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“Draco.” The voice is deep, rich, and Draco would know it anywhere.
He stifles a sigh, and raises his eyes from the piece he’s working on. “Potter.”
“What’s that?” He’s close, too close, but then again, he always is. Draco can smell him, crisp lemon, a hint of peppermint.
“Amulet.”
“It’s pretty.” Harry reaches a tentative finger towards the delicate crystal amulet, and Draco slaps it away. “Sorry.” He grins sheepishly.
Draco hums his acceptance and returns to his work. Potter watches him intently, his eyes bright and green, a half-smile curving his lips. He wears his hair longer on top now, closely cropped on the sides. It suits him, suits him better than Draco wants to admit, but Draco misses the chaotic mess that it was in his youth. “Did you listen to the Quidditch on the wireless last night?”
“No,” Draco sighs, when it becomes obvious that Potter isn’t going to leave until he answers him. “I was out.”
“That’s nice,” Potter replies, leaning closer again. Draco feels the hair on his arm standing up in reaction. “It was a rubbish game anyway. Did you have a good time?”
“I did,” Draco says through gritted teeth.
“Maybe next time, you’ll go out with me.”
“Now why would I want to do that, Potter?”
The green eyes darken a little, and he sweeps his eyes over Draco appraisingly. “You’re a smart lad, Malfoy. I’m sure you can figure it out.”
“Well, I’ll let you know if I ever decide to go slumming it, Potter.” Draco tries to inject the same cutting disdain that he once wielded so successfully, but he’s out of practice, and so it just sounds like a challenge.
“Do that,” Harry says, his perfect teeth flashing white as he grins.
“Excuse me, are you Harry Potter?” Harry’s attention is diverted by a girl, no older than thirteen, a bit squat, acne riddling her cheeks. She reminds Draco a little of Pansy, before she learned glamour charms and grew into her curves.
“I am,” Harry confirms. “It’s nice to meet you.”
The girl flushes. “I just…I always wanted to meet you.”
“Thanks,” Harry replies easily. “Do you go to Hogwarts?”
Her red cheeks grow crimson, and she looks at her feet. “No,” she says softly. “I haven’t enough magic.”
“I see,” Harry says. “If I couldn't see that you’re too smart to have your head turned by a line, I’d tell you that your smile is magic.”
She looks up, and Draco can see that the cheesy line has indeed turned her head a little. She beams at him. “You’re just as nice as I always thought you were,” she gushes.
“That’s kind of you. Thanks for coming to say hello. I hope you have a good day.” He takes her elbow gently, and escorts her to the door, opening it with a flourish, and bowing her onto the step.
“Smooth,” Draco says dryly, when he returns.
“Aw, don’t be mean, Draco.”
“I’m not being mean. I’m just pointing out how inappropriate it is for the Chosen one to be flirting with underage girls.”
Potter laughs. “I wasn’t flirting with her. Merlin, she’s young, and a bit starstruck. I was just being nice.”
“If you say so,” Draco sniffs. “Now go. You’re in my light and I need to finish this.”
“You’re sure you won’t go out with me?”
“You’re sure hell hasn’t frozen over?”
“One day, Draco. One day you’ll say yes.”
“Well, fortunately for us both, Pansy’s promised to apparate me directly to Mungo’s if I’m ever insane enough to do so.”
“I’m going to keep trying,” Harry promises as he steps through the door.
Draco huffs and returns to his work. The bell on the door rings almost immediately afterward, and Draco shouts, “I said go away, Potter!”
“Oh,” Grace, his assistant says. “Did I miss Harry?”
Draco sighs. His assistant loves Harry. Everyone loves Harry. Even Draco has to admit that, now that he’s not sharing a soul with a madman, he's surprisingly easy to get along with. Harry flirts indiscriminately with everyone he crosses paths with, and Draco supposes that they’re flattered by the attention of the ‘Man who Saved us All’.
“You did,” he confirms, and Grace affects a pout.
“Pity,” she says. “Did you give him the biscuits I made him?”
“Slipped my mind,” Draco replies, immersing himself in the tricky charms work again.
“Draco! They won’t be as nice tomorrow!”
“Oh, pardon me,” he says haughtily. “I’m busy running a business, you know.”
“Whatever. Did you agree to go out with him yet?”
“Of course I didn’t, Grace.”
“You’re mental.”
Draco considers getting offended, or dressing Grace down for insubordination, but he merely says, “It isn’t like he’s seriously asking.”
Grace doesn’t answer, and Draco looks up to find her staring hard at him. Her brown eyes are wide, and she’s biting her lip. He finally snaps at her. “What?”
“You don’t think he’s serious?”
“Of course not. He’s a shameless flirt. Now could you go bring out some stock for the window?”
In truth, the first time that Harry had asked Draco out, he’d been terribly hurt, thinking that Harry was making fun of him for his sexuality. Draco knew that he’d been unkind as a child, not just to Harry, but to…well, everyone, but he was disappointed that Harry would stoop to something so hurtful.
