Work Text:
Harry stood with his hands shoved into his jacket pockets and stared out at the bay, watching the tide roll in. The early morning hours in Le Crotoy were unfailingly beautiful. Pale sunlight reflected off the soft waves as the Baie de Somme slowly began to come to life – hundreds of birds flew overhead or paddled in the water, the low drone of an awakening town drifted across the beach, and somewhere in the distance, a seal brayed a good morning to the waking world.
It was serene, Harry thought, but he was anything but relaxed himself.
After the war, things had seemed to fall into place. He and Ginny had picked up where they left off and were happy together, he’d gotten a good job as an auror, and he had his friends to grieve with when they needed to.
But eventually, most of his friends – Hermione, Ron, Neville, Luna, Ginny – moved on. They stopped wanting to talk about the war, often steering the conversation towards something else when it came up. Ron and Hermione got married, and Ginny began hinting that she hoped Harry might marry her soon as well.
So, Harry had asked her, and she’d said yes. They’d celebrated their engagement with their friends and family, and Harry smiled throughout, plastering on a smile for the world to see and only allowing it to slip and reveal his inner despair when he was alone.
Everyone else was moving on, and Harry couldn’t seem to do the same. He was trapped in the past, and living a life he hardly recognized as his own.
He’d reached his breaking point the day he left for Le Crotoy, apologizing profusely to Ginny as he broke her heart not two months before they were to be married, explaining that this wasn’t what he wanted, and maybe never would be.
Ron had screamed at him for hurting his sister, and Hermione had begged him to reconsider, but Harry had already made up his mind.
He’d gotten up from his seat in the Granger-Weasley sitting room, snatched up a handful of floo powder, and gone home. He shut down the floo before anyone could follow him and locked the wards to everyone besides himself and his roommate.
His roommate… He would understand how Harry was feeling. He wouldn’t judge Harry for his decision, or for the real reason behind it. He would be supportive and kind, but Harry couldn’t bear to put all of this on him. No, he had to get away.
Harry had glanced at the telly, running a program about popular European destinations, seen a segment on le Baie de Somme, and packed his bags.
Now, nearly a week later, he stood on the edge of the bay and fought back tears. He’d gone untraceable when he left, so no spell, owl, patronus, or other magic could find him. For the most part, he was alright with the isolation, but there was one person he missed terribly.
Then again, how could you not miss someone you live with, who you’ve developed routines with? How could Harry not miss coming downstairs in the mornings to a familiar, tired smile? How could he not long for the comfort of knowing someone else was nearby if he had a bad night or a panic attack? How could he not miss his roommate’s regal features, framed by platinum blonde hair and softened by sleepiness, silver eyes shining with laughter while they watched a muggle movie about “wizards” and delighted in the absurdity of the so-called magic?
How could Harry Potter ever begin to stop missing Draco Malfoy?
And more importantly, how could Harry possibly come to terms with the realization that Harry was hopelessly in love with him?
The floo flared suddenly to life and Draco’s eyes snapped open. He hoped to Merlin to see a head of black, messy hair and green eyes emerging from the flames, but he was granted no such sight.
“He’s not here,” Draco sighed, trying to quell the rising tide of hopelessness.
One week, he’d told himself when Harry ran off after leaving Ginny, his job, and the rest of his life behind. He’d give the nutter one week to mope around France before he went after him. Now, it had been six days, and the prospect of going another twenty four hours without seeing Harry felt like an impossibility.
“I know,” Granger said sharply.
Draco waved his hand and light flooded the room, revealing an exhausted-looking Hermione Granger standing in front of the fireplace. “If you know he’s not here, then what-”
“Malfoy,” she cut him off. “We need to talk.”
He frowned and gestured for her to sit down in the chair by the fire, sitting back down on the couch himself. “About Harry?” he asked.
