Chapter Text
Blinking blearily at his breakfast, Harry wonders how many hours of sleep he’d gotten last night. He would give anything for a Hangover Potion, or a Wideye at the least. Instead, all he has is a cup of bitter coffee. He downs the last dregs of it, grimacing. He looks for more, but Seamus has seized the pot of it and is guarding it with all the ferocity of a very angry, hungover dragon.
“Not the best decision we’ve ever made, mate,” Ron mutters, looking as tired as Harry feels.
Hermione, for her own part, only looks at them disapprovingly and goes back to the book she’s reading.
The ceiling of the Great Hall is sunny and bright. Wisps of clouds puff merrily here and there, streaks of cotton on an otherwise flawless sky. The tables are strewn with every kind of breakfast food imaginable: porridge, stacks of pancakes, French toast, mounds of fruit, and piles of eggs a head high. The sight of all of it turns Harry’s stomach. He briefly considers trying to wrest the coffee from Seamus’s clutches, but decides it’s not worth the effort. He thunks his head down on his arms with a groan.
“I won’t say anything,” Hermione says primly. Even the sound of her turning a page is almost too loud for Harry’s throbbing head.
“Don’t worry,” Ron says, “we feel bad enough on our own.”
There’s a loud shambling behind Harry, and a weight falls heavily onto the bench next to him.
“Oh, Neville, not you too.”
“Me too,” Neville agrees. Looking up from the darkness of his arms, Harry sees that Neville’s in the same shape as the rest of them; his skin has a pale, sickly pallor and the skin under his eyes is dark. “Is there any coffee left?”
“No,” Seamus snaps, “there isn’t any.” He pulls the pot closer to his chest, wrapping his arms around it. He hasn’t even drunk any that Harry’s seen, just hoarded it.
Neville blinks tiredly and gives up, staring down into a bowl like he’s never seen porridge before, or the answer to his profound tiredness lies somewhere in its murky depths.
Dean, the only one of them who didn’t drink, wolfs down bacon with wild abandon. For a second, Harry is brightly, strikingly jealous. At least he can content himself with the knowledge that Dean’s running on the same amount of sleep that they are.
“When did we go to sleep?” he asks. His eyes flit to the High Table, mostly empty this early. In the Headmaster’s seat, McGonagall leans over a pile of papers, correcting them. Her eyeglasses have slipped down the edge of her nose. There is a great deal more grey in her hair this year than last, Harry thinks.
Dean hums around a mouthful of food. “Well, when Neville challenged me to that rematch, it was around three, wasn’t it?” He elbows Seamus.
“Don’t touch me.”
Dean turns back towards Harry. “Yeah, it was three, and the game lasted…” He trails off to draw calculations in the air with his fork. “So, we went to sleep at four?”
About three and a half hours of sleep then. Harry’s dealt with worse.
“At least you got your Charms essays done first,” Hermione says. She pauses, looks up. “You guys did finish your essays, right?”
Ron starts. “We had a Charms essay?”
“Ronald.”
There’s a flurry of moment as not only Ron, but Seamus and Dean as well, share a wide-eyed look before diving into their bags for parchment.
Harry takes the opportunity to lunge for the coffee pot.
⨯⨯⨯
Whatever charms heat the castle during the winter haven’t seen it fit to activate yet, leaving the castle damp and chilly. The Charms classroom is minimally warmer, full of early-morning light that pours down through the windows and onto the desks. The early November sky is deceptively sunny, masking the bitter cold of the air.
Despite the copious amount of caffeine he’d consumed, Harry doesn’t feel any more awake than he did at breakfast as he slides into the seat next to Ron. He just feels jittery and on edge. Perhaps he’d had too much coffee on an empty stomach; he can’t concentrate.
Ron scribbles frantically at his essay. With a triumphant ‘Aha!’ he puts his quill down and sits back. Hermione shakes her head, fondly exasperated.
