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The Malfoy Manor was a mess of rustling excitement and the hushed hustle and bustle of the servants moving around carefully so as to not disturb Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy in the midst of preparing for their meeting with the Minister of Magic. The house elves were nowhere to be seen, most probably in fear of receiving an especially harsh punishment for their mere existence in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lucius Malfoy had that dangerous sort of energy about him. Most people did not want to be on the business end of his wand.

Draco Malfoy was still in bed when a silver tray of tea and scrambled eggs appeared on his mahogany desk with a note instructing him to hurry up, and calling him ‘darling’. Draco smiled despite trying oh so hard to suppress it. His mother was dealing with the elves and his father, yet she still took the time to make sure there was breakfast for her son. Draco had been warned to wake up especially early and to find something to eat himself, or ask the elves in the kitchen, as the family would not be sharing the meal together.

Despite it being Monday, the Malfoys had been eating together every morning at 9 o’clock sharp this summer, while discussing their plans for the day, although from Draco that had mostly been a short re-telling of his correspondence with Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson. He probably would have written to Crabbe or Goyle, as well, if he wasn’t quite sure they had little skill in writing and no understanding of proper grammar whatsoever, so he had decided not to subject himself to the atrocity that would be their letters. Either way, he received enough valuable information from both Blaise in London and Pansy somewhere in the South of France.

Draco brought the tray to his bed, deciding to stay in the warmth of his sheets (it may have been August, but six in the morning was still no warmer than a crisp autumn day), and ignored the burning sensation in his mouth as he shovelled food into his face without much concern for his silk pyjamas or satin sheets. He was well aware of the fact that he knew three different spells to cool his food down, and that the Ministry was not much concerned about underage spell work outside of Hogwarts when it came to families such as the Malfoys, but he could not be bothered at the moment. He ignored the crusty sleep in the corners of his eyes and powered through. Draco was way too excited about the rest of the day to worry about something as insignificant as hot eggs.

Draco had to pour the refrigerated milk into his tea in order to be able to chug the whole of it, which he was only doing for warmth and in order to make himself get out of the bed. He had already picked out his clothes the previous night. His aunt Mistral had given him a Slytherin green dress shirt for his birthday two months ago which was an ideal opportunity to show his house loyalty today. There was a black, perfectly tailored suit jacket on a hanger on the back of his closet door which, he knew, had quite the effect on the ladies, and a couple of boys, as well. Namely, and most obnoxiously, Millicent Buldstrode and a few closeted Hufflepuffs.

He’d intended on wearing the black cashmere turtleneck his mother had got him a mere week ago, for the colder days in the Slytherin common room before sending her dearest boy away for his fourth year in Hogwarts, but thought better of it, resolving to carrying it in his wallet that Blaise had once used as a guinea pig for an extension charm. Surprisingly enough to almost everyone that had been present, he had succeeded, and Draco now had a wallet with the capacity of a pretty decent backpack. Draco had never liked the money bags everyone carried around, he was no common welder. He was the Malfoy heir and he carried his coins in a leather wallet.

“Draco,” said a voice on the outside of his bedroom door, following a knock at the wood which was unmistakably the work of his father’s ivory walking stick, “it’s time. If you’re not dressed, I will send Londy in there to jump on your bed until he gets sick onto your pillow,” his father warned. Londy was Lucius’ favourite house elf, as much as he loved to deny it. But the elf had a knack for knowing exactly what comfort food to get for Lucius or which linen detergent to use, And Lucius Malfoy loved to have things his way.

The door swung open barely five seconds later and Draco raised an eyebrow at his father whose long platinum hair looked like a halo in the early morning light from the west wing hallway. Clad in a black coat, Lucius Malfoy looked ready to conquer the world, or, at least, confident enough. “Father,” Draco acknowledged, turning back to his ornate silver mirror, slicking his hair back with what he was fairly certain the muggles called hair gel. He didn’t care much what exactly it was, but he’d been using it ever since his father gave him the tub before his first year in Hogwarts. Looking back, he had to admit to himself that he had been going a bit overboard with the amount he put onto his near-white hair when he was eleven, but the tub had never run out, so it wasn’t too much of a worry for him. Provided, it was enchanted, of course.

“Are you ready?” his father asked, apparently having decided not to pester Draco about not answering the door for once. Family legacy is all we have in this world, Draco, I will be respected by my own son, he’d say whenever Draco did something less than up to his standards, “We’re leaving in ten minutes.”

“I was born ready, father,” Draco challenged and walked over to his father who had wordlessly spelled his suitcase into the air and was now sending it down the hallway.

“Come on then,” Lucious landed a hard slap on his son’s shoulder and balanced it out with a kiss on the top of his head. Draco had noticed his father doing that more often lately. It might have been because his mother had insisted that he show his appreciation and love more. It might have been because Draco was growing up into the wizard his father had always wanted him to be. It might have just been that he actually missed his son during the months he was away at school. Draco had yet to decode it.

His mother was waiting by the dining room fireplace, a smart pencil skirt and a jacket covering a corset laced on her chest. Draco knew the woman had never done a single spell of dark magic, but she sure liked to keep the Black family legends alive with every outfit she decided on. She was currently checking her pocket watch as an elf was standing next to her with a crystal dish of floo powder, the shimmery deep green of it almost bright even in the shadowy morning.

Draco had always been promised a stern punishment for using it without permission and supervision, so the few instances he had actually got to feel the green flames on his skin have mostly been limited to shopping trips with his mother. It was no secret that the Malfoy Manor was connected to the floo network, so Draco had had to sit through several instances when a Ministry official burst into their home in the middle of dinner, and his father would had to bring them to his office on the second floor to discuss something neither Narcissa nor Draco was allowed to hear. Draco was always consoled by his mother in these cases, insisting that his father really did find the ranting about Harry Potter interesting, he was just a bit swamped at work at the moment.

“Go on, sweetheart,” his mother instructed after his father had made two separate trips with his work materials. Draco nodded his head once, determined not to show how nervous he actually was. Flooing was one of his favourite things about being a wizard. He wasn’t even sure why. There was just something about disappearing up in flames that made him feel like apparition was unimaginative and mundane.

He grabbed a handful of the powder and said in his clearest voice possible, “Ministry of Magic,” before throwing the powder onto his feet with a slightly flamboyant movement. He still may not have been used to the experience, but he knew damn well how he’s supposed to do it.

The whole day was a blur of boring for Draco as they met various important people his father worked with. His mother was smiling politely and joining in on the conversation when appropriate, but Draco could see it was her ‘get me out of here this instant’ smile. For all his excitement about this day, Draco almost felt he’d rather be at a History of Magic lesson or Flitwick’s bloody choir practice.

Ludo Bagman, with whom, it seemed, many wizards were interested in talking today, had to leave early, probably to head over to the World Cup, supervise and instruct, although not without giving Draco a few surprisingly knowing smiles and a wishing of a spectacular school year. Draco had been told by his father not to let anyone know about the Triwizard Tournament, or even the fact that Draco knew in the first place. Barty Crouch left in what Draco thought was the middle of their meeting, as well. Apparently, his father had squeezed the last possible consultations in with the Ministry officials before the big game. Draco was pretty sure the celebrations, or commiserations, depending on the outcome of the game, will take at least a week afterwards. A tournament this size was sure to do it.

Lucius seemed somewhat disappointed in not having the chance to meet the Minister, but he was assured he’d be waiting in the box when they arrive, and that their seats were next to each other. Putting a more pleased glint onto his annoyed face, Lucius took his family for lunch and suggested they apparate to their tents. It had taken Draco weeks to convince his father to let them stay for longer than just the night, but there was something about the excitement in the air that made Draco sure his father would come around. There were wizards and witches here from all over the world, he picked up a short conversations in French, ”mais non, les irlandais ont une meilleure chance de gagner au tennis de table”; answered by “au quoi de table?”, a few Americans scattered about, they were always interested in this sort of shenanigans, but mostly loud Brits, drunken Irishmen and what he assumed were Bulgarians, he had no idea if the compilation of noises he heard was their language or literally any other Slavic tongue.

The look on Potter’s face as Draco entered the room, not to mention Granger’s and their little redhead lapdog’s, about to start barking insults at him any moment, while Draco strode in in cool nonchalance, was breath-taking. Or maybe that was just Potter.

Draco noticed his mother scrunching up her nose at the drafty stadium, and his father pass a cool glance over everyone else in their vicinity, the superiority in Lucius’ gaze, that Draco knew he was supposed to feel himself, almost making him roll his eyes in front of everyone here, but Potter was right here, and, as hard as the urge to quip something sharp and painful at the Boy Who Lived tugged at him, he kept his mouth shut. He was better than that.

The highlight of the mostly boring day, though, was meeting the Minister himself, Cornelius Fudge. Draco got to shake his hand and was even asked about his education and plans for the future. He answered as modestly yet superiorly as he could, his chest proudly puffed under the Slytherin-green shirt that was no longer visible as he’d put on his black turtleneck for warmth. The seats were, indeed, very high up and the wind was almost icy at times.

The Bulgarian Minister of magic was left confused and bewildered without Crouch to translate for him, probably still here only as an international curtesy between the two ministries, Draco noticed a second before his father threw a nonchalantly evil remark at Weasley Senior. Draco wanted to laugh. He really did, it was expected of him. It just seemed so crude and unnecessary of his father to say. And then Lucius smirked at Granger like a tabby cat about to attack a fallen bird, but changed the look a moment later. No one else but Draco noticed the warning grasp of Narcissa’s hand on her husband’s forearm.

The summer had been one of the strangest in Draco’s life, and he was almost thankful it was about to be over. As Ludo Bagman made the opening speech, Draco paid little attention and watched the back of Potter’s shaggy-haired head instead. He felt no spite or hatred when watching the other boy, no desire to harm him with either words or actions, it was like not seeing the red-and-yellow scarf around his neck made him less of a Gryffindor. Less of a hero. Less annoying. Maybe Draco had just grown up more than he’d expected. Then again, how the bloody hell were three months enough to make him neutral about his arch nemesis?

He looked at Granger who was wrapped around Potter’s right arm, presumably for warmth, sharing a green-and-white scarf that most probably meant their allegiance with Ireland more than Slytherin, and Draco didn’t feel hatred for her either, then again, he wasn’t sure he ever even had. Sure, he was still jealous – the girl was a genious, almost as smart as Draco was, and she sure knew how to punch, but other than that, he found he no longer even had the urge to call her a mudblood and watch her squirm and angrily stumble for words.

The third one, though, still annoyed Draco with every move he made. His face was annoying and dirty – there was something smudged on his cheek. There was an annoying hat on his head, like some common village idiot prancing around, just waiting for Draco to make fun of him, and Draco was pretty sure he just heard him call the Malfoys ‘slimy gits’ not a moment ago. Like he was one to talk.

Draco wanted to fume more about the red-haired pit stain on the pureblood history, but the whole stadium’s collective sigh of awe made him actually look at the field, which was what he was here for, not to wonder why he didn’t care about hating Harry Potter anymore. A hoard of veela strode onto the field, capturing everyone’s attention, not even Blaise Zabini’s curiously interesting hands could take Draco’s eyes away from the white-skinned creatures. There was something unnervingly Malfoy about them – pale, light-haired, strangely beautiful. Draco wasn’t blind, he knew what he looked like. But, as far as he knew, there was no veela blood in the Malfoy, or Black history.

Draco noticed the look on Potter’s dazed face a second before he got up from his seat, followed by leprechaun superior and the rest of his male siblings. Draco rolled his eyes and looked back at the veela. They were beautiful, sure, but they weren’t exactly to-literally-die-for. Granger and the little Weasley girl, apparently, felt the same as Draco as they scoffed at the two and made them sit back down.

Speaking of leprechauns, Draco thought to himself with a smirk as the Irish came onto the field. Tiny men dancing before them and shooting gold coins into the air, even up to their box. The waste of money was a bit eccentric and stereotypical, yet Draco did not fail to notice that Potter hadn’t reached for a single coin, while the Weasleys were stuffing their pockets full. He wondered if the eager idiots had any idea leprechaun gold disappeared within a couple of hours.

Draco was reluctant to admit to himself that he was excited about the match. He wanted to see the greatest seeker in Europe. He wanted to know who would get the cup. He had, after all, been following along the games all season. He knew his mother was smiling knowingly behind him where he was leaning forward in his seat in anticipation, but he didn’t care much. Krum was on the field, and even Weasel’s excited muttering to Potter couldn’t disturb his joy.

The game was, dare Draco say, legendary. His foot was shaking constantly, his father had to pinch his thigh once in a while, but he gave up after about the eight time. He had to dig his fingernails into the heels of his palms whenever he wanted to scream along to the match, leaving bruising little crescent moons that he only felt after the match was over and his father had sent him to find a tent that sells pumpkin pasties for them both. Lucius had always insisted he hated them and they reminded him too much of miserable Hogwarts Sunday mornings, but Draco also knew that every time he brought some back from the Hogwarts Express, his father gobbled them down with a glass of Ogden’s Old Firewhiskey and a reminiscent smile on his face. A smile that Draco had to spy on his father in order to see.

“Come to beat up baby Hufflepuffs?” an all-too-familiar voice asked from behind him once he’d paid and was waiting for the witch to cast a lingering warming spell on the little pastries.

“Potter,” Malfoy acknowledged with a bored glance behind his back. He didn’t look back long enough to watch confusion wash over Potter at the lack of a dig at him. He had a plastic bottle in his hand, probably looking for where to fill it up. Unless he was homesick for Hogwarts as much as Draco was, and was coming to find pumpkin pasties for himself and the Weasleys.

“I’m guessing you’re here plotting with your father,” he said smugly, crossing his arms in front of his chest like the confident prick that he was.

“I’m guessing you have nothing better to do with the Weasels so you had to come torment me,” Draco said without facing the most famous little shit in the wizarding world. “Thank you,” he said to the witch handing him his pastries, and started walking, knowing Potter couldn’t resist following.

“I didn’t deliberately seek you out,” Potter rolled his eyes.

“I’m surprised you can pronounce ‘deliberately’. Aren’t you going to ask me if I’m on my way to poison someone?” Draco smirked to himself, pulling out one of the baked goods and shoving half of one into his mouth. Normally he’d hate letting anyone see him eat, but it was dark already and he was sure Potter had broodily watched him across the great hall during meals as many times as he’d watched the Gryffindor. Plus, it was Potter, he already thought the worst of him. “Pumpkin Pasty?” Draco offered just to watch Potter’s face try and figure out if this was a ploy to murder him. The parade of expressions was a whole Shakespearian play in five acts. “They’re not bloody poisoned, you twat, I’m bringing them to my father, you think I’d poison him?”

Potter stared at him calculating, if not a bit pissed off, but refused to take a pasty from the brown paper bag. Draco had no clue how he could resist them, they smelled heavenly. “I have no interest in killing you, you knob. Some people actually grow past the age of five.”

“And yet you can’t seem to be able to stop insulting me,” Potter challenged.

“Old habits die hard, I suppose,” Draco shrugged, shoving the rest of the pasty into his mouth.

“This is a trick, isn’t it?” Potter suddenly stopped in front of him, staring at him authoritatively, despite him being about an inch inferior.

Draco rolled his eyes, “Whatever you want, Potter,” he stepped around him and started walking back towards their tent, not quite sure anymore if he remembered where it was. There were celebrations all around him and the yelling and laughing hadn’t ceased since the end of the match. But during their less-than-friendly exchange, they’d failed to notice the singing and cheering had turned into distant screaming. There was frantic running into the nearby woods, a strange, dry, hurried feeling in the air.

“Say, Potter,” Malfoy dragged, looking around slowly and doing his best not to show how terrified he was, “you wouldn’t happen to know what this circus is about?”

“Not this particular one, no,” he answered, and Draco saw he was already reaching for his wand.

“Maybe don’t go swinging that around in a field full of Ministry officials,” Draco suggested and watched in delight as Potter’s face feel in what looked to Draco like admitting defeat. If push came to shove, Draco would get his own wand out, too, he was quite sure being the Malfoy Heir would get him out of trouble for underage wizardry, but why give his father something to hold over his head unless completely necessary?

Green light illuminated the field in short, angry bursts. Potter was most probably not aware, but Draco was a Malfoy and a Black, his father had told him about dark magic before bed as cautionary tales. He knew very well which of the unforgivable curses was being used and he didn’t even feel like teasing Potter about being inferior in this exact domain.

He noticed a crowd of wizards, moving slowly across the field as a pack, laughing chaotically, a poisonous sound of deranged joy. Draco wasn’t sure whether the creatures had faces, they seemed to slide forwards, floating an inch above the ground, long cloaks dragging on the grass behind them, their heads hooded and their faces masked. Dark and otherworldly. Above them, floating along in midair, four struggling figures were being contorted into grotesque shapes. They were torturing them. The second unforgivable curse of the night. They seemed like an unstoppable force majeure, blowing up whatever was in their way and setting fire to tents, leaving people screaming and running in the opposite direction.

“Muggles,” Potter stated, grabbing Draco’s attention immediately, “it’s the campsite manager.”

“Shit,” Draco sighed and turned around to see if there was anywhere relatively safe to hide. There was a pile of wood a little further, probably to be used for bonfires. It wouldn’t be resistant to most spells, but there would be no spells directed towards them if they weren’t visible. “Potter,” Draco whispered though gritted teeth, having already taken a few steps towards it. Potter didn’t even seem to hesitate before following. Draco was obviously the lesser evil.

“That’s sick,” Potter pointed out, making Draco roll his eyes at him yet again (because no shit) as he squatted behind the pile of lumber, feeling his jacket shoulder ripping, caught on a log. Draco tried to catch his breath, resting his head on the hard planks behind him and closing his eyes.

“The woods,” Potter said and Draco didn’t even have to open his eyes to know his old nemesis was getting up from his spot next to him, “if we go there, we’ll be safer than here.” Apparently, they were cooperating now.

“One of the first smart ideas you’ve had,” Draco conceded as civilly as he could in the situation, as they ran a few dozen meters into the forest across the rest of the field, only stopping for air when it was too dark to keep moving safely at that speed without breaking their necks.

“That’s coming from the guy who tried to jump a hippogriff not a year ago,” Potter sounded as out of breath as Draco was. He couldn’t see him anymore, the light from the fire illuminating the distance, but not reaching far enough into the shadows to reach either of them.

“I did not jump it,” Draco scowled, crossing his arms, “you just looked way too happy with yourself after that flight.”

“Oh yeah,” Potter sallied, “you looked way less cocky with a bandage up to your elbow.”

“Probably still better than you normally d-“

“What’s that?” Potter’s voice switched to a whisper. Draco listened, but didn’t hear anything. His eyes weren’t adjusting to the darkness with the dim glow in the distance still visible, but he sure as hell was not going to jeopardise his safety just to have the last word.

A light flickered a few feet from them before settling on a bright shine and lighting up a couple of familiar faces. “Oh, thank Merlin,” said Wealey’s idiotic voice as Granger rushed forward and threw herself onto Potter, making Draco wonder for the second time tonight whether they were just very good friends, or would he have to listen from every girl in Hogwarts how much she wished she was in Granger’s place as Mrs. Chosen One.

“If the three of you are done snogging,” Draco cleared his throat, “you might want to hurry along before Granger’s next up there,” Draco pointed back towards the campsite.

“Sod off, Malfoy,” Weasley’s nose scrunched up in an extraordinarily unflattering manner, “What are you even doing with him, ‘arry?”

“They’re muggles that they’ve got hanging above their heads, you knob,” Draco scorned, watching Weasley’s face fall, “and the whole lot of them are moving this way.”

“Hermione’s a witch,” Potter pointed out, like the loyal little golden boy he was.

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s going to matter much to them, good luck with that,” Draco smiled as sarcastically as he could, least the darkness took from the meaning of his expression, “You might throw a decent punch, but that’s not going to be much help if they slit your throat from ten feet away.”

Potter looked like he was agreeing with Malfoy, now only waiting for Weasley and Granger herself to give in and admit Draco was actually right. “If you’re done with childish rivalry,” Draco was starting to feel restless, “you might want to be on your merry way right about now.”

“What about you?” Granger asked, surprising everyone around them.

“Can you three just get the bloody hell out of here?”

“And what, you’ll stay and join their murder parade?” Potter scoffed, “Come with us.”

“As exciting as joining a Gryffindor rescue party sounds…”

“Oh, have it your way,” Weasley groaned and turned to walk forwards, “Bloody trying to help a Slytherin. Malfoy, no less,” he muttered as Hermione rushed after him.

“Don’t be a twat, come on,” Potter said, having already turned and taken a step to follow his friends, apparently knowing full well that Draco was about to follow suit.

“I hate you,” Draco felt the need to specify, just in case it wasn’t obvious enough.

“Clearly,” there was a smirk audible in Potter’s voice which Draco did not appreciate, “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I believe we have some hurrying to do.”

Draco rolled his eyes and gritted his teeth, but ran after them nonetheless. He was not fond of running. Flying was much less of a waste of time. And much more interesting of a sport.

“Where to, now?” Granger demanded once they’d reached another clearing.

“Hold on, I-“ Potter started digging through his pockets, “Where’s my wand?” he asked and both Granger and Weasley’s eyes fell on Draco.

“Yes, I stole Potter’s wand and then joined the three of you on a moon-lit jog in the forest,” Draco sighed dramatically.

“Maybe you left it at the tent,” Granger suggested.

“Did you have it when you showed up out of nowhere and started accusing me of illegal activity?” Draco supplied.

“What illegal activity?” Weasley asked.

“It must have fallen out somewhere in the woods,” Potter ignored him and looked back after having shuffled through the long grass.

“Then it’s long gone, doesn’t matter,” Draco started walking again.

“Doesn’t matter? It’s my wand!” Potter said.

“I’m aware,” Draco moaned, “But unless you want to go back and search for it, all the while gambling with the chance of being slaughtered by what are clearly modern-day reincarnations of Death Eaters, I suggest you get yourself a new one in Ollivanders tomorrow and shut up about it for the time being.” Potter looked like he was fuming, but Draco’s point was good enough for him to hold it in. “Can we go, or would any of you like another point proven by, apparently, the only person thinking clearly here?”

“Yes, yes, let’s go,” Potter agreed hesitantly, giving one last look to the ground in long-lost hope.

They’d barely made it twenty seconds when they heard a sound from behind them. A sort of a rustling in the woods, someone stepping on a branch, or getting caught in the leaves. Granger and Weasley looked around like lost ducklings as Potter shamelessly shouted “Who’s there?” like an idiot, earning a slap on the shoulder from Draco.

“What are you doing?” Draco hissed as Weasley put his hand on Potter’s mouth to stop the git from doing something even more stupid.

In the middle of the silence, the rustling of the leaves in the wind and the anticipation for something terrifying, a voice uttered in a hushed calmness “Morsmordre”. A green burst of light shot into the sky. Draco tried not to blame his father too much for teaching him exactly what that meant. He knew what shape the green lines would take amongst the stars before they were done forming the skull and serpent that chilled Draco to the bone. All he could think was he’s back.

A whole new mess of screaming and panic broke like a tide wave from the other side of the woods behind them. Draco watched Potter’s confusion, knowing Granger was about to explain exactly what it was, as Weasley most likely had never had any interest in learning about the history of wizardry.

It shone on them like bright green neon light, illuminating their features in a grotesque, hollowing and freighting way. Weasley and Potter were still watching the source of light above the forest as Draco shared a knowing look with Granger. “We need to go now,” she pointed out and Draco was already nodding in agreement before she had the chance to finish the sentence.

“What’s the matter?” Potter asked, making Draco wish he was at liberty to punch the git senseless. But, alas, they were in a certain amount of danger and hurry. Mostly to save at least three of their lives. Granger would obviously be the first to go, then Draco, as not many wizards his age had the bright white hair of the ex-death eater Malfoy, and finally, once Potter had done something astonishingly idiotic again, exposing the scar that hid from the world under his absurdly long fringe this summer, the death eaters would have no problem slitting his throat for good measure and praise from the Dark Lord.

“It’s the Dark Mark, Harry,” Granger practically moaned, trying to pull him along, “You-Know-Who’s sign.”

Draco rolled his eyes and helped Granger by shoving the biggest liability they had forwards while he was in the middle of uttering the Dark Lord’s name, like the dimwit that he was.

Before they could get further than two steps, a series of cracking noises announced the arrival of several wizards before their actual appearance. There were about two dozen of them, and Draco suddenly had the same feeling as when he’d broken his father crystal carafe two summers back and had to face his wrath.

Draco looked around, calculating. All of the wizards surrounding them were Ministry officials, all of their wands pointed at the four of them. Two things were clear: since there is a Dark Mark right above them, there would be an attack; and since they were all on duty and none of the four fourteen-year-olds had been proven guilty yet, it would not be lethal.

He could have squatted down and saved himself the trouble of being cursed, but after the trauma shared with the Golden Trio on this evening alone, he opted to shout “Duck!” and pull the closest two, who happened to be Weasley and Granger down with him, Potter, thankfully, complying instinctively with Draco’s order. Though, maybe he had just made the same calculations in his head.

Draco would never admit to this, but his eyes were closed as the angry flashes of red light shot above their heads and, presumably, bounced off innocent trees. Someone’s voice yelled “Stop! That’s my son!” and Draco had never been happier to have Arthur Weasley in his vicinity, because it was sure as hell not Lucius Malfoy yelling to save his child.

“Out of the way, Arthur,” said the familiar voice of Barty Crouch before its owner closed in on them, franticly asking which one of them had conjured the mark, and watching Draco closest of all. Now, that was something Lucius Malfoy is not going to take lightly. There was a whole set of rules and etiquette Draco had had to learn over the course of his life, and gazes and looks were quite the bulky chapter. This was not a look of concern that Mr. Crouch was sporting. It was one of accusation.

“We didn’t do that,” Potter stated firmly, not a single tremble in his voice, something Draco was not sure he’d be able to pull off right about now, especially not when there were twenty wands pointed at them.

“We didn’t do anything! What did you want to attack us for?” Weasley whined, his courage probably fed by his father’s hand on his shoulder. That, or the fact that the moron had no idea when to shut up, even if it could save his life.

Barty Crouch was about to yell something else, eyes big and mad, a vein in his forehead about to burst, when a witch interrupted, whispering a frantic and almost warning “Barty, they’re kids, they’d never be able to do it.”

“Where did the mark come from, you four?” asked Arthur Weasley, not even batting an eye at Draco standing in the middle of the Golden Trio like they were all old friends having a midnight picnic in the woods.

“Over there,” Granger pointed to a black thicket in the woods where Draco also though he heard the voice coming from. “There was someone behind the trees, they said some sort of incantation,” her brain was almost fuming out of her ears as she tried to recall the word.

“Oh, did they, now?” Crouch towered over her, disbelief garnishing his face, “You seem very conveniently informed on how to conjure a Dark Mark.”

“Perhaps because the existence the Dark Mark is not exactly the best kept secret by the Ministry?” Draco suggested, feeling ill that this man had the guts to accuse children of something as serious as this. “Or maybe that there are very few things one can conjure without an incantation.” Draco had no clue where this sudden surge of gryffindorian bravery was coming from, but he had no intention to stand here and listen to someone accusing him of something he clearly does not have the means to do.

Despite Crouch’s nasty, disgusted look, the other Ministry officials did not seem to truly think either of the four was guilty. Someone proposed checking the woods behind them, suggesting the stunning spells had gone through the forest and possibly might have caught whoever the guilty party was. It was a mess of wizards and witches hurrying into the woods to comb them, but Draco had no wish to follow any of this. They were not guilty, not even suspected of illegal activity, and among adults. They were safe.

They’d actually found someone, contrary to what Draco was willing to believe. If he had been the one ballsy enough to do something so stupid as conjuring the Dark Mark, he would have taken off the second he was done uttering the last syllable, and be back at the campsite by now, burying his wand under a bonfire.

Only it wasn’t a wizard with the survival skills of a Slytherin. It was a house elf. One that Draco was only partially sure he’d seen before. “Winky,” Potter whispered, seemingly only to Draco, “Crouch’s elf.”

“Crouch’s?” Draco summoned all of his will not to yell the name in surprise. Now who’s looking guilty? Draco thought bitterly.

As Weasley and Granger discussed something in hushed voices, Potter and Draco listened to a wizard say to Weasley’s dad, “Bit embarrassing.”

“Oh, come off it, Amos,” Arthur Weasley scoffed, “You don’t seriously think it was the elf? The Dark Mark’s a wizard’s sign. It requires a wand.”

The other wizard, apparently named Amos, leaned in and spoke a little more quietly, yet still somewhat audibly, as both Draco and Potter were pretty good at pretending not to be paying attention, “Yes, and she had a wand.”

Arthur Weasley’s surprise was lost for both Draco and Potter as they looked to each other in silent shock and realisation.

Potter’s wand was not just lost.

It had been used to conjure the Dark Mark.

Ludo Bagman apparating and causing another ruckus didn’t interest either of them anymore. They were more concerned with the whole how the bloody hell are we going to not look guilty once they figure out whose wand it is aspect of the equation.

Once the elf was brought back to consciousness, and had been questioned under the supervision of every wizard left in the clearing around them, only to find out she had no clue what had happened, the wizard Arthur Weasley had just been talking to picked up the wand Crouch’s elf had been found with.

“It’s mine,” Potter admitted, earning a punch in the back from Draco that he was pretty sure no one else saw. If he was going to walk around telling people incriminating shite, Draco would like it to be in a situation where he couldn’t possibly be sent to Azkaban for being an accomplice.

“Excuse me?” the wizard asked, incredulously.

“That’s my wand, I dropped it,” Potter went on and Draco was already wondering if he’ll get a double sentence because of his father’s endeavours two decades ago.

“Is this a confession?” the wizard asked, looking much too excited to get the Boy-Who-Lived convicted for being a Death Eater.

“Amos!” Arthur Weasley warned, “Think of who you’re talking to.” Draco rolled his eyes. Of course, the name alone got Potter out of trouble, didn’t it? “Is Harry Potter likely to conjure the Dark Mark?”

“He didn’t lose it here,” Malfoy couldn’t stop his tongue before rushing to Potter’s aid. That was new. “He noticed its absence about a ten minutes’ worth of running in that direction,” Draco pointed towards the campsite where they’d come from, and no one questioned his lie. It had not been ten minutes, it had barely been seconds, but it might get his arse out of a prison sentence.

The Ministry wizards turned back to question the elf and Draco heard Potter let out a shaky breath while Granger and Weasley watched the Slytherin in surprise and suspicion, respectively. The poor elf looked like she was about to burst into tears, and Draco wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have reacted the same way.

“It wasn’t her,” Granger said shakily, looking like she was about to faint, speaking to so many important people, “Her voice is squeaky. The person who did that,” she pointed to the sky, eyes staring straight ahead as if she was afraid to let herself look too long at the Mark, “had a much deeper voice. It didn’t sound anything like Winky, did it?”

“No,” Potter agreed instantly, “It definitely didn’t sound like an elf.”

Weasley agreed something that Draco tuned out, as he watched the elf tremble in fear, before the wizard, Amos, took hold of Potter’s wand to see what its last incantation had been.

Draco didn’t have a doubt in his mind that Crouch’s elf hadn’t been the one to do it, but he also realised, in cold fear, that he wouldn’t hesitate a second to turn her in, as long as it saved his own arse.

“You’ve been caught red-handed, elf! Caught with the guilty wand in your hand!” the Amos person practically screamed.

Arthur Weasley rushed in to urge the man to have some sense, “Think about it, precious few wizards know how to do that spell. Where would she have learned it?”

“Perhaps Amos is suggesting,” Crouch intervened in a poisonous tone, “that I routinely teach my servants to conjure the Dark Mark?” The silence that followed made it hard not to laugh at the very important, very grown-up wizards that were doing their very best not to look each other in the eye. Draco caught Potter’s gaze of sarcastically bulged eyes and did his best to only shake his head in faked shock with a tiny smirk instead of barking the laugh that was stuck in his throat.

The conversation continued for a while more, Amos trying to convince Crouch that he hadn’t meant to accuse him of anything, and Crouch using every opportunity to play the victim. The two men couldn’t resist bringing Potter back into it, but Draco wasn’t much surprised about it.

Thankfully, Draco was not subjected to the rest of the conversation, as a snapping pop of apparition announced the arrival of someone else, but the relief was soon washed right off his face once Draco saw his father impatiently striding towards him, pushing a wizard in his way. There was no rush in his gait, ever the well-mannered gentleman that Lucius Malfoy was, but his face was a certain kind of ‘cold and expressionless’ that Draco had come to know as the Draco’s-done-something-again kind.

There wasn’t much talk exchanged between Lucius and Crouch, the understanding nod from the Ministry official that seemed to suggest that Lucius was free to do as he saw fit, so he placed his hand on Draco’s ripped jacket shoulder, digging his fingernails warningly into his son’s skin and apparated to the vestibule back at Malfoy manor.

“Father-“

“Bed,” Lucius said in that low, quiet voice he used which made Draco shut up instantly while taking off his dragon hide gloves and throwing them onto the mahogany table by the front door. His father was not in an arguing mood, and he wouldn’t push his luck.

“Yes, father,” Draco bowed his head and rushed up the stairs, avoiding the creaky step, not wanting to be the cause of another reason to annoy his father. He headed straight to his room, no detour to see his mother, and locked the heavy wooden door behind him. There would be wrath to face the following morning for getting caught even near something so incriminating, and there would be hell to pay for getting caught alongside Harry Potter of all people.

Draco barely slept, instead choosing to watch his Eurasian eagle owl snooze merrily in its open cage on top of Draco’s dresser, or out the window at the stars one could only see this far out of Wiltshire. Only once dawn started painting red lines among the trees of the forest behind the manor, did Draco start feeling the drowsiness that should have taken him out hours ago.

When he finally woke, not from a stern shouting from his father, as he’d expected, but from Eagle’s hooted displeasure of the crisp autumn breeze, he closed the window and guided Eagle out of his cage, watching the owl fly over to Draco’s fireplace and rest on the ornate decorations in the stone before daring to exit his room. He did leave the door open. If Draco started screaming bloody murder while being pelted with an ivory cane, at least Eagle would come and peck his father’s eyes out.

“Morning, love,” his mother greeted him from behind a newspaper as Draco sat at their dining room table, a full spread of English breakfast, untouched and still steaming hot, laid out before her. Draco hadn’t noticed the rumbling emptiness in his stomach with everything that had happened in the last ten hours, but it was making itself aware now.

The table was set for two, and Draco pleaded with whatever was left of Merlin’s spirit that his father hadn’t decided to keep him starved until his train to Hogwarts. If there even was to be a year in Hogwarts at this point.

“Sit down, darling, these plates are not going to empty themselves,” his mother smiled warmly, and for a second Draco actually let himself believe that everything was fine.

“Where’s father?” Draco asked, flinching when an elf brought him his slippers, thinking this was a setup before a punishment.

“He had to step out for work,” his mother supplied, “he’ll be back in a few days. Come, eat, I’m starving, I could barely wait for you,” she folded up the newspaper and patted the chair next to hers.

Draco felt immeasurably lighter, letting himself breathe deeper and actually sit down, thanking the elf for his slippers as his feet really were freezing. And his stomach was empty, and his head was pounding, and there was a ringing in one of his ears, and he was pretty sure his right thumb had a splinter in it.

His mother watched him with an odd smirk as he thanked a servant. He never did that. Maybe it was just last night rubbing off on him. “Is that a bruise on your shoulder?” his mother asked and he got up to check his reflection in the mirror on the mantelpiece. “Don’t worry, we’ll floo someone in to heal it later.” She looked perfectly calm, like there hadn’t been a rise of the Death Eaters mere hours ago.

“Was he upset?” Draco asked after three minutes of silence and stuffing his face with beans.

“He will have come to his senses by Christmas,” she smiled back.

“Christmas?” Draco’s head shot up in confusion. “He’s not going to see me off in London?”

“I told you, darling, he’s off on business,” she scoffed lightly as if it wasn’t suspicious. Not that Draco was unhappy with the turn of events. Quite the contrary, he was glad he wouldn’t be yelled at, but his father had always looked proud when Draco got on the Hogwarts Express each September 1^st. Draco loved that look.

“Alright,” he sighed, trying his best to look like he doesn’t care that much, but his mother knew him better than that, even if she liked to humour him and pretend she didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.

Draco had nothing better to do after the healer’s visit than take Eagle on a walk during one of the last warm days of the year and watch him enjoy the scenery before having to live with strange owls from God knows where all school year. And it helped Draco to clear his head before thinking about Potter’s golden trio while stuffing his trunks full of clothes purchased by his mother. He had, as always, joined her on their annual trip to Diagon Alley, but barely on her quest for clothes. Draco preferred to find books, parchment and quills himself, getting something from Zonko’s along the way and watching the Knockturn Alley creeps from a small passageway between Eeyelop’s Owl Emporium and The Leaky Cauldron that connected the two radically different alleys as he fed the display owls his lunch sandwich. No one would notice him from there, but he could see everyone. It was positively the most Slytherin spot in Diagon Alley.

The house seemed eerily quiet without his father here. Not that Lucius Malfoy was an especially loud person, it was just that Draco felt like the house was slightly stiff and hushed without him there. Like everyone in the house knew something that Draco didn’t. He would normally be excited about going back to school. He was the smartest in his year for a reason, Granger excluded, but he always excluded her. Only this time it felt much more different. It wasn’t just that his father wouldn’t be there, now there was the added prospect of figuring out how the hell he should act around Potter and his gang.

His mother had three brand new sets of the Hogwarts uniform sent up to his room, along with a new set of dress robes that he’d never needed before, probably for the ball his father had told him about. There was also a letter. Draco shoved the clothes into his trunk and laid down on his bed to rip the envelope open and unfold the letter with excitement. He didn’t have to read the signature on the bottom of the page to know exactly who it was from – Pansy Parkinson never sent a letter in her life without first bathing it in her perfume.

Dear Draco,

I’ve missed you terribly. Without you in our guest bedroom, there is no one to make fun of the French muggles with. I’m making you swear to come visit us next summer as soon as I see you. There is a new café here, but there are only so many books I can read while pretending to be a mysterious local before I go insane of boredom. I can’t wait to come back to United Kingdom. I can’t believe I mean it, but I miss Hogwarts. I’m meeting Blaise at Kings Cross at 10:30 on the 1^st to get our own compartment, if you wish to join us. We should get liquorice wands and watch the first years fumble with their owls.

My father has been quiet for two days now and I am getting worried. I heard about what happened at the World cup from my cousin and I think it might be connected. I know you love to dismiss this theory, but your parents might have just as much to do with this as mine. Please don’t hate me for pointing this out. I am scared, Draco. I don’t want this to be true any more than you do, but you have to admit it is a possibility.

I also heard about your little escapade with the Golden Trio last night, so be warned, Blaise and I will scrutinise you over every detail.

Miss you. Oodles and oodles.

Pans

Draco smiled, despite the whole middle section of the letter. Then again, if they didn’t conspire against something, they wouldn’t really be Draco and Pansy. But he loved receiving letters from her, she was always overly sweet after a long time of not seeing him. Draco used to think it was because she had a crush on him, but she had no siblings, and neither did Draco, and Blaise, as much as they loved him, was a quiet, observing bastard that never indulged in emotions, so Pansy gave all her love to Draco, whether it came in the form of perfume-soaked letters, or late night talks by the fireplace in the Slytherin common room with Blaise already asleep next to them. Pansy liked to cultivate a cold bitch exterior, and she did a great job at it, they all did, really, but they were still just children. They needed at least each other.

He tucked the letter away in one of his desk drawers, in a box where he usually kept his correspondence with Pansy, and pulled out a piece of parchment to write his response, checking if Eagle was rested enough to deliver it. He did not feel like dismissing her worries. He shared them, in fact, and the idea was starting to eat at him as he sat in his room alone. Once his response was merrily on its way across the Chunnel with Eagle, Draco took pity on himself and walked downstairs to talk to his mother for one of the last times this summer.

“We are not going to be late,” Narcissa Malfoy insisted after Draco’s third protest. He’d never been late for the Hogwarts Express in his life, and he was not about to start a tradition. Malfoys were never late. Early for business, on the dot for formal gatherings. Being fashionably late was not fashionable at all. “There’s plenty of time,” she scoffed as Draco shoved his way through a crowd of muggles upon entering the train station.

“With all due respect, mother, three minutes is not plenty of time,” Draco let his elbow dig a way through the people, “I was supposed to be here half an hour ago,” he reminded as platform 9¾ came into his line of vision.

“I’m aware, darling,” his mother sounded out of breath behind him. She never rushed anywhere, and, if he could help it, Draco would never make her, but she was objectively to blame for not leaving on time. His trunks and Eagle were already on the train, but whether or not he got on it himself was still to be determined.

The barrier was luckily still open when Draco and his mother reached it, and they didn’t bother looking like they were leaning against it or whatever else they normally did. They simply walked through a wall. If anyone noticed them, they were gone by then anyway.

“Go on, darling, I’ll see you on Christmas,” his mother nudged, hugging him quickly as his watch showed 10:59.

“Love you,” he kissed her cheek, trying his best not to think about not getting to see her for nearly four more months, as he always did.

The Hogwarts Express was shiny and bright red, looking brand new like every year, and Draco almost couldn’t believe his luck, getting to return. He jumped in right as the door swung shut after him, a loud whistle blowing in warning. He had no clue where Blaise and Pansy were, other than in their own compartment, hopefully. He wished he could have been here earlier. Now he had to walk through the train, checking every compartment like a prefect.

Two carriages later, though, at the end of the narrow, student-filled hallway, Pansy stood in front of an open compartment door, laughing at something someone inside the compartment was telling her. Draco couldn’t help the smile that tugged at him as he saw his best friend for the first time in months. He rushed towards her, completely ignoring every other compartment on his way.

“Draco!” Pansy’s smile widened as she extended her arms to hug him. This, Draco thought, was truly a rare sight for practically everyone, except maybe Crabbe, Goyle and Nott, who tended to hang around the Silver Trio, but were never really accepted into the inner circle.

“Pans,” he laughed into her short hair, “you’ve cut your hair again,” he pointed out as if she wouldn’t know. Draco had always liked this hair on her. The bangs framed her face better.

“Yes I have,” she said, shaking out her black bob, stepping into the compartment where, thankfully, only Blaise was waiting. No Nott, no Flint, no Pike, just the only two people Draco actually wanted to see.

“Zabini,” Draco hugged the other boy, clapping him on the back before checking to see that all of his belongings are in place.

“Malfoy,” Blaise laughed. Neither of them actually ever called each other by their last name, but it worked when they wanted to piss each other off. The train started moving then, the velocity forcing Draco onto the seat next to Blaise. “Shall we get right to business, then?” Blaise suggested.

“Please don’t,” Draco groaned, knowing perfectly well that the two of them wanted to know why he’d been seen helping the three most famous Gryffindors currently attending Hogwarts to get out of the deadly grip of The Dark Lord’s followers.

“Oh, we will,” Pansy crossed her legs from opposite the two Slytherin boys and dug through her black suede purse to pull out two boxes, “but first gifts.”

“Lovely,” Blaise winked, “thanks, Pans.”

Draco looked at the box of sweets and then up to Pansy who was watching him expectantly. “Let me guess,” Draco opened the box to taste one of the sweets and find it to be marzipan, “marzipansy?”

Pansy broke into a fit of giggles and Blaise rolled his eyes. Blaise hated puns. Draco and Pansy loved them. They made them feel smarter, plus annoying Blaise was always worth it. It was moments like these that Draco appreciated the most – Pansy laughing at something either of them said, Blaise rolling his eyes, but failing to hide a smile, and Draco imagining he had a normal life with normal friends, one where he wasn’t expected to be an arse to everyone he passed in the halls.

“Was Lucius angry?” Pansy asked, not even bothering to close the door to their compartment. If anyone was daring enough to listen in on their conversations, they knew their fate.

“I have no clue, I haven’t seen him since he apparated me home that night,” Draco admitted, sinking into the corner of the seat and looking out at the heavy rain. It was soothing, but if it continued that way, his hair would be ruined by the time they get to the front door of the castle. “He’s been away on business for a week.”

“He always sees you off,” Blaise’s eyebrows knitted together.

“That he does,” Draco shrugged. “I’m just glad he didn’t send me off to Durmstrang. Mother would never have allowed it.”

“Hey, who would be our pureblood ringleader then, huh?” Blaise smirked, landing a heavy tap on Draco’s shoulder.

“Honestly? Probably Pans,” Draco answered as Pansy pointed to herself with both thumbs.

“Yeah, that checks,” Blaise agreed.

Pansy and Blaise questioned him about the World Cup for a good two hours before Draco got sick of hearing himself talk and announced he’d go find the trolley and get them the liquorice wands they’d planned on having if Draco hadn’t almost missed the train.

“Six cauldron cakes and a box of Bertie Bott’s, please,” an all-too-familiar voice was saying as Draco stepped out of their compartment. Harry Potter looked up just as Draco pulled a couple coins out of his wallet, and actually smiled. Like a normal, civil person would to another normal, civil person.

“Hi,” Draco said to Potter lamely and then asked for five liquorice wands and a pumpkin pasty. Draco hated liquorice, but it was a tradition, besides Pansy usually finished Draco’s off after his first bite.

“Pumpkin pasty, huh?” Potter smirked.

“Well, last time I bought them, they disappeared somewhere in the woods,” Draco indulged, curious as to where the exchange would go. He’d never had a decent conversation with Potter that didn’t end in one of them getting shoved or worse, hexed. It was an interesting turn of events. “Figured I’d give it another try.”

To Draco’s surprise, Potter actually laughed. That was completely new. By any standards. “Hey, Harry, we should start getting chan- oh, hello, Draco,” Granger looked surprised to see him, and obviously wasn’t sure how to speak to him now that they’d part-taken in an escape from Death Eaters together.

“Afternoon,” Draco said, suppressing the little voice, that sounded an awful lot like his 11 year-old self, which nagged him to say something cruel. Instead, he grabbed his change, the sweets, and walked back to his compartment, closing the door after himself. Maybe fourth years were for second chances.

“Did you just have an honest-to-Merlin conversation with Potter?” Blaise asked.

“Which didn’t sound awkward at all?” Pansy teased, taking her share of the food.

“Just figured we might want to start at least acting like grown-ups for once,” Draco said defensively.

“Hey, we’re not the ones who insisted, for years, might I add, that we need to be sworn enemies with those three,” Pansy scoffed, taking a bite off her candy wand.

“How else am I supposed to keep up the whole pureblood spiel, if I’m not Harry Potter’s number one nemesis?” Draco snickered as Blaise just watched the two of them with a smile. Draco had really missed this. Maybe they could have a normal school year once and for all.

Chapter Text

The Rain hadn’t ceased by the time they had to step off the train, much to Draco’s dismay. And Pansy didn’t look too happy either, stumping along after Blaise to one of the horseless carriages, hand cramped into Draco’s upper arm. Crabbe and Goyle got in after them, shifting the carriage’s weight before it straightened itself out. To Draco’s annoyance, he was really hoping he’d get more time without him, Theodore Nott got in as well, taking a seat right next to Draco. That’s on me, Draco thought, leaving a seat next to me free like an idiot.

Nott soon started talking their heads off about his summer, even Crabbe and Goyle looked less confused and more vex, having to listen to him. Draco did his best to tune it out and put as much boredom as he could into his expression as he watched the carriages in front of them take a turn, and their own follow suit, revealing the castle in all its glory. Even through the fog and rain it still looked magnificent, tiny lights in the distance, almost a warm glow radiating off it.

As soon as the carriage came to a halt, Draco took Pansy by the hand and Blaise by the shoulder and pulled them into the castle, around the crowd of soaked students into a corner where, hopefully, Nott and his huge mouth hadn’t noticed them run to. Blaise started wringing out his robes and Pansy’s teeth clattered as she laughed at Peeves water ballooning the Gryffindors and then at McGonagall throwing a tantrum at the poltergeist, before Blaise used a drying charm on the three of them.

“Why Dumbledore lets that thing stay is beyond me,” Draco said through a laugh and followed the other students into the Great Hall, noting where Nott, Crabbe and Goyle had already taken their seats, and deliberately moving to sit at least out of earshot of him, not even looking back to see the confusion on Nott’s face.

“D’you think they’re already here?” Pansy asked in a hushed voice, looking around the Great Hall. Draco knew he wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about the Triwizard Tournament, but this was Pansy and Blaise. There was no possible way he could keep this from them.

Draco and Blaise exchanged an amused smirk before Draco’s eyes travelled over to the Gryffindor table by instinct. For the first time in his life, Draco looked over to watch Harry Potter’s famous face without any hatred burning inside him.

“Fair warning, Parkinson, if you go around falling in love with a Slavic hunk and end up moving to Siberia, I’m not coming to visit,” Draco said, still watching Potter.

“If I end up with someone like Krum, you have my permission to kill me off,” she rolled her eyes, getting a confused look from both her friends. “He’s big and vulgar,” she explained, “I want someone delicate.”

“But someone who can still punch a Gryffindor,” Blaise narrowed his eyes with a teasing smile.

“If need be,” Pansy stood her ground. Draco laughed, looking over to Potter once more, finding him looking back this time. The bellend still looked wet, but shot Draco a smile, which Draco didn’t need to reciprocate as he was still mid-laugh, thanks to Pansy and Blaise, just as McGonagall led the dripping first years into the hall. Draco watched the adorable little idiots fumble to the front of the room and waited for the Sorting Hat to finish singing. At this point he was starting to realise one pumpkin pasty wasn’t exactly enough to get him through the whole day, and was just excited for the whole thing to be over so he could have some Yorkshire pudding.

As the first boy to be announced a Slytherin sat at their table, there was a loud cheer from the rest of Draco’s house mates, and a hissing from the Gryffindor table, bringing Draco back to the first time he’d walked from the front of the hall to this exact table and sat down next to Blaise. He’d known Pansy since they were little, but Blaise fit in quite well from day one. At one point they outgrew Crabbe and Goyle, the two buffoons pretty much good for nothing except beating someone up, and Nott had always tried to be a part of the inner circle of their year, but had never really managed to not be annoying.

“Huzzah!” Draco and Blaise yelled and raised their cups to make Pansy laugh when Dumbledore finally told everyone to tuck in, the food appeared and the Bloody Baron walked along the long table, surveying them, his chains clinking loudly and obnoxiously, putting off the first years from their dinner. Draco stuffed his face as much as he could, making sure he had place for chocolate cake, which he watched Blaise take three pieces of, wrap in a handkerchief and put inside his robes for later.

Dumbledore did his usual warnings about not going into the forest and not pissing off Filch, which reminded Draco – he needed to piss of Filch some time soon. What Draco hadn’t expected, though, was Dumbledore cancelling Quidditch for the entire year due to the Triwizard Tournament. Draco had already come to terms with the fact that there would be sacrifices to be made during this school year, but he’d assumed they’d be sharing dorms or slightly crowded classrooms. He couldn’t have even imagined not playing Quidditch for a whole year.

Just as he opened his mouth to complain about it to Blaise, a deafening roll of thunder rang through the Great Hall and its large doors swung open, a one-legged, one-eyed man stood, leaning on a long staff, his complexion made even more off-putting by his large, black set of robes, swinging in the draft around him. As he walked through the Great Hall and towards Dumbledore, Draco noticed he was no looker – his face was riddled with scars and his displeasure came out in a sharp, unsatisfied grimace.

The artificial eye this man was sporting was looking around unnervingly, and Draco had a feeling it could see him and everyone else in the room at the same time. Lightning bolts were shooting through the magic ceiling, scaring a few students every time they appeared, an electric burning sound accompanying each one. Dumbledore shook the man’s hand with a kind smile on his face. If Draco were to greet him, he wouldn’t have the same amount of politeness anywhere in his body, and his Malfoy blood would dissipate on spot.

According to their headmaster, this was the new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, Alastor Moody, and Draco scoffed, unable to imagine this creep teaching anything proper, other than ‘how to look terrifying enough so that no one would even attack you’.

While every other student’s attention switched back to Dumbledore as he announced the Triwizard Tournament, Draco kept watching Professor Moody, the raggedy state of him somehow made him look dangerous, unlike their previous Defence Against the Dark Arts professor from a year ago, who’d mostly looked harmless and constantly just a bit cold. Draco wondered what his life had been like up until this point. He couldn’t be the criminal he looks to be, otherwise Dumbledore wouldn’t have hired him no matter how good an educator he might be. Just as Draco started pondering over Moody’s previous career paths, his fake eye, that had been observing everything in the room in sporadic movements, landed on Draco and remained there until the Slytherin broke eye contact, looking across the table at Pansy, and watching the silver pendant on her necklace to take his mind off the unsettling feeling the man’s artificial eye had caused.

Draco’s thoughts broke away from the new teacher as laughter rumbled over the room, forcing him to look around and find most eyes trained on the Gryffindor table, Pansy and Blaise’s eyes rolling in unison as they tried to hide a smile. Draco had missed the joke, but there wasn’t much deduction necessary to know it had been one of the Weasley twins.

Draco listened to Dumbledore go on about the students from the other two schools arriving in a month, which Pansy had been severely disappointed to hear, the drawing of the names being planned for Halloween, and that only the students who are of age could enter. Draco couldn’t care less. Sure, it would be fun to watch a fellow student, probably a Gryffindor since they were always most eager to die for something stupid, battle for their life as he cheered on the contestants from the other schools (because there was no way in hell he was going to cheer on a Gryffindor), but still had enough common sense that putting a minor in danger might be a little much even for Hogwarts. A loud, disappointed protest took over the room as Dumbledore announced the age limitations, Pansy joining in for the fun of the chaos, making Blaise laugh.

“You entering?” Nott asked eagerly, catching up to the three of them on a staircase to the dungeons once the headmaster had sent everyone off to their dorms.

“Did you not hear about having to be seventeen?” Blaise dragged, sounding like he couldn’t be less interested, but their pureblood manners prohibited him from not answering at all.

“Well, yes, of course, but when has that ever stopped us?’ Nott snorted a laugh that reminded Draco that he had to sleep the rest of the school year, listening to Nott’s snoring.

“You have fun entering, Nott,” Draco sighed, “Maybe it’ll get you to actually memorise a spell or two for once.” Nott just laughed, as if the dig had only been a bit of friendly teasing. Which it hadn’t. Draco only ever teased two people in a friendly manner, everyone else was fair game to rip to shreds.

“I swear to Merlin, if I don’t find a proper silencing charm soon, I will go out of my mind,” Draco stated, knowing very well that he was being dramatic later in the night as they shared stolen chocolate cake, having occupied the seats by the fireplace and actually gotten rid of Nott for the sweetest of seconds.

“He’s not that bad,” Blaise said, skimming through his new charms book.

“You can always try Silencio,” Pansy shrugged from the large, emerald green bergère, feet propped up next to Draco on the matching couch, “use it whenever he turns towards you and opens his mouth, like how you train a dog.”

“What do you know about training a dog?” Blaise narrowed his eyes as Draco smiled widely.

“I mean, how you punish it instantly for doing something you don’t like, you tosser,” Pansy said and stuck out her tongue, making Draco laugh. He knew everyone around them wished they could be friends with them. They tried, on a daily basis, it was always Zabini this, Zabini that, Parkinson, come to Hogsmeade with me this, Malfoy check out my new broom that. They’d heard it all, and maintained a cool nonchalance laced with a precisely aimed insult throughout it all, but Draco found that the best way to assert status was exactly this – taking the best seat in the common room and having a nice time without anyone else being allowed to join. It was like a piece of art exhibited in a glass box. Anyone could look at it, but no one could reach inside. Draco loved it. It made him feel powerful, dominant, important. And he’d finally get to being a bitchy piece of shite in public in the morning.

Besides, as Draco had had joticed, being amongst the closest friends of the Casanova of Slytherin house, Blaise Zabini himself, was an oddly fascinating study into the human, and especially teenage girl, psyche.

“If I have to listen to Penelope Greengrass talking about Cedric Diggory for another minute, I might have to punch myself into a concussion,” Pansy said, joining them for breakfast the next morning, flopping herself heavily onto the long wooden bench next to Blaise, “Kill her for me, will you?”

“No,” Blaise gave her a sorry smile, “but only because that would be very suspicious, otherwise I’d kill anyone for you.”

“Anyone?” Draco smirked.

“For Pansy? I’d kill you, Malfoy,” Blaise stated, obviously lifting Pansy’s spirits.

“But you love me so much, I don’t understand,” Draco said dramatically as Pansy bit down on her toast, left side still glued to Blaise’s arm, making Draco wonder…

“I don’t want to go to History of Magic,” Pansy whined, “I’d rather stab myself with a butter knife.”

“And then Care of Magical Creatures with Gryffindors,” Draco noted, taking a sip of his tea. It was too sweet since he hadn’t had the chance to practice making himself tea in three months.

“Oh, but you go in for that sort of thing these days, do you not?” Blaise’s eyes narrowed.

“Will we get to watch you flirt with the Golden Trio?” Pansy teased.

“Please, compose yourselves,” Draco rolled his eyes.

“She’s never letting this go,” Blaise said.

“Yes, I’m aware,” Draco sighed and took a sip from his steaming cup, smiling at the daily ambush of owls as everyone received their mail. Eagle landed on Draco’s shoulder, letting him take the parcel out of his beak as Pansy opened Blaise’s issue of the Daily Prophet.

“Anything good?” Blaise asked as Draco tore open the brown paper, having to look up to check whether his friend was talking to him or Pansy.

“Apple and red currant tarts,” Draco said, digging through the magically enlarged package, “aaaand,” he dragged pulling out something in a glass jar at the bottom, “butterscotch,” he smiled and handed the jar to Blaise.

“I love your mum,” Blaise opened the jar, shoved a few pieces into his mouth, offering some to Pansy who just laughed and declined, insisting they were all Blaise’s.

“And she obviously loves you,” Draco shoved the parcel of tarts into his book bag and got up, “we should probably get to class if we want to sit in the back and watch Blaise smuggle sweets into his body.”

“Oh, do keep up the innuendos, I’m thoroughly enjoying them,” Pansy stood up and took her unfinished cup of tea with her. “What? I’m not wasting a perfectly good, steaming cuppa on Binns’ behalf. He’s not even going to notice it.”

Draco ignored the slight tinge of jealousy as he watched Pansy and Blaise sit at the desk in front of him and share tea and butterscotch drops like there was no one else in the room. The Ravenclaws were writing down every word their ghost professor was monotonely dragging out of himself, but here Draco was, watching his best friends in the world in some strange private bubble he wasn’t invited to join. Not that they’d ever tell him to leave them alone, but something seemed different from the three previous years. Draco decided not to think too much of it while there was no actual proof to worry over. Pansy was clingy and Blaise felt comfortable around her, which was rare for him. They just hadn’t seen each other in months, that was all.

The second the class ended, Draco was up and gathering his books, not even bothering to put them into his bag as he waited for Pansy and Blaise to join him. “Eager to see your boyfriend?” Pansy asked with a poisonous smirk.

“I can’t believe I’d forgotten how terrible his classes were,” Draco shivered, ignoring Pansy’s comment completely, “like drowning in The Lake, but instead of water it’s filled with boring.”

“It’s not Binns’ fault your father taught you all of this before you even came to Hogwarts,” Blaise pointed out as they exited the castle and headed for Hagrid’s hut.

“It’s not about me already knowing what he’s about to say, it’s that he’s the most boring creature not only in the history of magic, but also the history of the Universe,” Draco whined dramatically, making Pansy’s laugh ricochet in the autumn air, catching the attention of the Gryffindors already waiting for them with a nervously smiling Hagrid. The large man had never liked Slytherins, and was always waiting for Draco to say something snarky, and even though Draco wanted to try his best to act like a grownup, Hagrid still smiling as they arrived, and looking for the best in everyone sort  of made Draco want to call his large coat lumpy and his beard full of crumbs in front of everyone.

Hagrid started talking about Blast-Ended Skrewts and Draco noticed a bunch of tiny ones in crates in front of them. He had read about them before, but the pictures hadn’t done them justice. They looked like a slug and a deep-sea creature had been involved in an unfortunate affair. Draco tried hard not to say anything snarky until Hagrid suggested they raise them. He had to pinch his own thigh in order not to call the idea completely idiotic, especially since Pansy’s face perfectly resembled how Draco felt about those things.

“And why would we want to raise them?” Nott asked proudly, looking to Draco for approval, which he didn’t receive as all Draco devoted to him was an eye roll. “I mean what do they do? What is the point of them?” he asked, hoping to pull off Draco’s usual snippiness, but ending up sounding like he’s changed his mind midway through calling Hagrid out and was now trying to sound like he hadn’t meant it.

Blaise turned to him with a cold expression and Pansy shook her head with an annoyed expression, “Grow up, Nott,” she said.

Nott snorted a laugh and turned to Draco again, “Since when is she such a goody-two-shoes?” he asked with a laugh.

“Shut up, Nott,” Draco sighed and walked towards the crates if only to get away from Nott and his new goons. Apparently, if Draco didn’t pay too much attention to Crabbe and Goyle, they switched allegiances. A year ago, that would have pissed Draco off and he’d be giving them a lecture on loyalty, but now it not only meant less Crabbe and Goyle, but also less Nott, as dealing with the two idiots was a full-time job.

“Hey, Pans, look, that one looks like your father,” Draco pointed to one of the Skrewts as Dean Thomas started yelling about one of them exploding in his hand. Draco was smarter than to touch them, especially once he learned they had stings.

“Fuck off, Draco,” she laughed, reaching down and trying to pet one, but Blaise took her hand out of the crate and looked at her as if she was insane, “What could happen?” she asked.

“They can suck blood, as well,” Blaise informed her.

“Well, I can certainly see why we’re trying to keep them alive,” said Draco sarcastically to Blaise and Pansy. “Who wouldn’t want pets that can burn, sting, and bite all at once?”

“Just because they’re not very pretty, it doesn’t mean they’re not useful,” Hermione snapped. “Dragon blood’s very valuable, but you wouldn’t want a dragon for a pet, would you?”

“Granger,” Draco said seriously, “I would love a pet dragon. If you’re ever lacking a Christmas gift idea for me, you know what to do,” he winked, making her watch him in shock. It wasn’t exactly the friendliest of answers, but it wasn’t too mean spirited. It was exactly where Draco was planning to operate when it came to those three.

“Oh, no, that was my plan this year,” Pansy played along as Blaise smiled, watching Granger’s confused face. “Maybe we can split the cost, hey, Weasel, can your brother get us a dragon?” she asked Weasley, who was so confused he didn’t even have anything to say about being called a weasel.

“Well,” Weasley dragged, doing his best to gather himself in front of the three Slytherins, “at least the skrewts are small.”

“Yeah, for now,” Draco laughed.

“Once Hagrid finds out what they eat, I expect they’ll be six feet long,” Granger said in an exasperated voice.

“Imagine those at six feet,” Pansy snarked, leaning in to watch one closer as Blaise’s hand hovered over her to grab her backwards at any moment. “Living in your den, plotting to kill you while you sleep.”

“You’re thinking of cats, Pans,” Draco said, pulling an apple from the large pocket of his robes.

“For your information, cats are not murderous or evil,” Granger argued, but Draco could have sworn there was a smile threatening to break out.

“Tell that to your orange piece of shite of a pet,” Weasley’s face said, doing that thing that Draco hated so much. How could a person pull such an atrocious grimace, Draco did not understand, and he had trouble not asking whether the orange piece of shite wasn’t Weasley himself.

“I say kill them, put them out of their own misery,” Potter pitched in, a delightfully disgusted look on his face.

Draco wasn’t sure what to make of the seemingly casual conversation, and even less so about the fact that Pansy and Blaise had joined in, now both leading the way back to the castle for lunch as Draco trailed afterwards, lost in thought. Draco realised that he had never been the last one, on the back of their little group. Sure, it was a democracy that ruled between them, but Draco had always been in the lead at least a bit. Now, however, he was reduced to watching Pansy animatedly talk Blaise’s ear off as he listened with a private smile.

As he sat through their afternoon classes, knowing each answer, but never raising his arm lest he resembled Granger’s insufferable enthusiasm for being a know-it-all, Draco watched his best friends with growing curiosity. It wasn’t that he thought they’d secretly gotten together during the summer without telling Draco, but they certainly had something different about them.

Figuring it might take more than one day and a closer examination to determine what exactly was happening, Draco pulled out today’s Daily Prophet from Blaise’s book bag, flipping through it until a title caught his eye.

FURTHER MISTAKES AT THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC it read, making Draco’s brow furrow and making something tug at him to mock Weasley for his father’s inability to do his job, especially when he saw the words Arnold Weasley. Draco pushed it back down as he kept reading. Arthur Weasley had saved his arse back at the Quidditch World Cup without even thinking about it, despite all the nasty things Draco had ever said about him and his family. As far as Draco was concerned, he had nothing against Arthur Weasley.

Rita Skeeter’s article, however, was as distastefully spiteful as ever, retelling an instance where Weasley’s father had had to modify a few muggles’ memories after an incident where Mad-Eye Moody had strangely been involved, as well. There was a picture attached of Arthur Weasley and the woman Draco was pretty sure he recognised, which must have been his wife.

Draco looked across the dining hall to find the three Gryffindors, which he had got quite good at locating over the last three years. All he really ever needed to do was focus on ginger hair, and if it wasn’t the youngest or second youngest Weasley always clinging after him, it was the twins, and they never sat far from Potter, either.

Potter was mid-chew when Draco caught his eye. Neither of them changed their expression, having gotten quite used to seeing each other across the tables by now. Weasley was next to him, reading the same paper, probably having reached the article Draco had just finished. That’ll take several more minutes, Draco though with an internal smirk at his own quip. There might have been an unspoken temporary truce between two fronts, but that didn’t stop Draco from acknowledging how big of a moron Weasley was.

“Oh, lovely,” Blaise snapped Draco out of the staring contest he’d been having with Potter, “they’re attacking individuals now,” he rolled his eyes, reading the article, “as if it wasn’t the Ministry’s fault and the Ministry’s fault alone that they can’t keep Death Eaters in check.

“I swear to Circe, if my father is involved in any of this, I’m leaving home and moving into the Malfoy Manor,” Pansy said, using Draco’s wand to pick out carrots from her lunch.

“Parkinson!” Draco yelled, only now noticing where his wand had gone, making several heads turn their way, including that of Harry bloody Potter from the other end of the hall. As if the git had some sort of a sixth sense to when Draco did anything. No one else sitting that far had noticed. “Give me that,” he demanded, taking it out of her hand and turning to Blaise who had already pulled his own wand out to clean up Draco’s. “I’m never inviting you back if this is how you plan on acting,” he scoffed, glancing back at the Gryffindor table. Potter’s attention was back solely to Granger and Weasley.

“Sorry, Merlin, what’s got your knickers in a twist?” she asked. When Draco didn’t answer, he could feel her and Blaise exchange a look. “Your father’s not a Death Eater,” she assured. “He might be an old money, mudblood-hating prick, but he’s not a Death Eater.”

“Pans,” Blaise warned.

“What? I’m right!” she stated unapologetically.

“You can’t just-“

“She is,” Draco said, interrupting Blaise and nodding with a shrug when his best friends watched him in surprise. “Oh, come on,” he said, rolling his eyes as if it was obvious. Which it was, he just hated to admit it up until now.

“Draco, I didn’t mean anything by it, you know that,” Pansy said hastily.

“But you’re not exactly wrong either, are you?” he sighed, leading the conversation. At least being in control made him feel slightly better. “He’s hardly ever around, and what are the odds he sends me on an errand just before the dark mark shows up above a field full of wizards to scare?” he asked in a hushed voice, looking around slowly to see if anyone had the slightest reaction to indicate they’d heard their conversation.

“What are you saying?” Blaise whispered, “You can’t possibly think-“

“But I can possibly think, Blaise,” he looked back to his friends, stopping the two of them from attempting to argue, “That’s the problem.”

As the Silver Trio was about to head to the DADA classroom, waiting to meet their new professor ever so patiently, curious as all hell what he was going to be like, Draco noticed a sniggering from further down the Slytherin table and turned in his seat to see what he already expected – Nott and his new goons, plotting something unmistakably Malfoy-levelled. Draco knew that sound. It was the sound of pure Slytherin-Gryffindor joy.

“Maybe it’s a fake story,” Draco absently heard Blaise ponder, switching the conversation completely.

“Why? Who would care about Weasley’s dad?” Pansy asked, rolling her eyes, obviously looking for another reason, just as Potter stood up to leave, grabbing Nott’s attention. Perfect bloody timing.

“Precisely,” Nott joined in, standing up on his chair, a copy of the Daily Prophet in hand as he watched Weasley with a poisonous smile, “They couldn’t even be bothered to get his name right,” he pointed out, making Draco wonder why Nott even knew Arthur Weasley’s name in the first place. “Must be a bit embarrassing for you, Weasel,” he continued, the use of Draco’s usual insult not going unnoticed by Granger who looked over to watch Draco as Weasley did his best not to look at Nott and leave the Great Hall, “that sad little house of yours getting paraded around the world,” he huffed, emphasising the word, “for everyone to see just how miserable your life really is.”

Draco watched in curiosity more than anything else how Nott followed him out to the grand staircase. He felt like he’d left his body and could see a classic Potter-Malfoy fight brewing. Only instead of the satisfaction he usually felt when successfully landing a hurtful comment, he felt something closer to disgust. He also felt his hand reaching for the wand in the pocket of his robes, unsure of where this would go, standing up and following them out, seeing almost every head in the Great Hall turned to watch.

“And just how fat you mummy is,” Nott laughed, looking back to Crabbe to see if he was smiling. He was. Draco didn’t hear what Potter answered, his wand was already out, having seen the little tell Nott always did before he fired a curse. Draco might not want him for a friend, but he had noticed the tick in Nott’s left pinkie finger right before he yelled a curse, as if the excitement to hurt someone was too big to conceal. Draco always noticed things, but it had never really come in handy before now.

Only before Draco had the chance to expelliarmus his fellow Slytherin, he felt something tug at him. Not at his arm or leg, this felt like something tugging at everything in his body at once.

He couldn’t put his finger on what had happened at first, just that his vision felt different and he was on much closer to the floor. He would have assumed someone pushed him onto the floor or stupefied him, if not for the lack of pain which the collision would have surely provided with. Draco could no longer see what was right in front of him, and the fisheye effect the world suddenly had made him feel sick. Someone was shouting. Maybe even multiple people, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying, their voices sounded muffled as if by water.

Suddenly, he was jolted upwards, then back almost to the ground, up again, and then down. Someone was yelling something again, but this time he wasn’t sure whether it was because of the strange muffled sound, or because his heart was beating faster than ever before, and loud enough to cancel out all other noise.

What seemed like a lifetime later, Draco was back to normal, without ever realising what had happened, only now he felt sick from all the motion, and stumbled backwards, taking in his surroundings and seeing his new Defence teacher holding his wand out. “Did he just transfigure me into a rat?” Draco asked Pansy.

“Ferret,” she snickered quietly. If Draco hadn’t been so humiliated and on the verge of vomiting, he would have found it hilarious and quite creative. McGonagall was now standing in front of him, telling Moody off. Everyone’s attention was turned to the two of them so Draco was sure no one would even notice when Pansy said “Your father is going to throw a fit.”

“Oh yeah?” Moody yelled across the room as his wooden leg loudly carried him closer to Draco until he could feel the spit on his face as Moody’s voice boomed throughout the entire first floor of the castle, “Well, I know your father of old, boy. You tell him Moody’s keeping a close eye on his son. You tell him that from me. Now, your Head of House’ll be Snape, will it?”

“Yes,” said Draco defiantly. This might not have been his fault, and he might have been daft for wanting to help Potter, even if it was for just a moment, but he was not one to go around looking like he’s trying to pin the blame on someone else.

Moody dragged him away from the rest of his peers, his grip on the back of Draco’s robes tight and unwavering. Draco caught McGonagall’s eye on their way out. She only ever gave him looks of disappointment, even when he did well in Transfiguration classes – she always looked just a tad disappointed that a Slytherin had succeeded. It wasn’t exactly new to Draco. The look on the Golden Boy’s face, on the other hand, although nothing unusual to Draco as he’d seen it dozens if not hundreds of times in the years before, was once again laced with something bordering so dangerously on betrayal that Draco had to forcibly make himself look away in shame. I wasn’t going to hurt you, Draco wanted to scream.

“You can let go of me now, I’m coming along willingly” Draco insisted, adding a poisonous, “Professor.”

“Fine,” Moody growled and shoved Draco forward, but at least his tie was no longer digging into his throat. He fought the urge to cough as they continued wordlessly and unceremoniously to the dungeons.

He was once again shoved forwards when they had reached Snape’s office and practically collided with one of his Godfather’s bookcases as the Potions professor himself stepped swiftly out of the way, eyeing Moody carefully.

“Snape,” Moody acknowledged, and Draco knew no one was paying him any attention for the time being, so he stood up and straightened himself, allowing his eyes to slip over Snape’s office. There was a pile of parchment on his desk that had writing on it and most of the pages looked to be signed by Dumbledore, and Draco was quite sure there were at least two signed by Professor Lupin.

Draco rested against one of the large black chairs while Moody spoke angrily to Snape in hushed tones and Snape answered with a low rumble. Draco could not hear anything, as much as he tried to, so he just focused on reading as much as he could from the letters, though it was only concerning something called a Padfoot, so he didn’t understand much of it, until suddenly he was alone with Snape.

“I was not going to attack him,” Draco said immediately, sinking into one of the chairs without invitation.

“I believe you,” Snape sighed, walking back to his desk and hiding the letters, “Although you have had a history with Potter.” The professor then sat behind the ancient desk and picked up a book he had obviously been reading before Moody’s interruption. Draco did everything not to visibly sigh in relief. He was not going to be yelled at. He was not even going to be told off. He was going to sit here for a few minutes and then return to his class, and no one will question the missing removal of house points, because to everyone else it had been Harry Potter that Draco would have attacked and Snape would never do anything but commend that.

“I’m aware,” Draco answered, slumping deeper into his seat, “I’m done with Potter. It’s the same fight over.”

“I must say, Draco,” Snape said from the menacing chair behind his desk, “you’ve grown up this summer.” He almost looked impressed, but Draco knew better than to look smug in front of him unless there were Gryffindors around.

“Do you know what happened during the World Cup?” Draco asked, the thought coming to him out of nowhere. There was probably no one else he could ask this.

“Yes,” Snape dragged, without hiding how uninterested in the question he was, but when Draco didn’t say anything for a few moments, Severus looked up from his book. “Rogues,” he explained, “nothing to worry about.”

“So, they’ve been caught?” Draco crossed his arms in front of himself, watching his godfather closely.

“Not…” Snape’s eyebrows knitted together, “…exactly.”

Draco wasn’t sure whether conversation was over, or what Snape even meant, but he did not want to push his luck much further. “Can I go now?” Draco asked, already getting up, “I wouldn’t like to miss Moody’s brilliant class,” he said as venomously as he could, eyeing a book of NEWT level duelling spells.

“Sure,” Snape said without paying much attention, leafing through the book in front of him, or it might have been a tome. Draco used the moment to steal the book from Snape’s collection, figuring it might come in handy when living in the near vicinity of Theodore Nott. “Do stay out of trouble for the time being,” Snape advised, “your father will not have it.”

“Yes, well, he has other things to do than thinking of me.”

“That may be true at times,” Snape said with no emotion, “but you are the most important thing for both of your parents.”

“If you say so,” Draco cleared his throat and headed for the door.

“Stay out of trouble, Draco,” Snape reminded.

“Yes, sir,” Draco said quickly before going back upstairs to the DADA class. Moody was long gone, and if Draco still had any luck on his side, he could just sneak into the back of the classroom unnoticed. Or maybe Moody wouldn’t ask what kind of punishment Snape had bestowed upon him.

His book bag had fallen from his shoulder when he was attacked by Moody, but he didn’t even have to wonder to know that Pansy had taken it with her when he was dragged away to Snape’s office. He climbed the stairs slowly, dreading what would happen if Moody noticed his presence, but once he’d gotten to the door, there was no more stalling he could do, so he cast a silencing charm in case it creaks, and opened it.

No heads turned to see him walk in, but he was about 63% sure Moody’s wonky eye saw him. He didn’t comment, though. Draco was not opposed to that.

“So — straight into it. Curses. They come in many strengths and forms. Now, according to the Ministry of Magic, I’m supposed to teach you countercurses and leave it at that. I’m not supposed to show you what illegal Dark curses look like until you’re in the sixth year. You’re not supposed to be old enough to deal with it till then. But Professor Dumbledore’s got a higher opinion of your nerves, he reckons you can cope, and I say, the sooner you know what you’re up against, the better. How are you supposed to defend yourself against something you’ve never seen? A wizard who’s about to put an illegal curse on you isn’t going to tell you what he’s about to do. He’s not going to do it nice and polite to your face. You need to be prepared. You need to be alert and watchful. You need to put that away, Miss Brown, when I’m talking.”

Draco didn’t manage to catch a glimpse of what the now blushing Gryffindor had been showing her friend, but he sneered anyway, if only to himself, and if only by instinct. The lesson soon took a dark turn, though, as Moody started naming and presenting the three Unforgivable Curses to the whole class. Neither of these was news to Draco, as his father had not been shy in telling him about them when Draco was still a child. He’d brought Draco into his study and showed him official Ministry reports of Death Eaters’ activity all over Europe. There had been pictures. For two weeks afterwards Draco hadn’t been able to sleep properly. Narcissa had been furious. But the worst of it was that Draco had never been entirely sure whether it was a warning or a lesson in what was expected of him.

Draco watched his classmates be terrified into weeks’ worth of nightmares, but he had to admit that this would probably help them understand the severity of the situation. The Imperius did not leave as much of an influence on everyone as Cruciatus did. But it was Avada Kedavra that really took the cake.

“Not nice,” Moody said calmly. “Not pleasant. And there’s no countercurse. There’s no blocking it. Only one known person has ever survived it, and he’s sitting right in front of me.” Draco looked towards the front of the classroom, seeing Potter’s ears redden all the way from the back where he was sitting.

As soon as the class was over, Draco rushed out, not giving anyone the chance to stop him, or even notice him ever having been there. His throat was closing up, the world was caving in, he had to ruin his carefully manufactured appearance by undoing his tie and disappearing into an empty alcove to clear his throat and calm his breathing.

He was late for dinner. In fact, he never arrived to the Great Hall, instead choosing to retire to the Slytherin common room and lounge across a whole couch, stopping anyone else from even attempting to sit there, to read his potions textbook a few chapters ahead. Snape was one of the rare teachers that liked him, he was not going to disappoint his godfather by being anything short of perfection in his class.

When Pansy and Blaise showed up an hour later, they approached Draco immediately, although tormenting him by not saying a word, as Pansy took a seat by pushing his legs deeper into the leather couch, and Blaise remained standing. Draco didn’t raise his eyes to meet his friends’ gaze, instead turning the page and realising he hadn’t been following the text along for at least twenty minutes now.

“Draco, why weren’t you at dinner” Pansy asked in what Draco was sure was her attempt at nonchalance.

“Wasn’t hungry,” Draco stated, his eyes still staring blankly at the page. He didn’t have to look up to know the other two Slytherins were exchanging a worried look.

“Did Snape say something?” she asked, but got nothing more than a scoff from Draco in answer. As if Snape could ever reprimand his godson. “Was it the curses?” she tried again, but Draco had a feeling she was just doing it out of kindness, or to give him a chance to lie to them. Draco didn’t answer. It was not the curses, though they hadn’t helped. “It’s only the first day, Draco,” Pansy assured.

“Don’t be dramatic, Parkinson,” Draco said warningly, “I couldn’t care less.” At this point, he wasn’t even sure as to what she was referring to, or he did, but there was no chance he was admitting it, even to himself. Blaise had the same pitying expression on his face as Pansy did, so he must have known. Was Draco the only one oblivious here? Seeing the unforgivable curses really didn’t matter that much anymore now that he was safe in his common room, a fire roaring by his right ear and a riveting chapter on poisons in his hands. So why did he feel so rancid?

For the next few weeks, Draco sat back, watching his two best friends in the world whisper to each other when they thought he wouldn’t notice, pretending that it didn’t bother him, and neither did a certain reckless idiot no longer paying attention to him. Draco was forced to go back to his old ways of broodily watching the Gryffindor table during meals and hoping to catch Potter’s eye. No, he wasn’t hoping to catch him look. He didn’t want that. Not at all.

He stalked after Pansy and Blaise to their DADA class with the Gryffindors, realising that this was, by far, his least enjoyed year in terms of the Defence teachers. At least Lockhart had provided a much-needed comic relief to everyone in the school, including the teachers, but he really just missed Professor Lupin. His classes had taught possibly the most to Draco. And they were fun, as reluctant as he had been to admit it at the time. Moody, on the other hand, always seemed constipated and resentful, trying to make everyone else as miserable as he was.

This time, his class was on the Imperius curse, and, as much as Draco wanted to silently protest by not paying attention, watching his peers running around like madmen under an illegal curse was, indeed, entertaining. Especially when it was Potter’s turn. And the tosser actually managed to fight the bloody thing. Draco had never heard of anyone actually managing to fight an unforgivable curse, or, in this case, get half-way there and almost split his head open against a wooden desk by half-following a command and tripping over his own feet. Not to mention doing it three more times in order to deflect it completely.

By the end of the class, Potter looked positively insane, hair even more astray than usually, glasses crooked and a dishevelled look upon his face, like he wasn’t entirely certain he was back to free will.

It also didn’t slip Draco’s attention that he was the only one in the lesson who didn’t get picked for demonstration, whether it was because he was a Malfoy, or because Moody was still actively ignoring him ever since the still-unexplained-to-no-one-but-Snape incident before the first lesson.

“I can’t believe I have three essays due next week,” Pansy said, linking her elbow with Draco’s, “my parchment’s about to run out,” she sighed, leaning her entire body back in dramatic exhaustion, only to be caught by Blaise by her other arm and pulled back upright.

“I promise to get you some parchment for Christmas,” Blaise said, bopping her nose with his finger, making Draco wan to gag.

“If you only get me parchment, I will never be your friend again,” she said in warning, having forgotten about Draco completely, even as her hand was still hooked into his arm. “Besides, it will be long gone before first snow, so who wants to go shopping in Hogsmeade.”

“Parkinson, I will never be seen wearing anything that came from Hogsmeade,” Draco reminded, a shiver running over him at the mere thought.

“Well, of course not,” she rolled her eyes, “I only meant buying things. You love spending money, Draco, it’ll get you out of this mood.”

“What mood?” Draco’s head snapped up when they’d reached the main hall, “and where are we going?”

Pansy and Blaise shared a slightly amused look, “You know exactly which mood,” Pansy huffed, pulling him towards the front door.

“And we’re going to Hagrid’s,” Blaise answered the question Pansy had neglected.

“What? Why would we… oh, no.”

“Oh, yes,” Blaise detached himself from Pansy and clapped Draco’s shoulder as he let the two of them lead the way down the narrow downhill path. “Good afternoon, professor,” Blaise greeted.

“Not the bloody Skrewts,” Draco whispered to Pansy who had pulled him towards the large crates as Blaise politely talked to Hagrid a few yards away.

“I think you mean Blasted Skrewts,” Pansy smirked.

“Fire slugs,” Draco sniggered, making Pansy laugh as she leaned closer to the damned things. Draco felt bad for their existence. How sad it must be to just…sort of be. In a big box, with no escape, sliming all over your entire family.

“I’ll start writing something down so we can get away from them and have some dinner as soon as possible,” Pansy pulled out an emerald green notebook from her bag and jotted something down as Draco kept his distance from the crates.

“And here I was, thinking you found them charming,” Blaise returned, following Draco’s lead and keeping his distance from the creatures. “Hagrid said to document their extraordinary behaviour.”

“Is being disgusting a form of extraordinary behaviour?” Draco smirked, bumping Blaise’s shoulder with his own.

“Excuse me, gentlemen, but unless you want me to go all Granger on you and start spewing social activism, I suggest you help me,” Pansy warned, not stopping her writing for a single second.

“But why? It seems like you’ve got the hang of it,” Draco kneeled next to her, careful not to step into something with his polished shoes, “perhaps we should just bring you a sandwich and leave you to it.” Pansy hit him over the head with her notebook as Draco laughed, and didn’t even honour him with a response.

After a few minutes of Pansy working quietly and Blaise studying the pumpkin patch behind the hut, Draco got bored and started listing what he saw in the makeshift Skrewt habitat, not expecting much of a good mark this semester.

They ended up being only a few minutes late for dinner, and had the opportunity to look at the new sign that had been erected sometime during their little Skrewt-study.

TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT

The delegations from Beauxbatons and

Durmstrang will be arriving at 6 o’clock

on Friday the 30th of October. Lessons

will end half an hour early Students will

return their bags and books to their dormitories

and assemble in front of the castle to greet

our guests before the Welcoming Feast.

“Now taking bets on who the Hogwarts champion will be,” Pansy strode into the Great Hall and took a seat opposite Draco and Blaise, “and whether they’ll die.”

“Dumbledore won’t actually let anyone die,” Blaise laughed, piling bubble and squeak onto his plate before looking back up to a very serious Draco and Pansy, “right?” he didn’t look so sure anymore.

“People have died before,” Pansy shrugged, noticing chicken right in front of her and looking at it as if it was Christmas morning, “It wouldn’t exactly be surprising. But what it would be,” she continued, stealing a baked potato off of Blaise’s plate, “is incredibly idiotic. Besides, applying would be such a Gryffindor thing to do it almost makes me sick.”

“Yes, but that was a hundred years ago,” Blaise smiled nervously, “surely that wouldn’t happen again. I mean it’s Dumbledore.” This time neither Draco nor Pansy said anything, just looked at each other as if to warn the other not to scare their friend.

“Why do you care, it’s not like you’re going to enter,” Draco said, remembering he was there to eat and actually putting something on his plate, taking a mini blueberry tart for later before everyone else takes them all.

“No, but I would like to feel safe in this bloody castle,” Blaise shivered and dug into his food.

For the next week, any conversation Draco managed to overhear in the halls was about the Tournament. It was like nothing else was happening in any of their lives. Meanwhile Draco was going insane trying to decipher Pansy’s strange behaviour and Blaise’s playfully warning reactions to it. It was annoying him into madness, but he was too proud to confront them.

“What if Potter tries to enter?” Pansy asked one day, her legs propped up on Blaise’s as they sat outside and she was trying to catch the last little bits of sunlight she could, even though they were all obviously freezing, and refusing to admit it. Draco couldn’t help but notice that the question was aimed towards him.

“He wouldn’t,” Draco said as-a-matter-of-factly, “he doesn’t actually like attention, he just gets it all the time.” Pansy watched him with a raised eyebrow in response, “What? It’s true, he’d make a better Slytherin than a Gryffindor any day of the week.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were complimenting him,” Blaise said from his place in the grass where he was laying with closed eyes. Draco had been convinced he’d fallen asleep already and was long gone from their conversation.

“Why do you give him so much attention?” Pansy smirked, tilting her head to the side innocently when Draco sent her a glare in response.

“Because it annoys him to hell and back,” Draco pointed out. “Besides, I don’t anymore, do I?”

“All the more reason to wonder what’s happening to you this year,” Pansy closed her eyes and went back to pretending that she could get a tan in the end of October.

“You’re one to talk,” Draco quipped back without thinking, making Blaise’s eyes snap open and turn to Pansy, who just sighed, but didn’t seem fazed much.

“Come on,” she said, standing up and kicking the side of Blaise’s leg lightly, “we have a class in five minutes.” And just like that, the closest Draco had ever come to confronting the two of them, and they’d blatantly ignored it. His ego was almost bruised, if he hadn’t been so tired of the two of them keeping secrets.

Chapter Text

“Did you see the lawn?” Pansy asked as she joined Blaise and Draco for breakfast. They hadn’t seen her in the common room and Draco’s left thumb was almost hexed off when they’d tried to get into the girls’ rooms to look for her, so they’d decided to meet her for breakfast instead. “Would give Wimbledon a run for its money.” Draco pretended he understood the reference.

“The bloody castle’s never been this clean,” Blaise said before Draco had the chance to ask where Pansy had been so early, as she was usually the one to sleep in as late as humanly possible on the weekends. 

“Yes, well,” Pansy said just as the owls flew into the hall with the mail, “I don’t believe they’ve ever tried this hard to get the place tidy for us.”

“Oh, but we’re no Beauxbatons, Pans,” Blaise reminded with a smirk, watching his father’s owl land next to him on the long bench.

“Beauxbatons,” Pansy sighed in a dramatic dreaminess. She had obviously noticed the lack of parcel on Draco’s lap, or even a letter, but was not pointing it out.

“Just a few more hours now,” Blaise smiled at her before nudging them to finish their breakfast and head over to their first class. Not that anyone would be paying any attention to the lessons. 

Draco was mid-joke and Pansy was mid-laugh when Snape told them their half day of lessons was done and instructed them to go to the entrance hall where Snape himself then ordered them into a line while McGonagall, Sprout and Flitwick were dealing with their respective houses, Pansy laughing at Weasley getting a talking-to.

“Can we burn these before we go to bed?” Pansy asked, flicking Draco’s hat off his head. He got what she meant. They were bloody ugly, and he was thankful they never had to wear them except for events like these. Draco pinched her and put it back on before Snape could call him out. Which he would never have done.

Draco watched Harry Potter on the opposite side of the hall talking to his little friends, and refused to believe they were discussing anything other than how the students from the other schools would be arriving. Draco didn’t have to wonder, his father had told him already. What he could wonder about, was when his father would speak to him again. Even a single sentence from his mother about Lucius sending love would be ideal. This silence ever since being told to go to bed after getting caught helping Harry bloody Potter was growing a little uneasy. 

His disinterest in the Beauxbatons carriages was not mirrored by the other Slytherins, or even his friends. Pansy’s mouth was actually agape and Blaise looked almost impressed with the size of the golden horses. Draco’s attention slipped over to the Gryffindors when Longbottom stepped on Edward Murton’s foot, gaining a proper Slytherin stare-down. A few faces behind him, a certain, typically dishevelled Mr. Potter looked up at the sky with glimmer in his green eyes and more awe than usual when learning something new about the world of magic. Draco wasn’t sure he liked the fact that he knew how intrigued Potter was after eleven years of not even knowing any of this was possible. 

Draco’s attention was taken by a light-haired, fair-skinned Beauxbatons boy emerged to open the door for their headmistress, who happened to be the size of a small mountain. Pansy noted that the boy looked like a French version of Draco before turning back to gawk at everyone that steps out of the carriage. But Draco was still focused on the boy. Barely able to tear his eyes away. Even more so when he looked over to the Slytherin pile of curious onlookers and seemed to linger on Draco for just a second longer than necessary. He looked older. Maybe two or three years above Draco himself, and he was oddly beautiful.

By the time he’d started wondering whether the boy was a veela, a second wave of commotion had begun on behalf of a ship rising out of a whirlpool in the Black Lake which Draco couldn’t stay indifferent about anymore. The second headmaster looked a great deal colder and unhappier to be here, dressed in a comically large coat. “I bet he made that out of a polar bear,” Blaise snorted a laugh, making Draco smile. He would, indeed, look hilarious if there wasn’t so much familiar evil in his eyes. As Slytherins, they’d seen their fair share of unpleasant people in their time, many of them if not Death Eaters, then their offspring. And this man had the same aura about him. 

“Is that Krum?” Pansy asked, squinting to make sure she hadn’t gone barmy. It was Krum. Draco could tell after seeing him play not so long ago. Besides, the eyebrows were difficult to mistake for someone else’s. The same revelation was slowly settling among the rest of the student body, and Draco watched his fellow idiot Hogwarts students blush and chatter furiously, their murmurs so loud they rendered the very need for them ironically useless. 

Draco just watched the spectacle play out in silence. “Why are you so quiet?” Pansy asked, “I don’t like it.” He loved observing. It gave him more information. It made him feel smarter. He loved Blaise and Pansy talking to him, but he loved sucking up as much second-hand information from people he barely knew much more.

“I’m perfectly normal,” he scoffed, allowing his best friend to drag him to their usual seats at the Slytherin table, joined by none other than the man of the day himself not that much later. He was probably going to be the man of the school year, by the sound of it.

“Hello,” Victor Krum greeted, a Slavic accent so thick it was practically dripping from the word like molasses, “Is okay if I sit?”

“Go for it,” Draco said, apparently much less shocked by the quidditch player’s presence than anyone else around him.

“Thank you. I am Victor,” he stated humbly, a blush creeping at his ears, suggesting he was only introducing himself out of politeness and less because it was necessary. Everyone in the room knew who Victor Krum was. 

“Draco,” he answered, avoiding his last name. He wasn’t entirely convinced the Malfoy name had been cleared outside of the United Kingdom. Even here it sometimes took convincing. “These are my friends, Pansy and Blaise,” he said gesturing towards them on the other side of the table, seeing them try their best not to look shocked.

Pansy fell into easy conversation with him soon after, giving Draco the chance to look around to notice most of the Slytherins in their vicinity pretending not to be listening in. Nott looked livid at not being the one chosen for the honour. Draco just ate his Bouillabaisse (the house-elves at Malfoy Manor could learn a few things from the ones in the Hogwarts kitchens), and chimed in once in a while with an agreement to whatever Pansy was saying to Krum. Draco was more interested in the previously unannounced arrival of Ludo Bagman and Barty Crouch. 

By the time Dumbledore was half-way through his introductory speech, Draco hadn’t heard a single word, his attention switching between Blaise whispering something in Pansy’s ear and Ravenclaw table where the Beauxbatons were sitting, before turning to the Gryffindors as one of the Weasley twins shouted something about an age line. Draco was glad that Dumbledore had finally found some of his long-gone marbles and chosen to only allow students of age to participate in the tournament. 

As his new superstar friend followed his schoolmates to their ship, Draco, relieved that the Durmstrang boys won’t be staying with them, got up to finally go find some peace in the Slytherin common room. 

“I really don’t believe either of the gingers wouldn’t try and enter,” Pansy said on their way to the dungeons, her hand cramped into Draco’s elbow.

“Wouldn’t put it past them, they’re insane,” Blaise said, his voice bordering on impressed.

“One of them is a blithering idiot, but, yes, maybe the twins will do something good,” Draco laughed.

“Or the little feisty one,” Pansy noted. If Draco thought hard enough, he was almost sure he remembered a little redhaired girl that usually sat near Potter and trailed after his friends.

“Feisty?” Draco asked, unsure whether that would be the correct word for describing her.

“Definitely,” she said simply and continued walking. 

The most they changed about their routines was the detour they took once in a while to check on the skrewts. Which they all hated. But when they started killing each other and Pansy took too much of a liking in the action, Hagrid put them in separate crates, making Draco’s best friend notably less interested in the odd creatures. 

They never went to see anyone put their names in for the Tournament, neither did they listen when Nott started taking bets about who would be the Hogwarts champion. Draco didn’t have to wonder much to assume the winner would be someone from Beauxbatons, as the boys from Durmstrang looked far too dim to be able to cast a spell successfully, and a participant from either of the Hogwarts houses would seriously lack in at least one of the traits necessary to be successful. 

The Halloween feast seemed to take even longer than usual, excited chatter filling the air as mostly Hufflepuffs and first years stuffed themselves full of sweets. Draco rested his face in his hand as he waited for Dumbledore to excuse them all so he could go to sleep and continue pretending staring at either Potter or the pretty Beauxbatons boy was his most-valued hobby lately. 

When Victor Krum’s name was called and he stood to walk to the front of the Great Hall, Draco smiled a polite congratulatory grimace and a complimentary nod of his head, but made no move to applaud along with the rest of the room. His Slytherin pride wouldn’t let him do that. Remaining cool and emotionless made him feel like he was above everyone else. 

Whoever the chosen Beauxbatons girl was, Draco’s previous hopes of seeing the impartial and elegant school on the top of the pedestal died, as he watched her smile smugly and join Krum, hundreds of pairs of eyes following her every move and ready to hang on her every slightly mispronounced word if given the chance. 

Cedric Diggory was not entirely a bad choice, Draco had to admit, but rooting for a Hufflepuff would simply not do. He’d heard about Diggory’s exceptional abilities in charms, and the boy had a beautiful head of hair, not to mention the cheekbones, the kind eyes and the slightly crooked smile that made the bloke look like he knew all of your secrets, and was just honoured to be entrusted with them. But that didn’t make him a champion. It made him a slightly tolerable Hufflepuff.

Blaise nodded in silent approval next to Draco, and Pansy rolled her eyes at the Hufflepuff table’s explosion of support for their champion. She was right, it was annoying, but Slytherin would have probably exploded a window or two if the champion had been one of their own. 

Draco was about to chug the rest of the contents in his goblet and head downstairs, maybe snag a book from the library on his way, but, just as Dumbledore was giving another one of his inspired speeches about supporting each school’s elected champion, the goblet’s fire turned a menacing red for the fourth time that evening, spewing out another half-burned piece of parchment. 

Now, this was new. As far as Draco was aware, the Triwizard Tournament had never had more than three participants, hence the name. And his father had failed to mention a change in the rules this time around. Which left Draco totally confused. The silence that took over the room when Harry Potter’s name was called was deafening, Potter’s promise of not having put his name in to his friends was loud enough for Draco to hear all the way across the Hall. 

Time stilled for Draco, his entire body turned to his ex-nemesis, watching him get up from his seat to walk over to the headmaster who had now called Potter’s name a second time, and there would not be a third. Weasley was beyond speechless, Granger had nudged him forward. For a moment, he turned to face Draco, scared, bright green eyes meeting a confused grey, a silent plea for help from the last possible option. 

For the first time in the last four years, Draco actually thought this might be the end of Harry Potter. And for the first time, the idea scared him. 

Draco was about to stand up. And then what? Take the most famous person in the wizarding world by the hand, hope he’d read enough on apparating to suddenly be able to do it first try, and disappear off the face of the earth just to keep him safe? Why would he even want to do that? But then Potter took what looked like a shaky breath, and looked away, turning to walk past the headmaster and all of their teachers, only to disappear behind a closed door, its shutting leaving a heady thud to echo in the quiet for several long seconds. 

Draco let himself breathe again, looking over to Pansy and Blaise who seemed to be in just as big of a shock. The silence in the room was almost palpable and the second the teachers and all three headmasters disappeared behind the door as well, the Hall exploded with murmurs and shouts, giving Blaise the chance to grab Pansy by the hand and Draco by the sleeve of his shirt to drag them away from there.

“WHAT THE FUCK?” Pansy asked once they were in the hallway on the fourth floor, sure Filch wasn’t following them. “HE’LL DIE IN THAT THING!” Draco knew this already. He was trying to catch his breath by pacing around his friends. The idea of Harry Potter dying freaking him out for an unknown reason. 

“Drac,” Blaise said, trying to get his best friend’s attention, “someone needs to get him out of that thing.”

Draco stopped in his tracks, looking up at Blaise and then to Pansy to make sure he’d heard right. Pansy’s face showed no shock in Blaise’s statement, as if the two of them had made the call behind their best friend’s back, knowing about his strange new obsession with Potter. Which, honestly, they probably did, as Draco was terrible at hiding anything from the two.

“We could kidnap him, but he might scream,” Pansy suggested, ever so unhelpfully, “or the weasel boy might come to the dungeons to take him back, and I really don’t want to have to look at him.”

“There is no way they can make him participate,” Blaise pondered, “are we sure he didn’t actually put his name in?” he asked and both of them turned to Draco.

“Couldn’t have,” Draco said quietly, truly hoping he was right. 

“So we get him out,” Pansy shrugged.

“Oh, so easy? Get him out? That’s it?” Blaise teased.

“Or watch him die quietly from the side lines,” Pansy rolled her eyes at Blaise. The thought of it alone made his skin crawl. “Or kill him ourselves, bloody hell, since when are we a committee dedicated to saving Potter?”

“Pansy,” Blaise said warningly, shooting a quick glance to Draco. Now it was truly getting suspicious. It wasn’t just the insinuations that they knew more about Draco than Draco, but now they won’t even talk to him about it, instead keeping secrets, like the subject wasn’t Draco himself. 

“What?” Draco demanded, wanting someone to explain something to him. Anything. Any clue as to what was happening in his own head. “What is it?” he asked again.

“Draco calm down,” Braise said infuriatingly calmly. No one should know they were here, or what they were talking about. Hearing the Slytherin Silver Trio discussing saving their life-long nemesis from a certain death would not bode well for their reputation of the school’s most exclusive and poisonous society.

Pansy was checking around the corner closest to them for anyone having heard and coming over, but the coast was apparently clear as she turned back to the two boys without panic on her face. “Are you done shouting?”

“Can you two just tell me what you’ve psychoanalysed about me? Just get it over with.”

“Draco, we don’t only talk about you when you’re not around,” Pansy said, but Draco knew her well enough to see when she lied. Draco also knew she would never talk about something if she wanted to keep it a secret. So, Draco looked over to Blaise, who looked just as determined to keep his mouth shut. Now not only were the two of them hiding a secret relationship from him, they were also hiding his own diagnosis.

“Alright, whatever you want,” Draco sighed, turning around dramatically to head for the stairs and go to the dungeons. 

“Draco,” Pansy called after him, a small laugh audible in her voice, as if keeping secrets from Draco wasn’t something to get upset over. He knew they were following him when he refused to turn back, and when Pansy’s clacky shoes echoed through the hallway, mixing with Blaise’s begging for Draco to wait for them.

“Can we not throw fits right now? We have bigger goals to fulfil,” Blaise reminded, making Draco still in the middle of the Slytherin common room. He knew his friends were the best chance he had in helping Harry Potter, as well as spelling it out to him why he wanted to help in the first place. 

“Just sleep it off, you always think better with a clear head,” Pansy chirped and flowed past him to head to the fourth-year girls’ bedroom, totally unbothered by anything again.

“She’s right, Drac,” Blaise slapped him lightly on the shoulder, leaving him standing alone after so desperately trying to make him wait, listening to his housemates talking about Potter and him not being able to be any more stupid.

Draco wasn’t exactly used to being treated this way. It was rare for the three of them to get in a fight, or even a misunderstanding. He wasn’t used to being left in the dark, least of all when the subject was his own feelings. He wished they would understand that this was less about being unable to stand not knowing something when others did, and more about needing help understanding his own brain. He should start drawing a map for himself.

The night passed in unrest. The morning came with no more clarity of how to help The Golden Boy than the evening before. Breakfast was difficult to enjoy. Potter wasn’t present. Gryffindors looked tired, there must have been a celebration. Draco wondered whether anyone apart from him noticed Potter not wanting to be celebrated.

“Beauxbatons girls,” Blaise nodded approvingly, snapping Draco out of watching a strangely angry Weasel, looking even more ugly than usual, almost constipated.

“I heard they’re all Veelas,” Pansy said excitedly, ever the gossip central, making Draco confused for the hundredth time as to what exactly their relationship was. It went forwards and backwards practically three times a day. Draco would think they’re secretly dating, then one of them would do something to kill that idea. He had serious trouble understanding what was happening between his two best friends and it was the most frustrating thing on earth.

“Are you planning on getting one for yourself?” Draco asked Blaise and watched Pansy’s reaction. She was piling scrambled egg onto her plate and humming merrily to herself, obviously starving. 

“They’re not objects Draco,” Pansy reminded him and noticed a large plate of sausages that was too far for her to reach, so she got her want out and floated one of them onto her plate. “That being said, maybe I should get one.”

“Excuse me?” Draco asked, all of his attention turned solely to Pansy.

“What?” Pansy asked innocently, “They’re gonna be all gone if I don’t start planning my strategy.”

“I believe that’s not what our delirious friend was referring to,” Blaise laughed.

“Would you like me to spell it out for you?” Pansy offered, digging into her meal. Draco’s brain was soup at this point, and he wasn’t sure whether it was his fault or Pansy’s, but Blaise seemed to know perfectly well what was happening, and Draco was out of the loop yet again. “I’m gay, Draco. As are many people on Circe’s green earth. As are you, if my calculations are correct” 

“Pansy,” Blaise said warningly, “this isn’t ‘warming him up to the idea’.”

Draco looked around, and no one seemed to react to the news. Maybe no one had heard them. Maybe Draco was just a bad friend that never paid attention to anything. He started mentally tallying everything in the last two years and remembered the lingering looks, the secretive glances, the blushes she always hid oh so well, and the sudden crushing guilt he felt over being possibly the worst friend Pansy could have. At least she’d had Blaise throughout this all. 

Salazar, was he gay, too?

Pansy smiled at her plate and Blaise looked at Draco expectantly, waiting for him to react, while all Draco could feel was guilt. “I’m sorry,” was all he could get out before getting up and rushing out of the Great Hall, the ringing in his ears turned out to be Pansy calling his name. There were probably eyes on him. He didn’t care. The only things he’d properly liked about himself was that he was a good friend to Blaise and Pansy and a good son to his mother. Now one of those was taken away from him. 

He rushed out the huge door, heading to the side, maybe he could take a walk, maybe he could jump into the Black Lake and never come up. 

“That’s not funny!” Granger’s voice cut through the chilling air before becoming too silent for Draco to hear. She was with Potter, who looked bloody miserable. Draco let himself watch the two of them for a moment, or for several minutes, he wasn’t sure. Being friends with them didn’t seem the amount of disgusting that it had for the last three years. In fact, it seemed nice and calming, the way Blaise and Pansy usually made him feel. Until he became an ignorant nuisance. 

Draco walked down closer to the Black Lake, watching the Durmstrang ship bobbing slowly in the wind. He sat in the sand, thinking about Pansy, wondering what he could have done to be a better friend, beating himself up for being selfish and letting his mind slip to his own sexuality once in a while. He didn’t hear footsteps approaching him until a frame plopped itself down next to him, staring ahead just as Draco did, not even saying anything for a few seconds.

“Won’t your silk trousers be ruined in the wet sand?” Potter asked after several silent moments, as if he’d been trying to decide on what to say after weeks of not talking again.

“They’re wool, actually,” Draco said simply, moving his leg closer to Potter to let him see for himself. The Gryffindor was obviously in distress and maybe even some pain, and if taking it out on Draco right now helped him, Draco would let him. Maybe he really did have a crush on the poor bastard. “I’m sorry.”

“What?” Potter’s voice sounded less venomous now.

“That you got picked,” Draco explained, “I can’t believe they’re making you participate. And I honestly hope you don’t die.”

Potter watched him in confusion, “You don’t think I put my name in?”

Draco laughed and kept looking ahead, “You would rather eat slugs.”

“You might want to explain that to Ron,” Potter sighed, obviously trying to seem like Draco knowing him better than his best friend wasn’t bothering him.

“He’s a right old git,” Draco shrugged, “and probably jealous.”

“What?” Potter asked again.

“You’re The Boy Who Lived, the Hogwarts champion, an actual celebrity. He’s a Weasley.”

“Why do you know all of this?” he asked, still confused. 

“I’ve spent years thinking I hated you,” Draco explained, “and I’m observant.”

“So, you’ve been watching me and my friends?” 

“You’re hard to miss. Everywhere I go it’s Potter this, Potter that. Brightest witch of her age this, smartest girl in charms that. And the red hair is also eerily noticeable.”

“You don’t hate me?” Potter asked, looking at the sand, but being completely focussed on Draco. 

“There’s nothing to hate, really, I just wasn’t used to rejection. Mother usually bought me whatever I wanted back then.”

“Not anymore?” Potter sounded almost curious.

“I guess I don’t care that much anymore,” Draco realised out loud. He had everything he needed, although he didn’t want to say it out loud. Draco had grown up enough to understand that his favourite possessions were his friends and mother, and Potter may have had good mates, but he didn’t have the other part. 

“Then what’s got your wand in a knot?” Potter wondered.

“My best friend is gay and I had no idea,” Draco sighed, only realising a second later that maybe he shouldn’t be going around outing other people’s secrets. “Merlin, please don’t tell anyone, Potter.”

“Blaise?” he looked more curious than surprised.

“No, Pansy, please don’t tell.”

“Who would I tell?” Potter chuckled. “My best friend won’t talk to me.”

“Granger should be your best friend,” Draco said, “she’s smarter.”

“She’s my best friend, too,” Potter said, making Draco smile – he knew what it was like to have two best friends. Provided he still had friends. 

“Well, Weasley might be the odd idiot out in your little trio, but I’m that in mine.”

“Just because you didn’t know she was gay doesn’t mean you’re a terrible friend.”

“Blaise knew,” Draco scoffed, unsure whether Pansy had told him or if he just happened to know himself.

“You might be a pretentious prick, but I know real friends when I see them and the three of you look very happy together,” he sighed, looking straight ahead. Draco could see he was avoiding his gaze. This amount of honest conversation was too much for either of them to handle with the added abnormality of eye contact. Potter remained silent for a few moments before getting up and wiping sand off his robes. “I have to go write a letter.”

“Hey Potter,” Draco called out when he’d taken his first steps towards the castle, “I wasn’t going to jinx you on the first day back, you know. I was trying to stop Nott,” he admitted. He liked the honesty thing. He liked not having to watch out for the Golden Boy to be a git to him every time he was about to round a corner. 

“Oh,” Potter looked taken aback, as If that hadn’t even accrued to him. “So, you had no intention to-“

“No, I didn’t,” Draco said quickly. “Do you want to borrow Eagle?” he offered.

“Sorry?” Potter looked confused with all the back-and-forth between conversation topics. 

“My owl. I noticed you’ve been using strange owls lately.”

“Oh, yes, well,” he stammered, “Hedwig gets tired sometimes, she’s a bit, uh, choosy, but, uh, I’m sure the school owls will be fine.”

“Alright.”

“But thank you, Draco,” Potter said, taking the Slytherin by surprise, though he thought he did a good job hiding it.

“No problem, Harry,” Draco said and forced a tight smile, “good luck with that letter,” he added. Harry looked like he’d forgot all about it while looking at Draco. He liked that idea.

Draco watched The Boy Who Lived walk away without turning back to wave. That would have been pushing it. Then again, watching him to make sure he survived the trip back to the door wasn’t exactly casual either.

Draco didn’t return to the Slytherin common room all day in fear of being faced with his friends, instead taking to the library and hiding in the furthest, darkest corner, finding a book on dark creatures and reading up on Hinkypunks and their effect on lonesome travellers. He refused to leave even when his stomach started growling and he was missing dinner. When he walked back to the Slytherin dorms, it was long after curfew and he used the route he knew Filch never used at this time at night. He found two sandwiches wrapped in a napkin on his nightstand and felt even more horrible about running from his friends when they still cared so much about him. 

He barely slept, but when the sun did rise, he was the first to get dressed and head to the common room to wait for Pansy to be ready for breakfast. As people came and went, rushing to get to the Great Hall to quickly eat breakfast and make it to class, Draco rested on the back of a couch, watching everyone who walked past him.

When Pansy finally did show up, it was with Blaise in tow and obviously talking about Draco, which he imagined they’d been doing the entirety of the previous day. They stopped in their tracks and looked at Draco from the stairs, letting him move first in standing up properly and walking towards his partners in crime.

“I, um…” Draco started, standing a few steps towards his best friends. Blaise was watching him just as expectantly as he had the last time he’d seen him, but Pansy looked more nervous than he’d ever had the chance to see her. “I’m sorry, I’m an arse.”

“You don’t hate me?” Pansy asked with narrow eyes.

“Hate you?” Draco asked to make sure he’d heard right, “What would I hate you for?” She raised her eyebrows instead of answering. “Right, no, I’m just sorry. I only ran away because I’d been so preoccupied that I had no idea. You’re my best friend.”

“Okay, enough, come here,” she said, pulling him in for a hug and kissing the side of his head, “We’re okay, stop being a sap,” she said and let him go. “You’re not angry I told you you’re gay?”

“I’m Draco Malfoy, if I’m gay, I’ll make it work,” he said quietly, unsure of the fact himself. Being homosexual has never really been any different from what it was in the muggle world, or at least that was Draco’s understanding, from the one or two muggle books he’d read on the subject. Plus, his father had always stood and fell about a decent pureblood society, and surely that meant actual pureblood children, which Draco now would not be able to provide, becoming yet another reason on a never-endingly growing list of reasons for Lucius to hate his own son. 

What struck him even deeper, however, was that not only had he been right about Harry and his friends, but Harry had been just as right about Draco and Pansy in return. And Draco felt truly sorry that the Gryffindor had to go through all of this just because he was born. It wasn’t exactly like he’d done anything in particular in his life on purpose, apart from the idiotically heroic shite that could have got him killed. 

Breakfast with his friends seemed almost normal, something small and dissipating lingering in the air, but both Pansy and Blaise were pretending their best that everything was fine and Draco wasn’t going to fuck that up again.

Nott, apparently, took his position as the new arsehole of Slytherin seriously, tormenting Potter as much as he could, either walking around and calling him the Champion and asking for autographs, or reminding him he might die during Hagrid’s class, then looking over to Draco every time to make sure the previous silver prince had heard it. Draco never acknowledged it, instead keeping to watching the Skrewts and commenting useless notes to Pansy who was writing down everything she deemed worthy and nothing of what Blaise and Draco offered her. Being told they had to take them for a walk was a new low in Draco’s academic career, but he sucked up the comments that threatened to burst off the tip of his tongue and did what he was told. 

Draco helped Pansy with one of the Skrewts, the both of them holding onto it as it pulled them along like a crazed slimy dog, yet Blaise had no trouble with his own nightmare creature, being able to control it just fine. Maybe Draco should develop a crush on Blaise instead, he was a more obvious choice anyway. But no, his eye was drawn back to the idiot with a scar and a death wish.

Draco’s relationship with Pansy and Blaise got back to how it had once been over the course of the next few days. Potter looked worse by the day. The stress of being an illegitimate champion and the Weasel stubbornly refusing to talk to him, not to mention most of the school passionately rooting against him, obvious on his face and under his eyes. 

Once in a while Draco caught himself thinking that if he hadn’t matured emotionally over the summer, and still had to put his unresolved feelings towards Potter out, he would have probably cursed him half way to hell with a Densaugeo by now, an idea Nott had apparently failed to come up with.

POTTER STINKS badges had infested the school and Rita Skeeter’s article on the four champions was more fuel for the Slytherin fire against Potter. No, Harry. Draco’s best friends duly stayed out of any conversation about the Tournament unless they were talking to Draco. He appreciated the gesture, but with the subject taking over their entire time together, he wished they’d talk to anyone else about it for even a minute. 

“Do you feel like voicing your hatred?” Pansy offered in a teasing tone on the morning of a Hogsmeade Saturday, when Potter’s face changed the second he saw Cho Chang walk into the Great Hall. It annoyed Draco more than he had ever imagined, that Cho Chang taking Potter’s attention as soon as she entered any room he was already in. Draco had never had any need to worry about Ravenclaws – they might be smart, but he was always a step ahead. This wasn’t academic rivalry. This was different, it was bitter.

“Don’t you think her parents naming her Cho Chang is the most blatantly racist thing you’ve ever heard?” Blaise wondered, obviously not participating in Pansy’s attempts at embarrassing Draco. 

On their way to the village, Draco couldn’t keep his eyes off Granger, who appeared to be murmuring to herself and walking strangely on one side of the path. Maybe Blaise and Pansy didn’t give nearly as much of a flying doxy shit about Harry Potter, but they didn’t seem to notice the Gryffindor’s odd behaviour. 

“Anyone want something from Honeydukes?” Draco offered, unlinking his arm from Pansy’s elbow when he saw Granger walk into the sweets shop.

“Get me some coconut ice? I fancy something pink,” Pansy smiled that smile that usually got boys to do anything she wants them to.

“I’ll have some Drooble’s gum,” Blaise said with narrowed eyes, looking at something behind Draco, “I feel like fucking up Nott’s day with bubbles.”

“We’ll save you a seat,” Pansy sing-songed, dragging Blaise of to the Three Broomsticks. 

Draco walked into Honeydukes, never letting Granger out of his sight. She was buying cream-filled chocolates and three cauldron cakes, but Draco assumed all three were for Harry, who had somehow turned invisible. Gathering everything his friends had asked for from the shelves along with a packet of Fizzing Whizzbees, he paid quickly with the loose coins he had in his coat pocket, walking into the Three Broomsticks just when Granger did, and running into something hard, although there was nothing ing front of him.

“Oh!” granger looked shocked, “Draco, hi,” she greeted him cheerily, possibly to take his attention away from just crashing into empty air. Except it wasn’t completely empty. There was a strange sort of shimmer, like the air was bent into a shape the way paper could be crumpled. Like when heat rose into coldness. And he wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t been looking for something amiss. 

“Hello, Granger,” he said carefully, then walked ahead to a dark corner where his friends were sitting, but where the three of them could see everyone else in the pub. Granger sat at an empty table all by herself. Of course, unlike everyone else in the building, Draco knew she wasn’t alone. 

Pansy tore right into her bag of coconut ice, downing it with warm butterbeer. Blaise was being characteristically quiet, observing the room the same way Draco was glaring at Granger’s general vicinity. 

“What has she done to you now?” Pansy rolled her eyes, “No offence to her, but I don’t think even Potter would ever go for her.”

“I think he’s here,” Draco said simply, “next to her. Only he’s invisible.”

“Alright, Malfoy’s gone bonkers,” Pansy shrugged and pulled out the latest issue of Witch Weekly to leaf through, “I hope you’ve left us some inheritance.”

“Insanity does not always equal demise, Pans,” Blaise reminded. 

“Can you two stop plotting my death?” Draco scoffed, “look at her! She’s talking to someone. And I walked into someone when I came in here, it had to be him.”

“If you say so,” Pansy still sounded painfully bored.

“Go talk to him,” Blaise suggested ever so unhelpfully, grinning that little knowing smile only he seemed to be capable of pulling off, “didn’t Skeeter say he cries about his parents? Express your condolences.”

“Yes, why don’t I just go over and say I’m sorry my father’s ex-boss killed your mum, I’m only a little convinced he’s back to working with him,” Draco rolled his eyes.

“Draco,” Blaise looked pained when he called his name, “do you honestly think Lucius would go back to working for someone that isn’t even believed to be alive anymore? Without you knowing? You’re his prodigy – you’d be the first to know.” Pansy looked between them both unsurely. She had expressed before how she felt about this and Draco couldn’t help but start to agree with her.

Blaise might have had a point, but Draco was no more convinced than he had been five minutes ago. With all the secrets his family had begun keeping from him, he wouldn’t put it past two people that used to be Death Eaters to go back to their old ways. Especially the ranks such as his father. The man he had recently began to see was more a coward than Hagrid’s idiot of a dog in the Forbidden Forest. 

What truly pained him was the knowledge that if Voldemort had returned, Harry Potter would be the first he would arrive to murder in cold blood. The boy who lived. The boy who took everything from the most evil creature in the world. The boy Draco bloody Malfoy wanted more than anything to keep safe all of a sudden. 

Draco tried to distract himself from looking over at Granger every two seconds by reading a herbology textbook. Not that much retained in his memory. He wondered what the first task would be. He’d read there had once been a tournament in which all three champions ended up dead. Turning his attention away from his own morbid thoughts, he listened to Pansy ask Blaise questions from a quiz in the Witch Weekly, their friend obliging with amusement on his handsome features. When their butterbeer was long gone, they ordered another round, asking for it to be even warner the second time around.

Pansy dragged them away just when Moody and Hagrid joined Hermione at her table, expressing her boredom louder than usual. Blaise just grabbed Draco’s other arm to help her, yanking their friend back to the castle to make it back in time for dinner. 

Realising it was an idiotic idea to go snooping around the castle late at night when Moody hated his guts so much, Draco decided not to follow up on his idea of looking for Potter in the middle of the night, but he saw plenty of him the next day. Harry was pale and dishevelled during breakfast, then disappeared with Granger as soon as her plate was empty. He tried not to, he really, really tried not to, but Draco did follow them at a reasonable distance. 

Logically, he couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he wanted to. So, he got as close as he could without looking conspicuous, but all he could do was sit by the side of the lake and wait silently, as the two Gryffindors circled it for the second time, returning to where he’d found a spot on the cold ground. 

Once the two had noticed him, they surprised him by smiling politely, though Potter’s face still looked pained and Draco found himself praying he wasn’t the reason for Harry’s sourness. “Draco,” Hermione said suddenly, looking to Harry for approval, “how much do you know about dragons?”

“’Mione!” Harry warned with gritted teeth. 

“Are you asking because of my name?” Draco wondered, having ignored Harry completely. 

“Merely because of your…family connections,” she shrugged in return.

The subject wasn’t random, that much Draco could tell. He could ask more, but for fear of either of them changing their mind and dragging the other away, he remained silent, waiting for more information.

“It’s the first task,” Hermione explained, “dragons.”

“Shit,” Draco said to himself, standing up from the grass. “You can’t put a dragon to sleep.”

“I know,” Harry admitted.

“Not even with bewitched sleep,” Draco pondered, “I mean that could barely take Granger out. And even then, just for about an hour.”

“Quite,” Hermione sighed, looking around nervously.

“You have to come up with something else. Practically literally anything else,” Draco raised an eyebrow. 

“Like talon-clipping by charms? Or scale-rot?” Harry asked mockingly, making the two smarter people in the conversation turn towards him, “I’m going to die!”

“You won’t bloody die,” Draco rolled his eyes, trying to force his own brain to believe the statement. “But they aredifficult to kill, their hides are thick. Make for a good pair of gloves, though.”

“Don’t say that,” Harry warned as Hermione looked disgusted at the idea of making clothes out of a creature. “Can you imagine anything helpful?” he asked, trying to change the subject.

“Switching spells?” Draco offered.

“What’s the point of switching it?” Hermione asked exasperatedly, “Unless you swapped its fangs for wine-gums or something that would make it less dangerous.”

“Trouble is, not much is going to get through a dragon’s hide,” Draco considered. “I’d say transfigure it, but something that big?”

“You really haven’t got a hope, I doubt even Professor McGonagall…unless you're supposed to put the spell on yourself? Maybe to give yourself extra powers? But they're not simple spells, I mean, we haven't done any of those in class, I only know about them because I've been doing O.W.L. practice papers…” 

“Granger,” Draco uttered, making her stop her rambling.

Once Viktor Krum arrived to the lakeshore, throwing a glance to Hermione and a nod to Harry, he sat on the ground and pulled out a book. “Can’t he read on his stupid ship?” Hermione scoffed, “Or the library? We have to go, his fan club will be here any moment,” she warned.

“You probably don’t want to be seen with us,” Harry then said, “we should try the library.”

Draco watched the two Gryffindors take their first steps towards the castle and felt terrible. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He hadn’t even said anything, and the Draco from a year back would have had plenty to go off about. But he also hadn’t helped Harry. Not in the slightest.

“Potter!” he called out, seeing a gang of girls tiptoeing towards Krum. He walked up to Harry and Hermione, making it look like he hated them for appearances, and leaned in to whisper. “If you’re allowed a wand, you’re allowed a broom. As unhappy as I am to admit it, you’re a brilliant flier. If you can’t find a solution, at least use your strengths.” Before he left the two of them to the rest of their day, he added, “Hermione, I trust you are familiar with the summoning charm?”

Chapter Text

Draco watched as Potter was dragged away to the grounds by McGonagall, willingly as ever, though with the sick-to-the-stomach look he was sporting he might as well have been kicking and screaming.

The classes for the day were over, there was a buzz of anticipation throughout the school, Draco had watched the arena being built during his walk with Pansy after breakfast, when he was half-sure he’d seen Ludo Bagman trudging around the Great Lake. His suspicions were confirmed as he listened the Head of Games and Sports make a speech before the beginning of the first task.

“I sort of want to explode his neck, is that bad?” Pansy asked, leaning into Draco on the stands and pulling out her wand to point at Bagman.

“Alright,” Blaise said hastily yet calmly, fingers already wrapped around her wand to remove it from her grip, and hand it over to Draco.

“It’s surely not good,” Draco shrugged. The shakiness in his limbs would not cease for a second, and he had to put an immense amount of willpower to keep his composure. Harry Potter was about to go up against a dragon practically bare-handed. And all Draco could do was tap his foot and bite his nails.

“He’s very explodable,” Pansy scoffed.

“You’ll make a great mother one day,” Blaise noted. The two of them went off to bicker about one thing or another, merrily leaving Draco to his thoughts as he tried to see behind the curtain that separated the yet-empty arena from the champions’ tent, still gripping onto Pansy’s wand.

The crowd roaring got his attention again, there was something glimmering placed in-between the large rocks in the centre of the arena. A dragon was brought out. The spectators went bats crackers in excitement. Most of them had never seen a dragon before, neither had Draco himself, but up until now he’d liked to think that he’d had a pretty clear picture of them in his mind. Except now that the beast was in front of him, in the flesh and scales, he was no longer sure the stress he was experiencing for a former nemesis qualified him to carry the name of the cold-blooded creature in front of him.

“Who do you think will die first?” Pansy wondered towards Blaise.

“Well, we know who’s keeping up his streak of surviving insanity,” the boy on the other side of Pansy answered simply. “Diggory better stay alive, too, he owes me three galleons.”

“What possibly for?” Pansy giggled in disbelief as the dragon whooshed past their seats on its way to catch the rock that Diggory had transfigured into a dog. Draco hated to admit it about any Hufflepuff, but it was a brilliant move.

He didn’t cheer along with the rest of the Slytherins, but he did manage to lose track of time by praying to muggle God for Potter to have learned Accio. Everyone else had got their eggs and moved on to the next task. Potter had no choice but to follow suit. Of course, he was bloody last.

Harry looked about as terrified as Draco could have imagined him to be. Then again, if it had been Draco walking out there with the entire school booing him into hell and about to go up against a dragon, he would have had a heart attack by now. His eyes scanned the stands for anyone that wasn’t cheering or making any noise of malaise, landing on Draco in search of last measure comfort.

Draco subtly lifted Pansy’s wand that he was still holding to remind the frozen idiot to pull out his own in turn. Harry lifted his arm into the air and yelled clearly enough for the Silver Trio to hear, “Accio Firebolt!” It took less than a minute for the broom to arrive, but the fact alone that Potter had chosen his advice made Draco inexplicably smug, or, you know, easily explicably.

The spectators on the stands seemed confused by the Firebold underneath Potter, but once he kicked himself off the ground, a victorious scream dislodged itself from the Gryffindors and Draco let himself smile. “Great Scott, he can fly!” Bagman’s voice boomed over everything else. Even Diggory was cheering.

Harry flew circles around the arena, going higher and higher gradually, the dragon baring its teeth and stretching its neck out as far as it would go in hopes of catching Harry on his tongue, but he continued flying just out of reach, taunting the fire-breather. The audience cheered. And Draco would have applauded along with everyone else, if it had actually helped Potter in retrieving of the egg, but the dragon shook its anger off and stood back up, looking angrier than before, spitting fire onto its human opponent. Draco could see Potter mouthing “Shit,” and gripping onto his broom tighter before going higher, but not without whizzing right past the dragon’s nose.

“What the bloody hell is he doing?” Pansy asked as Pooter’s broom shut off into the sky in a straight line, the dragon angrily following. It wasn’t too cloudy, but there was a slight fog forming, enough not to be able to see the castle from where they were sitting, and once Potter disappeared into the grey wall of the sky, he only appeared a minute later, going straight for the ground.

“Wronski Feint,” Blaise explained nervously and actually stood up in anticipation.

Draco gripped his seat and felt a splinter he’d have to ask Pansy to take care of later. His heart was pounding. If this idiot smashed his face into a pile of rocks, Draco would hex him into St. Mungo’s himself.

He definitely pulled the dive off, with only a few centimetres to spare, and the less-than-uneducated-in-quidditch beast trailing after him fell for it hard. Harry used the few seconds of upper hand that he had just gained, and leaped right to the middle of the arena, where the pile of branches held a set of grey-brown eggs and a single golden one.

Once he’d secured it under his arm, the time was stopped and he was declared the fastest of all the champions. Draco watched him being dragged off to Madam Pomfrey, leaning out of his seat to look for any obvious burns or scrapes that would have justified the medical assistance. And once Potter was out of sight, he turned back to his friends, both watching him with silent amusement.

“What?” Draco demanded harshly, making them both look away with even bigger smiles. He shoved Pansy’s wand back into her hand and sat further back into the wood bench, waiting for the scores to be posted along with everyone else. He’d seen Weasley follow Hermione into the tent where Harry was currently being treated and he scoffed. Of course, the ginger prick would run back to Potter now that he’d done so good at the tournament.

Two eights, two bloody nines and an actual ten. He was tied with Krum for first place. Draco couldn’t believe his eyes, even when an impressed Blaise applauded and shrugged, “Good lad.”

“What a day, well, I’m off, good luck with Golden Boy,” Pansy announced and stood up and disappeared before either Draco or Blaise could ask where she was headed to.

“Want to go yank on Crabbe’s ear until he gives us his chocolate?” Blaise offered.

“Well, I was going to go punch Potter for forgiving Weasel so quickly, but sure, let’s do your thing,” Draco rolled his eyes and followed his best friend back to the castle.

The Gryffindor celebrations could be easily heard on their way from dinner, especially since Draco and Blaise were the last two souls left in the Great Hall, staying behind everyone else with a pair of books and no Pansy to distract them from their reading. Where the girl had gone, Draco couldn’t even imagine, but if it turned out to have been the Beauxbaton caravan, he wouldn’t be even a little surprised.

“If my father really was a Death Eater,” Draco began, making Blaise sigh.

“You have truly chosen the best place for this conversation,” Blaise licked his finger to turn the page. He was reading some sort of muggle mystery novel, while Draco leafed through his herbology textbook for the fiftieth time, yet somehow it made him think Blaise seemed much more educated.

“There’s no one here,” Draco nodded his head to the empty dining hall. “What would you do?”

“Wouldn’t know. Our family has been neutral for a reason. We don’t like any of…this,” he waved his hand over Draco’s general existence.

“So, what you’re saying is that if Voldemort came back, you wouldn’t pick a side. You, Blaise, not the Zabini dynasty, you.”

“Correct,” Blaise answered, not lifting his eyes from the page.

“Under no circumstances?” Draco’s eyes narrowed.

“Couldn’t imagine the circumstances that would make me, really, no,” Blaise sounded sure.

“Well, I can’t do that. There’s always a side, I don’t believe in neutrality,” Draco said stubbornly.

“Is that true?” Blaise asked in the voice he used when he was about to debate you into the ground. “So then what do you call whatever’s happened with you and Potter?”

“There is nothing with me and Potter,” Draco laughed.

“Right, nothing,” Blaise nodded, returning to his book. “Except,” he dragged, “you no longer throw insults and hexes at each other. Then again, you’re not exactly hugging and buying each other a round of butterbeer. I don’t know about you, but I’m calling that neutrality.”

“Please, I-“

“I’m assuming you have a fantasy about getting in his pants, sure, but right now you are as neutral as they come,” Blaise interrupted him. “Furthermore, what do you imagine would happen if you did get Potter to fall for you, then Voldemort comes back and suddenly you have to choose between your father and the bloke whose broom skills have turned you barmy?” Blaise smiled smugly. “And I don’t even mean it as a metaphor.”

“You disgust me,” Draco announced, refusing to admit to himself that the idea made something extremely flammable inside him flutter, and looked back down to his book. But Blaise being completely and absolutely right did not manage to get past his defences. He’d always been his father’s son, and when he hadn’t, he’d done his absolute best and then some to look like it. Harry Potter coming into the mix did not help his odds at repairing the already mangled remains of his relationship with Lucius.

“He might become one, though,” Draco tried again, “a Death Eater.”

“He might,” Blaise agreed, “I’m sorry.”

Draco decided to wander around the castle for a bit before curfew, letting his thought stake him wherever they felt he needed to travel. Thoughts of his father, thoughts of his poor mother, thoughts of Blaise’s point of view and how little it made sense to Draco. Even Pansy, whose main concerns in life were whatever it was that muggles called lip gloss and now also ploughing through as many Beauxbatons as she could, seemed to grow worried of the Parkinson family’s involvement in the Death Eater movement.

At one point, when he realised he should start thinking about heading to the dungeons, he looked around at the portraits to try and find out where he was supposed to be. He could rarely remember every passageway by its locations, but the hangings on the walls tended to help.

Unfortunately, he didn’t recognise any of the faces around him on the ancient walls, and they all seemed to be suspicious of him, as well. He could have asked one of them for directions, but he was quite sure their undesirable attitudes stemmed from the Slytherin tie around his neck.

Just when he was about to walk away towards the moving stairs and hope to Merlin they take him down to his dormitories, one of the larger portraits on the wall actually moved off the wall and revealed an almost dazed Potter walking out with a pirate hat on his head.

“Oh, it’s only you, hello Draco,” Harry smiled without a hint of malice behind his eyes. Draco wondered what only him was supposed to mean, and remained silently confused for another few seconds. “The fat lady told us someone from another house was lurking around the entrance,” Harry explained. Right, this was the Gryffindor dormitories, Draco noted, having never been here before. All the side-eyes stares from the portraits around him suddenly made sense.

“Is there a fancy dress party I don’t know about?” Draco asked, trying not to chuckle at the sight of Harry’s comical headwear. “That’s a rhetorical question, I know about all the parties in the castle.”

“No, forget you saw this,” Harry said, hastily taking the pirate hat off and holding it behind his back.

“Celebrating?” Draco offered, having already assumed, and not entirely wanting to go back to the Slytherin common room quite yet.

“All thanks to you,” Harry said awkwardly, shuffling in place.

“Well, I was only in the middle of being lost in the castle, don’t mind me,” Draco threw him another quick smile, not letting it reach his eyes, and turned around to go.

“I do mean it,” Harry said hastily. “Thank you. You probably saved me from third degree burns.”

“Someone has to, if Granger can’t rise to the occasion,” Draco shrugged. It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal. Except that it was and it was terribly annoying even to himself.

“Here,” Harry said before Draco had the chance to turn to leave again, and placed the pirate hat on Draco’s head. “It’s all I have in terms of payment,” Harry explained, a giggle threatening to break loose.

Draco nodded and straightened the hat on his head, instead of shoving it off and fixing his hair like his mind screamed at him to do. No, he could be kind for a second longer. Harry Potter had just thanked him. If they were truly playing at being grownups, Draco was game. “See you in class, Potter,” Draco actually let himself laugh before he left for good this time.

It was getting colder by the day, and Draco barely managed to avoid the Golden Trio which he was only doing out of bitter annoyance. If Blaise or Pansy had woken up one day and decided not to believe a word out of Draco’s mouth, followed by three weeks of blatantly not talking to him, he would not be so quick to forgive and forget. He assumed Potter’s excessive need for constant validation through the only two friends he had (not that Draco had many more), stemmed from his lack of decent parental supervision and affection. He’d heard about growing up with disbelieving muggle relatives, but he didn’t know much about the background of the Boy Who Lived.

When Theo Nott hexed Weasley during potions on Tuesday morning, looking yet again to Draco for any kind of reaction, he couldn’t help himself but to smile at the sight of the ginger’s smoking trouser leg and tell his fellow Slytherin, “Nice one, Nott.”

The self-satisfied smirk that radiated from Nott’s face in turn was enough to make Draco recoil and turn away, back to Pansy merrily humming and chopping ingredients next to him. She had made it clear that she found the Weasel far too annoying and it would not be fair to make him off-limits for messing with. Besides, she had pointed out, Draco was right to be upset with Weasley for turning his back on his alleged best friend. She had made it clear that both Draco and Blaise had the right to slit her throat if they ever caught her doing the same to either of them.

“What the hell was that?” Potter demanded, pulling Draco aside afterwards, when Hermione had taken Weasel to Madam Pomfrey.

“What do you mean?” Draco tried to sound confused.

“Why are you attacking us again? I used your advice, I thought we were friends,” Potter said unsurely.

“Friends?” Draco scoffed against his better judgement.

“Civil, then,” Potter almost sounded disappointed.

“I didn’t attack anyone. I only encouraged Nott attacking the prick that decided not to believe you and abandon you for weeks, yet whom you still parade around with,” Draco said as-a-matter-of-factly. “Being friends with you would mean having to tolerate a traitor, and Slytherins don’t do that.”

Potter stood dumbfounded, and once Draco realised he wouldn’t get a retort, he rolled his eyes, scoffed for good measure, and left.

Trying to get Skrewts to hibernate, while Potter stared confused holes into the back of Draco’s head, proved to be more difficult than thought. Hagrid insisted, though, having prepared blanket-lined boxes that the bloody things refused to stay inside of. Pansy and Blaise weren’t too much help either, choosing to watch Draco fail rather than helping him, until there was a burn to accompany his splinter from a few days ago.

Once they became a little too out-of-hand, Pansy dragged him away and into Hagrid’s hut, at a safe distance from the creatures that the idiot Gryffindors were still trying to tame. Yet another proof for Draco that Slytherins were smarter. They tended to know how to survive.

As Pansy had her nose pressed up against the glass, Draco looked around, trying his best not to touch anything, but curious nonetheless. It seemed more of a single room divided into smaller parts than an actual house. There was meat hanging from the ceiling in what Draco assumed to be the kitchen, useless old Fang was asleep by the fireplace, and the size of Hagrid’s bed made him slightly jealous. Draco had always loved spreading out across the entirety of his bed at home, and the Hogwart’s four-posters were far too small.

“Who is that?” Blaise asked when Draco was an inch from taking the crossbow Hagrid kept in the corner to see how difficult it would be to wield it. There was a blonde woman talking to Potter, or at Potter, really, dressed in the entire spectre of violet. Draco hated violet.

“Rita Skeeter,” Pansy informed them, “Daily Prophet.” Blaise looked at Draco in question, then back at Pansy. “One of the most famous journalists of that bloody paper? She’s the one writing all the shite about Potter. Oh, come off it, Nott’s been quoting it daily.”

“Why do you read her then?” Draco’s eyes narrowed.

“Because it’s hilarious, she makes up everything she writes. I’ll show you later,” she promised.

Potter barely looked at him on their way back to the castle or during lunch, making Draco convinced whatever semblance of friendship they’d endured was over.

This same idea carried over into the following week.

Deciding it was over and done with, and he could not force The Golden Boy to take him along on his brilliant, famous life, Draco settled for having meals with his own friends, receiving parcels from his mother and wondering what to say to his father when he goes home for Christmas. Before he could begin dreading it properly, Snape announced during one of their potions classes, in as sour a voice as ever, that Hogwarts would be hosting a Yule ball in December. Pansy sighed next to Draco, and Blaise pointedly ignored every girl in the room turning to look at him in hope.

“Five galleons says he’ll have a date before the end of the day,” Pansy snorted and Draco already handed her the coins, knowing full well she was right.

“Hey, if it’s on Christmas day, can I never go home and just sort of stay here?” Draco wondered pointlessly when they were out in the dungeons’ hallways.

“No,” Pansy and Blaise answered at once.

“Treachery,” Draco scoffed.

The end of the semester was practically useless, as everyone’s minds were clearly only focused on the ball. Blaise was going with a Ravenclaw (Pansy insisted he had a thing for the smart ones), which left Draco and Pansy to take each other without feeling guilty for leaving Blaise out.

Most classes were spent talking about Christmas or playing games, Blaise learning to twirl his wand like a drumstick, then attempting to teach Pansy who didn’t care nearly enough and ended up setting a desk on fire, which then was left for Draco to put out. Nott and his new best friend Goyle never let them out of their sight and tried to join in during their conversations as long as they were in the castle. Draco was a single bad day away from hexing them across the Great Lake.

It was only when the Christmas decorations went up that Draco had noticed time having passed since he arrived back at Hogwarts. He was surprised to find himself happy to stay longer, as usually he would have been fully packed and having bought his parents gifts in Hogsmeade by now. Instead, he sat at the Slytherin table, hoping time slowed down and stopped right before he would have to look his father in the eye.

When snow set and mother had sent him a brand-new set of dress robes along with a silver tie that would go well with Pansy’s glimmering dress, he knew he hadn’t much time left, and he had to enjoy the ball before he’d be whisked off home first thing in the morning of the 26th.

It was early on Christmas morning when he excitedly awoke to open the presents at the foot of his bed. The pile toppled, though it was much smaller than the one normally waiting for him in the manor. His mother had sent five different packages, all neatly wrapped in silvery-sage paper, a black ribbon decking each one and each encompassing some expensive item of clothing he had no use for at school since he was always in his bloody uniform.

There was a hand-wrapped parcel with sweets and a Zonko’s newest invention, a formula he had been mysteriously receiving for years now, and had yet to figure out who it was from, since the handwriting in the card that always sat atop it looked completely unfamiliar. He had once assumed it was from either Pansy or Blaise, but Pansy’s gifts for Draco specifically came wrapped in pink and Blaise preferred to hand his own over in person. It couldn’t have been from his father, since he never troubled himself with things like meaningful presents, entrusting his wife to take care of the matter. And he couldn’t imagine a single other person to want to give him something, the annoyingly colourful wrapping paper excluded the possibility of a Slytherin having been responsible.

He opened Pansy’s present with an excited grin, knowing it could be literally anything in the world, the girl was barmy, and laughed when the rose-coloured paper revealed an insane number of hand-cut paper hearts, that Draco would probably keep finding until the end of the school year, along with a silver dagger laid on the bright fuchsia-coloured fabric. Draco looked over at the small box of emerald earrings he was about to hand her at breakfast, wondering whether it was good enough for her in response. Too late now. He’d already wrapped it.

Blaise’s matching cuffs were already laying in a box on the pile next to his bed, waiting patiently to be opened. Draco could see Nott stirring awake, the only movement in the still-dark room, so he took Pansy’s present and walked to the common room with it in tow, only to find her already waiting, holding a device up to her ear that Draco had never remembered the function of.

“Merry Christmas, Pans,” he grinned, taking the last steps down the marble stairs. The common room was empty aside for his friend.

“Mum, Draco’s up, I have to go,” Pansy said into the empty room, making Draco look around to see if the Parkinsons had really somehow arrived to visit. “Love you too. Merry Christmas,” she added and put the blocky device away. “It’s a telephone. It’s technology, are you going to call me a witch for it?” Pansy mocked.

“And burn you at the stake, yes,” he smiled, ignoring the fact that he had no clue what a tele-phone meant. He offered her a hug, but she saw the box with her name on it first, fully dodging the embrace and diving for the present.

“And here I was thinking you’d forgot me,” she giggled, opening it to stare in awe. “Draco, they’re beautiful, thank you!” she squeaked and this time actually did hug him, “I’m wearing them tonight, they’ll go great with my dress. Mum was just telling me what to do with my hair, but if I curl it like she says, I’ll look like a scarecrow, it’s too short, I think she keeps forgetting I cut it.”

Draco listened with a small smile as he waited for their prince to drudge down the stairs, two presents in hand. “If I’d known we were doing in-person this year, I would have bloody accommodated to it,” Pansy scoffed, but the joy of receiving another gift overwhelmed the scowl as she opened the present and laughed, refusing to show Draco what she’d received from Blaise. “Keep your eyes to yourself,” she insisted, leaving a smack on the back of his head before kissing Blaise’s cheek in thanks.

Draco’s own box consisted of the seemingly most random things in existence, ranging from hair products to bottled butter beer and a hand written Christmas poem that had neither rhyme nor reason, and mostly stammered on about dragons and Potter. It was perfect.

“I’m starved, can we go to breakfast?” Pansy asked, pointing at the door.

“Shall I grab these?” Draco asked, holing up the butter beers from Blaise.

“Well, that would be the only reason I bought them, so obviously.”

They spent the day walking the grounds and attempting a snowball fight, wherein none of the small layer of snow really stuck together into a ball, and they were naturally forced to see who could shove the other’s face into the freezing ground first. That is until something cold and clearly directed at either of them hit Draco in the back of his head, seeing George Weasley grinning at him once he’d turned back to yell at whoever was at blame.

Harry, standing only a few feet away from the twins, looked at him with a nervous little smile, half-expecting Draco to go off on a tantrum, but these were Harry’s friends, so the Slytherin laughed gingerly instead, although Pansy had been giggling right behind him the entire time. Blaise retaliated by charming the snow in his hand into a ball and chucking it at the ginger twins.

Frost covered the grounds, mimicking the silver gleam of Pansy’s crepe-pink dress. Blaise helped her tie a snow-white ribbon in her hair and she fixed his tie about seven times. If Draco hadn’t confronted the two of them a few weeks back, he would have had yet another reason to believe they were hiding something from him.

Pansy never ended up curling her hair, but she did borrow some of the products Blaise had given Draco. Blaise’s robes were more a tuxedo than wizard clothes, and Draco thanked Merlin – on behalf of the entire school – for muggle fashion, if it meant everyone having a chance to see his friend dressed like this.

Draco helped Pansy paint her nails black, not ashamed to say it wasn’t the first time he’d done it, while Blaise walked back and forth from one end of the common room to the other to stretch in Draco’s brand-new shoes with his slightly bigger feet. Draco refused to think about what that fact implied.

Lisa Turpin was leaning against one of the marble columns when the three of them arrived to the entrance hall. Blaise approached her with his most dashing smile and despite the usual never-dying scowl that seemed to be permanent on her face, she smiled back, going for a hug and blushing at the little kiss Blaise bestowed upon the Ravenclaw’s cheek.

“He really likes the smart ones,” Pansy insisted, freshly manicured hand hooked in the elbow of Draco’s velvet robes.

“You are literally never wrong,” Draco cooed to humour her, leading her through the crowded room and closer to the door of the Great Hall. “Have I ever told you that you look lovely in pink?” Draco teased.

“I will feed you to the owls,” Pansy warned.

“We could have gone to Hogsmeade for another dress,” he laughed.

“I won’t be caught dead in a Hogsmeade dress, at least this one is French,” she scoffed, shaking out her hair so it lay in place.

“A Slytherin in pink,” Draco cooed, “I think it’s quite beautiful.”

“Oh, would you shut. Up,” she demanded in a whisper, failing to conceal a laugh just as the oak front doors of the castle opened for the Durmstrang students, and Draco and Pansy both froze when they saw who was on Krum’s arm.

Hermione smiled at him on her way past them, there was something different about her grin, or her teeth. Were they smaller? She looked prettier. Draco gave her his best good job look and she actually giggled. Weasley, across the room, looked livid. Good. She moved to talk to Harry and one of the Patil sisters he had as his date.

“You wish you were her, don’t you?” Pansy asked, taking the chance to tase him back as they entered the beautifully decorated Great Hall. Draco elbowed her in the side as the mock snowflakes fell from the enchanted ceiling only to disappear into thin air before reaching anyone’s head. “God, she’s bloody gorgeous,” she scoffed, looking at Granger again, “why couldn’t my mum have gone for blue?”

“Then you’d be matching,” Draco reminded, guiding her over towards the other Slytherins in attendance.

“I suppose.”

The walls of the Hall had all been covered in sparkling silver frost, with hundreds of garlands of mistletoe and ivy crossing the starry black ceiling. The House tables had vanished. Instead, there were about a hundred smaller, lantern-lit ones, one of which Pansy rushed to claim for the four of them, waiving Blaise and Lisa over.

She turned out to be pleasant company for a Ravenclaw, almost as snarky as Pansy, though no one ever quite matched her wit. Blaise seemed to be having a good time with her, and she fit in well enough. Draco had a feeling she would be around for at least a little while. He’d been wondering when Blaise’s first girlfriend was coming around, it was about time.

The Champions’ dance was a spectacle of its own with Harry stumbling along the floor and Krum being surprisingly good at leading Hermione around it, while Fleur and Diggory took everyone’s attention anyway, thankfully Dumbledore took mercy soon enough and joined in.

Draco and Blaise dug into their plates while Pansy and Lisa actually found something to talk about, which was mostly Hermione’s new complexion and Fleur’s dress, having a surprisingly good evening.

The “Weird Sisters” trooped up to the stage, the crowd went crazy with applause. Pansy dragged Draco onto the dance floor excitedly, having been joining the rumour mill about the band’s participation in tonight’s festivities for a few days prior. It was difficult to call what they were forced by the rhythm to do dancing, per se, but Pansy seemed to be enjoying the jumping and flailing of arms, even Blaise who normally wouldn’t be seen doing much more activity than a slow jog, seemed to be too enamoured by Lisa to focus on his demeanour.

Somewhere in the middle of the second verse of  “Do the Hippogriff”, Hermione whizzed past them in in a fury of sobs and tears, wiping furiously at her face as she tried to find the quickest exit route. Pansy watched as she stalked off, then looked back into the direction the Gryffindor had just come from, seeing a pissy-looking Weasel and a confused Harry. “Bloody boys,” she scoffed and followed Hermione out, leaving Draco feeling about as confused as Harry looked.

“Should we?” Blaise wondered, having seen the spectacle play out.

“I’ve got it,” Draco clapped him on the back, letting him enjoy his evening with Lisa instead of worrying about an emotional teenage girl.

It took a good twenty minutes for Draco to locate the two of them, and he was expecting Hermione’s voice to be leading the conversation and telling Pansy to bugger off, but the quiet words spoken came from the lips of his best friend, instead, as she comforted the other girl on a smaller spiral staircase Draco had never used before.

Hermione’s head was actually rested on Pansy’s shoulder, Pansy was twirling one of Granger’s loose, methodically placed curls around her finger as Draco looked at the two of them from where Hermione couldn’t see him. Pansy looked up at him with sorrowful eyes. “I had to tackle her into a hug,” she explained, making Hermione jump.

“It’s alright,” he told her once the Gryffindor was half-way up and prepared to run, “it’s Weasel, isn’t it?”

“He’s so irritating sometimes,” she explained, scooting closer to Pansy so that Draco could sit on the stone steps at her other side. It didn’t go unnoticed by either Draco or Pansy that she hadn’t corrected him using the nickname. “It’s like he doesn’t know what he wants, or, if he does, then he’s too much of a coward to do anything about it.” She wouldn’t let either of them intervene as she kept talking, “He went off on me about Krum, when he didn’t even consider asking me to the dance until the last second, which, by the way, he began by promptly noticing I was a girl,” she complained, making Draco chuckle, “and my feet hurt. And I’ve left Victor all alone, he must be wondering where I am,” she sighed, but didn’t make an attempt at getting up again.

“I have too much respect for you to even ask, but I truly hope you don’t find that ginger prick attractive,” Draco said, earning a smack in the head from Pansy. “What? He can fall into the lake and make friends with the giant squid for all I care.”

“We might be alright with you and Potter, but Weasley’s off the table,” Pansy explained.

“I don’t blame you,” Hermione giggled wetly, her tears finally subsiding, her mascara wasn’t even too ruined, and once Pansy cleaned up her cheeks, she looked good as new.

“Hermione?” Harry’s voice approached in a careful manner, making the poor girl jump again, wiping the heels of her hands along her tear, streaked cheeks. “He’s not with me, I left him talking to Percy. That should be punishment enough,” he smiled nervously, his hair messy, but not the ratsnest that it usually was, his robes were bloody perfect, looking from Pansy to Draco, “How are…what’s going on?”

“I’ve been swaddled and consoled by Slytherins. That’s a first,” Hermione laughed, now looking much more like herself. “Thank you,” she said before using Harry’s elbow to perch herself back up on her feet.

“You look like a vicar,” Harry informed Draco.

“Thanks,” Draco nodded, having no clue what a vicar was.

“Krum left for his ship already, seemed disappointed not to be able to say goodnight, though,” Harry turned to Hermione with a shit-eating grin. Merlin, he looked good enough to eat. Or at the very least kiss senseless.

“I bet,” Pansy teased further and pulled Draco up to his feet. “Same time next week?” she joked.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Hermione tittered, carrying her shoes in her hand and using them to wave goodbye.

“Oh, and remember,” Draco added, “if he gets to be too much of a prick, you throw a good punch. Trust me, I’d know.”

“Good night, Draco,” Harry laughed, leading his friend away.

“You can’t go falling in love with Granger, when I’m already going for Potter,” Draco warned Pansy quietly as he watched the two Gryffindors being stopped on the staircase by Diggory, seeming to be stammering his way through a conversation with Harry.

“Not really my type, but I’ll still try to keep it in mind,” she kissed Draco’s cheek and pulled him along.

“What is your type again?” Draco wondered unhelpfully, already knowing Pansy preferred someone who would bite back.

“I like them bitchy,” she explained, making Draco laugh as they went back to the Great Hall to look for their third half

It was strange to wake up knowing he was going home, and yet not feeling the usual excitement that accompanied this revelation. A pool of dread filled his stomach when he thought about getting on a train at Hogsmeade with the few other students that had decided to leave for New Year’s after all.

He was fully packed and had even set aside his new sweater from his mother to wear when he arrived, yet he still had no clue what to expect when his father would see him.

Pansy and Blaise were preparing to merrily spend the rest of the winder break talking in front of the common room fire and probably learning to knit, or teaching Crabbe how to read for the fun of it, yet Draco had to go home to an empty mansion and talk to his newly-distant father while his mother tries to pretend nothing is the matter and smothers him to death.

The train was colder than usually, there was much less noise. He had a whole compartment to himself, though he would have rather shared it with Weasley than sat with his thoughts.

Mother was waiting for him at King’s Cross with a paper cup of tea and a pastry in a bag that he pretended to be hungry enough to eat, despite having skipped breakfast and feeling nauseous at the idea of any food at all. She’d arranged Flooing from a store nearby, one that Draco had never been to and wouldn’t have even ever imagined was run by wizards.

The house seemed even colder than usual, despite the glow of the fireplace from another room. His father was waiting for him on the staircase, making it impossible not to pass him as Draco walked to his room to deposit his bag.

Lucius hugged him stiffly and said “Hello, Draco, we’ve missed you terribly,” as if someone was forcing him to do so against his will. “Why don’t you go get ready for lunch and we can discuss your term. As well as the ball, of course, I am sure it has been an interesting few months.”

“Yes, sir,” Draco said unsurely, trying not to make too much of the dark shadows under his father’s eyes, hoping it was just unfortunate lighting.

His bedroom looked the same as he’d left it, as if no one had ever entered in the nearly half a year he hasn’t been home. Upon visiting his desk to see if anything was amiss from his drawers, only to find a thin layer of dust covering its surface.

Dust wasn’t exactly anything new to him, there was an abundance of it in Hogwarts, but there was never to be any dust or dirt in the Malfoy Manor. This didn’t look like his mother’s house, or his father’s authority.

Draco left his coat behind on the bed since no one came to collect it from him when he arrived, along with his leather bag to head downstairs. The view that greeted him was…unorthodox, at the least. His father was at the stove and his mother was setting the table. He wasn’t sure his mother had ever even been in the kitchen in the first place.

“Come, darling, sit,” she invited and pulled out a chair. “Tell us about your school year.”

“Oh, er, yes,” Draco stammered. “It was quite the usual, I suppose. My grade in herbology is up,” he said ever-so-unhelpfully, looking around to see if all the house elves were hung on the ceiling by their toes or something else insane.

“How are Blaise and Pansy?” she continued as if Lucius Malfoy boiling potatoes was nothing strange in the grand scheme of things.

“They are doing well,” he said, cleared his throat and accepted the plate his mother handed to him, “Blaise has a girlfriend. I think.”

Draco himself had never really had to be down in the kitchen, but he enjoyed some biscuits late at night and usually that meant coming to get them himself, not wanting to be found out if he asked a house elf to bring them to him. He knew this room well, he could spend hours reading ahead in textbooks and sipping on earl grey, but his parents seemed to be manoeuvring it as if it was a muggle invention and would bite them at any point.

He refused to ask. The two of them were pretending this was normal. He wasn’t going to burst their bubble. So, before they could ask him about his own romantic endeavours, he started talking about the Yule Ball instead. His mother took over soon enough, corresponding all the news of the pureblood elite from the last few months, as Draco pretended not to hate his father’s cooking.

Lucius excused himself after the meal, heading into his study and not emerging until the wee hours of the morning.

Draco helped his mother clean up. He’d never done that before. He didn’t hate it. Something about the warm water from the tap was comforting. And the soap smelled nice. Like lavender. He liked lavender.

“Mother?” he began unsurely.

“Don’t,” she sounded cold and warning for a moment there, “don’t worry about it,” she forced a smile and kissed the top of Draco’s head, pulling him into her embrace once he’d wiped his hands dry. “I’m just happy to see you. And I’m happy you’re safe.”

“Hogwarts is supposed to be the safest place in the country,” Draco whispered into her shoulder. She might not be telling him anything, but he was sure she was making it clear that he knew something bad was happening.

The next morning, Lucius was nowhere to be seen again, but his mother had made crepes. They lacked sugar and salt, and she had definitely used too many eggs, but it was still nice of her, besides the confiture disguised everything Draco didn’t like.

He’d slept terribly. At least when he was at school, he wouldn’t have to worry about any of this, but when it was all happening here, right in front of him, in an empty, cold house and the Malfoys having been left alone to the world, it was harder to ignore. He didn’t even feel like gloating to Pansy that he’d been right.

“Whose idea was it to cook?” Draco asked when reaching for his fourth crepe, a gesture his mother seemed to be appreciating. She was well aware that she had no housekeeping skills, but Draco could bet his life on his mother taking care of him no matter what it meant for her honour.

“Who do you think? Your father rarely comes out of his study, I thought it would be nice for him to talk to you last night,” she sighed, “but he seems to have more important things to do.”

“Can you just tell me whether he’s back?” Draco asked after a minute’s silence. “It’s all I think about. I don’t want to be a Death Eater.”

