It was odd being back home and back to work. Back to the normal routines, which Harry had, just a couple of months ago, never, ever thought would be normal. Waking up with Draco. Going to sleep with Draco. Going to work during the day and daydreaming about Draco. Kissing Draco. He was so absent-minded at work that Robards got genuinely irritated with him. Harry could tell this because his boss stopped shouting, in favour of muttering. "Do you want to pinch my job or not, Harry?" he snapped, beneath his breath. "Because I'm starting to think you're going soft."
Harry did want to pinch his job, and as soon as possible. He stomped out of the Auror office to go and tell this to Kingsley, and Kingsley gave him a very kind, very uncomfortable look, and pointed out that Harry could hardly be promoted to Head Auror while all it would take for a dark wizard to bring him down would be to chop off his ring finger.
Harry thought that it would be kinder of this imaginary criminal to just pull the ring off, rather than cut off the finger along with it, and said so, which prompted Kingsley to give him a lecture about taking responsibility for your actions, and making the best of a situation. This didn't make Harry feel much better. Hadn't Kingsley all but promised that he'd make sure the bond was fixed? What had happened to his former optimism? Harry thought, sourly, that if Kingsley was going to give up hope, he could at least have the courtesy to actually come out and say it, rather than making it sound as if it was Harry just being stubborn.
He ranted about the lecture at Draco when he got home for a while before he realised that Draco wasn't an ideal sounding board for this. Draco had gone kind of pinched and sour, and Harry was just about to awkwardly apologise for raising the seemingly forbidden subject of the bond, and what the bloody hell they were going to do about it, when Ginny banged in through the Floo, followed by the whole Harpies team.
"You're coming to my birthday party at the Burrow this weekend, Harry," Ginny said in passing as the girls trooped down the stairs towards the pitch, chatting nineteen to the dozen.
"Am I?" Harry asked, feeling relatively sure this was the first time Ginny had mentioned it.
"Yes," Ginny called as she vanished down the stairs. "Draco too."
Happily, this new and unexpected terror – going to the Burrow, the heart of Weasley territory – seemed to completely throw Draco, distracting him from what they'd been talking about before. At least, Draco let the subject drop, and he didn't raise it again, which was as good as forgotten, Harry hoped. He felt tied up in knots enough about the bond, and whether or not he and Draco should complete it, without Draco tying himself up in knots about it too.
By the morning of the party, Draco looked like he was going to be sick. Where he wasn't green coloured, he was pure white, and he must have tried on at least four different outfits before Harry told him firmly that he should stop stressing, because Ron would definitely take the piss out of him, whatever he wore.
Draco seemed to see the wisdom in this and calmed down a fraction, but he was still pale and stressed all day. He was pale and stressed during the party too, sticking to Harry's side like a grumpy shadow, and complaining when he thought no one else but Harry could hear that the house was too noisy and too full. Too full of Weasleys, Harry thought he meant, but didn't say it. Draco was clearly trying so hard he was about to snap, a cloud of almost visible iciness surrounding him, until Ginny finally turned up – late to her own party – and gave him a swift and loving punch to the kidneys, before heading straight off to find Astoria in the crush. "This is my birthday party, ferret face, not a funeral," she said bracingly. "Cheer up or I'll body-bind you and prop you up by the buffet, so you're forced to watch Ron eat." She shuddered. "It's like a feeding frenzy in a piranha tank," she added thoughtfully. "I don't know how he stays so thin."
Harry didn't either. Happily, this dire threat made Draco relax a fraction, but he was still tense and unhappy beneath it all. Harry only left his side for a few minutes, to use the loo, and when he came back Mrs Weasley had Draco cornered and was talking at him very hard. Ginny scooped up Harry's arm as Harry went to go and rescue him, and as it was her birthday he could hardly shake her off. So he had to leave Draco to his doom. And it was doom, indeed; when Harry craned his neck to look over, about fifteen minutes later, Mrs Weasley was dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief and she leaned over to embrace Draco.
It took Draco a full fifteen minutes longer to extricate himself, and when he re-joined Harry he glared at him, accused him of cruelty and neglect, and then refused to tell him what Molly had said. He was more relaxed than he had been, though, and when Harry asked him if he was ready to go home, he gave an almost genuine smile and said he'd be fine to stay a bit longer if Harry wanted, really, he promised.
"I'm proud of you," Harry said to Draco when they got home, although Harry thought he was prouder of the Weasleys, who he still counted as his family and hoped the reverse was also true, for being so welcoming to a Malfoy.
"Oh bleurgh, how revolting," Draco said with gusto, but his face had almost completely relaxed by now, the stiffness in his neck and shoulders dropping away. And if Harry hadn't suspected Mrs Weasley had forgiven Draco for the things he'd done in the past, he knew it a few days later when a parcel arrived for him in the post. It was squishy, and large, and Draco gave it a suspicious look as Harry tried not to laugh.
Draco opened the parcel and held up a maroon coloured knitted jumper with a large D on the front. "D is for 'if you dare laugh at Draco you're a dead man'," Draco said sweetly, and stared at the jumper in abject horror.
"Molly must have knitted her fingers to the bone to turn it out so quickly," Harry said, trying very, very hard not to laugh. "Aren't you at least going to try it on?"
"Must I?" Draco asked plaintively, but he was already struggling into it.