“Of course about Harry!” she cried, making Draco flinch. Granger heaved a heavy sigh and looked at him apologetically. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just worried about him, and Ron is so busy being furious with him that I, well… I didn’t know who else to go to.”
Draco stared at her. The two of them actually got on rather well, nowadays, but it was unprecedented for one of them to call on the other unless Harry was around. “You came to me because-”
“I knew you were the only person who would be as worried as I am right now,” she said with a tired nod.
He was silent for a moment. “I just want him to come home,” he said finally. “Without someone needing to go after him and force him to.”
And Merlin, did Draco mean it. He missed Harry desperately, and their flat was unbearably empty without him, especially when all of his things, save the little he’d taken with him, still remained. Sometimes it felt like living with a ghost. To make matters worse, every passing day without Harry around only seemed to deepen Draco’s extremely problematic affections for his extremely heterosexual roommate.
Granger huffed, dragging him out of his thoughts. “Not that any of us could force him to,” she muttered. “He’s untraceable right now.”
“Right,” Draco said vaguely.
The brunette narrowed her eyes. “You know where he is, don’t you?”
“Salazar, am I that transparent?” he asked. “If so, I blame the sleep deprivation and crippling worry. Us Slytherins are supposed to be less obvious than that.”
To his surprise, Granger actually managed to crack a small smile. “Perhaps a little,” she replied softly. “So you do know, then?”
Draco shrugged, because really, he didn’t know, exactly. “I’m not positive, but I have my suspicions.”
“Why haven’t you gone to find him yet?”
“I told you – I want him to come home without one of us forcing him to.”
“I see,” Granger mused. “And I don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell me where you think he’s gone?”
Draco shook his head. “I promised myself I’d give him a week to mope around before going after him to give him some time to clear his head.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “If Harry left, it’s because he needs time to think and sort things out. I don’t want to take that away from him if that’s what he needs.”
To his surprise, Granger didn’t have anything to say in response to that. He’d expected her to be irritated, or at least mildly offended that he didn’t seem to trust her with her best friend’s location. Instead, she fixed a thoughtful look on him, her face scrunched in a frown.
“Why are you here?” Draco asked, attempting to fill the awkward silence. He didn’t particularly care for being scrutinized as heavily as Granger was doing now.
“Listen, Malfoy… Draco… There’s something you should probably know,” she began hesitantly. “I wanted to talk to you because I thought that if we were able to figure out where he’d gone, you would be the best person to go and talk to him”
Draco just stared at her, baffled. “You wanted to ask me to go?” he asked. “Me? Your best friend’s former Death Eater roommate, who your husband still loathes?”
Granger nodded.
“Why?” he demanded.
He watched as she sighed and fiddled with her hands for a bit before sitting up straighter and resting her hands on her lap. “Because I think you’re one of the reasons Harry ran away in the first place.”
Draco’s blood began to boil the moment the words left her mouth. If she was here to blame him for what happened, then…
“I’m not saying you did anything wrong!” she said quickly, clearly catching on to his shift in demeanor. “I’m just trying to tell you that I think you’re more involved in this than any of us realized,” she said carefully. “Harry’s been… well, you know he’s not been great recently, but he’s been… better. Since you started living together, I mean, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”
Draco rolled his eyes. “Yes, we’re rather good friends. Is that what you’re saying? That my being friends with him made him run away?”
“Goodness, no, Malfoy! I’m saying that I think you’re the reason Harry has been doing better lately,” she said firmly, eyes fixed on him. “But I also think you’re the reason he’s been so all over the place. And I think you’re the reason Harry ended things with Ginny, even if he doesn’t know it.”
He just stared at her.
“Draco, I’m quite certain Harry is in love with you.”
Draco’s mind spun like a slot machine in a muggle casino as his brain searched the entire catalogue of human emotions for a reaction to Granger’s declaration. Eventually, he settled on disbelief.
“I ought to have you admitted to St. Mungo’s for saying such nonsensical things,” he quipped, though it came out much less sharply than usual as a result of the emotional slot machine which had, apparently, very much continued to spin.
