Chapter Text
The next morning was spent in much the same way: Harry made them breakfast, and they lolled about in the kitchen, teasing and cosseting Bond.
Draco had just suggested they might finish the parlour – all the necessary repairs had been completed, but Harry needed to spend more time in it, and he might as well decorate – when he was assaulted by a truly rancid scent. Given that he couldn’t tell the source of the smell, he forced himself not to react – pretending everything was normal was often the most polite path, according to Sebinius Malfoy – but he needn’t have bothered, as Harry’s nostrils flared and his eyes went wide.
"Ahh, is it eleven already?"
Draco found that a somewhat unexpected response to the smell, which was rather like if a fishing boat had dumped their haul into a pile of rotting eggs.
"It’ll only be for eleven seconds," Harry said bracingly. "Just a bit longer."
Sure enough, the scent dissipated a few moments later, leaving Draco appalled in its wake. "Potter, do you mean to tell me that is the clock chime for the kitchen? The smell of old…egg-fish?"
"Surströmming, actually," Harry replied. At Draco’s exasperated look, he elaborated. "Apparently it was Walburga’s favourite snack. She’d have it on a bit of knäckebröd around eleven each day." He grinned. "Molly hated it. She’d try to cook for Order meetings and finally had to bring lunches from the Burrow."
Draco wrinkled his nose. That was awfully pungent for the morning. "Maybe we should bring the House’s timekeeping in tune with your preferences today." He took a sip of tea – ugh, he could still faintly taste the surströmming – and then lazily cast a Checklist Charm for both of them to see. "Alright, what are the clock chimes that you’re aware of around the House?"
Harry explained the various alerts that each room of the House gave on the hour – or, in some cases, every three hours and thirty minutes, or once a day, or every fifteen minutes – and answered Draco’s probing questions about why each of them might have settled on that. For the most part, it seemed like each room was governed by the preferences of its most recent prior dweller, but it was clear that some rooms had adapted to Harry, at least a bit.
Sirius’s room still played the songs his mother had hated the most at seven a.m. every morning, and sometimes again at noon, although Harry had never been able to work out that pattern. ‘Anarchy in the UK’ was a favourite, as was ‘Police & Thieves’. That couldn’t be entirely written off as having been influenced by Harry, though, as by his own admission, he loved hearing the strains of music drift through the House.
The workroom’s hourly chimes had adapted to Harry to some degree, of course, but the mice in the Floo reception parlour and the spider in the upstairs bath seemed to have no association with Harry at all.
"Honestly," Harry said, "I think the House just…let the spider living in the bath have that one. There’s a whole spider family supported by the timekeeping in that room; I can’t change it now."
Once they’d compiled the Grimmauld list, Harry asked how the Manor had alerted the Malfoys to the time.
Draco pursed his lips in recollection. "Mother’s day was carefully scheduled into half hours – when she took tea, when she managed her correspondence, when she took a turn about the gardens. Each half hour, the nearest plant – there were loads, all over the Manor – would bloom softly, with its number of flowers corresponding to the hour.
Harry smiled at this. "What did your father have?"
Draco laughed softly. "He wasn’t to be bothered with minor interruptions." He affected a supercilious tone. "He was perfectly capable of asking for the time when he needed it, at which point one of the portraits would announce it."
Before Harry could ask, Draco admitted, "I had a series of absurd demands as I grew. There was a green man carved into one of the lintels, and I used to love to ask him the time. Little stone crows would fly up and begin eating the berries growing out of his mouth, and however many crows came, that was the hour."
Harry looked both fascinated and appalled. Draco made a face. "It was a bit macabre, in retrospect. Anyway!" He looked back at their list. "I can untangle some of these, and then you’ll just need to walk around asking what time it is for a couple of days, until the House starts to shape its timekeeping around you as the Holder."
"What should I do?" Harry asked.
Draco had already cast a new Checklist Charm to fill in with the spells he’d need. "Hm? Oh, ah…make some toys, I suppose?" He glanced over at Harry. "I must be disrupting your busy toy-making schedule with all this."
He looked back at his Checklist Charm, so when Harry eventually ground out, "What’s that supposed to mean?" Draco was shocked to find that Harry had gone all tumultuous and broody, with clenched fists and an angry brow.
Draco blinked at him, then looked cautiously around the room. "I’m not sure…"
"I know you think it’s not worth much," Harry interrupted, sounding like he was trying very hard to be calm, "but there’s no need to be a passive aggressive arsehole about it."
Draco felt as though his brain had been scooped out of his head, leaving him with nothing to say. "I…wasn’t? Or, I didn’t mean to?"
They stared at each other for a moment, Draco’s brain whirring and whirring and coming up empty, until Harry said defensively, "I know everyone thinks I wasted – I know I could do more."
"Do more what?" Draco asked helplessly.
"Do more…good? Be more in the public eye, use my ridiculously outsized influence more effectively, work harder, just generally…more."
Draco’s brain started ticking along again now, because it sounded like Harry Actual Fucking Potter, Saviour of the Magical World, who had sacrificed his parents, his childhood, and ultimately his life, felt that he wasn’t doing enough.
Draco must have been misunderstanding.
"Hermione, she does so much good, you know?" Harry was saying wistfully. "She has all this energy, I don’t know where she even finds the time for half the stuff she does." A fond smile flits across his face as he recalls, "Ron and I thought SPEW was a one-off, but she can’t help but fight every battle that she sees." He sobered. "And she’s right. House-elves are horribly treated. And other magical creatures, and the way we deprive Muggles of magical solutions to serious problems, and corruption in the Ministry." His voice was getting breathier and higher-pitched. "And what do I do? Just make toys. Just stupid little toys that don’t help anyone, because I’m too tired to do anything that matters."
Draco gaped, unable to formulate any kind of response. Or, well, he had one response, but he thought that wailing, "If you’re not doing enough for the world, what does that mean for me?" would be a touch self-centred given the circumstances.
Fortunately, before Harry could really spiral, the cat bounded across the room and into his lap, nudging forcefully at his hands with her head.
"Oh," Harry gasped, then gave a wet sort of chuckle. "Well hello there, Double Oh Seven."
Once more, Draco shoved his initial response – "What the fuck does that mean?" – down in favour of a more compassionate option, one more in line with the sort of person he wanted to be. Which, in this case, was saying, "hmm," in a supportive sort of way.
Harry seemed to sense his confusion anyway, because he glanced briefly at Draco and clarified, "Because her name is Bond."
Draco waited for any further explanation, but none seemed to be forthcoming. Instead, he said, "I think it’s good that you make toys." Harry looked surprised, and Draco shrugged. "It suits you. And people like them, so. That’s good, too." Then he cleared his throat and said, "Now, really, Potter, do go and make your toys so that I can get on with the real work of the House."
Harry’s responding grin was a bit watery, as was his parting shot of, "Like you’ve ever gotten those pretty hands dirty in your life, Malfoy," but all in all, they seemed to have dodged whatever emotional Bombarda that had been.
***
Nearly a week of doing home repairs and having periodic bizarre emotional interludes and lolling about playing with a cat with Harry fucking Potter had taken its toll on Draco. He was only human, and he had never had the grit for stoic suffering.
Harry seemed to be annoyed as well, although he was so noble and heroic he couldn’t possibly voice his objections to his childhood bully and former enemy living in his home. Instead, he was confining himself to glowering looks and self-flagellation about his own inhospitality.
Draco sighed and rubbed his forehead, then took a deep breath in. It was entirely reasonable for Harry to be frustrated by the bond, and by having an unexpected housemate. He released it and kept developing his plan for reinforcing the ties between Harry and Grimmauld Place.
