Draco snaps awake in front of his desk, with a now familiar sense of disorientation, and thinks: bollocks.
Fucking, shitty, cunty, arsey bollocks.
The time-turner glows a little more brightly, as if it agrees with him, and even peering down at it makes him feel peculiar, so he turns away, closing his eyes and rubbing a hand over his face. When he reopens his eyes, he takes another irritated look around the room. Apart from the time-turner, it seems identical to the last morning. And the morning before. Which was the same morning, Draco supposes, already confusing himself.
He looks down at himself. He's wearing the silk pyjamas he went to sleep in last night – which was the future, he supposes. Looking on the bright side, at least he hasn't woken up dressed in alcohol-soused formal robes – not least because if he has to give the bloody speech again today, he'll need to wear them, and his own cleaning charms never give that really fresh feel that the laundry's do.
It's not much of a bright side though. If he's trapped in a time-loop, he can think of many things that would be useful; daily clean pyjamas is not top of the list.
He jams his slippers on his feet and heads downstairs. He knows it's going to be the same, but a flame of hope flares in his chest when he enters the dining room and sees his mother. It's quickly extinguished though. She's reading the paper, and the headline is clear as day: MALFOY HEIR TO PROMOTE UNITY WITH MUGGLES.
The disappointment makes him sag, and he leans against the edge of the dining table for support.
"Good morning, dear," his mother says, setting the paper aside and looking at him with sympathy. "Are you nervous about your speech?"
Draco sits down and spreads a napkin on his knees – because he did that last time, and the time before, and who the hell is he to break the pattern? – and his mother pours him a cup of tea and summons a house-elf.
"No," he says. "Not at all." And it's true – he's not nervous. He's angry.
While he butters the toast the elf brings him, he tries to decide who he's most angry at. He's angry with himself that he managed to screw up fixing the time-turner, although he still feels no small amount of pride that the thing worked at all. OK, so it's not perfect, but he went back in time, didn't he? And clearly at some point he'll stop going back in time; he just needs to figure out what, exactly, is keeping him stuck here.
Or, rather, who.
By the time Draco's finished his toast, it's all so blindingly obvious, he wonders why he didn't see it before.
It's all Potter's fault, just like always.
The logic is inescapable. Who was it who walked out of Draco's speech? Potter. Who was, therefore, the reason Draco had to use the time-turner? Potter. Ergo, if Potter hadn't walked out of his speech in the first place, Draco would never have had to use the blasted thing. It follows logically, therefore, Draco thinks, that if Potter doesn't walk out, then Draco will never have to use the time-turner, and the time loop will collapse.
Draco sips his tea and even feels cheerful enough to skim read his mother's discarded paper, although he avoids the front cover. His father's campaign to fill the papers with positive press on his behalf has been a successful one – so successful that he occasionally feels a sympathetic pang for Potter and the way the Prophet used to hound him, and still does. It's not as gratifying as he thought it might be, and people do send him the strangest fanmail.
"I'd better go and get ready," he tells his mother as time wears on, and she smiles at him as he rises and goes over to kiss her on the cheek.
"Wear the dark-green," she says, as if his choice of robes – formal, old-fashioned, traditional – wasn't decided at least a month ago. "It suits you." Her smile grows fonder and more sentimental, and he can feel her eyes on his back as he leaves the room.
While he's dressing, he tries to formulate a plan of action. It's an interesting paradox. If he gives his original speech, Potter will almost certainly walk out. If he doesn't, Potter will stay, but the initial problem will remain. What he needs is a way of convincing Potter to stay for the original speech, even though he's a git. Draco dismisses his initial urge to simply Petrificus Totalus him on sight. Even if he manages it – and oh how he longs to manage it – Potter will simply go rigid and slide off his seat in a painfully obvious manner and Draco won't be able to give his speech at all. He likewise dismisses the use of a Sticking Charm. Potter has no sense of occasion, Draco thinks scathingly, while slicking Sleekeazy's Hair Potion through his hair. Doubtless, finding himself stuck to his chair, instead of calmly remaining there until an appropriate moment to seek help arrived, he would instead shout and wreak merry hell – again, ruining Draco's speech.
By the time Draco's ready, he's come to a conclusion. There is only one way of ensuring Potter's compliance: Draco will have to talk to him reasonably before the event starts and persuade him to stay, for the good of society in general, or some such bollocks. Potter will like that. If he's looking shaky, Draco can just throw in some shit about cooperation with Muggles for good measure. The Muggles he's met have been politicians, and while he doesn't feel especially kindly towards them, he's not sure he feels the same disdain he once did – only pity, that they should have the same ambitions and desire for power as men like his father, and yet be hamstrung by their lack of magic. Muggle life strikes him as tedious, and difficult, and long-winded.
Although, he supposes, it's probably marginally safer. If he – Merlin forbid – were a Muggle, he wouldn't have been moronic enough to have trapped himself in a time loop, now, would he?
