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Draco wonders if Harry knows he’s got mulled wine in his lion’s mane. He’d sloshed his drink when Seamus hollered something from across the room, and the inky red had dribbled down his chin, which he’d wiped at, indelicately, with the back of his arm. But there was still a patch of red just beneath his mouth, like he’d just devoured a lamb.
“Sorry,” Harry says, turning back to him. “What were you saying?”
Draco doesn’t remember. Neither of them were saying much of anything; they don’t tend to. But they pair off anyway, every time Pansy drags him out to these ridiculous excuses for parties. Everyone else does: Ron with Hermione. Seamus with Dean. Luna with Neville. Pansy with Ginny — which is why Draco is always dragged along in the first place.
That leaves Draco with Harry, wheels nine and ten.
Luna and Neville’s cottage is riddled with jack-o-lanterns, waxy candles, and meandering ghosts for the occasion. Black paper bats float around the room, and strings of orange and purple lights color the mist Luna charmed to hang in the air around them. Aside from that, it’s just like all of the other gatherings Pansy drags him to. They sit around and get drunk at various speeds, pair off, and leave Harry and Draco to figure out what to do with themselves.
Draco never gets the chance to remember what he was saying. Seamus drops into the chair next to Harry at the kitchen table.
“Hermione is on one tonight,” he says. “Thought it was a Halloween party, not an ethics lecture.”
“It’s not a lecture!” Hermione calls from across the room. Her hair is piled in a bun atop her head, and she’s wearing a modest black frock. Her set of beakers complete the Marie Curie outfit, though Ron and Dean have been using them as shot glasses all night. “I only said to remember it’s a community, not a costume.”
“Should have dressed up as her,” Seamus grumbles into his drink. “Now there’s a terror.”
He drops his werewolf mask onto the table. Its black lips are curled back in an eternal snarl.
Luna had insisted that costumes weren’t optional on the invite. She floats around the room, dressed as the Aurora Borealis, clouds of ambient light following her with every step. She’s gotten Neville into a Mandrake costume, complete with orange terra cotta pants and springy green leaves atop his head.
The others took this assignment with varying levels of seriousness. Ron threw on a Chudley Cannons jersey and called it a day. Pansy took it as an excuse to wear a skimpy outfit that was little more than a black bra and skirt, and added a pair of mouse ears. Harry is a lion — which is a little obvious, but it works.
Draco is Harry Potter.
Harry had laughed when he and Pansy arrived, just like Draco knew he would. He’d charmed on a scar, and the glasses were easy to find — they sold them in Harry Potter costume bundles in nearly all the shops on Diagon this time of year. Draco had opted not to use the wig, spelling his hair black and disastrous instead. He’d even gotten Pansy to nick one of Ginny’s Gryffindor scarves.
“I want to know when we’re starting the blood magic,” Pansy says, appearing from a very lengthy tour of Luna’s cottage with a dazed-out and tousle-haired Ginny on her arm. “Seems a waste not to sacrifice something to the devil tonight.”
Ginny adjusts her Percy Weasley glasses and straightens his hat on her head. “I thought you said it was all Muggle rubbish anyway.”
“It isn’t,” Luna says. “Tonight is the night that the veil between worlds is thinnest,” she adds cheerfully. “Though I don’t suppose the devil would care for a blood sacrifice — it doesn’t sound very appetizing. Maybe a cauldron cake.”
Luna’s attention is pulled away when one of the bats she’s charmed to flap about the room falls to the ground. As she stares at it curiously, the rest begin to drop from the air like rainfall. Then the room is plunged into darkness.
A chorus of “lumos” immediately rings out as half of the party reflexively light their wands. The room is lit for a few seconds in a flash of half-illuminated faces, and then each of the lights stammer out.
Harry is on his feet immediately. There’s a click from across the room when Neville attempts to turn the light on, but it doesn’t work.
“Oh,” Luna says. “This is interesting.”
The room breaks out into a chatter immediately. Pansy appears by Draco’s side, holding onto his arm.
