Draco
"Come on," Harry had said. He was tugging on Draco's hand, hair still messy from sleep and a smile playing over his face. "It'll be fun."
Draco didn't want to. He didn't want to because Harry was making him go outside, and to Diagon alley no less, where he would be recognized, where people would stare and mutter and snarl awful things behind their hands and maybe even send tripping spells at his feet, and he would be with Harry, and if Harry saw all that he would realize what an awful mistake he had made, what kind of person he had invited into his home- but Harry was smiling down at him and touching him and Draco is quickly losing his ability to say no to things when Harry is looking at him like that, so he throws the blanket off of him (I don't sleep very well, Hermione said when she gave it to him, thrusting a bundle of blue into his hands, so I thought I'd make you one too) and getting to his feet.
"Alright," He had said, even though the thought of stepping foot outside this house makes his stomach curl in on itself, and Harry's smile gets bigger. "I'll go, you bastard."
There was no bite in his words, and two hours later he found himself walking through the Leaky Cauldron, listening to Harry say hi to Old Tom, who despite everyone who had been lost in the past few years, was still puttering around in his bar and churning out pots of watery coffee. When they walk out into the alley, Draco has to squint against the sudden burst of sunlight, and crowds into Harry without noticing it.
"Alright?"
Draco knew, without Harry needing to really say it, that if Draco truly wasn't alright, they would turn around and apparate home and not mention it, and Harry would spend his day off like he had spent every other day off. But suddenly, Draco wanted to be able to walk through this alleyway and squeeze his way through the other shoppers without drawing second glances, wanted to be a free man who didn't feel like he needed to be in chains. And maybe the only way to do it is to face things like this head on.
And besides, Harry was with him. It's not like anything was going to happen when Harry was with him.
Draco takes a deep breath, forces himself to be the one to take the first step into the crowd, even if he does search behind him and keep his fingers touching Harry's wrist, like Harry was a life buoy and he would drown if he let go for even a second.
"Alright." And it was.
They go into the apothecary first. That was the whole point of the trip, because he and Hermione needed new ingredients for their experiments, and when Draco had given Harry the list, he had looked faintly embarrassed and then confessed that he had no idea what to look for.
"You really like this stuff, huh?" Harry was sitting up on the counter, because the girl behind the counter was friends with him and decided she could take a break while he was in the shop (not like anyone's going to try anything with you in here, eh, Harry?) so it was just the two of them. Draco couldn't imagine Hogwarts Harry being the person to climb up on counters and pick up items that he had no intention of buying just to cringe at what was inside. School Harry had been much less imposing, but maybe this one had grown into his skin a bit more.
"I do." He had a full basket beside him, full of odd bits of this and that. "It was always... soothing I guess."
"And you were good at it." Harry offers, and his gaze was fixed on Draco now, the moment coming so sudden that Draco ducked around a set of shelves to break it. "You always did like being good at things."
"that was part of it." For a moment, Draco thought they were dancing along the edge of something dangerous and thought about playing along, of turning this moment into something completely different. And he could have, god knows he'd done it before, but his throat seemed to dry up and the words wouldn't come out. He holds up the basket to break the tension, instead, forcing a friendly smile on his face. "You want anything?"
Harry startled, jumping even more when the counter girl (Hannah?) came out of the back, the bell on the door tinkling. It was nice to know that Draco wasn't the only one feeling the tension in the air. "No." He scratched the back of his neck, ruffled his hair so it fell down over his scar. He was due for a hair cut soon. "Not from here."
They bounced from store to store, after that, from the book store to the deli to even ducking into Borgin and Burkes for some reason (Draco had the sneaking suspicion that Harry was either trying to include his past interests or doing some detective work while Draco's back was turned), until finally landing in the quidditch supply store.
"I want a new broom." Harry said, running his fingers down the handle of the one that the manager had left for them to suspect, eyes dancing. Draco figured this is what he must have looked like back in the apothecary shop. "Deserve it, after last year, huh?"
"Then buy it." Draco wasn't used to living with someone like harry, a person who had felt what it was to need to conserve money. In Draco's house, if you saw something you wanted, you got it, no matter the cost. (Even if the cost wasn't monetary.) "Use some of your prophet money."
One of the trials after the war centered around the Prophet and all the false stories they had been printing. The result was as if they had turned the whole building upside down and shook it, until every corrupted editor and writer had fallen out, fired and without another job to turn to. And Harry got a lot of reparation money for the things they had printed about him in his fifth year.
Harry looked tempted for a moment, but then he put it back and looked around for the manager, who he either wanted to say good bye to or thank. He's always unfailingly polite to the people working. "Nah. Where would I fly it, anyways?" But then he was turning back to it again, so obviously wanting it. "Though I could go to the Weasley's. You could come to."
He made the offer in an off hand sort of way, but Draco still recoiled, drawing away from Harry as if the thought had burned him.. "No." He spit the word out and the panic rose up, because didn't Harry understand? "I killed their son." That was the awful truth of it, how when you are on the wrong side but still right enough to feel guilt, every horrible thing fell onto your shoulders. "I'm never going there."
Harry doesn't push, just looked sad, like he wanted to hold Draco but couldn't make himself reach out. "Alright."
But they both knew it wasn't.
"Listen." Harry was leaving him, leaving him at the door of the Weasley's shop, and Draco didn't know if it was payback for his comment or if this was Harry's sick idea of trying to fix things, but he was about ready to throw his dignity out the window and beg for Harry to stay, because this can not happen. "It's just going to be a minute."