After the fourth time Harry looked sidelong at Draco, then looked away and flushed guiltily, Draco sighed and put down his quill. "This clearly isn’t working," he said into the silence, and Harry started and turned to face him, wide-eyed.
"I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, well, to make you uncomfortable," he stammered. Draco furrowed his brow in confusion. "I know I’m not very subtle, it’s just." Harry looked rapidly around the room, then back at Draco, who still had no idea what was happening. "I really want to kiss you," Harry said all in a rush.
Draco stared at him. "I know," he said slowly. "You’re under a lust compulsion." Harry didn’t look comforted, so Draco said, "It’s obviously very odd and confusing to be attracted to someone against your will." Harry shook his head slightly, but Draco bulldozed over his token objections. "I think we should activate the next layer. It will give us something to do besides coo over Bond and, well. Ah." His eyes flickered over Harry’s body.
He turned his head and stared fiercely at the lovespoon until Harry tentatively said, "Yeah, alright."
Draco nodded once, then took a deep breath, held it, released it, and cast.
***
"Nothing’s happened."
"Oh, well observed, Potter," Draco replied acidly. "Unlike literally every other time we’ve done this, we can’t immediately tell what the new bond is, so probably nothing has happened."
Harry blinked at him.
Draco rubbed a hand over his face. "Sorry," he offered weakly.
Harry shrugged. "You’re not wrong," he pointed out. "It’s just, I don’t know, I keep expecting there to be a boom! Or maybe like the first time, that weird rush of…" He trailed off, looking oddly awkward.
Draco hesitated, feeling foolish. "Actually, I forgot there was an instantaneous response the first time, so that’s me wrong as well."
Harry snorted. "Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you actually admit that."
There was a long, horrible pause.
"Oh! Well, no, I suppose I…er, that is you did make the, erm, the–"
"Statement of wrongdoing and admission of guilt to the British public, both magical and non-magical?"
Draco had said the words often enough that they rolled off his tongue with little effort.
Harry, who had cringed a bit at the realisation of his faux pas, straightened his shoulders. "Right," he said firmly, "and then you donated all of the Malfoy, Lestrange, and Black money and estates you’d inherited and vanished from the magical world."
Draco stared at him in shock. With great effort, he replied, "Not all the Black estates."
Harry tilted his head in question, and Draco knocked on the wall of Grimmauld Place.
After a moment, Draco said, "Those were, ah. I was told the records of the donations were sealed."
"I have a really high level of clearance."
"You’re a toymaker."
Harry gave an abashed shrug. Draco was not charmed. "Yes, I am," Draco said aloud in reply, then froze.
"What, are you insulting yourself for me, now?" Harry asked, amused.
"I…had to," he explained slowly. "I had to tell the truth, because I thought a lie."
"You thought a lie?" Harry looked like he was struggling not to burst into laughter. "What did you think? Ooo, was it that dressing in formal robes for breakfast is totally normal and not at all pretentious?"
Draco sneered at him. "For all you know, I thought for a moment I might not be better than you in every conceivable way, and then I realised, how absurd, of course, Yes I am."
Harry grinned hugely. "This is a lot more like the Draco I remember."
Draco felt as though the breath had been ripped from his chest. The horror of hearing that must have shown on his face, because Harry immediately looked apologetic.
"Oh, no, I didn’t mean– you’re just, you’re funny!" Harry gave a weak smile. "You were always, at school, well, you were a terrible prat, but you were always so sharp and funny! Really, er…quick-witted."
Draco still felt cold all over. "I try to think before I speak now," he said quietly.
Harry’s face softened. "I’d noticed, actually," he admitted. "You’re really careful, and sometimes it seems like you change your mind about what to say."
Draco nodded. "A lot." He cleared his throat and started again. "A lot of times, the first thing I think is…uncharitable. So I try to wait to think of the second thing before I…well…" He cleared his throat again. "I try to keep that sort of terrible cruelty inside and not let it leach out into the world and hurt anyone else."
Harry started to speak, stopped, then said, "That, what you said before, that wasn’t really ‘terrible cruelty’, though."
Draco made a face. "It wasn’t kind, though. It wasn’t–"
"I think it was," Harry interrupted, staring thoughtfully into space. "Or, at least, I liked it. It made me feel…comfortable. Matey. Like you were taking the piss out of me because it was so established that we’re friends that you can say shit like that." Harry nodded once, then looked back at Draco. "And I think that’s a kind way to make someone feel."
Draco gaped at him. Harry gaped right back.
"I don’t know why I said that." Harry sounded breathless.
Draco smoothed his face back out. "No, of course not. I don’t imagine you meant it."
Harry looked even more uncomfortable. "No, it’s…I meant it, I just. I didn’t mean to say it." He paused. "I don’t think I could have said it. Like I’m really astounded that I said that; I don’t usually say things like that."
Draco groaned. "It’s a truth-telling bond. Fucking Penelope’s hexing loom with Merlin’s saggy fucking balls for baubles, it’s a rat-arsed truth-telling bond."
Harry blinked at him silently.
Draco sighed. "So in the, mmm, 16th century? And a little of the 17th? Was the English Reformation." He looked at Harry for any sign of recognition, but Harry was blank as anything. Which made sense, given the state of historical education at Hogwarts. "The English Reformation" – he considered how much detail to go in here – "well, among other things, it shifted the emphasis of what mattered from action to belief. What you did could be undermined or directly contradicted by what you believed in your most secret heart."
"Isn’t that what most people think? Like, of course you should do what you believe in your heart."
Draco looked at him helplessly. "Not everyone," he started, then gave up and said, "It was a fairly radical shift at the time." He shook his head. "Anyway, it became the fashion to compel truth-telling as a pre-marital bond – so people could be certain their partner-to-be was pure of heart. Or, well, really, so the families could scout the partners out." He stroked his chin thoughtfully. "If we can narrow it down to, hmm, say the 1530s to the 1660s just to be safe…" He marched toward the door, declaring, "I need the library."
When he stepped into the hallway, another door was swinging open. Behind him, he heard Harry ask, "Wait, should I be…?" but Draco ignored him.
Draco threw himself into research in the library, both because it was important, and because when he left the library, he inevitably encountered Harry, which led to dreadfully earnest conversations about Harry’s Muggle family; Draco’s confused feelings about his parents; and both of their school crushes on Cedric Diggory and then, of course, his subsequent death at the hands of Voldemort and the involvement of Draco’s father, just overall an absolute nightmare of a conversation never to be revisited.
After hours in the library, the best option Draco could find was the Ritual of Exposure, which required that they sit "unadorned and unhidden" under the unobscured light of a full moon and "meet one another’s eyes neither mendacious nor false," until the bond simply…broke, as far as Draco could tell. Probably from sheer mortification.
"So naked," Harry said. "Just to be, like, totally clear: we have to be naked under the moon and stare at each other until eventually we can lie again?" At Draco’s grudging nod, he dug the heels of his hands into his eyes and let out a heartfelt moan. Abruptly, he dropped his hands and looked at Draco with a faint sense of panic. "Oh no, when are we in the lunar cycle?"
Draco was aghast. "I cannot believe you don’t track the lunar cycle."
Harry was already speaking over him. "I know, I know; Hermione is always on me about it, too. I don’t care. I’m not going to care. None of the magic I do is so precise that I need to know. But how long is it going to be?"
"Three days. We could just…avoid each other until then," Draco suggested halfheartedly.
Harry was already shaking his head. "No, it…it feels good," he said, not quite meeting Draco’s eyes. "I think there’s a compulsion element to it."
"Maybe," Draco said dubiously. He’d found it easy enough to be apart while he’d been in the library, but there could hypothetically be a time limit built in. People had to sleep, after all.
"We could…work on the drawing room?" Harry suggested tentatively. "If you wanted?"
Draco shrugged and followed him.
