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Now
There’s pride in him tonight. He can feel it in his gut. The usual nerves have disappeared, and the dread Harry likes to ward himself against in the face of a crowd, is muted.
Draco is in the second row, looking fine and fresh in a turquoise robe, and for once, Harry knows the evening is going to go well. Tonight, he and Draco will both walk away with their certificates, fancy embellished slips of paper that affirm the work they’ve done.
They’re on the fast track now. Things are moving, moving forward.
It’s all gone by so quickly. He hates to use the phrase ‘it seems like yesterday’. But it does, seem like yesterday, that is.
Harry can’t help it. There’s nostalgia in his gut as he looks around at the crowd, apple-cheeked and shining as they are. Bright futures coming their way, and no war to hold them back. He’d like to feel part of them, a bit more. But for whatever reason, he’s never quite gotten the hang of the ‘new friend’ concept after Ron and Hermione. Today, he is mostly okay with that.
Then
Harry took the stairs two at a time. Moving fast was good, it helped relieve the nerves. He didn’t know why he was so anxious, he liked people, and the idea of making some new friends. But after six months hiding out in Grimmauld, avoiding reporters and responsibility and the overwhelming hordes of fans who’d made it abundantly clear that they would never leave him alone again, he knew that his social graces had grown a bit rusty.
The only people he’d spoken to since the night of the battle were Ron and Hermione.
Over the floo.
They’d been in Australia, working with mind-healers to help the Granger’s remember their daughters. It had gone well, Harry’d been told.
The Granger’s had quickly adapted to having a grown-up daughter again, before dropping a bombshell; in six months, Hermione would have a sister. Even though they hadn’t remembered Hermione, they’d felt an absence in their lives and organised an IVF treatment.
“It wasn’t dangerous,” Hermione said, face green and fascinated in the fire. “Mum’s very healthy.”
“We’re going to be another week, but," said Ron. “They need help packing up, it’ll be easier if we use magic.”
“So they agreed then,” said Harry.
“If course they did,” said Hermione. “Bristol’s a lovely town to raise a child. And anyhow, they’ll be able to get the practice going again. They’ve been working as fruit pickers. Did I tell you that? Dad is just ever so brown.”
“You told me,” Harry said, smiling fondly.
He yawned then, wide as a cat.
“Alright then, we’ll see you very soon, Harry," said Hermione. “And remember to regulate your sleeping pattern. It’d do wonders for your biological clock.”
“Will do.”
Ron waved. “Bye, mate.”
“Bye.”
The fire flickered red, and they disappeared. Harry shut the grate, and rubbed his hands together.
The house was empty and gasping, he could hear the walls and brick and stone actually groaning before re-settling upon the foundations.
He lay back, hands below his head, and stared at the ceiling; a damp floral print. It was mouldering. Two nights ago, he’d lain on the couch for hours, munching absentmindedly on an expired packet of crisps, and counting the flowers. Three hundred and forty-two.
“This is depressing,” he said to himself. “Even for me.”
The house only creaked.
*
He was looking for room six. He walked down the hall, checking the numbers, his trunk was a heavy, but familiar weight behind him. His nerves hadn’t settled. The run hadn’t helped. His heart was stuck in his throat, and he knew that if they weren’t occupied by his luggage, his hands would be shaking.
When did I become such a pansy? Harry thought. There’s nothing wrong. This is a good opportunity. I’m going to make friends and go to parties and concentrate on my studies. Normal fun things. That normal fun teenagers do.
His apprenticeship would take three years. By the time his course concluded, he’d have a qualification in Creative and Professional Defence. Harry hadn’t chosen a specialty or a minor yet. He was tossing up between doing complementary training with the Aurors, and more often, lately, a post-grad in education. He’d been good, working with the DA. He’d felt confident in what he was doing, and his ability to help people.
He looked down at his scuffed shoes, the lace was undone. He contemplated crouching to tie it up, but that would mean stopping in the middle of the hall like an especially awkward road block. He kept on.
Room thirteen. Room twelve. He was getting close. He heard a high-pitched squeal, and looked up, the door to his left slammed abruptly, and Harry could hear muffled shrieks of laughter through the wood. He didn’t think they were laughing at him. He hoped they weren’t laughing at him.
He spotted his door at the end of the hall. It was blue with a gold knocker shaped like a seahorse. Harry rummaged in his jacket pocket for the key, sliding it inside the lock and twisting until he heard a click and the door slid open, revealing what would be his home for the next two semesters.
Patterson Hall was the traditional residence of first year students. So far, Harry liked it.
Room six was at the corner of the building, so he had two windows and a pleasant natural light. There was a small, single bed pressed against the wall that backed room five, a wooden desk sat at the far end of the room, and a closet had been squeezed in between.
Harry shut the door, and hauled his trunk up onto the bed. Suddenly, the world seemed very quiet.
He undid the buckle, and began to levitate his clothes out of the trunk. The shirts and trousers flew into the shelves, and his socks and underwear tumbled like a sack of potatoes into the drawers, which closed behind them with a wooden bang.
“And snap,” said Harry. “The job is a game.”
There was a worn envelope in his bag, it contained a motley collection of polaroid’s and print photographs he’d either cut out of previous yearbooks, or bought from the Creevey boys. All bore signs of wear, stiff blu-tack, yellowed tape. He’d been plastering and un-plastering these across his walls since third year.