“I will die before I let you become one,” she answered sharply and the conversation was done.

They spent the days Draco was still at home together. On the first one, his mother showed him around the magical herb garden she’d been collection for the past few weeks in need of both seasoning when cooking, and a hobby, though Draco knew enough with his newly-acquired interest in herbology to see that most of those were for protection and medicine. On the second day, they explored the forest behind the manor, though it was more Draco showing Narcissa around, having spent entire summers roaming amongst the trees with Nott as children. A few days were spent reading in silence. One afternoon, once they’d come home from shopping in London, Lucius greeted them with a worried and surprisingly tender hug, having been confused as to why the house was empty when he returned from…business. If Draco hadn’t known better, he would have thought there were tears in his father’s eyes.

That night, they just sat in the library in comfortable conversation, an old record of Chopin’s piano pieces playing as they debated whether the composer had been a wizard or not (“A muggle can’t write something that beautiful, my dear.” “A Polish wizard of his stature wouldn’t throw it all away to compose in Paris.”). That was the first night since coming back home that Draco was able to fall asleep properly. He thought it had been a turning point, but when he woke up on the day he was supposed to return to Hogwarts, his mother waited for him to join her having breakfast alone. She smiled as if it didn’t bother her, and Draco didn’t ask whether she’d woken up alone.

This time his mother had arranged for someone in Hogsmeade to help them out with the floo, since the Three Broomsticks was connected to the network. She walked him to Hogwarts slowly, chatting along merrily, and Draco had his hand cramped into her elbow in fear of having to part with her. Hogwarts was safe, he would be fine despite his mother’s worry, but it was excruciating to imagine her all alone in the manor, especially after the reaction his father had expressed the afternoon before, making it painfully obvious to Draco that being kidnapped right from the Manor was a real possibility.

Snow was thick underneath Draco’s dragonhide boots and his mother’s nearly matching heeled ones, her robes dragging along the layer of white fluff and ice, though she didn’t make it obvious if it bothered her, unlike Draco who complained every two minutes. She left at least a dozen kisses all over his cheeks and he didn’t dare flinch away. “I’ll be perfectly fine, mother,” he promised.

“I know, so will I,” she insisted, “give my love to Pansy and Blaise,” she added, knowing very well who her son’s true friends were. “I promise I will get you out of all of this,” she smiled, walked further away and apparated away before Draco could ask her what she’d meant by it.

He looked back at the castle, stepping into its territory from which his mother couldn’t have apparated, feeling a layer of safety settle over himself, although he was still theoretically on the snow-covered path that led from the school to Hogsmeade.

Before leaving his room for breakfast this morning, he’d sent an owl to Pansy and Blaise to let them know he’d be returning today, and surely enough they were waiting in the courtyard, covered in thick black layers of robes. “Thank Circe, you’ve survived,” Pansy smirked, but Draco knew that if his friends hadn’t been worried, they wouldn’t be waiting for him practically at the gates.

“The trip?” Draco chuckled.

“The Death Eaters,” Blaise rolled his eyes, used to humouring Pansy.

“Speaking of,” he sighed only to catch both of his friends’ expressions change. He spent the rest of the way down to the dungeons telling them about his experience back home in extreme detail, and the rest of the afternoon was spent throwing around theories of what every single word from his parents had meant. One thing they knew for certain – the safety and unsure silence of the last thirteen years was over. Something was coming, and they knew all too well what that something was.

“You have to tell him,” Pansy said suddenly, after about twenty minutes of staring at the same page of her novel. Draco knew who she was talking about.

“I know,” Draco agreed.

Chapter Text

Before they’d made it to the edge of the forest, Pansy and Blaise had explained to him that he wouldn’t be seeing Hagrid at the front of the class today, but instead a replacement, and all they knew about it was what Nott had been telling everyone that would listen. Unfortunately, neither of them had truly listened, so they had to find out from Rita Skeeter’s article, ever-so-affectionately entitled “Dumbledore’s Big Mistake”.

The Gryffindor Golden Trio was late to the class, this may not have surprised Draco, but with everything he’d started figuring out lately, it definitely made him nervous. As far as he was concerned, whenever he couldn’t see Potter alright and uninjured, he could have just as well been lying dead. Once Harry, Hermione and Weasley did arrive, they spent a good while interrogating the new professor about Hagrid’s whereabouts, so, as far as Draco was concerned, they seemed perfectly normal.

The class was then presented with a unicorn, big, bright white and pawning the ground nervously at the sight of all the people in front of it. Draco’s eyes slid to Harry’s instantly, remembering detention in their first year, only to find Harry already looking back at him with the same thought behind his gaze.

Boys were told to hang back, girls were invited forward, apparently unicorns enjoyed female companionship more. Draco took a few steps back, leaning against the fence with Blaise to watch Pansy. Draco was surprised when Harry walked right up to the two of them, Weasley going off about Hagrid next to him and shutting up promptly when he’d noticed where Harry was heading.

“Do you think he’ll mention its blood?” Harry asked with a smirk and crossed his arms next to Draco. No one else seemed to have noticed, the other boys too enthralled by the creature in front of them.

Draco smiled sympathetically, but didn’t answer. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Draco ignored the question and handed over today’s Daily Prophet with about a half page’s worth of bullshit on the cold-blooded nature of giants, the obligatory mention of Harry Potter and even a quote from Nott about Draco’s injury last year. Draco would hex his ex-friend’s bed tonight, that much he knew.

“Fucking cunt,” Harry said, skimming through Skeeter’s article and making Draco laugh, Weasley still watching them in confusion. “How did she find out? What do you mean we all hate him?” he asked Theo who had been too busy watching the unicorn in front of him to notice Harry having read the newspaper.

“Harry,” Draco warned under his breath.

“Fuck you, Nott,” Harry added as Theo rolled his eyes and turned away, thankfully not calling out Draco’s refusal to get involved to attention.

“This might end his teaching career,” Draco pondered softly, hoping it sounded more like a statement of facts instead of taunting. Weasley glared at him in response, but Harry just sighed which sounded more like agreement to Draco than much else, “He could still be gamekeeper, I suppose,” Draco added awkwardly.

It was a surprisingly short lesson, or maybe Draco was just busy trying not to think about his first year DADA professor drinking the blood of a creature just like the one in front of him. Harry and a resentful Weasley stayed right beside them while Blaise, bless him, did his best to make it seem like he and Draco were having a conversation, instead of the blond simply standing awkwardly.

“Harry,” Draco pulled him back before everyone headed back to the castle, “I need to tell you something.”

“Alright,” the Gryffindor looked prepared to listen on the spot.

“No, not here,” Draco scoffed, looking around to see if anyone was watching them, but he was still holding onto Potter’s sleeve and talking in hushed enough tones for it to look like a threat, besides everyone in the school had long since got used to this type of behaviour from the pair of them.

Harry looked at him with worry, and that seemed to be enough to agree. “Okay. Look, I need to figure out the egg thing, and you might be smart enough to help, so why don’t we just talk about all of it?”

“Good,” Draco said simply, doing his best not to show how excited he felt to be able to help keep Potter alive for at least another day.

“Now, if you only knew where I can take a bath in this school, that would be helpful,” Harry said spitefully and Draco realised he was up-playing their conversation for the sake of wondering eyes.

“What?” Draco pretended to be annoyed at the suggestion for the upkeeping of appearances, but the idea of Potter bathing was not going to help him get a single decent Voldemorty thought out of his mouth.

“Diggory told me to take a bath with the egg. Prick couldn’t even give me proper instructions after I told him all about the dragons.”

“You told him about the dragons?” Draco asked, it was getting easier to look angry in the conversation.

“Yes, I thought it would only be fair,” Potter scoffed, “but apparently he doesn’t-“

“Prefects’ bathroom,” Draco said quickly, seeing Nott about to reach the two of them, “There’s a bath there, see you at eight,” he whispered, “fucking twat,” he added loud enough for Nott to hear and let go of Harry with an eyeroll.

Pansy’s hand hooked into his elbow, Draco ascended the muddy pathway back up to the castle, ignoring Blaise’s shivering on his other side. He was cold himself, but his mind was a little preoccupied.

“How did that horrible Skeeter woman even find out?” Hermione’s scandalised voice rang through the Great Hall during lunch. Draco didn’t doubt they were having a discussion about Hagrid, and he might not have cared much about the giant oaf, but he could see why Harry was desperate to keep any friend he had close to him. He’d always struck Draco as a protective person. It certainly explained the whole Weasley debacle.

Draco rushed through his classes with scarcely any notes to show for it, telling Blaise and Pansy he’d be back late, terrified to tell them he was about to watch Harry bloody Potter bathe. Time seemed to be playing games with him, as he wished it would slow down any moment he thought about the rendezvous later tonight, yet somehow it couldn’t move fast enough at the same time.

It was barely past seven when Draco was already pacing back and forth past the statue of Boris the Bewildered, wondering why anyone would want to keep his likeness in a school. There wasn’t much activity on the fifth floor of the castle at this hour of the evening, making for a quite decent location if you craved some lonesomeness for a little.

Despite the possibility of about a dozen people being allowed entrance into the prefects’ bathroom at any point (unlike the two of them), no one besides Draco actually ever came near. For nearly an hour he watched out for movement at either end of the hallway and listened for any sound from the nearby stairways in fear of anyone finding him out of place.

But no one came.

No one came when Draco’s watch showed only ten minutes left until their decided meeting time, and no one came when it was five minutes past it. A strong appreciator of his own pride, Draco wanted to leave the second his watch struck eight and he was still standing on his own, but, the lovesick puppy he was, trailing around Potter like a little idiot, he stood waiting.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” Potter’s rushed voice came from behind the corner, followed by the Gryffindor himself, out of breath and flustered, way out of shape for someone who was meant to be The Chosen One. “We went to see Hagrid, although he wasn’t there, and then Ron insisted we go to…” he cut himself off, seeing Draco’s uninterested face. “I had to get the password from Diggory, too,” he added.

“Go on then,” Draco nodded towards the door.

“Pine fresh,” Harry told the door, hearing it creak open immediately. “Get inside,” he instructed his Slytherin friend (friend? Yes, friend), checking both ends of the corridor to make sure no one had seen them enter where they didn’t belong.

Draco turned back towards the door, putting a simple locking charm on it to make sure no one else would be joining them and seeing something neither of them could explain, before facing Harry.

“Are you good with charms?” Potter asked carefully, probably about as painfully aware as Draco was of the two of them being alone. After years and years of endless scrutiny, it was almost terrifying to face the boy in front of him.

“Sufficient,” Draco said defensively, he really wasn’t. Looking around the room, it was softly lit by a splendid candle-filled chandelier, which was nice, considering the sun had long since set while Draco was waiting for Harry. Everything was made of white marble, including what looked like an empty, rectangular swimming pool sunk into the middle of the floor, encompassed by countless golden taps on all sides.

Draco felt the warmth of the room the second he’d stepped over its threshold, inviting him to take off the warmest top layer of his uniform, leaving him in just a shirt. There were vents on the floor, which is where he assumed the warmth was coming from.

Harry seemed less eager to remove his clothing, instead walking slowly around the room, his careful footsteps echoing in the marble walls as he watched the stained-glass window of a blonde mermaid constantly rearranging her hair.

“Fancy a bath, Potter?” Draco teased, trying to ease at least some of the tension in the room.

“Well, if you’re offering, Malfoy,” Harry answered overly-politely, but a smile was breaking out on the corners of his mouth, showing thankfulness for the casual demeanour.

Draco walked around, obviously choosing the tap with a green jewel embedded in it, and turning it open, scenting freshly picked apples from the pale green bubbly water that streamed from it. He moved to a ruby red tap next, trying to show some cooperation here, and turned it on to a lovely raspberry scent. He tried another one, finding it to be a thick foam, then another that spewed more bubbles into the air than actual water into the bath.

Harry approached him with a towel in hand from a pile over by the wall to their right. Draco looked down to the towel in confusion, then back up at Potter with narrowed eyes.

“Well, I’m not getting in there alone while you gawk at the mermaid,” Harry scoffed, shoving the towel into Draco’s chest with a laugh.

“Bloody hell, Potter,” Draco tried to sound annoyed, but Harry was already all the way across the room, placing the golden egg carefully on his own towel, along with his glasses and a piece of parchment, his wand discarded somewhere nearby. Probably. He wasn’t sure just how smart Potter actually was when it came to defending himself.

Draco scoffed, figuring it was at least fair for him to get in as well, so he took off his robes and shirt, hesitating when it came to unbuttoning his trousers to the point that he had to tell himself this was no different than getting dressed for quidditch before a match. No different, except Marcus Flint had never been a cause for gay panic in Draco the way Harry was.

Keeping his underwear on for the sake of his own sanity, Draco stepped into the comfortably warm water, mentally shaking his head at the ridiculousness of the situation. Potter was turned towards the wall as he removed his clothing, facing away from Draco to give him privacy, and Draco fumbled with his wand, trying to look busy until Potter was covered by the water, too.

“This egg of yours better need water otherwise we’re being absurd,” Draco pointed out.

“You want to hear it?” Harry offered, taking into his hands and turning the latch.

A horrible wailing sound rung through the room, bouncing off the walls and echoing back, double, triple the mount it normally would, screeching into Draco’s head and running through his bones for the few seconds it took Harry to close it again.

“He’s not wrong, you know,” a voice echoed through the room, nearly giving Draco another heart attack. He couldn’t see its source, but he had been far too trusting that they were alone not to check for himself. "I’d try putting it in the water, if I were you,” the disembodied voice continued.

“Myrtle,” Harry said in outrage, “I’m- we’re…We’re not wearing anything,” he sounded scandalised.

“Speak for yourself,” Draco tried not to sound like a ghost of a dead girl in the bathroom was splitting his brain in half.

“I closed my eyes when you got it,” Myrtle said defensively, then smiled sweetly enough to make Draco gag. “Unlike some of us.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Draco asked her. There goes the plan of telling Harry about Voldemort. No one can be trusted with such a thing, not even a ghost that most people wouldn’t take seriously. Draco wasn’t exactly unaware of Moaning Myrtle. He’d heard enough stories about her from Pansy. Question was – Why were her and Harry Potter on a first name basis?

“You haven’t been to see me in ages,” the ghost went on to say, ignoring Draco’s presence.

“I’m not exactly allowed in girls’ bathrooms, am I?” Harry mumbled.

“You never used to care,” she sighed dramatically.

“Oh, do tell,” Draco smirked, knowing there was definitely a good story behind that little fact, and trying his best to ignore the pang of jealousy, as he tried his very best not to assume Harry had been in a girls’ bathroom to see a girl.

“Not that interesting of a story,” Harry said, blushing, and Draco could tell that the heat or the humidity of the room weren’t to blame. “I got told off for going there,” Harry said, and somehow Draco could tell he was lying.

“What do you mean he should put it in the water?” Draco asked, if only to put Harry out of his misery at the conversation topic.

“That’s what the other boy did,” Myrtle shrugged, her squeaky voice even more annoying when she was trying to be mysterious, “the handsome one.”

“Cedric?” Harry whispered and Draco had to bite his cheek not to say something snarky about having already figured as much. He was in a bathtub with Harry Potter. He could bite back the attitude for a second.

Potter put his egg into the water and looked at Draco in worry before opening it again, face screwed up in preparation for the terrible noise, but to no avail. Wordlessly, they both took a deep breath and dove into the water to hear.

“Come seek us where our voices sound,

We cannot sing above the ground.

And while you’re searching ponder this:

We’ve taken what you’ll sorely miss,

An hour long you’ll have to look,

And recover what we took,

But past the hour – the prospect’s black,

Too late, it’s gone, it won’t come back.”

“Well, that’s cheery,” Draco noted before Harry dove back inside to listen to it again.

“People who can’t use their voices above the ground?” Harry pondered after a good three more times of listening, wet hair slicked to his forehead. “Who could that be?”

“Honestly, Potter, how have you got through three years of school without failing grades?” Draco rolled his eyes, pointing to the stained-glass window of a mermaid that was now winking at them.

“Are there merepeople in the lake?” Harry wondered.

“Probably,” Draco shrugged.

“I’m a terrible swimmer,” Harry noted, looking at a loss for a solution. “How am I supposed to stop breathing for an hour?” he suddenly remembered.

“How dare you?” Myrtle sounded deeply offended, “talking about breathing when I can’t…When I haven’t…Not for years.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean that. I forgot-“

“Oh, sure, it’s easy to forget Myrtle’s dead,” the ghost said, diving into the water dramatically without a splash. When she finally dove back out, she went into a monologue about haunting the girl who’d found her dead body in the bathroom, but neither Draco nor Harry, by the looks of it, was listening to her rambling.

Draco was already halfway through a list of spells that could help a person hold their breath for such a long time, but the list itself was not that long, and most of the spells he knew for this purpose left the person motionless. The ones he’d heard about that actually could be useful, he had no idea how to do, and wouldn’t even know where to begin learning.

Draco turned around when Harry got out of the bath, having told Myrtle beforehand to close her eyes, then got out of the water himself and covered his shoulders with a towel. The water had cooled by then, so had the air, he noticed as he shivered before grabbing his wand and putting a drying charm on himself and his soaked pants.

Myrtle was asking Harry if he’ll come visit her in his bathroom sometime, and Draco had to tell himself not to laugh when Potter hesitantly promised he’d try. They left the bathroom in a hurry, less afraid of getting caught sneaking around the school so late, and more to get away from Myrtle’s attention.

“I’m sorry, I had no idea she’d be there,” Harry said regretfully. “Did you, uh…Did you want to go talk somewhere? About whatever you needed to tell me?”

“That would be good,” Draco felt his heartbeat get faster, yet he somehow felt relief.

“Alright, let me check,” Harry pulled out the piece of parchment, mumbling something to it about being up to no good. Names appeared on the folds, a map of what looked like the fifth floor. He saw his name next to Harry’s. How had he never heard of a map like this before?

“What is that?” Draco demanded. If anyone else had anything similar, they could have seen the two of them ever so chummy, sharing a bloody bath.

“It was my dad’s,” Harry cleared his throat, turning the map over and folding it in different ways. “Library’s empty, there’s still twenty minutes left until curfew, come on.”

The large piece of fabric Harry was holding was then shoved back into his robes as he looked for a path without anyone else on it. This close to ten o’clock there weren’t many people still wandering the halls, apart from the occasional prefect, so they had no trouble avoiding curious eyes on their way to the library.

Just when Draco was starting to wonder why he even went with Harry to that blasted bathroom in the first place, he was pulled into an alcove, The Chosen One’s hand covering his mouth before he could make any sound of protest.

Harry pointed at the map, revealing Snape about to turn the corner. “He wouldn’t do anything to me,” Draco mouthed.

“But he hates me,” Potter retaliated with an eye roll. Draco found out he liked it when Potter got riled up. He was also glad his hand was covering the smile forming on the Slytherin’s mouth. Harry kept watching the map until Snape, in an exasperatingly slow stroll, had passed them. There were only ten minutes left until they were meant to be in their respective common rooms.

“This is insanity,” Draco pulled the draping they were hidden behind tighter to the wall and put a silencing spell on the alcove. “Voldemort is back.”

“What?” Potter asked carefully after a few beats of complete silence.

Draco sighed, mentally pinching himself. He was aware of the cause of his parents’ death, and there were definitely better ways of bringing this up. “Sorry, I…Look. I had my suspicions when my father started acting oddly during the summer, and we both know what happened at the World Cup,” he said, taking a breath to collect his thoughts. “I think my father’s back on his old path.”

“Of being a Death Eater?” Potter whisper-shouted, even though no one outside the two of them would have ever been able to hear.

“When I asked my mother about it, she avoided the question, which she never does with me. And before I left, she told me she would never let me join their ranks. And she looked at me like it was the last time I’d ever see her.”

“Oh,” Harry looked sad at the last part of Draco’s monologue. Of course, leave it to Harry Potter to have compassion for his ex-nemesis while discussing the return of the dark ages.

“Don’t worry about me, she writes every week, I know she’s fine. You, on the other hand…”

“Draco, I have to figure out how to stop breathing for an entire hour. I literally have no energy to think about the possibility of Voldemort coming back. Not right now.”

“I’m not saying you have to actively think about him,” Draco insisted, “I’m just saying be wary. Make sure no one tries to dig your grave while you win the cup,” Draco added, checking his watch, then ducking out of the alcove with one final look at an utterly overwhelmed Potter with a few minutes left. He knew, if he ran, he could make it.

It was a few days later on a Hogsmeade Saturday morning when Draco received a letter from his mother. He could tell she was keeping them light-hearted and optimistic in order to keep her son from worrying, but they scarcely mentioned his father which was telling enough. Pansy and Blaise never talked about it, probably seeing the stress on Draco’s face whenever the subject was somehow brought up. They didn’t ask for news when her parcel came and Blaise got his usual Narcissa Malfoy sweets, Pansy blatantly kept staring at her newspaper and Blaise read over Draco’s shoulder, thinking he wouldn’t see. He could.

Pansy dragged him to every boutique in Hogsmeade, only to end up disliking everything she saw there, Blaise bought his new girlfriend some sweets, refusing Draco’s advice to share the ones his mother had sent that morning. Pansy bet Draco five sickles they’d break up before the second task. Draco did not comment on the golden egg revelation.

By the end of the trip, Pansy’s cheeks were a lovely rosy pink and Blaise looked exhausted, besides, as the two of them kept pointing out, they were tired of Draco constantly checking the perimeter for Potter.

Draco barely made it into the Great Hall when the dinner appeared on the table in front of him. He could already feel the sweet sensation of sleep taking over his limbs as soon as he’s finished with his meal. He looked off to the Gryffindor side of the room just in time to catch Harry not-at-all-subtly showing him the map. Draco sighed and nodded, realising he wouldn’t get to sleep so soon at all.

“What?” he asked, having waited for Potter on the little set of stairs he’d found Pansy and Hermione on after the Yule Ball. He’d gathered Potter was smart enough to either find him here, or look into the map he apparently wanted the entire bloody school to see.

“Bagman offered me help with the task,” Harry admitted with a disappointed sigh, “just now, an hour ago, in the Three Broomsticks.”

“And you didn’t take it why?” Draco narrowed his eyes.

“Because I barely know him! What if he decides to use it as a favour?” he scoffed, surprising Draco with his critical thinking skills. “Besides. Who is he to treat me differently from Cedric, Fleur or Krum?”

“A favour from The Chosen One?” Draco smirked, earning a light punch in the gut. “Why are you telling me this?”

Harry looked a little taken aback by the question, “Because,” he looked at him in confusion, “we’re friends?”

“Oh,” Draco did his best not to smile at that. “Well, good.”

“Also, I never thanked you for your help the other night,” Potter added, scratching the back of his neck, “I guess I tend to forget basic decencies when I’m sharing a bath with someone,” he laughed.

“I suppose that’s my fault for unloading on you about Voldemort,” Draco said in a whisper, “sorry again about that.”

“It’s alright, I’ve had time to freak out about it instead of sleeping,” Potter shrugged, making Draco worry, but then he smiled, and Draco was no longer sure whether Harry Potter joking about Voldemort’s return was any better than Harry Potter losing sleep over it. “It’s fine, I promise, I had help from, erm, a family friend.” he said unconvincingly, calming Draco, if only slightly.

Draco had no idea Potter’s parents had any friends left in the world. And if so, why hadn’t they taken Harry under their wing instead of leaving him with a bunch of muggles? “Any luck on the underwater thing?” Draco asked, in fear of the conversation turning into uncomfortable silence.

“Not much, I have some leads, but…” he nodded to himself, avoiding Draco’s eyes, “Actually, no. You’re not Hermione, there’s no point in lying to you. I have no idea what I’m doing,” he admitted hopelessly.

“That’s alright, we’ll find something,” Draco promised, “I’m sure there’s at least one thing that could help in an entire school of magic,” he winked and walked away, unsure where the sudden urge to flirt had come from.

Potter was right, Draco was bloody terrible at charms, and he had no time left to brew a potion that would work nearly well enough for an hour straight. For the first time since flunking his herbology exam last year, Draco had something to actually search for when attempting to memorise his textbook. And that’s what he did for the next few days.

That’s all he did for the next few days.

If digging through one of the most boring books in his academic career was what would save the idiot’s life, he was going to be the one to do it. It wasn’t unusual for Professor Sprout to ignore entire chapters out of the textbooks each year, which Draco had noticed when attempting to pass the last year’s exam with only half-arsed knowledge he’d heard during class.

Hermione, on the other hand, had passed with flying colours, and Draco had early on decided not to let that happen again. That being said, the school year was over half-way done and Draco had yet to get past a fifth of the book. No wonder the most of it was entirely ignored each year by the professor herself.

Every day during breakfast, Draco would read through about ten different species of magical herbs, doing his best to use Pansy and Blaise’s still-tired state and their unwillingness to speak so early in the day. During lunch, though, his friends had usually woken up and tended to demand more of his attention, leaving him time for only about six, if he was lucky. During dinner, he would pretend to be more interested in what people were talking to him about, but only because he knew he could sit alone for the rest of the night, forgetting about his homework and focussing on the bloody herbs.

At one point, Pansy had rolled her eyes and taken over the note-taking process during classes for the both of them, even getting Blaise to combine their homework with slight changes and handing it in as Draco’s. He hadn’t even had to ask them for help. In all fairness, neither of them ever did.

Even though Draco had discarded his schoolwork for a bit, Hagrid’s classes were still amusing enough to actually pay the slightest attention to, especially when the big oaf brought out two unicorn foals. His attention wasn’t as easily kept on his new apparent favourite book, when there were beautiful golden creatures stealing his notice.

The two smaller versions of the previously exhibited adult unicorn were much more susceptible to male company, and Pansy’s previous excitement for the creatures was starting to infect both Draco and Blaise, so much so that they even agreed to feed them sugar cubes as he listened to the half-giant Professor start speaking to Harry, lacking all decorum and awareness of what can and cannot be overheard by those around him.

"Harry," said Hagrid, clapping a massive hand on his shoulder, so that Harry's knees visibly buckled under its weight, "I've bin worried before I saw yeh take on tha Horntail, but I know now yeh can do anythin' yeh set yer mind ter. I'm not worried at all. Yeh're goin’ ter be fine. Got yer clue worked out, haven' yeh?" Harry nodded with a nearly green look on his face, looking tired of the question and growing more and more nervous by the day with the lack of solution.

Upon realising that the task was going to hit them in the gonads in the following morning, Draco speedread like none ever before had. And once he was a few short minutes away from curfew, he finally found the section of the textbook that appeared to be of help. It took a while, but he found it. He found the perfect thing, and it was too late to let Potter know.

He scarcely slept. He had nightmare after nightmare of Potter drowning or using a hastily and poorly brewed potion. Hermione was just as good as the information in the library, yet she wasn’t always guaranteed to find it in time, as much as Draco trusted her expertise.

He woke up an hour before breakfast to run to Severus’ office. He wasn’t there. But Draco was his godson and there was little his mother couldn’t talk the potions Professor into. So, Draco, ever-so-diligently, eased opened the door and walked right past the wards. He plucked a handful out of a jar helpfully labelled Gillyweed in his godfather’s handwriting, and carefully placed it back on the tall shelf. Thank Merlin for Severus’ perfect alphabetical system.

Blaise got a hold of him on his way to the new arena built on the Black Lake, steering him into the direction of the footbridge right where the spectators’ seats met the area for the Champions. Draco hissed Potter’s name from under the stands. There was loud music everywhere, and the seats were full of students and teachers from all three schools. Fleur looked nervous, but had a determined look on her face, Krum was as unreadable and angry as always, and Diggory was the most normal of all of them with shifting eyes and a pale face, but nowhere nearly as bad as Potter.

Pale, terrified Potter – the only one without a solution. “Harry,” Draco repeated, finally eliciting some response. The look on the Gryffindor’s face was heart-breaking, and, if Draco wasn’t about to lift his spirits up to the max, he would certainly feel bad for him. “Eat this,” he shoved the Gillyweed into the other boy’s hand once he’d approached closer, and shot a look around to make sure no one had seen the exchange.

Harry looked down to the bright green herb in his palm and put it in his mouth instantly. Without thinking about it. Draco was almost taken aback by the trust. He’d honestly expected at least a little suspicion about being poisoned, but Harry had simply put his life in Draco’s hands. Entirely. “What was that?” he only asked after wincing and shivering as the thing slid down his throat.

“Gillyweed, I’ll tell you about it later, but you should know you’re about to grow gills,” Draco rushed out.

“Gills?” Potter asked as the beginning of the task was announced and Ludo Bagman was coming over to the two of them to get Harry. Draco couldn’t risk being seen, not when he no longer had the slightest idea of which side of the upcoming fight with Voldemort anyone in the Wizarding world was.

“Don’t you dare drown,” Draco whispered quickly and disappeared into the shadows of the stands, not risking looking over his shoulder, and instead rushing to find Pansy and Blaise again. He was about to make it unnoticed and unsuspected, when he nearly collided with someone amidst making sure no one had seen him turning the corner.

“Mister Malfoy,” Albus Dumbledore said calmly, a kind smile playing on his lips. Kind, and bordering on knowing. “You shall do well to find a seat amongst your friends over there,” he pointed to where the Slytherins had all gathered into a mob of POTTER STINKS badges-wearing, enthusiastically-Krum-supporting idiots, jeering and catcalling into the cold spring day.

“Yes, sir, sorry, sir,” Draco’s instinct for obeying authority kicked in before he could think about it.

“Were you successful?” Dumbledore asked with amusement in his voice, when Draco had already walked past him. Draco wanted to ask what the old man had meant by it, but he just smiled encouragingly, leaving no margin for pretending to be oblivious. Draco nodded wordlessly. Dumbledore chuckled and nodded in turn. “Enjoy the show then,” he added. Draco wondered whether there was genuinely anything at all that happened in the castle Dumbledore wasn’t aware of.

Draco heard the whistle announcing the beginning of the task and its accompanying echoes into the mountains surrounding the Lake. He stopped running as he realised he’d missed the beginning of the task, and found a gap between the pillars under the spectators’ seats just in time to watch Harry struggle into the water in what looked like relatively large pain.

He made sure to ask his childhood self if he could feel any sadistic pleasure in seeing Harry Potter hurt, but there was no answer to be found, at least not where he was looking, and he considered it a win. At least a small one.

“He seems to be remaining under the surface just fine,” Pansy said quietly when Draco had located his friends. She was playing cards with Blaise while most of the other students and teachers watching still looked quite excited and interested. Draco had told his friends about the task taking an hour, and didn’t expect many others to know the same information, so Pansy had come prepared with at least five muggle card games to teach them and a revised heating charm in tow to keep Draco and Blaise from freezing in their spots.

“Assuming he hasn’t already drowned,” Draco sighed shakily, taking a seat next to Blaise and doing his best to catch his breath.

“He would be floating on the surface with his face down,” Blaise explained, not doing much to calm Draco down now that he had that mental image in his head and a new reason to be carefully watching the water for the remainder of the task.

He looked over to where most of the Gryffindors were huddled together, if only to see Hermione somewhat similarly in stress as he was, but he couldn’t locate her impressive head of curls, nor could he see the specific ginger he was looking for. Weasel’s brothers? Yes. His sister? Right next to them, but no Ronald. Draco tried his best not to become livid at the sight of those two bailing on Potter, especially after the poor chap going through so much worry.

Some time later, when everyone had grown suspicious of the length of the day and tired of the waiting, confusedly looking around and wondering why on earth had someone decided this would be an entertaining enough of a task to be spectated by the entirety of the student body, Fleur swam up to the surface empty-handed and desperate to dive back in, whatever spell she’d used obviously hadn’t worked, but whatever she wanted to retrieve seemed of more importance than simply winning the task. Pansy looked over at the occurrence in the middle of the lake and shrugged, then switched the previous card game (that Draco hadn’t paid attention to) to something called Crazy Eights, actually forcing their blondest friend to join for a while.

Draco’s eyes remained trained on the giant clock above the stands the entire hour, and when there were nary a few minutes left, he was utterly useless to Pansy and Blaise’s card game. Krum appeared on the surface with Hermione a few minutes before the hour ran out. Draco no longer needed to wonder where Weasel was.

When Harry’s head broke through the surface, well outside the time limit, hair wet and matted to his head, though undoubtedly that of Potter, Draco sighed and leaned back into his seat, feeling Blaise’s hand on his back. “Told you he’d be fine.”

“You never said that,” Draco reminded, his eyes not letting go of Potter’s head, as if his gaze alone could keep him alive.

“What’s wrong, Malfoy?” he heard one of the redheaded twins shout from a few rows over, “Lost a bet?”

“Bet Harry’s dead, didn’t ya?” the other one called back, but Draco was too busy watching his ex-nemesis drag up Weasel and a younger blond girl with him as he swam for the bank.

“I’d have bet on your brother drowning first,” Malfoy called back, earning something of a genuine laugh from the twins.

Harry looked exhausted and his gills seemed to have disappeared by the time he reached the judges that greeted and huddled over him with excitement. Dumbledore was beaming, Bagman looked just as happy to see the second Hogwarts Champion, only Fleur was hysterically trying to grab onto who seemed to be her sister.

Draco relaxed, seeing Madam Pomfrey grab a hold of Harry and examine him for injuries. He knew he wasn’t at the friendship level to be doing that himself, so a professional doing it for him truly calmed him down. He didn’t care who got how many points. He didn’t worry about Potter being last. He only cared he was alive.

That being said, Potter bloody tied for first place. Merlin help them all.

"The third and final task will take place at dusk on the twenty-fourth of June," continued Bagman after announcing the results. "The champions will be notified of what is coming precisely one month beforehand. Thank you all for your support of the champions."

It was over. It was finally over, Draco thought as Harry was being herded to the castle along with the other Champions, most likely to be shoved into dry, warm clothes and fed biscuits and tea.

Pansy dragged him along with the crowd slowly dissipating from the stands, placing another heating charm on him as they walked. Blaise seemed glad the task was over, finally having Draco’s attention on something other than Harry, and able to talk to him about other things, too.

“How’s your conspiracy coming along?” Pansy asked. “Any new leads on the upcoming war?” she snorted, not seeming nearly as scared as Draco was. Blaise looked straight ahead with a satisfied smile. Apparently, he’d talked Pansy into his side of things while Draco was only paying attention to his Herbology book.

“Oh, I see, I focus on something else than shepherding you two for a week and you turn against me, is that it?” Draco huffed.

“Obviously,” Pansy rolled her eyes, “how else am I supposed to get your attention?”

Draco ate like he never had during dinner, having been abandoning all thought of food for the past few days. He also finally had the chance to laugh at his friends’ jokes and listen to what they had so say. Besides, he had to figure out how to thank them for doing his homework in his stead the next time they’d go to Hogsmeade.

They were the last ones to leave the Great Hall that night, still laughing, comfortably tired with bellies full of food and heavy eyelids, walking past the marble stairs. With a few minutes left until curfew, Draco was pulled back into an empty alcove by a hand he couldn’t see.

Before he could react, the invisibility cloak flew off of Harry’s head and his arms were thrown around Draco. He could hear Pansy’s melodic laughter as she descended the corridor to the dungeons with Blaise.

“Fuck, Potter,” Draco breathed into the Gryffindor’s hair before he could gather himself and hug the other boy back.

“Thank you,” Harry whispered, making Draco laugh. Neither of them seemed to want to let the other go, so Draco let himself relax into the embrace and breathe in the smell of Potter’s hair. A smell of fresh air and saltwater, and whatever was in the glitter someone, most probably the Weasley twins, had thrown at his head after the success of the second task.

“No trouble at all,” Draco lied, chin resting on Harry’s shoulder for a moment longer.

Chapter Text

March brought with it tidings of strong, cold winds, a stark antonym to the warming air and what could be lovely afternoons in the sun, if it weren’t for the breezes sending chills under anyone’s clothes that hadn’t properly tucked their sweaters into their trousers.

The school was going bonkers over the results of the second task, there wasn’t a corner of the corridors between classes without someone discussing it. There wasn’t much fanfare going on for Beauxbatons, and Krum was no longer too interesting either. According to anyone and everyone, the cup was either Potter’s or Diggory’s for the taking.

Weasel was walking around the school and making up every story under the sun that would enhance his clearly embellished version of the events during the second task, but Granger, ever the legend that Draco and Pansy were starting to truly believe she was, was not having any of it and took any chance she had to pull him back down to earth.

Draco received more secret little smiles from Harry than he could possibly handle, and the sight was enough for him not to bring up Voldemort again. At least not for a little while longer. He liked the attention. He liked being friends with Harry. He really bloody liked Harry. The Silver Trio had always sat in the back of all classes, and for that Draco thanked his past self every day that he now spent watching the back of Harry’s head. Not that there was much more than a mop of untamed dark hair to look at.

An article had appeared in Witch Weekly about a supposed relationship between Harry and Hermione and her fling with Viktor Krum. Draco knew these were lies, Rita Skeeter wouldn’t know what’s true if it spit her in the eye. There was a quote from Tracey Davis, saying that Hermione was apparently too ugly to have gained their affections naturally, and was smart enough to make a love potion. Draco, Blaise ad Pansy of course, didn’t believe a word, although the rest of Slytherin house found the article thoroughly entertaining. Hermione, bless her, didn’t seem upset one bit.

Snape never missed a beat at an opportunity to embarrass the three of them, and especially when it gave him the chance to revoke points from Gryffindor. Or to separate the three of them in the middle of class.

“Hey,” Draco could hear Hermione greet Pansy who she was now seated with.

“’Sup, Granger,” Pansy shot the Gryffindor one of her most dashing smiles, making Hermione laugh and Nott look over at them with his sneer disappearing into confusion.

Furious, Harry threw his ingredients and his bag into his cauldron and dragged it up to the front of the dungeon to the empty table in front of Snape. Snape followed, sat down at his desk and watched Harry unload his cauldron to go on to provoke the boy. He didn’t look up at Draco’s godfather, he just sat there sulking and continuing, though awfully of course, his work. Draco didn’t want to laugh, but it was just a little bit funny.

Draco could no longer hear what Snape was whisper-shouting at Potter, but it didn’t look good, and by the defensive look on the Gryffindor’s face, this couldn’t possibly end well. Before Draco could do something unbelievably stupid like stand up and start hopping on one leg only to get Potter out of trouble, Karkaroff stormed into the classroom demanding to speak to Snape and remaining behind Snape’s desk for the rest of the double period not to let him slip away.

On the morning of the Saturday when they were finally allowed to go back to Hogsmeade again, Draco was forced to have breakfast alone. He wasn’t entirely convinced he knew what Pansy had done to get herself detention, but he was certain Blaise had at least five charms ready to help her clean Filch’s office without the old dunce knowing.

Draco wasn’t too interested in his eggs or tea, only picking at his plate with a fork once in a while when he remembered everyone around him was excitedly filling up for the cold walk to Hogsmeade. But he lost all appetite when a letter arrived for him. Short and frightening, and unmistakeably in his mother’s handwriting.

Do not write home. Eagle will find me where I reside.

Love you always.

Draco reread the words, then turned the piece of parchment around to look for more information on the back. It was empty. His mother wasn’t one for short speeches or half-arsed confessions. Her correspondence came in form of love letters and sentimental expressions of affection. And these sentiments would never be reduced to three words.

He hadn’t received a letter from his mother for a while, let alone a package of sweets. He had considered writing himself, and if it hadn’t been for the second task and his inclination to help his favourite Gryffindor idiot with said task, he already would have. That being said, there wasn’t much to tell her. Most of his life revolved around his ex-nemeses now, and there was only so much his mother could read about Pansy and Blaise.

The idea of Narcissa having abandoned Malfoy Manor, and, by the looks of it, his father, which Draco deduced thanks to the lack of any mention of more than just her in the latest letters, was blood-curdling. Draco didn’t know what to make of it. She had nowhere to go, as far as he knew.

He folded up the letter and put it in his pocket. One thing was certain, the silence on fort Voldy had to be ended, and he had to speak to Potter again. Even if he was bordering on nagging, The Boy Who Lived deserved to know.

Once Pansy and Blaise had re-joined him and finished the crumpets he’d stolen for them from the breakfast table, they wrapped themselves in their warmest jumpers and began their descent to the Hogsmeade village with careless conversation that Draco couldn’t be bothered to take part in, instead making sure the Gryffindor Golden Trio was also joining the trip today.

“Can we go a single day without you staring holes into Potter’s pants?” Pansy asked suddenly. Draco hadn’t been listening to their conversation for a while now, but this was not the topic he’d expected they’d landed on.

“I’m not, I just have to speak to him,” Draco said quietly.

“About?” Blaise teased. Draco turned over the folded letter from his mother in the warmth and safety of his pocket, but didn’t answer his friend.

All afternoon Draco kept close watch of Potter and his friends, watching them go into a clothing shop and then along the winding road out towards the edge of the village. Pansy and Blaise grew tired of Draco’s insistent stalking soon enough and announced they’d be going to The Three Broomsticks to warm up, and that he could join them when he was done being creepy.

Draco nodded, not having paid much attention to anything other than Pansy’s “Bloody go already, why don’t you?” Did he feel guilty about leaving his friends again? Perhaps a little, but if he was going to do anything to stop Voldemort, he was going to need Potter’s help.

He wanted to call out to them, but when a large, black, shaggy dog came up to the group and the three Gryffindors greeted him with smiles, Draco grew more curious than afraid, electing to follow them up the trail and into the mountainous path. It was a good while of them following the dog eagerly, and Draco was beginning to question his decision to follow himself while wearing a pair of his finest dragonhide boots.

He wasn’t sure what he was going to do next, but at one point, the trees became a little too dense and he could no longer hear the gravelly footsteps of the three Gryffindors and their dog, so, growing a little desperate and stupid, he called out for Harry. They were far enough away from the village for no one else to find them, and when Harry emerged from a cave, he wore a confused, but amused smirk, eyebrows drawn, but not unkind. “Draco, what are you doing here?” he asked, stretching out his hand to make Draco’s climb up the last steep steps easier.

“I’m sorry, I wanted to speak to you, and then I started following you and realised it wasn’t ideal, and Pansy called me a stalker, but then I thought I’d got lost and-“

“It’s alright,” Potter laughed, surprisingly with a smile. If Draco had found Harry snooping around without consent, he wasn’t sure his reaction would be just as calm. “Come, you should meet someone,” Harry pointed to the cave.

“What the bloody hell is this git doing here?” Weasley asked, looking bewildered.

“Hello, Draco,” Hermione greeted with another kind smile. Those were going around a little too frivolously here, Draco thought, but was glad not to be yelled at by anyone he actually thought of with respect these days.

There was a large hippogriff watching him, not to mention the raggedy dark-haired man that looked a little too much like Sirius Black for Draco’s liking. Deciding one of those was a little more dangerous than the other, Draco bowed to the hippogriff, remembering his mistake last year. “That’s not…”

“The same one,” Harry chuckled, “Buckbeak.”

“Hello, Buckbeak, I’m not touching you this time,” Draco said carefully, “I’m also not asking why you’re still alive,” he said, earning a warning huff from the large creature, “don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that you are,” he added and the hippogriff put his head back down, falling asleep.

“Draco, this is Sirius Black,” Harry said, motioning towards the escaped prisoner that was sat merrily on the floor, gnawing on Hogwarts’ chicken legs, but keeping his eyes on Draco nonetheless.

“My cousin,” Draco nodded in acknowledgement. “Um… are you…” he trailed off, unsure how to phrase a question of whether or not he was going to kill all four of them, “You’re not…”

“In Azkaban? ‘Fraid not,” Sirius smiled teasingly.

“He’s my godfather,” Harry explained.

“And he’s not guilty, just in case you didn’t get that from us sitting here with him,” Hermione added, patting a place next to her on the ground for him to sit.

“I’m sorry, excuse me, why are we sitting here telling secrets to Draco bloody Malfoy?” Weasley sounded exasperated, and looked like he’d just put two and two together.

“Because he’s our friend,” Hermione rolled her eyes, as if Weasley was an idiot.

“Friend? He’s Malfoy!” he yelled.

“He saved my life,” Potter said uncharacteristically impatiently, “and he was around while you were off sulking about me having thrown my name into the cup.” That shut Weasley off promptly. He looked down to his hands with guilt behind his eyes. Draco was just glad the conversation was over and he hadn’t been shunned.

“What’re you doing here, Sirius?” Harry asked.

“Fulfilling my duty as godfather,” he said, still munching on the piece of chicken. “Don’t worry, I’m pretending to be a lovable stray,” he added, then turning to Draco and explaining, “I’m an Animagus.”

“I gathered,” Draco nodded.

“I want to be on the spot. Your last letter... well, let's just say things are getting fishier. I've been stealing the paper every time someone throws one out, and by the looks of things, I'm not the only one who's getting worried,” Sirius said without the grin he’d previously been sporting.

“What if you’re caught?” Harry said, sounding worried.

“The four of you and Dumbledore are the only ones that know about me,” he pointed at them, lingering on Draco.

“Oh, I won’t even tell my best friends, don’t worry,” Draco promised.

Sirius nodded, seeming to have believed him. Was it a Gryffindor thing to always be this trusting? As long as Harry trusted him, so would Sirius? Draco refused to believe it was that simple. “Well, you and Remus, but he’s off struggling to find a job and make a living for himself, and I don’t want to impose.”

“Impose? On your own-” Hermione started, but was cut off by Potter’s elbow jabbed into her side. “Never mind.” Draco eyed them in curiosity, but decided not to ask in front of Sirius.

Weasley handed Harry two editions of the Daily Prophet. Draco watched him scan the words on the pages. “They’re making it sound like he’s dying,” Harry noted slowly. “But he can’t be that ill, if he managed to get up here.”

"My brothers Crouch's personal assistant," Weasley informed Sirius, though he seemed hesitant to say it in front of Draco. "He says Crouch is suffering from overwork."

"Mind you, he did look ill, last time I saw him up close," said Harry thoughtfully, still reading the story. "The night my name came out of the goblet,” he added.

"Getting his comeuppance for sacking Winky, isn't he?" Hermione huffed, an edge to her voice. She was stroking the hippogriff, who was crunching up Sirius's chicken bones. "I bet he wishes he hadn't done it now - bet he feels the difference now she's not there to look after him."

"Hermione's obsessed with house elves," Ron muttered to Sirius, casting Hermione a dark look which made Draco roll his eyes.

Sirius, however, looked interested. "Crouch sacked his house elf?"

"Yeah, at the Quidditch World Cup," Harry said and launched into the story of the Dark Mark's appearance Winky being found with Harry’s wand clutched in her hand, and Crouch's fury. When Harry had finished, Sirius was on his feet again and had started pacing up and down the cave.

"Let me get this straight," he said after a while, brandishing a fresh chicken leg. "You first saw the elf in the Top Box. She was saving Crouch a seat, right?"

"Right," said Harry, Ron, and Hermione together.

"But Crouch didn't turn up for the match?" he asked, making Draco realise where he was going with this.

"No," said Harry. "I think he said he'd been too busy."

Sirius paced all around the cave in silence, throwing Draco a knowing look. Gryffindor or not, Sirius was a Black and a Slytherin by definition, and the two of them were taught from an early age to think as such. "Harry, did you check your pockets for your wand after you'd left the Top Box?"

"Erm . . ." Harry thought hard. "No," he said finally. "I didn't need to use it before we got in the forest. And then I put my hand in my pocket, and all that was in there were my Omnioculars." He stared at Sirius. “Are you saying whoever conjured the Mark stole my wand in the Top Box?”

“Who else was around you besides Winky?” Sirius asked.

“Loads of people,” Harry shrugged, looking to his friends for help. “Some Bulgarian ministers, Cornelius Fudge,” he sighed, looking at Draco, “you and your parents,” he added, and everyone did their best not to react to Weasley jumping up, prepared to throw around accusations. “No one else, I don’t think.”

“Yes, there was, there was Ludo Bagman,” Draco remembered.

“Oh yeah,” Harry nodded.

"I don't know anything about Bagman except that he used to be Beater for the Wimbourne Wasps," said Sirius, still pacing. "What's he like?"

"He's okay," said Harry. "He keeps offering to help me with the Triwizard Tournament."

"Does he, now?" said Sirius, frowning more deeply and throwing another knowing look towards Draco. "I wonder why he'd do that?"

"Says he's taken a liking to me," said Harry.

"Hmm," Sirius answered, looking thoughtful, his eyes still on Draco’s as the two of them were apparently coming to the same suspicions. This was more than wanting the Hogwarts Champion to have any sort of advantage, since Draco was quite certain Diggory wasn’t getting the same treatment.

Hermione and Ron had apparently seen him in the forest before the Dark Mark appeared, but according to Weasley he’d gone off to the campsite when they told him about the riot. Weasley seemed to be convinced he hadn’t stayed in the forest, but Hermione quickly reminded him that neither of them had any clue where he’d gone off to, really, which lead to Draco concluding that Ludo Bagman could have been the one to conjure the dark mark.

As Hermione and Weasley bickered, Draco caught Sirius’ eye again. “When the Dark Mark had been conjured, and the elf had been discovered holding Harry's wand, what did Crouch do?” the only adult in their presence asked, clearly to Draco.

“Went to look in the bushes,” Draco said, doing his best to remember clearly, though it was not a day he would soon be forgetting.

“But there wasn’t anyone else there,” Harry finished Draco’s trail of thought.

"Of course," Sirius muttered, pacing up and down, "of course, he'd want to pin it on anyone but his own elf... and then he sacked her?"

"Yes," said Hermione in a heated voice, "he sacked her, just because she hadn't stayed in her tent and let herself get trampled -"

"Hermione, will you give it a rest with the elf!" Weasley whined.

Sirius shook his head and said, "She's got the measure of Crouch better than you have, Ron. If you want to know what a man is like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals."

Draco and Harry shared a look. He wasn’t sure what it meant, since he’d always thought Harry to be his equal, as much as he hid this thought from himself under pure hatred. But Sirius was right, and not just because he’d managed to promptly shut Weasley up and put him in his place – which was somewhere way below Hermione. Every powerful person Draco knew had their tells, and though Draco had never been able to put it into words, this was exactly it. His father’s colleagues, the ones that were always mean and rude to their employees and staff were the ones his father respected most. And they were always the ones Draco liked least. The kind ones, the ones to always had a Honeydukes sweet for the youngest Malfoy, on the other hand, his father never failed to call weak and pathetic as soon as they returned to the Manor.

Sirius ran a hand over his unshaven face, thinking hard. "All these absences of Barty Crouch's…he goes to the trouble of making sure his house-elf saves him a seat at the Quidditch World Cup, but doesn't bother to turn up and watch. He works very hard to reinstate the Triwizard Tournament, and then stops coming to that too… It's not like Crouch. If he's ever taken a day off work because of illness before this, I'll eat Buckbeak."

"D'you know Crouch, then?" Harry asked.

Sirius's face darkened. Draco half-remembered his father telling him something about Sirius imprisonment, but he wasn’t sure what. All he knew was that Crouch was far too important, even thirteen years ago, not to have had something to do with Sirius being sent to prison. "Oh, I know Crouch all right," he said quietly. "He was the one who gave the order for me to be sent to Azkaban – without a trial." Draco sighed, looking to the ground. Just as he’d suspected.

"What?" Weasley and Hermione practically shouted together.

"You're kidding!" Harry said, a sadness taking over his face.

"No, I'm not," said Sirius, taking another great bite of chicken. "Crouch used to be Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, didn't you know?"

Harry, Ron, and Hermione shook their heads, but Draco nodded, earning all four pairs of eyes right on him. “I believe my father has mentioned something about it, but I can’t really remember. It’s not like he spends his days telling me about Death Eaters when everyone with eyes can tell he was one.”

“Yeah, right,” Weasley rolled his eyes, “I bet he tutors you on the right way to use the Unforgivable Curses each summer.”

“Shut up, Ron!” Harry scolded his best friend and earned a smack to the shoulder from Sirius as Hermione stared their ginger friend down. Weasley pouted, but didn’t say another thing. Draco liked this, even if he didn’t understand why any of the Gryffindors, his age or grown-up, would ever defend him.

"He was tipped for the next Minister of Magic," said Sirius. "He's a great wizard, Barty Crouch, powerfully magical and power-hungry. Though never a Voldemort supporter," he said, watching Harry’s disbelieving face. "No, Barty Crouch was always very outspoken against the Dark Side. But then a lot of people who were against the Dark Side…well, you wouldn't understand…you're too young."

"Try us,” Draco said in all seriousness. If there was anyone here that was expected not to understand anything about Death Eaters and simultaneously suspected to be one in training, it was Draco Malfoy. And he was sick of not knowing what he was being accused of.

A grin flashed across Sirius's thin face.

"All right, I'll try you, " Sirius walked once up the cave, back again, and then said, "imagine that Voldemort's powerful now. You don't know who his supporters are, you don't know who's working for him and who isn't. You know he can control people so that they do terrible things without being able to stop themselves. You're scared for yourself, and your family, and your friends. Every week, news comes of more deaths, more disappearances, more torturing. The Ministry of Magic's in disarray, they don't know what to do, they're trying to keep everything hidden from the Muggles, but meanwhile, Muggles are dying too. Terror everywhere. Panic, confusion. That's how it used to be.

"Well, times like that bring out the best in some people and the worst in others. Crouch's principles might've been good in the beginning - I wouldn't know. He rose quickly through the Ministry, and he started ordering very harsh measures against Voldemort’s supporters. The Aurors were given new powers - powers to kill rather than capture, for instance. And I wasn't the only one who was handed straight to the dementors without trial. Crouch fought violence with violence, and authorized the use of the Unforgivable Curses against suspects. I would say he became as ruthless and cruel as many on the Dark Side. He had his supporters, mind you - plenty of people thought he was going about things the right way, and there were a lot of witches and wizards clamoring for him to take over as Minister of Magic. When Voldemort disappeared, it looked like only a matter of time until Crouch got the top job. But then something rather unfortunate happened," Sirius smiled grimly, Draco had a feeling he was going to like this. "Crouch's own son was caught with a group of Death Eaters who'd managed to talk their way out of Azkaban. Apparently, they were trying to find Voldemort and return him to power."

"Crouch's son was caught?" Hermione gasped. Draco sat there with a smile tugging at his shock-gaped mouth.

"Yep," Sirius answered, popping the last letter of the word and throwing his chicken bone to Buckbeak, flinging himself back down on the ground beside the loaf of bread, and tearing it in half. "Nasty little shock for old Barty, I'd imagine. Should have spent a bit more time at home with his family, shouldn't he? Ought to have left the office early once in a while. Gotten to know his own son." He began to wolf down large pieces of bread with a satisfied smile one his starved face.

"Was the son a Death Eater?" Draco couldn’t help but ask, feeling like he was back in France, gossiping with Pansy.

"No idea," said Sirius, still stuffing down bread. "I was in Azkaban myself when he was brought in. This is mostly stuff I've found out since I got out. The boy was definitely caught in the company of people I'd bet my life were Death Eaters – but he might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, just like the house elf."

"Did Crouch try and get his son off?" Hermione whispered, clearly afraid to hear the answer.

Sirius barked a laugh, "Crouch let his son off? I thought you had the measure of him, Hermione! Anything that threatened to tarnish his reputation had to go. He had dedicated his whole life to becoming Minister of Magic. You saw him dismiss a devoted house elf because she associated him with the Dark Mark again – doesn't that tell you what he's like? Crouch's fatherly affection stretched just far enough to give his son a trial, and by all accounts, it wasn't much more than an excuse for Crouch to show how much he hated the boy. Then he sent him straight to Azkaban."

"He gave his own son to the dementors?" Harry asked quietly, a look of pure terror on his face.

"That's right," Sirius said, and he didn't look remotely amused anymore. "I saw the dementors bringing him in, watched them through the bars in my cell door. He can't have been more than nineteen. They took him into a cell near mine. He was screaming for his mother by nightfall. He went quiet after a few days, though. They all went quiet in the end. Except when they shrieked in their sleep."

For a moment, the deadened look in Sirius's eyes became more pronounced than Draco could ever imagine on anyone, as though shutters had closed behind them. As though he was back in his cell, seeing every spot in the rotting walls and hearing every poor soul trapped, some accused as falsely as he had been.

"So he's still in Azkaban?" Harry said.

"No," said Sirius dully. "No, he's not in there anymore. He died about a year after they brought him in."

"He died?" Draco asked, though it sounded more like a statement.

“That he did, cousin mine. And he wasn't the only one," said Sirius bitterly. "Most go mad in there, and plenty stop eating at one point. They lose the will to live. You could always tell when a death was coming, because the dementors could sense it, they got excited. That boy looked pretty sickly when he arrived. Crouch being an important Ministry member, he and his wife were allowed a deathbed visit. That was the last time I saw Barty Crouch, half carrying his wife past my cell. She died herself, apparently, shortly afterward. Grief. Wasted away just like the boy. Crouch never came for his son’s body. The dementors buried him outside the fortress. I watched them do it."

Sirius threw aside the bread he had just lifted to his mouth and instead picked up the flask of pumpkin juice and drained it. Draco was sure he himself would have thrown up if he’d had memories even near as terrifying and dark. So much for being a Slytherin, he thought.

"So old Crouch lost it all, just when he thought he had it made," he continued, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "One moment, a hero, poised to become Minister of Magic...next, son dead, wife dead, the family name dishonored, and, so I've heard since I escaped, a big drop in popularity. Once the boy had died, people started feeling a bit more sympathetic toward the son and started asking how a nice young lad from a good family had gone so badly astray. The conclusion was that his father never cared much for him. So, Cornelius Fudge got the top job, and Crouch was shunted sideways into the Department of International Magical Cooperation."

Draco thought back to the way Crouch’s face had looked when he’d seen his house-elf in the woods. He’d barely noticed, more concerned as to his own survival, but he could see it so clearly now. It wasn’t simply an overreaction on Crouch’s part, it was a stinging memory of his son’s indiscretion and the scandal that overshadowed his family name to this day, at least from the witches and wizards that remembered the instance.

"Moody says Crouch is obsessed with catching Dark wizards," Harry told Sirius. Draco might have been imagining it, but his voice sounded cautious.

"Yeah, I've heard it's become a bit of a mania with him," Sirius said, nodding. "If you ask me, he still thinks he can bring back the old popularity by catching one more Death Eater."

"And he sneaked up here to search Snape's office!" Weasly half-yelled triumphantly, looking at Hermione. Draco looked between the four of them, trying to decipher what had happened with his godfather.

"Yes, and that doesn't make sense at all," said Sirius.

"Yeah, it does!" said Ron excitedly.

Sirius shook his head, "Listen, if Crouch wants to investigate Snape, why hasn't he been coming to judge the tournament? It would be an ideal excuse to make regular visits to Hogwarts and keep an eye on him,” Sirius looked on the verge of rolling his eyes. Draco liked the man more with every passing second.

"So, you think Snape could be up to something, then?" Harry wondered, but Hermione broke in, starting something about Dumbledore trusting Snape, to which Weasel cut in with Dumbledore not being able to know every possible dark wizard on Earth. Hermione’s counter point was about Severus apparently having saved Potter’s life three years ago, a fact that he had neglected to mention to his godson. Weasley thought he only did it because Dumbledore would have kicked him out. Draco watched this exchange like it was bloody Wimbledon. At least that’s what he thought Wimbledon was, Pansy had been half-asleep when explaining it to him.

Draco could see something die in Hermione’s eyes every time a new word came out of Weasley’s mouth. How she had ever felt anything towards him enough to cry over him after the Yule Ball was inexplicable to Draco, but he was glad to see it disappearing.

"What d'you think, Sirius?" Harry asked loudly, and Ron and Hermione stopped bickering to listen, both surprisingly able to shut up for longer than a second.

"I think they've both got a point," said Sirius, looking thoughtfully at Weasley and Hermione. "Ever since I found out Snape was teaching here, I've wondered why Dumbledore hired him. Snape's always been fascinated by the Dark Arts, he was famous for it at school. Slimy, oily, greasy-haired kid, he was," Sirius added, and Harry and Wesley grinned at each other as Draco scowled at the insults thrown at his closest adult confidant in Hogwarts. "Snape knew more curses when he arrived at school than half the kids in seventh year, and he was part of a gang of Slytherins who nearly all turned out to be Death Eaters."

Sirius held up his fingers and began ticking off names. He included Lestranges who Draco did his best not to think about, disgraced that one of them was related to him. There were a few that had been killed by Aurors, one or two who had apparently gotten off by swearing they’d been under the Imperius Curse, as well as a few who had never been caught, though Severus had apparently been accused in the first place.

"Snape knows Karkaroff pretty well, but he wants to keep that quiet," Weasley stated.

"Yeah, you should've seen Snape's face when Karkaroff turned up in Potions yesterday!" Harry said quickly, just as Draco was beginning to wonder how they knew. "Karkaroff wanted to talk to Snape, said Snape's been avoiding him. Karkaroff looked really worried. He showed Snape something on his arm, but I couldn't see what it was."

Draco’s head snapped up. So did Sirius’, “He showed Snape something on his arm?" the only adult amongst them asked, looking frankly bewildered. Draco sat up straighter. Sirius ran his fingers distractedly through his filthy hair and eyed Draco’s reaction, then shrugged again. "Well, I've no idea what that's about… but if Karkaroff’s genuinely worried, and he's going to Snape for answers…"

Draco had never voiced it aloud, but he’d seen the tattoo on his father’s wrist. He never would have asked his father, afraid of a scolding from a dragonhide belt, but the second he brought it up with his mother, she’d taken his face roughly in hir hands and made him swear he would never voice the question again. It hadn’t taken him more than a few seconds to piece together that Karkaroff having something on his wrist that was apparently well-recognized by Slytherins and Slytherin-adjacent wizards did not mean the best of odds.

Sirius kept looking at Draco, then made a grimace of frustration. "There's still the fact that Dumbledore trusts Snape, and I know Dumbledore trusts where a lot of other people wouldn't, but I just can't see him letting Snape teach at Hogwarts if he'd ever worked for Voldemort."

"Why are Moody and Crouch so keen to get into Snapes office then?" Weasley asked stubbornly. As much as it annoyed Draco, it wasn’t a bad question.

"Well," said Sirius slowly, "I wouldn't put it past Mad-Eye to have searched every single teacher's office when he got to Hogwarts. He takes his Defence Against the Dark Arts seriously, Moody. I'm not sure he trusts anyone at all, and after the things he's seen, it's not surprising. I'll say this for Moody, though, he never killed if he could help it. Always brought people in alive where possible. He was tough, but he never descended to the level of the Death Eaters. Crouch, though, he's a different matter. Is he really ill? If he is, why did he make the effort to drag himself up to Snape's office? And if he's not, what is he up to? What was he doing at the World Cup that was so important he didn't turn up in the Top Box? What's he been doing while he should have been judging the tournament?" Sirius lapsed into silence after the rapid monologue, now staring at the cave wall. Buckbeak was ferreting around on the rocky floor, looking for bones he might have overlooked. Finally, Sirius looked up at Weasley. "You say your brother’s Crouch's personal assistant? Any chance you could ask him if he's seen Crouch lately?"

"I can try," Weasley shrugged doubtfully. "Better not make it sound like I reckon Crouch is up to anything dodgy, though. Percy loves Crouch." No shit, Draco thought.

Sirius heaved an enormous sigh and rubbed his shadowed eyes, "What's the time?" he asked.

Harry checked his watch, looking disappointed. Draco noticed it wasn’t ticking when he looked down at the Gryffindor’s wrist, and the time was far from correct.

"It's half past three," Hermione said helpfully.

"You'd better get back to school," Sirius said, getting to his feet. "Now listen," He looked particularly hard at Harry. "I don't want you lot sneaking out of school to see me, all right? Just send notes to me here. I still want to hear about anything odd. But you're not to go leaving Hogwarts without permission; it would be an ideal opportunity for someone to attack you."

"No one's tried to attack me so far, except a dragon and a couple of grindylows," Harry joked, but his godfather scowled at him.

"I don't care. I'll breathe freely again when this tournament's over, and that's not until June. And don't forget, if you're talking about me among yourselves, call me Snuffles, okay? That includes you, Draco, although I would greatly appreciate you not bringing my name out of the people in the cave at this very moment.” Draco nodded quickly. He wasn’t even dreaming of telling anyone. Not even Blaise and Pansy. Weasley had a sour look on his face. Draco ignored him, as did everyone else.

Sirius handed Harry the empty napkin and flask and turned to Draco. “May I have a word, Draco?” Draco nodded again, already sensing the warning about to ensue about not hurting Harry and not even thinking about talking about Sirius’ existence outside the walls of this cave, but Sirius simply smiled when he’d lead Draco outside and behind a thicket of trees. “You needn’t worry about Narcissa,” he said after a moment of wondering how to say it. All the alarms in Draco’s head went off, but he listened instead of demanding more information instantly. “I can’t tell you much, but I can tell you she is safe. If I wasn’t as concerned as I am about Harry, and seemingly as concerned as you, too, I’d be quite near. But please know it is a magically enforced place, and she is safer than she would be at the Manor. These are the words she herself used. It is not a message from her, I will let you know promptly when I have any news, but know that she chose to remain there and she is perfectly well.”

Draco sighed, relief leaving his body he had not noticed until his tense muscles stopped trembling from days’ worth of pent-up worry for his mother. “Thank you,” Draco said, tears swelling up in his eyes.

“Come now,” Sirius chuckled and pulled Draco into the quickest of hugs. “She will see you in just a few short months,” he promised. “Now, go, keep my godson safe for me, will you?” he winked, returning to the other three. Draco had no time to ask what he’d meant, but he wasn’t sure he’d want to know the answer. He had no need to have Sirius Black of all people know about his feelings towards the little idiot who never managed to stay out of trouble. It was enough knowing himself.

Sirius went back into the cave to pat Buckbeak good-bye. "I'll walk to the edge of the village with you," said Sirius from inside, "see if I can scrounge another paper." He transformed back into the great black dog before he left the cave again, and they walked back down the mountainside with him, across the boulder-strewn ground, and back to the stile. Here he allowed each of them to pat him on the head, even Draco, who had at first thought he’d abstain, but when Sirius in dog form looked up at him expectantly, he had no choice but to smile despite himself and pat his head as well. Then he turned and set off at a run around the outskirts of the village.  

Harry never asked when Sirius had said, he looked as if he could sense it wasn’t his place.

Draco made his way back into Hogsmeade a little ways ahead of the Golden Trio, dipping into the Three Broomsticks before anyone could notice the three of them following.

Chapter Text

“Knight to E5,” Pansy said, leafing through a muggle fashion magazine with clear boredom on her face, her feet kicked up on the armrest of the emerald green couch in the Slytherin common room and her head barely turning to see what changes Blaise’s turn had brought to the board.

Draco watched his friends closely. Pansy’s disinterest wasn’t out of the ordinary, but Blaise had never focussed this much on wizard chess when he was feeling alright. Draco opened his mouth, but chickened out immediately. He wanted to ask how Lisa was. He didn’t. They’d both been so nice to him lately, he had no intention to challenge them.

He’d calmed down a bit about his mother, tried his best not to bring up Harry as much as he used to, but even the week of silence and peace didn’t calm his Voldemort-centric stupor. He was in constant dread and convinced beyond reason that this was the calm before the storm. That these were the last moments he would get to spend with his friends before his life was turned upside down and he would have to fight for literal survival. He’d have to pick a side. He was quite sure he’d already picked one.

The chess pieces continued to ravage each other, leaving small chunks of stone where they had previously stood, a few flying onto Draco’s lap once in a while. He’d pick them up and place them back on the ornate table, a tiny arm still swinging a stone sword even after its defeat. Draco remembered Harry. That certainly looked like something the idiot Gryffindor would do.

It was a small distraction to listen to Hermione’s howlers during breakfast from her steadily-growing horde of haters from the Witch Weekly article Pansy had let him read on her own copy, but even then, Pansy would be the one to talk her down and Draco would be the second-hand listener to all the drama. He wasn’t entirely opposed to it, glad to know Pansy was using her extensive knowledge of the female dramatics where neither Harry nor Weasley would be of any help to poor Hermione. Pansy seemed to be enjoying it, too, after years of watching Draco and Blaise smack each other in the head whenever they were in disagreement and immediately fixing the problem, she could now actually use what she’d learned from, as she called it, romcoms. Draco had no clue where to even begin in understanding what that was.

Their secretive meetings always took place in the library shortly before curfew and left Pansy humming merrily when she returned to the Slytherin common room. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Granger is a magnificent kisser,” Blaise noted, watching his friend walking to the girls’ bedrooms.

“And you know better?” Draco teased.

“No, Draco, I have yet to kiss Hermione Granger,” Blaise rolled his eyes and returned to his homework, “will let you know if the opportunity arises.”

“Well, you do like the smart ones,” Draco murmured under his breath.

“Excuse me?” Blaise asked, an amused smirk in one corner of his mouth.

“Come off it, you do. I’m willing to bet now that you’ve tasted Ravenclaw wine, you’ll never step back out to Slytherins,” Draco informed his friend. “Which you can now try out, as Lisa has obviously broken up with you.”

Blaise seemed to think that over before giving Draco a little huff and turning back to his DADA essay. Draco smirked as he waited. He’d planted a seed, he knew there’d be more now. “Do you really think Granger is out there shagging Pans in the library every night?” Blaise asked. There it was.

“Of course, not, she’s feisty, but not feisty enough for our Pans. She’s probably just glad to finally have a female friend to talk to about…dresses?”

Blaise’s eyes returned to his parchment. Draco could see the inner battle in his friend’s head as he tried not to say any more. “I broke up with Lisa, not the other way around,” he murmured bitterly, making Draco laugh. “Shut it, Malfoy,” he added for good measure, earning a smack to the side of his head from the blonde. “Yeah, I know, sorry.”

The morning brought an excited Pansy winking across the Great Hall to a never-before-seen overconfident but tired Hermione. Draco wasn’t sure he liked this dynamic, but he would be lying if he’d said he wasn’t interested to see where it was going. Harry, similarly, looked like pure shite, and before Draco knew it, he was done with breakfast, on the verge of being late to class, and pulled into the little spiral side staircase he’d found Pansy and Hermione on after the Yule ball.

“What’s happened?” he asked as kindly as he could muster, as much as he hated being late for any of Snape’s classes. More in fear of disappointing his godfather and less because there would ever be any punishment, though.

“Alright, so, last night,” Harry begun, taking a moment too long to look around and make sure no one would hear them.

“Oh, for Merlin’s sake, Potter, out with it.”

“Last night, I was supposed to find out what the third task would be, right?” he said, not even flinching at the ancient way Draco used to once call him back when they hated each other. “Anyway, after that, Krum pulled me aside to talk to me about me and Hermione…”

“You and Hermione?” Draco said with a raised eyebrow, hoping to muggle God he didn’t look as jealous as he felt.

“The bullshit Skeeter has been spewing about me and Hermione,” Potter corrected with an annoyed and dismissing tone, “and right after, we saw Crouch coming out of the forest. Only it was like he was a different man. He was all pale and grey and talking nonsense about Voldemort and Dumbledore, and-“

“What did he say?”

“Well, I was getting to that,” Potter said in a miffed voice.

“No, you were very vaguely avoiding getting to it,” Draco corrected, unable to stop himself from making the joke even though it sounded like far too serious of a situation to be doing so. He couldn’t help himself. There was something about teasing Harry that he just couldn’t get out of his head.

“Oh, God, Draco, please,” Harry said impatiently, and suddenly the Slytherin was on the verge of blushing and wishing those words were coming out of his mouth in a much different setting. “He was talking about his wife and son, and how he’d made a mistake, and how Voldemort was getting stronger and he had to warn Dumbledore. He also mentioned Bertha Jorkins, said she was dead. Nothing else he said made any sense. Honestly, none of this made sense either.”

“Did he do something to you?” Draco asked perhaps a little too worriedly.

“No, I ran to find Dumbledore, but by the time we’d got back Crouch was nowhere around and Viktor was on the ground, stupefied. Ron thinks it was Crouch that attacked Viktor and ran away.”

“What does Hermione think?” Draco asked, dismissing any and all of Ron’s theories as soon as possible.

“That we need to talk to Moody. We already told Sirius. Either way, Draco you were right. Very right, this whole time. Voldemort is definitely coming back.”

“While I do like hearing how right I am, this is not exactly thrilling news to have predicted correctly,” Draco said, leaning against the stone wall behind him while the heavy silence around them rung louder and louder. “What’s the task?”

“What? oh, right…A maze. The Triwizard cup would be in the middle, we’ll have to fight all sorts of creatures to get to it. First one there is the winner.”

Draco nodded thoughtfully. “Study up on those DADA spells, maybe even the stunning one,” he advised, checking the time again, “make sure to see Moody as soon as you can, let me know what you found out. And, please, get some sleep, you look terrible.”

Harry nodded with the slightest and most absent of smiles, making Draco wonder why the other boy suddenly felt like letting Draco know everything that was happening in his life. A sliver of hope for reciprocated feelings dug through his heart and he had to push it back down in how ridiculous it was. Potter was just being nice because Draco was being nice. It was in his bloody stupid Gryffindor trusting nature. Still, Draco hadn’t exactly provided any valuable help in the matter. It was almost like Harry just wanted him to know what was happening.

Pansy was back in the common room more often than not in the evenings now, shrugging when either Blaise or Draco asked her about it and saying Hermione was teaching Harry hexes for the third task. Draco was quite sure that with the years he’d spent getting leg-locked, Harry had a pretty clear understanding of how hexes worked even without Hermione’s input, but he also knew how eager the girl was to help Harry, even if she wasn’t in the Witch Weekly alleged relationship.

Just when Draco was beginning to worry how much of his life was recently centred around Harry, another letter arrived from his mother, this time slightly more intricate than the single sentence he’d received a couple of weeks ago.

Darling Draco,

My sincerest apologies for I have not been able to find a moment to write, and have only recently found a safe enough residence to send a letter from. It has been a difficult few weeks, but do not worry, for your frail old mother has still some fight in her left.

I do hope you haven’t attempted any contact with our old home, I cannot tell you over post just how dangerous it would be, but as soon as I’ve picked you up at the end of term, I promise, my little dragon, to tell you every single detail.

For now, though, all you need know is that I am safe. We do still have family that is prepared to take care of us, and as soon as I have you back, we’ll find a more permanent home in London, I have been assured.

For now, my darling boy, keep your head down, don’t cause too much trouble with Harry Potter, I beg of you.

I love you until the ends of Earth,

Mother

Draco stared at the letter. Old home. Difficult few weeks. Family. Don’t cause trouble with Harry, if only she knew. He folded it carefully as Blaise and Pansy watched him. They didn’t ask to read it. They knew that if Draco wanted, he’d tell them. Draco placed the letter in his school bag, not really in the mood to talk about it until he’s thought more about its contents.

What family could they still have to take them in? Who would still care to help them? For a moment, Draco’s blood ran cold with the thought that he’d have to move into his aunt Bellatrix’ old house from before she’d been sent to Azkaban, but let the thought fade away with a shiver.

With the lack of mention of his father, he had to assume it wasn’t the distant Malfoys that were ever so eager to suddenly take interest in them, and if he had to play nice with Harry even per his mother’s request, he was hoping to all that was sacred that mother had found a safe place to stay on the side of the frontlines he’d recently become so close to.

He would not become a Death Eater. Even if it meant running off alone. He’d help Harry and Sirius until it sucked the life out of him. Until Voldemort himself tried to rip him away from them. This was the good side, and despite what everyone and their mothers believed, Draco Malfoy was bloody good.

“So,” Pansy said, doing her best not to sound like there was anything out of the ordinary, bless her, “you’re clearly helping us study for Herbology, what with how many times you’ve probably reread that thing,” she nodded to Draco’s copy of the textbook.

“I am going to need some aid with History of Magic in return, though,” Draco forced a smile, getting a laugh from Blaise, the silence continuing soon after. He didn’t want to speak about it. Not until he knew for a fact his mother was alright and healthy as ever. And, although he believed Sirius, he had to see her with his own eyes, hold her in his own arms.

June seemed more tense than ever. Draco had to wonder if the mood in the castle would ever again be as bright and sunny as the days outside. The younger years were enjoying the sunlight, unfretted by the gravity and reality of the life around them. Their teachers and families would be protecting them from it all for as long as they could, and the sad truth was, even though he was just fourteen, Draco was becoming an adult, and in the case of another war breaking out in the closest few years, or even months, he’d be drafted as one.

Even many of his peers didn’t seem to be burdened with the knowledge he was. Pansy and Blaise may not have actively been asking, but they too knew something was coming, as much as Blaise liked to disprove it to the best of his abilities. It was difficult to ignore when you knew even the slightest bit.

The Tournament had taken up most of everyone’s minds, which, Draco supposed, was a blessing in disguise. At least mass panic would not be starting all at once. They’d be eased into it. That was all anyone could hope for now.

The three of them tried not to be bothered by Nott’s antics, yet every day the idiot and his two cake-stuffed goons managed to find another way to annoy anyone around them, even starting to make a few Slytherin eyes roll. Draco wondered just how short-lived his reign of terribly minor terror would last, chuckling to himself at the idea of his old childhood friend wanting to be like him so bad, and failing so miserably.

Draco had not had a chance to speak to Harry again as the Gryffindor spent any available moment practicing hexes and defence spells. Draco considered making him a list of the ones any proper Slytherin learns from their older siblings before arriving at Hogwarts, or sometimes from the older children of family friends, though he had a feeling Hermione was doing a brilliant job procuring her own list, and he had no cause for worry. Still, worry he did, if not for Harry getting though the maze untouched, then at least for him focusing on getting through the task before he turns his attention to the thoughts of the future currently nagging at Draco himself.

It seemed almost impossible to think he hadn’t spoken to harry for weeks, especially now that the two of them were beyond civil. Draco’s fifteenth birthday came and went in a haze, a joint present from Pansy and Blaise here, a single one wrapped in brown parchment from his mother there, no word from his father as he had grown accustomed by now. It stung a bit, having the person he’d based his entire personality around ripped from his life without an explanation, but he held his head up high and took things one day at a time, if only to put his mother’s mind at ease.

On the morning of the third task the Gryffindor table was the loudest during breakfast. It was soon surpassed, when the mail came, carrying everyone’s issues of the Daily Prophet, the headline seeming larger than even usually.

HARRY POTTER “DISTURBED AND DANGEROUS”

The boy who defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is unstable and possibly dangerous, writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent. Alarming evidence has recently come to light about Harry Potter's strange behaviour, which casts doubts upon his suitability to compete in a demanding competition like the Triwizard Tournament, or even to attend Hogwarts School. Potter, the Daily Prophet can exclusively reveal, regularly collapses at school, and is often heard to complain of pain in the scar on his forehead (relic of the curse with which You-Know-Who attempted to kill him). On Monday last, midway through a Divination lesson, your Daily Prophet reporter witnessed Potter storming from the class, claiming that his scar was hurting too badly to continue studying.

It is possible, say top experts at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, that Potter’s brain was affected by the attack inflicted upon him by You-Know-Who, and that his insistence that the scar is still hurting is an expression of his deep-seated confusion. "He might even be pretending," said one specialist. "This could be a plea for attention." The Daily Prophet, however, has unearthed worrying facts about Harry Potter that Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, has carefully concealed from the wizarding public.

"Potter can speak Parseltongue," reveals Theodore Nott, a Hogwarts fourth year. "There were a lot of attacks on students a couple of years ago, and most people thought Potter was behind them after they saw him lose his temper at a duelling club and set a snake on my best friend. It was all hushed up, though. But he's made friends with werewolves and giants too. We think he'd do anything for a bit of power."

Parseltongue, the ability to converse with snakes, has long been considered a Dark Art. Indeed, the most famous Parselmouth of our times is none other than You-Know-Who himself. A member of the Dark Force Defense League, who wished to remain unnamed, stated that he would regard any wizard who could speak Parseltongue as “worthy of investigation. Personally, I would be highly suspicious of anybody who could converse with snakes, as serpents are often used in the worst kinds of Dark Magic, and are historically associated with evildoers." Similarly, "anyone who seeks out the company of such vicious creatures as werewolves and giants would appear to have a fondness for violence." Albus Dumbledore should surely consider whether a boy such as this should be allowed to compete in the Triwizard Tournament. Some fear that Potter might resort to the Dark Arts in his desperation to win the tournament, the third task of which takes place this evening.

A few seats over on the Slytherin table, Nott, Crabbe, and Goyle were laughing at him, tapping their heads with their fingers, pulling grotesquely mad faces, and waggling their tongues like snakes. Harry himself did not seem to mind too much, making a light comment at Hermione and Ron and folding the paper back up.

“How would she get that information? She’s not allowed within school grounds,” Pansy said hotly, an almost desperately frustrated look on her face, the side of the newspaper beginning to crumple under her grip.

It took Draco a few seconds to notice, but soon after Hermione was jumping up from her seat and heading out of the hall, throwing a not-so-subtle look Pansy’s way. Draco had always wondered what Pansy would be like with proper female attention, not just the fluttery, blind following she’d gained from the other Slytherin girls, but this was beyond silly now. Yet, the second he thought of commenting on it, he saw Harry’s confused eyes all the way across the hall and realised commenting would make him a hypocrite.

With Pansy gone on Hermione’s toes, he could throw a questioning nod towards the Gryffindor table and earn a shrug from the lump of dark curls all the way across the room. Well, if they had no hope in understanding their more beautiful of friends, at least they still had each other to be confused together. That, and Harry, thankfully, had actually used Draco’s advice and got some sleep before the third task.

“She’ll be late for Binns’ exam,” Blaise said calmly, taking a bite off his toast.

“Not like he’d notice either way,” Draco chuckled, finishing his plate and getting up to leave for the History of Magic exam – the one he’d never looked forward to in the slightest, yet always managed to ace.

Sometimes he couldn’t believe how much information he could retain while being as bored as he was in Binns’ classes and mostly continuing his breakfast since it was the first of the day and he tended to take a muffin or two from the table to snack on during the painfully dull class. He let Blaise copy a few of his answers off his sheet, Binns himself trailing his see-through body up and down the classroom more for appearances than actual practical reasons. The man had not noticed half his class taking a nap every single lesson, why would he notice a couple of overly careful Slytherins violating a bit of academic integrity?

Pansy had joined the exam only ten minutes after its start, Hermione sneaking in soon after, which Draco only managed to notice because he was in the furthest seat from the front of the class. They both had knowing smiles on their faces as they took the two free seats without so much as apologising or even acknowledging their tardiness to the professor. She answered no questions after the exam was over, pretending not to have heard whenever they posed any.

He noticed a plump red-haired woman around during lunch, followed closely by a handsome man with long hair and fangs for earrings. If he hadn’t instantly been able to tell it was another Weasley, Draco would have been terribly, horribly, painfully attracted.

“Shouldn’t you be on your way to help Potter with some last-minute advice by now?” Pansy wondered, sitting on the grass in the afternoon, watching the first years frolicking around near the lake, clearly waiting for the Giant Squid to splash them.

“Shouldn’t you be telling us what you and Hermione were so excited about?” Blaise suggested before Draco could respond.

“Shouldn’t you be supportive of the successful inter-house relations Draco and myself have so wonderfully been building? And shouldn’t you be putting some effort into that by now?” She quipped back.

“Just because one of you is in love with the Boy Who Lived and the other one has suddenly become best mates with Granger doesn’t mean I’m getting onto the Gryffindor bandwagon,” Blaise answered simply.

“Neutrality won’t be a sufficient currency soon enough,” Pansy reminded in a sing-song voice.

Draco watched his friends through his lashes as he studied his DADA notes. They’d both taken a pause to look over at Draco to make sure they hadn’t gone too far with the jokes. He almost wanted to roll his eyes, but had to stop himself to remind his worried mind that they were only looking out for him in uncertain times.

“If you’re so concerned about hurting my feelings, Blaise, may I suggest choosing a side in the upcoming war?” Draco challenged his friend.

Blaise huffed an unimpressed laugh and continued to tease Pansy well into dinner. Dinner that Draco mostly spent watching a paling Harry Potter across two tables of excited, unworried chatter, accompanied by the clacking of silverware.

As the enchanted ceiling overhead began to fade from blue to a dusky purple, Dumbledore rose to his feet at the staff table, and silence fell over the room. "Ladies and gentlemen, in five minutes' time, I will be asking you to make your way down to the Quidditch field for the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament. Will the champions please follow Mr. Bagman down to the stadium now."

Harry got up. The Gryffindors all along the table were applauding him, the Weasleys and Hermione all loudly wished him good luck, and he headed off out of the Great Hall with Diggory, Fleur, and Krum.

Draco let Pansy finish her desert before pulling the two of them onto the grounds.  They walked onto the Quidditch field, which was now completely unrecognisable. A twenty-foot-high hedge ran all the way around the edge of it. There was a gap right in front of them – the entrance to the vast maze. The passage beyond it looked dark and creepy. Once again Draco was reminded how glad he was not to have had any chance at being the Hogwarts Champion.

He was on his way to find his friends in the stands after being knocked back by a group of seventh years, when an arm grabbed him, pulling him further into darkness where the voices of other students were muffled and less painfully loud. He was concerned before realising it was Potter, seeming eager and nervous. If Draco didn’t know any better, he’d say the boy was scared.

“Hey, have you practiced? What are you wearing?” Draco laughed, noticing the champion attire Harry had apparently been required to don.

“Listen to me, listen,” Harry said hastily. “I saw a dream about Voldemort torturing Wormtail,” his words rumbled quickly, “Peter Pettigrew,” he explained, seeing Draco’s face. “I think it was real, it was what was really happening at that moment, and it was so real, in fact, that I woke up with my scar burning.”

“Are you okay now?” Draco asked, pushing down the wish to touch Harry’s forehead softly, to feel the roughness of his legendary scar where it met tan skin. The tiniest of hopes to ease the pain that the scar forced upon the boy once in a while. At least it explained the Daily Prophet article.

“Yes, don’t worry, but listen,” Harry continued and Draco had to pull himself out of his thoughts just to focus. “I went to tell Dumbledore and looked into his Pensieve,” he continued, “do you know what that is?”

“Of course, I do, there are three in the Manor,” he scoffed, a sudden thought forming of how he might never see either of them again. Might never see his ancestral home again.

Harry did not react to the boast and kept on talking, “I saw a few trials from back when the war was ending and they were trying Death Eaters,” he explained, glancing around as he spoke to make sure no one was looking for him yet, “Dumbledore said he’d been to most of the court proceedings.”

“That must have taken ages, I imagine there were a lot of them,” Draco pondered.

“He also told me people are disappearing. Muggles as well as witches and wizards. Gone, without a trace,” Harry added, Draco’s limbs running cold. It was all true. It suddenly felt all too real.

“What did you see in the trials?” Draco asked cautiously.

“Death Eaters, and suspected ones, locked up in front of a room full of ministry officials questioning them. It looked intense.”

“Well, they were Death Eaters, they’d done worse things than that,” Draco reminded his friend.

“Ludo Bagman,” Harry recalled, “he was suspected, but said he’d passed information unknowingly. Not sure how that’s possible. “Karkaroff was there, ratted out anyone he could,” Harry remembered. Draco shrugged at this information. He had no particular thoughts about the Durmstrang headmaster, but him being a Death Eater had already been a suspicion, having heard Harry talking about his arm. And a cowardly one at that? Seemed right.

“Snape was one of them,” Harry said defiantly, taking Draco by surprise. Sure, his godfather had never been the most colourful of souls, but he’d never pegged him for an actual Death Eater. “Dumbledore vouched for him, said he’d turned before Voldemort started losing and became a double agent.”

“Merlin,” Draco whispered absently. He could see clearly why Severus wouldn’t want him knowing any of this, but he wasn’t exactly fond of the idea that a Death Eater was his godfather. Suspected or guilty, redeemed or not. Especially now that the sky seemed to be turning darker and darker by the second.

“Dumbledore trusts him,” Harry said bitterly. Draco couldn’t blame him, he wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about the man right now either. “I’m pretty sure Dumbledore is required to stay here during the entirety of the task. The password is Cockroach Cluster. Maybe you should…”

“I will, yes,” Draco looked behind Harry to see McGonagall already looking for him. “You have to go,” he said quickly and pulled Harry in for a hug that the Gryffindor didn’t seem to want to let go of. “Good luck,” he whispered when they’d finally let go and Harry unwillingly stammered back towards the rest of the champions.

The stands were beginning to fill, the air was full of excited voices and the rumbling of feet as hundreds of students filed into their seats. The sky was a deep, clear blue now, and the first stars were starting to appear. Draco knew that if he walked back to the castle, no one would notice him. He didn’t stick around to hear Ludo Bagman’s speech, he had no interest in it. Harry had enough support as it was from the myriad of Weasleys that always seemed to be on his side no matter the occasion.

The castle was empty and silent aside from the echoes that came all the way from what had once been the Quidditch pitch. The speech must have been over because all he could hear now was muffled cheering and the nearly-satisfactory brass section of the Hogwarts marching band. Had Hogwarts always had a marching band?

Draco knew quite well where the headmaster’s office was, as on occasion Snape would send him there after a particularly nasty hex aimed at none other than Harry himself, if only to keep up appearances. Mostly, his godfather seemed pleased whenever Draco had managed to stick it to one of the Gryffindors, but it would seem suspicious if the head of his house would always let him off scot-free.

“Cockroach Cluster,” he said quietly, in case there still was someone lurking around the halls. The gargoyle stood still. “Damn it, Potter,” he muttered. “Sherbet Lemon? Bertie Bott’s? Chocolate Frog,” he tried and the stone creature sprung to life without warning, jumping aside to let Draco step on the spiral staircase. “Narcissist,” Draco scoffed. He knew the Dumbledore card was the easiest to get. He had about 47 of those.

Dumbledore’s office always made him nervous. If not for the eyes of the headmaster’s predecessors staring at him from their portraits, a few members of his mother’s house, in fact, then for the oddly specific and terribly well-aimed lecture he always received from the old man with the half-moon spectacles. He should probably be worried about being found, especially since Dumbledore seemed to be aware of everything happening in the castle, but right now, the only thought in his head was of his godfather and the potential hurt he could cause to Draco’s family.

There was a cabinet in the corner, a shallow, silvery light coming from it in weak but inviting streams. He knew that light. He’d seen it several times in his father’s study, though he’d never been allowed to touch or go near it. He opened the door to reveal the shallow stone basin within, odd carvings of runes and symbols around its edge. There was a memory already swimming inside, so he found an empty vial to put it back in before he started digging through the contents of the cabinet in search for one of his godfather from fourteen years ago.

Dumbledore seemed to have a system, though not one that Draco could crack on his own, besides the old madman’s handwriting was unintelligible. Draco’s fingers were shaking. Fawkes was watching him in curiosity and Draco didn’t like being surveyed.

He had to take a few deep breaths and let his anger simmer down a bit before he could continue. He leaned against the side of the stone basin, his head falling as he counted his breaths. He’d learned to do that when his father got angry and his body couldn’t choose between crying and shouting back. Counting made him calm.

He looked back up at the shelves on the cabinet, still counting his breaths. It wasn’t divided into years or decades, it wasn’t divided into subjects of the memory. Hundreds of vials, and he had no clue where to even start.

One by one, he picked up the vials and focussed as hard as he could on Dumbledore’s handwriting. It took a good thirty vials before he realised they weren’t divided into specific moments in history, more general topics they concerned, and there was an entire section that somehow connected to Voldemort, and, therefore, to Harry. “Of course, there is,” he scoffed and started looking through quicker.

Severus’ name luckily appeared a few times, and he could no longer take it, so he started picking out random vials, hoping to find anything that could redeem his godfather in his eyes. He poured the liquid memories into the Pensieve.

A young Severus Snape, maybe in sixth or seventh year, sat reading by a tree dear the Great Lake. It was a warm day. Draco had to stumble forward when his feet hit the ground. It was so strange to be back outside, during the day. He looked over to the Quidditch pitch – there were no voices, no maze, not Harry. He looked back to the castle. Hogwarts looked so familiar yet so different.

“Snivellus!’ a voice called out, taking Severus’ attention away from the book. He shut it quickly, shoving it into his dark leather bag. A blond boy sat near him, speaking in hushed tones and with a dashing smile to another Slytherin girl. Draco realised with a start that it was his father. “Fancy seeing you here!” the boy continued yelling, on his way over to the Slytherins, an entourage of three following behind, snickering.

“In the school we all go to?” Severus said stiffly. He looked afraid. There was something distinctly Potter about the leader of the Gryffindor gang. Draco had a feeling he now knew why his godfather was never opposed to him hexing Harry.

“One more look towards Lily and you will die faster than you can say patronus,” the Gryffindor boy warned, Severus’ eyes showing sudden uncharacteristic fear.

Draco looked around, seeing Dumbledore watching the scene play out from the courtyard. He wanted to shout and ask if this was what he thought being a good headmaster was, but knew better. He couldn’t influence a memory.

He leaned backwards, his back stiff. He stretched before looking for more vials with Severus’ name on them. James Potter…James Potter…James Potter…

Any sound of Dumbledore apparating had been drowned by the sound of the wind in the branches. It took Draco by surprise, making him wince at the sudden noise. Dumbledore stood before Snape with his robes whipping around him, and his face was illuminated from below in the light cast by his wand. “Well, Severus? What message does Lord Voldemort have for me?”

“No, no message. I’m here on my own account!” Severus was wringing his hands. He looked a little mad, with his straggling black hair flying around him. He was so young. “I – I come with a warning, no, a request, please…”

Dumbledore flicked his wand. Though leaves and branches still flew through the night air around them, silence fell on the spot where he and Snape faced each other. “What request could a Death Eater make of me?”

“The – the prophecy…the prediction…Trelawney…”

“Ah, yes,” said Dumbledore. “How much did you relay to Lord Voldemort?”

“Everything – everything I heard!” said Snape. “That is why – it is for that reason – he thinks it means Lily Evans!”

“The prophecy did not refer to a woman,” said Dumbledore. “It spoke of a boy born at the end of July –”

“You know what I mean! He thinks it means her son, he is going to hunt her down – kill them all…”

“If she means so much to you,” said Dumbledore in what Draco could tell was a calculated tone, “surely Lord Voldemort will spare her? Could you not ask for mercy for the mother, in exchange for the son?”

“I have – I have asked him –”

“You disgust me,” said Dumbledore, and Draco had never heard so much contempt in his voice. Severus seemed to shrink a little, “You do not care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child? They can die, as long as you have what you want?”

Snape said nothing, but merely looked up at Dumbledore, Draco felt disgusted as well. “Hide them all, then,” he croaked. “Keep her, them, safe. Please.”

“And what will you give me in return, Severus?”

“In – in return?” Severus gaped at Dumbledore, and Draco expected him to protest, but after a long moment he said, “Anything.”

The hilltop faded, and Draco stood again in Dumbledore’s office, thinking he’d been brought out of the memory, but something was making a terrible sound, like a wounded animal. Severus was slumped forward in a chair and Dumbledore was standing over him, looking grim. After a moment or two, his godfather raised his face, and he looked like a man who had lived a hundred years of misery since leaving the wild hilltop.

“I thought…you were going…to keep her…safe…”

“She and James put their faith in the wrong person,” said Dumbledore. “Rather like you, Severus. Weren’t you hoping that Lord Voldemort would spare her?” Severus’ breathing was shallow. “Her boy survives,” Dumbledore continued. With a tiny jerk of the head, Severus seemed to flick off an irksome fly. “Her son lives. He has her eyes, precisely her eyes. You remember the shape and colour of Lily Evans’ eyes, I am sure?”

“DON’T!” bellowed the broken man on the floor. “Gone…dead…”

“Is this remorse, Severus?”

“I wish…I wish I were dead…”

“And what use would that be to anyone?” said Dumbledore coldly. “If you loved Lily Evans, if you truly loved her, then your way forward is clear.”

Severus seemed to peer through a haze of pain, and Dumbledore’s words appeared to take a long time to reach him. “What—what do you mean?”

“You know how and why she died. Make sure it was not in vain. Help me protect Lily’s son.”

“He does not need protection. The Dark Lord is gone – ”

“The Dark Lord will return, and Harry Potter will be in terrible danger when he does.”

There was a long pause, and slowly Snape regained control of himself, mastered his own breathing. At last, he said, “Very well. Very well. But never – never tell, Dumbledore! This must be between us! Swear it! I cannot bear…especially Potter’s son…I want your word!”

“My word, Severus, that I shall never reveal the best of you?” Dumbledore sighed, looking down into Snape’s ferocious, anguished face. “If you insist…”

The office dissolved around Draco and appeared once anew, he was breathing heavily, trying to catch his breath like he’d ran a thousand miles. He couldn’t even entirely process everything he’d seen. All he knew is he had to run. Get out before he’s been found out. Find Harry, get him to safety, even if it meant kidnapping the Boy Who Lived from his muggle family’s house, it didn’t matter, he’d have to think of something.

Severus was innocent.

Severus was saving Harry.

Draco could tell no one.

Draco ran. As fast as his feet could carry him, he barely touched the stone ground as he ran. Out of Dumbledore’s office, down long corridors, taking three steps at a time as he descended staircases, he just ran. That’s all he could do was run. With nowhere to really go and no one to talk to, he simply ran until his mind could pick a destination.

He was on dew-wet grass before he knew it, just as breathless, adrenaline pumping through his veins from an unknown source. Was he scared? Was he nervous?

Harry…

Where was Harry?

Blaise found him first, pointing him out to Pansy. She stood and rushed over to their friend, paler than usual, Draco was sure, she checked him for injuries before hugging him tightly. “Where the hell have you been?” she asked, smacking his shoulder.

“I can’t…I can’t,” he gasped for air. His hands were cold. He bent over to rest against his knees. His lungs were burning in the chilly night air. “Where is he? How is he doing?”

“Something’s off,” Blaise explained after a moment of watching his friend worriedly. Draco forced himself upright again. “They’ve been running around, looking terrified,” he said, pointing at the professors that were meant to be patrolling the outer wall of the maze. They looked frantic. They’d lost a champion.

“No one will say what’s happened, but it doesn’t seem good,” Pansy added. Merlin, what if someone was dead? He should have seen this coming, he should have taught Harry something, a spell Hermione wouldn’t know. Something darker and more protective than what the Hogwarts textbooks allowed.

A loud thud sounded from over at the maze, almost inside it, Dumbledore and a horde of students running over to see what’s happened. Draco started towards it. Pansy held him back. “Running over to look for Potter like a scared little girl? How would that look?” her eyes were more warning and serious than Draco had ever seen on her. “Especially now.”

Blaise helped her pull Draco away just as a scream broke through the tense air. “At least let me make sure he’s alive,” Draco said though gritted teeth.

“He’s Harry Potter, he’ll be fine,” Pansy groaned, looking around to make sure no one saw the three of them. “Draco, listen to me,” she said once they’d brought him far enough from all the other people. “Breathe, please, breathe. What happened?” she asked like she was speaking to an idiot child, practically spelling it out.

“Draco, breathe,” Blaise repeated her words. They didn’t help. His heart was pounding. His body felt wrong. The ground was spinning. Everything was off. He took a deeper breath, but it got stuck in his throat. He tried again, but it got caught up before he could fill his lungs.

Pansy’s hands rubbed up and down his back roughly. It wasn’t meant to be soothing, it was meant to take his mind off of what he was thinking about. Whatever it was, he could no longer tell.

“It’s not Gryffindors crying, it’s Hufflepuffs,” Blaise said, returning. Draco hadn’t noticed him leaving the two of them. Draco was on the ground, why was he on the ground? Was it because his life was turned upside down and he could tell no one? That would do it.

“Diggory,” Pansy said, her hand movements stopping instantly.

“Dead,” Blaise reported.

“Potter?” Draco asked.

“He’s fine,” Blaise promised, “they took him to the castle, Draco, he’s fine.” That did help. Those were words that apparently worked now. Harry Potter was fine and Draco Malfoy could suddenly breathe again.

Prefects were being told to bring their houses to the common rooms, but the panic seemed nearly unstoppable. A student had died. Someone had tampered with the Triwizard Tournament. Draco continued sitting on the damp grass, Pansy kept kneeling next to him, her hands still on his shoulders, Blaise watched their fellow students being towed inside to the sound of Diggory’s father’s cries.

“Something’s coming,” Draco said, looking at his stood friend, the face of neutrality himself, Blaise fucking Zabini, “you’ll have to pick a side no matter what you may think,” he added, knowing he sounded venomous, but someone had to get him to do it. Blaise’s eyes switched from Draco to Pansy, as if asking if she thought the same thing. Judging by her grip on Draco never lessening once, she agreed.

“We need to get inside,” Blaise said instead of answering, “everyone’s almost gone and there’s apparently a murderer on the loose,” Blaise reminded them and reached out his hand to help Draco up. He looked at it for a few seconds before taking it, getting pulled up from the cold ground. “Come on.”

Pansy’s arm remained hooked in Draco’s elbow the whole way back to the dormitories, as if he needed reminding everything he saw was real and he was with people he could trust. Draco thanked her or that with a kiss on the check before she headed up to the girls’ bedrooms. Blaise kept standing in front of him, looking down more than at Draco himself.

“I’ll just sit here for a moment longer, if you don’t mind,” Draco lied. The common room had died out, it was quiet and empty, no one to notice him leave after Blaise would be gone, too. The prefects would have made sure to get everyone in their beds even if it required a bit more than polite suggestion, and you don’t really say no to an angry Slytherin.

Potter was bound to be in the hospital wing, there was no way Dumbledore would let him go back to the Gryffindor tower after a night like this. Draco needed to know the extent of his injuries. He needed to see the boy breathing and well. Or perhaps not so well, but he did need to know for himself.

“I’ll come collect you if you fall asleep by the fire again,” Blaise nodded. It had happened before, tends to, with enchanted fireplaces that can’t go out. The warm flames and the crackling just drew Draco in, in a way he couldn’t quite explain.

“Thanks, Zabini,” Draco clapped his friend on the shoulder.

“Night, Malfoy,” he returned and headed off to bed. Draco, for the sake of keeping up appearances, did go to sit down by the fire, waited ten minutes, and rushed to leave when he’d made sure there’d been no other sounds but his own breathing and the merry fire.

No prefects would be patrolling the halls like usually on a night like this. Even the professors should have something more important to worry about. Sure, there might be someone at the front door, but with a sharp enough vigilance, Draco was certain he’d be able to get to the hospital wing unnoticed.

He did see McGonagall on his way, but she was in the middle of a hushed conversation with the Fat Friar, so all Draco had to do was hide behind a corner and wait a few moments before the coast was clear again.

Draco rarely ventured outside of the Slytherin common room this late at night, as he wasn’t entirely fond of breaking rules, despite the reputation of his house. The castle being so quiet and dark was almost alien to him, but he persisted nonetheless.

"I will be back to see you as soon as I have met with Fudge, Harry," said Dumbledore’s voice, and Draco hardly had the time to react and hide in the shadows. "I would like you to remain here tomorrow until I have spoken to the school,” he added before leaving. Madam Pomfrey was in her office already.

It was quiet for a moment longer except for what could only be describes as a dog panting. Draco walked into the room carefully, remaining in the shadows just in case someone else was in the room. Mad-Eye Moody was lied on a bed, the sight made Draco reconsider everything, but the professor didn’t seem to be conscious.

“Harry?” he asked carefully, getting the other boy’s attention successfully. The dog, Sirius, as Draco realised, still sat at the foot of Harry’s bed, gave him a questioning look and walked over to guard Mad-eye Moody for a while. Sirius was giving them privacy.

“Draco, God,” Harry leaped out of his bed, letting Draco gather him up into a tight hug. He wasn’t even sure that he couldn’t hurt the Gryffindor, he just wanted to feel the warmth of a body that still had blood coursing through it. “What are you doing here?” he asked after a while, still holding onto Draco.

“Never you mind that,” Draco said hastily, letting go of his friend and sliding his eyes up and down his body. He wasn’t too terribly injured. His hand was bandaged, there was something wrong with his leg, but he would heal. “Fuck, I was worried.”

“What did you find?” Potter asked, but Draco refused to take his hands off Harry’s shoulders, despite the change of subject. Draco shook his head. Not now. Maybe not ever, but surely not tonight. He looked into Harry’s eyes. They were so scared. He wanted to know what had happened to him. “Please don’t ask,” he begged.

“I won’t,” Draco promised with another shake of his head, and a tear fell from Harry’s left eye. Draco realised that a year ago he would have been making fun of the boy in front of him at this point. He couldn’t believe it, the thought alone made him sick. He hugged him again, cradling the back of his messy-haired head. “I won’t,” he repeated it in a whisper.

“I’ll tell you, I swear, I will, just not yet,” he explained into Draco’s shoulder.

“I know, I know, it’s okay, you’re alright,” Draco said in response, like a mantra for himself to remember through to the morning. He’d have to go back to the Slytherin dorms soon, but until then, he needed as much as he could get to make sure he’d remember the boy in front of him was as safe and sound as it was possible.

“Oh, Draco,” Harry seemed to suddenly remember as he pulled back momentarily, “you can’t go home, please, you can’t,” he said, his eyes bewildered and terrified. “Promise me you won’t.”

“What are you talking about?” Draco asked. He knew he wasn’t going home either way, but whatever information Harry was willing to give him, he’d take.

“Your father,” the Gryffindor whispered carefully, “your father was there. Voldemort’s back and your father…” he seemed to be having trouble completing the sentence. Draco needed to process that, but he could do it later. He could spend the whole night awake, but he refused to think about it now. So what if his father was a Death Eater? He’d known for a while now, and his mother was protecting from it all. For now, though, he was presently done with his own panic attack, but there was someone in front of him about to start, or restart, probably, his own.

“Forget him,” Draco begged, his tired head falling onto Harry’s shoulder. Merlin, he was exhausted, and riddled with hate and confusion.

"You have to go before Dumbledore comes back,” Harry advised, looking back to see if Sirius was still safely near him. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

“Try to get some sleep,” Draco said, knowing bloody well that was a tall order. Harry was likely traumatised to muggle hell and back from the last few hours alone, and Dreamless Sleep was his only hope at giving his eyes a rest tonight.

Harry nodded. Draco didn’t hug him again, as much as he wanted to. He sent a nod in thanks to Sirius and went back to the Slytherin dorms without making a single sound.

Chapter Text

“He came to the hospital wing last night,” Harry said suddenly. Draco had already accepted they weren’t going to be doing any talking, and he’d opted for simply watching the Scottish hills in the distance, counting how many times the colour changed from the base to the top. “Fudge,” Harry explained.

Harry had asked to meet in the Astronomy Tower, and when Draco had arrived, the Gryffindor was already sitting there, feet dangling off the ledge and wand in hand. When he sat down next to the hero of Hogwarts, the boy continued staring ahead, only acknowledging Draco’s presence when his head fell onto the blonde’s shoulder. Draco had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from kissing the top of Potter’s head right then.

When the silence stretched, Draco waited. Patiently and in terror, but he waited. Harry had every right to tell him whatever he wanted and whenever he felt comfortable enough to. Draco could wait. He would spend years waiting just for Harry Potter.

“What did he want?” Draco nudged anyway when Harry took another few seconds of still silence. If they were pieces left for Draco to pick up, he’d gather them together all day long just to get a sense of the picture.

“He doesn’t believe it,” Harry sighed.

“Moron.”

“Moron,” Harry echoed in agreement, nodding absently. “He doesn’t believe Dumbledore, he killed Crouch…”

“What?” Draco asked after a moment of confusion. He wondered whether Harry remembered he hadn’t told Draco anything yet. He wouldn’t press, though.

“Oh,” Harry said quietly before launching into the most gut-wrenching retelling of events Draco had ever had the misfortune to hear from someone he cared so deeply about. He refused to cry even when Harry told him about his parents appearing to help and Cedric asking to take his dead body to his father. He refused to cry when shivers ran down his spine at the way Harry talked about the Cruciatus Curse. He pretended he wasn’t beginning a list of people he now hated when Harry named the other Death Eaters in attendance – all his father’s friends, all as slimy as Lucius himself.

Draco sat in silence once Harry was done, unsure whether the stillness was for the boy next to him or for himself, but it took at least ten minutes for his breathing to still and his heartbeat to calm, which was when his hand found Harry’s. They pointedly kept looking forward, and they didn’t mention the moment again.

“Dumbledore’s determined,” Harry stated, sounding sure.

“But he’s going against the ministry in that determination,” Draco added.

“That he is,” Harry sighed. “Did you know Death Eaters had a mark?” he asked, making Draco finally turn to look at him, “sort of like a tattoo. On their left forearm. I saw Snape’s last night. I think your dad might have one, too.”

“Just like the one in the sky,” Draco said, remembering what it had looked like on a hot summer’s day when he was little and his father had been careless enough to bare his arms in front of his son.

“Like the one in the sky,” Harry confirmed his suspicions. “Snape said it’s been growing more visible all year.”

Draco nodded, thinking. The sight of the Dark Mark on his father’s body might have been a good enough reason for his mother to leave, run off with her son in tow and husband left behind to follow his mortal god until certain death.

“You should have seen Snape when Sirius turned back into himself,” Harry then said, amusement lighting up his features in the loveliest way, “trust me when I say there is no love lost there.”

“Yeah, they had a tough time getting along in school,” Draco said, unable to hide his own smile.

“How do you know?” Harry asked, still chuckling.

Draco panicked for a second, but a Slytherin was nothing if not a good liar and a quick thinker of their feet. “Father was friends with Snape when they were in Hogwarts. I’m sure that’s where their little muggle-loathing club was formed.”

“Hey, Draco,” Harry nudged his unlikely friend’s shoulder with his own, “I’m glad you got out of the family business.”

“Of killing innocent people?” Draco teased.

“And adjacent,” Harry murmured, making Draco full out laugh now.

“I’m glad the Chosen One isn’t really an arrogant prick,” Draco said. He was used to playing along nicely. “Did Sirius leave already?”

“Barely had a chance to say goodbye,” Harry said bitterly. Draco understood why, he was sure Harry did, as well. These were desperate times and the fact alone that everyone that mattered believed Harry was a grand occasion. They all knew they needed as much help as possible and Sirius knew damn well what to do.

“And Severus?” Draco was almost afraid to ask.

“Under cover,” Harry said carefully, then became quiet and still again. “Fudge gave me a thousand galleons,” he seemed to remember out of the blue. “I shouldn’t have won that money. I shouldn’t be sitting here.”

“What in the fucking sewers of Knockturn Alley are you on about?” Draco asked perhaps a little more forcedly than a grieving man needed to hear.

“I asked him to take the cup with me. If he hadn’t come, he’d be alive. That money should be his, frankly it’s an insane amount anyway.”

“You’re not the one that turned his wand to him,” Draco said in as strict a tone as he could muster, “you’re not the homicidal maniac without a single care for anyone but themselves. Never say that again.”

Harry remained quiet for a while longer. It felt like they both knew they had to go some time soon, but neither was willing to let the conversation fade. “I have to go meet his parents,” Harry then said.

“Fuck,” Draco sighed, watching Harry get up and wipe dirt off his trousers. “You’ll do just fine.”

“I’ll let you know,” he promised and left a light tap on Draco’s shoulder before leaving. Draco kept listening to his footsteps descending and becoming more and more quiet until he could no longer hear Harry and was left with only his thoughts. Not that there were currently many to go around.

Draco stayed in the Slytherin common room for the rest of the day, once he’d finally gathered enough assurance that he could stand on his own two feet without them shaking and bringing him down to the hard stone floor. “How is he?” Pansy asked after he’d been sat there for a good while, stating into the flames. Draco hadn’t even noticed her joining him.

“Distraught,” Draco answered, unable to get out more than a single word. Somehow, without having experienced it himself, he felt numb and terrified from someone else’s encounter with, possibly, the most mortifying creature they will ever have the misfortune to come across.

“Figured,” Pansy said and remained quiet for the rest of the evening.

Dumbledore had spoken to the school that morning at breakfast. He had merely requested that they leave Harry alone, that nobody ask him questions or badger him to tell the story of what had happened in the maze. Most people, Draco noticed, were skirting him in the corridors, avoiding his eyes. Some whispered behind their hands as he passed. He guessed that many of them had believed Rita Skeeter's article about how disturbed and possibly dangerous he was. Perhaps they were formulating their own theories about how Cedric had died.

Draco felt sick to his stomach at times when he realised that a year ago he would have given Harry the hardest of times every second the other boy stepped out into the hallways. He would have been relentless. He would have destroyed Harry. Not that he really believed that was achievable.

It felt impossible to have classes go on even after the evens of the Tournament. It was bizarre to continue sneaking around just to talk to Harry for two minutes in alcoves and side stairwells. Draco covered it in a guise of making sure Harry’s mental state wasn’t deteriorating, but, really, he just wanted to look the sodding idiot in the eye as much as he could until the summer would steal him away for months, especially when he barely showed up for meals, preferring to come when almost everyone was already gone, so Draco couldn’t even stare longingly at Harry across the Great Hall like always.

Draco didn’t want to pack to leave Hogwarts. This was finally a school year he’d actually enjoyed, well, for the most part. He’d made friends in unlikely places, and he’d never felt closer to Pansy in his life. The only thing that kept him going was the opportunity to see his mother in the flesh and make sure she was truly unharmed.

The Leaving Feast was a glum excuse for what it normally was at the end of each year. There were no colourful decorations, no air of excitement or relief of another school year gone and successfully passed. It was heavy with unsure faces and accusing glances toward Harry. Draco had to fight to ignore them, as if it was him on the receiving end.

Draco watched the black drapes that decked the wall behind the professors’ table as Pansy whispered to him and Blaise like a sports commentator. Listening to her opinions on the other girls’ hair did manage to take his mind off of more troubling issues, if only for a few seconds at a time.

The real Mad-Eye Moody was at the staff table now, his wooden leg and his magical eye back in place. He was extremely twitchy, jumping every time someone spoke to him. Madame Maxime was still there. She was sitting next to Hagrid. They were talking quietly together. Further along the table, sitting next to Professor McGonagall, was Severus, watching the Gryffindor table as closely as Draco watched him. Severus the spy, Severus the man that could have been Harry’s father.

Dumbledore’s speech, usually filled with the amusing quips of an old man, was, although honouring towards Cedric, frankly fucking dark. Not only did the headmaster manage to cause mass panic by mentioning the return of Voldemort, but also diminished the Ministry’s competence by acknowledging the fact that no one there seemed interested in believing what some in this very room knew to be true.

Every face was turned to Dumbledore, except Nott who was muttering to Crabbe and Goyle, and snickering quietly. Draco wanted to slap him across the face right there and then, but Blaise’s wand was already out under the table, and shooting a shutmouth hex towards the three of them. Their lips stuck together in an instant, and not a single sound could be heard as they visibly panicked.

Dumbledore raised a glass to Harry then, explaining that he’d shown courage beyond his years and the kind rarely anyone had before, when facing Voldemort. Nearly everyone else in the room raised their glasses as well. Draco wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do.

Pansy raised her glass first, defiantly and with an almost completely straightened arm. Blaise joined her near-momentarily. Heads were now turning from Harry over to them. The other Slytherins remained as they were – poised, still and with no hate lacking on their faces. Eyes fell on Draco. These were his two best friends and they had already done the unthinkable. He refused to think this was him taking a stand, but he did take his cup in his hand and raise it ever so slightly off the table. They could all fuck themselves. He was certain Voldemort was back and he would not let it go unknown. If push came to shove, he could get up on his old high horse and force into everyone’s face how grown-up he was and how childish and tiring he considered this Slytherin-Gryffindor rivalry to be.

It took a moment for people to even start looking away from the three of them, but that didn’t make them falter. Lisa Turpin was looking over and nodding with a thankful smile. Draco hadn’t considered what dating a Slytherin must have been like for her, even if it had been one of the most desirable boys in school. Blaise and her might no longer be together, but as far as she was concerned, this gesture from the three of them might have just saved her from a world of insults and jests thrown her way.

"Every guest in this Hall," Dumbledore continued, and his eyes lingered upon the Durmstrang students, "will be welcomed back here at any time, should they wish to come. I say to you all, once again - in the light of Lord Voldemort's return, we are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided. Lord Voldemorts gift for spreading discord and enmity is very great. We can fight it only by showing an equally strong bond of friendship and trust. Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open.

"It is my belief – and never have I so hoped that I am mistaken – that we are all facing dark and difficult times. Some of you in this Hall have already suffered directly at the hands of Lord Voldemort. Many of your families have been torn asunder. A week ago, a student was taken from our midst.

"Remember Cedric. Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory."

As per Narcissa’s instructions in a recent letter, she would be meeting Draco in Hogsmeade to floo from a shop on one of the side lanes. All Draco had to do was make it there in one piece, and he and his mother could look out for each other from there on. Dumbledore had, apparently, already been informed of this and had accepted, on the terms that Draco would be exceptionally careful.

Harry, upon hearing this, hurriedly handed him his invisibility cloak. “I’m not taking this away from you, git,” Draco rolled his eyes, but seeing Harry so worried about him made terrible, awful, drownable butterflies rise in the pit of his stomach.

“I can’t use it anyway, Dursleys count the sweets in their home, even being invisible wouldn’t get me off a punishment if one’s missing,” the Gryffindor explained, adding another point in Draco’s lift of why muggles could die off in a fiery ball of death. Harry refused any of Draco’s arguments and threw his arms around the Slytherin’s shoulders for one of the most rushed and unsatisfactory hugs of Draco’s life. “Keep it on,” he reminded after letting go of Draco, but seeming unwilling to leave his vicinity yet, “and stay alive.”

“You, too,” Draco sighed and watched as his once-enemy smiled stiffly, turned and left the lonely corner of the castle they’d found on Harry’s strange little map. Yes, this summer was promptly going to kill Draco.

It was with a heavy heart that he said goodbye to Pansy and Blaise in the Slytherin common room, Harry’s cloak in hand and a packed trunk sitting by his feet. “Are you sure you won’t see him?” Pansy asked, reluctant to leave, even though they had very little time until the carriages.

“Not unless mother is planning to bait me into becoming a Death Eater myself,” Draco chuckled darkly, making his two best friends look at one another worriedly.

“Maybe you should go to France with Pansy,” Blaise suggested and their friend started nodding her bobbed head frantically.

“Don’t be daft, Zabini,” Draco waved it away and stood, extending his hand for the other Slytherin to take. Blaise looked at the pale hand in front of him and scowled, pulling a laughing Draco in for a hug instead. “I hope you cancel that Witch Weekly subscription,” Draco turned to Pansy.

“Oh, don’t worry, Rita Skeeter will no longer be a problem, Hermione and I took care of that,” she said with an evil smile that both Draco and Blaise had come to know as either murderous or at least the cause of third-degree burns.

“What have you done?” Blaise asked, like you would to an asylum inpatient holding a steak knife.

“Turns out,” Pansy sing-songed, “our favourite journalist, if you can even call it that, is an unregistered Animagus,” she smiled, pulling a small glass jar from her jet-black purse with a fat beetle sitting on top of small twigs and leaves in the enclosed space and buzzing angrily.

“What the hell are you going to do with her?” Draco asked with a smile on his face. A beetle could have been anywhere and no one would have even noticed. It was the perfect cover for light, idiotic journalism.

“You can have her for all I care. Bury her or set her free, who gives a shit?” Pansy shoved the jar into Draco’s hands. “Hermione has explained to her time and time again that she can’t do anything to us or write a single other piece on anything to do with Hogwarts, or we’ll unveil her for what she is – a criminal.”

“Pansy Parkinson, the righteous Slytherin,” Blaise scoffed, “Never thought I’d see the day.”

“Please, none of that,” Pansy rolled her eyes, “I simply couldn’t stand seeing Draco sulking around because people thought the worst of his boyfriend.”

“Very funny, Pans,” Draco hoped his near-white skin didn’t show his blush too much. Suddenly he wondered if the Cloak of Invisibility smelled of Potter or if he’d imagined it earlier.

“Alright, Parkinson, it’s time,” Blaise said, checking his silver watch.

“Whatever you say, Zabini,” she said, clearly mocking the two of them calling each other by their last name even though they hated it. “Draco, write as soon as you know where you and Narcissa are staying now.”

“Promise,” he smiled and let her damn near squeeze him to death. “Love you,” he added when she blew over a tiny air kiss before leaving the room. “And then there was one,” he said to himself and glanced over to the piece of fabric laid on top of his trunk.

The silence was deafening once the two of them had left. They had deliberately avoided everyone and hid until most people had left, if only to avoid the scrutiny they were now bound to by the rest of the Slytherins. At least this way, there was a chance they would have calmed down by September, as Pansy and Blaise had much less trouble keeping up a cool front on the train ride back to London and actually not spending their nights worried about other people’s stupid bloody opinions the way Draco tended to.

“So, that’s who you’ve sold you allegiance to,” Nott’s voice made him jump, and he didn’t even have time to hide it. “Best friends with Potter, are we? I thought I was supposed to be your friend.”

“You are my friend,” Draco shrugged as nonchalantly as he could muster. Nott’s threats were rarely not empty and he barely passed charms and defence. This was nothing for Draco to worry much about.

“Please, you’ve hardly talked to me all year except to point out wrong answers in class or to tell me to grow up,” Nott scoffed, a disgusted and ugly grimace on his damp face. Draco wondered for a second why Nott was so sweaty all of a sudden, but the thought was cut short by Nott throwing a curse his way, which Draco barely managed to jump away from. He threw another right when Draco was about to protest and ask if Nott has gone daft, but he never managed to, as another second later he was diving straight for the floor from a Stupefy.

“We grew up together,” Nott reminded, when Draco laid on the marble ground as still as he could, motionless and barely breathing to make sure Nott believed he hadn’t missed the way he had, barely and by an inch, but enough to possibly save Draco from further injuries. He could see Nott’s feet moving towards him, so he took the few seconds he had to look at his surroundings and weigh his options, drowning out Nott’s dramatic monologue.

He’d landed with his head having nearly collided with his packed trunk, and he couldn’t grab his wand before Nott could react and fire off another spell, so he decided on jumping up and reaching for Harry’s cloak. Before Nott could pull the surprise off his face, Draco had already donned the cloak and was invisible. A few confused blinks on Nott’s part later, there was no telling where Draco was anymore.

As Draco watched his childhood friend look around carefully, ready to attack at the slightest movement, a sinister and completely evil look on his disgruntled face, he couldn’t believe this was the boy with whom he’d explored overgrown trails and sneaked into Muggle cinemas. Nott was now, by the looks of it, prepared to bring all hell loose on Draco.

“Five minutes,” the muffled voice of Goyle called from behind the door where he was probably keeping watch. Nott gave the room another onceover and let his shoulders slump, taking his defeat with an annoyed huff and leaving to make to the carriages.

Draco stayed there for a good while to make sure this wasn’t a trick, even though his mind was assured neither of those three could come up with a good plan. His feet were screaming for him to take even a step and let his blood move around a little, and his lungs burned with the painfully few breaths he’d been taking, but he stood still, until he was sure the train had left and driven enough for him to be unburdened for the following weeks.

He shrunk his trunk into the size of a keychain, realising there was no carrying it with the heavy material on top of him, not to mention how hot it had got over the past few days. He was flushed from just standing there alone. He had to get a move on, if he didn’t want to worry his mother too much.

The castle was empty and dripping with golden late June sunshine. Draco forced himself to enjoy it one last time, unsure as to what his near future had in store for him. The cloak sat comfortable on his shoulders, even as the makeshift hood he’d created made no sense to him. How can something that was directly in front of his eyes not obstruct his view?

The staff seemed to have gone, too, or maybe they were celebrating another school year survived. Draco had never before considered how or when they all headed home, or if they even had one outside of the castle. He didn’t think he’d like to spend all of his time at a place as filled with surprises as Hogwarts, but maybe having an extra two months here could give him a chance to explore peacefully.

Draco’s descent from the castle was a slow and careful one. The paranoia that refused to leave his body permitted him from walking briskly, lest he disturbed a single blade of grass in a visible way. He followed the path he knew so well to Hogsmeade, and only once he determined the castle as far away enough, did he pick up the pace and hurried to the village.

His mother was sat at a table outside The Three Broomsticks where they apparently offered outdoor seating once the weather got warmer. If he didn’t know to look for her, he would hardly recognise the normally poised woman he was fortunate to call his mother.

Narcissa Malfoy was sat with a leather notebook in hand and a worried gaze on her features. Despite the large sunglasses she was wearing, when she never had worn anything to cover her face before, Draco could see she was looking around frantically to see where he was and what was taking him so long. She was looking for him. She was waiting for her son. Merlin, he loved his mother so much. Her posture was impeccable, but her hands were shaking in a way Draco had never seen anyone as noble as her allow herself. Her clothes were the farthest thing from what he knew to be hers. They weren’t dishevelled by any means, but they were ill-fitting and not exactly to the standard and price of what she normally wore.

Draco only took off the invisibility cloak once he was a mere few meters from her. Her face lit up when she noticed her son and she stood to gather him into her arms. “Oh, my little dragon, what on earth took you so long?” She demander, her fingers weeding through his platinum hair in a way she never had before if they were going to see people later. Draco took pride in his hair, and she knew he hated it rumpled up, but she clearly didn’t care now, and he was the least bit bothered by it.

“Mother, I missed you terribly,” he allowed himself to succumb to sentiment when she refused to let go.

“We have to go now, my darling, do you have everything you need?” She asked, her hand swiping over the invisibility cloak folded over his arm, “Where did you get one of these?”

Draco looked down at the patterns on the piece of fabric, as if he had no clue what she was talking about, to buy himself a second to think, “A friend lent it to me, I’ll give it back in September.”

“Alright, well, let’s head on then,” she said, hurrying Draco along with her hand around his shoulder. She led him into a small boutique that held pearl earrings and ruby necklaces behind shimmering enchanted glass. “Hello, Astrid,” Narcissa greeted, pointedly keeping in front of Draco, as if he was some precious secret to be guarded.

“Make it quick, then,” the witch behind the counter said through gritted teeth. Draco didn’t even want to think of what his mother had leveraged to make this possible, or blackmailed, judging by the look on Astrid’s face.

“Gladly,” Narcissa had upturned her nose now and given the room a demonstrative onceover in a way that left Draco fighting the urge to smirk. Astrid turned her back to the two of them and waved her leathery old hand as if dismissing them. “Come now, my love,” she said and Draco noticed, not for the first time, how silent and loving her voice turned whenever she was talking to her son.

Draco was brought to a fireplace, the size of which astonished him as to how it was even allowed to join the floo network. He crouched in order for his head to get under the mantle and reached forward to grab the powder his mother was holding in a tin. She shook her head and motioned for him to stand still, then took a handful and whispered something Draco was unable to hear, throwing it at his feet.

Before he could ask what she was doing, the green flames were engulfing him and the familiar uncomfortable tingling brought him to the mouth of another fireplace in an entirely strange room. There were thin linen curtains covering large windows. There was a dying fire in a stove in the corner, though it was only on to dry some clothes instead of giving warmth, at least that’s what Draco assumed, as the warmth he’d only just felt in Hogsmeade was apparent in the air all the way…wherever he was now.

“Well, step out of there,” a woman’s voice made him jump and then laughed, clearly having been talking to him, “yeah, I’m over here,” she continued and Draco turned toward the source of the bright sound, “now step out of the fireplace, or your mum’s coming crashing down into you.”

Draco gathered himself at the sight of the green-haired girl and stepped away, only seconds before a wave of green flames announced Narcissa’s arrival. Draco continued watching the stranger, assessing whether she was dangerous enough to protect his mother from.

“Don’t be rude, darling, introduce yourself,” Narcissa ushered him forward, smiling at the girl who so comfortably lounged on a papasan chair.

“Oh, it’s all good, aunt Cissy,” the girl said, leaping up and making Draco jump again, though in a less noticeable way now, then stalked over to him and extended her hand, “I know you Malfoys don’t do hugging,” she said, seeming amused, “I’m Tonks.”

Draco’s mouth fell open as pieces started fitting together in his brain, “Cousin Nymphadora,” he nodded slowly, shaking her hand.

“Mhm,” she said with a sugar sweet grin, tightening her grip on his fingers, “never call me that again.

“Oh, fuck, alright then,” he hissed, pulling his hand back.

“DRACO!” His mother pestered, scandalised beyond belief at her son’s use of such crude language.

“Oh, I like you,” Nyphadora smirked, “we’ll be friends.”

“Dora, darling, do you mind terribly showing your cousin around before your parents return?” Narcissa asked in a similarly loving tone as the one she used for Draco. Wow, he thought, this really was family.

“No doubt,” Nymphadora said, throwing a raincoat at him which he barely managed to hold onto before it slid to the ground. “You’re not allergic to seawater are you, Dragon boy?” She snorted a laugh and opened the door that Draco had already assumed wasn’t the main entrance to the…glorified shack his mother’s sister called home.

He followed her out onto a back porch, salt air hitting his lungs like medicine after a long cough. “Alright, the only tour you’re getting,” she warned, walking backwards down the stairs and onto the beach to face him while she talks. “This is our house. It’s a good house. It’s a safe one, too. It’s not a mansion, and it doesn’t entertain pureblood-spewing cumrags. So far so clear?”

“As day,” Draco shrugged as she stopped to watch him. He wasn’t sure what his cousin expected of him, but his views were not those of his father, and he would do anything to not be associated with the Death Eater name.

“Good,” she seemed almost taken aback by the lack of negation on his part. “Well, that makes our friendship all the more simple,” she smiled kindly again and continued walking, this time next to him. “The beach is quite nice to read on, I’ve heard you go for that sort of thing, but do be careful if you decide to go swimming, the currents are fucking mental.”

“Noted,” Draco murmured, too distracted by the setting sun making the water golden and the sand pink. There was a stillness around that not even the waves could break. Not a soul in view. It was hard to believe something terrifying and dangerous was happening when you’re at a place like that.

“Okay come now, plenty of time to explore later,” she called, already halfway back to the house. Draco looked back to see why her voice sounded so far away. He had to jog to get back to her, and she didn’t seem to want to slow down to wait for him. “Kitchen, sitting room, dining room,” she pointed around the single room they were stood in when having walked back into the house.

“Alright,” Draco dragged, looking around and seeing a cat sat on the counter and only having to turn his head to see a large, termite-infested-looking couch and soft chairs surrounding it. Warm colours, personalised decorations, several carpets thrown onto one another… This was the furthest thing Draco could imagine from Malfoy Manor, and he was surprised to find he didn’t hate it.

“Bathroom right there. Two bedrooms upstairs, neither of which you are privy to,” Nymphadora smiled, jumping back onto the papasan chair she’d been on when he’d arrived.

“Nyphadora!” another woman’s voice shouted sternly, drawing Draco’s attention to his mother coming back into the sitting room-dining room-kitchen combination with someone who looked awfully familiar, but whom he’d never seen before. “Hello, Draco, don’t mind your cousin, she’s being a brat.”

Draco’s posture straightened as it tended to when meeting new people. He wasn’t sure if it was anxiety or fear of embarrassing his father and having to feel his wrath. The idea alone made him bitter at Lucius’ spinelessly disgusting treatment of his family.

Andromeda, as Draco assumed, was far less constricted when it came to meeting family members, distant or otherwise, for the first time. She came forward with a large, warm grin and hugged him tightly. Draco swallowed his first reaction, which was to scoff and recoil, in favour of showing that his mother had been able to raise a respectful and kind son despite having done it with the help of a Death Eater. It became surprisingly more bearable within the next few seconds, especially when she initiated the pulling away and took his face into her hands feather-lightly.

Draco had never before felt such a tender gesture on his skin. His mother was always holding him tightly, and he adored her for it, but Blaise and Pansy never touched his face or hair, and whatever touch he’d shared with Harry had been more of a desperate clinging as an excuse for a hug.

Huh, he’d never considered that…

He’d never thought too long about just how tightly Harry had hugged Draco each time. Or about how Harry tended to initiate the contact more times than Draco had.

He looked up at his aunt still looking him over with tender eyes, like she’d known him these past fifteen years and simply wanted to see how much he’d grown over the course of a few months at school, not as someone gazing upon him for the very first time and probably seeing their sister’s features and fair complexion. Andromeda’s look gave away nothing but accommodating benevolence. She had perhaps the kindest face Draco had ever seen. All he could think, when looking back into her eyes, was she was pure good.

“That’s certainly Malfoy’s hair,” Andromeda noted with a chuckle and let go of him, her warm hands no longer providing a comfort he wasn’t sure why he even required.

“Where’s dad?” Nymphadora asked, taking a large canvas bag from her mother’s shoulder and bringing it over to the kitchen counter, “Did you go to Sainsbury’s again? Why do you apparate to the city?”

“Still at the ministry, and I like the city,” Andromeda said in mock defensiveness, patting her daughter’s head.

“Aunt Cissy could have needed saving,” Nymphadora then scoffed from her spot sitting on top of the kitchen counter with an already half-eaten carton of yoghurt in her hand. Aunt Cissy. Nymphadora had already called her that once and Draco only now registered. He couldn’t imagine anyone calling his mother anything but by her proper name and walking out scot-free.

“From whom? Big bad Astrid? Please, love,” she dismissed in turn. Draco looked back, unable to imagine with what emotion his mother could possibly be watching the exchange, but found her nowhere to be seen, only to descend the stairs a moment later with a pile of bed linens and a pillow. “Oh, Draco, I hope you don’t mind sleeping on the couch,” Andromeda addressed him again and turned back to unpacking the produce, obviously not giving him much of a choice.

“Of course not,” he forced a polite smile despite Andromeda having already turned her back to him, and he could see thankfulness in his mother’s eyes as she made a bed for him on the couch that looked so puffed up with stuffing it would either explode any second or swallow Draco up in his sleep.

“Speaking of big bad wolves,” Nymphadora suddenly spoke up, looking like she’d blocked out any part of the conversation that didn’t directly concern her, “I must get back to help one.”

“You’re not staying for dinner?” Andromeda asked in a worried voice. Draco tried not to listen, he really did, but there was not much more than wind hitting against an incompletely closed window to tune into.

“Headquarters wait for no man,” Nymphadora said before biting into an apple and jumping back to the ground, the large red fruit still in-between her jaw, making her look like a lime-haired Sunday roast.

“Good luck, Dora,” Narcissa said from the sitting room. She didn’t have to shout, as it was the same space – something Draco would need a while to get used to. He also noted his mother seemed to have more of an understanding than he did as to what was happening. He could sit at the table with his aunt and his mother all night, asking them questions and demanding explanations. Instead, he stood frozen in his spot, watching the three witches dance around him, speaking in code.

“Bye, aunt Cissy,” Nymphadora said, reaching for a jacket she never put on, “See you soon, Dragon,” she winked, looking pleased at the nickname and apparating away with a loud snap.

“At least she’s doing something to help the cause, instead of killing,” Narcissa’s voice was sudden in the silence filled by nothing but wind and crushing waves. Draco looked at his mother who was looking sympathetically towards someone behind him, but certainly not him. Andromeda, he noticed, had a glassy look on her eyes as she stared at the spot where Nymphadora had just disapparated from.

He could have asked.

He didn’t.

Chapter Text

It was dark outside the window, the clouds a solemn, almost murky blackish-grey as rain droplets furiously pelted the stained glass of the kitchen window. Draco had washed the dishes hours ago after the dinner with his aunt Andromeda and uncle Ted. His mother had wished him a good night what felt like an eternity ago, yet he was sprawled across the Tonks’ sitting room couch, unable to keep his eyes closed for more than a few seconds at a time.

He'd had a hard time falling asleep for a month now. All he could do was lay watching the wooden beams along the ceiling and waiting for exhaustion to drain him out of his thoughts.

On his first night there, it had nearly driven him out of his mind. He couldn’t tell if it was the unfamiliar sounds all around him, the full moon blasting silver light even though the thin linen curtain, or his general fear for the future, but he couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t even tune his brain out the slightest bit. Sitting up, he looked around the room for something to do, shivering when his blanket fell off his shoulders. Nights in the small beach cottage were apparently much colder than the balmy days.

He’d taken one of the books on his aunt and uncle’s bookshelf and spent the following week translating it from Latin just for something to do. He’d used his trunk as a desk, refusing to open it. It housed a pirate hat stuffed into the very bottom, and a piece of fabric that still smelled lie Harry bloody Potter and he wasn’t putting himself through thoughts of him until it would be necessary.

Every morning he leafed through his uncle Ted’s copy of the Daily Prophet, only to find meaningless fluff pieces and fabricated Ministry drama, not a single mention of Voldemort’s name, or even Death Eater attacks. Any mention of deaths was pushed to the last page of the paper where the rare few would even turn to.

Every single day, when he grew most bored, usually after lunch, he took out his Nimbus 2001 for a spin, having missed Quidditch all year. Flying helped him take his mind off things. There wasn’t much one could plot about when worrying about staying upright and not breaking any bones.

He spent his evenings watching the sun setting on his daily walk along the beach with his mother. He’d always found her to be his favourite family member, but he’d never felt as close to her as he was now, chatting for hours about nothing and everything, with the exclusion of a single name that Draco refused to think about, yet which snuck into his mind on an hourly basis. How the hell was Harry doing?

His mother did not need to know of his obsession. He simply needed to wait it out and it would leave his thoughts. The boy who forgave him for years of terrorising, the boy who smiled at Draco over the Great Hall, the boy who took his advice and trusted it, the boy who gave perhaps the greatest hugs of all time would leave his thoughts. Every time he refused, Draco found himself submerged in the sea just outside the house for a momentary release from his blush and the roasting heat.

The first letter arrived when Draco had taken Eagle outside to stretch his wings early one morning. The poor bird spent his days perched in the shadowy corner of the Tonks’ kitchen with Draco constantly bringing him frozen mice and nothing to do but watch the inhabitants of the house fumbling around in the disgusting heat. Draco had begun taking him outside right at dawn, as he was having trouble sleeping either way, and the darkness tended to cool the air just the slightest bit. He watched his owl, smiling slightly at the life seeming to have returned to the poor thing and his majestic wing span calmed Draco if only just a bit.

Right when the first rays of sun announced themselves from behind the house, another owl joined Eagle in his flight, circling Draco happily with an envelope in its beak. It wasn’t difficult to discern Harry Potter’s white owl from others, but, as excited as he was to read the words on the parchment currently flying several meters above him, Eagle seemed so happy to have a playmate, that Draco let the two of them be while he snuck back inside for some Eyelops to thank Hedwig for her flying all the way out here, and the two of them were perched merrily on one of the larger rocks on the beach when he came back out.

Headwig allowed Draco to take the letter, and he, in turn, reached out his hand for her to feast on perhaps one too many of the meaty things. Draco excitedly wiped his hand on his trousers when she was done and sat with Eagle, watching her take off as he ripped the letter open.

Dear Draco,

How are you? How have you been? Where are you and what is happening? I have heard no word from anyone I know since I stepped off the Hogwarts Express in London and I’m starting to feel isolated from the world in a small muggle town without another wizard for miles and miles and nothing to do but my aunt Petunia’s chores in 32-degree heat.

How is your mother? I do hope you are both not with your father. I also hope you are precautious and looked after. I am not too proud to admit I’m terrified at the complete silence that has followed me after the tournament.

I hope I have not interrupted what is surely an adventurous summer that I hope to hear more about in the fall, if you’ll still have me as your friend.

In scorching boredom,

Harry

He had to force himself to wipe the smile off his face, knowing anyone inside the house could see him and he had no time to be embarrassed once he’d finished reading and then rereading the letter. Harry was his friend. Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy were friends. He rushed inside, looking for a blank piece of parchment anywhere near his trunk, having to open it to look for some, no longer having to hide Harry’s cloak from himself. He wrote a quick response and grabbed a box of Every Flavour Beans that Andromeda had quietly left on top of his clean clothes pile after her trip into the city, and hurried back outside, already calling for Eagle. “Go, maybe you can catch up with Hedwig,” he ushered, handing the letter over to his owl.

Dear Harry,

It seems strange to write to you. We have never communicated this way, but I want to let you know I am safe and sound. Mother and I are staying with family, surprised as I am that we still have any that cares for us. It is quiet here, but in a less painful way than it had been in the manor. I have learned to love small rooms and large beaches.

Father is, of course, an unspoken subject as of yet. I have had my assumptions which you have already confirmed, but it is odd to act as if he had never existed. Mother seems to be holding it together, but I’ve seen her stare into the distance in deep thought one too many times to be under any assumptions that she is entirely content.

Are the muggles treating you terribly? Please find enclosed a box of Bertie Bott’s. It was the largest box Eagle could carry, otherwise you would have received blueberry tarts, as well, but my owl seems as lazy as the Gryffindors find me to be. I hope you don’t mind I sent him along – thought Hedwig might use a friend.

In homicidal ennui,

D.M.

Another week came and went without a response. Draco was forced not only to wonder if maybe Harry’s aunt’s gardening had driven Harry to dehydrate into dust in her back yard, but also to entertain himself on his own.

His mother seemed eager to get him somewhere that wasn’t this single house, but he refused to leave, in fear of missing the sound of Hedwig’s wings while he helped Andromeda with cooking or listened to Ted’s recounts of what was happening at the Ministry, or, rather, not happening at all. Nymphadora arrived once every few days, announcing that headquarters were secured and demanding dinner. Each time Draco tried to ask his mother what the headquarters were for, he received a kiss to the side of his head and a simple, “You shan’t worry yourself with trivial things like that, my smart boy.”

The night after Harry’s letter was the first when he’d got a full night’s sleep. His mother seemed worried when he woke up, but waved it away, seeing a smile on her son’s face. When he received no message back, his slumber became ragged and distressed, especially when he had no idea where Tonks and his mother sometimes rushed off to together.  

It was another night of sleep seeming impossible that he took out a book he’d noticed earlier in his trunk, not sure where it had come from, but assuming Blaise had put it in with Draco’s stuff to help take his mind off things. It was a muggle murder mystery detective story that Draco couldn’t believe he’d ever find interesting. He opened it nonetheless, finding himself amused by the thought process of the main character and almost charmed by the muggle solutions to problems wizards had never had to deal with. He also came to realise it would be terribly easy for him to get away with murder in the muggle world.

He came to a halt when sunlight shone a golden trail onto his arm. He looked over at the clock that he’d heard ticking when he was still trying to fall asleep and before he’d decided to accept his failure, and could now see it clearly in the morning light. He knew exactly how long each of his relatives would be sleeping in, but he decided waiting might be the most difficult thing he could do.

He put the book down and willed his stiff joints to carry him to the kitchen. He made four large sandwiches for everyone in the house, took one for himself, grabbed his book, and headed onto the beach. Nymphadora had been right, he noted an hour later, it truly was a wonderful reading spot, despite the sand that would soon turn blisteringly hot.

“Good morning, darling,” his mother’s voice jolted him out of the interrogation scene in the police station. He’d come to understand that police were the muggle aurors and they were a lot slower at doing their jobs without magic. Besides, the protagonist’s monologue was intended to make them out into complete buffoons, so Draco had little faith in the general functionality of the muggle justice system. “Thank you for the lovely breakfast,” she said, sitting down next to him in the sand. She was wearing jeans. Draco didn’t comment. “Your aunt and uncle are very impressed with you.”

“It’s all your effort, is it not?” Draco asked and closed the book as his mother smiled at him adoringly.

“Mostly just retrograding your father’s undue influence,” she said lightly, watching the water. It was still now that the rain of the previous evening had ceased. It almost looked like a mirror of the blue sky. She didn’t seem bothered by the subject of her husband. “I just wanted to thank you for putting any prejudices aside, I know it can be hard.”

“I don’t have prejudices. Father did,” Draco argued. “Hermione Granger is one of the brightest minds I’ve ever had the fortune to meet and Ron Weasley is one of the daftest halfwits that purebloods have ever produced.”

“And you no longer cause trouble with them, as I requested, I assume?” she asked with narrowed eyes, seemingly unable to believe her son would be able to become friends with Gryffindors, even though he’d already done so before she’d asked.

“I do not,” he answered simply, refusing to start talking to his mother of all people about his unbelievably silly crush.

“Good,” she sounded pleased. “This came for you earlier, I called, but you didn’t hear,” she said, pulling out a letter. Draco would know that handwriting anywhere. “Is it from Pansy? I didn’t see the owl, the letter simply landed on the porch.”

“Must be,” Draco lied easily, taking it from his mother and waiting until she was back inside the house to rip it open.

Dear Draco,

I cannot tell you how happy I am to know you are in safety and far from you father (as much of an arse as that might make me). I am also glad you’ve written back, since Ron and Hermione have had no interest in reaching out and I’ve been dying over the gardening otherwise.

Have you heard any chatter about Tom’s return? I refuse to use the name he has chosen for himself, especially via mail, he can rot in hell along with it. The Daily Prophet refuses to report on it, naturally, I have cancelled my subscription.

My aunt and uncle are insufferable as always, though it’s my cousin Dudley that takes the cake. He has goons now, four little Crabbe and Goyles to laugh at his jokes and obey his commands. You wouldn’t believe how easy it would be for you to make fun of them, I wish you could visit just to do that. Thank you for the sweets, you’re a lifesaver.

In eagerness for this heatwave to end,

Harry

Draco rushed back inside to pencil down his response, hoping to all hell Harry would write back sooner this time. His mother pointedly kept her eyes to herself, but couldn’t hide the smile that snuck onto the corners of her mouth. Draco knew she assumed he was corresponding with his lifelong friends, but Blaise didn’t do letters and Pansy knew how dangerous it would be to contact him this summer. Harry Potter, on the other hand, was stupid enough to not only sign his name, but also send his bright white owl. Draco chuckled to himself at the idea of Harry being his own biggest threat, and handed Eagle the letter once it was ready, knowing Eagle would find the hight and wind more cooling than sitting in a kitchen anyway.

Dear Harry,

I have tried to bring to your attention, and please note my sincerest lack of respect when I say, Ron Weasley can suck a hundred trolls’ balls. Hermione, however, does tend to have thought behind her eyes, that is whenever she’s not imprisoning journalists for tormenting you. Which further proves my point - she might have a reason for the lack of contact. Ron is not to be so easily forgiven, though.

I am afraid to say Fudge seems like the man to live in denial until the very last possible moment. We might need to be looking into alternatives, as the ministry will most likely be refusing aid on the basis of assumed bullshittery. Dumbledore might be our only guide through the next months.

I cannot wait to meet your family and tell them just how awful they are and how little they deserve you. I don’t mean because you’re some prophesied saviour. I mean you. You can do the same to my father, if you please. I refuse to be related to Death Eaters. We choose our own family, Harry Potter.

In utter annoyance of our ministry,

D.M.

The idea of Harry’s closest friends not communicating with him made Draco’s blood boil. He understood Ron probably having no clue how to even write a full sentence, but Hermione had no excuse, despite what Draco had written to make Harry feel better. That being said, his own friends were also hesitant to communicate with him unless they saw each other every day or their parents had dinner parties to attend in each other’s houses. Draco didn’t linger on it. His friends were protecting him, perhaps Harry’s were doing the same.

This time it only took Harry two days to answer, and Draco wondered if maybe it was Hedwig that felt particularly lazy when delivering Harry’s responses, and gave her an extra few treats when she arrived again with dawn.

Dear Draco,

I know you don’t much like Ron, but he’s not all bad, he’s just not as quick to trust my ex-nemesis as Hermione and I. It still sometimes surprises me just how close I consider you and how much I wish I could talk to you face to face, even if it was to hear you call me a tosser again. These are things I couldn’t say when I was looking you in the eye, but they’re things I wish I would have said anyway.

The ministry is increasingly making me worried. If Dumbledore is our only chance at any kind of recognition, it’s calming, but I have to admit not by much, since he’s becoming an old man now. I’ve noticed it more and more lately. The fight will need other leaders, I regret to say it might have to be quite literally anyone else.

Sometimes I can’t believe it took us three years of loathing to get to a decent friendship. I genuinely can’t wait to see you, and until Hermione and Ron decide to treat me like their mate and respond to at least one of my multiple letters to join the ranks, you are and remain my only best friend.

In wholehearted apologies for three wasted years of our lives,

Harry

Draco stared at the parchment. He was blushing furiously on a sunrise-painted beach. If anyone asked, he would deny clutching the letter to his forehead and squeezing his eyes shut in the strangest mixture of pure joy and painful feelings. He had no right acting like a second-year girl just because Harry Potter was paying him attention. But, on the other hand, Harry Potter was paying attention to him.

This time he waited before scribbling a response. He waited for Ted to go to work and for Andromeda to apparate to her errands with Narcissa, and he also waited for the excitement in his stomach to calm, which turned out to be a completely useless feat, as rereading the letter once more to form a logical response made it all rise up once again. He rubbed his eyes to try to get the dumb, self-satisfied smile off his face and wrote a response.

Dear Harry,

The old man is practically dust by now. I shall say what every Gryffindor is thinking anyway. Our only hope is you. Dumbledore will likely not support a rebellion within Hogwarts, but without one we will parish. You are the last hope we have left, but you are also the only hope I need to keep going against my own blood.

Harry, my friend Harry, it is difficult to express how much I treasure your friendship. I fear you’ll never truly know. When you see me, pretend you haven’t read these lines, but do know that despite my inability to form eye contact when speaking of emotions, I do value you and everything that comes with you in my life.

In painful reluctancy to admit I miss my ex-nemesis,

D.M.

P.S. Happy birthday.

Draco watched Eagle rise, the excited butterflies in his abdomen slowly dying out and being replaced by big, black bats. What had he done? Why would he write that? Why on earth would he admit to it? Fuck, fuck, bloody fuck.

When his family arrived back home in the evening, Draco was still sat on the beach, watching the trees behind which Eagle had disappeared on his way to Harry with the letter that could make or break Draco. And he couldn’t take another breaking.

Narcissa called him in for dinner an hour later. He didn’t speak the entire meal, looking out the stained glass kitchen window, and he didn’t stop looking out of it when he helped aunt Andromeda with the dishes, or when he tried and failed to sleep.

Another couple of days later his mother asked him to start gathering all of his things from the house. Draco had been under the assumption that he’d arrive to Hogwarts by floo again, or at least to the Hogwarts Express, but seeing as there were still ten days left in August and Narcissa was already urging him to find all the things he owns in the Tonks’ house, he had no reason to continue believing that.

When a letter came from him, a sliver of hope bloomed in his chest, but it was carried by a grey owl Draco had never seen before and the handwriting on the envelope was far from Harry’s. His mother watched him with a knowing smile as he read the news of him being chosen as a Slytherin prefect along with Pansy. He did his best to imagine roaming the halls late at night with his best friend and calling it patrolling. The thought made him smile. He had always wanted to be a prefect.

As he folded his clothes and stacked last year’s schoolbooks back into his trunk, the desperate distress remained. He was not stressed about forgetting something at his aunt’s house, he was only worried that he’d scared Harry away. On the morning of his travels with his mother, in hopes of a response getting lost in the owl post, he sent out another letter before anyone else woke.

Dear Harry,

We’re leaving for London today. Mother won’t tell me where we’ll be staying as there is still a week left until September.

In desperate hopes to see you soon,

D.M.

His uncle Ted woke first to head to work. He hugged Draco goodbye before flooing away, as he would not be able to see him off. He then left a letter for Narcissa on the kitchen counter and smiled as the green flames engulfed him.

Narcissa looked excited when she finally descended the stairs, chatting merrily to Andromeda. Draco offered to make them coffee. He’d got quite good at it, after Nymphadora had shown him the ropes one night when she’d come over for dinner. It was nice having coffee in the morning now that the English weather had caught up with them. It had been raining every day and he’d actually been needing the blanket during the night.

When it was time for the two of them to leave, Draco had said his goodbyes to aunt Andromeda, and Narcissa had carefully folded away the letter her brother-in-law had left for her, she took a hold of Draco’s arm tightly and apparated them both to a deserted alleyway before checking Draco all over for anything splinched. “This will do, come along, darling,” she instructed, having found nothing amiss, fixing her robes and wiping off dust that wasn’t even there.

Draco followed his mother silently, obediently. They were in London, as far as he could tell, but it didn’t look like any place his mother would usually go shopping or for tea with her pureblood friends. It also didn’t look like any place Draco knew of where any of his parents’ friends would live.

“Alright now, Draco, listen carefully,” she said once they’d come to a stop near a row of townhouses, all identical and plain, and she stood right in front of him in a way that obstructed most of Draco’s view. “You are a Black, alright? No matter your name, you are a Black, because I am a Black, and your ancestral home is at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, understood?”

Draco’s eyebrows drew together as he looked past his mother’s shoulder at the numbers on the doors behind her, seeing a number eleven and a number thirteen, but no number twelve. He looked back at his mother quizzically, a questioning smile breaking out on his face. Maybe this was it, this was where she’d finally lost it. Imagining buildings in the midst of dreams of ancient past.

“Never you mind that it’s not there, have you remembered the exact words I just said to you?” she asked in a rushed whisper. Draco repeated the address in an equally quiet voice, like it was a secret. And he wasn’t about to go shouting it about, in case it was.

As Draco’s thoughts lingered on it, a battered door emerged out of nowhere between numbers eleven and thirteen, followed swiftly by dirty walls and grimy windows. It was as though an extra house had inflated, pushing those on either side out of its way. Draco gaped at it. The loud music coming from number eleven thudded on. Apparently, the Muggles inside hadn’t even felt anything.

“Very well done, my darling,” Narcissa said and walked right ahead to knock on the door, Draco barely managing to keep up with her.

“Mother, what are we doing here?” he asked, hearing a ruckus from behind the door. Someone yelled, someone else screamed back, a motherly voice told them to keep it down. Narcissa simply chuckled and opened the door. He could smell damp, dust, and a sweetish, rotting smell, the place had the feeling of a derelict building.

Draco barely managed to see a bright orange cat run deeper into the house with the lack of light in the long, dark corridor. He studied the ancient but beautiful wallpaper while his mother removed her black leather gloves and headed further inside the house that seemed impossibly louder once they were actually on the other side of the door.

He heard Sirius Black’s muffled voice greet his mother and a few of the conversations halt when he did, and Draco assumed it was because of the arrival of a Malfoy, and he couldn’t imagine his own face would get him many happy smiles if the Weasleys were anywhere nearby. Draco swallowed his nerves and followed his mother’s voice down a set of stairs and into quite a long and narrow kitchen.

“Draco!” Hermione’s chirpy voice was the first to note his presence. He smiled as the girl rushed forward to hug him in greeting. Any annoyance he might have been feeling towards her after hearing about her unanswered letters to from Harry disappeared with the jealous and angry look on Weasley’s face. The twins seemed confused too, and the youngest one, the girl one, also watched them in curiosity.

“Hello, Draco,” Sirius said from the end of the long table, Narcissa right next to him.

“Hi, Sirius,” Draco smiled, thankful for the kindness in his eyes, “you look better.”

Sirius laughed at that, throwing a look at Narcissa, “I’ve had a meal or two,” he said, pointing to who Draco remembered to be Weasel’s mother.

“It’s good to have you here, Draco, I’m Molly, are you hungry?” the bubbly woman asked, placing her hand on her shoulder, without a single bit of blame in her gaze for tormenting her son for years. Draco thought back to Arthur Weasley at the World Cup not batting an eye before helping Draco just as well as his son and his friends.

“Oh, no, thank you, we just had breakfast,” he refused as kindly as he could muster with guilt tugging at his mind. He’d thought and said terrible things about this woman’s family, about the woman herself, and now she was smiling at him like nothing had ever happened, and offering to feed him.

Draco looked over to his mother now deep in a hushed conversation with Sirius. “How have you been?” Hermione asked, her hand still on his shoulder which it apparently hadn’t left since she’d hugged him. Weasley was eyeing that hand closely. Draco wanted to snort a laugh.

“Uh, not too bad, what is this place?” he wondered. It was supposed to be his ancestral home, but he’d never been in it, neither had he ever even heard of it. No one else was listening to their conversation anymore apart from the second youngest Weasley.

“It’s the headquarters,” she said, removing her hand from Draco’s shoulder and tucking her wild curls behind her ear, “of the Order of the Phoenix,” her smirk grew conspicuous. Draco had been wondering what the headquarters Nymphadora had mentioned were. He was no more informed now that he knew.

“The wh…How long have you been here?” Draco asked instead of questioning what the Order of the Phoenix was, perplexed as to why Hermione wouldn’t answer her best friend when she seemed healthy and in one piece.

“A couple of days, I’ve been so excited for your arrival, it’s quite difficult to be the only one who wants to explore that library upstairs, Ron’s siblings are so loud at all times,” she said pointedly, making Weasley scoff.

Draco looked from Weasley back to Hermione with narrowed eyes. “There’s a library?”

Dear Harry,

We have arrived in London and although I’ve been sworn to secrecy, I am dying to tell you where we are. I do know that I will see you sooner than expected.

In raging conspiracy,

D.M.

Draco sent the letter from the window of his new bedroom in number twelve, Grimmauld place. Sirius had let him have his own room, which sent Weasley fuming and running off to what Draco assumed was the room he had to share with the twins. Draco only let his smirk out once he was behind the closed door of his new room and unpacking his trunk. If he was being honest with himself, he wasn’t really expecting a response. Not now that Harry hadn’t answered the previous two letters, and certainly not when this one contained another secret Harry wasn’t allowed to know. Sirius had been adamant about Draco not telling Harry, promising that it would only be a few days before Harry himself arrived and there would no longer be a need to keep secrets from the other boy. Draco obliged, but only because Sirius swore to it.

