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Chapter Text

“You do know you’re using magic, right?”  

Harry bit his lip. “Obviously,” he lied. 

Focussing now, he could hear it. The gentle sound of dishes rearranging themselves behind him. He didn’t dare look, but he knew that if he did, everything would stop as though frozen. It never happened while he was paying attention. He woke up to laundry folded, curtains opened, coffee machine grinding. 

“What do you want?”

The tea was cold. Malfoy was frail-looking. 22, Highfield Road was still humming with his magic. Harry wanted to do something drastic, like grab Malfoy and throw him out of the building. 

“The Weasleys gave me the address.” Malfoy was eyeing the living room, the explosion of personality that belonged to everyone but Harry. Harry wondered if Malfoy could tell how little of this was his. He was sitting on a raggedy couch that Ron had shoved into a moving van for Harry. It made Harry’s hand twitch. 

“Granger-Weasleys. And that’s not what I asked.” 

“I heard-”

“No, you didn’t.” They hadn’t spoken since the trial, and Harry only spoke of Malfoy to two people, neither of whom were repeating Harry’s words. 

“I read ,” Malfoy drawled.

“Better.”

“I read in The Prophet -”

“Everything they publish is rubbish.” 

Malfoy shrugged. “Maybe. But they had all those photos, and they seemed pretty real.”

It was early when Malfoy knocked. Now it was still early, but things outside were stirring. Dogs were barking. Harry thought of the photos, which had once been like pressing on a bruise. He didn’t feel a thing now. 

“They were.”

“So, not all rubbish,” Malfoy waved a hand, “I wanted to make amends. Since I read… what I read”

Harry felt himself make a mean face. “You’ve made amends. You’ve paid. And those photos were a year ago, now.”

Malfoy smiled nervously. Harry thought it might have been charming on another face. 

“I paid. I sat in trials. I made public statements,” he rattled them off in that same bored way he had when he spoke up in school. He was still Malfoy. Harry was unsure how everyone but him had forgotten. He continued, “And yet you still drag my name in The Prophet.”

“They owled. I answered.” Not entirely true. They owled Hermione, since Harry was unreachable by owl. There were wards on the whole of Highfield Road. 

“ Draco Malfoy is, behind the pretty frocks and nice hair, evil. What he may be able to do to conceal that is impressive, but still, at its core, concealment. Manipulative. So no, I don’t consider his position in the Ministry a success for the Wizarding World. I consider it a step backward. Thanks, by the way. These frocks are expensive. ” He used the paper to gesture at his blouse. It was sort of Muggle, if a bit too posh and pretty to pass in this area of London, but Harry had appreciated the gesture when he saw him. He was not feeling so appreciative now. 

Harry reached across his coffee table to grab the paper from Malfoy’s hand. “No magic in my home. You agreed at the door.”

“I summoned it from my pocket.” Malfoy still had the whiny tone of a child, four years out of school. 

“That’s somehow worse.” Harry had had this conversation with everyone. Luna, Neville, every Weasley, Hermione. He had never heard himself do it with such vitriol. 

“I have never known a world without magic.” Malfoy sounded serious for the first time. Harry didn’t care. 

“Then leave,” Harry said.

“I’m sorry,” Malfoy replied simply. 

“I’ve heard this-”

“No, you haven’t,” sniped Malfoy. The humor was back in his voice, a jester-like lilt that made Harry’s fingers hurt. He gritted his teeth. 

“I’ve read this.”

Malfoy smiled. Harry looked away. “Much better. You’ve only read, so you don’t know a thing. I am sorry. Genuinely so. I was cruel to you and your friends for stupid and embarrassing reasons. I was, if it is any consolation, miserable doing it. I regret it often, and I am working to undo some of it. I have undone a lot of it, whether you like or acknowledge it or not.”

He was so fucking proper it made Harry want to hit the table. He didn’t, entirely because of the way Malfoy’s eyes flicked to his hands, which were tight around his cup. He spent a long time looking at the pale blue walls of the room. Malfoy sighed. 

“I’m sorry.”

Harry sniffed. “Cool. I’m sort of busy, so if you could…” He gestured to the door.

Malfoy looked at him, then. His eyes were grey, which Harry knew but hadn’t really processed until just then. They were large and lined with long, golden lashes. They were, Harry realized, filled with pity . Harry dimly registered the sound of a cup falling in the kitchen. Malfoy didn’t flinch, just held Harry’s gaze for another dozen seconds. 

He left. 

-

Harry walked a mile to the Sainsbury’s and got a loaf of bread and an ice cream. He thought of Malfoy the whole way.  

-

“He came by!” 

Harry hadn’t said a word yet, but something in his face had given it away. Hermione pushed past him into the house, which was fair enough since she had picked it out, taken the money from Harry’s savings, and furnished the place. It was the last property in the row of terraced houses on Highfield Road. It was almost certainly outfitted with muffling charms, although Hermione would never admit it. It was Harry’s. 

“Yeah. He did.”

“Ron sends his love,” Hermione said quickly, “how was it?” She was unloading her bag, which Harry realized was certainly enchanted, grabbing out bits of decor much too large to fit in the little handbag. She threw a pillow onto the couch, adding to the small pile she had made there already, and straightened a print she had put on the wall last visit. Harry watched as she slowly pulled out a quilt. 

“It was fine. He said sorry. I told him to leave.”

“Any…”

“Yes. But barely. Broke a cup.”

Hermione smiled toothily. She took off her jacket and laid it on the couch. “That’s good, Harry. Really good. This was yesterday?”

“Day before yesterday. Is that why you gave him the address? To see if it would break me?” He didn’t put any bite into it. 

Hermione smiled in the same way Malfoy had. It made Harry want to break. “Of course not. You said you were ready, and I believed you. You should have rang me after.”

“I didn’t need to talk to anyone. I was ready.”

“Maybe you’re ready for something else, then.”

Harry knew how this worked. Hermione and Ron came by at least once a week. They apparated into a wizarding pub in the city, walked to Highfield Road, and then badgered Harry about going out somewhere that wasn’t Muggle London. And Harry said no, because he didn’t want to do magic, didn’t want to be out where people might recognize him. 

“Not yet.”

Hemione smiled in that soft way again. Harry loved her, but it didn’t make a difference. He couldn’t do it. 

“The kids want to show you the Burrow. They keep asking if Uncle Harry can tag along, and we keep saying no. Would it be so bad?”

Harry felt something twist in his chest. “No. Of course not, it wouldn’t be. I want to see them. I want to see Rose’s little broom. I just can’t with the…”

“You’re not going to-”

“I don’t want to,” Harry said firmly. He had started this experiment less than a year ago. It was, so far, the happiest he had ever been. Him and this home, which had not one bad memory attached to it. This street, with his pudgy neighbors who brought him cookies and waved at him when he grabbed the paper. 

Hermione tucked her hair behind her ear. Her eyes darted to a spot behind Harry. He turned to see where the painting she had straightened was crooked again. Hermione sighed. “I know it makes you happier.”

“I still see everyone. I still talk to everyone. They just…”

“Have to get telephones. To pay pubs to apparate into their storage rooms. To bring two toddlers in the tube,” Hermione said. “We’ve all rearranged our lives for you, Harry. If it really makes you happier, we’ll keep doing it.” 

Harry didn’t have a response to that. He was so grateful for her, for Ron, for every person who came into this house and watched him boil water the Muggle way without a word. Hermione brightened suddenly, pulling something else from her bag. 

“ The New York Times . Muggle paper, from America. The Londis near the fire station on Kings Road had them. I gave them your address and bought you a subscription for the year. Early birthday present!”

Harry laughed. The paper thing had started as a misunderstanding. The Prophet had published that Harry was “quitting” being a wizard. It was sort of true, in that he wouldn’t be doing any magic, and he didn’t want magic in his home, and he wouldn’t go anywhere magical-

It was a lot true, but it had a lot more to do with not being in the Wizarding World than being in the Muggle World. If there was a third option, he probably would have gone with it. Instead, The Prophet published that he was immersing himself in Muggle culture. Well-meaning friends, supporters, and gits like Pany Parkinson sent him Muggle paraphernalia left and right. He collected The Guardian , The Times, The Sun, and the Daily Mirror. He read them in the morning. It was pleasant and domestic. It was nothing like what life had been. 

“I like it. Does it have…”

Hermione grin stretched across her face. “They’ve got a love section.” 

“American love stories. How novel.”

Hermione flopped down on his couch, big hair falling across the throw pillow she had just placed. She was soft-looking, and Harry felt his thankfulness for her like a shock.

“Draco and I are working on something together,” She said to the ceiling. “He’s clever.”

“Oh?” Harry said. He could change the subject, as he usually did when they got close to talking about the ministry, Malfoy, or anything that made lights flicker. But he didn’t.

“His department is helping with this new potion going around. It’s causing all kinds of aggression, strength, the works, but only in pure-blooded witches and wizards.”

“Huh,” Harry said. 

“I wouldn’t usually be included in this stuff, but they needed a press liaison, so I’m doing that. And the Department of Intoxicating Substances-”

“Malfoy.” He had read it in the paper, that Malfoy was going to head the new program.

“Yes. Malfoy is working on the potion. We can’t tell if it’s being spread in some kind of pureblood terror cell or if it only affects purebloods. Draco thinks it’s the latter.”

“You disagree?”

“There’s not any literature on how a potion like that would even be made. It would take a very talented witch, and his department keeps tabs on all of them.”

“You think he’s biased?”

“Not at all. You wouldn’t, either, if you talked to him,” Hermione tilted her head to where Harry was sitting near her feet. “Careful.” The edge of The New York Times was fluttering ever so slightly, as though there was a breeze. The moment Harry was aware of it, it stopped. 

“I did talk to him.” 

“He talked at you, and you didn’t even listen,” Hermione said. She raised an eyebrow at Harry’s face and threw her head back. “Yes, he brought it up. He thinks he made a fool out of himself.”

“Maybe he did!”

Hermione huffed. “He didn’t. You sort of did, though. What with tying his laces together.”

“I didn’t mean to do that!” He also hadn’t noticed he did that, but he decided to refrain from admitting it.

“Little embarrassing either way.”

Harry groaned dramatically. “Can we get drinks?” He always said it like that, get drinks, even though he never did get anything. 

“I have a late meeting. And I need to pick up the kids from the Burrow, Andromeda is doing something with them and Teddy.”

“Tell Teddy I say hi.”

“You could…”

“No. I couldn’t.” Something in Harry’s voice made Hermione sit up. 

“I know,” She said. “But I’ll keep trying. I’ll give Teddy your love. We can get drinks with Ron tomorrow, to talk about Nick. ”

“I feel like this is what having parents must be like.”

Hermione smirked. “It’s worse. Because we’re not afraid to ask which one of you takes it up-”

“Out!” Harry shouted. 

Hermione cackled the whole way out the door. A real witch, that one. 

-

“Hullo,” Nick said. 

Hermione had been upset when Harry moved from number 12, Grimmauld Place. This was mostly because of the location, but she eventually accepted that Harry was staying at 22, Highfield Road. It took her much longer to accept that she would no longer be his secret-keeper, and that there wouldn’t be a secret-keeper at all. 

After the photos, the paper seemed to be done with him. They had already collected The Chosen One Harry, Sexy Fresh Out of Hogwarts Harry, Sometimes Shags Men Harry, and Potion-Induced Breakdown Harry, so Lives in Muggle London And Enjoys Crosswords didn’t have nearly as much attraction for the wizarding public. Most of his fans had been turned off by Potion-Induced Breakdown Harry, and the ones who hadn’t, he could deal with himself. 

Nick didn’t know any of this. Nick was good at cards and slim in all the right places. Nick thought Harry had had an alcohol problem and worked as a consultant. Nick didn’t really ask questions, because mostly his mouth was occupied when he was with Harry. 

“How’s work?” Harry asked. “Any new… poems?”

Nick laughed, deep and rich. “Same ones as usual.”

“Read me one.” Harry led him into the house, and as Nick followed, he recited something that Harry vaguely recognized the form of. Nick was perfectly unfamiliar, comfortable and easy to be with. 

“Original language, please!” Harry laid back on his bed like a king, and Nick read to him. It was something like magic. If the carpet pulled up in the corners, neither of them noticed. 

-

“He… reads to you?” Ron sounded skeptical. “ Poetry?” 

“I think it sounds nice,” Hermione said, shooting Ron a look that Harry definitely wasn’t meant to see. “It’s romantic!”

Ron turned a shade paler. “Er,” he said. “I hope you don’t expect me…” 

“I read enough for both of us.” Hermione rubbed Ron’s shoulder. “I could read to you, if you wanted.” 

Ron replied by taking a long sip of his drink.

“He doesn’t read. He recites, very nicely. And then we…” Harry trailed off meaningfully.

Hermione said make love at the same time Ron said fuck. 

“Ron’s got it,” Harry said, looking pointedly at the booth behind them. The paint was peeling off the walls. 

Hermione pouted. “No romance, then?”

Harry shrugged, because it was a hard question. “Not in the way you’re thinking.”

“But you like it?” Ron said. 

“Er. Yes,” Harry replied. Ron turned red. 

“Not the sex. The… fling.”

“Yeah. I like it,” Harry said. He found he meant it. 

“Good,” Hermione said, smile blinding. Ron nodded heartily as Hermione continued, “Rose is flying sort of scarily well. Ron thinks…”

“She’ll be a celebrity!” Ron roared. He was a little drunk. Harry sipped his seltzer. 

“Sounds dangerous,” Hermione said airily. “Before Ron goes on about the…”

“The Sloth Grip Roll she did! It was like-”

“It was very cute. But I should warn you.” She sighed. “Draco. He might come by again.”

“Why would he do that?” Harry groaned. He picked meaningfully at his jumper. 

“He didn’t like how it went last time. He still feels…”

“Sorry?” Harry said. 

“Yeah. Something like that.” Hermione smiled in that nervous way. “I think you should give him a chance. Talk to him about something that isn’t Hogwarts, and the papers, and your history. That's how we made it work. We started with the easy stuff.” 