Slowly, he looked through them again, and used a charm to stick them to the wall by his desk. A picture of his mum and dad in front of Godric’s Hollow, Sirius at the station in dog form, the Tonks/Lupin family feeding baby Teddy during an Order meeting.
Most of the photos were of Ron and Hermione and him. There was a really great one of them sitting in the Gryffindor common room, in fourth year, just after he and Ron’d made up. All three of them were squeezed into a red couch, one they had grown out of by fifth year. Hermione with a book in her hand, and Ron, legs crossed, balancing a chess board on his knees, and positively slaying Harry.
Ron’s lips moved, telling a sly joke that Harry couldn’t remember. Hermione peered at them both under her lashes, and smirked, and Harry threw his head back in a wide laugh.
It was Harry’s favourite photo. But it hurt to look at sometimes. He slid it back inside the envelope carefully. And then, having second thoughts, carefully removed the others from his wall, and put them away too.
He would be seeing Ron and Hermione plenty anyway. Hermione was at the Academy studying a dual degree in Political Science and Magical Linguistics. She’d been allocated to Downs Block, which was just next door, barely twenty metres away.
Ron was working as a casual at Wheezes.
Harry knew they would both visit him loads though.
Now
Ron is in the back row, little Grace Granger is sitting on top of his broad shoulders, so she can watch her big sister graduate. Ron has made a sign, and Grace is shaking it in the air. Harry knows he will probably be yelling the loudest, along with his entire family, who have come to show their support, and ended up with a row to themselves.
The High Sorcerer begins to read names, and their cohort file down. Harry can see Draco smiling, maybe even making a joke with one of the other ‘M’ students, a curly-haired girl Harry knows studies potions with Draco. Harry smiles. Draco has an easier way with people now. Certainly an easier way than Harry does.
It’s a normal response, the therapist had said, all those years ago, it’s very common in those who struggle with lingering childhood trauma, to behave in particular ways. Harry didn’t agree. If he agreed, it would mean that his every action had been shaped by the Dursleys’ neglect, and he preferred not to have their memory seep into his new life. Or his old life, for that matter. Cupboards and being hunted and shitty war memories were behind him.
Which is something Harry hasn’t figured out how to deal with yet, but he’s been getting better. Draco has been helping Harry become better.
And soon, they will graduate, together. Draco doesn’t know yet, but Harry has a key in his pocket. It’s wrapped in silver paper and tied up with a messy spangled bow. It opens a blue door he’d painted himself. That door leads to an empty flat in London.
The wrapping looks a bit crummy, but Harry had been running late.
He’d needed to iron out his suit jacket, and he’d not been able to remember the charm, and then the clock had struck, and Hermione had texted him, and he’d realised that he’d better just do it up and leave quick, or he might miss the beginning of the ceremony.
He’d ended up arriving late, by twenty minutes. Draco had glared at him very severely from the second row, the ‘M’ row, as he pushed through the aisle to find his place near ‘P’ for Potter.
“Draco Malfoy,” the High Sorcerer announces.
He watches Draco step up onto the stage, and smiles. And a thousand images rush to his mind at once, superimposing themselves and becoming one.
Draco at eleven, stepping up onto a stool to get measured for his robes. And again, as he waited for the hat to decide his future. Draco at sixteen stepping forward to be branded. Draco at twenty, stepping towards Harry’s bake-table and casually changing Harry’s life. Draco now, beginning his adult life.
Then
Harry blinked.
Hermione was staring at him with her hand attached to her hip.
“Harry James Potter,” she said.
She stalked across the room to his closet, pulled from it a pair of jeans and a jumper, and threw them at him.
“Get dressed,” she said, slamming a flier down on his desk. “The rally begins in half an hour. Don’t forget the bloody muffins.”
For consistency, she slammed the door on her way out.
*
Harry fell out of bed with a grumble and a groan. Thanks to Hermione, he was wide awake.
Harry pulled on his clothes and wandered down the hall to the common room. He needed some tea, and something to eat. The kettle was charmed to keep the water hot. Yet another domestic spell that Harry would miss when he moved back into his own, squalid home.
Grimmauld was as grim and old as it ever had been. Harry had briefly considered some DIY renovating, before the realisation that he did not know anything about DIY renovating, and knowing the house, and himself, he was more likely to die than end up living in an attractive home. He still did not trust those severed elf heads. He was dead-sure that one day he would pick up the wrong knick-knack, and find himself smeared between the lounge room, and Timbuktu.
While the tea bag soaked, he heated some of the leftover Indian that he had ordered the night before with a charm, and wandered over to the window, switching the bowl between hid hands so he did not burn his fingers.
Harry sat at the window-seat and looked down at the grounds. The Academy was a large, sprawling mass of buildings. It was smaller than Hogwarts, but at least twice as confusing.
Instead of being based out of one building, the Academy was comprised of several. All of which seemed to have been built in different eras by different cultures.
The dormitories where morbid, with gargoyles and spikes. Harry could see a stone troll, staring at him now. A fly landed on it’s eye. And it didn’t blink. Harry looked away.
The student centre was more like a temple than an admin building, and the classrooms themselves, well, Harry hadn’t explored quite that far yet. But he had heard terrible things about the medieval architecture, and the field of crucifix’s. A fun relic from the Roman settlement.
