Molly would have been a more appropriate audience to receive comfort from. Andy had been a wonderful mother to Tonks and was a phenomenal grandmother to Teddy, but she was also ruled more often than not by ruthless practicality. 

Her pragmatism showed in full when she shrugged and cast a warming charm on Harry’s tea, gone cold ages before as it sat untouched in his hedgehog mug. The hedgehog sneezed in surprise as the tea began to steam. 

“Then he says no,” she said. “It’s not the end of the world, love. It’s not even the end of any sort of relationship, really. You'll just keep doing...” she waved her hand, underscoring the gesture with an eye roll for good measure. "Whatever you're doing." The chair legs protested against the floor as she stood, not even a step’s distance between the table and the counter. “Now. Cut these onions for me, would you? I can’t stand them, and it seems you might need a good cry anyway.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Grimmauld Place could tell Harry was nervous. 

When Harry watered the Fanged Geranium, it gnashed its teeth worriedly. When he swept the dirt from the entryway, preferring as always to do his cleaning by hand, the dust bunnies skittered out of his way, rolling and tumbling and squeaking in their haste. When he set his mug down in the grimy kitchen counter, too hard as he had misjudged the distance, the counter itself revealed a small, spiderwebbing crack in its finish. 

Harry could feel it thrum in his chest like a plucked string, making his skin feel too small on his restless body. Within the confines of his ribcage, Apollo scratched and howled, lonesome and restless. Harry paced the worn floors, which no longer released loose boards but still groaned with every step, though the creaks were less shrill and accusing than they had been when he had first moved in. No, today the floorboards almost seemed to be in chorus with Harry’s exasperation with his own fearful spiral, his thoughts spinning in spirals tighter and more frenetic than he could contrive to imitate with his feet.

“Even if he says no, he still cares about me,” he told himself softly, watching the Shrinking Violets stretch to reach the streaming sun.”Even if he says no, it’ll be alright.” He knew it. Regardless, it felt like little consolation to the ache that already cratered his chest, and Apollo howled mournfully once more. 

He wanted to regret asking, but he didn’t. Asking Draco to return to Grimmauld had felt painful but cleansing, and Harry knew whatever happened next, he had done what he had needed to do for himself. Even if that meant releasing them from their mutual orbit. 

The last straw was Kreacher, catching wind of Harry’s anxiety and pestering him about it endlessly. 

“The half-blood Master is wanting tea? Plebeian Firewhisky to drown whatever sorrows plague him?” he croaked, obsequious in a way Harry knew was sarcastic. His pillowcase wasn’t the filthy eyesore it once had been, but it wasn’t the pristine white it only was in proximity to Draco. “Or perhaps the half-blood Master is wanting to drown his sorrows more fully. Is Kreacher to be drawing a bath?” 

“No, Kreacher,” Harry heaved, sighing his response in a heavy breath. He sank onto his couch, which no longer bit him or went swampy under him, though sometimes when it felt saucy it gave his bare ankles a coquettish lick from its wide tongue, which Harry opined was far, far worse than the biting. If it did that this evening, Harry thought darkly, he would vanish this whole living room into the aether much more thoroughly than he had Andy’s, and completely on purpose this time. “I’m fine.” 

“Master Harry Potter is lying,” Kreacher intoned, his bulging eyes even wider with incredulity. “Master Harry Potter is taking a blood oath not to lie.”

“It wasn’t a blood oath,” Harry snapped, rubbing the back of his left hand protectively. “It was some ridiculous punishment from a toady bitch when I was a teenager.” 

Kreacher gestured his scepticism so elaborately Harry was reminded of Draco once more and despaired. “Whatever the half-blood Master is saying,” he grumbled, wandering off up the stairs, hopefully to go badger one of Grimmauld’s many other inhabitants. Miss Persephone, perhaps, or Humphrey if he wanted a challenge. Harry contemplated sending him after the ghoul again–he hadn’t seen neither hide nor hair of him for eleven days after that, until Harry began fearing Kreacher had secreted himself away somewhere and died, his ancient body so dusty and calcified that it didn’t even rot after his passing. Maybe he would ask Kreacher to de-gnome the garden: he could use the outlet. Actually, Harry could use the outlet. 

And this is how he found himself de-gnoming Grimmauld’s wild, overgrown gardens at 8pm, right when Hermione called for their weekly Tuesday check-ins. 