“Okay, okay,” Harry says, commanding the room to silence in the way only he can. “Let’s not panic. It’s not going to help anything.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Ron says anyway. “I can’t get a — lumos — anything to — aguamenti —”
“Magical irregularities like this aren’t unheard of,” Hermione says, though her voice is pinched. “They’re a bit like Muggle blackouts. It’s —”
“I’m not going to live like a Muggle,” Pansy says.
“You won’t have to,” Ginny says, appearing beside her. “I’m sure it’s nothing, Pans. Mum told us about this happening once in the seventies.”
Dean takes out his vampire fangs. “Yeah, and it lasted for a week.”
Ginny scowls at him. “Unhelpful.”
“It’s just the universe having a bit of a laugh,” says Luna, whose Aurora costume has reverted into nothing but a silvery-purple dress. “A Halloween trick. We should make a fire, in the meantime! With matches!”
The room devolves into panicked chatter, and Draco stands to cross the room. Harry follows him, and they stand by the window, gazing into the dark of night.
“Harry,” Draco says, glancing at him, and then back out the window. “Look.”
Luna’s cottage sits in the middle of an empty field, with no neighbors for miles. But there’s a flicker of light across the field now, purple and orange illuminating the distant shapes of windows.
“It’s a house,” Harry murmurs. “It’s a… cottage.”
“Who the fuck is that?” Ron asks, appearing next to Harry as the rest of the group trickles over to the window.
“Oh,” Luna says pleasantly. “New neighbors?”
“I’ve never seen that house before,” Neville murmurs.
“They have magic,” Dean says, cupping his hands around his face to look out of the window. “How do they have magic?”
A fire brims in Seamus’ eye as he pockets his wand and grabs Dean by the arm. “Let’s find out,” he says. “We’re going over there.”
“It could be some kind of trap,” Hermione warns nervously. “And you can’t defend yourselves without magic.”
But Seamus has already pulled Dean to the door. “Don’t worry, Hermione,” Dean says with a dark grin. “Just want to give them a warm welcome to the neighborhood.”
The door shuts behind them, and the room settles into an uneasy silence. Harry pushes the golden mane down around his neck.
“Luna, do you have any candles?” he says, the steady note of practiced authority slipping into his tone. “Gin, why don’t you go see if the Floo network is working? Ron, maybe see if you’re able to Apparate.”
“The last thing we need to do is panic,” Neville says in a panicked voice as the others follow Harry’s orders. He peers out the window as Dean and Seamus’s silhouettes slowly disappear in the moonlight.
“Oh, I think it will be fun,” Luna says, returning with a handful of candles and ancient-looking matches. “We can really get to know one another. We can tell ghost stories!”
Draco had thought spending the night with Gryffindors was his worst nightmare. Now he knows that it’s spending the night with Gryffindors, without magic or any means of escape. Pansy uncorks another bottle of wine.
“I can’t live without magic,” she says, sloshing another pour into her glass and passing the bottle down the circle. “I never learned how to clean dishes the Muggle way.”
“It won’t be gone forever,” Hermione says firmly. “It would be like the sun dropping out of the sky.”
“I’ve always wanted to learn to sew by hand,” Luna says pleasantly. “And how to bake muffins the Muggle way.”
Harry nudges Draco with his shoulder. “I think you can take the glasses off,” he murmurs. “They just make you look like a librarian without the rest of it.”
Draco had forgotten about them. “Is that a note you’re willing to take for yourself?” he asks, pulling off the glasses and running a hand through his uncharmed hair. “You know, they do make frames in different shapes.”
Harry starts to reply, but it’s cut short. The room falls into silence at the sound of paper ruffling against the ground. Then a few of Luna’s paper bats spring into the air.
Luna bounds up, her Aurora lights rekindling. The fairy lights reilluminate, the mist re-swirls, and Draco can feel the familiar hum of magic respark at his fingertips.
“See?” Luna says, spelling a few of the lazier bats back into the air. “Nothing to worry about. Magic is a playful thing.”
Ron and Ginny stand to gaze out of Luna’s window, where the house across the field still flickers in the distance. Seamus and Dean push into the door at that moment.
“Well?” Neville asks.
“Just got turned around,” Dean says. “Sent right back here.”
Seamus studies the room for a moment and then turns and stares out the window at the other cottage.
“What do you mean you got turned around?” Ginny asks impatiently.