Harry knew that when his classes started, he would be travelling with a map.
For now though, he paid attention to the way Hermione’s galleon coin burned in his pocket, and gulped the last of his curry down. Sculling half a bottle of water, he wiped his mouth, grabbed his oxford bag, and took the floo down to the lobby.
He tripped on the landing rug, and narrowly avoided scalping himself on the coffin.
The coffin.
It had disturbed Harry at first, that the building he was moving into had once been owned by Dracula’s cousin. But the aesthetic was slowly growing on him. Three days in, and he barely noticed the skulls attached to the chandeliers.
“There you are!” Hermione gripped his arm tightly, fingers digging in like claws.
“Here I am," said Harry.
“Where are the muffins?” Hermione said.
“Arse wank.” Harry slapped his head.
“Harry!”
“I’ll be back.”
He jumped back up the floo, bolted to the fridge, and fetched the small Tupperware container that was home to their cup-cake collection.
Hermione had charmed the box to contain wizard-space. From the top, Harry could see six muffins. But inside, he knew, there were at least six hundred. His forearms were still sore from all the stirring.
“Are you sure you have everything?” said Hermione, when he returned.
“Yes, Hermione. We’re ready.”
“Go team Harmony.” She rubbed her hands together.
Harry looked at her.
She pinked. “It sounded cool.”
*
Harry’s muffins were a great success.
“I adore these,” said one witch. “They make me so happy, and hopeful too. Like everything is going to be alright.”
“Thank you,” said Harry, scratching his neck.
“So, so, happy!” she said. “Like, inordinately. They’re adorable. You’re adorable.”
“That’s enough, Lenora," said one of her friends, dragging her away by the elbow. “Sorry ‘bout that, Lenny’s just a bit o’ a light weight,”
Harry grinned. He could certainly relate to that.
Five minutes later.
“I’m ecstatic, man. Truly ecstatic. These muffins are better than—wait, are medical mushrooms legal in your country?”
“Err,” said Harry. “Er.”
The international student was staring at him very deeply.
Harry noticed that he’d come from Hermione’s speech. He had one of the fliers.
“You’re welcome?” said Harry.
*
Hermione was coming down the path like a hippo with it’s tail on fire. “Harry James Potter,” she said, using his middle name for the second time that day. “There are rumours going around that you drugged the muffins.”
“I didn’t.”
“Good,” she said, eye twitching. “Because it reflects badly on the cause.”
“I know.”
“If the prophet get wind we’re done for.”
“I know.”
“And affordable tertiary education will become just another castle in the sky.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Harry,” she scolded. “We need to take this seriously. You can afford to be here, but none of the other Muggleborns come with a vault full of galleons. They’re clearly trying to create a class divide, one that only benefits those with the right sort of blood.”
“You have told me this at least one hundred times.”
She blinked. “I’m sorry, Harry. I know I don’t need to convince you. You’ve always been on my side. It’s just, it makes me so terribly mad that I have to convince anyone at all. I thought our fight would be over by now.”
Harry put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re going to win this, Hermione. The ministry don’t have anyone even half as smart as you.”
“Thanks, Harry,” she replied, plucking a muffin from the box and taking a bite.
I just worry, you know. Gracie is already levitating things, and I don’t want her Hogwarts experience to be like mine.”
“It won’t, Hermione, it’ll be better.”
Her eyes went wide as she chewed. “Mmmph. Those are bloody good.”
Harry chuckled. “Just call me Nigella.”
*
Later, the rally drew to a close. Harry found himself packing up. Until.
“Potter.”
Harry looked up, it was Malfoy. It was Malfoy, Malfoy, Malfoy. Malfoy of the death eaters. Malfoy of the silly blonde hair. Malfoy of the shitty father and the shittier reputation.
“Yes, Malfoy?”
“Can I buy a muffin,”
“Er. What?”
Malfoy looked at him, and smiled, maybe. Harry couldn’t be sure. He’d never seen one on Malfoy’s face before.
“A muffin, I understand that you are selling them.”
“Oh,” said Harry, standing a little taller. “Yes. You have to make a donation, though.”
Malfoy raised a thin brow. This struck Harry as a very Malfoy thing to do.
“I noticed,” he extended a gloved hand. A fat galleon sat in his palm like a bottle-top.
Harry took it, and then didn’t know what to say. He looked down. “Er, what type?”
“Chocolate. That one looks sufficient.”
Harry picked it up, wrapped it in a bag, and used a sticking charm to attach Hermione’s flier.
“Um. Here. I hope you have a… sufficient day?”
Oh Gods. Thought Harry. I’ve turned into a moron. But Malfoy had taken a step forward, and was looking at him, and opening his mouth.
“Interesting cause," said Malfoy, gesturing toward the tattered-streamer remains of Hermione’s rally.
Harry looked over, and saw Hermione bent over, charming away the litter. She looked bone tired, and Harry was reminded of some important life truths that were important to live by. Such as, one does not simply associate with the childhood bully of one’s best friend.
“I’ve been following the story in the Diagon Alley Journal.”
Harry looked at him. And rediscovered some of the residual anger he thought he had purged over the summer. He could feel his face growing hot, and he knew he must have been scowling, because Malfoy nodded quite curtly, and without waiting for change, walked away.