He Apparates early to the Palace of Westminster and enters, nodding at the officials he encounters that he knows by sight. No one stops him, and that makes him feel vaguely smug. He takes the Royal Staircase at a quick pace, and strides on through the Norman Porch, lined with busts of titled former Prime Ministers, his shoes echoing on the marble floor. He pauses for breath in the Royal Gallery. It's oh-so Gryffindor in here, and that's presumably why his father decided that their guest of honour should be led here to wait in comfort before the event starts properly in the late morning. The marble floor is red and gold, and so are the walls, and everything – paintings, and statues, and massive red leather chairs – is lit by enormous chandeliers. It's charmingly naff – and pleasingly empty. Draco hopes that Potter won't be too late, and also that he can catch him without his entourage. It's going to be difficult enough to persuade Potter to just suffer his speech without the Weasel or – worse – Granger listening in. He doubts they'll be sympathetic to his plight.
He waits, getting increasingly tetchy as time passes and Potter doesn't show up. The Royal Gallery begins to fill with foreign dignitaries, even though the room was intended for receiving Potter alone, and Draco finds himself forced to work the room, nodding and smiling and exchanging empty pleasantries. Then, there is a call for everyone to take their seats, and Draco looks at his watch and tries not to grimace as the Gallery empties, people filing on through the corridors into the Lords Chamber, and still Potter doesn't arrive.
He's pacing up and down, wearing footprints in the marble, by the time Potter arrives, looking like he's been unkindly woken up and forcibly ejected from his bed, with Weasley and Granger flanking him and chivvying him on.
Weasley shoots Draco a look of unvarnished dislike, and Draco's temper flares, even as he notices that Potter himself doesn't look unfriendly, just dog tired.
"Draco," Granger says, acknowledging him in polite but stiff tones, and moves as if to walk straight past him, tugging on Potter's arm to drag him along with her.
"May I have a moment of your time?" Draco says to Potter, standing his ground and doing his best to ignore Potter's irritating minions.
"Anything you need to say to Harry, you can say with us here," Weasley replies – as if it's his place! – folding his arms and glaring, and taking a protective step in front of Harry.
Draco barely notices Potter trying to push Weasley back out of the way; he's too intent on squashing the Weasel. It's safe to say they've never got on. "I hardly think Potter needs a coward like you for protection," he says dismissively.
Weasley goes white, and Draco belatedly remembers that insulting Potter's best friend is probably not going to endear him to Potter – or be good for his own health. He remembers the pyjamas he'd woken up in this morning, that seemed to have travelled with him through the time loop, and wonders whether if Weasley manages to hex something off he'll wake up with the missing limb restored the next morning – or not. He thinks it best not to find out. "May I remind you that magic is forbidden here?" he sneers – quickly.
"Fine!" Weasley says, but there's something in his eye that Draco doesn't like, and he takes a step back, while Granger's saying something loud and urgent, but Weasley's already going for him, his fist swinging wildly in a heavy arc.
Draco darts to one side, a vision of himself and Weasley grappling in the Hogwarts Quidditch stand in first year coming irresistibly to mind. He smirks; he'd got the best of Weasley that day, he recalls, remembering the satisfying pop Weasley's nose had made when his fist had connected with it. It makes the same pop now when he punches him; he still has a Seeker's quick instincts – and Weasley still doesn't.
Granger shouts for help, and Potter's trying to pull Weasley back, but the ginger wanker won't be told. Bellowing, he rushes forward in another attempt at attack, and collides with Draco's hastily raised closed fist.
It's all, Draco thinks, a bit farcical, and if he wasn't so irritated that he's going to have to try this whole rigmarole again tomorrow, he'd be tempted to laugh.
Weasley hits the floor, blood streaming from his face, about the same time a pair of police officers – Draco knows they're police because of their ridiculous hats – rush in, batons raised. He would feel sorry for them, threatening him with bits of useless wood, but he doesn't, because one of them's snapped a pair of plastic restraints around his wrists and the other, female one is groping him, coming away with a triumphant, "Aha!" and Draco's wand clutched in her grubby paws.
"Don't struggle, son," the policeman says kindly, and Draco is half-tempted to spit in his eye and just Disapparate, only how would he get his wand back then? Disarmed by a female Muggle; it's almost more humiliating than being disarmed by Potter.
"Lock 'm up f'r'v'r," Ron says thickly from the floor, through wads of tissue pressed against his face.
"I don't think—" Potter starts, but Draco's not listening.
"He started it!" he says, and realises that not only has he been acting like he's eleven again, but he also sounds it.
"Is that true?" the policewoman says sternly, turning to Weasley.
"No!" Weasley says, at the same time Potter says uncomfortably, "Well, yeah," and Granger folds her arms and nods.
The female officer gestures to her colleague, and he claps a large hand on Weasley's shoulder. "You'll be coming along with us then too for questioning. Brawling in the Houses of Parliament! I ask you!"
The officers lead him and Weasley out, and Draco, ears burning with embarrassment, decides it would be better for his mental health not to look back and see what sort of face Potter is pulling. This day is turning out to be a complete write-off, and he almost feels glad for the time-turner, as he'll have the chance to repeat it tomorrow. He hadn't thought that anything worse than having Potter walk out through his speech could happen, but being arrested by Muggle law-enforcement officers before he'd even given his speech was not something he'd even considered. Is it better? Or worse?
Definitely worse, he thinks, when the policewoman presses him into a vehicle outside the building. There are crowds of Muggles gawping, and some of them raise cameras to snap photos of him. The only saving grace is that they shove Weasley – who seems to have been stunned into silence – into a separate car, and by the time Draco can see wizarding dignitaries emerging from the building to witness the carry on – his father's distinctive silver-blonde hair flashes from the back of the crowd – the car he's in is already pulling away into the traffic.
