At half past four in the morning, Draco receives a call through the Floo Network.
"It's me," Potter says, as if Draco cannot see his face perfectly well, lit up in flames.
"Good evening and what the hell?" he replies. "Someone'd better be dying."
"Sorry to disappoint."
"Well, there's always next time."
"I think I've got something you need to see."
Draco tries to restart his brain, but it seems to be stalled in place. "At four in the morning?"
"Would you just get over here, already?"
Draco takes in Potter's reddened cheeks, his wild hair, and his ratty shirt, and he sighs. Because he knows he's saying yes.
Number twelve, Grimmauld Place is dark when he arrives, so he trips over the Floo grate Potter has carelessly pushed to the side. Heathen.
Potter emerges from a lit hallway with a pot of tea and a grimace. "Sorry."
"It's fine. Who needs all ten toes, anyway?"
"That's what I'm always saying."
Potter sets the tea on the coffee table and extracts his wand from his sleeve, lighting the tip with a quiet, "Lumos."
He walks closer to Draco — which is entirely unfair — only to pass right by him and go to the wall upon which most of his portraits hang.
Draco turns with him, and it takes a moment for his fuzzy brain to register that anything is wrong.
Then it does, jarring as a slap.
The first portrait Potter had painted, the one of Sirius Black, is smudged down the middle by a blurry streak, the paint on the right half slowly melting off the canvas. On the left, Potter's godfather is pulling at the skin of his face like putty, perhaps trying to see if it will start drooping down too. The paint is chipped in several places, revealing what looks like the man's skeleton all up and down his head and arm.
Next to him, Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks have abandoned their frame, leaving behind a red curtain that is steadily burning to a crisp over and over again. When the entire thing has blackened to ash, leaving the wall behind it bare cream paint, the process starts again.
"I can't help you," Draco says. "I don't know anything about magical portraits. Have you asked Dean Thomas?"
Potter massages his brow, leaning against the wall with his eyes closed.
He doesn't say anything.
"Are you ... all right?" Draco asks.
"I'm not sure I've ever been so exhausted. Even during the war. At least I was running on adrenaline, then."
"Well," he sits carefully in the armchair a few metres away from Potter, pressing his hands between his knees, "interpreting all that visual information at once is a lot. And you don't have any experience with it." Without thinking, he adds, "And you're not seventeen anymore."
Potter huffs out a laugh. "That's not what I mean."
"No?"
"I was exhausted before, too. Before all this. I don't know why. My life shouldn't be exhausting. It's easy. Easier than most."
"Except for all those formative years."
"Even including those."
Draco frowns, leaning forward. "Potter, I'm not qualified to act as a therapist."
"Oh, shut it. I just thought maybe you'd ... understand."
He shakes his head, even though he knows Potter is trying very hard not to see him. "Why?"
"I ... don't know, actually. But that's what we're supposed to do, isn't it? We get to know someone and eventually we spill all our shit and hope they don't leave."
He clears his throat. "This has worked for you before?"
"No."
"Okay."
Potter moves away from the wall, plopping onto the sofa, far too close. He pours Draco a cup of tea without asking.
"So, is it all the portraits, then?"
"Yep. All different. Angelica is melting, Sirius One has lost all colour, Sirius Two won't stop screaming, and Remus One has turned into some kind of nightmare-haunting demon. Remus Two has lost sentience and just repeats the same few actions on a loop. It's a mess."
"Why do you still have Angelica?"
"Haven't you noticed? We're twins."
Draco shuffles over to where Potter's easel is resting and peers more closely at the portrait. It becomes clear that, along with bits of her hair dissolving off the canvas like fairy floss and her nose dripping down her face, she's missing an eye.
"What'd you do that for?"
"Eyes are bloody hard to get right, I'll have you know. I was putting it off. She's not pleased with me."
Angelica makes an agreeing sniff that sucks about half of her nose back into place before dropping it again.
"I was going to get around to it, but then—" He gestures to his head, and Draco grimaces.
"Have any of your past commissioners reached out with complaints?"
"No. But I just noticed an hour ago. I talked to Ginny. She says Fred has gone silent."
For a while, Draco doesn't speak. Then, he says, "Scorpius needs to drop the campaign."
"What?"
"My prostheses were cursed after his campaign started to pick up steam, right? Support for him was dropping, then you came in, and it picked back up again, and you end up with melting paintings. Whoever's doing this isn't doing it to ruin our public reputations — that'd do no good against you. They're doing it as a warning."
He watches his theory cloud over Potter's face, his eye growing stormy. "But why would someone want to ... Who cares so much about who ends up as Ministry Creature Liaison that they're willing to hurt people?"
Draco's fingers drum on the handle of his mug. He feels the precise moment each fingertip touches the ceramic. "Maybe it's not about Scorpius. Maybe it's because it's ... me."
"But if they're someone who hates you because of what you did during the war, would they really be willing to harm me too?"
"Maybe they only care about making sure a Malfoy doesn't end up getting the job. You're collateral damage. Screw anyone who gets in their way."
"You've got quite an ego."
"One would hope so, at this point. Otherwise I'd be a lost cause."
Potter reaches out, stilling his fingers.
"It's just one person. Scorpius can still win this."
Draco looks up, meeting his eyes, swimming in brown and green. He can hear the tick of the wall clock, but nothing else.
He thinks Potter has combined something nutty with cardamom in his tea this time. It's not bad.
"No logic says it must just be one person. And nothing could prove they won't up their stakes. I won't let him get hurt. Or anyone else who never asked to be involved in all this."
"It might not be your choice to make," Potter says.
"I won't help it along."
"You'll hurt him if you make him give this up."
"Sometimes you have to make sacrifices to protect your family." The words, 'not that you'd understand,' are at front of his mouth. He bites them back.
Potter hears them anyway.
"Right. Sacrifices." He glances at Draco's forearm, the dark stain he can't wash away from his skin. "I'm sure the ones you made were worth it."
"I didn't mean ... My concern is keeping Scorpius alive, in good health. Not worrying about his career."
"His dreams."
The correction must mean something to Potter, because the storm in his eye is rattling the house now.
It's also possible that the house is mad at him too.
"His life," Draco repeats. Then, "I should go."
At the same time, Potter says, "You should go."
Draco opens his mouth to respond but stops, nodding.
He stands from the armchair, drains the rest of the tea, and hobbles back to the fireplace, foot still smarting. "Good night."
He pretends he doesn't hear the cabinets rumble like thunder on his way out.