Harry stammered through his basic ideas for the decor of the room. Draco offered some suggestions, and they set to work, Harry casting the homemaking spells as Draco coaxed the House’s magic to twine with his. They worked in silence until suddenly, Harry said, "I didn’t know houses were meant to feel like this."
Draco waited for him to continue. When he didn’t, Draco ventured, "Well, you didn’t know much about magical Houses before, so–"
But Harry was shaking his head vehemently, eyes still fixed on the sconces he’d been encouraging to shed a warmer light. "No, houses like…just homes, I guess. Not magical ones. Or, well, also magical ones, I guess, but." He paused and stepped back from the sconce, collecting himself.
"I wasn’t very, er. Happy. At my– At the house where I grew up," he said finally, and Draco nodded, because Harry had told him about it yesterday, and also because basically everybody knew that. "And then I went to Hogwarts, and I felt…god, I felt more comfortable than I ever had in my life. Like, after a while, I really believed I’d get enough food, and mostly no one would yell at me, and people would be nice to me every day, like Ron and Hermione. And that was…" Harry took off his glasses and started cleaning them. "That was more than I ever could have imagined. But there was still." He paused, looking pained. "Well, it wasn’t safe, was it, really? Hogwarts? I mostly felt safe there, and happy, but there were some bits – Snape being cruel in Potions every day, and all the Hufflepuffs being so angry at me fourth-year, and–"
"And Voldemort trying to kill you?" Draco offered in disbelief. "And Dumbledore offering you up like a fatted pig?"
Harry waved a hand dismissively and slid his glasses back on. "Right, all that. And the Burrow–" he shook his head mistily. "Fuck, I love the Burrow." He looked back at Draco. "But I was always a guest there, and also it seemed like…I don’t know, like most homes don’t get to feel like that! Like the Burrow is the outlier, and most people feel kind of…invasive, in their own homes."
Draco’s skin prickled. He had always felt perfectly welcome and wanted in the Manor growing up, but sixth-year…he thought he might know what Harry meant about scurrying around, frightened and anxious, from corner to corner, hoping no one would notice him and object to his presence.
Harry took his silence for judgement and shrugged angrily. "I just, I can see you being surprised that I didn’t do all of this sooner, and I know– I knew Hermione and Ron didn’t like coming over here, but I thought" – he flung his arms out – "I thought I had three nice, cosy rooms where no one was cruel to me and I was mostly safe! And okay, maybe there was a whole big, scary, unfriendly house out there, but I had three rooms!" He looked desperately at Draco. "That seemed so much more than I could ever have asked for."
"Harry," Draco ventured carefully after a moment. "Have you ever considered therapy?"
Harry groaned and threw his arms over his face. "Yes," he moaned, muffled by his biceps. "Oh my god, yes, so much I have considered it." He lowered his arms and said, "I really don’t want to do it in the magical world because what if they’re, like" – he lowered his voice – "a fan?" In a more normal voice, he continued, "And it’s hard in the Muggle world because, like, how could I talk about anything?"
Draco pursed his lips against the words that wanted to spill out, then gave up. "What about a magical therapist from another country?"
Harry whipped his head around. Draco smiled ruefully. "I had a similar problem. Or, well. The opposite problem, I suppose. I didn’t want to ask some poor magical therapist who had been through the war to listen to me whine about how terrible it was to have been a Death Eater."
Harry opened his mouth, but Draco cut him off. "Please don’t ask me anything about it for now. I’m not." He swallowed. "I’m glad I do it, but I don’t want to talk about it under a Truth-Telling Spell."
Harry regarded him for a moment, then picked up his wand and asked, "What shade of green do you think for the walls?"
***
Pansy, Ron, and Hermione came over the next day to admire their work in the family parlour.
After they had exclaimed appropriately over how much lighter and cosier it was, then interacted with the chalk mural, they settled into determinedly polite chitchat.
Ron mentioned that Neville would be back in town this weekend, and Pansy stilled briefly, then smiled archly at Harry and asked how he was finding the lust compulsion. Harry’s eyes went wide, and he opened his mouth, but Hermione spoke first.
"Oh, hasn’t that ended yet?"
Draco froze. Maybe Harry would answer first, and then Draco would know just how much his own crush was supplemented by a lust compulsion. There was a long silence. Draco could feel the need to respond swelling up inside of him. He looked desperately at Harry, who had set his jaw firmly.
This Truth-Telling Spell was the worst thing that had ever happened to him.
"I’m not entirely sure," Draco finally bit out. Pansy’s eyes snapped to his in shocked delight, and he sneered at her.
Harry’s shoulders had relaxed, which was ridiculous. What did he have to be worried about?
"You’re not sure?" Hermione asked. "How can you not–"
"Mione," Ron cut her off.
She looked at him in confusion, then started and said, "Oh!" She glanced nervously at Draco, then back at Ron, then, truly panicked, over to Pansy, who was smiling widely. "Well, that’s." She looked more flustered than Draco had ever seen her, and he had seen her battling dark magic as a teenager.
"I’m also not entirely sure." Harry’s voice was low. Draco jerked around to look at him, but he was staring at his own hands as though they held the secrets to the universe.
There was a strained silence, and then Hermione said, "Hmm," in an anxious sort of way, and Pansy erupted into badly concealed laughter.
Ron slipped an arm around Hermione’s shoulders and said, "Mi, we should really get to your parents’. They’re having us over for dinner," he explained to Harry and Pansy. "And while it is only" – he checked the time and winced – "4.30, we need to get changed and pick up a few things before we head over there, so…"
Harry followed them out the room, and Pansy descended on him the second the door closed behind him. She didn’t even bother saying anything, just tickled him and cackled victoriously.
"Pansy, you don’t– It’s not– It doesn’t mean anything," he shouted, wriggling away from her talons. He grabbed her wrists and held her still. "Pans." She was still smiling smugly. "We’ve been bonded for weeks. It’s all very confusing, and he’s…" Draco looked away as the smile slid off her face.
"You’re a fool and a half, Draco Malfoy," she said, tugging her arms out of his grasp. She stood up and smoothed out her skirt. "I myself have an event to get to," she said. "Astoria Greengrass’s engagement party."
Draco raised an eyebrow. "Since when are you friends with Astoria?"
Pansy shrugged. "Since she got engaged to Berylla Semotus, whose godmother is Augusta Longbottom." She cocked an eyebrow at him and stepped over to the Floo. "So I’ll see myself out."
Draco stared into the fire after she left, until Bond gave off cleaning herself and leapt onto the couch for scritches. Maybe Harry would never come back, and they would never have to talk about how Draco had been looking at Harry favourably so long that he couldn’t tell which layers of the bond were active. Bond settled, and Draco stroked her meditatively, lulling them both.
"You’re going to be all over cat hair, you know that," Harry said when he returned and saw Bond curled up on Draco’s lap.
"Oh, hush," Draco said, stroking his hands over her perfect little ears. She begrudgingly allowed this. He removed his hands from her ears and bent close to murmur, "It is an honour to be covered in your hair, gorgeous." He looked up at Harry and winked. "Also, there are loads of spells to remove cat hair; they’re very common familiars." Bond bristled, and Draco said, "Oh, not you, darling, you’re dazzling. I meant those other common cats."
Harry was smiling fondly at Bond as he joined them on the couch. "You’re absurd."
Before Draco could point out that this was further defamation of Bond’s impeccable character, Harry continued: "You dress so differently than you did in school."
Draco eyed him suspiciously. "Well, yes, we wore uniforms."
Harry laughed, and Bond lazily turned her gaze on him. He conjured a long feather and began waving it tantalisingly in front of himself, so Draco redoubled his stroking efforts to keep Bond’s affection.