Everything has a surreal sheen of calm over it. Draco finds that he's more curious than upset when he arrives at Charing Cross Police Station, is handed from one Muggle to the next, his pockets searched and emptied, and, after a series of impertinent questions, is ushered to a cell, the thick door clanging behind him as it's shut firmly and locked. It's no Azkaban, that's for sure, and it would take more than a metal door to trap a wizard somewhere he didn't want to be. Nevertheless, Draco can't see any point to immediately Disapparating; the Muggles have his wand, so it's not like he could spend the rest of the day productively, and besides – he's interested to see what will happen next. Will his father send someone to rescue him? Will Potter? Or will he just spend a supremely tedious afternoon in a cell?
It occurs to him that he could Apparate into Weasley's cell and beat the living daylights out of him, but that sounds like too much hard work. Besides, he didn't especially want to punch him in the first place; circumstances had conspired against him.
So he simply sits on the bed and waits for something entertaining to happen.
Hours later, the only entertaiment provided so far has been a pack of dry, unappetising sandwiches and a glass of water that tasted of dust. Draco's bored, and as the light begins to fade, he decides he might as well go to sleep. The mattress is thin and lumpy, but it's adequate, and if he Apparates home then he might find his mother and father waiting up for him. He feels a twinge of guilt that they could be worrying about him, but suppresses it. By tomorrow morning, this day will have never been. He's just stretching out on the bed when the door to his cell clangs open, and there, arms folded and her lips pressed into a thin straight line, is Granger.
"Here to gloat?" Draco says, taken aback.
Granger rolls her eyes. "Don't be idiotic. I'm here to get you out."
Draco doesn't move. Of all the people who could have come to rescue him, he'd have put Granger at the bottom of the pile.
"Are you coming or not?" Granger says. "I negotiated your bail, by the way, so you could say thank you."
Draco has no idea what she's talking about; some Muggle legal nonsense, he presumes. But the idea that Granger would spontaneously do something to help him intrigues him, and he rises, straightening his robes and running his hands over his hair to smooth it down. "Thank you," he says, which makes her look surprised.
They walk out together, pausing at the front desk where the duty officer hands over a plastic bag containing the contents of Draco's pockets, along with his wand. "Sign here," the man says, and Draco does, marvelling at his cooperation with Muggles. A year ago, he'd have had no qualms about turning them all into toads.
They walk out, and the street outside is busy, and grows busier as they walk side by side in silence for a time. This is clearly some sort of Muggle hotspot, Draco realises, as he goggles at the hordes of people and their eccentric choices of outfits. Barely anyone gives him a second glance in his elegant robes, and this gives him pause for thought: what does he look like to them? A group of raucous women in what must be their sleepwear makes him blink. Does he look similarly peculiar? And, in looking peculiar, could he be mistaken for a Muggle too? The thought is an unsettling one.
"Why did you come to get me?" Draco asks, looking over at Granger – who's wearing a Muggle outfit of her own. If he didn't know better, he'd have presumed she was Muggle herself. "Not that I'm not grateful," he adds belatedly. He isn't really – just curious – but he thinks she'll open up more easily if he feigns thankfulness.
"Yes, overflowing with gratitude," Granger says sarcastically, and Draco's impressed – he didn't know she had it in her. "Harry and I only just got out of the unity event." And she adds, "Yes, it still went ahead, even without you," at what he presumes is a look of disbelief on his face. "Ron was waiting for us, said he'd been released hours ago, but he didn't know what had happened to you, and Harry thought we'd better check." She shoots him a sidelong glance that Draco can't decipher the meaning of.
"Why didn't my saviour come himself, then?" he asks sardonically, and it clearly doesn't come out as sharp as he means it to, because Granger just snorts.
"Probably thought you'd try to punch him too," she says, without heat, and halts just short of an opening with a concrete staircase leading down. The crowd is thick here, and people are pushing past each other, in both directions, and laughing. Draco suspects that most of them are drunk. "I'm going to get the tube now, so I'll say goodbye," Granger says, and Draco looks around to see a sign reading 'Leicester Square Tube Station'. He's never been on London's underground trains, and he can't understand why Granger might want to use them when she can Apparate perfectly well. It strikes him as odd behaviour. As if Granger wishes to cling to her Muggle heritage; as if she has failed to fully embrace her wizarding life, her emancipation from the herd.
"I didn't exactly want to punch Weasley," Draco finds himself protesting, as if he wants to continue the conversation with Granger. It's true, though; he can't imagine a more tedious occupation than punching Weasley. If anyone deserves a fist to the face, it's Potter, although Draco couldn't rationally explain why.
"Can he not be 'Ron'? After all this time?" Granger asks, and then sighs. "Of course he can't. What am I thinking?" She takes a further step towards the entrance to the tube, then turns back. "Harry cares, you know. Why do you think he spoke so eloquently on your behalf at your trial, even though he knows you hate him? Think about it, Draco." And she vanishes down the steps, swallowed by the crowd as effectively as if she'd Apparated away. Maybe she has. She's certainly sanctimonious enough to do it to make a point.
Fuck Potter, Draco thinks. Fuck him right in the eye. Sending a girl to do his dirty work. He's not worth wasting time on.