Ron’s head bobbed up and down excitedly. Harry wasn’t sure if he really agreed with Hermione or if they had spoken about this beforehand. 

“I don’t think we have anything to talk about that isn’t all of that” 

“Yeah. I know.” Hermione sighed. “But it’s worth it to try.”

-

“Oi!”

Harry had been having a good morning when Malfoy came knocking. He was reading something dull, which always made the house quiet down, and was well rested for the first time in a while since Nick had stayed the night. He didn’t sleep very well when he was alone. It was, again, very early.

Malfoy had been at his door for five minutes already, and Harry was faced with a choice. He could continue to ignore him and wait for something drastic to happen, like for his magic to blow up and turn Malfoy into a corn husk, or he could answer the door. It should have been an easy enough choice, but it wasn’t. 

“You’ve got mail! Like… a lot!” Malfoy was calling. “I’m going to rip it all up if you don’t let me in!”

Harry groaned up at his ceiling. He gave himself a countdown. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. 

“Don’t you dare-”

“This is actually quite interesting!” Draco said. His pale head was bowed down to the paper he was holding. It was The New York Times. Harry cursed Hermione silently. “Hey, given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?”

“Is that what you came here to ask?” Harry was incredulous at the Malfoy at his door, nothing like the nervous, apologetic man from a few days ago. He was unsure which one was the real Malfoy.

This one wasn’t making him as angry, though. 

When Malfoy looked up, his eyes were wide. “No. Granger told me to be myself, so I was going to sing you a song. But I like this a lot better. It’s from your Muggle news. Article on how to-” He stopped himself. “How to turn enemies into mates. 36 questions to be proper… mates.”

“We’re not going to be mates.” Harry reached for the paper, but Malfoy snatched it closer. He was wearing nice enough clothes. A tie. Harry realized he probably had work after this. 

“Oh, but we could be! It’s a very classic trope, you see, enemies to… mates.”

“We’re really not enemies either.”

“Don’t be a tease. You don’t write haikus in the paper about people you’re indifferent to.”

“I do not write haikus about you,” Harry said dryly. “More like sonnets.” Harry was forgetting who Malfoy was. He wondered if Malfoy would judge if he hit himself on the head a few times to reset.

Malfoys lips quirked up in a smile. “Can I come in?” 

No, Harry thought. Instead, he said, “Can you give me your wand?”

Malfoy looked surprised. “I can do wandless magic.”

Harry shrugged. “I know. It’s just a gesture.”

Malfoy gave him his wand. He wandered into the apartment, and Harry felt the same shock as last time, the sudden clarity as he saw his home as Malfoy must be seeing it. Sparse furniture, Muggle appliances. Photos of the Granger-Weasleys, a knit throw from Molly. A tapestry Luna had got him in Bulgaria, a cluster of succulents that Neville had forced into his hands with a promise that they were entirely non-magical, although Harry was suspicious of the one in the orange pot. The papers, which were sort of everywhere. 

“What did you want?”

“I want the boy who lived to forgive me like the rest of the world. I want to do my work at DoIS without everyone thinking it’s because of some grudge.”

“People think that you’re in DoIS because of…”

“Yes. They think I want to catch you high on potions again, which I am supremely uninterested in.” Malfoy perched on the couch like a bird. Harry started fluffing pillows, just to do something with his hands. 

“Hm,” Harry said. 

 “The moment you move on from a pillow it flattens itself right out. Counterproductive.”

“I can’t help it,” Harry said. He hadn’t meant to say it.

“Granger did make it sound like that was the case,” Malfoy said, voice flat. 

“She calls you Draco,” Harry said. It came out accusative. 

“I call her Hermione. But since you’re stuck in 1998, I thought I might as well play the part.”

Harry scowled. “You’re not convincing me you’ve changed.” 

Malfoy’s nose was in the paper again. “Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?”

“You can’t be serious.”

“ The idea is that mutual vulnerability fosters closeness. To quote the study’s authors, “One key pattern associated with the development of a close relationship among peers is sustained, escalating, reciprocal, personal self-disclosure.” Allowing oneself to be vulnerable with another person can be exceedingly difficult, so this exercise forces the issue .” Malfoy read from the paper. “Sounds perfect!”

Malfoy had a nice enough voice for reading. Not as nice as Nick’s, but still nice. 

“So we run through the questions, and we’ll be…”

“Mates!” Malfoy said. He was smiling. Harry wondered if this was what Hermione had been suggesting. Talking about something else. 

It was 36 questions. Harry could respond in monosyllables or outright lies to each one, and then Malfoy would be gone.  

“If we do all of them, and we’re still not mates, will you leave?” Harry said, slowly. 

Malfoy took a moment to skim the list with a long, pale finger. One or two of the questions made him grin in a way Harry hated. “Deal. And to be nice, I’ll go first.”

Harry nodded. “Go ahead, then.”

“I would choose my father,” Malfoy drawled. Only, when Harry thought about it, it wasn’t so much a drawl. His voice was deeper than he remembered it being. Sort of musical. 

Harry raised an eyebrow. 

“I miss home. I miss the manor.” Malfoy was being very, very honest. Harry felt all fuzzy compared to this sharp man. He felt like a kid for thinking half the things he did.

“Your father?”

“My father,” Malfoy sniffed, one pale hand coming to rest at his elbow. “He was everything he was. And worse. But he was my father. I have questions.”

Harry felt an ache like something had just separated from his heart and slid down his stomach. Malfoy was being honest. It would have been easy to lie, like Harry had been planning to do, but he didn’t. 

“Er,” Harry said. “Good choice.”

Malfoy scowled. “Be serious.” 

“I’m being very serious!” 

“Go ahead, then.”

Harry thought for a long moment. It would be easy to say something fluffy and false. It would be easier still to say something truth-adjacent, like his father. Harry said, “My Godfather. Sirius Black. I need to ask him if I’m quite as good at Quidditch as my father was.”

Malfoy cocked his head. “Not interested in asking him yourself?”

Harry had thought about this, of course. “If I had dinner with my mum or dad, I would never be able to leave. I would take my last bite and stab myself in the heart with a steak knife.” The words felt like they were being ripped from him. It was the most he had spoken about everything since the last time he had done magic, one year ago. Even Hermione wouldn’t have been able to get something like that out of him. 

Malfoy looked a bit ill. “Well. Good this is a hypothetical, then. Next question.”

“Can I ask a question?” Harry was starting to realize that he said things without thinking around Malfoy. Everything just fell out. 

Malfoy looked surprised. “Sure.”

“Why did you join DoIS? If not because…”

Malfoy smiled brilliantly. He had grown from his slimy look in Hogwarts, filled out in the face and shoulders. He looked like a ministry official. 

“Not because of you and your indulgence. I like potions, and I didn’t want to sell or create them because it felt a little heartless. DoIS has heart.”

“Huh,” Harry said. It seemed sort of noble. Malfoy’s lips scrunched up. 

“Anyway. This one is good. Would you like to be famous? In what way?”

Harry smiled. “No.”

“I thought so. I wouldn’t mind being famous for being very smart or handsome.”

“It’s not all that.”

“Eh. I don’t mind it.” And just like that, Harry was angry at Malfoy again. He was an arrogant prick. He always had been, and likely always would be. 

“That’s enough for today, I think.”

Malfoy shrugged. “Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?” He looked up from the paper. “I’ll be by for my answer tomorrow. Wand?”

Harry tossed him his wand, and he left. 

-

“Sounds like it went well!” Harry could hear pots and pans clanging through the phone. He focussed on Hermione’s voice. 

“I’m afraid I’m going to tell him things I don’t want to tell him.”

The sounds of the kitchen stopped abruptly. “Oh, Harry. He’s not like he used to be. He won’t use anything against you.”

Harry fell back against his bed, keeping the phone to his ear. “I don’t want him to know about me. About magic or the war or the whole thing last year. But he’s so open.”

Hermione sighed. “I know. He’s not got anything to lose, so he just… says everything.”

“Cards on the table. And then I feel like I need to be open, too. And I was.”

“What did you say?” A high-pitched shriek sounded on her side. Harry sat up abruptly. “Rose, hands out of the batter. Yeah, get out! Ron?” There were muffled talking sounds for a few seconds. 

“Sorry, Harry. Rose is in a sneaky stage. She says hello.” 

Harry grinned. “Tell her I say hi. Let her stick her hand in the batter for me.”

Hermione laughed. “I’d rather not. What did you say to Draco?”

“Er. Something sappy about my parents.”

“He won’t think any less of you for it. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“He’s not terrible to talk to,” Harry blurted out. “Well, he is. But not all the time. Sometimes it’s ok. It was ok sometimes, today.”

“That’s great, Harry!” Hermione sounded like she meant it. 

“I’ll let you go. He’s coming back tomorrow, by the way.”

“Really?” Hermione said. 

“Is that surprising?” 

“Well. I’ve barely had any free time with the Simmons case. That’s the one I was telling you about the other day. Just surprised he…”

“Maybe he’s got better time management than you,” Harry teased. 

“I’m hanging up,” said Hermione flatly. 

-

“I don’t,” Harry said. 

Malfoy looked taken aback. The door had barely opened when Harry blurted it out. Malfoy was wearing a tie. 

“And if I did, it’d probably go something like when I tried to rehearse talking to professors. Usually end up saying the opposite of what I had planned.” 

Malfoy smiled. “It did look so natural, how you put yourself into detention. Maybe it was that patronizing voice.”

Harry frowned. “I remember someone saying I had a voice like a mandrake.”

“That was before our third year. Then the patron came out.”

“Ah. I must have missed it.”

“It was very sneaky. Boy to man in a few months.”

Harry was feeling dizzy just from talking to him. He wondered distantly if Malfoy was putting in as much effort as he was. He let Malfoy in. 

“You call people a lot?” Malfoy said. He curled into one of the plush chairs Hermione had found for him. Harry sat stiffly on the couch. 

“I don’t use the Floo, or owls,” Harry answered. “So yes.”

“Hm. I don’t use a phone, but I think I would rehearse things if I did. I certainly rehearse before sticking my head in the Floo.” Harry found this image a little silly. He kept catching himself finding Malfoy charming. 

“I got a phone,” Malfoy said, waving it around a bit like a wand. “Hermione gave me your number.” 

“Oh,” Harry said. 

“Anyway. This one's fun, and so I want to go first. What would constitute a perfect day for you?” Malfoy leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “I’d wake up at the manor. It’d be empty, just me-”

“This sounds miserable-”

“Oh, sorry, let me begin again. I’d wake up at the manor. It’d be full of death eaters-”

“I could kick you out-”

“Let me speak! I’d wake up in the manor. I’d be alone, and then I would go out with my mates. We’d get drunk, eat cauldron cakes, and then I would come back home and have a very, very nice sleep.” Malfoy looked positively dreamy just at this thought. Harry realized with a start that of course, Malfoy wished for sleep. Everyone he knew had nightmares after the war. He hadn’t ever thought that the other side would, too. And of course, he wished for the manor, which as far as Harry knew was still inaccessible to the public. 

“That does sound like a nice day,” Harry said, honestly. “You don’t live in the manor?”

“I think I could if I asked. But it’s not the same home as it was.” 

“Have you visited?”

Malfoy brightened a bit. “I still play on the old practice field father made in Wiltshire. I don’t know the charms to put up the hoops, but it’s nice. You should come fly sometime.”

Harry stiffened. “I don’t-”

“I know. Harry Potter is a Muggle now. No flying brooms for him. It’s not really magic, though. No different than that.” Malfoy looked up at the ceiling. The fan was whirring erratically. It stopped. 

“Just don’t push me about it.”

“Okay,” Malfoy shrugged. “Answer the question.”

“I would wake up here. Mr. Holden next door would say hello when I got my papers. We’d chat. My- friend would come by. We would… hang out. Hermione and Ron and the kids might come by, too. And maybe I would finish the crossword in less than an hour. Or a puzzle.”

Malfoy giggled, a sound that Harry was used to hearing when he was in some sort of peril or generally being humiliated. “The papers would love this.” 

“What?”

“It’s just all so domestic!”

Harry felt himself flush. “I like it.”

Malfoy’s face softened. “I know, Potter. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?” Malfoy’s tendency to throw out a question without any transition was giving Harry whiplash. 

“I think I sang some nursery rhyme to Hugo a few weeks ago. And I think the Beatles to myself. Hey Jude, maybe?” 

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It’s a song title. From a very famous Muggle band.”

Malfoy looked disgusted. “That’s not a song title. Song titles are things like All the Wizard I Need. A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love.” 

Harry laughed. “I think Molly Weasley likes that one.”

Malfoy sniffed. “Then she has very good tastes.” Harry had to remind himself that Hermione and Malfoy were friends. Of course, he wouldn’t despise Molly Weasley. It still felt strange.

“You?”

“The new Weird Sisters single. Once in the bath, and then once at karaoke with Pansy.”

“Wizards do karaoke?”

“Of course!”

“You sing to a backtrack?”

Malfoy’s eyebrows shot up. “The artist sings with us. And they correct us on our vowel placement. You left the Wizarding World far too soon, Potter.”

Harry shrugged. “I don’t even know a single Weird Sisters song.”

Malfoy looked personally offended. “They were at the Yule Ball.”

“I never said I hadn’t heard them.”

Malfoy’s face went pale. “It’s excusable for you to not know them, considering your parentage. But once you heard them?” There was that arrogance. Harry was realizing that it didn’t have any bite to it. 

“I should have converted?”

“Yes,” Malfoy said. “Precisely.”

Harry checked the time. 

“I’ll let you go. I’m grabbing lunch with a friend-”

Malfoy’s phone began ringing, loudly. 

“Er,” Malfoy said, fumbling with it a bit. “How do I?” He was turning it on and off and on again. It was sort of pathetic. 

“Here,” Harry said, accepting the call. Hermione’s voice began trickling into the house. 

“Sorry for the call, Draco-”

“You’re on speaker!” Harry said.

“Oh! Harry, hi. I need to grab Draco for a moment, Mysteries just approved our… request, and I need him to look at what they sent over. Could you… hurry?” Hermione’s voice was tight. She wasn’t mothering Harry, or gushing about how great it was that they were speaking. It made Harry’s stomach twist. 