"I did see you out of uniform on occasion, though, and you always looked like. Well, like a little lord of the manor. I guess I figured you’d dress like that until you grew into it."
Draco smiled absently and thought about leaving it there, but he could feel the truth being tugged out of him by the bond, and he didn’t mind, so he said, "For a while after the war, I would ask myself, ‘is it evil?’ about…everything. Everything I did. Choosing my clothes in the morning: is it evil? Will this outfit or that one make the world worse? Is obsessing this much about my clothes evil? It’s vain, certainly – is that evil?"
Harry snorted at this, and Draco allowed himself a small smile in return, still focused on scritching under Bond’s chin. "It never felt like enough, though," he said. "I never felt that I was…well…" He hesitated. "It’s not that I thought I could. Make up for it." He looked up at Harry, couldn’t resist, although he forced himself to keep his face angled down in case Harry didn’t want to look at him.
"Anyway, then I found out about queer theory," Draco said. He had been researching the ways in which the Dementors’ magic might have impacted Azkaban as, itself, a semi-sentient magical structure and had turned to a book called Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison, which had seemed promising but turned out to be about something else entirely. His interest had been caught nonetheless, and he had followed the conversations among Muggle thinkers until he’d found Gloria Anzaldúa and Judith Butler. That had led him down a rabbit hole, which could have put off his entire thesis, had he had literally anything else to spend time on. As it was, learning about queer theory was what he did in his down time, when he was taking a break from research.
"I learned," Draco exhaled and shook his head, running a hand along Bond’s silky back. "Well, all sorts of things, but one thing was that the kinds of things I was worried about weren’t ridiculous. Or, well, they were, but not for the reasons I thought. I couldn’t exactly do evil by dressing in austere black, but I could rebel through clothing. I could use what I wore to assert that the status quo was wrong, to signal that there are, well, ways of being in the world besides…" He looked sideways at Harry for a moment, considering what vocabulary to use. ‘White heteronormative patriarchy’ might come off as elitist, so he finished with, "The usual ones."
Harry looked sceptical. "So you started dressing weird to make the world a better place?"
Draco barked a hoarse laugh, and Bond pricked up her ears and stared at him disdainfully. "Not exactly, no. No one was seeing me, anyway; it’s not like how I dress can have any actual impact on…anything."
"No, it was more like." Draco thought for a moment, soothing Bond with long strokes. "I wanted to be active, not passive? Instead of trying to not be evil, I started asking, like: is it kind?" Harry sucked in a breath, but Draco continued as though he hadn’t heard. "Is it–" He squinted in thought. "Is it putting out into the world…whatever I want to be putting out there," he finished slowly. "That helped, a bit. I still don’t think I can make up for it, but it turns out that making things better isn’t quite the same as not making them worse."
Harry thought for a moment, tickling his own chin with the feather. He swung it down from his face in a wide arc, clearly about to speak, but Bond saw her opportunity and pounced. Harry gave a startled shout and rolled off the edge of the couch, and they whiled away the rest of the afternoon enchanting the feather to dart all around the floor for her to chase.
***
Two days later, they walked out to the small back garden and found the spot with the clearest view of the moon. Unsure of how best to arrange himself, Draco remained standing, clutching the dressing gown tighter around his chest.
"Merlin, this is so awkward," Harry muttered, shrugging out of his t-shirt and kicking off his joggers into a sloppy pile. He flung himself to the ground and looked expectantly up at Draco, who gritted his teeth and slipped his dressing gown off, settling cross-legged on the soft, cool grass and facing Harry. Then, Draco glanced down and thought perhaps cross-legged was an unwise position to have chosen, so he quickly pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them.
Harry snorted slightly, then shifted position, slowly extended first one leg, then the other, out in front of himself in a sort of V that inherently drew the eye up the line of his thigh and–
Draco, of course, was meeting Harry’s eye neither mendacious nor false like a good little bond partner, so his eyes were not drawn anywhere. Certainly not to the way that the moon shone on Harry’s dusky cheekbones, how it reflected off the curve of his shoulders.
"You are an absolute twat," he said, and Harry laughed without breaking eye contact, which was actually even more terrible than all the rest of it.
"I don’t know how to be not-mendacious," Harry admitted cheerfully after a few moments, still intently focused on Draco’s eyes.
Draco made a face. "I thought that was your default state."
Harry laughed. "I lie sometimes, you know. But no, what I meant was, like, do I need to say everything that comes into my head? Or tell you some big secret?"
Draco perked up. "Do you have a big secret to tell? If yes, definitely tell me." He paused, then added as convincingly as he could, "It’s the only way to break the spell."
"Now I don’t feel like you know how to be not-mendacious."
Draco glanced down uncomfortably, then rocketed his eyes right back up to Harry’s. He could feel his skin heat even though he really hadn’t seen anything…well, anything except a lot of skin, which was to say barely anything at all.
"How long do you think it will take?" he asked loudly to distract from his own traitorous eyes.
"I don’t know," Harry said, exasperated. "I’m not the one who did all the research, am I? For all I know, you made this whole thing up to see me naked in the moonlight."
Draco laughed at that for so long that Harry started to look a bit worried.
***
Two hours later, they had run out of things to talk about, so Draco was teaching Harry one of the rhyming magic games he had played as a child. It had taken him a while to remember the incantations – he had abandoned the games as ‘baby-ish’ long before he’d had a wand of his own, so some adult or another had always had to cast them before the children could play.
"Goyle’s Dad’s were the best," Draco enthused. "They were always big smashes and crashes; we loved it."
His charms, when they took, turned out to be more ethereal and transient, simple line drawings that flowed into one another as he and Harry took their turns adding to the rhyme.
"You have to mimic the framing of the opening," Draco explained, "then rhyme on the second line. So if I start, erm." He paused for a moment, then said, "Whoosh the frightened zephyrs rode; Crash the doors they opened wide." He looked hopefully at the shapes that danced around him, but they remained soft and smooth, nothing like Goyle Senior’s violent fireworks.
Draco sighed, then said, "Anyway, now your lines also need to open with onomatopoeias."
They traded a few rhymes back and forth, both dropping their eye contact to watch the shapes, then guiltily snapping their attention back to one another when they realised.
"Oh Circe’s pigs, Harry, it’s meant to be something magical, or the charms can’t shape," Draco snapped as Harry completely dropped the ball on the next line.
"You did one about rabbits!" Harry protested. "Rabbits aren’t magical!"
"But I was thinking of Babbity Rabbity, and intent matters. You incompetent nincompoop."
That set Harry off laughing again, and Draco shouted, "Fine, you forfeit, I get to start again."
Bond skulked past behind Harry, probably off hunting, so in Bond’s honour, Draco opened with, "Who is it walks between the worlds? Tis I, who steals the baby’s breath."
He watched the shapes his words spoke into the air, a series of cats sketched out in the night sky, then looked expectantly to Harry, who looked briefly conflicted, then said, "Who is it walks beyond the veil? Tis I, unwilling Lord of Death."
Draco was barely aware of his body as he watched Harry’s words take shape in a series of images etched into his own brain: Harry, walking into the Forbidden Forest; his limp body held in Hagrid’s arms; his body vanishing under the sweep of a cloak; all interspersed with illustrations from Draco’s childhood copy of Beedle the Bard.
"Really?" Draco asked in a small voice, even though he already knew the answer. Harry’s voice had borne the ring of awful truth. Their eyes still locked, Harry dipped his chin slightly in a nod. Before Draco could say anything else, a thrill ran through him. By the way Harry jerked, he felt it too.
They sat for a moment, gasping and wide-eyed on the silvery-green hilltop, unhidden and unadorned beneath the full moon.
"Well," Harry said finally. "Do you think it’s over?"
Draco replied, "You’re a massive arsehole, I’ve never liked you, and I’d rather spend time in the company of a particularly foetid troll than with you."
