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Haunted Houses—the concept is as old as dirt, the prank so dull that Harry didn’t think anyone still did it.
Next to him, Malfoy flinches. He is astoundingly jumpy, for a big tough Slytherin.
“Did you hear that?” Malfoy asks, voice barely above a whisper. If Harry wasn’t attuned to the smallest of sounds, he wouldn't have heard him at all.
“No,” Harry answers; this time it’s even true. He didn’t hear anything, nothing over the steady beating of his heart; loud on his tongue and warm in his ears.
Malfoy either believes him or he doesn’t; either way, he doesn’t let up on his vigil. That’s probably for the best; in many ways a vigil is why they are here.
Harry didn’t want to come. This wasn’t his idea, he wants to make that very clear. He has better things to do than traipse through alleged haunted houses—ghosts aren’t real and they all know it. But Kingsley ordered Malfoy and him on the job after there was another very distressed phone call, and so here they are.
Had Harry known this is what being a police officer looked like, he might have listened to Hermione and done something else with his life. Perhaps he would have gone with Ginny, would have ignored his calling and travelled the world with her. Right now, that sounds like heaven.
Malfoy shrieks, high pitched and panicked. Harry sighs; anywhere Malfoy isn’t sounds like heaven.
“Do you seriously not hear this?” Malfoy asks again, eyes wide and frightened in the glow of Harry’s torch.
“I don’t hear anything but the sound of you pissing yourself, Malfoy.” Malfoy doesn’t have a retort to that, which is almost more disquieting than the old house around them. “Look, if you are that scared you can wait outside. I’ll look through the last rooms up here and then we can leave, alright?”
If anything, Malfoy looks worse at the prospect of being alone. He might throw up, actually.
(To think that this is who Harry left Ginny for, one drunken kiss and the whole world seemed different. And now look at them.)
“I’m not scared,” Malfoy claims. Neither of them acknowledge that his voice is shaky. It wouldn’t do them any good, and Harry isn’t cruel.
So Malfoy is scared of ghosts and jumps at the shifting and groaning of an old house—that’s only funny when you aren’t at the end of a long shift and stuck with a brainless task. All he wants is to get through these rooms quickly, check that there aren’t any stupid kids playing pranks, and report back to Kingsley. Then they can say they checked, that there is truly nothing to worry about, no ghosts haunting this place. Hallelujah.
“Do you know how many people died here?” Malfoy asks, his voice almost back to normal. “Over the decades, they found a body in almost every room—sometimes more than just one! This used to be a nursery, I think—”
Harry cuts him off. He doesn’t need to hear about dead children today, doesn’t need to hear about the gruesome way everyone who ever stepped a foot into this house was found murdered. It’s a spooky story, nothing more, something to amuse the local youth and make illegal parties here more thrilling. There is nothing here, no mysterious force that punishes everyone who thinks themselves its owner.
“Do you want to go for a drink after this?” Harry asks instead, tries not to think of the blood that seeped deep into the foundation of this place. Damn it, Malfoy is getting to him. “I think we rather earnt it after today, don’t you?”
Malfoy looks at him with a different sort of shock, the surprise pleasant. They haven’t done this since the kiss, haven’t talked about it and have stopped spending time alone together whenever possible. Harry didn’t know what to do with all his feelings and Malfoy has never been the bravest, and so it has been a few weeks since either of them so much as approached the subject.
Harry still doesn’t know what to do, but he thinks he would like to find out. If Malfoy doesn’t drive him crazy with his talk of ghosts first, that is.
“I would like that,” Malfoy says, his smile not as small as he thinks it is. Yeah, Harry would really like to see where this thing could go.
“Come on then, just a few more rooms. You can even hold my hand if you get scared.” Harry winks at him, offers his hand into the small space between them.
Malfoy scoffs, hides his blush in the upturn of his nose. What an idiot.
Harry smiles as he approaches the next door, thoughts pleasantly occupied with warm pubs and their tiny booths, how close they would sit together, legs pressed flush under the table. Or perhaps they would sit opposite each other, better to talk that way, leaning on the table and meeting in the middle, heads close as they talk in low voices, trying to pay attention to the words and not the lips they come from.
Harry can’t wait.
There is a muffled thud on the other side of the door. Harry tenses, training kicking in. That wasn’t the movement of an old house, wasn’t just the walls stretching and the floor groaning.