Hermione didn’t tend to bring up work with Harry, but for the first time, Harry realized something might be very wrong in the Wizarding World. Malfoy was biting his lip nervously. 

“It’s fine,” Harry said, and he found he meant it. “You can apparate. I don’t have wards put up or anything.”

Malfoy looked relieved. “Thank you, Potter. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

For the second time in a week, Draco Malfoy did magic in 22, Highfield Road. 

-

Nick noticed. Harry was on edge and twitchy at lunch, because something about that case- the Simmons case, Hermione had said- was darker and more twisted than Harry had thought. Hermione sounded worried in a way that Harry hadn’t heard since the intervention a year ago. 

“Are you alright?” Nick’s arm was on Harry’s. Harry wanted to shrug it off, which was terrible. Harry remembered, vaguely, how he had once been afraid to get close to anyone out of fear of hurting them. It was easy to forget that the version of him that he was scared of was still there, thrumming nervously behind his skin. Harry pushed it down. 

“Yes. Weird stuff going on with some friends.”

“Not the lovely Hermione?” Nick’s smile was just barely crooked. The two had met in a Muggle pub around a month ago because Hermione was Hermione. They had taken to each other immediately, which shouldn’t have been surprising. Nick was clever and confident, the kind of person everyone likes.  

“Yeah. Her job is sort of consuming. And I think she’s stressed.” This was what Hermione was always pushing him to do- take people through his thought process. Say the thing out loud. As usual, she was right. It was helping. 

“She’s got kids, right? Maybe take them for a day, take the load off.” It wasn’t a terrible idea. It really wasn’t a terrible idea. 

Harry took Nick home. 

-

“Why don’t you do magic?”

Harry had picked up the call on instinct. He hadn’t expected it to be Malfoy. 

“I somehow doubt that was a question in the Muggle paper.”

Malfoy wasn’t amused. “Answer,” he said curtly. 

“The papers pretty much covered it.” Nick was snoring softly next to him. Harry got out of bed carefully and pushed on his glasses. 

“I doubt that. All they post is rubbish.”

Harry smiled as he made his way to the kitchen. “Yeah. That’s true. Hey, it’s late.”

“I know,” Malfoy said. “I wanted to say sorry again for apparating in your house.” Harry was getting water from the fridge. He wondered if Malfoy was in pajamas. 

“It’s ok. I’ll answer your question tomorrow.”

-

“I didn’t like how I was when I was doing magic. I felt powerful.”

“Do you feel powerful when I do magic?”Malfoy was sitting cross-legged on Harry’s rug. Harry was in the chair Malfoy had sat in last visit. 

Harry scowled. “I just feel embarrassed for you.”

Malfoy gasped in mock offense. “Do you. Tough talk from someone too scared for a singles match of quidditch.”

“This is a pitiful attempt to make me play you,” Harry said. 

“You would have made a great auror,” Malfoy continued. “ The Prophet was always reporting how you were getting top marks.”

“But then I got into Felix Felicis in my third year. I know you think there’s something deeper to the story, but there’s not.” 

“But when you got better…”

“I didn’t get better.” Hermione and Ron had pieced him back together into something resembling Harry, but he wasn’t entirely the same. 

Malfoy tilted his head. “You’re not still taking it.”

Harry snorted. “Obviously not, or you wouldn’t be here. But the magic problem never got fixed. I can’t control it.”

“You used to be able to, at Hogwarts.”

“I had the control of a year seven Muggle-born who liked to play hero. And then I screwed up my wiring with shitty black market potions, so now I have no control. Hermione has spoken to a Healer about this. It happens.”

“You could train it back,” Malfoy said, like it was perfectly simple. He was still arrogant, but Harry had gotten used to it. 

“I’m not interested in risking it.”

“I have twelve acres where nothing lives and can do whatever you want. Summon a dragon, I don’t care.”

“You’re joking, but I might do it.”

Malfoy shrugged. “You made it look pretty easy to take one down.”

“You flatter me,” Harry said dryly. He could see Malfoy’s hairline from where he was sitting. His hair looked fuller than it had in school, which shouldn’t have been possible. 

“I’ve never had liquid luck,” Malfoy said conversationally. “I guess it’s nice.”

Harry bit his lip. “I don’t miss it.”

Malfoy raised a pale eyebrow. “I hear it makes an ordinary day extraordinary. You must have had a lot of extraordinary days.”

“I had a couple dozen extraordinary days. Mostly, I got scammed, and I was in the come-down. Which was the opposite of ordinary.”

“Unlucky?”

“Very. The Academy is probably still rebuilding all the walls I crashed through. I’m lucky they haven’t sent me a bill.”

“You’re not in the come-down now,” Malfoy pointed out. 

Harry shrugged. “May as well be.”

It was quiet for a few seconds, and Malfoy pulled the paper from his bag, sharp elbows pointing out from rolled-up sleeves. He looked young. Harry was suddenly remembering times he had jabbed Goyle in the ribs while making cutting remarks. 

Harry didn’t hate Malfoy’s elbows. 

“If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?” Malfoy looked up and smirked. “I promise I won’t make fun of you if you say body.”

“Thank God,” Harry said flatly “Body. I consider anything that fools the mind Dark Magic.”

Malfoy looked taken aback. His sharp features were pinched. “Even clarifying spells? I’m not talking about Obliviate, just things to wash the rot of an old mind…” he trailed off. “I would choose body, too. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with an old mind.” He paused for a moment.”What has Hermione told you about the Simmon’s case?” 

“Something about a potion. Sounds nasty.”

“It is,” Malfoy said. He looked like he was about to keep talking about the case, but said instead, “Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?

“Er,” Harry said. “This is kind of a dark question.”

“To be honest,” Malfoy said, “They get worse. But don’t you feel so much closer to me?” His voice was teasing, but there was a hint of vulnerability in it. 

“A little. I don’t think I’ll be making any more statements on you, if that’s what you're asking.”

Malfoy’s face soured. “Not what I was asking. Answer the question.”

“I did sort of know how I was going to die. First from Voldemort, and then consumption. But neither of those came true, so I guess they were faulty. If I had to say, I bet it would be my magic.”

Malfoy looked up at him in a soft sort of way that made Harry’s heart constrict. He was sort of a nastier, dumber Hermione. “No one will let you kill yourself,” he said. “Hermione would imperious you before you could.”

Harry wanted to say that Hermione had tried to imperious him, at his intervention, and that it hadn’t worked. He had blown up their living room anyway. Before he could see what Malfoy’s face would do if he said it, Malfoy continued. 

“I sometimes become hyper-aware of my work at the ministry. That I’m messing with potions that could that could probably kill me. So probably one of those will get me.”

“Hm,” Harry said, because he didn’t have a very good response. “Don’t you have to get to work?”

Malfoy’s lips pressed together. He usually left around nine, and it was half past. “Yeah. We’ve got three more in set I. Let's finish it tomorrow.” He stood up and wiped a massive amount of dust off his trousers. Harry felt himself go red. It was almost certainly something his magic had done. 

“Er,” Harry said. 

Malfoy’s grey eyes met Harry’s green ones. “I don’t mind,” he said, kindly.

-

“Hermione’s kids are coming over tonight,” Harry said apologetically. They had been snogging for a while, and Nick was getting handsy. “In an hour. So she and her husband can have a date night.”

“Oh!” Nick pulled away. “Do you need me to leave?”

Harry didn’t want him to leave. He was warm, and solid, and he didn’t point out the flickering light since Harry explained the building had messy wiring. The kids knew they didn’t bring their magic toys to Harry’s house, and they knew Harry would get sullen if they talked too much about their self-shooting water guns. It wasn’t necessarily risky. 

“You could stay,” Harry blurted. “They’re weird kids, though. They’re in a… wizard phase.”

Nick turned to him, amused. “That’s cute. When will they be here?”

The doorbell chimed merrily. 

“That’ll be them. Here, you can meet Ron!”

-

The kids loved Nick. It made Harry feel sort of sideways, watching Nick play along with their wizarding talk. He could pretend that Nick knew all about this world, that he worked in Mysteries or Muggle Artifacts, or something, and this was their life. 

Harry wondered if Malfoy was good with kids. 

-

“Name three things we appear to have in common,” Malfoy said. “I’ll go first. We’re good at quidditch, we both prefer coffee over tea-” He stopped, peering over Harry’s shoulder into the house. “Hey, you’ve had someone over.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, letting him in. “Hugo and Rose. And a Muggle friend of mine.”

“Oh?” Malfoy raised an eyebrow. 

“They’re young. It’s easy to write off as kid stuff. Teddy pretended to be a dog for like, a year.”

“That’s not what I was wondering about.”

“Nick,” Harry said, as though that explained it. He didn’t want to explain what he and Nick were to Malfoy. He wasn’t entirely sure he could. 

“Nice,” Malfoy said, flatly. Harry had that same feeling he had when Malfoy stopped himself talking about the Simmon’s case, like there was something else he wanted to say. 

“We’re good at quidditch, we both prefer coffee over tea…” He settled onto the couch. He had sampled every seating option in 22, Highfield Road. Harry supposed he found a winner. “And we’re both devastatingly good-looking.”

Harry laughed. “Both. Sure.”

“I suppose you are a little raggedly looking, lately. I guess if one was into that rugged look-”

“Oi! Let me have my turn. We both like blokes-”

“Low-hanging fruit, Potter.”

“Fruit,” Harry said. Malfoy groaned. 

“Please continue.”

“We both know Hermione Granger is better than us in every way-”

“I’ve better hair than her!”

“Sure, Malfoy. And we both had weird father figures.”

Malfoy didn’t argue with that one. “Alright, then. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?”

“My friends,” Harry said quickly. He didn’t feel the need to elaborate. 

Malfoy bit his lip. He was drinking coffee. Harry had offered Malfoy a cup, and Malfoy had seemed surprised but taken it. 

“I suppose it would be, and you’ll hate this, The Prophet. They redeemed me.”

Harry thought for a moment. “You redeemed you. What with all the charity and speeches and testimony at trial.”

Malfoy smiled. “Thanks, Potter. But no one would have cared if The Prophet hadn’t made so many flattering profiles.”

“I think I would have cared more, if not for the paper,” Harry said. He meant it. 

Malfoy smirked. “I’ll keep that in mind. Who would have thought Harry Potter’s type was unassuming Muggles?”

Harry laughed. “Anyone who knows me.”

“Ginevra didn’t fit that, did she?”

“Ginny. Yeah, she’s flying with the Cauldrons. It’s good, she’s fantastic.” It was the automatic response when someone mentioned Ginny. Harry didn’t even process that he had said it until Malfoy spoke. 

“Not at all what I asked.”

Harry shrugged. “I was young, I don’t know. I wanted someone to be close to me.”

Malfoy stared at his feet. “This is the last question in set I. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?”

“Oh,” Harry said. “You were right. They do get worse. Probably I would have more food, and someone to make me soup when I got sick. I always did like the idea of that.”

“The story on your Muggle family was true, then?” Malfoy looked sort of sick again. 

“Unfortunately.”

“I’m sorry,” Malfoy said, earnestly. 

“It’s alright,” Harry said. He meant it.

“If they weren’t death eaters,” Malfoy said. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

“So you would change that, then.”

“In a second. But it would mean I would still be an insufferable prat. The death eater thing did a lot for my character.”

Harry didn’t argue with him. 

-

“There’s whiskey in here,” Nick said. He was trying to put something together for dinner and had been rummaging through Harry’s cabinets. 

“Oh,” Harry said. “I keep it in there for friends.” It was something fruity, for Luna. She liked having something to do with her hands while they talked. 

“You don’t ever feel… urges?” Nick sounded hurt for some reason. 

“Er,” Harry said, because he didn’t. Alcohol wasn’t his problem. He only abstained because Hermione said he better, just to be safe. And he didn’t love how being drunk made him feel anyway. 

“Harry,” Nick said. His soulful eyes looked sad. “You don’t introduce me to your friends, excluding the two accidental times. You’re an alcoholic who keeps alcohol in his house. I don’t know a thing about what you do. What do you even consult on?”

“I’m sorry,” Harry said, because he was. He didn’t know how to go about telling anyone anything, unless, recently, it was Malfoy. Malfoy was easy, for some reason. 

“You can’t answer me?”

“I can’t,” Harry said, voice cracking nastily. “It’s hard.”

“You know everything about me. Foxhoven and her terrible assignments. My dad’s lungs.”

“I know,” Harry said. He was still sitting in the living room. He was, probably, failing. 

“I think,” Nick said. He had come to look Harry in the eye. “I think I need some space.”

“That’s okay,” Harry croaked. Nick had been about to make him soup. Leek and sausage, he said, his mother's recipe. Harry had been thinking of Malfoy’s soft eyes when he told him about the Dursleys. He could bring them up to Nick, right now, and stop him in the doorway. Nick would hold Harry and make him the damn soup. 

Harry didn’t say anything. The kitchen window cracked down the middle as Nick left. 

-

“Malfoy,” Harry said. “I want to go flying.”

There was some rustling on his end. “Potter?” Malfoy’s voice was thick with sleep. Harry knew it was late, but he couldn’t wait. He kept thinking of what Malfoy had said. You could train it back.

Hermione had said something like that, once. Harry hadn’t believed it. 

“I want to go flying,” Harry said again. “Tomorrow. In Wiltshire.”

“Are you ok?” Malfoy sounded alarmed. 

“Um,” Harry said, because he wasn’t sure. “Yes. I want to go flying.”

“Alright, then,” Malfoy said. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night.”

“Night.”

Chapter Text

“Ready?” 

Malfoy was in soft-looking trousers and a tight-fitting shirt. It was a variation on the outfit Harry had worn nearly every time Malfoy had visited, but it didn’t look the same on him. For the first time, Harry realized that Malfoy had filled out, strong shoulders and arms. 

“No,” Harry said. He grabbed Malfoy’s arm and brought him in. “Just do it.”