A slow smile crept over Harry’s face. Draco began to smile back, then abruptly recalled that they were both naked. He leapt to his feet, but of course, Harry, not having expected that, was still staring at where Draco’s head had been. Draco squawked and spun around to protect his modesty.
Behind him, Harry spluttered out, "So rare to get to see a double moon," then collapsed into howls of laughter.
***
Hermione had absolutely begged to get to be present at the next implementation of the spell – "Please, Draco, it’s so fascinating, and who knows if there will ever be an opportunity to take this kind of look at the bonding mechanisms again, plus what kind of applications there could be for the modified Revelio–"
"Fine," Draco had interrupted. "Hermione, fine. It’s not like it can be any worse than the lust compulsion."
Then Pansy had found out and had insisted not only that she come as well, but that they refer to it as ‘the unveiling’. Draco and Harry had made their objections clear, but ‘the unveiling’ seemed to be sticking.
Or at least, that was presumably why the youngest Weasley had shown up an hour before everyone else, insisting that she be included in "The unveiling, whatever the fuck that is, come on, Harry, I deserve to tease you about this just as much as Ron does!"
Which meant that Ron, Hermione, Blaise, Pansy, Luna, Ginny, and, somehow, Neville, were all gathered to watch raptly as Draco cast a rather nervous Revelio in Mente.
***
Three adults in luxurious silks and jewels stood in the middle of a large hall filled with nobles at the remains of a feast. Lilting music began to play, and Draco located the musician against a back wall. One of them, a large bearded man, raised his glass and spoke over the music.
"Tonight," he said, and his voice rang out over the assembled crowd, "we speak of union! Of families and bonds!" He looked around the room, then held out a hand to the woman next to him. "But we speak also of love." She smiled and took his hand.
They both turned to the other woman, who said, "The child of our House, Parceladonia, seeks to court your child, Elyciadora."
The woman smiled and held out the lovespoon, then responded, "The child of my House, Elyciadora, is prepared to permit the suit of your child, Parceladonia."
"Then let her name the labours!" the bearded man boomed joyfully. "Parceladonia will stop at nothing to court his truest love."
A blushing youth came forward to claim the lovespoon.
***
"Well," Draco said after a moment, "the positive thing is, we must be nearing the last of the bonds. Courtship labours are…"
Pansy picked up where he’d trailed off. "Terribly out of fashion? Ridiculous pageantry? Absolute and utter nonsense?"
"Aren’t they quite dangerous?" Hermione asked anxiously.
Ron flapped a hand. "They can be, but there’s a lot of leeway." He squinted at Harry. "Unless you want to make it really hard for him?"
Pansy scoffed. "Why would Harry be the one setting the labours? Surely you don’t expect Draco to desperately pursue him."
Draco discreetly kicked her in the shins.
Hermione only laughed. "Oh God, imagine." She and Pansy made eye contact and broke into laughter once more.
Draco was unsure whether he should be offended. Yes, he was a prize worth winning, but equally, he could certainly manage some courtship labours. If he wanted to. If it was really important.
Harry stepped forward, jaw set firmly. "I’ll do it," he said nobly, and the light shifted so that he was heroically lit.
Draco was definitely offended now. He glared around at the House and, before he could stop himself, said, "I’m a very capable wizard, you know."
Harry blinked at him. "I…know?"
Pansy buried her face in her arms and howled with laughter. Draco faltered slightly; Pansy laughing like that was never a good sign.
Then Ginny Weasley got involved, and that was a worse sign. "You could always race," she said slyly.
"That’s ridiculous," Draco spluttered, just as Ron said, "That’s interesting."
"Just a reminder," Blaise drawled carelessly. "This isn’t real. It doesn’t actually matter who does it. You’re trying to fulfil the letter of the bond, not the spirit." Everyone turned to glare at him, and he lifted his hands placatingly. "Well, it’s true."
"I simply don’t understand why you’re acting like it’s a foregone conclusion that Harry would be the courter," Draco said, trying to sound like he didn’t care one way or the other.
"Right, totally, agreed," Ginny said through a shit-eating grin, "so probably you should both do it." She looked eagerly around the room. "As a race."
***
They did it as a fucking race. Ginny had set the parameters, bouncing eagerly on her broom as she explained it to them.
"First, you have to sort these piles of grain by type." Ginny gestured to the piles behind her. "It’s meant to be barley and millet, but they didn’t have those at Tesco, so it’s dried lentils and brown rice. Once you’ve done that, you need to quench your thirst from Aquae Sulis, then bring back a gobletful for the object of your affections." Ginny fluttered her eyelashes for so long that Blaise threw a Wuaffle at her.
She squawked and looped around to evade it, then wagged a finger at Blaise. "Ten points from Slytherin for incivility," she bellowed, then turned to Hermione. "Work that into the scoring somehow."
Hermione looked exasperated. "There is no scoring. It’s a race, and it was your idea. I’m not involved in this."
"TEN POINTS FROM GRYFFINDOR," Ginny bellowed, wobbling slightly on her broom. She turned to face Harry and Draco once more. "Where was I? Ah yes, after the water, you have to seek out the heart of the flower you will never know."
"The what?" Harry asked, but Draco was just as baffled as he was.
"The first one to return to their perfectly sorted grain, pour one drop of water onto the lentils, cast the heart of the flower you will never know onto the rice, and then offer the rest of the goblet to their betrothed wins."
Ginny did a loop-the-loop and hollered, "Everyone ready?"
"No!" Harry replied.
"Absolutely not, what is happening?" Draco said.
"Great!" Ginny shouted over them. "George will give the signal!" Draco whirled around to see another fucking Weasley emerge holding an enormous baton. "Courters, prepare to pursue! Your! Romaaaaaance!"
George twirled the baton, and a whistle pierced the air. Then, with a loud boom, sparks began flying out of each end of the baton. Some of the sparks shot off in different directions, creating ribbons of colourful light across the small garden.
"Draco, GO!" Pansy screamed, and Draco jolted at the realisation that he had already wasted precious moments gawking at the wildly overblown fireworks display. He scrambled toward the piles of grain mere feet behind Harry, who stared down at his own pile for a moment, then abruptly apparated away.
Draco stopped, startled. This might turn out to be easier than he’d expected.
"Blaise," he called. "I need you!"
Blaise scoffed. "This is your weird courtship competition," he said, ostentatiously turning to admire his own manicured hand.
Draco rolled his eyes. "I’m calling in my favour for keeping that secret for you fourth-year."
Blaise walked over sharpish.
"What’s Blaise going to do?" Ginny asked, laughing.
"Blaise can be very…persuasive," Draco hedged. Blaise didn’t smile, exactly, but he did bare his teeth so his incisor sparkled alluringly.
By the time Harry Apparated back, Blaise had four people and a flock of crows helping Draco sort the lentils from the rice.
"You’ve fallen awfully far behind, Potter," Draco crowed, gesturing between Harry’s untouched pile and Draco’s, which was at least two-thirds sorted.
"Oh no," Harry said so easily that Draco’s hackles went up immediately. "If only I hadn’t wasted all that time chatting to Molly Weasley." He pulled out his wand in a leisurely fashion that made Draco want to kick him in the shins. "She was telling me all about some of the older housekeeping spells she used when the kids were small – like when they’d make a mess in the kitchen, for example, and she needed to sort it out fast."
Draco’s stomach sank. Harry winked cockily and cast. The rice and lentils rocketed into two neat piles, which he quickly levitated into the waiting containers on the dining room table.
"Well," Harry said, dusting off his hands. "Guess I’d better go look for that stream, eh?"
He smirked right into Draco’s face and Disapparated away.