The room wasn’t nearly as large as his own bedroom in the Manor had been, but he now had his own territory, not a lumpy couch in the middle of the smallest house in Britain. There was space for his trunk, he even put some of his clothes into the chest of drawers by the door. He hung the pirate hat on the desk chair.

One afternoon, he stumbled his way into a large sitting room, a tapestry catching his eye from the doorway. The tapestry looked immensely old; it was faded and looked as though doxies had gnawed it in places. Nevertheless, the golden thread with which it was embroidered still glinted brightly enough to show a sprawling family tree dating back, as far as Draco could tell, to the Middle Ages. Large words at the very top of the ugly thing read:

The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black

“Toujours Pur”

He looked over it, the small faces watching him wordlessly and defiantly. He found his own likeness on the Black Family tree, directly below his mother, his name in golden cursive letters. He hadn’t even known this house existed, yet his face was etched on its wall. He looked over the other Black family members, as well as the scorch marks left in the place of some of them. Sirius’ spot on the family tree was promptly burnt off. Draco reached towards the little embroidery of himself and chuckled when it flinched away. Seemed about right.

He kept to himself during his first days in the house, except when Molly sent each of her kids into a different room to help clean it. He wanted to help – he wanted to feel useful, since his mother seemed to be the only Malfoy allowed into the Order meetings. Only when he found out that even Hermione wasn’t let in did he feel better about it. It wasn’t prejudice about his wrongdoings from the previous years, it was precaution because of his age.

There was a covered portrait on the first floor that shouted profanities any time Hermione even went near it. Draco noticed that the house elf, Kreacher, seemed to be the only one to be able to calm the portrait even the slightest bit, and Draco, along with Narcissa and Sirius, seemed to be the only ones the elf ever spoke to without cursing under his breath afterwards.

Draco had come to realise he enjoyed doing the dishes when he lived with the Tonks family. He didn’t hesitate to offer the same help when it came to cleaning here, and Molly seemed beyond happy about it, thanking him several times when he was done with a chore. Weasel’s scowl whenever his mother thanked Draco for doing something he’d been too lazy to help her with was entirely worth the effort, as much as Draco only helped to keep his hands busy and his mind empty.

The first time he met Nymphadora in the headquarters, she’d rushed in with news about an attack in Little Whinging, tripping on solid ground on her way. Draco didn’t wait to hear the rest of it, rushing upstairs to his room, taking three steps at the time, and used the little desk by the window to scribble perhaps the fastest letter he’d ever written, sending Eagle out into the dark.

Harry,

I heard about the dementor attack. Where are you? Are you alive? Please, at least answer this one.  

Draco

Chapter Text

It was the middle of the night when Draco woke from a shout. In his half-slumber state, he couldn’t believe he’d even managed to fall asleep in the first place. His mother had forced him into his room when he’d refused to go upstairs and wanted to know every piece of information he could on Harry. It had been a single word that had woken him up, one he couldn’t discern in his fuzzy brain, but even from the bed behind a closed door on the top of the house, he could hear the shouting continuing. There was another owl cage on the desk next to Eagle’s.

Getting out of bed to the unmistakeable sound of someone yelling, Draco followed the angry voices leading downstairs, all the way to the warm kitchen. The fire still wasn’t out, every grownup in the room watching and Remus holding Harry away while professor Moody and a wizard Draco had never seen were having a screaming match. He’d passed a hoard of redhead teenagers and a worried Hermione and Weasley, neither of which seemed to know what to do.

Harry was demanding to know why no one had contacted him all summer, or how he had been supposed to know any of them were even alive. Draco saw Severus there from behind the corner where he knew he should remain in hiding. His godfather was watching the two wizards with a raised eyebrow, like one would when seeing someone else’s misbehaving toddler in public. Draco stepped into the kitchen, since the door had been open, ignoring Hermione’s whispering to stay with them. He waved her away. He needed to see Harry for himself. Several eyes around the table turned to him then. It wasn’t difficult to see a pale boy with near-white hair in as dark a room as this – he was practically giving out light. Harry halted when attention was brought elsewhere and turned around to see what it was.

There he stood, confused and scared, looking from face to face to find out what the hell had happened, but undoubtedly him. And he was in one piece and seemingly with his soul still intact and not sucked out. Draco suddenly had a strange sense of dread when realising he no longer felt at peace unless he could see Potter in front of him and well.

His jawline was more pronounced. His hair was shorter. He looked all grown up. He looked bloody edible.

As several faces watched Harry and waited for an outburst, he finally locked eyes with Draco. There was no name for the myriad of emotions that went through Potter’s features. A hint of surprise and joy, but mostly relief. Draco Malfoy, the Slytherin, the arsehole, the prick and the nemesis, apparently, now brought relief to The Chosen One.

Harry’s legs were moving at a speed that made Draco wonder if he was telling his body not to outright run. A part of him waited for an impact with Harry’s fist. Draco, in turn, had taken a single step forward in the time it took the other boy to cross the distance between them and throw his arms around Draco’s shoulders. Hugging Harry Potter in front of people was not an experience that made him entirely comfortable from the start, but the hands around him were cramped and strong. It was no regular hug in passing. Harry clearly needed it, and Draco was not one to deny the simple joy.

“Look at that,” Sirius said with a satisfied smile that Draco dared to look at over Harry’s shoulder, “history breaks a loop. Imagine if you’d been this close to James, ay?” he snickered towards Severus.

“I would rather stab my own eyes out, Draco, get some dignity,” his godfather suggested.

“You will do nicely to keep that tone away from my son,” Narcissa told him with a smile on her lips. She seemed to have been enjoying the show, as surprised as she tried not to look.

“Although, I do seem to recall the previous Potter fraternising with a Slytherin for a while, as well. One who happened to live in this house, in fact” Severus drawled, and Draco wanted to know every bit of that factoid immediately.

“I swear to Merlin, Snivellus,” Sirius said through gritted teeth.

“Sirius!” Remus shouted warningly. Draco looked over to his godfather who was hiding his triumphant smile behind a cup of tea so strong Draco could smell it from where he was standing.

“Harry can bunk with Draco, there’s plenty of room for two,” Sirius said and dragged his angry gaze off of Severus to his own godson, changing it to an unreadable smirk, earning a pointed look from the boy. Draco wondered if the blush on Harry’s face had been a figment of his imagination. Perhaps he was simply embarrassed of his dramatics, or for hugging Draco for such a long moment.

“You’ll love it, it’s far from Fred and George, tends to stay quiet” Draco said, making Harry smile. It was the first thing Draco had said to him all summer, and, although Harry looked like he was smiling just out of politeness, at least he was still able to do it.

“You should get some rest, I’ll talk to you before I leave in the morning,” Sirius told his godson, ushering him out of the room. Harry followed Draco up the stairs silently, past the Weasleys and past the ground floor where Harry’s trunk lay, leaving it there. Past the portrait of Sirius’ mother shouting profanities and past the doors behind which rooms were taken up by the Weasley children and Hermione. Harry followed Draco all the way to the top of the house and once the door was closed, looked so broken and hollow Draco didn’t know what to do.

Harry sat on the side of the bed which Draco hadn’t been sleeping in, suddenly reminding the Slytherin that there wasn’t another bed, and they’d have to share. It was not too big of a deal, really, all Draco had to do was pretend he didn’t have a life-altering, mind-numbing, chest-swelling crush on the poor bastard laid on the other side of the admittedly large mattress.

“Are you okay?” Draco asked in a whisper, resting against the closed door.

“I’m not hurt,” Harry nodded absently, his gaze stuck on something further into the room. Draco didn’t check to see what it was, he was too concerned with watching Harry.

“That’s not what I’d meant,” Draco said perhaps too forcefully. Harry didn’t respond, just kept looking at the…the desk? What was it? Draco was dying to know now. He tore his eyes off Harry to follow his line of sight, landing on the pirate hat Harry had given him all those months ago as payment for a single lousy piece of advice. Draco kneeled in front of him instead of pondering it. This wasn’t fair. He shouldn’t have to keep finding the boy in constant emotional pain. It wasn’t fair to Draco, and it definitely wasn’t fair to Harry. “Harry…”

“I’m sorry,” Harry whispered, finally looking in Draco’s eyes, “I got your letters, I just never found the time to reply, I’m so sorry, that’s such a prick move.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Draco shook his head.

“It does, though,” Harry insisted, his hand sneaking onto the base of Draco’s neck. He could feel goosebumps raise under his clothes, “I complained about Hermione and Ron not talking to me and then left you hanging.”

“I don’t care,” Draco said, resting his forehead against Harry’s knees. He should stand back up and go to sleep as soon as he could, lest he did something Harry didn’t like. Something he would regret. “You’re alive and unharmed.”

“I might be expelled,” Harry said, Draco’s head lifting back up at a speed he had no clue it was able to. “I used the Patronus charm outside of Hogwarts.”

Draco sighed. Harry tended to be pretty stupid, but if Draco had come in contact with dementors, he would not have made it back unharmed. He tried to bite back his utter amazement that someone with a four-year education could even perform the Patronus charm and placed his head back onto Harry’s legs. “No one’s expelling Harry Potter. You’re the Boy Who Lived,” Draco reminded.

“I’m now the boy who lied about Voldemort coming back, as far as everyone’s concerned.”

Draco didn’t have anything to say to that. He got to his feet and left an off-handed stroke along Harry’s upper arm. He’d noticed something in Harry he’d be lying if he said he didn’t recognise in himself. Harry Potter was touch-starved and underappreciated. So, if long hugs and lingering touches was what it took to ease Harry’s mind, Draco would gladly oblige.

Draco smiled sadly to himself, when Harry’s exhausted body reclined onto one side of the mattress, and gathered up the blanket and pillow he’d used for the previous few nights and before the shouting downstairs had woken him. “Where are you going?” Harry asked, his voice sounding worried and rushed.

“I don’t want to disturb you too much,” Draco said, confused as to why Harry wouldn’t just let him sleep on the carpet. It was a soft carpet.

“Don’t be daft, just get in the bed, you tosser,” Harry insisted, turning over to lay on his back, still in the clothes he’d arrived in to number twelve, Grimmauld place, still laid on top of the blanket on his side of the bed.

Draco wondered if he should laugh at the insult or feel like a burden, but he found himself unable to resist whenever Harry asked him to do something, so he placed all of his bedding back onto the bed and climbed under it.

“So…prefect Malfoy, huh?” Harry sounded almost somewhere near amused several silent minutes later.

“Jealous, Potter?” Draco teased.

“Relieved, more like it,” Harry chuckled into the dark, but Draco could tell it was a lie. Harry Potter had saved the school on multiple occasions, had admittedly decent grades and was on the Quidditch team. How on Earth Ronald Weasley beat him to the title was beyond Draco’s comprehension.

“If you ever feel like Polyjuiceing yourself into Weasley for nightly rounds together, send me an owl.

“From here? Might take a while,” Harry said bitterly.

“You’re not getting expelled, you know,” Draco assured. He could feel the warmth of Harry’s hand radiating onto his own. It was close enough to reach out, to touch, to hold.

“What if I do?”

“Then Hermione and Weasley will follow you to, I don’t know, Beauxbatons?”

“Yeah, Ron would love that,” there was an audible smile in his voice.

“I’ll hex whoever is on the committee, if there even is one,” Draco promised and this time Harry actually chuckled.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Harry’s words were the last ones spoken that night, and Draco resorted to listening to the sounds of the house, eventually getting lulled to sleep by Harry’s fretful breathing. He never woke Draco that night. How was Draco to know what Harry was going through in his head?

Draco hadn’t got a moment of peace for a single night since last Christmas. He’d slept in a room full of other boys in Hogwarts, then on a scratchy couch in the middle of a house where he could hear his uncle Ted snoring and the wind howling, before moving into a dusty room to worry about his ex-nemesis instead of sleeping. But now, when his privacy had been stripped away yet again by forcing Harry into his bed, he found he no longer minded the lack of lonesomeness that he once so enjoyed. It was even strange to wake on his own.

He dreamt of Harry. The one night he could finally sleep, all his dreams could provide him with was the touch of tan skin and a closeup of green eyes. He felt hot. He was sweating. It was supposed to feel disgusting, Draco hated sweating. But this felt amazing. Harry tasted wonderful.

“Darling,” his mother’s voice woke him. His eyes shot open. He was facing the window, back to the door. He was hard. She shouldn’t be able to see. “Molly’s asked what you’d like for breakfast.” He was right.

“Just…whatever’s fine,” he said, trying to groan and sound like he was still somewhere between being awake and asleep. Merlin, he hoped Harry was no longer in the bed with him. The creaking floorboards of the hallway outside their room told him of his mother departure, and he could carefully turn around to make sure he truly was alone.

He found some clothes as fast as he could and changed, taking a green sweater from a bedpost on Harry’s side and trying to think about Binns’ class and how boring it was just to make his little morning problem go away. It did work, but it took a while, and seeing Harry smile like May’s sunshine at him when he entered the kitchen was not much help either. “Morning,” he murmured, knowing fully well that no one here apart from his mother had ever seen him with dishevelled hair and in a sweater that he now realised didn’t belong to him. He was Draco Malfoy, for Merlin’s sake. If anyone at Hogwarts saw him like this, it would look like a cry for help, especially now that he was a prefect. He looked down to see what he was even wearing, finding a dragon on his stomach, his head snapping up to look at Harry as everyone in the kitchen switched between watching the two of them in confusion.

Luckily, it was only the Weasleys, Hermione and his mother in the room, and even then most of the redheads were missing. He assumed Arthur was at work, he knew the three oldest ones were off actually fulfilling their life’s purpose, or whatever the nearest thing was when you were a Weasley, and he’d seen the twins in the drawing room, no doubt plotting away. Ginny was talking animatedly to Hermione, looking up when Draco entered the room, and much less fazed by his presence than her scowling brother next to Harry. Draco wanted to punch his ugly face, maybe that would set something in place where a brain was supposed to reside.

“Sorry, I… grabbed the first thing I saw,” Draco could feel himself blush, suddenly making the sweater useless as he felt heat pool around his face, no longer feeling the early morning chill from the open window in their room upstairs.

“S’alright,” Harry shrugged.

The seat on Harry’s other side was left open and had a steaming cup of tea placed in front of it, the teabag still hanging out. His mother would never leave the bag in, neither would she already have added milk. He took the seat once Harry nodded towards it, and took a sip from the mug, savouring the warmth and finding the tea-to-milk ration perfect. The mug had little dragonflies painted on it. Draco smiled at Harry, a silent thanks, not going unnoticed by either of the redheads while Hermione smiled smugly in her seat. Draco looked for something to place his teabag on after having steeped it on a spoon, but didn’t have to look long, “I’ll take it,” Harry offered as if it was no big deal. As if little acts of kindness were completely normal between the two of them. Harry walked to the other end of the kitchen to throw it in the bin. Draco was so surprised by the action he could only stare in shock.

“You have… a green sweater with a dragon on it,” he narrowed his eyes towards Harry.

“It was a Christmas present from Mrs. Weasley,” Harry explained, “you know,” he stammered quickly, “with the whole tournament thing.”

Molly’s approaching snapped Draco out of his nodding, as she handed him a steaming plate of eggs and sausage with a bright smile and continued humming as she returned to her knitting. Draco wondered why anyone would knit in August. His own mother was sat at the end of the table, where Sirius normally occupied a seat during Order meetings. She was reading the Daily Prophet and not even batting an eye when her son strode in looking like he’d been electrified. In fairness, no one else commented either.

“Draco, have you read this?” Hermione asked, handing him a book. Weasel’s younger sister was watching Draco, ready to attack depending on his reaction to Hermione even speaking to him while Harry, sat merrily next to him at the long table, didn’t even bat an eye. Draco looked at the book being slid towards him. Lovely leather binding, it looked ancient, despite its surprisingly well-preserved state. He put down his fork to take a closer look at the front cover. It read Sonnets of a Sorcerer. Draco opened the book. First edition.

“Where on Earth did you find this?” Draco asked in complete awe, but afraid to open it.

“In the library upstairs. It’s incredible, there’s so many rare books. Don’t worry, I already removed the curse from this one,” she said, noting Draco’s hesitation to open the book, which went away the second she’d assured him of this. He wondered if he should find it strange that he trusted her expertise on curse removal just on her word alone, then again, he noted, she wasn’t speaking in limericks like the people that normally tended to open this book would. “I also found Newt Scamander’s original manuscript,” Hermione said excitedly.

“For his beasts?” Draco asked, his mouth agape as Hermione nodded with a huge grin. Sure, it was a schoolbook, but the edition Kettleburn had them learning from was heavily edited by the Ministry. Newt Scamander had been travelling the globe over some sixty years prior just to find more creatures. “Fuckin’ hell,” he made sure to say under his breath so that Molly wouldn’t hear and his mother couldn’t scold him.

“Blimey, you two are nerds,” Harry said, looking satisfied as he leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed. Draco returned to his dish after about three solid seconds of staring at the feigned innocence on Harry’s face watching him right back. Merlin, Draco was in serious danger of blushing one of these days of such close cohabitation with the other boy.

“Harry,” Weasley actually whined. The sound alone put Draco off his breakfast, but he soldiered on, if only to not upset Molly. “I really do need to talk to you, you know,” he said in the most pitiful way Draco could imagine only the saddest, most beaten house elf could, “you said you’d talk to me after breakfast, once Sirius left, well, he’s gone, isn’t he?”

Harry gave another small look towards Draco, which the Slytherin ignored, for his own sanity’s sake or for Harry’s, he wasn’t sure, but if Harry was actively pitying Draco and that was the reason why he wouldn’t let him out of his sight, perhaps seeing Draco’s back as he happily scarfed down eggs would put Harry’s mind at ease. “Yeah, alright, Ron,” Harry sounded like he was trying and failing to keep his exasperation at bay. Hermione refused to join them, or even to honour Ron’s antics with looking up from her book.

“Draco,” Weasel’s sister said, mouthing perhaps the first word she’d said to him in years, if not ever. He couldn’t entirely recall.

“Ginevra,” Draco answered, trying for the same tone. He noticed Molly’s head turn ever-so-slightly to listen. Not inconspicuous at all. Even his own mother seemed to tense up at the beginning of the exchange.

“What do you know about wrackspurts, Draco?” she then asked, leafing through a colourful magazine that Draco had never seen in any shop on Diagon Alley, and assumed was too strange for any muggle to find themselves picking up at a convenience store.

“Can’t say I know too much, Ginevra.”

Her eyebrows raised in a way that told Draco she wasn’t the least bit surprised, the way Severus tended to do when a Gryffindor couldn’t answer a question in class, eyes still glued to her magazine. He wondered whether he should find this charming or insulting. “What about Nargles?” she continued, turning another page.

“Never heard,” he said, a tiny smirk playing on his lips. Her eyes finally lifted from the page to catch a glimpse of just that.

“What about tigers? Have you heard of those?” she sounded almost disappointed. Like an actual teacher would.

“Certainly have,” Draco felt for a moment like he was entertaining a child. A know-it-all toddler, but he was surprised to find it didn’t seem annoying.

“I thought he was supposed to be as smart as you,” she said in a stage whisper, making Draco laugh when he stood to wash his now-empty plate.

“He hasn’t made friends with Luna yet,” Hermione said simply, though her face was adorned with a similarly fond smile. She seemed to be used to nonsense like this, be it because Ginevra was a Gryffindor or a Weasley. Draco was sure he had yet to find out. Though, judging by the fact that both of those categories overlapped, he might end up with some inconclusive data.

He wiped down the kitchen surface once he was done with the dishes, having even dried them with a new towel, which he then hung on the handle above the stove, assuming that it would dry faster where hot coals were currently helping Molly with one of her cooky trays. He wiped his own hands, for some unknown reason, on his trousers, only then turning to announce to his mother he was going back upstairs and finding all four women in the kitchen having been watching him. Molly – with a kind and thankful smile. His mother – with a raised brow and something bordering dangerously on amusement. Hermione – with her eyes quickly returning to her book and pretending she hadn’t been staring. And Ginevra – shamelessly and with wide eyes that told him he looked insane. Had he been humming to himself, or had that still been Molly?

“Thank you for the breakfast,” he managed, feeling suddenly awkward with so many eyes on him when all his life he’d so enjoyed attention. He didn’t know what to make of that, and decided instead to revisit the library that Hermione raved about. After all, she was a newcomer to this world and all its literary offerings. Perhaps Draco was able to find a book whose true worth was still unrevealed to Hermione. At the very least, it would be something for him to do in case Ron talked Harry into ignoring him. WEASLEY, he corrected himself, stopping on the stairs to let the reminder sunk in. Weasel.

He continued upward silently, having found the creaky steps on the very first day in number twelve, Grimmauld Place. He was quite proud of himself for that. He could hear Harry and Ron in the drawing room, their secret conversation rather loud for them to expect it to remain unpublicised to the rest of the admittedly empty house. Sometimes he really didn’t understand how Gryffindors managed to go about unpunched for their stupidity. And they wondered why Slytherins were considered to be cunning. Honestly.

“Do you really think he would be such buddies with you if You-Know-Who wasn’t coming back?” Draco heard Weasley’s voice and rolled his eyes at it.

“Jesus, Ron, you don’t have to trust him, okay? I don’t give a shit even if you don’t, but I trust him, alright? He’s my friend. Just like you are.”

“Harry, he called us all the nastiest names in the book for four years, now suddenly he’s changed his mind?”

“Three years,” Harry corrected, and it was a good thing he did, because Draco was on the verge of jumping out and doing so himself. “And I do believe he changed. Because some people actually grow up beyond childish squabbles.”

“Oh, so now I’m childish?” Ron scoffed. Draco could just imagine him – crossed arms and pouting.

“I’m not saying you’re childish,” Harry said exasperatedly, seeming lost in the conversation, but not angry enough to tell Weasel to just fuck off for a bit. Draco admired the patience, though he had yet to understand what exactly Weasley had that so obviously allured both Harry and Hermione – two of the arguably smartest and most skilled people in Draco’s life.

He briefly considered going back to the kitchen for an apple and maybe the copy of Sonnets of a Sorcerer he’d noticed Hermione had already moved on from, if only to look like him passing the door to the drawing room wasn’t suspicious. After all, people tended to suspect people who crept up ancient staircases without a single sound more than those who shamelessly wondered about, enthralled by a book and busying their mouth with a snack.

“Hey, Harry,” he said before he could think, taking the stairs two steps at a time, “oh, right, sorry, I’ll, uh, I’ll be on my way,” Draco pointed to the floor above them, utilising his very best acting abilities to make sure at least Harry believed it was an accident and not an eavesdropping session.

“What’s up, Draco?” Harry asked kindly, seeming glad to be given a break from his previous conversation partner.

“No, no, erm, it can wait,” Draco shook his head, unable to think of a single thing to ask his friend. He wracked his brain, seeing Harry was about to insist on Draco saying whatever it was, despite Weasley’s glaring. His head was empty. If he refused again, it would seem like Draco wanted to either talk about Weasley behind his back or ask about something so deeply personal that he might get asked about it again later, before bed. Neither of those options seemed entirely pleasing to Draco right about now. He didn’t need to antagonise Weasley, he needed to remain in Harry’s good will. And he certainly didn’t need Harry digging too deeply into his psyche, or else he might find himself spewing out secrets and love confessions. “I was only wondering if you knew what Nargles were,” he said, willing himself no to visibly cringe at the sudden burst of ingenious genius.

“Oh,” Harry laughed, thankfully, breathily, beautifully, “has Ginny got to you?” he asked with the same fond smile Hermione had sported just a few minutes earlier. A pang of jealousy tugged at Draco’s gut. Someone like Ginevra seemed like a more logical option for Harry than Draco ever could dare to expect of himself. Most people, really, seemed like the logical option. “None of us know, I’m afraid of what will happen when we find out,” Harry added, fixing his glasses and raking a hand through his unruly mess of hair. Draco saw Weasel roll his eyes at this. Not the words themselves, though. It almost seemed like he was annoyed with Harry’s movements. Prick. Harry had every right to do whatever he pleased, especially if it was something as mundane as trying to tame that hair of his. It was practically sentient at this point.

“Well, that makes me feel better,” Draco huffed a laugh and continued up the stairs and to the library.

“Get a hold of yourself, mate,” Weasley’s voice made the best effort it could at whispering. Draco waved it off, unsure what it meant and possibly unwilling to know, and continued toward the library.

Ginevra visited him again about an hour later. He was in the middle of another ancient manuscript, or, rather, he was in the middle of trying to understand the swooping, sloping cursive letters. She sat down in a chair front of him, her fingers steeped in front of her face. He could feel her staring at him without having to look up at her.

“You don’t like my brother, do you?” she asked after another minute of silence. She was apparently able to be a lot more quiet than the Weasel that had now left the drawing room and disappeared somewhere. Draco knew, because he could hear his every overly-noisy movement.

“You’ll have to be more specific, don’t you have about a dozen of those?” Draco asked, licking his finger to turn the page. Perhaps he shouldn’t sully these undoubtedly very valuable texts with his saliva, perhaps he should be wearing little white gloves.

She huffed a little laugh. “I mean the one you actively pick on.”

“Oh, that one,” Draco made sure to sound uninterested, “no, I guess I don’t.”

“He can be quite stupid,” she admitted. Draco looked up over the fragile parchment and smirked. “He once let Fred and George convince him he’d set a new record for sleeping,” she said with a deliciously Slytherin look in her eyes. “He woke up from a nap and they told him he’d been asleep for days. That the Daily prophet had been to the house.”

Draco couldn’t keep his laughter in anymore. He could just imagine it. Weasley, stumbling around the shack the ginger clan undoubtedly lived in, thinking he was suddenly famous. It was a lovely imagery to think how someone had to break the news of reality to him.

“He really had no excuse. It was only last year,” she said, making Draco nod in agreement, though verily as he did. “Once, on Christmas break, he spent so long on the broom, thinking it would get him closer to being on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, he got frostbite and nearly lost an ear. No one could get him back into the house. His fingers were blue.”

Draco listened with a small smile. Perhaps she was testing him, he thought. Or, she was just bored and the twins wouldn’t let her participate in their escapades. Either way, he found he enjoyed her company.

She remained in the seat for another few seconds with a nostalgic smile before getting to her feet, stopping once she was about to pass Draco’s chair completely on her way out. “Now, if you use that information, or anything else you learn here against him or my family, even if you think it’s just a funny little tease, I will stomp you into the ground so far your toes will be sinched off in muggle hell.” Draco’s smile returned, even though she couldn’t see it. He liked her. There was plenty Slytherin in this one. “Clear?”

“Crystal, Ginevra,” he answered and turned back to his book.

His mother and Molly had planned their yearly shopping trips to take part separately, and, as much as Draco wanted to go book shopping with Hermione and listen to the youngest, feistiest, Weasley (whom he now rather enjoyed) make fun of the Knockturn Alley crowd, he knew it was the safer choice. His robes were ready in three sets, his schoolbooks were already weighing down his shoulder and he had plenty of owl treats to go for the entire school year. He just wanted to go back to Grimmauld Place and spend time with Harry when he didn’t have to worry about other Hogwarts students seeing.

“Mother, I have quills,” he argued when Narcissa insisted on stationary shopping, “a bloody myriad,” he added under his breath.

“I know, I know, darling, I just want to make sure you’re all set. What else are you missing?”

“Nothing, mother, can we go back home?” Draco asked, looking around uncomfortably. There were too many people around. Too many Hogwarts students, and all of them acting like nothing in the world was wrong. They were all excited to head back, to learn more. Draco couldn’t believe them. He couldn’t believe why even his mother seemed to have not a single worry. As far as Draco was concerned, she was on the run from a horde of Death Eaters, yet here she was, in the middle of Diagon Alley, practically humming.

Draco looked back to his mother, noting how rude of him it was to not look her in the eye when speaking to her, and caught a strange look on her face – a small smile and something bordering on suspicion. Or maybe satisfaction, Draco couldn’t tell. “What is it?” he asked, hoping he didn’t sound impatient or rude.

“You called it home,” she smirked and hooked her hand into the crook of her son’s elbow, leading him back towards the muggle part of London. He hadn’t noticed that. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it, and he was concerned Harry’s recent arrival might have been the reason behind the sentiment.

“It’s as much a home as I know,” he said sadly, unsure what reaction that would elicit from his mother. Only now, when he had to share his space with so many people and his bed with someone he enjoyed being around, did he understand how little the term home had made sense in a big, empty mansion.

“Now, what would you like to tell me about the change in dynamic between you and Harry?” she asked quietly, teasing smile on her lips and voice near-silent and cautious.

“Mother,” Draco whined, having already expected this question for days. She merely laughed as they found an empty alleyway, and apparated them both back to Grimmauld Place.

He spent that evening in the drawing room by the fire with his mother while Harry entertained Weasley with a game of Gobstones. Narcissa had found a set of ancient texts buried in the bottom of the closet in the room she was staying in, and Draco found it overly exciting. Sometimes he wondered why he and Pansy had spent years calling Granger a nerd, when this was how he reacted to such things.

He was glad Harry could calm Weasley down for a while, at least Draco wouldn’t have to listen to him, or even be in the same room. If that meant Harry’s undivided attention going to someone else for a few hours, he’d take it, especially since he just found brand new accounts from wizards back in the War of the Roses.

“Have you found anything you didn’t know before?” Narcissa asked, a porcelain cup barely making a sound when she placed it back on the saucer. He hadn’t noticed her simply sitting there and watching him, as if trying to freeze the moment in time. He was growing up, he was always kind to her, he knew she was proud of him for what he’d become, he just wasn’t too big of a fan of someone observing him like a zoo animal.

Draco smiled and turned back to deciphering the calligraphic scribblings instead of answering. She was still teasing him. He didn’t mind. He barely had a few days left until he wouldn’t have the chance to see her for another four months. He was fully willing to let her fawn all over him when he knew he’d be missing and worrying about her for such a long time.

Just when Draco thought everything in the world was right again, and he could be carefree and happy, if he squinted enough, another source of rage poked its ugly head into Draco’s mind. They had just finished a lunch, there weren’t too many people in the house, in fact, Remus was the only one that didn’t live there, visiting to pass information and have a hot meal. Draco wasn’t entirely sure why the man didn’t live there, really, sure, all the bedrooms were taken, some even double booked, but if the two middle-aged men clearly in love figured out whatever break they’d unanimously decided to take when Sirius came back from Azkaban, there would be a warm bed for Remus right here.

Draco mused on this thought with a small chuckle. Maybe living amongst all these Gryffindors really had grown him a heart. And it seemed to look like living with Draco had made Harry twice as helpful and tidy as he’d ever been, Draco thought, watching Harry levitate a stack of plates towards the kitchen sink, before he’d lost his concentration and they’d all fallen to the ground.

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry, Mrs. Weasley!” Harry said hastily, dropping to his knees and picking up the shards with hasted hands, not nearly slow enough to make sure he wouldn‘t cut himself.

“Oh, it’s alright, my boy,” Molly laughed heartily, taking her wand from the table and waving it over to make the pieces float to the rubbish bin.

“I’m so sorry, I swear I didn’t mean to,” Harry continued as if he hadn’t even heard the dismissal. Draco understood at once what was happening, or, rather, what had happened before in Harry’s life in order for this to make sense.

“Harry,” Draco said warily, carefully, calmly, despite the pure rage he felt for the muggle pieces of human shit that had raised Harry and made him fear repercussions to as meaningless an accident as this. “Harry, stop,” Draco’s hands were on Harry’s back before he’d even realised he’s raised from his seat. “Harry,” he said, unsure how to go on.

“I’ve got it,” Remus took Harry’s hands in his, finding three small cuts on his right palm. He spoke a silent incantation as his hand slid over Harry’s, leaving unblemished skin in its way. Draco watched in awe, still unable to comprehend the severity of Harry’s living with his aunt and uncle. Remus was really good at healing spells.

Harry had calmed tremendously since his panicked reaction, now looking quite sheepish and a bit embarrassed. Draco could see exactly why. Harry chuckled awkwardly, but no one else in the room let him off the hook that quickly. Remus and Molly were looking at one another, there was something in the ex-professor’s eyes that said he’d seen this before. Draco wondered whether it had been himself or a friend.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” Harry smiled uneasily before hurriedly leaving the room.

Draco looked over to Hermione for instructions, but she looked just as shocked as everyone else, even Weasel was catching on. Hermione only nodded to Draco, and that was all the allowance he needed to go after Harry.

He found the other boy in their room, head in his hands, sitting on Draco’s side of the bed so that he’d be facing away from the door. Draco didn’t say anything, he wouldn’t know what, even if he wanted to. He simply sat down next to Harry with a hand on his back.

“It’s not that bad, I swear,” Harry sounded worried.

“Why are you still defending them?” Draco asked, perhaps a bit more forceful than he’d meant to be.

“They’re not that bad,” Harry repeated, like it was something instilled in him rather than his actual thoughts. Draco understood at once. Harry’s muggle relatives had threatened him before. Telling anyone would get him an even worse punishment.

“I am going to curse them one day,” Draco promised, “when you’re no longer in their care,” he continued upon seeing Harry’s sudden nervous, helpless look. “I’ll make it hurt, too,” he promised, bitterly.

That was the first night Harry’s movements woke Draco from his fragile slumber. The Gryffindor was muttering something, limbs jerking on the pristinely white sheets, tan skin flushed and worrisome, teeth marks on the back of his hand. Draco stared blankly for a second, his brain fuzzy, it must have been barely three a.m. and he needed a second to gather his thoughts. As soon as he did, though, his hands were on Harry’s shoulders and he was franticly trying to shake him awake.

Harry’s eyes flew open several long seconds later. Draco could feel his own heart beating against his ribcage. He could hear it in his ears. There wasn’t much that dreams could do to a man, but going by the fear in Harry’s eyes, a heart attack wouldn’t be unseen. “Oh, God, Draco, I’m so sorry,” Harry said breathlessly.

“Sorry?” Draco asked, bewildered as to what in the world Harry would have to apologise for.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Harry explained, rubbing his scar and forcing a breathy laugh to make himself sound more casual and putting his hand under the blanket, probably convinced Draco hadn’t seen. He knew the teeth marks were still there, still fresh, and certainly not from this night alone. Professional ability to stifle nightmarish screams must come with the territory when having idiotic muggles for caretakers.

Draco lurched himself wordlessly out of the bed to get a vial from one of the drawers in the ancient writing desk, and a clean cotton rag from one of his bags before sitting back onto the mattress. He knew Harry was watching him in confusion, he knew he had every chance to let Harry live in the delusions that others didn’t give a shit about him and never wanted to help him just because that was all he’d known his entire life, but Draco couldn’t bear the thought of the Boy Who Lived going through his life doing all the saving when no one was prepared to save him right back.

“I brewed this myself, I assure you it’s perfectly safe,” Draco said, soaking one end of the rag in his potion and reaching out his hand expectantly. Harry looked at him with drawn eyebrows, but he’d have to do better acting than that to get Draco Malfoy off his back. The Slytherin didn’t budge, his palm still turned upward and waiting.

“It’s honestly fine,” Harry sighed, but gave in nonetheless, letting Draco see his arm and the thankfully unbroken, but bruised skin.

“You keep hurting yourself,” Draco started, wrapping the soft fabric around Harry’s hand, “and I will tie you up before you go to sleep each night.”

“That might prove difficult when you have to sneak into the Gryffindor tower each night,” Harry still sounded breathless, probably from the blasted nightmare. His hand was damp, probably from the blasted nightmare.

“Don’t underestimate my ability to keep my word,” Draco warned, feeling green eyes steady on his features.

“You Slytherins and your honour,” Harry chuckled absently.

“Will you be needing Dreamless Sleep?”

“Have you brewed yourself an entire apothecary back there?”

“Unlike you, I’m actually proficient at potions,” Draco scoffed.

“I’m glad you put your expertise to morally sound use,” Harry murmured.

Draco shook his head with a smile as he finished up his knot. “You Gryffindors and your morality,” he said and finally looked at the gaze already waiting for him, “you’ll be good as new in the morning.”

“Thank you,” Harry said simply, kindly, eye contact never faltering. That was something Draco had to work on, and he knew it. It was difficult for a Slytherin to accept they need help. It was even harder to accept it, not to mention be shamelessly grateful for it. He wondered if that was why he’d been so eager to offer help to Harry over the past year. At least he was good at one end of the equation.

“Dreamless Sleep was a real offer.”

“I’ll manage, I think,” Harry sighed, “just don’t go, if you wake up first, it helps to know you’re here,” Harry said, turning his back and making himself more comfortable on the pillow Draco assumed had been there for about the last two hundred years. He sat in the stillness Harry’s statement left on the air in the room and tried to gather himself enough to lay back down. If they continued on their path of love-confession-esque revelations when not looking each other in the eye, be it though letters or in dark bedrooms in the middle of the night, Draco might actually start losing valuable parts of his mind trying to keep his feelings in check.

The rest of the time waiting for Harry’s trial was spent listening to Mrs. Weasley shout at Fred and George every five minutes about not having to use magic just because they now could as legal adults in the wizarding world. Harry did his best to sound interested when Hermione went off about the books hidden every few feet in the ancient house, Draco could only chuckle, knowing he himself could listen to her, mouth agape, for hours on end.

The Order meetings were practically laughing at them all now. They were held nearly every evening and all the children, Fred and George included, were sent upstairs to their rooms in an instant and with no chance of exceptions. If not for the titbits they sometimes managed to catch while loitering near the ground floor where Moody’s eye couldn’t catch them, or the crumbs of information a member or two failed to keep to themselves during dinner, Draco was quite sure he’d be going insane over the lack of intel.

Nymphadora had taken a special liking to the two youngest Weasleys and Hermione, entertaining them with her powers any chance she could get whenever she wasn’t crashing into things and smashing Molly’s plates by accident. Draco, in turn, had noticed the more Gryffindor-centric members of the Order finally having stopped sending suspicious looks his way, and he couldn’t help but wonder which of the current residents of number twelve he had to thank, but he wouldn’t put it past Molly, Sirius and Harry being the brightest influencers of this change of view.

Draco enjoyed helping Molly with the housework. He was surprised how fun it could be, especially once he’d made a game out of it and started ignoring his pale callousing hands that had never been forced to do physical labour before. Weasel certainly didn’t seem eager to help his own mother, and she would never ask Harry or Hermione for help, only ever bothering her own kids with it, unless someone else went out of their way offering to help out.

Draco wasn’t sure what had possessed him to such kindness, but once he’d washed the floors of the entire house, it was hard for him to stop. Maybe because he’d grown up in pristine conditions and number twelve, Grimmauld Place was more a cobweb than a house, or maybe it was his Slytherin inability to not act like a control freak, but he was determined to leave the house sparkling before the last week of summer was over, and was almost disappointed he’d have to leave and be unable to maintain the cleanliness.

Circe bless the Hogwarts house elves.

For a house so filled with people every night and days so filled with chores, Draco was surprised just how often he managed to find himself next to Harry, like the other boy was pulling Draco in, a siren-worthy invitation to step closer and see if he was still alright. But, even when Draco tried to give Harry some time apart and did his best to actively stay several feet away, Harry always found his way back to linger near Draco, no matter what he was doing.

It started with an innocent question here or there about specific differences in cleaning with magic versus without, as Harry was an experienced expert in the muggle ways of leaving a spotless home after a day’s work, then it turned to comfortable conversation about anything and everything that shot into either of their minds, and finally, when the fires had gone out and the suppers sitting nice and warn in their bellies, they would spend the last moments before bed sitting quietly at the kitchen table, their chairs without fail next to each other each night, Harry’s other side always devoted to Sirius, listening to loud conversations about goblins and laughter for the Weasley twins’ newest stunts from around the large table, before retiring to bed together, pretending they weren’t tired until one of them would dose off in the middle of a whispered chat about nothing in particular.

Draco didn’t bring up Voldemort. He set himself a boundary and made a promise to the pale boy in the mirror that he’d get to the subject when they were back in Hogwarts. For the first time in his life, with everything that had happened during the summer, he didn’t want to go back to School.

“Nearly time for bed, I think,” said Mrs. Weasley on a yawn on one of the routine nights of dinner after a meeting.

“Not just yet, Molly,” said Sirius, pushing away his empty plate and turning to look at Harry. “You know, I’m surprised at you. I thought the first thing you’d do when you got here would be to start asking questions about Voldemort.”

The atmosphere in the room changed so suddenly Draco had to wonder if there was a dementor around. Where seconds before it had been sleepily relaxed, it was now alert, even tense. A frisson had gone around the table at the mention of Voldemort’s name. Lupin, who had been about to take a sip of wine, lowered his goblet slowly, looking wary. Draco stilled in his seat, afraid to disturb something since he was so close to the two Gryffindors.

“I did!” said Harry indignantly. “I asked Ron and Hermione but they said we’re not allowed in the Order, so —”

“And they’re quite right,” said Mrs. Weasley. “You’re too young.” She was sitting bolt upright in her chair, her fists clenched upon its arms, every trace of drowsiness gone.

“Since when did someone have to be in the Order of the Phoenix to ask questions?” asked Sirius. “Harry’s been trapped in that Muggle house for a month. He’s got the right to know what’s been happen —”

“Hang on!” George interrupted loudly.

“How come Harry gets his questions answered?” Fred agreed angrily.

“We’ve been trying to get stuff out of you for a month and you haven’t told us a single stinking thing!” George said.

“You’re too young, you’re not in the Order,” Fred added, in a high-pitched voice that sounded uncannily like his mother’s. “Harry’s not even of age!”

“It’s not my fault you haven’t been told what the Order’s doing,” Sirius shrugged calmly. “That’s your parents’ decision. Harry, on the other hand —”

“It’s not down to you to decide what’s good for Harry!” Molly said sharply. Her normally kindly face looked dangerous. “You haven’t forgotten what Dumbledore said, I suppose?”

“Which bit?” Sirius asked politely, but with an air as though readying himself for a fight.

“The bit about not telling Harry more than he needs to know,” Molly gritted, placing a heavy emphasis on the last three words. Draco had to admit he was enjoying the standoff. It almost felt like a Slytherin study session and a fight had broken out about the right ingredients to use in a Wiggenweld potion. Draco leaned into Harry’s shoulder, watching the argument like a tennis match. Everyone around the table had remained silent, Ginevra’s mouth was hanging open, Professor Lupin was sending Sirius a look that couldn’t choose between being warning and being amused, but certainly differed from the usual ones of something bordering on lust and longing. Draco really hoped they’d fuck each other’s brains out while he was back in Hogwarts, and he wouldn’t have to deal with this over Christmas.

“I don’t intend to tell him more than he needs to know, Molly,” Sirius sounded damn near dangerous now. “But as he was the one who saw Voldemort come back, he has more right than most to-”

“He’s not a member of the Order of the Phoenix!” Molly insisted. “He’s only fifteen and…”

“And he’s dealt with as much as most in the Order,” Sirius roared back, “and more than some.”

“No one’s denying what he’s done!” Molly answered, her voice rising, her fists trembling on the arms of her chair. “But he’s still-”

“He’s not a child!” said Sirius impatiently.

“He’s not an adult either!” reminded Molly, the colour rising in her cheeks. “He’s not James, Sirius!”

“I’m perfectly clear who he is, thanks, Molly,” Sirius said coldly.

“I’m not sure you are! Sometimes, the way you talk about him, it’s as though you think you’ve got your best friend back!”

“What’s wrong with that?” Harry said defensively, a look in his eyes that Draco would have never imagined Harry sending towards a mother figure.

“What’s wrong, Harry, is that you are not your father, however much you might look like him!” the red-haired woman sighed, her eyes still boring into Sirius. “You are still at school and adults responsible for you should not forget it!”

“Meaning I’m an irresponsible godfather?” Sirius demanded, his voice rising.

“Meaning you’ve been known to act rashly, Sirius, which is why Dumbledore keeps reminding you to stay at home and-”

“We’ll leave my instructions from Dumbledore out of this, if you please!” Sirius was getting loud again.

“Arthur!” she said, rounding on her husband. “Arthur, back me up!”

Mr. Weasley did not speak at once. He took off his glasses and cleaned them slowly on his robes, not looking at his wife. Only when he had replaced them carefully on his nose did he say, “Dumbledore knows the position has changed, Molly. He accepts that Harry will have to be filled in to a certain extent now that he is staying at headquarters-”

“Yes, but there’s a difference between that and inviting him to ask whatever he likes!”

“Personally,” Lupin joined in quietly, looking away from Sirius at long last, as Molly turned quickly to him, hopeful that finally she was about to get an ally, “I think it better that Harry gets the facts – not all the facts, Molly, but the general picture – from us, rather than a garbled version from…others.” His expression was mild, but Draco felt sure that Lupin, at least, knew that some of Fred and George’s Extendable Ears had survived their mother’s purge.

“Well,” Molly said, breathing deeply and looking around the table for support that did not come, “well…I can see I’m going to be overruled. I’ll just say this: Dumbledore must have had his reasons for not wanting Harry to know too much, and speaking as someone who has got Harry’s best interests at heart-”

“He’s not your son,” said Sirius quietly. Warningly.

“He’s as good as,” said Mrs. Weasley fiercely. “Who else has he got?”

“He’s got me!”

“Yes,” Molly bit back, her lip curling. “The thing is, it’s been rather difficult for you to look after him while you’ve been locked up in Azkaban, hasn’t it?”

Sirius started to rise from his chair. Draco almost wanted him to pounce on her. Even for a Slytherin, that was a tad too far, especially when Harry was in the room. “Molly, you’re not the only person at this table who cares about Harry,” Lupin reminded sharply. “Sirius, sit down,” he added as Molly’s lower lip started trembling. Sirius sank slowly back into his chair, his face white, his knuckles whiter, pure rage on his face, but succumbing to Lupin’s orders without even thinking. “I think Harry ought to be allowed a say in this,” Lupin continued. “He’s old enough to decide for himself.”

There was a surprised squeeze on Draco’s fingers, like someone jumping when all attention turned to them. Draco looked down. His hand was in Harry’s lap, rested on the Gryffindor’s knee reassuringly. He couldn’t remember placing it there, it must have been during the heat of the argument, but Harry was holding onto it like a lifeline, still not letting go, even though all eyes were on him. It was fine, though, Draco was convinced no one could see.

“I want to know what’s been going on,” Harry said at once. He did not look at Mrs. Weasley.

“Very well,” said Molly, her voice cracking. “Ginny, Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, Draco I want you out of this kitchen, now.”

There was instant uproar. Draco wanted to protest, even Harry looked like he was about to object, but Narcissa’s eyes were warning from across the table where she’d sat quietly sipping her tea during the entire charade. Draco nodded solemnly, being the first to stand, making sure he kept his hands to himself.

“We’re of age!” Fred and George bellowed together.

“If Harry’s allowed, why can’t I?” Weasel shouted.

“Mum, I want to!” Ginevra wailed.

Molly turned bright red and the single-handed screaming match that followed was one Draco was glad technically didn’t apply to him, since he’d already complied with her demanding they leave. Draco let Hermione lead him out by the elbow, as he knew Harry would be telling him everything anyway. It wasn’t that much of a bargain, if it meant Molly wouldn’t blow up the Black ancestral home with her rage alone.

“Would you like to wait up with us?” Hermione offered on the stairs, nodding towards Weasel who rolled his eyes at her offer. But, as much as Draco would love to annoy the ginger prick with his mere presence alone, he had a theory to test.

“No, thank you, I think I’ll go for a bath and get some sleep,” Draco smiled politely, “The floor washing really drained me,” he said with a modest huff. Well, as modest as a Malfoy could muster. He had now undermined Weasel for not helping his mother, and found a reason to retire to his and Harry’s room to see who Harry would come to first to tell everything he’d just learned – him, or the two people he called his best friends. He had a feeling his theory needed no proving, but it was fun to have another reason to feel superiority over Ronald Weasley.

He never took that bath, too eager to see if he’d been right. He heard the goodbyes going round downstairs several long minutes later, and waited. Footsteps on the creaking stairs tipped Draco off as to who exactly had won the bet only he knew about, and he remained under his blanket, waiting patiently. 

“The order takes down Voldemort’s plans,” Harry said, entering the bedroom. Draco wasn’t sleeping. He was turned away from the door on his side of the bed, but he was completely alert and practically counting down the seconds until the door opens.

“I assumed as much,” Draco sat up, doing his best to sound like he was exhausted and had been half asleep. Perhaps he should be thinking about a career in acting.

“They said Voldemort doesn’t want to draw attention to himself, that’s why there haven’t been any suspicious deaths yet,” Harry said into the darkness.

“Makes sense,” Draco noted, “gives him a chance to make you look like a barmy liar.”

“Dumbledore’s the only one Voldemort has ever been scared of, and we think he wants to build up his army to go up against us again.”

“We?” Draco chuckled, seeing Harry’s little smile even in the darkness as the other boy crawled into the bed, landing heavily on the mattress next to him.

Harry didn’t say anything to that, but continued retelling what he now knew anyway. “The Ministry is making it bloody hard to keep people from becoming his followers. Fudge is afraid of Dumbledore coming after his seat, so he simply ignores his warnings.”

“Well, fudge is not the brightest glow bug in the meadow,” Draco supposed, “I believe he knows that, too, that’s why he’s so scared of Dumbledore overthrowing him.”

“It’s even harder now that he’s being discredited for everything he does,” Harry said defeatedly. “Most people in the Order can’t even tell anyone Voldemort’s back. Dumbledore’s the only one walking around trying to convince people,” he explained. “The second Dumbledore’s out of the way, Voldemort essentially wins.”

Draco watched him in the darkness for a moment longer, letting him take all the time in the world. Damn it, Draco thought, he really was wrapped around the Golden Boy’s finger. “He’s looking for a weapon,” Harry finally said. “I don’t know what it is, Molly sent me up to bed before I could get the slightest idea.

“They really didn’t tell you much,” Draco sighed. “Well, apart from the whole weapon business.”

“He’s got the Unforgivable Curses, what else could he possibly need?” Harry wondered. Draco could see Harry’s train of thought even in the darkness, he too was almost curious what horrors this weapon could perpetrate. “I hope to God it’s in Hogwarts. That way it can still be kept on our side.”

When Draco pointedly didn’t ask Harry about his nightmares the following morning, Harry told him it was mostly spiders and old friends going over to Voldemort’s side. It was a few seconds later when George stormed into their room, “Mum says get up, your breakfast is in the kitchen and then she needs you in the drawing room, there are loads more doxies than she thought and she’s found a nest of dead puffskeins under the sofa.”

“I’ll get the Doxycide,” Draco grunted his way out of the bed.

Sirius and Molly were both speaking in carefully light, polite voices the whole day that told Draco quite plainly that neither had forgotten their disagreement of the night before. Order members were going in and out all day, Sirius talking to each privately. Mrs. Black’s portrait screamed obscenities every once in a while, and Fred and George went off about their newest invention, but all Draco paid attention to was the way Harry never left his side.

Chapter Text

Some might refer to their work around the Black Family Home as “cleaning,” but in Draco’s opinion they were really waging war on the house, which was putting up a very good fight, aided and abetted by Kreacher. The house-elf kept appearing wherever they were congregated, his muttering becoming more and more offensive as he attempted to remove anything he could from the rubbish sacks. Sirius went as far as to threaten him with clothes, but Kreacher fixed him with a watery stare and said, “Master must do as Master wishes,” before turning away and muttering very loudly, “but Master will not turn Kreacher away, no, because Kreacher knows what they are up to, oh yes, he is plotting against the Dark Lord, yes, with these Mudbloods and traitors and scum…” At which Sirius, ignoring Hermione’s protests, seized Kreacher by the back of his loincloth and threw him bodily from the room.

The doorbell rang several times a day, which was the cue for Sirius’s mother to start shrieking again, and for Draco and the others to attempt to eavesdrop on the visitor, though they learned very little from the brief glimpses and snatches of conversation they were able to sneak before Molly recalled them to their tasks. Severus flitted in and out of the house several times more, though to what Draco knew to be Harry’s relief they never came face-to-face, and, really, Draco himself wasn’t entirely certain how he felt about his godfather’s secrets either. They also caught sight of Professor McGonagall, looking very odd in a Muggle dress and coat, though she also seemed too busy to linger.

Sometimes, however, the visitors stayed to help. Nymphadora joined them for a memorable afternoon in which they found a murderous old ghoul lurking in an upstairs toilet, and Lupin, who was rarely staying in the house (though Draco hoped when he did, it was in Sirius’ bed) and who left it for long periods to do mysterious work for the Order, helped them repair a grandfather clock that had developed the nasty habit of shooting heavy bolts at passers-by.

Draco was happy to help Molly with meals, while Harry, Hermione and the Weasley bunch that didn’t matter enough to be a part of the Order stayed behind with Sirius as he told them all old stories from school, or about the family tree on the tapestry, little black spots singed into it, including Sirius himself. Draco felt like he shouldn’t be privy to those conversations, like the Slytherin and ex-nemesis that he was, he should remain where he wasn’t able to overhear sentimental things from Gryffindor past.

Molly turned to Harry during dinner on Wednesday evening and said quietly, “I’ve ironed your best clothes for tomorrow morning, Harry, and I want you to wash your hair tonight too. A good first impression can work wonders.” Draco, Hermione, and the Weasleys all stopped talking and looked over at him. Harry nodded and tried to look like it didn’t bother him. Draco knew better.

“How am I getting there?” he asked Mrs. Weasley, trying to sound unconcerned.

“Arthur’s taking you to work with him,” she nodded gently.

Mr. Weasley smiled encouragingly at Harry across the table. “You can wait in my office until it’s time for the hearing,” he said.

Harry nodded. Draco watched him out of the corner of his eye. He knew even now that he’d be spending the following day in their room, counting cracks in the ancient wallpaper and worrying his mind off. That’s what he did these days – worried about Harry bloody Potter like there was no tomorrow. Because with the way Harry refused to let him out of his sight and tended to prefer his company to Hermione and Weasel’s now, Harry disappearing from Hogwarts really would mean the end of the world.

Harry didn’t sleep all night, Draco could tell. He laid far too still for someone who’d had nightmares every single night before that one, and when Draco woke in accord with his own nerves, Harry was already missing from the room. Draco received one last pained look when Harry walked out of number twelve, Grimmauld Place with Arthur Weasley in tow, before Molly called him down to the kitchen for breakfast. Harry really had looked good with well-fitting clothes and something bordering on tamed hair.

As he watched his mother merrily sipping her morning tea and scoffing at the Daily Prophet, Draco couldn’t help but wonder how she was holding up during all of this. Whether she was even sleeping, or simply glamouring her appearance every morning for the sake of Draco’s sanity. She must have been worried about her safety. Draco assumed that concern was shared by Dumbledore and was the reason she rarely left the premises. Renowned Death Eater Lucius Malfoy’s suddenly vanished wife and son must have quite the bounty on their heads.

“How have you been faring?” a familiar, low voice pulled Draco out of his thoughts. He was in his room again. He hadn’t noticed trudging up the stairs, having been so deeply lost in his own thoughts.

“Fine, thank you,” Draco answered his godfather with a stoic face. Slytherins tended to lack emotion, and sometimes Severus would remind him too much of the moral void in which his father had raised him. Besides, the secret-keeping bastard had no right to expect love and joy from Draco fucking Malfoy.

“How has it been…” Severus started, looking around the room, suddenly making Draco quite aware of the unmade bed, Harry’s clothes strewn around any surface they could lay flat on, and Draco’s books taking up possibly too much of what could be considered his side of the desk, “…staying here?”

“Not as unpleasant as imagined,” Draco lied, because he could and because he was good at it, and because he certainly didn’t need Severus Snape to be aware of Draco’s, well, to put it politely, excitement of sharing a room with Harry. “The boy is much less of a slob than I’d expected,” he added.

Severus hummed in response, throwing the grey hoody on the floor a pointed look. “I don’t know if you are even interested in this knowledge,” he looked uncomfortable when saying this, much like he would when third year Slytherins start getting into relationship drama that results in hexing and have not yet learned to suppress it like the older Snakes, “your father,” he continued, pausing to give Draco a chance to cut in, “is alive. He’s worried about you, as your godfather I have been unfortunate enough to be his confidant in the matter.”

Draco liked to make himself believe he rarely thought about his father these days. His reasoning was that the man that chose the Dark Lord over his own wife, especially when that wife was as wonderful as Draco’s mother, didn’t deserve pity or even a second thought. That being said, Draco had no way of knowing if his father was even still alive. Whether he was still serving the homicidal maniac or had gone on the run. You don’t simply quit Voldemort’s employment. It was a job for life, or certain death.

Draco did sometimes wonder whether his bedroom in the manor had been turned into a torture chamber, he wondered whether his mother’s herbs had been used to make poisons, he wondered whether his father was back on firewhisky, he wondered whether his father could sleep at night or even live with himself now that his family had abandoned him and his beliefs.

“Is he in danger?” Draco asked, unsure whether he wanted to know because he was worried himself or because he knew Lucius’ death would still have an effect on Narcissa.

“Not immediate, no,” Severus admitted, “but when word gets around about you having returned to Hogwarts, I suspect there will be attempts to…pull you into the other side.”

Draco stilled. He hadn’t considered that. He’d assumed Voldemort’s people would be looking for the Malfoys. But, of course, someone would come for him to the one place where he’s open and vulnerable, like a giant castle that was half empty most of the time. Of course, he would have to follow safety measures now. Fuck his life.

This was as good a time as any to start panicking.

“Dumbledore has several ideas about how to prevent that,” Severus then said in what Draco assumed was an unsuccessful attempt at calming his godson’s nerves. “You mustn’t fret.” Draco doubted that.

“I shan’t,” Draco agreed, though it was a lie. There was a flock of murderers set on finding him in an ancient building in the middle of Scottish nowhere, so fret he shall. He’ll be lucky to get a single full night of sleep throughout the entire year.

“Well, then,” Severus said awkwardly, “I shall see you in class.”

“Safe travels, Severus,” Draco wished his godfather with an approving nod, but didn’t bother to stand up as he left. He kept sitting on the bed. Stayed in his spot as the sun travelled across the sky and started shining on his face instead of the opposite wall. His mother checked in several times with an uncharacteristically large knowing grin. She also hadn’t heard anything. Perhaps it was bad news and she was only trying to keep disappointment away from him.

It became suspicious when Remus arrived into the room with a soft knock on the doorframe and a kind smile. One that didn’t look an ounce faked and that calmed Draco quite a fair amount. “Hello, Draco.”

“Hello, Professor Lupin,” Draco tried to sound calm and unbothered. It was proving to be more difficult than he expected.

“I trust Severus spoke to you before he left?” Remus said calmly.

“About the danger I will be in when I go back to Hogwarts?” Draco sighed, “I suppose I should have figured that much out already.”

“If you wish, I can teach you some defensive spells you might have yet to learn. They might come in handy if a fellow Slytherin decides to jinx you. Again.”

“What?” Draco’s head snapped up to his ex-professor, wondering how he could have possibly known. “Dumbledore,” Draco sighed.

“The portraits are charmed to report back to him, even about the things that happen in the common rooms,” Remus admitted. So that was how Dumbledore always knew everything that happens in the school. Nifty trick, Draco had to admit.

“I’m assuming you won’t be teaching me Avada Kedavra,” Draco huffed.

“Probably not,” Remus laughed, “what do you normally use?”

“A good Sponge-Knees Curse usually does the trick,” Draco shrugged, watching the older wizard smiling at him fondly. Merlin, Gryffindors were a forgiving bunch. He wondered how often it came back to bite them in the arse. “Oppugno, if I’ve got something heavy near me, but it’s usually difficult with bigger things. I suppose the dagger Pansy gave me would suffice instead, should start carrying it around.”

Remus’ eyebrows lifted, though he was still smiling.

“Bombarda and Fiendfyre, though I’m reluctant to use them in the castle, especially now that I know there are portraits spying on me,” Draco continued. “Locomotor Mortis? Works pretty well, but the attacker can still use their hands so it doesn’t exactly limit their ability to counterattack me. Tarantallegra is always a funny one, but I once saw a Hufflepuff under it and they got so frightened they nearly turned the entire hallway into ice, so, again unpredictable wand work, not very safe for me,” Draco chuckled, looking back at Remus. “I should probably add, I wasn’t the one who jinxed them. I don’t find picking on Hufflepuffs funny. It’s far too easy.”

“Well, your head’s certainly in the right place, defensively speaking. You seem to know your stuff,” Remus said, sounding amused. “How good are you with Protego and Impedimenta?”

“Umm…” Draco shrugged, “sufficient?”

“How about Salvio Hexia?” Remus offered, “And Colloportus?”

“Not so sufficient,” Draco admitted.

“Alright, that’s a start,” Remus smiled and turned around to leave the room. Draco assumed he was to follow. Remus led him down the stairs until they’d reached a room Draco had not yet had a chance to explore. It was connected to the library and the dark wooden door was almost hidden among the thousands of books.

Draco was near certain this was someone’s study. He assumed Sirius had shown it to Remus, unwilling to go into, probably, his father’s study himself, but knowing that the ever-knowledge-hungry Remus would be fascinated by it. The room looked like it had been in use recently. They dust had been cleared and there was a walkable path up to the desk. A blanket hung on the back of the leather chair, knitted in patterns and colours none of the previous inhabitants would be likely to use, certainly no Slytherins, but it matched the abundance of jumpers Remus Lupin owned.

He dug out a book from the pile on the desk, “I believe you will find what you need here,” Remus smiled, handing the book over. The cover was worn, so much so that Draco couldn’t even read the name. “Read up on anything you find interesting, I’ll show you the semantics later tonight, when I return, though, I must say from personal experience, your Godfather knows many more hexes that I do.” Remus said kindly, leaving Draco in, apparently, Remus’ study without explaining where he was going.

Well, at least Draco would have something to do for the next few hours to take his mind off worrying about Harry Potter’s future in wizardry.

He could see out the small door into the library as he fussed in his seat, most of his attention on the book in front of him. It took about an hour for him to understand why Remus kept a blanket in the room, and once the warmth from the ratty old thing had worn out, Hermione brought up a cup of tea, insisting she’d grown tired of listening to Weasley’s rambling about Harry, but seeming very interested in reading over Draco’s shoulder.

“I’ve never heard of half of these,” she sounded almost annoyed.

“One learns most of these in the Slytherin common room,” Draco said nonchalantly.

“You know these spells?” Hermione sounded surprised.

“Offensives, defensives,” Draco shrugged, “they come in handy.”

“They haven’t been taught in DADA,” Hermione scoffed.

“I suppose me and mother being here clears up why my father deemed it necessary for me to learn these when I was younger.”

“Your father taught you to duel?” Hermione sounded bewildered, still standing behind him, and he refused to face her. Not when speaking about him.

“Well, it certainly wasn’t Lockhart,” he said, hoping the joke would lift the mood, because he really didn’t want this conversation to turn into a therapy session about Lucius Malfoy. Hermione chuckled politely and placed her hand on his shoulder. Just when he was about to beg her not to get into it, she squeezed lightly and left the study.

Harry returned before Remus did. Draco hadn’t heard the shrieking from Sirius’ mother’s portrait, and he hadn’t noticed the footsteps nearing the second floor. He only realised Harry was back and not under arrest when he waltzed into the library in search of Draco. “I’m going back to Hogwarts!”

“Oh, thank Salazar,” Draco sat back in the chair and let out a worried breath. “I’m surprised I didn’t hear Hermione screaming in happiness. What happened?”

“I’m not even sure, Dumbledore barely looked at me,” Harry said, seeming pissed off. He walked further towards Draco and downed the remnants of the long-since-cold tea that Draco had entirely forgotten about. “Mrs. Figg was called in to testify on my behalf.”

“Mrs. who?” Draco asked.

“Figg,” Harry repeated, “she’s this old lady that used to babysit me sometimes, turns out she’s a squib and Dumbledore’s been asking her to keep an eye on me,” Harry rolled his eyes, now looking increasingly angry. “Fudge seems determined not to give me any benefit of the doubt,” he murmured and dropped himself off on the ground.

Draco watched him for a moment. For someone who’d been sleeplessly worrying about being expelled just hours ago, Harry certainly didn’t seem any more relieved than he was this morning. “What are you pondering up there now?” Draco asked with narrowed eyes.

Harry shook his head as if to say he doesn’t know. “There was this one really annoying woman there. Dressed in all pink. Dolores…something, have you heard of her?”

“I don’t know first names much,” Draco was forced to admit.

“Well, she was bloody awful,” Harry pouted. Draco had to look away, the Gryffindor sat on the ground looked adorable. Dangerously snoggable. “Y’know Susan Bones?” he asked and Draco nodded, a memory of a red-haired Hufflepuff floating somewhere along the surface of his brain. “Her aunt was there, she practically saved me. The only logical voice in the whole Wizengamot.”

Harry looked uncomfortable then, fidgeting in his place on the ground and pointedly looking at the wall opposite of him instead of at Draco. “Erm,” he begun, ever-so-eloquently, “your father was there.” Draco froze, his gaze trained on Harry. He waited for more words to come, hoped, begged for just another sentence. Why couldn’t he will his voice to demand for Harry to continue? “It was like nothing had happened. Like I hadn’t seen him in the graveyard, like you weren’t gone from his life.”

“Was he…in your hearing?” Draco asked, surprised to be able to produce a voice.

“No, no,” Harry shook his head, “he was just speaking to Fudge afterwards. It was bloody weird. I was quite rude to him.”

“Good,” Draco said simply, shaking off his shock completely. He didn’t want to think about it or him. If the ministry was stupid enough not to believe that the most dangerous dark wizard of all time had returned, not to mention make business with known Death Eaters, it wasn’t any of Draco’s concern. Draco watched him for a while longer. Harry was twirling his wand as his elbows rested on his folded legs, his gaze worried and tired. Despite Draco’s best efforts, and worries, he couldn’t help but chuckle. “Get some tea, relax,” Draco suggested, making Harry shoot him a small smile.

Harry nodded, standing back up and putting his wand in his pocket. “What are you reading anyway?”

“Remus thought I might need to learn to defend myself now that half my house are the children of Death Eaters and I’m assuming my father hasn’t mentioned me to his little friends,” Draco said bitterly, only realising his mistake of speaking of Lucius and now having to distract Harry with something else, “which reminds me, will you teach me how to cast a Patronus?”

Harry hummed, pretending to think about it very hard, “I will, if you promise to be nice to Ron.”

“Never you mind, I’ll just ask Remus,” Draco waved him away dramatically and turned back to the book in front of him, seeing a laughing Harry leave out of the corner of his eye.

Draco smirked. Harry could go back. He exhaled shakily, the thought of having to communicate with Harry through letters for another year dissipating like an uncomfortable cramp. He tried to continue reading, but couldn’t focus on the words, so he took the book with him and followed Harry’s now inaudible footsteps down to the kitchen.

“I knew it!” Ron yelled, punching the air. “You always get away with stuff!”

“They were bound to clear you,” said Hermione, who had been positively faint with anxiety from the second Harry left, and was now holding a shaking hand over her eyes. “There was no case against you, none at all!”

“Everyone seems quite relieved, though, considering they all knew I’d get off,” Harry snorted, smiling down at his shoes.

Mrs. Weasley was wiping her face on her apron, the twins and Ginevra were doing a kind of war dance to a chant that went “He got off, he got off, he got off –”

“That’s enough, settle down!” shouted Mr. Weasley, though he too was smiling. “Listen, Sirius, I need to have a word with you,” he said, throwing a glance to Draco, stood in the doorway and watching the whole scene play out from the sidelines like he normally liked to do.

“What?” Sirius asked sharply after a moment of them whispering to each other in the opposite side of the room.

“He got off, he got off, he got off –”

“Be quiet, you three! Yes, we saw him talking to Fudge on level nine, then they went up to Fudge’s office together. Dumbledore ought to know,” Mr. Weasley continued in a more audible whisper now.

“Absolutely,” Sirius said, nodding defiantly. “We’ll tell him, don’t worry.”

Mr. Weasley nodded as well, “Well, I’d better get going, there’s a vomiting toilet in Bethnal Green waiting for me. Molly, I’ll be late, I’m covering for Tonks, but Kingsley might be dropping in for dinner.” He squeezed Draco’s shoulder as he passed him. It was getting entirely too difficult to dislike the Gryffindor kind.

“He got off, he got off, he got off –”

“That’s enough!” Molly said to her three loudest children, as Mr. Weasley left the kitchen. “Harry dear, come and sit down, have some lunch, you hardly ate breakfast.”

Weasley and Hermione sat themselves down opposite Harry, looking happier than they had done the entire day, and Draco could see Harry’s feeling of giddy relief swelling again. The gloomy house seemed warmer and more welcoming all of a sudden now that they all had one less thing to worry about. Even Kreacher looked less ugly as he poked his snout-like nose into the kitchen to investigate the source of all the noise.

“’Course, once Dumbledore turned up on your side, there was no way they were going to convict you,” said Weasley happily, now dishing great mounds of mashed potatoes onto everyone’s plates. Draco smiled a tiny grin and pushed himself off the doorframe to go back to his reading.

He could hear Harry answering, “Yeah, he swung it for me,” their voices growing more quiet as he ascended the stairs. Draco didn’t mind letting the three of them have some alone time, seeing as Hermione had obviously talked Ron into shutting up and letting Harry spend time with Draco, just as well. He didn’t have to be asked to go for a while, he knew no one would, least of all Harry himself.

Draco only noticed Remus’ return when he stepped out of their bedroom a good while later to use the loo, and saw Harry sitting on the stairs. “What are you doing, Potter?” he demanded with chuckle. Harry put a finger in front of his lips and beckoned Draco to join him silently. He didn’t understand what they were doing until he heard the unmistakeable voices of Remus and Sirius.

“You would have made a bloody brilliant father figure!” Sirius sounded angry, but sincere.

“Yes, because giving a toddler to a suicidal werewolf would have been the most brilliant fucking idea in the world,” Remus’ voice travelled up the wooden stairs from what Draco assumed to be the first floor.

“You needed family. Harry would have given you that comfort,” Sirius said stubbornly, “and Godric knows Harry needed someone else than Lily’s shit family!” Draco had noticed the two of them having grown more worried ever since Harry’s traumatic reaction to dropping a few plates on accident. Draco himself had not stopped thinking about it yet.

“Comfort,” Remus scoffed, “and you know me so well,” he sounded bitter. He was speaking through gritted teeth. If he really was a werewolf, something Draco had only theorised beforehand and Remus had just confirmed, Draco would have been scared to stand in front of him, fighting him, the way Sirius was.

“Please, Remus, I know you better than anyone in the world,” Sirius said as if this was not something even worth discussing.

“Of course, you do, because the great Sirius Black always has to be right about everything.”

“I knew you before you could read,” Sirius scoffed, “I know every inch of your body,” he added quietly, dangerously, in a warning. The house listened, the walls were enthralled, even Sirius’ mother had shut the fuck up for once.

“It’s amazing how oblivious yet in love with each other they are,” Draco whispered, his voice barely audible.

“I’ve told Sirius a million times to just kiss Remus, and all he does is keep fighting him,” Harry sighed, getting up to go up to their room. Draco noticed none of the steps creaking, like Harry had figured out which ones to avoid the same way he himself had in his first days at Grimmauld Place. He wondered if that was something Harry had had to do at his aunt and uncle’s house, just to avoid a telling off, or worse…

Draco continued sitting there for a while, but the pair of wizards in a shouting match downstairs seemed to have calmed down. That, or one of them had stormed away. Or, and Draco sincerely hoped this was the actually reason, they were finally snogging each other’s brains out.

Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, as haunting, dark and genuinely terrifying as it was, never failed to entertain Draco. He could listen in to people’s conversations for hours. He wondered if it had been built with this in mind, or if the Black family had placed a certain charm on it, but almost anything could be overheard, if one tried enough.

He had once been walking down to the kitchen in the morning and heard a snippet of Sirius and Harry. “How do I even bring it up?” Harry had asked, to Sirius’ unhelpful “I believe your father’s line was ‘Oi, oi, Evans’.” Draco had wanted to hear more, he wanted to know which girl Harry was trying to schmooze with the useless advice of his terribly gay Godfather. He’d never found out.

“Hogwarts is safe, right?” Harry said into the still darkness of their room two meals and a defence lesson later. Draco almost wanted to laugh about how their roles had been reversed. Now that they knew Harry would be returning to Hogwarts, they had a new concern to lose sleep over, and this time it was Draco that was subjected to it.

“Supposed to be. But Death Eaters have a knack for bending rules and finding unorthodox ways to do so,” Draco admitted. There was no point in sugar coating this for him, if he was supposed to be The Chosen One or whatever they called him.

“Right,” Harry sighed, the last work spoken of the day.

Narcissa didn’t wear a glamour like most members of the Order had insisted she did. Draco couldn’t really see the point – she was taking Draco to the train station, why on earth would a glamour make anyone believe someone other than her would be there with her son? She did, however agree to let Sirius accompany the two of them, especially since that way he could also keep an eye on Harry for the last few moments until Christmas, and both Draco and Narcissa were more than happy to help out.

Harry had to be escorted not only by Sirius in dog form, but also by an actual auror, though Nymphadora didn’t seem unhappy to be there. Mr. Weasley took Hermione and Weasel, while the twins and Ginevra got Lupin for guard.

Draco’s eyes didn’t let the Gryffindor trio out of his sight the entire time they were on the platform, even though they’d arrived separately. It wasn’t a difficult feat, seeing as Harry was constantly encompassed by an entire circle of redheads. Mother hugged him tight and he prayed to that God muggles tended to speak of that she’d be safe while he was away. Perhaps she’d go visit Andromeda. Hopefully there was a trusted fireplace to floo from somewhere near Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.

“I said I’d be on time this year, and I’ve delivered,” Draco grinned with open arms, the second he saw Pansy twirling her wand in her fingers like a drumstick, her prefect badge glistening in the late summer sun. His own had been placed on his robes this morning by his mother. Draco was certain the breakfast table at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place had never seen three prefects sat around it at the same time.

“Circe’s pants, you’re alive,” she said with lowered eyelids and a satisfied smile, not looking one ounce the worried best friend Draco had been himself the past three months.

“Hello, gorgeous,” he returned with his own most dashing smile and hugged her, lifting her off the ground to spin her around, as little as the small hallway allowed. “Don’t tell me he’s late,” Draco said, unable to see Blaise anywhere nearby.

“Well, it’s either that, or his mother has grown some brains and taken him out of school,” she rolled her eyes, opening the door to the compartment she’d undoubtedly been scaring second-years away from to let him deposit his bags.

“The prefect carriage awaits. Shall we, madam prefect?”

“We shall, my good sir,” she said poshly. “Oh, and you’re certainly in charge of dividing carriages between us and Weasel. Nothing against Granger, in fact I’d love to take her, but I guess I’m stuck with you.”

“Head boy and girl give us the orders. Also, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – please don’t go for Hermione. She can’t handle you, and you’ll call her a nerd so many times you’ll end up hate-shagging all over school. I don’t want to see that. At all.”

“Like you’re so good at taking orders. And excuse you, I’m bloody nice,” Pansy scoffed, “besides, it doesn’t matter, I have my eye on a sweeter fruit,” she smiled with her bottom lip caught between her teeth. If she had her eye on anyone Draco was going to have a difficult year. “Alright, now where are they?”

“Two cars back,” Draco said without even having to think about it. This was a mistake, as pointed out by Pansy’s shit-eating grin. “Alright, keep it in your pants.”

“Malfoy and Potter, sitting in a tree…” she whisper-sung, her breath right in his ear. If the two of them weren’t as gay as they were, he’d possibly be quite turned on.

“I swear to Salazar, Pans,” Draco warned, putting a locking charm on their compartment and giving a tiny wave with his wand to draw the blinds closed. “Alright, lead the way.”

Harry sat in the compartment the three of them had picked, looking out the window. Almost like he pointedly didn’t want to see Hermione and Weasley. Like he didn’t even want to think about not being chosen for prefect. He looked sour as he supported his chin on his fist. At least he had Ginevra to keep him company while Hermione and Weasley patrolled.

Draco looked around the narrow hallway to check if anyone would see when he stepped inside the three Gryffindors’ compartment. “Hey,” he said, looking back to see Pansy finally having reached them as well, and using the moment of an empty carriage to hug Hermione hello. “Don’t,” he reminded to the pouting boy staring at the platform out the window.

They’d had this conversation the night before. In the darkness of the top floor of number twelve, Grimmauld Place, at night, when Harry had woken up from nightmares and Draco had woken up from Parseltongue spoken next to him, and they’d spent the night talking. Draco had spoken of his father. Harry had spoken of his feeling towards Ron being chosen as prefect instead of him. “They didn’t fight Quirrell with me. They didn’t take on Riddle and the basilisk. They didn’t get rid of all those dementors the night Sirius escaped. They weren’t in that graveyard with me, the night Voldemort returned…”

“I’m alright,” Harry said casually, making Draco want to laugh. He looked like a first-year, trying to convince his friends that he didn’t miss his mother and hadn’t just been crying. Draco, of all people, should know what that looked like. He would hug Harry, if they weren’t on the train.

“You’ll get them both right back,” Draco promised, stepping back out as he heard people starting to pile in. Pansy wiped the smile Hermione and Ginevra’s combined efforts had brought out of her off her face as other people scattered around them, quickly taking up the empty compartments and hurrying along once Draco shot them a warning glance. The little ones seemed even more scared of him than usual. He was certainly going to enjoy this power.

There was a chuckle to his left, a dashing Blaise smiling down at them. Had he grown even taller? Draco wondered how that was even possible. “Looking good, Granger,” was the first thing he said.

“Oh no,” Draco dragged as Hermione blushed.

“For fuck’s sake,” Pansy agreed.

“Well don’t worry, you’re next,” Blaise assured her, dragging his eyes off Hermione. All of a sudden, Draco was convinced this would be a long year. Blaise hugged Pansy for a good ten seconds before turning to Draco. “You look well-rested.”

“Insinuating I’ve looked tired the last four years won’t get you far in this friendship,” Draco scoffed, unable to resist hugging his friend.

“Not all four, just last year,” Blaise said with a brilliant smile. Draco rolled his eyes at what Blaise meant by that.

“Two cars down, last one down the line,” Pansy told Blaise when he pointed to his trunk with a raised eyebrow. Great, the boy could now make girls read his mind. He was going to be bloody irresistible to the whole school.

“I’ll get the liquorice wands, shall I?” Blaise winked, passing Pansy.

“Thank Merlin you’re gay,” Draco told Pansy.

“Thank Circe he isn’t, is that drool on your chin?” she teased.

“Verry funny,” Draco leaned out of the way of her reach when she tried to swipe her thumb on his face to emphasise her point. He threw a glance at Harry, a part of him worried for something he couldn’t quite understand. Harry looked very interested in their conversation for a moment, then slumped back into his seat to watch the people outside.

By the time the train had started moving, the younger years had settled into their compartments or been scared into them, and Pansy had recounted the entirety of July in precise detail, the two Slytherin prefects had reached the last carriage again. As much as Draco tried, because, really, his duties at the moment mostly included making sure the train was not too loud and no one was running around, he still looked inside Harry and Ginevra’s compartment, seeing Longbottom there, as well as a small blonde girl with peculiar clothes and almost impossibly long hair.

“Loony Lovegood,” Pansy explained as they continued their leisurely stroll. Draco had heard that name from Ginevra a few weeks earlier. “Not a threat, don’t worry, she’s called loony for a reason.”

“Is she actually mad?” he asked, remembering Ginevra mentioning her at breakfast one morning.

“Barking,” Pansy snorted a laugh, “Potter’s not desperate enough to go for her. It’s the baby Weasley you should be worried about.”

“Pardon?” Draco asked, unsure if he’d understood correctly.

“Well, she’s been throwing eyes at Harry ever since she’s been here,” Pansy said casually, knocking on a compartment in which a quartet of Ravenclaw third-years were actively trying and failing to charm someone’s cat. “Oi, first warning, Rubin!” she shouted, prompting all four of them to put their wands away.

Draco followed Pansy through to the next carriage, surveying with a serious face that he knew intimidated at least most of the school, and certainly all Hufflepuffs. “That’s another one you should be worried about,” Pansy nodded towards Cho Chang, who they could see through the door leading back to Harry’s carriage, and who was purchasing a pumpkin pasty from the trolly, just as Harry stepped out of his compartment to buy some sweets for himself, throwing an adorable smile at the girl.

“Yes, I’m aware,” Draco answered in as stony a voice as he could. He’d seen the way Harry looked at the girl, he wasn’t entirely an idiot. And she was lovely, as far as girls go. Timid, smart and pretty. Draco was pretty sure that was the holy package. “No chance we could get Blaise on her, huh?”

“Unfortunately, it currently looks like all three of us are going for Gryffindors,” she snorted a laugh and continued her patrol.

“So, who exactly are you aiming towards?” Draco wondered.

“I’m sure it will all become clear when it’s more relevant,” Pansy said simply. She had never been one to go around boasting about her love life, in fact, Draco was not even entirely sure she had a love life.

Draco could see Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbott patrolling in the next carriage over, and he knew Anthony Goldstein and Padma Patil were further to the front of the train. He sighed, checking his silver watch to see they still had hours to go, and, even though they’d been the only ones given two carriages to check, he was beginning to feel thankful for it, as it gave him and Pansy more space to walk.

“Alright, I’m beat, I’ll go see if Blaise has already died of boredom without us,” Pansy smiled brightly and stepped through the door into the Hufflepuff-prefect-patrolled carriage where their compartment was. Draco looked back towards the carriage at the end of the train, seeing Harry’s smile as he spoke to his little Ravenclaw crush. He couldn’t help but wonder how he’d suddenly managed not to look awkward in front of her. For a moment Draco pondered making up some bogus rule she’d be violating, only to give her a punishment, which he was now allowed to do.

He chuckled to himself, feeling suddenly very Slytherin, but the tiny thought in the back of his mind that told him he should be happy about Harry’s romantic endeavours, even if he wasn’t a part of them fade his sly grin vanish from his face and return to his compartment to Blaise and Pansy.

Chapter Text

Draco didn’t pay mind to professor Grubbly-Plank greeting the first years instead of Hagrid, he had more concerning matters to attend to, like making sure the train was empty and students were filing into the correct direction, instead of trying to sneak off to the Three Broomsticks. Pansy got her dick wet by shouting at a pair of sixth years, who were trying to do just that, and immediately jumped in utter terror, deciding to follow the rest of the student body towards the school with sunken faces. “I am going to enjoy this year,” she chuckled to herself.

Blaise smiled fondly and kissed the side of her head, obviously having missed the hell out of her, just like Draco had. He watched his two best friends, deciding that forgetting his duties for a few seconds was worth it, before turning back to the steadily rampant crowd and putting his scowl back on.

“Potter, keep moving what are you staring at?” he shouted, knowing it would be fun to tease the boy to world’s end in public. Harry was looking at the carriages like he’d never seen them before, standing still and blocking the path completely. He turned towards Draco with a look that had the Slytherin less worried he was angry at him, and more concerned for his sanity. Was there something Draco wasn’t seeing? He leaned to one side and away from Pansy to get a better look, but the dark evening revealed nothing out of the ordinary. He threw Harry a questioning glance, but the Gryffindor just continued to stare, having to be pulled away by Longbottom.

“Your boyfriend might be just as barmy as Lovegood,” Pansy snorted a laugh before beginning a shouted string of commands to move it along towards some Ravenclaws choosing a carriage.

“Not my boyfriend,” Draco reminded bitterly.

“Please,” Pansy chuckled, clear boredom at the subject present on her face, “I give it until Christmas and you’ll be snogging all over the bloody castle.”

“You disgust me, Parkinson.”

“Are we back on the teasing Draco train?” Blaise’s smooth voice joined the two of them, a pair of hands landing on either of their shoulders, “now that is what I call a return to Hogwarts.”

“I hate you both,” Draco murmured.

“Clearly,” Pansy droned, pointing her wand warningly at a third-year Gryffindor.

Blaise remained next to the two of them until all four prefects were relieved of their duties by the head boy and girl, dutifully and without complaining, a source of comfort and entertainment for the two Slytherin prefects. Draco wondered whether by the end of the school year Blaise would be sick of it all, or wearing an honorary prefect badge on his own uniform.

The entrance hall was ablaze with torches and echoing with footsteps as the students crossed the flagged stone floor for the double doors to the right, leading to the Great Hall and the start-of-term feast.

The four long House tables in the Great Hall were filling up under the starless black ceiling, which was just like the sky they could glimpse through the high windows. Candles floated in mid-air all along the tables, illuminating the silvery ghosts who were dotted about the Hall and the faces of the students talking eagerly to one another, exchanging summer news, shouting greetings at friends from other houses, eyeing one another’s new haircuts and robes. Draco fucking loved it. He’d missed it. He was home again.

They sat in their usual spot at the table, Draco across from his two best friends, with a clear view of the Gryffindor table, where Pansy could gossip without the acoustics of the room carrying forward than the three of them, and where the house elves always served extra fudge for Blaise.

A long line of scared little first-years entered, led by Professor McGonagall, who was carrying a stool on which sat an ancient wizard’s hat, heavily patched and darned with a wide rip near the frayed brim. The buzz of talk in the Great Hall faded away. The first years lined up in front of the staff table facing the rest of the students, and Professor McGonagall placed the stool carefully in front of them, then stood back.

Draco ignored most of the hat’s new song, it tended to bore him ever since his third year at the school, having mostly been for the pleasure and wonder of the eleven-year-olds in front of the room, and not often having much substance. This year it had decided to go on a tangent about the founders of the school and how much things seemed to have changed since their day. I was no very interesting. That was, until the line “For were there such friends anywhere as Slytherin and Gryffndor?” took his attention and he smirked across the room to an already laughing Harry Potter looking his way.

“Though condemned I am to split you

Still, I worry that it’s wrong,

Though I must fulfil my duty

And must quarter every year

Still, I wonder whether sorting

May not bring the end, I fear.

Oh, know the perils, read the signs,

The warning history shows,

For our Hogwarts is in danger

From external, deadly foes

And we must unite inside her

Or we’ll crumble from within.”

Once it had finished, applause broke out, though it was punctured, for the first time in Draco’s memory, with muttering and whispers. All across the Great Hall students were exchanging remarks with their neighbours and Draco, clapping hesitantly along with everyone else, knew exactly what they were talking about. Another look towards the loudest of the tables, clad in deep red, told him Harry did as well.

“Well, that was certainly something,” Pansy noted. “Hey, Drac, shouldn’t you be the new spokesperson for positive interhouse relations?” He rolled his eyes and didn’t respond.

By the end of the long list of newbies, Pansy was laying most of her bodyweight onto Blaise in a blatant, Slytherin-worthy demonstration of utter lack of interest. For a prefect, she really did not care much. Maybe Draco should incorporate that into his own outlook on life.

“Oh, thank Circe,” Pans said rather loudly when Dumbledore had allowed them all to feast, instead of starting a speech.

“Let us dig in,” Blaise said, rubbing his hands together once Pansy had leaned away into an upright sitting position. “Draco, darling, could you pass me that lovely chicken leg over there?” he asked in an overly posh fat-cat accent.

“What, this one right here, good man?” Draco responded in kind as he reached over to the large plate of chicken and pointed with his own fork, making Pansy chuckle.

“That’s the one, old chap,” Blaise nodded, bowing his head up and down in large strokes, “I shall have my way with you tonight.”

“Me or the chicken, kind sir?” Draco said, attempting to sound scandalised and drawing a nearly teary-eyed laugh from Pansy who had yet to fill her own plate, too busy enjoying her best friends’ company.

“Oh, you should hope to be so lucky, young Mister Malfoy, you scoundrel!” Blaise huffed a big, faked laugh.

“Well, then why bring my hopes up, ruddy boy?” Draco waved him away dramatically and turning toward a stake and kidney pie that he’d been thinking about since at least mid-July.

“Well, now that we are all digesting another magnificent feast, I beg a few moments of your attention for the usual start-of-term notices,” said Dumbledore, when most of the students had already finished their second helping of dessert. “First years ought to know that the forest in the grounds is out of bounds to students — and a few of our older students ought to know by now too.” Draco shook his head disapprovingly when Harry looked at him once more.

“Mr. Filch, has asked me, for what he tells me is the four hundred and sixty-second time, to remind you all that magic is not permitted in corridors between classes, nor are a number of other things, all of which can be checked on the extensive list now fastened to Mr. Filch’s office door.

“We have had two changes in staffing this year. We are very pleased to welcome back Professor Grubbly-Plank, who will be taking Care of Magical Creatures lessons. We are also delighted to introduce Professor Umbridge, our new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.” There was a round of polite but fairly unenthusiastic applause. Draco did not like the look of the little lady dressed in pink and smiling like she had smelled something particularly nasty in the room.

Dumbledore continued, “Try-outs for the House Quidditch teams will take place on the –” he broke off, looking inquiringly at Professor Umbridge. As she was not much taller standing than sitting, there was a moment when nobody understood why Dumbledore had stopped talking, but then Professor Umbridge cleared her throat in an entirely obnoxious way, and it became clear that she had got to her feet and was intending to make a speech.

Dumbledore only looked taken aback for a moment, then he sat back down smartly and looked alertly at Professor Umbridge as though he desired nothing better than to listen to her talk. Other members of staff were not as adept at hiding their surprise. Professor Sprout’s eyebrows had disappeared into her flyaway hair, and Professor McGonagall’s mouth was as thin as Harry had ever seen it. No new teacher had ever interrupted Dumbledore before. Many of the students were smirking. This woman obviously did not know how things were done at Hogwarts. Draco was excited to see her put in her place.

“Thank you, Headmaster,” Professor Umbridge simpered in a high-pitched, breathy, and little-girlish voice, “for those kind words of welcome. Well, it is lovely to be back at Hogwarts, I must say!” She smiled, revealing pointed teeth. “And to see such happy little faces looking back at me!” Draco felt like he was a toddler, being talked down to by an insane lady in a market. None of the faces, apart from the few snickering ones at the Slytherin table, were smiling. “I am very much looking forward to getting to know you all, and I’m sure we’ll be very good friends!” He felt like he was in a book for children.

“The Ministry of Magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizards to be of vital importance. The rare gifts with which you were born may come to nothing if not nurtured and honed by careful instruction. The ancient skills unique to the Wizarding community must be passed down through the generations lest we lose them forever. The treasure trove of magical knowledge amassed by our ancestors must be guarded, replenished, and polished by those who have been called to the noble profession of teaching,” Umbridge paused here and made a little bow to her fellow staff members, none of whom bowed back. McGonagall’s dark eyebrows had contracted so that she looked positively hawklike, and Draco distinctly saw her exchange a significant glance with Professor Sprout as Umbridge gave another little “Hem, hem” and went on with her speech.

“Every headmaster and headmistress of Hogwarts has brought something new to the weighty task of governing this historic school…” she droned on, but Pansy was already half asleep and staring out the glazed window, Blaise’s chin was rested on his hand, which was a pose much too casual for him, and Draco could no longer focus on a single word out of that pink monstrosity of a woman’s mouth.

Over at the Ravenclaw table, Cho Chang was chatting animatedly with her friends. A few seats along from Cho, Loony Lovegood had a magazine out. Meanwhile at the Hufflepuff table, Ernie Macmillan was one of the few still staring at Professor Umbridge, but he was glassy-eyed and definitely only pretending to listen in an attempt to live up to the new prefect’s badge gleaming on his chest.

Professor Umbridge did not seem to notice the restlessness of her audience. Draco wondered if a full-scale riot could have broken out at the Slytherin table and she would have ploughed on with her speech. The teachers, however, were still listening very attentively, and Hermione seemed to be drinking in every word Umbridge spoke, though judging by her expression, they were not at all to her taste. Umbridge finished with something about perfecting what needs to be perfected and pruning whatever practices ought to be prohibited, and Draco had never been so thankful to see Albus Dumbledore stand up to speak.

“Translation for the careless?” Pansy turned to Blaise who now looked slightly more enraged than bored.

“The Ministry’s interfering in Hogwarts through that thing in the cardigan over there,” Blaise sighed. “This should be bloody good. What has your boyfriend done now, Draco?”

“Lovely,” Pansy said emotionlessly, standing up along with the other Slytherins. She looked like all energy had been drained out of her, but was still dutifully prepared for the task of leading the first-year Slytherins to the dungeons. “Alright, blondie, let’s get it over with, FIRST YEARS!” she shouted, promptly gathering the attention of not only the little Slytherins they were both responsible for, but also most of the rest of the room. “Our first years!” she clarified loudly with a roll of her eyes, “if you would follow me to the dungeons, that would be mighty grand!” she said and turned on her heel, not even turning back to see whether every single one was following. Draco supposed that was his job now.

Draco followed behind the group, Blaise wordlessly strutting next to him with a quiet hum. He counted the children, then recounted after every turn and staircase, even as he was certain he could see every single one and there was no getting past him and Blaise. Once in the common room and the little ones were gazing around like it was a green-sueded miracle, they divided in half and Pansy took the girls to their dormitories, leaving Draco with the boys.

“Alright then,” Draco said loudly after patiently waiting for each to pick their own bed, clapping his hands together to bring all of their attention to him. “I expect you all to remember your way back to the Great Hall. If you didn’t pay enough attention, perhaps you’re not a Slytherin at all,” he paused, some of the boys looking worriedly at one another, and two or three looking defiantly at him like he would have himself just five years ago. “You’ll have your class schedules at breakfast, you now know where the Slytherins dwell. Do try not to get lost in the castle, it will kill you if you’re unlucky,” he advised. “Your head of house is Severus Snape. You will find he is not the one to go to with squabbles and worries – resolve it amongst yourselves, you’re Slytherins after all.” Some of them were looking scared now, “Goodnight, do not be late for class tomorrow,” he said sternly and turned on his heel to leave without another word or an opportunity for them to ask question. He’d be there all night if that happened.

“Scare them a little bit?” Pansy asked with a smirk, coming from the girls’ dormitory hall.

“Just a little bit,” he chuckled, pressing a kiss to the side of her head before going to find Blaise and finally getting some sleep, not surprising himself when the lack of a nightmare-ridden bedfellow made for a full night of sleep.

“If you miss your first breakfast with me and Pans after months, I will not be helping you with O.W.L. preparation,” Blaise’s voice warned, throwing Draco’s enchanted comb into his bed. Draco had had a really good night of sleep, apparently.

“Shit, why didn’t you wake me sooner?” Draco asked, seeing they were the last ones left in their dormitory, “I can’t get dressed in a rush.”

“Please,” Blaise snorted a laugh and left for the common room, leaving Draco to fend for himself in finding where he’d thrown his uniform the previous night and remembering the charm to have it pressed and unwrinkled. As long as his hair looked perfect, no one would notice the half-woken state of him.

“I’m here,” he said, having reached the Great Hall. Blaise had been gone by the time Draco had run into the common room, as had most of the other Slytherins. He sat down in his spot and quickly made note of the first years sitting further down the table, looking like all of them had reached the breakfast table just fine, but Draco was not going to count to make sure. He’d warned them the night before and that should be enough for any Slytherin.

The rain pelting against the Great Hall’s large windows was soothing, though the air in the room was damp and cold. Pansy looked like she had no actual intention of speaking to either of them, her prefect badge shining as her eyes kept falling shut, “Have you slept at all this summer?” Draco demanded.

“Shut up, Draco,” she groaned, only straightening slightly when Severus came past them to hand out their schedules. Draco looked over the piece of parchment in his hand, seeing DADA with Gryffindors and revelling in the idea of getting to share his misery with Harry, if they were going to have to spend the school year with that Umbridge woman.

Herbology first thing on a Monday morning was perhaps the gentlest way for Draco to be eased back into the academic flow. Besides, Sprout seemed to love him now that he didn’t spend the lessons throwing around hexes, actually managed to stay quiet long enough for her to finish a sentence, and had even passed the previous year’s exam with flying colours. Pansy and Blaise now copied whatever he did, and he had no one but his ruddy fourth year herbology textbook to thank.

A fine misty drizzle was falling as they left the greenhouses, so that the people standing in huddles around the yard looked blurred at the edges. Draco saw Harry, Hermione and Weasley who had chosen a secluded corner under a heavily dripping balcony, turning up the collars of their robes against the chilly September air and probably talking about what Severus was likely to set them in the first lesson of the year.

He was slightly jealous. Slightly. He wished he could just as simply, easily and casually walk up to the three of them and join in the conversation, just like he had at number twelve, Grimmauld Place. It felt to him like a veil had dropped between the house back in London and the ancient castle here in Scotland. Like they’d crossed the threshold into another life. Draco knew Harry was still his friend, the Gryffindor wasn’t one to throw that word around and not keep you close for as long as he could afterwards, but Draco also knew that it would be unimaginably more difficult now that he no longer had the privilege of sharing a room to reveal all his thoughts in.

He knew he could give it a few days, actually give Harry some time before he started demanding they meet in an abandoned hallway or the bloody prefects’ bathroom, let him enjoy time with his friends and let himself enjoy Pansy and Blaise being back in his life – two solid, trustworthy pillars for him to lean on.

It was more difficult to keep up the same positive outlook when Cho Chang rounded the corner to speak to Harry. “Draco,” Pansy said in a singsong voice, “stop obsessing over the Ravenclaws, that’s Blaise’s job.”

“It is Blaise’s job no longer,” Blaise reminded her, conjuring an umbrella-shaped shield above the three of them as they walked across the courtyard, “need I remind you.”

“Oh, believe you me, my darling, neither one of us has forgotten your display with Granger yesterday.”

“She is fit,” Blaise shrugged as if this was the first time he’d really thought of it.

“Please do not,” Draco said, “I beg of you.”

“We shall see, my shorter pal,” Blaise said calmly and steered his two best friends towards the dungeons. “At least we know for sure Draco will be enjoying his Mondays,” Blaise said quietly as they entered and took their usual seats in Severus’ classroom.

“Before we begin today’s lesson,” Severus said, sweeping over to his desk and staring around at them all, “I think it appropriate to remind you that next June you will be sitting an important examination, during which you will prove how much you have learned about the composition and use of magical potions. Moronic though some of this class undoubtedly are, I expect you to scrape an ‘Acceptable’ in your O.W.L., or suffer my…displeasure.

“After this year, of course, many of you will cease studying with me,” Severus went on. “I take only the very best into my N.E.W.T. Potions class, which means that some of us will certainly be saying our goodbyes.” His eyes rested on Harry and his lip curled. Draco sighed. He knew he would have no trouble passing, neither would Hermione, but Harry was a different story. Incredible at Defence Against the Dark Arts, bloody atrocious at Potions, unable to brew one correctly to save his life. “But we have another year to go before that happy moment of farewell,” Severus continued softly, “so whether you are intending to attempt N.E.W.T. or not, I advise all of you to concentrate your efforts upon maintaining the high-pass level I have come to expect from my O.W.L. students.”

The Draught of Peace, which Draco had brewed once or twice before in his free time, would be no terrible feat for him to conquer, but he wouldn’t be surprised if someone set something on fire while attempting it today.

“Potter, what is this supposed to be?” Severus demanded when there was only ten minutes left to go. The Slytherins at the front of the class all looked up eagerly. Draco knew his childhood friends loved hearing his godfather taunt Harry. He’d enjoyed it just as much just two years prior.

“The Draught of Peace,” said Harry tensely. He was practically sweating, and his potion looked awful, dark smoke rising instead of what was supposed to a silver vapor. Though it was nowhere near being the worst one in the room. There were green sparks coming out of Weasley’s cauldron, and there were a few whose collective aroma now made the classroom smell positively like bad eggs, yet here Severus was, picking only on Harry.

“Tell me, Potter,” Snape said softly, “can you read?”

Draco rolled his eyes at his godfather’s antics. Even with over a week spent in the Order’s headquarters together and Draco blatantly demonstrating his utter lack of hatred towards Harry, Severus was still being a prick to him.

 “Yes, I can,” said Harry, his fingers clenched tightly around his wand. Draco had a feeling this might not end entirely well.

“Read the third line of the instructions for me, Potter,” Severus instructed.

Harry squinted at the blackboard. “Add powdered moonstone, stir three times counter clockwise, allow to simmer for seven minutes, then add two drops of syrup of hellebore…”

“Did you do everything on the third line, Potter?”

“No,” said Harry very quietly.

“I beg your pardon?”

“No,” Harry repeated, more loudly. “I forgot the hellebore.”

“I know you did, Potter, which means that this mess is utterly worthless. Evanesco.” The contents of Harry’s potion vanished; he was left standing foolishly beside an empty cauldron.

“Those of you who have managed to read the instructions, fill one flagon with a sample of your potion, label it clearly with your name, and bring it up to my desk for testing,” Severus sounded almost bored and disappointed to be back at work. “Homework: twelve inches of parchment on the properties of moonstone and its uses in potion-making, to be handed in on Thursday.”

“Bloody hell,” Pansy scoffed as the three of them left the classroom, “can’t you talk to him about this? I mean, he’s being a dick”

“Can you imagine anyone talking sense into Severus?” Draco asked rhetorically.

“You’re his godson,” Pansy reminded, as if he didn’t know.

“That doesn’t mean he’ll listen to sound logic. Come on, Pans, I’m hungry,” he said, pulling her along to lunch by the elbow. The ceiling had turned an even murkier grey during the morning. Rain was lashing the high windows. Draco was already exhausted. Cleaning the Black house was nowhere near as tiring as school. He seemed to have blissfully forgotten what a mental workload felt like.

“His potion wasn’t nearly as bad as Goyle’s, when he put it in his flagon the whole thing shattered and set his robes on fire,” Blaise noted.

He watched as Harry abandoned his shepherd’s pie, swung his schoolbag over his shoulder and left Hermione and Weasley sitting there in shock. “I’ll be right back,” Draco said hastily, leaving his plate and his friends to run after a distraught Harry. He walked up the marble staircase two steps at a time, past the many students hurrying toward lunch and not even noticing Draco Malfoy following Harry Potter. Or, if they did, it wouldn’t be the first time one of them would (seem to) be about to hex the other.

Harry passed the large picture of Sir Cadogan the knight on a landing, Sir Cadogan drew his sword and brandished it fiercely at the Gryffindor, who ignored him. “Come back, you scurvy dog, stand fast and fight!” Sir Cadogan yelled in a muffled voice from behind his visor, but Harry merely walked on, and when Sir Cadogan attempted to follow him by running into a neighbouring picture, he was rebuffed by its inhabitant, a large and angry-looking wolfhound.

“Harry,” Draco said tenderly, carefully checking to see no one could see them, “Harry, stop!”

“What?” he demanded angrily, almost yanking his body around to face Draco and taking him aback. “Fuck,” Harry added in a whisper, taking several long seconds to look at Draco again, through his eyelashes, as if expecting him to run off after a single bad moment.

“Let’s have it,” Draco said, feeling his patience waver. Everyone was at lunch. Who could really overhear them but a bunch of ghosts? “Out with it,” he said when Harry looked at him in confusion. “You want to shout a someone, let it be me, Merlin knows I’ve had worse from you.”

“I…” Harry seemed lost, “I don’t want to shout at you, Draco.” He looked sad when he said this.

“Well, you want to shout at something, and I happen to be here, so, go on,” Draco crossed his arms.

“They can’t stop bickering,” Harry pouted like a child. “It’s driving me up the wall, I can’t even tell if they have a crush on each other or if they genuinely hate one another, it’s bloody miserable. That’s all I hear, every waking minute, just them two going at each other.”

Draco watched him for a minute in disbelief. Harry had returned to school to be endlessly whispered about, disregarded for his experience last spring, cunked on by teachers and housemates, and he was walking around getting pissy about Hermione and Weasel’s squabbles? “You’re a bloody idiot,” Draco pointed out.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harry said defensively, though more in huffed disbelief than anger.

“Alright, I’ll be the first to admit Weasley is the most annoying prick in this school, but bloody hell, Potter, just think how much he annoys Granger with his inability to express sentiment in a healthy way.”

It was Harry’s turn to watch him quizzically now.

“They love you, and they get to be next to you all day, they’re here to protect you from the nasty looks half the fucking school is sending your way and you’re complaining about them out of all that’s happening to you?”

“Well, Snape is a shitbird, too, and Seamus,” Harry said.

“Yeah, what else is new?” Draco rolled his eyes. “Come here, you dick,” he demanded, pulling Harry in for a hug. “Bloody Draco Malfoy hugging Harry Potter in the middle of the castle, I swear to my ancestors I’ll be burning for this one day,” he muttered onto Harry’s shoulder, making the other boy chucklr.

“It was easier in Grimmauld Place,” Harry pointed out.

“A lot of things were easier this summer,” Draco agreed, thinking back to their shared letters to one another. If he could only gather enough might to say those things to Harry now, maybe he would actually leave him in a better mood than he’d found him.

“I should hire you for this,” Harry said, still clinging onto Draco.

“I should brew you some Draught of Peace, if this is what you’re like on your free time.”

“Oh? From the personal apothecary of Draco Malfoy, what an honour,” Harry chuckled.

“Aren’t you The Boy Who Lived?” Draco wondered pointlessly, much to Harry’s annoyance, “I’m quite sure you’ll survive a little while of a couple of idiots not believing you.”

“Assuming Dumbledore actually does something about it other than ignoring me completely,” Harry scoffed. Draco, in fear of this conversation going back to the headmaster, gazed upon the few portraits on the walls, all of which seemed too interested in their own surrounding set dressing to be invested in whatever the two students were discussing.

“Well, if he doesn’t, I suppose you’ll just have to be the one to do something about it instead,” Draco shrugged, making Harry look at him in disappointment.

“Fuck you, Malfoy,” the Gryffindor scoffed again.

“Whatever you want, Potter,” Draco smiled, pulling out his schedule, “I’ll go finish my lunch or Pansy will start accusing me of picking favourites, I’ll see you in Defence.”

“God help us all,” Harry snorted a laugh at the mere idea. Draco was only half-sure he knew what this God of theirs could do, but he was almost entirely certain he couldn’t save them from Umbridge.

Neither Pansy nor Blaise made a comment when he returned to his seat, but Draco suspected this wouldn’t last for long, and they were most likely only giving him the first day off from scrutiny, until they’d get to make fun of him for every look towards the Gryffindor table. He did, however, shoot a quick glance, while he still could, to find Hermione looking at him in concern as Weasley nagged on about something, most probably Harry. He shook his head as if to say it wasn’t anything serious and saw her visibly relax.

Binns, to no one’s surprise, had not taken the summer off to become more interesting, and Draco, once again, managed to be the only one amongst his friends to take a single note during the class, but he wasn’t about to hold that over their heads on his first day back.

Huh, maybe he understood what they were thinking too.

When they entered the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, they found Umbridge already seated at the teacher’s desk, wearing the fluffy pink cardigan from the night before and a large black velvet bow on top of her head. It reminded Draco of a gigantic fly perched unwisely on top of an even bigger toad. The class was quiet as it entered the room. Professor Umbridge was, as of yet, an unknown force and nobody knew yet how strict a disciplinarian she was likely to be. “Well, good afternoon!” she said when the whole class had finally sat down.

A few people mumbled “Good afternoon,” in reply.

“Tut, tut,” Umbridge greeted. “That won’t do, now, will it? I should like you, please, to reply ‘Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge.’ One more time, please. Good afternoon, class!”

“Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge,” they chanted back at her.

“There, now,” Umbridge said sweetly. “That wasn’t too difficult, was it? Wands away and quills out, please.” Many of the class exchanged gloomy looks. The order wands away had never yet been followed by a lesson they had found interesting.

Draco shoved his wand back inside his bag and pulled out quill, ink, and parchment. Umbridge opened her handbag, extracted her own wand, which was an unusually short one, and tapped the blackboard sharply with it, words appearing on the board at once:

Defence Against the Dark Arts

A Return to Basic Principles.

“Well now, your teaching in this subject has been rather disrupted and fragmented, hasn’t it?” she stated, turning to face the class with her hands clasped neatly in front of her. “The constant changing of teachers, many of whom do not seem to have followed any Ministry-approved curriculum, has unfortunately resulted in your being far below the standard we would expect to see in your O.W.L. year. You will be pleased to know, however, that these problems are now to be rectified. We will be following a carefully structured, theory-centred, Ministry-approved course of defensive magic this year. Copy down the following, please.” She rapped the blackboard again, the first message vanished and was replaced by course aims Draco hardly paid attention to when scribbling down.

For a couple of minutes the room was full of the sound of scratching quills on parchment. When everyone had copied down Umbridge’s three course aims she said, “Has everybody got a copy of Defensive Magical Theory by Wilbert Slinkhard?” There was a dull murmur of assent throughout the class. “I think we’ll try that again,” said Umbridge. “When I ask you a question, I should like you to reply ‘Yes, Professor Umbridge,’ or ‘No, Professor Umbridge.’ So, has everyone got a copy of Defensive Magical Theory by Wilbert Slinkhard?”

“Yes, Professor Umbridge,” rang through the room.

“Good,” Umbridge said sugary-sweet and blastedly-annoying. “I should like you to turn to page five and read chapter one, ‘Basics for Beginners.’ There will be no need to talk.” Umbridge left the blackboard and settled herself in the chair behind the teacher’s desk, observing them all with those pouchy toad’s eyes. Draco turned to page five of his copy of Defensive Magical Theory, and wasn’t at all surprised to find it was the dullest book he’s ever laid eyes upon, a fair contender for Binns’ spot at the bottom of the list of exciting things found in Hogwarts.

Hermione’s hand was up before Draco had even managed half a page, and it didn’t go down for the several long minutes afterwards that Umbridge used to ignore her completely. Draco didn’t look towards the Gryffindors directly, in fear of his eyes meeting Harry’s and it being construed for collaboration. Draco didn’t trust a single new person in the school, he did not have the privilege of assuming Umbridge wasn’t a Death Eater.

“Did you want to ask something about the chapter, dear?” she asked Hermione, as though she had only just noticed her.

“Not about the chapter, no,” said Hermione.

“Well, we’re reading just now,” Umbridge reminded, showing her small, pointed teeth. “If you have other queries we can deal with them at the end of class.”

“I’ve got a query about your course aims,” Hermione said.

Umbridge raised her eyebrows. “And your name is?”

“Hermione Granger,” the Gryffindor responded.

“Well, Miss Granger, I think the course aims are perfectly clear if you read them through carefully,” Umbridge said in a voice of determined sweetness.

“Well, I don’t,” said Hermione bluntly. “There’s nothing written up there about using defensive spells.” Draco’s eyes remained fixed on the woman in front of the class, knowing he would be sharing a look with Harry the second his head turned.

“Using defensive spells?” Umbridge repeated with a little laugh. “Why, I can’t imagine any situation arising in my classroom that would require you to use a defensive spell, Miss Granger. You surely aren’t expecting to be attacked during class?”

“We’re not going to use magic?” Weasel scoffed loudly.

“Students raise their hands when they wish to speak in my class, Mr….?”

“Weasley,” he responded, thrusting his hand into the air for good measure. Professor Umbridge, smiling still more widely and evilly, turned her back on him. Harry and Hermione immediately raised their hands too. Professor Umbridge’s pouchy eyes lingered on Harry for a moment before she addressed Hermione again. Draco was incredibly glad to have been born a Gryffindor, and actually having been given some sense of survival instincts.

“Yes, Miss Granger? You wanted to ask something else?” Umbridge promptly ignored Harry’s existence.

“Yes,” Hermione nodded. “Surely the whole point of Defence Against the Dark Arts is to practice defensive spells?”

“Are you a Ministry-trained educational expert, Miss Granger?” Umbridge asked in her falsely sweet voice.

“No, but —”

“Well then, I’m afraid you are not qualified to decide what the whole point of any class is. Wizards much older and cleverer than you have devised our new program of study. You will be learning about defensive spells in a secure, risk-free way.”

“What use is that?” Harry demanded loudly. “If we’re going to be attacked it won’t be in a –”

“Hand, Mr. Potter!” Umbridge practically sang. Harry thrust his fist in the air. Umbridge promptly turned away from him again, but now several other Gryffindors and Ravenclaws had their hands up too.

Dean Thomas asked the same thing, getting a snarky answer about no one attacking children like them. It almost hurt for Draco not to share a glance with Harry. She then went to attack the previous teachers, most notably Remus, and Draco’s blood boiled. He liked Remus. As a member of the order, sure, as Harry’s godfather-by-extension definitely, but he loved Remus as a teacher. Not to mention, the more time he spent around the man, the more he noticed his temper and characteristics. He was nowhere near the calm, boring, simple man Draco had thought him to be two years ago during DADA lessons. Remus Lupin was a trouble-maker at heart, and one of the most hilarious wizards Draco had ever known. Besides, anyone who could calm Sirius Black’s hot-headed outbursts with a single word was a thoroughly fascinating individual.

“It is my understanding that my predecessor not only performed illegal curses in front of you, he actually performed them on you –”

“Well, he turned out to be a maniac, didn’t he?” Dean Thomas said hotly. “Mind you, we still learned loads –”

“Your hand is not up, Mr. Thomas!” Umbridge trilled. Draco was on the verge of asking her where the Ministry’s involvement had been when they were being taught by a Death Eater for a year, but he remained slumped in his seat with Blaise’s raised eyebrows next to him, both of them watching the scene play out while Pansy’s leg bounced in anger behind them.  “Now, it is the view of the Ministry that a theoretical knowledge will be more than sufficient to get you through your examination, which, after all, is what school is all about.”

“Well, that’s a wonderful take from a professor,” Blaise snorted a laugh, during which time one of the Patil twins had managed to ask what Draco had been thinking – the O.W.L. examination would have a practical part.

“As long as you have studied the theory hard enough, there is no reason why you should not be able to perform the spells under carefully controlled examination conditions,” Umbridge dismissed.

“And what good’s theory going to be in the real world?” Harry asked loudly, his fist in the air again.

Umbridge looked up. “This is school, Mr. Potter, not the real world,” she said softly.

“So, we’re not supposed to be prepared for what’s waiting out there?”

“There is nothing waiting out there, Mr. Potter.” Draco could see Harry’s anger boiling and about to burst like one of the Weasley twins’ terrible inventions over the summer. “Who do you imagine wants to attack children like yourselves?” Umbridge inquired in a horribly honeyed voice.

“Oh, let’s think…” said Harry in a mock thoughtful voice, “maybe Lord Voldemort?”

Ron gasped, one of the Gryffindor girls Draco never paid attention to uttered a little scream, Longbottom nearly slipped sideways off his stool. Draco was actively cringing into his hand. Harry could literally talk himself into a death sentence. Professor Umbridge, however, did not flinch. She was staring at Harry with a grimly satisfied expression on her face. “Ten points from Gryffindor, Mr. Potter.” The classroom was silent and still. Everyone was staring at either Umbridge or Harry. “Now, let me make a few things quite plain.” Professor Umbridge stood up and leaned toward them, her stubby-fingered hands splayed on her desk. “You have been told that a certain Dark wizard has returned from the dead —”

“He wasn’t dead,” said Harry angrily, “but he has returned!”

“Mr.-Potter-you-have-already-lost-your-House-ten-points-do-notmake-matters-worse-for yourself,” Umbridge uttered in one angry breath without looking at him. “As I was saying, you have been informed that a certain Dark wizard is at large once again. This is a lie.”

“It is NOT a lie!” Harry sounded exasperated. “I saw him, I fought him!”

“Detention, Mr. Potter!” Umbridge said triumphantly, though sounding more like a goose than a person. “Tomorrow evening. Five o’clock. My office. I repeat, this is a lie. The Ministry of Magic guarantees that you are not in danger from any dark wizard. If you are still worried, by all means come and see me outside class hours. If someone is alarming you with fibs about reborn dark wizards, I would like to hear about it. I am here to help. I am your friend. And now, you will kindly continue your reading. Page five, ‘Basics for Beginners.’”

Umbridge sat down behind her desk again. Harry, however, stood up. Everyone was staring at him half-scared, half-fascinated. Draco could feel his own heart beating in hope that Harry would shut the fuck up to save his arse for a change. “Harry, no!” Hermione voiced his thoughts in a warning whisper, tugging at his sleeve, but Harry jerked his arm out of her reach.

“So, according to you, Cedric Diggory dropped dead of his own accord, did he?” Harry asked, his voice shaking. Draco dared a glance. Harry was red-faced and glazed-eyed. Draco knew well just how big of an effect that day had had on Harry’s mental well-being, and just how little he preferred to voice it since it happened.

It felt like a veil had dropped on the class. The silence was deafening as the students watched Harry in horror. No one had heard him talk about it except for three people in the room. Harry was shaking, whether it was rage or anxiety, Draco couldn’t tell, but the Gryffindor wasn’t looking at him, so he could safely stare all he wanted.

“Cedric Diggory’s death was a tragic accident,” she said coldly, without a trace of that nasty smile she’d had plastered on her face before.

“It was murder,” Harry insisted, “Voldemort killed him and you know it!”

Professor Umbridge’s face was quite blank. For a moment Draco thought she was going to scream at him. Then she said, in her softest, most sweetly girlish voice, “Come here, Mr. Potter, dear.”

Harry kicked his chair aside, strode around Weasley and Hermione and up to the teacher’s desk. Draco could feel the rest of the class holding its breath along with him. He was fully prepared to pull his wand out if she smacked him across the face. It certainly looked like she would. Umbridge pulled a small roll of pink parchment out of her handbag, stretched it out on the desk, dipped her quill into a bottle of ink, and started scribbling, hunched over so that no one could not see what she was writing. Nobody spoke. After a minute or so she rolled up the parchment and tapped it with her wand. It sealed itself seamlessly so that he could not open it. “Take this to Professor McGonagall, dear,” she instructed, holding out the note to him.

He took it from her without saying a word and left the room, not even looking back at Ron and Hermione, and slamming the classroom door shut behind him.

Chapter Text

Draco didn’t see Harry for the next two days. Harry had come to breakfast early on Tuesday, and he seemed to be rushing through lunch. Draco had no classes with Gryffindors all day, and Harry was a no-show for dinner. When he finally did sit still long enough, Wednesday morning, the boy had arrived at breakfast with a bandaged hand and a seemingly calmer demeanour.

Draco watched as Harry winced when reaching for toast on his left, making Draco worry what Sprout would have them do that implied even Harry Potter to hurt himself. He might have looked calm, but there was rage boiling inside the young man, and Draco was terrified at how attractive he found that to be.

Pansy hardly spoke in the evenings throughout the mountain of homework they had been assigned over the course of their first few days back. Blaise was similarly quiet, but that wasn’t exactly anything new from him. Pansy Parkinson at a loss for clever commentary, however, was practically apocalyptic.

Wednesday evenings were henceforth known as the Slytherin Patrol Party night, and Draco and Pansy would have to stay up even later than they normally did to walk around an empty castle without protection. Draco detested his father and his Death Eater ways for subjecting his son to such fear over a simple Prefect task.

In theory, they should be patrolling separately, but there wasn’t a task on this Earth Draco would rather do alone than with Pansy, and she knew what danger he was in. Besides, no one would really be checking up on either of them, so they could spend the whole night in the library eating Ginger Newts for all anyone cared.

Pansy started getting antsy by the forty-minute mark, and Draco realised it would take him the same amount of effort he put into his homework to keep her entertained every time they were on patrol.

“Do you think we’ll be murdered sometime soon?” Pansy wondered before Draco had the chance to suggest conjuring up a set of exploding snap.

“Excuse me?” he asked, looking up curiously. He was certain his life expectancy had gone down significantly, but he was always interested to know Pansy’s wild theories on the matter, or any matter, for that matter.

“Well, your father possibly has it out for you, right?” she shrugged, but there was uncharacteristic hesitation in her voice, “Probably!” she emphasised. “I do expect mine…holds the same beliefs. And…values.”

Draco watched her instead of saying something. A worried Pansy was a rare sight, and a telling one. She was smart, she was observant. Perhaps not as observant as himself, but she could certainly take him on the brain aspect. Draco already knew Harry wasn’t insane and hadn’t been lying, but it was fascinating and almost satisfying to see a fellow Slytherin worried for the same reasons he was. Almost.

“I fear if I rebel against his wishes I might end up in a ditch somewhere,” she admitted quietly, taking a seat next to him on the cold stone floor.

“Your father would never kill you,” Draco said surely. He could not say the same of Lucius. “He loves you more than life,” he reminded.

“He loves me when I’m his perfect Slytherin daughter. Or because for the past four years he’s been convinced I’ll marry into the Black family.”

“How would you…” Draco began with a laugh, “Oh,” he then realised, “by marrying Draco Malfoy.”

“I am not exactly excited for the day he finds out I’m a lesbian,” she sighed dramatically, ever the actress even when discussing her own mortality. “He’ll force me into an Unbreakable Vow with someone from the Sacred Twenty-Eight, if he has to.”

“Pansy Carrow,” Draco mused, “sounds quite nice.”

She giggled, her head falling onto his shoulder, “It’s not bloody funny, Malfoy.”

“I beg to differ, Gaunt,” he joked again.

“We could have a double wedding. Who was it that Lucius had set aside for you when we were five?”

“Astoria,” Draco remembered with a shiver. Astoria Greengrass was a perfectly lovely girl, pretty, one might say, but even back then, before Draco had come to terms with what his Potter obsession meant, he knew the thought of marrying a girl was ridiculous, no matter how happy it would make his father.

“Bloody muppet,” Pansy scoffed, “stole my porcelain doll.”

“You couldn’t prove it back then, I doubt you could do it now,” Draco reminded her.

“If they do kill us, though,” Pansy nudged his shoulder.

“Yeah?” Draco chuckled.

“Promise you’ll help me haunt Blaise?”

“Poor bastard’s never getting a girlfriend again,” Draco said, shaking her hand as if they were making a business transaction. “Dyke.”

“Poofter.”

“Go practice some vanishing spells on those two,” Draco nodded towards the two knight armours that constantly bickered with each other, “before lefty decides to flail righty into pieces,” Draco suggested, not giving Pansy the chance to begin complaining about how bored she was again. Once she started going, there would be no stopping her.

“Oh, gladly,” she said with a satisfied smirk, and the helms of both knights turned to face her. “Come here, you little shits,” she purred.

Draco pulled out his unfinished Potions essay while she practiced McGonagall’s newest lesson plan. Dim orbs of light he’d Lumosed earlier floated around him to aid in being able to write a few lines until he got distracted himself by Pansy’s carefree chuckling.

She was already wearing her pyjamas, as well as three jumpers on top to keep warm. It took her about thirty tries to ace the spell, but ace it she did. Pansy Parkinson, he thought, the prettiest and most dangerous girl in Hogwarts. “DRACO! Did you see that? I’m bloody brilliant!” Pansy Parkinson, a walking, smirking, blooming hex that any woman should be lucky to have the attention of. Her laugh was melodic as it echoed in the empty halls and drew one of Draco’s own out.

“Whoever dares to question that better have their death wish ready,” he agreed, making her laugh once more.

“I’ll go see if I can vanish someone from a painting,” she said and rushed off further down the long corridor.

“Now, hang on there, young lady,” Draco heard a man’s voice and another one of Pansy’s laughs, the apparent figure in the painting soon gasping as Draco assumed he was running from one end of the frame to the other to avoid her.

He watched his best friend dip in and out of shadows until she grew bored and turned to another painting. There were footsteps nearby. Pansy’s laughter was a mere echo between the ancient walls more than the actual source of the sound, just vibrations bouncing off cold stone, and he could hear footsteps more clearly than he could Pansy.

Draco jumped to his feet and casted Lumos directly from the tip of his wand, but there was nothing around him. “Pans!” he called out, panic starting to rise. His orbs of light had gone. When had it got so dark around them? “Pansy!” he tried again, this time able to even hear the panic in his own voice.

“What is it?” she asked hurriedly, her own wand out, ready to pounce on anyone that dared to even look at Draco the wrong way. Merlin, if they were both at least a little straight, they would make their parents very happy with a pureblood wedding invitation.

“I…” Draco started, casting Lumos Maxima and taking another careful glance around, “I don’t know, I guess nothing.” Perhaps he’d started hallucinating, too. Hearing things, getting snappy, he had more in common with Harry than he thought.

“There’s nothing there, love,” Pansy promised, but Draco couldn’t tare his eyes away from the darkness. Neither of them moved. They hardly breathed, really. Draco could no longer hear a thing. Pansy took a hold of his left wrist and lifted his sleeve until she could see the silver watch, “It’s time, we’re done, come on, let’s go to sleep.” Even she sounded a little off now.

“Right,” Draco agreed and followed her to the dungeons.

She didn’t mention any of this the next morning at breakfast, and Blaise hadn’t waited up for them to see how nervous they both looked. Draco thought, in hindsight, there might have been a bit of a rush to their gait on the way back to the Slytherin common room.

“How was your incredibly important employment venture last night?” Blaise asked at breakfast, looking much better rested than either Draco or Pansy.

“Not much to write home about,” Pansy recalled with a shrug, “I did master Evanesco, though.”

“That’s my girl,” Blaise grinned. She had always been able to outsmart the both of them, and it came as no surprise to Draco that Blaise believed her. Then again, perhaps it wasn’t that much of a lie. They had both been tired and it had been the end of their patrol. Perhaps a little insomnia-caused paranoia was not entirely never-seen-before.

Harry turned up to Care of Magical Creatures with his hand bandaged up, but Draco found no chance to ask what had happened, his overprotective alter ego showing up out of nowhere the second he’d seen the wrapped hand.

The lesson itself, on Bowtruckles out of all the interesting things they could rather be learning about, was not entirely exhilarating. And Draco was prepared to jinx Nott the second the dared to open his mouth to laugh at Harry, but he wasn’t going to. Besides, Nott insisting that “Maybe Hagrid’s been messing with stuff that’s too big for him, if you get my drift,” was an interesting plot point in whatever was coming next to kick them in the arse.

Not then walked away, smirking over his shoulder at Harry, making Draco feel sick. Did he know something? His father was a Death Eater, after all; what if he had information about Hagrid’s fate that had not yet reached the Order’s ears?

Draco watched the Gryffindor golden trio converse about that in hushed tones a few yards away, before turning back to his Bowtruckle anatomy drawing he needed to have done by the end of the lesson.

The door of the nearest greenhouse opened when they were on their way back to the castle, and some fourth years spilled out of it, including Ginevra. “Hi,” she said brightly as she passed. A few seconds later, Loony Lovegood emerged, trailing behind the rest of the class, a smudge of earth on her nose and her hair tied in a knot on the top of her head.

When she saw Harry, her prominent eyes seemed to bulge excitedly and she made a beeline straight for him. Many of their classmates turned curiously to watch. Loony took a great breath and then said, without so much as a preliminary hello, “I believe He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is back, and I believe you fought him and escaped from him.”

Draco turned to look at Pansy in the best attempt he could come up with that would stop him from openly laughing, but his greatest mistake has been not looking at Blaise instead, as Pansy’s face was one of what can only be described as a difficult poo. Draco snickered. He had to hold his nose pinched shut until his brain felt like exploding out of his head with laughter. Everyone around him was still, thankfully, staring at Loony and waiting for Harry’s reaction.

“Er — right,” Harry said awkwardly. Awkward was right, Draco thought. Blaise very smartly pulled his two friends away before they could listen in on the rest of the frankly insane conversation. Draco glanced back on the path back up to the castle, the bandage on Harry’s wrist standing out now that no one else was sporting a similar injury.

“What do you think he’s done to his hand?” Draco wondered out loud.

“Oh, will you come off it?” Pansy rolled her eyes as she dragged him to their next lesson.

He wasn’t going to be a prick about this. He knew he was already annoying enough with the Potter obsession. And he also didn’t want to start annoying Harry by demanding they meet every single bloody night. The Gryffindor had enough to worry about as it was. Draco had no intention of becoming another thing he’d rather avoid.

With the mountain of homework that needed to be done every evening of the week, Draco found getting too annoying would not become a problem, really. There was simply no time. Besides Pansy and Blaise were perfectly happy to spend the hours off classes with him quietly, and Harry had his daily dose of detention anyway.

The one thing Draco wished he’d be able to do was go flying. With the ban on Quidditch last year, there had been no reason for him to find new practice partners, but now that he’d successfully iced out Nott from his life, there was no one else apart from a certain Gryffindor that he could practice with. And that was out of the question.

There was a little part of him that couldn’t wait to go off against Harry in the Slytherin-Gryffindor match, there was an even littler part of him that wanted to see Harry win, if only to watch the triumphant smile on his face. There wasn’t much the Gryffindor gave himself credit for, but he was a brilliant flier, and he knew it. And, whenever it was written on his face, Draco couldn’t help but feel those bloody butterflies again.

“Fancy a bit of fresh air?” Draco asked on Friday evening, earning only Pansy’s eyes to lift up from her homework in polite interest. Blaise’s gaze remained on his own piece of parchment, the writing never ceasing for even a moment when Draco spoke. Pansy raised an eyebrow and looked back down to her essay. They had all somehow agreed to finish their homework for the weekend tonight, though it was more an excuse to start it early. With the amount they had constantly piling up, it was not going to be a one-day job. The lack of verbal denial was enough for him, “Suit yourselves.”

“Take your wand, Drac,” Blaise advised, as if Draco himself would go anywhere without the only source of protection he had in the bloody castle.

It was not yet curfew, but the sun had already set, the only fresh air he would be getting without explicitly walking out into the Gryffindor Quidditch try-outs would be found on the Astronomy wing, and if walking through the entire castle just to watch darkness set over the Scottish mountains was what it took, he would gladly make the journey.

After walking past several students, he realised he’d rather have not met anyone on his way at all. The only thing that helped was each and every one of the people walking past him seemed to coil up upon the sight of him, shutting their mouths and watching him expectingly until he was gone. He assumed Pansy had been walking around threatening to give detention to anyone talking loudly enough, and he had been expected to act the same way as the other Slytherin Prefect. He didn’t exactly mind being feared, though.

He walked towards the Ravenclaw common room, wondering not for the first time, if he was smart enough to guess whatever riddle the door would present to him. Several other students crossed on his way, and he found himself wishing he had that bloody map of Harry’s to take him down an emptier route. He did know one that led to the Astronomy tower, but it was quite the roundabout, and wasn’t guaranteed to be without any students. Draco took it anyway, quite sure no sane person went near the DADA classroom voluntarily this year.

It was getting darker in the halls now, and the only sounds he heard were the echoing voices from further away, most of his schoolmates rushing to get back to their dorms before curfew. He passed the Defence classroom carefully, if only to avoid making that toad of a professor aware of him, but a shuffling sound made him whip around to face the empty hallway instead.

There was no one in sight, but he was sure he hadn’t imagined the sound, and it certainly hadn’t come from himself. He did not want to do this again, especially now when he was alone and without Pansy, but this time he would stand his ground. Whoever his father had sent – be it Bellatrix or fucking Crouch Junior, he would hold his wand in an unshaking hand, and only go if making as much noise as he could.

The Lumos on his wand remained lit as defiantly as himself as he stood completely still and listened for the slightest sense of another life near him.

There was a sigh and another shuffle, but he still couldn’t see anything from the direction in which the sound had clearly come. It was just a wall, like someone had gone invisible. A disillusionment charm would have been simple enough for any Death Eater to perform, but it would have been noticeable enough. He was looking directly through the source of the sound, and he couldn’t find an outline anywhere.

“Revelio,” he said sharply. Harry’s cloak flew to the side, and the Gryffindor previously under it continued to try to cling onto it, as if Draco hadn’t already seen his face and didn’t know he was right there. “Fuck, Potter, why are you scaring me like this?” he asked, his eyes sliding down to where Harry was wrapping his cloak around his hand, the map Draco had wished he’d had only minutes earlier discarded on the floor. “What the bloody hell was that?” Draco asked, seeing an extra sliver of red in the already busily-patterned piece of fabric.

“What?” Harry asked, feigning ignorance, but he was nowhere near the actor any Slytherin was, so Draco didn’t believe him. “Sorry, I didn’t know it was you rounding the corner,” he lied.

Draco glanced to the floor. The words Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter were written right next to each other on the yellowing parchment. “Right,” Draco’s eyes narrowed.

“Look, I’m sorry, I…” Harry said, lost for words, and Draco just watched him, fascinated to see what the Gryffindor would come up with next.

“Do go on,” Draco encouraged.

“Bugger off, Draco, look, I’m sorry, alright? Can we talk tomorrow?”

“We can, but you’re explaining this now before you get the rest of the night to come up with a lie, because we both know you’ll need that long, won’t you?” Draco was amused, until Harry wobbled. He…wobbled? “Are you feeling alright?”

“Of course, just detention with Umbridge, you know how she can be,” he chuckled forcedly, clutching his invisibility-cloak-covered hand to his chest. Draco could no longer see the appendage, but he knew there must have been a reason for that.

“Show me your hand, Potter,” he demanded.

“Look, she really pissed me off, I’m not in the mood, alright? I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Harry, give me your arm,” Draco demanded in that voice his father used to use on him that left no space for questions.

Harry’s face fell, making him look even more exhausted and drained than he had before. He walked up to Draco unwillingly and unwrapped the piece of fabric from his wrist. The words I must not tell lies glistened bright red in the dim light of the hallway, Harry’s skin dented and paper-like, a caricature of one of those old hag witch hands muggles would draw in their children’s books on display in some Diagon Alley souvenir store he’d sometimes walk past with his mother.

Draco looked up from the hand to Harry’s eyes. They looked like he was expecting a myriad of questions and pleas for Harry to go to Dumbledore, so Draco kept it all to himself. “Was the quill black?” he asked instead, taking Harry by surprise.

“Was,” Harry murmured. Draco wanted to chastise him about proper annunciation, before he remembered this was Harry Potter he was talking to. He’d heard of those quills, he knew exactly what they could do.

“Godric’s bloody arsehole, Potter,” Draco sighed, refusing to let the rage he felt in his blood boil to the surface. “I assume you haven’t told anyone because you’ve considered every aspect of what that would imply for you.”

“I…well, yeah,” Harry confirmed, seemingly confused to have such understanding from the get-go. Draco could practically hear Hermione pestering Harry about going to Dumbledore, and he was certain Harry didn’t need to hear it again. Not when he was stubborn enough to be less likely to do it when two people beg him to.

“I can…fuck, I don’t know,” Draco said, starting to panic ever so slightly now, because Harry’s arm was still gushing out blood, “if you come with me to the dungeons, I can get you more of that potion I gave you after your nightmares,” he suggested.

“Right, as if I’m going anywhere near the Slytherin dorms,” Harry rolled his eyes, a semblance of his real, old, happy self coming through the fog of literal medieval torture.

“Right,” Draco agreed sarcastically, “if only you had something that made you invisible,” Draco said, feeling annoyed at the git’s inability to think on his feet, despite, apparently, being a Gryffindor. Draco almost wanted to have the Sorting Hat investigated. What sane magical artifact would have Slytherin as the second choice for this idiot?

“Oh, right,” Harry said, blinking slowly. He really did look quite shit. It was most likely the blood loss, and since the boy refused to tell anyone, he probably hadn’t been to see Madam Pomfrey the entire week, and any kind of blood replenishers were probably out of the question. He couldn’t ask Severus for one – as much as the man let his godson do what he pleased, some potions required a certain amount of explaining oneself. And there was no way Draco was attempting to brew one, unless he fancied killing Harry off for good. Then again, he thought with a bitter mental chuckle, it would quickly rise him to the top of the Death Eater ranks and make his father awfully proud.

“Alright, two stops, I suppose,” Draco sighed, helping the cloak over Harry’s head.

“What d’ya mean?” he stammered again, making Draco less annoyed with Harry’s mumbling now and more enamoured by it.

“I don’t have any Blood-Replenishing potion, so we’ll have to stop by the kitchens to find pomegranate juice,” he said, remembering that was usually what Pansy went down there for every month, dragging either him or Blaise along for company and usually ending up with a large plate of sweets as they waited for Pansy to feel better. Draco personally believed the whole pomegranate thing was an old muggle wives’ tale that had little if any sense in it, but perhaps, if he can be convincing enough, the placebo effect will work on Harry until he gets a good night’s sleep.

Draco bent down to grab Harry’s map on their way and folded it carefully along the creases. The steps following him, though from a seemingly invisible source, were loud and uneven, and a bit slow for Draco’s soundness of mind, and Harry was half-delirious anyway, so, in fear of him tripping over his own feet on the twisting and turning stairs, Draco found Harry’s hand through the thick invisible fabric of the cloak, and dragged him along more steadily. Well, steadiness was what he kept telling himself he was doing this for. But Potter didn’t argue, and there was no visible face to look at Draco in disgust, so he kept onward.

He only glanced at the map when they were nearing the dungeons, but everyone seemed to already be in their common rooms this late into the evening. The coast was clear. Draco whispered for Harry to wait there before marching into the Slytherin common room like he owned the place, past Pansy and Blaise’s backs as they were still too enthralled with their homework to notice anyone arriving, and pushed past the dozens of students on his way to the dorms. He didn’t have to root in his trunk for long, but he did have to avoid Nott’s eyes as the other boy watched him intensely. Draco had no time for this. He found the brew he’d been looking for and one of his clean undershirts, making note to buy some gauze on the first Hogsmeade weekend, if Harry was to continue like this, and rushed back out before Nott had gathered the courage to start questioning him, or even to fire a hex or two.

“Harry?” Draco asked after walking back out and waiting for a few seconds to make sure he couldn’t hear anyone approaching. An invisible force in the undoubtable shape of Harry’s good hand wrapped in thick fabric found settlement in Draco’s own hand in a silent response.

Dragging Harry through the school and down to the kitchens was fairly simple. He was a prefect after all. Curfew having already begun didn’t faze Draco, and his little green, shiny prefect badge was a good enough explanation in case anyone did decide to question his wandering around after dark.

Ernie Macmillan exited the kitchens right as Draco was about to bring Harry through the door, chewing on a biscuit loudly. “Alright, Malfoy, come for a late night snack, do we?” he grinned. Draco had always found him interesting. If not for the fact he was a Hufflepuff, Draco might him for a friend. His long chin no longer looked so gaunt, which Draco had noticed on the train already, the boy had grown into it, or maybe it was his smile. All charming and teethy, entirely Hufflepuff despite belonging to the leader of the gossip network in the school.

“Rounds?” Draco asked, trying not to sound like he cared too much.

“Hanna took the third floor, I took the route that starts with food,” he shrugged, smiling brightly. Harry’s hand, which was still holding onto Draco’s, pulled him towards the entrance to the kitchens.

“Right, I’ll just be…” Draco said hastily, lifting the hand Harry had just pulled and pointing his index finger to the door behind the Hufflepuff prefect in hopes that it hadn’t looked like a rogue muscle spasm.

“Abusing your powers,” Ernie finished for him. Draco didn’t really need to correct him. It would look petty, besides Macmillan wasn’t entirely wrong. “I get it,” he snorted a laugh and walked past Draco, thankfully on the side where Harry wasn’t standing. “Have a good night, Malfoy.”

“Don’t fall asleep on duty, Macmillan,” Draco reminded him with a laugh.

The Hufflepuff had barely turned the corner, when the cloak lifted off Harry’s head and two angry, green eyes were staring at Draco as if demanding an explanation. “What are you playing at?” Harry demanded.

“Are you really getting pissy at me being friendly with other prefects?”

“I wasn’t getting pissy,” Harry said, blushing ever so slightly, “but I thought you were supposed to be helping me, not flirting with Ernie.”

“I wasn’t flirting with Ernie,” Draco mocked defensively, trying his best not to think about why Harry would be so against it if he had been. It would really suck trolls’ balls if Harry was suddenly homophobic, after not reacting to Pansy being gay at all. “Did you want me to tell him to fuck off because I had a secret Gryffindor to stitch back together?”

“Kind of, yes,” Harry said like a stubborn child. “Sorry,” he huffed, calming down, “again,” he added. He’d apologised tonight already, multiple times, but this one seemed actually earnest. “Can we get this over with? That potion of yours stings when my skin isn’t broken, I fear wat it’ll do to my bleeding hand.”

“Don’t be a baby, Potter,” Draco teased with a smirk and opened the door to the kitchens. “And trust me, if I wanted a boyfriend, I’d get one that knows how to keep a secret. Not the gossip prince of Hogwarts.

Harry looked at him strangely. Draco couldn’t tell if he looked sad, angry or confused, but it looked like one of those looks he wouldn’t be able to uncover easily. “You better,” Harry said finally, walking past the bowing house elves and directly to the one that used to make Draco’s bed not four years ago.

“Oh! Young master Draco!” Dobby said excitedly, though he appeared to be wringing his hands nervously. He was wearing a bright, knitted hat and what looked like a size XL tee shirt that dragged along his feet on the ground. Draco wondered if Hermione had made him the hat like he’d heard her plan back at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.

“Hello, Dobby, I see you’re still alive,” Draco answered, feeling his nasty child self poke through. He’ll have to work on that a bit more. He’d mostly ignored Kreecher back at the Black ancestral home, but seeing someone his father had spent so much time talking down to, and remembering how much he wanted to make him proud, Draco was having trouble acting like a normal person. Besides, the shock of seeing him was overwhelming. Whenever he followed Pansy down here, he’d wait outside until she came back out with a treat for him. He’d had no clue his old house elf was working in Hogwarts.

Harry raised his palms upwards as if to ask what the hell are you doing?

“Sorry, Dobs, force of habit,” Draco tried to chuckle. The house elf actually smiled. Draco had called him Dobs back when he’d barely been able to say his own name and had been shorter than Dobby himself. He had soon turned into his father’s precious fun-sized twin, and started treating his inferiors as exactly that. If Dobby still remembered Draco as a toddler, they might be able to reconcile after all.

“Harry Potter!” Dobby said excitedly, as if the head floating in mid-air had been a less exciting occurrence than a Malfoy in the kitchens. Then again, Draco was sure very few Slytherins even came here, and he wouldn’t be surprised if Pansy was the only one. “Harry Potter!” he repeated, “What can I do for you? For you both!” he added excitedly.

“Dobby, we need some pomegranate juice, a rare steak, maybe some beans,” Draco said, turning to Harry to ask, “you didn’t have dinner, did you?” Harry shook his head with his mouth agape, “Piece of chicken liver pie, and a bar of chocolate.”

“Right away, right away!” Dobby said excitedly, rushing off to grab another house elf for help and ordering them around with great excitement.

“Alright, this is as good a time as any,” Draco said, looking around the Hogwarts kitchens for the first time in his life. It was terribly large, but kind of dingy despite its pristine cleanliness. The was a huge cauldron to their left, and Draco wasn’t sure he wanted to know what its contents were, but if the scent that enveloped the room came from there, he was perfectly happy with whatever it was. Stacks of plates and wooden barrels were perched anywhere there was space. Huge tables ran the length of the room, a precise copy of those upstairs in the Great Hall.

Draco pulled Harry’s still-cloaked hand towards what would be the Slytherin table and pushed him until he was sat atop it, staring up at Draco. Harry blushed. Draco pretended he didn’t notice. Harry was already accepting his help, there was no need to make fun of him for being embarrassed about it.

He pulled the cloak off enough to unclothe the hurt left hand. The blood hadn’t ceased, it was still dripping down Harry’s forearm in angry droplets that looked near-black in the candle-lit kitchen. Draco held it as feather-lightly as he could, happy that the Gryffindor wasn’t hissing in pain.

“Aguamenti,” Draco murmured, pointing his wand into one of the goblets closest to him, and grabbed a napkin from under its accompanying plate, dunking it into the silver chalice. He could feel the water being pleasantly cold as it seeped into the fabric under his fingers.

Harry looked away sharply, Draco assumed he was preparing for the pain as an alien piece of cloth was about to touch his tender, broken skin, but he didn’t even flinch when Draco washed away the blood, letting the cream-toned napkin turn furiously pink after every careful swipe. He left the napkin on Harry’s cuts while he prepared his potion, tucking the shirt he’d quickly grabbed deeper into the pocket of his robes. If there were perfectly good fabric napkins around, there was no need to make Harry wear his clothes just because his hormonal brain demanded for him to mark his territory in some strange way only he would ever be aware of unless Harry would have decided to go around telling people he was wearing Draco Malfoy’s undershirts.

The second closest napkin to him was just as soft as the first, and he made sure against the dim light that it was pristine clean. There was no need to give the poor boy an infection, making it even more impossible to explain to Madam Pomfrey what had happened to him. Draco splattered some of his potion – his greatest creation, with the amount Potter apparently required – and folded it into one long, gauze-like stretch of cloth.

Getting it correctly placed and just the right tightness would be tricky from the angle at which Draco was standing, so he stepped between Harry’s slack legs without thinking and furrowed his brows as he focussed. Harry stilled completely, eyes on Draco, even more so now when there were mere millimetres between them. Draco only noticed this when he was done.

Looking up to see if he hadn’t scared Harry with blatant lack of self-control, he found the other boy watching him with a strange sort of covetousness on his features. His pupils were dilated in the darkness. Draco could almost mistake it for something else…

He could kiss Harry right now. It would be so easy. Far from simple, but so easy.

“All done,” Draco announced in a whisper. Harry nodded. He was finished, so why couldn’t he step back and let Harry have some personal space? Why was Draco so reluctant to give him his dignity? Perhaps some horrid part of his brain demanded this as payment for helping. I just cured your injuries, the least you can do is let my heart thump a little faster for a moment longer.

“Thank you,” Harry responded in a comparably low voice. He seemed to be insistently looking into Draco’s eyes, like he was scared to look elsewhere. Maybe he was scared Draco would hurt him like he would have just over a year ago, and he refused to let himself be fooled like that. But Harry Potter was trusting and soft-hearted, so why would he refuse to let his eyes roam from Draco’s? “It, erm,” he cleared his throat, “it does sting.”

Draco chuckled, finally stepping back, turning slightly and rubbing the back of his throat to buy himself some time for that nasty blush he could feel all the way down his throat to disappear. He truly had to pull himself together. “I’ll work on that for the next batch,” Draco joked, “you big baby.”

Harry smiled, looking a lot more sober than he had when Draco had found him near the DADA classroom. “I suppose I’ll work on being a wuss,” Harry smiled and looked down.

“You know I think you’re one of the most courageous people on Earth?” Draco asked, looking down to Harry’s knees that were on slightly more in front of him that on either side of his hips.

“Why?” Harry looked genuinely confused when Draco glanced back up into his eyes, a strange, dazed look on his tan face. Must be the blood loss.

“You stood up to Umbridge. You stand up to people,” Draco shrugged, “makes you really susceptible to curses, but also makes you bloody brave.” Draco had taken a step back, but there still wasn’t enough space for Harry to hop off the table, glad to see Dobby approaching the two of them with a large silver tray levitating behind him before Harry could respond.

“Harry Potter, Sir!” the house elf called animatedly, “Dobby has brought you your dinner! Dobby made sure the other elves made it quickly! Dobby supervised!”

“Very well done, Dobs,” Draco praised, breaking off half of the chocolate bar he had ordered for Harry. “Well then,” he said, taking a bite, “I suppose I’ll leave you to it now that I know you won’t faint on your way up to Gryffindor.”

“Thank you, Draco,” Harry said, pulling his invisibility cloak back around his shoulders for warmth. “Really, thank you,” he looked so staid Draco could swear he could see the thought I must never try to get out of Draco Malfoy helping me again behind his eyes. Maybe those should be lines that Draco would make him write in the detention he as Prefect was now allowed to hand out, instead of a boring old I must not tell lies.

Draco exited the kitchens with one last look back, seeing Harry’s floating head and invisible body listening to Dobby exhilaratedly talking to him as he wolfed down a bright red steak, chuckling at the thought of holding a private detention for none other than Harry Potter himself.

Chapter Text

Draco was the first to awake in his dormitory next morning. He lay for a moment watching dust swirl in the chink of enchanted sunlight falling through the gap in his four-poster’s hangings and savoured the thought that it was Saturday. The first week of term seemed to have dragged on forever, like one gigantic History of Magic lesson. The ray of sun made him blatantly aware that he’d forgotten to put Salvio Hexia on the heavy emerald curtains of his bed the previous night, but, then again, he’d been too enthralled by his own thoughts to focus on something like that.

He did like waking up in even slightly fresh air, which his usual, careful demeanour of shutting the drapes and charming them into safety normally wouldn’t allow. He’d woken up every day during the first week of school in the stale air of his own breathing from the night, like the slick, balmy warmth of sleeping under the covers in the middle of summer.

He opened the gap a bit further, letting more air in and calling back as much from the previous night as he could. Standing so close to Harry, helping him, watching him, bloody breathing him in. He wanted to do some more of that. He wanted to wake up next to him like he had every day for over a week this summer, only he wanted to kiss him into consciousness instead of watching his slack face and willing himself to go back to sleep like he had been doing in Grimmauld Place. He fucking missed Grimmauld Place.

He stretched and dressed, then headed to breakfast alone. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done something alone. Maybe he should walk to Hogsmeade without Pansy and Blaise for a change. Not that they’d ever let him live that down.

He sat at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall, finishing up his Potions homework as he waited for his friends. He sat in his usual spot, with a clear view of the room, and watched a Ravenclaw third-year laugh loudly at something her friend had said. They were both sitting at the Hufflepuff table. Draco wished he could simply walk up to the Gryffindor side of the room, take a seat and watch all hell break loose.

Of course, he would be jinxed out of his house before he could enter the common room.

He decided on walking over to the Quidditch pitch to watch the Gryffindor practice, since the rest of the Slytherin team would be there, as well, and he would have all the time in the world to stare in awe of Potter’s flying. His house mates would be too busy jeering to look at him, Besides, participating in such a Slytherin activity as collectively making fun of Gryffindors would put him back up in the ranks after their stunt at the end-of-the-year feast three months ago.

Crabbe and Goyle were already laughing at whatever Nott had said. Draco hadn’t heard entirely, but it must have been something about Weasley’s broom, because the redhead blushed and held onto the handle more stiffly. Draco almost commented out loud how that only made it look worse.

“Hey, Potter, how’s your scar feeling?” Marcus Flint called, shaking Draco’s hand in greeting once he’d taken a place on the stands. “Sure you don’t need a lie-down? It must be, what, a whole week since you were in the hospital wing, that’s a record for you, isn’t it?”

Miles Bletchley wheezed with laughter, a sound Draco wished he wouldn’t have needed to hear, while Nott pinned him down with an angry glare. “What are you looking at, Theodore?” Draco challenged, making the other boy’s ears turn red, “or have you not yet noticed that you’ve never been invited to play for Slytherin?”

“I’m on the reserve team,” Nott said defensively.

“A bench warmer,” Draco mused, “is mummy proud?” he sort of relished the sniggers of his fellow team members. At least he could take out his grand skill of being an arse on someone, if he was no longer doing it to Gryffindors. It felt good. It felt like his birth right to be mean again. “Even those two buffoons made the team before you did,” Draco nodded to Crabbe and Goyle, both of whom immediately dropped their amused faces to the uproar of laughter from Graham Montague and his fan club of sixth years.

Even some of the Gryffindors on brooms looked confused as to what their nemeses were laughing over, as no one had made a mistake and there hadn’t been a comment shouted at any of them.

Draco sat back so that he was resting against the wooden stands behind him, and added, “watch the Gryffindors, you might learn a thing or two.” He snorted a laugh before continuing, “you play even worse than a drunk, blindfolded Hufflepuff.”

Nott turned away angrily. This may have been one of the larger mistakes Draco had ever made, considering he had to share a bedroom with the other boy, but his comments had been brewing since the end of last term when Draco had been attacked by him in their own common room, and he had a feeling this outburst was only the beginning.

There must have been more Slytherins somewhere that didn’t support the dark side, and were actually thankful to Draco, Blaise and Pansy for raising their cups to Harry last Spring.

Draco didn’t speak again during the Gryffindor practice, just watched with a practiced sneer. Harry thanked him afterwards for distracting the Slytherins when Weasel had apparently dropped a quaffle. That had certainly not been Draco’s intention, but Harry’s smile had been too dazzling to correct.

After lunch, when Draco returned to the Slytherin common room to finish McGonagall’s long essay on the Inanimatus Conjurus spell, news of his outburst on Nott had reached if not the entire school, then certainly everyone in Slytherin. He hadn’t meant for it to become some sort of a stand-off, he’d simply been pissed off and needed to shove it back in Nott’s face. He definitely didn’t mean to be the new hero of Slytherin, simply because everyone had become tired of hearing Nott speak after only a year in his self-appointed Draco Malfoy shoes. It was sort of tragic, really, how quickly Theo had risen and fallen, but it was to no fault of Draco’s, and if he’d finally pulled Nott back to the ground, then who was he to complain about his house mates loving him again?

“What did you do? Suck off the entire quidditch team?” Pansy asked, seeing another Slytherin greeting Draco with a smile on their way to class.

“Parkinson!” Draco chastised in a whisper, “Who do you think I am?”

“The Casanova or Slytherin House,” Blaise supplied with a shrug and an amused smirk.

“Is that what you both think I get up to in my free time?” he scoffed, “Lovely to know where your heads are at.”

“Only wondering,” Pansy said innocently, striding through the corridors with her two best friends. Boys were turning around now to look at her. Admittedly, the skirt of her uniform was much shorter than it ought to be, Draco assumed it was the same skirt she’d worn on her first year here, and her legs were longer now as they carried her narrow frame around the castle, so he wasn’t exactly surprised about this development. She wore mascara and eyeliner now, too. Come to think of it, even Weasel, blind and thick though he may be, had been looking her up and down on the Hogwarts express as she chatted to Hermione. Draco tried to remember whether Harry had looked. The particular memory, if it had ever existed, was no longer retrievable.

“How did you get everyone to like you again?” Blaise asked, eyebrows knitting together.

“What are you two talking about?” Draco tried to sound exasperated in his lie, “Everyone has always adored me.”

“No, everyone has always adored Pansy, because she’s a pretty little pureblood thing,” Blaise argued.

“And Blaise, because, well, look at him, I’m a lesbian and even I’d like to bite down on that,” she chuckled, amused by her own commentary.

“Cheers, love,” Blaise grinned, making Draco nearly blush. He could not afford a crush on his best friend now, it was way too late for such obscenities. “But you, on the other hand, have been an insufferable git your entire life.”

“Oi!” Draco said, feeling awfully distant from his fancy upbringing with the single sound, and liking it. “Where’s this coming from?”

“He’s right, darling,” Pansy said as if it was the simplest truth in the world. “You’ve been a pain in the arse for the entire school, no one ever knew when you’d attack, even your own. You only calmed down last year.”

“You two are being perfectly unreasonable,” Draco tutted, “I am the most well-behaved person you’ll ever meet.”

“You’re a right prick and you know it,” Pansy rolled her eyes with a melodic laugh, “don’t get me wrong, we’re very happy that you calmed down, gave me a chance to be the mean one for a change.”

“For a change?” Draco barked a laugh, “Pansy Parkinson, you’re a bloody menace and you have been since the day when we were five and you yanked my hair upon our first meeting.”

“It was too white,” she said, screwing up her face, “I didn’t believe it was real.” She didn’t like being called out, never had, but she always let Blaise and Draco do it.

“See? If I’m an arse, then it’s only because I grew up wary of you,” Draco said surely, turning to Blaise when they’d reached the classroom and saw other students standing outside, waiting to be let in.

Blaise gestured towards himself with the tips of his fingers, as if asking to lay it all out on him. There was a knowing smile playing on his lips. “You…” Pansy began, taking a deep breath, “I’ve got nothing.”

“You’re on your seventh step father,” Draco said as if this wasn’t common knowledge.

Blaise crossed his fingers on both hands, “Think his one’s gonna stick,” he said in mock seriousness, making his best friends laugh.

“Are they all buried next to each other?” Pansy asked, and it surprised Draco that they’d never discussed the topic much. Her and Draco had stopped attending the funerals after the third one. Even Blaise only showed up for the appetizers and the sake of looking like a good son, at this point.

Blaise seemed not to want to answer the question, checking his watch and then looking over them to the still-unopened door. “Some,” he murmured and cleared his throat as Draco and Pansy burst out into laughter.

“Seriously, though,” Pansy said as the door opened, “for future reference, what did you do?”

“I made fun of Nott,” Draco shrugged.

“So simple,” Pansy mused, “so elegant.”

Their week went on as normal as Draco could wish for. He sniggered at Gryffindors getting detention for the sake of appearances, and spent every evening and every meal doing homework or revising.

The Daily Prophet continued to successfully spread misinformation, this time in the form of announcing Umbridge to be an immediate success as the Ministry-appointed Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Draco had to laugh loudly when reading the line, and wonder who on Earth would ever call that woman anything remotely close to a success. He was no longer laughing when he read she was now the Hogwarts’ High Inquisitor.

“Listen to this,” Pansy sighed, reading to Draco and Blaise “‘I feel much easier in my mind now that I know that Dumbledore is being subjected to fair and objective evaluation,’ said Mr. Lucius Malfoy, 41, speaking from his Wiltshire mansion last night. ‘Many of us with our children’s best interests at heart have been concerned about some of Dumbledore’s eccentric decisions in the last few years and will be glad to know that the Ministry is keeping an eye on the situation’.”

“What the fuck?” Draco said perhaps a bit too loudly before reigning it in. “He’s hardly my father anymore, how dare he speak out on the Ministry’s bloody behalf? Or fucking mine?!”

“I’m assuming that’s exactly why,” Blaise said seriously. Too seriously for someone who was neutral. “He’s trying to get your attention.”

“That sounds about right,” Pansy agreed. Draco did not look across the room to the Gryffindor table, as much as he wanted to. Instead, he buried his face into his hands and groaned. He was so tired of all of this. Of his father, of his inheritance, of being the legacy of a bloody idiot. Why did he have to be a Malfoy? He never asked for this.