“I mean that we walked over to the house, and when we got there, we were here,” Dean says, standing next to Seamus. “Like it’s a loop, or — or — a reflection.”
“Christ,” Ron says, dropping his head into his hands. “I bloody hate Halloween.”
“I think it’s best we all stay here for now,” Hermione says in a pinched voice.
“I don’t understand,” Harry says. “That house is also this house?”
“It may be the comet,” Luna says.
They all look at her. “The what?” Pansy snaps.
“Foxler’s comet,” Luna continues pleasantly. “It passes over England tonight.” She looks around at their gawking faces pleasantly. “It was written on the invitations.”
“Well, this night has been a pleasure of the highest degree,” Draco says, crossing back to the Floo. “But I think I’ll take advantage of being able to get the hell out of here while I can.”
“I dunno,” Ginny says. “You might end up in Antarctica.”
“I think I’ll take my chances,” Draco says. “Pans?”
“She’s right, Dray,” Pansy says, not moving from Ginny’s side. “Maybe we’d best just stay until morning.”
“I do love sleepovers,” Luna says. “But the comet is only overhead for about an hour.” She crosses over to Draco and loops an arm through his elbow. “Draco, you have to stay. We haven’t even started the seance.”
Neville stands behind her and kisses her on the head. “I thought we agreed — no seances in the house.”
“Then we’ll have it outside!”
“I’d prefer to be too drunk to understand whatever the hell is going on right now,” Pansy says. She pours Draco a shot of firewhisky and pushes it into his hand. “Maybe you should join me.”
The group moves back into the living room. Draco grumbles and knocks back the shot. When he blinks away the burn of alcohol, Seamus and Dean are still standing by the window, murmuring to each other and glancing at the house in the distance. They glance up at Draco nervously and then follow the rest to the next room.
Only Harry and Draco linger. Harry turns to the window the moment the room has thinned out, worry finally wrinkling his brow now that there were fewer to witness it.
“What do you think it is?” Draco asks, standing beside him.
As they watch, the purple and orange lights glowing from the other cottage — which Draco now recognizes as identical to the ones swirling above them — flicker into darkness. Then, after a few moments, they’re rekindled.
“I dunno,” Harry says. “I don’t know if we should try to find out.”
At one point in his life, Draco knows that Harry would already be across the field, fueled by his trademark courage — or foolhardy curiosity. But he was older now, in a house full of people he wanted to protect.
Draco glances down at the table, where Seamus has dropped his mask.
“Harry,” he says. “Look.”
Harry looks down at it: lips curled into an ugly snarl, teeth bared. But it isn’t the furry werewolf mask Seamus had earlier; it’s a sickly-green troll.
“What happened to his other mask?” Draco says as Harry picks it up to inspect it.
“Maybe he had two,” Harry says quietly. “A backup.”
“He didn’t have two,” Draco says. He walks over to peer into the living room from the threshold. It doesn’t appear that anyone has noticed; the two costumes are similar without the mask, both simple and dark. But instead of the patchy, furry werewolf costume, Seamus has on a tattered troll vest. He and Dean sit in the corner away from the rest, studying the group in silence, occasionally exchanging murmurs. They both look like they’re going to be ill.
“So, what?” Harry murmurs, appearing beside him. “So he changed costumes? So they walked across the field and came back and Seamus changed costumes?”
Draco shakes his head, stepping away from the doorframe. “Something changed,” he says. “I think it was more than the costume.”
Harry studies him, like he can’t tell whether Draco is making a joke. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either,” Draco says. “But we need to go over there.”
Harry glances over his shoulder into the living room. “Fine — I’ll just tell Ron and Hermione —”
“Of course,” Draco says. “Tell Ron and Hermione, and tell everyone, and put the whole house into a panic. Brilliant.”
“Well, we can’t just go.”
“Then we won’t,” Draco says. “I will. You can stay and babysit.”
Harry grimaces slightly, looking over his shoulder again. “Okay,” he says, facing Draco. “We’ll be quick.”