That was something falling, something soft and heavy. Something that was pushed.
Malfoy doesn’t ask this time, though he is tense, too. Then again, Malfoy has been tense since they crossed the threshold—it’s hard to tell how much of the things he hears are threats and how much ghost stories.
(Quietly, his mind reminds him that perhaps, just perhaps, the ghost stories are threats. It’s bullshit, of course, but it would be remiss of him not to at least consider it, wouldn’t it? Isn’t that what the people in horror movies die of; denial? If they had accepted what happens to them and adapted to the situation presented to them, far more of them would have survived.)
But no, this is just Malfoy’s paranoia getting to him. There are no ghosts, especially not the kind that wants to rip out their intestines. They would have noticed by now.
All the same, Harry is prepared as he opens the door. He doesn’t quite know what he is prepared for, but he is. That has to count for something, no?
The room is empty.
There is no one there, nothing fallen and no one who pushed anything. No places to hide, either.
The room is empty, and Harry breathes in relief. How silly—he was almost scared for a moment there. Next to him, Malfoy laughs, a breathless chuckle, and Harry winks at him because why not? He feels like they survived an attack, which is stupid and not true but it’s dizzying all the same; why shouldn’t he enjoy it?
“No ghosts here, Malfoy,” he says, and Malfoy swats him on the arm.
“Thanks for that astute observation, Potter,” he says, almost snide, were it not for the soft smile. Malfoy feels it too, then, the heady rush of being alive.
“Do you want to see another room without a ghost?” There are three more, after all, and while Harry would like little more but to stand here and smile at Malfoy, they do have to check them. If only so they can get out of here and grab that drink.
Malfoy nods, already less sure. Harry doesn’t like it, he wants him smiling again, laughing at how silly it is to be scared of an empty house.
“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.” They already serve so many cliches, might as well lean into their roles.
Malfoy doesn’t answer, but he does stand closer. It’s probably a pride thing, don’t admit weakness or some shit. Malfoy has a lot of baggage in that direction. Maybe they can talk about it, one day, maybe Harry can help him let go of some of it.
On to the next door, first.
(He doesn’t admit that Malfoy’s fear is rubbing off at him, his heart fluttering in his throat from Malfoy’s proximity. It’s just—Malfoy isn’t one to cringe from shadows, usually. So, if it’s not spooky stories, what is Malfoy so scared of?)
(If there is nothing here, what are all the reports about?)
“Ready, Malfoy?” he asks, and neither of them acknowledges that all the levity is gone from his tone, wiped like it was never there.
Malfoy doesn’t directly acknowledge it, no, but he does take Harry’s hand. It’s warm in his, not sweaty like one might have expected from someone wrecked with nerves, but dry and steady and sure. Malfoy, his partner.
Harry grips his hand tighter.
“Ready when you are,” Malfoy answers, squeezes his hand, and Harry doesn’t even mind that it’s sappy bullshit. They are sappy, and Harry is surprisingly okay with that.
There is always space for an ill-fated romance in horror movies, isn’t there?
“On we go.” Harry smiles, squeezes Malfoy’s hand right back, holds his breath, and opens the door.
The room is empty. As Harry expected, of course. Because hauntings aren’t real.
Right.
“See? Nothing to worry—” Harry turns to smile at Malfoy, show off the empty room and laugh about their nerves, same as before, but Malfoy isn’t smiling. Malfoy is white as a sheet, his hand a vice around Harry’s.
“Malfoy?” Harry asks, suppresses the strong urge to snap his fingers to get his attention.
Harry checks the room again, just to be sure. It’s still empty, and Malfoy still looks utterly terrified.
“Are you alright?” Malfoy couldn’t be further from alright, obviously, but Harry is helpless to say anything else. Everything was fine and now—now Harry doesn’t know what is happening.
This is uncomfortable, the gaping room behind him and Malfoy’s fear frozen on his face, the hand that was reassuring a mere moment ago turned into a trap, grounding him in the mounting unease. Something is going on here, something not right, and Harry doesn’t know what it is.
It must be Malfoy, surely? Just Malfoy, playing a bad prank, pretending to see a ghost to try and scare Harry. There are no ghosts though, because that is stupid and because Harry checked the room.
Yes, this is all Malfoy.
“Stop messing around, man,” Harry hisses at him, tugs at his hand to try and free himself. He doesn’t want to be touching Malfoy anymore.