Draco looked perfectly normal in it, Harry thought as he looked at him. A normal man in a normal jumper. But somehow the whole effect was just too hilarious to be borne. He started to laugh, and once he started he couldn't stop. Draco tried to be annoyed, but Harry's laughter appeared to be contagious, because soon he was smiling too, at first rustily, and then he was laughing as well. "Gah!" Draco said, rubbing at his neck. "It's itchy."
"But it's so sexy," Harry said through his laughs.
"Oh is it?" Draco asked, the light of battle in his eyes.
"No," Harry said quickly. "Nothing could be less sexy! Nothing, I swear!" But it was too late. Draco was already reaching for Harry, to teach him the error of his ways. And some fifteen minutes later, Harry was coming all over the front of Draco's Weasley-knitted jumper, as Draco explained in some detail just why wool was so erotic, particularly wool that had been worked on by Mrs Weasley as she sat in the Burrow surrounded by her family. Including Ron, Draco said mercilessly as Harry's orgasm rocked his body. Ron liked to wear woolly jumpers too, he added. Probably while making sweet love to Hermione.
"Ewwwww!" Harry said after he'd finished, starting to laugh all over again.
"Where's your respect?" Draco asked sternly, and made things worse by pulling the jumper off his head and trying to use it to wipe Harry's cock clean. Harry, trying to flee but tripping over his own trousers, thought he'd never be able to look Mrs Weasley in the eye again, let alone Ron.
^^^^^^
The next day, down at Harry's Quidditch pitch, surrounded by her Harpies teammates, Ginny proposed to Astoria.
Astoria said yes.
Ever since his birthday, and even from before that if he were really honest with himself, Harry had been building up to the conclusion that he wanted to complete the bond with Draco. In many ways, it made logical sense. It would fix their magic issues, for a start. They'd both have their magic restored, reliably. Harry could go for the Head Auror position he wanted; Draco could do whatever it was pure-blood layabouts wanted to do. And it was obvious to Harry that he and Draco were, against all odds and expectations, strangely compatible. He enjoyed living with Draco, enjoyed their spiky conversations, their irritated arguments, even appreciated their occasional raw, late-night honesty. And he really, really, really wanted to fuck Draco, and be fucked by him in turn. There was that too.
None of that seemed as important, though, as the fact that these few days, particularly after they'd been kissing, Harry found it was an enormous struggle not to tell Draco that he loved him. He loved him. So hard, so fierce, his whole body seemed to burn with it. With the effort of not confessing. Was love enough to build a life on, though, he wondered. How could he know for sure? But then, he thought, mind spinning in circles, how could anyone know for sure. Had his parents paused in indecision, looking out at an uncertain future before they made the choice to commit to each other? They weren't there to ask. But strangely, this thought almost made him surer of himself. His parents had made their choice, had looked forward to a long and happy life together, and they'd been robbed of it. It was stupid, and self-destructive, to look happiness in the face and tell it to sod off, just in case it didn't last forever.
The only thing holding Harry back – stopping him from telling Draco that he loved him, he loved him so fucking much that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with him – was Draco himself. Harry wasn't an idiot. He knew that Draco cared for him, was attracted to him, might even love him too, at least a little. But where Harry could only see the doors opening to him by completing the bond – the Head Auror position, building a home with the man he loved, the happy future he hoped he deserved – he suspected Draco saw just as many doors slamming behind him. The impossibility of an heir. The end of the Malfoy line. The inevitable unhappiness of, and possible estrangement from, his parents. If Draco was given the choice, the real choice rather than the current trap, would he ever choose Harry, even if he did love him? Harry didn't know. Wasn't even sure if Draco himself would know.
There was a difference, though, between closing a door yourself, and one slamming shut in your face. Had Draco known that Ginny was going to propose to Astoria, Harry wondered. The pair of them had become almost friendly, and Harry often found them talking together, although he never interrupted. It would be too weird he thought; his old girlfriend and his new . . . his Draco. Harry no longer felt that deep stabbing jealousy when he thought about Astoria, but even so: Astoria had been Draco's chance for renewed pure-blood respectability, for an heir to continue the Malfoy name. She was very blonde, he thought nastily now, wishing he was more grown-up; they would have had beautiful pasty children.
As the Harpies erupted into whoops, Astoria began to cry with sheer happiness, her perfect princess face becoming splotchy and red. She'd never looked more beautiful, Harry thought, and felt a deep unease growing in his gut at Draco's silence. Draco was sitting next to him on the grass – they'd been watching the practice game together as it went on late into the evening – but he was so quiet that he might not have been there at all.
Harry forced himself to look over at Draco, suddenly terrified at what he might see reflected in his face. Draco was staring at Astoria as if he'd never seen her before, as if something had broken inside him that could never be fixed. There was a quiet, painful longing in his face, as if he saw what the two of them had and was almost poisoned by his own desire for it.
"Cheer up," Harry said, feeling like he was going to be sick, wanting to hurt Draco as badly as he felt hurt himself. "She's not the only pure-blood girl in the world. I'm sure after we've fixed the bond and it's known you're available again, they'll be queueing right up." He hated himself even as he said it, wanted to take it back, but at the same time he didn't. He wanted Draco to shout at him, to tell him that he was stupid, and unkind, and hurtful, and how dare he talk about 'fixing' the bond, because what he wanted was to complete it with Harry, how could Harry not know?