The moon casts Harry’s back in a silvery glow as he leads the way across the field. It bounces off of his jet black hair, and catches in the rustling knee-length grass that he parts with his steps like the sea. As they grow closer to the cottage, its features slowly come into focus: an ivy-drenched south wall, a thatched roof, and a door painted the bright lavender Luna had picked out when she and Neville moved in. The windows glow with a meandering purple and orange swirl of light. Draco can make out the silhouette of paper bats fluttering about inside.
Harry stops short, and Draco nearly walks into his back.
“I —” Harry hesitates. “Reckon I have a bit of experience in this area. I don’t think we should —” he falters again, turning to Draco. “If we’re in there — you and me — I don’t think we should let them see us.”
Draco nods. Sweat is prickling at his collar, his fingers tight around his wand.
Harry walks around to the back of the cottage, giving it a wide berth. Draco can see the silhouettes inside — mouse ears, a lion’s mane, the shapes of humans distorted by disguises. As they draw nearer, something flutters past one of the windows: the blur of a rainbow and clouds, a river of silver-white hair. Luna twirls in the middle of the room. Another Luna, another costume.
Harry grabs Draco by the arm and pulls him away from the window. They drop down onto their knees. “Look,” he whispers, pointing.
An icy chill runs down Draco’s spine as he follows Harry’s gaze. There, partially obscured by the window pane, is Draco Malfoy — dressed in a hooded emerald cloak, a silver snake amulet hanging from his neck below a long, silvery beard.
“Salazar,” Draco mutters, his mouth suddenly very dry. “Slytherin. I thought about coming as him tonight. Changed my mind at the last minute.”
As he watches, another Harry drops down onto the couch next to him. His mane is missing the stain of wine.
“I don’t understand,” Draco says. “You’re a lion here, too.”
Harry’s eyes follow as the rainbow-claden Luna swirls around the room, dropping cups of punch into Ron and Hermione’s hands: a Canon’s jersey, a black frock.
“You said you thought about it,” Harry says, his voice no louder than the rustling of the wind through the grass. “Maybe in this one, you chose it.”
“This what?”
“I dunno,” Harry says absently. They watch as Seamus ambles into the room, calling something over his shoulder.
“That’s Seamus,” Draco says, eyes dropping to the angry black wolf mask under his arm. “That’s our Seamus. They must have gotten caught here.”
Dean follows into the room. He’s wearing an angular red and black vest with tight red pants and looks a bit like a space alien. His eyes are charmed to glow bright yellow, like a cat.
“What is that?” Draco asks.
Harry chuckles in bewilderment. “I think that’s Thriller. Michael Jackson,” he says. “What was he wearing tonight at — erm — our cottage?”
“I don’t remember,” Draco says. “A reductive portrayal of a vampire or some other inanity. It wasn’t whatever that is.”
“Then this isn’t them,” Harry says, standing. “We should get back.”
Draco casts a glance over his shoulder. Luna’s cottage glows in the distance, a beacon in the night. The sea of darkness before them seems to stretch on for miles.
As he watches, the lights within the house across the field flicker out. Another blackout. A chill of dread spills into Draco’s stomach. Harry must feel it too. He’s on his feet immediately. “Come on.”
The cottage’s lights flicker back on as they approach. Harry reaches for the door handle, but Draco pulls him away. “How do we know that this is the right one?” he whispers. “Seamus and Dean got misplaced.”
Harry studies him. “I don’t know,” he says. He pushes his fingers through his hair. “Fuck. We shouldn’t have left.”
There’s something incredibly unnerving about watching Harry Potter panic. Draco doesn’t want to look at it for another second.
“Okay, look,” Draco says, crouching down by the window. “Ron and Hermione are right. Dean is a vampire. Neville’s a Mandrake. Luna is —” he glances around for her.
“Everyone looks right,” Harry says as Luna walks into the room in a cloud of purple and green light. The relief in his voice is contagious. “Look,” he says, pointing. “Even Seamus has the troll mask. This must be our original house.”
He’s half stood when another figure walks into the room: Lion Harry Potter. He’s followed by Harry Potter Draco.
“Fuck,” Draco breathes.
Harry looks up at the sky. “We can’t stay here.”
“Always fancied dueling myself,” Draco says without taking his eyes off the other Draco. “Reckon I’d be my only worthy opponent.”
“Funny,” Harry says flatly.