Draco didn’t see him at the source of the baths in Bath when he finally finished sorting his grains, but that likely meant Harry had already been and gone. Draco cast about for a stone to Transfigure into a glass. He sent it floating to dip into the spring and then swore when the water seemed to repel it. He tried again, then rolled his eyes. "One of those prissy sorts, hm?"
Fortunately, he still had a direct line to Pansy’s drinks cabinet. He Summoned her best crystal goblet, with silent apologies to Great Aunt Periwinkle, and plunged it into the stream.
He tapped the goblet to activate its party mode – hovering carefully a foot in front of him and slightly to the left – and then considered the ‘flower he would never know’. Was there anyone he could ask? The only herbologist he knew was Neville Longbottom, who, Draco now realised, had been suspiciously absent from the group cheering them at the start.
He narrowed his eyes and Apparated to the last known location of Neville Longbottom, which, as he was crashing at Luna’s while he looked for a new flat, was Luna’s living room.
He arrived with a crack, startling Harry and Neville, who were mid-conversation.
"Oi!" Harry shouted, grinning. "Off you fuck, Draco, Neville’s my friend. Go find your own plant specialist to bother about the flower you’ll never know."
Draco was about to retort that Neville was his friend as well, thank you very much, when he was fortunately stopped by Neville’s eyes going wide with realisation.
"Oh," he said, "Is this maybe why Ginny was asking me what plant looks most like a vulva?"
Harry and Draco look at each other, then back at Neville. "And?" Draco said waspishly. Then, he winced and said, "Apologies, Neville, I meant to say…"
Harry cut him off impatiently. "Be kind later, Draco. Neville, what did you tell her?" Then he cocked his head. "Wait, I dated Ginny, why is she suggesting I’ll never…" He looked at Draco and shut his mouth abruptly.
Draco’s eyes bulged.
Neville grinned. "Butterfly pea flower, or Clitoria ternatea, so named because–"
Harry threw his hands up in frustration. "Right, but where do we find one."
Draco was one step ahead of him. He went charging into Luna’s bedroom. No way did Luna not have a plant shaped like a vulva, if she knew one existed.
Sure enough, there was a shockingly blue flower growing from the plant on her windowsill that looked precisely like female genitalia. Not that he’d seen any in person, as Ginny had pointed out, but he’d read books.
He carefully snipped the flower free and cast a Stasis and then Protego to keep it safe. Harry blundered in after him, and Draco waggled his fingers at Harry and disappeared.
Draco Apparated to the small back garden of Grimmauld Place and stumbled in his haste, nearly spilling the goblet of liquid. Potter had made the riskier choice of Apparating actually into the House, and by his howls of outrage, it had not paid off. Draco snickered to himself and took the time to offer a grandiose wave to his assembled admirers – by which he meant the motley crew who were laughing and cheering and drinking and betting on the outcome.
"Better hurry, Malfoy," Ron shouted. "Harry’s already inside!"
"Harry offended the House, more like," Pansy snickered, "but you should still get a move on, Draco!"
They crowded behind him as he sprinted for the door, the goblet drifting smoothly behind him. They clearly meant to watch the finish closely to determine who had courted whom, but the moment Draco and his various items had cleared the threshold, the door of Grimmauld Place slammed shut.
Draco grinned fiercely at Harry, who was stuck knee-deep in a stair, and blew him a kiss as he raced past on his way to the dining room. He heard a clatter a few moments later and assumed the House had set Harry free. Good. Draco liked a challenge. Particularly a challenge he was guaranteed to win.
The door to the dining room flew open as he entered the kitchen, and he barrelled through it, then skidded to a stop just before crashing into the table. He flung the flower desperately onto the rice and dipped a finger into the hovering goblet to flick a droplet of water onto the lentils.
Harry had no such control over his momentum and slammed into Draco, sending both of them flying onto the top of the table.
"With these the fruits of my labours I pledge thee my troth," they both panted out hastily, gesturing to their goblets – Draco noted that Harry had actually put the butterfly pea flower in the water – and then Harry barked out, "Ha! I win!" and Draco snapped his eyes back to Harry’s in outrage.
Before he could argue, Harry, flushed with (false) victory, tossed his goblet to the side, placed one hand on the table next to Draco’s head for leverage, and kissed him soundly. In any other moment, Draco might have pulled back, startled. He might have questioned whether it was wise to start something up while they were bonded. He might have wondered if this could end in any way but heartbreak for him.
But nothing had ever gotten his blood up like competing with Harry Potter, and today was no different.
He lost himself in the kiss, tugging Harry up so more of his weight was on the table, tangling one hand in Harry’s hair as the other clutched at his waist, urging him closer and closer, until suddenly they were both doused in water.
Harry flung himself backwards, taking up a fighting stance immediately. Draco took a moment longer to collect himself, then gaped in astonishment when Harry collapsed into laughter, the warm weight of him falling once more against Draco’s legs where they dangled off the edge of the table.
"The– your goblet–" he wheezed, and with a jolt, Draco realised he had forgotten to keep up the steady Levitation Charm that had kept the water from spilling out.
"Well, I had to get it to you somehow," he said crossly, giving Harry an embarrassed little shove to shift his weight so Draco could clamber upright.
Instead, Harry clung to him more closely. His face turned serious, although his eyes still sparkled as he slid one hand under Draco’s shirt and pressed his palm full against the skin of Draco’s stomach.
Draco inhaled sharply and watched as the movement lifted Harry’s hand slightly. Harry’s other hand was wrapped around his leg just above the knee, and Harry moved it carefully, questioningly, eyes still on Draco.
Draco pushed himself up onto his elbows and twisted so he could kiss Harry again. It was an awkward position, so he looped his hands under Harry’s arms and tugged him back up, but Harry resisted. With the hand still under Draco’s shirt, he pressed Draco back against the table and slid his other hand up Draco’s thigh until it rested at the button of his trousers.
The world hung perfectly still for a moment, and then Draco was nodding frantically, and Harry was jerking Draco’s trousers open impatiently, and everything was eager, wet heat and unrepeatable words of adoration.
After, once Draco had clawed and writhed and shouted his way to orgasm; once Harry had stood and frantically wanked himself, eyes wide and almost panicked as they flicked across Draco’s rucked up shirt and barely opened trousers; once they had been left, shocked and panting and staring at each other until Harry had dropped heavily on top of Draco and nosed his way into the curve of Draco’s neck, so that Draco had no choice but to rest his hands on Harry’s back.
After all of that.
Draco took a great, shuddering breath that made Harry’s head raise and lower, but before he could voice the worry that was choking him, the House let the knocking in.
They both shot upright and stared at each other, wide-eyed.
"I completely forgot they were out there," Harry whispered urgently.
Draco giggled, which was entirely inappropriate for the situation, but he was nervous and slightly addled from the orgasm and couldn’t be held responsible.
"So did I," he said, once he’d gotten himself a bit more under control. "Should we…" he trailed off and winced at the idea of letting everyone else in just now.
Harry twisted his mouth to one side in thought. "Maybe they’ll think it’s the next part of the bond?" he offered.
"It’s probably not the kindest thing, to let our friends worry that we’re trapped in here," Draco said reluctantly.
Harry leaned in so that their foreheads brushed and solemnly said, "Fuck kindness."
Draco let out a bark of surprised laughter that tilted his head back and broke eye contact, but Harry wrapped a hand around the back of his head, twined his fingers in Draco’s hair and steered him back.
"I don’t care about anything except how much I want to kiss you right now," he said seriously.
Draco didn’t have any argument against that.
***
Eventually, Harry sent a Patronus letting their friends know they were fine, but Grimmauld was being crotchety. The House gave an irritated shudder that jostled the couch they had moved to, and Harry laughed and said, "Well, we have to tell them something."