Draco didn't, though. Instead he just repeated, very quiet and odd, as if he no longer entirely understood English, "After we've fixed the bond . . . Yes . . . Right," and then got up and walked over to the squealing group of women, without looking back. Harry watched, frozen, as Draco stiffly congratulated first Ginny and then Astoria, kissing them on the cheek in turn. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but the women's faces screwed up in obvious concern, before Draco made a breezy wave of his hand and headed towards the staircase and vanished out of sight.
Harry was struck by the horrible notion that while he'd been so busy tying himself up in knots over whether or not Draco would ever want to bond with him out of his own free will, he'd forgotten to consider that Draco might simultaneously have been tying himself up in knots over him. His head began to thump, pain banging behind his eyes. He . . . he wanted to marry Draco. Properly, and whole-heartedly, rather than this pale almost-bond that no one had ever meant to happen. Had he really, although accidentally, just indicated the complete fucking opposite to Draco?
He . . . he supposed it was perfectly possible for Draco to feel heartbroken to the point of despair over the symbolic crushing of his hopes of continuing his family name, whilst simultaneously being in love with Harry himself, wasn't it? Harry shot to his feet and almost collided with Astoria, who had a look of grim determination on his face and had clearly come over to tell him off.
Harry really, really, didn't want to be told off by Astoria, of all people. He tried to dodge her, but she dodged right back. "Daphne always said you were a bit of a weasel," Astoria said, crossing her arms and glaring at him. "A rule-breaker who snuck around Hogwarts behind the teachers' backs, acting like he knew what was best for everyone and looking down on anyone who wasn't in Gryffindor or in his special little circle of intimates. She said you were always riding on Hermione's coat tails too, copying her homework and cribbing from her in class. Just because you 'saved the world', it doesn't mean you're not also a jerk."
Harry experienced a flash of rage so bright and white it nearly blinded him. "I don't know what the hell that has to do with anything. I don't have time for this! Fuck off and leave me alone."
"Draco's a lovely, well-mannered boy," Astoria continued inexorably, not fucking off.
Harry felt goaded past the point of reasonableness. "Well, he wasn't like that at school, that's for sure," he snapped.
"No? Then he grew up," Astoria said, nose in the air. "Draco is a love, and a darling," she added, her eyes hard. "He would have treated me beautifully if we'd married, even though he didn't love me. He loves you. And you bloody well don't deserve it!"
Deserve it? It had nothing to do with deserving, Harry thought, shutting his eyes in an attempt not to cry; he wasn't sure if it was frustration or sadness, or a horrible combination of both. He just wanted it. He wanted something for himself, for once. A person he could keep, who'd be his. OK, so he'd defeated Voldemort, but what had that left him? Dead parents; a dead mentor, godfather; dead comrades in arms, friends . . . a dead owl, a dead house-elf. An empty home, Harry pushing his surviving friends away.
And . . . it wasn't just anybody he wanted. It was Draco or nothing, Harry realised. For all the dozens, hundreds of reasons there were why it shouldn't be Draco – his family, his prejudices, their complicated history, Draco's fucking Dark Mark, there it was. It was Draco Harry wanted. Draco. Draco had shone an uncomfortable, intrusive light on Harry's life and pointed out, without saying a word, that it was lacking. And then, equally silently, he'd set about filling it. With food, with people, with friendship. And most of all, with himself.
Draco was essential. Essential. And here Astoria was, glaring at him, getting in the way of Harry going after him, to fix the godawful cock-up he'd just made. Harry was just about to start yelling, feeling a flood of bitter angry words gush up inside him, when Ginny slipped up behind Astoria and took her by the arm. "Come on, dear one," Ginny said gently to Astoria. "Let's leave the two idiots to work it out for themselves, shall we?"
Harry wanted to snap at her, to tell her he wasn't an idiot, but right now he felt like one. He probably looked like one too, he thought. Standing all red-faced and angry as the rest of the world celebrated. "Um, congratulations on your good news," he said to Ginny, feeling anger leach away, to be replaced by something flatter.
"Go and tell Draco you love him, you crashing idiot," Ginny said, rolling her eyes. "Now, come on sweetie, let's go and celebrate how we're not nearly as stupid as those two, shall we?"
Astoria seemed to consider this for a moment, still scowling blackly at Harry, and then her face cleared. "Well, I suppose if Harry loves him too . . ." she said to Ginny. "We can't stop our friends from making poor life choices, can we?"
Harry had never been called a 'poor life choice' before, and by the look on Ginny's face she was finding it strangely amusing. He supposed they'd been a poor life choice for each other, but he couldn't regret his time with Ginny – they'd loved each other, and still did, in a way. It had all been part of the journey, the journey which had led inexorably to where he belonged: here, with Draco.
Go and tell Draco you love him, Ginny had said, though. Harry could do that. He could say words, out loud, and make things right. He was a grown man, an adult. He could do this. He could do this. He . . . could probably do this. Ginny gave him a helpful shove as he staggered past her, towards the staircase, and then suddenly he was running, as fast he could. He almost considered Apparating, even though that would only save a minute at most, but he was so wound-up he thought he might splinch himself.
Harry tore into the bedroom, panting, and as he'd suspected Draco was there, already in bed, back to him. "Draco . . ." he said, and then paused. Draco was very still, didn't move. Was he asleep? Harry came to an abrupt halt, and then took a careful step towards the bed. "Draco?" he asked, to no response. Maybe Draco was just pretending to be asleep, Harry thought, out of annoyance at him, at what he'd said. Harry took another couple of steps forward, to shake Draco's shoulder. He didn't want to confess his feelings to Draco's back as Draco sulked. He wanted to look him in the eye, so Draco could see his sincerity.