The eighth years have been lucky enough to get separate N.E.W.T. classes from the seventh years, but in exchange all four houses have them together. So, when Flitwick assigns partners to practise memory charms, Harry’s not too thrilled to be placed with Blaise Zabini.
McGonagall can preach unity and forgiveness and harmony until she’s blue, but Harry doesn’t think he’ll ever trust a Slytherin to go poking around in his head. Not that he has much choice in the matter. At least Blaise is one of the better Slytherins, not that that’s saying a lot.
“Potter,” Blaise says, startling Harry out of his thoughts. Blaise’s face is carefully blank. “What did I just say?”
Searching his memory, Harry doesn’t find anything. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I guess it worked, then. Good job, Zabini.”
To Harry’s left, Malfoy snickers. Poor Neville, dark circles under his eyes even more pronounced in the brightness of the classroom, is his partner.
“That would be great, Potter,” Zabini says, annoyed, “if I’d actually cast the spell yet.”
Malfoy snickers even louder. As Flitwick walks by, it morphs into a rather suspect cough. Harry tamps down the surge of anger and says only, “Right, sorry.”
Waving the cobwebs from his mind, Harry gets into position. It takes a minute to get his muscles to relax, to look down Zabini’s wand without the urge to fight overpowering him. He knows that he has no reason to be afraid; Zabini never really hated him, not like Malfoy did. As far as he can tell, Zabini hadn’t even been a fan of Voldemort’s. There is no reason for Zabini to do anything other than what he’s supposed to. But with every slight twitch Zabini makes, Harry can feel his heartbeat increasing. It doesn’t help that there’s nothing but four cups of coffee running through his veins.
“Potter,” Zabini snaps. “You’re not listening to a word I’m saying.”
“Right, sorry,” Harry says again. He shakes his hands out, tries to stop thinking. “Let’s go again, okay?”
“You say that like you’ve done anything besides stand there and stare into space,” Malfoy says, lowering his wand from where he’s just finished casting. “Well, Longbottom?”
Shaking his head, Neville scratches at his chin. “What were we talking about?”
Malfoy smiles smugly. He twirls his wand between his fingers and over the back of his knuckles. Showing off, he flips it into the air and catches it smoothly. When he notices Harry watching him, his smirk widens obnoxiously. Harry wants to remind Malfoy that he’s the reason Malfoy has that wand. He didn’t have to return it, probably wouldn’t have if he’d known Malfoy was going to act like nothing had changed.
In the end, Harry decides he’s too hungover to deal with this shit and turns back to Blaise. “I’m ready whenever you are.” Nothing annoys Malfoy more than being ignored.
Blaise releases a long, pent-up breath and gets ready. His wand is long, thin, and of an exceptionally light-coloured wood. Everything is alright, Harry thinks firmly. Blaise is not his enemy.
“Try to remember the number twenty-four.”
Shutting his eyes, Harry focusses.
“Ready? Three, two, one—”
Blaise’s steady words are cut off by a shout.
“Neville, look out!”
There is a loud bang as a spell backfires, the acrid smell of smoke and the sharp tang of lemons suddenly heavy in the air. Harry opens his eyes just in time to see Malfoy’s body hit the floor bonelessly, like a puppet with all its strings cut. A long plume of black smoke drifts out of Neville’s wand towards the ceiling. At his side, Seamus steadies himself on Neville’s arm, face white with shock.
Neville’s tremulous voice is the first to break the utter silence. “Malfoy?”
Malfoy doesn’t so much as stir. He’s fallen carelessly, one leg tucked under him, the other straight out. The back of his head had hit the floor fairly hard, given the fact he’d fallen straight over backwards. If it weren’t for the subtle rise and fall of his chest, Harry would think he were dead. Pale blond hair, usually so well-managed, sticks up all over the place.
“What’s going on here?” Flitwick pops up from someplace.
“I was casting the spell and—”
“I tripped and grabbed his arm—”
Coming up beside Seamus, Dean joins in, “Neville had already started saying‘Obliviate,’ so the spell went off anyway. It hit Malfoy and he just—dropped.”
