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Draco Malfoy was everywhere.
The war had been over for months and Harry was trying to move on like a good little Boy-Who-Lived. He was expected to be happy, to attend the celebrations, parties, and ceremonies with a smile on his face and his childhood sweetheart on his arm. Well, thought Harry cynically, breaking up with Ginny weeks after the final battle had definitely ruined that plan. So much had happened in the time they had spent apart that in the aftermath of the war Harry found that any feelings he now had for her were nothing more than sisterly affection. Luckily for him, she seemed to expect his stammering apology and took it in her stride, and Harry was relieved to find that he was still as welcome at the Burrow as ever. After spending weeks sulking miserably around Grimmauld Place with only Kreacher and the occasional visit from Ron and Hermione for company, Harry decided that he needed a distraction. Being at Grimmauld Place only brought back memories of Sirius cooped up in the house he hated, of Remus, Tonks, and Fred, and everyone else he had lost. So he kept himself as busy as possible and occupied his time helping in the rebuild of Hogwarts, attending meetings with Kingsley at the Ministry, and meeting up with his friends in Diagon Alley.
But Draco Malfoy was everywhere. Harry saw him working at Hogwarts, shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows and his face smudged with dirt. He saw him walking through the Ministry, head held high as he ignored the pointed stares and whispers that grew in his wake. And he saw him in Diagon Alley, where the stares and whispers grew barbed and vicious, the tense atmosphere occasionally permeated by a shout of ‘Death Eater scum!’, and where Draco Malfoy walked on, giving the shouts and curses no more attention than a dragon pays a fly.
At first, Harry glared with the rest of them. After all, Draco Malfoy was a Death Eater, albeit an acquitted one. The nerve of him to parade around like that as if he was still the respected Malfoy heir, as if no one could see the ugly, black mark burned onto his left forearm. But after weeks of scowling, Harry began to really notice Draco Malfoy. The way his face no longer bore its customary expression of superiority, but instead remained blank and passive, even when confronted with the angry jeers of the crowd. The way he would slouch against the castle walls when he thought no one could see him, the pretence and mask slipping for a brief moment. The way that, despite the fact that likely no one wanted him around, Draco Malfoy had not run away like he could have and was actually trying to make amends.
And so Harry continued to watch. Not that anyone really noticed, least of all Draco Malfoy. Hermione and Ron were busy with their new jobs at the Ministry, Hermione having just started an internship in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and Ron on the Auror Training Programme. Harry had been offered a place with the Aurors as well but he found that he just couldn’t summon up his previous enthusiasm for it. For anything in fact. So he kept himself busy and watched Draco Malfoy and met up with his friends and watched Draco Malfoy some more.
-----
“Mate,” Ron started one evening, once the trio were comfortable at their regular corner table in the Three Broomsticks. “Auror Training is absolutely brilliant. We started on Concealment and Disguise today and the other courses are wicked as well. You’d love it. You should really think about taking Kingsley up on that offer.”
Harry rolled his eyes at that. Ron had been trying to convince Harry to join him in Auror Training all summer, but Harry was happy doing what he was doing, thank you very much. However, it seemed that Hermione didn’t agree with this sentiment.
“Yes, Harry,” she added. “If you aren’t going to join the Aurors what are you going to do? You can’t very well stay at Hogwarts forever.”
“I don’t know, Hermione,” Harry sighed, resigned to his friend’s well-meant probing. “That’s what I’m doing now, trying to keep busy until I figure out exactly what it is that I do want to do.”
Seeing the determined set to Hermione’s jaw and feeling another lecture coming on, Harry panicked and quickly changed the subject onto the first thing that popped into his head.
“So, have you guys noticed that Malfoy’s been around a lot recently?” he asked, and instantly regretted his choice of topic when Ron and Hermione shared a look that clearly said oh boy, here we go again.
“Mate,” Ron began hesitantly. “You haven’t been doing that thing again, have you? You know, like in school where you spent a whole year staring at him and following him around and all that?”
“What?” demanded Harry in indignation. “So I’m not allowed to notice that the man we used to hate in school is suddenly popping up everywhere I bloody go?”