Even as he reached for Draco's shoulder, though, Harry already knew what Draco had done. Draco's arm was long, outstretched, fingers curving round the edge of the bed. And beneath them, on the floor, was an empty vial. Harry gave Draco's shoulder a shake anyway, but it was completely pointless. He was fast asleep, sleeping the sleep of the drugged, and nothing Harry could say or do would wake him until morning.
^^^^^^
When Harry woke, after a really terrible night's sleep, Draco wasn't there. Draco wasn't there. Harry sat up in a cold panic, and then realised something that sent him into a hot panic: if Draco wasn't there, had already pulled himself out of his Dreamless stupor, then Harry was really fucking late for work. Had he accidentally managed to turn off his alarm clock on a more permanent basis the last time he'd flung the bloody thing across the room? It was a persistent machine, but he supposed it wasn't actually invincible.
He leapt out of bed, casting spells so quickly that he managed to cast a cleaning charm on his uniform rather than himself and almost ended up with his trousers on his head. Draco wasn't there, but Draco's things were still there, Harry reasoned, so he hadn't fucked off altogether. He was probably sulking somewhere, unaware that Harry was about to be really embarrassingly awkward and confess his feelings, to their inevitable mutual discomfort. He . . . couldn't confess his feelings right now, late for work, when his hair was a mess and he'd forgotten to put his underpants on, could he?
Harry dashed down the stairs in a mad flap, the clock on the wall reading LATE!!! as he passed it by. He didn't have time for breakfast; didn't have time to breathe. He tore through the house, banging doors open, until he finally – thank Merlin – came across Draco in one of the drawing rooms, reclining on a sofa with his feet up. He had his back to Harry, and he didn't turn, or say good morning, even though he had ears, Harry thought, and must be able to hear him panting in the doorway.
"I . . ." Harry said, panting. "I'm late for work," he found himself saying, which wasn't what he wanted to say at all. "Can we talk later?"
Draco didn't turn. Instead, he raised his right arm and then, very carefully, raised his middle finger.
"Yes, all right, I love you too," Harry said sarcastically, and then experienced an overwhelming urge to hit himself in the face. He really was an idiot, he thought, feeling himself flare up with embarrassment. Draco hadn't turned around, but there was a quality to the line of his back that suggested he might turn, at any moment, and Harry did not want to see what kind of expression he was wearing. It would either be annoyed, or sardonic, or quite possibly both. "I'll see you later!" he said instead, very quickly and brightly, and Apparated to work on the spot.
Once he was at work, though, he couldn't concentrate, couldn't settle. It occurred to him that normal people would skive off work at times like this. The thought that he could, maybe, call in sick hadn't even crossed his mind.
"You suffering from the plague or something, Harry?" Perpetua asked, Levitating herself and her chair over to him to peer in his face. "You look really ropy."
Great, Harry thought as he tried to look half-alive rather than half-dead. Now not only had he failed to take a fake sick day, Perpetual thought he was nobly struggling in to work to infect them all with some kind of contagion. "I'm fine!" he protested, and Perpetua floated herself back.
"You don't look fine," she said suspiciously. "But all right. If you say so."
About half an hour later, though, Robards and Chad slammed into the office together, back from a job. Robards took one look at Harry and was already ushering him out of the door before Harry had opened his mouth to say, unconvincingly, "I'm fine, all right, I'M FINE!"
"No, you're not," Robards said. "Go home and lie down until you look less like you're going to chuck up all over my nice clean floor."
The floor of the office wasn't nice, and it wasn't even all that clean, but Harry took his point. He went back home again, although this time rather more slowly than he'd left it. Every step closer to his house meant a step closer to Draco – and to the confessional conversation Harry was almost dreading. What if he said he loved Draco, and Draco didn't say it back? What if Draco said he loved him too but that it didn't matter, he wasn't up for bonding with him anyway?
Harry tried to pull himself together; he was being wet, and pathetic, he told himself, which didn't help pep him up much. When he got back home, he shrugged off his outer layer and went to where he'd last seen Draco. Draco wasn't there. Harry thought it might be quicker just to shout, so he did – and got no reply. It didn't mean anything necessarily, he thought; Draco could just be ignoring him. It was the sort of thing that Draco did, because he was an irritating stuck-up wanker.
It took Harry several trips up and down the stairs, peering into rooms, to come to the obvious conclusion: Draco had gone out somewhere. Harry went back down to the kitchen, made himself a cup of coffee and took it to the dining room table, where he rested his feet on the now enormous pile of unread mail and drank his coffee, trying not to sulk. "You could have at least left a note," he told the table, but the table didn't respond.
Once Harry had finished his coffee, he wondered what he should do next. He briefly entertained the idea of going to look for Draco, but dismissed it almost immediately. Who the hell knew where he'd gone? He could be at any one of their friends' houses. He could be at Malfoy Manor, or at Malfoy's Rest, or at any one of the dozens of Malfoy estates. He could have just gone out for a walk, or for a fly, or to a bookshop – Muggle or otherwise. He could even, Harry realised, be sitting next to Harry right now, tucked under Harry's invisibility cloak, flicking him the V sign.