Harry pulls and Malfoy’s wide eyes fall onto him, scared out of his mind and seeing nothing. If this is all an act, Malfoy is a better actor than Harry gave him credit for.
Malfoy opens his mouth as if to speak, to explain what the hell he thinks he is doing, but no sound comes out. It freaks Harry out far more than the empty room behind them.
“Malfoy!” This time Harry does snap his fingers, because whatever this is, he doesn’t have the patience for it. (It’s creeping up on him, the unease, spreading ghostly fingers out over his skin and climbing up his spine.)
Malfoy flinches, almost tears Harry’s hand off with the force he clings to it.
“Potter.” Malfoy blinks at him, only just remembering that Harry is indeed here, and Harry can free himself of his grip. He pushes Malfoy away as soon as he can, forces distance between his panic and himself.
Harry doesn’t like this, and the closer he gets to Malfoy, the worse he feels. The hand he held is heavy at his side, throws his entire balance into spin.
Malfoy looks as bad as Harry feels, nauseous and pressed against the wall, as far away from the room as he can manage. He is staring at Harry as if he is scared of looking anywhere else, as if it is only conscious effort that keeps his eyes on Harry’s.
“Close the door,” he says and his voice is rough, screamed hoarse.
Except that Harry doesn’t remember that Malfoy made any sound since they entered the house, even as he knows they talked. He knows Malfoy talked, knows he was relatively normal prior to whatever this is, but right now the thought of Malfoy opening his mouth in this space is as incongruous as expecting a glowing unicorn to round the corner and save them from the ghosts Malfoy fears.
Harry closes the door. He closes it because he wishes he had never opened it, because whatever Malfoy saw made things awkward and tense, because there was nothing and yet everything has changed. He closes the door because Malfoy sounded scared, because he was so bloody scared and desperate and Harry ached from the plea that was meant to be a command. He closes the door because he doesn’t think Malfoy will move until he does, because he isn’t convinced he will recover even then.
He closes the door and he remembers that he doesn’t believe in ghosts. He remembers rational thinking, remembers that old houses make noises and that Malfoy can be a right bastard who is still figuring out where the line runs.
Harry remembers that he doesn’t believe in ghosts and that that only leaves one explanation, though it seems even less likely than stubborn souls hanging around in damp dining rooms.
This has to be a prank, Malfoy taking the piss and seeing how much he can rattle Harry.
Reason says that we see what we expect. It points out that Malfoy talked ghosts on the drive over, that he brought it up constantly, for every sound they heard and every room they checked. Malfoy talked about ghosts almost exclusively, primed Harry’s mind to jump at anything not immediately discredited as something else.
Malfoy filled his head with ghosts and then he went silent, letting Harry’s mind do the rest.
That is how the best ghost stories work, hedging around the dead elephant in the room and turning off the light at the right moment, leaving you to do all the work of fear yourself.
Reason also says that you can’t fake that level of terror, though. Harry knows Malfoy, has known him since they were both little brats and thought themselves nemeses. Harry knows Malfoy and he likes to think Malfoy wouldn’t be able to trick him so easily.
Also, why would he want to? It doesn’t make sense; this is an awfully long time to wait to spring the trap, almost the last room in their very own haunted house, their little hellscape. If Malfoy was going to jump and scream boo, why not do it earlier? Malfoy isn’t good with patience; there’s no way he could have held himself back.
In the end, it doesn’t matter. Harry doesn’t believe in ghosts but he also doesn’t believe that Malfoy is setting him up. He doesn’t know what that leaves him with—Malfoy needing to watch less horror movies, probably—but it doesn’t matter to his resolve: they are going to do their bloody jobs. They are going to check the rooms, find that ghosts are indeed a figment of bored human imagination, and then they are going to get the hell out of here. They are going to grab that drink at a cosy pub, they are going to get drunk and laugh about this and snog in some insufficiently hidden alley, and they aren’t going to be scared or weird anymore.
It will make sense, they just have to get out of this house.
“You alright, Malfoy?” Harry asks again.
As before, Malfoy doesn’t answer, but he does seem to relax at the sound of Harry’s voice. Harry decides to take that as a good sign.
“You good to check the next room?” Harry doesn’t know why he asks, Malfoy is very obviously not up for it. Still, Harry feels the almost compulsory need to fill the silence between them, lest anything nasty creeps up.