Harry was left feeling cross. He wondered where Malfoy got the nerve. And why he thought he could simply waltz back into Harry’s life this way. He shook his head, packed away his things, and went to help Hermione clean up.
For the next few hours, Harry very determinedly refused to think about Draco Malfoy.
Now
Harry applauds as wildly as the rest of them, as his boyfriend accepts his graduate certificate. The theatre is very dark, apart from the spotlight over the stage. Draco is looking very smug, and his eyes are scanning the crowd. Harry waves. Draco nods slightly, and the movement is so subtle Harry doubts anyone else will have picked up on it. Except perhaps Narcissa.
Lately, there are a lot of things like that; small gestures that are only for the two of them. They’ve been dating properly for two years, and Harry never wants it to end. Ever.
Then
Harry waited on the landing, ears pricked. He could hear Draco Malfoy banging on the pans again and telling what was presumably a very amusing joke. Everybody laughed, anyway.
Harry wavered, reminding himself that a communal dining hall was nothing compared to Voldemort. It wasn’t even anything to the great hall at Hogwarts.
You’re being ridiculous, Potter, he thought to himself sharply. There was a high peal of laughter from downstairs, followed by a very distinct snicker, and Harry froze, before hurrying back up the stairs, and locking his door behind him.
He flopped down onto his mattress, and reached behind his back to pull the covers over his head. It was getting ridiculous really. He couldn’t just avoid meeting new people forever. He was bound to have to talk to them one day.
But not today, his mind supplied.
Draco Malfoy was not supposed to be scary. In fact, he wasn’t scary, Harry decided, just different.
Very different. Six months ago Harry would never have been able to guess just how different Draco Malfoy could be.
In school, Draco had been a bully. There was no getting around it. He’d been a repugnant and deeply bigoted person. With what Hermione might have called a ‘deeply flawed ideology’. He’d been depressing, and mean, and dour. He’d cried in bathrooms and used dark magic and made unfunny jokes that hurt people’s feelings.
Now, Harry wouldn’t have recognised him. The look was the same; pointy as hell, pale blond hair and skin, broad but narrow shoulders, trim build. And so was the attitude, from what Harry had heard; he was snarky as hell, and still quite rude, but now, but now; he got drunk and laughed with his friends in the hallways, he drove a car (a car!!), he wore fashionable muggle clothes, and used his biting wit for good instead of evil.
Harry had seen him take down one of the more conservative Durmstrang exchange students during an in-class debate just two days ago.
By all accounts, Draco Malfoy was a reformed citizen who smiled often and had forgotten the war entirely.
The few times they had passed each other in the hall, Harry had felt clumsy just looking at him.
Which was a deeply disturbing thing, as Harry had sworn after the war that he would never let another human being affect or manipulate him again. He’d been so disturbed, in fact, that he’d brought it up over butter-beers with Hermione.
“I just don’t get how he’s doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“He’s—happy, or something.”
“Do you want him to be unhappy?”
Harry blanched. “No, course not, Mione. I just, I don’t know. It’s weird, isn’t it?”
“Harry, there’s nothing wrong with healing.”
“I don’t need to heal,” said Harry.
Hermione looked at him. And sighed. She was quite drunk, and had at least three textbooks perched on her lap. “It’s all fucked up. Isn’t it? In the stories the hero defeats the bad guy, and then they all get to walk off into the sunset, and it’s happily ever after. But it’s not really, for us, is it?”
Harry thought about it. And then thought about Draco Malfoy, who wore bright colours and seemed to be doing okay for himself. “No, I suppose it’s not.”
Now
Draco has been awarded an exclusive placement in the Academy’s mentorship programe. And thus, he’s pinned the medal to his chest and spent the last half hour preening. It’s not the TAship he’d wanted originally, but it is an opportunity to work with a professional who will no doubt help Draco establish networks within the industry.
Best of all, Draco’s mentor is based out of London. The weight of the key seems to grow heavier in Harry’s pocket.
M through P file across the stage, and Harry waits patiently to join Draco on the other side.
“Harry Potter,” the High Sorcerer calls.
Harry crosses the stage. “Awarded an undergraduate Apprenticeship in Creative and Professional Defence and Educational Studies. Well done, Mister Potter.”
The applause is deafening. And for once, Harry feels like he deserves it. This is something he is deeply proud of. He’d done the work to achieve this, getting his degree wasn’t something he’d ever been fated to do, it was just something he had applied himself to. Harry accepts the award and squints into the darkness. The Weasley’s are going off their nut. Harry grins at them, can’t help himself.
Then, he looks to the left, and walks towards Draco.
Then
It was half past twelve in the morning. All seemed quiet on the kitchen front. Harry crept down the stairs, hating himself for leaving his assignment so late he’d had to stay up, and extremely excited to prepare the spaghetti sandwich he’d been dreaming of for two hours. He was past tired. Tired had come and gone hours ago. Now, his eyes were wide, and he was full of relief that he’d at least gotten the Academy Bat off with his essay before the midnight deadline.
He stepped into the kitchen, and approached the fridge, before pulling out some multi-grain bread that could be growing something, and half a tin of Heinz. Then he heard the giggle, and turned around. Draco Malfoy was sitting in another of the decorative coffins, his right leg was hanging lazily over the edge, and he was gripping a bottle of booze with a very self-satisfied expression smeared across his smarmy face.