Harry blushed as he used the word man to describe Malfoy but he had to concede that Draco Malfoy was a boy no longer. There was no denying that Malfoy, once scrawny and pointy with too-long limbs, had grown into himself over the past year, and shifting rocks and debris at Hogwarts all summer had definitely helped add to the impression. Not that Harry had noticed. Nope. He hadn’t noticed the way Malfoy’s shoulders would ripple and tremble as he worked to move a particularly large stone, and he definitely hadn’t noticed that way the sweat caused by the summer heat had made Malfoy’s shirt stick to him, leaving it almost transparent in places.
Harry shook himself out of his reverie, a confused frown on his face.
Hermione shot him an apologetic expression. “We’re sorry, Harry. It’s just that we know how you get around him.”
Harry shook his head and sighed as he headed to the bar for another drink. Okay, so he may have followed Malfoy around occasionally in sixth year, and he might have been staring at him a little bit recently, but that didn’t mean anything. It’s not like he was obsessed or anything.
-----
The next day at Hogwarts, Harry’s eyes were drawn immediately to Malfoy, who was standing off to the side from the rest of the volunteers with a casually blank expression on his face. Malfoy, he decided, was a very good actor, but Harry could see how he warily eyed up anyone who walked too close and how, when once again no one talked to him, his mask slipped briefly into a sad sort of resignation. Harry stared so hard and long at Malfoy that the blond glanced up at him - their eyes meeting and a confused frown crinkling his pale forehead - before he quickly turned away. Strange to think it but Harry reckoned he missed the cocky, sarcastic, and arrogant Malfoy who had tormented him for the last seven years. This Malfoy, who kept his head down, avoided glances, and altogether acted like a kicked puppy, was just wrong. If only someone could get him to open up, thought Harry, and he smirked as an idea popped into his head.
When he got home that evening, Harry decided that he needed a plan. A plan that relied on subtlety and cunning rather than giving into his Gryffindor-ness and charging headfirst into the situation like he usually did. And for that, he needed Hermione.
-----
Following his epiphany the night before, Harry had sent Hermione and, because Harry didn’t feel right about excluding one of his best friends from the plan, Ron urgent owls pleading them to meet with him. Therefore, lunchtime found the three of them, heads bent together, squeezed around a small table in the Ministry of Magic cafeteria.
“What?!” Hermione exclaimed when Harry had finished explaining his plan, or Operation Fix Draco Malfoy as he had dubbed it.
Harry ignored Hermione’s outburst and glanced towards Ron, who stared back at him, gobsmacked. Harry didn’t expect them to understand why he wanted to do this but he hoped they would help him anyway. They had been through so much together that Harry felt like he could tell them anything and that they would always be there for him. He had already told them of his not-quite-there heterosexuality and it made him smile to remember how supportive they had both been.
“Harry,” Hermione started in a placating tone, “you do realise that this whole idea is insane, don’t you?”
“But that’s why I need your help!” Harry beseeched. “You haven’t seen what Malfoy’s like. He just seems so… defeated. I have to do this. And I can’t do it without the two of you.”
He looked across at his two best friends pleadingly and gave them his very best puppy dog eyes. Hermione rolled her eyes at this and looked over to Ron.
Ron shrugged. “I suppose if we don’t help you’re only going to go at it alone and make a complete twat of yourself.”
Harry sent him a wide grin and turned his gaze on Hermione, who heaved a long-suffering sigh. How she always got dragged into these idiotic schemes she’d never know.
“Fine,” she said. “Now, let’s get planning this crazy Operation of yours.”
-----
Harry arrived at Hogwarts the next day with renewed vigour. Today was the day, the start of Operation Fix Draco Malfoy, and Harry was ready. This was what he had been missing since the end of the war, a sense of purpose, of having someone to help. He searched the crowd for Malfoy and found him standing by the side of the castle, alone as usual. The rest of the volunteers ignored Malfoy as they chatted and readied themselves for another day of work.