Malfoy doesn’t answer, as Harry expected. He stands splayed against the wall, holding on (for what, Harry doesn’t know). He isn’t going to move, not unless Harry makes him.
The thought irks him, even as he realises it shouldn’t. He decided that it didn’t matter, that Malfoy is genuinely scared and that is all he needs to know. If Malfoy is that scared, surely Harry could treat him gently? Malfoy needs it, badly, no matter that the ghosts that pushed him in that state aren’t real. Their effects on Malfoy make them real enough to matter.
Harry should be more patient with him. One would think he could do that, could lend a steady hand when Malfoy can’t trust his legs to keep him steady, but some traitorous part of Harry whispers that he shouldn’t need to. There are no ghosts after all; can’t Malfoy pull it together?
“Right, I thought so,” Harry says as Malfoy just looks at him, eyes wide and dark. It comes out bitter.
Abruptly, Harry has had enough of all of this. He has had enough of not understanding, enough of feeling torn and confused and hurt and scared. He has had enough of Malfoy, expecting Harry to save him. If he didn’t think Kingsley would somehow find out and make them come back, Harry would pick Malfoy up right now and carry him out of this house, leaving it all behind.
But Kingsley would find out, because he sold his soul to the devil or something and he always does, and Harry doesn’t do things halfway. He takes great pride in that, actually, in his commitment even to stupid ideas. It was what made him break up with Ginny the moment he realised there might be something great waiting for him with Malfoy, and what makes him a good cop, when he isn’t tasked with ghost stories.
Harry is going to finish this, because he is too damn stubborn not to. And then they are going to get drunk and obscene, because Malfoy promised him and they deserve something nice after this.
“You wait here,” Harry makes a conscious effort to gentle his voice, to smooth out the sharp resolution settling in him. “I’ll be right back.”
If Malfoy is in no state to move, at least he can’t leave and cause trouble while Harry does their job. Not that he would have worried about Malfoy causing trouble usually, but something in this house defies expectations.
“Potter,” Malfoy gets out, his voice a pathetic croak. Harry stops immediately.
When Malfoy doesn’t continue, Harry turns around, quirks his eyebrow at him. Malfoy did some substantial recovering while Harry steeled himself for his task: it looks almost like he leans against the wall because he thought it would make him look cool and suave.
“Yeah?” he prompts, ambles back towards him. (Malfoy makes for a far more appealing goal than the next door.)
“If this were a horror movie,” Malfoy says and stops as Harry leans against the wall next to him. They look almost casual, like they meant to be here. Harry hums for him to go on, to finish the sentence. “You wouldn’t come back.”
Malfoy looks at him, eyes still wide but less terrified, closer to the man he was when they first entered. He looks at Harry and it doesn’t bother him anymore that Malfoy wants to be saved by him, that he trusts him with this. That is what they do, no? They are partners, whatever the circumstances.
Malfoy’s eyes flick down to his mouth and Harry smiles.
“Is that so?” he asks, leans closer, licks his lips.
Malfoy hums, distracted, staring obvious and wanton. Then he clears his throat, blushes furiously, and looks away.
“People don’t survive long after they promise to come back, not when they have secrets to share or people to save.” Then Malfoy suddenly smirks at him, the expression so at home on his face that it hurts. That is what Malfoy is meant to look like, none of the paralysing fear that took him before. “Honestly, Potter, it’s like you never saw a movie.”
Harry laughs. Not because Malfoy is particularly funny or smooth—the joke is weak and his voice trembling—but because it’s close, almost like nothing strange happened. Harry laughs because he is relieved, and because Malfoy is a terrible snob about his movies, and because he wants to kiss him, because Malfoy got over his strange stupor and they can finally move on.
They’ll make it to that pint, just as Harry decided they would. That doesn’t mean foolish kissing must wait until they are there, though.
“So what you are saying here, Malfoy,” Harry leans closer still, indecently so. Malfoy’s breath hitches, the smirk fading in favour of the flustered blush Harry delights in coaxing out of him. “What you are saying is that I should kiss you now, before I never return from my certain doom.”
Malfoy laughs, too. It’s the best sound this dusty old house ever heard, Harry is sure. It’s certainly the best thing he has heard, so what does the house matter? He leans in for the kiss that was basically demanded, to steal the sound right of Malfoy’s pink lips, but Malfoy stops him at the last possible moment, a cool finger placed against his lips.