Then, after Neville had told Harry of a child who was being bullied at Hogwarts because they were non-binary, Harry himself had come out. To the Prophet, in a multiple page article, complete with a photo spread. Draco refused to admit that he’d found the images devastatingly sexy. In one, Harry was decked out in a navy pinstriped Muggle suit, leaning back in a chair, one long leg propped against a window frame. He stared out the window, the angle highlighting his strong chin. Harry had a day’s growth of facial hair, and he looked dangerous, in a sort of swashbuckling kind of way.
But it was the centre spread that captivated Draco. In it, he’d lost the suit jacket and tie, and his shirt was unbuttoned a bit, revealing just a tease of chest hair. It was a close-up shot, and Harry looked steadily at the camera. He’d removed his glasses, and his green eyes were enormous, and stood out against his pale skin. At first, the image appeared to be Muggle-style. Harry didn’t move at all. Until, suddenly, the corner of his mouth turned up into a wicked smirk, and his eyes sparkled. Draco had cut out the photo, hidden it behind a dubiously-legal ward in his bedside drawer. He hardly looked at it all.
So, even after he’d eliminated the possibility that Harry had been mocking his sexuality, he dismissed Harry’s constant come-ons. Harry had grown into his fame better, that was all, and he’d learned that flattery and charm worked far better to manage people than scowls and furious bursts of temper. It was…nearly Slytherin of him, and, while grudgingly impressed, Draco was content that Harry treated him just like everyone else.
After all, it's ludicrous that Harry would even consider actually dating Draco Malfoy, failed Death Eater, who no longer has a healthy fortune, a future seat on the Wizengamot, or a family name that prompts respect (or fear). Determined that he won’t be caught as one of the lovesick fools who panted after Harry Potter, Draco responds to his silly advances with long-honed weapons: sarcasm and biting wit. It seems to be working well, even if it does cause Draco’s heart to leap unnaturally every time Harry gets too close.
A week later, Draco enters the Leaky Cauldron, where a sizeable crowd has assembled to celebrate Ron’s birthday. He’s gratified by the shout of welcome from the large corner table, and Hannah waves from behind the bar, sending a large Gin and Soda floating his way. He sinks down next to Blaise, exchanging a grin with Ginny. Harry arrives several minutes later, not that Draco’s been watching for him. He flops down next to Ron, and Draco watches Hermione lean over Ron until she can reach his cheek. She kisses him, and whispers something that makes Harry blush.
Too late, Draco realizes that Dennis Creevey sits to his left. He stifles a sigh, and says, “Hullo, Dennis.”
“Draco,” His wide blue eyes are guileless, fixated on Draco. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” Draco says. “Busy.”
“Oh yeah? Um…me too. I imagine you’re too busy to leave work, but if you ever want me to bring you in lunch or anything,” he says, his voice trailing off.
Draco considers creully blowing him off. His old self would have, would have gone out of his way to hurt and ridicule the man. But Dennis is harmless, if clueless. He seems to have a crush on Draco, and it’s sweet, if unwelcome. Draco resolves to set him straight, kindly, in private. “I’ll remember that, Dennis, thanks.”
Dennis’ face goes pink, and his grin encompasses his entire face. His eyes are filled with hope. Draco smiles back at him, and quickly engages Hermione in a discussion about her job. He listens with half an ear, until his gaze lands on Harry. Harry, who is examining Dennis Creevey with an inscrutable look on his face. His eyes flick to Draco’s, and for just a moment, Harry is completely unguarded. There’s something in Harry’s eyes, something vulnerable, and young, and hurt. Draco wonders if Dennis Creevey has managed something that nobody else has. Perhaps Dennis has a real chance at Harry Potter’s heart.
Ignoring the painful burning sensation that centres in his chest, Draco swallows hard, and mentally wishes the couple good luck. Harry deserves someone like Dennis. Someone good, and who was smart enough to be on the right side of the war, and who could be sweetly devoted to him. Someone that Harry wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen with.
Later, after countless toasts, Dennis excuses himself to the loo, and Harry sidles around the table to sit next to Draco. Draco tenses. He can be the bigger man about all of this, but he wishes it didn't warrant a discussion.
“So, Dennis?” Harry asks, his tone faux-casual.
“No, Potter. Nothing to worry about there.”
“Really?” His face is suddenly joyful, and Draco can’t take another moment of watching this unfold before his very eyes.
“Excuse me, Potter. I have to go.” Draco pushes past him, ignoring how firm Harry’s thighs are as Draco scoots across them. He shouts a quick goodbye, ignoring Blaise’s always-laughing eyes as he raises an eyebrow. He apparates home, ignoring the visions of Harry sweetly kissing Dennis Creevey that he can’t get out of his mind. He stands on his balcony until his hands are numb, enumerating all of the reasons why he doesn’t deserve someone like Harry Potter.