“No,” she said slowly, almost hesitantly. “I mean it, Malfoy. I’ve spent the last six days going over every interaction I’ve had with him over the past few years, trying to figure out when things started to change, and I don’t know how I didn’t see it before. It was you.”
Draco shook his head adamantly. “No. It’s not possible, Granger. He’s straight, for Salazar’s sake.”
“He’s bisexual,” Granger said calmly. “He had a crush on Cedric Diggory in fourth year.”
“Fine, but it’s still not possible,” Draco insisted. He absolutely refused to let himself hope. Hope was a dangerous thing for a former Death Eater. It wasn’t a luxury he usually had. “He’s… he’s Harry Potter, and I’m… No. Just, no. He would never.”
Suddenly, Granger’s gaze softened as understanding flashed in her enormous brown eyes. “Oh my,” she whispered. “You love him, too, don’t you?
Draco opened his mouth to argue, but nothing more than a strangled yelp came out, so he said nothing. She stood and sat beside him on the couch.
“He’s my best friend,” she said earnestly. “Although I’ve been a rather terrible one lately, to not have seen this until now. He talks about you all the time, Draco, and how interesting your work is, never mind the fact that he’s always hated potions… how you’ve started watching that muggle show on the television together, how funny you are, how patient you’ve been when he wakes up screaming... I know for a fact that he’s cancelled plans with Ron and me on multiple occasions just to spend time with you when you’ve got an evening off. And I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
“So you’re telling me that Harry ran away because he realized he had these… feelings for me? Excellent. What a fantastic sign.” He doesn’t mean to sound so bitter.
“No!” Granger said, clearly getting frustrated. “He ran away because he probably hates that he hurt Ginny, and he couldn’t deal with Ron being so angry with him, not to mention how hard the fallout from the war still is for him. And of course, he’s horribly confused about you, the only person he probably wants to talk to right now, because contrary to what most people think, he’s the most self-deprecating person I’ve ever met. He doesn’t think he’s worthy of love, Draco. Harry probably thinks Ginny was his one chance at happiness. And since he thinks the world of you, now, I’m certain he’s probably brooding, wherever he is right now, believing you could never feel anything for him!”
“It’s because of those muggles who raised him, isn’t it?” Draco asked, heart sinking. “They’re the reason he doesn’t think he’s worthy of love.”
She sighed and patted his hand before standing. “I think that’s for him to tell you one day, if he so chooses,” she said carefully. “But tomorrow it will have been a week since he ran off, so… please go bring him home, and please for goodness sake talk to him about all of this.”
“You want me to go tell Harry that I love him?” he asked in disbelief.
“Only if it’s true,” Granger replied wryly. Then, her expression grew serious again. “He’s my family, and I just want him to be happy. If you make him happy, then I’m all in.”
Draco swallowed, blinked several times until he found his voice. “I… thank you, Granger. Er, Hermione.”
She smiled sadly at him and grabbed a handful of floo powder from the mantle. “You’re quite welcome, Draco.”
And in a flash, she was gone.
It was quiet that night when Harry stepped out onto the balcony of his room in the Les Tourelles hotel. The sun had long since disappeared over the horizon, and life in the little town on the bay was winding down. He only saw the occasional passerby on foot, now.
In times like this, Harry desperately wished he still had Hedwig to keep him company. At least she’d been someone he could talk to, rather than thinking the same thoughts over and over again until he drove himself mad.
He’d quit his job. He’d ended his engagement. His best friend in the world was furious with him for breaking his sister’s heart. And over the past few years, he’d gradually become a recluse just to avoid the press, avoiding most of his old friends as a result.
Here, though, in Le Crotoy, there weren’t any vultures from the Daily Prophet, asking him about the latest whispers of Death Eater activity somewhere in Europe. There was no screaming Ron, no crying Ginny, no concerned Hermione. No awful job that had him facing darkness day after day. No wedding plans to pretend to care about. Life was simple here. Nobody knew him. He was just Harry.