"I'll come with you." Draco could not express how much he didn't want to go in there, all the rules he thought it would be breaking. It was different when he was with Harry. Harry was a shield, someone that stopped people from being reminded of what Draco had done. "I'll just wait outside."
"I don't think that's a good idea." Draco was about to ask why, when he realized that he knew. They had been here all day, and there were only two shops they hadn't gone to: the twins, and Ollivanders. Of course Harry would want to see him, and of course Draco couldn't go.
"Right." His took his hand off Harry's arm, because he did not deserve to touch him. He could hear Harry calling after him, but he did not want to be more of a nuisance than he already had, so he turned and walked back through the door.
Draco had been in here exactly once, when he had bought the Peruvian instant darkness powder. Then, it was crowded and bursting at the seems with products, so bright that it almost hurt to look at. Now it was quiet, with gaping holes on the shelves and a witch with a pinched face behind the counter.
He wandered through the shelves, picking up one product and then putting it back. He's fine until he turns a corner and comes upon a bin of edible dark marks, all those skulls and snakes staring up at him.
"Don't you already have one of those?" He had been scared of George, but he shouldn't have. He should have been scared of everyone else, and of all the displays to have been caught in front of, Draco knew this was not a good one. "If you want another mark, we can give you one."
Draco didn't raise his wand. He didn't defend himself, just wondered what they were going to do, if they were going to burn something onto him and listen to him scream or just do it the muggle way. At the very least, he wouldn't have it said that he started a fight in George's shop.
But it doesn't come to that.
"Oi." It was George, wearing his faded work robes of that awful magenta, looking like he hadn't come out of the back room in weeks. "What do you think you're doing?" His eyes dart from the kids to Draco to the bin of the dark marks and seems to understand immediately. "He's got a right to shop here as much as you do. If you don't like it, you can leave."
They scowl and then stomp their way out, slamming the door closed behind them. It left Draco and George looking at each other, the empty store around them making it even more awkward than it would have been otherwise.
"Thanks." It was the only thing Draco could think to say.
"We made those before the war. Kind of tacky now." George picks one up and throws it back into the bin. "Maybe it was then. Should get rid of them."
Draco pictured George dragging this back to alley, dumping them all out into a dumpster. It was a sad thought. "What do they taste like?"
George blinks. "Grape. Sometimes blueberry."
Draco rummages in his pocket and comes out with a galleon, because he wants candy, damn it. "I'll take three."
That's how they end up in the back with candy wrappers spread out around them, tongues stained black. "Got to admit," George said, licking the last of the candy off of a wrapper. "Much better idea than throwing them all out."
"No kidding." Draco reached out for another one, his twelfth. "I'm going to be sick."
"You can't." George propped himself on an elbow and looked over at him. "We promised to eat the whole thing."
"This was stupid."
"It was fun."
"Stupidly-,"
"Stupidly,"
"Fun." they finished the last word together and laughed, and Draco couldn't get over the surrealness of the conversation, how the two of them were sitting in the storage room of a Weasley's shop, working their way through candy dark marks.
"I didn't want to come back here, you know." George said, suddenly sober. "But Hermione sat me down and said that I was going to have to face up to it, sooner or later, so here I am."
"Granger's something." Draco didn't want to admit how much he owed to her, how much her instant forgiveness had helped him. there's something to it, mending the broken bridges of your past. "Always seems to be right."
"She's annoying like that." George ran a hand along the side of his head, the one with the missing ear. He'd been careful to keep it facing away from Draco, but Draco had still seen it, the twisted skin and red scar tissue coming to a circular bump at the side of his head, so small you never would have guessed it used to be an ear. "But what I'm trying to get at, is that it helps, forcing yourself to do normal things."
Normally, Draco would have gotten angry when someone tries to give him advice. But this was coming from George, who was asking for calming droughts from Draco once a week because his hands shake too badly to handle a knife, and who clearly had done his fair share of hiding. Maybe it was time for Draco to come out into the open again.
"My normal sort of got smashed to pieces. Wouldn't know where to start."
"Start here. With me, hiding in the back." It was a large leap to make in one afternoon, but George seemed serious. "It'll do us both some good."
"I'll think about it," Draco said, but they both knew the answer was probably going to be no.
He leaves the shop before Harry shows up. Draco's got his wand held out in front of him, just in case, but the only figure is one that he recognizes, all the way down at the end of the street.
It's Harry, standing in front of the pet store and looking at all the owls. "You used to have an owl, didn't you?" It had never made sense to Draco for a boy who had no knowledge of their world to come to school with one of the best kind of owls. "That white one."
"Hedwig."
"What happened to it?"
"She died." Harry rocked back on his heels like the words had knocked him off balance. "Tried to take her with me when I was going from my aunt and uncles to a safe house. Got hit with a killing curse. Should have just let her loose."
Draco doesn't know what to say about that, so he doesn't address it. "Why don't you buy another one?"
They don't have an owl at the house, which for a wizard is like having their hands tied behind their back as far as communication goes. "Don't know. Probably should." And then he walked away, hands shoved deep into his pockets, leaving Draco to run after him.
(Draco sneaks out the next day to buy another owl, this one tiny and jet black, and has it sitting on the kitchen counter when Harry comes home. He'd never seen him get so happy so fast.)