It’s a week before Harry returns to the shop, and Draco has spent much of it snapping at Grace over trivialities and not thinking about Potter’s new romance. The bell on the door goes, and Harry enters with all of his usual confidence, but there’s something different about his eyes. A guarded hesitance, as though a realization is dawning slowly on him, and he doesn’t like what he’s learning.
He sets a cupcake onto the counter in front of Draco, who curses the fact that he doesn’t have a work in progress to focus on. He looks at the cupcake instead. It’s, frankly, a beautiful piece of confectionary. It’s topped with a generous swirl of thick silver icing, and there are little silver stars sprinkled throughout. The wrapping is a dark luscious green. “Slytherin colours,” Harry says unnecessarily. “It made me think of you.”
“What flavour is it?” Draco asks, and he can’t help the churlish tone.
“The cake is apple cinnamon, and the icing is caramel,” he says, his voice a bit proud. Draco loves apple, and his sweet tooth was legendary amongst his housemates. It’s a perfect choice. “There’s a surprise inside.”
Draco purses his lips. If there’s anything he likes more than sweets, it’s surprises. “How’s Dennis?” His voice is a little too loud.
“Dennis?” Harry asks, his head tilted to the side questioningly.
“Dennis Creevey?”
“Er…I suppose he’s fine? You saw him too, at the pub. Remember, he was hitting on you?”
“Yes,” Draco sighs. “I remember.” Harry doesn’t say anything for a minute, and now Draco isn’t sure that he’s dating Dennis after all.
“How’s work?” Harry asks, leaning on the counter.
“A little slow this week,” Draco replies. “It’ll pick up near the holidays.”
“I…um, I was hoping that I could commission a piece of your work,” Harry says suddenly.
“Really, Potter? I wouldn’t think you needed protective jewelry, being the Saviour and all,” Draco says, wishing he were a better man, that he could simply treat Harry like he treats all of their other friends.
Harry flinches, but continues. “It’s um…for Teddy, actually.”
“You want a protective amulet for a three-year-old? Potter, these aren’t exactly trinkets.”
“Of course they aren’t!” Harry’s voice is properly indignant. “I know. It’s just…” he runs a hand through his hair, eyes lowered. “Teddy’s important.”
“What’s your budget?”
“I don’t really have a budget, Draco. Whatever material you think best, as many protective spells as you can manage to add. A portkey. And…no, never mind,” he says.
“What?”
“No, it’s stupid, do whatever you think, design-wise.”
“Potter, there’s clearly something else you want.” Draco knows his voice sounds impatient, but he wants to know.
“Could you make the amulet in the shape of a wolf?”
He looks up, and it’s obvious that he expects Draco to make fun of him, or to say something about Teddy’s Father. Draco doesn’t have it in him to be that cruel, not anymore. “Yeah, Potter. I could do that.”
“Thanks, Draco. Should I put down a deposit? For materials?”
He should. It’s store policy, and Draco’s margins aren’t good enough to make items on spec, not yet. “No, that’s fine.”
“Thanks, Draco.” His smile blooms across his face. “And maybe I could take you for some lunch? To say thanks?”
“Why would I go for lunch when I have this lovely cupcake to eat?” Draco parries. He can’t bear to sit across a table and look at the only person Draco thinks he has a chance of loving. Not when Draco is the last man Harry would actually consider. “Off you go, Potter.”
“I’ll just keep asking, then,” Harry replies, and he reaches into his pocket, removing a second boxed cupcake. It’s not as pretty as Draco’s, but it’s still an acceptable specimen. “For you, Grace,” he says setting it on her counter.
The minute he’s gone, Grace turns to Draco. “You’re a nutter,” she says.
He reels back in offence. “Your nerve!”
“You have Harry sodding Potter panting after you, and you won’t give him the time of day. And don’t tell me that you don’t find him attractive. I’ve seen the way you look at him. He’s probably the nicest bloke in London. What’s wrong with you?”
“If it were any of your business,” Draco sniffs, “I’d tell you that Potter and I have far too much poor history to be compatible. And you’re the nutter if you don’t see that he’s just flirting with me because I don’t indulge him. He just likes the game.”
Grace blows her bright blue hair out of her eyes and gives him a petulant look. She’s only a few years younger than Draco, but some days, it feels like he’s an entire generation older than her. Her eyes roll, hard, and she says, “See what you want, I suppose.”
Draco sniffs, and disappears into the back to start some sketches for the amulet Potter wants. It’s a point of professional pride to ensure that it’s his best work. He finds himself in the shop, hours past closing, trying to cram as much of the fiddly magic into the tiny pendant. He tells himself that it’s because Teddy is family, and because it wouldn’t do to produce anything less for the most influential man in Wizarding London. And, in the early hours of the morning, when the delicate work of stacking the charms collapses upon itself, putting paid to the hours of work he’s already invested, he doesn’t have a fit. He doesn’t throw the stupid pendant into a corner of the shop and stomp to his flat. He sighs, pushes a long tendril of hair out of his eyes, and starts again.