“Now, now Potter. We can’t just skip to the ending of the movie, can we?” Malfoy, because he is a devious little brat, smirks at him. “What kind of boy do you think I am?”
“I think you are the kind to tease and flirt and remember propriety in the worst possible moment,” Harry growls against his finger, against the smug smirk on Malfoy’s face. “You want to be impressed and wooed; you want me to slay a dragon to prove my undying love, don’t you?”
That wipes the smirk right off Malfoy’s face. Harry doesn’t know if it was the mention of love or the proof of how well he knows Malfoy, but there is something unspeakably tender and vulnerable in his eyes. He brings his other hand up, too, cupping Harry’s jaw as he looks at him like he is the most precious thing in this world.
“Please don’t slay any dragons, Potter; I feel rather fond of them.”
Whatever Harry expected Malfoy to say, it wasn’t that. Then Malfoy is smirking again and Harry scoffs, pretends to be offended as he pushes himself off the wall.
“I’ll have to prove myself in a different manner, then.” Opening doors is not nearly as heroic as defeating roaring beasts, of course, but since this is also neither a horror movie nor a fairy tale, Harry feels his choice of quest adequate. Malfoy doesn’t protest and that is good enough for Harry.
There are two more doors and then they can leave, find out exactly what kind of man Malfoy is. (Harry has his suspicions; after all, they already tested that one. The circumstances will be more pleasant, this time.)
Harry makes to open the first door, do a quick but thorough sweep, when Malfoy calls out to him again. He sounds less sure, now that Harry is closer to the door and what he fears might lay behind it than him.
“Potter?” he asks, and Harry stops, his hand already on the door handle. They aren’t going to finish if Malfoy keeps this up. “Are you sure we have to?”
If Malfoy sounded any different, if he sounded annoyed or bored or too eager, Harry wouldn’t answer. If Malfoy didn’t sound so damn scared, Harry would just open the door and get it over with, finally wrap this job up. But Malfoy does sound scared, and it tugs at Harry’s heart.
It doesn’t change his answer, though.
“Yes,” Harry says, because he already decided this. “Yes, we have to.”
Malfoy doesn’t reply. Harry might be able to tell more from his face, might be able to figure out what worries him if he turned around and looked at him, but he won’t open the door then, he knows he won’t. There are no ghosts so there is no reason to be scared, but Malfoy is scared all the same—they are real to him, Harry is sure, and if he indulges him enough, they might become real to him, too.
“Close your eyes if you want; you don’t have to look.” Harry doesn’t know if that would help at all, doesn’t know what it is that wrecked Malfoy so completely the last time, but it’s the best he can do. How do you protect someone against their own fears? “Let me look for you.”
(Come to think of it, Malfoy never said he saw anything.)
Harry counts to three. He hopes Malfoy closes his eyes, hopes he prepares himself, hopes he won’t freeze again.
Harry opens the door. Malfoy screams.
The sound slides right through him, tortured and scared as it hooks behind Harry’s ribs and pulls. Harry doesn’t see anything as he stares into the room, his head filled with Malfoy’s terror, and then he snaps the door shut.
Malfoy’s scream cuts off the moment the door is closed. Harry’s breathing is heavy, loud in the sudden silence, his chest ripped open and his body not his own.
Empty, the room was empty. Harry checked, he saw nothing. (Didn’t he?)
Harry doesn’t turn to look at Malfoy. He can’t. If he turns now, if he sees him crumbled on the floor, if he sees him smothering sobs and crying, if he sees him hurt—Harry can’t. There is only one door left, only one, and there are no ghosts.
Harry raises his hand to open the last door. Only one, then they can get out of here. He will pick Malfoy up, carry him out of here and hold him close, keep him warm. They will get that drink and it will be okay.
Because there are no ghosts. There is nothing to fear.
“Harry, please.” Harry didn’t think he would hear Malfoy beg, not like this. “Don’t open the door, not that one.”
Harry isn’t sure he understands him right, isn’t sure they are Malfoy’s words at all. He doesn’t sound like himself, doesn’t sound like the man Harry knows.
Harry doesn’t dare turn around.
“Please,” he says again, the sound broken.
The door looms over Harry, the handle cold under his hand.