As he approached the crowd, a few volunteers shouted out his name in greeting. Malfoy, startled out of his introspection, flicked his eyes up to meet Harry’s and, before he could return his gaze to a blank examination of the floor, Harry nodded his head at the man. A puzzled look passed briefly over Malfoy’s face before he hesitantly nodded back. Harry smiled inwardly as he joined the rest of the volunteers. Baby steps, after all, were what were needed here if he wanted his plan to work.
After declaring stage one of the Operation a roaring success, the next day Harry pressed onto stage two: smiling. Much the same as the day before, Harry apparated into the designated zone in the Hogwarts grounds, walked to the front of the castle, and greeted his fellow volunteers. Only today, when Malfoy glanced up at Harry’s arrival, Harry sent the man a small but friendly smile. Harry held Malfoy’s gaze long enough to see the return of the puzzled frown before he headed inside the castle. From then on Harry smiled at Malfoy at every chance he got - when they passed each other in the ruined corridors of the castle, when took their lunch break in the Great Hall, and when they went home at the end of a hard day’s work – but for three days all Harry received in response was a look of total befuddlement before the blond would hastily look away.
On the fourth day, Harry was ready to give up. He was not a patient person and he was beginning to think that there was no way of getting through to Draco Malfoy. When he saw the man at lunch Harry smiled - more out of habit now than any hope that he might smile back - and gaped in shock as, instead of the frown Harry had become so accustomed to seeing, Malfoy’s lips quirked up into a smile. Well, maybe not a smile, Harry thought, but it was definitely close enough for him. He beamed victoriously back at Malfoy, who sent Harry one more quirk of the lips before turning back to his food. Harry refrained from whooping and punching his fist in the air until he got home, where he immediately floo-called Ron and Hermione to tell them the good news.
As expected, his friends did not share Harry’s enthusiasm for finally making Malfoy smile, and when Ron asked why he even cared Harry had no answer for him. He wasn’t sure quite when helping Draco Malfoy had become so important to him. Maybe it was around the same time that Harry realised that they weren’t so different. Yes, they had been on different sides of the war, but both of them had been used, had been pushed and pulled around like chess pieces, and both of them now seemed unsure of how to move on.
Well, that and also that Harry had finally admitted to himself that he might find Malfoy the tiniest bit attractive. Maybe.
-----
The Operation so far had only called for nodding and smiling, nothing incredibly difficult, but it was the next stage that worried Harry: conversation.
“He’s never going to open up if you don’t talk to him, Harry,” Hermione had told him. “Start off light, small talk, and for Merlin’s sake, don’t bring up his parents. Or the war, for that matter.”
When Harry arrived at Hogwarts the next morning, he could feel the butterflies churning in his stomach. He had always been dreadful at small talk. The only reason he had managed to avoid making an idiot of himself at the numerous Ministry events over the summer was because of Hermione and her amazing ability to talk to just about anybody.
Well, Hermione’s not here to hold your hand now, Harry told himself. He took a deep breath and made his way over to Malfoy, who looked up cautiously at Harry’s approach.
“Erm…” Harry started, inwardly cringing. “Hi.”
If possible, Malfoy looked even more confused at Harry’s greeting. A moment of tense silence passed until Malfoy slowly nodded his head at Harry. Harry breathed out a sigh of relief and took Malfoy’s nod as permission to carry on talking.
“Lovely day, isn’t it? I just love being able to work outside, don’t you? I mean, I know that helping out here is part of your community service, right? But I just love it. Much better than being stuck at Grimmauld Place on my own. If I was there I’d only be thinking about…”
Harry panicked as he realised that he had almost strayed onto the subject of the war and quickly tried to change the subject.
“…Er, I mean… erm… do you have any idea what you’re going to do when you finish your community service? I used to want to join the Aurors but I’m not so sure anymore. Ron’s there now and Kingsley has said that I’m welcome to start whenever I’m ready but I just think that I want to do something different. But what else could I do, y’know. I guess I could play professional Quidditch, but I’ve always wanted to do something useful, something to help people and…”
Harry trailed off as he realised that he had been talking at Malfoy without pause for minutes now. He risked a glance up at the man, who stood rigid and was staring at Harry with a look of utter bafflement.