His most recent capture had just released a satisfying holler as he’d flown ass over teakettle through the dim sky. Harry watched him somersault through the air, pick himself up dizzily by a far hedge, and scramble into the underbrush. It didn’t really do any good, de-gnoming the garden, as the bramble was so overgrown that it was hard to see where the property ended, if it did at all. When Harry had first been turned, he thought perhaps Grimmauld’s garden would be the perfect place for his and Teddy’s monthly fur appointments. It would be, though likely not until the far future, when Harry had managed to cut back the creeping vines and the scraggly thorn bushes and replanted lush green grass to cover the dead brown plants. In the distance, towards which the gnome was undoubtedly running, the wych elms stood proud and tall. A little woodland, just for Harry. Just for Apollo, Bear, and Ladon. 

If Draco said yes, just for Draco too. 

But that, well. That was thinking ahead. And Draco was still lost in thought, so Harry wouldn’t think at all, not if he could help it. 

“Save one of them for me,” came a voice from behind him, wry and soothing in its familiarity. Apollo could smell the scent of old books and tea and the faint smell of cat from Crookshanks, whose new first favourite place to sit was no longer on Harry’s face but primly on Hermione’s lap, as though he had never nearly suffocated his interim owner on a fortnightly basis. Beneath it all, a smoky scent of a dying fire made of dry summer wood. Hermione, and her magic. “I could use the stress relief.” 

Harry turned, already smiling. “You always remind me that it’s unkind.” 

Hermione harrumphed, brushing a stray curl that had escaped her headband from her face. “Yes, well, I’m sick of nagging,” she admitted, giving him a self-deprecating look. “It’s much more fun to give into my vices like you and everyone else around me does.” 

“Except for Percy and Audrey,” Harry reminded her brightly. “I don’t think they have any vices.” 

Hermione raised a knowing eyebrow. Far too knowing. “I wouldn’t be so sure,” she said with an arch little smile, and Harry did not like everything that she implied. “It’s always the mousiest ones that are the most sexually intrepid, sometimes.” 

“Dear god,” he stumbled, shielding his eyes. “How do you know that?” 

Hermione shrugged happily. “Audrey gets very drunk at Weasley Sunday brunch,” she informed him. “And who else is she going to talk to? Everyone else except for Fleur, Angelina and I are related to Percy by blood . Except for you, that is, but I doubt you’d want to know.” 

“I…” Harry blinked, and then shuddered. The part of himself that Draco almost always playfully brought out certainly was consumed by curiosity. Unwanted visions of Audrey in a latex bodysuit and stiletto heels chased images of Percy sporting a ball gag and a leash at her feet.  “Christ, make it stop,” he groaned, the rest of him that Draco did not as readily infect with his infernal need to know everything consumed with cringing mortification. 

“See? There it is,” Hermione nodded, and snatched a gnome from the ground, where Harry had Petrified him, moments before grabbing his brethren and flinging him. Hermione reeled back and hurled it nearly as far as Harry had. 

He gazed at her, impressed. “They do athletics training in the Unspeakables?” 

She scoffed. “No,” she replied, her clever eyes scanning the underbrush hungrily. The gnomes, sagely, had all retreated from view even more assiduously than when Harry had been hunting them down. Clearly they had their priorities sorted. “I’ve just got a lot going on. What about you, though?” She turned to him, all that intensity panned from searching Harry’s back garden to searching his face instead. “The moon is coming up.” 

“I…yeah,” he said, scratching the back of his head. Apollo had been making himself more and more present as the month had worn on, insisting that Harry spend more time with Teddy, with Andy, with Draco. His runs with the dogs at Creature Comforts had gotten much longer, his time spent dubiously helping Arthur fix his manifold muggle objects piling onto cooking with Molly and badgering Ron for a pint. He knew he should have been carving out more time to spend alone–had been reminded many times of the importance of time to himself by his Mind Healer and Hermione both, even without his wolf–but spending time alone right now felt like skulking back into the cupboard under the stairs, turning the lock, and throwing the key down a loose floorboard. “Yeah, it is.”

“You told me you had a plan for yourself and Teddy,” she said, which was true. She had been so frazzled with meticulously planning her work obligations around reading every single parenting book printed in existence, not to mention launching a one-woman offensive against her own unrelenting morning sickness, that Harry had hurried to remove his own plight from her plate lest she seize it as though it were the cheesy egg scramble at Sunday brunch.  “What is it?”

“Erm. Well,” Harry hedged, and gestured widely to his own of the non-conversational type, which leered at them much more menacingly than they had before they’d been called to attention. Yet again, Harry was reminded of Draco, and wanted to throw himself to the hedges for good. “You’re looking at it.” 