And each day that he works on the amulet, Harry comes in to ‘check on how the work’s going’. He watches Draco, captivating green eyes alight with something, chewing his lower lip as he squints at Draco’s hands. And he smiles at Draco, and asks him to dinner, or suggests that they go for a fly to ‘clear Draco’s head’. And each day, Draco puts him off with a sarcastic comment. Grace continues to sing under her breath about how much of a nutter Draco is.
Things take a bit of a turn on the morning after Draco finishes the amulet. He opens the shop late, having grabbed a scant three hours sleep after finishing the work. A woman comes in, ranting about shoddy workmanship, brandishing a ring that she says has defective attraction charms. “That might be, madam,” Draco replies, “but since our shop absolutely would not charm anything with an attraction charm, I’d suggest you take this product to the store that you purchased it from.”
“Well, I never!” The woman seems to double in size, filled with air, and affront. Her cheeks grow pink. “Of course I bought it here.”
“I’m sure that you think you did,” Draco says patiently, “but we have a very strict policy about attraction charms, and so we just wouldn’t have sold it to you.”
“How dare you?” The woman is shaking her fist in Draco’s face. “You think that we’ve forgotten? What you did? What your whole Merlin-damned family did? You might wear the cloak of respectability now, but everyone who sees you sees a bloody Death Eater! And now you’re going to just stand there and lie and cheat me?”
Draco is silent, he can’t move. She’s screaming everything that he thinks every day. Except the lying and cheating part, Draco knows he hasn’t cheated anyone. But she’s not wrong about Draco’s attempts to try to forget the reprehensible things he did during the war. Draco wants to crawl underneath the counter, but his limbs are wooden and he can’t move a muscle. Shame, hot and acrid, suffuses his face. He can’t say anything.
“Right.” The voice is clipped, furious. Of fucking course Harry Potter would be here to witness his humiliation. Potter doesn’t look at Draco, his attention is fully focused on the screaming woman who’s in Draco’s face. “Out. You don’t get to come and scream rubbish at anyone, much less someone in their place of business.”
“Traitor,” the woman hisses at Harry. “Your parents would be mortified. This is how you respect their sacrifice? Shame on you!”
Draco has just enough presence of mind to recognize how much Potter has grown up. He doesn’t sputter, his face doesn’t redden at the abuse the woman is now hurling at him. He merely blinks at her for a moment, and then, in a calm but quiet voice says, “You don’t know what my parents would think, and you don’t get to tell me your opinion. Remove yourself, madam, or I’ll floo the Aurors. Take your filthy words and your disgusting opinions somewhere else.”
She storms from the store, muttering under her breath about speaking to the Prophet. Potter immediately turns to Draco. “Draco,” he says, his voice gentle. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, Potter.” He can barely get the words past his lips. All he wants is to be alone in his humiliation.
“I’m so sorry that she said those things,” Potter continues.
“It’s none of your business,” Draco replies.
“Of course it’s my business. Draco, I care about you-”
“Stop!” Draco’s near-hysterical with grief, and shame. “Stop getting involved in things! I don’t know why you keep coming here, and taunting me with your stupid invitations to coffee and your cupcakes! I want you to go!”
“Draco, I’m not taunting you!”
Draco has had enough. He’s nearly undone, with Potter’s constant visits, with the tiny, stupid bolt of hope that ratchets through his body every time Potter flirts with him. With the ridiculous notion that Potter might be serious before Draco realizes that of course he isn’t. With the embarrassment of the intensity that he wishes that Potter actually wanted him. Draco hasn’t acted like a cruel little twat since he was a lot younger, but as he hits his breaking point, he reverts to old habits.
“You’re pathetic, Potter. Hanging around here, panting after me like a lovestruck fool. As if I’d ever be with someone like you. The joke’s over, Potter, get the fuck out of here.”
It hurts him, Draco notes. He watches the light disappear from Potter’s incredible eyes, and his jaw tighten, and his shoulders hunch a little. “Oh,” Potter says quietly. “I didn’t realize.”
There’s a tiny, savage part of Draco that feels redemption, like a lock clicking home. The childish, self-destructive part of Draco’s personality that registers that he’s struck back, that someone else is damaged as much as Draco has been. The rest of him feels as though he’s suddenly died. That he’s been cruel to the one person who deserves it least. But, he stubbornly ignores that part, and clings to the petty, stupid part of himself that affirms that what he’s done is right.
As the door clicks quietly shut behind Potter, Draco squares his shoulders, flips the ‘open’ sign to ‘closed’, and locks the door to his shop. As he gets blindingly drunk in his flat, he tells himself that this was inevitable.