Draco turns, trying to suppress the vitriol that's rising, like acid, in his throat, and surveys the landscape. He's at a busy crossroads, surrounded – being jostled – by people. Groups of friends dash across the road between cabs and buses, narrowly avoiding death, and it seems that everyone who passes by him on the pavement is unable to do so without knocking into him, with muttered 'Sorry's. Everywhere he looks are bright lights – pubs, eateries, gambling hells, theatres – and since he's not sure what to do with himself, he follows the general crowd across the road and down a pedestrianised street, past the mysterious-sounding Vue and repellent-smelling Burger King and the glittering Empire casino, until he's in the middle of a packed, noisy square, which is unaccountably filled with trees and grass. Muggles not much older than him are thrusting leaflets at him, exhorting him to visit their comedy night, or mysteriously 'buy one get one free', and a group of young black men are standing together singing something with a religious theme, their voices unnaturally loud – although Draco doesn't know why, because they obviously aren't wizards.
Everywhere he looks, there are people. Friends giggling together, couples holding hands, singing, shouting, talking. He's not sure he entirely likes it; it's too loud, and crowded, and although he's never considered wizarding London small, he realises that perhaps it is, because this, here, feels big – too big – and he keeps on walking, and the crowds don't thin, just alter.
He walks on through an area that a street sign tells him is Chinatown, and one minute it smells delicious, and the next he's walking through a back alley and he can smell rotting rubbish and has to hop to stop himself from stepping in something unpleasant. Up ahead though, the lights and crowds continue, and so he moves on, and he's somewhere seedy – except it's packed with people, and he doesn't understand it.
Draco wouldn't consider himself a prude, and he's not entirely ignorant of the seamier side of life – his father gave him an excruciatingly blunt lecture when he turned seventeen, about sex and how and where a discreet pureblood gentleman might initiate a casual liaison, if he had need of it; the memory still makes him shudder – but there is nowhere in wizarding London where a street contains not only a sushi bar, a tea room and a pawnbrokers, but also a strip club, a sex shop and a purveyor of what appears to Draco to be solely men's leather underwear. He didn't even know underwear came in leather, let alone in so many styles.
He passes open doorways, some of which contain bored-looking women in tight dresses, some of which only contain photos of bored-looking women in tight dresses – and arrows pointing up rickety stairwells.
He finds himself in a street full of groups of done-up women and pairs of done-up men holding hands, and he stops, staring, outside a bar simply titled G-A-Y. Music pounds out from the bar, and a passing man – shirtless, but wearing some sort of cattle-wrangling hat and flared leather trousers – pinches his bum as he goes by, and calls out, "Nice dress, sweetheart!" making him jump.
He turns, and his eye is drawn to a couple snogging; a lanky man with messy black hair, pressing a tall blonde man up against a wall. They look lost in each other, and Draco looks away, embarrassed to be witnessing such a private moment. He can't imagine himself ever being lost enough in the moment to kiss in public like that - all your feelings, your desires, on show, where anyone could see and judge you for them.
Is this what Muggles get up to on a regular basis? Draco wonders. In public? It all seems very louche. And not just that - it seems risky. Do these Muggles not have parents, who might hear of what they've been doing? Whose dreams of marriage, and children to carry on the family name, could be destroyed? Draco's known for a long time that he's gay - and for just as long that it is something he can't tell his parents. Just imaging the look of disappointment on their faces makes his stomach twist. He's not unhappy with the situation, exactly. More . . . resigned. There is no one he particularly wants to date, anyway; the one person whose face he sees at night, in his dreams, is so unavailable, he might as well not exist.
But . . .
Draco stands there, torn between alarm and the burgeoning desire to enter one of the establishments and see what goes on in the noisy, glittering darkness. Here, in Muggle London, he is safe; no one knows him. His parents would never find out.
He loses his nerve. He walks on, past more bars, more clubs. More music, and lights, and glitter, and hooting, swaying revellers in very little clothing.
And he feels something coiling in his gut; something wistful, and plaintive, that he can't explain.
^^^^^
One minute Draco's in a Muggle coffee shop, staring bleary eyed out of the window at the rush of men and women in suits racing by, the next, the world blurs and squeezes, in a most disconcerting manner, and he's once again standing in his room, the time-turner glowing mockingly at him from his desk.
In some ways, it's a relief, because at least he hasn't actually been arrested by Muggles in front of Potter, nor has he actually spent the whole night wandering around the heart of London, gawping at Muggles in their natural environment and feeling strange pangs of something that definitely wasn't jealousy.
It was, he decides, swaying with tiredness, probably hunger. Apart from a few mouthfuls of prison food, he hasn't eaten for hours.
He casts a couple of quick Cleaning Charms on himself and his robes – he's been in them all day and night, and they're hardly fresh – and slopes downstairs, to be greeted by the same routine: Mother, paper, headline (MALFOY HEIR TO PROMOTE UNITY WITH MUGGLES) etc etc. He's already sick to the back teeth of it, and he can't decide how he should spend today. He mulls it over as he drinks his tea, giving vague answers to his mother's solicitous questions. Should he try Potter again? Should he Apparate to Paris and spend the day eating brioche and being measured up for new robes? Maybe if he dazzles Potter with his style, the git won't actually listen to Draco's speech; that would be an acceptable way of solving the issue. It occurs to him, though, that while the new robes won't stick around, he's not so sure about the extra pounds. Do the calories vanish in the time loop? Or do they remain, on his waist? It seems wise not to test the theory out.