The knocking stopped, and a few moments later, the back door loudly and ostentatiously unlocked.
Draco twisted his lips to stop the smile stealing across them and said seriously, "Do you think, perhaps, that there might be something new to discover and admire downstairs?"
Harry tilted his head to the side in over-the-top thought. "Hmm. In the back garden, possibly? Could it be?"
Bond leaped up onto the back of the couch and yowled plaintively, then leapt over them and clattered down the stairs.
"Alright, alright," Harry groaned, laughing, and they untangled themselves and went to look.
Just beyond the small yard where their friends had cheered them on, there was a path unfurling into the darkness of the trees where Draco could have sworn there had been a wall earlier today.
Harry and Draco glanced at each other, then started walking. The afternoon sun slanted between the tree’s branches and lit the path a soft glowing brown. They walked a bit further, and further still, until Harry said, "Is this really all behind Grimmauld Place? It can’t be." A raven landed on a branch in front of them, inky black against the green leaves. Draco drifted to a stop, his fingers on Harry’s forearm tugging Harry back as well.
"I think." He paused thoughtfully, considering. The raven cocked its head at him. "I think we should go back."
Harry nodded slowly. They turned around, although they both kept their eyes on the raven over their shoulder until it flew off. When he looked back at the path, Draco spotted a pile of apples, their red and gold mottling blending into the dirt and undergrowth. Harry jolted to a halt, clearly noticing them as well. "Were those here before?" he asked.
"They could have been," Draco offered halfheartedly.
Harry sucked in a breath. "They’re from the House," he said abruptly.
Draco caught his shoulder as he bent down to grab one. "This is a different kind of binding, Harry," he warned. "You’ll be the House’s as much as it’s yours."
Harry searched his eyes for a moment, still half-crouched, then leaned down and snagged two apples from the pile. He polished them each on his shirt, then tossed one to Draco. "I don’t think I mind being bonded. In the right circumstances."
Draco caught the apple, then stared foolishly as Harry bit voraciously into the skin, revealing the white flesh beneath. Harry chewed and licked his lips. "It’s good," he said, gesturing at the one Draco still held out in front of him. Draco stared down at it for a moment. Harry couldn’t be offering…
He looked back up at Harry, who was shifting uneasily. He smiled hopefully and took another enormous bite. Draco took a deep breath and stepped forward to kiss him. He tasted sweet and fresh.
They walked on, Harry finishing his apple in a few more enormous bites while Draco savoured his. Harry turned to throw the core into the trees, then exclaimed in delight.
"Oh! I didn’t know those were real! Like, in nature!"
Draco followed his gaze to a cluster of red cap toadstools speckled with white. Harry charged toward them, squatting down for a closer look when he reached the nearest one. He looked back over his shoulder at Draco. "I thought these were the, like, abstract representation of a mushroom, but they’re real!"
Draco stepped to peer over his shoulder, brow furrowed. "How did you not know these were real? We use Amanita muscaria in potions all the time."
Harry blinked at him. "That’s brown," he replied in confusion.
Draco was aghast. "You…Circe’s pigs, is that really–" He glared. "But the illustrations next to them were always like this," he said, gesturing at the bright red mushrooms in front of them. "Obviously the stock we used in potions was ground to a powder, then treated for longevity and easier storage. Nothing on the Hogwarts curriculum would demand fresh Amanita muscaria."
Harry shrugged and turned back to the speckled mushroom. "Right, sure, but I thought the drawings were just to look pretty, but the actual mushroom was brown."
"How would that be useful? Wait," Draco said in horror. "Did you think the illustrations in our textbooks were for the aesthetics?"
Harry was still facing the mushroom, but Draco could tell he was making a face. "I mean…yes? Potions was dead boring, all that precision and endless text about proportion changes. I figured they knew we needed something to break it up."
Draco was going to protest, but Harry stood up to examine the other mushrooms. Draco grabbed his shoulder to prevent him from stepping into the ring of mushrooms. "I think you ought to save this for another day." Harry looked surprised, so Draco explained, "Grimmauld obviously has some lasting links to the Fair Folk. Probably best not to poke into that until you’re ready."
Draco bent to place his own unfinished apple just outside the circle, then took Harry’s hand, and together they walked back to the House.
***
They felt guilty about having allowed the House to kick their friends out, so they agreed to another unveiling. Ginny was particularly vocal about being owed for having arranged the competition.
"No one wanted that but her," Draco pointed out. "She bullied us into it."
Harry shrugged, looking a little abashed. "I didn’t mind," he said awkwardly. "In the end."
So obviously Draco had to agree then, and also to admit to embarrassing things in between kisses.
Which was why they were now all gathered around the lovespoon, with Draco hoping desperately nothing too terrible was coming as he lifted his wand.
***
A very young woman in a red wimple and a richly blue gown brocaded in gold leaned forward across a table and squeezed the hand of the young man across from her.
"We can refuse to be parted," she said pleadingly. "Papa won’t be able to break our bond if the world knows of our love."
The young man looked nervous but set his shoulders under his tunic and nodded firmly. He drew out the lovespoon and said, "I carved this for us."
Together, they placed their hands on the lovespoon and closed their eyes.
***
"So you have to…tell the world of your love?" Blaise said neutrally.
"What does that even mean?" Ron asked. "Like, you’re going to take out an ad in the Prophet?" He grabbed a handful of nuts from the bowl the House had offered him.
Draco had watched proudly as Harry had spoken confidently to the House, asking for "something for our guests" with a casual air. The House had responded beautifully, setting an array of offerings out in the kitchen to be chosen and brought in. Ron Weasley was truly an ideal guest for an insecurely bonded House, greedy for praise and admiration.
"It would have to be a full interview, unfortunately," Pansy was saying. "You couldn’t get away with a simple announcement."
She and Blaise had mocked him relentlessly, but they had been there, every time they’d been invited and several when they had not. Blaise smiled slyly as Pansy flushed when Neville agreed with her.
"The Prophet was only founded in 1847, though," Luna pointed out. Hermine nodded along until Luna added, "By a merman impersonating an aristocratic goblin with a desire to hide the truth about the Gibraltar Ballooning Incident."
Hermione bit her lip, then said, "Either way, Luna’s right – they couldn’t have meant the Prophet."
Blaise tapped his chin. "Who really constituted ‘the world’ for them? Presumably some sort of community head, or leader, or council – but word would really only need to spread a small distance in…what are we thinking, the early 1400s, at this point?"
"I know this hasn’t been, well, easy," Hermione said, "But we’re so fortunate to get this look into history, I mean, really." She stared dreamily into the distance. "A living 15th century bond."
"As thrilling as that is," Ron said, stepping forward, "it’s likely the last one." Everyone looked at him in surprise, and then Harry caught on.
"Of course! He said he made the lovespoon!"
Ron cocked a finger at him. "Right. So this has to have been the very first bond it was the focal point for."
"Oh!" Hermione exclaimed suddenly. "It’s Wilhelmina! That must be Wilhelmina Brockenbraugh!"
Everyone turned to look at her, and she Summoned a book from across the room. "I read it in one of the books, the Grimmauld history books. It was the oldest one, so I thought it might have something about the formation of the bond."
Ron interrupted, grinning. "You just wanted to get your hands on the oldest book in the room; you don’t have to lie."
Hermione swatted a hand at him, but her rueful smile gave her away. "Anyway," she said pointedly, carefully turning the pages like there weren’t a hundred different preservation spells layered over them, "Wilhelmina was betrothed to the Black heir, erm–" She finally located the page she wanted and carefully read out, "Maledicto Foribangius Anasantoni Black."
Blaise whistled at the name, and Hermione nodded agreement but continued. "Anyway, she didn’t want to marry him, she was in love with" – she waved her hand – "some neighbour kid, presumably the man in the vision, so she tried to elope with him, but…" she trailed off, turning another page.