It’s a week before Draco opens the shop again. He’d sent Grace an owl, assured her that she’d be paid full wages, and that he’d let her know when he was ready to reopen. She sent the owl back with one word scrawled on the back of his letter: Nutter.
The shop, after being closed for a week, does brisk business for all of the first day, and the morning of the second before it tapers off to usual traffic levels. Draco is proud of the fact that he’s managed to keep his business alive, that he’s doing good work. His Mother despairs of him, working in a shop like a commoner, but Draco likes it, and he’s more than grateful that he has something to distract him from his lingering upset at the scene in the shop the week before. He resolutely doesn’t think of Ha-…Potter, except to reassure himself that it’s for the best. He managed to stop things before they got out of hand.
He tells himself that until Blaise comes into the shop, an hour before closing, and flips the sign on the door. “Grace,” Blaise calls, “take off a bit early today, yeah?”
“Are you here to talk some sense into this tosser?” Grace wants to know.
“Of course.”
“Alright then.” Grace puts her wand into her back pocket and leaves without another word.
“Blaise, what?” Draco finally demands when Blaise stands for ages, looking at him as though he’s something disgusting.
“I’m trying to figure out whether you’re cruel, stupid, or simply too blind to see what’s in front of your nose,” Blaise says airily.
“Go fuck yourself,” Draco growls.
“You’re a git, Draco.”
Draco holds out his hands, palms up, as if to say, ‘what did you expect?’. Blaise continues, “You know, we all thought that you were playing some sort of long, drawn-out game. Otherwise, why would you keep him on the hook for so long?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I could have sworn that you were interested. You never actually told him that you weren’t. It seemed like you were playing hard to get. And if you didn’t want to date Harry, I thought that you at least were friends with all of the Gryffindors now.”
Draco shrugs. He doesn’t want to talk about it.
Blaise glares at him. “Well, if this was part of some elaborate scheme to destroy Harry’s confidence, I wish you’d let Pans and I know beforehand. We’re actually friends with him now, and you’ve made things awfully awkward.”
“I’m terribly sorry to have disrupted your social life,” Draco sneers.
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Draco, grow up. We aren’t twelve anymore.” Blaise’s eyes are snapping, and his face is hard. He isn’t going to let Draco off the hook. “Do you really get off this hard on self-punishment? That you’d ruin your chances with the bloke you’ve been obsessed over since first year? And do so in the meanest possible way?”
“Stop.” Draco barely recognizes his voice. He pushes past Blaise, ready to apparate somewhere, anywhere else.
“If you’ve convinced yourself you don’t need to be happy, fine, but did you really need to take Harry down with you?”
“Where do you get off, Blaise? This is none of your business. Potter doesn’t want anything to do with me, and it was him who was being cruel, with the weird games he was playing with me.”
“You’re deluded. Or you haven’t been paying attention. I guess it doesn’t really matter anyways. Harry’s leaving.”
Draco freezes. “What?”
“He’s…he’s not okay. He won’t tell anyone where he’s going, but he’s leaving tonight. I just got finished trying to talk him out of it, but if he won’t listen to Hermione and Ron, or Andromeda, he’s not going to listen to me.”
Draco’s stomach churns, and he feels a drop of cold sweat trickle down his temple. He allows himself, just for a second, to imagine his life, as it is now, with no Potter. No tousle-haired menace, dropping by with a sweet, or a book he thought Draco might like. No invitations to go flying. No more green eyes watching him closely. No more pub nights, where Harry would oh-so-casually manipulate the people sitting next to Draco so that he could take their place. No more owls in the middle of the night reminding Draco to ‘drink a glass of water, proper hydration is very important’. No more Harry.
Oh Merlin, Draco thinks. He did like me. And Draco was a shit to him. Whatever happens, Draco can’t let Harry leave thinking that Draco believes the horrible things he’d said. He turns wide eyes on Blaise. “Lock the store up?”
“Yes, go, you stupid tit. Fix this.” Blaise gives him a half-smile. Draco doesn’t care. He’ll work on making everyone else forgive him later.
Draco has never been to Number 12 Grimmauld Place, but Harry keyed him into the wards over a year ago, telling Draco that he was welcome anytime. At the time, Draco had thought it another stupid joke, but the door opens easily, and he realizes that Harry has been going to so much effort to prove to Draco that things were different, that he trusted Draco. The thought makes Draco want to weep with shame and guilt, but he tells himself that he’ll indulge later.
The house is quiet as Draco enters, and for a moment, Draco’s terrified that he’s too late. There’s a muffled thud from upstairs though, followed by a muttered curse, and Draco pounds up the stairs. One of the doors opens, and Harry stands there. Despite the fact that Draco has barged into his house, unannounced, Harry doesn’t carry his wand, or even look surprised. “Oh, it’s you,” he says dully.