One thing's for sure, he absolutely does not want to give the fucking speech again. But the longer he puts it off, the longer he's stuck in time.
Still dithering, after knocking back a quick Tiredness-Be-Gone! Potion, he Apparates to the Palace of Westminster, as he did on his last attempt to fix things, and makes his way to the red and gold Royal Gallery, to lie in wait for Potter. At least this time he's prepared; he knows Potter will be late, and scruffy, and surrounded by sycophants.
He wonders, as the Gallery empties of dignitaries, whether he should just flip a coin – heads, punch Potter, tails . . . punch Potter.
He shelves that tempting thought, and before he's actually made his mind up, Potter's already walking towards him, with – as before – Weasley and Granger flanking him and chivvying him on. Weasley's shooting him a look of unvarnished dislike, and Granger's gearing up to politely 'Draco' him, and if he wants things to go differently to last time he has to act now, and for some reason this means the words, "Rather than spend the afternoon doing this tedious shit, Potter, why don't you and I go and do something else?" fall out of his mouth.
Weasley's glare turns to a look of suspicion, and Granger gives him a very hard, penetrating stare, as if she can see right into him.
Draco wonders, if so, what she can see. What explanation there is, because he's damned if he knows. His obsession with Potter is less than healthy. If he was a sensible man, he'd stay right away from him. It's a pity, really, that he's not.
"I – what?" Potter says, which, to Draco's genuine surprise, isn't some variation on no, sod off, Malfoy, absolutely NOT.
"You and me," he brazens out. "Let's go and . . ." He shrugs. Nothing comes to mind apart from the punching, and he's already shelved that as a bad idea. "Talk," he finishes. Which is so beyond a bad idea that it possibly qualifies as the worst idea he's ever had.
Weasley's doing the unvarnished dislike thing again, and he squares up to Draco in a way that Draco presumes he thinks is menacing, and says, "What are you playing at, ferret face?"
Draco tries not to grind his teeth; he's already done the punching-Weasley thing, and it wasn't so exciting the first time, nor the second. But, again to his surprise, it's Potter who answers: "Shut up, Ron," he says. And then turns to stare at Draco. He looks honestly perplexed. "Don't you have a speech to give? I came here specially. Kingsley made me," he adds, and grins. He actually grins. At Draco.
Well, this is a first.
Draco feels his lips do something awkward, which might be a smile, or might just be shock, and he snorts, to cover up his unease. "Would you want to give a speech to that load of old bores?" he says, and he's amused to see that Weasley nods along at that, before remembering that this is Malfoy, his deadly enemy, and scowls. "Come on, Potter; run away with me," he says lightly, and cringes at how that sounds, but holds out his hand.
"I really don't think—" Granger says in tones of disapproval.
But it's all right; Potter's already reached forward and grabbed his hand. It feels warm, and overly intimate, and Draco meets Potter's eyes and realises that if he doesn't sodding go ahead and Side-Along him away, despite the ban on magic in the building, then he'll literally just be holding hands with Potter. So he does, before anyone can notice his confusion.
They're already landing outside Malfoy Manor before Draco realises that maybe he should have planned this just a teensy bit more thoroughly; of all the places to take Potter, home is probably not the wisest choice. The last time Potter was here, he was disfigured and locked in the cellar, after all.
Potter looks about, and frowns, but he doesn't object – at least, not out loud, though he does jam his hands in his pockets, presumably to get quicker access to his wand. Or maybe he's trying to stop himself from punching Draco; Draco presumes the temptation flows both ways.
"I didn't have time to think . . ." Draco says apologetically, and Potter just shrugs, as if to say, well, we're here now.
We don't have to be here, Draco's tempted to say, in the stroppiest manner possible, but for some reason he doesn't. This is all alarmingly unplanned, and although he wants to take advantage of the situation – Potter, here, in the heart of Malfoy territory – he can't think how.
"Well, aren't you going to show me around?" Potter says, in an obvious attempt at conciliation. "I don't think I've ever had the grand tour." Conciliation with a tinge of spite, perhaps. Fucking grand tour indeed.
"Really?" Draco says, looking over at Potter. His hair is still a mess, and there are grey circles under his eyes. Victory isn't suiting him; Draco would have made a much better fist of it.
Potter shrugs again. "Yeah, why not."
It's hardly a ringing endorsement, but for lack of anything better, Draco decides to go with it. He wonders if his father will arrive at some point, spitting with rage at Draco's desertion. Oh well. There's not much he can do about it now. At least his father will be brought up short to find Potter in the house; it's almost more of a triumph than the – as yet unannounced – new advisory post his father has been offered at the Ministry as Muggle Political Liaison.
"Come on, then," he says to Potter, and leads the way up the sweeping drive and up the elegant front steps. He pauses for a moment; normally, he'd knock and wait for a house-elf to obsequiously open the door for him, but he senses that would not endear him to Potter. So, instead, he fumbles in the pocket of his robes for his key, and opens the front door himself, ushering Potter in.
"Don't you, you know, have protections on your front door?" Potter asks as he steps through.