Hermione blinked and surveyed the triumphantly untamed miniature jungle that was Grimmauld’s back garden. “Suddenly, I am reminded of fourth year all over again,” she told him, in a measured tone that Harry knew was her trying very hard to be patient. “Shall we be staying up until three in the morning practising Summoning Charms this time around?” 

Hastily, Harry shook his head. “I still have time!” he protested, and he did. Roughly five days worth of time. If worse came to worse, he would have a lot of feelings to channel in battle, and then five days would be more than enough time. He’d have so much frightful energy that perhaps he could finally hunt down and rehome the ever-present but just-out-of-sight ghoul, or perhaps repot the Devil’s Snare, which was always jonesing for a fight. 

And if worse did not come to worse, likely Grimmauld would be so pleased that acres upon acres of well-tended French gardens, tidy wych elms, and perhaps even a labyrinth of hedges would promptly order themselves in line to eagerly welcome their new inhabitant. The crumbling little terrace and eroding stone wall would become a beautiful terrace, and Leedy and Kreacher would fight over who got to serve Draco lemonade first. Maybe this time, both of them would remember to give Harry a beverage, and argue about who got to do that, too.

Sighing, Hermione rolled her eyes. “Alright,” she muttered. “Floo me if you need me.” She sucked her teeth, unimpressed, before alighting at the sight of a single gnome peering cautiously out from around a bramble bush. She Petrified him with vigour, and Harry was struck by the similarity between her and how Teddy had engaged in battle against his own two-dimensional foe in a tin-foil hat.

“How have you been?” Harry asked. She had been at brunch last weekend, but that was always a flurry of motion and sound. There were so many people, and Harry had such fun, he really did, but there was not a second of peace for a clear, coherent conversation with that much chaos around. Especially not as every Sunday since their announcement, Hermione had been swept away by Molly to talk about baby names and health check-ups and homemade remedies. 

“Stressed,” she replied plainly, and delighted in watching how far her gnome flew. He landed with a satisfying, echoing thunk , and with Apollo’s ears, Harry could hear him grumble unintelligible obscenities directed at Hermione as he ran to the wych elms. 

Harry said nothing, just nodded and gazed into the overgrown underbrush and waited for Hermione to continue. When she did, she confided in a rush of words, “It just all feels like so much,” she began, biting a mint green thumbnail anxiously. “I just keep thinking ahead and getting overwhelmed—what will we do for their schooling? Should we get tutors? There are no maths courses at Hogwarts, and they’ll need to learn somewhere. I don’t want them to end up like Draco and having to learn how to divide fractions at age twenty-two for small-batch potions making! But they’re not even here yet, and I’m not even showing, and—it's just so much,” she repeated. “I’m trying to take it one step at a time.” 

“You’re doing beautifully,” Harry said, opening his arms and wrapping her in a hug. “You’re going to be such an excellent mother—you and Ron are going to be phenomenal parents.” 

At this, Harry could feel Hermione’s face do something complicated by his collarbone. He pulled away to see her frowning deeply.  

“I worry about my parents, too,” she admitted, and of course she did. 

Harry released a long sigh. Both of Hermione’s parents still struggled with their memories. Less so now, but if they did not see her often they would get confused, finding it difficult to parse out which thread of their lives was the true one. Less frequently now did they call each other Wendell or Monica, and even less frequently did they blink at Hermione with that terrible blank but perfunctorily pleasant expression one only ever wore for utter strangers. 

“What if I have a child, and they forget that child exists?” she asked him. “I’ve looked into things like dementia—their case is quite similar in some ways, when the spell gets too strong once more and begins affecting their short-term memory. I want them to be in this child’s life,” she insisted, and Harry wrapped his arms more securely around her shoulders. 

Harry mulled over what to say. He had never been good at talking about parents, not with Draco, who had only within the past year joined Harry on the side of both of your parents are awful, and especially not with Hermione, whose parents were not awful, which was wonderful even though Hermione’s life now was made so much more challenging because of it. 

“We’ll work on it together,” he promised, propping his chin atop her floofy curls, so much more well-kept now in adulthood than they ever had been as rangy teens. “You’ll have Ron, and me, and Ron’s whole family will be around. If Molly is ever too much,” which, Harry never thought so, but then, Harry would likely never be victim to a forty-five-minute-long opinionated tirade on breast feeding that left Hermione wild-eyed with panic, “Andy would always help you, Hermione. You don’t have to do this alone.” 