Flitwick rushes to Malfoy’s side. He begins waving his wand, muttering underneath his breath, spells that Harry’s never even heard of before. The air above Malfoy goes all wavy, and strange colours flicker above him. With every spell, Flitwick's face goes paler.
“Is he dead?” Blaise asks tonelessly. His throat works hard as he swallows, and at his side his hand slowly clenches and unclenches.
“No,” Flitwick grits out. “Someone get Poppy.”
Everyone looks at each other for a second. Harry meets the wide eyes of several other students, but he can’t seem to get his legs to move. After what seems an eternity, one of the Patils gets herself together and sprints from the room.
Whatever spell came over the room breaks. Hermione goes to Ron’s side and Pansy Parkinson rushes to Malfoy’s. She drops hard onto her knees, scooping up one of his hands. Her mouth moves as she says something desperately into Malfoy’s ear.
Ponderously, Gregory Goyle makes his way through the sea of students. He hesitates at the edge of the circle that’s formed, thick face twisted into a look of terror. Harry watches as he steps forward, once, twice, then bends down; he picks up Malfoy’s wand gingerly from underneath one of the benches. He stares down at it, and Harry thinks he looks as if he might cry.
“This doesn’t look good.” Harry hadn’t even noticed Zabini’s approach.
“No,” he agrees absently.
The scene before him looks like one of the more dramatic paintings from around the castle. Flitwick’s litany of spells has covered Malfoy with a hazy glow. Speckles of light dance over his cheekbones, and his robes shift softly as though there’s a faint breeze or he’s underwater. None of it feels real. Harry feels like he’s underwater too, as though he’ll breathe out and see bubbles floating towards the ceiling.
Blaise regards him critically as he rubs his eyes and exhales. Nothing, just a headache spreading behind his eyes and an odd mix of emotions building tumultuously in his chest. “Are you alright?” he asks.
“No,” Harry says, and runs from the room to vomit.
⨯⨯⨯
Dinner is as boisterous as ever. Either the news that Malfoy’s lying in a hospital bed hasn’t made the rounds yet or nobody cares. A spoonful of mashed potatoes comes sailing down the table courtesy of a first year, but none of the eighth years react. Even though their hangovers have finally abated, none of them are feeling very cheerful.
Harry’s gaze keeps drifting towards the Slytherin table. Only five of them returned for the year, and only three are at dinner now. Goyle stares blankly at a plate full of food. Next to him, Millicent Bulstrode pushes a porkchop around with a fork, chin in her hand. Harry can only see Blaise’s back, the line of his shoulders stiff.
“Has anyone heard anything?” Hermione asks.
Slowly, Harry drags his eyes back to his own table.
“I stopped by after Herbology,” Neville says suddenly. It’s the first thing he’s said since that morning. His hair is sticking up where he’s run a hand through it. “He was still unconscious. I wasn’t supposed to hear, but Madam Pomfrey said they called in a professional from St. Mungo’s. They’ll be here tomorrow. It doesn’t look good.” His eyes go back to the woodgrain of the table as though he hadn’t spoken at all.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Dean says weakly.
“I’m sure his father will hear about this,” Seamus adds. None of them laugh at the feeble attempt at a joke.
The sky above is already black, scattered with stars; with each passing day there has been less daylight. Harry’s gaze drifts back to the Slytherin table. The empty seat next to Goyle feels like a black hole, drawing in Harry’s attention as well as the flickering light of the candles.
The silence at the Gryffindor table continues. Finally, with a heavy sigh, Ron breaks it. “If anyone had to get their memory wiped, at least it was Malfoy.” Upon looking up, he notices everyone is watching him. His cheeks go red. “What? If anyone deserved it, it was him. Think about everything he’s done to us.” He shakes off the hand Hermione’s put on his arm. “No, Hermione, think about everything he’s said to you. How many times has he called you a Mudblood?”