-

They apparated in Wiltshire. It was gloriously green and warm. The sky was full and blue. There was a shed with a few sleek (although outdated) brooms and an old-looking box of gear. It was, Harry thought distantly, dream-stuff. It was something out of a catalog, something Dean would have had a poster of. 

The bottom of Malfoy’s trousers were damp from the grass. He spoke as he fiddled with the lock of the shed. “They took everything, obviously, but they didn’t know Father built this shed for my tutor and I. Used to be hoops in the hills and everything, but I don’t know the charms to put them up and…” He trailed off meaningfully. Harry took it all in. He hadn’t seen anything like this in so long. The air was different here than in the city, fresh and wet. 

“I want to fly,” Harry said. 

He spent a while doing just that , feeling the wind snap his hair back, making the trees small below him, faking out Malfoy. Eventually, Malfoy pulled a snitch from where it was zipped up in his pocket.  

They played singles quidditch. Harry realized when the snitch got especially frisky on the second game that they were closer to Malfoy Manor than he had thought. For a moment, all that mattered was the cool air in his hair, the steady, solid presence of the broom. It was responding like his Firebolt, tuned into his small gestures like it was built for him. It was, he reminded himself, a Malfoy broom. 

Harry grabbed the snitch for the second time and stayed midair for a moment, looking at the dark shape of the manor. He could fly there, find something to hurt or be hurt by. It seemed inevitable. Just as he was about to edge his broom closer, he heard the woosh of Malfoy coming in behind him. 

Malfoy’s voice was tight with some emotion Harry wasn’t familiar with when he came up from behind Harry. “I think they might turn it into a country club. Nice catch.” 

“Have you been flying at all recently?” Harry said. 

Malfoy smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I haven’t had anyone to play with until now. Can you tell?” 

“Not your mates?”

“None of them like to fly. And none of them are any good. You’ve seen Greg fly.”

Harry let the snitch snap out of his hand. 

-

Malfoy won one game. Eventually, he had to go to work. He apparated Harry back to Highfield. 

“That was good,” Malfoy said. He was mussed and bright-looking, pink at his elbows and ears. Harry felt twisted up about it. He hadn’t remembered Malfoy looking like that after games. He hadn’t remembered much about Malfoy at all, but nearly all of it clashed with this Malfoy. It made his head hurt. 

Malfoy left. Harry took a walk. 

-

“Twice in one day?” Harry asked. He hadn’t expected Malfoy to come back, but he wasn’t mad about it. Malfoy didn’t wait to be let in, just ducked past Harry and splayed out on the couch. He didn’t mention that a lighter on the coffee table kept flicking on and off again. 

“We have more questions,” Malfoy said. His shoes were on the arm of the couch, sharp and shiny. “And this one is annoying. Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.”

“Hm,” Harry said. “How about we skip Hogwarts.” 

Malfoy groaned. “I don’t know if I have four minutes of life outside Hogwarts.”

Harry shrugged. “I’ll start. You can think of some fun lies to throw in while I speak.” 

Malfoy frowned. “I don’t lie.”

He talked about the Dursleys, getting pneumonia, meeting Hagrid. Then he skipped a few years and talked about the summer of advertisements, interviews, bad outfits and weird conversations. He talked about breaking up with Ginny because she didn’t like how often he was out, and drinking, and taking potions that were meant to help his sleep but just made him sort of manic. He talked about liquid luck, how it made him feel in control when Auror training made him feel wild and too-powerful. He picked at his jumper while he spoke, carefully not looking at Malfoy- or the lighter, which was making a low buzzing noise. 

“And then, at some point, I had to stop,” He said. His watch was telling him he had a minute. He sort of wanted to let it run out. “My friends made me stop. It had been the only thing keeping my magic in check, and that's how I ended up flattening… “ He paused, choosing his words carefully. “Some pub. The owners, we paid them to cover it up. So I stopped.” It came out slow and stilted. It had been four minutes, and Harry had only lied the one time. 

“You caught yourself when you fell on the fourth game,” Malfoy said to the ceiling. “You used magic. Nothing terrible happened.”

Harry took a long breath. The lighter was sort of shaking. “That time, nothing bad happened. Next time we can’t be so sure. I get drunk on it, Malfoy.” 

Malfoy pulled his head up to look at Harry, reminding Harry suddenly of Hermione. 

“We can work on it. Start now. Silence that thing.” He turned and gestured at the lighter, which was dancing across the table, still buzzing. 

“Seriously, Potter. It’s going to explode.”

Harry sighed. “Take your four minutes.”

Malfoy told him about the manor, and peacocks, and small deserts that were charmed to taste like your favorite food. Malfoy, surprisingly, took almost a minute on being gay, which made Harry squirm in his chair. 

“It made father angry, but he didn’t want to admit it. It made me angry, because I thought I must have done something wrong to be so terrible.”

Malfoy hadn’t spoken when Harry was taking his four minutes, so Harry didn’t say anything. The lighter began sputtering, spitting out impossible amounts of sparks.

“But that was stupid. It’s irrelevant. Anyway, I became a hermit, a bit like you, only I did a ton of magic, brewed a ton of potions. Then Mum and Dad died in Azkaban, and I thought I could do whatever I wanted. You know,” Malfoy said, voice flat, “Mum didn’t need to go to Azkaban. She didn’t do any killing or terrorizing personally, and no one would say otherwise. She didn’t fight. Wouldn’t let anyone fight for her, either. Anyway,” he continued, “DoIS took a chance on me. I gave away a lot of money. I said a lot of sorry. Then I came here.” There were some 30 seconds left. Malfoy was silent. Around second 25, the lighter exploded with very little ceremony, lighting the edge of a gossip column on fire. Harry hit it with a pillow a few times. 

“You like Substances?” Harry asked, standing to grab a dustbin for the bits of metal and plastic. The soot was probably there for good. 

When Malfoy spoke, Harry could hear the grin in his voice. “I love it. If I could wake up tomorrow having gained any quality or ability, it would be something with potion identification.” He picked up his voice a little to make sure Harry could hear him from the kitchen. “Maybe whatever it was Snape had that made him so damn good at it.”

“Hm,” Harry said. When he came back, the soot was gone. He didn’t say anything, and neither did Malfoy.

“That’s the next question.”

“Oh! Yeah. Probably I’d be able to do magic without going insane.” As though in response, the fridge beeped angrily. The door had just been closed. Harry sighed and finished cleaning up the mess of the lighter. It had been from France, a gift from Luna.

“So you want to do magic,” Malfoy said, standing, “but you’re just too scared.” Malfoy went to the kitchen, ostensibly to close the fridge door. It made Harry feel twisted up again. 

“You say scared like I’m some kid worrying about monsters under his bed,” Harry called. He probably would have been angry about this a week ago, but now, he was ok. He was almost warm. 

“I didn’t mean to,” Malfoy said warmly, returning to his spot on the couch. Harry was sort of kneeling by the table, so he could see all of Malfoy’s sharp profile. He looked like a movie poster. “But I think you can beat it.”

“Next question,” Harry said faintly, lifting himself back into one of the chairs. 

“If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?”

“I never trusted divination.”

“Muggle crystal balls are more accurate, I think,” Malfoy teased. 

“If it was accurate, I would want to know if I did it right.”

“Killing Voldemort?” Malfoy asked. 

“Not that. I did that right. But the after. This. If I’m doing it right.” He didn’t say, although he was sure of it, that he would ask if Malfoy here was right. It felt so right that it was almost certainly wrong. 

This was where Malfoy would usually chime in, but he didn’t. 

“You?” Harry nudged. 

“Oh,” Malfoy said, voice tight. “I’m not going to tell you.” 

“What?” Harry was half-laughing with disbelief. Malfoy kept surprising him, and he kept liking it. 

“I don’t want to tell you,” Malfoy said simply. 

“Is that how this works? You just choose not to answer questions you don’t like?”

“No,” Malfoy said, still laying back, still speaking in that small voice. Harry noticed suddenly that Malfoy didn’t have the paper anymore. He had the questions memorized. At the same moment, Harry noticed that Malfoy was tired. Of course, when he had walked in, he looked all sorts of askew. Harry hadn’t noticed.

He continued, “I don’t want to upset you. I’ll tell you eventually.”

“Is it the case?” Harry blurted out. “Simmons? Who is Simmons, anyway?”

Malfoy turned to look at Harry. “Potter. It’s not about the case. Do you want to hear about the case?”

Harry didn’t. He knew it was about Muggle crimes, and potions, and terrible things that made Hermione speak in that fast voice. But he nodded anyway. Malfoy turned away. 

“Hugh Simmons. He was the first Muggle who was killed by someone who had taken furoira . We didn’t catch on until two more were killed, both young women, but it was still his. If he wasn’t Muggle, it would be the Troutwell case, but it’s Ministry policy to name it after the Muggle. Reparations.”

“ Furoira?”

“Latin root. I had to give it a name. Muggle Killing Potion was starting to catch.”

“Aha,” Harry said, dazed. 

“Do you want to know more? If I told you the terrible details, if I told you that Hugh was practically tortured, would you go out and do something about it?” His voice had an edge to it that Harry hadn’t heard since Hogwarts. 

“There is nothing,” Harry said evenly, “Not one thing I could do to help with this.”

“Just your stupid face would convince people,” Malfoy said, defeated. “Looking crushed on the front page. This is big enough that there have to be people who know. About the potion or whoever is distributing it. And at least one of them has one of your stupid posters.” 

“I didn’t make anything off the posters, you know. That was before I got my agent.”

“A small comfort,” Malfoy said wearily. 

-

“Malfoy seems tired,” Harry said. Hermione and Ron shot knowing looks at each other. “What?”

“Hermione is tired, too,” Ron said. Hermione hit his arm. 

“The case is getting all of us,” Hermione explained. “It’s pretty bad. Malfoy is taking it especially hard. It’s the worst Muggle crime since the war.” She swirled her drink slowly as she talked. “It brings up old memories, for him.”

“He hasn’t really talked about it,” Harry said. “But when he does-”

“I think you’re the only one he talks to,” Hermione blurted. “Sorry, no, I know you are.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “He barely talks to me.”

“I know,” she said, “but it’s more than he does to me. Or Pansy. Or anyone.”

“How do you know what he says to Pansy?” Ron said.

“I met Pansy a few months ago. She’s… fragile.” 

“Oh,” Harry said, because he had never thought of that. That Pansy might be troubled in any real way. “Surely he talks to someone.”

“I think it’s just you. I mean, he spends nearly every night at your house.”

Harry felt himself blush. It wasn’t like there was anything to blush about, but he couldn’t help but read between the lines. 

“We just talk about stupid stuff. We’re trying to be…” Harry trailed off, because mates seemed like too big of a word for whatever they were trying to do. They were just talking. 

“Mates,” Ron said anyway. “It’s good.”

Harry smiled. “Hermione has you so nicely trained.” 

Ron and Hermione bickered for a moment, and Harry took a long breath. “I went flying,” he said. “With Malfoy.”

They were both quiet for a moment. 

“You went flying?” Ron said, incredulous. “You went flying with Malfoy? Without me?”

“I don’t know,” Harry stammered. Hermione was still looking at him like she had just figured out a riddle. 

“I think it’s good,” Hermione said flatly. “Was it good?”

“Um,” Harry said. “I think so? Are you two very upset with me? I’m sorry, it just felt right out of nowhere-”

“You and Nick broke up,” Hermione said.

“Yeah,” Harry said. “How did you know?”

“Something drastic must have happened for you to go flying. Leave Muggle London. You apparated?”

“Yeah.”

“And nothing happened?” Hermione’s left hand was twitching like she wanted to reach out and touch him. Ron still looked affronted. 

“It was good. I might…” He hadn’t thought of it until now, but he said it anyway, “I might go out again. Maybe a Wizarding Pub. Maybe flying.”

“With us?” Ron said hopefully. 

No, Harry thought. “Sure,” he said. 

Hermione swallowed. “I feel like you should have told us.”

Harry knew what she was going to say. “I know, I have an obligation to let-”

“No,” she said gently, reaching out to touch his knee. “No, Harry. You turned our home into rubble. We don’t care, because it’s you.”

Ron nodded heavily. “We don’t care. We just care that you’re alright.”

There had been precious things in the house, that night. An old portrait of Ron’s, school memorabilia that they should have been able to pass down to their children. Toys of the kids, who had been so small, then, and so luckily not at home. All Hermione and Ron had left was what they were wearing. 

“I’m so sorry,” Harry said, “I promised-”

“We never asked you to promise,” Ron said softly. “We didn’t want you to stop doing magic. We wanted you to stop trying to kill yourself.”

-

It was the third Tuesday of the month, and Luna Lovegood was at 22, Highfield Road. It wasn’t certain she would be there every third Tuesday, but it was certain if she was going to be there, it would be then, so Harry made sure his schedule was clear. Just in case. 

“You’ve been practicing,” she said dreamily. “And not in the fluttery way you usually do.”

“Not really,” Harry said, pulling the Muggle whiskey bottle from his cupboard and pouring out the clear, pinkish drink that Luna preferred. It was one of the very few Magical items Harry allowed in his home. 

“It’s making the air all thick. Your magic. Your feelings.” She stuck her tongue out and made hands for the cup of her drink. 

“You don’t like it?” Harry said, amused. 

“Draco’s been here,” she answered.

“Yes,” Harry responded. He handed Luna the cup. “He has. Is that ok?”

Luna shrugged, wrapping two pale hands around the glass. “He did a profile in the Quibbler. You don’t even have a subscription anymore, so.”

Harry sat facing her. “I don’t have The Prophet, either.”

Luna sniffed. “So much news you’ve missed. Let me tell you about the Yormaks Daddy found in Siberia.”

Harry laid back with a grin. “Do tell.”

-

“Luna’s been here,” Malfoy sniffed. There was a new lamp on the bookshelf, yellow and orange in the shape of some strange animal, unmistakably Luna. Now that Harry had noticed the dullness in Malfoy, he couldn’t not notice it. He was starkly pale, his eyes heavy and dark. He looked more familiar this way, less put together, struggling. He was like the Malfoy whom Harry had once almost killed.