Harry was reminded very quickly of why he disliked him. Recently, there had been less dislike, and more morbid curiosity. Watching Draco Malfoy at the Academy was like watching a particularly hot mess tabloid celebrity, you never knew quite what he was going to do next. You did know, that he was inevitably going to be proud of it. Since the semester had begun, Harry, who rarely left his room except to go to class or buy food, had personally seen him wear a fluorescent pink pea-coat, rob a niffler, and vomit in a vase. It was all very bourgeoisie. Or so Hermione told him.
Malfoy hiccupped, and looked just about ready to lie down and close the lid. Harry looked at Malfoy, then at the door, and then back at Malfoy. Gripping his tin of spaghetti, he stepped forward. Towards the coffin.
“Err, are you okay?”
Malfoy hiccupped again. “Magniffilsent.”
“Oh, cool. Um.”
Harry could see glitter across his cheeks and through his hair. “Big night out?”
“Of sorts.”
“Cool,” said Harry, skilled conversationalist.
Malfoy peered at him blearily. “Come here, Potter. I’ve got something to say.”
“Let me put my toast on first.”
Malfoy didn’t reply. So Harry put his toast on. And then turned back around. Malfoy had shut his eyes.
Harry very seriously contemplated leaving. But just as he turned to the door, Malfoy spoke. “Don’t. You said you would come here.”
Harry sighed, and approached slowly.
Suddenly, Malfoy’s hand shot out, grabbed Harry’s collar, and pulled him forward.
Without thinking, Harry pulled his wand from his back pocket. His heart-beat had sped up, and he knew that his feet had adopted a fighters’ stance. He looked up at Malfoy, awkwardly, only to realise that Malfoy had shut his eyes again. Harry lowered the wand. And let his heart rate slow by taking several deep breaths, and thinking about Ron and Hermione.
He hadn’t meant to react so strongly, sometimes he just did.
Malfoy was still holding onto his collar.
“What do you want, Malfoy?”
Malfoy opened his eyes, just a slit, and scowled. “Take me upstairs, Potter,” he ordered imperiously.
“I’m waiting for my toast. Can’t you go by yourself.”
“Tried. Couldn’t get the key in the hole.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have drunk so much.”
“How was I to know this would happen to me,” Malfoy whined, as though drunkenness were some inconvenient coincidence of nature, and not a state one had to work towards intentionally. “This is hardly my fault.”
Harry blinked. “Well, it’s hardly mine.”
“Everything is your fault, Potter.”
Harry might have responded with something very dazzling, but then, his toast popped, and he knew his priorities. He buttered it quickly, so that it wouldn’t melt. And said. “If you can get out of the coffin by yourself, I’ll help your upstairs.”
“Don’t be the poison,” said Malfoy, to himself. “Be the antidote.”
Harry nodded somewhat ironically. “That’s so wise, Malfoy. Maybe you should write a book.”
There came a dull thud, from which Harry surmised that Malfoy had arrived on the floor. He looked over his shoulder, Malfoy was staring piteously up at him from the tiles. “Oh, for fucks sake. Come on then.”
Now
“Congratulations, cohort of 2003.”
Harry and Draco look at each other, and as one, shoot a tower of sparks into the air. Draco’s are green, and Harry’s are yellow. They dance around each other as they palm-tree in the sky.
Their group is showered in a colourful rain of lights, and there has never been a better time to kiss his boyfriend than now.
In the excitement and colour of an unfurling unknown unanticipated future, Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy embrace.
*
They leave the building in a blaze of glory. Several photographers, who had been barred access jump out from the bushes, startling everybody.
Draco absolutely milks the moment; takes a deep bow, smiles, and makes an all around nuisance of himself. Harry would be a little bit sick if he didn’t love him so much. He’s got his certificate in one hand, and Draco’s palm in the other. He reminds himself that even though the process of dealing with reporters is in general, quite uncomfortable, there will be some very lovely photos of them in the newspaper tomorrow.
Then
Harry had not known it would become a habit. In the next month alone, he discovers an intoxicated Draco Malfoy, and, each time, he is swindled into helping him up the stairs.
They had paused on the landing.
“What is it?” Harry asked.
His hands are around Malfoy’s back. And he hardly knows what to do with them.
“All part of my master plan,” Malfoy said.
“God, you chat some shit. Come on, up you get.”
If anything, Draco slid further down the wall. Harry couldn’t help it, he laughed.
“Sorry,” he said. “You look a state.”
Draco glared at him, but it only added to the affect.
Tonight, he was wearing even more outlandish muggle clothes; checked pants and a woman’s blouse, satin and pink and sheer. There was glitter dusting his cheeks again, and a wilted flower hanging limp behind his ear. His eyes were pale and bleary and shot, his lips were chapped. For once, his hair was messy, hanging in pale hanks across his forehead.
“Sit,” said Malfoy.
And maybe because he was feeling lighter than usual, or he’d just been laughing, Harry did.
Draco leaned against his side almost immediately, and Harry stilled at the way their thighs were pressed together. He couldn’t have done that, in Draco’s place. The casual way people touched each other had never come naturally to him. He doubted that Draco had thought anything of simply leaning on the nearest human, whereas Harry spent at least five minutes contemplating a shoulder pat.