As soon as he stops talking, the silence descends, more oppressive than ever. Ron tries again. “It’s not like it was Harry or—or Seamus, or…” he trails off lamely, realising that he’s overstepped.
Neville stands abruptly. His knife clatters down beside his plate. “I can’t take this anymore.” His hands shake as he gathers his things. “I’m going to check up on Malfoy. I’ll see you guys later.” Dodging a hand that reaches out towards him, he races from the Great Hall.
“Nice one, Ron,” Dean says without much heat.
“I didn’t mean it like that…”
Hermione lays a hand back on his arm, and he looks at her apologetically. The harsh sound of forks on plates resumes as the eighth years pretend everything is normal. A sudden peal of laughter from the Hufflepuff table makes half of them flinch.
At the Slytherin table, Goyle turns Malfoy’s wand over and over again in his hands.
⨯⨯⨯
By Monday morning, Malfoy is all anyone is talking about. Neither the professional from St. Mungo’s nor the weekend’s duration have been enough to wake him, and he lies in the infirmary as the other eighth years go to their classes. There are few enough of them that his presence would be noticed, even if he hadn’t been the only subject on their minds.
“I heard that his memory was completely wiped. When he wakes up, he won’t remember a thing,” Michael Corner whispers in Defence.
“I heard that he’s like Sleeping Beauty, waiting for a prince to come kiss him,” one of Gryffindor’s new Chasers jokes during practise.
“I heard Malfoy’s just faking. That it’s some kind of stunt to get his father out of Azkaban,” says Justin Finch-Fletchley in Potions.
“I heard that Malfoy’s basically dead, like the only reason he’s even still breathing is because they put, like, a thousand spells on him,” Susan Bones says in Herbology.
All of it is giving Harry a headache. By now, he’s heard enough rumours to choke a hippogriff, but he still can’t help but listen in every time he hears Malfoy’s name. No one else seems to be bothered like he is except Neville, who flinches every time he hears a word so much as start with the letter m.
Every night, Neville returns to the common room right at curfew, laden down with as many heavy books as he can carry. Harry’s woken up twice during the night, only to find Neville still reading away, the curtains of his bed glowing warmly red from the light of a Lumos. If he’s not in the library or Gryffindor house, he’s in the infirmary. Hermione tries to tell him how unhealthy he’s being, but Neville only blinks at her tiredly and goes back to a book titled The Memorie and the Mynd. This is probably the first time it’s been out of the library in the last century.
As much as Harry hates the gossip, what follows is worse: everyone stops talking about Malfoy entirely. It's as though he never existed.
The second week of November draws to a close, the sky turning steely grey and threatening snow. The temperature plummets to below-freezing temperatures, and Hogwarts’s heating charms finally, grudgingly, kick to life. In Astronomy, they track the gradual shifting of the constellations; the Earth turns on.
Malfoy is missing a great deal of classes.
Even as November reaches its windy, bitter end, Harry keeps on expecting Malfoy to stroll back into class one day, smirking and acting as though he never left.
It isn’t until he’s passing by the Ravenclaw table and hears Malfoy’s name that Harry realises how desperately he’s been waiting for information. He skids to a halt, and his feet carry him to Stephen Cornfoot and Terry Boot quite without him realising it.
“Hi, Harry,” Terry says, blinking up at him.
“I, er—I heard you mention Malfoy?”
The Ravenclaws share a look.
“Yeah, my sister’s a Healer at St. Mungo’s,” Stephen says awkwardly, once he realises that Harry isn’t going away. “She heard some of the other Healers talking, you know how it is.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Harry demands.
Stephen looks at Terry for help, but Terry takes a big bite of sandwich and looks away. Twisting in his seat, Stephen turns to better face Harry.
“It’s complicated, I guess,” he says. Harry stares at him until he elaborates. “Well, he didn’t actually lose his memory. But it’s like Neville hit the rewind button, and Malfoy got sent way back to the beginning of the movie. Now he’s gotta rewatch everything in order to catch up, y’know? So he’ll be fine; he’ll wake up.” Here Stephen pauses. He contemplates the best way to put it, and decides on bluntness. “He’ll wake up… in eighteen years, give or take.”