“Since when are you two friends?” 

Malfoy pushed his hair behind his ears in a nervous way, folding into his usual spot on the couch. “Since I imprisoned her. And then sometimes gave her water, and food, like a good little kidnapper.” He grabbed for a newspaper from Harry’s pile, looking intently at a photo essay as though he might be able to disappear. 

“Oh,” Harry said. “She didn’t make it sound like that.”

Malfoy perked up a little, pressing the paper closed. “What did she say?”

“She just noticed you’d been here. Seemed pleased about your Quibbler profile.”

Malfoy brightened considerably. “I saved my coming out for that one. Wanted to make sure it sold.”

Harry made a special effort not to have feelings about that, because of course, Malfoy, with his pressed shirts and sharp humor and strong, sharp lines, could be kind to people Harry cared about. He had every right to be kind. It didn’t mean a thing. He was kind to Hermione, Harry was sure, because they worked together. Harry looked down and allowed himself to smile.

“Ah,” Harry said to his lap. “Noble.”

“I thought so,” Malfoy sniffed, folding his pale hands on his lap. “Anyway. Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it? Before you answer, do you think we’re becoming mates yet?”

“Oh,” Harry said. “Yeah. I think we’re mate-adjacent, at least.”

“You flew with me. You won’t fly with Weasley.”

“That was different. Probably I’d like to go tell Umbridge how much I despise her. I can’t because it would confirm the theory of the Wizarding public that I’m insane.”

“How was it different? And you can go hex Umbridge right now if you’d like. I don’t know how to tell you this, but you confirmed the theory of the Wizarding public that you were insane when you moved here.”

“Because it’s different. And no, I cannot, because that’s evil, which is exactly what I’m trying not to be.”

Malfoy gave him a long look. “You’re not evil, Potter.”

“Some people say you’re evil,” Harry said, because maybe he sort of wanted to prove to Malfoy that he was evil. 

“Some people say I eat Muggle babies and use their finger bones to floss,” Malfoy replied smoothly. 

“Is that your answer? The thing you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time?”

“Yes,” Malfoy said, grinning wickedly. “If only I could find a properly fat Muggle baby to eat.”

“Answer for real.”

“Solve the Simmons case. I can’t because there is only one Hermione Granger and I am a moron.”

Harry frowned. “You’re not a moron. And it’s not been that long of a time.”

“Next to her, I am.” Malfoy didn’t sound all that hurt about it. “The only other thing I dreamed of doing was coming here, and forcing you to be my mate. I’ve done it.”

“She thinks you’re great at potions.” Harry pointedly ignored the bottom half of what Malfoy had said.

“Flattering, but irrelevant. It’s still going badly. She’s got some evidence she won’t show me. I can’t imagine why, but it’s surely no good.”

“I thought she was just consulting? Or doing like, press?”

“Hermione does what she wants. She thought she wanted to help, but now she’s basically Minister for Simmons.” Again, Malfoy’s voice was light, unbothered. Harry wasn’t sure Malfoy was arrogant at all. At least not in the ways that mattered. 

“I’m glad she’s on it,” Harry said. 

Malfoy frowned. “I’m not. She has children.”

“Oh,” Harry said. “It’s dangerous?’

“It’s murder, Potter. Murderous potion-brewers. Usually, Wizards who kill with potions are cowards who can’t even cast Crucio , but this one isn’t. He’s been killing his suppliers.”

“Oh,” Harry said again. “Maybe she shouldn’t be on the case.”

Malfoy looked thoughtful. “Then it would never be solved. This one is easy. What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?”

“Stopping,” Harry said truthfully. 

Malfoy looked surprised. “Stopping… taking potions?”

“Yeah. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and it was all me. Voldemort was about fifty people, and I just got the credit for it.”

Malfoy was looking at Harry in a searching way. There was a softness in his eyes that Harry had never seen before. He thought dimly that he would like to keep doing things that made Malfoy look at Harry like he was worth something. 

“I suppose it’s not really an accomplishment, but not killing Dumbledore when I had the chance. It’s not something to take pride in, not doing something terrible. Most people don’t ever murder anyone, or come as close as I did, and they don’t go around-”

“It is an accomplishment,” Harry said gently, just to stop his rambling. “You fought back.”

Malfoy gave him that searching look again. “Thank you, Potter.”

Harry noticed Malfoy looked a whole lot more alive than he had when he left. 

-

That night, Harry dreamed of Draco Malfoy. 

Malfoy was perched over a cauldron, face obscured, robes fluttering about menacingly. He could only tell it was Malfoy from the shock of pale hair and nimble, long fingers. They were in a dark room, and when Harry called out Malfoy’s name, he was surprised to find his voice tinny and small, like a child. It didn’t matter how he sounded. He wanted Malfoy to look up at him with his warm eyes, to make that little smirk and ask him to go flying, or to a pub, or some prying question. He wanted to peer into the cauldron. 

Malfoy looked up, and Voldemort grinned at Harry. 

“Silly, silly boy,” he said, and it was Voldemort’s face but Malfoy’s familiar voice, smooth and just barely teasing. “I have a question for you,” he said, and Harry’s head spun. He took a small step forward and woke up. 

-

“Luna told me about this new pub in Lambeth. Wizarding pub.”

“It’s four in the morning, Potter,” came Malfoy’s voice. The same gentle tone as his dream. Malfoy, Malfoy. Why did this feel so okay when nothing else did? It had felt like liquid luck was coursing his veins when he picked up his phone and dialed the number. 

“Wizarding pub,” Harry repeated faintly. “I’d like to go.”

“It’s a date,” Malfoy said tightly. He hung up. Harry threw himself back into bed, breathing heavily at his ceiling. He walked to a stationary shop and bought some paper he didn’t need right as they opened. 

-

“This is nice,” Malfoy said drily. The place was nice enough, if a bit boring, and some dozen Witches and Wizards had come by to prod Harry, stammering through accolades and asking for autographs. Harry gave them dutifully. At some point, it had quieted, and Harry and Malfoy were alone with their drinks and food. 

“Seltzer,” Malfoy noted. 

“Vices,” Harry responded. He was feeling warm and forgiving. Something about this pub was making him nostalgic. “Remember O.W.L.s year?” 

Malfoy turned a brilliant shade of red. Harry liked it. 

“O.W.L.s. Yeah, I flubbed all of them. Earned myself an A on Charms because I dropped my wine glass looking at you, like some idiot.”

“Hated me that much?”

“Something like that,” Malfoy responded. Likely in response to the stares of the people around him, he had finished three drinks already. His pale skin was starting to flush easily, his accent thickening to a snobby degree. Harry wondered how he could make him blush again. 

“Hey, you snitched to Rita Skeeter, didn’t you? Fourth year?”

“Oh, fuck me…” Malfoy burrowed his face in his hands. 

“I always thought you were just so evil, you would do anything to hurt me. But…” Harry grinned. Malfoy pouted, which made Harry think it devastatingly cruel that he had such a nice mouth. If someone really liked him, that pout could bring down empires. He continued, “You fancied her, didn’t you?”

Malfoy put his hands back into his lap and snorted in a way that was not very gentlemanly. “Oh, surely not. I wasn’t lying in that Quibbler profile.”

Harry cocked his head. “Hm.” 

“But don’t remind me who I was fourth year. Merlin's tits, I was terrible.” 

Harry shrugged. “Not anymore, you aren’t. Reckon you got it all out back then.” 

Malfoy mumbled something inteligible into his glass. Harry prodded him with his foot under the table, making him jump. 

“You’re funny when you’re drunk,” Harry said. 

“No,” Malfoy said miserably. “I’m barely tipsy.”

“I thought you don’t lie,” Harry teased. Malfoy groaned. 

-

“Right, then. What do you value most in…” Malfoy squinted as he searched for the words. “...A friendship?” 

“Hm,” Harry said. “I dunno. Trust?”

“You don’t trust the Granger-Weasleys. Won’t do magic with them.” Malfoy was still sort of stumbly from the drinks, although he insisted he had been find to apparate. He was splayed on Harry’s couch, robes in a small pile by the door. His collar was wide open, revealing his pale neck. Harry felt like she should look away. 

“I trust them. I don’t trust myself.”

“So… you don’t mind doing all that stuff with me because you don’t care if you flatten me like that pub?” He turned his head to look at Harry. If Harry didn’t know any better, he would say Malfoy’s eyes looked hopeful. As though he wanted Harry to want to hurt him. 

“Idiot. No. I don’t know why I… trust you.”

“We’re mates!” Malfoy yelled. “That’s why!” 

“Sure,” Harry said, amused. He went to pour Malfoy a glass of water. “We’re mates.”

“I can die happy,” Malfoy said, a little too genuine. “Wait. I am drunk.” He sat up and shook his head like a dog. “I better go.”

“Answer, first!”

Malfoy cocked his head. “Loyalty. And a nice arse. You check both boxes.” He went redder. “Bye,” He mumbled, disapparating with a pop. He hadn’t done that since the emergency with Hermione, but Harry found he didn’t mind. He took a long sip of the water. 

-

“ Ex-Death Eater and Chosen One Harry Potter Reconnect Over Drinks? Seriously, Harry? You said I could come!”

Ron sounded mostly whiny, but a little bit hurt. He was a little damp from the walk here, and it was then that Harry realized Malfoy had been apparating to his door these last few visits. It was always miserably wet outside this time of year, and Harry hadn’t seen the sun in a week. Malfoy had been rough-looking in about six different ways, but he had been dry. 

“I don’t like having The Prophet in my home, Ron,” Harry said. 

“But you can order off a menu with your wand in some second-rate pub?”

“It’s different,” Harry said miserably. “And I didn’t bring my wand.”

“You’re shit at this,” Ron replied. His tone softened. “How’d it go?”

“Really good,” Harry said. “I’m sorry I went without you. Or Hermione.”

Ron flopped onto the sofa. “It’s alright. It’s good you’re doing it. Going out, all that. I just wish we could be part of it.”

“Why?” Harry said. “I hurt you guys. I could do it again.”

Ron snorted. “You didn’t hurt us. You hurt our starter home. It had terrible water pressure, anyway.” 

They never really spoke about the intervention after the fact. Hermione would dance around it, and so Harry and Ron followed her lead. Harry had assumed it would have been terribly painful to talk about, but it wasn’t, and somehow, it was because of Malfoy that he was bringing it up in the first place. 

“I don’t know why you two don’t want to chain me up somewhere,” Harry said honestly. “I don’t know why you covered for me. Why you still put up with me.”

“We love you. The kids love you. Mum loves you. That’s all there is to it.”

Harry wants to ask why, again, but he doesn’t. “Can we play Exploding Snap sometime?”

“Oh, Harry,” Ron replied, grinning. “I thought you’d never ask.” He peered at his watch. “I don’t need to be at work for an hour. I could….” He made a hand gesture like he was waving a wand. Harry thought about Malfoy, apparating in and out and apparently right outside the house. He thought about the wind in his hair above the rolling Wiltshire hills. He thought of Malfoy flushed in his chair at the pub, tapping his wand on his cup for a refill. 

“Go ahead,” Harry said. He winced a bit when the cards appeared on his table, but then they began to play. And suddenly, it was okay. 

-

“What is your most treasured memory?” 

“Um… are you okay?” Harry shuffled to the side to stop Malfoy from sprinting into 22, Highfield Road. “Mate. Malfoy-” He ducked under Harry’s arm, catapulting himself onto the couch dramatically. “Draco?” It felt weird to say, but it made Malfoy sit back up.

“I want to know your most treasured memory. It’s also, coincidentally, the next question. I do not want to talk about-” He gestured at his face, which was sporting what looked like a burn across his brow and up into his hairline. “-this.” 

“Was it a potion?” Harry said, sitting on the chair closest to the sofa. He felt the strangest urge to touch Malfoy’s face. The new lamp was flickering angrily. 

“I don’t want to talk about it. Unless, of course,” Draco brightened, “it’s your new most treasured memory.”

“Maybe if you had lost an eye, it would have been top three,” Harry teased. “Did it have to do with the Simmons case?”

Malfoy groaned and flopped back onto the couch. “It was a potion we found on one of the Wizards we caught taking furoira . I stupidly thought it was our first actual sample of furoira. It wasn’t. I was running some tests and fucked up my face. It’ll be all better in the morning, Hermione got me some cream. Most treasured memory. Go.”

Harry sat on his hands. “Hagrid telling me I was a wizard,” Harry said. “Thinking it would all be okay.”

Malfoy nodded eagerly. “Please, tell me more. Tell me how your little eyes filled with tears.”

“Well. I felt hopeless. I don’t know how long I would have survived, stuck with those people. Then he told me I could get out. And that I had money, and I could have shoes that fit, and that people liked me. So. I was happy.” It was quiet for a long moment. 

“Getting the letter from DoIS,” Malfoy said. “It changed everything. I thought it would all be okay. It sort of was.”

“What’s the next question?”

Malfoy shot him a look. “No more questions. It’s too late, and I’m all fidgety and my face is on fire. Let's go flying.”

“Alright,” Harry said, surprising himself and Malfoy. “Let's go flying.”

And they did. Malfoy didn’t even send off a snitch. They flew around like children, hollering as they took sharp dives and turns. The stars were so bright out in the country, and when Harry yelled that at Malfoy he replied that’s why I lived here, idiot, which made Harry laugh for longer than he should have. 

Malfoy was performing a nasty trick when he fell, and floated, light as a feather, back up to his broom. He righted himself and shot a look at Harry. 

“Did you mean to do that?”

“No,” Harry said honestly. “But it’s ok.”

And it was. 

-

“I was sort of saving the rest,” Malfoy said as he apparated in, “Because some of them are annoying.”

“Go ahead,” Harry said from his chair. Malfoy had apparated into his home, and he was okay with it. He put down The New York Times . Malfoy was in his work robes. 

“What is your most terrible memory?”

“My mother dying.”

Malfoy looked taken aback. “You can remember that?”

“I think it has a lot to do with the fact that it’s where I got this-” Harry gestured at his scar “-because I was definitely too little to have any memories. But it’s sort of terrible.”

