Reformation (Book 4 of The Corruption Sequence)

Chapter 12. Moving the Lines

Harry beamed at his lover and then threw his arms around him. It was the best news and he felt a knot inside of him finally releasing. Draco was safe; Draco had his wand back; Draco was looking at him as if he was an overexcited Hufflepuff. However, he was unrepentant and hugged him a bit more.

"Go on then," he said, grinning like he'd lost what brain cells he had left; "you know you want to."

Draco just rolled his eyes, but reached out anyway and reverently curled his fingers around the handle of his wand. There was no other real way to describe reconnecting with a wand except to say it was a perfect moment, and for just a second Harry could see that on Draco's face. Of course Draco, being a Slytherin, wiped it away pretty quickly, but it had still been there.

"Thank you very much for delivering this personally, Professor Dumbledore," Draco said, almost formally.

"Not at all," Dumbledore replied with a smile, "it was my pleasure, and now, I will let you all finish your lunch."

"You can join us if you want, Sir," Harry said quickly as his manners caught up.

"Thank you, Harry," the headmaster replied, "but I would not dream of interrupting you young people any further. I wish you all a very pleasant afternoon."

There was a general consensus of things like 'you too' and then the headmaster was gone, leaving the rest of them with lunch. By that point Draco had slipped his wand into his sleeve and was popping the seal on the scroll. Hermione, of course, was brimming over with curiosity, so Harry let her and Draco worry about the details, while he just enjoyed the fact that Draco had finally been cleared. It was a very nice feeling and nothing marred it until after Nev and Hermione left, leaving him and Draco alone.

"We should open the card," he finally decided after all the lunch things had vanished.

"Do we have to?" Draco asked, actually sounding a little scared.

Harry didn't blame him, Hufflepuffs could be scary sometimes.

"Yeah," Harry replied, playing up to the face Draco was making, "I think we do."

There wasn't a lot that could wreck his day now anyway, but he was just a little worried. He picked up the giant envelope and placed it on the table and then very carefully opened it. Nothing happened immediately, so he gained in confidence and, with Draco's help, pulled out the card. It was sweet really, all hearts and ribbons and wishing him and Draco good luck in bright letters on the front, so he opened it. That was his mistake. There was a small explosion and it suddenly appeared to be raining glitter and hearts all over the immediate area. It wasn't a shower either; it was a deluge and it covered everything.

"I may have to kill them," Draco said simply; "this is simply undignified."

When Harry turned to look, Draco was as covered in glitter as everything else and there were little metallic hearts all through his hair. He couldn't help smiling; it was adorable.

~*~

When Jeremy announced he had a visitor, Harry just assumed it was one of his friends. He knew it wasn't Draco, because they had arranged for him to come back after dinner since Draco thought he should show his face in the Great Hall again. The news of the first sensible decision the Ministry had made was all over the school, so Harry had absolutely no fears of letting him go at all.

Harry was presentable, not wandering around half naked or anything, and he had finally managed to remove nearly all of the glitter, so he just told Jeremy to let his guest in. He really didn't expect to look over from where he was putting a book back and find Narcissa Malfoy standing in his room.