Harry looks like shit. It’s only been a week, so he can’t have lost weight, but he looks smaller. His hair is surprisingly well-behaved, but his eyes. Gods, his eyes. They stare at Draco without interest, and they haven’t regained any of their former sparkle. I did this, Draco thinks. I broke him.
“Potter,” he says. “Harry.”
Harry doesn’t answer. He stands, hands stuffed into the pockets of his too-large jeans. Draco registers that he’s back to wearing the worn-out, enormous clothes that he used to wear, before Pansy took hold of him, and convinced him that he was too rich, and too pretty to wear rags anymore. His thick sweater looks hand-knit, and a little shabby, as though he’s worn it many times. A Weasley sweater. Harry once told him that the sweaters were the first thing he’d ever worn that made him feel good about himself. Loved. Draco had made a snide comment, but he’d remembered it, just, he can finally admit, like he’s listened to and remembered every other thing Harry’s told him.
The silence stretches too long, and Harry nods at him, and turns back into the room he’d exited. He emerges with a trunk. “You’re really leaving?” Draco asks.
He nods. “I need…I don’t know what I need, but I don’t think it’s here.” He looks so terribly sad, and so heartbreakingly young.
“Harry, I-”
“No offence, Draco, but I can’t really talk.”
“Could you listen? Just for a moment?” Draco’s voice isn’t usually this gentle, but this is important.
“I’ll try. Did you forget to say something last week?” Harry tries for a smile, but it falters, and he looks wretched.
“No. Harry, I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I didn’t mean those things, not at all.”
“Blaise put you up to this, I imagine. It’s fine, Draco. Stuff I needed to hear, really.”
“What? Blaise didn’t put me up to anything. He told me you were leaving, but-”
“Well, it’s okay. No apologies necessary. I have to go now, though.”
“You’re really leaving?”
“Yeah.”
“Where are you going?”
Harry shrugs. “Dunno. Away.”
“You’re just going to leave? With no destination in mind?”
Another shrug. “It’s not really where I’m going that matters, yeah? Just…can’t be here.”
“Harry, I swear, I didn’t mean those awful things I said. Please don’t go.”
“It doesn’t matter whether you meant them, Draco. Honestly, I don’t blame you. I actually appreciate you saying them. I needed to hear it. I was being stupid, and…I need to figure out how to…not be.”
“I don’t understand. Please, Harry, explain to me. I want to understand.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“Please?”
Harry pushes his glasses up on his nose and sighs. “I’m not really good at explaining stuff, but I’ll try. Everyone has moved on, since the war. Figured out what they wanted to do, started dating people. Growing up. And I just…couldn’t. I couldn’t let go of stuff, and so I couldn’t fathom how I might try to live a proper life.”
He sighs. “So I didn’t. I was in a pretty bad place. Most days, it was an accomplishment to just get out of bed. Ron and Hermione did their best, but they have careers, and a relationship, and it’s selfish to expect them to put it on hold for me. So I hid as much as I could, went through the motions. Existed.
“Things got worse, as time went by. I decided that it wasn’t worth pretending anymore. I went to Diagon, intending to get some poison on Knockturn.” He looks at Draco, his eyes impossibly green.
“Potter, I had no idea-” Draco starts. Potter interrupts him.
“No, of course you didn’t. Nobody did. Anyways, I was heading to Knockturn, and I noticed that there was a new shop. And through the window, I saw this flash of white-blond hair. I didn’t go to Knockturn that day. I went home, and spent the whole night wondering what sort of shop Draco Malfoy would have opened. I came back every day for a week, trying to catch a glimpse of you through the window.
“Finally, I got enough courage to go inside, and that was the day that I apologized to you for all of the animosity during school. I didn’t want to die with that still on my conscience. It was one of the only things I could do anything about. Most of the people I wronged during the War are too...dead to apologize to. I bought the poison that day, came home fully intending to use it.
“But I couldn’t get you out of my head. I don’t even remember what you said to me that day, but I know that I spent all night trying to figure it out. I didn’t realize it at the time, but something changed for me that day.
“You’ve always challenged me, Draco. You drive me mad, and fascinate me in equal measure. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but looking back, I can see that it kept me alive. It took me ages to realize that I was in love with you, but once I did, I committed to it with every bit of myself. I was determined that, if I just tried hard enough, I could win your love, and have a reason to live.
“Harry-”
“No, no, I realize now that it was terribly stupid of me. Don’t worry. Even though it gave me a reason to get out of bed, put on clean clothes, leave the house, it wasn’t healthy for me, and it wasn’t really fair to put that kind of pressure on you. When you finally disabused me of my delusions last week, it was…difficult.”
Draco opens his mouth to speak, but Harry raises a hand, his expression determined. He continues, “It made me realize that what I’ve been doing is all wrong. I have to figure out whether I can build a life for myself or not. I can’t keep trying to define myself in relation to other people.”
