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Work Header
Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning:
No Archive Warnings Apply
Category:
Multi
Fandom:
Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Relationships:
Draco Malfoy/Harry PotterHarry/Ginnypast Draco/Astoria
Characters:
Draco MalfoyHarry PotterHermione GrangerRon WeasleyAstoria GreengrassGinny Weasley
Additional Tags:
MysteryDramaFriendshipSlow BurnRomance
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:2014-09-30Completed:2014-12-25Words:74885Chapters:17/17Comments:407Kudos:2311Bookmarks:912
Running on Air
eleventy7
Chapter 16
Chapter Text
Draco takes over the driving at Birmingham again. Harry isn't sure where they're going, but he doesn't mind.
"Get some sleep," Draco tells him and Harry nods. He faces Draco, his eyes barely open, just enough to observe Draco without him noticing. Every now and again, the orange glow of a streetlight fades over the car, or the passing headlights of another car, illuminating Draco for a second. Always looking ahead, he thinks, gazing at Draco's face. Never looking away.
He falls asleep with his gaze still lingering on Draco.
* * *
When he wakes next, it's a slow surface to reality, the blurred lights gradually coming into focus. Intersections dotted with traffic lights, bright streetlights, cars flashing past. The sound of trains rumbling nearby. Harry straightens up in his seat, blinking slowly. London, he realises. They're in London. His watch beeps: three in the morning. But this city never sleeps and the traffic is busy even now. Harry wonders how many people are on their way to Heathrow, on their way to a thousand destinations he can only dream about.
"Where are we going?" he murmurs, voice still raspy with sleep. Draco glances at him.
"You're going home."
The warm sleepiness falls away from Harry like a cloak. He looks at Draco, his heartbeat quickening.
"Home...?" he repeats.
"Your apartment," Draco says.
The concrete box in the sky. Is this where it all ends? The flat sandy beaches of Sutton-on-Sea, the bright bustle of Brighton, the soaring and windswept cliffs of the Cornish coastline, the canola meadows of Wiltshire, the star-filled sky of Snowdonia —
— and it all ends here, at an empty apartment with dusty furniture and blank walls?
In inceptum finis est.
Well, of course this is how it will end. This was borrowed time, this trip. A journey stolen, moments that weren't supposed to happen, memories that were never supposed to be given. And now Draco will go back to the manor, to his fussing mother and doting house-elves, and Harry will go back to his blank white apartment and stand on the balcony and drink scotch, and maybe if he listens closely enough he might hear someone whistling blow the wind southerly, southerly, southerly...
In the deep and pristine wilderness of Snowdonia, it had felt like the moon had balanced on his heart, light and clear as the sky itself. Here, in London, it seems to weigh on him, heavy as lead, making it hard to breathe. The weight only grows heavier as they leave the highway and follow increasingly familiar roads. At last, they've reached the apartment block; Draco parks the Renault with the same easy grace he always has, whether he's standing on the edge of a cliff in Cornwall or taking Harry's hand to show him a lake full of stars. For a moment, Harry's heart lifts as Draco walks with him to the stairwell, but then he remembers he's been driving for hours. A cup of coffee before he leaves again would be a basic courtesy, at least.
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.
"You said I'd changed." There's something in his voice that Harry hasn't heard before, but he still doesn't look up.
"Yeah, well..." Harry tries to focus on the cup of tea before him, making sure every last grain of sugar melts away to nothing. "I just don't think we could've been friends."
Draco is silent for a long time again. Harry, at last, chances a glance at him. Draco's not looking at him, he thinks with relief. He's staring at the view from the balcony door, staring at the city lights, the trains slowly crawling along the tracks.
"And now?" he says, his gaze unexpectedly flicking to Harry. Harry gives him a quick, uncomfortable smile before looking away again.
"Well, I guess we might be friends. I suppose that wouldn't be unexpected, seeing as I'm the one who figured out the case and got you back out of the past." He tries to smile again.
After a long moment, Draco stands up. "So it's a matter of gratitude, then," he says slowly.
"Guess so."
"Well," Draco says, taking his Renault keycard from his pocket. "I'd better be going."
"What, now?" Harry asks with surprise, looking up. Draco meets his gaze, unblinking, his expression unwavering. Like it's carved from stone. Giving nothing away, Harry thinks suddenly, although that's stupid because they're saying goodbye, not sharing secrets. Draco crosses the room and opens the door, stopping for a moment to look at Harry.