“Don’t give him the satisfaction,” Blaise advised.

“What? Rise above it?” Draco snarled, “It’s not exactly like I fancy searching him out and punching him in the face.” That was a lie. He would like that very much, thank you. But he knew better.

Draco focussed, instead, on hoping to have the joy of seeing some of his least favourite professors inspected by Dolores Umbridge of all people. He shot Harry a warning look upon entering the DADA classroom that afternoon. He couldn’t tell whether he was or wasn’t surprised when Hermione turned out to be the one disrupting the class by questioning the textbook, but when Harry received detention for another week for defending her, all Draco could do was roll his eyes. Bloody predictable.

He managed to run to his dorm room and back to the Great Hall well before dinner, leaving the potion he’d retrieved from his trunk on the approximate spot where the Golden Trio usually sat. He wasn’t stupid enough to add his name, but he did scribble down ‘for Harry P. – don’t be a twat’. He was quite sure Harry would recognise his handwriting, and the context could not be more clear.

Harry no longer wrapped up his hand every morning, as far as Draco could tell, the wounds from his detentions were healing nicely with the help of Draco’s potion. He felt quite smug about that. Not only had he brewed a sufficiently working healing draught, but Harry was actually using it every single night. Draco quite enjoyed that, even though speaking to the other boy was proving to be nearly impossible lately.

Draco heard about McGonagall absolutely crushing Umbridge during her inspection. By the following day, there were so many versions and retellings of the class that it was simply hopeless trying to understand what exactly had been said. Either way, it was deeply satisfying to just know someone had stood up to the toad.

Fifth year Slytherins were lucky to see the inspection of Care of Magical Creatures, though it was more about Umbridge trying to get Grubbly-Plank to either reveal information about Hagrid’s whereabouts or anything negative on Hogwarts.

“Now, I hear there have been injuries in this class?” Umbridge asked, making Malfoy wince. He kept his head down and on the bowtruckles, promising himself that he would refuse to answer a single question. Goyle, however, had made no such promise, and pointed straight to Draco when telling Umbridge something that Draco couldn’t hear from his spot. “Is this true? Mister Malfoy?” she asked in her disgusting, sweet voice, “Were you attacked by a hippogriff?”

“I wasn’t following the professor’s instructions, of course I got hurt,” Draco said surely. This wasn’t a punishable statement, as far as he could tell, but she still looked disappointed in his answer.

“No matter. Dangerous creatures that are able to attack children should not be brought near them,” Umbridge said lightly, her smile making Draco’s blood curdle. He looked to her left hand to see no wedding band. He could not say he was surprised. He chuckled to himself at the thought. She mistook it for his agreement and smiled even wider.

It took another week before Draco would be able to speak to Harry, and even then, it was because he was on rounds and Harry had his map. Although, Draco could not deny, it felt nice to be deliberately searched out for once, especially after curfew, he did scare the living daylights out of Draco when his head popped out of nowhere, the invisibility cloak falling to the ground.

“Fuck, Potter,” Draco scoffed, clutching his heart as Pansy laughed somewhere behind them.

“That is not a prefect,” one of the portraits said sternly.

“Keep it up, Monty and I’ll Evanesco your arse to the Saint Mungo’s bathrooms,” Pansy warned, “Potter,” she greeted, still laughing, still twirling around the empty, dark corridor and casting random spells at random objects. Filch would have a bloody field day in the morning.

“Want detentions?” Draco smirked.

“Yes, because I clearly don’t have enough of those,” Harry murmured, shoving his hand deeper into the pocket of his robes subconsciously.

“Let me see?” Draco outstretched his hand, and Harry sighed and gave it to him without even a second’s hesitation. Silvery white letters still sat upon the pink skin, but he was definitely not bleeding.

“It helps a lot,” Harry said sheepishly, “your brew.”

“Of course, it does, I made it,” Draco smiled, still holding onto Harry’s hand. His fingers swiped over the scar tenderly, but Harry gave no hiss or flinch, or sign that it had hurt, so Draco did it again, a bit firmer, like his touch alone could heal scar tissue. He knew Pansy was giving them privacy. He had the best bloody friends.

Harry didn’t look Draco in the eye as his fingers tightened on the Slytherin’s hand, for a short, sweet second, then pulled away. “I, uh, I had to ask you something.”

“I had nothing to do with that article,” Draco said quickly.

“What art– oh, no, not that,” Harry dismissed, turning himself to see if Pansy had gone far enough. Draco cast a quick Muffliato and waited for Harry to continue. “Right, thanks, um…” he sighed. “There’s this thing that Hermione and Ron came up with,” he said, “well, Hermione, really.”

“Interested,” Draco said with a teasing smile. He hoped it came off as a joke, his dislike for Ronald Weasley, but he could never tell, because he felt it quite truly.

“They think I should lead some sort of…Defence club. Like an after-school thing,” he said, seeing Draco stare at him in silence, “where I teach proper Defence Against the Dark Arts,” he added, when Draco continued thinking about it.

It was a good bloody idea. At least that’s how Draco felt. He would love to learn from Harry, knowing how much he’d been through and how well he’s managed to retain not only his life, but also the entirety of his limbs. And he was only partially eager to agree because it would mean spending more time with Harry on a regular basis.

“Sorry, I just…you’re the most logical person I know, and I thought you could–“

“Do it,” Draco said quickly, “you should do it.” He felt quite sure of that advice.

Harry watched him for a second, as if wondering whether Draco was joking or not. “You think I can teach others?”

“Who else is going to do it? Unless you want to smuggle Remus into the castle,” Draco said off-handedly.

“We’ll get caught,” Harry supposed, sounding like he’d already given up and accepted his fate of more detentions. He was standing awfully close to Draco in their muffled bubble, closer than was necessary, and Draco wondered if he should point this out to Harry to make him more comfortable and letting him step back. Selfishly, he did no such thing.

“I’m a prefect, I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen,” Draco promised, waving it away, “Pansy can help me.”

“Would she?” Harry wondered, looking to the opposite end of the long hallway where she was nowhere to be seen.

“I think she’s going after one of the Gryffindors. Maybe keep an eye out for the prettier girls. Someone snarky, you know?”

“Like Ginny?” Harry suggested.

Draco’s mind collapsed. How had he not put that together? “Finite,” he said to the bubble of muffled air around them. “Parkinson!” Draco called into the shadows of the castle.

“What are you shouting for?” she sounded scandalised, returning to the two of them, wearing a night’s helm and carrying a morningstar, two lost metal legs hurrying after her. “Oh, fuck’s sake, Immobulus,” she said, pointing to the legs, who went completely still in an instant, then fell to the ground with the loudest clank of metal this Castle might have seen in several years.

“Where’s the rest of him?” Harry wondered, looking at the frozen armour legs.

“D’you fancy the little Weasley?” Draco demanded before she could avoid him and answer Harry.

“The fuck did you tell him, Potter?” she asked in a playfully accusatory tone. Harry looked alarmed, raising his hands in a show of innocence. “Oh, come off it, you know she’s probably the best option I’ve got. Unless I want to go for Bulstrode. Or someone boring like Cho Chang,” she said pointedly.

“You can’t go for Cho, that’s Harry’s property,” Draco pointed out.

“What?” Harry’s head snapped up.

“Just picture it. It’s the most logical person I could go for,” Pansy said, ignoring him.

“Oh, our feelings are logical now, are they?” Draco asked dramatically, crossing his arms.

“Well, some of us don’t go for the most impossible option out there, Draco,” she said studiously, and Draco could only thank her for not explicitly looking at Harry.

“What? Who?” Harry sounded interested. Maybe he was a little gossip monger after all.

“Never you mind,” Draco murmured.

“Why wouldn’t I go for Weasel’s sister?” Pansy asked.

“Because she’s Weasel’s sister,” Draco said as-a-matter-of-factly.

“Oi!” Harry protested.

“She’s pretty, she’s smart, she can handle herself…”

“She’s straight,” Draco added.

“Oh, do tell me, how is that different from your situation, my darling butterfly?” she asked in return.

“Who?” Harry demanded more pointedly. This would not go away easily. Harry had reached a level in his relationship with Draco where asking, re-asking and outright demanding on a daily basis was not exactly considerable as crossing a line. Harry would not be letting this go, and Draco would go insane trying to come up with lies.

“Just tell him,” Pansy said with a laugh in her voice.

“Pansy,” Draco said warningly, his patience wearing thin. If this came to light and he lost Harry, he wouldn’t only be losing one of the closest friends he had. He’d potentially be losing the sense of safety he and his mother had found. He’d be losing Grimmauld Place. Hell, he’d even miss Sirius at this point.

“I am giving you a chance here,” she smirked wickedly.

“I will hang you in the Quidditch pitch, by your toes,” Draco warned through gritted teeth.

The silence rang, as Draco continued staring her down warningly and Pansy continued looking at him with a teasing grin. “Is it Macmillan?”

“Macmillan?” Pansy asked, barking a laugh. “Really, Potter, you must be the blindest bastard in the castle.”

“Enough!” Draco yelled. He hadn’t shouted in ages, he hadn’t felt the necessity to, but Pansy Parkinson was nothing if not unpredictable, and neither Draco nor anyone else in the world had any way of knowing what she could do or say, when pushed enough, or in need of entertainment. Her smile did falter, her face falling. Even Harry looked concerned. “Enough,” Draco repeated quietly, “Harry, go to sleep, Pansy,” he cleared his throat, “I don’t give a shit, actually, what you do, but you’re not speaking about this to Harry or, in fact, anyone else, get out of my sight.”

“Draco, I’m–” she huffed a nervous laugh.

“I don’t give a shit. You’ve teased me about it enough now, I’ve tried to keep it under wraps this year not to annoy you and Blaise, and I still get humiliated on a daily basis. I’m done,” he said near-silent. What had started out as friendly teasing had turned dangerously into almost losing Harry as a friend, and he could not allow that. He would let Pansy sulk in worry for a few days. Then forgive her afterwards, he knew that already, but right now, he was pissed off at her and wanted to leave. “Do you want me to walk you back?” he asked Harry unable to look him in the eye.

“You don’t have to–”

“I’ll walk you,” Draco nodded, signalling the conversation was done and the decision was made. Harry nodded quietly and gathered up his invisibility cloak, then turned around shortly and waved to Pansy with an apologetic look he apparently thought Draco couldn’t see. Traitor.

They walked quietly, there were three floors separating them from the entrance to the Gryffindor tower, and Draco had no words to part onto Harry. It was dark and cold, he was tired, he was angry and a bit disappointed. Perhaps a part of him wanted it to come out. All of it laid out in front of Harry, putting the responsibility of making a decision on this on the other boy’s shoulder.

Draco’s “I’m sorry,” came outside the portrait of the Fat Lady at the same time as Harry’s “You don’t have to tell me.”

They looked at each other for a moment, unable to decide who should go first. “Thanks,” Draco then said. “I don’t think I should go around spreading that sort of information.”

“If you’re nervous about, well,” Harry seemed nervous himself, “I wouldn’t judge you,” he said, clearing his throat, if you’re gay or anything, I wouldn’t care.”

“Right, because of Sirius,” Draco nodded, quickly, feeling uncomfortable with the subject.

Harry hesitated, “Right. Because of…Sirius,” he agreed, turning to look at the entrance to his common room, but making no move towards it. “Whoever he is, I’m sure he’s wonderful,” Harry said, visibly trying to look optimistic.

“He is,” Draco confirmed.

Harry nodded again, solemn and pensive, then gave Draco a short smile and murmured the password to the portrait. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think Ginny’s entirely straight,” he said in a whisper, in case the girl in question could hear from inside. “And I don’t…have a thing for Cho, you know,” he said, the last words spoken of the night, and headed through the portrait hole into the Gryffindor common room.

Draco remained there for a moment, doing his best to shake Harry’s words off. Pansy will be happy to hear about Ginevra, though it may take a while for Draco to convey this information. He couldn’t, however, quite understand why Harry had found it so necessary to point out his lack of feelings for Cho.

“Go back to Slytherin, boy,” the Fat Lady said suddenly, when Draco was all too enthralled by his own thoughts. He turned and deliberately didn’t tell her to piss off. That was no way for a prefect to act.

He walked slowly, dreading Pansy’s lingering presence in the common room, but once he’d reluctantly reached the dungeons, his friend was nowhere to be found, likely having decided to give him some space and retire to bed. It pissed him off even more, and he couldn’t decide whether it was because she hadn’t found it important enough to apologise, or because she knew him well enough to know that some space is exactly what Draco required. It was annoying, because they loved each other so much.

Draco could only stand being angry for three more days. That’s how little it took for his longing to speak to Pansy to become stronger than whatever her newest escapade in pissing him off was. It was good to know, for future reference. It was easier to plan his schedule this way.

When he felt the longing for his friend override her indifference to Draco’s personal life details, he found something else to be angry about. First, he thought of all the essays she’d given him to check before she handed them in. He left those on an ornate coffee table in the common room. If Pansy felt no particular obligation to her own academic career, then why should Draco be the one pulling her out of her messes? He knew, either way, Blaise would step in to help her, so he didn’t feel too guilty about it, really.

When that came to a halt, Draco had been forced to find another thing to remain upset about. This time it was her plethora of tiny skirts and the myriad of winks she sent towards every conventionally attractive boy over fifteen in the castle. For someone as gay as Draco now knew her to be, she was awfully willing to gaslight anyone she came into contact with, just because flirting looked straight enough.

He refused to blame her for attempting to look good, nice, pureblood and straight in her father’s eyes, though. Not everyone’s mother was as kind, loving and fucking brave as Narcissa Malfoy.

Pansy tried to speak to him once in a while. In-between classes or before he went to bed. Sometimes she’d be sitting on the back of a leather couch in the common room just waiting for Draco to show up. He would roll his eyes and make a snide remark about whatever he was pissed at her for that day.

He knew he was being dramatic, overreacting and petty. He understood that well. But he couldn’t bring himself to act like an adult. He’d opened a tap with his commentary on Nott that day on the Quidditch pitch, and he needed an outlet for it to flow further. It hurt him, really, it did, but he didn’t know how to turn it off.

It was harder to focus on classes when he had to remind himself why he was so upset half the time. It was tough during Quidditch practice, his flying was slanted and he’d spent half the practice whizzing around the pitch, just trying to get accustomed to it. Like his broom could feel his feelings and knew something was off. He couldn’t keep his eyes on the Snitch at all.

What made it all worse was Harry’s concerned glances from the Gryffindor table. People had, or course, noticed that Slytherin trio of theirs having separated at least to some extent, if you didn’t count Blaise joining one of them at a time for meals like a sad little child of divorce.

Draco finally came down to breakfast late enough to eat with Blaise and Pansy, after a week of waking at the crack of dawn only to be the first one in the Great Hall, dodging them during lunch and dinner and pointedly sitting alone during classes. He was tired. He could no longer sleep, his anger had boiled down to a dull ache, and it simply wasn’t sustainable avoiding her, especially because Blaise, the neutral bloody bastard that he was, kept insisting Draco do his best to forgive, forget and come back to help him make fun of her. Blaise had apparently been running out of insults, and she was besting him at every point.

Pansy looked up at Draco expressionlessly and offered to buy him a butterbeer after he’d called her a cow. He told her she’d be buying him a crate. She broke into a smile and yanked his lanky body down into a surprisingly forceful hug. He did bloody love her. But she was a bloody cow.

“No one likes an angry Draco,” Pansy said calmly, spreading marmalade on toast more merrily than he’d seen her in days (yes, of course, he’d been watching her). It was satisfying to see that lack of his presence in her life was also a near-world-shattering event.

“Good,” Draco said simply, “people should be wary of angering me.”

“Oh, believe me, they are,” Pansy snorted, “I had second years coming up to me demanding to know if your mood was gone and if you’d stopped putting everyone in detention.”

He had to think back over the past week. “I only put three people in detention, and they deserved it,” Draco pointed out, his friends smiling and shaking their heads lovingly. They fell into an easy conversation after that, like nothing had ever happened.

The morning of the first Hogsmeade visit dawned bright but windy. After breakfast they queued up in front of Filch, who matched their names to the long list of students who had permission from their parents or a guardian to visit the village. Draco’s permission, though a couple of years old now, had been signed by his father. There was an odd pang when he recalled that. He made a mental note to ask Snape for a new one to have Narcissa sign instead.

There were packs of students everywhere along the road to the village. Very few chose to linger in the castle, if it was a Hogsmeade weekend. Why would you sit inside cold stones, listening to ancient portraits pestering you, when you could, and this was only Draco’s personal preference, sit in the Three Broomsticks for hours and then go shopping with Pansy, while Blaise fought to ignore the both of them. Blimey, Draco was glad they’d reconciled.

A few of the smaller groups, consisting entirely of Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs or Ravenclaws, not a single Slytherin in sight, carefully glanced around before turning down a narrow street.

Draco looked down the side street at the top of which stood a small inn. A battered wooden sign hung from a rusty bracket over the door, with a picture upon it of a wild boar’s severed head leaking blood onto the white cloth around it. The sign creaked in the wind: Hog’s Head. He’d always known the pub existed, but he’d never seen people actually going in, especially not students.

Blaise, by that time, had already found more important matters at a book store and had left the two of them wander aimlessly, so it was only Pansy, extending her graces to unforeseen heights, that patiently stood and waited while Draco peered inside one of the grimy, dusty windows, barely making out the Gryffindor Golden Trio at a table with about twenty other people around them.

“…I saw him. But Dumbledore told the whole school what happened last year, and if you didn’t believe him, you don’t believe me, and I’m not wasting an afternoon trying to convince anyone,” Draco could hear Harry’s muffled voice. He sounded confident. Someone then asked something about Diggory, that Draco couldn’t entirely make out, and Harry’s determined voice answered roughly, “If you’ve come to hear exactly what it looks like when Voldemort murders someone, I can’t help you,” Harry said, “I don’t want to talk about Cedric Diggory, all right? So, if that’s what you’re here for, you might as well clear out.”

“What are they doing in there?” Pansy wondered out loud.

“Starting a defence study group,” Draco explained, “of sorts.”

“Is this study group potentially able to get them into trouble from Umbridge?” Pansy narrowed her eyes.

“Inevitably,” Draco shrugged.

“Can I help?” she wondered, her mischievous smirk growing.

“I already promised Harry you would,” Draco chuckled. “Come on, we better go find Blaise before he does his entire Christmas shopping in one day.”

He sent the letter late that night, using his shiny prefect badge to strut around at night yet again. No one ever questioned him, and he had reached the owlery and spent a good ten minutes speaking to Eagle and even scratched the top of Hedwig’s head lightly, before finally handing his owl the letter and watching him fly off into the night. It wasn’t even eleven yet.

“Don’t judge me,” he said when Hedwig who was practically pouting at him, as much as an owl could. “This is the last I willingly contact him.”

Lucius,

I will not be wasting either of our time with pleasantries, as I am sure you are well aware I lack any respect for you I had ever held. I write to you today with a specific request. I must ask that you refrain from speaking about me in any public forum, most notably and recently, interviews for the Daily Prophet. For that matter, I request you keep my name out of your mouth on any other public platform, as well.

I have made a conscious decision to keep my life and spend it elsewhere than under the boot of dark wizards. Your actions have caused me great distress my entire life and I shall not allow this to continue any longer.

In short, please keep your mouth shut about me. You no longer have any right to speak my name, just as I have been abstaining from yours. As far as you should be concerned, I am no longer your son.

Kind regards,

Draco Malfoy

Chapter Text

It had been another Harry-less week when a letter awaited Draco in his usual spot at the Slytherin table, similarly to how he’d left his healing draught for Harry just half a month ago. Unlike the little package he’d left on the Gryffindor table – unprotected and unjinxed – this had been left by someone smart enough to know that a lone letter anywhere near the Slytherins will be opened by the wrong hands, if left unattended.

Pansy, seeing Draco’s name on top of it, excitedly reached out to grab it, and shrieked in pain as it burned a layer or two of flesh right off her hand. “Fucking who?” she demanded through gritted teeth, hissing in pain.

Draco,

Meet us at the spiral staircase after breakfast. You know the one.

H.

He didn’t have to be a genius to uncrack that code, and when Draco looked over to the Gryffindor table, he found Hermione with an apologetic and genuinely terrified look on her face, as Harry and Ron shot her disbelieving, shocked stares.

“Granger, if you believe it,” Draco murmured, quietly enough for only her to hear.

“I’ll take her to Pomfrey,” Blaise offered, already holding her carefully, her hand clutched to her chest and fingernails digging into the palm of the unhurt one, like her body was trying to create more pain to distract from the most prominent source of it.

“I’ll come with,” Draco insisted. He could accompany his friend to the hospital wing and still make it back in time to betray Slytherin house. He smiled to himself at the thought. What would his father say? Sirius’ mother’s portrait was bound be delighted, as well.

Madam Pomfrey muttered something under her breath about bloody Slytherins and their bloody cursing each other. Blaise smiled at her politely and Pansy didn’t seem to have heard. Draco was glad she hadn’t. An enraged Pansy could easily become an expelled Pansy, and what would he and Blaise do then?

“Draco, go on your little mission, I’ll take her back to the common room,” Blaise said absently, once Pomfrey was done, already starting in the direction of the dungeons.

“But I’m hungry,” Draco heard Pansy protesting down the hall.

“Shut up, Pans,” Blaise chuckled, “I’m obviously getting you food, you halfwit.”

“I hate you, you know,” Pansy laughed too and it echoed until Draco could no longer hear the two of them. He thought of late nights and hearing that laughter echoing in a similar way. He sometimes missed Hogwarts while still attending it. As if his future self was watching memories from the view of his present eyes in fond retrospect.

“Madam Pomfrey?” he called suddenly, the idea appearing out of thin air, though he couldn’t say he hadn’t been thinking about finding more information about this.

“Yes, Mister Malfoy, what is it?” she asked, sounding exasperated. Draco assumed she remembered the countless times during his first three years in Hogwarts when he’d walk in with an imaginary injury and milk it to the last possible drop of pity and attention from his fellow housemates. He couldn’t blame her for the attitude.

“So sorry,” he said quickly, trying to seem more polite than he’d been the years before, and her gaze softened, “I was only wondering what the quickest-working potion for wounds would be.”

“Oh,” she seemed surprised not to be demanded to let Draco stay in the hospital wing for the night because of a splinter, and threatened with Lucius Malfoy, if she wouldn’t cooperate. “Well, essence of dittany usually does the trick, and it’s quite easily acquirable. Any household ought to have some,” she shrugged.

“Yes, but it typically takes a little time, right?” Draco wondered.

“Well, sure, a couple of minutes at the longest,” she shrugged, growing visibly more interested in the conversation, though remaining vigilant to any Slytherinian outbursts.

“What if the wound is inflicted repeatedly?” Draco asked, “doesn’t it lose effectiveness with constant use?” Madam Pomfrey watched him instead of answering, that same slightly spiteful look returning to her features. “Say, if a certain professor was using a certain black quill for detentions,” he said, hoping he was indicating what he meant to be, “wouldn’t it only work quickly on the first few days?”

“It would,” she said, paling slightly. Draco knew she couldn’t do much, Umbridge was sent by the Ministry, after all, but at least she was aware now, at least to a certain degree, of what was happening in the school to children who weren’t willing to come see her. “In which case I would suggest keeping a vial on oneself at all times, in case the wound tears.”

Draco nodded. He couldn’t tell if she suspected him to be the injured one, or if rumours of Harry’s detention schedule had reached the faculty and she was able to put two and two together, but he’d done two things he’d wanted to for a while now – proven to himself that his draught was better than one found in a every wizard’s bathroom cabinet, and told someone what Umbridge was doing, even if it wasn’t anything solid to go on. He knew Harry was too proud and self-destructive to do it himself, and it wasn’t like Draco had mentioned him by name.

“Thank you, Madam Pomfrey,” he nodded and turned on his heel without giving her a chance to ask more questions.

Draco knew there was a very good reason for the Golden Trio to invite him for a meeting in what was essentially hiding. Simply, because they now had to hide. There had been a large notice right by the entrance to the Slytherin common room that read:

All Student Organisations, Societies, Teams, Groups, and

Clubs are henceforth disbanded.

An Organisation, Society, Team, Group, or Club is hereby

defined as a regular meeting of three or more students.

Permission to re-form may be sought from the High

Inquisitor (Professor Umbridge).

No Student Organisation, Society, Team, Group, or Club

may exist without the knowledge and approval of the High

Inquisitor.

Any student found to have formed, or to belong to, an

Organisation, Society, Team, Group, or Club that has not

been approved by the High Inquisitor will be expelled.

The above is in accordance with

Educational Decree Number Twenty-four.

It had been signed in a very annoying curly handwriting, which unmistakeably would have looked more appropriate in pink. Pansy had made fun of the decree for days. Draco had merely wondered if the three of them would be offered a lovely helping of detention just for being friends and going literally everywhere together.

Flint had gone to Umbridge the very next morning to ask permission for the Slytherin Quidditch team to continue its existence. She had made no objection, according to his sneer-riddled retelling of the events to the Slytherin team. Draco was sure the Gryffindor team would not be given the same treatment. Draco couldn’t help but wonder if his father’s back alley dealings with the Ministry had won them the prize.

Draco tossed a loose galleon he’d found in his trouser pocket up and down as he waited, catching it perfectly every rime. Sometimes, as full of himself as he could seem, he could really see what people meant when they complimented him. He was a fucking good seeker. He smirked to himself, throwing the galleon higher up in the air before it landed perfectly between his forefinger and thumb.

Harry was the first to lead the Golden Trio onto the staircase, his smile bright and earnest. He seemed to be physically holding himself back from coming up and hugging Draco hello. Draco grinned back, unable to help it. Harry blushed.

Harry blushed?

“How is Pansy?” Hermione asked as soon as she saw him, his attention dissipating away from the boy, “Please do tell her I’m sorry, I didn’t think she’d pick up a letter meant for you. I feel so terrible.”

“Of course, she would, she’s Pansy,” Draco snorted a laugh. “But don’t worry, really, Blaise is keeping her company, she’s done worse to me, if anything, she deserved it.”

“Does Blaise know any healing magic?” Hermione wondered, sounding awfully interested, her eyes firmly on the galleon Draco was now twisting forwards and backwards between his fingers. The amount of thinking going on in her head was almost palpable.

“No, we took her to Pomfrey first,” Draco shrugged, ignoring a scowling Weasley standing behind Hermione, several steps between them, like he was keeping more of a distance than strictly necessary.

“Does Blaise–”

“’Mione,” Weasley groaned, and she straightened her back, dropping her smile, like she’d been the one burned instead of Pansy.

“Right. First of all, we have a message from your mother,” Hermione said seriously, like she was chairing an important meeting, and the order of business had been decided beforehand.

“That so?” Draco asked, his eyebrow raising. He willed himself not to worry before he’d let Hermione finish.

“She says you’re not allowed to participate in what we are about to tell you,” Hermione nodded,

“But, according to Sirius, she was laughing when she said this, and she only said it because Mrs. Weasley had been going off about Ron not being allowed,” Harry explained.

“So, I do what I want?” Draco smirked.

“I think so?” Hermione supposed.

“How is Sirius?” Draco asked, feeling an odd sense of fondness for Harry’s godfather. It was weird to hold respect for an older man and not fear him at the same time. It was nice. He could honestly say he cared about his mother’s cousin.

"Missing Harry, mostly," Hermione chuckled fondly.

“Along with Remus, I'm sure. Alright, lovely. What are you about to offer me?”

Harry beamed widely again, visibly lowering his excitement to whisper “We’ve found somewhere to have our first Defence meeting.”

“The Room of Requirement!” Hermione said, unable to hold back her excitement.

“You found the Room of Requirement?” Draco felt the same excitement now too. He’d always assumed it was an old wives’ tale, and surely not something that actually existed within the walls of this school.

Harry smiled at the two of them with that face that said he would love to call them both nerds right about now. “Monday night, eight o’clock, seventh floor opposite that tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy being clubbed by those trolls,” he said instead.  Draco chuckled at the thought of that ugly old thing alone. He had always liked that tapestry. He would have loved so have seen someone attempting to teach trolls ballet with his own eyes at least once in his life.

He nodded to the three Gryffindors. “I’ll be there,” he promised, doing his best not to smile like an idiot at the thought alone of Harry and Hermione deciding to include him. “I’ll make sure Pansy’s on patrol, just to be safe.”

“Brilliant!” Hermione nodded along to what he was saying.

Weasley was looking at her bitterly, then scoffed, not even attempting to hide the rolling of his eyes, “Do we have to always keep running around and hide just to tell him everything we come up with? Can’t he come up to our table during lunch?” he asked in a whisper and seemingly only to Hermione, but clearly loud enough for them all to hear, including Draco himself.

“So, I should stop being friends with Draco because it’s inconvenient to you?” Harry asked, anger shimmering in his voice, “You know, he’s not all that fond of you either, but at least he plays nice.”

Draco watched the outburst with raised eyebrows. He wondered how often Harry had to defend him like this. “Sorry, Malfoy,” Weasley said like he’d been forced, watching his shoes. “Mione, Fred and George are downstairs,” he said, still refusing to look at Draco.

“Oh, good,” she said hurriedly, rushing after and towards the Weasleys.

“Don’t mind them,” Harry said, seeing Draco’s confusion, “Fred and George are selling their inventions and Hermione wants to stop them at any cost."

“Checks out,” Draco said with a small smile. Why was it difficult to look at Harry now that it was just the two of them? It was not supposed to be different than a moment ago with the other two Gryffindors. He looked at his shoes before forcing his gaze on Harry. “Don’t you think it’s a stupid idea?”

“The club? You said–”

“No, not the club, that’s still genius,” Draco waved it away, “I mean me coming. That’s quite insane, is it not?”

“Creating a secret, illegal Defence club in a room that vanishes whenever it’s not in use is a bit more mad than inviting a single Slytherin,” Harry scoffed, smiling. His smile was gorgeous. “Speaking of which, should we invite Pansy and Blaise? I mean, they’re your friends, and Hermione likes Pansy well enough.”

“Not yet,” Draco said solemnly. “No offense, but I want to make sure it’s safe before I get my two best friends expelled.”

Harry’s smile faltered for a second. “Alright, you know best,” he said, face back to what it had been, like nothing at all had happened. Maybe it hadn’t, Draco wasn’t sure. “I’ll see you Monday, yeah?”

“You will,” Draco promised.

Talking Pansy into taking on extra patrolling duty was a near-impossible feat. Honestly, once she’d agreed and Blaise was staring at him in shock, Draco could not even quite understand how he’d done it. It was like he’d blacked out. But she was now scowling at her magazine in front of the Slytherin common room’s fireplace, and she had clearly said the words “Alright, fine, you little shit, I’ll do it,” so Draco had no time to dwell on it.

He kissed the top of her head and rushed out the common room. He still had time, he could show up early. “Eight, Pans,” he reminded, on his way out.

“Yes, fucking eight, fuck off,” she waved him away across the room, Draco checked his watch. He had twenty minutes to get to the seventh floor. He was convinced it was plenty of time, and Pansy had twenty minutes to glower before heading out on patrol.

He wiped any semblance of a satisfied smile off his face, though, honestly, his nerves helped quite a lot with that. He half expected the other attendees to jinx him out for good, and had to keep reminding himself that Harry would be there, and he even had Hermione on his side.

The castle was surprisingly quiet, even for a Monday evening in autumn. Most students were usually not worried about homework or exams yet, other than fifth and seventh years, and even the ghosts seemed to have disappeared somewhere. Then again, this was no ordinary year at Hogwarts, in terms on leadership. Those who did believe Harry were smart to stay away from being alone in open areas, especially if they were mudbloods.

No, muggle-borns, Draco reminded himself.

Anyone else was sure to try and avoid a certain pink toad gloating around the castle at any given moment, and making up useless rules. “Mister Malfoy!” a high-pitched, over-sweetened voice called out when he was on the fifth floor. Had he accidentally learned to summon just with the power of his thoughts? Accio was thought to be impossible with wordless and wandless magic at the same time.

“Professor Umbridge, good evening,” he smiled, doing his best not to check the time.

“Are you going on rounds?” she asked with a stuck-up smile, eying Draco’s chest. He was sure glad he’d forgotten to take off his Prefect badge. “I was not aware you were on duty tonight,” she said, but did not sound unhappy about it. Then again, Draco could never tell when she was unhappy.

“Oh, yes professor, Pansy and I hold our responsibilities to this school extremely high on our priorities,” he said, hoping to sound sincere. Getting Umbridge on his side would be immeasurably beneficial.

“How lovely to hear,” she chuckled disgustingly, but Draco was well-trained to remain poised and stoic in the face of unpleasantness. “Indeed, so lovely, mister Malfoy. Well, I must not keep you for too long, you will be sure to let me know if you see anything against the rules, won’t you?”

“It shall be my first instinct,” he smirked in what he hoped to be a Gryffindor-despising way, though that was difficult to perform these days when he so liked some of the Gryffindors. She looked pleased by his answer and let him on his merry way. Draco exhaled silently, a nervous shake in his core for two reasons now. If Umbridge, for some inexplicable reason, decided to follow him, he would have damned Harry, his friends and over a dozen other students that meant no harm to him.

He had to continue on his way slowly, to emphasise that he was in no rush to get to a specific place, and he even took a detour just to be completely sure, placing him at the tapestry fifteen minutes too late.

Draco stood, wondering what he could possibly do to find Harry or to somehow get him outside, starting to pace eventually in hope it would somehow prosper a good idea. He was just about to give up and leave with slumped shoulders and a terribly un-Slytherin amount of disappointment, when he turned back to the tapestry to give Barnabas the Barmy one final groan, but a highly polished door had appeared in the wall. He was scared, he had to admit, but before Draco could overreact and flee, he reached out, seized the brass handle, pulled open the door, and found his way into a spacious room lit with flickering torches like those that illuminated the dungeons eight floors below.

“…think we ought to have a name,” Hermione’s bright voice floated into his ears. “It would promote a feeling of team spirit and unity, don’t you think?”

“Can we be the Anti-Umbridge League?” asked a voice Draco didn’t recognise.

“Or the Ministry of Magic Are Morons Group?” suggested one of the Weasley twins.

“I was thinking,” Hermione said again, “more of a name that didn’t tell everyone what we were up to, so we can refer to it safely outside meetings.”

“The Defence Association?” Cho Chang suggested. Draco almost scoffed out loud, it was so stupid. “The D.A. for short, so nobody knows what we’re talking about?”

“Yeah, the D.A.’s good,” Ginevra supposed. “Only let’s make it stand for Dumbledore’s Army because that’s the Ministry’s worst fear, isn’t it?” There was a good deal of appreciative murmuring and laughter at this, when Draco finally stepped out into the part of the room where he’d be visible.

“All in favour of the D.A.?” said Hermione bossily, unaware that all eyes in the room quickly turned away from her and to Draco.

There were twenty-five faces looking at him, most drawing their wands immediately. Harry looked to have been about to say something, when he turned to see who had entered, and registered the reaction of almost everyone else in the room, save Hermione, the Weasleys and Ernie Macmillan, for some reason. Harry stood in front of him quickly, a protective stance as Draco raised his hands. He assumed drawing his own wand would get him hexed immediately, but raising his hands felt so unnatural, when the alternative was to fight back, it simply felt wrong.

“Stop, it’s alright,” Harry said, perhaps a little too forcefully,

“Why the fuck aren’t we tying him up yet?” Zacharias Smith demanded, a nasty look about him that Draco could not say he enjoyed much.

“I can vouch for him!” Harry said again, his stance growing more protective by the second. The other members of the so-called Dumbledore’s Army looked like Harry had lost his mind. They looked at one another in clear worry.

“I’m not here to bust you,” Draco said, hoping he hadn’t sounded as annoyed as he felt.

“Right, and we’re trusting Draco Malfoy at his word,” a Ravenclaw girl said, rolling her eyes.

“No, you’re trusting me at my word,” Harry objected.

“We’re already doing plenty of that,” the girl quipped back.

“Why are you defending him?” Dean Thomas wondered, “You two have always hated each other.”

“That’s not true, I trust Draco with my life,” Harry said sternly, “quite literally.”

“It’s true, they’re friends,” Macmillan nodded assuredly, the most unexpected source of alibi Draco could think of. “Well, friends or something like that – I heard them having a lovers’ quarrel on the first week of term. They seemed to know each other pretty well.”

“Not lovers, for the record,” Harry said stiffly.

“He brews you potions and you chastise him for flirting with me,” Macmillan said in disbelief.

“I was certainly not flirting with you,” Draco scoffed.

“Were too,” Macmillan said, his hair tossing with the whole-body-movement caused by his laughter.

Draco threw his head backwards exasperatedly. He’d expected this and yet had been nowhere near ready enough to actually make excuses for himself. The walls were lined with wooden bookcases, and instead of chairs there were large silk cushions on the floor. A set of shelves at the far end of the room carried a range of instruments such as Sneakoscopes, Secrecy Sensors, and a large, cracked Foe-Glass. It was a beautiful room. Draco noted the lack of portraits and smiled to himself.

“I’m glad you came,” Harry smiled, his hand on Draco’s shoulder, but it was gone all too soon.

“I can vouch for Draco too,” Hermione said confidently.

“And us,” George pointed to him and Fred.

“If pressed,” Ginevra, agreed with a smirk that showed Draco just how unserious she considered this conversation to be. She then elbowed Weasel in the ribs, only to get a reluctant grunt of agreement.

“Um, Draco,” Hermione said awkwardly, like she was about to ask something she didn’t entirely want to, “not that I don’t trust you, but we all signed our names–”

“Oh, sure, has anyone got a quill?” he asked quickly. If this was all of it and he was just being asked to sign to have equal responsibility, he had no trouble doing it. After all, it would only go further to show everyone in the room that he was not there to turn them in. “Where do I sign?” he asked, when the stunned silence continued.

Hermione handed him the piece of parchment, Dumbledore’s Army scribbled along the top of the page just moments ago, Harry’s name the first to adorn the list. He chuckled and signed. He didn’t use his middle name just like he hadn’t on the letter to his father. It was no longer a part of him.

“To reiterate, all in favour of the D.A.?” Hermione asked bossily, still standing next to Draco to count. “That’s a majority – motion passed!” She pinned the piece of paper with all of their names on it on the wall and smiled largely.

“Right,” Harry said, when she had sat down again and dragged Draco along with her by his sleeve to a pillow next to hers. Most of the participants were still staring daggers at the only Slytherin in the room, and it was making him beyond uncomfortable. “Shall we get practicing then? I was thinking, the first thing we should do is Expelliarmus. I know it’s pretty basic but I’ve found it really useful–”

“Oh please,” Zacharias Smith scoffed, rolling his eyes and folding his arms. “you don’t think Expelliarmus is exactly going to help us against You-Know-Who, do you?”

“I’ve used it against him,” said Harry quietly. “It saved my life last June.” Smith opened his mouth stupidly. The rest of the room was very quiet. “But if you think it’s beneath you, you can leave,” Harry said. Smith did not move. Nor did anybody else. “Okay,” Harry returned to the matter at hand. He sounded angry, nearly rageful. Draco wondered if it was because of his arrival and the others’ reaction to it. If so, Draco would be going to bed with a smug smile tonight. Harry Potter? Fighting for the good name of Draco Malfoy remaining untainted? Bloody lovely.

“I reckon we should all divide into pairs and practice,” Harry said sternly, everyone following suit. The teacher thing was really doing it for Draco.

Hermione took a hold of him again, this time by the hand. He was immensely thankful to her. She was practically his only friend here, other than Harry, but he was the one instructing, and could most probably not join just to make sure Draco felt included.

The room was suddenly full of shouts of “Expelliarmus!”: Wands flew in all directions, missed spells hit books on shelves and sent them flying into the air. Draco disarmed Hermione in an instant, his spellwork precise and practiced. He’d been taught to disarm when he was five. He had never before considered how his father had managed to keep Draco learning duelling spells off the Ministry records of underage wizardry, but he couldn’t say he was surprised.

Hermione laughed heartily when Draco apologised for her wand having flown all the way across the room. She used Accio to bring it back. It was nice to see she’d practiced the summoning charm along with Harry the previous year. People were blatantly staring now, seeing Hermione and Draco get along so easily, but with his friend laughing gleefully and accepting him without malice, he couldn’t exactly complain. Besides, Harry was strutting up and down the room, commenting and instructing, pure joy radiating off him. Draco couldn’t help but watch him in awe. And Weasley looked unhappy stuck with Longbottom.

Cho Chang made a spectacle of herself whenever Harry was near her, mispronouncing the spell and setting her friend’s sleeve on fire. Draco rolled his eyes and returned his attention to Hermione who was already watching him with a knowing smile. Fuck. He ignored it and disarmed her again, before letting her get the first word in for the sake of practice for a few rounds.

“Hey, Harry,” Hermione called after several successful attempts at disarming Draco, “have you checked the time?”

Draco looked down at his own watch and received a shock – it was already ten past nine, which meant they needed to get back to their common rooms immediately or risk being caught by Filch for being out of bounds. Harry blew the whistle he’d found somewhere on a shelf earlier in the night.

“Well, that was pretty good,” said Harry, “but we’ve overrun, we’d better leave it here,” Harry suggested authoritatively. It was bloody attractive. Draco had to look away. There was some arguing over what time to meet and when, since the Quidditch season was coming up, but Draco didn’t put in his own two knuts on that, assuming no one wanted to hear a Slytherin objecting.

“Personally, I think this is really important, possibly more important than anything else we’ll do this year, even with our O.W.L.s coming up!” Macmillan showed up next to him assuredly when people started piling out the room. Draco huffed a laugh, but couldn’t disagree. Then again, perhaps it was only so important to him because he got to watch Harry so closely and for so long without being called a creep by his best friends. This was encouraged watching. The kind he was allowed without seeming odd. “Well, we better be off, right? Prefects shouldn’t be seen attending detention, huh?”

“Yes,” Draco said simply, looking at Macmillan and making it as clear as possible that he was welcome to leave, while standing perfectly still himself. Thank Merlin the Hufflepuff could take a hint.

Harry was holding his map and observing it carefully while letting everyone leave in threes and fours. He even followed their tiny names on the parchment to make sure they returned safely. Draco wondered if Pansy was somewhere out there, shocking every member of the D.A. as she let them past wordlessly.

“Thanks for signing,” Harry said sheepishly when Draco went to speak to him. He seemed to have trouble looking Draco in the eye. “Even Macmillan hadn’t wanted to at first.”

“Why not?” Draco asked, realising he sounded like he cared more than he did when Harry finally looked at him with those beautiful eyes.

“Because he’s a prefect,” Harry rolled his eyes, making Draco laugh.

“Not a problem, I think Umbridge likes me,” Draco pointed out.

“Oh, God, that means I have to ditch you now,” Harry groaned with a laugh.

“And I will immediately go tell her all about this,” Draco said, gesturing towards the general room as Harry giggled next to him.

“Harry, mate, we should go,” Weasley pointed out. He and Hermione were standing by the door, the last ones left other than Draco and Harry themselves.

“No, you go on, two prefects shouldn’t be seen wandering around at night with a lies-spewing lunatic,” Harry joked, but Weasley still looked unconvinced.

“I’ll walk him back, don’t worry,” Draco announced, clearly calming at least Hermione’s nerves. “Won’t be the first time, you lunatic,” Draco raised an eyebrow, and Harry laughed again. Weasley and Hermione watched them for another second, as if wondering what about that had been so funny. Draco wasn’t sure, either, he was certain half of Harry’s jokes were right shit, but he found the boy funnier than most people these days.

They left without another word, their prefect badges pressed to their chest. Even though they had every right to be out at night and call it patrolling, Draco hoped they wouldn’t run into someone. This many prefects out tonight but not other nights was definitely suspicious.

“Fuck,” Harry sighed, folding over and resting against his knees the second the door had closed.

“Harry?” Draco was alarmed instantly.

“I’m okay, but bloody hell, was that terrifying,” Harry stood upright again. He looked pale, Draco could only hope he wouldn't barf.

“You were incredible, come here,” Draco said, pulling him in by the back of his neck and forcing a hug onto the Gryffindor. He couldn’t help himself, he had barely touched Harry in what felt like an eternity, and it was slightly, just slightly, addicting.

“Thank you,” Harry whispered into Draco’s shoulder, “You’re a good hugger.”

“All thanks to the restless efforts of Narcissa Malfoy,” he assured, letting go of Harry at once. He was in serious danger of staying there all night if he hadn’t. “Got your cloak?”

“Yeah,” Harry pointed at it where it was folded on the mantlepiece.

“Come on then,” Draco nodded towards the door.

Chapter Text

Pansy seemed completely willing to continue helping, and Draco pointedly did not ask if it was because she seemed to linger on the way of the Gryffindors coming back to their dorms after the D.A. meetings and get Ginevra’s attention. He didn’t ask, because that would mean he was making fun of her the same way she was making fun of him, and he couldn’t risk losing her willingness to help.

It was almost impossible to fix a regular night of the week for D.A. meetings, as they had to accommodate four separate Quidditch teams’ practices, which were often rearranged depending on the weather conditions, but no one seemed sorry about this. Draco had a feeling that it was probably better to keep the timing of their meetings unpredictable. If anyone was watching them, it would be hard to make out a pattern.

Hermione soon devised a very clever method of communicating the time and date of the next meeting to all the members in case they needed to change it at short notice, because it would look so suspicious if people from different Houses were seen crossing the Great Hall to talk to each other too often. She gave each of the members of the D.A. a fake Galleon.

“You see the numerals around the edge of the coins?” Hermione said, holding one up for examination at the end of their fourth meeting. The coin gleamed fat and yellow in the light from the torches. “On real Galleons that’s just a serial number referring to the goblin who cast the coin. On these fake coins, though, the numbers will change to reflect the time and date of the next meeting. The coins will grow hot when the date changes, so if you’re carrying them in a pocket, you’ll be able to feel them. We take one each, and when Harry sets the date of the next meeting he’ll change the numbers on his coin, and because I’ve put a Protean Charm on them, they’ll all change to mimic his.”

A blank silence greeted Hermione’s words. She looked around at all the faces upturned to her, rather disconcerted. “Well – I thought it was a good idea,” she said uncertainly, “I mean, even if Umbridge asked us to turn out our pockets, there’s nothing fishy about carrying a Galleon, is there? But…well, if you don’t want to use them…”

“You can do a Protean Charm?” Terry Boot asked, breaking the stunned silence.

“Yes,” said Hermione.

“But that’s…that’s N.E.W.T. standard, that is,” he said weakly.

“Oh,” said Hermione, trying to look modest. “Oh, well, yes, I suppose it is.”

“You know what these remind me of?” Terry Boot asked with a slightly pale face.

“No, what’s that?” Hermione asked, starting to get impatient with him.

Boot looked over at Draco, as if asking for help. It was strange to get almost respectful looks from members of the other houses now. And all it had taken was the unwavering faith in Draco that Harry Potter has continuously expressed.

“The Death Eater tattoo. Voldemort touches one of them, and they all burn. That way they know they have to join him,” Draco explained, taking the burden of this information onto his own shoulders. Narcissa had only briefly explained it when he’d asked during the summer, and only because Nymphadora had mentioned it during dinner.

“Well…yes,” said Hermione quietly. “That is where I got the idea, but you’ll notice I decided to engrave the date on bits of metal rather than on our members’ skin.”

“Yeah, I prefer your way,” Harry grinned, as he slipped his Galleon into his pocket. “I suppose the only danger with these is that we might accidentally spend them.”

“Fat chance,” Weasley scoffed, examining his own fake Galleon with a slightly mournful air. “I haven’t got any real Galleons to confuse it with.” Draco rolled his eyes. All he’d managed to grasp of the second youngest redhead’s personality was moping, whining, occasionally getting pissed at his best friend for several months over nothing, and complaining he was poor any chance someone listened. Oh, and, of course, hating Draco Malfoy’s guts.

The Slytherin-Gryffindor game drew closer by the minute, and Draco would never tell anyone, mostly because Harry would be forced to deny it, but he was quite certain that the D.A. meetings were planned to make sure not only Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff Quidditch practice schedules were taken into account, but Slytherin too.

Severus had booked the Quidditch pitch for Slytherin practice so often that the Gryffindors had difficulty getting on it to play. He was also turning a deaf ear to the many reports of Slytherin attempts to hex Gryffindor players in the corridors. Draco denied any accusations. Mostly, because he spent his time trying not to give his fellow Slytherins detention in fear of being disliked again, but also because he himself was doing no such thing.

Miles Bletchley had to be reminded not to go around the Slytherin common room boasting of his achievements while Draco and Pansy were there. He’d seemed confused as to the relevance. Though, to be fair, all the previous Slytherin prefects had simply ignored all wrongdoings and given detention to every Gryffindor they passed instead of conforming to rules.

“We’ll kick your arse,” Harry murmured after a particularly early D.A. meeting that ended right before the Slytherin practice, when the two of them were standing in a corridor, Harry with his map in hand and Draco with his badge in plain sight, seeing that everyone disappeared off to where they were not suspected for illicit activities.

“Sure,” Draco answered simply.

“You’ve never won against us before,” Harry pointed out.

“You’ve never had to play with Weasley before,” Draco quipped.

Harry looked at him with his mouth agape in fake shock, a smile bursting through. “How dare you? Ron’s a perfectly capable player.”

“Wonny’s perfectly terrible,” Draco snorted, “he’ll maybe block one single shot,” he added, not letting Harry get a defensive word in, “but he would probably be fine, if he calmed down. He’s just nervous, he has to do something about that.”

Harry seemed pleased by the last comment, so he didn’t object any longer. “You know, he once hung one-handed from his broom and kicked the Quaffle so hard away from the goal hoop that it flew across the whole pitch and through the centre hoop at the other end.”

“Uh huh,” Draco said, not as impressed as Harry had clearly expected him to be, “got a real Barry Ryan on your team, haven’t you?”

“Quite,” Harry raised his chin and cross his arms dramatically, making Draco chuckle.

Draco had never felt like he didn’t deserve his place on the Slytherin quidditch team. He was an excellent player, despite Lucius buying his way into the team. He knew he was a fine flier, he knew the only seeker to compete was Harry. Even still, knowing that, he’d never entirely felt like a part of the team. He’d read up enough on seekers to know that could sometimes happen, but in good teams, there were usually camaraderie precautions. Team-building, inclusion training, the works. The Hogwarts Slytherin Quidditch team was in no way a posterchild for such practices. Therefore, Draco had never felt entirely part of the team. That was, of course, by no means an excuse to lose a game.

October had extinguished itself in a rush of howling winds and driving rain and November arrived, cold as frozen iron, with hard frosts every morning and icy drafts that bit at exposed hands and faces. The skies and the ceiling of the Great Hall was almost constantly a pale, pearly grey, the mountains around Hogwarts became snow-capped, and the temperature in the castle dropped.

The morning of the match had dawned bright and cold. Before even exiting his bedroom, Draco was gifted with a paper crown and a badge by Nott. Well, gifted was a word for it. Another one was attacked.

“Wear them,” Nott said forcefully, still holding the two things shoved and pressed into Draco’s chest, “or risk accusations of fraternising with the Gryffindors.” His voice was quiet, low, warning. Draco would wonder for weeks if it meant Nott knew something or was simply bitter about the unresolved state of their last year’s altercation.

“Thank you very much, Theo,” Draco said in calculated politeness, taking the crown and putting it on immediately, then glancing upon the similarly-shaped badge which read Weasley is out king. “Could I possibly bother you?” Draco said in mock courtesy, gesturing to the badge. Nott scoffed like he’d touched something oozing pus and stalked away with a hateful stare. “Didn’t think so,” Draco said to himself, much to Blaise’s amusement, and placed the pin on his robes himself, next to his prefect badge.

“Come on, let’s go look at Weasel pissing himself at breakfast,” Blaise clapped Draco’s back. Pansy was already waiting for them, a glowing crown on her own head. Blaise, Draco now noticed, was carrying his own piece of anti-Gryffindor memorabilia instead of wearing it.

Draco had learned with the eight games he’d played and countless practicing he’d done over the years in Hogwarts, that a light breakfast was his only chance of having any luck on a broom. If he ate too much, which was usually good before a Binns’ class because he could sleep it off, he wouldn’t be able to fly comfortably. If he ate too little or nothing at all, he would only be thinking of his growling stomach during the match.

Pansy, always a step ahead of him, was arranging two hard boiled eggs and orange slices on his pate before he had the chance to sit down. “Thank you, darling,” he said with an appreciative smile as she winked.

“Hey, Potty, I heard Warrington’s sworn to knock you off your broom on Saturday,” Flint shouted across the Great Hall.

Harry barked a loud laugh and retorted, “Warrington’s aim’s so pathetic I’d be more worried if he was aiming for the person next to me.” Even Draco had to cover his mouth to hide a smile. Harry was wearing the red-and-yellow Quidditch jumper that fit him so well. Draco tore his eyes away by force.

The frosty grass crunched under their feet as they hurried down the sloping lawns toward the stadium. There was no wind at all and the sky was a uniform greyish white, which meant that visibility would be good without the drawback of direct sunlight in the eyes. There was the usual speech from the captain, Montague this year, threatening anyone who made a score-altering mistake to expect boils upon their next sunrise. Draco didn’t pay much attention to those anymore. He only had two jobs: Stay out of the others’ way, and catch the fucking Snitch.

Draco winked at Harry as the Gryffindor team came out onto the field. “Captains shake hands,” Madam Hooch ordered, as Angelina Johnson and Montague reached each other. Draco could tell that Montague was trying to crush her fingers, though she did not wince. “Mount your brooms!” the flying teacher then placed her whistle in her mouth and blew. The balls were released and the fourteen players shot upward.

Draco set off on a wide lap of the pitch, gazing around for a glint of gold; on the other side of the stadium, Harry was doing exactly the same. Draco didn’t listen to the commentary, as curious as he was as to how bad Weasley would be doing. He did not, however, hold himself back from humming along to the Slytherin section singing in the stands:

Weasley cannot save a thing,

He cannot block a single ring,

That’s why Slytherins all sing:

Weasley is our King.

Weasley was born in a bin,

He always lets the Quaffle in,

Weasley will make sure we win,

Weasley is our King.

“Don’t be a prick!” Harry called out to Draco.

“No clue what you’re talking about!” Draco shouted back, zooming past him, still searching for the Snitch. A scream of delight came from the Slytherin end: Ron had dived wildly, his arms wide, and the Quaffle had soared past the twins, straight through Ron’s central hoop. “Slytherin score!” came Lee’s voice amid the cheering and booing from the crowds below. “So that’s ten-nil to Slytherin – bad luck, Ron…” Draco wouldn’t admit it to Harry, but he chuckled to himself.

Draco noticed Harry floating mid-air, watching instead of looking for the snitch. He went into a dive, hoping to get ahead of Harry for once, and find the Snitch while they were still in lead. There was no sign of the Snitch anywhere he looked, so Draco had no choice but to continue circling the stadium just like Harry. They passed midway around the pitch going in opposite directions and Harry smiled at him brightly as they both slowed down their brooms, “I want not a word out of you about this afterwards.”

“I am above that sort of behaviour,” Draco yelled back. Neither of them had to look to see what had happened. There was a terrible groan from the Gryffindor end, coupled with fresh screams and applause from the Slytherins. Looking down, they saw Pansy right at the front of the stands, her back to the pitch as she conducted the Slytherin supporters who were still roaring the song. “She’s not, though,” Draco shrugged.

“I hate you,” Harry shouted, rolling his eyes and trying to will his face into a frown instead of the smile that was clearly plaguing it.

“Clearly,” Draco smiled back, in such a public setting, it was difficult not to pull a sneer out of habit, but Harry was in front of him and no one in the stands paid much attention to either of them until the match was about to be over, so it was through no fault of Draco’s that he couldn’t stop smiling. He continued circling the pitch, watching Harry out of the corner of his eye to make sure he hadn’t spotted it before him.

When he noticed the snitch, it was hovering over Harry’s shoulder, as if reminding Draco to get his head back in the game, then whizzed away before Harry had seen it. In a matter of seconds, Draco was streaking out of the sky on Harry’s left, a green-and-silver blur lying flat on his broom. The Snitch skirted the foot of one of the goal hoops and scooted off toward the other side of the stands, its change of direction suited Draco, who was nearer. Harry pulled his Firebolt around, they were now neck and neck.

Feet from the ground, Harry lifted his right hand from his broom, stretching toward the Snitch, Draco’s arm extended too, reaching, groping. It was over in two breathless, desperate, windswept seconds. Harry’s fingers closed around the tiny, struggling ball, Draco’s fingers scrabbled the back of Harry’s hand hopelessly, taking a hold of it like it was the Snitch itself. Harry pulled his broom upward, holding the struggling ball in his hand and the Gryffindor spectators screamed their approval, Draco still clinging to Harry a laugh bubbling in his throat like this had been just a friendly match and healthy competition, instead of Draco’s chance to redeem himself further.

He had no time to dwell on Gryffindor having won, because a Bludger hit Harry squarely in the small of the back and he flew forward off his broom. Luckily, they were only five or six feet above the ground, having dived so low to catch the Snitch, but he was winded all the same as he landed on the pitch, dragging Draco along into a tumble of limbs on the frozen ground, Harry on top of him when they’d stopped dead in their tracks, aided by the grass. If Draco hadn’t been in so much pain, he’d be in serious trouble of getting aroused.

“Fuck,” Draco hissed, feeling his wrist hurt in a way it never had before.

“Are you okay?” Harry asked in a hurried whisper, before anyone had the chance to reach them and overhear. Draco heard Madam Hooch’s shrill whistle, an uproar in the stands compounded of catcalls, angry yells and jeering, a thud, then Angelina Johnson’s frantic voice, demanding Harry if he’s alright. “Course I am, Draco, though…” Harry said grimly, worry evident in his voice, but Draco was too focussed on his own hand. Harry took his captain’s hand, allowing her to pull him to his feet. Madam Hooch was zooming toward one of the Slytherin players above him, though Draco could not see who it was at this angle.

“It was that idiot Crabbe,” Johnson said hurriedly. “He whacked the Bludger at you the moment he saw you’d got the Snitch – but we won, Harry, we won!”

“Congratulations, can someone get Pomfrey?” Draco said through gritted teeth, but he knew the mediwitch was already on her way. “Get out of here,” Draco advised and Harry rejoined his team with a final desperate look back to Draco. Idiot. If he wanted their friendship to remain a secret, he should really start trying harder.

Draco only noticed any commotion once it was over, but Nott was on the pitch with a bloody nose. Crabbe looked terrified and confused. Draco looked over to the Gryffindor team where one of the twins and Harry were both being held back and yelled at by Madam Hooch.

Draco could hear girls’ voices screaming, Crabbe yelling, George swearing, a whistle blowing, and the bellowing of the crowd around him, but Harry looked like he did not care, not until someone yelled “IMPEDIMENTA!” and only when the Gryffindor was knocked over backward by the force of the spell did he abandon the attempt to punch every inch of Crabbe he could reach.

“What do you think you’re doing?” screamed Madam Hooch at the red-and-gold-clad boys. Draco could only stare from his spot on the ground where Madam Pomfrey was fussing around his broken wrist. She was saying something to him, but he couldn’t listen. Harry looked feral. Draco hadn’t heard what his teammates had said, but it must have been bad if even Harry was angry. He never reacted to taunts.

It had been Hooch who had hit Harry with the Impediment Jinx. She was holding her whistle in one hand and her wand in the other, her broom lay abandoned several feet away. Crabbe was curled up on the ground, whimpering and moaning, his nose bloody, one of the twins was sporting a swollen lip, the other was still being forcibly restrained by the three Chasers, and Nott was cackling in the background. “I’ve never seen behaviour like it – back up to the castle, both of you, and straight to your Head of House’s office! Go! Now!”

Draco lost sight of them all then, letting Madam Pomfrey pull him up to bring him to the hospital wing. Draco held his aching wrist in the other hand, only realising it no longer hurt when he’d been placed on a bed and brought a calming draught. “I’m alright, I don’t need that” he protested, rotating his wrist in fear it would start hurting in the same sharp, unbearable way. He was surprised he hadn’t started crying back on the pitch.

“Well, that’s certainly a change from back when you howled like Helena Ravenclaw when you got a scratch,” Crabbe was brought in next and even Nott, but Draco didn’t respond to her words and just accepted the calming draught from her insistent hand. He wasn’t going to take it, but she didn’t need to know that. He walked away the second she turned to Crabbe and Nott, knowing he wouldn’t be noticed, and there was no reason to spend the night, especially after she’d fixed his broken hand while he hadn’t even noticed.

He nearly ran into Umbridge’s small pink-clad body on his way, and she smiled up at him brightly. “Oh! Mister Malfoy, I was just coming to see you.”

“You were?” He asked, quickly adding, “Professor?”

“Of course, I was, you and misters Crabbe and Nott,” she nodded, “I am very concerned about the students in my care, unlike most of the Hogwarts teachers,” she said in her sickly-sweet voice. “Tell me, dear boy, how are you doing?” she asked with feigned caring. He wasn’t sure she was even capable of that emotion.

“I’m well, professor, though I believe Crabbe will use the next week to complain,” He couldn’t help but say.

“As he should,” she scoffed, “he was attacked, gruesomely and unfairly. Two against one! How despicable,” she tutted.

“Well, he did throw a Bludger at…at Potter,” Draco said, managing not to call Harry by his first name at the last possible moment.

“Who then pulled you along to the ground with you, no doubt conspiring to use you to cushion his fall,” she sounded beyond disappointed. It took every fibre of Draco’s being not to point out that conspiration would imply Harry had planned to be hit by a Bludger beforehand, but he knew it was useless. “Nevertheless, do not worry, Mister Malfoy, punishments have been given out appropriately.

“May I…inquire as to what those are?” Draco asked, trying to sound as poised as he could be.

“Well, I suppose there would be no harm in that, after all, everyone shall find out soon enough,” she said, a satisfied smile growing on her toad face, “Mister Potter and both Weasley twins have been banned from Quidditch for life,” she smiled a smile that expected Draco to return the same one.

“Ah,” Draco said as casually as he could, willing his face into a conspiratory grin, “finally,” he chuckled darkly. Harry was bound to be devastated by the news. Draco had to see him immediately. “Surprised how this hasn’t already happened in the previous years,” Draco said. It took everything in him not to grit his teeth.

“Precisely,” Umbridge sounded pleased with his reaction. “Now, do go rest, Mister Malfoy, I shall speak to your dear teammates.”

“Thank you, professor,” Draco nodded and walked past her before she’d had the chance to say anything else to her.

Snow was falling, Draco noticed as he headed back to the Slytherin dorms, preparing for whatever Montague had in store for him for not having caught the Snitch. Draco wasn’t sure whether it was the injury he’d sustained, Potter’s lifetime ban on Quidditch or the prefect badge Draco would be sporting if he wasn’t still in grass-and-dirt-covered Quidditch robes, but the new Slytherin captain just shook his hand wordlessly and nodded towards to bedrooms.

Draco didn’t question him, simply let Blaise lead him away from the common room. “Is it true?” Pansy asked, coming out from behind a corner, “They can’t actually ban him, right?”

“Umbridge told me herself,” Draco sighed. He wasn’t at all surprised that the rumours had spread so quickly, but it was refreshing to see that at the very least they weren’t yet embellished. Then again, it had only been about the hour or so Draco had spent in the hospital wing and there simply hadn’t been time for someone to come up with something exciting.

“Are you going to see him?” Blaise wondered.

“Can’t,” Draco sighed, “too dangerous. You know, too obvious, if Umbridge is watching me, she’d see right through it. I’m supposed to be resting after my major injury,” Draco scoffed, making sure for perhaps the fifth time in this conversation that no one could overhear them.

“How’s your arm?” Blaise wondered.

“Fine, I’m fine,” Draco dismissed, “I was fine a minute after it was broken, Pomfrey fixed it, then made me sit in the hospital wing like I was about to faint.” Pansy took a hold of his hand and poked at it, almost like she expected Draco to scream in pain, and seem pleased when he didn’t.

Draco had no clue how his mother had heard, but when she wrote him on Monday morning, she seemed more worried about Draco’s already fixed injury than she was about the second instalment of the war. Draco wrote back about him being perfectly fine, and had to fight the urge to write ‘Tell Sirius Harry is well’. That would be recklessly stupid.

“He looks good,” Pansy said, reading Draco’s response to his mother over his shoulder, “you should tell her.”

“Tell my mother my awful, pointless, soul-crushing love interest looks good?” Draco asked in a murmur, focussing on the writing instead of the conversation.

“That’s right,” Pansy nodded.

“Sure, I’ll just make the next paragraph all about his eyes, shall I?” Draco drawled.

“Oh, please do, I am very curious to know as to how advanced your poetic abilities are,” Blaise grinned.

“Can you two shut up for just a second?” Draco sighed, “I am trying to communicate with the most important person in my life.”

“Hey!” Pansy said, clearly insulted.

“Oh, I’m sorry, my dear darling, were you under the impression that I loved you more than mine own mother?” Draco asked, finally lifting his eyes from his letter and narrowing them at Pansy.

“Only a little,” she scoffed.

“Pans,” Blaise said with warning amusement.

“Fine, neglect my love, I’d like to see how long you can go without it,” she scoffed.

“Three days, in my experience, after that it sort of just gets boring,” Draco said simply and returned to his letter. This seemed to cheer her up.

“Aw, you really have grown a heart,” Blaise cooed.

On the first Care of Magical Creatures lesson with Hagrid having returned – a fact which seemed to have lifted Harry’s spirits to the heights of their being – the teacher-slash-gamekeeper showed up with bruises and cuts, some of which were still bleeding. As though to complete the ominous picture, Hagrid was carrying what looked like half of a dead cow over his shoulder. “We’re workin’ in here today!” Hagrid called happily to the approaching students, jerking his head back at the trees behind him. “Bit more sheltered! Anyway, they prefer the dark.”

“What prefers the dark?” Draco asked Blaise sharply, a trace of panic in his voice. “What did he say prefers the dark, did you hear?” Draco remembered the only occasion on which he had entered the Forbidden Forest before now, and he had not been very brave back then either.

“Ready?” Hagrid said happily, looking around at the class. “Right, well, I’ve bin savin’ a trip inter the forest fer yer fifth year. Thought we’d go an’ see these creatures in their natural habitat. Now, what we’re studyin’ today is pretty rare, I reckon I’m probably the on’y person in Britain who’s managed ter train ’em –”

“And you’re sure they’re trained, professor?” Pansy asked, the last word added almost as an afterthought, though Draco was sure she hadn’t meant to insult Hagrid, the panic in her voice matching Draco’s now. “Only it wouldn’t be the first time you’d brought wild things to class, would it?” The Slytherins murmured agreement and a few Gryffindors looked as though they thought Pansy had a fair point too.

“Course they’re trained,” Hagrid said, scowling and hoisting the dead cow a little higher on his shoulder.

“So what happened to your face, then?” Nott demanded.

“Mind yer own business!” Hagrid snapped, angrily, Nott seemed taken aback by this response. “Now if yeh’ve finished askin’ stupid questions, follow me!”

They walked for about ten minutes until they reached a place where the trees stood so closely together that it was as dark as twilight and there was no snow on the ground at all. Hagrid deposited his half a cow with a grunt on the ground, stepped back, and turned to face his class again, most of whom were creeping toward him from tree to tree, peering around nervously as though expecting to be set upon at any moment. “Gather roun’, gather roun’,” said Hagrid encouragingly. “Now, they’ll be attracted by the smell o’ the meat but I’m goin’ ter give ’em a call anyway, ’cause they’ll like ter know it’s me.” He turned, shook his shaggy head to get the hair out of his face, and gave an odd, shrieking cry that echoed through the dark trees like the call of some monstrous bird. Nobody laughed. Most of them looked too scared to make a sound.

A minute passed, then another one, but Draco could see no movement anywhere around them. He was, however, holding Pansy’s hand where their robes met thanks to how closely they were standing. No one would see either of them being cowards. They were cowards just to and for each other.

“Why doesn’t he just call again?” Pansy wondered in a whisper. Most of the rest of the class were wearing expressions as confused and nervously expectant, and were still gazing everywhere around them. There were only three people who seemed to be able to see them: a fellow Slytherin by the name of Thaddeus Fawley was watching the horse eating with an expression of great distaste on his face, Neville Longbottom, whose eyes were following the swishing progress of the long black tail, and Harry.

“Oh, an’ here comes another one!” Hagrid said proudly, as Draco still watched the empty space between the trees. “Now…put yer hands up, who can see ’em?” Looking immensely pleased, Harry raised his hand. Hagrid nodded at him. “Yeah, yeah, I knew you’d be able ter, Harry,” he said seriously. “An’ you too, Neville, eh? An’–”

“Excuse me,” Nott asked in a sneering voice, “but what exactly are we supposed to be seeing?” For answer, Hagrid pointed at the cow carcass on the ground. The whole class stared at it for a few seconds, then several people gasped and one of the Patil sisters squealed, bits of flesh stripping themselves away from the bones and vanishing into thin air.

“Are those thestrals?” Blaise asked.

“Very good, Zabini, ten points ter Slytherin,” Hagrid looked impressed. So did Hermione, watching Blaise with a look Draco had never seen on the girl’s face.

“Don’ worry, it won’ hurt yeh,” Hagrid said patiently when one of the Patil sisters squirmed and claimed to have felt something breathing onto her. “Righ’, now, who can tell me why some o’ you can see them an’ some can’t?” Hermione raised her hand. “Go on then,” said Hagrid, beaming at her.

“The only people who can see thestrals,” she said, “are people who have seen death.”

“Tha’s exactly right,” Hagrid said solemnly, “ten points ter Gryffindor. Now, thestrals–”

“Hem, hem.” Draco turned to see Umbridge having shown up from seemingly out of the blue, her pink ensemble looking plainly idiotic in the dark forest around them, even when covered with a thick, green cloak.

She spent the rest of Hagrid’s evaluation, making fun of the way he spoke and loudly mouthing along to her notes which mostly consisted of plain bullying. Draco would know. He was a bully extraordinaire.

“Please continue teaching as usual. I am going to walk…” she mimed walking Nott and Bulstrode were having silent fits of laughter “…among the students…” she pointed around at individual members of the class “…and ask them questions.” She pointed at her mouth to indicate talking. Hermione looked like she was on the verge of throwing another world-class punch. This time Umbridge did not come up to Draco, she walked straight to the giggling bunch of halfwits to ask if they understood Hagrid when he is talking.

Hagrid blushed, but continued the lesson. Draco pointedly looked at him with what he hoped was not too interested of a face so that Umbridge would have a reason to suspect him of anything, but not so bored that Hagrid would have another reason to feel terrible. Draco shot a quick glance at the Gryffindors who mostly seemed to throw daggers at Umbridge with their eyes.

“I’m surprised so many people could see them,” Weasley said on their way back. Draco hadn’t heard the previous part of the conversation, but he assumed it was about whether or not they wanted to see them. “Three in a class —”

“Yeah, Weasley, we were just wondering,” said a malicious voice nearby. Unheard by any of them in the muffling snow, Nott, Crabbe, and Goyle were walking along right behind them. “D’you reckon if you saw someone snuff it, you’d be able to see the Quaffle better?”

“That’s not even a clever insult,” Pansy whispered with a scoff.

“Oh, hold on,” Draco told his friends and turned to the red-and-black-clad group of pupils near the end of the students filing towards the castle. “Granger!” Draco called out in that voice of his he used when pretending to still hate Gryffindors.

“What do you want, Malfoy?” she sighed dramatically, and for a second Draco thought she was actually being rude to him because he hadn’t defended Hagrid against the other Slytherins, but there was a smirk threatening to break loose on her face, so he pulled her aside where no one could overhear them, not even Harry and Weasley. Besides, everyone in the castle were so used to him and the Golden Trio constantly being at each other’s throats, that their classmates didn’t even bat an eye.

Draco chuckled for a moment with his back to everyone else, having remembered an idea he’d had for a Christmas present to Sirius. Hermione, being one of the smartest people he knew, could be the exact assistance he required, since he couldn’t figure the necessary charm out for the life of him. “Do you want to help me with a gift?”

“Is it for Harry?” she asked without a smirk or any accusation in her tone. It was almost strange to hear someone talking to him about the boy without making fun of him.

“Oh, no, I have him figured out, I was thinking Sirius.”

“Oh, thank God, I couldn’t think of a single thing to get him.”

“Good, look out for my owl.”

It was later in the week when Draco finally got a hold of Harry. It felt like they’d barely seen each other, despite the D.A. meetings, and Draco spent the entirety of those staring at Harry, so who was he to complain, really?

Harry had requested they meet in the Astronomy Tower, since it was too cold for students to go there willingly, especially late in the night. He had made this request via a folded-up piece of parchment he’d obviously torn out of his Flitwick notebook, as the back of it contained a drawing of the necessary wand movements for a mending charm.

“I’m here,” Harry’s voice rang in the windy room, if one could even call it a room. Draco had grown used to the Gryffindor being rash and thoughtless, and he felt subjecting him to another one of Draco’s monologues about being careful was getting redundant, so he made no comment about speaking out before making sure it was actually Draco who had arrived and not, for example, Umbridge herself.

“It’s bloody cold here, Potter,” Draco pointed out quite pointlessly. Harry already knew this, but he did have the added protection of an invisibility cloak to keep him safe from the wind.

“I know, I’m sorry,” Harry smiled, and Draco lost any trace of anger he might have held a second ago. “How are you?”

“How am I? How are you? Is your blood even still running without Quidditch practice?” Draco wondered.

“Very slowly,” Harry snorted, “and turning brown, I’m pretty sure.”

“The cold must be doing wonders to your blood flow,” Draco raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, will you stop grouching,” Harry huffed and took Draco by the hand, pulling him down the spiral stairs and into the seventh floor. “I know a very safe room not that far.”

“Ah,” Draco chuckled, understanding where Harry was taking him, “a Gryffindor with a brain, how fantastical.”

“One of these days,” Harry said, letting go of Draco and pacing in front of the tapestry he now knew so well, “I am going to pound your skull in.”

“That threat would have meant a lot two years ago,” Draco admitted, “but right now, you’re not even entirely covered with that cloak and I truly think you’ve managed to forget what hushed tones sound like, so I’ll take my chances with continuously calling you an idiot.”

Harry rolled his eyes good-naturedly and opened the door that had appeared, their warm, safe, comfortable D.A. room calling them in from behind it. The fireplace was already lit, perhaps Harry had added that in when asking for the room to appear. Draco was only happy, as he took two of the cushions from the floor and threw them closer to the hearthrug and took a seat on one.

“Chocolate frog?” Harry offered, joining Draco on the other pillow.

“Why, Mister Potter, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to proposition me,” Draco said in the same mock voice he would normally use with Blaise, as he accepted he frog. Harry blushed and looked into the fire. Right, Draco thought to himself, he should know better than to make Harry uncomfortable with accusations of wavering sexuality.

“How’s your hand?” Harry asked and Draco did not snap at him for the question like he would anyone else by now. He was in a school of magic, for Salazar’s sake, anyone in the world knew how easy it was to fix broken bones.

“Fine, see?” Draco said, offering Harry his wrist to examine. He understood why Harry would ask. Not only were they friends, but Harry was inadvertently the one responsible for the injury in the first place. “Very much my own fault.”

“How is it your fault?” Harry scoffed, “I landed on you.”

“I let you,” Draco shrugged. “Should have known better than to cling on to a Gryffindor with a Bludger up his arse.”

Harry laughed loudly at this, the sound echoing adorably in the empty room. Draco wondered if they could spend the rest of their lives in this room. No Voldemort, no parents, dead or Death Eater, no classes, no exams no Umbridge, just the two of them and the occasional D.A. meeting.

“Does everything ever seem too loud to you?” Harry asked after a while of silence and crackling kindle, staring blankly into the flames, like he’d taken off a mask and could finally be himself. To Draco’s utter dismay, his real self seemed to be empty and drained.

“Sometimes,” Draco admitted, turning to watch the flames as well, feeling like he didn’t deserve to look at Harry.

“It’s like I never get peace,” Harry said quietly, as if admitting it would make him ungrateful. “I’m so tired.”

“I would be too,” Draco whispered, afraid to disturb the quiet. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“You’re the one who softened my fall,” Harry scoffed.

“She won’t stick, you know,” Draco promised. Harry looked up at him in question. “Umbridge, I mean,” he explained, “she won’t stay long. She can’t.”

“You seem certain of that,” Harry noted.

“Temporary setback.” Draco continued. “Once there’s proof of Voldemort’s return, the Ministry will have no reason to keep her here, because Dumbledore will no longer be crazy. Neither will you.”

Harry hummed, his chin pressed into his folded legs. Draco couldn’t tell whether he was agreeing with him or simply acknowledging his idea, but hey, he was listening, wasn’t he? Draco really didn’t need much more than that these days.

“What if I am?” Harry asked after several long, silent beats. “What if I’ve imagined him?”

“Well, then I’ve imagined Lucius’ behaviour over the last year and sent him an angry letter giving him up as my father for nothing.”

“You didn’t,” Harry looked astounded.

“Absolutely I did,” Draco said, sitting up straighter. “A Death Eater is no father of mine,” Draco announced.

There was a beat during which Harry watched Draco with his mouth agape. “Bravest person I know,” he then said, nudging Draco’s shoulder with his own. He’d expected Harry to get upset with him. To chastise him for surrendering a father when Harry didn’t even have one, but Harry thought him brave. In his eyes, Draco was courageous, not the constantly scared boy Draco knew himself to be. Then again, Draco also thought Harry to be as lionhearted as they come, and every step of the way, Harry doubted himself, asking others for their opinion and approval.

“You’ll be back to beating me in Quidditch in no time,” Draco said instead of giving any reaction to Harry’s statement.

“I’ll hand you your arse,” Harry promised. Draco laughed heartily. “Christmas in London, ay?” Harry offered hopefully.

“Literally can’t wait,” Draco confirmed.

Harry pulled out something he later called a Walkman, explaining he'd found it in his aunt's garden, discarded by his fat cousin after getting a new one for his birthday. He gave one of the headphone things to Draco, placing the other one in his own ear. Draco copied his movement, and jumped, when music floated into his ear.

“David Bowie,” Harry announced, “Sirius and Remus’ favourite.”

“I know that name,” Draco said, remembering seeing it on a few records at Andromeda’s.

“Sirius thinks he’s a wizard,” Harry chuckled. Draco thought they should ask him. It can’t be too difficult to find a muggle singer, could it? “Remus and I don’t have the heart to tell him there’s a very low chance of that.” Draco laughed, staring into the flames, listening to the calming guitar and solemn words.

I care for no one else but you

I tear my soul to cease the pain

I think maybe you feel the same

What can we do?

Chapter Text

December arrived, bringing with it more snow and a positive avalanche of homework for all fifth years. Draco and Pansy’s prefect duties also became more and more onerous as Christmas approached. They were called upon to supervise the decoration of the castle, to watch over first and second years spending their break times inside because of the bitter cold and to patrol the corridors in shifts with Filch, who suspected that the holiday spirit might show itself in an outbreak of duels.

Draco arrived early in the Room of Requirement for the last D.A. meeting before the holidays. The room was strung with a hundred golden baubles from the ceiling, each showing a picture of Harry’s face and bearing the legend HAVE A VERY HARRY CHRISTMAS!

“Merlin’s balls,” Draco said, making Harry jump from his place in the middle of the room where he was desperately trying to Evanesco each and every last one of them.

“Help me, will you?” Harry begged, but Draco had spotted an undecorated Christmas tree in the corner of the room.

“Shan’t,” Draco chuckled, “that looks way more interesting,” he said, pointing to the naked tree and pulling out his wand, twirling it in his hands before he could start working with it. Harry was smiling at Draco despite himself. “What colour scheme are we thinking?”

“Red and gold, please,” Harry demanded.

“Green and silver it is,” Draco said, rolling his eyes at the never-ending stores of house pride the Gryffindors seemed to possess. He did silver and white instead, with a few golden angels here and there, knowing Hermione and the other muggle-borns would appreciate it. He made sure to conjure a snake, a lion, a raven and a badger ornament for the sake of solidarity. If only Pansy could see him now – Draco was making inter-house relations his bitch.

Harry had only just managed to get the last of the dictator-worthy ornaments down before the door creaked open and Luna Lovegood entered, looking dreamy as always. “Hello,” she said vaguely, looking around at what remained of the decorations before Harry was done with them. “These are nice, did you put them up?”

“No,” said Harry, “it was Dobby.”

Draco noticed one last bauble hanging near the fireplace and took it before Luna could see, stashing it in his pocket. “Oh Draco!” she said suddenly, her voice louder than he’d ever heard it, “That’s beautiful!” she said, her eyes glistening with the little floating lights Draco had charmed onto the tree.

“Cheers, Lovegood,” Draco said, blushing. His artistic capabilities were never much discussed, and he wasn’t sure he knew how to take a compliment for it.

“Holy shit, Draco,” Harry looked at him with awe. He’d crossed the room over to the Slytherin, “that’s bloody amazing!” Draco had barely a second to revel in Harry's awe before other people started joining them.

Angelina Johnson came in with two of the other Gryffindor players. “Well, we’ve replaced you," she said simply.

“Replaced me?” Harry wondered blankly.

“You, Fred and George,” she said impatiently. “We’ve got another Seeker.”

“Who?” said Harry quickly.

“Ginny Weasley,” one of the other girls said with a smirk. Oh, great, Draco though, he’s going to have to listen to Pansy talk about Quidditch now. “She’s pretty good, actually. Nothing on you, of course,” she said, throwing him a very dirty look, “but as we can’t have you…”

Harry looked like was about to bite back something snide, so Draco placed his hand on the back of Harry’s shoulder, squeezing lightly, and he calmed down with a huff. People still seemed surprised to see that Draco and Harry were friends. Every time Draco stayed behind with Harry to make sure everyone had got back to their common rooms safely, someone threw the two of them a concerned look, as if Draco would beat Harry up the second no one else was around. And every time someone saw the two of them laughing together before the D.A. meeting of that day had begun, they seemed confused as to how their friendship even existed. Though, to be fair, and as appalled as Draco was to admit it, he had Voldemort to thank for it.

“Okay,” Harry said, calling them all to order a good ten minutes later. “I thought this evening we should just go over the things we’ve done so far, because it’s the last meeting before the holidays and there’s no point starting anything new right before a three-week break–"

“We’re not doing anything new?” Zacharias Smith said, in a disgruntled whisper loud enough to carry through the room. “If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have come…”

“We’re all really sorry Harry didn’t tell you, then,” one of the Weasley twins said loudly. Draco was pretty sure it was Fred. Several people sniggered.

They divided into pairs as usual, Hermione, like always, not failing to look excited to work with Draco. Perhaps he was a really good practice partner with the duelling knowledge he had, perhaps she was just that good a friend that she wanted to spend time with Draco. Hermione was getting really good at Impredimenta, but Draco could see in her eyes that she already knew this. Her determination practically glimmered in the room, bright enough to outshine the Christmas tree.

Once Harry began walking the length of the class, and beamed at Draco and Hermione every time he passed them, Draco could see the pride swelling inside him as he watched almost everyone succeeding with such ease.

“I hope we will see you for Christmas,” Hermione said to Draco while he was frozen and couldn’t answer her. “Oh, sorry, Draco, are you alright?” she sounded genuinely concerned about him, “Right, you’ll answer later.”

Draco tried to laugh, but failed miserably, making his abdomen contort and unable to relax it afterwards, staying that way for a good three minutes.

“Granger, you’re going to be the death of me,” he stated, having already forgotten what it was like to be willingly used as a spell dummy.

“I’m sorry!” she repeated, this time shamelessly laughing, “I really am.”

“That’s what everyone says,” Draco grunted, getting up from the floor. And looking around the room. He was certainly not the most unseemly individual around, but it still felt demeaning. Hermione helped him straighten his uniform when he got up, and he decidedly removed his tie altogether. There was no reason for him to remind the others of his affiliation to a house they all so hated, so he shoved it in the pocket of his robes and undid the two top buttons of his shirt, looking around the room again. Harry was watching him with an unreadable expression.

“So?” Hermione asked before Draco had a chance to use the jinx on her.

“Oh, right, sorry,” Draco cleared his throat, willing his attention back to the matter at hand. “Yes, yes of course, I will be at Grimmauld Place with Harry. And my mother.”

She smirked, but didn’t comment on what she was so entertained by. “I will only be there for two days, I’m going skiing with my parents.”

Draco didn’t ask what skiing was, he was just glad he would have someone other than Weasley to look at. “Ready?” he asked, before firing the jinx.

At the end of the hour, Harry called a halt. “You’re all getting really good,” he said, beaming around at them. “When we get back from the holidays, we can start doing some of the big stuff – maybe even Patronuses.” There was a murmur of excitement. The room began to clear in the usual twos and threes, most people wished Harry a happy Christmas as they went. Feeling cheerful and more helpful than usual, Draco collected the cushions with Weasley and Hermione, and stacked them neatly away, while Harry watched the map carefully. Weasley and Hermione left the room when they were finished, talking merrily amongst themselves like they’d forgotten Draco and Harry were even still there.

Draco pretended to straighten the cushion pile as Harry folded the map into his pocket. “Are you aware,” Draco said when Harry turned to face him, “that you are possibly the best defence teacher this school has ever seen?”

“I am going to have to refute that in favour of Remus,” Harry scoffed.

“Everyone in that room would do anything for you, you know,” Draco pointed out, standing dangerously close to a spot where Luna had previously identified mistletoe to no reaction from either him or Harry, but he was quite proud of his Christmas tree, and wanted to see it one last time before it would be gone by January.

“Zachary Smith would be the first in line,” Harry snorted a laugh.

“Fuck him,” Draco dismissed, “Hermione and Weasley would do anything for you,” he nodded his head towards the door which had slammed shut after the two Gryffindors, like they were still behind it. “I would.”

“Would you now?” Harry chuckled softly, watching Draco with a tiny smile. Almost adoringly.

“Just say the word. If you want to run from everything, I’ll come with. Merlin knows I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth,” Draco said. It was difficult to say these things when looking Harry in the eye. It was more difficult to break eye contact with him. It felt like Harry had him in a deathlock. Draco felt as though he was a fly, only no fly would dare feel as safe as he did with a spider like Harry.

“And, uh,” Harry cleared his throat, “where would we go in this genius plan of yours?” the corners of his eyes were crinkling with the width of his smile.

“Anywhere,” Draco shrugged, “I’m sure learning to apparate wouldn’t be all too hard.”

“Is that right?” there was a laugh bubbling up in Harry’s voice, “And what would we do?”

“We can be pirates,” Draco said simply, remembering the stupid, silly hat that still waited for the two of them back at Grimmauld place.

Harry laughed then. A cheerful, glowing sound. Draco wondered if the other boy had noticed they were practically flirting now. “I reckon you’d be good at that,” Harry’s gaze finally left Draco’s. He wanted to scream for him to look back at him, to pay more attention to him, but the two bright green eyes jumped to Draco’s lips, then back up, as if nothing had happened. “I think I know who’ll be responsible for the Christmas tree in Grimmauld Place for the rest of eternity.”

For a moment, Draco thought he wasn’t insane. That all the lingering looks and overlong hugs, the close proximity and willingness to share a bed meant what Draco wished it had. And just when that thought was starting to fade, Harry leaned towards him.

“Like it that much?” Draco chuckled nervously, looking back to his creation in fear of doing something ridiculous. A wreath of mistletoe had appeared on the top of the tree, no longer hanging in mid-air where it had been when Luna had spotted it. White berries catching the light from the small floating sparks Draco had created earlier in the evening. Draco hadn’t produced the plant, though. He looked at Harry with wonder. “Would you look at that,” Draco said under his breath.

“Probably full of Nargles,” Harry warned playfully, having moved somehow even closer to Draco.

“What are Nargles again?” Draco wondered with a shiver.

“Still no fucking clue,” Harry admitted, his lips touching Draco’s as he spoke, “don’t freak out.”

Draco’s heart was pounding in his chest as he leaned slowly into Harry. “I was going to say that,” Draco sighed desperately. He could feel the warmth of Harry’s breath on his face, and he closed his eyes as their lips met. A soft, tentative kiss, Draco’s hands were shaking as he placed them on the other boy’s chest, taking a light hold of his robes, feeling the heart under them racing just as fast as his own.

Harry’s lips were warm and pliant, responding gently to Draco’s touch. The kiss deepened as Draco opened his mouth slightly, allowing Harry's tongue to explore. His heart was pounding as he felt the Gryffindor's arms wrap around him, pulling him closer.

When Harry pulled away, Draco knew there was still surprise in his eyes, ecstatic as he was. He could feel the rush of emotions coursing through his body as the other boy whispered, "I've been wanting to do that since the summer."

Draco’s face softened into a smile, and he replied, "Took you bloody long enough."

Draco leaned in for another kiss, this time with more urgency. More passion. Harry’s fingers found their way into his hair this time, pulling him closer as their tongues swirled in a frenzied kiss. The air was charged with electricity, their bodies pressing against each other, Draco’s hands desperately grasping at Harry’s hips. It felt like hours. It might have been years. When they finally pulled apart, panting, Draco couldn’t help the bubble of laughter that rolled through his chest and came out in a snort.

“What?” Harry asked with a chuckle, but there was worry in the word, like he thought he’d done something wrong and the Slytherin was laughing at him.

Draco shook his head, pressing his face into the crook of Harry’s neck, hoping and failing to be assuring. He wanted to kiss him again, then again, and more, and more, and more, but he was suddenly shy, and all he could do was hold onto Harry’s waist and giggle into his neck.

“Draco,” Harry groaned tensely, but still tittering. Draco shook his head again, refusing to stand up straight. “Malfoy, you’re making me nervous.”

“Oh, good,” Draco said, finally looking at Harry, “that’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“Uh huh,” Harry rolled his eyes, letting Draco kiss him again. Short and quick, then another similar one, then one that refused to let their lips off the hook, locking them together for a little longer.

“I take it you’re not freaking out?” Harry narrowed his eyes.

“Bugger off, Potter,” Draco moaned, throwing his arms around Harry’s neck and nudging his face into his cheek like a touch-starved foal. Harry laughed again, returning the hug. Draco wondered if he’d ever heard a more beautiful sound. “You’re not allowed to act like this didn’t happen tomorrow.”

“Draco Malfoy wants to shout from the rooftops that he snogged Harry Potter?” Harry teased, holding onto Draco just as tightly.

“That’s not what I meant,” Draco scoffed. “I don’t think we should be going around telling anyone, but, you know, I’ve really wanted to snog you for about a billion years, and if you regret it and go on pretending it never happened, I will jump into the Great Lake.”

“God, you are the most dramatic person I’ve ever met,” Harry said, but it was far from malicious or annoyed.

“Correct,” Draco confirmed.

“I’ll play nice,” Harry promised, “and keep your dirty little secret.”

“Merlin, shut. Up,” Draco said pointedly, squeezing Harry tighter.

“Hogsmeade date in January?” Harry teased further, making Draco laugh.

“Yeah, first thing,” he joked along, finally letting go of Harry. “I suppose we better get back before anyone starts missing us.” Draco didn’t add that he would miss Harry. It seemed a little undignified.

“I’ll see you at breakfast, I guess,” Harry said with a blush, and Draco couldn’t help but kiss him again, though only with a quick peck, so they wouldn’t get stuck for another half hour.

“Bye, bye now, Potter,” Draco agreed, walking backwards and wiggling his fingers in a wave before heading on his own way to the dungeons, a smile plaguing his face as if he’d gone insane.

Harry Potter had kissed him.

Harry Potter had kissed him.

Harry Potter had kissed him.

“I thought you were dead,” Pansy’s voice took him by surprise when he’d reached the dungeons. “I went looking for you, why are you grinning like an idiot?”

“Why, because I love you,” Draco kissed the top of her head and walked past her to the dungeons.

“Right,” she dragged, “do you also happen to be high?”

“On what?” Draco chuckled, entering the common room.

“Well, the Hufflepuffs do have some pretty lovely weed,” Pansy said casually.

“Which they sell by the greenhouses,” Draco was forced to remind her, “and it’s too cold to go out there looking for drug mule Hufflepuffs.” He checked his silver watch “at nearly ten o’clock.”

“Do you want to tell me why you’re so happy?” she asked when he’d taken a seat next to Blaise by the fireplace. She hugged him from the back, depositing most of her body weight onto his shoulders, “Or perhaps why your tie is missing?”

“I was almost choked by it,” he said as gruffly as he could. He had every intention to keep the kiss between him and Harry as long as he possibly could. “Hermione’s a good witch,” he said quietly, so only his two friends could hear. He was no Gryffindor – he was cautious.

“Yes, she is,” Blaise agreed. Pansy and Draco shared a look, but made not comments.

The evening dragged out longer than Draco had expected – he was too busy doing the last bits of homework he wanted to get finished, so he wouldn’t have to worry about it in Grimmauld Place. By doing homework, of course, he didn’t mean finishing an essay for Severus. By doing homework, he meant staring at the first inches of said essay and recalling the warmth of Harry’s lips. The curve of Harry’s tongue. The desperation of Harrys movements. By doing homework, Draco Malfoy meant reliving his first kiss being with the Chosen One, and for a second feeling like a chosen one himself. He supposed he was, wasn’t he?

Harry Potter had kissed him.

“Stop grinning like a lunatic,” Pansy said, nose buried in a magazine. Draco looked around – most of the common room was empty. “We get it, you got to stare at your little crush all evening, let us have some peace,” she said, as if Draco and her hadn’t got into a fight about this a mere month ago.

“I’m not bothering you,” Draco dismissed her.

“You’re being annoying,” she scorned.

“Pans,” Blaise said warningly from his own rapidly deteriorating mount of schoolwork.

“Simply observing,” she sing-songed, and it took her only a few more turns of a glossy, colourful page to announce she was exhausted.

Blaise looked at Draco with somehow both amusement and a warning not to tease her about not having done enough to be tired. Draco wouldn’t have said anything either way. Pansy had helped him out by clearing the coast while he was off snogging Harry bloody Potter all over the Room of Requirement. He was in no position to be smart about anything right now.

He could feel Blaise’s eyes returning to him once every few minutes after Pansy had left, and he knew the other boy had been impacted by Pansy’s words. Blaise’s brain was churning out information at a speed Draco was concerned about, and he knew there were assumptions being made he didn’t yet want to be questioned about.

“Okay, I think she was right,” Draco said, pretending to stretch out his back, “see you for breakfast.”

“I’ll come with you,” Blaise said lightly, quickly gathering up his things. Lovely, Draco thought to himself.

“I can’t wait for Christmas,” Draco said, feeling the need to fill the silence between the two of them before Blaise managed to voice an accurate hypothesis. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this excited to go home.”

“Because you won’t have to see Lucius?” Blaise asked, clearly playing along. Or maybe he knew that Draco might have a meltdown if forced to answer any Potter-related questions, and had cleverly decided to stay out of it.

Draco hummed in answer. “Want to go first?” Draco offered, pointing at the bathroom.

“Go ahead,” Blaise gestured for Draco to shower before him and sat on his bed to watch the blond boy. “I won’t ask, you know,” Blaise said quickly right when Draco was about to close the door to the bathroom behind himself, “I’m just happy you’re happy,” he said, quieter than he normally would with the other boys already sleeping behind the emerald curtains of their four-poster beds. He was also clearly doing his best not to use a single word that could be construed as leading.

“I have no idea what you mean,” Draco answered absently and shut the door quickly, locking it behind himself and letting his mind have a minute to still as he sighed. He was not ready to deal with either Pansy or Blaise knowing, simply because the teasing would be more unbearable than before, and confirmation would only make it come faster.

Under the steaming hot water, however, Draco’s thoughts leapt into a different direction entirely.

Lips and tongue, and hands, and neck, and skin, and eyes and I've been wanting to do that since the summer…

It was all his brain could do – providing him with every thought of Harry under the sun. Every single aspect of the boy. How annoying he could be, and how sweet. How resentful, and how clingy. How his hair seemed to have a mind of its own, yet how bloody gorgeous he looked, even with a scowl.

“Mate,” a loud whisper came through the door along with a knock. Draco was hard and the water was scalding, “let someone else get a chance before you use up all the hot water in the bloody castle.” He hadn’t noticed how long he’d stayed there until Blaise was beckoning him out.

“Can you two shut up?!” Nott’s tired, annoyed voice called out to them.

“Sorry, Theo,” Blaise whispered loudly, banging on the door again, “Draco, get out.”

He had no choice. He towelled off as quickly as humanly possible and practically jumped into his pyjamas, carrying his towel and washbag in front of him so Blaise wouldn’t see something he had no business seeing. He could take care of it later.

“Bloody hell,” his friend was still whispering loudly and Draco heard Nott’s near-desperate groan into his pillow. “It’s a fucking steam room in there.”

“I swear to Salazar,” Nott said through gritted teeth, “I will murder you both in your sleep.”

“Fuck off, Nott,” Draco snapped, “learn a fucking silencing charm for once,” he added, and there was no more objection from the other but a scoff. “I was cold,” Draco shrugged when Blaise was still looking at him like he was a madman.

Draco crawled into his bed without waiting for a response. He was far too concerned about something else to worry about Blaise right now. Only, when the water started running again and the silent breathing of his dormmates turned into gentle snoring, he could no longer focus. It was fine, he told himself, he could deal with this when he had more privacy. Not that he ever had any of that lately. Besides, Harry deserved better than this. He deserved better than a room full of other boys and a rushed moment of self-pleasure, even if it was the mere memory of him and not the Gryffindor himself.

He was asleep within minutes, didn’t even hear Blaise returning from his shower, but he was glad he’d stopped himself from doing something he would most likely be too tired to clean himself off of, especially when he was awoken in the middle of the night by his godfather of all people.

“Mister Malfoy,” the voice followed the sound of the dorm room door banging open. He had jumped upright in an instant, seeing most of the other boys Draco shared a room with having had the same reaction, but all remnants of sleep disappeared once he realised it was Severus.

What was it? His mother? Was she alright? Had number twelve, Grimmauld Place been under attack? Was it his father? Draco wouldn’t be surprised a student would be called to his head of house’s office if a parent had died.

For a second, a brief, terrifying, blood-curdling second, he was convinced Severus had come to take him to Voldemort’s doorstep, having switched alliances and decided to let all hell break loose. In that second, there was no thought of survival or fight. There was only hope that it would be a quick death for him on the other side of apparition.

“Gather your things, you are leaving Hogwarts tonight,” Severus said coldly. There seemed to be no hurry in his voice, but he usually tended to speak more kindly to Draco, even if most wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Draco could always tell.

“What’s happened?” Draco asked, but not yet stunned enough to remain on his bed. He managed to gather all his school books into his trunk before he’d finished the question.

“All will be made clear momentarily,” Severus said impatiently, “Gather your things,” he repeated in a way that told Draco another question would not go unpunished. Draco nodded, feeling like a Gryffindor in potions class, and found the last bits of clothes strewn across a chair nearest to his bed – the last items he hadn’t already packed. The clothes he had worn the previous night. The clothes Harry had kissed him in.

Severus waved his wand and the trunk vanished swiftly to Grimmauld Place. Draco wondered if Eagle was also waiting for him there already. Upon looking back one last time to make sure he had not forgot something, he saw the other boys watching him with wide eyes. Blaise had more fear in his gaze than Draco had ever seen before. He followed his godfather up sets of stairs and down long corridors. The question what the fuck happened? was burning on his tongue. He just wanted to know. Why was it so difficult to tell him? He wasn’t above begging.

The headmaster’s office came into view just when Draco was about to lose his temper and shout the question in a tantrum Severus had surely never seen from the boy in past, but he promptly stayed silent and followed. “Fizzing Whizbee,” Severus said loudly and clearly. If he hadn’t been so nervous, Draco might have had to laugh.

The gargoyle sprang to life and leapt aside, the wall behind it split in two to reveal a stone staircase that was moving continuously upward like a spiral escalator. The two of them stepped onto the moving stairs, the wall closed behind them with a thud, and they were moving upward in tight circles until they reached a highly polished oak door with a brass knocker shaped like a griffin.

Though it was now well past midnight, there were voices coming from inside the room. A babble of them. It sounded as though Dumbledore was entertaining at least a dozen people. Severus entered without knocking just as someone shouted “LOOK AT ME!” the air went still and everyone quiet, “What is happening to me?”

All of the Weasley children that currently attended Hogwarts were there, still in their night clothes, paler than usual and with big, sleep-deprived, worried eyes. Draco looked around the room before anyone had noticed him there. All the voices seemed to have been coming from the portraits of the previous headmasters on the wall of the large office.

“You wanted to see us, headmaster?” Snape asked in a bored voice, and everyone in the room finally turned to the two Slytherins.

“Ah, Severus, good,” Dumbledore said in a chipper voice, like someone who hadn’t just been shouted at by a fifteen-year-old. “And Mister Malfoy is ready to head off, as well, I see. Draco, why don’t you go with your friends?” he smiled before turning to Severus again, “I believe there is going to be immediate necessity for what we talked about some time ago. You and Harry can start right after the holidays.”

Draco looked at Harry in worry. Why hadn’t no one yet told him what had happened? “He says he’ll be delighted,” said a bored voice behind Dumbledore, a wizard having appeared in a portrait in front of a Slytherin banner. “My great-great-grandson has always had odd taste in houseguests.” Draco looked at the portrait, having been shown the same face in a book in the Manor before by his mother. It was his great-great-great-grandfather Phineas Nigellus Black.

“Draco,” Dumbledore seemed to have remembered his existence, “your mother is well,” he assured, and as the rock that had settled in the pit of his stomach disappeared, he looked around the red-topped faces around him and realised something must have happened to Arthur or Molly.

He nodded, feeling the ground swirl in relief. He felt disgusted with himself – there were people around him, children just as him, worrying, possibly grieving, he had no way of knowing yet, and there he was, happy nothing had happened to the one parent he had left. He hadn’t noticed the conversation surrounding using a portkey, he simply joined everyone at Dumbledore’s desk without a word, then felt a powerful jerk behind his navel. The ground vanished from beneath his feet, his hand was glued to an ancient-looking kettle, he was banging into the others as all sped forward in a swirl of colours and a rush of wind, the kettle pulling them onward before his feet hit the ground so hard that his knees buckled, the now-useless kettle clattered to the ground and somewhere close at hand a voice said, “Back again, the blood traitor brats, is it true their father’s dying?”

So, it was Arthur, Draco thought solemnly. “OUT!” roared a second voice. Draco scrambled to his feet and looked around. They had arrived in the gloomy basement kitchen of number twelve, Grimmauld Place. The only sources of light were the fire and one guttering candle, which illuminated the remains of a solitary supper. Kreacher was disappearing through the door to the hall, looking back at them malevolently as he hitched up his loincloth. Sirius was hurrying toward them all, looking anxious. He pulled Harry to his feet and hugged him tightly. “What’s going on?” he asked, stretching out a hand to help Ginny up. “Phineas said Arthur’s been badly injured –”

“Ask Harry,” Fred turned to the boy in question.

“Yeah, I want to hear this for myself,” George agreed. Draco wondered when he’d started being able to tell them apart. The twins and Ginny were staring at Harry. Kreacher’s footsteps had stopped on the stairs outside.

“It was —” Harry began, seeming uncomfortable. He had yet to look at Draco once. “I had a – a kind of – vision,” he said awkwardly before telling them all that he had seen the snake attack on the head of the Weasley household in a dream.

“Draco, go find your mother, she’s still sleeping, she’ll want to know what happened from you. Then go straight to bed, understood?”

Draco wanted to speak. He wanted to protest. He wanted to demand why they weren’t all going to St. Mungo’s, or where Molly was during all of this. He wanted to refuse and say he wasn’t leaving Harry, not when all the Weasleys were looking at him like he’d been the one to attack Arthur I the first place. Hell, he would have even liked to speak his reluctant agreement, but all he could do was nod weakly and head for the stairs.

“Is mum here?” one of the twins demanded, the voice following Draco up the stairs before the conversation went silent when Sirius answered more calmly.

Draco took the stairs two steps at a time despite his tired limbs, and opened the first door to the right on the second floor without knocking. His mother was sleeping soundly and peacefully, on white silk sheets that glistened slightly blue in the moonlight. She looked so unbothered with everything life tended to throw her way. Draco really did not want to disturb what little peace she had left.

“Mother,” he said eventually, laying his hand on his shoulder. She jerked awake instantly.

“Draco?” she asked after a moment of confusion, “Darling? What are you doing here?” she asked, sitting up and gathering him in her arms.

“It’s Arthur,” Draco explained so she would have to feel the same painful lack of knowledge he had mere minutes ago. “He was attacked. The Weasleys and Harry are all here too.”

“Oh, Merlin,” she said worriedly and hugged him closer to her. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, of course,” Draco dismissed.

“Of course, you are, my smart boy,” she said quietly, “my wonderful, beautiful little dragon,” she seemed to be speaking in sweet nothings, using whatever words came to her in the moment and not really thinking about what she was saying in her half-sleeping state, but Draco clung to every last one of them like a lifeline. He remained there, seated on the edge of her bed, for another few minutes, before she sent him off to get some rest. They would see each other in the morning.

He closed the door to his mother’s bedroom as quietly as he could after himself, but in a house as ancient as this one, there were few things that didn’t creak every opportunity they got. When he turned towards the silent stairs, he almost yelled out, defying the whole purpose of trying to stay quiet – Harry was stood there, having appeared out of nowhere.

“I, uh,” the Gryffindor said just as awkwardly as he had downstairs, “I thought I would…wait for you,” he cleared his throat, even though he was whispering, “to go upstairs, I mean.”

Draco took the two steps remaining between the two of them as surely as he could when walking on his tiptoes, and took a hold of Harry’s hand, leading him up, and letting the other boy enter their room first, then turning to lean against the closed door to let Harry choose what he wanted to do next.

He wasn’t disappointed, though, as Harry didn’t waste a second before wrapping his arms around Draco’s torso – a needy gesture of desperation for contact and comfort. Draco provided as best as he could, securing his right arm around the entirety of Harry’s shoulders and raking his left into the boy’s hair. Draco’s lips found their way to Harry’s hairline, too. “He’ll be okay,” Draco announced, knowing he had no right to make such promises. Harry didn’t answer, just nodded into Draco’s neck.

“Come on,” Draco said after a while of silence and heavy limbs clinging to one another, and Harry clearly trying to compose himself and not cry, “is your trunk here? You need to sleep.”

“Oh,” the other boy pulled himself back together and looked around, “I guess no one sent it back yet,” he said sheepishly.

“Okay, I’ll find my most Slytherin-esque pyjamas for you, shall I?” Draco suggested, and Harry laughed, and for just a few hours they could pretend everything was fine, simply because they were both too tired to think about anything else.

“I…I think I’m going mad,” Harry whispered into the night, and as much as Draco wanted to, he didn’t say anything and kept listening instead. “Back in Dumbledore’s office, just before we took the Portkey…for a couple of seconds there I thought I was a snake, I felt like one — my scar really hurt when I was looking at Dumbledore, I…I wanted to attack him.”

“I often want to attack Dumbledore,” Draco snorted, “if anything, it makes you finally sane.”

“What?” Harry asked, surprised by that reaction.

“He continuously puts you in harm’s way, and now he refuses to speak with you for months? That’s now how mentor relationships work,” Draco pointed out.

“But it wasn’t even that, I –“

“Harry,” Draco silenced him, taking the Gryffindor’s jaw into his hand, “you were scared. You’d just seen something awful with your own eyes as if you’d been there. Your friend’s father was on the verge of death, of course, you were angry at the one person who should have been helping you during the semester. You’re only human.”

“God, I hope you’re right,” Harry sighed. “I don’t know if I should sleep.”

“What are you on about?” Draco ridiculed.

“It might sound stupid, but I don’t want to dream of being the snake again, and wake up to you hurt.”

“You can never hurt me, you’re Harry bloody Potter,” Draco reminded.

“What if I do?”

“Then I’ll scream. So loud, it might surprise you,” Draco chuckled, pulling Harry close. “There are two highly-skilled wizards just downstairs, and I’m sure Ginevra knows some good defensive spells, trust me, you will not hurt me. But you do need sleep.”

“Death grip, alright?” Harry asked reluctantly, and it took Draco a second to realise it was a joke. Nonetheless, he wrapped his arms around Harry’s frame so tightly it must have bordered on pain.

“I’m literally always right,” Draco rolled his eyes.

“Thank you for keeping me in check,” Harry whispered carefully after a moment, as if it was a secret and someone was listening in.

“Who else will?” Draco asked and held him. And he stayed awake for long enough to be sure Harry had slipped into oblivion before going back to sleep himself. And he dreamed of nothing but the smell of shampoo in Harry’s hair and the warmth of his skin, with lips pressed securely into the back of his neck.

Chapter Text

Draco woke before Harry for a change. Legs entangled, cold feet seeking warmth on Draco’s calves. He turned to look at the righteous bastard sleeping next to him. The beautiful, smart, hilarious bastard, dreaming peacefully for a change right there, where Draco could touch. He leaned closer, because he could, and kissed the world-famous, lightning-shaped scar, visible between strands of messy hair. Because he could. After holding him through a night of worry-caused exhaustion. Because he fucking could.

Harry had allowed Draco to coddle and cuddle him into sleep the previous evening, and he’d be damned if anything were to disturb that little precious moment of peace, but there was a crisis downstairs, and they couldn’t lock themselves in their room just because they now had a new activity they would rather busy themselves with.

He felt Harry stir when his lips were still on the scar and smiled. “You know,” Draco whispered, “if you don’t get up, someone will likely come to get us, and that someone will most certainly be Sirius.”

“Hmmwecahawtha,” Harry said, mid-stretch, which Draco interpreted as we can’t have that and deliberately did not call the idiot out for such a rude exhibition. Draco smiled at him. Harry smiled back. It took a few seconds for it to fade, but, boy, what a glorious few seconds it had been. “We have to go see them.”

“Someone would have woken us with bad news,” Draco assumed, and Harry nodded in agreement.

“Still,” Harry insisted.

“Still,” Draco concurred.

They dressed in Draco’s clothes and headed out the door, into a colder, meaner world, where no one knew anything for certain and everything suddenly looked bleak and scary. “Good morning, you two, I was just coming to get you,” Narcissa said from the bottom of the stairs, having seen their door opening and closing from the first floor landing. “Arthur’s alright. Come, help with breakfast,” she sounded chipper, “Sirius is a terrible cook.”

“A Black should not be slaving at the stove! Blood traitor! Scum of the earth in my house!” Wallpurga’s portrait shouted up into the house. Arthur would be just fine, the scent of burning food was flooding up the stairs and there was yelling to communicate from floor to floor. It suddenly felt entirely like the last week of summer. It felt like a holiday.

“Potter and Malfoy?” Draco offered once sure his mother had gone.

“Not necessarily,” Harry shrugged, “Draco and Harry will do, just maybe not…” he paused to leave a quick peck on Draco’s lips, “…Draco and Harry,” he chuckled at himself and led the way to the kitchen, leaving Draco to gather himself and pretend like nothing in the world was different than it had been, say, twenty-four hours ago.

“Hiya, Bambi,” Sirius’ voice greeted his godson before Draco entered right after him. “Morning, Draco.”

“Sirius,” Draco nodded, looking over the older wizard’s shoulder to see what he was burning. It was bacon. “What have you been up to?”

“Keeping my godson alive,” he answered and smiled that dashing Sirius Black smile.

“Full time occupation, I imagine,” Draco sniggered.

“Very charming,” Harry mocked a bit too close to Draco’s face to be platonic, but he was only leaning in to grab a piece of the burnt bacon, so Draco assumed they were in the clear.

“Kreacher’s not obeying to gentle beckoning,” Sirius said in dramatic anger, “so, go on, grab some plates, the Weasleys are bound to wake up some time,” he waved his hand around carelessly. He was still wearing deep red satin pyjamas, the shirt unbuttoned unseemly deeply, his dark curls strewn every which way from sleep, not unlike Harry’s hair often looked.

“Cutlery,” Narcissa reminded as she took the French press off a shelf.

“That’s not how you fry bacon,” Draco heard Harry tell his godfather as he set the table. “It’s the simplest thing to fry, how are you having trouble with this?”

“Oh, shut up, Hazza,” Sirius laughed melodically, nudging Harry lovingly and letting him have reign on the spatula as the older wizard leaned on the counter and chatted to him in whispers with a teasing smirk while Harry begged him to stop talking with a bright blush.

“Where is everyone?” Draco asked.

“Molly arrived around…five?” Sirius sounded more tired now that he wasn’t digging into the roots of other people’s relationships, “said Arthur would be alright and sent all the little Weasleys off to bed.”

“That’s good, they need some peace,” Harry said sternly, “I felt awful for going to sleep when they all stayed up waiting.”

“Well, I did shout at you,” Sirius shrugged.

“You did?” Draco couldn’t believe it. Even Narcissa had looked up with scepticism written on her face.

“Not a real shout, mind you,” Sirius rolled his eyes, “I’m simply a wonderful actor.”

“Threatened me with Kreacher tied to out headboard,” Harry scoffed. The imagery alone was enough for Draco.

They had breakfast without any of the redheads for a change, but as much as Draco would love to blame their terrible manners, he knew in good conscience he simply could not. If Narcissa had been injured and fighting for her life, even if it was Lucius, he would be utterly distraught and completely useless. He couldn’t imagine the relief that had washed over Weasel and his siblings when they’d heard their father would be well soon.

The first person to wake up, unsurprisingly, was Molly, and the mere joy at her husband’s potential recovery was only furthered when she saw someone else had prepared breakfast for a change. Harry had also boiled some eggs and found a single sad can of beans, but an entire loaf of bread, so he’d decided it would suffice, despite the twins’ usual appetite.

“Oh, Harry, my boy,” Molly said maternally, squeezing him into a hug.

“Mrs. Weasley, I’m so sorry I wasn’t here when you arrived,” Harry sounded guilty.

“Nonsense, dear,” she waved it away, going into a ramble, “I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you,” she turned suddenly serious, “you poor thing, you saw…” her eyes swelled with tears. “Well, of course you were too exhausted. I can’t tell you how thankful we are. I don’t know what would have happened if it hadn’t been for you, Harry. They might not have found Arthur for hours, and then it would have been too late, but thanks to you he’s alive and Dumbledore’s been able to think up a good cover story for Arthur being where he was, you’ve no idea what trouble he would have been in otherwise, look at poor Sturgis…”

Harry didn’t seem to be able to look her in the eye, he was staring at the ground instead, or at her hands where they were holding onto his forearms. He clearly had no idea how to respond to her. “Molly, would you like some breakfast?” Narcissa offered, saving Harry before Draco could.

“Yes, please, eat,” Sirius nodded toward the table.

“Oh, thank you, this all looks really good,” she said, taking a seat and doing her best to pull herself together. “I’ll probably be gone by tomorrow morning, I’m glad someone will feed my little ones.”

“St. Mungo’s, Molly?” Sirius wondered from behind the Daily Prophet, back at the end of the table, where Narcissa would occupy the seat if he’d slept in too late or had sneaked out despite Dumbledore’s orders.

“Yes, he’s staying for a few days,” she said in a strained voice that told Draco she was trying to stay strong for whenever her children start waking up. Ginny was the first one down, followed by Fred and George who did their best to hardly leave anything for Weasel to eat, but they were all in such incomparably better moods that Draco was almost sure he hadn’t even noticed the lack of the usual abundance of food that waited for them all at the breakfast table.

“Oh, Sirius, I’m so grateful. They think he’ll be there a little while and it would be wonderful to be nearer. Of course, that might mean we’re here for Christmas.”

“The more the merrier!” said Sirius with such obvious sincerity that it left Draco chuckling. He did wonder, though, if the plan had not always s been for them to spend the Christmas break at Grimmauld Place. Draco certainly had not had another option available to him other than the Black ancestral home, but Harry would have surely been invited to the Burrow for the celebration. Would he have abandoned them for Draco, or the other way around?

“Harry,” Weasel said suddenly, while Narcissa and Molly threw themselves into planning the winter solstice, “I just thought…maybe we could…switch rooms this time?” Draco definitely did not choke on his tea with laughter at the mere idea. Harry? Switching the quiet comfort and warm embrace of Draco for Ronald Weasley of all people? And what exactly was Draco to do in this scenario? Bunk with the twins?

“Oh, erm, you see, Ron…” Harry seemed lost, but in no way sounded like he was considering it.

“No,” Draco put him out of his misery.

“Alright, Malfoy, can you sod off for a minute?” Weasley’s eyes narrowed in that highly bulliable way only he seemed to be able to stretch his face into.

“No,” Draco shrugged.

“What is your problem?”

“You, most of the time.”

“Draco, please,” Harry said simply, without sounding amused or exasperated. Just a general request for him to stop, so he did.

With an offended scoff, that is. “Fine. I’ll be in our room,” Draco said and walked out of the kitchen without excusing himself, not that anyone seemed to mind much, too enthralled by their own conversation. Draco picked out an apple on the way out, smirking and looking Ron right in the eye with his teeth sunk into the green skin, making the prick even more annoyed.

“Don’t get it wrong, mate, I love that you can tame him, but bloody hell…” Draco didn’t hear the rest, having reached the first floor, but he didn’t need to hear anything else, because he was the one who still shared a room and a bed with Harry Potter, when there hadn’t even been any indication of doubt in the other boy.

Harry’s trunk had returned by the time Draco had reached their door, and the room suddenly seemed to lack any space. Their trunks weren’t very over-the-top in size, but neither was their bedroom. Draco was in the middle of trying to fit both of their school trunks under the bed when Harry returned to join him.

“Oh,” the Gryffindor sounded almost disappointed, “it’s back.”

“You sound ecstatic,” Draco noted drily.

“I just– I dunno, I like wearing your clothes,” Harry shrugged with a blush creeping upwards from his throat. Draco couldn’t help the smile that overtook his features, something possessive and distracting taking charge in his core.

“Is that so?” Draco smirked suggestively and Harry closed the door behind him as quietly as he could manage.

“I love your clothes,” he said more surely now that he’d seen Draco’s positive reaction, reaching out when the blonde boy took his first step towards him.

“And why is that?” Draco wondered, lips against Harry’s cheek.

“Because they smell like you,” Harry sounded about as flustered as Draco would be if the roles were reversed, “and they clearly look like they’re yours,” he added absent-mindedly, as if all sound logic had abandoned him and only unencumbered ramblings were left.

“I should have you parading around the house in the Slytherin Quidditch jumper,” Draco supposed, his knee meeting the door and parting Harry’s legs in the space between them. They seemed to always find themselves up against that door. Even when it had only been a platonic hug. Well, as platonic as Draco could manage.

“And they feel nice,” Harry continued as if he hadn’t heard Draco at all, “soft.”

“I’ll take you shopping one day,” Draco promised, though it sounded more like a threat, “force you into cashmere if it kills me.”

“Let me guess, it’s going to be green,” Harry tried to sound unamused, but his voice was bordering a whimper now, and Draco could no longer fight his instincts.

“Emerald,” Draco managed one last word before his tongue was in Harry’s mouth, unbridled teenage inability to take anything at a normal pace. Draco knew he was being unreasonably impatient when it came to Harry, but it was Harry. It had taken him such a long time to get to where they finally were, and he simply had no restraint left.

Harry, only adding to this point, kissed eagerly and with such excitement, it made Draco’s heart sing. He was Draco Malfoy, for Merlin’s sake, what the hell was his heart doing singing, he couldn’t tell, but his hands certainly seemed to have their mind in the right place. The right place being, of course, all over Harry, squeezing whatever they could squeeze and lingering wherever they wanted.

They were breathless within seconds, but Draco thought if he dared to come up for air, for even a moment, he would drown instead, so he kept kissing Harry and nipping at his bottom lip until he felt dizzy. Until someone knocked on the very door they were leaned against on the other side.

“We’re leaving, Harry,” Weasel called from the hallway, his voice muffled. Draco didn’t know anyone had planned to go anywhere, but it made sense the redheads would want to see their father.

Draco looked at Harry with a raised eyebrow and a smirk he couldn’t help, moving his right hand to Harry’s left thigh. “O–okay, Ron, send him my best,” he stammered under Draco’s touch, trying to rid himself of it.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come? Dad would love to see you too, you know,” Weasel added. Why couldn’t he just leave? Draco would groan and jinx him away, if it wasn’t so fun to tease Harry. Are you sure, he mouthed silently, making himself laugh and Harry roll his eyes.

“Oh, no, I, uh,” Harry struggled as Draco’s hand moved upwards, “no, you should have some family time with your dad, Ron, you can tell me how it went after,” he sounded almost poised. Draco wasn’t sure he liked that one bit. His hand had reached Harry’s hip bone and his thumb moved west now, abandoning all pretence of good manners and making Harry positively squirm.

“Alright, mate,” Weasel sounded defeated. Good. Let him be. Draco just couldn’t stop winning today, he noted to himself with a gleeful sneer – the kind Harry would have hated just two years back. “If you’re sure.”

Draco scoffed, his mouth growing impatient of the length of this conversation, so it landed on Harry’s pulse point, a shiver running over the boy under his lips. “Have fun, though!” Harry barely managed, finally showing some signs of weakness in his voice. If Weasley noticed, he didn’t comment on it, but he did stay there for several long seconds, as if listening and waiting for Harry to change his mind. Draco didn’t care about him listening. The hickey he was working on was a silent procedure, and Harry’s hands were grabbing onto Draco tightly once more instead of pushing away. He loved it.

Only once the creaking of ancient steps betrayed Weasley’s departure did Harry allow himself to make a single sound in reaction to Draco’s actions, in this case – a delicious sigh with his head resting against the door. Draco looked up at him, taking his mouth off Harry’s skin. He looked like he was praying to something, or thanking someone. Draco couldn’t help the smile that creeped onto his featured. “What?” Harry looked suddenly alarmed, “Why did you stop?”

“When did you start having these confusing feelings, Mister Potter?” Draco teased.

“Are you fucking serious?” Harry groaned impatiently.

“Do you have something better to do than have an honest conversation with me?” Draco chuckled.

“There’s a million things I want to do to you, you arse,” Harry said, and if it wasn’t for the hands desperately holding onto Draco, one could almost assume he wasn’t enjoying himself.

“Oh? Do tell. And don’t leave out the chronology part. I would love to know when this started.” Draco wasn’t sure where this surge of self-assuredness had come from, but he had to assume it had something to do with the way Harry melted under his touch and kissed him back now. It was addicting.

“I’ve had a crush on you for ages. Sirius put us in the same bedroom to mess with me,” he admitted.

“Well, Circe bless him, it bloody worked,” Draco giggled and kissed Harry again, for as much as he enjoyed the teasing, the kissing was a lot more fun. “When?”

“Since summer, he guessed from one of my letters about you,” Harry answered into Draco’s mouth before diving back into it.

“What did you write about me?” Draco asked, pulling away, far too curious.

“God, you really are insufferable, aren’t you?”

“You’re the one kissing me all over the Room of Requirement,” Draco snorted.

“And I’ll never kiss you again, if you keep annoying me,” Harry promised.

“As demonstrated by your inability to keep your tongue in your own mouth, no doubt,” Draco taunted.

“Yeah, alright, empty threats,” Harry admitted, grabbing a hold of the back of Draco’s neck more strongly to kiss him again. Strong enough not to let Draco move away for another smart comment. Just as well, all words were gone from his head either way.

The near-empty house was dangerous territory. It took them nearly an hour to pull themselves off each other in order to not do something Sirius could walk in on, and they had to go downstairs and into the library just to make sure the several feet of distance between them would stick.

That wasn’t enough to stop Draco from gawking at Harry from behind his book – another ancient, rare edition that Hermione had found for him in one of the rooms over the summer and he hadn’t yet had the chance to read – while Harry worked on a Transfiguration essay with his eyebrows drawn in concentration.

It took everything in Draco not to take the parchment out of Harry’s lap and replace it with his body instead, especially when Harry wordlessly got up and walked to one of the bookshelves to look for references. He was looking for references, for Merlin’s sake, Draco was only human.

“Are you really getting turned on by me doing my homework?” Harry wondered without looking up.

“What?” Draco asked in feigned ignorance, clearing his throat.

“You haven’t looked at your book once in ten minutes,” Harry informed him, finally facing the Slytherin sitting in the opposite armchair.

“Slander,” Draco scoffed, pointedly licking his finger to turn the page. Harry followed the movement with his eyes. Draco was almost disappointed in himself by how much of a teenager he could be. Getting all riled up and excited by the mere thought of Harry, who, by the way, did not seem any better at pulling himself together despite his teasing.

For a brief moment, Draco wondered what it would be like once they’d start actually sleeping together, and whether they would be able to reel it in for a while after each climax, or if it would make them even more insufferably unable to keep their hands off one another.

It must simply be the beginning, right? Draco hoped he could find some strength in himself at some point, because Harry had already made him weak in the knees from just being in Draco’s life. Now that he had some sort of a claim on him, now that he knew what it was like to taste him, to smell him, to hold him close through the night, Draco feared he would never be able to think straight again.

“I like your hair like this, did I tell you in the summer?” Harry wondered that night when they were back in the bed they shared in this ancient house that Draco now loved so much, and the Slytherin had finally found the ability to focus on a book, provided his head was laid on Harry’s chest.

“You neglected to mention that fact,” Draco said, trying to continue reading once he’d finished his sentence, but the second Harry had complemented him, all hope for mental strength had gone out the window.

“Well, I do, you look sweeter,” Harry continued surely.

“What is that supposed to mean?,” Draco tried to sound offended, but couldn’t help the chuckle that came out along with it.

“Nothing, just, every time I see you with your hair slicked back, I have a feeling you’re about to call me a git,” Harry’s fingers were in said hair now. It was freshly washed and probably working on leaving a damp spot on Harry’s Pyjamas, but there had been no protest when Draco had come out of the bathroom and got straight into bed, nuzzling his way under Harry’s arm.

“Well, you’re a git. See? I did it with my hair like this. The curse is broken now,” Draco closed his book and left it on Harry’s bedside table, since it was easier to reach with his arm strewn across Harry’s upper body, before closing his eyes. He felt like he could start purring.

“Let’s not go back,” Harry suggested.

“Downstairs?” Draco asked with his face mushed into Harry like he was a pillow. 

"Anywhere," Harry whispered in response. The Weasley’s had only returned in the evening, animated and happy, glad to have seen their father recovering and generally having survived. Their arrival had helped to put some distance between Harry and himself, but the lack of serene quiet for even a moment, which was often the case with the red-headed family, had tired Draco out into an early retirement to their room. He shouldn’t have been surprised then, when he found Harry already waiting for him in bed with more homework on his lap once Draco had taken a shower.

By the time Christmas Eve rolled around and Hermione hadn’t been able to visit them for even a day, which, admittedly, would have helped tremendously in making Harry and Draco keep it in their pants, Arthur had been sent home from St. Mungo’s and allowed to join in on the festivities, and the house seemed airier and lighter.

Sirius, determined that everyone should enjoy themselves as much, if not more, than they would have done at the Burrow, spent any spare moment he had making sure everyone had tea and biscuits within reach. He'd spent the day cleaning and decorating with Draco’s help, so that by the time they all sat down for dinner on Christmas Eve the house was barely recognizable. The tarnished chandeliers were no longer hung with cobwebs but with garlands of holly and gold and silver streamers, charmed snow glittered in heaps over the threadbare carpets, a great Christmas tree, obtained by Mundungus and decorated with live fairies, blocked Sirius’s family tree from view, and even the stuffed elf heads on the hall wall wore Father Christmas hats and beards.

When Remus arrived in the middle of the day, looking dishevelled, Sirius fussed over him for hours, making sure the other man was comfortable, had a drink in his hand at all times, and yelled at anyone who dared ask where Remus had been. Draco enjoyed watching the two of them. He never saw Sirius like that with anyone but Remus, and he also seemed to be the only person the werewolf was not on the verge of snapping at.

“Hey,” Draco pulled on Harry’s sleeve when he walked past, helping Molly set the dinner table, “We can agree those two are finally shagging right?”

“Oh, I don’t know, with all the time that’s past, I think they’ve kinda…drifted,” Harry sounded sad. Draco refused to think of the implications.

“No, it was all tense during the summer, but it’s tense differently now,” Draco pointed out.

“Are you sure you’re not just projecting?” Harry chortled. “Because things between us are different, everyone else in the world must be shagging too?”

“How do you even know what projecting is?” Draco asked, instead of lingering on the thought of the two of them having only snogged, at best.

“I’m not stupid, Draco,” Harry said in that way that seemed annoyed, but was not really. The way he only ever seemed to respond to Draco’s teasing.

“Well, you are a Gryffindor,” Draco specified.

“Draco Malfoy would not go around kissing idiots,” Harry reminded.

“You’d be surprised,” Draco shrugged, earning a nudge in the ribs.

“Sirius, can you help me carry this upstairs, please?” Remus asked across the kitchen with a large box in his hands.

“Anything for my Moony,” Sirius called back with a satisfied smile, an obvious inside joke Draco was not privy to, but one he did not need to understand to recognise the look of pure love in the older wizard’s eyes as he rushed to follow what Harry insisted was his friend.

“Ten galleons says they are,” Draco said relentlessly.

“Ten galleons?” Harry laughed, “Yeah, alright,” he said, shaking Draco’s hand and still chuckling.

Walburga Black was screaming obscenities again, once they’d finished the celebratory dinner and were pulling open crackers by the fire in the drawing room. “As lovely as she always has been,” Remus announced with a bitter smile, sitting next to Sirius.

“Remember that Christmas at James’?” Sirius chuckled darkly and shaking his head. Draco looked at Harry at the mention of his father’s name.

“I genuinely thought I’d never see you again,” Remus’ smile was now merely a ghost on his lips.

“I thought I was gonna die that night,” Sirius admitted. The Weasleys and the Malfoys had gone silent, but the two of them didn’t seem to notice.

“Charming woman,” Remus quirked an eyebrow as if he couldn’t believe such a person even existed. Draco had only heard about her from his mother, but even Narcissa seemed to have detested her aunt.

“Charming woman,” Sirius agreed.

“Mudbloods in my house!” her shrill voice seemed even more persistent during the holidays. Draco couldn’t remember her this vocal back in summer. Maybe she was particularly fond of homosexual relationships under her roof, and couldn’t dare even take the words into her own mouth.

“Shut up, mother!” Sirius ordered with a laugh, firewhisky clearly having gone to his head as he leaned into Remus.

“Yes, get bent, Mrs. Black!” Remus added, making the two of them laugh even more, and along with them, everyone else in the room, as well.

“How is St. Mungo’s these days?” Remus wondered, making conversation with the Weasleys.

“We saw Lockhart,” Fred recalled suddenly before a serious answer could be given.

“Oh, that poor sod’s still in there, is he?” Sirius wondered amusedly.

“I don’t know if I ever told you, but Chris turned him into a big jelly once,” Remus said, recalling something from their time at school.

“Christopher Barley turned Roy Lockhart into a jelly?” Sirius asked to clarify.

“Huge one. I thought it was a desk at first,” Remus nodded.

Someone brought out a board game. Weasel begged Harry to play wizard chess with him. Draco finally had a moment to spend with his mother, talking amiably about Pansy and Blaise, as she always loved to hear about her son’s best friends.

When he left the room to make himself and his mother some tea, he was followed closely by Harry. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re coming to kill me,” Draco said without looking back once they’d reached the kitchen.

“Kill you?” Harry laughed, taking a seat at the long table and watching every single one of Draco’s movements closely. He was highly aware of the eyes on him, like he always was in class or in the Great Hall. It never mattered where or how far apart they were, Draco knew the distinct tugging at the back of his mind whenever it was Harry looking at him. Whether it was a sixth sense or a superpower, he didn’t know, but he liked to be so aware of the other boy.

“Well, that or kiss me senseless in a room where anyone could enter at any point, but surely Harry Potter would never put himself in such undignified of circumstances.”

“You’re not cute when you’re being smug,” Harry scoffed, making Draco raise his eyebrows in question. “Well, you are, of course you are, but…well, shut up.”

“Is all it takes a Slytherin tongue to pull the Golden Boy apart?”

“You are all snakes,” Harry supposed, clearly enthralled by Draco’s shocked reaction.

“Just for that, you’re not getting any tea,” Draco raised his chin.

“You weren’t making me tea,” Harry reminded with a laugh.

“I mean ever. In the entire future of this planet, you are not getting any tea from me.”

“You’re also not cute when you’re being dramatic,” Harry lied.

“Mhm,” Draco smirked at the Gryffindor over his shoulder, then turned around and leaned across the table, unable to stop himself from planting a quick kiss on Harry’s already expecting lips. It was nice and dark in the kitchen, and Harry, for all his faults, had finally thought for long enough to have the idea to close the door behind the two of them. They were as safe as could be.

Only Draco’s hands had got lost in Harry’s nest of a head did he remember he had tea brewing somewhere behind him and Narcissa waiting for her cup. Reluctant as they come, he pulled away, much to Harry’s disappointment. There were biscuits upstairs, so all he really had to take were the two mugs, no need for a tray.

Harry didn’t offer to help, leaving the kitchen first and gifting Draco with a wonderful view of his arse as he ascended the stairs before him. Harry took a quick detour to grab a letter that had been pushed through the mail slot in the front door, making Draco wonder if owls had a way of finding number twelve, Grimmauld Place unlike human beings that had no way of getting here.

Harry shrugged at Draco where he was waiting for him to join him on the first step up to the drawing room, his face quickly growing into a smile. “What?” Draco wondered.

“Your lips are so red right now,” Harry chuckled.

“Oh, I wonder who’s to blame,” Draco dragged, fighting the urge to roll his eyes.

“You’re so pale, it’s unbelievable,” Harry teased.

“Why don’t you just break up with me over that?” Draco sighed.

“I don’t want to,” Harry said simply. Because, apparently, it was just that simple. They hadn’t even discussed whether they were together in the first place. Draco supposed they’d just now settled it.

“That so? Maybe we should get out of here. I should take you up to our room,” the Slytherin smirked with as quiet a voice as he could pull, not failing to remember this house was practically made to listen in on conversations.

“Oh, God,” Harry seemed to blush, but it was difficult to tell in the dark hallway.

“What?” Draco asked, on the verge of being insulted with the reaction on Harry’s part.

“The flirting skills of Draco Malfoy. I never thought I’d see the day.”

“Not good?” Draco asked, unable to believe that. Draco had a way with words, and any Slytherin could manipulate a Gryffindor if necessary. Not that that was what Draco was doing.

“Bloody brilliant,” Harry shook his head, as if Draco’s lack of trust in the fact was ridiculous. “Definitely working,” he smirked.

“Harry,” Weasel wined, having heard his voice, “it’s your turn,” he said, still sat by the enchanted chess board.

“Surprised it only took you the twenty minutes they were gone to figure out a move,” Fred called from over the couch where he, George, Ginevra, Remus and a reluctant Sirius were in the middle of the strange, and possibly haunted, board game someone had found in the house.

“Fred!” Molly chastised him from her spot with a book in her lap and knitting needles working on a vest above her.

“There’s a letter,” Draco pointed out before anyone had the chance to ask what exactly had taken them so long. He then took a sip from his cup and made a fuss about how hot it still was. Perhaps the lie of having burned his lips would be enough for anyone wondering why they were so red.

“To Miss Ginny Weasley,” Harry read out loud and all three of her brothers that were present, cooed teasingly.

“Give me it!” she shouted, jumping off the couch and rushing towards Harry and Draco.

“Hang on,” said Draco, something bordering dangerously close to glee reaching his mind as he gazed upon the letter quickly, “I’d know that handwriting anywhere. Ginevra, my dear, how far the saints have fallen.”

“Excuse me?” she tried to sound menacing, but the blush on her cheeks wasn’t entirely helping that.

“Fraternising with the enemy,” Draco sneered. Ginevra’s name was written beautifully on the envelope in his best friend’s handwriting, with a bright pink heart drawn in the corner.

“Well, you’re not the enemy, are you?” she pouted, snatching the letter from Harry’s grasp.

“He’s not, I can vouch,” Harry winked at Draco, bringing forth yet another suspicion of the boy’s lack of wit. Really, how reckless did he have to be? Perhaps Draco truly could not find himself a boyfriend who could keep a secret.

“So, neither is this person,” Ginevra said assuredly, ripping the envelope open and turning so that there was a wall behind her and no one could spy the contents over her shoulder.

“I didn’t even know you were talking. And I get told everything,” Draco was almost impressed now. Then again, he supposed most Slytherins possessed the ability to keep their romantic lives under wraps instead of waxing poetry around the castle like Draco had done about Harry to his friends.

“Who? Blaise?” George wondered.

“Nope,” Draco and Harry said at once, the Gryffindor having joined in smiling at Ginevra like a lunatic. Merlin, Draco loved it when Harry was mean.

Weasel did whatever he could to hold back a gasp, but clearly did not succeed, “Ginny, is that true?”

“What are you all talking about?” Molly looked perplexed, watching her children, Harry and Draco as if they’d been speaking in tongues.

“Nothing,” the twins and Harry promised at once, if only to lessen Ginevra’s embarrassment.

Harry and Draco practically soared in their amazement of this turn of events, and couldn’t stop discussing it from the second their bedroom door closed behind them to the moment they fell asleep, snogging be damned. Pansy Parkinson was successfully romancing Ginevra Weasley. This was going to be the most important development of the holiday season, which they both had to admit to each other, despite having finally having revealed their own feelings for one another.

When Draco woke, Harry was still sound asleep and curled around the blonde boy’s frame like a demiguise, long, tan limbs sprawled across Draco’s body, and he would have enjoyed it immensely, if not for having to use the loo so bad it was going to kill him any second now. His movements were precise and quick, agility of a quidditch player, so that Harry didn’t even stir. Once he returned to the room and found Harry still snoring away, he quickly got dressed and found his presents for everyone, leaving the Christmas bauble with Harry’s face from the Room of Requirement on his pillow for Harry to wake up to. Draco would love to stay and see the other boy’s reaction to such a view, but he would love some breakfast a little more. He left the bedroom door open in hopes of hearing some sort of a scream nonetheless.

His mother was already in the kitchen, sitting at the long table and chatting animatedly to Sirius, and apparently refusing to help him with breakfast. Draco was starting to love the taste of burnt sausages and mushrooms, if only because it now reminded him of Grimmauld Place and Sirius.

He saw several gifts already waiting, wrapped in a silvery paper and ranging in size and form, recipients different, but all saying from Draco and Narcissa. He was thankful his mother had thought to include him, because he certainly did not have presents for everyone.

His travel-sized Nab-Sack hung from his arm while he placed all other, admittedly, poorly-wrapped presents on the table in front of him. “Happy Christmas, mother,” he smiled sheepishly, handing her a small box with a silver necklace inside. Pansy had helped him pick it out, and it matched the bracelet he’d got her a few years back with the help of his father. Sure, Draco had no idea what to gift women with, but his mother was always perfectly accessorised and knew how to appreciate a piece of exquisite, goblin-made jewellery.

“Oh, darling, this is glorious, help me put it on, would you?” she beamed, turning her back to Draco and waiting for him to clasp it closed. Sirius watched them fondly and cursed loudly when he remembered he was in the middle of burning Christmas breakfast for everyone.

The redheads started piling in, talking groggily amongst themselves, still in their pyjamas, still with their orange hair flying in all directions. Ginevra was holding a pile of packages wrapped in bright paper, but took a seat at the table and closed her eyes instead of passing on her holiday greetings.

Harry joined them, wearing the green dragon sweater he’d received a year ago. The only thing he could have worn that screamed Draco more, would be a Slytherin tie around his neck. “I hate you,” Harry gritted, throwing the bauble Draco had left on their bed back into the now-laughing boy’s face.

“What?” Draco asked, still chuckling, “I think it’s a beautiful ornament and we should have them strewn around the house.”

“I hate you very, very much,” Harry disagreed with Draco’s sentiment, but went straight in for a hug either way, “Merry Christmas.”

“And to you,” Draco’s voice nearly stammered as he blushed into Harry’s embrace. It wasn’t long. Certainly not even in the top five longest hugs they’d shared, but, apparently, it was long enough to raise eyebrows.

“Depuis combien de temps cela dure-t-il?” Sirius asked with an impeccable French pronunciation.

“Quoi exactement?” Narcissa narrowed her eyes, unreadable and potentially amused though they were.

“Ces deux,” he nodded towards Draco and Harry, speaking about them like they weren’t even in the room. Even though Harry did, to Sirius’ benefit, look confused, along with everyone else who had finally started to wake up and obviously only spoke English. Draco, however, spoke impeccable French, and did not like to be discussed.

Narcissa gave a small regal chuckle, “Tu essayes de dire quoi?”

“Bah,” Sirius scoffed, rebelling against every bit of the Black ancestry with that single sound, “ils sont amoureux, n'est-ce pas?”

“Sirius!” Draco protested, appalled how they would speak of such things when he could hear them.

“Mon fils est obsédé par ton filleul depuis des années,” Narcissa shrugged, looking pleased to be able to tease her son about this.

“Maman, s’il te plait!” Draco attempted to object a second time, covering his eyes with his hand and groaning. Harry, the poor sod, still looked confused out of his mind, though now also threw Draco an unreadable look.

“What are they saying?” George demanded and Harry looked to Draco as if he would ever translate this conversation.

“Ouais, mais c'est différent depuis qu'ils sont revenus,” Sirius smirked happily, still managing to cut corners when it came to pronouncing full syllables and sounding like a posh little French boy that tried oh so hard to understand verlan, but never really managed to accept it into his vocabulary. “Depuis l’été,” he looked at the two of them like a wolf hunting its prey.

“Ce qui signifie?” Narcissa offered.

“Cousine chérie, j’crois que ton fils a un petit ami,” Sirius grinned.

“SIRIUS!” Draco said in shock.

“What?” he laughed, clapping the still-confused Harry on his shoulder lovingly, “only making observations.”

“I can’t believe you two,” Draco huffed.

“Oh, we’re just teasing, darling,” Narcissa said, returning to her tea-and-newspaper morning routine. “It’s only a joke, is it not?”

“Hilarious,” Draco dropped into a chair heavily.

“Putain,” Sirius turned to them again. That poor piece of bacon must have been oil-covered charcoal by now, “attends, mais c’est vrai, n'est-ce pas?”

“I’m not entertaining this,” Draco announced and stared down at the table. “No one is to have this conversation translated.”

“What were they saying?” Harry asked, sitting right next to him when there stood so many other unoccupied chairs.

“Bah, regarde!” Sirius pointed at them with a spatula.

“Sirius, I swear to Salazar, I am not above bringing a certain werewolf into this conversation,” Draco threatened.

“Go ahead, I’m an open book!” Sirius said cheerily and turned back to the stove. “Speak of the devil,” he smiled brightly as Remus entered the kitchen, wearing a dressing gown that undoubtedly belonged to Sirius Black.

“And where, pray tell, have you been staying, professor Lupin?” Fred wondered with a suggestive smile as Molly entered and looked fully prepared to reprimand him for what would probably be the tenth time since their arrival in Grimmauld Place. Draco was wondering the same thing – he knew for a fact that all the bedrooms in the house were already occupied.

“Take a wild gander,” Sirius suggested, pulling Remus closer to him by the waist.

“Told you,” Draco said to Harry, “ten galleons, did we say?”

“Okay, we get it, you’re always right,” the Gryffindor scoffed, but gave Draco a lingering look, as if he hadn’t yet noticed him today. As if maybe, in accordance to some miracle, Harry thought Draco to be the most beautiful creature on earth just like he did whenever he looked at the Golden Boy.

“Look!” Sirius pointed at them excitedly, as if he was the teenager here and not most of the other occupants of the kitchen, “Told you!”

“That means nothing,” Remus said calmly, a patience for the other man that would only come with twenty-five years of knowing him. He then leaned in unceremoniously and kissed his stubbled cheek.

“Oh, stop it, you two, there are children in the house,” Molly said, but not unkindly, batting Sirius away from the stove with a tea towel.

“Last I checked, it was my house,” announced Sirius with his hand reaching into the neckline of the dressing gown Remus was sporting almost better than he ever could dream to.

“Exhibitionist,” Remus accused.

“You speak French,” Harry said in a hurried whisper, “of course, you speak French.”

“Of course, I speak French,” Draco scoffed.

They exchanged presents throughout breakfast. Both Sirius and Remus seemed excited about Draco’s present – a permanent locking charm that froze Mrs. Black’s portrait in time, so that not a sound could come of her. He made sure to announce Hermione’s collaboration in this, as it would have never been quite so possible without her. It wasn’t perfect, she was still there on that wall, and Kreacher wailed for hours once he’d discovered the change in his mistress’ likeness, but it would do until they could figure out how to remove the charm that made it impossible to remove the portrait from the wall.

He handed the Nab-Sack to Weasel, knowing the niffler inside was a good enough of a piece offering and continuation of cease-fire, and actually got a loud, barked laugh from the boy, who seemed to appreciate the little creature. Harry smiled at Draco thankfully, and for that smile alone, Draco would be prepared to move mountains. He’d snog Weasley, if it brought Harry joy.

Narcissa gave him a jewel-embedded charmed comb that would tame Draco’s hair in seconds with just a few quick strokes, so that he would never have to borrow Blaise’s again. It shined in the light of the fireplace, as Draco tried it out straight away.

Molly had knitted him a sweater. His own sweater. She’d even used some sort of charm on the wool to make it soft as a pigmy puff. It was light grey with a deep, rich black letter D on it. It was in cursive, the swish of it curling upwards. He put it on instantly and let her hug him. He felt accepted. He felt loved.

Harry called Remus uncle Moony when giving him his present, and tears swelled in the werewolf’s eyes as he looked from Harry to Sirius to Harry again. Draco could only guess as to the significance, but it seemed to be a gift of its own, at least to Remus.

Harry’s present to Draco was a leather-bound set of Aesop Sharp’s journals. They looked as ancient as the man himself, and Draco couldn’t fathom how much money Harry had spent on them, or how long it had taken him to track them down. Draco wasn’t even sure he’d ever mentioned the auror-turned-potions-master to Harry, or if the boy had simply made a guess on his fascination with this historical person. Lucius had once told Draco of his great-great-grandfather’s sister having run away from home and married a simple man, and he’d tracked it back long enough to assume it had been Aesop Sharp. A theory that his diaries could prove, as well as providing historical insight and valuable potions expertise.

He handed Harry a velvet, satin-padded box. Harry smiled nervously and opened it to reveal a gold watch, but his grin quickly faded into awe when he recognised it. He looked up at Draco amidst the noise and excitement of the Weasleys. Even through the loud chattering of everyone else opening their presents, the ticking of the watch was perfectly audible. “I do know a charm to make it quieter,” Draco said nervously, fighting the urge to clear his throat.

When he’d slipped James Potter's watch from Harry and brought it to Hogsmeade to get fixed during an illicit outing that he would not have got authorisation for, especially not from Severus, it had been stopped at just past seven o’clock, and the date showed it was the 31^st. Now, it was ticking along merrily, showing quarter to noon on the 25^th.

“I thought I lost it, I’ve beating myself up about it for days,” Harry said, but there wasn’t any accusation in his words, just pure awe.

“I’m sorry,” Draco couldn’t help but laugh, “I just figured if you’re wearing your father’s watch, it should probably be at least a little practical for you.” Harry shook his head, still looking at the watch as if he couldn’t believe it worked. “It will always show the correct time and date, so this button is redundant,” Draco explained, excitedly now that he was certain Harry wasn’t angry with him for essentially stealing one of the only things left over from one of his parents. “But, if you press it, and you pair it with someone else’s, the other watch will warm up a bit. That way it’s like you’re reaching out to them. To let them know you’re thinking of them. I can show you the charm, it’s quite simple."

“Here I was thinking you were shit at charms,” Harry said dazedly.

“I might be shit at charms, but I’m great at research,” Draco said assuredly.

He let Harry hug him for a little too long of a moment for two people who had just been accused of dating in French, but it was simply too nice not to take advantage of. “You’re bloody brilliant, you know?”

“I have my moments,” Draco sunk into the embrace.

“Fucking hell,” Sirius’ loud laughter brought them out of it, “you’ve always been my almost favourite cousin, cissy,” he said, looking at his present, then laughing again.

“Oh? Did Andromeda beat me to the top of the list?” Draco’s mother wondered from behind her tea cup.

“Well, she did buy me records,” Sirius shrugged. “And I was never forced to almost marry her.”

“WHAT?” Draco and Harry yelled out at once.

“Oh yeah,” Sirius said with what he probably meant to be amusement, but what came out more bitter, “but your mother is far too defiant for things like that.”

“Either me or Remus,” she supposed, "I'm not the one who came up with the solution, after all."

“Went around everyone’s back and made an unbreakable vow to marry that Lucius git,” Sirius snorted. No offense, Malfoys,” he added.

“None taken,” Draco said,

“All thanks to thins handsome thing over here,” Narcissa pointed to Remus.

“Well,” the werewolf quirked an eyebrow, “I wasn’t exactly going to let someone I had a crush on marry his cousin, was I?”

“Please tell me you and Lucius are not cousins,” Draco begged his mother, on the verge of throwing up.

“You could have been the truest Black there ever was,” George teased, slapping Draco on the back of his shoulder as he squeezed past to get more food.

“Christ,” Harry chuckled next to him. Even Ronald was giggling on the other side of the table.

Andromeda, Ted and Dora arrived later in the evening for Christmas dinner, this time prepared, mercifully, by Molly and only with a little help from Draco and Harry, who were actively avoiding Sirius after Draco had translated their morning conversation. Draco’s ancient personal mystery of who gave him hand-wrapped sweets and Zonko’s inventions every year was solved, when Dora handed him this year’s package by hand.

Half the Order had arrived to dine, and enjoy the evening, some on higher alert than the rest, and Draco wondered if they were on shifts – the ones allowed to drink and the ones made to watch everyone’s safety.

Even Arthur finally joined, though most of what he did was pull painful-looking smiles to calm his family into thinking he was more fine that he truly was.

McGonagall told them she’d had to lie through her teeth about why they were all missing before the end of term, and, according to the mistruth, Harry along with the Weasleys had attacked Draco so brutally, he’d had to be taken home immediately. Draco assumed there would be hell to pay for that. Not only in Gryffindor house points, but also in the way other Slytherins’ viewed Draco. Beaten by the bloody ginger bunch. Some prefect he was.

“Can it be yours?” Harry asked later when laughter and loud conversation inhabited the house like Draco could only imagine it never had before.

“Pardon?” Draco asked, slightly dazed on shots from the bottle of firewhisky Fred and George had gifted him and Harry with, and having been on the verge of putting his arm around Harry where they sat next to each other on a plush, emerald-green couch. He could claim Harry all to himself with one single movement, and with the lovely warmth that spread inside him from the alcohol, he could not see a single fault in that idea.

“Can it be your watch? That mine is paired with?”

“You want to waste an heirloom on me?” Draco felt almost confused. He’d been certain Harry would have chosen Hermione or Sirius. Hell, when the idea had first come to him months ago, he’d been convinced it would have ended up being Cho Chang, but never him.

“What do you mean waste?” Harry laughed, “I barely get to see you at school, imagine how much harder it will be now. I want you to know how often I think about you.”

Draco didn’t look around to make sure no one could overhear, like his logical brain screamed at him to do. He didn’t care at that moment. He was drunk on firewhisky, he was drunk on the holiday spirit, but strongest of all, and un-Slytherin-est of all, he was drunk on Harry. “If you’re sure.”

Harry smiled a satisfied smile and stood up from his seat, leaving empty coldness next to Draco that he would have been really disappointed with, if not for the meaningful look Harry sent Draco when crossing the threshold into the hallway. Draco smiled to himself and followed.

Chapter Text

Draco knew Harry did not want to return to Hogwarts when the Christmas break drew nearer to a close. The boy had never had the highest aptitude for studying, so Draco could only assume there would be much tutoring on both his and Hermione’s part, but then there was the matter of Umbridge’s tyranny, and now also the fact he wasn’t allowed on a broom, when Harry would live and breathe Quidditch if it weren’t for something constantly trying to kill him.

He also would be lying, if Draco said he was looking forward to returning. Living in constant fear of being ripped out of classes and dragged back to a shadow of his former home, to a homicidal maniac with a superiority complex, did not sound like an enjoyable experience.

Then there was the matter of Sirius Black who, despite knowing he would remain in the company of Remus and Narcissa, seemed to become more sour by the hour, once Christmas was over, at the thought of everyone leaving him practically alone for months on end. Both Remus and Narcissa had been assigned tasks by the Order and had to leave for inconsistent amounts of time, leaving the last carrier of the Black name in solitude.

New Year’s Eve was a much louder festivity than Christmas had been, someone had brought sparkling wine to last them for days, there were even more Order members than Draco had ever seen in the house at one time, most having brought along their loved ones to ring in 1996. Even Hermione had returned from her trip and been allowed by her parents to join the party here. Loud music was streaming from the record player and every room that didn’t contain a bed in it had people talking or dancing.

Sirius was wrapped around Remus like a snake the whole evening – the werewolf did not seem to Draco as the public-displays-of-affection type, but apparently, if persuaded enough with champagne and firewhisky, could be roped into practically anything by Sirius Black.

When the clock was about to strike midnight and the loud, shouted countdown had begun, Draco found his wrist heating up, and even the heavy warmth of alcohol on his brain hadn't made it fuzzy enough to stop him from understanding it was an invitation.

He trotted up the stairs loudly, not caring if he would be heard of over the shouting, and reached Harry on the highest landing, just in time for him to scream the last two digits of the countdown in Draco’s face and kiss him hard, lazy and messy, all tongue and giggling, grabby hands and fast heartbeats.

“Say something in French,” Harry begged breathlessly. Draco’s only response was kissing him harder.

It was on the last day before their return to the castle when Molly called upon Harry in the middle of his chess match against Ronald. Draco had not been shunned away by the redhead when he’d quietly followed Harry and sat next to him to watch, he hadn’t even received a nasty look, so he assumed there might be hope yet for civility.

“Harry dear,” said Molly, poking her head into the drawing room, “could you come down to the kitchen? Professor Snape would like a word with you.”

Harry did not seem to immediately register what she had said. One of his rooks was engaged in a violent tussle with a pawn of Ronald’s, and he was egging it on enthusiastically. “Squash him – squash him, he’s only a pawn, you idiot – sorry, Mrs. Weasley, what did you say?”

“Professor Snape, dear. In the kitchen. He’d like a word.”

Harry’s mouth fell open in horror. He looked around at Draco and Ronald, both of whom were gaping back at him. “Snape?” Harry asked blankly.

“Professor Snape, dear,” Molly said reprovingly. “Now come on, quickly, he says he can’t stay long.”

“Come with me,” Harry whispered at Draco with pure horror on his face.

“He’s not going to kill you in Sirius’ house,” Draco reminded, taking harry’s seat at the chess board.

“You’re his godson! You’ll be extra protection,” Harry pleaded. “Did you not swear you’d protect me?”

“When did I swear that?” Draco wondered. Harry seemed to think about this for a moment before shrugging helplessly.

“Maybe I dreamt it,” he said offhandedly before Molly called his name from the stairs. “You’re fucking useless.”

“Uh huh,” Draco dragged monotony, picking the next move from what Harry had already started doing earlier in the game. With another scoff, the Golden Boy was gone, and Draco was left with only Ronald, the sound of a ticking grandfather clock and chess pieces, some of which had started demanding in shrill little voices for someone to make a play.

“He’s uh…” Ronald seemed unwilling to ask, but unable to stop himself, “he’s dreaming of you?”

“You don’t have to talk to me, if you’re uncomfortable, I am fully open to beating you in silence.”

Ronald looked down at the chess board, as if having forgot it had ever been in front of him, and cleared his throat. “No, I just…it’s fine, I don’t…” he drifted off and moved another pawn. “Look,” he said after another half a dozen moves made between the two of them, “I’ve never…liked you…much.”

“Strong start,” Draco droned.

“Will you shut up? I’m trying to be nice,” Ronald snapped, but there was something bordering dangerously close to amusement in his voice. “Harry clearly…likes you,” he said, probably trying to be less obnoxious in his emphasis, and failing miserably, “so I am willing to put it aside, if you are.”

“Ronald, I actively do not egg you on anymore, even when you make it so easy, because it would upset Harry. If that’s not civility, I don’t know what is.”

The Gryffindor looked like he wanted to snap at that, but reigned it in. “For Harry,” he then said in what should probably be a handshake sort of moment, but neither of them moved to touch the other.

“For Harry,” Draco agreed.

“So,” Ronald said after another few moves, “are you in love with him or something?” he asked, trying to make it sound like a tease.

“Yes,” Draco answered simply, not looking up and moving his knight, “checkmate,” he added, finally facing Ronald. The other boy stared at him in confusion. “Checkmate,” Draco repeated, and he finally seemed to remember there was a game supposedly happening, snapping his head down to see. “Good then,” Draco nodded to himself and stood up.

“Wait, are you serious?” Ronald looked at him with bewilderment.

“Quite,” Draco nodded, “your king,” he pointed to the board, “very trapped,” he chuckled and left the room.