No, there were too many options for it to be other than lunacy for Harry to go looking for him. But even so, Harry chafed to do it. He didn't want to sit still, brooding; he wanted to get his feelings off his chest, where they sat, heavy and uncomfortable, making it hard for him to breathe, let alone concentrate. He got up and sloped down the stairs, thinking about going for a fly on the Quidditch pitch to burn off some of his anxious tension. He stopped before he entered the room, though. The pitch was too full of memories of other people's happiness right now and would interfere with his own sulking. He turned instead to the swimming pool, and after a quick check for creatures, he shucked off his clothes and dived right in.
Harry swam laps for a long time, and practiced holding his breath, and then swam some more. When he got tired, he still didn't feel ready to get out, though, so he swam to the side of the pool, grabbed his wand, and cast a pillow of air underneath him, so he could float comfortably, just above the water, and stare at the ceiling. It was too blurred to make out properly, but he knew it was covered in a mosaic of shells and pearls. It was strangely relaxing, and he almost smiled, at the idea that Draco might come home at any moment to catch him floating naked between sea and sky, so to speak.
He didn't, though. All that happened was a while later – Harry too worn out to know exactly how long – the magic failed with a gentle pop, depositing Harry back into the water. For a moment, Harry was just puzzled, pushing his head back to the surface and spitting out water, rubbing it out of his eyes with wet fingers. And then he became aware of an underlying, quiet flatness. A lack of something indefinable. And he realised, with a rush of horror.
He could no longer feel his magic.
Harry grabbed for his left hand, could feel the ring still tight around his finger. He splashed for the side of the pool and grabbed his wand, careless of the water. His wand felt . . . comfortable in his hand, but somehow empty. He waved it and tried to Accio his clothes, but nothing happened. He tried again, panic increasing, with the same effect. Nothing.
Harry heaved himself out of the pool and shoved on his glasses, pulling on his clothes without drying himself; he hadn't even brought a towel, he was so used to the ability to Summon things at will. He felt cold, and uncomfortable, and so frightened that he thought he might be going mad. Where the fuck was Draco? Had he just taken off his watch to mess with Harry? To teach him a lesson about what it would be like if Draco withdrew his cooperation, stopped being a friend? No, Harry decided. Draco wasn't like that. He'd sneer, and sulk, and snipe, but he'd never just stab Harry in the back, put him in danger without at least warning him first.
This conclusion left Harry to draw an even worse one: if Draco hadn't taken the watch off on purpose, then someone – or something – had taken it off for him. Draco was in danger. Harry was already running, shoving his useless wand in his pocket, not even bothering to put his shoes back on. He took off down the road, past the guardhouse and its guard, and down towards the Ministry. The Ministry he couldn't get into without access to his magic, he realised with abject horror. He turned back – and remembered he wouldn't be able to get back inside his own house with magic, either. But to his complete relief, he saw Derek, running from the guardhouse towards him, his eyes wide. "Harry, you all right, mate?" Derek asked as he approached. "Only, you forgot your shoes."
"It's Draco!" Harry managed, finding it hard to speak he was so overcome by fear. "He's in trouble. I can't—"
"He back at your house?" Derek asked, eyes flickering from Harry to his empty, wandless hand.
"No," Harry managed. "I don't know where he is!"
Derek, thank Merlin, didn't ask any more questions. He just raised his wand and sounded an inaudible distress call. Soon Harry was inside the Ministry, sitting at Kingsley's desk and trying not to shake. Where was Draco? Where was he? The only thing that Harry was clinging on to, as Kingsley got to him to list all the possible places Draco might have gone, was that he couldn't be dead. If he was dead, Harry would have his magic back by now. Draco was alive. He was alive. And they would find him soon, and he would still be alive. And after Harry had shouted at him for at least three or four years, they could look forward to a very long and happy time of being alive together. Once Harry had Draco's hand back in his, he decided, he would never, ever let him go. Even if this would, he thought with an inappropriate, hysterical laugh threatening to bubble out of him, make going to the bathroom a more difficult prospect.
The place was a hive of activity, Aurors, Hit Wizards and Unspeakables dashing in and out of the room. They were trying to track Draco's magical signature, except right now he had no magical signature. They were trying to track his clothing, except they didn't know what he was wearing, and Harry was no help: he'd barely noticed that morning, what with the looming confession and Draco's middle finger and his panic over work. There was the watch, of course there was the watch, and Kevin was brought in to try to fine-tune the tracking, but it didn't work. The trail just vanished, he said, frowning. As if its owner had taken it somewhere completely unplottable.
Somewhere completely unplottable. Harry knew exactly where Draco was, all right. He couldn't think why he hadn't mentioned it. Except, even the thought of Malfoy's Cove, and the house hidden within it, seemed a slippery one to pin down, let alone say out loud. As if it was resisting him at every turn, asking him to forget, forget, forget. Harry couldn't forget it, damn it; he needed to tell the others where Draco was right now. It suddenly seemed incredibly unlikely that Draco had been kidnapped or had the watch forcibly removed, after all. A tiny seed of doubt sprouted in his chest. Had Draco simply taken the watch off, to sit in his secret, unplottable house and know that Harry wouldn't be able to access his magic, wouldn't be able to go to find him? Would be useless without him?
Harry was useless without him. But not because he had no magic.
No, Harry thought, making a herculean effort to remember Malfoy's Cove – the shape of it, the weight of the house, the nooks and crannies. How Draco had looked there. How they'd sunbathed, and laughed, and fed each other cake. How Draco had groaned, and trembled, as Harry had pressed the fake cock inside him. How Draco had kissed him, and said it didn't mean anything, and Harry hadn't believed him. "Draco has a place," he managed to say out loud, picturing it all with all his might. "Under the Fidelius Charm."