"If it's a matter of gratitude, then thank you."
Then he leaves, closing the door behind him.
Harry crosses the room after a long moment, opening the sliding door to the balcony. The warm summer air caresses his face and he turns to face the faint breeze, feeling it whisper through his hair. He leans on the balcony railing, gazing at the street below, and after a few minutes he sees the Renault, headlights ghosting along the road as it goes past. He watches it until the red taillights have faded into darkness.
In the distance, the sky lightens just a little more.
* * *
"Do you have any idea," Hermione says, pacing in front of her fireplace, "how worried we were?"
"I'm really sorry."
"You said that already."
"Give the bloke a break," Ron cuts in, rubbing tiredly at the circles under his eyes. "Malfoy's been dragging him halfway across the country. You look awful," he adds, addressing Harry.
"Don't say that," Hermione says with alarm, still pacing around the living room and nearly tripping over a pile of her own books. "He's fine. You're perfectly fine, aren't you, Harry? I mean, you'd tell us if — if you weren't."
Harry's heart sinks with guilt at the anxious look on Hermione's face. "I'm...I'm all right."
Ron frowns. "Come on, mate. Something's going on, we're not stupid. Why'd you leave?"
"I don't know...just..."
"Was it stress?" Hermione asks. "I know they've offered you that promotion to Head Auror, and — oh, Harry," she adds with sudden misery. "Your supervisor has spent the last three weeks frantically trying to contact you. I...I don't think you'll get the Head Auror position now."
"Definitely not. The team needs someone reliable, I heard them saying." Ron catches Hermione's expression. "What? Just telling the truth."
"I didn't mean for this to happen," Harry protests.
Hermione bites her lip. "I'm glad you're all right, but — what were you thinking? Is everything all right?"
"I wasn't thinking at all, really," Harry admits. "I just...it wasn't because of work. I left because..."
They wait patiently, both looking at him with the same expression of expectation.
"You left because...?" Hermione prompts after a long minute.
"Because of Draco," Harry mutters at last. Ron frowns.
"Look, I know it can't have been fun for him — stuck in the past for three years — but you're not responsible for his recovery, Harry. You did your job, you located him, that's all you needed to do."
Harry groans and sets his cup of tea aside, burying his head in his hands. "It's not about that, either! It's not about obligation or a sense of duty."
"Then what?" Hermione presses.
Harry doesn't raise his head. They're trying very hard to understand, he thinks unhappily. After all, he's being the unreasonable one here — turning up at their home at six o'clock in the morning, disheveled and desperately in need of tea and conversation — and they both deserve an explanation. But Merlin help him, he hasn't got one.
"I don't know, I just wanted to leave," he mumbles at last, looking up.
Ron and Hermione exchange an expression and say nothing.
* * *
He was never particularly fond of the apartment before — it simply existed, like gravity, and he had to tolerate it. However, now he finds himself actively tormented by it every evening. The empty kitchen, the white walls that make him feel like he's in an office instead of a house. Normal people have photographs of their family and friends, he reminds himself, and he tries sticking a picture of him, Hermione, and Ron to the wall, but it looks strange. A small photograph in the centre of a vast expense of white emptiness. It just makes him feel immeasurably sad.
Work is the same. He went missing for three weeks — three weeks — no notice given, no warning — and anyone else would be fired, dismissed, sent away without references. While his supervisors lecture him — this is your final warning; if it wasn't for your exceptional skill and qualification; you're very lucky to have understanding colleagues — it's nothing but empty threats. They even covered for him — Harry Potter going missing wasn't very desirable publicity, apparently, and they'd told the rest of the department he'd been sent away to help the Unspeakables with a top-secret mission. The first day Harry went back to work, his colleagues all congratulated him on his work and welcomed him back. Harry tried to return their smiles but somehow couldn't quite manage it.
All the usual projects await. Arresting a man trying to earn extra money through an illegal potions side-business. Planning their security strategies for a public appearance by the Minister. Harry stands in the rain, standing straight in his neatly-pressed robes, gazing ahead as the Minister drones on and on to the listening masses. He supervises an organised protest, silently standing guard at St Mungo's as the wizards and witches wave placards demanding the repeal of recent regulations regarding health potions. A witch tries to force her way through the doors, shouting angrily, and is subdued quickly by some of the Magical Law Enforcement officers. The rain is lukewarm on Harry's skin, offering no relief from the muggy July heat. Everyone seems so prickled by the humidity, their tempers shortened and their faces always damp.