Realising that Malfoy was probably in a state of mild shock and likely hadn’t heard a word of Harry’s tirade he mumbled a quick “Bye” at the blond and walked away.
What the hell was that, Harry chastised himself. The poor man likely hasn’t had anyone say a kind word to him for months and suddenly you’re in his face rambling about how you love being outdoors! Harry buried his face in his hands, embarrassed beyond belief, and determined to make a better go of it later.
Later proved to be lunchtime, when Harry found Malfoy sitting alone at the end of the single, long table that ran the length of the Great Hall. Instead of sitting in his customary seat halfway down the table, Harry made himself comfortable on the bench across from Malfoy, who looked up from his plate at him with a frown. One by one, the other volunteers noticed the absence of their Golden Boy and stared down the table at the sight of Harry Potter sitting with a Death Eater, but Harry ignored them and instead sent a winning smile in Malfoy’s direction before helping himself to food.
“Whew, I’m starving. Aren’t you? I guess shifting rocks around all morning really builds up an appetite. Ooh, is that treacle tart? I love treacle tart. It’s my favourite, you know? It’s a shame there’s no apple crumble and custard, though,” Harry chattered on in between bites of shepherd’s pie, not pausing to wonder why he knew Malfoy’s favourite dessert.
“You know, I think the food is the thing I miss most about this place. Best treacle tart ever,” Harry mumbled as he finished his pie and shoved a forkful of tart into his mouth, a small moan of ecstasy escaping his lips. He looked up at Malfoy to see the man staring back at him, a look of astonishment on his face. Harry tried to smile around his mouthful of dessert and was rewarded with an amused smirk from Malfoy before the man stood up from the bench.
“Potter,” he offered with a nod before leaving the room. Harry was so happy that he had another piece of treacle tart. Well, he deserved it really.
-----
From then on, Harry joined Malfoy in the Great Hall every day for lunch. Their conversations were mostly one-sided and usually consisted of Harry rambling about whatever was on his mind, with the occasional smirk or raised eyebrow from Malfoy. It was one afternoon when Harry was once again ranting about joining the Aurors that Malfoy eventually spoke up.
“It’s not that I can’t see myself as an Auror,” Harry was saying. “I’m sure I’d be good at it and it’d be great to work with Ron, but it just doesn’t feel right for me anymore. Oh, I don’t know.”
“Potter.”
Harry jolted his head up from where he had been sullenly inspecting the table and green eyes latched onto grey.
“Not that I don’t enjoy hearing your daily brood about whether or not you should become an Auror but I must say that I don’t think it’s the right career for you,” Malfoy continued.
Harry’s eyebrows shot up in shock. That was easily the most words he’d heard Malfoy speak in months. He performed a little victory dance inside his head before returning to the conversation.
“Why not?” Harry asked. “Everyone says it’s the perfect job for me. No one can understand why I’ve been putting it off for so long.”
“Maybe it could have been perfect for you, but you’re the Boy Who Lived,” Malfoy pressed on, and Harry noticed the lack of sneer that usually accompanied these words. “You’ve been fighting dark wizards since you were a baby, Potter. Don’t you think you’ve done enough fighting for a lifetime?”
Harry suddenly deflated as he pondered this. Malfoy was right. He’d been fighting Voldemort for as long as he could remember and the bastard had taken so many things away from him - his parents, his friends, his childhood - that it was no surprise really that all he wanted now was to be as far away from dark wizards as he possibly could. Harry let out a sob of a laugh as the doubts and worries that had plagued him all summer began to clear.
“You’re right. I don’t want to fight anymore,” Harry said, tears of relief filling his eyes. How was it, he wondered, that Draco Malfoy understands how I feel but Ron and Hermione haven’t got a clue?
“Maybe, Potter,” Malfoy began, and Harry realised that he had spoken out loud, “I know you better than you think.”
As Malfoy stood up, he sent Harry a small smile and reached over to give his hand a reassuring squeeze. He made his way out of the hall and Harry stared thoughtfully at the retreating figure, his thumb tentatively rubbing over the place Malfoy had touched his hand. He was in serious trouble.