Occlumency lessons were certainly not what Draco had expected Dumbledore to come up with but it was a bloody good idea – that much he was forced to admit. Having them with Severus, though, might just set Harry over the edge. Draco wouldn’t exactly say it was a smart choice in teacher, but he didn’t suppose there were many an occlumens to choose from in the Order. Draco knew his godfather was good, too, he’d been once taught by Severus himself.

“Got everything?” Harry asked next morning, when they were leaving number twelve, Grimmauld Place to head back to Hogwarts. They’d packed the previous night, having both decided that sleeping in was more important.

“Think so,” Draco said simply, making sure their silly little pirate hat was still safely waiting for their return next summer on the back of the desk chair.

“Oh, God, you almost forgot,” Harry gasped.

“What?” Draco asked, barely having enough time to look at him, when their lips were pressed together. Harry’s hands, which had become more sure of themselves over the two weeks they’d spent in London, were firmly grasping at Draco’s hips, like he was desperate to make this kiss memorable. As if Draco could ever forget being able to share a litany of private moments with Harry behind a closed door. “Merlin, I’ve got to tell everyone.”

“What?” Harry asked, confusion riddling his voice.

“Harry Potter is a romantic,” Draco said dramatically, before shouting out, “HARRY POTTER’S A ROM-“ He was cut off by Harry’s hand in front of his mouth, then his lips returning to their apparent new favourite place on Draco’s. They were laughing more than they were snogging now, but Draco would damn himself before he’d let go of the other boy, not when he had no way of telling when their next meeting of this nature would be possible.

“You two are positively adorable,” a deep, amused voice made them jump apart. They hadn’t heard Sirius climb up the stairs to their floor. For someone who so prided himself of being observant, Draco was starting to slip. Then again, he also hadn’t known of Harry’s feelings until the poor bastard pushed his tongue down Draco’s throat, so how observant was he, really? “Oh, don’t stop on my account,” Sirius joked.

“Fucking hell,” Harry cursed under his breath and took another step away from Draco.

“I won’t tell,” Sirius promised, “well, I mean, I might tell Moony, but I’m sure that’s expected,” he shrugged.

“Christ, please don’t,” Harry begged.

“I was only coming to see if you were ready to leave, but I never mind being proven right,” Sirius said, acting as if he hadn’t even heard Harry’s plea. “Oh,” he seemed to remember after having already turned to leave, “not that you asked for my advice, but I do seem to remember James having a secret weapon to sneak into the Slytherin dorms back when we were in school, and I know for a fact that Harry now owns it,” he said, tapping the side of his nose and leaving with a satisfied chuckle.

“I am not sneaking into the Slytherin dorms. Even with the cloak,” Harry said confidently.

“Fuck no, you’ll be murdered so hard,” Draco agreed. “Are we going to talk about the fact that there seem to be implications your father was sleeping with Sirius’ brother for an amount of time?”

“No,” Harry said sternly.

“Understood,” Draco nodded and pulled the Gryffindor back up and towards himself, “one more for the road,” he smiled before kissing him.

“Hey, Bambi,” Sirius called Harry away from the rest a few hours later when they were finally about to leave, “I want you to take this,” he said quietly, right before they were supposed to leave for Kings Cross, thrusting a badly wrapped package roughly the size of a paperback book into Harry’s hands.

“What is it?” Harry asked.

“A way of letting me know if Snape’s giving you a hard time. No, don’t open it in here!” Sirius warned, with a wary look at Molly, who was trying to persuade the twins to wear hand-knitted mittens. “I doubt Molly would approve, but I want you to use it if you need me, all right?”

“Okay,” said Harry, stowing the package away in the inside pocket of his jacket. It might not be safe, but whatever it was, Draco was more than sure Harry would use it often.

Draco watched as Hermione ran up to Harry and the Weasleys to hug them all tightly. She’d left shortly after midnight in the new year, and spent the last moments of freedom from schoolwork with her family. Draco continued to watch them instead of completing his prefect duties, until they were settled in their own compartment. Making a mental note of exactly where that was, Draco boarded the train to find Pansy and Blaise.

“I didn’t want anyone to talk to me,” Harry said, sounding nettled when Draco walked past their compartment, the grey blinds already closed on the small window on the door, but their voices still carrying though. He only now realised that Harry had been on edge whenever not with Draco throughout the holiday break. He wanted to feel pride in that. He wanted to bask in the thought of yet again being a source of comfort for the boy, but all he could think of now was Harry continuously getting into trouble because he would lose his temper in a heartbeat, and Draco could be on the other side of the castle without any way to help.

“Well, that was a bit stupid of you,” Ginevra spat angrily, “seeing as you don’t know anyone but me who’s been possessed by You-Know-Who, and I can tell you how it feels.”

Harry remained quiet as the impact of the words hit him. “I forgot,” he said.

“Lucky you,” she answered coolly.

“I’m sorry,” Harry sounded sincere. “So…so do you think I’m being possessed, then?”

“Well, can you remember everything you’ve been doing?” Ginevra’s voice asked from behind the door as Pansy approached him, having found him loitering and nodding towards him in greeting instead of saying anything - trust a Slytherin to know how to eavesdrop. “Are there big blank periods where you don’t know what you’ve been up to?”

“No,” Harry said after a moment.

“Then You-Know-Who hasn’t ever possessed you,” Ginevra said simply. “When he did it to me, I couldn’t remember what I’d been doing for hours at a time. I’d find myself somewhere and not know how I got there.”

Pansy opened the door to their compartment and stared them all down for a second. “You know you’re being awfully loud for a bunch of people discussing the Dark Lord,” she said before shooting Ginevra a wink, “hello, gorgeous.”

“Parkinson,” Ginevra greeted, in an unreadable tone.

“Thirty minutes tops, then I’ll come find you,” Pansy promised, “Granger,” she greeted before turning and leaving Draco behind.

Harry was watching him with something bordering desperation in his eyes, but Draco couldn’t linger much, having to return to his duties. He looked Harry in the eye and pressed the button on his watch. The other boy blushed and Draco left with a smug smile.

He finally had something to bother Pansy about and he was not going to miss this opportunity. “Oh, Parkinson,” Draco sighed, catching up with her, “oh, my little girl, how you’ve grown.”

“I wouldn’t know what you mean,” Pansy said without a care in the world.

“I saw the letter,” Draco admitted. There would be enough time to tease over the semester, and he didn’t want to waste any of it on the first hour of seeing her.

“Which one? I sent her about twenty over the break,” Pansy said, some annoyance finally reaching her words.

“Adorable, love it, who sent the first one?” Draco asked, giddy with excitement over the gossip of his own friend’s lovelife.

“I did. And the second, and the third, should I go on?”

Draco stopped abruptly just outside the compartment Blaise was already waiting for the two of them in, “she never replies?”

“Not once,” Pansy rolled her eyes. “Bloody bint. Beautiful, smart, hilarious bint.”

Blaise nodded to Draco with a question, having missed the beginning of this conversation. “Our darling Pansy has taken a disinterested lover,” he explained, shaking Blaise’s hand in greeting.

“Condolences,” Blaise smirked with pure amusement.

“Oh, shut it, the pair of you,” she groaned, “I’m not giving up on her. Bloody priss.”

“Perhaps cool it with the name-calling,” Draco suggested, “although, what do I know. Works for…” Blaise watched him expectantly and Pansy looked confused. Shit, fuck, buggering troll’s balls. Why does he have to speak? It was enough that Sirius knew, and probably by now, Remus, too. Draco would like to keep something in this life to himself and Harry. “…some people.”

“Which people?” Pansy asked with that voice that told Draco she was closer to being done with him than letting him entertain his insanity, so he waved it away.

“Let’s go find some third years for you to give detention to, shall we?”

“That would make me feel eons better, thank you,” she sighed and left the compartment.

“Not a word,” Draco warned without even looking at a chuckling Blaise. “You know,” he said, catching up with Pansy, “if someone I didn’t like sent me buckets and buckets of letters, I would be parading them around and letting anyone who wanted a good laugh take a look.”

“You’re doing wonders with this whole comforting thing,” Pansy said, on the verge of snapping.

“She wouldn’t let us even lay eyes on it,” Draco continued, pretending she hadn’t said anything. “I wouldn’t have even known you sent any if Harry and I hadn’t found it late one evening by the front door.”

She watched him quizzically for a moment, and he wondered whether she was about to accuse of late-night rendezvous with the Chosen One, but then her gaze softened, “She didn’t show you?”

“Of course not,” Draco said, “and, according to Hermione, she locked her trunk with some weird spell at night.”

“So, she’s not burning them either,” Pansy finished Draco’s thought, making him give her a long nod. “She’s keeping them? All of them?”

“One can only assume,” Draco smiled at her indulgently.

“Oh, that is going to boost my confidence to the heavens.”

“I wouldn’t dare assume otherwise.”

Draco spent the evening listening intently to Pansy and Blaise recounting their own holidays in great detail. These were the evenings Draco loved most. When he didn’t have to worry about schoolwork or grades, in this case because the semester hadn’t begun yet, and he could just spend time with his friends. Pansy had received so many designer items as presents Draco lost count after the description of the fifth Gucci one.

When asked about his own Christmas, there was a very specific and quite prominent aspect of his time back in London he did not prefer to share. He probably would one day. On a lonely day when they’d have known long enough, he might share details, but for now the memories were all for him.

There was a similar excitement in the Slytherin common room as there usually was on the first of September. Everyone was recounting their breaks and telling one another about their expensive and rare gifts, hugs were exchanged amongst the younger years and hushed conversation between the older students. No one had yet been jinxed, a comfortable, almost strange camaraderie between the green-clad teenagers.

“Do I want to know what you’ve been up to, really?” Blaise teased between classes on the first day of the new semester, when Pansy was busy, assumably accosting Ginevra somewhere in the castle.

“Why is it that you never want to tell me anything about your love life, but when it comes to mine, both you and Pans need to know everything?”

“So, there is a love life to speak of?” Blaise shot him that dashing smile, “Please, do speak.”

“I am as single, lonely and, frankly, horny, as I have been for months,” Draco lied easily.

“Can’t get your rocks off on your own?” Pansy wondered, showing up from out of the blue.

“Bloody hell, Parkinson,” Draco scoffed as she’d scared him. “There is no need to be so crude. Or sound so much like a muggle.”

“Seriously, there are ways to get rid of that particular problem,” Pansy teased. Blaise, thankfully to all that is sacred in this world, did not comment his own theories.

“How’s Ginevra?” Draco asked pointedly.

“Low blow,” Pansy snorted, “pretty as ever. Still in denial.”

“In denial about being utterly in love with you?” Blaise prompted.

“Clearly,” Pansy said as if it was obvious.

“Oh, darling, one day you’ll make some poor girl very concerned,” Blaise sighed.

“Incorrect,” Pansy said, “one day I’ll make her very concerned.”

“I think you’ve already accomplished that,” Draco pointed out.

“Ugh, you two are terrible, where’s Granger when you need her?” Pansy rolled her eyes and left again. Draco knew she was late on handing in last of the previous semester's homework.

Blaise waited for a moment until they were in the clear. “Back to it, then,” Blaise smiled evilly again, when Pansy had gone in the direction of the library.

“Why can’t you put this energy into finding yourself a girlfriend?” Draco wondered, “And what happened to you telling me you weren’t asking any questions?”

“I got bored during the holidays,” Blaise shrugged.

“You’ve been spending too much time with Pansy, she’s starting to rub off on you.”

“Preposterous,” Blaise said in his fat-cat voice.

“Young man,” Draco joined him, “you have been spinning the rumour mill with that silly lass for weeks now, you are forcing my hand to give you a detention.”

“Oh, false accusations! Master Malfoy, my father shall hear about this,” Blaise mocked him. “Stepfather,” he corrected.

“Is that right? He still alive?”

“Hanging on,” Blaise didn’t seem bothered.

“Huh,” Draco was almost impressed, “longer than the rest.”

“Richer than the rest. Good dancer, too. Quite charming, I think she’ll give it a while until he starts annoying her.”

“Well, who knows? They might just fall in love,” Draco teased.

“You mean like you have with Potter?”

“I fucking knew you’d come back to that. Why don’t you ever want to speak to me about my very dangerous existence? You haven’t come up with a single plan of how to smuggle me out of the castle in case of a Death Eater invasion?”

“Because I believe you think yourself much more important than you actually are,” Blaise said simply. Draco was almost offended. He was important. Several members of the Order had warned him about this very possibility, but he couldn’t exactly tell Blaise, could he? Jeopardising he safety of the Order, and, more importantly, his mother, only to prove a point would be beyond childish.

“Perhaps I do,” He said instead, the familiar feeling of people not listening to him and undermining his worries stinging in the pit of his stomach.

Harry’s first occlumency lesson with Severus was that very same evening after classes were finished, and Draco could almost hear the poor bastard vibrating with nerves across the Great Hall. All he could offer was a press of his watch button and a tight smile, but the dungeons were not exactly difficult to sneak to out of his common room to find Harry afterwards.

It was later pointed out to Draco that such often usage of the bloody button was borderline dangerous. Somehow, Draco had thought it would be a good idea to press it when he knew Harry was in Severus’ office. He only wanted to comfort him, really. Express his sentiment of being nearby, but he would have to be more careful and less frivolous with its usage.

“Snape knows,” Harry scoffed, coming over to Draco. There was no one around, as far as he could tell, for once trusting the other boy since he was holding that map of his in hand. “About us,” Harry explained.

“Oh,” Draco felt his heartrate rise. He wasn’t sure why. His godfather was obviously on their side, and most probably wouldn’t turn this information over to the Dark Lord, but there was something about Severus akin to a father figure in Draco’s eyes, and is he no longer needed to fear Lucius’ reaction to his sexuality, he now had Severus to worry about.

“Or, well, he knows of my feelings towards you, I’m not sure he saw all the snogging,” Harry said, sounding on the border of being angry.

“Well, bully for him,” Draco shrugged, trying his best to show Harry it was no big deal, even if he himself felt it was, “hope he enjoyed the show.”

“You can’t use that watch while I’m in lessons with him,” Harry said, his patience audibly thinning.

“Understood,” Draco nodded. It was easier to agree with Harry when he was getting testy, and the Gryffindor seemed to relax a bit when he realised there wouldn’t be a fight to follow. “How was it?”

“Fucking awful. I feel violated,” Harry shuddered. It was obvious he didn’t want to speak about it. “I did see something that made me think Voldemort’s after something in the Department of Mysteries.”

“What did you see?”

“A door, nothing much more interesting, but it was the same place where Mr. Weasley had been attacked.”

“Alright,” Draco said carefully, “that’s…strange.”

“What do they keep there?” Harry wondered.

“Time-Turners, dark magic artefacts, prophecies, some weird room with an arch my father would never let me near, I don’t know much. Lucius is a shady git, but he didn’t exactly take me on tours. I’ve never even seen an Unspeakable.”

Harry nodded, clearly thinking it over. “Cho came asking about my Christmas. Told me there’s a Hogsmeade trip on Valentine’s day.”

“Salazar help me,” Draco rolled his eyes, and Harry laughed.

“I couldn’t sleep last night, you know,” Harry scoffed to himself, the words more quiet than the rest of the conversation. Draco felt a shiver run down his spine. Is this how it would be now? A single lukewarm sentiment from the other boy and Draco would go wild?

This semester was going to kill him.

“I, uh…also seem to have trouble with slumber when there isn’t an octopus wrapped around me,” Draco said, trying to lift some of the tension he’d started feeling at Harry’s words.

“I hate you,” Harry whispered with a small smile on his lips.

“Clearly,” Draco said under his breath, having to look down so he wouldn’t cross the distance and kiss Harry senseless where anyone could find them, even late in the evening. It wasn’t after curfew yet, after all, and Harry’s mere being here was dangerous enough for the two of them.

Draco had a sudden vision of himself by the end of exam season – beat up and wanting, and not because of the revision stress. A shell of himself, besmirched and befallen to the mere idea of Harry bloody Potter.

“You know,” Draco said awkwardly, unsure as to how to start this particular conversation, “I can help you learn occlumency.”

“What?”

“Well, fath- Lucius did forced me to learn it when I was little, though, I must admit, I haven’t had a reason to use it for years.”

Harry watched him with an unreadable expression, and Draco regretted telling him that for a second, fully expecting to be yelled at about not having revealed this information sooner. “He made you learn occlumency?”

“Well, made is one name for it. Another is gave me no choice by legilimencing me whenever I was paying the least attention.”

“Jesus Christ,” Harry watched him with pure shock, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Draco shrugged. He no longer felt any strong anger when thinking back to his childhood, but he seemed to be recalling more and more of instances likewise to this recently. “Gave me a new skill, I suppose.”

“That’s a terrible way of looking at it,” Harry said seriously. Draco would have preferred if Harry had laughed at it. “Unless I’m speaking out of turn, in which case, please stop me, I shouldn’t have–”

Draco kissed him quickly before he could ramble himself into oblivion, only then looking around to make sure no one was nearby. He was getting sloppy. Being paranoid had worked out greatly for him in the past. Slipping would not.

“You’re never out of turn when it comes to me,” Draco pointed out, “even if you just need to call me an idiot. I’m sure I’d need to hear it, if it’s coming from you.”

“You’re not an idiot,” Harry shook his head, “you’re the smartest person I know. And sweetest. And you deserve the world.”

“You can’t say things like that just meters away from the Slytherin dorms.”

“Draco Malfoy can be won over by compliments. Good to know.”

“Anyone can be won over by complimen–” a loud sound echoing in the corridors stopping him. There was a laugh and then steps. Someone shouted something and someone laughed again. There were always so many people in this bloody castle. “We can’t talk out here.”

Harry looked towards the source of the sound somewhere around the corner that it had come from, and sighed, “Right. I guess I’ll see you at breakfast.”

“You will,” Draco nodded. “D.A. too, I suppose, professor Potter.”

“Professor Malfoy’s occlumency lessons right after?”

“Promise,” Draco smiled, kissing him quickly before rushing towards the Slytherin common room.

Chapter Text

The first D.A. meeting of 1996 took place after the Daily Prophet’s reporting of a mass breakout from Azkaban. Draco had read the article on Pansy’s copy of the latest issue, and almost broken a glass in anger. They were fucking blaming Sirius. Hagrid had been put on probation, a Ministry employee had been killed. It was a shitshow.

The students whose relatives had been killed or tortured by the recently escaped prisoners were being treated like zoo animals. Draco was certain they now knew what Harry felt like on a daily basis, being gawked at and talked about behind their backs.

Unlike the rest of the students, most of which were starting to realise they did not like the Daily Prophet’s version of the story, Slytherins seemed more careful amongst one another, shooting their housemates knowing looks and using carefully-selected words. They no longer spoke about Harry or ridiculed him, in fact, they rarely spoke at all, only in small circles or closest confidants, and always, always in hushed tones.

It was not only the students’ mood that had changed. It was now quite common to come across two or three teachers conversing in low, urgent whispers in the corridors, breaking off their conversations the moment they saw children approaching. Draco knew they couldn’t exactly converse freely with Umbridge always around, but it was disconcerting nonetheless. New educational decrees showed up almost every day now, all of them subject to ridicule by the Gryffindors who then walked around the school with bleeding hands.

Harry seemed to be redoubling his efforts for the D.A. The other members of Dumbledore’s Army were spurred to work harder than ever before during their illegal evening meetings. Hermione was now an aficionado at the Shield charm, but Draco, as happy as he was to attend the meetings, mostly used them to stare at Harry any free second he got.

It wasn’t like he was avoiding looking the other boy’s way during lessons and meals, as the Gryffindor had an affinity for making Draco’s mouth go dry, but here, with everyone sure to be busy focussing and any wondering eyes being potentially easy to blackmail into silence, he was not so eager to turn away. It was somehow worse when Harry called an end to the meeting and Draco had to spend several agonising minutes for the other members to leave, only to get Harry all to himself.

“Finally,” Harry sighed as the door closed after the last person who left, and before Draco could summon up another thought, Harry was all over him. It surprised him, true, but it was also exciting to be fawned over as much as he did these days.

Harry’s hands were everywhere, clinging to Draco, but unable to decide where to remain, searching for new positioning every few seconds. Draco was thankful, though, that Harry somehow remembered not to disrupt his hair. As nice as snogging the Chosen One was, it would do nothing to stop Pansy from questioning who Draco was hooking up with behind her back. And, with Blaise practically knowing already, it would be impossible for Draco to keep his secrets much longer.

Draco’s tiredness did nothing to dispel his positive need for Harry, as he pushed him up against the wall and worked on a bruise on his collarbone, drawing pretty little sounds from the Gryffindor melting under his touch.

“We’ll be out…after curfew,” Harry reminded. They still had more business to attend to tonight, but Harry’s throat was so distracting, there was little Draco was able to do.

“Currently, I don’t care if Umbridge walks in and watches,” Draco said as-a-matter-of-factly, kissing Harry on the mouth again. There was no more protesting from the boy for a good while, until they turned a little too frantic and, frankly, hard to continue where they were.

“Aquamenti,” Draco whispered into a long-forgotten silver chalice on one of the shelves, turning to face said set of shelves instead of looking at Harry. He was becoming more and more certain that boy would be the death of him.

“Snape says I have some weird voodoo connection to Voldemort’s brain,” Harry said awkwardly after a silent moment.

“Maybe you do,” Draco shrugged, choosing not to question how Harry had ever heard of such ancient Nigerian practices, “would explain the mood swings.”

“Hey, I’ve been pretty good,” Harry scoffed.

“When alone with me, sure, but you grow short-tempered around other people quickly,” Draco noted, making Harry blush. He hadn’t meant to make Harry feel awkward about their relationship, but it wasn’t like anyone else would be saying these things to him. Hermione and Ronald seemed to be at the receiving end of Harry’s temper more often than not as of late, and Sirius hadn’t seen him often enough to make such observations.

“Right,” Harry sighed, “so what do I do? Help me,” Harry looked even more uncomfortable now, and Draco wondered how often the poor boy had been denied help, or had even been to scared to ask for it.

“Alright, I will,” Draco tried a tired smile. He was so sleep-deprived it was starting to show on his homework. Pansy had been forced to finish a potions essay for him. Pansy. Potions. For him. Unbelievable.

Harry didn’t look all that much better either, sure, he seemed to relax a little when crossing paths with Draco, but, other than that, the Gryffindor had bags under his eyes even Hermione couldn’t glamour, and the yawning during classes was becoming distracting, and not only because it exhibited the very biteable part of Harry’s throat.

“Ready?” Draco asked, pointing his wand at Harry. He expected some sort of a jerk – a leftover reflex from back when they’d jinx each other the way Draco was told straight little boys would pull girls’ pigtails on the playground. But Harry just stood, giving a defeated sigh before they’d even started.

“Snape wouldn’t ask me if I’m ready,” Harry said bitterly.

“You don’t throw someone into the deep end on the first day, when trying to teach them to swim,” Draco pointed out, and Harry smiled at him in thanks.

“Legilimens,” Draco whispered, feeling a flood of strange emotion that felt alien and wrong in his body, while simultaneously warming him up and filling him with light. Draco noticed Harry was watching him, which might have been a source of that golden warmth, if his own feelings for the other boy were anything to go by, but the sheer amount of anxiety and anger the idiot seemed to be carrying around was astonishing.

He wasn’t exactly an expert in legilimency, but he’d read enough on it to perform at least a partial variant of it. And even then, even unable to see Harry’s thoughts and rummage inside his head, the emotions alone hit him like a freight train. “Fuck,” Draco said as if all air had been knocked out of him.

A foreign heat took over when he’d uttered the word, starting in his abdomen and stretching upward to his throat. He understood this one, too, and he had to chuckle to himself, “Stop,” he told Harry.

“Can’t help it,” Harry sounded almost panicked, if it wasn’t for the smile on his face.

“You have to fight me,” Draco reminded, “push me out.”

“I don’t know how,” Harry admitted.

“I know, it’s alright, that’s why we’re here,” Draco assured quickly, feeling Harry's pang of embarrassment tugging at his own navel. As if having two people’s worth of emotions wasn’t enough, this one would surely be the one to make him throw up. “Do you feel like something’s off? Like there’s someone in your mind not supposed to be there?”

“It’s…it’s weird,” Harry stammered, confused as to how he’d explain it. “It’s not like with Voldemort,” He added quickly, “it’s like I know you’re there, but it doesn’t feel…”

“As invasive?” Draco prompted, shoving down the excitement that rose in him upon seeing Harry nod in agreement. Another strong emotion Draco had trouble naming, and all air left his chest. “Fuck, Potter,” he managed breathlessly, but the feeling only changed to something thick and sweet.

“Can you really not see any of my memories?” Harry wondered, changing the subject.

“I'm trying, but it’s like I’m in the front garden and the door is locked,” Draco explained. This was not supposed to be a lesson in legilimency for him to take advantage of Harry in. He was supposed to help the stupid sod before Snape saw them doing things he had no business watching. “What did Severus tell you to do?” Draco asked instead of trying, bringing attention back to the matter at hand.

“He told me to practice ridding my mind of all emotion,” Harry said in a surprisingly good Severus impression.

“Alright, let’s try it,” Draco shrugged, “do it, I’ll know if it’s worked.”

Harry closed his eyes, and Draco saw him focusing instead of feeling it, but all the alien emotions were still there, still making him nauseous. He couldn’t decide between casting Finite and asking Harry to focus more, but decided against either, since the latter would probably send the boy into rage Draco did not have the energy to deal with at the moment.

“Fuck,” Harry whispered angrily, and Draco felt it spread through him – red and boiling, and so very hateful. He tended to quite enjoy the feeling when it was his own. It gave him a strange sort of power. But when it came from Harry, it felt more dangerous. More painful.

“Don’t do that to yourself,” Draco begged, “Finite, look,” he took a cautious step forward, almost getting knocked back by the relief of only having his old, familiar feelings and no one else’s, “it’s not going to happen overnight, you do need to practice, Severus is right.”

“I…Why do I have to do all of this? It’s not fair,” Harry scoffed, anger still shimmering in his voice, even if Draco couldn’t feel it in his body. “I have to do all this shite, and for what? I never wanted to be his enemy, I never even did anything in the first place.”

“I know,” Draco nodded sadly.

“And now I have to fight him in my own head? How is that fair?” He asked, repeating himself, but Draco couldn’t exactly blame him. “It’s not fair.”

“It’s not,” Draco agreed, having no idea what to do to comfort him. “We’ll keep practicing. As much as necessary.”

“Snape will know,” Harry pointed out, putting his forefinger to the side of his head, “he’ll see it,” he added, pulling a face Draco would have found amusing in any other scenario.

“Not if we practice enough and you get really good at it,” the Slytherin smiled weakly. “I want to help you.”

“I know you do. That’s all you do. Sometimes I feel like I can’t figure a single thing out without you, because the solutions always comes from you and Hermione. I don’t know what I doing. I need someone smarter to tell me. Anyone else should be in my place, I’m not made for it,” he rambled.

“Harry, that’s not true,” Draco promised, “you’re one of the smartest people and kindest souls I know, alright? I mean, for fuck’s sake, look at all this,” Draco gestured to the room where they’d all spent hours being taught to defend themselves by Harry alone. “You’re incredible. And I am perfectly capable of learning an unforgivable curse just to end anyone who hurts you.”

Harry smirked at that. It was more a ghost of a smile than the actual thing, but it was still gratifying to see. “Wanna kill Voldemort for me?”

“Sure, I’m not doing anything tomorrow night,” Draco shrugged, finally making Harry laugh. “Let’s try again, shall we?” Draco suggested, raising his wand. “Legilimens.”

Arduous, long and seemingly impossible were only few of the adjectives Draco found himself using in his mind each night in bed when thinking back to his attempts at helping Harry after each D.A. meeting. He refused to believe Harry was entirely incompetent. Draco was providing a safe environment for learning, and constructive suggestions as opposed to the verbal attacks that Severus was undoubtedly putting forth in his meetings with Harry, but there was still little to no improvement. And the only explanation he could think of was that he was doing something wrong. Perhaps Harry was indeed getting better, but Draco couldn’t tell because he was as shit at legilimency as Harry was at occlumency.

Now, along with his mountains of homework, he was forced to weed through dozens of books on the subject, checking another pile out of the Hogwarts library for Harry to read on occlumency, even if his assumptions of the boy’s interest were purely fictional – he might have been able to do his homework at an acceptable level, but Harry wasn’t exactly the first in line for extra credit, even if it saved him from more one-on-one time with Severus Snape.

Pansy and Blaise, for the first time Draco could remember, were both too busy to help him. He also couldn’t exactly tell them why he would need them to do his homework in his stead. I’m dating Harry Potter now and he needs my help with occlumency, because Voldemort is trying to fester into his brain like a cancer was not exactly a valid explanation for more reasons than one.

Instead, his best friends seemed to be terribly interested in two particular Gryffindor girls – a sentiment Draco could only understand a half of. Ginevra, bless her, was still holding up a strong front, but Hermione seemed to be crumbling under each calculated dashing Zabini smile. Draco had trouble picturing them together, and yet, it made so much sense to him, it was borderline insanity. Slytherins and Gryffindors fraternising, one couple at a time. Salazar would smite the three of them into the ground.

Though, Draco did give his best friends props – for two people raised just as strictly and pureblood-evilly as he had been, they sure were unprejudiced in choosing their potential paramours. Blood traitors and mudbloods were not exactly the common alternative if ending up with someone from the Sacred Twenty-Eight was not working out for you.

As if the world wasn’t providing him with enough to deal with, Draco now found himself utterly unable to fall asleep. The scarce hours or shut-eye he’d been able to inflict on himself by a poorly-researched and hastily-brewed sleeping draught were few and far between, and it was beginning to kill him. Classes were a nightmare with his new lack of focus, he could barely eat, eyelids gluing themselves shut between every bite, yet when he resigned to his bed, there were so many thoughts inside his head, churning, spinning, terrifying him to no end, he simply could not sleep.

With January passing over him like a strange, daze-filled cloud, February had arrived, bringing with it wetter and warmer weather and the prospect of the highly-anticipated Hogsmeade visit on the 14th. Draco still wasn’t sure if Harry was bringing Cho for the sake of keeping up appearances, and he wasn’t sure if he’d find it funny or terribly angering to see their ‘date’. Harry hadn’t mentioned it again after bringing it up for the first time, but, then again, Draco and Harry usually tended to be too busy having a hastened snog or an unsuccessful occlumency lesson to talk about ancient crushes that had led to nowhere.

“Do you think he’ll get cursed through the floors to the dungeons or straight to muggle hell?” Pansy wondered lazily one night in the library, having been left with only Draco and unfinished homework to keep her company. Blaise had been a topic of interest for the girl, ever since their best friend had revealed his Valentine's day intentions. There was always a sneer of jealousy on her tongue, whenever she would talk about it behind Blaise's back.

“He might get a few seconds of wavering shock to make an exit,” Draco predicted, not believing his words one bit. Blaise had a romantic gesture in mind, and even Hermione Granger, the self-sufficient genius that she was, would at least blush.

On the morning of the fourteenth, Draco made sure he had his own spell ready and was certain it would work wordlessly, having tested it out on an unsuspecting owl while paying a visit to Eagle on an early morning walk, the hopes of fresh air making him tired enough to sleep added to the list of things that didn’t help his insomnia. He and Pansy arrived at breakfast just in time for the post owls, noting the one he’d tested the spell on was now successfully flying around with no obstructions, the spell having worn off.

“There he goes,” Pansy noted, taking Draco’s attention away from the birds to where Blaise was now striding along the Gryffindor table, “Circe help him.”

Harry nudged Hermione to make her look to Draco’s best friend, before throwing a glance to the Slytherin table in question. People were starting to notice the green-clad boy along Gryffindors, where few of the Slytherins dared step foot, and Draco took it as a cue to cast his own spell, waving his wand silently under the table and smirking in anticipation.

For a second, nothing happened and Blaise continued his stride over to Hermione, but then, out of thin air and first in very small amounts, heart-shaped confetti began falling over Harry’s head. The Gryffindor wiped the first few off the table, but then, when they started falling in a steady snowfall-like stream, he looked up to see them assaulting him and him only. Laughter started filling the hall, and despite his disproven theory about there having to be other harmless little pranks like this on other students, Draco couldn’t bring himself to feel guilty.

“You’re making it rain confetti over him the whole day?” Pansy wondered, eyes still on Blaise, who was now leaning in to whisper in Hermione’s ear from behind while she went bright pink and nodded, then quietly said something that both annoyed Ronald and earned her a kiss on the cheek from Blaise.

“That I am,” Draco said proudly.

“So, your grand romantic Valentine’s gesture is to annoy him,” Pansy noted, finally turning to face Draco as Blaise walked a few steps backwards and shot Hermione a wink, another blush creeping onto her cheeks.

“Essentially, yes, it’s what I do best,” Draco shrugged as Blaise approached. “Well done, congratulations.”

“Thank you very much,” Blaise bowed his head and took his usual seat.

“I can’t believe it,” Pansy scoffed, “it was so simple, how?”

“Well, you do have to do some harmless flirting beforehand,” Blaise chuckled, “or, at least have a dashing ol’ Zabini smile.”

“Oh, you’re useless,” Pansy sighed, landing her chin heavily onto her hand.

“I’ll make sure to put in a good word for you,” Draco heard, Blaise promise, but he was too busy watching Harry fumble with little pink and red paper hearts landing into his eggs.

“Oi, Potter!” someone from the Ravenclaw table called out, “Who’s your secret girlfriend?” Harry blushed furiously, and for the first time ever, Draco watched self-preservation practically drip out of the boy’s every pore, as he refused to even glance anywhere near the Slytherin table.

“Draco, as the other resident Slytherin gay lonely person, would you like to accompany me to Hogsmeade today?” Pansy asked, though her eyes were glued to Ginevra.

“I would love nothing more,” Draco said, watching Harry with what he knew to be an idiot grin.

“You two are pathetic,” Blaise noted.

“Fuck off,” Pansy said dreamily, the two words muffled against her hand, swaying as she watched the Gryffindor table, and even as Draco’s head landed on her shoulder. “Looks good on him, good job,” she said to Draco.

“Red is his colour,” Draco sighed.

“I hate you both,” Blaise said, tucking into his breakfast.

They joined the queue of people being signed out by Filch about an hour later, when Blaise had made sure he looked and smelled like heaven. It was almost like relief to be in the fresh air, where Draco could clearly see Harry’s whereabouts thanks to the frankly brilliant plan of his. People were still coming up to Harry and making jokes, and the boy was fighting them off with expertise, with wit only comparable to Draco’s own. He smirked to himself every time Harry responded to someone, and it was only when they’d finally reached the village that Harry shot him an annoyed look.

“He doesn’t seem to enjoy it,” Pansy announced.

“I’ll see you both in the afternoon,” Blaise saluted playfully and left in the direction of the three broomsticks.

Draco nodded his goodbye before responding to Pansy, “Doesn’t matter what he likes, today, he’s getting rained on.”

“You’re so strange when it comes to flirting,” Pansy commented, “no wonder you haven’t got anywhere with him.”

Draco only nodded, pointedly keeping his features from splitting into a smirk, though it was a tough fight. “I suppose not all of us can write five letters a day even when they go completely and utterly ignored.”

“You know what? Just for that, I hope your father does find you.”

“Is that so?” Draco laughed.

“And bring you to Voldemort,” she said bitterly.

“Well, he’d be happy to know at least my friends are on his side, if he can’t have me,” Draco said, pulling his best friend in the direction of Brood and Peck, hoping the pygmy puffs would take her mind off things for at least a little.

The air was still chilly, though there hadn’t been enough snow over the past month to make it look as magical as Draco remembered Hogsmeade to be from his first two years of visits. It would always look like powdered sugar on the thatched rooves, the cobblestone streets would be frozen over to the degree that he and Pansy could watch high Hufflepuffs slipping all over them, and the fragrant aroma of mulled wine would fill the air. If he tried hard enough, he could probably get Madam Rosmerta to put some cloves and orange into his butterbeer.

“One day,” Pansy said through laughter as one of the fuzzy creatures crawled up her neck, “I’ll buy her one of these.”

“I genuinely think she’d like theat,” Draco lied, having no clue what the girl liked. She was friends with Luna Lovegood, though, so it probably wasn’t too far off to assume she’d like a pygmy puff. “Come on, let’s go spy on Blaise and Granger, shall we?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Harry and Ronald were just leaving Zonko’s, speaking loudly about how it was insane that even Bilton Bilmes himself had no idea how to remove the spell on Harry. Draco laughed, following closely as the pair headed to the Three Broomsticks. The two Gryffindors seemed to have the same plan for watching their friend on a date as Pansy and Draco did, and Draco wasn’t exactly opposed to watching

“When are you planning on telling me who’s done this anyway?” Ronald wondered loudly and it echoed in the crisp winter air, bouncing off cliffs and mountains of the area, despite the crowds of students in the streets. “You had a hickey over Christmas and you have a new one now.”

“Why are you watching my throat so closely?” Harry asked, pulling the red-and-yellow scarf tighter around his neck.

“Is it someone from D.A.?” Ronald asked, still speaking loudly, making Draco realise it wasn’t just Harry that was unable to keep his mouth shut, it was the lot of them. “Is it Cho?” he gasped.

“Christ, Ron, leave it alone,” Harry scoffed, but Draco’s current worry was the look of realisation on Pansy’s face and how to avoid whatever conversation she was about to spring onto Draco, so he rushed forward, landing his arms heavily around Ronald and Harry, making sure to screw up his face into whatever hatred he could muster at the moment and make his grasp look almost painful on the two of them.

“No, no, I’m very interested, too,” he said venomously, “Who is The Boy Who Lived bedding?”

“Malfoy,” Ronald said in disgruntled greeting, and it almost made Draco laughed. The redhead had answered his own question.

“Going to watch Blaise attempt to seduce Granger?” Draco asked loudly, putting on a show, “I’d like to see myself, but I can’t imagine anything less appetising, and Pansy and I had planned to take a lovely Valentine’s lunch.”

“And what an ugly couple you’ll make,” Harry said sourly. Draco sneered, keeping the act up, even though he could feel it cracking. He could no longer tell if Harry was really angry with him or still pretending, and it would bother him for the rest of the day.

“Room of Requirement at eight?” he whispered in Harry’s ear, and received a strong push to the gut, falling behind the two Gryffindors. It may have been acting. He hoped it was, but the shove had been strong enough to knock the wind out of him, and Draco hated not knowing what Harry was thinking. In a moment of desperation and perhaps irritation at the aggressivity, he took out his wand and cast Legilimens.

The anger that seeped off Harry was heavy and gut-wrenching, and only took a few seconds for the Gryffindor to realise someone else was digging in his emotions for it to become rage. Draco wondered, for a moment, if this was what wrath felt like. It was invigorating, and he had never felt anything like it.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Harry demanded in a dangerous growl. Harry’s emotions stopped for a second, making Draco feel like he was floating, when the heaviness lifted, but they returned just as fast. Even Ronald looked concerned for Draco’s safety, pulling Harry backwards before he could attack, but his fury only became more palpable when the redhead touched his arm. “Let go of me!” he commanded, but Ronald didn’t seem phased the way Draco was.

“Finite,” Draco whispered, the immediate relief of no longer feeling someone else’s emotions taken over by his own fear in a matter of moments. He stumbled backwards from Harry and Ronald, not concerned by how it would look for his image, and more terrified of Harry killing him within minutes. He had to remind himself that probably wouldn’t happen, but it might take some sort of angry kissing to break Harry out of whatever rage he was currently experiencing.

“Draco, let’s fucking go,” Pansy called. People were looking. It had been a while since a public Malfoy-Potter altercation, and this was bound to draw talk for weeks to come. “What was that?” she interrogated, pulling him away just as Ronald pulled Harry away from the street they were on.

“I…I think I fucked up,” Draco admitted, trying to see over her shoulder if Harry was still angry enough to hurt him, but the two boys were already gone. “I have to go, I’m sorry, I…I’ll see you in the evening, go find Blaise,” he stammered and rushed back towards the castle.

There were still students on the path, excited to spend the day shopping and drinking butterbeer, just like he had been, but now he was forced to shove his way through them, abandon his prefect duties to Pansy alone and all but running back to the castle where it was warm and safe.

Waiting out the rest of the day was torment. Waiting in the Room of Requirement, convinced Harry would stand him up and never speak to him again, and his first relationship had ended as quickly and unexpectedly as it had begun, was pure fucking torture.

He paced the length of the room, having made sure the fire was lit and the lights were neither too bright to cause irritation, nor dim enough to seem awfully romantic. There was a fight brewing, and Draco did not want to look like he was blind to the fact. Draco wasn’t a fool, and he wasn’t going to pretend to be one.

Harry being late was not exactly anything new, but with every minute that passed after eight o’clock, it felt like a stab in the heart more than accidental time mismanagement. The door opened, finally, when Draco’s watched showed twenty minutes past the hour.

“I can’t tell you how many times I debated not fucking coming here,” Harry said angrily.

“You like me so annoyingly much,” Draco tried for a joke, but it clearly wasn’t going to land.

“I don’t actually like you all that much at the moment, if I’m honest,” Harry huffed, crossing his arms. He didn’t seem to want to come any closer, but Draco could respect that, even if it took every ounce of patience in his body.

“What are you so testy about?” Draco asked instead, maybe, if he expedited this, the fight would be over sooner and he could at least know where they stood in the future.

“You made it rain hearts on me the whole day!”

“Yes, it’s Valentine’s day, it’s a gesture. It was supposed to be fun. A little joke, no one got hurt,” Draco said, still not understanding how that aspect of the day was what made Harry more angry than non-consensual prodding into his mind.

“Please, you were taking attention off Blaise and Hermione.”

“What if I was?” Draco threw his hands up, getting a little pissed off himself by now, “None of the Slytherins were coming after Hermione to tease her, and they could have a decent first date.”

“Yes, because they were all assaulting me for hours!” Harry shouted.

“You can deal with it! Hermione would break into tears at the first insult thrown her way,” Draco protested, almost as loudly as Harry had, “I love the girl, but she’s a bloody bag of emotions, she can’t handle attention like you can.”

Harry looked at him quietly for a minute. Draco could see the boy detested himself for seeing Draco’s point. “I hate the attention,” he reminded, as if Draco wasn’t well aware.

“You do, I know that. And I could have figured out a better way of doing it, but I had to work quick,” he lied. He’d been planning it for days, and hadn’t accounted for the fact that Harry would be in too sour of a mood to appreciate the humour. 

“Well, one thing’s for sure, I couldn’t stop thinking about you the entire day,” Harry admitted, shyly and grumpily though as he did. “Bloody hearts. So stupid.”

“Ah, mission accomplished,” Draco grinned, finally trusting Harry not to lash out and taking the steps between them towards the other boy. “You looked bloody great, even with the hearts on you,” he said, taking Harry’s face into his hands and kissing his cheek. He felt the Gryffindor positively melt into the touch.

“I’m sure,” Harry answered in a whisper.

“When did it wear off?” Draco wondered.

“About three hours ago.”

“I think Pansy knows,” Draco said, his hands sliding lower across Harry’s neck to rest on his shoulders, “trust Ronald Weasley to expose secrets he doesn’t even know.”

“She’ll have your head for not telling her sooner,” Harry assumed. Draco knew he was right.

Draco nodded. “There is a bit of good that’s come out of this, though,” he said.

Harry scoffed, “Oh, do enlighten me.”

“Your anger…flickered,” Draco said, for a lack of a better word.

“What are you talking about?”

“When you’d realised I was reading you, it sort of stopped for a moment,” Draco tried to explain, “I couldn’t feel it.”

“You mean…I did it?” Harry asked in disbelief.

“For a moment, yes, I believe you mastered occlumency.”

“Well, if Voldemort only puts a single second's worth of effort in reading my mind, I suppose I’ll be just fine,” he rolled his eyes.

“Harry, it’s a start,” Draco reminded, lifting the other boy’s chin to make him face Draco. “Everyone starts somewhere. You blocked me out because you were angry I was in there, maybe you need to use exactly that with Severus until you can do it without thinking.”

Harry seemed to ponder this over for a few moments, and it still astounded Draco that he’d spent hours worrying about what the boy would do to their relationship, yet here they were, clinging to each other and making calm conversation. “You’ll still help me practice?” Harry asked Shyly.

“When have I ever said no to this face?” Draco smiled before kissing the begrudging amusement on Harry’s lips.

Maybe it would be just this easy. Harry could keep getting angry all he wanted, but Draco would be the one that could calm him. The one Harry still comes to at the end of the day when he’s enraged at the world. Even if Draco’s the source of his fury, Harry would still come to him. Perhaps it was just that simple.

“Draco,” Harry said, resting his forehead against the other boy’s, eyes still closed, but Draco was perfectly happy to watch his eyelashes, if they were all he was given, “remember what Sirius said? About the cloak?”

“I also remember us agreeing you would be murdered in the Slytherin dorms,” Draco snorted a laugh.

“But you most likely wouldn’t be murdered in the Gryffindor dorms,” Harry suggested, sounding nervously hopeful.

“What?” Draco deadpanned.

“I can’t fucking sleep. I’m desperate here,” Harry groaned, finally looking at Draco. “Please, please, just…please.”

“You want me to spoon you so bad you’ll literally beg. You really do like me.”

“Again,” Harry added, “there was seriously a momen–”

Draco cut him off by kissing him once more, a bit more desperately, a bit more roughly than he’d intended, but Harry let out a little moan into Draco’s mouth, so he assumed there weren’t really any complaints. “As I may have already mentioned, there isn’t much I wouldn’t do for you.”

“God, you’re dramatic,” Harry said, dazedly. “I’ve got the cloak with me.”

“Of course, you do, you presumptuous bastard.”

“Fuck off,” Harry said and kissed Draco again.

“No,” Draco argued and let himself be kissed again, and again, until around a good half hour later when they finally snuck out of the room and towards the Gryffindor tower. It felt strange under the cloak. It was heavy and hot, even in the winter night in an ancient castle, and it sort of smelled like an old lady’s couch. Draco was forced to wonder in amazement how Harry could run around under this thing all over the place, even when warm spring sun heated the old stones that kept heat in.

“Alea iacta est,” Harry said carefully when the two of them approached the portrait of the Fat lady that lead into Gryffindor. Draco watched the woman guarding the entrance, as if she would lash out any second because there was a Slytherin near her. She didn’t react at all, just continued filing her nails and swung open for Harry to enter, and smuggle an illegal Slytherin in, as well. The immediate noise from the common room was baffling to Draco. Slytherins tended to remain quiet among their own conversation, even in densely crowded rooms. Gryffindors, not that Draco had expected much else, seemed to celebrate every moment of their day with laughter and, well, noise.

Draco noticed Ginevra and Hermione talking by the fire, throwing a quick smile to Harry, and Ronald sitting by the window, sulking, though whether it was about Hermione on a date or Harry being angry, Draco didn’t know. Only the latter seemed a reasonable concern, but Draco did not take Ronald to be a reasonable person.

Draco held onto Harry’s sleeve, just to make sure someone wouldn’t bump into him and dismay the whole plan, and followed Harry though the painfully red room and towards the spiral stairs that lead to what Draco hoped were bedrooms.

“Just here,” Harry whispered, opening a door when they’d walked up at least two floors, though it was hard to tell when the stairs were so tightly wound. “Revelio,” he whispered to make sure none of his roommates were hidden in the room or the adjoined bathroom, and took the cloak off Draco, casting a quick spell that would warn them of someone approaching the door. “Neville’s been spending every night in the library lately, Dean and Seamus usually come in late, and Ron’s avoiding me,” Harry said, “so we should be in the clear for a bit.”

“Silencio and Repello,” Draco advised, pointing to the red curtains each bed sported. The Gryffindor bedrooms weren’t all too different from Slytherin, except perhaps for the annoying amount of red and the clear lack of tidiness Gryffindors seemed to possess. Where the boys Draco shared a room with would make their beds each morning and keep their things locked in their trunks, Harry’s roommates, including the boy himself, were more liberal with their belongings.

There were shoes and clothes strewn around the room, books scattered on shelves in no particular order, shared snacks on all surfaces, unreturned dishes that just sat and waited for the house elves to collect them while everyone was in class…Draco now understood why the room he shared with Harry was so impossible to maintain in order.

“Slobs,” Draco noted, making Harry laugh.

“Take these,” the other boy said, having pulled out a fresh set of pyjamas while Draco had been busy adding another point to the list of reasons why Slytherins were simply superior. “You can change in the bathroom, if you want.”

“Harry, I’ve shared a room with you, I think you’ve seen me change,” Draco pointed out, taking off his robes and Slytherin sweater, making sure to bury both articles of clothing deep within the chest at the foot of Harry’s bed, where no one could accidentally see them. He was less careful with his trousers and shirt, strewing both on the back of a chair that Harry clearly considered to be his.

One thing he had to admit – the Gryffindor’s did have it warmer. Where Draco would have to shiver into his nightclothes each evening, up here in the tower, it was toasty and comfortable even before one was under a blanket. “Alright,” Draco said, turning to see Harry watching the wall, “did you actually turn away?”

“I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable,” Harry said sheepishly.

“Uncomf– Would you just get in here, please?” Draco shook his head, lifting the blanket on Harry’s bed and laying his head on the pillow that smelled like the boy in question.

“Right,” Harry seemed to remember himself and burst into the quickest changing of clothes Draco had ever witnessed, while the Slytherin considered stealing the pillow away for personal use. At least, until the scent of Harry’s shampoo wore off. “Okay,” Harry wrung his hands nervously.

“Bloody hell, you idiot, get in the bed, we’ve done this before.”

“I know, I know,” Harry chuckled, joining Draco and drawing the curtains shut.

“It’s only a different place. Nothing else has changed. Besides, you’re the one who suggested this, I’m just going along with your insanity,” Draco reminded.

“Right,” Harry agreed with a thankful chuckle, and cast the aforementioned spells to make sure no one would bother them, or have any clue there were more than the obligatory one person in here.

Blaise would be wondering were Draco had spent the night. But since Draco was certain Pansy now knew, too, he might as well go all in. At least until the two of them wring him out for not telling them about the turn of events in his love life.

Having Harry’s head laid on his shoulder felt like second nature now, and he wondered how he’d ever expected to fall asleep alone in his bed down in Slytherin. He must have been delusional on an entirely new level. This bed was incomparably smaller than the one back in number twelve, Grimmauld Place, but it was just enough for two, especially when Draco raked both his hands into Harry’s hair and Harry’s limbs wrapped around Draco’s body, as if not a single day had passed since they’d boarded the Hogwarts Express back from Christmas break.

“Protect me, oh Chosen One,” Draco said sleepily, a month’s worth of slumber sneaking up on him as soon as a warm weight landed on his chest.

“Mhf, okay,” Harry snorted, muffled into Draco’s shoulder.

“Happy Valentine’s Day you ungrateful shit,” Draco added.

“Fuck you, you entitled manwhore.”

Draco fell asleep with his lips on Harry’s forehead, not having heard any of the other boys that slept in this room return. He hadn’t slept so long and completely uninterrupted in weeks. Whether it was knowing that Harry was calm and safe or the scent of him filling Draco’s dreams, or maybe even the combination of both, it helped tremendously.

Come morning, there were muffled voices outside the little world they’d spent the night in, and Draco finally felt like he could think clearly again with so much more energy than he’d had for a good while. “Morning,” Harry whispered pointlessly – there was no way any of the boys he shared a room with would hear them behind a Silencio. Draco hummed his greeting instead of finding the ability to put it into words, and kissed Harry before either of them could remember they hadn’t brushed their teeth last night, and had no intention of doing it any time soon either.

Someone attempted to open the curtain to Harry’s bed, making the boy jump, but Draco wouldn’t let him lean much further away, taking a hold of the back of his head and drawing him back in closer to kiss him again. He could get used to this, if he wasn’t careful.

“Mate, it’s nearly noon,” Ronald’s muffled voice came through the Bordeaux-coloured fabric, but Draco still wouldn’t allow Harry the use of his own tongue, keeping it hostage in his mouth instead. “You want me to bring you something from the kitchens? You’ve missed breakfast.”

Harry didn’t answer. Didn’t even seem like he wanted to answer as he straddled Draco, the blanket falling in a thick, forgotten ball against the curtain and refusing to slide off the bed, the material hard and unyielding, thanks to the spell. Draco’s hands seemed unable to pick a single position, jumping from Harry’s hips to his thighs, to his arse at one point, then up his back to pull him impossibly closer by his scapulae. How he had even detested this boy was beyond him, when now, all he could think of on a daily basis was Harry, Harry, Harry…

Draco’s moan when Harry dug his hips into Draco’s was unprecedented, and, honestly, he had no idea he had a sound as such anywhere inside him, but Harry grinned when it was uttered, trying the move again, this time to an involuntary gasp. “You keep doing that, and there will be a mess in your bed I refuse to clean,” Draco warned.

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Harry said breathlessly.

Draco was convinced there was finally no one else in the room but them, when another attempt at pulling back Harry’s curtains interrupted what was about to be perhaps the most exciting escapade Draco could think of. “I will commit murder,” Draco said through gritted teeth.

“Get under here,” Harry said impatiently and pulled the blanket back over Draco, casting Finite on his bed and opening the curtain enough for only his face to be visible. “Ron, mate, can you let me have a lie in? I’m bloody fine, I just haven’t slept in weeks.

There was a tense pause, and then, “Alright,” Ronald sounded disappointed beyond belief, but finally seemed to be willing to leave. “I suppose I’ll see you for lunch.”

“Yeah, right, great, I’ll be there in twenty,” Harry promised.

“Twenty?” Draco mouthed.

“Sorry,” Harry whispered back when Ronald had finally left the room.

They cast another warning spell on the door while they got ready, and Draco returned to his new least favourite spot underneath the cloak to follow Harry out to the Gryffindor common room, then disappear into an alcove to hide the cloak where Harry could later retrieve it, and finally head to the Great Hall to await lunch.

“There he is,” Pansy said, arriving at the Great Hall when Draco had already taken his usual seat at the Slytherin table, “loverboy.”

“Parkinson,” Draco nodded carefully as she approached him, Blaise following close behind.

“We thought you were dead,” she scoffed.

“I will never die,” Draco smiled, “I’ve never told you this, but I’m a vampire.”

“False,” Pansy said simply, “Blaise has probably the tastiest blood in this castle and you haven’t drained him yet.”

“I’m still earning his trust,” Draco chuckled.

“Impossible, I trust no one,” Blaise grinned. “So, where have you been for the past sixteen hours?”

“I believe you have your suspicions,” Draco shrugged, not looking at either of them and instead filling his plate.

“Are they correct?” Pansy wondered.

Draco debated lying, he really did. He could have come up with some silly tale about whatever his brain could spew out in the following seconds, but there was simply no point, was there? “They are.”

“I can’t believe you haven’t told us,” Pansy shook her head.

“I can’t believe you’ve been so shit at hiding it,” Blaise corrected, making both his best friends laugh heartily.

It was out. The secret was over and done with. What exactly had he been so afraid of? Why would he want to keep something like this from them in the first place? They’d been supportive before, why would they change their minds now? Perhaps temporary insanity came with the disruptive insomnia. He could finally enjoy a full meal, and the smirk Harry sent him from across the room seemed to have a distinguished quality, like flying on a brand new broom for the very first time. 

“Mister Malfoy,” Severus’ voice distracted him from his friends’ laughter. “If you would please follow me to my office,” he said sternly, his face blank and voice warning. Draco nodded, getting up wordlessly, but by the time they’d reached the intended door in the dungeons, Draco’s mind had drifted back to how well-rested he was, how happy his friends were for him, and how satiated he was at the moment.

“Don’t tell me you’re turning me in to the Dark Lord now,” Draco scoffed, making sure not to use the name in front of his godfather, “you had every opportunity to do it before Christmas.”

Severus did not react to the joke, merely stared in dislike until speaking several painstaking seconds later. “You performed a spell outside of Hogwarts,” Severus announced, his tone dark.

Draco scoffed at the implication. Preposterous. He was never that stupid...Except for when he’d cast Occlumens on Harry because he’d been worried about the state of their relationship beyond reasonable thought.

“On top of that, you were gone from your bed the entire night, not having told a single soul where to find you,” he added, worry lacing his words.

“Am I not supposed to be hiding and vigilant of recently-escaped Death Eaters?” Draco scoffed.

“You will end it.”

Panic rose in Draco’s gut, making him sit up straighter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“For someone who’s been called the Slytherin prince, you are an awfully terrible liar,” Severus noted, “your body language gives away not only that you have done something you don’t want me to know, but also that you know exactly what I speak of.”

Draco exhaled sharply, “It’s none of your business.”

“On the contrary, it’s–”

“No, it really is not. I am not going to be walked all over for, what? A homophobic mindset? I don’t care. You can disown me as your godson, if you must, I have already lost one father, I am fully capable of withstanding losing another!”

Severus watched him for a few long moments, something in his gaze softening. “Do not think me prejudice,” he said, raising his chin, “I could not care less where you stick your tongue on your own time, but it does become my concern, when it is someone on the very top of the Dark Lord’s blacklist, making you the perfect weapon in gaining access to him.”

Draco was taken aback. For all the overthinking he tended to do, he sure had been slacking lately on the Potter front. His relationship with Harry and the pure happiness that blinded him, had kept him from seeing three steps ahead of all others around him. Not that he mistook himself for a strategic mastermind to topple Voldemort, of course, but he liked to think he could see at least the most imminent danger, even when it came to him.

“I’ll be careful,” Draco promised.

“The Dark Lord can read that boy’s mind like an open book, there will be no possibility for careful, there will only be kidnapping until he prances in on a white horse to save you and you both get killed,” Severus sounded enraged. Draco felt enraged too.

And he was fucking scared.

Chapter Text

“Potter!” Draco shouted, strutting into the Great Hall, blood thumping in his ears and pure rage making the world red in his eyes, “POTTER!” He yelled again, making his way down the long room along the Gryffindor table and calling perhaps too much attention to himself.

Most conversations in the room stilled, even the staff table was watching in curiosity. Most of them, Umbridge included, still assumed the two teenagers hated one another blindly, especially thanks to the exhibition in Hogsmeade. Some of them, of course, knew Draco and Harry were friends now and spent holidays together in London. It was the latter ones Draco would worry about at one point or another.

“What are you shouting for?” Ginevra asked, doing a great job at feigning hatred on her features, though maybe she truly was annoyed with Pansy and it came out the only way it could – onto Draco.

“With me, now,” Draco demanded, and most of the students broke into a teasing ooo sound. Draco shot them a deadly glare over his shoulder, and it dissipated into terribly hidden snickering. He looked back at Harry with the same rage, still unable to rein it in, and turned on his heel, leaving the room, knowing Harry would follow.

His blood was boiling, it was pulsing in his head and he could only hear the other boy following when they were three floors up. “Draco, for God’s sake, please,” Harry said, making Draco realise, that he may or may not have been begging him to stop from the moment they reached the more secluded part of the castle.

“No,” Draco answered roughly, in a bark. He hadn’t spoken to Harry in this way since their third year of knowing each other, and it felt unnatural to him. He barely spared a glance around to make sure no one would see before taking Harry by his hand and dragging him to the Room of Requirement. “Do it,” he demanded once they were safely inside and the fire roared awake as angrily as Draco felt.

“Draco,” Harry said tentatively, carefully, with so much care it stung.

“No, not now. Right now you do it. And you do it well.”

“Do what?”

“Block me out, successfully, you do it now, because I refuse to lose you,” Draco said desperately, tears prickling at the corners of his eyes.

“What are you talking about?” Harry asked calmly.

Draco shook his head, impatiently or desperately, he wasn’t sure. “Legilimens,” he said, pointing his wand to Harry.

Fear. All he could feel was confusion and fear and it made a shiver run down his spine, but he was determined enough not to let this go to waste. He understood there might be hell to pay, because he shouldn’t be allowed to get away with invading Harry’s emotions so easily, especially not twice, but for now, he had only one target in mind. “Block me out.”

“Draco, what the fuck did he say to you?” Harry asked. He must have seen Severus and Draco leave the Great Hall. So, Harry could be perceptive too. That was good to keep in mind.

“Harry, try. Please, try,” Draco begged, hoping a more calm approach would be helpful. He could see in Harry’s eyes that his tone was encouragement enough. He knew he sounded desperate, because he was. He sounded pathetic and vulnerable, because he wasn’t afraid of Harry seeing it. Besides, there were much bigger horklumps to juice at the moment than worrying about how he portrayed himself in front of the boy who had seen him at his worst.

Harry’s gaze grew even more worried, but he complied, finally, closing his eyes and focusing, Draco waited, and waited, and waited. He watched Harry and did truly believe the boy was doing his best, but it wasn’t enough. None of it was enough, and Draco would be losing his first love before he’d had the chance to confess it.

“Make me angry,” Harry said, his eyes still closed and determination not only flowing through Draco’s body like a wave, but also screwing up his features. His beautiful, beautiful features, that had no clue what effect they hold on Draco’s mind.

“I will not, you have to do this without anyone’s help. Salazar knows Severus will not offer you any.”

“Just make me angry. It worked the last time, didn’t it?”

“For a second,” Draco reminded, “that’s not enough. You need something stronger than anger at me, and you need to conjure it up on your own.”

Harry seemed to think this over for a moment before his eyebrows knitted together in concentration. If he were in a lighter mood, Draco might make a joke about never having seen Harry so focussed on anything other than beating him in Quidditch.

Draco watched Harry patiently, and suddenly, for a moment, the feelings that weren’t his own flickered like a lightbulb. He felt lighter, more like himself again, until it all came crashing back down, washing over him like unwelcome rain on a blue-sky day. “Do that again,” Draco said hurriedly.

“It’s pointless,” Harry scoffed.

“Do it again, it worked,” Draco dismissed, surprising Harry. How would the boy know when he’s succeeding, if no one ever tells him? “It did, try that again.”

Harry’s eyes closed tightly shut as he pulled up whatever memory that helped him conjure up anything stronger than anger, and he did it again, Draco could feel nothing but his own fear and his own nerves for several seconds. “Fucking hell, Potter, you’re doing it.”

“You’re joking,” Harry breathed a surprised laugh.

“Do it again,” Draco urged.

It was hours later and they had missed dinner, when Draco found himself nauseous with the alien emotions and Harry looked worn beyond belief, that they called it a night, sitting by the fire like they sometimes did after D.A. meetings, only unusually silent. Where they would normally discuss their day or upcoming homework to hand in, tonight they stewed in an ear-ringing quiet, both afraid to voice their thoughts.

Draco refused to say it out loud. Refused to think about having to give Harry up for the sake of keeping them both safe, but he was also hesitant to give himself hope. He didn’t want to promise himself, or Harry, that the Gryffindor’s new-found ability to hold someone back just the slightest bit meant they were saved. “It’s not fair,” Draco said finally, parroting Harry’s words from a few weeks back. Harry looked over at once, his face illuminated by the crackling fire. “We shouldn’t have to do all this.”

Harry rested his chin on his bent knees, wrapping his arms around his legs and suddenly looking every bit the boy he was. Draco had to remind himself once on a while – Harry was still a child. He might have gone up against Voldemort, a dragon, a sadistic teacher and Merlin knows what else, but he was only fifteen. Draco tended to be taken aback by that quite often, really. His favourite of those instances were when Harry’s eyes shimmered with mischief, or when he kissed Draco sloppily, unexperienced and eager, in a way Draco would often long for years later, when recalling their youth. Everything they did was unthought-out and rushed. And it was often that Draco had to remind himself it was alright to act this way, because they shouldn’t yet know any better. And yet, they had been forced to grow up so fast.

“We can still run off and be pirates,” Harry supposed with his cheek smushed into his arm. Draco wanted to laugh, he really did, because, fuck, did he love this boy, but he was just so tired of having to go through his own life, there wasn’t much he could do to pretend to not be in a sour mood. “Will you stay with me tonight?’

“Well, knowing that any could be our last, I don’t see why not,” Draco said dryly, and Harry didn’t even laugh, just made a non-committal noise and continued staring into the flames. “You have to promise me something.”

“Mhm.”

“Don’t die until the summer.

“No one’s dying until the summer,” Harry promised. “We’ll worry about it then.”

“You have to come to the Tonks’. You’ll love their beach.”

“Can’t swim,” Harry said casually, the tone taking Draco by surprise. Harry was not one to offer up such information, he tended to be embarrassed when admitting to his ineptitude at something other than potions.

“I’ll teach you,” Draco promised in the same tone.

“Deal,” Harry sighed, his eyelids growing lower with each blink. Draco could watch him all night. He could watch him forever, really.

“You have yet to teach how me to conjure a Patronus,” Draco nudged Harry’s shoulder, trying to lift his spirits.

“We can try now,” Harry said, and Draco couldn’t hear any humour in his voice.

“Right now?” Draco asked, laughing, “Wait, really?”

“Yeah,” Harry shrugged, looking excited and jumping to his feet, “get up, wand out.”

“Seriously?” Draco chuckled in surprise, but Harry had outstretched his arm to help Draco up, and he couldn’t exactly say he wanted out.

“Less chatting, more standing,” Harry insisted. Draco shook his head, finally accepting the strong hand and standing in front of Draco. “Okay, close your eyes,” Harry instructed and Draco obeyed. “Imagine a happy memory. Really, really strong one.”

“What are those like?” Draco snorted with his eyes still closed.

“Oh, he’s a jokester,” Harry deadpanned as his hands landed on Draco’s hips, and all ability to make snarky comments left his brain.

“I don’t know what to choose,” Draco admitted.

Harry laughed breathily, leaning closer into Draco’s back, “Does this help any?” he asked, kissing the back of Draco’s neck.

“You’re making me lose focus,” Draco shivered, “and you’re being awfully presumptuous.”

“How so?”

“Assuming kissing you is my happiest memory.”

“Is it?” Harry teased.

“Maybe,” Draco supposed, imagining the first time Harry had kissed him, in this very room, not so long ago. He tried to call back the exact feeling, the anticipation, the nerves, the eventual utter ecstasy of Harry’s lips on his own.

“Expecto Patronum,” Harry reminded.

“Well aware, thank you,” Draco breathed, still immersed in the memory. “Expecto Patronum,” he repeated, feeling his soul pour into his hand and through his wand, and then come out in a silvery gleam the dripped down onto the ground like a piece of bright string. “Fuck’s sake.”

“It’s a start,” Harry affirmed, hugging Draco from the back. “Try something else.”

Draco groaned, but did not give up. He wasn’t letting Harry give up on occlumency, so he couldn’t afford to be a hypocrite. Besides, it was only the first time he’d tried it, and he had no right to complain about not being good enough at it.

He tried imagining his family instead, and Pansy and Blaise. His mother had invited the two of them to his thirteenth birthday celebrations, and Draco still thought of the day fondly. His father had freed the entire day, his mother had come up with a list of his favourite foods, and Pansy and Blaise stayed in the Malfoy Manor for a week. He couldn’t remember a single bad thing that had happened. He’d never laughed so much at home in his entire life.

The words left his mouth freely, so gladly, like it was second nature instead of the second time he’d spoken them. The silver gleam turned into a misty cloud instead, but still refused to take shape, and Draco suddenly felt strangely exhausted as the two of them watched the odd vapor move around Draco protectively. Harry watched it in awe, and Draco couldn’t deny he was quite amazed himself. It wasn’t a fully corporal Patronus, and he was certainly curious beyond belief to know what his would be, but the fact alone that he had conjured one made him smile like a lunatic.

“It’s beautiful,” Harry grinned.

“It’s a mist,” Draco dismissed, but he was blushing. Harry calling any part of him beautiful apparently had quite the influence on him.

“So, what makes you happier than kissing me?” Harry smiled once Draco had recalled his Patronus back.

“Calling Ronald a git to his face,” Draco lied, making Harry roll his eyes and laugh tiredly. He needed to get the boy to bed. And not for selfish reasons this time.

Draco couldn’t stop himself from jittering either way. It still felt like the weight of the world rested on his shoulders and he had no clue how to stop it from escalading into sure-fire death. Whichever way you slice it, he could no longer see a future wherein both he and Harry came out of Voldemort’s grip alive.

He kept these thoughts to himself as he followed Harry up to the Gryffindor tower under his cloak, climbing into Harry’s bed and waiting as the boy feigned off concerned demands from his dormmates about what Draco had done to him. Ronald had remained quiet throughout the entirety of Harry asking Thomas and Longbottom to leave it, almost as if the guy could sense Draco was in the room with them.

Harry waved it all away and charmed the curtains on his bed shut and into silence, carefully finding Draco and removing the enchanted fabric before letting his forehead rest on Draco’s shoulder. “Will you tell me why you’re suddenly so scared?”

“I’ve been scared all along,” Draco explained, “I just didn’t quite give into it.”

“I don’t think there’s any point in being scared,” Harry said after a moment of silence.

“You say that because you’re you,” Draco scoffed, too tired to keep himself from saying something he’d regret. “You’re Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m not scared.”

“You’re a Gryffindor,” Draco pressed, but his fingers roamed Harry’s mess of curls lightly, “you barely have any sense of self-preservation.”

“Being brave doesn’t mean lack of fear,” Harry said calmly, lifting his head to finally face Draco. “You’re brave.”

“I’m not brave, Harry,” Draco laughed humourlessly.

Harry shook his head, his hand taking hold of Draco’s jaw. “You’re the bravest person I know,” he said and kissed him. “And the smartest,” he added, punctuating it with another kiss, “and the funniest,” kiss, “prettiest,” another kiss, “bloody gorgeous, if you ask me.”

Draco felt tears sting his eyes. He didn’t yet know, and he would regret it immeasurably, but his inability to muster up the words I love you out loud that night, or any of the so very few that followed, would become a burden for him to live with for a painfully long time. “You need to sleep,” Draco said instead, taking the coward's way out. “What did you think about?” Draco asked, laid under the blanket and watching Harry change into a set of crumpled up pyjamas that had been waiting for him in a ball in the very corner of the bed. Harry looked at Draco over his shoulder, confusion riddling his face. “When I asked you to find something stronger than anger, what did you think about?”

“Oh,” Harry waved it away, finally laying down in his well-practiced spot half on top of Draco, “it’s not important, but it’s good to know it works.”

Draco hummed unsurely. Whatever Harry had recalled must have hurt him enough not to want to discuss it even with Draco. And here he was, under the impression there weren’t any subjects left they couldn’t talk about with each other. Perhaps it had something to do with Draco. Perhaps Draco still caused Harry pain, even after all this time of being on good terms. Perhaps Harry simply didn't want to tell Draco of every thought in his head, just as Draco hadn't wanted to reveal what made him so happy. He tried not to think about it as Harry’s breathing evened, even if his own slumber came much later.

For the following week Draco was sequestered in Harry Potter’s bed every single night. He no longer even considered going back to his own dorm, and one of the pyjama sets in Harry’s trunk now smelled like the expensive shower gel Narcissa had provided him with over the winter break. He had no idea what measures Blaise was taking to make it look like Draco was in his bed every night, but half the contents of his trunk now resided in Harry’s, and he was honestly surprised how none of the boys Harry shared a dorm with had not yet seen a Slytherin tie strewn about somewhere on the floor.

He took showers every evening while Harry finished his homework, turned pointedly to face the door in the steaming bathroom. Most of Harry’s parchment had curled edges now thanks to the humidity, and Draco could not for the life of him understand how one would ever be pleased turning in something that looked like that.

For all the fear and anxiety riddling his mind, laying his head on Harry’s pillow each night did wonders to still his racing heart, even if he had to rush through his mountain of homework in in the halls in-between classes and the library after dinner each night. He was simply unwilling to let go of the little routine the two of them had built together.

His favourite day of spring was when Gryffindor played Hufflepuff and Harry refused to go, even to support his friends. Draco didn’t object to his dramatics for once. Mostly, because this meant he had Harry all to himself for hours on end. There was no one in the library. One of the most impressive and comprehensive libraries in the country and it stood empty before them. They weren’t even all too worried about Madam Pince finding the two of them, as she was most likely having tea with Madam Pomfrey. Draco rarely got to enjoy the school in such an empty state, only when he was patrolling with Pansy, and he was more than happy to do his homework in a theoretically public space, yet have no eyes on him. He was even more ecstatic to snog Harry up against a bookshelf when he was sure no one would find them, their hurried breathing echoing in the large room.

Draco noticed, when they finally went to have lunch ten minutes apart from each other, one of the things he had missed while not spending his nights in the Slytherin dorms was the apparent growth in Blaise and Hermione’s relationship. For all his efforts to distract his housemates on the day of his best friend’s first date with his boyfriend’s best friend, they paled in comparison to Blaise’s death glare whenever anyone dared to open their mouths towards Hermione.

Blaise led her into the Great Hall and kissed her knuckles before joining Draco and Pansy at the Slytherin table. “I cannot believe you can just go there with her, and no one bats an eye,” Draco scoffed.

“Many bat eyes, actually,” Pansy reminded, surely having heard more about the scrutiny the two of them had been going through together for the past week when the news was still fresh.

“Draco, I’m giving you the opportunity to be seen with Potter in public without raising eyebrows,” Blaise said somewhat exasperatedly. “You don’t have to look like friends, you have to look like you barely tolerate each other, but you can speak to one another now without throwing insults around.”

“Yes, in your presence,” Draco said bitterly, well aware of how childish he was being. “There are some things I don’t want you to hear.”

“You can tell those to me,” Pansy said excitedly.

“Pervert,” Draco challenged.

“Saying that implies you two have a sex life, and I highly doubt that,” she said surely, and it was almost petrifying how well she knew him. Draco refused to acknowledge her in the slightest.

“So, what do you do every night up there in the height of Gryffindor luxury?” Pansy wondered, carefully quietly, when the three of them were done with eating and Draco was busying himself with homework on the Slytherin table, while most of the other students were still enthralled with dessert, after having spent too much time in the library earlier focussed on a set of warm lips instead of making star charts. Pansy was pretending not to copy off him, but he couldn’t say he minded much. Blaise was off somewhere flirting Hermione’s ears off. He had a good thirty minutes before Harry would make him follow to the Gryffindor tower, at which point Draco would act bothered and pretend he was doing Harry some sort of a great service, but eventually follow.

“How is Ginevra doing?” Draco asked instead, never taking his eyes off his chart. Pansy only scoffed in response and continued copying off of him until Harry threw him the look Draco had come to know so well as the come now or lose a warm bed look. Their nightly routine was so polished by then, they barely bumped into each other, even with Draco under the cloak and invisible to Harry’s eye. When they fell asleep, wrapped up in heavy blankets and clinging to one another, it was already so natural, a practiced peace taking over him within seconds.

He hadn’t woken to Harry’s nightmares since before they started their mutual escapades. He did tonight, and it nearly scared him to death. Harry was yelling, shouting, the silencing charm on his bed preventing the other fifth-year Gryffindor boys from hearing. Harry flailed around madly, became entangled in the sheets, and somehow landed on top of Draco. For a few seconds after Draco had managed to wake him he clearly did not know where he was, and Draco was almost convinced Harry would strangle himself in the bedsheets if he didn’t stop flailing around.

“Harry, it’s alright, you’re safe, if you would just let me help you, please,” Draco said as calmly as he could muster, and Harry’s rapid movement ceased, allowing for Draco’s help. A corner of the sheets had somehow tied itself around Harry’s bicep, then wrapped around his neck, covering his face. Draco hadn’t even noticed waking up on the mattress.  

Harry stared up at Draco in the darkness when he’d pulled his face free. He was breathing hard as he lay flat on his back, Draco cradling the back of his head. “Has someone been attacked again?” Draco asked tenderly, heart hammering in his chest.

“No, everyone’s fine,” Harry gasped, whose forehead felt as though it was on fire again. “Well…Avery isn’t He’s in trouble. He gave him the wrong information He’s really angry…” Harry rambled, confusing Draco and sinking into his waiting embrace, rubbing his scar. “But Rookwood’s going to help him now. He’s on the right track again.”

“What are you talking about?” Draco asked, genuinely scared. “Did you just see Voldemort?”

“I was Voldemort,” said Harry, and he stretched out his hands in the darkness and held them up to his face, confusing Draco further. “He was with Rookwood, he’s one of the Death Eaters who escaped from Azkaban, remember? Rookwood’s just told him Bode couldn’t have done it.”

“Done what?” Draco indulged, utterly confused.

“Remove something…He said Bode would have known he couldn’t have done it. Bode was under the Imperius Curse. I think he said your dad put it on him…Sorry,” Harry added, noting what he’d said.

“Bode was bewitched to remove something?” Draco asked, ignoring the mention of Lucius.

“The weapon,” Harry nodded, “it has to be.”

Draco sighed, pulling Harry closer to his chest and breathing in the scent of his messy hair. “You were him?”

Harry nodded. “It wouldn’t have happened if I could do occlumency. I’m still shit at it. I should have learned to shut him out by now.”

“We’ll practice,” Draco promised, though he couldn’t remember ever feeling as much fear as he did in that second. “You’re not telling anyone, are you?”

“I can’t tell anyone.”

Draco pulled him downward and ran his fingers along Harry’s arm soothingly. Well, as soothing as one fearing for both of their lives could be. Harry’s forehead was boiling, so Draco moved his hand up to Harry’s face to stroke his scar calmingly.

Harry would tell Ron and Hermione everything the following morning, and they would come up with some cunning, idiotic idea that would get them on the verge of expulsion, but for now, Draco could hold Harry and give him some semblance of peace, if only for a few hours. He couldn’t sleep, however. Even when Harrys breathing became less raged and light snoring snuck in to make Draco laugh, he couldn’t stop thinking about Harry’s words. His father was still high enough in Voldemort’s ranks to do his nasty bidding. He was torturing people, using the Unforgivables. He was still Voldemort’s puppet. And it still made Draco’s stomach churn.

For the following week, Harry was even more grumpy than he had been before, and as much as Draco did, it was tiring to love that idiot. His lessons with Severus became more frequent, and the boy was increasingly more insufferable after them. Draco didn’t care, though, he listened to Harry complain about his godfather with Harry’s head laid on his chest each night.

There had been strangely little development on the Umbridge front for weeks now, until Draco heard screaming shortly after dinner one evening. The screams were coming from the entrance hall and they grew louder as Draco, along with the rest of the student body, had the entrance hall packed. Students had come flooding out of the Great Hall, where dinner was still in progress, to see what was going on. Others had crammed themselves onto the marble staircase. Draco and Blaise pushed forward through a knot of tall Ravenclaws and saw that the onlookers had formed a great ring, some of them looking shocked, others even frightened. Professor McGonagall was directly opposite them on the other side of the hall. She looked as though what she was watching made her feel faintly sick. They only stopped pushing forward when they reached Pansy – trust her to be the first wherever there’s drama.

Professor Trelawney was standing in the middle of the entrance hall with her wand in one hand and an empty bottle of sherry in the other, looking utterly mad. Her hair was sticking up on end, her glasses were lopsided so that one eye was magnified more than the other; her innumerable shawls and scarves were trailing haphazardly from her shoulders, giving the impression that she was falling apart at the seams. Two large trunks lay on the floor beside her, one of them upside down. It looked very much as though it had been thrown down the stairs after her.

He watched the scene play out – the professor begging Umbridge not to make her leave, not to kick her out of the only home she’d knows for the last sixteen years. Umbridge, in turn, simply staired emotionlessly, revolting enjoyment riddling her features as Draco could see Ronald come stumping in, splattered with mud and looking grumpy. What else was new?

Blaise pushed his way through to the Gryffindors, taking Hermione’s hand and ignoring Ronald’s scoff. Pansy and Draco followed. “I’m not the biggest fan of Trelawney,” Harry began, earning an acknowledging him from Draco, “but I sort of want to kill Umbridge.”

“You’re not wrong, Potter,” he said, in case someone was listening. They truly could speak to one another now, and it was all thanks to Blaise and Hermione. “Mind if I join?”

“Please do,” Harry said as Dumbledore appeared, requesting Trelawney to stay in the castle, even if she was fired, right before introducing a centaur as the next Divination teacher. “Firenze,” Harry breathed. Draco turned to face the open front doors that Hatty was already staring at, through which night mist was now drifting in. Draco heard hooves. There was a shocked murmur around the hall and those nearest the doors hastily moved even farther backward, some of them tripping over in their haste to clear a path for the newcomer. Through the mist came a face Draco had only read about before. White-blond hair and astonishingly blue eyes, the head and torso of a man joined to the palomino body of a horse. Dumbledore smiled happily to a thunderstruck Umbridge, “I think you’ll find him suitable.”

Draco had to press his face into Pansy’s neck just to make sure his smile couldn’t be seen. Umbridge looked like she was about to blow up out of anger. Draco had never seen the professor so pink. She actually looked like the rest of her things. Her rage only grew when she remembered they were encompassed by students. She grew somehow even brighter before shouting for them all to quickly get to their common rooms.

That was the first night Draco had slept in his own bed in almost a month. He did not get a wink of slumber.

When he woke the following morning, after what one could barely call resting, a letter was waiting for him at the foot of his bed. In pink ink and a swooping handwriting, it invited him to join Umbridge for tea that afternoon after classes were finished.

“Well,” Pansy said, pulling out an identical letter once Draco had shown his best friends his, “I suppose we now know fraternising with Gryffindors will get you out of whatever the fuck this is,” she stated, seeing as Blaise had not been blessed with the same invitation as the other two thirds of the Slytherin Silver Trio.

“Terribly unlucky, do let me know what happens,” Blaise smirked from behind his goblet of pumpkin juice. Both Pansy and Draco couldn’t focus for the remainder of the day, trying to decode what Umbridge could possibly want from the two of them. If this was about Draco’s involvement in the D.A., or if she’d somehow found out his current living situation, there would be hell to pay for him, but he couldn’t’ think of a single way how that would involve Pansy.

Pansy knocked, Draco cowering behind her, though he made it look like he was a gentleman simply letting the lady go first. Umbridge opened the door and looked between the two of them with a knowing, disgustingly sweet smile. Like she knew something few others did. When she invited them into her office, the two friends shared a look of barely contained amusement. It had not been the first time they’d been mistaken for a couple.

They entered to find Theodore Nott’s self-satisfied scowl already waiting for them, a cup and saucer in his hands, sitting comfortably and relaxedly in one of the pink chairs. Umbridge invited the two standing Slytherins to join, taking her own seat behind a large desk.

“I would like to thank all three of you for freeing a moment to come see me today,” she said in that tone that made Draco’s insides boil, and yet one that he’d schooled himself so quickly to smile at. He couldn’t imagine them not freeing a moment would have led to much else than detention. “As two of you are the best prefects this horrid excuse of a school has seen in decades, and Mr. Nott is a dear and close friend to you both,” she chirped, making Draco and Theo share a look. A calculated, stone-faced look, but one a Slytherin could decode nonetheless, “I thought it only right to have the three of you working together on this.”

Her smile let them know she would continue without either of the children having to ask for more details, but she paused to wave her wand and set the tea set into motion to serve the two newcomers. Draco didn’t take his eyes off his professor until the cup clinked loudly against the saucer in front of his eyes, reminding him it was there to be drunk not forgotten. Draco moved it up to his lips carefully, barely touching the liquid, and never letting it into his mouth, lest she’d spiked it with anything. Pansy seemed to have noticed his hesitation and made a similar motion. If either Umbridge or Nott had noticed, they didn’t say a thing.

“I have a wonderful proposition for you, my lovelies,” Umbridge continued, “I have made plans for the forming of a sort of an Inquisitorial Squad, and I do believe the three of you are the perfect candidates.”

An Inquisitorial Squad. With Nott. Playing detectives with the one person Draco did not wish to tell secrets to and was already forced to share a dorm with. Wonderful. He, of course, could not, and did not, voice any of his thoughts out loud. It was Pansy that, thankfully, took the reins. “May I ask, professor Umbridge, what exactly we could do that is not already part of our prefect duties?”

“Ah, a very good question, Miss Parkinson,” Umbridge grinned in the most ugly way Draco had ever seen anyone do, and he’d met literal Death Eaters, though when he was a kid and had no clue they’d ever been one. “You see, I have reason to believe a certain…group of students is, how should I put this, failing to succumb to the Ministry’s educational decrees,” she seemed careful not to call them her own decrees. “I shall like the three of you to find out where and when they are meeting, as well as disrupt these illicit meetings, prove them all guilty, and turn them in to me.”

“Not a problem, professor,” Nott smiled easily, “but are you sure Malfoy and Parkinson are the ones for the job?” he asked innocently. Draco was forced to wonder if Nott really thought this would work on Umbridge, or if this was some political ploy from one sociopath to another. “I mean, their closest friend has recently come into a frankly disturbing…coalition with one of the Gryffindors.”

Draco rolled his eyes so that only Nott could see and turned to face Umbridge, who seemed to be waiting for the counter-argument with great delight. “Professor, if I may speak freely,” Draco said, allowing her a second to nod, “Pansy and I have no affiliation with the Gryffindors, nor any fond feelings towards any of the other houses, really, we are prefects and follow our duty to keep the school in order, according to the rules of Hogwarts. The inclusion of the Ministry’s educational decrees into those rules has only made our job…more fun, if you do not mind me saying so, professor,” he smiled the charming smile that usually got him a fond scoff and a new silk scarf from mother. “As for…Miss Granger,” he said, making sure to sound as bitter as he could, “I can assure you, neither I, nor Pansy, volunteer to even hear about this joke of a relationship that has unfortunately blossomed.”

Pansy screwed her face up into one of the most wonderfully sour scowls in her arsenal at Draco’s words, only earning Umbridge’s further trust. It was fascinating to see how easy it was to wrap Umbridge around his finger. Well, that or she saw right through him and was only waiting for the first chance to push him off the cliff. Nott was staring at the two of them in disbelief. 

Nott insisted a few days later to have Crabbe and Goyle join the group. Draco wasn’t sure what possible advantage the two could bring along with themselves, but he could see Nott’s necessity to outnumber Draco and Pansy. Besides, objectively speaking, having two giant goons to do their physical dirty work was genuinely very smart.

The problem he was now faced with was that Draco knew exactly when and where these meetings took place, and he had the proof of it in his pocket at all times. It would be almost hilariously easy to switch sides now. He would be crowned a Slytherin hero. Infiltrating a Gryffindor scheme and passing with flying colours, being accepted into their midst, only to then throw them to the wolves would be hilariously simple at this point. Unfortunately for some of them involved, and fortunately for most of the others, he was head over heels in love with Harry Potter.

He managed to snag himself the shifts on the nights when the D.A. meetings weren’t taking place, so that he would still seem interested in the cause, but was also able to attend every gathering.

Pansy did not seem pleased to be left stuck with Nott and his cronies on the nights when Draco was off, as she put it, sticking his tongue into his boyfriend for hours, but she also didn’t try to argue, and with Pansy, that was as much of an understanding as he would be getting.

Draco did, of course, tell Harry immediately, who then warned the entire Dumbledore’s Army at the first chance. It was only fair to let them all prepare for the reality of this, and yet, he should have made his point more clear about how cocky they were all being. How self-assured that no one would find them out. How bloody confident in their wits.

The D.A. meeting, where Harry finally brought up the Patronus charm, the last D.A. meeting ever, was perhaps Draco’s favourite, besides the one after which he was snogged into oblivion for the first time. It wasn’t entirely successful for everyone, but it went much better for Draco. Trying it out one-on-one with Harry first had been more than beneficial. Hermione had got it on the first try, Ronald had been less lucky. Draco had a majestic dragon flying out of his wand in no time. Harry had been rendered unable to act normally for the rest of the hour, staring at Draco’s Patronus with a slack jaw and failing to give advice to the others that were still struggling. Draco himself was incredulous. He couldn’t believe the beautiful silver creature that had sprouted from him. This part of his soul that had sprouted wings and now circled the Room of Requirement.

“It’s…” Harry said, seemingly unsure of how to continue.

“It’s quite pretty,” Draco smirked.

“Angelic,” Harry said. “It’s wonderful.” Draco watched Harry for a second, in their little bubble in the middle of the D.A. meeting, wishing he could kiss the other boy in front of all these people. It was Hermione who’s obnoxiously loud cough brought them out of the little staring contest.

When Harry finally turned away with a bright blush, everything happened too quickly. The door of the Room of Requirement opened and then closed again. Draco looked around to see who had entered, but there did not seem to be anybody there. It was a few moments before he realized that the people close to the door had fallen silent. Next thing he knew, something was tugging at Harry’s robes somewhere near the knee. He looked down and saw, to his very great astonishment, Dobby the house-elf peering up at him from beneath his usual eight hats.

“Hi, Dobby!” Harry said. “What are you – what’s wrong?”

For the elf’s eyes were wide with terror and he was shaking. The members of the D.A. closest to Harry had fallen silent now. Everybody in the room was watching Dobby. The few Patronuses people had managed to conjure faded away into silver mist, leaving the room looking much darker than before.

“Harry Potter, sir,” the elf squeaked, trembling from head to toe, “Harry Potter, sir, Dobby has come to warn you, but the house-elves have been warned not to tell…” He then ran headfirst at the wall. Harry, who seemed to have experience of Dobby’s habits of self-punishment, made to seize him, but Dobby merely bounced off the stone, cushioned by his eight hats. Hermione and a few of the other girls let out squeaks of fear and sympathy.

“What’s happened, Dobby?” Harry asked, grabbing the elf’s tiny arm and holding him away from anything with which he might seek to hurt himself.

“Harry Potter…she…she…” Dobby hit himself hard on the nose with his free fist. Harry seized that too.

“Who’s she Dobby?” Harry asked, but as he looked at Draco, he was sure they already knew. The elf looked up at him, slightly cross-eyed, and mouthed wordlessly. “Umbridge?” Harry asked, horrified. Dobby nodded, then tried to bang his head off Harry’s knees. Harry held him at bay. “What about her? Dobby, she hasn’t found out about this – about us – about the D.A.?” Drace read the answer in the elf’s stricken face. His hands held fast by Harry, the elf tried to kick himself and fell to the floor. “Is she coming?” Harry asked quietly.

Dobby let out a howl, and began beating his bare feet hard on the floor. “Yes, Harry Potter, yes!”

Harry straightened up and looked around at the motionless, terrified people gazing at the thrashing elf. “WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?” Harry bellowed. “RUN!”

As everyone pelted for the exit at once, Draco was stricken by something hard and sudden. He hadn’t registered Harry shouting out the spell until he’d already landed with a thud on the stone floor, unable to move or speak. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Harry kept repeating as his wand erased the last name from the D.A. list of signatures and a heavy fabric draped over Draco, hiding him from the world.

“Harry, come on!” shrieked Hermione from the centre of the knot of people now fighting to get out. Harry scooped up Dobby, who was still attempting to do himself serious injury, and ran with the elf in his arms to join the back of the queue.

Draco heard Nott’s voice shouting for Umbridge, saying he’d caught one, and all Draco could do was wish he’d been allowed enough movement to set the D.A. list of members ablaze before anyone would find him lying there.

Chapter Text

When anyone came, it had been two hours. He’d already imagined the worst, but the spell wasn’t wearing off, so he’d been forced to lay there, staring into empty space and praying to Merlin that Harry had told someone. When Pansy showed up, it was with a well-trained scowl and Umbridge on her heels. The professor gave the room a quick glance, took hold of the list of names, seeing Dumbledore’s Army written beautifully on the top, chuckled to herself and left. Draco could only imagine what horrors she was about to make the D.A. members go through.

Pansy waited patiently for the clickity clack of Umbridge’s pink shoes to descend before casting Finite into random directions until she reached Draco. The first breath he took felt like heaven, the second one burned. He really needed the loo, but he let himself have a second of anger at Harry first. Now that he knew the boy hadn’t left him there for dead, he allowed himself to be just a little pissed off for not even giving Draco the chance to stand for his values and get punished along with the rest of the group.

Dumbledore was gone by morning. There were only rumours about his arrest, though Kingsley had apparently told the entire Order just how impressive he found Dumbledore’s exit to be, and the information had somehow reached the Hogwarts students within a matter of hours. A Ravenclaw girl whose name Draco had never bothered to memorise was now sporting a bright set of puss-filled pimples on her forehead in the shape of the word sneak. Draco could only applaud Hermione’s creativity on the matter, and wondered if he’d have the same sort of specific acne on his own head, if he’d ever shared details of the meetings with even just Blaise and Pansy.

He waited in terror for the other D.A. members to come after him. They’d all sat through a long detention and were forced to enjoy bleeding hands for two days. It was only when he realised his food wasn’t poisoned and his bed had no jinxes on it that he realised Harry must have talked him up to high heavens. That, and he’d produced a bucket of that salve that had helped Harry all those months ago, which the Gryffindor distributed to the rest. Harry also reassured him countless times that Draco had joined the Inquisitory Squad and told them about its existence in the first place, so, if anything, the D.A. saw him as a hero. Yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling of unfairness that he hadn’t had to suffer through a single punishment other than Nott’s questioning of where Draco had been during those two hours before Pansy had found him.

Headmistress Dolores Umbridge was a new kind of evil. The Inquisitorial Squad became a disgusting hive of all the worst Slytherin had to offer, running loose and doing her bidding. Nott happily ran around taking points away from anyone he encountered.

On a particularly cloudy day, just when Draco had finally calmed about the whole betraying the D.A. thing, a loud ruckus came from the ground when he was in the middle of finishing up a late piece of homework on Transfiguration. It was not difficult to find. One floor down, pandemonium reigned. Somebody (and Draco had a very shrewd idea who) had set off what seemed to be an enormous crate of enchanted fireworks.

Dragons comprised entirely of green-and-gold sparks were soaring up and down the corridors, emitting loud fiery blasts and bangs as they went. Shocking-pink Catherine wheels five feet in diameter were whizzing lethally through the air like flying saucers. Rockets with long tails of brilliant silver stars were ricocheting off the walls. Sparklers were writing swearwords in mid-air of their own accord. Firecrackers were exploding like mines everywhere Draco looked, and instead of burning themselves out, fading from sight, or fizzling to a halt, the pyrotechnical miracles seemed to be gaining in energy and momentum the longer he watched.

Filch and Umbridge were standing, apparently transfixed with horror, halfway down the stairs. As Draco watched, one of the larger Catherine wheels seemed to decide that what it needed was more room to manoeuvre. It whirled toward Umbridge and Filch with a sinister wheeeeeeeeee. Both adults yelled with fright and ducked and it roared straight out of the window behind them and off across the grounds. Meanwhile, several of the dragons and a large purple bat that was smoking ominously took advantage of the open door at the end of the corridor to escape toward the second floor.

“Hurry, Filch, hurry!” Umbridge shrieked. “They’ll be all over the school unless we do something – Stupefy!”

A jet of red light shot out of the end of her wand and hit one of the rockets. Instead of freezing in mid-air, it exploded with such force that it blasted a hole in a painting of a soppy-looking witch in the middle of a meadow – she ran for it just in time, reappearing seconds later squashed into the painting next door, where a couple of wizards playing cards stood up hastily to make room for her.

“Don’t Stun them, Filch!” Umbridge shouted angrily, for all the world as though it had been his suggestion.

“Right you are, Headmistress!” wheezed Filch, though the squib could no more have Stunned the fireworks than swallowed them. He dashed to a nearby cupboard, pulled out a broom, and began swatting at the fireworks in mid-air. Within seconds the head of the broom was ablaze.

Laughing, Harry pulled Draco backwards while no one would see and, ducked down low, ran to a door concealed behind a tapestry a little way along the corridor, pushing Draco through it first to find Fred and George hiding just behind it, listening to Umbridge and Filch yelling and quaking with suppressed mirth.

“Impressive,” Harry said quietly, grinning and catching his breath, half-rested against Draco. “Very impressive…You’ll put Dr Filibuster out of business, no problem…”

“Cheers,” George whispered, wiping tears of laughter from his face. “Oh, I hope she tries Vanishing them next. They multiply by ten every time you try.”

Draco laughed breathlessly and let his head rest on Harry’s shoulder without thinking. It was just so dark and stuffy, and he was already so close to Harry. To his surprise, the twins said nothing. Even when Harry placed a soothing hand on the back of Draco’s neck. The Slytherin wondered just how many people knew about them, or, at least, had their suspicions, other than Blaise and Pansy.

“Did you like the dragons?” Fred smirked suggestively.

“It was Harry’s idea,” George supplied.

“Of course, it was,” Draco rolled his eyes, pulling away from Harry ever so slightly, but the hand on him wouldn’t allow it.

“Of course, it was” Harry echoed as if it was obvious and kissed Draco’s hairline.

His first instinct was to freeze. So was Harry’s, but then George scoffed loudly and handed a galleon to Fred. “Unbelievable.”

“Told you,” Fred said with a satisfied smile, “very much shagging. Alright, boys, we should find a better hiding spot, I’m sure she’ll come for us soon.”

“Not many geniuses in this castle could pull something like this off,” George continued, back in his usual mood.

“Have fun in here,” Fred winked and left, George following suit quickly and quietly like the expert trouble-makers that they were before either Harry or Draco could get a word in defence-wise. Harry simply huffed a half-annoyed little sound that Draco could tell dripped with relief. Sure, the twins were Harry’s friends, but Draco was constantly and painfully aware of his and Harry’s past and what reaction as big a piece of news as this would potentially elicit from their loved ones.

The upshot of it all was that Professor Umbridge spent her first afternoon as headmistress running all over the school answering the summonses of the other teachers, none of whom seemed able to rid their rooms of the fireworks without her. Umbridge sent out her precious Inquisitorial Squad of a communist party to take care of the aftermath along with Filch, much to Draco’s dismay and Harry’s further enjoyment of the situation. The Weasley twins had become heroes all over the school. Even the rare Slytherin praised them, provided no one from the more prominent party members could hear.

Harry became more obviously sleep-deprived by the day and it killed Draco that he could not get the courage and bear to take enough of a risk to sleep over at the Gryffindor tower again. Their occlumency practicing was proving to be only occasionally successful, the shadow of Severus’ wrath was near-constantly looming over Harry’s head, and Draco had even seen him in a screaming match with Cho in-between classes one day. She had been trying to defend her traitorous friend, and the look on her face once she’d noticed Draco listening in would have been priceless, if it had not been obvious exactly what she thought was going on between the unlikely Slytherin and the Gryffindor pairing.

It was slightly alarming that Snape had yet to remind Draco of their conversation, despite the numerous lessons Harry had already been to, and as much as Draco adored the boy, he simply could not believe he’d been able to keep all his thoughts of Draco at bay. He could barely keep Draco out of his emotions for a little while, there was little to no chance he was able to pick and choose which memories to hide.

Draco tended to loiter around the dungeons whenever Harry was in his lessons with Severus, eager to be the first person he sees when he steps out of them. It was not too late yet, Slytherins were flowing in and out of the common room and Draco had to use a certain amount of creativity to make it look like he wasn’t specifically waiting for someone, but busying himself otherwise.

A laughing Nott ran past him one of those evenings, having barely noticed Draco until he finally did at the last moment. “Montague’s been jammed into a toilet,” Theo said with a huge grin once he’d spotted Draco, “Umbridge sent me to get Snape,” he sounded entertained, he hatred for Montague, who had not let him onto the Quidditch team, overshadowing his annoyance with Draco.

“Go on, then,” Draco nodded his head towards Severus’ office with a bemused smirk. The thought alone of a giant like Montague being stuck in a toilet was enough to bring him out of the usual scowl he normally addressed Nott with.

A few long seconds later Severus whizzed past him with Nott on his toes, not even having noticed Draco on his way. The blonde checked the dark hallway around him to make sure no one would find his actions conspicuous before heading to his godfather’s office. The door was still ajar, and Harry was watching Severus’ pensieve curiously. “What are you doing?” Draco asked, clearly making Harry jump, “Let’s get out of here.”

“Wait, I think I have to see this,” Harry raised a finger, mesmerised in whatever memory was floating before him. “Stand guard,” Harry pointed to the door.

“He’s going to kill you,” Draco reminded in a hiss.

“If he’s taken it out, then he doesn’t want me to see it,” Harry explained. “Just, make sure he’s not coming, alright?” Harry insisted. Draco scoffed, but went to stand in the doorway with his arms crossed. How come it was always so impossible to talk Harry out of things? It was like the boy was allergic to seeing reason.

He turned to see Harry bent over with his face submerged into the basin. The boy’s hair looked nice today. If he’d been able to drag him away, he’d probably be able to confirm his suspicions of it also smelling nice. He’d discarded the robes of his uniform at some point. Draco couldn’t help the smirk that broke out as he watched Harry, able to bask in the brilliance of the Gryffindor without anyone in the world knowing.

There was no movement in the hallway yet, but that didn’t stop Draco from worrying what Harry could be watching right now. Was it one of the memories Draco had stolen a year ago? Was it another one? Why would Severus be going out of his way to hide a memory from a boy who could barely use occlumency?

When Draco did finally hear Severus coming down the hall, he was glad the man was talking to someone. His booming, low voice would be heard from a great distance and it gave Draco enough time to rush over and pull Harry out of the memory.

“I was just about to–”

“He’s coming,” Draco said impatiently, pulling Harry towards the door with a tight grip on his arm.

“So?” Severus demanded, looking between the two of them just as they were about to step over the threshold. The professor’s eyes slid to something behind them and Draco knew it had to be the pensieve. “Have the two of you been enjoying yourselves?”

“N-no...” said Harry, freeing his arm from Draco’s hand. It was scary. Severus’ lips were shaking, his face was white, his teeth were bared.

“Amusing man, your father, wasn’t he?” said Snape, shaking Harry so hard that his glasses slipped down his nose. Draco wanted to ask him to stop, but he didn’t seem able to. Severus’ grasp on Harry looked painful.

“I– didn’t–” Snape shoved Harry from him with all his might before he could finish his sentence. Harry fell hard onto the dungeon floor.

“Severus!” Draco shouted, seeming to pull his godfather from his manic state.

Severus straightened himself and brushed imaginary dirt off his robes. “You will not tell anybody what you saw!” Snape said calmly, giving Draco a glare he assumed meant there would be a talk with Narcissa about the situation.

“No,” said Harry, getting to his feet and as far from Severus as he could. “No, of course I won’t– ”

“Get out, I don’t want to see you in this office ever again!”

Draco pulled Harry out of the room and around the corner, their fingers intertwined despite the early hour of the evening and all the people that could see them. “Are you alright?” Draco asked. If it hadn’t been for the jumper Harry was wearing, he would be checking for bruises.

“He was a prick,” Harry said breathlessly.

“Yes, I’m never letting him near you again,” Draco swore.

“Not Snape,” Harry said reluctantly.

“Who then?”

“My father,” Harry admitted after a moment. “It was my father in that memory. He was awful. He was every bit as arrogant as Snape always made him out to be.”

Draco nodded, unclear on what to say now. He had plenty of experience with terrible fathers, but it wouldn’t be of any help since Harry’s was dead and up until this minute – held high in his mind. “It couldn’t have been worse than what you and I used to do to each other.” Harry’s eyes reached Draco’s face, searching it for assurance. “He’s your father. He’s a Potter he can’t be anything but good,” Draco promised. “Besides, I think we both know Severus can be enough of a prick to deserve whatever he had coming.”

Harry took a few deep breaths and nodded. Draco barely glanced around before hugging him, which Harry let him do. Lack of self-preservation was one thing, but needing physical comfort at the level of Harry Potter, was enough to make Draco risk it.

These thoughts failed to leave Harry, as far as Draco could see. The boy had been plagued with a plethora of worries for months, or, rather, years now, and now he had his heritage to worry about, and at the verge of exams, as well. As it was another fine, warm day, Pansy had persuaded Draco and Blaise to join her in studying under the beech tree on the edge of the lake, though for her it was mostly laying in the sun until Blaise began poking her with a stick to make her return to studying.

Their career advice day had passed with flying colours, or as much as it could have, seeing as Draco’s head of house was still beyond angry at him. He had marched into Severus’ office, blurted something quick about potions brewing and auror training, Severus had given a quick onceover to his grades, nodded shortly without looking Draco in the eye and the boy had left. Pansy had spent a good twenty minutes with Severus and refused to tell either Blaise or Draco what she had discussed with him, though she’d told Hermione, and it seemed to be driving Blaise up the wall. Blaise himself had spent an hour with their head of house and come out with an entire list of possible futures, announcing the meeting as a confusing waste of time. Pansy had rolled her eyes and thrown Blaise’s list into a rubbish bin, saying that his inheritance would let even his great grandchildren live joblessly and still be comfortable.

Draco did most of his studying on the beach of the lake now that Pansy had given him the idea. Provided it wasn’t raining or someone else hadn’t thought of the spot first. It tended to have snogging couples on it on the warmer spring days, the sunny weather having brought them out of their hiding spots behind ancient tapestries in the cold castle. Draco watched them with all with pure jealousy. One day, he hoped, he could sit here with Harry. One day, when all was done, no one was trying to kill them and people stopped caring so much about relationships that weren’t their own. That day sounded like a fairytale to Draco, and he forced himself to remember that at least he had Harry in the first place, and was no longer forced to pine after him every waking moment. He forced himself to remember he was quite happy, even if it came with a constant fear for his life as well as that of everyone he loved.

Sometimes, on that beach, when Pansy was off Merlin knows where and Blaise was busy with Hermione, Draco spent hours thinking instead of trying to memorise all the tell-tale signs of how to spot a vampire. He would wonder about his father and not tell anyone afterwards. He would write letters to his mother there, knowing they wouldn’t be inspected by the Inquisitorial Squad because he was on it.

He was on the beach the day Fred and George left school with a bang, by turning an entire floor into a swamp and all but telling Umbridge to go fuck herself. Of course, he wouldn't have been there if he’d known Harry had been using that time to illegally fire-call Sirius back in London.

Fred and George had made sure that nobody was likely to forget them very soon. The story of Fred and George’s flight to freedom was retold so often over the next few days that Draco could tell it would soon become the stuff of Hogwarts legend. Within a week, even those who had been eyewitnesses were half-convinced that they had seen the twins dive-bomb Umbridge on their brooms, pelting her with Dung-bombs before zooming out of the doors. In the immediate aftermath of their departure there was a great wave of talk about copying them, so that Draco frequently heard students saying things like, “Honestly, some days I just feel like jumping on my broom and leaving this place,” or else, “One more lesson like that and I might just do a Weasley…”

Students were now jonesing for the newly vacant spot of top trouble-maker, making each break between classes virtually impossible to enjoy without a bubblehead charm and any kind of protection. Filch prowled the corridors with a horsewhip ready in his hands, desperate to catch miscreants, but the problem was that there were now so many of them that he did not know which way to turn. The Inquisitorial Squad were attempting to help him, but odd things kept happening to its members. One reported to the hospital wing with a horrible skin complaint that made him look as though he had been coated in cornflakes. Another missed all her lessons the following day, as she had sprouted antlers. Draco was almost impressed, especially since he managed to never be the target for one of these pranks, thanking the D.A. in his mind every time he found out of a new victim.

Cackling madly, Peeves soared through the school, upending tables, bursting out of blackboards, and toppling statues and vases. Twice he shut Mrs. Norris inside suits of armour, from which she was rescued, howling loudly, by the furious caretaker. He smashed lanterns and snuffed out candles, juggled burning torches over the heads of screaming students, caused neatly stacked piles of parchment to topple into fires or out of windows, flooded the second floor when he pulled off all the taps in the bathrooms, dropped a bag of tarantulas in the middle of the Great Hall during breakfast and, whenever he fancied a break, spent hours at a time floating along after Umbridge and blowing loud raspberries every time she spoke.

None of the staff seemed determined or even willing to help her, except for Filch, who was entirely useless. McGonagall was demonstratively ignoring the poltergeist, Flitwick was seen chuckling to himself whenever Umbridge was called to another emergency during meals, Sprout was actively helping Finnigan with finding the most explosive plant combinations, and even Severus refused to insert himself into any sort of trouble.

To cap matters, Montague had still not recovered from his sojourn in the toilet. He remained confused and disorientated and his parents were to be observed one Tuesday morning striding up the front drive, looking extremely angry.

The castle grounds were gleaming in the sunlight as though freshly painted, the cloudless sky smiled at itself in the smoothly sparkling lake, the satin-green lawns rippled occasionally in a gentle breeze. June had arrived, but to the fifth years this meant only one thing: their O.W.L.s were upon them at last. Their teachers were no longer setting them homework, lessons were devoted to reviewing those topics their teachers thought most likely to come up in the exams. The purposeful, feverish atmosphere drove nearly everything but the O.W.L.s from Draco’s mind.

Even Pansy was bound to a book most of the time, a sight Draco had yet to get used to. He and Blaise had a bet going on about when she’d crack and return to magazines. She had yet to break and Draco’s wager was drawing closer, Blaise spent an incomprehensible amount of time in the library with Hermione, and whenever Draco happened upon them, they were silently reading next to each other more often than exchanging words. It was almost mesmerising.

Draco wasn’t entirely sure if he should be nervous about not being nervous. Everyone seemed to be putting endless hours into revising, but he seemed to be the only one who wasn’t too worried. He knew his Potions exam would be child’s play, he knew his Herbology was still strong from his previous year’s obsession with keeping a certain Gryffindor alive, he knew all his Transfiguration and Charms theory backwards and forwards, and thanks to Harry’s relentless efforts, his Defence preparation could not be going more smoothly. He’d known his History of Magic basics since he was a mere baby, and his star charts were only bested by Hermione’s. The only thing that could make him even slightly more reassured would be if he was still in contact with his father, who, in turn, had been friendly with the head Wizarding Examinations Authority for years.

Harry and Ronald were going around sniffing for powdered dragon claw, or, at least they had been, until Hermione confiscated all of it and Draco looked into it to find it was dried doxy droppings. That information alone put the two idiots off brain stimulants.

Their O.W.L.s were spread over two successive weeks – theory exams in the mornings, practicals in the afternoons, astronomy at night. Anti-cheating charms on all papers. Results in July.

Blaise refused to test Draco and Pansy when he arrived to the common room late in the evenings and tired out of his mind, saying he’d got pelted enough by Hermione’s copy of either Achievements in Charming or Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5. Draco could only laugh as Blaise would stalk over to bed, before continuing to help Pansy. He liked it. It helped him remember things better, besides, there was something about aiding his best friend that sent an odd sense of accomplishment through him.

Sunshine was streaming through the high windows onto the bent heads during their first exam, which shone chestnut and copper and gold in the bright light. The four House tables had been removed and replaced instead with many smaller desks for one, all facing the staff-table end of the Hall where Professor McGonagall stood facing them. When they were all seated and quiet, she said, “You may begin,” and turned over an enormous hourglass on the desk beside her, on which were also spare quills, ink bottles, and rolls of parchment.

Draco found Theory in Charms relatively easy. He had certainly studied up on more complex examples, having expected the worst, but perhaps that was his own fault for having taken out a N.E.W.T. level book in the library.

“Well, that wasn’t too bad, was it?” Hermione came straight up to Blaise, when they had been allowed to leave the Great Hall, and kissed his cheek.

“I would like to suggest underage drinking,” Pansy said bitterly. Draco willed his face not to smile when Harry and Ronald trudged over to them after Hermione. They were all hyper-aware of being in public and in the most unexpected company, and Draco was well aware he had to maintain his well-trained Potter-scowl.

“I’ll second that,” Ronald grumbled, rubbing his eyes. Hermione had gone into a monologue about Cheering Charms that only Blaise seemed interested in, leaving the four of them to pretend to be the supposed born enemies that they were. Even Pansy seemed to be having trouble with that now that Ronald had agreed to something she’d said.

They spent lunch in complete silence, if you ignored the rest of the school and its usual noise. They were then scooped into a small chamber beside the Great Hall, where they were to wait until called in small groups for their practical examination. Blaise was grasping Hermione’s hand in his lap, while the girl sat and appeared to be meditating with her eyes closed and breathing slowed. If Draco didn’t know her better, he’d think she was asleep.

He looked over to Harry, who was staring into space, his leg bouncing on the stone floor. Draco knew he would be pacing if it wouldn’t disturb the other fifth-years waiting for their turn. He went in, completely ignoring the other students in his little group and performed, in his own ever-so-humble opinion, perfectly. The next group was called in while he was still levitating a full-to-the-brim wine glass. Harry came out with Pansy and the Patil sisters. His examiner squealed at the famous name, making Draco roll his eyes before he was allowed to leave. He was the only one from his group to stay and wait. Everyone would assume he was waiting for Pansy anyway. When the four of them came out, Harry walked into Draco’s arms and gave a loud exhale, making Pansy laugh before she too had the opportunity to hug Draco. It had gone well enough for the both of them, and the Patil sisters did not look even slightly phased by the show of affection as they left, arm in arm, towards the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw towers.

That night, they went straight into Transfiguration revision, and did not stop until breakfast was over the following morning.

Rinse. Repeat.

Pansy slept through the weekend, Blaise willingly subjected himself to Hermione’s stress-fuelled temper tantrums, but Draco sought out his beach in solitude before another week of nerves.

Rinse. Repeat.

When everything crashed down on them, it happened fast. Hagrid was attempted to be stunned and arrested in the middle of their Astronomy exam. When McGonagall attempted to aid him, she was stunned, as well. Hagrid escaped, however. Though it was only the beginning of their nightmares.

Harry looked on the verge of tears during the History of Magic exam – the last one they had to sit. At first, Draco tried not to react. He had to remain cool if he wanted at least an Exceeds Expectations, and watching his boyfriend panicking would not get him there. Then, a few calm minutes later, Harry yelled and fell sideways off a hot desk onto the cold stone floor. He hit the ground, still yelling, grasping at his scar, as the Great Hall erupted all around him.

Harry was brought outside and they were all told to sit back down quietly. A few Ravenclaws had already managed to exchange answers during the debacle. Draco shot a glance to Hermione, his first line of defence when it came to anything Potter-related, but she seemed just as confused as he was. He could not do much more than finishing his exam. One thing was clear – Harry had seen something in his dream, and if Draco didn’t get to him fast enough, the boy would cause some sort of a catastrophe.

Hermione dragged him along with her when they were allowed to leave, through the crowds of excited students who had just finished their last exam and wouldn’t have to worry about as similarly stressful until two years later. Ronald followed right after them, dutiful and concerned for his best friend.

“Harry!” Hermione spotted him at once, looking very frightened. “What happened? Are you all right? Are you ill?”

“Where have you been?” Ron demanded.

“Come with me,” Harry whispered quickly, taking Draco’s hand. There was no time to react, but, fuck, did he want to react. “Come on, I’ve got to tell you something.” He led them along the first-floor corridor, peering through doorways, and at last found an empty classroom into which he dived, closing the door behind Ron and Hermione the moment they were inside and leaning against it, facing them. “Voldemort’s got Sirius.”

“What?” Hermione looked terrified.

“How d’you–?” Ron began, but Harry interrupted.

“Saw it. Just now. When I fell asleep in the exam.”

“But…but where? How?” Hermione asked, her face white.

“I dunno how,” Harry said dismissively. “But I know exactly where. There’s a room in the Department of Mysteries full of shelves covered in these little glass balls, and they’re at the end of row ninety-seven. He’s trying to use Sirius to get whatever it is he wants from in there. He’s torturing him…says he’ll end by killing him.” Harry’s voice was shaking, as were his knees. He moved over to a desk and sat down on it, trying to master himself. “How’re we going to get there?” he asked them.

There was a moment’s silence. Then Ron asked, “G-get there?”

“Get to the Department of Mysteries, so we can rescue Sirius!” Harry said loudly.

“But…Harry…” Ronald tried weakly.

“What? What?” said Harry.

“Okay, alright,” Draco nodded calmly, finally speaking and taking a step towards Harry. “Let’s be logical about this, shall we?” he suggested, hand on the base of Harry’s neck. “Is there a chance Voldemort wanted you to see that? That it’s not really happened?”

“You want me to wait and find out? While my godfather might be dying?” Harry looked murderous.

“Of course, not, I’m saying that there are other ways to see if it’s truly happening.”

“Draco, Sirius could be dying right now,” Harry said, desperation thick in his voice, “you’ve been to the Department of Mysteries,” Harry recalled.

“I haven’t been in there alone. Nor have I been in any of the rooms,” Draco sighed.

“But you’ve seen them. You know how to get there,” Harry had that look on his face. That look that melted Draco into doing whatever the boy wanted. Only this time it was a thousand times more intense.

Draco spared a glance towards Hermione and Ronald, as if apologising to them as he nodded. “I’ll take you.”

“But, Harry, think about it first,” said Hermione, taking a step toward him. Draco felt like a guard dog, prepared to bite someone’s hand off. “It’s five o’clock in the afternoon. The Ministry must be full of workers. How would Voldemort and Sirius have got in without being seen? They’re the two most wanted wizards in the world. You think they could get into a building full of Aurors undetected?”

“I don’t know, Voldemort used an Invisibility Cloak or something!” Harry shouted. “Anyway, the Department of Mysteries has always been completely empty whenever I’ve been–”

“You’ve never been there, Harry,” Hermione reminded quietly. “You’ve dreamed about the place, that’s all.”

“They’re not normal dreams!” Harry shouted in her face, standing up and taking a step closer to her in turn. He looked like wanted to shake her. “How d’you explain Ron’s dad then? What was all that about? How come I knew what had happened to him?”

“He’s got a point,” said Ron quietly, looking at Hermione apologetically.

“But this is just…just so unlikely!” said Hermione desperately. “Harry, how on earth could Voldemort have got hold of Sirius when he’s been in Grimmauld Place all the time?”

“Sirius might’ve cracked and just wanted some fresh air,” said Ron, sounding worried.

“He’s been desperate to get out of that house for ages,” Draco added.

“I’m trying to say that Voldemort knows you, Harry! He took Ginny down into the Chamber of Secrets to lure you there, it’s the kind of thing he does, he knows you’re the…the sort of person who’d go to Sirius’s aid! What if he’s just trying to get you into the Department of Myst–?”

“What are you trying to say?” Harry said exasperatedly.

“You’ve got a bloody saviour complex,” Hermione spit out, and looked immediately regretful.

Harry looked down to the ground as he dragged in a deep breath. Hermione wasn’t wrong, as far as Draco’s opinion was concerned, but he wasn’t going to voice it now when Harry was clearly going through something and there was no time to antagonise him, so Draco remained silent and waited for the outburst. “How do we get to London?”

“Harry, I–”

“HERMIONE, IT DOESN’T MATTER IF HE’S DONE IT TO GET ME THERE OR NOT!” Harry snapped, “They’ve taken McGonagall to St. Mungo’s, there isn’t anyone left from the Order at Hogwarts who we can tell, and if we don’t go, Sirius is dead!”

“Severus,” Draco insisted.

“What?”

“We can tell Severus,” Draco explained, already moving towards the door, “don’t go anywhere until I return, I’ll be right back,” Draco begged, rushing out of the classroom. He ran like he never had. Past Ginevra and Lovegood who had heard Harry’s outburst and were now joining them in the classroom, past hoards of students rushing to enjoy the afternoon sun, past humming suits of armour and chattering portraits.

Severus’ office was unlocked, but the man himself was nowhere to be seen. Draco could run around the castle like a madman searching for him, but he didn’t imagine it could be much help in the situation. Be that as it may, he didn’t have much of a choice, so he started off into a direction and checked every room on his way for his godfather.

When he finally found him, the wizard was rushing down to the dungeons, his long black robes flying after him. Draco ran up to him to tell him what Harry had seen, but, according to Severus, he already knew.

“Potter was caught trying to fire call Black from Umbridge’s office,” Severus said quickly, “idiot.”

“We have to warn someone, right?”

“Well, I’m not the biggest fan of Black, but I cannot let him die.”

“Great, then can we–”

“Draco, I will deal with this,” Severus insisted harshly, opening his office door, “go back to the common room.”

There wasn’t much Draco could do to argue, but there also wasn’t much he could do from the common room. Well, other than succumbing to muggle lows. “Fuck it,” he murmured and rushed to find his best friends. Blaise was waiting for him with news, not having seen Hermione after the exam and knowing Draco would probably be aware of why Harry was screaming his head off in the middle of it.

“Where’s Pansy?” Draco demanded loudly, the few other Slytherins that happened to be in the room looking at him like he was mad.

“Bedroom, what is happening?” Blaise tried again, but Draco waved him away, rushing towards the girls’ bedrooms and banging on the door he knew to be the fifth-years’.

Millicent Bulstrode answered and Draco didn’t even bother greeting her. “Parkinson!” he shouted, “I need your call thing. Your ear block,” he demanded, realising he sounded like a madman. “Just get me the caller-talker.”

“Alright,” Pansy chuckled, seeming to understand him and turning to dig through her things. When it was finally in Draco’s hand, he suddenly stilled. He had no clue what to do with it. “Did you want the telephone book as well?”

“I suppose?” Draco was awfully confused, and it did not lessen when Pansy placed a giant bright yellow book in front of him.

“It’s not the newest edition, but I’m sure if there’s a phone there now, there was one a few years back,” Pansy shrugged, “where are you calling?” she asked as Draco leafed through the book, but it was too bloody long and went in order of last names.

“Accio Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place,” he whispered quietly, and the book turned itself open in the middle of the B section. Under Regulus Arcturus Black stood the requested address. Draco would be surprised, if he wasn’t so focussed.

“Give me,” Pansy snatched the telephone out of Draco’s hand and dialled the correct numbers, her fingers moving quickly and expertly over the buttons.

There was a strange noise when Draco put it to his ear the way he’d seen Pansy do, but he waited patiently to hear someone on the other end.

“Hello,” the unmistakeable and calm voice of Remus Lupin finally answered.

“Remus!” Draco shouted before lowering his voice as he remembered there were other people around him. “Remus, where is Sirius,” Draco asked in a whisper.

“Draco? He's upstairs, why? Has something happened?”

“Are you sure he’s there? Can you check?” Draco demanded quickly.

“Of course, I’m sure, I just spoke to him a second ago.”

“Oh, thank Salazar,” Draco barely managed, his breathing suddenly difficult.

“Draco, will you tell me what has happened?” Remus said calmly. Annoyingly calmly, really.

There was another voice somewhere in the distance then, and it wasn’t his mothers, a definite baritone. “Love, there’s a letter from Snape,” the unmistakeable Sirius said.

“Has Harry fire called?” Draco demanded before Sirius, well and alive and untortured Sirius, could take Remus’ attention away.

“No, why? Draco are you and Harry alright?”

“Yes, we are. Bye, Remus,” Draco said, handing the telephone back to Pansy before she pressed a button and pushed inward the stick that grew out of the top of it.

“Now will you tell us what’s happened?” Blaise demanded.

“Not until I know Harry hasn’t left the castle yet,” Draco shook his head. He loved the boy, but he did not trust him to follow orders as simple as stay put.

By the time the three of them reached Umbridge’s office, hoping to catch the Gryffindors in the middle of being told off, all that was left behind them was a slightly injured Inquisitorial Squad. “They were headed to the grounds,” Nott told them between hurls of vomiting. Draco wasn’t surprised he’d thought he was there to aid, since Blaise was still outside the office and could not be seen, any suspicions of Granger’s boyfriend trying to help the Gryffindors gone.

When there was grass beneath his feet and fresh air in his burning lungs, the sight before him made him want to cry with agitation and exhaustion. Six Hogwarts robes soared across the treeline and over the Black Lake, seemingly sitting on nothing. Draco couldn’t even see a single broom under either one of them.

“Is that bloody them?” Blaise asked, concern audible in his words, "Where are they going?" Draco explained in as few words as possible, watching Blaise slowly grow more agitated. His girlfriend was going off to fight dark wizards. Draco had never been able to relate to this mix or anger and fear more. 

“Let me think,” Draco rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. He had a migraine coming on, he could almost taste it. There was no way of getting to London, unless he flew there by broom. A broom wouldn’t be faster than thestrals. This thought surprised him. His brain had deduced something before he’d paid attention to it. The six of them had flown on thestrals, and Draco couldn’t bloody spot them in the forest, even if he wanted to ride them across the country.

“That should be helpful,” Blaise said and Draco reluctantly raised his head to see what he’d meant. Severus was strutting across the Hogwarts grounds in the direction of Hogsmeade.

“Does the Hogwarts express run before the term is over?” Pansy wondered, still catching her breath. Draco wasn’t sure he’d ever seen the girl running, let alone so fast to keep up with him.

“Of course not,” Blaise said.

“He’s apparating from Hogsmeade,” Draco

“No chance you’ve learned to apparate this year, is there?” Pansy suggested.

“Can you side-along three people?” Draco wondered, already following his godfather.

“Unheard of,” Blaise sounded defeated, even as he was right on Draco’s heels. “Besides, he would never let you.”

“Not unless you’ve learned the Imperius Curse,” Pansy snorted, also following suit. “Please, Cerce, don’t tell me you have.”

“What? No,” Draco dismissed. “He’s going to have to try.”

Severus hadn’t heard the three of them following. It was already getting quite dark and there were celebrations back in the castle thrown by the older years. When Severus reached the same spot Narcissa had used to apparate with Draco, he stopped in his tracks, clearly focussing.

“You’re taking us with you,” Draco shouted, startling the man. “Sirius is at home, and they’ve gone to the Ministry. We’re coming with you.” It didn’t take long to convince him, especially when he saw the desperation in Draco’s eyes, not to mention the boy refused to let go of his godfather’s hand and Severus was risking splinching the boy entrusted to him unless he cooperated.

“You all stay behind me at all times, understood?” Severus sounded enraged.

Draco nodded, even though he knew that wouldn’t be necessary. The six of them were still mid-flight and the four Slytherins would be there in a heartbeat. All Draco had to do was find Harry. He tried not to think of this plan failing when his stomach was turned upside down after the apparating.

The entrance to the Ministry of Magic, clad in its green-black tiles and countless fireplaces, was silent and dark, everyone gone home for the night. The only sound in the atrium was the steady rush of water from the golden fountain. Draco wondered if there was someone in some lonely office several storeys lower, working on some sort of international partnerships in the middle of the night.

The security officer was missing from their post. Draco couldn’t imagine that was a good sign. Their absence was an ominous sign, and his feeling of foreboding increased as they looked all around them. “Do not move from this spot,” Severus advised before heading into the direction of the lifts.

Pansy seemed to be listening intently to the darkness, as if it was about to whisper how far Draco’s friends were. Blaise paced the length of the atrium soundlessly. Severus did not return for another hour and Draco was on the verge of going to search for him, when the fireplaces set ablaze with bright green flames and outstepped Harry, Hermione, Ginevra, Ronald and, for some reason, also Lovegood and Longbottom.

“Draco, what are you doing here?” Harry asked, surprised to see him.

“I swear to Merlin, Potter, I will start jinxing you again,” Draco said, earning a confused look from Harry, “did I not tell you to stay where you were?”

“I had to go, Sirius was–”

“Sirius is fine!” Draco snarled through gritted teeth, “he’s at home, and he’s safe, I bloody talked to him.”

Harry looked over Draco’s shoulder at the darkened Ministry halls as if thinking it over. “Are you sure?”

“Completely,” Draco promised, eager to get Harry out of there.

“Okay,” the Gryffindor nodded, almost painful relief flooding his face. “God, I was so scared,” he said when Draco hugged him despite his anger.

A loud bang tore the two of them apart, making Harry sprint towards the lifts, deeper into the Ministry, despite Draco’s yelling after him to get back and leave the building. Hermione and Blaise came apart, as well, confused as to where the loud noise had come from, and the girl followed her best friend once she’d realised he’d gone alone.

“I’ll kill him,” Draco said under his breath before following.

It was only a few minutes later when They were standing in a large, circular room. Everything in here was black including the floor and ceiling. Identical, unmarked, handle-less black doors were set at intervals all around the black walls, interspersed with branches of candles whose flames burned blue, their cool, shimmering light reflected in the shining marble floor so that it looked as though there was dark water underfoot.

“Someone shut the door,” Harry muttered. Longbottom obeyed. Without the long chink of light from the torch-lit corridor behind them, the place became so dark that for a moment the only things they could see were the bunches of shivering blue flames on the walls and their ghostly reflections in the floor below.

Just as Harry turned to Draco and asked which of the unmarked doors they should walk through, there was a great rumbling noise and the candles began to move sideways. The circular wall was rotating. When it finally stopped, they no longer had any way of knowing which door they’d just entered through.

“Pick your poison,” Pansy murmured. Ginevra laughed. Draco had no time to ponder this. Harry asked, if that had ever happened to Draco when he’d been here with Lucius. It hadn’t.

They tried a door at random and found a room filled with embalmed body parts and brains in eerily glowing tanks. There were doors all along this room, as well. Whatever hope Draco had fostered a minute ago was completely gone now. This place was enormous.

The next door they tried housed the strange veiled archway Draco had once seen through an open door. His father had pulled him closer with a tight grip on his shoulder that day. Draco remembered feeling scolded and protected at the same time – a strange feeling he had not thought about in years. Unsupported by any surrounding wall, the veil, despite the complete stillness of the cold surrounding air, was fluttering very slightly as though it had just been touched.

“Who’s there?” Harry wondered, jumping down onto the bench below. There was no answering voice, but the veil continued to flutter and sway.

“Careful!” Hermione whispered when Draco rushed towards Harry.

Harry scrambled down the benches one by one until he reached the stone bottom of the sunken pit in the middle of the room. His footsteps echoed loudly as he walked slowly toward the archway. It seemed taller from where they stood now than when he had been looking down on it from above. Still the veil swayed gently, as though somebody had just passed through it.

“Do you hear that?” Harry asked, noticing Draco next to him. “There are voices. Someone’s whispering behind there”

“There are no voices, Harry,” Draco said hastily as Harry’s hand stretched out, “don’t touch it.”

“Why?” Harry whispered.

“I don’t know, just…” Draco couldn’t explain it, but he knew something awful would happen if any of them would make contact with the veil, “just don’t.”

“It feels like there’s someone standing right behind it,” Harry said curiously, and it was starting to freak Draco out.

“Yes, well,” Draco huffed, “if anyone was there they would have answered you, can we please go?”

“Let’s go,” called Hermione from halfway up the stone steps back to the door. “This isn’t right, Harry, come on, let’s go.” She sounded scared, much more scared than she had in the room where the brains swam. Draco agreed with her and took Harry’s hand to pull him back. He was already angry enough for having been dragged down here, he was not going to let Harry get himself killed over it. It was like Harry was mesmerised by it, unable to move. If Draco had to carry him out of there, he would.

The next door they tried was locked. No spell in their arsenal could unlock it, so Hermione decided on all of their behalf to leave it. Might as well. The door in Harry’s dream had always been open for him, so why would it be on that resisted his entry?

As Draco’s eyes became more accustomed to the brilliant glare of the next room, he saw clocks gleaming from every surface, large and small, grandfather and carriage, hanging in spaces between the bookcases or standing on desks ranging the length of the room, so that a busy, relentless ticking filled the place like thousands of minuscule, marching footsteps. The source of the dancing, diamond-bright light was a towering crystal bell jar that stood at the far end of the room.

Harry seemed to know the room immediately, “This is it,” he announced. It was it for what, Draco wasn’t clear. If Sirius was home and safe, Draco was rather confused as to why they were down here. Sure, there had been. A loud noise, but that was no reason to suspect anything in a literal building of magical things, and Harry was not usually the first one in line to help Severus Snape. “You know, Hermione’s right,” Draco scoffed, “you really do have a saviour complex.”

There was another loud noise before Harry could answer, and the nine of them rushed forward. Draco was pulled back by a familiar, rough hand before he had the chance to stay close to Harry, and before he knew it, the boy was out of his eyeline. Draco dreaded looking up, prepared to get the talking-to of a lifetime from Severus, but found in front of him long white hair instead. It shone blue in the odd light, matching the eyes of its owner.

“What are you doing here?” his father demanded, hurt and anger playing on his features, unable to come to a decision of which one should remain. “You weren’t supposed to be here.”

“Why would you care?” Draco yanked himself out of the grip roughly.

“Fuck’s sake, Draco,” Lucius, to Draco’s surprise, looked on the verge of tears. “You have to leave. Now.”

“Who do you think you are to tell me what to do anymore?” Draco demanded, taken aback, but refusing to show it. He had never seen Lucius Malfoy so genuinely distraught.

“I refuse to endanger you no matter what you think of me,” the older wizard answered. There was something about his eyes. Something Draco only knew from his mother. Lucius had never looked at him like this, as much as Narcissa had liked to insist he’d loved Draco. Throughout his childhood, Draco had been forced to beg and fight for his father’s approval, and here the man was, not having seen his son for two years and having grown a heart? Unbelievable.

Draco tried to get away once more, to find Harry and make sure he was still alive. If his father was here, that meant there were Death Eater here, and they all tended to have the same target over the recent years.

“You do not get to play at being my father. You blew it,” Draco sneered.

“Don’t you think I know that?” Lucius asked, anger overpowering whatever else had been there before. “Don’t you think I only ever wonder about you and your mother? Every waking second, whether the two of you are still alive. That’s all I do, Draco. It is my job, and I’ve done it well.”

“Done it well?” Draco asked with a humourless laugh. “You’re a bloody Death Eater. You’ve condemned your family to die.”

“I’ve been making sure no one kills you,” Lucius insisted. “That’s all I’ve been doing. All!”

Draco watched his father for a few moments, unwilling to believe him. “You left us for dead.”

“Who do you think gave your mother the idea of stowing you away with family? Who do you think has been actively keeping you off recruitment lists? Who do you think has been making sure no one is interested in you?” Lucius asked, taking Draco aback.

If his father had known he’d been staying with Sirius the entire time, surely there must have been a way to get to him sooner. Draco had been so afraid of being extorted out of school at any given moment, he had not once considered why no one was coming to get him. All this time, Lucius had been watching out for him from the shadows.

“I am your father, Draco,” he reminded, “everything I do is for our family.”

“Then you shouldn’t be a Death Eater,” Draco snarled, desperately trying to remain enraged. Failing to keep tears at bay.

“Do you not realise I know that?” Lucius’ whispers had grown disproportionately loud for their purpose.

“I don bel–” Draco began, but his father had already cast Imperio on him and was now holding him up to his chest to make sure Draco didn’t fall to the ground and hurt himself. It was fucking infuriating, being cared for like this. Especially by him. And it felt violating to have one of the Unforgivables cast on him at such a time. Draco wanted to scream, to kick, to bloody punch the man, but he could not will himself to move an inch.

“Sit,” he said and Draco couldn’t stop himself from obeying. “I’m sorry,” Lucius said earnestly, laying a hand on his son’s shoulder, “but you will not suffer, if I can help it.”

So, Draco sat there, and he listened. He listened to his father taunting Harry, he tried to count just how many Death Eater voices he could hear, but he lost track. He listened to an endless amount of prophecies breaking and exploding, and, just when he was about to succumb to the idea of dying here, buried under a mountain of crystal shards, laughing in the face of Lucius Malfoy who wanted to protect him so hard he ended up killing him, the spell was lifted, and Draco could stand again.

“Let’s get you out of here, cousin,” Nymphadora’s voice had never sounded so sweet.

“They’ve got the–” Draco started, breathlessly. It hadn’t failed to amaze him just how uncomfortable stunning had been on one’s lungs, but somehow the Imperius Curse was worse.

“We know,” Nymphadora interjected.

“It broke.”

“We know.”

“It’s Harry, isn’t it?”

“Right now it’s about forty seven thousand prophecies about to kill you, so, would you like to come with me or shall we talk this through further?” she asked, and Draco wanted so desperately to comment on how lucky he was to have to most physically inept member of the Order having been sent to find him.

Draco could have answered his cousin, but she was already dragging him away through the remaining shelves, expertly manoeuvring her way through the room. Draco was almost impressed. When she reached the room that previously spun and disoriented them, she told him to stay put. He nodded, and, the second she was gone from his sight, followed the noise into the room with the veil.

Sirius was here. In fact, the entire Order was here, save Dumbledore and McGonagall, but it was Sirius that for some reason frightened Draco the most. He was casting curses left and right, a bright smile on his face, throwing quips at Harry once in a while to make the boy laugh. They were dancing on the edge of the archway, it was making Draco’s heart sink. No one had noticed him enter. Sirius punched Lucius square in the jaw. Draco couldn’t say he was opposed to it much. That thought made something in his stomach pull and ache. He ignored it.

Bellatrix showed up out of nowhere. Even Draco, who had not been participating in the fight, hadn’t seen her coming. The green spark from her wand was fired expertly at a very deliberate target. Draco didn’t see the collision, but Harry later described it as a laser meeting a mirror. The Killing Curse missed Sirius by a fragment of an inch, bounced off the oddly polished surface of the arch, and hit the man right in the back.

Harry was screaming.

Remus was holding him back from going after Bellatrix.

Draco was frozen in spot.

When morning came, Harry Potter was a hero once more, the Daily Prophet had enough photographs to tell the world of its most evil wizard’s return, Draco Malfoy had a father again and Sirius Black laid lifeless but breathing on his bed, cursed and unable to wake, floating between life and death as their hope slowly ran out.

Chapter Text

“Were you there?” his mother asked.

Draco had refused to answer at first, but he happened to know this particular tone, and he knew nothing good ever came from ignoring her. “I wasn’t hurt.”

“But you could have been!” she shouted. Draco had never before heard her lose her temper. It was frightening, to say the least.

“It was my fault, Mrs. Malfoy,” Harry chirped up from the doorway, eyes glued to the floor, guilt and blame and restlessness etched on his face. “Draco was following me. I’m the one who should have listened.”

Draco wasn’t sure when Harry’s relief had faded into dread. It must have been in the early morning hours, at dawn, when the sky bled a venomous indigo colour and Draco himself had been succumbing to restless slumber, arms wrapped around Harry to feign some sense of safety and comfort for the boy, though he knew, in the depth of his heart, that his boyfriend rarely got any sleep these days. Sirius had yet to open his eyes, Remus had yet to close them, Harry had yet to cease his fear and Draco had yet to stop spending every waking hour on a lookout for a cure.

“Poppy is only so capable,” McGonagall’s voice rang from the kitchen. It was calm, calculated, that of an experienced mediator.

“You can’t take an international fugitive to St. Mungo’s,” Remus shouted. Draco could practically see him pacing and rubbing his temples. He had yet to take a minute of slumber. Dumbledore’s Army had not been permitted to join the conversation, but it was loud enough to follow either way.

“It is Severus that we should be propositioning,” Kingsley piped up, “what kind of a man refuses aid because of childish prejudices?”

“Snape hasn’t been back yet,” Nymphadora reminded, “and he’s not the only Potions master extraordinaire in this house.”

“We’re not leaving Sirius’ life in the hands of a child,” Moody grumbled.

“He’s the only choice we have,” Remus sighed. Draco felt like he deserved to be in the room for this.

Draco had been brewing Remus the most insane draughts to help keep him awake, and even Severus would worry, advising Draco to stop experimenting at once. But Draco did not have to listen. Because Severus was stubbornly refusing to return any time soon and even Dumbledore had insisted that St. Mungo’s had no idea of how to deal with this case, as it was a never-before-seen by-product of surviving the killing curse.

Only one person had ever survived that one, one who had not fallen into an unmendable sleep, but one Draco was now continuously failing, by being unable to brew whatever potion would wake Sirius up. Harry was a shell of his old self. Draco wondered if it would take him years to find Sirius a cure, only to return to the Malfoy Manor to the dead body of his father, but of one thing he was certain – he had to work fast.

Draco couldn’t exactly explain what was happening between him and Harry. The boy seemed eager to accept any blame that came his way, even if he wasn’t the target for it. Draco had never seen someone admit his guilt so many times. Harry prayed now. Draco was ignorant to the logistics of such actions, but he often found Harry leaned over their bed, kneeled on the floor, muttering to himself. Those times, he left the room and headed back downstairs to keep working. Harry may not have been able to do much, but Draco had a duty placed upon him by Remus, and he refused to let anyone down.

Harry had only been allowed to stay a week, after which, kicking and screaming, he’d been taken back to his terrible muggles. Draco had not let go of him for an entire half hour that morning. Narcissa and Molly had packed a giant bag of sweets and sandwiches, unspoiling charm on the entire thing.

Draco had never had this many resources thrown at him. Sure, there were members of the Order sent out into the world to look for a cure, but they couldn’t put everyone on the Sirius case. Not now that Voldemort was back and the entire wizarding world knew it. But Draco was taken to one library after another. He was taken to see several prominent Ministry officials’ private collections, not that any of them had anything worthwhile. The Hogwarts library in the middle of the summer break was an odd place to be, and it just so happened to be entirely unhelpful. St. Mungo’s had a collection he couldn’t have ever dreamt of. Draco spent several days there. He was allowed to take the seventeen books he found the most potentially helpful back to Grimmauld Place, where he spent two weeks translating runes and ancient texts in Latin.

His mother actually baked a cake for his sixteenth birthday. There was a small celebration. There were no gifts. Before Draco knew. It, he was back to reading.

My Draco,

Please tell me what is going on in London. It’s killing me not to know and everyone refuses to tell me. I know it’s risky, but I have to know. If Snuffles is dead, I deserve to know.

I couldn’t tell Hermione or Ron, but you always know what to do and you never seem to judge me. You and Hermione were right, I do have a saving thing, and I don’t know what to do about it. Sirius is dying because of me. I shouldn’t have gone, I should have listened. I will never forgive myself and I wouldn't expect anyone else to.

I miss your eyes. My aunt has quite an ugly jewellery collection, but whenever she wears silver, I think of them. I imagine them being the first thing I see every morning. I want to go back to London. If you ever find it within yourself to look at me again, I would set the world on fire. You could tell me to do anything. I promise to never disobey you again.

Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.

Harry

P.S. Happiest of birthdays to my favourite of Slytherins

Dearest Harry,

Snuffles is with us, I’m still looking for a cure, I will not give up until they throw me out of here. I only wish I could read faster. There does not seem to exist a solution, but I promise I will not rest until one arrives, even if I have to make a deal with your devil.

No one blames you. You are who you are. You are unstoppable whenever you think you are right. You refuse to listen to reason. You are annoying, and loud, and infuriating, and everything I adore. Even when you ignore me, I adore you. When you make mistakes, I adore you. Every minute you exist and long after, I shall continue to adore you. You have seen the worst in me and you still refuse to let go of me. The only person in my life I would trust with any secret. You are good. You are so good. You are too good for this world. It is ichor that flows through your veins, not blood.

My heart calls for you, I wish you were here,

D.M.

By the time summer solstice came around, hope was running low in number twelve Grimmauld Place. Draco had to be reminded to eat these days. Whenever someone told him to get some rest he answered of a variation of “I can rest when I’m dead, and I can die when Sirius is awake.”

Many times late at night when going upstairs to bed after spending the entire day reading, he would hear Remus muttering in Sirius’ bedroom. “You promised you’d take me to the sea,” Remus would say, “you said we’d find my sister. You have no right to leave me to do it alone,” he would be crying, “you did this once already, I don’t want to want another twelve years for you.” Draco would feel himself growing more desperate with every word. “I told you not to go. Why do you never listen?”

Severus was nowhere to be found, though, according to Remus, Dumbledore had implied he was genuinely busy instead of avoiding his responsibilities. Draco would never understand the old man. He gave out orders and watched the people around him burn, and, when someone needed help in the fight for their life, he still refused to delegate the right man for the job. Sirius may have been stable, but Draco and Remus were no healers.  Who knew what was happening to the wizard?

Hermione’s parents let her visit for a few days. The girl said she might have got longer, but didn’t want to explain the nature of her having to go. From what Draco understood, they were good people. He no longer laughed at the idea of thinking of muggles as good. He would have, just a month earlier, perhaps, but now he was not so quick to go against his father’s ideology with joy. His father. The man who was currently busying himself with protecting Draco. What he wouldn’t give to have a longer conversation. Even if most of it would most likely be shouting on Draco’s part.

Draco filled Hermione in on all the progress he’d made, which was, generally speaking, none. It was only by the end of the day that he was truly thankful for her presence. It was wonderful to bounce ideas off someone else, besides she truly was a much faster reader and rune translator than him. It was almost two in the morning, when she finally headed off to bed, in the room she would normally share with Ginevra, if Molly hadn’t taken all her underaged children back to the Burrow.

Draco was left alone with Sirius once again. It was nice in the night time. There were no sounds coming from the house, even Kreecher was hiding away happily now that Sirius couldn’t yell at him to do his job. Remus was away, as the full moon was coming on the first of July. Draco liked to imagine curing Sirius for when Remus would come back.

It was that night that he had the idea – his most brilliant, if he was allowed to think so of himself. Sirius didn’t move in his sleep like any normal person would. There were spells on him to ensure he was fed and healthy, but he never stirred. Draco watched shallow breathing make the man’s chest rise and fall and recalled his own state when Harry had stunned him.

“Finite,” Draco whispered, like it was a secret, like no one else had ever thought of it, like maybe it would be that simple. He waited, but Sirius remained sleeping. That didn’t mean, however, that it wasn’t the right track of thought. He couldn’t remember the exact words Bellatrix had spoken. He’d seen green light and assumed it had been the Killing Curse, but what if it had been another?

He'd spent weeks researching in the libraries of good wizards. Perhaps good wizards were not what would help him this time. He knew exactly where he could find more useful information. His broom was in his and Harry’s room. So was the invisibility cloak Harry had refused to take to Little Winging in fear of his idiot cousin finding it and burning it for fun. If he was smart about it, and he certainly wasn’t, at least that much he could tell, he could be back before the sunrise.

He didn’t ponder this decision. He didn’t let himself sleep on it, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. So, he shoved Harry’s cloak into a leather satchel, stepped right out the door of number twelve, Grimmauld Place, looked around quickly, and did what he did best – flew.

The air was fresh at this hour of the night. Not the stuffy drawing room dust that he'd been breathing on a daily basis. The coolness was welcome on his skin, and he tried not to think about it getting cold after the first fifteen minutes of flying. He would simply have to get over it.

Draco reached Wiltshire in a little over half an hour. He knew it like the back of his hand. He landed in the forest behind what he used to know as his home, leaving his broom propped up against a tree he’d once watched Theo Nott climb and then be unable to get back down from. The little path to the Malfoy Manor had been overgrown with moss. The land had forgotten Draco completely since the last time he’d been here. When he stepped into the clearing behind the house, he realised, so had his home.

The few lights that shone out the windows seemed colder and paler that ever before. Ivy had taken some of the ground floor windows. His mother’s plants did not seem to have been watered once. He found Harry's cloak before anyone had the chance to notice him strolling across the grounds, and headed for his mother’s greenhouse, whose windows were smashed and broken just enough to let Draco inside.

He stood, waiting, expecting for some kind of warning. Some sign of an intrusion on their precious mothership. No one reacted. Nothing made a sound. Draco chose his steps carefully, making sure he didn’t step on a single glass shard and make noise. He made his way through the seemingly empty manor.

If Draco hadn’t grown up here and didn’t know this house blindfolded and walking backwards, he would not believe it had been his home his home. The antique furniture his parents had once been so proud of was defiled if not destroyed entirely. The smell of alcohol wafted through the hallways. Someone was yelling and laughing in the distance. He could tell it must have been from the dining room.

He moved silently upstairs, avoiding the creaking step and walking right past his bedroom door. Then he stopped. He had to know what his father had let them do to his precious room. He also knew that if he’d open the door while someone was in there, he might get the Sirius treatment himself. Well, he was already doing something stupid. When in Rome…

The door opened with a creak, like it was screaming out after so long without its owner. Draco winced and waited, wondering suddenly how much of his visit to his old home would end up to be him expecting someone to show up out of nowhere and kill him.

“Hear that?” A faraway voice asked. One of the ones in the dining room.

“It’s wind, Barty,” another voice dismissed, “creepy fucking house.”

Draco exhaled and carefully took a step inside, preparing himself for the worst. His bedroom was, terrifyingly, unpredictably and implausibly, his bedroom. His head whipped around, looking for any sign that someone had made changes or glamoured it to draw him in before attacking, but it was, ridiculously, his old bedroom.

Before thinking, he ran to his desk, pulling out whatever he could find and fit into his satchel – expensive inks, old letters from Pansy, silver rings he’d been mistaken not to take with him to Hogwarts. His desk chair had been moved, he realised as he dug through his drawers. It now resided in the corner behind the door and sported a cushion Draco remembered to once have been in his parents’ bedroom. He could practically see Lucius sitting here for hours, imagining Draco was still in the house or taking tea with his mother in the garden.

He shook away the thought. He tried not to think about his father shedding tears of worry and regret as he walked back out, closed the door silently, smiling when it cooperated and did not make a single sound, and took his familiar path to the library. It was just as dark and seemingly abandoned as the rest of the house, so Draco felt confident in his assumptions that no one would come searching for educational pastime, especially since he realised to have left Harry’s cloak in his bedroom.

“Fucking fine,” he told himself, mentally scolding his inability to keep track of possessions that aren’t even his in the first place, and putting his bag on the floor to start digging. He knew the general layout of his parents’ collection, and he knew where the shelf his father didn’t want him touching stood. He started with that one.

Books upon books on curses and maledictions, tomes on pyromancy, scapulimancy, even necromancy, recipes for thousands of potions that resulted in fates Draco could have never even thought of. If he wasn’t so desperate to do this quickly, he would start getting dizzy with the amount of dark magic surrounding him. Truly, Hogwarts must have rubbed off on him, because he was not reacting like a Black and a Malfoy should.

The curse spells came first. Hermione had told him of a quick-read charm that he’d asked Remus to put on a pair of Harry’s old glasses that he no longer wore since Sirius had bought him new ones. It had been a challenge at first, until he was informed that the prescription could also be removed by a relatively simple spell. Draco had been forced to wonder just how many mundane spells he wasn’t yet aware of.

The curses spanned from slightly annoying to life-ruining, yet somehow none described a green glow and the inability to move. It was almost an hour later when Draco’s thoughts were entirely encompassed by a book on blood magic. It was a vile and convulsive read, but he did seem to be on the right track.

He pocketed a book on blood curse reversal, even though it sounded like John Dee level of popular science, before moving onto the next one. A book on ancient Albanian curses finally provided a surprisingly apt description of Sirius’ case. He removed Harry’s glasses to make sure they weren’t somehow obstructing the page. For a moment, Draco could only stare in awe. Until footsteps brought him out of his daze.

“Well, would ya look at that,” a venomous voice said from behind him, making him whip around. “Hey, Evan, come look at this duckling.”

“Ah, young master Malfoy,” the owner of the other voice from before joined in the library, “to what do we owe the pleasure?”

“You know, I seem to remember saying I heard something upstairs,” the man, Barty Crouch Jr., from what Draco had put together by now, sneered at him.

“Yes, I will never doubt you again,” the other man, Evan Rosier, if Draco had to guess, rolled his eyes, wand fixed directly at the boy. He looked the same amount of amused. Draco thought he felt his heart stop in fear. “Shall we take him to daddy?”

“Can’t believe he chooses to pop up when the Dark Lord is out,” Crouch Jr. scoffed, “imagine how excited he’d be to see the little shit walk in here on his own. Well? What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Calm now, darling, that’s Malfoy’s son, we shan’t be presumptuous,” Rosier said with utter disinterest. “Do tell us what has finally changed your mind,” he added, watching Draco expectantly.

“I escaped,” Draco managed a snarl, not entirely sure where it had even come from or what his sudden burst of inspiration had in store. “They fucking tried to recruit me. That army of his. Miserable old twat.”

He waited then for a tell that either one of them was about to call bullshit. Not that Draco had a single option going for him. His wand was in his satchel on the floor, even if he had expected to use it, he couldn’t, not with the Trace on him, and he had bloody left Harry’s cloak, the only proper tool that would help him, in another room. “He does look like shit,” Crouch supposed. Draco honestly had no clue. Ever since Harry had left to head back to his muggle family, Draco had stopped making an effort. Besides, barely sleeping and being too busy to eat will make a person unrecognisable.

Rosier didn’t seem to believe a single sound that had just come out of his mouth. “Alright, come along, little one, let’s see what the boys have to say about you.”

Draco watched the two of them as they clearly waited for the teenager to move. Draco wasn’t sure he could. There was a Death Eater’s wand aimed at his chest, could he really be blamed for his legs turning to jelly? With a deep breath and an assurance that there wasn’t really much else he could do, he stepped forward, having to walk in-between the two of them to get through the door, as the two Death Eaters watched him carefully. Draco wasn’t sure he’d ever felt fear like this in his life. He knew one thing. His days in Grimmauld Place were over.

The halls of Malfoy Manor seemed somehow colder, somehow darker, and somehow longer. He knew his father’s voice before he was taken into the study. The other man’s tone was a distant memory. If Draco’s regret for having come here hadn’t settled in yet, it did now, when he saw the look on his Lucius Malfoy’s face. Draco had never known a Malfoy was capable of expressing so much pain with a single glance.

“My boy,” Lucius then said, having gathered himself momentarily and risen from his chair, abandoning the glass of firewhisky on a mahogany desk that was lit in nothing but flames from the fireplace. Lucius hugged Draco close to him with a desperate whisper of his son’s name, barely audible even to Draco himself. “You have returned to me.”

Whatever the two men had been discussing earlier, clearly having left Crouch and Rosier out of the conversation, was forgotten. Tiberius Nott stood, as well, looking Draco up and down. “Well, it appears the answer to our problem has walked in on its own.” Mr. Nott had always had a strange aura around him. Draco had never liked the man. He clearly hated Theodore unless there was a use for him, and Draco had detested him for that once, back when he had seen Theo as his friend. The way he looked down on Draco now, even though the boy had grown almost as tall as the two men in front of him, made him feel like the scum of the earth. “Wouldn’t you say, Lucius?”

“It appears so,” Draco’s father choked out. Some may have assumed it was an expression of pride, but Draco now knew better. His father looked at an instant to already be mourning his him. “I suppose…we shall inform the Dark Lord then,” he said in a voice that said to Draco everything he needed to know. By coming here tonight, Draco had signed his own eulogy.

“They don’t have food over on the other camp?” Nott laughed. “Aren’t they supposed to be saints?”

“Let us get you some dinner and a change of clothes, Draco,” Lucius said with a tender hand on Draco’s shoulder. Rosier moved to follow the two of them, earning a snappy, “I think I remember where my own kitchen is, Evan.”

“What’s that?” Rosier asked in feigned innocence, eyes glued to the book still in Draco’s hand, before snatching it out of his grasp. “Albanian curses, huh? Bit advanced for a, what, fourth-year?”

“Sixth,” he sneered in return, a strange sense of bravery having returned to his bones now that Lucius was stood next to him. Another wave of creativity came over him, as he said, "Besides, there is no age limitation on wanting to cause those bastards pain. Now, if you wouldn’t mind, this book is Malfoy property and you are on Malfoy grounds.” Draco said, taking the book back.

“Father’s son,” Draco could hear Crouch Jr. laughing ash his father led him away, “all talk, no bite.”

Lucius’ steps sped up when they’d gone far enough from the study and none of the three men had followed. Draco had to assume there was no one else there that night. The older man seemed desperate to get Draco at a safe distance. It was painful to acknowledge it, even in his own mind, after so much time hating the man.

“What are you doing here?” Lucius demanded the second the door to the kitchen was close and wards were in place. “If you tell me you came here for a book, you will not see the morning.” Now this was the Lucius that Draco knew. Threatening with punishments. Overly excitable.

“When Voldemort was in hiding,” Draco started, earning a pointed look from his father. “When You-Know-Who was in hiding,” Draco corrected himself, “did Auntie Bella go looking for him?”

His father watched him like the boy had gone mad, and perhaps it had been some lukewarm sentiment leftover from the father gene, but he went along with it and nodded for an answer.

“So, she was in Albania?” Draco had to make sure, lifting the book to emphasise the point of his question.

“Draco, what have you got yourself into?”

“I am saving a man’s life. One the lot of you tried to take,” Draco said sharply, snapping his father’s mouth shut. “Is it likely that she learned a rare ancient curse?” he asked, returning to the matter at hand in a much calmer manner. “Do you know?”

“I do not,” his father insisted, as if reminding Draco that he never went looking for Voldemort would somehow fix the fact that he was yet again his subordinate. “But I wouldn’t put it past her.”

Draco nodded, letting the sliver of hope sink in before remembering the twenty most recent minutes of his life. “What are they going to make me do?”

Lucius refrained from answering, staring at the table in front of him. There was a surprisingly good spread, but Draco couldn’t even think about eating. “Help Theo.”

“With?”

His father smiled at him briefly. The smile adults tended to give children when they knew something terrible was coming, but refused to scare them. The kind Draco knew would only bring him destruction. “Your mother is taking you to your aunt Andromeda’s tomorrow,” Lucius whispered instead, even though he’d placed the room under his wards either way. “I will think of an excuse to give them as to why you are not here for now, but Draco…” he sounded desperate again, “Salazar, do I wish you would have stayed away.”

“Father, what are they going to make me do?” Draco asked, unable to imagine what Voldemort would have entrusted to Theodore Nott. To a measly schoolboy and one not even of age.

“I will get you out of it,” Lucius promised, seemingly more to himself than to his son. “And, if I don’t, I will do it myself.”

“Do what?” Draco wanted to shout and shake his father by the shoulders. He wanted to remind him that he was still in the room and they were still talking, but Lucius was getting up and motioning towards the servants’ staircase.

“Get your things, leave the way you came,” he ordered, pressing a tea sandwich into his son's hand, “If they see you again, I will not be able to help you leave. Do they really not feed you there?”

“What will you tell them?” Draco asked, ignoring the last comment.

“You let me worry about that,” Lucius said, not sounding entirely convincing. He watched Draco for another long beat before hugging him tightly. The boy had never experienced so much concentrated love and worry from the man. Perhaps losing his family does that to a person.