But Le Crotoy was missing something. For the first four days Harry spent here, it had eluded him what exactly that missing piece was. He was, after all, running away from everything he’d ever known. He wanted to be away from his own life for a while, away from his friends and family…
It wasn’t until he woke on his fifth morning in France that it finally hit him. Out of habit, Harry had gotten up and showered, pulled on some clothes, and used magic to boil some water for tea. Then, just like every morning at home, he’d grabbed two mugs and two tea bags and let them steep. When they were done, he added milk and sugar to his own and just a bit of milk to…
Oh.
He stared at the tea he made for Draco, exactly how he liked it, and it all hit him at once. Finally, he’d understood why things had never felt quite right with Ginny, why sometimes he looked forward to getting home after his dates with her than he did to the date itself.
Harry was in love with Draco.
Now, one day later and on his sixth evening in France, his mind flashed back to an assortment of shared memories with Draco – the absurdly late take-out orders they got when Draco arrived home late from a shift at St. Mungo’s and Harry from a shift at the Ministry… laughing until they cried the first time Draco tried to make rice the muggle way and nearly burned the house down… Harry accompanying Draco to Narcissa’s funeral and holding him tightly once they got home, the blonde sobbing into Harry’s chest for hours until Harry finally coaxed a bit of food into him and helped him to bed…
Draco had even sat out on their friends’ Halloween celebrations for the past two years, instead waiting at home for Harry to return from Godric’s Hollow. Both times, Harry had let himself be held by long, slender arms until the tears dried up. Ginny had offered to hang back once, but Harry never wanted anyone else there… not until Draco had come along.
So, the realization that he was in love with Draco Malfoy was as unsurprising as it was astonishing. Harry could only assume it was because he’d known, somewhere deep down, all along and had been ignoring it. It made sense, after all. They understood each other in a way nobody else did. They were both just boys running from a past and a reputation they didn’t want, and could never quite seem to shake. It only made sense that somewhere along the line they would realize that running together might be better than running alone.
The only question was whether or not Draco had realized it too.
Draco appeared with a loud crack at the apparition point just outside the town of Le Crotoy. It was the third town he’d visited on the Baie de Somme, and he hoped he’d have more luck there than the others.
He stopped at a small hostel with no luck, then tried a hotel – Les Tourelles – right on the bay.
“Excusez-moi,” Draco said to a friendly-looking man at the counter, suddenly grateful to his mother for making him learn a second language.
“Oui, monsieur. Comment puis je vous aider?” he replied. How can I help you.
“Je cherche une homme qui s’appelle Harry Potter. Dans-” Draco stopped mid-sentence, because a familiar magical aura had suddenly surrounded him, the way it did whenever he came home from work.
The magical signature was unmistakable. Harry was close.
Ignoring the confused questioning of the man at the counter, Draco spun on his heel and looked around wildly only to find a pair of shocked, emerald eyes staring back at him beside the elevators.
Harry stared at him, blinked several times, and practically fled out the front door, towards the water.
Draco caught up to the bespectacled man on the sandy shores of the bay, finding him toeing at the sand with his hands shoved in his pockets.
“Harry?” Draco asked softly, coming to a halt at the other man’s side.
His companion was silent for a few moments. “How did you know where I was?”
A tiny thrill ran down Draco’s spine after finally hearing Harry’s baritone voice again, but it was very much drowned out by his anxiety. “I’ve known since the day you left,” he confessed.
Harry looked up at him with wide eyes and a furrowed brow. “How-”
“You’re not as enigmatic as you think, Harry,” Draco replied, smiling slightly. “I got home just after you left. The show about the Baie de Somme was still playing.”
“You knew from that?” Harry asked incredulously. “How could you possibly have figured that out?”