-----
Over the next days and weeks Harry found himself falling more and more for Draco Malfoy. With the end of Draco’s self-imposed silence, their lunch-time conversations were now much less one-sided - although Draco still seemed happy to let Harry ramble on as he listened with an amused smile - and Harry began to think that perhaps his feelings for the blond were also less one-sided than he’d originally thought. More than once he had felt eyes on him and looked up to see Draco regarding him fondly. Harry was sure that just yesterday, while he was indulging in a particularly well-earned stretch, he had caught Draco staring at him, admiration clear on his face, before the blond had blushed and looked away. Yes, Harry thought, Draco was interested. Now he just had to make his move, but how?
Harry was distracted all day thinking of the perfect way to tell Draco how he felt. He could see it in his head now. I’ll get him alone, he thought, maybe ask him to join me for a walk of the grounds, and then I’ll say how glad I am that we’ve become friends, and he’ll smile - perhaps here I’ll take his hand - and then I’ll look into his eyes and tell him how I’d quite like to be more than friends if he’ll let me. He’ll grin that eye-wateringly stunning grin he uses when I’ve said something particularly amazing and then he’ll grab me around the waist and pull me close and-
“Hey, Potter!” Harry was jerked sharply out of his daydream. “Bit of help over here. Gryffindor Tower won’t build itself, y’know.”
Harry sighed, still distracted by thoughts of pale skin and strong arms, as he crossed over to where he was supposed to be working. He heard a shout of warning and had just enough time to contemplate that making plans to ask out the man he had so hopelessly fallen for while handling heavy rocks was a very, very bad idea before he felt a sharp blow to his head and was knocked unconscious.
-----
Draco was working hard to clear the rubble and debris in the Great Hall when he heard the shouts and screams coming from down the corridor. He paused in confusion and poked his head out of the door to see what the commotion was.
“Hey,” he called to a group of volunteers running up the staircase. “What’s going on?”
“Someone working on Gryffindor Tower’s been hurt - took a nasty blow to the head by the sounds of it.”
Gryffindor Tower, Draco thought. Harry’s working on Gryffindor Tower.
Panic setting in, he jumped into motion and hurtled across the entrance hall and up the staircase, hoping and praying that it was someone else who had been hurt. Just not Harry. Reaching the top of the staircase, Draco pushed and elbowed his way through the crowd, cursing at anyone unlucky enough to be in his way, until he reached the front and was brought to a standstill by the sight of blood, so much blood, and a shock of dark hair attached to a body lying motionless on the stone floor. Draco charged forward and fell to his knees in front of the man he had once hated but now who meant so much to him.
Nearly paralysed by shock, Draco didn’t notice the arrival of the on-site Mediwitch and jumped as she placed a cool hand on his arm.
“I’m taking him to St Mungo’s. He’s alive but he needs a Healer. Are you a friend?”
Draco nodded dumbly, his head spinning too much for words.
“Well come along, then,” she said kindly. “Hold onto my arm.”
He did so and felt the familiar sensation of being squeezed through a small rubber tube before he lurched to a stop. Feet planted firmly on the ground, Draco looked around him to see that the Mediwitch had apparated them to a small but clean private room at St Mungo’s and was now levitating Harry onto a bed in the middle of the room. Under the harsh lighting of the hospital Harry looked even paler, the blood on his head and clothes stark in contrast, and Draco felt sick.
The Mediwitch guided Draco out into the corridor as Healers rushed in and the room suddenly became a frenzy of activity. She gave Draco an encouraging smile as she sat him down in the waiting room with a cup of hot tea.
“Drink that up. It’ll make you feel better. I’ll come and get you when he’s stable, ok?”
Once again, words failed Draco as he nodded in answer. He stared blankly into his hands, worried beyond belief for the safety of the man who had turned his world upside down in just a few short months. Harry, with his easy smile that Draco was once so confused to be faced with but now couldn’t imagine not seeing every day. Harry, with his mystifying but utterly endearing ability to talk for hours on end about seemingly anything. Draco could see him now, the way his eyes would light up when he talked about something he was passionate about, and the way he would smirk victoriously when he made Draco laugh. Merlin, he couldn’t lose him. He just couldn’t.