He had more questions, but he understood that if not now, then he wouldn’t be able to leave at all. He had to be out of the house and on his broom before his father had finished spewing whatever lies he would have come up with on the way, so Draco ran upstairs, taking three steps at a time, he found Harry’s cloak before getting the satchel, and snuck back down, his father’s voice booming authoritatively as he reached Narcissa’s destroyed greenhouse and ran for his life back into the forest behind Malfoy Manor.

It didn’t hit him at first, what he had got himself into. It was only halfway back to London that he started understanding the gravity of his situation. If he was now part of some diabolical plan of Voldemort’s, he couldn’t see how he was allowed to leave. He told himself that perhaps his father would get him out of it. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. But the look on Tiberius Nott’s face had told him enough. Draco’s return had been witnessed by four Death Eaters now, three of whom would most likely do anything to earn their place under Voldemort’s boot. What he couldn't comprehend, however, was why his father would even let him go. Surely, it would have been safer to keep him close. And then Draco understood – he was given time to say his goodbyes.

When he landed outside number twelve, his once impenetrable veneer of Slytherin composure started crumbling, revealing the raw vulnerability he usually dared not confront. The air seemed to thicken with foreboding, each breath an intricate dance with mortality. A black-clad frame was waiting for him on the street. His first instinct was to get back on his broom and leave, thinking someone had been sent to get him after realising what Lucius had done, and Draco was about to reveal the Order’s location. He couldn’t afford that, so he held onto the handle tighter and prepared to kick himself up from the ground.

“Where have you been?” Severus’ voice demanded as the man came into the light of a street lantern.

Draco let out a shaking breath. If he’d though he was in danger a year ago, then he had no word to describe his fear now. He composed himself as he got off the broom and strode over to his godfather. “It’s called Lidhja e ferrit,” he said instead of answering the question, slight anger pushing through his terrified, exhausted state. The man had been missing for weeks while Draco was searching for a solution, and when he finally does show up, he has the audacity to be angry with Draco doing the job he was supposed to be doing himself. “It might take a while to break, but I’m sure you have your fair share of experience with ancient curses, do you not, of great Severus Snape?” Draco said and pushed the book into Severus’ chest as roughly as he could manage, before he walked up the stairs to number twelve, Grimmauld Place that had materialised during this conversation.

“And what have you given to obtain this information?” Severus asked as Draco crossed the threshold. The boy stopped dead in his tracks, the reminder of it alone nearly bringing tears to his eyes. He turned to face Severus, who had opened the first page of the ancient book. Draco knew what he was seeing on it. There wasn’t a book in Malfoy Manor that didn’t have Lucius’ seal on the inside. “I hope your soul is worth Black’s life.”

Chapter Text

Draco spent his days by the sea. There wasn’t much he could do while back at his aunt Andromeda’s house. Especially not now that his mother had learned what he’d done to get that book and what danger he was in. She had forbidden him from contacting anyone on the Order, as well as Harry and their friends. He didn’t even know if Sirius had pulled through. Whenever Narcissa would go out to Order meetings, she would leave him with a stern gaze, and would refuse to share a single bit of information learnt.

It was in mid-July, after spending a dozen nights watching the waves amidst the tapestry of twilight, that he finally succumbed to his anger. She had once been his closest person, and now she refused to talk to him. “You are the one that has kept in contact with father without telling me. How am I to trust you?”

“I do not need to earn your trust, I am your mother,” she insisted.

“My mother that refuses to look at me,” Draco scoffed. “You’re never even here, you’re always in London,” he reminded her. Unlike the previous summer, she was staying in Grimmauld Place. Unlike the previous summer, Draco was a constant ball of nerves, wondering, what the Order had her doing and if she was even still alive. Unlike the previous summer, he had his own room here to stay restlessly awake in. Not that it even felt like his own room. The only place he considered his was in London, had a pile of muggle clothes with another boy’s scent on them and a pirate hat hung on the desk chair.

“I have a duty to fulfil, and you have proved yourself incapable of resisting the urge to insert yourself into matters that do not concern you.”

“Matters that don’t concern me? A month ago, the entire Order was begging me to brew a miracle potion that doesn’t exist, now they stow me away like rubbish because Severus has decided to show.”

Narcissa sighed, her gaze softening. “Darling, everyone appreciates what you found. And Severus is still working hard on reversing the curse, but you must understand where I am coming from.”

Draco nodded to himself. His mother was none the wiser, as far as he knew, about his future amongst Voldemort’s followers. All Lucius seemed to have told her was that he’d found Draco in their library, neglecting to mention the other people who had witnessed him there. And Draco know that he would be doing anything to keep it that way. His mother can never know.

Neither could anyone else.

He was in a constant state of terror, a chilling feeling in his bones. His heart, once pulsating with cavalier confidence, now thudded like the distant echo of thunder, a symphony of fear and unrest. He barely slept, did all his chores for Andromeda and Ted in silence, ate when reminded and sat by the sea for hours on end. He didn’t even need a book to entertain himself when a voice in his head constantly reminded him these might be the last days of freedom in his life.

He was mid-way through writing a letter to Harry on the last day of July, when a loud crack split the still salt air. His uncle was on a work trip to Brighton, his aunt was out and had said would only return by nightfall. Draco wasn’t too difficult to keep track of these days. He mostly remained in one spot. And, unlike a certain Gryffindor he was obsessed with, he could remain when told to stay.

He looked around him for the tell-tale sign of black robes and masked faces, but he couldn’t see any Death Eaters nearby on the secluded beach. He jumped to his feet anyway, wand in his hand, pointless though it was against murderers, and moved to circle the house. Someone was talking, but the sea air was distorting their words.

“I simply thought you could use a more fun birthday than your aunt and uncle would be able to provide,” Dumbledore’s booming voice became clearer now that Draco was just around the corner, “but there seems to be no one at home.”

“Sir, where are we?” Harry sounded somewhere between amused and annoyed.

“Ah!” Dumbledore smiled fondly, finally noticing Draco from the front door. “Well, gentlemen, I’m off, I’m sure you two can entertain yourselves without an old fool like me around,” he chuckled lightly, “I trust Andromeda can get you to the Burrow safely whenever you’re ready,” he added and apparated away, like he’d never been here in the first place.

Harry was looking at Draco with a suppressed grin. He’d got a haircut. It was almost neat, only sticking out at random spots and making him so bloody endearing. It was strange how much less than two months of not being able to see one another had changed the boy so much. His cheekbones…his jawline…Draco wanted to take a bite out of his face.

“Sirius is awake,” Harry informed him, awkwardly bringing his weight from one foot to the other, clearly unsure what to do when all Draco could do was stare.

“Thank Merlin,” Draco managed.

All at once, they moved towards each other, meeting in a desperate embrace, their bodies crashing together with a desperate hunger. The weight of their separation hung heavy in the air, fuelling an almost primal need to be close. One of Draco’s feet was in Andromeda’s rose garden, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. In Harry’s arms, things were simpler. In Harry’s arms, there was only one thought on Draco’s mind.

Before he had the chance to say something else, Harry’s lips were on his own, desperate and demanding, their bodies pressed together, seeking solace and reassurance, as if trying to melt into each other. Draco's fingers tangled in Harry's hair, while Harry's hand rested on the small of Draco's back, pulling him impossibly closer. Time seemed to stand still as they remained there, their mouths moving in perfect harmony, as if they were picking up from where they left off. As if the first part of this summer had never happened. Harry's arms were wrapped tightly around Draco, holding him as if he might slip away at any moment.

“I have to take you inside right now,” Draco said breathlessly, a desperation tugging at his chest and making him realise if he didn’t do anything about this beautiful boy in front of him while he still had the chance, he would set himself on fiendfyre.

“Isn’t anyone home?” Harry asked with concern, his pupils blown when Draco finally looked him in the eye and shook his head. “Oh, okay then.”

Climbing the stairs was torture. Precious seconds stolen when Draco could have been kissing Harry, but once he reached his bed and sat Harry on top of it, it felt like he could breathe again. He stood between the Gryffindor’s legs, holding his beautiful face in his hands, letting himself have just a small moment to admire him before diving back into his mouth. Harry’s hands rested on the sides of Draco’s thighs, squeezing lightly when Draco let out a moan into Harry’s mouth. Draco’s hands slid underneath the plaid flannel the other boy was wearing, and it slid over his shoulders easily.

“Draco,” Harry sighed, but seemed unable to continue the thought. Draco’s mind was blank, as well, especially when Harry began pulling him closer, urging him to climb onto the bed, onto which he fell with an unexpected loss of balance. “It’s alright,” Harry laughed when Draco tried to apologise.

Draco’s head went blissfully dizzy as his body hovered above Harry’s. His lips moved towards Harry’s pulse point to leave a hickey, to claim the boy while he was still Draco’s, even if no one was to know. He wanted Harry to look at it and recall where he’d got it. He wanted people to be able to see the remnants of himself on Harry’s skin.

The other boy’s hips were bucking underneath where Draco was straddling him. There was an excessive amount of clothing in-between them that Draco was desperate to rid. The bulge in Harry’s jeans had grown and was now challenging Draco to do something about it. Harry was already a whimpering mess, made more so by Draco’s hands having the absolute time of their life pressing perhaps a little roughly into Harry’s hips under the hem of his shirt. Harry sat up suddenly, pulling his tee shirt over his head before taking Draco by the back of his neck and pulling him back in.

Draco’s hand ran down the length of Harry’s now-bare torso, making the boy freeze. Draco leaned back instantly. He never wanted Harry to be uncomfortable. Not with this. Not on his fucking birthday. Harry shook his head, trying to draw Draco back in, but the Slytherin wouldn’t allow him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Harry promised. Draco looked down at the beautiful young man underneath him, noticing a white line over his ribs on the left side, and another across his right shoulder. “I don’t usually want people to see them. It’s fine, though. I don’t mind you seeing them.” Draco wanted to ask what the scars were from, but he had a pretty good idea all on his own. The burn marks were one thing. Draco knew of those – they hadn’t completely healed from the dragon in fourth year, but these lighter ones he’d never noticed, even when sharing a bed with Harry. And he refused to ask unless Harry offered up that information on his own.

His kisses became more frantic, his fingers more demanding, like he would die unless he showed Harry just how beautiful and important and wonderful the boy was. “May I?” Draco asked nervously, fingers fumbling towards the zipper. Harry looked down in surprise, then snapped his eyes back to Draco’s face as if the question hadn’t been entirely clear. “Please?” Draco whispered, right against Harry’s ear, feeling the other boy shiver.

“Are you sure?” Harry stammered.

“So sure,” Draco held back a chuckle, leaving a trail of kisses on Harry’s jaw to stop himself from nervous laughter. “Please,” he repeated. His excitement rose when Harry nodded, eyes alight. “Okay,” Draco smiled, kissing Harry’s lips again, his hands slightly confused at first, having never done this to trousers he wasn’t wearing, but he was a Slytherin. He could adapt.

Draco continued kissing Harry to distract him, feeling how nervous the other was, and deciding to focus on calming him instead of his own rapidly growing heartbeat. There was an urgency in his brain to keep going, a heat in his core and a blaze in his bloody pants, and he was just so desperate to show Harry what he could not say, and to make him feel oh so good. Salazar himself couldn’t stop him now.

When harry was left in his boxers, Draco finally felt the magnitude of their position. He was on the precipice, about to cross the Rubicon, and the last thing he wanted was to look back. “That’s not fair,” Harry pointed out when Draco was done throwing his jeans across the room. “Take something off.”

“Whatever you say, gorgeous,” Draco grinned, pulling off his shirt before he dove down and scraped his teeth over Harry’s hip ever so lightly, drawing a quiet little moan out of the boy. Draco smiled, fingers stuck in the waistband, waiting in case Harry changed his mind. But there was no protest, so Draco tucked the tented fabric lower, kissing Harry once more on the lips before leaving a quick peck in the middle of his chest, then on his solar plexus, and another just below his bellybutton.

Draco was painfully hard, and he was already desperate to touch himself, but the mere sight of Harry was intoxicating – so bloody well-endowed, leaking precum, twitching when Draco took a hold of him at the base. “Oh God,” Harry groaned somewhere towards Draco’s headboard. Draco looked up at him quickly, but Harry was facing the ceiling. Eyes closed, brows furrowed, lips parted and pink and freshly kissed.

Without giving himself time to gape too long, Draco wet his lips and plotted them around Harry’s cock. The forlorn sound that Harry gave out was indication enough of how good it was, and Draco had barely even started doing anything.

Pansy had retold him too many conversations from the other girls about sucking someone off, and though she’d always had a ridicule in her voice when speaking about it, Draco couldn’t help but think she’d been trying to prepare him somewhat. Be his teacher, even if she’d never done this herself. He was thankful, really, but he’d been prepared for this to be a considerably more disgusting experience. And perhaps Harry showered better than the boys Slytherin ladies were blowing, or perhaps there had to be a certain amount of unbreakable attraction, but this was entirely not too bloody bad. Even when Draco started bobbing his head up and down, and especially when Harry’s mouth made those delicious sounds.

Harry’s hands were in Draco’s hair in no time, his heels were digging into the mattress. Draco did his best to take as much as he could, but he attributed his trouble with swallowing the whole length of Harry to his inexperience rather than inability. He was Draco Malfoy, after all. He would keep practicing until he was excellent. Not that Harry seemed to mind, whimpering and groaning, making Draco’s dick twitch in his pants. He took a moment of self-assuredness, lifting himself higher so that only the top was in his mouth, swirling his tongue around it to make sure his hands wouldn’t be missed for a few seconds, unbuttoning his trousers and pulling his own cock out before it becomes too painful to bare.

He knew he was inexperienced and only went by feeling, but he also knew Harry had never seen anything better. Or anything similar at all. It thrilled Draco to no end, knowing this was both their first experience in anything akin to sex, and Draco was delighted to find just how stimulating he found it being able to make Harry feel good.

With the first thrust of his own hand, he felt like he was about to come, and could only wonder how Harry was still holding out. “Draco, I’ll–” Harry gasped, as if having read Draco’s mind. The Slytherin hummed in turn, giving him the permission with as low a rumble as he could manage. “No, I…fuck, uh,” Harry barely managed, “I’m about to co– oh fucking Christ, you’ll make me…”

“Is that not the point?” Draco teased, unable to keep the comment to himself, even if it meant removing his mouth from Harry. The boy underneath him took this moment to pull him up, pulling at his hair, to kiss Draco into oblivion, almost making him falter and fall on top of Harry for the second time, since one of his hands was still busy chasing his own pleasure.

Kissing the boy tasted sweet and warm. Like a secret language. Unbridled tenderness, even when their tongues rushed to explore one another. It stilled time. And when Harry’s hand replaced his own, and Draco took hold of Harry in turn, it felt so vulnerable, and so trusting, even as they were panting and rushing towards sweet release. When it became too overbearing, Draco’s lips parted from Harry’s and he pressed his forehead into the crook of his neck, his movements hastening and mirroring Harry’s until he could swear several of his senses gave out for a few moments until he could once more register the smell of Harry, the sight of his skin and the sound of his breathing.

In fear of making more of a mess of themselves, Draco didn’t collapse on top of Harry, as much as he wanted to, and instead found a beach towel he’d been sitting on a few days ago and wiping Harry’s stomach clean slowly and carefully as the adorable bastard watched him, raking his fingers into the short hair on the back of Draco’s neck. He knew there would be no tidy way of putting away the towel, so he threw it somewhere onto the ground to return to Harry’s waiting arms.

“Fancy a bath, Potter?” Draco joked, recalling the first time the two of them had been near-naked in a room together. Harry snorted tiredly in response. “Happy birthday?” Draco offered, making Harry smile.

“So happy,” Harry agreed, fixing his underwear and curling around Draco, limbs going limp and lax. Draco had never felt like that before. It was like soaring through the sky without the safety of a broom under him. It was like falling. “Stay with me,” Harry begged quietly.

“Where else would I go?” Draco asked, though it felt like a lie.

He had decided already, during his time at Andromeda’s, exactly what to do. And it would hurt. It would be devastating and it might just kill him, but Harry won’t know. Harry would despise him, if he knew. He would never forgive him. Draco wouldn’t even know how to tell him. What he did know, was that if the seagulls screaming outside ended up waking the boy, Draco would rain hellfire upon the sky.

The gravity of mortality washed over him like a cascading waterfall of revelation, and the mask of bravado he so ardently adorned began to crumble. Even now, half naked and encompassed by the warm skin of arms he loved so much, he mourned.

Harry woke not long after with a jump, the unfamiliar room apparently confusing him until he realised who was still holding him. “Sorry,” he mumbled into Draco’s chest.

“Hungry? I make a mean sandwich,” Draco offered.

Harry chuckled sleepily and stretched. “Sounds perfect.”

“Alright, get dressed before Andromeda finds a naked sleeping Chosen One in my bed,” Draco teased, leaving a kiss on Harry’s lips as he crawled over him to get off the bed, successfully avoiding Harry’s swatting.

Draco had barely finished a single sandwich when two eager arms wrapped around his middle. Touch-starved and appreciative were just two of the million things Draco had come to learn to be able to call Harry Potter, and he loved to be the object of the boy’s affections. “Alright?”

Harry hummed in response, cheek pressed tightly against the back of Draco’s shoulder. Fuck, did Draco love this. And, if no one was supposed to be coming home any time now, and they’d been allowed to use their wands, he would object to any type of leaving the bed.

“Imagine if your Patronus had been a ferret,” Harry murmured into Draco’s skin.

“Excuse me,” Draco raised an eyebrow that Harry couldn’t even see, “how dare you?”

“Would’ve been funny, s’all,” Harry giggled, still clinging onto Draco’s frame, even as the other boy moved slightly to grab another ingredient. Draco had overgrown Harry at some point, but he wasn’t going to point that out on the boy’s birthday. Besides, Draco was very insistent on enjoying every second he had with this boy before he would be asked to do something he couldn’t forgive.

“Hey,” Draco said, leaving the knife forgotten on the counter and turning slightly to be able to put an arm around Harry’s shoulders. Except, when he was looking into those bright green expectant eyes, he suddenly had nothing. His head went empty, unable to formulate a single thought, a single worded sentiment. Draco prided himself on his eloquence, and this was becoming concerning to say the least. “You’re very pretty, know that?”

“I’ve been told,” Harry blushed.

“By whom?” Draco didn’t even try to hide his jealousy.

“Moaning Myrtle,” Harry shrugged. Draco hugged him properly as he laughed. Perhaps for a moment too long. He couldn’t even explain to Harry why he was so clingy. He couldn’t tell the boy why he was saying his farewells.

And there was nothing he wouldn’t do to save Harry Potter. He would get his limbs cut off one by one, he would let a wild beast gnaw on his leg for days on end, he would happily die a gruesome death, if it meant Harry would be safer for it. It would take him too long of a while to understand that Harry would do all of the same for him.

Under the cloud of this continuous and annoyingly on-going revelation, he stood not as the aloof aristocrat, heir of Malfoy fortune, but as a sentient soul, achingly aware of the precious fragility of life. A boy in love for the first time and still allowed to have his first love in his embrace.

They ate on the beach. Harry told Draco all about Horace Slughorn – the new professor he’d helped Dumbledore recruit. He told Draco of his time with his muggle aunt and uncle, leaving out a worrying amount of details. He expressed how excited he was for a year with no classes with Severus. And Draco listened. He listened and enjoyed Harry’s voice. Calm and lovely and without a trace of hatred. At least not yet. Draco had only a month of that, and even then, the next time he’d be seeing Harry would already be then, on the train.

He tried imagining how many letters he would have to write to the boy. But he didn’t want to write any of them. He didn’t want to read the replies. He wanted to hold him and listen to his words instead of looking at them on cold, dry paper. Harry smiled at him when they’d gone a little too long without words. Draco did his best to smile back, and perhaps he succeeded. Or perhaps Harry didn’t want to ruin the bliss of his sixteenth birthday. Draco kissed his shoulder. Because he still could.

“How were your O.W.L.s?” Harry wondered.

“Mostly O’s,” Draco shrugged, “a few E’s.”  The results had come in in mid-July, and Narcissa had been very pleased.

“Of course,” Harry scoffed.

“Yours?” Draco chuckled, letting Harry lay his head in his lap.

“Mostly E’s. My only O was in DADA,” Harry admitted. “A in astronomy,” he added, counting on his fingers, “P in divination.”

“Expectable, it’s not even a real subject,” Draco snorted.

“D in history of magic.”

“Harry,” Draco scolded, but the other boy just laughed, “I am terribly disappointed,” Draco said dramatically and leaned down to kiss Harry’s forehead.

“Also not a real subject,” Harry grumbled.

When Andromeda returned later in the afternoon, she greeted Harry as if he was only a friend of Draco’s instead of the most famous person in the world. She hugged him tightly and asked if he wasn’t hungry. She offered him to stay longer, despite having received an owl from Dumbledore earlier asking her to apparate the Gryffindor to The Burrow. She dug out one of Nymphadora’s old brooms – the one she hadn’t managed to crash – and let Harry have a go with Draco on his own, pushing the two boys onto the porch and promising to find an old snitch somewhere in the attic for them to entertain themselves with.

Draco would remember this day fondly during the following months. For years afterwards it would work perfectly when he needed to call a Patronus. But before he knew it, it was over, Harry was sent off to the Burrow and Draco fended off an anxiety attack on his bed. His bed that would now smell like Harry for at least a few days, and where the other boy had forgotten his flannel shirt, that Draco refused to take off or let Andromeda wash for the rest of August. Every time Narcissa came over for dinner, she would glance at Draco’s attire strangely. Like she knew she’d raised her son with a better sense in fashion, but refused to ask what sort of sentimental value the obviously muggle article of clothing represented.

Narcissa took him to see Sirius exactly once, thought the first person on him was Remus, expressing his thanks in more words than necessary. The sentiment was nice, but baseless. Draco hadn’t been doing it for someone else. He wanted to help his own family, and he felt too much a part of this side of the war not to indulge in his abilities when they served a good purpose.

Sirius was almost back to normal, though he now hated sitting still and, according to Remus, sleeping next to the man was a bloody nightmare. But he was moving. He was talking and eating, annoying Order members and ordering Kreacher around. He was alive. And it had been Draco that had achieved that.

Draco dreaded the first of September. He wanted to see Harry, and he wanted to see Blaise and Pansy, but he would also have to see Nott. He would have to pretend to be the slimy git’s friend, to help him. Whatever the fuck with.

With a new suit, that had arrived in a package with Lucius Malfoy’s handwriting on it, he found himself on the platform, his mother’s hand hooked into his elbow, hundreds of students and parents rushing around them. He spotted Nott without any trouble, and for a second, he let himself imagine a miracle had taken place and his potential part-taking in any dark activities would have been forgotten, but then the other Slytherin gave Draco a curt, knowing nod and All of Draco’s hopes died. Narcissa left him with a tight hug and a reminder to be good.

He knew what he had to do. He knew the spell. He just wanted to hug Harry one last time.

Blaise and Hermione were chatting merrily further down, not having spotted Draco yet, but clearly waiting for the rest of their friends. Pansy whizzed towards them, throwing her arms around Hermione with a loud laugh. Draco smiled to himself as he watched them. There were too many surprised eyes on the three. Draco could not afford a public greeting of that sort of fondness with any of the Gryffindors.

“Do you know?” Theo’s voice was suddenly next to him.

“Know what?” Draco asked as calmly as he could muster.

“What we’re doing,” Nott’s voice was calm. Overly calm. Trained. Whatever it was Draco was expected to help with, he assumed he’d be doing most of the work.

“Out with it then,” Draco urged.

“Not here,” Nott hissed, making Draco roll his eyes. “Find me on the train,” he added and left.

Draco scoffed and made his way inside one of the cars, but only when he was sure his friends were already on, as well. Finding the right compartment wasn’t too difficult, as Pansy’s excited talking was often a good siren call when trying to find her. The two youngest Weasleys and Harry were already there, countless curious eyes glancing inside to the Slytherin-Gryffindor unity happening in the too-small compartment for so many people.

He watched them for a moment. A strange, rare instance of superficially impossible interaction, and yet it worked. Perfectly. Because these were Draco’s friends. Even Ronald. Well, to an extent.

“Draco!” Hermione said excitedly, noticing him first. He looked around to make sure no one had heard such excitement in her voice before he stepped into the already cramped compartment and closed the door, making sure the blind was down as well, before greeting everyone back.

Hermione hugged him tightly, taking advantage of being first to notice him, then came a squealing squeeze from Pansy and a big, strong embrace from Blaise, a tight nod from Weasley and a smirk from his sister. “Ginevra,” Draco acknowledged.

“Dracolas,” she said, amused, and pointedly did not reach out for a hug.

Harry looked at him with a painfully dopey grin, last on Draco’s greeting list, extending his arms upwards, but refusing to rise from his seat and making it even more difficult for Draco to lean down and hug him in the already stuffed space. The train started moving with a thump, throwing Draco onto Harry’s lap.

“Get a room,” Ginevra taunted, but Draco had Harry in his arms one last time, and the unknowing boy was chuckling into his ear, and Draco didn’t even have time to wonder if all others there had their suspicions about the nature of Harry and Draco’s relationship, because he was too focussed on enjoying this moment.

“Oh, you’ll want to hear this,” Harry said, finally letting go of Draco. “Guess who we saw in Knockturn Alley.”

“What were you doing in Knockturn Alley?” Draco wondered, “You know what? Tell me later, I have to go do something first.”

“But I haven’t seen you in a month,” Harry pouted.

“Oi, we haven’t seen him in three,” Pansy argued.

“Two and a half,” Draco corrected, “I’ll be back,” he said, barely able to smile, as much as he did pride himself on his acting skills. “Promise.” That should do it. Promising would mean Harry would come looking for him once Draco fails to return.

Draco smiled as he left, trying to take in as much of Harry smiling back at him as he could, and had to take a moment after closing the door, pressing himself against it from the other side and taking three of the slowest and shakiest breaths of his life in the tight hallway.

He found Nott easily. There was an entire carriage of just Slytherins, all sat and having murmured conversation, not a smile in sight. Draco would miss that, he already knew as much. He would miss Grimmauld Place, and he would miss the excess of Gryffindorian noise. “Nott,” Draco said, suddenly nervous. This moment now somehow felt more real than it had in the Malfoy Manor, and he was yet to find out what he would even be doing.

Theo handed him a piece of folded-up parchment which turned out to be blank when Draco sat next to the boy and unfolded it. The other Slytherin then pressed his wand to it and, without uttering a word, handwriting appeared, that was certainly not Theo’s, but could have been his father’s. Now that Draco thought about it, he wasn’t sure if Voldemort knew how to write. The idea amused him until he glanced at the contents of the letter.

Instantly, his blood stilled, his bones turned to lead, the words on the page seemed to make no sense, and Draco had never actually feared for his life like he did now. It was one thing to expect being kidnapped by Death Eaters any moment and being pulled into their ranks against his will – it was another to fear going to Azkaban for murder of one of the most universally loved and greatest wizards of all time.

“You’re joking, right?” Draco huffed, “Tell me this is a joke, Nott.”

“Who exactly do you imagine would joke about this?” Theo whispered angrily.

“And you want to do this?” Draco genuinely could not believe what he’d just read.

“Of course, I do,” Theo said unconvincingly, a false sense of bravery and pride that he did not fully manage to pull off enough to be believable.

“And if you fail?” Draco asked, “If…we fail?”

“He kills us, he kills our families, he kills anyone that we’ve ever held close,” Nott said, choking back tears. He may have been a Slytherin, but Draco had always known him to be too soft to be Tiberius’ son. He was much better now, but the boy used to cry during each confrontation, and received a beating, if that confrontation ever happened to be witnessed by his father, not to mention when his father was the one doing the confronting.

If Voldemort’s intention was to kill everyone they loved in the case that they should fail, surely the easier thing to do would be to commit the murder himself. That being said, Draco understood this choice, from a strategic point of view. Not only did it serve perfectly as a demand for a show of allegiance and servitude. On the other hand, it felt thoroughly like a punishment. Like Voldemort never expected them to succeed and could not wait to kill them both and destroy everything dear to them.

Draco stared at the letter, as if willing the words to change order, the letters to melt into something entirely different. He felt the weight of the world settle on his chest. “Goyle,” Nott called out and both of his goons from the other side of the carriage looked over. “It’s time.”

Looking around in confusion, Draco waited, hoping for a moment that the giant teenager would bash his skull in and he would no longer have to worry about killing his fucking headmaster. Goyle took out his wand and readied himself as Draco sent Nott a questioning look.

“Unbreakable promise,” Theo explained and another cold wave of pure terror ran through Draco. “You will promise not to tell anyone of this until it’s done.”

“Who the fuck do you think I would want to bring into this?” Draco hissed.

“Your best friend is dating the Chosen One’s best friend,” Theo reminded him, sounding so much like a child speaking of best friends and dating, and not at all like someone who was supposed to commit the worst crime of all. “No one can afford you blabbing to the people that created Dumbledore’s Army,” he said mockingly and unknowingly. “Now give me your hand.”

Draco didn’t expect he had much of a choice, not when two pairs of Slytherin eyes stared him down expectantly. He held out his hand to Nott, who looked around to see if no one was watching them before taking Draco’s hand and nodding to Goyle.

“Will you, Draco Malfoy, aid me in executing the Dark Lord’s wishes?” Nott asked, barely audible.

“I will,” Draco said after a beat. A thin tongue of brilliant flame issued from Goyle’s wand and wound its way around their hands like a silver wire.

“And will you abstain from speaking about it to anyone other than those the Dark Lord’s trusts?”

“I will,” Draco said, mentally saying goodbye to all the good things that had come out of the last two years of his life. A second line of flame shot from the wand and interlinked with the first, making a fine, glowing chain.

“You may go,” Nott told Goyle, and Draco wondered how involved the goon was in this whole mess by his own Death Eater father.

Draco watched as the boy who had once wanted to be his friend stalked back over to Crabbe to sit in silence. They had both truly taken well to doing Nott’s bidding. Perhaps they could somehow make the two of them do it in their stead and Draco could talk Theo into running off to another country with him. They could hide in one of the Parkinsons’ French properties, if Pansy’s father wasn’t a raging Voldemort-lover.

Draco spent the next two hours of the train ride in silence, staring out the window, and all he wanted to do was talk about this to his friends. No. No he didn’t. There was no logical part of him that wanted any them to be a part of this, and he would die before either of them were accomplices.

But he did want to tell Harry. Because Harry, despite reasoning and past behaviour, seemed to love the old man. Besides, Harry always seemed to calm Draco, and vice versa. He wanted to tell Harry everything, and he never could again. Fuck the Malfoy Manor, and fuck Draco for going, and fuck Bellatrix and her stupid curses, and fuck Sirius for not listening to Remus, and fuck Harry for not listening to Draco.

“So, if I’m helping you, I’d like to think you have some plan figured out,” Draco said suddenly, scaring Theo after such a long of sitting still.

Nott cleared his throat, “Right. Well.” He looked around carefully, “I have a few ideas.”

“Are any of them not stupid?” Draco asked impatiently. If he was in this now, he was in it entirely. The sooner they succeed, the sooner Draco can leave Hogwarts, never have to look people he loved in the eye while aching in the meantime, never have to face all the good in the world, and succumb to his father’s terrible decisions.

“A few,” Nott answered grumpily. Draco wasn’t going to pretend to be Nott’s best friend again, and they both seemed to accept that. If anything, Nott was a work acquaintance now. Deadliest job in the world.

Most of the students left to change into their uniforms when it started getting darker outside, finding more private compartments to remove their clothing in, but Draco remained, unmoving and only accompanied by Nott, who had sent Crabbe and Goyle away with a simple nod. Draco would laugh at the power Nott seemed to think he had, but the boy who had once been his closest friend was now about to be a literal murdered. And Draco may refuse to carry out the actual blow, but he would still be the one aiding and abetting. So how much better than Theo was he, really?

The train stopped and students got off in large, excited crowds. Draco remembered he was still a prefect when it was too late, besides, this was his only opportunity to do what he needed to do. So, he waited, and Theo, not knowing what for, waited with Draco. They really would be glued to the hip.

“Malfoy?” Harry sounded confused when he appeared in the carriage and saw his boyfriend with Nott, still keeping up appearances with the last name. Perhaps Draco’s survival skills were starting to rub off on him. Too bad it would all be gone within minutes.

“Stupefy!” Nott shouted. Draco was almost proud of how successfully he’d been able to restrain himself from not yelling out some sort of demand for Theo to stop.

“Go ahead, I’ll deal with him,” Draco said as bossily as he could manage. Nott looked at him with suspicion, but seemed to decide to trust Draco. What other choice did he have? Draco waited until he could see Nott exit the train, then closed all the blinds on the carriage with a quick wave of his wand. Only then did he turn to the stunned Harry on the ground.

He wanted to say he was sorry. He wanted to tell Harry what was going to happen. He wanted to explain that he would rather die than have Harry involved in this, but there was no point. Because if he uttered a word of it, he would drop dead on the spot. And in a few seconds Harry would not remember any good part of Draco, and he would not remember this conversation, so what would be the point?

First, Draco glamoured Harry’s face to look like there was blood streaming from his nose. Then, he needed a moment to gather himself and focus. “Salazar, help me,” he told himself before lifting the wand up to Harry’s forehead. He tried to get the incantation out, but it almost hurt. “Fuck,” Draco barked, realising there were tears streaming over his cheeks. He was sobbing angry, desperate cries, knowing no one would be able to hear them.

Harry looked so still on the ground, it barely even looked like him. Draco Had to force himself to imagine that this is exactly what Harry would look like if he was dead, and he had to remind himself not to be selfish enough to let that happen. He kneeled down on the floor and kissed Harry’s forehead, a thread of apologies falling from his lips and onto Harry’s skin. The platform must be more or less cleared by now. He had no more time.

“Fuck, alright,” Draco said, furiously wiping at his eyes. I love you, he wanted to say. He did not. Instead, he got back on his feet, raised his wand to Harry’s face, and muttered “Obliviate.” Harry’s already blank stare did not change, but Draco felt his own heart break a thousand times over.

Draco had to go. He had to get off the train, get his face in order, and do whatever the fuck he had to, to stop crying. He would have to glamour himself. He would have to start sneaking into the Potions classroom and make a calming drought. He would have to numb himself.

There were few people left on the platform, Draco had to choose wisely who to subject to the task. “Lovegood,” he said, as she might not have been his first choice, but she was the only one not already talking to someone else. “Seen Harry? He hasn’t got off the train.”

“Only Theodore,” she smiled, her voice light and her smile bright upon seeing Draco. Like they were actual friends instead of only having spoken a handful of timed in the D.A. meetings.

“Alright, thanks,” Draco nodded and started on the path towards the castle. He turned back a few yards further to see Luna climb back onto the last car of the train. Good. She had taken the bait. She would find Harry, take the stunning charm off him and perhaps even fix his nose that looked wonky now. Draco let the last tears stubbornly shed from his eyes, knowing no one in the dark wooded path would see them. He felt alone in the world.

Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter were no longer.

Chapter Text

Draco was held back by aurors at the gates, insisting on searching his belongings. No one questioned the state of his face. “I can vouch for Mr Malfoy,” Severus insisted, showing up from the shadows. Draco did not thank him.

He missed the feast. He had no interest in sitting in a room full of excited students, ready for a year of learning and Hogsmeade trips, when his own school year would consist of nothing but Nott and longing for a Potter-shaped hole in his soul.

Getting in bed before any of the other sixth-year Slytherin boys had even returned to the common room was almost strange, but he knew well that the next heartache he would have to inflict on himself would be getting Pansy and Blaise out of his life. Like a limb that was perfectly functional and still would to be cut.

He left for breakfast before anyone else early in the morning, hearing from word of mouth about Slughorn having had some sort of meeting of the most well-connected students in one of the carriages on the Hogwarts Express the previous evening. For once, he was glad his father had smeared their family name, as long as it meant he didn’t have to join some secret society where he would have to stare at Harry the whole time.

Draco had thought that letting Harry go in such heroic and noble circumstances would make it somehow easier. Instead, now the mere thought of gazing up at the Gryffindor table was like a dagger in his eye.

“Something you want to tell us?” Pansy asked, showing up for breakfast with Blaise in tow. There was, but he would die, if he even tried.

“My O.W.L. results are quite good,” Draco said in practiced nonchalance.

“I don’t care,” Pansy pointed out and all Draco could do to stop himself from bawling his eyes out at the breakfast table was stuff more toast into his mouth. He had yet to look across the room. Maybe, if he gets himself together, he can go the entire school year without looking at Harry. “Do you want to try?” she asked Blaise.

The other Slytherin boy watched Draco with a calculated gaze for a few seconds. Draco even raised an eyebrow, awaiting something to happen. “No,” Blaise then said, “he’ll tell us when the crying at night gets too much.”

“I haven’t been crying,” Draco said defensively. His mother had taught him how to glamour. He was good at it.

“I was raised by someone who changes husbands like socks, you don’t think I can tell when there is magic around your eyes? And I’m quite sure you don’t have crow’s feet yet,” Blaise said smugly.

Draco scoffed, “Fuck you.”

“If that’s how it is, we can always have breakfast without you,” Pansy challenged with a smirk.

“Go ahead,” Draco shrugged.

Her smile faltered, and a scowl took over. “Fine,” she tossed her hair behind her shoulders. It had got longer. It looked beautiful. “Come on, Blaise, leave him to sulk.”

Blaise wasn’t so eager to leave, watching Draco for a moment longer, giving him a chance to call Pansy back and apologise. Draco did not take that chance. The faster he got the people he loved out of his mess, even if it meant making them hate him, the safer they would be.

Draco glanced over to the end of the Slytherin table, closest to the door, where Nott was sitting on his own, staring at his breakfast instead of ingesting it. He was glad it was finally the sixth year and he would have loads of time on his own, plenty of free periods. Though, he was quite certain they would soon be taken over by Nott.

The ceiling of the Great Hall was serenely blue and streaked with frail, wispy clouds, just like the squares of sky visible through the high mullioned windows. The air in the room was too hot. Meals usually didn’t feel so stuffy to him. Even dinners, when all students were there at the same time, never felt like there were so many people everywhere around him. Other people’s conversations seemed too loud. His ears were ringing, his vision was clouding over.

Draco closed his eyes.

He wasn’t going to cry.

He was fine.

Everything was fine.

Except that it wasn’t, was it? Everything was shit, his life had gone to the dogs. He had no future. Here or anywhere else. Once he and Nott were done, he would be forced to leave Hogwarts for good, the Death Eater ranks didn’t exactly feel like an enjoyable fate to pursue, and he didn’t imagine the Order would be welcoming him back with open arms. He had nowhere to go anymore, and no one to go back to. What would he do instead? There weren’t many options. There was only one, really.

He tried breathing deeply, but his lungs suddenly seemed to lack space. His uniform felt three sizes too small.

He tried to think about something good.

It didn’t work.

He couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t breathe.

There was no air.

“Mr. Malfoy,” his godfather’s voice rung out behind him and for a moment it all stopped. “Your schedule for the year. I have taken the liberty of selecting your N.E.W.T. subjects.” he said in a way that almost suggested he assumed Draco would not be here for that long.

“Thank you,” Draco said, taking the piece of parchment and looking it over. Potions, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, Transfiguration, Charms. Decent, he thought to himself and nodded to Severus. “Seems appropriate.” His godfather hummed, unimpressed, and headed over to Theo. Leave it to Slytherins to be unable to speak about their feelings.

Draco looked over to his best friends, solemn-faced and serious, comparing their own schedules, but not nearly as excitedly as they would, if they hadn’t been sitting apart from Draco. He shook the thought away. The faster he made them hate him, the safer they’ll be. He repeated it like a mantra for the rest of the day.

He went to sit under the beach tree during his free period before DADA. There had been talk of Severus taking over the subject this year. Draco couldn’t decide if that made him excited of dreadful. When he finally went to the class, as last-minute as he possibly could, the other students were chatting in hushed tones, knowing what the professor tended to be like. The classroom door opened as they spoke, and Severus stepped into the corridor. Silence fell over the queue immediately. “Inside,” he demanded simply.

The man had imposed his personality upon the room already. It was gloomier than usual, curtains had been drawn over the windows, and it was lit by candlelight. New pictures adorned the walls, many of them showing people who appeared to be in pain, sporting grisly injuries or strangely contorted body parts. No one spoke as they settled down, looking around at the shadowy, gruesome pictures.

“I have not asked you to take out your books,” Severus said, closing the door and moving to face the class from behind his desk. Draco saw Hermione hastily dropping her copy of Confronting the Faceless back into her bag from the corner of his eye. “I wish to speak to you, and I want your fullest attention,” his dark eyes roved over their upturned faces, lingering for a fraction of a second longer on Draco’s than anyone else’s.

Severus set off around the edge of the room, speaking now in a lower voice, the class craned their necks to keep him in view. “The Dark Arts,” he began quietly, making sure all the attention was on but him, “are many, varied, ever-changing, and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible.”

There was an almost loving caress in his voice. Draco couldn’t tell whether it was for the subject or the teaching position.

“Your defences,” Severus continued a little louder, “must therefore be as flexible and inventive as the arts you seek to undo. These pictures” – he indicated a few of them as he swept past – “give a fair representation of what happens to those who suffer, for instance, the Cruciatus Curse” – he waved a hand toward a witch who was clearly shrieking in agony – “feel the Dementor’s Kiss” – a wizard lying huddled and blank-eyed, slumped against a wall, forcing Draco to imagine how that would feel – “or provoke the aggression of the Inferius” – a bloody mass upon the ground.

“Has an Inferius been seen, then?” one of the Patils asked in a high-pitched voice. “Is it definite, is he using them?”

“The Dark Lord has used Inferi in the past,” said Snape, “which means you would be well-advised to assume he might use them again. Now…” He set off again around the other side of the classroom toward his desk, and again, they watched him as he walked, his dark robes billowing behind him. He went on a rampage about non-verbal spells that Draco barely heard. Something about the element of surprise. Nott looked at him as if that was an entirely new and very good idea. Yes, Draco thought, lovely, let’s surprise our headmaster when we’re killing him. What a revolutionary thought.

“You will now divide into pairs,” Severus’ voice finally registered in Draco’s head. “One partner will attempt to jinx the other without speaking. The other will attempt to repel the jinx in equal silence. Carry on.” Draco and Nott paired up. Blaise and Pansy looked not only confused but also offended about it.

Although Severus did not know it, Harry had taught at least half the class to perform a Shield Charm the previous year. None of them had ever cast the charm without speaking, however. A reasonable amount of cheating ensued, many people were merely whispering the incantation instead of saying it aloud. Draco surprised himself by stupefying Theo almost instantly, not a word uttered.

“Fuck, Malfoy, you’re good,” Nott scoffed when Draco had removed the spell and was helping him get up. “That bodes well for you.”

“It bodes well for you,” Draco insisted. They continued practicing.

“Pathetic, Weasley,” Snape said, after a while of Nott failing to grasp the task at hand. “Here, let me show you.”

He turned his wand on Harry so fast that the boy reacted instinctively, yelling, “Protego!” His Shield Charm was so strong Severus was knocked off-balance and hit a desk. The whole class had looked around and now watched as Snape righted himself, scowling.

“Do you remember me telling you we are practicing nonverbal spells, Potter?”

“Yes,” Harry answered stiffly.

“Yes, sir.”

“There’s no need to call me sir, Professor,” Draco couldn’t stop the snort that came out of his mouth, and he covered it with a cough. Of course, the git could make him laugh even when his entire world was falling apart. Draco had yet to look at Harry at all.

“Detention, Saturday night, my office,” said Snape. “I do not take cheek from anyone, Potter. Not even the Chosen One.”

Draco left the classroom first once class had ended, not waiting for anyone to decide to join him or, Merlin forbid, attempt to speak to him. He returned to the beach on the Black Lake, taking in the early autumn before it would get too cold and dreary to enjoy his free time outside. Assuming he would have any free time at all, when Nott got a hold of Draco’s schedule.

He started on his DADA homework, realising he was nowhere near done when he already had to head back to the castle for double potions. He arrived early this time, knowing Harry wouldn’t be there. Not after the thankful boasting he’d done over the summer. He hadn’t accounted, however, for the fact that N.E.W.T. level potions were no longer taught by Severus, and Slughorn had apparently decided to accept lower O.W.L. grades to participate. Thus, Draco had to feign busying himself with Severus’ homework in the corridor outside the class, having heard Harry and Ronald’s voices approaching. Hermione was following the two, arm-in-arm with Draco’s best friend.

Blaise came to stand next to him without saying a word. So, Pansy wasn’t taking potions. Before Ernie Macmillan could voice the silent question his eyebrows were throwing between Draco and Harry, having seen them be friends the previous year, the dungeon door opened and Slughorn’s belly preceded him out of the door. As they filed into the room, his great walrus moustache curved above his beaming mouth, and he greeted Harry and Blaise with particular enthusiasm.

Draco and no choice but to take a seat at the table with three other Slytherins. It would have looked strange if he hadn’t. Macmillan, who had found a spot with Harry, Hermione and Ronald, seemed confused as to why Draco wasn’t sitting with them now. Draco did understand his thinking. Umbridge was gone and there would be no point in hiding their friendship any longer, and maybe, if he hadn’t shovelled himself into so much shit, he might be doing just that. And maybe he would be happy.

Draco could already tell what was in the gold cauldron closest to the Gryffindors. The Amortentia was making the whole classroom smell of treacle tart and freshly-chopped wood, fresh air and pumpkin juice. The whole room reeked of Harry to the point where Draco wanted to weep openly. And it wasn’t fair. It really was not. Because Draco had never asked to be in love, and now he was forced to suffer eternal damnation at the hands of a boy. He inhaled deeply, making a decision to come back sometime late at night, abusing his prefect privileges, to brew a tiny batch and keep it in a bottle for when he needed a good cry about Harry.

“Now then, now then,” Slughorn said, quivering through the many shimmering vapours. “Scales out, everyone, and potion kits, and don’t forget your copies of Advanced Potion-Making.”

Harry asked for a spare book. His voice was calming amidst the enthralling scent. Blaise was smirking at Hermione. Hermione was blushing and smiling back. Draco snapped his eyes back to the table in front of him before they drifted over to the Gryffindor he most wanted to see.

“Now then,” said Slughorn, returning to the front of the class and inflating his already bulging chest so that the buttons on his waistcoat threatened to burst off, “I’ve prepared a few potions for you to have a look at, just out of interest, you know. These are the kind of thing you ought to be able to make after completing your N.E.W.T.s. You ought to have heard of them, even if you haven’t made them yet. Anyone tell me what this one is?” He indicated the cauldron nearest the Slytherin table. Draco knew what it was instantly, but he had nothing to prove here.

Hermione’s well-practiced hand hit the air before anybody else’s, Slughorn pointed at her. “It’s Veritaserum, a colourless, odourless potion that forces the drinker to tell the truth,” Hermione smiled, satisfied with herself.

“Very good, very good!” said Slughorn happily. “Now,” he continued, pointing at the cauldron nearest the Ravenclaw table, “this one here is pretty well known. Featured in a few Ministry leaflets lately too. Who can–?”

Hermione’s hand was fastest once more. “It’s Polyjuice Potion, sir,” she said. Draco too had recognized the slow-bubbling, mud-like substance in the second cauldron, though having never encountered one outside of a book.

“Excellent, excellent! Now, this one here…yes, my dear?” said Slughorn, now looking slightly bemused, as Hermione’s hand punched the air again.

“It’s Amortentia!”

“It is indeed. It seems almost foolish to ask,” said Slughorn, who was looking mightily impressed, “but I assume you know what it does?”

“It’s the most powerful love potion in the world!” Hermione explained.

“Quite right! You recognized it, I suppose, by its distinctive mother-of-pearl sheen?”

“And the steam rising in characteristic spirals,” Hermione added enthusiastically, “and it’s supposed to smell differently to each of us, according to what attracts us.”

Slughorn seemed entertained by the idea of requesting several people, all of whom just so happened to be potential members of the Slug Club, to tell him what they smelled in it. Hermione’s was Flourish and Blott’s, freshly mown grass and sandalwood. Draco knew for a fact that Blaise’s cologne smelled like sandalwood. Blaise’s own answer of tea, new parchment and wool didn’t surprise Draco one bit. It was when Harry listed dusty books, sea air and spruce needles that Draco started having that tight feeling in his chest as all air left the room again. There must have been a part somewhere in Harry that had recalled those scents from deep within him.

“Amortentia doesn’t really create love, of course. It is impossible to manufacture or imitate love. No, this will simply cause a powerful infatuation or obsession. It is probably the most dangerous and powerful potion in this room – oh yes,” he said and nodded gravely at Nott smirking sceptically. “When you have seen as much of life as I have, you will not underestimate the power of obsessive love.” Draco wanted to laugh, but the thought of bringing too much attention to himself was jarring. “And now,” said Slughorn, “it is time for us to start work.”

“Sir, you haven’t told us what’s in this one,” said Ernie Macmillan, pointing at a small black cauldron standing on Slughorn’s desk. The potion within was splashing about merrily. It was the colour of molten gold, and large drops were leaping like goldfish above the surface, though not a particle had spilled.

“Oh,” Slughorn looked excited. Draco was sure that the professor had not forgotten the potion at all, but had waited to be asked for dramatic effect. “Yes. That. Well, that one, ladies and gentlemen, is a most curious little potion called Felix Felicis. I take it,” he turned, smiling, to look at Hermione, who had let out an audible gasp, “that you know what Felix Felicis does, Miss Granger?”

“It’s liquid luck,” Hermione said. Draco had only heard rumours of such a potion. And it didn’t surprise him to see Hermione’s reaction. She had clearly read up enough on it to know that it was one of the rarest and most easily abused substances to wizard kind, existing on the verge of myth.

“Desperately tricky to make, disastrous should you get it wrong. One sip, and you will find that all of your endeavours succeed. At least until the effects wear off. If taken in excess, it causes giddiness, recklessness, and dangerous overconfidence,” Slughorn warned with a dreamy look in his eye. Draco wondered if the old man had ever taken it in his life. “Too much of a good thing, you know. And so,” Slughorn said, apparently coming back to earth, “this is what I offer each of you today.”

There was silence in which every bubble and gurgle of the surrounding potions seemed magnified tenfold. Draco and Nott shared a look. Nott nodded ever so slightly. “One tiny vial of liquid luck,” said Slughorn, taking a minuscule glass bottle with a cork in it out of his pocket and showing it to them all. “Enough for twelve hours’ luck. From dawn till dusk, you will be lucky in everything you attempt.”

Draco had never felt more focussed on a task than now. He may not have needed to prove himself. Having no intentions to get into the Slug Club, but he certainly could use a day’s worth of luck up his sleeve.

“So,” said Slughorn, suddenly brisk, “how are you to win my fabulous prize? Well, by turning to page ten of Advanced Potion-Making. We have a little over an hour left to us, which should be time for you to make a decent attempt at the Draught of Living Death. I know it is more complex than anything you have attempted before, and I do not expect a perfect potion from anybody. The person who does best, however, will win little Felix here. Off you go!”

There was a scraping as everyone drew their cauldrons toward them and some loud clunks as people began adding weights to their scales, but nobody spoke. The concentration within the room was almost tangible. Draco feverishly took out his copy of the textbook. The only competition he really had was Hermione. And even then, he might be able to persuade her into sharing – they were friends, after all. Or, they had been, if not for Draco, who for all intents and purposes had seemingly abandoned her best friend. Maybe, if things were still mendable with Blaise, Draco could ask him to get the potion from Hermione.

Draco’s fingers shook as he hurriedly cut up valerian roots. He was never nervous when brewing a potion. Not when making them for Harry’s wounds, not when making them for Remus all summer.

Everyone kept glancing around at what the rest of the class was doing. That was both the advantage and the disadvantage of Potions. It was hard to keep your work private. Within ten minutes, the whole class was full of bluish steam. Hermione, of course, seemed to have progressed furthest. Her potion already resembled the “smooth, black currant-coloured liquid” mentioned as the ideal halfway stage.

He had never yet had the opportunity to prove himself to completion in Potions. His godfather had always given him preferential treatment, or, if not him, then the Slytherins in general, but for the first time, Draco would have to rely on nothing but talent to win the bottle of Felix Felicis.

Draco’s potion, that was supposed to be a light shade of lilac, was now a deep, rich purple. Sure, the level might have been a bit more advanced than they’d been used to, but Draco had never met a potion he couldn’t brew perfectly. He had barely any time left, so he started stirring, as the book demanded. Blaise appeared to be struggling, as well, glancing at Hermione’s work once in a while and sending his girlfriend a confused look.

In fact, no one in the class seemed to have been able to get anywhere near the required outcome. No one, except for Harry. What the fuck?

“And time’s…up!” called Slughorn. “Stop stirring, please!” the professor moved slowly among the tables, peering into cauldrons. He made no comment, but occasionally gave the potions a stir or a sniff, barely paying Draco’s any mind. At last, he reached the table where Harry, Ronald, Hermione, and Macmillan were sitting. He smiled ruefully at the tarlike substance in Ronald’s cauldron. Hermione’s potion he gave an approving nod. Then he saw Harry’s, and a look of incredulous delight spread over his face. “The clear winner!” he cried to the dungeon. “Excellent, excellent, Harry! Good lord, it’s clear you’ve inherited your mother’s talent. She was a dab hand at Potions, Lily was! Here you are, then, here you are, as promised – one vial of Felix Felicis. Use it well!”

There hadn’t been a single cell in Draco’s body that would have expected this to happen. Hermione beating him was always an option and kept him most delightfully on his toes, but Harry? Completely inept at the science Harry? Unable to even slice sophophoros beans Harry? Draco sighed, realising the boy would never stop surprising him.

Draco left the classroom quickly, before Blaise could attempt to speak to him. He needed to remain at a distance from any of his friends, Slytherin or otherwise. The beach tree was a good spot, but it would only work for so long. Lucky for him, there was an entire castle of secluded spots for him to take advantage of.

Draco wondered how difficult could it be to brew his own Felix Felicis, but he had already failed Living Death and Slughorn didn’t seem like to one to give out recipes to the children of Death Eaters.

That evening, and for the rest of the week, Draco had trouble forcing himself to go to dinner. The idea alone made him sick. Breakfast he could force into himself, and he was usually too busy focussing on classes to overthink lunch, but dinner was another question. Besides, avoiding Pansy and Blaise was awfully easy if he didn’t get them a chance to speak to him. He did his homework in the library while the rest of the school ate. Madam Pince looked at him strangely, a mixture of worry and suspicion in the look she clearly thought Draco couldn’t see.

His essay on The Principles of Rematerialization could still have used some work, but a disappointingly large part of his mind kept providing him with reminders that his grades no longer mattered. Besides, Hermione was slowly but easily taking over as the best in their year. Even his spot at the top of Potions class was now taken over by an increasingly brilliant Harry. It felt to Draco like the Gryffindor had stolen a part of him, an even larger one than Draco had previously thought, and was now excelling while Draco wastes away like that muggle book about the man and his portrait that Hermione had once told him about.

Draco realised, on the second week of term and perhaps the thousandth time Blaise looked him with concern, that he should write it all down. He didn’t want his friends to hate him, after all. There was an empty leather journal in his trunk, and although he had always found keeping a diary to be an idiotic pastime, he was inclined to explain it all to his friends.

He pretended to be writing a letter. To whom, he wasn’t entirely sure, but it helped, pretending someone was on the other end of this imaginary correspondence. He could freely speak of his feelings, and not worry about a particular person reading about them. Maybe no one will ever find the journal, but at least he would be at peace, knowing he’d done what he could to explain himself. He finally had someone to talk to, even if it was a quill and some paper.

Chapter Text

Draco found himself writing in the journal more often than doing anything else, really. This way, he didn’t have to pretend to be busy, and his eyes couldn’t accidentally wander over to his friends or the Gryffindor table. With the journal and a quill in hand, when he sat broodily in the common room, no one would dare bother him.

“Malfoy,” Theo called out to him when he was about to leave to go to dinner. Not that he was very hungry, like often in the evenings, but he’d already missed lunch and wasting away would be a long and painful attempt at getting out of this. “Come,” he ordered. Draco followed, assuming that knowing what Nott was up to would be better than hoping the other boy would simply succeed by some miracle, and Draco would be spared.

When they got closer to the Astronomy tower, Draco had a sinking feeling he knew exactly where he was being taken on this silent walk through the castle. All of the other students would be in the Great Hall, no one would follow them, and Nott had finally had a good idea, whatever would be in the receiving end of it.

Draco watched his housemate pace in front of the tapestry he knew so well by now, eagerly and fearfully awaiting what the room would present on the other side. When the door appeared and Nott made sure no one would see them walk through it, he scooped Draco inside and closed the door tightly.

Theo walked around him and deeper into the room, a destination in mind, but Draco needed a moment to become accustomed with its size and all the things it encompassed. There were clocks ticking. So many clocks. Mountains of furniture, pieces of ancient jewellery, carpets, paintings, musical instruments, glass jars…Anything a person could imagine, all forgotten in one enormous room. This was no longer the cosy D.A. space where Draco had shared his first ever kiss, where he’d made friends with people that had once hated him, where he’d seen his Patronus for the first time. This was an accumulation of cold, unwanted things.

“Are you coming?” Nott’s voice sounded like it was a mile away.

“Right,” Draco called back, following where he’d seen Theo disappear off to.

The other Slytherin was standing in front of a large wardrobe. Everything else in the room seemed to have a layer of dust on all sides, but this piece was polished and cleaned to perfection. “You should start working,” Theo said, pulling a small packet of seeds from the pocket in his trousers and feeding it to a caged sparrow.

“Working?” Draco wondered, watching the bird.

“I’ll do the killing part,” Theo said casually. Draco had to force himself not to flinch. “Getting them into the school shall be your job, however.”

“Getting who into the school?”

“Well, for now it’s only Bellatrix and Greyback, but I’m sure the Dark Lord has his intentions set on others, as well.”

Draco had missed this part of the plan. He was unaware there were meant to be Death Eaters joining once their job was complete, but he could see how taking over the school would be the next part of Voldemort’s plan. He was not excited about having to see them eye to eye. Least of all his insane aunt Bella. “How am I supposed to do that?”

“Well, lucky for you, I have already done everything. You just need to practice the spell,” Nott said, pointing to the closet. “It’s tricky. Temperamental old shit.”

Draco had heard about vanishing cabinets, but never seen one in person. And he certainly had no clue how to operate one. “How does it work?” he asked before voicing something about wanting to refuse further help. He had vowed to help kill Dumbledore, not to get Voldemort’s followers into the school.

“There is another one at Borgin and Burke’s. It’s sister. But they’re not entirely…in order,” Nott said, opening the door and placing a quill inside before closing it tightly. “Watch,” he said, waiting a few moments and opening it again. The quill was still there, but broken in half. “This, you may understand, won’t do.”

Draco took the quill in his hands, unable to stop wondering who could have snapped the writing utensil. Was there someone on the other end? In Borgin and Burke’s? “What happened?”

“As you can see, the passage tends to fail.” Nott explained. “And we wouldn’t want that, would we?” he asked, looking at Draco pointedly. Draco took out his wand, if only to have something to do other than look back at Theo, and tried a mending charm. “That won’t work,” Theo sounded sure, “these connected old things need a different one. I have it written down somewhere, I’ll find it later. Use the bird, if you must,” he said on his way back to the door.

Draco remained in the room, watching the cabinet like the thing itself could vanish at any moment. He willed it to. There was a part of him that wanted to leave the thing unfixed. Broken, unsafe, a sure-fire death sentence, snapping anyone that entered in half. He would love to see his aunt Bella bleeding to death once its doors opened.

He knew that if he allowed that to happen, the next dead body he would see would be that of his mother’s.

“I’ll do it, but only for you,” Draco told the sparrow in the cage. If Nott asked to see Draco’s progress on the bloody bird, he refused to have a cadaver on his hands, even if it was a tiny winged one. “Not letting you die. You’ll like the Forbidden Forest,” Draco promised, “provided nothing there eats you.”

Harry would have loved that joke, Draco thought to himself. He should be there with Harry instead. Back in the room’s most beautiful form. With books and a fireplace, and practice dummies, pillows on the floor and the electricity of just-cast spells in the air. It shouldn’t be like this – full of forgotten things, Draco one of them.

Although he refused to admit it was for any particular reason, Draco found himself near the Room of Requirement often after that. Even when Theo had presented him with the spell on a piece of spare parchment in the middle of class, Draco didn’t go back inside for a while. It was almost like playing pretend. He would look at the door and imagine a D.A. meeting in progress. He was only a few minutes late. He would go in and Hermione would practice with him. He was only a bit tardy.

Not trusting Theo to be able to do proper research, Draco took it upon himself to sneak through the school late at night, prefect badge bright and shiny on his chest. Madam Pince had a reasonable sleep schedule, so getting into the restricted section whenever Draco had the urge was generally simple. The number of books on curses was worrying for a school filled with underaged students. He would have imagined this for Durmstrang, but Hogwarts simply did not seem like the place for it. Stealing a book from the Hogwarts library was a bit more difficult of a task. It was easier to copy down his findings on some parchment.

Draco dreamed of Grimmauld Place a lot. He would see the dusty corners and the ancient furniture, peeling wallpaper and the smell of Molly’s cooking. He even missed his great aunt Walburga’s screeching.

Blaise had stopped attempting to speak to Draco. Instead, he and Pansy now spared him concerned glances. During every meal and in-between classes, if Draco ever made the mistake of looking over at his friends, at least one of them would be looking back in worry. Draco received a lot of those lately. Though, usually only in places where people would notice him sitting alone for a long time.

The sixth-years’ free periods were not the hours of blissful relaxation others had anticipated, but times in which to attempt to keep up with the vast amount of homework they were being set. Not only were they studying as though they had exams every day, but the lessons themselves had become more demanding than ever before.

At some point, Draco started going down to the kitchens for sustenance instead of the Great Hall. By the time his grades started slipping in October, he hadn’t seen the Slytherin table in two weeks. As much as he liked to procrastinate his dark little mission with homework, he was starting to slip. Now, instead of spending hours in the library scribbling countless essays, Draco spent hours sitting and staring into space, or writing in his journal, or else talking to the sparrow in the Room of Requirement.

The first time Draco raised his wand to the cabinet, it was starting to get cold outside. Whenever he went, knowing no one would find him, not even Nott, if that was what would ask of the room, Draco wore Harry’s flannel shirt. It was long since it had retained the Gryffindor’s scent, now it smelled like whatever soap the Hogwarts house elves used, but it was just as soft as the day Draco had taken it off the boy’s shoulders.

In Draco’s first attempts, or first dozen, he used an apple. A bright green one. It had been in the pocket of his robes for days, and was neither bruised nor going bad. He threw it up in the air a few times, then squeezed it in-between his fingers. The spots where the impact had been strongest turned brown before quickly going back to a bright green. He turned it over in his hand. He could almost taste the sourness of it, juice-green against the black wood of the enchanted wardrobe.

He had looked at the note Theo had handed him for ages, enough to know the words in sleep. “Harmonia Nectrere Passus,” Draco whispered and waited. When he opened the door, a full minute later just to be sure, the apple was missing a large chunk. As if someone had bitten it, but there were no teeth marks.

The next time he returned, just as unnerved to be aiding with the plan, he brought an entire bag of green apples, snacking on one after four attempts in a row had failed. It was a zero-sum game. As many times as the door opened to a part of the apple missing, it returned whole just equally as often.

“It’s almost like you don’t want to help me survive,” Draco sighed, smacking one side of the ancient artifact with the back of his hand. “I know I don’t really want you to work, but I’d appreciate my head remaining on my shoulders,” he said, taking a seat on the ground. Harry would have made fun of him for ruining his trousers. He tugged the flannel shirt tighter around him, covering the bottom half of his face with it and inhaling deeply, if only to pretend his own scent was that of someone else.

A Cornish pixie was hanging onto a frame with one arm, watching him curiously. “I won’t touch you, if you don’t touch me,” Draco told it, and it pulled itself upwards slowly before disappearing. Draco might come to like this version of the Room, if persuaded. He watched the bag of apples on the floor, trying to will himself to return to the task at hand. He hated the task, and he hated that cabinet. He hated himself. Even the Cornish pixies wanted nothing to do with him.

Nonverbal spells were now expected, not only in Defence Against the Dark Arts, but in Charms and Transfiguration too. Draco would sometimes practice those in the Room of Requirement. Countless forgotten containers, glasses or pots, Draco had filled with water while practicing the Aguamenti charm. It was a relief to get outside into the greenhouses. They were dealing with more dangerous plants than ever in Herbology, and Draco found it actually interesting.

Severus kept watching him during class with something bordering on disappointment in his eyes. Blaise no longer looked. Pansy still did.

Draco’s mail now waited in the Room of Requirement. Apparently, even Eagle had got the memo. His letters from Narcissa now came more often, even Lucius dared send an own once in a while. Although he had cancelled his subscription to the Daily Prophet, a copy once stood on an ornate little table near the Vanishing Cabinet. It read: This second search of the Malfoy residence does not seem to have yielded any results. Arthur Weasley of the Office for the Detection and Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects said that his team had been acting upon a confidential tip-off. Harry…

Halfway through October came their first trip of the term to Hogsmeade. Draco had wondered whether these trips would still be allowed, given the increasingly tight security measures around the school, but was pleased to know that they were going ahead. It was always nice to get out of the castle grounds for a few hours.

Draco woke early on the morning of the trip, which was proving stormy, excited to face the day for the first time in a while. He wore Harry’s flannel shirt for warmth and almost made the mistake of dawning one of the hats Hermione had knitted to liberate house-elves and Harry had begged Draco to take to save the creatures from shame among their kind. Harry most likely would have recognised it and accused him of thievery.

Even if going to Hogsmeade meant him buying a few bottled butterbeers to store in the Room of Requirement and then head to the dock to read one of the muggle novels he’d found in his room at Andromeda’s, one that Nymphadora had most likely left behind, he was still excited about the outing opportunity.

“Malfoy,” Nott greeted him on his thus far decent walk to the village.

“What do you want, Nott?” Draco grunted.

“I hope you’re ready to go home,” he smiled self-assuredly, “I also hope you’re done with fixing that bloody cabinet.”

“What are you talking about?” Draco asked, dread suddenly filling the trip he had so hoped would be pleasant.

“The curses you gave me,” Theo explained, “I’ve got one in motion. Probably, er, don’t go near the Three Broomsticks any time today, got it?”

Draco stopped in his tracks while Nott continued on his way towards Hogsmeade. If he really had a plan, and that plan was really about to work, Draco would be leaving Hogwarts that very evening. He hadn’t arranged for anyone to find his journal, he hadn’t packed his things, he hadn’t even a clue where he would go, because it sure as hell would not be over to Voldemort.

He took some deep breaths, forcing his legs to keep moving lest he looked like he was having the panic attack he clearly was experiencing. The breathing helped, he’d found, or maybe it was the chilly October air.

Continuing at a more normal pace, Draco kept Nott in his line of vision at all times. He had no reason to follow the boy, no, of course not, he simply needed to know where not to go. Maybe, somehow, he could stay in the school and no one would have to know. He had fulfilled his vow – he had helped Theo. Quite a lot, by the looks of it, if the other Slytherin was indeed using the curse Draco had found. And he knew hadn’t discussed it with anyone else, that much he knew surely, and he had every intention to keep himself as far from Nott today as he could. Why would anyone suspect him?

The cabinet wasn’t entirely fixed yet, either. It would either bring the Death Eaters safely through, in which case Draco did not need to be anywhere near it, or it would split them in half like logs, in which case he would be a hero amongst the Order members.

Draco’s footsteps faltered, his heart racing. The walk into Hogsmeade was already not enjoyable. Draco wrapped his green-and-grey scarf over his lower face, the exposed part soon felt both raw and numb. The road to the village was full of students bent double against the bitter wind. Even as the shadows of the near-naked tree branches danced around them on the ground, Draco wondered if he would have an entirely more pleasant day dreading his life in the Room of Requirement. He contemplated going back to the castle, but thought better of it. Someone needed to see him in Hogsmeade at the time when Nott decides to strike. Far away from the scene of the crime. He needed an alibi, and a bloody good one.

Draco saw Nott heading into the Three Broomsticks and demonstratively headed into another direction. He saw Harry and Ronald head into Honeydukes and avoided that building, as well. His only logical choice was Scrivenshaft’s, but shopping for quills for the rest of the day seemed like the most boring thing he could imagine.

He went to Brood and Peck first, getting extra owl treats for Eagle. If the poor thing was risking its life flying over the country when correspondences were rumoured to be interjected by the Ministry, he deserved some quality grooming. When that barely took ten minutes, he found himself back on the high street, looking for another pastime.

He got a new pair of Quidditch gloves in Spintwitches Sporting Goods, realising with a start that he had forgotten about Quidditch entirely during the almost two months he’d spent at Hogwarts. Gladrags Wizardwear was a bust, failing to entertain him just like all the other times he’d come in, only to be disappointed beyond belief. If Pansy had been there with him, he could have at least amused himself with her commentary on the assortment, but, alas, he had successfully lost his friends, and now, whenever Theo finished his attempt, he would lose the false sense of safety Hogwarts provided, as well.

Hog’s Head was nearly empty as always, so Draco went in to grab a bottle of butterbeer there on his way back to the castle, tired of the cold and deciding to spend his last hours at the school with no one’s eyes on him.

His way back on the surprisingly cold day was a test of endurance, with every step feeling like a battle against the biting chill. The path meandered through a rapidly freezing landscape, the ground covered in a thin blanket of frost that crunched underfoot with each deliberate step. The air was crisp and unforgiving, causing every breath to sting his lungs. As the wind howled through the trees, Draco found himself alone on the path back, the other students apparently continuing on their delusions that the day could still be enjoyable. The stone walls of the castle loomed in the distance, a sanctuary promising warmth and shelter, but the journey there felt like an eternity.

Amidst the towering walls of Hogwarts, Draco found himself perched upon a windowsill, gazing out at the expansive grounds below. The corridor around him seemed to echo with hushed whispers of past students, yet he felt entirely alone in his thoughts. The silence was only broken by the distant howling of the wind – a feature the school gained anew each autumn, that suited the old stones so well. With every passing moment, his grip tightened on the glass bottle in his hand, its over-sweetened contents long gone.

By the time Draco heard about anything to do with Nott's chosen victim, Katie Bell, it was nearing nightfall. Draco overheard it from the ghosts wandering the empty halls, not even Nott himself could have found Draco to tell him he’d failed. The girl had been found, unexpectedly as ever, by the Golden Trio, just happening upon her on their way back from the village. Draco had wondered for years now, and perhaps it was because Harry was the literal Chosen One, but how could one person be around so much trouble? It was truly a talent.

He was sitting near the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy in an alcove that hadn’t been cleaned in what seemed like centuries, and therefore served as a perfect hideout for lone Death Eater apprentices such as himself. He had vanished the empty bottle, and the pastry Dobby had given him upon his return to the castle was half-eaten and cold on the dusty stone next to him.

“You look like shit, you know,” Pansy’s voice made him jump. He hadn’t heard her approach him, and he’d been sitting there, head in his hands, for a good twenty minutes before that, in ear-ringing silence. “Is it because you feel sorry for yourself, or because you miss me so bloody much?”

“Just let me be, Parkinson,” Draco demanded, murmuring into his palms.

Pansy sat down next to him despite his best efforts at being a dick. Draco knew her to be relentless, but he also knew her to get offended by anything enough to make Draco repent. She wasn’t usually one to go out of her way to get other people to open up to her against their will. “Or is it because Katie Bell is in the hospital wing? What’s he got you into?” she then asked.

Draco felt his blood stop. He felt frozen in spot. His hands came apart so slowly it felt like dethawing. When he turned to face Pansy, she was staring straight ahead, as if the stone wall was about to come alive the second she took her eyes off it.

“I know,” she said after a moment of obviously having to force the words out of herself. “I know you’re doing something. So, what is it?”

“I literally can’t tell you. I…” Draco started, but the fear of it all washed over him with another sub-arctic wave. He shook his head.

“Draco. I’m not guessing. I know,” she repeated, “My father told me.”

“You don’t speak to your father,” Draco reminded her, leaning against the cold window. He’d listened to countless stories and read dozens of letters from her over the summer of just this. Her mother was her favourite person on earth, save Draco and Blaise, but she could not stand her father.

“I can’t speak about Blaise. You’re a safe subject. My father…works with your father. And everyone’s very happy about your…sudden input.”

“Sudden input,” Draco scoffed, rubbing his eyes. He was not bringing Pansy into this. He was simply not. No.

“This is why you broke up with Harry, isn’t it?” Pansy wondered.

“Right,” Draco nodded, unwilling to correct her. Whatever conclusions she may hold, Draco wasn’t correcting.

She looked at him, one of her stares that could see right through your soul. Draco hated those looks. It meant she would figure him out. It was moments like these he regretted spending so much time with her. “You didn’t break up with him,” she nodded slowly. “Of course, you didn’t. You couldn’t do that,” she sighed, “you’d break upon a single look of his heartbroken little face. How did you do it?”

“I obliviated him,” he admitted, suddenly eager for someone to know. Pansy cursed under her breath. “How is he?” Draco asked reluctantly, aching to know.

“Hermione won’t say anything about it.”

“Hermione?” Draco wondered.

“How did you imagine Blaise’s girlfriend not being brought into this?” Pansy sounded angry now. Draco didn’t want to elaborate much, especially since at one point his unbreakable promise would take effect. “Oh, Circe’s tits, that’s why you were icing us out, as well, weren’t you? You’re a bloody git, Draco Malfoy. A pompous arse and a fucking idiot.”

“Thank you?”

“No, it’s true!” there was a tone of hopelessness to her words now. “What do you think you’re doing? You can’t survive without me and Blaise. You can’t survive without Potter, and you know it.”

“I do this or my family dies. Harry dies, you and Blaise, too.”

“So, you steal the memory of your goodness from him?” Pansy shook her head in disbelief. “You have no right doing that.”

“It’s my relationship,” Draco protested. He already felt like shit. He didn’t need to be pelted about it.

“And also, apparently, not Potter’s!”

“I’m not endangering him. He’s got enough to think about, he shouldn’t be trying to save me.” Draco worried enough about Harry when he'd been involved in his life.

“Saving you from Azkaban?” I think he really should be.”

“I’m not going to Azkaban,” Draco said, knowing full well that it was not for him to promise.

“Oh really?” Pansy chuckled, “Let me ask you, oh mighty criminal mastermind, who do you think will win this war? Potter?”

Draco did have his own opinions and beliefs on the matter. Strong beliefs, in fact. Ones he was stomping on by actively planning the homicide of the highest power the right side had. “Of course.”

Pansy hummed. “And what happens then? You get trialled as a Death Eater, that’s what,” Pansy pointed out, “He won’t remember ever liking you and he certainly won’t help you, and you will rot in the middle of the sea with a dementor sucking on your face.”

“What do you want me to do?” Draco asked, “Go on, give me suggestions, I’m all ears. Because I sure as fuck don’t know, so, what? What do I do?” She sighed, pure pity in her gaze. So much so, that Draco had to look away.

“Even if you can’t tell Blaise about it, and you’ve convinced yourself you’re helping Harry by taking this part of his life away from him,” she said, poking Draco’s shoulder to indicate just which part she’d meant, “you still have me.”

“I’m not letting you into this.”

“I’m not aiding you in murder,” she scoffed as if he was a complete idiot. “That doesn’t mean you don’t still need a friend. One could argue you need a friend more than ever before.”

Draco looked at her, waiting for her to say she was just kidding and he should go fuck himself and dig himself deeper on his own, but she just looked back at him with her own normal face. “I want you back,” Pansy said simply, “you knob.”

“Knob?” Draco laughed.

“That’s right.”

“You’ve never called me a knob.”

“About time, then,” she finally smiled, as well. The air around them was heavy with unresolved tension, yet a palpable longing for reconciliation lingered in her gaze. In that fragile moment, the chasm that had opened between them seemed insurmountable, yet Draco could think of nothing more than relief of having her there for him. Without a word, they closed the distance between them, arms hastily wrapping around each other, squeezing tight and for a much longer moment than ever before. “You are a bloody knob,” she said into his shoulder.

“Yeah, I know, Pans.”

Chapter Text

November dragged on with a chill in Draco’s bones and an ever-looming sense of doom. He pondered death a lot those days. He wondered how bad it would actually be. Sure, it would be painful for a moment, but then? Would it be a cool breeze in a still day? Would it be like falling asleep under a soft blanket in Grimmauld Place? It wasn’t like anyone he cared about really cared about him. His mother would be sad, sure, but then again, she would probably be just as dead and gone as him once he inevitably fails Voldemort.

He considered this as he reread his mother’s newest letter, which ended with a question of whether Draco would like to spend the Christmas Break at Grimmauld Place or Andromeda’s. He hadn’t even though about going back to London for Christmas, and he felt quite guilty about endangering his aunt and uncle by spending time at their house.

Though Draco was alone less often now, it still didn’t seem like enough of his old life was back with Pansy having returned. The overly packed space suffused with an overwhelming sense of emptiness. He couldn't escape the crushing weight of his own life. It had been two months since he'd made the fateful decision to erase Harry’s memories of their time together, a desperate act of self-preservation and perhaps something heroic he refused to admit. But as he gazed at the old letters from the Boy Who Lived he’d kept hidden at the bottom of his trunk, he longed for the one person he had tried so hard to forget.

His heart ached with regret as he remembered the stolen moments they had once shared, the secret smiles, the warmth of Harry's touch. Draco had been terrified of his own vulnerability, of the emotions Harry had stirred within him. He longed for just another second of it.

He missed Harry more than he could have ever imagined. He missed the way Harry's eyes sparkled with mischief, the sound of his laughter, and the feel of his frame in Draco’s arms, and the simple joy of being in Harry's presence. He even missed the blasted nightmares. He would brew a million calming draughts for the boy. He would do anything asked of him. He would be so good, and he would never complain, if he could just have Harry back.

Draco knew he had made a terrible mistake, and he wished more than anything that he could turn back time and undo the spell. He yearned for a chance to tell Harry the truth, to apologise for his cowardice, and to hope against hope that, just maybe, there was a chance for them to find their way back to each other. But he also knew that some actions, though committed by him, were irreversible by his own hands, and he knew that Harry was safer for it, so he was left with nothing but the ache of longing and the knowledge that he had lost probably the only person who he would ever truly love this way.

Katie was removed to St. Mungo’s, by which time the news that she had been cursed had spread all over the school, though the details were confused. Draco was no debutant to the spread of rumours in Hogwarts, and he was not at all surprised a story couldn’t be held in reins. According to Pansy’s intel from Hermione, “Bell brushed the necklace with the smallest possible amount of skin. There was a tiny hole in her glove. Had she put it on, had she even held it in her ungloved hand, she would have died instantly.”

“Sounds cheery,” Draco sighed, rubbing his fingers into his eyes. Pansy had been visiting him in the Room of Requirement daily. Sometimes they would discuss homework to feign some sense of normalcy. Sometimes Draco would cry into her lap. Sometimes they would jinx the ancient crap all over the room after talking about Ginny dating Dean Thomas and Harry unable to say a single good thing about Draco. Mostly, they would sit in comforting silence. It was almost good enough.

Slytherin’s opening match against Gryffindor was looming, and Draco had trouble thinking of much else, despite spending his afternoons in self-pitying lonesomeness. He would have to face Harry. He would have to actively go against Harry. It had been fun the previous year, if one didn’t count the injury it all ended with, but it had still been fun. They’d been flirting practically the entire time. And a year later, Draco was forced to face Harry after doing so well for so long, not looking at the bastard.

Draco didn’t care much about the game. He couldn’t give less of a shit who won, and he’d been blowing off practice since the start of term, promising his captain that he was doing his own training on his own time. No one found it too strange, after all, seeker was a solo position, and Draco was quite sure he could successfully avoid his teammates in his pursuit of the snitch. That being said, it was just another lie to add to his pile, since he hadn’t got on a broom since early August on a beach with Harry.

The Quidditch pitch was abuzz with excitement as Slytherin and Gryffindor prepared for their long-awaited showdown. The crowd was divided, with green and silver on one side and red and gold on the other. The tension in the air was palpable as the teams took their positions on their brooms, ready for the match to begin.

“Their practices have been going shit,” Urquhart mumbled to Vaisey, having shaken Harry’s hand in greeting and put some distance between the two teams again, “Potter’s the worst captain they’ve had in decades.” It was as though something large and scaly erupted into life in Draco’s stomach, clawing at his insides upon hearing the comment. Hot blood seemed to flood his brain, so that all thought was extinguished, replaced by a savage urge to jinx his own captain so hard he couldn’t remember what a quaffle was for speaking ill about Harry.

Harry, who was now captain of the Gryffindor team, who ran drills and led practices, and most likely looked like heaven doing it. This theory was proven correct when Draco got onto his broom, forced, finally, to look at the other boy, if only to see where his only competition was located on the pitch. An insurmountable longing took over Draco for the first time so strongly since getting off the Hogwarts express. It ate at his lungs, rendering his breathing ragged, it pulled at his guts so strongly he wanted to retch there and then, or single-handedly forfeit the match, earning an inevitable pelting from his housemates. And he would take it, as well. Because none of it would hurt as much as letting himself lay eyes on Harry again, or, Merlin forbid, look him in the eye.

Madam Hooch's whistle pierced the air, and the Quaffle was released. Instantly, the two Seekers shot into the sky. The Chasers on both sides raced for the Quaffle, jockeying for position and weaving through the air. It was a high-speed chase that kept the crowd on the edge of their seats.

The sky was clear, a pale blue, and Draco kept his eyes on it in fear of accidentally making eye contact with Harry. He knew he wouldn’t be able to take that. He was used to taking hints from the opposing team’s seekers to know what direction to head in search for the snitch, but it was becoming increasingly clear that using this strategy would only result in him being utterly unable to find the snitch at all.

Draco had fostered a plan to pretend to be ill for the game, but if he did that for all games this year, as he suspected he might have to, once Nott gets closer to the solution to their little task, it might become suspicious. It was only now that he was faced with his own decision to obliviate his first love in front of the entire school, that he realised he probably should have gone along with the pretending to be sick plan.

Draco soared around the perimeter of the grounds, looking around for the Snitch and keeping Harry in the edge of his vision, zigzagging far below him, and trying to give any of his attention that wasn’t looking for the snitch on Zacharias Smith’s commentary coming from the megaphone. “Oh, and here comes Slytherin’s first attempt on goal, it’s Urquhart streaking down the pitch and –” Draco looked over at the hoops, “– Weasley saves it, well, he’s bound to get lucky sometimes, I suppose.” Draco scoffed, his eyes searching all around for some hint of the elusive Snitch.

In the stands, Slytherin supporters cheered on their team with fierce determination, while Gryffindor fans roared in encouragement for their own. The game was a fierce battle of wills, and it was clear that neither team was willing to back down.

With half an hour of the game gone, Gryffindor were leading sixty points to zero, Ronald having made some truly spectacular saves, some by the very tips of his gloves, and Ginevra having scored four of Gryffindor’s six goals. This effectively stopped Zacharias Smith wondering loudly whether the two Weasleys were only there because their captain liked them, and he started verbally attacking the other Gryffindor players instead. “Of course, Coote isn’t really the usual build for a Beater,” Zacharias said, “they’ve generally got a bit more muscle…”

“Hit a Bludger at him!” Draco could hear Harry call to Coote as he zoomed past, but Coote, grinning broadly, chose to aim the next Bludger at Draco instead, who was just passing Harry in the opposite direction and barely managed to lean away from it.

“Fucking hell,” Draco muttered to himself, regaining his balance before continuing his search for the snitch. Harry had looked back, probably to see the impact, surely disappointed when there wasn’t one.

A flash of light a bit above Harry caught his eye. If he could just get to it before the other seeker had noticed, that would be bloody grand. And he almost collided with the boy in his pursuit of the smallest ball in the game, but the Snitch was speeding along high above them, glinting brightly against the clear blue sky, so Draco accelerated, followed closely by Harry once Smith had ever-so-unhelpfully announced that Draco had noticed the snitch.

The wind was whistling in his ears so that it drowned all sound of Smith’s idiotic commentary or the over-excited crowd, but Draco was still ahead of him, and Gryffindor was only a hundred points up. All he had to do was make it in time and be sure to be first, and it would all be over, and he could leave and go brood in the Room of Requirement. Draco made a great swipe for the tiny, fluttering ball and…it slipped right through his fingers as he lost balance again.

“YES!” Harry yelled. Wheeling around, he hurtled back toward the ground, the Snitch held high in his hand. As the crowd realised what had happened, a great shout went up that almost drowned the sound of the whistle that signalled the end of the game. Draco stayed there, right where Harry left him, wind blowing his hair into his eyes, all that way above the pitch. Draco looked to the ground. It looked like a long way down. He thought about taking it, allowing the ground its brutal way to him. He would never have to worry about a thing again.

Draco resigned from the team the second he was off his broom.

Pansy didn’t come to see him that evening. He did, however meet her on her way to the Slytherin common room, with a blissfully drunk smile and copper lipstick all over her face. “Going to bed?” she asked Draco, pupils blown wide. Her moronic smile made his heart melt.

“Soon,” he felt himself smile for the first time in a while. He took in her appearance, and found it difficult stopping himself from teasing her. Maybe he should get some alcohol to help himself forget, if only for a little while. “She a good kisser?”

“Fucking brilliant,” Pansy chuckled drunkenly. All that was missing was for her to be holding an empty bottle of cheap firewhiskey in her hand. “Walk with me,” she demanded, taking him by the hand.

“Tell me literally everything,” Draco whispered. Of course, Pansy could make him forget everything else in the world. Of course, she could go into an overly explicit story that Draco could finally lose himself in. He may have been miserable, but he could pretend.

“Her hair is so soft,” Pansy sighed dreamily, “and so, so orange.”

“Quite,” Draco agreed. He couldn’t peel the smile off his lips as he helped Pansy make it to bed in one piece. He almost couldn’t believe she’d done it. She’d actually got Ginevra. Then again, if anyone could persevere with that girl, it was his Pans.

“I like her so much,” her whining echoed in the empty corridor, so did Draco’s accompanying laugh. “I’m never letting her go, I don’t know what you were on, you idiot.”

“I know, Pans,” Draco said, keeping his tone light. He wasn’t going to blame her for her inability to keep her mouth shut, not when she was drunk on both alcohol and the girl she’d been obsessing over for more than a year. Draco had had plenty of time to be bitter and upset. This was Pansy’s time to share her life with her best friend.

Snow was swirling against the icy windows once more. Christmas was approaching fast. Hagrid had already single-handedly delivered the usual twelve Christmas trees for the Great Hall. Garlands of holly and tinsel had been twisted around the banisters of the stairs. Everlasting candles glowed from inside the helmets of suits of armour and great bunches of mistletoe had been hung at intervals along the corridors. Large groups of girls tended to converge underneath the mistletoe bunches. The plant now made Draco’s eyes sting with memories, and he often saw Pansy’s wand directing flames at it in the corridors.

“Slughorn’s having a Christmas party,” Pansy said, ignoring Draco’s mood. “Blaise is taking Hermione, of course.”

“Too bad,” Draco noted. He hadn’t spoken to their friend in over two months. He wouldn’t have spoken to anyone but Nott, if it hadn’t been for Pansy’s insistent company. “I’d been planning on stealing her away from him.”

“Ha,” Pansy said loudly. “Would you like to know who Ginny is taking?”

“Longbottom?” Draco couldn’t help but smirk at his own joke.

“I honestly hate you,” Pansy sighed.

“Clearly,” He nodded. She was sitting on a ratty old couch, doing her homework in a room that was more dust than much else just to spend time with Draco. The hatred was truly palpable.

Nott’s newest brilliant idea was poisoning a Christmas gift for Dumbledore. Draco had needed to actually sit the other Slytherin down and remind him that if he presented a poisoned gift to their headmaster, he would be immediately accused of attempted murder. It had taken a while for the increasingly careless, stubborn and cocky boy to understand that if he was sent to Azkaban for an unsuccessful attempt and Dumbledore remained alive, Voldemort would still kill his family.

His solution, apparently, was finding out which of the professors was planning on giving the headmaster anything ingestible. Draco’s job in this scenario was to brew a batch of Venenum Umbra, a recipe that he’d found in one of the books in the restricted section of the library. Hopefully, a more successful attempt than that of the draught of the Living Death. Sneaking into Slughorn’s office wasn’t difficult, but the old man lacked several ingredients, and Draco wanted nothing less than to have to face his godfather. How he wished he had Harry’s invisibility cloak.

Bullying younger Slytherins into revealing Severus’ schedule was, surprisingly, unnecessary. They looked at Draco like he was some sort of mythological being. Not only was he a sixth year who most people still believed to be on the Quidditch team, but there was a shiny silver prefect badge on his chest to further drive home his status. Thus, Draco could freely sneak into Severus’ private stores without a single worry.

“How is that coming along?” Nott asked, appearing without warning one afternoon in the Room of Requirement and making Draco jump. He’d decided to do the brewing itself back there - the quiet stillness and lack of distractions was unbelievably effective in producing something closer to what the recipe had suggested the outcome should look like.

“Almost ready,” Draco turned back to the work at hand. “Do me a favour and don’t tell me anything about where the fuck you’re putting this.”

“No problem,” Nott barked a laugh and plopped himself heavily into Pansy’s usual spot on the ancient couch that marked the part of the room Draco now thought of as his own. “You’ve really taken to this place, haven’t you?”

“I’ve liked it for a while,” Draco said courtly.

“Have you?” Nott asked, giving Draco a strange, calculating look, “How come?”

Draco felt a wave of nerves run through him, “I’ll have this ready in a few hours, you want anything else?” Draco asked, doing his best to avoid putting attention on anything even closely related to him and the Gryffindors.

Nott shrugged, gathering himself back into the confusingly confident arse he’d become over the last few years, and shook his head. “Suppose not, just wondering if you’re not planning on fucking me over. You know, since both of your best friends are now daring Gryffindors.”

“Do you see me running around on dates with Lavender Brown?”

“Well, she’s taken by the blood traitor,” Nott snorted and rolled his eyes. This was news to Draco. Though, he supposed, if Pansy had mentioned anything about Ronald, Draco had simply tuned that information out.

“Right, piss off now,” Draco dismissed.

“You better have that stupid cabinet fixed,” Nott said, striding out of the room.

Draco stewed in his bitterness for a while longer as he stirred the concoction on the brewing station that the room had provided. He wondered if Dumbledore shouldn’t be getting some sort of warning by the magical castle he was in charge of, when there was a plot to take his life within its walls.

He headed to the library to distract himself at least a little. It was the only publicly-available room in the school, besides classes, where he still showed his face during the day, even though it was getting close to curfew now. The vulturelike countenance of Madam Pince appeared from around the corner, her sunken cheeks, her skin like parchment, and her long, hooked nose illuminated unflatteringly by the lamp she was carrying. “Mister Malfoy,” she greeted sternly.

“Good evening, Madam Pince, I was only going to –”

“Steal another book from the restricted section?” she asked warningly. Draco froze, watching her like she was a rabid dog about to attack. She was a woman of reason and logic. What if she put the instance of Katie being cursed together with Draco sneaking into restricted section?

“I’m not sure what it is you are referring to, Madam Pince,” Draco said, pulling the most nonchalant face he could, “I am certain all your lovely books are accounted for.”

“Uh huh,” she said and pursed her lips. “The library closes in fifteen minutes, be quick about it.”

“Thank you, Madam Pince,” Draco said politely and only allowed himself to roll his eyes when he was safely behind a bookcase.

If he only had fifteen minutes to find a book that mentioned vanishing cabinets, he might not be entirely successful, but he supposed he should try either way, having already come all this way from the eight floor and having to head to the dungeons next. He wondered between shelves of history books and tried to will the universe into giving him exactly what he needed out of nowhere, when he heard a pair of familiar voices.

“…into the girls’ bathroom just before I came in here and there were about a dozen girls in there, including that Romilda Vane, trying to decide how to slip you a love potion. They’re all hoping they’re going to get you to take them to Slughorn’s party, and they all seem to have bought Fred and George’s love potions, which I’m afraid to say probably work–” Hermione was speaking so quietly Draco had to strain himself to hear.

“Why didn’t you confiscate them then?” Harry demanded, much less concerned about the whole silence-in-the-library rule. People were running after him like he was a rockstar. Trying to slip someone a love potion was bloody despicable. And Draco didn’t even have a way to stop it from happening. Neither did he have any claim on the boy anymore. Not that he ever publicly had before.

“They didn’t have the potions with them in the bathroom,” Hermione said scornfully. “That’s not the point. You need to invite someone to go with you, that’ll stop all the others thinking they’ve still got a chance. It’s soon, they’re getting desperate.”

“There isn’t anyone I want to invite,” mumbled Harry, sounding bitter. Draco couldn’t help the relieved sigh that escaped his lips.

“Well, just be careful what you drink, because Romilda Vane looked like she meant business,” Hermione suggested grimly.

Draco conceded defeat on trying to find a book to help him and chose to sneak away as silently as he could when they started discussing how the Weasley twins managed to get their products into the school, when they were all banned and any packages that came in were checked by Filch. Draco had no intention to be seen by either of them. He wouldn’t be able to be faced with Harry saying something bitter and mean to him. He could deal with the boy hating him.

He wondered if Harry would have asked him to Slughorn’s Christmas party, if the circumstances were different, if he was less of a coward and had fought against Voldemort, if Harry even remembered anything about their relationship. Would they have gathered enough courage to make it public? Would it have caused a scandal? Could they sit next to each other at the Gryffindor table and talk about whether Madam Pince and Filch were secretly in love with each other? Draco wondered if Harry was snogging some silly girl after Gryffindor’s win, perhaps one of the Patil sisters. Maybe he’d returned to his old crush on Cho Chang. Draco couldn’t yet will himself to hope for that. He might one day wish for Harry happy and in love with a nice girl he could parade around, but for now, Draco still felt possessive of the other boy, and there was nothing he could even do about it.

He sat in the dimly-lit Room of Requirement that night, his silver-blond hair falling into his eyes as he stared at the cauldron before him. The flickering candlelight cast eerie shadows on the forgotten walls, adding to the sense of unease that had settled in his chest for so long. He couldn't believe he was doing this, couldn't believe he was here, brewing a potion that somehow would accomplish everything he had been raised to believe, but also went against his beliefs as of late.

As he carefully measured out the ingredients, Draco's mind was in turmoil. The memory of the moment he had been given that fateful task weighed heavily on him. All he could think about these days was how stupid of him it had been, and how reckless, and how he wouldn’t want to change a thing, because Sirius was alright, but how he would take everything back in an instant, if it meant Harry’s hands in his hair again. Draco couldn't shake the feeling of guilt that gnawed at him like a relentless beast.

As the potion simmered in the cauldron, Draco's hands shook ever so slightly. He couldn't stop thinking about the consequences of his actions. Would Harry ever forgive him if he succeeded in his mission? Was there a way to explain it? To reverse it? Would he be able to live with the knowledge that he had betrayed not only his own principles but also the very person who had shown him kindness when he’d needed it most?

The potion's noxious fumes filled the air, making Draco's eyes water, or maybe that was less the potion and more himself. But he blinked away the tears and pressed on. He had no choice. He was trapped in a web of deceit, and he had to play his part. But as he stirred the potion, he couldn't help but wonder if there was a way out of this darkness, a way to redeem himself and make amends for the betrayal that weighed so heavily on his conscience.

That sliver of hope was all that kept him from raising to his throat the silver knife he’d used just hours earlier to cut up belladonna, or perhaps simply licking its remnants off the blade. I probably wouldn’t take much. And, if it did, the arduous, painful recovery process would be just the sentence he deserved. Maybe Voldemort would think Nott had tried to poison him, and his family would be off the hook.

Draco stared at the bubbling cauldron before him, the potion he had brewed now complete. The room was filled with an eerie silence that made his ears hurt. He had followed through on his task successfully. The dark substance glimmered ominously. As he carefully decanted the potion into a small vial for Nott, he couldn't shake the feeling that this act marked the point of no return. It was one thing to find a curse and hand the incantation over to Nott. It was entirely different to be directly responsible for making the thing that kills a man.

With a trembling hand, he corked the vial and placed it on a small table near him, one of the few he could find that didn’t wobble. As he did so, a sense of dread washed over him. He had not only betrayed his own principles but had also become an accessory to a terrible crime, having created something that would be used for nefarious purposes, one that could cause harm to an innocent person and, by many accounts, a hero.

Draco knew that he was on a dangerous precipice, and the realisation left a bitter taste in his mouth. He left the Room of Requirement, the vial safely waiting for Nott to collect. Draco refused to know when and how the other Slytherin would collect it, or what he was even planning to do with it, but Draco wouldn’t go anywhere near it.

The weight of his actions bore down on him like an anvil, and Draco finally properly felt like a criminal in the making. He had strayed so far from the path he had just months ago envisioned for himself, a path that had held honour, integrity, and the hope of redemption for his name after what his father had done to it. Now, all those aspirations seemed distant memories. He had sacrificed his own principles and had become entangled in a dark web of deception, all to protect himself and his family.

Chapter Text

One of the great things about being friends with Pansy Parkinson was that you were one of the first people in the school to know absolutely everything. Whether it was a rumour or truth, that was different question. The less wonderful part of it was when the rumour mill circulated around people you cared for. In fact, it became her most foul habit, when Draco had to hear about Harry having invited someone to Slughorn’s idiotic Christmas party. It was equally vile, imagining how distastefully he himself would look, loitering around where the evening would be taking place, eager to know who the lucky girl was.

“Don’t worry, Romeo,” she snickered, the reference unclear to Draco. “If you can be certain of one thing, it’s that he couldn’t care less about her.”

This intrigued Draco. “Who is he taking?” he asked, no longer pretending not to care. He had cried on Pansy’s shoulder one too many times to feign nonchalance. He craved to know everything about Harry’s life now that he was only its spectator from the outside.

“Luna Lovegood,” Pansy snorted a laugh.

This wasn’t a bad strategy on Harry’s part. She was a safe choice. Strange enough not to come to the conclusion that Harry was interested in her, having spent enough time around him to assume they weren’t more than friends, yet still pretty enough to cause jealously in the rest of those love-potion-smuggling lunatics.

“Remember in second year, when Blaise and I were convinced she was your cousin?”

“She’s not my cousin,” Draco murmured.

“How would you know? You refuse to ask Lucius,” Pansy said, now fully laughing, the sound echoing in the giant room. “Maybe Potter has a thing for you Malfoys.”

“Lovegood is not my cousin,” Draco repeated forcefully.

“Well, then he certainly has a thing for blondes,” Pansy supposed.

Draco scoffed. If this was somehow a part of Harry’s brain telling him to look for certain attributes in dates, he couldn’t complain, could he? Now all Draco had to do was somehow convince Harry he was also into guys. “And you have a thing for gingers,” Draco jabbed bitterly.

“Just the one,” Pansy corrected lightly. “Blondes, as well, historically.” Draco looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “In your dreams, dragon boy.” She returned to her schoolwork, though Draco noticed her watching him out of the corner of his eye. He could practically feel her waiting for him to ask what she wanted, but he decided waiting for her to break would be more interesting. “You can’t leave him on his own, you know.”

“He’s already unsafe as is in his life. He’d be even worse off with me there.”

“Fuck, Draco, we get it! Everyone gets it. You love being a martyr. But this is no longer working. You’re dying over this!” she insisted, “You’re about to do something stupid any day now, I can feel it.”

Draco had yet to hear about the damned potion from Nott. The boy now barely looked in Draco’s direction during class or in the common room, but, to his credit, Draco didn’t give him much of a chance, running off the second the bell rang and never showing up for meals.

Still, he would have liked a warning for when the poison would be put into motion, especially since the term was rapidly coming to a close and Draco had yet to get the cabinet properly working. He pondered often what they would do to him if he left it the way it was. There was about a fifty-fifty chance no one would every find out. It was just as big of a chance that whatever Death Eaters are sent though it end up splinched.

My darling boy,

I hope this letter finds you in good health and high spirits, although I must admit, I have my doubts about the latter. It has been quite some time since we last spoke, and your absence has left a sort of terror that I fear is growing larger with each passing day.

Harry has not mentioned your name once in his letters to Sirius. My dear son, I cannot help but worry about you incessantly. The world outside our ancestral home has grown darker and more dangerous with each passing day. I know that you bear the burden of our family's name and legacy with great determination, but at what cost, Draco? I have seen the toll it has taken on you, the sleepless nights and the haunted look in your eyes. It pains me to think of the choices and sacrifices you may be making to protect us.

Whatever it is, I implore you, my son, do not bear this burden alone. We are a family, and we should face these trying times together. You can always confide in me, my love for you knows no bounds, and I would do anything to ensure your safety and happiness.

I yearn to hear your voice, to see your face, and to know that you are safe. Please, my dear Draco, promise me that you will take care of yourself, that you will not let the darkness of the world consume you.

With all my love,

Mother

The lack of specifics made Draco nervous. His mother was clearly suspecting something, and a worried Narcissa was never a good omen. Draco’s responses to her letters lately had got shorter with each instance. He was slipping. Anyone in Hogwarts would already be able to tell exactly that, but the whole point of being so far from London was that no one in Grimmauld Place would ever be the wiser that something was off. That being said, he was showing an aptitude in evading certain subjects that simply did not do when it came to his letter to his mother. She always knew everything about him. The only time he’d hidden something from the woman was when it was related to his feelings for Harry. He had to get his act together.

So, Draco went to his classes and did his required work for them, and he watched Hermione whisper to Blaise during breaks, holding hands and smiling secretively. He watched Ginevra throw her arm around Pansy possessively until she’d have to go to her own classes. He watched his friends enjoying their teens from a distance. Even Ronald bloody Weasley had got himself some, though Draco couldn’t muster up jealousy for being with someone whose idea of a good time was Divination homework.

His grades, surprisingly, were not yet on the absolute floor, and he assumed with some Slytherin stamina and genuine determination, he could get himself back up to, at least, the top three of the class, and he wouldn’t even be upset if Hermione and Blaise beat him. After all, they had powercouple expectations to uphold.

Things were actually looking up for a second. A marvellous, light little second, when he thought he was even fooling himself into believing everything was fine. He and Pansy were even considering spending the Christmas break in the castle, each making up some bullshit to their respective families about the other having trouble dealing with academic expectations and preferring to spend the break studying in the Hogwarts library.

She insisted that she had no desire to see her father and listen to him gushing over Draco’s involvement in the cause, when she herself was refusing to aid. Her mother was spending the break in France, and Pansy was reluctant to interfere in whatever quasi-divorce they were going through.

Draco was only glad. He would have his best friend with him, and he would still be getting updates from Ginevra’s letters to Pansy of how the Weasley-Potter-Black Christmas was going. Apparently, it would take place at the Burrow, and he doubted anyone would want to see him there anyway.

A small gift-wrapped package was waiting for him one morning in late December, carefully tied up with a ribbon and containing a note that read:

Dear Draco,

I’ve wanted to give you this, but I couldn’t find the right time, as you do not seem eager to speak to anyone. I took these prom Harry while he was asleep in the Gryffindor common room. I assume he wouldn’t want to remember saying this to me first.

Merry Christmas

Draco turned the note over, but found no signature in sight. He upwrapped the small package to find a vial. Draco lifted it against the nearest lit torch, watching as the undisputable silver of a memory swished around it as if in slow motion. Watching a memory couldn’t possibly cause him physical damage, even if someone was trying to prank him, right?

As poised as he liked to think himself to be, he was in his last stages of Potter withdrawal, and if he didn’t get another hit, he might collapse on spot. The vial was cool in his hand. He knew for a fact that the Room of Requirement did not hold in itself a Pensieve, but the man he’d so cleverly avoided for months certainly owned one.

His heavenly plans came crashing down on him, when Draco was heading down to the dungeons to sneak into Severus’ office to use his Pensieve, and was tackled by Pansy into an empty classroom. Though the girl has been known for her expertise in dramatics, she was not one for making sure no one would overhear them by using a well-perfected silencing charm. Draco had to wonder if Ginevra had taught her that charm.

“Draco,” she said carefully, “I think Nott’s fucked up.”

He waited for more of an explanation, but a part of him was already screaming to his logical brain, demanding to know why he would ever entrust Theo Nott with a fucking potion of his. “What did he do?”

“Weasley’s in the hospital wing,” she said, explaining, “the Ron one. Apparently, he’s been poisoned.”

“How?” Draco asked, trying to remain as calm as possible. Theo’s plans were failing, dragging a Gryffindor to near-death each time. “Will he survive?”

“Expected to, yes,” Pansy nodded urgently, “everyone’s…very nervous.”

“Right,” Draco nodded solemnly. Something had to be done about this bloody lack of direction, and the cocky prick himself was most likely not going to admit he was clearly failing at every turn. “I don’t think he’ll listen to reason, though.”

“He’ll become desperate soon,” Pansy noted. Draco knew she was right. Nott’s plans hadn’t been entirely ingenious thus far, mostly relying on Draco’s help, but he continued to be unsuccessful in them, he would most likely start acting desperately and uncarefully. And then Draco would be caught up in the middle of more than he’d reluctantly signed up for. “Just be careful,” Pansy whispered, uncharacteristically worried. “And get out of it…somehow,” she added, leaving the room and Draco in complee, stabbing silence.

He could get out of it. He had been thinking of the only way to do exactly that for a while.

His actions were continuing to hurt innocent people. People that gradually getting higher in the line of succession of close to Harry. The one thing he couldn’t figure out, thought, was how exactly had Ronald ended up drinking something that had been meant for Dumbledore.

He spent the last afternoon of the 1996 semester wondering thought the castle and pondering just that, when he was interrupted in his thoughts. “It’s awful about Ronald, isn’t it?” a light voice asked, making his head snap up. He had made his way to a different floor in the castle in his thoughts, confused for a moment as to how he’d got there. “He says very funny things sometimes, doesn’t he?” Luna said dreamily, demonstrating her usual knack for speaking uncomfortable truths, as they set off down the corridor together. “But he can be a bit unkind. I noticed that last year.”

“I think he means well,” Draco supposed, picturing the boy in the hospital wing and being unable to believe he actually missed the ginger git’s stupid face. He’d almost killed him. It would have all been Draco’s fault.

“I guess it was lucky Harry was there,” she smiled, still following him down the empty hall.

“He was?” Draco wondered, unsure how it would ever be lucky to have someone like Harry near a poisoning. What could the poor bastard do? Sacrifice himself to Merlin’s spirit just to save the other person?

“Oh, yes, Ginny said he’d used a bezoar. Very clever!” she said before starting to hum.

“Luna, you don’t mean to say Harry was…almost poisoned himself, do you?” Draco asked, a cold dread washing over him, chilling to the bone.

“Well, I suppose he might have been. He told Ginny they were toasting, the two of them and Porfessor Slughorn,” she said lightly. Draco couldn’t comprehend how she could speak of such things in that soft a voice. “They were really very lucky,” she shrugged, walking away merrily as he stopped dead in his tracks.

Draco could have killed Harry. A second later and Harry could have been out cold and for good. A small, bitter, sinister part in the back of his mind cackled at just how joyous and rewarding Voldemort would be, had Draco succeeded. His legs went limp at the thought of Harry dying and Draco only finding out days later.

The familiar feeling of his throat closing up and his vision blurring returned. One tiny bit of unluck, and he would have killed his first love. How does one apologise to someone who doesn’t remember them for almost ending their life? He felt pure panic. At least he finally had a name for it.

He decided heading for an empty bathroom was his best option, because most of them would be just that – cold and empty, and perfect to let himself break apart when he couldn’t make it back in time for the Room of Requirement. Most of the other students were getting warm in their common rooms, the last Friday evening of term proving especially chilly even in the halls of the castle. The ones that had somewhere to go tonight, were dawning dress robes and preparing themselves for potions-themed conversation amongst the most insufferable members of student body and what were sure to be boring ministry officials and legendary quidditch players. Draco was almost jealous he couldn’t go.

It was just his luck, then, that the one and only person he would encounter on his way was none other than Harry James Potter. The Gryffindor stopped mid-step, shooting Draco a strange look. It was the first time their eyes had met in months, and if Draco hadn’t already been so close to bawling, he would sure be weeping now.

Before his desperate heart could squeeze out some sort of unprepared and potentially confusing greeting, Draco turned on his heel and, holding back his tears for just a moment longer, rushed towards the closest boys’ lavatory.

The cold porcelain of the sink was refreshing against his palms. It steadied him before he could finally let go of it, having gained enough of a crumb of strength to lift himself off his arms to wet his face in cold water. The chill in the room and in the water was not enough to keep his tears at bay, but what else could he do? Harry had looked at him like he was a stranger. Harry, the wonderful, beautiful boy that Draco knew to the depths of his being, but who considered Draco to be a miserable prat. Harry, who would go on to become one of the ministry officials in Slughorn’s club, and only refer to Draco as that prick from back in the day.

Draco didn’t hear the bathroom door open over his own sobs. And, by the time he could see the reflection in the mirror, it was too late to play it cool. He reached for his wand, shooting just off target when he turned and properly saw who the intruder was. Harry didn’t say anything when he bolted towards Draco, but even in the face of the most likely probability being Harry punching him in the face, he couldn’t will himself to move.

Harry’s hands were rough when he started unbuttoning Draco’s cufflinks. “Potter,” Draco gasped, for a second in too much shock to form a sentence, though not willing to push him away when he could finally feel the boy’s skin on his own again. “Potter, that the fuck are you doing?” He demanded aggressively, but the silver cufflinks had fallen to the marble floor with a loud clink, and his left arm was exposed. Harry turned it over, then back, then over again, pulling the sleeve of Draco’s crisp white shirt higher and thanking God under his breath, leaning down until his lips touched the pale, unblemished skin on Draco’s wrist. “P-Potter, what the fuck?”

“You’re not a Death Eater,” Harry said, chuckling with a thankfulness that only comes after a long time of desperation.

“Of course, I’m not,” Draco said defensively. “Contrary to popular belief, I don’t lie, Potter,” Draco said as spitefully as he could muster, still in utter shock.

“That’s all you fucking do!” Harry was angry. Angry in the way Harry was angry at Draco. Not the way Potter would be angry at Malfoy. “Enough with the charade, Draco, I’m done pretending!”

To say Draco was speechless would be the understatement of the last several centuries. “What did you say?” he whispered, afraid to use his voice in case this was some deranged fantasy. Harry was still clinging onto Draco’s left forearm, and he had said Draco’s first name.

“God, for someone so brilliant, you really can be thick, can’t you?” Harry rolled his eyes, not sounding a pinch less angry.

Draco stared, the familiar green eyes a storm in front of him. “What?” was all he could muster.

“For fuck’s sake, Draco, I’ve stopped playing, enough is enough, what have you got yourself into?” Harry demanded, his voice bordering unhelpfully on worry.

“What the fuck do you care, Potter?” Draco spat, doing his best impression of his thirteen-year-old self.

“Draco, please, stop being daft, let me help you already, I’ve given you enough time,” Draco pleaded, rage melting from his face into a desperation Draco knew so well.

“You…remember?”

“I remember everything, you dimwit,” Harry said, that Potter spite shining through again.

Any hope Draco had started harbouring, evaporated with the single insult. “No, you don’t, you have no clue what–”

“Merlin’s balls,” Harry groaned and pulled Draco’s face in by the lapels of his emerald-lined robes. Draco couldn’t respond to the kiss at first. He wasn’t entirely willing to believe it was real, but his lips appeared to be more responsive than his brain, knowing the feel of Harry’s mouth on them too well not to answer. He wasn’t sure his arms wouldn’t do bodily damage to the other boy with how tightly they wrapped around him. “That felt memorable enough for you?” Harry asked, pulling back as slightly as it was possible, only enough to speak.

Draco’s thought short circuited. “I can’t believe I failed.”

“Hermione said you’re bloody awful at charms,” Harry scoffed, but Draco had no clever comeback. All he could do was trace his fingers over Harry’s jawline, pressing his forehead to Harry’s in some aching search for warmth and comfort.

“So, out of the thousands of possibilities that could have landed you in St. Mungo’s, the spell simply didn’t work on you?” Draco was entirely flabbergasted. He had read about spells bouncing off and going wrong, but the idea of a spell not working entirely instead of changing itself simply because its caster did not want to do it was a new concept to him.

“Wouldn’t call it simple, I can’t tell you how confused I was when you didn’t talk to me for weeks. I thought you just wanted to break up with me, but then you start prancing around with Nott again and, what? What are you doing, Draco? It’s killing me, just tell me!”

“Kiss me again,” Draco begged. He would plead on his knees, if Harry needed that. If he had come to one conclusion during these months, it was that if he could take it back, he would. In a heartbeat. And somehow, in light of some divine intervention, he could.

Harry, bless him, although he obviously tried to stop himself, forfeited any sense of leadership in this conversation and leaned forward to capture Draco’s mouth with his own with an entirely ungryffindorian whine.

“Yell at me,” Draco requested onto Harry’s lips after blessedly long minutes before he could claim them again. “Be angry, scream, I deserve it,” Draco pressed, keeping his eyes firmly pressed as if opening them would mean he’d imagined all of this.

Harry cupped Draco’s face in his palms until the Slytherin finally looked at him, then he smiled. Draco wondered for a second, if Harry was going to enjoy shouting at him, and he would take it, he would, he just hoped it wouldn’t have to come with a satisfied smile. “You’re as beautiful as the day I lost you,” Harry said instead, turning Draco’s thoughts and insides molten with just how much love for the boy he held.

It took a while, but he reluctantly let Harry out of his arms, allowing him to finally go get ready for Slughorn’s idiotic party, and made his way to the Great Hall for the first time in over two months, his spirits lifted to high heavens, soaring over the castle as he stuffed himself with Yorkshire pudding and pumpkin juice.

The ancient stone seemed somehow warmer, no longer bathed in as many shadows. The Great Hall buzzed with conversation, laughter, and the occasional gasp of awe as students exchanged tales of their day's adventures before they wouldn’t be able to see their friends for two weeks. The enchanted candles above swayed gently, casting dancing shadows on the towering walls. The noise of all the people living within its walls that had once so annoyed Draco was now cheery and welcome. He loved this castle when he had a good reason to.

The enchanted ceiling above displayed a starry, moonlit night, casting a soft, ethereal glow upon the room, plates piled high with an array of delectable dishes. Platters of tender, herb-roasted chicken glistened in the candlelight, surrounded by mounds of steaming mashed potatoes and rich, savoury gravy. Bowls of seasonal vegetables, crisp and vibrant, added a burst of colour to each plate. Fragrant bread rolls, still warm from the ovens of the Hogwarts kitchens, accompanied by a pat of creamy butter that seemed to melt the moment it touched the bread. Draco felt as though he hadn’t eaten at all since arriving in Hogwarts for his sixth year.

It was like he could breathe again.

“The prodigal son returns,” Blaise’s unquestionable tone sounded from behind him as he sat stuffing his face with a grin across it. Sure, Nott might be on the verge of losing it and taking Draco down with him, but there was something about kissing Harry Potter that came as a serotonin rush, and Draco was not one to question the emotion of happiness.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Draco teased, glancing up to see Blaise towering above Draco in his smartest apparel. “Some sort of a cult meeting, I believe?”

Blaise’s smirk betrayed his true excitement of having Draco back, or, at least assuming he did, as he stood tall with crossed arms. “Where the hell do you think you’ve been? I’ve had to watch Pansy snog her girlfriend for a month.”

“Isn’t that the sort of thing straight men enjoy?” Draco wondered.

“I don’t fetishize my friends, Malfoy,” he scoffed, but even his eyeroll was indication enough of just how much he’d missed Draco. “If I don’t see you back in this seat on the first dinner feast in January, I will drag you across this castle and tie you down while you’re asleep.”

Draco nodded, “Understood,” he said lightly. “Love you, darling.”

“Eat more,” Blaise said, ignoring his comment, having looked Draco up and down, “and get some sleep,” he added before turning around and heading off to wherever Slughorn was holding his grim excuse for a holiday celebration.

With a desperate hope that Severus bloody Snape was a fan of Christmas, Draco strolled his way down to the dungeons. Despite assuming that watching memories that did not belong to Snape wouldn’t get him into any trouble, he still made sure he couldn’t hear his godfather coming down the subterranean labyrinthine.

The stone basin awaited a user, washing the room and its hundreds of books in a cold glow, the vial had been in Draco’s robes since the morning, and he was, at all times, keenly aware of it. And perhaps it was only him being curious, but it felt like the bloody thing was calling out his name.

He allowed the contents drip into the Pensieve and watched the swivel around for a few seconds, incomprehensible fragments of words drifting up from it. Draco wondered why every time he had a memory to watch, he was forced to do it in secrecy.

The Gryffindor common room came into view the moment he opened his eyes, having bent down to investigate whatever someone had left for him to watch. He knew the room fairly well, though usually he’d been forced to navigate through it under an invisibility cloak and doing his best not to touch anyone, so it was nice to have an uninterrupted moment to look around at the ancient tapestries, portraits and the abundance of pillows in the painfully cosy room. It was like someone’s grandmother had thrown up all her yarn all over it. It was like Molly Weasley had been there.

“…has he done?” Draco’s head snapped over to find Hermione when hearing her voice more clearly than anyone else’s conversation. Of course, it was her who left the memory for Draco. Leave it to Granger to have a thought-out Christmas present for him.

“I think he might have been trying to remove himself from my memory,” Harry admitted grumpily. He looked enraged and sad at the same time. It made something inside Draco want to lurch over the boy and protect him from the world. “That’s what Obliviate is for, right? I looked it up in the library,” he said, deliberately keeping his voice quiet.

Hermione nodded, clearly trying to conceal her shock at the spell Draco had used, “Harry, he could have scrambled your brain, that’s unbelievably advanced magic. I mean, Obliviate is desperately tricky, and he’d not exactly the best at Charms.”

“He couldn’t hurt me,” Harry shook his head, looking out the window. Draco followed his gaze. There was no snow in sight, this must have been months ago.

“That’s a lovely sentiment, but –”

“I love him, Hermione,” Harry whispered, “and more than that – I trust him. In everything he does.”

Hermione watched Harry for a moment, almost as if giving Draco time to gather himself when tears started stinging his eyes. Harry loved him. “How do you know?” she then asked.

“What?"

“That he won’t hurt you,” she explained, “how do you know?”

“I don’t, really,” Harry sighed.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“He wouldn’t have done it, if he wasn’t trying to protect me. You should have seen his face, he was devastated.”

“Just last week you told me he broke up with you. You said you were over for good,” Hermione reminded him, “I remember, because you threw that stupid Prince book of yours against the wall and I was praying it actually shattered.”

“I was angry,” Harry admitted, “I’m not angry anymore, I’m just worried.”

“You’re a pissed-off mess, mate,” Ronald’s voice laughed humourlessly. Draco hadn’t noticed the boy sitting near them. Or, at the very least, he wouldn’t expect Weasley to be present for conversations about feelings.

“If he dies, I don’t know what I’ll do,” Harry said, voicing the same thought Draco had been sporting for two years now.

Hermione placed a soothing hand on Harry’s shoulder hastily. “He’s not going to die,” she promised.

“Because I’ll be watching him,” Harry agreed. Draco noticed the Gryffindor’s fingers trailing over his watch. The family heirloom that was still connected to Draco’s own timepiece. Draco touched his naked wrist absent-mindedly. He’d stopped wearing it in fear of accidentally pressing the button, but it would be the first thing he’d go looking for when returning to his dormitory to pack, because there was no way in muggle hell he was staying at Hogwarts for Christmas.

Chapter Text

Draco had not experienced the Slytherin-Gryffindor compartment on his way to Hogwarts in September, but Harry seemed determined to have him enjoy it now, as the boy’s wand lifted to close the blinds and lock the door the second Draco followed Pansy in.

To say it was tight would be an understatement. The second Pansy saw her girlfriend, they were all over each other, Pansy climbing into Ginevra’s lap. “Can you two please stop?” Ronald whined, but neither of them seemed to hear. “I swear to Merlin, it’s like I’m not even here. I’m only her brother.”

“I’ve got loads of those, there’s only one Pansy,” Ginevra informed him before kissing Pansy again.

“I’m going to blow my brains out,” Ronald scoffed and got up to leave.

“Tell Lovy-Dovy hi from us,” Hermione said, rolling her eyes as Blaise lifted both their bags onto the shelf so Draco had more space.

Harry refreshed the locking charm on the door once Ronald had gone, and shrugged when Draco threw him a questioning glance, saying, “Last time I let you out that door you didn’t look at me for four months.”

“Three and a half,” Draco mumbled a correction, but made himself comfortable by Harry’s side. “So, what exactly is going on with Ronald and Brown?”

“Mostly the same as these two,” Blaise explained, pointing to Pansy and Ginevra, “seriously, can you two stop?”

“We won’t see each other all break unlike the lot of you,” Pansy said impatiently, finally putting a stop to the snogging, yet seemingly unwilling to get off her girlfriend’s lap.

“Oh, right,” Harry sighed, turning to Draco dramatically, “oh, dear Draco, will you humour me ever so…wonderfully as to, uh, accept my invitation –”

“Our invitation,” Ginevra corrected him, a wide grin on her face.

“Right, the Weasleys’ invitation to please, please, pretty please spend Christmas at the Burrow?”

“You’ve finally gone daft,” Draco noted as Hermione chuckled, watching them.

“Your mother wrote me a three-page letter telling me to beg you to come for Christmas,” Harry explained, “she seemed almost as worried as me.”

“Impossible, no one does dramatics like Blacks,” Draco said, making Harry laugh.

“Sirius at the forefront,” Harry scoffed, “the sheer number of letters that man can write, especially around full moons when he has no one to pay attention to him is insane.”

Hermione started pestering Harry about being appreciative after the scare everyone went through when the man appeared to be dying, but all Draco could think about was someone actually inviting him over for Christmas break. There were people that were worried about him even when he wasn’t their direct responsibility, people that wanted to spend time with him and make sure he was alright.

“Where are you going over the break?” Draco thought out loud suddenly, looking over at Pansy.

“With these two,” she said, nodding to Hermione and Blaise.

“My parents want to meet Blaise,” Hermione explained, “they said they’d love to have him over for the entire break, not just Christmas, and I asked if Pans could come, since her dad still thinks she’s staying at Hogwarts.”

“Figured mum doesn’t need a heart attack, finding out I’m super gay,” Ginevra added, holding Pansy’s legs securely in her lap, “or something.”

“We can warm her up for that,” Harry supposed and Draco’s head snapped over to him, as if the boy hadn’t realised he’d made a faux pas. “What? Molly will have to find out at some point.”

“No, I mean…” Draco said awkwardly, very aware of the eyes on his from across the compartment.

“Oh, come off it, Drac,” Pansy rolled her eyes, “everyone bloody knows. Just because you don’t speak to anyone for months doesn’t mean people don’t talk about you behind your back.”

“Good to know,” Draco scoffed, and took a careful glance around the small space. “So, you all…”

“Know you two are doing the nasty? Quite. Except Ron, but he might have a fit, if he found out you were back together, so we haven’t really known how to tell him,” Ginevra snorted a laugh. “We’re also pretty sure your mother knows,” she added nonchalantly and closed her eyes when Pansy started braiding her hair.

Draco did his best not to panic, but even Harry’s hand on his knee wasn’t much of a solace at the moment. He wasn’t exactly worried about his mother. She would love Draco no matter what, and he was almost entirely certain she already knew, what with how much Draco talked about Harry and had started wearing his muggle clothes. But the idea of everyone around him having found out a part of him when he hadn’t been able to tell them himself, was a little daunting, to say the least.

“Hey,” Harry said worriedly, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to tell everyone, but…I told Hermione, and, well, Pansy and Blaise already knew, and Ginny is kinda hard to keep out of my business for some reason.”

Draco nodded, “Right, sorry, I told them a while ago,” he admitted,

“It is important to me that you know I didn’t need to be told, I deduced it myself,” Hermione stated.

“So, it wasn’t Blaise who told you before Harry did?” Pansy raised an eyebrow, never taking her eyes off Ginevra’s half-plaited hair.

“Well, he did, but I already knew, come on, they’re not exactly subtle about it,” Hermione scoffed in turn.

“Hey, we’re plenty good,” Harry argued, placing his hand even more possessively over Draco’s thigh. Draco listened to Hermione’s argument about how the only reason no one at Hogwarts suspected it was because everyone still thought they hated each other despite the homoerotic tendencies in their obsession within their despising of each other, and how everyone in the Order most likely knew because they shared a bed and refused to let anyone in their room.

There was still a nagging, pulling feeling in Draco’s stomach at all times. His friends clearly avoided asking him why he’d ignored them for so long, and he assumed Pansy had fed them some watered-down version of it along with the explanation that asking Draco might just literally kill him, but that was exactly the reason Draco felt so uncomfortable.

These people trusted him. Trusted enough not to tell the grown-up members of the Order. Since Narcissa hadn’t come marching down the Hogwarts halls in search for her newly Death Eater son, that meant Harry had been covering for him repeatedly, despite not having a clue what Draco had got himself into.

Ronald returned from wherever it was the Lavender Brown had been entertaining him only two hours later, promptly plotting himself on Harry’s other side and all but giving Draco the stink eye for the rest of the ride, or mostly not even looking his way. Draco sighed, already starting to mentally prepare himself for a long Christmas, with any civility he and Ronald had come to having been destroyed.

“Can’t believe you’ve just taken him back like that,” Ronald scoffed in the middle of Ginevra telling a story to Hermione and Blaise from one of the Gryffindor Quidditch practices when they were nearing London.

“What?” Harry asked, sounding annoyed. As if this was a conversation they’d already had a million times.

“You’re just letting him off the hook?” Ron asked bitterly.

“You mean just like Harry did with you during the Triwizard Tournament?” Hermione asked pointedly. “Don’t be a hypocrite, Ronald,” she added more softly when the weasel went bright red.

“Seriously, just because you’re jealous doesn’t make it enough of a reason to be a prick,” his sister added, now with intricate braids adorning her head.

“What would I be jealous about?” Ronald demanded angrily, as if the implication itself was so disgusting to him.

“All the time they spend together,” Ginevra mumbled.

“No one’s icing you out,” Hermione promised.

“No, that’s Malfoy, doing the icing, isn’t it?” Ronald said, screwing up his face in that way only he ever seemed able to accomplish.

“Christ, Ron, enough,” Harry said tiredly. “I know you don’t like him, we all get it,” Harry said rather roughly, “but I like him enough for you, so all you have to do is ignore him, if it’s really that difficult for you.”

Ronald sunk deeper into his seat and crossed his arms like a child throwing a tantrum. “I can ignore him,” he said.

“Thank you,” Harry vas clearly trying his very hardest not to roll his eyes.

“If he can stop hurting you, because, mate, I’ve seen you cry more times than strictly necessary.” That little comment seemed to brighten the mood a little, and the rest of the ride to King’s Cross was fairly civil.

Their first stop was Grimmauld Place. Remus and Tonks were waiting for them on the platform, where Pansy and Ginevra spent a frightfully long time hugging as Hermione’s parents looked on with adoring smiles. When they finally did part, reinstating for what was probably the thousandth time that they would write daily, Tonks gave Ginevra a hard slap on the shoulder and whispered something that made the poor girl blush, before whisking her and Ronald off with a loud snap.

“Remus,” Harry greeted, letting the man gather him up in a tight embrace, “how have you been?”

“Please tell me you’ve not been driven to insanity,” Draco snickered, shaking his ex-professor’s hand.

“Oh, no, no, that was done in our sixth year, I can guarantee that much,” Remus snickered, letting the two boys grab onto his forearms and whisking them away before anyone had the chance to notice an ex-professor apparating with two students that were thought to hate one another.

Number twelve, Grimmauld Place hadn’t changed one bit since the beginning of summer, when Draco had been there last. It smelled the same, it looked just as half-demolished as before, and there was just as little noise as during the summer. All the Weasleys were waiting for them at their home already, The Burrow, where Draco had never even been.

“We’re back!” Remus called out, leaving the two teenagers with all their luggage by the door, and heading towards the kitchen.

“Where’s my boy?” Sirius’ voice asked excitedly from deeper inside the house and Harry headed towards him with a large grin.

Draco shuffled on his feet, waiting, fearing his mother showing up from behind the corner to shout at him. But no one came, so Draco busied himself with piling Harry’s trunk and bags into a more sustainable pile closer to the wall where it wouldn’t be able to bother anyone who wished to pass it.

“There’s my saviour,” Sirius smiled gladly when Draco finally entered the kitchen to say hello. It appeared to only be Sirius and Remus in the house. Harry’s hand was around Draco’s shoulder in no time, as if by instinct. Sirius was very obviously doing his best not to comment, though a smirk betrayed his line of thinking.

Remus, standing behind Sirius’ chair, leaned down to whisper into his hair “Are we in a better mood now?”

“Yes, let’s get them to Molly’s,” Sirius grinned brightly, clapping his hands and standing up quickly. “Do you have your things? Do you need anything from upstairs?” he asked quickly, “Draco, your mother was waiting to talk to you,” he added, offhandedly.

Draco stilled momentarily, trying not to show his nerves. If he knew his mother, and he was quite certain he did, there might just be hell to pay for making her worry. He ascended the stairs as Harry’s recounts of how his semester at Hogwarts had gone echoed through the house. He knocked on the door and it creaked open, Narcissa sitting at her desk and scribbling away.

“So,” she stated, “you’re back.”

“Hello, mother,” Draco said, awkward as to what to do. Normally, she would be gathering him into her arms and expressing in a thousand different ways just how much she’d missed him over the last couple of months.

She stood, finally facing him, and looked him over for a couple of seconds in complete silence. Something in her eyes softened when she saw him, but she hid it back again after a moment. “Would you like to explain yourself?”

Draco stammered over his words, but eventually managed to get out something along the lines of sixth year at Hogwarts is very difficult, and he has a lot of responsibilities. She did not seem pleased by this. “Mother, I am perfectly fine, I don’t understand your worrying. Really, I don’t.”

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you are going to stop it,” she ordered, tears swelling in her eyes. Draco couldn’t tell whether they were angry or sad.

“I can’t get out of it, mother, nothing I can do will stop this,” Draco whispered harshly. As if he hadn’t already considered the danger he was in? As if he wasn’t thinking every second of every day just how terrible of a person this will make him?

“I mean it, Draco, I am not going through this again, I am not losing another…” she cut herself off, a hand in front of her mouth to keep the words in, a sob escaping instead.

“Again?” Draco repeated, no clue what she was talking about. “Losing who?”

Narcissa shook her head, turning around to face the window. Draco dared not move while she gathered her wits, wrapping her arms around herself for a few moments and trailing her gaze across her room. Come to think of it, Draco wasn’t sure he’d ever seen any of the things in here before. They didn’t seem to belong to his mother at all.

“Who did you lose?” Draco asked again carefully.

Narcissa turned back to smile at him. A poised, trained Black-worthy lack of emotion that she’d somehow transformed into a beacon of hope for Draco over the years with a practiced smile. “You should get to the Burrow,” she insisted, “you look like you could use a homecooked meal.”

“Mother…” Draco tried.

“Go, ahead,” she said softly, “find Harry, get all your things together.”

Draco heard his own footsteps on the creaking stairs echo in the house. He could hear Sirius yelling at Kreacher from the kitchen and Remus asking him to go easy. He descended the staircase, heading to the kitchen in hopes of finding Harry, but it was only the two older Gryffindors in the middle of playful bickering as to how they should be treating the house elf, like two fathers fighting over the best method of raising their child.

“Ready to go?” Harry asked from behind him, wearing the stupid pirate hat when Draco turned to face him, and smiling once he’d made Draco laugh. “What?” Harry asked with a wide grin, “I thought I look great,” he insisted.

“Why on Earth would you need that at Christmas?” Draco wondered, glad to have his mood lifted slightly.

“Because it’s the only thing we own together, and it’s our first ever anniversary?” Harry said as if it was obvious, smacking Draco’s shoulder with the back of his hand, “Get with the program, Malfoy,” he scoffed, still smiling.

Draco watched the youngest Gryffindor in the room, unable to process his own thoughts. He was so bloody lucky to have Harry. How had he got so lucky? He was suddenly awfully aware of Remus and Sirius watching them. He was even more aware of not having kissed Harry since that one time in the boys’ bathroom. Fuck, did he want to kiss him right now.

“Should we go?” Harry asked.

“You can have more time with Sirius, if you want,” Draco suggested.

“Please, Molly has been talking my ear off about you two for months, just get over there,” Sirius insisted.

 “We’ll will be there in two days anyway,” Remus reminded. “If you’re ready to go, I can take you now,” Remus announced.

“Okay, great!” Harry said excitedly, not noticing Draco’s hesitation as he stared up the stairs towards his mother’s room, the door to which were still closed just like he’d left it. “I’ll get our things!” Harry called, already on the ground floor. Draco did his best to supress the part of him that worried of his mother’s thoughts of him, and tried to focus on having time to spend with Harry, even if it did feel like a ticking time bomb.

Draco had never really thought much of the Weasleys’ home, having heard enough mockery from his father to make it feel like a useless subject to spend precious cranial energy on, but when Remus brought the two of them to the fields surrounding the tall, narrow house, Draco could feel its warmth and comfort even from where he was standing.

“Come on,” Harry took his hand after waving goodbye to Remus and watching the man disappear into mid-air with a loud crack. Draco smiled and let himself be pulled along by the boy he adored so much, who was still wearing that silly hat.

Harry entered the house without knocking, taking Draco’s things and piling them on top of his own in a corner. There was noise from somewhere upstairs and for a while Draco thought no one would come to greet them and they’d have to force their way into someone’s bedroom. “There you two are! Oh, Harry, what is that on your head?” Molly then said from behind them. Draco had no clue where she’d come from, but she was so happy to see them, it didn’t much matter. She spent the next few minutes hugging them and expressing her joy of them being able to join their celebrations, until Ronald came to their rescue, begging her to let go of, well, only Harry. “Dinner will be ready in a bit, you can go get settled in, Ron will show you boys around,” she said with a wide grin.

“Okay, mum,” Ronald called out in a voice that told Draco he’d spent most of his life begging the woman not to embarrass him. “She’s put you up in Percy’s room,” Ron said, climbing one storey of the narrow staircase after the other, “Merlin knows he won’t be using it any time soon.”

The room was small, and their bedroom at Grimmauld Place could already be considered that, but this one took the cake. If it wasn’t for the Gryffindor memorabilia, the perfectly made bed and the inflatable mattress, Draco would think this was a broom cupboard.

“Take it or leave it, but your other options are bunking with Ginny or the boggart-infested attic,” Ron said, going further up the stairs and shouting something at the twins about accio-ing Harry and Draco’s trunks over to them.

“I feel like I’m inside your brain,” Draco whispered, wrapping his hands around Harry’s right arm and looking over the walls. He could remember the fifth oldest Weasley child being Head Boy at one point, but this place was so painfully Gryffindor it bordered on unbearable, “except that it’s so anally neat it could never be your head,” Draco snorted.

“Shut up,” Harry said, but failed to conceal his own laugh as he tried to push Draco in the too-small space.

“Do you want me to break a leg?” Draco demanded, grasping at Harry’s jumper and ending up closer to his face than expected. That nagging thought at the back of his brain that made his lips tingle with how much they longed to touch Harry’s skin again.

Harry’s smile turned nervous and his eyes jumped to Draco’s mouth. “D’you reckon we could both fit on that bed?” Harry asked like the idea alone was a scandalous secret.

“I would be disappointed, if we didn’t at least try,” Draco whispered.

“Oi, lovebirds,” a smirking Fred said from the doorway, “do go downstairs to eat something before Ron shoves the table down his throat.” He remained there while Harry and Draco quickly let go of each other and obeyed, heading down to the main floor.

“Yeah, we’ll just be here,” George added, coming down from what Draco assumed was the twins’ room.

“Hauling your stuff into your room like two servants,” Fred agreed.

“Don’t give into their guilt tripping,” Harry whispered, leading Draco forward by his shoulders. “Mr, Weasley!” Harry greeted, leaving Draco to find a seat and snatch a plate while there was still food left.

Fred had been right – Ron had a pile in front of him made of a little of everything on the table. Draco was in awe of it all. Kidney pie, fresh rolls, roasted potatoes, flagons of pumpkin juice, a bowl of treacle fudge…he was quite sure he had found his personal heaven. He took a seat next to Ginevra, making sure there was space on his other side for Harry once he’d be done with his conversation with Arthur.

“Aw, George, look at this. They’re using knives and everything. Bless them,” said Fred’s voice as the twins entered the kitchen.

“I’ll be seventeen in two-and-a-bit months’ time,” Ronald said grumpily, “and then I’ll be able to cut things by magic!”

“But meanwhile,” George said, sitting down at the kitchen table and putting his feet up on it only to have Molly bat his legs back to the floor on her way out of the room, “we can enjoy watching you demonstrate the correct use of a –  ohhhh, whoopsy daisy!”

“You made me do that!” said Ron angrily, sucking his cut thumb. “You wait, when I’m seventeen –”

“I’m sure you’ll dazzle us all with hitherto unsuspected magical skills,” Fred yawned, but all Draco could focus on was Harry’s hand on his leg under the table, sneaking its way upwards as the boy nonchalantly chewed his food and pretended to be invested in the Weasley sibling fight. Draco tried to pretend himself, but it was getting increasingly difficult when his bodily reaction was unprecedented, to say the least.

“And speaking of hitherto unsuspected skills, Ronald,” said George, “what is this we hear from Ginny about you and a young lady called, unless our information is faulty, Lavender Brown?”

Ronald turned a little pink, but did not look displeased as he turned back to his potatoes. “Mind your own business.”

“What a snappy retort,” Fred said. “I really don’t know how you think of them. No, what we wanted to know was…how did it happen?”

“What d’you mean?”

“Did she have an accident or something?”

“What?”

“Well, how did she sustain such extensive brain damage? Careful, now!” Mrs. Weasley entered the room just in time to see Ron throw his knife at Fred, who had turned it into a paper airplane with one lazy flick of his wand.

“Ron!” she said furiously. “Don’t you ever let me see you throwing knives again!”

“I won’t,” Ronald promised, “let you see,” he added under his breath, as he turned back to the mountain of food.

“Fred, George, I’m sorry, dears, but when Remus and Sirius arrive, Bill will have to squeeze in with you two.”

“No problem,” George shrugged.

“Then, as Charlie isn’t coming home, that just leaves Ron in the attic, and if Fleur shares with Ginny…”

“That’ll make Ginny’s Christmas,” muttered Fred.

“…then everyone should be comfortable. Well, they’ll have a bed, anyway,” Mrs. Weasley said, sounding slightly harassed.

“Percy definitely not showing his ugly face, then?” asked Fred. Mrs. Weasley turned away before she answered. “No, he’s busy, I expect, at the Ministry.” Good, Draco thought, that meant he and Harry would get privacy.

“Fleur?” Draco asked quietly while the twins and their mother went into a discussion about their bother and how big of a prat he was.

“Oh, right, I never got the chance to tell you,” Harry whispered back, his hand still on Draco’s thigh. “Bill, you know, one of their oldest brothers, is marrying Fleur.”

“Delacour?” Draco asked with a scandalised face, unable to believe it.

“That same one,” Harry said, bulging his eyes out, “you wouldn’t believe how little everyone here likes here.”

“I thought she was a straight man’s dream,” Draco huffed.

“Well, maybe, but Ginny and Mrs. Weasley bloody hate her,” Harry shook his head in amusement.

“And Molly’s not letting them sleep in the same room?” Draco wondered.

“If you tell me you’re about to offer we get split up, I’ll strangle you,” Harry warned.

“Bossy,” Draco smiled to himself, “I obviously wasn’t going to suggest that. Paranoid much?”

“Just eat, you git,” Harry said, rolling his eyes.

Draco wasn’t sure how they’d managed to talk their way into heading to bed early, but he was half-sure he had Ginevra to help, as she stated in the middle of Harry and Ronald’s match of wizard chess that she was exhausted and would be heading to her room. Draco joined soon after, agreeing with the girl and even throwing in a fake yawn for good measure.

He could feel Harry’s eyes on him as he climbed the stairs, but Draco refused to look back. Even a Gryffindor should be able to figure this one out. He sat on Percy’s bed and waited, and, as he expected, he didn’t have to wait long. “Hello, gorgeous,” Draco said when the Gryffindor had finally joined him in the room and was now looking at him with a smirk from the doorway.

“You’ll let a draft in,” Draco said, unable to produce a more charming way to ask Harry to come in and close the door.

“We wouldn’t want that,” Harry snorted a laugh and used Percy Weasley’s desk chair to prop it against the door handle and keep it closed while they couldn’t use magic. “That looks good, doesn’t it?”

“Have a lot of experience locking yourself into rooms to snog former nemeses?” Draco’s eyes narrowed as he hoped teasing Harry would bring his nerved down a notch. I did not help one bit. His stomach was in knots and his legs were shaking so much he was glad he was sitting down.

“Fuck off,” Harry laughed impatiently and crawled on top of Draco in the small bed, wasting no time to kiss him. An insurmountable relief washed over him and he felt like he was sinking into the sheets like it was a cloud. Harry’s hands were under Draco’s shirt and his tongue was persistent as ever. Draco was still half-certain he could wake up from this dream any time now, and he was determined to enjoy every second of it, in case he would.

Draco let his fingers rake through Harry’s chaotic hair and revelled in the thought that his hands would smell like the other boy’s shampoo afterwards. Harry was so warm and soft and pliant, and Draco was positively addicted to him. He couldn’t believe he had ever convinced himself he could stay away from the other boy.

“Wait,” Draco sighed, unable to keep it to himself any longer. Harry shot up to give him space and Draco would laugh about how adorable and considerate his boyfriend was, if he wasn’t so damn set on making this moment count. “No, don’t go that far,” Draco insisted, pulling Harry back on top of him and taking a moment to gather his courage by leaving a kiss on Harry’s forehead.

He decided to leave his confession there, as well, where it would be safe and protected by scarred skin and unrestful thoughts. “I love you,” Draco whispered to Harry and only to Harry, so that nothing else in this strange room could hear. It wasn’t for the lamp on the bedside table to consider, or for the closet that housed a red-and-gold Quidditch uniform. It was a universal truth that Harry deserved to learn before anything else in existence. It was now Harry’s secret to do whatever he wanted to with. It was Draco’s devotion to only Harry that the Gryffindor could take for granted all he wanted, if he wanted, because no matter what now, Draco would remain by his side.

He waited for Harry to react, one hand still in the unruly hair, the other stroking lightly across The Chosen One’s jaw, trying his best to be comforting. “You do?” Harry asked, pulling back ever so slightly to look into Draco’s eyes, “You love me?” he asked again as if the idea was unfathomable. Like the boy that had been denied love for years and years that he was.

“I love you so much,” Draco admitted, finally to Harry’s face. “I should have told you last summer, but it was so hard to –”

Harry’s mouth was on his immediately, eager and thankful, and appreciative, tears joining not long after, leaving the two of them snotty and gross messes that refused to let go of each other. “Fuck, Draco,” Harry managed, barely, before Draco was pulling him back down, “Draco,” he sighed into the Slytherin’s mouth, “I love you, too, Draco,” he said quicker than he’d probably meant, since the boy in question was refusing to let him speak. “I’m never letting you go, you know,” Harry warned, “you’re stuck with me for life.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Draco laughed a reassured laugh and kissed Harry again, and then again and again, until the boy was exhausted and Draco was left with his thoughts. There was, as it turned out, enough space on the small bed for two, especially since clinging to one another seemed to be the only way the two of them were able to sleep.

He watched the sleeping Gryffindor in his arms, half on top of Draco, so that he wasn’t able to turn off the light, but he didn’t mind not sleeping in complete darkness, if he could sleep like this. No one but Draco has ever experienced the feeling of waking up in Harry Potter’s arms. And no one else ever will. No one understands the joy of the Wizarding World’s most famous person being at peace, but Draco does, and he will never let it slip out of his grasp again.

Chapter Text

They spent days lazing around and playing Quidditch in the freezing cold with Ginevra, the twins and Ronald, even though they found a three-person team was not the most efficient way to play. Especially since Harry and Draco spent the entire time rushing after the snitch and the rest of the teams consisted of two people each.

Their meals were plentiful and whenever they weren’t expected to sit around a table and converse, there were snacks everywhere. Draco felt like this was possibly the best vacation he’d ever experienced, and his only wish was for Pansy and Blaise to be able to enjoy it with him.

Sirius’ arrival was a highly-anticipated extravaganza, one that Dumbledore, to Draco’s understanding, had not entirely approved of, but if someone was to change their mind and decide not to let Harry’s godfather visit, Draco might just fight whoever came in their way. The morning of said arrival, the Burrow was cleaned thoroughly, if by magic, Molly involving Fres and George instead of Ron and Ginevra, which the two youngest Weasleys seemed terribly smug about.

Harry strode up and down the small ground floor of the Burrow nervously the entire morning of the 24^th of December, making sure he could see the fields surrounding the house out the window and finally giving Draco a moment of lonesome reading time that the Slytherin would be lying if he actually wanted. If it as down to Draco, he would rather hang off of Harry’s back like a demiguise the entire Christmas break and would verbally assault anyone who tried to split them.

“They’re here!” Harry said excitedly, making Molly’s knitting needles jump before the boy rushed outside to greet them.

Draco was more focussed on worrying about his mother’s mood today that his reading, but he still followed the boy with his eyes and a small smile. “You’re ridiculous, you know that, right?” Ginevra asked, showing up out of nowhere.

“What have I done?” Draco asked defensively.

“Both of you,” she scoffed, plopping onto the couch, which Draco was currently occupying, so fast that he barely had the time to move his legs before she would break them by accident. “You walk around all in love like nothing else in the world matters.”

“A lot of other things matter,” Draco reminded her in a bored tone. “Also, you’re seeing her in what? Ten days? I think you can last that long,” he insisted.

“Fuck off, it’s not fair you two get to spend time together,” she said sadly.

“Ronald can’t spend time with Brown either, remember?”

“Well, between you and me, I don’t think he’s upset about that.”

Draco watched her for a moment longer before sitting up, which made her smirk. “Tell me everything you know,” Draco demanded in a whisper.

“Merry Christmas!” Remus’ voice called, making most of the Burrow’s residents pile into the living room to greet the newcomers.

“We come baring booze!” Sirius said, joining his werewolf.

“Guess whose idea that was,” Remus rolled his eyes.

“Oh, come off it, love, it’s just jolly good fun,” Sirius said, smiling brightly. Draco thought, if he’d spent twelve years in a literal soul-sucking prison, incarcerated for a crime he hadn’t committed, he would also be prone to the use of alcohol.

The door closed after Remus, shutting out the draft and leaving the few snowflakes that had made it inside to melt in mid-air. No one else followed inside. “Where’s my mother?” Draco asked with a nervous chuckle.

“She’s spending Christmas with Medea and Ted,” Sirius said, “she said you’d talked about it.”

Draco felt a slow, stabbing, guilt tripping pain in his chest. “Right,” he huffed a laugh, “must have slipped my mind,” he gave a reassuring smile to a concerned Sirius and felt Harry’s hand on his shoulder. “It’s fine,” Draco whispered to his boyfriend.

Molly invited the arrivals further inside to get warm, winking at Harry when she thought Draco couldn’t see, “Ginny, come help. With tea,” she added for good measure to get the girl out of the room.

“She’s really not coming?” Harry wondered quietly, having waited for everyone to be out of earshot.

“I…” Draco felt helpless somehow, “I don’t…” he wasn’t sure how to put it onto words, but everyone else had turned to loud conversations in the next room, so it was only Harry here. “I think she’s really upset with me,” Draco felt an ugly cry coming on any second now, “I’ve never seen her that disappointed in me.”

“Come here,” Harry said simply, pulling Draco in for a long, tight embrace.

“I’m so scared, Harry,” Draco admitted into Harry’s shoulder, because that was easier than to say it to his face. Harry was still adamant not to mention his suspicions of whatever he thought Draco was doing, and he didn’t seem like he was going to ask about it any time soon. It was almost painful, in a way. Like Harry was just so happy to have Draco back that he refused to ruin it by bringing in such topics.

“D’you wanna go for a walk?” Harry offered, already taking Draco’s hand.

“Hasn’t Dumbledore forbidden you from going anywhere?” Draco scoffed.

“Of course, he has, but you’re a good reason to disobey him,” Harry said casually, sneaking a quick peck on Draco’s cheek. Draco tried his best to smile. “Seriously, let’s go, you need a break from people, don’t you?”

Draco watched the other boy’s face in awe and disbelief for another moment before Harry chuckled lightly and pulled him along, barely giving either of them the time to put on a coat before he’d pushed the door open and walked into the chilling, dry air.

“Come on, there’s a pond just behind those bushes there,” Harry pointed into the distance, dragging Draco along by his hand shamelessly. Like there wasn’t even a second thought about it. Like keeping the Slytherin safe outweighed the secrecy of their relationship.

The water was frozen solid, even the bushes seemed iced over with a layer of frost. Draco pushed them aside and the silver gleam melted beneath his warm fingers. There was an almost eery silence around them, not even the usually loud Weasleys could be heard in the stillness of the winter’s day. There was no wind, all the animals had found warmer places to hibernate – nothing and no one to make a noise. Harry took a seat on the ground, and Draco tried to pretend like he wasn’t questioning whether he should remain standing in order to retain some warmth in his backside, but the sight of a serene Harry right by his feet made him reconsider the necessity for blood flow.

The moment Draco’s body had settled on the ground, Harry rested his head on Draco’s shoulder, less for the need to share some sense of warmth between them and more because he could, simple as that. If he really tried, he knew he could see one of the uppermost rooms of the house, which meant anyone in it could also see them, but he also had enough brain to understand that Molly Weasley would most likely not let either of her children coop themselves up while there were guests in the house to wait hand and foot on.

Draco barely had to turn his head to leave a kiss on Harry’s head, the mess of black hair that no longer retained heat, tickling Draco’s nose as if the wind wasn’t doing enough damage on that. “Why have you forgiven me?” he then asked, no longer able to keep it bottled up inside him. Harry’s response was a simple hum, like this wouldn’t be the first subject to come up the moment they were sure they were alone and far away from another interested ear. “You’ve forgiven me so quickly,” Draco explained, “it doesn’t make sense.”

“Because you’re an idiot,” Harry shrugged and nuzzled his way closer to Draco’s body and wrapping his hands around Draco’s arm.

What? Well, Draco know that already, but what? “Huh?”

Harry smiled as he lifted his head just enough to look Draco in the eye, but not so far that Draco’s breath wouldn’t hitch from the mere sight of those green eyes, “I showed you all the worst parts of myself and you were idiotic enough to fall in love with me, what a complete idiot,” he explained, but Draco’s face must have been showing just how unexpected that was, so Harry continued, “Look. I don’t care what you do, even if you think you’re keeping me safe by doing it, and it’s stupid and deadly, I don’t care,” he stated almost forcefully. “I don’t. I would forgive you anything.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Draco tried a laugh, but it came out more as a humourless huff of air. Was it really ridiculous at all? Draco knew damn well he felt the exact same way – if Harry went on a mysterious rampage that seemed not to have an end, Draco would take him back the second he was asked.

“Maybe,” Harry supposed, “I don’t much care, though.”

“But you hated me,” Draco said, unsure himself why he was so keen on pressing. “During the match, I could hear it in your voice, you hated me like before we were friends.”

“I never hated you,” Harry said, bumping his shoulder against Draco’s instead of returning his head where Draco’s body still expected it to. “I was hurt because you broke up with me without an explanation, but I couldn’t hate you. I tried, believe you me.”

“I love you,” Draco said urgently, whatever amusement had just been on either of their faces disappearing instantly and replaced by the facial equivalent of that dreadfully painful longing feeling Draco had come to be so intimately familiar with over the previous months.

“Well, that’s lucky for me,” Harry smiled smugly, leaning in closer to peck Draco’s lips before seeing his smile and getting more confident. Draco could but laugh and then sigh when warm lips settled on the side of his neck and trailed over his throat. “God, I have you in the palm of my hand, don’t I?” Harry teased, and his breath tickled.

“If you start blowing raspberries, I will drown you in this pond,” Draco warned instead of admitting that yes, yes, yes, of course, Harry could do anything he wanted.

“It’s frozen over,” Harry argued, lips still glued to Draco’s skin. “You’ll have to melt it first.”

“Well,” Draco managed, barely, with everything he had, “you keep doing that, and I might make it melt from here.”

Harry laughed heartily, throwing his head back, making Draco almost call out a demand for Harry to return immediately to what he’d just been doing. “Come,” Harry ordered instead, jumping to his feet within a second. Before Draco could ask where they were going, or scoff at how unfair it was Harry was stopping the lovely direction this walk of theirs was taking, he was being pulled to his feet by the boy in question.

Draco followed a giggling Harry to some sort of a shed situation, barely standing, just like the house, but it was just private enough, besides none of the guests would be coming out in such terrible weather conditions. “What do you think you’re doing, Potter?” Draco asked once he was pushed up against a wall in the thankfully unlocked and available structure.

“Be quiet, Malfoy,” Harry ordered, sending a wave of shock right to the pit of Draco’s stomach. The authoritative tone simply must be explored further, of that Draco would take care when his thoughts get back to a better flow instead of the constant stream of Harry’s name.

“Bossy,” Draco chuckled breathily, warm lips on his jaw, hands fumbling with the button on his trousers. “Oh, you’re…”

“I owe you,” Harry said, getting on his knees. Fucking hell, he was on his fucking knees, fuck. Draco couldn’t think straight, he could barely stand.

“You don’t…”

“Shut up already, will you, Malfoy?” Harry scoffed, but smiled up at Draco nonetheless, looking though his long dark fucking eyelashes, more bloody edible than Draco had ever seen him.

“Whatever you say, Potter,” Draco nodded absently, letting his head hit the wall behind him and his eyes roll closed. That felt correct. Harry doing whatever he wanted to him seemed right. The sensation, as much as he’d tried imagining it so many times before, was indescribable by any means – so wet and warm and wonderful. All Draco could do was let uncivilised sounds leave his mouth until Harry shushed him. “Someone will hear,” Harry warned and got his lips right back around Draco’s cock.

“Fuck, Potter,” Draco said in a whisper. Whatever sensations ruled him over, he was not going to disobey his boyfriend, not when he was doing such despicably brilliant things to Draco’s dick, and most probably never again, if there was even the slightest possibility of this repeating itself.

Draco’s hands were grabbing at Harry’s shoulders, bunching the fabric of his jacket up into fistfuls of tension he had no idea where he could put right now, when there was something building up on his core so heavily and so hotly. He was about to come, and he didn’t have the words to warn Harry. There were no words at all, as far as he was concerned. None that came to mind, at least.

Draco chanced a glance downward. At the gorgeous creature working on getting him over the edge, eyes shut tight in concentration, hands soothing and strong on Draco’s hips. It was enough to make him burst.

He was partially aware of a few loose, unintelligible syllables falling from his lips, some of which might have contained parts of Harry’s name, maybe a Potter or two, perhaps even paired with an unexpected fucker. Hummed a vibrating acknowledgement, but didn’t remove his mouth from Draco another time, instead reaching one hand upwards and placing it on Draco’s chest for the Slytherin to grab onto. If he was hurting Harry, he would have to deal with that later, because for the time being, his legs were about to give out and he was unsure he could hear anything other than his own blood thudding in his ears.

If these were the kind of climaxes Harry Potter was going to bestow upon his lifetime, Draco would refuse to give the little shit up for anything.

Harry’s rhythm slowed down tremendously once Draco had actually finished, and the boy said nothing when he’d swallowed, only licked away the remnants off Draco, wiped his mouth and smiled brightly from right there on the ground. Words could not express just how much Draco loved that boy, though words were failing him at the moment on any topic at all. Thankfully, Harry knew just the remedy for waiting that out, and jumped up with excitement on his face to kiss Draco senseless, letting him taste the salty remnants of himself on Harry’s tongue.

There was a sort of safety in the other boy’s arms that Draco always failed to put into words. Who was Harry, really, to keep Draco safe? He was younger, more reckless and had only known about the wizarding world for less than six years as opposed to Draco’s entire life. But when he held Draco, when his attention was on soothing the Slytherin’s emotions and mending his soul, when he was all Draco’s, if only for a moment, it felt like nothing could ever hurt him again.

“Feel better?” Harry asked after several long minutes, though Draco wished it had been longer.

“Oh, I see,” Draco said, having regained not only his vernacular, but also the necessary amount of being a cunt required to pronounce himself a Malfoy, “you’re only interested in distracting me.”

“Yes, Malfoy,” Harry rolled his eyes, “I swallowed because I don’t give a shit about you one bit.”

“As I suspected,” Draco managed a heavy-lidded smirk and let himself be kissed again.

“You’re a prick, you know that, Malfoy?”

“You’re surprisingly talented in this regard. Care to explain your past endeavours of relevant nature, Potter?”

Harry laughed heartily, “You must bring it out of me.”

“Well, aren’t I lucky then?”

“You sure are,” Harry said, punctuating with one last peck. “Now get yourself in order before someone comes looking for us.”