When Harry goes home that night, he stands on the balcony and drinks his scotch and watches the trains arrive and leave.
He only loved them, he remembers thinking once, because they were going places.
* * *
He's not going to be Head Auror. They tell him they're considering another candidate and give him disapproving looks, parroting Ron's words: "We need someone more...reliable," they say. Williamson takes him aside and reassures him that, if the position is vacant in a few years and Harry has 'sorted himself out', he should still apply for it.
Two weeks after his return, he sits in his old Investigative Division office. Holdsworth, for all her sharp looks and thinly-pressed lips, has kept it for him.
"Missing the old place?" she asks, standing in the doorway. Harry sits in the chair behind the desk, regardless of the faint patina of dust over it.
"Yes," he says truthfully. Then he looks away. "I suppose there's not much chance of returning, not after I disappeared for three weeks."
Holdsworth looks at him, tilting her head as she does whenever she finds something particularly interesting. "Disappearing people are our specialty," she says, then turns and leaves.
Harry stares at the empty doorway for a long time, then slowly opens his desk drawer. All the old files are still here, including...
He picks up the pale blue folder and lets it fall open.
Case number: L10-332-5
Date filed: 10 September 2003
Case Classification: Closed; located alive
Name: MALFOY, Draco
Other names: None.
He turns the page. There is the photograph Narcissa gave him, and Harry's breath catches for a moment. Two long weeks since he last saw that face. Draco stares up at him, his eyes the colour of a sky just before a storm, his mouth small and serious. Harry reaches out and traces his fingertips across the photograph. A motion he'd never dare make to Draco in person. But the Draco in the picture just gazes at him, not moving as Harry's fingers trail across his cheekbones.
I miss you, Harry thinks, but he hasn't got the courage yet to say it aloud.
He closes the file slowly, Draco disappearing beneath the pages.
* * *
July melts into August. Harry stands at the steps of the Ministry building, chin tilted upwards, gaze forward as ever. His feet ache. The high noon sun beats down upon him, creating a bead of sweat upon his brow. To his left, Ron is equally silent and still. Some distance away, the protestors roil and rage. The economy isn't going so well, and within the Ministry there have been talks of raising the tax-free threshold. A wizard in front of Harry angrily waves a sign about.
"Sir, please move away from the Ministry entrance," Harry says. "Ministry employees have the right to access the building without harassment."
"Harassment? Oh, protesting is harassment, is it?" the man seethes. "Don't you bloody stand there and tell me that my suffering is an inconvenience! You've got a nice, cushy Ministry job — "
"Sir, please move away from the Ministry entrance," Harry repeats blandly.
" — unemployed for six months! But the Ministry doesn't care, does it? Just sends out brainless trolls like you to stand there and parrot from the rulebook — "
Harry lets the wizard hurtle on through his vitriol-fuelled speech. His polyjuice potion will be wearing off soon, he thinks. He hates having to take it, but what other choice does he have? As his supervisors rightfully point out, he'd become the security risk if he appeared as himself.
Harry turns his gaze briefly to the cloudless blue sky, and thinks the canola meadows will be harvested soon, the sunshine-yellow flowers lopped off, the plants left to wither in the last of the summer heat.
Light footsteps in a field. Arms wrapping briefly around him.
Catch me.
* * *
On the last day of summer, when the sapphire-coloured sky has given way to a pale blue and the blazing sunlight has gentled, Holdsworth tells Harry there's a vacancy in the Investigative Division.
"I haven't got any qualifications," he says uncertainly.
"Applications close on the eighteenth of September," Holdsworth says crisply.
"I'll think about it."
He does. Often. The next day — the first of September — he asks Ron if he likes working as an Auror. They're sitting at the bar at the Mad Alchemist, and Ron's nursing his fourth butterbeer and looking thoughtful as Harry asks the question. Harry, expecting an automatic and enthusiastic 'yes, I love my job' is surprised when Ron answers.
"I guess." Ron takes a long sip of his butterbeer. "Remember the early days? Merlin, that was crazy."
"Total madness," Harry agrees. "We used to hold competitions to see who ended up the most sleep deprived, remember? Atkinson still holds the record, I think — four days straight on the job."