Draco considers this. "No?" he says finally. No one would dare break in. Before the war, people were too scared of his father's long reach; now, they're all too scared that something of the Dark Lord might remain, waiting to jump out at them. "Why, do you?" He shuts the door behind Potter.
"No, of course not," Potter says, and his hands in his pockets curl into fists, for some reason.
It can't be that he's nervous, Draco reasons. If Draco can stand to be in the Manor, where the walls ooze the Dark Lord and the stale air smells of him, then he doesn't see that the saviour has any cause for complaint. Potter may have killed the bastard, but it was Draco who had to live with him.
"Been doing some redecorating?" Potter says as he looks about the entrance hall. His expression is tense and guarded, all of a sudden, and Draco feels a wave of irritation wash over him, which he tries to tamp down. It's not Potter's fault; he doesn't know.
"Father decided that the Manor should have a more minimalist look," Draco says airily, through almost gritted teeth.
It doesn't quite describe the look in his father's eye as he'd levitated what seemed like everything in the house that wasn't nailed down – and in a pureblood family's ancestral manor house, nothing is fucking nailed down – out and on to the sweeping lawn, then set it all on fire. He and his mother had tried to quell the blaze, but not much could be rescued. The next day, his father had pulled himself together and claimed he'd done it so the greedy, meddling Aurors couldn't get their dirty hands on what was not theirs to take.
As if the Aurors had wanted the arsing furniture! They'd barely glanced at the contents of the Manor when they'd come to arrest him and his father.
Draco looks around his home with fresh eyes. It's clean, and tidy, but bleak – the entrance hall is too big without any furniture to make it cosy or thick carpet to break up the cold stone of the floor. The sole decoration is the portraits of his ancestors that line the walls; they're silent, these days, and barely move. He thinks about the rest of the house: what should he show Potter? The drawing room, where the Dark Lord held court? The cellar beneath, where Potter and his friends were incarcerated and tortured? The main guest bedroom, where the Dark Lord slept – or lurked, for who knows whether the bastard actually needed to sleep? Or perhaps Draco's own bedroom, with the glowing time-turner stuck to the desk?
All of a sudden, the tour doesn't seem like such a great idea. There's only one good thing in the house, one thing he thinks is suitable to show off: his mother. Will Potter mind spending some time with her? Draco thinks not. Potter seems to have a thing about mothers, maybe because he doesn't have one of his own. Draco's mother certainly seems to have taken to Potter; sometimes, Draco can barely get her to shut up about him.
He leads the way to the summer breakfast room, which his mother often uses as a study these days. It holds no memories of the Dark Lord, and it's a proper sun trap in the summer months. His mother has half-filled it with non-venomous pot plants, and it smells of perfume and sunshine. He knocks, and his mother says, "Come," in a surprised voice.
"Darling," she says, when he opens the door, her eyes flickering from her son to Potter; Potter shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot. "You didn't tell me you would be bringing Harry over."
"I didn't know I would be," Draco says honestly, and sees something like comprehension dawn on his mother's face. It makes him uncomfortable, because what she's comprehending, he has no idea. All he knows is that sometimes his mother, blast her, knows him better than he knows himself. It infuriates him, and soothes him, all at once - to be so transparent, so easily read. It's lucky he loves her; it's lucky she loves him.
"Thank you for coming," she says simply, and rises from her chair, stepping over to kiss first Draco on the cheek, and then Potter.
Potter suffers it, but he doesn't look overwhelmed with happiness, and Draco feels moved to say, "I'm not sure Potter's staying long, mother. He has an appointment soon."
"Oh, but surely he can stay and have some tea first?" she says, moving over the sideboard and setting the kettle to boil with a quick swish of her wand.
Draco tries not to let his jaw drop; he doesn't think he's ever seen his mother make the tea herself.
Potter shoots him a swift, grateful look; presumably, for giving him an escape route. "Thank you, Mrs Malfoy," he says. "That's kind."
Tea is awkward. Draco's mother makes polite conversation, and Potter is even politer, and Draco wishes that he'd just made the sodding speech today and gone back to bed. What was he thinking, bringing Potter back here like this? Potter clearly doesn't want to be here, and Draco can't understand why he ever thought it would be a good idea.
Mid-way through a second cup of tea, the shell of his mother's formality cracks. "Harry, dear, I don't think I ever truly thanked you for what you did," she says, setting aside her teacup with a shaking hand and reaching forward to clasp Potter's left hand in her own. Her eyes are wet.
Potter colours, but he sets aside his own cup and pats Draco's mother on the back of her hand. "You did, and it's fine," he says clearly, looking into her eyes. "I promise."
It dawns on Draco, as his mother continues to gush and Potter continues to stoically pat, that Potter is sincere. And not only that, he's changed. It's like, while Potter was elsewhere – first, during seventh year, and then, while Draco languished under house arrest and helped plot the Malfoys' return to glory – Potter grew up, without him watching. He wonders if Potter thinks he, Draco, grew up too, or if he just . . . stopped. His emotional growth stunted, stuck in Slytherin, a perpetual schoolboy, never moving past schoolboy concerns and schoolboy enmities. Draco sometimes feels stuck. In this house, in this life . . .
Potter's here now, though, isn't he? That's got to mean something.
Suddenly, though, the distant sound of the front door crashing open, on the other side of the house, makes them all jump, and Draco can hear his father calling out irritably.
