It feels strange to be back in the apartment again. It takes him ages to find his keys, and longer yet to open the door. The air has a faintly dusty scent to it, Harry thinks as he flicks on the light switch, illuminating the white walls, the empty shelves, the kitchen counters without clutter. The curtains are all open and beyond the river, the city lights twinkle. Harry slowly sets his keys upon the empty counter.
"Coffee? Haven't got any milk," Harry adds, but Draco shakes his head.
"Tea's fine."
Harry wasn't away for long, but for some reason he has trouble remembering where everything is. Was the sugar kept on the second or third shelf? He opens a cupboard to fetch mugs, but it turns out to be full of glasses. He may as well be in the house of a stranger. While they're waiting for the kettle to boil, Draco takes a seat at the island counter and trails a hand along the edge of it.
"There was a Christmas tree here, once," he observes.
Harry glances up. "You remember...?"
"Not really. It's hard to remember. But there were little lights, weren't there?"
Yes. Harry remembers that quiet moment, buried in the depths of December. Draco, standing alone, illuminated by the faint glow of the Christmas lights. Harry had reached for him and he had faded like a ghost. Before their hands even had the chance to touch. Harry looks down at his own hand for a moment, at the way his wrist flexes as he picks up the kettle and pours the water. This is real, Harry thinks, but he must have spoken the words aloud; Draco looks at him for a long moment before glancing down at the counter, his fingers still tracing meaningless patterns upon its surface.
"I'm getting better at that," Draco says. "Telling them apart. Memories and dreams and reality."
So there's really no reason for human contact anymore, Harry thinks dully. He pushes Draco's cup of tea across the counter, resisting the urge to let their fingers brush. Seems to be a common theme to his thoughts tonight, he thinks. Hands, reaching for each other. Wouldn't that look strange, Draco's Dark Mark next to I must not tell lies?
"Maybe I was wrong," Draco says, and Harry looks up with surprise.
"What?"
"Maybe I was wrong," Draco repeats, his gaze intense and searching. "Maybe we could have been friends."
Dawn is arriving, Harry thinks, gazing past Draco to the glass sliding doors. It's little more than a pale blue smudge on the horizon, hesitantly touching the low stars. For a moment, he could dream of it all. Travelling on and on, driving forever with Draco. To the vast mountain ranges of Scotland, and the rivers and waterfalls of the Peak District, and they'll go stargazing in the Dark Sky Reserves, and see Wiltshire's wildflowers in bloom, and the canola harvests, and every year they'll return to Snowdonia to stand on the edge of the world, and Harry's favourite memories will be strung with tiny Christmas lights and the winter winds of the Cornish coastline.
And then he remembers that Draco has spent the past three years stuck in the past, where he thought he'd die, unable to touch anyone, his voice unheard, his presence unseen. For three long years. Of course it would all be surreal afterwards, and of course he'd smile at Harry and walk with him along the white cliffs of Dover and share childhood memories. It's only gratitude, nothing more. He only ever initiated contact to reassure himself it was real.
And now he knows it's real, and he'll come to his senses. He'll thank Harry for the cup of tea, stand up, and walk out that door like it's effortless. Like it all cost him nothing, and maybe it did.
Harry doesn't want to think about the price he'll have to pay. So it's self-preservation that makes him shake his head, refusing to look at Draco, keeping his eyes locked on the kitchen counter as he replies. "I think you were right, actually. We couldn't be friends." He doesn't dare look up, opting instead to carefully stir a teaspoon of sugar into his tea. He watches the tiny grains slowly dissolve. The silence stretches on for a long time before Draco speaks.