"We used to sleep in our offices, and survive off sandwiches from the nearest café," Ron says, grinning. "It was great though, wasn't it?"
"Fantastic." Harry returns Ron's grin, but after a long moment his smile slowly fades. "We were going places back then. Turned the whole department on its head. Changed all the training policies, got rid of all the corruption, created specialty areas."
"Yeah, and when we weren't making radical changes, we were chasing the last of the Death Eaters." Ron shakes his head. "Those field assignments...you don't get 'em like that anymore. Days spent staking out places, tracking down Dark Arts masterminds...of course, it's great it's not like that anymore," Ron adds quickly, a half-hearted disclaimer.
"Is it?"
"Well...yeah. I mean, no Death Eaters, no rabid followers...work's dried up a lot since the war," Ron says, still smiling, but his voice is a little uncertain. "Mostly stupid prats trading on the black market, eh, and unlicensed potioneers. All that sort of thing."
Harry looks down at his empty glass, then pushes it aside and catches the bartender's eye.
"Glenmorangie, please. Neat. Twenty-five-year, if you have it," Harry adds, and the bartender disappears for a moment, reappearing to shake his head.
"Ten-year all right?"
Harry nods and pays. Ron pulls a face.
"For that price, it better be laced with Felix Felicis."
Harry says nothing, taking a leisurely sip of his drink. Ron frowns.
"Do you?" he asks suddenly. Harry looks up.
"Do I what?"
"Do you enjoy being an Auror?"
Harry stares down at his drink, tipping the glass slowly and watching the whiskey eddy around. The words are wrenched reluctantly from his lips.
"Used to," he says.
When he dares to look up, Ron doesn't look shocked or even surprised. He just nods and takes another swig of his butterbeer.
"Yeah," he says, "it's a bit like that."
* * *
Merlin, he had such high hopes.
When he was seventeen and thought he'd feel that way forever. That he'd always want to be an Auror, because being an Auror was just like dodging spells and chasing people and spending cosy nights arguing over strategies with his two best friends. And he'd come home, exhausted but happy at the end of each day, stepping through the door of a little cottage somewhere in the countryside — something ramshackle, like the Burrow, or ancient like Hogwarts — and Ginny would be there, smiling, forever young. In his dreams, he was seventeen forever. Funny, that. He forgot to age himself, or Ginny. He forgot about Ginny's own ambitions and choices, and he forgot about the practicalities of a London apartment, and he'd forgotten how Aurors weren't needed much when there wasn't a war. He'd forgotten all the little details, the cold whispers of reality.
But if his future wasn't what he dreamed it to be, no doubt countless others felt the same. Seamus Finnigan had clearly imagined a future that, for example, did not include both parents dying during the war. Justin Finch-Fletchley too, spending his final year of education on the run, hiding from Snatchers, his mother tortured to reveal the location of the rest of the family. Or even Millicent Bulstrode, whom Harry heard suffered terrible injuries during the Battle of Hogwarts and ended up in a permanently catatonic state, her life reduced to palliative care. None of these students, when they were eleven years old and first stepped into the Great Hall, alive with nervous excitement and the sheer thrill of it all, would have imagined these futures for themselves.
Harry remembers that moment. Lining up outside the Great Hall, everyone looking at each other with a shared sense of awe. They could be Sorted into any house, achieve anything, grow up to be anyone. Their lives awaited them, an unwrapped present. Harry remembers how young Draco had looked then, his face still softened with childhood, robes still slightly too big for him, sleeves trailing. Regardless of how arrogant and pompous Harry considered him at the time, Draco still would have stood outside the doors of the Great Hall and dreamed of the future contained within. Maybe he dreamed of childish pranks, of popularity and admiring friends. Maybe he dreamed of becoming a Quidditch all-star, showing off carefully-practised moves on the latest broom model. Maybe he dreamed of academic achievement, impressing all his classmates and making his father proud.
It doesn't matter. All those dreams became little more than dust and debris, fragments crushed beneath the weight of a war. The weight of black ink on pale skin.
Sometimes it's impossible, Harry tells himself. Some dreams are just...unachievable.
Do you think we could have ever been friends at Hogwarts?
He unconsciously traces a fingertip along his bottom lip.
* * *
The ninth of September.
Four years to the day when Draco disappeared.