He tried not to move very much, and hoped that it wouldn’t end very quickly.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” Malfoy asked.
Harry’s jaw dropped. “No!”
Malfoy blinked up at him. “No need to sound so shocked, Potter. Girlfriend, then?”
Harry decided he did not like the way Malfoy’s lips twitched as he said this, nor the amused glint in his grey eyes.
“As a matter of fact,” he started out, righteously. Malfoy’s lips turned down. “Er, no. No, I don’t. Actually.”
Malfoy laughed, a wild and free sound that Harry wished he could catch and keep safe. “I didn’t think so.”
“Oh,” Harry said.
“You should ask me out.”
Harry looked down at Malfoy, alarmed. But Malfoy hardly seemed to be paying attention to him. He was looking at the wall ahead, as though it contained the secrets of the universe.
“I can’t ask you out,” Harry hissed.
“How come?”
“I just can’t.”
“Fine. I’ll ask you out.”
“Malfoy!”
“Do you want to go out with me, tomorrow, for breakfast?”
“I, I don’t, think.”
“And I don’t want you to. Just come.”
Harry didn’t say anything, and Malfoy stood up, with more grace than Harry would have thought him capable considering the state in which he’d been discovered (sprawled in the gutter, being rained on).
“I’ll meet you at the campus cafe around nine. Goodnight Potter.”
Before Harry could protest, Malfoy grabbed his hand, and pressed a dry kiss against the top of it.
Harry walked back to his room in a daze. There were so many things that could go wrong. Malfoy was a questionable person. Malfoy might be joking, or playing a trick. Malfoy was a friendly drunk, and he might regret asking in the morning.
But, Harry thought, he might not be, either. Maybe he genuinely liked me. I’m not ugly or anything.
I’m just me: normal looking, with arguably decent character traits.
Harry didn’t get to sleep for another hour, but he did make a decision. Tomorrow, he would go out for breakfast with Draco Malfoy. And if it went well, he would psych himself up, and ask for a dinner date.
Now
They are in a local pub favoured by uni students. It has been swarmed by parents and friends and a whole host of unknowns. Somehow, they’d secured a booth. Harry is drinking a chocolate milkshake, and somehow, Draco has sourced a goon.
“You’re going to become addicted if you keep this up,” said Harry, watching him.
Draco shrugs. “I can drink like a fish, and I never get drunk.”
Harry snorts. “Yes, your tolerance is impeccable.”
“It is, Potter. We can’t all be so lush.”
“Hm, I wonder who that stranger was then, that I regularly had to escort up to our building in first year. It wasn’t you, clearly.”
“Shut up,” Draco replies. “That was before I’d refined my skill set.”
“And that pale boy vomiting into the count’s vase, we don’t know him, do we?”
Draco eyes him shiftily. “No. Come on, Potter. Let’s dance.”
Then
Grace Granger was literally the most adorable child on the planet. Harry knew this. Ron knew this. The Grangers knew this. And Gracie herself, almost certainly knew this. They were visiting Hermione’s parents for tea, and all five of them had spent most of that time cooing over the baby, who seemed to have mastered blowing spit bubbles and making the furniture float.
“All bow to our future leader," said Ron.
“Indeed,” replied Hermione, with a smile that might not have scared someone who didn’t know her so well as Harry.
After eating, they sat down in the lounge room, where Hermione’s dad was playing old records, and Hermione’s mum was reading Gracie and encyclopedia.
“Did they do that for Hermione, do you reckon?” Harry asked Ron.
“Probably,” Ron replied. “That baby is going to rule us all.”
“It’s a bit weird, isn’t it?”
“No, strangely, I trust her.”
“What is?” Hermione asked, flopping into the couch beside them.
“Babies. Her and Teddy. They won’t know anything about what the world was like for us when they were born. When they’re our age, I bet they’ll be doing stupid, normal things.”
“That’s a good thing," said Ron.
“The best," said Harry, before hitting with a cushion, simply because he was alive, and could.
*
“I wish I could dance,” said Harry, resting his head on his forearms on the gritty pub table.
Hermione looked between him, and the dance floor. “You could easily learn, Harry.”
Harry, pointedly, did not look at the dance floor. Draco Malfoy was there, covered in glitter and sweat and sweet unfathomable happiness.
“I just don’t understand,” said Harry. “How he can be so cheerful.”
Hermione chugged her beer. “This, again? Did you expect him to mourn forever?”
No, but he’d thought Malfoy might come and yell at him, at least. Instead, the day after Harry had stood him up, when they passed each other in the hall, Malfoy had shrugged, and said in a clipped voice that perhaps it ‘wasn’t meant to be’ and that he was ‘sorry for bothering Harry’ and that next time it might be better for Harry ‘just to say no, and not worry about the other persons’ immediate feelings’.
Which had stung. Because Harry had wanted very desperately to go on the date. And he had come to like Draco quite a bit. But on the morning of, he’d woken up and been gripped by a cold fear that bound him to his bed, alternating between guilt and dread and self-hatred for the rest of the day. The clock had ticked nine, and Harry had missed his shot.
Harry shrugged. “I wasn’t talking about that.”
“What then?”
Harry looked around, and leaned forward to whisper. “The war.”