“Seamus and Dean found a house without themselves in it,” Draco says. “I’m sure there are other houses where we’ve left. We’ll find one of those.”
Harry turns to him, his brows knit. “But how will we know it’s right?” he says. “Even if the costumes are right. How will we know it’s really them?”
“Fuck,” Draco whispers. “Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe —”
Harry isn’t listening. Draco turns to follow his gaze into the house.
The other Draco and Harry have settled next to each other on the couch. Harry has his arms around Draco as they watch Luna talk with great animated gestures. The moment Luna turns away, the other Draco angles his face toward Harry and steals a kiss.
Outside of the cottage, Draco drops onto his knees.
“What the fuck.”
Harry doesn’t say anything. His eyes are glued to the scene. The other Draco turns into the kiss, climbing up Harry on the couch and looping his arms around his neck. It’s more than a little indulgent. After a few moments, Pansy throws a pillow at them.
“Right then,” Harry says next to him. He stands. “Wrong house.”
Draco steals a glance back to the cottage as Harry leads them back across the field. Neither of them speak, and their strides, which had been long and determined mere moments ago, have fallen into a dazed meander.
“We need to find a house where we left,” Harry says as they approach the cottage before them. “Even if it’s not ours, at least we won’t be stuck between them.” He looks up at the sky again as he walks.
Draco follows his gaze, and realizes what Harry has been looking for. He spots the comet burning through the night above them, a white-hot streak pulling a tail of shimmering dust through the sky.
“Luna said it passes for an hour,” Draco says, his mind a haze.
Harry doesn’t look at him. “I don’t want to know what happens if it’s done passing overhead and we’re in the wrong place.”
Draco feels ill. He plays the words over in his mind, the reality of it — the realities. “I don’t know if there is a right place. There could be thousands — millions of these cottages, Harry. Even if there was a right place, it’s got the wrong people in it.”
Harry stops short in the middle of the field. One cottage glows before them, one behind, each teeming with people they know and don’t know.
“They’re still them,” Harry says quietly. “We’re still us. Just — in different costumes.”
“What if it’s bigger than that?” Draco says. “What if there are more differences? What if Voldermort won in one of them?”
Harry shakes his head. “I don’t think so,” he says. “Everything else has such little variation, like the differences only started tonight.”
Draco looks over his shoulder. “You think that —” he says, unable to meet Harry’s eye. “The last house — that started tonight?”
Harry might have gone red. It’s hard to tell in the darkness. “I dunno,” he says. “I guess. Maybe. It’s possible.”
He turns and continues walking.
“It’s possible?” Draco repeats without moving. The words fall out of his mouth. He doesn’t know what he means by them.
Harry stops again. “I don’t know, Draco,” he says with exasperation. “Maybe for them it was possible. That’s not us. Can we please keep moving?”
Harry doesn’t wait for him this time. By the time Draco’s thoughts have settled enough to command his legs, he has to take a few bounds just to catch up with Harry’s swift, determined strides.
They’re still several paces from the next cottage when the silence of the night is cut by the sound of shattering glass. Harry and Draco both drop onto the ground as the bright red light of a hex flies through the window.
Harry glances back at him, the moonlight glinting off of the whites of his wide eyes. Draco follows him as he inches toward the window. As he peers into it, a scene comes into focus: the drawn wands and huddled poses of battle.
“I don’t know who the bitch is,” Pansy’s voice rings out. Within the cottage, she has her wand drawn, and is pointing it at the throat of another Pansy. “But that isn’t me.”
The other Pansy is wandless, her hands thrown up in the air in defense. She’s wearing the same black bra and skirt, but she has on cat ears, while the other is wearing the rabbit ears. The rest of the party is crowded behind them, watching in confusion and terror as the scene plays out.
“Don’t do anything hasty, Pans,” Ginny says behind her. She isn’t dressed as Percy like she was in their cottage; she’s dressed as Molly Weasley.
“She’s an imposter!” Pansy shrieks. “A Polyjuicer or —”
“I’m not!” the other Pansy says, behind a sob. “I don’t understand what’s — Gin —”
“Don’t fucking speak to her!” the first Pansy cries.