She sniffled and squeezed him back tightly in a crushing hug that once again left his floating ribs feeling vaguely bruised. Harry was certain there had to be some athletics component to Hermione’s Unspeakables training, to have arm strength such as hers. 

 “It’s just so overwhelming,” she said, wiping her eyes.

Nodding, Harry reminded her, “You know how nervous I was to begin spending time with Andy and Teddy.” So nervous, in fact, it had taken him nearly all of eighth year to commit to a regular schedule of visits, rather than just popping in at odd, rare intervals to hold Teddy with a mix of terror, dread, and apprehension, and then floo back to Grimmauld to have a little panic and lie to himself that he wasn’t wallowing in self-pity about it. “And he’s not even my kid. But! He says he loves me,” Harry shrugged, smiling, “so, if you have a little boy, I have lots of tips.” 

Hermione smiled back. “You’re really good with him.” 

Softly, Harry replied, “I really love him.” Giving her one final squeeze, he stepped out of her embrace so he could hold her shoulders and look into her face, so rarely uncertain as it was now. She seemed smaller when not led by some righteous, determined internal flame. “Just like you’ll really love your kid, and so will Ron, and so will I. So will everyone else in your life, even your parents, even if it’s complicated. We’ll make it work, and it’ll be fine.” 

“Thank you, Harry,” she sniffled again, wiping her eyes with the heel of one hand and blinking into the garden. “I get caught up in it.” 

Sitting down on a small, crumbling stone wall, he looked at the waxing moon in the evening sky, and thought of Draco. “I do too, ’Mione.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry was losing a race with the miniature cerberus but very nearly winning against the half-crup beagle when he got the alert from his wards that someone was at his door. 

“It’s 6:13am,” he marvelled breathlessly. The half-crup beagle oustripped him easily, small legs a victorious blur, as Harry wheezed, “Kreacher!” 

Kreacher’s pop! was deafened only by his wail of joy. “Mistress Cissy’s son is being at Grimmauld Place once more!” he sobbed, throwing himself to the grass. “Master Draco has returned!” 

“Shit,” Harry said, because what he really would have liked to do was throw himself on the ground like Kreacher, but he had a whole pack of dogs of various magical abilities and dubious senses of self-preservation mulling around a shining pond and an open clearing. Casting a hasty Patronus to help him round them up, his pearly stag cantered around the clearing, drawing chase from first the hounds, then the shepherd dogs, and then the rest as their friends began to pelt after the spell. 

Harry sprinted to the yellow door and burst through it in a sweaty, uncoordinated mess. Lavender yelped and stumbled into the Calathea, grabbing onto it tightly before it toppled over, spilling soil across the clean floor. 

“Sorry, I–” Harry swore. He had gotten all of the dogs completely riled up with his Patronus, which was still corporeal, in the corner sniffing at a spider plant hanging from the ceiling. It swivelled its head and Harry cringed, worried its great antlers would take out some of Jessie’s favourite additions to the decor. “Shit, I’ve–”

“Master Draco!” Kreacher bawled, his voice carrying from where he had dragged himself behind the barking dogs. 

Wide-eyed from behind the Calathea, Lavender mumbled, “Absolute chaos,” and cast a one-way muffling charm on Kreacher and the dogs. Whistling sharply, she commanded them into the blue door’s doghouse with as much ease as one could maintain while handling a dozen dogs, shooting Harry a look as he moved to help her corral them. 

“Is that elf yours?” she asked incredulously, nodding to where Kreacher lay sprawled on the ground with his limbs akimbo, panting and weeping. He let out a hiccough as he rubbed his eyes with his pillowcase, which was uniquely clean but unfortunately riding up. 

Harry sighed. “Yes,” he told her. “I–I wasn’t supposed to have company, but a guest arrived at my house that he’s very excited about, and I should…” he gazed at the dogs, most of whom were being surprisingly well-behaved, though the half-crup had a mischievous glint in her brown eyes that Harry found profoundly suspect. 

“Go on,” Lavender freed him, waving him to the front door. “This isn’t anything I haven’t handled before.” 

“Thank you!” Harry exclaimed, giving her shoulder a squeeze and bolting. He heard Kreacher disappear with a crack! that set the dogs off again, and Lavender hollered over them, “Don’t forget to cancel your Patronus!” 