"You're not a Secret Keeper?" Kingsley said, reaching immediately to the heart of the problem as Harry shook his head. He couldn't tell anyone the location, could only Apparate there himself. But without his magic, he'd need to be Side-Alonged. How could anyone Side-Along him when they didn't know where they were going? "Who else knows?" Kingsley pressed as Harry could feel the secret try to slip out of his mind, struggling away as it was looked at directly. "Harry, who else? Concentrate!"
"Parents," Harry managed, and then sagged with the relief of it. Of course. Draco's parents. They'd be able to go there. Could see if Draco needed help. And if he didn't . . . Harry didn't know what he'd do. But it would be all right. Because Draco would be OK. He could cope with anything if Draco was OK, even if it meant his own heart shattering into pieces.
In under fifteen minutes – long, awful minutes that felt like an eternity to Harry, who couldn't stop shaking – Lucius and Narcissa stormed into Kingsley's office, their expressions hard, cold . . . fearful. Harry had expected the sight of them would help him pull himself together, and found the opposite was true. "Potter," Lucius said, the word a chip off an iceberg. "Where is my son?"
"Malfoy's Rest." Harry – thank God, thank God – found himself able to say it out loud as he looked at the face of another holder of Draco's secret. The coldness on the surface of Lucius' face was holding his gut-wrenching fear at bay, Harry thought. He could see it, suffusing Lucius' entire being. "I'm pretty sure."
Lucius nodded once, very sharp, and then he and his wife Disapparated with a crack, as if they'd never been there. Without Harry.
Harry felt dizzy and was glad he was sitting down. He hadn't expected them to take him with them, of course he hadn't, and it was probably a good thing. If they left him there, it would be a bloody long walk home. But every breath was a struggle, his brain buzzing with the fear of what might have happened to Draco. Maybe he'd simply . . . forgotten, Harry speculated wildly. Taken off the watch automatically and downed another vial of Dreamless before he realised what he'd done. It didn't seem very likely, somehow.
Lucius Malfoy slammed back into the room barely minutes later, out of breath, his hair streaming around his face. Harry shot to his feet. He was back already? Without Draco? And . . . without Narcissa, too. "Potter – arm," Lucius ordered. "Arm!" he yelled as he strode over to him. Harry held out his arm and Lucius grabbed him by the wrist, ripping him out of the room and into the blackness of Apparation without a second's notice.
They were on the Cornish hillside again, the wind a slap in the face. Lucius dropped Harry's arm like a stone and started to run towards a distant crouching figure on the shore. It was Narcissa, her pale blonde hair whipping up into a maelstrom around her head as she crouched. She was crouching over something, Harry realised, and he retched, bending over to bring up foul-tasting bile, before he started to run after Lucius. He was still barefoot, but he barely registered the pain of the uneven stones under his feet as he sprinted down the path and out on to the beach. To Narcissa, and the motionless lump she was bending over. The lump which, as he pelted closer, was – of course it was, his heart screamed with it – Draco's body.
Harry knew Draco wasn't dead. He knew it. But even so, he found himself muttering, "Don't be dead, don't be dead, don't be dead," over and over under his breath as he approached, and he couldn't stop himself, even as he bent down over him, as Narcissa turned a pale, frozen face at him.
"Be quiet," she hissed. Her eyes were enormous, as if she were an animal facing down a predator, frozen in fear.
Draco had his eyes open too, but he didn't seem to be seeing anything. He was barely breathing. What the fuck had happened to him? Harry took in the way he was lying, the broom tangled in his feet, his bare wrists. "You absolute wanker," Harry said, and dropped to his knees to take Draco's hand carefully in his. It was cold, clammy. How badly had he hurt himself? How high had he been when the magic had failed?
Draco made a tiny, almost inaudible noise that could have been ow, and his lips moved a fraction of an inch as if he was trying to smile. "Stop that," Harry said, even as Narcissa said: "Don't move."
Harry's brain was running what felt like a mile a minute, turning options over in his head. He was an Auror, he was good in a crisis, he could do this. But – but – but. This was Draco. He couldn't— He fucking could. He had his magic back, now he was touching Draco, didn't he? He was casting spells even as he had the thought – a warming charm on Draco's freezing hands, a gentle cushioning charm under his head.
"Take care of my wife, of my son," Lucius said, as if it hurt him, and then he was off, Disapparating in a crack and then reappearing barely seconds later, an unnerved Healer dropping to her knees with the force of the landing before sprinting over to her patient. Lucius repeated the action, and then again, until Harry, Narcissa and Draco were surrounded by disorientated Healers. Harry felt a sharp relief, but it was only on the surface; below, his entire body seethed with boiling terror. OK, so there were Healers, but how were they going to get Draco back to St Mungo's without hurting him any further?
They were going to put him in a deep sleep, Professor Flange said, gently but firmly. And then Body-Bind him, so he couldn't move a muscle when a Healer Side-Alonged him to the hospital. Harry would have to let go of his hand for a moment. Could Harry please let go of his hand for a moment?
Harry couldn't let go of his hand, not ever. But he had to, or else they'd have to stay there, trapped in this moment of horror on the beach, forever. He leaned close towards Draco's ear. Draco had closed his eyes now, his hand a lifeless weight in Harry's hand. "I love you, you complete arsehole," he hissed in Draco's ear. "Don't you dare go and die on me." And then he let go of Draco's hand and pulled away, to give the Healers access.