Draco grabs Harry’s hands. “Harry, please. You have to understand. I’ve been so stupid. I lo-”
“Shh.” Harry puts a finger to Draco’s lips. “It doesn’t matter. Don’t say something you don’t mean. I have to do this. I have to leave the ghosts behind and see if there’s anything left of me. On my own.”
“But Harry, I don’t think that it’s safe to go away on your own.”
Harry smiles, and it’s the most unbearably sad thing Draco has ever seen. “But Draco, I am on my own. I have lovely friends, and I’m more grateful to them than I can ever say. But I don’t really have anyone. I have to make a decision, and I have to make it on my own.”
“Will you come back?” Draco’s voice reveals a lot of the terror he’s feeling.
“If I do, I’ll come back a real person. If I don’t, it’s because there’s nothing left of me. I have to know. Do you understand that?”
“Not really. Harry, please don’t do this. I can help you, I can get you support.”
“No thank you,” Harry replies kindly. His eyes are far away. He’s already left.
“Please, Harry. Please?” Draco doesn’t care that a Malfoy never begs. He’s only just realized that everything he’s ever wanted is slipping through his grasp, and he’s going to do anything he can to hang on.
“Take care, Draco.”
“No!” Draco doesn’t mean to shout, but he’s desperate, frantic. “You can’t do this. You can’t let me worry like this. If you’ve ever cared about me at all, Harry, please. Please don’t leave me to wonder for the rest of my life.”
Harry considers this. After a moment, he says, “I’ll send you a letter on the full moon of each month. To let you know I’m still around. If the letters ever stop, you won’t have to wonder anymore.”
Tears pour down Draco’s face. “Please, Harry. Please, please, please don’t do this.”
Harry reaches out a hesitant hand, and gently strokes the side of Draco’s face. “Goodbye, Draco.” He spins on his heel, and he’s gone.
Draco feels every day of Harry’s absence like a physical ache in his breastbone. He goes through the motions, opens his shop, spends time with his friends, cleans his flat. He stays up into the early hours of the morning, berating himself for being so foolish and shortsighted to have gotten things so wrong. He replays every conversation they had, searching for the single moment when he could have saved Harry.
A week after Harry leaves, Draco is desultorily tidying his workbench and sees the amulet that he’d made for Teddy. He looks down at it for a long time, and then he takes a deep breath, and apparates to the address that he’s known, but been terrified for ages to visit.
As he knocks on the door, he notices that his hands are shaking, but it doesn’t matter. The woman who answers it is startlingly like Aunt Bellatrix in appearance, but has infinitely kinder eyes. “Draco Malfoy?” Her tone isn’t welcoming, exactly, but it’s not angry either.
“Yes, Mrs. Tonks. I’m sorry to come unannounced.”
“Why are you here?”
“I…Harry-”
“You know something about Harry?” Her face changes completely at the mention of Harry’s name. “Is he well? Do you know where he is?”
“I don’t. I don’t know if he’s well, and I have no idea where he is. I’m sorry, I wish that I did.”
She sees something in his expression, and her face softens. Draco suddenly sees the resemblance between this woman and his Mother. “You’d better come inside.”
Tea is served, and Draco is introduced to Teddy, who is sweet, and beyond excited at meeting a new cousin. His hair immediately morphs white-blond, and he insists on sitting on Draco’s lap until he suddenly, in mid-babble, falls asleep. Andromeda chuckles. “He’s just like his mum,” she observes fondly. “Nymphadora used to crash out just like that.”
“I’m very sorry, Aunt, about everything that happened to your family during the War. I’m sorry for my role in it.”
“You were a child,” Andromeda answers flatly. “You aren’t responsible for it.”
“I was a child,” Draco agrees. “But I also understand how wrong my thought process was. And I’m sorry.”
“Thank you, Draco. Is that why you’ve come?”
“Not exactly,” Draco replies. “Before he left, Harry asked me to charm an amulet for Teddy. He left before I was able to give it to him, but I thought that he would have liked me to bring it here. You can check the charm work,” he continued, a little defensively. “There’s nothing that will hurt Teddy.”
“Of course there isn’t,” Andromeda says. “Harry wouldn’t have trusted just anyone with something for Teddy.” She scrutinizes him. “There’s something between you and Harry, isn’t there.”
“Maybe?” Draco asks uncertainly. “I found out too late that he was interested in me, and I messed it all up.”
“And how do you feel?”
“I think I love him.”
“Good,” Andromeda says decisively. “That’s all Harry needs. He’s never had enough love.”
Draco spends hours thinking about how true that is.
The full moon arrives, and with it, a parchment clutched in the claws of a fairly bedraggled looking owl. It simply says, 'I’m fine.'