Harry almost did, in his haste to return to Number Twelve, but he managed. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Draco had purple crescents under wide, sleepless grey eyes. His hair was mussed as though he’d spent hours running his hands through it in his carrel. His button-down was unbuttoned one at the collar, the sectumsempra scar kissing his jaw and caressing his neck the way Harry longed to do. 

Harry blinked. “You have a cat,” he remarked, buzzing with nerves, because a pair of wide, icy blue slit-pupiled eyes peered out from behind the translucent door of the carrier held in Draco’s left hand. His falling sleeve was sloppily rolled halfway up to his elbow showing the dying snakehead of the Dark Mark and his lycanthropy scars.

Draco was covered in scars, but Harry was the one cut up this early morning. 

“I do,” Draco replied pensively. “Can I come in?” 

Hurriedly, Harry tripped over himself to open Grimmauld’s front door wide. His Snapdragons nipped at his calves in warning when he stumbled too close to their pot. “You hate mornings,” he said, because it was true, and it was 6:34am, and Draco was inside Grimmauld Place for the first time since he had left five years ago. 

Draco sighed. “This isn’t so much a morning,” he deadpanned, swanning to the kitchen which was brighter than Harry had hardly ever seen it, the wood of the pristine table a welcoming, buttery yellow when Draco placed the carrier on it. “It’s more the second half of one very long 48-hour day.” 

Harry bit his lip, wanting to offer to help, somehow, guiltily knowing that he had caused Draco’s sleepless night. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to apologise, because he had made a blood oath at fifteen not to lie, and he wasn’t sorry. 

Draco tapped his wand to the translucent door of the carrier, and out of it cautiously slunk a small black cat onto the pristine table. She flowed down the table as if more liquid than solid, landing silently on the gleaming floor tiles to disappear into one of the few shadows remaining in the room. She did not, thankfully, seem to notice the Devil’s Snare, which Harry had elected not to repot in a  moment of clarity at one in the morning but was nonetheless in a towering mood by the corner, waving its fronds around menacingly. 

“Her name is Whizbee,” Draco told Harry, looking at the worn collar of Harry’s Harpies tee-shirt and the stubble on his chin. “She used to belong to a Quidditch player, before he got robbed.” 

“I think Ron had a case about that,” Harry recalled, because if this was the conversation they were having, then they would have it, he supposed. Even if every word that wasn’t Are you staying forever?, belched with force into the world as though it was some creature Harry had brought into the kitchen himself, made Apollo gnash his teeth. 

Draco nodded and looked away from Harry. He gazed at the array of houseplants, some nefarious, some benign. The Piping Poppies, which had a few lonesome sprouts, and Harry was confident would flower this year for certain. The Shrinking Violets which unfurled with the rising sun. The Snapdragon cuttings, who were grumbling sleepily by the window, and the Fanged Geranium propagation area, all their baby teeth beginning to fall around their jars of water as they began to grow their adult fangs.

“Those are useful in potions,” Draco said, gazing at the baby teeth. “They’re good for Everlasting Elixirs. And the Jawbind Potion, but the only people who use those are pranksters or Healers, so.” He gnawed on his lip much like the Fanged Geraniums he was observing.

“Draco—” Harry began, only to be interrupted by twin crack!s. He covered his face and groaned. 

“Mistress Cissy’s son has returned to the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black?” Kreacher asked shrilly. His  rheumy eyes were wide and watery with wonder as he wrung his clean pillowcase in his eager hands. “Master Draco is to be taking up his quarters in the last bedroom on the right on the fourth floor once more?” 

“Leedy has been making Mister Draco and Harry Potter coffee,” Leedy informed them both, ignoring Kreacher tartly and not fully managing to repress a disdainful curled lip as she glanced in his direction. She floated Draco’s spicy chocolate coffee and Harry’s own plain, milky one to their hands. Draco set his steaming mug on the table. Harry clutched his to his chest in gratitude, unwilling to release the first coffee someone else had willingly made him in this house without having to ask, badger, or nag, knowing that the moment it left his grasp one of the many conspirators in Grimmauld would ruin it somehow.  

“Thank you, Leedy,” Harry gushed, and Leedy glowed. She straightened the skirt of her pink gingham dress, and the strawberries on her bows grew more curling vines and leaves in pride. 

“Kreacher, may I please have a moment with Harry alone?” Draco asked Kreacher politely. Harry was reminded of how surprised he had been that Draco had treated Kreacher with such gentleness, when he first came to live at Grimmauld and Harry, young and foolish and filled with anger, had wanted him gone. 