“Give or take.” Harry’s voice is flat, even to his own ears.
Stephen frowns, picking at his pants. “Yeah. He’ll probably skip around here and there. He probably won’t have to go through the first few years of his life; nobody remembers those.”
“Oh. Okay.” Harry turns to walk away, then turns back. Stiffly, he says, “Thanks.”
Woodenly, he drops into his seat at the Gryffindor table and stares down at the empty plate before him.
“Alright, mate?” Ron asks him, already shovelling his plate high with food.
Harry’s about to answer when he notices the seat across from him is unusually empty. “I’ll be back later, don’t wait up.” He ignores Ron’s concerned look and leaves the Great Hall in a hurry.
Up and up he goes, ignoring the staircases he climbs and the portraits he passes until he comes to Gryffindor Tower. Throwing open the chest at the end of his bed, he digs through old textbooks, winter cloaks, pieces of Quidditch gear, and Ron’s chess set until he finds the Marauder’s Map. He hasn’t used it since the Battle, and he’s ashamed to see that one of the corners has gotten bent from something sitting on it.
Unfolding it carefully, he searches for Neville’s dot. It’s not in the library where he expected it to be, but he finds it at last; Neville is in the infirmary, right beside the little dot labelled ‘Draco Malfoy.’ Harry’s stomach plummets as he refolds the Map and puts it away.
In a short time, he’s made his way down to the Hospital Wing. Easing open the heavy doors, he steps into the infirmary. The air here is cool and crisp, almost tangible against Harry’s skin. It smells of disinfectant and lemongrass, and the light coming in through the windows is dim with the very last rays of the sun.
Harry finds Neville sitting in a chair at Malfoy’s bedside. A half-full bottle sits on the bedside table, filled with some sort of viscous green liquid. There’s a pile of papers; when Harry gets closer, he sees that they’re notes for various classes. Pansy’s name is written in the corner of the top sheet.
“Neville,” Harry says quietly.
Startled, Neville jumps. There’s a faint ripping sound from the book on his lap.
“Harry? What are you doing here?”
“I was looking for you.” Harry very deliberately doesn’t look at Malfoy, at the soft rise and fall of the crisp white bed sheets. He doesn’t think Malfoy would appreciate Harry seeing him so vulnerable.
“Is something wrong?” Nothing besides this whole situation, Harry thinks.
“I just heard about what was wrong with Malfoy. I didn’t know if you knew,” Harry says quietly.
Neville sets his book aside. The page he was on is hanging by a thread. Pince will throw a fit if she sees it like that.
“About how he’s going to be stuck like this for years?” Neville says, surprising Harry.
“You knew?”
Neville shakes his head, although not to deny. He pinches the bridge of his nose and looks so tired that Harry thinks he should be in one of these beds too. “Madam Pomfrey told me. She saw how I’ve been trying to help—not that I’ve found anything —and thought I might want to know.”
The room is still and silent. As the last vestiges of sunlight disappear, lanterns light automatically, their soft glow spreading over the room. The light of one spreads over the pillow, dyeing Malfoy’s hair gold.
For the first time since the accident, Harry looks at him. If he didn’t know better, he would think Malfoy were only sleeping. He looks more peaceful than Harry has ever seen him. His eyelashes cast faint shadows on his cheeks. As Harry watches, his eyelids flutter gently, as though Malfoy is dreaming.
“There’s nothing they can do?”
“No,” Neville says roughly. “He has to wake up on his own. They’re hoping that maybe it’ll be sooner rather than later, but it would be a miracle. If he doesn’t wake up by the end of winter hols, they’re moving him to St. Mungo’s—permanently. The Janus Thickey Ward.” Neville’s voice breaks. “He’ll be right across from my parents. I’ll see him every time I go to visit them. Every time I see them, I’ll see Malfoy and know this was my fault.”