It's a Saturday. Summer is still hanging in the air like a familiar friend, reluctant to leave. Harry stands on the balcony and looks up at the azuline sky.
Some dreams are impossible.
He could pretend. That if he turns around, it will be December. All dark inside the apartment, only the glow of tiny lights illuminating the room. Draco will be standing by the tree.
You're here, Harry will say, and Draco will give him one of those looks. The one where he tilts his head slightly, and his lips curl ever-so-faintly, a laugh hidden there. And Harry will step forward and kiss that hidden laugh, press his lips to the corner of Draco's mouth, right where that little smirk begins.
So don't look back.
Harry looks back.
Across the empty stretch of sunlit floorboards, the endless expanse of white wall seems to mock him. That sad little photograph, right in the centre. Hermione and Ron's faces are nothing but pale blurs.
Harry steps inside, giving the cloudless blue sky another look before snapping the sliding door shut. He trails one hand along the counter, feeling all the empty places where people should be. Silence where there should be a voice, sometimes soft and serious, sometimes light and teasing.
Catch me.
Harry reaches out, and for a moment he can almost feel the canola flowers feathering his fingers, the stars on his skin, a hand slipping through his.
He blinks, then slowly drops his hand.
Around him, dust motes dance in the sunlight.
* * *
They assign new fieldwork on Monday. The dark green folder drops onto Harry's desk with a thud. Ron's head pops over the cubicle divider.
"New assignment."
"I gathered as much." Harry picks up the folder and flips it open. A group of international scam artists are using love potions and romance charms to swindle elderly wizards and witches out of their savings. There are locations, dates, photographs of suspects, and pages of bank statements. Harry frowns and turns the pages, skimming over the rows of dates and locations.
"Not much here," Harry says.
"Yeah, well, that's why the Law Enforcement foot-soldiers gave it to us." Ron shrugs. "Pearson's working on a map at the moment, hopefully we'll see some patterns."
"Spoken to any of the victims?"
"They reckon we don't need to. Set up surveillance and some tracing charms, should be able to take the scammers down within a week."
Harry sighs loudly. He hadn't meant to, but Ron raises his eyebrows and gives Harry a shrewd look.
"Hermione wants to know if you're coming over for dinner tonight."
"All right."
Ron gives Harry one last look, then disappears from sight, sitting back down at his desk.
* * *
Harry visits his Investigative Division office before he leaves for the day. No, he thinks for a moment before wincing and shaking his head. No; not his office anymore.
He was supposed to clear it out, but he'd forgotten. Or maybe he'd just avoided thinking about it. The door unlocks at a tap of his wand, like it always does. Security flaw, he thinks automatically — they should have removed his wand signature from the office as soon as he left. But that's thinking like an Auror — constant vigilance. Harry has to smile wryly. Nobody wants to break into the Missing Persons offices. Nothing exciting there — no international crime organisations or terrorist information. Just family photographs of smiling faces, long-lost people. Ordinary people, missed and loved only by their friends and family. Considered unimportant by everyone else.
The bewitched windows offer a view of sunset over London, lighting the room in the last faint shadows of a cloudy dusk. Harry looks around the room, for a moment spotting the card sent in by Fenwick's son. Thank you for finding my father, the awkward teenaged handwriting says. It means a lot. Of course, when Fenwick went missing, his son had only been nine or ten. Now he's seventeen.
It never ceases to amaze Harry that people thank him. He spends months interviewing them, asking them to relive painful or difficult memories, sitting and listening to them recall the little habits and hobbies of their loved one. And then he'll find a skeleton in a field, or a suicide note, and have to tell them. And, Merlin help them, they thank him. With tears in their eyes, they thank him as he tells them their loved one is dead.
Harry slowly runs a hand over his desk. He could be solving a case right now, working on something important...
His Auror work is important, he reminds himself irritably. Elderly people, losing their life savings to greedy criminals...of course it's important. Far more important than, for example, bringing someone home.
He leaves the office quickly, shutting the door a bit too loudly behind him.
* * *
The apartment is cold. Now that September is truly underway, the last of the summer warmth is quickly dissipating. Harry unlocks the door and pauses before he steps into the apartment. White walls, floorboards, empty counters. A room stripped bare. There's nothing here. With a pang of sadness, Harry remembers the trailing roses of Astoria's garden, the smell of sugary pastries baking in the oven, the crackling music of the Wizarding Wireless. It's been a while since he visited Astoria and Matthew.