Kreacher’s bare feet danced on the kitchen tile. “Kreacher is making Master Regulus’ room up immediately for Master Draco!” he cawed with fervour, and disappeared with a pop like the opening of a champagne bottle. 

“Leedy can be doing that,” Leedy ground out darkly, the strawberries on her hair bows blackening with her sour mood. “Mister Draco is not liking being called Master Draco.” 

Draco sighed. “Kreacher will always do what he likes,” he reminded her tiredly. “He’s very traditional. Leedy, would you please help him put my plants somewhere the ghoul and Whizbee can’t reach? And also make sure that Jör feels properly situated, please. Last time we moved, he wouldn’t emerge from beneath the bed for a week and a half.” 

“Jörmungandr was not coming out from under the bed because Mister Draco was being scared of his muggle roommates,” Leedy reminded him plainly, though Harry saw a spark of mirth hidden swiftly at being able to needle him in front of company. “Jörmungandr is being easily frightened.” 

“Yes, well,” Draco harrumphed, sinking into one of the kitchen chairs that welcomed him with open arms and absolutely no nefariously wandering hands. “There are no muggle roommates to terrorise him here.“

Leedy nodded archly. “Leedy is instructing Kreacher on where to put the pothos,” she announced, and departed with a much more demure little pop! than Kreacher’s own, as if to show Harry and Draco how it was done. 

The kitchen became oppressively silent without her. Even the gnashing of teeth from the corner with the Fanged Geraniums seemed quieter than usual. The air itself was thick and heavy with words unsaid, like before a great rainstorm. 

“It’s okay if you’re not,” Harry began, “But, it seems like…are you staying?” 

Draco was staring at Harry’s stubble once more. Harry wished he had shaved. He wished he had worn something nicer than a Harpies tee shirt and gym shorts. He wished he was a wholly different person, with obedient hair and stylish clothes and a general standard posture that wasn’t surely going to give him an incurable hunchback by the time he reached seventy-five. Unfortunately, Harry was all of these things, and he was only left to hope that Draco quite liked them, disparate ad imperfect as they were. 

“Yes,” Draco agreed softly, and met his eyes. “Yes, I’m staying.” He took in a shaky breath and stood, removing the steaming mug gently from Harry’s hands and setting it on the kitchen table next to his own. Reluctant though he was to let it go, it was replaced with something even more precious, as Draco filled the empty space with his body, slowly threading his arms around Harry’s shoulders and pulling him into his body. Draco hugged without the punishing emotional fierceness of Hermione–the integrity of his spine and ribcage was entirely undamaged, though the integrity of his lungs as they refused to take in air in that moment was questionable. “I'm not ready, but I'm as ready as I'll ever be." Harry felt his thin fingers threading through his hair, scratching his scalp softly. "I want you, I want this, and I want—I want to believe I want it enough that it will work, if we work together.”

"it will work," Harry reassured him, his hands eagerly reaching around Draco’s back.  He had hardly known anything with such certainty before. “We will make it work, together.” 

In the pot by the kitchen’s threshold, the Fortune-Telling roses had begun to sprout. Harry did not need to consult their soothsayings to know that his future was sweet. 

Not in Draco’s arms, and not when he kissed him, either.

Chapter Text

“Are you certain you’ll be alright?” Potter asked fretfully. He seemed to be holding himself precariously, as though if he were to reach out to Draco, he would fall. “I know what you’re going to say, but—but if it becomes too much, or, erm. Or anything, really. You can always come back.”

The dingy walls of Grimmauld had only just started to lighten. The creeping vines of the wallpaper in the second-least-worst living room had only just begun to sprout leaves. The windows in the kitchen had started to remain free of grime, even two days after they cleaned them, and they let the buttery sunlight stream through the room in a way that made it almost inviting. “Don’t write it off. You could stay here until you get a job, or until you get some savings and can afford a decent flat.”

Draco sighed, his melancholy tinged with reluctant fondness. “We’ve been over this, Potter.” Leedy was already gone, as was Jör and the majority of Draco’s belongings. His bag was packed, his possessions folded neatly by Leedy in a fine leather creation that Draco said he’d found in the attic. She had brought them to the dilapidated student home at which he had signed his lease, two streets away from PITIE’s main building. 