“You didn’t think of that before you sucked me off in a freezing cold broom shed?” Draco teased, checking to make sure his clothes looked presentable enough to head back inside to people, of which hopefully none suspected what direction their little walk had taken.

“I didn’t hear you complaining a minute ago,” Harry reminded, reaching for the door as he waited for Draco to approach.

“Hey,” Draco said hastily, before Harry had the chance to re-join the real world where Death Eaters and broken potential ruled their every waking moment. “Love you.”

“Malfoy loves Potter,” Harry said thoughtfully, “we should get that painted on a giant banner and hang it in the Great Hall. Give Snape a heart attack.”

“No, no, no, Draco loves Harry,” Draco corrected, “Malfoy loves Potter’s mouth.”

“Oh? Is that all?” Harry tutted.

“Well, you try telling my younger self he actively enjoys Harry Potter’s company these days.”

“I’ll tell him Harry Potter’s shagging him and watch his brain melt,” Harry said with one last kiss, pushing the door open and stepping into the nippy air.

The house smelled like mince pie and its warmth seemed to let Draco’s blood flow somewhere else than where it had just resided under Harry’s lips. He took off his coat and boots, walking as close to the fire as he could when he passed it to steal any leftover heat before stopping in the kitchen doorway to gaze at the domesticity.

“Where have you two been?” Molly asked with a big, bright smile, as Harry joined Draco, his hand on Draco’s shoulder as he seemingly refused to let his boyfriend out of his reach. “There’s a surprise waiting,” she said, and it was only then that Draco noticed his two best friends sitting at the table, looking shy but undoubtedly happy.

Draco’s awe-struck face failed to form the question of the what are you doing here variety, but his feet seemed to be in perfect order when he walked up to hug them, and then Hermione, as well, Harry hot on his heels to greet the three newcomers, as well. “When did you get here?” Harry asked. Draco was glad at least one of them could voice a thought. Maybe Draco was just a little too flushed, still. After all, it was not everyone that could get a blowjob from the Chosen One.

“When you two were gone,” Pansy said, smirking suggestively. Draco nodded the slightest bit, though it didn’t seem like anyone was paying them much attention, amidst their own festive conversations.

“It was all Ron’s idea, it was brilliant!” Hermione grinned widely.

“I did it for Ginny and Harry,” Ronald said grumpily, most likely having been put off by Draco’s excitement at something he’d done.

“Mate,” Harry said, clapping his best friend on the shoulder, “thank you.”

“Alright,” Ronald said, trying to hide a smile and failing miserably. “Wait until Ginny finds out they’re here, you won’t see Parkinson again.”

“How long are you staying?” Draco asked, having regained his ability to make sophisticated sound.

“As long as they want!” Molly called from the other side of the room before returning her attention to Remus.

“Two days at the most,” Hermione said quietly, least Molly heard and objected. “Mums wanted us back before New Year’s. Though I fear Ginny might take offense if Pans leaves before she has a chance to get her New Year’s kiss.”

“And who can blame her?” Pansy pointed at herself, making Hermione laugh. In another universe, Draco could see the two of them in relationship. One that would drive them both to insanity and Draco and Harry right along, but for all the lows, the highs would burn bright.

Ginny, who had made a point of brooding in her room, could only be tempted out by her girlfriend, and that was after they’d spent a good twenty minutes behind a closed door. Molly’s new sleeping arrangements now included Pansy and Hermione in Ginevra’s room, and Blaise joining Draco and Harry. It was not a long discussion of letting Hermione sneak in when the house would be silent. No one wanted to sleep in the same room as Ginevra and Pansy after not having seen one another, even if it had only been a few days. At least Harry, Draco, Blaise and Hermione could be trusted to keep it in their pants. Well, to an extent.

“I neither like nor dislike Severus,” Draco heard Remus say from the kitchen when he was about to walk in to refill Pansy’s drink. “No, Harry, I am speaking the truth,” he added, Draco imagined Harry rolling his eyes. “We shall never be bosom friends, perhaps, after all that happened between James and Sirius and Severus, there is too much bitterness there. But I do not forget that during the year I taught at Hogwarts, Severus made the Wolfsbane Potion for me every month, made it perfectly, so that I did not have to suffer as I usually do at the full moon.” Draco walked away, feeling uncomfortable listening in on a conversation about his Godfather.

It came as no surprise that Sirius and Remus occupied at least an hour straight of Harry’s attention. It wasn’t like Draco was upset about it, of course. He knew Sirius was like an older-brother-like father figure to Harry, but all Draco could think about the entire evening was Harry’s mouth and the marvels it was capable of.

Pansy and Ginevra were nowhere to be found the moment they realised no one was keeping an eye on either of them and wouldn’t notice they were gone. Blaise and Hermione seemed happy enough to entertain Draco in Harry’s absence, even if Ronald demonstratively spent the evening away from them to avoid Draco at all costs.

“Why haven’t you invited Brown?” Blaise asked politely when Ronald finally wondered close enough to them. Molly had been stuffing mince pies into their hands whenever she noticed either of the Slytherins had an empty mouth, so they had taken to holding gingerbread cookies in their hand to make it seem like they are in the middle of snacking at all times.

The youngest Weasley son looked at him suspiciously, obviously lacking enough trust to believe the question could be genuine. His eyes narrowed as he looked at Draco’s best friend, waiting for a nasty remark, entirely oblivious that Blaise was not one for public displays of hatred. “Ron, he’s being polite, you promised you would, as well,” Hermione said through gritted teeth.

“Her parents won’t let her come,” Ron said, clearly making it up on the spot. Leave it to a Gryffindor to fail at lying. Blaise didn’t press any longer, accepting the mistruth as fact and returned his attention to his girlfriend.

The Weasleys and their guests were sitting in the living room, which Ginevra had decorated so lavishly that it was rather like sitting in a paper-chain explosion. Fred, George, Harry, Draco, and Ronald were the only ones who knew that the angel on top of the tree was actually a garden gnome that had bitten Fred on the ankle as he pulled up carrots for Christmas dinner. Stupefied, painted gold, stuffed into a miniature tutu and with small wings glued to its back, it glowered down at them all, the ugliest angel Draco had ever seen, with a large bald head like a potato and hairy feet.

“Gnome saliva is very beneficial,” Ronald said, unprompted, looking confused as to why he‘d pointed it out. “I don’t know how I know that.”

They were all supposed to be listening to a Christmas broadcast by Mrs. Weasley’s favourite singer, Celestina Warbeck, whose voice was warbling out of the large wooden wireless set. Fleur, who seemed to find Celestina very dull, was talking so loudly in the corner that a scowling Molly kept pointing her wand at the volume control, so that Celestina grew louder and louder. Under cover of a particularly jazzy number called “A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love,” Fred and George started a game of Exploding Snap with Ginevra. Remus, despite looking skinnier and more ragged than last summer, seemed perfectly content, with a cup of tea in his hand at all times.

Celestina ended her song on a very long, high-pitched note and loud applause issued out of the wireless, which Mrs. Weasley joined in with enthusiastically.

“Eez eet over?” Fleur said loudly. “Thank goodness, what an ’orrible –”

“Shall we have a nightcap, then?” Molly asked loudly, leaping to his feet. “Who wants eggnog?”

Draco wasn’t entirely sure how it had happened, but it was nearing 2 o’clock in the morning and the seven of them were squeezed into Percy Weasley’s old bedroom playing truth or dare, the empty butterbeer bottle in the middle of their small circle being only one of the several finished ones in every corner of the room. Harry’s arm was slung around Draco’s shoulder, a glass of firewhiskey loosely hanging in it as Draco put all of his upper body weight onto his boyfriend.

It was Pansy’s turn, Ginevra’s idea for a dare was to make her kiss Hermione, which she gladly obliged in, making Draco laugh loudly and Blaise clap like it was the greatest piece of theatre he’d ever experienced.

Ron kept choosing dares until Draco finally had a chance to reiterate the Lavender Brown question, finally getting a seemingly more honest reaction thanks to the alcohol they were all continuously consumed. “I can’t bloody stand her, alright?” Ronald said exasperatedly, a self-conscious laugh peeking through, “She’s always there, I can’t go to the bloody bathroom without her,” he announced as if it was the greatest confession in the history of the earth, covering his mouth with his hands.

“He’s finally said it,” Ginevra said thankfully, “I honestly thought you’d end up marrying her out of fear.”

“I’m the worst boyfriend ever,” Ronald whispered in shock, a slightly glassy look in his eyes.

“I can guarantee you are not,” Draco snorted, pointing at himself. Ronald actually laughed. Perhaps all Draco had needed to do was get the boy drunk and admit his fault. Simple as that. It was nice to know that alcohol works even on Gryffindors.

“Who’s next?” Blaise asked, spinning the bottle and leaning out of the way dramatically when it landed on the spot where his hand was holding Hermione’s.

“Alright, fine,” she rolled her eyes in amusement. She was the only sober one, but Draco loved her well enough to still enjoy her company. “Truth,” she chose, making Ginevra boo her.

“Who was your first?” Pansy asked before anyone else had a chance to think of their own question.

“Hello,” Blaise raised his hand.

“Alright, first kiss,” Pansy corrected herself.

“That’s so boring,” Ronald scoffed, “we all know it was Zabini.”

“Actually,” Hermione said pointedly, “it was Fred.”

Blaise was nodding as he took another sip from his glass and the two Weasley siblings went positively white. Draco couldn’t help the laughter bubbling in his chest, so much so that he had to press his face into Harry’s chest to get through it.

“When was this?” Pansy demanded, having finally picked her jaw up from the floor.

“Some time back,” Hermione shrugged.

“Fourth year,” Blaise helped her out.

“Irrelevant,” Hermione said warningly, smacking his shoulder with the back of her hand and only making him smile wider.

“What the fuck is Fred doing going around, kissing fourteen-year-olds?” Ronald asked bitterly, clearly unhappy with the new information.

“I was already fifteen,” Hermione waved him away. “Besides, he was better at it than Krum, I can tell you that much.”

“Granger, you minx,” Pansy said adoringly.

“Watch it, Parkinson,” Ginevra warned her girlfriend.

“No ulterior motives, simply in shock for a minute, give me a moment, I’ll be over it,” Pansy said, staring at Hermione for a second longer, “and I’m fine, see?”

 Ginevra rolled her eyes, not unkindly, though. “I will never let him live that one down.”

“Alright, it’s someone else’s turn already, surely,” Hermione blushed.

Ginevra took a bag of Dragon Claws out of Ron’s hand, much to his protesting, “If you eat any more of these things, you’ll be sicking up real dragons,” she explained her actions, popping one into her mouth, even though her brother had not seemed to notice in the slightest, still looking at Hermione with the oddest expression. “Oh, will you come off it?” she scoffed, “she snogged Fred. I’m over, it, you can be too.”

Unable to use silencing charms, they had to rely on their ability to remain quiet in their snickering, which was not exactly a skill any of the lot honed. The door was shut, but Draco did not have enough trust in the structure of the building not to think the sound would carry through nonetheless.

“Is there even a point in making you kiss the most attractive person in the room?” Pansy rolled her eyes when Draco chose dare on his turn, “I guarantee you are entirely unable to make this interesting.”

“Oh, fun,” Draco cooed, removing Harry’s glass from his hand to make sure it wouldn’t spill, as the boy in question was far too gone to make such creative decisions himself. Harry smiled at him as if asking what was happening, clearly not having followed along Pansy’s line of thinking. Draco all but climbed into his lap when kissing his boyfriend, for the first time in front of people, alcohol in his bloodstream making him more susceptible to an idea of public displays of affection, besides Harry was instantly so pliant, it felt like a sin not to make the best of the situation.

There may or may not have been quite loud reactions, a good woo or two, but Draco was openly snogging his boyfriend, and Harry was drunkenly giggling under his touch, so what the hell did he have to complain about? He would damn himself if the day never came when they’d be able to do this in front of any witch or wizard without a care in the world.

If there was one reason to make it out through this war alive, it was to claim Harry Potter, the saviour of all wizardkind himself.

They were peeled apart by Blaise and Ginevra, due to loud protests that soon turned into uncontrollable laughter. Who was first, no one could tell, but shushing was mixing with snickering in the way only the middle of the night could cause, all breathless and soundless, making your stomach contort and eyes water, entirely unbearable and brilliant at the same time.

Draco wasn’t sure when they’d fallen asleep, and if the smell of the room where the four of them had slept was anything to go by, the hangover would be deathly. Thank Merlin for Hermione who opened the windows the moment she woke up and brought up two coffees. Blaise was able to thank her. Draco was still breathing the firewhiskey fumes coming off Harry.

“He’s drooling onto you,” Hermione stated.

“I am very well aware,” Draco droned, staring into the ceiling, “not the first time.”

“Can I get you two something?” she offered with a laugh.

“No, I’ll get him up. If Molly finds out we’ve been drinking, we’ll be skinned,” Draco smiled at her.

Hermione grinned in turn, “I’ll go check up on Ginny and Pans,” she offered.

“Knock first,” Draco snorted, watching Blaise sip on black coffee with an empty gaze into the wall. “You alive there?”

“I’m a sixteen-year-old with a hangover,” Blaise announced, “worse things have happened.”

“Yes, but you’re also a Zabini,” Draco reminded.

“I’ve never had this much rubbish in my veins,” Blaise groaned, “I feel like my skin’s about to melt off.”

“What the fuck have you done to me,” Harry’s voice asked, his hot breath tickling Draco’s throat.

“You did this yourself,” Draco chuckled. “Also, I love you, but you reek. You need three showers and an entire bottle of mouthwash.

“You are so dramatic,” Harry moaned, digging his fingers into Draco’s ribs in a mockery of a hug, “I’m going to throw up on you.”

“Alright, I’m out,” Draco said, hastily getting out of the bed and leaving Harry to his misery. Draco didn’t feel entirely great himself, but he was eons better than the Gryffindor. “Take a shower, I beg of you,” Draco ordered, handing Harry the second cup of coffee Hermione had brought.

“Merry Christmas,” Harry said bitterly into his mug.

“You’re lucky you’re handsome even when you’re hungover,” Draco said, kissing the top of Harry’s head, “now get yourself in order, I’ll stall Molly.”

Harry hummed absent-mindedly. “Have you heard of the Half-Blood Prince?” he then asked, looking slightly better as his interest grew.

“There is no Wizarding royalty,” Draco explained. “Is this a title you’re thinking of adopting?” he smirked, coming closer to cup his hands over Harry’s jawline, forcing the boy to look up from his spot on the edge of the bed, “was The Chosen One not on the nose enough?”

“Har, har,” Harry groaned, returning to his mug.

There were bulging stockings hung at the end of the bed for each of them, even Hermione’s had found the right room to greet her in. Draco’s almost entirely chocolate. Harry’s had a bunch of sweets and a parcel from Kreecher containing maggots.

“Lovely,” Draco shrugged, “very thoughtful.”

Everybody was wearing new sweaters when they all sat down for Christmas lunch, everyone except Fleur (on whom, it appeared, Mrs. Weasley had not wanted to waste one) and Molly herself, who was sporting a brand-new midnight blue witch’s hat glittering with what looked like tiny star-like diamonds, and a spectacular golden necklace.

“Fred and George gave them to me! Aren’t they beautiful?”

“Well, we find we appreciate you more and more, Mum, now we’re washing our own socks,” said George, wving an airy hand. “Parsnips, Remus?”

“Harry, you’ve got a maggot in your hair,” said Ginevra with a snort, leaning across the table to pick it out. Harry looked grey, and Draco was entirely certain it wasn’t the maggot to blame, though it was a nasty thought to realise Draco enjoyed raking his fingers through that same hair, and he would be waiting for Harry to wash it at least three times until he resumed on that particular hobby.

The boy left the table in a rush without excusing himself, and, for some reason, half the people around it looked to Draco for an explanation. “Oh,” he said eloquently as ever, “it’s stress. About…our N.E.W.T.s.”

“N.E.W.T.s are a year and a half away, dear,” Molly reminded him.

“Yes, you know Harry,” Draco nodded, “always concerned with his…education.” He was about to make himself wince, if he didn’t get out of the situation. “I’ll check on him.”

Conversation resumed once Draco had reached the stairs, whisper-shouting Harry’s name to make sure the boy hadn’t passed out somewhere on his way to the bathroom only to choke to death on his vomit. There was no answer, forcing Draco to open the door to the lavatory, carefully though he did.

Harry was leaned over the toilet, looking miserable. “How you managed to stomach a breakfast and a part of that gigantic lunch, I’ll never understand,” Draco scoffed, taking a seat on the ground in solidarity. A seat on a bloody bathroom floor. The things he’d do for Harry Potter.

“I was shovelling it onto your plate when no one was looking,” Harry confessed, sounding miserable and exhausted.

“So you can be sneaky, that’s interesting,” Draco smiled to himself.

Harry took one of his boyfriend’s hands and placed it on his own thigh, “Comfort me, you prick.”

“You are so strong and so capable of getting through this,” Draco droned, “you know, teenagers have been getting drunk since the dawn of time, you’re not the first one that can’t deal with a hangover.”

“How are you so much better than me?” Harry demanded.

“I’ve been tasting scotches since I was barely able to spell,” Draco waved him away with the hand that wasn’t diligently still resting on Harry’s thigh, “I can handle my firewhiskey. Gryffindors, historically, cannot.”

“Sirius said they used to get drunk all the time when they were our age,” Harry said into the toilet bowl.

“What a great influence that man is on you,” Draco chuckled. “Are you done yet, darling?”

“I think there’s more,” Harry said, sounding like he was on the verge of giving up on life.

“I’ll get you some warm water,” Draco said, getting to his feet.

“Why?” Harry ridiculed.

“You’ll chug it and throw up again,” Draco explained. “You’ll feel brand new.”

“Harry sighed, utterly defeated, “Worth a shot.”

“A shot of firewhiskey?” Draco snorted, getting a cup from the medicine cabinet and filling it to the brim with warm tap water.

“Remember when I said I’d throw up on you?” Harry asked, “I still have that power.”

“Too bad you like it when I smell nice,” Draco huffed, making Harry remain quiet for a few seconds longer before he agreed.

“You shouldn’t listen to this, it won’t be pretty,” Harry mumbled, taking the glass in his hand and looking at it like it took all the courage in his body to bring it to his lips.

“I used to help my mother with morning sickness, you are far from the worst I’ve seen,” Draco said casually, back in his spot on the ground, his hand having found the nape of Harry’s neck this time instead.

“What do you mean?” Harry asked, his hand whipping around to look at Draco.

“She wanted another child,” Draco said, remembering all those years of light-hearted hope and changing the nursery wall colour every other week that eventually turned into disappointment and a locked door no one spoke about. “Never stuck.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry said, positively pouting.

Draco shrugged, feeling uncomfortable about accepting condolences on a person that never existed, a child that was supposed to be someone else’s entirely. Sure, he would have loved a little sibling to teach all his tricks and secrets to, but he had never understood why it hurt to lose something he hadn’t had in the first place.

“Bottoms up,” Draco reminded, nodding his head to the glass in Harry’s hand. He needed to drink it before it got cold.

“Right,” Harry sighed and did as he was told. Worked like a charm.

He was in a much better mood almost instantly, relief washing over his face. He let Draco help him up before washing his mouth out and returning downstairs to the rest of the party. Percy Weasley, the face Draco barely remembered, was there, in Molly’s arms and with a sour face on. The new minister of Magic was there, as well. Draco nearly tripped over his footing.

“Oh, Perce!” said Mrs. Weasley tearfully, reaching up to kiss her son.

“We’ve only looked in for five minutes, so I’ll have a stroll around the yard while you catch up with Percy. No, no, I assure you I don’t want to butt in! Well, if anybody cared to show me your charming garden. Ah, that young man’s finished, why doesn’t he take a stroll with me?”

The atmosphere around the table changed perceptibly. Everybody looked from Scrimgeour to Harry. Nobody seemed to find Scrimgeour’s pretence that he did not know Harry’s name convincing, or find it natural that he should be chosen to accompany the Minister around the garden when Ginevra, Fleur, and George also had clean plates.

“Yeah, all right,” Harry said into the silence, throwing Draco a quick unsure glance.

“It’s fine,” he said quietly, as he passed Remus, who had half-risen from his chair. “Fine,” he added, as Mr. Weasley opened his mouth to speak.

“Wonderful!” Scrimgeour grinned, standing back to let Harry pass through the door ahead of him. “We’ll just take a turn around the garden, and Percy and I’ll be off. Carry on, everyone!”

“They were apparently in the area,” Pansy explained, when Draco returned to his seat, making clear exactly how little she believed that. “Bloody likely.”

Molly was cooing over the returned son that looked like this was the last place he wanted to be, ignoring his siblings’ shamelessly furious stares. Draco followed Harry and Scrimgeour’s frames moving through the garden, barely distinguishable through the ice-frosted glass. Harry seemed adamant not to bring the man too far from the safety of the house.

Harry would later tell him that the man seemed practically obsessed with rumours of The Chose One’s prophecy, and that he had tried to gain some sort of Ministry ownership over the boy. If Draco’s family still had connections, he might have been devising a plan to put a stop to it. As it happened, there were no real options other than trusting the Order to protect him.

Chapter Text

Draco had never been so glad to be in a house full of people over the holidays. Even when Pansy, Blaise and Hermione had headed back, there were plenty of people around not to notice him and Harry sneaking around all the livelong day.

It was therefore bloody annoying to have to go back to Hogwarts and return to whatever the fuck Nott had in store for him. The thought alone of not knowing what the future held for Draco and Harry made him want to beat his own head in with a snow globe. And then Nott’s, as well.

The Ministry had arranged this one-off connection to the Floo Network to return students quickly and safely to the school. Only Molly was there to say good-bye, as Mr. Weasley, Fred, George, Bill, and Fleur were all at work. Molly dissolved into tears at the moment of parting. Admittedly, it took very little to set her off lately – she had been crying on and off ever since Percy had stormed from the house on Christmas Day with his glasses splattered with mashed parsnip (for which Fred, George, and Ginevra all claimed credit).

It took a terribly long time until Harry, Draco, Ginevra and Ronald were finally let out of the woman’s arms. Ronald was reminded not to get poisoned again, Ginevra was reminded to be good. “Promise me you’ll look after yourself,” she told Harry, “Stay out of trouble.”

“I always do, Mrs. Weasley,” Harry said. “I like a quiet life, you know me.”

Draco was last to go through the fireplace, and was greeted by McGonagall’s scowling face. “Evening, Malfoy. Try not to get too much ash on the carpet.”

“Of course, Professor.” He had yet to entirely understand what he'd done to the woman. Harry liked him well enough, shouldn't that be enough? Wasn't he the Boy Who Lived, after all? Shouldn't his word be some sort of law? Perhaps the older witch was more perceptive than most in the Order, and had noticed Draco's oddities during his previous months in Hogwarts. Either way, what did it matter? It wasn't like the Order was bending over backwards to let Harry and his friends into its plans.

Harry was straightening his glasses and flattening his hair before being told to bid Draco a good night and head to Gryffindor Tower. Just as well, Draco thought, he assumed he had enough to do in the Room of Requirement. On his way, Draco glanced out the window to the Hogwarts grounds. The sun was already sinking over grounds carpeted in deeper snow than had lain over the Burrow’s garden. In the distance, he could see Hagrid feeding Buckbeak in front of his cabin.

It wasn’t exactly a joy to be back in the Room of Requirement, as much as Draco had once assumed it forever would be. It no longer housed the memory of his first kiss to the wonderful boy he was in love with. It was now mulled with and withering away at the idea of having to disappoint and betray him.

“Where have you been?” Nott’s voice reached him before his hands did, pinning Draco to the stone wall of the seventh floor with his elbow digging into Draco’s throat.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Draco barely managed.

“What is my problem? Where have you been? My owl couldn’t reach you, your father was adamant to tell mine where you were, it was like you’d dropped off the face of the earth.”

“Maybe I had,” Draco said roughly and pushed the other boy away, straightening his robes immediately. “I was just coming to see you, you prick.”

Nott visibly forced himself to calm down. “I suppose I can be glad you’re not dead yet,” he scoffed, “I presume you haven’t told anyone.”

“How could I?” Draco asked bitterly, “Like you said, I’d be quite deceased by now.”

“Maybe you should have told someone then,” Nott sneered, entering the room first.

Draco followed suit, loosening his tie and rolling his eyes. He took a seat on Pansy’s favourite sofa spot, and waited. Surely Nott had more bullshit to spout, the boy had no regard for neither eloquence nor social norms. When he chose to stare at Draco instead, it didn’t leave him with much choice. “I presume you have no new ideas on…committing to your duties,” Draco said calmly. Theo’s rage only had the one explanation, and Draco was entirely too happy to piss him off by remaining as still as he could. He may have been done with one of the best winter breaks he'd ever had and perhaps his last, but that did not mean he couldn’t enjoy himself further.

He had made the decision, somewhere between his third and twentieth kiss with Harry during the holiday break, that he would not be doing anything else to aid in killing his headmaster. He couldn’t actively stand in the way of it, knowing he would die instantly, but he would only help when forced, and the attempts so far were weak enough to assume he might be successful in getting through it until he could run from it all. And, if he would eventually be forced, why not enjoy his beating heart while it still worked?

A mighty amount of scoffing and insulting later, Nott finally let Draco have peace. He’d expected it to be worse. No, he had not come up with a new plan while Draco had been out snogging the Saviour of the Wizarding World. Of course, he hadn’t. Which was precisely why he needed help so much. And precisely why Draco felt he had some twisted sort of an upper hand in the situation. What he would be able to do with it, was yet to be determined, but it felt nice. Draco hadn't felt in control for a long time. It was refreshing. 

True to his word, and awfully scared of Blaise’s aggression, whatever form it may take, Draco attended the first feast of January as he normally would have before his mess with the Death Eaters had started. It felt like years had passed since he’d last looked across the Great Hall to spot a certain mess of hair at the Gryffindor table. Draco’s watch heated up when he found Harry. He’d almost forgot about its ability to do so. Draco only dared to smile when he looked down to his plate.

Draco’s mind rarely lingered on anything other than Harry now. They only saw each other in classes and during meals, and, if properly executed, on the grounds, but they rarely exchanged words. Not that Draco felt like talking when pulled into an alcove, pressed against ice-frosted glass and snogged breathless.

The Slytherin kept to the Room of Requirement as much as he could, procrastinating fixing that blasted cabinet for as long as he could. A million useless, fantastical plans milled through his head of how to stop Death Eaters. If only he could leave the school, if only he had more power, if only he hadn’t walked into the Malfoy Manor in the wrong time. The one thought that persisted was of keeping Harry James Potter alive and happy. That was the one new year's resolution that would never change.

Despite their classes being difficult enough to make most want to throw themselves off the Astronomy Tower (Draco honestly had no idea how any Hufflepuff without a weed habit ever got though a Hogwarts education), the new term started with a pleasant surprise for the sixth years: a large sign had been pinned to all common room notice boards overnight.

APPARITION LESSONS

If you are seventeen years of age, or will turn seventeen on

or before the 31st August next, you are eligible for a

twelve-week course of Apparition Lessons from a Ministry

of Magic Apparition instructor. Please sign below if

you would like to participate. Cost: 12 Galleons.

Draco joined the small excited crowd to put his name down. He certainly needed to know how to apparate, if he was to participate in illegal activities. Besides, apparating around whenever he liked for as small a distance as he liked sounded nothing short of wonderful. Fred and George sure made it look fun.

“I bloody hate apparating,” Pansy scoffed, hesitating to write her name down.

“You could apparate into Ginny’s bedroom whenever you liked,” Draco reminded with a devilish smirk.

“That’s breaking and entering, Draco,” Blaise said warningly. Draco pointedly did not remind his friend which of them was a prefect and which was not.

The following day, half the school had heard of Harry’s previous experience in side-along apparating and the boy seemed to be answering never-ending questions from his legions of fans the entire day. Draco could only laugh. Of course, the Boy Who Lived would find another reason to be the most popular person in the bloody castle. Draco was even in a good enough of a mood to come up with snarky comments in the halls. Harry would sneer at him, but there would be an edge of a smile every time.

Draco spent the first classes of the new year fighting his inability to stop looking at Harry, and losing that fight miserably. Potions, as it turned out, as loving as Draco was towards the subject, was unbareable now. “...which means, of course, that assuming we have achieved correct identification of the potion’s ingredients by Scarpin’s Revelaspell, our primary aim is not the relatively simple one of selecting antidotes to those ingredients in and of themselves, but to find that added component that will, by an almost alchemical process, transform these disparate elements –” Slughorn droned on, and Draco caught some of it, he must have. It couldn't be that all he did in class was wonder how long it would take to make Harry putty in his hands again, how few seconds the Gryffindor would need for his dick to get hard once Draco could have a hold of it. It was almost immediately overshadowed by the idea that sneaking around together for sexual gratification would be much more difficult now that so many of their friends knew about them and would make fun of them immediately.

It was just that Harry looked so lovely. And his skin looked just as soft as Draco knew it to be. And his lips were so irresistible Draco had trouble remaining in his seat. Draco hadn’t had the chance to watch Harry like this for too lengthy a semester. Long, dreadful months he had refused himself the choice to look at the boy, trying to spare himself. But now, once he’d decided he was a dead man either way, why not indulge in such simple pleasures?

“…and so,” Slughorn finished, “I want each of you to come and take one of these phials from my desk. You are to create an antidote for the poison within it before the end of the lesson. Good luck, and don’t forget your protective gloves!”

Hermione had left her stool and was halfway toward Slughorn’s desk before the rest of the class had realised it was time to move, and by the time Draco returned to the table, she had already tipped the contents of her phial into her cauldron and was kindling a fire underneath it. "Bloody hell," Draco whispered to Blaise who only looked over at her with an adoring smile.

Draco tipped his own contents into his cauldron, and glanced over at the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff table to see Harry visibly confused as to what he was supposed to do now. He glanced around at Ron, who was now standing there looking rather gormless, having copied everything Harry had done.

“I really chose the right one, didn’t I?” Blaise asked rhetorically, having followed Draco’s line of sight.

“If he’s been so good at Potions all year, I don’t see why he’d have trouble with this,” Draco said with a smirk. He’d been wondering why the idiot had been so successful, and he’d been looking forward to the other shoe dropping. Not that he enjoyed Harry being humiliated, of course. But the Gryffindor was toying with Draco’s spot at the top of the class, and that simply would not do, if he was cheating to get it. His reputation as the best potion-maker in the class was crashing around his ears. Draco had loathed being outperformed by someone who probably couldn’t recount a single wizarding battle from the last five centuries, not to mention brew a decent cure for boils without help.

Draco stared down at his cauldron as the simmering slowly came to a halt, most of the necessary spells cast and most important ingredients added. An attention-demanding and desperately worrying part of his brain exclaimed that the poison he’d brewed before the Christmas break had been more potent than the one in front of him.

He shuddered at that thought, eyes involuntarily rushing over to Ronald, who was perfectly fine and healthy, and saved by none other than the star of the Potions class himself…with a bezoar. Fuck. Slughorn called, “Two minutes left, everyone!” Harry had disappeared into the store cupboard and returned seemingly empty-handed. Their time was running out, Draco’s antidote comprised 47 ingredients and a laundry list of spells, and Harry was about to fucking win again.

“Time is…up!” called Slughorn genially. “Well, let’s see how you’ve done! Blaise, what have you got for me?” Slowly, Slughorn moved around the room, examining the various antidotes. The professor didn’t seem disappointed by Blaise’s work, but pointedly turned his nose up at Draco’s, even when he added a reluctant “Not bad, Mister Malfoy. If only it was completed.”

Nobody had finished the task, although some were trying to cram a few more ingredients into their bottle before Slughorn reached them. The professor reached Harry’s table last. He sniffed Macmillan’s potion and passed on to Ronald’s with a grimace. He did not linger over Weasley’s cauldron, but backed away swiftly, retching slightly. “And you, Harry,” he then said, “what have you got to show me?” Harry held out his hand, the bezoar sitting on his palm.

Draco bent over until his forehead made contact with the table in disbelief and an attempt to stop himself from loudly proclaiming something along the lines of an OF FUCKING COURSE! Now that would simply be unseemly, but Draco could not believe the audacity of his boyfriend.

Slughorn looked down at it for a full ten seconds. Harry wondered, for a moment, whether he was going to shout at him. Then he threw back his head and roared with laughter.

“You’ve got nerve, boy!” he boomed, taking the bezoar and holding it up so that the class could see it. “Oh, you’re like your mother. Well, I can’t fault you. A bezoar would certainly act as an antidote to all these potions!”

Hermione, who was sweaty-faced and had soot on her nose, looked livid. Her half-finished antidote, some of which could be found in her hair, bubbled sluggishly behind Slughorn, who had eyes for nobody but Harry. “And you thought of a bezoar all by yourself, did you, Harry?” she asked through gritted teeth.

“That’s the individual spirit a real potion-maker needs!” Slughorn said happily, before Harry could reply. Hermione looked over at Blaise and Draco, rage about to start making her ears smoke. “Just like his mother, she had the same intuitive grasp of potion-making, it’s undoubtedly from Lily he gets it. Yes, Harry, yes, if you’ve got a bezoar to hand, of course that would do the trick…although as they don’t work on everything, and are pretty rare, it’s still worth knowing how to mix antidotes.”

Harry caught Draco’s eye with a shameless smile. “Time to pack up!” said Slughorn. “And an extra ten points to Gryffindor for sheer cheek!” Still chuckling, he waddled back to his desk at the front of the dungeon. His plan had been to grab the other boy by his robes and shove him into an alcove to either slap him or snog him, it was still quite undecided, but Harry seemed hesitant to leave the classroom, so Draco smacked Harry’s shoulder strongly with his Potions textbook on his way out of the classroom. No one found it out of the ordinary.

Although Draco had no clue why, Harry was a mopey little git for the next few days. Too content with Nott leaving him alone for such a blessedly long time, Draco almost didn’t notice. If he hadn’t been so set on ignoring Harry for a while out of anger, hoping the Gryffindor would come begging, he probably never would have known. But, as it was, Harry was a miserable mess and never approached Draco with demands of attention. It was bloody infuriating.

Unfortunately for Draco’s pride, he was getting far too intrigued to remain distant. He finally succumbed to his need to be in the loop on the weekend, stumbling onto the Golden Trio while looking for references for Severus’ newest essay. The Hogwarts library seemed to have failed Hermione for the first time in living memory. She was so shocked, she seemed to have even forgot that she was annoyed at Harry for his trick with the bezoar just like Draco.

“I haven’t found one single explanation of what Horcruxes do!” she told Draco when he’d asked what on earth they’d been so busy with that Harry hadn’t sought him out yet. “Not a single one! I’ve been right through the restricted section and even in the most horrible books, where they tell you how to brew the most gruesome potions – nothing! All I could find was this, in the introduction to Magick Moste Evile, listen, Of the Horcrux, wickedest of magical inventions, we shall not speak nor give direction. I mean, why mention it then?” she said impatiently, slamming the old book shut. It let out a ghostly wail. “Oh, shut up,” she snapped, stuffing it back into her bag.

“Heard of them?” Ronald asked, and Draco couldn’t tell whether he was making fun of Draco’s family having a background of not only the lightest forms of magic, or genuinely asking to be polite. Either way, Draco chose, for Harry’s sake, to take the question seriously. “Well, I have, but only the name.  Couldn’t tell you what they do.”

Harry sighed, “Sorry, but I’m actually kind of glad you don’t know,” he admitted, “they seem a bit too dark even for a Slytherin.”

“And I refuse to go back to the Manor, I’m traumatised for life,” Draco added without thinking.

“What do you mean?” Harry asked, eyebrows drawn together. Draco tried waving it away, but the damage was already done. “When were you at the Manor?”

Draco shook his head as if it was no big deal, making his voice as quiet as possible, “Beginning of the summer?” Harry watched him in disbelief and possibly anger, as well. “Oh, you don’t get to be upset with me, mister bezoar.”

“That does not compare,” Harry said, standing from his spot at the library table, “not even close.”

“We should go,” Hermione said, pulling Ronald up, who seemed set on staying and listening in on the sure-fire fight. Hermione added a silencing charm and an attention-repelling one to the two large bookcases Draco and Harry were still stood in-between of before she dragged Ronald away.

“Is that why…” Harry sounded unable to finish the sentence, “Nott?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Draco said defensively.

“You went to a fucking Death Eater den, how does that not matter?” Harry asked, his volume rising.

“Because it saved Sirius’ life,” Draco sneered. He didn’t need to be told off like s child about this. He knew perfectly well how dangerous his actions had been and he’d been paying the price for them ever since. So, no, he did not have to listen to Harry at the moment, because he was perfectly clear on just what he’d done. “And I don’t regret it. And you don’t get to tell me you wouldn’t do the same thing for him, because we both know you would.”

Harry seemed taken aback. “And...you did that for Sirius?” he asked in a small voice, clearly shaken.

“I did it for you, arse,” Draco pouted, crossing his hands in front of himself. “What happened to forgiving each other anything?”

Harry looked almost ashamed at that. After all, he’d been the one to voice that sentiment. “Well, I’m taking it back,” he said stubbornly.

“You can’t take it back, Potter, you said it, now deal with the consequences.”

“Fuck off. Consequences,” Harry scoffed. “You could have died.”

“And I still might, so, do you really want to sit here arguing over it while I happen to remain alive?”

Harry shook his head more in disbelief that an answer. “When will you tell me what they’ve made you do?”

Draco looked down to his shoes. Perfectly clean and brightly polished, as always. “When it’s done, I suppose. Or I could tell you now, but you’d have to account for my dead body,” he snorted a laugh. Harry didn’t find it funny. “Oh, come off it,” Draco pleaded, “just be nice to me while you don’t hate me.”

“I will never hate you,” Harry promised.

“You say that,” Draco huffed a humourless laugh. “You won’t mean it soon enough.”

“There’s nothing you could do that would make me hate you,” Harry vowed, taking a step closer to Draco.

The Slytherin pulled Harry into his embrace, deciding that fighting the boy on this was pointless, and enjoying his presence for a while longer was all he could do. And it was selfish, he knew that, but hadn’t he tried to warn Harry? Hadn’t Harry been given the choice to opt out? This couldn’t be blamed on Draco, surely.

“I love you,” Draco said to no one but Harry and the countless books around them. “Remember that, even when I fuck everything up.”

“Shut up, Malfoy,” Harry said, leaving a kiss on the left side of Draco’s neck.

The snow melted around the school as February arrived, to be replaced by cold, dreary wetness. Grey clouds hung low over the castle and a constant fall of chilly rain made the lawns slippery and muddy. The upshot of this was that the sixth years’ first Apparition lesson, which was scheduled for a Saturday morning so that no normal lessons would be missed, took place in the Great Hall instead of in the grounds.

When Draco came down to the Great Hall with Pansy and Blaise in tow, they found that the tables had disappeared. Rain lashed against the high windows and the enchanted ceiling swirled darkly above them as they assembled in front of Severus, McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout and a small wizard whom Draco took to be the apparition instructor from the Ministry. He was oddly colourless, with transparent eyelashes, wispy hair, and an insubstantial air, as though a single gust of wind might blow him away. Pansy wondered in a whisper to her two best friends whether constant disappearances and reappearances had somehow diminished his substance, or whether this frail build was ideal for anyone wishing to vanish. Draco couldn’t stop himself from laughing

“Good morning,” said the Ministry wizard, when all the students had arrived and the Heads of Houses had called for quiet. “My name is Wilkie Twycross and I shall be your Ministry Apparition instructor for the next twelve weeks. I hope to be able to prepare you for your apparition tests in this time –” Draco barely heard the niceties as he asked Pansy whether they should make sure the instructor wasn’t another ghost, as Hogwarts really could not take another one.

“Malfoy, be quiet and pay attention!” Professor McGonagall barked.

All the eyes in the room turned to him. He blushed and took a step away from Pansy, who wasn’t called out, despite her rapidly growing grin. Draco glanced quickly at Severus, who also looked annoyed, though he strongly suspected that this was less because of Draco's rudeness than the fact that McGonagall had reprimanded one of his House.

“– by which time, many of you may be ready to take your tests,” Twycross continued, as though there had been no interruption. “As you may know, it is usually impossible to apparate or disapparate within Hogwarts. The headmaster has lifted this enchantment, purely within the Great Hall, for one hour, so as to enable you to practice. May I emphasise that you will not be able to Apparate outside the walls of this Hall, and that you would be unwise to try. “I would like each of you to place yourselves now so that you have a clear five feet of space in front of you.”

There was a great scrambling and jostling as people separated, banged into each other, and ordered others out of their space. The Heads of Houses moved among the students, marshalling them into position and breaking up arguments. Nott, apparently, thought this was the perfect time to ambush Draco.

“Is the cabinet ready?” he asked, making Draco jump. Pansy and Blaise had been carried further away from him in the current of students, and Theo seemed to have chosen just the right time to get Draco alone in such a public setting.

“Not yet,” Draco answered honestly.

“How fucking long?”

“I don’t know how much longer, all right?” Draco shot at him, oblivious to Harry standing right behind him. “It’s taking longer than I thought it would. Look, I’ll bloody get it done, won’t I?” Draco sighed, doing his best to keep his voice low. “When have I ever failed?”

“How much time do you have for the list, Malfoy?” Harry piped up from right behind him.

Nott spun around on the spot, his hand flying to his wand, but right then, the four Heads of House called for quiet, and silence fell again. Harry turned slowly to face the front again. “Thank you,” Draco whispered as quietly as humanly possible, and Harry’s hand found the sleeve of his boyfriend’s robes where no one could see. “Saviour of the Wizarding World,” Draco teased, making Harry scoff.

“Thank you,” Twycross shouted. “Now then…” He waved his wand. Old-fashioned wooden hoops instantly appeared on the floor in front of every student. “The important things to remember when apparating are the three D’s!” Twycross said. “Destination, Determination, Deliberation! Step one: Fix your mind firmly upon the desired destination,” he instructed. “In this case, the interior of your hoop. Kindly concentrate upon that destination now.”

Everyone looked around furtively to check that all the other students was staring into their hoop, then hastily did as they were told. Draco gazed at the circular patch of dusty floor enclosed by his hoop and tried hard to think of nothing else. This proved impossible, as he couldn’t stop being able to smell Harry amongst all these other people. He had yet to leave and return to his house mates. Neither were Blaise or Hermione near, so, really, them civilly standing next to one another would be a tabloid-worthy affair, if not for everyone else’s minds being so tightly set on learning to apparate.

“Step two,” said Twycross, “focus your determination to occupy the visualized space! Let your yearning to enter it flood from your mind to every particle of your body!”

Harry chuckled behind Draco, and the Slytherin turned glance around surreptitiously, curiosity getting the better of him. A little way to their left, Ernie Macmillan was contemplating his hoop so hard that his face had turned pink and looked as though he was straining to lay a Quaffle-sized egg. Draco bit back a laugh and hastily returned his gaze to his own hoop.

“Step three,” Twycross called, “and only when I give the command, turn on the spot, feeling your way into nothingness, moving with deliberation! On my command, now…One –”

Draco glanced behind himself again. Lots of people were looking positively alarmed at being asked to apparate so quickly, but Harry merely shot him a quick wink.

“– two –”

Draco tried to fix his thoughts on his hoop again. He had already forgotten what the three D’s stood for. And Harry was doing a marvellous job at distracting him.

“– three!”

Draco nearly stumbled, but was able to regain his sense of his own body quite effectively. Harry spun on the spot, lost balance, and nearly fell over. He was not the only one. The whole Hall was suddenly full of staggering people. Longbottom was flat on his back. Macmillan, on the other hand, had done a kind of pirouetting leap into his hoop and looked momentarily thrilled, until he caught sight of Dean Thomas roaring with laughter at him.

“Never mind, never mind,” Twycross said dryly, who did not seem to have expected anything better. “Adjust your hoops, please, and back to your original positions…”

The second attempt was no better than the first. The third was just as bad. Not until the fourth did anything exciting happen. There was a horrible screech of pain and everyone looked around, terrified, to see Susan Bones wobbling in her hoop with her left leg still standing five feet away where she had started. There was so much blood. It looked gnarly. Draco hadn’t noticed himself stepping closer to Harry like a safety net.

“Splinching, or the separation of random body parts,” said Wilkie Twycross dispassionately, “occurs when the mind is insufficiently determined. You must concentrate continuously upon your destination, and move, without haste, but with deliberation…thus.” Twycross stepped forward, turned gracefully on the spot with his arms outstretched, and vanished in a swirl of robes, reappearing at the back of the Hall. “Remember the three D’s,” he said, “and try again. One…two…three!”

But an hour later, Susan’s Splinching was still the most interesting thing that had happened. Twycross did not seem discouraged. Fastening his cloak at his neck, he merely said, “Until next Saturday, everybody, and do not forget: Destination. Determination. Deliberation.” With that, he waved his wand, Vanishing the hoops, and walked out of the Hall accompanied by McGonagall. Talk broke out at once as people began moving toward the entrance hall.

“I didn’t feel anything,” Harry said bitterly, seemingly not having noticed he was talking to Draco in front of people and in polite tones, “did you?”

“Prefer flying anyway,” Draco tried not to sound like he was in a huff about not having succeeded, just as Ronald found them.

“Where have you been?” the redhead asked, “This is a bloody nightmare, I’ll never get it right,” he sighed.

“I expect your trainers are too small, Won-Won,” said a voice behind them, and Hermione stalked past, smirking, Blaise following suit like a determined puppy.

“We should probably go with them,” Harry said awkwardly, as if apologising to Draco for having to leave.

“What do I care, Potter?” Draco said for show.

“Get bent, Malfoy,” Harry answered, pressing down on the button on his watch. I love you.

“Fuck off then,” Draco answered, pressing the button on his own watch in turn. I love you.

Chapter Text

Despite his determination to the task at hand, Draco had no luck at fixing the cabinet over the next couple of weeks. He was hesitant to blame it on his indifference towards the goal he was supposed to share with Nott, but how could he not? What else could possibly be to blame for being unable to finish a task than his own unwillingness?

They were always taught about hard work and practice, but Draco wasn’t sure manifestation had ever really been mentioned. Determination? Sure, that one always snuck through, but actually having to want to do a spell in order to go through with it was a concept he deemed too stupid to be real.

February moved toward March with no change in the weather except that it became windy as well as wet. To general indignation, a sign went up on all common room notice boards that the next trip into Hogsmeade had been cancelled. Draco couldn’t say he was surprised. Not after what Nott did to Katie Bell who still had yet to return from St. Mungo’s. What was more, further disappearances had been reported in the Daily Prophet, including several relatives of students at Hogwarts.

Three lessons on, Apparition was proving as difficult as ever, though a few more people had managed to splinch themselves. Frustration was running high and there was a certain amount of ill feeling toward Wilkie Twycross and his three D’s, which had inspired loving nicknames along the lines of Three Dick Willy Taker.

Nightmares had started plaguing Draco on a nightly basis. Somehow, despite the number of distractions he’d tried to pile onto himself, his mind seemed eager to offer a steady supply of disastrous scenarios for hours on end, leaving him either insomnious or late for classes, but, either way, without a single ounce of rest.

Blaise and Pansy started covering for him even more, much like they had been in their fourth year when Draco’s nose was buried in his Herbology textbook more often than not, only this time even they seemed to sense the dread and urgency of Draco’s inability to concentrate on anything.

Draco’s mind worked feverishly and his dreams, when he finally did sleep, were broken and disturbed by images of black-hooded figures and blood dripping down his family members’ necks. There was always someone just behind him. Always someone watching him, when he slept. If he ever made the mistake of looking over his shoulder, they would strike.

He kept waking up in cold sweat, the unnerving feeling refusing to leave. He had endured two weeks of this, when he finally couldn’t take any more. His feet carried him out to the common room, barely giving him the chance to remember to put on his robes and some shoes, and forcing him up to the main floor of the castle without a specific destination in mind.

The last time he’d been able to sleep soundly was Christmas, and even then, getting up to speed on his slumber would have been impossible, and he knew he had barely scratched the surface. Now, though, he was less alone than during his first semester in sixth year, and there was one particular person who Draco could still entrust his psyche to. When he found himself climbing the spiral staircase to the Gryffindor tower, he understood he had no way of getting Harry out. Last time he’d been in this predicament, he had received that stupid pirate hat he loved so much.

Painfully tired and despairing for the sweet relief of rest, he felt on the verge of tears. There was just so much on his shoulders. Why couldn’t he be at least be allowed to sleep? The Fat Lady was snoozing merrily, not having noticed the student from the wrong house waiting in front of her. Draco looked around. The castle was quiet, most portraits were asleep, even Pevees seemed to have disappeared off to somewhere, respecting the hour of the night. He had no way of getting into the Gryffindor dorms, and he had no way of getting Harry out here. Not unless he wanted to take an especially early morning walk to the owlery and then wait however long it would take for either Eagle or Hedwig to wake Harry. Which he did not want to do.

His right hand travelled mindlessly to the watch on his other wrist, where it would sometimes rest when he needed to think, and a sliver of hope arose in his mind. Maybe Harry slept with his watch on like Draco did. He hadn’t noticed it, at least, not that he could remember, but he would be a fool not to at least try. He pressed the button down a few times, then waited a couple of minutes. His hope was that once Harry had woken up to notice the warming of his skin, he would answer with his own signal and Draco could work forward from there. But Harry never responded, and Draco was starting to wonder if that watch up on the sixth-year boys’ dorm was about to burn down a night stand.

Draco tried a few more times for good measure, preparing to go back to the dungeons until Harry stepped out of the portrait hole. The boy appeared, wrapping his invisibility cloak around his shoulders, when he noticed his boyfriend. “Draco?” he looked surprised, “I was just coming to get you.” The Slytherin smiled, picturing a concerned Harry Potter storming the Slytherin dorms to save Draco Malfoy of all people from unknown harm. “What’s happened?” he asked, already wrapping the invisibility cloak around Draco’s shoulders.

There was something about Harry being so protective and so prepared to come to Draco’s aid, that sent him completely over the edge. The first tears still felt like it could all be reeled in. Soon enough, though, he couldn’t stop. He had no clue when he’d last cried, and he didn’t seem to know how to stop himself.

Harry was saying something. Whether it was sweet nothings or continuous questions of who had done something to his boyfriend, Draco couldn’t tell. But the Gryffindor was holding him, and he felt safe. Draco was scarcely aware of how cold the castle was, and then Harry was pulling him towards the portrait that still stood just slightly ajar. Draco had enough common sense to let the cloak cover his head, and to force himself to shut up for a few minutes while Harry carefully pulled him up the staircase towards his room.

Draco waited patiently under the protection of invisibility until Harry was finished with the protective charms on his bed curtains, when his sobs had finally subsided, but then Harry was looking at him, all worry and expectations, and it came crushing back. “Draco, if I have to hex someone into the nineteenth century, you have to tell me.”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Draco tried to promise, but it was difficult when he had no control over his voice or, apparently, tear ducts. “I really, am.”

“Draco…”

“I haven’t slept in weeks,” he explained. Harry didn’t seem to entirely believe him, but before long, he’d wrestled Draco into the mattress, and was running his fingers over Draco’s jaw sleepily. He didn’t say anything, just remained awake, or tried to, at least.

“I’ll pick you up after dinner tomorrow as well, you’re coming back here,” Harry said tiredly, hardly holding onto reality, and even Draco felt himself drifting off. It was like the other boy was magic, other than literally being magic. There was so much safety in Harry’s arms. So much care oozing from the boy. The second he sensed Draco was unhappy, he would bend over backwards to resolve whatever problem it was. Of course, the biggest one Draco had to deal with, no one would be able to solve, but hey, it was the thought that counted, and Draco was determined to enjoy the last months of his life.

Draco was woken on the first of March by Finnigan and Thomas leaving noisily for breakfast. Despite the silencing charms Harry had perfected, they could still hear a muffled version of the room’s goings on. Longbottom seemed to have already left, if the heavy trudging that had woken Draco up earlier was any indication.

“Happy birthday, Ron,” Harry said though a yawn, having finally opened the heavy maroon curtain of his bed, when he knew only his best friend was left in the room, “have a present,” he added, hurling a surprisingly neatly-wrapped box towards the youngest Weasley son, where it joined a small pile of them that must have been delivered by house-elves in the night. Draco wondered what horrors the creatures had witnessed over the years in this castle alone.

“Cheers,” Ronald said drowsily and, as he ripped off the paper, he didn’t even seem to note Draco’s presence as any sort of rarity.

“Happy birthday,” Draco said, testing the waters. Maybe the boy hadn’t seen him.

“Thanks, Malfoy,” Ronald said simply. No hatred behind it. No bitterness. Only some left-over sleepiness in his voice.

“Nice one, Harry!” said Ron enthusiastically, waving the new pair of Quidditch Keeper’s gloves Harry had given him.

“No problem,” said Harry absentmindedly, digging through his trunk.

As it wouldn’t make sense for Draco Malfoy of all people to arrive back in his common room in pyjamas, Harry handed Draco a pair of his uniform trousers, promising he had more, and a button-down shirt, which fit a little more snug on Harry himself than it did Draco. Great, the Slytherin thought, no worries here. It was only Harry being more muscular despite playing the same position in Quidditch. Why the bloody hell not, right? The Chosen One strikes again.

“Ready?” Harry asked, having put on jeans and a jumper and holding up the invisibility cloak. He had folded Draco’s sleep clothes neatly and placed them under his pillow already, as if it was entirely expected for Draco to return that night, and Harry wouldn’t take no for an answer. Stubborn prick. Stubborn, beautiful, attentive prick.

“Let’s go,” Draco sighed, wrapping himself in the Harry-scented piece of fabric and following the boy closely town the stairs to the Gryffindor common room, and then out the portrait hole. Harry descended the grand staircase, but not all the way down, turning into an empty hallway that hadn’t yet been filled with students, as the breakfast was still in full swing.

“Should be clear,” he said as Draco handed him back his invisibility cloak.

“I’ll give these back to you tonight,” Draco promised, smoothing out Harry’s shirt over his chest.

“Whatever you want,” Harry shrugged, leaning in to kiss Draco sweetly but quickly, just in case anyone arrived out of nowhere, “I know you like stealing my clothes.”

“That was one shirt,” Draco rolled his eyes.

“And the dragon sweater that I haven’t seen in a year?” Harry prompted.

“Oh, yeah, right, totally lost that,” Draco lied badly, unable to hide his smirk.

Harry hummed, not believing a word, and smiled again. “I’ll see you in Apparition,” he said, but didn’t seem eager to move away from his boyfriend.

Draco just nodded, but was stood still, staring that the handsome young man in front of him. “Oh, fuck it,” he scoffed and kissed Harry deeper, more shamelessly. At that very moment, it didn’t matter who walked past. Bloody Voldemort himself could come by, and Draco wouldn’t be able to keep himself from this boy.

It was less odd for Draco to arrive in the Slytherin common room in ill-fitting clothes, since most people would never notice something was amiss, though his still moved quickly and was thankful that there were very few people on his way. He changed into his own uniform, even when Nott shot him a questioning look on his way to breakfast. Draco had gone to bed along with everyone else, no one should have known he was ever gone. Waking up early was no uncommon for people more ambitious than Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs.

“And where have you been, exactly?” Pansy found him in the library after breakfast, doing his Astronomy homework and preparing to start working on an essay for Severus next. “We’ve been worried sick,” she said, bulging her eyes out. She did not look worried one bit.

“Couldn’t sleep.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve been wandering the school at night like a deranged mountain troll,” his best friend snorted a laugh, taking a seat next to him.

“No, I have a pretty decent remedy in the Gryffindor tower,” Draco shrugged smugly.

“Oh, fuck you,” Pansy scoffed, looking jealous. “Can’t you take me in there with you? How do you even get past that horrid painting?”

“Harry,” Draco said, refusing to elaborate and returning to his homework.

“Well, I simply don’t find it fair.”

“Alright,” Draco nodded along, not even trying to think of a solution.

“Really? no sympathy for your lovestruck friend?”

“Oh, are you in love now? Is that right?” Draco teased.

“Shut up,” Pansy said, blushing brightly. “Come on, loser, Apparition is starting in twenty.”

It was a long day, and he was not getting any better in Apparating yet, but spending the rest of the day walking the grounds and avoiding Theo at all costs was frankly very helpful, and by the evening, when he’d warmed his freezing fingers in the Great Hall and filled his stomach with beef stew, he was actually tired for once. It helped, though, to have Harry already waiting to take him up to his dormitory.

He handed Draco his Invisibility cloak without a word and stood lookout while Draco made sure no part of him would be visible before following his boyfriend to the Gryffindor tower. He followed Harry into the bathroom under the cloak in order to not be noticed by the other boys, and the second the heavy ancient door had closed after them, Harry’s mouth was all over any inch of Draco’s skin he could reach, and his hands were rushing to rid Draco of his clothes.

“Won’t they hear?” Draco wondered absently, but was entirely too enthralled to even think about stopping. Honestly. They’d grown up in an all-boys dormitory, surely this wouldn’t be the worst thing they’d encountered over the years. Not if the things Draco had heard in the Slytherin dorms due to his inability to sleep were any indication. Harry didn’t even honour that with a response, instead kissing down Draco’s neck deliciously, his hands firmly planted on the Slytherin’s now-bare hips. Draco could but sigh, feeling two months of worry and tension licked away by Harry, lapped off his skin like poison, ripped off his flesh like a beggar’s clothes. In moments like these, there was only Harry. There was only his tongue and the mess of his hair, and the smell Draco was about to get all over himself.

When they finally made it under the hot water what seemed like an eternity later, Draco was painfully hard and needed Harry like he doubted he had before. Though, that would likely be his brain’s line of thinking each instance he could have Harry all to himself in the future. That future seemed nice.

Harry’s hands were all over him. It was the first time they’d been this unclad since fourth year when they’d taken that blasted egg into the prefects bathroom, and yet Draco found himself somehow less nervous than when all they’d exposed to each other was a bare chest. Because, fuck, it was just Harry. But it was Harry. And he was gorgeous, and he had the tongue of a Slytherin. And when kissed Draco like this, he was putty in the boy’s hands. And when he got on his knees, Draco could swear his brain would short circuit. A relentless, mindless stream of “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” fell from Draco’s lips, and he’s knees threatened to give out when Harry took him into his mouth, but the Gryffindor held his boyfriend’s hips pressed strongly against the tiled wall, head bobbing in perfect rhythm. Draco could spend the rest of his life like this.

He barely noticed the orgasm sneaking up on him. Every one of Harry’s movements was like a jolt of Baubillious, bright spots dancing in his vision. He didn’t know if he moaned. It felt like he had, there must have been some involuntary, audible release us built-up suspension.

The lack of words he experienced when his breathing had evened was a new occurrence in his life, but how does one express to the most beautiful boy in the world just how wonderful his mouth was? How does one put into words the purity of emotions he held for this young man? How does one open his mouth without accidentally proposing? Harry swallowed and smiled up at him, long eyelashes stuck together with the warm water that still washed over them, and all Draco could do was stare in complete awe. Harry kissed the inside of Draco’s thigh, his lips still hungry, forcing Draco to remember the other boy was still waiting for his own release.

“Come here,” Draco, said pulling him up and leaving a bruising kiss on his lips, Harry’s dick hard against his hip bone. “You’re unbelievable, you know that?” Draco said, kissing him sloppily, Harry’s tongue bringing the water from the showerhead into his mouth. “You’re fucking brilliant,” Draco sighed, moving one of his hands perhaps almost evilly slowly towards Harry’s abdomen, the other wrapping around the boy’s back. “You could make me do anything you want.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Harry noted, drawing in a quick breath through his teeth when Draco trailed his fingers feather-light against the most sensitive part of Harry’s body. “You keep teasing me after so mong since Christmas, and I might just take you up on it now.”

Draco laughed and switched the two of them around so the Harry could rest against the wall this time around. It hadn’t been the most comfortable of positions, but it had been slightly more comfortable than trying to keep yourself upright with someone’s mouth on your cock.

He put his lips around the tip, and before he could take him entirely into his mouth, took a hold of Harry’s hands, placing them on the back of his blond hair. Harry raked his fingers through it lightly, and Draco felt the tingling throughout his body, but it hadn’t been when he’d meant.

“No, I don’t want to hurt you,” Harry refused, having finally understood Draco’s thinking, but the Slytherin stubbornly removed his mouth from The Chosen Dong and looking at Harry intently. “Fuck, fine, fine, you win, just let me know if it hurts.”

Draco barely managed to smirk, when Harry was already moving his boyfriend’s head towards his cock. Draco only now considered having needed to practice, somehow, on something, anything prior to requesting such examples of dominance, but he also knew Harry wouldn’t hurt him. Even still, the feeling of his boyfriend controlling his movements, choosing the pace, using Draco’s mouth exactly how he wanted to was exhilarating. This way he had full certainty Harry was as satisfied as they came, even if he could sense the boy holding himself back from hurting Draco’s throat, fingers pulling tighter on the near-white hair.

Harry’s litany of cuss words was a lot more imaginative than Draco’s, and the Slytherin couldn’t keep his eyes off this beautiful specimen, even if Harry’s own were closed in pleasure. It was thrilling to watch. So thrilling, in fact, that Draco could feel himself getting hard again, his hand automatically travelling downward to release it.

“No, don’t,” Harry instructed once he’d noticed. “Don’t touch it, I’ll do it.” Draco obeyed, moving both hands to wrap around the back of Harry’s thighs in fear of them going back without his knowing. He didn’t analyse the excitement of being told not to do something. He can do that later. Right now, Harry’s breathing was growing rapid and laboured, and Draco braced his throat to let it all slip down. He refused to choke. He refused to gag. He rode it out, and was awarded with sloppy kisses and a skilled hand job.

He let Harry wash him, chuckling when soapy fingers ran along his ribcage and giggling like a little first-year when Harry left a trail of kisses along his shoulder. It took an inhuman amount of willpower just to get out of the bathroom, both of them smelling of Harry’s shower gel and toothpaste, Draco clad in nothing but his underwear and the invisibility cloak.

“Well, took you bloody long enough,” Finnigan commented from his bed.

“Sorry,” Harry said sheepishly. “I got distracted, thinking about the upcoming game.”

“Game, huh?” Draco teased once they’d settled into Harry’s bed, curtains drawn and silencing charms in place.

“Well, it\s not hard to compare you with a broom, is it?” Harry smirked.

“You’re the worst,” Draco rolled his eyes.

“You’re the one who fell in love with me, no one made you do that,” Harry smiled smugly, settling half-onto Draco and falling asleep before even the other boys had turned the light off.

It took Draco a while to nod off, time that was, admittedly, well-spent watching Harry James Potter. An entire novel of a human being, the most interesting painting Draco had ever had the joy to lay eyes upon and a whole symphony toppling Dvorak’s. The boy Draco would give his life to protect. The boy Draco promised himself to survive Voldemort for.

When Gryffindor played Hufflepuff, Draco thought he probably shouldn’t go. It would be difficult to pretend he wasn’t rooting for his boyfriend, besides Nott had been up his are to finish what they’d started. Trouble was, Draco couldn’t bloody do it. Not one bit. The cabinet still worked just as many times as it didn’t. There was no reasonable explanation for its inability to improve under Draco’s wand. And it was getting annoyingly telling. Draco’s only fear now was of telling Nott. And his only plan was to not tell him.

The question was – whether it would count as him going directly against his Unbreakable Vow and his newfound determination to remain blissfully alive. Running off with Harry in order to make sure the boy remained alive was going to be difficult, if Draco breaks the Vow first. And he had to keep himself alive first. Because the world would be only worse without Harry Potter in it.

Draco’s current focus was on Harry’s newest obsession – catching Nott doing something suspect. He knew that boy was doing it to protect him and keep him from harm, but, bloody hell, Draco had no words to explain to Harry exactly why that was such a terrible idea. He also had no words to explain to Nott that he should be less noticeably grumpy, and that he should definitely stay out of Potter’s way.

He was about to head back to his common room before the post-game crows arrived to the Astronomy Tower, remembering they had homework to finish, when he caught a glimpse of the game in the distance. The cheering had been nearly distracting enough for him to abandon his star charts and go to the library, but he’d soldiered on, and could reward himself with a quick glance at his boyfriend zooming around the stadium with the Omniculars he had in his bag. He could see Harry shouting at someone, and thought, for a second, that it suited him – this captain thing. A strange new part of Draco wondered what it would be like to be asserted dominance over by Harry Potter.

He watched his boyfriend closely, not fighting the blush because no one was there to see, and it was cold enough to blame it on frostbite even if anyone arrived. He watched Harry’s angry face, he could almost read his lips, until the boy disappeared from his eyesight in an instant. Draco rearranged the Omniculars and looked around to see where the bloody things had glitched away from, but Harry seemed to no longer be in the air at all. The whistle was blown, the game was paused. Draco’s blood ran cold.

There he was, the boy who swore to protect the Boy Who Lived, and he would have missed it if not for his being in the Astronomy Tower. Draco had never rushed over to the hospital wing that quickly, and it felt demeaning having to hide under the Faculty Tower staircase until Harry had been transported all the way back to the castle, just to make sure no one would see him there for Harry.

When the voices finally arrived, frantic and worried, he recognised Hermione’s immediately, and Ronald’s whining wasn’t exactly difficult to disdain either, so Draco waited another few minutes before following them up to the hospital, entering only when having made sure no one that shouldn’t see him there had joined the Golden Trio.

“I’ll be right-” Hermione was saying, but Draco interrupted her.

“What happened?” he asked, making both of Harry’s best friends jump.

“I was just going to fetch you,” Hermione said apologetically.

“What happened?” Draco repeated, as calmly as he could muster.

“Cracked skull,” said Madam Pomfrey, “Nothing to worry about, I mended it at once, but I’m keeping him overnight. Tell him, when he wakes, will you?”

“He won’t want to stay, he’ll be out for McLaggen’s blood,” Ronald huffed.

“I’m afraid that would come under the heading of overexertion,” Madam Pomfrey said warningly.

“We won’t let him leave,” Draco promised, “he’ll be alright, though, right?”

“Oh, of course,” she waved him away and headed back to watch over the rest of the match in case someone else got hit in the head, mumbling something about brain damage that Draco wasn’t sure he even wanted to hear.

“What did McLaggen do?” Draco asked darkly, prepared to have yet another reason to hate Gryffindors, or, well, a specific one. There had been too much cohorting for his liking. They were supposed to be natural enemies. Draco missed despising one of those burgundy-clad pricks.

“He was pretending to know better than the beaters and hit Harry in the head,” Ronald explained, rage heavy in his voice. “Wanker left the bloody hoops, I’ll kill him myself.”

“Why aren’t you playing?” Draco wondered, trying to cling to a topic that would keep his mind off prancing onto the pitch and dragging McLaggen in to Black Lake to sleep with the giant squid.

Weasley looked uncomfortable, switching his weight from one foot to the other. “Oh, erm, they won’t let me…yet.” Draco understood it was because of the poisoning. He also understood that Ronald obviously had no idea it had been Draco that was to blame, or else there would be much more angry jabs than general embarrassment.

Draco took a seat by Harry’s side, the boy so still and pale as he laid unconscious. “I’ll stay with him,” Draco promised, settling in more comfortably, “really, it’s fine,” he added, noticing Hermione’s worried face.

“No, I know, I trust you,” she smiled and looked over at Ron unsurely.

“Yeah, alright, Malfoy,” Ronald said reluctantly. “What if anyone comes?”

“I don’t care,” Draco said honestly.

“I’ll be back after the game,” Ronald promised.

“Hey, Weasley,” Draco called after him, “give McLaggen a black eye for me?” Ronald sneered delightfully in response and followed Hermione out, leaving Draco to watch over a sleeping Harry all on his own.

This wasn’t the peaceful Harry that slept on top of him every night in the Gryffindor Tower. This was an injured, hurt Harry. One that Draco Hadn’t been able to protect, and wouldn’t have been able to, even if he’d been anywhere near him. This was a harry that was hit in the head with a rogue Bludger in the middle of a Quidditch game instead of being attacked by Voldemort. Draco tried his best to push it down, but the familiar feeling of pure panic pushed through his veins and out of his eyes as he sat next to the hospital bed, crying silently.

He knew, logically, Harry would be fine, and this was nothing to worry about. After all, magic was a fucking miracle-worker when it came to even the most complex of injuries. No, it wasn’t about a cracked skull, though Draco winced even imagining tha pain. No, it was about being prepared to do anything for this boy, and realising that most of the time, he couldn’t.

“You better not try to kiss me, Malfoy,” Harry groaned out, sounding tired and confused.

“What?” Draco looked around to see no one was anywhere near them, and Madam Pomfrey most likely had her suspicions already.

“Aren’t Slytherins cheering on Hufflepuff? What the fuck are you crying on me for?” Harry scoffed, and Draco’s blood ran cold. The memory charm hadn’t worked all those months ago due to sheer luck and Draco’s inability to mean it when he cast it. Or so he’d thought. What if it had been hiding in there all these months, just waiting for a Bludger to finish the job?

Draco wasn’t sure if he could survive another one of these.

“No, I….”

“Calm down, Draco, I’m only joking,” the Gryffindor said, eyes softening, turning back into the Harry he knew. His Harry.

“Oh, fuck you, that’s not funny,” Draco said, relief flooding his brain.

“I felt like I owed you that one, you know, for trying to make me forget you,” Harry raised eyebrow.

“I hate you,” Draco said, pinching his boyfriend and crushing him into a hug.

“Clearly,” Harry laughed hoarsely, all air squeezed out of him.

Chapter Text

It was rapidly becoming an every-day occurrence for Draco to overhear Harry obsessing over Nott. It hadn’t seemed rational at first, but when he understood the Gryffindor was doing all of it to get him out of something Harry didn’t even know anything about, Draco’s anxiety levels resumed spiking.

“I want to know what he’s up to,” Harry stated, sitting with Weasley on the beach of the Black Lake on one of the first warm spring days. “And don’t tell me it’s all in my head, not after what I overheard between him and Snape –”

“I never said it was all in your head,” Ronald, hoisting himself up on an elbow in turn and frowning at Harry, “but there’s no rule saying only one person at a time can be plotting anything in this place! You’re getting a bit obsessed with Nott, Harry. I mean, thinking about missing a match just to follow him.”

“I want to catch him at it!” Harry declared in frustration. “I mean, where’s he going when he disappears off the map?”

“I dunno…Hogsmeade?” Ronald suggested, yawning.

“I’ve never seen him going along any of the secret passageways on the map. I thought they were being watched now anyway?”

“Well then, I dunno,” the redhead sighed. Silence fell between them. Harry stared up at the grey sky as Draco joined them.

They had a free period, one of few, so most students from other years would be in class, and the sixth-years that weren’t would be too busy studying. Leave it to the Gryffindors to sit outside instead of at least pretending to be academic weapons. Draco had seen two figures in the distance and hadn’t needed much pondering to assume it was the two of them, so he'd decided to join. Because, well, who cared, right? Dead man walking and all that.

“What are you two plotting again?” Draco asked, making sure to sound as disappointed as he possibly could as he plopped himself onto the ground gracelessly next to his boyfriend.

“Nothing at all,” Harry lied, his hand immediately going to Draco’s thigh distractingly, lips leaving a peck on Draco’s in greeting. “What have you been up to?”

“Studying,” Draco said smugly, “unlike the likes of you two, or the rest of your noble house,” he rolled his eyes.

“Oi, we study,” Ronald objected.

“Clearly,” Draco pointed to Weasley’s Transfiguration textbook which currently served as a tray for two cups of coffee, stolen from the kitchens.

“Well, we’re keeping energised for the extensive amount of studying we’ll be doing later,” Ronald supposed.

“I think we both know that’s not true,” Draco scoffed, glancing around quickly before resting his upper bodyweight onto Harry. “I believe the question we should be concerning ourselves with is rather what have the two of you been up to?”

Harry smiled at him like nothing in the world was wrong and leaned down to kiss Draco, efficiently distracting him. “Can you two be gross when I’m not around?” Weasley whined, pulling that face he tended to have that drove Draco mad.

“You snog Lavender all the live long day,” Harry scoffed, “at least I actually like my boyfriend.” Draco broke into laugher at Ronald’s sour eyeroll, but soon forgot all about it when Harry kissed him again. 

Draco sighed into Harry’s mouth, oblivious to the world and not hearing a word of Weasley’s rampage about not knowing how to break up with the poor girl that endured him for so many months. Harry’s fingers were cold in the chilly air, but soft against Draco’s jaw where they held onto him tenderly. Draco couldn’t help but smile into the kiss, all tongue and carelessness, as teenage as it gets, even if Weasley was pointedly miming gagging somewhere in the near vicinity. That was alright, he didn’t exist. Nothing existed but Harry, and it felt like nothing ever would again. When Weasley finally managed to pull them all inside, insistently muttering something about getting warm and having to study, despite the deep red blush he was sporting. Draco blamed it on all the tongue he and Harry had so shamelessly exhibited.

“Hello, Harry!” the dreamy voice of Luna Lovegood made Draco jump, having already been worried about being seen with Harry and Ronald all alone, no Pansy or Blaise to fault his misallegiance to. The girl didn’t seem one bit surprised to see the three of them together, smiling kindly and lingering on Weasley. “I’ve just been looking for you,” she said, rummaging in her bag. She thrust what appeared to be a green onion, a large spotted toadstool, and a considerable amount of what looked like cat litter into Ronald’s hands, finally pulling out a grubby scroll of parchment that she handed to Harry. “I’ve been told to give you this.” It was a small roll of parchment, which Harry seemed to recognise.

“Tonight,” he told Ronald, once he had unrolled it.

“Nice commentary last match!” the redhead said to Luna, ignoring his best friend completely,  as the Ravenclaw took back the green onion, the toadstool, and the cat litter.

Luna smiled vaguely. “You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?” she said. “Everyone says I was dreadful.”

“No, I’m serious!” said Ron earnestly. “I can’t remember enjoying commentary more! What is this, by the way?” he added, holding the onion-like object up to eye level.

“Oh, it’s a Gurdyroot,” she said, stuffing the cat litter and the toadstool back into her bag. “You can keep it if you like, I’ve got a few of them. They’re really excellent for warding off Gulping Plimpies.” And she walked away, leaving Ron staring after her, still clutching the Gurdyroot.

Harry threw his best friend a knowing look, and it finally dawned on Draco just what one of the reasons he wanted to break up with Brown was. "Interested, are we, Weasley?" Draco wondered.

“You know, she’s grown on me, Luna,” he said, as they set off again for the Great Hall. “I know she’s insane, but it’s in a good—” He stopped talking very suddenly. Lavender Brown was standing at the foot of the marble staircase looking thunderous. “Hi,” said Ron nervously.

“C’mon,” Harry muttered to Draco, pulling him along before Lavender had the chance to start thinking clearly and realise Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy were chummily strolling through the castle, practically holding hands.

Harry became increasingly distracted over the next few weeks, but seemed to have found a highly effective way of taking Draco’s mind off it whenever he was questioned. Those things, most often, required his tongue, and sometimes even meant Harry on his knees in a secluded boys’ bathroom. It was, Draco hated to admit, bloody working. Left him dazed and pliant until Harry had the chance to find a reason to take off, at which point he would be long gone by the time Draco remembered what he’d wanted to know of his boyfriend's investigations.

Draco, therefore, had time to spend with his best friends, even if all they ever did these days was study – something Pansy Parkinson did not enjoy one bit. They were sitting beside the fire in the common room, the only other people awake were fellow sixth-years. There had been a certain amount of excitement earlier when they had come back from dinner to find a new sign on the notice board that announced the date for their Apparition Test. Those who would be seventeen on or before the first test date, the twenty-first of April, had the option of signing up for additional practice sessions, which would take place (heavily supervised) in Hogsmeade.

Blaise had seemed hesitant but determined upon learning this, Pansy less so, but Draco, who would not be seventeen yet for months to come, could not take the Apparition test whether ready or not. Blaise had succeeded several times. Pansy once, and Draco, well, he’d been slightly distracted sending little glances across the room to Harry, both of whom had only managed it a handful of times even if put together. But at least they now had time to practice.

The Gryffindor was continuing to annoy the shit out of Draco by following Nott and blatantly omitting it from Draco. “Late again, Potter,” Severus droned coldly, as Harry hurried into the candlelit classroom, shoving into his book bag what Draco knew to be the invisibility cloak. “Ten points from Gryffindor.”

Harry scowled at Snape as he flung himself into the seat beside Ronald. Half the class was still on its feet, taking out books and organising their things, he clearly wasn’t much later than any of the rest of the students. Draco glanced around the classroom to see that Nott wasn’t there and resisted the urge to dramatically roll his eyes.

“Before we start, I want your dementor essays,” Severus said, waving his wand carelessly, so that twenty-five scrolls of parchment soared into the air and landed in a neat pile on his desk. “And I hope for your sakes they are better than the tripe I had to endure on resisting the Imperius curse. Now, if you will all open your books to page – what is it, Mr. Finnigan?”

“Sir,” said Gryffindor cleared his throat, “I’ve been wondering, how do you tell the difference between an Inferius and a ghost? Because there was something in the paper about an Inferius–”

“No, there wasn’t,” Severus interrupted in a bored voice.

“But sir, I heard people talking–”

“If you had actually read the article in question, Mr. Finnigan, you would have known that the so-called Inferius was nothing but a smelly sneak thief by the name of Mundungus Fletcher.” Draco watched as his godfather failed to even turn to the blackboard when he spoke again, “But Potter seems to have a lot to say on the subject,” Severus noted sarcastically, pointing suddenly at the back of the room, his black eyes fixed on Harry “Let us ask Potter how we would tell the difference between an Inferius and a ghost.”

The whole class looked around at Harry, Draco sighed, seeing his boyfriend sit up straighter in his seat after having clearly whispered something into Hermione’s ear. Leave it to a Gryffindor to be unable to recall the world’s easiest lesson – if a teacher doesn’t like you, stop annoying them.

“Er – well – ghosts are transparent–” Harry said.

“Oh, very good,” Severus interrupted, his lip curling. “Yes, it is easy to see that nearly six years of magical education have not been wasted on you, Potter. Ghosts are transparent.”

Pansy let out a high-pitched chuckle, trying to hide it behind her hand. Ronald sent her an angry look. Ginevra would be hearing about this. Several other people were smirking. Harry took a deep breath and continued calmly, though his insides were visibly boiling, “Yeah, ghosts are transparent, but Inferi are dead bodies, aren’t they? So they’d be solid­–”

“A five-year-old could have told us as much,” Severus sneered. “The Inferius is a corpse that has been reanimated by a Dark wizard’s spells. It is not alive, it is merely used like a puppet to do the wizard’s bidding. A ghost, as I trust that you are all aware by now, is the imprint of a departed soul left upon the earth…and of course, as Potter so wisely tells us, transparent.”

“Well, what Harry said is the most useful if we’re trying to tell them apart!” Weasley piped up. “When we come face-to-face with one down a dark alley, we’re going to be having a shufti to see if it’s solid, aren’t we, we’re not going to be asking, Excuse me, are you the imprint of a departed soul?”

There was a ripple of laughter, instantly quelled by the look Severus gave the class. “Another ten points from Gryffindor,” he said. “I would expect nothing more sophisticated from you, Ronald Weasley, the boy so solid he cannot Apparate half an inch across a room.”

Draco didn’t smile. He very much didn’t. He kept it together and did not feel a chuckle bubbling in his gut. Not one bit. “No!” he could Hermione whispering and grabbing Harry’s arm as he opened his mouth furiously. “There’s no point, you’ll just end up in detention again, leave it!”

“Now open your books to page two hundred and thirteen,” said Severus, smirking a little, “and read the first two paragraphs on the Cruciatus curse.”

Draco did his best to focus on the reading and on the rest of the class, even if his eyes were constantly dragging over to Harry. He only managed to contain himself when after the seventh time he’d looked over, Severus was already waiting to hold his gaze. Draco dropped his eyes immediately and they never travelled back over to the Gryffindors again, instead wondering whether he and Harry would be sitting together, if it hadn’t been for his affiliation with Death Eaters. Whether he could hold Harry’s hand under the desk, and whisper about if they should go to lunch or skip it in favour of making out in an alcove somewhere.

As it happened, he was not at a liberty to do any of that, and was, in fact, bound by an obligation, or rather the Unbreakable Vow, to fulfil a duty he had no interest in. He entered the Room of Requirement after class, the familiarity of its cold air and faint smell of dust and broom polish grounding him. It was strange to think this room held some of his happiest memories, as well as his loneliest. There was no point in misery. He shook it off and headed to the cabinet.

There were only three of them in Potions that afternoon: Harry, Macmillan, and Draco. “All too young to Apparate just yet?” said Slughorn genially. “Not turned seventeen yet?” They shook their heads. “Ah well,” said Slughorn cheerily, “as we’re so few, we’ll do something fun. I want you all to brew me up something amusing!”

“That sounds good, sir,” Macmillan said sycophantically, rubbing his hands together. Harry and Draco shared a not-so-amused look as they were invited to take their seats and the other two boys headed for the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff table.

Draco stood in the doorway for a moment, itching to do something potentially stupid, but something he’d longed for since last Christmas. He gathered a bit of courage and took a seat next to Harry. To Slughorn, it might have looked just like two regular students choosing to sit closer to one another in order to be less spread-out, and if Ernie hadn’t been in the D.A., Draco would never have done it, but the lack of panic in Harry’s smile was enough to convince him this wasn’t an entirely idiotic idea. Even if asking a Gryffindor about what was safe and what wasn’t would be the same as asking a brick wall.

“Sir? What do you mean, something amusing?” Draco wondered.

“Oh, surprise me,” said Slughorn airily, so the boys opened their copies of Advanced Potion-Making with a sulky expression. It could not have been plainer that he thought this lesson was a waste of time. But, hey, as long as he could spend almost-one-on-one time with Harry.

The only Gryffindor in the room examined his textbook and Draco glanced over to see scribblings all over it in ink and in what was decidedly not Harry’s handwriting. He had always been sitting too far to see Harry’s book, but it was suddenly all too clear exactly how the idiot had been scoring such high marks this year in potions. Draco should have known it had nothing to do with the change in teacher. Fuck’s sake.

He noticed Harry chuckling slightly and setting his book down next to him to begin working, the title Elixir to Induce Euphoria proudly printed and heavily annotated on the open page.

When Harry raised from his seat to head over to the potions store room, Draco was so intent on following him quickly to be alone, seeing as Macmillan was still slowly deciding what to make, he picked the first potion his textbook randomly flipped to – Hiccupping Solution.

The classroom door closed behind them and Draco took a few long strides to catch up to his boyfriend. “What the bleeding hell are you up to?” he demanded.

“What are you up to?” Harry sounded amused, “You’re following me out the classroom? I’m assuming you have some undignified plans, shall we say.”

“No, there is no debauchery to be witnessed, my love, unfortunately enough,” Draco scoffed as they descended the stairs deeper into the dungeons. “Do you want to tell me why you’ve got a stolen book before Macmillan joins us in this escapade?”

“What stolen book?” Harry asked casually, opening the door and stepping into the small room, Draco on his heels.

The Slytherin rolled his eyes, “Oh, please, don’t play stupid with me, you’re not good at it.”

“Because I’m so smart,” Harry grinned.

“Sure, that,” Draco said, unimpressed, ignoring Harry’s offended oi. “Whose book is that?” Draco asked, pressing his boyfriend into one of the shelves, getting a sudden an idea that might just deliver him the truth. He put his hands on Harry’s waist.

“It’s mine,” Harry shrugged, a low-lidded smile spreading across his lips. Well, of course, it would work, this was almost too easy.

“Oh yeah?” Draco asked innocently, “That old thing, falling apart at the seams? Bought that in August last year, did you?” his lips ghosted over Harry’s neck as he spoke.

“Bought it used,” Harry breathed, hands on Draco’s shoulders.

“Why are you lying to me?” Draco asked, kissing the soft skin of Harry’s throat.

“Because you’re not going to like the truth,” Harry admitted.

Draco let go of him at once, “Is that so?”

“You’re mean,” Harry sighed, crossing his arms.

“Did you find a book that someone you don’t know has scribbled into and are currently blindly following instructions you find within it?” Draco asked, ignoring Harry’s accusation.

The other boy scoffed, “Well, if you put it like that it sounds bad, of course.”

“You’re the bloody Chosen One, you can’t go around listening to old books that could be telling you any bullshit in the world!”

“I know that,” Harry said defensively, “I’ve got some logic in here, you know, I can tell when something is bad and when it isn’t”

“Since when?” Draco asked, noticing how loud his voice had grown, “You do idiotic shit all the time, how do I know you can actually tell when something is more idiotic than other times? Bloody Gryffindors.”

“Oh, shut up, you great big drag,” Harry leaned towards Draco to hug him, “you’re just mad I’m better at potions than you are.”

“You’re not, though, the book is,” Draco insisted, leaning backwards in the embrace to face Harry.

“Right, yeah, that’s totally what I meant,” the Gryffindor said quickly before kissing him. Bloody Gryffindors. Bloody lips. Bloody Harry bloody Potter.

“Well, now, this looks absolutely wonderful,” Slughorn said over an hour later, clapping his hands together as he stared down into the sunshine yellow contents of Harry’s cauldron. “Euphoria, I take it? And what’s that I smell? Mmmm…you’ve added just a sprig of peppermint, haven’t you? Unorthodox, but what a stroke of inspiration, Harry, of course, that would tend to counterbalance the occasional side effects of excessive singing and nose-tweaking…I really don’t know where you get these brain waves, my boy…unless –” Draco saw Harry pushing the scribbled book deeper into his bag with his foot. “–it’s just your mother’s genes coming out in you!”

“Oh…yeah, maybe,” Harry said, relieved. Draco rolled his eyes. His own potion had been deemed passable, which was an understatement and a half, but, hey, who could beat the one and only Harry James Potter, right?

Ernie was looking rather grumpy, having been determined to outshine Harry for once, he had most rashly invented his own potion, which had curdled and formed a kind of purple dumpling at the bottom of his cauldron. The Hufflepuff was the first to leave, and Draco tried to wait for Harry, but the boy was packing up his things more slowly than a Demiguise on pot, making Draco realise he was trying to stay behind on purpose. “Don’t do anything stupid,” Draco said and pecked his boyfriend’s cheek, knowing Slughorn had turned away and wouldn’t see. That particular nugget of advice was always useful when it came to Harry.

The next time Draco saw Harry, the boy was practically skipping down the grand staircase, a strange look on his face that Draco had only seen on him when they’d been having firewhiskey-infused butterbeer on Christmas.

“What the hell are you on?” Draco wondered, Lumos cast on his wand and the prefect badge shining proudly in the light shining from his wand. He was just on his way to the Room of Requirement, mostly to hide from Nott’s incessive prodding and questions, deciding it was as good a spot as any to sleep.

“Life!” Harry said excitedly, striding forward, not seeming one bit worried that he could get caught any moment now, and planting a giant kiss on Draco’s lips as if that was the most normal thing for him to do in the middle of the school.

“Harry, fuck’s sake,” Draco whispered, glancing around, but there was no soul in sight, not even the portraits were looking their way. “What…Where are you going?”

“Oh, Hagrid’s,” Harry smiled brilliantly and kissed Draco once more before walking away, the conversation, apparently, over. “I love you, you know that, right?” he asked loudly, having already taken the first steps towards the front door and opened it without a problem. Filch seemed to have forgot to lock it.

Deciding it was probably smarter not to question it at the moment, Draco continued on his way to the vanishing cabinet. It was a bloody miracle no one had seen them, and he could pester the boy when he wasn’t under the influence of whatever he’d deemed so necessary to try on the fine spring evening.

His night passed quietly. There was no sound but the bird Draco routinely fed and spoke to, no movement in the over-filled room except for the dust that danced in the moonlight from the frosted-over windows. When he got cold, Draco wondered if he could go back out into the hallway and ask the room to transform itself into the version he had more fond memories in, just to sit in front of the fireplace and pretend he was back in his fifth year. When he deemed that idea silly, he rummaged around until he found a ratty old blanket.

He found a note left behind for him by Theo right when he’d decided to stop torturing himself with the cabinet and the incantation it required. He'd been about to head back to his dorm, when the neatly-folded piece of parchment caught his eye.

Soon, or he kills us.

-Nott

Draco’s heart sank. He could see the end of his academic career right in front of him. The end of his relationship, probably, as well. The end of his friendships, his sense of safety, one of the only places he considered to be home. The end of his life as he’s known it.

He took a tentative glance around. He was less than fond of this room the size of a cathedral, whose high windows were sending shafts of light down upon what looked like a city with towering walls, built of utter crap no one needed. Too many times something in here had threatened to fall on top of him. To squish him under teetering piles of broken and damaged furniture, stowed away, perhaps, to hide the evidence of mishandled magic, or hidden by castle-proud house-elves. He was not going to miss this place.

He took the bird out of his cage on his way back to his own bed, and let it fly through the still-unlocked front door. He watched the bird soar for a moment longer, until the fear of being caught, one that Harry had not appeared to be experiencing, caught up with him.

Gryffindor was scheduled to play Ravenclaw soon enough, the interest in this match was high as ever. Gryffindor would only be in the number one spot if they won by at least 300 points, and the run-up to this crucial match had all the usual features: members of rival Houses attempting to intimidate opposing teams in the corridors, unpleasant chants about individual players being rehearsed loudly as they passed, the team members themselves either swaggering around enjoying all the attention or else dashing into bathrooms between classes to throw up.

The next time he saw his boyfriend, Draco was heading down to dinner, taking a route he knew would have the least people on it, still brooding and unwilling to face anyone. His stomach was turning, and there wouldn’t be much eating possible, or any, in fact, but he he’d decided to go nonetheless, in case he could use an alibi. Besides, perhaps Pansy would pull out her wonderous ability to distract him. Which would only be possible if she herself wasn’t too distracted by a certain redhead at the Gryffindor table.

Harry was so pale Draco could have sworn he was a ghost at first. He was stumbling almost limply from the direction of the sixth-floor boys’ bathroom, looking like he was about to vomit, shock and revulsion clear on his features. He didn’t even seem to notice Draco coming toward him as he stumbled along.

“Harry?” Draco asked, concern forming too thick of a fog in his head to think clearly as he rushed toward his boyfriend and gathered him up in his arms. There was distant shouting, and only later, when thinking back on the moment, did Draco realise it was Moaning Myrtle screaming about a murder in the bathroom.

“I need your Potions textbook,” Harry said absently, but his fingers were gripping Draco’s uniform like a lifeline.

“What?” the Slytherin asked, unsure if he’d heard right.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen, I made a mistake,” Harry whispered, finally reaching Draco’s eyes. “It’s really bad. Snape, he asked to see my schoolbooks, I need…your potions book,” he repeated breathlessly, all anxious and forlorn. He was scared, Draco could tell. Whatever he had done, he must already be in trouble for it, his anguish too painful for Draco to bear.

Draco was already nodding and pulling his schoolbag open, rummaging through it to find his own copy of Advanced Potion-Making and hand it over without a question. “Go,” Draco instructed. The tears gathering in Harry’s eyes spilled over his lash line. “No, don’t cry, you’ll look guilty. Just go get your bag, do not speak to anyone in the meantime,” Draco instructed. The way Harry looked at him, in awe of Draco’s quick acceptance of Harry’s wrongdoings, without even knowing what they were, was mesmerising. Draco’s lips reached out for Harry’s forehead in an instant. “Go,” he repeated and urged Harry to move, making sure to get as far as possible from the vicinity himself.

They didn’t see each other for days afterwards. Nott had spent that night in the hospital wing, and Draco didn’t require much deducing to understand what had happened that evening in the sixth-floor boys’ bathroom. "Are you aware that the inside of your Potions book says Malfoy bitch?" Harry asked the moment he next saw Draco later that night, having warmed up Draco's watch enough to make him understand he needed to leave the Slytherin dorms and see his boyfriend.

"What?" Draco laughed, certainly not having expected that, and never having noticed it. Though it sounded like something Nott or Goyle would do. Or Pansy, when especially upset with him.

"I had to get creative, Snape didn't believe it was mine," Harry said broodily.

"What did you tell him?" Draco wondered.

"Said that's my nickname and that it was supposed to say Malfoy's bitch. Bloody good he already knows about us." Draco laughed at this, kissing the top of Harry's head as they embraced in a secluded corner in the dungeons.

Harry had landed himself in detention every Saturday for the rest of the year, forced to miss the big match against Ravenclaw, so Draco decided he should probably go this time. He could avoid being seen supporting Hufflepuffs, but the rest of his house, save for Blaise and Pansy and their public Gryffindor affiliation, would expect him to support Ravenclaw.

Just how Gryffindor managed to snatch yet another victory, gaining just enough points to be first over the rest of the houses, Draco would never understand, especially since Harry wasn’t there to help them. Ginevra’s flying was near-perfect. If Draco hadn’t seen Harry fly opposite him in search of the blasted golden ball, he would proudly announce her the best seeker beside himself that he’d ever seen.

Spring seemed to pass by in an instant, or, rather, a hubbub of nerves and fear. As they moved into June, Harry and Draco’s time together was becoming increasingly restricted. The last time he saw Harry before their world would fall apart, he was whisked off to Gryffindor tower yet again, enjoying what he didn’t know was the eye of the storm. A calmness before something awful. One that came with elated heartbeats and loads of tongue.

Whenever Draco had a moment to spare between classes and snogging his boyfriend, he would head over to the Room of requirement and gaze at the cabinet, as if having a staring match with the thing would ensure it wouldn’t let through any Death Eaters. As if challenging it to disobey Draco was enough to somehow not become a pawn for the side he never had and never would believe in.

Chapter Text

When everything went down, it felt to Draco like an out-of-body experience. One moment he was writing the last of his essays, the next – Nott was dragging him by the sleeve of his robes to the Astronomy Tower. He nearly tripped over something big on the ground in the darkness of the night, but Nott kept pulling him forward. As they climbed the steps, Draco glanced to the sky which shone like an aurora above the school. There it was, hanging in the sky above the school - the blazing green skull with a serpent tongue, the mark Death Eaters left behind whenever they had entered a building…wherever they had murdered… Oh, Salazar, Draco had no clue where Harry was. There was a voice at the top of the tower. Just the one. Theo wasted no time, dark determination in his eyes as he kicked the door open. The other Slytherin stumbled backwards and Draco had no other choice but to shout “Expelliarmus!”, having seen Dumbledore’s wand raising. By the light of the Mark, he saw said wand flying in an arc over the edge of the ramparts.

Draco had just attacked the headmaster. There was no going back.

Standing against the ramparts, very white in the face, Dumbledore still showed no sign of panic or distress. He merely looked across at his disarmer and said, “Good evening, boys.”

Nott stepped forward, glancing around quickly to check that the three of them were alone. “Who else is here?” he demanded, his voice quivering just the slightest bit. Something most people wouldn’t notice, but Draco had known the boy their entire lives. “I heard you speaking.”

“I often find myself to be a very interesting conversation partner. As for your question, I might ask you the same. Or are the two of you acting alone?” Dumbledore asked, eyeing Draco for just a second too long, something in his eyes shifting. Like he was warning Draco. Like he was asking him to participate in a secret ploy.

Draco saw Nott’s pale gaze shift back to Dumbledore in the greenish glare of the Dark Mark, having eyed the room carefully. “No,” he said. “We’ve got backup. There are Death Eaters here in your school tonight.”

“Well, well,” said Dumbledore, as though Theo was showing him an ambitious homework project. “Very good indeed. You found a way to let them in, did you?”

“Yeah,” Nott said, standing up straighter, but panting. “Right under your nose and you never realised!”

“Ingenious,” said Dumbledore. “Yet…forgive me…where are they now? You seem unsupported.” The headmaster then glanced at Draco, most likely seeing just how little the blonde’s heart was in this.

“They met some of your guards. They’re having a fight down below. They won’t be long. We came on ahead. We – I’ve got a job to do.” He took a deliberate step in front of Draco, and for once, Draco was happy to be excluded from getting recognition for his efforts, as reluctant as they happened to be.

“Well, then, you must get on and do it, my dear boy,” Dumbledore invited softly. The old man’s eyes then shifted to something behind Draco and he wondered, for a moment, when Death Eaters had become so stealthy not to be heard, because who else would possibly be here?

A hand clamped over Draco’s mouth, but he knew better than to scream, closing his eyes and preparing for the worst instead. There should be a sharp pain to his throat, and then everything should be warm, and light, and very much fine. But there was no slicing of his skin, and there was no calmness. There was only a cloth-covered hand and the sound of Dumbledore’s rushed words as he continued, his volume growing to take away any attention.

“Theodore, you are not a killer,” Dumbledore said, louder than before, because he appeared not to want Theo to notice that Draco was being slowly and carefully dragged backwards, and the only reason Draco didn’t protest loudly was because he would know that scent anywhere. Especially once he was covered with an invisibility cloak that smelled like exactly what Draco sensed when having a sniff at Amortentia.

“How do you know?” said Nott at once, aggressively, angrily, on the border of sobbing, as Draco followed his boyfriend soundlessly. “You don’t know what I’m capable of,” he added more forcefully. “You don’t know what I’ve done!”

Harry was dragging him painfully slowly down a round staircase to hide in the lower level. Draco felt so safe just because Harry’s arm was around his stomach from behind, holding him close and refusing to let him trip.

“Oh yes, I do,” Dumbledore said mildly. “You almost killed Katie Bell and Ronald Weasley. You have been trying, with increasing desperation, to kill me all year. Forgive me, Theodore, but they have been feeble attempts. So feeble, to be honest, that I wonder whether your heart has really been in it at all.”

“It has been in it!” said Nott vehemently. “We’ve been working on it all year, and tonight – Malfoy?” his voice sounded confused from where he was still standing, facing Dumbledore all alone. Harry stilled at once, the hand that wasn’t holding Draco around the middle returned to said Slytherin’s mouth in warning. Not that Draco had any intentions of making himself known. He was being saved. He was being given much more than he deserved, but he knew Harry’s motivations, because his own would have been the exact same, if their roles were reversed.

“Who?” Dumbledore sounded almost teasing. Draco wished he hadn’t chosen that tone. Agitating Theo never worked out, especially not over the recent year.

“Where is he? He was just here!”

“Was he?” Dumbledore smiled as Harry and Draco resumed their silent stepping down to the draughty storeroom right underneath the open space at the top of the tower where their classes usually took place.

“Don’t lie to me! I’m not insane!” Nott insisted, sounding like he was about to start crying. Honestly, so was Draco. Somewhere in the depths of the castle below Harry heard a muffled yell. Draco and Harry froze in place again. Nott stiffened and glanced over his shoulder.

“Somebody is putting up a good fight,” Dumbledore noted conversationally. “But you were saying…yes, you have managed to introduce Death Eaters into my school, which, I admit, I thought impossible. How did you do it?” But Theo said nothing. He was still listening to whatever was happening below and seemed almost as paralysed as Harry and Draco were. “Perhaps you ought to get on with the job alone,” Dumbledore suggested. “What if your backup has been thwarted by my guard? As you have perhaps realised, there are members of the Order of the Phoenix here tonight too. And after all, you don’t really need help. I have no wand at the moment. I cannot defend myself.” Theo merely stared at him. “I see,” said Dumbledore kindly, when Nott neither moved nor spoke. “You are afraid to act until they join you.”

“I’m not afraid!” Theo snarled, though he still made no move to hurt the headmaster. “It’s you who should be scared!”

“But why? I don’t think you will kill me, Theodore. Killing is not nearly as easy as the innocent believe. So, tell me, while we wait for your friends, how did you smuggle them in here? It seems to have taken you a long time to work out how to do it.”

As Harry led Draco over the last few steps, Theo looked as though he was fighting down the urge to shout, or to vomit. He gulped and took several deep breaths, glaring at Dumbledore, his wand pointing directly at the old man’s heart. Then, as though he could not help himself, he said, “Malfoy had to mend that broken Vanishing Cabinet that no one’s used for years. The one Montague got lost in last year.” Draco felt Harry’s hand clench around the fabric of Draco’s robes as they heard the confession. Harry’s forehead landed on the back of Draco’s shoulder. He couldn’t tell whether his boyfriend was disappointed in him, or if he was trying to express his condolence for Draco having to do that just to aid in a plan he had no wish to be part of.

“Aaaah.” Dumbledore’s sigh was half a groan. He closed his eyes for a moment. “That was clever. It has a sister, I take it?”

“In Borgin and Burkes,” Nott said proudly, “and they make a kind of passage between them. Montague told me that when he was stuck in the Hogwarts one, he was trapped in limbo but sometimes he could hear what was going on at school, and sometimes what was going on in the shop, as if the cabinet was traveling between them, but he couldn’t make anyone hear him. In the end, he managed to Apparate out, even though he’d never passed his test. He nearly died doing it. Everyone thought it was a really good story, but I was the only one who realized what it meant – even Borgin didn’t know – I was the one who realised there could be a way into Hogwarts through the cabinets if I fixed the broken one.”

“Very good,” murmured Dumbledore. “So the Death Eaters were able to pass from Borgin and Burkes into the school to help you. A clever plan, a very clever plan, and, as you say, right under my nose.”

“Yeah,” huffed Theo, who bizarrely seemed to draw courage and comfort from Dumbledore’s praise. “Yeah, it was!”

“But there were times,” Dumbledore went on, “weren’t there, when you were not sure you would succeed in mending the cabinet? And you resorted to crude and badly judged measures such as sending me a cursed necklace that was bound to reach the wrong hands…poisoning mead there was only the slightest chance I might drink.”

“Yeah, well, you still didn’t know who was behind that stuff, did you?” sneered Nott, as Dumbledore slid a little down the ramparts, his legs shaking for a reason Draco couldn’t comprehend, and now he was the one who had to hold Harry in place just to make sure he wouldn’t go anywhere.

“As a matter of fact, I did,” Dumbledore said. “I was sure it was you.”

“Why didn’t you stop us, then?” Nott demanded.

“I tried, Theodore. Professor Snape has been keeping watch over you two on my orders–”

“He hasn’t been doing your orders, he promised Malfoy’s father–“

“Of course, that is what he would tell you, Theodore, but–”

“He’s a double agent, you stupid old man, he isn’t working for you, you just think he is!”

“We must agree to differ on that, Theodore. It so happens that I trust Professor Snape–”

“Well, you’re losing your grip, then!” Nott sneered. “He’s been offering me plenty of help, wanting all the glory for himself, wanting a bit of the action, What are you doing? Did you do the necklace, that was stupid, it could have blown everything. But I haven’t told him what I’ve been doing in the Room of Requirement, he’s going to wake up tomorrow and it’ll all be over and he won’t be the Dark Lord’s favourite anymore, he’ll be nothing compared to me, nothing!”

“Very gratifying,” Dumbledore said mildly. “We all like appreciation for our own hard work, of course. But you must have had an accomplice, all the same, didn’t you? Other than Draco Malfoy, someone in Hogsmeade, someone who was able to slip Katie the…aaaah…” Dumbledore closed his eyes again and nodded, as though he was about to fall asleep. “Of course…Rosmerta. How long has she been under the Imperius Curse?”

“Got there at last, have you?” Nott taunted. Draco hadn’t even known about this part of the plan. All he’d know was to stay away from the Three Broomsticks that day that now seemed centuries ago.

There was another yell from below, rather louder than the last. Theo looked nervously over his shoulder again, then back at Dumbledore, who went on, “So poor Rosmerta was forced to lurk in her own bathroom and pass that necklace to any Hogwarts student who entered the room unaccompanied? And the poisoned mead…well, naturally, Rosmerta was able to poison it for you before she sent the bottle to Slughorn, believing that it was to be my Christmas present. Yes, very neat…very neat. Poor Mr. Filch would not, of course, think to check a bottle of Rosmerta’s. Tell me, how have you been communicating with her? I thought we had all methods of communication in and out of the school monitored.”

“Enchanted coins,” Nott announced, louder than he’d been talking previously, clearly aiming the message at Draco, though his wand hand was shaking badly. “I had one and she had the other and I could send her messages.”

Draco turned to face Harry under the protection of the invisibility cloak, and found the Gryffindor already looking at him. All Draco could do as an explanation was shake his head. Because, no, he hadn’t given Nott that idea. He hadn’t even suspected Nott had found out about the D.A. communicating that way during the previous school year, and he’d assumed his own coin was lost somewhere in Grimmauld Place.

“Now, about tonight,” Dumbledore went on, “I am a little puzzled about how it happened. You knew that I had left the school? But of course,” he answered his own question, “Rosmerta saw me leaving, she tipped you off using your ingenious coins, I’m sure.”

“That’s right,” said Malfoy. “But she said you were just going for a drink, you’d be back.”

“Well, I certainly did have a drink…and I came back…after a fashion,” mumbled Dumbledore. “So, you decided to spring a trap for me?”

“We put the Dark Mark over the tower and get you to hurry up here, to see who’d been killed,” Nott explained, and it went a long way to show Draco just how little anyone trusted him in all of this. It was only now painfully clear that the entire thing is a punishment. Take a boy estranged from his father, force him into a murderous plot and deny him the ability to tell anyone, promising a sure-fire death if he did. Even with his lips sealed, no one had disclosed the entirety of the plan to him. “And it worked!”

“Well…yes and no,” Dumbledore said. “But am I to take it, then, that nobody has been murdered?”

“Someone’s dead,” Nott said, and his voice seemed to go up an octave as he said it. “One of your people. I don’t know who, it was dark. I stepped over the body. I was supposed to be waiting up here when you got back, only your Phoenix lot got in the way.” Draco’s stomach turned. He hadn’t known that had been a person. He had nearly tripped over that body. Who the fuck was it?

“Yes, they tend to do that,” said Dumbledore.

There was a bang and shouts from below, louder than ever. It sounded as though people were fighting on the actual spiral staircase that led to where Dumbledore and Nott stood, Draco’s heart thundering unheard and invisible in his chest. Guilt and revulsion making him feel like he was about to be sick.

“There is little time, one way or another,” Dumbledore announced. “So let us discuss your options, Theodore.”

“My options!” Nott laughed humourlessly. “I’m standing here with a wand – I’m about to kill you!”

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

“I haven’t got any options!” Nott insisted, and he was suddenly white as Dumbledore. “I’ve got to do it! He’ll kill me! He’ll kill my whole family!”

Harry’s grip on Draco tightened, like the statement had reminded him that Draco was supposed to be actively helping instead of hiding, and perhaps a stronger hand refusing to let the boy go would be enough to stop the unbreakable vow from setting into place and taking Draco’s life.

“I appreciate the difficulty of your position,” said Dumbledore. “Why else do you think I have not confronted you before now? Because I knew that you would have been murdered if Lord Voldemort came to realise that I suspected you.” Nott winced at the sound of the name. “I did not dare speak to you of the mission with which I knew you had been entrusted, in case he used Legilimency against you,” continued Dumbledore. “But now at last we can speak plainly to each other. No harm has been done, you have hurt nobody, though you are very lucky that your unintentional victims survived. I can help you, Theodore.”

“No, you can’t,” Theo insisted, his wand hand shaking very badly indeed. “Nobody can. He told me to do it or he’ll kill me. I’ve got no choice. You’re at my mercy.”

“No, Theodore,” said Dumbledore quietly. “The Order could protect your family. It is my mercy, and not yours, that matters now.”

Theo did not speak. His mouth was open, his wand hand still trembling. Draco thought he saw it lowering. But suddenly footsteps were thundering up the stairs, and a second later Nott was buffeted out of the way as four people in black robes burst through the door onto the ramparts. Draco started trembling, his breathing accelerating and Harry’s grip on him grew somehow even tighter, only now in a calming way, as his thumb stroked small comforting patterns across Draco’s ribs. The two of them gazed in terror upon the four newcommers. It seemed the Death Eaters had won the fight below. One simple Revelio and the two of them would be found out, hiding here like cowards under an invisibility cloak.

A lumpy-looking man with an odd, lopsided leer gave a wheezy giggle. “Dumbledore cornered!” he said, and then turned to a stocky little woman who looked as though she could be his sister and who was grinning eagerly. “Dumbledore wandless, Dumbledore alone! Well done, Theo, well done! Now where’s the other one?”

“Do not dare move,” Harry warned into his boyfriend’s ear, nearly soundless.

“Good evening, Amycus,” said Dumbledore calmly, as though welcoming the man to a tea party, successful in distracting the four people from wondering about Draco's whereabouts. “And you’ve brought Alecto too…Charming.”

The woman gave an angry little titter. “Think your little jokes’ll help you on your deathbed then?” she jeered.

“Jokes? No, no, these are manners,” replied Dumbledore.

“Do it,” said the stranger standing nearest to Theo, a big, rangy man with matted grey hair and whiskers, whose black Death Eater’s robes looked uncomfortably tight. He had a voice like none that Draco had ever heard – a rasping bark of a voice. The smell of dirt, sweat, and, unmistakably, of blood coming from him was so strong that Draco could smell him all the way down through the floorboards. His filthy hands had long yellowish nails. Draco understood who it was instantly. Though not having yet encountered the man face-to-face (no doubt something he had to thank his mother for), the stories that followed the werewolf from one empty nursery to the next were chilling enough to be aware of even from a distance.

“Is that you, Fenrir?” asked Dumbledore.

“That’s right,” he answered. “Pleased to see me, Dumbledore?”

“No, I cannot say that I am.”

Greyback grinned, showing pointed teeth. Blood trickled down his chin and he licked his lips slowly, obscenely. “But you know how much I like kids, Dumbledore.”

“Am I to take it that you are attacking even without the full moon now? This is most unusual. You have developed a taste for human flesh that cannot be satisfied once a month?”

“That’s right,” said Fenrir Greyback. “Shocks you that, does it, Dumbledore? Frightens you?” the disgusting man asked, the haunting grin on his lips only spreading wider, even when it looked like it couldn’t possibly, the man’s, or rather, the werewolf’s features continued distorting.

“Well, I cannot pretend it does not disgust me a little,” said Dumbledore. “And, yes, I am a little shocked that Theodore here invited you, of all people, into the school where his friends live.”

“I didn’t,” Nott breathed. He was not looking at Fenrir. He did not seem to want to even glance at him. “I didn’t know he was going to come–”

“I wouldn’t want to miss a trip to Hogwarts, Dumbledore,” Greyback rasped. “Not when there are throats to be ripped out…Delicious, delicious helpless little baby first-years.” He raised a yellow fingernail and picked at his front teeth, leering at Dumbledore. “I could do you for afters, Dumbledore.”

“No,” the fourth Death Eater said sharply. He had a heavy, brutal-looking face. “We’ve got orders. Theo’s got to do it. Now, Theo, and quickly.”

Nott was showing less resolution than ever. He looked terrified as he stared into Dumbledore’s face, which was even paler, and rather lower than usual, as he had slid so far down the rampart wall.

“He’s not long for this world anyway, if you ask me!” said the lopsided man, to the accompaniment of his sister’s wheezing giggles. “Look at him – what’s happened to you, then, Dumby?”

“Oh, weaker resistance, slower reflexes, Amycus,” Dumbledore mused. “Old age, in short. One day, perhaps, it will happen to you…if you are lucky.”

“What’s that mean, then?” the Death Eater yelled, suddenly violent. “Always the same, weren’t yeh, Dumby? Talking and doing nothing. I don’t even know why the Dark Lord’s bothering to kill yer! Come on, Theo, do it!”

But at that moment there were renewed sounds of scuffling from below and a voice shouted, “They’ve blocked the stairs – Reducto! REDUCTO !” Draco could breathe normally again. These four had not eliminated all opposition, but merely broken through the fight to the top of the tower, and, by the sound of it, created a barrier behind them.

“Now, Theo, quickly!” the brutal-faced man ordered angrily, but Nott’s hand was shaking so badly that he could barely aim.

“I’ll do it,” Fenrir snarled, moving toward Dumbledore with his hands outstretched and his teeth bared.

“I said no!” shouted the brutal-faced man. There was a flash of light and the werewolf was blasted out of the way. He hit the ramparts and staggered, looking furious. Draco’s heart was hammering so hard it seemed impossible that nobody could hear him standing there, imprisoned by Harry’s arms and hidden under the cloak.

“Theo, do it or stand aside so one of us–” screeched the woman, but at that very moment, the door to the ramparts burst open once more and there stood Severus, his wand clutched in his hand as his black eyes swept the scene, from Dumbledore slumped against the wall, to the four Death Eaters, including the enraged werewolf, and Nott.

“We’ve got a problem, Snape,” the lumpy Amycus said, whose eyes and wand were fixed alike upon Dumbledore, “the boy doesn’t seem able–”

But just then Draco heard someone else call his godfather’s name, quite softly. “Severus…” The sound seemed to frighten Harry beyond anything he had experienced all evening. For the first time, Dumbledore was pleading. Severus said nothing, but walked forward and pushed Theo roughly out of the way. The three Death Eaters fell back without a word. Even the werewolf seemed cowed. Severus gazed for a moment at Dumbledore, and there was revulsion and hatred etched in the harsh lines of his face.

“Severus…please…” Dumbledore sounded so tired. There was something else in Severus’ eyes. Something Draco could never be able to name, and whenever he’d think back on this moment for the rest of his life, he’d wasn't certain how he knew exactly what was about to happen.

Snape raised his wand and pointed it directly at the headmaster. “Avada Kedavra!” A jet of green light shot from the end of Severus’ wand and hit Dumbledore squarely in the chest.

Draco had no time to be shocked at his godfather’s actions. He knew that Harry was about to run to hurl curses in every which direction, and he knew that the two of them, once found out, would be killed or brought to Voldemort in an instant, so he did what he knew he might not be forgiven for. Harry’s scream of horror never had the chance to leave him as Draco had already raised his wand and directed a wordless Petrificus Totalus at him, catching the Gryffindor in his arms and leaving him forced to watch as Dumbledore was blasted into the air. For a split second, the old man seemed to hang suspended beneath the shining skull, and then he fell slowly backward, like a great rag doll, over the battlements and out of sight.

Knowing he would be the only one to keep something close to a level head in the midst of all of this, Draco forced himself to remain in place, supporting Harry’s weight as he watched the Death Eaters hurriedly pile out. “Out of here, quickly,” Severus ordered, seizing Nott by the scruff of the neck and forcing him through the door ahead of the rest, but not before shooting the room around him a careful glance. And, perhaps Draco had imagined it, but he was almost certain his gaze had lingered on the spot in the floor through which Draco and Harry had watched everything playing out.

It felt like something untightened within Draco, and he knew that moment – Dumbledore was dead. His Unbreakable Bow was no longer, because the deed was done.

“I know you’re not one to follow orders, but please, please don’t do anything stupid,” Draco whispered against Harry’s forehead before kissing it and then removing the bind. Harry took one big breath, set his face into a scowl and rushed past Draco without a word.

Draco let himself have a moment. Just one. Just a little. Just a few breaths, before rushing after Harry.

Chapter Text

Draco rushed after Harry who rushed after the Death Eaters, and the castle itself felt to have understood something terrible had happened. Severus and Nott seemed to have forced their way through the fight unscathed. Harry leapt the last ten steps of the spiral staircase and stopped where he landed, his wand raised. The dimly-lit corridor was full of dust, half the ceiling seemed to have fallen in, and a battle was raging before him, but even as Draco attempted to make out who was fighting whom, he heard the heated voice shout, “It’s over, time to go!” and saw Severus disappearing around the corner at the far end of the corridor.

As Harry plunged after them, one of the fighters detached themselves from the fray and flew at him. It was Greyback. Draco’s blood ran cold for the Merlin-knows-which time that day. He acted upon instinct, the need to protect Harry above all else making cold, calculated decisions in his stead. He could feel the words of an Unforgivable on his tongue, and it took everything in him to instead spit out “Petrificus Totalus!”

Draco stilled when Harry’s eyes met his, something unreadable swimming in his gaze, even if it was only a second at most. With a stupendous effort the Gryffindor pushed the werewolf off and onto the floor as a jet of green light came flying toward him; he ducked and ran, headfirst, into the fight. Fuck. Shit. Idiot.

Draco whizzed past, desperate to keep Harry in his eyeline. He couldn’t lose sight of him. Not tonight. Not when the boy’s targets were murderers. He heard his own footsteps echo through the castle, paying no mind to the confused people all around him.

The castle was a war field. There were smears of blood on the flagstones, and several terrified students stood huddled against the walls, one or two still cowering with their arms over their faces. The giant Gryffindor hourglass had been hit by a curse, and the rubies within were still falling, with a loud rattle, onto the ground below.

Draco dashed through the front door, breathless, his lungs on fire. The trip from the top of the Astronomy Tower down to the very bottom of the castle was already a burden. Having to do it while running and trying not to panic about the most reckless person in the world being irrational only made it worse.

It felt as though they were hurtling through space. Shouted hexes rang in the night from the castle’s open door, and Draco knew the smart thing to do, the right thing to do, would be to head back and offer any aid he could. He knew how to fight. Harry had made sure of that. He could help – he was smarter than the Death Eaters anyway. But the sight of Harry running into the darkness all lone, chasing after danger like it was the simplest thing in the world, made him queasy.

A laugh sounded in the distance in front of them. A laugh Draco would know anywhere. One that had entertained him plenty when he’d been small, but one his mother tended to shield him from as he got older, never leaving him alone with its wielder. His aunt Bella had joined the fight. Draco had never been told exactly why Bellatrix couldn’t be entirely trusted, but he knew that any decision that came from his mother was a sound one, which only meant that he couldn’t let Harry anywhere near that woman.

There had been motion-less bodies on the ground in the school. There weren’t any outside. At least, not yet. Though he did his best to keep up with Harry who only had one thing on his mind at the moment, Draco remained almost painfully vigilant. He looked around, trying to spot any threat to either of them, all while knowing all too well that a single misstep, a single trip or falter would send him hurdling into the ground and he would lose Harry.

He refused to sit and wait for bad news. He was eagerly determined to prevent them. Even if Harry didn’t want him there. Even if Harry would be angry with him for the rest of their lives. It won’t matter much, if the rest of their lives only means the next few minutes.

He could just make out four figures racing across the lawn, heading for the gates beyond which they could Disapparate, one of them dancing maniacly as she went. The cold night air ripped at Draco’s lungs as he tore after Harry. There was a flash of light in the distance that momentarily silhouetted his quarry. He did not know what it was but Harry had continued to run nonetheless, not yet near enough to get a good aim with a curse.

Something made Harry hesitate. Draco could see the Gryffindor having understood something Draco himself had yet to deduce. He couldn’t believe they actually had a moment to catch their breaths – if it had been Draco’s decision, they would have done that ages ago, but Harry was a lot more unapologetically steadfast, and all Draco can ever do is go along and try to protect him.

But then he finally understood. The flashes of light, the fire, they were coming from Hagrid’s hut. Something caught Draco hard in the small of the back and he fell forward, his face smacking the ground, blood pouring out of his nose. He knew, even as he rolled over, his wand ready, that someone had caught up with them. If Draco was caught by Death Eaters, he would be a sure goner. “Impedimenta!” he heard Harry yell as he rolled over, crouching close to the dark ground, and miraculously his jinx hit one of them, who stumbled and fell, tripping up the other. “Fucking hide! Now!” Harry ordered, anger thick in his voice.

Draco couldn’t get up to run after him. He could not. His face hurt, and the muscles in his legs had given out the second he wasn’t using them. All he could do was watch as Harry disappeared into the night, throwing all caution to the wind, even if he hadn’t had much of it in the first place. Draco was sat in the middle of the Hogwarts grounds, sweating, breathless and scared.

Once he gained enough willpower to rise from the grass, he marched over to the two pricks that had dared to come between him and his boyfriend, wand gripped tightly in his hand, blood oozing down his chin. He didn’t even know which hexes he used, but he rained them down the two Death Eaters until they were screaming, or crying, or laughing. Draco honestly couldn’t tell and he honestly didn’t care. He couldn’t recall ever having felt this much rage in his body. It clouded his thoughts. It made him borderline blind. It felt like the only thing he would ever feel, for the rest of his life, would be rage. If anything happened to Harry because of the two of them, he would storm down to what was once his home to kill Voldemort himself.

Draco heard Harry’s interrupted attempts at Crucio twice, both times cut off by Severus before he could finish the word. Draco could but watch. “No Unforgivable Curses from you, Potter!” he shouted over the rushing of the flames, Hagrid’s yells, and the wild yelping of the trapped Fang. “You haven’t got the nerve or the ability.”

“Incarc–” Harry roared, but Severus deflected the spell with an almost lazy flick of his arm. “Fight back!” Harry screamed at him. “Fight back, you cowardly–”

“Coward, did you say, Potter?” Severus shouted. “Your father would never attack me unless it was four on one, what would you call him, I wonder?”

“Stupe–”

“Blocked again and again and again until you learn to keep your mouth shut and your mind closed, Potter!” Severus sneered, deflecting the curse once more. “Now come!” he shouted at the huge Death Eater strutting towards Harry, clearly having missed Draco standing nearby, not nearly as visible as the fire. “It is time to be gone, before the Ministry turns up–”

“Impedi–” Before he could finish this jinx, Harry was brought to his knees in what was clear pain, bringing Draco’s limbs to move before he could even do the smart thing and stay in the darkness.

“No!” roared Snape’s voice and the pain stopped as suddenly as it had started. Harry lay curled on the dark grass, clutching his wand and panting; somewhere overhead Snape was shouting, “Have you forgotten our orders? Potter belongs to the Dark Lord – we are to leave him! Go! Go!”

Draco’s blind rage seemed to have been transferred onto Harry, then. And the moment he saw the other boy getting back onto his feet, relief flooding his veins, so did unbearable pain. White-hot and blinding, each nerve-ending on fire. He didn’t feel his legs giving out on him. He didn’t notice his already-blood-stained face falling right into the cold ground. Even the cold grass was no relief. There would never be relief again. There was no telling who had attacked him, but he wouldn’t put it past retaliation for his very own previous actions. There wasn’t a single thought in his mind beyond wanting this to stop. Wanting anything that would end this. Death sounded pretty sweet right about now. And when his consciousness gave out, well, who could blame him for not noticing that either?

Snippets of other people flooded in and out of his field of hearing like demented dreams. Someone was shouting no to call them a coward. Someone else was calling out for Hagrid. When Draco came to, the pain was gone, but the fear of it lingered like a heavy shadow. Harry was nowhere around, neither were the suspected culprits. The fire in Hagrid’s hut had been put out. Draco was left all alone. All he could do, besides wallowing in self-pity, was head back.

Many of the castle’s windows were lit now. He could imagine, clearly, the scenes inside as people moved from room to room, telling each other that Death Eaters had got in, that the Dark Mark was shining over Hogwarts, that somebody must have been killed. The very building seemed to have stilled in a supernatural manner. Students were leaving their dorms to see what’s happened. Teachers and staff were treading out in their sleep clothes to find a reason for the commotion, prepared to punish whoever had caused a ruckus in the middle of the night, but the eeriness and the presence of Order members must have been enough of a nod to things not being as simple as expected.

A crowd had gathered at the foot of the Astronomy tower, a mass huddled around the spot where Draco knew the cadaver of one of the greatest wizards in history could be found. Draco moved over slowly, feeling dazed. None of this night felt real. His body no longer felt real either, now that it knew what an Unforgivable felt like. And seeing a murder take place was no walk in the park for his emotional state, either.

Truth be told, Draco felt exhausted and drained. There was nothing left inside him. He barely had energy left to think, and when he saw Harry, clinging to Dumbledore’s body like a lifeline, all of his thoughts collapsed.

And when Harry wept, Draco didn’t hold him. He couldn’t. Because he’d been up there, and he’d been to blame. Because the whole school was watching. Because Harry would lash out, and Draco wouldn’t be able to take that in stride.

Dumbledore’s eyes were closed. If not for the strange angle of his arms and legs, he might have been sleeping. Draco couldn’t look at him too long. His eyes kept snapping shut in order to tune it out. The crowd was murmuring all around him, but Draco kept his eyes only on Harry. Muted requests for Lumos sounded all around him, wands raising to pay respects. Draco didn’t know he was joining in solidarity until his wand was already in the air.

Pansy had found him, her hand gripping his the moment she was at his side. Harry was refusing to get off Dumbledore. “Go, get him,” Pansy ushered. All Draco could do was shake his head. Harry despised him. He was sure of it. “Drac, it’s over. They’re gone, you’re free to do as you please.”

“He will blame me,” Draco whispered, “I stopped him. Severus got away because I made Harry stay away.”

“He loves you,” Pansy promised.

“His mentor is dead because he was too busy protecting me from Death Eaters,” Draco admitted, tears stinging his eyes.

“He still loves you,” Pansy sounded more convinced than Draco was before nodding to someone further in the crowd. Draco looked over curiously, seeing Ginevra pushing her way through the crowd to get to the front. Incomprehensible voices battered him, sobs and shouts and wails stabbed the night, but Harry and Ginevra walked on, back up the steps into the entrance hall. People were peering at them, gawking like they were zoo animals. For once, Draco wouldn’t be opposed to rumours circulating about Harry and a someone who wasn’t Draco, because he trusted Ginevra with the boy.

“Everyone’s in the hospital wing,” Pansy informed him and immediately, Draco was filled with dread. His immediate reaction – worrying about Harry James Potter – was illogical now that he’d seen the boy well and fine just a second ago. But he still had friends in the castle, and they still had plenty of blood to spill and life to lose. “No one’s dead, don’t worry,” Pansy said, seeing his reaction.

“I stepped over a body,” Draco remembered with a chill. He hadn’t had time to think about it at the moment, but he was well and truly thinking about it now.

“It was Bill, he’s fine.”

“Who?”

“Ginny’s brother,” Pansy explained, dragging him away from all the people.

Draco struggled against her grip. “Pans, he doesn’t want to see me.” His heart was hammering. It was one thing seeing it in Harry’s eyes. It would be completely different having to hear it from his mouth. The mouth Draco loved so much. “Please, don’t make me go, please, I can’t face him–”

“Okay, alright, Draco,” Pansy said calmly, cupping his face in a way that the only thing he could see was her. “We won’t go, but you can’t hold him off forever.”

“No, but he can, he’s stubborn.” Draco said.

“Half of your face is covered in blood,” Pansy pointed out.

Somewhere out in the darkness, a phoenix was singing in a way Draco had never heard before: a pained lament of terrible beauty. Grief-stricken and haunting. Like his own grief, though born of a completely different reason, turned magically to song that echoed across the grounds and through the castle windows.

“So, fix me up yourself, I’m not going up there,” Draco said stubbornly, the bird still echoing through the empty hallways pf the school.

Pansy sighed, clearly understanding there’s not much use in fighting him on it, and nodded towards the castle. Draco could only hope she wouldn’t petrify him and drag him up to the infirmary by his ears against his will. But she walked him calmly to the Slytherin common room and placed him on a settee, failing to warn him before her admittedly successful attempt at Episkey, then shushing him as he yelled out in pain and wiping his face clean with a cloth.

Draco sat obediently, waiting patiently. He knew how to be still – growing up with Lucius Malfoy will do that to a person. Besides, there was no energy within him to burn by fidgeting. Sure, he was nervous about seeing Harry again, and there was a part of him that pondered running away before they had the chance to meet once more, but there was simply nothing left inside him to keep him nervous. All he felt was hollow.

The worst part was – he knew exactly what life without Harry Potter was like. He knew how it felt to be forced to stay away from the boy and what agony it was to miss him. Last time, he’d been too much of a coward to break it off himself. And this time he would have to face it. This time he would have to look Harry in the eye.

“Everyone’s been looking for you!” Blaise said, storming into the common room in a manner unfitting to him. “McGonagall will want to speak with you,” he continued. “Why aren’t you up there anyway?”

“He’s under the impression someone doesn’t want to see him,” Pansy explained cockily. Draco knew they liked to make fun of him, but this was really not the time, in his own humble opinion, at least.

“What? What are you on about?” Blaise asked, eyebrows raised. Draco only now noticed his best friend’s robe was askew, dark pyjamas sticking out the bottom, and he was breathless. “Come on, Malfoy,” he said, nudging his head towards the spiral stairs that lead up to the castle.

“I’ve already tried that, you amateur,” Pansy scoffed.

“Can you come with me to see McGonagall, at least?” Blaise said, sighing like he was giving up. He shared a look with Pansy. Something Draco didn’t bother to understand. He was too tired for this.

“Can’t I talk to her tomorrow?” Draco said, getting up and walking past Blaise, “just tell her I was already asleep when you found me.”

He could practically feel the two of them fuming behind him, Pansy about to call him a dramatic egomaniac, but he kept walking until he’d reached his bed, and even then, he flogged himself onto it like he had no regard for his bones remaining intact. Only when the green curtain on his bed had been drawn did he allow his body to halt and his mind to wallow.

Severus Snape. His mother’s most trusted confident. The man Draco had considered a father figure despite his anger bursts towards Gryffindors in classes or his inability to express emotions in a healthy way. His godfather. A murderer.

No. A traitor.

All lessons were suspended, all examinations postponed – that much they were able to learn from a notice on the board in Slytherin common room. By the following day’s noon, Draco could no longer avoid heaving above ground. A lack of appetite was a perfectly understandable reason not to have breakfast, especially after such an evening. But anytime someone entered the common room, they would find Draco just to let him know McGonagall was looking for him. If only he had Harry’s Invisibility Cloak to hide from the boy. Ironic.

He headed to the headmaster’s office as Blaise had instructed, not lingering anywhere. He was raised to avoid confrontation unless it was to put someone in their place. This was a good time to exercise those particular family values. Before he could even begin pondering on a password, the griffin swirled to reveal a staircase in invitation. Here goes nothing, he thought.

“Come in, Malfoy, take a seat,” his Transfiguration professor called out from somewhere he couldn’t spot her yet. He took careful strides forward, not too fast, but not so slow that she would think him suspicious, in case she could see him after all. He sat in one of the chairs opposite Dumbledore’s desk, well, her desk now, since she’s the deputy headmistress, and waited. “Tea?” she offered.

“No, thank you, professor,” Draco said simply. Until he was accused of something, he would force himself to remain calm.

She hummed, seeming displeased. He wasn’t trying to be blatantly rude. He just wanted the opportunity to get out of there the second their conversation was done, without the added weight of having to remain behind to finish his cuppa. “Have a biscuit,” she said almost like it was an order. Draco hadn’t had any breakfast or lunch. A chocolate-covered digestive sounded like heaven right about now.

“Thank you,” he said politely and reached forward to grab one.

“Malfoy, I don’t want to hold you,” McGonagall insisted, sitting across from him at the headmaster’s desk. “Why don’t you quickly tell me what happened last night, so that we could get this over with and you could return to your friends?”

“Dumbledore died last night,” Draco said simply. He hadn’t spent a single second pondering his own alibi, too exhausted at the end of yesterday and too worried about Harry to make sure he wasn’t going to Azkaban for participating in a plot to murder.

“You know perfectly well what I mean,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Where were you at the time?"

“Up there with Harry, hiding from Death Eaters,” Draco said, knowing that keeping his answers short was probably the best way not to get lost in his own lies, if it comes to that. For now, he was telling the truth.

“Hiding where?” McGonagall probed.

Draco wasn’t sure of she knew of Harry’s cloak, so he had to get perhaps a little creative there. “In the storeroom right under,” Draco answered simply, “the one with all those covered-up statues and globes. The draught down there is awful, it should really be looked into.”

“I’ll make a note of that,” McGonagall dragged, very obviously not making a note of it. “When did you get up there? Was it with Potter?”

Draco could tell she must have already known the answer, or at least half of it. She may not have known where he’d come from, but she clearly had information about how Harry got there. “Theodore seemed to want an eyewitness. That, or he thought I’d help him. I happened to be on his way.”

“So, your being there was not premeditated?” she asked carefully.

“Not by me,” Draco said, and it wasn’t a lie. Sure, Nott had warned him, but never about a specific time and place. And Draco had, coincidentally, managed to get himself right into Nott’s way.

The professor watched him for a long moment before asking another question. “Did you see it all play out?”

Draco could only hope she’d believed he hadn’t been lying. “Heard, saw, smelt, even,” Draco confirmed. “Greyback,” he explained, when she looked at him like she was trying to decide whether he was insane or not.

“Who killed Albus Dumbledore?” she then asked, face unwaveringly serious.

Draco swallowed dryly. It still pained him to think about it. To see the man, that he trusted so instinctively, raise his wand and kill someone who trusted him just as much. A part of him still refused to believe he was that evil. Maybe just temporarily confused. Maybe just playing a part, as unlikely as it was. “Severus Snape.”

McGonagall watched him for a few moments longer before nodding curtly. “Thank you, Malfoy, that will be all. Do grab another one, I didn’t see you at breakfast,” she added, raising the bowl of biscuits towards him before he could leave. He obeyed, but rushed out of there the moment he could.

Hogsmeade was filled to the brim by witches and wizards pouring into the village, preparing to pay their last respects to Dumbledore. Some excitement was caused among the younger students, who had never seen it before, when a powder-blue carriage the size of a house, pulled by a dozen giant winged palominos, came soaring out of the sky in the late afternoon before the funeral and landed on the edge of the forest. A delegation of Ministry officials, including the Minister of Magic himself, was being accommodated within the castle.

Draco spent all his time with Pansy and Blaise, who seemed confused as to why Draco and Harry were unwilling to even look for one another, not to mention hold a conversation. The beautiful weather seemed to mock them. Draco could almost imagine how mice it would have been if Dumbledore hadn’t died, but Draco’s Vow had been somehow removed nonetheless. He could have sat out there with Harry.

“Hermione says they’re still looking for Snape, but no sign,” Blaise informed Draco.

“Of course, there isn’t,” Pansy sighed. “No Voldemort, No Snape. It’s not like they’ve been overly successful in finding any of their lot.” Draco was thankful to be able to just listen to his friends. He was still able to find out new information, but neither of them required his input, if he wasn’t willing to give any out.

On the morning of the funeral, he rose early, dreams of that faithful night still keeping him up. The Hogwarts Express would be leaving not long after the funeral. Downstairs, he found the mood in the Great Hall subdued. Everybody was wearing their dress robes and no one seemed very hungry. McGonagall had left the throne-like chair in the middle of the staff table empty. Severus’ seat was taken by the Minister.

Once the solemn joke of a breakfast had passed, they filed out from behind their benches in near silence. Slughorn was at the head of the Slytherin column, wearing magnificent, long, emerald green robes embroidered with silver. The whole school headed towards the Lake. The warmth of the sun caressed his face as they followed their professors in silence to the place where hundreds of chairs had been set out in rows. An aisle ran down the centre of them. There was a marble table standing at the front, all chairs facing it. It was the most beautiful summer’s day.

Draco did not seek out Harry in fear of the other boy looking back. One funeral was enough for a single day. He was not prepared to mourn something else.

People were whispering to each other, it sounded like a breeze in the grass, but the birdsong was louder by far. The crowd continued to swell. Order members, journalists, Ministry officials, random witches and wizards Draco had never seen and most likely would never know the names of – all undoubtedly having once been Dumbledore’s students. The man had been adored by many, trusted by the wizarding world to set an example and offer solid advice. A man Draco had never entirely been fond of, but Harry had loved dearly.

There was a mermaid choir, just below the surface, just as eery as Draco remembered from Harry’s golden egg, and just as beautiful. Hagrid was walking slowly up the aisle between the chairs. He was crying quite silently, his face gleaming with tears, and in his arms, wrapped in purple velvet spangled with golden stars, was what Draco knew to be Dumbledore’s body. Pansy, though never having shown much affinity to their late headmaster, was clutching Draco’s hand, when she and Blaise sat on either side of him, instead of their significant others.

A little tufty-haired man in plain black robes had got to his feet and stood now in front of Dumbledore’s body. Draco could not hear what he was saying. Odd words floated back to them over the hundreds of heads. “Nobility of spirit”…“intellectual contribution”…“greatness of heart”. It didn’t mean much. Draco knew Harry wouldn’t be a fan.

And then, without warning, it swept over him, the dreadful truth, more completely and undeniably than it had until now. Dumbledore was dead, gone, and Draco had seen it happen. He chanced a look over at the Gryffindors. Harry was not looking to the front where the speech was being fumbled, or where a body was laid in a white marble grave, no, he was looking at the Lake, tears threatening to spill from his eyes. Draco followed his gaze, as difficult as it was to tare his eyes away from the boy.

There was movement among the trees. The centaurs had come to pay their respects too. They did not move into the open but Draco saw them standing quite still, half hidden in shadow, watching the wizards, their bows hanging at their sides. Draco remembered his first nightmarish trip into the forest, escorted by a cowardly dog and the bravest boy he would come to know.

The little man in black had stopped speaking at last and resumed his seat. Draco waited for somebody else to get to their feet. He expected speeches, probably from the Minister, but nobody moved. A white flame set Dumbledore’s body on fire, the smoke rising in the shape of a phoenix. Once it settled, the starry cloth and the body underneath it was no longer. In its place was a white marble tomb, encasing Dumbledore’s body.

A shower of arrows soared through the air, but they fell far short of the crowd. It was, Draco knew, the centaurs’ tribute before he saw them turn tail and disappear back into the cool trees. Likewise, the merpeople sank slowly back into the green water and were lost from view.

It was only minutes later, when Harry’s frame moved through the crowd and towards the castle. Draco wasn’t sure when he made the decision to follow him, but it might have been around the time Pansy pushed him forward encouragingly.

Draco removed his robes half-way up the stairs, the late spring finally getting to him, leaving him in the white button-down of his uniform and his trousers. Harry appeared to have had the same idea, when Draco reached the top of the Astronomy tower to find him sitting on the ground, watching the distance.

“It was a lovely service,” Draco lied in lieu of greeting.

Harry continued looking at the view in front of him for a moment longer, not seeming surprised when hearing Draco’s voice, before answering. “It was alright.”

Draco went to sit next to him on the ground, almost expecting a half-hearted lecture on expensive trousers on dirty grounds. There were, for the first time since they’d known each other, no words. They had yet to face one another. It felt like pushing back the inevitable, and Draco could no longer take it. “You never told me where you and Dumbledore were,” Draco noted, yearning to have Harry speak to him.

“Looking for a horcrux. In this…cave in the sea. Ireland, I think,” Harry was near-silent. “That’s where I’ve been disappearing off to. Dumbledore held these…lessons for me, where he showed me memories that had to do with Voldemort. He told me not to tell you, so you wouldn’t be forced to make decisions that would end up killing you.”

Of course, Dumbledore had known. And it was true – if Draco had known what Harry had been doing, hiding that information from Nott would count as overstepping the Vow. He would have been dead. Merlin, he felt lucky.

“No one caught us, and Severus didn’t kill you,” Draco reminded him, “do you understand how good we have it?”

“It’s Felix Felicis. You’re under it, we both are,” Harry explained, “or, at least we were, for a while there.”

“I never took anything,” Draco said, entirely confused.

“I know, it…well, it spilled on the cloak, when I was in that cave with…Dumbledore,” he said, looking down on the ground, as if the evening finally caught up to him. “I’d taken it with me, but the bottle shattered and spilled all over the cloak. I only realised when I had you under the cloak. I was surprised that Nott hadn’t heard either of us moving away, and when the Death Eaters didn’t notice or even look for us, I understood what had happened.”

“So we, what? Breathed it in?” Draco asked, still unsure he understood how it had happened.

“Or I pressed it into your mouth when I covered it,” Harry supposed, eyes growing more regretful by the second. “I should have done something.”

“And get yourself killed? I would have never allowed that,” Draco promised.

Harry nodded. He knew that. “That book of mine, the Potions one?” Harry said after a little while of silence, seeming focussed on keeping the conversation going. He only continued, when Draco gave a hum of acknowledgement, “It was Snape’s. He was the prince. His mother was called Eileen prince, and his father had been a muggle, so…well…”

“Clever, actually,” Draco admitted. It was strange to have something so heavy lingering between them. They hadn’t had this problem since the very beginning of their fourth year in Hogwarts, and the beginning of their friendship. It hadn’t been awkward for Draco to talk to harry for so long, he now had no clue how to go about it.

“Draco?” he asked after a long while of just sitting and looking at the ground, again, only continuing, when the Slytherin muttered a quiet invitation for him to go on, “There were inferi there,” he seemed to remember distantly, and Draco’s blood ran cold as he continued. “They pulled me into the water, it was like they wanted to tear my skin off, but…one of them…he was, I don’t know…” Draco let him have a moment to gather his thought, afraid of pushing too hard. Harry had just had one of the most traumatic events of his life, he could break at any second. “One of them sort of wrapped itself around me. It almost felt like it knew who I was, but it didn’t try to hurt me. If anything, it was shielding me.”

Draco had never heard about inferi being anything other than cold, vicious, undead terrors. He had certainly never heard of one protecting prey. “Did it look like one of them?”

“It was definitely one of them,” Harry said, shivering, “there were tattoos on his arms, though.” Draco watched Harry staring into the distance absently for a while. “Oh, and there’s this,” he seemed to remember, pulling out a neatly-folded piece of parchment.

To the Dark Lord,

I know I will be dead long before you read this,

but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret.

I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can.

I face death in the hope that when you meet your match,

you will be mortal once more.

R.A.B

“R.A.B.?” Draco wondered.

“Dunno,” Harry said, opening an ancient-looking locket and placing the parchment back inside, “but this is fake.”

“All of that…”

“For nothing,” Harry confirmed.

Draco looked out into the highlands. Life was continuing. Sun had risen and wind was still accosting the Black Lake. Everything looked the same, other than the little hamlets nearby, some of which were destroyed simply for having been in the way of a rogue Death Eater of two as they fled the scene of their crimes. The world cared not for one dead man.

“Please don’t leave me,” Draco whispered, afraid to voice it. The thought alone of having to plead made him disheartened beyond belief, but he would be even more anguished if he’d never asked, and never known for sure.

“What?” Harry sounded almost scared. Merlin, it would be so easy to believe he was.

“Don’t break up with me. If you need time, tell me to fuck off and I’ll give it to you, but don’t tell me it’s done,” Draco muttered, still unwilling to look into Harry’s eyes.

“I was going to ask you not to break up with me,” Harry sounded confused.

“Why would I break up with you?” Draco asked, head snapping to finally look Harry in the eye.

“Why would I break up with you?” Harry ridiculed, like the thought that had terrified Draco for the last twelve hours hadn’t even crossed his mind.

“Because…I stopped you from going…” Draco was too stunned to speak.

“I thought you hated me for not listening to you and running after them,” Harry explained.

“You never listen to me,” Draco reminded him, still in shock, and still unable to look away from the Gryffindor’s green eyes.

“Yeah, well, straw that broke the camel’s back and all that,” Harry huffed, somehow in relief.

“I could never hate you,” Draco said immediately. “I will never hate you,” he corrected himself, making Harry laugh, and, fuck, if it wasn’t the most wonderful sound in the world. “You’ll still have me?” he asked, checking just to make sure.

Harry’s eyes slipped downward, and Draco was already prepared for the worst. A reluctant best not, perhaps, but the Gryffindor only seemed to be searching out his watch, because Draco’s wrist warmed up a moment later.

I love you.

Unable to resist the temptation, Draco leaned forward to press his mouth to Harry’s tenderly, timidly, in a way that had no possibility of shattering this momentary fragility. One that they would overcome, Draco was sure, but one that would linger for just a little longer like a fresh little angle for their relationship. Almost like they’d gone back to having a childish crush on each other. A sweet little thing. All nerves and blushes. Draco was honestly excited for it. Even if he knew, the moment they were off the train and in Grimmauld Place, they would both be doing everything in their power to get back to being Draco and Harry.

Chapter Text

The thing about almost breaking up with your boyfriend, as Draco was forced to find, was that the seemingly smart idea of giving him a little space felt like a fucking nightmare. Harry had been told to go back to living with his muggle relatives, and Draco was sent back to Andromeda’s for the summer. Draco couldn’t even see him. And Harry never sent a single letter. And it was killing him, the idea of having to wait for another two months until Harry’s birthday.

The thing was, Draco was no longer sure if he wanted to go back to Hogwarts in the first place. And he had no way of knowing what Harry was thinking, because the last time he’d seen him, he’d got a quick kiss on his cheek and Remus waving as he took Harry away from Draco. Ripped him right out of reality, apparating him to the one place Draco knew Harry had never considered home.

Now Draco sat on the beach every single day, wondering if Hedwig was growing just as antsy as Eagle while both of the two boys refused to take the first step. Draco spent his seventeenth birthday with his aunt, uncle and mother, Dora having promised to try to make it, but she never did. It was fine, Draco thought, he knew what the political climate in the wizarding world was, and he wasn’t one to insist on the Order pausing its work for the night just to celebrate his coming of age. Even if it would have been nice.

He'd woken up that morning with a strange sense of liberation, and the first thing he’d done, at four o’clock as the sun rose, was use his wand to turn on the light in his room. There were no sirens or ministry officials apparating into the house, not that he’d really expected there to be. He’d dug his wand out of the bottom of his trunk the previous evening, setting in on the nightstand in anticipation.

Draco apparated downstairs and into the kitchen, almost giving his mother a heart attack, but she laughed it off. The woman was so unexpectedly happy to see Draco returned from school in one piece, she seemed to have entirely forgot her previous feelings. Draco suspected his father had something to do with that.

He was surprised to find an anonymous letter, clearly from Sirius and Remus, on the porch, congratulating him on this milestone and saying they needed to speak to him and Harry as soon as possible. Draco would have been worried, if not for the enclosed Buckbeak feather. If Sirius had time to add something to tease Draco, surely it couldn’t be an emergency.

It was later in the month when he’d finally managed to get good enough in apparating to trust himself to pass the exam and get his licence. Narcissa wasn’t too happy about going into the ministry to allow this, but she took him nonetheless. Draco passed on his first try.

Andromeda had insisted on another celebration. One more instance of cake and butterbeers where Draco felt just as lonely, despite there being people all around him, as during his birthday. He pointedly did not actively sigh every time he thought about the blatant lack of a certain Gryffindor around the table.

His excitement about this newfound freedom of unlimited travel, however, did not die down. With every meal and every beach walk, Draco found himself wondering what possible reason Sirius and Remus could have to want to speak to both him and Harry. If there was some arranged marriage plot seventeen years in the making between pureblood families, Draco should like to know about it sooner rather than later, and his patience was beginning to quite rapidly wilt away.

So, the second he legally could, and Narcissa had left to the shops, Draco apparated straight to the doorstep of Number twelve, Grimmauld place and entered without knocking. The had never been point of that particular politeness in this house before. No one could ever hear the knocking anyway, and, besides, the only people that had information of this place were generally welcome to come and go as they pleased.

Draco caught glimpses of a conversation, and briefly cringed, thinking he possibly should have announced his arrival via a letter this morning, since the house, even with its blatant security risks, still was Order headquarters and showing up unannounced was likely the most idiotic way to die.

“Sirius?” he called out, walking into the house slowly. This way his voice would be recognised before anyone heard him coming and decided to attack the intruder. “Remus?” he tried, when the conversation died down, but no one answered to greet him.

When he reached the kitchen, half a dozen pairs of eyes fell on him, watching him. His first thought, oddly, was of whether they all knew he’d been there the night Dumbledore had died. McGonagall was sat at the large table, so, he assumed they’d been informed of this particular nugget of information. Remus and Sirius he was already expecting to be around. The other three were Moody, Dora and one of the two oldest Weasley brothers. Draco knew it was Bill, but there were awful gashes across his face that took him by surprise at first glance. They had certainly not been there on Christmas.

“I, uh,” Draco said and cleared his throat, “I didn’t mean to interrupt. Sirius expressed a need to talk to me.”

“Right you are, little Black, let’s walk,” Sirius said brightly and left the room with a nod to Remus, a lingering pat on the werewolf’s shoulder. Like a silent I’ll take care of this. Draco had always been slightly in awe of Sirius and Remus’ lack of shame about their relationship. They were the touchy kind. As were Draco and Harry, but more so in private. Sirius, ever the exhibitionist, enjoyed showing the world just how possessive over Remus he was. Draco found it endlessly endearing.

“Is everything alright?” Draco wondered once the door had closed, and Sirius was leading him up the stairs in no seeming hurry.

The older wizard laughed a quick and hearty ha. “Well, as alright as it can be in these wonderfully dim times,” Sirius said, sounding quite light about it all.

“How is Remus?” Draco asked, having been stowed away in a beach house for the last two full moons and not having been around in case anyone suddenly needed a remedy brewed. His fingers were starting to itch for fresh ingredients and the practice, and his cauldron was begging to be used.

Sirius shrugged, his footsteps deliberately slow on their walk. “He’s been better, but he’s been worse, too,” he supposed. “Though, for that second one I’ve been known to be responsible for once or twice,” he admitted, the thought obviously making him uncomfortable, even if he was still willing to mention it. “Here’s the thing,” he said quickly, getting to business. “Discuss it amongst yourself and Harry, I don’t think you’ll need much convincing, though,” Sirius said, taking slow steps up the stairs like they were taking a leisurely stroll through a park.

“What’s the thing?” Draco asked as they neared the highest floor of the house and Sirius aimed for the room Draco knew so very well and longed for so often whether he was at Hogwarts or his aunt’s.

Sirius opened the door, looking over the sight before him like he’d never seen it up until this very moment, “D’you like this house?” he asked suddenly, making Draco wonder why the change of topic.

“Well, of course,” Draco shrugged. What wasn’t there to love? His own little hideaway where he was encouraged to share a space with the one person he wanted around at all times, a warm meal and a comforting person or two to always turn to, a mountain of ancient books he could never get bored with all wrapped up in a neat albeit dusty package.

“Like this room?” Sirius wondered, stepping inside and inspecting the ceiling like an almighty landlord. Draco wasn’t sure why that made him so nervous. He and Harry had been quite good about making sure it was clean whenever they had to leave it, even if they’d had no magical ways of doing that yet.

“Very much so,” Draco nodded, unable to count all the times he’d kissed Harry in that bed, or up against the door, or, once, when Harry had woken from a particularly dreadful nightmare and gone downstairs to get water, Draco had taken his mind off it on top of the desk.  

“D’you want it?”

Draco looked at him, convinced he’d misheard, or at least misunderstood his cousin. Did he want what? He had been under the impression that he and Harry already were the only ones to use this room. Salazar knows it was Sirius himself who had made that happen in order to poke fun at Harry’s crush almost two years back. “This room?”

“No, the house,” Sirius said simply, his eyes earnest as he looked at Draco in genuine, Merlin-honest inquiry.  

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Well, I hate it, and Remus isn’t a big fan either, besides we have a flat that I would like to move back to, it was a good fucking flat, honestly. Not as big as this house, but, well, it’s enough for two,” he finished quickly, remembering his point. “What I’m saying is,” he waved at the vicinity of his head, his black-painted fingernails whizzing around flamboyantly as if he was swatting away his thoughts, “you like the house, you’re of age, you’re a Black. It’s your house, yes?”

“Sirius, this is–”

“Honestly, you’d be taking it off our hands,” Sirius said, walking into the room Draco and Harry shared and picking up the pirate hat – one of the very few things left behind while they weren’t staying there, besides old textbooks and some loose parchment. Sirius put on the hat and turned back to Draco, making the younger man wonder how Sirius could make something as silly as a fancy-dress pirate hat look that bloody good. “We really hate it. I have nothing but bad memories of my childhood here. Remus thinks it’s spooky. We do not want to live here.”

“Wait, what do you mean you have a flat?”

“Bought a flat in ’77, still has my name on the lease. I don’t think muggles know when wizards get imprisoned,” he shrugged. “Remus has been staying there on and off over the last two decades, so it’s obviously still standing. What is it about this hat? Remus and I have been wondering.

“Remus has been living in an apartment you’ve owned since 1977?” Draco asked, ignoring the question, as well as the thought of the two of them having entered this room at some point without Harry or Draco present.

“Where d’you think he’s been living? A forest?” Sirius snorted, clearly not taking it as an insult. “Please say you’ll take it. I want to go back to that flat, I fucking miss it. It was a good fucking flat.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be…hiding here? So that no one could take you back to Azkaban?”

“Don’t worry ‘bout that, just tell me you want the house.”

“I…really?” Draco asked, unsure of how to feel about it. Clearly, he was stoked. The idea of owning property, especially one that his mother considered to be an ancestral home, was invigorating. The things he could do to this place…new wallpaper, restored furniture, tuned piano, a library that wasn’t falling apart at the seams. Owning a home with Harry. One that they both loved. One that they associated with Christmas, and hidden kisses, and sharing a bed that didn’t require the invisibility cloak to get into.

But owning property, a secret property that very few knew about, that held more dark magic in its walls and had seen more mistreatment than probably the entirety of Hogwarts, was a slightly terrifying prospect for any sane individual, which Draco considered himself to still be.

“It’s already yours in my will, we could just fast-forward the process,” Sirius said, interrupting his thoughts. “And I’m quite sure your inheritance is enormous now that you’re of age, so it’s not like you couldn’t afford to upkeep it.”

Draco hadn’t even considered the question of his inheritance. He hadn’t seen his father in over a year, not to mention discussed anything like it. But, now that Sirius mentioned it, it wouldn’t be surprising if there was a ridiculous vault with his name on it in Gringotts.

“Besides,” Sirius added more quietly, like the next part was a secret only the two of them were allowed to know, “owning the Order headquarters is a sure-fire way of getting into it,” he said, adding in another wink.

“I’ll take it,” Draco said instantly. Getting into the Order was the next thing on his to-do list, and he knew his mother wouldn’t allow it, and, most likely, neither would the other members, seeing how young he was. They sure hadn’t wanted him or Harry sniffing around back when things had been starting to heat up again. This way, he would be able to know the information he so craved to, and would be able to take part in planning, not to mention actually aiding with the plans themselves.

Now that he knew what it was like to be forced to go up against the side he truly believed in,  he was prepared to do anything to help.

“That’s what I thought,” Sirius laughed, giving the room another thoughtful glance. “You know, you and Harry are really similar.”

“We’re not,” he said quickly, a force of habit from years and years back when he’d been lying to even himself about his thoughts on the boy in question. “But thank you,” he added bashfully, realising Sirius wasn’t exactly wrong. Their way of thinking was certainly similar enough more often than not.

“You’re good for him,” Sirius noted, suddenly all calm and genuine, “and he’s good for you, too.”

“I know he is,” Draco admitted. Harry kept him grounded. Harry made him insane with the desire to protect, but he kept him safe and he kept him less likely to do stupid things. If only because Draco was reluctant to make the decisions Harry would. The boy might be brave and he might be pretty, but the example he served was more of a warning not to be stupid than anything else in Draco’s life.

Draco could help now. He would know some of what was happening now. Most, really, if the house continued to be headquarters. He could do what needed to be done in order for this to end sooner. And then he could take Harry and settle down in this house where it was safe and they were untouched by all the evil in the world.

Harry will like having a home that’s actually his, instead of staying with the Weasleys or being forced back with his awful family, of even staying here just because it’s his Godfather’s house. Now it would be his own. His own shots, all of which Draco would allow him to call. Except perhaps letting him choose the rug patterns and paint colours. Draco was not letting him anywhere near decorating.

“Alright, let’s get you into your first Order meeting, shall we?” Sirius said brightly and clapped on Draco’s shoulder.

Draco followed Sirius downstairs diligently, much less dignified than someone who owned property in central London ought to. He knew it would take him a while for the idea to sink in. He still couldn’t quite believe it, honestly.

 “Draco shouldn’t be a part of this,” Dora said, seeing Sirius return and leave the door open for the youngest wizard amongst them to join. It made Draco hover unsurely in the doorway, needing Sirius to nod over to one of the many empty seats.

“Of course, he should. He’s the only one here that can get Harry to do anything he wants,” Sirius waved her away.

“Get him to do what?” Draco asked, fierce desperation to protect Harry from forcing him into anything overpowering his need to act neutral. No one made Harry do something he had no intentions of doing. He was a stubborn prick just like the rest of the Gryffindor house tended to be.

“And he clearly has Harry’s best intentions in mind,” Remus agreed, noting Draco’s reaction with a fond smile.

“What are you going to do? Kick him out of his own kitchen?” Sirius snorted.

“You agreed, then?” Remus asked, beaming kindly.

“I was persuaded,” Draco said, hoping he wasn’t blushing too hard. It was always awfully noticeable on his pale skin. It certainly gave Harry a reason to tease more often than not. Draco had to fight a smirk at the thought of Harry’s teasing and how much he missed it and the boy himself.

“Agreed to what?” McGonagall wondered with narrowed eyes.

Sirius sat back in his chair like he’d just successfully overthrown the government and was taking a moment to gloat. “He’s the new owner of this house. You rent this kitchen out from him now.”

“Uh, no, no rent,” Draco shook his head dismissingly and quickly, unsure whether Sirius had been joking or not.

“Oh, a benevolent owner, alright, if that’s more your style. Couldn’t be me, though,” Sirius chuckled and Remus was clearly fighting the urge to do the same.

“The Order does not pay you rent,” McGonagall said sternly, like this was all just a joke, but her eyes were kind, like she’d been dealing with this for decades, and was actually enjoying being a mother figure. Perhaps it was a joke, Draco hadn’t signed any papers after all.

“No? Well, then it owes it to me. Several years’ worth!” Sirius called out, a large grin on his face.

“Sirius,” Moody gritted warningly.

“Here’s the deal, junior,” Sirius said, turning to Draco, “we need to get Harry from Privet Drive to the Burrow, ideas?”