Potter is on his feet like a shot. "It's been lovely, Mrs Malfoy," he says, "but I'm afraid I must be g—"
Draco's mother gives him a quelling glance – it's finest Black – and he sits back down, but his leg is twitching, and he winds the fingers of one hand into the fabric of his baggy jersey trousers and shoots an imploring look at Draco.
"Mother—" Draco starts, startled by the novel sensation of Potter asking him for help, but his mother is already up and halfway across the room.
"Do excuse me for a moment, Harry, Draco," she says, and leaves the room, shutting the door behind her with a decisive click.
For a moment, there is only the tap tap tap of his mother's heels on the floor, the rise and fall of voices in a distant corridor, and the tension that Potter brings to the silent room.
Then Draco's mother re-enters – alone. "My husband sends his apologies, Harry," she says blandly. "He would pop in to say hello, but he has to rush back to today's event. Now, another slice of cake?"
The tension in the room sags, and the polite conversation continues, mostly between Potter and his mother. He's proud of them, he realises – not just of his mother, but of Potter too, who is coping admirably with the unexpected social strain. He doesn't think he'd be nearly so gracious if confronted by, say, Mrs Weasley – but then he suspects Mrs Weasley would be offering him poison, rather than cake.
After some time, Draco decides it's time to rescue Potter from his mother's clutches; she looks as if she'd be content to stuff him with sweets for the rest of the day, if he'll let her. Draco thinks very much that Potter would let her, though he can't understand why. So he makes their excuses, and they walk out through the French windows of the summer breakfast room and into the garden.
They're silent until they're well out of earshot, and then Potter laughs. "Thank you for the grand tour," he says.
Is he taking the piss? Draco wonders, and tries not to get cross. This whole scenario is fucking weird, if he's quite honest, and wandering the garden in Potter's company is not helping things feel any more normal.
"Your mother really loves you," Potter says quietly.
"And?" Draco snaps.
Potter turns and frowns. "And what?"
Draco considers this. "And that means there must be some good in me, deep down?" he suggests, because it's got to be an insult of some sort.
Potter's lips quirk. "What do you think?"
Draco snorts, and they carry on walking through the grounds in silence. It's not an awkward silence, exactly, but . . . no, it is awkward.
"I think my mother's the only good thing in the whole fucking house," Draco bursts out, to fill the silence, and then winces. It's not quite true. He loves his father too, but it's not the hero worship it once was.
He can feel Potter looking at him, but he doesn't turn, and eventually Potter looks away. He doesn't want to encourage an exchange of trite sentimentality. It's bad enough he's already spilled his guts about his mother; he doesn't want to be drawn into further confessions.
They reach the folly in the grounds. He's always liked it; a collection of mock ruined walls, as if an ancient tiny castle had once stood in the grounds, next to a diminutive lake that's as flat as a mirror. He sits on a wrought-iron bench in the middle of the folly; ivy winds up the back of the bench, along with a climbing flower the name of which he forgets. When he sits, the white flowers sigh and open, releasing a burst of fragrance.
Potter sits beside him. "What's this all really about?" he asks. His presence beside Draco is a solid, disconcerting weight, and although their thighs aren't touching, the short distance between them is almost tangible.
It's very warm in the sunshine, and Draco shuts his eyes briefly and wonders how to answer that question. If he explains about the time-turner, then he risks Potter thinking him a full-on loony, fit only for the Janus Thickey ward. And besides, the time-turner doesn't explain why he's currently sitting next to Potter in the sunshine. He still can't work out what he was thinking, inviting Potter over to tea, as if they were friends. They've never been friends.
He feels a pang at that thought, of missed opportunities and thwarted desires, and finds himself saying, defensively, "I didn't ask you here to say sorry, if that's what you're thinking."
"No, of course you didn't," Potter says. His tone is wry. "Are you sorry?"
Something bitter flares within Draco's chest. "Are you?"
Potter frowns. "What do I have to be sorry for?" The rider you wanker remains unspoken, but it's there, nevertheless.
It's not that Draco thinks Potter should be sorry, exactly. It's more that he wants some acknowledgment that it's shit for him too. That being on the losing side doesn't mean he deserves everything he's got. "It's not just you that lost people," he says.
Potter fixes him with an outraged, burning look, and Draco can feel his own anger rising. "Shall we compare numbers?" he says. He's being a dick, but he doesn't stop himself. For some reason, Potter seems to bring it out of him. And it feels like he's been waiting a very long time to say these words to someone – to anyone, really. There aren't very many people hanging around waiting to be his confidante (although, of late, his Slytherin contemporaries have been getting in touch, buoyed, he suspects, by his gradual rehabilitation in the press as someone worth knowing). By the time he hit seventh year, he didn't have friends, he had cronies – and being on the losing side of a war, he'd found, wasn't so good for the social life. People, unfortunately, remembered what you were like – and once you no longer had power, they had no need of you.
It makes him determined to never, ever be on the losing side again.
Harry wets his lips. "What?" he says, as if Draco is a prize idiot. "Compare numbers? Of – of people we lost?"
"Why? Would you prefer a list, instead, of which family members – which family friends – of mine are now in the grave or rotting in Azkaban?" Draco continues coolly.