“Oh, Merlin. You don’t honestly believe he’s gotten over it, do you?”
“Look at him!”
“I am,” said Hermione, sternly. “Harry, you have to understand that people grieve in different ways. I know you know that.”
Harry didn’t say anything.
“Ron develops a temper. I develop obsessive habits. You withdraw from the world.”
“Hey.”
Hermione pat his arm. “You’re getting better. I’ve seen you make so much progress since the start of this year. But, on the subject of Draco Malfoy. To some extent, he has always been your polar opposite, doesn’t it make sense that where you step away, he might step too close.”
“What do you mean?”
Hermione was looking at him with her trademark exasperated face. “Do you really suppose there is any satisfaction in his lifestyle? A big party will never make up for a big loss, no matter how wide you smile, or how much glitter you apply.”
Harry thought about this. Hermione had always been cleverer than him. But Harry was determined that he would always be braver. He stood up. “I’m going to learn how to dance,” he said. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Or not," said Hermione, she was smiling from ear to ear.
Harry wavered. “Will you be fine?”
“Of course, Ron will be here soon.”
“Are you sure?”
“If he’s late, I have at least two hundred new pamphlets to hand out. The ministry simply aren’t ready for what I’m planning.”
She smiled a Machiavellian smile, and Harry said a brief prayer for all the young students who’d come out to have fun and were about to become politically engaged.
“Go on then, I’ve things to do.”
Harry nodded, and crossed the dance floor to beg Draco Malfoy for a second chance.
Now
It’s a nice time, he leans against Draco’s chest, and let’s Draco guide them around the floor. Dancing is easier when you’re not in charge. The air is thick and pleasant and warm. His friends are bickering over milkshakes in their booth, and there is a good song on the radio.
“Do you want to go?” Draco says.
“Sure, I’ll just say bye to the others.”
“I’ll wait at the door.”
Harry returns to the booth, an bids his friends goodbye. Hermione is pleasant. Ron makes a highly inappropriate sexual innuendo, and everything is as it should be.
“Come on then,” he says to Draco.
Draco wraps an arm around his shoulders, and they walk out onto the midnight street. There is fog everywhere, and it’s cold as hell.
“Shit,” said Harry. “It’s freezing. Can I borrow your gloves?”
“No.”
“Why are you a terrible boyfriend.”
“I’m the best boyfriend you’ve ever had.”
“Only boyfriend,” says Harry absent-mindedly. “And where the hell did I park the car?”
“This way.”
“You’re seriously not going to lend me your gloves?”
“If I did, we wouldn’t be able to do this.”
Draco holds both his hands between his, and rubs them with his own, wool-clad hands. “Better?”
Harry snorts. “No. You’re a sap.”
“Stop bitching, Potter. And also, don’t tell anyone.”
“Do you have the keys?”
“Yes, I’m driving.”
“What?”
“I don’t fancy fearing for my life so soon after the last trip.”
“I’m not that bad.”
Draco opens the drivers side door, and slides in.
Harry settles on passenger.
Draco starts the ignition. “We had at least three near death experiences in three kilometres.”
Harry looks out the window. “I hate you.”
“And I love you.”
Then
Draco threw himself at Harry, nuzzling into the crook between his neck and shoulder. “You’re so good to me,” he said, and. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Of course you do,” said Harry, soaking up the contact and taking advantage of the situation to stroke Draco’s hair [a rare privilege]. “If you’ll have me, I’m yours.”
Harry let the question hang. Neither of them had ever gotten so close to discussing love with each other before. Love was the unspoken in their relationship.
Draco’s reply was simple. He looked up at Harry, and Harry held his breath. He no longer assumed that Draco was always on the verge of breaking up with him, they’d grown past that. Bu this was a big moment.
“Always,” said Draco.
Harry smiled, and continued to stroke his hair. He knew that Draco would continue to be disappointed that he had not been selected for the role. And for a moment, Harry wished that he had not applied, or convinced Draco to apply in the first place. But no. It was important that Harry out himself out there, and set goals, even if they didn’t work out in the end. And he knew there relationship was stronger now, for having borne the failure.
“I think,” said Harry. “We should go get milkshakes.”
Draco sat, composing himself, and smoothing his robe.
“Hermione says sugary drinks give you a hit of dopamine. What do you think?”
“I think, that I love you, Potter.”
“Oh,” said Harry.
He looked at Draco, who was staring at the floor. “I love you too.”
Draco cleared his throat. “Well then. Strawberry or chocolate?”
Harry grinned. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
They go down the local, and sit in the booth. The wooden seats were hard and uncomfortable, but it was the sort of establishment that felt like a home away from home. Harry and Draco were sipping their drinks and whispering absurdly sappy things that didn’t bear repeating, when an entire hoard of students burst through the door, cheering loudly. Hermione was among them, no, Harry realised, Hermione was on top of them. Crowd-surfing. It was so bizarre that he almost looked to Draco for confirmation.
“Harry! Draco!” she shouted, spotting them.
The group of students lowered her to the ground, and she skipped over to them. Skipped. Hermione.
“We did it! The ministry has made a ruling in our favour. There will be funding for another six years.”
“Congratulations, Granger," said Draco.
“That’s amazing, Hermione.”