“Are we seriously involving him in this?” Dora asked worriedly, turning to McGonagall and Moody, the obviously more responsible ones here.

“He’s the closest person Harry has,” Sirius said forcefully, almost darkly, his mood having changed significantly since the last sentence he’d uttered. “If you intended to do anything to me without my knowledge, I would be furious, if Remus hadn’t been involved.”

The silence that his words left was thick and heavy. The entire room, besides the couple that had just gifted him with a house on his birthday, was looking at Draco, gears turning in their heads. It felt uncomfortable, and Draco had nowhere to go. Had it really been so impossible to tell that there was something between him and Harry? Because he would have seen by now. So, really, it was all their own fault.

“I didn’t realise…” Bill said, doing his best to sound normal, but failing. “Well, in that case, I agree. I trust no one more than Fleur. Draco should absolutely be here.”

Dora looked slightly bitter, but wasn’t actively disagreeing, wrapping her arms around her middle and looking down. “What would Poppy say?” Remus asked quietly, his gaze intent on McGonagall’s face. Draco’s mouth almost fell open in shock. He willed himself to pretend he didn’t understand those implications. The older witch sighed and threw her hands up in surrender.

“Fine,” Moody said gruffly, “the boy can stay.”

Before anyone had the chance to change their mind, Draco spoke, “When does he have to be moved?” It must be before August, as after that, Harry would be of age and could go where he pleased.

“My wedding is on the thirtieth. The entire Order will be there, it’s the safest place for him to be when he becomes seventeen and loses the Trace,” Bill said.

“Right,” Draco nodded. “I didn’t know it was so soon.”

“What do you mean? Aren’t you coming?” Dora asked, eyebrows drawn together, suddenly no longer unimpressed and back to being his funny Hugfflepuff cousin.

“I assumed Harry would be dragging you along,” Bill said with a small smile. Draco thought, Bill was possibly his favourite Weasley. He was always calm, he seemed to never be angry, and pulling Fleur Delacour must mean there was something impressive about him both inside and out.

“Until a minute ago, none of you knew we were even dating,” Draco reminded.

“Yes, but Ron is bringing Hermione, even though she has a boyfriend, I was just assuming you were part of the pack now,” Bill explained.

“Right,” Draco said again, feeling awkward but appreciated. Not many people thought to include him off the bat. It was nice to be amongst people who wanted to be around him at all. “Well, thank you, I will certainly be there.”

Dora raised her finger as if she was in class before speaking, “Hasn’t Harry told you about the wedding yet?”

“Uh, no,” he said simply, offering no other explanation. He was just accepted into the Order because of his closeness to Harry. He was not about to be kicked out of it because he and Harry were on some strange, unspoken break. No, no, no. If he had the chance to make sure his boyfriend was safe in even the slightest possible way, he was going to take it and cling to it like a lifeline.

“Well, then, here’s the plan, young man,” Sirius grinned and explained perhaps the most idiotic idea in the history of the universe, all while Draco had to sit there not actively making fun of it. It was difficult, to say the least.

Many things about it made no sense to Draco. The entire show of it, for one. “Why?” was the only thing he could think to say, when they all looked at him as if expecting him to jump up applauding their genius efforts. “Why not just apparate him away?”

“He’s got the Trace on him,” Remus reminded.

“Right, but he doesn’t have to do it himself, anyone can side-along him, can’t they?” Draco wondered.

“That still rings bells at the Ministry,” McGonagall explained, “a muggle house with an underaged wizard registered in it leaving a magical trace is suspicious.” Draco was thankful of her patient tone. If it had been Slughorn in her stead, he wouldn’t have even considered explaining anything to Draco.

“And the Ministry has too many loose ends. Alright,” Draco nodded along, crossing one thing off his mental list. “What about the Floo network?”

Bill shook his head, “Pius Thicknesse has already made that impossible for us, as well as registering a portkey anywhere near Privet Drive. Turns out he was under Imperius. Anyway, too many people know about it now.”

Draco sighed, and Moody looked about done with the questioning. “We have a plan,” the older man reminded.

“Why would we do that? Why seven Harries?” Draco asked exasperatedly.

“Seven safe houses. So that it was impossible to tell which one is the real one,” Moody said, sounding annoyed that his thinking was being questioned by a teenager. Draco was sure his direct relation to a Death Eater wasn’t helping him much at the moment, either.

“Why put six other people’s lives in danger? Isn’t that ridiculously wasteful? Any one of them could be killed. All of them could be killed, what’s the point?” No one answered that one, so Draco continued. “Should we not just…give Harry the Polyjuice and have him look like someone else? Or, I don’t know, put him under the invisibility cloak and get him on a muggle bus?”

“That one’s not bad,” Sirius said, pointing to Draco, but looking at Moody. “I didn’t like this from the start.”

“You don’t like any of my plans,” Moody said stiffly.

“Well, fuck, the kid’s got good points,” Sirius said, sounding exasperated. As if he’d been dealing with this for way too long. He probably had.

“It’s too late to change it,” Moody said…well, moodily.

“Then I ride with Harry,” Sirius said as-a-matter-of-factly.

“You’re not leaving this house,” Moody said almost angrily. Almost being a very loose term when it came to this man. Everything he said was at least almost angry.

“But the man of the house has kicked me out,” he pouted dramatically before shooting a grin and another wink to Draco. The Slytherin wanted to tell him not to waste those, but Sirius apparently had an endless stock.

“It’s true, he has,” Remus said, “so we’re moving tonight.”

“I can’t believe you’re entertaining this, Remus” McGonagall said, sounding like a disappointed mother. “You both know very well that this house is the safest place for Sirius to be.”

“Safest place?” Remus scoffed, “Minerva, there isn’t a single safe place in Europe. Unless you want to relocate him to the States and get rid of the both of us, because I’m not leaving him on his own, we’re just as well off in our flat. God knows no one’s tried to break into it in the last twenty years,” he said bitterly. Draco thought it was a decent point. If Sirius was the owner and anyone wanted to find him, that would have surely been the first place they’d look.

Draco could see it in Remus’ eyes, then. The tell-tale gaze of someone ready to strike to kill in order to protect an idiotic Gryffindor who was much too self-assured to do it on his own. The look of someone whose biggest priority in life was to make them happy and bring them comfort. The look of a man so painfully and deeply in love that it took up every thought and every breath. The feeling Draco knew so well, because it, too, ate at his bones every second of every day.

McGonagall sighed. “On your head be it,” she gave in, “but you’re not taking Harry.”

“Then I will,” Draco said surely. “I’m really good on a broom,” he promised. He was good on a broom, and this was no time for humility. It was quite literally ride or die, and he was prepared to give his life for Harry.

“Don’t see why not,” Bill shrugged.

“Are you sure?” Remus asked, eyes grilling into Draco’s.

“If something that dangerous is going to happen, I’m not letting him out of my sight without someone using Imperio on me,” Draco said in a way that let everyone around the table understand he was not fucking around about it. If they were going through with an idiotic plan, he was going to make rushed decisions and be happy about the freedom of it all.

“Fine, you can take him,” Moody agreed, gloomily. Draco could see the ,an wanted to argue. Say something about children not being equipped to protect the most important person currently in the Wizarding World, but none of it was ever voiced. And, if Draco being a Slytherin and the son of a Death Eater had been a factor, it never came up again.

Draco smiled to himself. He was still hesitant about the plan, but, hey, one small victory at a time. When he glanced over at Sirius, the man winked at him conspiratorially. Remus looked quite pleased from his spot next to him as well.

Draco left for Andromeda’s with a loud crack, promising Grimmauld Place it would see him again, especially now that she was all his, and the next thing he knew, he was packing all of his things, watching in delight as his own wand commanded his clothes to fold themselves into neat piles which stacked themselves back into his monogrammed trunk.

It wasn’t exactly the easiest thing –spending every single day for a week trying to convince his mother he wasn’t doing this because of temporary insanity, but rather because he knew he was able to protect Harry better than anyone else, and he was willing to prove that theory no matter what. She was a stubborn woman, one of the strongest characteristics she’d passed onto her son, the other being her fierce protectiveness.

It took him the remaining few days he had left, but once he’d shown her that his confidence did not waver and that his mind was entirely made up about this to the point where even she couldn’t change it, all it took was reminding that he so strongly felt the burden of having to undo the shame his father had placed on their family name, for her to finally give in and allow what Draco would have done either way.

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” he promised and disapparated from the living room where his mother, aunt and uncle watched him unsurely, after adding a quick “Love you all,” just in case.

Chapter Text

It was three days before Bill’s wedding that Draco finally apparated his way to Little Whinging with nothing but a broom in hand and a shake in his fingers. His feet were cold even during the hasty walk through the suburb, as he was smart enough not to apparate straight to Privet Drive. Were his feet always this cold in July? He took a ragged breath before ringing the doorbell.

A middle-aged woman answered it, long nose and sharp features, nothing like what Draco would think Harry was related to. He took a quick step back to make sure he hadn’t run the wrong door, but the number on the side of the house said 4, so he cleared his throat and smiled. “I’m here to collect Harry.”

“Christ, get inside before anyone sees you,” she said unkindly, rather eager to get him out of the neighbours’ sight, judging by the way her eyes had widened at the sight of Draco’s broom. “Who the hell are you?” she demanded once the door had shut behind her.

“Draco?” Harry asked from the top of the stairs. “Oh, God, you’re here!” he said excitedly, rushing down the stairs and throwing himself around Draco’s neck. The relief that flooded him was enough to push him off his feet. Thought that may also have been Harry’s weight and the velocity of his body. “Why are you here?” he asked into Draco’s hair before pulling apart just the slightest bit and taking Draco’s face into his hands. “I missed your birthday again.”

“That’s alright,” Draco shrugged, “you’ve missed all the previous ones, as well, would be a shame not to put up with tradition,” Draco chuckled.

“Mummy?” a plump boy asked, his round face appearing in the doorway. Only now did Draco notice how strangely empty the house seemed, even though he’d never been in it before. “Is Harry a puff?”

“I beg your pardon?” Draco said roughly, pulling out his wand and pointing it to the boy he assumed to be Harry’s cousin. The woman who had opened the door shrieked in horror, moving to shield her son, but Draco halted her movement. “Don’t move, if you please,” Draco said in mock politeness.

“You wouldn’t. You can’t,” a nearly identical man to his son stood behind him, his walrus moustache moved as he spoke, crumbs falling with every word.

“I’m of age, I can perform any spell I want,” Draco informed him warningly, “try me,” he added, and the man’s mouth snapped shut. “Going somewhere?” he wondered, the lack of furniture reminding him that something was off.

“Dumbledore left instructions. They have to leave tonight,” Harry said, leaned against the handrail, clearly enjoying someone standing up to the family that has mistreated him for so long.

“Well, I’m here to protect, so no time like the present,” Draco said assuredly. The three muggles looked at him like he’d lost his mind. A teenager throwing them out of their house may be a first, but Draco was sick even looking at these people. As if it wasn’t enough having dead parents, the only family Harry had left had treated him like scum his entire childhood.

The two adults in the room looked to one another in something akin to shame, though there wasn’t much chance of that particular emotion existing within them. Draco owed them no kindness. “Do you have somewhere to go?” he asked nonetheless and the woman nodded hastily. “Then go,” he leaned into to Harry who was now keeping hold onto Draco’s shoulder as he stood on the second step, finally towering over his boyfriend for once.

“Thank you for coming to get me,” Harry said, wrapping his arms around the Slytherin in front of him, keeping his palms on Draco’s chest as they watched the three muggles scurry to gather their things.

“Have they laid a hand on you this summer?” Draco asked, keeping his eyes still on the woman that was supposed to care of Harry like he was her own, the man that cowered behind his child, and the boy who used slurs like they were mundane.

“No, they’ve been afraid to for a few years now,” Harry shrugged, putting more of his weight onto Draco lazily, refusing to cease contact.

“Good,” Draco stated. “Oh, I should probably tell you, we own a house now,” he turned his head to face Harry in the tight hold, He was so close to him, and Harry smelled so nice. And Draco had almost forgot what a beautiful shade of green the handsome young man’s eyes were. He had missed him so much.

“What do you mean we own a house?” Harry snorted.

“Sirius gave us Number Twelve,” Draco said with a small smile and watched Harry’s eyebrows knit together until they slowly came undone. “No, really, did you know they have a flat? Also I’m in the Order now.”

“What…What?” Harry asked, pulling back, his arms still on Draco, but they were now at an angle where they could properly see the entirety of one another’s face, “What?”

“Yes to all three of those,” Draco chuckled.

The three muggles had made it out the door and Harry’s aunt was now looking upon the house and sobbing wildly, seeming to no longer care about the opinion of her neighbours. “Be right back,” Harry sighed and let go of Draco, joining his relatives outside. Draco couldn’t hear what was or wasn’t being said, but when Harry’s cousin stepped up to shake his hand, Draco gripped his wand just a little tighter between his fingers. He watched the two of them shake hands calmly.

“He’s not all bad. He just doesn’t know any better,” Harry supposed, going for the stairs. He entered his sad little bedroom first, Draco on his heels, arriving at the window just in time to see the Dursleys’ car swinging out of the drive and off up the road. The car turned right at the end of Privet Drive, its windows burned scarlet for a moment in the setting sun, and then it was gone. Harry picked up Hedwig’s cage, his Firebolt, and his rucksack, gave his unnaturally tidy bedroom one last sweeping look, and then made his ungainly way back downstairs to the hall, where he deposited cage, broomstick, and bag near the foot of the stairs. The light was fading rapidly now, the hall full of shadows in the evening light.

“You alright?” Draco wondered, standing amongst all of Harry’s things like he was just one of them.

“I won’t miss this place,” Harry said from the middle of an emptied-out living room and looking around. “I used to play games on Dudley’s computer or watch TV when they left me alone,” he said, smiling humourlessly, “they never took me anywhere with them. Except to the zoo once.”

Draco felt awfully sad, but couldn’t drag his eyes away from Harry. “That’s…”

“Not great, yeah, I know,” Harry huffed. “I’ll never be here again. My entire childhood was here,” he sighed. Draco couldn’t tell if the Gryffindor was relieved or sad about it. He opened his arms and let Harry walk into his embrace gratefully.

There was a sudden, deafening roar from somewhere nearby. Harry straightened up with a jerk in his boyfriend’s arms, then staggered back into the kitchen, clutching Draco’s hand in his own and staring out of the window into the back garden. The darkness seemed to be rippling, the air itself quivering. Then, one by one, figures began to pop into sight as their Disillusionment Charms lifted.

Merry greetings rang in the backyard once Harry had wrenched open the patio door, Hermione flung her arms around Harry, Ronald clapped him on the back. “There’s, uh, a lot of you,” Harry noted, and Draco couldn’t help but look at Moody pointedly.

“Alright, lovebirds,” Moody rolled his eye and shoved somewhat aggressively at Harry’s shoulder, “Let’s get undercover before we talk you through it.” His was holding two enormous, bulging sacks, and his magical eye was spinning from darkening sky to house to garden with dizzying rapidity.

Harry led them all back into the kitchen where, laughing and chattering, they settled on chairs, sat themselves upon Harry’s Aunt’s gleaming work surfaces, or leaned up against her spotless appliances. Hermione had hooked her arm into Draco’s, chatting his ear off about how happy she was to see him again. “Kingsley, I thought you were looking after the Muggle Prime Minister?” Harry called across the room.

“He can get along without me for one night,” said Kingsley. “You’re more important.” Draco understood that sentiment better than anyone in the room. Of that he was entirely certain. And when Harry looked over at him with a broad smile, Draco was only more assured of it. All of these people cared for Harry so much, even Mundungus Fletcher’s presence wasn’t going to impose on the wild-haired young man. He looked like it was Christmas.

“All right, all right, we’ll have time for a cozy catch-up later,” roared Moody over the hubbub, and silence fell in the kitchen. Moody dropped his sacks at his feet and turned to Harry, “We had to abandon Plan A. It’s been made an imprisonable offence to connect this house to the Floo Network, place a Portkey here, or Apparate in or out. All done in the name of your protection to prevent You-Know-Who getting in at you. Absolutely pointless, seeing as your mother’s charm does that already. What he’s really done is to stop you from getting out of here safely. Second problem. You’re underage, which means you’ve still got the Trace on you. We can’t wait for the Trace to break, because the moment you turn seventeen you’ll lose all the protection your mother gave you. In short: they think they’ve got you cornered good and proper.”

“So what are we going to do?” Harry asked, resting against a wall next to Draco, pressing their shoulders together. Draco was sure Harry wasn’t even aware he was doing it.

“We’re going to use the only means of transport left to us, the only ones the Trace can’t detect, because we don’t need to cast spells to use them: brooms, thestrals, and Hagrid’s motorbike.”

Draco could name the flaws in this plan by heart, however, he held his tongue to give Mad-Eye the chance to address them. “Now, your mother’s charm will only break under two conditions: when you come of age, or,” Moody gestured around the pristine kitchen, “you no longer call this place home. You and your aunt and uncle have gone your separate ways tonight, in the full understanding that you’re never going to live together again, correct?” Draco and Harry nodded. “So, this time, when you leave, there’ll be no going back, and the charm will break the moment you get outside its range. We’re choosing to break it early, because the alternative is waiting for You-Know-Who to come and seize you the moment you turn seventeen.”

“The one thing we’ve got on our side is that You-Know-who doesn’t know we’re moving you tonight. We’ve leaked a fake trail to the Ministry: They think you’re not leaving until the thirtieth,” Remus explained. Harry seemed to visibly relax when the man spoke, clearly wishing Sirius had been allowed to come, but deciding to go with it, if the werewolf was all he was getting.

"However, this is You-Know-Who we’re dealing with, so we can’t just rely on him getting the date wrong,” Moody continued, “he’s bound to have a couple Death Eaters patrolling the skies in this general area, just in case. So we’ve given a dozen different houses every protection we can throw at them. They all look like they could be the place we’re going to hide you, they’ve all got some connection with the Order: my house, Kingsley’s place…you get the idea.”

“Yeah,” said Harry, not entirely truthfully, clearly still spotting a gaping hole in the plan.

“You’ll be going to Tonks’s parents. Once you’re within the boundaries of the protective enchantments we’ve put on their house you’ll be able to use a Portkey to the Burrow. Any questions?”

“Er—yes,” said Harry. “Maybe they won’t know which of the twelve secure houses I’m heading for at first, but won’t it be sort of obvious once,” he performed a quick headcount, “fourteen of us fly off towards Andromeda’s?”

“Ah,” said Moody. “I forgot to mention the key point. Fourteen of us won’t be flying to Tonks’s parents. There will be seven Harry Potters moving through the skies tonight, each of them with a companion, each pair heading for a different safe house.” From inside his cloak Moody now withdrew a flask of what looked like mud.

There was no need for him to say another word. Harry looked to understood the rest of the plan immediately. “No!” he said loudly, his voice ringing through the kitchen. “No way!”

“I told you he’d love the idea,” Draco droned.

“If you think I’m going to let six people risk their lives!” Harry was on the verge of shouting.

“Right, ‘cause it’s the first time for all of us,” Ronald scoffed.

“This is different, pretending to be me–”

“Well, none of us really fancy it, mate,” Fred said earnestly. “Imagine if something went wrong and we were stuck as specky, scrawny gits forever.” Harry did not smile. Draco blatantly scowled at the joke.

“You can’t do it if I don’t cooperate, you need me to give you some hair,” Harry said, crossing his arms and pressing himself even tighter to Draco’s side.

“Well, that’s that plan scuppered,” George sighed dramatically. “Obviously there’s no chance at all of us getting a bit of your hair unless you cooperate.”

“Yeah, thirteen of us against one bloke who’s not allowed to use magic: we’ve got no chance,” said Fred.

“Funny,” Harry pouted, “really amusing.”

“If it has to come to force, then it will,” growled Moody, his magical eye now quivering a little in its socket as he glared at Harry. “Everyone here’s overage, Potter, and they’re all prepared to take the risk.” Mundungus shrugged and grimaced, the magical eye swerved sideways to glare at him out of the side of Moody’s head. “Let’s have no more arguments. Time’s wearing on. I want a few of your hairs, boy, now.

“But this is mad, there’s no need–”

“No need!” snarled Moody, “With You-Know-Who out there and half the Ministry on his side? Potter, if we’re lucky he’ll have swallowed the fake bait and he’ll be planning to ambush you on the thirtieth, but he’d be mad not to have a Death Eater or two keeping an eye out, it’s what I’d do. They might not be able to get at you or this house while your mother’s charm holds, but it’s about to break and they know the rough position of the place. Our only chance is to use decoys. Even You-Know-Who can’t split himself into seven.” Draco caught Hermione’s eye and looked away at once. “So, Potter, some of your hair, pretty please,” the gruff man ordered.

“Come on, darling,” Draco whispered, hoping only Harry had been able to hear.

“I thought you were supposed to always be on my side.”

“I am. I think this plan is demented,” Draco said simply, practically able to feel Moody’s eyes on him. “But I’m flying with you,” he said, trying to sound assured. Harry looked at him for a couple long seconds, before seeming to have come to some sort of a decision. With all of their eyes on them, Harry reached up to the top of his head, grabbed a hank of hair, and pulled. Draco couldn’t imagine that had been very pleasant, but he was still glad he hadn’t been asked to do it, because causing Harry pain was possibly his greatest fear.

“Good,” said Moody, limping forward as he pulled the stopper out of the flask of potion. “Straight in here, if you don’t mind.” Harry dropped the hair into the mud-like liquid. The moment it made contact with its surface, the potion began to froth and smoke, then, all at once, it turned a clear, bright gold.

“Ooh, you look much tastier than Crabbe and Goyle, Harry,” said Hermione, before catching sight of Draco’s raised eyebrows, blushing slightly, and saying, “Oh, you now what I mean…Goyle’s potion looked like bogies.”

“Did you two–” Draco tried asking, seeming to remember a particularly strange evening in the second year in school.

“No,” Ronald and Harry said at once, far too quickly for it to have be genuine truth.

“Right then, fake Potters line up over here, please,” Moody ordered. Ronald, Hermione, Fred, George, and Fleur lined up in front of the gleaming kitchen sink.

“We’re one short,” Remus noted.

“Here,” Kingsley said gruffly, and he lifted Mundungus by the scruff of the neck and dropped him down beside Fleur, who wrinkled her nose pointedly and moved along to stand between Fred and George instead.

“I’ve told yer, I’d sooner be a protector,” Mundungus said.

“Shut it,” growled Moody. “As I’ve already told you, you spineless worm, any Death Eaters we run into will be aiming to capture Potter, not kill him. Dumbledore always said You-Know-who would want to finish Potter in person. It’ll be the protectors who have got the most to worry about, the Death Eaters’ll want to kill them.”

Mundungus did not look particularly reassured, and anxiety spiked in Draco's chest, but Moody was already pulling half a dozen shot glasses from inside his cloak, which he handed out, before pouring a little Polyjuice Potion into each one, and Draco was not about to abandon Harry at the last moment, or, in fact, ever. “Altogether, then.”

Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, Fleur, and Mundungus drank. All of them gasped and grimaced as the potion hit their throats. At once, their features began to bubble and distort like hot wax. Hermione and Mundungus were shooting upward. Ron, Fred, and George were shrinking, their hair was darkening, Hermione’s and Fleur’s appearing to shoot backward into their skulls. Draco watched with his mouth agape, shutting it before the transformation had been completed and while no one had seen. Fred and George turned to each other and said together, “Wow, we’re identical!”

“I dunno, though. I think I’m still better looking,” Fred chuckled, examining his reflection in the kettle.

“Bah,” said Fleur, checking herself in the microwave door, “Bill, don’t look at me, I’m ’ideous.” Draco could not agree. If anything, he felt like he was dreaming. He was quite sure he’d had this fantasy some time ago, back when he and Harry had been just friends, or even less than that.

“Those whose clothes are a bit roomy, I’ve got smaller here,” Moody announced, indicating to one of the sacks he’d brought along with him, “and vice versa. Don’t forget the glasses, there’s six pairs in the side pocket. And when you’re dressed, there’s luggage in the other sack.”

Draco watched as six doppelgangers of the person he was in love with rummaged in the sacks, pulling out sets of clothes, putting on glasses, and stuffing their own things away, before stripping off with impunity, clearly more at ease with displaying Harry’s body than they would have with their own. Draco felt awful, but he was thoroughly enjoying the sight. There was very little he could complain about at the moment. “Are you about to start panting?” Harry asked broodily, arms still crossed where he stood hunched against the wall next to Draco.

“Oh, cheer up, at least it’s your naked body I’m excited about,” Draco nudged his boyfriend’s shoulder. He wasn’t entirely sure, but Harry looked dangerously close to smiling. Draco would kiss him if there weren’t so many copies of his boyfriend around, as well as actual ex Hogwarts faculty. He was also painfully aware of not having kissed the young man since the day of Dumbledore's funeral all those weeks ago.

“Harry, your eyesight really is awful,” said Hermione, as she put on a pair of glasses. Once dressed, the fake Harrys took rucksacks and owl cages, each containing a stuffed snowy owl, from the second sack.

Draco tuned it out when Moody started listing the pairings for the travelling, his hand mindlessly drawing circles on Harry’s back. He knew the plan. He was fully capable of doing it well. Flying would not be a problem, but the thrumming within his chest was still difficult to overcome. He trusted no one else with the task of protecting Harry Potter than himself, yet it was still a terrifying task.

“No thestrals, alright?” Harry, the real Harry, asked, looking defeated.

“Broom,” Draco said assuredly and Harry nodded, muscles unwinding the slightest bit.

Everyone paired off, Draco realised there wasn’t much else to do in order to put it off any longer. He was here to protect Harry, he’d refused letting anyone else do it, so it was time to suck it all up and be true to his word. “All right then,” Moody said, tying up the sack with the fake Potters’ clothes in it and leading the way back to the door, “I make it three minutes until we’re supposed to leave. No point locking the back door, it won’t keep the Death Eaters out when they come looking. Come on.”

Harry hurried to gather his rucksack, Firebolt, and Hedwig’s cage and trailed after Draco to the dark back garden. “All good?” Draco asked, more out of politeness and trying his best to show Harry that he cared than genuine worry. All was not good. Harry was just as scared, he knew that. But he liked to be asked if he was fine sometimes, and Harry deserved the same dignity. The Gryffindor nodded, letting Draco get a hold of Hedwig’s cage to help fasten it to his boyfriend’s back. She looked bored on her little perch. “Don’t worry, You’ll get to see your friend soon,” Draco told her, thinking about Eagle in his own cage on Andromeda’s kitchen counter. Harry shoved his broom into Draco’s extended bag and huffed a great big sigh. “Hey, I got you,” Draco promised, and Harry pulled him into one last tight hug before he’d finished the vow.

“Oi, lovebirds!” Moody called out. Draco was really starting to hate that particular description for the two of them. “Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?” he suggested pointedly, sounding on the verge of shouting, though Draco supposed he hadn’t really ever talked to the man when he wasn’t irritated by something.

“Oh, wait,” Harry said hurriedly, opening his bag once more, pulling out a red-and-yellow knit hat and handing it to Draco. He rolled his eyes when the Slytherin looked at it in disdain. “It’s to hide your hair. How many platinum blondes do you think there are on our side?”

“Hold tight now, Ron,” Draco hear Dora’s instruction for Ronald as the hat was being shoved onto his head by Harry, and the youngest Weasley boy looked uncomfortable, to say the least, but didn’t dare disobey, even as one of his brothers wolf-whistled to annoy him.

“Good luck, everyone,” Moody shouted, “See you all in about an hour at the Burrow. On the count of three. One…two…THREE.”

Draco pushed off the ground and shot upward, feeling Harry’s hands secure around his waist. No inhibitions, no worries about anyone seeing. They were rising through the air fast, Draco’s eyes watering slightly, but not enough to obstruct his vision. He was used to this. One does not avoid getting cold air into their eyes on a quidditch team. Around them, the other brooms were soaring upward too, the long black tail of a threstral flicked past.

Harry’s hands wrapped more securely around Draco, one of them travelling to hang onto his chest. Higher and higher they climbed into the sky –

And then, out of nowhere, out of nothing, they were surrounded. At least thirty hooded figures, suspended in midair, formed a vast circle in the midst of which the Order members had risen, oblivious.  Screams, a blaze of green light on every side. Draco willed himself not to panic. It would do them no good, after all.

One of the Death Eaters soared towards them and Draco manoeuvred quickly, almost loop-de-looping in mid-air, thinking they were in the clear until Harry’s shark gasp sounded from behind him. “No – HEDWIG!” he shouted.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

Draco pivoted, doing his best to move quickly and unpredictably enough for the three Death Eaters that were trailing him to not know their next move, all while making sure Harry could get his beloved pet back. “Get her!” he shouted through the loud whizz of the wind around them, and Draco took another sharp turn to shake off whoever it was that were on their tail, the feeling of only one of Harry’s arms fastened around him gnawing at him uncomfortably.

There was only one thought on his mind, and it was playing on repeat like a broken record: Get Harry out. Get Harry out. Get Harry out. Get Harry out.

He was half sure they’d managed an at least somewhat successful escape, feeling a second’s relief, and then another burst of green light. The owl screeched and fell to the floor of the cage. “No—NO!” Harry shouted once more, and Draco didn’t have to think twice to know what had just happened.

Draco didn’t have the luxury of mourning a bird. No matter how beloved. He would console Harry when he’d got him safely to the Burrow. Draco glimpsed hooded Death Eaters scattering as they blasted through their circle. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a mass of people moving, flares of green light, two pairs of people on brooms soaring off into the distance. Draco shot onward as fast as he could.

“Draco, we’ve got to go back,” Harry said suddenly, but Draco refused, even if he had no clue what the other boy had seen. There was no going back. Not when he had only one objective in mind, and the only way to accomplish it would be continuing onward. “Draco, TURN AROUND!”

“No!” the Slytherin shouted back roughly. He was not giving into temptation of following Harry’s every wish. Not today. Not just now.

“Fine, just–” Harry sounded angry before the arm that had previously been missing gripped onto the broom handle and yanked downward. Draco understood what had happened. Harry had let go of the cage by accident and seen they were being traced while looking back to see it fall.

“How many?” Draco asked, yelling as loud as he could over the wind.

“Four!” Harry said and Draco swerved again. He couldn’t keep avoiding them forever, at least not this way, and Harry seemed to have understood the same thing as one of his hands let go of Draco once more and he shouted “Stupefy!” to whomever was on their heels.

“Bombarda Maxima, Harry!” Draco suggested, the first thing that came to his mind. His boyfriend obeyed. “How many now?”

“Two!” he shouted. That was better than four. More Killing Curses flew past Harry’s head from the two remaining Death Eaters’ wands, and Draco was quite sure he was the target at the moment. “Fiendfyre!” Harry shouted.

Draco couldn’t help but to glance backward to see what good that had done. The Death Eaters were moving out of sight to avoid the flame before returning, and this time there were three. “Try Impedimenta!” he suggested.

Harry did as he was told, making Draco oddly happy. Logically, he knew there was no point in fighting about it, but it was always nice to be agreed with. Draco glanced back again. The jinx hit the middle Death Eater in the chest. For a moment the man was absurdly spread-eagled in mid-air as though he had hit an invisible barrier. One of his fellows nearly collided with him. “Confringo!” Harry shouted, and Draco heard something explode before he could even check to see what the spell had done.

As the curses came shooting across the intervening space again, Draco swerved and zigzagged. Draco didn’t know what it was that had done it, but Harry’s shout of Expelliarmus was met by one of the Death Eaters yelling “That’s him! It’s him! It’s the real one!”

A litany of curses, neigh, a sea of them, fell from Draco’s mouth. He was convinced he was about to die, but the next moment their pursuers had fallen back and disappeared from view. “What happened?” Draco bellowed, “Where did they go?”

“I don’t know!” Harry’s voice replied in horror. This could not be so easy. That was simply impossible. Continuing on their hasty way forward, Draco gazed around at the apparently empty darkness and felt its menace. Where were they? Harry clamoured around on the seat to seize hold of Draco more tightly and ask, “Can we go any faster?”

“I’m trying, love,” he answered as calmly as he could muster and leaned forward to give his broom an indication that this was, in fact, a bloody emergency. “Hold tight,” he advised, soaring over the dark English fields. When Harry’s reaction to his scar hurting reached Draco’s ear, it was already too late. “Merlin’s fucking balls,” Draco said under his breath when he’d turned to make sure Harry wasn’t hit and seen Voldemort flying like smoke in the wind, without broomstick or thestral to hold him, his snakelike face gleaming out of the blackness, his white fingers raising his wand. “Fuck, fuuuuuck!” Draco shouted, all trained Malfoy politeness going out the window as he yanked the broom into a vertical dive.

Clinging on for dear life, Harry sent Stunning Spells flying at random into the whirling night. He’d hit someone, but Draco didn’t imagine it being Voldemort himself. He was only convinced, though, when he heard Voldemort scream, “Mine!” It was over. He could not see or hear where Voldemort was, he glimpsed another Death Eater swooping out of the way and heard, “Avada–”

Draco closed his eyes, whizzing forward. He may be about to die, but he wouldn’t stop trying to get Harry away until he was cold, and even then, whatever deity decided to have his soul would have to fight to stop him.

Harry’s grip on him was still tight, so he must be alive. There was a loud crack and a scream of fury. The remaining Death Eater yelled. Voldemort screamed, “No!” Draco didn’t know which spell Harry had used in the final possible second but it had clearly worked.

Distant lights were growing nearer and nearer. Draco had to pull them back upwards before they crashed. Draco knew the beach they were nearing. They were so fucking close he could taste it. Behind them came another scream, “Your wand, Selwyn, give me your wand!”

Draco looked sideways and saw those red eyes. The ones Harry had only told him about. The ones he’d only imagined before, and now was forced to face. He wished he hadn’t. He wished they wouldn’t have to be the last thing he ever saw as Voldemort prepared to curse them. And then Voldemort vanished. Draco looked down and saw water fast approaching. He pulled hard at the broom handle to avoid hitting it, but with an ear-splitting, ground trembling crash, they smashed into the sea.

They were further off the shore than Draco had expected. He couldn’t feel the ground beneath him as he struggled to keep his head above the water. His wand was in his bag on his back, his broom had slipped from his hand when they’d landed, and Harry was nowhere to be seen. Draco shouted his name, not caring who or what heard, repeating it until his throat was sore and his panic was making it hard to stay afloat, but then Harry emerged, drawing desperate breaths, Draco’s broom in hand. “You idiot,” Draco gasped, “why would you go after it?”

“Oh, shut up, come on,” Harry invited, beginning a swim towards the beach. Draco could see the lights on in his aunt’s house, the woman in question, along with his mother, waiting for them in the doorway.

Once they were shallow enough to walk, neither of them felt like swimming anymore, exhaustion from sheer terror being enough to make Draco wonder if it would be terribly rude to miss Bill and Fleur’s wedding in favour of taking a week-long nap. Harry took his hand when the water was just above knee-high, and it made Draco feel immediately and immeasurably better for some reason.

Narcissa was walking into the water, the hem of her dress soaked in the cool water as she rushed to cover both boys with towels and take the broom and bag out of Harry’s hands, all while calling her son her little dragon. “Oh, thank Circe, you’re both alright,” she said, making sure Harry was warm before hugging her son in greeting. “Were they tailing you?” she asked and Draco nodded weakly. “Good to know our protective charms hold.”

“Any news about the others?” Draco asked hesitantly while Harry was busy thanking the woman in front of them and shaking violently.

“Not yet,” his mother shook her head before applying the drying charm to both boys. “We have to get you to the Burrow,” she reminded them. Right. There was a plan.

“I’ll get my things,” Draco said, pulling Harry along by his hand. He was not letting go of him now. Never again, if he had any say in it whatsoever. His uncle Ted offered to help, and Draco nodded gratefully before his legs gave out the moment he’d crossed the threshold. “Fuck, I’m sorry,” Draco uttered, “sorry for saying fuck, as well.”

Andromeda chuckled to herself as Harry busied himself with helping Draco up, a worried look etched on his face. “Maybe rest for a second before you attempt to travel, why don’t you? Teddy, darling, go get Draco’s things for me, please," his aunt said.

Draco nodded. He wasn’t sure what had happened. He didn’t feel tired. He wasn’t exactly scared anymore seeing as he was in safety now, but his hands were still shaking, despite knowing Harry was alive and well, and breathing in front of him, despite knowing his mother was fine, as well, despite no longer being cold. Despite it all, he was still unable to stop himself from trembling wildly or from squeezing his eyes shut in case he opened them and reality showed something other than Harry and the rest of his family.

“You’re okay,” Harry said, sitting in front of him on the floor, having deposited his boyfriend on the couch Draco had slept on for a while. It now felt like that had been a thousand years ago. Harry was rubbing his hand up and down Draco's thigh. “I’m okay, everyone’s okay.”

“We don’t know that,” Draco said shakily, keeping his eyes closed until he could trust himself to look into Harry’s eyes. “Are you hurt?” he asked, still not looking.

“Not at all,” Harry promised.

“Are you sure?” Draco said, sounding impatient to himself.

“I think the adrenaline washed off in the brisk walk through the algae,” Harry said lightly. “We’re okay,” he promised again, and this time Draco opened his eyes to see for himself. Harry was, indeed, alright. His mother was, indeed, standing tall and watching the two of them lovingly. He took a deep breath because he could. Because he was alive and he was here to breathe it.

Ted had returned with all his things by the time Draco found himself steady enough to stand, and Harry was holding Eagle’s cage tightly. “I’m sorry about Hedwig,” Draco said quietly. Harry looked down to his boyfriend’s owl and nodded slightly. “She got hit,” he explained to his mother with a sigh. Harry had really loved that bird. Draco should know – he loved Eagle very dearly, too. “We can go,” Draco said, making sure he sounded more convinced than he felt. “They’ll start wondering, if we don’t.”

“He’s right,” Andromeda agreed, “you should go before someone figures out how to penetrate the charms, or you’ll miss the portkey.”

“Yes, good, alright then, come along, my darlings,” Narcissa beckoned hastily, pointing to a small, silver-backed hairbrush lying on the coffee table.  

With a jerk behind the navel as though an invisible hook and line had dragged him forward, they were pulled into nothingness, spinning uncontrollably, Draco’s finger glued to the portkey as he and Harry hurdled away from the Tonks household. Seconds later his feet slammed into hard ground and he fell onto his hands and knees in the yard of the Burrow.

The solemn mood could be felt from the moment their legs were back on solid ground. He heard screams. Throwing aside the no longer glowing hairbrush, Harry stood up, swaying slightly, and saw Mrs. Weasley running down the steps by the back door, closely followed by Remus, wand extended towards Harry.

“The Death Eaters were waiting for us,” Harry told them. “We were surrounded the moment we took off – they knew it was tonight – I don’t know what happened to anyone else, four of them chased us, it was all we could do to get away, and then Voldemort caught up with us…”

“What creature sat in the corner the first time that Harry Potter visited my office at Hogwarts?” Remus demanded, pushing Draco away when he tried to stand in front of Harry protectively, the shock of it almost knocking him over more than the man’s strength.

“Are you mad?!” Harry shouted, looking to Draco to make sure he was alright, and seeming heart-broken about Remus being suddenly so aggressive.

“Answer me!”

“A–a grindylow in a tank, wasn’t it?” Harry stammered and Draco stepped closer to his boyfriend once more, but Remus’ wand was shifting over to him now.

“What single thing remains in Harry and Draco’s room every time they leave the Black house?” he asked warningly.

“Pirate hat,” Draco said immediately. Remus seemed to relax.

“I’m sorry, boys, but I had to check” said Lupin tersely. “We’ve been betrayed. Voldemort knew that you were being moved tonight and the only people who could have told him were directly involved in the plan. You might have been an impostor.”

“None of the Order would have told Voldemort we were moving tonight,” Harry said. The idea was dreadful to Draco, he could not believe it of any of them. “Voldemort only caught up with us toward the end, he didn’t know which one I was in the beginning. If he’d been in on the plan he’d have known from the start I was the one with Draco.”

“Voldemort caught up with you?” Remus asked sharply. “What happened? How did you escape?”

Harry sighed. “Draco’s a brilliant flier.”

“Well. Thank goodness you’re all right,” Molly said, pulling the two young men into a hug Harry did not look to feel deserving of.

Hermione was rushing outside to greet them, Ginevra close on her heels. “That looks really good on you,” the youngest Weasley noted, looking at the top of Draco’s head.

“Fuck’s sake,” the Slytherin said under his breath and reached up to pull Harry’s obscenely Gryffindor hat off his hair, but unwilling to let it out of his hands. Well, at least for the time being. “What happened?” Draco asked to put attention elsewhere, and Remus’ wand lowered along with his gaze.

“Uncle Moony?” Harry urged, clearly terrified as the man hesitated.

“George is injured,” their ex-professor explained, “he’ll be alright, though,” he added quickly. “Moody’s dead.”

“What?” Harry asked quietly, all colour draining from his face. Draco couldn’t even imagine how he must be feeling. He’d been the one whom everyone risked their lives for. He’d been the one who had refused the plan for that very reason. Draco didn’t feel great either. If only he’d fought back harder on the plan. If only he hadn’t been invited in the first place just because he was the one to get Harry to agree to go along with it.

“Mundungus…apparated away. There was nothing to be done,” Lupin explained. Draco still could not quite comprehend it. Mad-Eye’s dead. It could not be. Mad-Eye, so tough, so brave, the consummate survivor.

“Come along now, dears,” Molly invited, and in silence they followed Mr. and Mrs. Weasley back into the Burrow, and into the living room, where Fred was keeping George company. The injury looked much worse than Draco had imagined. There was a big gory wound on the side of the twin’s head, and it still seemed to be gushing blood, despite Arthur and Ginevra’s relentless attempts at stopping the flow.

When they were advised to go upstairs and rest, Draco couldn’t even argue. The point of being in the Order and having the right to hear more about what had happened seemed underpowered by the exhaustion seeping into his bones. He wasn’t even hungry. He was just tired. And Harry looked like he could use about a week’s worth of sleep, as well. They nodded solemnly and were followed by Ronald, Hermione and Ginevra, all ushered to leave just the same.

Draco heard the voices, but couldn’t catch enough to make sense of what was being said. He thought he might possibly ask someone in the morning. He thought it would be best to do that when he wasn’t so on the verge of delirium. He thought that for the time being, having Harry back in his arms was well enough.

“I don’t think any of them would sell me to Voldemort,” Harry whispered, so quiet Draco almost didn’t hear. Or maybe it was just that he’d started drifting off already. He wasn’t sure what to answer, but making sure Harry knew he’d been heard would have to do for now, so Draco left a kiss on Harry’s forehead, the first one in several months, and began drifting off once more.

Chapter Text

Draco awoke the next morning to an empty bed and a sinking feeling in his stomach. He wasn’t sure which aspect of his life was the most anxiety-inducing one at the given moment. On the one hand, there was an injured man downstairs and another one that had died last night, on the other, Harry was grieving his beloved pet and was actively being chased by a murderous lunatic that happens to believe in a prophecy. If he had a third hand, it would currently be concerned with the safety of his mother.

Draco got dressed with an extra layer, the morning was surprisingly chilly for the end of July, and headed down the rickety stairs to find his boyfriend and make sure securing his safety hadn’t been a dream.

“Alright. They recognised you. But how? What did you do?” Remus’ voice rung from the kitchen, and Draco was clever enough to know who the question was being addressed to. Harry was sat with his head in his hands, trying to remember what Draco wouldn’t even be able to. He was also wearing a Slytherin quidditch jumper that made the only Slytherin in the vicinity unable to resist a smirk.

“I…” Harry tried to remember. The whole journey seemed like a blur of panic and confusion as far as Draco could remember. “I saw Stan Shunpike. And I tried to disarm him instead of—well, he doesn’t know what he’s doing, does he? He must be Imperiused!”

Remus looked aghast. “Harry, the time for disarming is past! These people are trying to capture and murder you! At least stun if you aren’t prepared to kill!”

“We were hundreds of feet up! Stan’s not himself and if I stunned him and he’d fallen, he’d have died the same as if I’d used Avada Kedavra! Expelliarmus saved me from Voldemort two years ago,” Harry added defiantly. The werewolf was reminding Draco of Zacharias Smith, who had jeered at Harry for wanting to teach Dumbledore’s Army how to disarm, always a disbelieving sneer on his face.

“Yes, Harry,” Remus said with painful restraint, “and a great number of Death Eaters witnessed that happening! Forgive me, but it was already a very unusual move then, under imminent threat of death. Repeating it tonight in front of Death Eaters who either witnessed or heard about the first occasion was close to suicidal!”

“So you think I should have killed Stan Shunpike?” Harry demanded angrily, and Draco took this moment to make himself seen, in case there was an outburst he’d have to deal with any second now.

“Of course not,” Remus sighed, “but the Death Eaters – frankly, most people – would have expected you to attack back! Expelliarmus is a useful spell, Harry, but the Death Eaters seem to think it is your signature move, and I urge you not to let it become so!”

“I won’t blast people out of my way just because they’re there,” Harry said defiantly. “That’s Voldemort’s job.”

Draco put his hand on Harry’s shoulder, showing that not only was he there, but he also happened to agree with what the other young man was saying. There had been enough deaths, disappearances and injuries. And, even though Draco did think that Death Eaters were no breed to deserve to live, he also knew that Harry should not be expected to kill and become just as lowly as them.

Harry’s head leaned back to rest against Draco, who was still stood behind his chair, before looking up at the Slytherin. “You should eat something.”

“I will, don’t worry,” Draco assured, and Remus’ gaze instantly softened.

“You did good,” the werewolf admitted, “both of you. You’re still alive and you escaped. Very well done,” he added, raising his coffee cup to salute Draco.

The thought alone of someone not having returned from the mission was heavily hanging over the Burrow for days to follow. Any time someone mentioned being a live or the prospect of mortality, the conversation would halt for a moment, the shock of losing Moody apparent to everyone in the room.

Draco could see that Harry was taking the blame of the man’s death close to heart, and felt guilty every moment of every day. There wasn’t much he could do, really. What was there? Assure Harry that it wasn’t his fault? Remind him that this was war and Moody knew very well what he was getting himself into? And what about Draco himself? Who was going to promise no one but Death Eaters were at fault, when Draco had been the one who disliked the plan from the beginning, but never did enough to make up another one?

Draco woke on one of the first nights at the Burrow, before the sun had risen, to Harry shoving clothes into his backpack, his groggy, sleep-filled mind unable to make out the reason for Harry’s hastiness, seeing even some of his own things going into the bag. “What are you doing, love?”

“I’ll leave at dawn,” Harry sounded agitated.

“What?” Draco was instantly awake. He could barely make out the silhouette of Harry’s face in the darkness.

“Before they’re all up,” he continued assuredly, “I won’t let anyone else die for me.”

Draco was near speechless. A stressful desperation came over his skin in the form of goosebumps. “You can’t go,” he said, feeling the ground slip from underneath him, tears about to prick at his eyes, “You can’t leave, you can’t leave me.”

Harry turned to look at Draco then, who was finally used to the darkness and could see the other man’s furrowed eyebrows. “I want you to come with me,” he said as if it had been obvious from the start.

“You do?”

“Of course, I do,” Harry’s hand was raking through Draco’s hair in an instant. “I can’t survive without you and I’ll go mad worrying. Would you come?” he asked and there was something nervous and unsure in his voice.

Draco chuckled to himself. What a stupid question. What a silly boy. “I once told you I’d follow you onto a pirate ship, if you wanted to run from all of this.”

“I’m not running away from it, though, am I? I’m running right into it.”

“I’d still follow you anywhere.”

“Are you sure?”

“Where you go, I go,” Draco promised and sealed it with a kiss on Harry’s forehead. “But we won’t survive without Hermione,” he said and felt Harry deflate right under his lips. “And you can’t do anything about the horcruxes until you’re of age. Plus, I’m quite sure Weasley won’t let you out of his sight, so there’s no escaping that either.”

Harry sat still and silent for a while before seeming to succumb to Draco’s logic. “I guess you’re right. Sorry,” he added bashfully.

“That’s okay,” Draco pulled the other man back into the bed. “Four’s better than two anyway, right?” Harry’s answer came in the form of pressing his face into the crook of Draco’s neck until soft snores eventually sounded from the Gryffindor, letting Draco know he was out like a light.

Despite the fear of the chance Harry had just told him what he’d wanted to hear only to wake up early and leave, Draco did open his eyes to a sunlight-bathed Harry drooling onto the pillow next to him. And however much Draco’s bladder was testing his sanity, he refused to move even an inch in favour of Harry getting a good night’s sleep.

They buried Hedwig at sunset, just Draco and the Gryffindor golden trio. Harry wouldn’t let anyone but himself dig, Hermione sobbed quietly the entire time. Eagle landed on Harry’s shoulder when he’d evened the ground with Arthur’s shovel, nuzzling his head against Harry’s ear in comfort. The young man reached up to scratch at the owl. “Bye, Hedwig,” Harry sighed. Hermione nudged Ron and he seemed to remember there was something in his pocket. He pulled out a stone with Hedwig’s name carved intricately into it. A beautiful sort of magic, the spell no doubt perfected by Hermione. “Thank you,” Harry said in a whisper.

The days were so warm it was hardly possible to exist with even a single layer on. Ronald dragged them all to the pond for an afternoon swim along with the twins, one of whom did his best not to get his bandaged head under water, and Ginevra, and even Hermione joined, though her contribution to the activity was mostly scribbling down a letter to Blaise with her feet in the water.

“Tell him I said hi,” Draco called out, “tell him I love him and I miss him!”

Harry’s full weight on his back made him groan then, the other young man having jumped onto his shoulders, wrapping his arms around his neck tightly and refusing to let go. “Don’t make me jealous, Malfoy.”

Draco’s laugh cut through the air right before he was shoved under the water by the person in question. He pulled Harry in along with him, only then registering that being yanked underwater might be too reminiscent of what had happened in the cave on Dumbledore’s last day of life. But when Draco re-emerged to make sure he hadn’t hurt Harry or crossed a line, the other man just came back to the surface with a laugh, slicking his hair wet hair back over his head.

The Slytherin kissed him then, not caring who saw or what anyone thought of it. The pond was secluded enough, and everyone had their suspicions, he was sure, but the liberty to do such a thing in public was exhilarating. Harry kissed him back instantly, as if it hadn’t been weeks since they’d tasted the other’s lips, as if there had never been any tension between them, as if no one was dead and no one was injured, and everything in the world was good because the two of them had the other.

“Can you two ever get off each other? Fuck’s sake,” Ronald said bitterly, rolling his eyes.

“Aw, Weasley, don’t worry, you’ll fall in love at some point,” Draco said, arms around Harry’s shoulders, making their height difference even more prominent.

“Yeah, Wonny,” Ginevra said, splashing her brother, “can’t be single forever.”

“Oi!” Ronald objected, wiping the water from his eyes, “those two are single as well, why aren’t you making fun of them?”

“Because they never dater Lavender Brown,” their sister insisted mockingly.

“And we’ve got one another,” George insisted.

“Quite sure that’s illegal,” Harry snickered.

“Fuck you, Potter,” Fred shouted as Draco laughed loudly, shielding Harry from the twin with a giant smile.

“Fred Gideon Weasley!” Molly’s voice shrieked from the house, “If I ever hear you use such language again, I will cut off your ear, as well!”

Draco laughed even heartier, only then hearing Harry’s teeth chattering from behind because of how long they’d spent in the water. Draco didn’t hear Ginevra’s teasing as she switched her perfectly-timed insults from Ronald to the twins, gathering Harry into his arms instead and trying to warm him up. “I won’t have you catch a cold in the middle of the summer,” Draco scoffed when that didn't work and pulled Harry towards the edge where his clothes and wand rested. “Accio sweater,” he said, pointing his wand to the house and stretching out his arm to catch the damned thing Harry loved so much.

“I won’t catch a cold,” the Gryffindor insisted, but pulled the green-and-grey sweater on thankfully nonetheless. “I’m very healthy. It would surprise you what I can survive.”

“Oh, it has been surprising me for years now,” Draco bulged his eyes out dramatically, making Harry laugh, then kissed him once more for good measure.

“Love you,” Harry whispered and sealed it with another peck.

“I know you do,” Draco smirked, putting his t-shirt on over his wet chest and combing his hair back with his fingers, then doing the same to Harry’s. “Would you keep still? I want to see how you look without a rats’ nest on top of your head.

“I do not have a rats’ nest on my head,” Harry insisted as they walked back towards the house, but Draco was relentless, not letting the black hair out of his grasp until it obeyed to his fingers. “I have a perfectly good head of hair, thank you very much.”

“A great one,” Draco agreed, following Harry into the house, “and yet you do nothing with it to look nice, do you?”

“That’s uncalled for,” Harry scoffed, “Mrs. Weasley, tell Draco I have decent hair.”

“I think Sirius would have my head if I told you what I think about your hair, dear,” Molly said from the kitchen with an amused smile on her face.

“See? It’s a bloody mess, now sit down and let me do something about it,” Draco insisted, knowing Harry was pouting when shoved onto one of the mismatched chairs around the kitchen table. “Prettier by the second,” Draco mused.

“Oh, you two are adorable,” Molly said in awe, smiling at them when Draco looked up at her. They hadn’t exactly told anyone about the two of them, yet most people knew without needing anything said. “I thought you would never admit to it, to be honest with you. I don’t know why. It seemed like Harry would have trouble with it.”

“Harry?” Draco asked amusedly.

“I have no trouble coming out!” Harry insisted.

“Harry Potter, the boy who lived in a closet for eleven years, everyone,” Draco droned.

“Oh, I don’t mean any offence by that, darling,” Molly chuckled, coming over to squeeze the two of them into her motherly grasp. “After all, parading around in one another’s clothes is not always a sign of a relationship.”

“How do you know we’re dating, then?” Draco asked with a laugh.

“Well, wearing the other’s clothes is one thing. Sharing a bed and snogging in my pond is something else entirely,” the woman said knowingly, making Draco blush. “You two have been about as subtle as a blast-ended skrewt in a china shop,” she giggled, still holding the two of them tightly just as Ronald came into the house, trying to shake water out of his ear.

“Remind me to never let Ginny anywhere near me when she’s of age,” the redhead said grumpily, only then taking a look at the scene in front of him. “What happened?”

“I think we just came out,” Harry chuckled.

“Oh,” Ronald snorted a laugh, “grand news that is,” he rolled his eyes as his mother returned to cooking dinner. “Better not be alone with her too long,” the boy warned, “Mum’s been trying to get it out of Hermione and me. What we’re off to do. She’ll try you two next, so brace yourself. Dad and Lupin have both asked us as well, but when we said Dumbledore told you not to tell anyone except us, they dropped it. Not Mum, though. She’s determined.”

Ronald’s prediction came true within hours. Shortly before lunch, Mrs. Weasley detached Harry from the others by asking him to help identify a lone man’s sock that she thought might’ve come out of his rucksack. Draco dreaded what she would pull out of him when he was alone. Except, unlike the Gryffindors, Draco was much more adept at staying away from people he knew wanted something out of him and could only get it by having him alone. He never strayed far from Harry, and always did his best to at least look like the two of them were having a private moment Molly would never dare interfere with.

From that day on, Molly kept Draco, Harry, Ronald, and Hermione so busy with preparations for the wedding that they hardly had any time to think. The kindest explanation of this behaviour would have been that she wanted to distract them all from thoughts of Mad-Eye and the terrors of their recent journey. After two days of nonstop cutlery cleaning, colour-matching favours, ribbons, and flowers, de-gnoming the garden and helping cook vast batches of canapés, however, Draco started to suspect her of a different motive. All the jobs she handed out seemed to keep the two of them as well as Ronald and Hermione away from one another.

“I think Mum thinks that if she can stop the four of you getting together and planning, she’ll be able to delay your leaving,” Ginevra told Draco in a conspiratory undertone, as they laid the table for dinner.

“And then what does she think’s going to happen?” Draco muttered, “Someone else might kill off Voldemort while she’s holding us here making vol-au-vents?”

He had spoken without thinking, and saw Ginevra’s face whiten. “So it’s true?” She said, “That’s what you’re trying to do?”

“We – not – he was joking,” Harry said evasively and threw Draco a warning glance.

The kitchen was so crowded that evening due to the Burrow having become a sort of a replacement for the Order headquarters after its secret keeper's death and amidst the wedding preparations, that it was difficult to manoeuvre knives and forks. “No news about Mad-Eye?” Harry asked Bill.

“Nothing,” the oldest Weasley son. They had not been able to hold a funeral for Moody, since Bill and Remus had failed to recover his remains. It had been difficult to know where he might have fallen, given the darkness and the confusion of the battle. “The Daily Prophet hasn’t said a word about him dying or about finding the body either,” Bill went on. “But that doesn’t mean much. It’s keeping a lot quiet these days.”

“And they still haven’t called a hearing about all the underage magic I used escaping the Death Eaters?” Harry called across the table to Arthur, who shook his head. “Because they know I had no choice or because they don’t want me to tell the world Voldemort attacked me?”

“The latter, I think. Scrimgeour doesn’t want to admit that You-Know-Who is as powerful as he is, nor that Azkaban’s seen a mass breakout.”

“Yeah, why tell the public the truth?” said Harry, clenching his knife so tightly that the faint scars on the back of his right hand stood out, white against his skin: I must not tell lies. Draco wanted to take the hand and kiss it, but he assumed it might be a bit ill-timed what with the heavy topics of conversation.

“Aren't people at the Ministry prepared to stand up to him?” Draco asked. It seemed to simple, so clear as day to him to want to fight against this madness. He couldn't see a decent reason for the truth to be hidden away in order to keep the general public calm. War wasn't supposed to be calm.

“Of course, but people are terrified.” Arthur replied, “terrified that they will be next to disappear, their children the next to be attacked! There are nasty rumours going around. I for one don’t believe the Muggle Studies professor at Hogwarts resigned. She hasn’t been seen for weeks now. Meanwhile Scrimgeour remains shut off in his office all day. I just hope he’s working on a plan. There was a pause in which Molly magicked the empty plates onto the kitchen counter and served apple tart.

“We must decide ’ow you will be disguised,’Arry,” Fleur said, once everyone had pudding. “For ze wedding,” she added, when he looked confused. “Of course, none of our guests are Death Eaters, but we cannot guarantee zat zey will not let something slip after zey ’ave ’ad champagne.” Harry didn’t look too happy about the statement, he might have even been offended by it.

“Yes, good point,” said Molly from the top of the table, where she sat, spectacles perched on the end of her nose, scanning an immense list of jobs that she had scribbled on a very long piece of parchment. “We might need to glamour your hair, Draco. A hat will not do this time.”

“Sure,” the Slytherin nodded along. His appearence for a single evening was certainly not his biggest concern.

Molly gave some sort of a chicken job to Harry, and a bedroom-clear-out job to Ronald, and a sheet changing one to Hermione that the Wealsey matron seemed to have forgot she’d also given to Ginevra, and Draco did not complain even a little when he was left out of the tasks entirely, so when Hermione pulled him aside to Ginevra’s room where she was staying, Draco was only happy to comply.

“You can help me,” she insisted, throwing him a beautifully-beaded purse to catch.

“Whatever you need,” Draco said in confusion. There were two piles next to her blow-up mattress, one quite a bit larger than the other.

“Ronald is under the impression Mad-Eye’s survived.”

“There’s...little chance of that,” Draco said carefully.

“Oh, I know,” Hermione nodded along and took a seat on the ground cross-legged and waited for Draco to join her, “I think he just…hopes.”

“Well, that’s not a bad way of keeping oneself going,” Draco supposed, still confused as to what the girl was trying to do here. The sheer number of books was bizarre, and Draco was genuinely excited to know what was about to happen.

The girl nodded absently, then seemed to remember the matter at hand. “Right, well, I will deal with my things and Ron’s things, but I thought you could get everything you and Harry need. It would certainly help. A lot. Quite a lot quicker than me sorting through four people’s belongings. Less invasive too.”

“Sure,” Draco agreed. “So, one backpack for us both, right? The less the better?”

“Oh, no Draco, that bag is enchanted,” she pointed to the item still in his hand. “Extension charm. Blaise showed it to me.”

“Blaise’s extension charms,” Draco said, and it all finally made sense to him, “he should open a business with those.”

“They’re really good,” Hermione agreed. It was quite obvious she was glad to speak about Blaise openly. Draco assumed Ronald was not much of a fan of listening to too much about Slytherins, but Draco was always happy to say good things about his best friends. "I'm still sorting through things," she sighed, noting that the pile of things she wanted to take along was the bigger one. 

Draco smiled, but there was a small sliver of guilt that tugged at his navel. She was Blaise's girlfriend to him before she was Harry's best friend. He felt a certain responsibility to keep her safe, alive and in one piece. “Are you sure about coming?”

“Not you as well,” she rolled her eyes with a smile. “Harry’s been trying to get us to stay the whole time.”

“Well, he wouldn’t be going alone. I’d help him.”

“And, as much as I trust you, I trust myself more,” she said decidedly. “And you know Ron’s not going to give up the opportunity to prove himself. Besides, he loves Harry and only wants to help.”

“Well, two smart people in a tent of four people won’t be too bad, I suppose,” Draco said, making Hermione laugh. “What else have you got?”

“Besides a small library? A tent, Mad-Eye’s whole stock of Polyjuice Potion, books on destroying horcruxes…” she said before her smile slipped. “I’ve also modified my parents’ memories so that they’re convinced that they’re really called Wendell and Monica Wilkins, and that their life’s ambition is to move to Australia, which they have now done. That’s to make it more difficult for Voldemort to track them down and interrogate them about me. Or Harry, because unfortunately, I’ve told them quite a bit about him.”

Draco didn’t know what to say. His own mother was in the Order, and his father was Salazar knows where, trying to keep at least himself alive just enough to make sure than Draco and Narcissa are somewhere in the spectrum of safety. But to imagine his parents forgetting him entirely? He couldn’t even begin to fathom it.

“Assuming I survive our hunt for the Horcruxes, I’ll find Mum and Dad and lift the enchantment. If I don’t – well, I think I’ve cast a good enough charm to keep them safe and happy. Wendell and Monica Wilkins don’t know that they’ve got a daughter, you see.”

Draco put his arms around her comfortingly, unable to think of a single thing to say. “That’s incredibly advanced magic,” he pointed out. “Hey,” he nudged her to look at him, “brightest witch of our age,” he said pointedly, making sure she knew he meant it.

“All I’m saying is…I know what I’m getting myself into. I know what’s at stake. I’m not a prissy little posh girl.”

“I never thought you were,” Draco said unsurely, his grip on her loosening.

“I know, but people seen to. They think I’m uptight and annoying. I don’t mean to be! I’m just…”

“Passionate about the things you care for,” Draco finished for her, glad to see her nod even the slightest bit. “I know that. I think everyone who knows you knows that.”

She laughed wetly and bitterly, “People don’t like me.”

“Who doesn’t like you?”

“I don’t know,” Hermione shrugged. “It sometimes feels like they want me to leave the room while they’re speaking, or they’re afraid to say something I wouldn’t like in front of me in fear of me having an outburst, but I don’t do it to annoy anyone, I swear!”

“Hermione, you are the smartest person I know. You are clever, and you are funny, and I absolutely adore you. And so does Pansy, which is bloody impressive, by the way. You care for the love of my life with everything you have inside you, which I will forever be grateful for. And how you locked Zabini down is beyond me,” he said, smiling when he’d pulled a chuckle out of her, “I have nothing but adoration for you, and anyone who doesn’t see that is a bloody idiot and not worth your time. You’re going to do great things. Such incredible things, and I can’t wait to see them.”

Hermione looked at him with a genuine smile, despite the glassy tears in her eyes and all over her face, and Draco found himself wondering how he could have ever disliked such a wonderful person. Wondering what his life would be like if he hadn’t matured just enough over the summer before his fourth year, if Crabbe and Goyle had been his only friends all these years, if his mother wasn’t as inherently good as she is. What would his life be like, if he’d been the Slytherin prick, the Malfoy heir everyone expected him to be?

“They don’t stand a chance without us, do they?” she asked, her attention having turned to the window, where Harry, Ronald and the twins were failing to get all of the chickens into the coop, even when three of them were allowed to use magic.

“Oh, they’re goners without us,” Draco agreed, kissed the side of Hermione’s head and left for Percy Weasley’s old room to gather the most essential clothes and supplies he and Harry would need for however long they’ll be away from home.

In the evenings, Draco would find Harry sitting by Hedwig’s grave, Eagle perched next to him protectively, talking to himself, or maybe to the pet he was forced to mourn, Draco didn’t know. He never disturbed Harry at those moments, only watched him from a distance.

“How is he?” Ronald’s voice made him jump. It wasn’t like Draco hadn’t expected anyone to speak to him, since he was sat on the Burrow’s porch, where anyone could see him and walk past at any moment. It was the Ronald part that had surprised him.

“He really doesn’t want to put you and Hermione in danger,” Draco admitted, “I think he’s coming around to the idea, though.”

“Keep working him, yeah?” Ronald suggested, leaning against the open doorframe, his eyes on Harry, as well.

The Slytherin turned back and debated whether to say anything more. “I’m glad you’re coming,” Draco finally uttered, “both of you.”

When Ronald didn’t say anything, Draco swallowed his pride and looked behind him to face the youngest Weasley son. “I’m glad you’re on his side through this,” Ronald said as if it pained him to admit.

“Through this and anything else,” Draco mumbled.

The Delacours arrived the following morning at eleven o’clock. Harry, Draco, Hermione and Ronald were feeling quite resentful toward Fleur’s family by this time, and it was with ill grace that Ronald stumped back upstairs to put on matching socks, and Draco was tasked with attempting to flatten Harry’s hair. Once they had all been deemed smart enough, they trooped out into the sunny backyard to await the visitors.

The rusty cauldrons and old Wellington boots that usually littered the steps by the back door were gone, replaced by two new Flutterby bushes standing either side of the door in large pots, though there was no breeze, the leaves waved lazily, giving a calming rippling effect. The chickens had been shut away, the yard had been swept, and the nearby garden had been pruned, plucked, and generally spruced up.

Draco had lost track of how many security enhancements had been placed upon the Burrow by both the Order and the Ministry. All he knew was that it was no longer possible for anybody to travel by magic directly into the place. Arthur had therefore gone to meet the Delacours on top of a nearby hill, where they were to arrive by Portkey. The first sound of their approach was an unusually high-pitched laugh, which turned out to be coming from Arthur himself, who appeared at the gate moments later, laden with luggage and leading a beautiful blonde woman in long, leaf-green robes, who could only be Fleur’s mother.

“Maman!” cried Fleur, rushing forward to embrace her, “Papa!”

Monsieur Delacour was nowhere near as attractive as his wife, he was a head shorter and with a little, pointed black beard. However, he looked good-natured. Bouncing toward Molly on high-heeled boots, he kissed her twice on each cheek, leaving her flustered. “You ’ave been to much trouble,” he said in a deep voice. “Fleur tells us you ’ave been working very ’ard.”

“Oh, it’s been nothing,” Molly trilled, “no trouble at all.”

Draco made the mistake at looking at Ronald at that moment, who looked beyond shocked and disagreeing with the statement, and had to bite the inside of his cheek not to laugh out loud, which Harry was currently doing and hiding awfully by looking at his shoes, Hermione nudging the two of them warningly.

“Dear lady!” Monsieur Delacour said, still holding Molly’s hand between his two large ones and beaming. “We are most honoured at the approaching union of our two families! Let me present my wife, Apolline.”

Madame Delacour glided forward and stooped to kiss Molly too. “Enchanté,” she said. “Your ’usband ’as been telling us such amusing stories!” Arthur gave a maniacal laugh, Molly threw him a look, upon which he became immediately silent and assumed an expression appropriate to the sickbed of a close friend.

“And, of course, you ’ave met my leetle daughter, Gabrielle!” Monsieur Delacour said. Gabrielle was Fleur in miniature. Eleven years old, with waist-length hair of pure, silvery blonde, she gave Molly a dazzling smile and hugged her, then threw Harry a glowing look, batting her eyelashes. Draco cleared his throat loudly.

Harry rushed forward to help, and Draco joined with a roll of his eyes, if only to keep an eye on the other man. “Oh, senk you, it eez alright, zou, we can carry zeeze upstairs ourselves,” Fleur’s mother insisted, when Harry and Draco took the luggage from Arthur.

“C’est bien, on insiste,” Draco smiled politely.

“Oh, mon chéri, tu parles français ?” Madame Delacour sounded excited. Gabrielle looked beyond enchanted by the Slytherin.

“J’essaye,” Draco said, trying not to look too smug about it.

The Delacours, as it soon transpired, were helpful, pleasant guests. They were pleased with everything and keen to assist with the preparations for the wedding. Monsieur Delacour pronounced everything from the seating plan to the bridesmaids’ gowns “Charmant!” Madame Delacour was most accomplished at household spells and had the oven properly cleaned in a trice. Gabrielle followed her elder sister around, trying to assist in any way she could and jabbering away in rapid French, immediately turning to accost Draco with conversation whenever she was allowed to take a rest.

“Close your mouth before a bird flies into it,” Draco advised Harry who tended to watch Draco speaking French with a stupidly love-struck look on his face. One that Draco adored to hell and back, but wouldn’t admit.

“Il est très beau,” Gabrielle said dreamily. But somehow, despite being Gabrielle’s hero three years ago, Harry no longer held that position. It was now Draco. “Tu avais raison. Il vaut tout l’argent du monde.”

“Il est également pris,” Draco said warningly, a small smile playing on his lips.

“Je sais, vous êtes très amoureux tous les deux,” the little girl said surely.

“Tu es très sage, n'est-ce pas?” Draco said appraisingly, shooting the girl a teasing smile.

“Fleur le pense,” she shrugged.

“Bah, bien sûr,” Draco chuckled, “elle est sage aussi.”

The Burrow was not built to accommodate so many people. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were now sleeping in the sitting room, having shouted down Monsieur and Madame Delacour’s protests and insisted they take their bedroom. Gabrielle was sleeping with Fleur in Percy’s old room now that Draco and Harry had been kicked out of it and bunking with Ronald, and Bill would be sharing with Charlie, his best man, once Charlie arrived from Romania.

It felt like the house barely had room for one to breathe, so it didn’t surprise Draco when Harry pulled him outside to sit by the pond in peace and silence when it was about twenty minutes before midnight. “Hermione’s made it so it looks like she’s moved to Australia,” Harry said, flicking a pebble into the water.  “I know, she told me,” Draco said, his eyes still glued to Harry. He knew, logically, that waiting until Harry was of age would be the smartest thing to do, but if he asked, Draco would leave at this very moment.

“Ron’s got the ghoul that lives in the attic looking like him with spattergroit. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley will pretend it’s Ron, in case anyone comes knocking,” Harry sighed, his next toss a lot more forceful.

“Spattergroit’s contagious,” Draco mused, “a surprisingly not terrible idea.”

Harry finally turned to face his boyfriend, watching him carefully. “They’re really coming.”

Draco hummed and leaned forward to kiss Harry’s shoulder. “They’re determined, I’ll give them that,” he supposed. “Look at it this way,” he said when the scowl hadn’t disappeared from the Gryffindor’s face, “if it was either of their job, wouldn’t you be going along with every bit of determination in your body to help?”

Harry thought about it for a second, and once he had the answer, he looked back to the pond. He clearly didn’t want to admit it, but Draco was right. “You’re really hot when you speak French,” Harry said instead of voicing any other thoughts of his boyfriend being right.

“Alright,” Draco snorted a laugh.

“No, I mean it,” Harry said with a shit-eating grin, “really fit.”

“Shut up,” Draco demanded, kissing Harry instead of letting him say more. It didn’t take long to escalate and Draco to be pulled into Harry’s lap, the Gryffindor’s wonderful hands somehow being everywhere, while Draco did his best not to start moaning loudly.

Hips rocking into the other’s, fingers getting more demanding by the second, All other thoughts and noise flowing to the back of their minds. There was nothing in the world but Harry, at least not as far as Draco was concerned. Not anything that Harry was expected to do, find or destroy, no, just Harry. The smell of him, the taste of him, the warmth of his flesh so intent on taking Draco apart seam by seam until the enchantment on Draco’s watch beeped loudly in the summer night.

“What’s that?” Harry wondered, looking outraged that something had dared to interrupt the two of them, much less a timepiece.

“It’s midnight,” Draco said excitedly, “happy birthday!”

“I’m seventeen,” Harry grinned, still holding onto Draco tightly, and kissed his boyfriend, more softly. “I can do whatever I want,” Harry said, pulling back suddenly.

“Anything at all,” Draco agreed, laughing at the joy that radiated from the young man.

“I can glamour you for the wedding,” Harry offered.

“Oh? Have you been spending the past year and a half hoping to change the way I look?”

“Yes, of course,” Harry said mock-bitterly, “I got the hottest bloke in Hogwarts only to switch up his beautiful nose.” Draco had never considered his nose to be beautiful before. “Or should I change your strikingly grey eyes to something more muted? Might help, actually, might love you less. It’s honestly a bit overwhelming at times.”

“Fuck you, Potter,” Draco chuckled, shoving his fingers into the ribcage of the man underneath him. Harry, in his attempts to escape the ticklish assault, but unable to get out from under Draco’s legs, had nowhere to run but lay backwards into the sand, Draco following along diligently to nip at Harry’s throat. He tasted of salt and smelled so deliciously and specifically like Harry Potter that Draco found him overwhelming as well, but he wasn’t about to go blabbering that around for everyone to hear.

“If we don’t go back upstairs, I’ll try to fuck you right here,” Harry warned.

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Draco grinned smugly and with one last kiss got off Harry, offering him a hand to pull him up, before taking a small piece of carefully folded silk out of his pocket. “Now, don’t go thinking I’m trying to tie you down,” Draco warned, but the nervous butterflies in his stomach were about to murder him if he didn’t do this now instead of in the morning when everyone’s awake. “Because be warned, when I do ask you to marry me, it will be a lot better and we’ll be somewhere with bright blue water and...fucking I don’t know, less people, probably…” Draco trailed off.

Harry’s eyes were so kind, though. There was no question of what the fuck do you think you’re doing, Malfoy in them, There was nothing, in fact, but love in them, as well as the smile that accompanied it.

“But, well, it’s something that’s mine, and in case anything happens, since we’re both reckless and about to do something potentially deadly,” Draco shrugged. He was a bloody Malfoy, for Salazar’s sake, and he couldn’t even speak properly for a minute, if Harry Potter was looking at him like he’d hung the mon. “Well, we’re also way too stubborn to let a thing like losing one another stop us from still looking, right? So, just in case anything happens and you’re on the verge of doing something stupid, you should probably have just a small piece of me on you at all times that, well, is probably still easy to lose, but I know you’ll try not to–”

“Draco,” Harry said with a small chuckle, the interruption reminding Draco to breathe.

“Sorry,” the Slytherin whispered. “What I mean to say is this. My mother was proposed to the moment she turned seventeen. So were my grandmothers and their mothers and so on, for generations back, as far as I know. I’m not going to do that, because I believe it should be more special than that, and I do think seventeen is an insane age to get married, and I’m rambling again and here it is,” he said, collecting his thoughts anew and unfolding the silk to reveal a simple silver band. “I toyed with the idea of adding something to it, but I couldn’t see you as much of a decoration man. May I?”

Harry nodded quickly, practically shoving his hand out for Draco to take hold of, the excited look returning to his face as he bit his bottom lip in what Draco hoped was a happy gesture rather than a disappointed one.

“It’s made from my hair, but it is silver. It’s very old magic, Fleur showed me how to do it. Her sister was very excited to watch me practice. And it will remain on your finger until something is to happen to me. So, you know, if I die–”

“Don’t say that,” Harry interrupted once more.

“Sorry, but if something were to happen to me, you’d be the first to know.”

“Why? What would happen to it?” Harry wondered, admiring the white gleam that moonlight adhered to the ring on his right hand.

“It would turn back to my hair. Right in your hand. I hope nothing happens to the spell and it doesn’t break before I die though, that might be a bit of a shock to you, sorry, in advance, if it does,” Draco began rambling once more, but Harry pulled him in for another head-spinning kiss, and it was all forgiven.

“I’ll never take it off,” Harry promised, “even if I’m old and wrinkly and unfortunately outlive you, I’ll glue it together with scotch tape and put it back on.”

Draco giggled, so utterly content and happy to have this beautiful soul all to himself, and pulled him along. “Remember to be quiet,” Draco reminded when they walked back towards the house, “care to do the honours?”

Harry was beaming as he cast a silencing charm on the front door and both their shoes. The Weasley parents were sound asleep, or at least gave them the dignity of not calling out their late-night rendezvous, and once they’d reached their new bedroom, they found Ronald already snoring lightly, not paying mind to anyone missing or, Merlin forbid, snogging just outside the window.

Draco didn’t remember falling asleep, but it was shushed conversation about someone named Gorgovitch that woke him from his slumber, Ronald and Harry both sat on the redhead’s bed. “Dragomir Gorgovitch?” Draco asked groggily.”

“Well, I hope not,” Ronald sounded about as displeased about the idea as Draco was.

“Who?” Harry asked. Draco couldn’t help but notice Harry was twirling the ring of Draco’s essence around his finger mindlessly, like the simple feeling of having it there calmed him down somehow.

“Chaser, transferred to the Chudley Cannons for a record fee two years ago. Record holder for most Quaffle drops in a season.”

“No,” Harry said with his brows furrowed, “I’m definitely not thinking of Gorgovitch.”

“I try not to either,” Ron scoffed. “Well, happy birthday anyway.”

“Oh, that’s right, I forgot! I’m seventeen.” Harry seized the wand lying beside his camp bed, pointed it at the cluttered desk where he had left his glasses, and said “Accio glasses!” Although they were only around a foot away, Draco knew there was something immensely satisfying about seeing something zoom toward you outside the walls of their school, or at least until they poked Harry in the eye.

“Slick,” Ronald snorted.

Revelling in the removal of his Trace, Harry sent Ronald’s possessions flying around the room, causing both Draco’s and Ronald’s owls to wake up and flutter excitedly around their cages. Harry also tried tying the laces of his trainers by magic, though the resultant knot took several minutes to untie by hand, and, purely for the pleasure of it, turned the orange robes on Ron’s Chudley Cannons posters right blue.

“I’d do your fly by hand, though,” Ron advised Harry, sniggering when Harry immediately checked it. “Here’s your present. Unwrap it up here, it’s not for my mother’s eyes.”

“A book?” Harry said as he took the rectangular parcel. “Bit of a departure from tradition, isn’t it?”

“This isn’t your average book,” said Ron. “It’s pure gold. Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches. Explains everything you need to know about girls. If only I’d had this last year I’d have known exactly how to get rid of Lavender and I wouldn’t have known how to get going with…Well, Fred and George gave me a copy, and I’ve learned a lot. You’d be surprised, it’s not all about wand work, either.”

“Charming witches?” Harry asked with a raised eyebrow and clear amusement on his face. Draco did not share the latter emotion. In fact, he was rather upset by the notion.

“Well, I’m sure it works on any Slytherins, you guys are about as difficult to understand as the average woman,” Ronald shrugged.

While the two Gryffindors headed down for breakfast, Harry kissing Draco’s hand on his way out of the room, Draco remained to get dressed and use the solitude to add another enchantment to Harry’s watch – one that would always let Harry know Draco’s exact location, should he need it in however long the following stretch of time would be.

As he descended the stairs, Draco was greeted by Hermione with a giant pile of Harry’s unwrapped gifts in her hands, “Oh, good morning, Draco, Harry’s just downstairs. I’ll go pack all of this in…” she looked around carefully before whispering, “in the bag.”

Draco nodded, hoping his smile didn’t look like he was simply humouring her five-year-old-playing-secret-agent behaviour, and continued towards the kitchen for some breakfast. The wedding preparations were going splendidly, and Draco had never seen so many people so busy all at once, but, then again, he’d rarely watched the Malfoy Manor’s house elves.

He followed Harry and Ronald to finish their plates outside once some of the Order members were arriving to help out with the festivities. There was still somehow plenty to do despite all the preparing they’d been tasked with for days, and Draco barely had enough time to finish shoving toast into his mouth when Ginevra was already collecting his plate and pulling Ronald and Harry upright to get inside and start getting dressed smart enough to be appropriate for a wedding. The youngest Weasley herself, despite her bare feet, was already wearing a beautiful champagne-coloured dress which Draco mentally reminded himself to tell Pansy about whenever he’d see her next.

Draco put himself in charge of the getting the two Gryffindor idiots looking good task, having attended enough black tie events with his father to last him a lifetime. He succeeded, if he may say so himself.

“Out of the way, out of the way!” Mrs. Weasley all but sang, coming through the gate with what appeared to be a giant, beach-ball-sized Snitch floating in front of her. Seconds later Draco realised it was Harry’s birthday cake, which Molly was suspending with her wand, rather than risk carrying it over the uneven ground.

When the cake had finally landed in the middle of the table, Harry said, “That looks amazing, Mrs. Weasley.”

“Oh, it’s nothing, dear,” she said fondly. Over her shoulder, Ron gave Harry the thumbs-up and mouthed, Good one. Draco nodded to Ronald with a laugh.

There was so much love for Harry all around. This was meant to be Fleur and Bill’s big day, and yet, everyone was entirely happy to share it with Harry. Draco couldn’t exactly see Bill minding much, the man seemed to rarely show any emotion that wasn’t respectful calmness or utter adoration for his soon-to-be-wife. What did surprise him, though, was Fleur helping every step of the way. Whether it was picking out a birthday gift – a magical razor, in this case – or decorating the birthday cake, which Draco had spied her doing with a smile and a merry hum. Draco loved all of these people, because they loved Harry.

By mid-day some of the closer guests were starting to arrive, led into the house by Fred and George, who had waited for them at the end of the lane. Hagrid had honoured the occasion by wearing his best, and possibly most horrible, hairy brown suit. Remus arrived with a tall dark-haired woman on his arm, which both Draco and Harry found strange, until she introduced herself in possibly the worst falsetto as, and Draco would have to quote her here, “Regina, erm, let’s say Lupin.”

“God, Sirius?” Harry asked discreetly, but with a disbelieving gasp, and Draco’s mouth hung agape now that he recognised some of the tattoos running down the woman’s forearms. There was glamouring involved, that much was clear, but Sirius Black made a very convincing woman, and he pulled it off wonderfully.

“Like it?” Sirius asked, continuing with the voice.

“Why Regina?” Draco wondered as Harry nodded vigorously.

“Oh,” Sirius waved it away, sharing a knowing look with Remus, “my brother would have found it funny,” Harry's gofather said in way of explanation. Remus chuckled at something, and neither Harry nor Draco thought it appropriate to ask for a deeper reference.

They all saw it at the same time then – a streak of light that came flying across the yard and onto the table, where it resolved itself into a bright silver weasel, which stood on its hind legs and spoke with Mr. Weasley’s voice. “Minister of Magic coming with me.” The Patronus dissolved into thin air, leaving Fleur’s family peering in astonishment where it had vanished.

“We should not be here right now,” said Lupin at once, pulling a surprisingly graceful despite his high heels Sirius along towards the Burrow, each of them kissing one of Molly’s cheeks in a quick greeting before disappearing into the house. Draco understood how an unregistered werewolf and an escaped prisoner on the loose might not be the best sight for the bloody Minister himself.

But there was no time to discuss the occasion for the visit, as a second later, Arthur had appeared out of thin air at the gate, accompanied by Rufus Scrimgeour, instantly recognisable by his mane of grizzled hair. The two newcomers marched across the yard toward the garden and the lantern-lit tent where everyone was watching them draw closer. As Scrimgeour came within range of the lantern light, Draco saw that he looked much older than the last time he’d been on the property, scraggy and grim. “Sorry to intrude,” said the Minister, as he limped to a halt before one of the tables. “Especially as I can see that I am gate crashing a party.” His eyes lingered for a moment on the giant Snitch cake. “Many happy returns.”

“Thanks,” Harry said unsurely.

“I require a private word with you,” Scrimgeour went on. “Also with Mr. Ronald Weasley and Miss Hermione Granger,” he then checked a piece of parchment in his hand, “Oh, I’m so sorry, Mr. Draco Malfoy, as well.”

Chapter Text

Molly had banned the entire Weasley family from the house, and had put Arthur in charge of making sure no one entered while the Minister and four teenagers stood in uncomfortable silence in the middle of the house. Draco had a gut-wrenching feeling he was about to be taken to Azkaban, and the only thought that made him feel slightly better was that the Gryffindor Golden Trio could not have possibly done anything illegal as well.

If the man was here because they were about to drop out of Hogwarts, though, they were fucked.

Scrimgeour had not spoken as they all passed through the messy kitchen and into the Burrow’s sitting room. Although the garden had been full of soft golden evening light, it was already dark in here. Harry flicked his wand at the oil lamps as he entered, illuminating the cosy room. Scrimgeour sat himself in the sagging armchair that Mr. Weasley normally occupied, leaving Harry, Draco Hermione, and Ronald to squeeze side by side onto the sofa.

Only once they had done so, did Scrimgeour speak. “I have some questions for the three of your and I think it will be best if we do it individually. If you three…” he pointed at the Gryffindors, “…could wait upstairs, I will start with Draco.”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Harry said immediately, and Draco felt himself relax, while Hermione nodded vigorously in agreement. “You can speak to us together, or not at all.”

Scrimgeour gave Harry a cold, appraising look. Draco wanted to kiss his boyfriend right there and then. “Very well then, together,” he said, shrugging. He cleared his throat. “I am here, as I’m sure you know, because of Albus Dumbledore’s will.” Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at one another. Draco was only glad to not be questioned for the time being. “A surprise, apparently? You were not aware the that Dumbledore had left you anything?”

“A–all of us?” Ronald asked.

“Yes, all of–”

“Dumbledore died over a month ago," Harry interrupted before he could finish the confirmation. "Why has it taken this long to give us what he left us?”

“Needed to examine whatever he’s left Harry, did you?” Draco sneered.

“You had no right to do that!” Hermione objected hotly.

“I had every right,” said Scrimgeour dismissively. “The Decree for Justifiable Confiscation gives the Ministry the power to confiscate the contents of a will–”

“That law was created to stop wizards passing on dark artifacts,” Draco pointed out.

“You would know about it, wouldn’t you?” the Minister said with narrowed eyes, shamelessly suggesting the obvious.

Hermione did not seem to approve of the man’s tone and accusation, going in hot, “And the Ministry is supposed to have evidence that the deceased’s possessions are illegal before seizing them! Are you telling me that you thought Dumbledore was trying to pass us something cursed?”

“Are you planning to follow a career in Magical Law, Miss Granger?” Scrimgeour asked.

“No, I’m not,” Hermione retorted. “I’m hoping to do some good in the world!” Ronald and Draco laughed, Scrimgeour’s eyes flickered toward them and away again as Harry spoke.

“So why have you decided to let us have our things now? Can’t think of a pretext to keep them?” Harry asked. Draco was thoroughly enjoying the attitude. He always preferred it when Harry was being cocky. There was something devastatingly attractive about it.

“No, it’ll be because the thirty-one days are up,” said Hermione at once. “They can’t keep the objects longer than that unless they can prove they’re dangerous. Right?”

“Would you say you were close to Dumbledore, Ronald?” Scrimgeour asked, ignoring Hermione.

Ronald looked startled. “Me? No – not really…It was always Harry who…” he looked around at the others to see Hermione giving him a stop-talking-now! sort of look and Draco was prepared to use Langlock on him, but the damage was done. Scrimgeour looked as though he had heard exactly what he had expected, and wanted, to hear. He swooped like a bird of prey upon Ronald’s answer.

“If you were not very close to Dumbledore, how do you account for the fact that he remembered you in his will? He made exceptionally few personal bequests. The vast majority of his possessions – his private library, his magical instruments, and other personal effects – were left to Hogwarts. Why would you be singled out in the case of not being too close to him?”

“I…dunno,” the youngest Weasley son shrugged, “I…when I say we weren’t close…I mean, I think he liked me…”

“You’re being modest, Ron,” Hermione interrupted. “Dumbledore was very fond of you.” This was stretching the truth to breaking points. As far as Draco knew, Ronald and Dumbledore had never been alone together, and direct contact between them had been negligible. However, Scrimgeour did not seem to be listening. He put his hand inside his cloak and drew out a drawstring pouch. From it, he removed a scroll of parchment which he unrolled and read aloud.

“The Last Will and Testament of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore…Yes, here we are…To Ronald Bilius Weasley, I leave my Deluminator, in the hope that he will remember me when he uses it.’” Draco observed at the small object. It looked something like a silver cigarette lighter. Scrimgeour leaned forward and passed the Deluminator to Ronald, who took it and turned it over in his fingers, looking stunned. “That is a valuable object,” Scrimgeour said, watching the red-haired young man. “It may even be unique. Certainly, it is of Dumbledore’s own design. Why would he have left you an item so rare?” Ronald shook his head, looking bewildered. “Dumbledore must have taught thousands of students,” Scrimgeour persevered. “Yet the only one he remembered in his will are you four. Why is that? To what use did he think you would put his Deluminator, Mr. Weasley?”

“Put out lights, I s’pose,” Ronald mumbled. “What else could I do with it?”

Evidently Scrimgeour had no suggestions. After squinting at Ronald for a moment or two, he turned back to Dumbledore’s will. “To Miss Hermione Jean Granger, I leave my copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, in the hope that she will find it entertaining and instructive.”

Scrimgeour now pulled out of the bag a small book that looked as ancient as the copy of Secrets of the Darkest Arts back in the library of Grimmauld Place. Its binding was stained and peeling in places, but Hermione took it from Scrimgeour without a word. She held the book in her lap and gazed at it. Draco noticed that the title was in runes. As he looked, a tear splashed onto the embossed golden symbols.

“Why do you think Dumbledore left you that book, Miss Granger?” Scrimgeour wondered.

“He…he knew I liked books,” Hermione said in a thick voice, mopping her eyes with her sleeve.

“But why that particular book?”

“I don’t know. He must have thought I’d enjoy it.”

“Did you ever discuss codes, or any means of passing secret messages, with Dumbledore?”

“No, I didn’t,” Hermione insisted, still wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “And if the Ministry still hasn’t found any hidden codes in this book in thirty-one days, I doubt that I will.” She suppressed a sob. They were wedged together so tightly that Draco had difficultly extracting his arm to put it around Hermione’s shoulders, though try he did. Scrimgeour turned back to the will.

“To Harry James Potter,” he read, “I leave the Snitch he caught in his first Quidditch match at Hogwarts, as a reminder of the rewards of perseverance and skill.” As Scrimgeour pulled out the tiny, walnut-sized golden ball, its silver wings fluttered rather feebly as the Minister held it up in a silk handkerchief, and Draco could not help the pang of anxiety that stung him. Snitches have flesh memory. It felt anti-climactic then that Harry took it in his hand and nothing happened.

“Why did Dumbledore leave you this Snitch?” Scrimgeour asked. The sense of being interrogated was too great to pass over.

“No idea,” said Harry. “For the reasons you just read out, I suppose…to remind me what you can get if you…persevere and whatever it was.”

“You think this is a mere symbolic keepsake, then?”

“I suppose so,” Harry said. “What else could it be?”

“I’m asking the questions,” said Scrimgeour, shifting his chair a little closer to the sofa. Mid-day sun was scorching even through the thick glass of the windows, the marquee beyond the windows towered ghostly white over the hedge.

“I notice that your birthday cake is in the shape of a Snitch,” Scrimgeour said to Harry. “Why is that?”

Hermione laughed derisively. “Oh, it can’t be a reference to the fact that Harry’s a great Seeker, that’s way too obvious,” she said. “There must be a secret message from Dumbledore hidden in the icing!” Draco snickered to himself.

“I don’t think there’s anything hidden in the icing,” said Scrimgeour doomily, “but a Snitch would be a very good hiding place for a small object. You know why, I’m sure?”

Harry shrugged and looked slightly embarrassed not to know the answer. He may be a good player, but there was more to Quidditch than the game itself. “Because snitches have flesh memories,” Draco sighed. It clearly had not worked. Why keep milking it?

Both Harry and Ronald, however did not appear to be aware of this little factoid.

“Correct,” said Scrimgeour. “A Snitch is not touched by bare skin before it is released,” he explained to the two unknowing individuals. Draco, of course had read enough about the history of Quidditch to know, even Hermione seemed to be informed about this. Not even the maker touched them without gloves. It carries an enchantment by which it can identify the first human to lay hands upon it, in the case of disputed capture. “This Snitch,” he held up the tiny golden ball, “will remember your touch, Mister Potter. It occurs to me that Dumbledore, who had prodigious magical skill, whatever his other faults, might have enchanted this Snitch so that it will open only for you.”

“Clearly not, though,” Draco pointed out.

Scrimgeour scowled and raised the will up to his eyes once more. “To Draco Lucius Malfoy,” he announced rather unwillingly, as if it was paining him to see Dumbledore leaving anything to the son of a suspected Death Eater, and Draco could feel himself seize up in panic, “I leave the Sword of Godric Gryffindor, for his bravery over the years and the friendships he has forged, that place him as an honorary member of the Gryffindor House.”

He had no words. He could hardly believe his ears. He had not expected Dumbledore to think of him. He was, after all, supposed to aid in killing the man. Who would leave something to their attempted murdered? “Well,” Draco cleared his throat, “don’t tell my father,” he added, prompting a laugh from his Gryffindor friends.

“There was also a note,” the man said, handing Draco a previously-opened and uncarefully re-sealed envelope. Draco pulled out an intricately folded piece of parchment and read the beautiful scrip on it.

We all shoulder responsibilities that

are not our own, Draco, do not let

it deter you from your potential.

Draco would not cry. He knew that already. He knew vey well what it was like to grow up with people all around him thinking something of him that was untrue. Many things, in fact. He was not close enough to the man to feel genuinely emotional about this, yet it did not stop him from wanting to sob uncontrollably. Any time someone called him a good person, Draco had trouble believing it. And it hurt, because all he ever wanted to do was protect the people he loves.

“Were you close to Dumbledore, Draco?” the Minister asked.

“We’ve had our moments,” the Slytherin said simply.

“For example?”

“I don’t feel comfortable saying.”

“If you would rather the two of us speak alone–”

“It’s you I’m uncomfortable in front of Minister.”

“Something to hide?” Scrimgeour offered, the dislike for Draco quite visible in his yellow eyes.

“Well. See, Dumbledore knew of my feelings for Harry before anyone else did. And he clearly wanted to protect Harry – his favourite student. Who better to do that than Harry’s boyfriend? My discomfort stems from you wanting to know more about underaged wizards and their romantic relationships.”

The Minister looked taken aback. Good, Draco thought. An unwarranted accusation for an unwarranted accusation. It was the least he deserved barging in here before a wedding, ruining Harry’s birthday and throwing around questions like they’d committed a crime. “Do try to contain your attitude, Mr Malfoy.”

“Is there a point to these questions?” Draco wondered. “Are you accusing us of adding ourselves to the will unlawfully? Or are you suggesting I’ve altered the mind of the greatest wizard in history, all to get Ronald something his own wand could do? I think you’ll find I’m not the best at memory charms.” Hermione chuckled at the comment. Scrimgeour did not look to appreciate the cheek, yet had no answer to offer in turn. Harry, on the other hand, looked at his boyfriend in pure awe and slight amusement.

“Let’s see it, then” Harry asked surely, “The Sword?”

“Unfortunately,” said Scrimgeour, “that sword was not Dumbledore’s to give away. The sword of Godric Gryffindor is an important historical artifact, and as such, belongs–”

“To us,” Hermione insisted. “It belongs to us. It chose Harry, he was the one who found it, it came to him out of the Sorting Hat!”

“According to reliable historical sources, the sword may present itself to any worthy Gryffindor,” Scrimgeour said. “That does not make it the exclusive property of Mr. Potter or anyone else, whatever Dumbledore may have decided.” Scrimgeour scratched his badly shaven cheek, scrutinising Draco. “Why do you think–?”

“–Dumbledore wanted to give him the sword?” Harry said, struggling to keep his temper, and Draco was happy to once more be able to hide behind his big, brave bloody boyfriend.  “Maybe he thought it would look nice on his wall.”

“This is not a joke, Potter!” Scrimgeour growled. “Was it because Dumbledore believed that only the sword of Godric Gryffindor could defeat the Heir of Slytherin? Did he wish to give another Slytherin the power to do so?”

“Interesting theory,” said Harry. “Has anyone ever tried sticking a sword in Voldemort? Maybe the Ministry should put some people onto that, instead of wasting their time stripping down Deluminators or covering up breakouts from Azkaban.” He huffed a humourless laugh, “So this is what you’ve been doing, Minister, shut up in your office, trying to break open a Snitch? People are dying – we were nearly two of them,” he pointed to Draco. “Voldemort chased us across three countries, he killed Mad-Eye Moody, but there’s been no word about any of that from the Ministry, has there? And you still expect us to cooperate with you?”

“You go too far!” shouted Scrimgeour, standing up. Harry jumped to his feet too. Scrimgeour limped toward Harry and jabbed him hard in the chest with the point of his wand. It singed a hole in Harry’s T-shirt like a lit cigarette. Draco stood and pulled his wand out, pointing it at the Minister shamelessly.

“Draco, don’t give him a reason to arrest us,” Harry’s hand rose to lower Draco’s.

“Remembered you’re not at school, have you?” the man asked, breathing hard. “Remembered that I am not Dumbledore, who forgave your insolence and insubordination? You may wear that scar like a crown, Potter, but it is not up to a seventeen-year-old boy to tell me how to do my job! It’s time you learned some respect!”

“It’s time you earned it,” Harry corrected.

The floor trembled, there was a sound of running footsteps, then the door to the sitting room burst open and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley ran in, with Narcissa on their heels. Draco felt instantly safer. “We–we thought we heard…” began Mr. Weasley, looking thoroughly alarmed at the sight of Harry and the Minister virtually nose to nose, “…raised voices.”

Scrimgeour took a couple of steps back from Harry, glancing at the hole he had made in Harry’s T-shirt. He seemed to regret his loss of temper. “It was nothing,” he growled. “I…regret your attitude,”he said, looking Harry full in the face once more. “You seem to think that the Ministry does not desire what you – what Dumbledore – desired. We ought to be working together.”

“I don’t like your methods, Minister,” Harry said. “Remember?” He raised his right fist and displayed to Scrimgeour the scars that still showed white on the back of it, spelling I must not tell lies. Scrimgeour’s expression hardened.

“How dare you raise your wand at the Minister of Magic?” he turned to Draco then, having lost one fight and instantly starting another.

“I suppose Dumbledore was right about me being the only one to protect Harry Potter,” Draco said levelly. Scrimgeour turned away without another word and limped from the room. Mrs. Weasley hurried after him. Draco heard her stop at the back door. It was quite clear the man was gone.

“You raised your wand at the Minister?” Narcissa asked, and Draco couldn’t tell whether she was impressed or angry.

“He hurt Harry,” Draco pointed out, “and he was being a dick,” he added in a mumble as he stepped closer to hug his mother.

“What did he want?” Mr. Weasley asked, looking around at Harry, Draco, Hermione and Ronald as Molly came hurrying back to them.

“To hand over what Dumbledore left us,” said Harry. “They’ve only just released the contents of his will.”

“Is he gone?” Sirius’ voice shouted from the top of the stairs, Remus’ shushing following right after.

Once in the clear, the three objects Scrimgeour had given them were passed from hand to hand between the Weasleys as well as Narcissa, Sirius and Remus. Everyone exclaimed over the Deluminator and The Tales of Beedle the Bard and lamented the fact that Scrimgeour had refused to pass on the sword, but none of them could offer any suggestion as to why Dumbledore would have left Harry an old Snitch.

“Have you heard of these?” Hermione wondered, catching up with Draco before he had the chance to let Narcissa glamour him for the wedding. “These stories, I mean.”

“Well, sure, every wizard-born child knows these. I’m surprised there’s a book you haven’t read.”

“Right…” she said throughtfully. “We grew up more on Snow White and Cinderella.”

“That sounds like a disease,” Ronald said from his spot at the table, beading something on a string that Molly had asked him to do. “Have you really never heard of Babbity-Rabbity?”

Hermione looked down at the ancient-looking edition that was falling apart at the seams, yet she was holding it so delicately in her hands. “I just don’t understand why he would leave me this."

“Is there a message written inside?” Draco wondered.

“No, I’ve leafed through it already,” she sighed, “nothing hand-written. Revelio hasn’t given me much to go on either.”

“Granger! Come help!” Ginevra called from upstairs.

“Sorry, I promised to help her with her dress,” the girl huffed a laugh and rushed off, “I’ll let you examine it later, if you want.”

“Sure,” Draco called after her and went looking for his mother.

By the time Narcissa announced herself to be finished with the glamouring, Draco was a dapper young chap with dark hair and deep brown eyes. She had given a slight tan to his skin, insisting that without it he looked rather like a ghost. “Oh God,” Harry’s voice said, but a red-haired boy was looking at Draco rather than his boyfriend. It took Draco a minute to understand just who he was talking to. Arthur had sourced a Polyjuice potion from the Ministry to make sure both Narcissa and Harry would look most unlike themselves, and it made Draco’s heart still just the slightest bit to know no one would recognise them. “You look brilliant. And weird.”

“Like it?” Draco chuckled, raking fingers through Harry’s bright orange hair. was now the double of a redheaded Muggle boy from the local village, Ottery St. Catchpole, from whom Fred had stolen hairs using a Summoning Charm. The plan was to introduce Harry as “Cousin Barny” and trust to the great number of Weasley relatives to camouflage him.

“I prefer the original,” Harry, or Barny, shrugged. “Makes you look less regal, this.”

“Oh? Have we developed a thing for aristocrats?” Draco teased, stepping closer and pulling his boyfriend into his arms, having to constantly remind himself that this was no stranger, and he was certainly not cheating on the love of his life.

“Just the one,” Harry leaned in.

Draco couldn’t help the burst of laughter that shot out of him. “I’m sorry, I cannot kiss you when you look like this.”

“Just the one prick,” Harry said bitterly.

“I still love you, and I do promise to kiss you when you look normal again.”

“Uh huh,” the other boy droned, turning to head outside and murmuring to himself, "On my own birthday. The disrespect."

Molly sent Fred George, Ronald and Barny out to greet the guests and make sure they were seated in the correct spots. There were waiters and a band, all currently taking a smoke break under a nearby tree before their duties were to begin. There was a marquee, all its poles decorated with golden flowers.

The twins looked quite excited about Fleur’s veela cousins, and it wasn’t long before Molly demanded Draco helped the French-speaking guests instead of her bumbling sons. He was happy to do it. As far as anyone knew, he was no one special, and if he could keep up just the slightest French accent for the rest of the evening when speaking English, he would be absolutely golden.

Narcissa had also found someone to chat to in French. She looked so natural and happy in a formal setting - even though she was wearing someone else's complexion - dressed in one of the finest gowns she owned and not breaking a sweat despite the awful summer heat. She looked radiant.

Harry glued himself to Draco’s side at one point, refusing to be gone too far. When everyone had arrived and been seated in the proper seats, he pulled Draco to a more secluded corner, only to find Ronald face-to-face with a most eccentric-looking wizard. Slightly cross-eyed, with shoulder-length white hair the texture of candyfloss, he wore robes of an eye-watering shade of egg-yolk yellow. An odd symbol, rather like a triangular eye, glistened from a golden chain around his neck. It almost seemed familiar to Draco, though he couldn’t place it.

Ronald, on the other hand, looked quite nervous while talking to the good-natured, smiling man, and kept looking around as if waiting for something or someone to appear any moment now.

“Xenophilius Lovegood,” the man said, extending a hand to Harry, “my daughter and I live just over the hill, so kind of the good Weasleys to invite us. But I think you know my Luna?” he added to Ronald.

“Yes,” Ronald said quickly. “Isn’t she here with you?”

“She lingered in that charming little garden to say hello to the gnomes, such a glorious infestation! How few wizards realise just how much we can learn from the wise little gnomes – or, to give them their correct name, the Gernumbli gardensi.”

Ronald was no longer listening, too interested in glancing behind the man, stretching his neck out in what looked like a painfully uncomfortable angle to see the garden. “Ours do know a lot of excellent swear words,” Ronald said absently, if only to keep the conversation going, “but I think Fred and George taught them those.” Mr Lovegood laughed melodically, making the young man in front of him look quite proud of himself. Draco was just about to leave and find some water or, well, firewhiskey, to sip on, when the girl in question joined. He could not possibly leave how – he was too interested to see this spectacle.

“Hello, Harry!” she said in her usual hazily light tone.

“Er – my name’s Barny,” Harry said, flummoxed.

“Oh, have you changed that too?” she asked brightly.

“How did you know?”

“Oh, just your expression,” she said, making Draco take another look at his Polyjuiced boyfriend to try and understand exactly what she’d meant. He was utterly unable to. “Draco, have a good summer?”

“Uh…yes,” he answered politely, not even bothering to ask how she’d known it was him. It wasn’t as though his face had been altered, after all, just his colouring.

Like her father, Luna was wearing bright yellow robes, which she had accessorised with a large sunflower in her hair. Ronald smiled at her dopily, “Hello, Luna, I love that flower. It suits your hair well.” Harry turned to Draco, smiling at him knowingly. Draco had a funny notion that he would find a chapter on compliments when he found time to peruse Harry's idiotic copy of Twelve Fail-Safe ways to Charm Witches.

“Thank you, Ron!” she smiled, not tearing her eyes away from him until she felt the need to inform her father she had been bitten by one of the Weasleys’ gnomes.  

“How wonderful! Gnome saliva is enormously beneficial!” said Mr. Lovegood, seizing Luna’s outstretched finger and examining the bleeding puncture marks. “Luna, my love, if you should feel any burgeoning talent today - perhaps an unexpected urge to sing opera or to declaim in Mermish - do not repress it! You may have been gifted by the Gernumblies!”

“My father has done a lot of research on Gernumbli magic,” Luna explained, and Draco did not comment, having abandoned the desire to challenge the girl on her father’s peculiar views a long time ago.

“That’s fascinating!” Ronald said, earning a pleased look from Luna’s father. “I would absolutely love to hear more.”

“Oh! How nice! I shall find you later,” Xenophilius insisted, being pulled away by his daughter.

Harry snorted a laugh had hadn’t been able to entirely keep inside, once the two of them were gone. “Dug yourself into that one, mate.”

“Dunno what you mean,” Ronald blushed, “I’ve had to live with those things in my garden my entire life. I just want to know more about them, ‘sall.”

He disappeared from the two of them for quite a while then. Fred and George were still taking the last guests to their seats, and all of Fleur’s French relatives had been seated, so Draco and Harry considered their job for the evening completed. Draco wondered if it would be terribly rude to kiss Harry right there and right then, but thought better about it. Despite the large number of free-thinking Frenchmen here, there were still enough repressed Brits to mind a public display of homoerotic affection. Be that as it may, someone would have to kill Draco in order to stop him from having a dance with Harry tonight.

“Nightmare, Muriel is,” said Ron, mopping his forehead on his sleeve after a good ten minutes where Draco was finally allowed to take a seat and watch Harry charm the guests that came up to them to ask who they were. “She used to come for Christmas every year, then, thank God, she took offense because Fred and George set off a Dungbomb under her chair at dinner. Dad always says she’ll have written them out of her will – like they care, they’re going to end up richer than anyone in the family, rate they’re going.”

“Is that the old lady shouting about the French back there?” Harry wondered.

Ronald nodded, “That’s the one. She’s a hundred and seven. Her sanity’s been dropping since before I was born. Wanted to meet you, Harry. I had to tell her you couldn’t make it. She said something about you being gormless in the press. Whatever that means. Used to have a brother, Uncle Bilius,” he added. “He was the life of the party. Went bloody barmy by the end, though.”

“Hermione, you look fantastic,” Draco pointed out as the girl approached her friends, glad to have a reason not to listen to more stories about distant Weasley family members. She was wearing a beautiful red dress, her hair neatly curled and high heels making her looked taller than normal.

She smiled appreciatingly. “Ron’s Great-Aunt Muriel doesn’t agree, I just met her upstairs while she was giving Fleur her tiara. She said, Oh dear, is this the Muggle-born? And then, Bad posture and skinny ankles.”

Draco looked downward dramatically. “I think your ankles look splendid.”

“Watch it, Malfoy,” Harry warned.

“Still gay, darling,” Draco was forced to remind.

“Don’t take it personally, she’s rude to everyone,” Ronald said rather forcefully, clearly trying to speak over Harry and Draco so he wouldn’t have to listen to the two of them flirting. Fair, really, but it was not going to stop them. “She could skin you with just words alone. Called George’s ears lopsided just outside. Not like he was missing one or anything”

They were all laughing so much that none of them noticed the latecomer, a dark-haired young man with a large, curved nose and thick black eyebrows, until he held out his invitation to Ron and said, with his eyes on Hermione, “You look vunderful.”

“Viktor!” she shrieked, and dropped her small beaded bag, which made a loud thump quite disproportionate with its size.

Draco watched the former Durmstrang champion closely, even as he bent down to pick up Hermione’s bag. He had nothing against the lad, per se, but if he had to defend his best friend’s honour tonight, he would do so happily. He had been exchanging letters with Blaise the most during the summer. Pansy’s were starting to come more rarely, and they were often filled with reminders of how much she loved Draco. This was unnerving. Pansy was very affectionate with her two closest friends, sure, but to put it so repeatedly and so unendingly into letters was a tad unsettling.

“I didn’t know you were – goodness – it’s lovely to see...how are you?” she stumbled over her words.

“How come you’re here?” Draco wondered.

“Fleur invited me,” said Krum, eyebrows raised, obviously unable to place Draco’s face. They had never really spoken three years ago, Draco had been more interested in keeping Harry alive – a trait of his that had yet to change – and he had considered Krum the opposition back then, but he had never gone out of his way to point it out. Now, however, he was making eyes at Blaise’s girlfriend, and Draco would not have it. Harry, who had no grudge against Krum, shook his hand. Then, clearly feeling that it would be prudent to remove Krum from both Draco and Hermione’s vicinity, offered to show him his seat. He only returned when it was already time to take their own seats.

Draco was not a great fan of weddings, but this one seemed alright. For one, he was able to hold Harry’s hand as they sat, waiting for Fleur and her giant, poofy dress to glide down the aisle, almost appearing to be floating, her veela blood making her seem even more ethereal than she would have already been without it. She seemed to be emitting a silvery glow about her. While her radiance usually dimmed everyone else by comparison, today it beautified each person it fell upon. Ginevra and Gabrielle, both wearing golden dresses, looked even prettier than usual, and once Fleur had reached him, Bill did not look as though he had ever met Fenrir Greyback.

As Harry held Draco’s hand between both of his own, it was difficult to focus on anything but the boy next to him. He refused to look over, as the face that would greet him would not be the one he wanted to see, but it was still him. It was still his Harry. Draco toyed with the ring on Harry’s finger, and wondered if the two of them, too, would one day stand in front of everyone they loved, vowing their eternal love to one another.

“…then I declare you bonded for life,” the tufty-haired wizard waved his wand high over the heads of Bill and Fleur and a shower of silver stars fell upon them, spiralling around their now entwined figures. As Fred and George led a round of applause, golden balloons overhead burst, birds of paradise and tiny golden bells flew and floated out of them, adding their songs and chimes to the din. “Ladies and gentlemen!” called the tuft-haired wizard. “If you would please stand!” They all obeyed, Auntie Muriel grumbling audibly, and he waved his wand again. The seats on which they had been sitting rose gracefully into the air as the canvas walls of the marquee vanished, so that they stood beneath a canopy supported by golden poles, with a glorious view of the sunset-lit orchard and surrounding countryside.

“We should go and congratulate them!” Hermione insisted, standing on tiptoe to see the place where bill and Fleur had vanished amid a crowd of well-wishers. A golden dance floor had now appeared in their midst and the band was taking its places on the podium.

“We’ll have time later,” shrugged Ron, expertly snatching four butterbeers from a passing tray of one of the waiters that had appeared seemingly out of nowhere, and handing two to Harry. “Hermione, cop hold, let’s grab a table. Not there! Nowhere near Muriel!” Draco laughed, accepting his drink from Harry and followed the Gryffindors to, unsurprisingly, a table currently occupied by only one person – Luna Lovegood. “Alright if we join you?” asked Ron.

“Oh yes,” she said happily. “Daddy’s just gone to give Bill and Fleur our present.”

“Pet Crumple-Horned Snorkack?” Ronald offered, making Luna giggle dreamily.

The band had begun to play. Bill and Fleur took to the dance floor first, to great applause, and after a while, Arthur led Madame Delacour onto the floor, followed by Molly and Fleur’s father. “I like this song,” said Luna, swaying in time to the waltz-like tune, and a few seconds later she stood up and glided onto the dance floor, where she revolved on the spot, quite alone, eyes closed and waving her arms.

“She’s great, isn’t she?” said Ron admiringly. “Always good value,” he said and jumped to his feet to join her.

“Gosh, he is so in love,” Hermione shook her head. “To think I would have once given all to be in Luna’s place.”

“Over it?” Harry chuckled.

“Oh, very much so,” Hermione said smugly, “quite happy with my gorgeous Slytherin. I just wish he was here. Imagine dancing at a wedding with the one you love…” Draco looked over at his own one you love, but before he could offer him a dance, suppressed Brits be damned, Victor Krum was dropping into Luna’s vacated seat.

Hermione looked pleasurably flustered, but this time Krum had not come to compliment her. With a scowl on his face he said, “Who is that man in the yellow?”

“That’s Xenophilius Lovegood, he’s the father of a friend of ours,” Draco said warningly. He hoped that his pugnacious tone indicated that they were not about to laugh at Xenophilius, despite the clear provocation.

“Dance?” Krum offered to Hermione instead of reacting to the hostility. She looked taken aback, but pleased too, and got up. They vanished together into the growing throng on the dance floor.

“Count your days, Quidditch boy,” Draco said under his breath only to find Harry chuckling at him. “Alright, make fun of me all you want, I’ll still kick his nose into his skull if I see his hands slip too low.”

“Come with me,” Harry demanded, rolling his eyes with a smile, “dance,” he demanded, having pulled his boyfriend onto the dance floor and put his hands on Draco’s hips. There weren’t nearly as many people looking at them as Draco had feared. In fact, there were hardly any, and the ones that did glance, looked to be more wondering who the two of them were rather than why two men were sharing a dance.

Draco did, however, try to remain close enough to Hermione and Krum to hear their conversation and his low voice sounding angry, “…If he was not a guest of Fleur’s, I would duel him here and now, for vearing that filthy sign upon his chest.”

“Sign?” Hermione wondered, looking over at Xenophilius too. The strange triangular eye was gleaming on his chest. “Why? What’s wrong with it?”

“Grindelvald. That is Grindelvald’s sign.”

“Grindelwald...the Dark wizard Dumbledore defeated?” Harry asked, now openly turning towards the two of them. Good, good, whatever kept Hermione and Krum’s attention elsewhere. He could dance with Harry later, whenever he wanted.

“Exactly,” Krum said in a thick accent. His jaw muscles worked as if he were chewing, then he said, “Grindelvald killed many people, my grandfather, for instance. Of course, he vos never poverful in this country, they said he feared Dumbledore, and rightly, seeing how he vos finished. But this,” he pointed a finger a Xenophilius, “this is his symbol, recognised it at vunce. Grindelvald carved it into a vall at Durmstrang ver he vos a pupil there. Some idiots copied it into their books and clothes, thinking to shock, make themselves impressive, until those of us who had lost family members to Grindelvald taught them better.”

It seemed highly unlikely to Draco that such a pacifist as Luna’s father would ever wear something that dark knowingly. “Are you quite sure it’s Grindelwald’s?”

“I am not mistaken,” said Krum coldly. “I valked past that sign for several years, I know it vell.”

“Well, there’s a chance,” Harry said carefully, “that Xenophilius doesn’t actually know what the symbol means. The Lovegoods are quite…unusual. He could easily have picked it up somewhere and think it’s a cross section of the head of a Gulping Plimpy or something.”

“The cross section of a vot?”

Hermione rolled her eyes then and stepped away from Krum, taking Draco’s hand in hers. “If you two don’t mind, I would rather dance than discuss the dark arts,” she insisted, pulling Draco closer. Krum and a perplexed Harry stumbled back towards the table they had all risen from, and looked to continue their conversation further. “You know, you don’t have to watch me so closely. I do love Blaise.”

“It’s Krum I don’t trust, not you,” Draco said, turning her so that he could continue glancing over her shoulder at the table and see a defensive Krum speak to a stranger he did not know to be Harry.

“You also mistrust him with Harry?” she smirked knowingly. “He can very well protect himself. You know that.”

“I do,” Draco confirmed, “but I would prefer to know Harry’s safe rather than hope for it.”

“You’ll do anything for him, won’t you?” Hermione asked adoringly.

“I would kill everyone in this room to keep him safe.”

“He might not forgive you for that,” Hermione pointed out.

“That’s a price I’m willing to pay.”

It was only when Krum stalked off from their table that Draco found himself relaxing. The evening was growing more and more pleasant. Fred and George had long since disappeared into the darkness with a pair of Fleur’s cousins. Charlie, Hagrid, and a squat wizard in a purple porkpie hat were singing Odo the Hero in a corner. Harry was speaking to Elphias Doge sitting alone at a table further to the back, Ronald was entirely enthralled by Luna’s presence the entirety of the evening, Hermione was sneaking drinks to Ginevra, both of them disappearing into the dark garden once in a while to finish their glasses without someone noticing, and Sirius was crawling all over Remus on the dance floor, his beautiful dress swaying with the music.

Draco was just about to head over to see his boyfriend who now looked quite displaced after his conversation, to which Auntie Muriel had joined mid-way through, when something large and silver came falling through the canopy over the dance floor. Graceful and gleaming, the lynx landed lightly in the middle of the astonished dancers. Heads turned, as those nearest it froze absurdly in mid-dance. Then the Patronus’ mouth opened wide and it spoke in the loud, deep, slow voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt. “The Ministry has fallen. The Minister is dead. They are coming.”

Time stilled for Draco. The scared faces around him turned dark and irrelevant. Many people were only slowly realising that something strange had happened, heads were still turning toward the silver cat as it vanished. Silence spread outward in cold ripples from the place where the Patronus had landed. The screams, if there were any, Draco did not hear. Before he had the chance to notice anything, he was drawing his wand and rushing over to Harry, a befuddled Ronald joining from the side and Hermione all but flying to reach them. She was stretching out her hand to the three of them.

Draco saw cloaked and masked figures appearing in the crowd, then he saw Remus and Sirius, their wands raised, and heard both of them shout, “Protego!” A cry that was echoed on all sides.

In a moment, Hermione was there, catching a hold of them in an all-encompassing embrace. Sight and sound were extinguished as darkness pressed in upon him, all he could feel was Hermione’s hand as he was squeezed through space and time, away from the Burrow, away from the descending Death Eaters, away, perhaps, from Voldemort himself.

Chapter Text

Draco barely registered Ronald’s voice and his loud wondering of where they were. He was too overwhelmed by the bright lights all around him – they were clearly in London by looks of it. Draco’s first instinct was to whip himself around and make sure Harry was there. He was, he found upon giving into the urge. The young man placed his hand into Draco’s as Hermione ushered them to walk. It made him feel better to be able to feel Harry’s physical presence rather than trust he could follow.

A tube station read Tottenham Court Road and Hermione rushed past the cars and through the people to get somewhere safer and more secluded as fast as possible. A double-decker bus rumbled by and a group of merry pub-goers ogled them as they passed. Three of them were still wearing dress robes.

“Hermione, we haven’t got anything to change into,” Ron told her, as a young woman burst into raucous giggles at the sight of him.

“Why didn’t I make sure I had the Invisibility Cloak with me?” Harry sighed, quietly cursing his own stupidity. “All last year I kept it on me and–”

“It’s okay, we’ve got the Cloak,” Draco said surely, following Hermione without a single doubt of her ability to keep them all safe.

“And clothes for both of you,” said Hermione, “Just try and act naturally until…this will do.” She led them down a side street, then into the shelter of a shadowy alleyway.

“When you say you’ve got the Cloak, and clothes…” Harry’s eyes narrowed and he frowned at Hermione, who was carrying nothing except her small beaded handbag, in which she was now rummaging. Draco took a few steps back towards the main street, his wand held tightly, even as he disclosed it under his robes. He stood lookout, but saw nothing other than muggles and vehicles.

“Yes, they’re here,” said Hermione, and to Harry and Ronald’s utter astonishment, she pulled out a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, some socks, and finally the silvery Invisibility Cloak.

“Fuckin’ ‘ell,” Ronald said in astonishment.

“She’s good at extension charms, this one,” Draco said from his spot, still monitoring their surroundings carefully.

“Tricky, but I think I’ve done it okay anyway, I managed to fit everything we need in here.” She gave the fragile-looking bag a little shake and it echoed like a cargo hold as a number of heavy objects rolled around inside it.

“That’ll be the books,” Draco noted.

“Had them stacked by subject as well,” Hermione said, exasperatedly, almost in a whine. “Is it the charm?”

“Probably needed an additional incantation for a gravitational force,” Draco said offhandedly, giving one last glance to the street before deciding they were in the clear for the moment and turning around to get his own clothes to change into, only to find all three of them staring at the Slytherin. “What?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be bad at charms?” Ronald asked.

“I’m still better at them than you,” Draco scoffed defensively.

“Not a bad idea. You can help me with it, when we get settled somewhere,” Hermione said, pulling out Draco’s neatly-folded clothes for him to change into. He could feel Harry’s protective glances to the street just like Draco had stood lookout a moment earlier himself, but Harry kept close to him instead of departing from the group.

“When did you have time to do all this?” Harry wondered.

“We’ve had the essentials packed for days,” Draco pointed out quite proudly.

“You’re amazing, both of you,” Harry said fondly.

“Thank you,” said Hermione, managing a small smile as she pushed the robes into the bag. “Please, Harry, get the Cloak on!”

Harry obeyed and threw his Invisibility Cloak around his shoulders and pulled it up over his head, vanishing from sight, but his hand wrapped around Draco’s upper arm, clearly knowing that the Slytherin would want to know where his boyfriend was in order to remain calm.

Draco’s hair was still dark, and when he put on normal clothes, he was certain he looked like any other muggle on the street. A posh muggle, but a muggle nonetheless.

“What about everyone back at the wedding?” Harry asked worriedly.

“We can’t worry about that now,” whispered Hermione. “It’s you they’re after, Harry, and we’ll just put everyone in even more danger by going back.”

“She’s right,” said Ron, who seemed to know that Harry was about to argue, even if he could not see his face. “Most of the Order was there, they’ll look after everyone.”

Harry nodded, then remained remorsefully silent for a moment, no one able to see him yet, and said, “Yeah.”

“Come on, I think we ought to keep moving,” said Hermione. They moved back up the side street and onto the main road again, where a group of men on the opposite side was singing and weaving across the pavement.

“Just as a matter of interest, why Tottenham Court Road?” Ronald asked Hermione.

“I’ve no idea, it just popped into my head, but I’m sure we’re safer out in the Muggle world, it’s not where they’ll expect us to be.”

“True,” said Ron, looking around, “but don’t you feel a bit…exposed?”

“Where else is there?” asked Hermione, cringing as the men on the other side of the road started wolf-whistling at her. “We can hardly book rooms at the Leaky Cauldron, can we? And Grimmauld Place is out if Snape can get in there…I suppose we could try my parents’ home, though I think there’s a chance they might check there.”

There were drunk muggles across the street, catcalling, once they’d seen Hermione in a pretty dress, and Draco was prepared to throw fists right then. “Oi, darlin’!” one of them called out, whistling for good measure. “Come, have a drink with us! Ditch the twats, let us show you what real men can do to a pretty thing like you!”

“Just give me a reason,” Draco said, mostly to himself, pulling his wand out of his pocket and holding it at the ready.

“We should find somewhere to sit down and think,” Hermione said hastily, before either of the three men could do anything to the muggles across the street. Like hurt them. Repeatedly.

She pointed them towards some sort of a 24-hour café, one where the lighting was cold and the tables unwiped, and everything, even the air, seemed to have a layer of grease over it. The waitress looked tired and uninterested, a plastic cord hanging out of a contraption on top of her ears. “They’re called headphones,” Harry explained once he’d noticed Draco staring.

Hermione kept looking over her shoulder to the door, clearly uncomfortable with having her back turned to the only entry and exit point. Harry seemed restless next to Draco. As if the walking, changing and thinking gave them some sense of a goal, and now they were just waiting for a plan to drop into their laps.

After a minute or two, Ronald said, “You know, we’re not far from the Leaky Cauldron here, it’s only in Charing Cross–”

“Ron, we can’t!” Hermione denied the option instantly.

“Not to stay there, but to find out what’s going on!”

“We know what’s going on! Voldemort’s taken over the Ministry, what else do we need to know?” Draco hissed.

“Okay, okay, it was just an idea!”

They relapsed into a prickly silence. The gum-chewing waitress shuffled over and Hermione ordered three cappuccinos, as Harry was invisible and it would have looked odd to order him one. A pair of burly workmen entered the café and squeezed into the next booth. Draco dropped his voice to a whisper.

“We should be heading to the countryside. Somewhere far. Near a coast, perhaps,” Draco said. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to be near open water. There was a strange sort of safety in it that he couldn’t explain. Perhaps it was the oversee-ability of it, but it might also have something to do with the calm he has come to associate with Andromeda’s.

“Yes, and we could send a message to the Order, once we’re there,” Hermione agreed.

“Can you do that talking Patronus thing, then?” Ronald wondered, keeping his tone uncharacteristically quiet. Draco was almost proud.

“I’ve been practicing and I think so,” said Hermione.

“Well, as long as it doesn’t get them into trouble, though they might’ve been arrested already. God, that’s revolting,” Ron added after one sip of the foamy, greyish coffee. The waitress had heard, she shot Ron a nasty look as she shuffled off to take the new customers’ orders. The larger of the two workmen, who was blond and quite huge, now that Draco came to look at him, waved her away. She stared, affronted.

Draco couldn’t tear his eyes away from the men in front of him, even as Ronald and Hermione discussed whether she had muggle money to pay for the undrinkable slush that Draco hadn’t even tried.

The two workmen made identical movements, and Draco mirrored them without conscious thought. All three of them drew their wands. Ronald, a few seconds late in realising what was going on, lunged across the table, pushing Hermione sideways onto her bench. The force of the Death Eaters’ spells shattered the tiled wall where Ron’s head had just been, as Harry, still invisible, yelled, “Stupefy!” Good, Draco thought, at least his defensive instincts were intact, even under the cloak.

Spells flew in a colourful array, each blast of wordless green light making Draco’s heart stop just a little, as he kept his body angled as much in front of Harry as he was capable, even though he had only an approximate understanding of where the other was. There was an Expulso, a Petrificus Totalus, one Diffindo after the other. The Death Eaters were frozen on the ground and Ronald had got caught up in one of their curses, finally having freed himself.

“We should have recognised this one,” Harry’s voice sounded from over where the two petrified men were laying, urging Draco walk over ad see for himself.

Now that Draco could see their faces more clearly, there was a painful tug of guilt in the pit of his stomach, “He was there the night Dumbledore died,” Draco explained to the other two Gryffindors. Harry’s foot reached out of the cloak and nudged the other body that had landed on its face. He turned over the Death Eater with his foot, and the man’s eyes moved rapidly between Draco, Ronald and Hermione.

“That’s Dolohov,” the redhead explained. “I recognise him from the old wanted posters. I think the big one’s Thorfinn Rowle.”

“Never mind what they’re called!” Hermione said a little hysterically. “How did they find us? What are we going to do?”

“Lock the door,” Harry ordered, “Ron, get the lights.”

Draco waited for Harry’s next orders as the lock clicked and the Deluminator plunged the café into darkness. He could hear the men who had jeered at Hermione earlier, yelling at another girl in the distance. It set his teeth on edge.

“What are we going to do with them?” Ronald whispered to Harry through the dark, then, even more quietly, “Kill them? They’d kill us. They had a good go just now.”

Hermione shuddered and took a step backward. Draco placed his hands on her shoulders comfortingly as Harry shook his head. “We just need to wipe their memories,” Harry decided. “It’s better like that, it’ll throw them off the scent.”

“If we killed them it’d be obvious we were here,” Draco agreed.

“You’re the boss,” Ronald sighed, clearly talking to Harry, not the Slytherin among them, though there was clear relief in his voice. “I’ve never done a Memory Charm.”

Hermione cleared her throat, “I know the theory.”

“And I reckon you’re better at them than Draco,” Harry sounded almost amused. Almost. Draco watched the girl take a calming breath and utter the spell. He still had trouble laughing about those first months of sixth year. He supposed the only consolation he could take was Harry making light of it. “Good,” Harry praised her, “Do the other one while Draco and I clear the place up.”

“Reparo,” Draco said, waving his wand expertly. He could see Harry watch his movement before making his own attempt, now that his eyes had adjusted to the lack of light and Harry had taken his cloak off in the safety in the darkness so that his head was visible once again, seemingly floating in mid-air.

Once the café was restored to its previous condition, they heaved the Death Eaters back into their booth and propped them up facing one another. “How did they find us?” Hermione asked exasperatedly, looking from one inert man to the other. “How did they know where we were?” She turned to Harry then. “You…you don’t think you’ve still got your Trace on you, do you, Harry?”

“He can’t have,” said Ronald. Draco found their current position utterly ridiculous. Three barely legal ex nemeses, a Chosen One and two obliviated Death Eaters walk into an all-night café. Worst joke ever. “The Trace breaks at seventeen, that’s Wizarding law, you can’t put it on an adult.”

“As far as you know,” Hermione said. “What if the Death Eaters have found a way to put it on a seventeen-year-old?”

“I haven’t let him out of my sight,” Draco dismissed the idea, “there’s hasn’t been a single opportunity for a Death Eater to get to him.” They desperately needed somewhere to go and reorganise their thoughts. “We have to go to Grimmauld Place.”

“Agreed,” Harry nodded with an air of finality. Draco resented having him so serious. He wanted him to smile, to laugh, to tease Draco for being a prat. He wanted his Harry back.

“Don’t be silly, Harry, Snape can get in there!” Hermione scoffed, disbelief practically pouring out of her.

Harry seemed to pay no mind to her objections. “Ron’s dad said they’ve put up jinxes against him, and even if they haven’t worked,” he pressed on as Hermione opened her mouth with a stubborn gaze to argue “so what? I swear, I’d like nothing better than to meet Snape!”

“But–”

“Best chance we’ve got,” Draco said quickly, “besides, it’s literally home. Harry and I can find some way to not let anyone in.”

“Make us the secret keepers, if need be,” Ronald agreed, hesitantly though he did. “Don’t shout at me,” he told Hermione before she had the chance.

Draco extended his hand as an invitation. Harry took it instantly, Ronald latched onto his shoulder, and only then did Hermione join her hand to Draco’s forearm, looking like the idea of agreeing alone was the greatest imposition to her honour imaginable.

A moment later, once he’d opened his eyes again, the four of them were on the familiar square in front of the dark, menacing houses. Draco did his best not to hurl directly onto the ground, hard though that was. Apparating on his own was bad enough, but bringing three other people along? Nightmare.

There were lights in the other windows on Grimmauld Place, number twelve being the only dark and silent one. Not that it mattered much, as no one but them would be able to see it in the first place. “Quickly,” Harry instructed, glancing around in mistrust. Draco knew neither of them would be able to feel safe until they were behind the locked door of their house, and they could only go inside once certain no one had followed.

A loud creak sounded through the night when they’d climbed the stone steps and Draco had used his wand to unlock the large, heavy door. Gas lamps sprang into life, flickering light casting menacing shadows over the run-down hallway in front of them. Draco had never bothered looking around before, as it had always been just another safehouse that belonged to whomever else. Now, however, he gave the wallpaper a careful once-over, deeming it unfit for his considerable standards, and only then turned back to see if the others were alright.

Hermione looked thoroughly uncomfortable, as if Severus was about to jump out from behind a corner and attack them. As if he could ever attack Draco. He may be a traitor and a fool, but Draco know the love his godfather held for him.

“So where are these jinxes they put up against Snape?” Harry wondered.

“Maybe they’re only activated if he shows up,” Draco offered, yet they remained close together on the doormat, backs against the door, scared to move farther into the house.

“Well, we can’t stay here forever,” Harry said, and he took a step forward.

“Severus Snape?” Mad-Eye Moody’s voice whispered out of the darkness, making all four of them jump back in fright, the sound of someone’s back hitting the door registering in Draco’s head, though he was much more concerned with what was happening to the house. “We’re not Snape!” Harry croaked, before something whooshed over them like cold air and Draco’s tongue curled backward on itself, making it impossible to speak. Before he had time to feel inside his mouth, however, his tongue had unravelled again.

“T-tongue-tying curse,” Hermione hasped, as Ronald seemed to be doing his best not to retch. Harry took a careful step forward, too Gryffindor for his own good, and a figure rose up out of the carpet, tall, dust-coloured, and terrible. Hermione screamed as the grey figure was gliding toward them, faster and faster, its waist-length hair and beard streaming behind it, its face sunken, fleshless, with empty eye sockets. Horribly familiar yet dreadfully altered, it raised a wasted arm, pointing at Harry.

“No!” Harry shouted, and though he had raised his wand no spell occurred to him. “No! It wasn’t us! We didn’t kill you!” On the word kill, the figure exploded in a great cloud of dust. Coughing, his eyes watering, Harry turned back to avoid any of the excess glass-like sand settling onto the entrance of number twelve.

A sense of dreadful shock took over the house, silence once more flooding its halls. Harry seemed to be waiting for another thing to attack them, but none came, leaving the sound of their ragged breathing to ring out loud as church bells.

“Homenum revelio,” Hermione said surely with her wand extended. Nothing happened. “We’re alone.”

Before Draco had a chance to say anything, propose room division or offer tea, Harry strode over to the house-elf heads responsible for the blood-curdling shadows and started wordlessly dismantling them off the wall. Draco remained by his side, silently offering a hand as Ronald and Hermione headed deeper into the house and towards the kitchen.

It was like all four of them had decided to look for some abstract sense of normalcy after the day they’d had. Gifts, celebrations, several daunting revelations and a couple of murder attempts on top of it all. There was not only a lack of need for talking, but also an insurmountable fatigue. Draco wondered if taking a few days to sleep would be awfully selfish. He did not need long to come to the conclusion that it, indeed, would.

“For fuck’s sake,” Harry gritted, throwing his wand away towards the stairs and ripping a particularly stubborn mounting off with his hands. Draco was surprised when it worked and the head came crashing down onto the floor, landing on Harry’s foot. “Shit!” he shouted out, falling to the floor and gripping his leg with a pained and angry groan.

“Come,” Draco said in a way that left no place for arguing and kneeled in front of his boyfriend, “Brackium emendo,” he uttered, doing his best to focus. “Any help?” he asked and Harry shook his head. “Then we know it’s not broken,” Draco said decisively and leaned down to kiss Harry’s ankle. He would have like to show love to the hurt spot, but there was something about kissing the trainer of The Chosen One that made the Slytherin inside him recoil. “Hermione’s got healing potions in that bag of hers.”

Harry with his head now rested against the wall behind him nodded, “Sorry,” he whispered, clearly embarrassed by his outburst and its aftermath. Draco rubbed a hand into his boyfriend’s shoulder. There was nothing to be apologetic about. They were subjected to an amount of stress and fear no teenager should be dealing with, and Draco was barely holding it together. If it took a temper tantrum for Harry to let some of it out, he would be nothing but supportive.

Draco leaned in to leave a kiss on Harry’s lips, when the other man coiled himself around his bet knees and let out a spine-chilling screech of pain. Harry was grasping at his scar instantly, heavy breathing cutting through the air as Draco remained frozen in spot, panicking and unsure of what to do now.

“Harry?” Hermione called out worriedly, rushing to the front of the house to see what had happened, Ronald close on her feet.

“What did you see?” the Weasley demanded his best friend. “Did you see them at my house?”

“No, I just felt anger. He’s really angry…”

“But that could be at the Burrow,” Ronald argued loudly. Draco understood his temper – he was also worried about his mother that had remained behind. “What else? Didn’t you see anything? Was he cursing someone?”

“No, I just felt anger, I couldn’t tell–”

But Harry looked pained enough without having to be badgered on top of it, confused and scared, and Hermione did not help as she said in a frightened voice, “How could it be your scar, again? What’s going on? I thought that connection had closed!”

“It did, for a while,” Harry muttered, his scar a worrying bright pink colour. “I–I think it’s started opening again whenever he loses control, that’s how it used to–”

“But then you’ve got to close your mind!” Hermione reminded shrilly and unhelpfully. “Harry, Dumbledore didn’t want you to use that connection, he wanted you to shut it down, that’s why you were supposed to use Occlumency! Otherwise, Voldemort can plant false images in your mind, just like–”

“Yeah, I remember, thanks,” Harry forced through gritted teeth, and Draco finally took his cue to cut in. He did not need a reminder of the evening that consequentially caused him to fall under the Death Eaters’ boot as a little minion for a cause he had no interest in.

“Enough!” the Slytherin announced, “We all need rest. Starting a fight will do us no kindness. We’re going upstairs,” he said decisively, and Hermione looked upset. Whether about her own aggression or Draco’s rude attempt to get Harry out of the room in order to keep him calm, he couldn’t tell, but he was not sticking around to find out. There was anger simmering in his own gut, and for someone who normally knew where to put such an emotion, having been taught at a very young age, he felt quite helpless right now when so many other feelings were mixing together, causing a brew that threatened to overboil any moment.

Hermione nodded stiffly, agreeing not to brawl so late in the night, and let the owners of the house head up to their room. “I really don’t want to talk,” Harry said once the familiar creak of their door sounded, locking them into the safety of their own private space.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Draco sighed, dropping himself tiredly onto the bed.

Harry glanced around, looking awkward, as if the two of them had been thrown together for the first time, at the age of fifteen and with no relationship to support any sort of feeling of comfort. “Our clothes are in Hermione’s bag,” Harry pointed out.

“Right,” Draco recalled the meticulous packing he’d done for the both of them, recalling several sets of perfectly nice satin pyjamas in jewel tones that would feel so nice on their skin at the end of this terrible day of theirs. “However, I don’t think either of us is going back downstairs.”

His boyfriend seemed relieved by that answer, as he toed off his shoes and threw his hoody onto the bed, only taking off his jeans once he’d laid on top of the covers, legs wriggling in the air until he was freed from the stiff material. “Your turn,” Harry announced tiredly.

Draco looked at him a moment longer, and perhaps it was the single second of peace in their awful day, but so much admiration flooded him for the young man in front of him, that he couldn’t help but crawl onto the bed and kiss him silly. Tongues demanding entrance into the other’s mouth, desperate little pulls at Draco’s hair, wanting whines into Harry’s mouth.

It didn’t matter much that one of them was still fully clothed, Harry soon fixed that problem anyway. Before Draco could note, he was being turned onto his back, his trousers were being ripped off his legs, his jumper was being pulled over his head, and there were lips tracing his abdomen, indecisive and eager to explore, his breathing growing increasingly rapid. Worryingly so.

“Harry,” Draco said absently, “Harry, are you alright?”

The Gryffindor ripped himself off Draco’s near-naked frame, clutching at his forehead once more with an animalistic growl and folding onto himself on the end of the bed. Draco could but watch in fear. Harry looked a shell of a man, a shell of the laughing boy Draco had come to know over the last few years, and it terrified to witness the change.

There was a disbelieving, shocked look on Harry’s face, and Draco forced himself into action, crawling over to his boyfriend and gathering him into comforting arms. “Love, what is it?” Draco asked, “Baby, what do you see?”

“Nott,” he uttered, his voice creaked and pained, making Draco cringe as he imagined the hurt that Harry was experiencing. “He’s forcing Nott to torture people. He looks like shit.”

Draco sighed, trying not to make it obvious that he was shaking as he imagined his childhood best friend gaunt and in fear, at the business end of Voldemort’s wand and causing pain to others. He may not have liked the way Nott turned out, but no one deserved to be subjected to that.

No one deserved to be used against their will to do the bidding of a madman, and certainly not while being threatened with their family’s safety. And yet, a twisted part of Draco wondered if Nott was oh so harry to finally be a part of the Malfoy family like he always had wanted to be. If he was enjoying his stay at the Malfoy Manor. If he thought this was where his grand plan would take him.

Harry cried. He wept for long minutes onto Draco’s bare skin until goosebumps rose on their arms and thighs, and Harry turned from sobbing to apologising profusely until Draco was forced to stop him and kiss him into silence all while getting the poor creature under a blanket and wrapped in his arms.

He drew little patterns on Harry’s arms, and he raked his fingers through Harry’s hair like Narcissa had done when Draco was little. He left kisses wherever he could reach, tiny and light, like the touch of a feather, but every single one made Harry grip onto him tighter. Draco fell asleep only when he was sure Harry was out, as well.

Morning came with a silence he had difficulty understanding. A chink of sky was visible between the heavy curtains. It was the cool, clear blue of watered ink, somewhere between night and dawn, and everything was quiet except for Harry’s slow, deep breathing. As he waited for Harry to wake, Draco watched the cobwebs that had appeared since the last time they’d been here, one on the corner of the room by the window, another hanging from the posts of their bed, swaying lightly in the wind.

Hermione and Ronald had camped on the drawing room floor in the sleeping bags they’d packed. Harry looked unwilling to divulge anything about what he had seen the previous night, and Draco respected it. There was a part of him that knew it could have been Draco himself, had Harry not saved his arse that night on the Astronomy Tower. He could have been the one in fear and on the verge of malnourishment, doing Voldemort’s bidding. Instead, he was given time with Harry, he could spend nights in his arms and comfort him when needed.

Harry was sombre and unspeaking again, only nodding in forced politeness when Hermione offered him tea and whatever rations she’d packed into that bag of hers. Draco skipped breakfast. He had a feeling he could probably do fine with missing a meal, if it meant the others had more to eat, especially when they had a Weasley amongst them.

Harry seemed keen on exploring the house that day, glancing into empty, dusty rooms until he reached Sirius’ own. Draco was sure neither of them had ever been in there. In fact, the only bedrooms Draco had ever visited had been the one he shared with harry, and the one his mother occupied whenever she was here. And, as he felt slightly abandoned and longing for his parents, he visited it once more, pushing the surprisingly uncreaking door open and letting his eyes glide over the space.

He knew that Harry was just next door, remaining close, as Sirius and Remus’ room was right next to Narcissa’s, but Draco was still hesitant to enter further in, letting his hand lay onto the solid wood of the door instead. He watched Harry from the doorway, watched the small smile on Harry’s features spread as he looked at the painfully Gryffindor decoration Sirius had permanently stuck onto the walls.

Sirius seemed to have lone gone out of his way to annoy his parents. There were several large Gryffindor banners, faded scarlet and hold just to underline his difference from all the rest of the Slytherin family. There were many pictures of Muggle motorcycles. There was surely more that Draco couldn’t see from across the hallway.

He was about to go up to Harry, when Draco’s hand caught on something on the door. He glanced at the little silver-plated plaque that contained writing that reminded Draco of something Pansy might put on her own bedroom door. Except, this one was the clear property of someone whose initials had been haunting Draco. The three letters that had been rattling around his head for months, that had driven him near-mad, and that he hadn’t mentioned to anyone, when this whole time his mother had been sleeping behind the door with those three letters placed prominently onto it:

Do Not Enter

Without the Express Permission of

Regulus Arcturus Black

“Harry,” Draco said unsurely, though the other man was too engrossed in his own findings to notice at first. Draco was unwilling to take his eyes off the door in fear of the writing disappearing. “Harry,” he said more insistently, finally grabbing his boyfriend’s attention.

“What is it?” Harry asked, pocketing a piece of parchment Draco hadn’t seen him hold beforehand. It appeared to be a letter. Draco wondered if Sirius would appreciate Harry stealing his correspondence.

“Look,” Draco pointed at the name and watched Harry’s face light up.

“R.A.B….” Harry said unsurely, then much more happily, “R.A.B.?”

“Regulus!” Draco repeated in growing excitement, “Sirius’ brother, Regulus!”

“Holy shit,” Harry mumbled.

“How did we not think of Regulus?” Draco huffed a surprised laugh.

“Well, we didn’t know his middle name,” Harry supposed, glancing at the initials on the door, the three letters that had been eating away at their subconscious for months now. Draco didn’t correct him, because he had, in fact, known Regulus Black’s middle name, yet had somehow conveniently forgot it whenever the need arose. Draco realised he might have been spending too much time glancing at his own little face on the Black family tree tapestry, but he knew well that Sirius’ brother’s name was Regulus Arcturus.

None of it mattered now, though, because they had another piece of the puzzle right at their fingertips, and, provided Hermione and Ronald were willing to help, they had a chance of finally figuring something out.

Chapter Text

“And you didn’t think to ask Sirius for help, because?” Hermione’s narrowed eyes were filled with disbelief as she watched the two of them. “You’ve been taking every risk in the world to ask him for advice since we freed him, and now you haven’t let him help with our greatest clue yet?”

Draco glanced over at Harry in question, because Hermione was entirely right. Why hadn’t Harry asked Sirius for help? “Well…” Harry stumbled, “I didn’t want to worry him too much.”

“Worry him?” Ronald piped in, “Mate, he’s been sitting around, waiting for the Order to let him do shit for three years now, what d’ya mean worry him?”

“Right, well, I didn’t fucking ask him, so are we continuing this conversation, or going through his stuff?” Harry said with an offended scoff, and Draco’s hand was on his boyfriend’s back in no time, provided he did find the attitude quite amusing.

Dark wallpaper, peeling in the corners, though through the colourless pattern of poisonous-looking flowers, a few spots on the wallpaper had decided to grow little red roses. Hardly noticeable, but persistent over the years. The furniture was dark and sombre, just like in any of the other rooms in the house, something Draco was eager to correct, and there wasn’t much in terms of decoration. Old letters, tied with green ribbon, were carefully placed on the windowsill, correspondence that seemed more pleasant to remember than the envelopes that tumbled out of the closet when Ronald opened it to inspect its contents. Draco opened a few to read through them.

To the Dark Lord.

From the Dark Lord.

A collection of threats upon people’s lives unless they succumbed to the Dark Lord.

The room had an entirely different aura now that Draco knew it had belonged to Regulus. Narcissa had mentioned him rarely, only in passing, but there had always been an irreparable sadness to her whenever she was forced to speak on him. Draco had come to understand over the years that Regulus had been a sort of a favourite of Narcissa’s. A little cousin to love and protect. The only brother she’d known, as Sirius had likely been the shame of the family quite early on.

But Regulus? Well, Regulus was a Slytherin, and Regulus had been a Death Eater, and Regulus was the Dark Lord’s right hand, if the collection of ominous unsent letters was anything to go by. Harry was sorting through the neat letters on the windowsill. “One of these is addressed to my father,” he said, when Hermione seemed to notice something on the dresser, buried under a few of Narcissa’s things, though the object of interest itself was certainly not one that would ever belong to Draco’s mother. Though well-crafted, it was too plain to be anything his mother would ever deem worthy of her beautiful, expensive things.

“What is this?” Hermione wondered, looking at the wooden box, or a small chest, really, that seemed heavy for her to lift, and did not open on command. “There might be something that helps inside.

“Alohomora,” Draco pointed his wand to the box and listened to the lock rattle, but remain in place, as if trying to escape and being ultimately unable to.

“The locking charm would be more advanced for someone trying to hide something from as awful a person as Walburga,” Hermione said bitterly. Draco couldn’t blame her. The woman, rather her portrait, may have liked him in the house, but it had despised Hermione’s mere existence from day one. Draco may have silenced the rude hag, but she lingered in the walls of the house like a bad case of black mould. 

“You’re welcome to try yourself,” Draco offered, abandoning the small chest and turning to inspect Regulus’ desk. If Draco was here to think like a Slytherin and a Black, that would be the first place he’d look. The drawers were neat and organised, not a speck of dust in sight. Kreacher must have taken good care of his master’s room ever since his death.

“Harry, ideas?” Hermione asked, sounding desperate after several attempts, each louder and more exasperated that the last.

Draco smirked at Ronald over his shoulder. Neither of them would ever say anything, but Hermione needing someone else’s help in spells was ridiculous. In fact, Hermione needing Harry’s help in anything, that didn’t explicitly involve performing Gryffindorian acts of idiocy, was unheard of.

Harry looked over at the box, completely enticed by something else on Regulus’ bookcase, and stalked over to offer his aid. Draco watched, interested to see what possible help Harry James Potter of all people could offer in opening a box closed by a Slytherin. Only, when he picked it up to investigate its exterior, the lock clicked open. Harry glanced up to Draco before hastily placing it back onto the antique piece of furniture and lifting the lid.

There was an ornate inscription on the inside of ot, clearly visible as it rested on the hinges of the small chest and surprised all four of them to the point of immobility. Three words in cursive, carefully engraved by a beautiful kind of magic. To Lily’s son

Harry stared in awe, his eyes tracing the words over and over again as Draco watched him. He could honestly say that neither of them had anticipated anything like this, as even Hermione and Ronald were looking at the box with their mouths agape in confused shock.

There were pieces of parchment that looked like letters, there were photographs, trinkets, a few vinyl records and a silver chain with a little sun pendant laid carefully on top of it all. Draco could feel his heart breaking at what was clearly an accumulation of memories from one person locked away as if they were too painful to look at.

“We should get started on lunch,” Hermione said wisely, and Draco was grateful she had, before he’d had to suggest leaving Harry alone himself. He was starting to get tired of being the only one to consider the poor bastard’s feelings. He nodded and turned to follow Harry’s two best friends in the world, when a hand on his wrist stopped him in his tracks, pulling him back lightly.

“Thank you,” Harry said earnestly. Draco nodded once more, feeling awkward about it, and left the room in favour of the dreary kitchen. He was endlessly curious about the contents of the box, about every word written in the letters, but he was smarter than to impose himself on something as clearly meaningful as an old lover’s memories.

It was later in the evening, after Harry had missed both lunch and dinner, that Draco found him in the drawing room, sitting alone by the fireplace, turning an old photograph in his hand. He offered it up for Draco to inspect as soon as he’d noticed the Slytherin’s arrival. He recognised Sirius instantly, and it didn’t take long for him to understand that the boy next to him, the one that looked so very similar to Harry, was James Potter.

It looked like there were at least two other people in the picture, both having been ripped off on either side. There was an arm around Sirius’ waist, and a plump cheek coming into the frame on James’ right, but the two Gryffindors remained laughing and looking at one another once in a while right in the middle, clad in Doc Martens and Converse respectively, sporting wide, uncaring grins, and swaying slightly when a laugh rumbled through Sirius. They looked so young and happy. Couldn’t have been much older than Draco and Harry were now, and, judging by the red-rimmed robes they were wearing, they were still in school, when the picture had been taken.

“Your dad was really handsome,” Draco pointed out in a whisper.

“Don’t say that, please,” Harry begged as Draco knelt on the floor next to the chair Harry was occupying.

“I don’t mean it in a creepy way,” Draco scoffed, “I’m just appreciative of where all those Quidditch hots came from,” he smirked, pinching Harry’s thigh. “Besides, it bodes well for you.”

“Do you think Regulus took this?” Harry ignored the comment and asked in an almost pleading manner, clearly desperate to know even a smidgen of information about his father. Just a little, just a crumb of another fact he could add to that journal of non-existent memories in his head.

“Probably not,” Draco said, looking around the room once more. “He doesn’t seem to have been too publicly involved with them. And he probably would have cut whoever else was in this picture out of the frame rather than rip the sides off.”

“Remus and Peter,” Harry said immediately.

Draco sighed, feeling a sting of pain crash into him. “I’m sorry,” he said as quietly as he could and kissed the side of Harry’s head, revelling, when Harry leaned into the affection.

“There were letters,” Harry sounded as if he was unsure whether he should be divulging this information to anyone, “from my dad.”

A part of Draco wanted to demand to know what was in them. He was entirely too curious about Regulus and James, as his interest in any prior Gryffindor-Slytherin romances of a gay nature would be of interest to him, but this relationship seemed especially fascinating, not to mention the drama Draco suspected had unfolded upon Sirius finding out.

“They’re on the mantle,” Harry nodded over with his head, and the small smile on his lips indicated he knew exactly how eager Draco was to find out their contents, so he felt it only appropriate to jump up and grab a hold of them before joining Harry on the other armchair. “I’ll bring you something to eat,” Harry said, rising from his chair and leaving a kiss on Draco’s mouth, “and don’t dare to protest, I saw you avoiding breakfast like the plague.”

“It’s not my best friend that eats two people’s share,” Draco scoffed, unfolding the first letter in the pile. Some of them looked older, some of them looked tear-stained. Draco was almost afraid to know what was in the latter category. Harry left the room with a non-comital sound and departed down the hall, leaving Draco to his devices and to a reasonable amount of reading.

Dear Regulus,

We’re coming to London early this August, please, please, please tell me you’ll see us. I’d love to share a butterbeer with you, even if you won’t talk to Sirius. He misses you (and he would kill me if he knew I’ve told you). It would mean the world, if you came.

Sincerely,

James Potter

P.S. Never written to you. Feels weird. I like it.

Dear Regulus,

Thank you for the book again. Would it be too dramatic for a Gryffindor to tell a Slytherin they cried while reading it?

Sirius is still angry, but he’ll come around. Suppose it’s my own fault for hanging out with his little brother without his knowing. No regrets here, though.

See you back at school,

James (Potter)

Regulus,

It was hardly a punch, you know he would never really hurt you. You won’t even bruise.

Grow up,

James

Dear Reggie,

I’m sorry. Please write again.

Sincerely,

James

Dear Reggie,

I miss you talking to you. I’ll call you Regulus again, if you want, but please respond, or I will be forced to march up to you in the Great Hall during breakfast and force you into conversation, and then all your little Slytherin friends will know you enjoy spending time with a Gryffindor.

They’ll call you Gryffinlover. Is that what you really want?

You have been warned,

James

Dear Reggie,

Pear tree by the lake. Midnight.

I’ll wait,

James

Reg,

If you ever interfere with one of my pranks again, I will skin you.

See you at the Quidditch match, bet you’ll look good

James

Dear Reggie,

I saw what happened at lunch. Snape’s a prick and I will make his life hell for doing that. Just give me a signal and he’s dead. I mean it, I am capable of murder. Sirius was even worried about you after we saw. I hope you don’t get into too much trouble for defending yourself.

You can’t listen to him, though. Families can be tough, and I know how bad yours can get. If you even want to talk, you know where to find me.

Sincerely,

James

P.S. You can ignore me all you want, I’ll still flirt with you.

Reggie,

I’ll be there. No ulterior motives, I promise.

James

Beautiful boy,

I think of you all the time, it’s started interfering with my grades (if you make even a single comment about my grades, you won’t live to see the morning). No one has ever kissed me like that. I miss you. Please come see me tonight. I’ll do anything you want.

Dreaming of kissing you another time,

James

Most gorgeous person in Hogwarts,

You’re driving me insane. I know you said no letters, but I can’t get your time otherwise with homework. Respond, please, or come see me. I can’t make it through the day without your touch.

Desperately,

James

Regulus, you fucking prick,

I need to see you tonight. I will not negotiate. I’m desperate here and your brother and his boyfriend sharing a bed IS NOT HELPING. I am desperate, I’ll do anything you want. I just want you to speak French to me.

Would you like to come over for Christmas this year? I can’t bear the thought of an entire winter break without seeing you. Can’t think of you in that house alone. I have an idea of how to make it seem like it was Sirius’ idea to invite you. Please say yes, I’ve already started working on my plan.

Also, I will do your defence homework, if you write my potions essay. And then I’ll snog you until you forget where horklump juice comes from. Do you want me to stick it to Snape? The git looked especially ugly this morning. You’re so hot, though.

I’ll wait up until you write back (so don’t be responsible for my ruined sleep schedule),

James

Darling Reg,

Mum and dad said yes, I’ll have you all Christmas. Moony is coming too, so Sirius will be occupied enough. I still think it’s better that everyone thinks it’s Sirius’ idea (including Sirius). I hope your parents won’t give you too much trouble. I have the best present for you. Please tell me you’ll come. I can help you sneak out.

I’ve been practicing Apparition, I think I’m getting the hang of it. Side-along can’t be too hard, right?

See you in the Great Hall for dinner,

James

R,

Sirius knows. RUN!

J

Lovely boy,

LET’S RUN AWAY TOGETHER. My parents might kill me, if I do. Sirius might kill us if we don’t. I’m sure I can still stash you away somewhere during Christmas. Hide you in a cupboard and find you when I start missing you. I’ll make sure there’s enough roast. I can’t cook, can you?

Excited to find out,

James

Regulus,

Bloody hell, Regulus. My handsome, genius Regulus. You looked so good at Quidditch practice. Respond, or I’m sneaking into the Slytherin dorms. I’ll do it too, I’ve done it before. Don’t ask me how, I have my ways.

In fact, don’t respond. I’m coming.

James

P.S. Best to avoid Sirius for the time being. I know you’re good at doing that, but he seemed too moody to even talk to ME. I’ve never seen him like this. Can you remember a time he’d refused to speak to me? I’m scared of Christmas.

Dearest,