Draco indulges in a lonely weeping fit, and then goes to Hermione. He knows how worried everyone is about Harry, and he can’t keep this proof of life to himself. She takes one look at the parchment and bursts into tears. After calming down, and mopping her face with Draco’s handkerchief, she sighs. “Harry is always ‘fine’, even when he isn’t. Especially when he isn’t. He’s alive, but he isn’t okay. I feel so helpless. I feel like he’s battling for his life, and we’re not with him. We’re always with him.”
Draco doesn’t tell her how right she actually is. “I think,” he says carefully, “that Harry feels like he needs to do this on his own.”
“Of course he does.”
The next month, it’s another scribbled ‘I’m fine,’. The month after that, it simply says, ‘Still alive.’ That pattern continues for another six months, until the seventh, when the scrap of parchment simply says, ‘Draco.’
During all of this, Draco puts one foot in front of the other. He works, he awaits the full moon, he works more. He allows himself to be dragged out to pub night, and only Hermione’s face shows the same dread and fear that his does. He thinks about Harry. He misses Harry. He allows himself to acknowledge that he’s deeply, irrevocably, in hands-sweating, mouth-drying, foolish love for Harry Potter. He bargains with the Gods, begs them, that, if they just return Harry to him, he’ll never let the silly bastard doubt for a second how loved he is. He panics, the entire day before the full moon, and his heart only properly beats when the owl arrives.
Until it doesn’t. On the eleventh moon, Draco sits in his flat, waiting, until the sun comes up, but the owl doesn’t arrive. He sits until noon comes and goes, and until night falls the next day. Only then, does he allow the brokenhearted sob to escape. He collapses to the ground, head on the cool tile, and the sounds that emerge sound barely human. He cries until his voice is gone, and his face stings, and then he just lies there, silent, and hopeless, with no intention of ever getting up again.
The knock on his door surprises him, in a dull, detached sort of way. He ignores it. It’s Hermione, he’s sure, and he can’t bear to tell her. The knocking intensifies, and Draco wonders if he has it in him to get annoyed. Faintly, from the hall, he hears, “Draco! Draco, please!”
He knows that voice. Knows it in his heart, and in his soul. It’s tattooed on his bones, and written in his brain. His treacherous brain, which is obviously mocking him now, determined to finish the job, and drive him so mad that he just dies here on his kitchen floor. There’s a louder bang on the door, followed by a quick muttered charm, and the sound of the door opening. “Draco?”
Despite not having any tears left to cry, his body shakes with sobs. When arms surround him, he tries to fight them off, and only stops struggling when he sees a flash of green that he’d know anywhere. He stills. “Draco.”
He stares, open-mouthed, at the man smiling at him. Finally, when he can’t bear the silence any more, he croaks, “Are you real?”
“Yes, Draco. I’m real.”
Harry is different. He’s put on a little weight, a little muscle, lost the skeletal, foot-in-the-grave look he had when Draco last saw him. His eyes are clear, and bright.
“You’re alive? You’re sure you’re alive?”
“I am, Draco. I’m alive. I’m here.”
It’s too much. The stress, and loneliness, and grief take hold, and Draco sobs again, and angrily batters at Harry with his fists. “You stupid, brainless, selfish git!”
“I know,” Harry soothes. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?”
“Yes. I was going to send you this month’s owl, but then I decided to just come home. To see if you wanted to see me.”
“Where have you been?”
“Everywhere, Draco. I went to so many places. I learned so much, and saw beautiful things. I met interesting people, and I finally understood what life could be like.”
Draco’s poor, battered heart shatters again. “How nice for you.”
Harry’s smile is luminous. “And what I learned most of all, Draco, was that I can live a life on my own. A good life. But I’d rather live one with you in it.” His smile falters as he scrutinizes Draco’s expression. “If you’d have me.”
Draco’s a wreck. His emotions have gone through the wringer in the span of the past day, and the clever, Slytherin part of his brain acknowledges that he’s in no shape to be making any sort of life-altering decisions. Then he looks at Harry. Harry, who’s biting his lip, and trying not to look hopeful.
“I know that I don’t have any right to expect anything from you,” Harry says nervously. “I left, and I barely stayed in contact, and I totally blew it, this moon, and I made you worried. And maybe I’m not really the right person for you…you’re so smart, and so beautiful, and you deserve…everything, Draco. The moon, and the stars, and the most amazing partner, and whatever else you want in life. I just-”
“Shut up, Potter, I’m thinking,” Draco says crossly, and immediately regrets it, since Harry’s face falls, and takes on an expression that Draco hasn’t even seen before. And then Draco realizes that he doesn’t like that he doesn’t know what the expression means, that he wants to know everything. He wants to hear about everything that Harry has seen and learned, and he would have happily sold his soul for Harry to have shown up like this a day ago. He wants Harry. It’s as simple as that.
“I think we’ve talked enough,” Draco says. Harry nods, and stands, and is about to turn towards the door. Draco feels a grin stretch across his face, and says, “so you’d better hurry up and kiss me, you shameless flirt.”