“Neville,” Harry says gently, “it was an accid—”
“I know it was an accident,” Neville shouts. He freezes, but Madam Pomfrey must be at dinner with everyone else, because she doesn’t appear. When he speaks again, his voice is low and defeated. “I know it was an accident. I know it’s not my fault Seamus bumped into me, and I know that we were all hungover and tired and what happened was a million-in-one accident. But that doesn’t change the fact that Malfoy’s lying in this bed because of me.”
Harry doesn’t know what to say. He settles for “I’m sorry”, although he knows it’s not enough.
“Me too,” Neville whispers. He picks his book back up, carefully turning through the pages. Wordlessly, Harry has been dismissed.
⨯⨯⨯
Harry is awakened by someone shaking his shoulder. Startled out of a dream filled with odd green light and something chasing him through a forest, he panics, striking out. His elbow collides with something, and there is a soft “oof” of pain.
“Ow, Harry, stop,” Neville says, trying to grab at his flailing arms.
“Neville?” Harry groans, sitting up in bed, squinting in the darkness. His bed curtains have been pulled open, and faint, cool moonlight drifts through the room. A light breeze causes the curtains to sway; Dean has left the window open again.
Taking this as an invitation, Neville crawls onto the end of Harry’s bed, pulling the curtains closed and casting a Muffling Charm. There’s a massive book in his arms and he drops it straight onto Harry’s knees. A faint cloud of dust rises from the cover like a sulky little ghost. The cover is thick and—as far as Harry can tell in the gloom—dark-red with a title in gold filigree.
“What time is it?” Harry asks groggily.
“It doesn’t matter,” Neville says. His eyes are bright and feverish as he opens the book and begins flipping through the pages. “No, no, no… here!” He flips the book around and pushes it into Harry’s lap.
Blinking down at the pages, Harry squints. After retrieving his glasses, the words become a bit clearer. They’re clearly instructions on some sort of spell, but the entire page is written with such a mixture of archaic words and specialised terminology that Harry can barely understand it. Underneath his fingertips, the pages are soft and thin as tissue paper.
“What is this?” It seems to be some kind of binding or linking spell.
“The answer,” Neville says vehemently, “to Malfoy’s problem.”
He takes the book back from Harry and cradles it in his arms. “I’ve read so many books on mind magic and memory charms that I thought I was going to go insane. But—finally —I found this one. It’s got a spell called the Mind-Channelling Charm. Listen to this: ‘Allows the caster to join their mind to another.’ I’m sure it has some obscure, terrible use, considering I took this out of the Restricted Section, but it’s perfect!”
Harry rubs his temples, wondering if he’s still dreaming. If he lays back down now, he can probably get back to sleep for another couple hours at least. “Neville, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Harry, we can save Malfoy.”
Every trace of sleepiness is gone in a rush. “What? How?” He takes the book back, but the page is just as confusing as before. He can’t even make out the words Neville’d quoted to him.
“The problem with Malfoy is that he’s stuck in his own head, going through his memories. He probably doesn’t know what he’s doing, or even who he is. But if someone were to connect their mind to his, they could speed up the process. A lot. They could go in there and drag him back out.”
“Someone as in…?”
Neville has the sense to look sheepish at least. “Someone as in you. I suppose I could do it, but the deeper connection you have with the other person, the better chance of the spell working. Sure, Malfoy made fun of me a lot, but compared to him and you...”
“It is dangerous?”
“I won’t say it’s not,” Neville says. His earlier enthusiasm dims. “It could go wrong, really, really wrong; you could get stuck in Malfoy’s mind too. It would be too risky to go after you if that happened.”
“I’ll do it.”
“You will?” Neville looks surprised. To be fair, Harry’s surprised too.
It’s Malfoy. They’re not friends. They don’t even like each other. Why is he so eager to risk life and limb for him? The funny thing is, he knows exactly what Malfoy would say if he knew what Harry is planning to do: Classic Potter, even after killing the Dark Lord, you still have to be a hero or Fuck off, Potter, I don’t need your pity.