He paced up and down the length of the waiting room, his tea long turned cold, and waited for someone to tell him that Harry would be fine. That he was awake and smiling and laughing and asking for Draco. Finally, after the tensest few hours Draco had ever experienced, the Mediwitch appeared at the door.
“He’s going to be ok. He’s not awake yet but, if you’d like, you can go and see him,” she smiled at Draco’s enthusiastic nod and continued. “We’ve had to alert Harry’s next of kin, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger, so they’ll be arriving soon as well.”
Draco’s face fell and he rushed out of the waiting room, determined to make sure that Harry was fine before Weasley and Granger arrived and kicked him out. He doubted they would be too happy to find an ex-Death Eater next to their best friend’s bedside and refused to entertain the notion that they would be approving of this new… friendship?... more than friendship?... well whatever it was that had grown between him and Harry in the past few months.
Upon seeing Harry, Draco let out a sigh of relief. Yes, he was still pale, and he looked so small in the hospital bed, but his face was relaxed in sleep. Draco walked carefully over to the side of the bed, wary of disturbing Harry, and reached out to cover one tanned hand with his own. He stroked along the fingers, feeling the smooth skin on the back of the hand and the rough calluses on the palm, not realising how long he had been standing there until a cough from behind him made him jump. He spun around to see Granger and Weasley standing in the doorway.
“Malfoy,” Granger greeted him with a nod, seemingly completely unsurprised to see him there. “How is he?”
“Granger. Weasley,” Draco remembered his manners. “He hasn’t woken up yet but the Mediwitch said he’s going to be fine.”
They sagged visibly in relief and walked over to the bed to reassure themselves that their friend was going to be alright. Draco, realising that he was still holding onto Harry’s hand, hastily dropped it and stepped back.
“Oh thank Merlin,” Granger sighed. “We were so worried when we heard he was hurt.”
“Harry’s going to be fine, Hermione,” Weasley said calmly as he put an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, let’s get you a hot drink. Harry’s in safe hands.”
Weasley sent Draco a curt nod and escorted a now teary Granger to the hospital cafeteria.
“Now that they’re gone will hold my hand again?”
Draco jumped at the slightly mumbled voice and turned around to see that Harry’s brilliant green eyes were open and fixed directly on him.
“Harry!” Draco exclaimed, as he dashed over to his bedside. “You’re awake!”
Harry winced and raised a trembling hand to his head.
“Shhhh, Draco. Head hurts.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Draco said quietly as he raised his hand to push Harry’s fringe back from his forehead before he caught himself at the last moment. Would that be ok, he wondered. They’d never really touched before except for the occasional hand brush, not while they were both awake anyway, and Draco wasn’t certain if his feelings for Harry were returned.
“I can see you worrying,” Harry said, blinking up at Draco. “Stop it. I already said I wanted you to hold my hand, didn’t I.”
And so for once, Draco let himself be brave. He reached out a tentative, shaking hand and stroked his fingers along Harry’s forehead, running them soothingly through the mess of black hair as Harry sighed contentedly and closed his eyes. Draco smiled at the man next to him and Harry, opening his eyes, met Draco’s smile with a brilliant one of his own.
“So, Draco,” Harry smirked wickedly. “Does this mean you’ll go out with me?”
Draco let out a bark of a laugh, all of the tension from the evening leaving him. In another uncharacteristic moment of bravery, and almost without conscious decision, he leaned down and brushed his lips softly against Harry’s. Draco panicked when Harry tensed briefly in surprise but relaxed as he felt Harry’s smile against his lips and heard him sigh with pleasure. He pulled away minutely and, noticing that his hand was still stroking through Harry’s thick hair, smiled down at the beautiful man below him.
“Yes, Harry. I think it does,” Draco grinned as he cupped Harry’s face and bent down for another kiss.
-----fin-----