“Because I know you. You’re impulsive, you make decisions quickly, and you’d have wanted to go somewhere unpredictable. What’s more conveniently unpredictable than a random destination on the television to which you have no emotional attachment?”
“So you knew,” Harry said, voice small. “But you didn’t come after me?” It took a moment for Draco to register the poorly concealed hurt on the other man’s face.
“I didn’t, but not for the reasons you think. I just didn’t want to force you to come back before you were ready. So I decided I’d give you a week to do whatever thinking you needed to do, and then I’d come find you. And now I’m here.” Harry’s skeptical look spurred him on. “Please don’t look at me like you don’t believe me,” Draco said quietly. “Not coming after you straightaway was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I… I really missed you, Harry.”
“Really?” Harry asked.
Draco nodded. “It felt so empty without you at home… and it was strange coming home to silence, for once. I have to admit, it was rather terrible.” He laughed in an attempt to diffuse some of the tension, not that it really worked.
He studied Harry’s face carefully for any sign of what the other man was feeling, but all he saw was a rather unbearable sadness and the same anxiety he was currently feeling himself.
“I made tea for you yesterday,” Harry muttered.
Draco startled and stared at him. “You what?”
“I made tea for you,” Harry repeated, cheeks turning a bit pink. “Yesterday morning, when I got up, I was going through my usual routine and I just… made you tea, exactly how you always drink it, like muscle memory. I didn’t even realize I’d done it until I had an extra cup of tea and nobody to give it to.”
Harry’s admission had Draco’s head spinning – he couldn’t get his voice to work properly.
“I missed you too…” Harry’s voice was so soft that for a moment Draco thought he may have imagined it, but Harry’s green eyes were fixed on him with intent, and he knew he hadn’t imagined anything. “You… you were the only one I missed, actually.”
Draco’s eyes widened with surprise. “Harry-”
“Draco, I think I’m in love with you.”
Draco froze, mouth still opened and poised to speak. Was he hallucinating? Was this a dream? Granger had said that Harry might… but Draco hadn’t allowed himself to really believe it. “What?” he asked.
Harry’s eyes were suddenly growing suspiciously damp. “I love you,” he said softly. “I don’t really know when it started – I didn’t even realize it until two days ago – but it’s true, and it makes sense. Something was always… missing… with Ginny. And I only ever feel like myself now when I’m with you… I just… It took me a while to realize why.”
“You love me?” Draco asked quietly.
Harry just nodded, not meeting his eyes.
Draco stood there, attempting to speak and finding that he couldn’t. Words were failing him quite spectacularly, which meant there was really only one thing to do.
In a move he would later describe as “entirely too Gryffindor,” Draco stepped forward, gently tilted Harry’s head up with a finger under his chin, and kissed him – slow and sweet, the way he’d always dreamt of doing. After a few moments, Harry recovered from the shock and tangled his hands in Draco’s windblown hair, returning the kiss with vigor. Draco never wanted the moment to end.
But it had to, if they ever wanted to breathe properly again, and when they broke apart for air, Draco smiled softly against Harry’s lips. “I love you, too,” he whispered.
Harry’s eyes were wide and shining. “Yeah?” he asked.
“Yes,” Draco replied.
Harry exhaled and pulled back a few more inches, biting his lip adorably. “What if… what if I said I wasn’t ready to go back yet – that I wanted to keep traveling?” he asked nervously.
Draco’s heart sank a bit, but he tried not to let it show. “I won’t make you go back before you’re ready.”
“And if I asked you to come with me?”
Draco looked at Harry in shock, only to find that the bespectacled man was smiling anxiously at him, shuffling back and forth on his feet as he awaited a response. Finally, the Slytherin cracked a wide smile. “Where would you like to go?”
Harry beamed at him and began babbling about all of the places he might want to visit. Draco just laced their fingers together and let him talk. He had no preference, after all.
As long as he was with Harry, he’d be happy wherever they went.