“We have to get out of here,” Harry says beside Draco. “This isn’t going to —”
Another crash interrupts him as Pansy shoots off a hex that blasts a hole in the wall behind her double. From within the house, the other Harry’s Expelliarmus rings out as he disarms her.
They don’t stay long enough to hear what comes next. Harry grabs Draco by the arm and pulls him away. He leads them clumsily from the house, his eyes locked on the comet above.
“I don’t think it will be good if we run into ourselves,” Harry says as he drops Draco’s arm and slows to a stop between the two cottages. Draco’s joke about dueling himself doesn’t feel nearly as funny anymore. He realizes that his hands are shaking.
“How have we not crossed ourselves in the field?” Draco murmurs.
“I dunno,” Harry says, his refrain of the night. “I think we’re crossing through more than just the field.”
“Maybe we should just stay here,” Draco says. “Until it’s over. Maybe things will reset then.”
Harry fixes him with a disquieting gaze. “Or maybe not.”
“Right,” Draco says, swallowing hard. “Better not find out.”
He watches Harry as they approach the next cottage. His eyes are fixed on the ground as if carefully placing his footsteps, though his strides are steady. That stupid lion’s mane is still around his neck. In all of the houses, Harry’s costume remained true, never changing once while the others’ indecision played in a flurry around them: a variation of animal ears, masks, elaborate charmed outfits, references to Muggle culture Draco didn’t recognize.
But Harry was never one to give into whims. He was always a lion. He was always the same Harry, even with Draco’s arms wrapped around him, even with Draco’s lips pressed against his.
Draco walks into Harry’s solid back as he stops short in front of him. The profanity at his lips catches in his throat when he sees what gave Harry pause: the silhouette of figures standing outside of the house, cast in outlines of lavender and amber. One of the figures takes a slow step closer, and then another. Then, they dash toward him.
“Harry,” Hermione cries, gathering her frock up at her knees as she runs toward him. She throws her arms around his neck. “Christ, Harry, where were you? You just disappeared.” She turns to Draco as Luna comes into focus beside her, a blur of charmed purple and green light. “Why would you leave without telling us?”
“Sorry, Hermione,” Harry says, voice shaky. “Didn’t mean to. Just wanted to check things out.”
He glances at Draco. They follow Hermione toward the house. Pansy pushes past her.
“What the fuck, Dray,” she says sourly. “If you were trying to scare us all, consider yourself successful. It wasn’t funny.”
Draco glances at Harry, but his eyes are fixed on the door where their friends emerge one by one: Neville the Mandrake. Ginny as Percy. Ron, all red and orange in his Cannon’s jersey. Dean, the lazy vampire.
Seamus emerges, a troll head under his arm. Draco and Harry exchange a look. It might not be their Dean and Seamus, but it’s their cottage.
Pansy adjusts her cat ears. “Now that the boys have decided they’re done being the center of attention, maybe we can start to have fun at this miserable excuse for a party.”
She turns to Draco as Harry follows a fretful Hermione back inside. “You’re acting so strange,,” she says. “Are you okay?”
Draco nods and lets Pansy guide him back into the cottage. He doesn’t take his eyes off of Harry. Ginny, Hermione, and Ron take turns scolding and fussing over Harry one by one as Pansy pulls Draco into the kitchen and puts a drink in his hand.
“The comet is only overhead for another quarter hour,” Luna announces. “We need to get the seance started! I have so many questions to ask my great-aunt Proflitia.”
Harry eyes Draco from across the room the moment his friends’ fretting lets up. Draco walks over to him as the partygoers scatter off to the seance, and they stand by the window alone, looking out at the house across the field — at who might lie within.
“Do you think it’s us in there?” Draco says quietly, barely inspecting the words before they leave his lips. “Have they all been us?”
Harry’s eyes stay locked on the cottage. “They aren’t us, Draco.” he says. “Not really.”
Draco’s stomach sinks. Harry seems to be answering a question that Draco hadn’t asked.
“I’m not —” Draco stammers, feeling heat rush to redden his ears, in anger or in embarrassment. “That’s not what I’m asking about. Not — that house — I only meant —”
Harry finally turns to him, and there’s something in his eye that makes Draco’s stomach turn sour. It’s not until Harry averts his gaze — like he can’t even bear to look at him anymore — that Draco recognizes it as pity.