Harry closes the curtains. White, he thinks, staring at the material as he slowly draws it across the window. Why is everything white in this place? He steps into his bedroom. The same bed he and Ginny slept in, neatly made with white sheets and cream-coloured covers. His bedside table, nothing on it except a glass of water and a book. Flowers for Algernon. The only personal thing in this damn place, the only interesting thing, and he stole it from Draco.
He really doesn't feel like company tonight, but he promised Ron and Hermione. Harry removes his work robes and hangs them up, then stares blankly at his wardrobe for a long time before closing the door. He's gotten used to not wearing robes, especially during the last three weeks. He'd bought jeans and t-shirts during the impromptu road trip; Draco had purchased far more formal clothes and kept them neatly pressed regardless of what godforsaken time of the night they were driving. The observation had made Harry smile at the time.
He doesn't particularly feel like smiling now.
He leaves the bedroom instead, walking to the front door, hearing every footstep echo around the empty room.
* * *
By the time he's arrived at Ron and Hermione's, it's a little later than he'd thought. The clock chimes eight o'clock just as Hermione ushers him through the door. Her eyes are bright and there's a faint flush in her cheeks.
"Into the wine already, Hermione? For shame," Harry says, smiling, and she smacks his arm.
"No! Well — just a couple of glasses. Would you like something to drink? Oh, don't worry, I know how you like your alcohol. There's a bottle of oak-aged whiskey in the cellar."
"Thanks." He steps into the kitchen; Ron's perched by the island counter, poring over a copy of Quidditch Weekly, a butterbeer next to his elbow. He spares a glance at Harry.
"Late as usual," he says, grinning.
They fall into conversation as easily as ever. Hermione leans across the opposite side of the counter, wineglass in hand, her eyes bright as she joins them as they reminisce about their Hogwarts days. The hours soon dwindle past; long after they've finished dinner, they remain seated around the dining table. Harry's nursing a butterbeer and gazing down at the table, absently tracing circular patterns into the grain of the wood, when Ron speaks.
"Going for that Investigative Division job, Harry?"
He glances up. Ron's grinning at him.
"How'd you find out about that?"
"Used my impressive Auror skills, of course." Ron leans back in his seat. "Better get your résumé organised, the applications close tomorrow."
"Yeah, well." Harry stops tracing patterns and takes a swig of his butterbeer. "I'm not applying."
Ron frowns and swaps a look with Hermione. "But...you said you didn't like your Auror work. I thought..."
"I've been an Auror for seven years," Harry says. "I'm good at it."
"You're good at investigating, too," Hermione retorts, frowning. "You've solved ten cases in eighteen months!"
"What, so I should just throw away seven years of training?"
"Nobody's saying that." Ron looks exasperated. "But give yourself some credit. You'd probably move through the ranks pretty quickly — it wouldn't take long to get a promotion. Holdsworth's pretty impressed with you, especially after you solved the Malfoy case. That was brilliant, Harry."
Harry doesn't want to talk about Draco Malfoy. He stares at the condensation on the butterbeer bottle and waits a long moment before speaking.
"I always wanted to be an Auror."
"Well, people change, Harry," Hermione says. "Just because you always wanted to be something, it doesn't mean you can't change. And yes, you've invested seven years in your career as an Auror. But there's no point staying in the department if you're not happy..."
"I'm happy where I am."
"You're not," Ron says, picking up a new bottle of butterbeer. "You said as much to me, when — "
"Look, just leave it, all right?" Harry snaps. "I just said — "
"You're afraid." Ron points his butterbeer at Harry, then sets it upright again and untwists the cap. "Pathetic, really."
Harry's mouth falls open. "Afraid? Are you serious?"
"You are." Ron takes a leisurely swig of the butterbeer. "You're afraid that if you take this Investigative job, it'll mean you were wrong about always being an Auror. And you wasted seven years doing it. But that's a bloody stupid way to look at it. We had some great times during those seven years, didn't we? You were happy during those seven years, weren't you? Not a waste of time, then." Ron shakes his head. "It's like losing a game of Quidditch, then saying you wish you hadn't played at all."
Harry is silent.
What's the point in that? Sitting in a box, only going where someone else takes you...
"You all right, mate?" Ron frowns.
Harry looks up, barely paying attention. He nods, tries to smile, says something.