It was an inert structure whose stairs groaned and whose faucets leaked and whose windows never fully shut, but none of it was spiteful, none of it was purposeful. It was just some old house. It didn’t mean to be uncomfortable, the way Grimmauld did where every minor inconvenience was a pointed little jab. That was perhaps the most terrible part about it, when Draco thought too hard. The mindlessness and ignorance of it all. He had never lived in a space that wasn’t bursting with magic, not even Azkaban with it’s awful freezing walls and the incessant soul-shaving fear. But the student house was not Azkaban, thankfully, and it wasn’t Hogwarts, and it wasn’t the Manor, and it wasn’t Grimmauld. Though it pained him, it was exactly what Draco needed. A blank slate, upon which to write his own definitions of his life. 

“I know,” Potter replied. “I know. I just—I want you to know.” 

With a great crack! more forceful than Draco could remember in recent history, Kreacher flung himself to Draco’s fine leather loafers, uncaring about the tears that wet them.  

“Mistress Cissa’s son is leaving Kreacher!” Kreacher wailed, heaving with inconsolable sobs over the shoes Draco could no longer afford to replace. From Potter’s inconsolable expression, it seemed he understood the inclination. Had Potter less self-restraint, Draco was certain his socks would already be waterlogged. 

And then, of course, the portraits were awake. 

Before Wallburga could reach a volume that would colour even a trumpeting Erumpent green with envy, Potter cast a Bubble-Head Charm over himself and expanded it to encompass Draco as well. 

Draco cleared his throat pointedly, one elegant blonde eyebrow raised, and pointed downwards to where Kreacher remained spasming with silenced grief. 

Deeply and with a thoroughly beleaguered air, Potter sighed. “But it’s so nice and peaceful without him,” Potter griped, and Draco rolled his eyes. 

“Yes, well,” he retorted, “unless you want to live with this,” at which he swept a hand towards the decrepit house-elf, who now had his lined mouth open in a wail which displayed all his rotting and yellowed teeth, which was, unfortunately, every single one of them, “you’ll extend the charm so I can handle it like you clearly won’t.” 

Mulishly, Potter argued, “I could handle it,” knowing with every fibre of his beleaguered being that he had never and would further refuse to handle it in the future. 

“Right,” Draco drawled cooly, his disbelief crystalline as his accent. In expectation, his second eyebrow floated to meet the first midway up his forehead. 

“Oh, alright,” Potter harrumphed, and extended the charm. Draco was immediately assailed with Kreacher’s barrage of mournful lamentations, many of which were insulting to Potter and none of them Draco wanted to pay close attention to. 

Draco crouched down to Kreacher’s level and took a deep, steadying breath. “Kreacher,” Draco said forcefully, and Kreacher paused in his thrashing. His gnarled fingers twitched and clutched at his filthy pillowcase, as though he would grab Draco’s button-down and never release him until it tore. Draco cringed and hoped fervently he wouldn’t—he had wanted to wear it on his first day of classes. It was his favourite, a soft blue that he thought made him look less severe and reminded him of Luna’s eyes.  

“Yes, Master Draco?” he whimpered, wide-eyed, and gripped his pillowcase to his wobbling chin. The dingy yellow fabric had been pristine until Draco had stepped upon the landing with his packed bags.

Draco thought of how Ladon had fought him with anger and spite that masked the well of hurt that rose up from feeling abandoned. He thought of how they had spent so very long trying to get to some semblance of comfort, and how they still had so very long to go before that comfort grew to trust. 

Kreacher trusted Draco. Whether or not that was warranted through his actions, it had been given to him through his blood, and Draco owed a duty to it different from the obligations his parents had forced upon him. This was a duty Draco chose, one that he shined and polished with honour, rather than one that withered his soul as it was shoved into his arms by force, unwieldy and crushing in its weight, as so many duties he had tried and failed to live up to before.  

Draco rested a hand to Kreacher’s boney shoulder, the skin thin and sagging beneath his palm. “I’m not abandoning you, nor the House of Black,” Draco reassured him, and decided to sit right there on the dirty floor of the blackened landing in the smart trousers Leedy pressed so meticulously. “I’ve got to leave, but I promise you’re in good hands. Tell me what you’re worried about, and I’ll listen and try to understand.” 

Tearfully, Kreacher began in a thready croak to list all the things that would undoubtedly go awry without Draco’s steadying presence at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. All the while, Potter stood at their sides, listening to Kreacher’s weepy inquiries and Draco’s soft reassurances. Draco did not look at his face, so focused on Kreacher he was, but if he had, he could have seen the house-elf’s fear and loss reflected incongruously on his heroic features. 