“Look,” Harry says, gazing contemplatively at the empty space beside him. “I don’t know how it happened, but we found our way back where we started. Maybe we should just —” he glances to the next room, from which the others’ conversation spills out, their voices an indistinguishable cacophony of identities.
Harry turns to him. The pity is gone from his eyes. It’s replaced with something unreadable.
“Maybe we should just forget about it,” he says. “Alright?”
He cuffs Draco on the shoulder lightly. It’s awkward, and fraternal, and his face looks just as uncomfortable as the gesture. He tries to stitch on a smile. Draco just stares at him.
Pansy bustles into the room, her cat ears fallen down to her neck. “Will you gits stop being so bloody sneaky tonight?” she says, her voice thick and lush with drink. “Or do I have to lock you in the house?”
Harry gives Draco another awkward smile and walks into the living room. Pansy loops her arm through Draco’s, and then glances down at Draco’s Gryffindor robes.
“When did you change costumes?” she asks. “Where did the Salazar beard go?”
Draco freezes. He glances through the threshold of the door, where Harry drops down on the couch next to Ron. He pulls his mane back up and accepts a generously poured firewhisky Ron pushes into his hand. He knocks half of it back in one go, and then his face furrows in the impression of a roar. Ron and Ginny double over with laughter.
“Just, erm,” Draco says. “Got a bit uncomfortable.”
“Honestly, are you alright, Draco?” Pansy says, pushing a lock of hair out of his face. “You aren’t acting like yourself.”
Draco flinches slightly from her touch, not taking his eyes off of Harry in the next room. “Need a spot of fresh air,” he says. “Just — I’ll be right back.”
He walks out of the cottage before Pansy can protest.
The trek across the field feels monumental alone, like he might be swallowed by the meandering wind, the light of the moon, the tickle of grass at his legs. He has a quarter of an hour. That’s enough time for four chances. Five if he moves quickly.
The first cottage has two Rons and two Hermiones. They seem to be much more level headed about the ordeal than the two Pansys were, though the two Hermiones look rather ill, and Draco has a sense that it won’t be long before Ron One and Two have come to blows.
The second appears to have the correct number, and Draco watches the party unfold crouched by the window for a little too long. Ginny and Pansy snog in the corner while Harry, Ron, Seamus, and Dean engage in a very competitive game of cards. Luna emerges from the back room with Neville, holding a crystal ball. Other Draco sits in the corner, looking like he might actually die of boredom.
The next cottage is completely empty, as if there were never anyone there at all. He leaves quickly, before he can think about why.
Then, finally, Draco finds what he’s looking for.
He can tell immediately. It’s something in the way they sit on the couch, Harry and the copy of himself. Not quite touching, but far closer than they need to be. Neville brings them each a bottle of cider, and Harry and the other Draco chat animatedly while they twist off the tops.
The other Draco reaches over to twirl a lock of Harry’s mane between his fingers, an amused look in his eye. Outside of the cottage, Draco can see it so clearly, that he’s found the right house: the way Harry looks at other Draco while his eyes are occupied on the mane. Enraptured, and besotted, like he’d never seen anything so wondrous in his life.
The other Draco pushes Harry’s mane down around his neck. Then they kiss. They kiss like it’s absolutely nothing. They kiss like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
No one so much as glances in their direction. If the only variations began tonight, they had traveled a lot of ground in the past three hours.
Outside of the cottage, Draco shuffles down into a crouch. His mind spins as the reality of the situation crushes down upon him. He’ll have less than five minutes now.
It’s as if by fate that Harry stands up at that moment. He murmurs something to the other Draco, who listens rapturously from the couch, and then Harry walks into the next room. The other Draco remains in the room by himself, a private smile playing at his lips.
Draco has never so badly wanted to hex himself.
Instead, he turns out to the field and casts a single spark of fire. It devours the nearby blades of grass, burning in a small plume as it begins to spread.
Draco glances back inside. His other self is being an utter ponce, looking at his bottle of cider like he’s at a tasting. Sweat prickles at Draco’s brow as he watches, urging his other self to look up at the growing flame.