He can’t be sure, though. Absurdly, he wants to know what Malfoy would actually say, if the little voice in his head is accurate, or if he’s already forgetting how Malfoy acted, how Malfoy sounded. It might be one of the most messed-up things about him, which is saying a lot, but he misses Malfoy. Besides, he’d already saved Malfoy once; it’s not like he should be questioning now whether Malfoy’s worth saving or not. He’s already made that choice.
“When?” Harry asks, determined.
⨯⨯⨯
December.
Malfoy has been unconscious a month and a half.
In the past three weeks, the snow finally came. Hogwarts lies under a thick white blanket, the grounds sparkling like hundreds of jewels. Snow covers every tower and parapet; the lake is trapped under a thick layer of ice. A handful of snowmen are scattered on the castle grounds, enchanted to wave or throw snowballs whenever someone comes close.
Christmas is barely a week away, but Harry isn’t feeling very festive this year. Come Christmas day, he might just be in a hospital bed of his own. As the day inches ever closer, Harry finds he can barely sleep.
More than anything, he wants to talk with Ron and Hermione. Neville hadn’t thought it wise to involve them, and Harry had grudgingly agreed. He feels terrible lying to them, and he misses their support desperately, but he can’t risk them stopping him; there isn’t enough time. Malfoy’s condition hasn’t improved in the slightest.
Trying to convince them that no, he doesn’t want to go to the Burrow for Christmas and no, he isn’t mad at them and no, he doesn’t want them to stay with him, he wants them to go and have fun is harder than he thinks using the spell will be.
“Look, if this is about Ginny, her new boyfriend isn’t coming.” Ron looks at him earnestly.
“Ginny has a new boyfriend?” Harry asks. He’s not sure how he feels about this information.
Ron looks at Hermione for help.
“Harry, we want you there,” she says, smiling. She’s got a pair of fuzzy white earmuffs on, and her cheeks are red from cold. Snowflakes cling in her hair and eyelashes.
“I know,” he says, and leans down to wrap her in a hug. Her breath is warm against his neck. He does the same with Ron, then steps back. “I want to be here. It’s Hogwarts. I love the Burrow, but this is my last chance to have Christmas here, at my first home.” He doesn’t realise how sincerely he means it until the words are free.
Looking back at the spires of the castle, a sharp pain of longing goes through his chest. It hurts more, he thinks, to miss something that isn’t gone yet.
“I love you guys,” Harry says, feeling sentimental. He can’t think that this might be the last time he’ll see them for a long while. The spell will go right; it has to.
“It’s not too late,” Ron says. “Train’s still waiting.”
Harry exhales. His breath crystallizes in the air, hanging briefly before the wind steals it away. “Go ahead, guys. It won’t wait forever. Keep a look out in the post for your presents.”
Hermione reaches out, brushes some snow from his hair. “We’ll miss you, Harry.”
“Me too.”
He watches them traipse off through the snow towards the Express, their joined hands swinging merrily between them. The bright red of the Hogwarts Express stands out starkly against the snow-covered ground, and it billows steam into the clear morning sky.
Hermione and Ron stick their heads out of their compartment and wave as the train kicks to life. Harry cups his hands around his mouth, yells, “Happy Christmas!” He waves until the train is out of sight, then lets his hand drop back to his side.
Harry stands in the cold and watches the point where the train vanished.
When he can’t feel his fingers and toes anymore, he turns and goes back into the castle.
⨯⨯⨯
Nightfall descends. Neville nervously checks and rechecks the bag of things he’s packed. For his part, Harry has nothing besides his wand. He’s still dressed in his clothes from earlier, jeans and an old t-shirt with a logo so faded he can’t tell what it’s supposed to be advertising.
For the eleventh time, Neville checks the clock. “Okay,” he says nervously. “I think we can go now.”
They crowd together underneath the invisibility cloak. They’re too big for it, and their feet jut out the bottom. Hopefully if they hurry, no one will notice a disembodied pair of shoes walking down the corridors.