“Sometimes we must love the others in our lives at a distance,” Draco said sadly. “That doesn’t mean we love them any less.”

And when he looked into Potter’s eyes, greener than any life-giving plant or life-taking spell, he knew it to be true.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was not the self-loathing that had bird-dogged Draco to the Mind-Healer every week. No, that would have driven him away, retreating into the maw of that dark pit that threatened to consume him, a black hole in his soul devoid of light or gentleness. It was not self-love, of which he had been laughably incapable of summoning and now, even a year on working with her, found elusive. It was no notions of worthiness or deserving that compelled him either, for if Draco got what he believed he deserved, no punishment on this earth would have sufficed. 

No, more than the mandates of his parole, what drove him to Vee’s office was greed. 

Draco had been trained to fulfil a legacy, and then he had watched as that legacy crumbled and slipped between his fingers. Watched as he and his family were publicly disparaged, his titles stripped of him, his prestige gone, and, finally, his very humanity wrenched away. And meanwhile, other wix, smarter or more cowardly even than he, had retained their place in society because they had run. Because they had different families. Because they were truly self-serving, not in the Slytherin fashion of protecting the hive above all else, but in the cold-blooded manner of the mother who devours her own young to survive. 

And after all was said and done, they were garlanded for it. While Draco rotted, a paltry stipend spat to him from the cruel mouth Wizengamot, and was chided for not expressing more gratitude. 

Certainly Draco believed, at the beginning, that he deserved to suffer. But that did not mean he could not do so in a gilded cage like the rest of the miserable, gluttonous, cowardly upper-crust. He just needed to figure out how to remove himself from his own way, so that he could white-knuckle his way back to the luxury he was once afforded, and then languish in ceaseless torment in a properly dignified manner. 

The past year in his Mind Healer’s office and out of it had provided him an excruciating instruction in self-compassion. Together, they attempted to excise from him the notion that he deserved to suffer–mostly, though sometimes he still felt the digging claws of those inky depths creatures drag at him. Ladon prowled at his ankles, silent as a ghost, his gold eyes flashing. He had not yet removed from himself the belief that he was owed material wealth to offset his own self-imposed flagellation, and truly, Draco didn’t want to. He liked Grimmauld Place. He liked fine wine, he liked Leedy and Kreacher’s bickering, he liked the Persian rugs and the decadent roasts and the glimmering crystal chandeliers, even coated in dust as they were. 

Committed as he was half heartedly in the demolition of that well-founded belief, his Mind Healer was also painstakingly working on helping him understand that he could instead provide the comfort that he craved to be fulfilled through external pleasures.

It was not a belief that had been demonstrated to him, in his childhood home. 

Endless frustrations and realisations, evenings spent on the floor of his and Harry’s dorm wallowing in self-loathing, in despair, in hopelessness. But as the weeks turned to months, those evenings wallowing became evenings he cast a silencing charm over his bed’s curtains and screamed out his fear and pain and rage, evenings he hyperventilated and laughed like his least-favourite aunt. 

They were evenings spent howling like the restless, rageful wolf who lived beneath his skin. Evenings spent exorcising the demons his parents, the Dark Lord, the slavering upstart beta wolf who had bitten him, and he, himself, had previously forced into the depths of his slowly curdling soul.

Draco wanted to be better. He wanted to have the space in him for love. And that’s how he knew that he didn’t, not yet. 

Draco was sad, certainly. He felt as though he had left a piece of himself at Grimmauld, so ferociously did he already miss the caress of the Snapdragons as he passed, the stream of sunshine through the windows as the curtains opened for him, the gentle susurrus of the rugs which lined up before him. He felt as though he had done something heartbreaking and final, leaving Harry at the threshold of his home, smiling bitterly as he raised his truth-telling hand to wave goodbye. 

But as Draco stood in the centre of his barren bedroom, he felt a spark of nervous excitement. There were so many things he could do here, so many new things to learn. So many new ways to grow and meet himself, to see what he was truly capable of when he lived for himself instead of for anyone else’s expectations.   

When all was said and done, even if Draco couldn’t safekeep the love mutual affection he and Harry felt like a possession, perhaps it wouldn’t be so terrible. 

Perhaps one day, Draco would meet himself, as he had done with Ladon. Perhaps, as Ladon had, Draco could grow to like himself. 

Maybe even love himself.

And though he didn’t yet, he felt hopeful as he sat on the hard twin mattress, in a room devoid of history, in a house that creaked only with the settling groans of an old house, that perhaps he could.