The flame sparks and grows behind him, and finally the other Draco glances up. Outside of the cottage, Draco quiets the flames with a whispered aguamenti. But the other Draco is already on his feet, peering out of the window.
He glances over his shoulder, and then walks to the window. Draco huddles nearer to the cottage, out of his eyeline, and holds his breath.
Draco doesn’t know what would happen to him if it didn’t work. But the sound of the cottage door swinging open confirms it: for once in his life, the stars are smiling down on him.
The other Draco comes out alone. He crosses his arm against the chill, pulls his Gryffindor robes tight around him. Draco waits, breath stilled, until he’s a few paces from the cottage.
He shoots off an expelliarmus first, whispering the incantation into the night. The surprise registers in layers in his double; he stares at his empty hand for a moment, and then his face contorts in shock as he sees Draco standing before him. He looks confused to the point of pain. “Wh —”
Draco’s petrificus cuts him off. His double’s spine stiffens and he falls over backwards like a felled tree. Even from a distance, Draco can hear a sickening crack as his head hits the brick step leading out of Luna’s cottage. Draco raises his hand to the back of his neck reflexively.
Draco glances into the cottage, where the animated silhouettes of the others mingle, oblivious to the scene right outside. He steps away from the window and stands over his double. His hair has fallen in a mess at his face, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head.
Merlin. Is his nose really that pointy?
A peal of laughter breaks out from the house, cutting into his thoughts. He doesn’t have long before others come looking.
He crouches down and levitates his double’s stiff body, directing it just beneath the tall grass alongside him as he walks further into the field. When he’s several paces away, he breaks the charm, letting his double fall with a stiff thud onto the ground. From a distance, it might look as if Draco was the only one in the field. From a distance, it might look as if Draco was entirely alone.
A flickering light across the field draws his eyes up. The lights glowing from the cottage in the distance blink in and out of darkness.
Draco freezes as he stares across the field. It isn’t the lights flickering. It’s the entire cottage.
With one final spark, it vanishes entirely.
“Draco?”
Draco nearly stumbles over his double hidden in the grass as he turns. In the moonlight, a glint reflects off of glasses frames. A shimmer of silver shines against jet black hair, and then catches in the rugged fur of a lion’s mane pushed around his neck.
Draco meets Harry halfway. Harry’s arms are outstretched, so Draco walks right into them. Harry is solid and warm. Harry wraps his arms around him, and Draco realizes then that he’s trembling.
“What’s wrong?” Harry whispers, his voice a warm, low vibration in Draco’s ear. “Are you alright? Where did you go?”
Draco only shivers more as Harry kisses his hair. “I’m fine,” Draco murmurs. “Sorry.” He feels stiff in the embrace, nothing like the languid, natural way his double had leaned into Harry’s arms like he was made for them. But he can learn.
Harry pulls away to look at him. He drops his hands to Draco’s, holds him gently by the wrists as his eyes sweep up and down.
“You lost the scar,” Harry says. “And the hair.” He lifts a cool thumb to Draco’s forehead, sweeping it across his skin. Then he cards his fingers through Draco’s hair.
Draco kisses him — clumsily, messily, with a desperate curiosity he can’t hide. Harry chuckles against his lips, stumbling backward as Draco throws him off balance.
“What’s gotten into you?” Harry asks when Draco pulls away. Draco can hardly hear him over the rush of blood in his ears.
Draco shakes his head. He takes Harry’s hand in his — rough, but warm, and certain.
“Come on,” Draco says, trying to hide the quivering in his voice. He pulls Harry back toward the cottage, to their friends. “Luna will be calling on us from the dead if we miss her seance.”
“Yeah,” Harry says. He eyes Draco devilishly. “But maybe we can sneak out of here early. Go back to mine.”
“Right,” Draco says. He blinks hard, trying to sober himself. “You know, I’ve memorized the charms for the hair and scar,” he says, adrenaline blooming into courage. “Something tells me you’ve fantasized about shagging yourself before.”
“Prick,” Harry laughs. He leans in to kiss Draco on the jaw, threading their fingers together as they walk back to the cottage.
Draco casts another glance over his shoulder into the distance. The only light in the field comes from the moon. The rest is entirely empty — at least, at first sight.