“Sort of?” Malfoy said drily. Or Draco. Harry liked the idea of thinking of him as Draco. 

“It’s terrible,” Harry conceded. “You?”

“Pretty much everything that ever happened with Voldemort in my home. The manor was a safe place. He took it. It’s the least terrible thing he took, but he still took it.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry said honestly. “That he made it bad.”

Malfoy shrugged. “It was always going to be bad. I really want to know the answer to this one. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?”

For the first time, Harry spent a long time thinking. He realized why it was so hard to answer after a few seconds. 

“Do you mean how I was living before you, or after you?”

“What do you mean, after you?”

“Well. I let you apparate into my house. Ron and I played Exploding Snap. I helped you when you fell, and didn’t feel bad about it. I guess the answer is that I would keep going the way I am now. I would keep doing magic. Or at least letting it happen around me.”

“Oh,” Malfoy said. “You know, that wasn’t my intention.”

Harry shrugged. “A lot of people are happy about it, I’d think.”

“Are you?”

Harry thought. “Yes.”

Malfoy picked at a throw pillow. “I would keep everything the same. If anything, I would tell some people some stuff. Be more genuine.”

Harry didn’t ask what. It was quiet for a moment. “You’re very genuine with me, I’ve found.”

“Yes,” Malfoy said simply. Draco. Hm. 

“What does friendship mean to you?” Draco asked. “Could these be more fucking corny…” He muttered. 

Harry thought for a moment. “Can I answer trust again?”

“Is it true?”

“I think so,” Harry replied. 

“I think it means being there. Just being there,” Draco said. 

“That’s sort of like trust,” Harry said. “I trust you’ll come by for these questions. And maybe-” he stopped himself. “Maybe after we’re done, if you want.”

Draco mussed his own hair. “If I want?”

“Well. I want, so,” Harry said. “If you want. To go flying and such, even if we have no questions left.”

Draco stilled. “We’re only on question 20. We’ll see. What roles do love and affection play in your life?”

“Large ones, I guess? This is a dumb question.”

“Giving or receiving? Love and affection, that is.” 

“Receiving,” Harry said automatically. Draco smiled. They were having two conversations at once, Harry realized, 

“I’ve always been more of a giver,” Draco said breezily. “I’ve been excited for this one. Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.”

“Hey, this isn’t even a question,” Harry protested. He wasn’t sure he could handle hearing Draco choke out nice things about him. It always made his stomach twist up.

“Then I’ll go first. You’re a good friend.” 

Harry frowned and bit his lip. “What, to you? I’ve been a terrible friend to you. If you can call it that.”

Draco smiled. “I’m not going to take it back, Harry,” and the way he said his given name, Harry, made Harry light up. Not just him- his bedroom door slammed shut. He winced. Draco didn’t even blink. 

“Fine. You’re nice to talk to.” 

Malfoy grinned. “Thanks. You’re scary good at magic.”

Harry winced. “I reckon scary isn’t the best word.” He still felt on edge from the loud sound of the door, breaking the quiet tension of the living room. When he looked at Draco, the softness in his eyes, he could almost take a step back. 

“Would it be better if I said attractively good at magic?”

Harry snorted and looked away to hide his smile. “You sound like The Prophet. You’re good at compliments. Hey, are we supposed to do five each or five total?”

“Let’s do five each. You’re not at all arrogant,” Draco said, cracking his knuckles. “You’re actually sort of humble.” 

“Five each. Can I take that one? You’re not very arrogant.” 

Draco glared at him. “I said not at all arrogant.”

Harry grinned. “And I said not very. Your turn.”

“Positive characteristics… you’re funny,” Draco settled on. “Funnier than I thought Gryffindors were wired to be.” 

“Very nice. You’re kind.”

“ Kind?” Draco sputtered. 

“Good. Nice. All the things. Hey, I think that puts me well past five.”

“I’m counting all those as one,” Draco said drily. “Synonyms. You’re resilient. That’s five,”

“Well,” Harry began. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say, but he started anyway. “You’re great-”

Ron apparated into his house, then. Harry and Draco both jumped, as if caught, to standing. Ron looked haggard, hair pushed back behind his ears, ministry robes gone in favor of muggle clothes.

“Hermione is gone,” he said. 

Harry felt his stomach cave like someone had reached in and taken a piece of him out. He felt infinitely small. He rushed to the third drawer from the fridge and untangled his wand from a length of yarn.

“Harry,” Ron said from the living room, voice breaking. It wasn’t a question, but Harry answered anyway, rushing to grab hold of Draco’s arm. 

“Where do we need to go?”

Chapter Text

Harry had forgotten how you don’t really hear the crack of apparition when you’re the one doing it, leading it. He had let Draco side-along him to Wiltshire, but getting them here had been all Harry. He had forgotten the rush that was tearing your body from space and throwing it down somewhere else. This was nothing like cracking open the fridge door when something pissed him off. This was power, and Harry felt it like slime on the back of his neck. 

“It was here,” Ron said. “That’s all I know. All they’ll fucking tell me. Some coordinates and we’ll do our very best, Mr. Weasley .” 

Draco toed the ground nervously. They were standing, inexplicably, outside a Londis. It was closed. The street was very, very Muggle, gray and wet and sad-looking in a way that was entirely familiar to Harry. 

“She went missing here?”

Ron’s hands hadn’t stopped moving since they apparated- rushing under his robes to rub at his arms, as though he was cold, running his fingers through his hair, thumbing his lower lip. He made a strangled noise and said, “They found her things here. Her bag, and her signature.” He shimmied the little bag from his shoulder. Harry made hands to grab at it and fell back onto the curb to fiddle with it. 

Draco made a little noise. “She left her signature?”

Ron nodded quickly. He muttered a spell and flicked his wand towards a spot on the curb, revealing a sparkly bit of magic that Harry could recognize as being Hermione’s. It fizzled out after a few seconds, making Ron bite his lip. Harry looked back down at the bag. It was so cavernous inside that it may as well have been a closet.

“The Aurors are looking. They think it’s something to do with the Simmons case, but Hermione kept so much of it to herself. She was close to solving it, that was all I really knew. That’s why they did this, and I could have pushed her to tell me more but I didn’t, I-”

“You couldn’t have known, Ronald,” Draco said flatly, turning to face the Londis. Harry was so thankful he could cry. He wasn’t wired for comfort. Draco wasn’t either, but he was at least capable of trying, of doing something more than making the guttural, animal sound Harry felt rising in his throat. He continued, “You can blame me if you’d like. I’m her partner in this case, after all.”

Harry peered up from where he was crouched on the curb. “You are?”

“I’m the potions consultant. She was- is- everything else.” 

Harry felt like he may have been being dense, or perhaps they had been misleading him, because he hadn’t realized it was a two-person case, more like a Mysteries case than an open Ministry investigation. 

“We have Hermione’s stuff. We have everything you know, Draco. We just need to get to where she got, and we’ll find her.” Harry heard his own voice, the demanding little way he spoke, like he was still a teenager rushing around Hogwarts and trying to save the world. He flushed, embarrassed. “Sorry. The Aurors need to get there. Surely they’ve already made duplicates of her things, and they’ll figure it out.”

Draco jumped as though he had been poked. He turned on his heel to face Ron, who seemed to have tuned them both out, staring at his hands as though they might have the answers. 

“Tell me they didn’t.”

“Duplicate the bag? No. They’re going through ministry records first, then personal ones.”

Draco made a relieved sound and reached for the bag. “Good. Then they won’t be making duplicates.” Ron looked like he might speak, but Draco continued anyway, “I wasn’t exaggerating earlier, when I said it was just Hermione and I. I mean, some grunts did some physical work for us, but they never knew the minutiae of the case.  This is a pureblood conspiracy. The ministry is still majority pure blood, and the last wizard to be caught taking the potion was a low-level Magical Creatures employee. We can handle this. First, we find out what got her here.”

Ron swallowed. “I don’t think I should stay with you guys,” he said. 

Harry’s head shot up. “Ron-”

“He’s right,” Draco said. “The ministry will expect him to be there, waiting for answers, nagging the Aurors on the case. His missing will be suspect. And he can get us information if we need it.”

Ron made a strangled sound. “I don’t-”

“It’ll be okay,” Draco said gently. Ron, in his state, seemed to forget his and Malfoy’s history. “We’ll find her.”

Harry stood to hug Ron, grabbing fistfuls of his jumper. “It’ll be okay.” 

Ron apparated with a crack, leaving Harry and Draco alone in front of the Londis. 

“We’ll need somewhere to work. Not somewhere Muggle, so we’ll go to my flat,” Draco said, straightening his clothes. “Draco Malfoy lives-”

“You’re your own secret keeper?” 

“Yes. Draco Malfoy lives at 324 York Road. Let's go.”

-

Draco’s flat was everything Harry’s wasn’t- alive. Personality seeped from the walls like a living, breathing thing. Portraits argued merrily, two metal scorpions roughhoused on a coffee table, the lights changed hues very slightly as though to illuminate whatever you were looking at. Everything was richly colored- accent walls in a deep purple, dark wood, and scratchy-looking quilts. Something about it all reminded him of Hermione. His temple panged at the reminder of what he was doing here - the two scorpions stopped to turn towards him, as though waiting for instruction. 

Draco watched with careful eyes. “Sorry it’s so…” 

“It’s okay,” Harry breathed. He found it really was. He flicked his wand at the scorpions, muscle memory, and they continued to wrestle. Draco made a little noise of interest and ducked into another room. Harry sat on the couch.

When he came back, he was holding a plastic box, which he threw down on the coffee table, making the scorpions scatter. His sleeves were bunched up, and his hair was pulled back from his face in a way that defied physics, his fringe holding itself back neatly. Harry felt something curl in his stomach. 

“This is everything Simmons. Or everything I took with me, rather. Everything I was privy to. There’s some stuff Hermione kept from me. I imagine because she didn’t want me kidnapped.” Draco’s mouth turned to a thin line. “You were once supposed to be an Auror. Maybe you’ll see something I can’t.”

Harry swallowed. 

“We’ll start here. Mysteries sent us this evidence a few weeks ago- Hermione called about it, you’ll recall. Lavandula fracanin. The same genus as the Lavender we like the smell of, but fucks up the mind. It can be combined with other ingredients to specify what level of fucked up.” Draco took a moment to flutter through the papers. “Here. Ministry stores of Lavandula fracanin were emptied by a ministry employee. The plant itself grows here, in the country, mostly, but has been largely wiped out because it’s so dangerous. Whoever stole it has close to the entire supply of Lavandula fracanin in the world.” 

“Someone really hates Muggles,” Harry said, shivering. He wasn’t sure if he was cold or just terrified. 

“Sure,” Draco said, casting a warming charm on Harry without looking. Harry felt an undeserved amount of softness over it. “Or they really hate something or somebody else, and they consider Muggles so useless that they’re perfect testers.”

Harry bit his lip. “Oh,” he said. 

“We need to look through Hermione’s bag. See what she found that got her to the Londis where she went missing.”

“That feels…”

“Wrong?” Draco shrugged. “I’ll do it, then.”

He did, sitting with his legs crossed and reaching for the bag and pulling out, slowly and methodically, the entire contents of Hermione Granger's bag. There were books, stray quills, a rattle that made Harry’s heart clench, a photo of Ron and the kids, a long and impossible scarf that was certainly knitted by Molly Weasley. Harry wanted desperately to ask Draco to stop, to put all of Hermione back where she belonged. It felt too much like they were the ones taking her. 

Instead, he said, “Could you ask me a question?”

Draco continued skimming A Celtic Miscellany. He turned the spine of the book up, fanned out the pages, and shook. Nothing came out. 

“The next few are pretty nasty.”

“Then skip to an easy one.” 

Draco squinted at some muggle money. “Fine. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.” 

“I’ve never told anyone this before,” Harry said, relieved to be distracted. “When I was little, my aunt shaved all my head but my fringe. Because my hair is so-” He gestured at his head. 

Draco smirked and looked up. “Cute. I wish I had a picture,” he said. Then, turning his head back to the bag, quiet enough that Harry had to strain to hear, “Your hair isn’t so bad.”

Harry felt that warm curl in his stomach again. 

“Aha!” Draco pulled a folder out triumphantly. “Here we are. That’s the case code, 692749-” He stopped when he saw what was inside, frowning. Harry came around to peer at the papers from behind him. 

“It looks like-”

“Records. From the night that the stores were broken into, but mysteries said there weren’t any records, just that a Ministry signature was used-”

“These aren’t real names,” Harry breathed. 

Draco sniffed. “Aren’t they? They lean a bit muggle, sure, but -”

“They’re muggle celebrities. The gossip column is all over them. Britney Spears. Paris Hilton. Christina Aguilera. Christian Bale. 

“Oh,” Draco breathed. “Christian Bale. Pansy had a poster of him.”

“Why would mysteries lie?” 

“Mysteries doesn’t divulge evidence that can infringe on another open case. They prioritize which case is most urgent, and they send all pertinent evidence there. It’s to make sure that unsuspecting investigators don’t end up knee-deep in someone else's case, while helping the most people.” He kept looking through the records, which there were several pages of, as he spoke. 

“Simmons is the worst case of Muggle crime since the war. You said that. What could be more important?”

“We’ll probably never know,” Draco said. Harry watched as Draco sat up a little straighter, fingering the name second to last. “Oh,” he breathed. 

“Kippa Snarnyson?” The name didn’t feel quite right, Harry thought. 

“Pansy Parkinson. It’s an anagram.” Draco stood and placed his long, pale hands on his knees. “Stupid, stupid girl.”

“Draco?” Harry tried. Draco was muttering something under his breath, and he fell back to the folder, nervously flipping through the rest of the records. 

“Her mother is on trial for some idiotic behavior after the war, trying to organize some kind of-” Draco made a terrible, strangled sound. His voice kept coming out quick, like he was running out of air. “Some kind of terror cell! And Pansy never knew a thing about it, she swore, but now her names on this-”

“ Draco,” Harry said again. “All we have is a name, which isn’t even hers-”

“It’s mine,” Draco snarled. “ I made it up. When we were children, we used to play-” He made that sound again. “Play pretend. We had fake names. The anagram was funny. No one else knew it, no one but us.” 