But all he can think about how close he came to never looking back. To never flicking his eyes up to the rear-vision mirror.
But this isn't you, is it, Potter?
No. It's not.
* * *
The eighteenth of September.
Harry stands outside the office door. He's been pacing the hallway for a good twenty minutes, a stack of papers in one hand. Thrice, in his restless pacing, he's nearly run into ruffled-looking secretaries.
"Can I help you?" they asked him, and he shook his head each time.
Somewhere, a clock chimes noon. Harry takes a breath, straightens up, and looks ahead. He pauses a moment, then knocks sharply three times on the door. There's a long pause, and then —
"Come in."
Harry opens the door and steps inside the office. Holdsworth, rifling through papers on her desk, is looking at him with an expectant expression.
"Hi," Harry says weakly. "Er...I just thought...I might..." He holds out the papers. "My application."
"Thank you, Potter," Holdsworth says briskly, reaching out and taking it. She puts it neatly to one side of her desk without looking at it. "Is that all?"
He pauses. "I...I just want to say I understand now. What you meant when you said that solving cases isn't a game of Quidditch, and people aren't snitches."
She looks at him, then nods once.
"Very good, Potter." She returns to her paperwork.
Harry takes the cue and leaves.
* * *
A storm gathers the next day, and it reminds Harry of that night watching the storms roll in over the Celtic Sea, Draco's pale skin and blond hair in beautiful contrast with the dark bruised skies.
Then again, it seems everything reminds him of Draco these days. The nights remind him of the sea of stars in Snowdonia, and the lonely autumn winds remind him of the wave-lashed Cornish coast. The fair weather conjures the feel of butter-yellow canola flowers and pale blue skies, and the rain makes him think of falling asleep in the Renault, listening to the faint swish of the window wipers, seeing the water droplets stream across the windscreen. Watching Draco's wrists flex as he steered around the corners.
A 2002 Renault Mégane coupé. Harry remembers the first time he saw it, the canvas falling away in swathes, the dust dancing through the air. It isn't a luxury car; it isn't anything spectacular. But it's Draco's car, and Harry misses it as much as he misses Draco. As much as he misses a clear night sky, and highways and Christmas tree lights and windswept cliffs and canola fields and the way Draco's eyes would flick to the rear-vision mirror.
Harry just wants to go home.
* * *
So he does. Deep in the golden light of autumn, he goes to the manor. A house-elf answers his hesitant knock, peering at Harry with its large eyes before bowing and ushering him into the reception hall.
"Please be waiting here. I will fetch Mistress — "
"No, I'm — I'm here for Draco, actually."
The house-elf frowns, then nods and disappears. It's gone for so long that Harry begins to wonder if it died on the way. He turns and surveys the hallway, with the uncomfortable chaise and spindly hall-tables lined with photographs, and picks up one of the framed pictures. Draco smiles up at him and Harry returns the smile.
Footsteps. Harry glances up.
Draco is very good at schooling his face into a blank expression, Harry thinks. When he wants to, he hides his emotions so easily. Still, Harry gathers his courage, refusing to back down now.
"Come for a drive?" he asks casually.
Draco looks at him.
* * *
Autumn has well and truly arrived in Wiltshire. The fields are a pale gold; the trees seem ablaze in the afternoon sunlight, their scarlet leaves lit richly. Draco drives along a narrow country road, the same sort of road on which Harry spent hours learning to drive. An oak tree curves overhead, sending dappled shade dancing over the car for a fleeting moment, and Harry's reminded of the ancient Welsh oaks of Snowdonia. The narrow lane soon joins a wider road. A map of arteries, leading to the heart of nowhere.
All rivers lead to the sea.
The far-off ring of a warning bell; Draco slows down at the level crossing and waits.
Harry looks at him.
"I was wrong, you know."
"Wrong about what?" Draco rests both hands on the steering wheel, gazing at the road on the other side of the crossing.
"I think we could have been friends," Harry says quietly.
Draco doesn't move his gaze. "Really?" he asks, sounding disbelieving. "You seemed to think otherwise earlier."
The train is nearly at the crossing now.
Now or never.
He reaches across and takes Draco's hand. Draco looks startled, but he doesn't resist.
"Yes, well," Harry says, "going away is easy. Coming home is hard."
He lifts Draco's hand, bringing his wrist higher, and kisses the soft skin just beneath the inky tail of the Dark Mark.
The train rushes through.
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