He'd probably imagined the feather-light pressure on his hand, Draco squeezing his fingers as he said the words, Harry thought. His heart was pounding so hard it hurt, his headache thumping in concert with every pump of blood. He'd probably imagined it. But he wanted so hard for it to be true.
^^^^^^
It was only when all the Healers had gone, taking Draco with them, that Harry realised they'd left him alone with Lucius and Narcissa. They were clinging to each other, and Harry looked away uncomfortably. When he looked back, they'd parted, and Lucius was scanning the beach around him with a very dark scowl, before he Accioed a glittering gold object. It was the watch, Harry realised with a lurch. Lucius examined it for a moment, than chucked it over at Harry. "Trash," he said, his lips curling into something feral. "As expected."
The watch felt like a heavy weight in Harry's hands. He looked down at numbly. The catch had broken. He felt like crying. That was all that had happened. No attack, no nothing. Draco had just gone for a fly, and the catch of the watch had given way. It was a simple, horrible explanation. And, just as simply, just as horribly, Draco's magic had failed, and he'd dropped like a stone out of the sky.
Lucius gave Harry a dark look, like he was less than a slug, and then turned to his wife. "St Mungo's?" he said, and she nodded, twisting on the spot. Her hair was the last thing to leave the beach, long and blonde and wild. For a moment, Lucius just stared at Harry, and Harry was certain Lucius was going to leave him behind. But he strode over and took Harry's arm, his grip an iron band, and Side-Alonged him away.
^^^^^^
They took Draco out of the Body-Bind but left him in the coma. It wasn't as bad as it sounded, Professor Flange explained gravely as Harry clutched Draco's hand tight. Narcissa, on the other side of the bed, was holding Draco's other hand, while Lucius paced the room. Draco had broken his back, his legs, his pelvis. He'd snapped several ribs. Punctured a lung. There was a gash on his leg, where he'd caught it on the sharp edge of a rock. He'd hit his head.
All these things added up, Flange said, to an excellent prospect of recovery. A course of Skele-Gro to fill in the new gaps between Draco's bones, some minor wandwork with regards to stitching up internal injuries and a day or two in bed, and Draco would be fine to go home, albeit with a headache. But it would hurt a lot, Professor Flange added. Hence the coma. It was kinder, all round.
The whole scenario had a curious sense of familiarity to Harry, as if he'd come full circle. It didn't help him feel better. Had Draco worried like this about him when he'd been in hospital, after his unfortunate car-meets-head accident? Surely not. Except . . . Draco had been by his bedside the whole time, no one could persuade him away. And he'd been so angry with Harry, afterwards, as if it had been himself who'd been injured, rather than Harry. Harry could understand that now. He felt like someone had ripped out his insides and stomped on them.
As Harry sat by Draco's bedside for the next couple of days, rock-grazed feet clad in hospital-issue white fluffy slippers, he found he wanted to complain about a lot of things. About how much his back hurt, sitting there without moving. About how tired he was, unable to do more than nap for minutes at a time before lurching awake in a panic, in case he'd let go of Draco's hand. About how horrible it was to sit there in the near-constant company of Lucius and Narcissa, who were quiet and judgemental and who clearly blamed him for Draco's accident, even though they didn't say a word to that effect.
Harry did blame himself, even though rationally he knew it hadn't been his fault. He tried not to think about Draco lying on the beach by himself, in agony, wondering if anyone would ever find him. If he'd been there, if things had gone differently, Draco still might have gone flying. But then they might have gone flying together, would have plunged down to the beach together. It was an unnerving thought. Maybe neither of them had taken the instability of their magic as seriously as they should have.
Harry wanted to complain, too, when Astoria came to visit and burst into tears on Harry himself, crying all down his neck. She was the only other one of Draco's friends allowed in. Close family and friends only, Lucius had snapped, and Harry had swallowed down his rising urge to ask Lucius if he knew Astoria was going to marry Ginny. He didn't know if was still a secret between friends, or if Lucius just hated him and wanted to make him suffer whatever way he could.
Harry didn't complain, though. He didn't complain about anything. He just sat there quietly, and felt amazingly grateful that Draco was still alive. And amazingly bewildered, too, in a way. Barely three months ago, he'd sat next to a sleeping Draco too, and had very much hoped his kiss wouldn't be the one to wake him up. It was like looking back at a different him, a different life.
He tried not to mind that it was completely obvious to everyone who saw him how infatuated he was with Draco, even those who knew about the truth of their situation. Hoped very much that Draco wouldn't mind too, when he finally woke up. 'Everyone' included Draco's parents, after all.
^^^^^^
When the Healers finally decided Draco was well enough to be fed the antidote to the sleeping potion, Harry found the stress of it, to his huge embarrassment, was all too much. He started to cry in a way he couldn't remember ever crying before, without feeling like he had any choice in the matter. It definitely wasn't pretty, and he didn't want to cry, he simply couldn't stop himself. The sobs just kept rising out of him, all liquid and snotty and vile. He couldn't bring himself to look at Draco as he started to wake up, and tried very hard not to look at Narcissa either, or Lucius, although Narcissa passed him in a tissue. She held it using only the tips of her fingers, as if she, too, thought he was revolting. Harry felt revolting. And, equally, so nervous and on edge that he could barely sit still.
"Ugh," Draco drawled, his voice faint and slightly creaky, as if he'd almost forgotten how to speak. "Are you going to stop leaking any time soon, or do I need to call for someone with a towel?"