Harry wanted to comfort Draco, which was strange. He felt anger at Pansy Parkinson, who he supposed had something to do with this- although her fake name being on some paper didn’t really mean anything, just that someone who might have stolen the plants might have been Pansy- and all he really wanted to do was touch the place where Draco’s jaw connected to his neck, if just to bring him back down from wherever he was. He wanted to find Hermione, and he wanted to touch Draco. 

Of course. He realized with sudden sureness that he liked Draco. The scorpions, which had disappeared after Draco’s earlier assault, were now perched near his toes. 

“Get away,” Draco snarled, kicking at them. They scampered right back up. Harry felt vaguely that his heart was outside his body, and that Draco was stepping on it quite neatly. 

“Let’s-” Harry made a helpless gesture. “Let’s step back from the records and think of the big picture. Hermione was outside the Londis, for some reason, and-”

Harry stopped, because something had sparked in his mind. 

“What is it?” Draco asked, eyes wide. “What did you remember?”

“The Londis near the fire station on Kings Road.”

“Yes, Potter, that’s where we found her bag-” Draco said impatiently. 

“I don’t think it’s just where she went missing,” Harry said. “She bought me The New York Times, there. A few weeks ago, she was there, and it’s not-” Harry closed his eyes to visualize the corner of London that had become home. “Yeah, it’s not on the way to the Ministry, or their place, or my place, so how they hell did she end up there twice?”

“We knew the location was important, Potter,” Draco said, although he had a thoughtful lilt to his voice. “When did you get the paper?”

“The day after you showed up.”

“Oh,” Draco said. Then again, with more feeling, “Oh.”

“What is it?”

“That was the day-” He went back to his stack of papers, then thought again and flicked his wand. A little bottle of some liquid came flying from a room Harry couldn’t see. 

“That was the day Hermione found this, on one of the Wizards we caught taking furoira. This nasty bit of magic gave me that burn. It took Protocol ages to allow me my own look at the potion, but we all got a look at the bottle itself that day.” 

“So,” Harry said, grabbing the bottle from Draco’s hands. “Hermione saw this, and ended up at the Londis. Or near it.”

“I’m an idiot ,” Draco breathed. “I wondered why it wasn’t in a phial, something more classic. It’s-”

“It’s quite literally got the Londis logo on the cap!” Harry said, almost laughing from how unlikely it was. 

“It’s the fucking Londis.” Draco said flatly. 

“It’s the fucking Londis!”

-

They waited until the sun came up. It made more sense than storming the Londis in the cover of night, when who-knew-what would be waiting for them. Harry gave Malfoy some jeans and a jumper of his after a quick stop at his house. The jeans fell a little short of Malfoy’s long legs. 

“We’ll blend in with the Muggles shopping, get a look around. See what we’re dealing with.” Draco was perched on his sink, carefully applying charms to his eyes, hair, and jaw, turning himself into a different man entirely. Harry couldn’t stop looking at Draco in his clothes. 

Once he was sufficiently round and brown-haired, making Harry’s hand twitch nervously (and turning the sink on, causing Malfoy to jump,) he got to work on Harry. Draco got close, and as he worked on his scar- nasty bit of magic, this is- Harry could feel his breath, just barely. It made his head spin.

“Do you do this a lot?”

“Field work, or charms?”

“Both,” Harry said. 

“Field work only when the case is so tied to potions, like this one. Charms, never. My partner is usually better at them than I am. You would be, too, if not for that.” He turned the shower off pointedly. Once he leaned back in to fix Harry’s fringe, it sputtered back to life. 

“Hate me that much?” Draco was just barely smiling.

“Something like that,” Harry breathed. 

Draco pulled away. “When we’re in there, you need to trust me. And trust your magic.” He fumbled a bit with his jeans, which were so Muggle that they made Harry’s fingers burn. 

Harry nodded. “I’m a little-” 

“You’ll be fine,” Draco said. “I won’t let you blow the Londis up.”

“It wasn’t a pub,” Harry blurted, because everything inside of him was threatening to rise up, either in the form of a desperate and sloppy kiss or shattering Draco’s very chic mirror. 

“That you blew up?” Draco spoke carefully. 

“Yeah. It was Ron and Hermione’s home. Where they lived, with their kids. And I blew up, because they were getting me off the potions, forcing me to stop, and I didn’t know how the fuck to deal with it and it all just-” 

“I don’t care, Harry,” Draco said simply, and Harry believed him. 

“I’m terrible, Draco.” Harry could hear his choked voice, the way it wavered like a child. “I’m terrible.”

“Oh, Harry,” Draco said. His smile was sad. “You’re going to keep believing that, even though it is so inherently untrue I could laugh, until you prove otherwise to yourself. So let's go do it.”

“What if she’s-”

Neither of them had said it yet, that Hermione could easily be dead. Draco was quiet for a moment. 

“We have to assume she isn’t. Come on, Harry.” 

When Draco grabbed his hand, it felt, for a moment, like Draco was just comforting him. Like Draco’s warm hand wrapped around Harry’s wrist was something more than magic. But it wasn’t. The sound, when they apparated, cracked right through Harry’s ribcage. 

-

It was the storage room of a wizarding pub, the same one that Hermione, Harry knew, paid in order to apparate into when she and Ron came over. They offered sheepish smiles and a few galleons to the girl working the bar. 

“You blokes tell that woman that this isn’t some apparition point! I’m sick of finding her shit in the back!” 

Malfoy stopped his determined path to the door. He swiveled neatly on his heel. “Her shit?”

The girl rolled her eyes. “Maybe you can return it to her,” she said, reaching into a massive box labeled Lost & Found. 

“Weird shit, she leaves behind. Benny who works nights didn’t recognize this, and he’s got a N.E.W.T. in herbology.” 

It was two pieces of glass, rounded at the corners, pressed together. Between them was a sprig of what looked like lavender. 

“Not lavender,” said the girl, rolling her eyes when Draco’s breath caught. “Leaves are all wrong. Too thick. And the flowers are the wrong color, really-”

“Thank you,” Draco said curtly, shoving the glass into his back pocket. “We’ll get this back to her.”

They walked out onto the street, Draco leading. He had cast a location spell earlier, and Harry could feel it too, tugging just barely when he got to the crosswalk. 

“My most embarrassing moment was when I did my first ever interview,” Draco started. Harry picked up a bit to walk next to him. “They asked about you. And I said you were so arrogant, talked for some 30 minutes about you, and by the time I was done I realized the woman wasn’t even writing a word down. It wasn’t ever published, but I saw her once after my Quibbler interview, and she-” His ears were red. Harry wondered if he was cold. He hesitated for a moment before casting a warming charm, wandless. Draco winced a little, then looked at Harry, mouth a little o. When Harry just shrugged, Draco continued, “She connected some dots.” 

“What dots?” Harry said. 

“Never mind,” Draco said. They had arrived. 

The bell dinged merrily when they walked in. Draco’s breathing went fast just as Harry’s did. The store was almost empty. Draco shot Harry a look, and Harry shot one right back. 

Right at the front, a young man was sorting bread, looking dazed. The bright colors of the store were disconcerting against the complete emptiness of it, the staleness of the air. Draco and Harry walked to the opposite side of the store. 

The smell hit like a very bad hex, the stink of dairy gone bad. 

“What the fuck,” Harry breathed. He peered close and caught the expiry date on some milk. It was from nearly a month ago. 

“The worker is Imperiused,” Draco said through his teeth. “Get out your wand.”

“How can you tell?” Harry said, shaking his wand out from his sleeve. It still felt a bit unfamiliar. 

“Eyes,” Draco said. Harry nodded as though that was a perfectly fair thing to say. 

“I think,” Harry started as they rounded into the produce aisle, “There’s a veil on this place. That’s why there aren’t any Muggles in here.”

“Except for the worker,” Draco said, starting towards the snacks. 

“He was probably here when they turned it into… whatever this is. They didn’t think they needed to put up anything else to keep out wizards, because what wizard would come into a non-magical grocery store?”

They turned to each other. “Hermione,” they said at once. 

“How did she buy the paper?” Harry wondered out loud. 

“I don’t think the veil was up yet,” Draco responded. He stopped suddenly, in front of the biscuits. “What the hell is this? Who empties out a grocery store, puts up these intricate veils, and doesn’t even-” 

“It’s under it,” Harry said. “Underground. We need to get underground.” 

Draco looked at him quizzically. “How do we-”

Harry nodded at a door labeled Staff Only. 

The door opened easily enough. Harry began descending the stairs behind the door with careful steps. 

Just as he began thinking that it felt too easy, he realized Draco wasn’t behind him. 

“Draco?” He called up. 

“Potter,” Draco said, voice tight. He was some dozen steps away from Harry. He continued, “How the hell are you doing that?”

“Doing what?” Harry asked. He thought vaguely that if Draco had finally cracked, this was a bad time to do it. 

“Harry,” Draco said evenly. “This staircase is trapped up to my fucking knees. You should be exploded. You should be missing a few limbs, or maybe the entirety of your skin.”

“Oh,” Harry said. He had felt a sort of- clicking, like lights being turned off, but he hadn’t thought it was anything more than the regular sounds of an abandoned grocery store. “Um. Can you come down, too?”

Draco took a step back, voice strained. “You did it as you went. It hurts to even be near it, Potter. I can feel-”

“Let me fix it,” Harry said, and he did. He wasn’t sure how, precisely, just that the clicking magnified once he put his mind to it. He watched from below Draco as his face softened. 

Harry thought for the first time that he might just have it in him to be gentle. For that- the unraveling of Draco Malfoy- he would probably do anything. 

“Better?” 

Draco took a tentative step. “Much better. And-” He thought for a moment. “I don’t think there’s a way to disable those, not for a wizard who’s not you. So this probably isn’t a real entrance. They won’t expect anyone coming through here-”

“Because most people would be dead. Yeah, okay.”

They continued walking, the clicking in Harry’s head amplifying as the curses increased in severity. Putting his mind to keeping the dark magic from touching Draco was the easiest magic had felt in years. For the first time, there was a real, meaningful purpose to it, and there was Draco, whose sure presence Harry trusted fully. 

“Here we are,” Draco breathed. The door was unassuming - a dull red with scuffs around the handle, as though a dog had been scratching at it. 

Draco cast a flurry of charms - disillusionment, silencing, muffling, the whole tin. Harry opened the door slowly. He could tell this door was really, really not meant to be used. 

They were behind everything, so it took the both of them a long moment to realize what they were seeing. It was a massive, sprawling room, quite clearly put together with magic, so unnatural the shape and size of it was. A long row of witches and wizards were standing dully and duplicating sprigs of plants just like the one Draco had tucked between two pieces of glass in his pocket. At the end of the room, which was all cement and dark corners, sharp and hateful-looking, was what almost looked like a lounge. Sitting at one of the dingy chairs was Pansy Parkinson, reading into a little box in low tones. They were less than a meter away from her, tucked behind a great shelf that a radio sat atop. 

There were a few other people, too, muttering and shifting around in long robes. Harry recognized a big-eyed witch who had been in the same year as him when he was still training to be an Auror. 

“Harry,” Draco said, voice tight. “Granger.”

Harry hadn’t taken too long a look at the figures huddled over the crates of Lavandula fracanin, but now he saw that big hair, the clever, quick wand work. The imperius hadn’t taken that away. Harry moved to go to her, and Draco pulled him down with a hiss. 

“No, Harry. We need to get them down first,” he gestured to the huddle of people around Pansy, “and then we can get her. But we can’t go out there with all of them-”

“Then I’ll get them down,” Harry said simply. He was so very terrified of his magic, of the terror he could inflict. He was so scared of himself as a weapon- one he was sure, now, had been left out to rust- but what Draco had said about proving otherwise to himself was so very appealing. So Harry let it out. 

-

Draco, later, described it like this: Harry went batshit. He sort of did, and he could tell even while it was happening. The magic unfurled from him like a thing left to cook too long, smoke curling out of an oven and rushing over an unsuspecting child. It roared, stretching its legs and cracking its neck as it cracked skulls against those cement walls, knocking people off their feet and then picking them back up to hit the ground again. 

Draco realized two things, in this order. First, that Pansy Parkinson didn’t react to the carnage around her, continuing her listless reading into the little box. She was imperiused, he realized, so he cast the same shield charm he had cast on the long row of duplicators.

The second thing was that Harry Potter was going to kill them all. 

-

When Harry became something like a man again, Draco was touching him. His face, his shoulders, all over, as though he could bring Harry back with his hands alone. Harry felt his skin spark where Draco touched it, and thought maybe this was a magic he could get behind. 

“Potter. Harry. You did it, you wonderful idiot. You saved everyone, again, as is your forte. You can rest.”

Harry still felt that thrumming in his head, the thump of an animal's heart. 

“Put it down,” Draco said softly. “Put it down,” he said again, and it was so simple, his pale face with its sharp lines, the warm light of his eyes. It was so simple. Harry put it down. 

-

They still couldn’t be sure which witch or wizard had cast the imperius, not until Hermione was together enough to start looking at some photos. But Hermione was solid, and alive, and herself, looking indignant and angry as she procured a nasty burst of flame to raze all the plants she had just duplicated. 

Just as Hermione was beginning to start explaining what had happened to her, Harry felt a witch draw her wand from behind them. 

He drew his own, and, surprising himself, said Brachiabindo. The witch fell to the floor, bound and wriggling. 

Draco and Hermione both looked at him. 

“You used your wand,” Draco said.

“You didn’t aim to kill,” Hermione said. 

They both went to touch him at the same time, Hermione flinging herself into his arms, Draco touching his elbow very softly. 

-

“Hullo,” Draco said warmly. “I brought tart.” 

Harry grabbed at the tray, pleased to find it was still warm. “Very nice.”

“I have some questions for you,” Draco said, raising an eyebrow. “If you’re ready.”

Harry knew he had all the time in the world to answer, and so he took a dozen seconds to look at Draco, warm around the edges and vulnerable. The man who had brought magic back to Harry. 