"But, of course, the Black family was very powerful and managed to stop them; we don’t need the details, surely," Blaise said lazily.
"Right, so Wilhelmina ended up marrying Maledicto after all, which, reading between the lines, worked out about how one might expect." Hermione paused to share a knowing look with Pansy, and Draco had a flash of foresight of some badly acronymed magical feminist group, and then Hermione triumphantly located another passage. "Aha! I thought so! And she insisted on using the lovespoon when her grandchild – oo, Elyciadora! Ha! – when Elyciadora was bonded."
Hermione looked up from the book wistfully. "Maledicto had died by then, so I suppose that was her way of commemorating her former love."
"And if the bond was never completed, this must have been the one that snagged you!" Ron finished enthusiastically. "So this is the final one, it must be."
Harry grinned over at Draco, who felt an odd tightness in his chest as he smiled back.
"Boo," Ginny called from across the room. "Booooo!" She leaned back and beamed at everyone. "This is the most fun I’ve had in ages. I want you two to stay bonded forever."
Draco’s chest tightened further at the thought. Bonded forever. Under the eyes of everyone who mattered.
He stood abruptly. "I know what we need to do." Ginny let out a whoop, and he said, "Not you, you damnable harridan," then stared at her in horror. "I’m sorry, I…" but Ginny had already erupted into wild laughter.
"I’m going to have Mum knit that into your Christmas jumper," Ron shouted.
Amidst the chaos, Harry slipped his hand into Draco’s. "Where are we going?" he whispered, and Draco smiled and spun them into Apparition.
When they landed, Harry looked around and gave Draco a confused smile. "Hogwarts?"
Draco shrugged and began walking up the drive. "What’s the heart of the magical community? It’s not the bleeding Ministry, that’s for certain."
Harry was gazing around like he’d never seen the grounds before. "So we’ll just, what, announce it to the castle?"
Draco rolled his eyes. "No, you nitwit, we’ll tell McGonagall in…somewhere symbolic." He snapped his fingers. "The Great Hall."
"Fuck," Harry breathed. "I forgot how much I love it here." Then, he turned to Draco and said, "So we’re just going to knock on McGonagall’s door, hope she’s there, drag her down to the Great Hall, and tell her we got accidentally bonded? And that’ll be it?"
Draco kept his eyes dead ahead and took a deep breath. "I imagine we’ll have to tell her we’re in love," he said as lightly as he could.
Harry stumbled, but Draco kept walking. Harry jogged to catch up to him and craned round Draco’s shoulder to say, "Because that was the wording of the bond?"
Draco didn’t look at him. "Why else?"
"Draco," he said, a note of warning in his voice.
"Our focus should be on breaking the bond," Draco said briskly. "We can sort anything else out afterwards. Once everyone’s head is clear and…and new decisions can be made. I don’t think we should say anything we can’t take back until we’re not being…interfered with."
Harry stopped walking. "Draco," he said again. This time his voice was forlorn.
Draco stopped as well and took a deep breath. He held it and braced himself to turn and look Harry in the face.
"What an unexpected yet delightful surprise," the Headmistress’s voice said from behind them both. Draco spun around and caught sight of the boyish joy that lit up Harry’s face when he heard her, even under the circumstances.
"It’s always wonderful to see former students, but I have to admit, this is not the pair of visitors I would have anticipated."
Harry was every inch the mischievous schoolboy as he said, "Great to see you as well, Headmistress. Draco and I have something important to tell you in the Great Hall."
He held out an arm with exaggerated officiousness, and McGonagall took it with clear hesitance. She narrowed her eyes as he started walking and said, "This isn’t some kind of surprise party, is it? Because I’ll not put up with that kind of nonsense."
Harry laughed and said, "I wouldn’t dare, Headmistress."
Draco trailed after them up the steps, feeling suddenly shy and uncertain. This was nonsense. He and Harry needed to tell McGonagall what the bond needed from them. That was all.
And yet there was a strange significance to the motions as Harry led McGonagall into the Hall where they had shared so many meals; where so many of their magical brethren had broken bread and come together over and over. Harry dropped McGonagall’s arm and reached out for Draco.
He reminded himself sternly that there was nothing significant about this and marched briskly forward to shove his hand into Harry’s.
"Headmistress," he began sharply, then breathed in. He held the breath and released it, then said more gently, "Headmistress McGonagall, Harry and I are here to tell you that" – he couldn’t help the way his eyes went to Harry’s, and instead of saying what he’d planned to, that they were bonded and needed to profess their love to her to fulfil its terms, he finished – "we are in love." He cleared his throat awkwardly at the way Harry’s eyes softened as he said it.
"Is that so?" McGonagall said faintly.
Harry grinned but didn’t look away as he responded, "Yep. Yes. It’s so." He caught Draco’s other hand. "We’re in love."
It felt less like a weight lifted than like a sudden breeze in the still air when the bond left them for good.
"Was that it?" Harry whispered, still holding his gaze.
"I think so."
"What," McGonagall said sternly, stepping between them, "is going on here?"
After tea and biscuits and explanations, McGonagall sent them off with the command, "Next time, don’t wait until you’re armpit deep in mischief to visit. There’s always help at Hogwarts, when you want it."
***
And that was that. They returned to Grimmauld Place out of sheer force of habit. Draco distantly observed that he would need to pack up his things and return to his own flat, now that the bond was ended.
He had a moment of panicked horror wondering what that meant for Bond, but she sauntered into the room and twined around his shins. Harry’s eyes went wide with alarm, and he dropped to his knees to stroke Bond.
"Oh, you can’t leave, lovely," he cooed. "You belong here."
Bond purred and stretched and a door creaked open on the other side of the room. Harry looked at the door, then at Draco. He smiled and stood, then strode over and flung the door open to reveal a grand ballroom whose walls grew with a forest of silver and gold trees
The actual space was mostly open, although the dance floor was loosely ringed in a circle of thin trees that Draco assumed were enchanted for lightness of foot and cheerfulness of disposition. There was one massive birch growing along the far wall, its branches twining along the ceiling and drooping to create a sort of canopy, under which was a golden carpet of shed leaves. Draco glanced anxiously at Harry but followed him across the room when he went.
As Harry wove between the scattered trees, Draco trailed slowly behind him, unwilling to watch Harry’s face as he realised what the House had given them.
Harry traced his fingers over the filigreed lines of branches and leaves along the wall, reflecting the lights of the room back with a dazzling radiance. He faltered as he reached the circle of golden leaves, but being Harry, he still stepped through, stepping carefully at first as though not to crush the leaves. He gazed up, up, up, following the line of the trunk, the branches snaking across the ceiling, the pattern of leaves laid over each other. The leaves at his feet emitted a soft glow that turned the planes of Harry’s face golden and luminous.
When he reached the centre of the circle of leaves, Harry finally spoke, his head still craned back to take in the birch. "It’s…beautiful," he said quietly.
Draco fought to keep his voice level as he agreed. "It is. It’s a lovely gift from the House." Bond had followed them in and twined between Draco’s legs before sauntering into the circle after Harry.
"I should." Harry licked his lips, still spinning slowly as he took it all in. "I should claim the room, right? The House opened it for me, so I should…" he trailed off and lowered his gaze, eyes dancing around the room until they landed on Draco.
He held out a hand in invitation, and Draco moved helplessly toward him, protesting, "You’d need a big party, to claim the Grand Ballroom. The social event of the century. What kind of party would you even have?"
He slipped his hand into Harry’s, Bond nuzzling at their shins, and the circle of leaves blazed even brighter, limning Harry with gold and giving his eyes a glorious significance as he said, "I was thinking a wedding."