Harry doesn’t think he’s felt this anxious since first year. Every noise sends his heart rate skyrocketing, but with all the students gone, the halls are incredibly bare. There are no prefects to catch them, no teachers worrying about students getting up to mischief. This is why they waited this long, spent the last month going to class and pretending everything was normal.
The infirmary is filled with faint blue light and quiet as a morgue. Harry shivers. Malfoy is the only person in the entire room. His hair is white in the moonlight, and Harry can’t tell if Malfoy’s paler than he was before or it’s just his imagination.
They shuck off the cloak and stand there, uncertain where to begin.
“Pull that bed close to his.”
Harry complies, grabbing the cot next to Malfoy’s and pushing the beds together. The sound of the legs on the stone floor makes a spine-tingling sound and Harry grimaces. Hopefully Pomfrey is either a deep sleeper or gone home for Christmas.
Pulling up a chair, Neville begins pulling things out of his bag. First the book, then his wand, and finally a bottle filled with an indeterminably-coloured liquid. “Drink this,” he says. “Calming Potion.”
Harry hesitates a moment, then pulls out the cork and downs the entire bottle. He climbs on the empty bed and leans back, trying to breathe, wondering how long the potion will take to take effect.
Neville opens the book up to the right page, setting his bookmark aside. “Last chance to change your mind, Harry,” he says. “I can do it.”
Harry shakes his head. “I’m ready.” He sounds more confident than he feels.
“Okay.” With a finger, Neville skims over the words. “You’ll need to take his hand.”
Malfoy’s covered with the sheet up to his neck, so Harry has to pull the blankets down and tug Malfoy’s arm free. It feels wrong, almost creepy, especially with Malfoy not reacting in the slightest.
His face is serene. A cloud passes over the moon, its shadow drifting across Malfoy’s features. His hand, when Harry takes it, is strangely limp. His fingers are long and thin, cool to the touch. Unexpectedly, Harry has a crisis about how he’s supposed to hold it—does he intertwine their fingers, or does he just clasp them? He’d never quite been able to figure it out with Ginny, either.
The thought makes him laugh softly, mostly just a huff of air. He waves Neville off and leans back, resting his head on the pillow and shutting his eyes. The world boils down to the sound of paper and the feeling of Malfoy’s hand in his own.
It does remind him a bit of Sleeping Beauty, Harry thinks. He wonders who Malfoy’s true love is. Parkinson? They dated for a bit, but she doesn’t seem right. Who else is there? Bulstrode? The thought makes him want to laugh again. He supposes it doesn’t matter. It would just make things a bit easier if Malfoy could be fixed with a kiss and not a spell liable to have Harry joining Malfoy and Lockhart in St. Mungo’s.
“Hey, Neville?” Harry asks.
“Yeah?”
“I left Ron and Hermione’s presents on my bed. If—if I can’t mail them, can you?”
“Yeah,” Neville whispers, voice scratchy.
“Yours is there, too. The little red one.”
“Okay,” Neville chokes out.
“I’m ready whenever you are.”
There is a minute where Neville composes himself. “Ready. And, Harry?” Harry waits. “Thank you.”
They begin. Neville murmurs the spell, word after word, until it all blends together. It surrounds Harry, fills him up. He feels a bit like he’s floating, drifting away on the tide. The air around him grows warmer, brighter, and he breathes in and out, focussing on Malfoy’s hand.
Neville’s voice goes lower, indistinct. It doesn’t even sound like words anymore, just a low buzz that Harry can feel against his skin. The air, he thinks, smells like honeysuckle.
There’s a tickle on the back of his hand, and he pulls it free from Malfoy’s without thinking, opening his eyes.
A bee lifts off from his hand, the buzzing sound increasingly momentarily as it flies by his ear, and then ends as it zooms away. High green hedges surround Harry, a warm summer sun shining down from directly above. Somewhere nearby, there is a loud, warbling birdcall.
Wherever he is, Harry is alone.