“It’s been a week, now,” Harry said. I missed you, he thought. I know you were busy filling out paperwork pretending you knocked out a dozen witches and wizards all on your own, but I missed you so badly I thought I might apply to be an Auror to be near you again. “Go ahead,” he said instead, beckoning Draco into the house. The terror cell had been crushed neatly, the case solved and reports written. 

Draco folded himself onto the couch and began. 

“How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?”

“Oh, these really are terrible,” Harry said. “ My family, as in Hermione and Ron and the lot of the Weasleys, is unbearably close and warm. Hot, even.” 

“Ew,” Draco said flatly. 

“My childhood was unhappier than most other people’s. I didn’t really realize it so much when it was happening. But you know that. You go.” 

“My family is distinctly cold. Even if I cheat and count my friends, it’s not like…” Harry was surprised when Draco continued, “This.”

“Well. You’re not cold,” Harry said. He was certain his gaze betrayed how badly he wanted to confirm that fact by running a hand across Draco’s skin. If Draco noticed, he ignored it. 

“My childhood was happier. It was good. The next question,” Draco started and then stopped. “It’s about mothers. Of which we are both lacking, so I was thinking we could skip it.”

“It’s 36 questions, Malfoy. We’ll never be mates unless we cover them all.”

Draco snorted. “We’re definitely already mates.”

“Maybe-” Harry started, then stopped himself from proposing the silly idea that they could be more. For the little control he had gained over his magic, he had apparently traded a constant risk of saying mushy, desperate things to Draco. Things like kiss me. 

Draco perhaps hadn’t noticed Harry choking on his words. He continued, “How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?” 

“Er,” Harry said. “I wish I had one? Maybe I should have skipped it. Surely you’ll have a better answer.”

Draco shifted ever so slightly on his cushion. “I miss her. I loved her and I think she did love me, a lot.”

“She did,” Harry said automatically. He knew it as well as he knew his own mother had loved him. In a way, he knew it more, in a more tangible way, the furrow of Narcissas brow so much clearer than the timbre of his own mothers voice. 

Draco made a face that Harry couldn’t read. “I suspect she may have,” he said, and Harry felt a caving in his stomach. “Make three true “we” statements each. For instance, “We are both in this room feeling …” Draco quirked his eyebrows. 

“We are both in this room feeling… maudlin.”

“All you, Potter,” Draco said, lips twitching up in a smirk. 

“I thought you’d appreciate my vocabulary.”

“We are both in this room wanting approval ,” Draco said. 

“I think that's just me,” Harry replied, confused.

Draco didn’t say anything. 

“We both adore Hermione Granger,” Harry tried. Draco shrugged as though unconcerned with the truth of it. Maybe, Harry thought, he wasn’t. 

“We’re both very good Wizards.”

“Eh,” Harry said. “One of us is great.”

“ We statements, Potter.”

“Fine,” Harry said, taking a long moment to look at the lazy line of Draco’s mouth. “My last one. We… make a good team.”

“I somehow feel like that wasn’t the sort of we statement they wanted,” Draco said, face a pleased shade of pink.

“I don’t care.”

Draco thought for a moment. He opened his mouth as though to say something, then snapped it closed. “We’re both a little lonely,” he settled on. Harry thought he heard something- a crack in the vowel on lonely, maybe. Harry’s heart did a nervous little thump.

“Next question,” he breathed. “I’m going to make tea.” 

Draco cleared his throat. “Complete this sentence: “I wish I had someone with whom I could share…”

Harry put the kettle on and padded back out to the living room. “Hm,” he said. “I wish I had someone with whom I could share…” He stopped. He was going to say my magic, the total and unyielding weight of it, but he suddenly and certainly was sure that he already had that person, and that it was Draco. He was going to say my family, but then he was thinking of the gentle way Draco had touched Hermione’s elbow before yanking her into a hug. Then he thought he might say my feelings, but wasn’t that what he was doing? 

With Draco. 

The kettle began to cry, much too early for the water to have boiled over the Muggle way. Harry swallowed. Draco was looking up at him with an amused look. At some point, he had taken off his shoes, revealing deep purple socks. 

“I’ll go first, then.” Draco said. “I wish I had someone with whom I could share the love I am very sure I am capable of.”

It was so raw, and so very Draco, that Harry thought he might be sick. The kettle was still screaming, so he went to put together some tea. 

When he came back, Draco was nudged back a bit further on the couch, pushed towards the arm. There was a Harry-sized space open, now. Harry sat, passed a steaming mug to Malfoy, who took a long breath. 

“I think you cover all the things,” Harry said bluntly. 

Draco eyed him, confused. “I don’t have the faintest clue what you’re saying.”

“All the things I want- wanted- to share with a person. You have them all.”

Draco’s brow furrowed. “I’m very sorry, Harry. Can I… return them?”

“No, you bastard. You can’t return them.”

“I-”

“I like you,” Harry said. “I like you a lot.” 

“I…” Draco had pulled his feet closer. Harry hadn’t realized they were touching his, but now he was so aware of it. “I like you, too, Harry.”

“No,” Harry said, annoyed. “I really like you.”

“Surely you don’t fancy me?” Draco said, face so very open, mouth slack. Harry wanted to kiss it, or to maybe pull his hair. Harry wanted to listen to him talk about potions, watch how his hair fell into his eyes as he poured over a book. Wanting this much could never be good, could never be safe. Harry remembered the sound of the foundation of Hermione and Ron’s home cracking down the middle. 

“Nevermind,” Harry muttered, looking away. He could see Draco’s hand twitch, the smallest little jerk. 

“Okay,” Draco said. “Harry, we can talk-”

“I don’t want to,” Harry said. 

“Fine,” Draco breathed. “Could you… could you let go of my shirt?”

Harry’s head shot up. Draco’s shirt was being pulled, as though by an invisible hand, from the back. It was tight around his sleeves and neck. Harry watched the fabric fall back around Draco’s shoulder. Draco took two fast inhales. 

“It’s okay,” Draco said. “It’s okay.”

“You should leave,” Harry said, devastated at the crack in his voice. Draco left. 

-

Draco had been knocking for five minutes, now. Harry was getting Deja Vu all over again. 

Harry couldn’t help it, couldn’t keep away. Draco did that- got him knotted up and obsessive, stalking around and casting spells he didn’t even remember learning. He hadn’t seen Draco in three days, but it felt like years. So he stood, still and terrified, by the door. 

“Harry. If you’re going to be my… mate, it’s important for you to know that I don’t care what the hell you do to me. I’ll take it, because it’s you. You could demand anything of me, Harry. I would do it.”

The door of  22, Highfield Road slammed open. Harry cursed his treacherous body, this treacherous magic that bubbled under his skin. 

But then he saw Draco, pale and sharp and entirely bare-faced, open in the night. He was wearing the Muggle clothes he had borrowed from Harry. There was a message there, Harry was sure, but he was too scared to read into it. 

“You can’t like me just to prove something,” Harry said. 

Draco’s eyes were so very vulnerable. He smiled. “Oh, Harry. I don’t like you. I love you.”

Harry didn’t think this time. He just did . 

Draco’s mouth was wet and his, and it could have easily been a bad kiss- messy and too toothy or too dry and forced- but it wasn’t. Harry had never been kissed like he was something so very valuable. He was vaguely aware that The Guardian was shredded to pieces and swirling around both their feet. He found he didn’t care. 

Draco pulled away, and Harry made a needy little groan in response. Draco was flushed and red and open, open in a way Harry hadn’t even known he could be.  The cool air of night fluttered around them through the open door.

“This is what I would ask the crystal ball, by the way,” Draco said. 

“Hm?” Harry said, reaching to get a hand on the dip of Draco’s waist again. 

“When I wouldn’t tell you the answer to that one question,” he said. “I wanted to ask if this was possible. If there was a world where I could have this.” His hand was running down Harry’s jaw, so very gentle, as though he might break. Harry breathed shallow and slow, because maybe he would. He pushed forward again, back to the wet heat of Draco’s mouth, but Draco stayed so very still. 

“I answered the next question already. It’s your turn. If we’re going to do… this, what would be important for me to know?”

Harry didn’t want to talk. He wanted to pull the crisp, soft looking jumper from Draco’s shoulders and touch the flat expanse of his stomach. He wanted to press Draco neatly against the bed, wanted them flush against each other. He wanted so severely, so desperately, that he found himself being honest. 

“I’ll probably hurt you,” he said. 

Draco snorted and bumped his forehead against Harry’s. He said, soft and right into Harry’s mouth, “You already have, idiot. And I don’t care. You can’t hurt me in a way that’ll cancel out…” He was kissing him, then, again. The door was still wide open. With a flick of his wand, pulled from his sleeve when Harry’s attention was decidedly elsewhere, Draco closed it. 

“I like your mouth,” Draco said, kissing the very corner of Harry’s lips. “I like your stupid hair, and the way your eyes go all sparkly when you’re happy, and the way your Muggle clothes make you look...” He was touching Harry everywhere, but still not enough.

“Bedroom,” Harry said, hoarse. 

They made their way, Draco still mumbling little likes into Harry’s skin, as though he were giving something precious to him, Harry grabbing greedy handfuls of Draco. 

As they undressed, Draco kept going, running his fingers over all the parts of Harry he had sort of forgotten were even there. At some point, without making the conscious decision to do so, Harry joined in on the praise. 

“Your mouth, holy shit,” Harry was saying, pressing his chest against Draco’s, still covered by a thin shirt. Draco did something to Harry’s trousers, putting a hilarious amount of effort into getting them free. The warm light of the bedroom made Draco's hair golden. 

“There you go,” Harry breathed when he was finally, blessedly, naked. “Now you.”

Draco peppered a few light kisses down Harry’s neck, making him whine. “Harry,” he said, and Harry went to kiss him, getting harder just from the sound of his name in Draco’s mouth. Harry. He had never heard it said like that. 

“Harry,” Draco said again, voice strained. “I have scars.” 

Harry held careful eye contact as he peeled the shirt from Draco’s body, and there it was. 

The whole of his stomach was covered in thick, shiny scars, raised just slightly. 

“I don’t mind them,” Draco said, hands running up and down Harry’s arms. They were stood just over Harry’s bed, his miserable, too-big bed that had never held a thing Harry cared about, a thing Harry wanted. 

Looking at the proof of just how much Harry could hurt, he felt suddenly and surely that he could heal, too. He pressed Draco to the bed, and he went pliant and willing. He held Draco’s eyes as he mouthed down along Draco’s stomach, watching them go heavy and dark. 

“Harry,” Draco said as Harry reached his trousers, throwing his head back. “That’s good, fuck,” and Harry was taking them off, reaching to mouth at the full length of Draco’s cock with an unfamiliar sureness. The duvet was curling around them, as alive as Harry, and Harry crowded Draco towards the headboard, still hard and wanting. 

Draco rutted like an animal against Harry, then, the slim shape of his hips hard against Harry’s. His bare shoulders were a blessing, the mess of his hair a miracle. Harry felt so much, so suddenly, the length of Draco against his own, the slack-mouthed pleasure apparent on Draco’s long, pointed face. Oh, Harry thought vaguely as Draco’s hips jerked once more, this is what I was looking for, and he came just like that, the warm, sweaty body of Draco jerking beneath him. 

“Why,” Harry breathed, feeling dumb and lazy in the haze of his orgasm, “Did that never happen when I was on Liquid Luck?” 

Draco lifted his head so that Harry could see his face, flushed and smiling. “That good?” 

“Better,” Harry said, because it was. It wasn’t anything like the sex he had before, the careful press of his body against a random bloke or even someone he cared about. It felt like giving a part of himself away, it felt like forgiveness or apology or some weird in-between. “Ask me a question,” Harry said, and Draco dropped his head onto Harry’s chest. 

“When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?” His warm breath danced over Harry’s sternum. 

Harry took a long breath and blew it out onto Draco’s head. His hair flew up an amount that was certainly magical, but Draco only giggled. 

“When you left,” he said. 

Draco huffed, and Harry crumbled with how much he loved the sound of it. The little noises Draco made after he came, the ring of his laugh as his hair blew around as though in a windstorm. Harry couldn’t believe that he had lived so long without any of them.

“I didn’t leave,” he said, petulant, “you kicked me out.” 

“I didn’t want…” 

“Yeah, yeah, to hurt me. Like you wouldn’t save me, if you did. It’s sort of your thing.” 

Harry pressed his nose to Draco’s hair. He smelled like the most alive thing Harry had ever had in his bed. “How ‘bout you?” 

Draco laughed, a single sharp note. “In front of someone else? Does Myrtle count?”

“I guess,” Harry said, because Draco had gone sort of stiff. 

“Then I guess that was the last time. By myself? Yesterday.”

“Oh,” Harry said. “I don’t want to do anymore questions.”

Draco peered up at Harry, brow furrowed. “I like the questions. You like the questions.”

“They did what they were supposed to,” Harry said. “And I bet the next ones are real bummers,” he added. 

Draco thought for a moment. “Yeah,” he said. “They are.” He burrowed his head back onto Harry’s chest. 

Harry ran a finger from Draco’s elbow to his shoulder. 

“Instead,” Harry said, before pausing for a moment. He felt Draco smile. 

“Yes, Potter?” 

“Fuck me,” Harry said. Draco flinched a little, but then turned around so that he was sort of straddling Harry. 

“Harry Potter,” he breathed, “wants me to fuck him?” 

“Harry Potter,” Harry responded, “wants you to do much more than fuck him.”

Draco smiled- not the nasty, sarcastic thing he often leaned towards, but an open, childish grin. Harry was hard again. 

“Like re-teach you magic?”

“Sure,” Harry said, dazed. 

“Like introduce you to my friends?” 

“Mhm,” Harry said, shifting so that his cock was pressed against Draco’s ass. 

“Go flying, maybe?”

“Anything,” Harry said, hips jerking. Draco began scooching down, sticking two fingers in his mouth rather crudely. 

“Well then,” Draco said, breath ghosting over Harry’s hip. “Who could say no to that?”