Harry had never been so pleased to hear an insult in his life. He tried again to stop crying but he just couldn't; he was too far gone. He couldn't even bring himself to look up, to look Draco in the eye. Draco squeezed his hand, which only made it worse.
"Do you remember anything?" Harry managed, a bit mangled, through the snot, and then forced himself to look over at Draco.
Draco seemed to consider this, not looking at Harry either. He shuddered, as if he'd remembered something he really hadn't wanted to. Then: "Yes," he said firmly, and turned his face a fraction to give Harry an equally firm look. "You were a total wanker."
When Harry had asked if he remembered anything, he'd meant the accident, not . . . not that. "Draco," he hissed, his eyes flickering over to Narcissa, who was glaring at him as if she'd been almost certain it was all his fault and this was just confirmation of her darkest suspicions.
Draco caught his eye movement. "Don't worry, Harry," he said sweetly, although he still sounded tired and rusty. "Mother and Father already think you're a wanker. Your reputation remains untarnished."
"I – I'm really sorry!" Harry protested, feeling a lump in his throat threaten to undo him all over again. He was still crying, a bit, but he'd managed to suppress it enough to be able to breathe again. "I didn't mean it to come out that way. I'm so sorry."
Draco laughed, although breathily, as if it still hurt. Did it hurt? Harry wasn't sure; Draco was still pretty well drugged up. "You'd better bloody well be sorry," Draco said, and Harry was struck all again by a sense of familiarity. He'd been here before, done this before, except back then he'd been the one in the bed, the one hurt. Why was Draco getting to tell him off again?
Harry didn't care though, he realised. Draco could tell him off as much as he liked, provided he was all right.
"Draco's tired," Narcissa said imperiously. "Why don't you go and get some rest, Harry. We'll look after him."
Harry experienced a brief moment of doubt. Did Draco want him to go? He tightened his grip on Draco's hand, and then thought that the best thing to do was ask him. So he did.
"Do you want to stay . . .?" Draco asked, as if it didn't matter. He looked even more tired now, as if being awake for a few minutes had completely done him in.
"Yes," Harry said.
Draco half-smiled, his eyelids fluttering shut. "Good," he said, "I want you to," and then he appeared to fall straight back to sleep, the lines of pain in his facing smoothing out again.
To Harry's relief, there was no more talk of him leaving after that.
^^^^^^
The next day, Professor Flange pronounced Draco well on the road to recovery. "If you feel up to it, my boy, you may go home tomorrow," he said. As ever, his ubiquitous quill floated above him, taking frenzied purple notes.
"Home . . ." Draco murmured, still not sounding quite himself. He was sleeping almost all of the time, although he looked more alive now, Harry thought, and his face wasn't quite so drawn.
"Malfoy Manor is the best place for him to fully recover," Lucius said coldly – but at Harry, rather than Professor Flange, to Harry's mixed surprise and alarm. Was Lucius Malfoy trying to convince him, or something?
"You may, of course, come too, Harry," Narcissa said, in not exactly a warm voice – she would never sound warm – but not quite as freezing cold as normal.
Harry hadn't exactly sworn to himself that he would never, ever again set foot in Malfoy Manor, but . . . He'd do it for Draco, he thought gloomily. If Draco wanted to. Although he couldn't promise he wouldn't complain about it, at great length, possibly for the rest of his life. "Do you want to go back to Malfoy Manor?" he asked Draco, trying not to sound dubious. "If – if you want to, we can." They pretty much had to stick by each other's sides if they wanted to use their magic, now that the watch was broken, he realised uncomfortably. Was that why Narcissa had asked him along?
Draco gave him a look that said he was a dozy idiot. Which was quite impressive, really, Harry thought, given that right now Draco was barely awake. "Thanks," he said, the eye-roll implicit in his voice. "How thoughtful of you."
Was it thoughtful? Harry didn't feel especially thoughtful. And he didn't think Draco felt especially keen about Malfoy Manor either, even though it was his parents' home, where he'd grown up. It had been home to many other people too, though, Harry thought. Voldemort, for one. He didn't think a place where Voldemort had lived, however briefly, could ever be described as a relaxing place to recover, let alone as home.
"Please may I take you home?" Harry asked, ignoring Narcissa, ignoring the Healers in the background, ignoring Lucius' cold hiss of breath.
"Whose home?" Draco asked simply, turning to look Harry dead in the eye. He was awake, alert, even though his whole body was loose and floppy.
"Yours. Mine," Harry said, just as simply. "Aren't they the same thing?"
"Are they?" Draco asked, his voice now tight.
"I want them to be," Harry said, feeling a lump in his throat. This definitely wasn't how he'd envisaged this going. He'd wanted to be more eloquent. He'd definitely wanted to be more alone, rather than feeling Narcissa's icy daggers stab into the side of his face, hearing Lucius' angry breathing from close behind him. "Will – will you at least consider it?"
Draco didn't smile, didn't grimace, didn't do anything. Just continued to look at Harry. Calm, quiet. As if this was a perfectly normal conversation they were having. As if Harry hadn't just made himself vulnerable in front of two people he hated, in front of the person who mattered the most to him in the whole fucking world.
Harry waited, feeling the lump in his throat rise up and try to choke him.
"Yes," Draco said eventually, still quiet, still calm. But intense, now, as if he knew what rested on his answer. As if he was answering a different, even more important question. "Yes."