Harry opens his mouth, but Draco's already speaking over him; he's on an unpleasant roll. "I take it that the death of my aunt, or my best friend, for example, doesn't equate to the death of one of your friends, so how many does it take? Two? Five? Ten? Or does the fact that my family is a bunch of racist pathetic shits, and Vincent was a crashing idiot, mean I have no right to grieve at all?"
The silence rings.
Harry clears his throat. "You know what, Malfoy?" he says. "Sometimes I just can't bring myself to care about your lot." He leans forward, elbows on his knees, head dropping into his hands. He is the picture of defeat. Oh so fucking noble. "I want to mourn, for people who made the wrong choices, for their families, but . . ." He takes a ragged breath. "I just don't fucking care. That . . ." He swallows. "That can't be good, right?"
To Malfoy's amazement, Potter means it. He is genuinely appealing to Draco, asking if that makes him . . . what? A monster? A – the thought almost makes him laugh, inappropriately – Slytherin?
A memory of the aunt he barely knew comes into his mind: her mouth all but foaming as she tried to plunder his mind with Legilimency, supposedly in aid of the Dark Lord's cause. "Aunt Bella was a crazy bitch," he says, and Harry, startled, looks up at him. "If there's a next life, every time you look down, she's looking up, trying her best to spit in your eye. She'd be delighted you're tying yourself up in knots like this."
"But—" Harry says, and stops. The corners of his mouth are turned down, and Draco thinks, I did that.
"All I meant was," Draco says, and he trails off, uncertain how to phrase it in the face of Potter's puppy-dog-faced sadness. A tiny, nasty part of him thinks Potter's being pathetic. No Slytherin would spend time worrying whether they felt enough grief for their enemy's losses. He doesn't want Potter's heart's blood, just . . . He shrugs. "Everyone who supported the Dark Lord deserved what they got," he manages to say. "But it doesn't stop it being fucking shit, that's all."
Harry appears to consider this. And then he nods, very shortly, and Draco feels a rush of something that's not quite triumph, and not quite relief, flood through him.
"Sometimes, I—" Harry shakes his head. "I miss Hedwig most out of anybody," he says, as if he's sharing a secret. "How screwed up is that? Ron lost his brother, and I—" He breaks off, and his eyes radiate grief.
Draco manages not to snort. An owl? He tries not to speculate who Harry would place next on his grief list; odds are it's the nasty old house-elf that used to belong to his family. And then he feels cruel, and guilty, because if Harry's missing his pet owl most of all, it speaks of loneliness, and isolation, and lack.
There's not many things Draco feels grateful for these days, but the unconditional love of his mother and father is pretty much at the top of the list. And despite his nightmares, neither of them died. He gives thanks for that each and every day. He's not entirely heartless.
"Angsting over an owl is quite screwed up, Potter, I agree," he says, and Potter chokes out something that's halfway between a laugh and a sob.
"Fuck you," Potter huffs, his voice scratchy, but there's an edge of humour to it.
Draco says nothing, just leans towards Potter briefly and squeezes his shoulder, and for some reason Potter leans into the touch, and they sit there on the bench in the sunshine, quiet and oddly intimate, until Potter breaks away with a sniff, rummaging for a tissue in his trouser pocket and unable to meet Draco's eye.
Potter leaves shortly after, and Draco stays in the garden for some time, staring out at the lake, lost in thought.
^^^^^
The next time the day resets, with the now familiar blur, it strikes Draco – hard – that he can do anything he wants now, without consequence. Try anything. Be anyone. No crime will stick; no punishment will hold longer than a day and a night. He could . . . He could . . .
He visits the family's largest greenhouse. It hasn't been tended in months, and he can barely get the door open. He has to fight his way in, through tangled overgrowth. It is too hot inside, and it stinks of rotting vegetation and sweat. He thinks he could enjoy cutting it back, taking control of the rioting plantlife, but what would be the point? He'd only wake up the next day with it all undone, a jungle springing up each morning without end. He shakes himself; he's not trapped. He's just . . . paused. And it's not going to make a difference, in the grand scheme of things, if today he doesn't try to free himself from the loop.
He finds the plant he's looking for with a struggle, and he's forgotten to bring any tools with him, so he has to use his fingernails to pinch through the stalks, gathering a large, unwieldy bunch of green stems and tight, unopened buds. He fights his way back out, shutting the door with a click, and the plants close around themselves, blocking the doorway back up as if he'd never been there.
He spends the day quietly, sitting in front of Harry's parents' graves.
There are more visitors than he'd expected, a steady stream, and at first he sits very stiff and still, waiting to be abused and removed. But apart from quick, curious glances, no one bothers him, and after a tense hour or so he relaxes, mind drifting away. It is warm, and quiet, and he feels curiously welcome and at peace here, with his flowers resting lightly in his lap.
When darkness falls, he tries to rise, and it takes him a few goes – his muscles have seized up, and his neck protests. The grave site is lit by fireflies, and the night is alive with the song of crickets. Owls hoot softly in the blackness. Draco picks up his flowers and scatters them on the graves. Nocte rosis – night roses. The unassuming buds have bloomed open, exposing their vivid, golden hearts, and the scent is incredible.
Draco stands and breathes it in, and hopes that if anything of Potter's parents still remains, they see him and . . . what? Forgive him? He doesn't want forgiveness. But does he need it? Not from Potter's parents, no. But from Potter himself? The thought comes to him unbidden, but it takes root, twisting in his gut and putting out tendrils.