“It is,” said Hermione. “We’ve all worked so hard. I’m so pleased. Thankyou for all of your wonderful muffins, Harry. I don’t think we would’ve got even half the signatures without those.”
Harry laughed. “Hermione, you won because you are a brilliant genius, and you know it. Seriously, congratulations.”
Hermione giggled.
“I think your public await you," said Draco.
Hermione looked over her shoulder. “Alright, yes, I’m coming.”
The crowd cheered.
Harry and Draco finished their milkshakes, and walked back out into the street.
“What now?” Harry asked. “If neither of us are doing the TAship, we’re going to have loads of spare time.”
“We set new goals," said Draco. “And make them work, together.”
Harry nodded. He could see a flat with a blue door, and a spare room for brewing. He could see a kitchen with Draco’s exotic teabags strewn across the bench. He could see one bedroom, and a life together, that went on past graduation.
It was a personal goal, more than anything, nevertheless, Harry began to plan.
Now
Tonight is supposed to be their last night in the dorm. Harry had planned to ask Draco inside. But, sometimes, even the best laid plans aren’t right when the moment comes.
“Turn left,” Harry says.
“What, why?”
“Just do it. I want to have a look at the lake.”
“Fine. You and your whims.”
The interior of the car is dark. Harry can only just make out Draco’s pale hair, and his ghostly features in the dash lights.
They turn down a winding dirt track, and Draco gears down for the bend. “This is creepy as shit, Potter.”
“It isn’t,” Harry replies. “It’s a lake. It’s romantic.”
They pull into a empty car lot, and the lake is shining before them like an oyster sky, silver and misty in the night.
“I had a speech prepared, earlier," says Harry. “But, I think I’m just going to let you open it, and decide for yourself.”
“Open what?” Draco asks. He cuts the engine and looks at Harry. “Do not propose to me right now.”
“I’m not proposing!” Harry exclaims. “Merlin, I never will now, if this is the reception I may expect.”
He rummages in his pocket and finds the package, which doesn’t look any less rumpled than it had at the beginning of the evening. He throws it at Draco, and looks out the window.
He can hear the paper tearing.
“A key?”
“Yes.”
“What for?”
“A flat in London. With a brewing room and a fireplace. If you need somewhere to live, after tonight.”
“Do you live there?”
“Not yet.”
Draco laughs loudly, a joyful and free sound. Harry turns. “Yes, then?”
“Of course, Potter. My darling. How many bathrooms, though?”
Harry rolls his eyes. “Two.”
“Thank god. Because if I find another one of your pubes in the bath I might have to break up with you.”
Harry groans. “This was supposed to be special. Don’t talk about pubes.”
Draco laughs his loud laugh again. “I’ve got something for you too, by the way.”
“What is it?” Harry asks.
He never could quite kick his excitement for gifts. He never even cared what they were. It was just give being given something by another person. “Let me see.”
“Hold on, Merlin. So impatient.” He rummages in his pocket. “Here, it’s a ring.”
Harry takes the box carefully. “A ring? Is this why you didn’t want me to?”
“Yes.”
Harry opens the small, velvet box. “We’re quite young, Draco,” he says. “Most people don’t bother with rings until their thirties, these days.”
“It’s important to me," says Draco. “Open it.”
Harry does, nestled inside is a thin silver bad with a small sapphire resting between the claw. It is simple, and elegant, and the sort of thing that won’t interfere with Harry’s work.
“There’s a ton of secret Malfoy family protection charms on it,” Draco boasts. “It belonged to my great great grand aunt. Eugenia Malfoy. Read the inscription.”
“Be what you dare,” Harry says. “That’s very apt.”
“She was the only Gryffindor Malfoy,” says Draco, plucking the ring rom the box. “And you’ll be the second. I, if you agree to it, I mean.”
Harry kisses his cheek, and extends a hand. “Let’s see if it fits, then.”
Draco grins at him, and slides the ring onto his finger.
“Well, it does seem like the right fit,” Harry says, looking at Draco.
Draco is quite smug. “What, you didn’t think I’d get the measurement and have it resized?”
“You’re so clever,” Harry praises. “Are we engaged now?”
“We’d better be. Or I’ll owe Weasley ten galleons.”
Harry blinks. “Ron Weasley, my best friend?”
Draco smirks. “I couldn’t ask your parents, but he and Granger both approved.”
“You asked Ron and Hermione for my hand?” Harry laughed. “And then made a bet on it?”
“It was a lucrative investment,” Draco says. “You were a sure thing, really.”
Harry laughs. “What I wouldn’t give to have seen that conversation.”
He leans back, and looks at the roof. Draco is still holding his hand, and anchor in the storm.
Draco squeezes his fingers. “Say yes.”
The air is thick and soupy and warm. Outside, it starts to pour.
“Yes,” says Harry, before realising that Draco hasn’t heard him over the rain on the car roof.
“Yes,” he shouts. “Yes, yes, yes!”
When the message doesn’t transmit, he takes wild leap over to the back seat, and pulls Draco after him. “Yes,” he says, one last time, before kissing Draco’s neck and leaning back. There is a lot to think about, but for now, he enjoys the heaviness of Draco’s body on his, the certainty of the band around his finger, and the endless possibility of the life that lies before him.
Tomorrow, the grass will grow green and Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy will be borne again, into the future, and the many lives they may yet choose.